Chapter Text
When the phone rings, Will already has a feeling who it's about.
Mike has been distant lately. He's trying, Will knows this, they all have.
But it's just not enough.
And what they offer, their comfort, their words. It's not quite enough either.
"No, no, Karen. He isn't here. He hasn't been here." His mom sighs, sending a look over her shoulder, eyes wide and glassy. Hopper's hand on Will's shoulder squeezes tight in response, Will's heartstrings plucked harshly.
A bolt of guilt, sudden in it's severity, strikes through him sharp down to his core where he feels it land, hollow. He feels a flush of shame wash over him. He'd been smiling, he'd been happy. It makes him feel fake, as if the happiness hadn't been real or the opposite— like the grief wasn't. Will was scared of what he might find if he tried looking deeper.
The shift in the mood has Hopper moving his hold on Will's shoulder to a side-hug, warm and coffee-scented, weight bringing Will back to himself, back to the present. The man sighs, Will wilting slightly under the force of it. "I have a feeling I know where he is."
Will thinks he knows too.
He's at war with himself as he watches Hopper amble around the living room, trying to find his keys. "I'll come with." He's already shrugging out of his graduation gown, the cap carefully unpinned from his head, hair still managing to stick up. His mom rushes over to gather them in her hands, preventing Will from where he'd been about to carelessly place the cheap material over the arm of the couch where it'd, no doubt, wrinkle horribly. Her mouth is a moue of concern. "Will, you don't have to—"
"He's— He's my friend, mom." Will doesn't know when he's stopped attaching the superlative to the noun, at least out loud, but it sounds as good as it feels whenever he says it— pitiful and miserable. Will has never liked change and he likes it even less when it curls its sinister fingers around their friend group, around Mike, and starts messing things up.
"But—"
"I've got enough pictures," Jonathan chimes in, saving Will from his mom's clutches, a soft, sad smile on his face, "even if some of them are going to be terribly lit."
"I think we'll survive some bad lighting." Hopper claps a hand onto Will's back, gentler than he does to Will's friends and it makes some of that nasty shame disappear. "We'll be back in time, Joyce, promise."
Will knows his mom's just worried. Scared.
The acceptance letter from NYU had surprised them all, well, okay, only Will was actually surprised. He'd heard it from everyone else: they believed in him without a doubt. After all the happy yelling, his mom had suddenly broken down into tears, the same way she had when Jonathan had revealed his own letter two years ago. He knew she didn't want to see them leave, didn't want to live so far from them. Jonathan still managed visits every so often though, so it wasn't like it was impossible.
And, really, Will was excited.
Getting out of Hawkins was all they'd been talking about when senior year rolled around.
He was ready to leave this all behind. Start living! He just wishes Mike would too.
In the car Hopper cleared his throat. "You know she just doesn't want to see you all fly the coop."
"She acts like she'll never see us again." As he finishes his sentence, he cringes. "Okay, but— You guys went to the Upside Down for me. I can take a two-hour flight; the train; a ten-hour drive if push comes to shove."
"Maybe you should tell her that." Hop jokes, before he sighs, hands tightening on the steering wheel. It sounds like Hopper means to say something else, a half-hitched breath like he was readying himself, but he doesn't say anything and the unsaid words fill the cabin of his truck anyway, heavy and holding. Will doesn't have superpowers but he thinks he knows what Hopper wants to say and he isn't a paladin but he takes inspiration from the memory of his own brave one to say it for them both:
"I wish she was here."
It doesn't hurt, surprisingly, because this, at least, is true. Will wishes El was here so fiercely, he looks over his shoulder, to the backseat, as if he'd managed to conjure her and that shy, sweet smile, those resolute eyes. He doesn't like to remember those last moments but they flood his mind's eye like a siren song, like the worst song to get stuck in your head. There had been a smile, he remembers, but it wasn't shy, it was heartbreaking. And the look in her eyes was anything but resolute, the sort of burden Will had once felt with the Mind Flayer under his skin and C-L-O-S-E-G-A-T-E relayed in taps of tiny fingertips.
