Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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He thought, in that faint way where the idea crossed your mind, and faded blissfully away, that this was nice.

This — dinner with his friends after a long D&D session. Lasagna, courtesy of his mom — her ever-present humming came just a small ways away as she bustled about cleaning the kitchen. Somewhere in the background, the TV droned on. Something to do with sports. Ted Wheeler watched, entranced as ever; his brief, life-threatening encounter with a Demogorgon eighteen months back had done seemingly nothing to truly change the man. In or out of a coma, he simply occupied space in the room. Indifferent, though that didn’t bother Mike much anymore.

He tried not to let things like that bother him. The little things. The inconsequential things. 

Things like Ted Wheeler.

There was something that lingered in the air around him, something that sang like melancholy. Maybe something bittersweet.

When Lucas somehow managed to toss a chunk of lasagna directly into Dustin’s face, it warmed over, slightly, that feeling in the air. Dustin squawked in protest, and Lucas chucked a balled up napkin at him, and Max made a show of scooting her chair away from the both of them. If Mike paid enough attention, he could hear Holly’s voice just downstairs, speaking over her friends as she demanded they pay attention to the rules. If Mike thought of that for a moment longer, he’d catch himself reminiscing about his own childhood, when he'd spent days and nights with Will, memorizing the contents of the D&D rulebooks. Evenings spent bickering with Lucas about how his very first character couldn't just kill all the bandits in one hit.

But he didn't. Think of it, that is. He didn't begin to reminisce quite yet.

Will Byers sat close enough to him that warmth sealed itself in the space between them. Their knees knocked together occasionally, and every so often their forearms would brush.

Mike tried not to pay attention to it. The contact. That’s what he always did: he would notice Will, and then he would remember not to notice as much as he did. With his mind still caught on his hope-fuelled beliefs about El’s fate, it was easier to ignore. Heart twinging with that same melancholy from before, he dutifully cut into his lasagna and scooped a bite into his mouth. He chewed on it for the appropriate amount of time, and then swallowed it, and then he reached for his glass of water and took a careful sip, mechanical and heavy.

On his way to putting it down, to shifting back into proper position, his elbow bumped against Will again. He noticed it. Carefully, he brushed it off. 

He noticed Will. Will, who was harder to brush off. Impossible, actually.

Will, who seemed entirely distracted by some other train of thought. He roused himself momentarily, shooting Mike a smile that curled kindly at the edges. His eyes were soft, tracing over Mike’s face much like they would over a canvas. 

Something in his expression must have been a cause for concern — Will’s eyebrows twitched, lowering just so. A crease showed itself on the skin in between his brows, and Mike buried the urge to lift his finger to smooth it away. He read Will’s face like a book of his own making, words not entirely needed as he already knew the story behind them, the meaning. He read the unasked, you okay? and forced himself still. He thinned his lips into a line, softening immediately after when Will gave the barest nod.

Later, he said without a word.

And Will’s reply came, clear as day, clear as words on a final draft. Okay. Later.

Mike watched Will take a bite of his lasagna, and reminded himself that he was supposed to be doing the same. He grabbed the glass of water again, and took another sip.

When he placed it down again with a delicate clink against the table, he was careful not to brush against Will a second time.

→

Holly’s friends left the basement in quite a state.

Any other night, Mike might’ve shouted Holly back down the stairs to have her clean up. His mother would scold him for shouting, and Holly would gripe and groan and reluctantly obey, making a fuss out of nothing. He would call it fair, and she would retort with the petulant whine of any young tween being forced to clean. In the end of this hypothetical, he wouldn't be too hard on her. He’d have her help for ten minutes — of which he’d loosely keep track as they passed — and then he’d let her go. He’d ask her to keep the basement clean in the future. After all, the basement was his space, more or less. If not by the will of his mom, then simply by the fact he was older, and spent more time in the basement anyways.

Any other night, he would have been irritated by having to clean up after her. 

He didn't mind it too much, now. 

Evening had bled into night, and somewhere in that slippery slope of time where picturesque sunsets faded off into foreboding darkness, Max and Lucas had taken their leave. Dustin had slipped out soon after, bidding Will and the Wheelers a good night without much fanfare. Now, Mike stood in the basement, acutely aware of the occupied space near him, and only vaguely aware of the mess left for him to handle.

Will lingered. He always did, and in this instance he stood with a foot still on the stairs, as if to flee this quiet moment any second now. Mike dreaded it, though he was keenly aware of the fact he should not. He turned his attention away, and tried not to focus on the weight of the hazel stare situated on the side of his face.

Where someone like Ted Wheeler only seemed to take space, Will had an opposing effect. His presence filled the space. It was a tangible difference, something Mike could explain, if he fought hard enough to find the words.

Something like comfort, or something that sounded like belonging. Familiarity, or maybe more like habit. He mulled over it quietly, twisting an abandoned wrapper absentmindedly in his fingers. They ached, his fingers — knuckles twinging as he curled the plastic over and under them, unwinding it as his gaze flitted over his belongings. Will’s presence didn't burn where it lingered, but it pressed — deep and insistent, in a way unique to Will. 

Insistent, but malleable. Constant, unwavering, patient. Above all, it was warm.

Will stepped out from behind Mike, shifting languidly into action. His hands — perfect painter hands, Mike never failed to note — collected trash like it was second nature to tend to this space that was Mike’s. His feet shuffled softly, lifting him across the basement space like he belonged there.

Like he belonged there — Mike could feel his brows furrow slightly. There was never room for simple comparison, with Will. 

Belonging was the root, curled deep into Mike, sown in his bone marrow. Snug around the dips and divots of his spine, soft against his sharp edges and unyielding in their existence. Will Byers belonged in this space, just as Mike did. He always has. Mike couldn't remember a time when the basement walls were not covered in Will’s art, and he couldn't remember a time when the carpet would not recognize the soft tread of Will’s steps, or the stairs would not remember just how to creak under his weight.

Will belonged. Where Mike existed, there was always an expectant gap left empty next to him with room for only one person to fill it.

It was there, now — that gap. Will was there, but not beside him. Not with him. The physical distance between them was a scant few feet at best, yet there still lay a chasm between them, yawning into a dark abyss that Mike could not fathom the depth of. The basement was warm, almost to the point of discomfort. Will was cleaning up the trash left behind by Holly’s friends, and Mike realized belatedly that he had been standing in silence like an idiot, gaping at the walls blankly.

He moved, stilted at first, like a puppet learning to walk without strings. If Will noticed, he was polite enough to not mention it. 

And so it went.

Mike, carefully reorganizing his mini-figures, and folding away scattered notes. Grimacing softly at crumbs spilled onto a chair, and tucking away folders with someone else’s stories. His attention was split. This was not unusual.

At the edge of his vision, Will leafed through some stray papers himself, slotting character sheets back into binders, balling candy wrappers together and throwing them away. He moved with such ease, and a casual confidence that he’d lacked in their youth. Mike admired it now, his eyes tracking Will’s movements without the subtlety to remain unnoticed forever. A part of him didn't want to look away. This, too, was far from unusual. This, like Will Byers existing at his side, in his space, was familiar. Instinctive wasn't the exact word for it — that would take away from it. From the choice of sticking together. From the choice of being—

Well, them. With all that entailed.

Will huffed softly under his breath, pulling Mike from his musing effortlessly. His eyes went to his best friend, taking in the way he bent down and scooped up some scattered books. 

Their shared quiet was broken gently. (Maybe broken wasn’t the right word; Will didn’t break things.) “You really pissed her off today with Strahd von Zarovich, and the whole,” he waved around a hand, his smile quirked up just so, “suppression stone thing. Max, I mean.” Another laugh escaped him in a soft breath, motions easy as he smoothed out the book covers, settling the pile back into place on top of that small, old TV.

His own smile formed without permission, natural as anything. He nodded faintly, hands squeezing an empty Pringles can, “I think she might’ve kicked me next, if Dustin hadn’t remembered the mage.” He couldn’t quite tell if he stuttered over his words, or if he imagined it. Across from him, Will’s smile slipped towards something that proved more difficult for Mike to read. Despondent? Sorrowful? Mike focused carefully on the downturn of Will’s lips, and couldn’t find it in himself to tear his gaze away. Will let out another breath, an exhalation, releasing a pained noise that Mike wasn’t sure he was really meant to hear.

“Yeah…” he said, voice thick with emotion. It wasn’t jarring to hear — the evening had been emotional for all of the Party, Mike knew, and Will had worn his emotions so much more freely in the past year and a half. His tears had come easier, over the last eighteen months. Or, maybe Mike had simply earned back the privilege of being someone Will could trust with his emotions. Maybe a bit of both. 

“The story,” Will continued after a moment. Mike lifted his gaze, noting the watery sheen to Will’s eyes with an ache in his heart. Seeing Will cry had never been easy, even if it was nice to know Will trusted him enough to. “I liked it. All of it. For Lucas and Max, and Dustin, and — and me. And you.”

