Archive of Our Own ^omega

Mike makes his decision on a Thursday afternoon in March, two weeks before Spring Break. 

Mike and Will had been living together for about nine months at this point. Mike moved into the second, smaller, bedroom of the two-bed-one-bath in the height of summer, when Will had come home from Montauk for his senior year. For someone who wasn’t bound by the restrictions of college classes, or a full-time job, Mike had picked the worst weekend in July to move. A heatwave had hung heavy and thick in the air as he, Will and Jonathan carried his four suitcases of clothes, five boxes of books and his typewriter up four flights of stairs. 

Mike still remembers collapsing on the landing of the third floor on his second journey up, sweat sticking his shirt to his back and looking up at Will’s exasperated fondness when Will handed him a bottle of water. He can’t remember what they said, but they had burst into the giggles outside Mr Ortiz’s apartment until Jonathan came back down and told them there was one flight of stairs left, c’mon guys, I need a beer after this.  

The only saving grace of Mike’s move across states was that he hadn’t had to bring or buy much furniture. Will had already been living in the apartment for two years at that point, and Mike was happy to keep using the paint-stained dining table and the couch with the wonky leg that Hop had “fixed” in 1991. Will’s previous roommate, Sasha, had even sold Mike her old bed frame and mattress when she moved to Seattle for sixty bucks, his signed Star Trek Next Generation Poster and Nancy’s number.   

To say the move had been a change for Mike is an understatement.  

He had ended up going to a community college in Indiana, an hour’s drive from Hawkins. He had originally rented an apartment closer but drove back on weekends to spend time with Holly and Mom. Sometimes he even drove home for dinner, on the days when Mom’s voice was too quiet through the phone.  Eventually, he moved back and resigned himself to the drive. 

He had driven to visit Max and Lucas in Chicago every other month, spending a weekend on their couch and hoping desperately that the sounds from the bedroom were Max fucking with him and not Max fucking.  

Steve and Dustin had deigned to let him third wheel on their “RV Trips of Awesomeness and Brotherhood” exactly twice. He hadn’t minded Steve’s RV, as long as he wasn’t in the driver’s seat and as long as he didn’t get too in his head, but after the second Dustin had clasped him on the shoulder and in a rare show of true sincerity had asked Mike to go see a therapist or something, for the love of God.  

Mike went home, and then another month later reached out to the student’s centre to see what was available to him.  

The first two counsellors had been a complete bust, focusing more on what Mike was going to do after he graduated, and it was only Will’s quiet encouragement on their weekly phone call that had Mike going back to try the third. Sarah was five years older than Mike, newly graduated and not nearly qualified to help community college students transition to the next stage of their journey. By their third session he had stood up and yelled that she was shit at her job and she told him to fuck off. 

She remained his counsellor until he graduated.  

 Back then, Mike thought he wasn’t built for the rest of the world. He wasn’t built for cities, for tall buildings and seeing a different face every day. He was sure he was built for the steadiness of the known, for the comfortable misery of Hawkins and the knowledge that he’d gone through hell and back there, so it couldn’t get worse. 

He was built for occasional weekend trips, and frequent phone calls. Somehow the recliner in the living room had become his, the place where he sat and planned out his stories in a notebook while Holly and Derek planned out a campaign on the floor. The place where he listened to his friends’ tinny, muffled updates through the family’s phone.  

He had managed to see Dustin and Lucas and Max often enough, but New York City was a special treat when he had the time and the money. Will’s face, his true voice, was a special treat when he had the time and the money.  

Visits to see Will always made him feel like a tourist, always made him feel like an outsider looking in. 

After his graduation, the Wheeler family took a trip to New York City. Will and Jonathan had welcomed them with open arms, as they walked them around Manhattan.  And while they were trying to talk Mom and Holly out of seeing Miss Saigon and into seeing Cats, Nancy had pulled him aside.  

She told him that now that he had graduated, maybe it was time for him to make some new memories, to find a new home that didn’t have ash and tears and blood drenching every memory. And Mike had remembered his last session with Sarah, where she had told him that it was okay to be uncomfortable, sometimes.  

Mike mentioned it to Will that night, lying on Will’s bed and staring at the ceiling. They only had a week together, in New York, and Will was packing to go back to Montauk the day after the Wheeler family went back to Indiana.  

‘I mean,’ Will had said in that quiet, careful tone of his, ‘maybe you could come live here?’ 

‘In your apartment?’ 

‘No, well, yes. I mean, New York,’ Will says with a shrug, ‘maybe my apartment, if you want?’ 

‘If Wheeler moves in,’ Sasha says, as she walks past Will’s open door, ‘I will burn your canvases.’  

Her opinion of Mike potentially moving in quickly changed, when Nancy came by to catch a cab back to the hotel. She had, thankfully, just come from the evening showing of Cats.  

It took nearly another year for Mike to make the decision to go to New York. He had his degree in hand and he had a comfortable job tutoring students at Hawkins High, as long as he gave Erica a commission for every pimply, stressed teen she sent his way. But Nancy’s kind of soft, kind of trying to be nice face and Sarah’s scowl had played behind his eyes whenever he lay down in the comfort of his childhood bedroom.  

He had kept saving, paying for groceries and gas, and pocketed everything else into a bank account. He wouldn’t move until he had a safety net, he told Lucas and Max when he drove out to Chicago to watch one of Lucas’ games. He wanted to see the kids through to college applications, he told Steve and Dustin when the RV came back through Hawkins. 

‘I can’t leave Mom and Holly, not yet,’ he said, voice low as he sat in the dark living room of the Wheeler House.  

‘I know,’ Will said, simply and straightforward and Mike believed him.  

‘How did Jonathan do it?’  

There was a slow exhale from Will, and although Mike doesn’t have Will’s artist’s eye, he pictured Will at the window in his apartment, the sunset casting a warm glow across his cheekbones and Mike ached for him. 

'I think knowing Hop was there helped. Mom cared and she tried but she could never really do it on her own, especially in Lenora. But honestly?’ Will’s voice changed, with the pain that echoed through Mike and Hop and Joyce. It was an old pain, tender to push at but no longer wrenching Mike in two. ‘After Henry and El? I think we all just...’ 

‘Grew up?’ 

‘Yeah.’  

Then one day, Mike had checked his bank account and realised there was a safety net and then some. And he clapped as the Graduating Class of 1992 walked the staged. And Mom, steady and secure again after what the ladies at her churched called “That Unfortunate Golfing Incident”, and what Dustin Henderson called “Karmic Justice. Fuck you, Ted”, told him it was time, that she would be okay. Told him that he would be okay. 

Mike Wheeler had felt like a country hick, standing on the streets of New York in the days after his move. His clothes were too tight, wrapping tight around his bicep and neck, and the air had felt too heavy, even as the cold front came in and broke the heat. Every time he went out to the store, he felt like everyone was running around him while he was glued to the floor.  

The only good thing, in those initial days, was Will Byers.  

Mike had figured out he was in love with Will Byers during a particularly loud counselling session with Sarah during his second semester. He didn’t know how long had been in love with Will Byers for, but that was the moment he realised after she voiced the thought that maybe he needed to take some space from the Party and make more friends on campus. 

‘Fuck you, Sarah, Will is the best person I know. The best!’ he had screamed at her, seconds before he had burst into tears. Sarah dropped her notebook immediately, crouched next to him and rubbed his back as he hiccupped through the reasons Will was the best.  

‘It sounds like he’s very important person to you,’ Sarah murmured, after Mike blew his snot and tears into a tissue. 

‘He’s the most important person to me,’ Mike’s gross congested voice had said, ‘he’s my person.’ 

Will had tried to invite Mike to hang out with his classmates. But without deadlines and assignments and gossip about which TA was hooking up with who, Mike just sat quietly and sipped his coffee.  

Sat quietly and stared at Will.  

He tried to make sure he wasn’t too obvious, tried to laugh at the right times and eventually he did realise that the hot Art History TA was sleeping with the slightly less hot Art History TA and the professor of Mechanical Engineering. But for the most part, he watched as Will’s face light up with joy at hearing that his friend’s date went well, as his nose wrinkled in disgust as they talked about Mystery Meat Tuesday at one of the on-campus cafes, as his fingers tapped a quick rhythm against his thigh when he talked through his latest painting assignment.  

Mike stared, and he drank it in.  

The better moments where the moments when it was just the two of them. Mike had never been much of an early riser, until he realised that if he woke up early enough, he got to see Will stumble out of his bedroom with his hair fluffy and sticking up in five directions.  So he started waking up as the sun rose, and making a pot of coffee so that he could hand it to Will first thing.  

They, somehow, were able to afford cable and every now and again there’d be a recipe on the Food Network that seemed easy enough to try. And Mike would try not to laugh as he and Will rushed to write down the recipe, missing half the ingredients and the first two steps. And he’d try not to laugh again when they stood in their tiny kitchen, scrap of paper between them as they tried to work out if the recipe called for cinnamon or cardamon. And what the difference was. 

Will was never able to stop himself from laughing in those moments.  

Eventually, Mike got a job at a bakery a few streets over. It turned out that being an early riser and not being constrained by college class schedule was an asset, when working at a sweet shop that served stressed college students. It was owned by a delightfully grouchy woman called Doris, who hated teenagers but liked to bake. Mike was pretty good at teenagers, hated to bake but loved to eat yesterday’s stale bakes. l They were a match made in grumpy heaven. 

And when he was looking for Will’s Christmas present, he found a game shop that did D&D on Wednesdays and Fridays. He brought Will with him and realised that his favourite Will was the one who sat opposite him at a table, trying to work out what his next moved should be.  

So, when they got back from spending Christmas in Hawkins with the Wheeler family and the rest of the Party, Mike realised that he wasn’t coming back to just the second bedroom in Will’s apartment. He found that the reference photos Will taped onto the red brick walls, the kitchen window that doesn’t open when it got past 85 and the ornery ginger tabby that Will found in a dumpster and hid in his freshmen dorm had all become part of what Mike now calls home. 

Mike makes his decision on a Thursday afternoon in March, not in the living room of his and Will’s shared apartment, unable to tear his eyes away from Will’s profile as he sketches, but during a lull at work before the afternoon tea rush. 

Doris’s Bakery doesn’t officially sell coffee, and they didn’t have an espresso machine like the cafe owned by that asshole, Grant eight shops down. But they do have a coffee pot behind the counter for employees, and somehow Murray had sweettalked Doris into letting him have special access to the employee coffee last time he had followed Joyce and Hop into the city.  

‘Don’t you have like your own home?’ Mike asks, moving the bagels around in the display case so that he can make some space for the croissants. “Your own city even.’ 

‘Come on, Wheeler,’ Murray says around a bite of the sandwich he forced Mike to make for him not even ten minutes earlier. ‘You’ve missed me, I know you have.’ 

‘Really haven’t.’ 

Murray is in town, apparently, for another exposé piece on a factory accident in upstate New York. He spends his mornings chasing executives, and his afternoons listening to his recordings and taking notes at one of the three tables that fit in the front of Doris’s Bakery. It’s been five days since he arrived, and Mike can’t even ask Doris to ban him because she finds Murray funny and likes the extra company.  

The problem with Shared Trauma under a strict government NDA is that the only people you can actually talk about it with are the same people under the same NDA. By 1990, the only people left in Hawkins to discuss said Shared Trauma were the 12 kids taken by Vecna (who Mike really didn’t want to retraumatise), Erica (who scared Mike, especially since she had followed Dustin to Georgia Tech), Steve, Scott and, also on weekends only, Murray. So every couple of weekends the adults (and Mike was never really sure when Mr Clarke turned into Scott and when Mike started being counted as an adult) would sit down in Steve’s backyard and talk through the shit that had been their lives. 

Somehow, Murray became an almost-friend.  

Almost.  

Because Mike couldn’t stand him most of the time.  

‘You liking it here now?’ Murray asks, sipping from the mug of probably now cold coffee which Mike refused to top up. ‘The Big Apple?’ His smile was disturbing, all too knowing, and Mike rolled his eyes.  

