Chapter Text
The Upside Down fucking sucks.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that much is a given, but nobody told Mike just how much the Upside Down actually fucking sucks. Nobody mentioned the fact that it smells like rotten eggs and dead bodies down here, or the fact that there’s something down here that’s making Mike’s eyes get all watery and blurry, or the fact that the air is so fucking toxic that every single breath Mike takes is strained, like he’s about to keel over and have an asthma attack on top of one of the fucking vines.
Jesus, it’s a miracle that Will survived here for an entire fucking week. If Mike wasn’t sure about it before, he’s pretty sure that Will is by far the strongest person that he knows. Forget all the insane shit that everyone else has done. Surviving a Russian prison like Hopper did, or shooting One out of a window like Nancy did, or even saving the world a handful of times like El did?
Yeah, all of those things are cool. But after being in the Upside Down for the last hour, Mike is so, so certain that Will Byers is the strongest person he knows.
Speaking of Will though, he definitely doesn’t seem happy to be back in the Upside Down. Like the other members of the Party, Will has remained quiet throughout their entire trek from downtown Hawkins to his childhood home. There’s a nervous look on his face, and every few seconds, he glances around at the woods, clearly on edge.
Mike can’t blame him—after all, this place sucks, and Will is the last person who should have to come back here.
But desperate times call for desperate measures, aka: returning to the Byers’ home in the Upside Down and looking for any information that might help them figure out how Will survived here and more importantly how to defeat One.
It’s… strange. Trauma’s a really weird thing, Mike has been learning, and the brain can do some odd shit to protect itself from that trauma. In Will’s case, he just doesn’t remember the things that happened during his week in the Upside Down. He obviously survived, but the how remains the greatest unsolved mystery of them all.
So, that’s exactly why the Party is here in the Upside Down on an unsanctioned mission that’s most definitely going to get them yelled at by Hopper. But hey, if they can actually find information that might give them the upper hand over One, then Mike’s pretty sure Hopper can find a way to deal.
Desperate times. Desperate measures.
As the five of them begin to approach the Upside Down version of Will’s home, Mike can’t help but glance over at his best friend. To no surprise, Will looks lost in his own thoughts, his eyes carefully trained on the forest ahead of him and his hands clenched tightly around his rifle. It hurts to see him like this, and it sucks that there’s nothing that Mike can really do to help.
All he can do is what he’s always (well… almost always) done: be there for Will and make sure that Will knows he isn’t alone.
“Hey,” Mike says quietly.
Will glances up, managing a small smile. “Hey,” he whispers.
Mike smiles back, and he bumps his shoulder against Will’s lightly. “You okay?”
Obviously, it’s a loaded question, and judging by the look on his face, Will knows that too. The smile on his face turns a bit wry as he just shrugs, letting out a quiet sigh. “As okay as I can be down here,” he murmurs. “I… I don’t like it.”
“We won’t be here for very long,” Mike reassures. “Nobody’s going to get hurt. It… it’ll be fine, Will.”
The words sound like a lie, even to Mike, but luckily, Will accepts the words as comfort, leaning in even closer to Mike. “I know… I know,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I just… I want to find what we’re looking for and get the hell out of here.”
Mike smiles wryly, and he glances up ahead, where El, Dustin, and Lucas have already reached the Byers’ home and are working to get past the vines covering the door. “Luckily, your old house isn’t too big,” he muses. “If we split up and each cover a room or two, we should be out of here in no time.”
Will opens his mouth to say something back, but before he can, Dustin calls over his shoulder, “A couple of us are probably gonna want to stay in the living room since that’s where Joyce talked to Will! But everybody else should split up to cover more ground!”
“See?” Mike says, turning back to Will and offering another small smile. “What’d I tell you? We’ll be out of here in no time. Promise.”
Fortunately, the nervousness on Will’s face subsides just a bit, and he takes a deep breath, tightening his grip on the rifle in his hands. “You’re right,” he says with a nod. “Come on… let’s get this over with.”
Somehow, Mike ends up in Will’s childhood bedroom.
It’s honestly even weirder being in here—mostly because it’s been years since Mike has been in Will’s room. He doesn’t really count Will’s Lenora room, because although that was technically Will’s home, this place (or… rather, the Hawkins version of this place) will always be Will’s home to Mike.
Will belongs here in Hawkins with Mike and the rest of the Party. Hawkins… it’s just not the same without Will, and look, Mike obviously hopes they all survive long enough to get the hell out of this shithole, but for right now… this is home.
So yeah, it’s weird being back here in the Upside Down version of Will’s bedroom, and Mike can’t help but pause in the doorway and look around. It’s different than he last remembers. A couple of the posters are older ones that were later replaced by Will, and the artwork and cards and other things hanging on his bulletin board definitely have changed over the years. But otherwise, it still looks so familiar.
This place… it’s somewhere that Mike spent a decent part of his childhood, curled up into the blue sleeping bag that had become his over years and years spent with Will. It’s a place where he and Will shared laughter and tears and secrets with one another and where they both dreamed of all the different worlds they wanted to create together.
So much of his childhood is here, and Mike can’t help but feel nostalgic for the way things used to be.
