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Mike doesn’t remember how they got out of the Upside Down.
There are flashes, maybe. Voices calling to one another, someone ushering him step by step, trying to help ease the burden he carried in his arms. His own steadfast refusals despite his muscles burning, aching, screaming for relief after everything they’d been through.
He doesn’t remember getting out, because that isn’t what mattered.
What mattered was Will, unconscious in his arms, so still and quiet that he might have been dead.
Hours later, and Will still hasn’t woken up. Somehow, they’d ended up at Steve’s house, of all places. Although, if Mike had the wherewithal to think about it, maybe that makes sense. It is, by far, the biggest of all of their houses, and while he would have been more comfortable taking Will back to the Wheeler house (the Wheeler-Byers house, now, where Mike occasionally passes by Jonathan in the middle of the night on the stairs and they eventually learned to exchange silent nods of solidarity instead of suspicious glances and whispered jabs), it’s currently in no state for living in. Besides, Steve seems more than happy to have all of them crowded into his house, taking up every available inch of space. In fact, it seems like he prepared for this: every spare bedroom has fresh sheets on the beds; the formal dining room’s formal dining table is shoved up against the wall to make room for two blow-up mattresses; the basement, more than twice the size of the Wheelers’, holds two pull-out couches and three more mattresses. On top of that, the biggest downstairs bathroom has been made handicap-accessible, which explains why Jonathan, Lucas, and Nancy sometimes showed up to strategy sessions looking like they’d had sawdust sprinkled over them in the last few months.
“Stay as long as you want,” Steve keeps saying – to Nancy, to Jonathan, to Joyce and Hopper and El, to Max (who looked near tears at the sight of the bathroom and bedroom set up just for her, a result of her mother disappearing some months ago and Steve’s anxiety over where she would go when finally she woke up). “At least for a day or two. Until Owens confirms that things are safe and none of us are going to get arrested.”
A valid concern, because it’s possible that they committed more than a few crimes in the last several days, including assaulting (and killing, in Hopper’s case) several military personnel and what could arguably be called kidnapping (although Derek Turnbow was more than willing to pin his disappearance on the military when his parents asked, Erica’s benzo pie notwithstanding). From what little attention Mike had been paying, Dr. Owens appeared as if from nowhere to assuage the military waiting on the other side of the gate, keeping things quiet long enough for El to seal it shut – permanently, this time – and for them to get away with instructions to lay low and wait for my word. A supreme stroke of luck, perhaps, though Mike is more inclined to believe it’s just another manipulation. Let them do the heavy lifting, saving the world, and swoop in once the danger passed.
Whatever. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.
Joyce smooths a hand over her son’s hair. Mike doesn’t understand how she’s so calm; Vecna is dead, the Upside Down closed, but Will’s still unconscious. “Asleep,” El said sleepily when Mike pressed urgently, exhausted herself from the ordeal of shutting the Upside Down. “…Dreaming.” But Mike knows what it looks like when Will is asleep, knows what it sounds like, and it isn’t this: deep, slow, almost silent breaths, laying flat on his back, totally still. Will, even before he returned from the Upside Down plagued by night terrors, was never a quiet sleeper. He snores, albeit softly, these little snuffling noises that Mike always found adorable even when they were kids. He tosses and turns, migrating towards the nearest source of warmth (convenient, considering that Mike likes to cuddle in his sleep), or curls into a tight ball with just the barest tuft of hair peeking out from beneath the covers. He speaks nonsense words, or sometimes full, slurred sentences that he never remembers in the morning.
No, Will isn’t sleeping right now. But Joyce doesn’t seem to hold the same crippling panic that Mike does. No one else seems to understand the fear still coursing through his veins, all too content to revel in their victory and take El’s word that Will is okay. And truly, Mike can’t blame them. If Will was awake, then he would be out in Steve’s enormous living room with the rest of them, or sleeping in one of the other guest rooms. Maybe even this guest room, as long as Will was still there, actually sleeping and not…whatever this is.
“You know,” Joyce says, startling Mike slightly, “I think you’re the best thing that ever happened to him.”
Mike swallows hard. He’s felt flayed open for days now, ever since Holly was taken and his parents injured so badly that his father still hasn’t woken up, and his mother remains bedridden and clawed silent. It only got worse as he saw how close Will became to Robin, and how quickly, tinged with jealousy that he still doesn’t know what to do with, or how to express. If Will’s mom hadn’t been there when Will saved him (and Lucas and Robin) from the Demo at the MAC-Z, he thinks he would have thrown all caution to the wind right then and there and done something insane, like kiss Will on the mouth. Having Will at his side in the Upside Down, eyes rolled back in his head and hand outstretched, free hand grasped in Mike’s for stability, had put him back together again, just for a moment. But then Vecna fell, torn apart by El in his mind and by Will from the outside, and Will collapsed with him like a puppet whose strings had been cut. And Mike…
Mike felt like he’d died right then and there, even as he caught Will’s body.
The feeling hasn’t gone away in the last four hours. Hearing Joyce say that somehow makes it ten times worse. “I’m not so sure about that,” he answers finally, the words tearing out of his throat like knives.
“Oh, I am.” Joyce reaches across Will’s body and gently squeezes Mike’s shoulder. “He hardly talked at all before he met you, did you know that? He could, he just didn’t like to.”
Mike frowns, momentarily distracted from his anxiety. “That can’t be right.” Will talked all the time when they were little. He helped Mike come up with campaigns, drawing pictures to go with Mike’s words. He argued with Mike over what movies they should watch or what game they should play on the playground at recess.
Joyce smiles. “I remember the first time he ever slept over at your house,” she tells him, going back to smoothing her hand over Will’s hair. Mike has the ridiculous urge to bat her hand away and do it himself, but he settles for hesitantly laying a hand over Will’s above the covers. If Joyce notices, she doesn’t say anything about it, just keeps telling her story. “It’d been a pretty shitty week, to be honest. Lonnie had disappeared, as per usual, but he decided to turn up Friday morning after I dropped Will and Jonathan off at school, for whatever reason. And he was…well. I hope you don’t actually remember. I hate that Will and Jonathan do.”
Mike remembers, unfortunately. Remembers the finger-shaped bruises that Will would cover with too-long sleeves. Remembers, the few times he actually met Lonnie in the flesh, how he would sneer at the two of them as they played with Jonathan in the backyard or read comic books on the floor of the Byers’ living room. Maybe he had enough wherewithal to wait to start yelling at Will once Mike was gone, but Mike knows the things he used to say, to do. It had only taken a couple more sleepovers for him to beg his mom for Will to stay over more, or even just hang out after school. Anything to protect him from the monster that lived in the Byers’ house.
Joyce goes on, either oblivious to Mike’s flinch of memory, or bravely ignoring it. “I called your mother from Melvald’s to ask her if Will could spend the night at your house after school. Told her that Jonathan had a playdate with one of his friends and that I didn’t want Will to be alone at the house, and that I’d bring him by a change of clothes after my shift. I don’t know if she picked up on it, really, but I was extremely grateful that she agreed.”
“She probably just wanted a peaceful Friday night,” Mike says with a wry grin. “Probably figured that it would be about ten times more likely if I was distracted playing with Will to bug her too much.”
“Whatever it was,” Joyce says, laughing a little, “I was happy that Will would at least have a fun time with you. And of course, me and Lonnie fought, like always. He left again, later that night, and I contemplated burning all of his things. Unfortunately, that would have required burning the entire house down, so…”
She trails off and Mike waits patiently for her to gather her thoughts. Well, as patiently as he can, considering that Will is still unconscious and showing no signs of waking up anytime soon.
