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“You kept them up.”
The words slipped off of Will’s tongue unconsciously, leaving him to raise his fingers to his lips as if he wasn’t sure of his own speech. The statement wasn’t anything inherently wrong, nothing that would expose the uncomfortable truth that kept bubbling up to the front of his brain, but it still felt like a misstep. He shouldn’t be pretending that things are fine right now, like the fact that his maybe-maybe-not-best friend kept up the drawings Will had given to him was an important thing to stress about on the eve of the apocalypse.
“Huh?” Mike responded, seemingly shaken out of focus, “Oh, yeah. Course I did.”
“Cool” was all Will could muster out. He hoped that the desperation and longing for something more that the simple statement had brought to him wasn’t audible in his voice.
He took another look around the Wheeler basement, fidgeting awkwardly in hesitation to settle into the couch. The surroundings were nearly unchanged from the last time he had been here, but there was an air of unfamiliarity and alienation that kept Will from feeling like he truly had a space to belong. Sometime along the months of radio silence, Will and Mike had fallen out of each other’s orbits. The road trip had helped to restore some of the gravity between them, but Will still felt like he was lost in space, floating in a void with only a tether to hold onto.
He could lose that tether at any moment. Will knew the gentle lifeline between him and Mike would snap the minute his feelings slipped too far past the delicate balance he had struggled so hard to maintain. It was inevitable that the treacherous love that had captured him by storm, ready to consume him entirely like the fiery death of a collapsing star, would reveal itself any moment now. It had been easier to pretend like things were normal, like he hadn’t been in love with his best friend since middle school, when said friend was two thousand miles away. Now, with Mike so close to him, Will found himself getting lost in the little touches and softly-spoken words that seemed to cut so deeply into his heart. He knew that Mike didn’t mean it that way, that Will’s existence was just a footnote in comparison to his love for El, but that didn’t stop his mind from replaying the past week on repeat to taunt him into having hope for something more. He wondered how his past self had been able to deal with the gravity of Mike’s smile, because now it felt like he was an asteroid ready to burn up for flying too close to a shining star.
“Will?” Mike’s voice made him stiffen in surprise. Apparently his spiral of self-loathing had lasted longer than he had intended. “Are you gonna sit down?” Mike motioned his hand towards the spot next to him.
Will sat down on the other side of the couch. Better safe than sorry, he reassured himself, but his mental platitudes did nothing to soothe the feeling that the distance between them was the size of a galaxy rather than a couch cushion.
“So, what do you wanna do? There’s probably still snacks upstairs, and I can get a movie going.” Mike bent down, sifting through a box of tapes. “A Star Wars marathon is always a safe bet, but I think we just got Back to the Future on VHS if you want to watch that…”
“Why?” Will mumbled, losing control of his lips for the second time in just a few minutes. Why are you doing this went unsaid. Why was Mike acting like it was a normal movie night with the Party, like Hawkins wasn’t currently home to four giant rifts to the Upside Down, like Will wasn’t in love with him? Why was Mike here with the best friend that he had ignored for months rather than the girl he had said I love you to nine times– not that Will would admit he had been counting– or his family, or anyone else actually worth paying attention to?
“‘Why’ what?” Mike looked up from the box on the floor, pausing to meet Will’s eyes.
Right. He had said that out loud.
“Why… uh…” Will uttered, darting his gaze away from Mike’s. “Why’d you keep the drawings up?”
A slight smile slipped across Mike’s face, like he was laughing at an inside joke that Will wasn’t a part of. Will had thought of the question just to cover his tracks, but in the moment it took for Mike to respond, a part of his heart started to crave the answer.
“It wouldn’t be right to take them down,” Mike said with a shake of his head, “they’re… important to me.”
All Will could do in response was gulp and nod, as if that statement didn’t set off a supernova in his chest. His finger twitched in Mike’s direction, longing to get closer, but he willed himself to stay still.
“Can I show you something?” There was an air of nervousness in Mike’s voice as he raised the question, one that Will couldn’t decipher.
“Okay,” Will answered, barely louder than a whisper. He didn’t mean for his response to come out that way, but the muggy air of the dimly-lit basement seemed to trick his tongue into believing that the atmosphere between him and Mike was more intimate than it should have been.
Mike shot another mysterious look at Will before heading upstairs. Will tried to pretend that it didn’t make him dizzy. He managed to succeed until he could no longer hear the thump of Mike’s feet up the stairs before letting out a sigh and covering his face with his hands in embarrassment.
