Archive of Our Own

Mike Wheeler had always told himself that he would never get drunk. 

There was something nauseating about the smell of beer, and the pungent odor of vomit that always seemed to follow.

The idea of being out of his body and out of control…Mike already said stupid shit when he was sober, anyway. His mouth often moved faster than his brain, sometimes fast enough that he doubted he even had a brain at all.

Mike didn’t like feeling out of control. He already felt that way enough, as it was. 

The main reason that Mike didn’t ever want to get drunk, though, was because of a promise he’d made to himself when he and Will were both still young and dumb. 

Well. When they were both young, and when Mike was dumb. 

Though he’s not really sure he ever outgrew it. 

Little Will’s eyes had looked up at Mike, bright and shining with tears that made his dark irises glitter with rainbows. His glistening eyes had contrasted the darkness underneath them; when Mike had first seen him, he’d just assumed that Joyce and Lonnie had spent another long night fighting, that Will had spent that same night awake and hiding under his blanket, curled up in a ball and leaning against his bedroom door to make sure nobody could get into his room. Mike had assumed that the bags under Will’s eyes were just from a lack of sleep. 

He’d assumed the best, not knowing that the worst thing his little ten year old mind could concoct wouldn’t be even remotely true. 

The bags had only been underneath one eye, Mike realized as Will walked closer. The bag was darker than usual, he noticed. It was blacker in some spots, and a blue-ish purple directly under his eyelid. 

He understood immediately. Mike may have been innocent and naive — and almost every other synonym of he was still just a kid — but he wasn’t stupid. 

He was pretty sure he knew what it meant when his father wouldn’t get off the couch for family pictures. He was pretty sure he knew what it meant when Will cryptically said that his dad hadn’t come home the night before, but had somehow managed to say it with an air of relief. He was pretty sure he knew what it meant when people called Will names that Mike wouldn’t dare repeat, when those same words were hurled at Mike when he tried to stand up for his best friend — and sometimes even just when he was on his own — and were aimed to impale him right in his ten year old heart.

He was pretty sure he knew what bruises on Will’s cute, teeny-tiny little face meant, and he damn well knew what the tears in his eyes were the result of. 

Mike had wrapped Will in a hug and promised himself that he’d never be like Lonnie. He’d never drink, he’d never hit, and he’d never, ever, ever hurt Will. 

And now, here he was, Michael Wheeler, breaker of two of those three promises. 

Ten year old Mike would be horrified if he’d been able to see Mike now, stumbling around with his drink in his hand, tripping over his own feet. Mike could tell that he smelled like the alcohol that was in his system; even Robin scrunched her nose as he bumbled past her, and she was nearly as wasted as he was. 

The we saved the world a-fucking-gain party that Steve had proposed — sober Mike had had a sneaking suspicion that Dustin had something to do with it — had turned out to be more of an excuse for all of them to drink so much that their common sense dissipated with every gulp of the vile liquid they downed. 

Maybe they’d all silently hoped that their trauma would go away with it, that it would disappear the more they lost themselves. Mike had certainly hoped so, and was terribly disappointed when that was not the case. 

Still, some good things came from the party, Mike supposed. 

Mike had absently noted that Robin and Steve had left holding hands, and Mike was fairly sure that the two of them were off somewhere doing… something that Mike would rather not think about. 

Nancy and Jonathan argued, voices getting louder as they became slurred with whatever fruity drink Nancy had concocted for the both of them — and something that smelled a lot like a certain pizza van that Mike had spent the better part of a week in, hopelessly pining for someone that was so close and yet so far. He’d distinctly heard his older sister yell bullshit! multiple times, so loud that a faraway part of Mike worried the neighbors that Steve didn’t have would call the cops on them. 

The next time Mike walked into the kitchen, though, the two of them were making out, Nancy sitting on the counter with her arms draped over Jonathan’s shoulders and hands in his long hair, his fingers digging into the skin high on her thighs, right underneath her skirt. 

Mike had stood there for a moment, face unimpressed, as his brain struggled to comprehend the scene in front of him, before he shrugged and grabbed an extra bottle of beer from the fridge. It would probably be best if he avoided the kitchen for a while, and at the rate at which he was going through bottles, he would need a refill far before they finished whatever they would end up doing in there. 

Gross. 

Dustin was having the time of his life playing Risk with El in the Harrington’s huge living room, and even Lucas paused his silent, drunken mourning for long enough to mediate between the two of them when Dustin would loudly accuse El of using her powers to cheat. El, of course, would always wipe her nose in the least covert way possible, then try to convince Dustin that he was the one who had cheated. The strategy was working far better than it probably should have, and nearly every time she did it, Mike tipped the neck of his bottle in her direction. 

Mike had been on the Harrington’s pristine velour couch, sitting with Lucas’ legs splayed out over his own, listening to his friend quietly cry over Max, for the past hour or so. 

