Work Text:
Christmas sucks. There are always a million family functions to attend the first three weeks of December, every aunt and uncle and family friend feeling compelled to throw their own event that everyone else must attend or be the source of rumours and gossip that can last literal decades. Granny Bea still talks shit about Ramon to this day. Lucas prays every November for this to be the year that he’s old enough to pick and choose what he attends, but he hasn’t gotten there yet.
With all the shit Lucas has to dress up and go to, plus homework, plus basketball practice, It’s a lot harder to connect with his friends. Even Eddie, a firm believer in the routine schedule of Hellfire, caves under the seasonal pressure of the rest of the club and only schedules two sessions for the entirety of December. Lucas does his math sheets in the car, carefully rations his lunch hours between the Tigers and Hellfire, wraps a truly ungodly amount of cheap presents, and eats dinner from whatever buffet is set up this time at wherever the fuck he’s going now.
It’s not like Lucas can’t feel Max pulling away. Listening to her Walkman instead of hanging out at lunch. Claiming the arcade gives her headaches. Saying she understands all the homework and doesn’t need to meet up at the library. He just doesn’t have much time to deal with it, plus get all the family necessities done. It’s not until three days before Christmas when Lucas goes to Max’s trailer park that he realises how far beyond the scope he is.
The trailer’s not decorated at all. Not even a tree or a stocking. Lucas has been surrounded by ten different flavours of Rudolph threw up on the walls and windows and stair railings for the last month, Santa theme vs red and green vs snowflakes, so the brown paneling has a stark plainness. Ms Mayfield’s at work, because she always has to be at work now, or they won’t be able to afford this rundown trailer. Lucas wants to be kissing Max, taking advantage of the privacy, but Max is frowning at him, surly and not in a fun way, so he thrusts out his wrapped gift. One of the best lessons Dad ever taught him; girls like getting stuff.
Max takes the present, but doesn’t go run it to under the tree, because there is none. Lucas hasn’t seen a space without a tree in a month. Even Hawkins High has a small one set up in the office. Nor does she open it immediately, which Lucas is half expecting. Customs differ from person to person, but a significant amount of people open gifts when presented with them, regardless of the future date of the twenty fifth.
Max looks down the ribbon bestowed box. “Giving this a little early, aren’t you?”
“Better early than late. I’m not going to be able to see you until after Boxing Day.”
Max sighs. “Of course you’re not.”
“Family?” It’s a sore spot, Lucas knows. Fucking Neil’s gone, thank god, but Ms Mayfield has to work and Billy’s dead. “You could tag along, if you’re bored? I think Erica’s bringing Tina to a few.” It’s going to provoke the family gossip network, but Lucas is willing to put up with it for Max’s sake.
“We need to break up,” Max tells him flatly.
Lucas chuckles. “You don’t have to come, it’s no big deal. I’m not gonna drag you.”
Max shakes her head, and thrusts out her arms to shove the present back against Lucas’s chest. “This isn’t a joke. I can’t do this, okay? Have a nice holiday.”
It’s not the first or fifth time she’s broken up with him. It’s a way that Max shows her disapproval with the current conditions and bargains for better ones. Lucas doesn’t argue it much, just leaves the trailer. They'll work on terms later, this was just the opening salvo.
But it keeps going. Max rebukes everything Lucas offers. Not only that, she stops hanging out with the party almost entirely. By the middle of January Lucas knows she means it this time.
It’s miserable. Not just because Lucas loves her and misses her, though that's all true. They’ve been through some shit, and Lucas can’t imagine anyone else understanding him. The real problem is as he’s forced to move on it frees his mind to think about who else he might date. It’ll be shallow, because everyone else in this school thinks Starcourt burnt down in a fire, because no one else wants to throw up when they step onto a school bus, but what’s the other option? Be alone forever? Lucas can see how it hurts Dustin and Mike to not have their girls around to touch, and is already getting his own skin hunger from losing Max. He can’t go on like this much longer.
There’s Bonnie. She’s got red hair, like Max. Longer though, long enough that Lucas thinks about braiding it for her. There’s Penelope, a junior who skates at the same park Max does. She always wears short-alls, and her legs and knees are always scrape upon scrape, mottled with different shades of bruises. Lucas could maybe kiss them better. There’s Wendy, Gareth’s sister. She sometimes comes out to the garage to watch Corroded Coffin practice, wearing low cut shirts no matter the time of year. Her cleavage is one of the sole benefits to Dustin dragging him to Eddie’s very noisy rehearsals. Or there’s Cory.
