Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first month of the end of the world was, all things considered, a pretty good month for Mike.

It was a weird month too. The thing was, Mike hadn’t been expecting it to be so…quiet. After talking with Will in Hopper’s cabin, seeing his friend’s discomfort and barely-veiled terror, Mike sort of expected that the world was going to go to shit pretty damn quickly. It was fear, mostly, that made him reach out to take Will’s hand on that hill as they watched El approach the field of dying wildflowers. Fear of the wave of death that was already consuming Hawkins, fear of the red storm brewing over the town proper, fear of the war to come.

But mostly, Mike was afraid of the future.

He and El had barely spoken a word to each other the entire way back to Hawkins in that damn pizza van. He did what she wanted him to do: he told her he loved her. Repeatedly. But Mike didn’t really believe it himself, wasn’t sure if he had ever loved her like that. Sitting in the back of that van, hardly able to even look at El, he wondered if she knew it too. So he faced forward, which meant staring at the back of Will’s head for hours at a time.

That was a whole other mess that he needed to fix, he knew. The two of them had already been breaking before the Byers left Hawkins. If Mike really wanted to pinpoint the moment their foundation cracked, it would definitely be that fight in the rain, where he said…what he said, and regretted it instantly. Where Will basically told him that he would have been happy to spend his whole life with Mike, and Mike realized that that had been an option all along. He didn’t quite know what the tightness in his chest meant, but he barely remembered to tell Lucas he was going after Will, knowing he had to chase it. He didn’t know what he would have said to Will once he got to his house that evening, whether he would have apologized or…he didn’t know. But Lucas came along, and then they found Will next to a collapsed Castle Byers (destroyed, Mike knew instinctively, not by the storm, but by Will himself), and Will told them the Mind Flayer was back, and Mike never got to say…he still didn’t know.

Even after the Mind Flayer was defeated, hopefully for the last time, Mike didn’t really get a chance to at least apologize. The Party spent a ton of time together in those last few months before Joyce Byers packed up her family (and El) and took them to California, but Will seemed to be extra careful to make sure that he and Mike were never alone together. And Mike could have tried harder, but he didn’t. And then they were gone, and Mike was left in Will’s empty room, and his empty driveway, and his mother’s arms, finally knowing what it was he felt and completely unable to do anything about it.

Contrary to popular belief, Mike was not stupid, nor emotionally stunted. Repressed, sure, he could admit that much now. His parents had voted for Reagan, after all. Or at least, his dad had. Mike had taken notice of his mom’s silence when it came to his dad’s rants, how careful she was not to say anything one way or the other. He’d also taken notice of the looks she threw in his direction, full of concern and something cautiously calculating, if he cared to pay attention. He never did, until he was alone in his room at night, staring at the ceiling and wondering if his mom was someone he could finally confide in. If she had been paying attention to his friendship with Will all these years and come to the same conclusion Mike had, but sooner.

When they first got back to Hawkins, Mike didn’t know what to address first. El wouldn’t speak to him, at least not alone. Much like Will had last summer, she was careful to keep at least one other person in the room with them at all times. Mike couldn’t even blame her, nor did he make that much of an effort to counter it. He was a coward, he knew, and he still didn’t know what it was he wanted to say to her anyway. One thing was for certain: he had lied to her, and lied badly. He didn’t love her. His life definitely hadn’t started the night he, Dustin, and Lucas found her in the woods.

(Mike’s life started on that first day in kindergarten, looking down at a little boy swinging by himself and asking him to be his friend. He didn’t really remember anything before that, and didn’t care to.)

Mike didn’t really make the effort to talk to El about it yet. But he did have the opportunity to fix things with Will, or at least try to.

The problem with Hopper’s cabin was that it was tiny. Hopper and El would fit, and maybe even Joyce (Mike clocked them immediately – no one went to the Soviet Union on a hope and a prayer to save a friend), but add in Will and Jonathan (and Argyle) to the mix and it would just spell disaster. There was absolutely no way that they would all be able to stay there.

