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“Mike, this car is boiling.”
The late August sun beats down on Mike Wheeler’s Honda Civic, turning its insides into an oven, and simultaneously roasting its occupants.
“Crank a window,” Mike says, not terribly empathetic, his eyes flicking up to scowl at Max in the rearview mirror.
Will glances back at Max with a grin from his spot in the passengers’ seat. She’s squished in the middle, between Dustin, who has a book of biology trivia open on his lap, and Lucas, who takes Mike’s advice and cranks the window down. The seating arrangement had been hotly debated, with no one wanting the widely despised middle seat and vying for shotgun.
“Rock–paper–scissors,” Dustin had suggested, rubbing his palms together as if to warm up for the game. “Winner gets the passenger seat.”
“I need room for all this muscle,” Lucas insisted, taking the opportunity to flex, which prompted an eyeroll from Max.
“Will gets shotgun,” Mike had announced, seemingly unaware of the fact that Will wasn’t even participating in the debate.
Will bit his lip, amused at the other’s noises of protest.
“Oh, of course,” Max sighed, “How could we possibly separate Mike and Will?”
“My car, my rules,” Mike said simply, twirling the keys in his hands.
Which is why, twenty minutes later, Will finds himself sitting passenger next to Mike, heading towards their last hurrah before college—a summer camping trip. Two nights in the woods before they all go their separate ways for the school year.
Their arms brush where they rest on the center console, Will’s summer tan contrasting with Mike’s horrendous sunburn. He fairs about as well in the sun as Count Dracula.
Mike’s other hand is gripping the top of the steering wheel, the breeze from the newly–opened windows ruffling his inky–black hair. The thin material of his t–shirt sits slightly askew on his body, exposing just a hint of his collar bone. He looks older—they all do—but with Mike, it’s distracting. His shoulders have broadened considerably, the sharp contours of his cheekbones and jaw becoming even more defined. Still, he was achingly still himself, still the Mike that Will had called home for the last thirteen years. Still the Mike who wore dorky Star Wars shirts and grandpa-ish sweaters, still the Mike who insisted on playing Butthole Surfers and R.E.M whenever anyone gave him the chance, still the Mike whose dark eyes always managed to find Will’s own across rooms or crowds.
So, here’s the thing.
Will is over Mike Wheeler. Totally. Completely. He’s over his Tammy and he’s going to find his Vickie. It was never about Mike, it was always just about him.
At least, that’s what he told everyone. That’s what he said a few hours before they killed Vecna and ended the upside–down, when he’d told everyone about being queer. But I realized, he’s just my Tammy, and by that I mean it was never about him, it was always just about me.
Will isn’t stupid. He’ll never truly be over Mike Wheeler. He’ll never be over the boy that was his safe place for so many years, the only person to never treat him like someone fragile or breakable, the boy who’d been his other half for as long as he can remember. It’s ridiculous, but Will gave up on eradicating these feelings a while ago. Now, it’s just been a matter of controlling them.
Not that Mike makes that particularly easy.
His existence is enough to make Will’s chest ache. The way he talks and laughs in conversations, the way his eyebrows furrow when he focuses on his writing, how his hand looks scribbling with a pen or clutching a steering wheel. But Mike has been particularly clingy as of late. They’ve basically lived at each other’s houses this summer, spending all their free time watching movies, swimming at the lake, or lying side by side, reading comics or just talking. Will finally bought his own telephone for his room after his parents got fed up with Mike calling pretty much every day to hang out.
If Will were a stronger man, he would pretend to be busier than he is, and maybe try to put some distance between himself and Mike. But Will’s nothing if not a sucker for Mike’s long–winded rants about literature or comic books, and his croaky morning voice. So he doesn’t turn him down.
“You okay?”
“Hm?” Will is shaken from his thoughts by the very object of them. He looks over to see Mike’s concerned glance from across from the drivers’ seat. “Yeah. Of course.”
“Are we there yet?” Lucas whines theatrically, causing them both to look around at him.
“Almost,” Mike replies, his tone back to its usual irritation. “We’d go faster if you weren’t hanging your feet out the window.”
“That’s true,” Dustin notes. “You’re messing with the aerodynamics.”
“No, please,” Max groans, “Trust me, it’s better than them being in here.”
