Chapter Text
Ted had fallen asleep in front of the television as usual, and Karen had gone upstairs a while ago, Holly was also in bed at the Wheeler's house.
Mike had his bedroom window open, and the warm air from outside drifted in, barely stirring the curtains on that quiet afternoon after a party's meeting. The hectic hours of the day that followed each of them after high school graduation had passed mercilessly. The years had been unforgiving for them since... Well, since it all ended and Vecna's head finally rolled on the floor, freeing them from the torment that an unknown dimension had engulfed them after four years of fighting side by side, surviving with nothing more than D&D and the help of a few adults.
The wounds were still open, healing. Mike had tried to heal on his own.
The loss of Eleven had been painful, unable to believe that she was truly gone. That he would never see her again, living with the weight of having been the only one who had been able to say goodbye to her, or so he wanted to believe. He wasn't sure if what he saw that day was real. Things went on as if nothing had happened, and everyone tried to move forward; now they were almost adults, pursuing their dreams and maintaining the friendship that had allowed them to survive the unimaginable. School was over, now all that remained was to define their futures. And for Mike, that seemed to be getting a little clearer with each passing day.
That night, they had played a new campaing that felt too emotional, too filled with tears and heavy hearts but he couldn't let it end there. As the party were all leaving the basement to go upstairs for dinner, Mike stopped Will for a moment. A brief interruption to ask him to stay a little longer so they could talk after having lasagna? He wanted to know... Something.
Even though they'd spent time together after everything ended, Mike felt there was something unresolved between them, and he always wanted to fix it, but he was never able to do so until he saw that they were both going to grow up and drift apart at some point. He couldn't just let him go like that. Will nodded, even when he looked a little hestitan to do so.
So, now Will was sitting on the floor beside Mike's bed, leaning his back against the mattress. He was flipping through an old D&D manual they'd found in the new closet. Mike was looking at him from the bed, lying face down with his chin resting on the edge of the mattress.
"I still don't understand why you insisted that my Cleric should be stronger than your Paladin." Will muttered, barely smiling and curious.
"Because you are." Mike snorted, as if it were the most obvious thing Will should already know.
Will tilted his head slightly in confusion and turned a little, looking up at him. His eyes held that calm light Mike had known since they were five. Something Mike thought was unique to them, and he felt something stirring in his chest. Something weird.
Will put the manual down after a second and said nothing more, he kept just staring at the ceiling, his head resting on the mattress.
"Hey... This is weird, right?" He said quietly, frowning slightly as if he was having a staring contest with the ceiling. "Graduating, I mean. I– I feel like everything's going to change."
Mike carefully got out of bed with only the sound of the sheet moving as he slid down, and he sat down next to Will almost touching his leg with his own, without thinking too much, then he pulled his knees against his own chest, wrapping both arms around his long legs.
"Not everything changes. Not us, at least." He replied, more self-sure than he felt.
"Of course it does. It's always changing... We even changed our haircuts." Will said, glancing sideways at Mike, and let out a small, nasal laugh.
After that, there was a comfortable silence.
The kind of silence that demanded nothing from them and had always been there. Or rather, that they had recovered after that last battle. The fact that Will had been tormented by Vecna about a part of himself, robbed of the opportunity to speak about it safely and instead based on fear, had changed something in them. In Mike, at least. They couldn't get the chance to talk about it privately. Or rather, Mike had withdrawn into himself to avoid it, grieving alone. But even so, Will was the only one of his friends who had managed to stay within that bubble he had created to protect himself from the anger, the pain and their loss.
So, Mike and Will had picked up their friendship where they had left off before distance and misunderstandings had almost led them to stop being best friends.
And in fact, he knew that they had changed.
Mike especially, noticed that Will was thinner than the last year, that his hair was a little longer, and that when he spoke, he tilted his head slightly to the right.
Mike was noticing details he didn't know when he had started memorizing. That's what he thinks it's still pending between them, that thing he felt that they needed to talk about. He wanted to understand what he was feeling. He'd been thinking to ask Will about it for a year.