Back before their world was full of monsters with mouths made of teeth and psychopaths who can enter your mind and tear you apart from the inside out. Back before their hometown became ground zero for the apocalypse and before all of them became soldiers in a war none of them knew how to fight. Back before all of them had to grow up and before distance and responsibilities and life made things so much more difficult.
God, sometimes Mike misses being a kid.
Mike takes a deep breath, and he shoulders his backpack, stepping over a vine and into Will’s bedroom. If he’s being completely honest, Mike’s not entirely sure what he’s going to find here or what he’s even looking for here. It’s part of the reason he’d initially been so against Dustin’s plan to come to the Upside Down looking for answers. Not only is this plan dangerous, but there’s no guarantee that it’ll even work.
And if they came to the Upside Down and forced Will to go through all of this shit for nothing, well… then Mike’s going to be pissed.
As carefully as he can, Mike turns on the light switch, watching as the golden particles of light that Nancy, Steve, and Robin had described come into view. The little particles float around the old lamp in Will’s room, and Mike walks into the bedroom, making sure to run his hand across the particles just for curiosity’s sake.
(Much like how the others had described, the particles do actually tickle.)
With a sigh, Mike begins to look around the room, careful not to step on or touch any of the vines. There are fewer vines in this room than the rest of the house, but still, knowing his luck, he’d be the one to trip over a vine and alert the entire Upside Down to their presence here. And just like how the Party still hasn’t gotten over the way he tripped over a vine in eighth grade, Mike knows if they survived the ordeal, his friends would never let him live this down.
For a while, Mike sifts through the items in Will’s Upside Down bedroom, absently looking for anything that stands out. A couple of old comic books are strewn on the ground, faded and ruined from whatever gross, liquid-y substances might’ve touched them over the years. Similarly, Will’s math homework from their stupid 7th grade class with Mrs. Donnelly sits on his desk, sandwiched between his in-progress drawings, a few books, and a handful of pencils and pens.
Absent from the room, though, is Wade—the stuffed tiger Will’s had for as long as Mike can remember. It seems weird that Wade the tiger wouldn’t be in Will’s Upside Down room, so Mike wonders if the old toy must’ve traveled with Will from here to the now destroyed Castle Byers.
(Fortunately, Wade the tiger successfully made the journey from Hawkins to Lenora then back to Hawkins with Will all those years ago, so as far as Mike knows, he’s probably sitting on Will’s bed back in the lab, safe and sound unlike his Upside Down counterpart.)
To no surprise, nothing really stands out to Mike as he searches through Will’s room. He tries his best to not feel annoyed, but it proves difficult, especially when Mike ends up sneezing violently enough that the Party hears him from the other rooms.
He’s allergic to the Upside Down. So, sue him.
Eventually, the only place left untouched in Will’s room is his closet.
With a small sigh, Mike crosses over to the other side of Will’s room, and he opens up the closet, careful not to disturb the few vines on the walls surrounding the closet. It’s even darker inside the closet, so Mike grabs his flashlight from his backpack, shining the light inside the tiny space.
The items inside of the closet are about what Mike would expect: some of Will’s clothes, a few pairs of shoes in a pile, a couple slightly damp blankets, and some other random boxes that don’t have much inside of them. Again, Mike finds nothing all that helpful in here and nothing that really catches his attention.
…
Until he does.
Truthfully, Mike almost misses it at first, but when he’s about as deep into the closet as he can be, pointing his little flashlight at the darkness, he finally sees it.
A shoebox.
…
A shoebox with his name on it.
Mike’s brow furrows, and he reaches forward, carefully pulling the box towards him and shining the light on it. The shoebox, like nearly everything else in the Upside Down, is a little bit damp and ruined from the elements, but luckily for Mike, the box has been preserved well enough to still be able to see what’s drawn and written on the lid.
The artwork on the shoebox is clearly Will’s own—full of everything from doodles of their DnD characters, to elementary school comics they created together as kids, to inside jokes that Mike only barely remembers years later now.
And there, written in the middle of the shoebox lid, are three simple words.
LETTERS FROM MIKE
Mike’s breath catches, and he just… he feels frozen. He must read over those three words a dozen different times, as if somehow the words might change or disappear or turn out to be a trick of the light. But they don’t. The words stay the same—there, messily scrawled in Will’s handwriting from years ago.
The words don’t even look like they were written in his middle school handwriting. God, they look… they look like they were written sometime before that—in huge, messy letters reminiscent of how Will used to write back when they were six or seven years old.
Will has had this box of letters for probably close to a decade now.
But that isn’t even the worst part.
No, the worst part is that as he reads the words LETTERS FROM MIKE, LETTERS FROM MIKE, LETTERS FROM MIKE over and over again, Mike can’t help but think about the stack unsent letters to Will, still hidden in the trunk of his own things that he’d brought with him when moving into the lab a couple months ago.
For some reason, Mike’s chest feels tight. His heart, the stupid, annoying organ that it is, is beating like he’s just run a mile—a nervous thumpthumpthump that he can hear loud and rushing in his ears. And despite the fact that Mike’s felt cold since the moment they all stepped into the Upside Down, he feels hot now, and his face is burning, and suddenly, this closet feels far too small—
“Mike?”
