Archive of Our Own

Mike was missing again.

Not on purpose – at least, that’s what he would claim when someone inevitably tracked him down, because they would find him, even there, sitting high above Sattler Quarry with his legs dangling over the edge of the cliff he’d jumped from all those years ago, his noble leap of misguided faith that he hadn’t ever realized was an option until gravity was pulling him down through the air with hunger, falling filled with a horrible freedom that he never truly stopped thinking about. They would find him, just like they found him last time, and the time before that, and the time before that, and so on and so forth throughout the few yet eternal months it had been since everything came to a sudden, crushing end. He didn’t know how long he’d been out there, just that he’d woken up that morning with his bedsheets wrapped around his legs and his skin slick with sweat, the phantom-cold fingers of a nightmare still tangled in the folds of his brain leaving frostbite streaks in their wake as they reluctantly retreated to wait for the next time exhaustion won over his will, and he was on his bike pedaling away from the house as fast as his legs would let him with nothing but the clothes on his back when the sun was still only a thought hovering below the horizon.

He must’ve been gone for a few too many hours, though, because while he’d been staring down at the water where it beckoned to him from so nauseatingly far down, trying not to think about anything at all and failing miserably, the sun had reached its peak above him, burning down on him like a spotlight hot enough to make him sweat despite the mid-autumn chill in the air, then continued on its journey, reuniting with the curve of the world in the distance. It was a Saturday, so he wasn’t missing school or anything else important, he didn’t technically have to be anywhere, but he knew that when he didn’t so much as check in with the others on the walkie he’d left behind in his bedroom by lunchtime, they surely would’ve gotten concerned, and now that he was failing to be home for dinner, it wouldn’t be long until at least a handful of his friends and family were combing through the town and woods, calling his name. It wasn’t often that he found himself at Sattler Quarry on his too-frequent aimless wanderings, it wouldn’t be among the first places they would look for him, but still, they would come eventually if he didn’t go to them first. It wasn’t like he enjoyed making them worry, making them search praying they would find his soul and not just his body, entirely too similar to what they did for Will what felt like a lifetime ago, but the idea of biking back home felt impossible, and if he were honest, he didn’t trust himself to stand and drag his feet away from the cliff’s edge rather than shuffling the mere few inches further to plummet once again, only this time with no one to magically save him partway down.

A rustle of bushes behind him, the sharp snap of a twig breaking underfoot just before the tree line, right on schedule. Wiry anxiety curled around his ribcage, tightening enough to make it hard to breathe, but he made no move to acknowledge the presence behind him, slowly inching closer as if he were a wild animal they didn’t want to spook. He didn’t know who he’d prefer it to be, didn’t know if it even mattered when it always ended the same, someone finding him with a palpable relief that could only be born from too many times of not finding the missing, muttering about how worried he’d made everyone as they pull him away from the edge he was drawn to like a magnet, away from the shadows that clung possessively to the fraying threads of his clothes, away from the quiet hollowness that had carved itself a home in his bones. They would take him back home and fret over him like he’d actually done something, and he wouldn’t say a word the whole time, and they wouldn’t punish him for it, not really, but the looks of pity they’d give him that sparked burning, volatile anger in the pit of his stomach would be punishment enough.

Then, in a few days when the pull of isolation became too strong to ignore, he would vanish again, and they would find him again, a torturous, tiring cycle they’d all somehow become complacent in.

“Mike?”

Will. The boa-constricting pressure in his chest lightened the tiniest bit. Of all the people to find him, Will was one of the better ones. He understood, to an extent – he had a tendency to go missing, too.

“I found him, he’s safe.” He would’ve huffed at that, if he had the energy to do anything at all. He wouldn’t call any aspect of himself or his situation safe, but if Will was willing to lie to keep the others from coming to crowd around them, he certainly wouldn’t stop him. “We’ll meet you guys back at the house, over.” The others’ relieved acknowledgements crackled through Will’s walkie until he turned it off, pushing down the antenna, cutting them off from the rest of the world.

