Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

When Will wakes up, he can’t breathe. It’s like something’s blocking his airways even though the air is overwhelmingly sterile. The bandages—concealing his left eye, and stretched across his wrist and the skin beneath the hospital gown—aren’t wrapped too tightly, but still they’re suffocating. He almost wishes he was in pain because the numbness only makes the panic worsen; the machine beside him beeps incessantly over the ragged sounds of his breathing.

“Will! Hey, buddy, everything’s okay.” There’s a hand on Will’s arm, the touch grounding. “Deep breaths. You’re good.”

Will takes a massive, shaky breath, seeing Jonathan nod encouragingly through his blurry vision. The beeping slows to a less concerning frequency.

He tries to speak but his throat feels scraped raw, probably from all the spores he inhaled. Jonathan hands him a glass of water and he gulps down the contents.

“Jonathan,” he croaks. “I—how long have I...”

“Just under three days,” Jonathan says.

Three days since…Will scours his hazy memory. He remembers the cold, always, and the taunting voice that he doesn’t think will ever really leave him. There was the crack of his ribs as he made impact with the ground, the sharp invasion of Vecna trying to claw his way into Will’s mind again.

After that, it all gets a little foggy. He thinks of the horror that lies behind the bandage on his left eye, a result of his fight against both Vecna and himself. Gore spilling onto his hands, his own screams sounding like they came from some other tortured soul far away. El had managed to stop Vecna from forcing his way into his mind through some other twisted method, but he recalls her horrified face when she’d had to wrench Will’s hand away from his face, the bones in his left wrist cracking sickeningly during the struggle.

The power he’d used to tear Vecna apart hadn’t felt as good as when he’d taken down the demogorgons. It just felt like what it was—killing, in all its violent messy truth. Will knows it had to be done, that there was hardly anything human left in Vecna by the end, but it’s a strange feeling nonetheless. To know that it started with him, and four years later he was the one to finish it after El had weakened the monster enough.

When he and El parted ways with the rest of their group hours before, Mike had grabbed Will by the face and kissed him full on the mouth, in front of all their friends.

"You better come back to me, baby," Mike whispered then. "No heroics, remember?"

"You too," Will answered. There were tears in both of their eyes. "I love you, Mike Wheeler."

"And I love you more than anything in this universe, Will Byers. I'll see you after that motherfucker's dead and gone."

Later, El had to half-carry him the majority of of the way, though she was hurt herself—white from blood loss, sapped of energy.

From his injuries, it was easy to infer that the whole no heroics thing had been blatantly ignored. He was still conscious when they reunited with the group, a little delirious, blood on his teeth when he smiled at Mike.

"Sorry we're late," he'd said, and despite the blood all over Will and the deep cut down Mike’s cheek, Mike threw his arms around Will and kissed him again.

In the back of the crowded truck, Mike wouldn't let go of Will's hand. He'd kept him conscious the whole ride back, whispering about everything that crossed his mind—more memories, post-saving the world plans, until he was just pleading with him to stay with me, baby, you're okay.

Will had tried, really. But eventually his body gave up the fight even as his mind was telling it not to, and now he's here. Unmistakably alive, as the beeping machine and the distinguishable pattern on it signals.

"Hey."

The room spins around Will. Jonathan looks tired and there's gauze peeking out from under his sweater, but otherwise he seems okay.

Will gestures weakly at the gauze. "Are you okay?"

"Same old Will," Jonathan exhales a tearful laugh. "Demo just got a claw on me, I'm good."

"Is…" Will's voice is barely there from days of disuse, and he swallows the rest of the water. "Is everyone else okay?"

"Yeah, just banged up from the battle. El only woke up a couple of hours ago—she was completely exhausted from, well, everything. Dustin and Lucas got hurt by the demobats, but they'll be fine after they get fixed up in here. Steve got his face bashed in again. I swear that guy's asking for it at this point. Demodogs do not punch like that."

Will attempts a smile in return, but his face feels all stiff due to the size of the bandage. The bandage on his eye, or rather the lack thereof. He tries to banish the thought as soon as it comes, to shove away the horrible reality of it, but once it hits him he knows it's not going to leave. He takes a breath but it gets stuck halfway and turns into some awful choking noise.

"Sorry," he hiccups out, "I'm sorry. I can't—"

"You don't have to be sorry, bud," Jonathan says, though his own tone is vaguely panicked. "Do you want to ask for someone? A doctor?"

Miraculously, Will manages to shake his head. The lights are too bright. The painkillers are beginning to wear off, leaving him with ribs that feel like a gigantic bruise and a sensation in his skull that's not dissimilar to the pain he felt when he was still connected to the hive mind—the screech of a demogorgon hitting the windshield of a moving car, the agony of fire directly melting flesh, gunshots that don't stop going.

"Should I get Mom?"

Will jerks his head in a pathetic nod and Jonathan shoots him at least five increasingly worried looks while he leaves the room.

For a few minutes, Will's left alone. Somehow the room feels even smaller with his brother gone. Everything hurts too much to lie back on the pillows, so he sits there violently trembling and fails to empty his mind of all the thoughts that plague it. That maybe if he had done more, then El wouldn't have been knocked out for days; that yeah, his eye is fucking gone and he'll have to spend the rest of the life, if no other terrible evil comes for him, as this damaged, gruesome result of what's been done to him. The worst of them is that possibly, like the visions Vecna had forced into his mind, none of this is real. He's back in the Upside Down, maybe he has been all this time, making up this whole thing to cope with the fact that the world's really ended and everyone he loves is gone.

Before he can spiral any further there's a light knock on the door. Jonathan reenters, followed by Joyce, and behind her is Mike. Will has the urge to bury his face in the pillows and never resurface.