He wanted to remember short choppy bangs and long hair and twinkling brown eyes. Will doesn't think he can remember her laugh and it breaks his heart, that she hadn't laughed much around him, but he hopes it lives on in everyone else's memory. Will holds dear the feel of her arms, steady around him, time and time again as she saved him and hopes the way his own had wrapped around her had saved her a little bit too.
Hopper takes a deep breath, only slightly shuddery. His eyes had been watering when Jonathan had been taking their pictures and Will knew that as much as Hop had been thinking of the little family they had managed to cobble together, through all the blood and tears and near-death— that he had been seeing El there too, filling in the space next to Will, where another shorter figure might've been standing, bright orange graduation gown and a cap sat askew on her head, teeth shining as she smiled wide.
"Yeah." Hopper managed, voice gruff. "Yeah."
When Hopper parks, they spot Mike's tall form slouched on the bench in front of the memorial. "Listen," he starts, "I'll go talk to him first." Will had been taking his seat belt off but at his hesitant tone, he swallowed the argument he'd only been half-heartedly about to make.
Distant and Mike are two words that have been showing up together with more regularity than Will is used to— distant, and Will, and Mike? Now that was on purpose. After everything, and even before the end, Will had decided that it was time to let it go, time to get over the impossible. He had lied, back then, about comparing Mike to Robin's Tammy. He'd been trying to shortchange himself, underwhelm the importance in which Mike really meant to him.
It was hard.
Will's love for Mike had intertwined with his friendship in such a way that unraveling one from the other was almost seemingly impossible. He didn't know where one began and the other ended— concern bleeding into confusion when he couldn't figure out if it was because he cared about Mike as his friend or loved him as a person. Will didn't really know what the difference was.
He tried increasing the distance.
Instead of attempting to shoulder everything for Mike like he might have in the past, Will let days come in between visits to Mike's dark room. He wrangled in Lucas and Dustin and Max to attempt to help Mike find some sort of solace after the loss of El. Everyone was mourning in their own ways but Mike seemed to retreat into himself the way everyone else had started reaching out. Will would beg Jonathan to bring Nancy home on his visits, her steadfast levelheadedness enough to drag Mike out into public at least for a little bit. He'd scheme with Holly to use Mike's soft spot for his baby sister to bring him out of the depths of his room and into the kitchen where she'd force him to play sous-chef to her head-chef.
But Will would temper his own longing for a familiar comfort, to keep Mike at arm's length, to try and get over all of it— the grief, the unrequited love, the complicated history— all to keep Mike in his life, as his friend. Maybe not the best, maybe not anymore, but still a good one, one he'd gone through so much with. Too much to completely let go.
"No, you're right." Will agreed, settling in the seat as Hopper got out of the car. "I think that's best." He rounded the car to the passenger side, sticking a hand in to ruffle Will's hair.
"When'd you get so mature?"
Will watched Hopper settle next to Mike, a careful space left between the two of them. His chest ached. El might have sat there once, to gentle the fission that Mike and Hopper inevitably set off with each other, far too similar to not butt heads. Now, there was nothing but the reverence of a memory of a girl to fill the expanse between them.
They had been speaking for a while. Will checked his watch, trying to repress the antsy feeling as the short hand steadily climbed further past nine. If he was feeling nervous, his mom must be fully freaking right now. The original plan had been to meet everyone outside of the school around nine-thirty— Dustin had managed to drag his grades out of the hole they'd been buried in from freshman year and had snatched the Valedictorian spot from Tracey Balardi with a second to spare; President of the Computer Science club and an acceptance letter from MIT for his government-sanctioned research (read: hush money for saving the fucking world) on superconducting integrated circuits.
All that to mean, they were supposed to meet early enough for Dustin to run his speech by them and help him get rid of his public speaking jitters.
He sighed and couldn't help the way he fixed his hair back into place as he got out of the car. It wasn't like he was trying to look good or anything, but it was graduation day! Mike probably wouldn't even notice if Will had put on baby-blue eye shadow and a Bowie-orange wig. Mike doesn't seem to notice Will so much these days, anyway.
