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Stiltedly, Mike stepped away from Will. That… that was a pretty awkward encounter, even going by Mike’s standards (because everything he did was, to some degree, awkward). Maybe he should have just hugged Will normally.
But the shock of seeing his best friend (they were still best friends, right? even if for some reason neither of them had sent any letters, which Mike knew was at least half his fault, probably more. And the fact that Will had never answered the phone, probably busy with all of the new friends El had written about, better friends, better than Mi—anyways.) The shock of seeing Will so much taller, and broader, and tanner, hit Mike like a truck, and he found himself stupidly unable to do anything but pat him on the back and laugh fakely. He was even wearing clothes that actually fit properly, which was kind of a feat for Will.
Mike let his eyes wander over Will, looking at his blue flannel and his new, shorter bowl cut, and suddenly felt incredibly stupid in his—whatever the fuck he was wearing. Silently, he cursed Max, who had clearly been lying when she told him what Californians wore. Admittedly, he should have thought through Max's sudden burst of kindness, but sue him if he was a little preoccupied at the thought of getting to see—his girlfriend. Yeah, his girlfriend. His girlfriend—he looked back to El, shot her a smile, finally snapping his eyes away from Will. Jesus Christ , he was hopeless.
He stepped towards Jonathan, raising his arms slightly. Maybe he’d hug Will properly in a second, once his stupid thoughts had calmed down and he didn’t feel sick with anxiety about everything he felt, queasy with nerves whenever he even looked. (Because what if they found out, what if they all knew?)
Then—then instead of wrapping Mike up in one of his patented Jonathan Byers hugs, Jonathan just—patted his shoulder? What? Mike froze where he was standing, staring at his best friend’s older brother who he’d thought was maybe a little bit like his older brother too—apparently not, though, as Jonathan just—what the fuck? Did Jonathan just glare at him?
He tracked Jonathan’s eyes as they looked from Mike to Will, and back to Mike. Did—did Jonathan know?
Mike let himself be introduced to whoever the fuck argyle was—Jonathan’s friend, apparently, which was a whole different type of crazy because Mike had never known Jonathan to have friends before. Like, he had some sort of weird we-both-know-about-the-hell-monsters-that-occasionally-try-to-kill-everyone thing with Steve Harrington, even of that was tied up with the whole once-I-beat-the-absolute-shit-out-of-you thing he also had with Steve. But no friends, really.
And now he had a friend, named Argyle, who had long hair and also liked pulling people he didn’t know into weird half hugs where he also critiqued their clothing style.
Mike nodded along to whatever El was saying (something about burritos, which was weird because it was kind of common knowledge in the Party that Mike couldn’t handle anything much spicier than a piece of white bread), sneaking glances at Will behind his sunglasses all the while.
Will and his painting, which was crumpled just a bit in his hands. The painting which, from what he could gather, was for a girl, most likely Angela given his reaction. Who the fuck was Angela? She probably sucked. Definitely wasn’t good enough for Will.
Will dropped back behind where El was clutching onto Mike in a way that made it hard to keep his balance properly, and as Mike tried to unsubtly crane his neck to look back at him, he instead made eye contact with Jonathan.
Who, yet again, fixed him with a poisonous glare. Mike swallowed, twisting his fingers with the handle of his bag. The worst part of this whole awkward shitshow was that Mike had seen that glare before.
He'd seen that glare, and it was usually fixed on people who insulted Will, or people like Steve Harrington, or people who mentioned Lonnie Byers. And now it was fixed firmly on Mike, he could feel it digging into the back of his head.
It made him feel sick. A lot of things made him feel sick, lately.
(When they were being shot at, Mike grasped at Jonathan’s arm like it was the only thing keeping him alive.)
____
So, Mike was around 78% sure that Jonathan Byers hated his guts.
Case in point—the awkward standoff that was happening right now, as they both reached for a pack of Reese's Pieces.
Which, come on. Jonathan had made it a point to comment, many times, on how disgusting he thought Reese's Pieces were, usually in an attempt to drag Will into a playful argument.
