Archive of Our Own

1. 

Mike Wheeler’s fourteenth birthday falls on a Sunday.

When he finally stirs awake, it’s to the smell of pancakes wafting up the stairs and under his bedroom door. He grins internally. Birthdays are the only day a year in the Wheeler house that his mom allows them to eat anything sweet for breakfast. Sugar is for after dinner only, she says whenever Mike tries to throw a box of Ghostbusters marshmallow cereal in the shopping cart. It’s bullshit, in Mike’s very correct opinion, but today is not a day he needs to worry about that rule. 

Normally— unless it’s one of the occasional days that his family forces him to accompany them to Church to ‘keep up appearances’— he wouldn’t dream of being awake this early on a Sunday. Today, though, the idea of chocolate chips is enough to get him out of bed before midday.

When he slips downstairs to wolf down his pancakes, he’s immediately pulled in to a tight hug, much to his discomfort.

“Mom,” he groans, trying to wriggle away. 

“Happy birthday, Michael,” his mom says, finally letting go but keeping a tight grip on his shoulders. “You’re getting so big,” she gushes, and Mike rolls his eyes, “look at you— fourteen and almost as tall as me. And you’re going into high school this year! You’ve grown up so much.” 

Mike groans again, eventually escaping her grip and slipping excitedly into the dining room. His haul of various science books and Star Wars merchandise is waiting for him in the living room after he finishes eating, though— just the same as last year, so he can’t have grown up too much. A little blue card signed Love, Mom and Dad sits on the top of the pile (even if Mike would have to be truly naive to believe Ted had any part in any of it, because he’s still snoring in the recliner chair despite the fact it’s now going on 12). 

It’s only after his mom insists on taking a picture of him with both of his siblings and a pin badge, that says Fourteen! (held up by his hand, of course, ‘so that it doesn’t ruin his new clothes’), that Mike is able to rush back upstairs to get ready for what he’d really been planning to do— which is bike to Hopper’s cabin to visit El.

As usual, he is required back home for the obligatory family dinner (though Mike doesn't know why his mother even still bothers with that, ever since Nancy stopped attending and the daily conversation went from stiltedly awkward to downright passive aggressive) so he’s hurrying to make a quick peanut butter sandwich when he hears the knock at the door. He puts the knife down, stacking the pieces of bread and taking a bite before walking down the hall to open it.

He does, and there stands all three of his friends, bikes dropped haphazardly on the front lawn in a manner that would’ve caused Karen Wheeler to have an aneurysm, had she been the one to answer. They’re all carrying their DND binders, backpacks on their backs, and Mike is confused for a split second before he remembers how he usually celebrates his birthday— with a campaign. 

“Oh,” he says.

It’s not like— it’s not like he’s opposed to the idea, but he’d sort of just assumed it wouldn’t be happening this year. They’ve hardly played a campaign a month for almost a year now, and— well. It’s just a little childish, is all. Aren’t they supposed to be getting older? He has a girlfriend now. He’s not the same nerd who spends all his time in his parents’ basement playing a board game. 

Nevertheless, he lets them in. 

“Happy birthday, man!” Lucas says immediately, pulling him into an awkward hug around his binder and patting his back. When he moves his hand to mess up Mike’s hair, Mike bats his arm away, scowling. 

Dustin does almost exactly the same dance, and Will, blessedly, leaves out everything but the hug. Mike is reminded why he has favourites. 

They all trail into the kitchen, chatting loudly and most definitely waking up Ted. 

“Um— guys,” he says, stiltedly, as the other three boys start grabbing bowls and packets of chips from the cupboards as they would usually. Mike winces. “I was actually— uh, planning on going to see El today.” 

Immediately, all three of their excited grins fade. Lucas pauses from where he’s already opening the fridge, pulling out four cans of cola. 

“What?” he asks, but Mike knows he heard. “But we always do a campaign on our birthdays,” his brows are furrowed, and Mike grimaces. 

“Well, yeah,” Mike starts, putting down his half-eaten and hug-squashed sandwich back on the cutting board, “but I promised her I’d go over today, and it’s my birthday so I probably should—”

“Seriously, man? You’ve spent every day with her this week,” Dustin interrupts from behind Lucas, holding an empty plastic bowl and unopened popcorn packet, looking at him incredulously. 

Mike rolls his eyes. “Well, she is my girlfriend, I’m allowed to spend time with her.” 

“But what about the campaign? You’re just ditching it?” 

“Come on, we’ll play another time, okay? I promised her I’d see her.” 

“You’ve been saying that for weeks!” Dustin scoffs. 

“Yeah, man, and we spent ages working on this campaign,” Lucas adds, crossing his arms and shutting the fridge. Mike doesn’t know why he of all people is upset. With Max, he must understand that El has to be his priority now. And it’s not like Mike wants to go and spend his birthday in a musty old cabin with Hopper just down the hall scoffing at him—truthfully, he’d much rather spend it eating junk food in his basement with them (and El, of course, if she could leave the cabin)— but that’s what he’s supposed to do, isn’t it? Even though they can’t go out on a proper date, he’s supposed to spend the day with his girlfriend. Surely Lucas should know that. Nancy did it on her birthday— she was out with Jonathan all day, so why would it be any different for him? 

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? But i promised her,” Mike sighs. Dustin scoffs again, shaking his head and looking at Lucas as if to say are you seeing this? Mike doesn’t understand what the big deal is. Sure, they haven’t played a campaign in a while, but that’s just what happens, isn’t it? They get older, and they leave their childish interests behind. He can’t imagine his dad playing a board game (or doing anything other than watching TV, although that’s beside the point), but he must’ve had some interests when he was younger. 

Will still hasn’t said anything, but Mike doesn’t look at him. When he finally does speak, hardly heard over Dustin and Lucas’ ongoing protests, it’s resigned and with an air of bitterness.  

“It’s fine, guys. Let’s just go to the arcade or something,” he suggests, and Mike can see that he is disappointed in the furrow of his brows. It makes him feel a little guilty, before he reminds himself that there’s nothing else he can do. He can’t let El down now. Lucas and Dustin both sigh, finally giving up and turning back to leave the kitchen, mumbling whatevers under their breaths. “We’ll play another time, right?” Will asks over his shoulder, a little sad, but with a hopeful smile. Mike returns it gratefully, nodding. He knew Will would understand. He always does.

Will gets to the kitchen doorway after Dustin and Lucas before suddenly, he stops, spinning back around to face Mike and sliding his backpack off of his shoulder. 

“Oh! Wait— here,” he stumbles, and pulls a small rolled up canvas out of it and holds it out to Mike. “Happy birthday,” he says, bashful. Mike takes it, smiling, and when he unrolls the parchment his grateful smile most definitely turns into an embarrassing, gleeful grin; Mike has always loved Will’s art. It’s uncontrollable. 

The piece on the canvas is another drawing of the Party— their DND characters undoubtedly illustrated by Will’s careful hand. The drawing is sketched beautifully in pencil and coloured in crayon; it’s a scene from their last campaign a whole two months ago. Mike’s paladin is at the front as usual, sword beared and hair dark. Will’s cleric is casting some sort of spell to protect them, and Dustin and Lucas’s bard and ranger are depicted with their own axe and sword. 

Mike looks up at him, beaming unabashedly. “This is amazing,” he gushes, like he always does. “Thank you— I love it.” 

Will returns his smile, clearly embarrassed, and his cheeks turn a little red. Mike’s feel warm, too. “No problem,” he says, carefully zipping his old backpack back up and sliding it on his shoulder. “See you at school tomorrow?” he offers, as they walk to the front of the house. Mike smiles back at him.

“Yeah, see you.” 

Lucas and Dustin shoot him annoyed glances as they finish tying their kicked-off shoes and step through the door and onto the lawn, picking up their bikes. 

He doesn’t know why they’re so annoyed. 

Dustin is still scoffing, as if Mike has committed some sort of crime for wanting to see his own girlfriend. He still hangs out with them at school, and he even spent last Saturday with them! It’s not Mike’s fault that El can’t come out with them, that she’s bound to the cabin— and what else is he to do, let her go crazy of boredom? What kind of boyfriend would he be if he did that? And besides, she’s his girlfriend, obviously Mike wants to spend more time with her. 