Will’s stare had been somewhere distant, off pulling at the threads of Mike’s hopes and dreams for the Party. Mike could see it in Will’s eyes, how their adventures played out, and how their endings were far removed from the grief and torment that had haunted them for so many years. 

He was startled when Will’s gaze shifted, eyes locking with his. Searching for something, for a moment, and then stilling — softening. Mike softened in turn, eased by the wobbly but sincere smile Will gave.

“Yeah?” Mike asked, his voice hoarse and too quiet in this basement that was theirs.

Will heard him anyway, his smile curling higher, his eyes squinting as he fought off his own tears. With a watery laugh, Will was bringing a hand up, wiping at his eyes with his smile shining still in the dim room. “Yeah, Mike. I think you’re — I think your stories are incredible. And they’ll be incredible. You’ve always come up with the best stories.”

The basement was warm, and Mike burned under Will’s attention, his praise, his cheeks flushing. He had to look away, had to prioritize his own sanity as he plucked an empty bottle of soda from the mess and tutted to himself under his breath. His mom and her little behaviors while cleaning — like tutting in disapproval at a mess, of all things — had rubbed off on him, though he’d never admit it.

“It’s nothing,” he excused quickly, shoving the bottle under his arm and picking up a discarded paper plate. “I just — I want the best ending. For everyone.”

He didn’t dare turn to look at Will again, but his ability to read Will had never simply relied on visuals alone. He could hear the smile in Will’s tone, could picture it perfectly when Will said, “I know. I know you do.” 

That feeling in the air, that weight that had settled itself upon his shoulders eighteen months ago — no, years ago, when his best friend had first gone missing and his life had crumbled around that gap as it had become a void — it… Changed. For so long, Mike had felt it there, hanging off his neck, curling the shape of his spine inwards. Over time — in the months after Will was first rescued, back when this had all started, and then the time before and after the ruinous summer of 1985, and every moment of downtime between their struggles with the Upside Down — the weight had shifted, adjusted. Sometimes, it would grow heavier, like the year Mike spent trying in vain to find El after she and the Demogorgon had disappeared in ‘83. Other times, it would shrink, pressing against him, but not forcing him to hunch under it. In 1986, he’d felt it then, gradually changing sizes, shrinking and growing with every misstep and every attempt to fix what he’d broken. When they’d first made it back to Hawkins all the way from Lenora, and he and Will had finally spoken, finally fixed things between them — for the first time in so long, Mike had felt lighter. He could remember it well, that brief moment of sitting next to Will on that overturned couch and feeling like the weight had not been there at all, just for a glimmering, shining second.

In their last battle, the real end of it all, Mike had found himself drowning in that inky black void under the weight of it. The guilt. Even now, he hadn’t shaken it, though with time he could feel it shrinking again. He did wonder often enough, if he would ever remember the feeling of being unburdened by all that they’d been through. If he’d ever recall being that twelve-year-old boy, hidden away in his home’s basement cheering his friends on as they defeated the final boss in his campaign, only concerned about his approaching curfew and the next day of middle school and bullies.

Will asked him, “Is that your best ending? Always writing more stories?” 

Mike could admit it; he wasn’t so far away from the boy he’d been. Still in his home’s basement, still cheering on his friends and writing his campaigns for them — but the truth of the matter was, the weight was still heavy. The gaping space at his side was still empty, when he dared to look, to see it for what it was.

For all the ways he was the same, Mike would never be that twelve-year-old boy again.

“It’s what I want.” He answered softly, feeling a prickle of guilt rippling under his skin. It was only a half-truth. Friends don’t lie. But sometimes, they only told part of the story. 

Will hummed, an acknowledgement and nothing more. The air filled itself with the rustling of trash, their quiet shuffling as they moved around one another, not touching, not speaking. Mike could be content with that. He could, really, but he didn’t want to risk Will digging back into the topic, into asking more about Mike and wants, because that was a dangerous road to travel when it was always so easy to tell Will the truth. The full truth.

He asked, speaking so abruptly as to shatter the quiet between them, “Did you wanna stay the night? Or are you just…— Helping?”

Will was already shaking his head by the time Mike finished, tossing away a last bundle of trash and dusting off his hands. “I can’t. Promised mom I’d be home tonight. Just didn’t want to leave you to clean up everyone’s mess by yourself.” 

Mike ignored the disappointment that welled up inside of him. The gaps of time between him and Will being together, one on one, had begun stretching, longer and longer as time slipped by them. He hesitated to point this out, hesitated to even acknowledge it himself, but one thing had remained constant in all his years of knowing Will Byers. Every time he was gone, Mike missed him. For a minute, or for a year, it had never mattered — it had remained a steady, aching truth. 

Will and truths mixed together into a nauseating concoction in Mike’s gut, dizzying in its strength as it hit him like a bout of vertigo. He made himself nod, head feeling like it was working against rusty gears as he mimicked Will from a minute ago, humming weakly in acknowledgement.

He fumbled for words for a moment, before offering up a feeble, “Thanks, then. For — for helping.” His voice wobbled. Neither of them commented on it. With a hefty amount of effort, he bled some teasing into his tone, forced his lips to quirk into a smile, “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

Will laughed, light and warm. Mike wished he could stop comparing Will to the concept of warmth, but it wasn’t his fault the two were synonymous. 

“I’m sure you’d manage,” Will teased in return, eyes crinkling at the corners. “You always do.”

Mike wanted to laugh at that — because as far as truths went, Mike ‘managing on his own’ was the farthest from it. He wanted to laugh and break this small bubble of almost-comfort, and ask Will how he had possibly managed anything on his own before. The truth, there, was that he never had.

It was one of those truths, one on a growing list, that Mike didn't have the energy to deny anymore. It hurt, hurt the same way as digging the pads of his fingers into a tender bruise, but it existed undeniably. And, just as pressing the bruise reminded him of its presence, so too did it remain true that Mike had never been fine on his own, and he could never forget it.

Will’s fingers wrapped loosely around Mike’s wrist, pulling him from his thoughts. Triggering something within him, something that was always there, always a single loaded glance away from clicking into place.

In a split-second moment of clarity, in a blinding heartbeat of pure, reckless idiocy, Mike blurted out, “I manage better with you around. I always have. I always—”

There was a moment there, while Mike’s mind screeched to a halt, and his voice raised in pitch and then cut off abruptly, where he thought he saw Will freeze in place for a second. A moment, where he could swear Will’s cheeks flushed a light pink. The basement was dimly lit. Mike convinced himself he was seeing things.

Will’s grasp on him was loose, and he was released without a hint of pressure or protest when he flinched back a step. His words ran across the forefront of his mind like a record sped up, his lips parting as he tried to come up with something more to say. Something to make that sound less incriminating.

He couldn't come up with anything, and hardly managed to hastily throw away the trash he had held onto before chancing a glance back at Will. His heart, for some odd and nonsensical reason, pulsed rapidly within his chest. He chalked it up to nerves, before remembering to question what could possibly be making him nervous.

“I, uh,” he tried, “I always — yeah.”

The air between them remained painfully awkward for a moment as Mike fought with himself, refusing to look at Will and simultaneously dying to see if he really had blushed, or if it’d been a cruel, desperate little trick of his own imagination. Will’s silence was agonizing without his own added struggle. 

When Will spoke, there was a — a quality to it.

Mike refused to think of it as ‘breathy’.

“It’s alright. I… I get what you mean. And, I mean, you're right. We've always done things better together, I think. Managing…” He trailed off, and Mike could hear a note of fond amusement lifting his words. He scoffed, trying to at least pretend he was offended.

“Don't laugh at me,” he said, brows furrowing in mock anger. Finally, he gave in to his wants. He looked at Will.

Will was looking back, lower lip caught between his teeth and eyes sparkling with mirth. “I’m — I’m not laughing, Mike. I would never.”

Another scoff, a bit more real this time. “Oh, never is a big fat lie,” Mike sputtered, unable to resist a growing grin when Will broke into a fit of giggles. Whether it was at Mike’s dramatics, or a much-needed shift from the lingering sadness in the air, or simply Will laughing just to laugh — Mike didn't care. He didn't. 

He just watched, his posture loosening, time slowing down around them as he simply bathed in this, in Will and his laugh.

He pressed on, just to watch Will crumble a bit more. “Friends don't lie, Will, and you are totally lying and laughing right in my face, right now.” Unthinkingly, he moved closer, closer, until he could reach his hand forward and lightly shove at Will’s shoulder. Playful and easy. Will’s giggles persisted, and he swayed back from the push and then swayed right back inward, as if he was just as drawn to Mike as Mike was drawn to him.

Mike could sit in this moment forever.

He wanted to.

