Archive of Our Own

Nancy Wheeler had always liked to think that she was perceptive, astute, chock full of common sense, if you will. Top of her class, aspiring world-class journalist, oldest daughter of spiritually divorced parents, she's had to be perceptive to get exactly what she wants: she had gotten the very last cookie from the jar hidden in her mother's wardrobe; she had wheedled out another twenty minutes for one, or multiple, of Mike's campaigns (she had insisted that it was to get Mike to stop whining, but when he beamed at their mother's acceptance, she had faltered in her pretenses); she had swindled extra pocket money, first out of her father, then out of her mother, to get the only artsy kid she knew a box of the nice crayons from the expensive art store, and then repeated the same request, years later, for the second artsy kid that had been thrust into her life.

All in all, Nancy was perceptive - she wasn't always sure if it was a blessing or a curse - but she used her astuteness to get herself and, more often than not, the people she loved what they wanted. Maybe that's why she and Mike used to be so close. She could read every intonation in his voice, easily picked up on the stiffness of his shoulders, knew the right words to say that would make him beam, a wide, bright thing, that Nancy loved to see on his face. She listened avidly to all of his stories, the stories that their mother was too tired to listen to and that their father brushed off as silly, and she asked him all the right questions, and picked up on glaring plot holes and subtle plot points.

Nancy was Mike's best friend, and Mike was Nancy’s best friend.

Until his first day of kindergarten, when Mike came home raving, hands moving a mile a minute, and eight-year-old Nancy listened with rapt attention, as he chattered away about some boy he had met, on the swings, and they had become friends. It stung a little, knowing that she was in danger of being demoted from 'best friend' to 'just a friend', but she was more pleased with the change, grinning as he gesticulated wildly, that familiar, beaming smile on his face. Her younger brother had made a friend. The friend's name was Will, she would eventually come to learn, Will Byers.

Of course Nancy knew about the Byers. She had learnt about them in the beer spilled down the front of her father's button-up, muttering about 'that Lonnie Byers' when he came home from the bar; she learnt about them in her mother's small, wistful smiles, murmuring about a 'Joyce Maldonado'; she learnt about them through watching Jonathan Byers, who always sat in the back of their classrooms, head bowed, not quite sulking, more skulking. And her younger brother Mike, loud, unintentionally abrasive and snarky Mike, had made friends with Will Byers, who was the son of belligerent Lonnie Byers and apparently neurotic Joyce Byers, but was so unlike them. He was shy, quiet, artistic - much like Jonathan, Nancy found herself thinking - and Mike described him like he was sunshine personified, a painfully bright smile on his face.

His name was Will Byers, and he and Mike became attached at the hip. MikeandWill became its own separate term, used fondly, affectionately, because Mike and Will were never too far apart, seemingly always within reaching distance of one another.

So Nancy's small world expanded, making room for the equally small Byers family - she never considered Lonnie one of the Byers, and she probably never would - and she began to read them in the same way she read her family, picking up on their likes and dislikes, the little intonations and enunciations of their voice, the differences in they ways they'd smile.

But she didn't do it on purpose. Never on purpose.

. . . . .

Despite the years, despite the new friends that they both made, Nancy and Mike stayed close, stuck fast like glue, maybe not as best friends, but more as confidants. Late at night, under the cover of darkness, they'd rant about their writing, fiction for Mike, non-fiction for Nancy, their parents, the annoying middle school kids in Nancy's classes, Dustin and Lucas bothering Mike for some reason or another - "Will would never annoy me like that, not like Lucas and Dustin do. He's amazing," Mike had breathed to her, a soft smile on his face.

It was during one of those late-night conversations, Mike sneaking into her room, looking like he fit perfectly among her stuffed animals and floral bedding, that Nancy came to a vague understanding of the depth of her brother's feelings for Will. They seemed closer than friends, maybe slightly more than best friends, and Nancy saw that glazed look in his eyes, the way his voice went soft and sweet. It wasn't quite like her and Barb, definitely not like Mike and Lucas, or Mike and Dustin, and her mind crept, almost inadvertently, back to the MikeandWill-ness of it all, back to their distinct, unique relationship, that, to Nancy, teetered somewhere between best friends and lovers.

"You really like him, huh?" she had asked, fixing her eyes on the vague shape of Mike, half-buried under her many blankets. She leaned up, trying to catch sight of his face and gauge his reaction, waiting for the beam to split his face into two.

"Of course I like Will!" Mike had blustered in response, indignant at the implication that he didn't, but the smile was already stretching across his face, an inevitable outcome of mentioning Will. He carded his hand through his unruly curls, breathing out through his nose, then looked back up at Nancy. "He's so kind, and he's a really good artist and-and-and... he's so amazing." Mike then floundered, struggling to think of what to say, or how to say it. His mouth dropped open, and he clicked it shut multiple times, a fantastic impression of a goldfish, before the words were forced out of him in a hushed, reverent whisper.

"He's just... He's perfect."

Nancy stilled for a moment, hand slowly pulling away from where she had been reaching towards Mike, before she relaxed, smiling and nodding across her bed at Mike, who hadn't noticed a change in her demeanor. Her lips move in the shape of a question, probably about their new campaign, and she reached an arm forward, gently carding her fingers through Mike's dark hair, and he half-heartedly batted it away, biting back a smile.

Privately, she decided that she should stop reading into MikeandWill, leave that can of worms unopened for future her, because current her couldn't stop thinking about what the implications of Mike’s statement were. Current her couldn't, cannot, fathom breaking her own brother's heart with everything that she desperately needed to unlearn, and then relearn. So she left the can unopened, silently hoping that it would fall into the hands of future her, who wouldn't hesitate, unlike her, about hugging her brother after he had presented her his heart.