None of this logic dispels the little feeling of longing sprouting quietly in his chest as he watches the three of them bike away. Despite how he reminds himself that he’s doing the right thing and that he does, truly, want to see El, it takes him a little too long before he finally shuts the door. 

“You’re not playing DND?” 

Mike jumps about a foot in the air, spinning around to see Nancy looking at him with an amused expression where she stands on the bottom stair. 

“Jesus Christ,” he says, scoffing. “Don’t do that.”

Nancy snorts, and Mike just scoffs again. Maybe he has been hanging around Dustin too much.

“Why aren’t you playing?” she nudges, always trying to get in his business. 

“Because,” Mike replies, turning back down the hall and heading for the basement to find the jacket he left there the day before.

“That’s not an answer,” comes the annoying voice of his older sister just before he slams the door. 

He pins Will’s drawing up on the wall, in its rightful place next to all the other pieces Will has ever made for him, and as he looks around at all of them it almost makes him doubt, for a second, if he’s made the right choice.

And as he rolls down the road to the stretch of woods that Hopper’s cabin is hidden in— even though he is greeted by El with a big smile and peck on the lips, he can’t help but feel a little tinge of regret.

2.

It doesn’t truly become a problem until the day of their last campaign.

Mike has no idea how he has gotten away with lying to his parents so much— to get out of school, sometimes, to continue their campaigns later into the night, others— considering how clearly terrible he is at lying.

He supposes he’s out of practice— all of the Party members, but especially him, have always taken the Friends don’t lie rule extremely seriously.

After possibly the most awkward and stressful phone call of his entire life (and that’s saying a lot, because his mom always forces him to talk to about ten different distant relatives on Christmas Day every year), Mike hangs up on El and resigns himself to a day of sitting around in the basement. That’s not what happens, though, because when Lucas and Will arrive after Mike explains the situation over a much less stressful phone call, Lucas decides they must find an apology gift for her. Something that says ‘I’m sorry’, he says is what they’re looking for, and they bike out to the new mall at the edge of town. 

Hours are spent scouring jewellery shops and frowning at price tags, and smelling perfumes and then frowning at price tags. Lucas is looking, too— although Mike has no idea what he did this time to make Max dump him again— and though seems to have less trouble than Mike finding things she will like, he has no less trouble finding enough notes in his wallet. As it turns out, apology gifts are expensive. 

As the day drones on, and five stores become ten, and then fifteen, it becomes increasingly clear that Mike is really, really bad at apology-gift-shopping. It’s surprising, because when he has bought gifts for Will or Lucas or Dustin on past occasions, they’ve always seemed pretty happy, and he hasn’t had too much trouble picking things out. But then again— it’s much easier to pick a gift of a DND miniature or a new video game or science textbooks— all things he likes, too— or even new art supplies than it is to decide which floral smelling body spray is the most appropriate. Seriously, they all smell the same. 

If Mike has been bored, though, Will must have been something else entirely. Mike can’t completely blame him, since he hasn’t anybody to shop for (although he still doesn’t know why Will doesn’t just ask somebody out), but it’s hard to not be annoyed when he asks, for the fifth time, if they can go back to the basement and play DND.

The day only gets worse, when they’ve come out of the mall with absolutely no success, only to see the very person he was shopping for skip out of the mall, arm in arm with none other than Max Mayfield and holding an ice cream. Of course, she already suspected he was lying about his Nana— but now she definitely knows, after the terrible, completely useless excuses he and Lucas tried to give.

She dumps him, right there and then, and it’s completely unfair. He knew Max hated him, but this is a new low. He can’t believe it. Mike would never try to tell Lucas to break up with her, no matter how tempting it is.

Eventually, after Mike is over the shock of but definitely not over the offence of being dumped over something so stupid as skipping one day at Hopper’s cabin— after being threatened by him to do just that, no less— they do end up back in the basement. 

The DND table is already set up from that morning, but sue him if Mike isn’t really thinking about DND right now. Nevertheless, Will still keeps trying to engage both Mike and Lucas in the campaign, playing his music far too loud and sitting behind the Dungeon Master screen.  

He’s wearing his old Cleric costume, one Mike hasn’t seen in almost two years, and Mike knows he’s just trying to have fun, and maybe deep down Mike knows he’s also being unfair, but— well, Lucas isn’t even paying attention, either, so he can’t be blamed if he has other priorities, right now. He’s just been dumped for the stupidest reason, and it’s not even his fault! It’s Hopper’s! 

He doesn’t understand why Will gets so upset when both he and Lucas run to the phone when it rings. Sure, maybe he feels a little left out, but it’s not Mike’s fault. Will doesn’t even care about girls, as far as he knows. Why is he so upset that Mike and Lucas do?

Mike has never known Will to act like this— all summer, he’s been pulling faces and sulking every time Mike is with El, and Mike doesn’t get it. Sure, he can have a bit of an attitude sometimes, but him being this downright rude is completely out of character. If Will is so jealous, why doesn’t he date a girl himself? He’s the one choosing not to; Mike has seen with his own eyes that girls would be willing to date him. 

Despite all of this, Mike is still Mike, and Will is still Will, and he has never been able to stand seeing Will upset at him. This is why, when Will throws off his robe and his pointed purple wizard hat and uncharacteristically pushes past Lucas up the stairs, Mike’s attitude immediately changes. It’s why, when Will storms right through the house and for the first time ever doesn’t say a polite goodbye to Mike’s mom, Mike chases him out to the garage, apologising, and it’s why, as Will pulls out his bike in the pouring rain, his striped t-shirt and Mike’s polo both getting drenched to the bone, Mike tries to get him to stay. 

He really does mean it, when he says that he was just messing around. That they can finish the campaign now, and he doesn't mind waiting to call the girls afterward.

Will only finally responds after Mike tries, in a last ditch attempt: “It’s a cool campaign, it’s really cool! We’re just not in the mood right now,” and he thinks it will help, will reassure Will that they don’t think his campaign is boring, and maybe quell his insecurities because Mike knows he is usually nervous about DMing. 

It doesn’t.

Will turns to him for the first time since they came outside, spitting his name like it something’s that physically hurts him, and maybe it does. You guys are never in the mood anymore, he says, and Mike doesn’t say anything, because it is probably true. You’re ruining our Party! he all but shouts, and that’s completely unfair, Mike thinks, but also maybe it’s not, and Mike doesn’t know where Dustin is right now, and maybe Mike is destroying everything just so he can bike to El’s house everyday and sit cross-legged on her bed and kiss her. 

But how can Will blame him for that? Friends grow apart. They grow up, and they grow apart, and they get girlfriends and they hang out with their girlfriends and it’s not Mike’s fault that Will can’t understand that yet. It’s not fair that he is upset at Mike for it. It’s not Mike’s fault that Will doesn’t like girls, and this is what he says, and maybe it’s cruel and harsh and unfair, and even though Will is being all of those things too, Mike regrets it the moment it comes out of his mouth.

And— look. He knows how it sounds, okay? He’s always been the one who was there, the entire time, from when Will was six years old and hearing it from his father to when Mike was twelve years old hearing it from Troy. He knows exactly how it sounds, but that’s not what he meant. 

From the look on his face when he violently flinches, Will clearly doesn’t know that. 

He can practically see it in the other boy’s eyes— how Will completely deflates, in a way he only ever does when insults are hurled at him on the playground or school hall or, some time ago, in his own house. It makes Mike sick, hearing the echo of his own words in his head but replayed in a different voice— one of a hateful young boy, joined by the sound of locker doors banging and jeering laughter, or one of a much older man, joined by the clink of glass bottles and slammed doors. 

He tries to take it back, I’m not trying to be a jerk, okay, and he tries to make it better and make it sound— not like that, but it’s evident the damage is already done. Will doesn’t even try to argue again. I mean, what did you think, really? Is what he tries; that we were never gonna get girlfriends? That we were just gonna sit in my basement and play games for the rest of our lives? 

The way Will replies— the last thing before he turns and wheels away into the rain on his bike— paired with the heartbroken look on his face will haunt Mike for a long time. I guess I did. I really did.

It hurts more, because not too long ago, Mike had thought that too. He doesn’t know when it changed, but it did. At some point, playing games with Will forever became playing games with Will and Lucas and Dustin forever and now to— well. Mike doesn’t know— but it’s not anything like that anymore. But that’s just growing up, isn’t it? That’s what happens; they get older, and they leave those childhood dreams behind. That’s what Mike’s been trying to do. 