Will doesn't intend to sneak— he's just trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, in case they're having a moment, or if Hopper's managed to come to an understanding, get into Mike's head the way Will has to stop himself from doing. He doesn't mean to eavesdrop.
From here, he can see Mike's got his hair smoothed down, in that stupid way he's been doing lately, wavy curly mess tamed into something that resembles Ted more than Mike Wheeler. Will doesn't like it but then again, he doesn't have to. He's just a friend. Will hopes Hopper managed to connect with him, make him feel better in a way Will's been feeling like he's failed at.
He's coming closer and he can hear the silence. They're not talking. Maybe they're just sitting in a moment of quiet remembrance, maybe the conversation's almost done. Will's just about to announce himself when—
"I had this plan—" Mike starts, "That… Me and El were gonna go to someplace far away—" His voice is dejected and slightly strained where he leans forwards towards Hopper, as if he was trying to defend himself, "And no one would ever find us—"
Will turns around and walks back to the car, closing the door quietly, as if he was hiding. He tries to feel like he wasn't running away.
Something that he hadn't realized he'd been carefully trying to safeguard, fractures, just a little, under the sudden weight of his own sternum where it lay heavy against the relentless pounding of his heart. Oh, he thinks absently, as he watches townspeople mill about, he didn't know that was what Mike had been planning.
It makes sense.
Will is leaving for NYU in three weeks.
Lucas is moving to Baltimore in two months— his last few years of high school had been heavily focused on bolstering his GPA, cramming AP Chem and Biology classes into his schedule and rigorous studying for the MCAT. John Hopkins had accepted him as a pre-med student and he was as stressed as can be in between his time volunteering at the hospital (that ran concurrent with Max's physical therapy sessions) and his equally dubiously bribed research lab extracurricular.
Max was going to Maryland with Lucas, still unsure of what exactly it was she wanted to do. She had told Will, privately, that she wanted to do something that honored El, honored Jane, but she didn't know what it was yet. She was going to enroll into a local university and find her calling, maybe something that would be easier to do away from Hawkins. Her mom would be moving there too, some family in Annapolis.
Will hadn't known what Mike's plans were— no college majors to worry about disappointing his father over.
And Will, supposes, now he can see why that was.
He hadn't been thinking about university or pre-reqs or acceptance letters. He'd been thinking of a future with El.
He shouldn't be surprised by the hurt that blooms from the weeds he'd thought he'd been ignoring, left to die under the heat of his careful, purposeful neglect. The petals unfurl, painful and spreading around his fitfully beating heart. Mike has hurt Will plenty of times but not enough, it seems, to completely do away with the seeds that have been sowed since he was just a little boy, sat on a swing alone.
But what he had said— it's a trowel that digs at the seeds, that uproots where they tangle down into the soft, tender soil into something as old as their friendship and as young and delicate as Will had been when they'd first met.
It's not because Will loves Mike— Had loved him. This isn't that.
This is knowing Mike had heard Will's fears, had heard the way they spilled sick and uncomfortable, and had chosen to leave anyway.
Will wonders if that's why— Why even despite Mike's promise of best friends, they had still managed to be where they were now. If the grief took up far too much room to allow anyone else to come close. Because they weren't as close, not anymore and that was before Will had found the self-discipline to put a little room between the arches of their first letters, had scratched out the initials in his favorite tree near their old house.
The thing is, Will had been really, really trying to be a good friend.
Mike is stubborn on his best days and downright recalcitrant on his worst. There's nothing that Will has tried that has made any difference and the times where he thinks he's close, Mike tells him to leave before he says something he'll regret.
Dustin made attempts, and still keeps trying, his own grief doubled and weighing heavily on him still, but it doesn't help Mike— they only argue. Dustin hadn't taken it too personally— they all remembered how he'd first been after Eddie had died— but he admitted to Will, voice quiet, that it was difficult to see Mike, their Mike, like this, drowning in his grief.
