tony stark’s arc reactor. jason todds last cigarette. moon knights vow. harley quinn’s smudged makeup. cigarette break at the end of the world. half-used film roll in someone’s jacket. cisco ramon’s candy obsession. jokers missing playing card. clark kent’s glasses. cyberlife androids. loki’s broken crown. a lighter flicked open illuminating half a face. damians katana sheath. h.r’s drumsticks. peter parker’s old science fair ribbon. killer frost’s ice shard. homelander’s torn apology cue card.
p.s. i love comments and regulars, please interact with my work. gives me so much encouragement. 🥹
┈ ⏜︵ including 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒 bruce wayne ╱ jason todd ╱ tim drake ╱ stephanie brown ╱ damian wayne ╱ cassandra cain ╱ dick grayson ╱ duke thomas ╱ alfred pennyworth 𓈒 ꞌꞋ ࣪
꒰ 🎀 ꒱ synopsis 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒 moral support at the eye doctor except you are not providing moral support you are the one who needs moral support
REMINDER NOTIFICATIONS ARE SUPPOSED TO HELP YOU.
that's the whole point of them. you set them, theoretically, at some earlier version of yourself who had her life together enough to open a calendar app and type something in, and then future-you gets the little ping and goes oh right, thank you past me, very responsible, and handles it. system works great.
the problem is that past-you had apparently set this reminder for the day of the appointment, at eleven in the morning, for something scheduled at two, which — okay, that's three hours. that's technically enough time, but it's also the kind of timeline that made your stomach drop the way it does when you realize you've been meaning to do something for so long that it has looped back around from responsible errand to active emergency. you stared at your phone screen.
Eye doctor appointment — Dr. Reyes — 2pm. Don't forget!!
you had, in fact, forgotten. past-you had anticipated this, apparently, hence the exclamation points. past-you knew you. it was almost sweet.
the other problem — maybe the bigger one — was that you didn't entirely remember making this appointment. you clearly had done it at some point, with your own hands, using your own phone., but the context around it was fuzzy in the way that most responsible adult tasks were fuzzy, like a dream. had something been blurry? had someone told you to go? had you just walked past the office one day and thought yeah, sure, why not?
unclear.
you sat with this for about eighteen seconds and then called damian. he picked up on the second ring. "heyy!"
a pause. the kind of pause that meant he was doing something and had answered anyway, which — you knew better than to find that endearing but you kind of found that endearing. "what's wrong."
"how's your day going?"
"what."
you wandered into your kitchen to open the fridge, only to close it shortly after. “are you busy? you sound busy. were you in the middle of something?"
you could hear him exhale. not a frustrated exhale — well. a little frustrated, but the kind of frustrated that had a ceiling on it that only ever went so high with you specifically before it just sort of leveled out into something else. "i was reviewing reports."
“oooh, for what?”
“wayne enterprises.”
"oh." you thought about this. "do you like doing that?"
“it’s necessary.”
"that's not what i asked."
“…it’s fine.”
"is it interesting though? like are the reports interesting or is it just numbers."
"it's — there are figures, projections, quarterly assessments —"
"so numbers."
"predominantly."
"that sounds really hard," you said, with full sincerity, because it did, genuinely — you could not think of anything that sounded more exhausting than sitting and looking at numbers and understanding them and then doing something with that understanding. that was like three steps too many. "you're really smart."
"i'm aware of that."
"i just think it's nice. that you're smart. like it's a good thing to be." you found a hair tie on the counter that you'd been looking for for three days. score. "do you ever get tired of it?"
"of being intelligent."
"yeah, doesn't your brain ever just get full? like you put too much in there and then there's no room?" you stretched the hair tie between your fingers. "mine does that."
the silence on his end is very specific. silent judgement. probably deciding whether to say the thing he was actually thinking, which was probably something like that explains several things, and was choosing, for the moment, not to. "my brain," he says finally, "does not get full."
"that's so cool. but it never, like, overheats?”
"i don't overheat."
"you kind of do."
"i do not —"
"you get this thing where your jaw does —"
"we're not discussing my jaw."
"i'm just saying i've seen it," you note, very pleasantly. "it's okay. it's cute."
"it is not —" he stopped. you could hear him stopping himself, that very precise internal edit he did when a conversation went somewhere he hadn't planned for. "why did you call."
right. he asked like the answer was going to be straightforward, like you had called with a purpose and that purpose was sitting right at the front of your brain ready to be delivered. which — you had. you definitely had. there was a reason. you'd picked up the phone and pressed his contact specifically because of the reason.
you just had to remember what it was.
"i wanted to talk to you!”
"you called me in the middle of a workday.”
"you picked up."
"i —" he stops again. "that's not the point."
"you always pick up," you notice, saying it softly, a little wondering, like you were just now thinking about this even though you'd thought about it before. he did always pick up. "i like that you always pick up."
"you called me to tell me you like that i answer my phone."
"and to ask about your day."
"...hm." not a word, really. more like something that happened involuntarily. you smiled at your kitchen ceiling.
"oh wait," you remember suddenly, perking up and giving yourself a mental high five, "i did have a thing to ask you!”
"of course you did."
"i have an appointment."
"what kind."
"eye doctor. it's today." you glanced at the clock on the microwave, which you were pretty sure was still wrong from when the power blinked out last week, so you looked at your phone instead. "at two."
the silence that followed was the sound of damian doing the math, realizing it was currently eleven twenty-three, registering the full sequence of events — the phone call, the how's your day, the you're so smart, the i missed you — and understanding, correctly, the order in which you had prioritized these things. "you have a two o'clock appointment."
"yeah."
"and you called me twenty-five minutes ago."
"yeah."
"and you didn't mention it."
"i was getting to it!" you defended, which was true. you had always been getting to it. it was a process.
"i'll pick you up at one-forty."
"okay," you agree. then, because you didn't actually want to stop talking to him: "okay, but —"
"goodbye."
"wait—-"
he hung up.
you set your phone down. picked it back up.
he'd texted: Be ready.
two words, nothing else. you pressed your phone to your chest like a victorian person receiving a love letter and then put it down again because you had, you suddenly remembered, things to do. the appointment was at two. damian was picking you up at one-forty. it was currently — you checked — twelve-oh-four, so you had an hour and thirty-six minutes, which was fine. that was actually a lot of time if you thought about it.
you went to your bathroom. the thing was, you were going to see damian! the appointment was sort of beside the point in the sense that the appointment had always existed but damian coming had not always been a guaranteed thing, and now it was, which meant the afternoon had shifted in a significant way from medical errand to you were going to see your boyfriend, which meant, obviously, you had to look good.
you stood in front of your mirror and looked at yourself with the seriousness of someone receiving a project brief. base, you did your moisturizer — the good one — and then the primer, which you'd been told by approximately seven different sources was necessary even though it felt like a completely made-up step, like somewhere a long time ago someone had just added it to the routine and everyone had just gone along with it and now here you all were. you did it anyway. damian noticed things. he'd once told you your mascara was smudged before you'd even registered that you'd touched your eye, which was either very romantic or mildly unnerving and you'd decided a while ago it was romantic.
then eyes. this was the part that took the longest because you had a lot of options and also because you got distracted partway through trying to remember whether damian had mentioned once that he liked when you wore brown tones or whether you'd imagined that. you were like sixty percent sure he'd said something. or maybe he hadn't said it and had just looked at you a specific way when you'd worn it. those were basically the same thing to you.
you went with the brown tones.
mascara, two coats. you looked good. you looked really good actually. you pointed at yourself in the mirror, which you would never tell anyone about, and moved on. hair. this took forty minutes and involved three different products and one moment where you did something that didn't work and had to start over, which you definitely remained very calm about. by the end it was doing the thing you wanted it to do, which felt like a victory of moderate but genuine proportions. now, outfit. you stood in front of your closet with your hands on your hips and had a conversation with it. a one-sided conversation. you were looking for the specific intersection of cute but not like i tried too hard and put together and i look like this all the time, effortlessly, this is just my regular wednesday.
you tried on four things.
(the first one — no. too casual, you'd worn it to run errands last week and it felt like that. the second one was good but you'd just worn it and damian had seen it. the third one was maybe too much for an eye doctor's office, and you held it up and thought about it for a second, really considered it, then thought about damian's face if he showed up and you answered the door in it, and almost put it on anyway. you didn't. fourth try.)
you looked at yourself in the mirror. yeah, that was the one. you turned sideways. you turned back. it was one twenty-two. you were ready by one twenty-two, which was eighteen minutes before he'd said he'd arrive, which was — genuinely, honestly, an achievement. you should text him that. you should tell him you were ready early. you picked up your phone.
i'm ready early, you typed, and sent it without thinking about it. three dots appeared. disappeared. appeared again.
I'll be there in two minutes.
you put your shoes on and went outside.
the car was pulling up before you'd even made it down the front steps, which — of course it was. damian did not idle. he timed it so that the car arrived exactly when you did, which required a level of coordination that most people did not apply to wednesday afternoon pickups and which he applied to everything as a matter of course. the car was sleek and black and aggressively wayne, the kind of car that didn't need sound to announce itself because everything about it already had. you came down the last step.
he was already looking at you, you could see him through the windshield — that was the thing, you got the unfiltered version for like two seconds before he could arrange his expression into whatever he decided it was going to be, and in those two seconds damian wayne looked at you in your dress and did something with his eyes that you were going to think about for the rest of the day, possibly longer. you got to the passenger door, opened it, got in, and when you looked over at him he was facing forward, both hands on the wheel, expression doing exactly nothing. the picture of composure. a completely normal man in a completely normal car having a completely normal afternoon. "hi!" you greet.
"you're early."
"i told you."
he didn't respond to that. you watched him, shamelessly, and felt something in the vicinity of extremely pleased with yourself. "you can say it.”
"say what."
"that i look nice."
a pause. a very controlled pause. "i didn't say anything."
"i know. you can though."
he put the car in drive. "address."
“what?"
"the address. of the appointment." he glanced at you, briefly, and then back to the road. "i need the address to drive there."
"oh." you picked up your phone to open your email, because the confirmation had to be in there somewhere — you scrolled past several things that were not the confirmation, a sale you'd forgotten about, three newsletters you'd never unsubscribed from, something from your landlord you should probably read — "one second —"
"take your time." he said, in a tone that meant the opposite.
"i'm looking, i'm looking —" you found it. read him the address. he put it into the navigation system with the efficiency of someone who found asking for directions a personal affront but had made peace with gps as a reasonable technological compromise, and then pulled out onto the street. you watched the neighborhood go by for a second, then you put your phone in your bag and looked out the window and thought about nothing in particular for a while, which was one of your better skills.
the office was nice. that was your first thought when you walked in. it was nicer than you'd expected an eye doctor's office to be — not like, fancy, but clean and bright, with a display case along one entire wall that was just. glasses. so many glasses. every shape, every color, little tags with names on them like they were art pieces in a gallery, which honestly they kind of were, and you stopped just inside the door to look at them because you couldn't not, that was just a response you were having involuntarily —
"keep moving." damian instructed from directly behind you.
"i'm just looking —"
"you can look after. check in first."
"i'm going —" you moved toward the desk, he moved with you, and the woman at the front looked up and did the thing that people did when they looked at damian, the brief recalibration, and then smiled at you both. "hi! i have an appointment, it should be under —"
"she is a new patient." damian interrupted.
"okay, perfect, then i'll just need you to fill out —" she was already reaching for a clipboard — "some intake forms, and then —"
you took it. looked at it. it was a lot of boxes. a lot of small boxes with small lines next to small words and you looked at the first section which said patient information and started with full legal name which you could do, you knew that one, and then went to date of birth which you also knew, and then primary care physician which —
damian took the clipboard out of your hands.
not snatching, just the smooth transfer of an object from one person to a more qualified person, the way you might hand a complicated piece of equipment to the person in the room who knew how to use it. he looked at the form, took the pen that was attached to the clipboard by a little plastic coil, and started writing.
you watched him for a second. "i could have —"
"sit down." he says, not looking up.
"i know my own birthday—"
"i know you do." still writing. "sit down."
you listened and sat for approximately forty-five seconds before the glasses wall started happening to you again. you got up — slowly, like you were just stretching — and drifted toward the display. they were so fun. there were little round ones and big square ones and thin gold wire frames and thick dark acetate ones and ones that were a color you'd call terracotta if someone asked and ones that were just classic and perfect and there — in the corner, second shelf from the top — tortoiseshell. warm brown with those lighter flecks through it, slightly oversized, the kind that made people look like they had their life together in a soft and interesting way. you leaned in to read the little tag.
"those are for farsightedness," said a voice to your left, you looked over and there was a kid, maybe seven, with very small round glasses and the confident bearing of someone who had been coming to this office for years and considered themselves a local expert. "my friend has those ones. she says they help her read."
"they're really pretty.”
"i like mine better." the kid pointed to their own frames, bright blue, slightly crooked on their face. "i picked them myself."
"those are so cute," you said, because they were. "did it take you a long time to choose?"
"forever," the kid said gravely. "my mom almost cried. why are you looking at glasses if you don't have glasses?”
you opened your mouth.
"she's a new patient." damian cut you off from behind, you turned and he was standing there with the completed clipboard — both sides, pen back in the coil — looking between you and the seven-year-old with an expression that was doing several things at once. he looked at you specifically. then at the tortoiseshell frames you were standing directly in front of. then back at you.
"i was just looking!!"
"the doctor hasn't seen you yet. you don't have a prescription."
"i know —"
"so you can't buy glasses."
"i know, i was looking —"
he handed the clipboard back to the receptionist then came to stand next to you in front of the display, which you hadn't expected that. you'd expected to be steered back to the chairs. he stood next to you and looked at the wall with his arms crossed like he was reviewing a report. "those are reading glasses." he observes, apparently your boyfriend likes to state everything and you have to just let it happen, nodding at the ones you'd been looking at. "you don't need reading glasses."
"i might —"
he turned and looked at you with an expression that was so flatly, specifically patient that it had lapped itself and come back around to something almost gentle. "you called me this morning because your calendar app sent you a notification. your vision is fine."
"it's been a little blurry lately," you said, which was true, you'd thought of this in the car, there had been some blurriness. "like sometimes. at screens."
a pause. he looked back at the wall. "we'll see what the doctor says.” he answers, which was not you don't need glasses anymore, which felt like a meaningful distinction.
you looked at the tortoiseshell ones again. "those ones.”
he looked at them the same way he looked at things he was actually assessing. "the frame width is proportional." he compliments eventually, which meant he thought they'd look good on you and had chosen to say it like that instead.
you smiled at the display case. "yeah.”
a nurse opened a door across the waiting room and called your name. the pre-screening was in a small room with a machine you were supposed to put your chin on, which you did, and the technician — young, the practiced calm of someone three years into a job they were good at — said just look at the image in the center. you looked and there was a tiny picture of a hot air balloon over a field.
"why a hot air balloon?”
"sorry?"
"the image. in the machine." you were still looking at it. "why is it a hot air balloon?"
the technician blinked. "i — honestly i don't know, it's just —"
"do all these machines have the same image? or do different brands have different ones."
"i think there are a few different —"
"i feel like i've seen a farmhouse before, at a different place. so they're not all the same."
"yes, i believe the farmhouse is a different manufacturer —" she paused. "okay, so while you're looking at the balloon, just try to keep your eyes relaxed —"
"relaxed how?”
"naturally. don't strain."
"okay." you looked at the balloon. you tried to relax your eyes. you weren't totally sure what relaxed eyes felt like. "like this?"
"yes, perfect." a click, a small puff of air directly at your eye, and you jerked back immediately with a small noise that you would not be describing to anyone later. "sorry," the technician apologizes, "i should have warned you, that's just the pressure test —"
"what was —" you blinked rapidly — "what did it do —"
"it measures the pressure inside your eye. it's very quick, it doesn't —"
"it shot something at my eye —"
"just air —"
"air?" you were blinking rapidly, one hand coming up toward your eye on instinct before stopping because you'd been told not to touch. "like, why? my eyes get air. they're out all day getting air. they don't need extra —"
"it measures the pressure inside —"
"by shooting it —"
"it's a very small —"
"it didn't feel small, it felt like —" you turned around to look at damian, who was sitting in the chair against the wall with his arms crossed and the expression of a man who had known, with complete certainty, that this was going to happen and had made peace with it before it did. "did you know about this?”
"you are fine," he said, the tone he used when he was trying to transfer his own certainty directly into you through sheer force of vocal delivery. "it's a standard test. it doesn't hurt."
"it surprised me.”
"i know." a pause. something in his expression adjusted approximately two degrees toward something more human. "you have to do the other eye."
you looked at the machine. the hot air balloon sat there in the little screen, serene, completely untroubled, floating over its field with no awareness of what it was complicit in. "i don't want to.”
"it'll take two seconds. you already know what it feels like. so it won't surprise you."
you looked at the machine. you looked at him. the technician was being very patient in the way that people in medical offices were professionally required to be patient, stylus hovering over her tablet, waiting. "okay." you turned back to the machine, put your chin on the rest, and looked at the hot air balloon. "fine," you said, mostly to the balloon. "do it."
the puff happened. you flinched, same as before. you turned back around immediately after and damian was already looking at you and he gave you a single nod, very small, the kind that meant see, that was nothing, and you made a face at him that meant it was not nothing and he made no face back because he didn't do that. "great," the technician said, with genuine relief. "okay so next we're just going to —"
the letter chart was fine. you knew your letters. you got most of them and on the ones you weren't sure about you said so, which felt like the honest approach, and the technician said that's okay, best guess and you guessed and moved on. the one where you had to cover your eye with the little plastic spoon thing was also fine except you kept accidentally leaving a gap and she had to tell you twice to cover the whole eye and you did, you were trying, the spoon was just awkwardly shaped and also covering one eye made you feel slightly strange in a way that was hard to explain.
the one where she held up the little light and looked at your actual eye up close was fine except you looked at the light instead of past it and she had to redirect you three times and at one point she said look at my ear and you looked at her ear and said which one and there was a pause and she said either one and damian, from the chair, exhaled through his nose. "sorry." you were on your fourth apology, to the technician, and then to damian, and then to the general room.
"you're doing fine." the technician said. damian said nothing, which meant the same thing from him.
the doctor came in the way doctors did, clipboard, smile, the energy of someone who had six more appointments after this one — and you liked her immediately, which you did with most people. she was looking at your chart when she sat down and said, without looking up, "so what brings you in today?"
you opened your mouth.
"routine exam," damian answered for you from the chair. "she's been experiencing intermittent blurring. primarily at screens. no history of corrective lenses."
the doctor looked up. looked at damian. looked at you. "is that — yes?"
"yes, what he said."
she made a note. "any headaches? eye strain at the end of the day?"
you thought about it. "sometimes? like, i get headaches —"
"where."
"in my head?”
"location," damian said. "she means location."
"oh." you touched the space between your eyebrows. "like here, sometimes. when i've been on my laptop a lot."
"any difficulty driving at night? halos around lights?"
you looked at damian.
"occasionally," he said. "she mentioned it."
you didn't remember mentioning it. you thought about it and actually, now that it was being said, yeah — sometimes at night the lights did a little thing. so that was apparently information he had remembered from some conversation you'd had and then immediately forgotten. you looked at him for a second. he was looking at the doctor. you looked back at the doctor. "yeah," you said. "that."
the actual exam part went mostly fine. the big machine, the phoropter, which she told you the name of and which you immediately lost, had two little windows and she clicked through lenses and said one or two, which is clearer and you said one, then two, then one, then actually maybe two again, and she was very patient about it, and damian was very still about it. "take your time." the doctor encouraged.
"they look the same.”
"look at the letters on the bottom line —"
"they both look the same amount of blurry."
"okay, how about now —" a click —
"that one's worse.”
"good," she said, "that's helpful —"
"wait no, i think i was looking at it wrong, can you do it again —"
damian, from the chair, made a sound so quiet it was barely a sound. you did it again. you said two. she wrote it down. you were fairly confident about two. (you were like sixty percent confident about two.)
then she swung the machine away and did the part with the handheld light, the one where she came close and looked directly into your eyes, and you knew from the technician's version of this that you were supposed to look past the light, not at it, you had this information, and you looked past it, and then the light moved and you followed it because that felt like the natural response to a thing moving and she said try to hold still and you held still and she looked and then she leaned back and looked at your chart and said, "okay. so the good news is your eyes are very healthy overall."
"and the other news?”
"there's a small refractive error. very mild astigmatism, and the beginnings of some nearsightedness, also very mild." she turned her screen toward you and showed you numbers that meant nothing to you, a row of them with plus and minus signs. "your prescription would be quite weak —"
"but she needs glasses." damian said. not a question.
"technically she'd benefit from them, yes. primarily for driving and screens. it's a small correction but it would reduce the strain and the headaches —"
"right," he said, like she'd confirmed something he'd already decided. he uncrossed his arms. "the frames she wants are in the display case out front. tortoiseshell, second shelf. do you have them in her prescription?”
the doctor blinked. "we'd have to check with the optician, but most of our frames can be fitted with any —"
"we'll need two pairs. one for daily use, one for screens. if the tortoiseshell ones come in a blue light variant —"
the optician was a small woman named rita who had been doing this for twenty years and had seen everything, or thought she had, until damian wayne stood in front of her display wall with his arms crossed and said his girlfriend can try whichever ones she wants in a tone that closed the door on any alternative, and then proceeded to stand there while you tried on glasses for —
okay. a while.
it was a while.
you tried the tortoiseshell ones first and they were exactly what you'd thought they'd be and you held up the little mirror and looked at yourself and said "okay these ones for sure" and rita said "great, so just the one —" and damian said "what else do you want to try" and you looked at him and he was looking at the wall with the expression of a boyfriend who had nowhere to be, which you both knew was not true, and you felt something warm in your chest, so you tried more.
the little gold wire ones, which were delicate and cute but felt like they'd blow off in wind. (damian looked at them on your face for a second and said "fragile" and you said "i know, but cute" and he said "you can get them" and you put them in the maybe pile.)
the big square dark acetate ones, which were very serious. you put them on and did a stern face.
the clear frames that were having a moment right now, which rita said were very popular, which was actually a point against them as far as damian was concerned — you saw his expression do something small when she said very popular — but they looked good, so. pile.
the round ones that made you look like a person who frequented independent bookshops and had opinions about tea. (you tried these on and said "do i look smart" and there was a pause and damian said "you always look like yourself" which was the most non-answer answer he had ever given and you were still thinking about it.) pile.
the cat-eye ones that were a dark emerald green and completely impractical and you loved them immediately with your whole heart and picked them up and put them on before rita could even offer and turned to damian and said absolutely nothing because you didn't need to. he looked at you in the emerald cat-eye glasses for approximately three seconds. "those.”
"i know.” you said.
"get those.” he said.
"i am.” you said.
rita was writing things down.
in the end — rita would later describe this to her husband over dinner as a wednesday — the list was: the tortoiseshell ones, obviously, which had started this whole thing and remained the cornerstone. the gold wire ones because they were delicate and you were willing to be careful. the big dark acetate because damian had looked at them on your face. the clear frames because they looked good regardless of what anyone said about popularity. the round ones because you'd already decided. the emerald cat-eyes because of the three seconds. and two pairs of the tortoiseshell in the blue light version, one for your desk and one for your bag, because damian had asked rita specifically about the blue light coating and rita had said yes and he'd said two without consulting you, and when you'd looked at him he'd said one will get lost and you'd thought about arguing and then thought about your track record with small objects and said nothing.
by the very end of it rita had a full page of notes and the focused look of someone doing significant arithmetic and damian was standing at the counter looking at the list with the same expression he'd used on your medical intake form, that complete practical engagement, the this-is-a-task-and-i-will-do-the-task quality. "eighteen," rita said, looking up from her notepad professionally. the way you might say it is currently raining. "eighteen pairs."
"yes." damian doesn’t seem the slightest bit phased.
"that's —" she paused. made a decision. "we can have most of them ready in about two weeks. the specialty coatings might take —"
"however long they take. ship them when they're ready."
you were standing next to him looking at the list. eighteen pairs of prescription glasses. you had needed none of them this morning. you had a prescription so mild the doctor had said technically before recommending it.
rita nodded, started processing while you stood at the counter, looked at the list and felt the particular satisfaction of an afternoon that had gone significantly better than it had any right to. you were a person who owned eighteen pairs of glasses now, or would be in two weeks, which was basically the same thing. you were already that person. you could feel it. damian signed something rita slid across the counter, then you looked at the display wall one more time, just to check, just to make sure there wasn't anything you'd —- there wasn't. you'd been thorough. you felt good about it.
the light had shifted in the time you'd been in there, gone from afternoon to the beginning of the part that came after afternoon, everything golden and a little long-shadowed. damian was walking beside you toward the car with the unhurried precision of someone who was, you knew, ready to go home, who had been ready to go home since the fourteenth pair of glasses, who was running on the reserves of patience he kept set aside for you specifically and which were, you sensed, getting toward the bottom.
you got in the car.
he got in the car.
he put his seatbelt on. "okay," you said.
"okay." he said, and reached for the ignition.
"i need to go to the store."
his hand stopped. resting on the key, not turning it. "the store.”
"yeah —"
"which store."
"i don't know yet." you were already on your phone, which you'd pulled out with the momentum of someone who had just had an idea and needed to follow it before it fully formed. "like a — a hat store. do those exist?"
"a hat store."
"or like, anywhere that sells hats." you were scrolling. "like berets specifically."
"why."
"because — so i'm getting glasses, right? and glasses are like a whole thing. like they're part of a look."
"they're a medical device —"
"they're also a look, and the look i'm thinking about —" you turned to him fully, because this required full-body communication — "is like. nerdy french girl."
damian looked at you.
"like a beret," you continued, "and the glasses, and maybe like a little bag —"
"you have bags —"
"a french bag —"
"there's no such —"
"damian." you put your hand on his arm. "i could be so tumblr."
he looked at your hand on his arm. looked at the windshield. looked at some middle distance that existed beyond the windshield, somewhere further, somewhere that might have answers. "we're going home." he said, and turned the key.
guys this old ash sorry if it’s lowkey dookie :/// i know it’s been a minute since i updated this series SIGHSSS im sorry but hopefully this was lengthy enough to make uo for it
when im narrating in my stories and giving background details before the characters start talking i want everyone to read it in the same delivery as nicole from class of 09
꒰ 🚲 ꒱ synopsis 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒 your coworker decides you need 24/7 protection after a customer does finger-guns at you. you're pretty sure he's more dangerous than any actual threat, but he did bring your favorite chips, so.
BE CAREFUL WHO YOU’RE NICE TO.
that should be, like, a fortune cookie saying. a PSA. a goddamn public service announcement played on loop at every fennel fields employee orientation. "warning: being a decent human being may result in obsessive bodyguard behavior from coworker." but no, no one warned you, and now you're here, staring at your phone at 11:47 PM on a tuesday, looking at a text that just says: "I'm outside."
you didn't ask him to be outside. you didn't invite him over. you didn't even tell him you were home tonight—except, oh wait, you did. sort of. kind of. technically you mentioned it at work like eight hours ago in passing, something about "finally getting a night off to watch that show everyone won't shut up about," and apparently adrian's brain put that down under critical intel that requires action.
it started three weeks ago.
well—if you're being honest, it started four weeks ago, but you didn't realize what was happening during week one. week one was just... adrian being adrian. weird, intense, probably-means-well-but-comes-off-unhinged. you know the type. or, actually, you don't know the type, because there IS no type like adrian. he's in his own category. his own special little bubble of what is happening right now. you worked the register, he worked the floor, and your interactions were limited to him asking where you wanted him to put the new shipment of napkins (you: "anywhere is fine." him: "no but where do YOU want them. specifically.") and trying not to make eye contact during the awkward silence that followed.
you'd stand there, hand hovering over the register scanner, wondering if this was flirting or a social skills deficit or if adrian had maybe never interacted with another human before and was learning in real-time. probably the third thing. maybe all three. he had this way of talking that was just off, like he'd learned social interaction from someone who'd also never spoken to a human.
but here's the thing—and you're self-aware enough to admit this, even if it makes you sound insane—adrian was kind of... cute?
no. not cute. that's not the right word. cute implies harmless, like a puppy or a small child. adrian was more like a cat that brings you dead birds and expects praise. unsettling but weirdly endearing? he had that dark curly hair that always looked like he'd just rolled out of bed (you'd caught yourself wondering if it was soft—stop it, brain), and those glasses he wore sometimes that made him look less like a busboy and more like a deranged grad student. and okay, fine, he had a nice smile. the kind that took over his whole face when you said literally anything positive to him, like you'd just told him he won the lottery instead of yeah, the napkins are fine there, thanks.
then one day, some middle-aged dude with a bad combover and an expired coupon for 10% off got mad that you wouldn't take it. policy is policy—you've been written up before for this exact thing, but he wasn't hearing it. he did that thing where men of a certain age lean over the counter to make themselves bigger, and he pointed at you, finger extended, the full accusatory gesture—and said, exact words: "you're gonna regret this."
with finger-guns. he made finger-guns while saying it. you laughed. you couldn't help it. it was so absurd, so cartoonish, that your brain shorter into nervous laughter. he stomped out. you manager, travis, poked his head out from the back office, asked if you were good, you said yeah, and that was that. incident over. you'd already forgotten about it by the time you clocked out.
adrian did not forget about it.
adrian, apparently, had been on the other side of the store, stacking boxes of industrial-size ketchup bottles, and had heard everything. you didn't even know he was within earshot until seven minutes later when he appeared at your register—materialized, really, like he'd teleported—looking weird. weirder than usual. he was breathing hard, like he'd sprinted over (from where? the ketchup aisle is like fifteen feet away?), and his eyes were doing that thing again. that wide, intense, unblinking thing that made you wonder if he was okay or if he was about to start speaking in tongues. "hey." his voice was aggressively casual. "that guy. the coupon guy."
"yeah?" you were only half-listening, too busy doing your job like a normal person.
"did he threaten you?"
you looked up. "what?"
"because it sounded like he threatened you. that was definitely a threat, right? you should report that. or—or I can handle it. I can definitely handle it."
"it's fine. he's just a dick. this happens all the time."
"that's—" adrian blinked rapidly, like he was processing. "that's a gun gesture. that's a threat of violence. that's—he gestured a gun at you, and guns kill people, so that's a death threat, which means—"
"i really don't think—"
"—i'll take care of it."
he said it so simply, the way you'd say "I'll grab the mail" or "I'll take out the trash." just I'll take care of it, and then he walked away, back to the ketchup bottles, leaving you standing there with a growing sense of what the fuck just happened. you told yourself he meant reporting it to management. maybe filling out an incident report. travis was big on incident reports. maybe adrian was going to... file paperwork? that's a thing people do, right? normal workplace conflict resolution?
coupon guy never came back to the store.
also—and this is probably unrelated, definitely unrelated, completely unrelated—someone on the local facebook group posted grainy cell phone footage of what looked like a masked person in the fennel fields parking lot that same night. the post was very dramatic, all caps, lots of exclamation points: "VIGILANTE SIGHTING!!! IS NOWHERE SAFE???" you saw it while scrolling at 2 AM (insomnia is a bitch).
you wouldn't be entertaining any of this—the location tracking, the sudden appearances, the general weirdness—if there wasn't some part of you that found it... interesting. intriguing. the kind of story you'd tell your friends about while insisting it was "totally creepy" but secretly kind of enjoying the attention, because let's be honest, when was the last time someone paid this much attention to you? your ex couldn't remember your coffee order after two years. your parents forgot your birthday last year. and here's adrian, remembering that you mentioned wanting a quiet night in during a three-second conversation while restocking condiment packets.
adrian's outside, right now, while you're sitting on your couch in a three-day-old shirt that says "i paused my game to be here" (a lie, you don't play games, you bought it at target because it was five dollars), wearing shorts, trying to watch this show that everyone on the internet has been feral about for six months. you've made it through exactly twelve minutes. the main character just discovered her husband is a serial killer or a time traveler or something—you weren't fully paying attention because you were eating chips from the bag like an animal, and now adrian's outside.
you stare at the text, just those two words. "i'm outside." no context. no "hey are you busy" or "is it cool if i stop by" or any of the normal social conventions that people usually employ before showing up at someone's apartment at 11:47 PM on a fucking tuesday. your thumb hovers over the keyboard. you should ask why. you should ask how he even knows where you live—wait, no, you gave him your address last week when he insisted on sending you a link to that youtube video about proper kitchen knife maintenance and somehow that devolved into him asking for your address "in case of emergency" and you, like an idiot, gave it to him. so that's on you. that's your fault. you've enabled this.
you type why are you outside and the three dots appear instantly, like he's been staring at his phone. you can picture it: adrian in his car, probably that weird sedan that's both boring and unsettling, phone in hand, eyes on the screen, waiting for you to respond so he can pounce. the dots bounce. stop. bounce again. he's typing something long, this is going to be a whole thing. you can feel it. "you said you were watching the show," his text says. "i haven't seen it. i should probably see it. can i watch it with you."
this has been happening for three weeks. three weeks of adrian chase appearing wherever you are. at first you thought it was coincidence. the city's not that big, people run into each other, but then it kept happening, and happening, and happening, and the coincidences started feeling less like coincidences and more like a pattern. last thursday you mentioned—in passing, so casual you barely remember saying it—that you were going to grab coffee before your shift. "gonna hit up that coffee place on main." and when you walked into the coffee place, there was adrian, sitting at a table with two coffees. he looked up when you walked in and his whole face did this brightening thing like someone turned on a light inside his head, and went "oh hey! i got you a coffee. i remembered your order. is that right? i hope that's right. i paid attention last time."
he had. he'd paid attention. the coffee was exactly right, down to the specific amount of ice you prefer (light, because you drink slow and don't want it watered down). you should have been creeped out. you should have asked questions like how did you know i'd be here and have you been following me and is this a police matter, but instead you sat down, drank the coffee, and listened to adrian talk about his weekend (he deep-cleaned) and realized that this was nice. having someone remember your coffee order.
or the time you mentioned wanting to check out that new bookstore downtown. didn't say when. didn't invite anyone. just mentioned it to your coworker during a slow shift, something like "i heard there's a new bookstore with a cat, i love cats, might go this weekend." they nodded and went back to scrolling on their phone and you thought that was the end of it.
saturday afternoon you walked into the bookstore and there was adrian, crouched on the floor, petting the cat. he looked up when the door chimed and his face did the thing again—the light-up thing—and he went "you came! i was hoping you'd come today. i've been here for like two hours. this is gerald." he held up the cat. the cat looked resigned to its fate. "he's very soft. do you want to pet him?"
"adrian how did you know i'd be here today."
"you said you'd come this weekend."
"i didn't say when."
"well it's saturday. most people do weekend stuff on saturday. sunday is for like. chores and sadness. so i figured saturday."
"you've been here for two hours."
"i wanted to make sure i didn't miss you."
that's the thing you keep coming back to when you're trying to figure out if this is cute or concerning or both. adrian wants to see you. wants to spend time with you. wants to be around you. you look back at his text, can i watch it with you. pros of letting adrian come up. one: you won't be watching the show alone, and you're pretty sure there are going to be twists and you'll want someone to react with. two: adrian always brings snacks. he's a snack bringer. three: you're lonely. four: this might be the only social interaction you have this week and it's tuesday.
cons: one: it's 11:47 PM and letting someone into your apartment this late feels like a choices that future-you will judge. two: adrian is definitely obsessed with you in a way that's not normal. three: you're wearing shorts. four: what if he's a serial killer. no wait he can't be a serial killer he's too much of a golden retriever. serial killers are supposed to be charming and manipulative and adrian is just. intense. and earnest. and a lot.
you're overthinking this.
you’re about to type a response, something noncommittal, something that buys you time to make an actual decision like a functional adult, when there's a knock at your door. which means he's already inside the building. which means he bypassed the broken lock. which means he didn't wait for you to answer. he just invited himself up to your floor and is now knocking on your door like this is something people do. "are you fucking kidding me." you say out loud to your empty apartment.
another knock, more insistent this time. you get up and shuffle to the door to look through the peephole, and yeah, there he is. adrian chase, holding what looks like not one but two grocery bags. his glasses are sliding down his nose, wearing a jacket that's too heavy for the weather. he looks like an overeager puppy waiting to be let in from the rain except it's not raining and nobody asked him to come.
you open the door.
"you didn't answer your texts." he says immediately, like that justifies home invasion.
"i was typing—"
"you could have been in danger."
"i was on my couch."
"you could have been in danger on your couch." he says dead seriously. "people get attacked in their homes all the time. it's actually more common than—"
"how did you get into the building?”
"the lock is broken. i told you a week ago the lock is broken. anyone could get in, that's why i'm here."
"you got in because the lock is broken."
"well, yeah, but i'm one of the good ones."
"that's what they all say, adrian."
"who's they?"
"home invaders."
"i'm not invading i'm protecting." he hefts the grocery bags like they're evidence. "i brought supplies for the stakeout."
you stare at him. "the what.?”
"the stakeout? we're watching your apartment. making sure no one suspicious comes by."
"no we’re not we're watching a .. show?”
"yeah as a cover. it's called hiding in plain sight."
"hiding from who?"
"from whoever that guy sends."
there it is, the thing that's been driving all of this. the thing adrian's been obsessing over for three weeks. that one customer. the finger-guns guy. the expired-coupon guy. the man who said four words and then left and has probably never thought about you again in his entire life. "adrian," you say, and you're trying so hard to be patient. you're trying SO hard. "that guy is not sending anyone. that guy forgot about me seventeen seconds after he left the store."
"you don't know that, he THREATENED you."
"with finger-guns."
"finger-guns are a THREAT GESTURE."
"they're really not—"
"he pointed at you in an aggressive manner and verbally stated you would regret your actions. that's textbook threatening behavior, and now you have a target on your back."
you're going to pop a blood vessel right here in your doorway while adrian chase explains threat assessment to you like you're in an episode of CSI. "i don't have a target on my back."
"you don't know that, what if you're not fine."
"then i'll. i don't know. call the cops? like a normal person?"
"cops take seven minutes average response time in this neighborhood. a lot can happen in seven minutes."
"how do you know the response time—you know what. i don't want to know." you step aside because he's not leaving, you can tell he's not leaving, he's got that look. that determined look. like he's made a decision and physics itself couldn't move him. "just come in. but we're NOT doing a stakeout. we're watching television. like normal people. normally."
"normal people don't have broken building locks," he says, but he's already moving past you, toeing off his shoes, setting the grocery bags on your coffee table/ottoman situation with the kind of care someone might use when handling explosives. you close the door and lock it. the deadbolt you installed yourself because yes, fine, the building lock IS broken and your landlord sucks. you turn around and adrian's just standing there in your living room, looking around like he's cataloguing exits. threat assessment. whatever neurotic thing his brain is doing. "your window locks are good." he announces.
"i'm sorry?"
"i checked last week when i was doing a perimeter sweep. your window locks are actually really good. above average."
"you did a perimeter sweep of my building?”
"of course i did. how else would i know if it was secure?"
"most people don't. they just. live places. without doing perimeter sweeps."
"most people also don't have customers threatening them at work."
"oh my god—"
"i'm just being cautious." he's pulling things out of the grocery bags now. chips. your chips. and cookies. and candy. and what looks like—- is that a first aid kit. "because if something happens and i wasn't prepared, that's on me. that's my fault. i can't let that happen."
"okay, we can. watch the show. and you can do your whole..." you gesture at him, at the situation, at everything. "...bodyguard thing, but you have to sit down and you have to stop doing perimeter checks of my apartment because you're making me nervous."
"that's good." he says.
"what?"
"that i'm making you nervous. that means you're alert. aware of your surroundings."
"adrian that's not what that means."
"it's important to stay vigilant—"
"i'm going to sit down now," you announce. "and start this show and you're going to sit somewhere that's not right in front of my door blocking the exit—"
"i should be by the door in case someone tries to—"
"—and we're going to watch TV like NORMAL PEOPLE."
he considers this. you can see him considering it. weighing the pros and cons of door-blocking versus making you comfortable. finally he nods, grabs a bag of chips, and sits on your floor in front of the couch but angled so he can still see the door. because of course he angles himself toward the door. you sit down, pull the blanket over your legs, and grab the remote. "for the record," you say, "that guy is not coming back. no one is coming after me. i'm the most boring person alive."
