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Mike was going to throw up. Will liked him. Will had liked him for years, and he'd never even noticed. How terrible of a friend was he? He remembered the argument with El years ago, the one Hopper pushed them into, that they spent all their time together. Had he been so wrapped up in her, in his own petty dramas that he'd never even realized his best friend was going through that. He couldn't even have sent the letters, made him feel less alone, except maybe that would have made it worse because...
"Mike," Nancy's hand was on his arm, her worried face looking into his. "Are you alright?"
He pressed his hands together to stop them shaking. "Yeah. Just nervous."
"We've got this," she said, pulling him from the truck onto the cold, squishy ground of the upside down. The words rang hollow, but what else could she say? Yeah, I think we're going to die. Mike was not ready to die. Not when he had so much to make up for to everyone. To Will.
The radio tower was huge and dark and seemed to stretch forever into the sky. Mike swallowed as he looked up at it, wondering how it would feel to fall all the way down if this failed. Thankfully, the metal seemed solid as ever under his hands when he hooked them around the ladder to scramble up.
Take breaks, Jonathan had said, pace yourself, but all he wanted to do was get to the top as fast as possible, be ready to get in there and save his sister and kill Vecna. Having to wait, even for a moment, was agonizing. Still, he stopped about halfway up, when the smoky air was starting to claw at his lungs, and pulled out his water bottle. He took a couple sips, then turned to see Will pulling himself onto the platform beside him, looking equally as shaken.
What if he had another Vecna-seizure on the ladder, Mike suddenly thought with absolute terror. Someone should have thought to tie a rope around him so he didn't fall to his death. There was no rope though, so instead Mike held out his water bottle.
"You want some?" He asked, and Will immediately nodded, taking the bottle from him and drinking deeply. Suddenly, horribly, he remembered the old middle school joke that drinking from the same cup was like kissing by transfer. Would Will remember that? Would it be awkward for him too? Maybe Mike shouldn't have offered him the water, but then maybe feeling weird about it was homophobic and he needed to work on his issues, because up until a couple hours ago he'd believed everything his father said about how the gays deserved what they got. Right up until it was Will, and then everything had to be ok, because if Will was gay, then-
Get a grip Wheeler! Mike dug his hands into the railing and forced his eyes away from the column of Will's throat and into the dark clouds where some horrible planet was getting ready to crush them to death. "Hey, um," The words were out of his mouth before Mike had fully formulated what he was going to say, and then Will was looking at him, so he had to keep going. "What you said earlier, at the SQK, I'm sorry. I mean, not sorry about what you said! That came out wrong," Mike was going to fling himself off the tower. Of all the insensitive times to use come out! He hastily corrected himself, but Will was smiling. How could he be smiling at a time like this?
"It's ok," he said, and that was worse, because none of this was ok.
"No, it's not," He insisted. "I should have been there for you, and I wasn't. I guess I was just so self-absorbed than I couldn't see it, and I feel like an idiot, and I'm sorry."
"You don't have to be sorry!" Will immediately replied, and why was he so nice about this! Mike wanted him to yell or turn away, or just be mad, because that was what he deserved. "I didn't understand it myself for the longest time. I just thought, that's what having a best friend was like, you know."
Mike's vision blurred. That was what having a best friend was like. He remembered every agonizing moment that Will was gone, that Will was under the mindflayer's curse, that he had been in Vecna's mind since then. He remembered "crazy together" and "you're the best thing that ever happened to me" and the moment when Will's eyes rolled back and the demigorgon froze and he realized that Will had just saved his life. Those memories were half his soul and he'd always felt like Will understood that, that they had a special bond no one else did. If for Will that was some romantic thing what did that mean for him?
"You still think we can be friends." That was Will's voice finishing a sentence, and Will's smile, Will looking at him like everything was fine, like he understood what that meant.
"Yeah," He knew the word came out breathy and insincere but there was nothing he could do because his head was still spinning. "Yeah, best friends."
---
The explosion knocked the soldiers off their feet, and it took only a twist of El's head to snap their necks, even the one with the scarred face who had been ready to kill her sister.
For a terrible moment, she thought he had succeeded, when she saw the blood spreading from Kali, but then her sister sat up, pressing a hand to her side and gritting her teeth.
"How bad is it," Hopper asked, already scrambling over to her across the floor.
"Just a graze," She hissed.
"Keep pressure on the wound. I'll get bandages," he ordered, going off to rummage in a cabinet for something they could use to staunch the bleeding.
"Kali," El nearly sobbed, crouching down and pressing against her sister's uninjured side. "It's going to be ok, we'll kill Vecna and get you back across and a doctor will-"
"Jane," A small, strong hand closed on one of hers. "I won't be able to go back in with you. I can't concentrate like this-"
El did cry then, the tears making a clean track on the dust of her cheeks. She had failed to defeat Vecna once before. Without Kali, how could she hope to do it successfully, with the stakes so much higher.