Will grins, leaning back against the seat and closing his eyes, letting the afternoon sunshine fall on his face. Mike’s arm shifts where it rests on the console, moving ever so slightly so that they’re pressed together, Mike’s warm skin against his own.
Will looks up, his eyebrows lifting, surprised but certainly not going anywhere. Mike’s eyes stay resolutely on the road, but there’s a small grin tracing his lips that makes Will’s heart stutter.
God, he’s hopeless.
But it’s fine.
It’s not like a whole thing.
…
They arrive at the edge of the woods ten minutes later, and pile out of the car immediately, stretching aching limbs and arguing over who has the carry the heaviest tent. Will ends up in charge of carrying the cooler and one of the smaller tents on the hike that takes them to the campsite.
The campsite is breathtaking, to put it lightly. Swooping canopies of trees provide ample shade as well as dappled light on the forest floor. The site overlooks the lake, its vastness only truly visible from this vantage point.
“You did good, Mike,” Lucas admits, dropping some of the bags he’s carrying on the ground and standing back, hands on his hips, to look around. “This is gorgeous.”
The others murmur in agreement.
They’re all hopeless at cooking, but Lucas and Mike are a little less terrible at it than the rest of them, so they get a fire going while Max, Dustin, and Will attempt to set up the tents. It goes about as well as you might expect.
“Do you see a stak’ anywhere in here?” Max frowns, holding up the instruction guide and squinting at it like it might make more sense with her eyes half–closed.
“Which one of these is a small pole?” Will sorts through the assorted metal rods and canvas, feeling like learning another language would be easier than this.
Fortunately, they figure it out after a while, and soon enough, three canvas tents stand proud in front of them. At the same time, Mike and Lucas wrap up making dinner, and they eat their grilled cheese sandwiches on paper plates, sitting on picnic blankets. Mike drops down next to Will, crossing his lanky legs so that their knees brush. Will tells himself the same thing he does every time Mike does something like this. Every time their legs brush under a table, or when Mike’s voice drops to that soft tone that makes Will’s brain turn to mush.
This is just who he is.
Mike is just affectionate. Almost overly so.
“So tomorrow,” Lucas holds up his hands like he’s announcing a grand plan, “Here’s what I’m thinking. We’ll get up early, and hike until, like, noon. Then we’ll cool off in the lake when we get back.”
“I’m down,” Dustin shrugs, finishing his grilled cheese with a loud smack.
Max nods in assent. “Sounds good to me.”
Will and Mike exchange a look.
“I might stay behind. I was thinking of painting tomorrow morning,” Will says hesitantly.
“Suit yourself,” Lucas shrugs. “I think we’re fighting a losing battle trying to get Mike to wake up early.”
Mike scowls, but they all know it’s true. Mike isn’t a morning person. He’s hardly even an afternoon person.
It’s dark by now—the crackling fire the only source of light around as the sun dips behind the trees. They toss their paper plates in a trash bag and head for the tents that Will thinks they did a pretty good job of setting up, thank you very much, and the question of who’s sleeping where is brought up. There’s five of them, and three tents, so either someone is sleeping on their own, or three of them will cram into a tent that was only made for one.
“Well, we’ll see you guys tomorrow,” Max says cheerfully, tugging Lucas by the wrist into one of the tents. They disappear in a fit of laughter.
“No offense, Mike,” Dustin says, flinging an arm casually around Will’s shoulder, “But you snore like a warthog. I call dibs on sleeping alone.”
“I don’t snore!” Mike splutters in protest, looking to Will, as if hopeful he might come to his defense.
“You kind of do,” Will smiles in spite of himself. It was true—Mike snores like no one else. Only Will, horrifically, finds this sort of endearing. Truly, he’s hopeless.
“Whatever,” Mike scoffs, “I wanted to share with Will anyways.”
Will grins in spite of himself, his face on fire in the dark. “Who says I’m gonna share with you? Why don’t you two share?”
“No way,” Dustin says stubbornly, “I built the small one, so I’m claiming it.”
“You hardly built anything,” Mike rolls his eyes.
“Still,” Dustin folds his arms like the case is closed. “See you two tomorrow.” And with that, he disappears into the smallest tent by himself.