Him and his wants, all of them revolving around—

“Okay, okay,” Will said, his giggle fit finally fading, smile still bright. “I’m sorry.” He raised a hand to his face, hiding his infectious grin from view. His eyes still crinkled at the edges, flecks of green sparkling in Mike’s direction. “That was — it was sweet. It was,” at Mike’s disbelieving look, Will’s other hand raised to flick Mike’s arm. Mike didn't mind the contact one bit, barely even noticed the sting.

“Uh-huh,” Mike said, crossing his arms loosely over his chest so he wouldn't be tempted to reach out and touch Will more. It wasn't Mike’s fault that Will was addicting. That was all on Will. “Sure. Whatever you say.” 

His smile betrayed him, he knew. Even if he hadn't been smiling, Will knew him better than anyone. The pages within the book called Michael James Wheeler had always been there for Will Byers to read to his heart’s content. There was not a single chapter, not one word within Mike that he wouldn't bare to Will, if asked. He knew that as fact.

Will never asked — never knew to ask, maybe. Sometimes, selfishly, Mike wanted to tell him, beg him. Ask. Please ask. I’ll tell you everything. Anything. Just ask me to. Just say the word and I’m yours.

But — that was the thing.

In some distant memory, in some way far removed from his reality, Mike knew that Will had asked him, before.

The catch here was, Will didn't ever ask for things aloud. But he wanted them, and he would skirt around the topic of want as much as Mike vehemently avoided the topic of truth.

Mike knew Will better than anyone. He knew Will, and knew the way Will never asked for anything, but wanted so deeply that it could prove a physical pain. 

He spoke around the things he wanted. When they were ten, he’d gushed for days about a watercolor paint palette he'd caught a glimpse of when he'd gone on a shopping trip with Mrs. Byers. Anytime Mike had asked him, do you want it? I could get it for you! Or, convince my mom to. I could, Will had shied away from it. He'd wring his hands together and shake his head and avert his gaze carefully and he'd say, oh, no, I just thought it was — cool, you know?

There had been a brief moment in Mike’s life, no longer than a month, maybe, where it had driven him absolutely crazy. He'd never understood why Will refused to just ask. In time, he learned the reasons, and the weight behind some of them. He would learn that Will asking his father for paints was impossible, because Lonnie Byers was a cruel man with an awful idea of what a boy who loved painting could mean. He would learn that Will asking his mother for a new set of crayons could be tricky — too tricky for a young Mike to comprehend, and that Will had accepted so easily that he would often only get new crayons when his old set had all been worn to little, unusable stubs. In time, Mike learned that Will didn't ask for anything — and Mike had made it his mission in life to know when Will wanted something. 

He'd begged his mom for the money to buy Will a watercolor palette and a small notebook full of the right paper for it as an early birthday present. (And, when Will’s birthday had rolled around, he had gifted him a new sketchbook and a real canvas to paint on, because who in their right mind would skip out on giving Will Byers a birthday present?) He’d buy packs of Reese's pieces from Melvalds whenever he could, knowing it was Will’s favorite candy. He'd tuck the packs away in little hidden corners of the basement so his mom would never scold him for buying an excess amount of candy, and when she eventually caught him red-handed, he had decided it was still worth it to see Will light up every time Mike produced the candy seemingly out of thin air. He'd memorized the face Will would make whenever he thought a movie poster looked cool, or a comic book piqued his interest — and soon enough they'd be at the theater for that new movie, or sat together on the couch in his basement reading a new comic in sync.

Will had never asked for those things; Mike had just learned how to know what his best friend wanted.

He knew it all by heart. Knew that Will Byers never asked for anything.

And he knew, he knew, that Will Byers had wanted something from him. 

Something important. Something warm, and familiar, and something that felt a lot like belonging, and even a little bit more.

Mike had made it his mission in life to always know when Will wanted something.

He knew, deep in his soul, what Will wanted.

And he knew, above everything, that Will would never ask him for it.

That was the scary part. Not that Will didn't want him enough to ask, but that it was up to Mike to take that leap. That leap across that open abyss between them that he couldn't see the bottom of.

He wasn't sure if he was more scared of the dark of that abyss, or of what would happen if he really made it to the other side.

Will cleared his throat, and said softly, “I should get going.”

It was up to Mike.

Mike, who had never managed things well on his own.

Mike, who had never really been brave. Not like he wanted to be. Not like Will was.

Mike, who had no idea of what story he was trying to tell here, who had no clue of what ending he could possibly try to conjure here that would make sense, that would work with the story he'd already laid upon the page.

Mike — who had only taken a leap so daring and dangerous once before. When his body had plunged down, down, down, wind whipping past his face, gravity taking him, the surface of the water zooming in as he'd fallen ever closer. Mike, who didn't have El around to catch him anymore. 

Will said, “Goodnight, Mike.”

Will turned his back, stepping lightly up the stairs. He avoided the creaky ones, leaving without a sound.

And Mike—

He stood, frozen at the edge of a yawning abyss.

Too scared to make the leap.

→

It was a warm day, and Mike didn't know what to do with himself.

The memorial in the center of Hawkins had always been the closest thing El got to a grave. Eleven, the stolen child who had been used all her life, would never get a proper resting place. Jane Hopper, who officially went missing after moving to Hawkins with her adopted family in 1987, had been lumped in with the rest of the people being remembered by this pillar of stone in the middle of town.

It was a mere few days after the Party had graduated.

In the past eighteen months, Mike had experienced an entirely new range of ups and downs — the good days and the bad, the worse and the better. It was hard, sorting it all out, trying to categorize it. As if feelings and grief could be so easily labelled and tucked away. It was strange, too, how unpredictable it could be. How light he could feel one moment, only to feel like something was pushing into his chest moments after, seeking to crush his heart, his lungs, everything — everything left within him.

He'd felt this way before, a few times, but it had never been so consuming.

He knew, or at least heavily suspected, that guilt played a major factor. Someone else might have considered that obvious, but Mike was aware that he'd always struggled with his emotions. With understanding his guilt, and with managing it. Accepting it, healing. It was a process he knew in the same way one would understand the process of making a sandwich; logically, he knew all the steps, and he could very well fulfill each and every one of them. He just — couldn't. Not yet. Not really.

He needed more time.

Which seemed daunting, considering how much had already passed. But maybe it was worse, because it had been his fault.

Undeniably, irreversibly, the fault was his.

It was his bomb that had killed El.

He was the one who — who picked the record, or whatever it was that Robin had said to him before the final battle. Before he broke it all.

It was a warm day, and Mike had been sitting alone on the bench in front of the memorial, and the world shifted softly when someone sat down beside him.

Close, but not too close.

It was a warm day, and Mike turned his head by a fraction. Recalling a similar moment from just a few days prior, he almost expected to see Hopper.

Will was warm.

Heat spread from him and right into Mike, pressing through their layers of clothing and replacing the desolate chill that Mike had been carrying. The day was too warm to really be cold at all, but it was Will alone who chased that feeling away. The sun had nothing on Will Byers.

“Will,” Mike’s voice sounded faint to his own ears. Sad. 

Sad seemed like too little a word to really encompass all that he felt. He didn’t want to come up with a better one, didn’t want to really name what he was feeling. That would make it too real, too awful to face.

“Hey.” Will eased himself against the bench, relaxing into it. He sat forward, the curve of his spine loose, elbows resting on his knees, head bowed just so. His eyes lifted from the stone pillar and drifted to meet Mike’s, gaze searching and soft. “Your mom called again. She thought you might’ve dropped by the house. I wanted to come find you.”

He paused, his silence deliberate. Mike waited for him to finish.

Head dipping, Will added, “If you want to be alone, say the word. I can go.”

His head was shaking no before he’d registered the question entirely. “No. No. It’s — I’m fine with you staying.”

He twisted his hands together where they rested in his lap. He thought about bravery, and about truth, and let himself shift closer to Will. Their shoulders pressed together, and Will leaned in just as much.

He added, “I want you to stay.”

Will nodded, as if that was that. As if there was no other option to consider, no other action that crossed his mind. As if Mike wanting him to stay meant that nothing else mattered, and he’d do exactly that. He’d stay.

Will asked, “Do you want to talk about any of it? About El?”

Mike shot back, “Do you?”

For some reason, a part of him expected for that to be the end of it. For Will to trail off, and nod in quiet acceptance of this. For them to sit together in silence until their skin seemed to shrivel and shrink around them, and their bodies seemed too small to hold their grief. They would stand, and one of them would walk the other home and they wouldn't speak, because the words would be too big to come up and out from their throats and they would choke on them if they tried. That was what they'd done so many times before, so maybe his assumption wasn't for any random reason at all, but because of routine. Because of habit.

But Will surprised him.

Will, with his eyes glued to the stone, admitted the truth as if it was as easy as breathing. 

“I miss her all the time.”

Mike’s breath caught, and you would think a gunshot had just erupted right next to him with how his ears rang with that awful high pitched ringing, and then faded off into dead silence.