‘Yeah, yeah, I think I do. I mean, it’s different but not too bad. It’s easier being close to Will, harder being further from Mom and Holly.’ 

‘Ah, yes, and how is dear William these days?’ 

'He’s good, he’s good. He’s got a senior’s showcase in a few weeks that he’s preparing for, so it’s a lot of time in the studio. I got to some of the concept sketches and it’s going to look amazing. I mean, his art always looks amazing but... you know.’  

Murray hums, staring at Mike over the rim of his coffee mug.  

Mike’s getting better at communicating, getting better at working through his feelings. But the one thing he never told the rest of the party was how much he missed them. They had known they missed him, Mike started being honest in his phone calls three weeks post-Sarah. But they didn’t know how much, especially Will who hadn’t been the furthest but certainly had been the hardest to see in person.  

Unfortunately for Mike, Murray had bought his fancy Russian Vodka to Steve’s backyard one night at the end of his first semester of college. It had been the first time Mike had anything stronger than a beer or a wine, and the night had ended with Scott rubbing his back as Mike puked into Steve’s toilet bowl and all three men a bit more aware of just how much Mike missed the party, missed Will.  

‘Fuck off,’ Mike says, because Murray has a way of staring at you that tears through skin and bone and looks straight into your soul.  

‘That’s no way to talk to a paying customer, Michael.’ 

‘I literally gave you the coffee and the sandwich for free. You haven’t paid a dime all week.’ 

Murray tsks, and then takes the last bite of his sandwich.  

‘I’ve gotta say though,’ he says, draining the last of his coffee and shuffling his papers into what is almost an orderly pile, ‘it sounds like New York’s been good for the whole Byers-Hopper bunch. And you’re looking better, less like a sad puppy dog begging for a treat.’ 

‘I don’t look–’  

‘I haven’t finished,’ Murray says, holding up a single finger. ‘It looks like you’ve finally got your shit together. I mean, as much as you can when you’re fifteen.’ 

‘I’m twent –’ 

‘Michael.’ 

Mike shuts his mouth, because even when they were driving through the gate and into the Upside Down, Murray had joked and laughed.  

‘You’re doing better now, I would almost say that you’re doing good. You’ve got a job, you’ve got a place, you call your mom twice a week like a good little boy and don’t think I don’t know about the short story competition you entered last month. 

‘You did the work kid, better than I could have done at your age. You’re never going to work through all that trauma in that head of yours, but you did a good old try with that counsellor at school. You’ve grown up, a lot since that first summer that I met you and even more since you graduated from high school. 

‘My point is, you’re finally moving forward instead of looking back at Hawkins. So what’s holding you back?’ 

He brings the plate and mug over to Mike, and deposits them on the nice clean counter that Mike had just finished wiping down during his speech. He winks, and Mike hates it but he watches as Murray strides out of the bakery and onto the street.  

He’s silent, as he takes Murray’s dishes into the kitchen, where Doris is swearing up a storm at her industrial mixer.  

The thing is that New York feels like home, and Will Byers feels like home. And most of all, Mike feels like a real person again, he doesn’t feel like walking grief and fear, and he thinks that perhaps he’s finally able to not only love Will Byers, but to love Will Byers back.  

He gets home after Will does, because on Thursday’s Will has morning classes while Mike works the mid-morning shift. He climbs the flights of stairs up to their apartment, but it almost feels like he’s walking on clouds to get there. His knees and legs don’t ache, and he doesn’t even need to catch his breath halfway up.  

‘Hey,’ he says, once he lets himself through the door and toes off his shoes because he and Will refuse to let the grime of New York City past their entryway. ‘How was class today?’ 

‘TA hates me,’ Will says, mumbled around a pencil as he erases something from the canvas paper taped to his desk. ‘Said that I need to work on not making my backgrounds empty. We were supposed to be working on shading.’ 

‘Tell her I said she could fuck off.’  

Mike collapses down on the couch, feeling it wobble slightly beneath him.  

The couch faces their TV, as it should. But if Mike sits on it sideways, back against one armrest and feet dangling over the other, he has the perfect view of Will’s desk. Will had offered to move it back into his bedroom when Mike moved in, but it was in front of the biggest window in the apartment. It is covered in paint stains, has a small upright desktop easel and two glasses of water – one for drinking and one for cleaning paint brushes.  

Mike would never have made Will move it into his bedroom, first because Will’s room has almost no natural light and secondly because there are few things as beautiful as Will Byers focusing on his art.  

‘How was work?’ Will says, glancing to the side to look at Mike before looking back down at his sketch. 

‘Good. Doris made those raspberry muffins that you like, and I snagged one before they sold out. Murray spent like four hours there, he thinks he’s found an exec that’s dumb enough to talk to the press.’ 

‘Murray? Again?’ Will shakes his head and takes a sip of the not-paint water. ‘I still don’t know how you’re friends with him. He’s literally friends with my parents.’ 

‘He’s not a friend,’ Mike protests, ‘he’s just like? A leech that sticks with you, nearly a year after you move interstate.’ 

Will snorts out a laugh, mouth twitching up into a smile that is devastating in its beauty even as he teases Mike. 

‘He’s your friend, Mike, you literally took him to your favourite bar on Monday.’ 

‘Because it has the good vodka that he likes!’ 

‘On Monday.’ 

‘Well, it’d be too busy to go on a Saturday or Sunday. We wouldn’t be able to have a conversation or anything.’ 

Will just looks at him, and Mike tries not to pout.  

‘He’s not my friend.’ 

The apartment falls quiet. In the distance, the city traffic is still blaring, cars driving up and down the street outside. But within the apartment, all Mike can hear is the scratching of Will’s pencil against paper.  

‘Hey Will?’ Mike asks quietly. He usually doesn’t like to disturb Will when he’s drawing or painting. Will painting is something special, a type of concentration that the rest of the party can’t achieve. It’s a quiet sort of focus. Serene. Mike is loath to break him out of it, but the small smile that grows across Will’s face as he turns to look at Mike is worth it. 

‘Yeah?’ 

‘D’you want to get dinner tomorrow night?’ Mike winces, and then corrects himself. ‘I mean, I’d like to take you out for dinner, tomorrow?’ 

Mike and Will have had dinner together before. They’re best friends who share an apartment and a fridge. They’ve had dinner together nearly every Friday for the last nine months. They’ve had everything from Thai food from the resturant down the street to Thanksgiving leftovers to the last two pieces of bread in the loaf that’s definitely stale.  

They have also, separately, gone on first dates before. Mike knows that Will dated casually, in his first year of college, though he can’t remember the names of any of the guys Will mentioned. And Mike went on three first dates, after encouragement from Steve, and even went on a second date with a guy before spiralling straight back into Sarah’s office. 

They have never gone to dinner on a first date together, so Mike has to make this special.  

He doesn’t really know how you’re supposed to go on a first date with your best friend, because first dates are supposed to be about getting to now a person. There’s no person that Mike knows as well as he knows Will, not even himself.  

But he tries his best, and he follows the playbook. He calls the Italian place that Joyce and Hop raved about last time they came to the city and makes a reservation for six. He maps out the timetables for the subway so that they’re not spending too long waiting on a smelly subway platform, and he irons a shirt.  

He doesn’t try to tame his hair because the last time he did that, Max had burst out into laught and didn’t even try to hide it.  

He didn’t want to seem too eager, even though he is, so he’s wearing the jeans that don’t have rips at the knees and he’s left the top button of his shirt unbuttoned.  

‘Wow. I feel underdressed.’ 

Mike turns, wiping his sweaty hands against his thighs, as Will steps out of his bedroom.  

Will’s wearing his favourite jeans, the ones that have paint stains around the pockets and the hems are a bit frayed from being dragged along the concrete streets. The hoodie he’s wearing must be one of Mike’s, because it’s just a little too long at the arms and drops past Will’s He looks comfortable. He looks cosy.  

There are a hundred butterflies beating away in Mike’s stomach. 

‘No, no,’ Mike says immediately. ‘You look fine, you look good.’ 

He always does. 

The subway doors close behind them as they step onto the train and Mike lets out a sigh of relief. They missed the first two trains that Mike planned for, but Mike knows to plan for contingencies. 

Bean (previously called BN, previously called Bio Notes), in a rare display of affection, had yowled until he got some attention from both Will and Mike as they were locking all the windows in the apartment.  

So, Mike and Will are potentially going to be late because they wanted cuddles from Will’s cat.  

In theory, the third train should get them their right on time if they walk quickly.  

They’ve missed the first train, and the first back up train, but they make the second backup train (which should get them there with 5r minutes to spare).  

‘I’m so sorry,’ Will says, ‘but he was being such a sweetheart.’ 

‘Dude,’ Mike says and then winces because should you call your date Dude, even though you ate ants and fought an interdimensional being together? ‘You know I’m like two years into my five year plan for Bean to like me? Tonight was like a big step in our relationship. He even let me pat him.’ 

And that had been dangerous in more than one way, because Bean usually doesn’t let Mike near him unless Will is holding him, let alone touch him. So today, Mike had stepped close to Will to scratch under Bean’s chin, and Will was practically tucked into Mike’s in a way that had Mike want to press his lips into Will’s hair and stay there.  

‘It was pretty cute.’ Will smiles as he says it. ‘I’m sure he’ll warm up to you. He doesn’t hiss at you anymore.’ 

‘It took him like two weeks to warm up to you,’ Mike complains. ‘Probably because you’re the one that feeds him.’ 

‘And now I get all the cuddles,’ Will says. 

Mike laughs, picturing the weird flop that is a Bean cuddle. He kind of lies upsides down in Will’s arms, forcing Will to hold his arms just far enough from his body that it looks awkward. But Bean will purr as Will paces around the apartment holding the cat like that.  

‘Oh shit.’ He grabs Will by the wrist, and tugs him out of the subway car moments before the doors closed. ‘Sorry this was our stop, I wasn’t paying attention. Your cat is adorable.’ 

It’s a lie. Will’s cat is kind of ugly but the smile on Will’s face when he’s holding Bean, that’s what’s adorable. 

‘Where are we even going?’ Will asks as Mike leads them up to street level through what is hopefully the right exit. He’s forced to let go of Will’s wrist when they go through the pay barriers, but doesn’t have the bravery to grab Will’s hand instead. 

‘Italian place,’ Mike says, ‘Hop says they have good breadsticks.’ 

They’re slightly out of breath when they get to the front of the restaurant, Mike bypassing the line of walk-ins waiting for a table. He has the presence of mind to open the door and then step aside to let Will in first, but when he steps in he practically walks into Will’s back. 

‘Oh no,’ Will murmurs, and Mike’s stomach drops out from beneath him.  

‘What is it? You didn’t forget something at home, did you? There’s not something wrong with the restaurant? ‘ 

Will spins around and his eyes a bit wide and wild, this isn’t the worry of facing Vecna, or a bad test score. This is the same look for horror and fear as when Jennifer asked him to dance at the Snow Ball all those years ago.  

‘Mike,’ Will says, voice almost cracking, ‘you didn’t tell me we were going somewhere nice. I am so underdressed, they’re not going to let me in.’ 

‘You look fine,’ Mike says with a wave of his hand.  

‘Michael, I have paint on my jeans. Fuck, no wonder you ironed your shirt. Why didn’t you say anything?’ 

‘Because you’re not underdressed,’ Mike says. ‘You look great.’ 

Mike walks up to the host stand, where a man about fifteen years older than them is standing with a clipboard and a bowtie. The man’s eyes first settle on Mike’s before drifting over his shoulder to where Will stands. There’s clearly judgement in his eyes, and Mike’s about to speak, feels his shoulders draw up and tilts his chin, when he hears Will. 

‘Mike,’ Will whines, and Mike can’t help turning around to look at Will. He’s hunched in on himself, arms wrapped around his own waist like he can hide the hoodie that he’s wearing. Mike feels himself soften, feels his shoulders drop and his smile grow before he turns back to the host.  

