Chapter Text
Mike hates that goddamn necklace.
The thing is, he isn’t even being irrational; the material is cheap, and he’s certain that in the next few days, Will is going to have a greenish tinge stained to his porcelain neck.
It hasn’t happened yet. But it will.
And in reality, there are far more pressing matters to deal with than the lacklustre jewellery Carlton bought Will fifteen days ago. Like how exactly three days after Mike realised El faked her own death, she returned to Hopper’s cabin and asked for her friends to be summoned. (Mike always felt like their group had suffered greatly, but divine timing was kind of their thing.)
So Hopper caught endless shit for knowing that El was alive the entire time, and the group hugged tighter than they ever had because their mage had served her time in purgatory, and they truly believed the military had turned the great eye away from Hawkins.
Months after that very moment, and it’s perfect. The happy ending they all prayed for when they thought a wormhole might draw them into oblivion and end it all is finally theirs.
Apart from that goddamn necklace.
“Why are you staring at my neck?” Will’s voice cuts into the silence, lips quirked in amusement. Mike forces himself to meet his best friend’s eyes, and as he often is these days, is rendered speechless.
“I– uh.” Mike looks around his bedroom, as if something in the piles of crap around the space is going to bring him inspiration. Max simply raises her eyebrows, and Lucas offers no help at all. “I thought I saw a bug?”
Silence. Max chews her lip to hold back laughter, and Mike’s fingers flex because he might throw Will’s sketchbook at her.
“You don’t like my necklace,” Will says accusingly, but there’s a glint of humour in his eyes. “Go on, say it. Mike Wheeler is used to far fancier jewellery than this.”
Yeah, and I’d buy you far better, Mike thinks. But he doesn’t roll his eyes as he wants to, and instead returns to writing, cross-legged on the other side of the bed to Will. He shrugs. “I didn’t say it.”
Will narrows his eyes. “You didn’t have to.”
“You know who has excellent jewellery?” Lucas cuts through the tension with a grin. “Steve. He was talking to me about getting his ears pierced last week, but I told him he’d look stupid. He’d look stupid, right?”
“Oh, yeah. Necklaces are way cooler.” Max shoots a pointed smirk at Mike, as if she knows she’s annoying him. And he doesn’t know why it annoys him so much, but it simply does.
“I thought you were going to meet El?” Mike doesn’t look up at Max, but he hopes she’s glaring. He loves her in a way that only those who go through the end of days together would understand, but she’s also a mighty pain in his ass.
“I am.” She leaps to her feet, planting a kiss on Lucas’ cheek. “And before you say it, I know. If the entire army happens to come back to Hawkins at the exact time El and I are getting milkshakes, I’ll call.”
Mike and El haven’t dated for years – they were never really in love, he thinks – but they’re bonded in such a mighty way, and the year and a half of guilt he felt when he believed her dead was gut-wrenching. Now, there’s just that slight worry she’ll be snatched into the hands of the military, fleeting and not as heavy as it once was.
But she had been clear when she returned: I live my life my way. I do not believe they are looking for me anymore, but if they do, I will run far from you all. This is how I want to live.
So, she does. And exactly 3 months have passed, almost to the day – and everything is fine.
Their little group is a touch skittish, even after the dust has been settled for so long. When you spend so long fighting interdimensional demons and squaring up to death every other Tuesday, it takes a little while to relax. And though Mike would never admit it, Will deciding to defer college for a year when El returned took the weight of a planet off his chest. What he hadn’t expected, though, was for his friend to quietly reveal after that D&D game he’d been seeing someone for a couple of weeks.
Now, months.
There had been such joy in his eyes when he said it, sunshine bleeding through the cracks, and Mike wondered just how long he had been completely oblivious to Will’s suffering. He was so fine-tuned to Will’s pain from the very day he went missing that Mike spent years losing sleep until the evil was finally expelled from his best friend’s body. But he realises now there are many ways to suffer, and he only acknowledged one of them.
“Well, I promised Dustin I’d call,” Lucas announces, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “Seriously, the things he learns in class fry my brain.” He shakes his head, moving for the door. “Later!”
“Later,” is the mumbled response, lacking the usual gusto from the boys.
So it’s just WillandMike, which is about the most normal thing ever. The two spend endless days sitting on this very bed, sketching and writing, talking and not talking. Sometimes they recount their adventures start to finish, sometimes their eyes meet in silence and pass sentiments only through gazes. Today, Mike is stuck on the necklace. So he lets a few beats pass, then has to fill the silence.
“I just don’t think the necklace is very you,” Mike says finally, drawing Will’s eyes. “You know? You’re definitely more of a…”
Will hooks an eyebrow. “More of a…?”
Mike feels his cheeks burn. “I don’t know! Gold, I guess. This is like…” Mike doesn’t think about it when he reaches out to thumb the necklace, and only freezes when Will’s breath catches. The back of his finger grazes the soft skin of Will’s neck, and Mike swallows. “It’s silver,” Mike says quietly. “You need gold.”
