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what if i never come back from this?
forever part of my eternal darkness
tell me what it's like
to live on the other side
to live in love and lightsalvation and saving face, rosegarden funeral party
Mike Wheeler didn’t go to church as often as his father would like him to.
Here, at a random diner on the outskirts of Hawkins at nighttime in a bright red booth across from Will Byers, was as holy as his life would ever get.
Mike was raised to love God—to be a smart, religious boy and to celebrate Christmas Day as the birth of the sweet, miracle Jesus, a day loved by all, and Easter as the day of Jesus’ resurrection. Every dinner was meant to be blessed with an ‘amen’ coming from his lips, thanking someone he didn’t need to. His mother deserved the thanks more.
A lot of Mike’s earliest memories were of him and his family at the church, how he would wear his nice white button-up shirt with a navy cotton vest over it, and his nice, straight trousers. His sister — only Nancy at the time — and mother would always look beautiful, too. Hair pulled back into intricate hairdos with pretty flowery dresses on, his mother’s wedding ring flashing in the flame of the candles at the altar.
Mike looked at Will. His eyes. The fluorescent lights of the diner ceiling reflected off very specific hazel irises and it threw Mike back into the uncomfortable church bench that he’d have to spend an hour of every Sunday sat at. The different speckles on Will’s irises reminded him of his mother’s wedding ring. She barely wore it now.
The conversation hadn’t started yet. Right, they were here to talk.
Will ordered a strawberry milkshake, and Mike ordered his usual chocolate one. Their drinks were untouched. It had been four minutes since the waitress dropped them off at their table in silence.
The silence really reminded Mike of the church. It was the intolerable kind — so different from their usual silences. Those were filled with silent looks, small smiles, and sparkles in their eyes. They were young and innocent. And now under this flickering light, they were seventeen and immature.
Mike hadn’t properly been to church since he was twelve, the Easter that year. His younger sister, Holly, had started crying and was begging to leave five minutes into the service, crying about how she was scared the Easter Rabbit would steal her away. Mike begged to go home, too. His father let him.
Will cleared his throat, and that brought Mike's attention back to the boy in front of him.
“Are you going to talk?” He sounded irritated.
Oh. Right. Mike nearly choked on his spit when he inhaled and attempted to take a breath he didn’t know he needed. “Yeah. We are.”
“Are you going to? I know I am.”
“Right. Sorry. I’m sorry for—“
Will cut him off, “If you apologise for what happened in the basement, I’m leaving you here without a way to get home.”
Mike paused. He startled himself slightly when he nodded, no sound escaped past his lips.
His best friend scoffed, “You know, I thought maybe you’d understand where I’m coming from. I thought you’d know about it. It’s not like I hid it during the eighteen months we lived together, Mike. And you didn’t hide it either.” That’s what Will meant.
He was referring to the soft touches, the looks, and the static they both felt when their shoulders and knees would touch when they were sitting at the couch, watching the TV. Except they weren’t really watching the screen. They were more focused on the signals between them rather than the ones that displayed the images on the TV.
“I didn’t… hide what?” Mike asked.
“Do I really have to say it? Do you want to hear me say it?”
“Yes.”
There was a beat where Mike swore he heard a distinct heartbeat. That heart skipped a beat, or maybe two. It made it seem like someone’s heart tried to stutter something out. Maybe Mike imagined the ‘thump, thump, thump—thump,’ he heard. Hearts didn’t beat to the tune of morse code. After all, maybe it was simply his own.
“I wanted to kiss you as much as you wanted to kiss me, Mike.” With those fourteen words uttered by Will, his world flipped upside down.
The previous morning, Mike and Will had shared a kiss. That was provoked by years of their yearning. It was avoidable, but it still happened. Mike was in love with El.
He was meant to be, at least. He didn’t like boys. His father told him he didn’t. His father was as close as Mike had to God in recent years. His words were the testament. And if his father told him that he had to marry El and have children with her, he would. His father never told him he could be in love with Will. And that was the one of the many things that would never happen. It had only ever happened in his imagination, his dreams, until the previous morning.
“I didn’t—’’ he paused. Did he, or did he not? Did he want to kiss Will? Pull him in by the back of his neck, moving swiftly to press their lips together? He wanted to. He felt guilty. His body shivered with it. God would never forgive him, but if guilt was served to him on a shiny silver platter in the form of the most mediocre meal, he would still finish it with haste. He'd be left with nothing but a sick, empty feeling in his stomach, a hollow pit, and he'd beg for more.
He would always be hungry for more; he was becoming ravenous with guilt.
It was wrong; it was disgusting.
