Chapter 1: like a hard candy with a surprise center
Chapter Text
It’s not a crush.
At least, that’s what Chance tells himself.
It’s not like he likes the guy. Not in that way. Not in the pin him against a wall and kiss his stupid mouth until he forgets his own name kind of way.
Except, well. Maybe it is.
Kind of.
…Definitely.
God.
It started with curiosity. That’s all. Started when Jason and the others had insisted that Hellfire was some kind of freaky cult that killed his girlfriend out of revenge, or something. Which was weird to Chance because Lucas was in it and he was a cool dude and didn’t particularly seem like he would kill someone in cold blood.
Then it piqued when Jason had told him and Patrick to head to the library and print out wanted posters. Like this was some sort of cheesy mystery show from, like, the 70s. But he’d done it, because it’s kind of hard to say no to the guy that lost the apparent love of his life, like, a day before.
(Chance drummed his fingers on the edge of the very loud printer as it spits out another blurry black-and-white flyer. Jason is apparently planning to hand these out at the next town hall meeting. He doesn’t read it this time. He already knows what it says.
Wanted. Eddie Munson. Satanic Leader of “The Hellfire Club”. In connection with the murder of Chrissy Cunningham.
It doesn’t say Wanted: Dead or Alive but it might as well.
His eyes are drawn to the figure on the far right. Chance realizes after a moment that it’s the kid that sits behind him in English. Nancy Wheeler’s brother, his brain helpfully supplies. The picture wasn’t particularly flattering to anyone in it—you could barely make out features, just their Hellfire logos.
Mike—that’s his name—wasn’t doing anything of note. Just…standing here, hand on his hip. Shirt was far too long on him. He looked awkward mostly. And definitely doesn’t look like he’d be involved in a cult.
“Isn’t that zombie boy’s friend?” Patrick says after a moment, startling Chance. He looks over and finds him slouched across from him at the table, absentmindedly flipping through the growing stack of wanted posters—not actually looking at them.
“Uh. What?”
“Zombie boy? That kid that went missing a while back?” Patrick supplies.
Chance blinks and stays silent for a moment before shaking his head. “Oh, yeah. Right. I remember that. Will…” he trails off.
“Byers?”
“That’s the one.” Chance clicks his tongue, picking up the final of the posters. “I think they were friends.”
Patrick hums, checking over the copies like they might suddenly tell him what the hell is going on in their town. They fall into silence after that.
Chance’s gaze drifts back to the picture of Hellfire, eyes tracing over Mike again, tilting his head. He opens one of the other three folders Jason had given them, full of different photos of the club. Told them to just pick a good one. Like a very normal, sane person would do. He finds different pictures there—most of them being shot during their games, some candid photos, some of just Eddie. There’s a couple of Mike, and he doesn’t smile in a single one. Which weirdly intrigues Chance.
There’s a specific one that catches his eye. A picture of Eddie with his arms around Lucas and a kid with curly hair and a cap on. Mike’s in the background of this one, staring into the camera. There was a certain look in his eyes. Like he’d already seen the worst thing this world had to offer and hadn’t been able to look away fast enough.
That stuck with him. Intrigued him, for some odd reason.)
He’d forgotten all about that, about him, until he saw him walk into the gym a couple of days after he’d apparently come back from California or wherever he was. Chance wasn’t keeping tabs on him, of course, it’s all on his stupid friends. Whatever, he’s holding a cardboard box and chatting away with Steve Harrington of all fucking people, and a ginger girl he’d seen in the bleachers during his games. It’s certainly an odd trio, and Andy lets him know.
Mike looks over in their general direction as he walks to the donation table. And there’s that look again. That weirdly haunted look, eyes sunken like he hadn’t had a good night's rest in weeks. Chance had watched him curiously until he had to leave to attend to other matters. Told Andy later when he’d asked that it was just “weird, how quiet he is.” That he was trying to figure out if he was actually crazy.
Bu the truth is that: Mike Wheeler is intense. He walks around like a live wire. Like he’s always five seconds from exploding. And Chance can’t stop looking.
There’s something about him—something sharp and unsteady, like glass right before it shatters. He’s not like anyone Chance knows. He’s not like anyone wants to know. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t do small talk.
And for some reason, that makes Chance want to crawl inside his head and stay there forever.
Which—yeah. Weird. Definitely weird.
Especially since he doesn’t even like guys. Right? He had a girlfriend last year. Sort of. They made out at a party once. It was fine.
But Mike is—
He’s not just hot (though, yeah, he is—slouchy and brooding and weirdly terrifying in a way that makes Chance want to either run away or climb him like a tree). He was all bones and fidgeting, and somehow still the most interesting person in the room. Magnetic. Like gravity.
Mike makes him feel like if he got close enough, if he touched that frayed edge of him, maybe he’d finally understand what it is that keeps gnawing under his ribs like teeth.
He didn’t mean for it to go this far. He really didn’t. He just wanted to talk to him once. Maybe figure out what all the fuss was about.
But then Mike had rolled his eyes and told him to fuck off that first time, all sharp angles and narrowed gaze and that mouth , and Chance’s brain kind of short-circuited. Because—god—what would it be like to kiss him? To corner him, shove him against a locker and finally make him shut up and just feel something real?
(And okay. Yeah. That thought freaked him out a little.)
It still does. Because now he’s thinking about it all the time. The way Mike’s eyes narrow at him when he’s annoyed. The way he bites the inside of his cheek when he’s thinking. The way he taps his pen on the table exactly four times before answering a question. The way he bites the side of his thumb when he’s trying not to interrupt.
He wants to hear him break. Wants to know what it sounds like when Mike wants something.
He tells himself it's just curiosity. Just an itch.
But then Mike looks at him like he’s radioactive, and it hurts, even though it shouldn’t. Even though they’re practically strangers. Even though Chance knows Mike probably dreams about stabbing him in the neck with a pen.
God, he really does want to kiss him.
And that’s a problem.
Because the world felt like it was ending. And it kind of was. The sky looked like it bled sometimes. The air tasted like copper and ash and death. Chance’s mom hadn’t come home from work a week ago, and no one would tell him why. He has no one except his up-to-no-good friends and the guy that hates his guts. Everything was going to shit.
So maybe this was his version of a last cigarette before the firing squad. Maybe Mike Wheeler was the only thing left in Hawkins that felt real enough to burn.
He’s obsessed .
And he doesn’t know what to do about it.
The world is ending, and Mike Wheeler’s biggest problem is a guy named Chance.
He doesn’t have a personal problem with the guy, per se, but he’s associated with Andy and his group of basketball goons so he automatically just…doesn’t like him. And that’s fine because that little group also isn’t particularly fond of Mike either!
Mostly because they think he’s an insane blood-thirsty murderer part of the cult that killed Jason and his girlfriend, Chrissy. Which is, frankly, insane. Mike has a mental list of people he’d love to kill and that list did not have Jason fucking Carver in it, no matter how much he hated the guy, thank you very much.
Plus, he keeps trying to strike up conversations with him during their singular shared class (English) which is annoying, to say the least. It’s like, dude, I'm trying to figure out if the heart beating under the floorboards in The Tell-Tale Heart represents guilt or paranoia and you’re trying to make conversation about fucking Star Wars.
So, yeah. Mike doesn’t like the guy.
Nor does he like the fact that he apparently keeps asking Lucas about him.
It feels weird. Like a trap. A fuse waiting to blow.
Mike isn’t stupid. He knows he’s probably trying to gather whatever dumb intel he can find about him by poking around and use it to humiliate him. Or worse—use it to provoke him. Catch him slipping. Say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, and suddenly he’s confirming everything they think about him. That he’s dangerous and unstable. One of the freaks.
And maybe he is a freak. But not in the way they think.
(He has nightmares every other night about real monsters and worse-than-real ones. About Will’s fake dead body being pulled from the murky quarry water. About both his sisters dying in the Upside Down after Mike was too late to save them. And most times he wakes up screaming and in a cold sweat. That’s the kind of freak he is.)
Still, he keeps his head down. Mostly. Gives Chance the cold shoulder everytime he leans over during study hall to ask about his favorite Empire character or whether The Phantom Menace really deserves the hate (which—yes, it does). He ignores the weird glances. The snickers. The way Chance’s voice always sounds too casual, too smooth, like he’s trying too hard to sound like he doesn’t care about the answer.
It’s not like Mike hasn’t experienced it before, especially here in Hawkins. The fake interest. The exaggerated friendliness. That smirk that always lingers too long after Chance asks something just a little too personal.
Like: “Do you really believe in that stuff? You know, gates to Hell and all that?” Obviously he does. He’s been to Hell.
Or: “Were you actually there when they found Chrissy’s body?” No, he was already halfway to Lenora Hills, California—the not-so Golden State.
Or the worst one, whispered like a joke: “Are you dangerous?”
Mike had laughed—short and dry. Said, “Only if you’re planning on pissing me off.”’
That was last week. Now Chance is still trying, still hovering around after English class like Mike personally invited him to.
Lucas tells him that he’s just being nice. That he’s just…curious. Also told him once, hesitantly, that Chance said Mike was “interesting.”
Mike had stared at him for a full minute. “Like…lab rat interesting? Or like, he’s going to kill me and wear my face interesting?”
Lucas had sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He looked tired, probably from all the late nights he spends in Max’s hospital room. “I don’t know, man. Just…not hostile. Kinda the opposite, honestly.”
The opposite.