"you're not boring," adrian passionately defends. "you're really not boring."
you don't know what to say to that, so you don't say anything. you just press play. the show starts. opening credits. moody music. some actress you vaguely recognize from that other show everyone was obsessed with two years ago. she's walking through a house, looking confused, touching things like she's never seen a lamp before. "do you think she has amnesia?" adrian asks.
"i don't know."
"she's touching everything like she doesn't know what things are. that's classic amnesia behavior."
"or she's just looking around. like people do."
"no one touches a lamp like that unless they've forgotten what lamps are."
you glance at him. he's completely serious. staring at the screen with this intense focus like he's studying for a test. you realize, this is maybe the saddest thing you've thought all week, that adrian probably doesn't do this a lot. just watch tv. hang out, be normal. he's got that energy, that lonely person energy, the kind where they get too excited about small things because small things don't happen to them very often.
you work with him four shifts a week, have for the past six months, and you've never seen him talk to anyone except you and the kitchen staff and that one time he had a full conversation with the espresso machine that you're pretty sure he thought was broken but was just unplugged. he busses tables. you host. sometimes serve when it's busy. the other servers think he's weird. you've heard them. "that guy's so fucking intense." "he stares." "why does he run everywhere. we're not THAT busy." and yeah, okay, adrian does run everywhere. does stare. is fucking intense. but he's also nice. he remembers that you don't like working the section near the kitchen because it gets too hot. he always buses your tables first. he brings you sprite when you're hungover even though you've never told him you're hungover. he just knows.
now he's here, in your apartment at midnight, because some guy did finger-guns at you three weeks ago and adrian decided that meant you need 24/7 protection. on screen the main character opens a closet and gasps. "see," adrian says. "time loop. i bet she's gonna find a version of herself."
"that's not. that's a completely different thing from amnesia."
"time loops can cause amnesia."
he shifts on the floor to adjust his position. you can tell he's uncomfortable. the floor is hard, you have like one decorative rug that's more aesthetic than functional and he's sitting half on it half off it. "you can sit on the couch." you hear yourself say.
adrian's head whips around so fast you're worried about his neck. "really?"
"the floor is uncomfortable."
"i don't mind—"
"you're fidgeting."
"i'm not fidgeting."
"you've adjusted your position four times in three minutes."
he stops mid-fidget. "oh."
"just. come sit up here."
he doesn't move. "are you sure.”
"oh my god yes just sit on the couch before i change my mind."
he scrambles up. scrambles is the word, he doesn't stand up like a normal person, he like. springs. launches himself from floor to couch in one uncoordinated movement that makes the whole couch shake. lands next to you, way closer than you expected, close enough that you can smell his detergent. something generic. tide maybe. and also, is that axe body spray? oh god it's definitely axe body spray. you didn't know people still used that. you thought that died in 2012. "sorry," he says. "too close?"
he starts to scoot away, but here's the thing you're realizing as he's about to put distance between you, you don't actually want him to move. which is. a whole thing you're going to have to unpack later. maybe in therapy. definitely in therapy. "you're fine.”
he stops. goes very very still, like if he doesn't move you won't notice he's there. which is insane because you're hyperaware of him being there. of his leg almost touching your leg. of the way he's sitting with his back straight, like he's in a job interview. "you can relax. " you tell him.
"i am relaxed."
"you look uncomfortable."
"i'm comfortable." he says it with absolutely no conviction. you could blow on him and he'd topple over.
you're about to say something else—something about how he needs to chill the fuck out—when his phone buzzes. he pulls it out. looks at it. frowns. "everything okay?" you ask.
"yeah it's just—-chris is asking where i am."
chris. you know chris. everyone knows chris. christopher smith. peacemaker. the guy who's been all over the news for that thing with the butterflies that you're still not entirely sure was real or some kind of mass hallucination. adrian talks about chris the way people talk about their best friend. their only friend. which. yeah. is probably accurate. "what'd you tell him?"
"that i'm on a stakeout."
"adrian—"
"he's asking if i need backup."
"oh my god do NOT bring peacemaker to my apartment."
"i'm telling him i'm fine." adrian's typing fast, frowning at his phone. "he's asking if this is about the threat against you."
you stare at him. "you told people about the finger-guns guy?"
"i told chris."
"WHY."
"he's my best friend! you tell your best friend when someone threatens someone you—" he stops. "someone you know."
someone you what. someone you care about? someone you like? someone you're obsessed with in a way that's definitely not healthy and requires professional intervention? "what did chris say?" you ask, because you cannot deal with the someone-you-what thing right now.
“he said i should handle it."
"handle it how?”
adrian looks at you, confused by all your pestering apparently, and blinks. "he didn't specify."
"adrian."
"i'm watching you. that's handling it! this is me handling it." he's already distracted. his eyes have wandered from the tv to your bookshelf. the one next to the tv that you haven't organized in like eight months. it's got books and random shit. a candle you never use. a succulent that's barely alive. some polaroids tucked into the side. "you have a lot of books." adrian comments suddenly.
"that's what bookshelves are for."
"have you read all of them?"
"...some of them."
"which ones?"
"i don't know. like. half?"
"why do you have books you haven't read?"
"because i want to read them. eventually."
"when?"
"i don't know adrian when i have time."
"you have time now."
"i'm watching tv with you."
"you could read instead."
"you asked to watch tv with me."
and now he's getting up, walking over to the bookshelf, crouching down, and pulling books out. this man who invited himself over to protect you from finger-guns guy is now examining your reading habits. "this one looks sad." he says, holding up a book with a blue cover.
"most books are sad."
"why do you read sad things?" he puts the book back. pulls out another one. "this one has a dog on it."
"yes."
"does the dog die?"
"i don't know i haven't read it."
"if the dog dies i don't think you should read it."
"noted."
he's methodically going through your shelf now. pulling books, reading the backs, making commentary. "this one's about murder." "this one's about space." "this one looks pretentious." and you're just sitting there, watching your weird coworker organize your life without being asked. "adrian what are you doing."
"looking."
"at my books."
"yeah."
"why."
"because they're yours. i want to know about them."
that's kind of sweet actually. in an invasive way. he's trying to know you through your stuff. through the things you own. the things you've chosen to keep. he moves from the bookshelf to your coffee table, picks up the remote, and examines it like he's never seen one before. "this has a lot of buttons." he observes.
"it's a universal remote."
"for what?"
"...universal things?"
"that's not specific."
"tv. sound bar. the little light thing."
"you have a light thing?"
"yeah the. the lamp that changes colors."
"why does it change colors?"
"for ambiance."
"what's ambiance?"
you stare at him. "do you not know what ambiance is?"
"i know what it is i just don't understand why you need it."
"it's. it makes the room feel different. cozy."
"your room already feels cozy."
"thank you?"
"you're welcome."
he puts the remote down. picks up a coaster. it's got a cat on it. your friend jess gave it to you as a joke because you don't even have a cat. "do you have a cat?" adrian asks.
"no."
"why do you have a cat coaster?"
"it was a gift."
"from who?"
"jess."
"why did she give you a cat coaster if you don't have a cat?"
"because it's funny."
"is it?"
"she thought it was."
"huh." he studies the coaster. turns it over. examines both sides. "i don't get it."
"the joke?"
"yeah."
"it's ironic."
"why is that funny?"
you don't have an answer for that. you're realizing adrian might not understand irony. like at all. he's so earnest. so literal. irony probably doesn't compute. "never mind."
he sits back down on the couch, closer this time. he doesn't seem to notice, or if he notices he doesn't care. he's looking at the tv now. the show's still playing. you've lost the plot entirely. “what's happening?" he asks.
"i have no idea."
"should we rewind?"
"i don't even care anymore."
"me neither."
you look at him. "then why are we still watching it?"
"i don't know. it seemed rude to turn it off."
"rude to who?"
"the tv?"
you laugh. "you think it's rude to turn off the tv?"
"i don't know how tvs feel about things."
"tvs don't have feelings."
"well, what if you're wrong and we've been hurting tv feelings this whole time?”
he's grinning, that little grin that means he's fucking with you, or he's serious, with adrian it's impossible to tell, and you're smiling. sitting here at 12:47 AM with your coworker who invited himself over and has spent the last forty minutes examining your possessions. you've had fun. actual fun. the kind you haven't had in. months? longer? you can't remember the last time someone came over and just existed with you.
you're realizing—as you sit here with your legs tucked under you and adrian's presence taking up space in your apartment—that you could let this continue. you could let him stay. let him sit here on your couch and talk about tv feelings and reorganize your bookshelf. you could fall asleep with him here. wake up to him still here. that's terrifying. that's way too much too fast. that's the kind of thing that happens in relationships.
there's no way you're letting adrian sleep over. if he stays he'll definitely touch more of your stuff, examine every object you own, probably organize your kitchen cabinets, and talk all night about everything. ask you questions at 3 AM like "do you think fish know they're wet" and you'll be too tired to tell him to shut up and you'll end up having a two-hour conversation about fish consciousness.
you need to kick him out. but like, nicely, because he's sweet in his weird obsessive way, and you don't want to hurt his feelings, don't want him to think you don't like him, because you do like him, unfortunately, against your better judgment. you like adrian chase. "hey." you say.
he looks at you. immediate attention. full focus. it's kind of overwhelming how he does that. "you have work tomorrow right?" you question, watching him watch you.
"yeah. closing shift."
"what time?"
"four to eleven."
"that's late."
"yeah."
"you should probably get some sleep. so you're prepared. for the shift."
he blinks at you. "it's only one AM."
"right but but you need to be alert. for work. can't be bussing tables if you're tired. that's dangerous."
"dangerous?"
"you could drop plates. or trip. workplace safety is important adrian."
"i've never dropped a plate."
"there's a first time for everything."
"i guess." he's looking at you weird, trying to figure something out. you can see his brain working. "are you tired?"
"me? no. i mean, kind of, but that's not. i'm just saying YOU should probably go home. and sleep. be responsible."
"oh." his face falls, just slightly. barely noticeable except you're noticing everything about him now. every micro expression. "you want me to leave."
"no i'm thinking about your wellbeing. sleep is important."
"i will eventually. but i'm fine now. i'm not tired."
he's not getting it. he thinks you're genuinely concerned about his sleep schedule, which you are, kind of, but that's not the point. "what about preparation?" you try. "for tomorrow. you probably need to, i don't know, prepare things. get your stuff ready."
"for bussing tables?"
"yeah."
"what stuff do i need?"
"i don't know. your bus. bussing supplies."
"we have those at work."
"right, but, personal supplies. things you bring."
"i don't bring anything."
"maybe you should start."
"like what?"
you're grasping. completely grasping. "i don't know. a. a water bottle. stay hydrated. very important."
"i can fill up a water bottle in the morning."
"takes time though. you should do it tonight. be efficient."
"it takes like thirty seconds."
"still, every second counts."
he's staring at you now, trying to decode what you're actually saying. you're so bad at this. "do you not want me here anymore?" he asks finally.
"what? no. i mean. i had fun. this was nice."
"but you want me to leave."
"i just think it's late. and we both have work. and it's responsible to get rest."
"you said you're not tired."
"i'm not but i will be. probably soon."
"so i could stay until you're tired?”
"adrian—"
"i don't mind, i like being here with you. this is the best night i've had in a while. maybe ever. i don't really have good nights. most nights are just nights. but this was good. you're good."
"i had a good time too," you say. "you're fun to hang out with."
"really?"
"yeah. you're weird but like, good weird. interesting weird."
he smiles. "you're the first person who's ever said that."
"that you're weird?"
"that it's good."
oh. that's sad. that's really fucking sad, and you're realizing that adrian probably doesn't get this a lot. people being nice to him. people wanting him around. people saying yeah you're weird but i like it. he's got chris, and that's probably it. everyone else probably thinks he's too much. and he is too much. he is intense. "you should go," you say. "not because i don't want you here, but because i do. want you here. and if you stay i'll want you to stay longer. and then it'll be 4 AM and we'll both be zombies at work tomorrow."
"you're kicking me out because you like me?"
"basically yeah."
"that doesn't make sense."
"i know but it's a boundaries thing. a self-preservation thing. if i don't make you leave now i won't make you leave at all."
"would that be bad?"
yes. yes it would be bad. it would be bad because you barely know him. because he's your coworker. because he tracks your location and does perimeter sweeps. because letting him stay means admitting this is something. means acknowledging that you want this to be something, and you're not ready for that. not tonight. not at 1 AM when you're tired and he's looking at you like that. “just go home adrian. please. we can do this again. hang out. watch tv. whatever. but tonight you need to go home."
he nods slowly, stands up, grabs his jacket, and he looks .. disappointed but also understanding, like he gets it even if he doesn't fully get it. "okay," he says. "i'll go."
"thank you."
"but i'm checking the perimeter first."
"fine. check your perimeter."
"our perimeter. it's your building. your perimeter."
he's at the door, putting on his shoes, taking his time like he's hoping you'll change your mind. tell him to stay. part of you wants to. part of you wants to say fuck it nevermind stay all night let's see what happens. but the rational part, the self-preservation part, the part that knows this is already too much, that part wins. "text me when you get home." you say.
he looks up, surprised. "really?"
"yeah. so i know you're safe. since you're so concerned about my safety it's only fair."
"okay!!! i will!!!"
"this was nice. i'm glad you came over."
his whole face lights up. "me too."
he's lingering. you realize he doesn't know how to leave. this guy has no idea what the social protocol for ending the night is, so you make the decision for him. "goodnight adrian."
"goodnight."
"go."
"i'm going."
and he does, finally, the door clicking shut behind him, his footsteps fading down the hallway. the building settles back into silence. you don't go to the window this time, you just sit there on your couch in the warm spot he left behind. this is a bad idea. this whole thing. letting your weird obsessive coworker into your apartment. into your life. letting yourself care about someone who thinks finger-guns are a credible threat and does security sweeps of your building at midnight.
but bad ideas have always been more interesting than good ones, and adrian chase is nothing if not interesting.
you turn off the lights. your apartment goes dark except for the streetlight glow through your window, the same window adrian checked last week during his "perimeter sweep." the same window he'll probably check again next week. and the week after that.
⏜︵ pairing 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒 mike wheeler x cheerleader!reader
꒰ 🚲 ꒱ synopsis 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒 mike's friends drag him to a party where he plans to be miserable but instead gets cornered by a girl who thinks his cynicism is cute. AKA being yourself works when you least expect it.
THIS COULD HAVE BEEN A CAMPAIGN NIGHT.
that's the only coherent thought mike can scrape together as he stands in the corner of stacey albright's living room, which has transformed into a sweaty mass of bodies he vaguely recognizes from the hallways of hawkins high. former hallways, because they graduated. they're done. free. except mike doesn't feel free, he feels like he's been dragged to some kind of social purgatory where the music is too loud, the air smells like beer and cologne, and everyone is acting like this is the best night of their lives.
he had it all planned out. the final session before summer, before everything inevitably shifts and changes again because that's what life does—it shifts and changes and rips things apart. had the maps drawn, the NPCs fully fleshed out, the plot twist that would've made dustin actually scream. it was going to be perfect. epic. the kind of session they'd talk about for years.
instead, he's here. at stacey albright's house. stacey albright. the same stacey albright who looked at dustin like he was something she'd scraped off her shoe at the snow ball, who said no thanks with that specific tone that managed to be both pitying and disgusted. somehow that made dustin want to come here even more. "full circle, mike." dustin had said, grinning like an idiot as they'd stood in the school parking lot after the ceremony, still wearing those stupid orange polyester gowns. "don't you see? 8th grade, she rejected me. senior year, she invites us to a party. it's poetic."
"it's not poetic, it's pity!" mike had argued, already knowing he'd lost this battle. "it's not personal. she probably doesn't even remember—"
"I remember." dustin had cut in, and that was that.
even will had sided with him. will. his supposed best friend, who was supposed to understand that mike needed the normalcy of dice and character sheets and pretending to be someone else for a few hours. but no, will had gotten that look, that soft, hopeful look that mike can never say no to, and said, "it might be fun? we never really did the whole... party thing."
because they were the freaks. the nerds. the kids who saved the world multiple times and got exactly zero recognition for it because that's how secret apocalypses work—you save everyone and then you go back to being nobody, except now you're nobody with trauma and PTSD and the weird social stigma of hanging out in the hellfire club. lucas had been the tipping point. "come on, man. let's just... i don't know. see what it's like?"
see what it's like. as if they don't know exactly what it's like. it's like this: loud, crowded, fake. everyone pretending they're having the time of their lives, everyone performing some version of themselves that's been constructed to seem cool, or chill, or whatever the acceptable social currency is these days.
mike takes one sip of the warm beer someone shoved into his hand—he doesn't even know who, some guy from his english class maybe—and immediately regrets it. it tastes like carbonated piss. he's pretty sure it is carbonated piss. why do people drink this? why is this considered fun? okay, fuck this, he's not drinking it. he tried one sip—one—and wanted to gag. now he's just holding the can because apparently standing at a party without a drink in your hand makes you look like a narc or a loser or both. so he's got this prop beer, getting warmer by the second, and he's basically a statue in the corner of stacey albright's living room watching everyone else get progressively stupider.
and they are getting stupider. that's not even mike being judgmental—okay, it's totally mike being judgmental, but he's also right. every ten minutes someone gets louder, sloppier, more willing to laugh at jokes that aren't funny and dance to music that sounds like someone's having a seizure on a synthesizer. this is what we're supposed to want? mike thinks, watching some guy from his chemistry class try to do a handstand and immediately eat shit into the coffee table. everyone laughs like it's the funniest thing they've ever seen. the guy's bleeding from his eyebrow. no one seems to care.
the worst part is that his friends have abandoned him. lucas disappeared maybe twenty minutes in, got absorbed into a cluster of basketball guys near the kitchen. which, fine, makes sense. lucas actually has a life outside their little group, actually managed to be normal somehow, figured out how to balance being a jock and being their friend. mike doesn't resent it. (he does. a little.) but lucas is over there doing some complicated handshake thing, and he looks happy, genuinely happy, and mike is—
mike is here. in the corner. holding a beer he's not drinking, feeling like an anthropologist studying a foreign culture. lucas has always been good at this stuff, at fitting in, at being whoever he needs to be for whatever situation. will, though. will. that's the betrayal that's really got mike's brain spinning in uncomfortable circles. will—will—is currently standing near the drink table, red solo cup in hand, actually drinking from it, and he's smiling. not his nervous smile, not his uncomfortable i-don't-want-to-be-here smile. his real smile, the one that crinkles his eyes and makes his whole face light up, and he's talking to some guy from art class, and he's laughing, and when did will become someone who goes to parties and drinks and talks to guys?
since when does will drink? since when does will look comfortable doing it?
mike feels surprise twist in his stomach, because will was supposed to be on his side about this. will was supposed to hate parties just as much as mike does. they were supposed to be the awkward ones together, counting down the minutes until they could leave. instead will's on his second drink, and he's doing this thing where he laughs and touches the guy’s arm, and woah when did will learn to flirt? when did will become the kind of person who wants to flirt?
maybe it started after everything. maybe almost dying multiple times makes you want to live a little. maybe i'm the weird one for still wanting to hide in basements and pretend to be elves.
mike shakes his head. no. no, he's not the weird one. everyone else is weird. everyone else is playing pretend just as much as he does during campaigns, except their version involves alcohol and loud music and pretending they like each other.
"you okay man?"
dustin. right. dustin's still here, standing next to him, looking at him with that concerned expression that makes mike feel like even more of a freak.
"fine." mike answers, which is obviously a lie, but what's he supposed to say? no, actually, i'm having an existential crisis?
dustin shifts his weight, looks out at the party, then back at mike. he's doing that thing where he's trying to figure out how to escape without being rude about it. mike can read it all over his face: the guilt, the obligation, the desperate desire to go experience the party instead of babysitting his miserable friend in the corner. "you can go." mike says, because he's not going to be the pathetic guy who makes his friends stay with him out of pity.
"what? no, i'm good here—"
"dustin. just go."
"i'm not—" dustin starts, but then someone calls his name from across the room, and his head whips around so fast mike's surprised he doesn't get whiplash. it's some of the band kids, waving him over. "i mean, i could just go say hi for a minute—"
"go."
dustin hesitates for exactly half a second before he's gone, practically tripping over his own feet in his excitement to join the group, and then mike's alone. truly, completely alone. in a room full of people, and he's never felt more isolated in his life. he takes another pretend sip of his beer—just brings it to his lips without actually drinking, because he's committed to this charade apparently—and lets his eyes drift around the room, judging people, because if he can't enjoy himself, he might as well enjoy tearing everything else apart in his head.
there's jenny morrison from english, already drunk enough that she's swaying to music that doesn't have a beat. there's brad whatever-his-last-name-is doing shots in the kitchen and definitely going to puke in the next hour. there's a couple making out on the couch with such aggressive intensity that mike's pretty sure they're trying to consume each other's faces.
this is it. this is what we're supposed to want. this is the pinnacle of the high school experience.
mike's never felt more separate from the rest of humanity. it's like there's a glass wall between him and everyone else, and they're all on the other side having the time of their lives, and he's just—watching. always watching. never participating, never fitting in. he doesn't even want to fit in. he just wants—
he doesn't know what he wants.
nothing's simple anymore. nothing's been simple since—-since when? since the upside down? since they were twelve? or has it never been simple, and mike's just been pretending it was? someone cranks the music louder and mike winces. his beer is definitely warm now, probably flat too. he wants to get out of here, except he can't leave because they all came here together, and there's no way lucas is leaving anytime soon, and will's clearly having the time of his life discovering alcohol and socialization, and dustin's probably already making friends with half the party, because dustin's like that, he can talk to anyone about anything and make them think it's the most fascinating conversation they've ever had if they give him a chance.
so mike's stuck. trapped. in social hell. he shifts his weight, then regrets it because now he's in a slightly different uncomfortable position and his back is against the wall at a weird angle. perfect. this is fine. everything is fine.
it's not fine. nothing about this is fine. nothing about any of this makes sense. why is this fun? why do people actively choose to do this? spend their weekend nights crammed into someone's house that's too small for this many people, drinking liquid garbage, yelling over music that's too loud, pretending they're having profound moments of connection when really they're just drunk and won't remember any of this tomorrow? mike watches some girl—amy? ashley? something with an A—nearly trip over the rug and spill her drink all over herself. her friends shriek with laughter and she's laughing too, like getting drenched in cheap vodka is peak comedy. it's not. it's just sad. and sticky. and she's going to reek tomorrow and probably have a headache and for what? for this? for the experience?
fuck the experience.
that's what everyone always says, right? you have to experience things. you have to live. you have to make memories. except mike has memories. he's got plenty of memories, thanks. most of them involve nearly dying or watching his friends nearly die or dealing with interdimensional monsters. he doesn't need to add "got drunk at stacey albright's house" to the highlight reel.
the alcohol thing drives him insane. everyone acts like it's some magical elixir that makes life better, makes you funnier, makes you more interesting. it doesn't. it just makes you sloppy and stupid and willing to do things you'll regret. mike learned that from one sip. one sip of that disgusting beer and his immediate thought was why would anyone do this voluntarily? followed by oh god, is this what my parents do every night after dinner?
the thought of turning into his parents—sitting in the living room with a glass of wine, pretending everything's fine, letting the alcohol smooth over their failing marriage—makes mike's skin crawl.
no thanks. he'll stay sober. he'll stay miserable and sober and judgmental in his corner, watching everyone else make fools of themselves.
someone bumps into him again, the third time in the last ten minutes, and mike doesn't even bother looking to see who it was. just clutches his prop beer tighter and tries to make himself even smaller, which is impossible because he's lankier than ever, all elbows and knees and awkward height that he never asked for. i should just leave. i could walk home, it's not that far. maybe like five miles? six? i could be home in an hour and a half, two hours tops. i could be in my basement. i could be—
okay. okay, no. walking home is pathetic. even for mike wheeler's current standards of pathetic, walking home alone from a party is a new low. he's miserable, not that miserable.
yet.
fine. new plan. he'll just—get a snack or something. at least that way he's doing something, looks like he isn't just standing in the corner like some kind of depressed lamp. plus he hasn't eaten since this morning and his stomach is starting to make these concerning noises that he really doesn't want anyone to hear over the music. mike pushes off the wall, regrets the decision because now he has to navigate through the crowd, has to actually move through the mass of bodies instead of observing from a safe distance. he clutches his beer and starts weaving through people, muttering "excuse me" and "sorry" even though no one can hear him and no one cares.
the kitchen. he just needs to make it to the kitchen. stacey's parents probably have normal food. chips. pretzels. something that isn't alcohol-based. he's almost there, can see the doorway to the kitchen, the promised land of snacks, when someone slams into him from the side.
no, wait. he slams into someone. he's the one who wasn't looking where he was going because he was too busy plotting his route.
"oh, shit—sorry, i—"
he looks up.
oh no.
it's you, because the universe has decided that mike's night needs to get even worse, even more socially mortifying. you're at the snack table—well, near the snack table, because mike just crashed into you like some kind of uncoordinated driver, and you're looking at him. you're smiling. why are you smiling? people don't smile at mike wheeler, they tolerate him. they ignore him. they definitely don't smile at him. his brain does the thing again where it tries to compile a list of everything he knows about you, like he's building a character sheet:
name: [he knows it, obviously, everyone knows it]
class: cheerleader (high charisma, low—no, that's not fair, he doesn't actually know—)
social status: popular, like actually popular, not fake popular
threat level: unknown
likely to mock him: ???
"sorry." mike says again, because apparently that's the only word his brain can access right now. he takes a step back, tries to put some distance between you, except the kitchen is crowded and there's nowhere to go. he's trapped. this is fine.
you laugh. "you're good." you say, and your voice is—friendly?
mike blinks, tries to formulate a response that doesn't make him sound like a complete idiot, and fails. "uh. yeah. i guess. i was just—" he gestures at the table, at the chips and pretzels and various bowls of things that might be food. "hungry."
you don't seem bothered by his complete lack of social skills. you just grin and reach for a bowl of chips. "same," you say, and then you lean in, like you're about to share a secret, and mike's heart does something weird and arrhythmic in his chest. "but like, you have to keep this between us, okay? i'm supposed to be on this whole diet thing. coach is all about 'optimal performance' and 'clean eating' or whatever."
you roll your eyes as you say it, grab a handful of chips anyway, and pop one in your mouth like you're committing some kind of rebellious act.
mike has no idea what to do. on one hand, you're being nice to him. you're talking to him like he's a normal person, you're being friendly. on the other hand, you just said you're on a diet because your coach wants you to be. you just reduced yourself to "optimal performance" like you're some kind of machine. and you said it like it's normal, like it's just something you accept, like you don't see how completely fucked up it is that someone gets to tell you what to eat and how to look and—
mike's brain is already cataloging this into his mental list of reasons why conformity is garbage and popular kids are victims of the system even if they don't realize it. "that's—" he starts, then stops, because what's he supposed to say? that's fucked up, you shouldn't have to diet, diet culture is toxic and you're literally fine the way you are? he can't say that. he doesn't even know you. and you'd probably think he was being weird. or creepy. or both. so instead he says: "yeah. secret's safe."
don't fall for it. popular people are nice right up until they're not, this is probably some elaborate setup. someone probably dared her to talk to the freak. probably—
"so," you say, interrupting his internal spiral, "you having fun?"
the way you say it—there's something in your tone, like maybe you already know the answer, like maybe you can tell that mike is having the opposite of fun, that he's currently in his own personal hell. mike looks down at his beer. his warm, flat, undrunk beer. "sure," he lies. "it's great. super fun. love parties."
you laugh, and it's this light sound that somehow cuts through the bass-heavy music thumping from the living room. "wow, that was so convincing. you should try out for drama club next year. oh wait—"
"we graduated." mike finishes flatly.
"we did." you grab another chip, studying him with this look that makes mike want to crawl out of his skin. "you were in hellfire club, right? i remember seeing the matching shirts. very… committed to the aesthetic."
oh god. of course you remember the shirts. everyone remembers the shirts, and now this cheerleader is standing here remembering him specifically for his devil-horned matching club shirt. "yeah," mike replies, because what else is he supposed to say? deny it? "that was me. living the dream."
"i thought it was cool." you say, and mike's bullshit detector goes off immediately because no you didn't, nobody thought it was cool. it was objectively not cool. that was kind of the whole point.
"sure you did."
the words come out more hostile than he meant them to, and mike watches your eyebrows raise, but you don't seem offended. you just tilt your head. "what's your name?"
"what?"
"your name. i've definitely seen you around, but i don't actually know your name."
mike can't decide if that's better or worse. on one hand, it means you're not here on some specific mission to mock mike wheeler, social pariah. on the other hand, it means he's so far beneath your notice that you've never even bothered to learn his name despite four years in the same school. "mike," he says. "wheeler."
"nice to meet you, mike. i'm—"
"i know who you are," mike interrupts, then wants to punch himself because that sounded way creepier than intended. "i mean—everyone knows. you're a cheerleader. so. yeah."
smooth. so smooth.
you laugh again, but this time there's something different in it, something that might be self-deprecating? "right. the cheerleader. that's me."
and okay, mike doesn't know what to do with that either, because you said it with this hint of something that almost sounds like resentment, that doesn't fit with mike's worldview of popular kids who love their lives and never question anything. he shifts his weight, still clutching his beer. "so are you, like, still doing that? the cheerleading thing? we graduated."
"yeah, i am," you say, and your whole face lights up. "i cheer for a competitive team outside of school. all-star cheer. we travel for competitions and stuff."
of course you do. of course you're so committed to cheerleading that you do it outside of school. mike doesn't know why this annoys him, but it does. maybe because it's just so perfectly on-brand. so perfectly conformist. "that's... great." mike says, injecting exactly zero enthusiasm into the words.
you either don't notice or don't care about his tone. "it's different from school cheer. more athletic, i guess? we do a lot of stunts and tumbling. it's basically gymnastics set to music. really intense training schedule."
"sounds like a lot of work for—" mike starts, then catches himself.
"for what?" you prompt, grabbing another chip. you're looking at him with this expression that's half-curious, half-challenging, like you actually want to know what judgmental thing he was about to say.
mike takes a breath. don't be an asshole. don't be an asshole. you can not be an asshole for five minutes. "nothing." he mutters.
"no, come on. you clearly have an opinion. let's hear it." you're still smiling, but there's something underneath it now, like you know exactly what mike thinks of cheerleading and you're daring him to say it out loud.
mike looks at you, and he's trying to figure out if this is a trap. if you're setting him up for something. if in two minutes your cheerleader friends are going to appear out of nowhere and laugh at the freak who thought he could have a real conversation with someone like you, but you're just standing there, eating chips you're not supposed to eat, waiting for him to answer.
fuck it.
"i was gonna say it sounds like a lot of work for something that's basically about looking perfect and performing for other people.”
there's a beat of silence. mike braces himself for you to get offended, to storm off, to prove him right about popular kids not being able to handle criticism. instead, you laugh, but it's not a nice laugh. it's a challenging laugh. "wow, that's a pretty strong opinion from someone who's been standing in the corner alone at a party for the last hour."
"what—"
"you don't seem like you're having much fun performing for other people right now either. but here you are."
oh.
mike doesn't know what to say because people don't usually fight back. they either agree with him to avoid conflict or they write him off as an asshole and leave, but you're standing here, eating your contraband chips, looking at him like you're actually ready for this debate. "that's different," mike argues, scrambling. "i'm not—this isn't a performance. i'm just existing."
"are you though?" you tilt your head. "from where i'm standing, you've got that whole 'i'm too cool for this party' vibe going on. the corner position, the general air of superiority. that's a performance, mike wheeler."
his name sounds weird coming from your mouth. too familiar, like you've known him longer than five minutes. "i'm not performing," mike insists, even though there's a uncomfortable squirm in his gut that says maybe you're right. "i hate parties. this isn't an act."
"okay, fine. so you're genuinely miserable. but you're still here, letting other people see you be miserable, which means on some level you care what they think. otherwise you'd be home. but you're not."
mike opens his mouth. closes it. opens it again.
"that's—that's not the same thing as cheerleading."
"isn't it?" you're grinning now, like you're enjoying this. "you just said cheerleading is about performing for other people. what do you think social interaction is? we're all performing all the time. you, me, everyone at this party. the only difference is i'm honest about it."
"that's not—" mike's brain is trying to formulate a counterargument but you're not giving him time to breathe.
"and another thing," you say, stepping closer, and mike can smell your shampoo or perfume or whatever, something that cuts through the party smell of beer and sweat. "what evidence do you have that cheerleading is just about looking perfect? have you ever actually talked to a cheerleader? like, a real conversation, not just making assumptions from across the cafeteria?"
"i—no, but—"
"so you're basing your entire worldview on stereotypes. cool. very intellectual of you."
"it's not stereotypes if it's true!" mike argues, feeling himself getting defensive, feeling himself getting engaged in a way he hasn't been all night. "i've seen cheerleaders. i go to the same school. you guys are all about the perfect hair and the perfect smile and the—the coordinated clapping—"
"coordinated clapping? oh my god. you think that's what we do? just stand there and clap?"
"i mean—"
"mike, have you ever actually watched a cheer routine? like actually paid attention?"
"why would i?"
"exactly!" you throw your hands up. "you've never watched, never asked, never tried to understand, but you've got it all figured out. must be nice, having all the answers."
okay, that stings. that stings because it sounds like something will would say when mike's being particularly stubborn about something.
"i don't need to watch to know that it's—it's performative. it's about conforming to beauty standards and supporting sports that actually matter and—"
"sports that actually matter?" your eyebrows shoot up. "oh, we're doing this? okay. so let me get this straight. you think basketball or football matter more than cheer?"
"i think all sports are kind of pointless," mike says, "but at least those ones don't require you to starve yourself to fit into a uniform."
shit. shit. that came out wrong.
you go still. "wow."
"i didn't mean—"
"no, i think you did." but you don't sound angry, you sound thoughtful. "and you're not completely wrong, there's definitely toxic stuff in cheer culture. the diet thing i mentioned? that's real. that's a problem. but that's not what cheer is. that's what some coaches make it."
mike blinks. he wasn't expecting you to agree with him.
"so you admit—"
"i admit that there are issues. but issues exist in everything, mike. your dice club probably has issues too."
"it's not a dice club, it's a storytelling game that requires strategy and—"
"see?" you grin. "you don't like it when people reduce your thing to a stupid stereotype. same concept."
"okay. so what is cheerleading if it's not just performing?"
"it's athletic," you say immediately. "like, seriously athletic. we train as hard as any sports team. harder, maybe. we're lifting people, throwing them in the air, catching them. one wrong move and someone gets seriously hurt. it requires strength, coordination, and trust. it's not just shaking pom poms."
"but you are shaking pom poms."
"sometimes! because they're part of the performance! but that's like saying basketball is just about bouncing a ball. technically true but completely missing the point." he takes a sip of his beer without thinking, immediately regrets it, and grimaces. you notice. "you're not even drinking that."
"it's gross."
"so why are you holding it?"
"i don't know! social camouflage or something!"
"social camouflage. you're performing, mike."
"shut up," mike says, but he's almost smiling. almost. "you're annoying."
"you started it. you're the one who insulted my sport."
"it's not a sport, it's—" mike catches himself when he sees your expression. "okay. i don’t know, maybe it's a sport. i don't know enough about it to have an opinion."
"wow." you put your hand over your heart. "did mike wheeler just admit he was wrong about something?"
"i didn't say i was wrong. i said maybe i don't know enough."
"that's practically a declaration of love in guy-speak."
mike chokes on nothing. "what—no—that's not—"
you're looking at his beer now, this considering look on your face. "you gonna actually drink that?"
mike doesn't know what happens, doesn't know what possesses him. maybe it's the way you're looking at him, half-challenging, half-amused. maybe it's because he's actually having a conversation with someone who isn't afraid to call him on his bullshit. maybe it's because some stupid, idiotic part of his brain wants to impress you. which is insane. he doesn't care about impressing people. especially not cheerleaders. especially not at parties he didn't want to attend. except apparently he does, because he says:, “yeah, actually."
and then, like a complete moron, mike brings the can to his lips and starts drinking. not sipping. drinking, like he's trying to prove something. it tastes like battery acid. his throat wants to close up in protest, but you're watching him with this expression that might be impressed, might be amused, might be something else entirely, and mike's committed now. he's in too deep. he keeps drinking.
he gets through maybe half the can before he has to stop, gasping slightly, trying not to gag. his eyes are watering. he can feel the warmth of the alcohol spreading through his chest and it's not pleasant, it's just wrong. you're grinning at him. "holy shit. you actually did it."
"told you," mike says, and his voice comes out slightly strangled. he coughs. "i can drink beer."
"that was the saddest attempt at drinking beer i've ever seen."
"i drank it!"
"you looked like you were being tortured."
"i wasn't—it's fine—i drink beer all the time—"
"you are a terrible liar. why did you just chug half a can of something you hate?"
mike doesn't have a good answer for that except the mortifying truth which is that he wanted you to think he was cool, which is the most pathetic thing in the world, so instead he deflects. "why do you care?"
"it was kind of cute, honestly." you say it so casually, like that's a normal thing to say. "you were doing so well with the whole cynical intellectual thing and then you just—" you make a gesture that mike thinks is supposed to represent him chugging the beer. "—completely ruined it."
"i didn't ruin anything," mike says defensively, and he can hear how defensive he sounds which makes it worse. "i drink beer all the time. this is totally normal for me."
"really."
"yeah. really. me and the guys, we're always—we drink. at campaigns."
why are you still talking. stop talking. abort mission.
"you drink at dungeons and dragons?"
"yeah," mike doubles down, because apparently he's committed to this absolutely idiotic lie now. "it's very common. enhances the experience. everyone knows that."
"everyone knows that," you repeat, and you're trying not to smile. "you're telling me that you and your friends regularly drink beer while playing a fantasy game in someone's basement."
"yes!"
"and you enjoy the taste of beer."
"love it. can't get enough of it."
"so when you made that face—"
"i didn't make a face."
"you looked like you were going to cry."
"i did not—" mike stops. "okay, this particular beer is shit. but usually i drink, like, the good stuff. craft beer. ipas. you probably haven't heard of them."
you're definitely smiling now. "craft beer. ipas. very sophisticated."
"it is sophisticated. it's an acquired taste."
"clearly you've acquired it, seeing as you just grimaced through half a can of milwaukee's best like you were being waterboarded."
"i wasn't—that was just—" mike's floundering. he knows he's floundering. "the temperature was off. beer is very temperature sensitive."
"is it now."
"yes. the molecular structure—"
"oh, so now we're doing science?" you're taking a step closer, and mike's back is against the counter and he doesn't know when that happened. "you're really committed to this lie, huh?"
"it's not a lie—"
"mike." you say his name soft, and it does something weird to his chest. "you don't have to pretend to like beer to be cool. you're already—" you pause, is that a slight flush on your cheeks? "you're already interesting without the fake beer enthusiasm."
interesting. you said interesting. you think he’s interesting. this is—wait, are you messing with him? you have to be messing with him. "i'm not pretending," mike insists, even though he is, even though you both know he is. "i'm just saying, in general, as a concept, i'm very familiar with alcohol. i partake regularly. i'm normal about alcohol."
"you're normal about alcohol," you repeat. "is that why you've been holding the same can for forty-five minutes?"
"you've been watching me for forty-five minutes?"
the words come out before mike can stop them, and shit, that sounded— like something. that sounded like he was accusing you of being interested in him, which is insane. which would never happen.
but you don't deny it. you just shrug, still smiling. "it's a party. not much else to do except people-watch. and you're very watchable when you're being miserable in corners."
"i'm not—i wasn't—" mike's face is hot. this is a nightmare.
"so," you say, grabbing a pretzel and pointing it at him like it's a weapon. "are you going to keep lying about your extensive beer-drinking experience, or are we going to talk about something real?"
"i wasn't lying—"
"mike."
