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Friends? No thanks… best friends!
It seemed like such an innocent sentence. A reassurance that they could stay together, they could be together. They had been best friends ever since that day in kindergarten ten years ago. Mike had asked Will to be friends, and Will nodded. Surely, “best friends" was the right thing to say.
So why did it feel so wrong?
He feels like he had said the wrong thing. When he had said “best friends” earlier, he couldn’t tell whether Will had looked relieved, or disappointed. Maybe both. He still doesn’t know what that means.
And then he looks up from his thoughts and sees the roof of the Upside Down and the gate to the Abyss. He has more pressing matters right now than these feelings, right?
“Are you ready?” Will asks, and Mike snaps out of his thoughts.
“Yeah,” he says, nodding and placing one hand on the railing.
“Who’s Tammy?” Mike asks suddenly, inwardly cursing at himself. They don’t have time for this! The others are already in the Abyss, waiting for them.
“Tammy?” Will sounds surprised.
“Yeah. You mentioned Tammy back at the Squawk.”
“Tammy was this girl. A friend of mine had a crush on her, but… Tammy was straight. And my friend, she… she moved on.”
“So you knew that this person,” Mike says, “this person you liked, he told you he was straight?”
“Well… no, I… didn’t ask,” Will says, avoiding eye contact. “But he was in love with a girl.”
“How would you know for sure?”
“What?”
“If you’ve never asked, how would you know? I mean, I guess what I really wanted to say was…” Mike says, his voice trailing off. “Was…”
Fuck. Why is it so hard to be confident and just say what was on his mind? Normally, it’s just so easy. But that's the problem, wasn’t it? He doesn’t know what was on his mind.
“You have missed your chance, Michael Wheeler.”
Mike freezes when he hears it, blood freezing like ice. That voice…
“You heard what he said. He moved on. Even if you do somehow defeat me, you will never get your happy ending with him. He might be happy, but you… you will end up repressing your true feelings, and you will die sad and alone.”
“No, that’s not… there aren’t any hidden feelings.”
“But you will fail. You will fail. And you will die, die knowing that you could have spent your last living moments telling him how you truly feel. You may think you have kept it well hidden, but I know your secret, Michael Wheeler.”
What secret? There aren’t any hidden feelings, right? The feelings he feels for Will, those are just what people normally feel for their best friend.
But Mike knows that he’s lying. There are hidden feelings. The problem is, he can’t quite sort them out.
“I can destroy you. And I will start by taking the one that matters most.”
Unease creeps upon him like a thick mist, threatening to suffocate him. What was he going to…
And then it hits him.
“WILL!” Mike screams.
Will turns around. “Mike? Wh—”
He’s too late.
One moment, he’s standing there, confused.
And then he collapses onto the floor. Blood pools beneath him.
So
Much
Blood.
Mike forgets how to breathe.
He’s felt this way before. When they’d found the body in the lake. And when the Byers had moved to California.
But this is worse.
This is his fault.
“Will,” he chokes out, gently scooping him into his arms.
Everything else disappears. Everything else but Mike and Will.
He can’t think of what to say. He’s forgotten how to breathe properly.
He remembers when they first met. Asking him to be friends. It was the best thing he’s ever done.
He remembers the conversation they had earlier. He’d said “best friends,” but deep down he meant something else, something more, something he should have said that he just couldn’t say it, he didn’t know what he should have said.
“Will, I don’t want to be your Tammy,” Mike says, and tears prick at the corners of his eyes. He rarely ever cries. “I want to be your Mike.”
Oh.
That’s what he should have said.
…
Something is wrong, something is very, very wrong. Mike had been acting weird all day, and now he’s just standing there, eyes rolled back into his head.
“Mike, this isn’t funny,” Will says, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. But he knows that Mike wouldn’t just do this as a joke. He isn't that type of person.
This is real.
He looks around to ask for help but they’re the only ones still on the radio tower. Everyone else has gone up to the Abyss already.
“Mom!” he calls out, hoping that it’ll be louder than a muffled whisper through the dimensional barrier. “Jonathan? Lucas, Dustin, Robin, anyone?”
…
“Pathetic,” a deep voice says. Mike slowly turns around, eyes wide.
“Do you really think that he still likes you? Do you think that you’d ever be anything more than just a friend?”
Vecna slowly stalks towards Mike, his shadow looming over him. Mike slides over to shield Will from Vecna, but as he glances back, Will’s gone.
Panic floods into his body.
“Didn’t you hear him earlier?” Vecna says quietly. “He moved on from you. To him, you’re just a childhood crush.”
He thrusts his arm out, telekinetically tossing Mike through the air. When he lands, he isn’t on the radio tower anymore.
He’s standing by a familiar lake, watching people pull someone out of the water. He sees a young boy watching, shock and hurt and grief and pain written all across his face. He knows that boy. He knows this lake. He knows that day.
“You failed him,” Vecna says. “The body might have been fake, but you failed him still, spending too much time distracted and not enough looking for William.”