Mike flinches sharply, and he takes another shuddered breath, trying to ignore how weird he feels right now. “Y-yeah?” he calls, loud enough that hopefully Will can hear him.
“I think we’re leaving soon!” comes Will’s response. He sounds closer now—like maybe he’s about to enter the room or something. “Did you find anything?”
Yes, Mike thinks, and his eyes flicker down to the old shoebox sitting in front of him.
LETTERS FROM MIKE, LETTERS FROM MIKE, LETTERS FROM MIKE, Will’s childhood handwriting screams back to him.
“Nope!” Mike lies, even though friends don’t lie and even though he really hates making exceptions to that rule. But truthfully, Mike just feels weird right now—weird and embarrassed and ashamed, as the mistakes and confusing thoughts from a couple years ago make their way back to the forefront of his mind.
He’s been spending the last two years trying to mend his friendship with Will, and fuck it, he can’t ruin that. Whatever the reason is that he’s feeling so – so off right now, Mike can’t let Will or anybody know about it… at least not until he figures out why he’s feeling like this.
Mike hesitates, and he glances back down at the shoebox, taking one last look at the three words messily scrawled on the lid. Then, without another moment of hesitation, he unzips his backpack and stuffs the box inside with the promise and intent to look at it later.
It’s at that exact moment that Will peeks his head into the closet, giving Mike an amused look. “Um,” he says slowly, “what are you doing in here?”
Somehow, Mike’s face manages to get even warmer. He can only imagine how dumb he looks right now—holed up in the back of the closet all by himself while Will’s standing right here, waiting for him to come out.
“Uh,” Mike says, wracking his brain desperately for an answer that doesn’t make him seem like a complete idiot, “looking for clues?”
Will raises an eyebrow. “Inside a closet?”
Mike rolls his eyes, and he crawls back towards Will and the closet exit, reaching for the outstretched hand that Will offers to him. “Stop giving me that look,” he complains. “I didn’t find anything else in your room, so I figured I’d check in here.”
“Okay, okay,” Will laughs as he helps Mike to his feet and out of the closet. “But you didn’t find anything?”
“Nope,” Mike answers, even though there’s a lump in the back of his throat and the blood keeps rushing through his ears and his cheeks feels like they’re on fire right now and the hand still holding Will’s hand is probably so clammy right now. “Did you or the others find anything?”
This time, Will hesitates, and his eyes flicker back to the hallway. He looks like he wants to say something, but in the end, he chooses not to and just murmurs, “Nothing – nothing important.”
Those words absolutely feel like a lie, and if it weren’t for the fact that Mike was keeping his own secret right now, he might try to convince Will to open up to him—to share whatever information he seems to be holding back and to allow Mike to carry this burden with him.
But right now, Mike has a secret of his own to carry, and the box of letters in his backpack feels like it weighs a ton—a heavy burden built on his own confusion and guilt and lies.
And in this moment, despite the fact that living together for two years has mended their friendship and the fact that things have been good between the two of them, Mike feels like they’ve suddenly stepped backwards into time and are reliving the awkwardness of 1985-1986.
God, he hates it.
Somehow, no matter how hard they try—no matter how hard Mike tries—they always end up here. Right back in the same tension that never used to be there, struggling with the same confusing emotions that were never there when they were kids, and existing a strange distance away from each other, like some wall of their own making has been built once more.
Mike doesn’t know how to fix this. He never has, and honestly, sometimes, it feels like he never will.
That thought leaves a sour taste in his mouth, but there’s not much he can do about it right now. So instead, Mike just swallows that lump in his throat, and he quietly says, “Well… I guess we should go back home then.”
“Yeah,” Will says, just as awkward and strained as Mike feels. His eyes flicker to their still intertwined hands, and warmth rushes to Mike’s cheeks like fire burning down a forest and destroying everything in its path.
In an instant both of them let go, and Mike shoves his hands into his pockets, choosing to look anywhere but Will. Neither one of them says anything else, choosing instead to stew in this uncomfortable silence, but as they leave Will’s Upside Down bedroom behind, Mike can’t help but glance over his shoulder one last time.
The closet door remains wide open, its only secrets now free from the darkness but still being carried like a weight on Mike’s shoulders.
What he chooses to do next with those secrets—with that old box of letters to Will and from himself—is entirely up to Mike.
It’s not until later that week that Mike finally opens up the shoebox.
Okay, so technically, he could’ve opened it earlier. Technically, he had more than a few opportunities to open up the shoebox and take a look at its contents. Technically, he could’ve looked through the entire box by now and thrown it out or given it to Will or whatever and then moved on with his life.
…
Mike did not do that.
The shoebox actually ends up sitting at the bottom of the old trunk of things he’d packed from his old house. Coincidentally, it’s buried next to an object similar, but not quite the same, to it: Mike’s binder of Will’s artwork. And un-coincidentally, it’s also buried next to the stack of about seven letters he’d attempted to send Will over that period of time where they really weren’t friends anymore.
From being hidden in the darkness of a closet to being hidden in the darkness of an old, dusty trunk. It doesn’t feel like much of an upgrade for the poor little shoebox.
And if Mike’s being honest with himself, he… he doesn’t know why he feels so nervous to open up the box of letters. It’s not like the contents of the box are going to be bad, right? If anything, that shoebox is probably just full of little cards and letters and stuff that he must have sent Will when they were younger.
