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A/N:
I wrote this all yesterday so sorry if it's not my best work, but I really wanted to write a second part before the idea left my head. And thanks to everyone who commented on the last fic asking for a second part!
If you haven't read the first part of this series yet, I REALLY recommend you start there. It's called "Are There Clouds in California" and it has all of the letters Mike never sent to Will. You don't need to read it first, but it'll provide some really important context for this.
Also, a fun fact, the title of this fic came from the font "Shadows Into Light" which is what I used to write Mike's letters in my google doc. It really looks like what I picture Mike's handwriting to look like and helped me get into character. It also makes for a cool title!
Anyway, hope y'all enjoy! Please let me know what you think in the comments. Or just leave a kudos :)
It was weird to be back in Hawkins. To Will, it felt like he’d been gone years rather than months.
At first, he’d been worried that he wouldn’t be able to find his footing again, that this feeling of displacement would always hang over him, but with everything else that’d happened to them, that feeling quickly disappeared into the background.
There were more pressing things to worry about, like Max’s coma and Eddie’s funeral and moving in with the Wheeler’s.
Will thought it’d be weird living with Mike, but strangely, that felt more normal than anything else. It helped that he and Mike were friends again, real friends. It seemed that whatever awkwardness had lingered around them in California couldn’t hold against the constant proximity of living under the same roof—sharing a bathroom and meals and spending their evenings watching movies and playing Sorry for the millionth time to entertain a stir crazy, eight year old Holly.
To tell the truth, Will was a little stir crazy too. It was hard not to be with so many people in one house and very strict limits on when you could leave and where you could go.
School hasn’t started yet, so the only time Will really got to leave the house was when he tagged along for the grocery shopping or when he and Mike went to hang out at one of the other’s houses.
At the moment, he’d just come back from a grocery trip with his mom. It was often them who went, his mom always trying to repay Mrs. Wheeler for her generosity of letting them stay at their house.
“Will, why don’t you get Jonathan to come help with the bags,” his mom suggested.
Will nodded and jogged up to the house. He got as far as two feet inside the front door before he almost collided with someone.
“Whoa!” Mike said, startling and taking a step back, “What’s going on?”
For a moment, Mike’s face hardened like he expected Will to say that there was a demogorgon on his tail, but then Will reached forward, snagging him by the wrist and tugging him out the door.
Mike went willingly, the two of them coming to a stop next to the car.
Joyce looked up, smiling a little as she said, “That’s not your brother.”
“Yeah,” Will said while Mike shot them both a bemused look, “But I found Mike first. You’ll help. Won’t you, Mike?”
Will didn’t wait for a response, piling several grocery bags into Mike’s arms.
“Will,” his mom reprimanded.
“It’s okay, Mrs. Byers,” Mike said, “I don’t mind. Really.”
Mike turned and began to walk back up the driveway with his load.
Joyce turned to give Will a look, hands fisted on her hips.
“What? You heard him. He doesn’t mind,” Will said. Then, he bent down and grabbed some bags too, hurrying off before his mom could give him another lecture about putting Mike out.
His mom was constantly worried that they were being too much for the Wheelers, but time and time again, Mike showed that he didn’t care.
In fact, Mike kept insisting they should inconvenience him more. When they first moved in, Mike had offered for Will to stay in his room with him, but both of their moms had shot that idea down, deciding that Will would stay in the basement with Jonathan. Though Will was a little bummed he couldn’t have an extended sleepover with Mike like they’d both wanted, he could admit he would’ve felt bad if he had left Jonathan to sleep downstairs all by himself.
Will carried the bags into the kitchen, dropping them off on the counter. Just as he turned away, however, one of the bags fell sideways, spilling open onto the counter.
“Oh shit.”
A loose apple tumbled off the counter. Will lunged but before it could hit the ground, a hand that wasn’t his own shot out, snatching it out of the air.
Will looked up with wide eyes to find Mike’s face inches from his, looking back at him with a smirk.
“I think you dropped something,” he said, handing the apple to Will who took it with numb fingers.
“Right. Uh, thanks,” Will said breathlessly.
Mike gave a short nod, his mouth still twisted up in a small smile before he moved past Will and out of the kitchen.
Will took a second to reorient himself, feeling unfairly flustered by what had been a rather short and rather tame moment.
Things like that kept happening. Now that they were friends again, Mike seemed to have no problems bantering with Will and invading his space like he had a personal right to it.
Will didn’t think Mike even knew what he was doing to Will because the moments always ended abruptly, usually with Mike turning away and focusing on something else. Will, on the other hand, was always left off-kiltered, reeling from the experience of having Mike so close to him, smiling at him like it was the easiest thing in the world.
