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The rusted metal clung to his dry hands. Still, his hold tightened around the railings, the only support offered as his best friend rose from the latter to stand at his side.
“You want some?” Mike asked, out of breath, passing over the plastic water jug.
“Yeah,” Will, equally exhausted, answered.
He easily drank, his lips wrapped around the scratched brim as if it brought him salvation.
Mike averted his eyes below despite his inner reminder never to look down. His fear of height, or better said, his fear of falling, didn’t seem so frightening when he thought of Will’s lips against where his had just been.
Handing the cup back, Will rested on the railing beside him.
“Hey, um…” Mike spoke up, surprising them both because he had nothing to say. No, he had too much to say and no idea where to start.
Should he bring up that Will looked at him when he said he’d liked someone, or the fact that he was apparently over it?
Should he mention the phrasing Will had chosen, “I don’t like girls,” being painfully reminiscent of the argument they’d shared under the cover of his garage years ago? Reminiscent of what Mike had said.
Should he have asked about the painting, which El hadn’t known a thing about, but Mike didn’t know how to address?
Or, maybe, he could risk it all and start at the most significant part. The realization that settled like a tank when Will came out, that he, too, liked Will.
A part of him always knew, the part of him he shoved into the deepest corners of his mind that warmly resurfaced with every brush of skin and shared look. The same part he hid away every time he kissed El and wrote letters for Will and repurposed for her.
He’d thought it too forbidden to acknowledge, wrong. However, in that room, after every one of their friends stood and hugged Will (excluding Max, but she had a good reason), he recognized the fear had been as stupid as him because nothing about Will could ever be “wrong”. So, perhaps there was nothing wrong with Mike either.
“What you said earlier at the Squawk…” Mike shook his head, trying to spill the words he should’ve said ages ago. Instead, what followed was, “I’m sorry.”
“I mean, not sorry about what you said. That came out wrong,” his rambling ensued, rushed with a pained grimace. “Or not came out wrong. Jesus Christ.”
And Will, merciful, strong, wise, and pretty Will, chuckled.
“It’s okay,” he smiled, as if there was anything remotely okay, or even charming with Mike’s idiocy.
“No, it’s… It’s not,” Mike doubled down with a need to atone, “I should have been there for you, and I wasn’t.”
I should’ve noticed. I should’ve gotten up and held you first. I should’ve confessed.
Too many regrets filled his mind, knowing he was too late in confronting his feelings to appreciate what Will always freely gave him properly.
“And I guess I was just so self-absorbed that I couldn’t see it,” his shoulders hitched with each word.
“I just… I feel like an idiot, and I…” he sighed. There were too many feelings for the writer and too few words.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, a plea in his tone for his artist to understand. They’d never needed words before; he hoped this time wouldn’t be different.
Instantly, Will frowned at his apology, “You don’t have to be sorry. And you are not an idiot. You’re not.”
The affirmation squeezed at his chest. If it weren’t the effect Will always had on him, he’d have wondered if he inhaled too much of the floating white gunk in the air.
“It’s just… I didn’t even understand it myself for the longest time,” Will explained.
Neither did he, Mike wished he would say.
“I just… I think it needed to happen the way it happened. I needed to find my own way.”
Mike wanted to understand that, but his thoughts soured at who, if not him, helped him find “his way”.
“But what matters is that you’re still here, and you still think we can be friends.”
Whether Mike would stay or leave was never a debate to be had in the first place, but the friend part… that bothered him. They were childhood best friends, sure, but Will was also the first person he’d fallen in love with. He could admit it now. He wanted more, so much more. Even if it’d only be allowed within his basement walls.
Everything that he’d spent years doing with El under the guise that he’d begin to feel more over time, he wanted to try again with Will. Everything that he’d convinced himself must’ve been the depths of romantic feelings, just like his parents together, he craved to prove wrong with Will.
He should’ve known when Will’s hand under his ignited sparks, not remotely touched by a makeout sesh with El.
“Friends? No, thanks,” Mike tried to tease before possibly confessing his love.
Will’s expression began to fall, and if Mike could cut out his own tongue, he probably would have.
“Best friends,” he quickly amended before letting the meaning settle.
Alright, digging a deeper hole then.
A relieved smile, revealing cute bunny teeth, grew on Will’s face, his hazel brown eyes crinkling, and all of “Mike’s the brave” confidence seeped out of him like a leaking pipe.
Best friends.
Was Will happy with that?
He couldn't blame him, really. How could he?
He'd made the most important person in his life wait and wait and wait until the chance of a love Mike could only ever dream of feeling unknowingly passed him by.
“Mike the Oblivious” was a better-fitted title.
So he smiled back for a split second, then redirected his focus on the goal at hand, the remaining hundreds of feet to climb.
"All right," he started, reaching for his bag, twisting his cup’s lid on, and putting it away. He glanced up at Will, who was still smiling softly, his face like a beam of light in the sunless Upside Down, rendering him breathless.
“Will,” Mike stood to his full height, if only to feel more composed than he was.
“Hm?”
“Uh, this might seem irrelevant considering the current stakes and all, but uh,” he swallowed, fidgeting with the peeling skin on his thumb.
“Yes, Mike?” Will’s face twisted in concern at the sight of Mike’s mouth opening and closing like a fish.
“What’s Tammy?” he blurted out.
