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“Hey.”
Mike stops halfway up the stairs. Turns back to Will wringing his hands together and staring at him in that way he so often does. Like Mike has his utmost undivided attention. He thinks that might be one of the things he remembers most when they...
“Yeah?”
“Could I… talk to you?”
Mike turns around properly. He’s really only a few steps up. “Yeah, yeah of course. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, Mike,” Will laughs wetly, and Mike smiles too.
“What’s up?”
Will’s face shifts, his eyes sliding toward the table. Dustin, Lucas, Max. His mom, dad. All still eating. Only Dustin meets Mike’s eyes before returning, loudly, to debating Max on the campaign.
“Not here,” Will says quietly, softly as always, “Maybe-”
“My room,” Mike suggests, grabbing him by the wrist, “Come on. I was heading up anyway.”
“Why?” Will asks behind him.
“Mom still wants me to go through some of my stuff. Decide what I’m taking with me next week when I head out.”
“Oh, yeah,” Will says, “My mom too. Well, not my mom. It's definitely, um, Hopper.”
Mike rolls his eyes. “Aw, Jesus. He’s not being too hard on you about it, is he? ‘Cause-”
“No,” Will says, exasperated, and Mike stops pulling him.
“He’s okay?”
Will’s cheeks are pink. “He’s - he’s Hop, I guess. He’s cool. He’s just being really weird about me leaving, I think. So is my mom, obviously, but he keeps giving me all these speeches.”
Mike squints. Continues walking with Will’s wrist in his grip. “Speeches?”
Will’s cheeks are growing brighter when Mike looks back. “Speeches. About growing up and independence and, like… dating.”
Mike’s chest, for some reason, gives a funny, achy pulsation at that. The thought of Will out there in New York to begin with is weird. The thought of him dating is weirder.
He hates it.
“Jesus,” Mike groans. “Okay, here. Inside.”
“Okay,” Will laughs gently, and lets him guide him inside.
It's bare. It's huge. It's weird.
The bed is bare. The floors are empty. All that remains is a box on the end of the bed.
“So,” Mike says as Will shuffles out of his grip to sit down.
“So,” Will looks down at his lap. His hands press tight together again.
Mike sits down too. Will looks at him, face tilted forward to do so.
“Do you still want to talk?” Mike asks. “Because we don’t have to.”
“No, no, I want to,” Will huffs. “I guess, just. I just had a problem.”
Mike frowns. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong, Mike,” Will smiles at him, shaking his head. “I just want to talk to you.”
Mike narrows his eyes, not serious, entirely playful. “Okay, so talk.”
Will knocks his knee. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Mike repeats, “Any day now.”
“Mike,” Will snorts.
“Oh, what’s that, Mom? It’s Monday already? You want me to get the rest of my things downstairs?” Mike lifts his head, pretending he’s being called down as Will laughs, “What, Will took that long to ask me something I already have to leave?”
“You’re ridiculous,” Will laughs fully, pushing him, “Stop it.”
“Sorry mom, I think he actually might speak-”
Will lowers his head, shaking it. Mike grins to himself, at Will. It feels good to make him smile like that. Laugh. He thinks he’ll miss this the most.
His chest still feels tight.
“Mike,” Will begins. “I wanted to ask about your campaign ending.”
“Oh,” Mike is surprised. This is the last thing he expected. “Um. Sure.”
“I guess I just don’t really understand the storyteller’s ending.”
Mike stares at Will. “Why?”
“Because everybody else got a happy ending. Everybody… Everybody has a place. The storyteller doesn’t. He didn’t get that.”
Mike digests that. “He does. He gets to tell stories. To carry on doing that. Sharing stories, creating them too.”
“But the storyteller doesn’t get his own story,” Will looks back at him, an intensity to it. “Why?”
“I…” Mike doesn't know. Like the storyteller he imagines, he stops. Pens down. Page empty.
“I think he deserves his own story too,” Will continues, “Not just to tell his friends’. To make his own. Don’t you?”
Mike stares at him. “But telling stories is his story. It's his purpose! His… his livelihood, it's all he knows.”
“Maybe I think he’s meant for more than that,” Will tilts his chin. “Maybe he can tell the stories of everybody else’s lives while also living his own. I don’t think that’s too crazy of an idea, do you?”
“Crazy,” Mike mutters, wisps of a memory floating between them.
“Mike,” Will says, knee knocking Mike’s. Mike’s chest isn’t tight. It's pounding, his heart. “I know you’re the storyteller, but I… I hope you can forgive me if I tell you my own.”