And now, he was apparently trying to explode Mike with his mind as both of their hands hovered over the orange bag of candy. Mike swallowed, darting his eyes from Jonathan to the candy and back again, flickering them back and forth fast enough that it was starting to make him sort of dizzy.
“Watch it,” Jonathan finally said, snatching up Reese's Pieces with a scowl and knocking his shoulder into Mike’s as he exited the aisle. It wasn't a particularly hard shoulder bump, but Mike was built like a piece of wet paper, and the impact sent him into the cold metal shelves, hip hitting a corner painfully.
What the fuck was that?
Mike, wide-eyed, watched Jonathan leave the aisle and go to ruffle Will’s hair.
And as he did, as if he could sense Mike’s eyes on his back, he turned and glared at Mike. again.
What. The. Fuck.
Mike exited the store with an off brand chocolate bar, a pack of Reese's Pieces, and a travel-sized bottle of ibuprofen for the killer headaches he’d been getting lately. He didn’t pay for any of it, but he was on the way to rescue a basically-superhero who would then probably save the world, for the fourth time over. Some random gas station could spare a couple bucks for that.
He followed Will into the backseat of their mighty steed, which just so happened to be a pizza van which stank of weed, blood, and a hint of pepperoni, and it was also their vehicle for travelling halfway across the country to bring a super powered girl to save the world from some evil guy who sucked eyes back into skulls. God, his life was a joke.
He collapsed into the weathered seat that had somehow become his, letting his head loll back to stare out the—very dirty—sunroof. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Will’s eyes following his movement, and went red (he really wished he wasn’t so pale). Will must think he looked like such an idiot.
He glanced up to where Jonathan was busy accepting a joint held to his lips by Argyle (he was pretty sure it wasn’t safe to drive stoned, but he wasn’t about to say anything to the new Jonathan, the one that hated Mike), and glanced towards Will, who was staring at his hands. Which, he couldn’t blame him, Will’s hands were very nice to stare at. Not that Mike had been staring, of course. (And the sickness was back, crawling in his stomach, wrong-wrong-wrong it whispered.)
“Hey, Will,” Mike said. Solid start, he hadn’t said anything that would haunt him forever yet.
Then Will turned to look at him, leaning in slightly, and Mike found himself distracted by the curve of Will’s lips as he replied.
“Yeah?” He said. God, Mike could listen to Will say ‘yeah’ all day. He blinked, shook it off, because that was a pretty pathetic thought. Max would never let him live it down if she heard it, but Max could luckily not read minds. He’d probably be done for by now if she could.
“Uh,” Mike replied eloquently, tearing his eyes away from Will’s lips, only to find them caught on Will’s hazel eyes instead. “Hm,” he said.
Then Argyle reclined his seat with a loud thunk, and Mike was suddenly reminded that there were more people in this car than just him and Will.
“Here, I got you something at the gas station,” Mike said, digging around in his pocket. “They might be a little squished, but I'm sure it's fine, unless you hate it. You’ve never been the type to hate things, though, so—“
“Mike,” Will said, sounding as if he was trying not to laugh, and Mike went bright red again, and just pressed the bright orange packet into Will’s hands instead of embarrassing himself further.
“Oh,” Will said. Did he not like it? Maybe Reese's Pieces weren’t his favourite anymore, which was completely fair. He shouldn’t be expecting Will to stay the exact same forever.
“Thanks Mike, but, uh, Jonathan already gave me some.” Oh. Mike glanced up to the rear view mirror, and saw Jonathan with the slightest tinge of a smile in his eyes, a bit of selfish happiness. He looked down at his hands and bit down firmly on his lip. Maybe he shouldn’t have even tried. (He hoped Jonathan wouldn’t tell Will. He didn’t think he could lose Will because of his stupid wrong feelings, even if Will would be better off without him.)
“Thank you, though!” Will was correcting himself frantically now, probably seeing how pathetic Mike was, and, like, pitying him or something. “I’ll definitely eat them, it’s super sweet that you remembered—“
Sweet? Who called their best friend sweet? That was the sort of thing that his Nana would say when he was a kid and gave her a craft that she’d definitely throw away the second his back was turned.
