Archive of Our Own

This was supposed to be a good year. The good year. The year his life was supposed to begin—whatever that meant—disregarding the eighteen years of life which he'd already been living. Well, doing his best to. But truthfully, he had been all the more ready to. To set the past behind him and start anew, to not look back, to never look back, not if he could help it. But some things couldn't be helped, and some things—most things, he found—were easier said than done.

Will Byers was a month and a half into his first year of college. An arts degree, NYU, his dream, or at the very least the answer he gave to each "and what are your plans for after graduation?" question fielded his way by every other adult in town after the end of days, well—didn't end. He could tell that everyone who wasn't directly involved was trying to pass it off as some kind of blip, white, manicured hands grasping for normalcy like straws and doing everything they could to just move on.

He couldn't blame them, but that didn't mean he couldn't resent them. That's great that you can just forget about it, he'd thought bitterly. Personally, I'd really like to not have a heart attack every time I see a flickering light. Or sleep through the night. Whatever. It was all totally whatever.

He thought back to his last few months in Hawkins; the empty questions and stilted displays of normalcy, the cracks in smiles like chips in porcelain, the lights in every eye that never seemed to shine just as bright as they had before.

I can't wait to leave this place, he had thought then. It felt like that was what everyone had wanted him to think. Get out, was what it said. The empty houses and the broken buildings and the weak smiles and the sharp words. The scarred suburbia and the unmarred expanses of fields—he had seen it all from above as he was leaving. Whether with him or against him, every inch of this place was telling him the same thing. Get out, they said. Get out and don't come back.

That thought—the thought—of leaving and wanting to leave and having to never traveled alone. There was a feeling, an accompaniment that sat in a pit in his stomach, a constant weight. The two of them never seemed to quite line up. The feeling and the thought. Associating the two felt like trying to put a square peg in a round hole, but he didn't know where else to put them. The word wrong, echoed in his head but he didn't know what it was for. He filed it all away—the thought and the feeling and the wrongness—and hadn't thought about it since.

At least the sleeping issue was mostly fixed now. Fixed, in the way most things were fixed in his life. Like punching yourself in the arm to distract yourself from a toothache, all that fixing really meant in his case was that another problem had risen up and overshadowed whatever had been bothering him in the first place. The problem in question, being that he couldn't stop sleeping.

Since he'd started college, every day had been a fight to keep his eyes open. The number of times he'd passed out on the subway and missed his stop would have been laughable, if it wasn't at least twice a week minimum. And not just on the way home, no, he was fending off sleep left-and-right, twenty-four seven like it was his full-time job. It was—not to state the obvious—exhausting. The only perk was that when he did give in to the lull of sleep—the fluttering of his eyelids finally, finally, winning out—it was dreamless. No splashes of red, no gaping maws, no shadows and no monsters. Just pure nothing, black and undisturbed. He could probably stay asleep forever, if he didn't have to eat and go to college and live life how he was supposed to.

How he was supposed to. He would have laughed if he wasn't busy yawning. This was supposed to be the year everything started, right? Everything good. And he supposed, that technically, it was. Good things were happening. He was making friends and time was moving forward and he wasn't stuck this time, not in hell and not in Hawkins. He was free, from everything that had kept him trapped and scared and stagnant for so long, and he was free, to do anything and be anything he wanted, but the problem was he wasn't feeling anything. He got invited to places; parties and art shows and study groups and dates (one date), but all he wanted to do was go home to his shitty apartment and sleep. So, that was all he did.

He hadn't done much else—hadn't felt much else. Days were a tried and true routine of wake up, eat, go to school, eat, come home, eat, fall asleep. Rinse and repeat. Lately though, he'd been cutting out the middle man. Middle men; more often than not his days seemed to follow a staccato rhythm of wake up, fall asleep, wake up, fall asleep, wake up, fall asleep—a pattern he had found himself so deeply settled into that he felt quite honestly that it would continue up until his death.

But really, he didn't feel much, so it never really bothered him. There wasn't really a lot to be bothered by. If there was one thing, it would be that he wished he got a little more sleep in the mornings.

God, was he tired.

He couldn't even stay fully awake for the fifteen minutes it took him to walk from the subway to his apartment. Like clockwork, his eyes would stutter and his feet would drag, and his steps would become more and more staggered as the sidewalk stretched out cracked and jagged beneath him. Then, all of a sudden, he'd blink and find himself staring at his front door, key in hand—and so, sleepwalking became his preferred mode of transport.

It had started bucketing down around midday, and that's when his luck ran out. Seven days. He got seven days of walking home in a torpid trance before the world decided to—quite literally—trip him up. Like clockwork, his eyes stuttered and his feet dragged—or they would've, if it weren't for the slick wet cement of the sidewalk. Instead, he slipped—body barely given enough warning to brace itself—and collided hard with the concrete mattress that was New York City. The rain clattered against him, thick wet droplets undeterred by the newfound occupation of his body against the street. They did this every day.

His head felt hazy, and whether that was the early stages of concussion or the pull of sleep was beyond him. His cheek and temple stung, and when he shifted he could feel the sharp bite of the gravel lodged within. He thought about lifting his head, about pushing himself up and off of the (undeniably filthy) ground and shuffling the rest of the way home, but he couldn't. Not for any injury; no, he was more or less fine and he knew it.

It should have felt wrong. As soon as the first droplets slid down his face and seeped through his jacket it should have felt wrong, and he should've shot up and sprinted the rest of the way home, spent the rest of the day shaking by his shitty heater. The last time he'd found himself like this—curled up and half-dead in a rainstorm—had been the worst time of his life. This should feel wrong. It should have felt like sickness and slime and radio static, seeing strange girls like angels in the gauzy edges of his mind.

It felt like none of those things. It didn't feel like anything, not even what it was. Rain and hard ground and headache and exhaustion. It didn't even feel like that.

He just thought Well, I'm lying down now. I'm tired, and I don't have anywhere to be or anyone to talk to. No one's going to find me here. No one's going to look for me. So he kept his eyes shut and his palms down, and let sleep take him.

"-kid? Hey, kid, you alright?" The voice cut through his slumber like high-beams. It was glary and disorienting, a harsh spotlight trained solely onto him. Something—someone—rolled him over and he peeled his sleep-heavy eyes open. A man peered down at him, older and bearded and bundled in scarves, backlight by the soft pink glow of sunset. It was already 4:30pm when I fell, so I must've only been out for half an hour or so.

"Jesus kid, get off the fucking sidewalk!"

Oh, right, he thought dumbly. That's where I am.

"Sorry," he blurted out, doing his best to right himself as he scrubbed a hand over his bleary face. "Sorry, I didn't mean to- shit."

"Don't apologise to me, kid. Go on, get yourself home. And pick a better place to take a fucking nap next time!" He extended a calloused hand and he grabbed it, dazed, as he got hauled to his feet, world tilting nauseatingly as he reoriented himself.

"Home- yeah. Yeah, I'll go home. Thanks." He croaked out shakily.

"Sleeping on the goddamned street," The man's voice followed him as he stumbled off, doing his best to stay entirely upright this time. "Kids these days, Christ."

He may have stumbled the rest of the way home but he kept his eyes open, streetlamps blinking on and cars rushing by and wind pushing through as if the whole of the city was saying Welcome back, sleepyhead. You're just in time for dinner.

Passing out for a power-nap on the street didn't give him any epiphanies in the end. He made it back to his apartment in one sopping wet piece without much drama. But oh, was he fucking freezing. His hair hung damp, the particularly wet strands of his bangs poking him sharply in the eye, making him wince. He left his soaked jacket over one of the two chairs (mismatched, street-salvaged, moth-bitten) that populated his apartment and made his way to the bathroom.

The light in there was a sickly lemon yellow, the case of the bulb a graveyard of flies. The light gave him no favours. It made him look much worse than he really was, probably. With shaking hands, he fumbled with the cabinet door before acquiring a pair of tweezers, and set to work at prying the gravel from his cheek. It was at that moment—because of course it was—that the phone rang.

Shit.

Ever since he'd moved a month and a half ago, biweekly phone calls with his mother and Jonathan (separately, alternating days) had become something of the norm. He had known that they'd be in contact often—space, in his family, hadn't really ever been a privilege afforded, not after everything and especially not for him—but as overbearing as it sometimes seemed, he had to admit that a part of him loved it. He missed them, oh God, he missed them.

On one of the days where he'd missed his stop, he had gotten home too late to call either of them, and suddenly all the feelings and distance and wrongness came bubbling up at once and he'd cried, hard. It's not like their calls were ever particularly deep, or informative, or of much substance at all. They were just pockets of time, chances to hear the voices of the people he carried in the photographs in his wallet and in the rhythm of his heart, opportunities to ramble at and be rambled too, moments in which his breath and theirs could be heard as if they were coming from the same room, almost, but never quite.

With only mild effort, he managed to drag the phone from where it hung in the kitchen, back to the bathroom. Nestling it between the crook of his neck and shoulder, he answered, "Hello?"

"Hey," Mike said.

Oh, and he forgot to mention. He'd been receiving daily calls from Mike Wheeler since the day he moved here, too.

Calls from, not with. It was important to distinguish between the two. Calls with implied conversation, a sense of something being exchanged, things being said and questions being asked and questions being answered. Every day for a month and a half—except Fridays, when he has work—Mike has become an expert in the field of saying nothing, even when he says so much. Because that's what it's been. Nothing. It wasn't even a bad kind of nothing per se, just… strange. Not like the nothing of his calls with his mom, or with Jonathan. That was a familiar breed of nothingness. The kind of nothing that comes from having said everything that could be said, going on and on just for the sake of hearing their voice. He hadn't said everything that he could have said to Mike, not even close. He suspected it went both ways. Mike's nothing felt scripted, practiced. Over-rehearsed. Will was never awake enough to call him out on it.

Their calls ranged anywhere from twenty minutes to two hours, but no matter the length their contents were the same. Just talking around one another until someone had to go or no more nothing could be said. But, it was like he said. Not bad. Decidedly strange. The new normal, he supposed, but saying that felt full of wrongness. That's probably why he didn't mention it. He didn't like to think about wrongness any more than he had to.

"Oh," he said, momentarily stunned. "Hi."

"Someone's excited."

"Shut up, Mike."

"Okay, well, ouch," He could practically hear the shit-eating grin beaming at him from the other side of the line. Bright and toothy and blinding. Trademarked, reserved for him—so it was a shame it had been relegated to blind inferences through cables and power lines and states upon states upon states. "You didn't even let me get to the point."

Will rolled his eyes. As if there was ever a point to their conversations, now.

"So," Mike stretched out the 'o' languidly. It was all too easy to picture him, reclined over the arm of that same yellowed couch that had been a permanent fixture in his own life for so long—more home than his own at times—his head lolled back as he pulled the phone cord taut, as far as it could go.

Answering calls and vegging out on the basement couch simultaneously had always been a tricky ball to juggle in the Wheeler household. Most people just sacrificed one for the other—most people weren't down there to begin with. But Mike was, and… well, Mike was Mike, and that's all that could really be said.

"So…"

"So, how have you been?"

"Well, you know. Nothing new since the last time you called. Which was- hmm…" He paused for a second, drawing the moment out just to hear Mike squabble and splutter over the line ("Okay, I get it, I get it!") "…yesterday."