Mike doesn’t even know what that means. What’s the opposite of hostile these days? It’s not like people are really friendly anymore. Not when there are still open sinkholes in the main roads and things crawling in the woods near the Hawkins Lab.
So, he doesn’t like Chance. Already established. Doesn’t like his perfect hair or his sudden, baffling interest in Mike’s opinions on sci-fi or how he acts like everything is normal.
Nothing is normal. The world is ending.
And now Chance is waiting for him outside of class. Leaning against his locker like it’s some cheesy high school movie. He smiles, all white teeth, like they’re friends. Like they haven’t spent the last few months on opposite sides of a goddamn invisible war.
Mike stares. “Do you want something?”
Chance shrugs. He has to tilt his head up just a bit to even look at Mike. He doesn't know how to feel about that. “Just wanted to say your essay was good.”
“How did you—”
“I asked Mr. Owens if I could read some of the better ones. He said yours was the only one that didn’t make him want to walk into traffic.”
Mike scowls. “Okay. Cool. Congrats on the masochism, I guess.”
“You’re funny, Wheeler.”
“You’re weird.”
Chance laughs—really laughs—and Mike feels something unpleasant squirm in his stomach.
“What do you want?” Mike asks again, quieter this time.
And Chance shrugs again, but there’s something different in his eyes now. Mike doesn’t know what it is. He kind of wants to take something sharp just to poke inside this guy’s brain and really study him.
“I think you’re smart. And kind of intense. And I guess I just—” he pauses, smile faltering just slightly, “—wanted to get to know you before it’s too late.”
Mike stares. The words clang around in his brain like a dropped wrench. “Before what’s too late?” he asks, even though he already knows.
Chance just tilts his head toward the open entrance door where the sky’s gone a little too red and the snow-like particles land on the ground.
This feels like a setup. Like one of those wire traps Hopper puts in the deep woods in the Upside Down—stick your foot in the wrong place, and suddenly you’re upside down with your guts hanging out in front of your face.
He doesn’t trust it. Doesn’t trust him. Not even a little.
But he’s curious to see where this goes. The same curiosity people get when they try to poke a sleeping bear. “Fine.”
Chance grins. “Cool.” And then he leaves. Just like that.
Mike watches him go, jaw clenched and heart beating way too fast for something that dumb. He hates this.
Chapter 2: lovely to sit between comfort and chaos
Summary:
He thought that might’ve been the end of it. But then they stepped out into the parking lot, Mike turned to him and said, “Do you want a ride?”
Chance froze. Stared at him for a moment. “Like—in your car?”
“No, in the shopping cart.” Mike squinted at him, deadpan. “Yes. In my car.”
“Oh.” Chance blinked. “Uh. Yeah. Sure.”
or
They're bonding!!!
Notes:
hai gang did ya miss me ehehe (its been 2 days)
this went way more in the "chance character study" direction which is crazy considering he has exactly ONE line in the actual show. whatever he's my stupid little oc now i can do whatever i want with him
chapter title from ceilings by lizzy mcalpine !! yes i made a playlist ntm ntm
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It’s not a thing exactly.
Not yet.
They’re not, like, friends. Not a single person would call it that.
But Mike doesn’t ignore him anymore. He doesn’t snap, or turn away mid-sentence, or treat him like a bug under a microscope. Not every day, anyway. Sometimes he doesn’t even move his notebook away when Chance leans in a little too close to peek at his scribbled notes. Sometimes he even says “hey” before Chance can.
It’s…something.
Some days are better than others. Some days Mike seems like he’s halfway on Earth. Some days he drifts. Goes quiet in a way that seems intentional, like there’s something in his chest clawing for space and he’s doing everything he can to keep it shoved down. Mike has this way of being fully present and also a million miles away. Like he’s in the room and also still trapped somewhere else in his head, behind locked doors he doesn’t have the keys to.
Which should be frustrating, probably. But mostly it just makes Chance want to sit closer.
He’s learning stuff, slowly. Like Mike doesn’t like loud noises—flinches when someone slams their locker shut outside, covers his ears when the bell rings. He doesn’t like it when people touch his shoulders from behind. He doesn’t like it when people bring up “the earthquake”, which, okay, everyone calls it that but everyone knows it wasn't just that.
He does like m&m’s—holds his hand out whenever Chance brings a bag of them to class. He’ll bite the end of his straw flat and chew on it until it’s shredded. He underlines his favorite lines in books with blue highlighter and dog-ears the pages and pulls a face when he doesn’t like something.
Mike never tells him much about himself. Not really. There are holes in his stories, blank spots, dodged questions. Sometimes Chance gets a flash of something—like when he caught him looking at the barely there scar that went from the side of his nose to the corner of his mouth and went quiet the rest of the period.
He’s hiding stuff. That much is obvious. But Chance doesn’t care. Or—he does, but not in a dealbreaker way. Not in a walk away kind of way. Everyone deserves to keep their secrets, right?
He also has a pretty voice, when he decides to use it. Low and dry, a little scratchy, like he’d been screaming the night before. He has a weird laugh. Dry and surprised, like it snuck up on him.
Chance listens. Stores it all. Every piece.
He feels like a crow collecting shiny things. And also a little bit like a stalker.
Mike lets him stick around anyway despite that.
Like the other day when they’d been evacuated from the school for a regularly scheduled fire drill. Mike sat with him under a tree, long legs crossed, hoodie sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He was watching a girl cry as her friends comforted her and said, completely out of nowhere, “Do you think some people are just…wrong? Like, fundamentally?”
Chance blinked. “Like—bad?”
“No. Like broken. In a way that doesn’t ever go away.”
Then he’d sighed and changed the subject so fast it gave him whiplash. Asked if he liked Sparks of all things. Chance didn’t push. But that question stuck with him.
There’s a rhythm to their dynamic now. A sort of unspoken understanding.
Chance does most of the talking—dumb stuff, mostly. Teachers, movies, jokes about Andy being a jackass. Mike listens. Sometimes he cracks a smile and he takes that as a win.
They don’t hang out outside of school. Not on purpose. Mike has his friends and Chance, unfortunately, has his. Chance mostly spends his free time either at home watching the news while watching homework or at the police station hounding the cops for an update on his missing mother. That isn’t anything anyone wants to do for fun.
But once, Mike walked into Melvald’s (somehow still open, for whatever reason) when Chance was already there, and instead of pretending he didn’t see him, he walked up to him and asked what he was buying. There was a rather odd assortment of things in Mike’s arms: batteries, gauze, a flower-patterned lighter, at least three notebooks, a hunting knife, a cherry Cola, and one a tiny hand-held fan shaped like a frog.
Chance blinked at it. Then up at Mike. “Should I ask what that’s for?”
“No.” he said, then, after a moment, added, “The frog thing is for my friend, Jane. She thinks it’s funny.”
“And the knife?”
Mike shrugged. “Mine.”
Something about how casually he said it—without any edge or defense—made Chance’s stomach twist a little. Not in a bad way. Just in a what-the-fuck-is-this-feeling kind of way.
“And the lighter? No, wait. Let me guess.” Chance snapped his fingers. “For those cult sacrifices I've been hearing so much about.”
“You caught me.” Mike said, a smirk tugging at his lips. He looked tired. The kind of tired you can’t sleep off. But his eyes crinkled slightly, just enough for Chance to think maybe today’s one of the better days.
They ended up checking out at the same time, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in line. Chance didn’t say anything else—just tapped his fingers against his card and tried not to read into the fact that Mike hadn’t run away yet.
He thought that might’ve been the end of it. But then they stepped out into the parking lot, Mike turned to him and said, “Do you want a ride?”
Chance froze. Stared at him for a moment. “Like—in your car?”
“No, in the shopping cart.” Mike squinted at him, deadpan. “Yes. In my car.”
“Oh.” Chance blinked. “Uh. Yeah. Sure.”
They didn’t talk much during the drive. Mike’s car was older, probably a hand me down, and the radio was playing something Chance had never heard before. Something rock, maybe. Mike tapped his fingers on the wheel in time with the guitar. The sun visor was down, and there was a picture taped to it. It was the ones you got from those photo booths in arcades, with the four separate pictures. He recognized Mike and Lucas, and the kid with the curly hair. There were two others he didn’t quite recognize: a boy with a bowl cut and a girl with ginger hair.
Mike noticed him looking. He didn’t say anything right away, just shifted gears and turned down the radio a little. The engine coughed as they slowed to a red light.
“They’re my friends.” he said finally, voice soft as he looked at the picture.
“I got that.” Chance nodded. “Who’s the ginger?”
Mike looked over at him, looking like a deer in headlights, before looking away. “Max. Uh, Mayfield. We used to call her Mad Max. She skateboards and stuff. She’s pretty cool.” There was a slight smile on Mike’s face when he talked about her.
“Used to?”
“Yeah. She’s in a, uh, coma.” he swallowed. “Got caught in the middle of the earthquakes and got hurt.”
Chance doesn’t say anything to that. Just sits with it. The kind of silence that says I heard you without poking at the wound. He’s gotten good at that, lately—keeping the curious parts of himself quiet. He just nods a little, like okay and looks back out the window.
Mike seems to appreciate that.
They drive a little longer. The streets are still cracked in places, some businesses half-boarded up, others spray-painted with stuff that seems vaguely fearmonger-y and trying to push the weird satanic panic agenda. There are a few old posters still clinging to lampposts—missing people, mostly. Faded from sun and time. Chance watches them go by and tries not to think about his mom.
Mike’s not in his seat when class starts.
Which, okay, whatever. It’s not like Chance is looking for him. Not exactly.
