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It didn’t necessarily feel as relaxing as they tried to make it out to be.
It was constant reassurance of “Things would be so complicated if we told them” and “It’s fun when it’s just a thing between us” – and to an extent, that was true. It was definitely fun. In fact, Mike was adamant on making it fun, as if that would make up for the years of lost time. To a certain extent, Will thought the secrecy of it was just to soothe Mike’s inner turmoil as he went through the stages of grief of that lost time. He was able to have it all to himself for a little bit, and by extension, Will could too. It had been a while since they had something like that – just the two of them.
Their childhood was full of secrets between just the two of them, and you’d think with so much practice that they would be experts by now. There were the weekly secret sleepovers that they kept from the party in the early years of its formation. Then there were the secrets they only told one another late at night under the fluorescent light of the lamp that held up their sheet fort – in retrospect, that was definitely a fire hazard. Even their tumultuous years through the end of middle school and beginning of high school were kept pretty under wraps. Lucas and Dustin had no idea when they’d get into real fights, unless Mike dragged Lucas out in the rain to pound on Will’s door, or when Dustrin tried unsuccessfully to hack the Byers’ phone line in Lenora to try and get through all of Joyce’s telemarketer calls at Mike’s demands.
One thing that those lapses in secrecy and their current one had in common: Mike was the one who normally cracked under the pressure.
It made sense – Will knew hiding was one of his specialties, and lying came with that. It was intuitive, he was even able to gauge where his hiding was on its lifeline. When it was coming to an end, things would start to buzz and he knew he was mere moments before being found out. It almost felt like being glued to train tracks, hearing a whistling in the distance that you can’t see yet. Then, the train would appear.
For a long time, Will had known the train was horrifying. It was loud, and a guaranteed death – a GAME OVER, in Tempest terms. That was the absolute of most video games: death or victory. When you didn’t have the right skillset, or didn’t know the flow of the game, you often died. Except for in Pac-Man, where hiding was the whole thing. Will was extremely skilled at Pac-Man.
The train took the forms of many things, and the tracks took those of others. The tracks were his mom’s closet, where he found a large purple blouse to throw over his small shoulders at the age of six. The shirt fell to his toes, wrapping him up in magic and violet and stars, and if he closed his eyes he imagined the matching hat and the long white beard. The train was the footsteps, moments away, swinging the door open and – “William, what the Hell are you doing in here?”
That was definitely a GAME OVER moment. Caught in the act. The lifeline of his hiding was through.
Then there was when he was called ‘girly’ for the first time by Troy Walsh in second grade, or when Jonathan walked in on him making his dinosaurs kiss – because all dinosaurs were boys. These were green and blue dinosaurs, too. Definitely boys. Over time, whatever constituted a GAME OVER moment became more and more ambiguous, as he didn’t always die immediately.
The train wasn’t always loud or absolute. It wasn’t immediate punishment or embarrassment. Sometimes the whistling was all it was, like the name of a girl he had only heard of but could never imagine. One day, she appeared. In all of her glory – bleeding nose, tight jaw, rare smiles. Less than a year passed and she lived with them. From the second Will looked at El for the first time, vision still blurry and memories hazed, he hadn’t known if she was real. But then, he knew, because she looked back at him and he felt like she knew everything. Maybe she did. Maybe Mike told her, or Hopper, or even Joyce, or anyone in the room with them. El was never the train – she was never GAME OVER. She was just whistling, somewhere in the distance. It still felt like death anyway, masqueraded by family movie nights and Will and El’s own forts held up by fire hazardous lamps with secrets that only the two of them knew.
The whistling persisted in many things. And counting those as deaths, as well as all the GAME OVER moments he’d had time and time again in his life – it wasn’t until much later that Will realized why he kept regenerating all this time.
It wasn’t telling everyone, as he thought it would be, which, what a way that would have been to go! An admirable, hero’s death of sorts, latent in truth and honesty. A final goodbye to an unforgiving World that in a few decades might commemorate him for his sacrifices. In truth, he withstood that one; invigorated confidence and powers might have had something to do with that. He had his loot, his skills. He was growing, evolving, aging. Everything was out in the open, and it could, theoretically, come crashing down at any point. It was headlights – perpetual, neverending headlights. Thankfully, he had learned to overcome the fear before this. The headlights were just blinding, uncomfortable. Everyone saw them but nobody said anything. It was suffocating.
