open beloved to you

“Because you, my great sir, are coming to Max and I’s wedding next month.”

A silence passes. Mike blinks, “Excuse me?”

“My wedding? You know. Those events with the flowers and the big white dresses where two people come together in holy matrimony and—” Lucas is already pretending to make out with the air when Mike focuses again.

“I know what a wedding is!”

It’s been 12 years since the world almost ended. Mike, now 28 and a reclusive author in New York, has become an expert in avoiding literally anything that would remind him of it. That would include Will Byers.

Except Lucas forgot to mention Mike and Will would be spending three nights sharing a hotel room.

Notes:

i started this in january and forgot about it. oh boy, it's a lot.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Mike is mentally, physically, and financially surviving by a single fucking thread.

He curses himself again when he turns the dial to his shower one last time, praying for a single bit of luck. The showerhead stays silent, stagnant. Mike swears the next time the water turns back on, he’s going to drown himself in the sink.

He slinks out of the tiny shower shoved in the corner of his bathroom and dries what little water he was able to wash off with using a rough towel.

The water pipes have failed him again for the third time this week.

The autumn cold of 1999 was starting to creep in, and comfortable thick long-sleeved shirts were for not poor late-twenty year olds and people with more luck than Mike Wheeler has been having in his publishing career. He shoves on a stained T-shirt over his pajama pants and pushes himself into the main room of his apartment.

Living in New York (the city of dreams and opportunity!) was starting to take a toll on both Mike’s dreams and his opportunities. Opportunities to be happy. Opportunities to make friends. Opportunities for everything, really. Mike runs the towel over his hair before keeping it pressed around his neck.

He has barely any furniture in his dingy place, and he’s been living here since he was 24. Four years was a long time not to have made this place a home. But he believes, even if he tried, it still would feel the way it does now. Oddly… empty.

The typewriter he had bought in college is glaring at him from the desk near the window. It’s a cloudy day. More gray than anything, but Mike has gotten used to the monochrome.

He’s gotten used to a lot of things.

Mike pulls his cup noodles out of the microwave, praying that it’s still hot from his approximately three minute shower. He lets the steam hit his face for some warmth when he peels off the top wrapper, and before he can dig in–

There’s a bang on his door.

Mike lets out a loud exhale, shutting his eyes. He knows who it is.

Lucas had left him a rather ominous voicemail on the landline three days ago. Saying that he’ll be taking the train into the city again on the weekend and Mike better be home in the evening. That’s all it said. And again: it was rather ominous.

Another three bangs.

“Mike! I know you’re in there!”

Mike places his hands on his stove to brace himself against it. He shuts his eyes, praying, maybe, that Lucas will disappear when he opens his eyes again.

“Michael Wheeler!”

He curses, a habit now, and then he’s wheeling around to get the door.

Mike can barely crack it open before Lucas is already pushing his way inside like he owns the place. Like he’s been doing since him and Max moved to New Jersey last year and he was only a train ride away.

“Yeesh. It smells worse here than it did last month.”

“What do you want?” Mike runs a hand through his hair, trying his best to get his feelings in check.

Lucas is a lot bigger than he was when they were kids. Buffer. Mike knows he should be less stand-offish because one wrong move and Lucas could definitely snap him in half like a toothpick.

But he’s tired, and pissed off at the world, and his cup noodles are getting colder by the second waiting for him on the counter.

“You could give me a warmer welcome, y’know?” Lucas laughs, and he flashes him that same smile he’s always had. Bright and… weirdly convincing. Mike presses his fingers into the corneas of his eyes.

“Sorry,” he lets out, and tries his best to push out kinder words, “How’s Max?”

“Great,” Lucas smiles, “We’re doing gggreaaat,” he sing-songs. Mike feels something turn sideways in his stomach.

“You’re scaring me.”

The flat sentence makes Lucas laugh, and then he’s smiling again. That oddly, oddly convincing smile. “Buddy, why are you scared? I’m telling the truth. Besides, I’m here for some casual catch-up chit-chat.” Lucas grins.

Mike squints his eyes.

A second passes. Two seconds pass. Lucas’s face drops, “Okay, fine. You caught me. This is an intervention.”

“An intervention,” Mike repeats, tone flat.

“An intervention!” Lucas says again, he puts a finger up, and shrugs off his black fleece trench coat. It’s a point of no return, Mike realizes. He can’t force Lucas out now if his jacket is off. “Because you, my great sir, are going to Max and I’s wedding next month.”

A silence passes. Mike blinks.

“Excuse me?”

“My wedding? You know. Those events with the flowers and the big white dresses where two people come together in holy matrimony and–” he pretends to make-out with the air. Mike has to physically stop him.

“I know what a wedding is!” Mike shouts, grabbing Lucas’s arms to stop him from… whatever the hell he was doing. Lucas looks entirely too pleased with himself.

“You’re engaged?” Mike asks.

“I’ve been engaged,” Lucas corrects, “You would’ve known that if you went to our engagement party earlier this year. Or my bachelor party. Or Steve’s baby shower where Max would not shut up about how horrible of a wedding planner I am. Also, I can't believe he's having triplets–”

“I went to Steve’s baby shower!”

“Showing up to drop off Nancy and then hiding in the car for an hour before leaving to hide in your mom’s basement has never, not once, in the entirety of mankind, means you actually attended something.”

Mike feels his face flush, “I didn’t… I didn’t even know you had an engagement party. Or a bachelor party.”

“Or you did, and you’ve gotten too agoraphobic to show your face anywhere anymore. I mean… dude.”

“I…” Mike tries, but his words fall short. He did know. Kind of. He saw the invitations and kept it hidden in the back of his mail drawer. He doesn’t know what’s stopping him. These are the kinds of events you wait for patiently once you grow up. It’s the only time you get to be in the same place with so many familiar faces again.

Maybe that’s what scared Mike the most.

“I’m not trying to back you into a corner,” Lucas says, and his voice is a lot softer this time, “I just… I mean. I want you there, you know? I can excuse you not wanting to come to the stupid parties leading up to the big day, but…” Lucas puts a firm hand on Mike’s shoulder. There’s a ruggedness that has only grown since Lucas turned 21. His hand feels calloused through the thin T-shirt Mike had tossed on.

“Max and I really need you there,” Lucas says. And it’s that small change in words. From wanting him at their wedding to needing him there. It makes Mike nauseous. The softness in the air is crushed when Mike’s eyes droop.

“Is that why you barged through my front door and couldn’t just send a wedding ‘save-the-date’ invitation through the mail like a normal person?” Mike crosses his arms, eyebrows raised. Lucas snorts.

“Exactly. Need the confirmation you’re coming. Verbal contract. I doubt you’ll have any big things going on during a random week in November.”

“Week?” Mike says, nearly a complaint.

“Four days, Mike,” Lucas clarifies. (Like that makes it any better.)

“Do you think money grows on trees, Lucas? Look at my apartment.”

“So I’m thinking your new novel was rejected for publication again?”

Mike drops his head into his hands. Lucas sighs. “Mike, please. All-expense paid trip to my wedding. You stay in a hotel for three nights down in Illinois. The third night’s the wedding, and–”

“I can’t possibly make you pay for me attending your wedding.”

“It was a choice Max and I agreed on. All expenses paid for the whole Party. We… We want you guys there. Needed to make it so it wasn’t something you could easily say no to.”

Mike feels guilt rubbing at the skin of his chest, “What the hell are the other days?”

“Fun. Reunions. I don’t know,” Lucas waves his hands around in the air like it might trigger the vocabulary he’s searching for. “We’ll be in the city of Chicago. There’s so much to do. To explore. We want everyone to just… get settled. Get… get hype, you know? Before the big day. Before the last night.”

“I’m happy for you Lucas. I really am,” Mike starts. Lucas’s face grows more annoyed than upset. “But I just–”

“You’re going,” Lucas stumps.

“I’m planning to come, Lucas. I just want you to know that–”

“You’re going,” Lucas repeats as he picks up his coat. Mike’s anxiety spikes. “You’re going and you’re going to stay the full time, and you’re going to have fun, away from your shitty New York apartment and your rotting typewriter and you’re going to my wedding.”

It’s said so final that when Mike opens his mouth again, Lucas doesn’t even let him have another word because a paper bag he had rolled up in his jacket is being shoved against his chest so hard it knocks the breath out of him.

Lucas smiles again. That same convincing smile he had when they were kids.

“You’re not stuck in 1987,” Lucas reminds him. And the sentence makes Mike's heart still.

“I’ll see you in a month, Wheeler.”

He should say something. He should, at least, breathe. But before he can do anything at all, Lucas walks past him and slides out his front door, the paper bag heavy on his chest.

When he hears Lucas’s footsteps fall distant down the hallway, he finally pulls the paper bag far enough to peer inside, examining it. There’s a couple candies, a thin wine bottle, and… a card.

It’s a sleek black with silver lining pressed against it. Typography flowing across the slip of laminated paper. Mike digs his hand in and readjusts his glasses to read it.

Time to suit up!

It reads.

Need you there, Wheeler. Like we promised when we were kids:

Will you be my groomsman?

Mike can’t stop the laugh that leaves his mouth. Ridiculous.

Completely ridiculous.

The month that passes feels like hell.

It was a whole lot of trying his best to hype himself up. It’s not like Mike is a recluse, and doesn’t remember how to socialize like a normal person. Except that he is a recluse, and he doesn’t remember how to socialize like a normal person

Still, packing his lack of clothes in the closet into a duffel bag, locking his apartment door as he left, Mike realizes he really doesn’t mind getting away from New York.

It’s stupid to believe the trip could fix him. Mike had stopped believing in shit like that years ago.

… Still. Maybe it would do him some good to be away from the things he’s used to. The monochrome. The rattle of his walls as the train drives by. The… emptiness of his everyday life.

Mike swallows the crisp fall air, throat drier than usual as he hails a taxi cab to the JFK airport.

Maybe it would be nice to see everyone again.

He’s on the plane when he finally has time to think again.

Lucas told him briefly about the room set-ups. Two to a room. Something weird churns in Mike’s stomach at the thought. He hasn’t really shared a room with anyone familiar since… God. It’s so stupid. This is so stupid.

He shifts in his seat on the plane as the pilot comes over the intercoms again, thanking everyone for taking their airline.

Mike doesn’t mind sharing a room. He really doesn’t. He never did.

Except… maybe… He’d mind a little bit if he had to share the hotel with–

“Will.”

“Will,” Mike parrots. Not even a question for confirmation. Just pure, unbridled fear. Fear? Is that the best way he can describe this feeling?

They’re standing in front of the hotel, Mike’s luggage especially heavy against his hand when it’s literally just standing completely still on the pavement. The place had an insane amount of marble architecture and greenery coating the exterior, like nature was trying to reclaim the hotel. Mike couldn’t afford this even if he saved up for the year he knew Max and Lucas were engaged. It was insane. This entire thing was insane.

“Will Byers?” Lucas elaborates, looking at Mike like he has a second head, “Hello?” Lucas raises a brow.

And as if Mike just developed amnesia, Lucas tacks on, “You grew up together?”

He did. Mike Wheeler did grow up with Will Byers. That was, indeed, a factual statement. But he didn’t continue to. Not after Will moved back to Lenora after the summer of their senior year. They grew up together, the world ended, and then they grew up on opposite ends of the country.

Mike swallows nothing, not even saliva. His hands are sweaty and his mouth is dry, and he’s uncharacteristically stiff. He brushes his hair to the side again, straightening it out. The gel he put on it after his plane ride had hardened into something uncomfortable.

“You… still talk to him, right? I mean… I know the last time we really got together was before college ended…”

When Mike can’t even give him a sure answer, Lucas’s mouth opens to an “oh”. No sound.

“We… I mean after college we exchanged postcards and letters but then we… I don’t know. We…” Mike trails off.

“It’s fine. He’s still the same old guy, Mike. You guys knew everything about each other. There’s nothing to hide, right?” Lucas waves off, trying to de-escalate. But he looks rather panicked. Mike can’t even say anything before Lucas finally hands Mike the key to the hotel room.

“There’s just… ah…” Lucas laughs, awkward, “... one smaaaalll thing.”

Lucas has got to be fucking kidding.

Mike stares at the singular bed in the hotel room.

“You’re kidding,” he breathes out, trying to reason with his own head.

“I thought—!” Lucas throws his arms up, “Look, there were only three of the suite floor rooms left and one of them was this one, and it felt wrong pairing the other guys together, and… I don’t know! I mean, I thought you and Will were still buddy-buddy,” Lucas tries explaining, talking with his hands, “The bed’s big and you can use the sofa if it’s uncomfortable but Mike, man, come on. It’s Will Byers.”

Mike’s heart stills at the implication. It’s Will Byers, he repeats in his head.Will Byers.

“You know each other like the back of your hands,” Lucas says, and he has no idea he’s making this so much worse for Mike.

“I doubt he’d mind.”

Maybe he wouldn’t. He probably wouldn’t. The last letter Will sent him was three years ago. April 18. Mike’s last letter was left un-responded after that. But still. Will’s heart is made of gold and Mike knows there’s no way that it isn’t anymore.

Mike opens his mouth. Shuts it.

“How is he?”

Lucas whips his head back to Mike instead of the singular bed in the room. “Will?” Lucas shrugs, “Don’t see him too often with him living in California now. But he’s doing well for himself. He’s still painting. Hopping jobs like a crazy person.”