Mike follows Will into the remaining tent. Both of them have to stoop inside, clambering awkwardly around one another to get changed in the small space before crawling into their sleeping bags.
“God, it’s freezing,” Mike complains, zipping his sleeping bag shut with an air of irritation. “I still can’t believe I agreed to do this.”
“I can’t believe it either,” Will muses, and Mike makes a sound of protest. “This must be the first time you’ve left your basement all summer.”
“Hey!” Mike says, pushing Will where he lies next to him. “You’ve been down there just as much, asshole. You’re even more of a basement dweller.”
“I’m an outdoorsman,” Will corrects airily. “I was born for this. You probably won’t last the night.”
“You know what,” Mike rolls over, looking at Will seriously. “I think you’re right. I can already feel the insanity setting in.”
“Will you two shut up?” Max’s disembodied voice calls out from the nearby tent. “I’m going insane listening to you.”
They stifle their giggles into their hands, doubled over in their sleeping bags with laughter.
“Seriously, though,” Mike continues, his voice hushed so that it’s barely audible over the sound of crickets chirping outside the tent. His low tone is enough to send a shiver down Will’s spine. “I could get used to this,” he gestures vaguely around. “Camping, I mean.”
“Yeah?” Their voices are hushed, sobered by now, the laughter fading.
“Yeah,” Mike rolls back over onto his back. Will can only see the faintest outline of his profile—his crooked nose, the point of his chin as it connects to the curve of his jaw, the smooth definition of his cheekbones. Will wants to reach out and swipe his thumb across Mike’s face like he would a piece of clay. “Just wish we could see the stars.”
…
When Will wakes, his first thought is to realize with a jolt that he’s not in his bed. It takes him a moment to properly orient himself. The first thing he notices is that he’s lying on his side in a rather warm sleeping bag, on a rather flat camping mattress. The second thing he notices is that there’s something warm and heavy flung across him. Before he even remembers where he is, he recognizes the warmth, recognizes the smell of Mike’s soap and cologne and probably a little bit of his sweat in the mix.
Okay, so.
Not only is Mike’s arm flung over Will, about half his weight seems to be too. His body is pressed up against Will’s back. His warm forehead is pressed against the back of Will’s neck.
And he’s snoring. Loud.
Right into Will’s ear.
Will allows himself exactly ten seconds to enjoy this before gingerly removing Mike’s arm from around him and awkwardly shuffling from the tent. He looks back before stepping outside. Mike now lays awkwardly on his shoulder, his arm outstretching, reaching. His lips are parted, and he’s snoring like a freight train, and of course, he still manages to look all soft and cute.
God, Will is going to die.
Outside the tent, Will finds everyone else has gone on their early morning hike, as expected. Well, everyone else except Mike.
Mike probably won’t be up for another two hours. That is, unless the sound of birds chirping wakes him first. The sounds of the woods have come alive around them, birds and insects chirping in a cheerful harmony.
Will grabs a canvas from his bag, along with his paint and a granola bar, and sets up on a rock by the lake, yawning and trying to wake up fully. The sun is rising, streaking the cool gray sky with warm pinks and oranges. He could try to paint the sunrise, but it’s futile. The early morning light never lasts long enough to capture fully. Instead, Will gets to work on the landscape—dabbing greens and blues on the canvas to detail the far edge of the lake, the hills and trees in the distance. By the time he finishes the horizon, the sky has turned to a brilliant, clear, blue.
Mike emerges from the tent a few hours later, looking typically grumpy. It’s endearing really, how irritable Mike is as he wakes up. At least, Will thinks it is.
“Morning,” Mike mumbles, his voice thick with sleep as he approaches where Will sits on a rock by the edge of the lake. He drops down next to him, cross legged, and silently offers Will a thermos of instant coffee.
Will takes it, studying his best friend. He looks about half asleep, his eyes still a little bit puffy. The other boy is dressed in a pair of shorts and a maroon sweatshirt that reads Indiana University. Mike is going to IU in the fall, to study writing. Will is going to Rhode Island School of Design. The impending separation weighs heavy in the air between them. Between all of them, really. They’re all dispersing to different states, different sides of the country. Only Mike is staying in the midwest.
“How’d you sleep?”
