Chapter Text
There are reasons. For everything a person does, behind it is a reason. Sometimes obscure. Sometimes hidden beneath other, more reasonable reasons. No one ever does anything because. Because, itself, is a reason. Be is a link verb, and cause is a motive, ergo, because is a reason.
Mike is considering all the reasons he could possibly hide under in order to not have to do what he needs to do.
Will is his best friend, but he’s also a mountain, and Mike has so much to explain—apologize for—make sense of, that it feels unsurmountable. To get to where Will is standing, up there are the top of an identity he has struggled with and fought for and come to accept, Mike is going to need to do a tremendous amount of effort, which sounds awful.
Mike hasn’t exercised his vulnerable muscles in quite some time. And why would he? To be vulnerable is to be open, and to be open is to love, and to love is to risk weakness—which has brought great harm to Mike’s friends. His family. Himself.
A lesson was learned, somewhere between thirteen and sixteen, about the dangers of being emotionally open with the people Mike wanted to be emotionally open. The lesson is as follow: ouch.
Much easier, then, to close up and keep it all inside and hope nothing leaks out at no point ever in the next sixty to seventy years he has left on this planet.
It was a good plan, on paper, just like his campaigns, which are good stories. On paper.
Then again, Mike has had the unfortunate opportunity to discover what a real-life campaign looks like, with all the monsters and deaths associated with it, and it truly isn’t the marvelous adventure he’d thought it might be.
So.
So, keeping everything locked in is probably not a great idea, in practice. The issue is the lock. Well, that’s not entirely true.
The issue is that the key that opens the lock, would also open the entire ball of repressed feelings Mike has been steadily cramming into this very tiny cage for a solid few years, and he’s a little uncertain about his ability to parse through the feelings to find the ones that are—acceptable. To share. With others.
You know?
Because Mike has felt a lot of feelings, but a large part of those were just feelings for him to feel, not for him to share. But Mike had decided no feelings were better than filtering some, and as a result the cage is overflowing with things and it’s a very, very scary little cage.
So, he could wait. Open the cage, give himself a few days to let the vacuum-packed Feelings bloom open, and then parse through them on the floor of his bedroom, select the ones that aren’t scary, and then search for Will. You know, be patient.
But also, Mike is suddenly finding that patience is something he’s quite terrible at, because his shoes are on and he’s pedaling in the direction of Will’s house, scared out of his mind.
He could say the wrong thing.
He would say the right thing, too late.
There is a real possibility that he will open his mouth, and everything he’s managed to keep contained will cram his mouth and come out all at once, messy and unformatted and impossible to hide behind.
Still he pedals, doesn’t let himself think about the reckless—brave?—reckless—brave!—decision to admit to Will that his lackluster attitude in the past few years is because of a reason, and that reason is his own fear, stemming from a lineage of cultural fear instilled from society, that men shouldn’t feel feelings because it’s unmanly. Which is dumb.
(It didn’t come from nowhere, though. It was handed to him—them—men.
Walk it off, barked from coaches when something clearly hurt. Fathers who never cried. Actors on TV who were always strong, never sad. Angry, if an emotion other than courage had to be brought up. An actor would be courageous, or angry. He would not be emotionally open, because that would be a sin. Unmanly. From locker rooms and living rooms and classrooms, all asking men to not feel too much, not to show too much.
And it worked, mostly. Until it didn’t.
Because Mike’s feelings didn’t disappear just because society told him they should. They went underground and festered there, and showed up sideways—as irritability, distance, as a constant sense of being out of step with the people he cared about most.)
It is dumb, because Mike is pedaling, and Will’s house is in view, and Mike feels like he’s about the break the law.
Still he pedals, because he’s feeling reckless—brave?—reckless—brave!—and the bravest thing a boy from the eighties can do is break the law. Even if it is an unwritten, unspoken one.
He’s off his bike and knocking on the door and breathless and terrified and Joyce opens the door, sees him looking like whatever the hell he is currently looking like, makes a face like she knows, calls inside the house, “Will!”, and disappears.
Well, okay.
So, perhaps the feelings are already in his mouth and showing on his face and he’s less subtle than he thought, but then he isn’t thinking much because Will is here, looking confused and semi-guarded, like he doesn’t know what kind of person Mike is—like Mike could hurt him, and Mike wants to laugh, until he realizes Will is only acting this way because Mike has hurt him before.
(He knows.
Mike does.