Sometimes, Will felt like Mike was even flirting with him, his eyes lingering on Will a second too long or his words coming out a little softer to him than with the others, but that couldn’t be possible, right?
We’re friends, Will reminded himself, Just friends. Do not make things weird again.
Shaking his head, Will walked back outside and began hauling in the rest of the groceries. After a couple of more trips back and forth, Mike passed him on the porch, shouting over his shoulder, “I think there’s only four more bags left.”
“Okay. I’ve got it,” Will said.
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” Will said, moving back to the car. He spotted the bags tucked at the back of the trunk. He reached forward, pulling them to the edge so he could get a good grip on the bags’ handles.
A sudden sound startled Will and he whipped around, only to realize that it’d been a car backfiring farther down the road.
Will rolled his eyes at himself. He was sure it said a lot about his life that he’d initially mistaken the sound for gunfire. But it wasn’t. It was just an old, blue Pontiac.
Will watched as the car continued to roll along until it finally turned at a stop sign, disappearing behind a row of houses.
The neighborhood was quiet after that—unsurprising for a suburb in rural Indiana but a little surprising for Hawkins. The only sounds that could be heard were the sounds of sprinklers hissing across the lawns and birds chirping from nearby trees.
It was May now so the world had finally woken up from its winter slumber, but it wasn’t quite summer yet, the air still cool, especially on cloudy days like today.
Will had missed clouds when living in California. It sounded stupid, but it was true. Living in a place with constant blue skies had unnerved him. It felt too bright. Too hot. And it left all the grass an ugly, burnt brown color. He’d also missed the rain. In all his months in California, he could probably count the times it’d rained on one hand.
Tilting his head up to look at the sky now, Will couldn’t help but smile slightly.
“Hey!”
Will turned his head to see Mike walking back down the driveway. Mike stopped right next to Will, standing probably a foot closer than what could be considered a casual distance, laying a hand on his shoulder.
“You okay?” Mike said softly.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”
“Okay,” Mike said, pulling away to shove his hands into his pockets, “You were just gone for a while.”
Will had to force back a smile at that. He definitely hadn’t been gone for that long.
“Did you need help with the bags?” Mike offered.
“Uh, no. I’m fine. I just got distracted. A car backfired and I—” Will looked down embarrassed.
“Oh,” Mike said, and Will knew he understood.
“But that’s not what distracted me. I mean, it did at first, but I was just looking at the sky.”
Mike frowned. He cast a look up at the sky too as if something obvious would come to him about what was so interesting about it.
Will flushed, feeling silly as he explained, “Not for any particular reason. I just—” he sighed “—I missed clouds.”
Mike whirled on him, eyes wide like Will had just said something monumental.
Why is he looking at me like that? Will thought.
They stared at each other for a long moment before, finally, Will couldn’t take it anymore. He cleared his throat, looking away from Mike as he continued, “Anyway, I know it probably seems stupid to you, but I—”
“It’s not stupid.”
Will was surprised by the sudden urgency with which Mike spat out the words. He turned to look at him, eyebrows raising. “It isn’t?”
Mike shook his head, swallowing harshly, his eyes still unusually large. “N-No,” he croaked, “It isn’t. I’d… I’d miss clouds too. You know. If I lived in California.”
Though Will was still a little confused by Mike’s reaction, he smiled softly, gratified that his friend seemed to have understood what he was trying to say. Will looked back up at the cloudy sky.
“Think it’s gonna rain soon?” he asked.
It took a long moment for Mike to respond. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, probably. Um, we should go back inside. I think my mom said she was looking for the eggs.”
Mike reached forward, grabbing the bag with the eggs out of the trunk along with a second one, leaving an even two for Will to pick up as well. Will closed the trunk, and together, the two of them walked back up the driveway into the house.
In the kitchen, Mrs Wheeler thanked them for their help and dismissed them to do their own thing while she prepared dinner.
Mike and Will didn’t need much convincing, sharing a look before Mike turned and began to lead Will up the stairs.
Mike’s bedroom had an embarrassing amount of Will’s presence in it. While they often hung out with the whole party in the basement, when it was just the two of them, they usually hung out in Mike’s room. That meant that a lot of Will’s belongings ended up getting left behind, such as his hoodie which was currently lying over the back of Mike’s desk chair, and the box of colored pencils on top of his dresser.
Seeing evidence of himself in Mike’s space always left Will with an irritatingly warm feeling in the pit of his chest. Knowing how territorial Mike could be about the things that were his, he felt honored that Mike allowed him in and shared that space with him.
As Mike shuffled over to his bookshelf, Will walked over and plopped himself down on Mike’s bed. He scooted back until his back hit the headboard, his legs sprawled lazily atop the covers. He was still getting comfortable when Mike turned around, throwing something at his face.
