Chapter Text
He pauses to catch a breath right after comparing himself to Lois Lane. He doesn’t have time to wonder if all the purple palm tree delight he’s been around for hours in a cramped van is making him a little loopy.
He looks up. Will’s giving him a searching, unreadable look. Like Mike isn’t making any sense.
And he’s not. He knows he’s not. Superman? The Daily Planet? Shit. At what point did he start rambling - and why can’t he get himself to stop?
“Sorry.” I don’t know why this is all I can think about right now.
“No…”
“It’s so stupid, given everything that’s going on. It’s just… I don’t know.” He pauses to breathe again, to try to get his own thoughts to slow down long enough to make an iota of sense. He’s nervous - somewhere, buried deep, he knows he’s dancing around something he needs to say about El - something he doesn’t want to say. “…I just—“
“You’re scared of losing her.” Will supplies.
And that’s not quite it. But a recent memory blares like a voice on a megaphone, echoing across Mike’s mind: his own words.
I feel like I… like I lost you, or something. Does that make sense?
Mike looks up. He meets Will’s eyes, and it’s like he’s been hit in the stomach. No air in his lungs. No oxygen in his brain.
As he gazes, he wonders - not for the first time - if maybe he’s dancing around… more than one something that he doesn’t want to say.
But maybe he won’t have to?
He glances down, swallows, meets Will’s eyes again. Commands himself to nod in assent, resulting in the tiniest inclination of the head that could pass for a nod. Keeps searching Will’s eyes.
His thoughts are moving at about a mile a minute, and none of them seem to be coherent English sentences. Based, probably, on the fact that he has no idea what fucking wavelength he’s currently on, he’s finding it sadly impossible to determine if Will is on the same one. Fuck. Fuck.
“Wavelength” makes him think deliriously for a split second of the iconic Pink Floyd album cover. Which feels so on the nose he wants to cry and laugh at the same time. Maybe the purple palm tree delight contact high really is affecting him. He’s about 0.5 seconds from needing to stifle a laugh/sob when—
“Can I… show you something?”
Will doesn’t wait for a reply, or he takes Mike’s unbroken gaze as a yes - either way, Mike’s grateful, since apparently his brain is currently full of secondhand PPD, Pink Floyd album covers, static, and rocks. (He suspects if he rolled his head around right now he’d hear clunking noises. He doesn’t roll his head around.)
He keeps his brow furrowed slightly as he watches Will digging around for something. What is he looking for? He swears his pulse has sped up to match the bpm of that Bronski Beat song that he loves but can never remember the name of, but Will doesn’t need to know his heart’s going haywire.
Will pulls an earthy brown paper scroll from his bag.
Uhh, what’s that?
Keeping his face carefully frozen in a slight frown, Mike reaches for the scroll that Will offers.
It’s… it’s nothing, just this painting I’ve been working on.
His hands aren’t shaking as he starts to unroll, but somehow it feels like he’s pulling his muscles out of quicksand. They don’t seem to want to move.
Cool.
He unfurls a bit more.
He… he won’t show me what he’s painting. I think it is for a girl!
The painting is before him. And it is - it’s a full-blown painting. Oil on canvas. A fully realized mythical landscape, so similar in content to all of Will’s work before - the dragon, the brave warriors attacking with sword and shield - but this is far, far beyond the skill Mike has become familiar with from Will. This painting practically has a heartbeat. This painting’s heart beats nearly as loudly and strongly as Mike’s does, looking at it.
He realizes he’s smiling. He’s beaming. He thinks actual sunbeams might be shooting out of his face.
He doesn’t care.
I think it is for a girl!
Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.
“This is amazing.” He turns to Will, almost giddy. Almost delirious. “Did you paint this??”
Will’s face mirrors Mike’s. Excitement. Relief. Something more - a spark that’s too scary to name. Mike is dizzy. He thinks he might giggle - he doesn’t know if he’s ever “giggled” before. (He still suspects some fresh air may be in order, but it’s a low priority at the moment.)
“Yeah. Yeah.” Will says, looking back and forth between Mike’s eyes. Mike can almost see the spark that he’s too hesitant to name. He feels he could reach out and touch it, cradle it in his hands like a firefly.
“I mean.” Will breaks eye contact. He faces forward. “I mean… I mean, El asked me to.”
In his mind Mike sees an image flash like a movie: he opens up his cupped hands and there is no firefly.
What? …El?
Will’s head is turned away from Mike’s, looking out into the distance. Mike stares after him, scrunching his brows, trying to find Will’s gaze again. Listening. Trying to understand.