‘Reservation for two. Mike Wheeler?’ 

The host’s face freezes, judgement dropping off his face as he looks from Mike to Will and back to Mike. There’s confusion, realisation and then amusement all flashing across his face before he flags down a server.  

Mike feels awkward standing there, as the server comes over and the host whispers in his ear. The server lets out a snort of laughter, but then retreats back into the main part of the restaurant.  

‘Right this way,’ the host says, and leads them through the restaurant through to a table towards the back. ‘I hope you gentlemen don’t mind an inside table?’ Mike just shakes his head. 

‘You made a reservation?’ Will hisses into Mike’s ear. Mike really tries not to shudder at the feeling of Will right behind him.  

‘Of course I made a reservation, it’s a Friday night,’ he says, instead.  

The host gestures to the table, and Mike thinks there might be something like judgement back in the host’s eyebrow as he and Will settle into the table. The host places some menus down, but then makes a pointed remark about Chicken Alfredo and Garlic Bread that makes Mike realise with a wince that this was the man who took his reservation that morning, when Mike stumbled through about five questions in making sure that this place was going to be perfect.  

How embarrassing.  

Will takes the menu with a nod of gratitude, but as soon as the host leaves and says that their server will be there shortly, he leans across the table. 

'I thought we were going to like, Bruno's Pizzeria or something,' he hisses, looking around at all the people in the restaurant. 'The Cheesecake Factory at best. I should have changed, why didn't you tell me to change?' 

'Why would I take you to Bruno's?' Mike asks. 'We go there like every week?' 

Will looks stumped, falling back into his seat as he looks across at Mike.  

'And how many times must I tell you? You're dressed fine,' Mike says. 'No-one kicked us out.' 

'Everyone's looking at us,' Will says, gesturing to the other servers who are glancing over as they walk past.  

'They're probably looking at me,' Mike bluffs, because they're almost definitely looking at Will with his big eyes and his fluffy hair and his broad shoulders. 'I probably made such a fool of myself when I called them for the reservation. I asked if they did pasta.' 

This makes Will laugh, makes a bit of the tension in his shoulders loosen and Mike wants to reach across the table and take his hand. 

The server comes then. She's younger than Will and Mike, and has an eyebrow piercing that Mike doesn't think people are allowed to have at restaurants like this. She introduces herself as Rhonda, and asks if they want anything to drink while they think about what they want to order. She's staring at Mike, eyes only darting to Will occasionally, and Mike feels irritation rising in his gut. But he knows he can't ruin this, he knows he can't let himself get too caught up in it, so he lets out an exhale. 

'Two white wines, please,' he says because neither of them have developed a taste for red yet and they're certainly not going to be able to buy a beer or pop at this place without a little bit of judgement from the servers. 'And I think we're ready to order.' 

Will looks up from the menu like a deer in headlights.  

'He'll have a chicken alfredo, and I'll have a lasagne,' Mike says confidently.  

Rhonda's eyebrow climbs up and she looks over to Will properly for the first time since she came over to take their orders. 

'Chicken Alfredo?' she asks. And if it wasn't for the fact that they'd already established that this place does Chicken Alfredo, he would think there was a bit of judgement in her tone. 

'Ah, yeah,' Will says, folding the menu. 'Chicken Alfredo's fine.' 

She hums and wrinkles her nose and then walks away. Mike's not sure he feels comfortable about tipping her, but also he doesn't want to look like a dick in front of Will.  

'Is Chicken Alfredo not fine?' Mike says, once it's just the two of them. 'I mean, you get it every time we eat Italian so I thought... I mean we can always call her back if you want to get something different?' 

'No, no you're right, I was thinking of getting the Chicken Alfredo,' Will says with a laugh.  

Mike releases a sigh of relief before he freezes. 'Oh shit, I shouldn't have ordered for you. That's why she was looking at us weirdly, I mean even if I knew what you wanted to eat, that's so rude of me.' 

'Mike,' Will interrupts. 'You've ordered for me most of my life. I don't think I've had to talk to a fast-food employee since I was, like, fourteen. It's fine.'  

Mike's fingers tap at the table though, as he looks across at Will and hopes that he's not fucking this up beyond belief.  

'How can we even afford this?' Will asks, looking around the restaurant. 'I mean, it's way nicer than where we usually go out for dinner.' 

'Don't worry about it,' Mike says, 'I asked you to come here, and I'm paying. We can't do a place like this every week, but don't forget that I worked like full time last year and didn't have to pay rent to my mom. I can afford it, on special occasions.' 

'Well, if you're sure,' Will says.  

Rhonda brings over some breadsticks and the wine, and Mike takes a sip. He doesn't really like it, but he doesn't really know enough about wine to explain why he doesn't like it. Will seems to though, as he takes a small sip and lets out a little nod of appreciation.  

Since they're at the back of the restaurant, it's fairly dark, they're illuminated by a single overhead light a few tables over and the candle that sits on the table between them. If not for the general hubbub of conversation, Mike can almost pretend that the two of them are alone in the world. He tries not to be too obvious as he looks at will, watching the flickering of the candlelight cast shadows against his cheeks.  

'So, have you heard back from the magazine?' Will asks. 

Mike exhales. 'Not yet, but I should next week, if I get in. They said that winners should hear back by mid-March, so that there's time to do edits for the April edition.'  

'You'll get in,' Will says confidently. 'I don't think you'll need any edits. I thought it was great.' 

Mike blushes. They talk about Will's art a lot, because it's so front and centre to their apartment and lives, thanks to Will's degree. But they don't talk about Mike's writing, not outside of DMing a campaign, because recently he's felt like his writing has flayed him bare for the world to see.  

'I'm sure a professional editor might not agree,' Mike says, looking down at his plate. 'But thanks.' 

'Nancy liked it, and she's a professional editor,' Will argues. 

'She edits the advice column of her newspaper in her spare time,' Mike says with a laugh. Nancy had stepped in to support the intern columnist at the paper six months ago and now has a side-job complaining to Mike about how bad the poor girl is at spelling. 'She's hardly a science fiction editor.' 

'Still, she liked it, didn't she?' 

She did, Mike can admit. She said that he had a good sense of narrative symmetry and his prose wasn't too flowery.  

Rhonda brings over the food, and there's a moment when Mike realises the absolute catastrophe of him ordering food with red sauce when he's got a mostly white shirt on and hopes that he doesn't spill it all over himself in front of Will.  

A part of him had been worried, if he was honest, that this was going to be awkward. What do you talk about on a date with a person? What do you talk about on a date with your person? He'd made notes in the morning, when Will was in class, on what they could have talked about.  

But he doesn't need to follow the playbook, because it's Will and the two of them can talk about everything and nothing. It's been years, years, since awkward silence hung between them in Lenora, but now the words flow and Will's smile grows and Mike cannot look away. 

Mike does end up tipping well, because when Will goes to the bathroom after eating, Rhonda puts a bag on the table as she brings over the bill. It's got some cannoli in it, and he's about to make up an excuse when she leans in. 

'Next time, pull out his goddamn chair when he's about to sit down,' she says, and winks.  

Mike feels his cheeks flare pink and he just nods mutely before Will comes back. The two of them make their way out of the restaurant, and Mike doesn't realise how warm it had been in there until they breath in the brisk Spring air. It's not cold, but Mike finds himself shuffling a bit closer to Will as they make their way back to the apartment, stomachs heavy with glorious pasta and the promise of a dessert when they get back to the apartment.  

'Thanks for this,' Will says, looking up slightly at Mike as they make their way out of the subway station and back onto the street. 'It was a really nice time.' 

'It was,' Mike agrees, and the air between them feels warm.  

Will looks up at him for a moment longer before he seems to remember himself and looks forward. 

They're quiet, in that comfortable sort of way that they've always been, as they make their way back up the stairs to the apartment. Mike sets himself to plating the cannoli, while Will goes to give Bean his dinner, and he lets out a sigh of relief. 

It had gone well, it had gone so well. It was still going well.  

'Here,' Mike says, handing Will his plate once Bean is devouring the can of wet food that he gets before bed. Mike sits at the kitchen table, while Will sits on the counter, and Mike can't help but think that this is the perfect way to end the night. Because even after the fancy food, and the glasses of wine, they still come home, and they still act like them.  

'Damn, this is good,' Will says, 'why don't we get dessert more often?' 

Mike laughs, standing up to put his plate in the sink. 'Because none of the places we usually eat sells dessert, at least not like this.' 

Will hums his agreement. Mike puts his plate in the sink, and he carefully moves closer to Will. He wants to step into the space between Will's spread thighs, to move into his space as Will finishes the last few bites. He wants to tilt his own face up, and press a kiss to the underside of Will's jaw, to bite the softness of his lip. 

But even though today was good, even though Mike's heart is still pounding from the relief and joy of his night, it feels too early, too much. He doesn't do that and Mike instead leans against the counter next to him, feeling the heat from Will's thigh. 

'Thanks,' Mike echoes back, 'for going out with me.' And Will hums and he smiles down at Mike, and it really feels like enough. 

Mike's only got a five hour opener on Wednesdays, so he's usually done by 10:30.  

Most Wednesdays, he heads back to the apartment and spends an hour or two writing (or attempting to, anyway) while he waits for Will to finish classes, and then they'll head over to the game shop to play some D&D in the evenings. Mike's playing this campaign as a tiefling, which is a change up for him, but he sometimes finds he misses the fun of being a DM and has a campaign scribbled on various notebooks that he's got lying around the apartment.  

Today, though, instead of turning right towards the apartment, Mike finds himself turning left towards campus.  

Will has a 9-11am class and a 2-4 class on Wednesday, and the three hours between are usually spent with his classmates or in the library. Mike usually leaves Will alone during this time, doesn't want to intrude too much on Will's college world and doesn't want to take him away from his friends too much.  

Except, last Friday had gone well and they'd had a great weekend hanging out and playing video games and maybe Mike's already impatient to see Will's face. It would be embarrassing, because Mike's seen Will's face nearly every day for months, but he still remembers the days when he wouldn't see Will for months at a time, and he especially remembers the look on Will's face over dinner. So he doesn't care.  

Mike doesn't know many things about NYU's campus, but he does know where Will's classes are and he's about to sit down on the bench that faces the entrance to the building when a group of people burst through, talking over each other. Mike instantly recognises them as Will's college friends.  

'He's a dick is what he is,' says Casey, the first person who had spoken to Will on their first day of classes. He's about half a foot taller than Will and this is the first time Mike hasn't seen a broad smile across his face.  

'You shouldn't have to put up with his bullshit,' someone else says loudly, maybe Jo or Bobbi, Mike can't tell when he can't see who's talking. 'You should take it up with the professor, I know that he's got office hours today.' 

Mike's already halfway there when Casey looks up and spots him, eyes widening before letting out a sigh of relief. 

'Mike,' he says, waving a large hand to get Mike to speed up, jogging along the stone footpath. 'Tell Will that he should do something about that shitty TA of his.' 

That's when Mike realises that the group of friends are congregated around Will, looks of frustration and anger on their face. Jo must be the one that spoke, because she's red in the face and her arm is wrapped around Will's shoulder, while Bobbi's lips are pursed together but she has that contemplative look in her eyes that usually results in everyone losing at poker. 

Mike pauses when he gets close enough because Will looks drawn. He has the same exhaustion and defeat that hung under his eyes from when Hop had started doing crawls. 

'What the fuck did that guy say to you?' Mike says, because Will Byers stopped being affected by words a long time ago.  

'He said that Will's senior showcase lacked heart, that there was no meaning behind it,' Jo spits and Mike sees red.  

He's never even met Will's TA. But he's stepping forward, about to push past when a hand on his arm stops him. Will's looking up at him and he's miserable but he's firm as he shakes his head and all the fight falls out of Mike's body.  

'Mike, you can't fight my TA,' Will says, and his voice is so soft. 'Please don't fight my TA.'  

'It's not like they could kick me out for doing it,' Mike protests, but he steps away and he presses into Will, forcing Jo to drop her arm. 'But fine, I won't.' 

