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He heaves aching breaths, reveling in the feeling of being alive. He resents it, all of it, all at once. Another flower withers in the grass next to him.
Someone’s hand reaches to his shoulder and he curls away from it. “Get off.” He thinks it must be El, because she tries again anyway. “Get off! Don’t touch me!”
Clicks mark each of his breaths. He can’t really feel his chest moving, can’t feel the oxygen coming in, and it makes him panic. “Go home, please. All of you. Go home.”
Nancy sighs.
“Are you sure? We should stay, in case something happens.” Jonathan mutters. Everything is a little muffled, like he’d just come up out of the pool and his ears were still blocked up.
“Go home. Just go. Please.”
Jonathan doesn’t say anything. Will can hear the sound of footsteps retreating over the dead grass back to Hopper’s cabin.
He wants to cry, but it feels like something’s pressing on his eyes. Nothing comes out but a broken sob.
“Will?”
It’s Mike. Of course it’s Mike, after everything he saw, and heard. Of course it has to be Mike. “Go home, Mike. I don’t—you need to go home.”
His presence makes itself known beside Will. He settles into the grass, smooths it over with his hands. It would be pretty if it wasn’t already withered and gray.
“I’m not going to leave you alone.”
Will turns to him in disbelief. “What’s that supposed to mean, Mike? You always do. You always leave. And now you can’t even go away when I ask you to.”
“God, Will. I don’t know what Vecna put in your head. I don’t expect you to tell me, either. But you know I’m your best friend, right? You know I wouldn’t leave you. None of what you saw was real. I’m here.”
He’s so frustrated he wants to scream. In reality, he had seen a lot of Mike when Vecna trapped him in his own head. Mike couldn’t understand that what Vecna had shown him was real. All of it, every word and every vision was something he already obsessed over in each waking moment.
When he watched every moment they spent together in the hospital, Mike asleep at his bedside, he understood that it wasn’t a happy memory. He understood that he was seeing everything he lost. That might have hurt the worst.
When he watched Mike yell at him in the rain, about how it wasn’t his fault Will didn’t like girls, he knew what he had meant.
When he watched himself cry just days prior, and Mike say or see nothing, he understood it had been years since Mike really cared about him.
“In the car, that day, you told me something. About El. You said you were afraid there would be a day where she didn’t need you anymore. That there would be a day she stopped caring about you.”
“What does El have to do with this?”
“It’s not El. It’s you, Mike. You stopped needing me the second you met her. You said it yourself—the day I went missing was the day your life began. You don’t need me. You haven’t for years.”
The pressure on his eyes releases and a tear slips down his cheek. It’s so embarrassing that he turns to watch the blackened sky instead of letting Mike see him break.
“Will. Come on, you know that’s not true.”
“Do I? Really? I moved across the god damn country and you couldn’t even write me a letter. You don’t know a single thing about me. I can’t remember the last time I was happy, Mike. And you can’t even tell. What kind of friend are you? What kind of friend can’t see that?”
Mike laughs. It’s not a pleasant, jovial laugh. It’s cruel and hateful and it makes Will’s ears ache.
“I know things about you. I know that you have been happy, you’re just too upset to see it right now. And I get it! You nearly died! Obviously that would fuck you up. But you can’t take it out on me. It’s not like I’ve closed my eyes at everything, at you. I see you, Will. I just—it’s been hard for everyone. You understand.”
“Obviously things have happened to all of us. I’m not—fuck, I’m not saying I’m the only one that’s suffered. I know that’s not true. You just don’t understand, Mike.”
“Then tell me! Explain to me! How can you expect me to just know everything? You never talk to me!”
It’s just laughable. Mike Wheeler can’t ever be wrong, and Will knows this. When they were kids, real kids, before all of this happened, Mike would fight him on the littlest things.
Mike got his first detention because he argued with his english teacher on how to spell “audacity.” He was wrong, and Will told him he was wrong, but he still fought anyway. He pretends to remember it differently, too. Pretends he was right.
“What’s my favorite song?”
“What? Will, what? What does that even matter?”
Will laughs in disbelief. He knew this was coming, knew that Mike would never really listen to him, but it hurt nonetheless.
“My favorite song.“
“It’s the Clash one. The one you sang when you were in the Upside Down. See? I know things. I’m not stupid.”
Will just shakes his head. He’d told Mike how much he hated that song ever since he came out of the Upside Down. He’d made Jonathan get rid of the Clash songs on every mixtape because he couldn’t bear to hear that voice anymore.
“I’m in love you, Mike. And you haven’t cared about me in years.”
He forgets the embarrassment of his tear-stricken face and turns to look at Mike. His face is distraught. Will can almost always read him, but not now. Not about this.
“Will. Please, that’s not true.”
He closes his eyes, painfully. “Just go home.”
“Will.”
“Go! Fuck off! See if I care, Mike. Go home.”
He’d like to imagine things will get better. That maybe, Mike will start caring about him again and they can pretend things are normal. He wouldn’t mind if they acted like none of this ever happened if it meant he could have his best friend back.
Realistically, Will knows he can’t ever be okay again.