Mike groans in response, rubbing his back. “There was a rock in between my shoulder blades all night.” His voice is croaky the way it always is in the early morning.
“Is the camping life not for you?” Will grins wryly.
“The tent life definitely isn’t,” Mike takes the thermos back, and takes a sip. Will tries not to think about how his lips touch the same part of the cup that Will had only a moment ago. God, he needs help. This is appalling. “I could get used to this view, though.”
“Yeah,” Will agrees, looking out over the lake with reverence.
“Whatcha working on?” Mike leans over to look at the canvas in Will’s lap. He’s close. Too close. So close he can probably hear Will’s heart hammering inside his chest. Did he put on cologne before he left the tent?
“Nothing,” Will stammers, cursing himself internally. His own voice sounds too high to his own ears. Jesus Christ. He’s really nailing this. “Just the lake.”
“Wow,” Mike breathes, not straightening up. “I hope art school’s ready for you.”
Will huffs a laugh. “Yeah?”
“Yeah!” Mike protests as Will giggles. “Seriously, those pretentious assholes don’t know what’s coming.”
“Mike,” Will laughs, “I think you might be overrating me a little bit.”
“I’m not!” Mike insists, his dark brown eyes boring into Will’s own. It’s all Will can do not to look away. “You’re the most incredible artist I know. I mean it.”
“Thanks, Mike,” Will says softly, hoping he doesn’t notice the blush creeping up his neck. If he does, he doesn’t say anything.
They stay like that for a while—side by side by the lake, passing a thermos back and forth. Will paints, and Mike watches. They don’t talk much, but silence with Mike is hardly ever awkward. They’ve spent years side by side, quietly reading, or Mike watching Will work as he does now, enjoying each other’s presence. Since they were kids, just being together has been enough. Being next to each other is enough. Being with Mike feels like breathing out, even when Will is drowning in his feelings.
Lucas, Dustin, and Max arrive back at the camp an hour later.
Max flops down on one of the picnic blankets, groaning. “I’m never hiking ever again.”
Dustin leans against a tree, wheezing. “It was—beautiful—though,” he says between gasps.
Lucas, who looks no worse for wear, gets out sandwiches wrapped in foil and a bag of chips for lunch, as well as cans of soda from the cooler. They eat them on the picnic blanket, Mike and Will listening to the stories from the other three’s hikes. Their voices overlap in excitement as they talk.
“And then, Lucas screams like a little girl—”
“I did not—”
“And a tiny squirrel pops out from behind the tree—”
“It was not a squirrel. It was like, the size of a car!”
After lunch, they change into bathing suits and head to the rocks overlooking the lake. Shielding their eyes from the hot summer sun, they observe the water for a moment before Max shoves Dustin off and he drops into the clear water of the lake.
Will dodges a push from Lucas only to feel another pair of hands at his bare back, and before he knows it, he loses his balance and jumps off, arms flailing wildly.
The lake water is cool, but not freezing. It’s about two in the afternoon, meaning the August sun has had plenty of time to warm water that’s probably normally frigid.
The sound of Mike plunging through the water in front of him seems to echo through the deep water, surrounding him in slow motion. Will squints through the blue to see Mike’s inky black hair swirling around him in the water, his pale skin looking almost ghostly in the deep water. Mike is squinting back at him, his smile mischievous even underwater, and Will has officially solved the mystery of who pushed him in.
Will surfaces first, the warm summer air feeling suddenly cooler, pushing his wet hair back from his forehead, and waits for Mike to follow. Mike breaks the surface of the water a moment later, and he shakes his head like a dog, water droplets flying everywhere.
“Ack!” Will shields his face from the spray, grinning in spite of himself. “You asshole!” He smacks the surface of the water, effectively splashing Mike in the face.
Mike retaliates instantly, splashing Will back while they both struggle to tread water. Max and Lucas have now joined the rest of them, and they paddle around in the water together for a moment, laughing absurdly and splashing one another before Mike childishly suggests a game of chicken.
“I call Lucas!” Max says instantly, moving to grab her boyfriend’s arm.
“I call Will!” Mike shoots back instantly, moving to grab Will in a similar manner.
Holy shit.
Will can feel the heat creeping up his neck towards his ears and hopes no one catches on.
“What the hell!” Dustin groans, flopping back into the water.
