Chapter Text
Will,
Sorry for rushing straight to the point. You know how forward I can be sometimes. I guess I am just trying to get the words on paper before I think about it too much and erase them or just throw the letter away completely.
I am thinking about coming to New York over winter break. After Christmas sometime. For a week. Maybe a bit longer, depending on the tickets and stuff. I knew you wouldn’t be back in Hawkins with your mom being in Montauk now and all. And, I just needed to see you. We have so much to catch up on. So much that can't be fit into letters or phone calls.
Lucas is visiting with Max in California after Christmas. And Dustin and Steve have some kind of stupid ski trip planned in Colorado over break. (God knows why, I still don’t understand what possessed them to go skiing). So, I thought it’d be cool if we hung out. And I kept thinking about you and how you said the city gets quieter with the cold, which I didn’t believe at the time, but I keep thinking about it anyway.
Northwestern’s been fine. Cold, definitely loud. I guess college is just supposed to be loud, right? Lucas says hi, by the way. He says he's proud of you, which I think is his way of saying he misses you.
I don’t really have a plan. I just want to see you. Maybe we can walk around. And I can get one of the stupid ‘I Heart New York’ shirts. Go full-blown tourist mode while you show me around the city. Or we can stay in because it’s fucking freezing right now. I can only imagine what late December is like there. I’ll figure out a place to sleep, so don’t worry about that.
You don’t have to say yes right away. Or at all. I just thought I’d ask before everything gets crazy with finals.
Write back when you can.
-Mike
Will rereads the letter a couple of times. His eyes dancing over the familiar handwriting, the letters too angular, too urgent, too slanted. Handwriting he had pored over and dissected for years, a clear and separated print. Mike had always pressed too hard with his pens or pencils, snapping several of Will’s own writing utensils he borrowed during class or D&D campaigns over the years. Will can feel it with his hands ghosting over the writing, like he could recognize this writing even if he were blind.
The words: coming, New York, winter break, to see you, reverberate in his skull, shellshocked like someone had placed a bomb in his hands and it just blew up in his face. This letter was definitely a bomb, he thought, a hundred percent. He rereads the letter again, slower this time, to see if he had actually hallucinated the whole thing.
Nope, still said the same thing. His eyes hovered on the line, “I just wanted to see you.” The crazy, sick, and twisted part of Will’s brain could swear that the ink of those six words had grown darker, like Mike must have paused, pressed harder, thought better of it, and kept going.
But that was the sick and delusional part of Will’s brain. There’s a small correction in the third paragraph, a word scratched out and replaced just above it. It’s cramped yet so apologetic. Will knows that move. He knows Mike has always hated wasting space.
His dorm is quiet. Not sharing a dorm room with anyone was a perk most of the time, but now there’s a dangerously subdued nature in the air, like his eardrums have exploded. If it weren’t for the hum of the radiator doing its lackluster job releasing a small bit of warmth into the room, Will could have sworn that he was deaf.
The quiet. It lasted all of two seconds before a car horn blew, the bustle of the streets outside his window intensified, and someone slamming a door down the hall from his dorm flooded into his senses. Some auditory reflex must have been working into overdrive to protect his ears from the cacophony of sound all at once.
Write back when you can. That sentence had weight to it. Will knows that sentence could actually crush him. It’s a line that requires responsibility; it means seeing Mike in the flesh again.
“Fuck,” Will swears under his breath. He folds the letter back up the same way Mike had folded it into the envelope and sets it on his cluttered desk.
Maybe he was overreacting; Mike was being perfectly normal. This is what happens in adulthood: friendship becomes a once-a-year meeting ground for catching up, nostalgia, and reminiscing on old times' sake. Then, you schedule the next meeting for sometime next year where you repeat the same conversations. Eventually, you quit rescheduling those once-a-year meetings because life has moved you too far away from each other to the point where those nostalgic conversations don’t even feel like a distant memory, and more like someone else's life. No point rehashing memories with someone from another lifetime. God, he was spiraling, wasn’t he?