He shouldn’t be an option. In quaint little Republican Hawkins Cory’s legitimately very much not an option. It’s dangerous enough to be wealthy while black, walking around town holding Cory’s hand would get him lynched. But Lucas would like him to be an option, and that’s a problem.
It’s not like he hasn’t known for a while. Being in love with someone doesn’t make you blind to the pleasing shapes of others. Max likes Ralph Macchio, Lucas likes Phoebe Cates. Max has admitted that Derrick from Geography is cute, and Lucas gets his time surrounded by cheerleaders. He just also maybe looks at the starters on the court. Lucas has known. He’s just never had to acknowledge it beyond stolen glances and a short jerk off session. He’s had Max, stray desires mean nothing in the face of real love. And now she’s gone, and Lucas wants more than he should. More than he’s allowed.
Once he really faces it, there’s only so long he can keep it to himself. Friends Don’t Lie is on the same list of tenets as Girls Like Stuff and Fuck Racists. Some could make the argument that not telling people the whole truth isn’t the same as lying. Erica would definitely make that argument, the little shit. Lucas is better than that.
The problem with drawing someone away from the group and saying you need to talk to them alone is then you need to follow through and say something worthy of being taken. Lucas decided this morning looking at himself in his bedroom mirror that today he would have this conversation, but now it seems so difficult. His friends are waiting for him to explain why he pulled them away from Eddie’s hilarious story, and the longer he stays quiet the more worried they’ll get, the more they’ll think it’s trauma, fresh or old. And if he changes his mind last second and makes up some bullshit about homework or hanging out later it’ll just make them suspicious, because why would he drag them away just to say nothing?
It’s just the three of them in the hallway, Dustin in his purple Wisconsin t-shirt and Mike in his white Hellfire Club shirt standouts against the eternity of green orange and yellow painted brick. The colour alone draws Lucas’s eyes to them, but he might die if he makes eye contact with either. He didn’t think it would feel this hard. He fucking knew down to the micron how hard this would be. This feeling is why people don’t do this, stay closeted and wind up married with two kids. But lucky him, he has an advantage. Most people don’t live in their fear the way he has. They haven’t been chased on bicycle by a series of vans ready to run them over. They haven’t been wall slammed and fought being choked out by a racist white boy with a hundred pounds on them. They haven’t thrown fireworks at a twenty feet tall monster. Lucas is in a unique position of knowing how to keep moving through his fear.
“Hey guys. I think, uh. I think I’m gay, sometimes. Like bisexual?”
Dustin’s eyebrows raise so high they disappear. Mike’s face does the opposite, contracts into a frown instead of expanding with shock. Lucas really wishes he wasn’t looking at either of them right now. Maybe he should have done this over the phone. Except fucking Mrs Wheeler always eavesdrops, and the last thing he needs is her talking to Mom and Dad.
“Oh shit-oh shit-oh shit,” Dustin begins to repeat. Lucas doesn’t know why he’s surprised. It’s Dustin’s shock response. Lucas should have seen that litany coming from miles away. It still ties his guts in a knot though, getting the same reaction as a pop quiz or the government chasing them.
“Okay. Wow. I mean, it’s cool,” Mike says, starting slowly, hesitantly, and then committing to his own words. “You’re still in the Party. You’re still our ranger.”
Dustin’s reaction to Mike is almost explosive. His volume raises, his gestures get wild, his posture shifts. Outbursts like these are why Eddie is so proud of him. At times he’s a little carbon copy. “Oh, yeah! Shit! Of course it’s cool. What, is it supposed to be weird? Do you know how many cases of homosexuality exist in animals in the wild? It’s as natural as anything else!”
Lucas isn’t sure Dustin should be their voice on what’s natural, considering Dart, but he appreciates the science first position. There’s no panic in his voice, or backpedaling on the initial cussing response. He’s not covering any other opinions with the less hurtful scientific perspective, he genuinely thinks Lucas is as normal as all the other gay toads or llamas.
“Is that why you broke up with Max?”
“I didn’t dump her, she dumped me. And no. She doesn’t know. And don’t tell El, okay? Not yet.” Never mind the shit he was saying about phone calls, Lucas can’t stand the idea of not seeing their faces, not knowing their reaction. You can lie in a letter. Will won’t throw slurs, he knows better from Lonnie, but he might not like it, Lucas being like that. And El probably wouldn’t get it. Love is for men and women, so they can have kids. Elementary school logic, maybe, but all she has in most situations.
“I won’t,” Mike promises. “I won’t tell anyone.”
