Archive of Our Own

I will turn myself into

 a gun, because

it's all I have,

because I'm hungry and hollow and just want something to call

my own.

— Richard Siken, Wishbone

,,,

Mike feels it dislodge in his mouth, a wave of spit like he's sick and his body is ready for it. It feels foreign, and a lot like surrender.

By now, they've bled the summer and they're sucking the blood from its bones. All that's left is scraps of an animal that won't run anymore. Bones crushed, skull polished, skin peeled. Blood. Pure sadism, or vengeance for another year lost to trying to save a world that has done nothing for them. Mike still tastes traces of Lucas’ favorite gum on his teeth, green apple.

He's standing alone in the kitchen, wishing he didn't. It feels like a secret. He hates his voice when he has no one else there to combat it, when it's just him. His wrist is sore from nothing.

It always starts with a crackle, just like the hiss of a firework before it sheds its body.

“Mike.”

He breathes in lieu of an answer at first. The sun turns the entire room yellow as if he's moving in a picture.  

“Will, hey.”

“Hey.” Crackling, a buzz. “How are you?”

“Fine, mostly.” He still hasn't told Will about the new party, about Hellfire. That they're fleshing out a new campaign that makes Mike's blood burn with excitement. It feels large. It is so heavy in his throat, like a pearl he willingly swallowed. He honestly doesn’t want to mention it to Will, knowing what it would mean to him.

“That's good. Me too.”

“Good to hear. Is school fine? El said you guys are adjusting well.”

It's quiet for a moment. Mike recognizes Will in the small hesitation, the soft spill of his voice. When he came back, the doctors said that there was irreversible damage to some of his vocal cords. He spent an entire week just screaming, and muttering to himself to stay awake. And then the cold, and the horrible things he was fed both figuratively and literally until he broke in the center like porcelain.

Mike doesn't like to think of how their lives could've been if all of it had simply passed them by, if it had been another kid that was just a bit more unfortunate. It's compassionless, it's a horrible thought to have. But Will's so far away, and it's because Hawkins isn't the home he had worked to make it for eleven whole years. Before the world sucked him down and he had nothing in him to fight it, even if he wanted to.

“Yeah, I guess.” Timid, unsure. Mike is never sure when to worry for Will. When it gets too compulsive and offensive. “I haven't made friends yet. It's a bit hard.”

“You'll get there.”

The buzz is a little louder now. Mike feels the patterns of the wall on his scalp where his hair opens up like a curtain.

“I don't know. I think there's this part of me that doesn't want to.”

“Want what?”

“To adjust. Move on, whatever.”

“You don't…” Mike doesn't think he's the right person to advise him on this, and frankly, on anything at all. He remembers Will's tear-swollen face when they said their goodbyes, and he couldn't help but recognize some kind of accusation in the way his lips quivered and his eyes were so dark with sadness when he finally let him go for the second time that day. Mike hasn't figured out what it is, but he hears it. In the silences, in the cruel way Will is probably saying less than he wants to.

So he continues to speak anyway. “You don't have to move on. Hawkins is still your home.”

“I know.”

“But you deserve to be okay.”

Will sighs. It's a heavy noise. “You're right. It's just a lot.”

“It's always a lot, Will. I don't think we're ever going to have less than a lot.”

Mike's voice plummets in his throat as he speaks. For the first time in his life, he doesn't have anything he wants to tell Will. Everybody's still fucked up, but they both know that. The mall is so mangled at its womb they'll probably have to tear it down. They already talked about that when Will first moved to Lenora, and he saw it on the news. They held space for Hawkins for about a week until the usual presidential conspiracies and Nuclear panic replaced it again.

And Mike is fine. He's despondent, sure, but El is gone. His best friend is gone. They've carved the Byers’ house down and they're putting it up for sale soon. That thought triggers another wave of nausea in him. Fourteen years. Everything that's left of Will exists only in them, and the blood they spilled on the asphalts of Hawkins. One way or another, this place is going to remember them. But Will isn't here for it. To see how they've cemented themselves into their town.

Like bristles, the curls on the back of his neck kiss his skin. Mike's body aches with growing pains. He likes his reflection most in the distorted mirror of metal. He doesn't know what he's growing into, just that it feels like it's out of his control. He won't tell Will that, he won't tell El either. Late summer is lethal. Too hot to matter, too late for anything good to come to fruition.

So Mike stays despondent. He is okay. And he doesn't always need to talk to Will. That doesn't have to mean anything.

The front door unlocks, Mike's grip around the telephone tightens. He hears the clack of his mom's shoes, the dull noise they make when they hit the carpeted floor. She's hoisting brown bags with groceries for the week. It's a Monday melting into another Monday. And Mike can't believe he watched Max's brother die just a few months ago through the hands of an interdimensional, Lovecraftian monster that has been haunting his best friend for years — and now he's upset about boredom, about monotony.

“Mike, are you hungry?” His mother whispers as she slips into the kitchen, a quick smile on her face. He nods.

“Look Will, I need to go.”

Will huffs. “Yeah, me too. I can't be on the phone for too long anyway with mom's job.”

He says this every time. And Mike is aware that the space between their calls is getting larger with each passing week, but he's listening. He just doesn't call because he has nothing to say. And Will doesn't call either. They're both busy sorting stuff out. Why force it?

“Alright. I'll see you.” Mike breathes.

“No.” Will speaks, and he can perfectly picture his smile. “You won't.”

୨ৎ

The thing is — he's never been this restless in his life. Mike's leg is bobbing to the sound of a song that's blurting from Jonathan's side of the cabin, in a room that he shares with Nancy. It's not exactly loud enough to be overwhelming, but it does coexist in Mike's ears with at least ten other things, like the dripping noise the gutter keeps making (which also matches perfectly with the bounce of his leg) and the sighs of contemplation Dustin is pushing out as he obstructs his map of the Upside Down again, for the third time in twenty four hours.

After Vecna and his dogs wiped out half the military personnel in Hawkins in a matter of mere minutes, the government didn't double down, didn't recognize the gaping wound in a small town library as something beyond its expertise, but they didn't pump the place full with reinforcements either. Casualties were taken care of, the number of deaths was balanced out by a new troop, a new weapon, the same cynicism that only camouflage print and husky, trained tone can bring.

They didn't tell the town anything about that, and there was no statement issued for the bullets fired and bodies burned so loudly they could be heard all the way to the outskirts of Hawkins. But the missing children had to be accounted for. So the military claimed them quarantined, with the promise that the kids would be released around Christmas time.

It's all damage control, but it's hard to question the ethics of governmental manipulation when that same government is actively pursuing them. El does remain their prioritized target, but she's good at hiding, she always has been, and she will do so until she gets what she wants. Sometimes she comes around, Kali's eyes behind her shoulder, and they both look like deer. Doe-eyed, waiting for the confirmation that their hands are still worth holding. Mike thinks about how well she fits into Hopper's arms, how she sinks into this place made for a daughter, and she adopts the tone of somebody begging to be a sister.

All of this, and Mike still knows that it's going to be her at the end, that she could split Hawkins apart just as much and maybe more than Vecna's anger ever could. Eleven is an earthquake, and she smiles kindly at him every time she goes.

And she isn't the only one. Earthquake and kind smiles.

They've been alternating between the Squawk and Hopper's small sanctuary. Nancy and Mike cannot go home, and neither can any of the Byers. And the Squawk gets too cold too fast, so this is where they usually end up on the calmer days. Claustrophobic, boiling. Mike looks to the window again, tracing the blurry iris of a lamp outside. And then to the door, and then to the door, the window, the door. It finally clicks open. Mike exhales around the entire arena of his mouth.

Will enters, wearing his usual look of jeans caked in mud and red-kissed knuckles. His nose is angry and irritated, and he's bleary-eyed almost all the time, less sullen, more firm. Like this exhaustion is worth it, it comes from something good. Mike leans back into the couch, the arch of his neck molding after the head of it. It's scratchy, it works itself into his body with a discomfort he has come to want. The ceiling is dark, wooden. Mike swears he smells rot sometimes when he's by himself here, in the morning, when the room finally feels big enough to exist in.

That's when his head will lull over to one side, running along the crack of Will's bedroom door standing ajar. Mike will try to believe that he's larger than he is, that maybe his sense of hearing has been tuned enough to hear deep breaths and the race of a heart that wants to keep running. But he's several feet away, and the light here gets so blue and bright in the morning, it takes him apart and seeps in slowly like honey. Mike can't take the anticipation anymore. He keeps imagining things that make him shudder from ribs to ankles.

Nothing happened on the 6th of November, but it might happen tomorrow, it might happen in an hour. Mike feels his eyes flutter. His temples are sore and painful when he touches them. Somewhere, further away, Nancy just spoke Holly's name again. Over the music, over the sound of Will placing down his shoes by the door.

Mike closes his eyes. His mind doesn't comply with his need for rest, but he can live with that. He has come to live with that.

“We're going to have to get you some new clothes.” Joyce says beneath her breath, and in Mike's smudged view she puts one hand on the seams of Will's pants while the other brushes the thicker and dried-in splotches of mud from the fabric. Will holds her shoulders with two hands and props her up again, telling her it's fine. She fixes some of the strands that have gone rogue on his forehead, and then she apologizes for using her dirty fingers to touch him.

He smiles at her, shaking his head. “I think I'm already enough of a mess to care.”

“Well, we don't have to add to it.” Joyce cleans her hands to the best of her abilities on her pullover, courtesy of Hopper.

Mike's eyes reopen properly, and now Will is looking at him. His face adjusts to the sudden attention.

“Are you okay?” Will asks, and the way he says it feels too soft for the amount of people that are here to hear them.

“Yeah. Just—”

“Me too.” Will says as his mother gives him a quick stroke on the upper arm and leaves. “I want to sleep for two days.”

“Or a week.”

Will's lips further ease into a crescent shape. Mike redirects his eyes to the rise and fall of his chest. Not calm enough yet. “Wish we had a week.”

A moment of Will just standing, examining his own hands that are slowly being wrecked by all the cramping and burning of himself. He moves his thumb, creases his eyes at the innate bond between his ring and pinky finger. Mike feels his own breaths resurface on the curve of his upper lip, watching, wondering what he'll do next, how he moves now that every step has momentum.

But all he does is flex his tendons, notes how the skin of his hand tightens around his bones. He's still and there's dirt drying on his clothes like a second skin. He used to look a lot more shaken, as if everything in the world was going to bite him right in the throat if he just breathed. His eyes were always wet, trailing, with an open mouth that didn't speak, even if he wanted to. And he wanted to. He wanted—

Mike comes back, rolling his head over until he's facing straight at the ceiling again. He presses his lips together and the blood flows out of them. Dustin's back brushes his calves as he gets up, says something to Will. It bounces off against the throbbing in his ears. He begins to flex his own hands, testing if he's still alive.

He can't visit mom. He can't see his father, whom he never thought he'd wanted to see as much as he does right now. They're always running. Holly is alive and she's communicating in codes none of them have succeeded in cracking yet. It's all so heavy and Mike feels that pressure now as he gives up, lets his eyes shut, lets the hungry tingle behind his sinuses win.

The room is hot because it is full of hot bodies. That's why Mike falls asleep fast. That's why, when he wakes up again, the sun is hanging blue somewhere outside that dust-lined window. It smells of laundry detergent. It smells of easier things, less bruises and more ink on paper. Boredom. Mike runs a hand over his wilted face.

He feels exactly like he did when he was twelve.

୨ৎ

The body doesn't forget. Neither does the mind, but it's easier to deceive yourself mentally than to rewire your body to believe something it doesn't want to. Mike has never slept well, and that self-destructive habit has been fed to overfull ever since everything set into motion. His dreams walk a fine line between mundane and absurd. He mostly remembers colors. Magenta and purple. Orange crashing into green, a white glow in the distance that still manages to swallow every small detail. Everything he's ever seen exists in riddles. Mike is a mystery to himself on most days, and that's why he stays up, gets moving, finds himself in the kitchen at one in the morning while the world is waiting to end for another consecutive year.

This time it feels for real. And he knows that concern is shared when Will faces him in the dark. Mike is standing on the last step of the staircase, holding a petite flashlight Nancy bought years ago for when she had to study late into the night. It's almost fascinating how quick it changed — how she went from searching words to searching something to shoot between non-existent eyes.

Will doesn't say anything but Mike sees him swallow, breathing alongside the small stream of water in the sink. His glass borders on overflowing when he turns the tap off. Mike ignites the small lamp on one of the counters. The cold body of the fridge runs a small shiver down his back when he stands beside it for too long.

Once they're both bathed in that gory yellow glow, the one that is so reminiscent of sneaking down during midnights to whisper back and forth with Dustin or El, when his eyes had been bigger and he felt both eager and terrified for whatever was to come, Mike just tries to dismiss how a familiar knot in his abdomen tightens again.