He hadn’t seen Will in just as long.

Lucas’ calves were getting heavy, nearly as heavy as the weight that was burdening Mike from the inside out. Mike had run out of ways to comfort him a long time ago — minutes or hours or days ago, he didn’t know, because Max had been in a coma for what felt like years, now, but couldn’t be more than a few weeks — so now he settled for a gentle hand on Lucas’ worn shoe, stained with the blood of the girl he loved. 

There was something poetic there, the writer in Mike knew. He was just too drunk — or maybe too plain stupid — to know what it was. 

This was the first time that anybody had managed to get Lucas out of the hospital. It had been surprising, really, to see him outside of that ghostly place, the place that reminded Mike all too much of the end of his shared childhood with Will. 

Will’s childhood had ended far before Mike had seen him in a hospital bed for the first time, but Mike was still gripping onto it as tightly as he could…at least until he wasn’t. And then the roles were reversed. 

It was nice that Lucas had finally decided to shower, and shave, and join them in attempting to drink away their problems for the night, at least. Mike would give him that. 

Mike, of all people, knew how it felt to lose someone you loved with everything in your being, how devastating and gut-wrenching and numbing it could be. To think that they were dead and gone, only for them to miraculously be brought back. The only difference was that Mike hadn’t had to watch as Will sat in a hospital bed, bandaged and unresponsive to everything he was saying. 

A part of him had always known that Will would come back to him; Lucas wasn’t afforded the same luxury. 

Dustin seemed to be handling his own loss differently. He hadn’t spoken to anyone about Eddie’s…about Eddie in anything more than clipped sentences, but Mike had caught hushed conversations between Steve and Robin about finding him slouched above Eddie, futilely attempting to drag him through the gate and back into the shattered remnants of their Hawkins. Mike had overheard about his screams as Steve had picked Dustin up and carried him away over a shoulder, about how the younger boy had reached for Eddie like an infant reached for their mother and had hit Steve’s back in a fit as Steve hauled him towards safety. 

The alcohol was helping Dustin with his grief, it seemed. Mike wasn’t necessarily sure if he appreciated it or he was scared of it. The other boy appeared to be nearly carefree as he played board game after board game with El, even if Mike sometimes saw a glint of sadness in his eye when he was waiting for El to return from the kitchen with another drink for the both of them.

El still hadn’t talked to him. Mike still hadn’t talked to her. 

Not about it , anyway. They’d talked, of course; about plans for how to kill Vecna, how to bring Max back, about El’s fear for Will during the final battle. Will’s powers had still been new, and she had been scared that he would get hurt or…or killed if he overexerted himself. 

Mike had been terrified. 

But Will hadn’t done either of those things — in fact, Will had surpassed their expectations as he’d helped El deal the final blow to Vecna, and to the Mindflayer, and to every other person and thing that had haunted Will’s mind and life ever since that fateful night in November 1983 — and now he was as safe as any of the rest of them. If not more so, since Mike hadn’t seen him touch a single drop of alcohol all night. Mike was pretty sure Will was the least likely to die from alcohol poisoning, and while that was only a small reassurance, the thought provided some comfort, at least. 

The thought of Will stirred something in Mike’s chest that he was still getting used to. When he was younger, he’d been confused by it; a little bit older, he’d suffocated it. 

But the butterflies needed air, or they’d die out, and Mike wasn’t even sure if they were butterflies, at this point; maybe they were fireflies, constantly flitting around in his stomach and heart cavity, invisible to the naked eye but always there, glowing a bright, warm light when he allowed them oxygen by giving in to the inevitable thoughts about a certain chestnut-haired boy.

He’d tried so hard to convince himself that Will wasn’t the oxygen he needed to breathe, to glow, to live , but it was a vain fight. 

Will would always be everything to Mike. 

Even when Mike wasn’t everything to Will. 

Mike had tried to come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t the person that Will had made a love letter painting for. Sure, he’d received a painting — a masterpiece, really — suspiciously commissioned by El, who hadn’t really struck Mike as the type to know what a commission was — not yet, anyways. But, still, Mike — jealous, foolish Mike, who could never just take what was given to him and move on — had spent nearly every night since he had found out that there was a painting staring at his ceiling, mulling over who it could be for, what it looked like, and why Mike couldn’t be the one to receive it. 

Will’s art had always been a love language for the two of them, beginning in kindergarten when Mike had been gifted a drawing in crayon of the two of them, holding hands on the swingset where they’d met. Mike was both furious and heartbroken that someone else had come to learn Will’s love language — had come to deserve it — and had learned Will and deserved Will. 

No one, in Mike’s humble opinion, deserved Will Byers. Not even Mike Wheeler. 

