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Mike was exhausted from climbing the radio tower. His limbs burned with an ache as he used parts of his body that he swore he never had before this moment, to haul himself higher, higher. He wished the burning of his muscles was enough to stop the racing of his mind.
He didn’t have much time to process Will’s confession before they all headed for the Upside Down. It had come as quite a shock to Mike’s system; it was something he wasn’t prepared to hear; it was something he wasn’t ready for.
It was hard to admit, but something had changed for them, between them, in the most recent years. Will had moved to California, and Mike thought that it was the end of their friendship. Mike chalked it up to growing up and apart, but acknowledging it this way made his stomach twist in knots, like he was forgetting something.
Mike peers down at Will, climbing a few dozen steps behind him, and remembers the time they were apart during those six months– remembers the aching feeling of being away from the person he was closest to his whole life. He missed the late nights of D&D in his basement, biking around the neighborhood and creating fake little street names so the town could feel like their own little game, doing homework together after school while Mike’s dad flips through the news channels, and, most selfishly, the feeling of being needed during the worst of times. But if he wasn’t needed in California, maybe he was never needed at all.
Mike knew that El had never needed him. El was strong, way stronger than him; mind, body, and soul. And though maybe Will didn’t need him and had forgotten him, he wanted to make sure that El wouldn’t forget. If his favorite people forgot him, then what was the point of all this? What he had been through, why did he have to go through so much suffering just to be all alone in the end?
He played the part of a doting boyfriend, writing letters to his girlfriend, whom he missed, but it was more than that. It was the act of proving his existence through physical means to assure that he was still there, still alive; and it was that she was still alive, too. He and his friends had been through hell and back, and he barely got the chance to be grateful that they all made it through before they moved on and away.
Every time he mailed a letter, he felt anxious, as if it were heading towards the edge of the universe, just like him, and would fall off, never to be seen or heard from again. But when he received a letter back, it was like he could prove he was still there, surviving. It didn’t really matter what he put in his letters, just that the mere existence of them proved satisfactory. And that’s why he could never sign them ‘Love, Mike’, because it was never an act of love: it was an act of necessity.
Mike enjoyed receiving El’s letters. It was a means of assuring his existence to the one person who still cared about him, the real him. It was doing a good job of numbing the pain of losing your girlfriend and your very best friend at the same time after the almost end of the world, for the third time. Then, on no particularly special day, he received a letter that started to chip at his reality.
He felt bitter and betrayed already, so when he heard about Will’s crush on a girl in Lenora, he felt even more betrayed; betrayed that he was left behind, betrayed that he was never thought about, betrayed that Will had moved on from Hawkins–their friendship, but most of all, a reason he kept buried deep down, that Will had found someone more important to him. Which was so hypocritical, because he had El.
He looked down towards Will as he replayed the conversation in his head:
“El has like a book of letters from you.”
“That’s because she’s my girlfriend, Will. We’re friends! We’re friends..” He didn’t know why he was so angry, why he needed to tell Will that they were just friends, and why it felt like, just maybe, he was trying to convince himself, as well.
“Well, we used to be best friends.”
Mike winces at the memory, feeling foolish and guilty. There was never any girl, perhaps a boy, but nevertheless, no reason to act so immature. Will was only reaching out to him, in a city full of new people during such a confusing time of his life, to feel connected to his friend– best friend, and he had acted like an arrogant jackass. Why did he act that way? What was he jealous of? He had the girlfriend.
Mike Wheeler felt the need to be needed, and he felt guilty, because maybe Will did need him, and he had fucked it up. Will was mad at him for never calling, but he never had either. He convinced himself that Will had forgotten all about him, because it was easier that way than to think about… the other feelings. But then he received the painting.
That damn painting.
That painting had proved to be a mind-fuck to Mike. He knew that Will was creating a painting for someone he liked, so when he received the painting, it created another chip in his reality. Why was he getting this painting? Had there been more than one painting that Will was working on? Or did it mean … something else?
But then Will told him that El had commissioned it, and he wanted to believe it so, so badly. That he was loved, he was wanted, and that he was needed by the person he loved most. It had stirred him up so much that he finally had the courage to tell El he loved her in those important moments when she was in the bathtub.
Then Mike found out it was all a lie.