Will just barely caught it. He looked down, amused to find that it was a mini Mars Bar.
“Where did you get this?”
“Holly’s Halloween stash,” Mike said, walking over to the bed with his own candy—a Snickers Bar. When he saw Will’s look, he added, “I didn’t steal them. I just… convinced her to give them to me.”
“You mean, you bullied her into it.”
Mike rolled his eyes as he flopped down onto his stomach at the end of the bed. “Okay, I didn’t bully her.”
“You totally did,” Will said teasingly before leveling Mike with a serious look, “Was it worth it, Michael? Was the Snickers worth bullying your kid sister? Answer honestly.”
Mike huffed out a laugh. He peeled back the wrapper on his piece of candy before taking a purposefully large bite. He chewed for a couple of seconds before grinning at Will. “Yeah. It was. Pretty easy too. Like stealing candy from a baby.”
Will giggled. “Don’t say that. That’s awful.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is this making you too uncomfortable? Should I take the contraband back to ease your guilt?” Mike said, feigning concern as he leaned forward to grab the Mars Bar out of Will’s hands.
Will immediately yanked his hand back and out of Mike’s reach. “No!”
Mike smirked.
“No,” Will said, calmer this time, “It would be worse if I didn’t eat it. Because then you would have stolen it for nothing. And I can enjoy the candy guilt free because I’m not the one who stole it.”
“Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night, Will,” Mike said, still smirking. Then, he got up from the bed, throwing away his now empty candy wrapper and grabbing a comic that was lying on his desk before flopping back down in the same position he’d been before.
“You really should stop doing that. You’re going to break your bed one of these days,” Will told him.
“You’re going to break your bed,” Mike parroted back in a high-pitched voice, not bothering to look up from his comic.
Will spluttered indignantly before shoving his socked-foot in Mike’s face.
Now, it was Mike’s turn to splutter as he batted Will’s foot away, shooting him a glare. “What the hell was that for?”
“For being a jerk,” Will said smugly. He kicked at Mike again, and Mike clamped his hand around his ankle, pinning his foot to the bed. Then, he leaned forward so that his chest was resting overtop both his hand and Will’s foot.
Will squirmed, trying to break free, but Mike didn’t budge, returning his attention back to his comic, like he wasn’t currently holding Will’s foot hostage.
“Mike!” Will giggled, “Let go!”
“Sorry. Did you say something, Will?” Mike said, still pretending to read.
“I said let go.”
“Hmm. No.”
“Mike,” Will laughed again, “Seriously. I need to get my sketchbook and I can’t reach it from here.”
“Doesn’t really sound like my problem.”
Will groaned. “Ugh. You’re so annoying.”
Mike didn’t reply to that, but Will could see a small smirk playing on his lips.
Will rolled his eyes, but internally he couldn’t help but think, I’m so in love with him.
Realizing that Mike probably wasn’t likely to give in soon—he was stubborn like that—Will decided that the sketchbook on top of the dresser wasn’t that far out of reach. He could probably grab it from here if he twisted far enough.
Scooting over as far as his Mike-manufactured restraints would allow him, Will hoisted himself up with one hand, the other reaching, trying to grasp the edges of his sketchbook. His fingers fumbled for a second before finally, he got a good enough hold and tugged it towards him.
The sketchbook came flying at him, but Will was unprepared for the second object that went careening off the edge of the dresser. There was a small crash, and Will looked over at Mike with wide eyes, the sketchbook in his possession but his box of colored pencils now strewn all over the carpet. He’d forgotten he’d put those up there.
There was a moment of silence where Will and Mike just looked at each other before Mike burst out laughing, Will following after him, giggling into his hand.
When their laughter finally died down, Mike said, “Klutz.”
“Shut up. It’s your fault.”
“How? I’m just sitting here?” Mike said innocently.
Will finally wriggled enough, pulling his foot out of Mike’s grasp. “Your fault,” he emphasized as he stood up from the bed and began to pick up the fallen pencils.
Mike chuckled, returning to his comic once again.
For once, Will was a little annoyed that he’d splurged and bought the fifty pack instead of the twenty-four pack of pencils. Somehow, every single one of them had managed to escape the box, scattering across the floor and under the small crevice underneath Mike’s bed.
Will huffed, rooting around, trying to collect them all. He shoved them back into their box haphazardly until finally he was almost certain he’d gotten them all. He looked down at the box, counting the pencils just to be sure.
Forty-nine. Damn.
Will looked around the floor again, looking for the last missing pencil. Finally, he spotted it sticking halfway out from behind the dresser. How it’d gotten all the way over there, he didn’t know.