. . . . .

In the few years she had known of, then eventually known her brother's friend, Nancy realized that Will Byers was good - painfully good, she understood with a jolt - at fading into the background, at letting eyes glaze over him, at barely moving a muscle. It must have been a by-product of living with an asshole father, her brain had unhelpfully supplied, and she tried to make him feel a bit seen, tried to seek Will out, after seeking out her brother, in mildly crowded rooms. Sometimes, she succeeded, often she failed, because when Will Byers put his mind to something, he would achieve it.

But Mike was equally good at finding him. His dark, piercing gaze would sweep the room, and he always managed to seek out Will, pin his eyes on his face, and he would light up, beaming, and Will would return the smile, equally as fond, not as bright.

Much like Nancy with Mike, Mike knew the right things to do with Will, the right way to soften his gaze so it fell between concern and pride, the right way to soften his voice when Will had stared up at their angry father, wide-eyed and terrified, like a deer caught in headlights. He'd coaxed him from the room, had brushed away his tears, had brought a small smile onto his face. Mike was perceptive with Will, was good to him, knew everything about him.

So, when Lonnie Byers left, not for the first time, not for the last time, they had learned about it through Mike - because Mike always knew everything Will- and Byers-related first - who had pulled his face into a frown, eyes glazed and distant. First Mike, then the Wheelers - 'good riddance', her mother had murmured when she thought no one was listening - then the Sinclairs and the Hendersons, then the rest of their small little town. It had been years since Nancy learned that news spread uncannily fast in Hawkins. And the rumors that took root and grew were just as fast, if not faster.

Nancy had heard all the rumors, of course she had, yelled in the elementary school grounds, enunciated in the middle school halls, muttered in the high school classrooms. The weird looks targeted at the Byers brothers, the whispered insults, the suggestions that Lonnie had left because both of his sons were queer (the word rolled off people's tongues so easily, laced with such vitriol that Nancy physically shuddered).

It was mainly focussed and targeted at the Byers, but sometimes, the barbed arrow would miss its mark, would land amongst Mike and Lucas and Dustin - Jonathan didn't have any friends, and Nancy had never tried to approach him, to change the fact - and it struck just as hard. For those few months, stuck in limbo between Lonnie's absences and his sudden, unwanted reappearances, they seemed to withdraw, all four of them, but Mike especially. The comforting, beaming smile faded from his face, and he had been too quiet, too contemplative, since Lonnie's departure.

Maybe that's why Nancy had agreed (suggested was the more appropriate term, but she would vehemently deny all accusations) to dress as an elf for their Elder Tree campaign. She was keen, almost too keen, to bring a little joy to 'The Party's' long days in the basement, to see Mike's smile, to feel close to her brother. She had enlisted Barb's help, had designed their own costumes, had dressed up and flounced into the basement, all chipper and beaming and keen.

But it was about two hours in, sitting on her knees - 'there's not enough chairs, so everyone will have to sit on the floor!' Mike had insisted - around the singular table in the basement, that Nancy felt vaguely dismayed (not regretful, never regretful) over her eagerness to dress up and join the campaign. Her knees hurt, she felt out of her depth, she found herself drawing wild conclusions, and her knees were sore, and slowly going numb after spending hours in the same hunched position.

She also, unfortunately, became acutely aware of the things that she had pointedly decided to ignore, because her younger brother's feelings weren't something that their rants had overtly, on Mike's part, and willingly, on her part, strayed into. So she overlooked the painfully bright smile whenever Will rolled his dice, she disregarded the small nudges, she glazed over the shared looks and understandings that only Will seemed privy to. Perceptive as she was, only she seemed to notice, gaze flickering between Mike and Will, fondly recalling the times of MikeandWill, and her brother's easy smile.

Hours later, after Barb had made them promise to tell her everything and gone home, after a victory earned by the skin of her teeth, after six hours of sitting on her knees, Nancy trudged up the creaky basement stairs, the boys behind her still whooping and screaming in triumph, and she smiled to herself, and brushed a hand down her costume. Maybe she'd keep it, reuse it, look at it fondly, a reminder of the time she had actually joined a campaign, her first and last one, and had seen her brother beaming and smiling and laughing after what seemed like months of misery.

With her brain still lingering in some pre-conceived nostalgia, she rounded into the kitchen, almost colliding with Mrs Byers and her mother, both of whom barely noticed her. They were talking, or maybe whispering was the correct term, heads bowed and voices low. Her mother's hand was on Mrs Byers's shoulder, gentle and caressing, and her face was soft with years, maybe even decades, of familiarity.

From her peripheral vision, she noticed movement, and turned to find Jonathan there - where Mrs Byers goes, her sons are sure to follow, she remembered wryly - sitting at their kitchen table, fingers absently ghosting the grain, a full glass of water at his elbow. He reached forward, shaggy hair falling into his eyes, and his fingers edged the slant of pale yellow light on the wood, capturing the late afternoon warmth. There was a soft sorrow to his face, barely present, one mirrored in Will, and she was once again struck by how similar the Byers brothers were.

He looked up suddenly, and Nancy was caught, frozen, in the kitchen entryway. Jonathan made eye contact with her from across the kitchen, still nursing a full glass of water, looked her up and down and smiled. A weak, fragile thing it had been, but he had smiled nonetheless, and Nancy found herself almost floating as she offered a smile in return.