He's lucky to have come out of this alive—four years ago he never thought he would, praying for mercy, for a minute longer so he could think of every good memory before he went. But he hates that he'll never live a life that's not haunted by shadows no one else can see. He has his friends, of course—he doesn't think he'll ever not know them, especially after everything they've been through together. How many times they've saved each other's life without a thought. But all the same he's sick of being this. The Upside Down might be gone, but Will's the remnants of it.

"Oh, sweetheart," his mom says, and Will hides in the soft warmth of her shoulder like he did when he was small. He hates being treated like a child, like glass that’s been broken and poorly put together, but all he wants right now is to disappear.

“We were right,” Jonathan says in the background. “He did ask how I was first.”

Joyce shakes her head fondly. Will doesn’t look up, but he feels fingers brush the knuckles of his uninjured hand in question. As an answer, he slots his own fingers in between Mike’s. The gentle taps he receives on the back of his hand—in the rhythm he’s been able to recognize since he was sitting in Castle Byers reading a morse code manual—almost makes him break down completely.

I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U.

It’s not that Will thought that Mike didn't love him anymore, but still the reassurance is a soothing balm on his internal wounds.

Will finds it in himself to pull away from his mom and regrets it instantly, the reminder of where he is jarring. He’s hated hospitals since he was twelve and missing home after spending a week in a dark, grimy version of it. Even more so since a year after that, when the Mind Flayer turned his memories to dust no matter how hard he fought to keep them and forced his voice to form syllables that ended in death and destruction.

Every time he thought it was over, a new terror would come to Hawkins. At first he thought he was the reason for it, that bringing him back to life had disturbed the natural order of the universe so badly that it had to release its worst creations into Hawkins. Then he moved far away from Hawkins, and something was unleashed anyway. Broken bones and bleeding eyes all part of the same nightmarish curse.

But being back here still brings back the memories of how scared Will was when he died and how it was somehow infinitely more terrifying to wake up. His mom's screams breaching through the barrier between wake and his induced sleep, the slimy unyielding vines everywhere.

He doesn't bother trying to forget. But he does remember, too, the sound of his mom's voice keeping him from fully slipping under the Mind Flayer's hold. If he hadn't imagined it, he thinks he might remember Mike briefly holding him like the most precious thing in the world.

Will looks up and finds nothing but the same loving dedication in each of their gazes. Not even forgiveness, because he knows they wouldn't put an ounce of blame on him for any of their own pain. Joyce smiles, still concerned, still shaken from the last few years, but there's a sparkle of relief that it's over and she finally gets to have the peace she deserves. Jonathan grins, and Will follows his eyes to the bedside table where a mixtape lies. Will grins back. It's so predictable, and Will thinks of his brother's absurd music taste and his camera and his lifelong ambitions and how he deserves that flight out of Hawkins more than anyone.

Then he looks at Mike properly. Their hands are still joined and it doesn't cross either of their minds to let go. There's a bandage on his face spanning from below his eye to some place under his chin. His eyes are bloodshot, his hair a mess like he's been running his hands through it, pale skin blotchy. He's beautiful. He's worth surviving for, worth waiting for the apartment key and getting lost and the promise of forever.

Mike doesn't look back at Will like he's some broken, unsalvageable thing. He looks at him the same way he always has—like he's reaching out and touching magic for the first time, the childlike adoration now turned to something like an unshakeable devotion.

"Hey, Jonathan and I are just going to get a doctor to check on you," Joyce says. "Every time you woke up before, you fell back asleep straight away. They asked us to get one when you were actually awake."

Will does not remember waking up before this, but he nods and tries not to make his nerves obvious. Clearly it doesn't work, because Mike squeezes his hand and nods back at Jonathan when he asks, "stay here?" He rolls his eyes, as if pointing out how out of the question it would be for him to be anywhere else other than at Will's bedside.

Jonathan's probably isn't even needed for the task, but Will doesn't miss the look exchanged between his mom and brother as they exit. He does appreciate the opportunity for a moment alone with Mike—though the doubt is beginning to creep in, latch its unyielding fingers onto Will's throat.

He's always assumed that they would still be them after they didn't have to worry about the end of the world anymore, just like how they were before all the monsters started terrorizing their hometown. But they've been in that storm for so long that they're not used to this calm. They've already crossed the line of their friendship, and if one of them were to change their mind—

"What are you thinking about?"

Will's yanked out of his head by Mike's voice. Mike frowns, his brown eyes surprisingly alert despite being puffy and red-rimmed. He sinks onto the chair where Jonathan had been sitting before, shoulders slumped and blue t-shirt hanging off his thin frame.

"Nothing," says Will. He tries to reach for the bandage on the side of Mike's face, but his right hand is being held and there's a shooting pain down his left wrist when he moves it. Wincing, he says, "you're hurt."

Mike shrugs, non-committal. His fingers drum on the edges of the bandage before he pulls them away. "Demo came out of nowhere. The claw went pretty deep, I think." The corner of his mouth lifts, but his eyes don't crinkle like they normally do when he's smiling for real.

"Sorry," Will says quietly. He doesn't know how to make it better.

"Don't be sorry for that," Mike says. His face crumples. "Be sorry for scaring the shit out of me. Jesus, Will. You weren't waking up."

Will lets Mike take his other hand, so gentle to not hurt the injured wrist. "El told me what happened."

"She saved me. I would've taken the other one out if it weren't for her. I know you said about the sacrificing thing, but he was going to—"

He watches Mike's face go through a series of complicated emotions. It's very serious when Mike says, "baby, look at me."

Will's working eye is already sore, but he does and Mike's eyes widen apologetically. "Will. You're the bravest person I'll ever know, I still mean that. But I'm going to be by your side as long as you want me there, and I'm never going to let you get hurt like that again. Ever."