Will has been making it very hard. 

He doesn’t stay any longer. He turns and finally mounts his bike; Mike can just barely hear the click of the pedals over the pummelling rain. He doesn’t spare a glance at the house behind him or the boy standing under the garage, but it doesn’t stop Mike from calling for him again, shouting Will’s name into the downpour. There is no reply.

Later, after he, too, is drenched in rainwater and has dragged Lucas with him, and he’s standing in the stretch of woods where Castle Byers used to be— looking into Will’s eyes, full of fear as he tells them, he’s back— he won’t say the apology that has been burning his mouth for the entire bike ride here; the one that partly spilled out on the Byers’ doorstep, and would have fully if Lucas wasn’t there for an audience. 

Instead, he won’t say anything more, and Lucas will never know the extent of their argument, and Dustin will never know there was one to begin with, and Will will never know that Mike… that Mike didn’t mean it like that. That he didn’t mean it like anything, really. 

For the rest of the summer, their interactions will be stilted and heavy. Mike will bite back the words on the end of his tongue every time they find themselves alone together— but that won’t have to happen often, because while it will be surely rare that Will allows himself to be left with Mike, it will be just as much that either of them see a lot of each other altogether.

3. 

The day the Byers leave for California is cloudy. Which is fitting, really— though after a summer of scorching hot temperatures, sweat-stained clothes, and runny noses, it’s a little surprising. Mike is glad for it, all the same, as he bikes for the last time down the little country road leading to the Byers’ house. 

The sun is just barely rising, but he and the rest of the Party had promised to come over once more to help Will and El pack up the rest of their things and say goodbye to them. 

His bike pulls into the driveway, and Mike drops it onto the lawn softly. He doesn’t know what he was expecting when he arrived at the house, but it certainly wasn’t this. 

The house is completely scarce of furniture as he walks inside, boxes labelled donation piled in every room, and it looks so different to the familiar messy dwelling that had been one of Mike’s favourite places in the world for most of his childhood— the comfortable laid back atmosphere always contrasting his own house of strict rules and up-kept appearances. 

Without the miscellaneous clutter scattered on the tables; the various accumulated magnets, drawings and postcards pinned to the fridge; the colourful carpet laid over the wooden floor where the dining table used to be, it’s almost completely unrecognisable.

Mike is the first one here, which means that it will be the first time being alone with Will for a significant time since their fight. Mike’s throat is very dry. 

He let himself in through the unlocked door after saying a quick hello to Joyce and Jonathan who were outside packing the car, and he’s now walking down the hall to find his friend.

When he gets there, Will’s room looks catastrophically different. The walls are bare where they once displayed his beloved Jaws poster, and the bookshelf, bed frame, and dresser are all missing. The patterned blankets that used to adorn the bed are gone too. As are the second-hand rug, and the curtains. Everything that made the space Will’s.  

The room is just four walls, now.
  
If it wasn’t for the boy himself sitting in the middle of the room, Mike would have no way of telling the space apart from Jonathan’s. 

“Hey,” he whispers, crossing his legs beneath him as he lowers himself onto the ground next to Will. He’s sitting in front of three open boxes— two labelled donate, almost filled to the brim, and one labelled keep, about half full— and folded neatly in his hands, oh, God, is his cleric costume; the pointy hat balanced carefully on top. 

“Hi,” Will whispers back. He doesn’t look up at Mike, eyes locked on the one of the shiny stars stitched onto the purple fabric by Joyce’s careful hand. Mike doesn’t know what to say. He almost wants to bring up that day— to apologise, but it’s been so long already and at this point Mike thinks it would do more harm than good. If neither of them say anything, they can almost ignore it— pretend that the argument between them outside of Mike’s garage never happened, but it’s harder for Mike to do so now that the repercussions are right here in front of him, in the form of the downcast look on Will’s face as he stares at the folded cloth.

“How’s packing going?” he asks instead, because although this is not exactly a safe topic, it’s safer.

Will looks up from his lap and at Mike, shrugging slightly. 

“Fine,” he replies, and it’s just a little too forcibly nonchalant for it to be genuine. “I’m almost done. Just need to clear out old toys and stuff,” he adds, gesturing to the closet which still has a few stuffed animals on the top shelf and a stack board games on the floor. 

Mike nods, looking down at his own lap and fiddling with his hands. It’s quiet for a moment, and Will leans forward on his knees to shuffle through the pile of various objects that he hasn’t sorted into the boxes yet. Mike can spot a box of crayons and an old dice. Will drops the crayons into the Keep box, but keeps the dice in one hand, leaning back.

After another short silence— not exactly awkward, but not the same type of comfortable it used to be— Will clears his throat and says, “I’m gonna miss you guys.” 

Mike pulls his gaze up, but Will doesn’t look at him, busy rolling the yellow dice between his fingers.

“Oh,” he says stupidly, blushing, and then, “we’re gonna miss you, too.” 

It’s very, very true, and Mike knows he especially is going to miss Will so much. 

Will’s lips quirk into a little smile, and then he turns his head, facing Mike again. 

“Promise you’ll write?” he says, hopefully. Mike nods right away, returning the smile.

“‘Course,” he responds, and then they’re just looking at each other for minute, and it’s still not awkward, but it’s still not comfortable, either. Warmth rises to Mike’s cheeks, but he doesn’t know why he is embarrassed. The moment is only broken when the doorbell echoes through the house. 

“Oh,” Will breathes, finally breaking eye contact, and Mike, weirdly, mourns the loss.

“Must be Lucas and Max,” Mike concludes quickly, and then he’s pushing himself to his feet, for some reason suddenly eager to get out of the room. “I’ll get it.” 

Will nods, and Mike pretends not to notice the way his demeanour shifts, and his smile falls. He hurries out of the room, and pretends not to notice when he sees Will place the purple robe on top of one of the almost-full boxes, because he tells himself, again, that saying anything would do more harm than good. 

Later, he also pretends not to notice how he doesn’t lean into it or close his eyes when El kisses his lips once more in the same empty bedroom. 

And even later, he pretends not to remember the promise he made. 

He doesn’t write. 

As much as he tries to justify it to himself— Will didn’t either, or he probably doesn’t want to hear from me anyways— he knows he’s the one in the wrong. 

He writes to El - vaguely impersonal recounts of the week’s events, Eddie’s latest campaign, what he had for dinner the night before. He was the one who started that letter exchange, too, slapping Will Byers, Lenora, on the envelope  (another cruelty, he knows, but El was still supposed to be hiding and it was safer for everyone involved) and sending it off to their home with nothing for his supposed best friend besides a P.S. scribbled at the bottom: tell Will I miss him.

It’s not for lack of trying, though; in fact, when he’d first ripped out a page of his notebook, it had been with the intention to send to Will and apologise. For everything— for spending so much time with El and almost none with the original Party, for being so cruel to him the day of their last campaign, for what he said in the rain outside his parents’ garage, all of it— but he just— couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come. 

How do you apologise to your best friend for ignoring them all year and then possibly insinuating- something- during the biggest argument of your friendship, and then avoiding them for the rest of the summer so you didn’t have to think about it? Because Mike sure doesn’t know.

So he didn’t send it. He gave up after the fifth attempt at writing a letter, opting to write El’s first and come back to it— but he never did. The half-finished drafts have sat at the bottom of his desk drawer ever since.

He’d tried to call instead, but he can’t blame Will for not answering after everything Mike has done. Besides, he’s probably busy with his new friends in California— it must be hard moving so far, and Mike isn’t upset if Will wants to spend more (or all) of his time talking to them. 

It would be okay, he had reasoned. He was supposed to visit over Thanksgiving, and he’d be able to apologise to Will in person, and maybe with a bit of luck Will would forgive him, and everything would go back to how it was before. 

But then he didn’t get to visit over Thanksgiving, and the Byers didn’t get to come back to Hawkins over Christmas, and though Mike managed to get through to them on Christmas day, Will did not sound happy to hear from him. Mike still doesn’t blame him. 

4. 

For the first time since he was twelve, Mike gets the window seat. Being a middle child is like that— you get all the benefits of being the youngest, and then they get ripped away as soon as the new sibling comes along. 