“Next round,” Lucas promises before ducking underwater, allowing Max to climb up onto his shoulders.
Mike and Will follow suit. Mike disappears beneath the surface of the lake, and Will awkwardly climbs up onto his broad shoulders, sucking in a breath when Mike’s hands move to hold onto his thighs. This last fact leaves Will’s head spinning to the point where he forgets the objective—to push Max off.
He and Max swat at each other for a moment, wobbling on their respective partners shoulders. Will pushes at her shoulders, but Lucas swerves back in time to keep her from falling. They end up clasping hands at one point, pushing in their respective directions. Max gets the upper hand, however, and Mike’s shoulders are slippery. The two of them go tumbling back, falling into the water in a tangle of limbs. It’s difficult to tell where Will’s arms and legs end and Mike’s begin. .
Under the water, Mike’s hands linger a moment longer than necessary as they untangle themselves from one another. The blush creeps up Will’s neck and ears once again, achingly familiar at this point, but Mike is grinning, and it feels impossible to be embarrassed right now.
“Again?”
…
The sun is setting again by the time they get out of the water and change into dry clothes. Lucas and Max take on dinner this time, and get to work on grilling hotdogs over the fire while Dustin, Mike, and Will flop down on a picnic blanket. Mike puts Bruce Springsteen’s I’m On Fire on the CD player, and Will closes his eyes, basking in the early night air.
They have dinner on paper plates around the fire once again, argue over what's left in the ketchup bottle, and raise their soda cans to the upcoming school year.
“To MIT,” Max nods at Dustin, who practically glows. He’ll talk anyone’s ear off about his future school if they’ll let him.
“To USC,” Dustin nods in response. Max is going to University of Southern California in the fall, to study psychology.
“To RISD!” Lucas whoops, nudging Will in the shoulder, who grins bashfully. His stomach flutters every time he remembers where he’s going in less than a month. He’s never been to New England, even though his parents talk about moving to Montauk sometimes, but soon he’ll be living in Providence and studying the thing he loves most in the world, with people who love it just as much. Still, his chest tightens at the thought of leaving his friends. Of leaving Mike.
Will’s not naive enough to think that his feelings for Mike will fade with distance. He’ll probably be stuck being hopelessly in love with Mike Wheeler for the rest of his life, but he pushes the thought aside and raises his Coke can instead of pondering on this. “To UC Berkeley!”
Lucas grins, turning his attention to Mike. “To IU, Wheeler!”
Mike doesn’t whoop or cheer like the rest of them. He doesn’t even grin. He just purses his lips, but Will is the only one who seems to notice. He nudges Mike with his shoulder as conversation moves on.
“You okay?” He mutters, and Mike gives him a tight smile and a nod that isn’t convincing in the slightest.
Love My Way by the Psychedelic Furs comes on over the stereo, and suddenly Max is dragging Will up by his wrist to dance. The fire illuminates their faces, so that Max’s red hair almost seems to glow. Lucas and Dustin busy themselves with getting s’more materials ready while Max and Will move around the fire pit. They spin each other around and dip each other like ballroom dancers in time to the music.
Love my way, it’s a new road
I follow where my mind goes
They stumble into each other, dizzy, breathless, and doubled over laughing, and that’s when Will notices Mike.
He’s looking directly at Will, his expression soft with something he can’t quite place. His lips are slightly parted, the fire throws the sharp features of his face into warm relief, and oh.
Will’s chest tightens with that aching, familiar feeling.
Here’s the thing.
Will’s not stupid, but he’s also not crazy. At least, not crazy enough to distrust his own senses.
Mike is straight—he as good as told Will that night on the radio tower. Friends? No thanks. Best friends.
But there are times when Mike looks at him, well, like this, and Will isn’t quite sure what to make of it.
The moment passes as quickly as it comes. Mike looks back at the fire for a moment, and Will becomes aware of their surroundings again—Dustin and Lucas poking around to find sticks for s’mores, Max clinging onto him and wheezing, and the song coming to an end. Then Mike stands, and walks across to the opposite side of the campsite, where he disappears into the trees.
“Where’d Mike go?” Lucas asks, looking up from the bag of marshmallows and pack of chocolate to find Mike gone.