(That night, in the comfort of her bedroom, she had pledged to spend more time with Mike, to seek out Will, to get to know Lucas and Dustin, to try and approach Jonathan a little more.)

. . . . .

At some point, maybe at the beginning of her sophomore year, Nancy became less perceptive, less intuitive. Or, perhaps, she stopped trying to read into the subtle inflections of Mike's tone and gestures, stopped trying to understand what he was getting at, stopped trying at all. She had, Nancy realized very belatedly, tossed a bomb into their relationship, and had let it go off without so much as warning Mike. She had demoted herself from confidant, to friend, to annoying older sister.

Nancy had always liked to think that she was perceptive, but in those months, she had been anything but. She wasn't observant enough to know that Mike had been harboring a girl with superpowers in their basement; wasn't patient enough to understand how Will's disappearance was tearing at his very soul; wasn't comforting at all, despite how much Mike needed it, with jibes and nasty comments perpetually on the tip of her tongue.

It wasn't until Barb had slipped away - her Barb, who had always stood, steadfastly, at her side - that she had some inkling, some understanding of what Mike had been struggling through. And, even then, she hadn't really thought of him, not truly, until he had come stumbling in through their front door, late in the day, heaving and sniffling.

Her mother had shot up from the sofa instantaneously, had gently wrapped him in one of her hugs, hadn't looked up from Mike as the Hollands excused themselves, assuring Nancy that they would return the next day. Her mother sat patiently, as Mike sobbed, and cried, and hiccupped, and sobbed again, offering a blend of sympathy and company, something that she had been doing mere hours ago for Nancy. She waited, not too expectantly, for Mike to share why he was upset, but his lips were resolutely clamped shut, and remained shut even when he pulled away from their mother's embrace, feigning exhaustion, and darted up to his bedroom.

Nancy had wordlessly followed him, pushing past all of their petty fights and insults and arguments, because her brother was crying, and he probably needed someone to hold him, to be a shoulder for him to cry on, despite how much he insisted he didn't need one. Despite her determination, despite her resolution, she had expected a jibe when she toed open the door of his bedroom, had expected a yell that he wasn't a child, had expected to be banished from his room.

Instead, Mike barrelled into her the moment she crossed the unspoken boundary between the hallway and Mike's room, wrapped his arms around around her waist and cried with such openness that Nancy's heart broke, piece by piece, inside her chest.

"It's... It's Will," he had whispered to her, and his voice had broken over the name, and he was weeping, sobbing, again, fat hot tears rolling down his face. He clung to Nancy, in the way he used to when they were children. There was nothing Nancy could do except stand there, cradling her baby brother in her arms, gently rubbing away his tears, carding her hands through his hair and offering what they both knew were meaningless placations.

That night, Mike slept curled in her bed, one hand fisted in her comforter, the other curled around her favourite stuffed animal. Nancy sat beside him, restless, picking at her lips and gently brushing his hair out of his eyes.

They got Will back, eventually, fighting tooth and nail, almost dying at least three times in the process. Will was back, a little quieter, a little more pensive, but he was back, and Mike didn't let him out of his sight.

. . . . .

Despite her pledge to spend more time with Mike, that year, Nancy slowly slipped away again, drowning in her own guilt. Blood on her hands, even though she hadn't been the one to land the killing blow. She remembered the year in brief, dull flashes, wading through life with guilt attached to her ankle.

Christmas, and wishing she could get a gift for Barb; Jonathan slowly drifting away, and wishing she could tell Barb; the Spring Fling Dance, and wishing that she could have danced with Barb; summer break and the start of the college conversation, and wishing that she could share her plans with Barb. November came with plans of vengeance, and a rekindled relationship with Jonathan, and a scheme to avenge Barb's memory, and wishing that she didn't have to, wishing that Barb was by her side instead of in the Upside Down.

Waiting, panicking, outside that damned hospital, Mike, keeping a tight hold of the unconscious Will in his arms, swerving to a stop in front of the Byers's home, the solid weight of the gun at her shoulder when El walked through the door, Steve's acceptance.

The sweltering cabin, the brief flurry of panic that maybe they were killing Will, thick, black, pulsating veins creeping up his neck, Mrs Byers in a death grip, her lips slowly blue. Nancy, heart thrumming in her chest, rounding the bed, seizing the poker, and turning back.

Her grip on it faltered, because she would be hurting someone she knew, and cared about and loved. She'd hurt Will Byers, who didn't deserve to be stabbed with a red-hot poker. But the figure on the bed, the one that was howling, and had Mrs Byers in a death-grip, and had a distorted, uncannily stretched face, was not the boy she knew.

Before she could talk herself out of anything, she angled the poker, and stabbed it into Will's side. The effect was instantaneous, the ear-shattering howl and the particles swirled out of him, darting up, around and out of the cabin.

There was silence for a moment, broken by Mrs Byers soft weeping, and Jonathan's faint pleas, as they waited for a sign, any sign, of conscious life from Will. And Will, truly Will, not some imitation of the boy she knew and cared for, had breathed, blinked, eyes fluttering between the three of them, and Nancy had smiled to herself. She had been grateful, at the time, that it was over, that Will was back.

With the curse of hindsight, the knowledge of what she had done, the constant feel of ash on her palms, she found it difficult to look Will in the eye after it. For days, she avoided him, and for weeks after that, she was never able to look her in the eye. And Will, patient, gentle Will, forgave her before she had even fumbled out an apology, let her take her time, was easy with his smiles, despite harboring what Nancy knew was a yearning for normalcy.