Without another word, Will closed the distance between them, carefully sitting next to Mike at the edge of the cliff with only a few inches of space between them, letting his legs hang over too, mirroring him. He could feel Will’s eyes pressing insistently into the side of his head, but he didn’t look over, keeping his own gaze pointed stubbornly down at the water. The sun was setting fast in the way it always did that time of year, like it, too, couldn’t stand to stay out in the creeping cold for long, and the shadows the fleeting light cast on the quarry began to infect the gentle blue water with dangerous, inky void, a darkness that would easily swallow the traces of him if he dared to let it. In the corner of his eye, he could see something in Will’s arms, and when Will held it out towards him, he finally pulled his focus away from the drop to look at it. Barely a shift of his eyes, not enough to even tilt his head, but he knew Will would notice anyways; he always did. Being offered to him was a thick bundle of familiar fabric – his coat, which he’d neglected to grab in his hurry to leave that morning. Suddenly, he was much more aware of the imposing chill, and a shiver sent goosebumps rolling across the bare skin of his arms that his t-shirt left exposed.

“I thought you might be cold.” Will held the coat out further, silently begging him to take it, to give any indication at all that he wasn’t too deep in his own head to recognize the presence next to him. He couldn’t bring himself to respond, couldn’t convince his body to even simply twitch a finger where his hands rested on his knees, and after a long stretch of stillness and silence, Will sighed, soft and resigned and impossibly, undeservingly patient. He brought the coat back to himself and unfolded it, shaking out nonexistent stiffness before reaching over and draping it across Mike’s shoulders, pulling it into place so that it covered his arms without him needing to clumsily shove them into the sleeves, a long-practiced unspoken care that he’d done nothing to earn and everything to snuff-out.

In the back of his mind, something small and vulnerable and terrified reminded him that he should be more concerned that Will had found him in a t-shirt, had adjusted the coat with attentiveness, had undoubtedly seen the pale and pink and starkly scabbed lines etched into his skin from his wrists to his shoulders that he’d put so much effort into hiding, but the panic was distant, muffled. Will would understand that, too, in a way no one else would.

“You had everyone really freaked out this time. Hopper was ready to call some of the police force to come help us look.” There was no accusation in his tone, no intention to make Mike feel guilty for what he absolutely should feel guilty about, just a statement of facts, a relaying of information. Still, the words churned in his gut, and an apology bubbled up his throat tasting of sour bile.

“Sorry.” His voice was broken, gravelly, reminding him with chalk-dry teeth and a cotton-thick tongue that he hadn’t spoken all day, nor had he had anything to drink. Will shook his head.

“I found you, you’re still here, that’s what matters.” The truth underneath the placations, the ‘you didn’t do it, you’re still alive’ that could never quite be choked out even in the quiet aloneness of them, together, hung heavy in the air between them, unacknowledged yet insistent in its presence. Mike wanted to argue, to explain to Will that it wasn’t okay, that he should be upset at him, that his disappearances hurt Will like they hurt everyone else as if he didn’t already know and decided to forgive him anyways, but the words stayed trapped in the desert of his mouth, and he knew it was for the better.

Will gave forgiveness like it was easy, like it was more natural to him than frustration, like he didn’t even have to think about it to hand it over freely, and it only made Mike feel worse because he was the last person that should be receiving the gift of Will’s warmth, and he knew he would never be able to repay it, to give that warmth back, because there was nothing warm inside him to give. Mike clung to his anger, and his anger fed itself sick on the weak, fleshy parts of him, a parasite of decay that crawled through his veins and spread bruise-black rot into his skin, his muscles, his heart. He carried grudges on his back, let the boulders of his bitterness stack on the notches of his spine and weigh down his steps until he couldn’t move, and then they all came tumbling down in an avalanche of landslide yelling and road-crumbling sweeping gestures and the thunderous earthquake growls of words he couldn’t take back. When the dust settled and he saw the mess he’d made, the unpassable pile of dirt and stone between him and whoever was unfortunate enough to be the target of his shattering, he would promise himself it wouldn’t happen again, and a pebble of self-loathing would fall into place in the back of his neck. He was born with it, he thought, the restless anger that buzzed in his toes, waiting for the chance to swarm up through the rest of him until he was spitting bee sting bullets into the undeserving skin of his friends.

He was born with it, and he would die with it, and when the mind-numbingly grey waiting room of purgatory opened to the fiery pits of Hell, he knew he would deserve it. Anger wasn’t the only sin chained to his soul, nor was it the heaviest, the most damning.

“We shouldn’t keep them waiting too long though, right? It’s getting dark, and they’re just gonna pace holes in the floor until you’re back.” Will’s voice was too gentle, too kind, barely loud enough for Mike to hear, as if the softness was a secret only they got to know. “Can we go home now?”

