Chapter Text
Even with the window sashes wide open the air did not seem to cool, the mugginess of a summer night gave Will no respite as he tossed and turned over and over in bed trying to find the right position and trying to blame that heat for his own insomnia because it was easier than blaming his own thoughts. Often he actually felt wrong, out of place, problematic, because even though the upside-down was a rather distant memory he still felt different. And most of all he felt fearful, waiting for the college letter the future seemed more and more imminent, and in his own head Will felt left behind, as if his life went on and he stood still -impassive - watching the days, the months, the years go by. He blamed himself for it all because deep down he had never been able to get rid of the burdens of the past that were getting heavier and heavier even years later.
Now that they were back in Hawkins to spend the summer, then, he seemed to have gone back in time, and Will did not mind this at all because he had always found comfort in the past. They had often accused him of living in the past but the truth was that they were right, everything was easier in the past. And so when to defeat the boredom of the summer months the old party had proposed to resume playing dnd it had been as if nothing had ever changed. Yet everything had changed. Dustin had become more serious, Lucas more strategic, Mike had become more thoughtful, and Will, well, he felt the same even though he knew he had changed. But the fact was that when they got to that table to play, Will saw each of them go back in time and he couldn't help but feel delighted.
The last campaign had been a crazy one and was coming to an end – just like their summer- but Will knew that wherever in the world he ended up in the future he would never forget that summer.
He huffed between the unmade sheets, in the darkness the leaves of the trees did not move an inch, however, you could see the stars and Will loved the stars. He wondered, as he kept his head on the soft pillow, why he could not close his eyes for a single moment but then he remembered that he was Will Byers and struggling with his thoughts was routine. Trying to drown them in his own subconscious to give himself some relief had become what the boy did best, yet that night he could not seem to do it. There was one thought in particular that seemed to tighten around his neck to make him stop breathing, Mike Wheeler. His best friend, true, the love of his life, even truer.
It had not been easy to admit to himself that he had been in love with Mike for what seemed like forever but when he had succeeded everything had seemed easier or at least in part, he no longer had to wonder why his stomach seemed to go into turmoil when he and Mike looked at each other or brushed against each other.
Having made this aspect of Will Byers' life clear, he himself needed to clarify a second aspect, namely, that Mike would never reciprocate. But maybe that was okay, in the end Will did not need that, he could not even imagine it after all this time.
He got out of bed after letting out a sigh after realizing why he couldn't fall asleep, he knew that downstairs his mother and Hopper were sleeping blissfully and he also knew that his sister was probably having a blast at Max's house and he was tremendously happy for her, however he felt lonely. He missed tremendously having sleepovers and something in him broke whenever after a game of dnd, Mike did not ask any of them to stay over, not even Will.
Over the years, given the distance as well, Will had repeatedly wondered if Mike still considered him his best friend, he had convinced himself that he did in his own head, partly because Mike had tried to prove it to him, he called him on the phone, sent him letters, and Will was so happy even when Mike told him about going out with a girl, going to a party without him or going camping with Lucas and Dustin. Will was happy if Mike was happy.
Fortunately he always kept a bottle of water in his room and it did not take him long to finish it all given the heat that was assaulting him, he wandered around the dark room for a while as he wandered in his thoughts and only finally decided to lie down again in search of lost sleep.
He tried to count to try to relax his muscles and mind, one, two, three, a thud from the garden jolted him. Must be some cat, he thought as he relaxed his shoulders again. One, two, three, again another thud, it actually sounded as if someone was beating the wall with a hard object, like a…
Rock.
Will jerked out of bed feeling his heart in his throat, he huddled in a corner looking at what was indeed a medium-sized rock that had come in through the window and was now lying on the floor a few feet from the bed.
The boy had to focus on the object several times to realize he was not in the midst of a nightmare, though undecided what to do he convinced himself to get up from the mattress to pick it up, only once closer did he realize the sheet of paper rolled around it.
Can I come up? read the writing in black marker, Will would have recognized that calligraphy anywhere.
In a moment he looked out the window and it was easy at that point to decipher the figure in the garden, hands in his pockets, dark hair slightly in front of his face, but what was he doing there?
"Mike?" he tried not to shout too loudly because he obviously did not want to wake his parents.
Mike greeted him with a wave of his hand before putting it back in the pocket of his black jeans.