Will looked at him. Brief and painful, his eyebrows brought low, his hands faintly shaking. Maybe he was just as surprised as Mike was, to hear the words said aloud, to not be able to take them back. 

This wasn't the first time they'd talked about El, and it would be far from the last — but something had shifted with Will’s refusal to comply with their former habits. This was honesty, bared entirely without restraint. Without hesitation.

That sort of honesty used to be their normal. The only way they spoke to one another, devoid of lies and omission and reluctance. Over time, it had become overrun. First by white lies and shrugged off dismissals, and later by flying accusations and harmful deflection.

Mike was overcome by this — this feeling of relief that swept through him. It didn't replace the guilt, the sadness, but nestled itself within him, somewhere deeper. A thin ray of light, slipping past thick clouds filling a gray sky. Sometimes the light would break through the cracks, and other times it would be hidden away, but eventually the clouds would part. The wind would move them to other skies, and the light would still be there, warm and hopeful.

“I liked the stories you gave all of us, the other night,” Will said, hushed, careful. Mike’s body leaned closer, to hear him better. “And I — I liked the story you came up with for the mage, too. I liked that she got away from it all. That she… Made it out of there.” Will’s voice cracked, but neither of them cared. Their sides were pressed together, shoulder to hip to thigh, and Mike realized he’d been holding his breath, listening to Will. He inhaled shakily, and felt the breath shudder out of him a moment later. 

His voice rasped, and he wanted to feel embarrassed at the thick knot that lingered in the back of his throat, choking him up. With anyone else, he would've. Not with Will. “She deserved a happy ending. I’ll always hope she got it.”

There was so little substance in that — hoping, when he’d seen all that he had. When El’s last look to all of them had been filled with a hollow acceptance. Resignation, defeat. Mike had wondered ceaselessly, restlessly, over the past eighteen months about just how long El had planned to die. He tried desperately not to think of it, but it ate at his insides like a parasite constantly.

He wondered, much more selfishly, if he had ever stood any chance of changing her mind. Of convincing her that she had other options. Of helping her find a way to be free of it all, just not like this.

His story, with the small town in the middle of a far away land, and strangers who would never know her past, and miles and miles of isolation, was the best Mike could ever give her without turning back the clock himself.

Will’s hand pressed to the skin of his wrist, right beneath his watch. The pads of his fingers squeezed lightly, a grounding presence beyond where their bodies pressed together.

“I hope so too,” he whispered, a fresh tear slipping down the curve of his cheek. Mike wondered sometimes, what it was like to cry so freely. Even now, choking on his own hopes and regrets, his eyes watery, he couldn't bear to let the tears fall. Not where just anyone could see — even if no one around them was looking.

His opposite hand, the one untouched, lifted to cover the back of Will’s. Will smiled, brittle but real. One of them let out a choked little gasp, and Mike couldn't tell who it really came from.

He wasn't sure how long they sat there together.

He wasn't sure who passed them on the sidewalks, or what cars ambled by with the green lights and zipped by a little faster to beat the yellows, or even who may have stopped to sit with them on another bench to do exactly as they were and mourn someone who was lost forever.

None of that mattered to him. Not to him, and not to Will, the both of them hidden in this little bubble that couldn't hide them from the world, from the weight of it, but could at least let them sit with it in silence for a moment. Just a moment.

Will was the first to move, his leg bouncing a couple times, knee knocking into Mike’s. Mike watched it happen, watched the way Will’s fingers tightened in a quick pattern over the pulse beating steadily under the skin of Mike’s wrist. Mike didn't look, didn't watch, when he felt Will’s eyes on his face. Tracing it, studying it. Mike wondered what he saw, what he was looking at so very intensely when he’d already known Mike’s face for years. There couldn't be anything new, anything so interesting.

Will eased into their silence, not so much popping the bubble as he did simply release them from it. It drifted away on the wind, without them.

“Do you want me to take you home?”

It was a warm day, and Will was warmer at his side, and Mike was the most comfortable he’d been in days, despite his grief — or maybe not despite it, but alongside it. With a slight adjustment, with a careful twist of his wrist, he slotted his and Will’s hands together, squeezed Will’s gently. Maybe it was small, but this felt brave.

“Yeah,” he murmured, “let’s go home.”

→

The Byers had moved into Hopper’s cabin when all was said and done, eighteen months prior.

It hadn’t exactly been a slow process, but it hadn't gone entirely quick, either. Jonathan and Will had still slept in the Wheeler’s basement for a while, and as the cabin had been redecorated and adjusted into a home and not a base/hideout, they'd gradually and painstakingly gathered their belongings, cleaned up their residual mess, and faded out from the everyday bustle of the household.

Ted Wheeler had been mildly content with having his space back and mostly unoccupied by an additional three people. Ted Wheeler was mild about everything.

His mom had been a bit upset about it. Even through the stages of her healing, she'd wandered the house with an odd little frown. When Mike had questioned it, she had said something about readjusting, and missing the lively chaos that had filled the house with the Byers’ presence. Mike hadn't fully believed her — he knew she'd been more frazzled during that year and a half than she'd ever admit to him, but he understood. Holly and her friends were loud, and the Party filled the basement often enough, but it was hard to miss how the house was far more silent without the other family around. 

Despite seeing them so often, Mike missed them too. Will especially, which was a ridiculous notion considering he still saw Will as frequently as he could without being surgically attached to the other boy at the hip.

When Will spoke of home, Mike had partially expected to be led to Hopper’s cabin. Home, for the Byers now. Home, at least for a brief while. Will’s childhood home had been sold off to someone else when the Byers and Jane had originally left for Lenora, so going back to it had never been an option. Even if it had been, Mike wasn’t sure that Joyce would’ve jumped at the opportunity; he knew of most of the memories that haunted that house. He knew the patch of mismatched wallpaper near the front door reminded him constantly of Will’s funeral, and Joyce’s crackling voice over the radio, shouting for Will to hide, baby, I need you to hide —  and the kitchen had always smelled strongly of cigarettes and alcohol to him. There’d been a dent in the wall outside Jonathan’s bedroom that Will had once pointed out; Lonnie’s name had not been uttered in the conversation, but Mike had read it well enough in the fist-shaped mark. He could hardly imagine what memories Joyce had of the place, or Will, for that matter.

Sometimes, he’d mourn the fact that the Byers would never go back to the house that had been theirs for so much of Mike’s life, but he couldn’t fault them for it.

Of course, that being said, he’d kind of figured Will would’ve taken him to the cabin. The place Will had been calling home for months.

So when they ended up on Mike’s street, he found himself… Surprised. At least a little bit.

There was something about this — Will, saying to him do you want me to take you home? — that felt… Well. It felt oddly— reminiscent? Nostalgic? Like a sense of deja vu had washed over him, heating the skin of his palm where his and Will’s hands had remained interlocked this entire time, and—

Huh.

Mike’s eyes locked onto his and Will’s hands, loosely but comfortably intertwined, and he. He wondered, at the back of his mind, how he hadn't noticed the contact. Or, how it’d slipped into the background of things. How he hadn't been buzzing over it, vibrating within the constraints of his own skin this whole time. His hands suddenly felt hot and clammy, and he hoped fiercely that it went unnoticed. 

He made a valiant effort to refocus. His original point.

The point, which was Will, and taking him home and leading him back to his own house, his steps intentional, sure, aimed right for the stairs to the basement. Mike realized belatedly that his mom had let them in, and Will had assured her that Mike was fine, and Mike— he really probably should have been much more present for that conversation. He should have assured his mom that— that yes, yes, he was alright. He would be alright, he was with Will, and Will had found him, and brought him home—

And they were in his basement, knees knocking together where they sat in close proximity on the couch. 

Will had taken him home, and had tucked them neatly away into the basement, just the two of them. Mike’s heart, where it hid away deep in his chest, gave a weird little kick. Mike concerned himself for a moment on whether this was the first symptom of a heart attack. Will’s hand was still in his, or maybe it was the other way around and his hand was still in Will’s. 

God.

Mike needed to die.

Of course Will would take Mike home, to his house, where he lived, when he’d said—

Yes. That was the answer. The logical answer, the only answer really. Because Mike lived in this house. It was a house which was his home. Why would Will take him anywhere else? Why would Will complicate things and think Mike’s home was simply home for both of them and not just—

He didn’t know what point he was trying to make anymore. Jesus Christ. No normal person would throw a weird fit about whatever this was. Mike wasn’t sure what it was.

Will, unknowingly acting as an angel sent from above, dragged Mike out of the weird territory his thoughts had strayed into.

“You okay?”

What a question. Mike really wasn’t sure what else Will could’ve meant by take you home, honestly, he was being ridiculous. He was overthinking something that didn’t require thought. Like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube that had already been solved.

“I’m fine.”

Will’s hand was warm. They were still holding hands.