He and El had a conversation about it afterwards. She told him two things:
1. She had not commissioned the painting, which made his stomach drop. His whole reason for having the courage to tell El that he loved her was all a façade; he felt foolish. Will had told him about how he was the heart of the party, how badly he was needed, but it all felt like a bunch of lies. Maybe Will was telling bits and pieces of the truth, but if he was lying about one thing, what stopped him from lying about another? And before Mike could process what the painting could mean from just Will, he was told:
2. Will had multiple paintings.
Mike felt foolish again for ever thinking that Will’s painting could mean something more than it was. But most of all, it scared him what he was feeling in those brief few moments, right before he was hit with the second truth, of what he wanted it to mean.
Mike shakes off the feeling, as if the thoughts could drop and plummet to their death below him, shaking off the fear that he would too, and focuses on his burning limbs. He pulls himself onto a rest pad that’s halfway up the tower. He heaves heavy breaths of the toxic air surrounding him, wondering if this is safe, and then wondering if that is what he should be worried about in this situation.
Will had a crush on someone.
That’s definitely not something he should be worried about.
There was a mention of a “Tammy,” but that didn’t make sense since Will likes… boys. Mike’s breath hitches at the thought, but he blames it on the toxic air encasing him. There were a lot of new things now that didn’t make sense.
Some other lucky bastard probably got a painting and didn’t even know what it meant. Or maybe he did, and that’s why Will knew that he wasn’t ‘like him.’
Lucky? Why would that guy be lucky?
Mike was the lucky one. He had a friend who cared about him so much that he went through all the effort of making him the painting, and then lying to him about its origins so that he would feel happier. It was an act of selflessness, an act that Mike was sure Will thought he couldn’t make because he had been such a selfish bastard for the last few months, years even.
Will finally makes it up to the rest pad behind him. Will heaves in the toxic air, and Mike gets worried for Will, if this air is too toxic for him. Or maybe he can handle it because he is a part of the Upside Down now. Either way, he feels the need to say something.
“You want some?” Mike asks, arm outstretched with the white water bottle in his hand, a peace offering of sorts–he’s not sure exactly what for, though: maybe everything.
Will finishes making his ascent up the ladder, out of breath.
“Yeah,” he replies, accepting the jug.
Mike puts both hands on the rail in front of him. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but can’t find the right thing to say, the right phrasing. He stares at the ground below, as if he had left the words on those infinite railing steps behind him. He steals a glance at Will, feeling guilty, for a reason he can’t quite place. He decides it’s because he’s been a bad friend as he accepts the water bottle back.
A heavy silence falls between them, like a weighted blanket, as Will tries to catch his breath. Mike wants to say something–he has to say something. He looks at Will:
“Hey, um…” He still can’t find the right words, but he’s already talking, so he continues, “what you said earlier at the Squawk… I’m sorry. I mean not sorry about what you said, that came out wrong. Or not came out wrong! Jesus Christ!” he was butchering it already, how could he choose his words so poorly?
“It’s okay,” Will affirms.
“No, it’s – it’s not, I should have been there for you, and I wasn’t. And.. I guess that I was just so self-absorbed that I couldn’t see it. I just– I feel like an idiot, and I … I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry, and you’re not an idiot–you’re not. It’s just … I didn’t even understand it myself for the longest time. I just- I think that it needed to happen the way it happened. I needed to find my own way. But what matters is that you’re still here, and you still think we can be friends.”
“Friends? No thanks..” Mike looks at Will with a heavy feeling in his heart, at the thought of the two of them together, and is reminded of what caused an ache in Will’s heart all those months ago.
‘We used to be best friends.’
“Best friends.” And maybe that’s all this is, all they were. Even with the awkward tension between them, Mike wanted to make it clear that he couldn’t risk losing Will, not again, not after he had almost lost him so many times. And if things went sideways … he was content knowing that he had made some form of amends, even if he knew it wasn’t enough.
Will smiles and lets out a sighing laugh of relief. Mike can’t help but reply the same way.
“Alright, come on,” he gives a slight smirk, “We’ve got a planet to catch.”
The feeling that he’s feeling now will be unpacked later; they have more pressing issues. Will smiles to lighten up, as if the world wasn’t ending, and Mike feels a beat of relief, even in the apocalypse, at the sight of his new-old best friend replying with a tentative smile.
He packs up the water bottle, along with his feelings, and then he begins his ascent again. Whatever he feels now can be addressed later, when the weight of Earth’s future doesn’t rest entirely on their backs.