Chapter Text
Come on, angel, come on, come on, darling…
Mike loves his friends.
Let's exchange the experience…
He really, really does! There’s no better group he would want to endure the terrors of middle school with, let alone a better army to take down the world’s greatest evils.
And if I only could, I'd make a deal with God…
Why else would he be working at Scoops Ahoy? This place is the best possible location to access all of his friends easily during their summer of employment.
And I'd get Him to swap our places…
Scoops is only down the road from Lucas at the Hawkins Community Pool, merely two restaurants away from Dustin and Will, and at the very location…
I'd be running up that road, be running up that hill!
Of one insufferable coworker.
“Max!” Mike whips his head around to shout into the back room from the front counter. “Change the damn tape already!”
The reply is muffled when she speaks. More by the deafening melody of Running Up That Hill than the wall separating the two. “Nope.”
“God damn it…” Mike loves his friends, he convinces himself for the fifth time tonight because it’s getting harder and harder to remember.
Max has assigned him to hauling every emptied tub of ice cream out of the freezer case and replacing it with a new one from the walk-in freezer. See, this would be an easy task on any other day that wasn’t a Friday. But it was a Friday, so of course every single tub was scraped clean by those sugar-rabid middle schoolers for the three hours up until closing time.
By this time of night, the freezer is barren with all of the empty metal pans stacked in the sink, so Mike is just mentally preparing himself for the physical torment his supposed friend is about to put him through by restocking.
“This can’t be morally ethical.” Mike has to yell over Kate Bush to project his complaints to Max. “Those parents need to be checked because it can’t be medically justifiable for their kids to eat this amount of ice cream.”
“You only say that because you probably weren’t allowed to eat sugar after 3pm as a child. Your mom was too worried about your development to trust you with carbonated drinks.”
Mike rounds the corner into the back room where Max is sitting on the table, scribbling in a logbook and bagging the day’s earnings. “My development?” He questions as he swings the door to the freezer open.
“Mental, emotional…” Max lists while Mike stacks two tubs of ice cream on top of one another in the hopes of making his work faster. He exits the freezer with his arms straining in effort. Max’s eyes squint in judgment. “Physical.”
Mike can’t even defend his image with a snappy response because all his focus is used in stumbling across the back room and nearly tripping to crash the tubs down onto the front counter.
“Hey, quiet down, I can’t hear my music.”
Mike really, truly loves his friends, he reminds himself, staring at the hollowed out freezer case that is beginning to feel more like his coffin than the home of these damned ice cream tubs.
He’s going to die here, in Scoops Ahoy, on his third day at the job. Either by physical overexertion or sheer overstimulation because Mike’s senses have never been assaulted more than this moment. There’s Kate Bush singing at an ear bleeding volume, the freezer numbing his fingers but doing nothing to soothe the burning in his arms, and the sickeningly sweet smell of rocky road violating his nostrils.
It takes an amount of time so long that Mike is embarrassed to even check the clock, but eventually the freezer is nearly full again, with only two tubs remaining. Mike is in the middle of fitting the cookies and cream into its place, his head hanging below the large plastic awning covering the front of the freezer, when the music stops.
“You’re sweeping the front too.”
Mike startles hard, head snapping up at Max’s voice but whacking it against the plastic cover. “Ugh, shit!”
Max throws her hands up immediately to declare her innocence, but the way her mouth drops open in a silent laugh does nothing to prove it.
Mike’s hand clamps over the bump already growing along his scalp and he scowls at Max. “What’s your problem?!”
“What’s my problem?”
“Yeah! You’ve been making me do all the shitty jobs around here while blasting that album that I know you hate just as much as me right now.”
“All the shitty jobs.” Max scoffs as her hands find her hips, cocking her head pointedly. “Do you mean working?”
“Yeah! I mean— no. I mean like, you made me vacuum the carpets in the break room and scrub the toilet in the bathroom. Which, by the way, was not unoccupied when you told me it was!”
Max laughs so hard she has to support herself against the counter to not fall over.
Mike longs for the day he’s at a real job with this shift so far in the past that he forgets about Max Mayfield’s revenge and the granny panties that are currently burned into his retinas.
Attempting to recover, Max wipes a tear from her eye while nodding in faux contemplation. “Right, so that means I have a problem. I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact you haven’t been on time to any of your shifts so far? When I know you drive with Will, who would just about shit himself at the thought of being late.”
“Well, obviously we don’t have the same hours at work. He starts later than me and I’d never make him leave earlier than he has to.”