His sisters aren’t here today, though. Nancy had opted out of the visit, and Holly was never coming in the first place, so he got to choose the best seat. His legs have just a little extra room, but even an inch is precious when you’re five foot ten at fourteen. 

So he’s sitting at the window seat on a flight to Lenora Hills, California, and though he is anxious, he is also hopeful. Will and El will both be at the airport when his flight lands, and he’ll be staying with them for the whole week, and he’ll have plenty of time to make it up to the both of them. If everything goes right, in seven days’ time, Mike will be returning to Hawkins on the plane home with his best friend back. 

The pilot announces that the descent is about to start, and Mike clicks the lid back onto the pen he was using to sign the bottom of the yellow birthday card. He slips it into the envelope, and stuffs that into the side pocket of his suitcase, right next to the clumsily-wrapped Hellfire Club t-shirt that Mike had asked Eddie for on a whim, and the slightly-neater-wrapped leather sketchbook. It’s not the most outstanding Birthday-slash-apology gift, but it was the best he could do with his freshman-sized budget and limited knowledge of Will’s current interests. Mike hopes he still likes drawing. 

When the plane lands, he pulls the flowers he spent this morning picking— that he is now starting to rethink, because he doesn’t even know if El likes flowers— out of the seat pocket, somehow manages to remove his suitcase from underneath the chair in front, and joins the crowd of people descending the stairs. 

Needless to say: his plan goes to shit. 

El is easy enough to greet, he knows what he is supposed to do, he can show his happiness at seeing her and kiss her and hug her back when she hugs him. Her hair is longer, clipped back at the sides with short bangs in the front— no doubt thanks to Joyce— and she’s wearing one of what he can only assume to be Will’s shirts with a pretty striped dress over the top. He gives her the flowers, and has to cut himself off when he starts nervously rambling about them so much, and then Will walks over.

He’s smiling— Mike can’t imagine why, considering how Mike has ignored him the past six months, but Will has always been a little too forgiving, especially when it comes to Mike. Sure enough, he’s wearing a shirt just like El’s, dark blue and white with the sleeves rolled up halfway. His hair is shorter— still in the familiar bowl-cut style with blunt bangs, but it doesn’t come down past his ears anymore. He’s much taller, too. Where he used to be at least half a head smaller than Mike, they’re now almost the same height. And he’s less scrawny. In short, if Mike didn’t know Will’s face so well, he might not even recognise him. 

Will leans in for a hug, and Mike just pats him on the back. 

He doesn’t know why he does it— possibly the awkwardness that comes with seeing him again after so long without speaking, possibly the sadness that festers in Mike’s heart at how different he looks, how much Mike has missed, or possibly the guilt he feels that has all rushed back after seeing his friend again. The way Will’s smile falls only worsens it. 

He’s carrying a large canvas, Mike notices vaguely, rolled up and tied neatly, and he’s confused for a second before he realises what it must be. Will has been painting a lot, El’s last letter had said. But he won’t show me what it is. I think it is for a girl. 

Of course. God, Mike really knows nothing about his supposed best friend’s life anymore. He can’t name a single one of Will’s Californian friends— he doesn’t even know for sure he has any, and he doesn’t know whether he wants him to, either. He has crushes, though, apparently. Mike doesn’t know why this fills his mouth with a sour taste. 

He asks about the painting anyway, because in spite of how much he’d been planning on saying, none of it feels quite appropriate anymore. Will doesn’t seem too outwardly mad at him— it would only make things more awkward to dredge everything back up now. And in front of El, too, and Jonathan, and Jonathan’s new friend he introduced as Argyle, who is wearing an outfit even more ridiculous than Mike’s. Yeah, Mike won’t be apologising here. 

Sure enough, Will doesn’t provide much information, and Mike doesn’t provide much of a response. The awkwardness is a physical thing. 

Jonathan, blessedly, breaks it, and Mike takes El under his arm as they turn to leave the airport, just like he’s seen Jonathan do with Nancy. 

The rest of the day follows similarly— Mike chatting to El and acting as couple-y as he knows how to with her, pretending not to notice Will’s obvious bad mood or the perpetual stiffness in their interactions. It only gets worse as the day drones on, and Mike would say something about it if he knew how to, but Will doesn’t seem to be making much of an effort, either, so he doesn’t. 

He shares a burrito with El, and they swap milkshakes, and he sits on the same side of the booth as her and holds her hand while they skate around the rink. 

Somehow, still, everything goes wrong.

El has been lying to him, it turns out. Everything she told him in their letters or since he got here— about her friends, about parties, is all made up. Mike couldn’t imagine a worse way to find out, either, than one that involved a milkshake covered dress, a roller-skate to the face, and an argument that is sickeningly similar to the one of last summer. The lights are flashing and colourful instead of the overhead of Mike’s garage, and the background noise is laughter and music instead of heavy rain, but it feels almost exactly the same. Mike is exactly the same. 

Or maybe he’s not. After all, Mike of two years ago would never have left that look on Will’s face in the roller rink. Maybe, somewhere down the line, something changed, and neither of them even noticed before it was too late. 

El doesn’t speak to him for the rest of the day. Will doesn’t either. 


And, later, when El is far away but he and Will are closer, physically, than they’ve been for almost a year— squashed in the back of an old yellow pizza van and trying in vain to prevent their heads from hitting the roof every time the very uneven ground causes the vehicle to bounce; when Will is looking at him like there is something Mike is missing, something he just doesn’t get, presenting him with the most beautiful painting and telling Mike all the things he’s always wanted to hear, and telling him it’s all from El, Mike doesn’t doubt him. Not because he believes those things, and certainly not because he believes that El believes those things, but simply because Will is the one saying them. 

It’s the same things, the same speech and the same encouragement, then, that pushes him to do this. He’s standing in a pizza dough freezer, with his best friend and his best friend’s brother and his best friend’s brother’s best friend, and his girlfriend is laying on the table and somehow Will seems to think Mike is the one she needs. 

He’s not doing anything, really— just calling her name frantically, and she might not even be able to hear him— but Will seems to think it is working, because he tells Mike not to stop. You’re the Heart, he says— and in his eyes, Mike can see his own fear reflected. He would never forgive himself if he was the reason they both lost her. It’s this that finally forces the words out of Mike’s mouth. 

“El? I don't know if you can hear this, but... but if you can, I want you to know I'm here, okay? I'm right here,” he starts, and it sounds stupid to his own ears, because he can’t imagine how him being here would bring any comfort to her— so he screws up his eyes and pretends there’s nobody else in the room. He has to do this. Otherwise, she will die— and it will be Mike’s fault, and Mike doesn’t think his bony shoulders that have never lifted more than a stack of textbooks would be able to carry any more guilt. “I love you,” he forces out, and it’s only after he finally says it that he realises why he hasn’t before.

It’s not true. 

At least, not in the way everybody else in the room thinks it is. 

“I'm sorry I don't say it more. I... It's not because I'm scared of you. I'm not. I've never felt that way. Never,” he rambles, and honestly, he’s just saying stuff, now, because he knows for sure that he was scared, when a little twelve-year-old girl with no hair and blood dripping down her face and a tattoo on her wrist launched his friend across a car junkyard with nothing but her mind, and he knows that he was scared just a few days ago when he saw her, standing over a girl with a bloody nose and holding the guilty roller skate.

“But I am scared that one day you'll realize you don't need me anymore.” This part, at least, is true. 

“And I thought if I said how I felt, it would somehow make that day hurt more. But the truth is, El, I don't know how to live without you,” he carries on— he’s just saying anything, anything that he thinks will give her what she needs to fight, and some of it he knows is true— but some is definitely not. Nevertheless, he keeps rambling.

“I feel like my life started that day we found you in the woods. You were wearing that yellow Benny's Burgers T-shirt, and it was so big it almost swallowed you whole. And I knew right then and there, in that moment, that I loved you. And I've loved you every day since. I love you on your good days. I love you on your bad days. I love you with your powers, I love you without your powers. I love you for exactly who you are,” by now, he can tell El isn’t believing a word of it— if she can even hear him— and surely Will knows he’s lying too, but there’s nothing to do but keep going. 

