Chapter Text
Mike is panicking.
Max tries to calm him. “Mike, he can’t have gone far—”
“How do you fucking know that?” Mike yells, his head pounding. “Fucking fuck, Vecna could get him at any moment!”
“What?” Nancy and Jonathan say, startled. Jonathan asks, “I thought Vecna was after you!”
“He’s out of me! He could get Will!” Mike can feel himself tearing up, a wave of pain welling in his throat. “Are you sure you didn’t see him?”
“Mike, he’s clearly upset, he’s probably just cooling off somewhere—”
Mike can’t breathe. “He said he’d never talk to me again! What if he never sees any of us again?”
Mike feels the helplessness taking over, like back when Will got kidnapped by the demogorgon. Or when the mindflayer was possessing him, and all Mike could do was yell his name from the outside.
All Mike has ever been able to do is yell Will’s name.
God, he’s such a fuck-up.
“Mike, just look at me,” Max orders, grabbing Mike by the shoulders, holding him as still as she can. “Where does Will go when he’s upset. Or—well, where did he go? Do you—”
Mike’s eyes widen.
It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!
Will! Wait! Will, come on! WILL!
Will, I’m sorry, I was being a total asshole!
Will!
He thinks of pounding rain, the remains of Castle Byers dead on the floor of the woods. The woods. The painting, the two of them, them in the woods.
Castle Byers.
His breathing kicks in.
“I have to go,” he says, wrenching himself away from Max’s grip.
“What?” Max yells.
“Where is he?” Jonathan demands.
Mike can’t explain. There’s no time. He has to get to Will.
Without looking back, he rushes from the hallway, to the front door of the Wheeler house.
———
Bikes aren’t really a viable option in Hawkins anymore. Too many cracks open the streets up where anyone could get stuck, or fall through to who knows where. Some of them bubble with an angry liquid that Mike refuses to believe is lava, but would rather not test the theory.
So, on foot it is.
It takes longer than he remembers, maybe because he needs to get there so desperately, or maybe just because he never used to have to take detours to avoid horrifying cracks in the world.
He never used to run out of air, either. Maybe it’s because he’s running now, or maybe because the sky is filled with too many ashes and too little oxygen.
The painting stays tucked under his arm for the entire journey.
When he reaches Castle Byers, his heart sinks. For a horrible moment he thinks he’s made a terrible mistake.
The fort is still lying in its puddle of misery, logs and branches collapsing on top of one another, brutally destroyed for all their worth. The grass underneath sticks up, a dry, crackling brown, and the dead tree next to it is similarly abandoned and falling apart.
Mike almost starts crying.
And then he sees Will.
There’s a long-standing tree next to the remains of Castle Byers. As far as Mike remembers, it’s always been there, a place for them to climb and hang out in when the whether is nice, and especially when it’s not just him and Mike, because four people don’t really fit too well inside Castle Byers.
The four of them would climb higher and higher, daring each other to grab the thinnest branches, to step onto the most precarious edges of the trunk. There was one spot, higher than all the rest, that they theoretically could have gotten to, but none of them ever dared. Despite the fun of danger, they all knew they could get seriously hurt if they fell from that high, and none of them wanted to risk it, or the wrath they’d endure from their parents after the fact.
Will sits up there now, legs hanging carelessly, barely holding on to the branch he’s perched on, looking away from Mike, into the woods beyond. Mike thinks he can see his shoulders shaking, ever so slightly.
It’s not even a decision that Mike makes in that moment. More like realizing what he has to do.
So, he climbs.
The tree is scarier than he remembers. Maybe because he’s taller now, and ganglier, and looking down makes him want to puke. Maybe because he now knows what it’s like to no longer feel like the king of the world, and that no matter how high he climbs, he knows he can’t escape what’s happened to them all. Maybe just because he’s out of practice.
Maybe because he knows what’s waiting for him at the top.
Halfway up, Will must notice him. His eyes catch Will’s hazel ones, tinted in an angry shade of red. His cheeks, he can see from here, are stained with tears, glistening with fresh ones. He’s definitely shaking.
