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Life went on. Will Byers was desperately in love with Mike Wheeler, but the earth stayed on its axis and rotated around the blazing sun in blissful ignorance as if he didn’t.
Because in actuality, Will’s love for Mike wouldn’t freeze time and throw the perception of it off course, and it wouldn’t keep the monsters lurking in the shadows at bay, and it wouldn’t stitch up the cracks in the ground and close the wounds in his heart, and it wouldn’t stomp out the fire that lit his being aflame since he was a mere child; having his father hurl glass bottles and slurs at him.
Loving Mike wouldn’t save him.
Loving Mike wouldn’t fix him.
And loving Mike wouldn’t change him.
In fact, it wouldn’t change anything. Because every day Lucas sat by a hospital bed that held a lifeless Max in it and prayed for a miracle. And El– who was overwhelmed with guilt– wouldn’t leave the house, not wanting to be faced with her failures. And Dustin, the one who was good– the one who always had something to say, kept a black and white bandana shoved in his pocket and remained quiet. And Will…. And Will just watched.
The world as they knew it was falling apart at the seams, so in the wake of the aftermath– when the ground opened up and the red hues lit up Hawkins from under, and the flowers died along with a few friends, and Will was sent back to a time where he hid from the unknown and sung a song that he couldn’t listen to anymore without having a panic attack, all he could do was breathe through it. He inhaled a large gulp of air and kept it in his lungs as if it were smoke, only releasing it when it physically hurt to hold. Then he did it again. And again. And again.
He did it until he finally came to the conclusion that loving Mike could truly only be compared to breathing. It was something he did to survive.
And in the end, it gave him the courage to pick up his feet and follow life as it continued. Something that most would think to be a solution, wasn’t. Rather, it was a silent and precious thing that Will carried with him as he found the motivation to go on, despite the monsters– and the cracks– and the scars– and the fires lit within– and the unknowing of what was to come. And for him, that was more than enough. After all, Will loved Mike for free. So as life went on, so did he.