“You're my superhero. And... I can't lose you. Okay? Do you hear me? I can't lose you. You can do anything. You can fly. You can move mountains. I believe that. I really do. But right now, you just have to fight. Okay? El, do you hear me? You need to fight! You have to fight! Fight!” 

Fight! he repeats, and the lights start to flicker and El’s breathing speeds up so maybe she does believe him after all, maybe he has finally done something good, so he keeps shouting it.

And then the lights stop, and her breathing evens out, and there’s nothing to do but wait and whisper wake up, wake up, please wake up, over and over, until she finally does.  

As it turns out, Mike doesn’t think she believed him.

5.

It’s been two months since he got back from California, and Mike is upset. 

The world is ending, and he just went over to Hopper’s cabin to visit his girlfriend, and he left said cabin without one. 

(It had been a mutual breakup, is what he and El will tell everyone, but Mike knows that she was just too nice (and had gone too long without Max Mayfield’s influence) to dump him as harshly as he deserves.)

Neither of these things are what he’s upset about, though, because Will lied to him. 

Of course, when El had sat him down and told him that they would probably be better off as friends, Mike had been confused. Confused, because, just two months before, he'd been sitting in the back of a van being told just how much his girlfriend needed and relied on him.

So he'd asked her about it— expecting, maybe, her to tell him that she'd asked Will to make the painting a while back, and maybe there just hadn't been an opportunity to give it to him until that March since they didn’t get to see each other over Christmas.

That's not what she told him. She'd sat there, cross-legged on her pink quilt in her plaid flannel, looking completely lost. 

“Will didn't show me what he was painting,” El had said, in that slow, careful voice of hers, and a Mike had looked at her, confused.  “I told you that in my letter.”

“What? But he said— he said you asked him to paint it. You don't remember? The one with the dragon and the Party? Our DND characters?” 

“I've never played DND, Mike,” she’d replied, and contrary to popular belief, Mike's not completely stupid— and he could see her getting a little annoyed, so he'd dropped it.

But now, trudging back through the woods in the direction of the Wheeler’s house, it's all he can think about. 

Will lied to him. Will, Mike's first friend, the person he trusts most, the boy who had been there when they'd formed the Party— and likewise, the Friends don't lie rule. 

And, okay, Mike knows he takes a rule they made when they were six years old a little too seriously— but can you blame him when he and Will had always followed it? At least, he'd thought they had. What does he know anymore? Will could've been lying to him about all sorts of things for years, Mike blindly trusting him because they shook on it in kindergarten! He feels stupid. 

When he reaches the edge of the woods, he has to lighten his footsteps to save himself from the embarrassment of being caught stomping down the road like an angry toddler. Mike is angry, but not enough to risk being loud enough for a stray demodog to come out of a gate and— like, eat him, or something.

He's angry at Will for lying to him, and he's angry at Eddie for going and dying, and he's angry at the empty bike stand sitting outside of his garage when he gets home, because it means Will is avoiding him again just like he has been since they got back, and he's angry at his toe for hurting after he kicks it, and he's a little less angry at El for dumping his ass. (Actually, the emotion he feels regarding that is probably closer to relief, but he’s not quite ready to unpack that. Anger is safer, for now.) 

Most of all, he's angry at himself, because he knows that all of these things lie somewhere on the scale from partly to exclusively his fault. 

He stomps up the path and throws open the front door, only barely remembering to ease his dramatics as he reaches the kitchen, lest he runs into his mother or his sisters had come home early.

Will's not home— the nerves in his toe have no trouble reminding him— so Mike knows he's safe to grab a soda from the fridge and go and sulk in the basement without having to endure the awkward silence that seems to plague them whenever they find themselves alone together recently.

He flops onto the worn couch, thinking of yellow vans and the smell of Jonathan's weed mixed with sweat and see how you're leading us here? You're guiding the Party. Inspiring us. That's— that's what you do. And your coat of arms here—

It's all bullshit. Everything Will said. Everything Mike has been relying on for the past weeks; everything he believed about himself because of the stupid monologue that Will apparently just pulled out of his ass. 

It’s a heart—

After about an hour, Mike hears the sound of the front door opening, and the kitchen is filled with muffled voices. Mike almost gets up until he hears Nancy; it must just be her and Holly getting back from wherever they went earlier that morning. 

He can vaguely hear his mom chatting with her as he turns back to his video game, not paying much attention until he just barely catches Jonathan ask: “Is Will not back yet?”

The light clattering of dishes from where he assumes his mom to be stops. 

“No, dear, I haven't seen him since this morning. Did he tell you when he'd be home?”

Mike doesn't hear Jonathan's muffled reply, but the dishes continue their clinking. 

It's not until about six o'clock that Mike hears the garage door open above the basement. He doesn't hear any more doors— but that's not discouraging; Will is usually quiet. 

Mike turns off the TV, and starts up the stairs. 

Sure enough, Will is there— leaning against the kitchen island chatting to Jonathan. Nancy and Holly are sitting at the dining table, playing one of Holly's card games. Their mom is standing at the counter, chopping potatoes. Their dad is sitting on his recliner in the living room. 

Will pauses his conversation and looks up at him as Mike walks through the doorway. 

Mike opens his mouth, but is stopped when his mom notices him from across the room.

“Oh— Mike! Good, come help me with these, please,” she says, and Mike steps over to her, lacking his usual protest at the prospect of chores and taking a peeler out of the drawer and picking another potato out of the bag. 

It doesn't take long to peel them all, dropping each one into the pot on the stove for tomorrow's stew, but Mike can feel Will's eyes on the back of his head the whole time.

When the lid is on the stew and another pan is off of the stove, Mike's mom tells everyone to set the table before he gets a chance to talk to Will. 

Dinner is pretty awkward— at least on Mike's end, and Mike is all too aware of every time his and Will's elbows knock together as he cuts his steak.

He sticks around longer than usual, hoping to find a second to ask Will to talk and helping clear the table and put the dishes in the sink. His mom seems surprised but thanks him all the same, and his dad looks at him a little funny. 

When he turns around from rinsing his plate, he just catches sight of the familiar head of brown hair before it disappears out of the kitchen. 

“Will,” he says, and both Byers siblings as well as his sisters turn to look at him. “Um,” Mike didn't plan this out enough. “Can— can we talk?” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Nancy's eyebrows crawl further up her face, and Jonathan's eyes flick to his brother. Will looks back at Jonathan, too, and Mike feels horribly guilty that how he’s treated him has caused Will to hesitate. 

“Yeah, sure,” he says, eventually, a little sceptical. “Um— do you want to—?” He gestures to the stairs. 

“Yeah,” Mike says, and he avoids both of their older siblings' gazes as he follows Will up to his bedroom.

The door clicks shut behind them, and the air is filled with awkwardness. He sits gingerly on the edge of the bed, patting the space next to him, because even though he is mad, the look on Will’s face— uncomfortable at best, downright terrified at worst, is enough to bring out the soft side of him that has almost been lost the last couple of years. 

“Um,” he starts, and Mike really should've spent less time moping and more time figuring out what to say. Ease into it, he tells himself, and instead of doing that, he starts with: “Me and El broke up.” 

Will's mouth immediately drops open a little, but Mike doesn't know why he's so surprised. Anyone could see this has been a long time coming. 

“Oh,” Will breathes. “I'm sorry. Are you— okay?”

Mike nods his head quickly, feeling even more awkward. When did they start talking to eachother like this, polite consultations and open-ended inquiries? They’d always been able to read eachother without even saying anything, when did that stop? 

Probably around the time Will announced they were moving, he thinks. When they stopped speaking to each other even more than they already had, because Mike still remembers being able to tell exactly what Will was thinking just by seeing the look on his face that day in the rain. “It's fine— don’t worry. We're better as friends. It was— um, mutual,” he says, picking at a stray thread on his jeans. 

“Oh,” Will says again, because apparently Mike has treated him so badly that he doesn't know what to say to him anymore. 

“Yeah,” Mike says, because it was his fault, and he's not bitter about it. 

Will isn't looking at him anymore, instead staring very intensely at his own white socks— gone fuzzy at the seams and a hole in the left toe. 

“I guess I just don't really understand,” Mike finally says, after the silence becomes unbearable. It gets Will to look at him, at least.

“What?”

“Well, I— after she broke up with me, I was confused because— you said all that stuff about how she needs me,” he gets out, stumbling over his words and starting to pick at his fingernails before continuing. “So I asked her about it, and she— she didn't know what I was talking about, Will.”