"okay, fine!" he breaks. he can't help it. you're looking at him with this knowing expression and he's too tired to keep up the charade. "fine. i hate beer. i think it tastes like someone liquidized a dumpster. i don't drink. i've never regularly consumed alcohol in my life. happy now?"
"very," you say, and you're grinning wider than before. "that wasn't so hard, was it?"
"it was humiliating, actually."
"why did you lie?"
mike doesn't want to admit that some stupid part of him wanted to seem cool, to seem like the kind of person who goes to parties and drinks beer and fits in. "i don't know," he mutters, looking away. "stupid reflex. guy thing. trying not to look like a loser."
"you think not drinking makes you a loser?"
"i think everything about me makes me a loser by normal high school standards."
"that's kind of sad. that you think that."
"it's realistic."
"it's bullshit. you're not a loser, mike. you're just different from the people here. that's not the same thing. plus," you continue, grabbing another chip, "i think it's kind of cool that you don't drink."
"you think me being a straight-edge nerd is cool."
"i think you doing your own thing instead of pretending to be someone you're not is cool. even if you did just spend five minutes insisting you love beer."
"i panicked."
"clearly." you're smiling again, softer this time. "but you owned up to it. that's something."
"you're weird.”
you laugh, and mike realizes with creeping horror that he likes the sound of it. likes the way your whole face lights up. likes that you're still here, talking to him, treating him like a person instead of a social pariah. fuck. this is bad. he cannot be developing a thing for a cheerleader at a party. "so," you say, there's this look in your eyes that makes mike's stomach do something twisty. "you should tell me about your campaigns—"
"MIKE!"
oh god. that's dustin's panic voice, which is different from his normal voice in that it's somehow even more high-pitched and frantic.
mike turns to see dustin pushing through the crowd, looking distressed. his hair is a mess—more than usual—and he's got this wild expression that immediately sets off alarm bells.
"what? what happened?"
"dude." dustin grabs mike's arm. "will is shitfaced."
"what?"
"will. byers. is drunk off his ass and trying to explain the philosophical implications of you know what to some girl from calc who looks terrified and i think he might puke and if we bring him home like this joyce is going to murder us. like actually murder us. we need to go. now."
will? will? the same will who was supposed to be on mike's side about hating parties? the will who apparently discovered alcohol tonight and decided to become a completely different person? "how drunk is he?"
"he just tried to climb onto the coffee table. lucas is currently holding him back. we need to go, mike."
"shit. okay—" mike turns back to you, and you're watching this whole exchange with barely concealed amusement. "i have to—"
"go save your drunk friend from himself," you finish. "i gathered that."
"yeah. sorry. this is—" mike gestures vaguely at the chaos that is apparently his life. "this is my life, i guess."
"seems eventful."
"it's a nightmare."
dustin is literally bouncing on his heels now. "mike, we don't have time for—" he looks at you, seems to register who mike's been talking to, and his eyes go wide. "holy shit, are you—"
"go," mike says to dustin. "i'll be right there. two seconds."
"we don't have two seconds—"
"dustin. two seconds."
dustin looks between mike and you, and something like understanding crosses his face. "oh. oh. okay. yeah. two seconds. but then we really need to—" he's already backing away, pointing at mike. "two seconds!"
then he's gone, swallowed back into the crowd, leaving mike alone with you. well. alone in the sense that there are still fifty other people around them, but it feels alone. it feels like the party has narrowed down to just this kitchen, just this moment, just you looking at him with that expression that mike still can't read. "you should probably go." you say.
"yeah. probably."
but mike doesn't move, and neither do you. "your friends seem fun." you try.
"they're a disaster. all of them."
"birds of a feather."
"are you calling me a disaster?"
"i'm calling you interesting. i feel like we've established this." you're smiling, but there's something different about it now, something almost nervous, which doesn't make sense because you're you and mike is—mike. you take a step closer, and then another, and suddenly you're in his personal space again and mike's brain is short-circuiting for the third time tonight. "hey, wheeler."
"yeah?"
"you should take me out sometime."
"what?"
"you. should take me. out. sometime." you say it slow, like you're explaining something very simple to someone very stupid. "like on a date."
"like—" mike's voice cracks. "like on a date?"
"yes, mike. a date. that thing where two people who find each other interesting hang out intentionally. usually involves food or an activity. sometimes both."
"i—you—what?"
"yes or no, wheeler. it's not a complicated question."
"but you're—and i'm—" mike's brain is actively melting. "we just met. you don't even know me. you probably have a boyfriend. you're a cheerleader. i'm—i'm me."
"i don't have a boyfriend," you say. "and i know enough. i know you're kind of judgmental and terrible at lying and you pretend to hate everything but you're actually passionate about stuff which is—" you pause, and yeah, that's definitely a flush on your cheeks now. "it's kind of cute. you're kind of cute. and interesting. and i want to snatch you up before some other girl realizes it."
mike makes a sound. it's not a word. it's barely human. it's just—a sound.
"so?" you prompt. "yes or no?"
"i—yes? yes. obviously yes. why would i—yes."
smooth, wheeler. really eloquent.
you're grinning now, full-force, and mike thinks he might be having a heart attack. or a stroke. or both simultaneously. "good," you say, and then you lean in and press a kiss to his cheek. it's quick. barely a second. just your lips against his skin, soft and warm and over before mike's brain can catch up to what's happening, but it happened. it definitely happened. mike can feel the ghost of it, can feel the heat spreading across his face, can feel his entire nervous system going haywire. "we'll figure out the details."
"i—okay. yeah. i can do that."
"MIKE!" dustin's voice again, more desperate now.
"you should probably—" you gesture.
"right. yeah. going." mike takes a step back, nearly trips over his own feet, then catches himself. "this was—this is—"
"it was nice talking to you, wheeler."
"you too. i mean—yeah. nice. talking. i'm going now."
then mike's turning, pushing through the crowd, his face burning, his mind reeling, and he can still feel where your lips touched his cheek and what the fuck just happened?
between the three of them they manage to maneuver will toward the door. he's not fighting them exactly, but he's also not helping, just kind of floating along while providing running commentary on everything they pass. they get him outside and the cool night air seems to hit will all at once. he sways, blinks, looks around like he's just waking up. "oh no," he says.
"oh no what?" dustin asks.
"i think i'm drunk."
"yeah, buddy. we know."
"my mom is gonna kill me."
"yeah, that's why we're getting you out of here," mike says, and he's trying to focus on the will situation but his brain keeps short-circuiting back to you kissing his cheek—
"we need to call steve," dustin says, looking around. "is there a phone in there we can use?"
"probably in the kitchen somewhere," lucas says. "but i'm not leaving will out here alone.“
"i'll go." mike volunteers, already turning back toward the house.
"wheeler!" mike turns to see you jogging over from the front door, slightly out of breath, and his heart does something that should probably require medical attention. "hey, you forgot this."
you hold out his jacket, which he didn't even realize he'd forgotten, because apparently being asked out by a cheerleader makes him forget basic object permanence. "oh. uh. thanks."
"no problem." you glance at will, who's currently leaning heavily on lucas and looking a bit green. "your friend okay?"
"he discovered alcohol tonight," mike says. "it's a whole thing."
"been there." you look back at mike, and there's this moment where you're just looking at each other. you smile one more time, then head back inside, and mike is left standing there holding his jacket, his face burning.
"dude," dustin hisses. "what was THAT?"
"i don't know."
"guys," lucas interrupts. "this is great, really, but will is about to puke on my shoes, so can we maybe celebrate mike's romantic breakthrough after we deal with that?"
right. will. drunk will. mike shakes his head, trying to clear it, and heads back inside to find a phone. he has to ask three different people before someone points him to the phone in the hallway. he dials steve's number—memorized from the hundreds of times dustin has made him call to check if steve can drive them somewhere—and waits. steve picks up on the third ring, sounding slightly annoyed. "harrington residence."
"steve? it's mike. we need a ride. will's drunk. we're at stacey albright's party."
there's a long pause. "will byers is drunk?"
"very drunk.“
"jesus christ." but steve sounds more amused than angry. "yeah, okay. i'll be there in ten. where are you?"
mike gives him the address. "thanks, steve."
"yeah, yeah. tell dustin he owes me."
"tell dustin yourself."
"fair point. be there soon."
mike hangs up and heads back outside where lucas and dustin are still trying to keep will upright. "steve's coming." mike announces.
"thank god." lucas mutters.
they wait on the curb. will alternates between seeming almost sober and then suddenly announcing things like "the nature of existence is fundamentally absurd" to no one in particular. mike keeps touching his cheek. dustin keeps giving him looks. lucas keeps sighing. steve shows up in exactly nine minutes, pulling up to the curb with this long-suffering expression that mike recognizes from every time steve has had to parent them over the past few years. "alright," steve says, getting out. "let's see the damage."
will looks up when steve approaches. "steve harrington," will says solemnly. "you have really nice hair."
steve looks at mike. "how much did he drink?"
"we don't know. we lost track of him for like an hour."
"fantastic." steve crouches down next to will. "hey, buddy. let's get you in the car, okay?"
they manage to pour will into the backseat. mike and lucas climbs in next to him while dustin takes the front, and steve starts driving. "we can't take him home like this," dustin says. "joyce will murder all of us."
"also jonathan," lucas adds. "jonathan will definitely help with the murdering."
"so what's the plan?" steve asks. "we driving around until he sobers up?"
mike's about to agree when will suddenly lurches forward and mumbles: "gonna puke."
"WINDOW! WINDOW!" steve swerves to pull over, and they barely get the door open in time before will is leaning out and emptying the contents of his stomach onto the side of the road. it's disgusting, and mike can't help but think: this is what people think is fun. this is the party experience everyone raves about. except he also got asked out tonight. he also had an actual interesting conversation with someone. he also got kissed on the cheek and his face still feels warm where your lips touched and—
maybe parties aren't entirely terrible?
no, that's insane. one good interaction doesn't negate the fact that parties are crowded and everyone drinks garbage and people vomit on roadsides. this is still a nightmare scenario.
but.
"you good, will?" steve is asking, rubbing will's back in a way that's surprisingly gentle.
"m'good," will mumbles. "m'sorry."
"don't apologize to me, apologize to the road."
will leans back in, looking pale and miserable, and mike hands him a napkin from the glove compartment that steve apparently keeps for exactly this kind of situation. "thanks," will mumbles, then leans his head on mike's shoulder. "mike?"
"yeah?"
"did you have fun tonight?"
the question catches mike off guard. he looks down at will, who's looking up at him with bleary, unfocused eyes. "i—yeah. actually. kind of."
"good," will says, already closing his eyes. "'m glad."
steve catches his eye in the rearview mirror. "so. good party?"
"don't."
"did something happen? you seem weird. weirder than normal."
dustin twists around in his seat, grinning like a maniac. "oh, something happened. mike got asked out by a CHEERLEADER."
"dustin, i swear to god—"
"WHEELER." steve actually sounds impressed. "seriously?"
"it's not a big deal—"
"it's a huge deal!" dustin insists. "she's popular! she asked him out! and then she KISSED HIM!"
"on the cheek," mike mutters. "it was just on the cheek."
"still counts!" lucas chimes in. "that's like, a definite sign of interest."
"a cheerleader, huh?" steve is definitely smiling now. "never thought i'd see the day mike wheeler willingly talked to a cheerleader."
"i didn't willingly—she approached me. i was just standing there."
"standing there with your incredible charisma and winning personality." dustin says sarcastically.
"i was being an asshole, actually. i insulted cheerleading. multiple times."
“and she still asked you out?" steve whistles. "damn, wheeler. maybe being an asshole is your strategy."
"it's not a strategy! i just—i was just being myself and somehow—" mike stops. he was completely himself. cynical, judgmental, terrible at social interaction, definitely not performing or pretending or trying to be cool, and you still asked him out. you said he was interesting because of all that, not in spite of it. what the fuck.
they end up at steve's house because his parents are gone (always gone, mike has learned over the years) and it's the safest place to let will sober up without adult supervision. steve makes coffee—actual coffee, not the instant stuff mike's mom keeps—and puts on some movie. lets them sprawl out in his living room like they're twelve again instead of eighteen and graduated and technically adults. will falls asleep on the couch within twenty minutes, curled up with his head on a throw pillow, looking peaceful and young. "he's gonna have the worst hangover tomorrow." lucas says quietly.
"good," dustin says. "maybe he'll learn his lesson about mysterious party alcohol."
"you say that like you didn't try to shotgun a beer earlier."
"i never said i learned my lesson."
mike is only half-listening. he's staring at nothing. what if you changed your mind? what if it was all some elaborate joke he's too stupid to understand? "you're thinking too loud," steve says. "i can hear your brain melting from here."
"i'm not—"
"you've been touching your face on and off for the last twenty minutes. you're clearly having some kind of crisis."
mike drops his hand from his cheek. "i'm fine."
"you're panicking about the cheerleader."
"i'm not panicking—"
"you're definitely panicking," dustin says. "it's kind of sad to watch, honestly."
"thanks dustin. very supportive." mike looks back at will, passed out on the couch, peaceful and oblivious. then at dustin and lucas, both watching him with varying degrees of amusement and concern. "what if i fuck it up?" mike asks.
"then you fuck it up," steve says. "and life goes on. but you won't know unless you try."
"very philosophical, harrington."
"i contain multitudes."
they end up crashing at steve's—steve's not driving them all home at one in the morning, and anyway they need to keep will here until he's sober enough to sneak back into his house without joyce noticing. mike calls his mom from steve's phone to tell her he's staying at dustin's. dustin calls his mom to say he's at mike's. lucas does the same. it's a tried and true system they've perfected over years of campaigns and sleepovers and general teenage nonsense. mike ends up on the floor with a sleeping bag steve pulled from somewhere, staring at the ceiling, still thinking about your smile and the way you said his name and the fact that he has to actually follow through with this. "hey wheeler," dustin whispers from his spot on the other couch. "you awake?"
"unfortunately."
"you're really gonna do it, right? you're gonna go talk to her?"
"i—yeah. i think so. i mean, she told me to. it would be rude not to."
"it would be chickenshit not to."
"that too."
"good. because if you chicken out after finally having another girl actually interested in you, i'm going to be so pissed."
"noted."
"i mean it mike. this is character development. you can't backslide now."
"i'm not backsliding!"
"she seems cool. like, actually cool. not fake cool."
"yeah," mike says softly. "she does."
"so don't fuck it up."
"extremely helpful advice, dustin. thank you."
“that's what i'm here for."
underneath the anxiety and the overthinking and the general terror, there's something else. excitement. anticipation. the weird fluttery feeling that might actually be hope, because someone looked at mike wheeler—angry, cynical, judgmental mike wheeler who hates parties and conformity and basically everything about normal high school social interaction—and said: i want to know you better.
and for once in his life, mike actually wants that too.
if tonight taught him anything—if this entire bizarre, unexpected, completely insane night taught him anything—it's that maybe, sometimes, the things you think you hate aren't actually that bad. maybe parties aren't entirely evil. maybe cheerleaders aren't all vapid conformists. maybe mike wheeler doesn't have everything figured out after all. maybe that's okay. he falls asleep that night thinking about you. about seeing you again, about what he'll say and how he'll probably mess it up and how you'll probably call him on it and how that actually sounds—good. exciting. worth the terror.
Heyy, no question just wanted to ask if you’re okay? We haven’t heard from you in a long time ☹️🫶🏻
HAIIII IM BACK … so sorry i died 💔
i got very side tracked with other projects and accidentally started neglecting tumblr and turned to ao3 for a second because i was in a bit of a writing drought when it comes to x readers , but im gonn try to feedyou all….
i have no idea whyat fandoms are even active anymore do u guys still want mike and damian content
꒰ 🚲 ꒱ synopsis 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒 trapped with your catastrophically dramatic, fever-warm boyfriend who insists he’s dying. AKA man experiences the common cold and loses all resolve.
MIKE WHEELER IS FAIRLY CERTAIN THIS IS HOW ITS GONNA END.
not in a cool way. not in a saving-the-world way. not even in a tragically noble way. no—this is worse. it involves tissues.
a lot of tissues.
it involves his nose being blocked on one side for reasons current medicine has yet to explain, his throat feeling like it’s been sandpapered every time he swallows, and a headache that pulses like it’s offended by light, sound, and the concept of consciousness.
he’s been sick for three days. three days is not nothing. three days is long enough for something to escalate. three days is long enough for a cold to turn into something else. something that requires bed rest and soup and concerned looks and, potentially, hospitalization. he doesn’t know. he’s not a doctor. that’s kind of the problem.
being sick is the worst thing that has ever happened to him. ever. and yes, he is including everything else. he’s thought it through. extensively. this is worse. he clears his throat experimentally and immediately regrets it when hot pain blooms trailing after the spit. bad idea. noted.
fuck this. he hates being sick. there’s nothing to do. just waiting it out, which feels suspiciously like doing nothing, which mike has never been good at.
waiting implies patience. patience implies acceptance. mike has neither.
he shifts, tangled in blankets that feel simultaneously too heavy and not heavy enough, and sniffles hard enough that his head throbs in retaliation. his nose is completely useless now. fully decorative. he breathes through his mouth and immediately regrets that too because his throat feels swollen and traitorous, like it’s trying to sabotage him from the inside. this is how people die. in their childhood bedrooms. drowning in their own congestion.
there’s a knock at the door before it opens anyway. “michael,” his mom acknowledges him, in that voice. the one that’s soft and worried and hovering already. she’s holding a bowl. steam curls up from it. “i brought soup.”
of course she did.
he makes a noise that is meant to be a protest but comes out more like a congested whine. “i’m fine.” he says automatically, even though nothing about this situation supports that statement. he does not need to eat something. swallowing hurts. also, soup is a scam. soup is what people give you when they want to feel like they’re helping without actually fixing anything. “i had soup earlier.”
she gives him a look, the look that says she knows that’s a lie and is choosing to let it go for now. “you had three spoonfuls. and then you fell asleep.”
he opens his mouth to argue and coughs instead. it starts small and then snowballs, his chest tightening, his throat burning, his eyes watering. by the time it stops he’s lightheaded and furious and very aware of how closely his mom is watching him. she reaches out, reflexive, and he flinches away on instinct. “i’m fine.”
she smooths his hair back anyway, cool hand against his forehead. hovering. he endures it, because pulling away feels like more effort than he has in him right now. “you’re warm.”
“i’m always warm.”
she hums, unconvinced, and presses her lips together like she’s deciding whether to argue or let him have this one. mike can tell which way it’s going immediately. she pulls the thermometer out of her pocket anyway. of course she has one.
“mommmm.”
“open your mouth.”
he considers refusing, how much effort that would take, then opens his mouth. she waits about a minute. his nose drips traitorously and he sniffles, shoulders hunching. his head feels too heavy for his neck.
the thermometer beeps.
“one hundred point four.”
“that’s bad.”
“it’s a low-grade fever.”
“mom, that’s still a fever.”
“you’re sick. you have a cold. possibly the flu. drink some water.”
his throat tightens—he swallows and hisses when the pain flares again, drinking some water out of the bottle his mom hands to him before giving it back. “i don’t feel good.” he says, which feels like the understatement of the century.
“i know.” she says, softening despite herself. she smooths his hair back again, cool fingers against his overheated skin. he hates it and leans into it at the same time.
she gives him a look. the you are being ridiculous look. he hates that look. it feels dismissive, like she’s not taking this seriously enough. “i feel hot,” he insists. “my head is burning.”
“you feel congested,” she corrects. “and tired.”
“and like i’m dying.”
she sighs and sets the thermometer down. “you’re not dying.”
she reaches for the soup again and he scowls at it. “i don’t want soup.”
“you need fluids.”
“i had water.”
“when?”
shit. he draws a blank. three hours ago? yesterday? time has stopped meaning anything.
“…earlier.”
she does not look convinced.
“can my girlfriend come over?” he asks suddenly, because the thought has been circling his brain like a vulture and he’s too tired to keep swatting it away.
“michael—”
“i feel worse. i feel really bad. she could help.”
“she could get sick.”
“i wouldn’t let her,” he argues. “i’d stay over here. she could stay over there. we wouldn’t—” he gestures and starts coughing again. it takes a few seconds longer to stop this time. his mom waits it out, hand hovering uselessly in the air like she’s trying not to smother him with care. when it finally passes, he slumps back, breathing through his mouth, furious and exhausted and dizzy. “see,” he says hoarsely. “that’s bad.”
“that’s why you’re not having visitors.”
“she’s not a visitor, she’s my girlfriend.”
“no, michael.”
his heart breaks.
if he survives this, he deserves some kind of award. at the very least, visitation rights. “i have a fever,” he adds, helpfully. “my head hurts. my throat feels like it’s on fire. i can’t breathe through my nose. i keep coughing like i’m—” he breaks off to cough again, shorter this time but still miserable. “—like that.”
she waits. lets the silence do some of the work. “and you’re telling me,” she says, “that seeing your girlfriend will fix this.”
“not fix,” he corrects. “help.”
“how.”
he frowns. thinking feels like wading through molasses. “she just… does. she knows what to do.”
“what to do about a cold.”
“yeah.”
she arches an eyebrow.
“she’d sit there,” he continues, gesturing toward the empty space beside his bed. “and she wouldn’t keep trying to make me eat soup every five minutes.”
“you need to eat.” she says, done, and folds her arms.
“this is cruel,” he barrels on, voice wavering just a little, and he hates that it does but also notes it as useful. “i could literally be dying and you won’t even let me see my girlfriend.”
“you are not dying.”
“you don’t know that,” he mutters. “people die from the flu.”
“you don’t have the flu.”
“you said possibly.”
she closes her eyes for a second. “i said possibly to get you to drink water.”
betrayal. he shifts in bed, restless, blankets tangling around his legs. he feels hot and cold at the same time, skin prickly, head pounding harder now that he’s been talking so much. his throat hurts worse. his nose drips again. he sniffs and wipes it with the back of his hand, then looks offended by the result. “i just want to see her. for a little bit.”
his mom looks at him. the flushed cheeks, the glassy eyes, the way he’s slumped. the way he’s still fighting anyway, but only once you were mentioned. “michael—”
“i’ll wear a blanket,” he blurts. “like a barrier.”
she blinks. “a blanket.”
“yes. like quarantine.”
“that’s not how that works.”
“i’ll wear two.”
she rubs her temples.
there’s a long pause. his mom studies him like she’s weighing something. he can practically see the internal debate. responsibility versus peace. germs versus sanity. his sanity. her sanity. he waits, breathing shallowly, nose clogged, throat aching, heart pounding with the effort of having made his case. finally, she sighs. deep. defeated.
he perks up a little. “so that’s a yes?”
“i’m not happy about this.”
“that’s fine.”
“she’s not staying long.”
“that’s fine.”
“she’s not getting sick.”
“i won’t let her.”
she points at him. “you are staying in bed.”
“yeah. obviously.” he assures her.
she stares at him for one last moment, then turns toward the door. “i’ll go call her.”
the relief hits him so hard it almost makes him emotional. almost. instead, he slumps back into his pillows with a dramatic exhale. “thank you,” he says weakly, “if i survive this, i’ll remember this.”
she pauses in the doorway. “drink your soup.”
he groans, already exhausted again, but this time it’s different. this time, at least, he’s not dying alone.
you knock softly, because his mom told you to, and because you’re vaguely afraid of waking the dead, or making things worse. or both. when you step into mike’s room he looks up like he’s been waiting the entire time, which he has. obviously. “you’re here..” he says, hoarse and dramatic and very much alive.
he sounds like this is the last thing he’ll ever say. actually, it was almost cinematic. like the final line of a beloved character in a franchise before they die tragically.
you barely have time to put your bag down before he starts talking again. “i’m dying,” he informs you, solemn. “she won’t say it, but i know. i have a fever, my throat is wrecked, and i can’t breathe.”
his mom, standing behind you with a bowl of soup, clears her throat pointedly.
“and,” mike adds, glaring past you at her, “i’m being force-fed.”
“you’re being given soup.” she corrects.
“against my will.”
you glance at the bowl. it’s still steaming. “hi, mike.”
his eyes soften, just a fraction. “hi.” he says back, quieter now. still miserable. “you took forever.”
“i got here as fast as i could.”
“it felt longer,” he mumbles. “i missed you.”
this, apparently, is enough to convince his mom to set the soup down on the nightstand and step back. “he needs to eat,” she tells you, already tired. “and drink water. and rest.”
mike scoffs weakly. “she’s lying to you.”
“i am not.”
“she keeps hovering. and she keeps touching my forehead.”
“because you have a fever.”
“i don’t like it!”
you move closer to the bed, and mike immediately shifts, making room without thinking about it. his hand twitches like it wants to reach for you, then stops halfway, like he’s suddenly remembered he’s supposed to have some dignity. “she made me eat soup already.” he tells you.
she gives you a look. the look of a woman who has been dealing with this for three days straight. “i’ll be downstairs. yell if his fever spikes. or if he collapses. or if he starts being dramatic.”
“i’m not dramatic.”
the door closes.
mike exhales, then he looks at you again, and his face crumples a little. “i feel really bad,” he admits. “everything hurts. my head feels weird. and my throat hurts. and my nose is useless. and every time i cough it feels like my chest is trying to turn itself inside out.”
his eyes flick down to the empty space next to him on the bed, then back up to you. then down again. pointed. “…you don’t have to stand,” he says, carefully casual. “you can— sit. if you want.”
you hesitate. his brows knit together, offended. “i’m not contagious from looking at me.”
“i know that.” you roll your eyes.
“i’m already dying, you can’t make it worse.” he shifts again, clearly uncomfortable, clearly warm, clearly annoyed that you’re still standing.
“i just don’t want to get sick,” you say, reasonable. calm. unfair, apparently.
mike makes a face like that’s the most hurtful thing anyone’s ever said to him. his mouth twists. “so you think i’m gross.”
“i think you have a fever.”
“same thing.” he mutters bitterly.
you sigh, already resigned, and reach for the glass of water on his nightstand. “drink.”
he eyes it suspiciously. “why do you get to boss me around.”
“because i’m the only one you’re not actively arguing with.”
he opens his mouth to protest, then stops. considers this. his shoulders slump. “…fine.” he takes the glass from you with both hands, like it’s heavier than it should be, and takes a careful sip. his throat works as he swallows, face pinching briefly with discomfort. “see?” he whines. “it hurts.”
“drink anyway.”
it seems he got what he wanted. you to be there and validate his misery, and so he does. another sip. then another. slower this time. he’s still frowning, but noticeably less combative. when you take the glass back he doesn’t complain, just watches you set it down. “i don’t know, i guess you’re nicer about it.” he admits.
“about what?”
“everything. she tells me what to do like i’m five.”
“you are acting like you’re five.”
he glares weakly. you step closer without thinking this time and sit down on the edge of the bed. not fully next to him, but close enough that your knee brushes the blanket. you lift a hand and run your fingers gently through his hair, damp with sweat and sticking up in every direction. it’s softer than usual, curls loose and messy. he makes a small sound before he can stop himself and his eyes flutter shut. when he opens his eyes, they’re huge and glossy and absolutely unfair. big, miserable, hopeful. the famous mike wheeler puppy eyes.
“how bad is it?” you ask, gently, already regretting phrasing it like that because mike immediately seizes it as an opportunity to give a full medical report.
“terrible,” he says flatly. “…i mean—obviously.” he coughs once, then groans. “my head is pounding and my throat is like fire.”
“okay, but your fever isn’t that high?”
“it’s high enough! high enough to be concerning! listen, i know my body. i’ve been alive long enough to know that—if i live through this, which i might not—i will be telling stories about this for the rest of my life.”
you roll your eyes. “you’re fine. you’re sick, but you’re fine.”
his shoulders slump a fraction. “…but… you shouldn’t have to deal with this... i’m inconvenient…. i’m warm... i’m a burden…. i cough and sneeze and produce gross fluids….”
“i can handle it.” you say.
he sighs, head falling back into the pillows, eyes half-lidded. “you’re right. you should.”
“okay.” you murmur, hand brushing through his damp, moppy hair again, which earns a tiny, helpless noise somewhere between a whine and a sigh, basking in the fact that you’re here. that you’re not his mom. that you’re not forcing him to eat soup. that someone is giving him this much attention without complaint.
“…how much longer do i have? …before i die?”
you bite back a laugh. “a while. you’re fine.”
he blinks at you slowly, like he’s weighing something important, like the answer to life itself, then his mouth twists. “…a while,” he repeats, skeptical. “you say that now.”
you snort, shifting closer on the bed anyway, because for all his theatrics he looks genuinely wrecked—cheeks flushed, lashes clumped just a little from watery eyes, hair sticking up in damp, defeated angles. he tracks the movement immediately. always does. even half-dead, apparently.
mike wheeler does not like being taken care of. this is a known fact. he hates feeling helpless, hates the implication that he can’t handle himself, hates soup being pushed at him and adults hovering and the whole humiliating production of being sick. you? you’re different. it’s like the perfect excuse to have all of your attention falls right into the palms of his hand.
and he knows it.
“i just feel like if i fall asleep i might not wake up.”
“mike.”
“i’m serious,” he insists weakly. “that’s how it happens. people underestimate these things.”
“you have a cold.”
“a bad cold.”
you reach out, press the back of your fingers to his forehead again, mostly to shut him up. his eyes close like his body just gives up the fight entirely. he leans into the touch without even thinking about it, you can practically see the relief wash through him at being allowed to be miserable out loud.
he stays like that for a second too long for it to be accidental. mike hates this. he hates being seen like this. helpless, sniffling, visibly not okay. he hates the idea of being handled. hates the implication that he needs someone hovering over him, checking his temperature, reminding him to drink water like he’s five years old again. but he doesn’t pull away. if anything, he presses closer, forehead nudging into your fingers. his lashes flutter, and when his eyes open they’re glassy and unfocused and very deliberately fixed on you. “see? i told you.”
you don’t even ask what he means. you just sigh softly, fingers sliding into his hair, and that’s when he really melts. mike wheeler is a sucker for pity. he’d never admit it—not in a million years—but sympathy hits him somewhere deep, somewhere he doesn’t have good defenses for. it makes him feel seen without having to ask. cared for without having to explain himself.
right now? he’s absolutely clocked that you’re giving it freely. it starts subtle. a scoot closer. then another. then suddenly he’s tugging gently at your wrist, like he’s not even sure he’s allowed to ask, but hoping you’ll understand anyway. “can you— .. can you lay down? just— for a minute.”
you hesitate, enough for him to clock it, and his face immediately folds into that look. the one that should be illegal. the one that says i’m sick and i’m fragile and why would you deny a dying man his last wish all at once. “…please.” he adds, quieter.
so you give in. of course you do. the second you settle beside him he moves like he’s been waiting for the cue. he turns onto his side and hooks an arm around your waist, pulls you in with surprising strength for someone who’s supposedly on death’s door. his head tucks against your chest, cheek pressing into you, nose warm through the fabric.
it’s funny how selective mike is about being taken care of. on paper, he’s terrible at it. always has been. he flinches at fussing. bristles when his mom hovers in the doorway with that worried crease between her eyebrows, asking if he needs soup, needs a blanket, needs to lie down. he snaps, insists he’s fine when he’s clearly not, pulls himself upright just to prove a point. he’s spent most of his life being the one who watches, who plans, who stays awake longer than he should just in case something goes wrong. letting himself be the weak one feels wrong. embarrassing. but then there’s this. this very specific exception he never questions.
when he’s sick—really sick, feverish and miserable and stripped of the energy it takes to be defensive—something in him softens. not all the way, but enough. “just for a minute,” like minutes haven’t always turned into hours with him, like he doesn’t already know exactly what he wants. the moment you give in, he takes it.
mike doesn’t think he likes attention. he’d say he doesn’t need it. he’d roll his eyes, scoff, make a joke about being babied. the truth is that he’s a sucker for it. not praise or fuss or a whole room focused on him. he likes this kind. singular. undivided. the kind where someone chooses him and stays. the kind where all the noise drops away and there’s just one person paying attention to the way he breathes, the way he shifts, the way his fingers curl weakly into fabric.
he is, objectively, the most dramatic sick person alive. a sore throat becomes a sign. a fever becomes a warning. his head pounds and suddenly he’s thinking about mortality, about how people don’t take him seriously when he says something’s wrong, about how the last time he ignored a bad feeling the world almost ended. of course he thinks he’s dying. his body feels wrong and his brain has never been great at not spiraling. so he sighs like it costs him something. he closes his eyes longer than necessary. he mutters things like “i think i’m getting worse,” in that quiet, rasped voice that’s just this side of pathetic, like he’s reporting facts instead of fishing. he doesn’t ask for reassurance, but he listens very carefully when it’s given.
his arm tightens around your waist, and then his leg slides forward too, tangling with yours in a way that makes it clear he’s not going anywhere. he’s warm—too warm—heat bleeding through layers, through the thin space between you, all fever and proximity and zero regard for personal space. he noses closer, face pressing fully into your chest now, like if he can’t see you then you definitely can’t tell him to move. his breath is hot and a little uneven where it hits your skin.
he clings. that’s the only word for it. fingers gripping fabric at your side, arm locked around you, legs hooked over yours. every few seconds he shifts, minutely, like he’s trying to get even closer, even though there’s no space left. “mike,” you murmur. “you’re really hot.”
he hums, lazy, muffled. doesn’t lift his head. “i know.”
“no, i mean—” you laugh softly, already doomed. “you’re making me hot.”
“oh. sorry.” he says, dutiful. apologetic in theory.
he does not move.
if anything, he settles more, cheek rubbing against you, arm tightening again, stubborn now. you sigh and let it happen. you could tell him to move. you could point out—again—that he’s basically a walking space heater, that he’s sweating through your shirt, that this is the least hygienic decision either of you could be making right now. you could remind him that he hates being coddled and that if he were lucid and healthy he’d already be apologizing himself into a spiral. but you don’t.
he’s content. genuinely, visibly content in a way you don’t get to see very often. even when he’s relaxed sometimes it’s like he’s waiting for the next thing to go wrong. right now, though, there’s none of that. you card your fingers through his hair once more and he reacts instantly. a quiet noise slips out of him before he can stop it, low and pleased, and his forehead presses more firmly into you like he’s trying to disappear there.
there’s something almost funny about it. this is the same guy who gets embarrassed when people fuss over him, who bristles when anyone implies he can’t handle something on his own. the same guy who insists he’s fine right up until he’s very clearly not. with you, he doesn’t bother pretending. maybe because he doesn’t have to explain himself. maybe because he knows you won’t make a big deal out of it. maybe because pity, when it’s gentle, feels less like a weakness and more like permission to be soft. “you okay?” you ask, mostly rhetorical.
he nods against you, the movement small and sleepy. “mhm.” another pause. “don’t stop.”
you don’t. you trace patterns along his scalp, and he relaxes more with every pass, weight sinking into you. his leg stays hooked over yours, anchoring you there just as much as his arm around your waist does. you think about how you’re definitely going to regret this later. about germs and fevers and the fact that he’s been coughing directly into your personal space for the better part of an hour. you think about how you absolutely do not care.
this is rare. mike letting himself be held without making it weird or pulling away at the last second. mike choosing comfort over pride. eventually, his breathing evens out completely. not asleep—he’s not that lucky—but hovering somewhere close, eyes closed, face slack, body heavy with exhaustion and relief. he shifts once, nose nudging into you, and mumbles something unintelligible that sounds suspiciously like your name.
you smile and stay like that for a long time. long enough that your arm starts to ache a little. long enough that you’re pretty sure he’s stealing your body heat and replacing it with whatever plague he’s carrying. worth it.
a few days later, when your throat is scratchy and your head feels suspiciously warm and mike—fully recovered and unbearably smug—hands you a glass of water and goes, “wow. that’s crazy. wonder how that happened.”
you glare at him over the rim.
he grins, unapologetic.
you’d do it again.
based off the first request !
A/N: HI MY LOVELIES. quick little soft!mike blurb i hope this wasn’t too ooc… i got this ask yesterday but i actually had this exact plot in the drafts already so this was perfect.. sorry for the small disappearance !! i missed u all mwa mwas . ALSO??? the amount of love im getting for my mike fics guys THANK YOU!!!! i’m literally him you don’t get it 😭✌️. i’m so happy you’re enjoying my characterization he’s my evil son and i hate him (he deserves the world)
꒰ 🚲 ꒱ synopsis 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒 exhaustion drives you to hide from the world, but mike always insists on keeping you company. AKA emotional support boyfriend refuses to disengage.
FUCK HIGH SCHOOL. AND CRAWLS. AND THE MILITARY. AND EVERYTHING ELSE IN HAWKINS THAT THOUGHT IT COULD EXIST AND MAKE YOUR LIFE MISERABLE.
you hadn’t slept properly in days. maybe a week. assignments were stacked on your desk like tiny monuments to suffering, essays that demanded “thoughtful reflection,” worksheets that would have been easier if someone had taught you how to be a functioning human, and a pile of notes from math that made less sense the more exhausted you got. the crawls didn’t help. late nights creeping through, maps scribbled on scraps of paper, pretending you weren’t being watched by soldiers patrolling the streets like hawkins had become some dystopian experiment nobody asked for. curfews were real, and somehow, everything was still due tomorrow.
your eyes itched from lack of sleep. your fingers were raw from holding pencils and repeated paper folding. you could feel every bruise, every scrape, every tiny nick you’d acquired sneaking past what were definitely very alert, armed patrols on the east side of town, and while you were technically still a civilian and couldn’t do much yourself, there was a looming threat of… well, something. you weren’t sure what the military would do if they caught you wandering past checkpoints, but you were pretty sure it wouldn’t be “write a warning.”
yet somehow, against all odds, you still had to appear like a functioning human in school. participate in discussions, raise your hand, pretend you cared about someone else’s essay about… about what? why anyone would dedicate brainpower to shakespeare when the world was just split into four is beyond you. still, you sit still, follow instructions, don’t fall asleep mid-lecture. keep your grades up. keep your GPA intact. smile politely when teachers asked if everything was okay. everything was not okay.
though, you were getting really good at pretending it was. you learned the exact way to tilt your head when a teacher asked, concerned, but not concerned-concerned. the tone that said tired teenager, not potential liability. you mastered the non-answer answers. yeah, just a lot going on. end of the year stress, you know? haven’t been sleeping great. all technically true.
you stopped sitting with the party at lunch. not all at once, that would’ve been noticeable. you just started drifting. sometimes you “had to finish something.” sometimes you weren’t hungry. sometimes you showed up late enough that the seats were already filled and it felt easier to hover for a second, crack a joke, then bail. you told yourself it didn’t count as avoiding if you still waved from across the cafeteria.
max was still in the hospital and that alone made everything feel wrong, like being tired was somehow disrespectful when she was unconscious and fighting for something you couldn’t see. you didn’t know how to exist around that kind of absence, so you didn’t try very hard. you started going home instead. home meant silence. you could drop your bag, stare at the wall, let your brain run in useless circles without anyone trying to fix you or joke you out of it or look at you like you were about to break. you didn’t want comfort. you wanted nothing. a pause. a blank screen.
you had started pulling away from people, not intentionally, but because it was impossible to keep up. social interaction required energy you no longer had. homework required energy you no longer had. staying alive in hawkins required energy you no longer had.
you loved them. all of them. but loving them took effort, and you were running on fumes. every interaction felt like borrowing energy you didn’t have. you needed a break before you snapped at someone who didn’t deserve it. before the wrong thing slipped out. before you said fuck hawkins out loud and meant fuck everything we survived together. so you pulled back. you told yourself this was temporary. that once the crawls slowed down, once the military presence eased, once school stopped pretending deadlines mattered more than survival, you’d come back. you’d sit at the table again. you’d laugh at the jokes. you’d let mike kiss your temple and ask if you were okay and you’d say yeah and maybe even mean it.
then one afternoon—after a day that wasn’t worse than the others, just heavier—you realized you couldn’t keep holding it by yourself. if you didn’t talk to someone you were going to collapse on yourself and stay that way.
nancy wheeler was the obvious choice to you. not because she was mike’s sister, that actually made it harder, but because she had always seemed… solid. independent. she carried herself like someone who had seen terrible things and decided to keep going anyway. you admired that. you wanted to know how she did it without imploding.
the wheeler house was quiet when you got there. unnervingly quiet. no arguing, no radio chatter, no hushed voices plotting the end of the world at the kitchen table. nancy was at the table with a stack of papers, red pen tucked behind her ear. she looked up when you came in and her face shifted immediately, softened, sharpened, concerned. “hey,” she said. “you okay?”
you sat down. didn’t trust your legs to keep holding you up. “I think I’m… really tired,” you opened with, which was the safest possible version of the truth.
nancy frowned. “yeah, you look it.”
you end up with your hands wrapped around a glass of water you didn’t remember asking for. nancy leans against the counter, arms crossed loosely, giving you space without checking out. you started with the safe stuff. end of the year stress, not sleeping, everything piling up. all true. you were good at non-answer answers, and she let you have them at first. nodded. listened. didn’t interrupt.
then you ran out of words you’d rehearsed. “i’m just really tired,” you said finally, staring down at the condensation sliding down the glass. “and i feel stupid for saying that, because everything else is worse, and i’m over here feeling like i can’t even keep up with algebra.”
you talked more after that. about pulling away. about how being around everyone felt like standing under a spotlight you didn’t have the energy to perform in. about mike — how much you loved him, how much worse it felt knowing he could tell something was wrong and not being able to explain it without sounding like you were giving up. nancy listened the whole time. when you finally trailed off, she studied you for a long second, eyes attentive and a little sad. “you look exhausted.” she observed.
you shrugged. “i can sleep later.”