“When I went to pick Will up the next afternoon, Karen invited me in for a cup of coffee,” she says finally, eyes just barely flickering to Mike’s hand covering her son’s. Something in her expression seems to soften a little. “She said you guys were finishing up a board game of some sort. The door to your basement was open and I…I couldn’t believe my ears.” She sniffles, wiping her eyes, and Mike grows slightly alarmed. Before he can reach out, try to offer some comfort, she keeps going. “You were…you were laughing, I could hear that. You were laughing and Will was trying to tell you a story about Jonathan, how he broke his arm falling out of a tree. He was so…so loud.” A tear falls down her cheek. “I’d never heard him so loud. So…so happy. It was…beautiful. And when you two came upstairs, you were holding his hand and he was smiling so big, and I just…I wanted him to be that happy forever. I’ve always wanted him to be that happy. To find his voice.”
Mike remembers this too. How the previous afternoon, his mom showed up and said she was taking both of them home. “Your first sleepover!” she’d exclaimed, bending down to wrap Mike in a hug and ruffle Will’s hair. “Won’t that be fun?”
“Yeah!” Mike had yelled, absolutely thrilled with the development. He’d grabbed Will’s hand and tugged him into the car, and his mom stopped for ice cream and even ordered a pizza for them that night – a rare thing in the Wheeler household. And he and Will stayed up way too late, debating the pros and cons of asking the Sinclair kid to play tag with them at recess on Monday, because he was in a different class than they were so they couldn’t really be friends, but he usually played alone and Will felt bad for him. Plus, he reasoned, tag was more fun with three people instead of two. “And,” Mike whispered loudly, sitting up in his sleeping bag next to Will, “three people is almost a proper Party! We would just need one more!”
He had then immediately reassured Will that, even if the Sinclair kid wanted to play with them, that Will would still be his best friend in the whole world. Will had smiled that shy, brilliant smile with just a hint of bunny teeth, eyes gleaming in the dark.
But that’s the thing – Joyce is describing Will as though he barely spoke at all. When, with Mike, it seemed like he had never shut up. He was quieter, sure, less prone to tangents and loud exclamations than Mike was, but he gave as good as he got when it came to conversation between the two of them from the very first day they’d met. It was only when anyone else entered the room – Jonathan, their moms, Lucas and eventually Dustin – that Will’s voice seemed to fade into something softer. Something that other people seemed to need to strain slightly to hear. Except that, back then, Mike had never noticed. And he isn’t sure now that he ever would have, if Joyce hadn’t just pointed it out.
“He always had a voice,” Mike decides on saying, because it’s true. “He just…needed some encouragement.”
“He needed you,” Joyce tells him gently. She reaches across Will again to cover Mike’s hand, still holding Will’s limp one. “And I think you needed him too.”
“Of course I needed—need him,” Mike whispers. “He’s my best friend. He’s always been my best friend. I just..." He swallows around the lump in his throat. Because how do you explain to your best friend’s mother that you’re in love with her son? Her son who just revealed his sexuality to her and his closest friends two days ago? How is he supposed to tell her that he’s going to ruin the thing that she thinks is best for her son because of his feelings?
He doesn’t need to, it seems. Joyce smiles again, eyes soft and red-rimmed and puffy with sleeplessness, and squeezes his hand. “You saved him,” she says quietly. “In more ways than I think you could ever understand. And I will always, always, love you for that, Mike.”
It’s too much. Mike isn’t used to this level of…care. Joyce is looking at him like she knows him, knows everything, and she’s telling him that it’s okay. That Mike is, somehow, still good enough for her son. He feels tears prickling at his eyes and looks back down at their hands, all three of them. Thankfully, she just squeezes one more time and lets go. “I think,” she begins, raising a fist to stifle a yawn, “that I’m going to take Steve up on his offer of one of the other rooms. Hop snagged one, I’m pretty sure.” Mike wrinkles his nose a little at that thought, but Joyce isn’t finished. “You should lie down, Mike. He’s not…he isn’t going anywhere. He’ll be okay if you sleep.” She, maybe purposely, doesn’t suggest one way or another where, exactly, Mike should be lying down.
Mike still shakes his head. “I just…I need to look after him,” he says quietly. When Joyce opens her mouth to protest, he adds quickly, “I promise I’ll go to sleep if he doesn’t wake up soon. But…” I don’t want to leave him alone if he’s still stuck there.
Whether Joyce understands his unsaid words or not, she doesn’t say. She just smiles again, something a little sadder than before, and gets up after dropping a kiss onto Will’s forehead. Mike keeps staring at his and Will’s hands, fighting back tears, but he doesn’t flinch when Joyce smooths a motherly hand over his hair and leaves a kiss on top of his head too. When she leaves, she gently closes the door behind her.
They’re left alone.
Mike lets his gaze drag up to Will’s face, to the cut of his jaw (unclenched for once) and the sweep of his hair across his forehead. Sometimes, Mike misses the bowl cut; it was the thing that had made him brave enough to approach the little boy swinging alone, staring at the ground beneath his little feet that didn’t quite reach. But Will grew it out, and if Mike thought he was gorgeous before…well.
And all of a sudden, it’s all Mike can think about: the way Will looked with his hand outstretched and his eyes rolled back into his head, toes just brushing the ground, ready to take flight but for the grip of Mike’s fingers interlocked with his. While everyone else was beating back Demos of all kinds, Mike had had one job when it came to defeating Vecna and rescuing the kids: stay with Will. Because the second they had stepped back into that hellscape, Will’s whole body had stiffened, and every word that came out of his mouth grated like someone was squeezing his windpipe shut. Only when Mike instinctively grabbed his hand did Will relax, drop back into his own body.
Mike didn’t let go the whole time; he didn’t let go when their friends and family kept shooting him curious looks; he didn’t let go when the Upside Down came alive with the sounds of monsters; he didn’t let go even when the Mind Flayer stood over them all, or when Vecna stared right at him and whispered horrible things in his head. All of the things that Mike has thought about himself for so long, except that Will had admitted that he was the same. The same as Mike, only braver, because he could say it out loud. And if Will is like Mike – if Will likes boys – then Mike can’t be so bad. Because Will is amazing. He’s a million times better than Mike, but if they have this in common, it means that Mike has one less reason to hate himself. After all, he could never, ever, hate Will.
“I know you made the painting,” Mike says in a rush of breath, watching Will’s face for any sign of recognition, of awareness. When there’s none, he goes on, heart pounding in his chest. Too loud for the quiet room, but unable to stop himself any longer. “I know it wasn’t El, and I know you meant what you said. I know you’re in love with me,” and his voice cracks on the next words, “or at least you were. And I’m sorry, Will, I’m so sorry. I was – I’ve been such an idiot about you. I’ve wanted to tell you I knew every day for the last year and a half. I wanted to talk about it and figure out how long it was for you. I wanted to figure out if you still mean it.”