In this instance, the train took the form of Michael Wheeler – which added up, as he had been the prime suspect of many of Will’s anticlimactic endgames over the years. A painting in the back of a van, cruel words in the rain. He always started back at level one, as you do in video games. He’d lose loot along the way, skills he once had. The train tracks were the Wheeler’s basement, less than three weeks after Vecna was defeated and Will thought he’d never hear trains again, and the whistling was Mike’s mouth on his, except it was far more than a whistling, it was a roaring, and Will was sure he was being run over for good, and the train would keep blowing past him, unaware of any damage left behind.
He should have seen it before, really. In campaigns, death was never an ultimatum. There was always a chance to come back to life, and it might be that very death that plays the largest role in the character’s story. Maybe they travelled to Hell, and came back with newfound knowledge that helps the party in their last, dire moments of need.
Or, maybe, Will was never standing on the tracks in this inevitable scenario – just beside them, waiting. Waiting for this rush of euphoria and freedom and the wind of the train, so close, and if he got too close it could be over, but it was great – it was perfect, even, from here. A few steps to the side. It was exhilarating, thrilling, and all theirs.
Will never thought he’d crave the feeling of being planted on those train tracks, of being seconds away from being found out, and staring death in the face. But this time, he knew he could come back or withstand it altogether, let it blow right past him, fly right over him, maybe even run alongside it or outrun it altogether. The train was no longer horrifying – it was exhilarating.
But, Mike didn’t seem to think so.
That was okay, for now, Will told himself – Mike had just faced some of his first trains ever. He was still getting used to the feeling of straps being tied over feet, and he had no idea that the straps were all a facade, and that if he wanted to, he could take them off. It would be unfair of Will to expect him to know that.
It would be less annoying to deal with if Will knew he was the one not hiding things well. Unfortunately, that mostly fell onto Mike’s shoulders – and with it, the subsequent turmoil.
“They sounded suspicious. Over.” Mike whined from the other side of the walkie-talkie. Will thought it was silly that Mike still ended every sentence with “Over”. He assumed it was another one of those stubborn habits, as it never really mattered between the two of them.
Three months had passed and Will, El, and Jonathan had relocated to a new home – their old home. It was ironic, all that time Mike and Will had been sleeping two floors apart from one another, rubbing elbows at breakfast, and they never took advantage of that proximity. In fact, they avoided each other almost completely. Now, they were far enough away from one another that they resorted to their old communication methods: a channel that had been just theirs since they were ten. Another secret. But, being back in his old room, his window vibrating comfortingly with the wind, house full of people that moved around in the mornings and gave each other sloppy kisses on the cheek and engraved new heights into the doorframe, being on the familiar walkie-talkie channel – it was freeing. It was their weird, unbridled normal.
“They only sounded suspicious, Mike, because you were acting totally suspicious.” Will picked up the walkie lazily, teasing smile written all over his tone. He had to speak extra quietly in his home, he remembered, as the walls were thin and the floors echoed with every step. “And it’s fine, trust me. They’re not like… opening a case on it.”
Will didn’t even really know what Mike was referring to. Apparently, during lunch earlier that day, Mike had made a comment about having plans this weekend with Will. Which wasn’t a lie, and wasn’t necessarily suspicious. The problem was that Lucas gave him a “look”, which meant absolutely nothing because Lucas gave everything a “look”. He just threw looks out left and right, hoping one of them would stick so he could tease Mike about it until the end of time. That was one of their things. “Why are you looking at me like that?” to “Why do you think I’m looking at you in a certain way? I’m just looking. Should I be looking at you in a certain way about something?” These conversations never came to fruition in regards toWill, but Mike was for some reason certain they were happening telepathically between himself and every member of the party at any given time.
“Right, right…” Mike trailed off, and since he didn’t say “Over”, Will knew he had more to say. In reflection, maybe this whole “Over” thing was more for Will than it was for Mike. “Can I come over? Over.”
Will laughed out loud at his audacity, and re-created it once he turned the walkie back on. “Are you crazy?”