His hands tightened their grip on his knees as his nervous system flew into a frenzy, his mind screaming yes, please, take me home, I don’t want to be here anymore while his body refused to cooperate, refused to move an inch from the tightrope he had been frozen on for hours, teetering every time the breeze brushed against him, safe where he stood until one wrong move sent him down, down, down. Torn in two, unable to make a decision either way, words yet again failed him. Will didn’t push any further, he simply hummed, accepting the silence for the answer it was, and it struck Mike not for the first time how easily Will could read him, as if he could hear every thought and feel every emotion the same way Mike had been able to read Will since the day they met; at least, until a couple years ago when he started fucking things up beyond repair, and then it felt like Will was hiding things from him, still letting him in but with doors missing from the hallways of his mind that Mike was sure were there before. Then again, there were things Mike wanted to hide from Will, too, secrets he planned to take to his grave, although the longer he sat with Will in this strange moment of vulnerability, the more he felt his desperately-built walls cracking.

“Why here?” Reject the distance, keep him in the moment, don’t let his mind go back to wherever it had gotten stuck before. He knew the tactic well, he’d used it on Will too many times to count. His brows furrowed with confusion, and Will elaborated. “The places you go are normally, y’know, important, attached to some memory or something. You’ve come here a couple times now, but I don’t understand what it reminds you of. The only thing I know about this place is that it’s…” he trailed off, quieted by realization, and when he continued, there was something like fear, like regret, leaking urgency into his tone.

“Is it… is it because this is where they found me? The fake me?” Low, trembling. He didn’t want to be the cause of this. He had no idea the role he played in Mike’s sickness, his sin, how he was everything, the cause and the effect, the poison and the antidote, the frostbite and the fire. He was the vice Mike was addicted to, and he would be the destruction of him as much as he was the glue that held him together.

Mike swallowed thickly, felt his throat stick to itself. They didn’t talk about the fake body much – somehow, in the grand scheme of things, it just didn’t seem all that important, not when it had been a coverup of something so much bigger, not when Will was still miraculously alive, not when, despite all odds working against them, they had saved him in the end – and now the mention of it felt like a bomb waiting to go off.

“Kinda,” Mike shrugged, trying to ignore the way the old wall that had been protecting the memory deep inside shuddered.

“Kinda?” It was too close to confirmation for comfort, based on the way Will’s folded hands tightened in his lap, but he searched for more anyways like he could sense a weakness in the non-answer, like he knew there was an admission itching to be set free.

“It-It’s nothing, it was a long time ago, it doesn’t matter, just forget it-“

“Mike.” Quiet, gentle, pleading to be let in, to be allowed to share one of the countless burdens Mike was so determined to carry alone, and the wall crumbled to dust.

He sighed. He was never able to say no to Will.

“It was after the dummy was found, but not by much. We already knew it was fake by then, but you were still-“ Will tensed beside him, and he was quick to change his wording, “…we hadn’t gotten you back yet.” Will relaxed and nodded, showing that he was following despite Mike not looking at him, still staring down at the water.

“Dustin and I were looking for- for her,” God, he couldn’t even say her name, it was pathetic, “and we ran into Troy and James. They chased us here, caught Dustin, threatened to cut out his teeth if I-… if I didn’t-“ he choked on the words, suffocated by the thing he had adamantly refused to acknowledge since it happened, smothered under the story he had kept locked away because he knew it would only make everyone worry more, especially now.

Then, Will’s hand found his back, warm and solid and present, a silent reassurance of it’s okay, I’m here, we’re alive, it can’t hurt you anymore, I won’t let it, and Mike felt himself take a breath.

“They wanted me to jump off the cliff. And I did.” Will went still, made a strangled sound as the confession punched the air out of him, his fingers pressing harder into Mike’s back as if he was now the one who needed the reassurance.

“You- here? Like, this cliff?” He tried hard to keep the panic out of his voice, but it was an impossible feat. Mike just nodded.

“Turned out she was there, and she caught me and brought me back up. I was only falling for a second, and then she broke Troy’s arm and they ran away so, y’know, it was fine.” He tried to feign nonchalance in the hope that he could convince Will and himself that because it worked out, none of it mattered. It didn’t work. The dam had broken, and the words began to pour.

“I-I don’t even know if I realized back then that it would kill me kill me. I mean, it was terrifying, it’s the highest thing I’ve ever jumped off, and obviously I knew it was gonna hurt but the idea that I would die didn’t really hit me until I was already in the air and then… then it was too late, I couldn’t take it back, I couldn’t change my mind.”