"Can you just answer?" the boy asked and then looked away to check for any movement downstairs since he was right in front of Joyce and Hopper's window, "I'm not going to keep doing this Romeo and Juliet thing much longer"
Will tried not to laugh as he nodded firmly and made sure to enjoy the spectacle that was to come before him. Mike with all the little skill he had in his body worked his way up the dumpster and from there over the eaves, onto the garage roof and into Will's bedroom. The latter tried to remain impassive to the wave of perfume that invaded his own room as he looked at the taller boy with a confused expression.
"What are you doing here?"
"You know, Steve made this all seem so much easier," murmured Mike still breathing heavily, pointing to the window with a gesture before bringing both hands to his legs to regularize his breathing.
Now that Mike was in front of him Will took time to study the way his bangs brushed against his porcelain-colored eyelids, his freckles evident even in the dark thanks to the generous summer sunshine that highlighted them during the warmer weather, his long legs wrapped in a pair of black jeans, a short-sleeved red T-shirt, his gaze confused. The look of someone who felt he was being watched, in fact.
"Mike," Will said firmly, pointing his finger at his friend, "you can't just barge into my room in the middle of the night without explaining yourself!"
Mike followed Will's finger with his gaze and finally swallowed, sitting down on the bed, Will instinctively close to him because over the years the need to be close to Mike had never passed. It will never pass, he thought as their knees brushed.
"I was thinking about something..."
"Ah, so you can think now?"
"Asshole," Mike replied, hinting at a smirk as he curved his lips slightly upward.
"Me? You're the asshole who disturbed my sleep"
Mike looked around as if he was really realizing what he had done - and how strange it all seemed.
"Oh, Will Byers cussing, did I end up in a parallel universe or something?"
"No, because I wouldn't want you as a friend in another universe," Will replied, challenging him a little.
Mike smiled, giving him a little tap with his fist on the shoulder.
"You would always want me"
And Mike was right. If we live other lives, I hope to meet you in each of them, Will thought as he turned serious again.
"Anyway…” and Mike moistened his lips, and Will paid special attention to that gesture, "do you remember when we were in Argyle's van, you know, we were going to save the world, again, and you said you'd like to go to Vegas someday?"
God. Will Byers would have listened to Mike talk for hours and hours, he would have wanted to spend the rest of his existence listening to Mike talk about anything, till the end.
"Uh, yeah?" he replied slightly confused on the subject.
Mike seemed to be quite pleased with his friend's answer because he immediately bent his mouth into a smile.
"Let's go. Let's go now, let's leave, we're...we're so young and I don't want to feel stuck in this life anymore, I need to feel alive and I need to feel like...like I can be myself. We don't have to get to Las Vegas but anywhere away from here is fine, Will"
Something in Mike's words provoked a series of shivers that intruded powerfully into Will's body and forced him to pull his own knee away from Mike's. No, Mike doesn't mean it that way, stop thinking about yourself, stupid, he thought as he searched for the right words to say.
"Wha..do you want to leave?"
"Yes"
"Now?"
"Yes"
"With me?"
They looked into each other's eyes, and perhaps they both knew the weight that question held in that precise conversation, the perspectives that the subsequent answer would change, the infinite possibilities that lay behind two words whispered by a Will looking for any confirmation. The confirmation came indeed, it struck him off guard when Mike placed his hand on his own, which was in the space between them. And Will felt his heart explode, his blood flow faster, his blood pressure rise, his head spin.
"With you" was all Mike added before he got out of bed because maybe that closeness was too much and Will knew that no matter how much they dared in a indirect way, they always returned to their steps that seemed to remind them both of the nature of their relationship, friendship.
Will stood up watching Mike place his hands on the edge of the window to observe the night on the rooftops of Hawkins.
"Me too" Will said as he reached for him, and now their shoulders were touching and neither of them minded that contact, "I want to feel...alive too"
They exchanged a smile but Will in the darkness of the night swore he saw Mike's cheeks turn slightly red.
"Do you think it's easy to get off here?" Mike asked as Will had already quickly dressed and slipped on a pair of shoes.
"I'm not going to let you jump out my window, dummy" Will replied still smiling before inviting Mike to follow him downstairs to go through the front door, trying not to make any noise.
"So you have a car" Will said as he observed the car parked in front of his own yard but still trying not to raise his voice too loudly.
