Work Text:
“This might be your worst idea yet, Wheeler.”
Mike scoffs. “I think you say that every week. Your definition of worst has lost all meaning at this point, Byers.”
Will suppresses a snarky comeback for the thousandth time that night. He should know better than anyone that there is no rationalizing with Mike Wheeler. Nearly thirteen years of friendship has proven that once Mike has his mind made up, even if it's about something completely moronic, there was no way to stop him from following through. This wasn’t as big of a problem when Mike Wheeler spent his time playing Dungeons and Dragons in the basement, their party still a small group and not the sprawling family it became. Will misses that Mike Wheeler, who was loud and stupid but not necessarily reckless and fearless.
Will wonders if he’ll ever be that. Fearless. He can’t imagine a world where that’s who he becomes. Not just because of the trauma he’s racked up, the fights with Upside Down villains and all the times he and his friends have saved the world.
It's unfathomable, Will thinks, how those battles changed them. All of them, but Mike and Will especially. Broken and reborn. Before all of this, Mike and Will grew up side by side. Their interests, their behaviors, their entire lives mirror images of each other, tangential and intertwined. But after the Upside Down, after Eleven and Max and dozens of near-deaths that led Will to California, Mike and Will stopped growing together. They started growing apart.
Will never learned how to be fearless like Mike, not in the same ways. For Mike, fearless meant evolving from a true nerd into something angrier, something a little reckless. Something that might have scared Will if he didn't know Mike better than he knew himself. He was still Will's Mike when it was the two of them, even if he’d evolved to seem cooler and more self-assured than Will had ever learned to be. Sometimes it felt like that version of Mike was a stranger. But even after years apart, across the country from each other, Will knows that the old Mike - his Mike - is still in there. Mike just learned how to hide him better.
Will wishes he wasn’t so familiar with needing to hide. But at least he was good at it. Mostly. Mike knew most things about Will, had figured him out before Will was even ready to admit his feelings to himself. But Mike still didn’t know his biggest secret. So Mike had no clue that hiding was one of the few things they had both learned, one of the few ways they were still connected.
“I just think there are better ways to exact your revenge,” Will complains, speaking up after realizing he’d fallen silent for too long. Mike groans, ready to argue, but Will speaks over him. “We’re literally going to college together in less than two months. Why do you need to enact this ‘revenge,’ anyway?”
Will turns towards Mike in the driver’s seat and notices the way his jaw tightens. Mike has a bad habit of grinding his teeth when he’s angry. Will is surprised to see it in this context, doesn’t quite understand why the things Troy did to them in the past still matter so much to him.
“I just think…” Mike begins before trailing off. Will can hear the frustration in his voice. It tightens something in him, gives way to worry and anxiety as quickly as it softens him towards Mike’s stupid, dumbass plan.
The thing is that Will isn’t stupid. He and Mike have been through hell together. Even though distance made their friendship hard at times, they were still Mike and Will, against all odds. Then again, Will thinks to himself, there weren’t ever any real odds at stake when Will knew he could never cut Mike out of his life. To lose Mike would be to lose himself. To not know Mike Wheeler is simply unfathomable.
And it’s exactly because he knows his best friend so well that he can sense Mike is keeping something from him. The thought settles in his stomach and makes him nauseous. Mike has been weird over the phone for months, but Will chalked it up to end of high school stress. And then Will got off the plane and Mike was good, everything suddenly better. Except for the fact that Mike is restless, almost frantic, and Will can’t figure out what the cause is. It isn’t directed at him, but he can sense it like he could sense the Upside Down. Mike is keeping something from him and he can’t solve the puzzle.
But Will knows he has to give Mike some credit. Mike isn’t always good at saying what’s on his mind. Probably the curse of being too good at writing it down, too good into spinning his thoughts into stories and worlds and an escape. So when Mike can’t articulate something, Will has learned that there’s more beneath the surface and that he needs to give Mike time. Because Mike will tell him when he’s ready. He always does.
If they don’t get killed by his stupid plan first.
“I have to do this, WIll,” Mike blurts out. Again, Will can hear the simmering tension in his voice, the something that Mike isn’t saying. Mike turns to him in the moonlight and Will watches it wash across his face, illuminating the sharp angles and his long nose. His dark hair blends into the night, but Will can still catch the waves of his curls in the low light, sees it ripple as Mike runs a hand through his bangs in frustration. “We have to do this.”
