Chapter Text
“Hey, happy birthday” Mike said as he patted my back lightly.
“What.” I said confused before looking back, smiling in relief when I saw his face. “Oh yeah! This is super cool by the way, if you want to bring more quarters that’s a good enough present.” I said as I jingled around the ten quarters in hand as I stood staring at the bright flashing lights of Dig Dug in front of me.
“No problem!” He let go of my shoulder, turning to leave, but not before looking back and tapping my shoulder. “Still my house tonight right?”
“Of course!” I said in agreement as I watched him walk away and go talk to Lucas. I couldn’t click start on the game in front of me, my mind wouldn’t let me just click the damn button. I felt watched, like someone was staring into my head, trying to figure out what I was thinking…
I turned around quickly looking around the room, I could feel eyes on me. The same feeling I felt last year. It wasn’t until I locked eyes with that someone… it was just my mom. She mouthed “Hi” as she waved at me from the door.
Ever since I that day when she and Johnathan watched the doctors burn the mindflayer from me, my mother began to watch me like a hawk. I mean I understand, it must be hard seeing your kid go missing and then becoming possessed the following year, but I just want to be a kid. In a weird way, though I’m turning fourteen, it feels like I haven’t grown at all from that twelve year old boy who was taken that day. It sounds stupid, “I haven’t aged mentally”, but it feels that way, everyone has girlfriends, I’m getting worse in my classes and I just can’t make any new friends. I feel so alone, I just know Mike would understand me, or at least he would’ve if only he stayed like me; unchanging from how we were two years ago.
“Will honey, Mike’s mother is going to come pick you up in the next thirty minutes, so I’m gonna head back home, call me when you get there if you need anything, I’ll send Johnathan to get anything you want, okay sweetheart?” She grabbed my cheek and began to kiss my other one.
“Alright mom! I get it you can go!” I insisted, letting her hug me before watching her leave.
When she walked out the door I saw my reflection in the glass, and staring back at me was that stupid haircut, that stupid little haircut and an immature little kid expecting to be taken by some new force of evil.
Looking to my left, I saw it. Eleven laughing at something Mike must have said. She really felt that way in that moment, “evil”, but I didn’t blame her. Mike is everything, and we are the only ones that see it. I once could convince myself that these moments don’t bother me, but now I can’t hide from my shame. I feel gross for wanting his attention and I feel worse for feeling that I somehow deserve it. “I mean I did spend more time with him before than she does now.” I thought, selfishly. “I met him first, he wouldn’t have even found her if I hadn’t gone missing, if I had died that day, they wouldn’t be together, he would’ve just left her in the woods.” I let my balled up fists relax and shaked off my sweaty hands anxiously. “What’s wrong with me?”
I asked Dustin if he was waiting for the others to join him when I noticed he was playing alone. For a moment, he didn’t respond, just playing and staring off into the screen before replying quietly.
“No.”
“Why not?” I asked, looking back at Mike, El and Max hovering over Lucas playing on a machine across the room.
“They’re all a bunch of jerkwads that’s why. They can do whatever they hell they want when they value their girlfriends over the party.” His hands became more shaky and I could tell it was less from him trying to focus and coming more from the anger written on his toothless face. “I mean, do we loners even matter anymore! We’re supposed to be a team!”
Before I knew it the game began to buzz louder under my arm.
“Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!” He slammed his palm on the buttons. “Son of a bitch!”
“Weren’t you trying to date Max?” I asked, and pain struck his face.
“Obviously Will, Obviously I was trying to date her! But luck wasn’t in my cards, and you know what!?” He turned to me, slamming his hand dangerously close to mine.
“Another word about max and I’m leaving with a bruise” I thought.
“Girls just don’t want guys like us.” He announced with triumph.
“Guys like us?” I asked, confused as to why that would be a good thing.
“Yeah! Girls are intimidated by our independent nature! We’re two intelligent that are fully capable of taking over the world! When I talk to a girl, she’s just scared her friends will hate her for picking the coolest guy.”
“I don’t really know about that.”
“Well what do you think girls think of you?” He asked me, and I had never thought about it. I guess it never really mattered to me.
“Why would I think about what girls think of me?”
“You’re a smart man William!”
“Ewww!” I yelled out, “Don’t call me William!”
“Why not? It’s your name! And it sounds way more smart if you ask me.”
“Whatever Dusty.” I laughed out.
“I will kill you Zombie boy.”
After the day was over, I waited with Mike as we watched the others get picked up one by one to go home, as we stayed there talking.
“So what do you wanna do when we get back home?” He asked.
“Oh I don’t know probably play a bored game or something, unless you have any video games you wanna play?”
He didn’t say anything, he just stared off kicking his feet on the concrete as we sat close to each other on the cold bench, outside the arcade. He was miserable, though I saw him having good time today, if you saw him now without the rest of the day, you’d assume something horrible happened.