His breath caught, stuttered in his chest. A cold breeze brushed through his neglected, tangled hair, still bed-messed from the morning, and the morning before that, and the morning before that because even running a hairbrush through it a few times was too much effort, too much energy wasted on something that he couldn’t find the will to care about when he only had a couple meager scraps of energy in the first place that were better spent putting on his best happy camper performance to keep everyone off his back. The breeze passed, slipped away into the woods, and he found himself leaning forwards, closer to the edge, weight shifting to sit heavy in his knees as he chased the breath of his almost-grave despite the way his nose was beginning to grow fuzzy with numbness. Will’s hand curled into a fist, gripping his coat and tugging him back to how he’d been sitting before just as fast. He didn’t say anything as he did it, but Mike could practically hear the spike in Will’s heartrate as he bore witness to the slip-up, the accidental peek into the true ugliness of his grief that he kept locked in the basement of his haunted house, the ghost of himself that was only allowed to wander the empty halls under the protection of long nights alone. Another apology lodged in the base of his throat, but he swallowed it down; it wouldn’t be enough, it would never be enough.

“I should’ve screamed, anyone else would’ve. I should’ve screamed and cried until I was back on solid ground, and even then, I should’ve kept freaking out, but I just… didn’t. I yelled when I stepped off, but for the two seconds I was falling, I was quiet, like my brain was too focused on trying to process the fact that I was about to die to let me make a sound. It was weird, too, because I was suddenly so aware of every single thing, but at the same time, none of it felt real, like- like when you have a super realistic nightmare and the bits and pieces of it stick to you long enough to make you forget if the memories of it actually happened or if you made it all up. I could hear the wind screaming in my ears, feel it drying-up my eyes, and my heart was pounding so hard in my chest that I could feel it in my throat, and it was all right there but still somehow so far away. I-It was like everything came into focus all at once, like I’d opened my eyes and really seen things for the first time in my life, and everything that had seemed so complicated before was clear. It was peaceful.” Whispered, an unholy confessional, hidden from the eyes of God under soul-bearing night. “But-“

He cut himself off, sucking in a wavering, watery breath. His eyes stung, ached with the pressure of unshed tears, and he hated it because men don’t cry, not unless there’s something wrong with them, not unless they’re weak or broken or queer. His father had made that clear since the moment he was old enough to clean his own scraped knees, using a chair he’d dragged from the kitchen to climb up on the bathroom sink and praying his dad couldn’t hear his hiccupping sniffles from the living room over the running faucet. He didn’t want to prove him right, nauseated by the idea of confirming with splotchy cheeks and red-rimmed glassy eyes what he already knew with paralyzing certainty was true: that he was all the things his father despised, all the things he was supposed to despise too but never quite could.

He was too weak to protect Will despite all his promises to do so, too weak to save her from the waking nightmare she’d lived in her entire life and the only way out she’d found that was guaranteed to work, too weak to get himself to move on like everyone else already had. He was broken, in mind, body, and soul, had felt spiderweb cracks spread fault lines through his bones the night Will went missing, felt them tear open and shatter him into a million tiny pieces when his body was pulled out of the lake, always putting together the puzzle of himself with tape and glue and hopeless hope only to fall apart all over again when the floor inevitably caved-in beneath him and sent him spiraling down into another horrific experience. He was broken because throughout all the hell they went through, he’d come out the other side with barely a scratch, so he carved the maps of his battles into his skin with a razor blade he’d stolen from his dad’s shaving kit, sitting on the edge of his bed in the dead of night mopping blood up with tissues just to have evidence that he’d been there and fought at all, proof that it was real, that it mattered, spilling communion wine to atone for his sins, his failures, his wrongness.

And he was- he was-

“But?” Will’s voice, unfairly kind, scaring away the monotone displeasure of his dad’s and the vicious self-hatred of his own. Will’s hand on his back, thumb rubbing small circles, trying to ease the tension that had been building there for far longer than one night. Will sitting close enough for their thighs to touch, emanating warmth, offering to share without realizing the black hole in Mike’s chest would take and take and take until there was nothing left, until they were both reduced to blue-tinted stiff fingers and chattering teeth. Will, letting him split himself open and expose the worst parts of himself, the unimaginable, the irredeemable, and sitting next to him all the same.

A breath, in and out, and another. It didn’t help.

“But all I could think about while I was falling was that- that I’d never get to see you again. I didn’t think about my mom, or Nancy or Holly, or Lucas or Dustin or her or anyone, just you. We knew you were alive, we were trying to get you out, and I just remember thinking that I wouldn’t be there when you came home, and how sad that was. Because of some stupid bullies, I was never gonna see you again, never race down the street on our bikes or hang out after school until dark, never play D&D in my basement getting the die all gross with pizza grease, never talk in the middle of the night on our walkies when Lucas and Dustin were asleep, when we were alone.” His voice dropped lower, less than a whisper, trying to hide his next words from God himself.

