Meat suit with anxiety

Early-twenties Will shows up at Castle Byers, the kids are amazed. He feels so confident and comfortable with himself, he has an earring and his jacket is full of bottons. Will has always been good looking, of course, but Mike never knew he could look so cool! Mike can onoy hope himself grew to look just as cool.

He tells Dustin about the projects his older counterpart is working on and Mike can swear Lucas teared up a little to find out Max and he are planning their wedding. And Mike... Will does not have a lot to say about Mike. In fact, it's like he doesn't know much about Mike at all, and despite still looking at him with the same caring expression, it doesn't feel like he even wants to talk about him at the first place. Has Mike done something wrong?

Their Will comes out to them on his own terms after a pep talk with his older version and it kinda sucks to know that Will wasn't planning to share it with them at all. And maybe it's his own fault that Will thought there was a chance he wouldn't be accepted on the first place.

The weirdest part is that his Will becomes more distant after the fact. Not with the others, with Mike specifically. He wonders if he did something wrong, if, in the future, he had a fight with Will or hurt him in some way that made future Will tell his past self to avoid him. He asks Will about their conversation and gets told nothing happened between them, that people just grown up and that their are still friends, just live their own lives.

Mike presses further and learns future Will has told him he and older Mike don't really talk anymore. Worse, his Will tells him it's fine, that he knew that it would probably happen anyway. Will tells him he knows he was the one always getting on Mike's face about the "old times" and doing things togheder, while Mike wasn't all that willing. When he sees Mike's expression, he smiles and tells him he doesn't need to feel guilty or worry about him, that he only needed to get over something Mike had overgrow already. He was going to be fine, make other friends, see?

Mike can't break down in front of the whole party, so, when he goes home, he is increasingly distressed. Will is going to give up on him, on their friendship. And it's all his fault. He is surprised to find an adult version of himself hiding at his own basement and he... looks just like his dad! What the fuck happened to him? Why was Will able to become such a cool grown up, while Mike become so...boring? Mike tears himself a new one and they team up to salvage adult byler's friendship.