Will's eyes grow impossibly wider, and he opens his mouth before quickly closing it again. 

“I just don't understand why you lied. Friends don't lie. Did you just—just make all of that up? Was none of it even true?” Mike’s voice shakes, but he swallows. He is not going to cry here.

Will looks at him in stunned silence for a few seconds. Mike doesn’t know why he is so surprised— surely Will should have know he would find out eventually, one way or another? Opening and closing his mouth once, twice, before finally speaking, Will starts frantically, “I'm sorry— I’m so sorry, I didn't mean to lie, I just— I swear I just wanted to help, Mike—”

“But you didn't! It didn't help!” Mike can't find it in himself to feel bad for interrupting. “I spent two months believing you and trying to fix things with El based off of what you said, trying to fix things with myself because of what you said, because you couldn't— couldn't mind your own business, for once,” and it's not fair, Mike knows it's not fair— he was always the one going to Will to solve his problems with El in the first place, but he's angry, and hurt, and humiliated, and Will lied to him. “And then she dumps me anyways and— and none of it was ever even true!”

Will looks completely shocked at Mike’s outburst, his posture stiffened. “It was true. I— she does need you,” he gets out, and Mike doesn't know why he's still lying. 

"No, she doesn't! Not— not anymore. I told you, she might’ve, once, but not anymore. I just want to know why you lied,” he's vaguely aware of the tears welling up in his eyes, but lifting a hand to wipe them would only bring attention to it, so instead, he pushes himself to his feet, lightly stumbling as he turns back to face Will and crosses his arms tightly around his middle. “Please.”

“I'm sorry,” Will says again, voice breaking down the middle of the second word, and he looks so scared, and so sad, and Mike wants to scream. 

“You're not even going to tell me why?”

Silence. Will doesn’t even look at him, screwing up his eyes and lowering his head again, shoulders hunched. 

Mike breathes out through his nose in frustration. “Seriously?” he asks, exasperated. 

Will looks like he’s going to cry, and beneath the annoyance, Mike does feel guilty for putting that look on his face. Neither of them say anything again, though.

Mike turns on his heel, and walks out of the room. 

He just catches the sound of a few muffled sobs before the slams the front door. 

6. 

It’s been a while since Mike came back here, he thinks, as he deposits his bike in the dusty gravel and treads down to the edge of the water. A few years, if you asked his family— before everything with the upside down, when the Indiana summer would make Mike’s basement unbearably hot and stuffy and the Party would set aside their DND game and bike to the quarry to splash around and cool down. Since 1983, definitely, if you asked Lucas or El, who were there too during that dreaded week and that dreaded night when the four of them witnessed the silicone replica of Will’s body be pulled out of these very waters. Since a few days after that, if you asked Dustin; since Mike almost met his end in the same waters. Since just a few months ago— if you asked Mike himself. Since the late fall and early winter on the afternoons when Mike missed Will just a little too much, and Lucas was off at basketball and Dustin was off with Steve or Eddie or whoever he hangs out with nowadays, and the basement was just too painfully empty and cold. Being here, in some twisted way— even though he knows that it wasn’t him; it was silicone— always made Mike feel a little closer to Will. 

It doesn’t, today. 

Today, Mike feels further from Will than ever. 

He steps forwards, settling himself down on the ground with his legs crossed under him— a few metres in front of where he’d been hidden with his friends behind the van that night, but a few metres further from the water than he would usually sit recently. 

Will’s words from the van are still playing in his head— you’re guiding the Party, inspiring us— just like they have been since they were said, but they’re not an encouragement anymore. They’re just mocking. How could he ever believe them? The anger has mostly worn off, and all Mike feels is embarrassment. 

He feels embarrassed that he ever considered that anything Will said could be true; that he could be anything like the fantasy character he dubbed himself with at six years old; could be the Heart of the Party; that El would believe any of that. That Will would. 

Mike doesn’t blame him, anymore. He believes that he was only trying to help. Will has always been trying to help, in some way. There must be a good reason. It was completely out of character— not only for Will to lie to him like that, but for him to be so— so dismissive, almost, when Mike confronted him about it. In the past, it has always been sharp, direct comebacks: I guess I did, I really did, or Well we used to be best friends!— always addressing the issue. Mike has been the one to avoid the subject. To deflect.

(That’s because she’s my girlfriend, Will.)

(It’s not my fault you don’t like girls.)  

He guesses this shouldn’t be too surprising, then. After all, Will lied to him, but Mike is the one who’s been keeping him at arm’s length for years now. Mike is the one who shoved a wall between them in the first place, so he can’t be too annoyed when Will stops trying to reach across it. 

The water is still as Mike looks out over it, the jagged cliffs reaching tall on either side. 

He probably shouldn’t be out here. There are less supernatural creatures lurking in the town than they would’ve expected when Hawkins literally split in two, but being out in the open like this surely to bring attention to him if one is in the area. They’re supposed to carry walkies with them if they are to leave their respective safe houses— but Mike has always had a little less regard for danger than most people he knows.  

He sighs, pulling his knees up to his chest and burying his forehead in them. There. Now, if a demodog comes out of the forest ready to eat him, he’ll be blissfully ignorant until the very last moment.

Despite what Dustin and El may or may not believe, Mike isn’t completely suicidal, so he won’t stay out here for too long. He just needed to be anywhere but that house, away from the suffocation that comes with housing his maybe-ex-best-friend and his older brother who seems to dislike him a fair amount at the moment. 

Ever since they got back from California, he and Will have returned to the awkward in-between atmosphere that has followed them since their fight last year, and maybe even before that. Neither of them want to voice the issue to eachother, and Mike didn’t even want to admit there was one in the first place. As horrible as it sounds to admit, Mike has somewhat been avoiding Will. Not outwardly, but he has definitely not tried to initiate any of their previously-loved movie nights or anything like that. It doesn’t matter, anyways, because Will has certainly been avoiding him too.

Their schedules overlap at meal times; they say good morning and good night, and sometimes they have a short conversation, but and that is usually the extent of it. Apparently, their agreement in the Byers’ house in California to be best friends again was blown out of the window of the pizza van at some point during the trip along with Jonathan’s weed smoke. 

Interacting with Jonathan has been almost as bad. He’s with Nancy, hanging out in the kitchen or living room most of the time, so Mike sees him a little more than his younger brother. He tries not to talk to him, though. Every sharp look Jonathan casts his way stings extra painfully when Mike remembers how warm and brotherly he had been to Mike before everything. He doubts Jonathan really hates him, because both of the Byers boys have always been too good to really hate anyone, but it’s probably close. Surprisingly, Mike misses Jonathan almost as much as he misses Will. 

The sun has set by the time Mike finally starting heading home. The sky has faded into a dull dark green color, courtesy of the open gates all over town, and the already chilly temperature has dropped to something bordering on freezing. In his hurry, Mike didn’t think to bring a jacket, so he’s stuck to bike the distance in his thin sweater.

When he gets back, the house is quiet. 

The kitchen light is on, and he can see the glow of the TV screen through the drawn blind where, presumably, his father is asleep on the La-Z-Boy. Quiet murmuring from the kitchen breaks through the silence as he pushes the front door open with a click, and he sees his mother scrubbing away at a pile of dishes in the sink. 

Nancy is nursing a mug of tea at the island, already changed into her pyjamas, and Jonathan is drying dishes after Mike’s mom rinses them off.

Mike kicks off his battered trainers, and, before anybody can notice his arrival and drag him into conversation, tiptoes up the stairs. 

Will has, as Mike expected, returned to the basement by now, so Mike shuts the door quietly behind him and flops face down onto the mattress, shoving his head in the pillow. 

It can’t have realistically been more than a few hours, but it feels like days later when he finally drags himself up, pulling his face out of the pillow and rolling over onto his back, looking at the painting hung proudly on the wall. He’d be embarrassed about it— that he chose to hang it up, that Will’s words and the little ego boost that came with them meant so much to him, but mostly all of Will’s art is hung up somewhere in his house, so it’s not exactly out of the ordinary for him.

He’s just been laying there, mulling over the argument in his head again and again, still replaying the words that came with the painting, but he still can’t imagine what would make Will come up with such an elaborate speech and then refuse to talk about it. 