Mike’s always been a writer and always had too much to say, so writing cards for his friends was just something he did. Cards for Christmas and birthdays were always fun—full of long-winded paragraphs and jokes and stories crammed onto the page. It’s something he got out of the habit of doing somewhere near the beginning of high school, but still, it’s definitely something he loved doing and would still love doing, if the world wasn’t a mess.
So… why does he feel so weird about all of this?
It has to be because of the unsent letters. It has to be. Maybe, even though he and Will fixed their shit a couple years ago, there’s a part of Mike that still feels guilty for the way he didn’t really reach out. Maybe there’s a part of Mike that’ll always blame himself for hurting Will, for making him feel like they were no longer best friends, for causing the first crack in the foundation of their friendship. And maybe seeing this box of letters from their childhood is just bringing all of that guilt back to the forefront of his mind.
…
Maybe that’s it.
(Mike gets the feeling that it’s so much more than that—that he’s missing something crucial here that he just can’t seem to figure out. But honestly… that’s a rabbit hole he’s not sure he wants to go down.)
Still, after a few days of opening and closing and opening and closing the trunk, Mike finally works up the courage to dig up the old shoebox and free it from the new hiding place he’d found for it.
Mike takes a deep breath, and he runs his hand across the shoebox lid, wiping off any excess dust that’s collected on it. Once again, he reads the words LETTERS FROM MIKE over and over again, and he traces over each individual letter written in his best friend’s childhood handwriting.
There’s no time like the present.
So, without giving it another thought, Mike pulls off the lid of the shoebox, discarding it to the side. A small plume of dust floats into the air, and Mike coughs, scrunching his nose at the box and its contents.
His breath catches.
To Mike’s surprise, he finds the box completely full—stuffed to the brim with pieces of notebook paper, cards stuffed in envelopes, sticky notes, and everything in between. There must be years and years of old cards and letters in this box, and God… there’s no way that these can all be from Mike, right? He knows he wrote Will lots of little notes over the years, but God, there’s no way that Will would’ve kept them all, right?
Only one way to find out, Mike thinks somewhere in the back of his mind, and he bites down on his lip, hesitating for only a brief moment.
Then, Mike picks up the first letter.
To no surprise, the letter is a bit worn out, dirty, and stained from years of being stuck in the Upside Down. It smells vaguely musty, like the smell of an old basement, but fortunately, other than a few stains and some dirt, the piece of paper is still relatively intact and legible enough for Mike to read it. It’s not a long letter by any means—just one that looks like it’s been torn out of an old notebook and quickly written.
Somehow, that makes it all the more incredible that Will actually kept this letter.
In no time at all, Mike reads through the short note, and his breath catches when his eyes land on the last two words.
Love, Mike.
An uncomfortable lump forms in the back of his throat, and all Mike can do is stare at the paper in his hands, reading the words over and over again. Each time, the same two words jump out at him: Love, Mike; Love, Mike; Love, Mike.
It’s… it’s been a while since he’s thought about this, but for some reason, the argument he had with El years ago—sitting on the bed of her Lenora bedroom and watching helplessly as she shoved letter after letter after letter in his face.
Every single one of those letters had two words in common.
From, Mike.
Looking back on it, Mike thinks the end of their relationship had been a longtime coming. The same summer that things changed with Will, things also began to fall apart with El. And honestly? The more Mike thinks about it, the more he wishes they’d just stayed broken up after El “dumped his ass.”
It probably would’ve saved all of them a lot of heartache.
With a quiet sigh, Mike sets down the first letter sent to Will, probably sometime in sixth grade or so. There are a lot more letters and cards and notes in this box, and since his curiosity’s going to get the better of him, there’s no point in fixating on those two words—especially when they were in a different context, at a different point in his life.
So, despite the fact that there’s still a strange lump in his throat and an unsettled feeling in his stomach, Mike picks up another card near the top of the box and begins to read it. Most of the letters and cards in here are short—maybe only a paragraph or two at the longest—so quickly, the box becomes less and less full as the pile of cards and notes and letters on his bed grows.
It’s actually sort of fun, in a bittersweet kind of way, to read all of these letters he’s sent to Will over the years. Some of the letters contain old inside jokes that Mike barely even remembers, but still, he can practically hear his own laughter ringing in his ears as he writes the notes to his best friend. Others, like this card that Mike picks up, are just for holidays and birthdays and stuff, but still, they’re special to Mike in their own way.
The further and further Mike digs through the box, the further and further back into the past he travels. There are story ideas and words of encouragement and notes with complete nonsense written on these pages—years and years of their friendship… all kept safe and protected in this little box by Will.
And at the bottom of each card, each note, each letter, is two simple words.
Love, Mike
This silly little note he wrote on an index card instead of studying?
Signed with Love, Mike.
The very first birthday card he ever gave to Will?
Signed with Love, Mike.
Every.
Single.
Letter.
Every single one of them is signed in the same words—the same two words that echo through Mike’s mind, whispered in the voice of his childhood self and full of so much joy and laughter and love. There’s not a single piece of paper in this box of letters from him that isn’t signed Love, Mike.
