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Lucas knew that they weren’t going to show up. DND had been the most important thing to them since they were kids, it had been what they spent their entire time doing, every weekend they could all escape their houses they would be in Mike Wheeler’s basement playing DND for hours on end until Lucas could feel his eyes begin to flutter closed from exhaustion, but he still wanted to be there.
He always wanted to be around Mike, he knew that, Mike was his best friend and maybe something else, something more. Something that he can’t say out loud for fear of even further ostracism from his new basketball friends.
He never thought he would join the basketball team, nor because he didn’t like it, he had enjoyed sports since he was a kid, not as much as DND or exploring the woods with his friends, but he grew bored of those things after having fought off real monsters for so long.
Basketball wasn’t replacing DND for him, it was just sliding into place beside it, after Max broke up with him over winter break and he couldn’t find a way to get his anger and hurt out productively, he had turned to an old friend, basketball. He was good, he wasn’t the tallest on the team by any means, and never tall enough to go pro, but that wasn’t the goal, he just wanted to get out of his head for a little bit.
It works, basketball does wonders for his focus, it makes him forget all his worries, gives him to just exist in his body without all the anxiety, to just move and step and dribble. Winning is just a bonus. It quickly grew important to him like the Hellfire Club was to Dustin or the AV club was to Mike, it was special, something wholly his own.
Which is why when he asked Eddie to move the date of his campaign for his game and he told him with a mocking laugh that he would never move around a campaign for something as bullheaded as basketball, he had begged his friends to come. Eddie was the first shot, and Lucas likes the guy, for sure, but since he joined the basketball team, he doesn’t think Eddie likes him very much.
He went to the guys and Max and begged for them to show up, it was the day before spring break when the Byers and El would come back to town, and he had called them to and they said they were flying in that morning and could definitely make it.
Max said no. Not that simply, but he knew her and knew she wouldn’t show up unless one of the boys dragged her there, she’s been so in her own head recently, stuck in her grief. Lucas knows she feels like an asshole for breaking up with him, feels like isolating herself in the only course of action, but it isn’t.
Lucas was a little grateful and a little heartbroken when Max broke up with him. Mainly heartbroken because she was the first girl he had ever loved and seen a future with and a little grateful because it meant he could figure out whatever feelings he had blooming in his chest for his best friend.
Mike was a little kinder about saying no, he said he would ask Eddie to move it and deflated a little when Lucas said he already tried. Mike spent a week begging Eddie to move the date, but he held firm on his stance, campaign does not move for such stupid activities as high school basketball. Even for a party member like Lucas.
So Lucas was pretty certain none of them were going to show up, let alone Mike, who’s devoted to DND like it’s his religion sometimes. When the game starts he doesn’t see them anywhere, just his parents in the stands, Erica missing, cheering him on.
He’s off his game for the few first minutes, but he focuses, he knows that this is the last game before they go to the championships, they need to win this one, it’s the most important game of his life so far.
He’s halfway across the court with the ball bouncing under his hand when he spares a glance up to the stands, and next to his parents, is a hoard of screaming teenagers, his screaming teenagers. The party, all five of them up there, and Erica, with Steve and Nancy and Jonathan and Robin, even Joyce and Hopper are there, whooping and hollering like he’s the only guy on the court, and while normally he wouldn’t take a risk from this far, he does, he shoots the ball into the hoop, and it slides along the rim as the entire room seems to quiet, then falls through the net.
The room erupts into cheers, his friends are chanting his name from the stands and he feels like the only man in the room. His teammates are clapping his back in congratulations and admiration but he’s looking at the stands, at Mike, who’s smiling so wide, not even in his Hellfire shirt, who looks a little like an angel up there.
The rest of the game seems to by within seconds, he keeps glancing to the stands to see Mike, feeling the pressure to impress him like Mike has any idea what’s impressive in basketball besides scoring a point. Lucas scores the tiebreaker goal right before the buzzer goes off, and room erupts into loud cheers and screaming names, his teams hoists him on his shoulders, a man on top of the world.
He basks in it, for a moment, the entire room cheering for him, but like clockwork his eyes are drawn back to his friends, who seem to be buzzing with energy, and when he gets let down and escapes the crowd of teammates he finds his original team, colliding into Mike’s chest and wrapping his arms around him, getting swept up into the moment as the entire extended party wrap their arms around the mass of bodies.
“That was incredible,” Mike whispers underneath all the shouting.
“Thanks, man.”
The night moves fast after that, Jason is throwing a party at his house to celebrate the win and Lucas drags the party there, Steve drops them off and makes them promise to not get drunk or high and if they do to call him and he will come get them no matter how late. They all promise, and Lucas knows it’s true too.
