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Will hummed to himself as he doodled small warm-up sketches in his sketchbook. As he lay comfortably on his stomach, he kicked his feet to the rhythm of the song playing from the Walkman he borrowed from Jonathan. That’s when he heard a voice beside him, so muffled that he almost missed it. He removed his headphones.
“What are you listening to?” Mike repeated once Will’s eyes signaled him to do so. They were only a couple feet apart on his bed, so the fact that Will didn’t hear him must have said something.
“Oh, uhm,” Will glanced at the tape playing as if he didn’t already know. “The Smiths.”
Mike gave him a look, then lifted his guitar from off the floor into his lap. Will watched as he painstakingly tuned it by ear, and a small smile settled on his face.
Mike met Will’s gaze for a split second, as if to make sure he was watching. He started to play the opening riff to This Charming Man, His tongue sticking out in focus. He got the first few chords before devastatingly dropping his pic in the sound hole. An uncontrollable laugh suddenly erupted from Will.
Mike whipped his head up, looking at him in disbelief, although a smile was starting to creep up to his own face. Will’s laughter was apparently contagious like that. “C’mon, aren’t you at least a little impressed?!” he scoffed. Will nodded, wiping a tear.
“Sorry! Sorry, that was good! The ending just caught me off guard,” Will assured Mike as he frantically shook his guitar to get the pic out. Eventually he gave up, set his guitar back on the floor, and threw himself backwards on the bed. Will subconsciously tried to make as much room between them as possible.
These past few months have been pretty odd to say the least. Most notably, Max isn’t exactly an active member in their party at the moment. Lucas never leaves her side, El’s busy training, Dustin might as well be a whole different person, and Mike and him…
Their relationship is just. different. Not in a bad way, but also not necessarily in a good way. Living together is for sure a major change, but it’s not as if they didn’t see each other’s faces nearly every day beforehand—before moving to Lenora, that is.
But sometime in the early November of 1986, something just changed. Will doesn’t know if it was him, or if it was Mike just all of a sudden wanting to be all buddy-buddy with him again, or if it’s one of the other millions of potential explanations he came up with in his head. All he knows is that he can’t ask Mike, and he can’t get too close.
Will realized he’s been staring at the bright summer sun in the window for a couple minutes now. He quickly snapped out of it, rubbing his watery eyes and viewing the patterns burned into his retinas.
“Will, you okay?” he jumped, he forgot Mike was there—even though they’re literally in his room.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s just bright out,” he replied, still rubbing his eyes.
Mike stared, then got up to close the blinds. “You don’t gotta cry about it,” he joked on his way back.
He settled back down next to Will, eyes wandering until they landed on his sketchbook. “Woah, Will, that’s amazing!”
Will sat up. “They’re just sketches.” But Mike already had his sketchbook in his hands, observing the page closer.
He turned to look at Will, “Hey, maybe you could, y’know, teach me? Or something…”
Will could feel his face heating up “I don’t know, Mike—“
“You give my 9-year-old sister lessons, how hard can it be?” Mike argued, setting the sketchbook down on his bed.
Will considered it, but the thought of it is making him feel all weird inside, like he might puke up butterflies.
“I mean, I’ve colored with her a few times, sure, but those aren’t lessons,” he defended. “Besides, that’s because Holly actually has an appreciation for the arts!” Mike looked a little offended.
“Wha— So do I! I love…! uhm…” He then mumbled a name that Will didn’t quite catch.
“… Who?”
Mike shook his head, “Doesn’t matter. Point is, I’m bored so just—“ Mike abruptly dropped to one knee, grabbed Will by both his wrists and shook him dramatically “Please, please, O great Will the Wise, teach me your ways!”
Will just stared at him, eyes wide and trying not to explode. He hoped his face wasn’t too red. Mike looked up at him, “Sorry, too much?” he dropped Will’s wrists.
Will sighed loudly, grabbed his sketchbook, and stood up. “Alright...”
———————————
Mike’s basement always gave Will a sense of comfort. It was a little strange in hindsight how he and Mike owe so much of their growth to this one room. The walls hold the memories of over ten years of friendship. But now, sitting on the couch just mere inches apart from said lifelong friend, the walls felt as if they were closing in—it suffocated Will. He tried to drown out the question lingering in his brain, ‘What if Mike’s suffocating too?’
Will cleared the table of his and Jonathan’s things and set down his sketchbook and a couple pencils.
He could feel Mike staring. He turned to face him, “Okay… What do you want to know? Anything specific?” Mike looked away, finger tapping on his chin as he tried to come up with something.
Suddenly his eyes lit up, “Oh- Oh! It’d be so sick to draw Arnold Schwarzenegger all jacked and ripped, y’know, like in Conan the Barbarian—You’ve seen it, right?—Wouldn’t that be cool?”