Will leveled him with a raised eyebrow, his expression saying very clearly, I don’t believe you. Mike couldn’t blame him.

He shrugged, sinking back into the couch, sinking back into the same sadness from earlier. That was something he’d thought of, wasn’t it? How strange it was that his feelings could flip so rapidly from the ache in his heart, that bone-deep sorrow, to — whatever else he was feeling. How weird it felt to notice how quickly he could switch between light and dark, hopeful and despairing. How long would it be like this? How long would he be like this?

He huffed, reflexively squeezing Will’s hand. It felt like a bad habit to get addicted to.

Will squeezed back.

… It couldn’t be that bad of a habit, actually.

“I’m… Not sure.” He amended, only a little reluctant. 

Will’s head tilted, encouraging him. Go on.

He didn’t really know how to, but Will had always made things like this easier. Things like the truth, and wanting, and even digging in and understanding what he felt, when he really tried to.

“It’s just, uhm… Hard, some days. Obviously, I miss El — all the time. But it’s not always just that.” He paused, swallowing thickly. Something in his stomach twisted uneasily, lurching like how it had once when he’d gotten a large whiff of spoiled milk. “It’s — it’s what happened to all of us. The past few years. All of it. It’s all so—” The air in his chest wheezed out of him in a pained breath, and he leaned himself back against the couch, head knocking against the wall behind him. He forced himself to calm down, conscious of his next inhale, his next exhale, fighting for his lungs to obey him and for his heart not to falter the way it seemed to. Will was murmuring something at his side, a note of panic hidden deep in his tone as he seemed to try and soothe Mike. He latched onto it, the sound and the feel and the weight of Will against him. At some point, his eyes had squeezed shut, and he focused on the way patterns burst behind his eyelids, paid close attention to Will’s hand still clutched in his. He loosened his iron-grip on Will with a faint hint of guilt, eyes opening again at last. His breath came a little easier.

Will was sitting upright, leaned in, eyes brimming with evident worry.

Mike smiled, flimsy, hoping it would ease the crease between Will’s brows. It didn’t, and he felt the urge to lift his hand to Will’s face and do something brave.

Instead, he puffed out another breath. Forced his lungs to work with him. He said, “It’s so fucked up, what happened to us.”

It was a low whisper, stretched thin between them. Will’s frame seemed to shudder, and he nodded once, slowly. His eyes were glued to Mike, roving over him — his face, his arms, his torso, back to his face again. 

Mike finished, quietly breathing the words, “I don’t know how to fix this story. How to make what happened to any of us any easier to swallow. Easier to… To heal from. But everyone seems to be doing that fine on their own. Just not… Not me.” 

Will was staring at him, eyes flickering, reading him, studying him. Searching for anything that Mike wasn’t saying — but there was nothing else to find.

He licked his lips, watched Will’s eyes as they snapped down — following the action, then snapped back up. Will’s lips pressed into a line, his eyes full of an aching sympathy. A horrible, awful understanding that neither of them would ever escape.

“It’s not easy,” Will said after a moment. Like Mike, he was whispering, and Mike wanted nothing more than to lean closer, but they were already so close. He had no idea how much closer he could dare to be, couldn’t fathom how close was too close. “It’s never been easy, Mike. And that — it sucks. But there are days where it’s easier than before. Days where it’s harder, too. Days where it’s both.”

Will stopped for a few seconds, his eyes focusing on some unseen middle-distance. Mike saw him deliberating on what to say, picking his words carefully, deciding in real time how honest was too-honest, how real was too-real. Mike wanted to grab him by the shoulders, shake him wildly, tell him, tell him, please, tell me everything, say it all. He wanted that honesty, craved it like he had craved very little else in his life before. 

He could read every expression on Will’s face, and decipher every code in the way Will’s body tilted, and the meaning in the way Will would squint his eyes at something. But, sometimes, he wished that Will would tell him his thoughts before Mike managed to puzzle them out himself.

“I don’t always know how I made it out of everything alive.”

Maybe Mike’s heart stopped.

Maybe it was time itself that did it.

It all stilled, and he stared at Will, ears buzzing, limbs tingling with shock. Suddenly, the truth sounded a lot more scary. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for it, but it wasn’t just about what he wanted. Will needed this, too. Mike was more certain about that than he’d ever been about anything.

Will whispered, “There were so many times I thought that I wouldn’t. That we wouldn’t. That we’d lose. Sometimes, I — I think of El, and it feels like we lost anyway. Like we still got everything wrong when she died. I don’t know how to fix that. How to change it, look at it different. I don’t think it’s something you fix. I think it’s just — something that grows with you. Something you carry around forever, even if you stop having bad days. Even if it’s not so much a bad day, as a bad hour, or — or a bad minute. It just—”

Will cut off, and somewhere in all this he'd begun to cry again, his words interrupted by a sharp hiccup of air. Mike lurched forward, hands rising in a half-aborted motion. Will’s hand slipped from his grip, replaced by the line of his jaw, the swell of his cheek. Mike didn't know what he was doing.

Will startled, and Mike watched the surprised little flutter of his lashes, the way his lips trembled just so. He wished he wasn't paying so much attention. He hated seeing Will cry.

The pads of his thumbs wiped at Will’s tears, and in this whole mess, Will raised a hand to Mike’s face. Mike’s eyes closed at Will’s delicate touch.

He hadn't realized when he'd started crying. Hadn't even felt the tears trailing down his face.

In one another’s gentle holds, Mike and Will both stilled. Careful, for a moment.

But they were Mike and Will. One of them let out a shuddering breath, and the both of them sank into one another like they'd never stopped doing things like this. Mike’s forehead met the expanse of skin connecting Will’s neck and shoulder, and he felt Will’s head as it leaned against his. Their shoulders rattled, or maybe their entire bodies trembled together.

“Fuck,” Mike breathed quietly, the soft material of Will’s shirt muffling it under his lips. Somewhere by his ear, Will released a choked laugh.

Mike’s hands gripped at the edges of Will’s shirt, and he could feel where Will’s fingers clutched at his shoulders, the nape of his neck. Their breaths came into rhythm, syncing slowly, easing them into one another. Will was warm, and he didn't seem to mind at all, the way his shirt was growing damp where Mike’s tears trailed and collected. A hand lifted from the back of Mike’s neck, combing softly through his hair, and the tension was slowly being bled out of him. He buried his face deeper into Will, raised a hand between them and indulged himself, pressed it flat to Will’s chest and felt the steady ba-dum of Will’s heart where it beat away, reassuring and real.

“Fuck,” Will echoed with another little laugh, too watery to be truly humorous.

Mike nodded, nudging himself closer, and Will turned in kind, opening himself up to Mike more. He didn't know how long they were there, pressed together like they were the only people in the world. He didn't care.

Will’s nails scratched lightly against his scalp, toying absently with the strands of his hair. Mike sighed, his breath puffing against Will’s neck, and he enjoyed the way Will shivered at it.

With his face hidden, he felt the truth as it bubbled to the surface far easier. He mumbled, his lips pressed to Will’s skin, “I’m glad you're here.” He pressed his fingers into Will’s chest, let them drag slowly down until he could let them rest on Will’s hip. He hoped Will understood what he meant. He knew Will was just as capable as reading Mike as Mike was with Will — he just hoped Will was paying attention. He hoped Will noticed him as much as he noticed Will. 

I’m glad you're here with me, he urged Will to understand, his breaths slow as he gave Will all his attention, all of himself entirely.

Will’s hands, the one in his hair and the one that had started tracing circles and stars into his shoulder, stilled. Will, his head still leaning against Mike’s, let out a long exhale. 

“We're here,” Will mumbled, “we're still here.”

They both knew keenly that it wasn't exactly enough. There would always be that empty space that would have perfectly fit El. There would always be something within each of them, waiting for the day she'd miraculously appear to fill it, as if she'd never left in the first place.

It was nice to dream about a world where she could, one day, if she wanted to. Or a world where she was filling space somewhere else, and had not simply left behind a permanent void that no one else filled. Mike struggled so often with the gap at his side where he longed for Will to be, and Will was still right here with him. A world where El’s void was permanent, and real, and unshakeable — it was daunting.

It was the world they lived in, despite Mike’s stories, despite the Party’s hopes, and Mike found himself fumbling poorly with how to go about it. How to deal with the El-shaped void in his life, and the El-shaped grief, and the El-shaped guilt. Mike had loved her. Not the way she'd needed, and not the way he'd wanted to love her, but he had. He had loved her so deeply, and now the world felt off-kilter without her, when every future he'd imagined had involved him, and Will, and the Party, and El.

He missed her. He missed her desperately, and knew he had no one to blame for it but himself.

As if reading his thoughts, Will brought Mike against him. Tighter, closer. Like their proximity would ward off the way the wounds within Mike ached and bled.

Mike tightened his hold in kind, trying to memorize this. The feeling of it, the weight. The warmth.

