Chapter Text
Mike managed to sip his third and final beer in silence the rest of the night, and when they made their way outside to walk back north through the dark and cold, he folded his arms across his chest as though his disapproval of this new relationship was not already clear. Luckily, Steve and Jon basically ignored him the rest of the night, which allowed Will to take the conversation in a less serious direction and get to know Steve better. He’d tried to challenge them to darts before leaving, but the Byers brothers were so classically bad at anything involving aim that he gave up on the competition rather quickly and turned it into a lesson instead. (Mike had leaned against the bar pouting until the group decided to leave around midnight.)
They parted ways at Jon’s apartment, resolving to go out again the next time Steve was back in town, and before Will could leave Steve had pulled him into a hug so naturally Will already expected to see him at family Christmas in Montauk. Mike lugged his typewriter out of Jon’s apartment and down the stairs with an exaggerated huff, and Will let him stew in angry silence for the two blocks back to his own apartment.
Will could tell that Mike had a lot to get off his chest, and while he didn’t really care to hear it, he also didn’t want Mike stumbling drunkenly back to his dorm alone and possibly picking up more gutter cigarettes or picking a fight with his freshly hazed roommate. Will’s own roommates were out at some acid house rave in Brooklyn, so he knew his apartment would be empty if Mike was desperate to air his grievances.
“Well, night’s still young,” Will started as he retrieved his keys, and Mike checked his watch reflexively and raised his eyebrows. “My roommates are in some warehouse partying til sunrise,” he explained with a smirk. New York was, of course, the city that never sleeps, and while Mike frequently pulled all-nighters he’d never taken advantage of that reputation like Will had. “Quiet studio space, if you want to join me.”
Mike had stayed the night at Will’s a handful of times since he’d quit NYU, and Will was happy to provide refuge from dorm life after experiencing its hellishness firsthand. It was logistically simple enough, given they’d been sharing clothes and toothbrushes half their lives. Still, Mike stayed moodily silent until Will could sweeten the deal.
“I still have prerolls from that house party last weekend,” Will said finally, knowing that would hook him. Mike always claimed weed made him a better writer, and he smoked most when a deadline was approaching. Will had only partaken once, and didn’t love the feeling of being out of control, and not knowing how long it would last.
Mike considered the offer for a half second before answering, “You don’t need to bribe me with weed, Will,” and following him into the lobby.
“Good, because it probably would’ve just made you more insufferable,” Will replied, a little more annoyed than he’d anticipated. He knew it landed heavier than it should’ve when Mike wasn’t quick to defend himself. As hot-headed and self-righteous as Mike was with everyone else, he’d been particularly sensitive about Will expressing frustration with him ever since their stint of silent resentment towards each other in Lenora years ago. Will tried not to activate that sensitivity by being snippy with him, but he couldn’t help it when Mike’s behavior reached new heights of ridiculousness.
They reached Will’s cluttered apartment before he could retract his annoyance, and instinctively Mike passed through the living room into Will’s miniscule bedroom, totally forgoing his writing desk in favor of throwing himself melodramatically onto Will’s unmade bed. Will hesitated at the doorway, crossing and uncrossing his arms before he could bring himself to rip off the bandaid.
“Do you at least want to explain what made you so pissy tonight?”
“Nothing,” Mike groaned, then sat up and faced Will like a pseudo-adult, and Will just glared at him until he countered, “But aren’t you at least a little peeved Jonathan got a boyfriend before you?”
Will couldn’t help but laugh at that, finding himself genuinely unenvious of his brother’s situation after the initial shock and feelings of betrayal had passed. “No, not particularly.”
“No?” Mike repeated, dumbfounded, and Will laughed again.
“No,” Will insisted easily. “I mean, I don’t know if they’ll last, but I’m not peeved that they’re happy together for now. Are you?”
“Of course not,” Mike resisted, then letting a tense silence fall while he gathered the following words. “I just think it’s a little unfair that even Steve goddamn Harrington gets to be…”
“Queer?” Will supplied, unsure where Mike was going with his complaints. His heart was racing, a stupid reignition of the age old fear of being found out colliding head-on with his present curiosity. That word was so heavy in their history, Will hadn't meant it as a slur, but Mike seemed to flinch anyway.
“In love?” Mike corrected, unsure but wary of that word. “Partnered? I don't know, I just… everyone's falling in love and, and having sex, and I guess I just feel so alone, and so far behind.”