He looks down at Will, before looking up at the three friends in front of him.  

'Do you mind if I borrow him for lunch?' 

It's phrased as a question, but even though he's only known these people in passing until the last few months, all three of them know it's a statement when it comes to Mike and Will.  

'Go for it, we'll see you in class later,' Casey says, as he herds the girls away.  

Mike leads Will away from the university, hoping that the space will give Will time to breathe. It's a bit early for lunch, so he tries to find a cafe where they can grab a coffee now and then order some food when Will's a bit more perked up.  

He's used to quiet Will. It started when they were twelve and they were both recovering from the first trauma of the Upside Down, but as they've gotten older, the silences have gotten heavier and more complex, they understand more and need to talk through less. But that doesn't mean that Mike doesn't want to try,  

'It was a dumb thing for him to say,' Mike says, once they're seated and Mike's pushed a latte in front of Will's hands. 'He doesn't know shit.' 

'He doesn't,' Will agrees, but he still sounds a little bit faint.  

'It's a great painting,' Mike says, even though he hasn't seen it yet. 

'Hey,' Mike says, and Will's eyes lift up to meet his. 'I mean, the rest of the party are coming down next week. We could totally sic Max on him.' 

Will lets out a little giggle-snort, Mike's favourite of his laughs.  

'Don't be mean,' Will says, 'he's not that bad he's just...' 

'That bad?' 

'Mike,' Will sighs. 'Art is subjective, but he has to mark us against a rubric, so then it just becomes his perspective. He's not bad, he's just stuck in his lane.' 

Mike hums, he supposes he understands that to a degree. It had taken him several years to unlearn that not everything was going to go the way that he wanted, and that sometimes he could only hope.  

'Speaking of the party coming down,' Mike starts. 'Any ideas on what we want to do? I've checked the movie screening and the only thing good on is Groundhog Day, and I reckon they would have already seen it. It's been out for almost a month.' 

They were, collectively, too broke to go see something on Broadway and Mike didn't keep up with Off-Broadway. And if he didn't, then the rest of the party certainly didn't.  

'We could rent something?' Will suggests. 'Been a while since we did a movie marathon?' 

'But for like... five days?' 

The thing is, he knew they could do it if they put their mind to it.  

'At least half of that will be your D&D campaign, Mike,' Will corrects. 'Don't think I didn't see your notes on the coffee table last week.' 

'Don't... Will, I don't want you to read any spoilers,' Mike huffs. 'We don't even know if they'll be up for a D&D game. I mean it's New York City, there's like a thousand things to do and I don't even know where to start. We should have gone to Georgia and visited Dustin.' 

Will laughs. 'You don't have to plan everything, Mike. If we were going to Georgia, you would be at the library reading up on all the things to do there instead.' 

He's not wrong.  

'It might have been warmer, at least,' Mike mutters. 

'It might have been warmer but you would have complained the entire bus ride down,' Will says.  

Mike would have.  

'Maybe, we should just see how it goes.' 

Will can't hold the giggle-snort again, and Mike would be proud of himself of drawing not one but two out in the space of one conversation, if he wasn't internally panicking. 

'I can totally go with the flow,' Mike says, and Will leans over, puts his hand on top of Mike's where it's resting on the table.  

'You absolutely cannot,' he says. 'I'll put together a list of tourist-y thing that they haven't done already, and fit that around D&D.' 

Mike feels his body collapse a little in relief, and he looks up at Will. 'Thank you.' 

He swallows, and he's definitely less subtle than he'd like to be when he twists his hand over and catches Will's hand in his own before Will can pull away too far. Will's eyebrows shoot up in surprise, but he doesn't say anything as a bit of pink starts to dust over his cheeks in a way that makes Mike want to bite them. 

One day, when they've graduated from handholding.  

Will takes another sip of his coffee, and he seems to steel himself, taking a sigh and looking back at Mike with firmer eyes.  

'Speaking of having no plans,' Will says, carefully and slowly and Mike's fingers tighten slightly before he can stop himself, 'have you thought about going back to college, getting a full degree?' 

Mike shrugs. 'I mean, not really. I've got enough money, between my job and, you know, Dad.' 

'You can't work in a bakery forever,' Will says, and he winces before adding, 'I mean, not with your baking skills.' 

It's an attempt at a joke, and although it doesn't quite land, Mike appreciates it.  

'Steve and Scott think that I should try teaching,' he admits. 'Not middle school, but maybe high school?' 

'You did like tutoring those kids,' Will says. 'Every time you called there was something else that you had to tell me about them.' 

'Maybe,' Mike says. 'I mean, I've got time, don't I? Nancy's always telling me that people have different paths, and different timelines. But then again, she got a job at like nineteen.' 

'Do you at least know where you want to go? I mean NYU is good, but you can do a teaching degree anywhere.' 

Mike laughs, 'Will, I'm going wherever you are after you graduate.' 

He relishes in the way Will's still pink cheeks darken even further. 

'You didn't have to pay,' Will protests as they make their way back to Will's next class. 

Sometimes Mike regrets not being brave when he was younger. He never got the chance to carry Will's books to their next class in high school. But then he looks over at when a grown-up Will Byers is walking with his book bag hitting his thigh without fear in his eyes and Mike knows that the wait was worth it.  

'I know I didn't have to,' Mike retorts, 'but I wanted to. You can get the next one.' 

Will rolls his eyes with a smile, and Mike knows he's gone because he finds it endearing. He hopes that Lucas and Dustin never work out that fact.  

'You actually have to let me pay though,' Will warns. 'I've got a job and a dead dad too, you know.' 

Mike shakes his head. 'We're saving the Lonnie Budget for your graduation,' he says, because the Lonnie Budget might not be enough to live off, but it's certainly enough for one blow out party to celebrate Will Byers being the amazing artist that he is because Fuck Lonnie Byers. 

They slow to a stop outside the Art Building, which is as far as Mike really goes. He always feels awkward when he actually walks into the buildings on campus, like someone will point at him and say that's him, the kid who doesn't go here.  

'Hey Mike,' Will says, and he doesn't move to walk through the glass doors behind him. Instead, they scoot to the side, getting out of the foot traffic. 'I just wanted to say thank you, for today.' 

Mike's brow wrinkles. 

'What do you mean?' 

'I mean I had a shitty morning, and you always know how to come in and make it a bit less shitty. I really appreciate you, appreciate what you do for me. I know it's selfish, I know it's so selfish, but I really missed having you here when you were still in Indiana. You always make things better.'  

It's Mike's turn to blush and he can feel his cheeks heating up. He resists the urge to look up and away, forces himself to keep his eyes on Will. He wants to just hold Will, wants to pull Will into his arms and tilt his head up just that little bit and press a kiss to his lips. But he can't because Will's got a class in five minutes and this is not where Mike has pictured their first kiss.  

Instead, he reaches out, and he grab's Will's hand in his, pulling that to his chest, and he squeezes it with everything that he feels. 

'I'm always going to be there for you, Will,' he promises. 'Even when I was in Indiana, I was there for you. And I know it's different now, and I know it's different here and it's going to be better. But I'm always going to be here when you need me.' 

He presses their hands to his lips, it's less of a kiss and more of a strong and steady exhale, a promise that is rooted into his very soul.  

And even once Will has walked into class, and Mike's begun his walk back home, Mike feels like he's flying. 

'I'm going to say it,' Dustin says, sat on the floor under the window as he scratches Beans under the chin. He's always been the favourite and claims that he has a way with animals, but Mike is convinced that he sneaks Bean food whenever Will isn't looking. 'That campaign was awful.' 

'I put, like, three weeks into planning that campaign,' Mike says, offended.  

Max's laughter is mocking. 

The party are spread over the living room. Max and Lucas are curled up on the armchair across from Dustin, his arm curled across her waist and her socked feet resting on the coffee table. It's nothing they're not used to - Max and Lucas never had a honeymoon period in their relationship. But, sometime between Lucas holding her hand in the laundry room of a hospital and her driving him back to Hawkins at 3am in the morning to surprise his mother for her 50th Birthday, their relationship had grown into something that Mike could only describe as adult.  

Mike and Will are sitting on the couch, pressed against each other even though it’s a three seater. It's only that warmth that stops Mike from leaning away and hitting Dustin or Max with one of the deflated cushions that Joyce tried to place in their apartment for décor.  

'I enjoyed it,' Will says, his voice quiet in the space between them. Mike can't help but tilt his face to look down at Will.  

'That's because you always get the best plots,' Dustin grumbles.  

'Look,' Mike says, 'I didn't think you were going to die that early, did I? You were the one who made stupid decisions.' 

'I didn't make stupid decisions, it was a bad campaign.' Dustin looks at Lucas and Max for support.  

'I mean,' Lucas starts and it's the placating, careful voice that he perfected at sixteen, 'you did make some pretty bad decisions.' Mike's about to fist pump when Lucas' gaze swings back to him. 'But it definitely wasn't your best campaign either.' 

Mike feels indignation rise up in his chest. It's not anger, because Mike has experienced the truest of angers over the years, and it's not betrayal because he knows that these people will be by his side until the day he dies. But annoyance, the most prevalent feeling around these people, reared its ugly hair.  

'I mean, if you guys are going to complain, Dustin can DM next time,' he threatens. 

'No, no,' Max says as she sits forward on Lucas' lap, forcing him to wheeze as he adjusts to the new redistribution of her weight. 'If Dustin DMs, I'm not playing.' 

Dustin throws a skittle at her.  

'I make a great DM,' Dustin huffs, as he stands up and walks into the kitchen. 'You guys just can't appreciate my creative genius.' 

'I should talk to him,' Will leans into Mike’s side to murmur the words in his ear.  

The loss of warmth is instant, Mike hyperaware of all the places that he and Will had been touching as soon as that touch is gone. He can't help but turn, follow the line of Will's shoulders as he walks across the apartment to the kitchen. It's not far, but Mike can't help but feel like he's at a museum, standing back and looking at a painting that he cannot, in this moment, touch.  

He watches the strength of Will's hand as it settles on Dustin's shoulder, watches the way draws out the moment of frustration and distracts Dustin.  

He gives Dustin his full attention, the way he does with everything and anyone, and Mike can't even bring himself to be jealous because Will's ability to just be present in a conversation is one of his favourite things about Will.  

Mike doesn't want to look back at Max and Lucas, but he knows he can't avoid it. He can practically feel their eyes burning into the side of his head, and he carefully turns to face forward again. Mike can't pretend that he wasn't staring at Will, because very few people know him as well as Max and Lucas.  

Sometimes he thinks back to being a child, to those horrendous days when Will was missing. He still remembers the clunky kindness from Dustin as he was trying to describe how Lucas was his best friend, in a way that Dustin wasn't. As a child, it had been hard to comprehend the complexities of friendship. But as Mike has grown and loved and lost, he's learnt how to fit together the puzzle pieces that is his group of friends.  

Dustin and Will and Max, they are his best friends and Mike will never call them anything but. Dustin and Max are annoying, frustrating pillars in his life that Mike would be heartbroken to lose. They're the ones that Mike will call when he knows he needs a kick up the ass, because they won't shy away from it. 

And Will is his everything, so foundational to Mike that he doesn't even know who he would be if he didn't sit next to that little boy on the swings. 

But Lucas. Lucas is Mike's best friend.  

The two of them are cut from the same cloth, they have the same fear, the same love, the same fury. Lucas is the one who understands Mike without needing to say a word. Lucas is the one who, at 11pm at night, will take Mike's calls as Mike stumbles through the mess that is his life. The one who will, no matter what, help Mike come up with a solution. 

Lucas is also, annoyingly, sentimental in his old age.  

His eyes are wide and soft as he looks at Mike, compared to his girlfriend who has wicked, wicked amusement in hers.  

'Dude,' Lucas hisses, 'is what I think is happening, well, happening?' 

Mike gives a kind of half shrug, he can feel his cheeks burning red under their gazes.  