Lucas is two beers in outside under the party lights, in the corner watching everyone else writhe and dance and kiss, watches Max teach El how to dance at a high school party, when Mike finds him, slides next to him with his own bottle in his hand, and clinks them together.
“To the best basketball player I know,” Mike says with a grin, and Lucas can’t help but laugh.
“What other basketball players do you know?”
“I know the guys on your team!” He defends, and Lucas snorts.
“Name one,” Mikes face goes blank.
“Carver!” He exclaims. “Jackson Carver.”
“Jason Carver. This is his house.”
“Fuck,” Mike blushes down to his neck and his chest and Lucas wonders for a moment just how low it’ll go. “I’m drunk man.”
“How many beers have you had?”
“Two. I’m on my third.”
“This isn’t even good beer,” Lucas chuckles, “you must be some kind of light weight.”
Mike laughs, but he doesn’t say anything else, and when Lucas glances over to him he sees that Mike’s eyes are a little wide, looking right at him, mouth open in a little o shape, like he’s realizing something for the first time.
“Did they get you high too? You look a little out of it,” Lucas tells him.
Mike doesn’t stop his staring, eyes trailing every part of Lucas’ face, analyzing and studying him like he doesn’t want to forget a single part of him.
“I want to kiss you,” Mike whispers harshly, rough and uncontrolled, and Lucas knows he doesn’t mean to say it by the way his face twists after he admits it. A dirty secret that was just for him, a dirty secret that they share.
Lucas puts a hand on on his knee before he has the chance to flee, and glances around the party goers, nobody is looking at them, they’re what they always were, invisible, the nerds blending in to the rest of the school, practically camouflaged to the walls.
“You can, if you want,” and maybe Lucas should ask about El, but he knows Mike. Mike has always said that no party member gets left behind, and Lucas had always assumed that had been about their campaigns, but tonight proved otherwise. DND wasn’t the most important thing to Mike Wheeler, it was his friends, his party that extend beyond a game, his party, who never gets left behind, no matter what. He knows Mike would not even think about actually kissing him if El was still anywhere in his life romantically, so he leans in until they share beer stained breaths with each other.
“Lucas… you don’t have to pity me,” Mike murmurs, and he can feel every word he says on his skin, warming his face.
“Not pity,” his voice is soft, a little shaky, because this is Mike his best friend in the entire world, the person who understands him more than anyone, that little boy he met when he was three years old and ha been attached at the hip sense.
Lucas is scared this might change everything and at the same time excited that this might change everything.
“Then what?” Mike asks, voice small like he doesn’t quite believe that whatever Lucas feels for him is real, truthful, like Lucas is just doing this ‘cause Mike wants him to. But Lucas thinks he’s been thinking about kissing Mike Wheeler since he was eleven years old.
“Want,” he answers, and he has to lean forward because he knows Mike won’t. Their lips meet in a soft brush, and the loud screams of their peers get drowned out under the feeling.
Mike kisses hesitantly, like he’s still not sure he’s allowed to want this, let alone have it, but Lucas deepens the kiss, just enough for Mike to know he wants this too, that he wants him. His hand cradles Mike’s neck like he’s special, and Mike’s limp hands find their way to his letterman jacket, gripping the fabric in tight balled up fists like he’s holding himself back.
When they pull apart they don’t stray far from each other, but Mike looks worried.
“Do you think anyone saw us?” Mike asks. Maybe Lucas should be more concerned about it, but he’s not, all he’s concerned about is Mike, about this energy flowing between them, about when they next time he’ll get to kiss him is.
“Who cares?” Lucas asks breathlessly, “fuck ‘em.”
“You care,” Mike points out, “you’re the schools new favorite player.”
Lucas sighs through a chuckle and shoves his head against Mike’s like they’re cats.
“Do you wanna get out of here?” Lucas asks softly, their heads still pressed to one another.
“What about the party?” Mike asks. He’s loyal, almost annoyingly so. No one gets left behind.
“Steve will pick them in three hours, they’ll be fine if we run off to make out for a little bit.”
Mike seems to choke on nothing, and Lucas can’t help but laugh at him.
“Make out?” Mike asks breathlessly.
“What else would we be doing in the privacy of our very own woods?” He gestures to the woods behind the Carver house, where Lucas knows the kissing rock is located not a mile away.
“Hunting monsters,” Mike teases, he gets up, dusting off his pants and reaching a hand out, “do you wanna go hunt monsters with me?”
Lucas takes it, lets Mike pull him off the ground and hopes no one can see that they keep holding each other’s hand as they sneak out the back gate.
“Yeah, I’ll hunt monsters with you.”