Mike was always different from any other friendship he had, though. Maybe any other person in his life. Of course, they had the sweet, nostalgic memories of board games, biking in the summer, and sleepovers. Like every other childhood friendship. But there was always going to be that rot underneath for them. A death, a sickness, that seeps into the foundation of their relationship.
Mike knew him. Really knew him. He knew why he hated backroads at night, hated when it was too cold in his dorm room, how the cold would seep into making him feel like his body didn’t belong to himself. Or why he hated when he got an itch on the back of his neck.
Mike knew things that Will had never said out loud. He knew about the nightmares, the way Will would wake up, sweat trickling down his brow, his chest pulsing, breathing heavy, like he had been running from something. Of course, Mike knew he had been running from something; he had been running since he was twelve years old through Mirkwood to his shed, where he. Stop. Not now.
And worse than that, Mike knew the truth Will had been carrying like a low, persistent noise, something he’d feared would become unbearable if he sat with it for too long. The wanting. The wanting that he carried for so long, before he even knew what it meant himself. The wanting had no name for it till they were thirteen, in the rain, embarrassed and shaking. It’s not my fault you don’t like girls.
There it was. The truth, and Mike was the one who really made it stick. After years of his father's slurs and sissy comments, hallway taunts between classes, Mike was the one who finally prescribed his fate to him. Queer.
It was worse because Mike encapsulated the wanting. It attached itself to him quietly, at an early age, on a swingset and in an innocent conversation. Will hadn’t even noticed it till it was everywhere, consuming his mind, body, and soul. That was what Will was really afraid of. Not that Mike would come or leave. But that Mike would come and stay the same. Give him those same kind brown eyes while his brows faltered. Devastatingly familiar.
Even with how much Will had changed living in the city, he knew all of that progress would dissolve the instant he laid eyes on Mike Wheeler. The new life he had created for himself here, the city Will. The Will, whose shoes hit hard concrete etching down the steamy, filthy streets, where the yellow glow from the city’s air pollution guided his path with people who were like him. To go to places that were for people like him. Places that glowed, flashed neon. Places where he would drink, and boy did he drink, maybe a bit too much at times. Hell, he was in college, and he was kidnapped by interdimensional monsters as a child, so he believed that lent him some grace to binge drink on the weekends.
Will picked up the letter from his desk and pressed his fingers against the crease of the folded letter, hard, hard enough that it hurt. Trying to imagine and repeat the motion Mike’s hand did to the same letter. Outside in the cold November air, the West Village raged on, loud, at a constant motion that doesn’t allow anyone to truly catch it.
A week, Mike had written. Maybe longer.
Seven days were nothing.
Seven days were everything. Will reached for a pen.
Penn Station fucking sucked. Somehow, there were pigeons everywhere, children were crying, and the intercom telling travelers information was just too damn loud. Will should have anticipated how crowded the station would be just so soon after Christmas. Disorientation had started to set in after the third time being hit by someone's luggage. Will was too polite to ever be a real New Yorker. So, he just let the bags of travelers abuse him in the overcrowded, foul-smelling station.
Checking his watch, it was half-past noon, Mike should be here anytime now. They had settled the details over the phone at the beginning of December. Mike would arrive the day after Christmas and just sleep on his dorm floor. He argued with Mike that there was no sense in spending money on a hotel with Will living basically in the heart of the city.
Will shifted from one leg to the other, standing off to the side so he could at least avoid some of the heavy foot traffic. Then, he saw him.
His lanky frame awkwardly navigating the considerable crowd. His body had always looked like it had grown tall, too fast, without him even realizing, leaving him too gangly. His hair was tossed and curly; it was messy, like a flood of dark curls framing just above his eyebrows. His features sharp, eyes tired, only a light dusting of splotchy freckles across his angular nose showed off his youth still. He had drawn that face so many times. Michael Wheeler. His Mike.