Their gazes collide, and Mike is yet to understand what this feeling is. The twisting of his gut, the electrifying heaviness shooting through him at a simple glance. Mike felt as though someone pulverised his heart when Will left for Lenora all that time ago, and knows with certainty he’ll never care about anyone the way he cares about Will. Their friendship is something of legend, which is why Mike is thrilled Will is still here. Now, he has the chance to apply to the same college when they do eventually go. And he fully intends to.
Will is staring at Mike, and Mike realises his finger is still touching his skin, and he doesn’t think either of them has released a breath in at least a minute. He pulls his hand back suddenly, ignoring the runaway beat of his heart.
Will’s voice is hoarse when he speaks. “Well, I like it. You’ll just have to close your eyes when you look at me, I guess.”
Mike laughs quietly. “Mm. I don’t think I could.”
And neither boy knows why he said that, but it’s all become a bit of a pattern recently. Mike finds himself reaching for Will often, and they’ve always been unreasonably close, but Mike feels like he can’t get close enough. Their friendship has never been stronger, and yet, Mike has never felt further from where he needs to be.
If he’s honest, it keeps him up at night.
***
Murray’s fake ID burns a hole through Mike’s pocket – as it always does – because he often feels saving the world from imminent ruin was less nerve-racking than looking a bartender in the eye and lying. But it’s fine, because he and his friends are wedged in a booth under dim lighting, and Carlton is shoving himself in next to Will with a cocktail that Mike knows is Will’s third favourite.
“Move up, guys, we’re about to get real cosy,” Carlton says, jamming himself in. Mike might not have rolled his eyes if the buzz of alcohol wasn’t already thrumming through his veins, and it earns him a light kick from Will, whose thighs are now pressed flush against his.
Mike hates that he notices. He hates that he always notices. The days when he wouldn’t overthink every outcome of a simple touch are long behind him, but if he thinks too hard, he wonders if he just missed it in the calamity of their lives.
“Nice necklace you got for Will,” Mike murmurs, and he can feel the boy next to him tense up. It gives him a cheap thrill, until Will moves his arm, and–
“Ow,” Mike hisses, but nobody hears because Carlton is telling the too-long story of how he gifted the jewellery to replace Will's old necklace (which Mike much preferred). When Will goes to pinch him on the thigh a second time, Mike does something he knows he shouldn’t.
He grabs Will’s hand under the table and holds it.
Will freezes, breath hitching as he turns to gape at Mike. Mike, hearing absolutely nothing over the thunderous heartbeat in his ears, can’t look.
The thing is, Mike has been running from the intrusive thoughts in his head for months, but he never lets them catch up. A hint of ‘Will’s lips look soft’ is met with eyes squeezed closed and deafening thoughts of his favourite song. A gaze held too long is severed suddenly, and Mike forces himself to make a mental shopping list for later. But the alcohol is swimming in his bloodstream, and his reactions are too slow, so when the voice said grab his hand, he did it.
Will hasn’t breathed for so long. Mike can feel the warmth of his best friend's fingers in his own, and when he dares meet his eyes, his own breath hitches.
Will’s gaze is full of everything. Confusion, pain, intensity? Mike doesn’t know, but he can see the rapid rise and fall now of Will’s chest, the way the two of them are locked in the pull of gravity where everybody else has simply ceased to exist, and they’re holding hands under the table–
“Will?” Lucas says, ripping them from wherever they just were. Will hurriedly extracts his hands from Mike’s, and then he’s laughing at some question they’ve asked him, and the noise sounds hollow, and Mike can hear nothing. Nothing other than his name being hissed by Max, and when he turns to her in a daze, there’s something akin to pity in her eyes.
“Pull it together,” she whispers, and he has no idea what she means. All he knows is that he heeds the advice and lifts his drink with a trembling hand, gulping the bitter liquid down.
“Someone’s thirsty,” Carlton jokes, and Mike hates him. “Are we gonna have a girlfriend joining us soon, Mike? All Will talks about is how amazing you are. I’ve been waiting for one to come around!”
Mike freezes, drink half held to his lips. Next to him, Will shifts uncomfortably.
“I doubt Mike wants to talk about his love life,” he mutters. Mike nods.
“It must be hard, though.” Will’s boyfriend leans forward in his seat, but Mike’s eyes are drawn to the way he rests an easy hand on Will’s. “Being friends with an ex? El? All in the same group?”
It’s then that one of the reasons Mike hates Carlton floods through him in an awful tidal wave. He doesn’t get it. Their lives aren’t ex-girlfriends and school drama. They’ve been to hell. They’ve saved each other's lives a thousand times, seen and faced things that Carlton couldn’t even cook up in his wildest nightmares.
How can Will date someone who doesn’t get it?
“El is too independent for a boyfriend,” Max offers, “and Mike is way too emotionally stunted for a girlfr–”
“I swear to god, Mayfield–”
“Mike is trying to say he’s happy.” Lucas beams at Carlton. “And that he’s not really looking for anything right now.”