It just feels surreal, Will on two bare feet, hair longer and more ruthless now that he hasn't been minding it so much anymore. Two years ago, Jonathan's hand-me-down pajamas drowned him. Now he fits, the fabric loosened by years of wear, but he fits. And he looks so boring, so untouched by everything that happened to them, what especially happened to him. And Mike feels it, that longing to go back. To not let Will ride alone, to stay in this forever. It blows right through him.

Sharing his home must be ripping something apart in Mike. That something just keeps giving birth to vulnerability, and he doesn't know what to make of it. It's as if he's holding water between two palms and told not to lose any of it. Useless attempts at saving himself from something that he doesn't understand to fight. Will breaks out into a smile that marks him embarrassed. Mike's glad he's here.

“Is this just you being thirsty or is something else keeping you up?”

Will shrugs, takes the glass from the sink and quickly puts his lips to the rim to prevent it from spilling. His tired hand fumbles around the weight, but he manages. Mike waits for his response. He follows how Will's lips open and adjust around the glass, he watches him swallow again. It brings back a memory, where Will was still possessed and he'd jerk around like his lungs were trying to tumble straight out of his body. When it got too frustrating, Hopper's last resort was holding him down by his throat. He shook him right out of it, or waited until Will was too tired to scream anymore.

He'd have handprints on his skin. Not just his throat, but everywhere. All of that has faded. And Mike feels warmer, looking at him now.

“To be honest,” Will says, and his voice is perfectly settled in his throat like he has been speaking for minutes. “I really don't know.”

“Know or remember?”

“Know.” Will confirms. Mike expects him to get somewhat upset. A part of him is still sitting in that hospital chair with muscles long asleep. The most horrible parts of him still want to monitor every path that Will chooses to take, wants to count his breaths and rule out what is normal and what is too quick.

“I just get these thoughts at night. And those thoughts mix with thoughts I had the night before and then also ones from, like, a year ago. It feels like my mind is spitting and swallowing stuff at the same time. And it goes fast.”

Mike nods. And then he admits. “I get that too.”

Will looks at him for a moment, musters his face like he's searching for truth. Mike doesn't blame him. They spent years talking past each other after Will got better. But that's a wound he doesn't like picking at. It bleeds fast. Sometimes it pulses between them as a reminder.

“The stuff I worry about,” And Will finally calls it what it is. Worry. “It's not even exaggerated or something, but it still feels like I'm going insane.”

Mike's not sure why he's down here, why he led himself here. He doesn't make an effort to remember either, just stands around. “I think you're the sanest person around. That's why it gets scary.”

“I'm really not.” Will counters, turning away as he takes another sip of water. Mike opens the fridge door and pulls out a pack of grapes. The plastic packaging screeches between his fingers until he finally manages to place it down. He doesn't wash them, just works the lid open and lets the skin of a grape break between his teeth. The fruit bares itself on his tongue and he almost chokes on the blend of bitter and sweet. He suppresses a cough.

“Will,” Mike says when he finally recovers. His best friend's name mixes oddly well with the aftertaste of the fruit, mild and seeping. “Can I tell you something?”

“Anything.”

Mike adds to the flavor profile by working his teeth around the flesh of his mouth. He holds a grape between his fingers and almost lets it burst apart. “El and I, we broke it off. And it's really over this time.”

Will's expression barely changes. “Yeah, I know. I'm sorry.”

Two feelings clash at the center of his chest: first comes the relief of confessing. Mike isn't good at this and he probably won't ever be, but when it does happen, it washes over him mercifully and it does so at incredible speed. But Will says he knows and Mike remembers how interwoven their lives are, that El also keeps a channel open for him and that she loves him as a brother and that it's so different from everyone else. So, of course he knows.

And now confessing doesn't feel so sacred anymore. There's people doing it for him.

“Oh, yeah.” Mike finds a small scar on the back of his neck that suddenly feels much more interesting. “Should've figured.”

Will stands a bit closer than he originally did. Mike doesn't even remember him moving. The light settles on his best friend's stomach, and the fabric of his sweatshirt is thin enough for Mike to make out the silhouette of his body beneath.

“Still, thank you for telling me.” Will looks at the maroon grapes, then at him. “It can't be easy, since you guys were together for so long.”

It's not… easy. It's not easy because he hasn't told anyone else but Will and they're all still convinced that the distance between them is easy to work around. They believe Mike can persevere, and they don't need to believe it about El because she has proven so a thousand times. But the sudden distance isn't to blame, even if California did rip a fissure into their relationship that never healed. It isn't the fights, the forgetting, the way Mike used to push her hands away when they kissed. It's just Ouroboros eating itself. It was bound to happen.

So it isn't easy. But he isn't exactly sad. Just aimlessly wandering.

“I don't know. She just wasn't happy. It was selfish to try to keep her around.”

Will's breaths are deep. His eyes are deep with curiosity. “Were you happy?”

“I was an asshole.”

“I think you were just confused. Scared, maybe.”

Mike scoffs. “I wasn't scared of El.”

“Not El.” Will slides a hand over and takes one of the grapes. The side of his palm brushes Mike's hand where it sits on the plastic. “But being with somebody? Maybe that's what scared you.”

“Jesus Christ, Will.” Mike drops the grape he planned on eating back into the packet and pushes it all towards his best friend. “You don't even know anything about that.”

Mike feels the thrill his anger brings, when he imagines things to say and he says them. He knows he's going to regret it. But he still says it. Will's brows sink on his face. His hands find the wide fabric of his pajama pants.

“Okay, but I'm not stupid.” He says. And Mike knows that.  

“I didn't say that. I just,” Mike huffs, running a hand through his hair. It's odd not having it fall straight into his eyes like it used to. “I want to figure this out on my own. I don't need anyone's advice on my own feelings.”

“Right. I'm sorry.” Will says absently, closing the packet and pushing it back to Mike. He takes it silently and places it back into the fridge.

“Me too. I'm also sorry.” Mike feels how his voice gets thinner and gentler in his throat. Like a chord playing out. “I'm just frustrated, I guess. And you were just trying to help.”

Will nods. He brushes the sleep from his left eye and tilts his head like a dog. He still doesn't face Mike. “You know you can talk to me whenever you want.”

“Yeah.” He knows. He knows. He knows. It just doesn't settle in his mind. The assurance of anything. When El told him she still holds him close to her, he went home thinking she'd lied. When Joyce sat with him at the kitchen table and told him he's a good friend, he had to send himself through a spiral of thoughts to figure out if that is true. When Lucas said he had his back, Mike wondered what it would take for him to retract that statement. Ouroboros.

“Yeah.” Will repeats a few moments after, with a voice that has deepened, fastened into him. Mike runs a hand over the cold laminate in front of him. He picks up dust, stains that are persistent on keeping their place.

Mike points to the glass to Will's side. It stands half empty now. “Can I have some?”

Will doesn't say anything but he passes it right over. Mike drinks until there's nothing left. And he can tell that he's being watched, studied, understood. Will's presence is so heavy. Blanket-heavy, not something that will crush him.

But heavy nonetheless.

“Don't tell anyone. About El and me.”

Will's hand twitches. “I won't.”

Mike places the glass between them. “And try to get some sleep.”

“You're one to talk.”

Mike cracks into a smile. “Good night.”

“Good night, Mike.”

Petite flashlight. Steps surfacing softly on the stairs. Mike doesn't sleep for another hour.

୨ৎ

Mike gets moving once Hopper's up. He greets him with a gruff morning and makes his way to the kitchen. Mike bends and cracks himself awake. Then he finds the bathroom, puts some water to his face, brushes his teeth until they feel loose. An entire avalanche of sores works its way down his body and he still hasn't figured out how to stop it. It's better to focus on physical stuff, though. It's better than failing to steer free from his mind. Even if his shoulder is pounding still, sighing more pain into his muscles.

When he leaves the bathroom, Hopper seems to be waiting for him in the kitchen. Before him is a bowl, a milky bag of cereal that's almost finished and a milk carton that's dripping with condensation. Mike's eyes roam over the scene and he doesn't like the notion that he's being treated like a child.

“You look hungry.” He points out. Mike does nothing to argue against that. There's a void in his stomach and it's gagging on nothing. “And like death.”

He slowly takes his place at the small kitchen table, sinks his body down on the cool wooden chair. Hopper brings him everything he needs to eat. He drops a spoon into the bowl and it makes a disgusting sound that makes Mike flinch.

By now, they all know. Hopper never liked him with El, so he didn't make any changes to his behavior. He didn't ostracize him from the plans, just treated him as he did everyone else. As a comrade, as an asset to the bigger mission.

Mike likes it, the indifference. Except this time Hopper sits down with him. They're too big for this table. Their knees knock together and Hopper fixes his posture. Mike pours the cereal. He pours the milk.

“I'm sorry about your family. I wish those bastards would leave us alone for a second so your sister could take you for a visit.”

Mike places the spoon back inside the bowl and stirs. The pale, colorful shapes go with the swirl.

“It's okay. I'm just glad they're alive.”

“Yeah.” Hopper huffs, fixing himself a glass of juice. “People usually don't run into demos unprepared and come out alive.”

He says that as if Mike doesn't know. He has seen them up close, a humid mouth of teeth and all teeth and claws that know nothing but to seek and tear. He screamed straight at their ears in panic. He almost died at the Mac-Z if it hadn't been for—

“Will,” Hopper starts. Changes the topic when he notices Mike's apprehension. “The kid's incredible. I don't think there's a single thing he wouldn't be able to destroy down there.”

Mike tries to feed himself, but his mouth fills with saliva as a warning. His hold on the spoon tightens. The milk goes from white to beige.

Everybody has been coddling Will now that he's got these powers. And Mike always knew that something had to come from the pain he accumulated, he just didn't know it would be so incredible. So fulfilling for their plans. But regardless, they coddle him. Suddenly everyone perceives him as someone entirely new. Will caves under their attention, can barely take it without a heavy flush in his face and an awkward smile. Like he has never imagined that the unfortunate connection between him and the hive mind could breed something so great. That he would always stand in the corner. Waiting, going crazy.

(When Will tries to fill him in on the details of how it works, he stammers. It's an abstract that only he seems to understand. Or doesn't. It doesn't matter —  it works.)

“Yeah, he's…” He's Will. Anyone who knew him would believe in him.

Mike doesn't finish his sentence, but he forces himself to eat and then he can't stop, allows himself a bit more, doesn't mind Hopper's satisfied smile because his assumption was right. They sit for a while like this, Hopper's fingers pressed to the gray newspaper reporting once more on the current state of their imbroglio. He perks a brow, every now and then he laughs in disbelief.

They'll make up anything just to not explain the unexplainable. And Mike can't blame them, they used to do that too with Max. With their parents. They named everything after monsters and worlds they were already familiar with. Mystique is a weapon.

“Since you're the only one up,” Hopper says, rising again. “I'll take you on patrol with me today. We won't be out long.”

“It's not like I have anything else planned.”

Hopper nods. “Let's get you out of the prison cell, Wheeler. Get that blood flowing for your brain.”

Mike finishes up fast even though he's told to take his time, it's alright. He stuffs himself into a mosaic of clothes that are his own and that aren't. According to Nancy, his closet was obliterated by the demogorgon that attacked their family and now he's got basically nothing but what he managed to shelter at the Squawk. So he shares, mostly with Will. Lucas also brings some of his stuff around so they can layer to withstand the growing cold. The winters used to be bearable, but ever since the Upside Down opened up its lips and broke their town apart, there's a constant chill. It exists as a hollow sigh of wind that comes around every night, it grows bold in the morning.

Hopper thankfully kept the heaters they used to exorcize the Mind Flayer out of Will, but Mike doesn't like looking at them. He can't stand them. Survival is a give and take.

The door unlocks to the chill Mike expected, raw and clean. The forest is naked, the leaves are sticking, frosted to the ground. Before he can truly see the shift, the sky goes from blue to white. Their exhales materialize in the air.

Hopper is in front, though he does make up the effort to stand beside Mike when he can. And everyone has been telling him how tall he has gotten and how much taller he'll probably get, but next to Jim Hopper, he's really nothing. He doesn't hate it.

They're trampling on grass, hay-like and rigid. The ground is firm under Mike's boots that are disintegrating from within. Despite the warmth of his clothes and the sweat on the small of his back, Mike's teeth still clack together. The air enters where he was careless and he prays that he won't get sick like he always does. The last thing he can afford right now is to lose his voice. All he has is his voice.

“You do patrols when I'm not there, right?” Hopper's back expands in his view, a rifle spun around his torso. Contrary to Mike, the rhythm of his walk is more steady.

“Yeah, I try to keep myself busy. And useful.”

“That's good.” Hopper puts two fingers to his nose to rub it dry. “It's good that everyone's got something to do.”