The jealousy, or the envy, or the evil, sticky combination of the two that Mike felt when he thought about Will’s mysterious crush rose up in his stomach again, rearing its ugly head to make itself known. Mike patted Lucas’ knee, gently prodding him to bend it so he could escape from underneath his near-catatonic friend. “Bathroom,” he mumbled as a lackluster excuse, and Lucas didn’t stir save for moving off of Mike’s legs. Mike wondered if he had even heard him.  

Mike sometimes wondered if anyone heard anything that he said.

There was a heat filling Mike’s stomach; one that wasn’t the same pleasant fire he got when he was near Will, when his hand brushed Will’s, when he thought about kissing Will and maybe doing… other things with Will. No, this heat was foul, like the sort of humidity that dominated the sweaty summer months, the kind of heat that made people go a little crazy and say stupid shit. 

Mike had fallen victim to the heat in that summer that felt like years ago, now, and had done both of those deplorable things.

Mike was angry. 

He was angry at Nancy for never listening to him. He was angry at Lucas for becoming a shell of himself in his grief. He was angry at El for breaking up with him, and for taking away his shield. He was angry at her for seeing right through him with those owlish eyes and calling him on his bullshit. 

He was mad at himself for destroying everything he touched, for killing the Mike that was decent, the Mike that cared the right amount for his friends all the time, the Mike that could’ve had a gorgeous life with some sort of relationship with both Byers siblings if he had just been fucking happy with what he had, instead of wanting something and someone that was eternally unattainable. 

Now he was wandering a big, nearly-empty house, mourning the loss of a family that was never really his in the first place. 

With every pace he took up the Harrington’s stairs, with every toe caught on the carpeted lip of a step, his anger grew. 

Why couldn’t he love who he wanted to love?

Step. 

Why did everything seem to crumble in his hands?

Step. 

Why wasn’t he worthy of Will’s love?

Step. 

Will. 

Will had been hiding on the top floor of the Harrington’s house for almost the entire party, Mike was pretty sure. He’d disappeared early on with the same mumbled excuse that Mike had given Lucas, and then Mike hadn’t seen him again. 

Mike wanted to see him again. Mike wanted so badly to see him again. 

He’d thought he’d wanted the same thing when he had boarded that plane to Lenora for spring break. He’d been expecting to see the same Will and El that had left him the summer before; he had been expecting them to have the decency to match his memory. 

Boy, had Mike been wrong . 

Will had looked…well, he’d always been a certain sort of beautiful, to Mike, but to see it so outwardly displayed made Mike’s brain short out. Almost immediately, Mike was hit with how gorgeous Will looked, and then he saw the painting rolled up in Will’s hands and realized it was the painting and was probably for someone that Mike was going to be introduced to later in the day. Mike was suddenly struck with the most violent spark of jealousy he’d ever experienced.

Electrocuting his brain had not helped things between them. 

It had only made them way, way worse. 

Mike paused at the top of the stairs, swaying in his shoes and wondering what it would feel like if he careened back down the stairs and joined Max in the hospital.

Will was somewhere up here, but the top floor of the Harrington house was nearly as large as Mike’s entire house, so finding him was not going to be easy. 

If Mike didn’t know any better — if he wasn’t the tiniest bit smarter than he had been in Lenora a few months prior — then he’d have thought that Will was in a bedroom with the door locked, making out with that girl his painting had been for. 

The anger boiled up in Mike’s stomach again, reddening his cheeks, and he huffed as he began to search for Will. 

Maybe he should just ask who the painting was fo –

“Mike?”

Mike spun around, sending the world spinning with him, even after he stopped moving. He had been about to walk out of a random guest room, slightly dejected that his earlier theory about Will hadn’t been true — if it had been true, Will would have given Mike a real, tangible reason to be mad, instead of all of the shit that Mike almost felt like he was making up — when Will called out his name. 

“Mike, I’m out here.”

Mike followed Will’s voice through the room and out onto a small balcony. Mike glanced over the edge and immediately took a few shuffled steps away from it. It was too tempting. 

Will had a small, almost worried smile on his face, like he was a little confused by Mike’s sudden appearance but pleased nonetheless. He was curled up on one of the outdoor chairs, feet neatly tucked underneath his thighs. 

Mike’s eyes got caught on him. But they always seemed to do that. 

“Are you okay?” Will asked, his voice taking on that amused tone he had when he was about to start teasing Mike. His worried smile morphed into something of a confused, judgemental one, eyebrows pinching upwards towards his bangs as he quietly observed Mike, in all of his plastered glory. 

Mike blinked at him. He could feel himself beginning to sway, ankles wavering from side to side. Balance was a thing of the past. 

The edge of the balcony was right fucking there , and if the world didn’t stop spinning soon, Mike would get flung over the side and into the night sky streaked with little lines of light. 