“Maybe a little. Over.” Will could taste the smugness in his voice, and he hated him for it.
“It’s past 9 p.m., Mike, Hopper would throw a fit.” Will made extra effort to whisper, making Mike complain that he couldn’t hear him, so Will had to repeat it. “This is exactly what I mean, I can’t even talk to you over the damn walkie-talkie without worrying about noise.”
“I can be quiet! Over,” Mike, ironically, exclaimed.
“Don’t even try to pull that one,” Will snickered.
“I mean, we don’t even have to talk at all… There are plenty of things we can do in silence.” Will’s eyes widened at the comment, and he almost blushed, until a hesitant “Over” concluded the prolonged, silent buzzing of the walkie in his hands.
“You are pitiful,” was the reply Will decided on, and the walkie picked up the end of Mike’s laugh. It was that laugh, the rest of it, that was lost to the other end. The beginning of it was probably more audible, and had that widening smile accompanied with it that tilted up slightly at the right side. That’s what made Will want to say yes.
“I am,” Mike dragged through his laughter. “So? Is that a yes? Over.”
“As if you’d even be able to get over here right now.” Will could barely picture it: a 17-year-old Mike Wheeler, in the middle of a March night, sliding around on his bike in the icy streets.
“It’s a Friday night! I can go out – I’m practically an adult. Over,” Mike contested.
“I’m not talking about your curfew, Michael, I’m talking about the fact that it’s five degrees outside.” Will tried to keep his laughter from bringing his voice above a whisper.
“I’m still not hearing a no! Over and out.”
“Wh— Mike?!” Will sat up abruptly, his sketchbook sliding off his knees and onto the bedspread, consequentially making his pens clatter onto the floor. As he fell off his bed to try and get them, he hissed into the walkie: “Michael Wheeler!”
Thirty minutes later, there was a rap at his window, and an agitated Will Byers standing, arms crossed in his room. When Will didn’t immediately run up the glass that Mike was practically smushing his face against, a distinct pout took over Mike’s expression. Begrudgingly, Will rolled his eyes and stomped over, pulling the window up.
“Jesus, it’s cold–” Mike started, already too loud.
“Be quiet, and I know, I told you that.” Will replied. Despite the cold, Mike was always radiates heat and he felt it alongside the chill that the wind brought in. Mike clumsily let himself in, clutching onto Will’s forearm before stumbling full force into his arms, laying his head limp against Will’s shoulder. “Oh, poor thing.” Will sneered, running a hand over Mike’s cool hair.
“Shut up.” Mike mumbled into the crook of Will’s neck, wrapping his arms steadily around Will’s waist. “I missed you.”
Mike was a clingy sap. They’d learned it pretty early on in their relationship, an attribute that Will adored, but Mike hated. It frequently got in the way of the whole ‘secret’ thing and the whole ‘looks’ thing. It was nice, though. Mike was expressive, his emotions exuded off of him – they were tangible, sometimes. He had always been that way, it was what made him such a good leader, Will thought.
When Mike was confident, everyone was confident. He had that way of delivering things that made people nod and see their peers at the peak of their abilities, even if they had done nothing to prove that they could pull it off. On the flip side, when Mike was annoyed, everyone was annoyed. But maybe that was because Mike was so damn annoying when he was annoyed. Either way, Mike’s love was just as tangible as everything else. When it was there – which it was more and more often – Will could feel it. It was incredibly real, incredibly exhilarating. Like the trains: Whoosh. Whistle.
“You saw me six hours ago, Mike.” Will said through a laugh, stubborn enough to not admit he felt the same, but more so just to egg on Mike. Will liked to be flattered, and Mike loved to do the flattering.
Mike dropped to his knees, causing a thud that made Will jump up and laugh through his shushes, “Prithee, William!” Mike hissed through a ‘whisper,” if you could even call it that, “Alas and alack, any few seconds is enough to send me to mourn thou.”
“Jesus Christ, Mike, get up, that one didn’t even make sense like – grammatically.” Will pulled on Mike’s underarms that wrapped tight around his waist. Fortunately, that worked at least on getting Mike’s attention, as Mike pulled a face on Will.