“Then you drive.”
“But Will won’t let me drive him. He says he’s too far out of the way for it to be convenient for me to pick him up.”
“Then Will can drive himself. There, problem solved.”
Mike is spitefully silent, arms crossed and looking away with furrowed brows.
“What the fuck is this? What am I even looking at.” Waving a hand around Mike’s face, Max stares skeptically. She shakes her head in a mix of annoyance and disgust. “Are you pouting right now?”
“No… No! I’m not.”
“Oh my god, you are. You so are.”
“So what?! I just—” Mike looks away again. “I wanna go with Will.”
Max is silent for too long, so Mike steals a glance at her again. And her face— jaw dropped open and brows nearly touching her hairline— is what urges Mike to keep talking.
“It’s not only because I want to hang out with Will more, okay?! It’s just, like, everything that happened after the Upside Down… Not only Vecna but also what Will confessed. I felt so shitty, finding out he kept that a secret. All while I was being such an asshole to him… He’s my best friend, so now I want to make it up to him, even if I am a little late to work sometimes—”
“Jesus Christ—”
“—I just wanna spend as much time with him as I can!”
Max’s expression hasn’t changed, and still doesn’t for a couple seconds after Mike finally shuts up. But eventually her eyes close and she rubs the knuckle of her thumb against her temple.
“Alright, honestly I was not expecting that but I probably should have, considering your track record.”
“My track record?”
Max ignores him. “But I know what you mean. We all felt that way on some level. And, for what it’s worth… Lucas is the same way.”
For a moment, Mike is confused because sure, Will had to keep it a secret from Lucas too, but Lucas never distanced himself from Will. Then, it hits him.
Lucas and Max were in a rough spot in their relationship right before Max went into her coma.
After Max woke up, Lucas wouldn’t leave her side.
Mike can’t even be put off by the comparison because he’s just so relieved to be getting this off of his chest, to have someone understand. He can only nod solemnly.
Max sighs, somehow in both relief and exasperation. “Just… for the love of god, Wheeler, get to work on time.”
“Then I won’t have to clean any more toilets?”
“Yeah. And as long as you keep your feelings and relationship problems to yourself.” Max has to lean up onto her toes to reach it, but she flicks the tiny sailors hat on Mike’s head. He scowls at her and swats the hat off of her own.
She snatches it from where it fell on the ground. “Oh, now you’re sweeping the back too.”
Mike groans, in both irritation and at the exertion, as he picks up the final tub of ice cream. “God! What the hell does that even leave you to do? Folding the singular blanket in the break room?”
Max returns to the back. “No, mopping, genius. You really think this place is functional when it’s still covered in chocolate syrup?”
Lifting the tub over the freezer, Mike lines it up with the empty space. “Good, because I think my arms are about to fall—”
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG
“Fuck!” Mike jumps at the abrupt rattling, hands slipping against the condensation along the ice cream tub and sending it tumbling from his grasp. It slams once against the freezer before toppling off, hitting the floor and spilling its contents across the tile.
Snapping his head to the front, Mike’s furious gaze finds the culprit of the commotion in the form of a five-foot-nothing sixth grader pulling on the metal gate that separates the very obviously closed Scoops Ahoy from the rest of the mall.
“Are you still open?” His nasally voice travels across the restaurant.
Mike throws his hands up. “What the hell do you think?!”
“Um, can I get mouse tracks in a waffle—”
“Where the hell are your parents? It’s like 9pm, go to bed.”
The kid flips his middle finger at Mike and walks away.
“I hate kids.” Mike nods, like he’s been blessed with a revelation. “I hate kids and ice cream.”
He can’t even turn around when he hears the divider on the window to the back room being drawn back.
Max’s sigh is an audible indicator of when she spots the mess of vanilla ice cream covering the floor. “Yeah, never mind, you’re gonna be—”
“I’ll get the god damn mop.”
The high praise that the mall gets can be entirely attributed to the low standards of the Hawkins residents while they were deprived of any form of fun during quarantine, because it certainly doesn’t come from its high quality.
The back of the building, where all of the exits to the restaurants and stores within the food court are, is depressing. They didn’t bother with clearing out the overgrowth, let alone the remnants of the old Star Court mall so all thats in sight is its corpse. And anything that isn’t either splintered metal framing or covered in vines is replaced with cracked concrete.