“Probably off moping,” Max sighs, sitting back down on the picnic blanket and skewering a marshmallow through the heart with a stick.
Wordlessly, Will follows him.
He finds Mike on the other end of their little campsite, sitting on a rock ledge overlooking the lake, almost a cliff. Will hasn’t seen this area yet. He wonders when Mike had the time to discover it, seeing as they’ve spent almost the entire day attached at the hip.
Will stands hesitantly at the tree line for a moment, debating whether or not to approach his best friend. The sun has set completely by now, and the moon has risen, full and reflecting across the surface of the lake. There’s no need for a flashlight tonight.
Mike sits back on the heels of his hands, looking like he might be gazing at it.
He doesn’t turn around when Will approaches, but calls, “Hey, Will.”
Will grins in spite of himself. “How’d you know?”
“Instincts,” Mike replies, motioning for Will to sit down next to him on the rock. “You skipping s’mores?”
“For now,” Will says, dropping onto the stone ground next to Mike, stretching his legs out in front of him, parallel to Mike’s. Mike’s are significantly longer. Will decides to get straight to the point. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Mike.”
Mike’s profile is illuminated in the moonlight, his sharp features even sharper, the silvery light glinting off of his dark hair. It’s a little bit longer now—he’s finally given up the side part, and let it grow out again so that it curls around his ears and the nape of his neck. His adams apple bobbs, and Will is reaffirmed in his instinct that something is up with his best friend.
“I’m not going to IU,” he says quietly. “I got into Brown.”
“What?” Will says in surprise, “Mike, that’s incredible! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know,” Mike admits, biting his lip.
Will turns his eyes back to the water. Crickets chirp around them, a familiar, summer night sound.
After a moment, Mike breaks the silence again. “I keep…thinking about that night, you know? When we killed Vecna. Or the week leading up to it.”
Will sucks in a breath. They don’t talk about this. They don’t talk about Vecna, or the upside-down, or November sixth. Ever since the very time Mike is referring to, they’ve all been pretending to live normal lives. Pretending to move on.
Mike continues. “I had this stupid idea that all of us would move away somewhere together, you know? I told El about it. Like at the end of a D&D campaign.” he laughs bizarrely. “Stupid, right? I mean, she never even played D&D.”
El.
Hearing her name out loud sends a pang through Will’s chest, an all too familiar ache for his sister.
“She as good as told me how stupid that was, too,” Mike drops his gaze, hanging his head between his shoulders so that his chin is almost touching his chest. “She would tell me that life isn’t like one of my campaigns. That I don’t get to write the ending.”
Will turns to look at Mike, at his best friend’s face that’s twisted in sorrow at the words. “So that’s why you didn’t tell anyone about Brown?”
“Yeah, I guess. I feel like it’s what I deserve, to stay stuck here, you know? I can’t just move away. I can’t just write my own ending like that. Not when she didn’t get to.”
Will bites his lip as Mike meets his eyes. “I don’t know if that’s true,” he says softly. The words leave him, almost hurting to say, before he’s even really sure what he means.
Mike’s brow furrows in confusion.
“I mean, we don’t get to write our endings. None of us do. That’s just life, right?” Will shrugs. “But I don’t think we’re completely passive, either. We write our own choices everyday. We choose where we go, where we live, what we do,” he hesitates, “Who we do it with.”
Will pauses, because Mike is looking at him like That again.
In the way that makes everything else around them—the gentle sound of the water, the chirp of crickets—seemingly fall away. That makes Will’s heart stutter in his chest, like it forgets how to work for a moment.
“You can’t force yourself to stay here and live in your guilt. She wouldn’t have wanted that for you. None of us do,” Will says gently. “And punishing yourself isn’t going to change things.”
Mike looks away, grinning. “You really are Will the Wise, aren’t you?”
Will huffs a laugh. “They don’t call me that for nothing.”
Mike lies back on the flat stone of the rock, and tries to tug Will down with him.
“What are you doing?” Will laughs bizarrely at Mike’s attempt to pull him down.
“Stargazing,” Mike answers.
Will lies back next to him on the rock, and turns his focus upward to the sky.
And oh wow.
The stars are so much more visible outside of Hawkins, without all of the excess light from houses and lamposts. They twinkle like the universe is telling them hello.