Even though Will saw him first, Mike’s eyes caught Will closely after. His face instantly contorted from mild annoyance from the crowd to a shy, soft smile. Pushing past people, making a beeline for Will. Will’s feet develop a mind of their own, allowing himself to be pulled to Mike.
“Will!” Mike called through the noise, finally reaching him. Stable arms reached around Will’s shoulders. A solid, tight hug, Will reciprocated it without problem. He smelt the same, a comforting smell in this nasty-ass station, a mix of laundry detergent, stale basement, metallic notes, and coffee. It was almost intoxicating after months without seeing him. Will felt his head spin a bit.
“God, I missed you so much,” Mike said, giving one last squeeze before releasing Will. Somehow, his brain drifted years back and miles away to Lenora, awkward side hugs, and crumbled paintings. That was different. Of course, it was because Eleven was—. Will tensed internally. He couldn’t think about her now, not with Mike standing in front of him. It was like performing psychological torture on himself.
“It’s been a bit. I’ve missed you too,” Will finally let out, fully breathless. It was true, he missed Mike so much. Now, here he was, in front of him, and he was still goddamn gorgeous. No amount of pushing it down and praying would ever take away just how stunning Mike was to him.
“So, wanna show me around the concrete jungle or what?” Raising his eyebrows up towards Will, “I think I wanna see the Big Apple after we stop by your dorm. Get lunch at some crappy diner, very Kerouac. Or pizza, like those turtles. Then, we can ferry to the Statue of Liberty. And maybe see the Twin Towers by sunset.” Mike trailed on, walking in front of Will like he knew where he was going when, in fact, it was his first time in New York.
“Whoa, whoa. Slow down, Mike, it's actually probably physically impossible if you wanna do all of that in one day. Unless you want bleeding ankles,” Will laughs, noticing Mike only had his backpack, the same one he has carried since he was a kid, “Plus, we have all week, so no rush.”
Mike looked back at Will, brown eyes holding his gaze, and spoke softly, eyes never leaving Will’s, “Ok, Will. I trust you, you lead the way.”
The icy wind nipped at Will’s face as the two walked back to his dorm. He thought about fetching a taxi to give Mike the real moviesque New York experience, but his dorm wasn’t far enough to constitute spending money on a cab. So, they walked in the December chill, while steam lifted from the sewer grates, and half-taken-down Christmas decorations littered the already dirty streets.
“I feel like Peter Parker,” Mike confessed, hands shoved in his coat pockets. His cheeks were maroon from the frigid air.
“Are your Spidey senses tingling yet? We kind of are walking through a shady area right now,” Will teased, still catching glances at Mike, taking him in to see if there had been any dramatic changes to him since they last saw each other in August.
“No, but also the cold might be fucking up my Spidey sense. Because right now, I can’t feel my damn feet, Jesus,” Mike huffed, clearly already exhausted from what little walking they had done. For being so lean, Mike was really unathletic, even when it came to simply walking.
“Spiderman’s senses are in his toes, huh. I must have missed that in the last edition,” Will taunted, flashing Mike a toothy grin. Mike rolled his stupid brown eyes. Despite everything, he was still Mike Wheeler.
“Shut up,” Mike shoved him lightly while they walked. “How much further anyway? I feel like I’m dying, Will.”
“Actually, we are on my block now,” Will and Mike turned the corner. Brownstones lined the street, fire escapes decorating the fronts of windows, this was what he had called home for the past four months. Home, that word had a sticky, metallic taste in his mouth. He wondered if pictures of Hawkins would always flash in his mind when he said it.
“Here we are,” Will stopped in front of the apartment building that housed his dorm.
“A lot cooler than Northwestern’s dorm, I swear those things should be condemned. I think the mold in them is definitely making me see shit at night,” Mike confessed, talking fast then abruptly stopping, like he didn’t just confess to having cognitive hallucinations, “Whatever, I wanna see inside.”
