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Out of all the people Mike expected to show up on his doorstep at one in the morning, Will was not on the list.
There had been a time when he would’ve held the first slot without question. But years had passed since then, years heavy with distance and collective trauma, enough to drive a wedge Mike had long ago decided was immovable.
As it was, he’s only just drifted off on the couch, television muted and neck tipped awkwardly against the armrest, when a gentle knock sounds at the front door.
Opening the door, seeing Will there as if it were a regular old Tuesday in 1984, gives him pause, the image out of place. Anachronistic.
“Hey,” Will says, a little breathless. Hands shoved into the pockets of his sherpa-lined jean jacket, he smiles - only just. Nervous.
“Uh, hi?” Mike clears his throat, suddenly very aware of how dry his mouth is. He needs water.
Will kicks the ground, the toe of his Nike scraping the sidewalk. “I got your message.”
Message?
Oh. Fuck. The message.
“Oh,” Mike breathes. He could die right here, right now. He’s pretty sure the ground might open up beneath him and swallow him whole, another Upside Down tearing open just to spare him this moment. Stranger things have happened. They all knew that.
There’s a beat of silence. Two, maybe.
“Sorry,” Mike blurts, too fast. “I—I was drunk. I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s okay,” Will says quickly, cutting him off. Too quickly. “I just… wanted to check on you.”
Mike blinks. “You drove all the way here for that?” Muncie, he knows, is almost four hours away.
Will hesitates, then shrugs, one shoulder lifting higher than the other. “I was awake.”
That’s not an answer. They both know it.
Mike steps back without really thinking about it, the door swinging wider. “Do you, um. Do you want to come in?”
Will looks past him, into the dim living room—the rumpled blanket on the couch, the muted glow of the TV screen, the lived-in quiet of it all.
Suddenly, Mike’s embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to— I mean, you didn’t have to come all this way.”
“I know,” Will says. He glances past Mike again, at the living room. His jaw tightens, just a little. “Do you want to get out of here for a while?”
Mike frowns. “What?”
“Just—” Will gestures vaguely. “A drive.”
Mike hesitates, then nods. “Yeah. Okay.”
Will’s car is parked a block away. Mike follows without really thinking about it, pulling his sweatshirt tighter against the night air. It’s cold in that early-fall way that seeps in slow and steady, an inevitable change.
Will unlocks the car and waits for Mike to get in first. As soon as the door shuts, the opening twang of Come As You Are fills the space, low and familiar. Mike looks over, surprised.
“You like Nirvana?”
“Well, duh,” Will grins. “Like Jonathan would let me get away without it?”
Point taken. Mike should’ve known. Jonathan had mailed him the tape last month, a note tucked inside that read, Listen to this. Let me know if you wanna write—I have an idea for a script. It’s all Mike’s listened to since.
Will pulls away from the curb, the moment shiny and surreal. Streetlights slide past them, their orange glow catching on their hands and faces every few seconds before moving on.
“Where are we going?” Mike asks.
The question sits heavy in his chest. Truthfully, there’s nowhere in this town he wants to be—nowhere that isn’t flooded with memories so sharp they make it hard to breathe.
“Where do you want to go?” Will asks, easy. Almost relaxed.
Mike lets out a shaky breath, anxiety buzzing under his skin. “Anywhere but here.”
Will snorts. “That really narrows things down.”
“I don’t know,” he says, defensive despite himself. “The drive-in might be open? We could just… park there.”
The drive-in. It’s the first place that comes to mind—out of the way, neutral. Not somewhere they’d spent time before. It was far enough out of town that biking there was a pain, and then there’d been the whole impending-doom thing. It never made the list.
Will signals at the next intersection, turning right without comment and heading out of town.
The quiet settles in for a few minutes, broken only by the low hum of the engine and Kurt Cobain’s voice bleeding softly from the speakers. Mike watches the road unwind ahead of them, the town thinning out until there’s more dark than light, houses giving way to now-harvested cornfields.
After a while, Will speaks, eyes still on the road.
“You scared me,” he says. Not accusing. Just honest.
Mike swallows. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Me too.”
He stares out the windshield for a long moment, jaw tight. The song ends and rolls into the next one, but he barely notices.
“I didn’t mean to call you,” he says suddenly. Then, immediately, “I mean—I did. Obviously. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t. I just didn’t mean for it to be like that.”