She had plucked up her courage, had pushed past her own inhibitions, and approached Will, cornering him in the Byers's kitchen on the Sunday before the Snow Ball.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, tears burning in her eyes. She bowed her head and avoided his gaze, gently pulling at a thread on her - more like Jonathan's but she was deviating - sweater. "I never want to hurt you, and I'm sorry that I did."

"Do you remember Mr and Mrs Kline's New Year's Party? I think it was six years ago now."

Vaguely, she did, but she didn't understand why Will was mentioning it. The Klines had been accustomed to throwing abnormally large New Year's parties, inviting Hawkins's most upstanding families. The Wheelers had been invited, and, when Mike had thrown a tantrum, her mother had invited the Byers, insisting that the Klines wouldn't notice, or care. They had gone together, that Saturday evening, all of them dressed in their best.

Barb's family hadn't been invited, so she stuck to her mother's side, to the corners of the room, to the window, waiting for everything to be over. She had been chewing on a cookie and glaring out the window when a hand had fastened onto her dress.

"Do you remember what I said?"

A crowded room, and six-year-old Will had sidled up to her side - not to Jonathan's side, or Mike's side - had clung to her dress, had agreed, eagerly, readily, when she suggested that they steal some more of the cookies from the dessert table. Chocolate stained lips and sticky fingers, whispering at the way Mr Walsh kept swiping desserts when he thought no one was looking, giggling at the way Mrs Carver was slowly going pink in the face. Then, Will had looked up at her, all soft edges and earnest eyes.

"You're like my sister, Nance."

The words still struck the same, despite the years between them. Tears sprung to Nancy's eyes.

"I don't think you would hurt me on purpose."

Maybe the Byers were just like that: emotionally intuitive, capable of breaking through thick walls and knocking heads, with fates that forever entwined and aligned with the Wheelers. Nancy let out a strangled sob, and gathered Will into an awkward hug. He returned it, breathing out a stilted laugh.

They lapsed into chatter, slightly clumsy, slightly awkward, but it was soft, and Will's smiles made it easier.

"Are you going to the Snow Ball? On Saturday?"

Will hummed, and nodded in response. "I sort of have to. Mike wouldn't leave me alone about it."

They laughed together, the conversation turning to Mike. The cogs whirred in her mind, slightly slower due to disuse, but functional nonetheless.

That Saturday, Nancy people-watched. She had been watching people for her entire life, but this time, she did it with purpose, with reason.

Before Nancy had seen Mike and El fumble and fall together in a dance, before El had even entered the gym, Nancy had watched Mike, glancing up at him between the cups of punch she served to children, and observed as he gazed into the swaying crowd of middle-schoolers, face slack with disappointment, fingers toying with the hem of his blazer. She hadn't turned around, she didn't need to turn around, to know exactly who he was staring at.

. . . . .

For the next few months, Nancy saw more of Will - sat at the kitchen table when she snuck out the front door, pedalling to a stop as she hopped into her car, marching into Starcourt Mall as she was leaving - than she did her own brother, who was, almost daily, at Hopper's cabin. When spring warmed into summer, she saw Mike even less, just about missing him when she left early for the The Hawkins Post, getting a glimpse of him when he trudged home late in the day. They didn't talk as much, but, this time, it wasn't Nancy who was slipping away, it was Mike.

The evening after they had found Mrs Driscoll - the images still flickered in her mind: Mrs Driscoll hunched over the table, fertilizer smeared across her face, snarling - Nancy sat wide awake in her bed, and Jonathan offered comfort, a hug, a shoulder to cry on, as he sat beside her. She did cry, black mascara leaving trails on her face, throat dry and tight. She had murmured something about water, and she snuck into the kitchen, intent on grabbing a glass and returning to her room, but she startled when she spotted a figure in her peripheral vision, reeling backwards, ever so slightly.

It was just Will, sat at their kitchen table, nursing a full glass of water, fingers absently ghosting the condensation. His hair was a little damp, curling around his ears and falling into his eyes, and his gaze was distant, looking at Nancy, but not really seeing her. One of Mike's sweaters clung to his frame, the sleeves bunched around his elbows because they were too long.

Nancy poured herself a glass of water, and joined him at the table, wallowing in the silence that the both of them refused to break. Nancy traced the rim of her glass with a finger.

"Are you okay?" he whispered at last, and he tried to smile, a feeble, brittle thing it was, but it was a smile nonetheless. "You seemed a bit panicked when you came home."

"Yeah, yeah. Just some trouble with..." Her throat tightened, but she coughed, and continued. "Trouble with an article. It'll be alright, I'm sure." Will nodded in acknowledgement, bowing his head again. His hand fell from the glass, this time tracing shapes against the wood of the table. "Did you get caught up in the storm or something?"

"What?"

"Your hair. It's all wet."

"Yeah, you could say that," he answered, letting out a huff of laughter. "I just went to Castle Byers for a bit, and I biked here afterwards. Through the rain."

Nancy nodded, pressing her lips into a thin line. She hadn't known Will to lie, he was honest to a fault, but she could tell that he wasn't telling her the entire truth. But she didn't really understand why.

Her lips parted around the beginnings of a sentence, probably a joke or an inane reminder to avoid getting sick, when footsteps pattered into the kitchen, slow and sleep-heavy. Will glanced up, and the smile slid off his face and his face tightened almost imperceptibly. Nancy shot a look over her shoulder, and found Mike stood frozen in the entryway, half caught between surprise and guilt.

"I'll see you later, Nancy."