Will lifts their joined hands to wipe a tear from Mike's eye, and doesn't even realize he's crying until Mike does the same with him. "I want you there."

"Good." Mike smiles, his nose scrunching, his whole face lighting up with it. "I missed you. I feel like I spend so much time missing you these days."

"You won't have to anymore. I promise," Will says. "I missed you too."

"You were unconscious."

"So? I still missed you. I was all by myself in my dark pit of…unconsciousness."

"No, you weren't," Mike says indignantly. "I was right here. The whole time."

"Well, I didn't see you." Realizing his unfortunate choice of wording, Will stiffens. At this point he almost wishes he had taken the other eye out so he didn't have to see the look of pity on Mike's face.

"It's okay." Will finds no pity there, only a quiet understanding. "I mean, maybe it doesn't feel like that right now. But I don't want you to feel alone or like you can't talk to me. We're a team, remember?"

"I swear, if you say best friends—"

"You are my best friend!" Mike insists. "As I was saying, as boyfriends…" he smirks, watching Will go faintly pink, "…we're in this together. It's you and me against anything, always has been."

"I know," says Will. "I'm just warning you, it's not going to be pretty under here." He gestures to the gauze over his eye.

Even acknowledging the injury makes him start shaking again. Half his vision gone in a few seconds, just like that. He'll probably never be able to draw like he used to. It's already enough that he's called Zombie Boy around town—surely they'll come up with something worse to add to the mix after this.

"Bullshit. You're always pretty," Mike says, flushing as he does. "And you've still got a perfectly good eye. This just shows how you survived, Will. You're stronger than he ever was."

Will doesn't feel strong. He feels weary to the bone, drained of all the fight. But he remembers killing those monsters and destroying Vecna. What had ruined Will's life was reduced to dust. And Will is here, somehow, with a beating heart and aching lungs and one working eye.

"Anyway," Mike is saying, "I doubt you're going to like what you see when they get this off."

Will frowns, hearing the sincerity of Mike's voice. He can't really believe that. "Mike," he says. "You know I think you're, like, the most beautiful person in the world, right?"

Mike proceeds to choke on nothing. "What," he says between coughs, his eyes watering.

"Oh, come on. I'm in love with you, you know this."

"Yeah," Mike says weakly. "I'm in love with you too. If that wasn't clear."

"Getting a bit of déjà vu here."

"Yep. With a lot less of, like, the horrors. You know."

"I do know, I was there. Experiencing the horrors also."

"You ever wish it had been easier?" Mike asks. "With us?"

"Would you have told me how you felt if it was?"

"Fair. I mean, I couldn't keep that inside forever. I would have exploded or something." He laughs softly. "I was such an idiot. Missing out on you for so long."

"You have me now. You'll always have me."

Mike leans forward to kiss his forehead before folding him into a gentle hug. It's not dissimilar to the first time they reunited in the hospital with Mike's ear pressed to Will's heart. "I'll always want you. Please don't leave me for days again."

"It wasn't on purpose."

"I know."

Will inhales sharply when pain spikes through his head and Mike helps him lie back down, running his fingers soothingly through Will's hair. "It's okay, baby," he says, almost a whisper. "Doctor should be back with more painkillers."

His eyes are sad, brows all scrunched, like everything Will feels hurts him just as much. Will waits until the pain ebbs to a manageable throb to speak. "Mike, where have you been staying?"

"Oh," Mike says. His cheeks color slightly, sheepish. "I've kind of just been hanging out here. Going between rooms. They've still gotta fix my house, but there'd be no point anyway. Mom and Dad are about the same as they were, so…"

His sentence trails off and he looks a little faraway. Will thinks of how he'd brushed everyone off after the attack and turned to whatever the next plan was, the upcoming battle. Now there's no fight to prepare for. There's fewer things to distract from the aftermath of the past week.

"It's gonna be okay, Mike."

"You don't know that." There's no fire in his tone. Just defeat.

"I don't," Will admits. "But like you said, it's you and me. I don't want you on your own with this. I'm staying."

"Okay. Thanks, Will." Mike's eyes glisten but nothing spills over. Then, steady and sure, he voices the words he'd been tapping out on Will's hand before: "I love you."

The words still have the same effect on Will that they did the first time, the truth of them creating a spark warm and electric. He smiles even though it sort of hurts to move his face. "I love you too."

When Will's family reenters with a doctor in tow, Mike doesn't pull his hand away. He just keeps looking at Will, all tender as opposed to the wary look he casts toward the stranger.

The fight might be over for real this time around, but Will knows it can't go back to being easy, not like when they were kids and they had never seen any bloodshed other than what they'd created in their imaginations with sticks and plastic swords.

They'll never be those kids again—Will's in a hospital bed feeling half-dead, not even the same person he was a week ago. But he wants to graduate. He wants to get into college. He wants a home with the love of his life where he can paint all the places he's seen and make peace with all the things that haunt him.

Will doesn't know what kind of a life is waiting for him. After all this, he thinks that it might not be so be selfish to have a good one.

‪‪❤︎‬‪‪❤︎‬‪‪❤︎

Senior year is a vastly different chaos from the end of the world.

Classes are boring but mostly manageable. Will's never struggled with them, and it's nice to have some routine back. Though it's not the same for some of the others—it's not deemed safe enough for El to attend, so she gets homeschooled, and Max has to put in an absurd amount of extra hours to catch up on what she missed while hospitalized so she can graduate with the rest of them this year.

Half the school seems to be gone as a result of the recent apocalyptic events, which is both relieving and eerie, but it doesn't stop the staring. Will knows he looks a little ghastly with the jagged red slashes across the area where his eye used to be, the marks inflicted by the drag of his nails almost animalistic. The prosthetic in the socket isn't the exact same hazel and doesn't move with his working eye, making him look a little mismatched.