“You didn’t mean it? So you kissed me to what— to rub it in my face?” Will sounded distraught. He fidgeted with the straw of the milkshake. He forgot about the milkshake. “Because if you did, that isn’t funny, Mike. You kissed me like you meant it.”
“I meant it. I—” He started to breathe weird. “I wanted to kiss you. I wanted it so bad, you don’t—you don’t understand, Will. I can’t—” Mike got up from where he was sitting, and he was thrown back to the hardwood benches in the church. It felt like he was standing up after praying to God, begging to make him normal and tolerable. To help him become a good future husband; a good future father. “I’m going to the bathroom. I—Sorry.” he hurried away.
The waitress was nowhere to be seen — probably smoking a cigarette out the back. The few steps to the bathroom felt like torture. Every step felt heavy and left him in a struggle for his breath, like he was on a climb up a snowy mountain.
He threw the door open, a thud resounded throughout the silent diner. Mike moved to the dirty sink where he looked at himself in the smudged mirror — his face looked pale in the bright light of the bathroom. Or maybe he was just feeling sickly. Both were possible.
With his hands braced against the sink, he gripped the porcelain. The colour of it was almost the same as his face. His knuckles were white. He inhaled. The lights flickered.
Growing up, Mike thought he would never be happy. He never looked at girls the same way that Dustin and Lucas did. He told his mother his worries — worries that a nine year old should not have been thinking about — one night, when she had finished her second glass of wine. He was cuddled up to her on the couch, and she was stroking his hair.
“Mom,” nine year-old Mike said. “Lucas has a crush on a girl. When will I get a crush on a girl?”
His mother just looked at him and smiled sweetly, telling him “Would you be okay if you never did?”. Nine year-old Mike was lost. The point of life was to grow up and find a nice girl and to marry her. Was his mother saying that would never happen to him? “Some people don’t like girls that much. And that’s okay.”
And that stuck with Mike for years. And that’s okay.
That’s okay.
But then Will went missing, they met El and things happened that never should have, and El was the nice girl he met. She was always going to be that. But there was no love anymore. Maybe there never was.
And Will was always going to be so much more.
That’s okay.
And that’s okay—
The bathroom door swung open, and Mike’s head snapped towards the sound. Will stood there, the door slowly shut behind him. He looked apologetic. There was sadness in his eyes.
“Mike,” he began, “I’m sorry. That was too much. I just want to understand… why things happened.” Will must have noticed the way he was gripped the sink, because he took four steps, and all of a sudden he was right in front of Mike, took his hands into his own, away from the deathly grasp on the porcelain. Will cradled those cold knuckles. Their eyes met, and there was a soft look in Will’s. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to lose you again.”
Mike shivered at the thought. “You won’t. Lose me again, that is. I’m not going anywhere, Will. I just—” he paused, “I just… I want this. I want you. But I can’t have it. I need—I need El.”
Will looked hurt. The slight glimmer of hope that Mike saw in his eyes before he spoke was gone. He had never wanted to hurt his best friend like this.
He took a deep breath. Their hands were still together. Will’s fingers stopped massaging his knuckles, almost like he hoped to stop everything altogether; including this conversation. This situation. The look on Will’s face was so tempting.
“Oh.” Will muttered. He was about to pull his hands away, but Mike gripped them. His knuckles were white again.
Maybe Mike was the Archangel Michael, guided by mercy, and he bowed down to God, prayed for the forgiveness of humanity. There was a difference between him and the Archangel. And that was that the only forgiveness that Mike would get is the one he would have to beg for, for himself. He took a deep breath.
That’s okay.
And that’s okay.
In Will’s eyes, it seemed like Mike had an internal monologue. Maybe that was a necessity. Will’s hands were held by Mike, their fingers twisted, not entirely intertwined.
The silence was deafening. They hadn’t spoken for a minute. The only sound now was their breathing.
Inhale, exhale. Inhale, a stutter, exhale.
Their eyes met again. Mike, whose eyes had no light to them a minute ago, now did.
“Oh, fuck it,” Mike whispered so gently. His actions were anything but. He gripped Will’s waist, and pushed him hard against the tile wall — which definitely hadn’t been cleaned in at least a month — and Will reacted with a curt gasp.
At some point, Mike’s hand had travelled to cup Will’s jaw, the other still on his waist. “I can’t lie to myself anymore, Will.” he spoke, tone hushed.
Will’s attempt to keep his composure was evident, “Why have you been lying to yourself in the first place?” he asked, shakily. If he leaned forward even an inch, then their lips would be touch, and then he would stop having second thoughts. “If you wanted me all this time, you could’ve had me—“
“I didn’t know.” Will stopped breathing and Mike stopped blinking. “I didn’t know… I could have you like this.” he spoke in a hushed voice, scared of the waitress overhearing them, as if she cared about her job. “Do you want this, Will? Me to kiss you again?”