Will tried his absolute hardest to hold back his amusement. To no avail it seems, his face muscles betrayed him. “What?” Mike copied his smile, it looked good on him.
“Conan the Barbarian isn’t exactly a quick little sketch,” Will explained. “We should start small.”
Mike sighed. “Fine, what does Holly like to draw?”
“Mike, she’s your sister shouldn’t you know?”
“I’m not the artist here!” He shrugged helplessly. Will shook his head. A few seconds of silence passed between them.
“I mean, she usually draws animals… cats, dogs, things like that.” he offered.
“Are they any good?” Mike questioned.
Will shot him a look, “She’s 9, Mike, what do you think?”
He just shrugged again, “Probably better than whatever I can do.” Will stared at him for a bit, then pushed the sketchbook towards him. “I’ll be the judge of that,” he grinned. “Draw a dog.”
Mike wasted not a second more and quickly grabbed a pencil.
About a minute later, he confidently handed his drawing to Will…
“Wow.”
… Was all Will could say without completely bursting out in laughter. He made the mistake of looking up at Mike, still beaming in pride, and that’s what did it. A slight snicker escaped from him, and when Mike’s face dropped he completely lost it.
That’s when he felt a pillow being chucked at his face. (“Hey—! DON’T LAUGH, IT’S BEAUTIFUL!”) Will threw the pillow back at him and they went back and forth until they were both too tired and out of breath from laughing to continue.
“Okay.” Mike said, finally, after catching his breath. His hair was a mess and his face was red. “What’s wrong with it then, huh?”
Will slowly peered over to Mike’s… ‘dog’ drawing on the table. “Well…” he began, “Why’s the head so much bigger than the body? And what’s up with the neck?—“
“Excuse you, that’s his collar! And yeah, the head’s a stylistic choice, I was… inspired.”
Will stared, dazed “…Inspired?”
“Yeah, Scrappy-Doo!” Mike said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Ah.
“I don’t think Scrappy-Doo has a lazy eye… ”
“Well, he does now! I honestly think the directors should give me a call.”
Will held his gaze, unsure of what one even says to that. Apparently, Mike was too impatient to wait for whatever that is. He pushed the sketchbook back in Will’s direction, “Alright, well, how about you show me how it’s done, Da Vinci.”
Will took the sketchbook in his hands and flipped to a new page. He started to sketch out the basic shapes of a dog’s head, quickly moving his way down to the body.
He was in the middle of sketching out the ears when the sudden sensation of breathing on his neck snapped him out of it.
He turned his head, meeting dark brown eyes and hundreds of freckles.
And it was immediately too much. Too close.
He was suffocating.
They stayed like this, frozen and unbreathing, for a solid 5 seconds. The creak of the basement door snapped them both out of whatever trance they were in.
“Will! Hey, do you know where I left my Walkman by any chance?”
They just sat there, gawking at Jonathan like idiots. Then finally, Will spoke, “Oh—yeah! Sorry, I borrowed it, it’s—“
“I’ll get it!”
The speed at which Mike left the couch and ran up those stairs must have been a world record of some kind.
Will watched him and Jonathan disappear past the door. He could breathe again.
In that one huff of breath, Will realized something;
Mike wasn’t breathing either.
———————————
Mike carefully shut the door behind him and let out a sigh he didn’t know he was holding. He led Jonathan upstairs.
“So, what were you weirdos doing down there?” Jonathan asked as they walked up the steps. “You both looked at me like I caught you doing something you weren’t supposed to… Suspicious.” There was a hint of amusement in his voice.
Mike abruptly stopped at the top step and faced him, face red and eyebrows furrowed. “What?! No, we weren’t doing anything!”
Jonathan eyed him.
“We weren’t doing anything, Jonathan.” He repeated defensively.
“Alright, alright! Hurry and get my Walkman, dork.” So Mike did.
As soon as he walked into his room, something in the atmosphere shifted. He found the Walkman and his eyes gazed over to where he and Will were on his bed just a few minutes before. Something tugged on his heart uncomfortably so he quickly left the room.
When he handed it over to Jonathan, he looked him sternly in the eye and went, “Stay out of trouble. ‘Kay?”
Then he walked straight into Nancy’s room, closing the door behind him.
What a fucking hypocrite.
Mike just shook his head and made his way back downstairs.
But after walking down the first couple of steps, he stopped. The sole concept of going back down there for some reason made his stomach churn. He ran to the bathroom and locked the door.
The nausea slowly faded, but now there was this weight that settled in on his chest, making it difficult to breathe. He’s felt it before, many times, in fact, but he never thought anything of it. He figured maybe if he just ignores it, it’ll go away.
Apparently, it doesn’t work like that.
