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It’s quite the strange feeling. Knowing that you can’t just ride out to your best friend’s house, or he can’t ride out to yours anymore. Knowing that if you could, you’d bike across all the state lines you needed just to see him.
Not to see your girlfriend who you felt nothing but a gut-wrenching realisation when she kissed you– your best friend you’ve known since kindergarten.
Mike hasn’t been able to sleep. He can’t stop thinking about Will, when the person he should be thinking about is El.
But no. Will telling him that it’d be impossible for him to find another D&D party sticks in his mind like a sore thumb. That was more impactful than El kissing him.
He turns over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.
Will.
They only left a few days ago, but the thought of being away from Will makes him physically ill. He couldn’t ever imagine a life without him.
He tosses his head to the side, staring at his alarm clock as the soft glow of the digital red numbers stare back at him. 2:12AM it reads.
He remembers the days where he’d stay over at the Byers’ house and he and Will would sneak off to Castle Byers and fall asleep huddled together for warmth. Sleep was always easy, then. Despite how uncomfortable it was, it was always the best Mike ever slept.
He sits up, blinking a few times. It’s a bad idea, but an idea that hopes will let him sleep easy. He slips off of his bed, quietly putting on something warmer. He tip-toes downstairs, careful to not wake anyone.
The TV in the living room is on, playing some random, late night show Mike would never have an interest in. He sneaks past, listening carefully for his dad’s snoring.
It’s dark out. The light on his bike provides just enough for him. Not that it matters anyway; he could do this route with his eyes closed after being spun around fifty times.
It’s quiet. No one else is around, and it’s dark. The only evidence of life are the crickets chirping, and the occasional sound of a bat flapping its wings as it passes over the quiet town.
When he’s at the Byers’ house he grabs his flashlight and drops his bike. He instinctively goes around the side where Will’s bedroom is. He taps gently on the glass, a small part of him hoping that he’s completely imagined the whole thing of the Byers (plus Eleven) moving all the way to California. But Will doesn’t answer.
He does the trek to Castle Byers. His heart drops to his stomach when all he sees of Castle Byers is ruins; sticks, paper drawings, photographs, the small table, the little lamp, the flag, other small pieces, the sheets he and Mike chose together, and the tarp for when it rained, scattered and all dirtied.
The tarp.
Some water is still pooled from where the tarp dips down, leaves and dirt sitting at the bottom.
The tarp. The water.
It was raining the day of their argument. Will didn’t answer the door. Something else on the floor catches Mike’s eye. He crouches down to it, breath hitching sharply when he realises just what it is– a ripped up photo of the four of them together on halloween when they had all dressed up as the ghostbusters– split down the middle with an uneven line, separating Mike and Will in the photo; crumpled and wrinkled.
Will destroyed Castle Byers after their argument. The guilt makes Mike sick. That stupid argument made Will feel so much like shit that he destroyed the one place he said he felt like himself.
He destroyed it because of Mike; what he said to Will.
Fat plops of rain drop onto Mike’s skin as the guilt eats up at him. He didn’t know it was supposed to rain tonight, and it’s cruelly ironic that it is.
The sky is crying for him.
The ‘Castle Byers’ sign sits sadly, splintered and broken amongst the ruins as the rain starts soaking into the wood. The yellow paint that made up the letters is faded and cracked, chipped and flaking off at the edges.
He can fix this… surely. It should be fairly easy, right? Just gotta make sure everything is fine, and if there’s something that’s not, he’ll replace it. He doesn’t care how long it’s going to take him to fix it. As long as he has it fixed by the time Will comes back to visit. Mike can surprise him with it fixed up.
He doesn’t want to make it better; it was already perfect. Perfect because Will made it.
Mike works through the night rain. He tries so damn hard to recreate it just as it was. But nothing is as good as the original.
He’s tired. So fucking tired and his arms ache. But he’s made progress. Little progress that makes him satisfied.
He’ll finish fixing it at a later date, when it’s not dark and raining and he can actually see. He passes by what was Will’s bedroom window, tapping softly on the glass a few times again, biting back a sigh when again, Will doesn’t answer. The ride back home is harder than it was there.
Of course it is; he’s tired, his whole body aches, and his clothes are soaked from the rain, weighing him down.
He sneaks back in quite easily. He peels off his drenched clothes and dumps them in his clothes hamper. Climbing into bed, he definitely doesn’t cry softly and silently into his pillow leaving two little damp spots.
The only times he’s ever cried were when it related to Will. And this– okay, maybe he is crying. He thinks about the stupid argument they had and how hurt Will looked at the stupid things Mike had said. It leaves a pit in his stomach.
It’s not my fault you don’t like girls.
It was possibly the worst thing he could’ve said. He doesn’t know why he said it. It was all just in the moment things Mike still regrets saying even after apologising.
It’s going to leave a burn on their relationship until Mike can think of something that really makes up for it.
He wraps himself up in his bed sheets, shivering. He’s more than likely going to get a cold from what he did and how long he was in the rain for, but as long as he can still fix Castle Byers, he’s fine.
On his bedside table, sits photos of the four boys together, and in each one of them, Mike and Will are standing together in the middle. Mike grabs the photo of them dressed up as the ghostbusters– the same photo Mike found ripped and crumpled at Castle Byers.
He still remembers watching Will ride off in the rain, debating if and almost deciding he shouldrun out and catch him before Lucas came out and dragged him back inside.
Tears run down Mike’s face as he continues staring at the photo, feeling a sort of longing for the simpler times, when they all played D&D in the basement for hours and watched movies huddled up on the couch.
Those were the times, and all Mike could remember was paying barely any attention to the movies, and instead keeping focus on Will and how he reacted.
Right before he finally passes out with the photo in hand, he whispers to himself, “I’m sorry for being so stupid, Will.”