“Look,” Mike raises a hand to point to a constellation that looks like a swan. “That one’s Cygnus.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Mike grins. He looks younger, like this. More like the wide–eyed boy Will had grown up side by side with. “And that one’s Sagittarius. The one that looks like an archer.”
“Wow,” Will breathes, clasping his hands over his chest, his elbow brushing Mike.
They lie like that for a moment, breathing in unison, eyes cast towards the stars. Will has never felt smaller in his life, never felt more blissfully unimportant. For a moment, he’s not Zombie Boy, not someone who’s survived alternate dimensions and played a part in saving the world. He’s just another tiny human, a speck of dust on the sand beach of life.
“You know,” Mike says after a moment, “She pulled me into the void. Before she died.”
“What?” Will breathes, feeling as if the air has been knocked from his lungs.
“Yeah.” Mike says grimly. “She, um…she told me she loved me.”
Will holds his breath, feeling his heart hammering in his chest like it’s trying to free itself from his ribcage.
“And I couldn’t say it back.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, I only ever did once. You were there.”
Will remembers, clear as day—being fifteen in Surfer Boy Pizza, telling Mike he was the heart so he could tell El what she’d needed to hear. He remembers exactly the way Mike said it, the way he’d shouted it—I love you! He closes his eyes, wincing at the memory, which is made even more painful knowing that that was the only time his sister had heard those words from the boy she’d loved.
“I’m sure she knew,” Will assures him, even though his throat is tight.
“That’s the thing,” Mike squints up at the lights above, whispering the next words like a confession to heaven above. “I’m not sure that I did.”
“What?” Will frowns, turning to look at Mike.
Mike sighs. “I mean I did, just…not the way I should’ve.”
“What d’you mean?”
Mike rolls over so he’s on his side. Will does the same. They’re facing each other now, gazing at each other instead of the stars. Only, Will can’t seem to remember the difference between the constellations above and Mike Wheeler’s eyes.
“The one time I told her I loved her,” Mike begins, “Was after you told me I was the heart. Because of the painting.”
Oh.
“That painting was never from her, was it? I mean, she didn’t even like D&D.” Mike seems to be holding his breath. “It was from you. Completely. Right?”
Will bites his lip. Mike knows. There’s no point in lying about it now. Not again. “Yeah,” he breathes.
“I was only able to say it,” Mike murmurs slowly, “Because of your words. Because of your art.”
Will doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything at all.
“And I realized,” Mike says, his big, star-like eyes glued to Will’s own, “That I couldn’t say it because it wasn’t her I wanted to say it to.”
“What?” Will’s voice is barely above a breath.
“It’s you, Will.” Mike says in that soft, gentle cadence that’s been Will’s safe harbor for all of these years. “It’s always been you.”
Will feels as if he’s been set afloat among the stars—no, that he is a celestial being, glowing in Mike’s orbit. He bizarrely feels somehow like laughing and crying at the same time, like he could fly, or dance, or glow.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out,” Mike says, his eyes now anywhere but Will’s face. “Maybe if I wasn’t such a clueless idiot, we could’ve…I don’t know.”
“Mike,” He whispers, reaching up to cup Mike’s jaw. His skin is smooth under Will’s palm, and seems to spread throughout his veins from the points of contact. Mike is suddenly looking at him again, his dark eyes the brightest stars Will has ever seen, his lips are falling open, and suddenly Will knows what’s about to happen. What he’s about to do.
At first, Will’s lips are a ghost on Mike’s. It’s barely more than a nervous brush. But Mike’s hand brushes over Will’s shoulder, a gentle, wisp of a touch, and Will kisses him firmly, with all the certainty in his heart that he’s carried since he was young. Because hasn’t he always known, on some level? Isn’t loving Mike Wheeler just as much innately a part of him as his hair color, or his eye color? Weren’t they always meant to do this?
Mike kisses back like he can feel the sureness pouring from Will right now, like he feels it too. Like maybe, he’s wanted this as much as Will has.