It took him weeks to be able to look in the mirror without covering it, but eventually he built up the courage to. It's not half as bad as it had been in his imaginings, and it's not exactly great either, but he looks like someone who's been through something unspeakable and come out the other side—not unscathed, but alive.

Max's vision will never be the same again, and she uses a cane to walk. Dustin's still got a limp from the severity of the broken bone, and Lucas is missing a finger on his right hand. El's powers have shown no signs of reappearing. Mike's sporting a scar all the way down the side of his face; he's lucky he didn't lose an eye too. All in all, the Party's clearly been through the wringer.

But none of them are alone. For the first few weeks after everything ended they'd all sleep over at Lucas', each other's company staving off the nightmares. Mike's house is now back in commission at least, but there are still nights where he turns up at Will's under the guise of homework and stays the night, his body curled up against Will's on the bed that's not exactly large enough for the both of them.

But Will knows that these are the nights where Mike can't be at home, and he intends to keep his promise of ensuring he doesn't feel alone. Even Hopper doesn't insist against them staying in the same room. Just like everyone else, he's been careful with Mike since he got the news from the hospital.

Mike was never close with his dad. He didn't even like him. But Will can almost see the guilt gnawing at him whenever he heads to and from home, the fear of having to face his family. Will remembers the funeral vividly: Mike was collected—maybe a bit awkward if anything—politely accepting sympathies and reading out his speech with perfect cadence. He'd rewritten and rehearsed it for hours. He stayed by his sisters' side, gently comforted his mom when she couldn't get through her own speech.

Then later Will found him in his car amidst a panic attack, his previous composure shattered, unable to speak. When he could form words between shallow gasps, he said it was his fault. That he could've warned his parents way before the attack, should've said something from the very beginning. Dad would've left Hawkins if he knew, he told Will. I'd never see his face again. But he'd be alive.

Will doesn't know how to convince Mike he's not to blame. Jonathan tells him that it's not his job. It's okay to just be there for him. So that's what Will does, and Mike does the same for him. His presence at the cabin is equally as comforting for him as it is for Mike even if it doesn't prevent the nightmares, not all the time. Because Will knows that if he has one, he's not going to wake up alone.

At his locker, Will pulls his bag out while students walk past them, their casual chatter faint beneath the music playing through his headphones. It's strange that they just don't know all the violence it took to get Hawkins back to this. They have no idea of the evil that was responsible for ravaging Hawkins. The same evil that was in Will.

He slings his bag onto his shoulders and shuts his locker, immediately being greeted with his boyfriend standing behind it. Will jumps, knocking his shoulder against the locker with a bang.

"Woah," Mike says, instantly reaching out to soothe the short-lived pain. "Sorry. I didn't mean to jumpscare."

Will tugs his headphones off, letting them rest around his neck. "It's okay. Just wasn't aware you learnt teleportation in the time we've been apart."

"You see, I was missing my gorgeous boyfriend all day because we don't have any classes together. Homophobic if you ask me," says Mike, biting back a smile in his efforts to remain solemn, "so of course, I cracked open my weighty tome and mastered the art of teleportation. And here I am."

"Here you are," Will agrees. "In less than a day? Impressive. You're a natural."

"Well, I can't just walk over to you like a normal person. Such ordinary behavior won't work to capture your heart."

"Oh, wow." Will clutches at his chest and pretends to swoon. Or maybe there isn't that much pretense there. Whatever.

Mike raises his brows. "Maybe I could learn some more tricks to win you over. Like I said, my tome is quite weighty—"

"Oh, god. That's enough," Will interrupts, fully aware that they're flirting in a high school hallway. Never in a million years did he ever think he would become this.

Mike grins, one corner of his mouth downturned due to the raised scar cutting through it. Will wants to kiss him breathless.

Despite Will's protests, Mike yanks the backpack off his shoulders and carries it to the car like he always does. It's insane. It's sort of charming. Mike holds the door open for Will so he can climb into the passenger seat. Will remembers imagining this when he was younger, Mike being the perfect gentleman. Back then he never let himself get so far as to imagine Mike dropping into the other side, leaning over the console, and kissing him. But holy shit, that's exactly what's happening right now.

Mike pulls away for half a second to take Will's glasses off, safely setting them on the dashboard. Will had felt a ridiculous when he'd first worn them, but he's a reasonably big fan of his remaining eye and would rather look a little ridiculous than risk it. And besides, the lovestruck look on Mike's face upon seeing them might have given him more confidence.

Will grabs the front of Mike's stupidly adorable wool sweater and pulls him back into the kiss. The console in between them makes the whole thing mildly uncomfortable, but Will can't bring himself to care when Mike's sliding his tongue over Will's bottom lip and setting his hands firm on Will's waist, the warmth of them seeping through his shirt.

"Is this mine?" Mike murmurs, tugging on the fabric.

"Maybe. Shut up." Will parts his lips further; Mike seems to be actively trying to drive him insane, fingertips grazing under the borrowed shirt as he kisses Will messily but not carelessly, one hand reaching up to cup Will's jaw and tilt their faces so their lips meet at a better angle. Will's head is spinning and his stomach swooping despite the copious amount of kisses they've shared before.

He's left dazed when Mike stops kissing him after an arrhythmic sequence of sharp taps on the car window. Mike doesn't seem to be in a better state, tumbling back into his seat from where he was half on top of the console. He searches around the car for the button with shaky hands as he tries to catch his breath.

Will leans back and shoves his glasses back onto his face while the window rolls down at an excruciatingly low speed. Mike turns around, messy-haired and red all over but beaming.

Then he turns back towards the window, the scowl reappearing. "What?" he snaps.