“no. you can sleep now.”
you stare at her.
“seriously,” she continued. “the basement’s free. the others won’t be back for hours, and even when they are, no one’s going to bother you. you need rest.”
you hesitated, your brain latching onto the one thing it could still nitpick. “i don’t know,” you tried, rubbing at the back of your neck. “it feels… weird. crashing at my boyfriend’s house when he’s not even here.”
“trust me, if there were rules about who’s allowed in this basement, you’d be grandfathered in by now.”
you huffed despite yourself. she wasn’t wrong. you’d practically lived down there at various points — d&d nights that turned into sleepovers, movie marathons that ended with everyone passed out on the floor, post-apocalypse regrouping sessions where the couch became a command center. if the basement could talk, it would probably ask you to help with the rent. still, you lingered. embarrassment crept in. “i just don’t want mike to think i’m, like… avoiding him on purpose.”
nancy’s expression softened. “you’re not avoiding him, you’re just tired. right?”
you opened your mouth to argue, then closed it again, because you were too tired to defend yourself against someone who was clearly right. “no.”
the basement stairs creaked as you went down, each step louder than it should’ve been.the couch was right where it always was, slightly lumpy, armrest sagging on one side from years of misuse. you dropped onto it like your body had been waiting for permission all day. the cushions swallowed you whole. it felt illegal how good it was. nancy flicked on the lamp, the warm light low and non-invasive. “blanket’s in the hall closet if you want it. you know the drill.”
you did know the drill. shoes off, hoodie folded into a pillow because that had always worked before. you didn’t even bother checking the time. ignorance was bliss. “thank you.”
nancy paused at the top of the stairs, looking back at you. “get some sleep.” she said again, like a directive.
you nodded, already halfway gone. the couch creaked as you shifted onto your side, pulling the blanket up to your chin. your body ached from too many nights spent running on adrenaline and not enough spent horizontal. your brain tried to do one last inventory — things to worry about, things to fix — and then promptly gave up. for once, there were no radios crackling. no whispered planning sessions. no mike pacing nearby, chewing on his thumb and asking if you were okay. just quiet. cool, familiar quiet.
you were asleep in under a minute.
mike decides, somewhere between aisle three and aisle four of melvald’s, that this might actually be hell. muzak. his mom comparing prices on canned soup like the fate of the free world depends on it. holly sitting in the bigger part of the cart even though she’s old enough to walk now. hell where you saved the world and now you’re buying generic cereal because it’s “more cost-effective.”
they’re in the car now. finally. blessedly. the sun’s already sliding too low in the sky, that orange-purple warning color that screams curfew soon, and his mom is driving exactly the speed limit like soldiers won’t descend from the clouds if they’re thirty seconds late. mike’s knee bounces nonstop in the backseat. holly’s humming to herself. his mom tells him to stop jiggling because it’s distracting. he considers pointing out that the military occupation of hawkins is also distracting, but decides it’s not worth the lecture. this might actually be hell. constantly stuck in a perfectly normal house with perfectly normal furniture and a perfectly normal family who keeps asking if you want more toast. and now you’re grounded and can rarely leave the house.
that’s what this is. house arrest, except nobody committed a crime, unless you count opening interdimensional gates and accidentally traumatizing an entire town. which apparently doesn’t earn you a break. or a parade. or even permission to leave the house regularly. he wants something to happen. that’s the problem. something already happened, and now nothing is allowed to. they’re waiting for signs, for reports, for confirmation that the world is done ending. mike hates waiting.
his brain, unfortunately, is free to do whatever it wants now, which means it circles back to you. again. you haven’t really said anything wrong, which makes it worse. lots of “yeah, i’m fine.” lots of “just tired.” lots of not sitting with them at lunch, not biking home together, not hanging around afterward. avoiding him. mad at him. pulling away. something is wrong and he missed it, which is sort of his worst nightmare.
he presses his forehead briefly against the cool window and watches hawkins blur past. barricades. patrol trucks. the town pretending it’s normal with a gun to its head. “we’ll be home soon.” his mom comments, like she can hear the gears grinding in his head.
“okay.” mike says, which is the polite version of i am painfully aware.
he checks the clock on the dashboard. checks it again. counts how many minutes it’s been since he last checked his watch. imagines walking into the house and finding you there — on the couch, at the table, in his room, anywhere — and immediately feels stupid for how relieved that thought makes him. then immediately feels worse because what if you’re not. what if you went home. what if you didn’t want to deal with him. what if this is the start of something ending and he’s stuck in the front seat of a car arguing silently with his own anxiety.
the car turns onto their street. mike sits up straighter without meaning to, heart ticking up a notch. he tells himself to relax. you’re probably just tired. nancy said you were tired. everyone’s tired. that’s normal. that’s fine. the car slows as the house comes into view. mike unbuckles before it fully stops.
he’s out of the car before his mom even kills the engine, door slamming shut with the kind of enthusiasm that says i have been trapped in this vehicle. “michael,” his mom warns, but he’s halfway up the walkway and pretending he didn’t hear it. inside, the house is quiet. mike pauses in the entryway, backpack slipping off one shoulder as his eyes do a fast, unconscious sweep. couch. kitchen. table. chairs pushed in. no you.
again, stupid to notice. stupid to feel the disappointment that follows. you didn’t say you’d be here. you didn’t make plans. you are allowed to exist elsewhere. mike knows this.
still, his brain is already being annoying about it. “nancy?” he calls, kicking off his shoes harder than necessary.
“in the kitchen!”
he finds her leaning against the counter with a mug of coffee, one hip cocked, posture relaxed like she’s had at least one uninterrupted thought today. mike narrows his eyes. suspicious. “where’s mom?” she asks, mostly because it’s the first thing that comes to mind.
“outside.” mike answers. “hey, uh… do you know if my girlfriend came by?”
nancy takes a slow sip of her coffee, then looks at him over the rim like she’s evaluating a suspect. “do you know if your girlfriend would come by?”
mike frowns. “what does that mean.”
it means deflection. mike knows deflection. he invented deflection. he straightens slightly, defensive reflex kicking in. “i mean — yeah. sometimes she does. i’m just asking.”
nancy hums, noncommittal. “huh.”
that is not an answer. that is the opposite of an answer.
“why are you being weird?”
“i’m not being weird,” nancy says. “i just think it’s interesting that you’re asking like you don’t know.”
“i do know,” mike insists, because apparently that’s the hill his dignity is dying on today. “i’m just— you know. checking. she comes over sometimes. to wait.. or hang out. or whatever.”
nancy arches an eyebrow. “or whatever.”
mike scowls. “why are you interrogating me.”
“i’m not interrogating you,” she says, which is a lie, because she absolutely is. “i’m just pointing out that you seem… anxious.”
“i’m not anxious,” mike defends himself a little too fast. ugh, his dumb sister is totally hiding something from him. “i just haven’t seen her much lately.”
nancy studies him for a long second. her expression shifts, less teasing, more thoughtful. that’s worse. mike hates when she does that. it feels like being X-rayed. “she’s been really tired.” nancy tries carefully.
“yeah. i know.”
“like, more than normal tired.”
“okay?” he says, irritation creeping in. “what is this.”
nancy exhales like she’s deciding how much truth mike can be trusted with at once. which is rude, honestly. he has survived monsters. he deserves information. “she needed to catch up on sleep.”
“okay. so… she went home.”
nancy tilts her head. “you sound disappointed.”
“i’m not,” mike says automatically. “i just— i thought maybe— whatever. it’s fine.”
it is not fine. mike does that thing where he presses his lips together and nods like he’s accepting reality, even though internally he’s already spiraling. fine. cool. great. she’s not here. he tells himself he should’ve expected that. she’s been tired. distant. of course she wouldn’t be hanging around waiting for him like a sitcom girlfriend.
he turns away before nancy can say anything else, suddenly very interested in absolutely anything that is not this conversation. the basement light is on. that’s normal. someone probably left it on. he’ll just go turn it off. a good household contribution. he takes two steps toward the stairs.
“don’t go down there.” nancy says.
mike freezes mid-step. “…why.” nancy doesn’t answer right away. mike slowly turns his head to look at her. “why.” he repeats.
“because.”
because what.
“nancy, what.”
she exhales through her nose, clearly regretting something — either letting you stay or opening her mouth at all. she steps forward directly in front of the stairs. mike stares at her. then at the stairs. then back at her. “are you blocking me?!”
“i’m standing.”
“in front of the stairs.”
“yep.”
“i need to go downstairs.”
“you don’t.” she replies flatly.
“why.”
nancy hesitates. again.
“nancy,” he pushes, “why.”
silence. mike’s heart starts doing that thing where it kicks up into his throat like it’s preparing for impact. “nancy.”
“don’t.”
“is she—”
“mike.”
“is she here.”
nancy closes her eyes for half a second, like she’s bracing for a headache.
mike looks offended. “you lied to me!”
“mike,” she warns, planting herself firmly between him and the basement stairs, “she is asleep.”
“okay, i’ll be quiet.”
“you don’t know how to be quiet.”
mike stares at her like she’s just informed him the government has seized his property “i’m her boyfriend,” he argues. “i’m allowed to check on her.”
“no. you’re not waking her up.”
“i’m not going to wake her up!” mike insists. “i just want to— look at her.”
“ew, mike. you weirdo.”
mike splutters. “that’s not— you know what i mean.”
nancy crosses her arms. the stance is unmistakable. big sister mode. barricade engaged. he exhales sharply through his nose, defeated. this is what it’s come to. barricaded by his sister. denied access to his own girlfriend like he’s some kind of liability. “i hate this house.”
what the hell is this bullshit. what kind of world did he live in where his own girlfriend was sleeping in his basement and his sister had declared herself a one-woman security system? like, fine, sure, he’d wait. he’d be patient. he could do patience. except patience was a myth invented by the ancient romans and parents to keep children from complaining about not being able to eat all the chips and cookies in the house. all he could do was stand there and stare. she’d said he wasn’t allowed to wake you. fine. he wouldn’t wake you. he’d be the model boyfriend. but also, maybe, what if you rolled over and muttered his name in your sleep? “fine.” he spits, after considering nancy for a moment. sure, he’d walk away. he’d retreat, step back, give her the illusion that he was obeying. he even adopted that slow, thoughtful pace, the one he’d practiced in stealth missions with dustin and lucas, walking as if he had somewhere extremely important to be, as if he were considering the philosophical implications of, say, why toast always lands butter-side down or why socks disappear in the dryer, or maybe he was thinking about how best to get down to the basement without being spotted.
nancy didn’t move immediately. she lingered at the top of the stairs like a sentry, crossing her arms. mike used the time wisely, which is to say he stared at the ceiling, then the floor, then a random scratch on the wall, then the floor again, running through every single possible way she could anticipate his descent. could he dash past her in one motion? could he feign a yawn and then pivot? would she notice if he dropped something, then darted down while she bent to pick it up for him? yes. all options had flaws. all options were doomed.
alas! just as he predicted (or maybe hoped) nancy seemed to believe mike was actually backing down and turned away. can you believe it!? nancy, actually trusting her brother! what a moron, i’ll tell you. a step is all it takes. mike’s eyes narrowed, pupils pinpricks of predatory focus. opportunity. exploit. execute. he juked. like a quarterback dodging a linebacker, and then—momentum. pure, glorious momentum. he darted past her with a speed that even he didn’t realize he’d been storing in his legs. nancy spun around, startled, a “mike! you little shit—” tearing from her throat, and he didn’t look back because there was no time.
stairs. he didn’t slow until he reached them, and then, like a kid who had spent too long plotting the perfect revenge or the perfect surprise, he slammed the door with force and immediately twisted the lock. nancy’s frustrated shouts drifted from upstairs, muffled and impotent, because she could see, she could know, she could guess, but she could not touch. he could control himself, right? take a few careful steps. gauge the situation. maybe let you wake naturally instead of barging in like some deranged toddler who’d just discovered sneaking through locks was legal. breathe. breathe, mike. he practiced a slow, exaggerated inhale, chest rising, stomach tightening, nerves singing.
the couch was right where it always was. you were on it, curled toward the back, blanket half-slid down like you’d kicked it off in your sleep. his body reacted before his brain caught up, hand already lifting, feet already darting toward you, the overwhelming need to touch settling in his chest. just something small. your arm, maybe. your shoulder. but then nancy’s voice cut in, bossy and impossible to ignore. she is asleep. you’re not waking her up. and he froze, fingers curling before they could make contact. he hovered there awkwardly, like a person who had never been taught what to do with their limbs. you looked tired. guilt nudged at him. maybe that was why you’d been distant.
this lasted maybe another ten seconds before his brain went, well, this is stupid.
ten seconds is a long time when you’re mike wheeler and your entire nervous system has apparently agreed that proximity is a biological requirement. he counts them anyway. one—hands folded together so they behave. two—eyes fixed on the far wall because if he looks at you he will absolutely fold. three—your breathing evens out. four—your blanket slips another inch and he very deliberately does not fix it. five—maybe he should fix your blanket though. six—nancy clears her throat upstairs. seven—he remembers he’s been awake for eighteen hours and that self-control is a finite resource. eight—you are his girlfriend. nine—you would want him to be comfortable, which is somehow only when he’s touching you. ten—fuck it.
he eases down next to you, like the couch might squeak and tattle. he lines himself up behind you, parallel, a respectful distance at first, because he is nothing if not considerate, except his arm keeps hovering, and five seconds later, he is touching you.
he scoots closer, curls in, fits himself to you, chin hovering near the back of your shoulder, knees tucked behind yours. he’s careful not to crowd you, because he’s not a monster, but his hand settles at your stomach anyway, fingers splayed. the rotten knot in his chest loosens a notch. maybe two.
stupid. he’s so stupid. he knows it’s a lot. he knows he clings. he knows he builds his whole sense of okay-ness around the idea that someone needs him, that you need him, and god, it’s embarrassing. but right now you’re here.
this shouldn’t be the thing that fixes him. he knows that. he’s aware of it in the way you’re aware smoking is bad for you or that you probably shouldn’t reread the same book instead of doing your homework. awareness does not equal control. awareness just means he gets to feel guilty while it works. because it does work.
your back is warm against his chest, your breathing steady, and his body latches onto it like proof. proof that he’s not drifting. proof that he hasn’t screwed everything up beyond repair. proof that someone still lets him close enough to touch. his brain, which has been ricocheting off the walls for days—weeks—finally has something solid to press against, and it’s you, which is both a relief and a problem he absolutely does not have the energy to unpack right now.
he knows he clings. he knows it’s too much sometimes. he’s been told, gently and not-so-gently, by people who care about him and people who don’t, that he attaches too hard, too fast, too completely. that he builds himself around other people like a bad renovation job, load-bearing walls made out of affection and panic. he’s tried to fix it. he really has. he’s tried pretending he doesn’t care as much as he does. he’s tried being casual. he’s tried giving space and telling himself it’s healthy and normal and not a precursor to being left behind.
it never feels healthy.
needing to be needed—that’s the thing. that’s the core of it, the ugly, embarrassing truth he’d rather swallow glass than say out loud. he needs to matter. he needs to be essential. he needs to know that if he disappeared, someone would notice immediately. when you need him it’s like his entire nervous system lights up and goes, there. that. that’s your purpose. he hates that about himself. he hates how much it scares him when you pull away, even a little. hates how his brain spirals the second you’re quieter than usual, the second your calls take longer to return, the second your laugh sounds tired instead of bright. he tells himself not to read into it. he tells himself people are allowed to be distant sometimes. he tells himself it’s not always about him.
lately it’s been worse. he’s been all nerves, snapping at the wrong moments, overthinking every interaction, pacing like there’s something he’s supposed to be doing and he just can’t remember what it is. he feels untethered, like the world keeps shifting and he’s scrambling to grab onto something before it slides out from under him. when you’re distant, when you’re not right there where he can see you and hear you and feel you, it’s like the floor drops out completely.
he keeps landing on the same conclusion, over and over: he did something. doesn’t know what. doesn’t know when. just knows the distance you’ve been giving him, and his brain has been chewing on it nonstop like a dog with a bone it can’t swallow. his arm tightens before he realizes it’s happening. your back presses more firmly into his chest, his hand spreading wider over your stomach like he’s trying to make you stay by force of will alone. don’t leave. don’t drift. don’t decide you don’t need him anymore. he doesn’t think the words, exactly. they just exist in his body.
you shift, a soft sound leaving you as you wake, muscles tensing slightly against him. he freezes as your head turns just enough that your voice comes out muffled. “mike…?” you blink blearily, eyes struggling to focus, clearly trying to piece together why you’re being cocooned on the couch at whatever ungodly hour this is.
“hey.” his chin dips closer to your shoulder, voice soft, almost pleading. “you’re okay. go back to sleep. sorry. i didn’t mean to wake you.”
you’re quiet for a beat, still disoriented. “did something happen?” you ask, sleep-thick and confused.
“no,” he replies immediately, too quick. “nothing happened. i just—” he trails off, because he doesn’t know how to explain i only feel normal when you’re here without sounding like a problem. so he settles for honesty-lite. “nothing happened.”
his arms tighten anyway, looping around you in that lizard-brain way where he’s not really deciding anymore, just reacting. he molds himself to you without thinking about it. you shift again, half-awake, making a small annoyed sound. “you’re very close.”
“yeah, i know.” no apology. he presses a quick kiss to your shoulde. “you were hogging the couch.”
you huff, eyes still closed. “wasn’t expecting company.”
“well,” he says, like this is a serious point that deserves consideration, “i live here.”
you shift, cracking one eye open just enough to squint back at him. your hair is a mess, your face still soft with sleep, and he has to look away for half a second because that rotten, tender feeling in his chest flares up again. “you should sleep.” he adds.
“i’m trying. you’re still talking.”
“i’m transitioning to not talking,” he insists, which is a lie, but it sounds convincing enough in his head. he presses his forehead against the back of your neck like that might seal the deal. “go back to sleep. i’m not here.”
“that’s not how this works.”
“it could be. if you try.”
you sigh, but you don’t move away, which he notes as a very important point. your hand shifts against his wrist, and for almost a full minute he actually succeeds. he stays quiet. this is fine. he can stop here.
he cannot stop here.
“hey.” he whispers.
“mike.”
“okay, just—one thing.”
you roll slightly, not fully turning around, but enough that he can see your face now. “how am i supposed to sleep if you keep doing this.”
he swallows. his thumb rubs a nervous, unconscious line along your side. suddenly the couch feels smaller. “have you,” he starts, then stops, then tries again because backing out has never been his strong suit, “have you been… i don’t know. avoiding me? or something?”
your expression softens a little, irritation giving way to something more awake. “what? no.”
he nods quickly. “okay. yeah. i figured. i just—” he exhales. “you’ve been busy. and tired. and not around as much. which is fine.” each sentence comes out faster, like he’s racing himself. “i just wanted to check.”
you shift again, this time flipping over to face him. he goes still, waiting for you to push him away, to tell him he’s being too much. you don’t. “mike, i’m not avoiding you.”
“you’re not?”
“no.” you yawn. “i’ve just been exhausted.”
“oh,” he says. “sorry.”
it’s small. probably the best he’s got right now.
you’re facing him now, which feels significant. you don’t push him away. you don’t roll back over. you stay there, looking at him like this is normal. okay. cool. cool cool cool.
he shifts closer, because apparently restraint is something he only owns in theory. his hand lands at your waist. you don’t object. that’s all it takes. he leans in and kisses you. it’s not slow. it’s not gentle. it’s very mike, all urgency and zero chill. he pulls back just long enough to check your face for signs of regret. “sorry.” he says, but he doesn’t give you space. “i just—- yeah.”
you giggle, the sound half a laugh, half disbelief, and before he can spiral about it you’re already leaning back in. your fingers hook into the front of his shirt and you kiss him again, softer at first, like you’re humoring him—okay, you’re insane, but fine—and then not so soft at all. mike makes a small sound in the back of his throat, like he genuinely did not expect reciprocation even though he should have, and his hand tightens at your waist.
it escalates from there. he kisses you like he’s trying to make up for lost time, for missed moments, for every second he spent convincing himself you were slipping away. it’s messy and a little breathless and very couch-unfriendly, knees knocking, shoulders bumping the armrest. you pull back just enough to laugh, forehead knocking against his. “you’re acting like i vanished for a year.”
he grumbles. “it felt like a year.”
“it was three days.”
“longest three days of my life.”
you kiss him again before he can elaborate, which he accepts immediately, obviously, hands sliding up your back now. at some point he shifts, trying to get more comfortable, and nearly falls off the couch, which would be funny if it didn’t make him cling harder. “okay,” you’re saying, laughing as you steady him, “we’re gonna die if we keep doing this.”
he kisses you again anyway, shorter this time, like he’s finally calming down now that he’s sure you’re here and not going anywhere. there’s a quiet stretch. then, because it’s mike, he ruins it.
“so, hypothetically.”
you groan. “oh no.”
“hypothetically,” he continues, ignoring you, “if there was a bed. upstairs. with, like, actual room. for two people. and hypothetically one of those people hadn’t slept properly in days.”
you squint at him. “are you asking me to move, michael?”
“i am asking you,” he corrects, shifting closer again, chin nudging your shoulder, arms sneaking back around you, “to please come sleep in my bed.”
you raise an eyebrow.
“there is space,” he insists. “i cleaned. and i promise i will actually sleep.”
he looks at you like he’s bracing for rejection anyway, fingers absentmindedly tracing the hem of your shirt like he’s anchoring himself while he waits. you sigh, but you’re smiling, and he sees it immediately, hope flaring like it always does.
“yeah?” he asks.
“yeah.”
and yeah—he absolutely holds your hand the entire way upstairs, just in case.
based off this request + here is your mike fic anon i hear u….
⏜︵ pairing 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒 mike wheeler x cheerleader!reader
꒰ 🚲 ꒱ synopsis 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒 wheeler learns the hard way that “why not both?” is a valid life philosophy, especially when it results in his cool girlfriend becoming a permanent, beloved fixture of the party.
part one, part two.
HAVING A HOT CHEERLEADER GIRLFRIEND IS A LOGISTICAL NIGHTMARE!
mike decides this while pedaling down maple street, backpack thumping against his spine. the problem isn’t you. the problem is that everyone else has opinions about you, and therefore about him, and therefore about how he spends his time. mostly the party. especially the party. apparently there is a correct and incorrect amount of time to spend with your girlfriend, and mike has blown past it at full speed and launched himself directly into traitor to the cause territory.
of course he’s with you all the time! you’re smart and funny and good looking and you look like you walked out of a movie where girls like you don’t even notice guys like him. except you do, you noticed him. you picked him. you lay on his bed and steal his hoodies and blow him kisses when you’re supposed to be cheering at games and radio him dumb little updates in the middle of the night like guess what i’m thinking about (it’s him. it’s always him.) why wouldn’t he want to be with you? why wouldn’t he prioritize that?
mike does not see the issue. he hears the complaints, sure. registers them in the abstract. dustin saying dude, you live at her house now like that’s some kind of indictment. lucas making pointed comments about “prior commitments.” mike files all of it away under deeply dramatic behavior from people who would absolutely do the same thing if given the chance. because look. from his perspective, this just makes sense.
why would he go home after school when you’re already leaning against his locker, fingers hooked through the strap of his backpack like you’ve claimed it? why would he bike to the basement when you’re waiting on the bleachers, swinging your legs and waving like he’s the only person in the stadium? why would he spend friday night rolling dice in a musty room when he could be on your bed, listening to you ramble about pep rallies and teachers you hate with your head on his chest?
he goes where you are. basic logic. frankly, a skill issue on everyone else’s part for not seeing it.
there are the lunches, now. used to be the table in the cafeteria, now it’s the grass by the field, or the steps out front if the weather’s bad. you steal his fries. he lets you. sometimes he pretends to be annoyed, but never convincingly. you read over his shoulder when he’s doing homework and whisper wrong answers just to mess with him. he tells you to shut up. you don’t. it’s perfect. there are the games, too. him in the stands, you on the field, exchanging looks. you blow him a kiss after a routine and he nearly falls off the bleachers trying to duck so no one sees him grin like an idiot. worth it. the party, meanwhile, acts like he’s joined a cult. “you missed hellfire.” dustin says one afternoon.
mike blinks. “it’s one meeting.”
“you missed the boss fight.”
“there’ll be another one.”
“not like that one!”
mike shrugs, unbothered. “i can read the recap.”
lucas stares at him. “you can’t read a d&d boss fight.”
“sure i can.”
you throw a crumpled piece of paper at him right then, like you have a sixth sense for these moments: are you free later?
mike doesn’t even hesitate after he reads the note, giving you a thumbs up.
he looks up to find three pairs of eyes on him. dustin, lucas, and eddie.
“what?” he says. “she asked first.”
he can miss things. that’s fine. he’s done it before. what he’s not willing to do is give you up for the sake of balance or fairness or whatever rulebook everyone else is working off of. his friends will get over it. or they won’t. either way, mike is exactly where he wants to be. missing hellfire club meetings, a few social calls, some of dustin’s overly dramatic updates about the newest “alien theories.” whatever. fine. it’s all fine.
so when dustin’s voice floats through one day afterschool again—dude, what is happening to you?—mike is halfway between shrugging and walking away. he excuses with: i’m busy. he’s lying, but not really. busy is relative. he’s with you. that counts for more than dice and strategy charts, okay? higher priority. also, it’s not like the campaign will implode without him. yes it will. also fine. whatever. he ignores them. he does not care.
except then dustin’s whining becomes nagging and eventually he refuses to let go. the kind of nagging that accumulates over seven missed hellfire meetings, half a dozen skipped lunches, and about twenty in person lectures about time management. mike is reaching a breaking point. one day the idea hits him: bring you. obvious. brilliant. problem solved. he’d been going back and forth, trying to juggle loyalty to the party and loyalty to the girl who makes him forget air is even breathable when the answer was right in front of him all along. why not both? you had been to the club once before, but you hadn’t come back after that. schedules, life, games, practice, homework. he didn’t ask. he didn’t need to. the memory of you in that element, his element, was enough, and honestly, it had been. until now. now he needs you there.
so tonight, he’s riding his bike like it’s a mission impossible chase scene, jacket flapping, heart doing that stupid thing it does when you’re about to introduce your life to the person who completes it.
okay, technically this could wait. he could tell you tomorrow at school, in the hallway, leaning against your locker. he could bring it up casually, like oh yeah, by the way, my friends are mad i’ve been ditching them, want to sit in a musty classroom afterschool for four hours and listen to us argue about imaginary monsters? normal boyfriend stuff. but that would require patience, and mike wheeler does not have patience when he wants to see you.
so instead he skids to a stop outside your house, breathless, buzzing, brain running about three steps ahead of itself. he knocks, waits, bounces on his heels like a loser. you open the door and blink at him. “hi.” you greet, pleasantly surprised.
“hey,” he says, like he didn’t just pedal here like the fate of the universe depended on it. “uh. i was—i mean. this is kind of stupid. it can wait.”
you smile in that way that tells him you’re already entertained. “uh huh?”
right. okay. focus.
mike clears his throat, immediately regrets it, because it comes out sounding like he’s about to give a presentation on the economic impact of dungeons & dragons. he shoves his hands into his jacket pockets, then takes them out again because that looks weird, then settles on crossing his arms, which somehow looks worse. fantastic. nailed it. “so,” he starts, which is never a good sign. his brain helpfully supplies him with seventeen better openings, all of which arrive too late. “my friends are mad at me. not like—mad mad.” he shifts his weight and glances back at his bike like it might offer emotional support. “i’ve kind of been ditching them. a lot. since i’ve been with you. which, i don’t regret. at all.”
there’s a beat. he presses on before he can overthink it. “anyway. i had this idea.” his tone shifts—brighter, like he’s just solved something important. “come with me. tomorrow. to the club.” he looks at you, earnest to the point of pain. “they’re mad because i’m always with you. which is stupid, but also they’re my friends, so i figured—why not both? like, have you all together, at the same time.” his shoulders lift in a small, hopeful shrug. “you don’t have to play. you can just sit there. you’ve been before. you survived.”
he hesitates, then mumbles.
“also eddie keeps saying i’m ‘pussywhipped’.”
there’s a very specific pause that happens after he says that. not because you’re offended. not because you’re thinking about eddie munson at all, actually. it’s because mike wheeler is standing on your porch looking like he’s braced for impact, like you might revoke his boyfriend privileges on the spot, and something in your chest goes soft in a way you absolutely do not announce. you don’t tell him it’s cute when you care about things. you don’t say this is literally why i like you. you don’t say watching you get intense about fake worlds makes the real one feel survivable. you just nod, like this is the most reasonable request in the world. “yeah, okay.”
his eyebrows lift before he can stop them. “yeah?”
“yeah.”
oh. okay. wow. his brain does a victory lap, immediately followed by a spiral. don’t act weird. don’t say thank you like it’s charity. “cool.” he decides on, which is the most neutral word he can find on short notice. then, because he is incapable of leaving well enough alone, “i mean, you don’t have to stay the whole time. its loud. eddie yells. well, i mean, you already know that. i told you that already. before.”
you smile at him in that way that tells him you know this, that you like it anyway, that you like him anyway, then pause, eyes flicking past him. “…did you bike all the way here just to ask me that?”
damn it. busted.
“…maybe.”
“michael.”
“it wasn’t that far,” he lies. “and i was already thinking about coming over. and then i thought about the club thing. and then i thought about you. and then i was like, okay, now i’m here.”
you just look at him.
“…can we hang out?” he adds, hopeful and pathetic. “since i already did the cardio.”
you roll your eyes, step aside, and gesture him in. “come on, weirdo.”
the rest of the night … you know, happens. one second you’re standing in your entryway and the next you’re on your bed, and then somehow it’s later, and mike is kissing you but it’s more like devouring because he always kisses you like he’s starving and can’t stop. it’s all hands and that laugh he does when he bumps his nose into yours and pretends that was on purpose. he keeps stopping like he’s about to say something important and then apparently deciding that kissing you again is a better use of time. you kiss him back and he melts, because mike wheeler is many things, but immune to affection is not one of them.
afterschool the next day mike is riding high on approximately four hours of sleep and the kind of physical romantic fulfillment that makes him feel invincible by the time hellfire rolls around. “dude,” dustin says suspiciously. “what’s on your neck.”
“what.” he replies way too fast.
“that. right there. don’t move.” henderson leans in and squints. “is that a hickey?”
“no. it’s—no.”
lucas looks up. “it’s a hickey.”
“it’s not.” mike insists, reaching up way too late to tug his collar higher. which only makes it worse, because now everyone is looking.
eddie’s head snaps around. “the boy king returns,” he says, delighted. “marked by his beloved.”
“shut up.” mike counters, mortified.
dustin is vibrating. “you ditched us. you show up late. and now you’re branded. unbelievable.”
shut up shut up shut up. you’re supposed to be here any minute now. any minute. any. second. everyone stop talking. “can everyone shut up.” mike tries again, which would land with more authority if his ears weren’t bright red and he wasn’t halfway hunched like that might somehow make him disappear.
“so defensive. classic hickey behavior.” lucas comments.
mike shoots him a look. “i swear to god, if you say the word ‘hickey’ one more time—”
“love bite.” eddie offers helpfully.
“mark of passion.” dustin adds, deadpan.
mike drops his head onto the table with a soft thunk. this is a nightmare. this is worse than demodogs. worse than that one time karen wheeler tried to have a talk with him about changes his body might be going through at his age. okay, maybe not worse than that last one. “i hate all of you,” he mutters into his dm notes. “i’m not answering questions.”
“we’re not asking questions,” dustin says. “we’re drawing conclusions.”
chairs scrape as the rest of hellfire trickles in, the prop room slowly filling with the familiar noise. dice clattering, eddie arguing with someone about minis, someone else complaining about the smell. mike keeps glancing at the door, casual, not obvious. except it is obvious, because he does it about every five seconds.
the door opens. mike is on his feet before he even realizes he’s moving, chair legs screeching against the floor. he doesn’t think, doesn’t plan. just there you are written across his face, relief immediate. “hey,” he greets, like the room shrank down to just you. “you made it.”
“i made it!”
behind him, eddie lets out a low, impressed whistle. “gentlemen, observe. the boy king rises to greet his queen.”
mike shoots him a look that is meant to communicate i am begging you to stop talking, then turns back to you, visibly recalibrating. okay. normal. be normal. introduce girlfriend to friends like a person who has done this before. you’ve been here before, but you never really met anyone. mike didn’t know what the hell he was doing that first time, but now that you’re here, as in, here, properly his girlfriend, he should probably introduce you, right? good job mike! great critical boyfriend thinking skills! “uh,” he starts, then winces. “okay. you already kind of know eddie. he’s… eddie.”
“thank you michael.” eddie says.
mike presses on. “and that’s lucas.” he gestures, grateful for the solid ground.
lucas nods at you, polite, curious but not invasive. “hey. good to actually meet you.”
“and dustin,” mike says, tone shifting slightly. “he’s—”
“the one who remembers what time hellfire starts.” dustin supplies, arms crossed, eyes flicking between you and mike.
you can feel it then, the way the room is watching without staring, the way mike’s hand hovers near yours like he’s not sure what the rules are here. this isn’t school exactly. this isn’t a hallway or a movie theater or his bedroom with the door very shut. this is his space. his people. for a second he looks nervous. eddie breaks it first. “so,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “you’ve returned willingly. which either means michael has blackmail on you, or you’re a woman of taste.”
you smile. “i think it’s the yelling. it’s very… immersive.”
eddie clutches his chest. “she gets me.”
lucas smiles. dustin just hums, unconvinced. “so,” dustin says, pointed. “you gonna start the campaign? or are we doing the part where you two stare at each other for another five minutes.”
mike finally reaches for your hand then. “we’re starting. relax.” he gives you a small, apologetic look. sorry they’re like this, but there’s something else there too—something proud, like he wants you here. he’s glad you’re seeing this part of him, even if it’s a little embarrassing.
eddie claps his hands once. “finally. behold—focus! or at least the illusion of it.”
the table settles into that familiar, lopsided circle where notebooks overlap and someone’s soda is always dangerously close to the character sheets. mike shifts automatically into place, spine straightening like his body remembers this even if his brain’s been elsewhere lately. he pulls his binder closer, flips it open, taps his pencil twice against the margin. okay. game face. don’t screw this up. you take the seat beside him without making it a thing, which he notices and appreciates immediately. you don’t hover, you don’t look lost. you lean in just enough to see what’s happening, elbow brushing his arm, like this isn’t some borrowed space you’re tiptoeing through. weirdly—relievingly—it works.
the campaign starts slow, as campaigns do. eddie sets the scene with way too much flourish, describing a torchlit corridor and ominous chanting and something wet dripping somewhere it absolutely shouldn’t be dripping. lucas asks a practical question. dustin challenges a rule. mike corrects him without snapping, which might actually be a first. and also because you’re in the room, so he’s on his best behavior.
his attention locks in, not just because the game’s good (it is), but because you’re there, watching him like this matters. he hears himself explaining a strategy, animated, hands moving, catches your eye once, mid-sentence, and you’re smiling like you’re genuinely impressed. that little hitch in his chest is back. great. fantastic. extremely distracting. he rolls well. like, really well. nat twenty. eddie loses his mind. lucas grins. even dustin looks up, eyebrows lifting despite himself. “okay,” dustin says, squinting at the table. “where has this been.”
mike shrugs, trying not to look pleased and failing. “i’ve always been this good.”
“lies.” dustin counters automatically, but there’s less bite to it now.
you don’t interrupt. you don’t try to insert yourself where you’re not meant to be. when eddie addresses the table, you listen. when someone cracks a joke, you laugh. when mike glances at you like he’s checking if this is still okay, you nod. yeah. still good. keep going. it’s stupid, maybe, but mike feels like something that had been slipping through his fingers clicked back into place. he’s not choosing between worlds tonight. he’s standing in both, and neither one is asking him to disappear.
it doesn’t fix everything. nothing ever does. it does, however, start a pattern, which is honestly more than mike expected. you start showing up when he hangs out with the party more, not every time, but enough that it becomes… normal. you learn fast when to talk, when to sit back, when to let them argue themselves into circles without intervening. the party adjusts. dustin complains the most, not in a you suck way. more in a this is an ecosystem and you are an invasive species way. except the more time passes, the harder it is for him to argue when mike is… better, more present. actually laughing instead of half-listening with his eyes on the door like he’s already late to somewhere else.
lucas is easier about it. he clocks what’s happening, nods once, and moves on. “as long as you still show up,” he says to mike one night. mike does. so that’s that.
eddie, meanwhile, is unbearable.
“the lady joins us again,” he announces every time you walk into a room, bowing so dramatically he nearly knocks over a chair. “our numbers grow. our power increases.”
mike tells him to shut up. you laugh. eddie takes that as encouragement.
it becomes inevitable that mike decides you should actually learn how to play.
this is his idea. fully. no peer pressure involved. just one night in his basement, surrounded by scattered dice and graph paper. “okay,” he says, serious. “i can teach you. if you want. like—really teach you.”
you agree, head over heels little thing that you are for this nerd. watching mike explain things he loves is apparently your kryptonite.
teaching you d&d turns out to be mike’s favorite activity he didn’t know existed.
he overprepares. character sheets neatly filled out, pencils sharpened, a mini-campaign he definitely spent too long thinking about. he sits across from you on the floor, knees knocking into yours, and explains stats like they are matters of national importance. “okay, strength is obvious,” he says. “but charisma is tricky. people think it’s just talking. it’s not. it’s—” he stops. “why are you smiling like that.”
“nothing.” you answer, which is a lie. you smile more.
lucas and dustin get roped into the practice sessions eventually, because mike decides you need “controlled exposure.”
dustin hates the phrase controlled exposure on principle. “that’s not a thing,” he says, watching mike rearrange the screen for the third time. “you just want an audience.”
“it is a thing,” mike insists. “and it’s not an audience. it’s—support.” he glances at you, like he’s checking the word fits. it does. “also you both said you missed playing.”
lucas just shrugs.
the first session is chaos. not because you’re bad—because you’re new. you forget what dice to roll. you ask if your character can “just, like, talk it out.” you are sincerely shocked when monsters do not respond to reason. mike answers every question with the patience of a saint who has waited his whole life for this exact moment.
and he cheats.
not in a way dustin can immediately prove. just… you know, gently. a roll behind the screen that takes a little too long. an enemy that mysteriously misses when it really shouldn’t. a trap that would have killed you, except actually, no, it just knocks you prone. lucky you! ♡
dustin squints at the table. “that’s not how that works.”
mike doesn’t look up. “it is tonight.”
you don’t notice. or maybe you do, a little, but you’re too busy being included to care. every success lights you up. every win has you looking at mike like he invented joy. when your character lands a hit, you gasp and clap a hand over your mouth like you’re watching a magic trick. “i did it!”