Mike’s hands go clammy.

“I think he’s an art teacher still? Or an illustrator for children’s books? He’s got this side job at this national art museum and, man, that guy’s always doing something,” Lucas laughs, but Mike can’t even bring himself to pretend to.

“Is he still dating that um…” Mike hesitates, even though he knows the guy’s name. It was a hard thing to forget.

“Carlton?” Lucas crosses his arms, “Ah… I’m not sure. That’s something you’re gonna have to ask him when you see him.”

The sentence makes Mike sick.

“Hey,” Lucas says, soft. He grabs Mike’s shoulders, trying to ground him, “It’s Will, okay? I mean… I just want you to have a good time here.”

Mike rolls his eyes, not out of malice, “It’s your wedding, Lucas. Please. You’ve got to stop worrying about m—”

“You’re my best friend, Mike. I don’t care how many years come between us, I’m going to worry about you.” His eyes are the most genuine it could ever be. “If anything, you don’t gotta worry about me. I’m going to have a great fucking time no matter what. I’m marrying the love of my life,” Lucas reminds him.

Mike laughs, throwing Lucas’s hand off his shoulder, “Gross.”

“It’s the truth.”

Lucas takes a peek at his watch before pointing towards the door. “I’m expecting some others and I want to be there to bring them to their rooms. Will said he’d be here sometime tonight so just… settle in, okay?”

Mike feels like a child being left unsupervised at the house for the first time. But he just nods.

He feels 16 again. Alone. Oddly empty. Numb.

He knows Lucas can tell his anxiety is peaking again. He has an all-knowing look in his eyes. Mike can see it in the way he pauses in turning around. The hand on the outside of the door hesitates.

Lucas’s fingers tap the wall once, twice. Mike darts his eyes to the ground.

“Mike,” Lucas says, “You’re not… It’s not 1987.”

He has a knack for reminding Mike that. Sometimes, it helps. Snaps him out of the weird depressive trance he gets in sometimes.

Right now though? He feels more embarrassed than anything.

Before Lucas dips his head out, he looks back one last time. “It’s Will.” He reminds Mike again, “It’s just Will.”

Mike feels like the ground has opened up underneath him, but he musters up a smile back to Lucas.

“I know,” he says, “I’ll be fine. Go,” he jokes, waving his arm off.

But the moment the hotel room door closes and Mike’s left alone with the singular bed, it dawns on him just what kind of situation he’s in.

Mike is an actual fucking idiot. Mostly because he hasn’t had a hot shower since summer ended, and he spent nearly an hour in that hotel shower.

Which, of course, led to him walking out half naked to–

“Oh God, I’m so sorry!” Will’s hand flies up to immediately cover his eyes, one of his hands letting go of his luggage and the other dropping a plastic bag of something that crashes into the floorboards of the hotel room.

Mike, mortified, runs back to hide behind the bathroom door, his other hand knocking over half of the free toiletries the hoteliers left on the sink.

The clattering of objects as Will tries to gather his things again fills the god-awful silence.

“I should’ve knocked!” Will shouts over the door.

“It’s fine! Shit, I’m sorry—”

The hair dryer falls into the trash can. Mike grasps the towel around his waist tighter.

He repeats in his mind Lucas’s words from earlier as he clumsily shoves his limbs through his clothes

It’s just Will Byers. It’s just Will Byers. Nothing to hide, right? Everything will be fine.

Yeah. Mike exhales, slowly. Everything will be fine.

Surely.

Mike is going to die in this room.

Will’s sitting completely dead silent on the couch. Mike’s sitting in his line of vision on the bed. There’s an awkward distance between both of the surfaces they’re sitting on, and no one is talking. Mike feels like he’s in his own personally-catered torture chamber.

Will has his arms propped up on both sides of his knees as he sits on the couch facing the bed. Mike feels so incredibly small.

A second passes. Two. Mike fixes his glasses just to do something with his hands and he feels Will following his every movement.

When he looks up, Will is staring straight at him, slightly hunched, leaning his weight on his arms, leaning forward. His finger taps the couch cushion.

Once. Twice.

He looks like the kindest predator. Mike’s stomach coils.

It becomes clear that Will was just deep in thought because then his eyes are frantic on the ground like he’s looking for something before bending down to slide out the paper bag he had come in with.

“I’ve got… um,” Will starts, taking out a bottle from the bag and shaking it, “I’ve got a couple beers.”

Mike stares like an idiot. Will lets out a singular laugh, a “tsk” sound that makes Mike curl his fingers into the sheets his hands were resting on.

“Earth to Mike?”

“I’m listening,” Mike hurries, shaking his head and fixing his glasses again. “Sorry. I sometimes just…” Mike shuts himself down from explaining in fear he’d sound like a fucking idiot. “Sorry.”

Will pulls out another beer bottle and uses the sealed cap of one to pop off the cap of the other. The hissing sound of a freshly opened bottle makes Mike look up again.

Will tilts it towards him.

“You drink?”

The balcony is colder than Mike thought it would be. Still, they wore their flimsy coats and stood facing the city. Observing. Mike’s cold beer is making his fingers numb.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into me,” he confesses, “Sorry, I just… I’m acting like a total idiot–”

“It’s fine, Mike,” Will says, truthful, a little exhausted. He takes a swig of his beer. “It’s been years. I don’t… I also feel strange about it, y’know? You can talk to me. Honest. As awkward as it can be, we're still just…” Will trails off, shrugs, and then points between them with his free hand, “Will and Mike… Mike and Will.” His voice makes it sound like a half-joke. But there’s also a tenseness in his voice. Something intangible.

The connotation makes Mike grip harder onto the railing of the balcony. He takes a long drink of his beer like he’s done this a thousand times.

In all honesty, Mike is a recluse. He’s not a drinker. Not a going-outer. He’s… not much of anything. Not anymore. And if he’s not careful enough, he could probably get blasted off of bottled beers. It’s embarrassing. His stomach feels empty.

“Can beers loosen you up?” Will asks.

When Mike looks over at him, he’s smiling. Mike’s eyes flicker to the mole above his lip. The one that’s always been there. He feels sick.

“What?”

“I thought the beer would loosen you up. Get you feeling less awkward about… I don’t know. I just missed…” Will stops himself, laughing, “I missed talking to you. I want to… know what you’ve been up to.”

“You can still ask me,” Mike tries, he holds the beer with both hands now, resting his elbows against the railing. The conversation felt like a minefield. Like if he looked up at Will at the wrong time, something horrible was bound to happen. “I don’t think I’m all that interesting though.”

“Did you ever finish that story you were writing? About the, uh… the fantasy one.”

Mike’s fingers go numb. Maybe from the cold of the beer. Maybe from the fact it’s clear to him that Will referenced something Mike had written to him about three years ago.

Mike’s last letter to him.

The one Mike never got a reply to. That started their silence between each other. He clears his throat.

“I… yeah. I finished it a year ago.”

“Any luck?”

“Too… brash. Publishers say it won’t sell,” Mike shrugs, “It’s the decade of gritty realism and sci-fi. No one’s gonna be scrabbling over fantasy…” he tries to quote from his last failed meeting with a publisher. But he stops himself. The conversation flashes in his eyes.

“You really think people would want a fucking queer romance? Don’t kid yourself. Get the hell out of here with your garbage,” the publisher cursed, nearly spitting in his face. Mike didn’t have it in him to tell him the story wasn’t even a romance. That… It wasn’t–

“I said get the fuck out of here,” the publisher spat like a curse. Mike’s legs nearly gave out as he stumbled out of the building. He didn’t understand it. Was too scared to. He hasn’t reread his own story since.

“... romance?” Will tries, snapping Mike out of his memories.

Mike’s about to shut it down before he catches eyes with Will again.

The story. It wasn’t a romance. It couldn’t have been. Yet–

“... Yeah,” Mike answers. “Fantasy romance.”

“I’m sorry.”

Mike shrugs again, and he smiles over at Will. It feels fake. “It’s the name of the game. You win some, you lose some. I still get some short stories published in magazines. Still get some movie review articles posted here and there. I just… It’s nice to have anyone reading what you write. I’ll find my audience.”

Will smiles back at him, all soft and gentle. “You’ll always have an audience in me.”

If Mike feels a kick in his stomach, he ignores it. Like he’s always had.

Mike feels his heart stop.

What is he talking about?

“Any um… I heard from Lucas you’re an art teacher? Or maybe making art for children’s books? He seemed unsure–”

Will’s eyes seem to light up at the topic change, “Yeah. I teach on weekdays at a local art school for teens. They just… all of them have so much light in them. You know? I see myself there. It’s… rewarding stuff, I mean–” Will laughs, “How you feel about your writing having an audience, right? It feels amazing having people continue what they love because of my love for what they’re doing. It feels… I don’t know. I feel like I’m protecting them. Their happiness.”

There’s a far off look in Will’s eyes. Mike can’t help but feel like Will’s talking about something too painful to bring up.

“I… I mean you know how it was when we were kids. It feels nice,” Will smiles, “... giving back. Kind of.”

“You deserved the same,” Mike says without even thinking. It catches Will off-guard that it pauses the beer bottle a centimeter from his lips. Catches Mike off-guard too even though it came out of his mouth. “... to be protected,” Mike finishes.

Will puts the beer down again, scooching close enough to bump his elbow against Mike’s. Still with that same soft smile.

“I was protected,” Will smiles, “I had everyone. I had El.” A pause. “I had you.”

Mike nearly laughs at the sentiment. “I didn’t do a single thing.”

Will drinks more of his beer. A longer swig this time. Mike watches him swallow.

“You have no idea,” Will says. He sounds almost annoyed. But he doesn’t seem to want to elaborate, so Mike, dumbly, laughs it off instead.

“What else did Lucas tell you about me?” Will asks.

Mike’s going to bring up the art museum Lucas had told him about a couple hours prior. But instead–

“Are you still dating Carlton?”

Will pauses the top of his bottle against his lips, looking over like he just got shot.

“Wow. Haven’t heard that name in a while.”

“So, I’m guessing not?”

“No,” Will shakes his head, laughing.

“Was it… bad?”

“It hurt more than anything. He was perfect,” Will starts. A coldness runs through Mike’s feet. He stays still. “I mean… You met him back in college. He was a good guy–”

“He was a dick.”

“He was a dick to you. Because you were a dick,” Will corrects him, laughing. “I mean what was with all the stare-offs and the attitude?”

“I was not a dick!”

“You both were becoming so similar–”

Mike laughs, forcing out a bad attempt at a joke, “Hey, I wasn’t the one who broke your heart.”

It goes silent for a bit. Will musters back a tilted chuckle.

“I guess… yeah. But anyway, we broke up after um… Y’know. His parents wanted grandchildren. They never knew about me. He didn’t… want them to. It was a whole thing.”

“So he is a dick.”

“I understood him,” Will shrugs, “I don’t… I mean, it’s hard, y’know? Being…” Will shakes his head, “Not liking girls.”

“You don’t deserve to be hidden, Will.”

A silence passes through both of them again. And then, Will is breaking the moment and straightening up, clearing his throat.

“It’s fine now. He never found a girlfriend and I still get calls some nights between 2 and 3 AM from him begging me to come back,” Will drinks his beer, “Karma gets people good, I’ve realized.”

Silence.

“And… you?”

Mike perks up, looking over. It’s a dumb question. I mean… does Will see him? No one in their right goddamn mind would ever want him. His heart stings as the thought passes through him. Something so internal that it doesn’t even feel like self-pity. Just a… fact. Something he has to accept.

Mike smiles, pushing his glasses up and coughing. “O-Oh. No. Nah,” he says, like a throwaway gag, “I don’t think I was um… built out for romance. All that love stuff. After… ah… Well. You know.”

He tries not to look to the left of him, but when Will doesn’t say anything, he looks up.

Will is smiling at him, his beer tilted towards him. Mike lifts his back.

“To… being single.”

Mike laughs, “Should we be celebrating that? At a wedding celebration?”

Will laughs, cheeks pink from the cold maybe, or the alcohol, “Considering everything that’s happened… I like to celebrate everything.”

He moves the rest of the way, clinking the glass together.

When they drink again, Mike shuts his eyes and doesn’t swallow until he’s got a mouthful. Letting the taste coat his whole mouth.

The silence after feels less heavy. Less everything. Maybe Will was right. The beer loosened him up. Mike’s mind feels a little foggy, and he feels his spine loosen. What else do people talk about?

“Are you… still into that one band? I haven't been hearing them on the radio, it’s slipping my mind. There was that one song you really liked by them,” Mike laughs awkwardly, and it pries out a shy smile from Will, endearing, sickly endearing.

“And it goes?” Will asks.

Mike embarrassingly realizes Will wants him to sing it. So, he does.

Mike hums the song that he still hears some nights when something that day has triggered him. Audible nightmares. “Hmm... hm… hmmmm... should I go–”

“The Clash?!” Will laughs, and it makes Mike realize how clammy his hands have gotten. He smiles back.

“The Clash,” he snaps, “That was the name.”

Will still has the aftermath of a soft laugh on his face and it makes Mike feel a little sick again. He has missed his smile more than anything. Has missed his warmth on the left side of his shoulder. He misses him so much. And he doesn’t understand it at all because Will is physically standing right next to him. He’s right here.