Climbing the stairs, Mike was out of breath. Telling him that his dorm was on the fourth floor and there was no elevator, Mike looked as if he had been shot.
Finally, drifting down the hall, they stood outside of Will’s door. His little placard with his name etched on it was covered in little doodles that friends had left after visiting. It always made Will smile faintly.
“Excuse the mess, also, I’m sorry it’s so small,” Will confessed, even though it was a lie. He had done a deep clean on it the weeks leading up to Mike’s arrival. No way he ever let Mike see him at his peak messy level. Will heard the lock click with his key, pushing the door open, allowing Mike inside.
Will fidgeted with his fingers as he watched Mike mentally examine and explore Will’s room. Something about this feels too intimate, like Mike was peeping into a secret corner of his mind and rummaging around in his brain.
Slowly, he trotted over to Will’s desk, drawings, art supplies, and photo frames of the party, and a family photo from when they were living in Lenora glanced up at Mike. He moved to his nightstand, where a window to the streets below sat above it. The nightstand was cluttered with books, pencils, and knick-knacks from his childhood. Mike looked at his posters adorning his wall over his twin bed: The Cure, New Order, Joy Division, The Smiths, and David Bowie. His eyes lingered on Bowie’s orange hair and red lightning makeup.
“He’s just so cool,” Mike confessed it as if he were only saying it to himself. He looked back at Will. This time, really, he’s looking at Will, a sharp ping of disbelief washes over his face, “Oh my God, you got your ear pierced!”
Hot embarrassment washes over Will instantly, like the right ear he pierced drunk with Carlton one night, burned. God, he did not need to think about Carlton, his weird hookup situation at the moment, while Mike was having a freak-out in his room about his earring. He fought the urge for his hand to fly up and cover it, “Uh... yeah. It was—it was just something I did on a whim.”
“God, no! I didn’t mean like—I just—I mean it’s cool! Like, really cool, something out of Labyrinth. You know. Bowie,” Mike pointed to the poster like Will didn’t know who David Bowie was, “I like it! It’s cool, like cool, cool.”
He knew Mike was an English major but apparently cool was the only adjective Mike knew. It takes Will a second to ingest the words and really sit with them.
“Yeah?” Will questions.
“Yeah,” Mike returns, glaze flickering toward his lips, a microsecond, a catch-it-or-you-miss-it glance.
“Okay,” Will wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Maybe he was being dramatic. He glanced back at Mike, who had a newfound interest in throwing his bag on Will’s floor, pulling all of his belongings out.
“Let me get unpacked,” Mike announced as he shook the contents of the upside-down backpack out. By the looks of his floor, it looked like Mike was already done unpacking with his clothes, toiletries bag, and books sprawled everywhere.
“So, what’s next?” Mike smiled, looking up at Will.
Seeing the city through Mike’s eyes, it felt like the first time he had visited with Jonathan back in late high school. Mike was awed at the little details Will had delightedly strolled past in his time living there. The subway, sirens, street vendors yelling, dollar slices, fire escapes. It was all noted by Mike with this sense of adoration; it made Will bubble up inside.
Having done enough walking for the day, Will decided to propose a new location.
“Wanna go grab drinks? There’s a bar close to my dorm I go to a lot, maybe we can sit and just catch up, you know,” Will spoke suddenly, feeling very shy, realizing all they had done was talk about the city, and nothing really about each other.
“Yeah, yeah. No, that sounds good,” Mike flashed him a smile.
The glow from Up & Up illuminated graciously up the stairs from its underground entrance below the streets. It was dusky dark, still hazy from the cold. Okay, the selfish part of Will needed a bit of liquid courage to unpack the last few months of his life to Mike Wheeler.
“It’s down there?” Mike questioned, pointing down the cement stairwell, glowing neon green.
“Yep, me and some friends come here to get a couple drinks in before we go out. It’s a nice place,” Will confessed, easing down the stairwell, letting Mike follow closely behind.
