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“You want me to draw you…making out with my sister.”
Mike’s face burns red and he practically yelps, “No! I- who said anything about making out?! It’s just a…a normal kiss.” Jesus Christ, he should’ve known that this wouldn’t go well. But what did Will expect? It was the story they’d agreed to tell – the story exactly how it had actually happened. “It’s just part of the story.”
“Alright,” Will responds, leaning back in his desk chair as he twiddles a pencil between his fingers, “but are you like, into it?”
“I-” Mike starts. His boyfriend raises an expectant eyebrow. From the bed on the opposite side of the room, El herself gives him a look. They’re both waiting. Mike nearly blanches. “This is a trap.”
“That wasn’t an answer,” Will points out.
“It was not,” El agrees.
“You guys are such assholes.”
Will spins the pencil until it points right at Mike, the killing arrow aimed straight for his heart. “Were you into it, Wheeler? As an artist, I need to know. Every detail has to be right on point.”
“Yeah, Mike, were you? I can’t quite remember,” El says, laying on the pressure. Dear lord. This was a nightmare. “Remember – friends don’t lie.”
“Mike. Answer the question.”
“Of course I wasn’t into it!” Mike blurts, thrusting his hands out in a gesture that’s half-placating, half-surrender.
“You weren’t?” El gasps, clutching her pearls.
“Oh my God, Mike,” Will exclaims with equal dramatics. “How could you say that about my dear sister? Do you hate her?”
“I mean, I was a little bit, obviously!” Mike splutters. This was terrible. These people were terrible.
“OH MY GOD, MIKE!” Will exclaims even louder. “Why would I want to hear that?!”
El tossed a stray pen at him, hitting him square in the shoulder. “You dirty scoundrel, how dare you insult Will like that. Are you still in love with your ex?! Is that what this is about?!”
“NO! I meant- oh, fuck you guys!” Mike yells, “I hate you both. I quit. Find a new writer!”
“Booooo, bad boyfriend!” El jeered at him, cupping her hands around her mouth. Will laughed along. “Boo you, Mike Wheeler!”
Mike slumped into the beanbag chair tucked into the corner of Will’s bedroom, burying his head between his knees as he was pelted with Will’s copious amounts of throwable art supplied. “I hate this family.” Will and El just keep laughing. Mike lifts his head to glare at them, batting away an eraser just before it knocks him in the nose. “Why are you even in here, El? Don’t you have better things to do?”
El shrugs, her lips turned up into a shit-eating smirk. “No, not really.” Ever since their breakup and sealing of Upside Down, she’d found a lot more confidence in herself. Unfortunately for Mike, that meant she was a real butthead now. Learned it from Max. And from her brother.
“Nothing beats Bully Mike Wheeler Tuesday,” Will adds with a grin.
“It’s Friday,” Mike says, exasperated.
El throws another eraser at him. It bounces off his head and lands on the carpet. “Don’t correct him. You are being mean.”
“Thank you, El, I was feeling really attacked right there,” Will says, reaching out to grab his sister’s hand. She gives him a sugary sweet, entirely fake smile, patting the top of his hand with a comforting hum. Will has the gall to sniffle. Mike whips the eraser right back in his face. It’s what he deserves.
“Ack!” Will yelps as the rubber rectangle bounces off his stupid fluffy brown hair. “Oh, that’s a war declaration, Wheeler.”
“Bring it, Byers,” Mike says, grinning.
Joyce’s voice interrupts them from downstairs. “Kids! Dinner is ready!”
“Ah, we’ll have to save this for later,” Will says, hopping out of his desk chair. He extends a hand to Mike, who takes it, allowing his boyfriend to pull him to his feet. Once he’s up, he meets Will’s mischievous grin with his own. Those soft hazel eyes look up at him. He starts to lean in.
And then El plants a hand on each of their faces and shoves them apart, walking right through and out the bedroom door. “Dinner time!” The moment has dissipated.
“El!” Will yells, stomping after her. “You jerk!”
“Oh, how the tables turn.”
“Can it, Wheeler.”
Joyce is just finishing setting out the casserole her husband had made for dinner, and she looks up with a knowing smile when El, Will, and Mike all come down the stairs. “Are you three getting into fights again?”
“Never!” El says as they all take their seats, “We were only letting Mike know what we thought of him, very honestly.”
“I like the sound of that,” says Hopper, coming in from the kitchen with a washcloth tossed over his shoulder.