Dustin agrees, “me neither. But I think you could tell Steve. He’d definitely be cool with it, he’s cool with everyone now.”
“Not all of us need an older male friend, Dustin,” Lucas says. Steve’s cool, and has saved Lucas’s life twice, which is more than Lucas can say for any other adult -except maybe Hopper, rest in peace- but Lucas doesn’t need to be best friends with him. He’s content with seeing him around sometimes, mainly when he’s renting a movie, or when Steve is giving Dustin a ride.
“You’re just jealous Jason doesn’t want to be older male friends with you,” Dustin jabs.
It doesn’t change much, them knowing, except for how it changes everything. Dustin and Mike don’t act differently. Dustin will occasionally put his hand over his mouth to evade lip readers and ask Lucas if he thinks a certain boy is cute. The answer being a consistent yes, seeing as Lucas is fifteen and horny, and Dustin has good taste, even in the gender he doesn’t personally care about. Maybe he learned his wingmanning from Steve.
Mike doesn’t talk about it to his face. That alone would be enough for Lucas, Mike just pleasantly not caring, but it’s more than that. Lucas is at the Wheelers for breakfast one day, gnawing on some toast as he waits for his daily ride from Nancy, and witnesses fuckin’ Ted lecturing Mike about last night’s bed time story to Holly about Prince Ronald rescuing Prince Matthew from the monster being inappropriate. It’s nice to know Mike is trying to make the next generation more open minded.
Because that’s the unobservable change. Dustin and Mike know, now, really know, and they just incorporated it into their daily lives; Dustin’s need to know all the details, and Mike’s urge to rebel against the Wheelers. Lucas has worried for years about what people will say if they knew, can easily put the AIDS comment in Aunt Lucinda’s mouth, the bible quote in Deshawn’s, the ‘white boy nonsense’ in Uncle Mark’s. He’s hoped the Party would be cool, but tried not to think about it. The change is the relief in there being no change.
Lucas is working on his English essay one day in February when his name comes across the walkie sitting on his desk. For the briefest of loftily optimistic instants, he thinks it’s El’s voice, that she’s got her powers back and is remote contacting him from Lenora with a scarf over her face. Then the timbre hits him, and he feels like an idiot.
“Lucas, do you copy? Over,” Mike repeats.
“Hey man, over,” Lucas replies. He’d be just as happy phoning people but Erica won’t get her own line until she’s twelve, which leaves the family line tied up constantly. Plus the walkies have come in handy too many times to really scorn them. They eat batteries like crazy, but it’s worth it in times of need.
“Can I come over? Over.”
“I’ll unlock the door, over and out.”
Mike lives across the street, so Lucas is barely back in his room before he hears Mike pounding up the stairs.
“What’s up?” It’s not like they need an excuse to hang out. They’re friends, real friends, not the bonds he’s carefully trying to set up with the rest of the basketball players. It’s been four months and he hasn’t been invited to a party yet, but he’ll get there, he’s confident. But Mike clearly has something on his mind, Lucas can see the signs. He didn’t come over to hang.
“It’s just really weird at home tonight. I don’t want to be there,” Mike explains, shoving over Lucas’s spread out homework so he can collapse onto Lucas’s bed.
“Tonight?” Lucas scoffs. Mike’s dad sucks shit, and Mike’s mom is way too nosy and needy. Karen might be okay if Mike was a normal teen, but parents who want to know everything don’t work with all the shit they’ve seen.
“Nancy’s wasted.”
Lucas frowns. “What?”
“She’s in her room, sobbing. Dad wouldn’t get off the fucking couch, said girls are like that, it’s probably hormones.”
“Asshole,” Lucas exclaims. Maybe he’s not as bad as Neil, or Lonnie, or even Steve’s dad, but Ted really sucks. Has for as long as they’ve been neighbours.
“And then Mom tried to pick the lock, but Nancy shoved her dresser in front. So I climbed through the window because she was freaking me out. And yeah, she was wasted. Sobbing about how only three people in the world remembered it was Barb's birthday. That not even Jonathan called, and he was supposed to be the one that cared. And then it got, like, weird? She was rambling, there was a lot of swearing, but basically that Barb would have been a better girlfriend than Jonathan and Steve were boyfriends.”
“Huh. And you just left?”
“Yeah I just left! We both heard all about it from Dustin, she says shit drunk she regrets sober. She said all that shit to Steve. She’s going to throttle me tomorrow morning, if she remembers she said it.”