Will pushed away from the table, the chair scraping awkwardly, resoundingly, across the floor. He grabbed his glass, taking care not to spill it, and walked away, giving Mike a wide berth as he left the kitchen and crept into the basement.

Oh.

Oh.

Mike watched him go, his hand poised as though he would try to call him back, but it flopped to his side, and he sighed. He rounded the kitchen table and dropped into the seat that Will had been in.

"You look like shit," he mused, reaching forward to grab her glass.

"Thank you so much, Michael. Really know how to make a person feel good." She rolled her eyes and relinquished her grip on the water, and he downed it at once. "You doing okay?"

"Yeah, fine. Just thirsty," answered Mike, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Nancy cocked on eyebrow, and Mike returned the gesture, figuratively, and literally, clamping his mouth shut.

Nancy let it go: fourteen-year-old Mike was defensive, and she didn't want to get into an argument over Will Byers when he was right underneath their feet. Besides, they would fix it, eventually, would revert back to MikeandWill, because no argument had lasted longer than a day.

But when the hospital lights flickered, and thick, black, pulsating veins crept up Mrs Driscoll's neck. Nancy dimly registered a flair, rapid and burgeoning, of concern, for Will and his safety, lightly cursing herself for brushing off the weird tension between Mike and Will. The call to Jonathan did nothing the quell her anxieties, and her finger drummed against the steering wheel on the ride back home. It wasn't until she saw Will, alive and okay, that she let in a full breath of air.

"Will, are you alright?" Jonathan had asked reaching across the table and placing his hands on Will's shoulder. He paused for a moment, eyes flitting between him and Nancy, before he affirmed what Jonathan had said, briefly nodding his head. Likewise, Mike stared at them, his brows pulled together, caught between directly asking them and just ignoring whatever had happened.

It slipped from his mouth eventually, the question blurted out in a moment of concern for Will, much like the statement, brash and assertive, that he blurted out in a moment of concern for El.

"Because I love her, and I can't lose her again!"

It had stunned everyone into silence: Max's eyes widened, as though she couldn't quite believe what she had heard, while Lucas smirked, leaning back against the couch arm.

Even Mike seemed a little thrown by his outburst, looking like he wanted to cram the words back into his mouth as he gaped at them all, staring like they had been the ones to say it. When the door creaked loudly and El turned the corner, he denied having said anything, and avoided her gaze like it would see right through him.

And Nancy couldn't help but stare at him, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, her thoughts briefly skimming over whether it was a confession or a profession. Then, without her meaning to, her eyes flicked to Will, who was locked in some sort of silent conversation with Jonathan.

They didn't mention it again, not for a long time. Mike would shoo her away whenever she strayed near the topic, had bitten, more than once, out a retort about minding her own business, and Nancy nearly gave up. Instead she chose to focus on her senior year, and, when she learned of it, the Byers's imminent departure. Jonathan had brought it up during one of their dates, gently clasping her hand on the table and mentioning that Mrs Byers had considered it, had chosen to go through with it.

"She thinks the distance will be good. Being away from Hawkins. For Will and El."

Nancy hadn't responded for a while, squeezing Jonathan's hand in return, and fought against the tears burning in her eyes. She nodded, once, twice, inhaled sharply, squeezed Jonathan's hand again.

"I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too."

"Does... Do the rest of the kids know?"

He shook his head, fingers twitching against her palm, the smallest indicator that they were on the same train of thought.

On moving day, she wrapped her arms around Mrs Byers, the hug warm and comforting; she watched as Mike pulled Will away from Max and into a hug; she cradled El in her arms and squeezed her close; she noted the way Mike seized Will again in a second bear hug and swayed on his feet; she smiled as she firmly clasped Will in a hug; she wept as Jonathan gently cupped her face, leaned into his warm touch, nodded as he promised to call everyday. The five of them watched as the van and the car pulled out of the Byers's driveway, slowly but surely rolling away from them, growing smaller and smaller.

Nancy stuck around for a while, milling about the local area, driving around in aimless circles, before she crept home, slowly clicking open the front door and slinking in. She hesitated near the stairs when she locked eyes with her mother.

Mike was in their mother's arms, head nestled into the crook of her shoulder, not weeping or shaking. It reminded her of the time he had come home after seeing them pull in Will's body from the quarry. He was, perhaps, torn up, all over again, over losing Will, she guessed, for a second time.

. . . . .

Nancy had watched, first-hand, the gradual breakdown of MikeandWill, due to the distance, or the poor communication, she wasn't entirely sure. But the calls grew few, and far in between (Mike still stood by the telephone every afternoon, a muscle jumping in his jaw as the dial tone rang); the pile of letters in Mike's sock drawer amassed, each one titled 'Dear Will'; Mike's mood soured, his temper shortened almost imperceptibly.

The ten-day trip to Lenora had been a gift to Mike, a vague birthday gift for Will - surely having his best friend there would make him happy - and a last-ditch attempt to make Mike less snappy. It seemed to do the trick: Mike was a little lighter, a bit more smiley, more talkative. He'd chattered Nancy's ear off, when she volunteered it, about his plans, seeing Will, visiting Lenora, seeing Will. Unsurprisingly, he didn't mention El, only name-dropping her twice in the month before he was due to leave, about as much as Nancy expected.

She didn't pretend to know much about Mike and El's relationship, not in the same way she knew MikeandWill. They seemed rocky, based on the slightly disgruntled look Mike got in his eye whenever Nancy passed over a new letter, but when Nancy had, gently, asked why they had broken up, Mike had fervently, a little too fervently, denied it, professing that they were, in fact, a very happily together, and Nancy had refused to even toe the topic after his outburst.