His guilt did not disappear, and his anguish didn't cure itself, but Will’s presence was steady.

He was comfortable, and as patient and as kind and as loving as ever. And he understood Mike better than anyone. He understood how it felt to miss El with everything he had.

Mike buried himself in Will’s arms, and relished in the feeling of being known.

→

One of Will’s legs had been kicked casually over Mike’s lap for the past half-hour. 

It had been a few days since Will had brought him home, since they had talked — since Mike had felt like the world had been bearing down upon him. It had been a few days, and every day since, Will had shown up at Mike’s front door, no plan, no expectation — just there. Sometimes he’d show up alone, sometimes with the Party tagging along. Mike had always let him in, feeling lighter for it. It was another day, and Will and Mike had been existing in the basement together for hours. For the past half-hour, they'd both contented themselves to reading. Trying to, at least.

Mike had been using Will’s leg to prop up the book he was reading, and Will had been holding a comic in the air above his face, laid out along the length of the couch as if he owned the space. He practically did. Mike watched, not entirely subtle, as his expressions occasionally morphed to replicate whatever panel he was studying.

Nearby, the radio was crackling out some vague tunes, a singer Mike didn’t recognize crooning out lyrics he didn’t know. Every once in a while, Will would huff, aggravated at the actions or dialogue. Mike’s book was interesting, but certainly not enough to distract him from Will’s baffled look when something happened on the page he’d flipped to.

“God,” Will grumbled, hands flopping down, the comic tossed lightly aside. The pages flapped loudly as it hit the floor somewhere. “Who wrote this? None of them would have said or done any of that!”

Mike, who had already gone through the stages of processing and getting over how the comic had disappointed him so severely, before he’d graciously lent it to Will, simply laughed at his frustration. In retaliation, Will’s socked foot kicked him in the thigh. Mike used his book as his defense, whacking Will’s leg without any real strength behind it.

Will continued to voice his protest, “I mean, the previous volumes were all so well-written! This one was so… Bad.” He threw his hands up, as if to emphasize his point. Mike agreed with him, but he enjoyed Will’s minorly-grievanced pout far too much to reveal that so easily. He smiled, mischievous, and Will was already glaring daggers at him before he opened his mouth.

“I mean, that one bit with the—”

“No, Mike,” Will interrupted fiercely, pointing an accusing finger, “you are not going to defend that at all. I don’t want to hear it. I know you definitely hated it as much as I did.”

Will’s expression eased when Mike started to laugh, and he only seemed partially reluctant as he sat up, reaching over to grab the comic from the ground and dump it a hint more politely onto the coffee table.

“That was bullshit,” Will said decisively. “And you are evil for recommending it to me, knowing it’d end like that. Seriously. That could’ve gone so much better. You wrote better endings to your stories when we were in kindergarten.”

Mike hummed, amused as Will lifted his leg off Mike’s lap in order to sit criss-cross on the couch. He didn’t bother mourning the contact, patting the spot next to him. Will immediately shuffled closer, leaning against Mike’s side and shooting his book a curious glance. “My stories in kindergarten ended with Will the Wise and Mike the Brave flying to Jupiter on the back of a dragon.”

Will shrugged one shoulder. “Exactly my point.”

“Dragons and Jupiter fall into two entirely different genres, Will, it didn’t make any sense.” 

Will shook his head, insistent and stubborn as ever. “But it was good. It was, at the very least, entertaining.” He threw the comic a frown. “I think one of the worst parts of that ending was that I was bored out of my mind while it was all happening. Who could have possibly guessed that the one guy — Jordan? Jimmy?”

“Jeremy,” Mike supplied. Will nodded.

“Right, him. It was so obvious he wasn’t going to die, even though he was a side character who could’ve died to up the stakes a little. And then no one died at all! I was expecting at least one character to die.”

Mike closed his book, barely bothering to memorize the page he was on as he put it aside. He was having far too much fun to pay it any mind.

“Okay,” he said, intentionally withholding from agreeing outright with Will. Will knew it, too — his scowl was only a little exaggerated when it was aimed Mike’s way. He grinned at Will, toothy and wide. “Okay, so how would you write it, then?”

“I wouldn’t write it at all. Why do you think I keep you around?” Will paused, irritation dissipating. “Storyteller,” he added, tone fond, eyebrows raising. Mike huffed another laugh, feeling ridiculous as his cheeks warmed.

“Is that all I am to you?” He made sure to sound a bit petulant, his hands rising to grab at Will’s wrists. “Just here to tell you stories?” 

Will chuckled, leaning into him, pliant and warm in his grasp. “Well, no. You’re still my paladin too, right? Stories and divine spells, and all that. Cool armor, awesome swords. The stories are mostly just a bonus.”

Mike tried to ignore the burst of nostalgia that erupted within him, especially when it dragged with it hints of regret. He tried especially hard not to let it show on his face, but Will was always able to understand him so easily, often before Mike understood himself. Will’s head tilted, smile dimming as he took in the shift in Mike’s expression, the subtle change in the air around them.

“Mike?” Will’s tone softened, questioning.

Mike cursed himself for causing this abrupt switch, cursed himself for draining the lighthearted mood from the room.

“It’s nothing,” he excused, aiming for sincerity. “I’m just — I haven’t really thought of myself as much of a paladin, you know? It’s… It’s been a while. Surprised me, is all.”

Will frowned, thoughtful, and nodded slowly. “Alright,” he said. “Well, that’s easy, then. You’ve always been a paladin. Mike the Brave. That’s always how I’ve seen you.”

His heart stuttered a little at the admission, at how Will made it sound so simple, like basic fact. But it wasn’t — it wasn’t that easy, and it wasn’t fact at all. “But I’m not brave. I’ve never been brave. I’ve always been—”

He couldn’t say that he’d always just been scared. No, he’d been terrified so many times in his life. He’d felt like he’d nearly gone insane in his teen years, he’d felt like his heart had nearly beat itself out of his chest on more than one occasion. He’d never been anything more than a petrified little boy, trying desperately to find direction.

He still felt like that, sometimes.

“I’ve been scared before, too,” Will pointed out, when it seemed clear that Mike wasn’t going to finish what he’d started. “I was scared all the time. I thought I was going crazy for so long.”

Will’s eyes shone with a deep affection, a deeper knowledge. He knew Mike just as Mike knew Will. It was inevitable, really, that they’d recognize each other’s fears even before recognizing their own. That was just how they were — how they always seemed to be. Mike swallowed, trying to dislodge the lump in his throat.

“You were always the one who made me feel like I didn’t have to be so scared, Mike. You were the one I thought of when I wanted to remind myself how to be brave. It was always you. When I felt like I was going crazy, you — you didn’t let it happen to me alone. You might not see it, but you’ve always been braver than you give yourself credit for. I…” Will trailed off, the silence between them holding something back. Something huge, and heavy. Mike watched the way Will’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed, and watched his lips part around a gentle, nervous exhale.

Mike watched as a litany of expressions crossed Will’s face. Will gently eased his wrists out of Mike’s hold, and Mike felt a pang in his heart, his eyes dropping to catch the way Will pulled away from him. 

“I think you’re so brave, Mike. I wish you could see that.”

They both knew it wasn’t what Will had wanted to say. Mike saw it in the way Will looked off to the side, lips twisted in a guilty grimace. 

Mike thought Will was brave. Brave enough to face monsters, both human and not, all his life — brave enough to be himself, brave enough to be kind and gentle despite everything the world had tried to drown him under. Mike had never been brave like Will.

He wanted to be.

He reached out, slipping Will’s hand into his own. Will’s eyes snapped to his, sudden and surprised.

“I don’t think I’m brave, like you say I am,” he whispered. “But maybe I still can be. Not with facing down monsters, and alternate dimensions, but… Maybe with other things. Things that shouldn’t be scary at all, but definitely still are.” He smiled, trying to coax one out of Will. “Like old ladies who think they can just pinch your cheeks, out of the blue, or something.”

“Mike,” Will chided, huffing, “you can’t — old ladies are not scary.”

“Heights?”

Will was settling back into place. Mike felt himself relaxing, inch by inch, along with him.

“Since when have you had a fear of heights?”

He thought back to chilled November days, his best friend gone, air whipping past him, eyes watering, arms wildly flailing as if he could still catch himself.

“I don’t, not really. It always felt dumb to let myself be scared of stuff like that, after everything we’ve seen. But, like, if I’m coming up with a list of new fears I should have, you know? Heights? That's a pretty good one.”

Finally, Will laughed again, head shaking a little, and Mike felt the world as it fell back into its proper place. He didn’t bother fighting his own smile, relieved as the tension released.

“I don’t think you should be scared of anything new,” Will mused, giving in and indulging Mike. 

“I can’t exactly be brave if I’m not afraid of anything.”

Will snorted. “You’re annoying.”

“I’m right,” Mike grinned. 