It’s just…Mike’s always on time. Always slumped into his chair with five minutes to spare, chewing on his pen or zoning out with that thousand-yard stare he does when he thinks no one’s watching. So when the bell rings and his desk is still empty, Chance notices.
And when ten minutes pass? He starts chewing the inside of his cheek raw.
He tries not to let it show. Tells himself it’s nothing. Maybe Mike’s just sick. Or late. Or skipping—he’s been known to do that, especially on the bad days. And maybe that’s all this is. Maybe Chance should mind his own business.
But something itches at the base of his skull. That off-feeling like something’s wrong in the air. Like how before a storm, the sky goes too quiet.
He’s mostly concerned because yesterday there was another one of those weird quakes. Not big. Barely anything on the news. But Chance had felt it. Just this low, deep rumble that went on a second too long. Like the earth was holding its breath.
It happened during dinner, while Chance was picking at the bread of his sandwich and the TV was playing at a low volume. The light fixture had swung, just a little. And something inside him had twisted. Like his body remembered something before his brain could.
He didn’t sleep well after that. Dreamed of ash. Of dirt in his mouth. Of screaming.
So yeah. Maybe he’s just a little on edge today.
Chance is staring blankly at his notebook. Mr. Owens is talking about narrative irony when the classroom door creaks open. He doesn’t even look up at first—he’s mid-scribble, his brain somewhere else entirely.
But then he hears the silence. The pause. Mr. Owens doesn’t say anything. The class doesn’t whisper. Everyone just kind of…stops.
Chance looks up.
Mike’s standing in the doorway, hunched and pale and breathing like he ran here. His hair’s wet and his hoodie zipped halfway up, clinging to him slightly. His jaw’s tight. There’s a raw scrape across his cheekbone. He’s holding his side. One arm wrapped tight across his ribs like he’s trying to hold himself together.
Something inside Chance goes cold.
Mike mumbles a quiet “sorry,” and shuffles to his seat. Moves like it hurts to breathe. Hands trembling.. He’s limping too. Not enough to draw attention. But Chance sees it. The way Mike keeps weight off his left leg. He drops into his chair and immediately winces, curling in on himself, and Chance can’t not stare.
Mr. Owens—used to this, maybe—says nothing. Just keeps writing on the board like there isn’t a bleeding kid in the last row.
Chance leans over.
“Wheeler,” he whispers. “The fuck happened to you?”
Mike doesn’t answer. Doesn’t look at him. Just grits his teeth and opens his notebook with his left hand. His right arm doesn’t move from his side.
Chance sits frozen for a second too long.
Then tears a piece of paper from his notebook, scribbles “you need help??” in scratchy handwriting, folds it and slides it over.
Mike doesn’t touch it for a while. Doesn’t even glance his way. Just stares at the board like he’s trying to absorb the lesson by sheer force of will. His breathing is shallow. Scraped knuckles white where they’re clutching the edge of the desk. That ugly red scrape across his face is already scabbing—must be new. There’s something stick-dark beneath his sleeve.
Then—finally—he drags the note close with two fingers. Unfolds it one handed, careful. Chance watches him out of the corner of his eye. Mike stares at it like it’s a bomb, not a question. Like the words might detonate if he reads them wrong.
He doesn’t write anything back. Just holds the paper there for a beat too long, jaw working like he’s chewing on glass. Then he folds it again—neater than Chance had—and shoves it into the pocket of his hoodie.
That’s answer enough.
Chance feels it, low and hollow in his stomach. Not rejection, exactly. Just that familiar ache of helplessness of watching someone bleed and being told not to touch it.
So he doesn’t. Not right then. Just watches Mike from the corner of his eye, flicks his pen, pretends to listen as Mr. Owens drones on about protagonists and tragedy.
The house is too quiet.
Not in a peaceful way. Not in a “finally, some alone time" way. Just—quiet. Still. Unsettling.
The TV is on, but Chance isn’t watching it. Local news, volume low, flickering shadows against the walls. Words like evacuation zones and missing persons reports scroll across the bottom of the screen like background noise in a war movie.
He opens another beer. Cracks it, winces. It tastes like shit, but it’s something to do with his hands.
His mom’s picture is still stuck to the fridge with a Hawkins Middle School magnet—smiling, arms around him from his thirteenth birthday. There’s another one of him, his mom and his older sister, Julie.
Their mom has been gone for three weeks. Vanished the same night the sky cracked open and part of the town collapsed in on itself. And Julie still hadn’t called to check up on him or nothing. He tells himself that he could also just call her but he doesn’t really have any desire to talk to her after she’d just up and left them as soon as she could. She studies at NYU—something science-y, probably—and got a full fucking ride because she’s smart. Or something.
Chance would talk to his dad but he doesn’t really know who the guy is.
So, yeah. He’s alone all the time at home—save for his neighbor, Claudia Henderson, that brings him some of her leftover casserole sometimes.
Chance lets his head fall back against the couch cushion. The phone book is already open on the coffee table. It’s been there for days. Flipped to W. A highlighter slash right across the “Wheeler, K & T” listing.
He stares at it.
Then mutters, “Fuck it,” and reaches for the phone.
He dials before he can even talk himself out of it. Beer balanced between his knees. Hand tapping a jittery rhythm against his thigh.
Two rings. Then someone picks up.
“Wheeler residence. Who is this?”
It’s a guy. Young. Definitely not Mike’s dad.
Chance hesitates. “Uh. Hi. I’m—uh. Chance. I was wondering if I could talk to Mike?”
A pause. “Is that your actual name?”
“...Yes?”
The guy scoffs and shouts “Mike!” loud enough that Chance yanks the phone slightly away from his ear. “Someone’s on the phone for you!”
There’s a shuffle. Footsteps. And then, faintly:
“Will, you can’t keep answering our calls for us.”
“I live here too, Michael.”
“Oh my— Give me the phone, please.”
Chance is grinning before he realizes it.
Another shuffle. Then—Mike. Closer. “Who is this?”
Chance sits up straighter, beer now long forgotten. “It’s uh…Chance. From English.”
Silence.
“I know who you are, man.” A sigh. “...You called me?”
“Yeah.”
Another pause. Then, suspicious but not unkind, “Why?”
Chance picks at the tab on the can. “You seemed…off. Earlier.”
Mike exhales, something that’s almost a laugh but way too flat to be funny. “Off how?”
“I dunno,” Chance says. “Limping. Wincing. Slight tragic waif vibes, actually. Kind of a Heathcliff look going on.”
“Waif?” Mike laughs. “And since when do you know Wuthering Heights?”
“Alright, jerk. I read.” Mike makes a disbelieving sound at that. “I’m more than just my pretty face.”
“Uh huh.”
“My sister has a lot of those old-ass books in her room.” Chance says, a little defensive now. “I read it ‘cause I was bored and the cover looked cool.”
“If Mr. Owens heard you say that, I think he’d actually have an aneurysm.”
Chance huffed out a laugh, leaning back again, tension leaking out of his shoulders. “Anyway,” he mutters. “I just wanted to see if you were okay.”
There’s yet another pause. Chance brings the beer can to his lips, not drinking or anything. Just biting down on the metal, unsure if he’s just overstepped. He’s not used to having conversations that kept going. Especially not with people like Mike Wheeler.
Then Mike says, quieter. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“Chance.”
“Okay, okay. I’m just saying,” he leans forward, elbow on his knee. “If you need to, like, talk. Or sit around in silence. Or punch something. I’m, y’know. Around.”
More silence. The news continues to drone on in the background—something about aftershocks and FEMA tents being set up near the high school and supposed 11 foot tall monsters.
“Thanks.” Mike says, voice carefully neutral. “I’m not gonna trauma dump on you or whatever. But….thank you.”
Chance doesn’t really know what to say to that. It’s not a no. But it’s not a yes either.
He swallows around it, shrugs, even though Mike can’t see him. “Cool.” he says, like it’s no big deal.
There’s the tiniest shift in the line, like Mike moved the phone to his other hand. “Cool.”
Mike hadn’t planned on staying on the phone for longer than two minutes. At most.
He was just going to let the silence sit weird and heavy, and then maybe hang up and go sulk on the floor of his room like a normal, emotionally stunted teenage boy. That was the plan.
But then Chance said that and Mike didn’t know what to do with it.
So he stayed on the line.
And now—forty-five minutes later—he’s perched on the kitchen island in his pajamas, one leg tucked under him, phone wedged between his ear and his shoulder, twirling a spoon in a half-melted pint of ice cream he’s not even eating.
Chance keeps talking. Rambling, mostly—telling a story about some guy on the basketball team who thought he could slam dunk during gym and ended up breaking both his wrists. And Mike finds himself actually laughing—a real, full-bodied sound that startles out of him before he can choke it down.
“Wait, both wrists?” Mike grins into the receiver, scooping a bite of ice cream just to keep himself from laughing again.
“I swear to God. He came to school in two matching casts. People were signing them like it was a fucking playbill.”
“That’s so stupid.”
“I know! It was the funniest shit I’ve ever seen.”
Chance laughs, and Mike’s grinning again before he can stop himself. It feels weird. Not bad, just…unfamiliar, in a way. Like wearing somebody else’s hoodie. Like he’s borrowing warmth.
Everythings a little hazy now—soft around the edges. Which is weird. Because Mike doesn’t do soft. Not lately. Not with people he barely knows. Especially not with someone like Chance, who used to hang out with the same guys who thought he was some sort of demonic freak.
