Chapter Text
Despite what Nancy may have led people to believe, her little brother was not a total loser.
Mike had been to a handful of parties during his short freedom from the reign of terror that was the parenting of Ted and Karen Wheeler. It was all part of the college experience, or so he had been told — none of it was really his scene. When people weren’t doing drugs or hooking up — Mike had once accidentally walked in on a couple while he was looking for the bathroom, and he sincerely wished that the ceiling would collapse on him and wipe his memory so he could walk out the door and live a happy, innocent life again — they were just being shitty assholes. Usually, Mike went to parties looking to have a good time, to find something to break the monotony that was the life of an overworked, underpaid college student, but usually, he ended up sitting on the curb somewhere, doing breathing exercises to keep from panicking, and having a generally worse time than he would have had if he had stayed in and watched Seinfeld , or something equally as non-party related.
So, maybe ‘not a total loser’ wasn’t exactly the best term that Mike could use to describe himself. He did not consider himself a loser, despite considering himself a plethora of other things. He just didn’t like parties all that much, that was all.
Especially because on nights when he was feeling especially lonely — when the little room on the other side of his twin sized bed felt colder than usual and he realized he hadn’t had felt the brush of another person’s fingers on his skin in days — he hated seeing all the happy couples making out or drinking or just being together, when he couldn’t have that, not yet. He hated seeing a guy that was pretty cute and being unable to have the confidence to go up to him and say hi, or introduce himself, or use a shitty-in-an-endearing-way pick up line on him.
Mike knew he was in a pretty good area for the so-called queer scene — he’d specifically factored it into his decision on where to go to college, and Boston College had been the perfect place for him. He felt safe there, for the most part, even though he didn’t always use that to his advantage.
Back in Indiana, though, for suffocating summers in the house haunted by the ghosts of his childhood, Mike didn’t feel the same way about parties.
Parties were terrifying in Indiana, because one wrong look could get him kicked out or worse, and the music and smell of alcohol and the heat of bodies all together in one room was often overwhelming. Mike was used to going into sensory overload during parties in his hometown.
Somehow, however, despite just meeting her, he trusted El enough to keep him safe and sane at a party at none other than Greenwood Family Resort.
Maybe this summer would be different.
The sudden assault of noise that Mike was expecting was nothing compared to the real thing. The bass that he had heard testing the structural integrity of the building around them was suddenly blasting right in his ear, and Mike winced away from it. The top forty hits were not particularly Mike’s cup of tea, despite what Nancy would say after finding him humming along to Mariah Carey when he thought he was alone in his room.
“Wow,” El said breathlessly, and yeah, that pretty much summed up how Mike was feeling, too. When he was finally able to use the rest of his senses again — when El had dragged him far enough away from the speakers to be able to see again, Jesus Christ — he was shocked to find that the majority of the people in the room had shared smiles with him earlier in the day.
Directly in front of him, he could see the girl with the glasses from family bingo dancing with the guy that Nancy had been chatting with at lunch. Behind them was the caddy Ted had given his clubs to, dancing with the girl Mike had passed during check in.
But behind them was a pair…Mike squinted, then blinked to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him. Even after looking away and looking back again, yeah, he was right — there, behind both of those couples dancing close to one another, was a pair of girls dancing with each other, skirts hiked up high as they moved to the rhythm of the song playing. Their lips were pressed close together, like they were singing the song to each other and kissing at the same time — which was quite a feat, if Mike was being honest.
Mike smiled softly at them. He had never seen those two girls before, but at that moment, he knew — if they felt safe enough to be who they were, then maybe he was safe enough, too. Maybe he could have a summer romance, glistening bright and beautiful, before the fall began.
“Mike,” El yelled at him, and Mike turned to her. She beckoned him after her, and with one more glance at the two girls holding each other and dancing on the floor, he followed her.
El led him towards the stage on one side of the room, and hopped up to sit on it. She patted the spot next to her with a smile. “Will and Max should be here soon.”
Mike clambered up next to her, leaving a few inches in between their legs. “I meant to ask earlier,” Mike said, leaning over towards El so he could be heard over the loud music still thumping through the cabin. “Who’s Wil –”
Before he could finish, a cheer rose through the crowd, accompanied by the loud bang of the doors opening. El’s face lit up in a grin, and she nodded excitedly towards the dance floor. “They’re here!”
Mike turned, and when he saw the two people holding the attention of the entire crowd, he knew immediately who El was talking about.
There was Max, in a medium-length red dress, smiling and blowing kisses to some of the other employees. She was arm in arm with a guy, who was giving fist bumps to a guy with curly hair and getting pats on the back from another man who then moved on to give Max a kiss on the cheek.
Mike could feel a blush blooming on his cheeks just from looking at Max’s partner.
Oh no .
A space cleared on the dance floor for them, and with a smile, the guy grabbed Max’s hand and spun her in a quick circle. The song changed to something more upbeat, and the crowd cheered in approval. Soon, everyone was back to dancing, and the spell that the two had cast on the room was broken.