Will doesn’t move, just keeps breathing slow and deep, like he’s sleeping. God, Mike hopes he’s only sleeping, and not trapped somewhere in Vecna’s hellscape. “I’ve been afraid,” he continues, breath shuddering out of his lungs. “Afraid of—afraid of telling you how I feel. How I have felt. I’ve been afraid of what it meant, even though I’ve known since you left for California. It’s why – it’s why I didn’t write. Every time I tried, it just kept coming out, and I couldn’t send that to you, not like that, not when I was still trying to figure out how to end things with El. And I don’t want to tell you like this, Will, because I don’t know if I’ll be brave enough to say it again. But I…I have to. It’s killing me to keep it from you, from everyone, and you were – Will, you were amazing the other day, telling us. You are amazing, and if you’re – if you’re somehow trapped there…if El’s wrong, and you’re actually stuck, and I didn’t tell you…”
Mike adjusts his grip on Will’s hand, leaning forward to lace their fingers together and hold the back of Will’s hand against his racing heartbeat. “I love you,” he whispers, staring intently at Will’s slack, peaceful expression. “I’m in love with you. I loved you back then, and I love you now, and I think I’m going to love you forever. And I want you to love me back.” There are tears streaming down his face now, every breath catching in his throat, but he has to keep going. He has to say it out loud, even if Will can’t hear it. “And I know I should have told you before, I know that, but I…I guess I was afraid that you wouldn’t believe me, or that you would think it’s just because El broke up with me. I didn’t want you to doubt it, to doubt me. I was going to tell you as soon as all of this ended, but you…and now…”
He lifts Will’s hands to his lips before pressing his forehead against it. “I’m sorry it’s taken this long. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before we killed him, or before he came back, all those times we were together in my house, or at school, or waiting for Holly on the swings. Will, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. I’m sorry that I’ve been such a fucking coward about everything. But I…I’m not sorry I love you. I’m just sorry that…sorry that I made you wait. And if you don’t – if you don’t want that anymore, with me…” The rueful laugh that falls out of his mouth is more of a sob. “I suppose I deserve that. And you…you deserve whatever you want. Whoever you want. But you have to wake up, okay? Please, Will, please wake up. Please.”
He keeps murmuring those pleas, over and over, interspersed with quiet I love yous.
Will doesn’t wake up.
***
Mike doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he must have, because his cheek is planted on something solid and his neck aches the way it does when he’s slept in the wrong position for too long. It takes a moment to orient himself and figure out why he’s hunched over, what he’s laying on, and who’s running gentle fingers through his hair—
Fingers in his hair—
His eyes fly open and he sits bolt upright, body protesting the sudden change in position. “Hey,” Will protests, making grabby motions with the hand that hadn’t been trapped under Mike’s chest, “I was enjoying that.”
“Will,” Mike gasps, feeling like all the air had been sucked from the room. “Will, holy shit, you’re – are you – you scared me to death—”
“Yeah, that seems to be the general consensus.” Will chuckles a little bit. The sound of his deep, tired laugh snaps Mike out of his frozen state and he moves closer before he can think about why he shouldn’t, reaching out to lay a hand over Will’s heart and touching the dark shadows under his eyes. “Mom said to let you sleep, that you’d been up for way too long. Seriously, Mike, you didn’t have to do that.”
“When did you—?”
“About an hour ago,” Will answers the unfinished question. He seems perfectly content to let Mike put his hands all over him, hips pressed together where Mike still sits next to him on the edge of the bed. “It’s good you’re awake though, because I really need to pee. Can you…?”
“Shit, yeah, hold on—” Mike forces himself to move back, to give Will some space to sit up and swing his legs over the side of the bed. He hovers close, too close probably, but Will catches his forearm with one hand when he finally gets to his feet, swaying slightly with a likely headrush. “You good?”
“Yeah,” Will breathes, blinking rapidly like his vision is spotty. “Yeah, just—shit, sorry, this is embarrassing—”
“Whatever you need,” Mike promises, meaning it with everything he has. They shuffle towards the ensuite bathroom (seriously, how rich are Steve’s parents that they have not one, not two, but three bedrooms with attached full baths?). He lets go of Will at the door, but waits just outside, anxiously wondering if he should get Joyce or Jonathan or alert the others. But it sounds like Joyce had already been in, if she’d told Will that Mike hadn’t slept, and selfishly, Mike wants a few more minutes of just the two of them. He needs to know where Will had gone during those hours of unconsciousness. If he had merely been dreaming exhausted dreams, or if Vecna had played one last terrible trick.
Will doesn’t look surprised to see him leaning against the wall just outside the bathroom a few minutes later. Mike opens his mouth to…defend himself, maybe? Though he isn’t really sorry, and he isn’t really sure what he would be defending himself against anyway. Not that it matters, because Will just huffs out an almost soundless laugh and uses the renewed grip he’d gotten on Mike’s arm to draw him closer, one arm wrapping around Mike’s waist, the other around his shoulders. Mike, for his part, falls into Will immediately, burying his face in his shirt and inhaling deeply despite the fact that Will is still in the clothes he wore in the Upside Down and, at the very least, probably needs to change at some point soon. Predictably, Mike gets primarily the smell of sweat and iron, but underneath is the softer, nameless scent that Will has carried for as long as Mike could remember. That, accompanied by the feeling of Will’s steady heartbeat against his own chest, finally loosens the knot of anxiety he’s been carrying for…days, really.
“Is this…okay?” Will asks after a moment. “I mean…after…?”
“Yes,” Mike says immediately, tightening his grip on the back of Will’s shirt for good measure. To his credit, Will didn’t even pretend to try and loosen his own grip on Mike when he said it. Like waking up to Mike sleeping on his chest and then proceeding to, essentially, feel him up is more than enough proof that Mike doesn’t give a shit about the fact that Will is gay. But he sighs a little, maybe in relief, and a hand migrates back into Mike’s hair, fingertips dragging against his scalp. And Mike didn’t know before now that he likes having his hair played with, but if it brings Will comfort, then they can both benefit.
“El said you were sleeping,” he mumbles, voice slightly muffled by Will’s shoulder. “But I didn’t really believe her; you were too quiet.”
Will barks out a surprised laugh and finally draws back, though he doesn’t quite let Mike go, almost like he’s just as unwilling to stop touching. Again, Mike isn’t going to complain. “I was too quiet?”
Mike nods earnestly, aware of the fact that he probably looks ridiculous but willing to blame it on days’ worth of sleep deprivation for now. “You weren’t snoring,” he informs Will, “and you were just…lying there. If you hadn’t been breathing, I would have…I would have thought…”
“I wasn’t,” Will admits, expression falling into something serious. “Though I object to the allegations of snoring.”
Mike ignores the attempt at lightheartedness. “Then what happened?” he asks urgently, gently guiding Will back over to the bed. Will, somewhat clumsily, moves a couple of pillows so that he can prop himself up against them. Mike goes to sit at his side again, one foot on the ground and the other leg curled beneath him, but Will moves, a little shakily, towards the center of the bed and pats the space left behind firmly. It’s not quite big enough, at least not enough for Mike to leave any sort of respectable distance between them, but he takes it, gratefully leaning back against the headboard and pushing their sides together from shoulder to ankle. “Will,” he prompts when Will takes another second to answer. “Was it…did Vecna…?”
“No,” Will assures him, grabbing one of Mike’s twitching hands and lacing their fingers together. Mike’s heart sings with the ease of the motion, at how unhesitatingly Will is initiating contact. He hasn’t with Mike, not for years at this point. Not since the Mind Flayer possessed him and Will stopped trusting his own body. He’s accepted Mike’s closeness, leaned into it even, but he only ever reached out when Mike did it first. Now he’s holding Mike’s hand, and it’s like being little kids again, except that it means something completely different to Mike now. He wonders if it still means something different to Will too, or if he… “I mean, yes,” Will continues, interrupting Mike’s train of thought. “Kind of, I guess. Killing him…” He heaves a deep, frustrated sigh. “The part of me that was connected to the Hive Mind died too. The problem is, I was still anchored to it. Anchored to him, and the monsters, and the Mind Flayer. So when it all died, and I didn’t cut it off in time…”
Mike goes cold. “Did it…did it hurt?”