Mike was more than enthusiastic as he twirled the keys around his index finger like a bad boy on a first date. Oh my God, is he flirting? Will felt his mouth go dry as he let his gaze run over Mike's lips adorned with a cute smirk and over his fingers expertly twirling the object. He tilted his head slightly because deep down he cared very little about the car if he had Mike in front of him.
"Are you into nail polish now?" asked Will not in a judgmental tone but as if to say see, I observe all the small details about you.
Mike nodded happily stopping a few steps away from the car to observe the black nail polish on his nails.
"Yeah...it's rockin" he murmured before sliding into the car in the driver's seat.
Will sat beside him and couldn't help but observe how absolutely spectacular Mike looked with his hands on the steering wheel, the details of his face illuminated by the moonlight, and...oh my God is that a cigarette?
All of this was perhaps too much for Will, who already felt his legs shaking at the idea of being in the car with Mike, alone with Mike. It was not a dream, Mike was there and smoking and he was next to him and Will hated smoking with all of his being but he would do anything to breathe the smoke from Mike's lips.
"What, are you smoking now?"
Mike inhaled from the cigarette as he checked to make sure he had all his papers before giving gas, but at Will's question he immediately looked up to meet his eyes and Mike's eyes seemed so dark and intense that Will feared he would pass out or worse, kiss him.
"Yeah...in honor of Eddie Munson, you know"
"I don't think it works that way"
Mike became silent for a moment, and Will realized that he had touched a perhaps too sore button, years later the memory of an Eddie he had never known -but would have loved to have known- always manifested itself among his friends and seemed to have left a great impact in the lives of all of them.
"Do you miss him?" added Will.
"I do, we all do, but I know he's a hero and I'll always remember him that way" again the cigarette in his mouth and finally the car was started "do you want to try?" he murmured referring to the cigarette between his lips.
"Maybe later" when I will be so drunk of you that I will try every way I can to feel you closer than this, he thought.
"Let's go baby" Mike smiled as he began to drive down the quiet street of a night town still submerged in sleep.
"Did you just call me baby?" asked Will passing the tip of his tongue between his lips.
Mike did not answer but for a moment his dark eyes lingered on Will's lips before returning their attention to the road ahead. Mike, if I could only tell you that I would go anywhere with you. And Mike smiled, even as he looked straight ahead aware that he had Will's gaze on him, Mike smiled and Will, well, he couldn't help but smile too.
Hawkins at night looked like a completely different town and even Will himself seemed to see it with different eyes, perhaps because there was no one on the street and Will at any rate had never liked being surrounded by people, or perhaps because Mike was driving by his side, both of these details gave him a sense of comfort. Will found it hard to believe that this was the same town where he had grown up, where he had spent his childhood and the most important summers of his life, yet he himself had changed and so had the world around him, it had mutated as the years passed. Mike had also changed, character-wise he was more on his own, sometimes quieter, sometimes more touchy, as the years went by it had become increasingly difficult for Will to try to decipher his behaviors. But he was still Mike, and Will, well, Will loved him more than before and less than he would love him in the future. His style had changed, Eddie Munson's influence was being felt, and Will couldn't help but appreciate that new, dark Mike, with his more confident manner and the air of someone who wasn't afraid of anything, Will was aware that he would do anything for him if he asked him to.
The finished cigarette flew out the window, and Will took the opportunity to close his eyes and enjoy the feeling of the warm wind in his face as the car sped through the streets of a deserted city. They didn't talk for a while, but Will liked that comfortable silence that had been created in Mike's car - or Nancy's, he didn't know yet.
And during those minutes of driving he had never even wondered where they were headed because he cared little if he was with his Mike anyway. He came back to reality when the car struggled slightly to reach a rise and he realized that he did not know that area, perhaps because he had not been around the town for some time and everything he once knew seemed to have crumbled into nothingness.
He peered out the window to scan the forest that loomed on either side of the dark road, lit only by the car's headlights. At that point he turned to Mike and furrowed his brow, looking at him with confusion.
"I want to take you somewhere," was all the black-haired boy said, and Will nodded, satisfied with that answer.
A few minutes later they evidently reached their destination because the car stopped in the middle of a meadow and Will initially did not understand until he looked up to see from above the whole of Hawkins, lit up in the summer night. He spontaneously parted his lips slightly in surprise because he had never seen it like this, never seen it from above. And it looked small before his eyes. With his gaze he walked down the streets of his own childhood as a sea of memories swept over him without warning, evenings spent at the arcade, afternoons at the movies, mornings outside school talking about how they would spend the summer, the image of two little boys asleep cuddled on a couch in Mike's basement, everything appeared sharply in his own thoughts.