“you did.” mike agrees, immediately, like there was never any doubt.
at one point—through absolutely no fault of your own—you die. it’s dramatic. dice betray you. dustin looks vindicated for exactly half a second. you stare at your character sheet, horrified. “oh my god, i killed her.”
mike is already moving. the binder opens, papers shuffle. “okay, so—” he slides a new sheet toward you, like a magician revealing a second card. “this is her cousin.”
“mike,” dustin cuts in. “you can’t just—”
“tragic backstory,” mike continues. “sworn vengeance. slightly better stats.” he pauses, thinking. “same outfit, though.”
your face crumples in relief. “really?”
“really,” he smiles. “you’re not done.”
you take the sheet like it’s sacred and smile at him like he saved your life. mike feels something click into place in his chest and decides that this is all justified forever. he doesn’t care that dustin keeps muttering about fairness. he doesn’t care that lucas gives him a look that says i see you. you’re leaning close to him, asking questions, invested, here. every time you look at him like that—wide-eyed, delighted, he feels like maybe it’s okay that he loves things this much. that he wants to protect this space. that he wants you to win. “okay,” he says, trying very hard not to smile too big. “it’s your turn. what do you do?”
you think, then grin. “something cool.”
mike nods solemnly. “yeah. you do.”
weeks pass. months, really. the two of you are attached at the hip and have been dating for nearly 4 months. the party has largely stopped commenting because trying to compete with mike’s obsessive focus on you is exhausting. the assumption is now built-in. mike shows up somewhere, you show up too. it’s automatic. everyone just sighs and accepts it as the new normal. lucas shakes his head, muttering, “this is what we get for complaining,” and max just rolls her eyes like, yes, we’re aware, now shut up.
the thing is, they did get what they wanted. mike is around more. he just brought a plus-one and forgot to ask permission. oops. careful what you wish for.
you don’t hover, which is what mike half-expected, because everyone always acts like girlfriends are supposed to either vanish politely or become a problem. instead, you slot in, like a new piece added to a puzzle everyone swore was already complete, even though there was clearly a gap.
lucas doesn’t mind. lucas never really minded. he’s always been pragmatic about these things. mike likes you, you like mike, mike is less miserable than usual. net positive. the only issue, as far as lucas is concerned, is that the two of you have absolutely no shame. “do you have to sit like that.” he asked once, staring at the way you’re half in mike’s lap on the couch, legs tangled, mike’s arm looped around your waist.
“yes.” mike doubled down instantly.
lucas exhaled through his nose and goes back to his homework. this is his version of acceptance.
max truly does not give a fuck. she clocks the situation exactly once, files it under none of my business, and never revisits it. sometimes she smirks when mike gets distracted mid-sentence because you kissed his cheek. sometimes she flicks popcorn at his forehead and tells him to get a room. it’s all neutral to her.
dustin is the slow burn.
at first, he’s mostly just loud about logistics. mike’s not at lunch. mike’s not at hellfire. mike’s not answering his walkie because mike is, once again, with you. dustin hates unanswered questions, and mike’s priorities have become deeply inconvenient. “you’re missing character development.” dustin tells him during one argument that is absolutely not about d&d. “eddie just introduced a lich. a lich, mike.”
“i’m developing other things.” mike had replied with, which was not helpful.
but dustin starts to soften. you ask him questions. you actually listen to the answers. you remember details and bring them up later, which is dustin’s love language whether he knows it or not. you sit through explanations that definitely could have been summaries and react like they matter. you defend mike when dustin complains, but not in a way that makes dustin feel stupid—just in a way that reframes it, like, yeah, i get it, but also he’s happy. that counts for something. eventually, dustin stops saying “your girlfriend” and starts saying your name! that’s when mike knows you’ve been fully integrated.
eddie munson, unfortunately, likes you immediately. this is not mike’s favorite development.
he calls you cool. he calls you metal. he offers you the good chair without being asked. he invites you into conversations like you’ve always been there. when you laugh at his jokes eddie looks thrilled. mike is… fine. he’s not jealous. he’s just… aware. he tightens his grip around your fingers anyway. eddie clocks this one day, of course, because eddie munson is not subtle and neither is mike wheeler when he’s emotionally compromised. “relax man,” eddie observes, clapping mike on the shoulder. “i’m not stealing your girl.”
mike bristles on principle. “i wasn’t—”
“sure you weren’t,” eddie interrupts, still smiling. “she’s got good taste though.”
he’s still not sure if that was supposed to be a compliment or not, but mike decides eddie munson is on thin ice forever.
even mike has to admit it though, you really fit. you bring something softer into the group without diluting it. you don’t try to replace anyone. you just add. you remember who hates mushrooms on pizza, you bring extra sodas, you sit through arguments and don’t try to fix them. this—this—is exactly what he wanted when he thought, months ago, why not both?
it turns out both looks like this: friday nights at family video where dustin argues with the clerk about late fees like it’s a moral failing of the system, lucas reads the backs of boxes with the seriousness of a man selecting a mortgage, and mike is already angling his body so you’re closer to the shelves with the better lighting.
or the movies. the party sits together, a sticky semicircle of soda cups and candy boxes, and mike makes a big show of letting you choose seats even though he already scoped the row with the best sound. you pick your chair because you like being able to get up without climbing over knees. he does, obnoxiously, take up the entirety of your armrest without realizing. halfway through the movie you disappear together—bathroom break, need more napkins, forgot something—until you’re in the hallway, giggling like idiots, his hands warm at your waist, your lips against his while he whispers we should go back and then doesn’t move.
the mall is worse. (better.) steve harrington once said the mall makes people feral, and mike didn’t understand what that meant until he was holding your bags while you tried on sunglasses you do not need, turning to him like these or these? and he answered seriously every time, because what kind of boyfriend would he be if he didn’t? you drag him into the photo booth. you keep the strip. there’s two, so he gets to keep the other one. later, dustin asks where you both went. max shrugs. bathroom, maybe. she doesn’t ask follow-up questions. max never asks follow-up questions. when you both come back with puffy lips and flushed faces, she minds her, albeit disgusted, business.
arcade days where you cheer when lucas beats a high score and boo when dustin accuses the machine of cheating. mike stands behind you, hands light at your hips, not even watching the screen—watching you watch it. eddie notices and says something like, “wheeler, you know the game’s in front of you, right?” mike doesn’t look away. “yeah. i know.”
at pizza nights, he nudges the box toward you first. dustin groans. “you’re not even hungry?” mike shrugs. he is hungry, just not for that.
and you sneak off constantly. it becomes a running joke. don’t let them sit together, someone says. it never works. you leave jackets behind and come back flushed and smiling and pretend nothing happened. eddie starts timing it. “seven minutes,” he announces once, delighted. mike flips him off without looking. you squeeze his hand like ignore him. he does. mostly.
because mike wheeler, historically, is not chill about liking people. he has never been chill. he doesn’t ease into affection. he cannonballs. this is documented behavior. when mike likes someone, his brain latches on like it’s trying to solve a problem with only one possible answer, and then he rearranges his entire life around that answer and acts shocked when people notice. if that means he sneaks off too much, or misses a few conversations, or forgets his jacket again because it’s on your shoulders—well. he can live with that. he doesn’t even notice how he turns when you turn, how he checks your face in rooms, how he automatically gives you the better chair, the better view, the last slice he was absolutely going to eat until you said, oh, you can have it, and now he physically cannot eat it.
it happens so gradually mike misses it. one day you’re there because you’re dating mike, and the next day you’re there because… you’re there. because you belong, and no one questions it anymore.
max is the first one to cross the line from tolerates to claims. it’s subtle. it looks like her saving you a seat without saying anything. like handing you a controller without asking if you want to play. like looping her arm through yours at the mall and saying, casually, “come on.” she starts calling you separately from the group. not long conversations—max doesn’t do long conversations—but updates. gossip. judgment. once, she says, “i could steal you, you know,” deadpan, and you smile and say, “you’d have to fight him,” and max shrugs. “i’d win.”
dustin is just as bad. dustin decides you’re his person. not his favorite person—that’s still steve, obviously—but his designated audience. you listen. this is your fatal mistake. you listen when he talks about science, about theories, about whatever new thing he’s obsessed with that week. you ask questions. you nod like it matters. dustin notices. dustin thrives. suddenly he’s sitting next to you every time, explaining things directly to you, even when mike is right there. especially when mike is right there. mike tries not to be offended by this. tries. fails a little. “so then,” dustin says, launching into a twenty-minute explanation of something mike has heard three times already, “what do you think?”
you think. you answer. dustin lights up like he’s just been validated by god. mike stares at you both, betrayed. later, when mike shows up somewhere without you, dustin squints at him and says, “where’s your girlfriend?” not how are you. not what’s up. where’s your girlfriend. mike feels something in his soul crack.
the worst part is that they all start assuming you’ll be there.
“is she coming??” dustin asks hopefully, every time mike makes plans.
“tell her we’re getting pizza.” max adds, like mike is a messenger pigeon.
once, mike suggests hanging out alone with the party—just once—and dustin immediately frowns. “why?” mike opens his mouth, closes it. realizes he doesn’t have a good answer. later, he complains to you about it, half-serious. “they like you more than me now.” you laugh. mike does not find this funny.
you’re not just his girlfriend anymore, you’re part of the party. part of the noise and the arguments and the shared memories and the eye rolls and the inside jokes. when he looks around the room, he sees you laughing with his friends, arguing, listening, belonging—and for once, he doesn’t feel like he’s choosing.
he got both.
which is how he ends up, three weeks later, sitting on cold metal bleachers that smell like popcorn oil and school disinfectant, watching his friends try very hard to act like they belong at a varsity game. this is, objectively, hilarious.
it starts with the invitation. you ask, hey, um—if you guys want, you could come to the game on friday? totally okay if not. mike says yes before anyone else can open their mouth. dustin says yes because mike said yes and because he’s already decided this is a social experiment. lucas says yes because lucas always says yes to showing up. max shrugs and says sure, because she’s curious and because she likes you and because watching mike in unfamiliar territory sounds entertaining. eddie claims he’s busy, then shows up anyway. late. with nachos.
now they’re all here, lined up like a misplaced control group, trying to decode the rules of a sport they have never once cared about. dustin has questions. so why do they yell that? is that good yelling or bad yelling? lucas tries to explain and gives up halfway through. max steals mike’s soda because she’s thirsty and because she can. mike lets her because he’s distracted by the fact that you’re on the field, and you’re focused. hair pulled back, uniform crisp, moving with a confidence that feels illegal to witness. mike forgets to blink. dustin notices. “you know she can’t see you, right?” mike does not look away. “i know.”
when you score—when the crowd erupts and the cheer section explodes and you light up like you just did something miraculous—mike is on his feet before he realizes he stood. he’s yelling your name. dustin is yelling your name. max is yelling something unintelligible but enthusiastic. lucas claps. eddie whistles loud enough that a teacher looks over. mike feels his face heat up and decides he doesn’t care. this is pride, this is allowed.
at halftime, you run over, breathless and smiling, eyes immediately finding him like magnets. you ask, “so?” like this matters. like their opinion matters to you. mike opens his mouth. dustin beats him to it.
“that was sick!” dustin compliments, entirely sincere. “you’re terrifying.”
max nods approvingly. “yeah. you’re cool.” high praise. lucas grins. eddie adds, “wheeler, i rescind all previous jokes. you’re punching up.”
mike sputters. “hey.”
you bump your shoulder into his, quick and affectionate, before you’re pulled back onto the field. he watches you go, chest tight in a good way. after the game—after the win, after the sweaty hugs and the group photo someone insists on—you pull them all together, thank them for coming. tell them it meant a lot. dustin says, “of course we came,” like that should have been obvious. max slings an arm around your shoulders. lucas asks about practice schedules. eddie asks if this means he’s officially a sports guy now. mike hangs back for half a second, watching you laugh with his people.
this is a scene. one of those ones his brain is going to hoard forever and pull out at inconvenient times, like three years from now in the shower, or ten years from now when he’s supposed to be doing taxes or whatever adults do. late-night bleachers. floodlights humming. the air cold enough that everyone’s pretending they’re not shivering.
no one can decide where to go.
this is also a tradition, apparently.
“we could get food.” lucas suggests, reasonable as ever.
“everything’s closed.” max replies, already bored with the conversation.
eddie lifts a greasy paper tray like it’s evidence. “i stole nachos.”
“you didn’t steal them.” dustin says.
“borrowed indefinitely,” eddie corrects. “also they’re cold now.”
dustin recoils as eddie takes a step closer, threatening. “do not touch me with those. i swear to god.”
you’re still in your cheer uniform, jacket half-on, hair a mess in that way that makes mike’s brain short-circuit. you laugh. mike watches your mouth move. he forgets to join the circle until you reach out and tug him in by the sleeve, like, no, you’re part of this too. he steps in, immediately warmer.
eddie lunges. dustin shrieks. there is a brief, horrifying moment where it looks like dustin is actually going to be taken out by a rogue nacho, but max trips eddie at the knee. eddie stumbles, recovers, bows. “thank you, madam.”
“you’re disgusting.” she says fondly.
lucas laughs. you laugh harder. mike laughs because you are laughing. this is how it works now. someone—dustin, probably—starts arguing about the game again. not the rules, not the score. something deeply specific and incredibly dumb. eddie has Opinions. lucas tries to mediate. max checks her watch and then doesn’t leave. mike leans against the bleachers, you leaning into him, shoulder pressed to his chest like it belongs there. it does. eddie offers you a nacho. you hesitate. mike says, immediately, “don’t eat that.”
eddie grins. “protective.”
you eat it anyway. mike watches you like he’s bracing for impact. you survive the nacho.. he exhales.
someone suggests going somewhere again. no one moves. the night feels suspended. the parking lot is emptying. a janitor flips off the stadium lights one by one. it gets darker, quieter, closer. you look at him, smile, and yeah, he’s done for. absolutely gone. but standing there, late at night, surrounded by warmth and people he loves, he thinks—-
yeah. this one’s going to last.
and when you finally part from the group, hand in hand with mike, dustin calls out, “hey, mike?”
oh, love :( you did my angst comfort request SO much justice. it was beautiful as expected, sadder than i imagined, and yet realistic and romantic all the same. thank you for heeding every aspect of it, for making it so that all relationships were carefully and sweetly established in a non-competitive setting, and for acknowledging mike and el as characters too. i love the reader's characterization and how realistic you maintained grief. your writing is SO good. thank you so much.
ahhhhh im glad sweetheart 🥹<333 i really enjoyed your request it was really creative and stood out to me a lot so thank you for sending it in! i enjoyed writing and i definitely tried to keep it as realistic to all characters involved as possible…
mike is such a tragic character honestly and i really wish we got to see into his mind more. he has every reason in the world to be depressed and yet cannot properly cope, accept or acknowledge his feelings, and even if he did, he would never fully take the time to understand what he feels or what he could do to help. he can’t and won’t ask for help, but not just that, he doesn’t think his mental health is important, or even serious 😞. people have it worse than him —- in his mind. truly such a heartbreaking character who lives the rest of his life never being taught how to express himself, which mean it’s in mikes hands to teach himself and well… we can trust mike with that about as far as he can throw vecna 😥
thank you for your kind words! 💞💞 sorry for the mini ramble lolzz i could break down mikes psyche for hours i love analyzing him
⏜︵ pairing 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒 mike wheeler x reader ,, former mike x reader x eleven
꒰ 🚲 ꒱ synopsis 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒 since el’s presumed death, mike has been avoiding food, people, and the concept of tomorrow, so you show up with a plate and a refusal to leave.
۶𝜚 cw’s ࣪ angst. post season five. depressed mike wheeler. #mikewheelerneedsahug. comfort. potentially sensitive content ahead! ex love-triangle.
THE HUMAN BODY CAN SURVIVE, WHAT, LIKE… A WHILE WITHOUT FOOD?
he’s pretty sure. it’s one of those facts you pick up from movies or school or manuals that try to be educational for no reason. water matters more. water is the real issue. three days? four? he’s not testing it. he’s not doing anything on purpose. he just… hasn’t gotten up. his legs feel glued to the mattress, like they’re not his anymore. they belong to the bed now.
trying to remember the last time he ate is a challenge. that shouldn’t be hard. that should be something you just know, like your birthday or your phone number or the names of the people you love, but his brain gives him nothing. just a vague image of a plate being set down somewhere far away from him. that’s probably normal. people forget stuff all the time.
later, he tells himself.
later i’ll get up.
later i’ll eat.
later never really shows up, though. it just keeps getting rescheduled, like an appointment he forgets to cancel and then feels vaguely guilty about without fixing it. the room looks the same every day. that’s probably the problem. or maybe it’s the point. the light shifts across the carpet sometimes, but nothing else really moves unless he makes it. and he doesn’t. he barely even moves from his spot on the bed himself. sometimes he sits up though. that counts, right? sometimes he swings his legs off the bed and just… leaves them there, feet flat on the floor, like he’s proving something to himself. see? he can get up.
most days, the farthest he goes is the desk.
the typewriter waits for him there. the keys are cool when he touches them, dusty, and that small sensation is usually what gets him to sit all the way down. the chair creaks in the same spot every time. he keeps meaning to tighten the screw. he never does. he feeds a blank page in, straightens it, pulls it back out. feeds it again, because the margin was off by a millimeter. he stares at the page. his fingers hover, then tap one key. a single letter appears, slightly off-center. he hates it immediately and tries again. a sentence this time, kind of. it doesn’t go anywhere. it just… exists, like him. he reads it over twice, then a third time, like it might reveal a hidden meaning if he stares long enough. it doesn’t. god, this is bad.
he rips the page out, crumples it, tosses it toward the trash can. it misses. he leaves it on the floor. he’s been doing that a lot. sometimes he wonders if this is what writers do. like, the real ones. the tortured genius thing. sitting alone, not eating, surrounded by discarded drafts and self-loathing.
yeah, okay. sure mike. that’s definitely what this is.
everyone’s busy now. that’s normal. they graduated. they’re supposed to be busy. jobs, plans, places to go that aren’t this house, this room, this exact stretch of carpet. he should be doing something too. he just… isn’t. it’s not like he’s choosing this. he’s not sitting here thinking, i will isolate myself today. he just keeps realizing, hours later, that the day has already happened without him. that makes him angry. at himself. mostly at himself. get it together, he tells himself. this is stupid.
he presses his fingers harder into the keys, types another sentence, then another, like force might help. it doesn’t. the words come out wrong, like he’s describing something he’s never actually felt. which is ridiculous. he’s felt plenty.
hasn’t he?
he stops. leans back. the chair creaks again. his stomach twists, sharp enough that he actually hisses under his breath. he looks at the clock. 2:18. that seems… late. early? both? he can’t tell anymore. the numbers don’t mean what they used to, they just mark how much time he’s wasted. everyone else can do this. everyone else can just live. lucas is probably running somewhere with max, dustin off with steve and robin, and will — will calls. sometimes. not every day. mike lets it ring more often than he answers, then stares at the missed call like it’s proof of something terrible about him. what, exactly, he’s not sure. just… something. what kind of person does that? what kind of best friend?
he doesn’t answer himself, because if he did, the answer would probably be something like you, and he’s not in the mood to be indicted further.
the typewriter just sits there. he stares at the page again, waiting for it to suggest something. anything. usually his brain won’t shut up—associations piling on top of each other, ideas branching out into other ideas, little what-ifs and rules and worlds clicking into place. that’s always been the thing. that’s been his thing. now it’s just quiet. nothing to grab onto. nothing to follow. write what you know, he thinks, like that’s helpful. like that hasn’t been the advice since the dawn of time.
what does he know?
he knows how the keys feel under his fingers. cold at first, then warming. he knows the exact resistance of the “e,” which sticks sometimes, just enough to be annoying. he knows the smell of ink and dust and old paper. he knows how the chair creaks when he leans back too far. he knows that every story he tries to start turns into the same thing if he’s not careful. a girl who disappears. a boy who waits. a promise that feels unfinished. he yanks the page out before it can get there and crumples it harder this time. “idiot.” he mutters, not loudly, just enough for himself to hear. he’s very good at keeping his criticism at an indoor volume.
everyone else can move on because they’re supposed to, because that’s what people do when something terrible happens and there’s nothing left to fight. they grieve. they cry. they hold each other. and then, eventually, they keep living. that’s the order of operations. mike understands that. he’s not stupid.
it just feels… wrong.
like skipping a step. like calling a campaign over when the boss fight hasn’t actually happened yet. like everyone packing up their dice and character sheets while he’s still sitting there, staring at the map, thinking, no, wait, there’s more.
eleven isn’t dead.
he knows that. she’s alive. she has to be. if she isn’t—
well.
he doesn’t finish that thought. he’s learned not to. some doors don’t need to be opened to know there’s nothing good behind them. his stomach twists again, slow and aching now, like it’s given up on urgency. he barely reacts. the pain feels like proof that something is still happening. he presses a hand there, not to soothe it, just to feel it.
you should eat, a reasonable voice says somewhere in his head. it sounds a lot like nancy.
or you could just lie down, another voice counters. that one sounds like him.
he pushes the chair back and stands. the room tilts slightly, but he steadies himself on the desk, fingers brushing the edge where old dents still live from when he was twelve and slammed his hand down too hard after a bad roll. he doesn’t bother fixing the papers or straightening the chair. he just crosses the room and collapses back onto the bed, curling in on himself without really thinking about it. knees to chest, arms tucked in, like he’s trying to take up as little space as possible. the mattress dips around him. his stomach hurts more like this, compressed, but he doesn’t move.
good, he thinks. at least something’s working.
voices float up again from downstairs. nancy’s, this time for sure. softer, careful. he knows that tone. she’s been using it a lot lately. their mom too. worried, but trying not to show it. trying not to push. mike appreciates that, even if a small, ugly part of him resents being handled at all. they knocked for a while. asked questions. offered things. then, gradually, they stopped.
space, they decided. mike needs space.
that’s probably true. when people press, he locks up. always has. pressure turns him into something brittle, something mean.
downstairs, ted’s voice cuts through it all, unconcerned, something about the tv, about dinner, about how he worked all day and would like to relax.
you don’t get to be this upset, mike reminds himself. other people have it worse. max. lucas. will. even dustin, who pretends everything’s fine. you’re not special. you’re not the only one who lost something.
the problem is, he didn’t just lose her. he lost the future he’d already lived in his head. the one where they grew up. where they argued about stupid things and kissed at beaches and survived everything because that was kind of the point. letting go of that feels like lying. like betraying her.
his chest tightens, not enough to cry. he doesn’t really do that. it just sits there. you should get up, he thinks. do something. write something. be useful.
he doesn’t.
he curls tighter, forehead pressing into the pillow, stomach aching, thoughts dull and circular. he’s fine. this is temporary.
tomorrow he’ll answer the phone.
tomorrow he’ll eat.
tomorrow he’ll write something.
for now he just lies there.
the words loop until they lose shape, until tomorrow stops meaning a real day and turns into a concept. a placeholder. a lie he’s allowed to tell himself because it sounds responsible. his brain drifts anyway. it always does, even when he doesn’t ask it to. he wonders where she is.
not if. where.
that’s the thing everyone else gets wrong. they talk about eleven like she’s gone somewhere abstract, like she’s a memory. mike pictures geography. movement. hiding. some place dark and quiet where she’s keeping her head down, waiting until it’s safe. she’s good at that. she always has been. maybe she’s somewhere cold. or somewhere loud, where no one would notice one more strange thing. maybe she cut her hair again. maybe she didn’t. maybe she’s using a fake name and hating it.
maybe she’s thinking about him.
that thought hurts worse than the hunger. he presses his face harder into the pillow like that might smother it.
downstairs something opens. a cabinet, maybe. mike doesn’t move. none of it feels like it belongs to him. after about a minute there’s a knock on his bedroom door. careful, like whoever it is already knows yelling won’t help. “go away,” mike says into the pillow. his voice comes out rougher than he expects. he clears his throat and tries again. “i’m busy.”
a pause. then, from the other side of the door, “it’s me.”
oh. shit.
he sits up too fast, the room pitching again, and for a second he thinks he might actually throw up. he doesn’t, but the possibility lingers, unpleasant and humiliating. me only ever means one person.
you.
mike looks down at himself like he’s just noticed his body for the first time. same sweatshirt. again. he can’t remember putting it on, which probably means he didn’t take it off. his hair is messy, sticking up in places it shouldn’t. his mouth tastes bad. stale. great. fantastic timing. another knock, a little firmer this time, but still gentle. you’ve always been like that. careful with doors. careful with everything, really. “mike?” you call, closer now, like you leaned in. “can i come in?”
mike swallows. his instinct is to say no. to pretend he’s asleep. to wait it out until you leave and he can go back to being a lump with thoughts instead of a human being with a face. but you’re here. actually here, not a phone call he can ignore or a memory he can rearrange until it hurts less. “yeah,” mike answers finally. “yeah. um. sure.” he considers brushing his teeth, then realizes he doesn’t have time and that would require leaving the room anyway, which defeats the purpose.
the door opens. you stand there, half in the hallway light, half in mike’s dim room, like you haven’t decided which world you belong to yet. you look thinner, tired in a way that doesn’t go away with sleep. your eyes meet. something tightens in mike’s chest—not panic, exactly. something like guilt that hasn’t figured out what it wants to be yet. “hey.” you greet.
“hey.”
“hey,” you say again, softer this time.
mike doesn’t get up, he doesn’t even pretend like he’s going to. he stays half-curled on the bed, shoulder pressed into the mattress, one arm tucked under the pillow like he might disappear into it if he tries hard enough. part of him registers that he should stand, should do something, should at least look like a functional person greeting another human being, but the thought fizzles out before it turns into motion. you don’t comment on it. of course. you step inside and close the door behind you without being asked. mike watches you from the corner of his eye. you move carefully, but not awkwardly—comfortable. familiar. you toe your shoes off by the door out of habit, set your bag down on the chair that’s been acting as a second closet for weeks.
that’s when he smells it. food. real food. warm. greasy. unmistakable.
his stomach clenches hard enough that he actually has to bite down on his lip, a sharp little hiss escaping anyway. traitor. absolute traitor of a body. he hadn’t been hungry—not really—but now the smell hits him and it’s like his insides wake up just to remind him what he’s been ignoring. you follow his gaze, clock it immediately. “i brought something,” you offer, like it’s no big deal, like you didn’t plan this. “figured… you know. just in case.”
mike does know. he knows exactly what case this is.
the bag crinkles softly when you lift it. it’s from that place—the one on the corner near the old arcade, the one that still smells like fryer oil and burnt coffee no matter how many health inspections it passes. you, mike and el used to go there after school sometimes, squeezing into the booth, eleven always stealing fries off mike’s plate and pretending she wasn’t.
“you didn’t have to.”
“i know,” you reply easily. “i wanted to.”
you set the bag down on his desk, next to the typewriter. mike watches your hand hover for half a second over the keys, like you’re resisting the urge to touch them. you’re thinking about asking. you don’t. another kindness. you glance at the papers scattered everywhere—the half-started pages, the ripped-out sheets, the one where he typed the same sentence five times and crossed it out harder each time. mike feels weirdly exposed, like you’ve just walked in on him failing at something private. “working on something?” you ask, gentle, not pushing.
mike snorts quietly, face still half-buried in the pillow. “define working.”
you smile a little at that. not a big smile, just the corner of your mouth. there’s a pause. the kind that used to feel comfortable and now just feels heavy. mike’s brain scrambles for something to say, anything normal, but all his thoughts slide off each other. you sit on the edge of the bed without asking. the mattress dips, the movement small but noticeable. mike stiffens on instinct, then hates himself for it. you’ve been closer than this. you’ve slept on this bed before, tangled up in blankets and limbs and bad dreams and whispered jokes at three in the morning. still, he doesn’t move away.
the smell of food is stronger now. fries. something fried. something sweet underneath it. his stomach growls, loud and traitorous, and he freezes, mortified. you don’t laugh. you don’t say anything at all, actually. you just reach down, pull the bag open, and set the container on the desk, popping it open enough that the steam escapes. mike swears the smell alone could knock him unconscious. “you don’t have to eat it now,” you say, like you can hear his thoughts. “or at all. it’ll keep.”
mike doesn’t correct you. he knows that’s not true. nothing keeps forever.
everything gets cold.
everything goes bad eventually.
you glance at him again, and this time there’s worry there. real worry. not the kind adults give him when they think space is the answer to everything. “you okay?”
mike almost laughs. what a stupid question, his brain supplies automatically. what a nice question.
“yeah. totally. thriving.” you look at him. mike looks away. “right,” he says. “sorry. i mean—yeah. i’m okay.”
it’s not the truth, but it’s closer than an outright lie. you don’t argue. you don’t push. he wonders, stupidly, what you’re thinking. if you can see how bad it’s gotten. if you’re aware of the same things he is, the sweatshirt, the messy room, the collection of empty water bottles, the way he hasn’t brushed his teeth, the way he can’t seem to sit up straight anymore. he hates that you’re seeing him like this.
he hates it in the specific, irrational way where his brain immediately follows up with you should’ve cleaned, you should’ve showered, you should’ve at least pretended to be normal for ten minutes, like any of that would’ve actually changed the situation. like this isn’t already past the point of pretending. you never say anything about it though. not the sweatshirt, not the bottles lined up like some kind of hydration graveyard, not the way the room smells like dust and old paper and a person who hasn’t opened a window in days. you stand up again and move back toward the desk. mike watches you pull the container all the way open, steam fogging the air between you for a second. it’s his order.
the greasy noodles. extra sauce. the kind that always leaves his fingers slick and his stomach warm and heavy afterward. there’s a side of fries too, dumped carelessly into a cardboard tray, still smelling like salt and oil and that place. that stupid place. the one where eleven used to wrinkle her nose at the smell and then eat half of mike’s anyway. he looks away before the memory finishes forming.
you grab a fork from the bag and cross the room again, holding it out to him like it’s the most normal thing in the world. mike doesn’t take it. “i’m not hungry.”
you pause, fork still outstretched. you don’t sigh. you don’t argue. you just raise an eyebrow at him, slightly, in that way that says i know you, which is unfair, because you do. “just… eat a little.”
“i’m fine.”
liar. coward.
you don’t deserve it anyway. food is for people who are doing something. people who are moving forward. people who didn’t get someone killed. people who aren’t just… taking up space.
you don’t pull the fork back. “mike,” you encourage, gently, and something in your tone makes his chest ache. not disappointed, not angry, just tired. grieving. “please.”
he hates that word. he cracks an eye open and looks at you. your shoulders are tense, there are shadows under your eyes that weren’t there before everything went to hell. you’re holding it together the same way he is—badly—but you’re at least upright. present. here. you’re hurting too, a part of him realizes belatedly. you lost her too.
he takes the fork.
you don’t hover. you sit back down on the bed, closer now, and pick up your own container, start eating like this is just… what you’re doing. like this is a normal afternoon activity and not a delicate negotiation with his will to exist. mike stares at the food for a second. the noodles glisten under the light. his stomach tightens again, painfully loud this time, and he winces. just one bite. to shut it up. he twists the fork into the noodles, lifts them to his mouth, hesitates for half a second too long—then eats.
salt. heat. grease. his throat tightens, not from the food, but from the sudden, overwhelming reminder that his body is still capable of wanting something. still wired for survival despite his best efforts. he chews mechanically. swallows. nothing terrible happens. he eats another smaller bite. out of the corner of his eye he can see you pretending not to watch, pretending this isn’t a victory. you both eat in silence for a minute. he takes several bites, but not because he wants to.
because he doesn’t want to disappoint you.
he chews slowly, eyes fixed on the wall like if he looks at you too directly something might spill out that he doesn’t have the energy to clean up. eventually, the container is lighter. emptier. you close it without comment and set it aside, wiping your hands on a napkin you pull from the bag. mike feels suddenly, acutely, embarrassed. not just a little. deeply. he’s hyperaware now of everything he let slide while he wasn’t paying attention. the room feels smaller with you in it, cluttered with evidence of him. he clears his throat. “you don’t… uh. you don’t have to stay.”
“i know.”
that’s not what he meant.
he shifts, pushes himself up a little, then winces when his head swims. “i’m serious. thanks. really. but i’m fine now, so—”
“you’re not.” you say, quietly.
there it is.
irritation flares hot and sudden, like a match struck too close to something flammable. he’s always been like this—corner him, press him, and he snaps. it’s reflex. “i said i’m fine,” he repeats, sharper now. “you don’t need to—like—monitor me or whatever.”
you don’t rise to it. “i’m not monitoring you, i’m sitting with you.”
“same thing.”
you sigh softly, not annoyed, just tired. “mike.”
he swings his legs off the bed, stands too fast, sways, grabs the desk to steady himself. his heart’s pounding now, loud in his ears, his thoughts scattering like startled birds. “i just want to be alone, okay?” he snaps. “why is that so hard for everyone to understand?”
then you say, very calmly, “because this isn’t being alone. this is you disappearing.”
“dramatic much?”
you don’t smile. “i’m not leaving. you need to talk to someone.”
“i don’t,” mike fires back. “i just need—time. space. i’m allowed to grieve how i want.” his voice cracks on the next sentence and he hates that you hear it. hates that he can’t stop it. “this is because of her,” he continues, like it’s an accusation. like it explains everything. “if she hadn’t—if this didn’t happen, i wouldn’t—” he cuts himself off, breathing hard, staring at the floor like it’s done something wrong.
you stand up like you’re approaching a skittish animal. “i know.”
“no, you don’t. you don’t know. you don’t get it. none of you do. she was—she was—” he gestures uselessly, words tangling. “everything. and everyone just expects me to—what? move on? act normal?”
you’re closer now. “no one expects that. we just don’t want you to disappear with her.”
people who are depressed know they’re depressed, he thinks. they say stuff about it. they cry all the time. they can’t get out of bed because they’re sad. he’s not been sad. he just… doesn’t want to move.
something in your expression shifts. resolve, maybe. “mike, please don’t push me away. this isn’t what she would want.”
his chest tightens immediately, painfully. he sees it so clearly it almost knocks the air out of him—eleven standing in front of the both of you on the last day he ever saw her, serious and unshakable and determined, looking between the two of you like she was stitching you together with her eyes. promise me, she’d said. you take care of each other.
mike’s face crumples before he can stop it. it’s instant. humiliatingly fast. his mouth twists, his chin wobbling, breath hitching like his lungs forgot how to work. he turns his head sharply to the side like that might hide it, but it’s too late. his eyes burn. his throat closes. “don’t.” you freeze, like you hadn’t expected it to be this immediate. this bad. mike presses his palm hard into his eye like he can physically shove the feeling back in. it doesn’t work. it never does. “i’m screwing it up,” he blurts. “i’m screwing everything up.”
you reach for him then. tentative, careful. your fingers hover at his arm like you’re asking permission without words. he doesn’t pull away. that alone feels like failure. “mike.”
“i just miss her,” he chokes. it sounds pathetic even to his own ears, thin and childish and inadequate for the size of the loss. “i miss her so much. everyone keeps acting like time is doing something about it and it’s not. it’s not fixing anything.”
he drags a hand through his hair, pacing now because standing still feels unbearable and he doesn’t need you touching him right now. no one tells you how to grieve your badass girlfriend when she’s been saving your ass since you were twelve. for a second he just breathes. in. out. in. out. it doesn’t help. suddenly, he straightens. his eyes are unfocused, like he’s looking at something that isn’t in the room. “i could’ve been a lighthouse.”
you blink. “huh?”
“it’s—i know it sounds stupid. it’s not stupid.” he says quickly, almost frantic, like the idea will evaporate if he doesn’t say it all at once. “there’s this lighthouse,” he says. “on the coast. i think. i read about it somewhere. or maybe i made it up. whatever. it doesn’t matter. it’s just—there. tall. solid. built to last. it doesn’t go anywhere. it doesn’t fight storms. it just stands there and shines so ships don’t crash.” his hands are shaking now. he clasps them together, then lets them go, then clenches them again. “people act like that’s enough. like standing there is enough. but it’s only useful if someone sees it. if someone’s out there, lost and scared and looking for something to guide them. otherwise it’s just—” he gestures helplessly. “a building. empty. pointless.” he swallows hard, throat bobbing. “eleven was a storm. she was—she was everything. she had all this — this power and fire and all this… momentum. and i wasn’t. i wasn’t like that. i wasn’t strong the way she was. i wasn’t brave like her. i wasn’t— i wasn’t even close. i kept thinking if i stayed still—if i didn’t mess things up—if i just… stayed where i was, maybe that was enough. like if i didn’t move, nothing bad could happen.”
his voice cracks so hard he has to stop. “but storms don’t care. they don’t wait. and ships don’t either. they crash if there’s no light.” he looks up at you, eyes red and shining, face twisted with something close to panic. “i could’ve been her lighthouse. i could’ve given her light. i could’ve been the thing she looked at and knew she’d be okay. i could’ve been the one who burned for her, who —- who stayed lit when it mattered.” is he making sense? probably not. does he care? not at all. “instead i just—stood there. in the dark. thinking being there was enough.” his voice drops to nothing. “i let the waves take her.”
his face morphs in a way you have never and never in your life thought you’d see. michael wheeler starts to cry. in front of you. real crying. messy and uneven and embarrassing, face twisted, breath coming in gasps like he’s drowning on dry land. he hates it. hates how weak it feels, how exposed. hates that this is happening in front of you. “i could’ve been her lighthouse.”
you step closer, arms coming around him fully now, and he doesn’t resist. he leans into you without meaning to. “oh, mike..”
he hates the sound he’s making. the hitching, the wet inhale that won’t make it all the way in, the way his breath keeps stuttering like it forgot how to work. it’s humiliating. it’s loud. his dad’s voice floats up somewhere from his memory, something about pulling it together, something about how men don’t fall apart like this, especially not in front of other people. especially not over feelings.
your arms are solid around him. that’s another problem. solid things are hard to ignore. he freezes for half a second, muscles locking out of pure instinct, like if he stays still enough maybe this can rewind, maybe you’ll let go, maybe he can laugh it off later and pretend this didn’t happen. but he doesn’t pull away, he doesn’t have the energy. his forehead ends up against your shoulder, not on purpose, just gravity doing what gravity does when you’re tired and empty and everything hurts too much to hold up on your own. “i’m sorry.” he manages, which is stupid, because sorry for what? existing? taking up space? crying? proving everyone right? that he’s not okay? his hands curl in the fabric of your shirt like he needs something to anchor himself to, and he hates that too. hates that he needs anything. hates that he’s always needed things, even when people pretended he didn’t. mike’s fine, they say. mike doesn’t care. mike doesn’t get upset. mike’s tough. mike can handle it. and he always did, until now. until eleven is gone and the world kept moving like that was acceptable and he’s supposed to just… adapt.
you say his name again, tell him to stop, to not apologize, and it does something awful to his chest. he shakes his head even though you can’t see it. “i shouldn’t—” his voice gives out again, betraying him mid-sentence. “this is so dumb.” crying was never an option. even though when eleven cried, he held her. when will cried, he held him. when the world fell apart, he stood there and tried to be useful by not making it worse. but now there’s nothing left to hold together, and the worst part is that you’re not letting him go. you’re still there. he doesn’t know how to be the one being held, so he just stands there, shaking and breathing and crying into your shoulder, letting himself be something other than enough for once, even if it scares the hell out of him.
you don’t just let him spiral standing there. you guide him back toward the bed like you’ve done this before. he stumbles a little, feet catching on nothing, and lets himself be steered because resisting feels like too much work. the springs creak under the familiar weight of his body and for a second his brain latches onto that instead. same sound. same bed. still here. stupid things to notice. stupid things that keep him from floating off completely. you crouch in front of him so you’re eye level, hands warm on his knees. you’re saying things—he can tell by the way your mouth moves—but they slide right past him. it’s not your fault, mike. it’s not your fault. his chest tightens anyway, like his body is arguing even if his brain won’t engage. fault is such a loaded word. fault implies choice. something he could’ve done differently. his thoughts start drifting again, tugged sideways by images he doesn’t want: soldiers, the upside down, her face slack with exhaustion and stubborn determination. he blinks too slowly. he’s slipping. he knows that feeling now.
you notice before he does. you always do. your hand comes up, thumb brushing his cheek where the tears are. “mike,” you say again, then you lean in and kiss him, soft and grounding and real, a press of lips that says stay. his brain short-circuits completely. every thought evaporates on impact. his breath catches and his hands twitch uselessly at his sides like they don’t know what their job is anymore. kissing has always been complicated for him—too many feelings, too many meanings—but this isn’t about that. this is you pulling him back into his body when he’s about to disappear again.
when you pull away his forehead tips forward until it rests against yours. he exhales like he’s been holding his breath for days. his eyes are unfocused, lashes clumped, face blotchy and red and embarrassing. “three waterfalls. im such an idiot.”
you frown, a little ache in your chest, because you know exactly what he’s talking about. that stupid, beautiful, impossible dream he had proposed to you and el both before… before everything. before it all went wrong. the way he said it now—im such an idiot—makes your stomach twist. it was a nice dream. it was soft in a world that had refused to let any of you breathe for years. your lips press together to keep from saying anything. “wait—oh, shit, i—i didn’t mean—i’m not—i wasn’t—” he stumbles over the words, realizing, oh no, that in talking about what could’ve been, he’s ignored what you felt too. your grief. your love for el. the same grief he’s drowning in himself. suddenly, without thinking, his brain switches modes. protector. must protect. can’t lose anyone else.