“I don’t remember,” Will says in a small voice. “But it tried to take me with it, I think.”
“Fuck,” Mike breathes, feeling terrified all over again. “How…how did you…?”
“You didn’t let go,” Will tells him, looking at him with that soft, affectionate expression that has always been Mike’s undoing. “Even when I was stuck in the Void, the one El has told us about, I could feel you holding onto me. And it took a little bit, but I was able to use that to bring myself back. Mike, you saved me. Do you realize that?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Mike protests, going warm with warring embarrassment and pride. “Really, I…your mom was here too, and Jonathan for a bit—”
“But you stayed,” Will cuts in, squeezing Mike’s hand as if to put emphasis on the words. “You gave me something to hold onto, and to follow back. I could feel you holding my hand, and hear you talking to me, and…Mike, thank you.”
“Wait,” Mike says, alarms pinging off in his exhausted brain despite the warmth in his chest, “you could hear me?” Oh my god, do you know? Did you hear me tell you I love you?
Before Will can answer, the door swings open. “Byers!” Lucas and Dustin chorus, tumbling inside and piling onto the bed to throw their arms around both Will and Mike. El and Max enter a little more sedately, El pushing Max’s wheelchair and twin grins on their faces. El still has dark circles under her eyes, as do all of them really, but she’s lacking the shakiness that Will carries, and she doesn’t seem to have any problems wheeling Max right up to Mike’s side of the bed.
For a second, when Max reaches out and grabs Mike’s free hand with a weak grip, he thinks she’s mistaken him for Will. She can see, somewhat, but it’s a lot cloudier than it was before she went into Vecna’s trance, and while it seems she’ll regain use of her limbs (the fact that she’s already using her arms is nothing short of miraculous, in Mike’s opinion), no one knows if her vision will fully return. He and Max have never been physically close, even in those few months where a tentative truce was called over the fact that both of their best friends were gone and it was easier to hang out with each other than Lucas and Dustin, who didn’t really get it. So naturally, the most intelligent thing he can think to say is, “Uh, Max?” He thinks he should get a free pass though because 1) he is still severely sleep deprived and 2) Will might have heard Mike saying that he’s in love with him. Not that Max knows about that.
“Shut up and hug me, you dork,” she tells him, pulling on the hand she’s captured. “You’re the only one who hasn’t.”
Mike is grateful for the excuse to let go of Will’s hand – though Will seems reluctant to let him, fingers sliding down Mike’s skin in a way that feels oddly deliberate and makes Mike’s heart skip. He bends over a little awkwardly to wrap his arms around Max’s neck and feels her too-skinny arms wrap around his waist in return. “I missed you,” he mumbles into her hair, still dry and brittle from eighteen months of minimal care, despite Nancy and Robin’s (and Steve’s) best efforts.
“Yeah, me too,” Max sighs. “I think we may need to redefine the parameters of this friendship.”
“Thank you for helping Holly,” Mike tells her sincerely, drawing back and taking her hand again when she offers it. She clings to him like she needs an anchor, like she still isn’t certain that the world isn’t going to melt away around her. He can’t blame her; it’s only been a few days since she woke up. “I think she’s scheming to get Mom to adopt you.” At least, Nancy had said something along those lines when she briefly popped in with Jonathan several hours before, while Will was still unconscious.
“She’ll have to fight Steve for me,” Max laughs, shaking her head in disbelief. “I…” She takes a deep, shuddering breath, face crumpling a bit. Mike casts a careful glance over his shoulder at the others, where Lucas and Dustin are still animatedly telling Will about what happened after he passed out and El has taken residence on his other side. Will seems torn between participating in the conversation and sneaking glances at Mike, hands twitching like he’s fighting the urge to…do something, Mike assumes. He feels another bolt of anxiety shoot through him, but Max is going on before he can let it take root. “She just left, Mike. How could she do that? Why?”
And this here, this is why Mike thinks that he and Max fought for so long when they met initially. Because neither of them wants to be seen as weak, as someone who needs to be pitied. They hide until it becomes too much, until it spills out uncontrollably, shocking everyone around them except for each other. And Mike knows exactly when they wordlessly, mutually accepted that they could be safe spaces for each other:
Max was the one who showed up at the quarry on November 6th in 1985 after school, which Mike had skipped. Mike didn’t ask her how she knew, not about the anniversary and not about the quarry. She’d withdrawn by then, accepting but not returning physical affection from Lucas, barely talking at lunch, refusing offers to hang out after school or on weekends (which Mike was too, most of the time). But he’d been sitting a few feet from the cliff’s edge, gazing down at the water and shivering with cold and the deep-rooted fear that it had all been a dream, that Will was still dead, that El never clawed her way back out of the Upside Down. He hadn’t looked around at the sound of bike tires on the gravel, was only mildly surprised when it was Max who sat down next to him. She’d handed over a sandwich and said, “Missed you at school today.”
Mike had scoffed and replied, “Oh, did you?”
“Don’t be a dick,” Max snapped back, punching him none-too-gently in the arm. “Look, Lucas and Dustin said to leave you be, but I figured someone should check on you anyway since Will and El aren’t here for you to mother hen over.”
“I don’t mother hen—”
“Save it for someone who might actually believe you,” Max interrupted him.
Mike wisely shut his mouth.
“Now,” Max went on briskly, rubbing her hands together and breathing into her palms, “are you out here because this is where they found the fake Will, or because you’re contemplating jumping again? Because I gotta tell you, if it’s the latter, I’ll kill you myself. Better yet, I’ll fly Will in from California and let him do it.”
Mike should have been surprised that she knew about his jump nearly two years before. He’d sworn Dustin and El to secrecy, and he was pretty sure that Troy never told anyone. At least, not anyone who would have believed him. But this was Max, who was too nosy for her own good, who had wormed her way into the Party despite Mike’s protests and never left. Even now, when she was seemingly fading away, she was showing up when it mattered most. “Neither,” Mike answered. When she shivered next to him again, he pulled off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. She glared at him, but wrapped it around herself all the same. “Both, maybe. I just…I keep thinking that they didn’t come back, you know? And…” He hesitated, afraid to say the next thing out loud. The realization he’d had a month prior, hearing El say she loved him and watching them all drive away: that he was never in love with her at all, and that he was beginning to think that Will had been his person all along. And he hated himself for both things, except that Will was the best thing that had ever happened to him, so maybe he really just hated knowing that if Will found out, he would hate Mike too. “And Will is probably having a shitty day too, and I can’t be there to help him.” Close enough to the truth without being too revealing, but this was Max, so she might see through that too.
If she did, she didn’t do more than cast a sideways glance at him. “Have you called him?”
Mike shrugged. “Couldn’t during school, could I? My parents don’t know I skipped yet.”
Max winced. “Um…”
Mike sighed. “You stopped by my house, didn’t you.”
“I told your mom I was bringing you your homework and she had no idea you hadn’t been in school,” Max admitted. When Mike glared at the lake beneath them, she added hastily, “But I don’t think she was mad! She just asked me if I could make sure you got home okay. I think…well, honestly, I think that maybe she expected you to skip after last year.”
Last year being when Mike had skipped to spend the day with Will, who was still recovering from having the Mind Flayer burned out of him the previous night. Sometimes Mike didn’t know whether his mom just didn’t pay any attention to her children, or if she knew more than she let on. Both thoughts filled him with dread.
“You should call him,” Max continued after another minute. “I’m sure he’s having a shitty day too. And you’re his best friend; I’m sure he would want to hear from you.”