It’s a haphazard parking lot made purely from necessity and complaints of minimum wage employees. Mike can see Will’s car parked under a streetlight near the back of the lot and despite the lamp illuminating the surrounding area, it’s not as dark as one would expect. The sun fights to be seen this time of year, which is apparent in the shade of deep purple color the sky has instead of pitch black.
Mike wishes he could admire it, but he’s too busy being tag-teamed by the mop bucket and back door simultaneously.
He keeps trying to kick the door wide enough to drag the bucket outside until it gets caught on the lip of the floor, refusing to budge, leaving Mike to be slammed in the back by the closing door once again.
“I swear to god…” Mike grinds his teeth in frustration as he pushes his foot against the door while maintaining a violent grip on the mop handle. Attempting the maneuver one more time only earns him a slam to the ass. “Ugh!”
Suddenly, the door is swung wide open without Mike even touching it. “Uh, would you like some help?”
And there, head poking out from behind the door, is Mike’s literal, emotional, and metaphorical savior.
“Will!” Mike shouts in delight. Any signs of frustration he felt two seconds ago dissipate like they were never there in the first place. “What’re you doing out here?”
Will’s face breaks into a small smile first at the reaction, then at the situation that led to this. “I could ask you the same question.”
“Oh, I’m being assaulted by mop water.” To prove his point, Mike finally drags the bucket out of the doorway and outside onto the sidewalk. “Actually, I don’t think water is accurate anymore. It’s more like a cocktail of ice creams with a little bit of soap.”
Letting go of the door, Will nods slowly. “Right. That makes sense. I’m actually still closing with Dustin, breaking down boxes and stuff.”
Looking behind Will, down the sidewalk Mike sees a stack of cardboard boxes beside a pile of flattened cardboard. “Cool. That’s cool.”
“Not really.” Will walks back to the curb and returns to his work on the boxes. Mike follows with the mop bucket dragging uselessly behind him. “I’m only doing this because Dustin doesn’t trust me to help with cleaning the oven yet.”
“What? That’s stupid.”
“Mike, I’ve used it for like, two days.”
“Three days, to be exact.”
“Whatever, three days. The point is, I think it's pretty understandable for him not to trust me with it yet.”
While Mike dumps out the old water from the mop bucket, he considers Will in his spot on the sidewalk. “Hm. Well, he’s lucky you seem to be an expert box buster.”
Wil’s hand slips against the cardboard when he looks up in question at Mike. “Box buster?”
Mike nods. “Cardboard killer.”
“Oh my god.”
“Package pulverizer.” Mike fits the hose exiting the back wall into the bucket and turns it on. It spits water out painfully slowly but he can’t find it in himself to mind. “I can keep going if you don’t like any of these names.”
“I won’t like any of them.”
“Crate crusher—”
“Stop it! Just, uh.” Will stutters through a laugh, thinking of something to silence Mike’s nicknames. Mike breaks into a smile at the sound of it. “How about— How was your shift?”
“You really can’t wait to hear all my complaints until the car ride home, huh?”
“No, I can’t. Tell me all about how much you hate that mother of two for, quote.” Will pitches his voice up in a mock of Mike’s. “Unleashing satan’s reincarnates on the Scoops Ahoy dining room.”
And Mike does. The discomfort of leaning against the scratchy brick wall and feeling sticky all over from various sugary substances is suddenly at the furthest corner of his mind. Because Will is sitting on the curb, attention solely for him, and Mike can’t stop talking.
Mike recounts how his shift started: with an unplanned birthday party taking residence in the restaurant. Our fucking turnover rates, Mike recalls how Max lamented. I’m never getting that bonus. Mike asked if he could have it instead. Max hit him in the back of the kneecap and Mike crumpled to the ground. Will laughs loudly at that story and the pain in the back of Mike’s knee feels like a blessing.
He tells Will about Max’s revenge, minus the reasoning behind it, and the kid trying to order ice cream from behind the gate at 9pm.
The sky is dark now but the air is warm. It rustles the trees behind the parking lot and sweeps Will’s hair back each time he glances at Mike. There’s a yellowing fluorescent lamp above the Surfer Boy Pizza’s back door that lights up the side of Will’s face. His features are sharp, striking. Mike could never feel guilty about coming to work late if it meant spending time with the boy in front of him. His best friend.
Will is almost done with ripping up the boxes and Mike gets the fear that he’ll leave. “Hey, but— but what about you?” Mike sits down next to Will on the curb.
Will startles a bit at Mike’s sudden movement. “What about me?”