The now-empty basement brought some peace to his racing heart, but a part of Will felt like he was floating in deep space without an anchor as he sat on the couch alone. He wondered what Mike was planning to show him. Something related to El, perhaps– it didn’t make sense given their situation, but nothing ever made sense when it came to how much Mike focused on El. The traitorous part of Will’s heart gave hope that maybe Mike would come downstairs with a stack of unsent letters to rival El’s book that Will had no choice but to watch accumulate over his own months of being an afterthought. He pushed that hope away. Better to be realistic, to have no expectations, than get lost in a fantasy that could never be anything more than a dream.
The sound of the stairs creaking as Mike descended back down into the basement brought Will’s attention back to his surroundings. He watched as Mike paused, a look of apprehension tensing on his brow, before taking a seat next to Will on the couch.
The too-large space between them that Will had forced himself into before suddenly became a scene he wanted to turn back to. Mike was just too close. He was mere inches away– Will was hyper-aware of the way that they could brush into each other with the smallest movement, and it scared him. What if they fit together too well, if Will got stuck in a puzzle that he wasn’t supposed to be a part of? He shifted himself the slightest bit away, hoping Mike wouldn’t notice.
Trying his best to steady himself, Will took a look at the object in Mike’s hands. It was a school binder, nondescript other than a few loose-leaf page corners sticking out of the sides. He looked at Mike in question, to which the other boy only responded by pushing the binder into his hands.
Will opened the binder, unsure of what to expect. A page slipped out, falling to the floor. He bent over to grab it, making sure to keep the few inches of space between him and Mike as he reached down. The paper in his hands felt heavy as he lifted it to take a look. It could be anything– a letter to Will revealing that Mike knew the truth, a photo of Mike and El together to match the album back in Lenora, maybe even a sheet from the Party’s past DnD sessions if Will wanted to get his hopes up. He turned the paper over, expecting for his misguided hopes to be crushed once and for all.
The opposite happened, leaving him breathless in shock.
The paper was one of his own drawings– it must have been from elementary school, given its lack of quality. It would have been embarrassing for Will to look at in any other context, but the fact that Mike had kept it for so long made it feel like a secret treasure.
He turned to Mike, flushing when he realized that the carefully-left space between them was close to disappearing. Mike only smiled, gesturing for Will to continue looking through the binder. He turned the pages, eyes welling up as he realized just how much of his work Mike had kept over the years. Quick sketches, character sheets, the rare fully-rendered works that Will would break out his sparingly-used nice art supplies for– they were all there, kept protected under Mike’s watch for so many years as if they were as priceless as artifacts in a museum.
“Do you get it now?” Mike asked, breaking Will out of the love-filled haze he had started to get lost in. “I don’t think I could ever take your drawings down. They’re important to me.”
Will could feel the tips of his ears start to burn. He hoped Mike wouldn’t notice them reddening in the dim light of the basement.
“I, uh…” Will mumbled, “I don’t know what to say. I didn’t know that you liked them so much.”
“I told you,” Mike replied with a smile on his face, “they’re important to me. You’re important to me.”
“Oh–okay–thanks–” Will stuttered before the shock of Mike putting an arm around his waist stunned him into silence.
Mike’s side was completely pressed against his own now, and every one of Will’s nerves was working at full power to ensure that the feeling would stay seared into his brain against his will. His worries from earlier came to face him at full force, becoming a reality– as much as he wanted to run away out of fear, Mike just fit next to him so well. The quiet atmosphere, only punctuated by the turning of pages and the rhythm of their breaths in unison, sealed Will to Mike like a layer of glue varnishing a finished puzzle to stay put together. He could feel his heart pulling into Mike’s orbit as desperate and quick as a meteorite crashing down to Earth from the stars.
As Will turned the last page of the binder, a feeling of tranquility washed over him in stark contrast to the panic that had overtaken him from Mike’s touch. He felt his muscles loosen, relaxing into the couch cushion as the basement returned to feeling like the second home it had been for him for so long. As he glanced up at Mike, he could see a smile on the other boy’s face matching his own.
“Thank you for showing me this,” Will whispered, as if the sentiment was a secret that only the two of them were privy to knowing, “it– it means a lot. I can’t really believe that you kept all of this for so long.”
“Will, I–” Mike pulled his arm away, drawing back and hunching his shoulders in.
The sudden cold as Mike’s body pulled away left Will reeling. Squeezing his eyes shut, he was hit with the realization that this was it. He had overstepped one too many times now, deluded himself into thinking that Mike and him had something special together, and it was time to face the consequences.