Though it’s been at least five years since the cards in this box were written, somehow, Mike finds it easy to put himself back in the shoes of his childhood self. He still remembers sitting at his desk, or on the couch in the basement, or hidden under the comforter on his bed and just writing. Pouring out his heart and all his unfiltered thoughts because talking to Will has just always been that easy.
Back then, Mike always had something to say to Will. He wanted to share everything with Will—all his best jokes, new ideas for stories and campaigns, encouragement for bad days, and laughter for the good ones. And back then, things weren’t as messy and complicated, and Mike could do those things. He could share everything with Will, and… and it wasn’t weird.
But why is it complicated? Mike thinks, somewhere in the back of his mind. When did things change? And why?
Mike… still doesn’t really know the answer to those questions.
Because the most confusing part of all of this is that this has only happened with Will.
Everyone in the Party grew up, right? None of them are kids anymore, and none of them can lean on their shared childhoods to keep them going. But this hasn’t happened with Lucas or Dustin (or Max, though Mike doesn’t really count her). Mike’s friendship with them has never made him feel this – this confused, like he’s missing something here.
It’s like… it’s like there’s something different about Will. There’s something different about his friendship with Will, and the damning evidence of that fact is sitting right on Mike’s bed—in the form of dozens of letters all signed with Love, Mike.
Love, Mike.
God, those are two words he couldn’t even write to El—to his girlfriend. He couldn’t write them, and he could only say them when she was dying. Hell, even then, it hadn’t been El’s near death experience that had given Mike the courage and the push he needed to say the words he thought she’d needed to hear. It had been Will’s encouragement that spurred Mike on.
…
Somehow, it always comes back to Will.
But why? Mike thinks, setting down the card in his hand and looking back in the box.
There’s only one letter left in the box.
You know why, a knowing voice says, quiet in the back of his mind. You know why.
Do I? Mike wonders, even though his heart is pounding inside his chest and his hands feel clammy and that lump in his throat just won’t go away. He peers into the box, reaching for the last letter. Like some of the others, this letter is in its original envelope, but the back of this envelope catches Mike’s eye.
It’s covered in stickers—a pack of DnD themed ones he remembers getting from middle school. And there, written on the back of the envelope, in his own handwriting, is a date.
Mike’s breath catches, and he holds the little envelope close, staring down at the date written on the back. He… he remembers this letter, just as much as he remembers practically everything from that night—that fateful night which kicked off all of this horrible shit they’ve lived through. Truthfully, Mike’s surprised that this letter is even here, because they still don’t fully understand how the Upside Down froze on this date.
Depending on the timing of when the Upside Down took on the form of Hawkins, this letter… it could be the original letter—the one Mike actually gave to Will earlier in the day, before Lucas and Dustin came over to his house, instead of the copy that the Upside Down made.
Somehow, that almost makes this letter feel… more special, in a way. Like this—this last letter, written to Will the day both their lives changed—is one of the last remnants of a childhood untainted by the Upside Down and all its horrors. And the fact that their letter somehow survived being hidden in the Upside Down all these years, only for Mike to rediscover it and bring it back to where it belongs… all that feels almost poetic.
Mike takes a deep breath; then, he carefully opens up the envelope, pulling the little card out from the inside.
To no surprise, those two words are still written at the end of the card.
Love, Mike.
But this time, it’s not those words that have Mike’s head spinning round and round and round, like some stupid carousel.
No, it’s the entire fucking letter.
…
Fuck.
It’s everything about this letter, and God, for some reason that Mike doesn’t fully understand, he feels a bit sick to his stomach. His entire face feels hot, and the blood rushes through his ears as his heart beats its nervous thumpthumpthump. He reads the letter, and then, he reads it again. And again. And again.
Slowly, then all at once, the pieces of the puzzle begin to slot into place.
The awkwardness and the tension, always sitting under the surface and threatening to reemerge to ruin his friendship with Will.
The inability to reach out to Will, even though he wanted to so badly, and the guilt that came both from trying to talk to Will and from avoiding Will.
The feeling of comfort and safety and home that always seems to follow Will around, and the way that home just didn’t feel like home without Will around.
The way Mike was never able to balance his friendship with Will and his relationship with El—because the moment he had both of them, it felt like he was being pulled in two different directions and constantly making the wrong choice.
The letters and cards and notes sitting in a pile on his bed all signed Love, Mike and sent to Will over the years, and the letters hidden in his trunk signed with those same words but never sent to his best friend out of a strange sense of fear.
Slowly… and then all at once, everything makes sense.
And for the first time, Mike thinks he finally gets it.
He‘s in love with Will.
So…
Mike hasn’t been in school for a while, okay? It’s actually been over two years since he’s been a student, since Hawkins essentially became a ghost town after the mandatory evacuation notice was issued back in 1986. So, tht been a hot minute since he’s actually sat down and learned anything important from someone who knows a little bit more than him.
…
Not that school would help very much in this situation. As far as he knows, “Realizing You’re In Love With Your Best Friend 101” is not a class actively offered at any high schools. And also, “Realizing You’re In Love With Your Best Friend Who Is Also A Boy 101” is definitely not offered at any high schools.
So… basically, Mike is screwed.