“Hey!” Will says in a warning tone at the same time his mother scolds, “Jim.” Mike stifles a defeated sigh. Joyce and Will always assured him that Hopper’s suspicion and disdain was ‘all in good fun’, but he could never quite believe them. Hopper had hated his relationship with El back in middle school and he hated his relationship with Will now. Mike was starting to think that maybe Hopper just hated him.
“Joking!” Hopper says, holding his hands up in surrender. Or at least, that’s what Mike thought he was doing until El met his hands with a double high-five. Like father like daughter. What a team.
Joyce frowns. “You are all so cruel.” She ruffled Mike’s hair, giving him a smile that he easily returns. “Don’t worry, Mike, I still think you’re just great.” Thank God for Joyce, the kind goddess among the merciless characters in the rest of the Byers-Hopper family – the family that, unfortunately for Mike, he loved dearly.
“Hey, I think he’s great!” Will protests. His mother’s son.
“I bet you do,” El and Mike say in sync. Both their heads shoot up, locking eyes in horror. “Shut up. Stop that. Stop! Will, tell your-” Mike cuts himself off, hoping to let El keep going and finally stop the terrible series of events. El stops talking at the exact same time as him. They stare at each other in apprehension. Who dares to speak first?
Will breaks into laughter before either of them get the chance. “What in the world was that?!”
“Always a riot when Mike comes to town,” Hopper says, sitting at his place at the table.
“Where’s Jonathan?” Joyce asks. She turns to call up the stairs, “Jonathan?! Dinner!”
Will, El, and Mike exchange knowing glances. Jonathan is, most likely, in the back of Argyle’s van right now, high as a kite after spending the whole day searching for a photography job. Joyce remained blissfully unaware of just how often her eldest son smoked – she wasn’t completely unaware, though, since it was apparently incredibly difficult for Jonathan to cover up the smell when he arrived home late at night on the weekends. Mike knew all this because Will had told him so, many times, complaining loudly about just how bad his brother smelled. Like a skunk in a dumpster.
“Maybe he’s just at a friend’s,” El suggests.
“Yeah,” Will agrees, joining her to cover for their brother, “Didn’t he tell you he’d be having dinner with Argyle?” It was often hard for Mike to understand the things the Byers-Hopper siblings did for each other. If he’d been out getting high without his mother’s knowledge, Nancy would rat him out without an ounce of hesitation. Maybe it had something to do with shared traumatic experiences. Maybe he and Nancy were just uniquely dysfunctional. Who knows.
Joyce scrunches up her face in thought, and Mike almost feels bad about lying to her. But he’d be damned if he was the one to ruin Will and El’s ruse.
“Did he?” Joyce mutters, then waves her hand dismissively. “Oh, whatever, he’s a grown man. I probably just forgot. Let’s eat!” She finally sits. Proper thanks is given to both adults for the meal and the food is distributed. Will and El bicker about their respective servings and Mike swipes the best condiments out from under both their noses as they do. That earns him some dirty looks, but at least their bickering stops. It’s always a united front for the two of them when it comes to Mike Wheeler, despite all the time in the past that that wasn’t the case. Mike’s glad for the change, even it’s the opposite of to his benefit.
“So,” Joyce says when it all settles down, “how’s your comic coming along?”
Will and El immediately turn to Mike, eyebrows raised. El gives him an evil smirk. Will just keeps his face peacefully innocent and adorable. That ass.
“Why don’t you tell her, Mike?” he suggests.
“It’s going great, Ms. Byers,” Mike says, smiling at his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s mother with equal fake innocence. “We’ve made some great progress. And Will’s art is amazing as ever. It’s crazy how well he captures everything. Really.”
Will’s sarcastic façade cracks a bit, and he makes a little noise somewhere between oh and aww. Mike grins at him. El rolls her eyes dramatically.
“See?” Joyce says, smiling at him and giving the rest her family a look. “What a sweet kid we have here.”
“You know, we don’t have to add that part.”
Will glances back at Mike standing in his bedroom doorway, halfway through flipping through his previously abandoned sketchbook. The book is nearly full now, each page covered in drawing after drawing of Hawkins and the Party and the Upside Down. Mike will have to buy a new one before Will replaces it himself. He’s overdue for a Will gift.
“What part?”
“Me and El,” Mike says, staring down at the carpet before he gains the courage to meet Will’s eyes. “It’s not really…an integral part to the story, really.”
“Really?” Will questions, frowning, “I think it kind of is.”
“Well, we can figure out to tell the story without it,” Mike suggests, “Do some actual creative writing.”