Will’s hand was loosely gripping a sketching pencil — a blue one, Mike’s brain helpfully supplied — and there, in his lap, was his sketchbook. When he saw Mike looking at it, Will slowly flipped it closed, the lemon-colored plastic cover making an oddly heavy swoosh ing sound as it shut. 

“I was sketching,” he said as some sort of explanation; as if it wasn’t obvious, as if he needed to give one to Mike. 

As if Mike deserved one.

That anger that had been dammed up by the mere sight of Will surged again, the righteous wave crashing against the walls that Mike had way too much practice in keeping up. Mike gritted his teeth against it, but it was no use, at this point. Mike’s brain was moving too slow, his head was too heavy, and the anger and hurt that he’d felt building for the past couple of months was amplified by the alcohol in his system; the only clear thought that he seemed to be able to grasp was that it was futile to fight it any longer. 

Mike Wheeler was about to lose his best friend on a warm summer night.

Again . 

“Who was that painting for?” He started, apropos of absolutely nothing. There wasn’t any polite way to start this conversation, he supposed, and was almost proud of himself for ripping the metaphorical band-aid off. 

Will’s confused smile dropped, leaving only his bewilderment in its wake. “What?”

“The painting ,” Mike said, through gritted teeth, and his reasoning for being angry slipping out of his brain like it was water in a sieve. He wasn’t even sure what he was so angry about, anymore, just that Will had left and Mike had waited while he had moved on. 

“Mike,” Will paused for a moment, like he was trying to make sure that Mike was listening. Will had probably seen that Mike was drunk right away, because he’d always been able to read Mike like that, knew all of his emotions and his tells and everything about him. “I’ve made a lot of paintings, I’m not sure–”

“I was going to wait for you,” Mike blurted out, almost accidentally. “I was going to wait for you to come back, but then you went and fell in love with someone else.”

Will untucked his feet and began to stand up, putting his sketchbook and pencil down where he had been sitting. He put his hands up like he was trying to show that he was unarmed — like he needed anything more than words to destroy Mike. “What?”

Will looked so confused . Why did he look so confused?

“No,” Mike said, panic suddenly clawing its way up his throat as Will approached, placating hands be damned. The closer he got, the easier it would be for Mike to get distracted, for Will to comfort him and stop him from talking so he could explain himself. Mike just needed to get this anger out. “Sit…sit down .”

Will looked so lost that a remote part of Mike felt almost sorry for him. But the anger was too strong for Mike to even wince at the tone with which he’d said the words; it felt good to finally be in control of something again. Mike had been spinning out of control for much too long now. 

“Okay, Mike,” Will said quietly, voice defeated already, and Mike hadn’t even started yet. “Okay.”

He sat back down. The panic gripping Mike’s chest eased. 

“You made–” Mike started again, and whoa , he felt a little sick in the absence of the panic, right now, but he gulped it down to continue. “You made a painting. ”

Will had the audacity to pale . 

“Listen, Mike,” Will started, anxiety evident on his now-blanched face. “If this is about what I said in the van, then–”

“It’s not about what you said in the van!” Mike interrupted, frustrated that Will wasn’t just getting him and what he was trying to say like he used to be able to do in a heartbeat. “Why would that matter right now?”

Mike was confused. What did what Will said in the van have anything to do with the love letter painting he had made for that girl in Lenora?

“It’s…it’s about–” Mike blinked slowly, trying in vain to get the world to focus around Will. “You made a painting for someone else and you just…it’s always about you .”

Mike would have teared up, if he was sober. He rarely ever told the truth anymore — nobody did, honestly, it was all lies and muttered friends don’t lie in response to the most blatant half-truths, the I’m okay, El, really or the oh, no, I don’t think I need to see Will today. Part of Mike hated it; he hated lying to his friends, and he hated being caught in a delicate web that would all come crashing down with a single wrong lie. 

Most of his lies surrounded Will, and the weird fluttery feeling that erupted within Mike whenever he thought of his best friend. He’d never told anyone ; he’d been too scared to, too embarrassed — not of Will, but just the fact that he was capable of such a light feeling for someone who…for a boy . Mike felt it was his secret to keep. 

Until now, at least. It felt like a physical weight being lifted off of him to say something truthful about it out loud. 

“What?” Will gasped, the gravity of the words seeming to hit him square in the chest. “Mike–”

Mike closed his eyes and shook his head. He needed Will to be quiet and just…just be there , for a second. Even if that thought alone would be enough to send Mike into a selfish spiral on any other night. “And I know I didn’t–” Mike looked down at his feet, ashamed of himself. “I know I didn’t write much, and I’m sorry for that. But you always made it seem…you always made it seem like it was you , but it wasn’t you, it was me .”

Mike stole a glance at Will, only to find him sitting with a painfully neutral expression on his face. Something about that made the red-hot anger flare up in Mike’s chest again, and he furiously continued. “It’s always about you, Will, but tonight I’m…I’m fucking drunk , is what I am, and it’s going to be about me .” 