Lucas and Max had been the ones who got the panicked phone call, after the meeting with Sarah. Mike's chest had felt so full in that moment, full of love and worry and fear, and when he'd left the dimly lit office, he had found the first payphone and collect-called Lucas with the name holyshitI'minlovewithWi—. It was only when he actually got home and called from the home phone that he realised that Max had been the one to pick up. 

'I refuse to believe that you actually manned up,' Max says with a snort. 'He had to have made the first move. After all these years and, what, you asked him out?' 

'Pretty much,' Mike admits. 'We're taking it slower, I don't want to fuck this up.' 

Lucas lets out a low whistle. 'Hang on, if Max and I are staying in your room, where are you sleeping?' He asks it but his eyes are knowing, eyebrow raised as he stares Mike down. 

'I'm,' Mike says, 'staying in Will's room. We're not like, you-know, but Dustin snores, especially when he's on a couch.' Max lets out a sound, agreement and disgust mixed together. 'So, while you guys are here, it just makes more sense for me to stay with him, rather than bringing out an air mattress or something.' 

'No way,' Lucas breathes. 'No. Way. Dude, this is amazing news.' 

'Can't believe I'm saying this, but you stuck the landing. Damn, I'm proud of you, Wheeler.' 

‘Don’t be,’ Dustin says as he comes back, even though he clearly hasn’t heard a wod of what the three of them have been talking about. Dustin’s got a bowl of Nachos (though Mike would more accurately describe it as corn chips with cheap sauces dumped all over it) and he places it in the middle of them on the coffee table. ‘Never be proud of Mike, that’s the first step to your inevitable downfall.’ 

Mike lets out another sound of offence, as Will settles down on the couch again, not quite tucked into Mike’s side but close enough that Mike can imagine. Mike leans forward to mix a slightly stale corn chip in with the salsa, and when he leans back, he carefully drapes his arm along the back of the couch. He can’t drop his arm down over Wills shoulders, not yet, but even being this close to Will has his heart thudding in his chest. 

Will shifts, ever so slightly into the space that Mike has made for him, and Mike has to tamp down his excitement. His friends already tease him enough about how he interacts with Will, imitating what they call his Will-Voice, complaining that he memorised Will’s New York number but still had to check Dustin’s in his address book. He can’t even think about the beast that might be unleashed now. 

Mike chews on the corn chip, but when he looks up, he can see Dustin staring.  

Dustin’s not one for controlling his expressions, he’s always worn his whole self on his face. So, when Mike looks up at Dustin, he can see the Dude, what the fuck? on Dustin’s face and Mike almost wants to sink into a hole and never have to interact with any of his friends again.  

Instead, he sends back a glare that hopefully reads as don’t you dare. 

There’s another more quizzical look on Dustin’s face, but he doesn’t say anything as he grabs a handful corn chips. 

Max is the one who starts it, when this have fallen quiet except for the crunch of chips and the clink of beer bottles being put back down.  

'Asia,’ she says, and then turns to Dustin. 

Dustin takes a sip of his beer. ‘Hong Kong.’  

He looks at Mike and Will again, the two of them ruminating over it. Personally, Mike didn’t know much about Hong Kong at all, but Will loved to flick through a Lonely Planet book at the bookstore, and to pick a place to research and draw.  

‘She’d want to see the water. She always loved going down to the beach when we were in California. Didn’t matter if we were going to see the surfers or the fishermen, she loved it, I’m sure she’d probably be fascinated by the harbour.’ 

‘Man,’ Lucas says, ‘I mean the food would be great too. She wasn’t ever scared of trying new foods, wasn’t she?’ 

Will shakes his head. ‘More daring than Jon and I, that’s for sure.’ 

‘I wonder if they’ve got Eggos,’ Mike muses, earning himself a sharp rib into his gut. He laughs and pushes Will in response, then pulls him in closer. 

‘If she goes to Hong Kong, and she eats Eggos,’ Will says, ‘then I’m disowning her as my sister.’ 

It’s not sad, anymore, talking about El.  

That’s wrong. It’s sad, but it doesn’t feel overwhelming anymore.  

In the early days, after graduation when he first spun the story of the Mage, they’d play this game as a way to soften the hurt. They’d pick a place, a country or a city or even a park, and think about what she would be doing out there. 

It’s not a sharp hurt and now these conversations are like a tender bruise. Mike doesn’t like to think about the fact that they’ve now lived their lives longer with her out of her lives than it, but even now she permeates their friendship, strengthens it.  

Mike doesn’t know now, further removed from the grief and finally able to understand the why, what he truly believes about what happened with El with that final moment in the end. But now he realised that’s not the important part. 

The important part is all the moments before.  

And Mike is never going to let himself not treasure the moments now with the rest of the party. 

Mike doesn’t realise how ratty his pyjamas are until Lucas gives him a wide-eyed look as they get ready for bed. 

As a group, they’ve finally reached the point where they’re too old to stay up all night, and it’s barely ten-thirty when the group starts splitting up and getting ready for bed. Even though Mike has known that Max and Lucas are staying in his room, Mike still forgot to move the stack of clothes he’s going to wear for the week that they’re here until moments before bed.  

‘Mike,’ Lucas says, ‘we gotta get you some better pyjamas. How are you supposed to impress when there’s a hole in your crotch.’ 

‘There’s not a hole in my—’ 

There’s a hole in his crotch.  

Mike groans, but there’s nothing he can do about it now. He’s trying to figure out what would be worse: continuing to wear said pyjamas in front of Will or buying a newer pair tomorrow and hoping that Will doesn’t notice the change. 

‘I’ll take you shopping tomorrow,’ Lucas promises, then pushes Mike between the shoulder blades into Will’s room. 

Will looks up from where he’s putting his dirty clothes in his hamper, and even though Mike has seen him in his pyjamas countless times before, Mike feels weak. 

He’s not sure if it’s the bare feet against the orange wood of the apartment floor, or the waist of his trackpants slipping because they’re so old, or even the faded print of the band shirt that Mike’s pretty sure Jonathan got Will for his fourteenth birthday. 

Mike sucks in a quick, deep breath. 

‘Did you get everything you need?’ Will asks. ‘I cleared off the top of my dresser for you.’ 

 ‘Thanks,’ Mike says as he slides the clothes onto of the dresser just so he can go another moment without having to look at Will, without having to feel like his stomach is going to drop out. 

He’d thought about a lot of things when they had planned this visit. He had thought about Lucas and Max sharing his bed, he had thought about needing to have constant snacks for Dustin, he had thought about where Steve was going to park the RV even though Steve was just dropping Dustin off. 

He hadn’t thought about Will Byers’ tiny bed, and fluffy hair, and being pressed up to Will overnight.  

Mike takes another, deliberate, breath and then sits on the edge of the bed, trying not to be too obvious about his jiggling leg. He watches as Will puts the last few things away before closing the bedroom door and turning off the big light.  

‘What are you so nervous for?’ Will says, climbing into bed. ‘I’m not going to eat you.’ 

I wish you would, Mike thinks and then is horrified with himself.  

He carefully folds back the duvet and slips underneath, staring up at the ceiling as he tries not to panic. 

‘So,’ Will whispers into the space between them, and Mike tries not to turn over to face Will, ‘you won’t believe what Dustin told me while we were making the nachos.’ 

‘What?’ Mike croaks. 

‘He went on a date last week, and you will not believe who he went on it with.’ 

‘Who?’ 

‘Erica.’ 

A beat. 

Mike rolls onto his side, propping his head up as he looks at Will in the dim light of the bedroom lamp on his bedside table, nerves forgotten as he stares at Will. 

‘Erica... As in... Erica?’ 

Will giggles as he presses his cheek into his pillow and nods. ‘Yep, Dustin was terrified. Apparently, she came up to him at some physic club event on campus and told him they were going on a date.’ 

‘I didn’t even think he—’ 

‘Neither did he,’ Will says. ‘I don’t think he felt like he could say no.’ 

Very few people could say no to Erica Sinclair.  

‘So, she likes him?’ 

Erica, Mike had learnt, was loud about the people that she liked. He still remembers the horrified look on Steve’s face, that one time Erica had verbally eviscerated Tracy B during a lunch break of her sophomore year. He would have thought someone would have talked about this before now. 

‘Apparently.’ 

‘She’s like a baby though,’ Mike says, as if he didn’t sit at her high school graduation with Lucas the year prior.  

‘She’s eighteen,’ Will corrects. ‘And, well, we both know it’s hard to find someone when they haven’t...’ 

‘Had the same life experience?’ 

Will hums, a low sound of agreement between them. Mike turns back to the ceiling, his heart isn’t beating out of his chest now, instead he’s steady and comfortable as he settles into the pillows. 

He knows that the group of them are bonded, that even though some of them had tried to date outside with people they’ve met in their every day, that they keep coming back together, keep coming back to the trauma that bonds them and binds them. 

Mike knows, however, in his bones, that he and Will have been built for each other, that the Upside Down only further tightened something celestial between them. 

‘I mean,’ Mike continues, quietly. ‘They’re kind of the two worst people I know, so I can kinda see it. She’s never going to take any of his shit.’ 

‘She never has.’  

‘I can’t wait to tell Murray,’ Mike says before remembering that he’s not friends with Murray and certainly wouldn’t gossip with him now they don’t live in the same state. Will giggles again and Mike groans. ‘You reckon Max is going to kill Dustin, if she finds out?’ 

'Probably.’ 

Mike can already picture Lucas’ reaction. He reckons that by the time Lucas has processed that someone had actually willingly gone on a date with his demon spawn younger sister, Max would have already buried Dustin’s body. 

He just hopes they don’t do this in his apartment.  

Will turns off the bedroom lamp, and it’s only the glow of New York’s light pollution and Will’s shitty blinds that illuminate the room. 

Mike isn’t used to this, not anymore, the comfort of talking to someone into the night and knowing that either of them could just fall asleep any moment. There’s no goodnight Will, before he walks away. There’s no end to their night, not really, and there’s just an endless openness.  

He loves it. 

‘I’ve missed this,’ he says, ‘the party being together like this. I’ve really missed it.’ 

It’s the first time he’s voiced it aloud to Will, to anyone in the party. They’ve been on separate paths, since that D&D campaign on the night of their high school graduation, and Mike has tried to force himself to come to terms with it. But even after all this time, there are pieces of his soul that slot in together when the five of them are in the same space. 

He feels Will shift again, and feels a strong hand rest on his shoulder. ‘Hey,’ Will says. ‘Look at me.’ 

Mike turns back over and he is struck down. 

Because earlier, when he looked at Will as he giggled into the pillow, it had been funny and sweet and Mike was thinking too much about Erica Sinclair deciding that maybe Dustin Henderson was worth something. But now, now he’s met with the steady, tender eyes that he loves so much, and there is so much in Will’s face that Mike can see, even in the shadows.  

Will’s hand slipped off his shoulder as he turned, and Mike’s itching to reach forward and take it, but instead he just shuffle forward a little bit, unable to pull himself away under Will’s gaze. 

‘I mean, I know that’s what you're supposed to do, grow up and find another life after high school,’ Mike says, ‘but we’ve done that. We tried it, and I just keep wanting them to come home.’ 

‘I think that’s only something people do when they don’t grow up battling interdimensional monsters,’ Will says with a laugh. ‘I’ve missed it too.’ 

‘You can’t tell them I miss them,’ Mike says, ‘they’ll never let me live it down.’ 

‘I’m sure they miss us too,’ Will says. His lips tilt up into a small smile, the one that Mike privately thinks as his. ‘What about this? Once I graduate, we can find a place that’s a bit closer to them.’ 

‘I thought you loved it here,’ Mike says.  

‘I do,’ Will says. ‘But I love the party more.’ 

‘What about your parents?’ 

‘I mean, Dustin’s thinking of going to MIT for Grad School, so as long as we can get Max and Lucas on board, then it’s not like we’ll be going very far,’ Will reasons. ‘We can go to Boston with Nancy, or somewhere in Connecticut. Not to be mean, but I’m sure you can get your teaching degree anywhere, when you decide.’ 