The air flowed slowly inside the blue room. Outside, a car drove past in the distance, and that made Mike to turn to his window as if he could see from them, but then at right that moment something else happened. Will sighed suddenly, perhaps tired after the day, and without any warning, he slowly leaned to one side until he could rest his head on Mike's shoulder.
Nothing new. Will had already done it before.
But this time it was different for Mike.
"What was that thing you wanted to talk about?" Will asked, but his voice sounded too soft. Too tired.
But Mike was focused in him instead of his words. He felt the soft weight against his collarbone, the heat coming from the fabric of his t-shirt, the faint scent of soap and some cologne Will borrowed from Jonathan.
And his heart made a whole flip.
His body reacted before his mind when he went completely still, his brain registering every brush of Will's hair against his neck, all too aware of where his shoulder began and Will's cheek ended. He swallowed hard. This isn't unusual, he told himself.
It's just Will.
But the thought didn't settle as it should because the feeling in his chest wasn't the same as usual.
It wasn't just affection for his best friend, and it definitely wasn't just the desire to protect him. There was a kind of low electricity in his stomach that went to his chest and made his heart forget its normal rhythm, the one it usually beat every day or when he wasn't with Will. His breathing became slower, more measured, as if controlling the rate at which air entered his lungs could control everything else he was feeling inside.
Why am I feeling like I'm being chased?
He glanced sideways at his friend.
Will had his eyes closed now and didn't insist and talking anymore, he just relaxed, confident. Trusting him. Because Mike said they could still be best friends.
And something in Mike softened at that moment.
He didn't move away, didn't make any awkward comments, and didn't joke to break the moment. He wouldn't say something stupid he would regret. Instead, slowly, he subtly adjusted his position to make Will more comfortable, in an almost imperceptible gesture that he was afraid it revealed how instinctively protective he felt around him. He gently let both arms fall to Will's sides so that his shoulder, the one where Will was leaning, could relax. And his hand rested a few inches from Will's on the floor.
He couldn't help but glance down at it, realizing that most of the time their hands were that close together, but they never quite touched.
Subconsciously, he thought about Eleven again.
He thought he'd lost the feeling of his heart racing long ago, but what they were doing didn't seem platonic to him, even though he knew it was just them being themselves and Will trusting him again, and that made him question what he was thinking to talk with Will even more.
Because he felt real and present beside him, too much for him to actually say what he wanted so he kept silent, letting his company embrace him with that comfortable feeling he got whenever Will was around, even though he had always been there, even when Will was away in another state and he kept writing him letters he never sent because of how much he missed that feeling.
And the clarity of it hit him silently.
Oh.
Mike thought about the silence of the room, the calm of the moment while Will hummed the melody of one of those post-punk songs he listened to.
In the past, he never felt the need to protect Eleven the way he needed to protect Will. With Eleven, he wanted to be stronger. With Will… He just wanted him to stay by his side so he could be brave for all of them.
The thought froze him.
He felt that if he moved a muscle, everything would change as Will said.
Will took a deeper breath when he got tired of humming, settling on his shoulder. Mike let out a slow breath and, almost without realizing it, tilted his head slightly toward his, not enough to touch him or rest his head on him, just enough to be closer.
Although some feelings of unease and doubt were beginning to overwhelm his mind, he wasn't going to push him away and risk losing him again.
He wasn't going to say what he was meaning to ask right there.
Not this time.
He decided to stay like that, feeling the soft weight against his shoulder, more and more as if Will was letting his weight rest fully on him or maybe had fallen asleep on top of him, while Hawkins breathed slowly outside the window.
And for the first time, he didn't try to convince himself that what he was feeling meant nothing.
—
It had been a party agreement to make a space in the Hawkins cementery to pay tribute to Eleven. "Jane." Will corrected them, every time.
It was almost empty at that hour, and Mike and Will hadn't planned to arrive together. Or at least that's what they'd told each other internally. They never went there together, it was the first time they met there.
Mike arrived first, walking hunched over with both hands in his pockets, staring at the ground more than necessary, and he wasn't carrying any flowers because... He never knew what to bring. Will appeared a few minutes later, clutching a small bouquet of daisies to his chest.