Mike shrugged. “He never answers when I call,” he muttered.
“He will today,” Max said firmly.
She was right, of course; she’d hauled him to his feet and biked with him back to his house, where she hung out in the kitchen with Holly while Mike phoned the Byers’ California number without much hope. But Joyce answered, sounding extremely frazzled, and then relieved when it was Mike tentatively asking if Will was home. Will sounded even worse than Mike felt, voice thick like he’d been crying, or trying not to, for the entire day. But the sound of it, as much as it hurt Mike to hear, made his entire being feel calm for the first time in weeks. Months, really. He was saved having to ask about El by Will telling him that Jonathan had taken her out for ice cream or something – really, Mike should have cared more, but he was more interested in what Will had to say about himself. They talked for nearly an hour, and Mike could have talked for much, much longer, but his dad walked by grumbling about long distance phone calls and his mom was calling him for dinner, and Will was beginning to sound suspiciously sleepy anyway. Mike promised to call again the next day provided he wasn’t grounded for skipping (which made Will laugh, so he counted it as a win). When he sat next to Max at the dinner table, who had somewhat awkwardly accepted his mother’s invitation to stay and eat with them, he nudged her shoulder in wordless thanks, and she nudged him back.
But when Mike called again the next day (after arguing with his mom that he would keep it short and tell Will he was grounded for a week and couldn’t call again until it was done), Will didn’t answer. There was just the busy signal.
Max went back to not really speaking much to any of them, but they began doing their math and Spanish homework together in the library during their shared free period, with Robin joining in now and then to make fun of Mike’s abysmal pronunciation. And when she showed up at his house a couple weeks later after breaking up with Lucas, Mike didn’t turn her away. Her presence didn’t ease the way he missed Will (and El), but sometimes it was better to be lonely with someone else.
So it makes sense to him now why Max is saying this to him rather than anyone else. Because her mother somehow snuck out of Hawkins despite the quarantine several months before, leaving what little she had left in the temporary housing she’d been placed in after their trailer was torn apart by the rifts. At least, they’re choosing to believe she left and isn’t laying dead somewhere in the woods surrounding Hawkins. Choosing to believe that the note Lucas and Dustin found pinned to the fridge saying a simple, Tell Max I’m sorry and I’ll love her forever, but I can’t keep waiting around for another person to come back.
Max took it stoically a few days ago when they broke the news, just before leaving her and Robin’s friend Vickie at the Squawk. But it’s evidently been on her mind, and Mike can’t blame her for that. “I don’t know,” he admits in a low voice, squeezing her hand and setting aside his own anxiety over Will for the moment. “I can’t imagine it.” He doesn’t apologize, doesn’t try to offer useless condolences. It won’t help; he knows that.
“I know that it must have been really hard,” Max whispers, shutting her eyes like blocking out her new, fuzzier world will help. “After my dad just left when I was a kid, and my stepdad, and—and Billy…” She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “But I wasn’t dead. I was just…”
“Lost,” Mike finishes for her. “But Max, maybe that was worse. I’m not saying that it makes it okay, or easier, but you told Holly that you weren’t sure how much time had passed by the time she found you, right? We did.” He becomes aware of the fact that the others have quieted behind them, finally catching on to the fact that Max is going through something right in front of them. He feels the moment that Max realizes it too, the sudden slackening of her grip on his fingers and the way her shoulders tense. He keeps going anyway. “El tried to find you so many times, it’s insane that Vecna never sensed her. And Lucas visited you every day. And…after awhile, when nothing changed, it was like…we didn’t know if you were even there at all, or if you had just left your body behind. We knew to hope, at least, but your mom…we couldn’t tell her, not with the military everywhere, and not with how the Demos all withdrew into the Upside Down. We had no proof, no way to tell her that we knew where you might have been. I mean, how do you explain that?”
“But I’m her daughter,” Max protests, opening her eyes and letting the tears finally escape.
It prompts Lucas to jump up from where he’s crushing Will’s legs and hurry over to wrap his arms around her neck from behind, awkwardly hunched over her wheelchair. “Goddamn it,” Max mutters, scrubbing at her eyes with her free hand. “Forget it, I’m okay—”
“No one’s asking you to be,” Lucas tells her firmly. Mike feels more than sees Will and El crowd in on either side of him to reach out towards Max too, and Dustin squeezes in between Will and Lucas to join the impromptu group hug, which is really more just a tangle of limbs with Max at the center. “Max, you’ve been through actual hell, and when you came out of it, you were half blind, mostly paralyzed, your mom was gone, and you found yourself basically adopted by Steve Harrington of all people.” Max chokes out a noise that’s caught between a laugh and a sob. “You’re allowed to be upset. You’re allowed to be whatever you need to be. But you’re not alone.”
“Yeah,” Will agrees, wrapping his fingers securely around Mike and Max’s still-joined hands. The touch makes Mike’s skin tingle and he becomes very aware of the fact that Will has, once again, pressed their sides together from shoulder to ankle. “You’ve got us. You’ve always got us.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Max mumbles, but she’s smiling and giggling wetly. “It’s like I’m in a goddamn chick flick.”
“As if,” Dustin scoffs. “If anything, we’ve been stuck in a horror movie for the last four years.”
“Not the entire time,” Lucas protests, still clinging to Max with his chin on top of her head. “There’s definitely been some teen drama moments scattered in there.”
“We are teenagers,” Dustin argues. “It doesn’t count.”
“That’s exactly why it counts!”
They dissolve into what must be one of the most pointless debates Mike has ever heard them have, with Max and El chiming in now and then, and Will seemingly content to lean bodily against Mike and listen with a tired smile. When Mike chances a glance at him and their eyes meet, Will’s smile turns a little shy, eyes sparkling with…something Mike can’t read. And he needs to figure out exactly what Will heard him say while he was trapped in the void, he knows that. His stomach is still swirling with worry, his head spinning with the events of the last several days and what will come next. But he’s surrounded by five of the people he loves most in the entire world, and the boy he’s in love with is acting like personal space is something they’ve never known the concept of before.
So Mike figures that he can put off that conversation with Will for a little longer.
***
A little longer ends up being nearly three weeks.
It takes Dr. Owens almost four days to get back to them about whether or not they’re all going to be sent to prison for the rest of their lives for the minor crimes of kidnapping, assaulting (and, in Nancy in Hopper’s cases, killing) military personnel, smuggling illegal contraband (Murray), and sneaking in and out of an alternate dimension multiple times (though, to be fair, Mike isn’t aware of any law actually regarding that issue). By the time he shows up at Steve’s door, they’re all going a little stir crazy. But he comes bearing the news that, miraculously, no one is getting arrested. In fact, he has somehow gotten each and every one of them modest government payouts – with the understanding that they are all going to keep their mouths shut about the events of the past four years.
Best of all, he says, El is officially free. Somehow, incredibly incriminating details of the experiments performed on her and about twenty other children were leaked to the press, as well as the rumor that the mysterious earthquake and rifts and “unidentified creatures” that have been terrorizing Hawkins for four years were the direct cause of other unsavory activity based in Hawkins Lab. “My own reputation is in shambles, of course,” Dr. Owens tells Hopper, who insisted on meeting him outside Steve’s house, with Nancy poised at one of the upstairs windows with a sniper rifle (Mike is grateful that she’s his sister, because he would be absolutely terrified of her and her mysterious ability to acquire firearms otherwise). “But sacrifices must be made sometimes, and God knows that Eleven has sacrificed enough.”