“She commissioned it, basically. I mean, she told me what to draw—“
Will is painting a lot. But he won’t show me what he is painting. He won’t show me what he is painting. He won’t show me what he’s—
“Anyway,” Mike hears, which breaks the verbal loop his brain has gotten stuck on, tied to the metaphorical tracks of this train of thought, “my point is—“ and after a fraction of a moment, Will leans in close to touch the painting.
Will’s forearm brushes Mike’s hand. And rests there. He starts speaking. Words. Definitely words. Mike is sure words are entering his ears, but his brain is not processing them.
Mike glances down. Bites his lip. His hand is full of warmth, his shoulder has turned to stone because now he can’t move. Will’s whole torso is thiiis close and he can feel his presence like an invisible force field. Focus. Will is talking. Look at the painting. His head is full of bees. His head is full of poetry. He doesn’t think he’s ever written a poem. He’s pretty sure he’s writing about seven and none of them make any sense and they don’t rhyme and something about hands brushing as they reach for fireflies and speaking of flying fires, dragon paintings as a metaphor somehow and—
“—your coat of arms here? It’s a heart.”
His poetry-addled brain latches on to the word. It’s like a portal - he’s present again. He looks up at Will.
“And I know it’s sort of on the nose, but that’s what holds this party together. Heart. Because, I mean, without heart, we’d all fall apart.”
No fair, Mike thinks. Your poems rhyme. Is Will really saying these things?
Will would fall apart without Mike?
“Even El,” Will emphasizes. “Especially El.” He leans away, turning instead to face out the window. Mike can’t decide if it’s Will’s body language that’s just become a metaphor for emotional distance or his words. He thinks it must be both, feels the sudden distance regardless. His hand feels cold.
“These past few months, she’s been so lost without you.” Will is saying. “It’s just, she’s so different from other people. And when you’re… when you’re different, sometimes you feel like… like a mistake.” He’s choked up. Mike can hear it.
Sometimes, I think it’s just scary, Mike’s memory supplies softly. To open up like that - to say how you really feel.
Who are we talking about right now, Mike wonders. El! A part of him chastises. No, another part murmurs gently.
“But,” Will whips around. There are tears in his eyes. “You make her feel like she’s not a mistake at all. Like she’s better for being different.”
Especially to people you care about the most.
“And that gives her the courage to fight on.”
Because what if - what if they don’t like the truth?
The truth, Mike thinks. Being different. A mistake. Courage. His head is full of El, his head is full of Will. His head is full of Mike Wheeler. Courage. A mistake. Being different. The truth. His head is full of fireflies and he can’t think. He has no idea what’s happening on his face and it scares him.
“If she was mean to you, or she seemed like she was pushing you away, it’s because she’s scared of losing you, just like you’re scared of losing her.”
Like I… lost you or something.
Yes, he thinks. Scared. I am scared. Scared of losing—… his mind won’t supply a pronoun. He swears he hears a bzzt and thinks it’s bees, or it’s electricity as his brain short circuits. He loses further control over his face. He’s looking at Will’s lips. Stop that. Smile at him, he’s talking about El. Get it together.
“And if she was going to lose you, I think she’d rather just get it over with quick. Like ripping off a band-aid.”
Wait - what? Who’s losing me? No one’s losing me.
“So, yeah. El needs you, Mike. And she always will.”
That’s better. You’re not - she’s - I mean she’s - not losing me.
It occurs to him a beat too late that Will is done speaking, that he has just bared his heart both verbally and in the form of a painting - or, well. El has bared… her heart? Mike’s head hurts. He’s a writer - words have never felt more difficult for him than in this moment of utter brain sludge.
“…Yeah?” He finally musters, letting his face move intuitively. His heart pounds with affection. He knows it shows.
“Yeah,” Will breathes back. He smiles. His eyes are in pain.
Mike doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand anything. He’s never understood less in his entire life.
Internally, anyway. His own heart. What he does understand is that Will has just made a big gesture of love. He doesn’t feel sure, anymore, that there would be a firefly there if he reached out a hand. Maybe not that kind of… (He can’t finish the thought.) But he knows there is love in this gesture, even if his hands are devoid of softly glowing, fragile creatures. He isn’t leaving empty handed. Will loves him.
He can’t help but smile.
Will turns away. He rests his chin on his hand, looks out the window into the distance. Mike thinks he sees his shoulders shake.
He looks down at the painting, only half-seeing it. There’s nothing he can do. He doesn’t have a grasp on this narrative. His head is pounding out a rhythm so fast and hard it would be danceable if it wasn’t the beginnings of a headache.
Hey, what’s wrong? No.
Are you okay? No.
What the hell just happened here? Definitely not.
He’s not ready for the conversation. Who am I referring to? Mike doesn’t know.
He traces his fingers across the characters on the painting. Softly. Across the heart on the shield.
You’re the heart. You’re the heart. You’re the heart.
Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.