“Mike, come on,” Will says, giving him a look. Mike knows from the softness of those hazel eyes that Will’s about to say the exact right thing to make everything better. That he’s about to stare into Mike’s soul and pick it apart until he finds the exact problem. It’s like magic, how he does that. “I don’t mind, honestly. I was just joking before. I know how important your relationship with El was to…everything.”
“But you’re- I mean, you were important too,” Mike says, then amends: “Are. Are important.”
Will smiles at him gently. “I know.”
“Even though I didn’t always, you know…” Mike swallows, his well of words dried up by nasty bits of regret and self-pity. “You know,” he repeats pathetically. And Will knows. He seems to always know.
“Mike,” he starts, sighing lightly, “you and El were important to each other. Really important to each other. I would’ve died in the Upside Down if you weren’t.” Will plops himself down on his bed, sketchbook in his lap. “And don’t tell me you don’t still have love for her, because I know we all do. El is very easy to love.” Mike has no way to formulate his thoughts on that into something coherent, so he just stays silent. Cool summer air floats through the crack of the open window. Will picks at the cover of his comforter, thinking. “You and El were good for each other. No matter how much I hated it back then, I know now that you definitely were. And then you weren’t, and then you kind of were again, and then you really weren’t. And now, things are…” Will smiles, looking over at Mike. “Things are great. Between all three of us.”
“Yeah?” Mike responds, his own mouth twitching into some form a smile. Will’s right. Things are great. It actually still makes him uneasy at times, just how happy he’s been for the past year or two. He thinks it might take him a while before he truly believes it’ll last. But for now, he’s trying to stay in the moment. Like this moment, which is turning out pretty good so far.
“Yeah,” Will says. “And, since I ended up winning…”
“Winning?” Mike echoes.
“Yeah, winning,” Will repeats, grinning.
“Winning what?”
“You. Duh.”
Mike blinks at him, warmth rushing to his ears. “Oh.”
“Anyways,” Will says with a little laugh, “since I ended up winning, I guess I can live with the fact that the book you and I make is going to include a few scenes of you smooching my sister. Because at least I know how it’s all going to end this time around.”
Mike moves to take a seat next to Will on the bed. “Happily?”
“Well, it is for me.”
“Me too.”
Will drops his head onto Mike’s shoulder. “Glad to hear that, Wheeler.”
Mike turns to face him after a few quiet moments, prompting Will to lift his head again. He leans in, reaching up to cup his boyfriend’s cheek before their lips meet. And Will melts into it, kissing him back with a gentle warmth that makes Mike’s insides scramble with butterflies or nerves or some new kind of demon monster. Will Byers, he thinks. Will fucking Byers. And then there’s a hand on his waist. And his hand’s in Will’s hair. And he’s leaning further forward. And-
“AAAAAAAH!! NO!”
Mike nearly jumps out of his goddamn skin. Will’s hands, just a second before grabbing at his waist, are on his chest to shove him back so quickly and urgently that he almost topples off the bed. He yelps. Will yells and covers his face with his hands. And Eleven stands in the doorway, utterly horrified.
Mike suddenly wishes that a new portal to the Upside Down would miraculously open right under his feet.
“El-” Will starts, red in the face and peeking through his fingers.
“Dad,” El interrupts, “sent me up to make sure the door was at least three inches from being closed. I DID NOT EXPECT IT TO BE COMPLETELY OPEN.”
“Oh my god,” Mike whispers, mortified beyond belief.
“Oh my god,” Will agrees, scrambling off the bed to go slam the door in El’s face, even as she yells.
“I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO FORGET THIS IMAGE, MIKE. NEVER.”
“GO AWAY, EL!” Will shouts back, hand gripped on the handle to keep the door closed.
“WHY DID YOU HAVE THE DOOR OPEN?!”
“El, I swear to god-”
“You owe me money, Will. And you, Mike. So much money.”
“Absolutely not!” Will protests, glaring at the door. “Not when I have walked in on the exact same scene.”
El goes silent. Mike may or may not start to dissociate from sheer embarrassment. Where’s a demogorgon when you really need one?
“I am leaving now,” El announces. “We will forget this ever happened.”
“Deal,” Will agrees. Mike makes a vague, hoarse noise of agreement. El’s footsteps descend back down the hall towards her bedroom. A second passes. And then Will turns, flops facedown onto his bed, and screams into his pillow.
Mike manages a deep, deep breath and a heavy sigh. “You were right, Will. Everything is so great between all of us.”
“Can it, Wheeler.”