“come here.” he says, pulling you in before you can respond, arms wrapping around you. he’s suddenly aware he’s been holding his breath for like three minutes and oh god is that even possible lungs what is happening stop breathing stop moving stop thinking and your hair smells good and maybe he should’ve eaten those last six bites but he didn’t because he’s pathetic and also embarrassed and oh shit did he just touch your arm okay maybe not maybe he didn’t and wait your arm is still there your arm is there and it feels like oxygen like it feels like he’s been underwater forever and this is the first surface he’s hit and also he’s not supposed to need oxygen from anyone and this is dumb and why is he thinking about oxygen why is he thinking about air why is he thinking about everything.
he leans in and your lips are there and suddenly that’s a thing and he doesn’t know what to do because kissing isn’t supposed to fix grief it’s supposed to be fun and light and terrible and maybe it’s terrible anyway because he can’t stop thinking about eleven and also you and also why does he need both of you at the same time like some dumb math problem that can’t be solved because numbers don’t exist and he’s a disaster and also his chest is too tight and why is breathing so hard when it’s supposed to be easy and what is normal and why did everyone leave and why is it just him holding you and also does he even deserve this at all?
he mutters against you without thinking: please don’t leave. and oh god, did he just say that out loud? probably did. fuck, you’re probably judging him for saying that. oh no, oh no no no and your arms are around him and okay maybe that’s fine —- maybe that’s the only thing keeping him from unraveling entirely, maybe he’s supposed to be the lighthouse, maybe he isn’t but oh god the storm the storm the storm eleven the storm and he just can’t think straight and you’re here and thank god and maybe he doesn’t even care that it’s wrong to feel this desperate to cling to someone like this maybe it’s okay maybe it’s safe maybe it’s the only thing standing between him and disappearing completely and maybe it’s all too much and not enough and holy shit why is everything always like this.
mike begins to wonder if something is wrong with him. why he can only feel so alive in the presence of certain people.
why does everything feel brighter when he’s with certain people? with you. with eleven. with will sometimes, but not like this. not like this gnawing, twisting, can’t-breathe kind of alive that makes his chest ache and stomach clench at the same time. he hates it. hates it because it’s uncontrollable and stupid and pathetic and also, somehow, the only thing keeping him from dissolving into the floor. why can’t he just be a normal person who sits still and waits for the world to stop being terrible? oh right, because that’s not a thing, and it never was.
he noses against your hair without thinking, and you sigh softly, the kind of sigh that’s not about being frustrated, it’s soft, and mike’s chest loosens just a hair. it’s not much. it’s not enough to be okay, but maybe it’s a start. maybe it’s enough to stop panicking for five seconds. he closes his eyes, lets himself sink into you, and the world still feels wrong, but slightly more bearable, like maybe he can survive this storm after all. then his lips are on yours again, and he’s hopeless. hopeless and desperate and obsessed, and it’s soft and warm and messy and safe. he kisses you, hands awkwardly catching yours or your arms or your shoulders wherever he can reach without looking stupid, because god forbid he look pathetic and messy and emotional and he already is all those things. somehow it’s enough to make the tears stop dripping down his cheeks for now, at least the ones he notices. he’s breathing you in, and he realizes that you’re it. the last thing he has. he doesn’t just want to hold you, he needs to. maybe that’s bad. maybe that’s codependent. maybe that’s stupid. it works for him. its how he likes to cope, if the option is available. by turning all his attention towards someone he likes. he can’t lose you too. he won’t.
it’s practical. efficient, even. worrying about you gives his brain something to chew on besides the gaping hole where the future was supposed to go. besides el. besides the way everyone else keeps talking about plans—jobs, cities, lives that keep moving forward like that’s a reasonable thing to do after the world ends for the third time. focusing on you is easier. you’re right here. you forget to eat. you don’t sleep enough. great. solvable problems. mike wheeler, problem-solver extraordinaire. this is familiar territory. this, he can do. someone has to be paying attention to you. clearly, it’s him.
all the fear, all the love, all the frantic what-if energy gets narrowed down to you. a laser beam instead of an explosion. this is better. if he’s worried about you, he doesn’t have to ask what happens when everyone else keeps leaving and he doesn’t know how to follow. if he’s holding you together, that means he’s not the one unraveling. so as your breath syncs without either of you acknowledging it, he thinks, with a detached sort of acceptance, okay. this is my thing now. not saving the world, not waiting for miracles. just this. keeping you here, making sure you’re okay. letting that be enough. it has to be enough, because if you go too —- well. he’ll deal with that later. he always does.
you finally pull back a little, just enough for both of you to breathe, and you brush a hand down his arm. “we can get through this. together.” you console, and your voice is calm and steady, and mike thinks about how steady you always seem to be and why does he have to be the opposite of that, why can’t he be normal and cool and collected like everyone else, like he’s supposed to be. “okay? it’s what she would want for us.”
mike swallows, and he nods, barely.
yes, okay, that’s what she would want. he agrees. he agrees with you. he agrees with everything you say, ever, actually. and god, el would also maybe roll her eyes at him and tease him and giggle at him for him crying like a baby into your shoulder and then immediately getting clingy. he buries his face in your neck hesitantly, and mutters something half-grumbled, “i’m never gonna be normal. ever. can you deal with that?”
you roll your eyes, a small smile tugging your lips, “probably. probably can. but first…” you tug on the hem of his hoodie, playful but gentle, “shower. you smell like shit.”
mike smiles weakly, and for half a second he almost feels like himself again. almost. the kind of almost that doesn’t count but still hurts when it slips away. he lets you tug him back just far enough to look at him, hoodie wrinkled where your fingers grip it like you’re afraid he might evaporate if you let go. he probably would. good instinct. “wow,” he says hoarsely, swiping at his face with the heel of his hand and missing at least one tear, because of course. “romance is dead.”
you huff, unimpressed. “mike.”
“okay, okay.” he concedes, because he always does with you. arguing with you feels like too much effort and also because you’re right, which is worse. he lets himself be maneuvered toward the bathroom like an uncooperative cat. it’s embarrassing how long it’s been since he’s showered. he knows that. he knows a lot of things lately and does nothing about most of them.
the bathroom light is too bright. everything is too bright. the mirror catches him off guard—hollow-eyed, hair limp, face still red like he cried at a funeral. he looks like someone who hasn’t been sleeping. or eating. or planning on being around long enough for either of those things to matter. he looks away quickly, focusing instead on the sound of you turning on the water, testing the temperature. he doesn’t say thank you. he doesn’t know how. instead, he says, “you don’t have to babysit me, you know.”
“i know,” you say again. “i want to.”
something in his chest gives, not enough to cry again—he’s tapped out for now—but enough that his throat tightens and he nods, dumbly, because if he opens his mouth he’s going to say something inconveniently honest, like please don’t leave me alone or i don’t trust myself when you’re not here or sometimes i think about how easy it would be to stop trying. none of those are things he’s ready to hand over.
he showers. eventually. you pick up his room for him a bit, then sit on his bed, reading one of his comics and pretending not to keep track of how long he’s in there. he lets the water run hotter than it should. when he comes back out, clean and damp and wrapped in a towel, you hand him clothes and he gets dressed. he sits. you sit next to him. neither of you talk for a bit. if you weren’t here, he probably wouldn’t be either. the thought is disturbingly calm. he doesn’t say it, he never will. instead, he leans into your side, testing it, and you lean back without hesitation. maybe that’s the problem. or maybe that’s the reason he’s still here.
his room looks different when it’s clean. wrong, almost. too much empty space where mess used to be. you sitting on his bed helps. proves he didn’t imagine the last few hours. he focuses on small things to keep his thoughts from getting loud again, your shoulder against his, the way the comic in your hands crinkles when you turn a page, the smell of soap still clinging to him.
everyone else is moving on, and it makes him sick. everyone but you and him, apparently. will’s leaving for college soon. lucas and max are serious now—capital S serious. dinner plans. constant dates. conversations about the future and moving in together that mike isn’t invited into because he wouldn’t know what to do with them anyway. dustin is always busy, always running somewhere with steve or robin or talking about college like it’s a sure thing and not a terrifying cliff.
and el, presumed dead? what a fucked phrase. like there’s no room for debate. no one checks on mike much anymore. sometimes he wonders what would happen if he just… didn’t come out of his room one day. he hates himself for thinking that. then he hates himself for hating himself. exhausting. a real cycle. being stuck in his head feels like being locked in a room with a narrator who won’t shut up and hates him personally. he knows, intellectually, that he should ask for help. that this is the part where people say reach out. but reach out to who? and say what? hi, i’m not actively dying but i kind of don’t want to exist most days, can you pencil me in?
you shift beside him like you felt his thoughts getting too close to the edge. this probably isn’t healthy. needing someone this much isn’t sustainable. tomorrow you’ll leave the room, and the door will close, and the silence will rush back in, and mike won’t want to do any of this for himself. but that’s not today. today, you’re here. today, he has something to lean against that leans back. if that’s all he has right now—if that’s the only reason he gets out of bed, the only reason the world hasn’t swallowed him whole—fuck it. he’ll take it.
either way, tomorrow feels impossible. tonight though, tonight he’s clean, and breathing, and not alone.
based off this request !
A/N: FIRST FIC OF THE YEAR!!!! happy new years everyone…. totally didn’t write this as an excuse to write depressed mike…… i hate him and i must make him suffer (he’s my favorite character)
So so so sorry if I spam ur account with likes…UR WRITING IS LIKE WOW HELLO
HAHAHA UR ALL GOOD genuinely. spam has never bothered me…. i get why it might annoy others but thats no big deal. so don’t worry about it :)) im glad you enjoy my work<33
꒰ 🚲 ꒱ synopsis 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒 you and mike get in a fight, kiss about it, pretend it never happened, and then avoid each other for two months like mature, well-adjusted people. prom forces a reunion, and mike learns that ignoring someone does not make them stop mattering—especially when they bring a date.
MIKE DECIDES, VERY MATURELY, THAT IF HE KEEPS STARING AT THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD LONG ENOUGH MAYBE YOU’LL FEEL IT AND TURN AROUND AND APOLOGIZE.
this is a flawed plan for several reasons, chief among them being:
1. you are extremely stubborn.
2. mike is also extremely stubborn.
3. the back of your head is currently doing absolutely nothing wrong.
the back of your head, for the record, actually looks exactly the same as it always does. same stupidly neat part. same little flyaway near your crown. same hoodie hood bunched awkwardly against the plastic back of the chair. there is nothing visually new here. the back of your head, unfortunately, is being extremely smug about it.
mike knows this makes no sense. heads cannot be smug. hair cannot be smug. posture, however, can absolutely be smug, and yours is doing that thing where you’re sitting a little straighter than necessary, shoulders squared like you’ve just made a decision and are standing by it. which, frankly, feels hostile. you are three seats to his right now. three. you were supposed to be directly next to him. that was the plan. the agreed-upon, verbally confirmed, nodded-at plan. mrs. smith had clapped her hands and said, “same partners as last time.” which is teacher-speak for don’t make this my problem.
you had already turned halfway toward him, prepared, bag half-unzipped, notebook sliding off your desk. ready. normal. mike had even pulled his chair a few inches closer, which he now recognizes as a mistake of optimism. then he’d said calmly, reasonably, “we should probably split the sections this time instead of doing it your way again.”
your eyebrows had gone up a little. warning eyebrows. “my way?” you’d asked.
“yeah,” he’d said. “you know. where you redo everything at the end.”
which, okay. maybe not phrased perfectly. but still true. mostly.
you’d stared at him for a second like you were deciding whether to laugh or set something on fire. “i redo it because you overcomplicate it.”
“i don’t overcomplicate it!” mike had shot back immediately. reflexively.
it had gone downhill from there fast. words piling up, tones sharpening, that horrible awareness creeping in that everyone around you was absolutely listening. someone had actually said “yikes” under their breath. mike is choosing not to remember who. then, this is the part that keeps looping, you had closed your notebook. stood up. said, “fine. then i’ll work with someone else.” and you had moved, just like that. chair scraping, backpack swinging onto your shoulder. mike’s stomach had dropped somewhere near his shoes.
okay. okay. that was dramatic. he tells himself this now, again, because it’s important that someone in this situation be reasonable. and since you clearly weren’t—
you lean toward the guy you’re sitting next to now. mark? matt? something with an m. he has a soft-looking face and one of those mechanical pencils that clicks too loud. mike hates him already. mrs. smith is passing out the assignment sheets, one lands on mike’s desk. he barely looks at it. his leg is bouncing now, aggressive, like it’s trying to kick the desk out from under him.
he knows logically that you are allowed to work with other people. he knows that. he is not insane. this is not about ownership or control or whatever accusation is trying to form at the back of his mind. this is about fairness. you were a team. a unit. you fight a lot, sure, but that’s because you actually talk to each other. argue. care. he’s pretty sure most people don’t bother. most people don’t bother, and that’s the thing, because you bother. you always have. you argue back. you push. you don’t just nod along and let things slide, which is, objectively, better. healthier. probably. mike read something about that once. or maybe will said it. same difference.
you didn’t have to switch. you chose to. which means you were making a point. which means the fight earlier mattered more to you than the project. which means you escalated it. there. logic.
you and mike always partner together. this is not a rule written down anywhere, but it might as well be. it’s been like that since forever. since the science fair volcano that almost set the gym on fire. since the history presentation where you’d forgotten your note cards and mike had filled in without even looking at you and you’d mouthed thank you. you fight, sure. constantly. about everything. font sizes. directions. whether something needs more explanation. whether something needs less explanation. you once didn’t talk for half a day because you disagreed about whether posters should be portrait or landscape. but you always circle back. always end up on the same side of the table, papers overlapping, shoulders knocking together. that’s just how it works.
except apparently not today.
the guy—mark. matt. mason. mike decides his name is mason because it feels annoying—laughs. what is so funny. wheeler tries to tell himself it’s fine, that you’re just being dramatic. that you stood up because you wanted to make a point, not because you actually wanted to switch partners. a power move. a statement. you do those sometimes. so does he. it’s basically communication at this point. you’ll come back after class. or tomorrow. you’ll say something like, “okay, that got out of hand.” and mike will say, “yeah, but you started it.” and you’ll roll your eyes and then you’ll be fine.
he doesn’t even know why he’s this mad, he just is. it’s physical at this point. probably just stress. or something. but come on, it’s mason (whoever that is) of all people.
the partner he’s been forced to accept today, unfortunate stand-in for you, asks him a question. mike snaps. “uh… yeah. that. sure, whatever.” tone dismissive. he doesn’t even read the words correctly, he doesn’t care. the answer is irrelevant. he doesn’t want to be partnered with him. he wants you. this is ridiculous. everyone can see it’s ridiculous. he can see it. he can feel it. that’s why his face is hot, a little vein in his temple ticking like a moron. but it’s okay because historically every time this kind of thing happens you always come back to him so he can sit there and be mad for now. it’s a perfectly logical plan. he leans forward and jabs his pen down, leaving a hole in the paper.
this is normal.
this—fighting, snapping, sulking, refusing to look at each other for an entire class period while aggressively pretending you don’t care—is basically your thing. has been for years. practically tradition, like d&d nights or bike rides or arguing over which movie to rent until family video closes and someone (usually him) storms out dramatically. this is not new. this is not a problem. this is just how you interact.
he stares down at the hole in his paper, exhales through his nose, and adjusts the notebook so it’s covering it. no reason to draw attention. he’s not angry-angry, he’s just firmly displeased. there’s a difference. a very adult difference. someone behind him keeps tapping their foot, the clock ticks too loudly, the teacher is explaining the assignment again even though she already explained it and mike already knows it because he read the board and also because he always knows what the assignment is. he just doesn’t want to do it with this guy.
he glances at his emphasis-on-replacement partner. the kid, nameless, probably wrong too, has his worksheet tilted at a dumb angle, like he doesn’t even understand basic desk geometry. mike sighs and straightens the paper, looking for any small petty reason to get upset over. you would never place it like that, he thinks. you like things neat when you’re trying to make a point, which you were. earlier. when you stood up and moved. his jaw tightens at the memory. you didn’t even look at him when you did it, just gathered your things, chair scraping against the floor, backpack strap sliding off your shoulder because you were annoyed and didn’t fix it.
he writes his name on the worksheet, presses a little too hard, then forces himself to lighten up before he sneaks another look at you. you’re leaned toward mason, your elbow on the desk, chin resting on your hand like you’re actually invested in what he’s saying. which is ridiculous, because mason is not interesting. mike knows this for sure, definitely. he’s known mason-type people his whole life. they exist to fill chairs.
he looks back down, flips the worksheet over, and scans the questions. it’s a group project about—something. it honestly doesn’t matter. what matters is that you were supposed to be doing this together, because you always do. his partner clears his throat. “so… question two?”
mike blinks, dragged back to the present. “yeah. sure.” he reads the question this time, answers it curtly. he’s good at this. being competent when he wants to prove a point.
out of the corner of his eye he sees you gesture with your pen. he remembers another time last year when you’d argued with him with the same expression. you’d been right then, too, which he’d admitted after three hours and one apology pizza. you’ll come back, he reassures himself. you always do. you get mad, you storm off, you make a show of it. then later you circle back like nothing happened, or like something happened but you’ve both decided not to talk about it because that’s easier. that’s friendship. real friendship. not whatever mason is offering.
he sits up straighter, posture screaming i am fine, because he is. this totally doesn’t bother him. it’s just a fight. fights mean you care enough to have them. he glances at you again. your laugh this time is softer, different. something twists unpleasantly in his chest. he ignores it. probably indigestion. he focuses harder on the paper, scribbling notes, answers, bullet points. his handwriting is messier than usual. whatever. he’ll clean it up later.
five minutes later mike is pretty sure the clock is ticking slower on purpose, just to mess with him. the second hand drags like it’s trudging through mud. he stares at it for a solid ten seconds, decides that was a mistake, and looks back down at his paper instead. he’s alert. engaged. a scholar. definitely not counting down the seconds until he can stand up and reestablish the natural order of things. you’re bent over mason’s desk now, whispering something. whispering. okay. sure. totally necessary. the class is allowed to discuss out loud, but yeah, lean in closer.
ten more minutes, he estimates. maybe eight. the teacher is droning on about expectations and due dates and “collaboration.” mike knows how to collaborate. he’s excellent at it. you just have to follow the rules. the obvious ones, like if you always work together you don’t suddenly stop because of one argument!
he tries to remember a time when you didn’t circle back. there isn’t one. even the bad ones—like that fight sophomore year about the campaign notes, or the one where you accused him of “always needing to be right” (unfair, and also incorrect)—you’d still waited for him after class. arms crossed, foot tapping, face set in that stubborn way that meant i’m mad but i’m not leaving. he’d apologized eventually. or half-apologized. or explained his side until you sighed and said, “okay, whatever.” same difference.
he clings to that. you’ll wait. you always do.
the bell rings, too loud. seriously, who decided that volume. mike startles, then immediately stands like he’s been coiled up and waiting. he doesn’t rush—he’s not obvious—but he’s efficient. notebook closed, pen capped, backpack open, closed, slung over one shoulder. he looks up. you’re already out of your seat.
okay, fine. no big deal. you’re just eager. you always get like that when you’re annoyed. restless. he watches you shove your chair in with more force than necessary. yeah. you’re still mad. good. that means this is still a normal fight. he steps into the aisle, timing it so he’ll catch up with you near the door. that’s the move. that’s how this goes. you’ll slow down just enough, he’ll fall into step beside you, and there will be a tense but familiar silence as you walk to your next class together. maybe he’ll say something neutral. maybe you won’t answer. progress.
except; you don’t slow down. you don’t look back. you walk straight out, turn, and keep going like you’ve got somewhere important to be that does not include him. mike stops short like his brain has to buffer. he stares after you, watching the back of your head disappear into the hallway traffic. there’s a flicker of confusion first followed immediately by indignation.
oh.
so that’s how it is.
his jaw tightens while heat crawls up his neck and settles behind his ears. wow. okay. wow. now this isn’t just dramatic, now it’s rude. he swings his backpack higher on his shoulder and strides into the hall, eyes locked on your retreating figure. he still expects you’ll glance back, even now. even at the last second. you don’t. you turn the corner and you’re gone. something twists in his chest. indigestion, probably. maybe he shouldn’t have had that second slice of pizza.
he slows his pace. no reason to chase, he’s not chasing. he’s reassessing, because clearly you’ve escalated. clearly you’re making a point, and fine. two can do that. he was still going to walk you to class, he thinks, irritation flaring hotter now. he was being nice. he was being mature. he was willing to reset without making a big deal out of it and you didn’t even give him the chance. unbelievable!
if you think you can just walk off and pretend he doesn’t exist? fine.
he can play that game too.
he lasts fourteen minutes.
just kidding, it’s more like forty. he does sit through the rest of the day (which consists of: one class. congrats michael!) he answers when the teacher calls on him, he does not storm out or dramatically brood in a bathroom stall like a psycho. he behaves. which is impressive honestly. mike walks through one hallway, sits through a lesson without sleeping, takes two pages of notes he does not remember writing, and maintains a perfectly respectable level of not-caring. his foot only taps a little. his eyes only drift to the clock every twenty seconds, which is normal.
when the final bell rings obviously he leaves immediately, because you always go home together too, and because biking home together is not a favor or a gesture or some kind of emotional olive branch. it’s a routine. you live in the same direction, you’ve been doing it since sophomore year. deviating from that would be stupid and impractical and also a waste of perfectly good momentum. so he’s outside your classroom before you are.
he leans against the wall, arms crossed casually. approachable. the picture of someone who did not sprint down the hallway with his heart thumping like he’d missed a step on the stairs. students pour out of the room in clusters. laughter, lockers slamming, someone shouting about homework. mike scans faces without meaning to and spots you. there it is again, that small, stupid, annoying lift in his chest. relief probably. relief that the day can resume its normal programming. he straightens without realizing he’d slouched, uncrosses his arms, then crosses them again because that looked weird.
you slow just enough that he can catch up without it looking like either of you planned this, which is good. that’s important. mike immediately clocks this as you folding first, which feels correct and earned. when he falls into step beside you there’s a beat of silence. then another. mike stares straight ahead, expression neutral in a way that is meant to read calm but probably reads like he’s thinking about revenge. which he is not. he’s thinking about how normal this is, the post-fight truce walk. the ceasefire before negotiations break down again. “so,” he says, because someone has to. his voice comes out even, casual. generous. “guess mason’s pretty funny, huh.”
okay. maybe not generous. but still conversational.
you don’t answer right away. that’s fine. you never do when he opens with something stupid. you’re consistent like that. mike takes your silence as confirmation that the comment landed. “or matt,” he adds magnanimously. “mark. frank. whatever his name is.”
you give him that familiar look, half warning, half challenge. he’s seen it in hallways, in basements, in the middle of arguments that start about homework and end about everything else. it’s practically nostalgic. “how’s your project going?” you deflect.
right, okay. that’s what we’re doing. selective amnesia. aggressive topic pivot. he recognizes it immediately and absolutely takes it personally. “uh,” he pauses, because he has to reroute his entire thought process. “fine.” which is true. objectively. fine. “we’re outlining. research stuff.”
this is generous phrasing. his partner’s name—something with a j, maybe—mostly stared at the worksheet like it had his entire family held captive at home. mike filled in most of it himself, fueled by spite and a need to prove he can function without you. which he can. obviously. he’s doing it right now.
you nod like that answers everything, like you didn’t just sidestep the entire issue and leave him standing there holding it. whatever. he can do normal. he’s excellent at normal. you start walking toward the bike racks and he falls into step beside you, because that’s also normal. the late afternoon air outside smells like grass that’s been trampled all day.. “so,” you start, lighter now. “we’re doing the renewable energy thing. solar panels. matthew found this article—”
so that’s his name. well, fuck matthew. why would he give a shit about matthew? “matthew.” he repeats neutrally, inquisitive. a scientist examining a specimen.
you glance at him, probably sensing something. good. he wants you to sense something. “yeah,” you reply, unfazed. “he’s actually not dumb.”
“wow. high praise.”
you shoot him a look. “don’t.”
“don’t what,” he says immediately. it’s like his mouth is on autopilot. “agree?”
you shake your head, lips twitching despite yourself. “ass.”
there it is, rhythm restored. banter re-engaged. proof that everything’s fine. they reach the bike racks. mike leans his bike out of its slot and rests one foot on the curb. he tells himself very clearly that this is the part where he shuts up. that he lets it go, that he proves he’s mature. he lasts maybe twelve seconds. “i just think it’s funny,” he continues, casual as anything, eyes on his handlebars, because mike wheeler can never stop himself from pushing buttons, “how you suddenly care about other people’s opinions when you didn’t even let me finish my sentence earlier.”
you freeze mid-unlock to slowly look at him. “i did let you finish. you just kept talking.”
“because you were wrong.” he replies automatically. your eyebrows lift. there it is again, that look. the one that says oh, so that’s the hill you’re dying on. mike clocks it and, instead of reassessing like a reasonable person, he doubles down because retreating now would imply regret, and regret implies fault, and fault is not on the table. “i mean, you didn’t have to storm off. it was dramatic.”
“you weren’t listening!”
that’s—okay. that’s unfair. mike always listens. he just doesn’t always agree, which is different and more honest. “i was listening,” he insists, offended. “i just didn’t agree with you.”
“you never agree with me.”
“that’s not true.”
“mike.”
he stops walking. the bikes roll to a halt, tires scraping against the pavement. people pass around you, voices and footsteps blurring into background noise, but the space between you feels suddenly very loud. “that’s not true.” he repeats, firmer. “i agree with you all the time.”
you cross your arms. “name one.”
he opens his mouth. pauses. okay, bad question right now. his brain scrambles, rifling through memories like a disorganized file cabinet. last week? no. those ended in debates. the month before? also fights. there was that time with the movie—no, he argued about that too. okay, maybe he doesn’t have an exact point in time right now, but he knows it’s happened. “that’s not the point.
you let out a breath, frustrated. “then what is the point, mike.”
he grips his handlebars tighter. this is where it starts to feel slippery, like he’s standing on the verge of something and doesn’t know how he got there, only that backing up would look bad. “the point is that you didn’t have my back.”
“are you serious right now.”
“yeah,” he says, because apparently he is. “i am. i just thought we were a team.”
“we are not a team,” you snap. “we’re friends.”
“exactly,” he shoots back, relief flaring because yes. “friends don’t just ditch each other.”
“i didn’t ditch you!”
“you did! in the middle of class!”
“because you wouldn’t stop.”
“because you were wrong!”
he hates this part. the part where the argument shifts, where it stops being about the project or the class or mason-whatever and starts being about this. about him. about you. “i’m just saying,” he pushes, voice defensive, “you didn’t have to go partner up with some random guy to prove a point.”
“you mean matthew,” you say coldly. “who you refuse to call by his actual name.”
“because he doesn’t matter.” mike snaps.
you stare at him. “wow.”
“i didn’t mean—” he starts, then stops because, no, he did mean it. he just didn’t mean for it to sound like that. “i mean, he matters, obviously, as a person, but not—” he cuts himself off. that sentence is a dead end and he can see it now, stretching out in front of him like a pothole he’s already fallen into once. finishing it would only make it worse, and worse is not something he can handle right now. “never mind.” he mumbles, a classic mike wheeler maneuver and has literally never fixed anything, but whatever. consistency is important.
he swings his leg over his bike abruptly. he doesn’t look at you when he pushes off. looking would mean dealing, and dealing would mean emotions, and emotions are… optional. avoidable. manageable if you just don’t poke at them. this is fine, this is what people do. you leave. you cool off. you think things through in a normal, rational way. his parents are very good at this method. silence until everything goes away on its own. extremely effective and definitely healthy.
he pedals hard, faster than necessary, the chain rattling as he turns out of the lot and onto the street. houses blur past—familiar lawns, mailboxes he’s known forever, the crack in the sidewalk near the hendersons’ place that he always avoids. his brain unhelpfully keeps replaying the last thirty seconds on a loop, editing it in real time.
you shouldn’t have said that.
you didn’t say anything that bad.
okay, maybe a little bad.
but you’re right, though.
he grips the handlebars tighter. this is why he leaves. staying just leads to saying things that get misinterpreted. people taking stuff personally. him having to explain himself when he already knows what he meant.
he turns down a side street, heading toward his house, already planning the rest of the evening: bike in the garage, door shut, room, headphones. maybe a game. solid plan. then —- tires behind him. mike stiffens, shoulders tightening as he glances back before he can stop himself. it’s you. you’re pedaling fast, hair tugged loose by the wind, expression set in that determined way he recognizes immediately. the i’m not done face. the one that has historically ruined his entire plan to be alone. his first reaction is irritation. seriously? he speeds up, because obviously the solution here is to outrun the problem.
you keep pace. he pedals harder, lungs burning a little now, annoyance spiking because this was supposed to be his exit. his cool-down. his emotionally responsible retreat. you are not respecting the system. “mike!” you call. he pretends he doesn’t hear you. which is difficult, because he definitely does. “mike, slow down!”
nope. not doing that. slowing down implies engagement. except—annoyingly—you’re stubborn. and fast. and suddenly you’re right there, riding alongside him. “are you serious right now?” you demand.
he exhales sharply, finally braking because you slow to a stop in the middle of the street, forcing him to do the same unless he wants to look like a total jerk. which—fine. he does want that. a little. “what.”
“you can’t just leave.”
“watch me.”
you roll your eyes. “god, you’re such a—”
“what do you want?”
“you’re running.”
he bristles. “i’m not.”
“you are.”
“i’m going home.” he states, like that settles it.
“okay… but why are you so upset right now? seriously, this is ridiculous.”
“this is not ridiculous. it’s… it’s… you know.”
no. you don’t know. he doesn’t explain, of course. explaining would be admitting. admitting is weakness. weakness is for mason/mark/matt or something, probably. a car comes barreling down the street. mike reacts, jerking both of your bikes toward the sidewalk with one hand on yours, the other on his. “hey! what—” you start, but he cuts you off with a glance that says not today, get on the sidewalk.
he marches you both a few feet onto the concrete, rigid, as if the universe might judge him if he lets either of you wobble an inch closer to danger. after he’s sure you’re safe is when he can continue the argument, of course. he can’t just let it go. he shouldn’t let it go. loyalty is important. partnerships are sacred. and you, apparently, just switched sides. “i’m upset because you didn’t care about loyalty.” he continues.
you blink at him. “loyalty?”
“yes. loyalty. if you were loyal, you’d have stayed. you’d have stayed because it’s what we do. what we always do. and suddenly you’re over there with mark—matt—whatever his name is—and i’m left to —- to clean up! after your rebellion!”
“it’s .. a project, it’s not—”
“it is exactly like that!” he cuts in, voice rising despite himself. his hands gesture wildly for a second before he remembers he’s still holding the handlebars. “you can’t just change teams. not without warning. not without consideration. not without, i don’t know, thinking about me! that’s loyalty. protocol. history, rules, whatever.” he takes a deep breath and tries to center himself. fails. irritation bubbles into something more. “i just think that if we were really partners, really friends, really— you know, then you wouldn’t have abandoned your post. your new lab partner—he’s fine, i’m sure, but he’s not us.” he explains, throwing his hands up because now he’s desperate to justify it. “i didn’t mean—like—it’s not like—i’m not like jealous or anything! it’s just… you’re mine! i mean, you’re my partner! my project partner! my—” he freezes mid-word because yes, that sounded like a confession. maybe an insult to matthew. definitely too much. “look, what i mean is you should be loyal. to me. for the project! and… stop stopping in the middle of the road!”
you’re staring at him now, waiting. “what are you trying to say mike?”
there it is. the moment. the question. the very clear opening for him to explain himself like a normal person with functional emotional processing. he does not do that. “nothing,” he backtracks too fast, defensive the moment he feels pressure on him. “i’m not trying to say anything.”
you tilt your head. that tiny movement, the one that means you don’t believe him and are deciding whether to call him on it or let him dig his own grave. historically, you usually let him dig. great. he feels heat crawl up his neck. his mouth opens. closes. opens again. “i just—this is stupid. this whole thing is stupid. you switching partners was stupid. mason is stupid. this argument is stupid. you’re being—” he gestures vaguely.
“being what?”
“stupid!” he snaps, then winces internally because, okay, maybe that one hit a nerve. maybe his own. so he does the thing he always does when he’s cornered: doubles down. “i’m just saying that you don’t just walk away from your partne—- your friend. from me. not without talking about it. not without—without something!” he doesn’t know what the something is. acknowledgment. reassurance. him. probably him.
you’re still quiet, watching him. that’s when it hits him. the look on your face. hurt, yeah—but something else. resolve, like you’re about to turn around. like this time, you might actually leave. his stomach drops.
you’re making things worse! quick! do something!
he steps forward too close. definitely too close. he barely registers it until your breath catches, and suddenly you’re right there, eyes wide. “mike—”
he doesn’t let you finish. he kisses you. it’s not smooth. it’s not planned. it’s panic-driven and messy and absolutely not thought through. it’s quick, almost desperate, like if he doesn’t do it now he never will. for exactly one second the world stops. then his brain comes roaring back online.
he pulls back abruptly, breathing a little too fast. “i—” he starts, then stops, because there is no sentence that fixes this. “that was—i didn’t—” you’re staring at him, stunned, lips parted, not pulling away. his heart is pounding so hard it feels like he could die. “i just—” he swallows, trying to sound casual. anything but terrified. “you weren’t listening.”
objectively the worst possible explanation.
you’re still staring at him, not angry, not storming off, just blinking at him like your brain is buffering, like whatever just happened hasn’t finished loading yet. which is, honestly, fair, because his own brain is doing the exact same thing. he can practically see the question marks floating over your head. excellent. this is going so well. “you—” you start, then stop, like you’re checking your surroundings to make sure this is the right reality. “what?”
his face feels hot. his ears definitely are. this is not subtle. you can probably tell. “i mean,” he says, because apparently he’s committed to digging, “you weren’t listening. like—before. when i was explaining. the… loyalty thing.” he nods to himself like that helps, like this is a coherent continuation of a thought and not a mad-lib assembled under duress.
you just look at him. “…i was listening,” you say slowly, carefully, like you’re talking to someone who might spook. “that’s why i’m confused about why you kissed me.”
right. yes. that.
“okay, when you say it like that—” he starts, then stops again because no, there is no version of this where it sounds better. “i’m not—this wasn’t a strategy. you were looking at me like you were about to walk away again. and i—” his voice drops a notch before he can stop it. “—i didn’t want that.” too honest. he stiffens immediately, defensive instincts kicking in late but loud. “not because i need you to, like, stay. you can go wherever you want. obviously. it was just—impulse. bad impulse. i have that sometimes. clearly.”
you’re still quiet, your expression has shifted now, less stunned, more searching, like you’re trying to find the logic in his mess.
good luck with that.
“so,” you try carefully, “your explanation is… i wasn’t listening. so you kissed me.”
“when you summarize it like that it sounds worse.” he mumbles with attitude.
“mike, it sounds bad no matter how you say it.”
he rubs the back of his neck stiffly, like maybe that will fix the situation. “look, it just .. happened. sometimes impulses are stupid. it’s fine. you’ve done stuff without thinking too, right?“
you blink at him. probably should’ve been an eye-roll. instead it’s that moment where everything feels… suspended. you’re both looking at each other like your brains hit pause at the exact same time. “mike—” you begin, but your voice falters because he’s staring at your lips. no, not intentionally, he thinks, because that would be weird, but also, kind of… he can’t look away.
he’s aware of how ridiculous this is. “yeah?” there’s a pause. hovering. the mutual, unspoken, oh-god-what-do-we-do-now. and somehow, because michael wheeler has zero control over these things, his face is too close to yours. not on purpose. okay, maybe a little on purpose. but rationally, he’s just trying to make sense of the fact that impulses are stupid. you swallow. he swallows. eyes flick down, then back up, then to lips again. his brain is screaming do something!
so he does the only thing he can think of. he leans in. your lips meet, awkward and choppy at first, it’s fast. frantic. he’s embarrassed but also… too invested to stop. he’s thinking too much and not enough at the same time. it’s supposed to stop there. something you both laugh off later with a wow, that was weird and a mutual agreement to never speak of it again. instead, you make a small sound—barely anything, really—and mike’s brain short-circuits completely.
oh.
oh.
his hand comes up automatically, like muscle memory he didn’t know he had, fingers curling at the back of your neck. the kiss shifts, deepens. he’s aware that he’s leaning in. like, a lot. gravity seems to be helping. or betraying him. your lips part and he follows the opening without thinking, because thinking has proven wildly unhelpful so far. your hand slides up, fingers tangling in his hair, tugging just a little, and there is a full second where he forgets how to stand upright.
he makes a sound. hates that he makes a sound. immediately makes another one because you do it again and wow, okay, noted, apparently he likes that. a lot. his grip tightens without permission, pulling you closer, closer, closer, like proximity might explain what’s happening. he kisses you harder, less tentative, less apologetic. all that pent-up irritation, all the logic he’s been stockpiling, it just dissolves, replaced by this overwhelming need to stay here. he backs you both into something. a fence, he realizes, because suddenly there’s metal at your back and nowhere else to go, and he should probably stop—
he does not stop.
your bikes are… somewhere. behind you? beside you? irrelevant. his knee presses between yours by accident and he freezes for half a second —- then decides that if this is wrong, it’s been wrong for a while, actually, and keeps going.
he finally pulls back just enough to see your face, and wow. that’s definitely a face. your cheeks are flushed, lips still parted, eyes wide and—he’s never been more aware of eyes in his life. his brain is a blender full of why did i do that and oh god what now and this is terrible all mixed together with a small hint of but also not terrible. he’s panting. so are you. that makes everything worse because it’s proof that yes, that just happened, and yes, he was the one who did it. totally, 100% responsible.
his hands fall awkwardly to his sides. he looks down because looking at you directly is apparently lethal to his brain. blinking. too fast. okay mike. plan. exit. now. leave. leave like nothing happened. that’s his plan. genius.