Why she had volunteered to drive Mike two hours to the airport in Indianapolis, she wasn't really sure. Mike didn't seem to know either, because he was antsy, drumming his fingers against his knees, staring out of the window instead of looking at Nancy as she made idle small-talk. Keeping her eyes on the road, Nancy reached across, over the console, and tapped Mike's hand, where it had been twitching against his knees, in a comforting gesture.

"Just talk to him, okay?" she cut across the spiral that she knew he'd been sinking into. "He's Will. I might not know him as well as you do, but, whatever happened, he'll forgive you. You guys are indestructible or some bullshit like that."

Mike huffed a dry laugh, but his leg tapping had stopped and he actually responded, instead of nodding, when she started chatting again. He answered questions about his plans, even though Nancy had heard it all before, he asked about her spring-break plans, even though he had heard them all. The journey passed easily, two hours ticking by in what seemed like and hour, and soon, they were rolling to a stop outside the airport. She hopped out, rounding to the trunk and seized Mike's suitcase.

Mike approached her, slow on his feet, halfway between asking her something, and running away entirely, his hands fiddling with a lock of his hair.

"Do I look okay?" he asked, letting his arms flop to his sides. He fiddled, almost self-consciously, with the hem of his t-shirt, rolling it up and stretching it out again.

Nancy paused her wrestling with his suitcase, and gave him a once-over. A white t-shirt, black jeans, dark blue converse, unruly mop of dark hair (thank goodness she had managed to talk him out of that stupid orange mohawk): he looked like the average teenager. "Yes... You look fine, Mike. You look okay."

He didn't seem to believe her, but smiled nonetheless, hurrying forward to help her with his pull out his suitcase.

"I'll pick you up from here in ten days," she said, and he nodded, and turned away, suitcase now in hand, to sunny California and a spring break where he would, hopefully, fix things.

Needless to say, she did not see him in ten days. He pulled up to the Wheeler house in a yellow pizza van, three days early, grinning sheepishly, looking happier, much happier, than he had before he left, side by side, almost shoulder to shoulder, with Will, and Jonathan.

Her breath was yanked out of her lungs, and she was running forward, into Jonathan's arms, his arms around her waist, and she pulled him closer with a desperate need to make sure that he was real and that he was okay.

They pulled apart, but remained close together, heads bowed, and the awkwardness that she had anticipated dissipated as they whispered together. It was almost like Jonathan could read her mind, answering her questions before she had even uttered them.

"I'll tell you everything, okay? I promise. For now, I'm just glad you're safe," he murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead and enveloping her in another hug, their arms tight around one another.

After making the rounds, fumbling through conversation with Argyle and greeting El - 'I wish you had seen my hair, it was longer than yours' - and Will - 'Lenora was okay, but it wasn't Hawkins', Nancy approached Mike, out of earshot of their mother, who was fussing over Jonathan and asking about Mrs Byers, and gently gathered him into a hug.

"I'm glad you're safe," she voiced, echoing Jonathan's words from earlier. Mike grinned, awkwardly patting her on the shoulder in response. "I hope your spring break was at least a bit fun?"

"Yeah. Cross country road trips, getting shot at and almost dying ten times is definitely fun," he answered, sarcastic and wry.

"What?"

. . . . .

With the blessing, or perhaps it must have been a curse, of hindsight, she couldn't really recall why she had tried to guide Mike through 'Relationship Rebuilding 101'. Her advice, no matter how well-meaning it had been, worked briefly, when the Byers returned to Hawkins, and inconsistently since then. The foundations of MikeandWill would crumble, Mike would fix them, then he'd knock it all down again with a sledgehammer.

She didn't understand if it helped, because Mike had offered them the Wheeler house, had offered his own room, as sanctuary, and then turned around and ignored Will, jumping a foot in the air when he spoke, flinched from slight nudges like they burned.

Nancy could make an educated, probably correct, guess, as to why Mike was acting so unlike Mike, helped by the deliberately vague whispers she had gathered from Jonathan, mutters of Mike's own, probably dishonest and abashed account, pieces that she clumsily stitched together as they all stumbled through those frigid early weeks of cohabitation. The slightly mistimed glances across the dinner table, the stilted conversation, the tiptoeing around each other, not quite MikeandWill, more Mike and Will. Sometimes MikeandWill, mostly Mike and Will.

Sometimes, Mike spent barely any time at home, in their basement, with Will, always requesting to go for a drive with her. She would sigh, exasperated, make a light jibe, before ushering him into the passenger seat, and guide them to familiar locations, unfamiliar streets, open fields and claustrophobic cul-de-sacs, their conversations in her room replaced by conversations in her car. Mike whispered, sometimes elated, sometimes crying, sometimes sleepy, sometimes high, once drunk, of his wishes, his wants - 'sometimes, I want to be normal, Nancy, I wish I was normal' he had whispered, drunk - his dreams. Nancy waited in her car for five minutes after she got home, she told Mike that he could tell her anything, she listened, she took everything in stride, pieced together Mike's internal crisis with careful, cautious fingers.

Sometimes, Mike would latch himself to Will's side, hovering over him like a persistent fly. He'd ask how Will was doing, if he had any new artwork, if he wanted to play D'n'D. He would smile like he hadn't just spent the past week avoiding Will.