And he's not wrong. It is good. It feels complete, thoroughly planned. Dustin is studying the Upside Down, recalculating and rethinking it, and Steve makes sure he doesn't die while doing so. Nancy is both trying to decipher what Holly offers while also actively spying on Doctor Kay and her people. Jonathan drives the cars, he sits with her, he puts a hand to her back when her posture crooks. Robin is busy keeping her radio channel alive, keeping people unaware and therefore alive. She's also still relaying any information Murray has for them, and when she comes around, she's invasive with her irony, draws laughter every time.

Lucas makes sure Max isn't being targeted in addition to them. Max is fighting to survive. El and Kali are actively pursuing Vecna. All updates come from the comms. They find traces of him, but it's not enough. They continue. El says she feels something that's far away but close enough to breathe.

Will trains one day and spends the other sleeping. Opposing Vecna's will and disrupting what he creates takes a tremendous toll on his body. He gets better with each day, but better doesn't seem to be good enough with what they have planned for him. It used to be Eleven who was going to take his head, but now it could be Will too. He is so much closer to everything than they thought when they burned extremities originating from the Upside Down and watched how Will toppled over and yelped until it would stop.

Joyce is behind him every time, sometimes El is there to aid him. To make sense of what he has been given. Not given, found. Found within himself. They're making a weapon out of him as they did El, and Mike has only joined Will for his training once — and it was enough. He doesn't like it. The way he contorts himself into a boy that bleeds. He is amazing, but Mike wants him to be Will too.

“You know,” Hopper just continues speaking. “I used to laugh when El called you their leader. Karen's and Ted's scrawny kid who could barely stand on two feet. You were a little shit too, for a while.”

Mike laughs through the little breath he has. He dares to walk up to him this time, looks the man right in the face. He looks amused, content in this empty environment. And the quiet is inundating, Mike feels that. He wants to drop on the hard ground, maybe burst his skull open, bleed a bit and then have it fixed up by somebody who doesn't argue against the wound.

“But you grew into that role nicely. You give these kids that push that they need. I don't know how you do it, but keep it up.” Hopper doesn't put an affirming hand to his shoulder. He just gives him a quick glance. Just the verbal approval is enough for Mike. “We need that right now.”

“I'll try.”

Hopper pulls out his pack of cigarettes, down to four. “We're all trying. Anything's enough.”

They continue trudging through the forest, just a little behind the edge where the mouth of trees opens up and rolls Hawkins out on its tongue. The streets are empty as they've grown to become. The silence is enough to make every footfall feel like a small risk. And the military has combed through this forest, they've mapped it out. But living in it gives you new ideas of it. Familiarity is, as paradoxical as it might be, also a weapon. Mike breathes with his head falling towards the sky, wondering if snow will come. He feels all the blood roll out of his face and he closes his eyes to the whooping of birds that didn't leave.

He doesn't want to go. Not yet. Just like the noise he coexists with so many people. And they toss him around. For a moment, he matters. But a moment is a moment and he finds himself discarded just as quickly. The worst part of it is that those people genuinely care for him in some way. Even Hopper seems warmer now that they have no choice but to live alongside each other. But they all have their people. They have their duties.

Mike just wants to stop feeling like he's sidelining his own life. He wants to talk to somebody again until his jaw protests. He wants to grab somebody's arm as he passes by and he wants to be embraced exactly how Eleven is embraced when she returns.

It's stupid, and it's stupid enough for the string of his thoughts to snap. His eyes refocus on the light. Hopper cocks his head towards the direction of the cabin. The ground crunches. Somewhere in the distance is the moaning sound of metal being moved.

When they return, the cabin is more full, blossoming now that it's noon. Joyce is standing with Jonathan, who wears his headphones like a necklace. They're cutting vegetables for today's dinner. Maybe even for next week. Preservation has become increasingly important now that they can't let themselves be seen. Dustin left at night, and Mike only learns about it when he asks Nancy, who passes by to take a shower. Her hair is frizzy and matte because she's got problems heavier than the way her curls sit. Her hands are calloused and cat-like from all the shooting.

Surprisingly, Robin is also there. She usually comes around in the evenings in hopes that Steve is there. When it isn't Steve, she takes to talking with Will. Will likes people and he loves being treated kindly, which is why he has been flocking to Robin as much as he can since their last crawl.

Mike gets it. She's cool, she knows she is, and she's older. Will missed out on a lot of things because he was busy trying not to succumb to things he thought he got rid of, so now it all comes rolling down the hill. Mike tends to avoid them when they're huddled together. He feels like he doesn't have space in Will's and Robin's vacuum of whatever it is that binds them.

Right now they take the place on the couch that Mike slept in, Robin's head propped up on her knee, her jacket discarded on the armrest. Will sits with his elbows on his thighs, lazy and bent forward. His hair is a mess from a morning he probably refused to tackle. It's honestly impressive that he managed to get up at this time after overworking himself yesterday. When Mike steps inside just behind Hopper, Will fixes his eyes on him. Mike gives him a curt smile and Will looks away again, focusing back on Robin.

She hits his knee as she remarks something, and that same, endless pool in his stomach that Mike tried to fill a few hours ago tears apart. He feels like an animal shot in the leg, maimed and marred and just disgusted by his inability to not get up and focus on running. This doesn't have to mean anything to him when the world is ending.

Will deserves good things. Mike clears some of the mucus from his throat and his thoughts go blank when he hears the music from the radio grow louder. Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now chirps out and Hop puts two hands to Joyce's waist, kisses her hair. She slims in his embrace and feigns annoyance with a small groan. Mike looks at them, and then at Robin again. She's staring right at him.

When he walks through the room and towards the bathroom so he can lose the layers, he puts two quick fingers to Will's shoulder. Mike's not sure if it's his mind acting out, but he swears he feels him tense under the touch. Something awful boils in him. He has to sit down on the lip of the bathtub when he finally gets to it, afraid of himself. He ignores the mirror. He hates his own skin when it greets him, pink and ready to inflame.

୨ৎ

Mike has seen the world burn a dozen times. This isn't it. This is different.

The Mac-Z is gushing flames. Hasbeen-explosions that refuse to die without doing a bit more damage. Membranes of metal melting actively. If this base is a body, then it won't recover from these incisions. Mike smells burned flesh and gasoline. He's running on pure adrenaline, scans for the children he saw get dragged away, looks into the sky, the only dark and unmoved thing around them.

That, and Will. He sits at the center of the scene, buckled knees and breaths that rattle through his entire body. Mike starts running fast and lands ungracefully before him. His knees scrape immediately, but it doesn't matter. Will's arms vibrate under his touch and he's scorching hot. Mike flinches away and then he goes right back.

“Will.” He shakes him, gets afraid his best friend will dissolve in his hands. “Will. Are you okay?”

In the light, his hair is lava-like, like the sun has drilled into every piece of him. He raises his head and looks at Mike with distant eyes. There's no light but there's no darkness either. Sweat trails down the line of his jaw. Mike wipes it away.

“You—” He chokes a bit on the smoke in his throat. “That was you. You saved my life.”

He points towards the mangled body of the demogorgon. It's a gruesome scene, but so has been everything for the past couple years. This is a good gruesome. It settles in Mike's heart as a loud thump, thump, thump. A drum that begs to be heard.

Will doesn't react but he's there. His eyes trail over Mike's beaten body, over his cheekbones, the wet strands of his bangs.

“Mike,” He whispers. He suddenly feels so much heavier. Will's hands find Mike's wrists where they are enveloped by the elastic of his jacket. Will lets out something akin to a whimper, with sensitive eyelids and a runny nose.

“I've got you.”

Will shakes his head and he gets paler by the second. “We've got to go. We have to get everyone.”

“Will, who's everyone?” Mike scrambles. He sees Joyce get up in the distance, confused, face bruised. Her eyes widen and are as bright as headlights when she finds them.

“Robin, Lucas, I—” Will gasps. “I saved them too.”

Mike's head pulses with a headache. His shoulder is peeling from his own body. But he doesn't let Will go. The world burns and he doesn't let go.

“Will!” Joyce yells, rushing in a zigzag of disorientation. She drops down with them, wraps herself around her son and sucks in a sharp breath when she feels the heat of his skin. Will gags, once, twice, nothing comes. Mike just continues ridding off the sweat on his face. He has no idea how to fix it. If there's anything to fix. Will doesn't look broken.

“We have to go.” He urges, and he suddenly rises back on his feet. Mike kneels in front of him for a moment and just looks up. Will is gleaming. He becomes the sun.

A hand is offered to him. He takes it.

Will gets him up easily. Mike doesn't expect it, so he wobbles, trying to find his balance on absolutely solid ground. Joyce has a hand on his spine and she whispers incoherent things to herself. They're all trying to make sense of what just happened. All Mike knows is that he almost died, that Will has powers, that he used those powers to save him.

Bricks fall, glass shatters. Will moves with amazing certainty while Mike and Joyce trail behind him.

“Will, where are they?” Joyce asks. He stops walking. Stands. Comes back to them.

“Lucas is in the tunnels. Robin… is further away. I'm not sure yet.”

“Are they injured?”

“No.” Will shakes his head. “I mean— yes, but they're fine. They'll be fine. We just have to find them.”

“Will,” Mike calls. “You're shaking.”

The thing that's been trying to keep him sturdy is now loosening. His willpower is strong but his body is no match for it. His mother notices it too and before they can point out anything else, Will is stumbling. He slurs something, then he grimaces at his own weakness. Mike looks to Joyce and then Will is latching onto him. Mike holds him up by his waist, unsure on what to do next. Do they follow Will's word, or do they run? He puts his free hand to Will’s stomach.

The grounds appear to be vacant of anybody but them. Vecna is back. He's taking more children. Mike looks at Will, who tries to stay awake.

“Get him to the Squawk. I'll go get Lucas.” Mike says to Joyce, who takes Will's body under her wing with ease. She has done this before, she will do it again.

“What if he's wrong?” Joyce asks while Will finally goes unconscious in her hold.

“He isn't.” And Mike doesn't say anything else, he just starts rushing towards the quarantine zone. All beds are empty, the anxious mumbles from before only exist as a painful pang to the crown of his scalp. The latter they used has been knocked over, but Mike can take a purple ankle if it means Lucas comes with them.

Some of the demogorgons that did not get resurrected from the burn are still twitching with nerves as he walks. The dirt of the tunnel is swollen, sliding and squelching in a protest of its own. Mike calls Lucas’ name until it doesn't make sense to his brain anymore, the arrangement of letters, the way it razes past his throat like it's going to be the last time he'll be able to call it.

The tunnels unfold as a labyrinth, but Mike follows the stench of coarse flesh and the unique scent the Upside Down gives. Like mold, but gentler. A forever concentrated smell of childhood, linoleum, wet leaves. The kind of thing that makes Mike believe in things he doesn't want to.

Will has powers. Will isn't a vessel, he's an antidote. Mike saw the demogorgon charge at him. He heard every bone snap, then hit the ground. Will's hands curled in control. Eyes white like snow, like stars, like there's nothing left to see but there's so much to act on. The way he stared ahead as he cleaned the blood from his nose. Will has powers. Mike wants to tell the whole world about it.

He keeps searching for Lucas. And then he finds him. Lucas looks dazed with amazement. He's bleeding at the side but it's not enough to weigh him down as he lifts with Mike's help.

“It happened so fast. I don't even know what happened.”

“Will.” Mike says his name, and he can't stop doing it. It's one syllable and it feels so right. Will. That's what happened.

,,,

They have about an hour at the station to discuss what had happened before Will collapses for the final time that night. They leave him on the couch and Joyce stays posted with him, sitting on the cold floor and with her shins pressed against the coffee table, her head resting where Will is leaving trembling breaths.

Mike returns as soon as he gets up in the morning. It surprises him that he even managed to fall asleep after everything. Vecna is back, Holly is gone and alone, Will has powers. He finds Joyce seated on the couch, hands in front of her lips and posture like she's both guarding and waiting for the world to let her curl up and wallow for a moment. Mike's not sure if he ever broke through to her. She does like him, because Will likes him. But beyond that — does Mike offer anything that makes her believe he's good? Outside of Will's orbit and the orbit his friends have created, is there anything Mike has proven about himself? Mike has been having a hard time feeling like a person, and the parts of him that are undeniably human all make him want to never be anything again.

He leads this party, he tells them where to go. But will anyone come to him for anything else? When it's just him? For things that don't involve the world ending?

Will still isn't awake. He stirs a bit while he sleeps, face changing as he moves through a dream. Mike wants to know what it is that he's seeing. Visions, memories, goals. Bizarre things that would make him laugh as he recounts them. School, too. He kept dreaming about school when they lived together. Something about the normalcy of it made Mike coil, melt like plastic under heat.