"The school parking lot, dude? Really?" Lucas says, thoroughly unimpressed.

"What I do in the school parking lot is none of your business."

"Right. Anyway, you forgot your textbook." Mike takes it from Lucas and tosses it in the backseat. Lucas pokes his head through the open window. "Hey, Will."

"Hi," Will smiles, smoothing down his hair.

Lucas reaches through and messes it up again. Mike bats his hand away, his scowl deepening. "Hey, hands off."

"Whoops. Forgot that only you're allowed to touch him," Lucas says. "Time and place, people. Catch you later."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't make a habit out of looking in car windows."

Will lifts his hand in a wave as the window rolls back up. "Um," he says eloquently, still a little out of breath. "At least it was Lucas, huh?"

"There's that. He had a point, school parking lots aren't very romantic."

"Ooh, are you trying to romance me, Michael?" Will teases.

"And succeeding," Mike says. He puts the key in the ignition and holds Will's hand like he always does. "Do you wanna come over to mine?"

Will tries not to show his surprise. He's barely been to Mike's house even after the repairs were finished despite literally living there before everything went down. It's not the same place for Mike that it was before the attack.

"Okay," Will says. "You sure?"

"Yeah. Got something to show you."

The change in Mike is noticeable on the way there, the nerves making themselves visible in his features. The same clenching of his jaw and furrow in his brows that he gets when he's on the way home. He tightens his grip on Will's hand, not enough to be painful.

The radio is playing some odd rock song that Will doesn't know. It's not very good. But he can feel Mike's fingers lightly tapping out the beat on the back of his hand, as if trying to distract himself from thoughts too loud, so Will turns the music up. The slightest bit of tension leaves Mike's stiffened shoulders.

Mike's parking job is an improvement from last year, not much of one but an improvement nonetheless. Will points this out. "Hey, your parking's getting good."

"You're too nice to me," Mike says with a small smile. He glances toward the house and unlaces his fingers from Will's, clambering out of the car and opening the door on Will's side before he can even touch the handle.

Mike grabs Will's hand again after he shuts the door behind them. He fumbles with his keys before jamming the right one in the lock and taking almost a full minute to get the front door open. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Will says.

Karen is in the kitchen when they enter, an array of chopped vegetables in front of her. Mike's eyes go to the floor first though, checking the spotless tile for the spill of blood that was cleaned months ago. Eyes flicking to the dining table, the chair that his father used to sit in for every meal. His flinch is minuscule but seen by Will when his mom sets the knife down.

"Will! It's so good to see you," she exclaims as she comes up to them. Her hair is shorter, her lipstick perfectly applied, and her perfume strong. But it's not difficult to see that the last few months have weighted heavy on her; the dark circles are visible under her concealer, and her shoulders sag with what's likely weeks of sleepless nights.

"It's good to see you too, Mrs. Wheeler," Will says, returning the greeting hug.

"Just Karen, honey. How's school? How's Mike treating you?"

"School's fine. Um—" Will looks at Mike, who lifts a shoulder as though saying you tell me. "Yeah, good. Really good."

He feels his cheeks heat up. He can see Mike to his right smiling in his peripheral vision and considers it a win.

"I thought so. I'm glad to hear that." Karen shoots Mike what can only be a knowing look. "I'll call you guys up when dinner's ready," she says before Will can think about what it means.

Mike's hand lingers on the small of Will's back as they go up the stairs. He's less pale than he had been in the car before going in, but his intakes of air are still harsh.

Will closes the door of Mike's bedroom and Mike sinks down on the edge of his unmade bed. His room looks about the same as it did the last time Will had been here, a little messy with papers strewn all over his desk and a pile of books on the floor that looks like it's on the verge of toppling over.

There are a few new photos on the walls from senior year, and Will's eye catches on a picture frame on his bedside table: the Party at one of their many sleepovers, sprawled in Lucas's living room. Lucas is sprawled on the floor, appearing to have been put there by a gleeful Dustin. El is showing Max whatever disturbing food combination she had created, and Will is laughing at something Mike said. Will thinks of what he had heard when Vecna had him trapped in the freezing darkness again, his voice an anchor to keep Will afloat.

I love you, Will, and it's not enough but it's one of the only things I'm sure of right now. I knew it when we had just become friends and I'd make a joke that wasn't even funny but you'd laugh anyway—the best sound I ever heard.

But since they met, Will has always found Mike's jokes clever, has always loved his best friend's ability to lift his spirits no matter what. His love for Mike is the most certain thing in the universe, more so than the rising and setting of the sun each day and the ocean tide.

He sits down next to Mike and drapes his arm around his boyfriend's shoulders. Mike relaxes under his touch, his breath whooshing out of him all at once.

"I wish I wasn't so…so scared all the time," he mumbles, muffled by his hands. "I keep thinking I'm going to come home one day and they'll know. They'll hate me too."

"The visions?" Will asks, rubbing gentle circles on Mike's back.

Mike drags his hands off his face and through his hair. His lashes are wet, his eyes dark and haunted the way they had been last year before they came to the realizations they needed to—when Will was living two floors down from him but they were somehow miles away from each other, wrestling against forces the other didn't know about.

"I saw it, Will," Mike says, his voice breaking at the end. "It wasn't like Nancy's. It was so much closer. The new windows. The…on the kitchen tile. The empty fucking chair."

"You still got there that night. You made sure Holly was out before it showed up."

"It's not enough. I'm not—"

"You are," Will whispers fiercely. "They're never going to hate you. You shouldn't hate yourself for it."

Mike doesn't respond at first.

And the thing is, Will knows what this feels like. What it's like to have heard his mom's gut-wrenching cries when she thought no one was listening, especially not the boy who had practically given the order for the death of the man she loved. He remembers sketching out Bob's face and not being able to get the features exactly right because he was already forgetting. Forgetting again. Writing Bob Newby Superhero in red crayon and being reminded of all that blood he was responsible for.