Will gulped.
He nodded.
With that, Mike finally closed the space between them.
This was the second time that Will kissed Mike within the span of twenty four hours.
It felt like he was floating. The hand on Will’s jaw travelled closer to the side of his neck, the thumb gently brushing the spot below his ear in a repeating, circular motion. It felt like comfort. And Will was hungry for more.
Their lips moved in a seemingly practiced motion, as if they had been doing this since they were younger and behind closed doors, but the truth is, they hadn’t. If they had, it was only ever in Will’s dreams.
And Will used to dream about it, frequently. About how warm Mike’s hand would feel against his own, often cold, one. About how Mike could ask Will to do anything, and he would — in one of his dreams, Mike sent him a sweet smile and was about to ask Will for the popcorn bowl, but Will handed it to him before he even uttered a single syllable; as if they knew each other through and through. About how maybe one day, when everything, if ever, was over, they would be free to be themselves. He hoped Mike did too.
But that day wasn’t today — today, in the cold warmth of the bathroom light, Mike had Will pressed against the wall with his lips quickly moving with more ferocity. Will grew more hungry with every movement of Mike’s hand against his jaw, every twinge of their lips, every sharp breath they took when they spent half a second with their mouths disconnected.
If kissing Mike felt like this, so warm and so loved, then this was all that Will wanted. It was almost like he could forget about other pressing matters in his life. Mike’s touch left him breathless.
It was wrong, it was disgusting.
Will shouldn’t be enjoying this. He shouldn’t be letting out little huffs of oxygen from the smallest amount of touch - touch of hands against his clothed skin and lips against his own.
Mike pulled away. “Will,” He whispered his name like it was in the gospel. His eyes opened to meet Will’s half-lidded ones, his pupils blown wide, but there was no hesitance in his expression. His eyebrows were relaxed, his breath came in quick almost as if he was trying to gulp down as much air as he could and his lips were still parted, like he was waiting for more. “Fuck.”
“What?” Will said while he exhaled.
“You look… so good, right now. You—You always do. But right now I could just—I don’t even know,” Mike paused. He closed his eyes again and leaned forward, but instead of kissing Will again, he simply leaned his head against Will’s shoulder. He took a deep breath. “I could forget about everyone in this stupid town. If it meant I could have you like this.” he emphasised his point by bringing his hands down to Will’s waist, gripping it, a similar action to the sink earlier. He was sure that Mike’s fingers would leave little fingertip shaped bruises. But that was fine. Will wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or not.
“You’d do that for me?” Will asked. His hand somehow managed to slowly crawl up Mike’s spine, up his neck, and now rested against his hair. There was a small curl close to the base of Mike’s neck that Will kept playing with in a constant motion. Mike shivered. “You’re willing to leave everything behind? Including El?” and Will knew he was being confrontational.
Mike lifted his head back up slowly just to look into Will’s eyes again, his eyes glossy and the blush on his face reaching the tips of his ears. He leaned forward to leave a chaste kiss on Will’s lips. A promise, or maybe something else. He paused for a second.
“I don’t know, Will. I’m sorry—I don’t know why I said that. This is—”
“Wrong?”
Mike fell silent.
“If it’s wrong, then why does it feel so good? Why are you looking at me like you still want more? Will you ever be satisfied with what you already have?” his anger was getting the best of him — not anger at Mike, but anger at himself. For letting this happen.
Will had pushed Mike away by his shoulder, but Mike didn’t take this lightly. They stared at each other for a total of five seconds.
Within these five seconds, Will thought of what he’d tell Chance when he would eventually see him again, in the comfort of Chance’s room, blinds closed, lights turned off. Because now, he knew nothing would ever feel better than his best friend’s chapped lips in a desperate motion against his own. Chance was all teeth and haste, Mike was all soft, plump lips, his fingers were like a first degree burn — leaving proof on the surface, without damage.
But truly, this caused too much damage. Will’s only attempt at a real relationship with the only other queer boy fell apart as soon as Mike kissed him for the first time the previous morning. But clearly, Chance was not the only one.
It was… Irreversible. They could never go back to the way they were before, and Will was fine with that. He was content with dying right now because he got to kiss Mike one last time before his final breath. This was his dying wish.
And if Mike was the one to kill him, he would be okay with that.
“I’m going to kiss you again.” Mike said.
Will nodded silently. And Mike kept true to his words.