“What do you know about grammatically?” He still did not budge. “You’re an artist.”
“Enough, listening to you talk about it all the time.” Will teased, grabbing Mike’s face and shaking it back and forth. Whatever train of thought was originally calculating through Mike’s brain seemed to be lost at Will’s touch, a lazy smile replacing his pout.
Mike made his way back up into Will’s loose embrace, on two feet, and stumbled the two of them back onto Will’s full-sized mattress. It was uncomfortable, their two lanky, growing bodies fell off the end, but it was familiar. By the time they stopped having regular sleepovers in middle school, Mike had eventually moved to a sleeping bag on the floor since Will’s old bed – a twin – had created the same effect. The full was much wider, though. Mike told Will he hated the sleeping bag.
“Whatcha working on?” Mike grabbed the stray sketchbook, which Will immediately ripped out of his hands.
“You are so… nosy.” Will could have cringed at the defensiveness in his tone, but cringing at himself around Mike had been lost a bit ago. Still, he got embarrassed.
“Ohh, is it me?” Mike crooned, leaning up towards Will, and Will rolled his eyes, slapping the sketchbook back down on Mike’s chest.
“Alack and alas.” Will whispered close to Mike’s nose.
Giddily, Mike jumped up on the bed, making the mattress squeak and Will regret having ever let this man into his room under the guise of being quiet – he’d known that was stupid to begin with! The regret was soon replaced with bashfulness as Mike’s eyes scanned his rough sketches. They were some of the most detailed sketches of Mike he had done, and they encapsulated months of participant-observation research and study, field notes of the way his freckles aligned and his pelvis dipped.
“Oh, Will,” And that is when Mike whispered. He never did it on purpose, Will realized a bit ago. Whispering came involuntarily to Mike, and if he tried it just kind of came out as slightly quieter speaking. But it was these soft exclaims that came out like breaths that were really whispering. Secret, just for the two of them. He had heard a lot of this recently from Mike, in many contexts against many surfaces, but these were always the moments that felt the most intimate. Mike’s biased gaze examining Will’s artwork that he put his hands against and crafted knowing the minute details of every crevice of his boyfriend. Mike was examining his own vulnerability through Will’s carefully crafted gaze, and by the looks of it, he was devouring it.
“Is it… Too much?” There was a lot of empty space on the bed, but Will tucked himself carefully next to Mike, hoisted up on his elbow, their legs slightly intertwined, socks brushing one another. Will wasn’t actually insecure about the examination of his drawings, knowing that nothing could really be ‘too much’ for Michael Wheeler. There was still something so butterfly-inducing at watching Mike watch his art. He had seen this exact thing a million times. It was how they communicated. Will with his crayons and colored pencils and paints and Mike with his words. Still, Mike’s dazed eyes found their way to Will’s tightly knit eyebrows with an indiscernible expression and no words to say, and that told Will all he needed to know.
Mike’s expression turned into action as he swiftly cupped his hand around Will’s neck and kissed him, open and long and sweet, and it transformed into something passionate and fast and the sketchbook was once again forgotten, as well as the stupid pens that Will had spent so long trying to find earlier.
Will loved kissing Mike. He especially loved kissing Mike when he probably shouldn’t be kissing Mike. Which, technically, was always. But when it was in the confines of his dimly lit room, in a house with other people that had no idea Mike was there… It was a bit ironic. Mainly because he used to make fun of Jonathan for sneaking Nancy in to do nothing but make out, and now he was doing the exact same thing. He’d never admit that to Jonathan, though, as he was much more sneaky than him. Will caught Jonathan.
Recently, or almost always in retrospect, coming out of hiding was his own decision. That was empowering, and it kept his winning streak going. It didn’t count as being stuck in front of the train if you voluntarily jumped in front of it. Coming out, for example. That was his decision to make – he jumped, he flew. He touched stars and traced constellations and came back down to Earth clad in purple and yellow with the sorcery to match the power he felt. It was an internal thing before it was an external thing.
Anyway, Mike hadn’t made that internal move yet. Not really. He knew what he wanted, just not how to get there. He stood staring at stars from the ground, thinking they were impossible to reach even though he has one of the brightest stars in his fingertips at all times, living proof of interacting with Canopus, Capella, Polaris, Rigel, and of course, the sun. Still, Mike had made it clear that he believed Will was more than he could ever be. A particular conversation from a week prior rang true in Will’s head.