Will reached forward, grasping at the pencil, when his fingers brushed against something else behind the dresser. He frowned in confusion, feeling around a little more before his fingers grabbed hold of what felt like a stack of papers.
With a gentle tug, Will pulled them out from behind the dresser. It was definitely a stack of papers—a bunch of loose leaf spiral notebook paper, probably torn from one of Mike’s school notebooks. That made sense. Mike was always tearing out papers to write stuff down. He usually did it when he was planning their DnD campaigns. But that didn’t explain why they were shoved behind Mike’s dresser. Was he hiding them? But why? What could Mike possibly want to hide?
Curiosity getting the better of him, Will sank back on his heels, holding the papers in front of him as he read the first one on the pile.
“July 31st, 1985. Hey, Will. Sorry if this is awkward. I don’t really know how to write letters,” Will muttered before the words processed and his head snapped up to look at Mike, shocked and confused.
It’s a letter? To me?
Mike’s head whipped up so fast, Will was sure he must have pulled something. Will had seen Mike in a lot of bad situations before. He’d seen him face down demogorgons and possessed people and the Mind Flayer. But Will had never seen Mike look as terrified as he did right now.
Mike paled in an instant, all of the color draining from his face as his eyes locked onto the letter—letters?—in Will’s hands with unbridled horror. His posture was stiff, frozen, like he hoped that if he didn’t move that Will wouldn’t notice him.
Will’s heart thudded loudly in his chest. He swallowed, holding Mike’s gaze as he said quietly, his voice tinged with something vulnerable and disbelieving, “You wrote to me?”
Mike didn’t move. Will didn’t think he could. He didn’t think Mike was even breathing.
“Mike,” Will said. He looked back down at the letter and realized that his hands were shaking. He looked back up at Mike. “Mike, what are these?”
Like he’d suddenly come back to life, Mike sprung off the bed, his comic falling from his hands as he stood ram-rod straight, looking at Will like a frightened animal. “I don’t—I mean, I didn’t—You weren’t supposed to see those. It’s nothing. It’s not a big deal.” He moved quickly around the bed, extending a hand. “Just give them to me. I’ll throw them away. I should have thrown them away. I don’t know why I—”
“No!” Will said adamantly, pulling the papers close to his chest and out of Mike’s reach, just like he’d done with the candy bar earlier. Mike stilled, his hand still outstretched but frozen awkwardly mid-reach.
The two stared at each other for a moment, their ragged breaths awkwardly loud in the sudden silence of the room.
“Will—”
“Can I read them?” Will asked quietly, and Mike instantly recoiled, a pained grimace forming on his face. “Mike, please. They’re for me, aren’t they? I—I want to read them.”
“You were never supposed to read them,” Mike hissed, “They’re stupid and embarrassing!”
“You think I care!” Will shot back, “Mike, how could you never tell me that you wrote to me! In California, I thought… Why did you never say anything?”
“Because—It doesn’t matter,” Mike dismissed.
“It does to me!” Will shouted. He was furious. He was elated. Mike had written to him. All this time, Will had thought Mike had forgotten about him in those eight months he was away, but he hadn’t, and the proof was sitting right there in his hands. Will clutched the papers tighter. “You should have told me.”
“I… couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“For the same reason I never actually sent the letters,” Mike said, “Now give them to me.”
“No.”
“Will.”
“Let me read them.”
“Absolutely not,” Mike said firmly, his face dark as he tried to reach for the letters again. Will stood up, backing away from him until his back hit the dresser. He was sure he looked wild, but then again, so did Mike. Somehow, in the span of only a minute, they’d both become completely undone. And Will hadn’t even read the letters yet.
“Mike, please. I need to. Just one. Please,” Will said desperately. He wasn’t above begging. He wasn’t sure that there was anything he’d wanted more in his entire life. He needed to read the letters, or at least one. He just needed to.
Will saw Mike deliberating for a long moment. Finally though, Mike deflated, all of the fight leaving his body as his shoulders slumped and his hand fell back down to his side. He hung his head, looking more tired and resigned than Will had ever seen him. Will knew he should feel guilty, but he didn’t, not when it meant he actually got to read one of Mike’s letters.
“Fine,” Mike bit out, “But just one, okay? And you can’t ask me again.”
“But—” Will saw the look on his face and knew that if he kept pressing, Mike would get defensive again, and then he’d lose his chance to read any of the letters. “Okay.”
Will looked down at the pile in his hands. It felt like holding gold. It felt like holding a pipe bomb. There were so many to choose from. How could he pick just one? And by picking one, he’d lose the right to read the rest of them. How could he do that? It just wasn’t fair. These were for him. These were his. Being denied access to them was like being denied access to air.
Will began to sift through the pile, not really reading them, just feeling them in his hands.
He caught phrases though.
