Chapter Text
The floor of the mall bathroom was cold against Mike's exposed knobbly knees as he retched his insides out into the toilet bowl. With a gasp, he leaned against the red cubicle wall, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth in a futile attempt to clean the combination of blood and vomit before looking up at the blue popcorn ceiling.
Mike always knew he would try drugs at least once in his teenage years, if you told him it would be because he was getting interrogated by evil Russians AND with Max Mayfield he would've called you insane but here he was, in a mall bathroom throwing in an attempt to sober up with Max next door.
"Hey the ceiling stopped spinning for me, did it stop spinning for you?" He asked
Max was lying with her back on the floor with her legs propped up against the wall and red hair spilling over the tiled floor. "Holy shit Wheeler it has" Max examined her hand in awe as if she were an alien "Woah"
"Yeah it's definitely still in your system" Mike remarked and Max could smell his eye roll which in return earned an empty scoff.
"Okay...then ask me a question, interrogate me" Max replied with an atrocious Russian accent, echoing throughout the empty bathroom.
"Jesus...fine I'll interrogate you, when was the uh...last time you peed your pants"
"Today" Max replied shyly causing Mike to laugh quietly "It was only a little bit though!" She used her hands to display how much despite Mike being unable to see her gesture from behind the shiny cubicle dividers. Their laughter softly dissipated as Mike ran a hand through his dishevelled hair as it was falling in front of his eyes.
"Have you ever been in love?" Mike asked, his tone shifting from playful to something bordering the line of sincere and scared.
"Yep, Lucas 8th grade, you know this Wheelbarrow?" Max sounded genuinely curious before speaking again, "I learnt a lot about you this summer, probably more than we'd both like" They both huffed out an airless laugh. "This summer I've learnt that you care.....about the people you love, even if their dad prohibits you from seeing her"
At hearing this Mike dragged his knees to his chest, burying his head in the crevice , self disgust swallowing his senses, filling every nerve.
"I know I was a dick to you about you treated her, but I know that you love her and wouldn't want to hurt her, That's why I...we all like you, Mike"
Mike's body goes into flight or fight, and the silence which falls upon the pair is ear-splitting. He tugs on his tangled raven hair as he chews - bites hard on the plush of his bottom lip until it bleeds - a bad habit he's had since a little kid. The small headache beating subtly has suddenly increased to a intense drumming against his skull, like a bomb about to detonate.
"Mike? Did you OD on me there? Max blinks, the teasing under-laced with worry. Her response is silence so she swiftly slides under the crack into Mike's stall, her hair going all over the place.
"The floor's disgusting" He murmurs, arms still wrapped tightly around his knees.
"Well your shirt is covered in blood vomit and sweat so now I guess we're even" Max remarks as she pushes her upper body to sit up against the cubicle wall, now facing the boy. Mike glanced down at said shirt which was not to his surprise, covered in blood vomit and sweat. He looked up and Max had to hold back a wince at his injuries; Mike's nose was definitely broken, eye framed with a purple bruise and dried blood on his nose and lower lip.
"I was an awful boyfriend" She hears from the sniffling small ball opposite her, head still tucked away.
"Mike you're not ju-" Max reaches out her arm to reassure him but is cut off when his head snaps up.
Glossy eyes.
Wet cheeks.
Pinked face.
This was not the Michael Wheeler she knew.
"Stop. Stop acting l-like you know me, 'cause you don't, okay? I-If you...if any of you guys really knew I don't you'd want to be anywhere near me, let alone be friends with me" "......I don't....I-I never have loved her" He stuttered, trying to communicate with his eyes but failing miserably.
"....Wheeler you better not be making a move on me now" Mayfield was only really half joking at this...what the fuck was he trying to say? The room suddenly got stuffy, their outfits too itchy and tight. Mike felt like he was performing, like this was one big show and one wrong step and people would throw tomatoes and slurs at him or the floor would crumble from beneath him or-
"8th grade, when you joined school" Sounding more certain on his next words, he took a deep breath, "When I said I was obsessed, it wasn't because I had a crush on you" He shook his head as he spoke "It was because he wouldn't stop staring at you"
"Mr Clarke...?"