He shoves Mike through the walls of the cliff, which cave into a new memory, a new day.
“You’re ruining our party!”
“That’s not true!”
“Really? Where’s Dustin right now?”
It’s raining hard. Mike watches himself argue with Will, the sound of their voices drowning out the rain.
“See? You don’t know, and you don’t even care, and obviously he doesn’t either, and I don’t blame him! You’re destroying everything, and for what? So you can swap spit with some stupid girl?”
“El’s not stupid! It’s not my fault you don't like girls!”
It’s hard to hear his own voice yell at Will like that, even though he knows it’s only a memory, even though it was two years ago, even though he knows they’ve made up since then.
“I’m not trying to be a jerk. Okay? But we’re not kids anymore. I mean, what did you think, really? That we were never gonna get girlfriends? That we’re just gonna sit in my basement all day and play games for the rest of our lives?”
“Yeah. I guess I did. I really did,” Will says, and bikes away, into the pouring rain.
“Will. Will!”
Mike listens to himself shout Will’s name.
“Will, come on!”
Vecna stands in the rain, staring at the memory of Will retreating, biking away from the Wheeler’s house through the rain.
“You inflicted a great deal of pain that day,” he says. “You have no idea how much you’ve hurt him.”
And he tosses Mike through the window, except instead of landing in the living room, Mike ends up in the backseat of a familiar pizza van in the desert.
“Do you remember this day?” Vecna asks, tilting his head to the side menacingly. “Do you remember sitting there as he cried? Looking away, and pretending not to notice his suffering, the suffering you caused?”
Will is facing the window, away from Mike, as if he doesn’t want him to notice. But Mike notices. He can’t make sense of any of the emotions hurtling themselves around inside him like a storm. It’s too confusing to make sense of, and so he looks away so he doesn’t have to see his best friend hurting.
He knows what he should have done that day. He should have comforted him. He should have tried to tell him how he felt.
Mike wants to strangle his past self.
The back door of the pizza van flies open suddenly and Mike tumbles out, out into a strange new place.
The ground is a hard black sludge with puddles of strange liquid scattered throughout the terrain. Rock-like spires stretch up towards a deep scarlet sky that flashes with lightning as crimson fog drifts across the realm.
He doesn’t remember ever seeing it before.
But he’s heard of it.
This is Vecna’s mindscape, he realizes, fear surging up within him.
“You’ve given yourself too much hope,” Vecna says, voice deep and filled with malice. “But do you really believe that you deserve him, after what you’ve done? The pain you caused?”
Vecna stalks towards Mike and vines slither forward, pinning him to a rock spire.
“I know your secrets. I know what feelings you have for William. I know that it can never work out. He has moved on, Michael Wheeler.”
A brief glimpse of a small room. Mike sees himself, slouched over a typewriter. With the side part, the glasses, and the defeated, tired expression, he looks scarily like his father.
“You are doomed to become the very person you are afraid of becoming. Fortunately for you, however, you will not live long enough to see that happen.”
Vecna stalks closer, extending his hand.
“It is time.”
…
“Does anyone have any music?” someone yells frantically.
The chaos fades to background noise. The only thing he sees right now is Mike. He’s levitating in the air, eyes rolled up back into his head.
He’s running out of time.
He doesn’t know how to enter minds like Vecna can. But as long as he’s connected to the hive mind, he can find a way. He has to. For Mike.
…
“Mike.”
Mike hears someone calling his name, and it sounds like it’s coming from far, far away. He can barely hear it. But it’s there.
He immediately recognizes the voice. How could he not? It’s the very same voice he’s known for the past decade. The voice he’s fallen in love with.
“Mike, please, please come back. I can’t lose you.”
Will’s voice is quiet. Almost as if he doesn’t want to be heard. Yet it’s strong, full of certainty.
“Hold on just a little longer, please, hold on, I’m coming.”
Vecna looms over him, fire in his eyes.
“You and your friends have caused me a great deal of trouble,” he says. “At least you will be out of the way.”
Mike closes his eyes and turns his head away. Waiting for it to end.
It never comes.
When he opens his eyes again, Vecna is frozen above him, hand outstretched, every muscle straining to move in for the kill. But somehow, he can’t.
He looks past Vecna, across the mindscape, and sees a lone figure standing there, hand outstretched, walking forward quickly. A flash of lightning illuminates the mindscape and Mike sees who it is.
It’s Will.
He whips his arm to the side, throwing Vecna across the mindscape. The vines grow limp and start to slither away slowly. Mike pulls off the rest of them and rushes over to Will.
“Will,” he says. “You’re—I—”
“I thought it was too late, I thought you were—”
Mike embraces him, hugging him tightly.
Is this too weird? he asks himself suddenly. I can’t remember the last time…
“Sorry,” Mike says, embarrassed. “Is this weird?”
“No, no, you’re fine, it just, uh… took me by surprise.”
They don’t pull away.