He can pinpoint all of the moments he made things awkward and unfriendly, fights he’s instigated for no reason
(there was a reason, of course, and that reason was a fear sandwich of fear-desire-shame-love-fear)
and hugs he’s fumbled, things he has said—both to Will and to Eleven—that he shouldn’t have said to one and should have said to the other, and he knows he has a lot of landmarks to go through, but he’s hoping there is something smaller he can start with.
Something that will help Will drop his guard and open the door wider.
The metaphorical door, you know? The one that’s a gate?
The one Mike is so fucking scared of?
And isn’t that ironic, to be a person afraid of a door?)
Mike looks at Will, and knows what needs to be done. He’s always known, but knowing has never been the problem. Doing, is.
Doing means climbing the mountain and it’s a very, very different summit from Ted. Both require honesty, but there is an additional touch of despair that surrounds all of Mike’s feelings, because it isn’t just I am gay and I want you to love me still, it’s—
It’s—
“Mike?”
“I’m sorry I brought everyone when you said everyone needed to hear this.”
Mike doesn’t elaborate, but he doesn’t need to.
“It’s o—”
“And I’m sorry I made you feel like there was no room for you when El—when we were younger.” And then, he decides that speaking Eleven’s name shouldn’t be a shame, because he did love her—does love her, and Will does too, and the pain of her sacrifice should not come at the cost of her memory. “I did notice how alone you were, and I—I…” well, okay. The truth is, this is a little more complex to explain than he’d like, mostly because this is all coming out with absolutely no prior sorting through, and Mike isn’t entirely sure about any of the things he’s saying.
He most likely is not saying the right words—not exactly—and he doesn’t want Will to misunderstand what he is saying, even if what he is actually saying is a surprise to both of them.
“I could tell you felt alone, but I was so focused on having you back and having Eleven at the same time, and I didn’t know how to balance the two, and there were a lot of complicated, confused feelings, and—and I let you believe you mattered less.”
Will doesn’t say anything, but he does take a step on the porch, closer to Mike, and closes the door behind him.
“I dismissed your feelings because I was afraid of my own, and I—I trivialized your grief, and I’m sorry I didn’t realize that D&D was a way for you to hold on to something safe”—Will’s face goes from carefully blank to surprised, and his eyes sharpen a little, like he’s listening carefully now, and Mike decides to take a quick pit stop here and explain—“I should’ve known,” he says, “because I’ve been doing the same thing.”
Will’s mouth parts then settles again, like if he’s stopping himself from reacting too quickly. Disciplined hope. The hidden kind, that Mike has always seen, and always ignored, because fear. He keeps going.
“Using D&D to hold on to…” Us. Say, us. Say, I held on to D&D because I didn’t know how to try out Mike The Brave out into the world but I didn’t want you to forget I could be that person and I never want you to forget I can be that person even though I had forgotten I was that person and I’m so so so scared of you leaving and only remembering me as a brave Paladin from a story and never as a brave person. “Something safe.”
Will’s face falls, and Mike has done it again, fucked it up.
Fuck.
Well, no. Not fuck. He’s speaking, he can adapt, Will has always been the one who understands him best, they have a language, don’t they? This may not be a campaign, but the only difference is the basement. He can try to put on a bravecoat, can’t he?
Mike reaches out a hand to Will’s shoulders, looks into hopelessly hopeful hazel eyes, settles his breathing, and something shakes itself loose from his ribs.
Because this is the face Will has done so many times before, and Mike can’t let it happen again, and he says, “We are something safe, us, and I was holding on to this, us, because I don’t know what we are going to do now that we’ve graduated, and I didn’t want to let go of that feeling, and it’s only in understanding the feeling that I realized it’s what you were doing when we were—before. When you came back. And I’m sorry for that.”
Will is saying nothing, which is just as well, because Mike isn’t done.
“And I’m sorry I was so defensive over—over—” Over Eleven and my feelings for her and her feelings for me and our friendship and not listening to you when all you were asking for was to be my friend—”so many things, but—but mostly I’m sorry I, uh, had…” I’m sorry I had access to a normal script, a safe one, and that I hide behind it when I knew you couldn’t, because you never could. “I’m sorry I leaned so hard into the normal things we were supposed to do. I, uh. I don’t know if I really wanted those—things. I think I, uh,” oh god oh god oh god oh god— “wanted to want them. But, uh, the, uh.” He swallows, and wants to die, and says, “The more I tried to fit in, and the more alienated from myself I felt, and, I. I understand how you felt, because I felt the same way, even though I was—and you were—”
“Mike.”
Mike is trailblazing, he’s burning everything, he needs a fallow field to grow something new, he goes on—
“—I weaponized a pretend normalcy over you, and that wasn’t cool.”
“Mike.”