But maybe he does know him now. A little.
And maybe it’s not so bad.
He’s a distraction.
A good one.
And Mike didn’t realize how badly he needed one of those until now.
Everything else—the nightmares, the constant looming fear of death, One, Max not waking up yet, the way Will’s eyes seem to get darker everyday and how no one else seems to notice—fades out while Chance talks.
It feels kind of like floating.
He’s just about to ask another dumb question (something about how many cans of hairspray he uses a week on his hair, because holy shit) when Nancy walks in.
She’s in pajama pants and an old hoodie he’s almost 99% sure is his, hair half-clipped up, a mug in her hand and a pencil on her ear.
Mike blinks at her, spoon halfway to his mouth.
“Are you—on the phone?” she asks, brows furrowing like she just can’t believe this.
Mike glares at her. “No. I’m talking to myself. For fun.”
Nancy narrows her eyes and walks to the sink and rinses off the mug, mouth pressed in a thin line like she’s trying not to laugh.
“Who are you even talking to?” she presses.
“The government.”
“Har har. Come on, Mike, you don’t talk on the phone.”
“Well,” he mutters. “Maybe I do now.”
She shoots him a weird look before walking off with an apple in her hand, muttering something about how she hopes it’s not a girl because he’s “way too emotionally repressed.”
Mike flips her off behind her back. Whatever that means.
“Still there?” he says into the receiver once he hears the footsteps grow further.
Chance chuckles. “Yeah. That was your sister?”
“Unfortunately.”
“She sounds fun.”
“She’s not.”
There’s a beat of quiet for a second. Mike shifts his weight, foot nudging the edge of the cabinet beneath him. Stares at the ice cream slowly melting on his spoon. He says, a little too quickly—
“I actually…don’t mind this. Talking to you.”
Chance gasps in mock horror. “Oh my god. Is that a compliment?”
“Don’t push it.”
“I’m writing it down. Framing it. Putting it on a plaque.”
“Alright. I’m hanging up.”
Chance laughs, loud and genuine. And for the first time in a long while, Mike feels something in his chest ease.
Notes:
my stupids.... black cat & golden retriever…… who else up feeling extremely maternal over chance sinapellido
mikechancers hmu lets make a gc on twt asap pls stronger together
also dont mind the ever changing number of chapters i havent decided on how many im gonna do yet hehe
Chapter 3: troubles always gonna find you, baby
Summary:
Mike is allowed to have other friends. Obviously. Normal ones. People who don’t come with a fucking warning label and an ever expanding grief-shaped gaping hole in the middle of their chest.
And it’s not like Mike’s been the greatest of company lately. He barely eats. Barely talks. Not anymore. Not unless it’s with Will, and even then it’s been…different lately. Shorter. Quieter. Like Mike would rather be anywhere but here.
Will should be glad he’s talking to someone.
But he’s not. He’s not glad. He’s furious.
or
Jealous Will !! plus other things ! <3
Notes:
HAIIIII first of all i'd just want to say that thank you so much for all the love on this fic !! this is my first time in a very long while writing something that isnt just solely byler tbh i was kinda scared no one was gonna read this im so incredibly grateful for all ur comments and support xx
ALSOOOO i just wanna point out this lovely lovely fanart by sunny from chapter 2 !!! canon tothisfic wheelchance in my head hehe
small trigger warning for blood & injuries and homophobia and stuff kinda ???
ok onto the chapter sawry !!!! chapter title from western nights by ethel cain again
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Will’s not eavesdropping.
Not on purpose anyways.
He’s sitting on the steps because he couldn’t sleep. That’s it. Nothing weird about it. It’s not like he has insomnia or lingering trauma or a weird dependency on Mike’s body heat next to him in bed in order to quiet the buzzing in his brain or whatever. That would be stupid.
He’s just…there.
The hallway light is off. Only the soft warm glow from the kitchen leaks in, barely illuminating his face and catching the edge of the banister. He’s curled up in a hoodie far too big on him—probably Jonathan’s—socks pulled up to his knees like armor, chin tucked to his chest. Sweater sleeves bunched in his fists and hoodie drawstring in his mouth.
And he’s sitting there.
In the dark -ish.
Listening.
Because Michael Wheeler is on the fucking phone.
Mike.
On the phone.
Mike who hates phone calls. Mike who’s more of a letter guy. Mike “sorry I didn’t call for five months after you moved across the country even though I said I would!” Wheeler.
And he’s laughing.
Like, actually laughing. The kind that rings out into the quiet and makes Will’s stomach twist like something’s been tied too tight. Like a balloon knot.
It starts maybe ten minutes into the call. The low murmur of one-sided conversation drifting from the kitchen, too quiet to make out the words—until suddenly, Mike’s voice rises in pitch. Followed by a sharp exhale. A laugh. Full-throated and real.
Will flinches like he’s been slapped.
He clamps his jaw shut a second later, biting the inside of his cheek so hard he tastes blood. His fingers curl tighter into the fabric of the hoodie. His spine straightens. Resists the urge to feel himself for any sudden red wetness blooming over his clothes. Because he feels like he’s been shot .
He didn’t even know Mike could laugh like that anymore. Not since everything went to shit. Not since they came back to Hawkins in Argyle’s stupid van smelling like weed and sweat and grief.
Will swallows hard, dragging a hand over his face. He shouldn’t be mad. He really shouldn’t be mad. Mike is allowed to have other friends. Obviously. Normal ones. People who don’t come with a fucking warning label and an ever expanding grief-shaped gaping hole in the middle of their chest.
And it’s not like Mike’s been the greatest of company lately. He barely eats. Barely talks. Not anymore. Not unless it’s with Will, and even then it’s been…different lately. Shorter. Quieter. Like Mike would rather be anywhere but here .
Will should be glad he’s talking to someone.
But he’s not. He’s not glad. He’s furious.
Who the hell is that guy, anyway? Some reject with a vaguely pretty face and no idea what Mike’s been through? Who thinks he can just swan dive into his life and start making Mike laugh like that?
Will’s stomach twists further. Harder. Jealousy curls low and tight, hot in his throat. It’s a feeling he isn’t unfamiliar with. He’d felt it the day he found out Mike joined a fucking D&D club right after ignoring Will when he wanted to play it. Felt it when Mike said meeting El in the woods was when his life started.
Will’s chest burns. He presses the heel of his palm into it. Like that might help.
Mike laughs again.
And Will jerks like he’s about to get up. Like he might just stomp down that hallway and snatch the phone out of Mike’s hand and chuck it against the wall, like maybe that’ll stop the ringing in his ears or the clenching of his jaw or the horrible, horrible fluttering in his stomach.
Instead, he curls in tighter. Chin nearly pressed to his knees now, hoodie pulled up over his mouth. Like maybe if he just disappears far enough into himself, the rest of the world will stop happening. Like maybe Mike will stop happening.
He hates this. God, he hates this.
The name Chance bubbles up in his throat like acid. Will vaguely remembers the guy—with his god-awful letterman jacket he doesn’t take off for some fucking reason and his stupid swooped up Steve Harrington-esque hair. It pisses him off. That’s the guy who's making Mike laugh right now.
Not Will—Mike’s best friend.
Chance.
He swallows back the acid. Closes his eyes. Tries to imagine Mike hanging up. Walking down the hall. Sitting beside him on the steps like he used to. Shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee. Their silent little tradition of saying nothing but being everything.
But the silence drags on. The call doesn’t end.
Will’s body aches. From the chill that’s settled itself in his bones since he came back. From sitting here too long. From everything.
He finally unfurls himself, unfolding like something broken and exhausted. He moves slowly, socked feet quiet against the floor as he drifts down the hallway. Toward the living room. Not quite toward the kitchen. Just close enough to see the shadow of Mike, sitting on the countertop, licking chocolate ice cream off a spoon. Phone to his ear. Smiling faintly.
He looks beautiful like this, in that soft kitchen light. Relaxed for once. Finally not carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Like he belongs in a different version of this life.
Will feels like a ghost in comparison. Deadweight.
He’s in a sweatshirt—Will’s pretty sure it’s one of his, actually—frayed at the cuff, collar loose from too many washes. His hair is wild and flattened on one side, pillow-mussed and perfect in a way that makes him want to tear the drywall out with his teeth.
Will sways in place.
It’s devastating.
He’s never known how to describe Mike properly. Not out loud, anyway. Not in a way that doesn’t sound insane or overblown or like it’s being ripped straight from some sad, unpublishable poetry journal. He’s better at drawing how he feels. But it’s moments like this that make Will’s brain scramble to find language that fits.
Because Mike glows in the quiet. That’s the closest he can get. He looks…undone, in a way that makes Will want to weep. Like he’s not holding his breath for once. Like something inside him has unclenched just enough to let him feel something other than the constant weight of grief.
And Will wants to be happy for him. He does. He just wishes—more than anything—that it was him who got to do that for Mike. Who got to hold that version of him in his hands, laugh-warm and relaxed and just a little bit messy.
But he can’t. Because for weeks now—months, maybe—Mike has been slipping away from him. Quietly. Gently. Like sand through his fingers.
And Will’s been trying so hard not to hold on too tightly. Not to ask for too much. He thought if he just stayed close, stayed steady, Mike would come back to him on his own.
But he’s not. He’s calling Chance. He’s laughing.
And Will—
Will is nothing right now.
So he turns and walks right back up the stairs, blinking back the stinging in his eyes. Walks into Mike’s room and lays down on his side of the bed.