"Well, I don't know! Maybe you're a… a social butterfly now! I'm not there to know," he squawked out in defense.

That sobered him a little. Yeah, you wouldn't know. He wished he did. Will really, really wished he did. That he could tell him anything, everything—the unhappiness and the numbness and the emptiness and the tiredness—just like how they used to, just like they were kids again. But neither of them had been kids for a long time now; hadn't been even when they still were kids. Somewhere, somehow (Not somehow. He knew how, he knew, he knew, he knew-) a rift had opened up between them. Never quite as red or fiery as the ones that carved out Hawkins, but hungry all the same. They had both been trying to ignore it for as long as possible, walking parallel to and talking over the great divide until they couldn't see or hear each other anymore. It was tectonic. It shifted every day.

"I tell you everything, Mike." Not quite. "You're my best friend. I think you would've heard if I was a social butterfly by now."

"You- yeah, I just- never mind." And that was how it always went. Mike would approach the line of meaningfulness, toe it, and sprint away from it at breakneck speed like it had burned him. It made something about him feel strange. It settled deep inside of him, next to the wrongness, and he did his best to swallow it down. He had given up all hope for real conversation months ago. It's better for moving on, he reasoned. For both of us, if we don't really know how the other's doing.

"So, how are you?" He asked.

"Oh, you know." Which is precisely what Mike had said every day for the past month and a half. Will didn't know. He had never felt further away from knowing. What Will knew was this; Mike had a job (specifics unknown—he hadn't asked), Mike wasn't going to college this year, and Mike had stayed in Indiana. God knows why. Will didn't even think Mike knew why, really. When he had told him he sounded far away, stunned, like it was his first time hearing about it too.

I just need a year, he had said. Just to like, get my bearings or whatever. A gap year. Nancy said people do it all the time.

Will had just nodded, dazed. Then he'd said I'm going to New York and I'm not coming back and the conversation had spiraled from there.

He hummed a response into the phone receiver. Still hunched in the bathroom, he pried a particularly stubborn piece of gravel free, letting it clatter into the sink.

"What was that?" Mike's tinny voice burst out, cutting through his daze.

"Oh, uh-" He really, really didn't want to explain that he had fallen—quite literally—asleep in the middle of a dirty New York City street. He hadn't even told him about his sleeping problem, and he had no plans to. The closest he had gotten was answering 'tired' every time Mike had asked him how his day had been. He hadn't even known he was doing it until he'd made fun of him for it one day, and since then Will had put in a highly conscious (ha ha) effort to stop. Most days, he remembered to give another answer.

Another piece of gravel rattled against the ceramic.

"Well- you know." He winced. Awesome. Great one.

"I mean, I don't." Mike chuckled, but he didn't press any further. That felt wrong. What had happened to the Mike of his youth, who would press and press and press until the bruise bled deeper? He would needle and poke and beg and use every tactic under the sun if it meant that he would know. Even if it wasn't anything particularly interesting. And especially if it was with Will.

But this new Mike was… cautious. Reserved. Afraid, even. Will wish he knew exactly what of, but he didn't dare ask. He could sense that Mike was walking on eggshells around him whenever they talked, that that was half the newfound weirdness. He couldn't for the life of him place the other half.

"Uh- look, I have to go." Will could sense the apology in his voice. "I have work and I'm already kind of late. I couldn't not call you though."

"Oh, yeah! Have a good one. I'll call you soon."

"I'll call you sooner. See you, Will." His face flushed.

He was right. Not once had Will been the one to call first, Mike always beating him to the chase. He wondered if he would, if it was solely up to him. He hadn't the last time he had been in that situation, but then again, he had also been fourteen and in the middle of a pretty dire internal crisis. And you know, an end of the world crisis. The mid-eighties had been a series of infinite crises.

Part of him wondered if maybe he was doing it as some kind of test. To see if Mike would step up, start to pull some of that weight he let drag for years before. But Mike hadn't missed a single day, not if he absolutely had to, for all of the two months Will had been gone. It felt a little mean now, given that he'd proved he would twice over. A little like leading him on, but maybe just that made them even.

Well, that was mean. And untrue. Really,Will had mostly come to terms with it now. The whole in love thing. Like he said, he was in New York and he wasn't going back. He was moving forward. There were no more internal crises in his life. This was all supposed to be good.

He sighed, and washed the final dregs of sidewalk down the sink. Looking into the mirror, he flinched. His cheek was scratched up pretty badly—more or less looking like he lost a fight to a stray cat—and his palms were grazed red and raw.

Blinking slowly, he began to feel the all too familiar gauze of fatigue wrap itself around him. Not yet. He thought. Give me five more minutes.

His apartment had a fire escape, and on days like this, was where Will would find himself. The last drops of rain clung onto and dripped off of the iron railing like the runny nose of some sick kid. He brushed a small gathering of droplets off with his sleeve, and sat on the edge, legs dangling through the wrought bars, suspended over the never ending sprawl of city below.

From somewhere—above or below, he couldn't tell—a radio hummed to life. His cut cheek found solace against the cool metal, and he let his eyes close as he rested there, as if the static and fuzz had solidified into something tangible and pressed two gentle fingers to the soft skin of his eyelids. He let out a deep breath. Something wrong inside him stirred. It had been this way for a month and a half—since before that, really. Since the first time he told himself he couldn't wait to leave, that twin feeling had made a home inside of him and every time he thought that same thought since it grew. He found it coincided with the calls more often than not. A constant mantra of it's for the best that I left had to be on constant cycle, lest he burst out sobbing and told them all everything. Will really didn't want to tell them all everything.

I'm doing fine he'd tell his mother when she asked him how he was doing, if he was eating well, sleeping well, making friends. Plastered on a smile as if she could tell when he wasn't, as if she could see him at all.

Better than Hawkins he'd tell his brother when he asked how he was settling into the big city, if his classes were hard, if they were fun, if he'd found a place for himself yet.

He didn't need to lie to Mike—lies by omission didn't count, he told himself—because Mike was the one putting all his eggs in that basket when they called. Probably for the best he'd think, because if he did choose to tell the truth, talk from the heart (god, the heart) than it would only be a matter of time before Will reciprocated, spilling his guts out through the phone. Definitely for the best then. His resolve had already been pushed to the extreme, back h- back in Hawkins, he corrected himself—and there were some things—one thing—that he wouldn't give up with his life.

A country tune crackled out of the unplaceable radio, words honey-sweet as they floated up to meet him. (You're supposed to be feeling good, it crooned, 'cause everybody said you would).

He choked out a laugh. Jesus Christ, he thought. Yeah Emmylou, I was supposed to be feeling good right now. At least someone understands how I'm feeling. Even if it is just the disembodied voice of a country singer. (Honey does it blow your mind, that the prophets would lie?)

And whose fault is that? The wrongness inside him said. Whose fault is that but your own?

Great. He thought. And now my self-doubt can talk too.

It was like Pandora's Box—the wrongness, that was. There was something in there, a revelation, an answer. The epiphany the ground refuse to give him. (You're supposed to be in your prime now) He knew that if he opened it he would come face to face with that feeling—the one that had been haunting him since he moved, since he enrolled, since he thought about enrolling, since the world stopped ending, since the world almost did. (Not supposed to be wasting your time) He just didn't know what it was. Didn't know if there would be any hope left at the bottom of the box by the time he set everything else in there free. (Feeling like you're down and out, over someone like me.)

The feeling reared it's head again.

Fine. He thought. Fucking fine. Let's rip off the band-aid. What are you?

He let the music—the static, the faint twang of the guitar—and the sounds of the city wash over him. He let the wrong thing answer, finally, and he let himself fall asleep.

He bought the plane ticket, and then he didn't think about it anymore. One-way to Indianapolis, the soonest (and cheapest) he could get. He didn't tell anyone, not his classmates nor his loved ones. Not even in their calls. Not his mom and not his brother, and absolutely not his best friend.

Life carried on as it had been for a week and a half. The fatigue and the avoidance and the dancing-around-his-problems continued like he hadn't realised anything. Like he hadn't dug his fingers into everything he tried to push down and cracked it's shell wide open. If he'd learned anything from his last life-changing realisation it's that it was better to just move on. He hadn't learned a thing.

On Friday he took a cab to the airport and tried not to think about what he was doing. He'd never done anything this spontaneous. This mundanely spontaneous.

Inter-dimensional spontaneity definitely didn't count. This particular brand of spontaneity—the non-life-threatening kind—wasn't something he'd ever dabbled in before. It felt… fun, in a strange way. Like he was a character in a movie, making ill advised decisions and not telling anyone where he was going. Or maybe, he was more like the kinds of hikers who kept going missing and dying. By all accounts, it was an awful plan. But to Will, it was all he could think to do.

To fully understand how under-baked his plan was, you need to know that as soon as the plane landed—scraping the tarmac in a way that made Will wince, God how he hated flying—he grabbed his luggage (one single, carry-on bag) and beelined for the nearest payphone.

Okay, so nobody knew he was coming. That was fine. He had just oh-so conveniently forgotten to mention that he bought a one-way ticket to the state he said he'd never go back to only a month and a half after swearing that oath. Sue him. He wasn't the paladin, oaths weren't a part of his repertoire. They were a part of Mike's and, well, Mike—

He heard the tone before he even realised he'd dialed the number, shaking hands working too fast for the rest of his body to stop him.

"Hello, Wheeler household?"

"Mike?"

The voice on the other end of the line spluttered, like it'd been kicked in the stomach while taking a drink. Something clinked in the background, like metal hitting tile. Keys, maybe.

"Will??"

"Yeah, hey Mike." He did his best to keep his voice steady. It wavered. "It's me."

"Will??"

"Yeah, it's me."

"Why are you calling me? And on a Friday, Jesus, Will, are you okay? Did something happen? Are you like, hurt?"

"I'm fine, Mike." He was laughing now. "Nothing happened and I'm not hurt, stop freaking out."

The phone buzzed quiet for a minute, as if stunned.

"Okay," Mike hesitated. "Then why are you calling me?"

"Uh, well," Oh, he really didn't want to say it now. Hot shame climbed up the back of his throat, as a chorus of this was such a bad idea rung in his ears like some clear, tolling bell. "It's like, nothing really, it's so stupid. It's so stupid so just don't even worry about it or me and—" He cut himself off with a breathless laugh. This was such a bad idea.

"What? No way, man. You have to tell me what's going on."

"No!" Will said, before he could even stop himself. He winced. When did he get so petulant? And since when was Mike so persistent again?

"What do you mean no?"

Something about the tone of his voice made Will feel thoroughly and utterly scrutinised. Don't give in. Absolutely do not give in. I know you haven't had to practice not giving in because Mike hasn't been this insistent for like two months but do not—

"Canyoucomeandgetmefromtheairport?" He blurted out.

Come on, man.

"The- what did you just say?"

"The airport. Me- I'm," One deep breath in. "I'm at the airport."

"Like, in New York?" Dear God.

"No, like in Indiana. I'm in Indiana."

"What? No, you're in New York." Jesus Christ. How someone so smart could be so stupid was truly beyond him. And that was after straight years of being subjected to Mike Wheeler's truly astounding stupidity; typically as the focus of it. The eighties had been just great.

"Mike. Can you please pick me up?"

"Oh." His voice was weak, shell-shocked. "You're in Indiana."