It can’t have been that easy, Mike thinks. But Dr. Owens assures them all that El can stay in Hawkins, that any and all charges against her from California have been dropped, and she can continue on as Jane Hopper for the rest of her life. “Or any other name you want,” he tells her. “But no one will ever bother you again. If they do, they’ll have to answer to me.”
The matter remains that Hopper is still legally dead, but Dr. Owens says he’s taking care of that too. To be fair, that’s about the time that Mike stops listening, having heard all that he needs to hear: El is free, no one is going to prison, and he can go see his mom, figure out just how bad the house is looking, and maybe find some time alone with Will. Because of course, after Will woke up and it was determined that he was out of danger in regards to the Upside Down, he and Mike were relegated to one of the mattresses in the Harrington basement, where Dustin, Lucas, and Erica were already sleeping. Granted, it made for a hell of a sleepover, but Mike was going insane having Will so close without any answers in regards to what Will heard while he was unconscious, goddamn it.
Naturally, it isn’t that easy. First of all, the Wheeler-Byers house (as it became when Mike strongarmed his family into letting the Byers move in with them) is in shambles. Repairable, but it’ll be several weeks before any of them can move back into it. So it’s back to Steve’s while Nancy and Joyce work on figuring out how to get a construction company to come out without explaining how the damage occurred in the first place. Mike does grab a few things though: a box full of unsent letters, Will’s painting, and a mixtape he made awhile back. Considering that Will is sticking to him like glue, he’s beginning to cautiously harbor hope that Will might still have feelings for him, or at least be open to exploring the possibility.
With Dustin, Lucas, Erica, Hopper, El, and Murray free to leave Steve’s house, it becomes much less crowded. Mike and Will have the basement to themselves, but Mike still finds that they’re rarely alone. Robin, for one, seems to enjoy hovering and watching the two of them like they’re a particularly interesting zoo exhibit. Joyce, too, is unwilling to let Will out of her sight for more than a few hours at a time, which Mike can’t really blame her for, though he is starting to get slightly nervous (and annoyed) about how she keeps smiling at the two of them. Actually, scratch that, everyone keeps smiling at them. Maybe Will is the one who came out, but it’s like everyone took that little piece of information and immediately decided to apply it to Mike as well, which…isn’t incorrect, but Mike is feeling a little overwhelmed by the fact that everyone seems to have guessed his secret. Even his mom seems happy to see Will joined at his hip, though to be fair, he’s never actually been that worried about what his mom would think if she knew about his feelings for Will. He might have told her years ago, except that Ted Wheeler might find out, and Mike never had any idea how that might play out.
But now…
Mike knows there’s something wrong with him. There’s several somethings wrong with him, but perhaps the biggest one is that he doesn’t know if he ever really loved his dad. It’s not that Ted Wheeler was a bad father—God only knows that he couldn’t possibly have been worse than Lonnie Byers, who left after Will’s supposed funeral and never turned back up. But truthfully, Mike doesn’t think he ever even really knew his dad. He has some vague memories of falling asleep in his lap in front of the TV a few times as a little kid, but as far as father-son bonding went, that was about the extent of it. Mike can’t remember a single instance of his father asking about his day, or offering to help with homework, or even saying anything particularly kind to Mike. Or Nancy and Holly, for that matter.
Mike knows there’s something wrong with him when, after two and a half weeks of being in a coma, Ted Wheeler succumbs to the injuries given to him by a Demogorgon all but disemboweling him and then flinging him right through Mike’s bedroom wall. Because his mom is crying silently, hand over her throat where it still hurts too much to sob the way she surely wants to. Holly is devastated, still too young to really know that Ted probably never would have shown much interest in her either. Even Nancy, ever stoic, tears up and has to leave the room. But Mike feels…numb. Where he thinks there should be grief, there’s nothing at all. The only sadness he feels is for the rest of his family.
His mom comes back to Steve’s with them that night, taking up residence in the downstairs bedroom next to Max’s with Holly. Mike, not knowing what else to do, hovers in a way that Max will undoubtedly make fun of him for later, fluffing his mom’s pillows, reading Holly a story to try and take her mind off of their dad, asking repeatedly if they need anything else before his mom finally draws him down to kiss his forehead and shoos him away. Almost like he’s been summoned, Will is waiting just a few feet outside the door, leaning casually against the wall like he’s trying to pretend he hasn’t been listening in for however long. “You’re not subtle,” Mike informs him flatly, and ruins the effect by falling right into Will’s arms as soon as he opens them up. He feels small, somehow, despite the fact that he still has two or three inches on Will and has to hunch over a little to bury his face in Will’s neck the way he wants. But Will runs a hand over his hair and Mike lets out a sigh, closing his eyes.
And the thing is – they’ve been regaining the physical closeness they shared as much younger kids, slowly but surely, over the last eighteen months. Mike’s gotten used to Will’s shoulder pressed against his during debriefings of the Crawls, or on the basement couch late at night once Jonathan had snuck up to Nancy’s room to try and sort out their struggling relationship. He’s gotten accustomed to throwing his legs across Will’s lap when they’re struggling through pointless homework with Lucas and Dustin, and Will just propping his binder on Mike’s shins and continuing on without even blinking. They talk, and laugh, and hug, and Mike was worried that he was being too obvious about how he tended to drift across a room until he was at Will’s side, but if he made the conscious effort to not do that, he’s found that Will inevitably winds up next to him anyway.
But since defeating Vecna, closing the Upside Down, and spilling confessions to Will’s unconscious form, well…there’s been a shift. A welcome shift, more than, but a shift nonetheless. It started with Will holding his hand after waking up and has continued in a million other tiny ways that Mike might think nothing of if it weren’t for the fact that he still doesn’t know if Will heard him. Granted, they’ve barely been left alone except for at night, when they’re too exhausted to do anything other than sleep, but Mike thinks that, if Will wanted to, he would have brought it up by now. And if he isn’t, then Mike knows he should, but…but he’s enjoying this too much. The way that Will no longer hesitates to touch him, and lets Mike touch him in return.
Maybe Will’s just more secure in himself, having told them all that he’s gay, and finding that every one of them is treating him exactly the same as they always have. Maybe it’s relief that Mike didn’t push him away, especially after some of the horrible things Mike said to him when he was fourteen and an idiot. Quite the opposite: Mike took his hand and didn’t release it for hours and hours, keeping Will tethered when it seemed that nothing else could. And Mike – he wants to read into that. He’s desperately trying not to read into that. But Will is holding him close right now, fingers gently twining into Mike’s hair, his other hand splayed across Mike’s back. He implied that he heard Mike’s confession and he’s doing this anyway; how is Mike not supposed to read into that?
“I’m sorry about your dad,” Will whispers. Mike can feel his lips moving where Will has his mouth pressed against the side of Mike’s head.
Mike shrugs, but he feels himself shrinking in on himself even more as his chest clenches around the ball of nothing still lingering where he thinks he should be feeling grief. “I think I’m a terrible person,” he responds, the words barely more than a breath. He doesn’t mean to say it, or maybe he does. But he can feel the way Will’s hand tightens in his hair reflexively and the way his mouth immediately opens in protest. “Don’t tell me I’m not,” Mike pleads, pulling away. “Don’t tell me I’m not a terrible person, Will, because I—I don’t feel sad about him.” He hates the way his voice catches, low and reedy, but he hates even more how his skin begins to crawl the moment he steps out of Will’s embrace, screaming at him to go right back into it.
“Mike,” Will murmurs, already grabbing Mike’s arm to keep him from going too far.