Will has read about constellations before in school—about Orion, and Scorpius, and Cassiopea. He’s traced pictures on his textbook pages, wondered how it would feel to touch them, to hold a star in the palm of his hand. He’s painted them in night skies, and tried to capture their glow with paints on canvas and watercolor paper. He’s looked to the stars in the night sky for answers before, wondering about what gods or deities would listen if he made a wish on one, if he tried to speak their language. Now, whatever code they speak, he knows that they’ve surely exchanged his and Mike’s names before.
“I love you,” Will whispers when they break apart. Mike’s hand has crept up Will’s own jaw, pressing their foreheads together. He breathes the next words like a prayer. “I love you, Mike.”
“But,” Mike murmurs hesitantly, “I thought—at the Squawk—you said—”
“I didn’t mean it. God, I could never mean it,” Will laughs bizarrely, because suddenly everything is funny now. “I never stopped loving you, Mike. Never.” Will has hardly ever been this upfront about his feelings with anyone, but Mike has always had a way of coaxing them out of him, just by, well, existing.
“God, I’ve wasted so much time,” Mike murmurs. He’s looking at Will with a wonder that borders on reverence, his hand tracing Will’s face from his temple to his chin.
“How long have you…” Will can’t even utter the rest of the sentence
“Been in love with you?” Mike bites his lip. “All my life. At least, all of it that matters. I guess I just didn’t realize it until you…um,”
“Came out?” Will offers.
“Yeah,” Mike’s voice is hesitant, “That.”
“What does that…make you then?” Will probes gently.
“I’m not sure,” Mike admits. “I’ve never felt…this way about…”
“A boy?”
“Anyone.”
“Oh.” Will breathes. His brain is in some sort of state of overload, so he leans forward and presses a kiss to Mike’s cheek. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone either.”
“No?” Mike’s voice is more of a breath than a true word.
“No,” Will reassures him, huffing a laugh that quickly turns into a yawn.
“It’s late,” Mike says regretfully.
If only they’d had this conversation a few hours earlier. It’s funny—a few minutes ago, Will Byers had never kissed anyone in his life, but now all he wants to do is make out with Mike Wheeler without a pesky thing like his need for sleep getting in the way. “We should probably go back to the tent.”
“No,” Mike grins, “I have a better idea.”
They stand up and head back to the campsite. Max, Lucas, and Dustin all appear to be tucked away in their tents for the night, and the fire’s burning low. Mike dumps the contents of his water bottle into the smoking fire pit.
Trying to stifle their laughter, they grab their sleeping bags and flimsy camping mattresses, which are hard to carry while holding hands, but they manage. They hurry back through the woods with the guide of the light from the moon and stars, and set up camp on their little spot by the lake. Lying down, they laugh at nothing, feeling almost high off their own giddiness.
Will scoots closer and lays his head on the soft fabric of Mike’s hoodie, right over his heart. Mike wraps an arm around him, much like he did this morning, only with significantly more purpose this time, enveloping Will in his secure, familiar warmth. He points at different constellations, prattling on about the legends that go with them, and Will listens in a daze, paying more attention to the feeling of Mike’s hand, the soft pad of his thumb tracing lazily over the back of Will’s own, like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.
After a while, Will can’t take it anymore, and he leans up to kiss Mike again, cutting him off mid–sentance. Mike makes a sort of oomf sound that’s somehow both surprised and pleased, and cups the curve of Will’s jaw, kissing him back like he means it. He isn’t hesitant anymore—even a little bit. The sheer insanity of it all hits Will—that after years of longing, of confusion and second guessing, he can finally just do this. Before he can stop himself, he pulls back and laughs bizarrely.
Mike laughs weakly too, leaning forward to press another kiss to the corner of Will’s mouth. It’s warm, and soft, and so much more than even what Will had allowed himself to imagine about Mike’s lips. It’s everything. “So I guess I’m going to Brown, then.”
“You’d better.”
Mike rolls onto his side, so that they’re facing one another. Mike is looking at him, in that way that he does, that makes Will’s heart hammer inside his chest like nothing else, his eyes flicking over every inch of Will’s face like he’s a page in a book Mike’s trying to memorize.
“What are you doing?” Will murmurs, for the second time that night.
Mike’s voice is equally as breathless. “Stargazing.”
They both turn their gazes back toward the stars, toward Cygnus and Sagittarius, toward the hundreds, thousands of shining stars that shine in contrast to the dark night sky. Will would give them all up for Michael Wheeler.