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He finds him sitting where everyone else had scattered, shoulders slumped under the weight of the world, still staring at the window they’d used to figure out how to end this, once and for all. There’s a tension to his frame that hasn’t left since he woke up in Hop’s cabin, carving through the pinch in his brow down to his palms pressed to the coffee table, eyes open and distant—always distant, lost in thought. He finds him alone.
“Hey,” he says, inexplicably on edge, and Will startles at the sound, jerking back as his gaze falls over to Mike. Those nerves twist harder in his gut, a rubber band drawing tight, and he lowers his voice. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he replies, nodding, too fast to be true, “Of course.”
“Friends don’t lie,” he says, and somewhere between his brain and his stupid mouth, the joke comes out wrong, harsh, almost angry. Like he’s back to being thirteen, his words nearly—nearly—drowned out by the rain while the wind slices at his knees. Will laces his fingers together in his lap, lips sealing into a thin line, firm even when he tries to shrug.
“It’s fine, Mike. I’m fine.”
Are you, really? He wants to ask. He wants an actual answer when he does. Better yet, he wants it from Will by choice, of his own volition, the way he used to tell him things before Mike went and fucked it all up. He wants to take him by the shoulders and pull him in, he wants to hide him there beside his chest until this is all over, he wants Will to just look him in the eye, he wants—he wants—well. He wants Will.
He always has.
“You saved my life, you know,” he blurts out instead, still standing like an idiot in the hallway beside the recording booth, their gear for every crawl in hand. The distance stretches between them, insurmountable. “It’s too late now, and a lot more stuff has happened, but we didn’t get to talk about it before—before everything else. And I didn’t say thank you.”
He’s already shaking his head, eyes sliding away to the corner like he can’t even bear to look in his direction. “You don’t have to say that, Mike, come on.”
“Will.” He crosses the room in seconds, tossing aside his and Lucas’ matching vests as he sinks to the floor at his feet. “Are you serious?”
His throat bobs as he swallows. He doesn’t answer.
“I know it’s stupid to talk about it now, okay? I’m not the only person you saved last night, and the list has only gotten bigger since then. There’s just so much going on, and it feels like everything keeps going wrong somehow, but this—this is the one thing that’s been right,” he says fiercely, “I make mistakes all the time, we both know that. I probably will for the rest of my life, even if that turns out to be really, really short. But I was never wrong about you, because you’re the reason why I get to keep being stupid just a little while longer, and I need you to know that I know that. Because you’re a—”
“Sorcerer. I get it,” he interrupts, exhaling through his nose. “But it’s not that simple anymore. You were wrong about where my powers come from, and you were wrong about me. About how all this works, with Henry. When you were attacked—”
“He needed the children. But what he did at the MAC-Z, going for Lucas and Robin, that was his mistake.”
“No, you—” He cuts himself off. He breathes in, then out. “Mike, it’s fine. Really. I’m fine. You should go prepare with the others before they get the truck back.”
“Why are you saying it like that?” he demands, exasperated.
“Like what?”
“Like you want me to go.” His gaze alights on Mike again, stinging and electric, scraping across where it hurts. “We have time, right now, and I don’t know when we’ll get that again. I want to talk. I want to be here.”
“What is there to talk about?” It slips out sharper than usual, which is how he knows that Will really means it. Mike juts out his chin, insides turning in a corkscrew.
“I asked if you were okay,” he points out, “Not if you were fine.”
He closes his eyes. Despite his tone, the corner of Will’s mouth tugs upwards, proof that he’s exasperated beyond belief. “Define okay.”
“Like you understand that what happened with Vecna wasn’t your fault,” he says instantly, and Will flinches. “I know you, Will. I know what you’re thinking.”
“Do you?” he asks, almost sad.
“I used to.” The confession flies off his tongue faster than he expects, and Mike forces down a shallow gasp for air, daring to inch the tiniest bit closer. “Or I thought I did. I still want to, I always want to know what you think.”