Will doesn’t say that he wouldn’t care about this if it wasn’t obvious that Mike did. He just sighs and unbuckles his seat belt, turning to face Mike more directly. “Fine. Tell me your stupid revenge plot so I can make sure we actually make it to college in September.”
And Mike Wheeler, damn him, lets a relieved grin stretch across his cheeks and Will Byers is so, so whipped. Like there was ever a chance he could tell Mike Wheeler no.
They end up in Troy’s backyard.
“I still can’t believe this,” Will mumbles, more to himself than Mike. Mike hears him anyway and gives him a dark look. Will raises his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay! We’re here. What’s your grand plan, Paladin?”
Mike’s expression melts into something soft, just for a moment. Maybe it’s a trick of the light. “I was hoping for your guidance, Will the Wise,” he responds, turning to face Troy’s house again. Will can hear the smile in his voice.
“No! No way,” Will replies, laughing. “You tell me what the plan is. I know you have one.”
He does. Of course. And when Mike tells him his plan, Will has to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from cackling and waking up the neighborhood. “Jesus, Wheeler. You’re devious.”
“Don’t forget it, Byers.”
Will doesn’t remember when they started calling each other by their last names. It had been a gradual change, something that only started over long-distance phone calls. Will was never sure why Mike had started and had never asked, but for him it felt easier. Less intimate. Will struggled not to tell Mike he missed him every single phone call as it was. And it did help lighten the feeling of loss, the grief over the distance between them. It was a new way to tease each other. But somewhere along the way, Will’s traitorous heart had found it affectionate. And lately, it made his stomach swoop every time he heard it. Because the last time Will was back in Hawkins, he realized that Mike didn’t call anyone else by their last names. Just Will. And that made him feel warm.
After discussing the plan, they decide Will has to climb up the trellis on the back of Troy’s house. Mike has been scoping out Troy’s house for days, he tells him. Will wonders where he found the time, but Will has only been back in Hawkins again for five days. It’s not like he knows how Mike spends his nights. “Troy’s window is that one, up there,” Mike whispers, pointing to the window on the far right of the second story. “And I know for a fact he won’t be home tonight.”
“Mike Wheeler,” Will whispers back, a little awestruck, “you’re an evil genius.”
Mike doesn’t say anything but Will can tell he’s pleased with the compliment.
A few moments later, he's directing Will up the trellis. “Just a little further,” he whisper-yells. “You can make the jump, right?”
“Yeah... but why aren’t you doing this, again? You’ve got a good five inches on me.”
“Because I’m the lookout!” Mike says, his voice rising a bit. Will shushes him and he rolls his eyes, clearly exasperated. “You don’t even know what to look for. You’re never here.”
Will pauses and looks back down at Mike, eyebrows raised. He wonders if Mike can even see the disbelief on his face. “And that’s… my fault?”
“No! I mean, of course it’s not, but I just…” Mike’s voice is tight again, defensive. Will doesn’t know how they got here, in what feels like the start of a fight. “You aren’t here and you don’t know what to look out for. That’s all. Do you know what car Troy drives? I didn’t think so!”
Will doesn’t comment on that, choosing instead to redirect his attention to finally climbing on top of the trellis. Troy’s window is right there, just a quick leap away. The rational side of his brain tells him to pause and take a moment to gauge the distance before he jumps, but Mike’s frustration overrides his logic. Stupid Mike, he thinks, and then that’s his last thought before he goes airborne and misses the railing by a hair. He plummets to the ground, doesn’t miss Mike yelling his first name, before - luckily - landing in the bushes in the yard.
“Will!” Mike exclaims, his long legs carrying him to Will in seconds. “Oh my god, are you okay? Did you break anything? Will, talk to me. Will! ”
Mike’s words are rapid fire; he’s speaking so fast Will can’t think. He still feels short of breath from the fall and the adrenaline spike. Mike crowds him, his hands fluttering over Will’s body like he isn’t sure where to touch, or even if he should. Will hasn’t seen him like this since they first rescued him from the Upside Down. Even all the times after, Mike never let himself be so vulnerable as he had during their first reunion in the hospital. Absently, Will wonders why this small fall is what sets him off for the first time in years.