“How was your shift?”
“Oh, definitely not as exciting as yours.”
Mike shakes his head vehemently. “I wanna hear about it.”
Will sighs, thinking for a moment. “Well… I’m still kind of training, so I was half at the front, half in the back making food.”
Mike nods for him to continue.
“And there was this one girl and her boyfriend that came in and I took their order, but they were waiting for like half an hour. Which is, like, expected on a Friday during the dinner rush, you know?”
“Yeah, obviously.” Will has slowed his work in favor of retelling his story. Mike feels victorious.
“Well, after they got their pizza, the guy comes storming back up to me with his food, yelling, like, we waited so long, this looks like shit! I want a refund, blah blah whatever. And I had no idea what to do! So just when Dustin is walking up to help, the girl takes the food from the guy’s hand and throws it in his face!
And now she’s yelling, you’re such an asshole, the way you talk to people, I told you it wasn’t a big deal… She dumped him right there, at the front counter! Mike. I broke up a couple on my third day at work!”
Mike bursts out laughing, holding his stomach and leaning forward on the sidewalk.
“Mike!” Will shouts, but he’s laughing too. “Mike! It’s not funny, I’m a homewrecker!”
“More—” Mike wheezes. “More like a pizza wrecker!”
“That’s so bad.” Will shakes his head, grinning. “That’s such a bad joke.”
Catching his breath, Mike looks at Will, who’s still giggling to himself. Sitting next to him, Mike can see the remnants of his work. The way his hair is mused, a bit greasy from the discarded visor and the flush of red that’s warmed his face from the heat of the oven, and now laughing too.
But scattered across his skin, so lightly Mike almost missed it, is flour. Only from being this close can he see its sheen coating Will across his jaw, cheeks, and even eye lashes.
“Well if you were busy breaking people’s hearts all night, how did you get totally covered in flour?” Mike’s hand itches to— to do something. He’s not sure what.
Before Mike can find out what it is, Will groans, his own hand coming up to wipe at his face.
“I was pounding for a little bit and this…” Will gestures at his face, shirt, and hands all coated in flour. “Happened.”
“Pounding?” Mike scoffs.
“Pounding, like stretching the dough.”
Mike is silent while he thinks. He grins mischievously. “Pastry pounder.”
“No! Not again.” Will chuckles as he stands up. Mike hadn’t realized until now, but Will finished breaking down all the boxes, leaving a heap of flattened cardboard on the sidewalk. He bends over to gather it into one pile.
Being eye-level with Will’s waist provides a clear view of the red apron still secured around his hips. Mike wants to tease him, pull on the bow at the back holding the apron together to get it to fall, but then Will turns fully and Mike’s words die in his throat.
Will’s ass consumes Mike’s view from both proximity and size. The pin-straight edges of the apron accentuate the smooth curve of his cheeks, the bright red color framing it in such a way that it would be a disservice to look away from.
Mike should say something. Should tease Will like he intended to. Should laugh together like they have been for the past twenty minutes. Should move anywhere that's not a foot away from his best friend’s ass.
But then, Mike sees it. The same coating of flour that was covering Will’s face is on his ass.
That itch is back.
Mike’s hand hovers over Will’s shorts before tentatively brushing the flat of it across the fabric. Only a few grains fall loose, so Mike repeats the same soft movement.
Once, twice, the move is light like Mike at first intends. But the skin beneath the fabric rebounds with every touch and he can’t help but apply more pressure with each swipe.
Soft brushes slow to firm strokes. Mike can see how his fingers press indents into Will’s shorts, only for the skin to bounce back into its rounded shape once the touch disappears. The sight is addicting.
Will is frozen in his spot, has been since the first contact, but not tense.
The hand stops its movement but remains in place with the same pressure. It rests on top of Will’s cheek before it slides down over the swell. Mike’s touch creates even deeper indents here from how supple the skin is. His head buzzes and his fingers involuntarily clench.
Slowly, Will straightens from where he was bent over, not yet turning around. Under the vibrating sound inside his head, Mike can hear the breathing above him. He soothes his thumb back and forth, over and over again and the breaths turn heavy.
“Mi…” Will tries, but his voice fails in his throat.
Will turns and as he does, Mike’s hand drags across the expanse of his ass, landing on the other cheek. Mike’s lids flutter before he remembers to look up at Will.