"Look, you don't have to actually get me or anything and I know you have work today so you really don't have to worry, I mean, I can probably just get a cab so I'm sorry for like, springing this on you but-" His voice wavered far more than he had intended it to. Way to play it smooth, Byers.

"What? No, I'll be there." Oh.

"Mike it's fine, I can just get a cab."

"No, you're getting me. Give me like," the rustle of keys and the telltale sound of toast being crunched echoed through the receiver. "I'll be there in like, an hour. Don't leave," he said, mouth full.

Oh wow. Will thought. I haven't moved on at all.

Seeing Michael Wheeler for the first time in almost two months was like seeing the sun after spending weeks in the dark. And, he supposed, in a way, that's exactly what it had been. Weeks upon weeks of a faceless, formless voice buzzing into his life, sending sparks of invisible light out of the phone and into his heart. Weeks upon weeks of action only implied, no way of knowing whether Mike really was smiling or frowning or rolling his eyes on the other end of the line. It wasn't the longest they'd been apart—they hadn't even talked last time—but it was no doubt the strangest.

Back then, they'd been burdened by the weight of forced separation. Of unspoken words and crossed wires and missed communication and denial and being fourteen and stupid and living through the end of the fucking world. Plausible deniability was a thing back then, blame all too easy to deflect. Now, they were eighteen, and the world had stopped ending a while ago. Wires were untangled and words were spoken and feelings were accepted and they were both just a lot less stupid.

Not all the words were spoken though. Just most. Just the ones that mattered; or maybe, all except the ones that really did.

But there he was. Sitting in the front seat of his beat-up car with the paint peeling off, tapping his fingers on the dashboard with a nervous kind of precision. Michael Wheeler, in the flesh.

He hadn't noticed Will yet. This was good. The last time they had convened at an airport had been nothing short of catastrophic. Sure, they had changed for the better and grown all the more closer, but they were still different. Different in ways neither of them were fully privy to; courtesy of distance and their own fabrications, and the shared wedge which they drove between.

In short, Will didn't think it'd be like California, but he didn't want to chance it. They were never really huggers anyway, had never gotten back to being as tactile as they had when they were young, and small, and scared of everything in the world except each other.

He knocked on the passenger side window.

On the other side Mike jolted, head hitting the roof of the car with a dull thud. Will watched as he swore, fumbling at the lock with shaky fingers.

"Dude, you ruined it," Mike whined as he leant over the center console to prop open the door for him. "You snuck up on me, I was going to-" He flushed, cutting himself off.

"Going to what? Hold the door open for me?" Will joked. "Thanks for the chivalry, Sir Mike."

"No, I-" He huffed, steeling himself with his hands gripped tightly around the wheel and his eyes clamped tightly shut. When he opened them again, he said "Hi Will, it's nice to see you. I missed you."

Mike looked at him in a way he hadn't, not for a long time; not since before he left and not since before that too. But there it was. Right here, right now. Looking straight at him—or straight through him—with a startling honesty. It was far more honesty than he'd expected. It was far more honesty than he felt he deserved.

Was all this a dream? Was he still up there on that balcony, dozed off and getting soggier by the minute? Contracting some kind of pneumonia, probably. So, that made this a fever dream. It just had to be. Because if it wasn't, it was real, and if it was real, well—Will wasn't used to being awake in these kinds of situations. Whatever framework he had for those had been eroded during his time away, sanded down alongside so many other aspects of himself.

His feelings, for example; what they were and having them at all. His memory, his energy, his ability to tell the truth and his ability to talk to anyone at all, never mind knowing them his whole life, never mind loving them. Never mind all that, because it didn't matter, because they were all things he didn't have anymore.

He blinked. "Yeah," Will replied, dazed. "I missed you too."

Mike's hands were still wrapped around the wheel. Will couldn't help but notice the way they clung there, arms taut and knuckles tight as if he was holding himself back from something. From what? He drew his gaze back up to his face and saw the way his jaw was tense to match, the way his eyebrows crinkled as he settled into a frown.

"You said you were never coming back," Mike said.

Will nodded sheepishly. "I did."

"You said you were never coming back."

"Yeah, I know." He laughed. "I was the one who said it."

Mike stayed there, grip tight, stupendous. He looked like he was trying to solve a rubix cube with his mind. He looked like he was doing this very poorly.

"But you're here." There was a strange edge to the tone of his voice, an intonation nearing question, some emotion that Will couldn't place. Not quite desperation and not quite disbelief. Something tucked away between the two. Something, Will thought, that if asked, Mike wouldn't have been able to place either.

He couldn't stop the small smile that crept onto his face.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm here."

For half a mile they traveled in silence. Not an uncomfortable silence; it was more familiar than that. Tentative silence, maybe. It felt like their calls. Built on invisible eggshells, both of them too scared to make the same move, too scared to give the game away. Will didn't know if either of them knew what the game was. He didn't even know if they were playing the same one. Then, finally, Mike spoke.

"So, why are you here? Not that I'm like, unhappy about it or anything. I just thought you were done with this place. You know, permanently."

Before Will could answer, Mike paled, turning to him sharply.

"Holy shit dude, is your mom okay?"

He chuckled. "My mom's fine, Mike. You would know if she wasn't."

"Okay, okay! It was just the only reason I could think of, for like, why you would be here." He turned back towards the road, but Will didn't miss the way his eyes flitted back, just for a moment, a millisecond.

"You just sounded pretty sure about not coming back." Mike's voice was quiet, timid almost. Afraid of what his answer might be. Afraid of what it might not be.

Will didn't know if he had one; he didn't know what to say. There was the truth, he supposed, but the truth still lived in that box. He may have dredged it up from his stomach, may have peeked at what rested inside, but that didn't mean he was ready to let it out into the open. He'd slammed that box shut before any wanton feelings could escape. Some of it must have, he supposed. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. Otherwise I wouldn't know exactly what I was trying to avoid saying.

"Yeah," he didn't even try to deny it. "Yeah, I did. Sorry." The apology sat there, tacked on the end in a hurry; pointless. Sorry for what? For leaving. For never calling first. For wanting things he shouldn't want, time and time again. For coming back. For calling.

The car slowed to a halt. Red light.

Mike turned to look at him, brown eyes meeting hazel ones. Will felt his gaze more than he saw it. The strangest prickle against his skin in every spot Mike's eyes had tracked over, like a hundred tiny ants, swarming. He wanted to lift up a hand and brush them away. To squash every last one beneath the pad of his finger and stop them from burrowing deeper, from making a home out of him. Stop, he wanted to say. Just tell me what you're looking for. You're not going to find anything in me if I don't know what to give you.

Mike's eyes narrowed imperceptibly. His irises were a uniform black under the shadow of his lashes and Will could no longer tell where he was looking. If he was looking. Maybe he was seeing right through him.

A car horn sounded behind them ("Light's green, shitheads!") and they both flinched. Will felt himself pushed back against his seat, jolted as Mike pressed down on the pedal a little harder than necessary. He could feel his heart thump against his chest. He could feel ants in his blood.

They stopped talking again, for a while. Mike never replied, and Will didn't have anything else to say; at least nothing he could bring himself to. The car was silent, save for the stock-standard sounds of the vehicle—the drag of rubber on gravel, the creak of the chassis, the hum of the engine purring like a thoughtful beast—and their intermingled breaths. Mike's were noticeably loud, chest rising and falling dramatically, as if he had just run a mile.

"Hey," so now he speaks. "So not to pry, but where am I driving you? Because you haven't said, so I've just been going straight for half an hour but if we don't take the next exit then we are not making it to Hawkins. And I'm only just realising that maybe you don't want to go there?"

Yeah, so Will hadn't thought about that. Maybe his personal brand of spontaneity was a little too spontaneous. It was starting to lose its cinematic shine, and it absolutely did not help that Mike was the one peeling it away. This facade is for you! Stop trying to see what's underneath it!

"Can you just keep driving?" It came out sheepish. "I didn't actually tell anyone I was coming back. Except for you, obviously."

He watched as Mike warred an internal battle with the muscles in his neck. He could tell he wanted to turn, to face him incredulously and say something along the lines of, "what the fuck?" no doubt. But he also knew that Mike knew he needed to keep his eyes on the road, likely not the keenest to finally be the thing that kills him, after everything, going eighty miles an hour on some highway in the outskirts of Indianapolis. Yeah, not how either of them wanted to go.

Mike's eyes stayed trained on the road. The muscles in his jaw ticked.

"Dude, what? Not even your mom knows? Jonathan?" The mental rubix cube reappeared.

"Not… technically."

He looked less than impressed.

"Come on. Yes or no."

Will spluttered. Don't make me say it. "I- fine, no. No, I haven't."

Mike drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, once, twice, three times. He seemed to be choosing his next words wisely. That feeling—the one from their calls, that twin flame to wrongness—crawled up the back of his neck.

"So, I'm the only person in the world who knows you're h- knows you aren't in New York right now?" He said every word measured, as if one stray emphasis would throw the whole thing off kilter. Tip the scales in a way that they couldn't rebalance. Will kind of wanted to chuck a sandbag on it. He was just so tired.

"Yeah, just you." He knew what was going to happen now. Mike was going to go on and on about how dangerous that was, Will, tossing out some inevitably stupid scenario like what if the plane exploded and none of us knew you were on it!

Yeah, so what then, hypothetical Mike.

Mike didn't do any of that. He didn't do anything at all, just looked at him, face blank, and said "Okay," and nothing more.

God, what was wrong with him? He hadn't wanted him to press, to pry and peel away at all the layers of self-denial and purposeful ignorance, hadn't wanted him to see the wrongness underneath. But he had expected him to, and when he didn't live up to those expectations, well… so maybe he had kind of wanted him to. Maybe he wanted him to, if only for the sake of being able to talk to Mike again. He had thought that maybe the phone calls were a fluke, that the distance was what made him so goddamn awkward, so unreachable. And with only California as reference, this had been a significant improvement. It was good and it was fine and it was the new normal, and that was all just good and fine too.

It didn't feel fine, though. It felt wrong—his Mike would never. Not that Mike was ever his in the first place. But it had been easier to pretend like he was—easier to pretend he had a chance—back when he would go to the ends of the earth to figure out whatever Will wasn't telling him. God, this was giving him some killer deja vu.

It had been what, two months now (two and a half?) since he'd told Mike he was leaving. Leaving it to the last minute, like always. He hadn't even wanted to tell him, not then and there, not like that. Truthfully, he hadn't even planned to tell him at all.

They had been sat on the floor of Mike's basement—perpetually stuffy no matter the season—with their backs pressed up against the couch and their knees knocking. It hadn't been a particularly hot day, but the room trapped heat, let it sit and simmer for days on end.

They had been watching a movie, or they had just had the party over, or they had been doing absolutely nothing at all—Will couldn't remember. None of that was important. All that remained was tunnel vision, a singular memory of a singular moment. Mike had been telling him about how he wasn't going to college, actually, not yet (people do it all the time, Nancy said) and was looking at everything in the room that wasn't Will.

Now that he thought back to it, he hadn't even let him finish. Mike was still talking but he wasn't listening, couldn't hear a word, couldn't hear anything over the rush of blood in his ears and the words stuck to the back of his throat. It didn't take much to set them free.

"I'm going to New York and I'm not coming back."

Mike's eyes widened. Will braced for it. Come on, he thought. Get mad. Stay mad. Fight me for this. Make me stay.