He doesn’t fall asleep until 20 minutes later when Mike finally comes into bed after him. Even with that, he falls into a restless, dreamless sleep.
Mike can’t do it anymore.
The walls are too close. The ceiling too low. Every creak in the house makes him flinch like he’s waiting for it to cave and collapse on top of him like some weird fucked up grave.
It’s been days of this—being babysat by Nancy, being hovered over by Will, being stared at like he’s glass. Like if he says the wrong thing, touches the wrong person, someone’s going to crack in half. It’s suffocating.
So he waits until the house is quiet—until the distant sound of Ted’s snoring is the only thing cutting through the silence. He gets up, careful of the specific floorboards that squeak when you even breathe on them, and grabs his jacket from the hook behind his door.
Except Will’s already awake.
He’s sitting next to the bed on the floor, lit only by the sliver of moonlight slicing in through the curtains. A sketchbook on his lap, open but empty like the ideas just won’t come to him.
Mike freezes.
Will stares.
“...Where are you going?”
Mike swallows. Avoids eye contact. “Out.”
“Out?”
“It’s not a big deal—”
“It’s four in the morning.”
“I know what time it is.”
There’s a beat of quiet. Mike’s hand tightens on the doorknob.
“Mike,” Will says, voice low. “You’re not supposed to be out alone. What if—?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
Mike pauses. Looks away. Just shrugs, like it’s nothing, like he’s tired of having to explain himself every time he wants to breathe.
“Don’t tell anyone, okay?”
And then he’s gone. Clambering down the steps. Out the front door. Hoodie pulled up. Hands shoved in his pockets. The cold air hits him like a slap, but he doesn’t care. It’s real. It’s sharp. It helps.
Mike doesn’t really know where he’s going until he’s halfway there.
The streets are mostly empty—just the occasional porch light glowing through the haze, and the barking of stray dogs left behind when everyone ran away. Hawkins sleeps fitfully now, if it sleeps at all.
He ducks under a hole in the fencing of the park and tries not to nick himself with the cut wire. He sits on one of the rickety wooden benches nearby. Pulls out the Walkman he shoved into his jacket and slips the headphones over his ears. Clicks play.
The tape starts mid-track—something by Naked Eyes. Rhythmic, echoing, upbeat. Mike leans back. Lights a cigarette with shaking hands. He doesn’t even like smoking that much—it tastes like shit—but it gives him something to do. Something that burns.
He leans back, blowing the smoke out and watching it curl into the air, letting the music fill the cracks. One knee bouncing. One hand curled around the cigarette. The other brushing the cool edge of the switchblade in his pocket—just to feel it. Not because he plans to use it.
(He found it in Nancy's room last week. Belonged to Steve, probably. Or maybe Eddie. He didn’t ask.)
He just…carries it now.
For safety, he tells himself. You never know what can happen.
The sky’s half-covered in smoke again tonight. Not the kind from fire. The kind that clings to the atmosphere now, like Hawkins itself is rotting from the inside out. He watches the clouds swirl. Thinks about how quiet the town’s gotten. How wrong it all feels. Like they’re all stuck in the waiting room of a horror movie that won’t end. Like the big bad already came and went and now everyone’s just pretending they’re not bleeding out under the bandages.
He thinks about Max, laying there in her hospital bed. The only color in that bleak room being her fiery ginger hair tied into braids.
Thinks about El, how she’s using up all her energy into finding Max and One. How she’s going to burn out sooner than they think.
About Will. The way he looks at him—haunted and lost. How the weight of what One's going to do lands on his shoulders. The anniversary of his disappearance is coming up in a month, or so. They need to prepare. Mike can’t be distracted.
The tape stops with a soft click.
Mike exhales smoke, takes off the headphones, and goes to rewind it.
There, in the silence, he hears it.
Raised voices filled with panic and something like anger. Close.
Mike sits up straight. It’s coming from the other side of the park. Near the basketball court.
“You’re such a dick, Andy.”
“Yeah? Then stop hanging around like a lost dog, maybe.”
Mike’s already up, cigarette hanging off his lips as he walks over, instinctively quiet.
“Say that again?”
Mike freezes at the edge of the court.
It’s Chance.
He doesn’t even have time to process that before he hears the thud—a sharp, dull impact that cuts through the air like a warning shot. Mike steps forward instinctively, squinting through the gloom just in time to see Chance shove a guy—Andy—backwards.
Andy stumbles, catches himself, and swings. Not clean. More of a flailing, heat-of-the-moment kind of punch, but it lands.
Mike sucks in a breath as Chance stumbles, gripping his jaw, teeth gritted.
His jacket’s hanging half-off his shoulders, hair disheveled and bottom lip split like there were punches thrown that Mike didn’t get to see. He looks— wrecked.
Josh and Jay and a couple other guys from the basketball team are standing a few feet away, surrounding them. Watching like it’s a fucking pay-per-view. Some girls hang off to the side—probably their girlfriends, all in eyeliner and dark sweaters and denim skirts far too short for this weather—chewing gum and pretending to be bored even though their eyes don’t leave the fight.
Jay whistles. “Andy’s gonna fuck him up .”
“Chance started it,” Josh says, shrugging. “He always fucking does.”
Mike doesn’t breathe. Just takes a step closer, then another, until he’s standing right next to them watching the fight with rapt attention.
One of the girls—pretty, blonde, hair curled—stares at him, brows furrowed. He doesn’t look at her. He’s too busy watching Chance go down hard after another punch, palms scraping on the pavement, blood dripping from his nose to the ground. One of the guys slaps Andy on the back, but Andy doesn’t seem to be celebrating. He just stands there, shaking out his fist and breathing hard like he’s the one sprawled on the ground.
Mike moves.
He doesn’t think. Doesn’t calculate. Doesn’t wonder about the optics. His legs are already crossing the court, shoes skidding slightly on the slick ground as he drops down next to Chance.
“Fuck,” Mike hisses, reaching out but not touching. Not yet. His fingers hover near Chance’s shoulder. “Are you— Shit, are you okay?”
Chance flinches at the sound of Mike’s voice. Doesn’t look at him right away. Just blinks, slowly, like his vision hasn’t quite caught up yet.
He drags his sleeve across his mouth, smearing blood across the fabric and down his jaw. Mike watches it happen like it’s in slow motion. His vision pulses red at the edges. “What are you doing here?”
Mike doesn’t have a good answer. He was sulking in a park like a wounded stray. Smoking like an idiot. Trying to feel anything other than useless. “I heard yelling.”
Chance huffs out a laugh, sharp and bitter. He presses the heel of his hand to his cheekbone, wincing. “Good show, huh?”
Mike stays silent. Instead, he reaches out finally—light touch, barely-there contact—and brushes Chance’s hair back from his face. There’s blood smeared near his temple, a shallow cut on his lip, and something in his eyes that’s harder to look at than all of it.
There’s an amused laugh. Mike turns.
And is still there, standing like he’s waiting for applause. His knuckles are red and swelling, but he looks way too proud of it. Jay and Josh snicker behind him. One of the girls is chewing her gum way too loud.
“You hit him,” he says, louder now. To Andy. To all of them. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Andy just scoffs, crossing his arms after picking his dumb hat off the ground. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know you punched him while your whole fan club stood around and watched,” Mike snaps.
Chance tries to stand, groaning. “Wheeler—”
“No.” Mike shrugs off his jacket in one jerky motion and slings it over Chance’s shoulders, trying not to notice how he shivers under it. “You’re freezing and bleeding, and they’re standing there like it’s entertainment.”
Andy takes a step forward. “You’re seriously defending him? After what he said?”
Mike’s heart skips. “What—?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Chance mutters. “Drop it.”
Mike doesn’t. He stalks closer to Andy, practically looking over him with their height difference. Gets right in his face. Close enough that Andy’s smile drops just a little. Just enough.
“I will put you in the ground.” Mike says, low and sharp and mean. “You think that was a fight? You and your little audience standing around watching like it’s a fucking game?”
Andy snorts. “Look, he’s got himself a little boyfriend.”
That ears a wave of oohs and snickers from the group, like they’re still in middle school and not hovering on the edge of real violence.
Mike’s already bristling. Already standing up, tall and shaking and done pretending like he’s scared of guys like Andy. He knows that tone—knows the way people weaponize their words when they weaponize their words when they want to turn the room against someone.
“Come on, lover boy.” Andy says, grinning, blood on his teeth. “Join in. Be my guest.”
Mike kneels, slipping one of Chance’s arms around his shoulders. “Not worth it,” he mutters, mostly to himself. “You’re not worth it.”
He hauls Chance up slowly, awkwardly—bracing both of them on unsteady legs. Chance winces, but doesn’t protest. He just leans against Mike, dizzy and dazed and still breathing a little too hard.
They’re almost out of earshot—Miike half-carrying, half-guiding Chance down the sidewalk, arms slung around each other like some war-weary version of support—when Andy opens his mouth again.
“Careful walking too close, Wheeler. He might think you’re taking him home to fuck.”
It’s loud enough that it echoes. Sharp enough that it lands.
Mike stops. Stone fucking still.
Chance stiffens beside him. “Mike,” he says quickly, low, warning. “Don’t. He’s not worth it—”
But Mike’s already pulling away, gently pulling Chance off him like he might drop if he moves too fast. He walks back without a word, slow and steady, the air around him stretched thin and electric.
Andy’s still grinning like he thinks he’s the funniest person alive. Jay’s laughing too. A couple of the girls gasp, one going, “Jesus,” like she wasn’t laughing along with them earlier.