“Not really. I don’t think I could ever really listen to them the same,” Will says. It doesn’t exactly sound melancholy, but Mike nods his head and looks off towards the skyline again.

“Because of… everything right? That world…” Mike says, nearly a whisper. Will lets out a small exhale, and when Mike looks up at him again, Will has a confused smile on him.

“Oh, no no,” Will laughs, “I mean… yeah, that’s probably one of the reasons but I meant I listened to them way too much in college. I feel like any song now just makes me smell alcohol and… and puke and that… like… dorm musk?”

Will laughs, and Mike pushes his lips up,

There’s a sense of heaviness in his chest. Almost embarrassment. He doesn’t want to prove Lucas right, that his head is stuck back in 1987. He shakes his head and forces out a laugh that sounds more like just a weird exhale. That’s what most laughs are anyway, right?

“What do you listen to now then?”

“I’m…” Will struggles to speak, almost like he’s embarrassed, “I’ve been a big Mike Scott fan… recently. You know. The singer for The Waterboys.” Will shrugs as he moves his hand off the railing. The movement makes his bracelets jingle against each other, and Mike follows his movement like a hawk. Will’s dark brown button up is slightly unbuttoned. He’s so much more open than he was when they were kids. Lax. Mike has to force himself to look away.

He brushes his hair to the side harder when he feels it start slipping, fixing his glasses. He moves the beer bottle to sit more flatly on the railing.

“Mike, huh?” Mike says, trying to make a joke. It sounds more questioning, awkward. Mike wants to climb over the railing they’re leaning on and jump. Luckily, Will amuses it and laughs.

“Get over yourself, Wheeler,” Will smiles, “But he did release a whole tracklist recently. One of the songs, ‘Rare, Precious, and Gone’ has been stuck in my head.”

“And it goes?”

Will looks over at Mike and smirks when he realizes Mike is using his own words against him. Then he starts humming, making sounds with his mouth like a guitar riff.

“Cry baby boy, not tears of joy. Hmm… hm.. She’s got her… new suit, dun-dun-dun, and her makeup on,”

Will can’t stop himself from laughing at how dumb the moment is, Mike lets himself laugh with him.

“She’s rare–!” Will sings with umph, it makes Mike roll his eyes, but Will still sees the smile, “–precious, and she’s gone,” Will finishes, and he turns, leaning his back against the railing, bumping his bottle of beer into the sky. Mike watches with something sparkling in his peripheral.

When Will continues to pretend he’s playing an instrument with his free hand, Will’s other one moves until his bottle of beer is leaning towards Mike.

He obliges, clashing his own beer against Will’s with a clink and then they’re both taking a swig of their respective bottles at the same time.

“That was the most loser thing I’ve seen you do,” Mike says, the fizzling feeling of alcohol still dancing on his tongue.

“Come on,” Will rolls his eyes, turning to face the skyline again. Their elbows are closer now. Mike fights with himself not to move closer, “You knew me at my worst.”

“Really? Your worst years weren't in your twenties?” Mike asks. Because his sure was… or… I guess are.

His twenties passed like he was drowning in molasses. A slow, numbing experience. He drowned in his typewriters, failed publications and crumbled papers. He hasn’t untensed his shoulders since he was 16. He’s not sure if he even knows how to anymore.

A cold autumn wind blows past them, and Mike can’t remember the last time he’s felt the wind in his ears and actually… let himself feel it.

Will seems to pause at that, and when Mike looks back up at him, his lips are slightly parted. Like he was so close to saying something, but unsure how to. Will’s eyes drift downward.

“It was… a lot of learning,” Will seems to say instead, “Of being on my own and being okay with it,” he looks up as if he knew Mike was staring at him. When they catch eyes, Mike feels sick, “And as okay with it as I got… I… missed this side of the world.”

Will smiles, strained, “I missed…” Their eyes lock. Will’s voice is breathless, “... clouds.”

The moment feels heavy, like if any of them were to look away right now, the balcony would just fall out from underneath them.

Will’s eyes seem to focus on something that isn’t Mike’s. Even though he’s staring straight at them.

“When did you start wearing your glasses so often?”

The question cracks through the tension, Mike looks away a little quickly, fixing the damn thing on the bridge of his nose.

“I.. uh… It just–” he clears his throat, “It’s easier to read and… fix stuff. You know. I mean… Writing is just—it’s easier with glasses,” he shrugs. God, he’s such a loser.

“You’re not writing right now though.”

It seems like a playful jab, but he looks back at Will like he’s looking at him in a different light. He can’t help but notice the way Will’s eyes still dip into the space between longing and love. He looks at everything this way. Like he’s sketching every sight in front of him at all times. An artist’s eyes. His lips are still the same as it was when they reached their point of no return at high school graduation. There’s a ruggedness to Will that was never there when they were young, but also something so gentle. He still looked too pretty to be a boy. Tough. Kind. Always in the in-between somewhere.

It was like Will was fluid. And Mike hasn’t been anything but as stiff as a rock since the end of it all.

When his brain is done rambling, he forgets how long Will and him have just been staring at each other in silence.

“I am,” is all he responds with to Will’s comment. Will doesn’t seem to push it.

He leans his beer bottle towards Mike again after a moment of silence, and when they take another swig of slightly room temperature beer now, Mike thinks of a hundred things at once.

They spend the rest of the night talking. Catching up with the parts of their lives they’ve missed over the years. The things they never wrote in their letters.

There seemed to be an unspoken rule. None of them brought up the last letter Mike wrote. None of them brought up the fact Will didn’t write back.

When they stumble back into the room, Will points towards the bed and places the empty beer bottles into the paper bag.

“You can take the bed. Honest.”

“Will–”

“I’m serious. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable and–”

“Will.”

He goes quiet. Mike laughs, “Take the bed tonight. We can um… We can alternate.”

“Alternate?”

“There’s two more nights. I’ll just take it tomorrow and uh… I don’t know. Rock Paper Scissors it the next?”

Will laughs, but it almost sounds tilted. Mike doesn’t know how to read it.

“Yeah… okay. We can do that.”

“Okay,” Mike says, a little too quickly, trying to cover up any silences he knows he can’t really bare. “Cool.”

“… Cool.”

The couch is extremely uncomfortable, Mike realizes after the lights have long been shut off, and he can hear Will’s breathing slow from the bed.

Mike can’t make sense of anything. But the taste of beer still lingers in the back of his throat despite how awkwardly long he brushed his teeth. And he still feels the cold air from the wind against his arms.

Maybe he can do this. Survive the weekend. Get through whatever weird shit he’ll have to face tomorrow. Maybe whatever happened, the elephant in the room, the unanswered letter, the unnamed last, maybe it doesn’t have to ruin the weekend.

Maybe if Mike doesn't push…Will softly exhales from the bed— This can stay okay.

Mike wakes up long before Will does. Writer’s internal alarm, he’s called it. Which was mostly just something to help cope with the fact he doesn’t actually know how to sleep well. His back is half broken from how awkwardly he had to fold his body to fit on the love couch, and he nearly breaks it fully by trying to stretch the moment he stands up.

Mike can see Will’s face from where he’s standing, half frozen from the pain, and now from the sight of what’s in front of him.

He looks so different this way. It’s hard to sink in. There’s crow feet wrinkles near Will’s eyes he definitely didn’t have at 15, and the way he’s holding the blanket up above his chin almost makes Mike forget they’re 28 now.

They’re 28 now. The area of Mike’s back that hurts pulses at the thought.

He tastes beer at the back of his throat.

There’s a ping from his phone that immediately shatters whatever moment he was trying pretty hard not to think about.

It’s Lucas.

Rise and shine. Brunch at 12, pier after. If either of you fake a stomach bug, I’m calling bullshit

Mike wants to throw the phone across the room because he definitely feels like he’s coming down with something anyway.

He places the phone back on the couch to look back at Will.

He should… wake him… right? There’s only so much time they have to mentally prepare themselves for this. Or who is he kidding. He’s the one who has to mentally prepare. Will’s not…

Mike takes a couple of steps towards the bed, The blanket moves whenever Will breathes, and the sun through the window casts a warm glow across the room in a way that Mike’s tiny New York apartment never has.

He feels like he’s back in Hawkins for a moment. Blue walls and colorful pinned drawings. The summer sun of Indiana and his best friend’s voices just waiting on the other side of a walkie talkie.

Will’s sleeping eyes look so peaceful. The wrinkles he never had before doesn’t take away from anything Mike is used to. He can imagine it almost. The sleeping bags splayed across the floor. Poorly made blanket tents. Will’s laughter under a pillow Mike smothers over his face during their stupid wrestling matches on the bed.

Everything is so different, but this feels exactly the same.

Mike swallows, reaching, and right when his arm’s right above where Will’s shoulder would be under the blanket, he pauses.

This feels too intimate.

Will’s eyes open blearily.

Fuck.

Before Will can focus clearly on what Mike’s doing just hovering over him, he steps back in a rush, clambering over his limbs until he slams into the ground butt-first.

Will sits up so quickly, hair messed up on one side to look over at where Mike is on the floor.

“Whoa, are you okay?” he asks, voice deep from just waking up. Mike’s backside hurts too much to think about it.

“Fine!” Mike rushes, rubbing at his tailbone and hissing, “Fine. I’m fine. Was trying to wake you. We have a… Lucas and Max are bringing us to the pier today. Brunch at 12.”

Will just stares at him, clearly and rightly suspicious. Someone doesn’t just stumble back when trying to wake someone. But he doesn’t push it.

“Ah…” Will just says, spoken like a small gratefulness. “Um… how'd you sleep?”

“Oh. Great. It was—” Mike struggles to stand, trying to brush himself off when there is nothing to brush off. “I slept awesome,” he says. The lie barely cuts through.

His back aches at the sentence, like it was trying so hard to prove him wrong. He winces then, pushing at it to straighten himself. Will could read right through it.

“I knew you should’ve taken the bed.”

Mike feels his neck hairs flare up, warm, “No. I really—” he exhales, “I’m okay. Honest.”

Will just raises a brow. But again, he doesn’t push it. The elephant in the room remains unaddressed, and Will pushes the blankets off of him.

“Well,” he shrugs, “We’ve got an hour to get ready.”

Brunch passes in a hitch. A lot of introductions, meeting the bridesmaids, meeting Lucas’ college friends again that Mike has forgotten all of the names of immediately. It’s warm, light, the way the sun shines in through the window of the restaurant makes him feel a little sick. The eggs are weirdly chewy.

Mike always feels a little sick.

The guy next to him. Terrance? Passes him a cocktail before he can refuse it, and his smile is so blinding that Mike's attempt back is embarrassingly fake. He shoves another bite of food in his mouth. Weirdly fucking chewy. He can't hear any of the conversations happening around him. When he looks back up from his plate, he feels a pair of eyes on him across the table. Will's got the after glow of a good laugh, but when their eyes lock, he looks observant. It's easy to feel self-conscious under a gaze like that, but as quick as it's there, Will's looking away again. He swallows down the probably-not-real egg.

As awkward as Mike is now, he lets the flow of the afternoon push and pull at him as they eat through fruits and a shit ton of toast.

They’re walking over to the pier of Chicago when Mike finally has a moment alone to recharge himself. Most of the group is up ahead on the boardwalk. His eyes fall on Will, who’s cracking jokes like it’s no one's business. The group loves him. Mike feels his stomach twist.

“Can’t believe the wedding lined up with the exact time you crawl out of your cave every ten years. Lucky us.”

Mike’s face falls, rolling his eyes as Dustin knocks into his side.

“Har, har. You’re so funny.”

“I do pride myself in that, thank you very much. Started doing stand-up at a local bar every Friday. You should come to one of my shows. It’s an absolute bust,” Dustin says, smug. He crosses his arms in front of his chest to smile up at nothing.

“An absolute bust means that it sucks, Dustin.”

“Which would make it mean even more if you could come out and support your old bud,” he jumps to throw an arm around Mike’s shoulders, bringing him down to his height, “At least if one person laughs, someone else might laugh.”

That earns an actual chuckle out of Mike, and he throws an arm back around Dustin.

“I’ll see if I have time the next time I crawl out of my cave,” he attempts a joke back. Dustin just smiles.

“We really missed you, man. I know I really did. So don’t go disappearing on us after this, okay?”

It’s a small gesture, really. Dustin ruffles his hair a bit, that’s gelled down straight and leaves him trying to fix it as Dustin runs after the group. Still, something stings in his chest as he tries to catch up.

The pier is stupidly big, stupidly colorful, and stupidly cold. Mike pushes his face deeper into his coat as they explore. One of Lucas’ college friends… Was it Bryce?... perks up when they walk by a red contraption. Two red tin cans separated by a large gap in the wood, tied taught with a string.

“Woah, it’s one of them tin-can telephones.”

“It’s a what?” Max’s friend asks, breathing warm air into her hands to rub together.

“You can hear what the other person on the other tincan says if you put your ear against the other one. Something about sound vibrations and all that. I don't know how I graduated college.”

“Oo, oo! Game idea! Some people go on the opposite end and if you can guess the person speaking on the other side, you get a point! Loser has to buy the entire other group something yuummmyy!” Another bridesmaid. Mike really needs to get better at memorizing names.

He’s not sure if they even actually are playing for a prize anymore, but he finds himself sitting on the opposite end of the pier with his ear pressed up against a tin can anyway.