“I was never gonna see your face again, your smile, or hear your laugh. I was never gonna get to hold your hand to weave through the crowds at the arcade without losing each other and pretend to forget to let go. I was never gonna wake up after a sleepover with you next to me in bed because the stupid air mattress has a hole and the bed is more comfortable anyways, sharing a blanket and a pillow and letting the dreamy fuzz of the morning stick around long enough to admire the way the sunrise hit you so perfectly through the window, the way peaceful sleep softened your face and let me imagine for a minute that nothing bad had ever happened to you, and that maybe I could keep it that way. I was-“ his voice broke, lungs collapsing under the weight of what he’d kept hidden for so long, what he’d always planned to let die with him. He pushed on anyways, forced his voice to work when all it wanted to do was crumble because he knew if he didn’t get it all out in the open now, he never would.

“I was never gonna get to tell you just how much you mean to me. I didn’t even have the words to back then, but I knew it anyways, I could feel it, and I wanted you to feel it too, whatever that meant for us. That was the worst part about it, the fact that you would never know h-how I felt, or- or how much I needed you, how much I’ve always needed you, or that I- how much I-…”

Just spit it out, Wheeler. Say it, say what you mean.

Will was silent, unmoving except for the steady circling of his thumb, and Mike didn’t know what to make of that, too terrified to ask, too weak to look at his face. He could feel his eyes, though, the intensity of his focus burning a brand into the side of his head, and he was sure that regardless of how the night ended, the evidence of everything he’d admitted to would be there for everyone to see, a permanent reminder in smoking, blistering flesh that what he said couldn’t be taken back, the truth of him, the weakness and brokenness and wrongness he’d been born with, irreparably soul-deep defective. He let the silence linger, trying to find the courage to say those three damning words, ones he’d spent his whole life trying to change the meaning of, shoving them into the molds of other letters in hopes of making a different sentence, and when that didn’t work, he’d stuffed them in a box, taped it shut, and shoved it into the deepest, darkest corner of his mind where it couldn’t hurt him, left to gather dust and cobwebs.

He sighed. He was the biggest coward he’d ever met.

“Mike?” He knew what Will wanted – for him to say the words, for him to look him in the eyes when he destroyed whatever they still had. He wasn’t brave enough, though, not like Will was. He opened a different can of rotting worms instead.

“I was relieved.” Will had to lean closer just to hear him. He kept his eyes on the water.

“What?” Another breeze that made him shiver, a parting gift from the world. He was going to die tonight, one way or another.

“When she- when she died… I was relieved.” Will’s entire body locked-up, his thumb came to an abrupt stop, and Mike felt a tsunami of panic and regret slam into him full-force.

“Mike, what?” The gentleness, the softness, the warmth, was gone, replaced by fear, confusion, the warning winds of a storm of anger that had the potential to be devastating, and a desperation that he hadn’t heard it right, that Mike hadn’t said what he’d said or meant it. She was Will’s sister, after all, even if only for a short while, and he’d be damned if he let anyone, even Mike, be cruel towards her, especially when she couldn’t be there to defend herself. Mike scrambled to explain, tripping over his own words just to stop Will from walking away before he could make him understand.

“Not- not like that! God, never like that, I didn’t- not because she died, it’s just that, I-I mean-“ He cut himself off, stopping before he could somehow make it worse. He brought his hands up to cover his face, pressed the heels of his palms hard into his eyes and dug his fingers into the skin at the edge of his hairline until he felt his bitten-jagged nails pierce through, quickly becoming sticky with blood. Will’s hand vanished from his back, and he pressed harder, letting the biting sting of it punish him for his idiocy as a pounding headache burst to life, echoing in his skull.