Will’s grip tightens around his fingers, knuckles rising jagged and pale beneath the surface of his skin—like he’s steeling himself just to get through their conversation. He’s always had an artist’s hands, shaped from slender bones and a life spent turning everything he sees in his head into something tangible, something real. Mike wants to take them between his own hands, clumsy as they are—he’s never quite been able to paint his miniatures with the same precision Will brings to everything—and prove that he's real too.
He also knows that he can’t.
Even when he’s right in front of him, Will always ends up feeling far away. Like he’s on the verge of disappearing all over again, whether it turns out to be Lenora or the Upside-Down, and no matter what he tries, over and over again, Mike can’t seem to get to him.
“When we were bringing that Demo back to life, and you got caught in a trance—I haven’t been that scared in so goddamn long,” he begins, shaky, “You were gone, Will. For hours. We didn’t know El would find her way out of the Upside-Down, or if she could find you, and if she couldn’t—it’d be my fault. It was my fault that you got stuck in there. With him.”
Will turns to stare at him, incredulous. And for a second, the disbelief shrinks that space between them, except Mike can’t bring himself to meet him. “How is any of this your fault?”
“I told you. From the beginning.” He hesitates, the victory he’d so proudly attached to the word now rendered to nothing more than ashes. “Sorcerer. I encouraged you to keep going into the hive mind, and you got hurt.”
“You—you didn’t do this to me. I brought it on myself.”
It’s not meant to be a consolation. Mike looks up, on his knees. “You said I was wrong about you, before. What does that mean? Did you see something? When he was using you to spy?”
He separates his hands at last, releasing a sigh as he hangs his head. “We never understood why the tunnels just appeared one day. How nobody ever noticed, until it was too late, and then they were under the lab, throughout Hawkins, everywhere.” Out unfurls one hand, and Will studies it as he speaks—nearly subdued, if not for the fingertips digging into his thigh. “Turns out I was the one who built them. For him. It was so easy I did it in my sleep.”
“Well, those have been really useful these past two years,” he ventures, “It’s practically the only way we’ve been able to do any crawls at all.”
“They were also the way a lot of people got hurt,” he says, flatly, “Anyone at the lab that night died because of me. Because I made it possible. And just last night, I didn’t act fast enough, and now those children are stuck in Henry’s mind too. Everything you said that’s gone wrong? It was me. It’s been me this whole time.”
“That’s not true,” he says immediately, and Will looks at him, eyes shining with every secret he’s been keeping.
“Mike. He showed me. He showed me everything.”
“And he’s full of shit! He’s a liar, he twists things around, he uses people’s fears against them. We know that. You know that. And if I didn’t send you off to get tranced by Vecna, then you didn’t make any of this happen. It’s not your fault either, you hear me?” He doesn’t wait for a response, barreling onward. “This whole time, you’ve done everything you could to help those kids. You think Henry would stop to beat himself up over something like that? You’re not a bad person, Will. You’re not. He was just trying to scare you because—because—”
“I’m a sorcerer,” he says, defeated.
“Because you’re important,” he insists, “You’ve done so much already—way more than me, more than almost anyone—and it’s like you can’t even see it.”
“I didn’t do anything when I was knocked out for, like, twelve hours.”
“After you saved Max’s life.”
“Yeah, and then she got demodogs sent after her.”
“Because Vecna had to stop her from waking up after you made sure she got away!” he says. He’s aware that his voice is rising, and Mike pauses as he tries to fill in the cracks, curling his fingers against the tiled floor. “You went against him in his own mind, and you’re still here, we’re here, because of you. You fought. You came back. I don’t know how you do it, but you do,” he emphasizes, “You do.”
Tears brim along the edge of his lashes, strewn across like broken glass. “I just want it to be over, Mike. It's like we never really win.”
“We’re going to. This plan’s going to work. Just—let us fight for you too, okay? We’re here, we’re all here for you. I know you’re strong, but you can lean on us. I’m right here,” he says, desperately, “I’m not going anywhere. You’re my best friend, remember? My first friend.”