They stared at each other for what seemed like hours, though it was only a few seconds, but neither of them said a word. They didn't greet each other, there was no exchange of words before they both decided to approach at the same time, doing so together. The name Jane Hopper was neatly engraved in the stone. Will had drawn a landscape on it, one he always kept redoing the paint of it so it wouldn't wash off.
Seeing it felt too heavy for their hearts. Too definitive.
Will knelt first. He placed the flowers carefully, as if the stone could sense something. Mike watched him silently, feeling his chest grow heavy and his hands sweat in his pockets. There was something about the way Will stood there, his back straight, his jaw barely tense, that made his chest ache.
"Mom says she likes daisies." Will murmured, still not turning to look at him. Mike noticed how he talked about her in present but said nothing about it, it felt reassuring. "Although... I think– I think she never said it outright. But she would look at them when we walked past the market."
Mike nodded without adding anything else for a few brief seconds. He didn't know that.
There were so many things he didn't know.
They both sat on the grass, not worrying about getting dirty. The wind gently stirred Will's hair, making him sigh slightly. Will went there more often than the rest of the party; sometimes Max accompanied him, and other times Will went there just to talk to her. To tell her about the others, to teach her how to paint as she always asked him to do, about something new he'd learned to draw.
To apologize to her.
"Sometimes I think I should feel it more strongly now." Mike said after a while, sighing. His brows remained furrowed as he gazed at the empty grave they used as a refuge to grieve, hoping Eleven could feel it wherever she was. "Like... Because it doesn't hurt all the time now, it means I didn't care for her enough."
Will looked down at the sound of his voice, shaking his head slowly. "I don't think it works that way, Mike." He replied softly, already sniffing. "It's not a competition between how your present self and your past self felt."
"Sounds like something you'd say when we were fourteen to tell me to shut my ass up." Mike let out a short, humorless laugh.
Will smiled briefly, for a few short seconds before it quickly faded... Because he, too, was to blame.
For a second, the thought returned, as it always did. I was in love with you at fourteen, while she was here.
That wasn't fair.
Will had tried to convince himself, ever since that last battle, that it wasn't like that anymore. That he'd gotten over what he felt for Mike and he was happy that they could still be friends. Best friends. That it was just a phase, a teenage infatuation, and that it had simply been a crush developed from being around him and because Mike was a good friend to him. That he had misunderstood everything.
He repeated it to himself so many times in the loneliness of his room during the last years of school, that he almost believed it.
But now, sitting beside him in front of the grave of the girl they had both loved with all their hearts, yet in different ways, his heart beat too fast for indifference. He wouldn't pay attention, it was pointless now.
Mike leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "She trusted us, right? I believe she... She really thought of us." He said, more to himself than to Will.
"So much that she sacrificed for us, yeah." Will swallowed, feeling his throat close and that burning in his eyes threaten again. Even years later, since Jane had chosen to sacrifice herself, he couldn't remember her without crying.
Mike barely shook his head. "No. She chose to fight. She always chose to fight until the end."
Will closed his eyes for a moment. Guilt would always consume the little strength he thought he'd mustered since confronting Vecna and managing to weaken him, since he could finally come to terms with a part of himself that always made him feel dirty and gross, since it had all ended. The guilt he carried thinking that if he hadn't been there from the beginning, if he hadn't been the boy who needed to be rescued, if everything hadn't changed because of him, perhaps she would be alive. Perhaps she could be living a normal life, and they would have gone to college together in the same major because they both loved to paint, being mistaken for siblings because people in California said they looked so alike when she wore his flannels and they both had short bangs. She would've marry Mike in the future.
Tears escaped even if he wanted to keep Mike from noticing he was crying.
And that also triggered some dark corner of his mind, were there was that deeper guilt. The guilt he never dared admit aloud to her or anyone else, even after all these years. He never confessed it. The guilt that forced him to distance himself for days at some point after the last battle, hiding in his own little world so he could keep convincing himself that it was wrong and that he had to get over it. The damned guilt that was there, keeping him company as he visited his sister's grave and mourned her loss.
You felt something for him while she was here.
That made him feel disloyal, dirty, disgusting. Even now, after all these years. After convincing himself that he felt nothing at all anymore.