Alright, not where he meant to go, but his mouth had a mind of its own.
“Oh,” Will pressed his back to the latter, and Mike subconsciously stepped closer to catch him if needed, “Well, Tammy’s not a what but a who.”
For a moment, Mike thought he’d taken Will looking at him when he’d been coming out all wrong. That he wasn’t even the guy Will had been talking about. What a humbling turn of events that’d be.
“Okay… who’s Tammy?”
“Tammy, she’s,” whew, “she’s… too much to explain right now and not really my story to tell.”
Okay… ominous as hell.
“Then, what did you mean by it?” Mike urged, suddenly sounding frenzied even to his own ears.
“I just- just that you don’t… you don’t have to worry about it, you know?”
Mike waited for more; his confusion must’ve shown on his face, because Will’s hand started waving around.
“You… you do know who I was talking about, right?”
He almost said, ‘No, I don’t know who Tammy is, that’s why I asked,’ before it clicked in that Will meant who he liked.
“Yeah, me,” Mike answered, too self-assured, “Right?” he then backtracked.
It was Will’s turn to stutter on his breath a bit and avert his gaze. With a deep breath, he quietly confirmed, “Yeah, Mike, you.”
Mike knew, really, he figured, but hearing it…
The Upside Down was many things, dark and cold being a dominant, unfavorable trait; however, Mike found himself endlessly grateful for both. The dark hid the traces of red he imagined lined his cheeks, and just in case, the cold gave him an excuse for it.
Additionally, Will had said it with shame too present for it to feel like it was all in the past. For that, he was also endlessly grateful.
“Why would that worry me?” He prompted, searching, always searching.
It was cowardly of him, but he needed to know. To know if Will still felt the same. If Mike had missed his window.
“Because you don’t feel the same?” Will said with dwindling conviction.
“How would you know that?” Mike blurted, sounding near offended.
With widening eyes and scrunched brows, Will dazedly mumbled his name, “Mike.”
The outré look snapped him out of it, and Mike retreated into his hunched stance.
“Sorry, I get it. I just wish you had told me first, is all.”
“What would’ve changed?”
“I… I don’t,” he looked down at his feet, the grates beneath him only managing to make him feel sick.
“Mike,” a hand clutched onto his sleeve. Will’s pitch edged on desperate, “What would have changed?”
His eyes landed back on Will’s, and that look, the same one that caused flutters in his stomach out on the field, enticed his heart to beat faster. Hope. It was hope.
If any eyes could kill him, it’d be Will’s; that glowy and gentle gaze could easily melt him into a puddle as sappy as it was.
For a moment, as Will looked at him, Mike was allowed to look back.
He looked at the brunette’s hair, out of the bowl cut Will had grown up with, which, truth be told, Mike had always found adorable. Though he similarly appreciated the longer bangs, ruffled and, he imagined, soft. He followed Will’s jaw down to his chin, all defined, yet delicate, and finally to his lips. Unlike his own, they appeared smooth, moisturized, and temptingly pink.
Will must’ve let him stare for quite some time, because they both almost flew out of their skins when the walkie static to life from his bag.
“Hey, lovebirds, get up here, will you?” Robin’s voice sarcastically piped in, “We don’t have all day, to you know, save the world.”
Mike spun his bag to his front and rummaged for the heavy-duty plastic. Snatching it out, he held its side down and grumbled, “We’re coming, we’re coming.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw how Will had dropped his hand and shuffled his weight foot to foot. Biting down on his lower lip, he awkwardly tugged the strap over his shoulder again. Mike cleared his throat.
“We should go,” Will hastily started, already grabbing onto the bars.
“Wait-”
Mike’s body acted. He pulled Will in by his jacket’s collar. His other hand held the side of his face. Before he could regret it, his lips came down on Will’s. It was simple, too harsh at first, but it settled into a gentle brush of lips. Nevertheless, his eyes slipped shut, and his heartbeat stammered. He stretched out the fabric to get Will as close as possible.
Their lips were cold, but Will’s face lit like a furnace against his. The shorter boy leaned into the kiss with a pleased muffled sound that Mike would remember for the rest of his days. He tilted Will’s face into his palm to deepen the kiss, and Will placed his hand over his.
His lungs started to burn, but Mike would make Will’s mouth his oxygen if it meant never having to pull away. Alas, neither of them were oxygen, and they unfortunately needed to breathe.
Mike pulled back, but kept his forehead close against Will’s. Their huffing accompanied the silence.
Will kept his eyes closed, but Mike looked down. Red lightning cracked through the sky, illuminating them. He was close enough to make out the thickness of Will’s lashes.
If it weren’t for it being the end of the world, he would’ve thought himself blessed for being graced with that sight of Will, his sorcerer, out of breath and blushing.
He waited for Will to make the first move, determined not to disturb the moment. When Will’s lashes fluttered open, dilated pupils met his. His eyes were wet, and he blinked fast to suppress the happy tears.
God, Mike was lucky.
“Hi,” Mike spoke ever so softly, a tone that Lucas and Dustin often made fun of him for. Their comments were irrelevant when it made Will's face light up so beautifully.
“Hi,” Will smiled broadly, and Mike couldn’t help but leave a kiss on the mole above Will’s lips.
“Come on,” Mike said, leading them towards the ladder, "We've got a planet to catch."