“You’ve always had a relationship with the sky,” Mike had said. “You’ve made quite the impression on it, honestly. The way I always find you in the clouds and the stars and the sun.”
“What does that make you?” Will had asked, not fully following Mike’s line of thinking, yet. That was common with Mike, since he insisted on speaking so poetically. Sometimes it was just that – poems, his own expression of love. Sometimes it was deeper than that. It was Mike trying to tell Will how he felt.
“Uhm…” He’d pondered. “The moon, I guess. The sun reflects off of me, and I reap all of its benefits.” Mike had said it easily, like it didn’t have a million insinuations and a recurring theme of downplaying his abilities. He’d grown vulnerable with Will, more and more over the weeks they spent close to one another, getting to know every crevice and fold and all the things they had never said and letters they had never sent. It was a mutual exchange.
“You know it’s funny, I used to think that I was the moon, I guess.” Will had admitted, his legs lazily draped over Mike’s on the basement couch, a movie changed the color of the room as the scenes flickered. Blue during a climactic scene at night time, yellow when the characters were outside and an eerie suburbia throughout the whole thing. Will couldn’t tell anyone a single thing about the film, though. He had stopped paying attention less than half an hour in. That’s how movie nights went.
“What do you mean?” Mike had said, his fingers drew circles on Will’s ankle.
“I mean in this analogy. Being reflected off of you. I only really met Lucas and Dustin because of you, and I probably never would have continued art if you weren’t so insistent I could do it. Mom and Jonathan helped with that, though, but I don’t know…” Will had rolled his head back as he continued to think. “With family it felt necessary. Some invisible pressure to act like your six year old’s stick figures are the future of artistry. When you did it, it just felt like you meant it. I guess that was the case for a lot of things.”
“So. When did you realize you were the sun?” Mike had asked, and Will had known this had more to do than just resonating with a celestial body.
“I didn’t necessarily realize. I just…” Will had looked at him knowingly, and Mike, eyes dawning with realization, had nodded.
“Decided to jump and happened to meet some stars along the way, and they knew who you were the whole time.” Mike had finished, and Will nodded, this time. Jumping in front of trains, jumping into the sky. Different metaphors, same idea. Will had thought – still thought – that Mike’s was much more beautiful.
Mike, now smirking, had leaned down towards Will. “Here’s the difference: I have to reflect off of you to shine. You shine all on your own. I’m not necessarily opposed to that. I like shining because of you.” Whatever prolonged esoteric conversation they could have continued had been lost to shared breaths and searching hands, which Will wasn’t opposed to, either.
“The stars would know your name, too.” Will had said later that night.
It was a step in the right direction.
A week later and the image was the same, dancing around conversations by finding themselves tied up in the good, the fun, the them of it all, and it was nice. They could be just there for one another, finding excitement in this new-ish thing that was precious and potentially fragile. There were a lot of reasons to keep it a secret – from some people, they might always have to. Will also wouldn’t act like there wasn’t a sort of safety to the secrecy. Judgement was expected, and talking about themselves in ways they had only really discussed with each other – that was scary, too. But Will could feel the reins loosening. Mike was becoming overly paranoid and antsy, to the point that he had to crack eventually. Despite that, Mike was becoming confident. Proud, even. Will reckoned he had a lot to do with that, and he bolstered his own pride. They both yearned for it, to some extent.
Mike would make these reassurances consistently, whining in that tone of his about wanting to be able to shout it from the rooftops and sneak around in the janitor closets in the hallway – they had tried. Two minutes in they heard the door click and Mike faked a medical emergency to explain why they were in there. The good thing about being two boys found in a dark janitor’s closet was that the janitor didn’t suspect anything, despite the way Will’s shirt had ridden up and his hair had been properly tussled. It was in these small, miniscule moments that they could feel something that resembled normalcy. Secrecy could be normal, even if it wasn’t necessarily a choice. They could blend into romantic comedies that they’d rent as a joke, and wouldn’t talk about it when they both became eerily silent and just held each other’s hands. Neither of them had to say it, but they both knew what the other was thinking. What a privilege it must be to have so much… Excitement. Drama, tears, confiding in friends, grand displays of affection, loud public fights. Completely preventable – they could just talk about it. Whenever they wanted to, wherever they wanted to. The snarky female leads and their romantic counterparts wouldn’t have to wait until they were behind closed doors and trip over their words. That was, unless they wanted to.