I bet you’re having a great time in California.
Lucas! Trying out for the basketball team!
I called you yesterday…
I’ve tried to call you a couple of times…
From, Mike.
Your Best Friend, Mike.
Talk to you soon, Mike.
Your Loyal Friend, The Paladin.
Will sucked in a breath. This was too much. And yet, at the same time, he was hungry for more, ravenous in a way he’d never been before.
“Will,” Mike said warningly. Will looked up to see Mike shifting closer to him, his hands twitching like he was holding himself back from ripping the letters out of Will’s hands. “Just one.”
“Right. I know. It’s just—there’s a lot of letters here, Mike,” Will said, “I mean, there’s at least—”
“Twenty-five.”
Will’s eyes widened. Twenty-five. That was a lot of letters. El had only gotten thirteen letters. Not that it was a competition, but to Will, that felt like it meant something. Of course, Mike and El were broken up now, so maybe it meant nothing at all.
But still. Mike had been counting. He’d written Will twenty-five letters.
Will struggled not to swoon.
“Um. Um, okay. I’ll just—” Will picked up one of the letters from the pile, holding it aloft in his other hand and began to read “—November 6th… shit.”
Will immediately shoved the letter to the bottom of the pile, unable to look up and see Mike’s reaction as he tried to hide his own teary eyes.
Mike had written to Will on November 6th, and judging by the ugly state of Mike’s handwriting in the letter, he hadn’t been doing well.
A part of Will desperately wanted to read that letter, but he couldn’t. Not now at least. He knew it would probably break him. For now, it was enough just to know that Mike had written it.
He shuffled through the papers again, flying more quickly now, like he was trying to bury the November letter.
Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s day all flashed past Will’s eyes. It was just starting to hit him that this wasn’t something Mike had done for a week and simply abandoned. He’d kept it up for months, probably the whole time Will had been away.
Then, Will got to March, and the letters became shorter, almost non-existence—abandoned attempts that seemed to reek of anxiety.
Dear, Will.
I think
Dear, Will.
I don’t know how to feel anymore
Dear, Will.
Do you hate me
Will felt like he was going to pass out. What did this mean? What was Mike trying to say? What was he so scared of that he couldn’t even put it in a letter he never sent?
“Will!” Mike snapped, “Would you just pick one already!”
“I’m sorry,” Will said, his hands stilling as he looked up at Mike with wide eyes, “I’m sorry. I’ll—I’ll read this one.”
He looked back down at the letter. Taking a breath before he began.
“March 20th, 1986. Dear, Will. Are there clouds in Californ—” Will didn’t even get to finish his sentence before the entire pile of letters was ripped from his hands.
Will gasped, looking up at Mike in bewilderment.
“Not that one,” Mike said roughly, a crazed look in his eyes.
“But you said I could read one of the letters,” Will said indignantly.
“Yeah, but not that one. It’s too… embarrassing.” Mike looked away as a dark flushed crept up his cheeks.
Will folded his arms over his chest. “That’s what you’ve said about all of them.”
“Yeah, I know, but—” Mike cut himself off as he began to get worked up again. He took a breath and said again, firmly, “Not that one.”
“Okay,” Will said slowly, “Then, which one can I read?”
Mike looked down at the pile of letters in his hand like he was disgusted by them. Then, he slowly began to pick through them himself, grimacing and wincing. Will desperately wanted to know why. What was so embarrassing about these letters that he couldn’t even show Will, his best friend?
Finally, Mike stopped on one of the letters. He looked up at Will, then back down at the letter. He seemed to debate it for a moment before shoving the letter into Will’s chest. “This one.”
Will picked up the letter off his chest, holding it reverently. This was it. His one letter.
“March 21st—” he began.
“Wait, no,” Mike said, changing his mind as he darted forward and snatched the letter back.
“Hey!”
“You don’t want to read that letter. It’s stupid.”
“Mike.”
“No, I mean it this time. That was—I was just being a dick. I was nervous to see you, and I was just talking out of my ass, pretending like everything was fine. That was… That was the one letter I didn’t really mean. You deserve better than that,” Mike said, already riffling through the letters again, looking for a better one to give Will.
Meanwhile, Will was standing there with a stupified expression, trying to unravel the implications of Mike’s words.
Nervous to see you
Pretending like everything was fine
The one letter I didn’t really mean
Did that mean he meant the rest of the letters? Will could already tell that Mike felt vulnerable about them, but that only made Will all the more curious. He wanted to know everything about Mike, especially the soft parts he didn’t dare show the rest of the world. Will would be gentle with him though. He always was.
This time, when Mike handed him the letter, it was slow and cautious—a bit like he was handing over his heart.