Will manages to catch his breath in a few seconds even though it feels longer. He holds out a hand for Mike to help him out of the bushes. Mike takes it, eyes searching Will’s face. “I’m fine, really,” Will tells him, struggling to sound normal despite his racing pulse. It didn’t escape his notice that Mike called him Will, not Byers. Will almost forgot what that felt like. Somehow, after not hearing it for so long, his name from Mike Wheeler’s lips flays him from the inside out.
“Forget Troy,” Mike Wheeler spits, jerking Will out the bushes harder than necessary. A small, involuntary gasp escapes Will’s lips - less about the pain and more the sensation of Mike’s hand in his - but it causes Mike’s face to go ashen.
“I’m fine." But Mike's eyes look wild, like he isn't hearing what Will is telling him. "Mike, I’m fine. Let’s finish your plan, okay?”
“No!” Mike roars, so loud that Will flinches back. Just for a second. Will hasn’t heard him this angry since their first fight, that awful moment in the rain. The moment Will realized Mike knew about him and the truth that he’d been trying to hide. And Mike looks even more stricken, but just as he opens his mouth again - to apologize, to keep yelling, Will isn't sure - a light in Troy’s house flicks on.
“Shit,” they both hiss, eyes meeting in nonverbal communication. Mike Wheeler and Will Byers take off running, neither wanting to wait around to see if they get caught. Mike gets behind the wheel and pauses long enough to make sure Will is safe before pressing the gas and speeding away into the night.
Mike takes them to the quarry. It’s an odd choice for Mike. Will knows there are memories associated with this place that he tries to forget. Memories that are Will’s fault, in a way. But it’s past midnight now and there’s no one around, so maybe it’s the perfect spot for them to come down from the adrenaline high.
Mike barely has the car in park before he jumps out of it. Will scrambles to unbuckle and follow him as Mike stomps towards the edge, the heels of his hands pressed into his eyes. Will doesn’t corner him, doesn’t even try to stand beside him. Instead, he waits a few feet behind him, pretending to look out at the water when really he’s glancing over his best friend. Cataloging the tension, the frustration he can see seeping off Mike’s entire body. It’s what Will does best, after all. Watching, waiting, trying to understand.
“Fuck!” Mike yells, loud enough that Will hears it echo across the rocks. Loud enough that he feels like it slices through him. Will isn’t even sure if the anger is directed at him or not. It doesn’t seem to matter; he feels it anyway.
Eventually, he sidles up to Mike. Uncertain. “I’m really okay,” he assures him, trying to extend an olive branch. Always trying to be a peacemaker. He realizes too late that Mike is shaking. “Mike…”
“Don’t,” Mike hisses, letting his hands fall from his eyes. Will is mutely surprised to see how upset Mike is and realizes that he's reacting to something different than Will's fall. “Don’t say that. My stupid fucking plan could have gotten you killed.”
Will is so confused, so he plays it safe. Straightforward. Unconcerned. Mike will never open up to him if Will pushes. “From one story? Come on, Wheeler, you know me better than that. I just had the breath knocked out of me. I’ve survived worse.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Mike scoffs, throws his hands up. The tension that had bubbled up before is back, now boiling over. “Imagine surviving what you have and I take you out over some shitty revenge plan.” He seethes, pacing the quarry edge. Will remains still. “You shouldn’t have had to survive anything!”
Will doesn’t know what to say to that. “None of us should have,” he agrees, gently. But that only seems to make Mike angrier.
“I don’t care about everyone else right now,” Mike tells him. Will still can’t figure out what’s wrong, why this is turning into a fight. “I’m just so… I’m so tired of having to protect you.”
Will feels like the air has been sucked out of him. “Ouch," he says, totally involuntary. But Mike's face drops like a kicked puppy.
"Fuck, no, not like that. I didn't mean it like that." At Will's hurt, unimpressed stare, Mike drops his head into his hands and takes a deep breath. When he looks up again, he seems a bit calmer, more restrained. “C’mere,” he whispers, holding out a hand.
Will doesn’t take it, even though he wants to. He can tell that hurts Mike's feelings but he ignores it, moving to sit at the edge of the quarry instead. He can't ever come here without thinking about Mike went over this edge once. He doesn’t like to think about that - all the trauma that being taken into the Upside Down had inflicted on his friends and family. The wounds have faded, but in moments like this, Will feels like a kid again. “I don’t like you feeling like you have to protect me, Wheeler." He can hear how flat his voice sounds in the quiet. Mike settles beside him on the edge, the heat of him almost tangible, but Will doesn’t let it deter him. “I don’t need that from you. I never did.”