Max had gotten the closest, to bringing Mike out of it, El's loss and her still complicated grief with her step-brother's death had tempered her anger into something that simmered patient under her skin instead of exploding like a firework. Her physical therapy had hammered fortitude into the steely strength of her spine, self-restraint between every breath but Mike had still managed to piss her off, Lucas having to catch the swing of her cane before it connected with Mike's head— he'd later told Dustin and Will.
Despite having every second of his life accounted for, future at John Hopkins, Doctor Sinclair something they teased him and encouraged him over time and time again, Lucas still went to try at bringing Mike out of the darkness of the well of his grief. It did help, for a while, but Mike would inevitably return to his wallow, to bury himself in the safety of his room.
Will doesn't know what Mike's doing.
He's not sure Mike knows either.
His words seep into the cracks he's tried so hard to pretend had been covered up by the mulch of friendship, the suffocating cloak of grief, 'Me and El were gonna go to someplace far away— And no one would ever find us—'
Will has to pretend he isn't near tears when Hopper comes back, Mike slouching behind him. "We okay on time?"
He clears his throat. "Just barely."
Behind him, the car door opens and Mike settles in at the same time that Hopper does, suspension creaking under their weight. It shuts, heavy and final and echoing in Will's chest. "Oh." Mike says, "Hey, Will."
"Hey."
Hopper must hear something because he shoots Will a look out of the corner of his eye, eyebrow twitching like he wanted to raise it in that still-intimidating ex-police chief kind of way, the way he used to, like the punctuation to his questions the gruff way he spoke never allowed. Will shakes his head, turning to look out the window.
They take Mike home and they watch him walk up to the door.
Will hates that he can't ever really keep anger in the same place he keeps his feelings for Mike. They can't ever coexist and Will doesn't like anger much anyway, so it's not difficult for it to disperse the way it does, in between one breath and the next, "I hope you're not showing up like that."
Mike turns around, frowning. He looks down at himself. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"
"For one: You were wearing it yesterday. You stink."
"I DO NOT."
"For two," Will's voice goes a little soft, "It's graduation, Mike. Dustin's gonna do a big speech and everything." He's not trying to nag Mike into anything, trying to keep a careful distance— show that he cares without showing what that means exactly. Or what it used to mean. He's just trying to remind Mike that they're all still here.
Mike loses the tension in his shoulders and he sweeps a hand through his hair. It disrupts the stupid Ted Wheeler look. "And lose the dad hair."
He turns to Hopper before Mike can say anything. "Let's go, Hop. Mom's probably losing it."
"We can always blame Mike."
Will laughs but it's weak.
Will doesn't know how they got to this point. Maybe it was meant to happen— feelings repressed like a shaken Coke can, Mike depressed and hurting, Will trying to move on, the suddenness that change inevitably wrought.
He hadn't come here to fight.
Will was leaving in less than a week and he had just wanted to spend time with Mike.
They were in Mike's room and Mike is sitting, despondent and resentful on his bed, feet on the floor and still dressed in sweatpants and an old T-shirt that looks like it might've been Ted's but it fits Mike perfectly, the breadth of his shoulders wide and stretching the fabric taught across them. Will doesn't like that he still notices things like that.
Maybe that's why they're arguing.
Because Will is redirecting anger at himself to Mike.
He knows that's not why.
Will had been asking about what he'd get up to when Will was gone and Mike had sniped something back, low under his breath and barely intelligible. When Will had asked him to repeat himself he had replied, waspish and entirely unfairly: "You heard me."
And now here they were.
"You didn't use to be like this!" Will had tried to keep the tears at bay but it was a futile effort. They spilled hot and fast down his cheeks. Mike used to stop the world at the sight, but now he just scoffs. It makes Will feel all of thirteen again, small and feeble as he hugs his arms to himself. He wants to leave but this is probably the last time he'll see Mike.
Mike's face is screwed up in emotion Will isn't too keen on dissecting.
"Mean." Will emphasizes and Mike loses the attitude, mouth a flat line. "You didn't use to be mean. Not to me."
He absently wonders if he's being unfair— Mike's going through a lot but— so is everyone else.