“Mike, wait-“ As fast as they’d left, Will’s hands were on him again, clutching his forearms and squeezing them to try to force his hands to loosen their grip so he could tug them away. “Mike, breathe, c’mon-“

He hadn’t even realized he’d begun hyperventilating, but at Will’s instruction, he gasped, deep and rough, and it immediately sent him into a coughing fit. Will managed to pry his hands off his face and let his own fingers fill the empty space in his palms, holding on tight and running his thumbs across his knuckles all while mumbling soothing reassurances. His chest burned, every sharp, wheezing breath only fueling the cremation hellfire consuming his lungs in what was surely only a taste of what he would get when the ground abandoned his feet and he fell down, down, down into the gaping maw of eternal punishment, leaving behind only a stream of sparks floating off into the night like fireflies. He deserved it, every ounce of pain the Devil would inflict on him, the slow destruction of the body he’d overstayed his welcome in. Rip out his tongue, it was useless anyways, taken advantage of only to tell half-truths and empty reassurances, never revealing the raw, bloody meat of what he felt, of what he was. Peel away his skin, he’d already scored the path it would take, lines of scars and scabs ready and waiting to guide where it would separate into strips. Cut off his fingers, he wouldn’t be finishing his story anyways, and sever his Achilles tendon too for good measure, because otherwise he’ll just keep running away until his soul tires and finally collapses in violent supernova, bestowing on him a peace he had no right to receive.

Will shifted, bringing one of their connected hands up to press Mike’s flat against his chest, exaggerating his own even breathing to encourage Mike to follow his guide. It was something Mike had done for him dozens of times before, awoken in the middle of the night by Will’s trembling hands and knowing just from the sound of his frantic tear-thick panting that he’d had another nightmare, and that he wasn’t sure he’d actually woken up, that he couldn’t tell if anything was real at all or one of the countless tricks played on his mind. Mike did his best to do what Will was asking of him, focusing on the warmth – Will’s warmth – seeping into the pads of his fingers, the heartbeat drumming in Will’s chest strong and steady and alive, the soothing murmur of Will’s voice even as the words got lost in the deafening roar of blood rushing in his ears. His other hand tightened its grip on Will’s enough that he was sure it was painful, but Will made no move to pull away, he just continued to drift his thumb back and forth as if he could wipe away all the sins his hands alone had committed.

He forced himself to pull it together, to not take more from Will than he already had. The next time Will’s chest expanded under his palm, he dragged in a breath of his own despite the aching singe of smoke polluting his lungs like that of the box of cigarettes he’d seen poking out of Will’s jacket pocket more and more often recently, like the one they’d shared on the roof of Mike’s house only a few nights ago that had Mike choking on every hit while Will graciously pretended not to notice. He could feel his ribs rattle with the effort of it, starvation-sharp bones scraping against each other and filling him with the nerve-grating sensation of nails on a chalkboard, but still, he breathed, because that was what Will wanted, and he would always do whatever Will wanted, even if it killed him. When he finally felt like speaking would result in actual words and not just the spitting of embers through chapped lips, he pulled his hand off Will’s chest and dropped it back into his own lap. Will didn’t let go, and he didn’t have the energy or willpower to ask him to, so he let their hands stay connected. Will would pull away soon enough anyways, he would hear what Mike had to say and realize just how disgusting his touch was, and he would leave like he should’ve done a long time ago.

“What we had,” he started, and his throat protested every word, staining his mouth with the taste of bitter iron, “it wasn’t working, and it was never going to. I loved her, I really, really did, b-but I wasn’t in love with her. I thought if I just waited long enough, if- if I stayed with her, then maybe the feelings would come, or maybe I could force them out, and I think- no, I-I know if she hadn’t left, I would’ve just kept trying forever, even if it destroyed us both. Being with her was expected, it was normal, she- she made me normal, and I wanted to hold onto that, I wanted her to fix me, but… none of it was real. I wasn’t in love with her, and no matter how hard I tried, I never could be because-…” he closed his eyes and bowed his head, a sinner kneeling at the alter begging for forgiveness he didn’t deserve. If he could somehow get Will to forgive him for this, that would be enough, even if his dad and the world and God himself didn’t.

“Because I was in love with someone else, someone I shouldn’t be, and I think I have been for a long time.”

Silence. Heavy, revealing, burning with damnation shame. He wanted to die. He opened his eyes, and kept them on the water.

“Mike…” He shook his head, he needed Will to listen.

“When you- when you told everyone about you a-and how you feel, you said you liked someone, and I know it was me, and when I realized it was me, it made me feel things I’d never felt with her and that was so, so scary and I didn’t know how to handle it so I just… didn’t. I pushed it down and focused on her, o-on trying to make a future where I could stay with her, where I could stay normal and not have to think about all the ways I’m fucked up and broken and wrong. She was there, and she loved me, and it would’ve been so much easier to- to keep lying to her and myself and everyone else and say that I loved her too. She deserved better than that, though, and now that she’s gone, it’s like everything I’ve been hiding from is flooding in all at once, and it all leads back to you.” An unsteady breath, a squeeze of the hands in his, a plea for it to not be the last time he got to hold him.