Mike noticed Will's shoulders were tense, and without thinking too much, he reached out to touch Will's hand on the grass, though he didn't take it. He just left it there, millimeters over his, like a silent offer in case Will needed to lean on Mike or if that contact would simply make him feel less alone.
Will noticed it. Of course he noticed it.
And for a second he almost pulled away. Because accepting that gesture meant accepting that he needed Mike, that he still needed him like that helpless, terrified child who screamed his name when the Upside Down seemed to insist on destroying him. And still needing him like that felt... Dangerous.
But he didn't move either.
"Sometimes I think..." Will said softly, his brow furrowed as he tried to stop the tears from streaming down his face. "Sometimes I wonder if she'd want us to move on. Like, not being stuck here..."
Mike turned his head to look at him.
There was something about that sentence. Something that wasn't just about grief.
"Stuck?"
"I don't know. Like... Just leaving Hawkins. I wonder if she wouldn't feel bad if we decide to move on with our lives, not coming back to visit an empty grave so often."
Mike studied Will's profile, watching the way the wind moved his hair and how his sadness was constant and how he kept crying without making any sound. And he understood something else.
None of them wanted to forget Eleven.
They didn't want to erase what she was or what she meant to them, but they wanted to keep living. To finally move on.
He finally extended his fingers and barely touched Will's, positioning his fingers on top of his without making it too obvious, a brief touch meant to convey his honest emotions. I'm here with you.
Will inhaled gently. No one said anything even if... They both thought the same thing, without daring to fully formulate it.
If we move forward... Would that include this? Us?
Would our friendship still be the same?
—
In the Wheeler's basement, Max, Dustin, and Lucas had left a while ago, minus one. The excuse they said was that Will would be staying to finish a campaign they'd left unfinished and some updated ideas for miniatures he wanted to re-do. But the truth was, neither of them was in any hurry to part ways... Resuming their friendship as they'd agreed years ago, they often went out together without the other members of the party, mostly hanging out at each other's houses.
Everything was normal, until Will began to feel Mike was staring at him too closely.
He tried not to acknowledge it, not to feel that urge to look up and confront him every time Mike was already looking at him first, but every time Will tilted his head to read the notes on his character sheet or leaned over the map, Mike's gaze could feel intense on his face, and something in Will's stomach tightened. It was a feeling he couldn't quite put his finger on, because it made him feel nervous but also scared.
"What?" Will asked without looking up, noticing it anyway.
"Nothing."
"Nothing, right." Will added, trying to hide that sarcastic bite he had in the tip of his tongue. "That's why you've been staring at me for a while now?"
Mike glanced at a dice as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world. "That's not true."
"You're acting so strange with me." Will put the paintbrush down on the table and studied him more closely. There was something about his expression that wasn't accusatory, it just... Seemed cautious.
And there it was again. That phrase that left Mike breathless.
He felt the urge to deny it immediately again, but the truth was, he was acting strange. Ever since Will had been honest about who he was, ever since he'd said out loud that he liked boys, something inside Mike had started spinning faster.
And it terrified him, because deep down, hidden from all the expectant eyes watching him, he understood it all too well.
Ted Wheeler's casual words over the years, spoken at dinner parties, at family gatherings, throughout Mike's childhood, in a bored yet firm tone, always echoed back to him. How a boy should be, what was "normal," what wasn't. They weren't shouts; he was never violent. But they were comments that slowly seeped into Mike's mind, and he absorbed them without being able to stop himself. They constructed a worldview that left no room for what Mike was beginning to feel for his best friend.
Or perhaps what he already felt but had never given himself the chance to properly process.
"I'm not acting weird." He finally replied, though his voice sounded more strained than he intended.
Will held his gaze for a few more seconds. But the fear of his truth being told years ago lingered even though Mike was still his friend and they still hung out. He always wondered if Mike had said he wanted to stay being his best friend for real, or if he'd only said it because Will needed to stay strong to defeat Vecna. Will knew Mike had let him into his space when Jane's sacrifice was too painful, but that could also have been because Mike knew Jane was special to Will; maybe he thought they could support each other, but that was all. What if the way Mike was acting meant that he never really intended to be his best friend again? After...
"If– I'm making you uncomfortable because... You know I don't like girls, you can say it now."