Lucas nods his head in acknowledgment. Nancy is a fierce woman. She’s gonna take over the world after college. If she thinks Mike's wronged her she will absolutely kick his ass. Still, he feels bad for her. The Barb thing has been wrecking her for years. If it has What If love tied into it that's even more rough. He wonders if she’s ever told anyone. From what he’s seen she doesn’t have best friends like he does. Being invited to parties doesn’t mean you trust the hosts. Lucas is counting down the days until Jason or Andy invite him to someone’s backyard kegger, but like hell he’ll come out to them. It’s not casual acquaintance knowledge.
Mike bursts to his feet off the bed, and for a moment Lucas isn’t surprised. Mike is a spaz, lanky and uncoordinated, but you’d never guess for how often he’s in motion. He’s a lot like Eddie in that way. Honestly, Eddie could probably go out for a team -baseball, basketball- if he didn’t have a fundamental loathing for popular athletes. It takes some coordination to leap on and off of cafeteria tables. Eddie does it at least once a week, and he hasn’t face planted yet. Lucas likes Hellfire, but it’s obvious Eddie is grooming Dustin and Mike to replace him as DM sophomore year. Mike has the spirit for table hopping, but not the talent. So Lucas isn’t surprised by the quick switch from the horizontal to vertical plane, until he’s supremely surprised, because Mike is using his sudden standing to grab Lucas's face and kiss him.
Lucas is too stunned to do anything but let it happen. Mike’s fingers are longer than Max’s. Thin enough that Lucas can feel the bones on his jawline. And his tongue feels different too. Blunter, maybe.
“What the hell?” Lucas gasps when it’s over. Mike’s eyes are widening with each second, until he looks doe eyed and vulnerable, in need of protection. Lucas doesn’t know what it says about him that his first instinct is to get the wrist rocket to defend him, despite this being a panic of his own making.
“I don’t know! I lost my mind! Nancy lost her mind, and I lost my mind!. And, and shit Lucas. Me too. Fuck.” Mike drops his face into his hands. “Do you think it’s hereditary? Being queer? Do you think if I asked my dad I’d find out he sucked dicks before marrying my mom?”
Lucas doesn’t want to think about that. It’s weird. While he has to admit Mr Wheeler isn’t exactly the shining beacon of masculinity, he doesn’t want to claim him for the community. “I don’t care if your sister’s sorta gay or your dad is ex-gay. I care about me and you. I don’t like when we get messed up.”
“Why does this have to mess us up?”
“Because you’d never date me if I was a girl!”
“Yes I would! You’re my best friend!”
“No, you wouldn’t. Out of any best friend combo we are totally the worst for picking fights. We wouldn’t last a week, and then our friendship would be ruined.”
As much as Lucas would appreciate having another guy to go through this with -especially before he goes to college, some super liberal one where they’re fine with fags and dykes- Lucas isn’t sure Mike is a good idea. They’re bound to fall out, and Lucas has already lost Will, El, and Max. He doesn’t want to mess shit up with Mike too.
“So what even is the point of talking about liking boys if we can’t even like a boy who likes boys?” Mike snaps.
“I don’t know, man,” Lucas says, feeling put on the spot. It’s hard to explain why he just had to tell them in January. Doesn’t Mike already feel it, if he did it too? “Self truth, I guess.”
Mike rolls his eyes, arms crossed over his chest. “If I wanted philosophical bullshit, I’d hang out with Jonathan and his stoner friend.”
“I don’t know what else to tell you.” There’s no Rule of Law for this. They didn’t think to add romantic entanglements to the rules when they were nine.
“Yeah, whatever man. I’m going home.”
“You’ve only been here for five minutes. Nancy’s definitely still crying,” Lucas points out, rational to cover his anxiety about the sort of fight they’re having.
“I said I’m going home!” And with that, Mike turns and leaves as quickly as he came in.
Lucas can’t follow him. They’ll end up fighting in the stairwell. Even if his parents don’t overhear them, no way will Erica not observe and take notes with which to torment him later. So he stands there, in the same spot that Mike kissed him, until the thud of the front door says he’s gone.
Lucas lays on the bed for hours after that, weighted there by what’s just happened. He and Mike aren’t right for each other, he knows. Lucas still feels like one day Max could love him again. Like once she finds a club to join and gets a little more present in the day to day, they’ll be able to have conversations again. He’ll go cheer her on to get silver for the swim team, or clap ‘til his hands bleed while she’s delivering a monologue in the school play, and it’ll spark something. But she’s got what Mom calls freshman depression, and Lucas doesn’t know how to relate.