Mike wasn’t used to putting himself first. His priorities had always been skewed, it seemed; any healthy person would take one look at his life and recognize that. But whatever the hell Mike was doing gave him some small purpose, at least. And now, when he just couldn’t take it anymore, it would all come boiling up and over and then he would force himself — using his bony elbows and maybe a lowered shoulder — to be the center of attention. 

“I lost…God, Will,” Mike mumbled, running an exasperated hand over his face. “I feel like I lost a piece of me when you moved away, but you —” Mike made some sort of all-encompassing gesture to the sky, like Will could understand what he was trying to say without him actually having to say it, like somehow Mike could move the stars to spell out his point. “You lost your entire past when you left.”

“Mike–” 

Mike leveled a glare at Will, or tried to, because something in Will’s neutral expression broke when he looked at him. “I had so many plans with you, Will,” Mike admitted quietly, never breaking eye contact with the boy sitting in front of him. “We had so many plans together and you just…you left .” 

Memories, good and bad, from their shared childhood flooded Mike’s mind, unbidden.

It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!

Well, if we’re both going crazy, then we’ll go crazy together, right? 

It was a seven. The demogorgon, it got me. 

Will you be my friend?

“You said yes,” Mike slurred, suddenly aware of just how much he had drunk throughout the night. He flipped his wrist up towards his face with the intention of checking the time — it had to have been far past midnight, and Mike didn’t really want to go home, not yet — but was met with a small strip of skin that was paler than the rest of his arm. 

Oh. He’d forgotten he’d ripped his watch off during his first night back in Hawkins. Will had gotten it for him for Christmas a few lifetimes ago, and Mike had nearly cried at the time, because he had gotten the same watch for Will for that same holiday. 

It had been one of the only true pieces of Will that Mike had had left, one that was a symbol of their friendship, sans the feelings that Mike had that had complicated it all. 

And he’d ripped it off in a fit of sadness, desperately trying and failing to experience the catharsis that Will had felt when he’d destroyed Castle Byers — despite his claims that it got ripped down in that storm on that dreadful day. 

It was a wonder Mike even tried anymore. He’d failed so many times —

“Mike, you’re drunk,” Will said, voice weak, like he was trying not to cry. “We should get you inside.”

Will was always too good to him. Mike felt his fight draining from his skin as Will placed gentle fingers on his elbow and carefully guided him inside, away from the warm summer night and the potential of Mike trying to jump off of the balcony under the guise of trying to get to the pool.

Will sat Mike down on the guest bed, like he was afraid Mike would keel over and die if he was left standing alone — which, Mike observed, was maybe not the worst idea in the world — then ran over to the door. He stuck his head out into the hallway and, after a frustrated sound that Mike heard echo inside his skull, returned to kneel down in front of Mike.

Oh. 

Oh .

This was…admittedly, this was not where Mike had been expecting the night to go. He was hoping that maybe he’d get wasted and then finally have the courage to pull Will aside — maybe grab his hand like Robin had done to Steve earlier — and lead him outside. Mike had been hoping maybe he could trail his fingers up from Will’s hand to his arm to his neck to his jaw, and maybe his other hand would be buried in Will’s hair and he’d lean in and kiss Will like they hadn’t just saved the world, like it really was going to end in the blink of an eye. Maybe Mike would even admit his feelings, too. 

But Will was on his knees in front of Mike. And that…Mike wasn’t sure if he wanted that , right now. There were too many emotions that couldn’t be labeled as anything other than bad swirling within Mike right now, and he didn’t want his first time with Will to be overshadowed by doubts and self hatred.

He was also really fucking drunk .

But the sight of Will balancing himself by gently setting his hand on Mike’s thigh, right above his knee, spurred a new line of questioning within Mike.

Had Will…done this before? Was the mysterious girl in Lenora a mysterious guy in Lenora?

Mike was suddenly struck with how stupid he was. 

It wasn’t that Will didn’t like Mike because he was a guy; it was because he was Mike .

And…and somehow, that stung even more than if it had been the other way around. At least if Will liked girls, then Mike’s little unrequited crush — love? — for him would be pathetic and Mike could at least pretend to be the victim of circumstance, even if he only did so to his own mind during long nights when the shadows crossed the ceiling of his room in slow motion.

But Will — maybe — liked guys, meaning…what? Mike wasn’t good enough for Will? The other guy was better? Was a close friendship not enough for Will? Did he prefer someone he didn’t know, so he wouldn’t see the crack in the chassis before he fell in love? 

Stupid stupid stupid.

“Is he better than me?” Mike blurted out, words slurring together so much it would be a miracle if Will could understand what he was saying. 

Will looked up at him, eyes shining like he was the one feeling all of the bad emotions. Mike wanted to make it better. “Is who better than you, Mike?” He asked, voice exhausted. 