"Oh," Was all he said. "Okay."

Will felt conflicted. Sure, it was nice that Mike had become so… considerate. He just wished it didn't come at the cost of his persistence, his protectiveness, his urge to hold onto everything he cared about and never let it go. Maybe he hasn't lost it. A voice inside of him said. Maybe he just doesn't care anymore. But that just wasn't true. If anything, it seemed like he cared too much. About what Will thought, and about not upsetting him, and about the delicacy of their friendship. It's been through too much, Will thought. To be treated so breakable. We've been through too much.

They spent the next half a month tiptoeing around each other. We just need a reset, Will had thought. It's for the best. I'll be happier this way. We'll both be happier.

He tried not to think about it, but Mike staying had thrown him for a loop. Chipped a link in the chain of "supposed to's" that he had deadlocked around the wrongness and dropped like an anchor into the depths of his mind. It was his fault, he thought. It's his fault that I dredged it back up. His fault that I opened it. It's his fault that I'm here right now, in the passenger seat of his sister's shitty car, wishing he was as brave as he had been when he was twelve years old, again.

You can't blame him, a more rational voice chorused. You know what it's like to be blamed for things you can't control. Yeah, exactly. He knew. So surely he could get one free pass, finally cash in on some of that bitterness he was indisputably entitled to. Surely, after all these years, he was allowed this, at the very least. Get out of jail free, and fuck Michael Wheeler.

He caught his eye in the rear-view.

"You can uh, change the station if you want. I'm not really listening."

"Yeah," Will murmured. "Thanks."

He fiddled with the dials for a bit, aimlessly. He wasn't really listening either. Eventually, he settled on a local channel, some tinny top 40 pop tune buzzing choppily though the speakers. It was nothing great, but it would do.

It was early afternoon now, and Mike—true to his word—had been driving more or less in circles for the past few hours, steering noticeably clear of the exit that would take them, inevitably, to Hawkins.

He traced the power lines through the window with his finger, imposing figures reduced to the size of a postcard from the road. It looked like they stretched on forever, he noted. Rows upon rows of metal pylons and thick tubes of wire, reaching on and on and on until they vanished into the light that swallowed the end of the horizon. He hadn't been here all that long ago, but something in the landscape made him feel like he was returning after years of exile, ever the prodigal son. The sky and the land and the road all felt different, all looked different—bathed in a new light, he supposed.

He never really looked at the place after they had brought it back from the brink, had never taken it in, not fully. Always sort of skimmed past it, doing his best not to look twice.

But it was nice, he thought, to see everything vanish into light this time. It was nice, he thought, to see it all in the light.

The warm light filtered in through the window and he lazed in it, languid. He felt dazed; from the glow of the sun and from the heat of it. To his right he heard the telltale click of a dial being turned, heard the radio dim. He thought about lifting his head, and then he thought better of it.

"You don't need to turn it down," he mumbled. "I'm not sleeping."

Through his periphery he watched as Mike glanced over to him. One single, searching gaze.

"You can if you want to. I don't mind."

"No thanks. I'm sick of it." He admitted.

Sick of living life only half-there. Sick of losing half his days. Sick of losing all his days. Sick of feeling like a ghost, again. Sick of barely feeling a thing. Sick of not being able to say anything about it to anyone at all.

"Of sleeping?" Mike smirked. "I think you might be the first person to ever have that problem. Man, I wish I was sick of sleeping."

"No, you don't." He didn't mean to snap.

He hadn't meant for any of this. Not for the awkwardness to carry over, not to keep his mouth shut even when he swore he wouldn't, as if that wasn't why he was here in the first place. He hadn't meant to be here at all. Tears pricked at the edges of his eyes and he did his best to blink them away. If Mike noticed, he gave no indication.

"I'm sorry," was all he said, voice small. Will could tell he had no clue what he did wrong. By all accounts he hadn't done anything wrong. He had no way of knowing, as Will had made no effort of telling. He could complain all he wanted about Mike's newfound timidness, but he had made no effort to give him any reason as not to be. This isn't helping. I'm not helping.

"It's fine," he was dead tired. Just so endlessly exhausted. He had hoped that being here would make things better. It was supposed to make things better, a teasing voice echoed. Oh, fuck all those supposed to's. He was sick of leaving everything up to supposed to's. Look where that's gotten me, he thought. Right back where I started. "Just keep driving."

Will was fighting sleep. Actively fending it off, consciousness armed to the teeth and pulling out all the stops if it meant staying awake was on the line. He rubbed his eyes. Yawned. Rubbed them again. Him and Mike had fallen into another not-uncomfortable silence—the leftover tension from before had dissipated. Could be better, could be worse. Kind of like everything between them at the moment.

This would all be so much easier, Will thought—not for the first time—if I wasn't also in love with him.

He would be less inclined to stay on a sinking ship that way, he reckoned. Not that this was a sinking ship yet. A small boat on rough waters, maybe. An unpredictable tide. A new moon, no light by which to guide.

But no. Will was a sailor and Mike was the sea. An incredibly annoying, choppy sea—seasickness guaranteed. God, he was so tired of treading water. But, he supposed, absence really does make the heart grow fonder, no matter how much the mind wishes to forget.

The faint whine of pedal steel crackled through the radio and Will's brain short circuited.

"Oh my god," he shot up, turned the volume up just enough so he could hear the words. "I know this fucking song."

Mike looked at him like he'd grown a second head.

"This is a country song."

Mike said it as if the two things were mutually exclusive. Will Byers and country music. Like he'd explode in the presence of it, like he was shocked he hadn't already.

Will nodded, gesturing a hand towards the radio as if to say yeah, duh.

"You hate country music."

"I mean, it's not my thing," Will tried to fight the smile that threatened to upturn his lips. He had never seen Mike look quite so… baffled. It was hilarious.

"Then why do you like this song?"

"I didn't say I liked it! I just said I knew it."

Mike looked no less confused.

"I think it's haunting me," Will said, as if that would help.

"What?"

"I heard it last week, right after I- it's kind of why I chose to come back. And now it's here. It's haunting me, Mike, I swear."

Mike looked like he wanted to put the car through a fence. He looked physically pained.

Will couldn't help it, by the end, the laugh spilling out before he had half the mind to tamp it down.

"Oh my god, dude," he could barely breathe. "You should see your face."

Mike spluttered.

"I thought you'd like, lost it! That's such a crazy thing to say!"

"Well, it's true," Mike shot him a look, eyes wide as if to say please. "Okay, so maybe it's not haunting me, but it is why I chose to come back. It made me… think some things over."

"Oh," he said, flat as ever.

Will wanted to groan.

It had been like this all day; so close, yet so far. Speak up! Say more! Say anything!

He did his best to drill holes in the side of Mike's head, eyes unblinking. He hoped he could feel it. He watched as he fidgeted, glancing back at Will once, twice, three times.

Eventually, Mike opened his mouth, before closing it again a second later. This continued for a few seconds, Mike seemingly stuck in an endless loop of silent oh's. You know what they say about the wind changing, he thought wryly. Maybe he'll get stuck looking like a fish for the rest of his life.

"Are-" he started and stopped. "So- you-"

Will's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, as Mike groaned, dragging a palm across his steadily reddening face.

"God, I'm so-"

"Mike," he did his best to keep his voice steady, tentative. "You know you're allowed to ask me questions, right?"

Mike made a strangled sound. When he finally spoke the words came out strained, as if he was wrestling his body just to let them out.

"I mean, yeah? I just don't know-" He took a deep breath in. "I just don't know what I'm supposed to say to you anymore."

Oh. Oh?

Okay, so maybe Will hadn't expected him to actually admit, well, that. In all honesty, he hadn't expected him to admit to anything at all. As much as it felt wrong, he really had accepted—begrudgingly, and to an extent—that Mike's new normal really was just that. New and normal. The way things were going to be now, the way all things go as time ticks steady on. But maybe it wasn't normal. Maybe it wasn't what Mike wanted, as Will had blindly assumed. Maybe he was trying, too.

"Mike," his voice was soft, and in some strange way he felt like Mike himself, as he said it. Mike from so many years ago, with a seemingly endless well of patience reserved just for him, with words gentler than anyone else could dream of receiving. Back then, he was always the one reassuring Will. That was then, though. When Will was still only in his own mind half the time. This was now. "What do you mean you don't know what you're supposed to say? You know you can tell me anything, right?"

"Yes? I mean- no? Yes and no?"

Mike made an aborted attempt to gesture before thinking better of it, white knuckling the steering wheel.

"Pull over," Will said it before he could even think it through.

"What?"

"Pull over, Mike."

The car swerved, screeching to a ragged stop against the gravel shoulder of the highway.

Will hadn't ever seen Mike looked so panicked, at least not in a long, long time. His chest heaved, eyes wide with alarm.

Okay, so maybe he could've been more tactful. Sue him.

"Explain."

He needed to hear everything. Needed to know everything. This was the closest he'd gotten—in a month and a half, in two months, in nearly three years—to having anything remotely close to a meaningful conversation with Mike Wheeler. He was dying for one, so damn him if he didn't try to kill for it.

Mike gulped, eyes darting around erratically as if he was plotting an exit route. As if this wasn't his car, his conversation, and Will wasn't the one at his mercy.

"Can we do this outside?"

They ended up hopping the fence that carved highway from field, following Mike's lead.

Will thought he might have been trying to make a run for it at first, so mortified at the prospect of sharing his feelings that he decided he was better off lost in a field, car abandoned, if it wasn't for the way he extended his hand out for Will to hold on to, hand steady on his shoulder as he helped him over. He's not running. I'm not running. We're together, breathing the same air and taking up the same space. We're both here this time.

"So," he broached the topic hesitantly, as if Mike was an easily spooked horse and not, you know, his best friend of over ten years. "You don't know how to talk to me."

He said it bluntly, like a statement, not a question. Because it wasn't one. He didn't have any doubts about it. He knew Mike didn't know how to talk to him anymore, didn't even need him to say it; it was blatantly obvious in the way he talked when they called, in the way he talked when they were only a gearstick apart. The only thing he didn't know was why. Why Mike had admitted it. Why things had changed, why everything had gotten so much harder, despite everything else in their lives finally getting easier.

He supposed the question wasn't just for Mike, then. In part, or in shared whole, all his wondering was directed inward, too. Everything was supposed to be easier now. For them, between them. But distance drove its wedge and New York was an ill-fit, like a jacket that never sat quite right on the shoulders. It was something he could never quite get a grip on—it didn't feel real, or rather, it made him feel like he wasn't.

"I know how to talk to you." He spoke sooner than Will thought he would've, voice firmer than he had expected it to be, as he said, "I'll always know how to talk to you, you're my best friend."

"I just…" he trailed off, turning towards him.

For the first time in a month and a half, Will took him in properly, let himself look. He looked older, in all the small ways. He had more freckles than when last he'd seen him. His hair was slightly longer, curling awry at the back of his neck and just barely brushing his jawline. He looked less tense, all in all, and had been looking steadily so for the past two and a half years. It was like the further they got away from the end of the world, the taller he stood. That, or he'd hit another growth spurt. But there was softness to his shoulders that gave it away, and it made Will want to smile.

"Just what?" He prompted him gently. He let his hand brush the back of Mike's, let the backs of their knuckles press together for a beat too long. Let himself have it, if only for a moment.