Mike, on the other hand, he cannot see himself ending up with in junior year. Can’t imagine picking out matching ties and dancing with him at Homecoming. But is it truly because they’re too abrasive, don’t fit, will break up? Or is it because there are no gay people out there, doing it, being together, no people Lucas can put himself in the place of, to imagine it? And if that’s the reason, it’s bullshit, right? It’s not like there are a lot of interracial couples for him to emulate either.
Not to mention, does it even have to lead to something long term? They’re all fifteen. Isn’t it kind of weird if Dustin marries Suzie and he marries Mike and Abby Cornell from Math marries Hollis McDonald? Mom would definitely say love doesn’t work like that. They don’t have to be giving each other roses on Valentine’s Day, they could just be together. Keep it friendly, and things don’t have to get fucked up when they’re done with it.
This is stupid. Rejecting his friend is stupid. Losing out on this opportunity is stupid. Just laying here, minutes until eleven o clock lights out ticking away, is stupid. Sinclairs aren’t passive. They’re active agents of their lives.
Lucas can’t explain to dad why he’s sneaking out of the house at ten minutes before weekday curfew. It would defeat the purpose of sneaking out. But if he could he’d be proud. Of some of it, at least. Lucas can guess what Mom and Dad would think of him being bisexual, and it’s best he say nothing. The manifest destiny of it though, would get him a clap on the shoulder. Sinclairs are brave, and they get shit done. They’d all be rangers, even if Erica’s fooling around with a half elf rogue.
Under normal circumstances, Lucas would strongly consider sneaking up through Nancy's room to avoid the Wheelers. He’s done it before, when one of them has a Starcourt nightmare and walkies aren’t quite enough to settle them. Nancy doesn’t even pull a gun on him anymore, recognizes the signs that it’s him and not a monster and just lets him pass through. But Nancy’s mid uninterruptible crisis, so Lucas is going to have to knock.
Mr Wheeler answers, because he’s sleeping in the La-Z-Boy. Ringing the doorbell would have been a rookie mistake, Mrs Wheeler would have gotten it and probably not let him in. Ted, on the other hand, scowls and asks, “at what age do teenagers start respecting business hours?”
Dustin would call Mr Wheeler out at this point, he has nothing but contempt for the man. Will would apologize, but use his puppy dog eyes and hangdog expression to get invited in anyway. Lucas just shrugs his response and ducks past him.
It’s with some relief that Lucas can hear Nancy warbling along with Madonna. Sure her voice is off key and generally terrible -god gifted Nancy with many talents but singing is not one- but it means she’s awake, not dead of alcohol poisoning. No matter what happens next, he’ll remind Mike to check on her in the middle of the night. Lucas hasn’t gotten wasted yet, he figures he’ll save it for summer break when Will and El come to visit, but he knows a few things, and one is you can choke on your vomit and die. And Nancy can’t die, because they’ll need her skills for whatever bullshit the Russians or Hawkins Lab doles out next. Lucas is a realist. As scary as it is to think about, it seems pretty obvious to him that even with the gate closed, this isn’t over. One of the two evil parties is going to fuck shit up again. He’s not getting to graduation without having to do this again.
Of course, offering his advice to Mike means he has to actually speak to him. Like every other room on this floor, Mike's door is shut tight. Lucas has come too far to let that stop him. He doesn’t bother to try the knob, he knows it’s not locked. Mike cares about privacy, but he uses a shell of hostility to keep them away from him. He’s got too much trapped trauma between the lab the night Bob died, and trying to get El out of the mall and away from Billy to handle locking himself in places on purpose. Honestly, after being trapped in the hospital room with the flesh Mind Flayer Lucas isn’t sure how Nancy can handle it either.
Mike is wearing headphones when Lucas walks into the cobalt painted room. He wonders what he’s listening to. Lucas is starting to get into hip hop, and Eddie is feeding Dustin a steady stream of metal cassettes, but mike's tastes are all over the place. He doesn’t wonder enough to ask Mike what he’s listening to. He can’t take the easy distraction, offer the verbal olive branch and return to friendship.
“I think you were right.”
“Right about what?” Mike snaps. “I didn’t, like, say anything that wasn’t fuckin’ stupid.”
Lucas shakes his head. “One day I’ll have Max, maybe. And one day you’ll have more than occasional letters with El. Until then, we could have each other’s backs.”
Mike tugs down the headphones to curl around his neck, foam circles bracketing his Adam’s apple. “Yeah?”
Lucas nods. “I trust you. Trust you with my life. You know that. The stakes of this are a bit smaller.”
Mike narrows his eyes, making his hawkish features even sharper. “But you want to?”