He turned the faucet on and splashed some water on his face, not even flinching at how cold it was. When he couldn’t find a towel, he settled for his shirt to wipe his face on. He avoided the mirror at all costs on his way out. It’s become a habit ever since… well…
Mike pushed past whatever mental barrier was forbidding him from going downstairs. When his hand landed on the doorknob to the basement door, the weight grew heavier.
He ignored it.
———————————
Will jumped when he heard the door creak open again.
His eyes met with Mike’s and he averted them immediately.
“Sorry, had to use the bathroom,” Mike explained casually. “Oh, hey, you finished it!” Will followed his line of sight and landed on the finished dog sketch on the table. He nodded,
“Yeah...”
There was a thick silence hanging stubbornly in the air that neither of them knew how to break. Mike made the first move and sat beside him on the couch.
“It looks really nice,” Mike commented. Will turned to him, tilting his head. “The drawing, I mean. Can you teach me now?”
“Why do you do that?”
Mike’s face fell, confusion replacing his upbeat expression. “What?”
“When something happens—something… weird—you run off and then come back like nothing ever happened.” He felt a lump growing in his throat. Mike stayed silent. “What are you hiding from me?”
“We broke up.”
…
“Oh…”
Mike wouldn’t look at him anymore, he instead stared intensely at the carpet beneath them.
He couldn’t breathe.
“I’m sorry.” Will pushed through the silence.
Mike shook his head, “No, no, it’s okay. It was a… mutual decision.”
But that just made Will even more confused. Why has he been acting so weird then?
“Why didn’t you tell me? Does the rest of the party know?”
“No…”
The room felt a little smaller.
“I didn’t really know how to feel, so I just… hid; I didn’t tell anyone,” he sighed.
Mike finally looked Will in the eyes. “I mean, it’s not like it was a secret. I figured El would have told you by now,” He remarked. Will considered this,
“Now that you mention it,” he recalled, “El has been acting different. She seems… Uhm.”
“Happier?” Mike finished.
Will nodded, he didn’t want to be the one to say it. “Well, as much as she can be, at least. Y’know, with everything going on.”
“Yeah, I know... That’s actually part of the reason why I suggested we break up in the first place.” He looked back down at the floor.
Will paused. “Suggested? Mike, you initiated it?”
“Why’s that so shocking?” He looked at Will, slightly offended.
“Nothing, it’s just… I thought you loved her.”
“I thought so too.”
“Well then what happened?”
Mike hesitated, then adjusted his position on the couch. He sat criss-cross, turning his body to face Will. “Lately I’ve been feeling really weird. It’s like there’s this constant pressure pushing down on me. Sometimes it feels like I can’t—“
“Can’t breathe.” Will finished for him
Mike nodded. “I noticed it first at the airport, during spring break. I thought maybe I was just feeling a little homesick or something stupid like that. But then I started lashing out at people— at El, at… you.”
Will listened fixedly, the memories from that week replayed in his head like some kind of nightmare reel.
“I still feel awful about that, by the way, I was being a huge asshole. I should’ve reached out, I wanted to, I really did, but—!“
“Mike!” Will grabbed his arm to snap him out of it. “It’s okay, I get it.”
“No! You don’t! How I acted wasn’t right and I’ve dedicated this past year to trying to make it up to you but my chest still hurts every time I look at you!”
“Mike.”
the room fell silent once again.
Will realized his hand was still on Mike’s arm. He kept it there.
The air between them was thick. They were both suddenly aware of how close they were, but neither backed away.
Will watched as Mike’s gaze flickered between his eyes and his lips. He inched closer and Mike closed the gap.
When their lips met, Will felt his heart skip a beat. He reached up and cupped Mike's cheek, still squeezing his arm with his other hand. He felt a warm hand slide against the back of his neck, pulling him in closer.
He couldn’t breathe but for once in his life he didn’t care. For once in his life nothing else mattered, nothing except for him and the boy he has wanted for years finally kissing.
A million thoughts raced in Will’s head but they were all cut short once he felt Mike pull away.
Will froze as Mike buried his head in the crook of his neck.
“Sorry,” Mike laughed awkwardly.
“For what?”
…
“Everything.”
Will wrapped his arms around him tightly and it didn’t take long for Mike to do the same. They stayed like that as Will processed everything that just unfolded before him.
Eventually, Will loosened his grip and lifted Mike’s head into his hands. He planted a gentle kiss on his forehead then looked him lovingly in the eyes.
“I don’t care. I don’t care about any of that, Mike. It sucked, it really did, but I’m over it. You won’t ever push me away, okay? I’ll always be here.”
Mike caught him off guard with another kiss. His eyes fluttered shut and he kissed back. When they parted, Mike spoke, quietly, as if afraid to disrupt the comfortable silence.
“I love you.”
Will watched as the words he has kept locked up for so many years left his mouth with ease,
“I love you, too.”