Mike tried to speak around the lump in his throat, but then Will was leaning down, using the hand on Mike’s thigh to steady himself as he bent over. Mike’s voice caught in some noise of surprise, before he gasped out a small “okay.”

Will looked back up at him again, confusion written plainly on his face, before he shrugged to himself and leaned back down. Mike blinked as he reached down and began slowly untying Mike’s shoe, the old, worn Converse that had been with Mike through nearly as much as Will had. 

A breath of relief released itself from Mike’s chest, and Will looked at him curiously again as he gently maneuvered Mike’s shoe off of his foot. He made quick work of the other, and then he was standing back up, Mike’s shoes in hand. 

Will wandered over to the door again, then set Mike’s Converse down, neat and next to each other like they were Will’s own sneakers after years of getting reprimanded by Joyce for leaving his shoes everywhere. 

Mike followed his every move with his eyes, because there was a heat in his cheeks that hadn’t been there before, and Will’s face was flushed like he had just run a marathon. 

Will was gorgeous , Mike realized almost glumly. Will was gorgeous, and surely anybody with eyes would be able to see that, and anybody who got to know him would know that he’s gorgeous in every single way that matters, and even in every way that doesn’t. Will’s heart was unlike anyone’s that Mike had ever met before; he was so kind and considerate and even after so many years of trauma, Will wouldn’t hesitate to help someone in need, even though they’d both helped more than their fair share of people. 

That boy in Lenora was lucky. 

Will came back around near Mike’s shoulder and lightly pushed him back onto the bed. Mike flopped back, lacking the grace or the cognitive functions to do anything more, and Will snorted quietly. 

Mike turned and smiled up at him, because he’d just made Will laugh , and even though that boy in Lenora probably could do the same, there was always something special about being able to make Will laugh. 

It was much better than making him cry. 

Will looked away, and Mike — for a split second — distantly wondered if Will was going to get on the bed with him. If they were going to-

“Mike, you need to scoot up onto the pillow.”

Will was still looking down at him, haloed by the coruscating light reflecting off of the pool and into the windows. The longer Mike watched the light waver behind Will, leaving his face in shadows, the more sick he began to feel. 

“ Mike .”

Mike sat up and promptly shut his eyes against the world, which had begun to undulate as much as the watery light. From faraway, he felt a light hand on his shoulder, guiding him up towards the head of the bed. When he felt soft, fluffy pillows under his head, Mike returned to his body and opened his thousand-pound eyelids. 

Will was still there, hands fluttering around like he wasn’t sure what to do. 

If Mike was that boy in Lenora, Will would know what to do.

It suddenly struck Mike that he had never answered Will’s earlier question. “That boy from Lenora,” he said, but the words felt fluid as they left his mouth. He cleared his throat and tried again. “That boy from Lenora, you were making him a painting…”

Mike trailed off, not entirely sure what he was talking about, anymore. His entire body felt like it was about to crash down through the mattress and into the living room below them. 

Will looked confused, and if Mike was any more himself, he would’ve probably gotten angry all over again. “What boy from Lenora?”

“El said you were making someone a painting,” Mike mused, trying and failing to match up the puzzle pieces in his mind. “She said…”

The next thing Mike knew, he was being shaken awake, and when he opened his eyes — he hadn’t realized that they had closed — he was met with the wonderful sight of Will’s face directly in front of him. 

“You’re beautiful,” Mike slurred. It was true. 

Will’s eyes bulged minutely, before he shook his head and whispered something to Mike.

“Hm?” 

Will rolled his eyes. “What did El say, Mike?”

Mike blinked. Why were they talking about El? 

Oh. 

“She said she thought you were making a painting for…for someone you like.” Mike’s throat seemed to dry as he said it, and he gulped. He reached a hand out to touch Will’s cheek, but missed terribly. “So who is he? Is he better than me?”

Will was looking back at Mike with some feelings in his eyes that ten-year old Mike would have been able to decipher in a heartbeat. Drunken seventeen-year old Mike was clueless. 

Something suddenly dawned on Mike as he watched an emotion he recognized — hurt — cross over Will’s face, and it jerked him back to a certain summer day in his garage. “I used to be him, didn’t I?”

A single tear rolled down Will’s cheek, and he stood up to hide it. Mike stayed looking at where Will's face had been. 

“Will,” Mike called, fearful that maybe Will would leave him alone in this room with the ghosts of his past standing there, staring at him. “ Will.”

Panic was just starting to claw up into Mike’s throat when Will came back into view and knelt down in front of Mike. Mike blinked at him. 

“Here,” Will said quietly, thrusting a water bottle into Mike’s face. Mike flinched away from it, and suddenly it was gone, only to be back a moment later without the cap. “Drink.”

