Disclaimer: The Duffer Brothers and the cast of Stranger Things are genius. I am not one of them. Do not own anything but the plot.

Currently Mature strictly for language.

"Dustin, what the fuck did you fuckers do to me last night?" I groaned with my head down on the cafe table. It felt like my brain was full of lead and I was having severe trouble remembering anything past the first bar we went to last night.

It's a good thing I knew my best friends well enough that I didn't need to see them to know they were smirking at me. Assholes.

"We only did as much as you told us you wanted to do," Dustin retorted, chipperly. "It's not our fault you don't hold your liquor for a young, strapping lad of 21." How he didn't have an ounce of a hangover, I was baffled.

Sticking my middle finger up in his direction, I mumbled back, "Well whose fault is it for always making me the DD all these years?"

"Hey man," Lucas cut in, "It's not our fault that you always offered. You're the stick in the mud that doesn't want to let loose. Besides, we bought all your drinks last night and we're even buying you a recovery breakfast."

"Get that self-satisfied smirk off your face, asswipe."

"Nope, never. This is my favorite moment. I need to cherish it because this may never happen again in our lifetime. Michael Finn Wheeler got so drunk that he can't remember anything and is now experiencing one of nature's worst feelings, the hangover." He was definitely doing that obnoxious thing with his hands where he frames his words.

"I'm going to find the best picture from last night and have it blown up and framed so we shall never forget the epicness," Dustin added.

Some best friends. Thank god at least Will was a bit of a light weight. He sat next to me, holding the glass of ice water to the side of his head. "Could you guys keep it down? Mike isn't the only one suffering from how loud you are," Will whimpered.

"Aw, Will. We're barely talking above our normal volume," Dustin was probably giving his stupid apologetic puppy dog eyes to Will. No one liked upsetting Will because for some reason he was basically the most pure in nature of all of us. He put up with us and all our shit for 15 years now. It felt like upsetting your dog.

"Your normal volume is loud. This doesn't help," he deadpanned back to them.

How the three of them thought of the brilliant idea to take me out for my 21st birthday and get me completely hammered, I have no idea. Me, the designated light-weight, who drank like maybe one beer a month at most. And what did these so called friends of mine do when we arrived at the bar? Ply me with tequila shots. I tried to vote for a night in with pizza and Xbox, but they vetoed me, claiming "rite of passage" or some bullshit.

Well, joke will be on them this morning because I made sure to order the largest, greasiest breakfast this cafe had to offer, and they had to pay every cent. Ha, dipwads.

Of course, it was at this precise moment that it felt like a nail had been shot through my head. The waitress, probably in her mid-30s, plunked my giant breakfast plate in front of me, smirking as she put down everyone else's plates and walked away. I glared at her back, knowing she knew full well what she did to me. Everyone's need to be a dick to the birthday boy was getting old.

As I sat there, head barely being held up with one hand as I struggled to shovel the behemoth of a breakfast into my mouth, my mind began to wander. Even holding my fork up was this massive undertaking. Maybe if I just placed my head on the plate, or even next to it, it would be easier. Is that sort of thing frowned upon in public? Probably, but I've never had a hangover and it was starting to sound like a more and more appealing idea.

Another hypothetical nail was driven through my skull as Dustin's phone began to ring.

"Guys! It's Steve! He wants to Facetime us. Must want to wish you a happy birthday, Mike!" Dustin had this weird bromance thing with my older sister's ex-boyfriend from high school. I can't remember how it happened exactly but they somehow formed a bond during our eighth grade year, and Steve became Dustin's surrogate dad/brother. We didn't really question it, since Dustin definitely needed someone after his dad left him and his mom behind. At least Steve and Nancy, my sister, split on good terms - otherwise I'm pretty sure he would have hated me.

"Well hello kidlets!" I heard come through the speakers. "Wheeler! Congrats on being the first one to become fully an adult!" Steve gave me this weird salute, bow thing through the screen. "How is it that you are the first to turn 21 of this mess and you're the most light-weight?" he laughed.