"I'm not being mean," he mocks and it stings like a paper cut. "I'm just— God, Will, I'm fucking sad." It's the first time Mike has admitted it, out loud and in actual words. It doesn't make Will feel better, it only sours the feeling in his gut, turning and knees shaking. Will is still crying.
"Yeah, well, welcome to the party!" He throws his hands out, "Everyone misses her! Can you stop acting like you were the only person in the world who loved her?" It makes Mike wince and he hides his expression with his palms, fingers tangling in his hair where it curls around his brow.
"You just don't get it." Mike bites out, head in his hands and it pulls at something in Will that he doesn't like, voice low and unkind.
"You're not even here anymore, Mike. How the fuck would you know what everyone's going through?"
Mike only shakes his head, not even bothering to look at him.
"Did you know Hopper still can't get out of bed some days? He just fucking lays there and he tries to keep quiet but I can hear him cry and it's fucking heartbreaking. He can't get out of bed and Mom has to call off or else he won't even drink or eat or sleep. I know you know what that's like— you're still wearing the same clothes I saw you in three days ago and that coffee cup has been sitting there just as long." Will turns to lift it, the film on top is thick and shifts as he puts it back down, it smells. "Holly made it, didn't she? And you couldn't bring yourself to drink it."
Mike doesn't say anything.
Will's voice thickens, "Did you know my mom sometimes sets the table for four?" He hiccups. "Jonathan's been gone at NYU for two years— she's not setting his plate. And when it happens she just— falls apart. She feels guilty. Like she's just rubbing it in our faces that El's gone." At that, Mike sniffs.
"You're not the only one, Mike." Will stays put, despite how much he wants to go to Mike now and comfort him the way he had always been offered the same, open arms and a safe place. "You weren't there when Max was screaming and so fucking angry with herself for crying at physical therapy. She was angry at herself for crying at her own pain, Mike. Because El couldn't ever feel anything again— Because El couldn't be by her side. El was Max's friend too, maybe even her best friend."
Mike's shoulders are shaking and again, the fury leaves Will just as fast as it came, his own shoulders drooping in defeat. "Do you even know that we're all leaving?" He asks, almost too quiet. At that, Mike looks up.
His eyes are rimmed red, face damp. He looks miserable. Pathetic. And he looks surprised.
"What?"
Will means to scoff, means to laugh but it comes out as a weak exhale, barely enough to blow out a candle. "Lucas and Max are moving to Baltimore for college. Lucas got into fucking John Hopkins, Mike. Do you realize how fucking amazing that is? John Hopkins!
"Dustin is going to MIT in three weeks! He's a genius, even if I don't understand much of what he talks about anymore. We're all—" He doesn't want to say moving on, so he doesn't. "Mike, what are you doing?" It comes out heart wrenching and vulnerable, like he was handing Mike his heart in his palms, messy and all too revealing.
"I don't know." Mike whispers.
Will takes a step forward, as if it were a reflex. He corrects it by taking two steps back to lean against the dresser by Mike's door. He can smell the four day old coffee and it distracts him enough to suppress the urge to sit next to Mike, to forgive him.
"You need to figure it out." He means to say more, but something about what he says catches Mike the wrong way, a thorn he hadn't seen on the stem as the bloom passed between hands.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Mike echoes the sentence that had started the argument in the first place and Will attempts to diffuse it, feels wrung dry already from the shouting, from the grief that permeates the space between every word, that falls to the dirty laundry on the floor, where Will tries to cover up his feelings and Mike tries to ignore them.
"I'm not— It doesn't mean anything—" Mike's sudden sharp tone has him stuttering.
"Then why say it?"
"I— I just meant— that we aren't going to be here forever, Mike. I— We— Hawkins is just—" Will sighs, sweeping a harsh hand across his eyes, trying to calm himself, tongue tripping over his words, "It's too full of memories. Of ghosts. We just want to live, you know? For her— she'd want that for us. For you."
"Yeah, right." Mike's tone is no longer sad, it's caustic.