“God, I’m such an idiot,” Mike says. “All this time. I have to be the most oblivious dumbass on the planet. All this time, I never knew, and even worse, I’ve been pushing you away for the past couple of years. You’ve been suffering and I didn’t bother to help, and even worse, I caused some of that suffering.”
“Mike, it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay!” Mike says, his voice rising. “I pretended I didn’t notice you hurting, and yes, I was confused, but I still should’ve been there. Even with all my confusing feelings and all, I should have been there for you.”
“Feelings?” Will asks. Mike looks into his eyes and sees the spark of hope that’s been lit and drowned and rekindled again, countless times.
Mike takes a deep breath, then releases a string of words. “I never knew why I felt so much closer to you than to anyone else. I’d always assumed it was because you were my first and best friend, and that was why. The week you went missing, you were all I could think about. And I thought it was just normal to feel that way when, y’know, your best friend is missing. But then I started to realize that my feelings were anything but normal. And now it’s too late, because you’ve already moved on. You made it pretty clear back at the Squawk. But, Will,” he rushes, before he can stop himself, “I don’t want to be your Tammy. I want to be your Mike.”
Will freezes and so does Mike. This is the most Mike has ever told him about what he’s been going through the past few years. Mike immediately feels anxiety creeping up. Why did he just say all of that? What if saying that causes things to get awkward between them, or even worse, what if Will doesn’t want to be his friend any more?
“Mike,” Will starts, “I wasn’t exactly… telling the truth, earlier at the Squawk, about realizing that you were… just my Tammy. I thought that if I convinced myself I’ve gotten over you, it would hurt less when I realized you didn’t like me back. I didn’t want to risk losing you. You’re one of the most important people in my life, Mike, I… I remember when you told me that the best thing you ever did was ask me to be your friend and… and I never got to tell you, the best thing I ever did was to say yes.”
Mike remembers when they first met. They were both in kindergarten. Mike asked Will to be friends, and Will nodded.
Years later, in the fall of 1984, Mike had said it was the best thing he’d ever done. And he meant it. Every word.
“I guess it is my fault,” Mike whispers.
“Your fault?”
“That you don’t like girls.”
Will laughs, pulling Mike in closer.
Mike leans in, closer than he ever has before. He can feel Will’s breath on his face. Then he pulls away all of the sudden. Is this too soon? What if I do the wrong—
Will leans in and kisses Mike, interrupting his thought. Mike can feel his heart racing and Will’s lips brushing against his own and his palms are sweating but this just feels right, like everything in his life has been leading up to this moment. He leans in closer, deepening the kiss.
They’re both trapped in Vecna’s mindscape, and Vecna could return at any moment, and the Abyss could crash down into the earth at any moment, but right now, all those problems fade into background noise. All Mike cares about is the feel of Will’s lips against his own, their racing hearts beating as one.
After what feels like too short of a time, they slowly separate. Mike’s thoughts are racing, his emotions are all jumbled up, but he knows that nothing could ever make him regret it. And he can see his own feelings mirrored in Will’s eyes.
And he knows everything is going to be okay.
“Mike,” Will says quietly. “Look.”
They break apart, and both turn to look to where Will is pointing.
The exit to the mindscape. Mike can see himself, levitating above the radio tower, and Will, standing in front of him, eyes rolled back into his head.
Abruptly, they see a rock fly above their heads, landing too close for comfort.
Vecna has recovered, and he’s furious.
Will and Mike waste no time. They break out into a run, sprinting towards the exit portal. It’s painfully close, yet still too far. Rocks sail above their heads as they dodge Vecna’s attacks.
Mike Wheeler has never been the most athletic person. He’s always been thirty paces behind his friends. Even now, as he and Will are running for their lives, he lags behind.
I’m not going to make it, he realizes.
But then Will grabs his hand, pulling him with him, closer and closer. Mike feels a new surge of motivation within him and sprints faster than he ever has.
Vecna lifts up another boulder, this one twice as big as the other ones. Mike and Will are almost there, getting closer and closer. Mike glances behind him and sees the boulder soaring through the air, also getting closer and closer.
But they’re going to make it this time. He knows he can, now that Will’s with him.
They leap through the exit, thrusting themselves back to reality. Mike realizes too late that he is hovering three feet above the air, and he falls.
But before he hits the ground, someone is there to catch him.
“Will,” he breathes, pulling him into a hug, afraid to let go.
They look at each other, each silently agreeing not to discuss what’s just happened. They wouldn’t know how to explain it. And besides, they don’t want anyone to worry, this close to the end.
“Hey, lovebirds,” Robin calls knowingly, poking her head through the gate. “Let’s hurry it up. We have an evil wizard to defeat!”
“Alright,” Will says, with hope in his eyes. “Let’s go kill Vecna.”
They help each other climb up off the radio tower, into the Abyss, the realm of pure chaos, the home of the Mind Flayer. But despite the coming danger, Mike can’t help but feel safe for the first time in years.