The smell of cigarette smoke, whiskey, and something almost woody hits his nostrils in a familiar fashion. However, seeing Mike standing in his college bar was slightly off-putting.
“I’ll get the first round,” Will spoke, leading Mike to the bar. Mike nodded and trailed after.
“Two rum and cokes, please,” Will flashed his fake. Honestly, he had no clue how it had gotten him this far. It was a really shitty fake, but it did the trick.
Mike was grinning like an idiot.
“What?” Will laughed out nervously.
“I didn’t know you were twenty-four years old,” Mike, sitting next to him, bumping his shoulder.
“Shush!” Will hissed, though there was no real panic in his voice, “You can’t get me kicked from one of my favorite spots.”
Mike was looking at him now, eyes tracing themselves over Will's face, etching around his nose, down his jaw, and lingering a second on his mouth. Will’s carefree ease was suddenly draining out of his body. Mike spoke softly, in that way he would always talk to Will when things really mattered.
“You know, you’ve just...changed so much. Not in a bad way or anything. But I can just tell you are different,” Mike’s eyes still tunnel visioned on Will.
No one is risking breaking the contact first. It was a beat too long. It was everything.
“Here you go!”
Two sweating, amber-colored glasses hit the bar in front of them with a clunk.
Will grabbed onto the drink like a lifeline; it was an out.
“So, tell me about rooming with Lucas?” Will questioned, thankful not to rehash the words Mike just spoke into the universe.
“God, he’s a maniac! He’s only taking 8 A.M.s and in the process wakes me up at the asscrack of dawn!” Mike trailed on, finally picking up his own drink, “Did I tell you about me walking in on him and Max during fall break?”
“No!” Will snorted.
“Well, get this! No warning. No sock on the doorknob, no sticky note saying stay the fuck out, nothing! And I just open the door to my own room, mind you, and boom! Max is on top of him and everything. I was mortified.” Mike was clutching his chest like an aghast Victorian woman.
“Way to kill their moment, Mike,” Will beamed with laughter, motioning to the bartender for another round.
“It’s my room too!” Mike, who was now bright red at the memory, threw back more of his drink. Sweet, stupid Mike.
Maybe they were drinking a bit too fast. Actually, from the looks of Mike, a bit too much, too. While Will had built up a tolerance for getting plastered every weekend, it seemed like Mike had not been honing those same skills. Yet, he still was matching Will drink for drink.
Mike and Will rambled on about classes, professors, books Mike had been reading, Lucas’ weird living habits, city living for Will, and Dustin’s new girlfriend. Toeing a careful line to not talk about the past, because talking about the past meant talking about Hawkins, and talking about Hawkins meant talking about her.
“I am just, I’m just so glad I came,” Mike was slurring, resting his head on the bar, “I’ve missed you so much, like too much. Like, there’s been so many little moments, where I see something and I’m like I have to tell Will. But, I just—you aren’t there,” Mike was toying with emotional territory. His head was still down on the bar, his hand moving up to his hair, making circles in his scalp.
The buzz under Will’s eyes from the alcohol was dulling as he watched Mike dangling slightly between plastered and blackout drunk.
“Mike, I think it's time we head back to my dorm,” Will went to stand, placing a hand on Mike’s shoulder.
“M’kay,” Mike muttered into the bar.
Navigating Mike out of the bar proved to be a challenge; he realized he had actually never seen Mike drunk before. He was practically clinging to Will. It's a physical closeness he can’t avoid. Pulling Mike up the stairs, the cold hits them violently.
“Shit,” Even with the flash of being hot and drunk, it’s still brutal on Will’s face.
Mike doesn’t seem to care that much, looking slightly pale in the face. Mike is still stumbling, fuck, how did he let this happen? Guilt poured over him. Will steadies him; it's all trials and tribulations back to his dorm.