He really wants to talk to Will. Not just about the powers, but everything. He wants to forget about the possibility of time running out. Eighteen months wasn't enough.

Joyce doesn't notice him where he stands around the corner. Mike almost holds his breath because he just wants to stay undetected. When he isn't talking, he observes. He becomes as passive as he can. And he doesn't do anything with the information he gathers, just lets it all dawn down on him as a thick feeling of sonder.

Will has powers and Joyce believes he'll be able to eliminate Vecna the way they've been trying to for almost two years now. He could be the answer.

Will used those powers to save Mike's life. He tells everyone about it until they're tired of hearing it.

୨ৎ

Robin stays until late into the evening. Will takes her outside to show her where he has been training lately, destroying rotting pumpkins and yelling into a void that does not answer. Luckily for Mike, Lucas comes around just as they prepare to leave. He joins him on the porch, forgetting the weather and all the ramifications that come with sitting outside during winter. They're going to have to befriend the cold if they want to spend days in the Upside Down.

Lucas offers him a watered-down soda that the military brought in as an apology for the indefinite quarantine.

“How's Max?”

A sniffle, a yawn. Lucas is a cacophony of tired feelings and a tired body. His eyes are still warm and brown. Mike asks the question every single time, he has to. He knows Lucas needs to know that they're not giving her up. And Mike misses her too. She was so blunt and she carried the same warmth Lucas exudes. They do not complete each other. It's something else, like two ocean lines that kiss and do not blend; they meet. They exchange. Lucas needs her to be around. Not because he is less without her, but because he is more with Max.

“She's doing her thing. Staying alive.” Lucas draws a big sip and toys with the eroded dirt underneath the soles of his shoes. “It feels like I'm waiting for something bad to happen. Feels like I've been spared too much.”

“You almost died.” Mike reminds him.

“I almost die every other week. It doesn't feel like a punishment anymore.”

They're only seventeen. Seventeen is far too early to grow a tolerance for being near-death. The big breaks between each attack don't matter. At the end of the day, it all whittles down to the same feeling: anticipation. Mike is trying to make peace with that. And then comes the realization that he doesn't have to. That every other person in this town gets to be scared. Unaware, unchanged, unnerved. He slowly bends forward and combs his hands into his hair.

“Where's Dustin?” He asks, to get away from the topic of their conditioning.

“He's at home. He said his mom gets worried a whole lot faster now that they're thinking those kids are gone.”

“They are gone.” Mike says, scoffing.

Lucas slips into a lopsided smile. Very obviously in self-deprecation. “Fuck, dude. What are we even doing?”

They don't speak, just let it all wash over them for a moment. Mike drinks and it settles a bit sour in his stomach. But the constant tap water isn't fun either.

“At least we've got Will around. I'm glad Joyce isn't keeping him on a leash anymore.” Lucas says, placing his soda can down.

Mike exhales and purses his lips. “Around's a strong word. I barely see him all day.”

“Sure. But it's for good reason.”

“Not just the training.” Mike says, emphasizing his point with a tense hand between them. “I feel like he barely talks to me after what happened at the Mac.”

“He doesn't talk to anyone, really. He's busy.”

Mike's face twists at Lucas’ words. “He's talking to Robin right now. He's been talking to her for hours.”

“So? She lifts his spirits.”

Lucas wants to say something else, but Mike interrupts. “And I don't?”

His friend smirks. Mike is increasingly perplexed. Why are they bickering about Will's behavior?

“Sounds like you're jealous.”

“Bullshit.” Mike says, tossing his can out into the darkness where it coughs up its last drops. He doesn't know if he's angry or just losing his mind from all the waiting. Perhaps it's both. It wouldn't be the first time his mind came up with a concoction of emotions he has to work through simultaneously. It's just that he can't afford it at the brink of an apocalypse. He can't lose more people over feelings.

“I just think he could save it for after we've destroyed Vecna.”

“Save what?”

Mike looks at Lucas like he's stupid. He's not sure if his oblivious behavior is an act to rile him up, but it works. “Falling in love.”

“With Robin? Are you fucking serious?” Lucas laughs in disbelief.

“What's so funny?” Mike asks. “I mean, when has he ever spent this much time with a girl, alone? And willingly?”

“Exactly my point. It's Will, Mike.”

“And?”

Lucas does a motion with his hands, as if his scarred palms hold the answer. “He… I don't think he's into Robin.”

“Whatever. You don't know that.”

A hand settles on his shoulder. “My guy, you’re blinded by jealousy. Just talk to him.”

“Stop saying that. I'm not jealous. I've got bigger problems to deal with.”

“Vecna is our biggest problem, and Will's our best bet right now, together with El. So even if you're doubting it, you mean the world to Will.” Lucas’ expression softens. “You need to sort that stuff out so he can go and destroy that asshole once and for all.”

And then fall in love? Mike doesn't want to be an asset that paves the way for the next chapter of Will's life. He doesn't want to lay himself bare, peel every layer off like he's citrus and he's supposed to bleed. He wants to be part of the chapter. He needs to involve himself.

“Mike.” Lucas shakes his shoulder. “Jesus. Are you listening to me?”

“I'll do it.” He says. “But stop talking about him like he's some kind of weapon. You guys did the same thing with El. It drives me crazy.”

୨ৎ

You can't lose Mike to thunder or lightning. He is incredibly loyal, and he can be incredibly loyal to disloyalty too.  

Which is why the look on El's face tells him everything. He knows her enough by this point to know that she can't always choose words that are in sync with her emotions, but her face tells it. They're similar in that regard. She brushes the back of her index finger against his knuckles as they sit side by side. Mike feels like a blade of grass that is being pulled apart unevenly.

He knows what an end feels like. It's the same, gut-wrenching feeling he got when the Byers moved away. When Eddie didn't return for the new semester. When Will's body was pulled out of the water and they watched.

Mike closes his eyes. He cut his hair short just a week ago. He's still trying to get used to how the bare wind travels over his neck now.

“I still love you. But it's different.” Eleven says. The words exit her so easily. She doesn't worry about giving something so significant up. They held her captive for most of her life, and yet here she's so much freer.

Mike can't even face her.

“I think,” Mike can hear how she slips into a mutter. “I think we were scared. And it felt better to be scared together.”

“I wasn't always scared.” Mike says, more to himself than her. She nods in understanding.

“Me neither.” Her hand climbs from his wrist to his upper arm. “But I just wish I had been given more time to be a girl before we did all this.”

She laughs, as if she just said something ridiculous. Mike doesn't know what it's like to be a girl, but he knows that he would give anything so he could've been a boy for a bit longer too.

He's turning seventeen next month. He is still a boy. His mom likes to remind him, Nancy has been doing it a whole lot more too. But nothing seems to align with his idea of time anymore. He feels like gum. Stretched long, unwilling. Ripping in the center.

He finally looks at her. Her eyes are wet and merciful. “You are so important to me. You were my first friend. You were my first boyfriend. Nobody is going to take that from us.”

Mike nods. His face is hot and he feels pathetic.

“But I…” She moves and puts her fingers around the area of his temples. Her thumbs sit beneath his eyes. “I see it here. You don't want this.”

“El.” He complains, but he doesn't lift his hands to push her away.

“And it's okay.” She assures. “Because I want to do things and you can't come along with them.”

Mike closes his eyes. His breath falls against one of her palms.

“Can you say it now? That you love me?” She asks. Her voice gets small and careful. “Now that you don't have to lie.”

He wants to argue against it, that he didn't lie. He does love her, but in Lenora it felt like a tumor to admit it, and now it has grown to become benevolent. A grave reminder of his wrongdoings. The pain he can cause that doesn't involve blades and trampling.

His eyes open and her expression has barely changed. It doesn't mean as much anymore to her than it did a few months ago.

“I love you.” He says, and he hears the voices next door. Lucas, Dustin, Will. It feels like he's not only telling her, but also all of them. That he was somehow broken in by fingers he doesn't know and that all he has ever felt is slanted, it makes him drunk with confusion. He can't admit to the easiest, most obvious things.

‘— I think they're still talking.’ Will, that's Will's voice. It got so much deeper over a year. Mike remembers how much it caught him off guard in California.

It also makes a memory resurface, something that haunted him with sharp, stinging guilt for two weeks until he could finally let it rest. Mostly. They were all gathered in his basement but Mike had sat down with El, further away from them, so he could kiss her again. The kisses were his most apparent testament to the fact that he loved her. When she clung to his arm, Mike knew he had done something right. That he could be desired. It didn't matter that he listened in on Will's tender demands to play D&D from across the room, how he laughed just a little too quietly when Lucas cracked a joke that wasn't meant for him.

It did not matter that he kissed El just a little deeper as if he had to prove something to all of them. He can be desired. He can do these things and he can grow up and he can move past their roleplays and not believing in love.

“Do you mean it?” She asks. Her lip quirks up into a teasing smile. Mike smiles back to avoid the dread he gets from knowing he doesn't have this anymore. Eleven, who has been by his side all this time.

“Yeah.” He removes her hands from his face, because he's starting to burn. “I always will.”

୨ৎ

When Will returns, Robin isn't by his side anymore. The Squawk probably needs her, and it's a big enough building to get paranoid over. Mike is sitting on the porch alone, still basking in the cold. Lucas left to see if there's anything left to eat.

They look at each other, no exchange of words.

“Hey.”

He almost smiles. It feels like he's winning a battle when Will is the one who starts speaking first.

“Hey, Will.”

He stops in front of him, before Mike's knees where they are spread apart from each other. Will isn't wearing a jacket. He barely has to anymore, with how warm his body gets through his powers.

Lucky.

“Is Lucas still here?”

Mike cocks a brow. “Yeah, he's inside. Why?”

Will's head falls slowly, like he can't bear the weight of it anymore. The skin of his throat is pink. Mike wonders what it would feel like to touch him right now. Like fire, like charcoal. He says, when it all wears off, it feels like he's coming down from a fever. Mike remembers his fevers. The ring of sweat around the collars of his sweaters. The red vines in his eyes.

“Good.” He breathes with a small smile. “I feel like I keep missing him when he's around.”

Mike hums, looks at Will's belt. The silver buckle reflects some of the orange light of the porch lights. He decides to copy Lucas’ words from before. “You're busy saving the world.”

“I haven't done shit.” Will says, and the way he lets it roll off is almost vulgar. It gives Mike a rush that goes from the base of his neck to his hips.

Mike decides that is enough of a confirmation for him to be more direct. He almost says it, that Will has been practically abandoning them — but then he opens his lips again and Mike realizes he's looking at him from beneath. He grows paralyzed.

“I really hope we can get Holly out.”

Holly. Mike feels something like barbed wire press against his ribcage. If they hadn't been so ignorant, they could've prevented this. Holly would be safe. Mom and dad would be safe. If they had given them at least a hint, a little something so they could be more alarmed than they had been, maybe then Holly wouldn't have to send messages to save her own life and there wouldn't have to be induced comas and six inch stitches around their mother's collarbones.

Mike huffs, loud and bothered. “I can't stop thinking about her. Out there. My sister.”

“I'm really sorry, Mike.” Will says. “I can't find her. I'm trying to, but—”

He looks up at Will, who is always so genuine in his sadness. He used to hold Holly's hand when she didn't want to get down the stairs alone. He drew for her, so much so that mom had to get a binder to keep all her commissions stored safely.

Mom, dad. Holly. Mike forgets his anger. Then comes a new one.

“I'm not mad at you, Will.” He says.

“I know.”

“Do you?” Mike asks.

Will pouts, probably surprised. “Yeah.”

Lucas returns as if by divine intervention, his face bathed in steam from the plate he managed to secure. He looks at Will, presses his lips together in a quick smile, then he averts his gaze to Mike.

“Will!” He runs two fingers over the rim of his plate and puts them to his lips. “Everything alright out here?”

Mike smells the food. His stomach implodes.

“You guys should come inside. We're discussing stuff.”

Mike returns to Will, who has stretched out a hand to him. He takes it. He is searing.

,,,

Mike falls asleep around midnight and he wakes up with his face pressed uncomfortably against the sofa. One of his ears hurts from the position he found himself in. He doesn't remember his dream. Not even a color, just the black of half-sleep. His feet are cold and any pain still left from the previous weeks is now elevated, less dull. He's not sure where Hopper keeps his stash of pain-killers, but he needs it. His stomach laments the food he ate yesterday. Some part of him wants to continue sleeping.

When he turns around, he's met with a clock. Fat, red digital numbers greet him. It's almost noon. Nobody seems to be home.

Nobody woke him up.

Mike tries to suppress his frustration as he rubs his face awake. One of his calves tingles with the turn of his body. When that's over, he manages to get up, but his eyes are blurry with fatigue.

He feels like he's being born. He needs water. And he wants to eat. His shoulder aches again.