"I just don't know what I'm supposed to say," Mike mumbled. "I know what I want to say, but I don't know what I'm supposed to say. I don't want to say the wrong thing."

Will cocked an eyebrow in disbelief.

"And you're worried about this now?"

Sure, Mike had said his fair share of stupid things. Objectively wrong things, factually or situationally. Downright insulting things, sometimes, but none that had been purposeful since they were like, fifteen. Mike had been saying stupid things for the whole of his life. But had that ever stopped Will from being his friend? Evidently, no. Hell, it hadn't even stopped him from falling in love with him. So why, thirteen years into their friendship, was Mike suddenly all too salient of it? Seemingly plagued by it?

"Well, yeah," he rubbed his elbow, sheepish. "This is our first time being this far since California. And I pretty famously said like, all the wrong things then."

"I mean, you pretty famously didn't say anything. So, this has already been an improvement," he joked, knocking their shoulders together.

Mike stayed silent, eyes downcast. Will watched as he gnawed on his lip. He couldn't figure it out. What was going on with him? Yeah, so he'd been an asshole when they were teenagers at the end of the world. It hadn't taken long for Mike to change his tune, to apologise and go right back to being his best friend. Sure, they'd had their hurdles and they'd had their trials, but they'd gotten out and over every one of them in due time.

So, why was he all of a sudden in knots about it? God, there was only so much Will could do if Mike didn't say anything.

Still, Mike stayed silent. He looked ashamed. Work with me. Talk to me. He was driving Will crazy, and not in a good way. As if any of the ways in which he drove Will crazy were good. No, he just found them stupidly endearing, like the hung-up fool he was. This however, was not endearing. It was just stupid. Baffling, really. Confusing, certainly. Driving Will mad? Without a doubt.

After a thick and painful silence, Mike spoke, and what he chose to say was this:

"Do you think it's going to rain?"

"You know," Will snapped. "I'm really fucking sick of you not saying anything."

The words left his mouth before he had half a mind to reel them in. Shit. There was certainly no taking them back now. Mike's eyes were wide with shock, and there was no doubt in his mind that he looked no better, his hand on his heart like he'd been swearing an oath. He hadn't meant to say any of that.

Don't back out now, tell him how you feel. Tell him everything, the voice urged on.Tell him almost everything.

"Look, when you talk, you haven't been saying anything. It's- it's so nothing! It's so empty. And it's been like this for months!"

The words came out like a flood. He had opened the spillway, and now there was no way of sealing it until all that needed to be said had been said, all the water drained out to the very last drop. He felt frantic, near manic.

"And I mean, I've been trying so hard to do all this small talk but it's just so hard Mike!"

"Well, you don't have to try!"

Oh. Oh, okay then.

He flinched as Mike quickly backtracked, babbling.

"I don't mean it like that, I just-!" Mike groaned, hiding his face in his palms.

Will could practically hear him overthinking, the cogs in his brain echoing a clunky tick, tick, tick as it worked overtime to get him out of the hole he dug himself into. His eyebrows furrowed, and the ticking sped up.

"You don't have to try, as in…" he trailed off.

When his eyes met Will's they were filled with raw emotion. Something unplaceable, something that ran deep and fast within him. Will couldn't figure it out. He wanted to spend the rest of his life trying to. That was entirely dependent on whether or not he'd be throttling Mike sometime in the next few minutes. And that was entirely dependent on what he said next.

"What I'm trying to say is that you don't need to make small talk, Will. Well, you can if you want to but you also don't have to. You can say whatever, and I don't mind because I like everything you say. Whether that's like, something you really care about or something that you're feeling or just, whatever random shit you wanna tell me. I want to hear it. So, no more small talk."

"Unless you want to!" He added, voice pitchy and wavering. Whatever old-Mike trance he'd been caught in, he'd snapped out of it quick.

Will couldn't help but to burst out laughing.

"Oh my god, Mike. Have I said anything to you today that makes you think I actually like small talk?"

Mike spluttered in protest. "Well, no but-"

"Nope." He laughed. "Stop talking, it's my turn now."

"But-"

"Michael, just shut up."

He opened his mouth, and shut it promptly, grumbling. He looked downright petulant, bottom lip stuck out.

Oh my god, he's actually pouting. Will kind of wanted to kiss it. Okay, more than kind of. Still, what he wanted most of all was to slap Mike in the face, just the once. Or twice, really, if anyone deserved it.

"Thank you. I miss you."

Mike opened his mouth to protest, and he raised a hand.

"No. No talking. I miss you," he continued. "And I know we call every day and I know I'm with you right now, but I still miss you."

"I miss you because when we talk we don't say anything. I miss actually talking to you, I miss telling you what I'm doing and how I feel." He shot Mike a warning glare. "And don't say I can. You don't tell me anything either, you haven't told me anything for months. I don't know if you've been sad, or if you've been happy, and fuck, I don't even know what your job is. That's so stupid Mike, and I know you know that. And I'm sorry I didn't ask but I shouldn't have to. You know I shouldn't have to."

Mike looked like he was going to cry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry but you need to know.

"What I'm trying to say is that I'm not going to talk to you until you talk to me. I want to hear everything, whether it's good or it's bad or it's just stupid, I don't care. I want to hear it too. I want to hear you." He swallowed. Fuck. Tell me I haven't fucked this up.

It took him a second to realise he was breathing, hard, like he'd just run a marathon. Twelve marathons, even. Mike stayed frozen. He seemed paralyzed by Will's words, or by the weight of them. Maybe it was the gravity of it all—the world and their situation—finally taking its toll.

Will wanted to shake him. To grab him by the shoulders and say please. Please just talk to me again. Please tell me everything. The world isn't ending anymore. You don't have to be scared. You don't have to ever be scared of me.

"Okay," Mike croaked. He looked like a coiled spring—body taut and angled towards the treeline like he wanted to make a run for it. Will was surprised he hadn't already tried.

"Okay." This time he nodded, and Will could see his body shake of some of its tension. He rolled his shoulders and shuffled closer, unfurling. "Okay." He paused. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"Because I was waiting for you to say something first."

Mike's eyes widened.

Will chanced a small smile. "Okay?"

"Yeah, okay." He slapped his thighs with a muffled thwack. "I can tell you things."

"Really?" He quirked an eyebrow.

"I can too." He huffed.

"I," he started, then stopped, as if waiting for some invisible drum-roll. He had a strange look on his face. As if by speaking, he would incite some kind of latent aneurysm; or be dragged straight to hell by the devil himself. If they hadn't worked together to kill the devil three years ago now, Will wouldn't have ruled it out.

"I got a job at a diner."

"Hawkins has a diner now?"

"Yep." He said sheepishly.

"Is it," Will searched for his next words carefully. "…good?"

"Oh dude." Mike grinned. "It's so shit."

"Oh, well, does it like… pay well?"

"No way, man. And sometimes they forget to pay me."

They locked eyes and burst out laughing.

"That sucks dude, I'm sorry." He was practically cackling, wiping his eyes from where they had begun to water.

"It's fine, it's not like I really need the money, not right now anyway."

Huh. "So, why didn't you ever tell me that?"

"That I didn't need money? I mean, you know I still live with my parents-"

"No, Mike. That you worked at a diner. Why didn't you tell me that?"

That pained look returned, and his shoulders re-tensed. Will reached out a hand and placed it gently on his forearm, his thumb rubbing soft circles against the delicate skin.

"I just felt so stupid." He trained his eyes out the window, refusing to make eye contact. "Like, I spent so long bothering you with my life and my problems and when you told me you were going to leave, and that you had everything planned for months I just realised that- you don't tell me things anymore. And you hadn't been telling me things for a while and somehow I just… stopped noticing. So I wanted to give you a chance to tell me about your life, instead of always going on about mine."

Oh. "And then when I didn't do that?"

"It's stupid, I know." He mumbled. "But I didn't wanna press because I didn't want to be an asshole anymore, and then I just didn't know how to be with you anymore. Because I think like, being an asshole to you has been my default state since we were like, fourteen."

Will let out a breathless laugh. "Mike, you're not an asshole."

"I totally was!" He threw his hands up in confusion. "I don't get how you aren't madder at me."

"I mean, I was pretty mad at you." He pointed out. "You know I was. But that was years ago. I moved on."

"Yeah, but even after that. I still wasn't a good friend." Mike's face was completely buried in his hands, soft black curls sighing over the backs of his pale hands as he breathed in, out, in, out. Will's hand slid up until he was gripping his shoulder, warm and sharp, through the fabric of his sleeve.

"Mike, you are a good friend. You've been a good friend for a while."

"But I used to be your best friend." His voice was small, smaller than Will had ever heard it. He caught a glimpse of his face in the reflection of the window and oh. He was trying not to cry.

"You're still my best friend. You'll always be my best friend."

"But I used to be better at it." They locked eyes and Will watched as Mike's flittered about, searching his face. He kept his gaze solid. If you're looking for anger, he thought. You're not going to find it on me.

"I used to be a really good friend, and then I stopped, and that was my fault. But I couldn't remember how to be good again, and I'm sorry. I kept trying but I couldn't go back and then you left and I didn't know what to do and I'm so, so sorry Will."

Will wanted to say something. He rummaged through the box inside his chest inside for the right words, thinking surely, surely there's something in here that I can say.

I'm sorry was hollow, void of any real meaning and lacking in clear intent. That's not true was just a lie. He searched and he scoured—wracking his heart and mind—but he only came up empty. I don't know what I'm meant to do, he thought. Maybe, just maybe, he should stop thinking and just start doing. Maybe, just maybe, he should stop living life by meant to's.

He wrapped his arms around Mike as tight as he could, nearly sending them both toppling backwards. For a second Mike stayed stock-still in his arms, and he fretted. Was this the wrong move? Should I have said something instead? Have I forgotten how to be his friend too? His loosened his grip, and just as he moved to pull away, Mike's own arms flailed, clutching at him with a deep fervor, pulling him impossibly closer. Will felt him hunch over, forehead settling into the cradle of his neck and shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world.

They stayed there, two magnets caught in the same field; for how long, Will couldn't tell.

The world could have moved on without them, days after weeks after months after years passing by as they stayed there. Hell, time could've stopped entirely, and he wouldn't have noticed. Soft hair brushing his neck, a heart thudding against his own, the steady rise and fall of the body beneath his hands, two breaths taking up the same space, same bodies. Those were what he noticed. Those were the things that mattered.

They spent the next few hours walking aimlessly. Bumping shoulders and talking—really talking—about… nothing at all, really. Nowhere close to the nothing of before, no—the restraint was no longer there. Things were still awkward—conversation stumbling along like a newborn deer—but things were better. So much better. Will felt lighter. In his heart, and in his body. The wrongness had subsided, had eased its iron grip on his lungs and let him finally, finally breathe.

"Wait," Mike interrupted himself mid-sentence (knee-deep in some semantic argument about how yes, he listens to music). "You never actually told me why you came back."

He fixed Will with a pointed, puzzled stare.

"Are things… okay there?"

Will tensed up. He wanted to say no, wanted to tell Mike all about how wrong it all felt, wanted to put his finger on the pulse of the wrongness and cut off its circulation for good. What he wanted was-

"I mean yeah, yeah it's going fine." Great. Awesome. Good one, even.