His eyes are telling Mike to go away.
Mike reaches for the next branch.
He finally reaches Will, his limbs trembling with the effort, and the fear, and the inexperience of it all, and swings himself over the branch Will’s perched on. It really is too thin for either of them to be on, let alone both. Mike can feel it dip under his weight, and he sucks in a nervous breath.
Will pointedly does not look at him. “Can you please just go away, Mike?”
“Will—”
“No, Mike. I don’t want you here.” Will’s voice is cracked. Watery. Shattered.
Exactly how Mike feels. His heart cracks, slowly.
“Will, please, just let me say something, okay?”
“Mike, go away. You don’t need to deal with me right now.”
“I don’t—what the fuck, Will?”
He doesn’t miss how Will flinches, and it feels like another blow. He takes a deep breath, trying to settle his thoughts, to organize them into something he can understand.
“I don’t need to deal with you? The fuck is that supposed to mean?” Mike gulps in more air. “Will, I just want to talk to you. I’m not—you think you’re this…this burden, but you’re not. If anything, I am, it’s my fault, and you know that, of all people! Who ignored the fuck out of you when he got to Lenora?”
Will is silent, but he doesn’t protest.
“Who never sent a single fucking letter to his best friend in the whole world for half a year? Who pretended he didn’t know you were sobbing in the van on our way through Nevada because he didn’t know what to do about it? Who’s been a fucking dick to you this whole time, ever since…”
Will finishes for him. “Ever since El.”
Mike’s vision blurs, and he tries to steady himself. Jesus, why couldn’t they have this conversation on the ground?
“Yeah. Since then. Who’s been the asshole, Will? Because it sure as fuck hasn’t been you.” Mike swallows back a throat of tears. “I’m fucking sorry.”
Next to him, Will moves infinitesimally closer. Something in his heart leaps at the sight of his friend, bringing himself in to be near Mike. He tries to breathe normally.
“You don’t have to pretend we’re still friends,” Will whispers. His voice is hoarse.
It’s Mike’s turn to flinch. “We’re best friends,” he insists, his heart squeezing painfully. “Remember?”
Will turns his eyes enough to look into Mike’s. Mike can’t help but look away, his gaze drifting to Will’s lips.
“Do you?” Will asks, pointedly, and Mike whips his attention back to the present.
“Do I—?” Mike starts, his hand stretching out to grab Will’s. Will instantly jerks away like he’s been burned, holding his hand away from himself like Mike’s contaminated him.
“Did you even look at… look at the painting?” Will’s voice catches on the last word, and Mike’s heart stutters again, his entire chest constricting with both fear and an insane notion of possibility.
“I—yes, Will.” Mike breathes, his eyes still on Will’s perfect lips. “It’s…beautiful.”
Will’s eyes whip up to Mike’s, and Mike thinks he sees a faint red hue rushing into his cheeks. “You…”
“It’s gorgeous. I love—it.” Mike stops himself before he damns himself completely, and then curses himself for not being impulsive enough. His heart hammers against his chest. He’s sure Will can hear it.
Or maybe not.
Will suddenly looks down, scooting away from Mike. Mike immediately misses him, like he’s always done.
“You don’t have to do that,” Will mutters, eyes drifting down to the ground. Mike can see them filling again. “You don’t have to pretend it’s okay. You don’t have to pretend to still like me.”
“Will, you’re not listening to me,” Mike grabs Will’s wrist, and this time he doesn’t let Will flinch away. Will won’t look at him. “I love it.”
Will’s voice is pleading. “Mike, you don’t have to—”
Mike can’t take this. He clenches the tree branch and pulls himself closer to Will, reaching for Will’s face.
Don’t think about it, he thinks, and suddenly his lips are on Will’s.
The kiss is soft and pink and perfect, until Will shoves him away, and Mike topples backwards. His arms flail back and forth, and he tries to grab onto something, anything, but all he manages to grab is the back of Will’s polo shirt, and suddenly he’s falling through the branches with Will, all senses suspended somewhere high above him.