But you make her feel like she’s not a mistake at all, Will had said, and— yeah, Mike really should’ve caught up to that one sooner. How naive could he be, believing that, when just a few hours previously he’d been sitting on her bed as El looked at him with tears in her ears, voice breaking as she whispered, you think I’m a monster too?

Some part of him wants to forget it. To leave Will to his lies and indifference, to let the two of them drift further and further away until there is nothing left of the friendship formed on the Hawkins’ Kindergarten swings in 1976– until eventually they end up at different colleges halfway across the country from eachother and never speak again, assuming this apocalyptic nightmare is ever over.

But the other part of him— the part that followed Will out into the rain that day and biked halfway across town in the downpour; the part that sat on Will’s bed in his unfamiliar bedroom, and bashfully offered the olive branch of I think it would be easier if we were a team, doesn’t want to do any of that.

No, that part of him wants to fix everything, and Mike has always been a little stubborn and a little selfish at best, so that is how he finds himself here.

Here: standing in front of the basement door at exactly 23:04 at night, arm raised and hand curled into a fist, poised to knock, but hesitating.

He can hear a light shuffling behind the door, and quiet snoring, too— undoubtedly Jonathan’s, so Will is definitely awake. Just as Mike is about to knock, though, the handle clicks, and the door slips open. 

Will doesn’t look up from where his eyes are trained on the floor, reddened around the edges. There are the faint stain of tear tracks on his cheeks, and it makes Mike’s heart hurt. Obviously not expecting him to be there, Will almost walks right into Mike, only looking up as they almost collide. His eyes widen, and Mike looks down at him, taken aback, hand still raised to knock.

“Um,” he says, intelligently.

Will just looks at him, frozen and surprised.

“Sorry,” Mike gets out, dropping his arm limply to his side. “I was just about to—” 

“Yeah,” Will says quickly, pushing the door open the rest of the way— fully slipping out of it and closing it behind him with a click. “Uh, what—”

“Sorry,” he says again, because apparently seeing Will, hair messed up and cheeks red, eyelashes still dark from tears, has made him completely forget everything he had been planning to say before he came down here. Will just blinks at him.

“It’s— okay? I just— I was gonna get some water,” he says, voice raspy and looking at Mike expectantly, and it’s only then that Mike realizes he’s entirely in Will’s space, cornering him at the top of the stairs. 

“Oh! Sorry— um,” Mike echoes, for the third time now— and maybe he should really have stayed upstairs, because this is so embarrassing— and finally backing up to allow Will some space to squeeze past. Will keeps looking at him, eyebrows raised, confused, as he starts down the hall to the kitchen.

After a second of hesitation, Mike follows, coming up behind him at the sink and pulling his own glass out of the cupboard.

Will’s eyes keep flicking to him as Mike fills his glass, probably skeptical of Mike’s objectively strange behaviour, and Mike doesn’t even drink it when it’s full, just stepping away from the sink so that Will can rinse his glass because Will is polite and nice and does everything he can to make Mike’s mom’s life easier while he’s staying here. 

He lingers for a second longer after he finishes, obviously waiting to see if Mike will say anything, and when he doesn’t, sidesteps back towards the basement door. 

“I— okay, um, goodnight, Mike,” Will says, quietly, definitely still confused, and probably still hurt. Mike opens his mouth to say something, anything, before shutting it again when nothing comes out. 

He puts his glass down, and Will has almost made it to the basement door when he blurts, “I’m sorry.”

Will turns on his heel immediately, looking even more surprised than he did when he caught Mike standing stupidly outside the basement door, and breathes, “what?” 

“I’m sorry,” Mike repeats, and this is probably the most times in his entire life he’s said the word ‘sorry’ in such a short amount of time. Will takes a few steps closer to the kitchen.

“What— you have nothing to be sorry for, Mike, I— I’m the one who lied to you,” Will gapes, eyebrows climbing dramatically up under his blunt, messed up bangs. “You didn’t do anything.” 

“I shouted at you,” Mike admits, hands finding eachother and starting to pick absentmindedly at a loose piece of skin. “And— well, I mean, I’m the reason you lied in the first place, right? Because— ‘cause I kept talking about El, and then I shouted at you for it, and I’m sorry.” 

Will looks completely taken aback by this, and it only adds to Mike’s guilt. “It’s okay,” he finally says, “It’s— it’s not your fault I lied, and I— I shouldn’t have. You were right, it wasn’t my business, and I shouldn’t have gotten involved, so I’m sorry too—”

“What? No— Will,” Mike cuts in, stepping closer to him and putting a hand on his shoulder, “I shouldn’t have said that— I was just angry at first, but it’s not your fault, and you— I mean, I’m the one who kept coming to you about El in the first place, so that was so stupid of me to say, and I’m so sorry.” 

The hand on Will’s shoulder feels awkward, suddenly, so he drops it to his side just as Will gives him a small, awkward but genuine smile. “It’s fine, Mike. Really,” he pauses, and then says, “I’m sorry for lying,” and Mike, without a second thought, scoops his into a hug. 

Will’s breath catches, and Mike hates that Will is surprised by it, because they used to hug all the time when they were younger, so he just tightens his arms around the shorter boy, fighting the urge to bury his face in Will’s shoulder, because that would definitely be weird. 

After a brief moment, Will tentatively wraps his arms around Mike’s middle, and Mike squeezes his shoulders even tighter. It’s— nice. Objectively. Will is taller, now, and his shoulders are wider, but he’s still wearing the same one of Jonathan’s old t-shirts that he used to wear to bed at sleepovers— The Clash in big white text across the front— and he’s still warm, like Mike remembers he used to be. Mike can’t imagine why he would pass up on this in the airport those short months ago. It’s the nicest hug he’s had in a long time. 

Eventually, Mike has to let go, before it becomes weirder than it honestly probably already was. 

He pulls away reluctantly; Will gives him another small smile, and there are still tear stains on his red cheeks, and Mike can’t help but blurt, “I love you.” 

It’s only after he hears it aloud that he realizes how true it is. It’s been true, probably for a very long time, and Mike has probably known it for a very long time, too, but now is the very first time he has let himself consider it. He didn’t mean to say it, it’s just— with Will there, looking up at him with his pretty smile and the small mole above his lip, eyes shining and a little damp, arms still looped around Mike’s middle, what else was there to do? 

Will still hasn’t said anything, and Mike is growing increasingly concerned every second he keeps not saying anything. It dawns on him, slowly, exactly what he has just said— how much is stake here. Oh, god, he realizes, he just admitted, to Will’s face, that he loves him.

That he’s in love with him. 

Oh, god. Mike is in love with him.

But Will is moving, now, withdrawing his arms from Mike and moving his face further, looking at Mike with an expression that can only be described as incredulity. 

“You— what?” he splutters, eyes wide and brown in the yellow light of the kitchen. 

And it’s now, here, standing next to the kitchen island of his mom and dad’s house— his dad, who proudly put up a Ronald Reagan sign in the front lawn, who sits on his La-Z-Boy all day and night, and complains about ‘those damn queers’ on TV— but his mom, who held him after that night in they found the body, and who held him again when he lost Will the second time; when the moving van finally pulled out of the Byers’ drive and Mike was left completely alone for the first time since he was five years old, but he wasn’t, not really, because he had her— that Mike decides he’s done denying it. He’s done deflecting, and he’s done with We’re friends, Will, because he knows now that that was never true. 

And that’s why, under the yellow light with Will’s brown-green eyes looking at him, next to his parents’ kitchen island, he finally says, “I’m in love with you.” 

His voice is quiet, but it’s louder than anything in the empty room. And there is no time to consider what he just admitted, again, to consider the consequences— how much he might have just ruined with those five short words, because Will is already kissing him. 

He’s got one hand cupping Mike’s cheek, the other resting lightly on his shoulder, just over the prominent bone under his navy t-shirt, and is leaning up on his tip toes to press his lips to Mike’s.  

Mike doesn’t even have time to react, to— holy shit, kiss Will back— because he’s already pulling away, lips disconnecting with a soft click, and looking, for lack of better words, distraught.

“Sorry!” he all but squeaks, hands flying away from Mike’s face and shoulder as if he’s been burnt, red rising to his cheeks as he takes a step back, “Oh god, I’m so sorry, I should’ve asked—”

Mike cuts him off with another kiss. 