His bluff did little to fool Mike, evident in the way his eyes narrowed, zeroing in on the space between Will's own as if he could see right through. Will wanted to cover that spot with his hands. Don't look, he wanted to say. I don't know what you'll find.

"Going fine," Mike repeated. "So New York's going fine and your mom is fine and you're totally fine."

"Yeah, fine."

"So, you're here for what? Fun? Missed it here already?"

"…yes?"

"As if! That's such bullshit, dude."

"What! It's true, I'm fine." Will crossed his arms. Don't take your own advice, that's great. Awesome, even.

"So what, you can dish it but can't take it? You didn't even want me to take you to Hawkins. You didn't even tell anyone you were coming until you got here! You know, you can tell me things, Will, or am I not the only one who forgot that?"

Oh, Will was going to kill him. He was going to kill him and leave his body in the middle of this giant fucking field where no one would find him. He was going to fly straight back to New York and only feel a little bad about it. Fuck him, really.

"I can so tell you things."

"You've told me like, the same amount of things that I've told you!"

Realisation flickered across Mike's face as he pointed his finger at Will, jamming it into his chest.

"Hey, wait! You're just as bad as me!"

"No, what? No way!" Will spluttered. He'd only been more insulted a handful of times in his life. It had to make top three, for sure. Outclassed only by it's not my fault you don't like girls (x1) and faggot (x25+). And there it was, smugly nestled beneath the two. Just as bad as Michael Wheeler (x1).

"Yes, way! Oh my god, look; you spent the last month and a half waiting for me to talk about myself which I didn't," he said, pausing for emphasis. "Because of these like, stupid fake rules I made up. Which you called me out on. Great! Whatever! But you've been doing the exact same thing! That's so bullshit dude!"

"I have not been doing the exact same thing! And we've both been talking, it's just that you," Will stepped one foot closer, his own finger jammed straight into the center of Mike's chest. "Only talked because I practically begged you to!"

This was getting out of hand. Was Will right? To some extent, sure. So what if he was playing it up a little?

Was Mike right? Possibly. Probably more than Will was willing to admit.

"Yeah? Well, that's what I'm doing now! So come on, dude, just tell me," his voice tapered off in a whine. His hand—still accusatory against Will's chest—flattened out and reached to grab his shoulder. Will felt his own hand ease out too, and as it lay against his sternum, he could feel Mike's words—feel every half-breath and drawn out syllable—buzz through the flat of his palm. "Just tell me."

Just tell him. Will could feel Mike looking at him, feel the intensity of his gaze. He didn't dare meet it. He kept his eyes downcast, kept his heart in his chest where it belonged. Under his palm he felt Mike's own beat, and pulled away.

"I'm not-" happy there. Supposed to be here. Supposed to want to be here. Sure what to do anymore. Awake.

He felt his throat tighten. What did he want to say? What could he say? Anything, anything, anything.

Will moved back—one, two, three steps—until he was a suitable distance away from the prying eyes and beating heart of Michael Wheeler. He could tell that Mike didn't know how to proceed. Hell, he didn't even know how to proceed. They'd gone off script, run off track, and now there was no discernible path forward. It was all fair game now, up to chance and choosing.

The uncertainty suspended between them sat heavy in the air, like a wall. He felt the wind slam into it as it whipped around them, ricocheting back onto him and brushing the hair off of his forehead like a guiding hand. He turned away from it, and looked up.

The sky was streaked through with clouds. Brushstrokes of pink and blue and white and purple weaving in and out of one another, braided and blown out against the dusky sky. Above the flat expanse of the horizon—fields upon fields upon fields—it looked like eternity. It looked beautiful. Will had forgotten what the sky here had looked like when it wasn't torn open. For most of his living memory it hadn't been much more than a bruise—black and red and bleeding—another wound for the world to dig its fingers into. For a time after, he even tried his best not to look up if he could help it, eyes trained on his feet, always moving forwards. That way, if it was watching him, he wouldn't have to know.

It wasn't a bruise anymore. If he looked at it, it wouldn't look back. It just looked like the sky, because that was all that it was.

"I'm tired," he said. "I just can't stay awake anymore. I'm so tired all the time and I spend most of every day asleep because I can't stay awake. I don't know if I've been awake for any of it. I don't even know if I'm awake now."

He tore his gaze from the sky. Mike's eyebrows face was drawn, brows furrowed.

"I'm just so tired, Mike. I'm so tired that I fell asleep in the middle of the fucking street in a storm," he huffed out a laugh. "And maybe I would've stayed there forever, I don't fucking know. It didn't feel like anything. Honestly, it should've felt like then, but it didn't feel like anything. I don't feel anything there. At least when I was here I actually felt things. Even if they were all fucking awful."

He only realised he had begun to cry when the tears ran down his cheek, warm and wet.

"I'm sorry," Mike said. He stood with his arms limp by his sides. "I don't-"

Will cut him off before he could finish. It was clear that he didn't know what to do—what to say or how to make this better. But Will didn't need him to make anything better, not for now and not for this, not really. All he needed Mike to do was listen. This is where he was banking on the new Mike still being at least somewhat present. This was where hesitance counted for something. I don't want you to be too scared to talk to me, he thought. But I do want you to think before you act.

"I know you don't know what to say, okay? I'm trying to tell you how I've been feeling so, so wrong for months now, and how I was trying not to think about it until I heard that stupid song," he was frenetic now. He actually wanted to explain it all. This is why I am the way I am. This is why I want this. It wasn't making any sense, and he knew it. It didn't need to. It just needed to get him to the point.

"I heard that stupid song for the first time and I knew what to do, or well—I thought I knew what to do but I don't know if I know anything really, god knows I wasn't thinking-"

"Will," sometime, during Will's half-mad ramblings, Mike had crossed the distance between them.

He stood there now with his hand on Will's upper arm, a strange half-echo of their previous position. Will's chest heaved and he flicked his gaze to Mike's with widened eyes.

"I lied," he blurted out. "I lied to you. I'm awake right now. I'm- I've never been more awake."

Mike's face scrunched up.

"What? So, you're not tired? What's—" he waved his free hand. "What is anything you're saying right now?"

Just because I want it, it doesn't mean I want to say it out loud.

"No, I was asleep there. But I'm awake here."

Mike stared at him imploringly, silently begging. He looked three seconds away from checking Will for a concussion. He looked three seconds away from checking himself for one.

"The thing I realised," Will said evenly. "Was that I'm awake here, Mike. What I wanted was to stay here. I want to stay here."

He could see the cogs in Mike's head turning on overdrive.

"What? But you hate it here," he blurted. "And you wanted to go to New York."

"No," Will corrected. "I wanted to study art. I just figured New York was where you were supposed to do it. I think everyone did."

Mike's eyebrows stayed furrowed.

"But you hate it here."

"I mean, yeah, I'm supposed to. But I'm clearly not the best at doing that."

He sighed.

"Look, Mike."

Mike looked. He took a deep breath.

"I felt like for my life to start, I had to get out of here. Because that's what everyone else was telling me, when I get out, I'll feel good. I'll find my people. God, that's so stupid. It's all fucking," he waved a hand. "Supposed to bullshit. Why can't I find them here? I already found them here."

"And I know I'm who I am because of everything that's happened, because of this place. And I hated that, I really fucking hated that for so long but- now I actually kind of like myself," he chuckled wetly, wiping his eyes. "I kind of like myself and I never really thought I would, so now I want to try and like this place too."

"Because it's not it's fault," he said, voice hushed. "That all these shitty things happened here because of all these shitty people. Because it's not my fault that that happened to me. And, look- I don't know if anywhere else will get me."

And I'm not talking about the people. Do you know how it felt? He wants to yell. Do you even know how it felt? How it still feels? How it won't ever go away, not really, not as long as the memory remains; do you know? The trees know, the ground knows, the sky knows. He knows they know, knows they know exactly how it feels, knows no one else will ever really know. They all say sorry about the intrusion, and he says yeah, me too.

"So, I want to come back and stay. Not forever. I just—I miss this place so much that I want to make it someplace actually worth missing. And I think it's so, so stupid to think that I'm supposed to have to go to some big stupid city to be happy. I just want to be happy here." With you.

Will swayed on his feet. He felt dizzy. There you go, he thought. You said it. Almost everything. No more secrets except the one you've always had.

He wanted to laugh. Or he wanted to keep crying, maybe.

Before he had half a mind to do anything about anything, Mike's body slammed into his own and felt his head thud against his chest with an oomph.

"You know," his voice was muffled, half-stuffy from crying and half-trapped in the embrace. "It's nice that you're not scared to hug me anymore."

"Shut up," Mike whined. "I'm not like, overdoing it or anything, right?"

If Will was completely honest—with both himself and Mike—and if Will was the kind of person to tell the whole truth, then he would've said well, I think maybe you're overcompensating a little bit. But he wasn't either kind of person. The kind of person Will really was, was the kind of person who said "It's perfect."

So that's exactly what he did.

Mike pulled back just far enough so that Will could see him smile, something small and sheepish, something scared, but something filled with more brightness than he'd seen in a long while. So warm he could almost feel it.

Yeah, just perfect.

"Are you sure?" Mike gripped his shoulders like it was the only thing keeping Will in once piece. He looked dire. "You've only been gone for like, two months. What if you go back and decide you want to stay there forever?"

"Well, I guess I'll stay there forever," he said drily.

Mike paled. Huh.

"But I really don't think I'm going to change my mind," he added.

Mike drew his hands back and looked down, brows furrowed.

"Look, I don't like the city," Will continued. "I like-"

"Wait. Hold that thought," Mike blindly slapped his hand over Will's mouth, and he frowned. Rude. They had stopped at the base of a hill in the middle of some fuck-off field—who knew where they were, really. It was going to be a nightmare to find the car. Mike's arm was outstretched, pointing up at something Will couldn't see for the orange-yellow glare of the setting sun.

"-is that?"

Will had no fucking clue what that was. He sidestepped, pushing his body in front of Mike's in pursuit of a clearer view.

"Oh my god," he said faintly.

"It's gotta be, right?"

"I mean, how? There's no way we walked all the way-"

"We have been walking for hours."

"But there's no way."

They stared at each other.

"We could always find out," Mike said with a shrug.

There were two things Will could've said in that moment. The first being no, let's turn back, it's getting dark and we've almost definitely lost the car, while the second would've been to say fuck it, let's find out. The former would be the most reasonable response, all things considered. The latter, not so much, but at the very least it still classified as a verbal response. Sound, to a degree—even if he was pushing the boundary. But Will had never claimed to be a sound man, and frankly, it was egregious to think that any kid who got possessed at age thirteen would grow up to be a sound adult. Really, it's a miracle he wasn't worse. For years he'd had a get-out-of-jail-free card for weird behaviour nestled in the pocket of his jeans, a card which he'd pulled out significantly less than he'd been warranted to.

So in the end, he said none of these things. In the end, Will didn't say anything. What he did do was effectively shoulder-check Mike (who let out a betrayed hey!, as he stumbled back) and begin to scramble his way up the broad slope of the hill before he could think to gather his wits about him and follow in pursuit.

His head start did little to outrun Mike's—frankly unnatural—long limbs. Mike wasn't particularly fast, wasn't even close, not really, but then again, neither was Will. The only difference being that Mike had twice as many leg, for some unfair fucking reason. Fuck you, genetics, Will thought as barreled into him. They were not so much running as they were climbing, and not so much climbing as they were attempting roller derby on land without the roller aspect.