<1p>“Let’s just play a board game.” He finally spoke.
“Mike?”
He turned to me, waiting for me to speak.
“Mike, is it really over between you and el?”
“Oh…” he answered, looked back into the distance as he thought, surprised by my question. “Yeah I guess so, but we’ll probably get back together I mean that’s just what happens right?”
“C’mon you two have nothing in common, you said that! You told me you only stay because she’s strong enough to save you.”
“No I Di-!” He stoped, he was about to raise his voice at me, but the second his eyes caught mine again. “She’s a girl Will, I should be the one protecting her, but I can’t fight the government, all I can do is hide her in my basement and visit her at Hopper’s, I can keep her from the bad guys, sometimes I think I don’t need to. It upsets me, is that bad?” He looked back to me. He waited for me to respond, but somehow something else came to mind. “Besides, why do we need to have anything in common anyway? She’s a girl! She’s a girl! She doesn’t play DnD or play video games! She just sits at home all day and talks to Hopper. We would never have anything in common, but we don’t need to! Relationships don’t need stuff like that, I just need to be there and spend time with her.”
My eyes jolted down to his hands holding his knees tightly, he was uncomfortable restlessly defending himself.
“What is it?” He asked quietly, changing the volume of his voice again as he noticed my staring, maybe worried that his rant had startled me.
“Nothing! I just, I still think having common interests are important! It doesn’t matter that she’s a girl. Lucas and Max both like video games, they both like the same comics, even if Lucas introduced her to them, it still counts that he put in the effort to talk to her about it! I’ve never seen you bring El to a DnD campaign or invite her over to play board games with you.” He sat there looking back at the concrete again, and I sat there looking at his hands. “Do you even like her Mike?”
“Of course I don’t!” He yelled out, almost surprised that he had said it, as his expression soon changed to painful remorse, but still he defended himself and the relationship as if his life depended on it. “I don’t like her, not in the way that I like you! But you’re my friend and she’s my girlfriend Will it’s different!”
“You can hold her hand and play DnD!”
“I don’t want to! That’s our thing! and I don’t want to play video games with her that’s everyone else’s thing, she’s different, she’s special, she’s… she’s not into the things I’m into, and I think we live in completely different worlds but I’m trying to change that!”
“Seriously? You’re trying to join her world? The world of super human powers and secret agents searching for her anywhere they can? That’s what you want to follow her into? Well, while you want to go join her and follow her like a dog in your make believe fantasy that you like her, you just left mine, I mean you were the only one that understood me Mike and now-“
“And now? And now what? You think I don’t care about you? You think getting a girlfriend changed our friendship? I’m still in your world. Will, I’m still here for you!”
“It doesn’t feel like it Mike! I’ve been telling you about my nightmares, I told you about my feelings but everyday it’s always about El and how you can change for El, when’s it’s apparent that she only talks to you because you’re her only friend and you only talk to her, because you wanna keep away whatever it is that she saves you from! And I don’t get it! There’s no demo-whatever trying to kill us now, we’re safe what possibly could you gain from keeping her around Mike?”
“Our reputation Will! Not just mine but yours! The whole school’s called you a faggot for years, and now they call me one too! I don’t want them to think we’re gay Will! I’m not gay! And maybe if you got a girlfriend then they’d know that you’re not gay.”
“Mike, if you don’t want to be with Eleven, you shouldn’t. The kids at school don’t even know you’re dating her, they don’t even know she exists! And Mike I don’t want a girlfriend! I don’t care what they call me, I just want to be your friend like we used to be.”
“It’s not the kids at school Will, it’s our parents, it’s my sister, I don’t want be her boyfriend, but I don’t want people to think things either!”
“Why not?”
“Why not…? Are you insane! Because we could get killed, because I don’t want my dad to kick me out for thinking I’m gay!”
“Do you really believe that? Do you really believe they would do that?”
His eyes swelled up with tears as we turned to face bright lights. His mother was here to pick us up, and it was a quiet ride home.
“Will did you enjoy your birthday?”
“Yeah it was really nice.”
“That’s good, you and Mike can sleep in the basement and we’ll order pizza.”
Once we got to his house and the basement door closed he turned to me almost like the words of our last conversation were still on his mind. I was certain that they were.
“Let’s just play uno or something.” I Said, avoiding the topic.
“Do you really think I’m not in your world anymore?”
“I don’t know you don’t really talk to me anymore.”
It was quiet, but not for long enough. I wanted to tell him that I was willing to make more friends, that if he wanted to grow out of the party he could, even if it was a lie. I wanted to keep him all to myself, but I couldn’t, then I remembered what he said earlier.
“Mike, do you really believe your dad would do that to you?”