“What was that?” Mike says, calm. “Didn’t quite catch it.”’
Andy leans forward like he’s being generous. “I said I hope he puts out after you wipe the blood off his face.”
Mike nods one.
Then punches him.
It lands clean, right across Andy’s mouth, snapping his head sideways and sending him stumbling back a couple steps with a sharp grunt. The grin drops. His hand flies to his face, blood gushing from his nose and between his fingers.
Mike doesn’t even flinch, though his hand fucking burns.
He reaches into his pocket and pulses out the switchblade. The one he swore he was just carrying for safety. The one he never planned to use. Clicks it open. He doesn’t raise it—doesn’t need to. Just holds it loose in his hand, like a suggestion.
“Say one more word.” Mike says slowly. “And I swear to God , you won’t be able to say anything ever again.”
Andy freezes, hand still clutched over his face. No one moves.
The whole world seems to hold its breath.
“I don’t care how many of you there are,” he adds, eyes locked on Andy. “Try me. Please. Give me a reason.”
Jay mutters something like “Dude, just drop it,” and tugs on Andy’s sleeve, pulling him back a step.
Andy’s still staring at the knife. At Mike. Like he’s re-evaluating something.
Mike clicks the blade shut. Turns his back. Walks away. Back to Chance, who’s staring at him wide-eyed.
“You’re insane.” Chance says quietly, like he doesn’t know whether to be horrified or impressed.
Mike shrugs, slinging Chance’s arm over his shoulders and walking them both out. “Maybe.”
Chance’s house is dark and quiet when they get inside.
Mike locks the door behind them while Chance kicks off his shoes, holding his broken face as he walks over to the couch. He drops onto it with a heavy breath, eyes half-lidded, blood still crusted around the edges of his mouth and smeared along his cheekbone. Mike follows silently, grabbing the forgotten hoodie off the arm of the couch and tossing it aside.
“Where’s your first aid kit?” Chance lazily points towards the kitchen. “Okay.”
Mike returns a minute later with a dusty plastic box and a bottle of water he half-forces into Chance’s hand. He kneels down next to him—knees pressed against his thigh, steady and close—and pops open the kit with a small snap.
Chance watches, dazed, as Mike rifles through the contents. He’s quiet as Mike soaks a cotton pad in antiseptic. The first touch to the cut on his cheek makes him hiss.
Mike winces. “Sorry,” he murmurs, and slows down. His hands are steady. Too steady, like he’s forcing them to be. He dabs carefully at the cuts along Chance’s cheek, the split lip, the blood on his jawline that’s half-dried into his skin.
Chance breathes out through his nose, trying to stay still, but his shoulders tremble slightly. Mike notices. Says nothing.
He keeps going. Gentle. Patient. Like he’s done this before. The whole room is quiet except for the occasional rip of gauze, the soft clink of a cap being unscrewed.
Chance catches his eyes once, and Mike looks away too fast.
Everytime Chance flinches, Mike pauses. Waits. Keeps going only when he breathes out again. When he finishes the last cut—just under Chance’s brow—he leans back slightly, dropping the used pads into one of the empty packages.
Chance lets out a breath. “You’re good at that.”
Mike shrugs. “Practice.”
They both glance down at Mike’s hand at the same time—his right one, already wrapped up in a crooked little mess of gauze and too much tape. Dried blood peeks through at the knuckles.
“Let me—”
Mike starts to shake his head, but Cchance is already peeling the tape off. His fingers brush Mike’s palm—careful, almost unsure—and Mike doesn’t stop him.
“This is awful.” Chance says, half a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Like, impressively bad.”
Mike rolls his eyes. “Shut up.”
Chance works quietly, redressing Mike’s hand with fresh gauze and medical tape that isn’t unraveling. When he finishes, he keeps holding Mike’s hand for just a second too long. Then lets go.
They settle into silence.
Chance speaks again before the silence can stretch too far.
“You’re not…” he trails off. Fidgets with the hem of his shirt. “Weirded out?”
Mike blinks. “By what?”
Chance doesn’t look at him.
“By me. Being… queer.”
The word hands between them like something sharp. Mike is quiet for a moment. Long enough that Chance starts to shift like maybe he regrets asking.
“No,” Mike says. Firm. No hesitation.
He meets Chance’s eyes, steady.
“I’m not weirded out. I’m…pissed. That they said that shit and that they hurt you. And I’m really, really pissed that they think they get to say shit like that and walk away smiling.”
Chance swallows. His mouth moved like he’s trying to come up with a reply, but nothing comes out.
Mike keeps going. Softer now. “They’re assholes. That doesn’t mean anything about you.”
Chance watches him. “You sure?” he asks. Not like he doubts Mike. Just like he’s learning how to believe it.
Miike nods.
“I’m sure.”
Chance looks down at his lap.
“...Okay,” he says quietly.
Mike leans back against the couch, a faint smile on his face.
Notes:
this took me so long to write i hope the extra-ish long chapter makes up for the delay jjhvbvfjhbvf my sillies
to the people that correctly assumed will living in the wheelers would lead to something. how did u know. get out of my google docs
also chance gay fork found in kitchen water found in ocean lice found in noah schnapps wig sun found in sky
Chapter 4: dreams of your hair and your stare and sense of belief
Summary:
"There’s this party this weekend. Just at someone’s house—nothing insane. I was gonna go.” he pauses, trying to act cool. “You should come too.”
Mike stares at him like he’s asked him to join a cult. “Do I look like a party guy to you?”
“You look like someone who could use a distraction.”
Mike opens his mouth to argue. Closes it again. He taps his pen against the desk four times, thoughtful.
Then—almost smiling, just barely—he says, “Alright. I’ll be there.”
or
Mike & friends go to a party :3 and other stuff !!
Notes:
hey guysss.... gulps.... i didnt mean to go on hiatus for a month i dont even have an excuse i was just really preoccupied with all the season 5 mike content i cant even lieee.... anywaysss :333 wheelchancee yeyyyy we Up ! and party stuff ok i really like them a lot and i miss tthem really bad i hope i did their dynamic justice hehe
the very concept of this chapter being almost half the length of the entirety of the fic (4k words)... i hope it made up for the waitkkjvbffjkv... i did split it into two parts im sawryyyy :-3
chapter title from hits different by taylor swift !!!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Mike’s not at school.
Karen almost body-slammed him into next Tuesday after hearing about his little stunt in the park from Hopper. Will had seen her with her head in her hands this morning when he had left, muttering something about how she didn’t even recognize him anymore.
Will just nodded like welcome to the club.
So now he’s at home, grounded. Where it’s safe. Sort of.
Will’s not jealous of that.
He’s not.
“Okay, so if the—if the power lines start surging again, I think we can trace it back to—” Dustin is saying, squinting at a paper he’s scribbled all over. “Wait, crap. No. This is my science homework.”
Lucas snorts. “Are you kidding me?”
“Shut up. This is worth, like, half my grade. Shit.” Dustin huffs, scribbling all over it anyways and crumpling it.
Will isn’t listening.
His eyes keep flicking toward the cafeteria entrance, even though he knows Mike isn’t coming. It’s just—
He should be here.
Even when he’s off, even when he’s exhausted or hurting or barely speaking—he shows up. That’s just what he does.
But not today. Because he decided to be a careless idiot. He’s lucky the kid was too scared to do anything legally.
The one thing that sticks in his brain is the why . Why did Mike even do that? It’s so…unlike him that it scares him. It scares him that he feels like he doesn’t know his own best friend anymore.
Today, Will is stuck with a stack of barely-legible notes, a half-eaten sandwich, and a dull ache crawling up the back of his neck. He’s hunched over the table, trying to make sense over whatever the hell Dustin’s doing now when someone says:
“Hey. Have you guys seen Mike today?”
Will’s pen stops. He doesn’t even need to look up to know who it is.
Lucas does, though. “Oh. Hey, Chance—” he pauses. “What the hell happened to you?”
Dustin looks up and winces in sympathy. Will does as well, catching a glimpse of him through his bangs, and—
Yeah, he looks rough .
Not bad. Just…banged up. Split lip badly healing, a yellowing bruise under his eye, cut on his cheek. He’s seen better days, surely. He stands there awkwardly with a tray in his hands, brow furrowed just enough to pass for concern. His oh so perfectly swooped hair isn’t so perfect now.
Will gains just the slightest bit of satisfaction at seeing him like this. Which immediately makes him feel really bad.
“He’s at home.” he says after a moment. “He’s fine.”
Chance looks unconvinced. “He didn’t look fine the last time I saw him.”
“Okay.”
Lucas kicks Will under the table. Lightly. A warning.
But Will’s already looking back down, flipping the paper over like there’s something important to read on the other side. There’s not. Just something about electricity and ions, or something.
Chance shifts on his feet. “Sorry. I was just—worried, I guess. He’s been kinda…off.”
Will makes a quiet noise in the back of his throat. Neutral. Noncommittal.
He hopes that’s enough to kill the conversation.
It’s not.
“He doesn’t need you checking in on him.” he adds after a moment.
Chance blinks. “Sorry?”
Will lifts his gaze. “He has people. He’s not alone. If that’s what you think.”
There’s a moment of uncomfortable silence. Lucas clears his throat. Dustin glances between them like he’s waiting for one of them to throw something.
“I didn’t mean anything by it.” Chance’s voice is quieter this time.
“Didn’t say you did.”
Chance lingers for a second longer, like he wants to say something else. Maybe he thinks better of it. Maybe he’s smart enough to see what this is—jealousy in a body too small to hide it.