( When he was getting ready for bed, Nancy came in to brush her teeth with him. They stood side by side, Mike finally taller, her hair for once wilder. They spat in some unspoken coordination, one after another. When he was done, she made him sit down on the toilet lid and grabbed a comb from the cabinet.

“Nance, what are you doing?” He asks.

She doesn't answer right away, but the teeth of the comb meet his scalp and he just obliges to the feeling.

“Remember when we used to do this? Mom had to get Holly ready and she never had any time left for you and your bird's nest.”

Mike laughs. All he sees is Nancy's lavender sweater. “Yeah. It sucks being a middle child.”

“Trying being the oldest.” She works through his bangs and they fluff up.

After a minute or so, he decides to ask: “Why are you doing this, though?”

“You've been quiet. And you're usually super annoying and loud, so I know something's up.”

“A lot's up.”

She puts a gentle hand to his scalp and pushes his head forward so she can work through the back of his hair. “Sure is. You know I'm here for you, right?”

“I'm okay.”

“I'm just saying.” She breaks a knot. “If you ever want to hang out, you can knock. Jonathan doesn't mind.”

Mike scoffs. “I don't think he likes me.”

“You're a teenager. You think the whole world hates you.”

Mike shakes his head. She kisses her teeth. “You're not that much older than me.”

“I know what I'm talking about.”

He would never tell her, but he almost fell asleep when they ceased to talk. )

Mike makes his way to the bathroom and searches for socks. He brushes his teeth and climbs into warmer clothing. They turn the living room heaters off when there aren't that many people to keep warm. Power usage in a cabin declared abandoned is going to get the attention on them for sure if they aren't careful, resourceful. Mike hates it now, because he's freezing. His fingers cramp around the cold air. He tries to flush the taste of toothpaste out of his mouth so he can get to eating.

He searches the cabinet for ibuprofen or whatever fancy shit Hopper keeps for his post-crawl rituals. He finds nothing. And he doesn't want to ask when somebody returns.

So he makes his way to the small closet beside the kitchen, loaded with hope that something in there can help with the sizzling underneath his skin.

That's where he finds Will, dragging the hem of his pajama pants over the wooden floor. Mike recognizes Jonathan's headphones. He looks down trying to figure out which cassette is playing. He can't make anything of it.

Will looks at him with an expression Mike can't quite decipher. He just moves into the small space beside him and makes a motion for his best friend to take his headphones off.

“Do you know where Hop keeps his pain-killers?”

“Yeah. That box up there, the red one.”

Will goes out to grab it for him, but Mike is faster. He tries reaching for it, but then there's the barrier of pain he forgot about. His shoulder screams. Mike pulls back, having barely brushed the box. Will is the one who ultimately does get it down, but it doesn't concern him as much as Mike's behavior does. He puts the box on one of the lower shelves and takes his headphones and the walkman off.

“What was that?”

Mike lowers his gaze to the floor. Their socks have the same color.

“I fucked up my shoulder at the Mac when we were trying to keep the door closed. I hit one of the stalls.”

“You didn't say anything about it?”

“Will,” Mike sighs. “I think there's a million other things more important than a bruised shoulder.”

“ It hurts when you move it. Maybe it's broken.”

“It's not broken.”

Will grabs the red box and he cocks his head towards the living room. “Come on.”

“Why?” He steps outside nonetheless, but Will walks further than the living room and Mike realizes they're heading towards his bedroom. The bedroom that used to be El's. Was still El's a few weeks ago, but now she can't really come home long enough for that. He opens the door and lets Mike step inside, which he does reluctantly.

It smells entirely like Will. Printer paper to draw on, sand-kissed traces of California. The kind of earthy scent you get stuck with from living so close to the forest. Crying into pillows, from laughter, and other things. Some of his clothes are draped over the chair by the desk. His desk is a mess. It's impressive that he even finds the time to draw, but Mike's glad he does. All his pencils are leftovers from the Squawk. Nothing colorful, but enough. Mike resists the urge to invade his stack of drawings, see what his mind conjures now.

“I'm gonna take a look.” Will says, interrupting his thoughts. “If that's okay with you.”

Mike doesn't want to argue with him. Not after yesterday, when he felt somewhat eager to. Because now Will's here, and he's doing more for him than everyone has done in all these weeks.

He's looking. He's trying to act on what he's seeing.

“Yeah, that's okay.” Mike can't recognize himself in his tone. “But how are you gonna know if it's broken?”

Will shrugs, even though he seems certain. “One of my ribs cracked in the Upside Down and I had a dislocated shoulder that they popped back in by accident when I was found.” Mike feels ill again, with that reminder. As well as the casualty with which he speaks about it now. “It's better than nothing, I think.”

“For sure.” Mike looks at his unmade bed where the box now sits, lid open. “Let me still take one of those, though.”

Will nods, gestures for him to sit down. Mike pushes one of the tablets out of the metallic packaging and places it in his mouth. Will hands him the glass he kept for the night, warm from the heat inside the room. That's one heater that nobody argues against. The fact that Will gets his own room really says enough, but Mike isn't mad. It wouldn't be convenient to keep him in the living room with the amount of sleep he needs.

They look at each other while Mike drinks. The emptiness of his stomach becomes so much more excruciating with that. Feeding it anti-inflammatory medicine probably doesn't help. Mike doesn't care enough, he just wants it to stop.

Will moves to close the door and then he sits down behind him. Mike feels like a prune when the warmth hits him. One of his hands distracts itself by picking lint from the mattress.

Suddenly, Will's fingers hover above the hem of his pullover. Mike looks at him over his shoulder. Will smiles awkwardly.

“You should take this off. So I can see your shoulder.”

“Oh, yeah. Let me,” Before Mike finishes his sentence, he's already undressing. His shirt beneath rides up just a bit, but Will works fast to fix it for him. Something lenient and odd pools in his abdomen. It's the same feeling he gets and always got when somebody would use his thigh as support to get up, a firm hand, Mike unprepared.

He swallows. The pullover is discarded on Will's pillow that's still dented from the night.

“I already see some bruising.” He says. A warm hand envelops Mike's bicep and works his sleeve up. “God, Mike. You should've said something.”

“That bad?”

“Very purple.” Will says, and he makes himself laugh. Mike is scared of the pain that might come if he makes a wrong move. Him, or Will. It doesn't matter. It's something he'll never grow accustomed to.

“But it's already yellow around the outer parts. It's healing. I just…”

Mike feels like he's slipping out of his own body, and it's not like they haven't been closer in the past. It's just that he hasn't been aware of Will's body in a while, so close. Even if it isn't really close. Mike has no idea of what close really means to him. He just knows that distance can change how he perceives things.

“What's up?”

"When I touch here, does it hurt?” Will presses slowly into the muscle that connects his back and arm. Mike sucks in a breath so sharp his tongue hurts. He feels exposed.

“What the fuck.” Mike speaks under his breath, fighting not to reach to his shoulder and stop everything.

“Sorry.” Will apologizes. “I don't want to be pushy or anything, but could you take your shirt off too? I want to see the center of the bruise.”

He's not sure if what they're doing is going to help them. But no hospital can accept them right now, and Mike doesn't want anyone else to know.

The fact that Will knows is already too much.

Mike just does it, takes it off. He's so glad he opted for an undershirt when he went to bed. The last thing he wants to be is half-naked and sitting with his best friend, trying to make sense of an ache he's been hiding.

“That's gnarly.” Will says, so blandly honest. Mike laughs to fight the humiliation. “Must've hurt a lot.”

“Thanks for validating my pain, doctor.”

Will pushes his knee into Mike's lower back for that. “You're such an asshole.”

Mike dares to look behind himself again. He can't really see Will's face, just small glimpses. He catches the way Will meets his gaze for a moment.

“What do you think?” It's something he wants to ask him all the time, about everything.

“I mean, it's not good, but it's not exactly where one of your bones sits. By what I've seen you're also able to move it fine, unless—”

“Unless I have to move that muscle.”

Will brushes over the patch of skin. Mike has seen it fleetingly in the mirror. He puts his bottom lip underneath his teeth and waits for another round of pain. He waits for Will to touch him in a way that feels wrong.

“I think you're right. It's not broken.”

Mike could throw in a snarky remark, but he loses his appetite for that. He just keeps his eyes locked on Will, what he can get of him. He's too focused on Mike's bruised shoulder to notice.

“I'll get you something to eat. And some ice. You should cool it.”

“I can do that by myself.”

“Okay.” Will says. “But I want to do it.”

He gets up and doesn't look back, leaving Mike alone on the bed. He feels a bit dizzy, but the pain is subduing and that's all he really cares about right now. He still feels Will on his skin. He managed to suppress the worst of his shivering while they were together, and now it's gushing out of him incredibly fast. He grabs his shirt and slips back inside. When he doesn't know what else to do, he just messes with his own goosebumps.

Will comes back after a few minutes, a plate on one hand, the other wrapped around an ice pack and a kitchen towel. Mike feels his stomach soften, both with hunger and something he can't quite put a name to at the moment. It sits before his lips.

“Thank you.” That's how it comes blurting out.

The ice pack, now tied into the kitchen towel, is placed into his lap. Mike moves to put it to his shoulder, and it's not exactly comfortable to hold, but it's better than to leave it untreated. He's not sure how he's supposed to eat the microwaved food though.

Will puts the plate before him on the bed and moves behind him again. Their fingers brush and mingle as he takes the ice pack and moves Mike's hand away.

“I'll hold it. I hope the food's warm enough.” Mike feels Will's breath on his neck for a moment as he adjusts his position. “And you don't have to thank me.”

“For all this? I think I do.”

Will's other hand flattens the folds of Mike's shirt, he cruises over them like waves. “I'm just glad we get to spend time together.”

Mike realizes two things in that moment as he lifts the fork to his mouth. First: he's still angry. The anger just changes form, has teeth, loses teeth, is all gums before it is teeth again. The second thing is that he missed Will. Not just over the past few weeks, but when he was gone for Lenora. When he was missing for a week. In those short hours at the lab where Mike wasn't allowed in the room. It always feels like time gets cruel and fast when they're together.

He's not sure where Will stands right now. If he's angry too. If he's mourning too.

Mike sometimes wakes up drowning in his own sweat and fear thinking about how Will might not be alive when this is over. He'll run a shower at four in the morning. He doesn't answer when Nancy knocks on the door asking if he's okay.

“Why did nobody wake us?” Mike asks. He's still angry about that, and it's an anger he can navigate more easily.

“They never wake me for anything.” Will says, halfway through a sigh. “Something about charging up my energy and keeping me hidden from Vecna until the time is right, which is bullshit.”

“Language, Byers.”

He laughs. A bump to Mike's spared shoulder. “As far as I know though, Nancy and Jonathan are out to track down some of Kay's people.”

“The usual.”

“Yeah, and mom is helping Hop search the forest for cams or traps.” Will adjusts how he sits again, puts a firm hand to the middle of Mike's spine as he does so.

Mike releases a breath. More from force than anything. He fixes his back too. Will moves with him, making sure the ice pack doesn't slip off.

“I don't think they really need us for that.”

“They could at least leave a note or something.”

Will chuckles. “You could stop sleeping in.”

Mike shakes his head. “I'm always one of the first people up. Today's just different.”

“Yeah… I think it got colder overnight.” Will acknowledges.

“As if you're able to feel that.”

Will's head appears to Mike's side, a quizzical expression on his face. He's all rose and his eyes glow sweetly underneath the old bulb. Once again, as if nothing had ever happened.

“You're always burning. Your skin—”

“Yeah, I know.” Will returns to his original position. “I guess it's just my body's way of keeping him out. It's more of a coping mechanism.”

Mike grabs the sleeve of his discarded sweater, pulls at two ends, watches the threads cling onto each other. Him. He wants it to be over. He wants it to be over and to leave Hawkins and to finally breathe out without a wheeze following.

“You don't think it's real?”

He can hear Will shake his head, his hair runs over his pullover and it makes a small, soothing noise. “I don't think I'm that incredible for my body to entirely rewire itself.”

“But it wants to protect you.”

“Every body protects itself. That's why you're all purple here.” He presses the ice pack a bit firmer against Mike's shoulder and it's alleviating.

He doesn't comment any further on it when he remembers that his food is going cold. He feeds himself and Will doesn't entertain him with more conversation, which is okay. The silence is appreciated, needed. Mike can't even form a thought.

He listens in on Will's breathing. Metronomic, never-ending. He listens to the rub of fabric from his pants. The gentle way he clears his throat, the small noise of alarm in the back of it when his hand goes slack against Mike's shoulder.

When Mike is done with his plate, he tells Will that it's fine now. The pain-killers are kicking in and the food serves as a remedy for the energy he has been lacking. He also doesn't want more of this, it feels unearned. Will's care, the way he is so pliant to all of Mike's needs.