It was so stupid and it was so sweaty and in the end, all they were were a pile of thrashing limbs and kicked shins and uncontrollable laughter. Yeah, Will thought as he received a elbow to the ribs, just perfect.

As soon as they reached the summit they collapsed in a heap, too spent to take in their spoils, too exhausted to do anything but lay there and laugh, breathless.

Will laid starfished, eyes closed and chest heaving, taking in gulps of air like he had just emerged from being waterboarded. They had somehow ended up in such a way that Mike was strewn over his legs, shoulder blades digging into his knees in a way that would be downright unbearable, if Will was in any headspace to care about comfort of all things right now.

Up here, he felt the breeze sweep over him with no barriers and no restraint, stilling the beads of sweat that had gathered on his brow and cooling the red that had crept onto his face. He breathed in, then out, and then opened his eyes.

The hulking metal frame of cerebro loomed over him, lurching slightly in the wind. It was a creaking, rust-spotted thing, left alone to nature and its own devices for who knew how long now.

"You were right," he said.

"Yeah," Mike's reply came dazed, disoriented—as if he'd just woken up.

It didn't last long, though. You could almost pinpoint the exact moment he snapped out of whatever spell he had been under, lull broken as his face paled and he pulled tighter on the grass, white-knuckling each blade.

"God, we've so fucking lost the car," he groaned. "We're so dead, dude."

Will stared at him. "We," he deadpanned.

"Yes, we," Mike stressed, wringing his hands. "You were the one who made me pick you up from the airport. And you made me park the car. This is definitely a we situation."

Will raised his leg and kneed Mike in the back of the neck.

"No way. As far as anyone's aware I'm still in New York and you've just driven off like a crazy person."

Mike spluttered.

"I'm crazy? You're not even in New York right now! As far as anyone's aware you're still there because you didn't tell anyone you were leaving! Like a crazy person! So if I'm crazy, you're like, legally insane."

"Well, I'm pretty sure I tried to tell you not to drop everything to come and get me. Which you did. So don't try and act like you're captain normal."

"Captain- What?"

Will kneed him in the neck again.

"Ow!"

God, they were so stupid. So stupid. But the truth was, he hadn't stopped smiling once since he'd hit the ground. And something in Mike's voice—despite the whines and groans and outbursts and seemingly endless complaints—told him that he hadn't either.

"No seriously," Mike said. "How the hell did we end up here?"

"I mean we have been walking for ages," Will replied. "I guess we just got lucky." Or unlucky. He wasn't sure yet.

"I'm sorry."

Mike's voice sounded so- so sad that it surprised him. Will propped himself up on his forearms and peered down. Mike had turned to face him, cheek squashed flat against the skin of his lower thigh. He looked like a kicked puppy. Will felt uncomfortably like he was the one on trial for doing the kicking.

"You said you didn't want to come here, today," he clarified. "But all I did was drag you back. So, I'm sorry."

Will laughed, bemused. "Mike, you didn't drag me here."

He looked unconvinced.

"I really don't mind. I mean, I can't hide from this place forever, especially not if I want to come back. Which we've established I do."

"Yeah, but not to Hawkins."

"Not to Hawkins," he confirmed. "But not too far."

Mike's brows furrowed.

"I mean, we've figured out that I can pretty much walk here in a day if I have to. And my mom's still here. You're still here."

He hadn't meant to add that much emphasis to you. Truly, he had come into this with no intentions to say anything quite so charged. But the way Mike's face had flushed a suspicious shade of red made him think that maybe he hadn't misstepped after all. Maybe, just maybe, with no intention of hoping—he'd made a step in the right direction.

"So, you really do want to come back," there he went, sounding all dazed again. As if Will's words had flung him back into that world of dreaming, as if it were all too good to be true.

Well, fuck that.

Will sat up and promptly pinched Mike on the arm.

"What the fuck," he whined. "Why are you so violent now?"

Will ignored him.

"Wake up, Mike. I already told you. I really do want to come back. I mean it."

Mike nodded slowly—once, then twice—and held his gaze, firm. There was something fragile behind his eyes, something that Will couldn't quite see behind the brown of his irises.

Abruptly, Will stood up, dislodging Mike from his legs, letting his head hit the ground with a disgruntled hey! and an ungraceful thud.

From up here, in the unending evening light, he could see it. The faint coloured shapes and spots that meant people, that meant houses, that meant streets, that meant suburbs, that meant Hawkins.

He wanted to climb down there and drive through the place with the mind and eyes of a total stranger. See everything for the first time, unmarred and open minded. It felt like everywhere he looked, even from high, was tinged in bias, overshadowed by the overlooking that came with everything one felt they knew well. He would never notice everything, never see this place free from the fog of all he had known—and expected of it—beforehand. The same went for people. Things felt… clearer though. Maybe his self-imposed exile did have its perks. It felt like, all around him, things were finally waking up.

"I'm surprised this thing's still up."

Will tore his eyes from the miniature Hawkins he had been surveying and turned back to face Mike. He was standing upright now, one hand on cerebro and the other on the back of his neck. Will supposed he should feel a bit guilty, what with kicking him repeatedly. We've done worse, he reasoned. Really, Mike deserved to be kicked a little more. The profound levels of restraint he had been showing were a true testament to his love for him, if anything.

"I thought for sure it'd be destroyed by now," Mike continued. "I'm surprised it didn't fall into a gate or something."

Will snickered.

"Right, because you spend so much of your time thinking about the radio tower our friend made to talk to his Mormon girlfriend like, years ago."

"Okay, well- maybe I don't," he spluttered. "But maybe I do! As if there's anything else to do here. Not that you'd know."

"I've been gone for a month and a half," Will laughed. "I doubt anything's changed that much. I'm no prodigal son."

Mike slumped back down, legs sprawled out onto the grass and back leant against cerebro in a way that made Will worry it was going to topple over completely, until it didn't. Warily, he sat down on the hill beside him.

There. Mike had that strange look about him again. One that Will could only imagine was the face he wore when he was approaching meaning, but didn't quite have the stomach for it.

Hadn't they shared everything, though? No stone unturned, and all that. So what was it, what single thing was it, that was keeping Mike pinned down, the final thorn in his side- oh.

"Mike," he said gently. "Why did you stay?"

He watched as Mike's shoulders locked, watched as he shrugged them. Not for the first time, Will wished he had a view inside his friends brain. No bigger than a pinprick, it didn't matter; he just wanted to see. Anything to tell him just why he does the things he does. Anything to tell him just why he doesn't do the things he doesn't.

"I mean, I didn't choose anything. That's why I stayed here. Everybody made a decision, except for me."

"What do you mean? Why didn't you?"

"Well." Mike winced. "I don't want you to think I'm blaming you," he said, chewing his lip.

Great start, Will thought. I am so incredibly geared up to blame myself.

"But I always thought we were going to plan something together. But then you never said anything about it and I never asked, so I didn't do anything. I didn't send off any applications, nothing. My parents were so pissed, dude."

"I'm sorry," he said reflexively.

"No, no, don't give me any of that shit man. It's not your fault. I just thought that maybe, because you hadn't said anything, you were staying here too. Which was so stupid, because why would you? After everything, why would you?"

He stammered onward.

"I mean, not that there's anything wrong with wanting to stay here, I mean. I think it's really awesome actually, like super cool and everything. What I'm trying to say is that it's my fault."

Will blinked.

"Really?"

"I mean, yeah. If I'd just talked to you I wouldn't be stuck at home. Maybe we could've gone somewhere together. Or stayed here together. And maybe you wouldn't be so tired because you'd have me to wake you up."

Their faces flushed twin shades of red. Will had never seen Mike's face so pink. He had never felt his own so warm, not since he'd had a literal demon burnt out of him.

"Not that I'm saying that just having me there would help!"

Mike's mouth was working overtime, speaking a mile a minute to cover his overtly sappy tracks. Too late, Will thought. It's stuck to both of our shoes now. We're not walking out of this one, not easily.

"I mean I'd probably be really annoying, and I'd wake you up like too much and you'd actually want to be sleeping all the time. So you don't have to deal with me. Like, it would probably just suck for you really badly."

"Wait—is this your way of asking if I want to be your roommate?"

Trying to keep up with Mike's words felt like nothing short of a losing battle. God, his head. It was going to explode, and it really was all true—Mike Wheeler was going to be the death of him.

Will could practically see the words oh, shit emblazon themselves on his forehead, as he watched everything Mike just said dawn on him, all at once.

"No! I'm deterring you!," Abort, abort, abort, flashed the lights in Mike's manic eyes. Dude, no one has ever fucked this up as bad as you. "Not because I don't want to live with you! I'd love to live with you, I'm just saying you'd hate to live with me. Because… of everything that's wrong with me."

"Because of everything that's wrong with you? What about everything that's wrong with me?"

"What?" Mike quirked his head. "There's nothing wrong with you. There's never been anything wrong with you."

"Well, I did get possessed once," Will held up one finger.

"Okay, not counting the supernatural."

"That's still easy. I get nightmares. Really bad, screaming ones. I'm tired all the time and I can hardly stay awake. I'm forgetful. I can be stubborn. I can be scared. I can be messy-"

"Okay, so literally none of those things are flaws."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah? So, what's so wrong about you?"

Mike said nothing. Just narrowed his eyes—no doubt searching for some irreconcilable trait that he felt would make himself unpalatable to Will.

Too late. If I could love him then, than I sure as hell can love him now.

"Mike," he started slow, shifting slightly so he was directly facing the other boy, his own knee resting directly atop his. "I don't want you to think that I'm coming back because of you, because I think it's stupid to put-"

"—all your eggs in one basket, yeah," Mike finished breathlessly, eyes wide.

"Right," he wrapped his hand around his ankle, some sub-conscious attempt to get closer, despite his words. "But I would be lying if I said you weren't a reason."

Mike said nothing. Instead, he just stared at him, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted, leg shaking slightly where Will's thumb absentmindedly brushed his anklebone.

"What I'm trying to say is that I don't think you'd be a bad roommate. I'd love to live with you, I mean I've wanted to since we were kids, really. Somewhere, or—"

This time Will met Mike's gaze head on. And he didn't break it, not once, not when his hand moved from Mike's leg to cup his elbow, not when he became all too salient of their ever-growing proximity, not when he opened his mouth to say:

"—here."

The only time he did, was when Mike—the end of Will's sentence only half-formed and falling from his lips—swooped down and kissed him square on the mouth.

Oh, what, was what he thought.

"Oh, what?," he said.

"Oh my god, I am so sorry, I totally fucked that up and this is exactly why I shouldn't be your roommate, fuck!"

"Why, do you kiss all of them?" Will mumbled dumbly.

He was very much not a present participant in this conversation. Active listening; not at all. No, Will was still caught up—like a broken record playing the same line over, and over, and over again—by the fact that he'd just been kissed on the mouth by his best friend. The best friend that he'd been in love with for far too long, so long that it wasn't even funny anymore. The best friend who had been previously, presumably, quite staunchly not gay.

"What?"

Mike looked ready to pull his own hair out by the fistfuls. He looked ready to leave the country, frankly.

"Roommates," Will blurted. "You kiss them often?"