Will doesn't want to do this anymore. He's not going to see Mike before he leaves, he knows this now. Maybe if they talk through this, if he can make Mike see some sense or just calm him down, they can sit and spend time together. Even if they don't speak. Even if they don't touch.
He sounds like his fucking mom, the kind of shit he'd hear her say, low as if she were praying, over the phone in the kitchen.
The thought burns.
"What's wrong with what I said now?"
Mike shrugs, indolent and like he didn't care. But Will sees that the tension has returned to his wide shoulders, the way his spine can't fold in on itself, a knife's edge that Will can't not throw himself over, time and time again. "Just funny. You guys keep telling me this— that it's what she would want. But we don't fucking know that. Maybe she'd want this— Maybe she wouldn't want us to just move on and fucking forget about her."
"No one is saying that she's being forgotten."
"But it feels that way!" Mike sweeps a hand out in front of himself, indicating Will and, he supposes, everyone else. "You're all moving on and you're not going to remember her and soon, you're not even going to care." It sounds loaded, like Mike was saying one thing and meaning another but Will is tired. He's uprooting his entire life to move ten hours and two states away with no one but Jonathan and Nancy to see when schedules allow. Will just wants his best friend to be okay before he leaves.
He doesn't want to read into things, to have to root around in the garden of Mike's emotions, to carry around the dirt of Mike's guilt underneath his fingernails forever.
"Mike, come on." He pleads. "That's not true and you know it."
"I guess we'll see! While you guys go off and live your new lives, I'll be here."
"Mike," Will repeats, steps forwards, reaching for him. Mike doesn't let him come close, slapping his hand away. It doesn't even hurt. He hadn't hit him or anything, thrown any dishes at the kitchen wall, or got in his face but it hurts like the memory of his childhood, heart pounding in his chest, adrenaline flushing through his body like a fever.
Mike looks wide-eyed, like he hadn't meant to push him away but before he can apologize, or say something, take it back maybe, Will starts crying again. It only makes Mike feel worse, he knows, the way his spine loses its edge, bows under its own weight. "Just leave, Will. Fuck. I didn't— This is why you guys should just go. Forget everything."
"Why are you being like this?" Will sniffs, wiping at his nose and his face with his sleeve. His mom had just bought him this jacket. It was a deep purple that reminded Will of his old cleric costume and of El, the color she admitted to being fond of, back in Lenora. They'd begged his mom for a dollar and had bought a bottle of Super Nails from the drugstore in a glittery purple and blue color. Jane's nails had looked neat and tidy and pretty when Will had finished with them. Will had locked his door when she asked to paint his— they had ended up sloppy and drying on his skin but they giggled together when they intertwined their fingers, bits of sparkling silver twinkling up at them.
Will missed her so much, even more so now, standing in the air of Mike's grief.
"Just go. Make better friends. Find some other guy to date."
"Shut up, Mike. What are you even talking about?" He shouted, thorn now dug into his thumb.
"You're all just— moving on! Fine! Why are you still here? Do you wanna rub it in my face that you guys are all successful and doing shit with your lives? Good for you! I hear it enough from my dad."
Will knows Mike is hurting but it doesn't make it any easier to stand here and bear the sting of the rain as Mike's emotions explode in a squall, rocking Will where he tries to weather it, calm it. It doesn't do a thing, a puny thing like him up against the wall of Mike's depression. He feels so lost— as if he were back in the Upside Down. Mike's room was dark and dank enough to look like it, clothes winding along the floor like vines. The thought makes him shiver.
"Don't say that to me, not about—" Will doesn't want to say it aloud again. Scared that if he does, Mike might somehow divine the meaning of it in between the hesitant pauses and the burning cheeks.
"So you can talk to me about El but I can't—"
"There's no one to even talk about! What is—"
And then they're sniping back and forth again, petty half-insults trying to hide defenseless truths, voices raised and really yelling at each other now. Mike is defensive and he's acting like his back is up against the wall, like Will is trying to hurt him and Will's just trying to make him stop talking at all, stop the words that are hurting Will as much as he can see they're hurting Mike as they spill out, messy and on purpose but entirely unintentional the way they hit Will.