He crashes to the ground with a sickening thud, Will beside him.
He leaps up, not feeling any immediate searing pain, though that may be because everything is sort of numb. His lips are the only thing he can feel, still tingling wildly, begging for more.
Will is still splayed, face down, on the hard-packed earth.
“Will!” Mike yells, rushing to his side, crouching down and flipping him over with some difficulty.
Will’s eyes are shut, his face pale and covered in dirt and tears. Mike tries to wipe it away, yelling Will’s name over and over again. Desperately, he leans down, hoping to feel Will’s breath on his cheek if nothing else.
“Mike?”
Mike leaps away, an electric jolt in his chest. “Sorry! Sorry! I just…you looked so…I mean, I had to make sure…I needed…”
Will sits up, a little shakily. His dark, sad eyes bore into Mike, exposing everything. “Did you…what was that for?”
Mike stares. “What?”
“The…” Will raises a tentative hand to his lips.
Mike almost screams out loud. “Um. That. Yeah. Sorry. I just… I was trying to tell you, but maybe you didn’t want…and I assumed…the painting, you know…”
“Mike, did you mean it?” Will is looking at Mike with such intensity that Mike almost wants to recoil.
“I—” Mike doesn’t know how to explain exactly how much he meant it.
So he leans in again.
This time, Will doesn’t shove him away. His hands cup Mike’s cheeks, and Mike can feel Will’s eyelashes fluttering shut, can feel the tears streaming down his cheeks, meeting Mike’s cheeks, and then Mike’s crying, and he can’t tell whose tears are whose.
Colors explode in Mike’s head, and for a few seconds, he’s thinking of nothing but Will’s lips, Will’s eyes, Will’s face, Will, Will, Will.
“Uh…hey guys.”
They jerk apart.
Max stands above them, red hair tangled horribly from the wind, face right red and sweaty, supposedly from running all the way here. Mike flushes as red as her hair, slowly putting distance between him and Will. He stands up on shaky legs, realizing for the first time how sore the fall made him. He’s definitely going to have a bruise.
“So… you figured it out, then? All settled?” She kind of smirks, and Mike wants to smack her.
Or hug her.
Same thing, really.
He chances a look at Will, whose the same shade of red, and has started to brush himself off, clearly not looking him or Max in the eyes.
“Well, everyone’s kinda worried about you two, so…” Max raises her eyebrows. “Let’s, uh, go? Or should I leave you two to—”
“No!” Mike shouts, way too loudly. “Uh. I mean. We’ll go with you.”
Max smirks, again. “Uh-huh.”
Mike thinks, not unfairly, of that weird guy Joyce and Hopper are friends with, the one who speaks Russian. He thinks him and Max might get along pretty well.
They walk home in relative silence.
———
Much later, Max argues with Mike.
“I definitely talked to Lucas first. If we didn’t get to finish, it’s because your stupid dramatics interrupted us!”
Mike groans. “It’s not my fault. And I didn’t have to lock Will in a bathroom, at least.”
Max snorts. “Oh, okay, so you just trapped him in a tree after he ran away from you. And then he pushed you out of it. I mean, how successful—”
“Max, you literally saw—”
“I thought I saw ‘nothing.’ Or do you want me to go telling Jonathan and Hopper about—”
Mike pales. “Fuck you, Maxine.”
Max rolls her eyes. “Okay, Micheal, I’m not going to tell anyone, obviously, but I still won.”
Mike glares. “How about we just give it all to Dustin instead? He’d appreciate it more, anyway.”
Max raises an eyebrow. “You’re just trying to make it so I don’t win.”
“Neither of us win, we’ll call a truce!”
“Fuck you, no way.”
“Max…”
“Mike…”
“Dude, you suck.”
“But I won.”
“Did not.”
Max flops back onto Mike’s bed, closing her eyes in exasperation. “Jesus, fine. We’ll give it to Dustin.”
“Excellent.”
“Shut up, Wheeler.”
“Make me, Mayfield.”
Max punches Mike.
Dustin is about to get a confusingly large amount of chocolate pudding.