It’s silent for a bit, and Max puts her ear as close as she can too. Someone screams and they jump back from the can. Laughter funnels in, and Mike’s rubbing at his ear when he hears breathing.

More breathing on the other line. Clearly the guys on the other side were fucking with them.

“Who the hell is that?! I swear if we lose this I’m canceling the wedding,” Max jokes, though she sounds a bit too serious.

Mike only furrows his brows. Mostly because it was insanely obvious. “Well, that's Will.”

“Okay, you’re... weirdly sure about that,” Dustin snorts, “I’ll do you one better. I think it’s Lucas. Sounds like he’s out of breath from all those fried Oreos earlier.”

Another one of the groomsmen bodies Dustin lightly with a laugh. Mike doesn’t do much but stare. It’s Will. He knows that. He could hear his voice in his inhales. The exhale half through the nose to sound more quiet.

“It’s Will,” Mike just repeats, almost like he needed to say it for himself. When he finally squints over at the other red box where the tube leads, he sees Will smiling up at one of Lucas’ friends, the transmitter to Will’s mouth.

He feels Dustin’s hand slap against his back, giving him the win. But Mike can’t stop staring forward.

It’s like he never knew how to do anything else.

—

The pier is fun, to say the least. Mike is still trying to learn everyone’s names, and it’s a bit of a difficult feat when he’s constantly fighting for his life on rides that you probably should stop going on after you turn 25.

The Cat&Mouse coaster. The merry spin. All of the wasted money on the carnival games. The god-foresaken bumper cars.

They eat dinner on the boardwalk together. Sipping fruity drinks that leaves Max laughing at every joke like it’s her last night alive and everyone slightly more talkative towards Mike than they were earlier in the day.

He barely gets a sip from his own drink when his eyes fall back on Will at the end of the table. He’s flushed red, talking loud to try to get the attention of another person sitting across him. Happy.

Happy.

Mike feels his throat tighten. Laughter floods in around him, drowning him in euphoria that doesn’t reach him.

Lucas laughs from somewhere he can’t see. It sounds the same as it always had. Always the same. Never different. Always different, never the same. Something swirls deep in his chest as the lights of the restaurant dip and sway. When he looks over, Lucas' hand curls around Max's waist, who beams up and orders everyone to bring their cups in for another group cheer. Mike can't think. Can't see five seconds ahead of him. It's not even the alcohol, that still sits untouched in his hands.

Dustin’s shoulder hits into him as he stands from his seat to yell something to them, his drink spilling over the edges of the cup. Beer seeps into his shirt sleeve. Mike's vision tunnels. When Dustin looks at him, eyes curled into half moons, Mike tries his best to smile back, and wishes he could feel it in his chest. Happy.

Happy.

When everyone's busy ordering another drink and singing to a song on the jukebox, Mike excuses himself to throw up in the bathroom alone.

The sun has long set, and with the moon slipping high into the sky, everyone seems to be winding down. Mike was grateful for the big group at least. It felt... easier almost. To disappear in it. They're laughing at a joke he didn't hear as someone hands him another piece of cotton candy. His stomach's already starting to hurt from the junk sitting in it.

It’s the last ride for the night, and frankly, the one he knew was coming but was desperately trying to avoid.

“Before it gets any later and we get any colder. Ferris wheel?”

Mike swallows down nothing.

–

The line’s not all that bad, especially since it’s too cold for anyone to want to stand outside for that long just to get up on a spinning thing in the wind. Still, they take a while to choose how to split up, and Mike stands in the back of the group waiting to hear a consensus. He should’ve paid attention earlier. He really should’ve. Because then, Will is coming up to him.

“You’re with me then,” Will says, and it’s so light-hearted, so unnecessarily normal, that Mike feels his head spin.

He feels like a teenager. Awkward. Unsure. Nervous for no good goddamn reason.

“Yeah,” is all he can get out, then the next carousel is stopping on the platform and Will tears off a number of tickets to give to the worker.

Mike feels his lanky limbs betray him as he pushes himself forward, climbing into the cart on the opposite side of Will.

Will makes a joke to the worker that Mike can’t hear, and then the metal gate shuts and the ferris wheel turns.

Will’s not even looking at him, smiling down at the view below them as it gets farther and farther away. The wind against his ears feel like they’re chewing through his skin. The ride stops.

“Lucas’ college friends are so much funnier than I thought they would be,” Will lets out. He’s still smiling down over the railing. “Though I’m pretty sure Bryce smashed my rib cage during bumper cars.”

Mike pushes out a laugh through his lips in the best and least fake possible way he can. His hands are getting clammy, and he swipes it across his jeans. It’s stupid. To get sweaty hands in the coldest weather imaginable. He stares down at nothing. The cart sways a little with the wind. Then, it’s moving again.

“Are you… having fun?” Will asks. When Mike looks back up, he’s already staring at him. It’s almost scrutinizing, even though Will’s eyes are incredibly soft. Too soft. Like he’s worried. It's that same look during brunch. That same look at the dinner.

“Yeah,” Mike says over the loud bustle below them. “It’s different.”

Will tilts his head a little.

“From… from New York,” Mike rushes. He presses his fingers hard into his thighs. Trying to calm himself down. “And having everyone around. You know. It’s just… different.”

“In a good way, I hope?” Will laughs. It sounds the same as it always did.

Mike swallows.

“In a good way,” he answers. A part of him pinches the inside of his brain.

The cart stops again, and the swaying makes Mike look over to the side. Horrible idea.

They’re a lot higher up than he realized, and looking over the edge made his vision blur. He shuts his eyes.

“… Mike?”

Mike can’t stop himself from going quiet. The wind whistles through him. It’s weird. Maybe it's from vomiting earlier, from the weird emotional tide he's being swept through. Maybe it's the fact being around others makes him realize just how horrifically he's been living. The envy chews at him. He thinks of the laughter at the dinner.

Happy.

Happy-

"Mike."

He opens his eyes. Will's staring at him again. Worried. Always worried. Always kind.

"What's wrong?" Will finishes. He would answer. He really would. If he knew himself what was wrong with him. What's been wrong with him. He would answer.

Mike opens his mouth, head sinning, and then the ferris wheel jerks as it starts spinning again. He shuts his eyes.

He’s fine with most heights. Building balconies. Airplanes. Something this unsteady though? After everything? The ferris wheel rocks with the autumn wind.

He wants to get off.

Mike opens his eyes slowly, and Will is still just sitting and staring. Unsure of what would help. Of what to do.

His pointer finger taps at his knee repetitively, strong, knuckles white on his other hand as he squeezes it. His jaw locks.

He doesn’t want to look at Will like this. Still, he feels like he’s being watched like a hawk when there’s a beautiful view below them. He shuts his eyes. The ferris wheel stops.

“Are you… scared?” Will whispers, a little out of disbelief.

How did he…? Mike cracks an eye open, lips still pressed together trying to hold in all the oxygen he has. Like if he exhales, he’ll never get the chance to breathe again.

“I uh…” Bad idea. Mike can’t swallow, “I’m fine.”

It should be enough to get by. Mike’s a horrid liar, but when it comes to things like this, lying to not have people worry about him? He was a fucking god at it.

Will just stares.

“Honest,” Mike says. Like he had this morning when he fell. Like he had when he lied about sleeping well. Like he had when he got a splinter from holding onto the side of the boardwalk. Like he did when they were fighting monsters back at 14.

He wants to drown himself in the ocean at the thought.

It’s just… embarrassing, to be frank. He’s never had a fear of heights like this. Sure it’s always made him queasy, especially after he had stepped off the cliff at 12, after the radio tower, after everything. But years of never really doing any adrenaline junkie shit, years of being a complete shut-in, he feels more like a loser letting a ferris wheel get to him.

His jaw unlocks then locks again.

“Mike,” Will says. It comes out so taught, so careful. Mike wants to drown in that instead. “Look at me.”

Something drapes itself over the moment. A heaviness that Mike doesn’t know how to manage, how to navigate. It’s how he’s always felt around Will.

The elephant in the room comes back. The dead horse. He can’t do this. He holds his breath tighter.

“Mike,” Will tries again, almost desperate. There’s soft hands on his at the next moment, and with his heart pounding heavily in his ears after the next gust of wind, he hears Will again, “Breathe.”

It’s not even a fight, he shakily exhales into the cold air, and when he cracks an eye open, the cloud of fog he let out in his exhale leaves everything weirdly blurry, Will’s staring at him like he’s holding the secrets of the universe.

“You’re fine,” Will says when they lock eyes.

And truth be told, Mike believes it for a second there. A brief, agonizing moment. Then the cart lurches as the ferris wheel starts rotating again, and Mike turns his hand around to grip back at Will’s hand tightly, shutting his eyes as he leans forward. With how long his limbs are they’re nearly torso to torso. Mike shuts his eyes again.

Will grabs back at him. “It’s okay,” he says again, “I’ve got you.”

And against all of his worries, all his doubt, all his years of fighting not to, Mike lets the warmth of someone’s hand quell the chaos in his chest.

This is different from New York. All of this was.

The Party isn’t in that city. There is no Will there. There never was.

Time moved anyway. They all grew up anyway. This is different from New York. And New York is different from Hawkins. And being 28 is different from being 14. And it’s like everyone has accepted it but Mike.

How long will he be stuck on this? The Ferris Wheel keeps spinning. How long will he be stuck?

Mike shuts his eyes tighter, and if his fingers curl themselves tighter too along the other guy’s hand, Will doesn’t say anything.

It’s an awkward bumble to get out of the cart when they finally get off the ride. Though, it’s mostly just awkward for Mike. Because he is awkward.

They rejoin the group like it was nothing, and when Will smiles back at him through everyone, he feels like he might just die like this. He doesn’t see it when Will’s smile falls but his eyes stay trained on him.

The hotel feels stupid quiet when they return. Mike holds the door open as Will yells down the hall.

“—I know how to iron things! I won’t burn your suit. Seriously, Dustin, just drop by tomorrow morning—”

Mike toes off his shoes, still holding the door with his other arm.

“Okay, okay! Jeez Mr. Fancy Pants, see you tomorrow,” Dustin replies, “—and night, Mike!”

Not expecting it, he almost stumbles trying to peek his head back through the door.

“Night, Dustin!” Mike calls out to Dustin’s retreating back. Will slips in through the door as their friend shoots a hand gun towards them.

The moment the door shuts, locking instantly, Will finally gets his other boot off, and offers Mike a small smile. His attempt back is in vain.

"I'll... go wash up first."

They don't speak for a while. Until both have showered and gotten ready for bed. Mike lays on the couch while Will's in the bathroom, and lets the clock ticking drive him insane.

Nothing about any of this was normal. Not him. Not Will. Not their past. Not their memories. It almost felt... like a betrayal, to watch everyone live so normally. Despite his best efforts, envy chews through his heart. He tries to swallow it away.

"It's your turn on the bed."

Mike sits up so fast he almost gives himself whiplash. He didn't even hear Will leaving the bathroom. He's got a towel in his hair, and he looks exhausted.

"What?"

"Remember? We were... alternating. Taking turns. I had it last night. It's your turn."

"I really..." Mike tries to argue, but Will gives him a look.

"Mike, don't make me drag you over here—"

"The couch is really all I need—"

"You are literally twice the size of it."

"—and it's completely comfortable—"

"Mike—"

"We can just share it."

... What?

Will's hand stops moving through his hair. The clock keeps ticking. Mike really needs to drown himself in a sink.

"We don't... I mean if you're uncomfortable, y'know. Just..." Mike stumbles, trying to save himself the embarrassment of existing. Will seems to recover through his stumbling words.

"If you're okay with it," he shrugs.

... What?

"Wouldn't be the first time," Will continues, trying to make a light-hearted joke, but it only makes Mike even more mortified. Will turns towards the bed and continues to dry off his hair. It's an agonizing walk to the other side of the bed.

He can't sleep. He really can't. The left side of him is a bit warmer from Will's body heat and he might actually die on this bed if he doesn't move right now.

It's almost like he's still on the ferris wheel. Still spinning. Spinning and spinning and spinning and so fucking lost. So fucking not there.

Mike spares a glance over, just out of curiosity, and nearly jumps ten feet up when he sees Will already facing him. The prolonged stare is torture.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"What makes you say any different?" Mike asks back, moving his eyes back to the ceiling like it would save him. He really wouldn't mind if it came crashing down on his face.

"You think I don't see it? I still... know you Mike."

Mike almost laughs, and feeling a bit bolder: "You spying on me, now?"

"I don't think it takes a scientist to see you weren't feeling great."

"I never feel that great."

"Mike."

"I'm kidding," he hurries, and turns his body to face Will. They stay staring at each other. Will still scrutinizing and Mike completely neutral. It feels like a battle of integrity. Despite the horrors, Mike is still a stubborn fucking asshole. Mike tries to shimmy to hide his face a little more in the blanket, but Will looks serious now, and he feels awkward moving.

"... You know you can still tell me anything, right?" Will whispers. Mike's heartbeat feels stupid loud in his ears. Still, he attempts a laugh.

"You don't have an obligation to hear me out anymore. We're not... like... about to die or something-"

"Is that really what you think?" Will asks, "Is that what you thought of me when I relied on you back then? Like I was an obligation?"

"No!" Mike shifts. Their faces are too close.

"We're still... You're still my best friend."