If anyone is home, they can likely hear everything. Will hopes they can't hear how much he loves Mike even as he's shouting at him. Will can't recall if he'd seen Mrs. Wheeler's car in the driveway but he knew Ted's was gone. He doesn't even know if Holly's home, but Mike hasn't been made to watch Holly in a while— they dropped her off with Will or with Erica more often than not.
He supposes that it doesn't matter much anymore.
Mike's words are starting to hurt in a way that makes Will start getting defensive back, mean like he doesn't like to be, spiteful and familiar, "If you're going to be like that, then I want that back." He doesn't realize what he's said until Mike turns to look where his finger is pointed, expression furrowed into a moue of frustrated confusion. The painting is rolled up, leaning against Mike's desk, right next to his bedside. At the sight, Mike pales, coming to a stand in front of it, shielding it from Will and shaking his head.
"What the fuck is wrong with you? NO! That's mine!"
"I want it back!"
"No!"
"I painted it!"
"Yeah, for me so you can't just take it back whenever you want. If that's the case, then give me back my blue dice set."
"Are you talking about the ones you gave me in the first grade, you immature idiot?!"
"YES!"
"You buried them in the woods and then forgot where hid them and you ruined the entire campaign and my dice!"
"See!"
"See, nothing!" Will shakes his head, forehead throbbing. His chest hurts. This is bad. They've never fought like this, like stupid kids, like Mike's parents. Stupid, petty fighting about nothing. It's just a feedback loop, at this point, hurt being passed back and forth and with every pass, it carves a deeper canyon between them. Will needs to leave, before it gets worse, before Will really tears his heart out of his chest and leaves a mess more permanent on Mike's floor than the dirty laundry laying about. "I painted that for my best friend." He admits.
Mike throws his hands up, but Will interrupts him. "Not for you. That was for my best friend. I don't know who you are anymore but you're not him."
There's a tense moment where Will's words sit, heavy and pressing. His eyes are on the floor, on Mike's purple striped shirt. He'd worn that during their last campaign. Will should have just— Let it lie. Let everything go in the basement. Why did he have to take it with him? Why couldn't he just leave it? Then Mike scoffs.
"You're being ridiculous."
"No, I'm not, Mike. Why can't you see that we're all grieving her?" He looks up at him, can barely meet his eyes. "We've all been trying so hard and for you!" The love he has for Mike, his best friend, his person, someone he can't stand to talk to right now swells in him, bolstering his voice where it had died down, "To try to help you move on—"
"Don't fucking tell me to move on!" Mike yells back and Will hates this. He hates it so much. He hates the feeling of his heart where it pounds in his chest and drums in his ears, the way he feels like he needs to run away from Mike. All this anger, all this grief, the fear that threads its needle through every word Will tries to connect to Mike with. Will feels like his mom. Will feels like Lonnie when he laughs— reckless and mean.
"You know, I painted it, Mike." Will breathes, eyes to the ceiling. "I painted it."
"And it's the only thing I have left from her! Why the fuck would you try to take that from me?"
"You're not listening to me."
"No, you're not—"
"It was never from her."
Will doesn't need to yell. It lands as if he'd thrown a punch, shattered a plate and dented the kitchen wall, a burn like bottom of the shelf alcohol, regret instantly turning his stomach, palm slapped over his mouth, nausea a wave that threatens to pull him under. It feels like a bigger sin than the lie he'd kept under lock and key until Vecna had forced him to reveal it, sick and anxious and shaking. That wasn't what he'd wanted to say. He was trying to— to— His mind goes a mile a minute and every thought only sounds like an excuse. Mike kept hurting him, kept saying things that made Will want to put his arms up in front of him and— He just wanted him to stop. For Mike to hurt like Will was hurting.
But this was wrong.
It felt like the worst mistake, the second it came out.
The irreparable shatter of a plate on the kitchen floor.
Something he couldn't take back.
He stared, wide-eyed at Mike who stood there, staring back, brows frozen in a furrow.
"What?"