She knew that it hurt Will more, days of clinginess followed by days of radio silence, in quick succession, but she couldn't do anything more than provide a sympathetic smile, a listening ear, the offer of a hug, and hoped and wished that Mike would actually consider what he was doing before he permanently pushed Will away.

It had been a good morning, with Mike and Will, acting like MikeandWill, sat next to each other and laughing about the previous night, all easy smiles and light touches. Last night's crawl, while not fantastic, had not been a disaster like the one before it, and her mother had made the nice pancakes, like some sort of unspoken reward. Holly was engrossed in a book, and her father fiddled with the radio, switching between stations, brow furrowed and lips pressed into a line. A song, one she often sung along to, played its opening notes, softly, before her father switched the station again, and she zoned out, picking at her pancakes.

Across from her, Mike stilled: his fork came to a halt, he slowed down his chewing, his feet paused halfway to her shin. His eyes flickered up, to her, to the head of the table, back to his plate, and he seemed to shrink, pulling inwards, shifting, ever so slightly, away from Will.

A heavy stillness settled, and, taken aback, Nancy glanced around, at her family, extended family, at Jonathan's eyes, pulled into a deep scowl that was directed at his plate, at Mrs Byers's lips, pressed together in a grimace, at her mother, who pushed her eggs around her plate. At her father, whose hand rested against the radio, listening and gazing, perhaps pointedly, at Mike and Will, perhaps not pointedly, in their general direction.

"- The number of deaths due to the gay disease have increased in the past week, and it's important that we, as righteous Americans-"

Nancy had heard the similar broadcasts before, the matching scripts, the same words; revulsion rolled through her stomach, and she fought the urge to open her mouth and hurl the scrambled eggs, that she had just eaten and had quite liked, all over the table. She desperately wanted to reach out, to knock the radio onto the floor, to shatter it into a million pieces. Nancy's fork slipped from her hand, with a tinkle of metal against ceramic, and everyone, save for Mike, turned to her, caught between mild curiosity and surprise. She reached across her father, and flicked the radio to what had been playing the song that she, and Mike, quite liked, playing up her mutters and grumbles about listening to it, even though she hadn't been paying attention.

The tension dissipated, like a fire put out, and they returned to the light chatter, to the smiles. Will leaned across the table, asking Holly about her arts and crafts, Jonathan passed her a glass of orange juice, her mother and Mrs Byers laughed together, a genuine smile on her mother's face, one so like her brother's.

Amidst the easy babbling, Mike pushed up from his chair, shoulders around his ears, grabbed his plate and dropped it into the sink. Fingers toying with a thread on his shirt, he stalked out of the kitchen and disappeared up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Nancy watched him go, and when she turned back to the table, she dully realised that she wasn't the only one, making a minor note of the hazel eyes that still gazed at the stairs.

Nancy didn't follow him, she knew he wanted to be alone. She waited instead. Nancy could be patient, she had been patient before, and she would wait for Mike to speak to her, would listen to him, and accept whatever her had to say with an open heart. So, when Mike sought her out ten days later, softly tapping against the driver's side window when she pulled into the driveway, she had rolled down her window, and had ushered him into the passenger seat when he requested another late-night drive.

As he rounded the front of her car, she rolled her eyes fondly, and tried to quell some of the exhaustion that weighed heavy on her eyelids, tried to push down her desperate need to get some rest. When he collapsed into the seat beside her, pulling his knees up to his chest, she just smiled, in what she hoped was a benevolent older sister type of way, and not in a tired grimace type of way.

"Anywhere specific in mind?"

Mike shook his head, listlessly gazing out of the window, fingers toying with a little paper plane, folding and unfolding it along the crease. He seemed to be in another world entirely, so Nancy pulled smoothly out of the driveway, and guided them along the barren roads of Hawkins, Indiana. There's a few streetlights, and Mike's face, stony and set, is thrown into stark relief when they drive past them. A song played on the radio, one that Mike liked, and he haltingly hummed along, eyes still staring out at the passing scenery, or lack thereof.

As she drove, Mike's limbs unfolded, bit by bit, his fingers incessant movement slowed down, until he was just turning the plane over in his hands. But she could still see the furrow in his brows, the muscle jumping in his jaw, the stiffness in his shoulders, his adamant refusal to speak. But she could be patient.

The late-night drives made the streets easier to recognise, but some were more familiar than others. She knew, and Mike could guess, where she was driving to. A familiar place, with Lover's Lake a five minute walk away, ladened with warm memories of her, and Mike's, childhood and adolescence: afternoons where Nancy would babysit the Party, outwardly groaning, but gazing at them with the quiet fondness she had once reserved for only Mike; evenings where she would slip away with Jonathan, both of them giggling like silly teenagers instead of the trauma-hardened young adults they had grown into; mornings where she would shriek as Mike and Holly ganged up on her, splashing water in her face.

After a beat of silence, broken only by their breathing and the distant chattering of crickets, Mike spoke.

"El and I... we broke up. For good, I think."

His voice was so small, so unlike the loud and unabashed Mike that she was used to, but she can see the way his fingers stop twitching, the way his shoulders slump, like a great weight has finally been lifted off him. Silence embraces them both, but it's not really uncomfortable, more heavy. Instead of responding, Nancy chose to root through her glovebox, in the vague attempt to give him a moment, to collect his thoughts, to do whatever he needed to do before she spoke. Her hands closed around the plastic wrapper of some candy, and a lukewarm can. She pulled both of them out, and then turned to him.

"How do you feel?" Nancy asked softly, gently leaning over to offer him some candy she had fished out of her glovebox. He takes it and tears into them, shoving a fistful into his mouth, and chewing pensively, his brows furrowed.