Basically, Mike is screwed, and that’s why he may or may not have spent the entire night crying over a dirty old shoebox filled of letters and notes and cards from himself to his best friend (whom he’s actually in love with, believe it or not) that was rescued from the hell dimension that said best friend spent a week trapped in when they were preteens.
(You know, even if there was a class called “Realizing You’re In Love With Your Best Friend Who Is Also A Boy 101,” Mike’s fairly certainly they’d skip over the whole chapter on hell dimensions and eldritch horrors.)
Luckily, nobody hears him cry—or if they do, they don’t come check on him. That’s fine, because Mike really doesn’t know how he would explain this entire mess, and if he’s being completely honest with himself, the only person he wants to talk to about this mess also happens to be the one person he just can’t talk to.
Yeah… it’s not a great situation to be in.
But the fact of the matter is, feelings for Will aside, Will just… he gets Mike. He gets Mike in a way that no one else comes close to, and he’s also the only person Mike knows who would understand this situation. For fuck’s sake, up until just a few hours ago, Mike had been operating on the belief that he liked girls.
Now though? Now, Mike has no idea anymore. Can a person like both? Does he have to choose? Is that why all of this was so confusing with El and Will?
Then again though, the more Mike thinks about it and the more he retraces his steps, the more he realizes that whatever feelings he might have had for El… they all pale in comparison to the feelings he knows he has for Will.
The evidence is right here, and it’s damning.
Because while Mike doesn’t think he’s always had feelings for Will, these letters are the proof he didn’t even really need to show that Will has always been the most important person in his life. Long before El came into his life, long before romantic feelings were ever even considered, and long before teenage hormones and confusion screwed everything up, it was MikeandWill.
Will was and always has been his person. It’s just as simple as that.
So… although all of this is confusing and a bit overwhelming to figure out, it’s not necessarily surprising for Mike. Instead, it feels like that last puzzle missing that he’s been missing all these years has finally been found, and now… now, everything feels so much clearer. It’s like he’s finally woken up and realized something that has been right in front of him for years now.
And it’s like all the lights have been turned, illuminating the darkness of a hiding place of his own making, so now Mike finally can find his way out.
The thing is though… now, all the lights have been turned on. Now, the last puzzle piece has finally slotted into place. Now, Mike knows that he has feelings for Will—that he quite possibly is in love with Will and has been for years. Now, he has everything he needs to make the next move.
It’s just that Mike doesn’t know if he should.
That’s not a familiar feeling for him if he’s being honest with himself. Most of the time, Mike tends to operate on instinct—tends to know what needs to happen, what he needs to do, what choice needs to be made to get him where he wants to go. But in this instance, he feels more lost than he’s ever felt before.
It’s confusing and scary enough to try and figure out his sexuality and what all that means for him, but it’s equally just as confusing and scary to think about how this might impact his feelings for Will.
Because the thing is… feelings or not, Will is still the most important person in his life. And maybe Mike has only been thinking about this for the last five hours, but he knows in his heart that nothing is worth losing Will over. If Will doesn’t reciprocate those feelings—which… honestly, why would he—then Mike doesn’t want things to be uncomfortable between the two of them or push Will away.
So, on one hand, Mike could just keep this to himself. He could give it a little bit longer and then maybe talk to Will about his sexuality, since Will is his best friend and is also gay… so, he’d probably have some good advice. Mike could just keep on going with his life as if he never realized his feelings for Will.
…
But honestly? That what if? might kill him.
That what if? would haunt him for the rest of his life, and just the very thought of it is absolutely terrifying. Because God, Mike knows he’s in deep. These feelings for Will might be something he only realized just now, but they’ve been around for so long that Mike honestly can’t pinpoint when they first started. It’s just that Will has always been his—his first friend, his best friend, his person—just as much as Mike has always been Will’s.
Ignoring the feelings isn't going to make them go away. Now that Mike knows… now that he’s realized and found this part of himself that’s been pushed down and hidden away for so long… he can’t turn back.
He can’t just do nothing.
Mike’s always been a man of action, and that’s worked both in his favor and to his detriment over the seventeen years of his life. But for better or for worse, Mike acts, and he’s at his best when he’s moving. It’s when he gets stuck—in his confusion, in his insecurities, in his anger—that things begin to fall apart.
So, it’s for those very reasons that Mike grabs an old notebook from his trunk.
And he begins to write.
Somehow, this letter ends up being one of the easiest ones that Mike has ever written to Will.
It doesn’t actually take that long to finish writing the letter, and Mike doesn’t let himself read it over more than once. Honestly, his stomach keeps doing cartwheels over and over again, so if he reads this letter and thinks about it for too long, he’s going to lose whatever courage he’s about to use to go deliver this letter, the unsent letters from 1985-1986, and the shoebox full of old letters to Will.
Mike can do this. After all, it’s just Will, and there’s no one in the world whom Mike trusts more than him. Even if Will doesn’t feel the same way about him, the last thing that Will would do is make this uncomfortable for the two of them. That’s just not who he is, because Will Byers is the kindest, most thoughtful, gentlest, and most loving person that Mike knows, and—
And Mike definitely has it bad for him.
Mike takes a deep breath, and he carefully places the last of the letters recovered from the Upside Down back into Will’s shoebox, carefully setting the lid on top of it. The letters from 1985-1986 are carefully placed into the left pocket of his jacket, while the new letter he wrote tonight is in his right one.