It was easier to think of it that way, and there was the aforementioned thrill to it, too. They could bump toes under cafeteria tables, and share glances, and stay up whispering into walkie-talkies. They could have sleepovers, and they could wake up to the scent of each other’s sweat and shampoo and they could taste each other’s morning breath. They could stay out at the nearby park until nearly midnight, lacing each other’s pinkies on swings while nobody else was around.
They really enjoyed these moments. Mike’s arms snaked around Will’s body, knowing it well now. He knew it before, but not like this. Will had realized how Mike had picked up on his sensitive spots, the spots he could scratch that made Will hum and the spots he could grab and pull on and make Will squirm. Every so often, they’d pull away and just rest their foreheads on one another. Mike was always the one to break first, a plea stuck in his throat as he dove back into Will’s lips. Mike thought Will was addictive, and Will thought that Mike had never looked more like himself.
After they had forgotten where their arms started and legs ended, when their lips were dry and their arms had given out, Will collapsed onto Mike’s chest – warm, hard, rapid heartbeat. Will struggled, but kept himself awake in the comfort of it all. Not necessarily because he didn’t want to, or couldn’t – it was his house – but Mike definitely would and Will needed to be awake to wake him up. Mike hadn’t snuck over very many times. Twice, actually. Once very early on in their relationship, to apologize for something or another that Will can’t remember anymore. It was part of the whole “secret dating” thing and they were still navigating that to this day. The second for exactly this, but it had been well over a month. Both times Mike had fallen asleep. It took Will nearly thirty minutes to get him out of the house.
“So, I’ve been thinking…” Mike started, his pseudo-whisper coming back full force and taking over the silence of the room. It made Will realize how loud it was all over again and he rolled his eyes, shushing Mike.
“That’s never a good sign.”
“Okay, okay,” Mike shuffled, pulling Will under him as he moved to gaze over Will’s face. “I’ve been thinking,” Mike repeated ‘whisper-ier’ this time. “I know you say you don’t care, but I know you want to tell the party, and–”
“I’ve never really said I don’t care, of course I want to tell them, but we really don’t have to–”
“No, I know we don’t have to, just hear me out. I’m, I don’t know, I'm thinking they might already know?” Mike suggested for the umpteenth time. “I’m not exactly good at being subtle about it. But that’s… I don’t know, that’s scary.” He flopped back down on the bed under Will’s arm.
“What’s scarier? Them knowing or you not being able to tell them for yourself? Would you rather they just… Kind of pick it up on their own?” Will probed. Mike worked through things this way, just like Will worked through things with art. Mike needed to talk through things, and the more questions, the easier he came to his conclusion. Maybe Will wasn’t the right person to ask, he was biased.
“Yes?” Mike offered at a few moments, then groaned, rolling into Will’s shirt dramatically, “No… I don’t know.” Mike resolved. There wasn’t an ‘Over’, so he was probably still thinking. Not that he did those in person, though Will wouldn’t put it past him, Mike just kind of had these signs of ‘overs’ that were easy to catch up on. A huff of the breath, the way his voice fell at the end of a statement. “I think not having to talk about it is appealing, but then again I want to talk about you. I could talk about you all day, and I already do! To you. Which is so much more lame than bragging about you to someone else.”
“You kind of already brag about me to everyone else, anyway.” Will laughed.
“Exactly! This proves my point. They already know, I’ll never get the chance to jump and talk to fucking Helios, or whatever, and then I’ll be stuck dancing around the subject for the rest of my life.” Mike catastrophized, throwing his arms over his eyes.
“You sound ridiculous.” Will told him, matter-of-factly.
“Crazy?” Mike peeked from his fingertips, making Will laugh.