Well, that's a lie. He definitely isn't. He doesn't even know what he's been doing the past three years. Mostly because they cut contact. Well... he didn't cut contact. But Will... he stopped... Ugh.

"Okay..." Mike says, not in agreeance, but as an acknowledgement to what he just said, "But I'm just... I'm saying for me-"

"Why is it any different?"

"Because I don't... I don't want you to have to worry about me. I know it's exhausting."

"Of course I care about you. Of course I want to know how you're doing. What are you-"

"Three years is a long time," Mike says instead. Will's eyes gloss over with something inscrutable. Mike doesn't elaborate. Three years since they last exchanged letters. Three years since Will stopped writing to him. Three years since they last "spoke". But if he was honest, he thinks he lost Will years before that. Maybe he's never had him.

“I think we need some sleep. It's... a big day tomorrow,” Will whispers, still so close that his breath ricochets off of Mike’s nose. He should say something. He really should.

When Will turns his body to face away, Mike doesn’t fall asleep for a long long time.

He can hear his voice in his inhales. The exhales half through the nose so it’s not too loud. Mike thinks of the red tin can. He thinks of a breath against his ear. He thinks of the walkie talkie. Breathing. Singing. A whimper.

Mike sits up quickly from the bed, so wide awake that he feels like it’s midday, looking over at where Will pulls the blanket tighter towards him on the hotel bed. Will's breathing is uneven. Sweat was starting to roll from his forehead.

“Will,” Mike whispers. Will won’t stop letting out sharp breaths. It sounds almost painful. His arm thrashes again, face scrunched. Mike recognizes the movements like he’s reading a book he’s read a hundred times through.

“Will,” he whispers again, placing his knees on the bed to slide his hand under Will’s head, holding him lightly by the neck.

It reminds him of far off years. The sleepovers at 12. Or the 18 months they lived together at 16. The nights Will would come up to his room when the basement was horrifying and they’d share the bed with no other words between them.

The summer after graduation…

The winter breaks during college.

The summers between—

Mike hasn’t let himself revisit any of those memories after Will moved to California and he moved to New York. It all opened up an aching so painful in his chest that he felt he could die from it. They'd take care of each other. They were friends. But there was something unsaid. Something unsaid. Something was always left unsaid.

But these moments. With Will’s nightmares. He remembers how to deal with them like the back of his hand. Just close enough. Just far away enough. Invisible rules between the both of them. Rules only the universe knew.

Mike pulls the hand currently behind his neck up, lifting Will’s head as he places his other palm flat against his chest.

Will wakes up with a gasp at the jostle, immediately grabbing roughly at the hand Mike had placed at the center of his chest, right beside his heart.

“Shh… It’s just me,” Mike hurries when Will’s breathing becomes rapid again, his eyes squinting heavy, filled with tears.

It leaves Mike even more desperate. To hold him. Touch him. Mike can’t even explain it himself. “Will. Breathe.”

Will shakes his head, gasping. More tears shake through him and Mike pushes himself closer to Will, trying to transfer his warmth to the other.

“I’m here. You’re okay. Breathe. Come back to me,” Mike pushes himself down a little until Will is grasping at his shirt, trying to get them closer too.

“I’m sorry,” Will whispers, “I’m sorry. I can’t—”

Mike shushes him again, reminding him to focus on his air.

They count through it slowly, Mike’s hand still placed tight against his body and his thumb still rubbing soothing circles on the back of his neck.

Will used to describe it as a reclaiming of sorts. Having someone he trusts hold his neck when he’s in the thick of it always helps him feel like his body is his again. Not Vecna’s. Not the Mindflayer’s. His.

He feels Will push back against the hand on his neck, head tilting back as he inhales loud, leaving Mike shifting forward with him.

The proximity makes Mike feel a lot of things. Too many things. All at once.

“I’m sorry,” Will whispers again, once his breathing isn’t as rapid anymore.

“Will,” Mike says, a bit too serious. He leans back until they’re face to face, “You still have nightmares?”

Will seems to push a little at Mike’s arm, maybe wanting distance. In the dark of the hotel room, Will looks embarrassed.

“I…” Will tries, “Rarely,” he says, and then, with more confidence, “It’s rare.”

Mike just stares at him. Their hands are still overlapped over one another. The warmth between each other feels a bit intoxicating.

“It’s just… November 6th just passed and I think it’s because I’m around—” He cuts himself off, and they make eye contact again. Will swallows, “This is going to sound bad. I don’t want it to sound bad, and I don’t want you to blame yourself.”

“It’s because you’ve been around me?”

A silence passes.

“It’s not you, Mike,” Will tries to explain, “You were just… You were so integral to me at the time, and I just… It’s been a while. I don’t—”

Mike thinks back to the 18 months in quarantine. The college breaks. Did Will only ever get worse nightmares at those times because… His vision tunnels, a feeling out of body slamming into him the same way it did at the dinner earlier that night.

“Lucas shouldn’t have paired us in the same hotel room,” Mike whispers. His hand falls from Will’s neck and he pulls back.

He hurries to try to get off the bed, but the other is just as frantic.

“Mike,” Will says, tense, “Mike, wait.”

His hands grasp over Mike’s free arm again, but Mike’s already moving his knees to get to the edge of the bed, and—

“Wait!” Will orders, and then Mike’s being pushed back with all his body weight.

He lets out a sound when his back hits the bed, arms hitting the sides of him as Will hovers over him.

“So many years, and you’re still a horrible listener,” Will jabs, and they barely have moved at all, but he sounds out of breath. Mike’s heartbeat doesn’t help.

“You’re not the cause of my nightmares,” he tries to explain, again.

Mike can barely concentrate with the strength of Will’s arms holding his wrists down.

“I just…” Will tries, and his eyes look glossy from the moonlight coming into the window. Will struggles to speak, and then Mike feels his wrist be squeezed once. Will eases up, and Mike moves to sit up.

“It’s not just you,” Will repeats, “You’re in a lot of my memories that happened then.”

Mike’s guilt seems to double. Will continues talking.

“You were—”

“I was an asshole.”

“You were everything,” Will finishes. Mike’s heart stills. “It just… It gets hard. And right now, it’s around the same time everything went down. I just…” Will takes a breath. “This happens every year.”

Mike hasn’t gotten over what Will just said.

You were everything. Will’s voice stays on loop in his mind. Mike swallows down nothing.

“Sorry.”

Mike looks up and notices Will’s hand coming up to his neck. Scratching at the back of it. He notices it right away.

He leans forward immediately, leaning his body weight on one arm on the side of Will’s thigh to reach behind him. He pries Will’s fingers off his neck, holding the back of it again. Gentle. Firm. He hears Will stop breathing.

“Stop… apologizing.”

He only realizes how close they are when he feels his warm breath ricochet off Will’s face in front of him and warm his own nose. When Will’s eyes grow watery, Mike flinches back.

“I…” Will tries to start a sentence, ultimately failing and starting to cry, “God, why am I acting like this around you? After all this time.”

“What?”

Will laughs, wet, “Forget it. It’s weird—”

“Will—”

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” Will wipes his tears away, staring at his own hands like he’s in disbelief, “It’s been a long time anyway.”

“Will.”

He looks up. Mike’s head is tilted down enough that he has to look up to meet eyes with Will. His eyes flicker.

“Talk to me,” Mike tries. "You can... tell me anything."

"Hypocrite much?" Will says through a wet laugh. Mike bites his tongue. "I... guess it's unfair I never told you," he says, wiping over his face again with his sleeve.

The length of the pause only adds to the pressure on Mike’s shoulders. It’s deafening.

Then, after a long uncomfortable silence—

“I was in love with you when we were kids,” Will confesses.

Mike’s heart stops. He doesn’t dare say a thing. The hand on Will’s neck feels sweaty.

“Whenever Vecna had a hold of me, I’d see these… visions. Of you. The worst ones. He’d torture you in front of me. Or… show me a future where I’d lose you. Or you’d hate me. Want me far away. Sometimes I still feel like he’s inside of my head. Sometimes the nightmares feel so catered. So… him. Like I’m back in those visions.”

Will is refusing to look him in the eye, but Mike needs him to. Needs to see if this is some fucked up prank. Mike’s hand travels from Will’s neck to his shoulder.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Mike asks, so shakily he’s not even sure he can recognize himself. The memories of the years suddenly get dipped into a haze.

The years Will had been deprived of his childhood, his light, his everything. He was in love with Mike. That roadtrip to Hawkins from California. That god foresaken summer at the mall. The year he was… possessed. The Vecna fight. When did it start? When did it end?

Had Mike just pushed him into more suffering? All those years?

They’re 28 now. Nearly 30. Nearly the age everyone starts joking about putting you into a retirement home than the years you spent playing with toys.

The years feel deadly long now. Mike feels so fucking sick.

Will wipes a stray tear away. Laughing.

How could he laugh like this? How the fuck could he laugh in a situation like this?

“I hated myself. You couldn’t have possibly expected–”

“I was your best friend, Will,” Mike doesn’t mean for it to sound so angry, but something sharp is squirming up his throat and he can’t quell it.

Was. Loved. Every word in the past tense feels like a sucker punch to the gut. Mike tries to center himself.

“That’s what made it so much worse,” Will whispers.

“So you hid from me? And… what? Lied?”

“Lied?” Will asks, looking up at Mike with confusion in the fine lines.

“The radio tower… the… when you came out. You had so many chances to tell me and you never–” Mike stumbles over what he’s trying to say. Will had loved him.

Will was in love with him. Was. Loved. Past tense. Mike swallows,

“You could’ve told me.”

“You were dating my sister.”

“I was your best friend.”

“The world was ending!” Will emphasizes back, laughing like he couldn’t believe the absurdity of Mike’s reasoning. It was like they were fighting over the obvious facts, and Mike’s hand slips completely away from his shoulder when he rolls it to push it off. “There were more important things then. I didn’t… It was just a crush anyway. It didn’t matter.”

“So why’d you bring it up?” It sounds like a jab. Again.

Will looks up, eyes flared with something more akin to rage than anger. “Excuse me?”

“You just said you don’t understand why you still feel this way around me.”

“Act! Act this way around you. Not feel. Jesus, Mike—”

“That doesn’t answer a goddamn thing. Were you… Was it ‘just a crush’ or were you in love? That’s not the same thing—”

“Do you really think that matters now?” Will asks. And it doesn’t sound like a jab. It almost sounds genuine. Like Will actually does need an answer to it. Mike’s eyes flicker around Will’s face. The mole above his lip. His hazel eyes. Aged with time. Exactly the same. His breath feels short. A question burns the back of his throat like the shot of vodka had in that bar.

“Why did you stop responding to my letters?”

Will blinks, the question catching him off guard enough that he leans back a bit.

“What?”

“My letters. Three years ago. I sent you my last letter and you never responded to it.”

“I…” Will looks at the bed sheet. Mike catches his left leg scooting back, like he was trying to prepare himself to run. “I never got it. I don’t—”

“You did,” Mike says, tone flat, “The fantasy novel I was writing. I only ever told you about it in that last letter I sent. You brought it up on the balcony.”

“Mike,” Will looks up, angry, “Whatever you’re thinking, it isn’t correlated.”

“I’m just asking you. I’m not trying to correlate anything.”

“I fucking can’t with your mind games.”

That left leg scoots back all the way, and then Will is standing. Mike follows after him.

“It’s not—” Mike huffs, climbing off the bed, “—a mind game. I’m asking you why you did the things you did that led us to stop talking.”

Will whips around. “I can ask you the same fucking thing, Mike.”

“What?”

They’re standing in front of each other now. It’s dark in the hotel room, but Mike can see Will’s face so clearly under the moonlight from the window.

“Your letters were… they were something. Okay? You can’t just write some of the things you did, and expect me not to be hurt by them.”

Mike laughs, confused, “Hurt by them? Hurt? I constantly was—”

“Telling me how much you missed me? How much you realized you needed me once I moved? How you wished things could be the way they used to be? How everything used to be? How… the past still ‘feels like yesterday’?” Will scoffs as he explains it, throwing his arms up like he couldn’t fucking believe what he was saying. He keeps talking:

“You were stuck in our childhood in those letters, Mike. It was fucking painful to read what you wrote. Every time. Every letter felt like you were hoping we were back at a time where I was suffering through hell—”

“I wasn’t referring to that! You know I wasn’t.”

“Those years were so—!” Will struggles, angry, frustrated. Tears are starting to form again as he tenses his hands in the air trying to find the words. “I couldn’t stand you writing about it like it was just a… a story. I survived through it with no fucking hope inside of me. I fought to survive through it—”

“Everyone did!”

“But you write about it like it was something you miss like all fucking hell! Something you… Something you wanted to relive so much—”

“Will. It’s—”

“And you had to write it all to me?! Like I was someone you could just dump all your emotional baggage on?! I was trying to move on.”

Mike scoffs, “Move on?! That was something you could just move on from?!”

“Of course not!” Will yells, “Does it look like I fucking moved on?!” He gestures to the bed. The one he had just struggled to wake up from a nightmare in. “But I tried. I’m trying. Despite everything, I still want to live,” Will sounds so exhausted.

“I can’t go back there, Mike. And I—I loved you, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t trap myself back at that time,” Will shrinks in on himself.

“Couldn’t trap yourself back at what time?” Mike sounds just as angry.

Will’s eyes are distant when he looks back up at Mike. “Back when my life was stolen from me.”