Mike closes his eyes, because Will is looking at him a little desperately, and there’s a bomb in his mouth—
“No, please. I—you showed up for me constantly, and I haven’t been here for you. All I did was send you—wrong—no—weird—no—confusing signals, and I let you carry everything—”
“You’re sending me confusing signals now, Mike,” Will cuts in. He’s not frustrated, exactly, though there is a hint of it.
“Right. Right.”
Silence.
Will might be impatient, or frustrated, or whatever he is, but he still says nothing, and Mike is all alone on his mountain, but it’s an easier climb than he’d thought it would be. Mostly because he doesn’t need to hide behind anything, right now. He needs to pick up all of his reasons, and line them up, and speak.
Mike is really, really bad at this. So he says what he came here to say.
“I was afraid, and I let my own fear hurt you, and I never meant to cause you harm, but I did, in so many ways, and I’m sorry. I saw you.” Mike doesn’t know what he means when he says it, until he says it, and it becomes clear. Because he means what he just said. “I saw you,” he repeats.
Because, well.
Mike is looking. Always has been, even when he pretended not to be.
Will’s eyes flicker down to Mike’s hand on his shoulder and back up to his face, like he’s trying to figure out whether this is another almost.
“I saw you,” Mike says again, because it feels important that it not be a fluke. “I just… I didn’t know what to do with what I saw. And that’s on me, but I made you bear it.”
Will swallows, blinking fast. He’s realizing, Mike thinks. That there is not going a be an almost at the end of this. This is the end of the line, the open door.
“You didn’t imagine—god, anything,” Mike adds quickly. “Any of it. I wasn’t… I just didn’t think I was allowed to want the things I wanted. And I definitely didn’t think I was allowed to say them out loud.”
Will’s shoulders sag a little at that. His voice, when he speaks, is careful but not cold. Hopelessly hopeful. “What changed?”
Mike laughs, feeling a little hysterical, like he’s about to burst into a thousand bubbles. “I got tired of being a coward?”
He phrases it like a question, but it isn’t one, and Will’s face opens up, like door hinges shaking loose.
“And,” Mike continues, emboldened, “I got scared—I am scared—of—losing you. Of—of being a person you don’t come to anymore.”
Will’s gaze drops then, just for a second. When it comes back up, there’s something vulnerable there now, unarmored, eyebrows knitted together.
He’s worn this expression many times, and has been defeated by it many times, too. But perhaps that’s Will for you: Brave, even when he should be defensive. Even when his bravery has exploded in his face dozens of times before. Hopeful, even when he has no reason to be.
Except, well.
Except that today is a new day, and Mike is about to prove Will right.
Hopefully.
“You made me feel crazy,” Will says. His eyes shine, but he doesn’t look away. “I felt crazy for holding on to something I thought you didn’t care about, or cared about less, or stopped caring about when it was convenient.”
Mike’s throat tightens. “I am sorry. I was a dick. Am a dick. I was very slow to understanding.”
“Understanding,” Will says very carefully, and Mike realizes he hasn’t said the thing he came here to say.
Another pause, though this one feels different, like a door that’s no longer locked. Just heavy, waiting to be pushed. Mike considers all the reasons again, all of his hiding places. And then he thinks about how tired he is of hiding.
It’s hideously big, that word.
My god, has it ever been this large?
Can it even exit his mouth without breaking him completely open?
He couldn’t say it to his mother, couldn’t say it to his father, oh god—
“I’m gay.”
The air feels different.
Thinner, maybe, like they’re higher up than they were before. On top the mountain.
Will doesn’t react the way Mike’s fear has rehearsed a thousand times.
There’s nothing dramatic, it’s just. Will’s shoulders loosen, like he’s dropped a heavy weight, only he didn’t know he’d been holding on to it for years.
Mike realizes, distantly, that Will isn’t surprised. The realization lands like a hand between the shoulder blades.
“Okay,” Will says, but the word is really, really warm. Fire-warm. It’s very—easy. Acceptance as it is, understanding without demand. It’s Will, meeting Mike exactly where he is.
Mike’s eyes sting, and he laughs because the hysteria is winning now, and he’s feeling an enormous amount of relief that’s full of grief because this is over now, and it’s been years of hiding, and he’s just—it’s done, now.
“I was really scared,” he admits, because now that the biggest thing is out to the biggest people in his life, the rest feels kind of easy, maybe.
“I know,” Will says gently. He steps forward a fraction, until Mike can feel the familiar gravity, and his hand tightens on Will’s shoulder, then loosens, and suddenly they’re hugging, standing on the same side of an open door.
And here he is.
Mike The Brave.