"Will Byers, I wanted him to look at me but he couldn't pull his eyes away from you and your stupid red hair and I didn't understand because you would sulk in the corner and would never leave us alone and you were a douchebag! A-And you didn't even like him and I would go home and just scream into my pillow." He finished sounding out of breath
"But Will Byers is a boy?"
"Max"
"Yeah?"
Mike tilted his head as his ebony eyes attempted to communicate who he really was.
Mike the Fairy.
Mike the Queer.
Mike the Faggot.
"....Holy shit"
"Yeah.....Holy shit"
The room was engulfed in smothering silence once more, the lack of noise telling Mike a thousand different outcomes, each one somehow with the same fate for pathetic Michael Wheeler-alone.
Max's face was unreadable, Mike could feel pleas for forgiveness form on his tongue but each time he opened his mouth any kind of communication was stolen from him and was held in front of him like a carrot on a stick. He didn't ask to be different, all he wanted was to be normal and look at his best friend with this disgusting yearning for him, the depravity that they talked about in Church, the endless nights in the quiet of his room begging to be cured - Mike stopped believing in God a long time a go.
"Max....did you OD on me over there?" Mike asked trying to add some levity to this terrifying moment.
His nimble hands pulled on a loose thread on his cheap sailor shirt, metal rings adorned on the bony fingers glinting in the harsh overhead lights, black chipped nail polish that he stole from the drug store offered a sharp contrast to his alabaster skin, dusted with freckles.
"No....just thinking" Max replied, more sounding like a jumble of words blending into each other.
Mike's heartbeat was sirening in his ears, jaw clenched as he used all of his strength to prevent the streams of emotion and vulnerability from spilling out his eyes, now incredibly aware of the cold metal of his necklace laying against his raw bruises and cuts upon his collarbones, the contrast painful. Each agonising beat of quiet ticked by slowly, taunting him, his brain moved at a million miles a second, his friends, his relatives ,his sisters, his Dad.
Will.
All looking back at him, their faces full of resentment, twisted with pure disgust.
"I mean Will Byers, you have no shot what so ever with him" Max said , shaking Mike out of his trance as she tapped his shoulder with her outstretched foot, purposefully hitting a raw bruise which lay there.
"...What?" Mike replied sounding offended but more just downright confused.
"He's like got that whole mysterious tortured artist thing going for him, and he's like you know - gorgeous." Max began, using over the top hand gestures, "And then you're just like....a massive dork"
"Am not!" Mike shouted in disbelief.
"Am too! If you even want to make a move on him you'd have to fist fight half of the female student body...I know! You can use your weird Ghostbuster laser gun, that'll woo him" Max remarked with a smirk, sarcasm literally oozing out her tone.
"Okay, first of all it's not a 'laser gun' it's a proton pack!" Mike replied matter-of-factly, trying his best to sound calm but she could practically see steam coming out his ears.
Max could help but laugh at his flushing red cheeks as he ranted on before Mike eventually gave up and joined in, the pair keeling over in hysterics.
Yeah they definitely weren't sober yet.
"But, HotWheels," Mike rolled his eyes at the nickname, so much so his could probably see the back of his skull if he went any further,"All that eye rolling must make you visually impaired because anytime you don't shut up about Star Wars or steal your Mom's eyeliner and do a shitty job with your shaky hands - Byers looks at you like you crafted each star and planet and hung them in the sky especially for him."
Mike's eyes went wide, his mouth forming a small 'O' shape before looking down, grinning like an idiot. "Y-You really think so?"
"God you are so oblivious it's painful" Sighing as she wiped a hand slowly down her face, dramatically stretching her skin with it.
They began laughing in unison, the reason for this neither one of them knows, but they were interrupted when the door swung open with a loud bang, revealing an exasperated Holly Wheeler and out of breath Derek Turnbow.
"Okay where the hell have you two been!" Holly snapped, crossing her arms with a face like Mike's but attitude like Nancy.
The pair's gaze shifted from the kids to each other before the stifled giggles erupted, Mike rolling onto his side in laughter as Max keeled forward.