I just stuck my middle finger up in the general direction of the phone, words being too hard to come by feeling as shitty as I was. I decided to enact my plan of putting my face on level ground with my plate and commence the shovelling of food.

"Geez, Dustin. What the hell did you do to the kid?" Steve was still enquiring.

Dustin was trying his hardest to not bust up laughing as I sent him my most chilling death glare. It would have probably been much more effective if I wasn't struggling to make the eggs and pancake go into my mouth and not onto the table.

"Man, you should have seen him last night Steve!" Lucas exclaimed. "We gave him like 4 shots of tequila and this boy was out." Lucas was trying to keep from crying with how much he was laughing over my misery. "We could tell he was blacked out, but you can't end a birthday on 4 shots of tequila from the first bar! Just like you told us! So we took him around to a few others and just sat him in a chair with a beer in his hand. Straight miracle he didn't end up on the floor." He was howling at this point with laughter with Steve cracking up on the other side of the screen.

Royal fuckers, I thought as I continued on my journey through this ginormous plate. Thank heaven for Benny and his cafe. Best breakfast and burgers in this small college town. Everyone always said that Benny's food could cure hangovers. I was finally experiencing that miracle first hand. With half my plate finally gone, I felt like I could actually hold my head up without thinking of how herculean a task it was.

As my mind started to clear up a bit, and I was finally able to tune out the guys chatter (15 years being around them gives one that special talent), I let my eyes wander around the quaint, relatively quiet, cafe. I say relatively quiet since wherever Lucas and Dustin are, especially together, there was no such thing as quiet.

It was early enough in the day on a Saturday for there not to be many patrons. There was a night football game that night, so most people were still sleeping in, recovering from the night before. What I wish I was doing. We'd most likely be going to the game, because while Will and I could care less about sports, Lucas and Dustin were semi interested - thanks, Steve - and there wasn't much else to do in a small college town on a Saturday night.

My eyes continued their perusal of the people in the cafe when that came to an abrupt end. My heart started pounding. In the corner booth, surrounded by three open textbooks, seven others stacked to her left, and another book which looked like a novel open in her hands, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

Maybe it was the hangover, or the way the sun was filtering through the window to land on her just right. Maybe it was the way she dropped the strand of honey brown hair she was twirling between her fingers to finish off her cup of coffee, or the way she raised the mug in the air once it was empty to signal to Benny that she needed a refill, all without taking her eyes off the pages in front of her. This girl was the most breathtaking thing I had ever beheld.

I saw Benny make his way over to her at her signal and fill her cup the whole way. I heard soft murmurs of what seemed to sound like, "That's your third one this morning, J. Either you slow down or I'll cut you off for the rest of the time you're here today." "B! You can't! Coffee is my lifesource!" "Well, maybe make some actual food your lifesource, yeah J?" "Fine B. Bring me whatever. Just leave me to my work." "You haven't been doing work for the past hour. You've only been reading that book," Benny huffed while finally turning and walking away with a roll of his eyes like a battle lost.

I saw her, this J, glance up at Benny's retreating back with a smirk before her eyes shot over to mine. I felt like the air had been stolen right out of my lungs. She raised one of her brows and gave me this small smile that seemed to include me in on her inside joke, before her eyes fell back down onto the book in front of her as her other hand resumed twirling that beautiful brown lock.

Feeling the air rush back into my lungs, I saw out of the corner of my eye Will looking at me. He glance in the direction I was looking, at the girl and then back to me. When I finally turned my eyes toward him, his eyes were wide and he was giving me this crazy, scheming grin and then gave me a small shove.

This, of course, caused Dustin and Lucas to focus their attention back onto me.

"What's up with Mike? Why's he looking all dazed and confused?" Dustin asked.

"Gentlemen. Our leader, our great paladin, has just been pierced with Cupid's arrow," Will laughingly grinned while mimicking shooting an arrow at me.