“Yes. Crazy. Except, you’re on your own in this one.” Will smiled, Mike groaned again, wrapping his arms around Will’s middle and burying himself in the confines of his t-shirt.
“I can’t believe you’d leave me out for the wolves…” Mike sighed. “Besides, you’re inextricable from this. Actually, that’s kind of the issue. I can’t go down and bring you with me.”
“You’re not going down anywhere, Mike, neither of us are.” Will knew Mike wasn’t a hundred thousand percent serious, however this was clearly a troubling topic, and that was never a good thing for Mike. He went crazy in his own head, but thankfully, so did Will. So maybe Mike was right, he wasn’t on his own.
“Who cares if they know? Even if they did, you can still… Talk about it. Make it yours. You know, that kind of reminds me of something.”
“Hm?” Mike encouraged, and it was much quieter than when he talked, muffled and deflated by Will’s skin.
“You know the… Train thing?” Will brought up. Mike nodded. They had talked about it. “Well there’s layers to it, you know? I used to think of it like stopped headlights, like this thing that everyone knows is there and sees, but they’re so scared to do anything because… What if the train moves? What if it kills the person, you know? So, it’s just as scary. You still have to do the talking eventually. In whatever way you want, even if it’s just… For yourself to not care if they know, not care if one day you casually brought it up and looked at the headlights straight on and said ‘Hey everyone, look at those headlights!,’ you know?”
“Yeah,” Mike sighed. “Straight on.” Mike snorted. Will shoved him off of his stomach.
“That was really dumb.” Will laughed, but relished in it. When Mike and Will started whatever their relationship was before it was established – which was basically just secret, heat of the moment making out and then staunchly avoiding one another for days at a time – Mike couldn’t even say he wasn’t straight. He avoided those words altogether – straight, gay, liking boys, kissing boys. It was actually a pretty big point of contention between the two. Mike couldn’t admit it yet, not even to himself, and that was fine, but he couldn’t be with Will while he figured that out and made peace with it. He figured it out pretty fast. At least, faster than Will, but Will had reconciled with that
They laughed and entangled their legs again, and then untangled them, and then entangled them again. Will didn’t know what time it was, and Will didn’t care.
“Your birthday is soon. I want to… I don’t know, be cheesy and hold your hand while you blow out your candles and shit.” Mike said. He got like this, sometimes, these invigorated spurts of confidence, most often when he was with Will. Then, he’d hear the train or be drawn to the stars and it’d all hit him too fast and he’d shut down. That fear wasn’t tangible yet, it didn’t taste of excitement and whoosh past his ears to make him yell in the roaring. It wasn’t freeing – it was still suffocating.
Knowing you were gay was one thing. Telling other people you were gay was another. Telling people you also have been in a secret relationship with your best friend for nearly three months, now that was an entirely different thing, especially when one of the party members is not only your ex-girlfriend but your new boyfriend’s sister. There were messy layers to their already weird, messy life, and they mostly embraced that. The two of them. It might not be as easy to get everyone else entangled into that mess. It was easy to avoid it altogether, but that came with something about it being so unsatisfactory. No bumps of the shoulder, no arm around the neck or waist, and no holding hands and looking each other in the eyes and knowing that Mike knows exactly what Will’s birthday wish is. For now, it was better to deflect from this line of thinking entirely. That probably wouldn’t hold up for long.
“Hm. Well, there’s no way Lucas thinks we’re dating, at least. He asked me this morning if I’d be interested in going out with Charles Davis.” Will settled, whispering it close to Mike’s nose in a teasing fashion. This made Mike jump up, forgetting all brevity.
“What?!” His enthusiasm, mixed with his already poor pseudo-whispering abilities made this exclamation come out at normal, if not elevated, volume.
“Mike! Shut the hell up!” Will scolded, clasping a hand over his boyfriend’s mouth. Just as Mike’s face shifted into something apologetic, there were footsteps.
Footsteps were often trains. They were an easy comparison – a noise, coming from afar, invoking impending doom. These were lofty and determined. Hopper. Great.
“You need to go.” Will demanded, already pushing Mike towards the window. It was still open? He never noticed. Mike’s warmth was too encompassing.
“Wait – what, no!” Before Mike could argue any longer, a small knock came at the door, alongside Hopper’s voice.