Yes, Lucas wants to. It was never a question of want to. Lucas has fantasies about essentially every cute person he knows. He thinks that’s pretty much normal. Most teenagers think about whatever they like, Lucas just happens to like both.
It’s not always someone he knows. Lucas has never bought drugs from his trustworthy DM, but one time he bought a porn mag. Eddie was gracious enough to let him page through it, and it contained an above average number of couple shots. So maybe Eddie had an inkling and was the simultaneous non-judgmental extremely judgmental guy he is. The magazine is safely hidden under Lucas’s bed and he still refers to it sometimes, but there are so many real life cute people and without Max to focus on his dirty thoughts are running amok. He wants to see if Dustin’s dental issues impact a blowjob. He wants to fuck Chrissy at the same time Jason does, double teaming her. He wants to see Nancy in the shower. He wants to fly to Lenora Hills and run back and forth between El and Will’s bedroom. And Mike, of course Mike, of course he wants to fuck Mike. They’re friends despite it, but the guy is so bossy, it’s just a good mental image, Mike reduced from Party wide declarations to hitching whines and hyperventilating.
“I’ve got to get home soon, before I get caught.” Usually when he sneaks out or Mike sneaks in it’s closer to the middle of the night, when his parents are asleep. Breaking curfew when they’re still up and walking the halls is far riskier. “But we could make out for a bit first. Or, uh, more?”
“You do more? I kinda thought you’d told me and Dustin s everything?”
“I did. Me and Max didn’t do more, more than you know. But we could. If you wanted to.”
He’s heard Dustin quote Steve saying if you can’t talk about sex, you shouldn’t have it. Which is fine for Dustin, because he can talk about anything and at length. It’s gonna be Mormon Suzie who waits until marriage, not Dustin. Lucas understands the sentiment, the reasoning. It’s just awkward to talk about it descriptively.
“I, uh. I want to,” Mike croaks.
“Should we put music on? Do you- are you loud? When you, you know?”
Mike scrunches his face and shrugs. “We could if you want to. They’re all sleeping though. No one’s going to hear anything.”
Well, no shit. If Lucas thought Mrs Wheeler was going to be listening through a cup on the door, he’d be suggesting a different time and place. Maybe this will become something more serious, and they’ll tell people, safe people like Dustin and Eddie and Erica. For now though, Lucas is not about to draw attention.
“It doesn’t have to go that far,” Mike hastens to add. “If you don’t want to. There’s stuff that’s more than making out and less than that.”
“I’m up for anything.” His imagination is a varied and filthy place, and he can’t imagine a place Mike would want to go that he wouldn’t follow.
“We could just see where it goes?” Mike suggests.
Lucas nods. He’s pretty sure where it goes is somewhere with orgasms, because they’re raunchy teenage boys, but if Mike can’t verbally commit that’s fine. It’s hard to talk, he gets it.
Lucas drops down to sit beside Mike on his bed, as Mike stretches to place his Walkman on the nightstand. He’s been on his bed a million times over the years, as have Dustin and Will. He never gave it a second thought. But now it means something. Now the bed isn’t just a piece of furniture, it’s a place where something’s going to happen.
Once Mike is upright again, the moment distorts, pulls longer and longer like taffy. Whatever mad bravery and temporary insanity had Mike kissing him last time is absent now. They’re just sitting. It’s not enough. If Lucas leaves here now it’ll all seem like a fever dream in the morning, some hypothetical that never had a chance. Lucas gathers his courage, every ounce of it, and puts his hand on Mike's thigh. His leg is warm through the worn fabric of his sweatpants.
The gesture is enough to get Mike making one of his own. It’s probably more standard, probably what Lucas should have started with. Max liked a hand on her thigh when they made out, but Steve probably has some sage advice about different people liking different things. Mike doesn’t do the thigh thing back, and maybe Lucas was stupid for expecting it. But he certainly doesn’t hate the way Mike grabs the nape of his neck and pulls him in for their second kiss.
It’s familiar. Lucas knows every contour of Max’s mouth, and this isn’t that, but Max has -had- a similar take charge technique. Maybe Lucas has a type, and that type is leaders. He’d say like Dad, because Mom absolutely wears the pants in the house, except it’d be supremely gross to think about dad at a time like this.
Before long they’re laying down on the bed. It’s lumpier than in his fantasies, where nothing can go wrong. The Sinclairs are a one thick comforter kind of family, but the Wheelers are an eight layers of blankets family. It’s always made sleepovers easier, not needing to bring over sleeping bags. It’s less convenient now.