“No, no it’s fine, I shouldn’t have—“
“—It’s great, I love Reese’s Pieces—“
The van then went over a particularly large pothole, sending Mike into the wall, his head connecting with the window with a thunk. That seemed like a good enough cue to stop.
Both Mike and Will dissolved into silence, staring out of their respective windows.
God, when did everything between them become so awkward? Mike remembered when they were little, and they would talk for hours, and know everything about each other, and stay outside in Castle Byers until Jonathan would come and drag them inside and make them both tea with a ton of sugar in it, ruffling their hair, and Mike and Will would run upstairs and have sleepovers in the same bed.
Now every conversation with Will was like desperately trying to fight a thessalhydra with just a dagger. The thessalhydra in this metaphor being Mike’s idiocy, or maybe his pathetic inability to not stare at Will, and the dagger was maybe his desperate attempt at pretending he was normal. This metaphor actually really fucking sucked, maybe he shouldn’t be a writer after all.
He couldn’t talk to Will, Jonathan hated him, El… maybe also hated him (judging off that last note), and he barely even talked to the rest of the Party outside of DnD because he was a pathetic loser who couldn’t even drag himself out of his cocoon of self-pity and moping.
Mike let his head fall into the warm glass of the window and pretended he couldn’t feel Jonathan’s gaze burrowing into the side of his head.
___
The worst thing about it, Mike thought privately, the worst thing about this whole Jonathan thing was that he probably deserved it.
Because here he was, sitting in a fucking pizza van with the boy he finally had to admit, even just to himself, that he was in love with, and the boy was sobbing into his hand, and Mike was just… what?
Pretending he didn’t notice? Pretending this whole painting thing wasn’t the most confusing fucking thing? Pretending he wasn’t fully, completely, hopelessly in love with the boy who had just told him how much that Mike’s girlfriend needed him? (Will didn’t know Mike was wrong.)
So instead of doing what he’d done dozens, hundreds of times, instead of reaching out and comforting Will, or talking to him, being best friends—instead of doing any of that, Mike just stared at the painting.
He just sat and stared at the painting, the best gift he’d ever been given, the most amazing thing he’d ever seen, and pretended that Will’s muffled sobs weren’t providing the most depressing soundtrack ever.
Suddenly, for some insane reason, Mike found himself crying, a harsh sting in the back of his throat as tears bubbled up, and he quickly rolled up the painting, placing it gently on the ground.
He turned towards the window, the by-now familiar scrubby desert rolling by as the pizza van drove at considerably above the speed limit.
And he let himself cry, silently, tears leaking from his squeezed-shut eyes as his shoulders started to shake and his breath started to hitch and he found himself pulling his knees up to his chest and pressing his face into them, curling his arms around his leg, adopting the position that had been growing more and more common for him lately.
He heard Jonathan make a half-vocalised sound, as if he was going to say something, but he didn’t move to reply and he was pretty sure Will didn’t either.
Mike had known Jonathan Byers since he was five years old.
Jonathan had rambled to him and Will about proper music as they all sat in his room for one reason or another, fidgeting with his stereo and his records and his cassette tapes.
Jonathan had found him the third time Mike had decided to run away from home in a fit of emotion, eight years old and freezing cold, the scornful words of his father echoing in his mind. And he’d been the one to take him by the hand, lead him inside, sit with him on the couch as Will slept, to let Mike cry into his shoulder and ramble about how much he hated everything.
Jonathan had been the one that he’d shown the stories he was writing, sometimes even before Will, the one that he’d tried to work in morals and themes and metaphors for, because Jonathan was older and cool and he cared.
Now Jonathan hated him.
Sometimes that’s how it goes.
Mike jolted awake, half-formed visions of demogorgons and pulsing meat and a Will with cold dark eyes swimming through his mind. Nightmare, was his one strangled thought as he gasped for breath.
He scrubbed a hand down his face, scoffing quietly when it came away wet with tears. Slowly, his breath evened back to normal, and he looked around. It was dark out. The digital display of his watch read 02:47, but who even knew what time zone they were in at this point.