All he has to do now is bring all of this over to Will’s room.
Technically, it’s probably too late in the night to be doing this, so hopefully, Will can find a way to forgive Mike for coming to his room at nearly 2 in the morning. Oh well. Either way, this is happening right now before Mike can lose his courage and end up hiding in the closet for several more years.
He’s doing this.
He has to.
He wants to.
So, with a deep breath, Mike grabs the shoebox of letters, and he marches over to his door, opens it up, and—
Finds himself face to face with—
“Will?” Mike blurts out.
Will’s eyes widen, and an apologetic look flashes across his face. “Hi,” he says quickly. “Sorry, I know it’s late – or… early, I guess. Um, but I actually needed to…” His voice trails off, as he eyes flicker to the box in Mike’s hand, confusion spreads across his face. “Wait… what is that?”
Warmth spreads to Mike’s cheeks, and suddenly, all the bravado from before melts away, leaving behind the stuttering, confused mess of a seventeen year-old who’d just gotten done crying only an hour or so ago. “Oh – oh, this?” Mike stammers, glancing at the shoebox. “It’s, um… well, it’s…”
This time, Mike’s own voice trails off as he struggles to find the words to say. Fortunately though, Will comes to his rescue and quietly asks, “Is that… my box of letters?”
A new lump forms in the back of Mike’s throat. His heart, the silly little thing, goes thumpthumpthump in a nervous rhythm, and the butterflies in his stomach flutter around, full of excitement and anticipation.
“Yeah,” Mike says breathlessly, holding out the box to Will and offering him a tentative smile. “I… well, I found it… in your closet… in the Upside Down, I mean. Not your closet here. Obviously; these rooms don’t have closets. Sorry, now I’m just rambling—”
“Mike,” Will interrupts with a laugh, and when he reaches for the box, his hand brushes against Mike’s own with a jolt of electricity. Mike’s breath catches; he feels entirely frozen in place, staring utterly dumbfounded at his best friend. “It’s cool. You… you brought this back from the Upside Down with you?”
The question, And you didn’t tell me? hangs in the air between them, and Mike can’t help but wince. “Sorry,” he says, quieter now, “I – I know I should’ve just given this to you in the first place, but honestly, I – um… I got curious.”
Will’s expression softens; his eyes flicker to the shoebox that both of them are now holding. “You read the letters?” he asks softly.
“Yeah.” Mike nods, and he, too, glances down at the box, unable to keep the smile off his face. “It, uh… it was definitely a trip down memory lane. I can’t believe you kept all those.”
A quiet laugh escapes Will’s lips. “I mean, yeah,” he says, voice soft and a bit wistful. “They… they meant a lot to me. It honestly sucked when I left the box behind in Lenora. I… I didn’t think I’d ever see these again.”
A pang of sadness fills Mike’s heart, and he looks down at the box again for a brief moment, before looking back up at Will. “You’re missing some letters then,” he says apologetically. “Um… the most recent one in here is from November 6, 1983.”
“Makes sense.” Will nods, the smile on his face turning a bit sad. “I mean… that’s okay. I know we – we kind of stopped doing this when we got older.”
The ache inside Mike’s heart grows. He… he knows Will isn’t saying these things to make him feel guilty; no, the guilt just exists on its own, the organic result of his own mistakes that just ended up growing during the rockiest parts of their friendship. Even now, that guilt still remains ever present, buried just underneath the surface and easily dug up again with the right words.
That guilt feels even worse now that Mike finally gets it.
“I’m sorry,” Mike says, softer now. The letters in his pockets suddenly feel like they weigh a ton, bogged down by the heaviness of his own guilt and uncertainty. “I should’ve—”
“It’s fine, Mike,” Will reassures, cutting him off before Mike can say anything else. He glances down at the shoebox of letters, that soft and familiar and so very Will smile still on his face, and then, he looks back up at Mike. “Thank you… for bringing this back with you. That – that means a lot to me.”
Warmth rushes to Mike’s cheeks, and a sense of pride and excitement replaces the guilt growing inside his heart. “Of course,” he says, offering Will a smile in return and slowly taking his hands off the box. “I – I’m glad you have it again.”
As Mike lets go, Will takes the box of letters, and he holds it close, like the box and all its contents—all their memories and all the love shared between the two of them from their whole childhood—is something to be treasured and protected. That little action fills Mike with a familiar sort of warmth and fondness and causes the butterflies in his stomach to come alive once more.
He… he can do this. After all, this is Will, and if there’s anyone in the world that Mike knows, it’s Will Byers. And look, maybe – maybe it’s just wishful thinking to believe that someone as incredible as Will could actually love him back, but…
But there are two sides to every story, right? So as much as Mike has contributed to this strange back-and-forth tension over the past few years, Will has too. Will didn’t call him. Will didn’t send any letters. Will challenged him in their arguments and comforted him in their moments together.
And Mike might have sent countless letters and notes and cards all signed Love, Mike… but Will kept them. He kept them safe and held onto them for years.
That’s gotta count for something, right?
So, before he can lose his courage, Mike reaches into the pocket of his jacket, and he quietly says, “Hey, Will—”
It’s that exact moment that Will blurts out, “I have you to tell you something.”