This time, their kiss was more teeth than anything. Their noses bumped together. Will’s left hand travelled back to Mike’s waist and he held it steady, and his right was gripping Mike’s curls. When his fingers pulled at the locks, Mike sharply inhaled through his nose.
Mike slotted his knee between Will’s thighs to get a more comfortable angle — this only pressed him further against the wall and caused him to grip Mike tighter. They weren’t just kissing. Their hands explored each other’s clothed skin like they never had before, their eyes opened slightly every time their lips separated just to look at each other — take each other in fully. They had never seen one another like this before. Maybe this is the one time they would. Their future dreams would be more accurate now.
Mike and Will, who don’t remember life without each other. Who never knew what it was like to be just best friends. Who always craved to be something more. And now, it happened. They were something more. The static was always there.
Will was dizzy. He won’t ever forget the feeling of Mike’s lips against his. He was dizzy.
He let out a surprised gasp when Mike bit into his bottom lip. He let Mike take what he wanted. He parted his lips.
Their tongues danced together in an already familiar rhythm and it was almost hypnotising. Mike took all that he wanted, and then took even more. He was devouring Will. And Will was content.
Mike’s hands at Will’s waist found the bottom of his shirt and tugged it upwards, took it out from the waistband of his jeans. Hot fingers now touched Will’s cold skin. It felt like heaven.
The fingers softly trailed along Will’s waist, his stomach, coming to a stop at his sides where they just rested, unmoving. Their lips kept moving. Where the fingers touched, goosebumps appeared on Will’s skin.
When Mike started to move his fingers again, almost in time with his tongue, Will’s breath hitched and he pulled away from Mike.
It was almost like they forgot that they were kissing like two people who have never experienced touch before, so desperate for each other, in a dead-silent diner bathroom with the waitress in the kitchen.
Eyes meeting, Will leaned forward again to leave one last, soft kiss. Their lips were swollen. “Do you think—Do you think this is just a one time thing, Mike?” he asked.
“I don’t want it to be.” Mike replied, all in one breath. He was looking at Will like he was even hungrier than before.
“Should we…” Will gulped, “Should we go? Or should we stay?”
Mike shrugged. He seemed like he was out of it. His gaze was focused on Will’s lips, he watched how every syllable formed around his lips, which he had done hundreds of times before. This time, Will couldn’t help but notice how intensely Mike was looking at him. “I—We should go. To your car. And continue talking there.”
“Talking?”
“Talking.”
The sun was peeking through the horizon. It was one of the warmest October nights in Hawkins they would have.
Parked on the side of the road, through the trees, the light trickled in on Will’s sleeping face. Mike was sitting in the passenger seat, Will in the driver’s side.
It had been a long five hours. They kissed, they talked. They talked and kissed more. They didn’t talk about what would happen when they drove back home. Mike didn’t talk about El, and Will didn’t tell Mike about Chance. Their hunger for each other was greater than the guilt.
Their lips were bruised, their hair tousled. Their necks may have had a few love-bites on them, hidden under their collars.
Will looked beautiful.
The peaceful and soft expression on his face, eyes closed and his lashes fluttering every once in a while. He stared blatantly.
It reminded Mike of the stained glass murals in the church. Every time he opened his eyes after he prayed, he would be met with the most beautiful and colourful mural. He didn’t appreciate it enough then, because it seemed dull.
But now, looking back on it, it depicted a romantic scene. A man and a woman staring at each other from two different ends, separated by a sea of vast colours, reaching for each other. Mike never knew he could feel like that, too.
In Will’s white Ford Escort, he felt it. The need of Will’s touch, his lips against his bare skin, breathing in each other’s scent. He was reaching for it, just like the man and woman.
Mike was the Archangel Michael, and Will could be Saint William of Perth — the Saint who vowed to visit all the Holy Places in the world. And maybe, one of these Holy Places was Mike’s arms at the end of a long day.
He could only hope.
Will stirred in his sleep. His eyes slowly fluttered open, a low hum came from his throat as he attempted to wipe the sleep away from his eyes.
“Morning.” Mike said, softly, a huff that sounded more like a chuckle escaped his lips. “You were snoring.”
“Mmm, morning. I wasn’t.” He looked around, his eyes opened. “It’s still dark, is it not six yet?”
“Not yet.”
“We could stay here for longer.” Will said, hopefully.
“I know. We will.” Mike replied and leaned in to kiss him again.
Mike sinned. But forgiveness could wait. Forgiveness from God, forgiveness from his Father, forgiveness from El.
Here, with Will’s fingers in his hair again, their lips moved together.
Mike didn’t have to worry.
He didn’t want to worry ever again.
And that’s okay.