The car was silent, any radio station far out of reach (Mike had hardly known that could happen). Will was sprawled across his seat and the one in between them, fast asleep, and Mike took a minute to watch his chest move, up and down, brows slightly crinkled as he turned over.
Argyle was also asleep, snoring loudly. Mike didn’t look over at him.
He reached out a hand, slowly and carefully, let it hover over Will’s face. Each warm breath against his palm reassuring in the knowledge that it meant Will was alive, he was fine and he was right here. There was a too-long hair that brushed his eyelid. It would be so easy just to move it away. Slowly, snail’s pace, Mike let his hand shift down to brush the hair away.
“Mike.”
And he nearly jumped out of his skin, recoiling so forcefully his hand smacked his own chin with a sound that felt out of place in the quiet night. Jesus Christ, could he not be a disaster for five minutes?
Evidently not, he thought sullenly, and redirected his eyes to the front, to where Jonathan’s eyes were staring at him through the rear view mirror. He tucked his hands under his thighs so that he wouldn’t get any stupid ideas again.
“Yeah?” His voice sounded soft and broken and weak and pathetic. He sounded like a child, and he hated it.
For some reason, Jonathan didn’t reply, even though he was the one who had spoken in the first place. Instead, he just stared, silent as they drove over the road. The weight of his eyes was uncomfortable, in the squinting dark of his friend’s older brother’s judging eyes. Jonathan always had that look to him, like he could see so much more than he let on.
“Are you okay?”
The slight laugh came out before Mike could muffle it. Oh yeah, he was doing great, as was shown by the way he was struggling not to cry in the back of a pizza van that positively stank of blood and weed.
“Fine,” he answered in the most clipped tone he could manage at whatever-the-fuck in the morning, instead of doing what he might’ve done a year or two ago and letting all his feelings come pouring out in a mess. Jonathan didn’t need to deal with his shit, and he clearly didn’t want to.
“You were having a nightmare,” Jonathan said, voice soft, and— God . Mike wasn’t really sure why that pissed him off so much. Maybe, just maybe it was because Jonathan had seemed to be full-blown hating him last time he was awake?
“Why do you care?” Mike bit out, not trying to sound like anything more than the sullen miserable teenager he knew that he was. What was the point in even pretending? Jonathan clearly knew more than he was letting on, given the way he was acting whenever Mike so much as looked over at Will. (Because—Mike knew that there was something wrong with him, that he shouldn’t be doing this, feeling this, but it still hurt when Jonathan looked at him like he was disgusting.)
“I—what?”
He grit his teeth, hunched his shoulders so tight they nearly reached his ears, and wished he could curl around himself so tightly that nothing could ever get in and reach him again. “Don’t go acting so nice now,” he spat, tugged at a loose thread in his collar until it snapped.
Jonathan made another confused sound, and a sick anger bubbled low in his gut. Mike lashed out, kicking one foot against the back of the driver's seat as his fingers dug into the fabric of the car’s seat. “I mean, you’ve made it plenty clear you apparently hate me now!” And he hated the desperately hurt tone to his voice, the way he couldn’t hide his emotion.
“Mike,” Jonathan said in a too-hurt tone, voice small (too small, Jonathan was meant to be old and unshakable). His mouth opened and shut. Then he took in a slightly-shaky breath. “I don’t hate you,” he said, gentle.
“Sure fooled me,” he muttered, low and sharp as he tucked his face into his knees.
They drove on in silence for around a minute. Whenever Mike glanced up, Jonathan was staring forwards with a degree of focus he hadn’t seen this whole trip. (This was also the most sober he had seen Jonathan this whole trip.) He chewed at the inside of his cheek until the taste of blood started to leak into his mouth—gross.
“I don’t hate you,” Jonathan repeated then, a little more stability in his voice. He sounded sure of himself. And Mike wanted to believe him so badly, he really, really did.
But— “Maybe you should,” he said, pulling his eyes away from where he’d been staring at Will.
Then Jonathan sighed, a quiet exhale of air, turned fully around for a second to look at him. “I don’t think so,” he said, eyes just so sincere that it made Mike swallow, glance away and stare down at his hands, the dirt and blood still under his nails. He scratched at a hangnail, picking at the scrap of skin until it bled.