“It’s the way you look at me, like there’s nothing I could say or do to scare you off, like you’ve seen the best and worst parts of me and decided you want me anyways, and all the terrible shit I’ve done doesn’t matter. It’s the way you touch me, like I’ve never hurt you and never could, like I’ve never held a weapon, only you, like- like it’s easy, and you don’t even realize how much every little brush of your fingers breaks me apart. It’s the way you make everything I’ve always been too stupid to understand suddenly make sense, talking to me without saying a word, giving me that look like you can see right through me and read my mind, and you can. You know me better than anyone else, maybe even better than I know myself, and somehow you’re still here sitting next to me when we both know you should’ve given up on me and left a long time ago. I don’t deserve you, not at all, but I still want you, Will, I-I still-“

He ripped his hands out of Will’s grasp as he finally lifted his gaze from the water to meet his shocked face, instead gripping Will’s shoulders with desperate, white-knuckle force, nearly shaking them. He knew he probably looked and sounded insane, staring with wide, frantic eyes as he stuttered out a million half-confessions while still managing to avoid the truth beneath it all, but he needed Will to see it, to understand what he’d always been too weak and afraid to speak into reality.

Just say it.

He was going to die tonight.

“I know it was months ago, and I-I know I’ve been stupid and absent and a complete asshole, but God, Will, please tell me I’m not too late, please tell me I didn’t miss my chance. Whatever you want, whatever you need, I’ll do it, for you I’ll do anything, anything at all, whatever it takes to convince you to stay, just say the word and it’s done. I didn’t say it before, I couldn’t, but I should’ve said it anyway because I’ve felt it, our whole lives I’ve felt it, and I know I didn’t do enough to make sure you knew that and I’m so, so sorry, you deserve so much more than me, but I’m ready to say it now, I need to say it, I need you to know that I- I-“ three small words, impossibly huge, lodged heavy in his throat where they always seemed to get stuck.

He slid his hands up to cradle Will’s neck and let his fingers bury themselves in the soft hair at the back, grown-out slightly longer than he usually preferred to keep it. Will moved too, brought his hands from where they’d been abandoned in his lap to hold Mike’s wrists, keeping his hands against his neck, holding him in the grave he’d dug for himself. He didn’t say anything, he just waited with that unbelievable patience of his, staring back with eyes shining with fear and hope and something dangerously close to the precious thing between them that had gone unspoken and unaddressed since the beginning. Mike let his eyes wander over Will’s face, committing every inch, every tiny detail to memory like it was the last chance he’d ever get to, and he swallowed the terror that had kept the door of his ribcage shut tight around his heart for years. He was done hiding. He’d made Will wait long enough.

“I love you, Will. I love you so much it hurts. I love you so much it keeps me up at night and consumes my thoughts all day. I love you so much I’m convinced the only reason my heart keeps beating is because yours is too. I love you, I’m in love with you, and I know it’s taken me a long time to figure it out but please, please, tell me you love me too, Will. God, please, just tell me I’m not too late to be yours.”

He could feel tears streaking down his cheeks, but he refused to remove his hands from Will for even a second to wipe them away, he just blinked them loose so the sight of Will before him wouldn’t get blurred. He didn’t want to miss a second of it, the countless emotions flickering across Will’s expression, the flutter of his eyelashes as his eyes darted all over Mike’s face and lingered openly on his lips, the tears welling to mirror Mike’s as a smile spread wide, genuine enough to crack them both open. Will shook his head, leaning a breath closer like he’d been holding himself back.

“You’re not too late,” quiet, shredded rough with honesty, spoken only for Mike’s ears, “not for this, never for this.”

A sob, broken and horribly pitiful, tore itself free from Mike’s chest, but he didn’t care, not when Will was there, holding his arms, looking him in the eyes and telling him the impossible. Will gave his wrists a gentle squeeze, and he let his thumbs brush the edges of his jawline in response, rubbing circles into the skin below his ears like Will had done to his back and knuckles just minutes before.

“I love you too. I’ve been in love with you for longer than I can remember. When you didn’t say anything about it, after I told everyone that I’m- that I’m different, I convinced myself that you didn’t feel the same, and I tried to move on, but Mike… it’s always been you. No one else could ever understand me like you do, no one else would even believe it if I told them half the shit we’ve gone through, they’d probably just call me crazy.” Will laughed a little at the end, like the mere idea of trying to share with someone else everything he’d shared with Mike was completely ridiculous, and it drew an amused huff from Mike between the hiccupping sobs shaking his shoulders.