Still, wads of knitting under him can't take much away from this. Mike is half on top of him, his left leg nudging between Lucas’s. He’s adding a wild amount of pressure to the front of his dick. Lucas can’t help flexing up. Mike gasps against his mouth, Lucas can feel the inhale on his tongue.
For a second he worries that it’s too much. He detaches his mouth to ask, “you okay?”
“Yeah. Really okay.” They’ve been friends for a decade, Lucas knows when Mike's talking big, making molehills out of mountains. He’s not now. Mike’s cool.
“You okay?” Mike asks back.
“Very okay,” Lucas answers.
Feeling Mike's erection is a new experience. Not just the actual dick, though it is his first, unless you count that one sleepover Dustin had a wet dream, which Lucas doesn’t because they all took a sacred vow to never talk about it. But it’s also the first time Lucas is positive he’s excited someone. Max has told him he has, but you can’t tell with a girl unless you’re naked together and she wasn’t ready for that yet. She isn’t the type to lie to spare feelings, so Lucas always felt proud, but this is incontrovertible proof from Mike. It’s good for the ego.
Mike rolls them so he’s fully on top, and adjusts so their dicks are aligned. Lucas can imagine both of them naked, one of them taking both of their dicks in hand. Lucas knows he could do it. He’s got big hands, basketball hands. Mike does too, fingers long to match the rest of his lanky frame, he’d just never use them for sports. Too much practice for not enough payout, he says. Lucas has tried to be cool about the waste, not bother Dustin and Mike about taking first steps to social acceptance. Now that Mike's hands have a whole new vista of uses, Lucas might not be able to keep his wise suggestions to himself.
For now they, the hands stay above the waist. Sort of. Mike’s hands don’t leave Lucas’s face as he humps down, while Lucas’s hands frantically drift up and down and across Mike's back, trying to find purchase without pinching anything. Mike’s skin is so thin Lucas could easily bruise him. He’s featherweight, no fat left to lose. Lucas can feel the knobs of his spine down the middle of his back. It just makes sense for his grasping hands to wind up on the juiciest part of Mike, his ass.
Mike comes first. Lucas can tell he’s about to, because his face puckers up like he just bit a lemon. Not giving himself enough time to think about it and talk himself out of it, Lucas jams his hand down the front of Mike’s sweats, the elastic thankfully loose enough to accept him. Thanks to the quick thinking he gets to feel Mike spilling over, what someone else’s jizz is like.
Technically speaking, Mike's come is exactly the same as his own. Warm, wet, loose but soon to be tacky. But Lucas isn’t thinking about the technical specs of this, like it’s another Heathkit Ham Shack. He’s thinking about how ugly and beautiful Mike's looking with his face scrunched up, sweats stained on Lucas’s behalf. It’s something you don’t learn in abstinence-only Sex Ed, how cartoonish people look when they come and how a weird face you’d totally razz in the middle of a D&D game can be a damn work of art.
It’s then that Lucas gets filthy inspiration. He’s had various fantasies about mike, just like everyone else in his life. A lot of things go through your mind when you jerk off two or three times a day. But a reoccurring one is Mike's pasty pale face getting splattered.
“Can I come on your face?” It’s the boldest thing he’s ever said, and he told Brenner and his goons to eat shit. The second the words are out of Lucas’s mouth he doesn’t know how they came from him.
Mike, however, is very good at rolling with the punches, except for when he isn’t, except for when he’d rather fight to the death. His voice cracks with embarrassment, but he manages a “yeah.”
Lucas rolls them over, hands carefully clutching Mike's biceps to not leave bruises. He likes Mike being on top, but that’s very obviously not going to work for this. As magical as sex is, gravity still applies to it. Mike goes with the movement as gracefully as he’s capable of.
On the bottom, looking up, Mike looks a little different. His shaggy hair spreads out on the striped pillowcase, loose and long and the exact opposite of the cool flattop Lucas is rocking. The light hits the peaks and crevices of his face differently, the ridge of his eyebrow and the incline of his nose. A lot of people wouldn’t say Mike is pretty, features too sharp, but Lucas likes his face. He’s pretty, to him.
Lucas places a leg on either side of Mike. It’s another innocent position permanently corrupted, the first move in play wrestling transformed into straddling a lover. Lucas kneewalks up the bed a few feet, until his kneecaps are in Mike’s armpits. Mike stares up at him, and Lucas takes just a moment to be so fucking happy with life. Sure there’s an underbelly of snarling monsters and more calculated human evil in the world, but when it’s possible to ride the upside, life can be great.