Well. It was broken on everyone except for Mike.
He watched Max’s fiery hair fly out around her shoulders as the guy spun her around, mirroring her red dress flying away from her thighs. The smile on her face was radiant, almost like it was its own spotlight; the two of them together was like watching a movie unfold before Mike’s eyes. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the way that the guy’s muscles flexed and pushed back against his white dress shirt as he spun Max around, at the way that his hands moved from her hips to her upper back and back down.
“That’s my step brother Will,” El said from somewhere next to Mike, her voice pulling him out of the trance he had found himself in. He looked at her for a split second before going back to staring at the couple. “He got me the job here, among other things.”
Mike flushed an even deeper red. El’s brother? Really ? Of all the guys at the resort? “They look great together,” he replied softly, trying to keep the disappointment from seeping into his voice. Mike knew that not everyone was like him , but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt when he saw someone he couldn’t have.
“Yeah,” El said, sounding just as breathless as Mike felt. “You’d think they were a couple, right?”
At that, Mike turned to her in near disbelief. “Aren’t they?”
El looked back at him with a knowing glint in her eyes. “They’ve always been just friends.”
Oh. Well, that didn’t mean —
Did it?
Mike couldn’t assume, right? But it meant that maybe he’d…maybe he had a chance.
“El!” Will called happily, making his way over to the two of them. He threw his arms around El and she giggled in return. “It’s felt like forever.”
El rolled her eyes as she brought her hands up to Will’s hair and ran careful fingers through it, smoothing out where it had become messed up during their hug. “It’s been a week,” she laughed. She glanced at Mike, then continued, “Will, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
Will pulled away with a smile that could light the entire resort on its own, and Mike watched as it began to fade to a look of confusion.
Oh. Well then.
“Will,” El said, hopping down from the stage as Max and the two boys that had greeted them with enthusiasm earlier wandered over to them. “This is Mike.”
“Hi,” Mike said, voice giving out halfway through the single syllable.
Now, Mike had had crushes before. Back when Nancy had dated Steve Harrington, Mike had seen him without his shirt — the guy was captain of the swim team, and Nancy had dragged Mike along to almost all of his meets — and had decided that yeah, maybe he was pretty attractive. It wasn’t until after Nancy and Steve had broken up that Mike had realized what it really was, and he had felt guilty about it ever since.
Even years later, Mike still felt that way about some boys; that fluttering feeling in his chest, the feeling like he was falling and didn’t know when he’d be caught. But he’d never felt it quite to this extent.
Will looked at him, eyes polite but lips downturned in a confused frown. “Hi,” he said, stretching the last vowel. He turned back to El and the group that was gathering around her, and it felt like Mike’s lungs were finally able to work again.
“Wheeler!” Max called from the group, raising a hand in a wave. “Good to see you again.”
Mike waved back, slightly surprised that she had remembered him from their passive-aggressive introduction earlier in the day, and then awkwardly put his hand down as he waited for El to return to sitting next to him. When she didn’t, and the entire group seemed to become immersed in a heated discussion that Mike wasn’t privy to, he hopped off of the stage and took a few steps over to them, knees slightly weak from the jump down to the floor.
Definitely for no other reasons.
“Come on , Max,” Will was saying as Mike approached the group, quietly inserting himself in the limited space between El and the tall, dark skinned boy that had planted a kiss on Max’s cheek when she’d arrived. “You have to go.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” Max replied sourly, frowning at Will with a frankly terrifying amount of stubbornness and sass. “I’m not abandoning you to go to some banquet, Will.”
“What’s going on?” Mike asked El, scooting a little closer to her to avoid getting bumped by someone dancing behind him. His query was meant to be a whisper, but ended up being closer to a shout so he could be heard over the volume of the music playing.
El turned to him, a contemplative look on her face. “Lucas wants Max to go to a party with him next Thursday, but that’s the same night as a big dance she and Will have at another resort –“
“The Kellerman’s ,” Max snapped, butting her way into the conversation like she’d been a part of it the entire time. Mike was vaguely aware of the boy next to him — Lucas? — moving out of his way so he could be directly in the angry red-head’s line of fire. “One of the best resorts in the midwest, and if we don’t show up to the performance, we lose out on half of this year’s salary and next year’s gig.” She whipped around to Will and stuck a finger in his chest. “And this dumbass seems to think it’s worth it for me to miss to go to some stupid banquet .”
“It’s not ‘some stupid banquet’,” the boy on El’s other side piped up. Max turned back around in a huff. “Lucas is an All American basketball boy! You can’t miss out on him potentially getting drafted!”
“It’s basketball player,” Lucas corrected, and Dustin hit him on the arm. He turned to Max, and put on a really convincing set of puppy-dog eyes. “I’d really like it if you came,” Lucas continued quietly, and Mike felt for the guy. If Mike were potentially getting drafted into any sort of professional sporting league — a highly unlikely event in any universe neighboring their own — he’d give anything for his…well, he didn’t quite know what Lucas and Max were to each other, not yet, but Mike was sure that if the group was making such a big deal out of getting Max to go, they sure meant a lot to each other.