He opened his eyes, preparing for Mike to lash out in anger against him, but was met with the other boy looking almost nervous. Mike’s body was closed off with apprehension, not open with disgust like Will had feared.
Mike murmured something to himself that Will couldn’t catch before taking a breath and meeting his eyes.
“I meant it when I said that Hawkins isn’t the same without you. I don’t think I could ever throw your artwork away. It would be like– like throwing away a part of myself, or something. This might seem silly, but,” Mike paused, letting out a somber chuckle, “the night they pulled out that dummy from the quarry, all I could do was stare at your drawings. I just felt so lost. I felt so lost, and looking through this binder let me pretend that maybe some things were still normal.” Mike’s voice faltered at his last word. The slight quiver in his lip and glisten in his eyes were covered by a lock of his hair. It made Will want to run his hand through it and push it back behind Mike’s ears.
Belatedly, Will remembered that he should probably respond to what Mike had confessed, but he couldn’t find the words. Nothing he could say would ever capture the swirling cloud of emotions that were rushing through his mind. Will felt like he was simultaneously frozen in zero gravity and hurtling through space with all the extravagance of a sparkling comet.
So, he decided, if words wouldn’t cut it, actions would. Maybe it was the way that the world could end at any minute, maybe it was the soft atmosphere of the basement, maybe it was how Mike had told Will a secret that he had kept for years, or maybe all of those things together, but for the first time in a while Will wanted to do something for himself.
He gently placed the binder at his side before inching sideways to close the gap between the two of them. He took a breath, and placed his hand in Mike’s. With a set of gentle squeezes, he released the tethers holding down his heart.
T-H-A-N-K Y-O-U .
Will wasn’t sure how much Morse code Mike really remembered, but it didn’t matter. The way Mike pulled him into a hug– a real hug, one that enveloped him with so much warmth and safety and maybe even love if he wanted to count himself lucky– let him know his message had been received.
“Do you want to know what my favorite one is?” Mike whispered the question into his ear, holding Will tightly against him.
With a soft nod from Will, Mike pulled out of the hug to grab the binder. He sat back down next to Will, just as close as they had been before.
“Here,” Mike said as he passed a drawing to Will. As he took the paper, Mike’s fingers brushed against his. They both held on for a moment too long, stuck in each other's grasps like they would spin out of control if the gravity between them was broken.
Will took in the drawing: it was nothing special, one that he had originally passed over on his look through the binder. He remembered the piece from a few years ago– sometime around the beginning of middle school, perhaps. It was an illustration of a campaign they had held for the two-year anniversary of Dustin joining the Party.
He looked at Mike in question. The drawing wasn’t particularly outstanding in any way to him– it was just a snapshot of the Party’s characters walking together under the night sky, with no thrilling battles or vicious monsters.
Reading Will’s unspoken question, Mike reached over and pointed to Will’s character, clad in his signature starry purple robes. “You see here?” he asked as he gestured towards Will the Wise, “you’re at the front, guiding us. That’s what you do. You probably don’t realize this, but you’re important to us, Will. You’re important to me.”
Will couldn’t hold back the flush that spread across his cheeks as Mike laced their fingers together.
“You said that I was the heart of the Party. That I kept us together. Maybe that’s true, but you have a role too. We all do. And… well, this might be a bit cheesy, but if I’m the heart, then you’re our guiding star. Like the North Star, you know? It always stays in the same place, like something that people can fall back on no matter what. That’s what you are to us. To me. You’re the North Star, helping us find ourselves when we’re lost.”
Feeling the tears threatening to fall down his face, Will lurched forward to hug Mike again. Each of Mike’s words were like shooting stars, each coming together in a sparkling shower that made him feel weightless. To hear Mike describe him with such fondness, such poetry, was something that he never would have expected.
“Polaris,” he mumbled into Mike’s chest.
“What?”
“The North Star… it’s called Polaris.”
Mike hummed in response, pulling Will down to lay on his chest as they sunk lower into the couch. As the two lay in the quiet basement together, a sense of calm settled across Will. There was no way to guarantee anything going right in the days ahead, with the fiery gates across Hawkins and the smoke in the sky, but for a moment, maybe that didn’t have to matter. Maybe it was okay for Will to find comfort in his best friend, for him and Mike to fall back into each other’s orbits the way they had done so for so many years in the past.
His eyes began to droop. For the first time in a while, Will let himself drift off without worry. Things could fall out of balance at any time, but a part of him knew for a fact that the beat of Mike’s heart against his ear would stay as constant as the shine of the North Star in the sky above.