Will makes a noise of surprise, and for a second,  Mike fears that maybe Will didn’t mean to kiss him in the first place, and he’s just made a terrible mistake, and Will is about to push him off and run away— but then Will kisses him back, and Mike could almost cry from relief. He can feel it under his palms— where his hands have flown up to hold each of Will’s cheeks— when all of Will’s anxiety melts away, and he relaxes into the kiss. 

He throws his arms around Mike’s neck, pulling him closer, and Mike goes willingly, eyes fluttering shut once more. His entire body is warm, his heart skipping giddily in his chest, and Will kisses him again, and this is everything Mike has ever wanted. 

They break apart after a moment, but they don’t go far— Mike keeps his hands on Will’s cheeks and Will keeps his arms slung around Mike’s neck. Mike presses their foreheads together, moving closer so they’re sharing the same air. He looks into Will’s eyes— his pupils have gone very big, almost swallowing his irises whole, and Mike can barely see the beautiful brown-green colour anymore. His cheeks are very red, but Mike imagines his are no better off. They feel warm, too, under Mike’s palms. 

“Was that— okay?” Mike asks, breathless, brushing his thumb over the beautiful mole above Will’s lip.

Will moves one hand to the side of Mike’s neck, moving his face little further away, but still not far— tangling his fingers in what’s left of the length of black hair at the back of Mike’s head.

“Yeah,” he whispers, staring back at Mike with his big pupils. 

Mike kisses him again, short and sweet— because apparently he can do that now, because Will wants it, too— and slides his hand from where it was pressed against the side of Will’s face to the back of his head, feeling the soft brown hair under his skin and cradling his head gently. 

“I love you too,” Will tells him as they break apart, and Mike’s heart speeds up under his ribcage, joy filling his chest as Will tugs him back in and buries his face in Mike’s neck, tightening his arms around him and hugging Mike tightly. Mike returns it, just as tight, wrapping his own arm around Will’s middle and keeping the right one up with its hand on the back of his Will’s, fingers threading lightly through his hair. 

Will loves him. Mike could cry. He almost does, eyes filling with bittersweet tears. 

“I’m sorry,” Mike mumbles instead into the side of Will’s head. Will doesn’t let go, only squeezing Mike tighter, and Mike’s neck is starting to hurt from where he still has to lean down a little; from how tight Will is holding his arms, but he can’t bring himself to care, not even a little bit— not when he has Will this close again after so long of not even knowing he wanted him here. 

“For what?” Will whispers softly, right into the cotton of Mike’s t-shirt. His voice is wet with tears, too, so Mike just presses his face harder into his hair, hoping it will communicate all he wants to say.

“Everything,” he gets out, and his voice must break and give him away, because Will pulls his face out of Mike’s shoulder and moves his thumbs to brush away the slowly shedding tears. 

“It’s okay,” he replies, and when Mike immediately starts shaking his head, amends, “I forgive you.” 

He doesn’t know who goes first, but suddenly they’re wrapped up in eachother again, hugging tightly, and they’ve definitely been standing here for far too long now, but Mike can’t find it in himself to want be anywhere else. 

“It was from me,” Will whispers into Mike’s neck again after a minute.

“What?” 

“The painting. It was from me. Everything I said— I— I didn’t make that up,” he sniffs, “it was about me. I need you.” 

This is something that Mike has almost concluded by now, somewhere in between the walk back from the quarry and when Will whispered the words I love you too, but it’s nice to hear, all the same— so nice that Mike can’t help but kiss him again, soft and slow.

When they part again, Mike lets go of Will, arms falling away but loosely grabbing one of his hands instead. Jonathan is still snoring, but he could wake up and come to check on his brother any minute, and though Ted is one of the deepest sleepers Mike knows— maybe after Dustin— he’s only in the next room, snoring on the La-Z-Boy, and being caught by him is not something Mike wants to risk. 

“Will y’come upstairs?” he asks quietly, squeezing Will’s hand in his, and then with a wince, adds, “I don’t think we should stay down here.” 

”Okay,” Will replies, squeezing Mike’s hand back, offering another small smile, and picking up the half-empty glass that he must’ve set down on the counter at some point. 

As quiet as possible, they tread up the stairs, fingers threaded together, and when Mike pushes the door to his room open and it creaks loudly, he can hear Will start holding his breath behind him. 

Mike pulls him into the room, the door slipping shut behind them and giggling into it as he kisses Will’s lips one more time. He tiptoes over to the bed, and Will hesitates only for a second before slipping under the blankets next to him. Just as he’s about to burrow tuck himself in, Will pauses momentarily— his eyes must have apparently finally adjusted to the dark, because he squints across the room at the wall adjacent to Mike’s bed.

“You hung it up?” he asks, an air of disbelief in his voice.

Oh. Right. 

Warmth rises to Mike’s cheeks as he sits up and squints at the pinned canvas himself. “Um— yeah,” he says, ducking his head and looking away from both the painting and Will. “You didn’t notice before?”

“Uhm— no,” Will says bashfully, and Mike laughs.

“Well— I love it. It’s beautiful, Will,” he adds, in case that wasn’t clear. 

Mike can see the way Will turns his head towards him out of the corner of his eye. In the dark, it’s hard to make out, but he can just tell that his face has turned a little red. 

“Oh,” he breathes, and then the corners of his lips twitch up into a small smile, and he whispers, bashfully, “thank you.” 

“‘Course,” Mike replies, hesitating momentarily before leaning forward and pressing a brief kiss to Will’s cheek. They look at each other, and then Will smiles again, dimples peaking through either of his cheeks, and Mike returns it before scooting backwards and holding out his arms in a nervous offering. Will moves closer, resting his head gingerly on Mike’s chest and tossing one arm over his waist.

“Okay?” He mumbles into Will’s hair as he tangles their ankles together and wraps his arms around him. Despite them spending almost the last hour with their arms wrapped around each other and sharing kisses in the kitchen, he feels almost awkward, now. It feels much more intimate like this; socked feet aligned and tucked under the duvet together. Will nods; Mike presses a kiss to the top of his head. “No one will come in,” he says, just in case Will is worrying about it as much as he is. Evidently, he was, because after Mike says that he can feel Will relax further and shuffle closer.  

They lay in silence for a while, the only sounds their breathing and the light patter of summer rain outside the window. Over the top of Will’s head, Mike can see the red numbers of the alarm clock in the dark tick to 00:30. The bedroom’s window is still open, and the curtains aren’t drawn, either, so when a gust of wind blows through, it’s cold. Mike shivers as he pulls the blankets higher over himself and the boy in his arms. 

Will’s breathing is relaxed, but still uneven, so Mike doesn’t worry about waking him up when he whispers, “I missed you.” 

He tightens his arm around Mike’s middle, the other one tucked against his own chest, and pulls away ever so slightly, just so he can peer up at Mike. The look is his eyes tells Mike he understands exactly what he means; it’s so familiar, one he’s seen hundreds of times— across the elementary classrooms as they tried not to laugh; over the DND table as Mike explained his newest idea— but there’s something new there, too. 

Or perhaps it’s not new. Perhaps it has been there for a very long time, just as Mike imagines it has been in his own eyes. He thinks it’s love. 

“I missed you, too,” he says. It fills both Mike’s chest and his cheeks with warmth, and Will must notice, because he pokes a finger into the side Mike’s face, giggling quietly. Mike tilts his head and kisses it. It’s his turn, now, to see the way a pretty pink spreads across Will’s cheeks.

Mike wants to kiss him again, so he does. 

Because he can do that, now. 

There will be time, in the morning, to figure out what this means about him. About them. To really talk— not just with whispered apologies in the dark. Tomorrow, they will have to get up with the sun, and face the absurd reality of inter-dimensional monsters and planning dungeon crawls.

But right now, in this moment, with Will warm in his arms and smelling like the soap Mike’s mom buys, with Mike’s face tucked into his hair and breathing it in, he is content to just enjoy it. To shuffle impossibly closer, and drop another kiss into his hair, (because he can do that, now) and let his eyes fall shut. 

Morning will come— and with it, the horrors of the world leaking into their own. 

But when he wakes up, Mike knows that Will will still be here in his arms.

And for now, that is enough.