"You can do this," Kali promised her, as if she could read El's mind. "You are so strong, stronger that I ever was. Remember when you lifted that train? I can't even lift a table. Your policeman told you that you deserve good things, that you deserve a life after. Go get that life!"
El wanted to say something else, but before she could, Hopper was back with a roll of bandages that he wound tightly around Kali's side before lifting her as he had lifted El so many times before and running for the roof.
---
The mood in the back of Murray's truck was nothing short of elated, everyone coming down from adrenaline highs in giggles and cuddles and tears of relief. Only Kali was somber, arms wrapped around herself, leaning into the corner.
She doesn't know anyone here, El tried to rationalize, and she's in pain. Still, the talk they had kept coming back to her. Kali had been certain the only way to break the cycle was with their deaths, but El knew with all of her heart and soul, that she wanted to live. There was so much of the world she had never seen, so many things she had never done, and now, maybe, she could do it with her sister. There would be a lot to work out, because none of this was normal and the government would still be hunting them, but-
Kali's hand reached out and closed around hers, and the world went black. The truck disappeared, and suddenly it was the two of them in the blackness of her mind.
"What's going on?" She asked immediately. "I thought you said you couldn't concentrate enough-"
"I can only hold it for a minute or two, but this is important!" Kali's eyes were full of fear, and she gripped El hard, hands wrapped around her forearms, dark eyes staring into her own. "None of them have realized yet, but the military is waiting out there. Dr. K is waiting to take us and use our blood and reopen a new door."
"We are not going to stay here," El gripped her forearms just as hard, as if she could anchor Kali to this life just by holding on enough. "Neither of us."
"I know," Kali closed her eyes briefly as a tear ran down her cheek. "But we need a way out and it's not going to be easy."
Her sister's telekinesis might be weak, but Kali's real gift, her true gift, was illusions, and as she explained the one she wanted, El felt a hard pit form in her stomach. Everyone could live, and they could be free, but the cost....
"We are going to tell them after," El insisted, even as the blackness started to waver. "I know we can't stay, but I can't leave without saying goodbye, without telling anyone where I am."
El had watched her father bleed out, and banished Henry to the upside-down, and closed the Hawkins Lab Rift, and so many other things, but watching Mike, Joyce, and Hopper sob as the rift closed forever and the illusionary forms of her and Kali disappeared was the hardest one. She would never stop seeing those faces in her mind.
---
Everyone went back to Hopper's cabin, because where else could they go. They might have lifted the Hawkins Curse forever, but El was gone. Mike pressed his hands harder over his face as he tried to stop the wracking sobs, but it didn't help. Neither did Will's arm around him, Will's own sobs into his shoulder. If Will touched him, he had to think about him, about the coming out and the radio tower and everything else, it was all too much on top of losing her.
When the soft knock came at the door, nobody rushed to answer it. Eventually Vickie went, because she had never known El and was not grieving, just quietly listening to Robin explain what the hell had happened.
When Vickie let out a soft "What in the world," Mike finally looked up. There was El, standing on the doorstep, one arm around a swaying Kali, with blood pouring from her nose and a dark stain in the bandages around her side.
Hopper was the first to move, sweeping his daughter up into a tight hug, and then Mike was standing so fast he almost fell over, with Will a beat behind him. They all took their turns embracing her until everyone was crying and hugging each other and someone finally thought to ask what happened.
"They had to think we were dead," El explained, as everyone vacated the couch so Kali could lie down and Vickie could work her nurse practitioner magic. There would be no hospital for Kali, some butterfly bandages, disinfectant, and painkillers would have to take her through the healing process.
"If the government ever finds out we are alive, they can start the program again. Make more of us. We didn't explain it to you because it had to be real to everyone. I'm so so sorry-"
Her words were cut off by a choked sob, and El tried to swipe away the tears on her cheeks before Joyce hugged her so tight she could feel every bruise. El closed her eyes and leaned into the embrace, remembering the first time Joyce had hugged her all those years ago.
"What will you do now," That was Mike's voice, sounding raw, and she raised her head to look at him.
"Leave, for now," She replied, and smiled a little as Joyce's arms tightened around her. "My whole life I have been hiding. I need to be somewhere where I don't need to do that anymore. Kali can keep us safe until we leave the country."
Will looked at her with tear-filled eyes. "Will you ever come back?"
"Of course I will," El smiled at him, then at Hopper, and everyone else in the room, even the redheaded woman she didn't know and Mike's science teacher. "You are my family. We just need some time for things to settle.
"It's like you're taking a gap year," Lucas suggested. "Except you'll be back right around our graduation."
"Gap year?" She asked with a helpless half-smile, and some people laughed and some people cried.
---
Mike woke to a gentle shaking of his shoulder, and he opened his eyes to see El crouching next to him. "You leaving?" He asked sleepily, knowing she and Kali had to get out before the sun was up to have the best chance of getting around the military.
"Soon," She replied. "Can we talk?"