Mike freezes, and Will does too. For a moment, both of them just stand there, Mike with his hands in his pocket and Will still carefully cradling their box of letters close to him. Mike smiles a bit sheepishly, and Will follows his lead, looking just as embarrassed.
There’s also something in Will’s eyes—something unreadable and a bit uncertain, like he’s almost nervous to be having this conversation. Despite the fact that he’d really like to say what he needs to say before he loses the nerve, Mike gets the feeling that what Will is about to say is more urgent.
“You can go first,” Mike suggests gently. “You… you look like you have something important to say.”
A nervous laugh escapes Will’s lips, and he exhales, lifting one hand and running it through his hair. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “Something like that.”
Once more, Will hesitates; then, he glances behind him, before carefully shutting the door with his hip. “I haven’t told anyone else this yet,” he warns as the door closes behind him. “But I… I wanted to tell you. And I – I need your help.”
The slight tremble in Will’s voice immediately sends off warning signals in Mike’s mind, and without another thought, Mike reaches out, putting his hand on Will’s shoulder and squeezing it gently. I’m here, he hopes the action says, even though the words aren’t actually spoken. I’m always here for you.
“Anything you need,” Mike promises softly, watching as Will lifts his head and looks him directly in the eye. “I’ve got you.”
Will’s eyes soften, and he nods, his shoulders relaxing ever so slightly underneath Mike’s hand. He’s quiet for a few more moments as he tries to find the words to say, but then finally, he takes a deep breath, looking Mike in the eye once more.
“Mike,” Will says, voice quiet and scarily calm, “I… I think I remember what happened when I was in the Upside Down.”
In the end, Mike doesn’t give the letters to Will.
It’s not that he doesn’t want to. No, no; God, he still wants to give Will those letters, to pour out his heart and all his feelings to his best friend, to finally explain what Mike himself only has just figured out in the past twenty-four hours.
But the unfortunate thing about being a child soldier in an interdimensional war is that sometimes, things get pushed to the back burner. Mike’s learned to set aside all the normal things of his life—like being a student, or living with his family, or figuring out what the hell’s going on with his love life—in order to focus on what’s most important.
And right now, what’s most important is this bombshell Will has dropped on him: that Will somehow finally remembers his experiences in the Upside Down.
The information that Will tearfully relays to him, sitting on Mike’s shitty little bed and fully leaning into Mike’s embrace, is something that could turn the tide in their favor. It’s the advantage that they’ve been looking for, and from a logistical perspective, it’s exactly what they need to finally defeat One and put an end to the Upside Down once and for all.
…
The information that Will tearfully relays to him also might put him in grave danger. The advantage that they’ve been looking for involves Will’s life being put on the line. And the cost of defeating One and putting an end to the Upside Down once and for all might very well be Will Byers’ life.
It’s a lot to process, and even now… even now, probably an hour after he and Will finished talking about everything together, Mike’s head is still spinning. All of Will’s words replay over and over and fucking over again in his mind, and Mike finds himself looking for any possible way out of this situation—any plan, any strategy, anything but the choice this information has given them.
He finds none.
But God damn it, Mike isn’t going to give up without a fight. Absolutely fucking not. Even if this is the information they’ve been looking for and even if this could be the key to defeating One and the Upside Down, they’ll find a different way. A way that doesn’t require Will’s life to be put on the line. A way that doesn’t require Mike to lose him.
It feels like a bit of awful, cosmic irony that Mike learns about all this the same night that he just realized his feelings for Will. For God’s sake, he just feels like he found Will again—and found himself too—and now, here he is… on the cusp of losing Will once more.
Mike takes a shuddered breath, and he glances down at Will, who’s fast asleep with his head on top of Mike’s lap. It’s been years since the two of them have been this close, thanks to all of the tension and repressed feelings and confusion, but… but when your best friend drops as big of a bombshell on you as Will did tonight, you tend to forget about all that other shit that separated the two of you. None of that shit matters when you might lose the person you love most.
Even now, Will’s words echo through Mike’s mind on a horrible loop.
“It’s me. I’m what’s connecting Hawkins to the Upside Down. So… if you break the connection… then, we can end this. Once and for all.”
Tears sting Mike’s eyes, and he swallows the lump in his throat, reaching up to gently brush Will’s hair away from his face. “We’ll figure this out,” he promises quietly, so as to not wake Will up. “We’ll figure this out together.”
Unsurprisingly, Will doesn’t stir, and Mike exhales again, scooting back to lean against the wall. Save for light from his desk lamp, the room is shrouded in darkness, reminiscent of that little, Upside Down closet where Mike had first found their box of letters.
The letter he’d written to Will tonight feels like a heavy weight inside his pocket—sacred, terrifying words still left unsaid and hidden away in the darkness. Eventually, when the time is right, Mike knows that they’ll make their way out of the darkness, just like the old box of letters he recovered from the Upside Down, and finally see the light of day. Eventually, all the words written on pages never sent will reach their intended recipient, and eventually, Mike will finally let Will know just how damn much Will means to him.
Eventually.
But not yet.
For right now, the letter remains in its new hiding spot, inching closer and closer to the light.