Will hated himself for a lot of things back then,

Will tucks a curl behind Mike's ear. "Talk to me, baby."

"I'm sorry for freaking out on you," Mike says shakily. "I'm so messed up about this. You shouldn't have to deal with it."

"It's okay to be messed up about it," says Will. "We're here for each other. You're always here for me. I was telling the truth, when I said you're good to me."

"You're good to me. More than I deserve."

"You do deserve goodness, Mike. Soon you'll believe it," Will says.

Mike ducks his head, smiling weakly. "Fuck, Will. I don't know how I got so lucky with you."

"Hey, not luck, remember? You chose me. I chose you, and I'll keep choosing you." Will kisses the top of his head. "What was it that you wanted to show me?"

"Oh, right. Don't go anywhere."

Mike stands from the bed and crouches down, reaching blindly underneath the bedframe until he finds what he's looking for. He slides out a cardboard box and gingerly places it on the bed between them. He's clearly nervous again, watching Will's reactions closely.

Will waits for his nod before he opens the box. What he sees in front of him is stacks upon stacks of envelopes, none of them labeled.

"They're for you," Mike says helpfully.

"Yeah," Will says in disbelief. "I figured."

"I know I promised to give them to you…after. But everything was fucked up, and I— I'm sorry. You have them now."

"Okay," Will breathes. He's a little overwhelmed. "Um. Do I just…"

"Go crazy. They're really embarrassing, though. Don't read out loud."

Will takes an envelope from the middle of the pile and opens the seal, careful not to tear the paper. He pulls the letter out and unfolds it to see Mike's scrawl covering the page, a messy mash of letters that he has to squint to decipher.

Dear Will,

Sorry about the handwriting. It's 3:28am and I'm only half awake.

I had a nightmare about you again. At least it wasn't the lake this time. Actually, it didn't even start off bad. We were in Castle Byers. Just talking, like we used to all the time before I ruined everything. But I ruined it in the dream too. You looked so real that I thought the dream was too. I thought I had you back. I should have known it was a dream when I was brave enough to tell you I love you. I was stupid enough to still believe it when you said you loved me back.

The letter quivers in Will's hands. Mike picks up the box sitting between them and places it behind Will so that he can move closer, his knee bumping against Will's.

"Keep going," Mike says. "At least this one. You have to know."

You said it back. I would've kissed you then, but the walls came crashing down. It took you away from me again. Well, I shouldn't say 'from me'. It's not like we've got anything to do with each other anymore.

I ran after it. I wasn't fast enough and it disappeared but I could hear you, calling my name. You sounded so scared. Hurt. It made it feel even more real because I've heard you sound like that before. But I was too late. Some part of me knew I would be, because I know myself, but I ran to you anyway. You were almost gone by the time I got to you. There was so much blood you couldn't speak. But the way you looked at me said enough. I don't know how to describe it. Betrayed, maybe. Like there was sadness and anger but I wasn't worth wasting those on anymore. I've seen you look at me like that. I see it whenever it rains. I think of it every time step into my garage or go to Hellfire Club and remember that last game with you and how bad I fucked up.

So I lost you again. Then I woke up and I wasn't even relieved because you're not here anymore, and I can't call you because we're not talking. I can't know until El's next letter that you're okay and I'm trying really hard not to panic but I think I am. I'm writing this because it's the closest thing to talking to you and I know I'm too cowardly to send it. All the shit I've said in here would drive you away if I haven't already. I'm pretty sure I have.

I don't think I'm going back to sleep. I want to see you again so badly, I want to hear again what you said before it got you. But not like that. Everyone's gonna be pissed at me for being in a bad mood again tomorrow but I don't care about anything like I used to. Nothing's been the same since you left, even sunlight feels wrong. I feel so lost without you, Will. I'm not even religious, but it feels like all I do is pray for you. I don't even want to stop missing you because I'm scared I'll forget how good it was before. I hope you haven't forgotten.

There's a lot in here that I think would kill me if anyone finds this. It would probably be better if I just ripped it up and tossed it in the fireplace. I can't bring myself to ruin anything with your name on it.

Fuck you I'm sorry I miss you

Love,

Mike.

Will stares at the last words, his eyes burning. "Mike…"

"I said it was embarrassing," Mike mutters, his ears turning red. "But you deserve to know what I felt back when I was too afraid to say anything."

"And then you stopped being afraid," Will reminds him.

"Yeah. I was so ashamed here. I was hurting both of us every day I didn't talk to you."

Will puts the letter back in the envelope with care, as something so close to Mike's heart should be handled. "Maybe, but you don't hurt me anymore, Mike. You make me so happy."

Mike smiles, eyes going squinty and one side of his mouth tipping up. He looks sweet, the way he does in photos when Will's in front of the camera with him. The thought is left unspoken but obvious: you make me happy, too.

Will peers into the box and extracts something that's not a letter, but a photograph. "What's this?"

"Oh," Mike says, flushing again. "Uh— I didn't mean for that to be in there. I guess I was really missing you and Mom took pity on me and dug out the old album. She had to listen to me talk about every photo like you were my husband at war."

"Mike. That's…"

"Pathetic?"

"No! I don't know. Romantic, kind of?"

He turns the photograph over. It's from the August of 1985—a bad summer, fleshy monsters and fights with his best friend and the poison of his self hatred all contributing factors to that. But this was a good day. This was Mike at his front door, extra freckled from all the sun, claiming an extreme case of boredom. Will had assumed it was because all of their other friends were busy, until Lucas radioed asking where the hell they had been all day and Mike replied that he had plans, thank you very much.