Will took the letter with the same level of gentleness, taking it into his grasp and holding it out in front of him.
“February 29, 1986.”
“Can you… not read it out loud?” Mike said quietly. Will looked up at him to see Mike looking down at the ground. He looked so small and scared. It made Will want to drop the letter and just hug him.
Instead, Will cleared his throat and said, “Yeah. Sure.”
He looked back down at the letter.
February 29, 1986
Dear Will
It’s so cold here in Hawkins. We got a snow day yesterday, which was nice. Me, Nancy, and Holly all stayed inside playing board games. Then, Holly and I bullied Nancy into watching ‘A New Hope’. She tried to act all high and mighty about it, but I could tell that she liked it. Now that Star Wars has been a success, I think I’m going to try and get my sisters to watch other stuff too. Imagine if I could turn Nancy into a nerd! I think I’d probably write that on my headstone. Here lies the beloved brother of Nancy, the Nerd.
Oh, also Mr. Clarke says hi. He asked me how you were doing the other day in the hallway, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I hadn’t talked to you in weeks, so I told him that you were doing really good. It’s not really a lie. I’m sure you are good. So, yeah. He says hi.
I don’t really have much else to tell you. I’m just bored. I think I might call Dustin later and see if he’s around to hang out. It’d be even better if you were here, but you already knew that.
I really miss you, Will.
Love
Mike
Will had been keeping it together fairly well at the start. Given how much Mike had freaked out about the letters, he expected something much worse, but it was all fairly tame. It was the kind of letter Will would have loved to have gotten from Mike back in California. He probably would have kept it in his desk drawer and pulled it out and re-read it to himself every night.
Then, Will’s eyes reached the end of the letter, and all of the air left his lungs in one fell swoop.
It’d be even better if you were here, but you already knew that.
What the hell?
Mike said it so casually. Like it was a well known fact that he wanted Will around. For Will, this was very much new information. In theory, he knew that it was true. They’d been friends forever. But doubt had started to creep in over all those months of near radio silence. Will had gotten it in his head that Mike had barely thought of him in those missing months.
I really miss you, Will.
There. Written down on paper. Proof that Mike had missed him.
Mike had missed him so much that he’d written Will twenty-five letters. He’d written to Will almost once a week for eight months.
I really miss you, Will.
Will felt like he was going insane. But more than that, more than anything, Will couldn’t keep his eyes off of the last two words of the letter.
Love, Mike.
Love, Mike.
Love, Mike.
“Will?”
Slowly, Will lifted his head, his eyes locking with Mike’s. Mike looked so nervous, his hands fidgeting awkwardly at his sides. He was staring at Will expectantly, waiting for a response.
Will thought about Mike writing to him. He thought about Mike being bored in February and thinking about Will, wanting to talk to Will, even though he probably already knew by then that he’d never actually send the letter. He thought about Mike telling him about his day, about him talking to Mr. Clarke about him. He thought about Mike saying ‘I’m bored’ and ‘it’d be better if you were here’ and ‘I really miss you’.
Will thought about ‘Love, Mike’ and wondered when Mike had started signing his letters like that. He hadn’t at the start but at some point over the many months, something had changed.
Will felt the paper crinkling in his hand but he couldn’t find enough self control to stop, couldn’t do anything but stare at Mike, feeling like his whole worldview had shifted.
Mike had missed him.
Mike loved him.
“Can you please say something?” Mike said with a tinge of desperation.
Will swallowed. “Why did you never send them, Mike?”
“I couldn’t.”
“But why?”
“I thought you wouldn’t care.”
“Bullshit,” Will said heatedly, “I waited eight months to get a letter from you, Mike! El got letters all the time but you couldn’t even write me one! Or at least, so I thought! Turns out you wrote me twenty-five! Twenty-five, Mike!”
“Yeah! Yeah, I did write to you, Will. But you didn’t write me any! What the hell was I supposed to do with that?” Mike shouted.
“I wrote you! My first week in Lenora, I wrote you!” Will fired back, “Me and El both sent you letters, only she was the only one to get a response back! I thought you were—” A rattling breath exploded from Will’s chest as he tried to hold back the building tears “—I thought you were done with me.”
“What? No!” Mike scowled, “Will, I never got a letter from you!”
Will reeled back, surprised. “What?”
“I never got a letter from you, Will,” Mike said seriously, “I would have responded if you had, but I never got one.”
“But I sent one to you,” Will said dumbly.
Mike threw up his hands. “Must have gotten lost in the mail then because I never got one.”
Again, Will felt his worldview shifting. He thought Mike had ignored him. He thought Mike hadn’t wanted to talk to him anymore.
“Did you really never get it?” Will asked.
Mike shook his head.