Their eyes lock as much as they can at the moment, glassy and half-covered by their eyelids. Will’s mouth is parted while the rapid breaths escape his wet lips. His cheeks are flushed an even deeper shade of red and Mike wants to find out just how deep it can get.
Mike kneads his fingers into the flesh beneath his palm and the reaction is immediate. Will’s hand flies out to grip the shoulder beneath him, the blush running down his neck and into his collar. It’s only now that Mike can hear his own open-mouthed panting from it’s huffing against the skin of Will’s forearm.
Will’s eyebrows furrow, chin dropping as the hand fisted in Mike’s shirt tightens.
Voice rough, it’s barely a whisper. “Mike…”
The hand grips again and pulls. Pulls apart. His finger travels until it finds the hollow in between, trailing down, down, down until Will makes a punched-out gasp, legs clenching and body coiling.
There’s an urge to do it again and again, to pull that hypnotic sound and movement out of Will until they both can’t breathe properly, but Will leaves his grasp.
With a few feet between them, it’s silent. Only their heavy pants fill the warm air.
Jaw closing slowly, Mike feels similarly dazed as Will. His own face is burning, body vibrating unnaturally.
Will comes back to himself first. Where their minds went or what they even just did is lost on Mike.
“What— what was…?” Will stutters.
Mike has to swallow the saliva built up in his mouth before answering, scratchily.
“There was… Um, you had flour. On your shorts.”
Will’s mouth opens with the intent of muttering, Oh, okay, but nothing comes out. He looks at the ground between them with his hands smoothing over his shorts. Mike watches the motion stutter when they touch too close to his pockets.
“I have to— need to help Dustin. Uh, with closing. Finishing closing.” Will blurts out, eyes looking anywhere except Mike’s face, but Mike hasn’t been able to pull his own gaze away from Will.
“Yeah?” Mike croaks.
“Yeah.” Will shuffles to the back door, pounding on it aggressively to get Dustin’s attention and unlock it. It takes a moment, but Dustin’s curly head of hair appears in the doorway.
“There you are!” Dustin’s bright grin finds Will. “For a second I thought you ditched me. Or went to clean the bathroom and drowned.”
“Yeah, um, sorry for being gone for so long.” Will steps forward as he mutters, expecting Dustin to release the door handle and allow him in, but he looks behind Will to spot Mike.
“Oh! No wonder! What’s up, Mike? How’s ice cream land treating you?” Dustin leans against the doorway and Will shifts restlessly in place.
“Hey, Dustin.” Mike answers honestly. “I wanna die.”
Dustin’s laugh is loud. “Yeah, well after you and Max are done closing you two should totally hang out over here. We can all grab something to eat after Will and I finish up!”
Mike nods, eyes flicking to Will’s tensed back.
It seems that Will’s unusual silence unsettles Dustin enough to not wait any longer, simply opening the door wider for him to return to the building.
“See you later, Mike.” Dustin waves a hand before closing the back door.
The silence of the night swallows Mike as he remains in his place on the curb for a few minutes. There’s a lone cricket chirping near the dumpster. The wind whistles through the tree line. Water trickles from the gutter. His mind is oddly blank.
Then, two doors away, Max bursts out of the Scoops Ahoy back door. Mike watches as her head swings back and forth down the sidewalk until she sees him. She storms closer in quick strides.
“Wheeler! How fucking long does it take to fill a bucket?” Max roars. “Not thirty minutes, that’s for sure!”
She stands over him with a furious look and her hands on her hips. “Um…” Mike murmurs, squinting up at her.
Max throws her hands up, urging an explanation.
“I was talking to Will.” Mike mumbles. He almost feels bad considering there’s probably a puddle of vanilla ice cream melted behind the front counter right now, but there’s that low buzzing clouding Mike’s head.
Mike realizes he can still feel his face burning as Max stares at him. The look is intense, her eyes darting quickly over him like she’ll find answers in his slouched posture. Mike’s hand clenches against the concrete of the sidewalk.
“O-Kay, then…” Max squints at him.
The gears in her brain are turning, working to figure out what? Mike doesn’t know. He was honest with her, so he’s unsure of what else she wants to understand.
Eventually, Max sighs before she turns back inside. “Just turn the damn hose off before you send Hawkins into a drought.”
The trickling water that Mike thought was the gutter is actually the mop bucket, now overflowing with the hose still running inside of it.
“Oh, shit!”
Seeing the kitchen of Surfer Boy Pizza gives Mike a whole new level of respect for his friends.
Max and Mike simultaneously pull at the collars of their uniforms.