Will almost laughed with how familiar he was with that feeling. ”Join the club,” he lamented, remembering that middle school summer all of his friends had been too into girls to spare him even an afternoon for a D&D campaign.
“You’re having sex, Will, we're not in the same club,” Mike protested, and Will understood that feeling, too. Being on the outside even with the outsiders.
“It’s really nothing special,” Will offered awkwardly, remembering his own utter ignorance and idolization of sex in his early celibacy in the city, when it seemed like most of their peers had become experts in high school. “For a lot of gay guys it's not even about the person, it's just… catch-and-release.”
That hadn't been Will's favorite thing to learn about the scene in New York, but he'd soon been comforted by the simplicity of a good seduction, the relinquished anxiety, the surrender to his senses, all the things that made him a good artist.
He'd only slept with three guys–one classmate and two he'd met in bars, but Will had intuitively sensed he could trust each of them, and he enjoyed the opportunity to prove the reliability of his intuition to himself after years fearing that his feelings and actions weren't really his own. He’d found that a lot of the city, especially his cohort of newer arrivals, were still frantic and shaken up by the common news headlines of the last decade, and Will’s personal fears and desperation to overcome them weren’t so solitary. Each hookup had been different and taught him something new about what he liked and disliked, especially if it was discombobulated or awkward. He could say with complete certainty that jacking off was more overtly pleasant most of the time, but that didn’t mean he regretted the wonderfully awkward, implicitly revelatory sex he’d had.
All that said, he knew it wasn’t necessarily sex Mike craved, but companionship like what Jonathan and Steve shared, like what Will craved, like what almost everyone craved. Like what Mike had known and taken for granted growing up.
Companionship wasn’t even the right word for what he’d had in Hawkins. Mike craved complete understanding, the feeling of knowing someone so perfectly, almost the feeling of discovering them. Will wasn’t sure if Mike had ever admitted to himself that his fondness for Jane was founded on that euphoric sense of discovery, which had only been possible because Jane’s formative years were cold and cursed.
Will remembered instantaneously relating to his new sister upon meeting her. They’d both been denied the opportunity to define their own coming of age, and that short time spent together in California had been blissfully free of preconceptions, even if that hadn’t protected her from the vicious othering Will had become accustomed to in school. Jane spent time learning about the world, developing her own tastes and style, and growing more independent and expressive without the protective isolation in Hawkins. She’d become a bit of a stranger to Mike by the time he’d visited over break, and Will knew some part of her was gratified by that, as much as it hurt. When Will remembered Jane, he remembered her biking through dusty red suburbs in Lenora, her head thrown back, long hair waving in the wind, eyes closed to the sun. Mike didn’t have that same memory.
“I don’t think I can do that, just casually be with someone,” Mike whispered, the words forming slowly like concrete. “I don’t even think I can meet anyone new when I still miss her.” He paused, swallowing hard, and Will felt his eyes pinpricking sympathetically. “I only knew her for four years, and now it’s been four years since…” he trailed off, then shook his head determinedly.
“I miss her too, you know,” Will offered, treading lightly.
“It’s not the same,” Mike blurted, his expression contorted in frustration. “She’s gone, and I’m the only one who still–” Will watched as Mike caught himself and grimaced. “Sorry,” he whispered, the fight neglected, and Will marveled as his friend’s nightlong tension shattered and broke apart. Will suddenly felt wrong for just standing and watching the breakdown, and he slid into the spot beside Mike on the mattress, placing himself on-level again.
“It’s okay,” Will reassured him quietly, hating himself a little for taking on the mantle again so easily.
“It’s not,” Mike replied, his voice rocky with disappointment in himself. “I’m sorry, I know you miss her, too. I know you still care. I just get so… stuck.” Will hummed softly, familiar with his stuckness. He wanted to reach out and squeeze Mike’s shoulder, but he’d flinched slightly the last time he’d offered such an affectionate touch, and Will didn’t want to interrupt his thoughts.
Mike wiped his nose across the back of his hand stubbornly, then glanced up at Will, his eyes slightly rosy. “I got this way when you were missing, too, you know. Couldn’t shut up about how I was the only one that cared. Self-centered moron.”
“To be fair, you were twelve years old,” Will reminded him, unable to help a smile when Mike shrugged some of his residual guilt off with a bitter laugh.