Eventually, he walks away. Will doesn’t watch him go.
—
Mike shows up to class Thursday.
His hair looks like he just ran a hand through it ten times before walking in. There’s a bandage wrapped tight around his knuckles just barely visible under the long sleeve of his jacket, and his eyes are ringed in shadows, but he’s upright. Not limping and clutching his side. Not angry. Just Mike.
Chance is already sitting at their table when he slides into the seat beside him. Their desks are pushed together, paper already on Mike’s side—one of those double-sided worksheets Mr. Owens hands out when he doesn’t feel like teaching.
“Hey,” Mike says, like it’s nothing. Like he hadn’t cleaned Chance’s wounds tenderly just the other day. Like he didn’t pull a knife on Andy.
Chance swallows. “Hey.”
It’s weird how fast it all comes back—the heat that creeps up his neck when Mike leans over to scan the worksheet, brows furrowed as he tries to catch up, the way his fingers drum mindlessly on the desk when he’s thinking. He smells like clean laundry and possibly antiseptic and something metallic.
There’s a faint bite mark on the side of Mike’s stomach only really noticeable when he stretches and his sweater rides up.
Chance isn’t looking on purpose, obviously , but it’s very much right there in his face.
It didn’t seem like a human bite mark, which is odd to him. It’s not like he thought Mike had been hooking up with some girl who’d just left that there in the heat of the moment.
(He did. For a moment. Felt jealous. And then remembered Mike doesn’t really seem like the type to just do hookups.)
It looks almost…animalistic. But Chance can’t quite place what type of animal it's from. He knows he’s absolutely thinking way into this when he should just leave it alone for his own peace of mind. The bruise around it looked dark and ugly, like it was recent.
Chance wonders how many more there are hidden under his clothes.
“You missed, like, a bunch,” he says, trying to sound normal.
Mike shrugs one shoulder. “Wasn’t feeling great.”
Understatement of the year.
Chance turns back to his own worksheet, but his hand tightens around the pen. Will’s voice still rings in the back of his mind.
He doesn’t need you checking in on him.
Chance hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it. The way Will had looked at him, like he wasn’t even worth the conversation. Like Mike was some rare, ancient artifact he wasn’t allowed to touch.
“Are you okay?” Mike asks suddenly.
Chance looks up. “What?”
“You’re doing that thing,” Mike says, watching him with narrowed eyes.
“What thing?”
Mike gestures vaguely at him. “That weird, silent, angry thing. With your face.”
Chance blinks. Then snorts. “Cool. Love that that’s my reputation now.
Mike grins a little, crooked. “You’re doing great.”
Chance hesitates, then sets his pen down. “It’s dumb. Don’t worry about it.”
Mike gives him a look.
Chance sighs, chewing on the cap of his pen. Then, finally: “Your friend. Will? Kinda said something to me the other day. During lunch.”
Mike frowns. “What?”
“Kinda implied that I was bothering you. Or that I don’t know you. Or something.” he shrugs like it doesn’t matter, like it hasn’t been silently eating at him for days.
Mike’s face shifts—not angry, not yet. Just confused. “That doesn’t…sound like Will.”
“I mean, it happened.” Chance laughs under his breath, sharp. “Maybe I’m just easy to hate.”
Mike’s quiet for a second, pursing his lips.
“No, Chance, you’re a great guy. Very cool. Awesome at basketball.” Chance says, putting on a high pitched voice to mimic Mike. “Aw, thank you, Mike. You’re very sweet.” he deadpans.
Mike stares at him for a beat, unimpressed.
“I don’t sound like that.”
“Sure you do.”
Mike huffs out a laugh, looking back down at the worksheet—but he’s not reading it. His eyes are skimming, but he's clearly not taking in any of the information. His foot taps under the desk, rhythmic and agitated.
And Chance knows he should stop right here. Knows he should shut his mouth and cherish the small victory of making Mike laugh and do his worksheet and stop acting like someone who cares .
Instead, he says, “There’s this party this weekend. Just at someone’s house—nothing insane. I was gonna go.” he pauses, trying to act cool. “You should come too.”
Mike stares at him like he’s asked him to join a cult. “Do I look like a party guy to you?”
“You look like someone who could use a distraction.”
Mike opens his mouth to argue. Closes it again. He taps his pen against the desk four times, thoughtful.
Then—almost smiling, just barely—he says, “Alright. I’ll be there.”
Chance raises a brow. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Mike shrugs. “Why not.”
“Cool. Bring your friends too," Chance says, flipping his worksheet over. “Y’know. The ones who don’t hate me.”
Mike snorts. “That’s a short list.”
Chance kicks him lightly, biting back a smile.
The apocalypse might be right around the corner, but that doesn’t stop Mrs. Taylor from assigning math worksheets or Mr. Owens from giving out a packet the size of a novella. Unfortunately.
Mike’s basement smells like old carpet and barely there mold and teenage misery. There’s loose paper scattered everywhere, half-open textbooks like corpses across the carpet, and a whiteboard in the corner filled with a mix of cat drawings (courtesy of El) and half-baked plans.
Dustin is actively dying. Loudly.
“Trigonometry is a joke,” he says, for the third time in two minutes. “It’s actually not real. The government made it up to keep nerds oppressed.”
“No one’s keeping you oppressed,” Lucas says, flipping a page in his copy of Fahrenheit 451.
“I’m suffering.”
“You chose pre-calc.”
“I was young and stupid.”
“You signed up last semester.”
“Exactly.”
Lucas lifts his head to glare at him. Dustin sticks his tongue out, then quickly retracts it when Lucas readies the book like he’s going to chuck it at his head.
Will snorts. He’s curled up on the couch, notes neatly organized in a binder on his lap. El sits beside him, scribbling hearts in the margins of her worksheet, nodding like she’s agreeing with the voices in her head. Or with Dustin. Either or.
Lucas is on the floor now, again , halfway into a plank position just to stretch his back. “I’m going to die down here.” he moans. “My brain is fried. I feel like I’ve been staring at the same sentence for a year.”
“I told you not to start with English,” Will says.
Lucas clicks his tongue. “I hate it when you’re right.”
Mike is silent. He’s sitting at the coffee table with a pencil tucked behind one ear and his chemistry packet hanging limp in his hands. He hadn’t turned a page or done anything, really, in over ten minutes. Just stares at nothing, eyes unfocused. There’s a twitch in his jaw that says his thoughts are very far away—and not in a good way. Not even he’s sure about what he’s thinking about.
“Okay,” Dustin declares, looking around. “Here’s my pitch: we throw all the textbooks in a furnace, flee town, change our names, and live out the rest of our short, tragic lives in Mississippi.”
“There is no furnace.”
“There’s an emotional furnace, Lucas.” Dustin says. “In my heart. Full of rage.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Right.” El says slowly, tugging her sleeves over her hands. “Everyone who thinks we should do Dustin’s plan say aye .”
“Aye,” Will and El say at the same time, grinning at each other.
“That’s some freaky twin shit.” Dustin whispers, eyes wide as he looks over at Lucas.
Lucas just shakes his head. “ Aye. If it means we throw Dustin in the furnace too.” Dustin squawks at that.
“You guys are idiots.” Mike says, finally.
Dustin gasps. “He speaks!”
Mike flips him off. Dustin clutches his chest like he’s been shot.
“Moving on from that.” Mike says, then, casually, drops, “I got invited to a party this weekend.”
The whole room falls silent.
Not like they’re waiting for a punchline. Like they think that’s the punchline. But Mike doesn’t follow up, finally picking up his worksheet and scribbling something down.
After a beat, he adds, “You guys should come.”
Will’s turns so fast he nearly drops his binder. Lucas props himself up on his elbows, blinking like Mike just said he joined a biker gang. El slowly lowers her notebook to her lap. Dustin’s hat slides off his head with incredibly comedic timing.
Lucas blinks. “What.”
Mike finally glances up. “What?”
“Okay, hold on. Hold on.” Dustin sits up, adjusting his hat. “Did you hit your head? Are you in a cult? Did Vecna put you up to this?”
“No. No. And—what? No.”
“Like a real party? With beer and music and people? ”
Mike rolls his eyes. “Yes, Dustin. That’s usually what a party entails.”
Dustin points an accusatory finger at him, eyes narrowing. “You hate parties.”
“I don’t hate them.”
“Last time I invited you to a party you literally gagged.” Lucas chimes in unhelpfully. Mike just shrugs.
“Who invited you?” Will asks, and his voice isn’t sharp exactly, but there’s an edge to it. Noticing.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“No. I mean—like, when did this happen?”
“Chance,” Mike says simply, “He asked during English.”
Everyone in the room—minus El, bless her heart—gawked at him.
“Chance?” Dustin echoes, like the name physically pains him. “Basketball team Chance? Weirdly good cheekbones Chance? Evil Chance?”
Mike furrows his brows. “Evil Ch—” he sighs, shaking his head. “Yes. That Chance.”
Will’s face does something strange. Twitches, maybe. Frowns and doesn’t quite recover. He looks back down at his binder, turning a page that doesn’t need turning. His pencil taps a little too quickly against the rings.
“Since when are you friends with him?” Lucas asks.
Mike shrugs again, humming. “He asked if I wanted to go. I said yes. He said to invite you guys.”
Dustin stares at him like he’s grown three heads. Lucas has narrowed his eyes at him suspiciously.
“Can I go?” El says, raising her hand just slightly. Mike thinks for a moment, before nodding. She grins at him.