“Jesus, is it always this hot in here?” Max groans.
“No, not at all.” Dustin shakes his head. Mike looks at the thermometer hung on the wall. It reads eighty-seven degrees. “It gets hotter.”
Rounding the corner while sweeping, Will comes up behind Max. “You’re really spoiled in that ice box.”
“You jealous?”
“Yeah! I am!” Will chuckles.
“You can always come to Scoops. Join me and a certain someone.” Max is watching Will intently as she says it, so she immediately picks up in the way his movements freeze.
Will only grins before he leaves the kitchen. Dustin shouts at Max for trying to poach his employee right in front of him and they fall into lighthearted bickering, but Mike tunes them out.
He can only bear five minutes of pretending to follow the conversation, before he walks out of the kitchen and into the back room where the walk-in freezer, dry storage, and cleaning closet are. Mike nearly leaves to check the bathroom, until he hears shuffling from inside the closet.
Feet moving before he even registers it, Mike throws open the door and closes it immediately.
Will whips around from the chemical rack, wide eyes finding Mike’s.
It’s quiet, near silent with the equipment insulating any noise from their friends outside. Mike gets a sudden reminder of the silence between him and Will after… that, out back. The closet is uncomfortably small but the dim lightbulb shadows Will’s face enough to give Mike the courage to speak.
“Will, I really—”
“Mike, it’s not—”
They stop at the same time. Will nods for Mike to continue.
“Will, listen.” Mike swallows and shifts nervously in place. He really hopes he doesn’t fuck this up. “I— I’m sorry. For what happened, out back. I overstepped and I shouldn’t have.”
“No, Mike.” Will sighs, looking down at the small space between them. When he meets Mike’s eyes again, his face is guilty. “You don’t have to be sorry. You were just trying to help and I… I made it weird. With how I ran off.”
“You didn’t make it weird.” Mike shakes his head vehemently. “You could never be weird.”
“You would be surprised…” Will looks away.
“No, Will, I’m serious.” Mike leans forward, catching Will’s gaze again. “You could never be weird. Not with me. You’re just you.”
Inside the closet, there’s nowhere to hide. Mike watches the way Will’s face pinches in emotion and his hand finds Will’s bicep.
“You’re just Will.” Mike whispers with the same amount of feeling. It takes a moment, but Will steels himself and straightens.
“Okay.” Will whispers back, nodding. Mike can’t look away from him.
Then, Will notices the distance between them and his eyes dart down the length of Mike’s body.
Will’s nose scrunches. Mike watches the smile spread across his lips. “You smell like ice cream.”
“What kind?” Mike mutters. He stares at those lips as he waits for an answer.
“Vanilla.”
The door opens and light floods in. Will’s back hits the chemical shelf as he attempts to create more space between him and Mike.
Max stands still in the doorway, frozen the moment she opened the door.
“Uh…” Max’s eyes flicker quickly between the two. Staring at Will’s tense frame pressed against the shelf, then to Mike, leaning forward gripping Will’s arm.
“Dustin was looking for that…” She points to the broom held in Will’s hand. He jolts to leave.
“Right, no. Yeah, I’ll finish up.” Will steps away but Mike doesn’t let go entirely. His hand trails down the length of Will’s arm as he walks out of the closet.
Mike's eyes stay on him for as long as they can before Will disappears around a corner. It’s only then that he turns to Max.
Max is looking at him like she’s seeing him for the first time. But that makes zero sense, because she’s made fun of him in this stupid sailors uniform more times than he can count. Her face isn’t even shocked, more like… enlightened?
“What?” Mike hisses. He doesn’t know what’s up with Max but it’s freaking him out.
“Is it, like.” Max speaks carefully, quietly. “A secret?”
What the fuck is she talking about.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Mike gestures wildly.
Now, Max is shocked. Her eyes bug out and her mouth drops open. Head shaking slightly, she’s now looking at Mike like he’s a fucking moron.
“Um, nothing. Nothing at all.” She resolves. Though, it seems to be a temporary solution based on how she’s gripping her hair. Turning on her heel, Max shuffles out of the closet, mumbling to herself. “I need sleep. And a day off. And a drink.”
That leaves Mike in the closet, alone and so fucking confused. It must be from how late it is. After working so long they all must be losing their minds.
That must be it, Mike decides. It has to be. Because he can’t think of another reason for his head to be buzzing after so long, or for the way he acted towards Will, or why he still has that itch to do something to his best friend.