“Sure. I think I’m still afraid of the dark, sometimes. When I’m alone.”

Mike used his grip on Will’s hand to turn it palm-up, his thumb coming in to rub circles into the warmed skin. Will’s fingers spasmed a little. He nodded, thinking of ways to remedy Will’s fear, an instinctive reaction. Will is afraid? Okay, how do I make it better?

He was quick to reel himself in. Was it the point, for them to solve one another’s fears? Or simply to be there for each other? Was Mike meant to be brave for Will, here, or for himself? A small part of him questioned why they couldn’t manage both. 

Will nudged him. “I think you’re overthinking this.”

Okay. That’s fair. “I think I am,” Mike conceded, nodding. 

“I also still think you’re brave. And if you want to be, you can still be a paladin. Mike the Brave. You’re the one writing the story, Mike. You can write everyone else’s as much as you want, but — you still gotta write yours, too.”

“I will,” Mike said, and he meant it.

Will looked at him, long and hard, and seemed satisfied by whatever he found. Mike wanted to know what he saw. Wanted to know if Will understood every fleeting emotion, and every constant ache that Mike felt. He wanted to make it obvious. 

He wanted to write a different story.

“Can I give your story another go?” He asked, lowering his voice, leaning in, watching closely as Will followed his example. Any closer and their noses would bump, or their foreheads would knock together gently. Will regarded him curiously.

“I thought I just said you had to write your story,” he said, pointedly nudging his knee against Mike. Mike snorted softly.

“I know, I know. I will. But maybe I want to redo yours. Give you more to work with. …If that’s what you want?”

Will’s eyes were beautiful, and Mike focused on the way they switched between his own. Looking from his right eye to his left and back, and Mike wanted to waver under the intensity of Will’s gaze. He didn’t. Wouldn’t.

“Okay,” Will agreed. “Give me your best.”

Mike smiled, charmed by the way Will already seemed so incredibly captivated. He hadn’t even started yet.

He took a deep breath, coiling the words together in his mind. Envisioning them carefully, piecing them together. Give me your best, Will had said, and Mike wanted to laugh at the idea of ever giving Will anything less.

“I think… I think Will the Wise will go wherever he wants. He’ll go somewhere beautiful, where he can paint anything his heart desires. He’ll see the world and how far it stretches, so much farther than the small village he came from. He’ll learn about himself, and he’ll find places and people — people new and old — that will always love him. His paintings will be loved, and he’ll get famous from how talented he is. He’ll have everything he could ever want, because he deserves it.” He paused, swallowing, before he met Will’s eye. “You deserve it. College in whatever big city, where you can become the best artist in the world. And your art will sell for thousands, and go up in galleries, and everyone will admire it for years and years. You’ll make an impact on people. You’ll get — you’ll get more friends who love you more than anything, and you’ll have Hopper, and your mom, and Jonathan. You’ll have someone who loves you the way you want to be loved.” 

Will’s breath hitched, and he broke their shared look. Mike tilted his head, chasing Will’s eyes, to no avail. He didn’t let this discourage him. He wasn’t finished — not quite.

“You’ll talk with the Party all the time. Max, Lucas, Dustin — me. All the time. We’ll still talk so much that you’ll get sick of us, and we’ll meet up for holidays and birthdays and even more random stuff in between, and we’ll never drift apart. You’ll always have the Party.”

There was a weight to Mike’s words, and they could both sense it. A secret slipped under his words that he knew Will could hear.

You’ll always have the Party — you’ll always have me.

Mike took a breath, ready to keep going, to keep painting this picture for Will. Mike had never been able to paint. Will had let him try, had let Mike fumble with his watercolors, and press a little too hard with his oil pastels, and he had definitely ruined at least two canvases with his attempts at painting when they were young. He’d always been bad at it. Too uncoordinated, and a little too impatient and discouraged with his own glaring lack of talent. He’d always preferred watching Will paint. But — but Mike wanted this. He wanted to paint this for Will, wanted them both to be able to see it.

Will didn’t let him.

“Mike—” Will interrupted, blurting his words out in a rush, “—what do you want?”

That was easy.

“I want you to be happy, Will,” he said, immediate and earnest. If there was anyone he was so willing to bare this truth to, it was Will himself. 

“I,” Will started, stopping as his cheeks flushed pink. “I meant more about your story. What you want for you.”

If Mike was being blatantly honest with himself, that answer was just as easy. It was just… Harder to admit out loud. He hesitated, gut churning, heart beating away in his chest like a physical reminder of how nervous this question made him.

He knew what he wanted.

He’d known for so long, but he’d just — he’d never been brave, like Will. He’d never been able to look himself in the eye in his reflection and be content with what he really longed for. He couldn’t compare it, precisely, to his grief — uncontrollable and constant and heavy. But he could compare it in the way he’d shoved them both down, locking them away in the hopes that they would never be something he’d have to face. His grief and his love were both things he had tried so hard to hide from.

He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hide from them. Hide from himself. From the truth.

“I want to see our stories have a happy ending,” he answered at last, feeling his heart shrivel in his chest. 

Will closed his eyes, as if to shield himself from Mike’s omission.

He let out a shuddering breath.

“Will—”

“Tell me something else,” Will whispered, eyes still squeezed shut. “Tell me about — about the person you mentioned. The one who loves me. What — what’s he like?”

Oh.

“Oh,” Mike said stupidly. “Oh, uhm. He’s — well… He’s someone who knows you. That’s one of the important things, I think. That he knows what you like, and who you are. He knows your favorite color, and your favorite candy, and your favorite movies. He knows what type of flowers you like, and — and he’ll know that you like to make puns, and dumb jokes, even if they’re not really funny—” Will poked him a little harshly, his brows furrowed cutely and his lips forming a pout. Mike grinned, and kept going before Will could protest. “He knows,” he spoke through a soft laugh, “about all your weird little quirks and how to know what you want before you ask. And he’ll pose for you if you ever need a reference for your art — or maybe a muse? And he’ll make you coffee in the mornings while you’re still waking up and acting like you’re still half-asleep on your feet. And he’ll figure out what nights are good for movie nights. He’ll listen to your music as long as you also listen to his. He’ll take you on nice dates, and he’ll make you laugh, and he’ll be someone you can be yourself with. He’ll — he loves you.”

Will’s eyes had opened, as Mike had tried so desperately to paint this picture for him. His pretty hazel eyes had been carefully trained on Mike’s face, and at some point this had become less of a comfort, and more the reason behind the way his heart was thundering in his chest. His cheeks felt ablaze with heat, and he vaguely worried about how red he might have looked in the moment. But — Will’s cheeks and neck had flushed a vivid, alluring shade of pink, nearly distracting Mike from his story.

Will looked like he did whenever he was putting down the finishing details on a painting, his eyes sharp and focused, his lips slightly parted, his brows furrowed faintly enough to not crease his skin, but to still be obvious compared to when his expression was lax. Mike felt — insane, maybe. Just a little.

He was just about to keep going, about to keep trying to frame this perfectly for the perfect boy in front of him, when Will stopped him short.

“Mike. Do you, uh…” He looked, for a split-second, unsure. Hesitant. But then his expression smoothed itself out, and he nodded once, as if assuring himself of something. Will asked, “Do you have any idea what this guy… Looks like?”

“Uhm.” Shit. Mike let out a little hiss of air. “... No? I mean — whatever your type would be, maybe?” Will was still watching him closely, and Mike saw the corner of his lips quirk upwards. “Taller?” He guessed, voice pitching. “Do you — I mean, like, what sort of guys are you— do you—”

“I like guys with darker hair,” Will interrupted, saving Mike from his own idiocy. “Not exactly long hair, but I wouldn’t mind it. I didn’t think I’d like guys with long hair much, but…” He trailed off with intent, his eyebrows raising meaningfully. “And freckles. I think guys with freckles are cute. It’s nice when they’re taller, too. Maybe on the lankier side — I’ve never really been into jocks.”

Mike managed to gain control of his lungs, which had been fighting very valiantly to simply freeze and stop working. Now would be the worst time to die.

“So, you like — nerds, then?”

Will nodded, self-assured. “Nerdy guys. Someone who’d be willing to watch Star Wars over and over with me, and still get worked up over talking about the logistics of the Death Star, and how much he likes Star Destroyers. Someone into D&D. Maybe a guy who had a dinosaur phase, as a kid.”

“Right.” Maybe Mike was still dying, a little, but he knew where this was leading. Hell, he’s the one who had started it. He’d know your favorite color — yellow, and your favorite candy — Reese’s pieces, and everything there was that made Will Byers, Will Byers.

“I’ve never really thought much about physical traits having a big impact on who I’m in love with,” Will informed him, and Mike’s heart tripped over itself in his chest and he fought down a sputtering cough as a result. Will smiled at him cheekily, knowing exactly what he was doing. Mike didn’t hate it. “But maybe it’d be nice if he had sharper features. A nice face to draw all the time.”