“There’s something wrong with me,” Mike says, voice catching in his throat. “I don’t—I can’t—” The breath rattles in his chest, shorting out strangely and making him feel panicky. “Will—”
“Fuck.” Will wraps his hand fully around Mike’s elbow and tugs him further down the hall. They bypass the kitchen, where Mike faintly hears Nancy and Robin chatting quietly over the roaring in his ears, in favor of the sliding glass door that leads to Steve’s enormous backyard and pool, which is currently covered up and empty of water. The near-freezing air is like a slap in the face, making Mike’s senses snap back into focus. He becomes aware of his own feet just barely stumbling after Will, legs numb and uncoordinated, fingertips tingling and breath wheezing out of him. “Okay, okay,” Will’s saying, pulling Mike out of view of the warm light coming from the house. “You’re okay. Mike? Hey, look at me.” The warmth of Will’s palms on his cheeks jolts Mike fully into his own body again, hazel eyes swimming into focus and seemingly filling up the entirety of his vision. “Mike, you need to breathe.”
“I’m trying,” Mike argues weakly, sucking in a sharp breath that hurts more than anything else.
“Here,” and Will moves a hand to grab one of Mike’s, pulling it up to his chest, right over his heartbeat. It’s steady, maybe slightly fast, but nothing like Mike’s own racing, erratic pulse. “Come on, just copy me. In—” Mike tries to mimic the way Will breathes in deliberately, slow and steady. It’s shaky and comes in stops and starts, catching again in a way that makes Mike want to cry a little bit. “Out,” Will finishes, releasing the breath he took just as slowly. He does it again, Mike’s hand lifting and falling in time with the rise of his chest. That, more than anything else, actually gets Mike to focus enough to calm his own breathing. Will keeps his fingers around Mike’s wrist, his other hand sliding from Mike’s cheek to the back of his neck and staying there, anchoring Mike to the earth.
It takes another minute or so for the roaring sound in his ears to die down, for the feeling to return to his limbs. “Shit,” Mike groans, slumping back against the wall. He doesn’t remember going from standing to sitting, but Will shifts from kneeling in front of him to sitting next to him, a solid line of heat against his side in the middle of the late-November cold. “I’m—”
“I swear to God, if you apologize, I’m going to kick you,” Will warns.
“Fine.” Mike lets out a sigh, letting his head loll sideways to look at Will. Close, like he always is lately, but still not in the way that Mike wants. “Where did you learn that?”
Will laughs, shoulder jostling Mike slightly. Not that he minds. “Owens, if you can believe it,” he says. “Years ago now, pretty much right after you guys rescued me in ’83. Mom told him that I kept waking up choking and panicking, like I’d forgotten how to breathe. He said my night terrors were manifesting into panic attacks, and that if I could get my breathing under control, the calm would follow. Mom would wake up at night and calm me down, but I taught myself how when she started letting me stay over with you again so that I didn’t wake you.”
Mike frowns. “You could’ve woken me,” he protests. “You should have woken me.”
Will shrugs. “You were already sleeping like shit anyway, missing El and having nightmares about me disappearing. I didn’t want to make it worse.”
“You should have,” Mike insists stubbornly. “Do you still do it? Wake up and sit by yourself?”
Will looks away, shrugging again. “It’s only happened a few times in the last couple weeks. I usually just come out here until it passes and then go back down to the basement before you realize I’m gone.”
Mike’s surprised to hear that. Yes, they’ve technically been sleeping on separate air mattresses, but they’re positioned so that Mike can reach out and touch Will if he wants to, and vice versa. More than once since they closed the Upside Down, he’s stayed awake long after Will has fallen asleep and watched him breathe, wondering still if Will knows, why he hasn’t said anything if he does, why he’s seemingly made it his mission to completely eliminate any personal space between them, even when the others are around. “Well, stop doing that,” Mike tells him, nudging him with the elbow trapped between their bodies. “Wake me up next time. I don’t mind. In fact, I’d rather you did.”
Will rolls his eyes. “Okay, okay,” he acquiesces, grinning slightly. It fades as he adds, “Mike, there’s nothing wrong with you.”
Mike swallows. He figured this was coming, given that his lack of grief over his father being dead is what brought on the panic attack in the first place, but that doesn’t mean he wants to discuss it further. “Pretty sure most people wouldn’t feel nothing if their dad died, Will.”
“I did.”
That brings Mike up short. He squints in the near darkness at Will’s face, just barely lit up by the dim light that reaches them from the inside of the house. “What do you mean?” Lonnie, as far as Mike knows, is still alive and living in Indianapolis. At least, he was when Will went missing in 1983. Mike never saw him again after the fake funeral.
It’s Will’s turn to sigh. “Don’t be mad, okay? But…look, Mom got a phone call back in…January, I think? Well, her boss at Melvald’s did. Apparently they tried our old number first, but that obviously didn’t work, so they called the store. Lonnie’s girlfriend, I mean. Anyway, she called Melvald’s, and Mom’s boss told her the next day when she went into work that Lonnie had gotten into a car accident. Drove his car into a creek or something. His blood alcohol levels were through the roof, naturally.”
Mike goes cold. “Will.”
Will’s hands twitch where they lay in his lap, legs criss-cross. Mike reaches for one without thinking about it, unwrapping one arm from around his knees against his chest and twining their fingers together. He’s gratified when Will relaxes immediately, letting out a deep breath and squeezing back. “He died before the ambulance even got there,” he says calmly, like he’s remarking on the cold drizzle beginning to fall. “His girlfriend only called to tell Mom because she was pissed that he left everything to Jonathan.”
There are so many things that Mike wants to say, starting with asking why Will never told anyone, but what comes out is, “Just Jonathan? What are you, chopped liver?”
“Well, Lonnie apparently thought I was still dead,” Will chuckles humorlessly. “Guess he never got the news that I came back. Granted, I don’t know if Mom tried that hard to tell him other than a call or two.”
“There’s no way,” Mike says immediately. “That shit was all over the news. Hell, it made the New York Times. He couldn’t possibly have missed that.”
“Well, maybe he just didn’t care,” Will says carelessly. “After all, he never wanted a fag for a son anyway.”
“Don’t call yourself that.” Mike doesn’t mean to sound angry, but he knows he does. He always hated Lonnie, even when they were little kids, even though he barely knew him. Will may have never told him the true extent of it, and Mike may have only met the man in person once or twice, but he’d put the pieces together as they got older, and when Will cried and blamed himself when Lonnie left for good, Mike was the one who comforted him and told him it wasn’t his fault.
Will shoots him a wry look, thumb tapping deliberately against Mike’s skin. “He wasn’t wrong.”
“It’s still not true,” Mike argues. “Just because you like boys doesn’t make you a fa—doesn’t make anyone any of those things.” He’s saying it for Will, but he thinks he might be saying it for himself a little bit too.
Will smiles a little, dropping his gaze to their hands. “My point is,” he goes on, “when Mom told me and Jonathan, I was honestly…relieved. Lonnie was the first person who made me think I should hate myself for who I was, who I loved, and once he was gone…I don’t know, it made it easier to accept, somehow. Like he was the monster under my bed, which is totally laughable considering the actual monsters underneath our feet, but once he was dead, I realized that he couldn’t hurt me anymore. And really, he’d never been that scary in the first place. I just couldn’t see that until he was gone.”
Mike sort of wishes that Lonnie was still alive, if only so that he could punch him in the face. “Why didn’t you tell us?” he asks softly.