“uh…okay.” he mutters, voice cracking because why wouldn’t it, and suddenly he’s backing up toward his bike. “i…i gotta…uh…ride. ride home. bike. alone. um. homework. stuff.” he grabs the handlebars like he’s holding the last lifeboat on earth, leans down, shoves one foot onto the pedal, and basically hurls himself away without looking back.
you call something, words that probably start with “mike—” and fade into general noise, but he doesn’t process it. can’t. all he can register is movement, pedaling, escape. the sweet illusion of normalcy. his brain is firmly locked in “ignore and exit” mode.
he doesn’t look back. he cannot. he will survive this. he will process it tomorrow. or next week. maybe never. that’s fine.
monday happens anyway.
by thursday it’s officially been four days, three hallways, two almost-eye-contacts, and one very deliberate detour around the water fountain near the science wing because that is your fountain now, apparently, and mike is nothing if not adaptable when under emotional duress. he tells himself this is fine. strategic, even. space is healthy. people take space all the time. mature people. adults. people who do not accidentally kiss their best friend against a fence and then flee like a cartoon character whose feet spin before taking off.
he has not spoken to you since.
this is not because he is avoiding you. it’s just that circumstances keep lining up in a way that makes talking… inconvenient, like how you turn left and he turns right. or how you’re suddenly always surrounded by people when he walks into a room. or how, one time, you looked like you were about to say something and his brain short-circuited and he pretended to be deeply invested in a poster about safe lab practices. very normal behavior.
he’s fine, by the way. he’s been excellent, actually. sleeping mostly normal. eating fine. thinking about the kiss only a reasonable amount, which is to say constantly but in a very analytical, non-emotional way, like a scientist. a scientist who keeps replaying the exact moment your hand tugged his hair. he tells himself the kiss was a fluke. an impulse. a misunderstanding. a stress response, like when you touch a hot stove except the stove is your friend and the burn is… not unpleasant? okay, bad analogy. scrap that. the point is: it didn’t mean anything. people kiss friends sometimes. probably. in europe. or in movies. or in situations where no one is thinking clearly and emotions are high and —- he stops that train of thought entirely by staring very hard at his locker combination.
he hasn’t biked with you since either, which is weird because that’s been a thing for years now. rain, snow, demodogs, government—doesn’t matter. you bike home together. except now he leaves earlier. or later. or goes a longer route “for exercise,” which is a lie he feels only mildly bad about. lucas asks once if something’s up. mike says no. the worst part, and he hates that this is the worst part, is that you haven’t chased him down! no confrontation, no cornering him after class. no “what the hell was that?” speech. which, logically, means you’re being mature. respecting boundaries, doing the healthy thing. to mike, it feels like abandonment.
you didn’t do anything wrong, you just kissed. that happens. not a big deal. you’re just friends. friends who fight. friends who accidentally kiss and then never talk about it again, apparently.
which is fine. honestly, ideal, if you think about it. mike thinks about it. a lot. silence is clean. silence doesn’t demand explanations or eye contact or that awful moment where someone asks so what was that? avoidance, on the other hand, is practical. mature. practically a coping strategy. he perfects it. he adjusts his route between classes by half a hallway so he doesn’t pass your locker. if he ducks into the library for six minutes after third period, you’ll already be gone. if he leaves math early, he won’t have to make that weird almost-eye-contact at the doors.
he tells himself that if you wanted to talk about it, you would. evidence supports this theory. you are not subtle. you never have been. you slam doors when you’re mad, you confront, you argue. you do not wait for people to figure things out. therefore, your silence must mean you agree with him: it didn’t mean anything. case closed. except sometimes he catches himself scanning the bike racks out of habit, then getting annoyed when you’re not there, like you’re the one breaking routine. he reframes this irritation immediately. he’s allowed to be annoyed. you disrupted the system. you always bike together. that’s a thing. people know it’s a thing. it’s practically tradition. so yeah, it’s inconvenient that you’re not there. that doesn’t mean he misses you. it means he dislikes inefficiency.
that’s all this is. mike wheeler, famously logical. he’s not running from anything. this is more like… strategic withdrawal. he’s choosing not to engage with a situation that offers no clear solution, which is smart. that’s what adults do. his parents avoid things all the time and they seem fine. functional. so this is learned behavior, actually. very well-adjusted if you think about it.
the wheeler boy keeps circling back to the same point because it matters: he has never thought about kissing you before. not seriously, not in a this-means-something way. sure, he’s noticed your mouth. everyone notices mouths. they’re right there. people talk with them. sometimes you stand too close. sometimes you lick your lips when you’re thinking. the kiss had to be an anomaly, stress plus proximity plus his terrible impulse control equals poor decision-making. end of story. there is no hidden subtext. if there were, he would have noticed. he’s observant. he would know if he had feelings. this, on the other hand, is just .. confusion. something he can ignore if he keeps busy.
he keeps busy.
he stays late at school under the excuse of homework. he bikes home alone faster than usual, legs burning like he’s outrunning something, which is stupid because nothing is chasing him. he rearranges his desk. reorganizes his notes. he rewrites a paper he already got an a on just to have something to focus on. his thoughts still drift but he corrals them back with irritation. every time your name pops up in his head he swats it away like a mosquito. except at night, when he’s lying in bed and the house is quiet and his brain has nothing better to do, it sneaks back in. the way you looked stunned, the way you didn’t pull away. the way his body reacted like this was something it had been waiting for, which is not true and also not something he plans to think about ever again.
he does, in fact, plan to think about it ever again. just later. future mike’s problem. current mike is busy. a week passes. then two. then enough time that it stops feeling like a fluke and starts feeling like a pattern, which he pretends not to notice. you don’t talk. he doesn’t reach out. neither of you explodes, but he interprets it generously: mutual maturity. growth. personal development. definitely not two stubborn people in a staring contest where no one wants to blink first.
he starts making plans without you. movie nights get scheduled before he remembers to check if you’re free. d&d sessions you never know about. he bikes with the others home again now instead. this is fine, friendships evolve. people grow apart. that’s a thing that happens. a couple months pass. winter thaws into spring and suddenly prom flyers start appearing on lockers like a disease. pink paper, glittery fonts, a crime against dignity. mike hates it on principle. hates the idea of tuxes and loud music and pretending any of this matters. he hates dances. he hates slow songs. he hates the concept of asking someone to something that already comes with expectations attached. he especially hates the way your name still shows up in his head when people talk about dates.
“are you going?” lucas asks one afternoon.
mike looks disgusted. “no. prom’s stupid.”
he wouldn’t go even if everything were normal. he didn’t go last time. he didn’t miss it. the pictures looked awkward. he hasn’t been to a dance since middle school. why would he voluntarily do that to himself?
yet he hears through the grapevine—dustin probably, who is terrible at subtlety—that you might be going. maybe with friends. maybe with someone. maybe just to spite the institution itself. who knows. mike tells himself he doesn’t care, this information changes nothing. his life continues exactly the same.
he still hates high school. he hates the way it pretends these four years are supposed to matter forever, like the lockers and pep rallies and awkward assemblies aren’t just something you survive and then forget. he hates the social math of it—who sits where, who dates who, who’s allowed to reinvent themselves and who’s stuck being “that guy” until graduation. mike plans to leave hawkins high the second it lets him.
prom, therefore, is stupid. it’s a performance. an overpriced ritual where everyone agrees to dress up and pretend they’re having the time of their lives because that’s what you’re supposed to do. pictures that will be shoved into drawers and never looked at again. he doesn’t need it, he’s fine without it. he is deeply committed to this opinion.
which is why it is particularly offensive when, on a friday afternoon by the lockers, he hears your name followed by matthew and prom in the same sentence. he doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, he’s just there. existing, grabbing his book, minding his business. then he hears, “—yeah, they’re going with matthew,” someone says. “i think he asked last week.”
there’s a pause. someone says something else he doesn’t hear because his brain has stalled out entirely. matthew. of course it’s matthew. the guy who laughs too loud and doesn’t know your history and gets to swoop in like this hasn’t been years in the making. mike feels something cold settle in his stomach. not jealousy. jealousy would imply entitlement. this is concern. concern that you are going to prom, an objectively terrible event, with someone who probably thinks it’s fun. irresponsible, really.
also, it’s weird. you don’t do this. you don’t go to dances with random guys. you don’t pair off like that. good for you but why him. he spends the rest of the day pretending this didn’t happen. failing. by fourth period he’s restless, leg bouncing, pen clicking until someone kicks his chair. by the time lunch rolls around he’s made a decision.
he’s not going because of you. he’s going because this situation requires observation. closure. confirmation. he needs to see it with his own eyes. that’s all. so he stands in line at the office after last period, irritated by the fact that this is even a thing he’s doing. the secretary asks for his name. he gives it. she asks how many tickets. he hesitates for half a second. “one.” he answers firmly. he hands over the money, takes the stupid little paper ticket, and shoves it into his backpack like it’s evidence of a crime.
this proves nothing. it doesn’t mean anything. he just wants to see you, that’s allowed. that’s normal. besides. if mason gets to go?
then mike wheeler is absolutely not missing it.
the day arrives like a threat. mike wakes up already irritated, which feels appropriate. prom day should not feel different from any other day. it is, at its core, a saturday. the sun comes up. birds exist. nothing about this warrants nerves. he tells himself this repeatedly while lying in bed staring at the ceiling, aware of a tight, buzzing feeling under his ribs. he has not spoken to you in almost two months. this is a statistic. an interesting one maybe, but not alarming. people go longer without talking all the time. pen pals. astronauts. married couples, probably. the fact that he’s been thinking about you more during this time is unrelated.
he showers too long. gets out and realizes his hands are shaking a little while he towels off. he pauses, frowns at them like they’ve betrayed him, then decides it’s probably just caffeine withdrawal. or dehydration. or the psychological pressure of formalwear, which everyone knows is a thing. downstairs his mom has laid out the suit. it’s his dad’s. navy. a little boxy in the shoulders, a little long in the sleeves, like it remembers another decade. the fabric smells like closet and aftershave and something comforting he doesn’t want to unpack. his mom beams at him when he comes down, which he immediately resents. “michael! big day today.”
“it’s not a big day,” he snaps automatically, because his mouth is faster than his brain and his brain is committed to this stance. “it’s just… a day.”
his mom just hums and holds the suit out like it’s an offering. mike takes it with the kind of care usually reserved for fragile artifacts, not because he respects it, but because if he wrinkles it he knows she’ll notice and then there will be commentary. “try it on upstairs,” she says. “don’t rush.”
“i’m not rushing.” he is absolutely rushing.
he retreats up the stairs two at a time, suit draped over his arm, irritation trailing behind him. he can hear his mom calling something about pictures later. he does not respond. pictures are another crime entirely. in his room he drops the suit on his bed and just… looks at it for a second. navy fabric spread over his comforter like it belongs there. it doesn’t. nothing about this belongs here. his posters, his books, the smell of dust and pencil shavings—this is his environment. tuxes invade environments. they impose expectations. he strips off his t-shirt and jeans, yanks on the dress shirt with more force than necessary. the buttons fight him. traitors. he buttons them anyway, then shrugs into the jacket. it fits better than he wants it to. the sleeves are a little long, but the shoulders settle like they remember how to sit. he catches his reflection again and grimaces. he looks… fine. he loosens the tie. tightens it. loosens it again. leaves it slightly crooked on purpose, just to reclaim some autonomy. his dad’s tie too, which he notices and then immediately tells himself not to think about. nostalgia is a trap.
he looks at himself like he’s trying to identify the person staring back. he’s taller. 5’11 and still growing into it, like his body forgot to check in with the rest of him before stretching itself out. his shoulders are broader now, even under the borrowed jacket. his face has sharpened. jaw more defined, cheekbones doing something new. he looks older. not adult exactly, but definitely not the kid he was last year either. it’s like catching your reflection in a store window and not recognizing it for half a second. his hair is fluffier now too. fuller. doing that thing where it actually cooperates if he lets it. he didn’t even realize it until recently—nancy did, though. she actually helped with his wardrobe remodel too, took him shopping a few months ago and said things like “trust me” and “stop wearing that, mike” and somehow now he owns clothes that fit and don’t brand him as fourteen. “michael!” his mom calls from downstairs. “they’re here!”
they can only mean one thing.
he exhales through his nose, smooths the jacket one last time, grabs his shoes, and heads back downstairs with the same defensive energy he’s been carrying for months now. if anyone thinks this means something—if anyone thinks this is a milestone or a moment or— whatever —- they’re wrong. they’re wrong.
lucas and dustin are in the living room, standing awkwardly like they don’t know what to do with their arms. lucas looks… put together. clean lines, dark suit, calm expression like he was born knowing how to wear formal clothes. dustin looks like he got dressed in a hurry and then someone interfered. his hair is styled in a way that is suspiciously familiar. mike looks puzzled immediately. “did steve touch your head again.”
“he offered guidance.”
his mom beams at all three of them like this is exactly how she imagined the night going. mike shifts under the attention. “you look nice.” she says to him, soft.
“thanks.” he mumbles.
dustin gestures. “you look prom-y.”
mike grimaces. “don’t say that.”
lucas smirks a little. “no, really dude, you clean up.”
rolling his eyes, mike wishes he could crawl back into bed and die. “let’s just go before she gets a camera.”
too late. the camera appears anyway. he stands stiff for exactly three photos, expression neutral, then he bolts for the door like the house might trap him otherwise.
outside, salvation takes the form of steve harrington’s car idling at the curb. steve is leaning against it like this is the most natural thing in the world, like he didn’t agree to chauffeur three teenagers to prom under intense pressure from dustin henderson. he’s dressed nicer than usual, jacket, decent shoes, hair doing its thing as usual. “gentlemen,” steve greets. “wow. look at you guys.”
mike squints. “why are you dressed so nice.”
“because,” steve says easily, getting in the car, “i’m a responsible adult.”
no one believes him.
dustin is vibrating. he hops into the front seat without asking, as usual. dustin always gets front seat privilege with steve. steve pulls away from the curb, glancing at dustin out of the corner of his eye. his expression softens. “high school prom,” steve nods to himself. “man. that’s huge.”
“don’t.” mike mumbles, still in a sour mood about having to go at all even though it was and still is entirely his decision.
steve ignores him. “i remember my prom. feels like yesterday. you blink and suddenly—” he gestures at dustin. “you’re all grown up.”
dustin beams. “i know, right?”
lucas groans. “please stop.”
mike slouches lower in his seat. “he’s not grown up.”
“that’s not what your mom told me last night mike.”
steve chuckles, then gets that look. the one that means he’s about to get emotional. mike braces. “just—” steve clears his throat. “don’t forget to have fun, okay? these nights matter. you don’t get them back.”
the school comes into view, lights glowing brightly, music already thumping through the walls. cars line the street. people in suits and dresses cluster outside like it’s some kind of ritual gathering. mike’s chest tightens. he tells himself it’s secondhand embarrassment. steve pulls to the curb. “we’re getting out.” mike says immediately.
dustin scrambles out, lucas follows, mike last. steve leans out the window. “pictures?” he asks hopefully.
“no.” all three say at once.
they start toward the entrance. mike doesn’t look back. he can feel steve watching them anyway, proud in that annoying, earnest way. dustin throws an arm around lucas’s shoulders. lucas shoves him off. mike walks half a step behind them, hands in his pockets. inside the music hits harder. lights flash. okay. he’s here. now all he has to do is survive it.
this is immediately harder than expected. the gym has been transformed into something unrecognizable, twinkle lights, streamers, a balloon arch that looks one good elbow away from collapse. there’s a banner that says a night to remember which feels vaguely threatening. the three losers drift, naturally, to the food table. of course they do, it’s where people without plans end up. the island of neutrality. no expectations. just questionable punch and cookies that taste like the cafeteria gave up halfway through. dustin grabs a cup, sniffs it, and grimaces. “this smells like cough syrup.”
lucas takes one anyway. “everything smells like cough syrup in here.”
mike doesn’t take anything. he scans the room without meaning to. or—fine—meaning to, but not for anything. just observational awareness, basic situational assessment. very normal. he sees couples. too many couples. people he vaguely recognizes but doesn’t care about. a guy from math class. someone slow dancing already even though the dj is playing something aggressively upbeat, like they’re trying to force joy through volume. “this is bad.” mike speaks.
lucas shrugs. “could be worse.”
“how.”
“could be middle school.”
mike concedes that point immediately. they stand there, three guys in suits, no dates. no plan, just existing. this is fine. this is actually ideal. no pressure, no awkward small talk, no pretending to enjoy himself. he leans back against the table, and then there you are. he doesn’t mean to notice you instantly. he really doesn’t. but his brain does that thing where it zeroes in before he can stop it. you’re across the gym, laughing at something someone says—matthew, his brain notices immediately—and the sound doesn’t reach him but the sight of it does. there’s that stupid, annoying lift in his chest again. irritation. obviously. of course you’d be having a good time. of course mason is there. of course you look—
fine. you look fine.
mike looks away immediately.
he focuses on the table, the cookies. one of them has frosting smeared slightly off-center. “you good?” lucas asks.
“yeah,” mike answers too fast. “why wouldn’t i be.” he risks another glance accidentally. you’re moving now, weaving through people. mason follows, causing mike’s irritation too flare. not jealousy, this is about patterns. about disruption. about the fact that you and mike usually arrive together, stand together, complain together. this is wrong. the system is off. “i hate this.”
dustin nods. “yeah. we know.”
lucas sighs. “we could leave.”
mike’s head snaps up. “no.”
they both look at him.
he recovers badly. “i mean—no, like. we just got here.”
“you said you hated it.” lucas points out.
“i hate prom,” mike corrects. “that doesn’t mean i’m leaving.”
if he leaves now, that means —- nothing. it means nothing. it would just be… inconvenient.
an hour passes. maybe a little more. mike has stopped pretending he’s casually surveying the room, he’s locked in. eyes trained on you and matthew like radar. dustin keeps trying to insert himself into conversations—mostly with other people who clearly have no interest in small-town nerds—but mike doesn’t intervene. not because he’s magnanimous, he just doesn’t care. mike glares at you instead. matthew laughs at something dumb. mike doesn’t know why it’s bothering him, except that it is. “maybe we should get punch.” dustin suggests.
mike ignores him. he does not want to be caught sipping punch while you and matthew exist in the same space. dustin sighs and wanders off again. lucas is completely absorbed in his own orbit, surrounded by basketball friends, teasing someone about a missed free throw in a past game. mike envies him. maybe. no. not envy.
mike can’t even look at you anymore. the sight of you laughing at something matthew said, the sound of it, it’s too much. so he turns. literally, pivots 180 degrees and plants himself in front of the snacks table like some sort of defensive linebacker. hovering. guarding. no one is allowed near the cookies or the punch except him. not that he’s taking any.
hes fuming, and then, because, of course, you appear. mike doesn’t see you at first. he’s hyper-focused on a suspiciously large group of junior girls eyeing the cookies. you lean on the table just enough for him to notice, and deadpan: “wow mike, guarding half the table like it’s fort knox. really committing to your post, huh?”
he says nothing, because saying anything might—he doesn’t even know—acknowledge why he’s standing there in the first place. so he just stands, rigid, still utterly, pathetically, spectacularly fuming, glaring at the cookies like it’s your fault they exist and that you exist, and also maybe that matthew exists, and also why and how are you talking to him like the last two months didn’t happen?
mike feels it immediately, the snap. the irritation. the defensive spike in his chest that’s basically a built-in alarm that says you are too close, emotionally, physically, temporally. he can feel it radiating down his arms to his fingers. “i… uh…” he starts, and immediately regrets opening his mouth. words are dangerous apparently, especially around you. “yes,” he snaps. “someone—someone has to do it or—you know.”
what is it with mike and making no sense when he rambles? you raise an eyebrow, looking like you know exactly how ridiculous that sounds. mike’s jaw ticks. two months. two months of radio silence. and now you— … he doesn’t even know why he wants to kill you or kiss you or scream, all at the same time. he is hyper-aware of the fact that you’re here with matthew, talking, smiling, looking like nothing between you two ever happened.
mike breaks first with a sharp pivot, a decisive step back, the kind that says i am removing myself from this situation because you are making me feel things and that is unacceptable. “i’m—” he starts, then aborts the sentence entirely because there is no version of it that doesn’t sound insane. “i need air.” which is true. technically. the gym is hot. loud. full of lights and bodies and you laughing at someone who is not him. that last part might also be relevant.
he leaves the gym and storms down the hallway, paces. turns a corner. counts tiles on the floor. looks at lockers like they might have answers. they don’t. five minutes pass. ten. he’s probably going in circles. maybe he’s been on this hallway loop before—he doesn’t know. doesn’t care.
then, like the world has a vendetta against mike himself, there you are. sitting on the floor against the lockers, your head is tipped back against the metal, eyes unfocused. immediately mikes head jumps to the worst conclusion. where is matthew. “where is he?” he demands, already mad.
you blink, startled, then look up at him. “who?”
he scoffs. “don’t—him. your date.”
you shrug casually. “inside.”
mike’s hands curl into fists at his sides. if i were your date—
which is a stupid thought. irrelevant. hypothetical. he does not finish it. except he does.
if i were your date, i wouldn’t have left you alone.
he swallows it down and replaces it with irritation. much safer. “he just left you?”
“i told him i was fine.”
that does nothing to help. somehow it makes it worse. mike lets out a breath through his nose. “wow. great guy.”
“you’re mad at him now?”
“yes. i mean no. i’m just saying. it’s rude. i mean, prom’s stupid, but if you’re going to bring someone, you should at least—i don’t know—stick together?” silence stretches. you watch him with that look again, the one that sees too much. mike feels the ground slipping and retreats into offense. “what. i’m right.”
you don’t answer right away. you do scoot over on the floor, making space beside you. an invitation. a trap. mike hesitates, then tells himself it’s about principle. about making sure you’re not abandoned in a hallway by some idiot who doesn’t know how things work. he sits. “i needed a break.” you explain.
“from… prom?” he questions, trying to sound neutral but failing, which is basically his default. “from him?” he pushes, trying not to sound hopeful.
“hm. both, i guess.” you pause as if deciding whether this was worth speaking on. “.. someone i really like hurt me.”
oh, okay. right. matthew hurt you. who else could it be? not him—he’s fine. the rest of the world? plausible. he narrows it down. prompt evidence: prom date. obvious candidate: matthew. “did he… like… say something dumb?” mike asks, carefully casual. this is okay. it’s emotional triage. someone has to protect you from idiocy, expensive social mistakes, basic conversational failures. that’s what friends do. that’s what mike does, for you. he glances at you. your shoulders slump slightly. someone really did hurt you. unacceptable. if he’d been there he wouldn’t have let it happen.
“not really.”
“not really?”
“he did something.”
“he did something?” he repeats, cautious, his voice climbing an octave without realizing it. defensive, protective, vaguely panicked.
“he… kissed me.”
why are you telling him this? why is this a sentence? did his brain just betray him? mike freezes. the world tilts , probably just perspective, probably just adrenaline, definitely definitely bad timing. mike laughs once, the kind of sound that escapes when your brain is buying time. “he—” he starts, then stops, because his mouth has apparently decided to freelance. “he kissed you.” a pause. “you kissed him?” he corrects, because obviously this needs clarification. blame allocation matters. accountability.
your silence answers him anyway.
something hot and electric spikes up his spine. jealousy is not the word—he doesn’t use that word. it’s outrage. it’s concern. it’s what the hell were you thinking. mike sits up straighter, agitation snapping into place like a switch. “no. that’s—no.” he gestures down the hallway as if matthew might materialize if summoned by anger. “you just met him. like two months ago! you can’t just—kiss people like that! you don’t even know him. you don’t know if he’s—if he’s weird. or irresponsible. or doesn’t return library books.” he looks at you, incredulous. hurt masquerading as logic. “i mean what if he does that with everyone? what if you’re just—another prom checkbox? did you think about that?”
this is all wrong. wrong that matthew touched you at all, let alone kissed you. wrong that you let him. wrong that mike wasn’t there.
you stare at him for a second, letting the words settle. “yeah. he kissed me. and now he won’t talk about it. we… haven’t really addressed it.”
“well, maybe you shouldn’t talk about it. ignoring it is technically an option. actually, probably the best option. because, i mean—if you bring it up, it’s awkward. which it already is. i mean, you don’t want to make it worse, right? so… don’t.” he’s helping. giving you advice. he’s just… a little fired up about the circumstances.
“i tried ignoring it. i even tried to move on. it’s not helping.”
ignoring it? moving on? who are you even talking about right now. he thinks, because there is clearly one obvious culprit—matthew—and now suddenly you’re talking about moving on like… like there’s a second person? no. impossible. “wait,” he blurts. “moving on? you mean—another guy?”
he can feel his jaw tighten, not in a “this is concerning” way, a “this is infuriating” way. because what the hell, you just kissed him, then matthew, and now you’re talking about… another, like he’s somehow not enough to even hold your attention for two months? ridiculous.
“mike.” you interrupt, looking painfully over his stupidity. “why did you kiss me.”
direct hit! mike freezes, the conversation shifting. it’s not about matthew anymore. it’s about him. suddenly, terrifyingly about him. “i—i didn’t—” he stammers, every possible sentence sounds wrong. every single one. “i mean, it’s not—like, i wasn’t—I didn’t—i just…” words fail spectacularly. his hands flail in that graceless way of someone who simultaneously wants to defend himself and also disappear entirely. air leaves his lungs. panic spikes. his stomach flips. he wants to run, hide, explain, and deny, but mostly he just wants you to stop looking at him like that. “i don’t know, it just happened.”
“it just happened?” you repeat. “do you kiss all your friends?”
mike blanches like you’ve personally insulted the very concept of decency. “what—no! of course not!” his voice wavers between indignation and panic.
“so why did you kiss me?”
he freezes.“i —- don’t know! maybe… maybe because you … were right there. and… and i—i don’t know!” words tumble out, faster than thought, “i didn’t mean — i didn’t plan it. it’s not—it’s not like a—” he stops himself, realizing the sentence is collapsing under its own absurdity. “hey! you were the one who ignored me for months!”
you stare at him. “i didn’t ignore you.”
he glares, because clearly, everything is always someone else’s fault. “you did. you did! you could’ve reached out! you weren’t there! you didn’t—”
“you were the one ignoring me!” you fire back. “you disappeared, avoided me at school, stopped inviting me to hang out, acted like none of this ever happened. i tried! i waited! and you—”
mike’s face screws up, mortified and furious. “that was… i was… i—i had to… it’s complicated! you don’t understand!” he doesn’t understand either, if he’s honest. he doesn’t understand why he ran, why he kissed, why his chest feels like it’s going to explode when you just stand there glaring at him, demanding answers. his hands clench into fists at his sides, the absurdity of it all physically manifesting. “you can’t expect me to explain—everything!” why is my chest on fire? why am i sweating like this? this is ridiculous. cuffs of his dad’s jacket brush against his wrists. “i wasn’t thinking, okay? it’s not like i do this normally! besides, you seem to like kissing a lot of guys.”
“what is that supposed to mean?”
“nothing.”
“oh my god, mike, you idiot! i haven’t kissed anyone besides you! i liked you!”
“what? i thought you—-“
“—yeah.” you cut in sharply, not letting him finish whatever half-formed assumption he was about to embarrass himself with. “you thought. i know. you always do that. you decide things in your head.”
mike stops, it’s like his brain blue-screens mid-argument. the music from the gym fades into a distant thrum. all he can hear is the word like, echoing obnoxiously loud in his skull. liked. past tense? present tense? both? why didn’t he clarify. why didn’t he ask. why is he like this. “you—” he starts, then immediately halts. nothing comes out.
you like me.
no. that can’t be right. his chest tightens again, but this time it’s not anger. it’s not outrage. it’s not righteous, morally justified fury at matthew-or-mark-or-whoever. it’s lighter. “okay,” he says, immediately lying, because he is not okay. “okay, but—” there is no but. he knows there’s no but. his brain is scrambling anyway, flipping through excuses, escape routes, alternate timelines where he handled this like a normal human being. “you didn’t— you never said anything!” because if you had, obviously, this all would’ve gone differently. obviously. he would’ve been calm. totally normal about it. sure. “I thought— I mean, you were with him, and then you weren’t talking to me, and I just—” he clears his throat like he can intimidate it back into submission. “I didn’t think you—”
liked me.
there it is again. that word. the most dangerous one in the english language, apparently. his face feels hot. “so you… like me.”
this is not a question. it’s an existential crisis.
you sigh, long and tired, like this is the fifth time you’ve had to say it tonight even though it’s the first. “yes, mike. i like you.”
no qualifiers, no jokes, no backing out. just there, sitting between the scuffed linoleum and the bad pop music leaking through the gym doors. he doesn’t hate this information. it doesn’t feel wrong. it doesn’t feel shocking. it feels… explanatory. best friends since sophomore year, tuesdays at the wheelers’ basement, shared notes. shared rides. shared everything except apparently this. of course it’s you. of course it always has been. he realizes now that the kiss didn’t feel weird so much as overdue.
oh no.
prom is happening twenty feet away. people are dancing, people are kissing, people are being normal about this. meanwhile he’s sitting in a hallway in his dad’s jacket realizing something fundamental about himself at seventeen years old and absolutely not enjoying the timing. he has no script for this. no manual. no dungeon master to ask what the correct move is. “cool. great.” he looks at you again. your face is open in a way that makes his chest ache. hopeful, maybe. guarded, like you’re braced for him to screw this up, which feels… fair, historically. “i’m an idiot.”
he sits there, hands planted on the linoleum, fingers brushing against yours accidentally, except not really. not accidental in the way his life ever lets things be accidental. “so,” he tries, voice tight, because why does everything sound tight? everything is tight. heart, lungs, shoes maybe. “do you maybe… uh…” he falters. the words disassemble themselves like they have a better social life than he does. “do you… want to—like… go out then? with me. like… date. me. date me.”
your eyebrows lift. one, then the other, which is the signal for please clarify your nonsense. “mike, not today. i’m still here with… you know, my date. prom. remember?” your lips twitch in a half-smile that’s half amused, half exasperated.
“oh.” that is literally all he manages. oh. air leaves him like he’s deflating. why is liking someone the most aggressive form of torture?
“but…” you lean closer, dangerously close to leaning over into him, “why don’t you ask me tomorrow?“
“tomorrow,” he echoes, voice somewhere between a question and a declaration. he keeps his hand where it is. doesn’t move. feels ridiculous. feels alive. this is not a normal prom experience. why am i sitting on the floor. “okay. tomorrow.”
you stand and mike stumbles to his feet a little slower than you, like gravity just got stricter since he realized you liked him. he looks at you like he’s calculating trajectory, probabilities, and whether you’re allowed to leave him alone in this hallway without him being furious. “where are you going?” he asks, voice pitched like someone who’s simultaneously curious, indignant, and slightly panicked. his posture slouches a little, like he’s preparing for the emotional fallout of… you walking away.
“i’m gonna go back with matthew.” you say, the words casual but careful.
mike’s face immediately folds into that ridiculous pout that makes him look small and vulnerable, but also like he might throw a chair at a wall in frustration. “what? why? do you like him?” he literally does not care about what matthew feels, whether matthew notices you’re gone, or even that this is… a prom.
you raise an eyebrow. “mike, i’m not leaving him alone. i’m his prom date. it’s… that’s how it works. i’m not a jerk.”
he scowls. “fine. whatever. sure. go.” his voice drops lower, and he mutters under his breath like he’s cursing the very concept of social norms until he trails off, realizing that yes, he has no right. he’s acting purely on instinct, and every instinct says if you’re with anyone he needs to be better. he’s realized that he does like you. likes you a lot, actually. like, dangerously, now-what-do-i-do likes you. the problem is that realization does not make mike wheeler noble. it does not make him graceful. it makes him worse. he stands there for half a second after. prom music thumps through the gym doors behind you—something slow and overproduced, all violins and sincerity. “i know how prom works.”
he does not, actually. he knows how movies say prom works, which is already suspicious, and he knows how it feels to watch you adjust your outfit like you’re about to walk back into a room where someone else gets to stand next to you. someone else gets your arm. someone else gets to be seen with you. matthew. mike’s brain supplies the name like an insult. “i just don’t get why it had to be him,” he says, like this is a normal, reasonable question. “like. of all the guys.”
“mike.”
“i’m just saying! i haven’t talked to you in months, okay? and now i have to watch you—” he gestures toward the gym doors, toward the concept of matthew. “with him.” he does not care about being fair. unfortunately, he cares about you more. you shift your weight, clearly ready to go back inside, and something in his chest tightens, panicked and possessive and deeply inconvenient. “wait,” he stops you, too quick. you look at him. there it is—that attention, that focus, that look you haven’t given him in weeks. months. “you don’t have to, like… rush back in,” he says. “he’ll survive. promise.”
“mike.”
“i mean, it’s loud in there,” he adds. “and he has friends. right?”
he does not care if matthew has friends. he does not care if matthew is standing alone under a disco ball, abandoned, bewildered, checking his watch. mike wheeler would watch that happen with interest. what he wants is absurdly simple and catastrophically impossible: he wants you to stay right here. with him. in the hallway that smells like floor cleaner and cologne and missed chances.
because you know him you recognize the signs immediately. the stiff shoulders. the pout he’s trying very hard to swallow but keeps resurfacing anyway, petulant and wounded and unfairly endearing. he looks at you like he’s already lost something. “you’re doing the eyes.” you comment.
“i’m not.” mike replies instantly, which is how you know he is.
you step closer before he can spiral any further. before he can say something else he can’t take back. before he talks himself into believing you’re already gone. “mike.” you urge quietly.
his expression softens and sharpens at the same time, like relief immediately tripping over jealousy. “you’re gonna go back in there,” he says, resigned now. sulky. “and he’s gonna—” he stops himself, lips pressing together. “whatever.”
you don’t explain. you just reach up, grab the front of his suit jacket, and kiss him. it’s quick. decisive. just enough for him to freeze completely, every thought evaporating mid-pout. your lips brush his, warm, brief, and for one perfect second mike wheeler forgets about matthew, prom, social norms, and the concept of time. when you pull back his face is stunned. “that,” you say calmly, “is for reassurance. not permission. i’m still going back in there.”
“…okay.” he nods, dazed. “right. okay. cool. yeah. go have fun. with… him.”
the jealousy tries to crawl back in, but it’s weaker now. confused. muzzled. you give him one last look—fond, knowing—then you turn, because of course you do. because you’re a good person. because social norms exist. because prom dates are apparently sacred vows. the gym doors swing open and swallow you whole. mike stands there as the music floods the hallway, louder now, bass rattling in his ribs. colored lights spill out—blue, pink, gold—washing over your clothes as you step back inside, scanning the room until you spot matthew near the refreshments table.
he spends the rest of the night pretending he’s not watching you. he fails spectacularly. from the moment you step back onto the dance floor mike’s eyes track you while he leans against the wall. then matthew offers you his arm.
that’s it. that’s the chair-throwing urge.
mike watches you dance. watches you smile. watches you exist without him. he’s going to talk to you again. soon. he’s going to corner you by the punch bowl or outside or radio you at an ungodly hour with something dumb like are you still mad.
you look beautiful. you look happy. you look like someone he could have had sooner if he weren’t so stubborn.
the jealousy is evident to him now but the clinginess is worse, this aching, needy pull that makes him want to walk in there, grab your hand, and say something wildly inappropriate like actually, they’re with me and deal with the fallout later. he imagines it briefly. he doesn’t do it, because underneath the jealousy, the pout, the two months of silence and the painfully obvious crush, mike knows something now that he didn’t before.
tomorrow exists.
tomorrow he can radio you. tomorrow he can hang out with you again. tomorrow he can ask you out properly and argue about it later and sit too close to you and complain about how much prom sucked except for one very specific hallway.
so he stays put. watches. waits. suffers quietly.
when prom ends and people start filtering out he doesn’t intercept. just lingers by the wall with dustin and lucas while waiting for steve, pretending he’s very interested in the exit sign. you pass him on your way out. your fingers brush his, just barely. his heart does something stupid. he exhales, smiling despite himself, already planning what he’s going to say tomorrow. something casual. something cool. something that absolutely will not sound casual or cool at all, but that’s fine.
because mike wheeler can wait one more night.
he’s already decided he’s not waiting forever.
based off these two requests !
A/N: guys i had so much fun writing this this has been by far my fav mike fic to make yet… the brainrot is festering so bad i fear im living inside his head
knowing people are actually reading (and enjoying) the words i throw together on a page makes it a lot easier to keep writing them. i honestly didn’t expect this many people to stick around so i just wanted to say thank you for being here. 🥹
this blog has become something i really enjoy creating for , and knowing others like it means a lot. i’m genuinely grateful to all of you for making this space feel welcoming and kind and for every single ounce of support and encouragement i get<3
i love all the messages, comments, and reblogs, those make my day you guys are so funny😭. thank you for making this feel like an actual community instead of me yelling into the void :3
꒰ 🦇 ꒱ synopsis 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒 you are not required for his degree. you are, inconveniently, unavoidable.