If four flights of stairs knocked Mike on his ass sober, being drunk, it was a whole new battle. By the third flight, Will could see it in his face; he was getting sick. Finally, after knocking out the final flight, standing in his hallway, Mike looked over at him.
“Will, I—I think I’m—,” Mike gagged, hand recoiling to his mouth.
“Fuck, let me get you the bathroom,” Guiding Mike to the communal bathroom at the end of the hall.
The second he saw the toilet, Mike was already on the ground, lunging in front of it. Lurching up his lunch from earlier in a sick orange, splash in the porcelain basin. Will crouched on the dirty bathroom floor next to him, hand on his back, making small circles into his shoulder blades.
“Fuck, Will, I’m so sorry—” He was cut off by a second wave.
“No, no, I should be apologizing to you. This is my fault,” Will felt horrible. Why did he have to get him drunk on the first damn night, like he had no self-control. Why couldn’t they just talk like normal, sober human beings? Would he always be so scared of Mike?
Mike’s head was resting against the bowl, resting, sweat making the curls of his hair stick to his forehead.
“You know, I had fun tonight,” Mike said, still out of breath from the puking, “I haven’t gotten this drunk since me and Lucas’ first week of college.”
Will smiled, softly, basking in the sentiment, “Okay, let’s get you cleaned up.”
He hoisted Mike back up to his feet carefully. Mike was clutching onto him like Will was the only solid thing left in reality. Will ushered him back to his dorm, tripping over all the shit Mike had dumped on his floor earlier.
“Okay, let’s find you something to sleep in,” Will crouched to the ground, looking through Mike’s belongings.
Mike had already thrown himself onto Will’s bed.
“S’fine, I’ll just sleep in this,” Mike rolled into his sheets.
“At least let me take off your shoes,” Will moved to Mike’s feet, which were dangly off his bed. He untied the knots of his shoes and peeled his socks off, tossing them to the side.
“Okay, well,” Will huff, surveying the mess of his floor and the sight of Mike sprawled on his bed, “I’ll let you take my bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“No!” A panicked, almost sober, voice came from Mike, “No, I don’t wanna steal your bed. I’ll move to the floor, or you could just...you could sleep here with me. It’s no big deal, really,”
It was a monumental deal for Will. His vocal cords lost the ability to reverberate against each other, his brain blank, unable to form that little word no.
“Please,” Mike’s voice syrupy sweet, thick, the same voice he’d use on Will when they were kids. It was irresistible. Will was a weak man. Maybe it was from the lingering buzz causing the fluttering in his head.
Will cautiously threw off his own shoes, changing into some plaid pajama pants, because there was no way in hell, no matter how drunk he was, he was sleeping in jeans.
Moving toward the twin bed, Mike so kindly made a small place for him by practically shoving himself into the wall. Will settle in like he was moving through an active warzone. There was no space to be shy. This was not Mike’s queen-size bed back in Hawkins, that bed offered grace. Will’s bed did not. Mike was too close. Will tossed the comforter over them both. Mike's shoulder was practically setting his own on fire.
Then, something happened that made Will believe he was truly just black-out drunk and was imagining the whole thing. Mike reached for Will’s hand, sweaty and clammy. Setting Will’s own hand a blaze, tingling in his fingertips, his whole body tense. Mike enclosed his grip on Will’s hand. Will didn’t pull away.
It was the most stupidly innocent thing that made Will feel like his brain was short-circuiting. Sure, he's done more intense things with boys by this point that made this gesture look like nothing. But this wasn’t just anyone’s hand, this was Mike’s hand, wrapped around his. Close. So close.
Mike was muttering, clearly already drifting into unconsciousness, “I’m really glad I’m here, Will.”
Will Byers lay there still, “I am too.”
Suddenly, he was thirteen again in the rain. Then, somewhere in the desert at fourteen. Then, in a crowded room, where he laid his soul bare for everyone to see at sixteen.
It had been like no time had passed at all.