He nods. Will smiles.
“Okay. So this, this storyteller. He writes whenever he can. Writes all the time. He keeps an eye out for everyone after what happened in Barovia, sure, but he also lives his life to the fullest. He goes to college, and he makes new friends, great friends. He’s happy too.”
Mike nudges his knee right back.
“You deserve to be happy too, Mike,” Will tells him. There’s a hand on his. “You do.”
Mike breathes out. Blinks even though his eyes sting.
“Yeah.”
He looks down at their hands. Turns his around so that they’re tangled together.
It's stupid. Dumb. How such a tiny action can snowball into something huge. His heart is about to beat out of his body. He thinks he knows where it’d go. He might know who controls it.
Will, when Mike lifts his head, is looking at their hands too. He looks up almost immediately, as if he senses it.
“Will,” he starts.
“I’m already happy,” the words spill out of Will. His eyes are shining. “I don’t want to… to find my place or whatever. My place is-”
“It's not,” Mike interrupts him. Will’s eyes widen, his hand sliding. Mike tightens his hand, refusing to let go. “I mean - not like… You’re not meant to be stuck here. In… in Barovia. You’re meant to find new places. Beautiful places. People, too.”
“And I will,” Will agrees. “But it doesn’t change how I feel.”
Mike swallows. “Yeah?”
Will smiles, his lip wobbling. “Yeah.”
Mike thumbs his skin. “You know. Rutgers is, like, three hours from Brown.”
Tears spill down Will’s cheeks. “It's basically nothing.”
“Yeah, nothing,” Mike agrees, nodding as his breathing wavers. “It’ll be so easy for the storyteller to keep tabs on the sorcerer.”
“Oh my god, Mike,” Will mutters, “Way to ruin it.”
“Ruin what?” Mike whispers back.
“Okay,” Will laughs. “Mike the English student at Rutgers can so easily visit Will the art student at Brown. Or Will can visit Mike. How’s that?”
“I like that,” Mike beams. Adjusts his seating and accidentally knocks the box.
Something falls to the floor. By the time he catches sight of the bright red paint, Will’s already lifted it.
“Oh,” leaves Will. “You still have it?”
“Of course I do,” Mike tilts his head, “Why wouldn’t I?”
Will looks away. Mike… doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like it at all.
“I’m gonna bring it with me,” he confesses.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Mike continues, “It's so fucking cool. And, just. It's also, like, you’re always gonna be there. Even if you are only-”
“Three hours away,” Will finishes for him.
“Three hours away,” Mike repeats. “I still want you there.”
“And everyone else too?”
“Oh yeah. I mean, I’m sure I’ll have their figurines someplace,” Mike admits. “But I want this right above my desk. I want to always see it above me when I write. Or study. When I’m just alone.”
“Oh,” Will says quietly. “You mean it?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Mike says back. “Your place is with me.”
He watches Will gulp. Hears him suck in a breath. Feels his hand shake.
“Mike.”
“It is,” Mike decides. “Not Hawkins. But with me, still. The East Coast is nothing.”
“Yeah,” Will sniffs. And then he’s wrapping his arms around Mike and burying his face in his neck, painting between them.
Mike wraps his arms around Will.
He really is bigger than Mike these days. He realised at graduation. How the gown fit him perfectly, and it dangled off of Mike.
He’s not even thinking properly, is his reasoning. He’s not. He just does it. He just kisses his hair.
Will makes a noise. Pulls back, just enough that their faces are. Well. They’re pretty close.
“I never spoke about it,” Mike says, warmed by Will’s quick breaths on his face, “But I wasn’t sure back then. I was pretty messed up. I am now.”
Will’s eyes dance. “About what?”
“Why I felt so sick when you said you used to have a crush on me, and not that you did,” Mike tells him.
“Really?”
“Really,” Mike says. He can’t stop looking at his mouth. “I think I know now.”
“Are you going to do something about it?”
Mike grins, nudging their noses together, “That’s such a shitty line, Will the Wise.”
Will’s smile quirks. He licks it. “Did it work?”
“What do you think,” Mike speaks quieter, barely a whisper, presses closer and kisses him.
Will makes a noise. A sweet noise. Like he still wasn’t expecting it, almost. And then his hands slide to cup Mike’s jaw, and there’s a quiet flutter as the painting falls to the floor.
He doesn’t care. Given the way Will’s arms slide around his shoulders and pull him closer, he thinks he doesn’t either.
Art doesn't compare to the living, breathing version. Couldn't.