He’s not wrong, Mike agrees with a swallow of nerves. 

‘You’d really be okay with doing that, you’ve been wanting to move to New York since you were like, sixteen?’ 

‘I love New York,’ Will agrees, ‘it’s the place I think I needed to go, after everything. But I’ll love anywhere,  I’m sure. As long as we’re together and, you know, it’s not like south.’  

‘No big dreams to move to Texas, next?’ 

Will snorts a laugh that quickly turns into a yawn, and Mike thinks this might be the best night of his life.  

‘Hey, go to sleep,’ Mike whispers, ‘it’s fine.’ 

‘You’re not too in your head?’ 

‘Not at all.’ 

Mike shakes his head, and he can’t resist it, he presses forward into Will and presses a kiss to his cheek.  

‘Sleep well,’ he says quietly, before turning onto his back. 

It starts to go to shit on Mike’s birthday. 

The bar is one of Will’s favourites. Back in Hawkins, Mike was only allowed into the local bar because Scott Clarke was trusted nearly universally, and everyone saw that way that Steve Harrington shelled out for fancy mocktails between the cheap beers, to make sure that Mike never got drunk on a rare night out. 

But in New York, Will had scored a fake ID within three weeks of starting classes. 

Mike had known that Will had been part of one of the campus societies for gay students, but it was only the summer between their first and second years that Will confided that many of the society meetings had, in fact, occurred in this bar.  

It was safe, Will had reasoned. He was surrounded by like-minded people who cared, and worried. Mike had been grateful knowing that, but he’d also been jealous.  

He’d visited once or twice, during the few times they’d made the journey to New York, but it was only once he moved that Mike started to follow Will into the bar on a regular basis, and he can see why Will likes it. 

It’s not a club. There is no loud music blaring from speakers everywhere, and no dancing where Mike’s awkward body always feels like he’s going to hit someone and no shady corners to sidle up to someone. It’s mostly a sit-down space, with cheap beer and a camaraderie that weaves through the people, something like love and grief and security. 

Mike and Will are at a table by the window, and although Mike wishes he could be sitting next to Will in this moment, he also loves looking across from him.  

It’s been a few weeks since the rest of the party began their treks back home after Spring Break and Will’s birthday, and Mike and Will have settled back into the routines of just being the two of them again. They’ve settled back into the shared takeout and the nights in front of the TV, of Will heading off to class and Mike going to work. 

They’re taking it slow, which Mike doesn’t mind because last time he’d rushed into what he thought a relationship was supposed to consist of and he had not realised he’s missed the important pieces until it was too late.  

He’s going to cherish the important pieces of Will, the way he smiles and laughs, the way he can talk about fifteen minutes about an X-men comic, the frustration in his voice when he doesn’t nail the shading that he’s spent what seems like an hour on.  

He lets himself hold Will’s hand sometimes, and he makes sure he always gets the door. He compliments Will’s flannels, and he always remembers to tell Will that Will is the most important person in his life. 

But still, today is Mike’s birthday and he wants to be a little bit greedy. 

He knows this is a safe space, knows that even though it’s not a club, that no one would look twice if Mike leaned over and kissed Will tonight. Noone would bat an eye, when Mike will ask if Will wants to be his official boyfriend. He’s giddy with it, the idea that they’re safe and loved and together.  

‘So, I finally have a date for the Senior Showcase,’ Will says, ‘it opens on the 14th of May. There’s going to be a whole thing happening, I wondered if you wanted to go? It’s on a Friday.’ 

‘Of course, I can do that,’ Mike says, chest warm as he smiles across at Will. ‘It’s a date.’ 

‘You don’t have to,’ Will’s quick to add, even though Mike has already said he would. ‘I know you probably have work the next morning.’ 

‘Will,’ Mike says carefully and clearly, ‘I want to go. I’ve wanted to go since you told me about it.’ 

Will blushes. ‘The showcase, yeah, but the opening night is just going to be students and teachers everywhere, it’s more networking than anything.’ 

‘It’s important to you,’ Mike says, ‘so I’m going.’ 

‘Thank you,’ Will says. 

Mike takes the last sip of his beer before putting it down. ‘I’m going to duck into the restroom,’ he says, ‘do you want another drink on my way back?’ 

Will shakes his head.  

Mike thinks that perhaps when they leave, Mike might help Will out of his seat, press a soft kiss to his lips and hold his hand on the way home. 

Mike’s got another beer in hand when he weaves his way back from the bathroom to the bar to the table, and he stops.  

Because there’s a guy leaning against the table, hip slightly cocked and beer held loosely in hand as he looks down at Will. He’s got an easy looseness to his limbs, as he waves his hand around at the point that he’s making, but the worst bit is the way that Will is looking up at him. 

Mike knows Will. Knows what Will looks like when he’s angry, when he’s frustrated, when he’s happy and most of all he knows what Will looks like when Will is engaged. There’s no polite flatness to his lips, there’s no tapping of distracted fingers. Will is listening to this other guy talk, hanging on to every word.  

The warmth in Mike’s stomach has dropped out, and he doesn’t know what to do when Will spots him and waves him back over. The only thing that keeps him grounded is the way Will lights up when he spots Mike. 

‘Mike, this is...’ 

‘Carlton,’ Carlton says with what would be a friendly smile if not for the fact that his gaze immediately drifts back to Will. ‘I was just telling Will that I’d seen him around the Art building on campus.’ 

‘Oh,’ Mike says, because he doesn’t know what to say, not without something ugly bubbling up from between his ribs. Mike has spent years repressing that, training himself out of those instinctive responses, especially around Will. ‘Do you study there as well?’ 

‘Yeah, I do sculpture though, not much cross over with the painting and drawing students. But I was just telling Will that we should maybe catch up, as we prepare for the showcase.’ 

‘Oh,’ Mike says again, because Will is nodding in agreement.  

‘I suggested that we maybe meet up on campus,’ Will says, and that’s when something behind Mike’s sternum cracks a little bit.  

He doesn’t end up kissing Will, nor does he end up holding his hand. He’s not sure if Will notices, the way that he can’t bring himself to speak on the walk home, even when Will wishes him another happy birthday before they go to their separate ways. 

Things start to head back to normal, after Mike’s birthday, and at first Mike thinks he might have imagined it. He thinks maybe he was just reading into it too much, thinks that maybe Will might have just met a nice boy at a gay bar and just had a friendly conversation, and nothing else. 

Mike’s sure he’s imagining it, until Will invites Jonathan on one of their dates. 

Mike’s fingers tap a rapid beat against his thigh as he waits for Will outside the Met. There’s a special exhibition on, show casing one of the artists that Will loves, so Mike had brought it up when he saw the ad in the newspaper a few days ago. 

He thought perhaps he had been doing it wrong, up until now. He and Will tended more towards casual dates, things they had done as friends, and perhaps Mike hadn’t been doing enough. He’d tried a few nice dinners, tried to set the table with proper cutlery instead of using the plastic forks that the takeout comes with. 

Perhaps, he had thought, they needed real dates. Things they never did as friends, things they could now do as a couple. And sure, Mike knows shit all about paint mediums and realism, but Will does. Mike might not care too much about what the art looks like, but he knows he cares about the way Will looks at the art. 

‘Mike!’ 

He hears Will’s voice, and turns to it like a sunflower in the sun. Then he immediately pauses. 

Because Jonathan is a few steps behind Will, a small smile on his tired face as he trails behind his younger brother. Mike had known that they were getting lunch before this, but Jonathan coming had never factored into his calculations. 

‘I was telling Jon about the exhibition,’ Will explains as he gets closer to Mike, ‘and he seemed interested, so I decided to invite him along, I knew you wouldn’t mind.’  

‘Right,’ he says with a nod. ‘Um, I already bought our tickets while I was waiting, so Jonathan might need to buy his own, I hope that’s okay?’ 

Mike’s mouth feels like its running on autopilot as he takes in the sight of Jonathan. The thing is that Mike sees Jonathan all the time. The whole purpose of Will moving to New York was to stay close with his family, and so Jonathan is a part of the life that Mike has built for himself, now. 

But they’re certainly not close enough for this. 

‘That’s fine,’ Jonathan says, as they make their way up the steps outside the museum. 'The line is never long here.’ 

‘I should really just by the annual membership,’ Will says. ‘What do I owe you for the ticket, Mike?’ 

‘Nothing. It’s fine.’ Mike’s voice sounds wooden as he follows the two of them. Will doesn’t seem to notice, already getting more of a bounce in his step as they make their way closer. Jonathan, however, turns and his gaze is piercing as he looks back at Mike. 

Mike feels like with every step he takes, he’s further and further behind the pair of them.  

‘I can’t wait to see your Senior Showcase,’ Jonathan says, as they wander through the art gallery. ‘I can’t wait to see your art on display, like this.’ 

Will laughs. ‘It’s a college hall, nothing as fancy as this,’ he says with a shake of his head. ‘Carlton and I checked it out the other day, and the space is tiny I don’t know how we’re supposed to fit the entire graduating class in there.’ 

And.  

Well. 

Mike thinks that perhaps Will is trying to be nice, trying to ease them back into the realm of friends. You really can’t get more obviously platonic about something than inviting your brother to come with you. You really can’t indicate you’re not interested more than talking about another guy. 

Mike thinks that perhaps Will is trying to be nice, trying to be subtle. But it isn’t, on both counts. 

Mike forces on a smile, as his heart shatters in his chest. 

Will doesn’t comment about the sudden change in their shared dinners, doesn’t question that Mike is picking up more hours at work. He doesn’t say a word, and Mike thinks that it’s strike after strike in the notebook of life, indicating that Will Byers wants to move on and past this.  

Mike should have talked it over with Will, but he knows himself now and he knows that the worst version of himself is the one that is hurt.  

So, he doesn’t talk about it, not with Will and not with Lucas or Max or Dustin. Well, he talks about it, the fact that things hadn’t worked out and that they’re back to being friends, but he doesn’t talk about the monster in his chest that is tearing himself apart. 

He calls Nancy, one night when Will is out with Carlton, and he ends up crying into the phone at ten at night, feeling as lost as he did the year before. The next day, he wakes up with swollen eyes and a dry throat to his sister slamming her hand on the front of the door, telling him to wake up.  

She clearly hasn’t slept a wink. 

Nancy is the rudest to Will he’s ever seen her, when she drags Mike past the living area and out to her car. She drives and drives until they’re in a small town an hour and a half north of the city, and then she finds a diner. 

She buys him a milkshake and lets him cry some more.  

‘What are you going to do?’ Nancy asks. ‘I thought you were moving to Boston with him.’ 

‘Maybe I can move to Boston with you,’ Mike suggests with a snotty sniff, and it’s worrying that Nancy seems to consider it. ‘Mom’d like that.’ 

‘She would,’ Nancy murmurs. ‘But we’d kill each other, living under the same roof again.’ 

‘It’d be worth it,’ Mike says, and it feels true because he feels like he’s dying anyway. 

He takes another sip of his too-sweet milkshake. ‘I mean, I’ve lived for years being in love with him and not doing anything about it. We didn’t even date for that long, it’s not like we were official or anything. Why is this so much worse?’ 

‘Because you got a glimpse of what you wanted,’ Nancy says, ‘of what could have been.’ 

It’s not that Mike thinks that he’s been uninvited from the Senior Showcase, it’s just that it was a date that they agreed to before.  

‘Oh, are you going in that?’ Will asks, when he comes out of his bedroom with a collared shirt and a tie.  

Mike looks down at his stained shirt and his holey jeans. ‘Going to what?’ 

Will’s face falls. And even though Mike’s trying to be a friend, his heart hurts because he hates to see Will upset.  

‘My Showcase, we made plans?’ 

Mike gapes. ‘Well, I thought since, you know,’ he says, ‘and well Carlton. I thought you might not want me there anymore.’ 

Will looks at him, confused. ‘No, I do, I really do Mike. I mean, I really want you to come to the opening.’ 