“Oh.” Will looked down at the letter. It felt like holding Mike’s beating heart right there in the palm of his hands. “Are they… all like this?”
Mike shifted uncomfortably, the anger from before giving way to awkwardness again. “Um, yeah. I guess. Except… I don’t know. That one felt like the least weird one. The others were… a bit much.”
Will’s head spun.
This was the least incriminating letter?
If this was just the tip of Mike’s unexpressed feelings, then maybe Will had a chance after all. He almost berated himself for thinking it, but then he looked at Mike, really looked at him, taking in his nervous eyes and flushed cheeks, the way he still held the other letters in his hands like they were something delicate and yet so destructive—like they could ruin him.
“I’m sorry, Will. I knew you would hate them. That’s why I never sent them. They were just a stupid way to pass the time because I missed you. I really did.”
Will’s breath caught to hear Mike say the words out loud, but Mike just kept talking.
“And I should have just told you that. I should have told you months ago, but it never felt like the right time. And we talked so little because of your mom’s stupid job. I kept calling, but I could never get a hold of you, and you never called back. And I was so worried that it was just me.”
It’s not, Will wanted to say, It’s not just you.
“But I still wanted to talk to you. You’re my best friend, and I’d just lost you. Again.” Mike’s voice cracked a little and Will found himself moving forward without thinking. “And maybe you think it’s stupid. It probably is stupid. But the letters felt like the only way I could be close to you. But I couldn’t send them because they never felt good enough. They never felt perfect. And you deserve perfect, Will. You deserve so much better than—”
Will grabbed Mike by the biceps, pulling him in and crashing their lips together. Mike gasped into his mouth, but Will just pressed back even harder, pouring everything he’d ever felt but never said into the kiss.
Will felt a wetness hit his cheeks and realized that Mike was crying. He felt his heart break, moving his hands from Mike’s arms to wrap around his back, pulling him even closer, enveloping him in a tight embrace that had Mike shuddering before he melted into it.
There was the sound of papers scattering as Mike’s hands flew up to grip Will’s waist, fingers so tight Will was sure they’d leave a bruise. Then, Mike began to kiss him back.
A low whine escaped the back of Will’s throat as Mike began to move his lips against his, backing Will up until the backs of his legs hit the bed. His knees buckled, and Will went tumbling back, Mike refusing to separate as he followed Will down. He climbed onto Will’s lap, his hands coming up to cup Will’s face as he kissed him with a ferocity that left Will stunned.
Will couldn’t do anything but breathe heavily through his nose, trying not to pass out as he followed Mike’s lead.
It was absolutely, categorically, the best moment of Will’s life.
He didn’t know how long they’d stayed like that, kissing one another fiercely, but finally, Mike pulled back, sucking in a sharp breath, panting loudly against Will’s lips, the hot, moist air, making Will shiver.
“That was…”
“Nice?” Will finished.
Mike chuckled against his lips. “Yeah. Nice.”
He leaned in, kissing Will again, almost thoughtlessly, before he pulled back far enough away that they could look each other in the eyes.
“Hey,” Mike said softly, his eyes bright with a warmth Will didn’t even know he could possess.
Will melted. “Hi.”
“So, I guess it’s safe to assume you like me too?” Mike said shyly, like they hadn’t just made out for several minutes, like he wasn’t currently sitting in Will’s lap.
Will tightened his grip, pulling Mike closer until their chests bumped against one another, making Mike let out a small squeak that had Will grinning dopily. “Yeah. I think it’s safe to assume that.”
Mike beamed, his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright, and his hair a mess of dark curls that, to Will’s eyes, looked as ethereal as an angel’s halo.
So in love, Will thought, and for once, he couldn’t tell if he meant himself or Mike. Maybe it was both.
“You know,” Will said, his thumb tracing a lazy pattern on the back of Mike’s shirt, making Mike’s eyes go dark and hungry, “I might not have written you a bunch of letters, but I did do something else.”
“Oh yeah?”
Will’s eyes flicked over to the wall next to Mike’s desk where his painting sat hanging, just as it had since the day they’d arrived back in Hawkins.
Mike looked at it too, his face softening.
“I made that for you, Mike. Because I missed you. Because I wanted you to know… how I felt.”
Mike hummed. “I think you might have messed up on the delivery a bit there because I definitely did not get the message.”
Will huffed out a laugh. “Yeah. I guess we haven’t been so great at communicating lately.”
“Maybe not,” Mike agreed with a smirk, “But I think we just discovered a very effective new way of communicating.” Then, he dipped in, kissing Will soundly on the mouth.
Will groaned into it. When Mike pulled back again, Will pouted at him. “You’re going to kill me,” he breathed.
“Wouldn’t be such a terrible way to go.”
“Mike,” Will said, laughing.