“Still feel twelve years old sometimes,” Mike admitted, slouching back against the wall defeatedly. “God, how do people move on from this shit?”
“I think it’s safe to say that what happened to us was pretty unprecedented,” Will remarked, joining him in leaning back against the aged Jaws poster taped up behind his bead. “But talking about it is a start.”
“I write about it,” Mike confessed, and though Will had never read a word Mike had typed, he’d already known. “It’s all I fucking write about, trying to make sense of everything, trying to get it right. It’s impossible.”
“No wonder you’re so stuck,” Will noted, a little more forthright than he’d intended. “I tried drawing it, after… When I wasn’t under his control anymore. Thought I’d be able to expel it, get it out of my system. It just made me scared. I decided I couldn’t go back anymore.”
Will glanced from his lap to Mike’s steady gaze and recognized that same fear, revisited over and over and unable to be exorcised. Mike was haunted, but it was more complicated because he didn’t want to say goodbye to the ghosts yet. Will could never blame him for that.
“What do you draw instead?” Mike asked, tentative, and Will relaxed again and let his gaze drift to the glow-in-the-dark star stickers above their heads.
“Lots of landscapes,” Will answered. “The desert, the city. Never Hawkins.”
Mike settled slightly on the mattress next to him, matching his loose gaze.
“I practice figures. Jon or my roommates, sometimes you,” Will continued, surprised by the jolt of nerves he felt in what he’d hoped would be a casual admission. “People I see all the time. I like making everything a little separate from the mundane, though. Really self-indulgent nostalgic stuff, stuff that helped me cope back then, too. Sometimes you’re Mike the Brave, sometimes you’re just Mike.”
“Hm,” Mike considered for a moment, and Will prayed he wasn’t also remembering the painting he’d gifted so counterfeitly in the back seat of that van ages ago. “Which one is easier?”
Truthfully, both were easy. Will had been drawing both Mikes for as long as he could remember, and the fantasy and reality figures had presented themselves at different times. Lately, he’d been defaulting to reality, reminding himself that he couldn’t conjure any amount of courage on Mike’s behalf no matter how hard he tried. He glanced at Mike quickly, assessing how he’d paint him tonight, his face all gloomy shadows in the glow of the streetlights outside.
“You don't just have to bear witness to the city, you know,” Will finally replied without answering the question, and Mike shifted his gaze despondently out the window. “You can come out with me and my friends, and not just as my quiet sidekick from home,” Will continued stubbornly, knocking his knee into Mike's to recapture his attention. “Or if art shows aren't your scene there are about a half dozen D&D groups on campus that would be lucky to have you as a DM. Or writing groups that go out to plays or open mic nights–”
“I don't want to be friends with other writers,” Mike interjected irritatedly. “I see enough of them in my classes. They're all so pretentious and weird and overly critical.”
“Are they now?” Will teased, lighting up when Mike snorted a knowing laugh at his jab.
“See the problem with self awareness is that it makes me feel like a hypocrite,” Mike murmured jovially, knocking his knee back into Will's accusatorially. “So thanks for that.”
“You are a hypocrite,” Will retorted childishly, and the familiarity of the insult made Mike laugh again, then tilt his head back and sigh elatedly. They were still for a moment, then Mike's head lolled to the side, gently falling on Will’s shoulder like it had so many times in childhood, before everything had gotten contemplated. Will tried to keep breathing evenly, refusing to be the one to deny his friend some long-needed affection.
“I’m happy for Jonathan, too, I suppose,” Mike sighed before wiping at his eyes sleepily.
“Not Steve, though,” Will concluded sarcastically, and Mike chuckled softly, his chest vibrating where it lay against Will’s arm.
“No, I pity him,” Mike agreed. “He’s gonna end up with your brother.”
Will snorted before finally relaxing under Mike’s weight, even dropping his cheek against the top of Mike’s head experimentally. “I will never understand your beef with my brother,” Will admitted, his lips brushing against Mike’s curls lightly as he spoke.
“Me neither. He started it,” Mike breathed, barely a croak as sleep stole his voice.
Will would’ve been surprised if he hadn’t known about Mike’s well-documented ability to fall asleep any time, any place. He couldn’t remember the last time said place was in Will’s bed, Mike’s nose in the crook of his neck, but it was strangely familiar. Will suspected he'd be able to draw it from memory in the morning.