Mike’s brain glitches a bit, then he looks at the clock. ‘Give me like, three minutes,’ he says as he rolls off the couch. 

His shirt is rumpled and Will has to redo his tie for him on the train, but they make it to the opening with five minutes to spare.  

Will slips away to join the cohort of students who have to do their initial rounds, but Mike lets himself wander around the room. It’s not as small as Will had implied, but there is art everywhere. Paintings and photographs are affixed to the walls, with little printed plaques underneath them, sculptures and pottery are sitting on temporary plinths that Mike is too scared to get close to in case he knocks anything off.  

Mike doesn’t know what’s good, not really, because everything is better than what he can do. But everything seems to be missing that something that makes him gasp in surprise, that something that he really only gets when he sees Will’s art.  

He makes his way to a second room, and he stops dead.  

Because on the wall across from the entrance is her. 

Mike had seen the initial sketches, he had known the plan. He hadn’t expected it to hit him, right in the chest.  

It’s a portrait, so large that Mike thinks that if he spread his arms he might just touch the edge of the canvas. It’s painted in black and white and grey, with each brushstroke carefully rendering the arch of her eyebrow, the curve of her lips, the shadows in her eyes.  

The only colour in the entire piece is the shock of red, dripping from her nose.  

Mike stands back, because sometimes he thinks that it’s been so long that he doesn’t remember what El looks like anymore. Jonathan had his photos and videos, and Mike had his stories, but sometimes Mike’s not sure if he remembers the exact shape of her eyes or the texture of her hair. 

She looks so young, and so old.  

‘It’s beautiful,’ a voice says behind him, and Mike jumps.  

Hopper’s got that half smile on his face, and he hands Mike a glass of champagne. Mike tries not to down the whole thing in one go, partially because this is not the place for it. Partially because even though he and Hop are better, he’s sometimes still a little scared and sad. 

‘She was,’ Mike says, ‘he did a good job of it. Even if his TA was a dick about it.’ 

‘Oh,’ Hop says with a laugh that’s just a little bit mean, ‘I’ve already had a nice chat to the man.’ 

It reminds Mike of being barely a teenager and getting a lift home, and he actually laughs. A part of him wishes he got to see it. 

‘How you doing, kid? You good?’ 

Mike looks up at the painting of Eleven.  

He remembers those final few moments with her in the void. He remembers what Hop told him over a year later. She made a choice and Mike and Hopper had to respect it, had to learn to respect it.  

He turns to see Will, standing by Carlton as they look at a painting together. Carlton leans forward to say something, and Will tips his head back into a bright, beautiful laugh.  

Will had made a choice as well. Mike has to respect it.  

‘I’m getting there,’ he says. 

Will graduates, and suddenly Mike’s nearly a year in New York is almost up.  

The move from New York to Boston isn’t going to be that bad, and Nancy offered to cat-sit and then drive some of their belongings back over the summer. But moving Max and Lucas from Chicago to Boston, that’s the real challenge.  

The whole party, plus Steve, are crammed into their small apartment, packing box after box. Somehow, it feels like Lucas and Max have built more of a life in Chicago than Mike realised.  

Lucas’ plants might not survive the drive, so he’s giving them to a teammate, and Max has to pack up her stuff at the workshop and punch that one dude she’s been working with for two years, now that she won’t get fired for it. 

They’re not in a rush, thankfully, as Lucas and Max have long since moved out of student accommodation. Dustin, Mike and Will take it as an opportunity to be tourists for a little bit, between packing cutlery and culling the amount of winter gear Lucas and Max own. 

Steve bows out of Sears Tower, citing that he’s had enough heights for the rest of his life. The rest of them pile into the elevator that takes them up to the 103rd floor to look at the observation deck. Max complains that only tourists do this, but Dustin counters that he is a tourist and Chicago is far more interesting than Georgia from up high. 

Mike tries not to look at Will too closely, because Will is beautiful on a regular day and devastating when there’s a view behind him. 

The observation deck isn’t too crowded, because Max had insisted that if they were going to visit, they would do so in the morning. Mike lets himself break away from the rest of the group, lets himself have a moment to breathe.  

‘Mike?’ 

Mike jumps. ‘Alex?’ 

Alex hasn’t changed too much since the last time Mike saw him, back in Indiana. He’s still got the same fluffy blonde hair, combed back slightly to reveal his forehead, and the same crooked smile. 

‘Shit,’ Mike says and there’s an awkward duck forward before they hug each other. ‘I thought you went back to Indianapolis.’ 

‘I did, but got a job in sales and next thing you know, I’m being told that I’m being sent to Chicago to set up a new office.’ 

‘That’s amazing.’ 

It’s not awkward, like Mike had thought it would be. But Alex had always been nice, back at college. 

‘What are you doing here?’ 

‘Oh, Lucas and Max, I think I mentioned them, right?’ Alex nods as Mike points to where the couple are standing by the glass, looking over the city. ‘We’re helping them pack up to move, the rest of the party and I.’ 

‘That’s good, that’s good,’ Alex says, and he turns back to Mike. ‘So what are you up to these days?’ 

‘Just working, really,’ Mike admits. ‘Though I’m thinking of going back to school, getting a teaching degree. Next year, maybe?’ 

A smile breaks over Alex’s face, and Mike remembers why he said yes to this man.  

‘I’m so glad to hear that! And otherwise, you know, you’re good?’ 

There’s an emphasis on good that makes Mike blush. He’s not sure if Alex is a regret in his life or not, but he’s grateful for the points where their lives intersect. He nods.  

‘Single?’ Alex asks, and maybe, maybe Mike smiles back. 

‘Who was that?’ Dustin asks, once Mike rejoins the group. The rest of them are looking at him and Mike blushes, because he normally doesn’t interact with strangers when they’re out and about, tends to stick to a group. 

‘Alex.’ 

The group falls silent.  

‘Alex,’ Max says, her head whipping around to follow Alex’s form as he gets back onto the elevator. ‘As in hide-in-a-bathroom-for-two-hours-Alex?’ 

‘It wasn’t two hours,’ Mike says hotly, ‘it was like twenty minutes.’ 

Max lets out a whistle, and raises an eyebrow at Mike. ‘I mean, he’s cute.’ 

Mike avoids her gaze, turns to look at the others. Dustin looks impressed, Lucas looks contemplative and Will... Will looks confused. Mike tears his eyes off Will, he already feels too vulnerable to throw in Will Byers. 

‘What’s he doing here?’ Lucas asks. 

‘He’s here for work,’ Mike says. He pauses. ‘He gave me his number.’ 

‘Are you going to call him?’ Dustin asks. 

‘You better,’ Max says, ‘any man who puts up with a two hour long—’ ‘It was twenty minutes!’ ‘—panic attack in a bathroom, talks you down from it and still gives you his number over two years later deserves at least a call back.’ 

Mike shrugs. ‘Maybe?’ 

‘But,’ Will’s weak, thready voice breaks through the chatter of their friends, ‘you don’t date guys.’ 

‘Oh shit,’ Dustin says, but it’s like Mike is hearing him underwater as he looks at Will. 

Mike is confused, he can hear the blood rushing in his ears as he blurts out, ‘Will, we dated for, like, a month and a half.’ 

Mike’s breath is getting shorter, and a part of him is back where he was two years ago in a bathroom of a nice restaurant with Alex. Will is staring at him, eyes wide and even more confusion within them. Mike barely notices the rest of the party, standing around them. 

‘Oh shit,’ Dustin repeats.  

‘Fuck,’ Max breathes. ‘Okay, Wheeler’s with me. You two stay with this one. Lucas, I expect to see you and just you at the apartment in two hours. Dustin, take Will to something.’ 

Her hand is warm where it wraps around his wrist, and Mike stumbles after her.  

Max doesn’t take Mike far, she shoves him onto a park bench and drops down next to him. 

‘Well,’ she says, ‘that was fucked.’ 

Mike leans forward, tugging his finger through his hair. He thinks the rush of the elevator back down to the ground floor shook the impending panic attack out of him, but there’s still a rock on his chest.  

‘I, I don’t know what’s going on.’ He looks up at her through his bangs. ‘I mean, we were dating, right?’ 

Max reaches into her pocket to pull out her smokes, shoving one between her lips. ‘I mean, I thought you guys were? You were all over each other when we came to visit back in March.’ 

‘I called them dates, I know I did,’ Mike says, because he remembers the giddy little hiccup the first time he said it. ‘I tried so hard.’ 

‘I mean, did you ever refer to him as your boyfriend? Surely that should have clued him in?’ 

Mike shakes his head. ‘We never got to that point, I was going to ask if it was okay when things just started,’ he shrugs, ‘going back to what we used to.’ 

‘And you never talked to him about the breakup?’ 

‘It was barely a breakup,’ Mike protests, ‘he just made it very clear that he wanted to go back to being friends. Or, I suppose, he always just that we were being friends.’ 

‘Mike,’ Max says with a groan. ‘I thought you were getting better at communicating this stuff.’ 

‘I was, I am,’ Mike says, ‘but it’s different with Will. I’ve never needed to say anything aloud to him, not since we were like fifteen. I guess, I thought it would be the same now, but maybe I’m wrong.’ 

He doesn’t want to think about the signs he must have misread, the hope he must have projected onto Will, the mistakes he made in thinking that maybe Will might like him back. He just wants to curl up, for a moment, and not have to think. 

‘Do you want to go back to our place, wait for Lucas so you can talk to him?’ 

Mike shakes his head. ‘Can I borrow your car?’ he asks instead. ‘I might drive home for the night, visit my mom.’ 

Max exhales, low and slow. ‘Shit. Ten years I’ve known you, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you run away.’ 

Mike ends up spending two nights in Indiana, one of which is curled up on his mother’s lap as she combs her fingers through his hair.  

He knows that he’ll need to go back eventually, he knows he cannot avoid the rest of the party forever. He’s already had one phone call from Lucas, who’d called as soon as Charles Sinclair spotted Max’s car parking outside the Wheeler carport. He couldn’t promise Mike that everything would be okay, but he promised that they’d work it out and that was nearly enough. 

‘Mike!’ Holly calls as she slams her way into the house. ‘You have to stop being friends with my science teacher, it’s embarrassing when he gives me notes to pass on to you.’ 

‘Well maybe you should stop being my friend’s student and get into high school already,’ Mike bites back, because the two things he can always rely on to keep himself feeling normal are Holly and Nancy Wheeler. Holly rolls her eyes, but she hugs Mike tightly before shoving a note into his hand and flying up the stairs.  

Mike smooths out the paper, recognising it as the same cheap notebooks that he uses, and is surprised to see an invite from Scott to meet outside Mevlald's of all places. He didn't think anyone really knew he was back in Hawkins, as he's spent the last two days hiding out in his childhood bedroom. He figures that Holly must have run her mouth at recess, telling Derek or someone that Mike was back in town. 

But unexpected as it is, it's a welcome relief from the same four walls and the third night of the same spaghetti that his mother has made. And, honestly, Mike could actually use the time to talk to someone about that teaching degree that’s started to niggle at the back of his mind. 

‘Mom,’ he calls, ‘I’m going out for dinner.’ 

Mike had absconded to Hawkins with the clothes on his back, so he’s wearing an old, long sleeve t-shirt from high school and the same jeans he wore to Sears Tower when he arrives at the bench outside Melvald’s. He hopes Scott doesn't mind, seeing as he's nearly always seen the man in the same button up and sweater vest combo that he wears to school (though Mike heard rumours that Scott did own shorts, he'd never seen them).  

He's checking his watch, when someone drops down on the other side of the bench.  

'Hey.' 

Mike flinches away from Will, more from surprise than anything but doesn't miss the way hurt flashes through those familiar green eyes.  

'Hey,' he says back.  

Will’s dressed nicely, Mike notices instantly. He's wearing what looks like one of Lucas’ colour-blocked button up shirts, and his hair is combed into place. The second thing he notices is that Will is nervous, from the way his eyes and body shifts.  