He is still angry. He is still angry. He is still—

Mike stands outside of Will's door. And it feels like when he was twelve and he couldn't talk to his best friend because he was still asleep, sitting between thin sheets and eternally cold for a week. Or when he was sixteen, and the basement door was closed, and it was his sign to go. Will was in his home and it still didn't feel like enough.

He doesn't know for how long he stands at the door, waiting for some confirmation that he's allowed to return. Even if he doesn't want to.

Will doesn't ask him to return. Mike doesn't want to.

୨ৎ

The first day after they're gone is unfair, because it is a normal day. It's still summer and Mike wakes up with sweat trailing down his sternum.

He wakes up hungry but he somehow forgets to drink until the afternoon. School starts in a week. High school starts in a week. He feels increasingly invulnerable as the day progresses, and every word just huffs out of him like steam. He becomes an engine to something that does not know why it's driving. He just knows that he has to. It's only a few months until he can see El again. El, and Will.

When he misses dinner, too immersed with staring at the warm, brown pillars of his basement, his mother brings a plate down to him.

He barely moved all day. Max is mourning the only girl she felt she could hold onto and Lucas goes along with that, wanting to feel what she feels. Dustin offered to hang out. Mike didn't want to be alone with anyone. It feels like betrayal.

He has never sent a letter. He wonders how expensive it is. How long it takes until a letter arrives in Lenora Hills, wherever that is. His dad said the weather must suck, so arid, so hollow and ignorant to the people. Mike thinks about all the sun there must be. The one Hawkins only receives during August and September. He liked Will's smiles under the sun. His teeth, like shooting stars, shot straight through his mouth.

“What?” Mike asks, when his mother's voice finally reaches him. She stands behind him, plate still in hand, combed-out blonde hair. She does her makeup even when she doesn't plan on leaving the house. It's not like dad would notice.

Mike hopes that kind of love won't ever find him. He needs to send a letter to El, no matter how expensive. He's old enough to get his hands on a post stamp somehow.

“I'm not mad.” She says, but Mike can't remember her saying anything he should've caught.

He just answers. It's better than to make her repeat. “Okay.”

She puts the plate down. Mike looks at the greens and meat. He's not sure if he wants it.

“Any better? You looked pretty pale yesterday.”

Like the chicken before him. She sits down next to him, but she's not as tall as she was a summer ago, and Mike doesn't just slot right into the space between her arms anymore. He curls his back a bit, hoping it'll fix his problem of feeling too big.

She still hugged him yesterday. She whispered something into his hair about how it's okay, it's okay, it'll feel better tomorrow.

But it doesn't. It's a normal day and it's a gorgeous day and they just survived the Mind Flayer and Will is gone. So is Eleven, but Mike is so stuck on his best friend and how there's this sharp slap right to his face that wants to make him bleed. His eyes run circles over the drawings he hung up when Will went missing, plus some others. He looks at them over and over, like a mobile. Like this is his crib. It feels like everything was for nothing. They find Will, they lose him again.

The worst part is that Mike knows he's alive. The worst part is that Will is safe, safer now. There's no crawling ache in his neck that reminds him he's prey. Hawkins is rotten fruit. Mike doesn't want to press his lips to it anymore. He doesn't want to be told to eat anymore.

His appetite crashes. It forms into one, new mass of sickness that comes from nothing.

“I'm fine.” He says, dryly. Mike's mind tortures him a little more as it makes him listen in on the water that streams through the pipes, the spill of a hose outside. He's thirsty. But Will's not there anymore. How can he continue to do normal things when Will just donated his D&D handbooks and campaign templates for somebody who simply won't draw as much fun from it as they did? Why did Mike leave him hanging?

A hand comes down on his back. There were so many hands on his back yesterday. A fresh wound. He still leans into it, just a bit. Wants more of this pity.

“Thanksgiving isn't that far. You'll see her again.”

Oh. Mike looks at the floor. The carpet is caked with dust, Nancy's heels have dug prominent holes into it. His guilt manifests as a globe in his throat. Heavy and unwanted. He needs to write to El. He should do it tonight. He'll write two pages worth of text.

Jane, that's her name. But she said she wants them all to continue to call her El. It's a big change, Jane. She doesn't want to be a nuisance in that regard. Mike thinks she's just too kind.

“Yeah.”

He feels his mother's nails, long, but carved in a way that is harmless. She makes Nancy paint them for her.

“And Will, of course.” She says it, and the tight feeling in Mike's throat washes away with that. He looks at her lap, where she keeps her other hand. “Poor boy, I hope California treats him better.”

But it shouldn't have to be California. It shouldn't be an incomprehensible amount of miles that finally give Will a chance at happiness. It's punishment. Mike feels it buzz in his palms like he's stung.

“Yeah, me too.”

She tilts her head, as if she wants to find his face in the shadow of his bangs. Mike refuses her attempt.

“I'll miss having him around.” She sighs. “He was such a polite boy. So quiet.”

Mike nods, kneads his palms now to eliminate the ache.

“And his drawings.” She gasps, in adoration. “Remember when he drew me flowers for mother's day?”

Another nod. Mike feels something boil behind his eyes. He kneads a little deeper into the tissue of his hands, he meets the bone.

“And all those sleepovers you had. It felt like I had a second son.” She laughs, but it's too quiet to seem cheerful.

Mike's still facing the floor, but the patterns of the carpet blur in his vision. He feels the sun on his neck, beaming in through the barred windows. He goes motionless, lets his hands rest.

“I'm sorry if I'm bombarding you right now, Michael. You must miss him a lot.”

“And El.” He says, but his voice wavers. It's weak. Mike only says it just to say it. To account for the guilt he's trying to combat. He blinks himself free, and two hefty tears make their way down to the slope of his jaw.

“Of course.” His mother assures, but it only echoes weakly in his bloated ears. Tinnitus, the way nothing enters. He tries to breathe, but it hurts. An ugly noise draws out of him.

He just cries. It's so much and it's so quick. He doesn't like that his mom is here to see it. Mike wants to implode and wait for the pieces to be rearranged into something that does not resemble him anymore. He tries to remember it all before it leaves: the scent of El's hair gel when she returned, the way she smiled into their kisses. The songs he taught her and how she hummed them at random when they were with their friends. Will's soft, wet hand when he was afraid. The way he mimicked the expressions he drew. El and how she shook up that vending machine. The space between Will's thighs where the grass would always fight through when they sat.

The mole above Will's lips. The way his hair flies when a car window is open. How their legs tangled in the trunk, their giggles during sleepovers before anything ever happened. Will's grief for the party. The way he screamed when he lost possession over his body. The mole above his lips. The way his smile feels under the sun.

El, waiting for a letter. Mike stops crying when he remembers, but his mom is no longer there and he can't recall sending her away. The plate is gone too. Except now he's hungry. And he's so guilty.

He takes down Will's drawings. He places them back into the binder he originally got them from. He shoves it under his bed. He starts high school. He joins Eddie's party.

୨ৎ

Will joins him on the couch. It shouldn't come as a surprise, because they're alone and they're bored. They're best friends — but Mike is still cut in the center with astonishment when he sits down beside him and their knees brush for a moment. He has his sketchbook with him, which he places on his thighs as he drags himself to one end of the sofa. His sweatpants cascade right down his shins. Mike grins and feels immediately reminded of those weekends where everybody seemed to be out but Holly, who is a passionate room-dweller. They'd claim the couch like the rarity it was, sprawled out, more Mike than Will, discussing things more loudly, being annoying but never to each other.

Will would also draw then, but now he's doing nothing but that and Mike just devotes himself to the TV. Sometimes Jonathan and Nancy go hours without talking, not because they can’t stand each other, but because sitting close is enough. They exist for themselves but with the other around. Mike is scared of being too quiet. It leaves so much room for things he could’ve said.

For most of the day, the television is just a snowscreen. There's morning news, vague and tasteless reports on how the world is moving outside of Hawkins. Then come the local news. Mike, however, missed those and now there's a small catalog of cartoons to go through, sappy romance movies and some show about a guy with a thick Southern accent that is searching for lost artifacts in temples of countries he doesn't even speak the language of.

But Mike's just pissed because he hasn't left Hawkins in forever. Waking up to the same, smoke-spitting landscape. The washed-out greens. The way the world seems to revolve around the forest crowns.

Will's feet nudge against his thigh. It's not a conscious process, Will doesn't really notice that he's doing it, but Mike feels it. It's a small couch anyway, and they're so much taller. He feels it nonetheless.

He decides on the romance movie. The tuning of the antenna is awful and Mike can barely hear anything over the scratching, but it's better than nothing. Will laughs when he notices, puts the back of his hand to his mouth.

“What?” Mike asks, cracking up.

“Didn't take you for a romantic.”

“Well, maybe you don't know me.” Mike, bold enough, takes the hems of Will's pant legs and places his feet on his lap like they've done a thousand times when there was too little space. But now, in this context, Mike realizes how weird it is. He still keeps him there, and doesn't push Will away. Will shrinks a bit into himself. But he accepts. Mike forces himself to look at the TV again.

“Maybe I don't.” Will jokes. The way his voice flies over and into Mike's ears is incredibly intimidating. There's something in it that his mind gets stuck on. Replays it. Spins it back. Lets it reverb in his chest, where it fuses with his heartbeat. Maybe. I. Don't.

He doesn't know where to put his hands. One he can place on the armrest, but the other? He slides it beneath Will's calves. Mike throws his head back and lets the light on the ceiling swallow him whole. Will scrapes his pencil over the paper, stops when he has to think, goes back in.

Mike just can't shake the feeling that the end is near. Not even in the apocalyptic sense, he just feels it. Something is going to end. And looking at Will, out of the corner of his eye, he just hopes his intuition is wrong. He puts his hand on Will's leg. He lets familiarity speak for him.

୨ৎ

A week before the final crawl. Mike is replacing the tire he rammed into a bush of thorns. It's already dark outside. Will appears and disrupts the glow of his flashlight that he propped up on the garage floor.

“Still not done?”

Mike shakes his head and peels one glove off with his teeth. “I haven't done this in a while. I think I should consider getting a license soon.”

“And ditch our bikes?”

Mike tilts his head in agreement. “Seems cruel, I know.”

Will sits down next to him. Not really to aid, just to watch. He's been having weird dreams lately, blood-red and slithering. Mike's mom offered tylenol, but they all know it's something beyond psychological. Medical. To be medicated.

Mike spins his naked wheel, listens to the rattle.

“I think I'm going to drive a bike for the rest of my life.” Will says.

“That's a long time. What if you want to leave the state?”

“I'll take the bus.”

“Buses and bikes.” Mike contemplates. “Feels very you.”

“Whatever that means.”

“It means,” He unscrews the fork of his bike from the spores. The wheel comes falling down with a shrill noise. Will flinches beside him. “that you love being close to things. And bikes and buses are good for that.”

“You're so cryptic.”

“Buses. Seeing. You see more in a bus. And you feel more when you're on a bike. You're closer to everything.”

“Alright.”

“And that's something I think you like. Being aware.”

Will shrugs. “I think I'm too aware sometimes.”

He was their spy. He saw too much. Mike understands where this is coming from.

“I think that's better than being aware of nothing.”

“Sure.” Will yawns into his palm. “But since you want to get a car, I'm guessing you don't like being close to things?”

“I like when things are safe.” Mike breathes, grabbing his new tire.

“Car crashes happen.”

“You're a real optimist, aren't you?”

Will grins. “If the world starts offering me things to be optimistic about, maybe I'll start thinking about driving cars too.”

“What else would you be thinking about?” Mike asks just out of sheer, disgusting curiosity. After all they've been through, talking about the future feels like a taboo. A perverted fantasy of What ifs that they won't ever conquer for themselves.

“College, maybe. Jonathan doesn't want to go. But I want to.”

“Me too.”

They look at each other.

“I want to do art for real. I feel like…” Will trails off in his mind. “It's the only thing in my life that has been consistently good.”

“Yeah, you should.” Mike works the new tire around the frame. “You're really talented.”

“Thanks.” Will speaks, bashful. He's so unconvinced of himself. He knows he can draw. Why would he draw so much if he knew he wasn't good at it? “What do you want to do?”

“Write.” Mike says it so fast it feels almost robotic. “I want to write.”

“Like Nancy?”

“No.” He catches the moon outside. “Novels, short stories, whatever the fuck. I want to write fantasy stuff. I want to tell people what happened to us without outright telling them.”

“I want to read that.”

“Yeah. I think everything would make a nice story.”

“Who would be your protagonist? You? El—”

“You, I think.” Mike admits. “I think your part of the story is one people would want to root for.”

Will stares at him, Mike feels it in his neck. He dares to turn around and face him. He looks a bit shaken, his face can't decide on a single emotion.

“The story's probably not over yet.”