“Buddy?”
Now, Will didn’t really know what had happened between Mike and Hopper during the former’s middle school relationship with El. He knew they were basically fine come freshman year, and Hopper was the only person to know that he and El broke up and was supposedly fine with Mike despite that decision. There was enough history, he presumed, that the actions of the fifteen-year-old Mike Wheeler were swept under the rug. Except, maybe not. Because anytime Mike was faced with Hopper in some compromising position, even just going over to Will’s house knowing he was Will’s boyfriend, something shifted. Hopper didn’t know. At least, Will was pretty sure Hopper didn’t know, but he was a cop, and had figured out some much more unrealistic shit with Will’s mom over the years, so Will didn’t put all of his eggs into one basket.
Still, there was something about Hopper that made Mike just go insane. And do insane shit. This was one of those times.
In the matter of seconds, despite his complaints just moments before, Mike kissed Will’s cheek and flew himself out of Will’s open window. Yes – full body flung himself. And just in time, since Hopper decided just then to open the door.
“Will–” Hopper was stopped in his tracks, his body deflating, “Can you close the window? It’s bringing in the cold air.”
“Oh! Yeah, of course. Sorry.” Will scrambled, peering over as he grabbed the frame, pulling it down. Will could hear his heartbeat in his ears, and the straps against his feet, and it was so close to being horrifying.
Just as Hopper turned to walk away, he spoke with his back to Will. Never a good sign. He only did that when he was going to say something he didn’t want to say to his face. Normally it was something sappy, but that made Will just as uncomfortable.
“And Will, next time– just make him use the front door.”
There it was.
Whoosh. Blowing right past him, making the wind move in his hair and a smile form on his face. Thankfully, Hopper kept his back turned, but Will was sure it was laden in his tone.
“Right. Yeah, for sure.” Will sputtered out, bouncing on his tone. Before Hopper could close the door, Will brought up his voice a bit. Looking at the headlights, saying bring it on. “Hop?”
“Yeah, kid?” Hopper turned to face him at this point, something about the seldom-heard urgency, maybe, in Will’s voice.
“Thanks.” Will didn’t hide the smile this time, and Hopper didn’t hide his either as he shook his head with a chuckle and closed the door behind him.
It was kind of ridiculous, sneaking him in. It wasn’t really that late at night and even though Joyce was probably asleep, and El was probably making her way to being asleep, it wouldn’t have been abnormal for Mike to come over so late on a Friday. It was absolutely abnormal to have him come over so late on a Friday through his bedroom window. Hopper knew.
He quickly unlatched the window, sneaking his head out to find Mike’s crouched body behind a bush, covered in leaves and the bush itself was in shambles. Will didn’t cover his laugh.
“What happened to being quiet?” Mike hissed, suddenly more whisper-y than ever.
“Go home!” Will laughed, but Mike made sure to trudge his way through the bush one last time, leaving it imprinted with his presence, and pushing himself onto Will’s windowsill to give him a proper goodbye.
About 45 minutes later, Mike’s voice rang through the walkie talkie.
“He totally knows, doesn’t he? Over.”
“Wanna tell him yourself?” Will replied after crawling over his bedside table to reach the walkie.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” A pause. “I’ll follow your lead. Over.”
“Good idea.” Will was grinning ear to ear.
“You have all the experiences with the stars and all. Over.”
“You really like this metaphor, don’t you?”
“It’s one of my favorites. Over.” Mike’s voice hushed through the Walkie. “Actually, I rescind my over. There are leaves in places where there should not be leaves. Over… Officially over.”
“Your ‘Over’ system is betraying you, Michael.” Will mocked into the phone with a creepy voice-over effect to his voice that you’d see in a trailer for an awful horror movie that came before their rented tapes. “Sorry about the leaves. Hopper told me next time you should just use the front door.”
“He did not!” Mike exclaimed through the Walkie. Will waited. “Oh, fuck you. Over.”
It wasn’t the worst reaction Will could have come up with. In fact, it was pretty good. Maybe he really was ready to jump.
“Also, Will. Don’t go out with Charles Davis. Over.” Mike’s annoyed tone came scratching through the device.
“You double over-ed again.”