Will sucks in a breath, quiet, quick. For one dizzying moment, Mike feels like he’s been caught—like he’s done something wrong, and now Will finally sees him, all of him, the way he really is. He’s never had to use any effort to screw everything up, after all; it never made sense that Will would be an exception. Then his friend’s mouth curves up at him, slow and slight, softer than he deserves. “When did you get so wise?”
Mike’s laugh sounds more like a wheeze. “I guess I had to be. You were always the brave one.”
His eyes flick down to the floor. “Not always.”
“Yes, always.” He leans in, closer, until it’s enough to catch his gaze once more. “I went to the Upside-Down today, you know. When we were getting Nancy, Jonathan, and Dustin back.”
Will’s smile fades as his lips part in realization. “For the first time.”
He nods. “For the first time. We went through a rift by the lab, and—and it was terrifying,” he admits, at last. It’d been easier in the moment to keep moving and tuck that thought away for later—he tends to shelve a lot of things for later in general, these days, weeks, months. A lot of things could be ignored when he was around adults who had more experience than him, or El, who was more powerful than him, or Lucas and Dustin and even Max sometimes, who knew how to focus and do what needed to be done.
A lot of things became a lot more obvious when he was around Will.
“Maybe it would’ve been less scary if you were around, but even after hearing about it, all this time—the lightning, the vines, the cold—and this was while all the Demos away. And you survived down there when you were a kid? If Nancy wasn’t there to boss me around, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”
Will doesn’t laugh. He stays quiet as he looks at Mike, like he can see the storm howling inside of him, spotted before he can remember to reshelve all those ideas making a cardboard home at the back of his mind.
“Will,” he repeats anyway, “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known.”
He frowns at that, elbows splaying across his knees as he leans forward, and Mike rises too, instinctively, dropping his weight onto one knee. “He brought me to the library again. Just like before, when I was in his mind. It felt like I was twelve again, only this time I understood everything that was happening. I didn’t feel very brave,” he says, glancing over at him, “And now, I’m hiding behind the rest of you while you go into the Abyss to face him.”
Mike straightens. “Look. The way I see it, this is our story,” he says, “It started with you, and it ends with you, too. Nobody knows what’s ahead of us, but out of everyone, you deserve the choice for what happens, here and now. You got us this far, and I can’t ask you for anything more, but—if you want to come with us, you should know that it’s an option. It’s always going to be an option, because there’s no one else I’d rather have by my side. And when this is over—because it will be, soon—you’ll be safe. And we can do anything you want. Together, right?”
Will blinks down at him, a matching tear slipping down his cheek. And he nods. Mike drives his nails into his palm to stop himself from reaching for it, and watches as Will turns away to grab the vest he’d thrown beside him. “Time to put this on, if you’re going to be a hero.”
The tears are gone when he faces him again, holding it out towards him in invitation. Mike lifts his arm instead, stomach flipping in on itself as he forces a smile. Will scoffs lightly, but he helps him into it without protest, tugging it over one shoulder at a time.
“Are you knighting me now?” he teases, “That usually comes with an oath, you know.”
He lets out a heavy breath, his shrug halfhearted at best. “Just… make sure you come back, okay? No matter what happens, Henry has to be stopped, and we need to save Holly. You have her, and Nancy, and both your parents waiting for you here. Try your best not to die while you’re out there.”
“Heroes together, then. The way it used to be,” he suggests. Will raises his gaze, and his grin falls away. “Okay, okay, I’m not planning on dying, I swear to you. We’re going to kill him this time, and we’ll close the wormhole, and then we’re coming home.”
He smiles, then, faintly, and it almost reaches his eyes. “Good luck, Mike. And be—I mean, be brave—it's in your name. It’ll be okay.”
“Learned it from the best, didn’t I? You came back, and so will I. It’s what we do,” he says. Everything I do always ends up being for you, he thinks, and he tucks that thought into another box. “This is it. Our last crawl. One last adventure.”
Will sets his shoulders back and nods, finally on the same page. “One last time.”