Mike could never say no to Will. When he held the bottle to his lips, it hit him — not for the first time — how much he had drank since the beginning of the so-called party, and how much he was going to feel it the next morning. Some water didn’t quite make it into his mouth, and he could feel a single drop finding its way down his chin. He lifted his heavy hands and wiped it away. 

“What was I supposed to do without you, Will?” Mike slurred. He couldn’t really remember what he was going to say before that slipped out of his lips, but he’s still sort of glad he finally said it. “You just…you’re so–”

Will placed a gentle hand on Mike’s cheek and Mike blinked open his eyes to be met with Will’s, which looked almost like Mike’s — dark brown and confused — in the low light. “Mike,” he whispered, and Mike was suddenly aware of how close they were, and how little he would have to move to press his lips against Will’s, to steal a kiss—

Mike let his eyes slide down from Will’s eyes to somewhere lower, and Will’s mouth was parted like he had something else to say but couldn’t figure out how to say it. He finally set his lips in a firm line, and Mike could feel the hope draining out of him as Will shook his head minutely. “Go to sleep, Mike.”

“Okay, Will,” Mike whispered back, trying desperately to keep the disappointment from leaking into his voice. What did he have to be disappointed about, anyway? Will had never promised him a kiss. Will had only promised him friendship; that had to be good enough. 

Despite knowing that their friendship was all that it was ever going to be, Mike stupidly continued. “Will you stay…”

Mike had meant to finish the question with something along the lines of here, with me? but couldn’t finish, because Mike wanted Will to stay , in every aspect of the word. He wanted him here , he wanted him in Hawkins, he wanted him in his life. 

Mike blinked as Will walked away. 

Oh.

Mike tried not to cry. The tears welling up in his eyes were bad, terrible; nobody should cry because their best friend wouldn’t stay with them when they were drunk. That was asking too much of a person, wasn’t it?

Before Will walked out the door — which he suspiciously hadn’t done yet — Mike whispered, “As long as you’re happy…”

He didn’t know how to finish without crying. 

The rustling that had been happening behind Mike paused, like Will was stopping in surprise. Mike couldn’t see; it was simply too much work to roll over to investigate.

Mike could feel his shoulders shaking with unshed tears as the rustling continued again, then the door closed. 

So Mike was alone. 

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, if Mike actually used his brain to think about it. Why would Will stay? After everything that Mike had done to him — yelling at him tonight included — why should Will stay with Mike? Why–

The mattress dipped behind him. The tears stopped almost immediately, only to be replaced by an almost morbid curiosity to know who, exactly, could be laying down behind him. 

Mike, in a feat of great strength, determination, and bravery, rolled onto his other side. 

Will’s face was right there , but he didn’t back away. He almost seemed to dare Mike to go closer. 

So Mike did. 

Will’s breath was oddly shaky, like he wasn’t used to such close proximity. Mike wasn’t faring much better; his heart felt like it was trying to beat out of his chest. 

Will closed his eyes, almost like he was bracing for a kiss. “Nobody’s better than you, Mike,” he whispered, voice so soft and so… scared that when it finally fluttered on butterfly wings through the thick haze in his brain, Mike realized he needed to do something .

Slowly — as if moving too fast would frighten Will away, or make him turn into soft, incandescent, intangible particles, like the ones that floated through the Upside Down, allowing him to slip through Mike’s fingers one more time — Mike raised his fingertips to Will’s cheek. 

At the briefest brush of skin, Will let out a soft puff of air, almost accidentally, it seemed, and Mike, despite himself, followed with his own unsure, shallow gasp. 

It was dark; whatever lights that had been illuminating the pool earlier had been cut out, plunging the room into an unsteady darkness that Mike vaguely recognized would set Will on edge. It was dark , almost pitch black between them, and yet Mike could still make out — if only barely — Will’s eyes trained on the lower half of his face. 

In a sudden burst of bravery and curiosity — he did consider himself a man of science, after all — Mike darted his tongue out over his lower lip, and Will sucked in an uneven breath. 

The anger that had been curling in Mike’s gut blossomed into something more familiar, but still novel; a hotter type of feeling that only grew as Will’s foot moved forward, rustling the sheets, to hook around Mike’s ankle. 

Mike allowed his fingertips to press harder into Will’s skin, and changed the angle of his hand, brushing the pad of his thumb over Will’s cheekbone.

Will’s foot was suddenly replaced with his calf as he wedged his leg further between Mike’s shins. His calves were muscular, much more so than Mike remembered before California, but then again, so was the rest of Will.

At that thought, Mike had the sudden drunken urge to feel the muscle that Will had been not-so-subtly hiding from him since their reunion — if they could even call it that. 

Almost on its own accord — Mike’s synapses had been misfiring like crazy since he had first touched the alcohol that night, and being in such close proximity to Will was not helping — Mike’s unoccupied hand reached forward and settled on Will’s chest, right above his heart. 