“I haven't started writing it.” Mike shrugs. He gives Will a smile. “But I don't think you'll stop being a hero.”

Will presses his lips together, his eyes crease. The tips of his ears go red. “I'll be looking forward to that. To your book.”

“I'll send you a signed copy.” Mike secures the tire around its frame. He brushes some of the debris off. He honestly doesn't feel so confident in his dreams. All of it is a half-assed assumption of where life might take him. “Any further plans, besides college?”

“I want to go to Paris.”

“Paris?”

"I don't know. It feels like something I shouldn't be able to see in this life. So I want to see it." Will shrugs again, carefully tumbling over his words. "What about you?"

"I want to leave Hawkins. When this is over."

Will isn't fast with his reply this time. He takes a second.

"You gotta say it like you believe it." He points out, catching Mike's eyes for a moment. Mike swallows. His throat is dry, burned from nothing.

"I don't believe in anything, I think. I just know that crazy shit happens and we survive it."

"You think it's a weakness." Will says, more for himself than Mike. But his voice is steady and loud enough for both of them to hear. "Believing."

"I used to believe the government was hiding dragons from us."

"It sort of did."

"Right." Mike clears his throat. "I don't think it's a weakness. I just don't like doing it."

"What about hoping?"

That's what cuts through Mike's mind. It stills the noise of his internal arguments he keeps having with himself. Hoping.

"Yeah, I have hope."

"Oh, good." Will smiles meekly. His soft face firms as he does so, it takes shape to whatever adulthood is going to make out of it. "Then you're not entirely a lost cause."

"Asshole." Mike says, softly. The white glow of the flashlight is abusing his eyes. Will looks like a ghost. "Are you gonna bike to Paris?" 

୨ৎ

Vecna stays hidden. A week passes by. Holly's messages keep chanting Max's name, the three letters repeated over and over. None of them can quite figure out what it means. Mike tried to involve himself, but all his theories felt far-fetched, too hungry for a success story.

Max returning to herself. Max existing, consciously, within Vecna's realm. When he told Lucas, his face crunched together as if Mike had hit him. So he removed himself.

And Will forgot about last week. He forgot about a cold palm and purple skin. He forgot about how they both fell asleep on the couch without even having done much that day. Mike woke up before him, grabbed a blanket, made sure his warm body stayed warm for whatever was to come.

And it doesn't come. And Will still overworks himself for a plan he'll have to improvise.

One night, maybe two days ago, he came home bleeding out of both nostrils. His eyes were wide and he was leaving a trail of blood as he walked to the bathroom. Joyce, in her panic, turned to them and just shrugged, muttered incomplete sentences about Will being fine. That he needs rest. Mike almost got up and went after him. Jonathan was faster.

It's well into the evening when Nancy finds him once again. Her eyes, so oceanic and far, make Mike believe she has been planning something for him. And, as he has been realizing lately, what he believes tends to be true.

“I know it's gonna sound a bit risky, but do you want to go back home and get some stuff before they tear the place down for good?”

Mike grimaces at her. “Did someone say anything about tearing it down?”

“No. But it wouldn't surprise me if they did it to provoke us out of hiding.”

“That feels illegal to me.”

Nancy slings a rifle over herself. “Hawkins is a chessboard for them. They can do anything and back it through the government.”

“I'm coming with you.” Mike decides. There's some things he's not leaving to dissolve in his basement and in his room, whatever is left of it.

“Good.” Nancy looks at Jonathan. “I think we might be able to find some things that'll help us with Holly.”

They walk through the forest and then they walk the side of the road, avoiding lantern light and keeping on unofficial pathways. Talking is out of the question. Just their steps, synchronized and tainted by their different shoe models. Nancy wears boots. Mike wears Will's. They've always shared.

Their house isn't far from Hopper's cabin. The yellow barrier tape makes his stomach twist. It's such a sore sight, so offensively present and everything around it fades. Broken windows, the grief of a neighborhood for a family they barely knew. Mike doesn't even know the name of their neighbors. He just knows that they sent a son off to Vietnam and he returned in a box.

Hawkins is a curse. When Mike watches Murray drive away, he always gets this unruly urge to jump onto the metal bars of the vehicle and not let go until he has finally crossed the border to the outside world.

“Back door,” Nancy whispers, even though there's no one around. Mike follows her soundlessly as they walk a large circle around their home. They climb over the tape and they look for cameras, anything that might detect them in their sentimental mission. Yes, they're searching for clues on Holly here too. But he knows Nancy misses some of her claw clips. Blouses, memorabilia of Barb. Hell, maybe even her Tom Cruise poster. Mike also has things to long for.

He gets excited. Excited in a complicated, horrid way. He couldn't have known that when he left through the door to get to school that day, it would be the last time he'd see his house this way. Boring, complete, a bottomless pit of unhappy faces. Their home, as he had known it for seventeen years. Mike feels the ache in his shoulder again.

They manage to unlock the back door. Nancy's hands go tense and wrapped around the phantom of her gun. Mike hasn't brought anything but a flashlight, which he points at the ruined furniture, the trail of blood their mother left in the kitchen.

The numbers marking evidence. More barrier tape. He hears Nancy swallow.

She spits out a quiet fuck and moves forward while Mike points the way to their stairs. The carpet is all torn and clawed through. There's a stench of rot coming from the fridge. A little over a month ago, Mike told his mom to stop pestering him about a letter she got from school about how they'd bring mandatory health checks to classrooms too. His dad said something about being glad that other pests from the outside world wouldn't find their way into Hawkins at least, and the way he looked at Will when he said it made Mike so fucking furious. He knew what it meant. He knows what he thinks about Will, what kind of rumors he brought to their kitchen table when he went missing.

Mike doesn't realize he stopped in his tracks. Nancy turns around and lifts a brow. He waves her concerns away, tells her to keep going. They step on glass shards. They make their way upstairs.

They settle on the silent agreement to move to each of their rooms by themselves. Nancy pulls out her own flashlight and respires as she goes. Mike, on the other hand, can't stop holding his breath until he stands in the wreckage of his own room. His closet is just a wooden carcass laying flat, bleeding cotton and denim.

He just takes it in for several minutes. He has seen damage before. It has never hit this close. All the security of his childhood is gone. His collection of trinkets and knick-knacks is reduced to half. Bed frame, the one that has held him for the majority of his teenage years, cracked at the center. Deep blue bed sheets ripped open. He sees blood. The clock on his wall is still ticking.

Next to the head of his closet is a sprawled out stack of photographs. Mike doesn't remember much of it, all he knows is that his hands want to hold them.

Right. Right. The last picture he ever kept for himself was the one Erica took after they won their campaign. Hellfire reigned for the last time. Mike hasn't played D&D since, even though he wants to. It feels like every campaign has predicted awful things they'll run into. Maybe their imagination is just so strong.

The Demogorgon, it got me. And it did. Vecna also cursed them.

There's one, Lucas and Max exchanging notes during lunch break. Dustin shot it fast and they laughed about it until those two did end up together at the Snow Ball and suddenly it wasn't so funny anymore. There's pictures of that too. Nancy took them, of him and El, him and everyone. One where they all put a hand to Dustin's obnoxious hairdo. His mom also snuck the photos of him frowning in his suit, but Mike still can't stand looking at those. It was pure torture sending El pictures of himself with his letters. He doesn't quite see himself in any of it.

There's one of Will at the hospital, thumbs up as they stand surrounding him. The color is fading because the quality is shit. There's still some things that are hard to miss. The hard, dark circles under Will's eyes. The way Mike was beaming with all his teeth on display.

One of El together with Max. She's holding a tissue to her bloody nose and Max is pointing at her with an open mouth.

Will. It's him and Jonathan in front of their house in Lenora. El sent it along with her letter. Mike was surprised to see his hair cut shorter.

Will. It's from when they went trick-or-treating. Mike smiles, brushes some of the dust off. It's an ambivalent memory. So much good in so much bad. They swore an oath. Will was so scared.

Will. There's other pictures, but Mike really wants to see his face. Almost like he has to prove to himself that his best friend has been there since the beginning. Will was his first ever friend. Here is them on their last day of school, fifth grade.

Will. Again. He's probably eight here and he just won a drawing contest. Mike doesn't remember if he ever saw him this happy ever again. He drew a scenery they had come up with for their campaign, and nobody knew, nobody but the party knew. Will won for them.

Will with Holly. Mike's there too. They're all asleep and mom took the picture in secret. She gave it to Mike on Christmas and he refused it all night, too embarrassed.

Will. Again, Lenora. El took this one in secret too. He's gazing out of the window of Joyce's car, the collar of his shirt unironed and the freckles on his neck like constellations. The sun in California hides nothing. Mike saw it for himself when they drove for hours. He saw Will differently. Purely, in no other context but the moment, where he existed and that was all he did.

Will. Mike starts tossing all pictures aside that don't include him. A physics contest they won, holding a trophy with feeble hands. Will sitting in a field while Lucas and Max spin around, coming out blurry on the picture. His knees are scraped and he looks bored.

Will. It's one last picture they took in a stripped room of the Byers house. Will is teary-eyed and Mike's attempt at a smile is just a straight line of lips. His hand around Will's shoulder is firm.

Will and him in Kindergarten. Will and Mike drawing together. Mike's drawing is a mess. Will as he squats in water, sending off a paper boat. Will and El holding hands underneath a big sign pointing towards a national park. His eyes are shut because of the sun. Mike with his face pressed to Will's after they fell asleep at one of their first ever cinema visits. He can't even really remember which movie they went to see that day. Their first play date with both Lucas and Dustin. Dustin's mom took it. Mike remembers the violent sound of the shutter. Will at the Snow Ball, just him, no one else. Mike knows he insisted he needed to keep that one.

Mike sits kneeling in front of an array of pictures. The pile is just as much of a mess as it was before he entered the room. But all the pictures of Will are in his hand. His hand protests with how hard he's latching onto the stack of polaroids. His lip quivers. Mike starts blinking profusely. His next breath is like a shot to his throat.

He never wants the world to stop. He wants time to go on as it should, doesn't want a say in changing it. That wish does not exist in him, not anymore at least. He just wishes his memory was strong enough to prevail through everything, so he could remember every small, fragile moment that made Will who he is now. Hawkins spits out awful things, it is a birthplace for violence. Will isn't part of it.

Mike doesn't want him to go under with it. He doesn't want him to die for a place that has never, for once, treated him the way he deserved to. Will blurs in his vision like watercolor. The honey-brown of his hair. The dough of his face.

Mike has never imagined that he could eat him. Tonight he wants to. The range of his desire scares him like nothing ever has.

He shoves the pictures into his pocket, wipes at his eyes until he can gaslight himself into believing he looks unbothered. His hands go after all sorts of small things that mean something to him. Figurines, an assortment of random comic books that are skinny enough to fit into his backpack. A spare walkie talkie. A sweater he left on the floor that he got in October. He deliberately refuses to look at the streak of blood that his father left while the demogorgon chased him down. His chin quivers in the aftermath of the moment, and he meets Nancy outside.

She holds a pile of drawings that Holly conjured in her school note book, together with some blouses she has thrown over her arm and a pair of shoes that do not look practical but Mike recognizes from her prom.

It was a shitty prom. But she danced with Jonathan all night, and there was something bittersweet in how she buried herself on his shoulder. He wore a suit that Nancy managed to snag from their dad's closet. Mike just remembers biking home with Will in the dark, how his hair was growing out during that time and the bridge of his nose always met the bright side of the moon as Mike drove beside him.

“Ready?” She asks. Her tone tells him she can't bear to stay any longer. Mike nods.

He gets to enter the basement, but all he does is take in the smell. It's a balm on his soul, the undeniable smear of childhood, and Will. He's so present here. A glass of water he never finished still sits on the coffee table. His couch is kissing Jonathan's. Their beds are unmade.

Mike's heart is pounding in his chest. He recognizes surrender.

( That night, when everyone's asleep, Mike opens the door to Will's bedroom. Nothing is said when he places his blanket down on the open half of the bed that Will's body doesn't claim. He climbs in.

They're both awake. Will's lips make a small, wet noise as he opens them. Mike can't see him in the dark, it's a room without windows. Out of habit, he drags a small shh and works himself into his own blanket. His heart hasn't stopped throbbing.

He doesn't know what he's doing. But he can't sleep. This time it's debilitating.

“Is this okay?” He whispers.

Will nods, then corrects himself when he realizes it's dark. Mike notices it either way. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

“Don't apologize. Just sleep.”

And he tries to. He tries, for the sake of how fast Will welcomes him inside. But he's so fixated on Will's face, which he thinks he can make out, despite the dark. Maybe some light is spilling in from the open door. Dark blue, unkind light. Will is turned towards him, or maybe Mike is turned towards Will. It doesn't matter. He looks at him.

When Mike gets too close, they share a breath.