“Really? So back when El was alive?”

…

A silence passes. Will looks like Mike just shot him through the chest.

Then, ever so quietly, Will lets out a laugh, stilted. It sounds like a death rattle. Mike keeps eye contact. Glaring. So stubborn that he doesn’t even want to back down from this. Even when he knows he’s wrong.

Even when he knows he’s being a fucking dick. He’s a mirror of his 15 year old self.

Will pushes past him so quickly that Mike’s eyes take a second to refocus. Will yanks his jacket from the desk and shoves his hands through the sleeve with enough vigor to nearly rip it. The guilt hits Mike square in the face like cold water. He turns to face him.

“Will. Where are you going?”

He ignores him. Mike feels like they’re 13 again. Feels like they’re fighting in that goddamn basement. Panic and guilt mix horribly in his stomach. Passes by him like someone just stuck a needle into the bottom of his stomach. Why the fuck did he say that? Why–

“Will, I’m sorry,” he hurries over. Will’s shoving his feet aggressively into his shoes, still dead silent. “Will–”

Mike goes to grab at his arm and the moment it makes contact, his coat crinkling under his finger tips, Will throws his arm back so harsh that Mike’s arm flings back at him, hitting him square across the nose.

“Don’t touch me!” Will bites through gritted teeth.

They stand there both in shock, even Will, who was seconds away from full blown anger. It was odd. Suddenly reverting back to fighting like teenagers. It’s like they just passed through a moment in time. Like the air between them was their own personal time machine. It’s like they were both just slapped with cold water.

Will shakes his head, snapping himself out of it.

“I’m sorry,” Will rushes, going to hold Mike by the face to check him. He’s so frantic that Mike feels his fingers trembling on the skin of his cheek, “I don’t know why I… Did I hit you? Shit, I’m sorry–”

“No, that was completely me,” Mike says, cutting him off. The stinging pain on his nose is the last thing on his mind. “That was me. Don’t apologize. I deserved that.”

Will takes a couple of breaths, still avoiding Mike’s eyes. Mike hovers a hand over the hand Will still had loosely on his face. He wants him to look at him again.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Mike tries, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I… said that.”

“I don’t know why I reacted like that either.”

Slowly, Will looks back up at him. He’s on the verge of tears again. Mike feels like a monster.

“I’m sorry. I’m…” Mike can barely get out another word before a dam cracks open in Will’s heart and then he’s sobbing. Mike hurries to hold him by the elbows as Will grabs him back, dropping forwards.

“Will. Will, I’m sorry,” Mike repeats like a mantra. When Will tilts forward again, a heavy cry ripping out of him, Mike hugs him deep into his chest as he lets Will drag him down to the ground with him.

“I didn’t mean that. Please, I’m sorry,” he hurries, trying to do damage control. Damage he caused. Mike feels his eyes sting hard. He hasn’t cried in years. It feels like someone’s gouging out his eyes with a spoon.

When they hit their knees, Mike wraps his arms tighter around Will’s body and head, leaning his lips down to the top of his hair. It’s intimate. Maybe too intimate after everything. But Will sounds like he can’t breathe and Mike’s on the verge of breaking into two completely.

Neither of them are fully stable in this state. He knows that for sure. Will seems like he wants to say something after a moment of heavy tears. Mike’s heart feels so hollow. His eyes are still stinging.

“I didn’t tell you after everything either… that I loved you,” Will starts, “I hated all outcomes. If you leaned away, I didn’t know what I’d do with myself if I knew the cause was because I didn’t keep it hidden. If… If you leaned in,” Will hesitates, “I didn’t want to be a replacement for her,” Will sobs.

“I just…” Will struggles to get any words out. He grips harder at Mike’s sleeve and it makes him nauseous, “I thought it would be easier to move on. Move on from everything. From Hawkins. From my childhood. From you. College. Lenora. It’s all… I got away, you know? I never wanted El to…” Will sounds so defeated, exhausted, “I still tell people I have a sister. I still write letters I wish I could send to her. I never once… I never—”

“Will. I know that’s not what you meant. You don’t have to… prove yourself,” Mike tries, “I was being a fucking asshole. I was being an asshole to you with those letters too. I don’t know what’s been wrong with me. I haven’t… I feel like I haven’t breathed in years.”

Mike struggles to feel his arms when Will’s hold tightens on them to push himself up to stare at the ground.

“Despite everything, Mike,” Will starts, he’s on the verge of a pained smile, “The world finally feels like…” Will exhales, leaning his head away farther from Mike’s chest, “It finally feels like mine again.”

The sentiment sounds sadder from his lips than it does as a lone sentence. Will looks up.

“I moved on the best I could.”

The sentence sounds like there’s a but in it. Will just stares at him. Flickering eyes. He’s always done this.

“I was… I was in love with you,” Will confesses again. He’s sitting on his knees fully from Mike now. “And I didn’t want to bring it up here. Because I missed… I missed you so much,” he says through a sob, “I just… Mike…”

“What I really want…”

Mike’s heart is pumping so loudly in his ears he thinks it might burst.

“I want to be friends again,” Will finishes.

Mike’s blood runs cold. He can’t understand why.

“I was a horrible friend to you,” Mike reminds him, “I just… I mean I hurt you right now. I can’t, Will. I wasn’t a good friend. I'm not even a good person. There's nothing for you in me. And I know you know that–”

“I don’t care,” Will looks down between them, bowing his head, almost like he’s pleading. Mike can’t handle it. He uses his free hand not carrying his body weight in their weird position on the floor to try to push him to sit straighter.

“Will, look up.” No one moves, “Will. Please. Please, get up,” Mike feels his eyes sting harder. He can’t cry. Not like this. Not here. “I’m scared of… This isn't worth it. I can’t hurt you again. I know that I will.”

“We’re older now,” Will laughs through tears, “I’ve been through a lot more bullshit. I can handle myself. I'm not a child. I can…”

“I don’t deserve you,” Mike says. The tone is so final that Will finally looks up at him.

For the first time in years, Mike feels a singular tear slip down his cheek. His eyes feel like they’re on fire.

“Let me be the judge of that,” Will retorts. He grabs Mike’s arm.

“I’m so done with people deciding things for me. I’ve been done with it,” Will says. The prolonged eye contact feels deathly. “That's all my life was. For so fucking long. You've got to be tired of it too, Mike. Aren't you done with letting the universe shove you around?” Will pauses, “What do you want?”

It’s been a long, long time since Mike asked himself that. Been maybe never since someone else asked him. Mike opens his mouth. Shuts it.

How can he possibly deserve to want anything? After everything?

“I want to know you again,” Mike whispers. Let the world be damned, and almost like a promise, like a sacred oath, he attaches his name, “Let me... get to know you again, Will Byers.”

The smile Will bears then looks heavy. After a long pause, Will finally looks at him. It’s the way he looks at everything. With the moon shining through the window, and his eyes blurry with tears, burning him raw, Mike feels breathless.

...

“I can work with that.”

The wedding is beautiful. There was no way it couldn’t be. The ceremony was something straight out of a film. The flowers and the drapery. It was nice too, for Mike to see his family again. Holly is taking after his height, and Nancy's finally moved in with Jonathan.

"Still rocking those stupid glasses, huh?"

"Nancy, please stop talking."

He does his job. Which is mostly standing at the front and listening intently to everything. He walks down the aisle with one of Max's friends he still does not know the name of, and who, really, did not seem like she would've chosen him to walk with even if there was a gun to her head.

He watches as the rest of them file down. Sees the way Will smiles at the girl connected to his arm. He doesn't like girls. Mike knows that. But when they split at the altar and the girl gives a bashful smile, Will's kind eyes lingering, he feels his chest constrict.

Lucas cries when Max comes down. Max cries when Lucas starts his vow. It's a whole lot of tears and a lot of words that Mike feels he's heard a million times over walkie talkie conversations at 13 and on the phone years and years after the end of it all.

Their vows, with the stupid amount of "I'd save the world for you" jokes, were a real crowd hitter. Which—to be fair—really isn't a joke because well... they did. To anyone outside of their circle in the wedding, it was only a blessing they could understand.

Mike doesn't cry, but he smiles softly when instead of a deep kiss, Max and Lucas embrace each other tight, melting into their arms at the end of their vows.

The reception started nearly immediately, and with the bustle of everything going on, Mike feels like he's in a complete trance. He's sitting at a table trying to catch up with Holly when she gets inevitably bored of him and runs off to another group of teenagers, leaving an empty space beside him.

"Water?" Dustin asks, handing him a glass. The ice clinks on the edges. Mike swirls the drink around.

"This isn't water, is it?" he just says knowingly. Dustin just smiles and drinks his own, then flattens down his button up. He had taken off the blazer ages ago.

"Thank god Will knows how to use an iron, otherwise I would've looked stupid," he looks back up and takes another swig, "You guys doing better now?"

"Doing better?"

"I dunno. Never seen you guys so... stiff before this," Dustin just smiles, "Had to take a day or two to warm up again or something, huh?"

"It's just been a while," Mike hurries, unsure what he's trying to defend.

"It's been a while for all of us." Dustin brings up his cup. Mike's not sure he's got it in him to drink. He thinks back to their conversation the night before. The warm hands in winter cold. The tears that's been building up in his eyes since 1987. Mike feels his throat constrict.

The morning was so hectic that Mike and Will never really had a moment alone together to acknowledge the night before. But it was like they didn't need to. Like the barrier between them just dissipated overnight. It felt normal. Nearly. Will ironed his suit too and helped him fix the lapel before they walked through the doors. Cracking jokes and being kind. There was still something unsaid. Mike felt it in the way his throat runs cold whenever they lock eyes. Something always left unsaid.

Before Dustin and Mike can continue their conversation, the music dims down and one of Lucas' college friends speaks through the mic.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Please put your hands together and welcome to the dance floor the new Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair.”

The first dance. Mike hurries to stand and face the dance floor.

When the first strums of a guitar begin, Mike feels his head start spinning. It’s not like he drank too much or anything, but the sudden realization of how real the things around him are feels a little nauseating. Less nauseating than the night at the pier, but he wants to be happy for his friends. He really does.

He just doesn't know how to be happy for himself either.

He recognizes the song. Open.

Mike laughs at the realization. Mike Scott. He thinks of their first night on the balcony when they got to Chicago. Lead singer of the Waterboys. Will’s favorite.

Lucas takes Max’s hand and they make their way to the center of the floor.

Open to the world.
Open to spirit.
Open to the changing wind.

Lucas spins her, a small laugh echoing off the walls. Mike watches Max’s hair fall out of the half-ponytail she had put it in on the first spin. He wonders if it was planned. By the way Max’s smile never wavers, eyes so trained on Lucas’s that it was like they’d never turn away, Mike realizes it really doesn’t matter at all.

Lucas looks completely lost in her, and a burning pain he can’t really explain settles in his gut.

They seem to be whispering something to each other between the verses, something only for them. Their world.

Mike feels evil for feeling the way he does. He feels so incredibly sick. Angry. Less at them and more at himself. An aching pit in his stomach waiting to be addressed. But he only digs his nails harder into his palm, like maybe if he hurts himself enough, the pain in his chest will stop with it.

He feels a tingle in the back of his head, like he’s being watched; and when his eyes catch onto Will’s across the dance floor, he’s not sure what he’s supposed to feel.

Open to joy
Open to service
Open to saying "Yes!"

Lucas picks Max up at that line by her waist, her laugh ringing out across the hall. Max’s mom covers her mouth as she cries into the arms of Lucas’s mother beside her. It’s a soft sight, something Mike can only observe as he lets his eyes flicker over the crowds of people.

He sees, in the darkness of the room, Erika stumbling through the shadows, hooking some things together away from the public eye.

As she disappears behind a pillar, he finds his gaze has landed back on Will, who, by some cursed luck, was already staring straight back at him.

Mike fights it in himself to dart his sight away by the sudden eye contact, but Will only smiles back at him.

Mike Scott, Will mouths to him. Mike grins back. A small, I know. Will doesn’t even need him to say it.

Open to risk
Open to passion
To peace and silence too

Will doesn’t look away, so Mike doesn’t either. He lets out a small laugh when Will sways his head to the music, pretending to play an imaginary instrument in his hands as non-noticeable as possible, mouthing the words with a barely open mouth, just for him. It reminds him of the first night they spent on the balcony, singing songs and recounting the years they missed in each other’s lives.

Open to love.

Open to beauty.

Mike doesn’t understand how he’s lived this long without Will by his side.

Open Beloved… to you.

The moment the last line is sung, Will’s eyes are still facing him, mouthing the words beneath his breath, Mike feels something turn sideways in his stomach.

Mike catches Erika hitting a button in his peripheral vision and confetti shoots out across the dance floor and the audience. White and bright and beautiful. Max and Lucas continue their dance as the audience cheers, Mike can barely take away his eyes from Will even when the other has already put his attention back on the married couple. His smile is more blinding than the lights as he cheers with the rest of the crowd, applauding.

When Will looks back, Mike’s already staring.

Lucas and Max dance between their line of vision, an eternal love. Everyone in the room could see it. Something Mike was never guaranteed. Something that leaves a burning in his chest. Confetti sticks to the top of Will’s hair, passing in front of their eyes like snow.

As the confetti falls, and the sound of joy drowns out the music, Will smiles at Mike in the crossfire.

