Chapter Text
Mike Wheeler’s alarm won’t stop going off. He’s got one of those radio ones; which he finds more effective than the beeping. That doesn’t mean it's not annoying though.
God only knows why chronically late Michael Wheeler has selected a 9 am lecture for his freshman year at college, but he had. At least it seemed interesting, it was a class on mysticism in medieval literature, which was academic enough to get Ted off his back and weird enough to excite Mike.
But he still has to get up for it.
The radio is playing Hall and Oates ‘Out of Touch’ and thank god Dustin had stayed with Lucas last night, because Mike finds himself like embarrassingly into it. It reminds him of Will and the mixtapes they’d traded when he’d still lived in Hawkins. Mike was always trying to slip in cute love songs, chalking it up to what was popular on the radio. Will gave him so much grief about it, but that hadn’t stopped Mike. It felt like one of the only things he could do about his feelings at that point in his life. Plus, it meant he got beautiful label art from Will when they traded tapes. No matter how many they traded, seeing the drawings would send Mike’s heart fluttering. He kept them all meticulously arranged and would yell at anyone who tried to touch them. He’d burnt out so many cassette players.
But then the Byers had moved to California and Mike had resolved to really let Will go, which meant it hadn’t been the same even when Will came back to Hawkins permanently a year later, when the world started to end. Plus, Mike and El’s breakup, the private one where he finally came out to her, had driven a sharp rift between him and Will, though to this day Mike wasn’t sure why, as El promised not to out him. He just knew that was how it was.
The latter half of high school, after the town was saved and everyone was just pretending things were normal again, Mike picked up whatever hobbies he could to try and get Will’s attention again. He’d gotten into metal for Eddie, so punk and goth rock were only a stone’s throw away. Senior year he’d even started wearing eyeliner, milking his influence as Corroded Coffin’s new lead guitarist to push them towards more plaintive anti-establishment songs, even if Mike was still figuring out what those words meant. He even wrote some love songs, carefully switching or avoiding pronouns. They were still pretty obvious to anyone paying attention though, so Mike worked very hard to be casual about them.
At first, he’d tried to give the flyers for their shows to Will directly, then he’d tried to get Dustin and Lucas to convince him to come, feigning ignorance when he saw Will in the halls, but still nothing. He left them lying on the kitchen table at the Byers’ when he hung out with El, who’d graciously agreed to be his beard until they left Hawkins, in the heartbroken hope that Will would pick one up. He never did. Mike even tried asking Max to tell Will to come, but she’d just told him to 'get a fucking clue.'
Suffice it to say, high school had been miserable.
He’d managed, but only barely. Their schedules had stopped aligning the older they got. Will was too smart and ended up in honors classes while Mike’s grades slumped. He dropped his art elective after sophomore year, instead killing time at study hall. He skipped a lot.
They’d still shared the same friends, but it didn’t matter. Somehow, without even talking about it, they’d split group activities down the middle, maybe a sign of how well they’d always known each other. Will got Lucas’s basketball games, Mike got movie nights with Steve, Dustin and Robin, Will started a new DnD party with Max and El, Mike had DMed for Hellfire, as well as Dustin and Lucas on occasion, even if he was almost sure they were playing with Will too, and Will became president of the fine arts club at Hawkins high. Mike played in Corroded Coffin and barely graduated. It was a shame he couldn’t write his college essay on the apocalypse.
The end result of the whole thing was that, by senior year, Mike had banned Will’s name from discussion by the party, at least in his presence. It hurt too bad.
He knew the others thought he was being an asshole, and objectively he was, but that had never stopped him before.
Will never left his mind though, not even now. Mike could maybe fill his brain with other things for 10 or 15 seconds before it occurred to him that Will would have an opinion on whatever it was he’d been thinking about. It was unceasing and terrible. He’d hoped relocating for college, renting an apartment with Dustin while they attended the same school with Lucas, Max and El who were renting a house like a block away, would help. He’s only been here a few days, moving in and prepping for class, but it hadn’t fixed anything in the slightest. He hadn’t even gotten out of his funk enough to go see the rest of the party, leaving Dustin to help them move in last night. It might’ve been easier if he’d been able to stop himself from bringing along all of Will’s drawings and rehanging them in his room, or the three binders he’d amassed (only a few of the drawings stolen from his friends after he and Will stopped talking), but he’s not made of stone for fuck’s sake.
Mike Wheeler is in love and there is absolutely nothing he can do about it, other than resign himself to never seeing Will again, even if it kills him.
So of course, as he gets ready, he is thinking about how Will would scoff at him humming to Hall and Oates as he dresses, along with how strawberry poptarts were Will’s favorite too, and that he used to use the same toothpaste as Mike, and that Mike never used to be late because Will was always early, and Mike always wanted to be with him, which meant Mike was early too.
But that was then, and this is now.
As he runs out the door, fumbling with his keys, Mike resents that Lucas’s rise to jockdom couldn’t have worn off on him, because he is going to have to sprint the few minutes to campus in the heat in all black. There is no way he’s gonna look cool.
He groans and speeds into a light trot.
--
Mike is right, there’s absolutely no way to look good running around in 80 degree heat, looking like an extra from ‘The Lost Boys.’ What a way to start college.
But eventually, huffing and panting he slides into the English building, and thank god he’s only a few minutes late and the class is on the first floor so he can just fling the door open and-
“William Byers?”
WHAT?
Mike is frozen in place, as he scans the small-ish lecture hall. This cannot be a coincidence.
Then he hears a very quiet, “Here.”
And his eyes zero in so fast he’s amazed they’re still in his head.
Will. Fucking. Byers.
He’s just sat there, two rows back, hand half raised, head pointedly snapped away from a very, very disgruntled Mike Wheeler, who cannot seem to get his feet to move past the doorway.
Mike is dragged out of his stupor when the girl closest to the door clears her throat rather loudly, and he shuffles morosely to the back of the class.
When the professor, a pretty and professional looking woman who seems almost too young to be teaching, calls Mike’s name, he responds almost defiantly, eyes lasered to the back of Will’s head, waiting for him to turn around.
But Will doesn’t.
Mike can’t even focus on the rest of the class because he is filled with such frustration. Will goes here? How had no one thought to mention it? The others had to know. He’d always assumed Will would go to New York, or at least an art college, though Mike knew there was supposed to be a good art program here. He’d looked at it back when he was fanaticizing about Will also being gay and sharing Mike’s feelings and them attending college together, as boyfriends. Mike cringes at himself.
God he’s such an idiot.
He spends the next two and a half hours eyes directly drilled into the back of that stupid bowl-cut, and when the class finally lets out, his eyes follow Will as he practically sprints from the room, yellow shirt and floppy hair easily allowing Mike to keep track of him in the small rush of students.
Mike waits until he’s truly gone before he begins to stuff his things in his bag, with a lot more force than is really necessary. What just happened?
Well, nothing, strictly speaking, which is exactly the problem.
Mike attempts to feel indignant about the whole thing. Here they are, a hundred miles from home, and they’re adults now, but Will still can’t even look at him. How could his best friend, the love of his life, the kindest and gentlest person he’s ever known, grow up to be such a fucking asshole?
Not to mention Dustin. Mike is going to murder him, then give him CPR just so he can kill him again. Some friend.
He grumbles and makes it out the door, beginning the walk home.