#poor will

considering all of this, i am thinking about eddie noticing things about this kid who misses his best friend so bad, who didn’t wanna join hellfire because it felt wrong without will, who stares at eddie all starry-eyed and gets flustered when eddie acts entirely normal, the same way he acts with everyone. thinking about eddie figuring mike out and, weirdly careful and gentle for how loud and brash eddie can be, letting him know that he's a safe place. not in those words, but unmistakably so, until mike feels comfortable to... not necessarily say it at first, but, like how will didn’t say it to robin yet she still understood and mentored him and he grew comfortable to ask things that made it obvious, make known what mike himself only figured out within the last couple months.

so eddie takes mike under his wing about queer shit in particular. he teaches him stuff he's picked up, talks about culture and identifiers and all sorts of things, things he picked up on visits to the city, stories about bars and concerts and people he’s met and things he’s seen, even gives him little booklets or other informational packets he’s collected, and when he mentions flagging he rummages around and pulls out a small card he got at a shop, a card with a condensed list of the different colour coding, and he starts laughing when the kid’s face flushes bright red.

at the same time, in lenora, will is teaching himself about queer role models, like alan turing and more, and hungrily devouring every little bit of information he can find about modern queer people and culture. so many miles apart, mike and will are learning at the same time, but from very different sources. and yet, not all different things… will does discover what flagging is.

after everything goes wrong and they get back to hawkins, things slowly settle into a new rhythm. and at some point in the second half of their sophomore year, mike starts incorporating a hankie into his look. right pocket, orange, and will is struggling. because mike can’t know, right? it must just be something he’s trying out, some new style. but orange… really isn’t a mike wheeler colour, and whenever he wears it it’s always in the same pocket. the same handkerchief. and that, the evil voice in the back of will’s head whispers, would make sense. because it means… nothing now. it means, yeah, i am, but i’m not looking.

this fucking handkerchief is haunting him, but he doesn’t dare just ask, because how can you? how can you ask without opening yourself to questions? well, he’s brave enough to at least wonder, one day, “what’s with the handkerchief? something you’re trying out?”

mike flushes and says, airily, “yeah. it’s, uh…” he sobers. “it’s a thing eddie used to do. y’know. so.” he gestures vaguely, glancing down.

will knows mike cut his hair after eddie died, and he didn’t say why but will assumes it was for the same reason he stopped wearing that hellfire shirt will had only seen in pictures. didn’t want to draw attention. or, maybe, couldn’t bear to see himself looking like him. so. you know. what do you say, when mike starts doing one little thing, almost a year later, apparently to remind himself? if you’re will byers, you say, “oh. sorry,” and you leave it there.

but one day in the summer before junior year a light blue handkerchief enters the mix. he only bothers wearing it when they go out. and he starts switching between those two. the orange still always in his right pocket, never his left, but the blue... it sometimes switches. almost exclusively on the right. but not always. and it fucks will up, because there’s no way. and yet.

it’s the first month of junior year and mike is wearing the handkerchief in the morning. right side. he vanishes at lunch and when he returns it’s tucked in his bag — will can see the light blue peeking out. the party pesters mike about where he was, and he laughs it off vaguely but doesn't really answer, and… mike doesn't lie. so a lack of an answer is infinitely suspicious. will is silent for the whole conversation, listening as mike clears his throat several times throughout lunch, voice sounding rougher than usual, gulping down apple juice like he’s trying to chase away a rasp itching at the back of his throat.

Everyone may have forgotten it, but we still care.