Mike cleared his throat, perhaps a little as if to say I'm here with you, and when Will looked up their eyes stared at each other for a long time, watching each other, and it seemed as if they were looking at a reflection of themselves and their fears. There was no room, however, for fears on a late summer night.
"I like it here," said Will finding himself forced to look away so as not to blush, "how do you know this place?"
And Mike smiled, shrugged as he absentmindedly drummed his fingers on the steering wheel following the beat of a song they were playing on the radio. Will furrowed his brow and tilted his head in question.
"Wait...you didn't bring any girls here, did you?"
"What? no! I came here for the Fourth of July last year, I think" Mike smiled and Will knew that he probably went there with a girl, he tried to quickly banish from his mind the thought of what he could have been doing with such a girl in such a place but Mike resumed speaking shortly after "I love this view" he added.
Will loved it too, in fact he felt that he would gladly spend the rest of the remaining nights there before the end of the summer as long as Mike stayed with him.
"Don’t you?" asked Mike therefore, looking at Will in the dark.
"Very much," replied Will, swallowing hard because for the first time he was asking himself not to look away from Mike.
He didn't and managed to feel Mike’s eyes on his own face for a long time, it was fair on the other hand, considering that he was also basking in the facial features of the person in front of him, everything inside him seemed to wake up because of that closeness, from his heart to the muscles that seemed to yearn for movement, asking Will himself to touch Mike. But Will did not, he remained motionless like a statue for a while longer, and only when he realized that Mike had not yet looked away even for a second did he decide to lean in slightly. An imperceptible movement, his own body being propelled by an invisible force -his own feelings- jutting out toward Mike.
Mike's eyes traveled from Will's eyes to his lips and then closed hard, Will in the silence heard him swallow and seemed to sense his difficulty. And since Will would never put Mike in difficulty he tried to distract him from whatever those thoughts might be that were oppressing him.
"Do you ever miss the past?" he asked sharply.
Mike lowered his gaze to his hands rubbing nervously against the black fabric of his pants and barely nodded.
"Yeah, sometimes I force myself to remember everything to make sure I didn't just...dream it. And instead I realize that it's all true and that if you think about it our life has totally changed since...you know, that day"
"You know, Mike, I think my life was meant to be not normal" and he hinted a smile to reassure the boy that there was no bitterness in his words, only awareness.
"I mean, look at us, none of us are really normal, but that's okay, normal is boring as fuck"
Mike cussing awakened some kind of instinct in Will that demanded that he take him and kiss him but which he fortunately managed to resist every time, partly because Mike would probably be shocked by such a gesture and Will did not even want to imagine a hypothetical reaction. It will never happen, he repeated to himself. Although that night he seemed to see Mike in a different light, as if he was finally trying to be himself.
“Crazy together right?”
Mike's eyes widened and Will felt in every inch of his body the fear that he had touched the wrong button, yet the next smile on Mike's lips made him relax again.
"Do you still remember?" and there was hope in his voice.
His hand in the meantime had landed on Will's knee, actually slightly above the knee to be precise, and Will felt his skin go hot under that sudden touch from Mike that he had longed for so long and now was not ready to face.
"How could I forget" he said in a sigh.
Mike applied gentle pressure on his leg before lowering his gaze to his hand, Will at this point knew that he was on fire and that even though it was dark his red face was clearly visible to the boy's eyes.
"Come," Mike said therefore before exiting the car.
Will followed him out trying to take deep breaths more than anything else so as not to get an anxiety attack right in front of Mike. The night was still warm but on the hill where they were admiring the scenery there seemed to come a light cool wind that brushed Will's face and made Mike's hair move. Will had wanted to sink his fingers into it all his life but he knew how many times Mike had repeated that he hated it when someone touched his hair, he said it when his mother fixed it before leaving the house, he said it when dustin messed it up or when Steve tried to tame it with annoying gel. And Will punctually remembered that night when they had fallen asleep on the couch years before and when he had stroked Mike's hair until he succumbed in his sleep. It had always been that way between them, Mike gave him reason to believe that their relationship was different, unique, special, and Will clung to that ideal because that was all he could have.