At Mike’s silence, he continues, raising his voice. “I know all of you still think I need protecting. You still look at me like I’m… like I’m fragile.” He spits the word like it’s a curse. He thinks it might be. Fragile Will Byers, always in danger somehow. Always in the wrong place. He wishes it weren’t true, but that’s one thing that hasn’t changed.
“You aren’t,” Mike rushes to say, but Will keeps talking over him. “I’m tired of it too, y’know?” He turns to Mike, searching his face for something. Mike still looks a bit sad, maybe still frustrated. But his gaze is attentive, and that look makes Will remember all the feelings he tries to forget deep in the pit of his stomach. “I’m so sick of everyone watching after every step I take. You, the party, Jonathan and my mom. All of you. I’m not that kid anymore.”
He doesn’t need to say more than that. If anyone understands, it's Mike. Mike, who probably doesn’t deserve the attitude he’s getting right now when Will knows Mike doesn’t always say what he means. Mike, who let Will call him on walkie talkies the entire summer after he came back from the Upside Down, who has talked him through panic attacks and nightmares and shared his own fear that they’d never feel normal again. Mike, who apologized profusely when he realized how hard he’d fumbled Will’s second biggest secret. He’d hugged him and told him that they were still best friends, asking him to help plan their next D&D campaign in the next breath.
“You aren’t,” Mike says again, but it means something entirely different. There’s a weight in those words that Will doesn’t let himself read into. He’s long since learned his lesson on hoping for things he can’t have.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” Mike repeats, and just like that the fight is over.
But something is still wrong with Mike.
“So,” Will says, uncurling his hands from fists and leaning back on them instead, feigning nonchalance. “Are you going to tell me why you’re so upset? Or why you wanted to do this big revenge plan on Troy in the first place?”
Mike doesn’t say anything for a long time, so Will lets the silence stretch. It doesn’t feel as heavy now. He’s learned that though Mike isn’t always good with words at first, he can put the perfect sentence together with time to think. He doesn’t usually have that time, but they’re Mike and Will. They share an entire unspoken language, an understanding that no one else quite gets. It’s one of the comforts Will reminds himself of when the nights are long and he gets stuck on the feelings he keeps hidden. The secret Mike can never know.
“It… it wasn’t really about Troy. Necessarily,” Mike tells Will, quietly. “I mean, it was. It is. But it isn’t?” Mike glances towards Will’s face and Will knows he sees the confusion there. He hopes he sees his patience, too. “Troy is such an ass. I mean, you know that. But even after you left… Troy kept bringing you up. Around us. Well… mostly me.”
“What? You never told me that.”
Mike sighs loudly. “Obviously. Like I would get on the phone with you and say ‘Oh hey Byers, guess what! Troy is still being a raging homophobe even though you’re over a thousand miles away! And he just won’t shut up about you!' Come on.”
Will huffs a laugh. It catches Mike off guard and startles a smile out of him for just a second. “It just… it ate at me. For the last three years. And it was nonstop. I even…” Mike hesitates, looking uncharacteristically sheepish. “I even got in a fight over it.”
“Mike!”
“I know! Look, it was stupid. I know. And it didn’t change anything because even after I got back from suspension-”
“You were suspended?” Will asks, flabbergasted. Mike has the decency to look abashed. “Jesus, Mike, I never asked you to-”
“Of course you didn’t! I did it for me. For us.”
“For us?” Will repeats, feeling like he’s fallen from the trellis all over again. It almost looks like Mike’s face has flushed in the moonlight, but Will chalks that up to Mike’s embarrassment.
“Yes, for us!” Mike’s hands ball up against his knees. “Will, I don’t know how you could stand to be bullied by him for years. Every time he opened his stupid fucking mouth, he had something to say about you. And me. And us.”
“Mike…”
“Anyway,” Mike cuts him off before he can say anything or ask any questions, and Will thinks that’s fine. He’s not sure he wants to know. He can’t imagine Mike was thrilled to be bullied just because Will is gay for the last three years. “I wanted to get the last word. I wanted him to remember us for more than just those two kids he bullied. I wanted him to remember he was a piece of shit.”