Perhaps it's because he's nervous that Mike doesn't immediately get up.  

'What are you doing here?' Mike asks. 'I'm supposed to be having dinner with Scott tonight.' 

'So, I might have asked Dustin to call in a favour with Mr Clark,' Will says carefully. 'And Holly.' 

Mike sighs. 'There's no dinner with Scott, is there?' 

Will shakes his head.  

Mike resists the urge to sigh, because he really should have seen it coming. Scott would never be so rude as to send a note home with Holly, he made a point to always communicate clearly by telephone and also give people at least 24 hours warning for any social event.  

'So I was thinking that we should talk, properly,' Will says when Mike stays silent.  

'What? Here?' 

Will lets out a startled laugh. 'No, no. I thought, well, it's a long drive back to Chicago.' 

Mike exhales. 'This isn't a pity thing, is it?' 

Will pulls back, shock painting his face. ‘No, no it’s not a pity thing, I promise. I mean, you can say no if you want but I already dropped Max off at your place and she should already be back on the road with her own car.  So if you say no, you’ll kinda be stuck here and then I'll have to drive back alone to face the rest of the party.’ 

The desperation in his voice is almost cute. It’s been a while since Mike has seen Will like this, working through his thoughts allowed and rambling until someone stops him. Mike wants to put his hand on Will’s but he’s not sure he can, not with Will and certainly not in Hawkins. 

Will stops, he takes a deep breath and when he looks at Mike again, he’s got that sharp focus that Mike has always loved. ‘I’d like to drive you back to Chicago. I’d like to talk through the last few months with you. I’d like us to both be fully honest.’  

'Okay,' Mike says, and Will’s face splits into that smile that still shoots an arrow straight into Mike's heart.  

Will taps his fingers against the steering wheel as they leave Hawkins. Mike might have made the initial drive himself, when he left Chicago like a bat out of hell, but Will’s always been the more confident driver. Mike can’t help but this this is one of the few times he’s seen Will look nervous behind the wheel of a car. 

‘Where you want to start?’ Mike says, because Will doesn’t seem to want to be the one who breaks the silence, even though he was the one who insisted that they needed to talk.  

Will shrugs. ‘I mean, I didn’t even know you were...’ 

‘Bi,’ Mike says, quietly.  ‘I thought you’d already known for years. I definitely told you about Alex, and I thought perhaps that would have been enough to come out.’ 

‘Honestly, I always thought that Alex was short for Alexandra,’ Will says, embarrassed. ‘I think I was so convinced you were straight that I just kept you in that box. You could have told me that you were on a date with Bruno and I would have convinced myself that it was short for Brunhilde.’  

Mike can’t help the laugh. ‘I could have been clearer about it,’ he admits. ‘I suppose I already felt so crap about not going to real college and for not doing things right that I didn’t want to make a big deal of something else.’ 

‘Hey,’ Will says, firm as he reaches over with one hand to grab Mike’s. ‘You went to real college, and you deserve a big deal. We could have all hugged you, Max could have joined in this time.’ 

Mike laughs, a fuller stronger one this time. ‘I mean, at least I didn’t come out to my sister’s sister who I had only met ten minutes prior.’ 

‘Shut up,’ Will says, but he laughs as well. ‘There was a lot going on.’ 

Will’s hand drops off of Mike’s to shift gear, and Mike feels cold for that brief moment before it’s right back where it belongs. Mike tries not to act too surprised, expecting Will to leave his hand there even as they accelerate down the highway.  

‘You didn’t really talk about him that much either,’ Will says. 'I never wanted to push you on the panic attack thing.’ His fingers twitch against Mike’s hand and Mike flips his hand to tangle their fingers together, to ground them both. ‘I guess I always thought it was to do with El, and moving on.’ 

Mike shakes his head. ‘No, no. I’d made my peace with that a long time before that.’ 

‘Was it because he is a guy?’ 

Mike shrugs. ‘I mean, sort of? I mean, I’d known that I was bi for a while at that point, and the first date had gone well. It was more that I was on a date with a guy that wasn’t... well, you. Not that I was really going to tell you that.’  

Will blushes. 

‘I should have asked more,’ he says, ‘but in the spirit of full honesty? I never asked any follow up questions because I hated listening to you talk about your dates.’ 

Mike laughs. ‘What? All four of them that I went on?’ 

‘Even going back to when you were dating El,’ Will admits. ‘I wanted to be happy for you, so much, but I just couldn’t.’  

Mike feels a flare of hope in the base of his chest. 

‘If it makes you hear any better, I hated hearing about your dates too. It just took me a long time to catch on to why.’ 

There’s a beat of silence, and Mike wonders how things might have been if he had just sat down with Will and spoke to him. He wonders how, in all his years of dedicated growth, he learnt how to talk to everyone except the man beside him. 

‘So,’ Will says, ‘is Alex your type, in guys?’ 

Mike laughs. ‘Yeah, yeah he is.’ 

‘Blond guys? Or jacked guys.’ Will steals a look at Mike. ‘Don’t think I didn’t see his shoulders.’ 

‘Kind guys,’ Mike corrects. ‘Sweet guys.’ He pauses. ‘But also, yeah, shoulders.’  

‘McDonalds for dinner, really?’ Mike says with a laugh as Will pulls into a drive thru. ‘What happened to no eating takeout in the car?’ 

‘We’re not,’ Will says, before he leans out the window and orders some cheeseburgers (with extra pickles for Mike). ‘I was thinking that we could spend the night here, keep talking and then head over to Chicago in the morning.’ 

‘Face the screaming hoards tomorrow,’ Mike agrees with a nod. ‘It’s not your worst idea.’ 

They still haven’t had the big talk, haven’t talked about the past spring, and Mike’s not sure he wants to have that part of the conversation in the car, with no way out.  But Will had held his hand for most of the drive, only moving it when he had to shift gear and when they started heading into the city. They both know they need this conversation to happen. 

‘If you’re uncomfortable, if you need more space just let me know, okay?’ Will says as he pulls forward and grabs their burgers, handing the paper bag to Mike as he navigates them back out onto the streets. ‘You’re important to me, Mike.’ 

Mike nods, but something gets stuck in his throat because you’re important to me could mean so many things. It could mean you’re my best friend and I want us to be okay. It could mean we’ll work through this and then never talk about it again. It could mean you’re my soulmate and I want to stay by your side forever.  

It could mean all these things and none, and while Mike hopes so desperately that Will doesn’t mean it in just a platonic way, he doesn’t trust his own judgement anymore.  

He barely notices where Will’s driving, until he realises that they’re pulling into the entry of a hotel.  

‘Will,’ he hisses, ‘what the fuck are you doing?’  

Will climbs out of the car, and gestures for Mike to follow suit. He hands his keys with the dinted keyring to his dinted hand-me-down that he shares with Jonathan to a valet, who clearly is paid a lot of money from the complete professionalism in is smile as he calls Will sir and drives the car away. 

‘I was thinking like a motel or something,’ Mike says, as he follow’s Will’s purposeful strides into the lobby of a hotel that Mike is too grubby to be standing in. ‘Seriously, let’s go find one.’ 

‘Too late,’ Will says with a smile over his shoulder. ‘Max and I checked in on the way down to pick you up. I’ve already paid the security deposit.’ 

‘Will,’ he groans as Will walks past the front desk and down to the lifts. He rifles around his pocket and pulls out a key, waving it in Will’s face. ‘What the fuck, are we even allowed in a place like this?’ 

‘It’s not like it’s the Plaza. I just figured we could stay somewhere nicer,’ Will says with a snort. ‘Anyway, I checked the room service menu and everything was shit, so I figured that the burgers make more sense for us. But if you want anything else to eat, let me know.’ 

Mike is confused. 

They get off on the third floor, and Will leads with practiced precision to a room at the end of the hallway. There’s a Do Not Disturb sign hanging from the door handle as Will begins to unlock it.  

He pauses, before he pushes the door open. ‘Like I said, if you get uncomfortable you have to tell me, okay?’  

Will steps aside for Mike to walk in and oh.  

Mike hadn’t considered that Will might have been talking about with the rest of the party for two days, but it’s clear as day when he steps into the hotel room.  

Will had booked a double queen, and even though the room isn’t small, the two beds take up most of the floor space. Will had set up some sort of picnic on the bed closest to the window. It’s got planning by Lucas written all over it, not just because the bed is covered in Lucas’ good picnic rug (the one that no one was allowed to put their shoes on) but because there’s a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolate set on the middle of it.  

Mike distinctly remembers them being told, at seventeen by Steve, that flowers and chocolate were essential to begging for forgiveness. 

Will pulls the McDonalds bag from Mike’s loose grip and pops the food on the bedside table between the two beds. A bedside table that Mike realises also has a pile of some of their favourite movie from when they were younger. 

‘If you don’t like it, you can step back into the corridor,’ Will says, ‘I can clean it up in like five minutes. We don’t have to say anything about it.’ 

Mike shakes his head. ‘Will...’ he steps forward in the room, pulling the door closed behind him.  

‘I talked to the others, and you organised so many dates for us, and I just didn’t notice?’ Will says. ‘And I feel terrible, because in hindsight you were putting in so much effort and I figured it was my turn to ask you on a date? That’s if you want to go on one with me now because this whole thing was a mess and now who knows if—’ 

Mike reaches for Will’s cheeks as he steps closer, and closed until he’s pressing his lips against Will’s to shut him up. It’s a bad kiss, if he’s honest, because he can’t help himself from smiling into it and Will clearly wasn’t expecting it, but it’s everything. 

It takes Will a moment to realise what’s happening and then his hands are falling to Mike’s body, one hand settling low on Mike’s hip and the other cupping the back of his head. Mike can barely suppress the shiver as the kiss deepens. 

Will pulls back from the kiss. ‘I take it that this setup is okay?’  

‘Yeah,’ Mike says, ‘yeah it’s great.’  

Will blushes, and it’s so pretty this close that Mike can’t resist pressing forward again.  

‘How’d you even afford this place?’ 

‘Lonnie Budget,’ Will admits with a laugh.  

‘Will,’ Mike says, ‘that was supposed to be saved for something good, something important.’  

‘Hey,’ Will says with a laugh, ‘you are something good. This is something good. I didn’t spend most of my teenager years imagining our first date for this to not be important. Although I don’t know if this counts as our first date.’ 

‘And this is it?’ Mike says with a laugh, drawing back. 

‘Somewhat, I had to make adjustments. I didn’t think your mom would be cool with us eating cheeseburgers, watching movies and staying up all night making out in her basement, so I made some adjustments.’ 

‘Staying up all night making out?’ Mike says, raising an eyebrow. ‘Sounds a bit presumptuous. How do you know I do that on the first date?’ 

‘According to Lucas and Max, we went on like ten dates and I didn’t even get a kiss,’ Will says, falling back onto the bed and holding out a hand for Mike. ‘Which is part of why I didn’t realise that we were dating, by the way.’ 

Mike groans, and lets Will pull him onto the bed next to him.  

‘I mean, so much of my relationship with El was just making out all the time. I just wanted to spend time with you.’ He tips his head back against the excessive hotel pillows. ‘Was I just coming across as like weird signals? Being weirdly pushy?’ 

‘Honestly,’ Will says, ‘I just thought you were settling into New York, thought that perhaps now there wasn’t as much Indiana holding you back and you were just... My Mike again.’  

‘I think I was,’ Mike says, ‘maybe we just didn’t really have the same definition of what Your Mike was.’  

‘Are you still...’ Will trails off. 

‘Always,’ Mike says, sitting up, ‘I’m always yours.’ 

Will grins, and he rolls over to cage Mike against the bed. ‘I love you. I love you and I want to date you,’ he says, serious and steady and so, so warm. 

And maybe they have more to talk through, maybe Mike and Will need to work through those weeks in detail, day by day and then those worse days in the end, but right now, it’s them and it’s now and Mike thinks they’ll be okay. 

‘I love you too,’ he says.  

And he feels free.