Mike climbed on the hood of the car causing strange sounds.
"Are you sure it holds us?" asked Will therefore suspiciously pointing at the car.
"Yeah, I'm sure, I've seen Nancy making out with Jonathan up here a couple of times," Mike muttered with a shrug before he started going through his own pockets and Will knew he was looking for a cigarette.
"This information about my brother I would rather not have known," he made an expression of disgust before climbing into the car as well.
The other boy held out his hand to help him sit down, and although Will knew full well that he was capable of doing so himself, he squeezed it and sat down next to him. Any contact with Mike was causing sparks in his own body, and Will hated that.
"I like your new style," Will said, regretting it shortly after because it didn't make much sense what he had just said, or maybe it did.
Mike seemed to smile as he placed the cigarette between his lips without lighting it.
"Thanks, I feel like I'm trying to find myself, to figure out what I really like, what I really want" his voice became rougher as he said the last sentence and Will seemed to choke on his own saliva.
And what do you really want? He would have liked to ask, but he did not yet feel able to ask Mike such a direct question. If Mike was trying to figure out what he really wanted, Will had figured this out long before and had been clear in his own mind for some time now - he wanted the impossible, he wanted Mike.
"Mike" whispered Will as the boy in front of him lit the cigarette and proceeded to inhale from it in the hottest way possible.
"Will" he replied, letting gray smoke pour from his lips.
"What would you do if this was the last night in the world?" asked Will as he shifted his gaze from the view of the city from above to Mike sitting next to him.
Maybe he would not like the answer, maybe it would hurt him but he needed to know because inside he was sure that he would spend the last night in the world that exact way, on the hood of a car with Mike.
"I'd still spend it with you" Mike whispered while maintaining eye contact, and Will felt the world crumble beneath his feet as fast as he felt his heart pounding in his chest, because Mike had said exactly what he wanted to hear and he couldn't fathom what he had done in his life to deserve that kind of happiness.
He wrinkled his forehead and moistened his lips, looked around absentmindedly for the words to say but without finding them, all the while Mike's gaze was still on him, he would not stop looking at him.
Look at me again, Will thought as out of the corner of his eye he sensed Mike's attention on himself, look at me again but don't ask me to explain how I feel.
"Be serious"
"I am"
Mike smiled blissfully showing his white teeth and acting as if he had not said the most beautiful thing Will had ever heard in his life.
Well, so Mike would spend his last night in the world the same way Will would, however Will knows that Mike does not mean what he means, he cannot. He feels inside, though, that on such a night maybe it's worth daring, and so he does.
"And what would you do with me?" he asked softly, afraid of the answer, but straining to look him in the eye.
Mike's long eyelashes twitched as he blinked, remaining puzzled at first, as if Will had asked too much of him, and maybe he had, maybe Will had really asked too much of him, maybe Will was crossing that fateful line that separated a normal friendship from whatever was between the two of them.
Mike took a few more puffs and Will allowed himself to look at the way his lips rested around the cigarette filter. Will hated smoking but loved Mike and it was necessary to compromise.
"This," whispered Mike and then took an intense drag and leaned toward Will.
In an instant Will felt Mike's fingers on his neck and felt his legs trembling as his mouth moved closer and closer and closer, almost instinctively he felt like parting his lips because once again he hated smoking but God how he loved Mike. In that seemingly comfortable position their lips were inches apart, Will inhaled the smoke praying not to cough lest he break the complicity of that moment.
He squinted his eyes, aware that his mouth had almost touched Mike's and that the smoke he had breathed in had been stored for brief seconds in Mike's lungs. Will felt high, drunk, without being either.
He stood still trying more to process what had just happened, Mike in the meantime had resumed smoking but Will could tell by the way his fingers tightened around the cigarette that he too was at least a little nervous, maybe half as nervous as Will was, though.
His own body was awakening from a trance, almost instinctively he ran the tip of his tongue over his still-open lips, hoping to feel a bit of Mike on them, hoping to taste him.
Wherever I will be in the future, he thought as he sighed audibly, this memory will remain etched inside me. And he hated herself because after all, that was the perfect opportunity to kiss him and because he had let it slip through his own fingers. But Mike wouldn't stop looking at him and wouldn't stop staying by his side, and Will couldn't get enough of having Mike by his side.
"What else would you do?"