Will doesn’t look over. He just keeps driving.
Mike exhales hard, scrubbing a hand down his face. “I just—every time I finish something, you know? Like the book, tonight, or even a chapter, I keep thinking it’s supposed to feel good. Like this huge relief or sense of accomplishment.” He lets out a short, humorless laugh. “And it doesn’t. It just feels… empty. Like I did it wrong.”
He glances at Will, but Will’s eyes stay on the road, steady. Listening.
“So then I start thinking about all the other things I’ve done wrong,” Mike continues, words speeding up now, stacking on top of each other. “All the stuff I should’ve said differently, or sooner, or at all. And once I start, I can’t stop. My brain just—” He taps his temple. “It keeps going.”
He swallows. “And I know I shouldn’t call people at eight o’clock at night and say stupid shit about Tammy fucking Thompson, but—”
He trails off.
“I miss you,” he blurts, the words tumbling out before he can stop them. “And I don’t even know what that means anymore, because we’re not kids anymore – not even teenagers anymore – and you have a life and I’m—” He gestures vaguely between them. “Here. Still here.”
He doesn’t say that he’s not sure he knows Will anymore. Or whether he has any right to miss him at all.
The car hums around them, tires whispering against the pavement. They’re close to the drive-in now, but even from the road they can see it’s closed. The screens are dark. A rusted chain blocks the entrance. CLOSED FOR THE SEASON dominates the dimly lit Now Showing marquee.
Will slows the car and pulls to the side, parking in a wider stretch of the shoulder. He keeps his face forward, hands resting on the steering wheel as he listens.
Mike just keeps going.
“I keep thinking if I could just explain it right,” he says, softer now, “then maybe it would make sense. Why everything still hurts so goddamned much. Why I feel guilty all the time. Why I can’t tell if what I’m feeling is grief or love or just… me. The new me.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know how to separate it. I don’t know where one ends and the other starts.”
Finally, Will looks over at him.
Mike doesn’t stop. He can’t.
“And I know you didn’t ask for any of this,” he says quickly, defensiveness creeping back in. “I know it’s not fair to dump it on you, and I’m not asking you to fix anything. I just—” His voice breaks, barely. “After everything, I—I didn’t want to be your Tammy Thompson.”
He presses his lips together, staring hard out the window.
“I’m sorry,” he adds. Too late. Too much. Like always.
God, he feels like an idiot. His chest is hollow, scraped clean like a jack-o’-lantern, and he feels a little sick.
Despite himself, Mike forces his eyes back to Will—forces himself to feel the squeeze in his chest when he does. Will doesn’t look away this time, and somehow that makes it worse.
“You don’t have to know what it means,” Will says quietly. “Missing someone doesn’t come with instructions.”
Mike huffs out a shaky breath. Truer words were never spoken.
“But,” Will continues, careful now, “you can’t keep disappearing from our friendship and then dropping everything on me in the middle of the night like that. I—I can’t hold all of it for you. Not like that.”
Mike stiffens, just a little.
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t have called,” Will adds quickly. “I’m glad you did. I just—” He swallows. “I need it to be… on purpose. Not something you do only when you’re drunk.”
The silence that follows is different. Thinner. Honest.
Then, softer, “I’m here right now, though. We can talk. Now.”
“Okay,” Mike nods. “I’m sorry I called you my Tammy Thompson.”
Will laughs at that—sharp, sudden. “Yeah, what was that about?”
The ache in Mike’s chest deepens. “I finished my first draft tonight,” he says. “Journeys Lost.” His debut novel. One that only wove in some of what they’d survived. “And the first thing I thought was, I should tell Will.”
He lets out a short, bitter laugh. “But then I remembered we don’t really talk anymore. And you have a boyfriend. And drunk me decided that meant sober me is your Tammy Thompson, so—” He gestures helplessly. “We both got stuck on that.”
Will lifts a hand, face pinched with confusion. “Hang on. Mike. What?”
Mike opens his mouth to try again, but Will cuts in.
“No—” he says, shaking his head. “I mean, what does me having a boyfriend have to do with you not telling me about your book?”
Mike blinks at him. Once. Twice.
“I just—” He exhales, shaky. “I didn’t realize you didn’t know.”
Will turns toward him fully. “Didn’t know what?”