He could see it in the way Max’s resolve crumbled at the sound of Lucas’ voice. “Babe,” she said, and yeah, Mike could definitely see that they were a couple, especially with the way Max took a few steps forward to put a hand on Lucas’ broad shoulder. Mike felt vaguely like he was intruding on something, but when he looked up and away from the two of them and caught the eyes of Will, he could see the mirth there and realized that this was probably pretty standard for them. “You know I’d give anything to go with you, but I can’t miss out on this job for the next two summers. Will was so kind to get it for me in the first place, and I can’t let him down.”
“Well, can’t somebody else just take your place?” Mike offered, before he could really think about it. He barely even knew these people, but his brain was moving at a million miles per hour trying to work out how to fix their dilemma, the best way to move forward, picking up and discarding ideas like there was no tomorrow.
Max turned around and leaned back against Lucas, and oh , maybe Mike should have just kept his mouth shut. If looks could kill, Mike’s rotting corpse would be getting stepped on by some twenty-somethings dancing to ABBA.
“Nope,” Max said simply, popping the p . “El can’t dance, neither can Dustin, and Jennifer’s working too much to have time to practice –“
“Wait,” El interjected, saving Mike from having to hear every single aspect of his plan that was unattainable. “Dustin could dance?”
Max looked at her, curiosity clouding the poisonous look on her face. “I mean, he can’t dance for shit, but theoretically, yeah.” Max looked to Will. “Right?”
Will shrugged. “As long as I have a partner who has a little bit of rhythm and time to learn the steps, I’m good to go.”
El’s smile was growing on her face, and when her eyes landed on Mike, he could feel some of the blood drain from his face. “You can dance, Mike.”
“No,” Max said, stepping forward into the impromptu little circle they had created. “Absolutely not. I have literally never heard a worse idea, sorry El.” She looked at Mike, eyes wide, like this entire idea was his fault. “Did you hear the part about having a little bit of rhythm?”
Ouch , Mike thought, but before he could defend himself for the second time that day, he was being talked over.
“Wait, no,” the other boy — Dustin, Mike assumed — interjected. “She’s right, Max. Mike, is it?” Mike nodded at him. “Mike could be Will’s partner. They have a week to practice, then they could go perform and you could go to the draft party. It’s a perfect plan.”
Max turned to Will, a pleading look on her face. “Will, come on,” she said, making some motion towards where Mike was standing, arms crossed in front of his body in a subconscious attempt to protect himself. “Him?”
Will looked at Mike, his eyes very obviously tracing down his body, probably to see if he was capable of the daunting task set before him. Mike couldn’t help but think that it definitely could have been something with intent behind it if they were in a different context, and at the thought of that Mike could feel the blood rushing back to his face multiplied tenfold as Will’s eyes made their way down his torso.
Mike’s grip on his forearm tightened.
Will’s eyes snapped back up to Mike’s, something reassuring in his gaze that had been absent in his glances before. “He could work,” he said, and maybe Mike was imagining things in the heat of the dance room, but he could’ve sworn there was the ghost of a smile playing at Will’s lips.
Max threw her hands in the air, dramatic but maybe with reason. “I can’t believe this,” she said, looking at Mike with nowhere near the same heat as Will’s gaze had held. “I’m gonna lose my job.”
“Oh, I think it’ll be worth it,” Lucas said, wrapping her in a hug from behind. He kissed her on the cheek again, and Max looked up at him, suspicious. “Um –“
“How soon can you start practicing?” Will asked suddenly, glancing from Lucas to Max and back again. His eyes finally landed on Mike’s, and Mike had the faintest feeling that he could look into Will’s eyes for a long, long time and be perfectly happy with the time spent.
“Tomorrow, probably,” Mike replied, throat suddenly so, so dry. Will’s gaze was powerful, intense, and it was multiplied by the expectant eyes of the other members of their group. Mike looked away so he could breathe again, and caught a glimpse of the darkness outside a window. “Shit. Does anybody have a watch?”
Dustin held up his wrist. “Eleven oh seven,” he announced, and after a brief moment of overwhelming panic, Mike grabbed Dustin’s forearm and yanked, bringing it up towards his face, like seeing it with his own eyes would change the fact that he was so, totally, royally screwed .
“ Shit,” Mike repeated, looking at El. “I’ve gotta go back to my cabin.”
El nodded at him, understanding, just like always. “Go,” she said simply. “I’ll come find you at breakfast tomorrow to start practice.”
Mike smiled at her, then bid his goodbyes. As he turned to walk away, he heard someone say “wait, so he doesn’t work here?”. As if it wasn’t obvious by his corduroy jacket, black jeans, Converse, and overall I-don’t-think-I-belong-here vibe.
After he’d made his way through the throes of people dancing to the next song like they were the only people in the world, Mike had the distinct feeling that he was being watched. He looked back and searched the crowd, a careful hand on the door handle in case a speedy escape was necessary, but saw no eyes on him.
He opened the door and snuck out as quietly as he could.