Just then, there was a knock at the door, and Mike flung himself across the room while Will drew his knees up to his chest, hugging them with a wide-eyed look on his face as the door opened unceremoniously.
“Hey, do you know—” Nancy stopped, her eyes narrowing as she looked between the two of them. Will was sure they both were doing a terrible job of hiding how flustered they were. He could only hope that Nancy couldn’t piece together the reason why. Then, Nancy’s eyes flicked down to the floor where Mike’s letters to Will lay scattered about. Will blushed. “What are you doing?” Nancy said, sounding accusatory as she directed the question at Mike.
“Nothing!” Mike said, definitely sounding guilty of something. Then, his face shifted into a scowl and said, “Can’t you ever knock?”
“I did knock.”
“Yeah, and then you burst into my room anyway, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of a knock,” Mike snarked, “What if I’d been naked, huh?”
“Yeah, well, I was looking for Will and I was pretty sure he was in here—which he was—so the chances of you being naked were pretty low.”
Mike flushed. “That still doesn’t mean you can just barge into my room!”
“Fine! Jeez! I’ll knock next time,” Nancy huffed before turning to Will, “Jonathan was looking for you, by the way. Says he needs your help with his car or something.”
“Uh, right,” Will said, standing on what felt to him to be extremely shaky legs. He hoped Nancy didn’t notice that either, “I’ll just go—yeah.”
He quickly departed from the room before Nancy could say anything else or Mike could reveal anything too embarrassing.
Luckily, the both of them managed to get through the day without any other incidents. It was torture trying to keep away from Mike though, knowing what he knew now. Will kept sharing heated glances with him before having to look away before he did something rash—like kiss Mike senseless in the middle of Wheeler family dinner. That would be extremely awkward. And several other things Will didn’t want to think about.
But, when Jonathan snuck upstairs for the night to visit Nancy, Will snuck up about twenty minutes later for a completely different room in the house.
The second Will slipped inside Mike’s room, Mike was there, crowding him against the door. “Thank god. I thought I’d have to go down there and get you myself.”
Will felt himself have a mini heart attack. Mike Wheeler was very, very bad for his health.
“Y-Yeah?” He croaked, eyes raking over Mike’s shadowy silhouette in front of him, “Did you miss me or something?”
Will expected Mike to make a joke then, but he didn’t. Instead, he roped Will in by the waist and said with complete sincerity, “You have no idea.”
“Mike.”
“Will.”
That was it. Will just had to kiss him again.
Eventually, the two of them made it over to Mike’s bed, stumbling through the darkened bedroom, giggling and shushing each other like little kids. Finally, they made it, Mike flopping down directly into a patch of moonlight, Will sitting beside him, drinking in his face. He was so beautiful. Will felt like Mike got prettier everyday. It really was going to kill him one day.
Will turned away, only to prevent his heart from exploding right then and there.
His eyes snagged on a stack of papers sitting on Mike’s desk.
The letters.
“Mike.”
“Hmm?”
“Can I please read the letters?”
Will felt Mike tense beside him before he relaxed again. When Will finally looked back at him, he was pouting up at Will. “Are you really not going to let it go?”
“No. I think you want me to read them too.”
“Oh do I?” Mike said, rolling his head to the side on his pillow, raising his eyebrows incredulously.
“Yeah,” Will said with a grin, “You do. Or else you would have thrown them away by now.”
Will could see that he’d made a good argument when Mike didn’t immediately respond.
“Come on, Mike,” Will said, nudging his shoulder, “You wrote them for me. Don’t you want me to read them? I know I want to.”
“Why?”
“Because…” Will let out a long breath, his hand reaching forward to comb through Mike’s soft curls. Mike’s head immediately tilted into the touch, his eyes fluttering shut as a soft, pleased hum escaped his chest—so beautiful. “I want to know you, Mike. All of you. And all those missing months. I want them to belong to me too.”
“They do,” Mike said, his eyes opening to stare back at Will, so soft, so loving, “They already do.”
Will’s breath caught. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Mike said, “And… And I guess you can read them.”
“Really?” Will said excitedly.
“Yeah. It’s fine. Just—” He reached forward, pulling Will down until he landed next to Mike on the bed. Mike pulled him into his chest until their limbs intermingled and their hearts beat in tandem against one another. “Not tonight. Tonight, you get me. Right here. Right now.”
Will snuggled into his chest, letting out a deep sigh of contentment.
“Okay,” he said, an obvious smile in his voice, “I guess I can work with that.”
And he drifted off to sleep, at home in the arms of the only boy he’d ever loved, drenched in pale moonlight.
And for the first time in a long time, Will didn’t fear the dark. The shadows couldn’t touch him. Not here. Not now.