Time stood still for Mike.
The phrase wasn't accusatory, there was no anger in it, just a vulnerability so direct it pierced Mike's chest.
"Wh– what? No." Mike looked up abruptly, his brow furrowed in disbelief at the words that had reached him. "It's been years since I know, why would I do that now?"
But his reaction was too stiff. Too defensive for his liking.
Will remained calm, though his shoulders seemed stiffer. "It's okay if it makes you uncomfortable. It's– it's what usually happens I guess. I just... I would prefer to know."
There it was again, another chance for him.
The chance to clear things up, to say what he really felt and stop hurting Will with his cowardice. Mike felt the truth rise in his throat with almost physical force.
You don't make me uncomfortable.
You confuse me.
I'm scared of what you make me feel.
Because every time you're near, I feel something I can't explain. Because I don't know what it means about me.
The words were there, clearer than ever in his mind, and Will was near him too, waiting to be rejected and pushed aside when Mike just wanted to do the exact opposite.
Mike opened his mouth and for a second, and he almost said it.
But the fear was too faster than courage.
That inner voice that repeated endlessly, so similar to his father's, so burdened by years of "See what happens when you're like that?", "You'll go to hell" stopped him just before he crossed the line.
"Will, that's absurd. You don't make me uncomfortable. You're– you're crazy." He finally said, trying to sound lighthearted. "You're just being dramatic, I look like this at you and all our friends."
Will blinked slowly. He didn't seem convinced. He wasn't.
"Well... Then just– I don't know, stop looking at me like you're solving the hardest math problem on my face." Will frowned, his lips forming a straight line after her firm words, trying to refocus on painting and finish what he was doing.
Mike let out a nervous laugh.
"Maybe is just your face that is confusing." He tried to make a joke out of it. Of course he would try.
Will glanced down at the figure for a second, as if deciding whether to press the issue or not. He wasn't sure if Mike was truly being honest with him.
"Mike..." He began again, more gently. "Seriously, if there's something you want to tell me or ask me, you can just do it."
Mike's chest tightened again. He... He wanted to say it. He wanted to say it wasn't discomfort, it was the complete opposite. That for weeks he hadn't been able to think clearly when Will was too close, and that he felt jealous of anyone who showed any affection for him without understanding why. That he hated that feeling and at the same time didn't want to lose it.
But admitting it meant admitting something about himself that he still couldn't stand by. Something he still refused to accept.
So he chose the safest path.
"There's nothing to say, except that you have an incredible talent for painting those miniatures." He replied, shrugging. "Really."
So Will nodded slowly. Obviously, he didn't believe a shit. But he would let it go so he could finish and go home.
"Okay."
And that okay felt like a small defeat to Mike because he knew it wasn't true. He knew Will knew he was hiding something, from Will and from himself.
And there were other times when he was so close and so far from Will at the same time, and from telling him what had been troubling him for months, something that only Will could truly understand, the very person he didn't have the courage to tell.
At the movies, for example, when their hands brushed against each other as they reached for some popcorn and neither pulled away immediately. Mike felt the urge to intertwine his fingers with Will's, to test what would happen if he didn't pretend it was an accident. But Will pulled his hand away first.
Or at the lake, when Will laughed at something Lucas said and the sound hit Mike right in the chest. He stared at him for too long until Will's laughter dissolved into a smile, and he kept looking even when Will was pretending not to glance at him, catching his eyes fixed on him when he looked up again.
"Again, Mike."
"What?"
"That face."
"What face?"
"Looking at me like a math problem?"
Mike shook his head, but he knew it was true, because when Will was on his radar, he was always overthinking. Imagining moments and situations where he could be honest and ask him how the hell he dealt with that part of himself when he found out he didn't like girls, and ask him how he knew and how he accepted it.
Because every time he got close to the truth, fear came first.
And so, time and time again, he was on the verge of saying it.
He almost admitted that what he felt wasn't discomfort. But with each passing moment, the doubts grew stronger, and he didn't know how to face it without feeling like the world he'd been taught about was collapsing around him. So he remained silent.
And each silence distanced him a little further from the reality he already knew, insistent, in the center of his chest.