Mike was close to bursting at the seams, and his voice was breathy and incredulous when he asked, “You’ve drawn me?”

Will looked at him as if to say obviously. “A lot,” he confirmed anyway, his blush darkening. Mike took in the sight greedily, drinking it up and committing it to memory. “Too much, maybe.”

“For how long?”

Mike asked it, and the question lingered in the air. It felt loaded, and Will stared at him for a long moment. His gaze was soft, his smile warm. 

It wasn’t just Mike asking how long Will had been drawing him, and they both knew it.

“Maybe forever,” Will replied, hushed and careful. Mike’s breath caught for a moment, before it slipped out of him and he leaned forward. Their foreheads thudded softly together and his eyes squeezed shut, his own blush like fire all over his face. 

“Jesus.” He whispered between them, his reward Will’s easy laughter from right in front of him.

“Mike,” Will’s hand brushed against the side of his neck, collecting the loose curls of hair and sweeping them back. “I… Really like that story,” Will laughed again, light and like he could hardly believe what he was saying, what they were doing. Mike lifted himself away from Will, if only to look him in the eyes again. He looked — content. Still flushed so prettily, his smile just for Mike. Mike wanted to kiss him.

Fuck, Mike wanted to kiss him so badly.

“I like it too,” he agreed, sounding breathless — which, was a little embarrassing, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care. “It doesn’t just have to be a story. Not one about Will the Wise. Just you. Will. And…” He hesitated, biting at his lips as if that could contain his wants, his love. “And — me? If… If that’s what you want. If I’m what you want.”

Will’s expression cracked, and in it he witnessed relief and joy and a want that mirrored his, and guilt and shame and fear that looked so much like his own. “‘If’,” Will echoed, voice thick with unshed tears, his eyes shining. 

“Mike, I’ve wanted you for so long.”

For forever, he’d said, mere moments ago.

Will was going to say it — he was going to take that leap, Mike could see it. The leap, the one that Mike had been so scared of for so many years, so afraid of what would happen if he didn’t make it all the way across, or worse, what would happen if he did.

Will was going to take that leap first, and Mike wanted that. He wanted to meet Will on one side, and it didn’t matter which. 

But more than that, Mike wanted to be brave. Brave like he knew Will was. Brave like Will believed him to be.

He had to take the leap.

He had to be the one to do this, because he would only ever be Mike the Brave if he had Will the Wise with him. He had to do this, because he was right when he was with Will. Will wasn’t his best friend because of instinct, or some divine fate, or destiny — Will was his because he’d made the leap when they were both just two little kids on a blue and yellow swingset. He’d chosen Will, and it was the best thing he’d ever done. Now, he — he wanted to do it again. He wanted to take the leap. He wanted to say it.

He wanted to say—

“I’m in love with you, Will,” he blurted out, watching as Will’s eyes widened, and his mouth fell open into a perfect little ‘o’. “I’ve loved you for — for forever,” he echoed, feeling tears sting his eyes. He couldn’t stop them, and honestly, he didn’t even want to. He just wanted Will to see him — all of him, and he didn’t want to hide it.

“I want to love you for as long as we’re here. I want to laugh at your stupid puns all the time, and buy you new paints when you’re running low. I want to be there when you’re famous because of your incredible art, and I want to write stories for the characters you paint, and I want us to make things together like we always wanted to as kids — comics that don’t have shitty endings that we both hate. I want us to be in whatever big city we want. I want us— I— I want you. I love you. I don’t know how to not love you. I never have.”

It was a rush of words, a flood of feelings spilling over, a dam breaking with a resounding, definitive crash. It was like an avalanche, and he was tumbling down with it, heart pounding in his chest as Will stared at him. 

His heartbeat was loud in his own ears, and he felt like it was lodged in his throat, felt like his heart was everywhere and in all the wrong places and thundering so loudly he could hardly hear, could hardly comprehend anything.

It wasn't silence that stretched between them. No, the radio was still playing some random song, and if he listened closely he could hear his mom in the kitchen, dishes rattling, and Holly shouting something from the second floor and his mom shouting right back.

It wasn't silent, but Will hadn't — he was just staring at Mike, his eyes wide, almost looking as if he was still processing, and that was totally fine, but Mike had just poured his heart out and then coughed it up into Will’s exposed palm, so, sorry if he was a little nervous about this—

“Will,” he rasped, nearly choking on the sole syllable. “Please say something.”

But Will didn't say anything.

He didn't have to — he'd never had to before. Mike had always understood him through wordless actions, from the simple nod of a head to the twitch of a finger. Why would that change now?

And, besides all that—

Will’s upper body pitched forward, his balance falling into him as Will’s lips crashed into Mike’s. 

It was harsh contact, almost painful, noses bumping and teeth clacking, but that didn't deter either of them. The air ripped itself from Mike’s lungs in his startled state, his mind lagging, body tensing for a second, just one—

He couldn't stop to think. He didn't even try. 

Will pulled away, a harsh breath hitting Mike’s chin, his lower lip, before Will was closing the gap between them. Readjusting, and it was Mike finally catching up — tilting into it, hands lifting to pull Will closer, closer.

This was — decidedly not Will saying something. Not verbally. But that didn't matter, it’d never mattered. The answer was spelled out in the way their lips met again and again, breaking for a split-second, panting breaths and then coming in again with something that felt like hunger, felt a lot like want. His fingers pressed hard into the line of Will’s jaw, the skin of his bicep, and Will’s hands cupped his cheek, the side of his neck, steady weight as his head filled with a haze, a thick fog that spelled out one word— Will, Will, Will.

Over and over, just Will, his warmth and his touch and his lips and the fabric of his shirt and the way he gasped into Mike’s mouth, their breaths mixing, their bodies buzzing with a shared energy, a shared longing, their eyes opening in sync and locking together, and—

Will’s lashes fluttered, his mouth breaking from Mike’s, pulling back, away — Mike chased him, chased him like he always wanted to and always chose to, but the hand on his cheek swiped over his bottom lip, wet with spit, and Mike had to pause. He had to take in the way Will stared at him, pupils blown, his lips still shiny and parted and his breath ragged, and—

“Holy shit.” 

Will’s eyes lifted to meet his, letting out an incredulous little breath of air. It ghosted across Mike’s heated skin, and he was captured by the way Will’s mouth — the mouth he’d just kissed — turned up at the corners. Amused, fond.

“Holy shit,” Will echoed, his voice a delightful rasp. His eyes lowered, taking in the sight of Mike again, and Mike could tell that Will was trying to memorize this.

A small voice at the back of his head wondered if Will would try and draw this, later. Something in his stomach fluttered embarrassingly at the thought.

Will suddenly asked, “Was that — was that okay?” Mike wanted to laugh.

Okay — he did laugh, but only a little. Will made a face.

“Do you think I just kissed you back because it wasn't?”

Will’s hand, the one that had been cradling his neck, slid down his side, pinching at the skin over his ribcage as if to scold him. It hardly hurt. “Okay, well, sorry I wanted to, to check—”

Mike kissed him.

It was quick. A peck, and no more. Will stopped talking immediately.

He looked at Mike, really looked at him; Mike could see the way Will was taking him in. Noting down details, filing away the ways light and shadow fell across Mike’s face, mixing together paints on the palette in his mind as he looked Mike in the eyes, and traced the bridge of his nose, and followed the curve of his lips. Mike watched Will study him, watched the canvas in Will’s mind gradually fill itself in.

Slowly, Will nodded. 

“Okay,” he breathed, his touch reverent where it trailed across Mike. It was exploratory, in a way — Will’s palm curling over his shoulder, his opposite hand running over the bumps of Mike’s spine. Mike shivered at the sensation, leaning into it. Into Will.

He didn't touch Will, not in the same way, not yet. It was a glaring want, rooted so deep into him that his fingers spasmed softly where they held onto the boy before him. But, highlighted in warm yellow tones in his mind, there stood the understanding that he had time for it. He didn't have to rush.

He breathed, slow and deep, and found that he'd done it. He'd made the leap, and now there was this — the other side. 

The world wasn't crumbling beneath him, threatening to drop him right into the abyss he’d crossed, and it certainly wasn't about to end again. They'd already dealt with the end of the world, and they were here — the pads of Will’s fingers now sweetly running over the swell of Mike’s cheek, his eyes lidded, his smile gentle where it curled upwards.

Will’s breaths matched his, and there was a moment of quiet. Not silence — his mom was still in the kitchen, and the radio was still singing faintly. Outside, somewhere, a kid was screaming at the top of their lungs. The world was moving, shifting, and Will was here with him.

He felt light.

He felt warm.

He stared at Will, and Will was staring softly — so, so softly back.

Mike thought, in that faint way where the idea crossed your mind, and faded quietly away in the face of something beautiful, that this was nice. 

This was perfect.

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