"I've never had a roommate," Mike seemed quite helpless, really—a backseat driver in his own, bizarre conversation—which was bold, considering he'd been the one to kiss Will, not the other way around. If anyone was driving blindly, it was him.

"I'll be your roommate," he said. He wasn't quite staring at Mike — more like staring blankly through him. He was processing, goddammit. Leave him be. "I already told you I would."

Will watched as Mike gulped. He looked ready to object again; he probably had several lists running through his head of all the reasons why Will should never be his friend again, let alone prospective roommate. None of that mattered. Will had a sneaking suspicion that every reason Mike had marked down as a con, was really a reason for his dormant hopes to stir.

"So, roommates," his voice had regained some of its strength, not quite as distant and dazed as it had seemed before.

Mike looked ready to run. Hell, he probably would have if Will didn't still have him by the shoulder, didn't have his legs trapped under his own, didn't have him wrapped around his finger.

"Yeah," Mike croaked out. "Roommates. We can- I want to be- I mean- if you still—"

Will was locked in an internal battle. Two warring states, heart versus mind. One half of his consciousness—the half still governed by logic and reason and common sense—had had enough. If I have to egg him on one more time, it said, I'll lose my shit.

The other half had already lost it. That was the heart in him, and famously, the heart wants what it wants. Less famously—more subjectively, really—Will's heart was accustomed to not getting what it wanted. The heart wants and the heart doesn't get, and that had been the truth. The heart wasn't supposed to get a taste, not for anything, least of all what it wanted. But it had. It had, it had, it had, and now all it wanted was more. The heart wants what the heart wants, and what the heart wanted was for him to mean it. I want him to say it and show it and mean it. And if he doesn't, it said, if he doesn't do any of that; then I'll lose my shit.

So Will leaned back, began to pry himself off of Mike in the way one would pry themselves off a leather chair in the sweat-sticky heat of summer. Something about that movement—achingly slow and jarring just the same—did something to Mike. The removal of contact, Will's slow process of extricating himself from their magnetic field, the way time itself dragged by unwillingly until their whole world was suspended in slow motion. It was, all in all, a pretty anticlimactic way of losing his shit. But whatever it was, whatever he was trying to do, all came rushing to a complete halt as soon as Mike grabbed him.

It was a panicked reversal of their previous position—Mike's hands on his shoulders, his body angled towards and slightly over Will's own. He could practically see Mike's heart beating out of his chest. He wanted to soothe it. Wanted to press it to his own and wrap his arms around the other boy's lean frame, wanted them to beat right in time with one another, wanted to stay like that forever, wanted to say I know what you're feeling. I know because that's what I feel for you.

Except he didn't know, not really. That's why he moved back. That's why time slowed. And that's why, when it finally stopped, he made no effort to return to the way he was.

Maybe, he just really wants you to be his roommate, the stupid part of his brain said.

Maybe, he just really wants you to be his roommate, the more discerning hemisphere offered.

Maybe, he just really wants you.

He only had so many years of wishful thinking left in him. The heart could only want one thing for so long. He couldn't wonder forever. He wouldn't wait forever. Thankfully, Mike wasn't going to let him.

"I want to be your roommate. I really want to live with you. As a friend," Oh. "Or as… more, maybe."

Well, okay, what?

"You know what? Yeah, I'd kiss my roommate. Sure. Because the only person I've ever wanted as one, the only person I've ever even considered, has been you. I want to kiss you, which is why I did. Do that, I mean." Mike's voice cracked, splintering with every word. "I'll want to kiss you even if you don't live with me, or you don't come home, or you don't want to talk to me after I've told you all of this. So, I'm sorry. For telling you, or uh, not telling you sooner. Both, I guess."

All at once, time restarted. As if the world had been waiting—bated breath and breeze withheld—for Mike to say his peace, and then as soon as he had, it had sprung back to the way it was. And life goes on.

And Will. He supposed he knew now, for certain. As certain as one can be when the one thing you want but can never have hands itself to you, wrapped in a bow, and says here. You can have me. You've had me this whole time, and you just didn't know it. Sorry for not telling you sooner. You've had me forever.

Maybe, I'm still there, Will thought. Maybe I hit my head too hard when I hit the pavement and I'm still lying there, in the rain. Or maybe a hospital bed. Maybe this is my six minutes, the last dream I ever have.

It felt too real though. It felt solid, warm and alive between his fingers. The grass against his leg, cold and dewy. The sunset's glow in his periphery. The hands of the boy he's loved half his life—all his life—pressed against his clavicle.

"I told you everything I was feeling," he said, voice shaking. "Except one thing I told myself I was never going to tell you. And now look at what you've done."

"What?" Mike looked stricken.

"I'm in love with you," he wiped his eyes. "So don't apologise for wanting to kiss me."

"You're- me- what?"

Will didn't give him a second to think. He wrapped his arms around his shoulders, pulling him close until their hearts lay parallel, tucking his chin over Mike's shoulder.

"You're in love," he repeated, clearly dumbfounded. "With me."

"With you."

"With me."

"Don't let it get to your head," Will mumbled in his ear.

He felt a hand—large and cool and feather-light—press against each side of his cheek. Mike drew back and looked him in the eye.

"Me?"

"Well, yeah." It dawned on Will that he hadn't ever really lived a life where it wasn't Mike. It felt obvious. Water was wet and Mike was his best friend. The sky is blue and he was in love with Mike. To him, it was a law of the universe, like gravity. It was always there, before you even know what it's called; you just learn the name for it later on. "Who else?"

Mike looked at him as if he'd cracked the world open to show him just what was inside. Really, it was himself he'd cracked open. For the first time, Will let himself consider that to Mike, himself and the world might be one and the same.

All of a sudden, he felt a great rush of feeling, yanked back into reality as if he'd just been rudely awoken. He was hyper-aware of everything inside his own body; his heart, the way it beat, the way the blood coursed through his body, the faint sting in his lungs. With this, came a great rush of anxiety.

Oh, god, he thought. What if I ruin it? What if I get everything I ever wanted and I go ahead and ruin it. What if I was better off not knowing than trying and failing?

But that was stupid. When had anyone ever been better off not trying?

You were always going to tell him everything except this; don't you have a reason?

Fear, routine. The fear that came with breaking routine. The routine that emerged from habits formed by fear. Always having a better reason not to, than to.

But now you have a better reason. You said it and he doesn't hate you. You said it because he kissed you first.

There were no excuses anymore, nothing to hide behind. Not to one another and not to themselves. All cards were on the table now. Heart on his sleeve and foot in his mouth.

Mike still looked shell-shocked. He'd been doing a lot of that today. Will wondered if maybe the wind really had made his face stuck. This surely can't be that surprising. I've been weird about him for years, and you're telling me he didn't notice once?

Probably because he was being just as weird about you, idiot. Not like you noticed anything yourself.

Right. That would explain it.

"Do you—?" He had to know. Granted, all signs were pointing quite obnoxiously to yes, but could you ever really be sure? What's a kiss between friends? Maybe a kiss was the knew spit-shake. Who knew what people did in the nineties. Maybe kissing your friends was normal now.

"Do I?" Mike looked momentarily startled. "Oh. Oh, yeah. I mean, who else for me as well, you know? It's always been you, I think."

Not normal, then. Will wanted to cry out of sheer relief. Thank god. You were just like me.

"Is that cool?"

Is that cool. Was Mike stupid? That was beyond cool. It was maybe the best news he'd ever heard. Is that cool. Will wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he understood just how above cool it all was.

"Cool," he said instead. "Really cool."

Mike's shoulders dropped in well, relief, he guessed. Oh, he realised then and there. He would've been scared too. He would've been just as scared as I am.

He felt jolted, then, as Mike broke into the biggest, most blinding grin he had ever seen in his life. It was almost terrifying. But it was all for him, which made his heart beat a thousand paces from a feeling which almost definitely wasn't fear. Not this time, and not anymore.

"You're coming back," Mike said, giddy. "You're here."

"I don't know if I'll stay here," he clarified.

"I know."

"I don't know if I'll be happy here." God, let him be.

"I know."

"But I want to try."

"Yeah," Mike said, radiant smile still plainly in view. It hadn't wavered once. "Me too."

"And I need you to know that I'm not staying here because of you."

"Yeah, I know, you said. But you're here. And I'm here."

He couldn't help but grin back.

"I'm here. And you're here."

That was more than enough. That was all they'd ever needed.

"I don't want you to think I'm running away," Will admitted. "I'm worried everyone will think I got scared off, or whatever. God knows no one will believe I actually want to come back."

"I don't think you're running away," Mike stared at him, eyes wide. "I think you're the bravest person I know."

Will shoved him lightly.

"Shut up. You have like, ulterior motives."

"Ulterior motives?" Mike grinned. "What, you think I only want you back so I can ravage y—"

Will shoved him significantly harder, sending Mike toppling once more to the ground.

"Oh my god," he slapped his hand over Mike's face blindly, paying no mind to the petulant ow that squeaked out from under his palm. "You know what, maybe I will stay in New York. Find a nice city boy who treats me like shit and doesn't say shit like ravage."

"But you don't want a city boy," Will could feel Mike wrinkle his nose from beneath his palm. "You want me."

"Yeah," he breathed out a soft laugh. "I want you."

Mike looked at him with an expression that was no stranger, not in all the year's he'd known him. It was only now, though, that Will could put a word to it. See that look for what it was, rather than what he was too scared to hope for it to mean.

It felt good—to not be scared to hope, and to not have to anymore. It felt frightening, make no mistake. A part of Will was waiting for the other shoe to drop, to wake up and find out he'd dreamed this whole day, dreamed his whole life.

This wasn't a dream though. Will knew dreams. Will knew how it felt, to live life and not really be present in it, in more ways than one. The body moves forward and your mind stays numb, stays asleep, stays stuck under glass, or a larger hand. The body and mind and separate. For the longest time, it felt like they would always be this way. For the longest time it felt like sleeping was the closest he would get to having his body and mind on the same page. Dormant. Still. He felt anything but now.

Mike yawned.

"I really don't want to go back and find the car," he whined. "It's so dark."

Will hummed. "We could probably stay up here for the night. I mean, you're the only one who has to worry about being accounted for."

Mike wordlessly agreed, or at the very least, he didn't disagree. He shuffled closer, tucking his head next to Will's hip.

"Are you tired?" He asked.

Will didn't answer him. There, miles beneath him, tucked away in the middle of the midnight blue suburbia, was a strange glow. It didn't illuminate much, just the vague implication of brick walls and driveway. The only house with a light still on. It wasn't even the only source of light—sodium streetlamps and stars and moon all giving what they could, soft glow like alms from one beggar to another—but it was the light that caught his eye. Will didn't know the house. He didn't even know the street, couldn't place it, not in the dark.

"What are you looking at?" Mike asked.

He shrugged. "Home, I think."

"You think?"

Mike lifted himself up, and leaned closer tangling their legs together until it was nigh impossible to tell where one boy ended and the other began.

Their noses were almost brushing now. Will shuffled, until he was sitting on the slope of the hill, where Mike would be half a head above him, if he wasn't caught in some kind of magnetic field pulling him ever closer to Will's own body. From down here, if he looked close enough, Will could see the glow of the window reflected back at him through Mike's wide, unblinking eyes.

He smiled. "Maybe. I'll take a better look when I wake up."