Even through the thin cotton of his shirt — Mike blankly realized that Will must have took off his other layers at some point between leaving and coming back, but he wasn’t exactly sure when — Mike could feel Will’s warm skin and his heart beating a quick but steady thump-thump thump-thump in his chest. 

“You’re the heart,” Mike whispered, accidentally, the words coming unbidden from a memory that he had been trying so hard and drinking so much to forget. 

And suddenly, Will was even closer, his nose brushing Mike’s, lips ghosting over warm skin, and all at once, Mike felt stone cold sober. Goosebumps raised all over his body despite the heat, and Mike felt across his skin more than heard Will’s whispered reply of “Nobody’s better than you, Mike.”

It was like Will knew that Mike didn’t believe him — like he knew Mike’s train of thought, that saying it once could’ve been a mistake, that even though it felt like Will was telling the truth, he really wasn’t. 

And Mike had no real reason to believe he was being fooled, but some deep, hidden, nasty part of him seemed to know that any compliments he had ever gotten were false, and he felt like some sort of fake and a liar for being able to dupe everyone who’s ever been nice to him. 

Mike turned his head, either to reply in the negative or just to ask Will why he kept saying that, but instead, his lips ended up brushing Will’s, and it was just too much to resist, anymore.

Mike may have felt sober, but he was still reeling from the sheer amount of alcohol he had drank in the past few hours, and incapable of thinking through things that would allow him to avoid making stupid decisions and ruining friendships, especially the ones that were most important to him.

Except, maybe he always struggled with that, even when he was sober.

Will’s hands were on him almost as soon as Mike crushed his lips against the other boy’s, teeth knocking together with the utter force of it all. The leg that had been just resting between Mike’s was instantly used for leverage, rolling Mike back onto the pillows and allowing for Will to climb on top of him.

Mike’s hands stayed firmly plastered to Will’s cheek and his chest, fingertips toying with the idea of going beneath the collar of Will’s shirt to skate across his skin. Instead, Mike discovered that he could bunch the fabric if he curled his hand into a fist, and that would bring Will closer, and wow , Mike was just a fucking genius , wasn’t he?

Will’s hands stopped their wandering — through Mike’s too-long hair, down his sides, over his chest, across his jaw —  in favor of framing Mike’s face, and with more effort than was probably strictly necessary, he lifted himself up above Mike. Mike chased him, utilizing his new found way of getting closer to pull Will back down, but then Will shook his head against Mike’s lips and Mike had barely enough sense to let him go. 

As they both tried to catch their breaths, Mike mourned the absence of the sight of kiss-drunk Will, his lips no doubt swollen from Mike’s teeth and his pupils blown. A remote part of Mike — one that was unquestionably touched by alcohol, because he would never let himself think about it sober — wanted to kiss Will again in the light, in every single scenario either one of them could think of so Mike could stare at the beauty that he knew had to radiate from a just-kissed Will. 

Will was always beautiful. 

“Mike,” Will started, voice wavering, and the protective instincts that only seemed to flare up to such a high degree when he was around Will took over Mike’s drunken logic. He wrapped his arms around Will’s back, pulling him down to rest his head on Mike’s chest. 

Will let Mike hold him for only a moment before he was pulling away, searching Mike’s face for something.

“Nobody’s better than you,” Will repeated again, for a third time, and the expectant look on his face had Mike’s snail-paced brain realize that he was supposed to be getting something, here. 

You’re the heart, Mike.

What boy from Lenora?

Is who better than you, Mike?

Nobody’s better than you, Mike.

“The painting,” Mike gasped, and Will sighed in relief, collapsing to the side so he wouldn’t fall directly on top of the other boy. “That was…me?”

“Yeah,” Will said, some small, exhausted amusement coloring his voice. “God, you’re so drunk. You taste like alcohol.”

Mike would have smiled if every single last one of his functioning brain cells hadn’t been absolutely obliterated in the face of such jaw-dropping news. “ Me? ”

“Yep,” Will confirmed again, around a yawn.

“So I was…it was me?” 

“Mike. I don’t know how many more times you need me to say it.”

Mike felt like he wasn’t in his body. He was the boy in Lenora? He was the crush Will was making a painting for? 

He was jealous of himself? This whole time, he’d been jealous of himself? 

As the adrenaline faded from his body and was replaced by confusion and realization, heavy sleepiness began to settle in for the second time that night, dragging him down through the mattress. He turned to look at Will, but was only met with darkness, which — after a few seconds — he realized was because his eyelids had finally become too heavy to keep open any longer.

“Tomorrow,” he slurred. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

It took all of the remaining strength he had to stay conscious for long enough to hear Will’s response.

“Okay, Mike.”

The butterflies — or fireflies — returned to Mike’s stomach and, despite himself, he smiled.

He drifted off to sleep, wrapped up with Will, smiling.