“Well, if El’s going, so am I.” Lucas says with a sigh. Dustin seems to share his same sentiment. “Will?”
Will looks up, startled, eyes wide. “Yeah. Okay. Sure.” he says with a tone that’s not entirely convincing to Mike. He shoots Will a look like ‘you sure?’ and he just nods once.
“Cool. Great.” Mike says, smiling a small, crooked smile, his nerves finally easing.
They were getting ready for a party.
Which felt insane, considering the state of, well…everything. Hawkins was still half in ruins. The sky was red and everything smelled faintly of iron. There were still missing posters up for people they’d never find.
But tonight?
They were pretending things were normal.
Just for a little while.
Nancy was the only adult they told. She seemed the least likely to flip out or call Hopper or stage an intervention. When Mike said, “We’re going to a party,” she barely looked up from her book and muttered, “Be home by one or I’m telling mom.”
Deal. Mike can do that.
Now, they’re in Mike’s room. One of Will’s CD’s with vaguely foreign-sounding rock music is playing at a low volume. It works, weirdly.
El sits cross-legged on the floor, jaw tilted up, eyes half-lidded as Will does her eyeshadow with steady hands. She’d do it herself—Mike has seen her do it, it’s very impressive—but she’d developed an odd tremor in her hands from overusing her powers trying to find Max and Vecna and whoever else.
Mike feels just a little guilty that he’d pulled her away from that to go to some dumb party. But he also thinks it’d be good for her to do something other than floating in a salt water tank for hours on end.
“You look great,” Will reassures her, blending a light blue into pink with his ring finger. She smiles.
Lucas stands at Mike’s mirror, turning from side to side like he couldn’t decide if his short-sleeve button-up made him look cool or like he was trying too hard. “I look overdressed, right?”
“You look muscley.” El says, cracking open an eye to look at him.
Will and Mike stop what they’re doing and immediately turn to zero in on his arms, eyes narrowing like cats.
Lucas notices. “Alright, ladies. Eyes up here.”
“Ladies?!” Mike squawks at the same time that Will says, “Hey!”
“I would never objectify any of my friends.” Will adds, mock-serious as he turns back to dabbing glitter to El’s inner corner.
“I’m just saying there's a difference between appreciation and undressing someone with your eyes.” Lucas shoots back, smoothing over his shirt. “And Mike? Buddy? You were absolutely not appreciating.”
“Listen, man, I’ve got eyes. And they work. What do you want me to do? Not look?”
Lucas huffs out an amused laugh at that, shaking his head.
“Mike, get a grip.” Dustin interrupts, causing Mike to flip him off. “Moving on. We arrive at 8:30. Assess the situation. Drinks are only from the cooler, never the punch bowl. If things get weird, make eye contact and fake a phone call.”
“We’re not gonna do any of that,” Lucas said flatly.
Dustin grinned. “Nope.”
Will leaned back to examine El’s face, proud of his work. “You look awesome.”
She beamed. “Thanks.”
Mike, meanwhile, had now gone back to holding up two nearly identical shirts in front of his closet.
Lucas glanced over. “Dude. Just pick one.”
“They’re different.”
“One is black. The other is black with a slightly different collar. This isn’t a life-or-death decision.”
Mike didn’t answer.
Because, okay, yeah—maybe he was overthinking it. But something about Chance seeing him tonight, outside of class, outside of all the world-ending nonsense and smoke and bloodstained towels made his stomach twist.
Not in a bad way.
Just…twisty.
Eventually, he grabbed a different shirt entirely—a charcoal-grey one with a band logo printed out in the front that clung just right—and threw one of his (okay, it’s Robin’s) jackets over it. Not because he was nervous or anything. He just liked the way it layered. Or whatever.
He runs a hand through his hair. Messes with it. Fixes it. Messes with it again. Ever since he cut it, it never wants to cooperate.
Then, casually—not that casually—he reaches for one of El’s eyeliner pencils. She grins.
Dustin watches from Mike’s desk chair, spinning once then stopping. “Going for the rockstar look?”
Mike shrugs. “It looks cool.”.
“Ah yes. The ultimate reason.”
Mike flips him off without breaking focus, dragging the pencil on his waterline in a thin, imperfect line, smudging it just lightly like Eddie had showed him once.
(“You look like a racoon.” Mike had deadpanned.
“A really cool racoon.” Eddie had retorted, capping the pencil and tossing it at Mike, who just stared down at it for a moment.
“Isn’t this stuff for girls?”
Eddie shrugged. “Yeah. But who cares, right? I’m sticking it to the patriarchy.” he said with a toothy grin. Mike had laughed at that, shaking his head.)
He tosses the eyeliner back to El. “Thanks.”
She smiles at him as Will puts a pink colored lipgloss on for her. “Anytime.”
There’s a beat of silence where no one says it, but something lingers in the air. The weight of pretending. The absurdity of it all. Like they’re kids playing dress-up in a crumbling world. Which…is not completely far off.
Will stands and smooths El’s hair. “I’m the designated driver,” he says. “Because I’m the only one with a license. And also because I don’t like drinking, so don’t try to convince me.”
“No one was going to,” Mike says.
“You say that now.”
Dustin sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Alright. The Party's assembled. Hawkins’ last line of defense shows up to a high school party. What could possibly go wrong?”
Lucas grabs his jacket, following the others down the stairs. “Literally everything.”
They sneak through the house, quiet as can be. Ted’s snores can vaguely be heard from the living room. Dustin scowls at that, narrowing his eyes as they tip-toe past.
Just like that, they’re out the door.
El giggles as she and Lucas make a run for the car like it’s a race. Dustin stage-whispers at them to slow down.
Mike glances back once. Just enough to catch Will staring.
“What?” Mike whispers.
Will blinks. “Nothing."
The party is loud.
Like, stupidly loud. The bass shakes the walls like it’s trying to break them down, the lights are way too dim for anyone to see more than vague, colorful outlines of each other, and someone has already spilled beer all over the carpet. Which isn’t Chance’s problem. He doesn’t live here.
He’s losing at beer pong.
Badly.
The ping pong ball bounces off the rim of the last red Solo cup and into someone’s half-eaten cup of chips.
“Jesus, Chance,” Andy laughs, slurring a little. “You got the hand-eye coordination of a newborn giraffe.”
“Fuck off,” Chance mutters. He’s calm despite everything that had happened the week before, nursing the edge of a buzz that hasn’t quite hit yet. Everyone else around him is louder, drunker. Looser. The room smells like beer and sweat and something sharp underneath—weed, probably. He’s proven right when he spots the joint being passed lazily from hand to hand around the basketball guys. Can’t be hygienic. Chance takes a hit when it gets to him. Casual. Cool. Whatever.
The smoke hits the back of his throat and curls into the air when he exhales slow, trying to relax into it.
That’s when he chokes.
Because there, in the doorway, framed by the smoke and the thudding beat of whatever song’s playing now, is Mike Wheeler.
And he looks— fuck.
He looks good.
Like, good good.
He’s wearing a leather jacket that definitely shouldn’t work on a kid from Hawkins but somehow does —worn, slightly cropped, perfectly fitted, hugging his shoulders like it belongs there. The shirt underneath is soft and clings to him in all the right places. His hair’s doing that soft, messy, touch me thing, curling slightly where it meets his jaw. There’s eyeliner ringing his eyes—barely there, but enough to make them look darker, more intense, like maybe he knows exactly what he’s doing.
Chance nearly drops his drink.
Someone snorts behind him. “Jesus, dude, breathe.”
Andy slaps him on the back, grinning. “What, the beer pong loss hit you that hard?”
Chance forces a cough-laugh hybrid, eyes darting back to the door like maybe he imagined it.
He didn’t.
Mike’s still standing there, gaze slowly sweeping the crowd, taking it all in like he’s trying to decide if he should leave already. He’s not alone—Lucas is with him, arms crossed over his chest. Will looks like he’s thinking this is a nightmare . The kid with the curly hair and cap (Dustin?) is leaning into his side and talking way too loud. There’s a girl with them looking terrifyingly cool.
And Mike looks like a problem.
A sharp, well-dressed, deliberately not fitting in kind of problem.
And then, suddenly, his eyes land on Chance.
And stay there.
Just for a second. Just long enough to make Chance’s chest twist weirdly, like he’s been sucker punched.
Mike doesn’t smile. Doesn’t nod. Just looks at him, dead-on, like he’s seeing something he hadn’t expected to find here. And then he glances away, expression unreadable.
Chance exhales, heart thudding against his ribs. He takes another sip of beer to ground himself. It doesn’t work.
Mike’s here.
Like actually here. He was half-thinking that he’d just bail on him at the last second.
And he’s real. And unfairly hot. And not looking at Chance anymore, which is somehow worse than when he was.
Chance looks down at the table, spinning the ping pong ball between his fingers.
Andy leans in, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “You good, man?”
Chance resists the urge to shrug him off. “Yeah,” he says, too fast.
Andy raises an eyebrow like he doesn’t believe him. Which—fair. He wouldn’t believe himself either.
He just watches as Mike disappears into the crowd, jacket catching the light as he moves—and thinks:
I’m so fucked.
Notes:
theyre so gay oh my GODDD bruh party 4 u moment im rolling my eyes im so fucking annoyed at them bruh (i wrote them like this)
i have a really bad problem and that is that i cant make a fic without a little bit of wheelclair aka mike Has a little bit of a crush on lucas And kinda really likes his arms #mikeissogayyyy
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