Mike nodded, stood, and followed her outside. The air was crisp and cool, and dead leaves crunched under their feet as they walked a few paces from the house. It felt weird that this was a normal fall night now, no threat of monsters for the first time he could remember, every skitter only made by some mundane animal who wouldn't even come close enough to be seen.
"I might be gone a long time," El began, leaning against a tree, hands stuck in the pockets of her shorts. "I love you, Mike, and you're so important to me, in more ways than you know, but I don't want to hold you back."
"What do you mean?" He asked, feeling anxiety twist in his stomach.
"Don't wait for me," Her voice was warm, but there was firmness behind it. "I cannot be your girlfriend through postcards. If you find someone else, I will understand."
She's grown up so much, Mike thought, remembering how cold El had been toward Max for the first months they had known each other. I rather suppose I have too. Maybe they could have grown up together, and loved each other through it, but he thought of the letters at the Byers house in California, and the other ones, and knew it hadn't happened like that. "I was a bad boyfriend when we could write letters," He said to her, trying to smile. "We would never make it through postcards."
El laughed at that, and her shoulders relaxed noticeably. It made Mike feel warm, to know that he could still put her at ease even if their relationship was changing.
"Same goes for you, El," He told her. "If you find some hot Mexican guy, go for it. You deserve to be happy."
"So do you," El looked to the ground for a moment, chewing at her lower lip, then back at him. "Whoever it's with. Whenever you find each other. I will understand."
Mike felt a little bit sick again. How could she know that all he'd been doing for the past twenty four hours, besides killing world-ending spider creatures, was re-analyzing his entire life, orienting the perspective not around El, but Will. He hadn't known what to do about it, because he loved her too, but here was El, saving him again, like she had been doing since they met.
"You'll always be a member of our party," He said quietly, eyes filling with tears."
El leaned in and hugged him tight, then murmured something about having to wake Kali, and headed inside.
---
Mike made it one week after El left. One week of repairs on the house, and staring at the box of letters he'd written to Will during his time in California. At the time he'd dismissed them as too bad or too dorky, because there had to be a reason for the knots in his chest whenever he thought about posting them, but now he looked at "Love, Mike" scrawled across the bottom, a word he'd never been able to write to El, but penned so casually to Will, as if their love was second nature to him.
His intention had been to find a good time to tell Will, in private, and prepare some "it's ok if you're over me" speech, because it sure seemed like Will had moved on when he said...whatever that was he'd said about Mike being his Tammy.
What actually happened was that Will had come over to get some things from the Wheeler's basement, and Mike had come down to help, and he'd stared at Will so long that he set down the box he had been loading and turned to look at him. "What?"
"I think I'm in love with you," The words spilled out of Mike's mouth before he could really think about them, after having been right there for a week, but also forever.
Will's eyes went huge. "What?" He asked again, this time soft and rattled.
Mike closed his eyes. "I think I'm in love with you and I have been since forever. You're my best friend and you've always been my best friend, but then you said that thing and I started thinking about how maybe what I felt about you wasn't normal. I mean, not not normal, but like, not just friendship. I've never wanted to hold Lucas or Dustin's hands, or wonder what it would be like to kiss them, or tell them I love them and feel like it means something more. Not like I have for you," Mike ran a hand through his hair to have something to do with his hands, feeling on the verge of a panic attack, "I kind of thought we were just like that, but what I told you when the mindflayer had you was true, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I wrote you letters where I told you I loved you, and neither of those are true about El, so," He threw his hands up in the air. "I just needed to tell you before I went insane!"
"Mike," Will took a step forward and gently took his hands from where Mike had been vaguely gesturing with them. "Are you being honest, because if you're just saying what you think I want to hear, then-"
"I'm completely serious," Mike's heart was pounding so hard he could hear it in his ears and his cheeks were burning. Getting together with El had been so much easier than this. "I can walk you through the whole timeline if you want, I sure can't stop thinking about it. Can you please just let me know if you feel the same before I-mph,"
As he was talking, Will reached up, took his face in both hands, and pulled him down for a kiss. For a moment Mike froze because had fully expected to be rejected, but then he leaned into the kiss, and oh!
It felt like for an instant, every disparate piece of Mike slotted perfectly into place. He loved Will, and will loved him back. It felt like some fundamental truth of the universe he had always known, but never really understood until their mouths were moving against each other and he could get a hand in Will's hair. People talked about fireworks going off, but he'd had that world-shaking moment on the radio tower. This was more like soft bubbles popping inside his chest, warm and perfect and almost too good to be true.
Finally they pulled apart, both grinning irrepressibly at each other.
"Yes Mike, I love you too," Will said, face shining with joy in a way he hadn't seen in years, and yeah, the couple of nights Mike had cried himself to sleep were worth it for that look alone. "I guess I have to tell Robin she was wrong and you're my Vicky, not my Tammy."
"And you finally have to tell me what that means," Mike started, and then a thought hit him. "Wait, are Robin and Vicky together?"