The sound of Lucas undoing his zipper is the loudest thing in the room. Good call Mike, on not bothering to turn on his boombox. He would have missed the whir under the poppy-rock of Bon Jovi. Lucas pushes his jeans and underwear down only enough to get his dick out, too pent up to waste the time getting naked. Those seconds are better spent stroking his hand up and down his hardon, making himself feel good.
The longer Lucas spends hovering over Mike, jerking off, the redder Mike's face gets. Lucas’s fantasy was always pearlescent drops like filthy freckles across milky white skin, but now he’s got the realistic variant, Mike’s pink skin as he blushes under the attention. Mike’s concentrated gaze is pure fuel for Lucas’s libedo. He’s never going to forget this.
All orgasms have a last straw. It could be a particular flick of the wrist, or dragged thumb, or new fantasy bursting into frame. This time it’s Mike's tongue darting out to touch his bottom lip. Lucas doesn’t know if Mike does it on purpose, he’s blushing too innocently to be aiming for vixen, but if it’s unconscious that makes it even better. Lucas loses his mind, loses his shit, loses his composure. He aims his dick down as his balls explode, and manages to get his entire load on Mike's sharp cheeks.
“Jesus,” Lucas gasps, dismounting Mike and sitting flat on his ass beside him.
“Good?” Mike asks.
“Jesus, so fuckin’ good. Was it, for you?”
“Uh, yeah. Thanks. Do we say thanks?”
Lucas doesn’t know. He and Max didn’t, but then again they didn’t actually get each other off. It’s hard to imagine Jason saying thanks to Chrissy, or Nancy saying thanks to Jonathan, but it’s not like he’s inquired. “I dunno. Maybe? We could? You’re welcome, and thanks to you too, I guess. You didn’t have to say yes to that.”
Mike shrugs as he leans over the side of his bed to grab a discarded t-shirt. He wipes his face off with it, as best he can. There’s no noticeable streaks, but there’s probably still residue. Does it make Lucas kinky if he gets a secondary shiver imagining Mike having to wash his face in the bathroom sink after Lucas goes home?
“It’s not like it was something really weird. You didn’t ask me to spank you or something.”
“Yeah, I’m not Eddie.” Lucas can’t shame him too much, not after the possibly bisexual magazine Eddie bought for him without commenting on his choices, but it is a little weird, how Eddie extols the fun of hitting in bed.
Mike laughs, Lucas’s goal. Abstinence-only Sex Ed also doesn’t teach you how to behave after you break from society’s wishes and actually do fuck, but Lucas figures it should involve friendly chatter and smiles. Whatever this is going to be, between them, if their friendship doesn’t stay intact, what’s the point?
“If you’re gonna keep doing that, though, maybe I should get a box of Kleenex,” Mike jokes.
“I don’t understand how you don’t already have one.” Lucas goes through a box a month. He’s sure Dustin does too, and Will in California, and every other guy in their grade.
“Because I’m already putting floor clothes in the laundry. They can get a little dirtier.”
“That argument is going to work for as long as it takes your mom to come grab something to top up a half load.”
“She knows better,” Mike replies. Which is probably true. Mike’s general hostility to his parents keeps them away more often than not.
“I’ll bring over a box tomorrow,” Lucas says.
“You want to… tomorrow?”
“I mean, if you want to?” Lucas asks. He definitely wants to, now that he knows how good it is. Still, he’s not going to pressure Mike for anything. That’s shitty.
“I’ll want to,” Mike answers decisively.
“Then after my game, we’ll get Steve to drop us off in my driveway, and I’ll grab a box of Kleenex from mine before we go over to yours.”
“I look forward to the supply drop,” Mike smirks. “You better go now, before one of your parents goes to tell you goodnight.”
Mike has a very good point. If Lucas gets caught out, they won’t be hanging out after the game. Maybe in the middle of the night, one of them sneaking out again, but no long evening stretch. He doesn’t want to risk their second date, so he needs to get going, needs to assess the house from the lawn to choose the right door to go in, and tiptoe like a motherfucker.
“Night man,” Lucas says, getting off the bed and zipping back up.
“Night. See you in the morning. I’ll have your toast ready,” Mike says, following him to the door.
Lucas darts in for a hug, back patting included to keep a bit of masculinity. It still feels good, though.
Mike turns left to go to the bathroom, while Lucas turns right to navigate the dark house, stairs first. A treacherous journey, but he thinks he’s capable. He might not be able to trip anyway, the way he’s floating on cloud nine. When Lucas put his face against Mike’s, he smelled like his come. Lucas can’t think of something making him soar higher.