"Keep your voices down!" I whispered, panicked that she might hear us.

Naturally this prompted Dustin and Lucas to maniacally start looking about the cafe, trying to spot her. Once they saw her in the corner, Dustin let out a loudly whispered "Oh!" as Lucas let out a low whistle. They both turned to look at my bright red face. Can't believe I have to put up with these shitheads as friends. I chanced a glance to the corner and saw the girl, J, smirking while looking at her book. Very low chance she didn't hear anything my shit friends said. If God could just melt me on the spot, that would be fantastic.

"What's happening?!" Steve yelled from the phone. Good lord, would the embarrassment never cease?!

"Oh, shit! Sorry, Steve," Dustin replied to the phone. "We got a situation here involving the birthday boy and someone of the opposite sex." A wink, Dustin? Really? I rolled my eyes. "I'll call you later man. We have to do some quick reconnaissance for our party member."

"Ok. Well, heads up. Your nerd is showing!" Steve laughed as he hung up. I was hoping to be vaporized by some alien life form any moment now so that this girl wouldn't be able to put a face on this horribly embarrassing moment called my life.

I glanced once more at her to see that she was looking my way with her bottom lip between her teeth, looking like she was trying not to laugh. Why me? Why today of all days, when I especially look like shit?

Will prodded me once more. Looking at him, he nodded his head in her direction. "Go talk to her!"

"Are you insane?" I whispered back, harshly.

"Mike! Number one rule is that if you can get her to smile, she'd at least be willing to talk!"

"Says who?"

"Says me, right now! Listen to your old friend, Will the Wise." Dick.

"You can't claim expertise just because you're gay and are able to make a guy like you at the drop of a hat!" I'm exasperated. The one person who is usually on my side with everything has betrayed me to the dark side. I knew we shouldn't have let him watch all his favorite movies lately. It puts him in his feels about couples he thinks should be together.

This only leads to him wanting to force people together in real life. And with my slip up, he'll be able to get Dustin and Lucas on his side.

Speaking of, they start kicking me beneath the table as Will resumes his shoving.

"Will you assholes cut it out?!" I mutter angrily, trying to get them all to stop.

"The only way we'll cut it out is if you go and talk to her!" Lucas retorted.

"That's peer pressure!"

"So it is. Now go talk to her, numbnuts."

I rolled my eyes in response. "I look like absolute dog shit right now, thanks to you fuckers. I can't possibly talk to her looking like this."

"Hey! Don't insult dogs like that!" Dustin jumped in.

Will turned to me while forcing me to fully face him. "Well, there's nothing to do about your face." "What?!" "But we can maybe help with the hair."

"Here, I got it," Lucas said, jumping at the chance to attack my head. After a minute or so of trying to beat my hair into submission - yeah right - Lucas took a step back, gave a grimace, and then a reluctant nod. "That's all I can do for him."

"Perfect," Will responded while wrestling me out of my chair.

"What are you doing?!"

"Go talk to her! You are starstruck. It will leave us to at least finish our breakfast in peace without looking over to see you drooling."

"Hey!" With that, he shoved me halfway from our table to this girl's.

Having run out of options, I made my way over to where she was sitting, shuffling my shoes the last few feet. Glancing up, I saw that her eyes were firmly fixed on the book in front of her with her finger still working that strand of hair.

Looking at all her books strewn across her table, and at the way the sunlight was hitting her, I couldn't seem to get my mouth to work.

After what seemed like an eternity, with my mind still blank, I finally stammered out "Uh, h-hi. Um, el-eleven."

Hazel eyes locked with mine.

A/n: Please, please review! They truly do help! I haven't written anything in many years, aside from the other ST fic I wrote two days ago. My writing has changed a lot, so I would love feedback!

The second chapter is currently being written and will hopefully be done soon!

Also, yes I made Mike's middle name Finn. If anyone knows if they ever reference his character's real middle name in the show yet, please feel free to let me know!

Thank you lovelies, xo.