“What?” I knew I had caught him off guard.
“You said if your dad thought you were gay, he would kick you out, do you really think he would do that?”
“I don’t want to find out Will, do you think I really want to test that theory?”
“You don’t have to you know?”
“My dad already thinks that.”
“Does hanging around me really make you look like a queer?” I could tell I had hurt him. He looked away and balled his fists like I did back at the arcade when I felt alone. I don’t want Mike to feel alone.
He stopped, hand still on the bookshelf. He turned to me, furrowed brows and a shaking stature.
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because I make us look like queers.”
“No you don’t, Mike what are you talking about?”
“My dad thinks that I’m obsessed with you, that I talk about you all the time. He even told me that I hug you too much and that I should’ve grown out of that a long time ago.”
“You’re not like that at all!”
“But I am like that! I mean it’s what he said, I’m always touching you, and I never hang out with my girlfriend. It’s no wonder he thinks I’m gay.”
“You said, that… wait… do you really talk about me all the time?”
“Of course I do! You’re the coolest person ever! You’re an amazing artist and you’re so strong and you don’t even have to have powers to do it. The fact that your here talking to me, that you’re okay and not a spy anymore, you’re so strong, and you say that girls won’t talk to you, but I don’t even get it.”
“Wait, I didn’t say that.”
“Dustin told me today that you said girls won’t talk to you, but you’re so cool and you look nice, I don’t get why they wouldn’t- I…” He stopped talking, maybe it was because he heard himself rambling on, or maybe he noticed that I didn’t know what to do with all the compliments he was throwing at me. “Oh, maybe… maybe he’s right.”
“Right about what?” I asked, staring into his watery eyes.
“Maybe I am a queer, you shouldn’t talk to me.”
“Cmon Mike!” I grabbed his arm as tight as I could, as tight as it took for him to know that I would never leave. He was mine and mine alone, but reality has to hit eventually. He has eleven, and he wasn’t serious about being gay. “You don’t really think that do you?”
“I… I don’t think so. I mean.” He looked back to the bookshelf, looking for words to say, words he couldn’t grab off the wooden shelves. “I never really… liked liked girls in the way that Lucas and Dustin talked about but, people grow into it.”
“Have you ever liked a boy?” I asked, expecting a fast and easy “No”. That two letter word that would put all of my wishful thinking to rest.
Instead there was silence, and silence for longer than I hoped for.
“Mike.” I repeated myself “Have you ever liked a boy before?”
He didn’t look like he had an answer, if he couldn’t say yes, he definitely couldn’t say no, but I didn’t keep my hopes up for long.“What about you will? Have you ever liked a boy before?!” He yelled at me, hoping to mock me before he waited, confused that I hadn’t yelled ‘No’ at him immediately and defended my straight sexuality.
I was embarrassed, I didn’t expect him to throw that back at me at such a speed. I had hoped that he’d give me an answer before he decided to ask me that question. Sadly, I promised myself I would be truthful. Why did it have to be so hard?
“So? Have you?” He asked me again, hoping with the same eagerness that I did, that I would scream out “No” faster than he could ask me again. So, now here we were, two boys waiting to hear if our best friend was a secret homosexual, strangely my hopes are still up.
Mike looked tense, with every passing moment, he grew more upset. With his arms crossed and lip wobbling I couldn’t stand to see him in such distress, he broke me.
“Mike I like you.” I said, hoping he’d say something fast. I was eager, so eager to get this over with so I could just go home if he needed to tell me how straight he is.
Painfully, all of my waiting in anxiety came to a sudden incline when I saw him look away shamefully. Now I couldn’t hide, and I couldn’t hide my coming tears when I realized that I might not get to talk to him again.
“Mike, I thought it was obvious.”
He looked back me, with less shame than before. He asked me something, something I wish I had hit him for asking.
“You like me… gay… like me?” What a stupid bunch of words.
“Do you ‘gay’ like me?” I asked, already understanding his by expression his answer as his hands had loosened and his eyes began widen, yet he looked so calm still.
“I thought you’d call me gross.” He breathed hard and began to stutter. “I-I I mean with all you’ve been through I thought this was the last thing you wanted to hear.”
“With all I’ve been through this is the first thing I wanted to hear Mike.” I said smiling, so relieved as he began to approach me… ‘he got close’ I realized as I took a step back, returning to the dreadful air we started in. “If you feel that way for me… then why are you treating me like I don’t matter anymore?”
“I wanted to save us. I thought it would be easier on you if you didn’t have everyone thinking you were a faggot all the time.”
“That’s the only thing I want Mike! Even if you hadn’t been gay, I still would want you to care about me! That’s the only thing I want of you!”
“I’m here for you now. So, now, can I be your boyfriend?”
The absolute nerve this man had, it makes me wish I hadn’t fallen for him.