Will doesn’t know what to say to that. Mike seems to sense this so he barrels on, almost as if he’s forgotten Will was there to begin with. “It’s just not fair. He doesn’t get to shit on us like that just because he can. He doesn’t get to say that we… that I’m… that you…”
Will swallows. “I don't want to know what he said, Mike. Whatever he said… about you…” He swallows again. “Obviously it wasn’t true. And honestly, I stopped thinking about him. But I appreciate that you defended me even when you shouldn’t have to.” He pauses, not looking at anything but Mike’s hands, still curled into fists. He wants to take them in his own for a moment, the way they used to when they were kids who didn't have to think about how things looked. But that would only make things worse. Mike is angry because Troy said things about them, things that probably made them sound like boyfriends. Will would probably be angry too if he were in Mike’s shoes. But instead, he feels sad - for himself, and for the fact that being Mike Wheeler’s best friend only made Mike’s life worse long after he left. “I’m sor-”
“If you fucking apologize, I’ll break into your room too, Byers.”
Will raises his hands up in surrender. They lapse back into silence, lost in their own thoughts. “I still am,” he whispers anyway, not daring to look at Mike. “I don’t need protection anymore, but… maybe you could use some from me.” He feels more than sees the way Mike’s head whips towards him, can almost sense that razor sharp glare on the side of his face.
“Don’t be stupid. Don’t say something that dumb.”
Will sighs. “Mike… that kind of stuff is always going to follow you if we stay this close.”
“So what?” Mike retorts and god, Will loves him despite his best efforts. Who can’t fall for Mike Wheeler when he’s protective like this? But he pushes on anyway, feeling sick at the thought of causing Mike pain. “Look, if you want some distance when we get to college, I’d understand. It doesn’t mean we won’t still best friends, but… I’m not planning on hiding in college. Not like I did in Hawkins.” Finally, he raises his gaze to Mike’s face. He can’t read him. Mike has schooled his face into perfect blankness, save for the tension where his eyebrows are pulled together. “And it isn’t like we won’t still be best friends. That’s for always.” At that, Mike’s lips pinch like he tastes something sour. “It won’t change us. But I don’t want you to go through even more pain just to defend my honor or something stupid like that.”
Mike scoffs. “I defended my own honor, thank you.”
Will can’t fight a small smile. “You know what I mean, Wheeler. I can’t imagine my life without you, but maybe some distance would do us some good. Maybe we need new friends.”
“Don’t say that,” Mike replies fiercely. “I don’t want any other friends. I have the party, and I have you. I don’t need anyone else.”
Will’s smile turns sad. “That’s nice for now, but let’s face it. You’re going to get another girlfriend someday and she’s going to outrank us all. And that’s okay!” Will exclaims, watching Mike’s expression turn into something that almost seems distraught. “That’s totally normal. Look at Lucas and Max! We’re all still friends, but their relationship comes first. It’ll happen eventually. Someday, the two of us won’t be so close that people like Troy bully us just because we’re best friends.”
“I don’t want that,” Mike insists. Then, his voice gets quiet, unexpectedly softer. “I… I would never want that.”
Will sighs. He feels so tired suddenly, so exhausted by this future he’s trying to remind Mike is ahead of them.
“No, I’m serious, Byers. I still feel like I just got you back,” Mike tells him, his voice unexpectedly hoarse. “And on top of that, you’ve been in California. You’ve been so far away. I’m so happy we’re going to the same college, because there’s no way I’m letting you out of my sight.”
Will tries to squash that feeling again after hearing Mike’s ardent promise. “That won’t last,” he murmurs, doubt creeping into his voice. “You’ll be sick of me before you know it.”
“Jesus,” Mike groans, standing so suddenly he sends a few pebbles skittering off the edge of the quarry. “Byers, you don’t get it. You don’t understand!” He kicks a bigger rock in frustration. Will watches him with a carefully blank face. “I don’t know how to make you understand.”
“Understand?” What’s there to understand? We’re best friends, Mike.”
“Stop saying that!” Mike yells, turning to him in frustration. Will is still sitting on the edge, stupefied by Mike’s behavior, his heart somewhere between his stomach and his ribcage. He doesn’t mean this, a small voice tells him. He can’t mean this. You’re misunderstanding.
“Will,” Mike says, so plaintively that Will gulps audibly. He’s always been at the mercy of Mike Wheeler, ever since that day when they were five and Mike Wheeler asked him to be friends. How could he ever say anything but yes to him? How could he ever want anyone else? He knows he won't as much as he knows he'll have to get over that someday. “Will, I’m sorry I’m so shitty with speaking my feelings, and I’m sorry that I’ve somehow turned this into you telling me it’s okay if we stop being friends. I don’t know what I did to make you think that, but that will never happen. I can’t lose you again. If you wanted to get rid of me, you had your chance when you moved. You’re stuck with me now.”