“Crazy together, right?” Despite everything he’d just said, Mike worried the second the words left his mouth that Will would take the chance to reject him, to shut down the promise they’d been clinging to since they were children, escape his grasp, and walk away, leaving him there on the edge of the cliff to his fate, but Will nodded, smile never wavering.

“Yeah, crazy together.”

For a long moment, Mike let himself stare unabashedly at Will, and Will stared right back with all the adoration in the world. He brought his hand up, trailed his fingers along Will’s skin from his neck to his face to fix hair that didn’t need fixing before letting his palm settle against Will’s cheek. He leaned closer and let his eyes drift down, looking at Will’s lips with intent before flicking back up to meet his gaze, begging Will to read his mind one more time and give him what he was asking for with everything but words. Closer still, until he could feel Will’s warm, unsteady breath against his lips, but then Will’s hand released one of his wrists and came up between them, and he pressed his fingers against Mike’s mouth, stopping him. At the interruption, Mike did just about the most embarrassing thing in the world and whined in disagreement, but Will simply shook his head with a fondness Mike felt like he could drown in.

“You have no idea how much I want to kiss you, Mike.” The hand on his mouth shifted, cupping his jaw, a reflection of his own hand on Will’s face.

“But?” Will’s smile faltered, became slightly sad, and Mike knew with a twist of guilt in his gut what he was going to say.

“But not like this, not here, not when you’re… hurting, so much.” He hated it, hated that it was his own fault, but he understood. He nodded and started pulling away, but Will tightened his grip on his face and wrist, holding him there. “We’ll get you home, get you cleaned up and comfortable, maybe you can try to eat something, too? And tomorrow, when you’ve gotten some sleep and we’ve both had time to think a bit, we can talk about it all, figure out what comes next. Does that sound okay?”

Another nod, and Will released him with the same soft smile he had a habit of looking at Mike with. He pushed himself to his feet, then held out a hand, helping Mike stand and letting him lean into his side for support, slipping an arm around his waist. One last time, Mike stared down at the water, a pool of empty black now that the sun had vanished from the sky entirely. Like it had before, a cold breeze brushed through his hair, invited him down yet again, and he let himself breathe it in, accept the open-ended goodbye for what it was, before looking back at Will, wearing the vulnerability of his sadness for Will to see in its entirety.

“Can we go home now?” Mumbled, weak and broken and so very small.

“Yeah, of course.” Will pulled him closer by the arm on his waist and used his other hand to fix the jacket draped over his shoulders, tugging it to cover his arms again where it had slid off when Mike had reached out to hold him. “Let’s go home.”

As promised, Will walked them back to Mike’s house, keeping a strong hold on Mike and tugging his bike along on his other side. They dropped the bike on the lawn, and Will helped Mike shove his arms into the jacket sleeves to wear it properly before they walked into the house hand-in-hand, immediately getting swarmed by concerned family and friends all talking over each other. Mike was too exhausted to try to piece together what they were saying, much less respond in a way that would ease their worries, but luckily for him, Will came to his rescue for the millionth time that night and somehow managed to shoo them all away, allowing them to escape up the stairs and into Mike’s bedroom. Will pulled new clothes out for him to change into, a long-sleeved shirt and sweatpants, and when he got stuck trying to take off his t-shirt and started to cry again, Will stepped in without a word and did the rest for him with gentle hands and gentler praises.

When consciousness slipped away, it wasn’t stolen by the greed of cold quarry water, it was given freely in the comfort of his bed, tucked into Will’s side where he laid next to him under the covers. His hair still needed to be washed, but the worst of the tangles and knots had been brushed out, and the small cuts his fingernails made had been cleaned and covered in ointment. The soup his mom had handed Will through the door with only a glimpse of worried-sick eyes hadn’t made him nauseous yet, just sleepier, heavier. In the morning, they would talk about much more than just the future of their relationship, whatever it was now that everything was out in the open. They would talk about the scary stuff, the legs dangling over the edge of the cliff, the lines marking up his arms like tallies counting his every mistake, the refusal to eat unless forced or talk about the nightmares keeping him awake or let anyone get close enough to help him. For now, though, the house was quiet, and his heart was fuller than it had been in months, and when he shoved his face into the warm skin of Will’s neck, Will just held him closer, tighter, a silent reassurance of everything is going to be okay, and Mike chose to believe him.