EIGHTEEN: REAL

DUE TO THE SECOND ARGUMENT BREAKING OUT THAT DAY, the three left Lucas's house without a handshake. Daniel was disappointed in Mike, to say the least, and he could tell Dustin was, too. Things were tense enough between the boys and this was only making things worse. Daniel was still beating himself up over what he had so stupidly done earlier in the day. He should have never even thought that was okay. Of course, Mike would never like him back, not like that.

Now, the boys were on bikes, Daniel still stuck on the back of Dustin's.

"This is weird without Lucas," Dustin noted as the bikes glided down the asphalt road.

"He should've shaken my hand," was all Mike had to say about that. Daniel rolled his eyes, holding in a groan. He loved his friends, but it was so obvious how immature the two boys were being right now.

Dustin sighed, "He's just jealous."

"What are you talking about?" Mike asked with a furrowed brow.

"Sometimes, your total obliviousness just blows my mind," Dustin scoffed. Tell me about it, Daniel wanted to say. "He's your best friend, right?"

"Yeah. . . I mean, I don't know."

"It's fine, I get it," the curly-haired boy said with a little harshness in his voice, "I didn't get here until fourth grade. He had the advantage of living next door. But none of that matters. What matters is that he is your best friend, And then this girl shows up and starts living in your basement, and all you wanna do is pay attention to her."

Mike scoffed, "That's not true!"

"Yes, it is," Dustin and Daniel said at the same time, but Dustin continued, "And you know it. And he knows it, but no one ever said anything until you both start punching and yelling at each other like goblins with intelligence scores of zero. Now everything's weird."

The Wheeler boy, who Daniel could tell didn't really know what to say, went with, "He's not my best friend."

"You can have more than one best friend, ya know," Daniel cut in, "and don't lie, you've totally been a different person since Eleven showed up. It's like us and our opinions just stopped existing to you. It was El's way or the highway."

"You don't get to say that to me, Daniel!" Mike said, his voice escalating to a yell.

"Why?" Daniel prompted, his words were a mile ahead of his mind, "is it because I kissed you, huh? Is that it?" Dustin stopped his bike. Shit.

Dustin, his voice shocked and confused, "Hold on. Hold the phone. Daniel, what was that?"

"I said killed, actually," Daniel hilariously tried to cover his tracks, but it was obvious the other boy didn't believe a word of it.

Mike, who had stopped his bike as well, sighed, "Let's just drop it, we have more important things to worry about."

"Oh, like finding your precious El?" Daniel raised an eyebrow. It was like a flip had switched inside of him and he was just nothing but angry at Mike. That was a lie. He wasn't mad at Mike, he was jealous of Eleven and he was losing control.

"Shut up!" Dustin shouted, "Daniel, why would you kiss Mike?" Thankfully, there wasn't any disgust hinted in the boy's voice yet, but it could be hiding behind the confusion. He was just waiting for the disdain and the pushback.

Daniel sighed, his voice still angry but terrified at the same time, "Because I like boys. I'm fucking gay, Dustin, okay? I don't wanna talk about it. I don't give a shit if you don't like that," (He did.) (Like, a lot), "I kissed Mike earlier, it was stupid and we can just forget about it, okay? I'm walking home, find the weirdo without me."

The boy turned around and went to walk back in the direction of his house when a hand grabbed his wrist and pulled him back. It was Mike. "No, we need to talk about this. I can't be fighting with Lucas and you at the same time. Dustin can be like, our mediator or something."

"What's that?"

"A neutral third party that has an objective opinion on the situation," Daniel defined with ease, earning a furrowed brow from the asker.

Dustin still looked confused, "So you say you can't do science and then that shit just rolls off your tongue?"

"That, that wasn't science," Daniel said with a laugh, "If we're gonna talk, let's get out of the middle of the road."

They agreed, the two boys moving their bikes into the leaf-covered ground on the edge of the forest, laying their bikes down next to them. They sat cross-legged in a triangle formation, no one speaking at first.

Finally, Dustin had the nerve to start, "So, Daniel, you like, you like boys?"

"Yeah," he spoke softly, the anger and audacity from before were pretty much completely gone. "Uh, Heather helped me figure it out. I told her about Eleven and stuff and how I didn't like her hanging out with Mike and she told me it might be because I had—"

Daniel didn't want to say it out loud. Saying it out loud could ruin anything. Actually, everything was pretty much already ruined. There was no way Mike couldn't know with the events of earlier in the day going down. Still, the words themselves held such power to Daniel, he wouldn't even know how to act if he dares say them out loud. Everything was getting too real.

"—it might be because I had, have, feelings for Mike." There, he said it. He wanted to cry. He was so beyond terrified of what Mike (or Dustin's) reaction would be. This was never the way things were supposed to go. He was supposed to awkwardly dance with some girl at the Snow Ball, maybe she would have been his first girlfriend. Maybe he would stay with her throughout high school. They would no doubt go separate ways for college, but he would find another nice girl to settle down with. That was how things were supposed to go. Will Byers wasn't supposed to go missing. Eleven wasn't supposed to show up. He wasn't supposed to be in love with his best friend.

"Holy shit," Dustin muttered, "Is that why you hated Eleven so much? Duh. Oh my god!"

"Dustin," Mike scolded, nodding his head towards Daniel who now had his head in his hands.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Daniel mumbled, his voice breaking as tears began to slip down his cheeks, "None of this was meant to happen. I'm so sorry, I'm sorry everyone, I am."

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Mike said, but Daniel didn't think he meant it. The dark-haired boy moved closer to Daniel, wrapping one arm around his shoulders. "I don't care, okay? I really don't—"

Dustin cut him off, "And I don't care about the gay thing. I mean, you've met my mom, right? Like she would ever raise me to hate someone for something like that. I don't know why you're so scared, Daniel, we're your friends."

Daniel looked up, his eyes already puffy from crying, "But I'm fucked up? Aren't you supposed to hate me for it? I'm ruining everything with the group."

"Daniel," Dustin started with a small laugh, "You aren't even close to fucked up. You're probably the most put together person in this group! Who gives a shit if you like Mike? Mike doesn't care, does he?" Mike shook his head, "Exactly! You'll get over it soon enough and things will be back to normal, right?"

There were those dreadful words. "You'll get over it," Daniel mocked, "It's, it's not that easy. I should go before I say anything else I regret. Like I said, you guys find the weirdo without me. Don't come get me if you do find her, I think I just need a day on my own, okay?"

He stood up. No one stopped him.

Mike and Dustin both nodded. Mike is the first to speak, "Yeah, okay." There was a sadness in his eyes and Daniel couldn't tell what kind. It was somewhere between mournful and miserable, but it wasn't one or the other. As he left, Daniel turned around one last time. Dustin offered a sad smile, but Mike, Mike looked heartbroken.

( note! )

oooo Mike is feELING!! also uhhh your guys' comments on the last chapter were so fucking hilarious lmao i have like double the number of comments than i do votes and they're like all on that scene it's so funny!! anyway, i'll be nice and tell you that a) heather and veronica will be making a comeback next chapter and b) this is the last super heartbreaking scene between mike and daniel so you're welcome!! also, check out my meet my ocs book!! so far i only have chapters up for the characters from my Peter Parker fic, but im working on the ocs from this book and they'll be up like sometime this weekend probably!!

also, there probably won't be a lot of show plot in the next chapter as things are happening while daniel is at home bonding with his sister and shit, but i'll do a catchup when he reunites with the boys probably around the time ep 6 ends/ep 7 starts depending on what happens in the episode so yeah!