Mike laughs, and it sounds wet and resigned. Will hates hearing Mike sound like that. “I know,” he replies, slowly. “I understand that.”
Mike laughs again, bitter this time. “You don’t. I don’t… they told me to just… ugh.”
“Who told you to what?”
Mike doesn’t respond, just shakes his head before settling back on the edge, back beside Will. Will likes him better closer, just like this. Mike, right there where he could reach out and touch him. He won't though. He wouldn't cross that line.
But Mike does.
Will doesn’t register it at first, the way Mike slips his hand over Will’s open palm. He feels it immediately; the warmth, the slight callouses where Mike’s attempts to learn the guitar have roughened his palms. But Will can’t quite believe it because not once has he ever thought Mike’s hand would touch his like this, with such purpose. He can feel his fingers curling into the gaps of Will's hand. Will raises his gaze to Mike’s face, searching, looking for something he wouldn’t believe even if it were flashing in neon.
But Mike is closer than he was a moment ago, and in his face Will sees want. God, Will must be completely delusional. Maybe he’s in the Upside Down again. Maybe he’s cursed. Or maybe it’s just a bad dream.
Mike can’t want him.
“Will…” Mike says, and it isn’t his last name, and it isn’t even the fact that it’s first name. It’s the way he says it, a sigh and an exclamation and a promise. Will’s heart is in his throat now. He couldn’t speak if he wanted.
The night seems to freeze around them. Sound fades away, and all Will can hear is the pounding of his heart in his chest. When did Mike get so close again? He could count every eyelash, can see every little freckle. Will has dreamed about those freckles, traced constellations over them in the sketchbook no one knows about, not even El. And even though he thinks they’ve all known how he feels for Mike, how he’s always felt… he didn’t think Mike knew. Didn’t think Mike would be this cruel to him. Because it cannot be real, what he’s seeing on Mike’s face.
But then Mike is even crueler. In the time it takes to blink, Mike swoops in and drops a featherlight kiss on Will’s lips.
Will can’t help it. He gasps. The sound cause Mike to pull back like he’s been electrocuted. “Oh god,” he murmurs. Then, “Oh god. Will, I’m-”
“Shut up,” Will tells him, breathless again for the third time tonight. It’s becoming a dangerous habit when he’s around Mike Wheeler. He might like it. “Did you mean to do that?” He can hear the pleading in his voice, the barely repressed want. “If you didn’t, we won’t talk about it. We’ll… I’ll go away. I’ll pretend it never happened. It can’t be that hard to avoid you on campus, right?” He’s rambling now, his voice cracking like it hasn’t since he was fourteen. But Mike is shaking his head, eyes strangely bright in the darkness, and his touch moves from Will’s hand to his cheek.
Will is sure he’s dreaming. But Mike is smiling at him, soft like he hasn’t quite seen since they were thirteen and they promised to be crazy together. And Will, stupid thirteen year-old Will, he had sealed those words in his heart like a promise. He’d pledged himself to Mike Wheeler’s side that day, whether Mike wanted it or not. Mike could never lose him, Will had said, and he’d meant it. He’d mean it every day for the rest of his life.
“Will,” Mike says. Suddenly, somehow, Will knows. He still can’t believe it, but Mike sounds more assured. More himself. At peace. “I think it’s always been you.”
“Mike…”
“There isn’t going to be anyone else,” Mike tells him. Will isn’t sure he’s even breathing, “You can’t get rid of me. We… we promised, right? Together.”
“Together,” Will repeats with marvel in his voice, unshed tears threatening to bubble over. All this time, he’d thought he and Mike had grown apart, grown away from each other. But he shouldn’t have doubted Mike Wheeler. Mike, who can read him like their favorite books, whose second sense is always Will’s comfort, who remembers promises like he’s reading them from Will’s mind.
“If you mean that,” Will whispers, “then kiss me again. Kiss me like a promise.”
And Mike does. Again and again, and Will Byers knows he’ll never be afraid of growing up without Mike Wheeler. Because they’re Mike and Will, after all. Two boys, mirror images, tangled and intertwined. As it was always meant to be.