The photo, presumably Jonathan's work, displays Mike and Will on the living room floor, arms touching, a comic open between them. They're both caught off guard but grinning, cheeks red from the summer heat. Joyce had been so happy to see them hanging out when she got home that she'd let Mike stay overnight, and they'd talked about nothing and everything until the morning. Not what they'd said in the garage, and not whatever was going on between Mike and El. But still it was nice to talk to Mike—not the boy who he was growing apart from, not the boy who was more distant by the day, but the best friend that Will knew and had fallen in love with.

"I really liked that day," Will says, tracing the edges of the photograph.

"So did I," Mike says softly. "I don't think I knew yet. But I knew I was happier than I'd been in a long time."

"Jesus," Will huffs out, looking at their faces. "We were so young. Look at your sunburn there."

Mike rolls his eyes. "I think a sunburn's more preferable than what's going on now."

Will sets the photograph down and frowns. He slides his hand into Mike's curls and brushes his lips under his eye, where the scar begins.

"Will." Mike shivers as Will presses soft kisses down to the corner of his lips, where it ends.

"I loved your face then," Will says, "and I love your face now."

"I look weird."

"My fake eye looks weird."

"What? It's badass. You look cool."

"So do you. You look like a real paladin. It shows your experience on the battlefield."

"Okay," says Mike, unable to stop himself from giggling as Will kisses all over his face. "But I didn't exactly do that all that much on the battlefield."

"Give yourself some credit. I saw you with the sword after, demo blood all over you. Dustin said you sliced one of their heads clean off."

"How do you remember that? I was fighting to keep you conscious, Will."

"I don't know. I think it's hot."

Mike's mouth opens, then closes again. "Oh," he says weakly, eyes wide. He still gets like this whenever Will says anything remotely flirty to him, all flustered and secretly pleased. "I— whatever you say. There's something else I need to show you. It's important."

"Okay," Will says uncertainly.

"It's not bad, don't worry. I just wanted to do this with you." Mike plucks an envelope from the side of the box. It's the only one that's recognizable among the sea of unsent letters and evidently not containing Mike's innermost thoughts from three years ago.

"You want me to…?" Will starts to ask.

"We'll look together," Mike answers. "I trust you."

The envelope crinkles as Will opens it and slowly slips out the letter inside.

"Will, just open it already," Mike says, poking his side. "This is torture."

"But no one's done a drumroll yet," Will says teasingly. He's not worried.

Mike shoves his shoulder playfully and snatches the letter. "How's that for a drumroll?"

Will shoves him back. Mike unfolds the paper. They scan the first few lines at the same time, silent as they read.

Will breaks the silence first, to his own surprise. "Oh my god, Mike. You did it."

"What?" Mike squawks. He stares at the words for a solid twenty seconds. "Holy shit, Will. I did it."

"That's what I just said, dumbass," Will giggles.

"Not a dumbass if I got into NYU, baby!" Mike flings his long arms around Will, laughing a little manically.

Will hugs him back, planting a kiss on his cheek. Mike inches back and kisses Will several times in quick succession, grinning too wide for each to last.

"I knew you'd get in," Will tells him. "They'd be stupid not to have you."

"We're really going together. New York." Mike runs his thumb across the printed words. "I can't believe I used to think I'd never make it out of Hawkins."

"Me too," Will says quietly. All the near deaths and the sinister forces that pinned him here. It seemed like fate that he was to die here, that the rest of the world wasn't meant for him. "I wouldn't choose anyone else to escape with, Mike."

Mike's all warm brown eyes and sunny smile. "Will, there's not a corner of this world that I wouldn't follow you to."

‪‪❤︎‬‪‪❤︎‬‪‪❤︎

Will wants to paint this moment.

He maps it out slowly, his pencil scratching lightly against the page. He's still getting used to drawing relying on only one eye—a lot of frustration and headaches and ripped paper has been involved in the process. But he's not going to quit. He isn't going to let Vecna ruin what he loves.

The scene is this: the six of them sprawled on the grass under the darkening sky, these people who he stuck by in the worst years and will continue to know during the best. Max is taking the pins out of El's hair, their makeup glittering, dresses of emerald and purple spilling around them. To all their delight, El had been allowed to attend as long as she didn't cause a scene, which was self-explanatory. Dustin animatedly recounts something while Lucas plucks grass out and piles it on his back without his knowledge. Mike leans against Will, curls tickling Will's neck as he watches him sketch. He's taken his suit jacket off and his sleeves are rolled to his elbows, pale freckled skin solid and warm against Will's back.

"Prom is usually more interesting in the movies," El is saying, rearranging her stack of hairpins in front of her.

"Everything's usually more interesting in the movies," Dustin points out. "And is that a jab at me? Did I step on your toes too many times?"

"It's okay. You are a much better dance partner than Mike."

"Well, don't compare me to him—"

"Hey," Mike protests, sitting up. He casts an apologetic glance at Will. "Anyway, I think we've had enough interesting for a while."

Max points a hairpin at him. "Where'd you two disappear to? You were gone for like, half the time."

"Oh, you know. Places to be," Mike says, flashing Will his crooked grin.

They'd gotten bored of standing in the corner and not-so-subtly judging their classmates, so Mike led Will into a classroom close enough to still hear the music. He looked handsome in dark blue, charmingly nervous as he asked Will for a dance. Neither of them were very good at it but it was worth it to follow his awkward, fumbling steps, to be in each other's space, to kiss him without fear.

"I'm sorry about the Snow Ball," Mike said after the song was over and they were sitting side by side, legs dangling over the edge of the desk. "I saw you all the way across the room. You were so far away. It didn't feel right that you weren't with me, but it took me so long to understand."