His heart threatened to explode out of his chest as he ran his gaze over Mike's moonlit features, he wished he could kiss every single inch of his face, he wished he could kiss him all night long until everything would be the same again at dawn.
Mike hesitated, perhaps caught off guard by another such direct question, Will looked at him curiously, his face slightly tilted and his eyes slightly half-closed seemed to say want to play?
Yes, the dark-haired boy's eyes seemed to say as he pressed his lips against each other.
Please do something, thought the shorter boy without realizing that in the process his hands had started fidgeting. Then again, it was hard for Will to remain calm when it came to dealing with Mike.
Minutes passed that seemed interminable but finally Mike seemed to reset the distance between their two bodies, he approached with extreme slowness, perhaps too much, his face stopped inches from Will's, who was on fire in the process. Mike stood still for a few more fractions of a second perhaps to give Will a chance to move in case he changed his mind, but Will would never change his mind and would never shy away from such proximity. His friend seemed to understand this because Mike's lips finally went to rest on Will's neck, just below his jaw and oh, Will felt fireworks in every part of his body.
Mike's lips were on his skin, how could he remain calm, the point of contact seemed to release shivers that invaded his entire body along with the imminent and overpowering desire to ask for more, to want more. Will swallowed when Mike moved his mouth away from his neck, and in the silence his own uneven breathing was more perceptible than ever. Will scanned the boy's irises that seemed darker than night itself, he wanted to tell Mike so many things, he wanted to ask Mike so many things but the words seemed to die on the tip of his tongue. Why did you do that? Do you really mean it? And if you really mean it can you continue? Please don't stop...
A resounding sigh escaped his lips as he tried to turn off his own thoughts and analyze Mike's expression, it was hard to read into him but it seemed to him that Mike himself was waiting for any reaction from Will, any gesture that might unlock him from that limbo.
Without quite knowing what to do or how to move Will nodded slightly, hoping that was the sign Mike needed. Mike blinked several times before tilting his head and leaving a second kiss on Will's neck, this time lower than the previous one, Will was sure Mike could feel his heart beating at an abnormal rate. This time Mike did not pull away, instead he left another kiss, another, another. And the feeling of the boy's moist mouth against his own skin felt like something very much like heaven. Will tried to let himself go and leave no room for his own intrusive thoughts, he gradually squinted his eyelids while his face was still occasionally brushed by a summer wind.
He realized perhaps too late that his own breathing had become decidedly erratic, how could the opposite be possible on the other hand, considering how much he wanted Mike with all of himself. And it was not a dream he was experiencing, Mike was real and he was there and his mouth was on his skin and oh my God, it was a feeling of pure pleasure that enveloped him like the smoke from Mike's cigarette.
Will felt the air miss kiss after kiss but at the same time, kiss after kiss, he felt the life come into him, the will to live, the will to feel alive.
Mike's mouth grazed a precise spot at the base of his neck and Will, as if driven on autopilot, went to sink his fingers into his hair. He regretted it soon after because even though he was no longer very lucid he remembered Mike's whole history and hatred of anyone who dared touch his hair, he thought it was okay if Mike suddenly stopped and suddenly decided to end it all because of that hasty gesture.
However, Mike didn't, a whimper came from his lips that Will felt vibrating against his own neck and led him to run his fingers through Mike's dark hair with even more desire and longing. Mike liked to feel Will's fingers in his own hair and Will could only go crazy because of this valuable information.
If this is a dream, he thought as Mike kissed his jaw and his scent invaded his own nostrils, if this is a dream don't wake me up.
Nevertheless, Will Byers was, well, Will Byers. And when there was no one to sabotage his happiness it was he himself who sabotaged it himself, or rather, his intrusive thoughts, because apparently according to Will's subconscious there was no room for joy in his life.
And so, even in such a beautiful moment, Will felt his own thoughts tightening around his own throat to prevent him from breathing. What are we doing? Why is he doing this? Mike is not like this, he is not like me, he doesn't really want me, he is doing this because he is having fun while I am melting for him, he is doing this without thinking about the fact that I love him, he is doing this because he doesn't know how it makes me feel inside, he doesn't really mean it. He doesn't really mean all of this....
"Mike..." his voice seemed to bring Mike back to reality because as soon as he heard it he looked up at him, moving just far enough away to look him in the eye and wait for more words, which came shortly after "what are we doing?"