DAMIAN HAD BEEN PREPARED FOR MANY THINGS WHEN HE ENTERED MEDICAL SCHOOL.
long hours. intellectual rigor. relentless evaluation. a level of competition that would separate those capable of precision from those merely enthusiastic about success. he had anticipated fatigue, frustration, perhaps even boredom. what he had not fully accounted for was the density of foolishness.
this, admittedly, was an error in his initial assessment. he had assumed—reasonably, he thinks—that an institution this selective would function like a sieve. that by the time one reached this level, the truly inept would have been filtered out, redirected, gently ushered toward professions where mistakes were less terminal. this assumption has not aged well.
the problem is not that his peers are unintelligent, that would be too simple. they are intelligent in the way people become intelligent when they are praised consistently for meeting expectations. they have learned how to succeed within a system without ever questioning whether the system itself is sound. they know how to study for exams. they know how to speak confidently while being wrong. they know how to nod at the correct moments, how to ask questions that sound insightful without actually requiring new thought.
damian finds this exhausting.
he learns this during the first week, seated in a lecture hall that smells of disinfectant and burnt coffee. the lecturer poses a question, open-ended, ostensibly challenging. damian answers it internally within seconds, then considers three adjacent complications the question fails to address. he waits. hands go up. the responses are delivered with enthusiasm. the answers are not incorrect enough to warrant intervention, they are simply shallow. half-built structures presented as complete. the lecturer accepts them.
this is when damian realizes that medical school operates on a curve. a generous one.
he does not sit in the front row. he has learned that this attracts attention and, worse, expectations of participation. he sits slightly off-center, where he can observe without being required to contribute. from here he watches his classmates take notes as though transcription were comprehension. entire slides underlined. key phrases highlighted with alarming enthusiasm. someone beside him circles the title of the lecture twice. damian briefly wonders what they think they are preserving.
during group discussions, the dynamic becomes clearer. ideas are floated tentatively, like trial balloons. no one wants to be wrong first. when someone finally commits the rest adjust their opinions to match, consensus achieved through social gravity rather than logic. damian listens. he waits for someone to notice the flaw. no one does.
eventually he speaks, not to assert dominance but to prevent the conversation from collapsing under its own incompetence. he phrases his correction neutrally, even politely. he cites a source. he explains the mechanism. the room goes quiet. someone laughs, lightly, as though he has made a joke. domeone else says, “right, yeah, that’s what I meant.” it is not. damian can tell. the lecturer thanks him and moves on, visibly relieved.
afterward, a classmate tells him he is “intense.”
damian considers asking what they expected.
he does not, because the answer is obvious and also beside the point. they expected someone more palatable. someone who cushions correctness with warmth. someone who pretends that being wrong is a necessary step toward learning rather than a condition to be corrected as efficiently as possible. he nods instead. this has become his default response to commentary that does not warrant engagement. nodding suggests acknowledgment without agreement, a skill he learned early and refined out of necessity.
the label follows him after that. intense. difficult. intimidating. no one ever says inaccurate. he notices the shift almost immediately. conversations stall when he approaches, voices lower, then stop, people who had been debating confidently seconds earlier suddenly develop an urgent need to check their phones or reorganize their bags. during labs, partners are assigned. no one volunteers to work with him twice unless required. this does not trouble him. it simplifies things.
damian has no interest in small talk. he finds it structurally unsound. conversations about weekend plans, television shows, the relative merits of various coffee shops near campus, all of it strikes him as filler, verbal packing peanuts used to protect people from silence. silence, at least, has the decency to stay out of the way. sometimes, he overhears conversations. this is how he learns that several of his classmates believe him to be unapproachable. that he “doesn’t like people.” that he is “probably judging everyone.”
this last assessment is, at least, accurate.
he judges them the way one judges a bridge that sways under minimal weight, or a lock that jams unpredictably. not with malice, but with concern. systems should function. people, especially those entrusted with responsibility, should be reliable.
damian is at the top of his class. this is not something he announces, it is something that becomes evident despite his lack of interest in publicity. exam scores circulate, unofficially. rankings are whispered. professors look at him differently, not warmly, but with a cautious respect. he answers questions before they are finished being asked. he anticipates follow-ups. during rounds, attendings direct more complex hypotheticals toward him without comment, as though this were the natural order of things. his peers notice. resentment is not uncommon. neither is fear. fear is, if nothing else, honest. they do not challenge him. when damian speaks, people listen, not because he is kind but because he is always correct often enough to make interruption unwise. he does not enjoy this. he also does not discourage it.
being bruce wayne’s heir complicates matters further. not socially, social complications require interest, but practically. people assume things. connections. favoritism. a safety net. damian finds this amusing in a bleak sort of way. if anything, his name sharpens scrutiny. professors are careful with him, distant. classmates keep their theories private. no one asks him for favors. no one invites him to parties. no one tries to befriend him for proximity to power. this suits him perfectly.
he has no desire to reassure people that he is, in fact, human.
occasionally someone attempts friendliness. it never lasts long. they ask him how he studies, what his routine is, whether he has any advice. he answers honestly. they grow quiet. his methods are not replicable without effort they are unwilling to expend. one student jokes that damian must not sleep. damian refrains from pointing out that sleep is not a substitute for thinking.
what frustrates him most is not ignorance. ignorance can be remedied. it is the casualness with which his peers treat precision, the shrugging acceptance of approximation. the belief that being close enough is sufficient.
close enough does not save lives.
this thought returns to him often. it justifies his isolation. if he must be alone in his standards, so be it. someone has to maintain them. he does not aspire to be liked. he aspires to be exact. if that makes him unbearable, then the fault lies not with him, but with the astonishing tolerance for error that surrounds him.
it is therefore deeply inconvenient when he begins to hear your name.
not at first in any meaningful way. it arrives indirectly, as most irritations do. a comment in passing during a faculty mixer he did not intend to attend but was advised, firmly, to make an appearance at. a remark from a classmate who lowers their voice, as if repeating something vaguely illicit. a professor mentioning, with a faint note of surprise, that a first-year law student dismantled an argument in seminar that had gone unchallenged for three years. damian listens. the reports are annoyingly consistent.
you are precise. difficult. unpleasantly thorough. you ask questions that derail lectures. you correct people who are not accustomed to being corrected. you do not hedge. you do not soften your language to preserve egos. you are, according to one overheard conversation, “kind of terrifying.”
this does not endear you to him.
it does, however, irritate him.
not because he doubts the veracity of the claims, people exaggerate, but patterns do not, but because the implication is clear. that there is someone else on this campus who refuses to accept approximation. someone else who treats intellectual sloppiness as a personal offense. someone else whose presence makes rooms uncomfortable in the same way his does.
worse, there are rumors that you might be better.
damian dismisses this immediately. better is a meaningless term without context. better at what. better how. better by whose standards. still, the idea lodges itself somewhere unhelpful. he tells himself he does not care. this is mostly true. still, he finds himself noticing when your name appears in places it should not. a citation in a campus journal. a guest lecture advertised for law students that medical faculty have been “encouraged” to attend. someone joking that if you and damian ever argued, the building might collapse under the weight of mutual disdain. this last comment is made in his vicinity. no one looks at him when they say it.
eventually, inevitability asserts itself.
it happens on a tuesday. the kind of gray, undecided afternoon that manages to be both too bright and deeply uninspiring. damian is moving between buildings with purpose, his mind already three steps ahead of his body, reviewing a differential diagnosis he found inadequately handled during morning rounds. the hallway is narrow, poorly lit. utilitarian in a way that suggests no one involved in its design expected anyone important to pass through it. you appear at the corner without warning.
there is a collision, not dramatic, not violent, but irritating. a shoulder brushing a shoulder. a brief disruption of trajectory. damian stops short, reflexively annoyed, already prepared to deliver a clipped admonition about spatial awareness. whoever you are, you look calm. this is the first thing he notices. not apologetic, not flustered, not defensive. just observant. your gaze flicks briefly to the book under his arm—medical text—then back to his face. you apologize promptly, without overdoing it. your tone is neutral, professional. as though this is not the most interesting thing to happen to you all day. this irritates him further. “you’re blocking the corridor.” he states, because he refuses to apologize when he was, objectively, in the right.
you glance behind him. the hallway is empty. “then you should walk around me.” you say. you do not raise your voice. you do not smile. you do not attempt charm. damian feels, quite unexpectedly, a sharp spike of irritation that borders on interest.
he dislikes this immediately. interest implies distraction. he does not have time for distractions, especially not ones that manifest in the form of strangers who refuse to yield in hallways that were very clearly designed for directional movement. “you were walking without looking.” he says, because this is true, or at least defensible. tone flat, declarative. the way one states a finding rather than an opinion.
you tilt your head, considering him in a way that suggests you are not considering him at all, but rather the claim itself. “i was walking predictably,” you say. “you changed direction.”
this is incorrect. damian knows this because he remembers his own trajectory with irritating clarity. still, the confidence with which you say it gives him pause. not doubt, annoyance. there is a difference. “that is not how right-of-way works.” he replies.
“right-of-way.” you repeat, amused. “this is a hallway, not an intersection.”
“shared spaces still operate under implicit rules,” damian argues. “people who ignore them cause disruptions.”
“so do people who assume they are exempt.” you answer.
he stares at you for half a second longer than necessary. you are standing too comfortably. not defensive, not braced for escalation. you look like someone who expects pushback and has already prepared for it. your posture is relaxed, but not careless. balanced. irritatingly so. “you stepped into my path,” he says. “that is a fact.” because this conversation has now become a matter of principle.
“and you failed to adjust,” you say. “also a fact. shared fault, at minimum.”
“minimum.” he repeats, unimpressed.
“yup, that’s how disputes work. nuance.”
he hates that word. it is too often used as camouflage for weak reasoning. “you speak as though this is an argument.”
“it is,” you reply. “you initiated it.”
this is blatantly unfair. also accurate.
you are not backing down. you are not deferring. you are not even attempting politeness as a means of de-escalation. instead, you are engaging him on equal footing, as though this exchange matters enough to be examined properly. he decides to end it. “i have no interest in debating hallway etiquette.”
“then stop making claims you can’t defend.” you answer promptly.
he notices then—finally—the folder tucked under your arm. not light reading. dense. annotated. tabs visible along the edge, color-coded with intention rather than enthusiasm. legal formatting. case citations. not first-year, not introductory. law. of course. this explains the confidence. the refusal to concede. the insistence on framing everything as an argument rather than an inconvenience. “law student.” he says, not a question.
you glance at the book under his arm again. “medical.”
there is a pause. not awkward, evaluative. something clicks with a slow, unwelcome certainty. the rumors he has half-dismissed. the descriptions. precise. difficult. unpleasantly thorough. you meet his gaze steadily, as though you are waiting for him to catch up. “tt.”
you do not confirm it. you do not deny it. you simply watch him, expression unreadable, as understanding settles into place. the realization does not please him. it does, however, explain everything. the composure. the refusal to defer. the fact that you have been treating this interaction not as an annoyance, but as an intellectual exercise. a low-stakes one, but still worth engaging properly. “you’re slower than i expected.” you say, observational.
this is unacceptable. “i do not make assumptions without sufficient data.” damian snaps.
“and i do,” you say. “they’re provisional.”
he bristles. he hates provisional conclusions almost as much as he hates sloppy ones. “you should reconsider how you navigate shared spaces.” he says, because he refuses to let this end without reclaiming ground.
you look at him for a moment as if deciding how much effort he is worth. then you say, pleasantly, “you should reconsider expecting strangers to preemptively accommodate your sense of importance.”
damian blinks. “what.”
you continue, undeterred, tone light in the way people get when they are very sure of themselves and have already won. “public corridors aren’t governed by hierarchy. there’s no implicit seniority clause. no right-of-way doctrine that privileges urgency, ego, or impressive posture.” his jaw tightens. “shared space,” you go on, “means shared responsibility. predictability, awareness, reasonable adjustment from all parties. if one person assumes default authority and the other refuses to yield, that’s not obstruction, that’s symmetry.”
damian feels something unpleasant settle between his shoulders. not anger, exactly. pressure. like watching someone dismantle an argument he has already decided is sound. you shift your weight, clearly warming to this now. “also, if we’re talking institutional norms,” you add, “this campus explicitly discourages hostile assertions of dominance in common areas. it’s buried in the student conduct code. page twelve, subsection c, if you’re curious. intimidation counts, by the way. intent isn’t required.” you tilt your head. “you’re welcome to disagree. but disagreement doesn’t retroactively create jurisdiction.”
that is… irritatingly well put.
damian is keenly aware, suddenly, that he is standing in a hallway being lectured on structural authority by someone who has absolutely no interest in his approval. this is not a dynamic he encounters often. “you’re done.” he says, because he refuses to let this become a spectacle.
“yes,” you agree. “i was done before you decided to litigate foot traffic.”
then, as if this entire exchange has merely been an inconvenient pause in your day, you step past him. not hurried, not cautious. you pass close enough that he has to move again, and he hates that he does. you do not look back. damian remains where he is, pulse irritatingly elevated, staring at the wall ahead. he catalogs the interaction, tone, pacing, structure. your argument was not flashy. no wasted language, no appeal to emotion. just clean reasoning, delivered with an almost insulting ease. law student, but not just any. he does not like you. worse, he suspects you might be a problem.
and problems, he knows from experience, rarely resolve themselves.
the universe, it seems, agrees.
your second encounter occurs three days later. damian registers it first as a disturbance in pattern, a familiar presence entering his peripheral vision at precisely the wrong moment. a hallway again. of course it is a hallway. narrow, acoustically unfortunate, populated just enough to be inconvenient but not enough to provide witnesses worth moderating for. you are leaning against the wall this time, reading. actually reading. not scrolling, not skimming, not pretending. that book is thick. annotated. dog-eared in a way that suggests use rather than aesthetic. damian clocks all of this in the half-second before you look up.
your expression shifts minutely. recognition, not surprise, not irritation. more like acknowledgment, as though he is a recurring detail you have already accounted for. “you again.” you say.
he stops against his better judgment. “statistically improbable.”
you glance down the hallway, then back at him. “we share a campus.”
“unfortunate.”
“for you.”
he hates that you are already walking. hates that he falls into step beside you without consciously deciding to. hates that the pace matches effortlessly. “you should stop obstructing thoroughfares.” he says.
you do not break stride. “you should stop assuming friction means fault.”
“it often does.”
“only if you believe systems are designed around you.”
this again. this insistence on reframing. he feels the familiar irritation spark. “you mistake competence for ego.”
you glance at him sideways. “do i?”
he opens his mouth only to close it again.
the third time is a week later. this time, neither of you collide. this time, you spot each other from opposite ends of the corridor and slow simultaneously, as though drawn into orbit. there is a pause. charged. absurd. “you’re late.” you notice.
he glares. “you have no basis for that claim.”
you lift the folder you’re carrying. tap it once. “your lab runs end at five. it’s five twelve.”
damian stiffens. he does not ask how you know this. “coincidence.”
you hum. “everything is, until it repeats.” and walk past him without another word.
by the fifth encounter this has become a pattern. you do not greet each other. you do not exchange pleasantries. you appear in each other’s paths with irritating regularity, like unsolved variables in an otherwise controlled environment. sometimes you argue. sometimes you correct each other. sometimes you simply pass in silence, eyes flicking up for the briefest acknowledgment before looking away. and always—always—you look unbothered. damian hates this most of all.
you never seem rushed. never defensive. even when he is dismissive, openly disdainful, you respond as though he is an intellectual exercise rather than an adversary. something to engage with briefly, then set aside. once, he accuses you of nitpicking. “i’m clarifying,” you say. “there’s a difference.”
another time he calls your reasoning incomplete. you nod. “that’s fair,” you say. “you’re still wrong.”
he spends an entire evening afterward replaying that exchange, searching for the flaw he knows must exist. he does not find it.
rumors persist. people notice the hallway arguments. the way conversations seem to stall when the two of you occupy the same space. someone jokes that watching you is like observing mutually assured destruction. damian does not appreciate the comparison. he tells himself he cannot stand you. this is true. you disrupt his equilibrium. you introduce uncertainty. you challenge his conclusions without resorting to theatrics or insecurity. you do not defer. you do not explain yourself unless it serves your argument.
worse—much worse—he cannot dismiss you as inferior. he recognizes the structure of your thinking too easily. the discipline, the restraint, the way you do not overextend claims, do not rely on rhetorical flourish. you argue like someone who expects to be held accountable.
like him.
he has spent years secure in the knowledge that he is operating alone at his level. now, every time he sees you down the corridor—calm, composed, faintly amused—he feels something uncomfortably close to anticipation. he does not like this. he especially does not like that a small, treacherous part of him suspects the rumors may have undersold you.
and that, perhaps, is the most irritating thing of all.
it becomes impossible to ignore sometime in october, when the weather turns cool and everyone else on campus starts getting sloppy. coffee replaces sleep, notes become bullet points, standards quietly erode. damian notices these things. he also notices you correcting a whiteboard one day after a lecture. not yours. not his. someone else’s. it’s outside a seminar room, a group of students clustered around a half-erased equation—linear regression, poorly handled. damian slows despite himself. the mistake is obvious: they’ve assumed homoscedasticity without testing for it, the residuals visibly fanning out like a warning flare.
you step in without ceremony. “you can’t use ordinary least squares here,” you say, marker already moving. “your error variance isn’t constant. you’re violating the gauss–markov assumptions.”
one of the students blinks. “but it’s still unbiased—”
“unbiased doesn’t mean useful,” you reply. “your standard errors are garbage. use weighted least squares or transform the model.” you cap the marker and hand it back like you’ve merely corrected a spelling error.
damian stops fully now. “that’s not strictly necessary.” he says.
you turn. ah. recognition again. that brief, assessing pause. like he’s an equation you already solved once and are checking for transcription errors. “it is if you care about inference.” you say.
“medicine often prioritizes prediction over inference.”
“and that,” you reply, dry as bone, “is why your literature is full of models that fall apart outside controlled settings.”
someone laughs nervously. damian glares them into silence. “heteroscedasticity doesn’t invalidate the entire model,” he says. “robust standard errors can compensate.”
you nod. “yes. if you know to apply them. they didn’t.”
this becomes a theme. you argue about bayesian priors in diagnostic testing—him insisting on likelihood ratios, you pointing out that prior probabilities are where most clinicians smuggle bias in. you argue about false positives in low-prevalence populations. he cites sensitivity and specificity; you counter with base rate neglect and case law involving misdiagnosis liability. “courts don’t care how elegant your math is,” you tell him once. “they care whether a reasonable practitioner should have known better.”
“reasonableness is a weak standard.” he snaps.
“so is perfection,” you say. “yet here you are expecting it.”
another time it’s ethics. informed consent. “if the risk is less than one percent, disclosure is excessive.” he argues.
you shake your head. “montgomery v lanarkshire,” you say immediately. “material risk is defined by what a reasonable patient would consider significant, not statistical rarity.”
“that’s a uk case.”
“principle still applies. autonomy isn’t a rounding error.”
he goes back to his home that night and reads the case in full. twice. annotates it. cross-references with u.s. precedent. he tells himself this is professional diligence. it is not.
he starts carrying extra notebooks. not because he needs them—he already memorizes most things—but because writing feels necessary now. he redraws arguments you’ve had, refines them, strengthens his positions as though preparing for a rematch that may never happen. he notices that you never repeat yourself. never recycle arguments. if something didn’t land the first time, you don’t try again. you simply move on, as though the conversation has closed its usefulness. this is infuriating.
months pass. winter settles in. campus grows gray and brittle. you keep running into each other—always hallways, stairwells, library entrances. never planned. never avoidable. sometimes you walk together for several minutes without speaking. he hears more rumors. that you topped your cohort, that a professor rewrote an exam after you challenged an ambiguity, that someone tried to intimidate you during moot court and you dismantled them so thoroughly they withdrew from the competition. “you enjoy humiliating people.” he accuses.
you arch an eyebrow. “i enjoy clarity. humiliation is usually self-inflicted.”
he cannot decide if this is admirable or monstrous.
he studies harder. not because he is slipping—he isn’t—but because he refuses to be caught unprepared. he revisits calculus of variations for no immediate reason. he works through proofs instead of accepting results. he reviews tort law doctrines he hasn’t needed since undergrad. he starts anticipating your objections.
once, late at night, alone in the library, he catches himself smiling faintly at a particularly elegant counterargument he imagines you making.
he slams his book shut.
this rivalry—because that is what he insists it is—has made him faster. less tolerant of his own errors. it has also made him unbearable, according to several classmates who now give him a wider berth than usual. no one speaks to bruce wayne’s heir anyway. now they actively avoid him. he doesn’t care.
what he does care about—though he would rather dissect himself than admit it—is that for the first time in his life, brilliance is no longer solitary. there is you. unbothered. incisive. irritatingly precise.
his match.
and somehow, impossibly, the standard he has begun chasing.
he frames it as rivalry. rivalry is familiar. rivalry is safe. it requires no introspection beyond metrics and outcomes. it explains the late nights, the extra reading, the way his pulse sharpens when he hears your voice in a corridor. he does not enjoy your arguments. he endures them. this is what he tells himself, anyway.
the fact that he has begun anticipating them, structuring his thoughts around the inevitability of your objections, refining his positions preemptively, is merely strategic. mental conditioning.
certainly not eagerness.
this is not enjoyment. this is stimulation. the distinction matters.
he has begun to notice, however, that you do not argue with everyone the way you argue with him.
he realizes it one tuesday afternoon, when he rounds a corner and hears your voice ahead. he slows without thinking. you are standing with someone else. a man. tall, painfully average. he is smiling. you are smiling back. damian dislikes this immediately. they are discussing something legal, first amendment doctrine, from what he can gather. commercial speech. central hudson test. the man makes a point, gesturing loosely with his hands. you nod.
you nod.
“that’s a fair reading,” you say. “though i think the third prong is where courts usually get inconsistent.”
fair reading?
damian’s jaw tightens.
the man laughs lightly. “yeah, exactly. like they say narrow tailoring but—”
“apply it elastically,” you finish. “yes.”
you are being… agreeable.
damian does not approve.
the man is not entirely wrong, but his phrasing is imprecise. his understanding superficial. he uses “strict scrutiny” incorrectly a moment later, and damian nearly steps in on reflex. you don’t correct him. this is unacceptable. damian watches, arms crossed, as the conversation continues. you are engaged, but not sharp. attentive, but not incisive. you offer clarifications gently. you do not dismantle him. you do not challenge his assumptions. you do not force him to defend his premises. you are being kind.
damian feels something sour bloom in his chest.
why are you wasting time like this?
the man says something else, confident, wrong in a way that suggests he has never been meaningfully challenged. damian imagines correcting him. imagines the look on his face when his argument collapses. imagines you watching.
this is new. deeply unwelcome.
“interesting.” you say to the man.
damian scowls. interesting is not a synonym for correct.
the man continues, emboldened by your response. he expands his point, gestures again, voice gaining that buoyant confidence unique to people who have never been dismantled in public. damian listens despite himself, mind already circling the argument like a predator sizing up weak joints. he is wrong in at least four places. five, actually. no—six, if damian is being generous and assuming the man knows what “precedent” means.
this is who you’re engaging with? this pedestrian misuse of doctrine in human form? this man, who thinks saying “the spirit of the law” absolves him from reading the actual text? damian resists the urge to physically insert himself between you and the conversation. the man thanks you for the conversation. you thank him back and part amicably. damian steps forward immediately, as though summoned. “you let him get away with that?”
you blink. then you smile. not the polite one, the other one. the one that appears when you know exactly what you’re doing. “i wasn’t debating him.” you say.
“then what were you doing?”
“talking.”
this is incomprehensible.
“he was wrong.”
“yes.”
“and you didn’t correct him.”
“no.”
how dare this man occupy your intellectual attention? how dare he receive your measured patience when damian has to earn every inch of ground through combat? “you let him believe that.” he says.
“believe what?”
“that his argument had merit.”
“it did. marginally.”
marginally.
damian exhales through his nose. “he misquoted doctrine.”
“yes.”
“he conflated standards.”
“also yes.”
“and you still entertained him.”
“you sound annoyed.”
“i am.”
“why?”
he opens his mouth. because you’re supposed to fight with me, his brain supplies helpfully. he does not say this. instead: “because you’re indulging incompetence.”
this is absurd. he is not territorial. he does not claim people. he does not compete for attention like a poorly trained dog. yet his mind is already dismantling the stranger with unnecessary cruelty, reducing him to a collection of errors and mediocre posture and an argument that collapsed if you so much as breathed on it. he thinks, viciously, that the man was not worth your time. he thinks, more viciously, that you knew that.
the offense, apparently, is not that you argued with someone else. that would be childish. beneath him. no—the offense is that you argued nicely. that you moderated yourself. that you offered patience instead of pressure. as if intellectual rigor were something you rationed, and damian had grown accustomed to receiving the undiluted version. this is where the irritation sharpens into something embarrassing. why were you so nice with this other idiot? why should your most incisive, ruthless arguments be reserved for him, specifically?
he contents himself with sulking internally, which is deeply undignified and therefore something he would normally excise immediately. instead, it lingers. it festers. it grows legs. sparring with people who cannot keep up is a waste of intellectual energy anyway. you shouldn’t be fighting with other people in the first place.
“i’m not obligated to sharpen every dull blade i encounter.”
he snaps back, “you sharpen mine.”
you smile slowly, and damian hates that his pulse reacts to it. “exactly.”
and so he stands there, inexplicably furious, acutely aware that he has no logical rebuttal, and even less understanding of why the idea of you choosing who deserves your arguments feels like a personal affront. this means nothing. absolutely nothing. he simply prefers higher-level discourse. it is only logical that he would resent seeing it squandered. still, as you walk away, he feels the now-familiar pull—that maddening urge to keep up. to engage. to be the one you sharpen yourself against. he tells himself he wants to win. he does not examine why the thought of you choosing to argue with someone else feels like a loss.
this is a mistake, because once the idea exists, however faintly, it begins to recur. it slips into his thoughts during moments of inattention, like a hairline fracture widening under stress. damian does not speak to people. this is not a dramatic statement; it is a logistical one. classmates are variables. faculty are resources. acquaintances exist in theory, not practice. conversations are transactional, brief, and purposeful.
you are an exception.
he does not label it as such.
he tells himself you are a recurring stimulus. an intellectual constant. a sparring partner. someone who meets his arguments with sufficient resistance to justify engagement. that is all. still, he notices when you are not where you usually are. notices when days pass without an encounter and feels a low-grade irritation he cannot attribute to any specific cause. notices when you reappear, unbothered as ever, and feels that irritation recalibrate into something focused. he tells himself this is competitive drive. he tells himself many things.
it does not escape his attention that you speak to other people more easily than you speak to him. you exchange pleasantries with them, you soften, you allow imprecision. you let arguments remain unresolved. with him, you do not. with him, you push back. you insist. you refine. you correct.
damian begins to take this personally.
not in the way most people do. not emotionally. analytically. he reasons that if you reserve your most exacting standards for him, then those standards are, in some sense, mutual. reciprocal. earned. this logic comforts him. it also fosters a sense of ownership he would find abhorrent if articulated plainly. when he sees you debating someone else—laughing, even—his irritation flares without warning. he dissects the other person’s arguments with unnecessary hostility, mentally tearing apart premises that do not even concern him.
he does not understand why this bothers him. arguing is not proprietary. ideas are not finite. you are not a resource to be monopolized. yet his mind insists, with increasing regularity, that something is out of place.
he thinks, absurdly, that arguing is your thing. that intellectual confrontation is the axis around which you orient yourself. this is demonstrably false, you are perfectly capable of silence, of disengagement, of letting things go, but the thought persists anyway. because when you argue with him, you are present. fully. incisively. without distraction. and damian has never had that from anyone.
he notices the way his attention narrows when you speak. the way his body stills, as though bracing for impact. the way he remembers your arguments, not just the content, but the cadence, the pauses, the exact phrasing. he tells himself this is because your reasoning is precise. it is. it is also because he cares whether you are listening. he compensates by working harder. by speaking less. by becoming colder, more exacting with everyone else. if you are the only person who meets him where he stands, then he will ensure no one else comes close.
this strategy, unfortunately, has diminishing returns. it does not stop him from noticing patterns. it does not stop the slow accumulation of moments that refuse to be categorized as rivalry and nothing more. it does not stop days from developing a gravitational pull toward you.
there is, for example, the courtyard. the courtyard is an inefficient use of space, open air, uneven seating, inconsistent acoustics. at some point, he cannot recall precisely when, it becomes routine that he finds you there in the early afternoon, seated on the low stone wall with a book balanced on your knee. sometimes you are alone. sometimes he is the one who arrives first. neither of you comments on it.
you do not sit close. there is always a careful margin of space, as though both of you are aware of some boundary neither wishes to name. you do not speak immediately. often, you read in parallel, silence stretching between pages turning and distant foot traffic. his shoulders loosen here. when you do talk it begins the way it always does: with something technical. you mention a case you are reading. he counters with a clinical parallel. the conversation evolves, meandering into adjacent territory—ethics, probability, institutional failure. you argue about standards of proof versus standards of care, about whether medicine hides behind uncertainty the way law hides behind precedent. he accuses you of prioritizing principle over outcome.
these conversations last longer than they should. neither of you makes a move to leave even when the thread naturally concludes. you sometimes sit there afterward, not talking, watching students pass through the courtyard like a foreign species. his mind, traitorously, notes that you look different here. less guarded. your attention drifts sometimes, gaze unfocused as you think.
on one particular day, unremarkable by any external metric, the air is cool enough to be tolerable. you are already seated when he arrives, jacket folded beside you, sleeves pushed up. you glance at him, nod once, return to your reading. he sits. you talk about nothing urgent. nothing that requires victory. a hypothetical about responsibility in complex systems, a digression into moral luck. you ask him, idly, whether he believes intention should matter more than outcome. “in practice, outcome dominates.” he says.
“but personally?”
he pauses. this is new. he chooses his answer carefully. “personally, intention explains failure.”
you consider that. “that’s bleak.”
“accurate.”
you smile faintly. not amused, thoughtful. there is a stretch of quiet afterward that feels weighted. damian becomes aware suddenly of how much of his attention is on you. not your argument. you. he does not like this awareness. he reasserts control by speaking. “you’re unusually quiet.” he notes, which is not an accusation so much as a diagnostic observation. silence, when unexamined, has a tendency to expand.
you glance at him. “so are you.”
“that’s intentional.”
“i figured.”
you do not elaborate. irritating. damian waits, then realizes—annoyed—that you are waiting too. not expectantly, not challengingly, just there. available. you tilt your head, that familiar alignment gesture. damian feels it again, that sense of being examined. “do you believe people can change?” you ask.
the question is deceptively simple. damian recognizes the trap immediately. vague phrasing. moral abstraction. no clear parameters. he dislikes it. he also does not dismiss it. he does what he always does when confronted with ambiguity: he runs the data. his mind moves, unbidden, through evidence. not hypotheticals, history. he thinks of the league first. of training yards slick with sweat and blood. of men who spoke reverently about honor while teaching children how to kill. of promises made in absolute terms—destiny, inevitability, purity. people there did not change. they refined. they adapted. they learned to justify themselves more eloquently. the violence remained constant.
he thinks of his mother. brilliant, ruthless, capable of tenderness that never outweighed the calculus. she changed tactics, sometimes. never direction.
he thinks of himself.
he remembers arriving in gotham, smaller, angrier, certain in a way that bordered on religious conviction. killing was logical. mercy was wasteful. his father was naïve. he remembers the first time bruce stopped him. not physically—though that happened too—but morally. the refusal to bend. the line that would not move, no matter how efficient the alternative seemed. damian had called it weakness. he does not, anymore.
he thinks of criminals who returned to the streets unchanged. of those who did not. of harvey dent, whose fall proved that goodness could rot under pressure. of others, rare, frustrating counterexamples, who did the work. who endured the humiliation of restraint. who failed and came back anyway. he hates those people most of all because they complicate the model.
people do not change easily. they do not change cleanly. they do not change because they want to. but they can change. sometimes. under force. under structure. under sustained, uncomfortable accountability.
he exhales slowly, aware you are waiting. “people can change,” he says at last. “but not in the way they like to imagine. they don’t transform, they redirect. the impulse stays. the flaw stays. what changes is how much effort they’re willing to exert to control it.” he pauses. “most aren’t willing, they want absolution without discipline. forgiveness without repair. change requires pain,” he says. “sustained. voluntary. most people avoid it. so no—people don’t change often. and when they do, it’s incomplete.”
he expects pushback. reframing. challenge. instead you nod slowly, as if filing the answer away rather than dissecting it. “and you?” you ask. “did you change?”
the question lands harder than the first. damian does not answer immediately. this is noticeable. he thinks again of gotham. of rules he once despised and now upholds. of restraint learned not through belief, but repetition. “i adapted.”
“that sounds like change.”
he bristles reflexively. “it was enforced.”
“and maintained.”
he looks away, the courtyard blurring slightly as his attention turns inward. he does not like the idea that his father might be right about this. that effort, sustained over time, might matter more than purity of intent. he does not like that you see the fault line so clearly. when he looks back at you, your expression is not triumphant. just thoughtful.
damian is accustomed to reactions. indignation. defensiveness. moral outrage. people either recoil from his conclusions or attempt to soften them. you do neither. you simply absorb them, like information you already suspected and are now confirming. he frowns. “why are you asking me that?”
the question comes out sharper than intended. not hostile. probing. he wants to know what prompted this particular excavation. you blink once, as if surprised he asked. then you shrug. “no reason.”
he does not believe you. “you’re lying.”
“fine. curiosity.”
“about what.”
you hesitate. “about whether you’re honest.”
he narrows his eyes. “i am.”
“yes,” you agree. “but not always with yourself.”
he should object. instead, he finds himself asking, “and you are?”
you consider him again. that familiar alignment. the sense of being assessed not as an opponent, but as a mirror. “no,” you say. “not really.”
this is unexpected. he waits. you do not rush. when you speak, it is measured, careful in the way people are when they are not performing but confessing something they’ve rehearsed privately. “i don’t think people change.” you admit. damian feels a sharp, vindicated flare of recognition.“i think people learn better ways to justify the same behavior. i think they learn which versions of themselves are socially acceptable. i think they call that growth.” you glance out across the courtyard, eyes unfocused. “but selfishness is efficient. denial is comfortable. accountability is exhausting. most people choose the path of least resistance. i’ve watched people ruin their lives in identical ways, same excuses. same refusal to look at themselves long enough to do anything about it. it’s almost impressive. the consistency.”
damian finds himself nodding, once. “so why law,” he asks. the question emerges before he fully considers it. “if you believe that.”
“because the system doesn’t care if people change. it only cares what can be proven.” you pause. “law doesn’t ask if someone is good. it asks what they did, what they can be held to, what survives scrutiny. i like that. it’s clean. brutal. less sentimental.” you consider, then add, dry, self-aware. “intelligence is a curse if you pretend it isn’t. you see patterns you can’t unsee. you stop believing in coincidence. you notice how rarely people learn. defending isn’t about believing people are innocent. it’s about making sure the state proves its case. it’s about friction. resistance. not letting power move unchallenged just because it claims good intentions.” you glance back at him. “sound familiar?”
it does.
too much.
he realizes, abruptly, that this is the most you have ever said. that you have chosen, deliberately, to say it to him. that this is not something you offer lightly. you shift as if suddenly aware of your own words. “anyway,” you say, lighter now, the shield snapping back into place. “you asked.”
“and now? do you think im honest now?”
he means it as a challenge. a test of consistency. if you believe people rarely change, then surely you must place him in the same category. he braces for the assessment, already preparing counterarguments. you look at him for a long moment. too long. then you smile, small, knowing, irritatingly restrained. “you want the short answer or the one you’ll argue with me about for the next twenty minutes?”
his mouth tightens. “the accurate one.”
“no.”
he exhales sharply through his nose. “incorrect.”
you tilt your head. that gesture again, studying. “see? already.”
“i am honest,” he insists. “to a fault.”
“with facts,” you agree. “with outcomes. with other people’s shortcomings.” you pause, watching his expression shift. “not with yourself.”
“elaborate.”
you don’t, not right away. instead you lean back slightly, eyes still on him, tone almost conversational. “tell me something, then. are you honest about why you talk to me?”
he stiffens. “i talk to you because you are consistently wrong and someone must correct your idiocy.”
“that’s not an answer. that’s a deflection.”
“it is an explanation.”
“no,” you say lightly. “it’s a strategy.”
his irritation spikes. “you’re making assumptions.”
“damian.” you say softly. “i’m not stupid.” you tick observations off calmly, as though listing elements of a case. “you could walk the long way to avoid this courtyard. you don’t. you could end our debates early. you escalate them. you claim to dislike inefficiency, yet you spend an unreasonable amount of time engaging with me.” he opens his mouth and closes it in the same second. you watch this happen, your smile deepening by a fraction. “are you honest about why it bothers you when i disagree with you?”
“yes,” he snaps. “i value correctness.”
“mm. do you?”
the sound you made—soft, noncommittal—does more damage than outright disagreement. damian feels an unexpected heat creeping up the back of his neck. irritation, he tells himself. nothing else. he does not experience embarrassment. he does not get flustered. yet he breaks eye contact first. just briefly, long enough to recalibrate, to regain the composure that usually obeys him without question. “yes,” he says again, sharper now, as if volume might substitute for certainty. “i do.”
“then explain something to me.” he looks back despite himself. a mistake. “you value correctness,” you repeat. “but you don’t react this way when other people are wrong.”
damian keeps his expression locked down, which is impressive, considering his brain has just tripped over itself and fallen down a flight of metaphorical stairs. this was supposed to be a normal exchange. a short one. you say something incorrect, he corrects you, you bristle, end of interaction. that is the natural order of things. instead, you’ve gone and done this, which feels less like a conversation and more like the opening argument of a court case where he is both the defendant and the incriminating evidence.
“because they are predictably wrong.”
“exactly.” you tilt your head. “they don’t bother you.” you pause, letting the implication hang between you. “i do.”
woah man. he does not like where this is going.
okay. fine. breathe. this is manageable. he has survived worse. fuck, this is how it starts isn’t it? this is the scene in every book drake insists is “character-driven” where someone says something soft and devastating and the other person has a realization and then everything is different forever. absolutely not. he refuses. he is not about to have an emotional epiphany in a courtyard like some kind of cw protagonist. he will not become a lesson.
you’re just poking at him because you’re bored. civilians do that. they see someone reserved and decide it’s a challenge, like trying to get a cat to tolerate a hug. he considers deflection. something about you overanalyzing, something about amateur psychology, but the problem with sarcasm is that it requires confidence, and his confidence has taken a brief but significant leave of absence. it’s probably hiding with his dignity. this is exactly why batman doesn’t let people get close. they’ll notice you. they’ll connect dots. they’ll look at you and say things like “you react differently with me,” and suddenly you’re standing there drafting a resignation letter to the concept of emotional detachment. addressed, apparently, to bruce wayne himself. dear father, regret to inform you i have developed a vulnerability. please advise.
this is ridiculous. he is being ridiculous. he does not “like” you. liking is inefficient. liking leads to poor decision-making. liking leads to dick making knowing faces and drake asking pointed questions and alfred looking at him with that expression that means he already knows. absolutely not. he will not hand them that satisfaction. he settles on indignation. indignation is solid. righteous. respectable. except even that feels hollow, because you haven’t accused him of anything. you’ve just… noticed, but it’s like being caught mid-calculation with your work already shown. there’s no denying it without looking sloppy. he wants to say something that reasserts the distance between you, but instead he’s acutely aware of the way you’re standing there, waiting, like you’ve already accounted for every possible response and none of them scare you. he doesn’t like people who aren’t afraid of him. that list is uncomfortably short, and he did not authorize you to be on it. he shifts his weight. if anyone were watching closely they might think he’s uncomfortable. good thing no one ever watches him closely.
except you.
“you don’t interrupt lectures to correct everyone,” you continue. “you don’t chase down every flawed argument you hear in the hallway. you let incompetence exist unchallenged most of the time.” this is true. he does not appreciate you noticing. “but when i disagree with you, you bristle.”
he scoffs. “because you’re persistent.”
“because i matter.”
he straightens instinctively. “that is a baseless assumption.”
“then let’s test it.”
he narrows his eyes. “how.”
“if this were only about correctness,” you say, “you’d be satisfied once the argument resolved. instead, you keep circling back. revisiting. like you’re not done when you win.” he opens his mouth to object. nothing comes out. you watch this with open interest, not triumph. curiosity. “you don’t look relieved when you’re right,” you continue. “you look disappointed. like the point wasn’t the point.”
he feels exposed. absurdly so.
“so either you don’t actually value correctness as much as you claim—” his jaw tightens. “—or you value something else more.”
he forces himself to speak. “and what would that be.”
you meet his eyes again. “damian.”
he feels it first, annoyingly physical. a brief, traitorous flutter low in his chest, like his nervous system has misfired. butterflies, he thinks, with something close to disdain. that is a ridiculous metaphor. he does not experience butterflies.
his attention stutters. for half a second he loses the thread of the conversation. loses the logic. loses the argument he was meticulously constructing. his gaze drops. this is how he notices your mouth. he tells himself he is assessing expression. micro-movements. tells. it is what he does. he is observant. lips, eyes. eyes, lips. he blinks, annoyed with himself, and drags his gaze back up to your face. you are watching him as though you’ve noticed the hesitation but aren’t planning to comment on it.
the courtyard registers all at once, like a delayed sensory input finally catching up. the open space. the way the afternoon light bounces off pale stone, too bright, almost glaring. the fact that there is no one else nearby. no ambient noise of passing students, no audience to anchor him back into performance. it is just the two of you.
the courtyard is rarely empty, placed between lecture halls, usually full of students loitering, arguing, eating, existing inefficiently. yet now there is no one. no witnesses. no background noise to dissolve the moment into something dismissible. he tells himself it is the time of day. lunch hour bleeding into afternoon lectures. people migrating indoors. he does not tell himself the other, more irritating possibility: that people have learned. learned that when you and damian occupy the same space, friction follows. that it is safer, easier, to clear out and let the weather system pass.
he resents the implication that this has become a known phenomenon.
you shift your weight, casual, hands loosely folded as though nothing about this is unusual. “you’re thinking very loudly.” you remark.
“i am not.”
“you are,” you insist. “you’re deciding.”
“deciding what?”
you glance around the empty courtyard, then back at him. your expression is mild. unreadable. infuriatingly calm. “about whether you want to keep pretending this is accidental.”
he stiffens. “this?”
you gesture between the two of you. the space. the months of collision masquerading as coincidence.
he waits. against his will. you consider him. “i think you stopped learning from me weeks ago.”
“you’re making assumptions again.”
“you’re not denying them.” you glance toward the buildings bordering the courtyard. “i’m heading to the law library,” you announce, as if it’s an afterthought. “i have a constitutional interpretation paper i don’t feel like writing alone.” you look back at him. “you’d hate it.”
“i would.”
“you’d also have opinions.”
unfortunately, yes.
you shift your bag higher on your shoulder, already turning away. “you’re welcome to come,” you add. “or not. your choice.” you do not look back. damian remains where he is, rigid, mind racing. this is not a date. that would be absurd. inefficient. unnecessary. this is a discussion. an exchange. an opportunity to correct flawed reasoning.
yet he stands, because whatever this is—whatever you are—it is not accidental. and for the first time, he does not pretend he wants it to be.
A/N: i got multiple requests for damian x intelligent reader so this for u… 💞💞 i am aware bimbo reader ragebaited several people. 😭😭 consider this my apology this reader is lowkey nonchalant, lowkey a chill guy.
as always thank you for reading and i hope this healed or worsened something ♡♡