Will remembered being unable to look away from Mike kissing El, so perfect and romantic, and beginning to understand. It was watching his hopes and dreams slip away in a singular moment. The realization that he had fallen behind and would never catch up. He had no idea that Mike had looked back at all.

Mike noticed him deep in thought and took his hand, kissing the knuckles. "But this feels more right than anything. Because you're the one for me, you know that?"

Will did know, and he knew that Mike was it for him too. Mike's love was a tidal wave, overwhelming in the best way, never given incompletely. He took Will out on dates and slid cheesy love notes into his locker and hung out like they always had but now with all the suffocating barrier between them removed. Even on the bad days he would stay by Will's side and bring him back when he found himself lost in the darkness of the past.

"Do you remember that godawful dinner at my house? When my dad was asking about me bringing a girl to prom?"

"I remember."

It was before they fell back together. Right next to him at the table, Mike had felt like a stranger.

"I almost told him right then and there that I didn't want to take a girl to prom. That the only person I wanted to be there with was a boy." Mike touched the side of his shoe to Will's and chewed on his lip. "Sometimes I wonder if I would've told him about me. If he would've accepted it."

"What do you think?"

Mike's mouth twitched. "Who am I kidding? The man put a fucking Reagan sign on our lawn. But I'm never gonna know for sure."

Will squeezes his hand, and Mike squeezes back. "I've just been thinking about it. We've lived here pretty much our whole lives and nothing's changing. It's gonna be different in New York, isn't it?"

"Yeah, Jonathan's told me about it. It'll be good, Mike."

"I know. I'm ready for the better kind of adventure with you."

In the present, in the grass, Will dots the stars in his sketchbook as he does the scatter of Mike's freckles across his face. He turns to check that if it's accurate, and Mike's already looking at him. He catches Will's cheek in his hand and kisses him as if on impulse, blink-and-you-miss-it.

Max sighs. "Not like I was in the middle of talking or anything."

"Be nice," says Lucas. "I think he dies if he goes five seconds without kissing Will."

Mike ignores their teasing and leans back against Will. The sky gets darker. They talk about graduating, about summer, about leaving.

"It's gonna be weird after graduation," Dustin says, a bit gloomy. "Different states."

"El's not even going to be in the country," Max adds mournfully.

El beams, her excitement uncontained. She'll be reuniting with her sister after months, and she'll be able to see all the wonders away from shitty Hawkins and its mundanity. "I won't be gone forever. And I am going to send postcards."

Will grabs a handful of grass and adds it to the pile Lucas has made on Dustin. "We'll think of a good place to meet up."

"And also, phones," says Mike. He contributes a singular blade of grass. "Come on, the Party stays together. It doesn't matter how many miles there are between us."

Dustin sits up, the grass tumbling off him. “I know what you’re doing, assholes. I’ll secretly plant a tree in your room, Lucas. See how it feels.”

Lucas flips him off. It’s his middle finger that’s gone as a result of the demobat bite, and he finds it greatly amusing.

"It's still hard to believe we're leaving Hawkins," Lucas says. "Our whole lives are here."

Max gets the last hairpin out of El's hair, sending her brown curls tumbling down past her shoulders. "And also the source all of our trauma."

"Yeah, that's true. It's just…"

"Change," Mike says. "We have no idea what's waiting for us."

Will knows the fear of change. Wind drying the tears on his face as the car crossed the state line into California, leaving behind almost all that he had ever known. Six lonely months spent convinced that there was something so deeply wrong with him. A aching hole in his chest for he had left his heart behind in Hawkins.

When he thinks of this next change—a flight to New York, a college acceptance letter, a place to be shared—it's not fear that makes his heart race. Will knows fear all too well, and this isn't it. He used to think that hope was a futile, foolish thing, but he knows now that it's worse to try and survive without it.

"I'd say we're pretty great at figuring shit out," Max shrugs. "What's some more mystery?"

Mike lets out a breath. He meets Will's eye, his gaze soft and unguarded. There's no mystery there; Will has never felt more seen, and he's so very glad for it. No matter how confusing the future gets, he'll always have this.

It's not often that two people can know each other like this—it's over a decade of loving each other, of learning that their souls are weaved from the same thread. Each of their battles have inflicted scars inside and out, and Will finds that he doesn't mind the permanence of them. It's almost certain that the path carved out ahead of them is kinder than the one they've gone down to get here.

"Look up," Mike whispers.

A whirring cuts through the quiet of the night, and Will recognizes this sound. He remembers the MAC-Z, the bodies and the flame. He saw the demogorgons poised to kill, claws and teeth ready to sink into flesh.

Will's childhood had been a painful one at times, but then there were the tender moments too. The completion of a boy sitting next to him on the swings, two halves made whole; drawing a rocket ship and realizing how wonderful it was to add more color to the world; building a safe space, not just with sticks and hammers, but in his brother's comfort.

When the monsters lunged, Will thought of these moments that gave him warmth in the unforgiving cold, that kept him sane in the Upside Down and its scarcity of all things beautiful. He remembered his family's unwavering acceptance when he shared the part of himself he always thought made him broken. He remembered the freedom of finally, finally telling Mike he loved him and being met in the middle.

His powers frightened him at first. Did they make him a monster, too? But Vecna had never killed with such gentle memories. Will saved them, and Mike had run up to him and kissed him like it was the reason he had been kept alive for.

Will looks up. The Party is still sitting in the same field a few minutes away from the high school, and there's no one coming for them now. It's only a plane, shrinking into the distance as it streaks past them.

"That'll be us soon," says Mike.

Not too long ago, it would've seemed impossible. But these days it's much easier to imagine leaving, to picture himself watching the clouds pass by on the other side of the window. It's not so hard to leave this hell when he knows he'll be doing it with his real home by his side.