Then the van rolled to a stop, barely bothering to even pull over on the side of the road. They hadn’t seen another car in hours. Mike looked up nervously as Jonathan twisted in his seat, leaning over the back of it in a way that looked supremely uncomfortable. Then he reached out, stretching his arm in order to rest his hand on Mike’s knee.
He stared at it, at the dirt on the skin and the bitten-down nails and everything that was just so familiar, from when Jonathan would put a steadying hand on his shoulder, when he would straighten the flipped-up collars of his polo shirts, when he would ruffle his hair.
And tears welled up in his eyes, throat tightening as he furiously blinked. Because—here was Jonathan, who saw how he was with Will, noticed it ever since Mike showed up, and he didn’t hate him. Why the fuck did he not hate him?
“Mike,” Jonathan said again, like it was all he could say, and a burst of–of–of something Mike couldn’t even begin to name flashed through him. He jerked away, knees knocking together and hands pressed against the bloodstained seats.
“Shut up!” He hissed in a voice that was very carefully a whisper, “Shut up, I–I,” his voice trembled. “I hate you,” Mike spat, and he wasn’t even sure if he was lying. Jonathan’s eyes widened slightly, emboldening him to go on.
“Yeah, I hate you, and-and Nancy, and Lucas, and-and I hate my mom and my dad! I hate—I–I hate—”
He was cut off by Jonathan pulling him into his shoulder, words buried into the weed-stink of flannel. And he hated that he was crying, hated the way that at the slightest touch he was a crumbling mess sobbing into the shoulder of a boy he hadn’t seen in a year.
The little gasping sobs kept coming, wet and angry, his hands balling fists into Jonathan’s shirt, nails biting crescents into skin. Mike cried with gritted teeth and angry red cheeks. He cried and he hated it all the while.
“I don’t hate you, Mike,” Jonathan said quietly, and the words sent revulsion threading through his veins. Mike let out a choked noise, trying to pull away, but the arms stayed locked around him, caging him in place even when his shaky hands came up and tried to push him away. His breaths were quick and tight and he couldn’t do this, couldn’t let Jonathan hold him like this, like he was something to be cherished.
“You should!” His voice pitched so loud it was a miracle that neither Will nor Argyle awoke. “You should, I’m a horrible fucking friend and a–a horrible boyfriend!” He tried, near begging as he pried at the arms around him. “I–I don’t even love El, isn’t that—awful?” Mike twisted, tears leaking down his face. “I’m disgusting and horrible and awful!”
Jonathan didn’t reply, only squeezed tighter, and the warmth and pressure was making him feel like gagging. (He didn’t deserve this, he didn’t, he didn’t.) He continued—continued spouting hushed self-deprecations and sharp dripping words and insults that he was sure would make him realise, make anybody realise that he just wasn’t worth this.
But Jonathan didn’t let go, and Mike was sick with it. He gasped in short stuttering breaths, pushed weakly at the older boy’s arms, begged him to let go. He wouldn't, he wouldn't, and Mike didn’t deserve this! The touch was too warm, burning at his skin, and he frantically spat the one thing he thought would make Jonathan let go.
“I’m—I’m gay,” he choked out.
For a second, Jonathan’s arms stiffened, and a little sick voice inside of Mike was whispering ‘good, he’s realised, you’re disgusting, he knows now.’ But the seconds dragged on and Jonathan didn't. Let. Go.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Voice cracking, high and incredulous.
“Yeah, Mike.” Jonathan said steadily. “I heard.”
“But—” And he didn’t even know what to say, the words hovering just behind his lips. Mike didn’t understand, his heart pounded heavy in his chest. Why didn’t he care?
“It’s okay.”
And Mike sucked in a breath, a long wet gasp, his eyes blown wide and shocked and—Jonathan’s grip still burnt, but he let himself slump limp into him, let his face press into Jonathan’s shoulder, let himself cry.
Jonathan didn’t hate him. He didn’t hate him.
(And Mike couldn’t figure out why.)