Mike ends up at the bar sometime after the first dance. Most people are finishing up their dinners, but he’s not hungry. Not at all.

His fingers swipe up the condensation on the sides of the glass, and he exhales shakily, trying to recenter himself. Be present. Be normal. His mind has been drifting since forever. He’s not sure he’ll ever know how to get back down to Earth. He doesn't even know why he ordered a drink. Especially when he knows he can't stomach it.

A body sits itself beside him on the bar stools. Mike doesn’t look up.

“Hell of a thing. Huh?” Hopper laughs, “Watching these idiots get married?”

Mike doesn’t say anything, staring deep down into his tequila on the rocks. He doesn’t even drink. There’s a slight silhouette where his reflection would be in the ice cube.

“Feels like yesterday you guys were still biking around trying to get yourselves killed.”

Mike shuts his eyes. It’s a disrespectful thing, ignoring the guy. But this entire talk was starting to sound like their talk on that bench before high school graduation. He doesn’t need the reminder anymore. He’s not stuck in 1987. He’s not.

“Is there a reason you ordered that?” Hopper says, pointing at the cup Mike is nursing. “You feeling alright?”

“Fine,” he says, curt, “I’m just… Lots to think about.” It’s not necessarily a lie. He just doesn’t want to get into it.

Hopper only stares, and there’s a gentleness that makes Mike feel weirdly wrong in his skin.

“I’m glad you came. Your mother was worried that you wouldn’t show again. Says you haven’t been visiting.”

“I just don’t really want to bother anyone,” he says, honestly just trying to end the conversation.

“I always thought I hated you, kid,” Hopper confesses, “But it wasn’t ever true. I saw myself in ya’. The recklessness, the drive, the drama, I mean come on,” Hopper chuckles, that old man laugh that starts from the chest. He drinks more of his dark liquor.

“It’s a bad habit. Those thoughts. That as long as everyone else is okay, whatever happens to you doesn’t matter. But… I don’t know,” Hopper shifts, clearing his throat, “It’s nice to see you still holding yourself up,” Hopper smiles, something broken splaying across the fine lines of his wrinkles.

He looks around at the venue, Mike still sits there nursing his drink.

“In the future where it would’ve been possible…” Hopper starts. He motions his hand towards where Lucas and Max just cheered with a table, sipping champagne glasses. Something stings in Mike’s chest. There’s a small pause before Hopper finishes the rest of his Hennessy setting down the empty glass, “… For her, you woulda’ had my blessing.”

A coldness shoots down Mike’s back. So sharp that it stings, That’s what Hopper had stopped him for. That’s what he was setting up for, he—

El’s memory trickles in through his ears. Something incredibly dark boils in his stomach. Mike struggles to take a breath in, trying to play it off by laughing. Hopper keeps his eyes trained on him like a hawk. He feels 16 again. It’s not 1987. It’s not 1987. It’s not—

“You alright?”

“I think I just need some air,” Mike hurries. Then, he’s stumbling away from the bustle of the wedding before he can ask another question.

When he pushes open the door to the balcony of the venue, The air outside is as cold as it was the first night he spent in Chicago with Will. There’s storm clouds rolling in, and if Mike had to guess, it really looked like it could rain any minute now.

He takes a breath in. It should’ve been a sweet moment with Hopper. He should’ve just played along for the old man. Why did he freak out so bad?

It's not like he actually had the chance to marry El, anyway. It’s not like… he swallows.

The grief that’s always been sitting like a black hole right behind his heart swells a little stronger then. He tries to imagine it. White frills and him in a tailored suit. A night for him and… her. Who would’ve been his best man? How big would the venue be? Or would it have had to have been private to hide from the government? He nearly laughs at the thought. El would’ve loved a father daughter dance. She would’ve loved dancing. He imagines red ribbons, the cake. Purple and… yellow flowers.

Mike runs a hand across his face, inhaling so sharply that the wind feels like it’s cutting up the inside of his throat. He imagined it for the sake of imagining it, for the sake of Hopper’s thrown off comment, for the sake of his past self. Still, the grief swells in his chest. It feels wrong. Feels more like he’s imagining a wedding for his kid and not for himself.

Maybe Will would’ve agreed to be his best man in this impossible future. Mike flicks at a pebble on the balcony railing, watching it disappear into the darkness of the sky. He wonders where he is now.

Mike furrows his brows, eyes unfocusing. It was weird.

He’s got Will back. They’re friends again. So why does he still feel greedy? It’s a weird feeling having a different type of grief sitting in the bottom of his chest. But Will’s right there. So willing. None of his feelings are making sense. If anything, Mike knows he doesn’t deserve to feel much of anything.

Mike reaches forward off the balcony, into the darkness of the city night. The air feels cold against his fingers. It’s like he’s back at his desk in his shitty apartment. Cold. Weirdly empty. The metal of his typewriter leaves a weird smoothness on his fingertips. He feels the air glide across his fingers the same way.

The music inside grows louder when the door to the balcony is suddenly pushed open.

Mike flinches. Spinning on his heel to be face to face with–

The bride.

“Was looking for you at the table,” Max jabs, “Overwhelmed?”

“I used to be kinda good at this whole social interactions thing. Hard to believe, huh?” Mike laughs. He feels his shoulders tense and tries to shake it out. Max makes her way to the left side of him, placing her hands on the balcony railing.

“I’m glad you came, Mike,” Max says, genuine. It makes Mike feel so small. “There’s only so many people in this world that can understand how much this night means to Lucas and I.”

Mike nods, pressing his nails into his palms. Grounding himself. Max digs into one of the many layers of her wedding dress and pulls out a slip of paper the size of a post card.

It’s a photobooth print that looks worn with time. Mike would recognize the outline of the people in the photo anywhere. Especially–

Max looks at the photo softly, running a finger across the edges.

“I wonder what El would say about me marrying a man,” Max laughs, tilting her head back towards the sky.

“It’s… sweet,” Mike says, rubbing his hands against his dress pants, “... that you still keep her picture with you.”

“Are you kidding?” Max smiles, and Mike lets himself smile back. It feels almost relieving to look back at the memory of someone with someone else. Not to cry. Not to drown in the sorrow of loss. But just to remember. There’s a light glare in Max’s eyes that looks impossibly bright. “I couldn’t let her miss my wedding,” Max laughs. Then, she keeps talking:

“I mean, come on. I’m joining my soul to another species,” Max rolls her eyes. And the quip from a far away summer memory makes Mike smile. A burning feeling starts behind his eyelids. Max racks on: “Deep down though, she was a big ol’ softie. I think she’d love weddings. She would have loved… all this. Even this stupid poofy dress.”

Mike looks back out at the skyline. He feels Max’s eyes on his. His smile fades thinking about romance and… El. Thinking about her at all.

“She would,” he agrees.

Max seems to think she hit a nerve and rushes to fix her mistake, “Oh, I didn’t mean—”

“I get what you meant,” Mike says, genuine, putting a hand out softly. Then, with fervor, he says what he’s been trying not to admit in his head, “I… honestly think El would’ve broken up with me sooner or later. Far before we ever even thought about marriage. For good,” Mike whispers. It’s a thought he’s been keeping so far in the back of his head that when he realizes it’s the first time he’s ever said it out loud, he can’t help but laugh. “She was so much more than me. She deserved to find herself outside of… me.”

Max stays silent. When Mike looks at her, she looks deep in thought.

Then, with vigor, Max reminds him, “You loved each other.”

“I was a kid,” Mike says like a correction, “And an idiot. I didn’t know shit about any of it. I kissed her like an idiot, and I was a horrible boyfriend until the end—”

“And you loved each other,” Max repeats, “Maybe looking back now it wasn’t the love you thought it was at the time. Maybe it wasn’t inherently romantic but… Whether it would’ve festered into something more or not… At the time, you both loved what you believed you were supposed to love. I wouldn’t be so harsh.”

Max turns so her back is leaning against the balcony railing.

“She deserved more than me in her final moments,” Mike says, and it doesn’t break him anymore to say it. A quiet acceptance. He’s spent so many nights for so many years turning it over in his head. Fighting it. Drowning in guilt, in the what-ifs.

All that he could’ve said. All that he should’ve said. When he looks over, Max looks beautiful under the moon, her hair an unruly perfect mess. But there’s something else in her eyes. An agony. An understanding.

“Mike. Enough with that,” Max says, brushing her fingers over the printed photo of her and El, “You were her first friend in her whole existence. You sheltered her when the world was against her. Whether you guys loved each other in the way you thought you did or not, you were her first everything. She wanted to see you at that moment because you meant something to her. That’s why she chose you.”

“I was someone she knew couldn’t talk her out of her decision in the void. That’s why she chose me,” he says, like a correction, “I couldn’t… I wasn’t what she needed then. I stole her short chance at life away.”

“You were both kids,” Max argues, and her face, aged with time, makes Mike realize how heavy those words are now at their age. “She loved you. She loved me. She loved all of us. She loved… everything. That’s why when she believed she could save it all by staying behind, she did,” Max continues, and it seems like something she’s been trying to make sense of these past years too.

“She loved a world that tore her down every minute it could. It wasn’t your fault, Mike. None of it was. You were a kid.”

Mike wipes his sleeves across his face at the repeated words. He loved what he believed he was supposed to love.

What he believed he was allowed to love.

“Still, she deserved…” and before Mike can finish his sentence, he feels the back of his eyes burning again. She should be here. Max deserved to have her here. El deserved to be here. Celebrating.

“She deserved everything,” Max finishes for him. She slides the photo of El and her back into the folds of her dress, “But… she also deserves to be at ease now.”

Her eyes are glossy in the dark, “I miss her every day.” She turns to face Mike, a dull emptiness in her eyes, one that Mike feels in his chest. Can recognize… so well.

“But I know she didn’t decide to stay behind in that gate hoping it would haunt us forever. I… want her sacrifice to mean something. Even if it was the last thing that should’ve happened. She would’ve wanted it to mean something,” she leans up and squeezes Mike’s hand under hers. “Mike… you deserve to be at ease too.”

Mike lets himself cry in front of Max for the first time in years. On her wedding day, it feels wrong. Mike doesn’t look away. She looks at him. She looks so steady, stable. Like she knows what she’s wanted forever. Like she knows who she is. Who she will be.

Mike feels his chest ache so hard it shoots a sharp pain down the front of his body. Lucas and Max will live a great life. He wholeheartedly realizes.

And maybe the pain he’s feeling is because, for the first time, he’s finally realizing that he’s not guaranteed that. Maybe he’ll never be.

“I feel like this is the best time I can say it,” Max says suddenly. Mike has no idea what she’s talking about, and when he looks at her out of confusion, she’s just smiling.

“Maybe… because this is the start of a new life for me,” she starts, her wedding ring glistening in the reflection of the large glass windows behind them, “Maybe because… I’m braver now…” she looks back at Mike. The suspense of what she’ll say makes Mike’s chest tremble. “I’ve been wanting to tell you this for a long time, because I’ve hated you since I was 12 and I will continue to hate you for the rest of my life,” Max says, but there’s that sarcastic joking tone in her voice that Mike would recognize forever. It makes him laugh. Makes Max laugh back.

Because, like Will and the others, even if he doesn’t know everything there is to know about them presently, he would recognize their souls in a room full of people he’d never known.

“I hate your hair,” Max confesses, “And I know for a fact that El wouldn’t recognize you like this,” Max finally lets out. Mike doesn’t move, “She’d want you to be true,” she continues, stepping closer, “She’d want you not to lie. Not to others. Not to yourself,” she continues, and Mike hears El in her tone.

Max ends up close enough to Mike that he feels the frills of her wedding dress on the tips of his fingers.

She reaches up and ruffles his hair hard with both hands. He lets her, lets the gel he had put on it every single morning for the past 12 years slowly get drawn out, fall out of place, let his pin straight strands turn more into a curly mess on his head. His hair finally falls over his forehead, and he shuts his eyes when Max finally pulls away, satisfied with the change.

“There’s the Mike I remember,” Max jokes, but it’s nearly a whisper. She looks on the verge of tears.

“Unruly and stupid as hell,” she laughs, “And… real.”

Mike opens his eyes, trained at the ground. He smiles because he has no idea what else he can do. Not without bawling. He fixes his glasses on the bridge of his nose and looks back up. Max is smiling at him, that emptiness in her eyes so far gone that he thinks, for a real good moment, that one day, maybe, everything will be okay. Tolerable, if anything.

“Thank you, Max,” he says. And he feels his hair is a mess on his head, but he doesn’t go to fix it. Max gives him a smile so full of pride and accomplishment that he feels like they’re 13 again, facing off against each other, and Mike losing, of course.

“Baby?” Lucas’s voice rings out from inside before the doors of the balcony slide open. When he sees them together, Lucas lets out a light breath, “Thank god. I thought you were drunk and puking in the bathroom.”

“Who do you think I am?!” Max yells back, her sudden change in tone nearly giving Mike whiplash.

“Nothing! I just–”

“Oh, if you think this is a challenge, I can drink a hell of a lot more than you can,” before Lucas can argue, she’s already stomping towards him, pulling her dress up and grabbing him by the forearm.

“Max! I already took a shot with your–” Lucas says, and if he sounds a bit afraid, Mike wouldn’t ever say it.

“It’s our wedding day, idiot!” Max cuts him off, “You better be celebrating harder than I am!”