Mike frowns. “That I—” He stops, then lets out a breathy, disbelieving laugh. “That I have feelings for you.”
For a second, Will doesn’t say anything.
He looks back out through the windshield instead, jaw tightening. His hands shift on the steering wheel, fingers flexing like he’s not sure what to do with them.
“Oh,” he says finally. Flat. Careful. “I didn’t know that.”
Mike’s stomach drops. “You had no idea?”
Will shakes his head once. “I mean—I thought maybe. Back then.” He shrugs, a little stiff. “But I figured that was just me reading into things.”
Mike stares at him. “Reading into things.”
“Yeah,” Will says quickly. “Projecting. Wanting something to be there, so I saw it.” He lets out a short breath that sounds more like a laugh. “I spent a lot of time convincing myself I was wrong.”
Mike opens his mouth. Closes it.
“Oh.”
The word feels inadequate. Everything does.
Will’s shoulders lift and fall in a single shrug. “I tried to move on,” he says. “Not because I stopped caring about you. Just because I thought that was what you wanted. What I needed to do.”
Mike’s chest tightens. “I didn’t want you to move on from me.”
The words slip out before he can stop them, and he wants to scream at how selfish they sound the second they leave his tongue.
Will turns toward him fully now. “Then why didn’t you say anything, Mike? How long have you felt this way?”
His voice rises—not loud, but sharp enough that Mike feels the familiar defenses snap into place. The walls go up fast, instinctive as muscle memory. Mike the Brave. More like Mike the Idiot.
“A few years,” he says, forcing his tone to stay even. “When you came out, something just—clicked. Like it fell into place.” He exhales. “But then Vecna, and El, and everything else kind of avalanched on top of it until it felt… smaller. Drowned out.”
“That was four years ago,” Will says quietly. “You said we were best friends. Just best friends.”
“We are—”
“I have a boyfriend,” Will cuts in. Not pointed. Not accusing. Just factual. Like he’s reminding himself as much as Mike.
“I know,” Mike says quickly. “I’m not—this isn’t—” He scrubs a hand through his hair, frustration clawing at his throat. “I’m not asking you to do anything. I just needed you to know. I couldn’t keep pretending it was something else.” He swallows. “And I couldn’t imagine a life where we didn’t mean something to each other.”
The car hums around them, the empty road stretching on ahead. Off to the side, the drive-in marquee looms, its pale white glow bathing the interior of Will’s car.
“You will always mean something to me,” Will says, his voice thick. He looks away. “Okay.” Then, after a beat, “I need a minute.”
“Yeah,” Mike says immediately. “Yeah, of course.”
The driver’s side door opens. Will steps out, shutting the door—and Mike—behind him.
Every instinct tells Mike to follow him, to keep talking. To keep explaining until the words finally line up the right way and it just makes sense. Instead, he stays where he is, counting the seconds until his chest stops buzzing. After a minute, maybe two, he gets out and joins Will at the trunk.
The air is crisp, sharp with the smell of freshly cut fields.
“This doesn’t mean I’m ready for…” Will trails off. “And it doesn’t mean I know what to do with everything you’ve told me.”
Mike nods. “I figured.” He hesitates, then adds, “I don’t either. If it helps.”
It does. A little.
“But it does mean we can’t keep pretending,” Will says. “Not like before.” His voice is steadier now, and he shifts closer—close enough that Mike can’t ignore it.
Mike swallows. “I can do honest,” he says quietly. “Friends don’t lie.”
Will nods once. “Friends don’t lie.”
The cold air presses in around them, the fields stretching dark and endless on either side of the road. Will is close enough that Mike can feel the warmth of him, close enough that moving away would be a choice now, not a reflex. Neither of them says anything. Neither of them needs to.
Mike doesn’t know what tomorrow will bring. He’s learned better than to trust promises like that—learned the hard way that futures can evaporate without warning, that plans can disappear overnight.
But tonight, they’re here.
Nothing is fixed, he knows this. Nothing is certain. The weight of everything they haven’t said still lingers, heavy and real.
And yet, somewhere between the truth and the quiet, on a back road in Roan County, something in Mike’s chest finally loosens. Just a little. Enough for him to breathe. Enough for him to believe that whatever comes next doesn’t have to hurt the way it did before.
And it feels a little like healing.