In the morning, Will is the first one gone. Mike chews on the flesh of his mouth until the salt of his guilt becomes bland and boring. )

୨ৎ

“I don't know, sometimes it feels like I'm going crazy.”

Will's face is uncertain. He looks like a dog, like something that can't speak for itself. He's brave.

“Me too.”

Mike doesn't know what else to say but this, that he isn't alone: “Hey — well, if we're both going crazy, then we'll go crazy together, right?”

Will smiles. “Yeah. Crazy together.”

୨ৎ

He can recognize when things shift, crack, when bone breaks. Mike can only blame so much on the world ending, but if they save it, where does all of this go?

The polaroids are leaving straight, long dents in his palm. He can't stop holding them, and he never lets anyone see, nobody even knows he brought them, but Mike doesn't want them to see.

Every minute that Will spends out of sight triggers this acidic feeling in his soul. It's a crescendo of all the thoughts coming together to tell him the worst things at the wrong time. New signs of Vecna, El says he's close. That he's ready. That all of them need to be ready too.

Mike is getting ready to patrol. He buries himself in a hoodie, in a vest, and decides against his beanie. He wants there to be some kind of punishment, even if it simply trails over his head. The wind isn't even that strong, because Mike is a coward on most days. He wants to believe that he's ready to sacrifice.

The nights are so much darker now. Just splotches of ink that inundate the night sky, there's barely any stars to make up for it. They're lucky that the military hasn't found them yet, but it's only a matter of time.

Mike redoes the laces of his Converse at least three times until they're tight and unforgiving.

The house is full tonight. Even Lucas and Dustin are there, strategizing with the rest of the squad. Robin is seated next to Will and Steve, and Will doesn't look exactly attentive. He knows his part. He'll follow and then he'll lead. Hopper is tuning guns, sharpening knives. It's a myriad of silver things that kill. Mike holds the strap of his backpack, announces himself by clearing his throat.

“Does anyone wanna come?”

There's just straight silence, maybe a whisper to a friend. Some people immediately shake their heads, too immersed.

“I'll come with you.”

Mike looks to Will, whom everyone is looking at now. It's not the same looks of caution, it's not a pitiful disbelief. They don't think him weak anymore, they just think if he goes now, he might come back having saved the world.

It draws a scoff out of Mike and he makes a quick hand gesture for Will to get up. He obeys.

Will quickly grabs a jacket and zips it up to the start of his ribs. He can't really wear much of Mike's jackets anymore like he used to, says they're too tight around his arms. It makes something sharp like glass form in Mike's stomach when he dwells on it, when his eyes redirect to Will's arms, when they're brushing past each other and they go out to reach for each other and Mike feels the change.

The night is merciless. He's glad about it.

They start walking, and they're in similar rhythm, not disproportionate like him and Hop were. There's hesitance. There's the expectancy that something might jump straight at them and they don't know what else to do but submit.

Except, when they're clearing new ground, Will pulls some of the dried-out vines and moss apart with his powers, and Mike feels more helpless than ever. He still thanks him, tells Will to walk in front of him at least. His protection is illusionary.

“How's your shoulder?”

So he didn't forget. Mike cocks his head. “Still shit. But I snagged some of the ibuprofen.”

“It doesn't feel any better?”

Mike pulls his bottom lip underneath his teeth. “It does. I've been cooling it.”

Will walks up beside him. Their elbows knock together, like two marbles. “Alone?”

“Dude, I'm not like — I'm not a toddler.”

“Yeah, but you're a bit stubborn.” Will sing-songs. Mike hits him to his side.

“I mean, it's not like anyone would even bother. Except you, maybe. It gets so suffocating in there.”

“A bit, yeah.”

“A bit?” Mike can see the burn of the street lights in the distance. There's those stars they've been missing. “People who didn't give a shit about you a month ago are all over you now.”

Will's brows furrow. He doesn't say anything, and Mike sees in his face that he's trying to rearrange what he just said into something more kind, more easy on him. But Mike wants him to know the truth. If he's going to risk his life for all of them, Mike wants him to decide if it's worth it.

“Like no offense, but when did Steve or Robin ever talk to you? When did they give a shit?”

Will breaks into a mean smile that wobbles on his face. “Robin was talking to me before all of this.”

This, as he brings his hands forward. This, as if he realizes together with him that his powers finally solidify his worth.

Mike kisses his teeth. “What's your deal with her anyway?”

“There's no deal.” Will desperately wants to keep walking. His eyes roam around the maze of trees, one of his feet draws towards the direction of their path. “She's like an older sister. We just bond over stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“You wouldn't get it.” Will barks, low bark, but still. Mike huffs.

“I thought we were best friends?” He asks. Screams it down the canyon and lets it echo back to him, the pathetic tone of his voice. “And you know what, it's not even Robin, it's just that everyone—”

“It's about you.” Will accuses. An unwanted noise of confusion bubbles up in Mike's throat.

Will continues walking, towards the glint of the lanterns, where the world does not want them. Mike follows, tries to get a hold of his shoulder, but it's like a force field, Will and all the warmth he radiates.

“What's that about? What do you mean?”

Will whips around, his bangs swoop with it. They're standing on concrete now.

“Are you jealous or something?”

Again, it's the same accusation he heard from Lucas a week ago. This isn't jealousy. He wants Will to have great things. He will, however, not let them make a martyr out of his best friend.

“Why would I be jealous?”

Will can't meet his eyes. “I don't know, maybe you feel neglected — which is fine, it's been fucking awful. A lot of awful shit happened to you. I don't blame you.” Will's voice dwindles.

“I don't — I have my people.” Who have people.

Will looks across the street, at homes and at windows with no light. No invitation. “Then what's up with you?”

Mike picks at some of the dead skin around his fingernails. He only stops when it hurts. “I'm not jealous. I'm—” Angry. Terrified. There's a countdown and his heart is beating along with it.

“You're right. Okay? It's been a lot. Not just with my family, even though that obviously fucking sucks. But we also spent the entire year together, I don't even remember there being a minute where we didn't talk.”

He feels it again, Will's breath, a little further away. “It was exactly like it was before anything happened.”

“You know that's not true.” Will says, and he almost sounds like he's pleading.

“And now it's nothing again. It's nothing and…”

There's an expectant flicker in Will's eyes. Mike diffuses inside.

“It feels like I'm losing you. For real this time.”

“Losing me?” Will heaves. He turns his gaze away from Mike, before he comes right back. More spiteful, more ready for the bite. “You have been avoiding me for weeks. You're so unpredictable and it fucking messes with me. What — are we doing a second round of California?”

“You're constantly out!” Mike throws his hands up. “And when you're not, you're talking to other people. It's like you don't even want me there.”

“You're lying.” Will spits. “And maybe you could try involving yourself in those conversations instead. It doesn't always have to be just you and me.”

“Maybe that's what I want.” Mike confesses underneath his breath. And it's like a noose, because it's true.

“I don't believe you.” Will's chest lifts, falls, stumbles on the breaths it's supposed to produce. A body protects itself. And a body doesn't lie. His lips unclasp. “When we got back from the Mac, you couldn't stop talking about how I saved your life.”

Mike nods. “Yeah, what's wrong with that?”

“You were gloating about my powers more than I did.” Will shakes his head, same mean smile.

“But you know what? Suddenly they didn't seem so special anymore, when you realized that I was attached to them. And then you didn't care anymore.”

“I would never do that, Will.” It seeps in like poison. Mike messed up. Again. Again. Every little thing he loved, he has always loved it straight to death.

“No? Because it sure sounds like what you did to El for years.”

Mike is stunned. “Did she say that?”

“No. But I saw it happen.”

“Will.” He begs. “This isn't about El. This is different.”

Will's eyes are red and flooded. “Why is it always different with us? Why am I the one who gets treated differently by you?”

“Because you're my best friend.”

“So are Dustin and Lucas.”

“Will.” The way he says his name feels final. Shards, he's standing in so many shards and he has no idea how he's ever going to get out. So he just says it, just like he managed to say things to Will before he felt like the world would crucify him for everything. “I just don't want you to think that any of them care more for you than I do.”

Admitting the wound. Putting a finger to the wound. Mike doesn't realize he's panting. The world's kaleidoscopic in his view, a distorted medley of a town he doesn't love anymore, and Will who is just the sheer opposite of it.

“Then why are you backing off?” He cries.

“It's just this feeling.” Mike must look bewildered. He doesn't care anymore. “It always feels like I'm going to vomit.”

Will is the only thing he can see. It's so horrifying knowing that everything Mike feels right now depends on what he says next.

“Do I scare you?” Will whispers as a tear slides down his cheek.

Mike pulls him in.

He's sure he imagined this, when he managed to close his eyes with El. All the colors in his dreams could be rearranged to this. It's fatal. Mike has never wanted to kiss anyone as much as he wants to kiss Will. So he does it. He takes his breath straight from him and swallows how soft and how beautiful everything is with Will. He lets his throat memorize it.

Will pushes him away, it's a harsh shove, he looks at Mike. They breathe in unison. Fast and mindless. Then he takes him right back, kisses him again, and there's teeth and there's a sharp noise from Mike's mouth as they find each other. His hands grapple their way up Will's body until he finds his shoulders. Then his neck, that vulnerable space. Will sighs and Mike steals that from him too. Two hands comb into his hair, hold him with the kind of need only someone who wants to survive can produce. Mike groans and pulls him closer.

When the breathlessness borders on suffocation, he leans out and works his numb lips over Will's tear-stained face. Will is trembling in his grip, nuzzling against Mike's face. He forgets about the grief. He forgets about aching muscles and the fact that this won't save them. He doesn't even think about what it would mean to love Will, not just now, but in the future. All he wants is to eat him, let him disappear from everyone that cannot love him like this. He plucks one of Will's shaky hands from his scalp and puts a kiss to his palm, puts his teeth to it without really biting.

Will laughs, wetly, sad. He puts his hand to Mike's face and kisses him again. He puts his lips to his jaw. Like a conductor, he redirects Mike's hands, puts them to his waist. He's so warm. They kiss again. Again. Mike fixes every wrong thing here.

Then it's not funny anymore. It's not lighthearted, not beautiful. Will looks straight at him and something in the center of his face hits like a striker does a grenade. He completely disassembles in front of him, puts two weak fists to Mike's chest, buries himself in the crook of his neck. He rocks with each sob and Mike wraps his hands around his back, presses a kiss to his scalp.

When it finally hits him, it hits him so hard he gasps. The lantern light is so intruding. He hides in Will's hair. He doesn't know who's shaking more.

He doesn't know how he's going to save Will, if he ever could. If he even wants to be saved.

Mike knows nothing. And he wants so much. The spit comes. He does nothing to fight it.

,,,

It's a miracle he wakes up. It feels like he's swimming, rocking back and forth. But it's not water, it's Will's stomach that just dives with his breath. Mike's dreams were entirely yellow. He's pretty sure he was drowning, held down by a hand that has been waiting to drown him for years.

It has something to do with how fast his pulse quickens when he sees Will from where he lays. He's all rabbit-heart when he notices how Will's eyelashes separate from each other. Mike climbs upward and puts a kiss to the mole above his lips. Will laughs.

“Hey.” Will grabs his shoulders to keep Mike stable.

“Don't hey me.” Mike moves his hands to Will's mouth. He pushes his thumb between the gap of his lips, just wants to see what happens. Will presses a kiss to the pad of his finger. “How long have you been awake?”

“Two hours.”

“Two hours?” Mike says, disbelieving. “You could've woken me up, you know.”

“What if I didn't want to?”

Mike pulls his hand away and replaces it with his lips. Another kiss. A longer one, and he lets it linger for so long that when he pulls away, Will follows for one more. “Then that's on you.”

He entertains himself by putting his hand to Will's throat next, letting his fingers mold after the bob of his Adam's apple. He smiles at the stretch of his skin. Will's breaths are deep, like he's drowning too.

Mike presses two wet kisses to Will's heartbeat next. Nothing and everything about his body has changed. The temperature of his skin finds Mike's fingertips like bath water, today it's lukewarm and easy. It takes him just as he is. Mike crumbles under Will's attention. His forehead presses into his sternum and Will is beautifully alive on his face and where he holds him by his biceps.

"I want to believe that this is real." Will starts. He cracks and the yolk of his voice comes spilling out. Mike thinks he's going to die. "That you want this."

"This?" Mike asks. His own voice disappears in Will's shirt.

"Yeah, this." Will lets his fingers slither into the sleeve of Mike's shirt, tracing hot skin and goosebumps.

"You." Mike corrects. "I want you.”

“Yeah, but like this. In this way.”

“I think,” He can say it. He knows now what he wanted to say each time they spoke. “I always wanted you just like this.”

Mike looks at him. Will isn't crying this time.

“You don't have to believe me. I just know what I know.”

Knows now, now when the world's ending.