Their bicker softens as they drift off closer to the music. Mike smiles in the afterdust of the moment.

Mike doesn’t run into Will until far after the wedding is almost over.

Max is being held up by her college friends. Girls that Mike had met only a handful of times that definitely don’t remember his name. But they were sobbing into each other’s arms as Lucas stood awkwardly to the side, holding Max’s handbag as he tried to keep a conversation with her mom.

It was a sight homely enough to make something ache in Mike’s chest. Still, he mustered a smile as Lucas caught eyes with him, putting his hand up in an awkward wave. They’ve said their goodbyes at least twice a couple of minutes ago. Still, Lucas gave him a small salute and a smile that contained so much gratitude that Mike had to look away so he didn’t cry.

“Ready to go?”

Mike jumps at the voice, Will flinching as he turns to see him.

“Jesus! Someone’s gotta put a bell on you,” Mike puts a hand over his chest, huffing as Will just laughs. Will’s eyes wander up, and then he tilts his head.

“Woah,” Will says suddenly, “What’s up with your hair?”

Mike forgot Max had made a mess of it on the balcony. He runs a hand across it to try and flatten it a bit, “Um… bad?”

“No,” Will says, smiling up at Mike’s head, past his eyes. It was almost endearing seeing him look up at him like that. Mike swallows, “Very Mike.”

He doesn’t elaborate, just tugging at Mike’s sleeve to get them towards the door. “Come on,” Will rushes, “We gotta go before everyone starts saying bye to each other again.”

It was strange. That they reconciled the night before and everything suddenly felt so normal again. Like they never had that gap. A connection that only made sense for the two of them. Mike can’t stop trying to swallow down nothing.

So why does it feel… wrong?

Like Mike had suspected on the terrace, it was raining when they stepped outside. Will only took one look at it before shrugging off his blazer and throwing it over the top of his head, stepping out into the rain. Mike had no choice but to follow.

When there’s no longer something to cover their heads, Mike realizes how deafening the rain sounds.

“Mike, come on!”

It is relentless, and Will’s outer coat was barely shielding himself. His hair is still getting soaked and Mike can only stare before Will is grabbing his arm and running.

The hotel isn’t far from the venue. Around five minutes. Three if they run… which they’re doing.

Mike hasn’t done any sort of physical activity in years, but the adrenaline of the moment and the alcohol pumping in his veins seems to rid him of his breathlessness, or maybe it’s the ache of his legs having to actually keep up with the rest of his body.

He smiles, letting the coldness of the rain overtake him, flooding his body with a sense of feeling, of something he’s devoid himself of for years. His feet slam into the asphalt of the road, and he can feel the way his legs take on every step like he’s made up of bricks.

Everything feels heavy. Real.

So real.

When he looks ahead of him, Will is half-facing backwards. That toothy grin, that fucking mole above his lip,

They’re friends again. Mike shouldn’t feel… grief about that. And yet—

The back gate of the hotel is locked and Will nearly runs head first into it. He pulls it once, testing it. It doesn’t budge.

When he turns around to face Mike head on, he’s smiling, cheeks slightly red from the cold, or the alcohol, or the running, or the rain. Mike can’t focus on anything right now. What’s gotten into him?

Will laughs despite the circumstances. “We’ll have to go around,” he explains, so breathless. He’s nearly panting, and then he’s handing Mike his jacket for a moment to try the gate again. It’s so wet that Mike feels his arms get weighed down.

Will’s joking about something. His voice light and so unchained. It’s the way Mike had always wanted him to sound. Always wanted him to be. Free. Safe. Mike can’t even hear the words coming out of him.

Will laughs about something, a hand over his chest. His toothy smile, the mole above his lip. Those bangs.

Mike thinks about his outburst after Hopper’s comment earlier. He thinks about Max’s words on the balcony, He thinks about El.

If Will realizes that there’s something wrong, he does a great job at hiding it. Only turning back around to face the gate again.

Max’s voice rings out from inside of himself, a ringing Mike can’t block out, “She’d want you to be true,” Max said, stepping closer on the baclony, “She’d want you not to lie. Not to others. Not to yourself.”

Mike comes to two realizations at once.

First, his legs are about to give out.

Will pushes against the bars again to no avail.

And, secondly–

Through wet hair and only his white button-up, Will looks incredibly beautiful. Shining like the sun under the warm street-light above them.

He can’t be Will’s friend again.

He lets Will’s outer coat hit the pavement, the sound felt so loud, rattled through him like a gong against the back of his head.

At the wet sound of the coat hitting the ground, Will turns around to face him fully.

“Mike?” Will’s face falls.

“I…” Mike says, through blurry eyes, “I can’t be your friend.”

Will’s eyes tremble for a moment in the moonlight, face still. His hair is getting more damp from the rain, and even though it’s not raining as much as it was, the humidity in the air clings to Mike’s skin. His dress shirt is pressing up against his body, sticking.

“What do you mean?” Will whispers, “Did… Did I do something? Did–”

“I’m… so fucking tired, Will,” Mike says instead, and the defeat in his voice is so heavy that it makes Will step closer, like he’s ready to catch him if he falls forward. He’s barely making sense, he knows. “I’m tired of… of lying to myself. And hiding. I’ve been less than half of… of me, since I was 12. I miss… who I was. Who I could’ve been,” he’s rambling, breath heavy, he’s crying harder than he has in so, so many years.

“I’ve wasted so much of my life away,” Mike can barely breathe, and when Will’s hands land on top of his shoulders he feels himself lean forward, like it was the only thing he could do. The natural response of his body. Turning towards Will. Always.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and it’s garbled between tears and snot. The rain has started picking up again, he feels like the apology is being swept away with it.

“Mike,” Will repeats, and his hands on Mike’s shoulders slide up to the sides of his face, holding him up as Mike leans down. Will’s crying too. Emotionally sensitive and receptive to the people around him. As always. A tear falls from Will’s cheek, and Mike hates that after so many years, he’s still the cause of them.

“Mike, what are you talking about?” Will tries to ask, centering him. Trying to. But Mike feels like he’s on the edge of an empty boat, leaning left and right in absolute unnecessity. Because he’s falling backwards. And he doesn’t think anyone is there to catch him.

“I can’t be your friend again, Will,” Mike repeats again, and he feels Will’s hands hesitate on his face, warm, wrong. He brushes away the last thought. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. It’s a thought so engraved in his body that he fights so hard to just let himself revel in it. Will’s hands. The rain. The… shame. Mike swallows.

When Will’s hands start retreating from his face, Mike reaches up to grab them, cupping them back against the skin they were up against just moments before. Desperately. Longingly. Wrong.

Mike’s eyes burn so bad that it hurts to blink. When he opens them, Will’s face is a mixture of emotions. He can’t place it. But Will is standing in the rain holding a stranger’s face. A stranger that he knows everything about. Because Mike knows, that in this whole fucked up world, in all fucked up dimensions of it, Will was the one person who could hold him like this so willingly, so beautifully. He’s the only person in the world who would love someone so incredibly screwed up.

But the man has no shame in his eyes. No deep hatred for himself. Will’s free from things that Mike feels like he’s been amenably drowning in for years, and years, and years.

“Please,” he tries. He doesn’t even know what he’s pleading for, how Will can drag him out of this, “I can’t lose you again.”

Will’s breath stutters, Mike sees it in the way his mouth falls wider, like not enough oxygen is getting in. And because Will isn’t responding, and Mike is dying for something to fill the silence other than the rain, he keeps talking.

“When… when you disappeared. When we were 12. I thought… I thought my life was ending. And it… it did…” he starts, he’s trying so hard to breathe normally. Because he can’t fuck this up. Max’s words come back to him like a freight train.

“She’d want you to be true. She’d want you not to lie. To others. To yourself.”

“Then I… I met El and it felt like… my world was tipping over. I didn’t know what I was feeling about anything. I loved what I believed I should have because it felt right at the time. And I... I did care for her. I did,” he says. His words are soft over the harshness of the rain. He makes eye contact with someone he used to know everything about. Will is a beautiful crier.

“I… loved her. I couldn’t understand it fully. To the extent I did. I couldn’t ever co-exist with the both of you in any space. In any capacity. Because the love I held for her clashed with the love I felt for… for you,” Mike lets out. Finally. He feels his whole chest explode at the words. Silent. Deadly. Will searches his eyes for something that Mike doesn’t think he’s going to find.

Deceit.

“I know she didn’t commission that painting,” Mike confesses. Will completely stills, “And I… hid. Didn’t want to think about it longer than I had to. Because I didn’t know there were other options. I was so scared of that side of myself that I thought it would go away if I let it. That… maybe it would go away with you.”

Will opens his mouth, ready for words to fall out. The silence is hard not to notice.

“There’s this ache in me I can’t ever heal, Will,” Mike’s voice quivers. He feels like he can finally breathe for the first time in years, “I thought if I never let myself think about it. If I never spoke about it. If I never… If I just let it all go away, then no one would have to look at it. To look at me.”

Mike is struggling to breathe all of a sudden, and he feels Will’s hand slide behind his neck, pressing the spot that Mike presses for Will when he needs it. His heart hurts infinitely.

“I’m such a mess,” Mike says, nearly laughing. He can’t bring himself to look up at Will’s eyes. He fears what he’ll find if he does.

“Mike,” Will says, finally. “I’m sorry if… That painting. I know you felt that was the last thing you had from El. I should’ve—” Will swallows down a sob, looking up to try and contain himself, “—I should’ve been honest with you. Years ago. I just thought… The world was ending and I couldn’t keep holding onto things that were impossible, so I… I don’t know.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Mike hurries to cut him off, “I avoided what it could’ve meant when you looked at me when you came out. I avoided everything. I wanted to… I didn’t think I was allowed to let myself look.”

Will shuts his eyes. And maybe they were over arguing. Maybe they were over the agony of never knowing how it could’ve ended if it all went down differently. Maybe Will was also just as tired with assuming and replaying and reliving everything in his head as Mike was.

Tired of killing himself slowly from the inside out.

“I loved you, Will. I… love you. I don’t think I can ever stop loving you,” Mike is swallowing his words so quickly. It feels like he’s getting indigestion, “I didn’t know you no longer listen to The Clash. I didn’t know your favorite color was still yellow. I don’t know what monsters you’ve had to fight after the ones we fought when we were kids. I don’t… I don’t know you like I used to,” he says, voice breaking. He can feel the loneliness in his tone, feels his years of agony seeping into every word he says.

Every day that he had woken up in his run-down apartment, he liked to pretend he was more than just this entire mess of broken parts. But standing in front of Will, it’s like he gets reminded of how much he can never run away from that. How he can never run away from himself. At the end of every moment, at the end of every day, he would always still be Mike Wheeler.

Will is looking at him with such careful patience. And Will, standing there, still willing to wait for Mike, makes his chest ache.

“But… But I would love to…” he says, soft, quiet, like if he said it any louder the floor would fall out from underneath them, strand them in a barren wasteland again, “—to know you.”

Mike has fought monsters for a horrible length of his childhood, but the worst of them was this.

“Let me get to know you again,” Mike whispers, the same way he had that night in their hotel room, a quip. Will lets out a wet laugh, like he hasn’t breathed in years. He sounds so full of relief that it leaves Mike breathless.

“Forever,” Mike tacks on.

Will can barely keep his eyes open, he sees the raindrops weighing down the man’s eyelashes. The same way it did when they were 13 in that garage, useless and stupid. He watches them slide down his face, mixing with his tears.

He leans forward with heavy arms, from his soaked shirt, from the heaviness of years of repressed emotions weighing on his limbs. He grabs the sides of Will’s face near his neck. The grip is gentle and steady when he pulls him forward, leaving their foreheads touching. He shuts his eyes, his chest burning. He waits for the world to rip this from him too. Waits for the shove against his chest. Waits for the ground to swallow them whole.

The world stays still.

“I love you, Will Byers.”

Save for the rain, a silence weighs over them. And it’s silly that this scenario wouldn’t make sense for anyone but them.

Because Mike doesn’t know Will like he used to. Nothing of him now.

But he knows one thing for sure:

“I will love you,” Mike clarifies. “If you’ll let me.”

Will laughs again, wet. The rain has completely soaked through their clothes and hair now. Mike can barely see through the fog and raindrops on his glasses.

Luckily, Will pulls off the damn thing after a moment and he gives him that scrunched smile that he always used to when they were kids.

“Is this a good time to say I hate your glasses?” Will asks, laughing. He’s still crying underneath the smile.

They share eye contact, laid bare. Will has never looked more perfect.

“Max and Lucas would be so mad to know you proposed to me on their wedding day,” he snorts.

Mike’s stomach drops. “P–Propose?! I didn’t–”

“I’m joking,” Will smiles, cheerfully, “You idiot.”

When Will leans towards him, Mike lets his body fall apart.

They kiss there in the rain, limbs exhausted and bodies inexplicably cold. It's softer than anything he's ever been used to. Will slides his fingers up through the back of Mike's hair.

He doesn’t know Will like he used to. Mike knows that more than anything.

But he can still recognize Will’s breathing through a phone line, still knows where to place his hands on his chest when he drops farther into his nightmares. Still feels his tears match his when they face each other crying.

Because his soul has loved Will Byers since the beginning. And he would spend the rest of his life getting to know him over and over and over again if it meant getting to love him.

Notes:

thank you for reading, my lovely readers :)

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