Will shrugs, bringing his other hand up and uncurling Mike’s fingers so he can play with them. “I meant to,” he whispers. “Really. But that’s the night that El tried to get Max back for the…third time? Like, really tried. Hop wouldn’t let her come on the crawl again, and she was pissed off. So Jonathan and Nancy took yours and Lucas’s place in the church tower, and…”
Mike remembers now. El, determined to do something, snuck back through the tunnels after Hopper left with Mike and Will in tow. Lucas went to the hospital to be with Max and play Kate Bush while they got the makeshift deprivation tank ready in the cabin. Joyce and Hopper were livid with them all later on, but Will wouldn’t let El go rooting around in the void without being there to warn her if Vecna caught on, and Mike wasn’t about to let his still sort-of girlfriend and the boy he was in love with try something so reckless on their own. When El ultimately failed to locate Max after several hours, only interrupted by Hopper banging into the cabin and demanding that Will and Mike pull her out, she refused to talk to anyone for two days. She broke up with Mike for good on the third day, citing his lie in the pizzeria ten months earlier and confirming, once and for all, that she had nothing to do with Will’s painting.
Oddly enough, she and Mike are the closest they’ve ever been since then. Will certainly seemed to brighten up afterwards, which is what finally led Mike to the conclusion that maybe his feelings weren’t so unrequited after all. He still wasn’t brave enough to do anything about them until Will was lost in the void.
He thinks he might be brave enough to ask Will about it now, given that they’re finally alone, but the timing…
“It just didn’t seem important,” Will finishes, linking his and Mike’s pinkies together for a moment. “And honestly, I’ve barely thought about it since. Which is…incredibly shitty of me, probably.”
“Lonnie was the shittiest father imaginable,” Mike says vehemently. “It’s completely valid that you were okay with him dying. I’m okay with him being dead.”
“My point,” Will says, mouth twitching at the corner for a second before he looks Mike in the eye, “is that you’re allowed to feel whatever you’re feeling. Or not feeling. Mike, you’re my best friend, okay? There’s nothing you could ever say to me that’s going to change that.”
Then again, maybe the timing is never going to be right, Mike realizes. But Will is looking at him steadily, maybe slightly nervously, and fiddling with Mike’s fingers with his own. Straightening them out one by one, curling Mike’s hand back into a fist, tapping his knuckles, twining their fingers together and releasing them. Nervous energy, Mike knows now. It’s humming between them both, making his skin spark everywhere they touch.
Will is giving him an opening.
So Mike gathers all his courage and says quietly, “You heard what I said to you.”
And Will nods.
The air shudders in Mike’s lungs when he inhales, unsure what he’s supposed to feel. Panic probably, but more than anything, he thinks he might be relieved. It’s out there then. No going back. “I meant it,” he tells Will, because he did, and Will needs to know that. “I’m in love with you. And it isn’t because of some powers that you stole from Vecna, or because me and El broke up. God, Will, I loved you way before any of that even happened. I just didn’t – I didn’t know what it was. What it meant. I can’t remember ever feeling any differently about you. And…and I’ve been scared of it, you know? But you told us you liked guys too, and Will, that was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen. You’re amazing, you know that? You always were, you are, and I think that I’m going to love you for the rest of my life.” He feels his voice crack on the words, feels his eyes stinging from the cold and the tears he’s trying to hold back.
Will is still just looking at him, eyes shining in the dark, cheeks red from the cold. They really should go inside before they both catch pneumonia, but Mike is anchored by Will’s side pressed to his, by their hands in Will’s lap, by the expression Will is wearing. It’s how Will has always looked at him, Mike realizes. It’s the expression Mike has always seen out of the corner of his eye, only to shutter when Mike turns to face him head on. But Will isn’t hiding it anymore, hasn’t been since everything ended almost three weeks ago. Mike just hasn’t been looking properly, as per usual.
Will huffs out a laugh, leaning further into Mike and dropping his forehead to his shoulder. “I’ve been trying to convince myself that I was over you,” Will says breathlessly. “I talked to Robin, and she told me about signs, but I thought she was wrong because everything she said—they were all things that we already do.”
Mike’s heart leaps in his chest, something like hope unfurling there. “Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Your complete disregard of my personal space, mainly.”
Mike grins, unable to stop himself from burying his face in Will’s hair. “You’ve been just as bad the last few weeks.” He taps his fingertips on the back of Will’s hand to prove his point.
“You like it,” Will mumbles, muffled by Mike’s shirt. Mike has to crane his neck a little to see it, but Will’s ears are definitely turning red at this point.
“Damn right.”
Will lifts his face and their noses brush. Mike isn’t expecting it, almost flinches back, but some stroke of bravery he’s rarely felt makes him nudge closer instead, pressing his forehead to Will’s and letting go of his knees to turn into his body. “You didn’t let go,” Will whispers, letting go of Mike’s hand just to anchor it in his shirt. “The whole time we were down there, you held my hand. I was going to slip away, you know? Vecna – the Mind Flayer – the Upside Down, whatever it was, it tried. I could feel it taking over, trying to turn me against you all, but you just—Mike.”
Mike wonders if Will feels the same inexplicable pull that Mike does, telling him to grab onto Will and never, ever let go again. It seems like he might, the way he’s tilting his head so that he can crowd even closer. Mike is half tempted to pull Will right into his lap. He thinks that Will might let him. “I wasn’t going to let it take you again,” he murmurs in the scant space left between their lips. “I won’t ever let anything hurt you again. Anything, anyone. Me, especially me. I won’t hurt you again, I promise.” It’s not a realistic promise to make, not when they’re both more than capable of hurting each other without even knowing they’re doing it, but Mike would sell his soul for Will’s happiness, he thinks. Whatever it takes to keep Will looking at him like that.
“Can I kiss you?” Will asks, pulling back enough to be able to look Mike in the eye without their vision blurring. “I’ve wanted—”
“Yeah,” Mike answers faintly, already tilting back towards him. Will meets him in the middle.
And look – Mike doesn’t want to compare Will to El, mostly because it’s unfair, but also because they’re practically brother and sister at this point and it’s just a weird thing to think about. But as much as he likes El, as much as she’s one of his best friends in the world and one of his favorite people…kissing her never felt like this. He’s never known, with absolute certainty, that a kiss was going to be good before it’s even happened. But he does, because he already feels like a livewire just from Will twisting his fingers into Mike’s hair and feeling the little sigh of relief Will releases just before their lips actually connect. Mike swallows it, pulls Will’s bottom lip between his own before it occurs to him that Will (probably) hasn’t kissed anyone, and Mike shouldn’t pull him in so deep so fast. It doesn’t seem like Will cares, not when he slots into the space Mike makes for him easily, albeit maybe a little clumsily. It’s endearing, the slight shake of his hands on Mike’s skin, from the cold or nerves or both. Then it’s just thrilling, because Will takes Mike getting both hands on his waist as an invitation to climb right into Mike’s lap, rather like Mike had been thinking about a minute ago, and use the hands he has in Mike’s hair to angle his head up so he can press back in with a low whine.
Mike takes Will’s weight, takes the tentative way Will licks into his mouth, takes all of it. And it’s near freezing out here, and the timing is all wrong because his family is mourning just inside and neither of them have been anywhere near okay for so long that Mike barely remembers what just being happy feels like, and he won’t push further than this, not now. But he does wrap his arms around Will anyway, kisses him back, and thinks that they can keep hiding out here for a little longer. The monsters aren’t going to come roaring out of the trees at them; Vecna isn’t going to creep into their heads and tell them they’re wrong for what they feel for each other; Mike is in love with his best friend, and the earth will keep spinning. They have time now to figure out the rest.
So Mike grins against Will’s mouth and feels his heart begin to mend.