"Honestly, I'm kind of relieved. I know I didn't love El like that, not in the way she wanted me to love her, and especially not at the end. I was a pretty shitty boyfriend anyway, so I'm glad she doesn't have to deal with my shit anymore. I don't know, I feel like I was... using her. To feel normal. When we got back together. Cause Lucas and Dustin had girlfriends, and even Will had some girl in Lenora, and I didn't want to feel different from the Party. So it's sort of... sort of good. Being away from all of that... pressure, I guess?" He cut across his own rambling, pointedly avoided Nancy's gaze, fiddled with the plastic wrapper of his packet of candy. Nancy could almost read his mind, knew that he thought he had gone too far, had stepped over the line instead of toeing it. He turned, slowly, to meet her eyes, hesitance laced in every movement. Nancy smiled, breathed out, through her nostrils, and tried to piece together the right thing to say.

"Mike, if you're happy being broken up with El, then I'm happy as well."

He nodded, once, twice, the smallest of smiles playing about his mouth, as he offered her some of the candy he had left. Nancy grinned in response, shook her head, choosing instead to take a sip of her lukewarm soda. They started chatting idly, about Mike's upcoming sophomore year, Nancy's plans for college, their writing, still fiction for Mike, still non-fiction for Nancy, and their soft words filled the space between them as Nancy began the drive home, the same streets flitting by in the windows, the streets becoming more familiar as they neared their quaint little house at the end of the cul-de-sac.

She had come to a stop in front of their house when Mike spoke up, a harder edge to his tone, his fingers coming to a halt where he had been flipping the plane over in his hands.

"There's actually, something else. As well. That I need to... want to- want to tell you."

This time, Nancy nodded in acknowledgement, and she's struck by the way Mike's head was bowed, refusing to look at her, and his hands were still, which was, and always had been, a bit unusual of him. Nancy turned in her seat, smiled softly, and nodded again, encouraging him to say what he wanted to. He lifted his head, and looked at her, met her steady gaze, searching. Whatever he was looking for, he seemed to find, because he nodded, sharply inhaled, steeled himself.

"I'm... I like guys. Romantically. I'm gay."

The words come out quiet, in a rush, and it took Nancy a moment to deduce them, but she kept her eyes on Mike. Unshed tears glimmered in his eyes, as he gazed, warily, resolutely, at her, trying to decipher her response, her expression, trying to figure out if he had made a mistake, or if he had done right by himself.

"It's okay if... if you don't want me to be your brother," he whispered, and a tear rolled down his cheek.

Nancy leaned forward, reaching across the console, and grasped Mike's wrist in her hand, trying to be slow and purposeful with her movements. Despite her efforts, Mike started, went rigid, and he grit his teeth, a muscle jumping in his jaw. Nancy tried again, slower this time, pulling him forward and wrapping her arms around him. The hard edge of the console dug into her hip, painfully, but she ignored it, pulling Mike in tighter, trying to convey everything that her eyes couldn't.

"You will always be my brother, Mike. Thank you for trusting me."

Maybe it was because of the way she stressed the 'always', maybe it was because of her acceptance, maybe it was because of the hug, but Mike's final, flimsy walls broke, and he crumbled, weeping into her shoulder, hands fisting in the back of her blouse, his frame shaking, wracked with silent sobs, dampening the sleeves of her shirt. Nancy held him, running a soothing hand along his back, murmuring words of comfort and support, in the way she always used to.

She couldn't really remember how long he had cried for, when she had started crying, how she managed to get both of them into the house, up the stairs and into the room, or when he fell asleep, moonlit tear tracks glistening on his face.

Mike was curled against her, with puffy eyes and cheeks that had been rubbed raw, but his face was soft and youthful with sleep, so much like the brave and resilient child that she had known, so much like the brave and resilient teenager that she knew now.

. . . . .

Over those eighteen months, the iciness seemed to melt, gently, slowly, replaced by casual, perhaps too casual, friendship, one thick and heavy with the undertones of something more, something closer. The light touches in the backseat of her car, the shared looks as they meticulously planned out their crawls, the easy smiles, Nancy picked up on them, in the same way she had when she was eight, and twelve, and sixteen, and twenty, and every age in between. Perceptive as she is, she had noted the reciprocal aspect of it all, but she refrained, as she always had, from dropping that writhing can of worms into the easiness of their relationship.

On the eve of their aptly named 'Turnbow Trap', Mike had been guiding them through the logistics of their plan, because that was something that Mike seemed to do now, had been doing since he returned from Lenora. His voice was confident, assured, like that of a natural born leader, capable of directing everyone's attention onto him.

But he glances, because he always glances, over at Will, seeking approval, or certainty, or something more, Nancy isn't always sure. And Will always meets his gaze head-on, with the same openness and earnestness that she's come to expect between them, and Mike softens around the edges, his breath becomes a little easier, he's a little more certain about his words.

Jonathan's fingers gently loop around hers, and she can tell, astute as she is, that he's on the same train of thought, watching Mike and Will's ease and assured confidence with one another. And now, with her gaze flickering between Mike and Will, so much more MikeandWill than they had ever been, with their shared looks and nudges and smiles, she comes to her conclusion.

Nancy Wheeler did not believe in neither fate, nor destiny, not anymore.

But the formation of MikeandWill, as best friends, as lovers, was something that, she thought, had been written in the very stars that hung above her head. Intertwined souls, destine to find each other in every life or some bullshit like that.

If Nancy believed nothing else, it would be that.