“Well, tell me if you change your mind.” Carlton hooks an eyebrow. “I know a lot of pretty girls.”
But Mike doesn’t care about pretty girls. What he cares about is Carlton’s hand now resting on Will’s thigh, Will’s untouched drink (because it isn’t the one he wanted) and the way Mike’s entire body is burning under the scrutiny of his friends’ gazes. His senses are dulled, and his confusion has hit a crescendo, and he doesn’t know why he feels so much.
Because a second ago, he dared a glance at Will’s face, and the thought pierced like a bullet through the chest:
I want to kiss you.
And it shouldn’t be a revelation. It shouldn’t. Mike isn’t stupid; he knows his mind has drifted there more times than he’d ever admit, and his skin sets alight when he even accidentally touches Will, but he shoved it down. He thought maybe he’d gotten his wires crossed somewhere, that the confusion of the end of the world had messed with his emotions in a way that shouldn’t be looked too deeply into.
But under bleeding neon lights and thighs flush with his best friend, the truth wraps around Mike’s throat in a vice until he finally lets himself think the thought. The one that stings his eyes at 3am, the one that has him jamming himself into the seat next to Will literally every time they go out. The one responsible for pretty much every unhinged thing he’s been doing since he was ten years old.
I’m in love with Will Byers.
Because he is. And he’d wondered a few times in his life if Will was in love with him, but always convinced himself that they were friends. Best friends. But now Will gazes at Carlton, and Mike stares at Will, and he thinks maybe Lucas and Max are staring at him.
“I need some air,” Mike announces, clumsily pushing past his friends and searching for the exit in a haze of wrong. He can barely breathe when he bursts out into the cool night air, distant laughter serving as the soundtrack to a breakdown he thinks has been a long time coming.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “Fuck.”
“Mike?” Will’s breathless voice startles him to the point he can only look at his friend dumbly when Will rushes out after him, concern furrowing his brow. “What happened? Are you okay?”
Mike wants to watch Will’s expression change, to see what would happen if he dares reach out and touch his face. He wants to stop thinking things like this, and maybe it’s just because he’s drunk, and there’s no getting around this if this truly is the big bad thing Mike has been running from since he was a child.
“We saved the world together,” Mike bursts out. Will’s face softens, a hint of a smile playing on his lips.
“Yeah… we did.”
“You were a sorcerer,” Mike gasps out, wondering if Will can hear his heartbeat. “Another world crashed into ours, and we set off a bomb and destroyed the upside down–” He shuts up when Will rests a hand on his forearm, and it’s all too much.
“Mike, what’s wrong?” Will whispers. His eyes swim with concern and care, and Mike wonders if he’d woken up sooner, if Will would’ve wanted him. Let Mike buy him a damn necklace.
“I can’t,” Mike murmurs, because it’s the only truth he dares utter.
“Are you having nightmares again?” Will presses. Mike chews the inside of his cheek because, yeah, he is. In those first few weeks after the party defeated Vecna, Will and Mike practically lived together in his room, waking up gasping in the night to whatever decided to haunt their dreams that particular evening. The nightmares happen less now, but they still happen.
“Yeah. Do you?”
Will looks up at Mike through his lashes, and the boy’s heart stops dead in his chest. “Yeah.” Will smiles wryly. “I don’t think Carlton is a big fan of them, to be honest. I’m hardly quiet.”
Mike tries not to be furious at the idea of Will tangled in Carlton’s sheets, but ultimately fails. His eyes flutter shut, then meet Will’s gaze with the kind of resolve that could move mountains. “Stay at mine tonight,” he says. Demands.
Will recoils slightly. “I– it’s been ages since I stayed at yours.” He laughs bemusedly. “Are we too old to be having sleepovers?”
Mike can’t help the smile tugging at his lips. “C’mon, we had like, our entire childhood stolen from us. Can’t we do one dumb thing?”
And a grin is breaking out on Will’s face, and his eyes are gleaming, and this is what they fought off the end of days for. This moment. But then Will’s smile falters till it’s fallen off his face entirely. “Carlton might not be the biggest fan, actually.”
Mike scowls. “Didn’t you go and stay with Dustin like two weeks ago?”
Will fidgets uncomfortably. “Yeah. Uh. That’s Dustin.”
A beat of silence passes, and Mike is baffled. “So what, I’m the problem?”
“Mike, let’s not get into this–”
“Have I done something to him?” Mike pushes, and Will glances behind him.
“No. Yes. I don’t know! Look, can we not–”
“Bullshit. Either you can stay at mine tonight, or you can tell me why Carlton thinks I’m an asshole.”
So they’re locked in a battle of wills, and Mike is drunk enough that he might just kiss Will, and it’s possible Mike’s entire life has been a lie. But it takes the edge off a little when Will breathes a quiet fine and tugs him to the side, promising he’ll be back in a moment.
Mike is drunk, and he’s dragging Will home with him. He’s had a great many ideas in his nineteen years, but this one might just be the worst.