Nancy and Jonathan were being weird, but Mike was more concerned with the chance that had fallen into his lap. So when Joyce started stressing over where they would stay for the foreseeable future, he wasted no time. “Will, Jonathan, and Argyle can stay with us,” he said. And, sure, maybe he spoke a little too fast, given that Joyce had barely even gotten the words out. But Mike couldn’t even bring himself to be embarrassed. His priorities were, from the outside, perhaps a little screwy right now. But his head was perfectly clear for the first time in almost a year, and it was telling him to fix things with Will. Everything else could wait.

Maybe it was a little mean, not giving Will the opportunity to get away from him. But Mike, despite the distance they’d endured both geographically and emotionally, knew Will. And right now, Will was preparing to shut Mike out again, however he could. That, Mike decided, was not going to happen. The confused tangle of emotions he felt when it came to Will needed to be unraveled, starting with their friendship. The only way that would happen was if Mike could trap Will into letting Mike give him a genuine, heartfelt apology. No excuses, no bullshit.

Joyce started in on how she couldn’t possibly impose that way, Nancy was glaring daggers at him, and Will looked extremely uncomfortable with the suggestion. But Mike, if nothing else, was stubborn. Always had been, and he knew how to use that stubbornness to get what he wanted. So he insisted that his parents wouldn’t mind, that they had more than enough space, and if the Byers were sticking around, there really wasn’t another choice.

So they all loaded up into the pizza van, uncomfortably crowded, to go back to the Wheeler house. Mike’s mom was thrilled to see Joyce, and less surprised to see Hopper back from the dead than she should be. And Mike was all set to just ask if Will and Jonathan (and Argyle) could stay with them. His mom would say yes, he knew she would; she had always loved Will and Jonathan, and while Argyle was certainly odd, she would take him in stride. Karen Wheeler was, first and foremost, a mother (at least in Mike’s eyes). She loved her children, and her children’s friends, and would do whatever she had to in order to make sure everyone was safe and comfortable.

Mike couldn’t have possibly expected his mom to have reached her breaking point.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” she said to Joyce and Hopper. “I suspect you’ll be more forthcoming than my children have been in regards to what’s going on here.”

Fixing things with Will had to take a backseat for a few hours, because Joyce and Hopper were more than happy to fill Mike and Nancy’s mom and dad about the goings-on in Hawkins over the last few years. At first, the teenagers all tried to retreat down to the basement, but Mike’s mom looked at them and sternly said, “Where do you think you’re going?”

So they all crowded into the living room for the most awkward conversation Mike thought he had ever been a part of. His dad, for his part, didn’t seem to be paying that much attention. His mom, however, was very interested to learn that her children had been involved in battling monsters from an alternate dimension for two and a half years without her knowledge. Mike had never felt so uncomfortably scrutinized in his life, sitting between Will and El on the couch while his mom shot glare after glare in his direction, all while maintaining a polite, even tone with Joyce and Hopper. She was not interested in Mike and Nancy’s explanations or excuses, cutting them off every time they tried to jump in and defend themselves. Mike tried to look anywhere else, to make eye contact with Will or El or both, but neither would look at him. Nancy seemed to be in a similar situation with Jonathan at least.

But Karen Wheeler was nothing if not adaptable. She listened, and asked questions, and glowered at her children. And when Joyce and Hopper finished, she asked, “How can I help?” without an ounce of trepidation or reluctance.

When Joyce, El, and Hopper went back to the cabin that night, Will and Jonathan (and Argyle) stayed behind.

Then, and only then, did Mike realize he hadn’t quite planned this far ahead. It was late enough that Holly’s bedtime had come and gone and his dad was passed out in his stupid chair, and his mom was ordering him to help Nancy set up the basement for Jonathan, Argyle, and Will while they took the first showers. He tried to think about what he wanted to say to Will, ignoring the pinched looks Nancy kept throwing in his direction. He absently made up the couch downstairs and made sure that his old twin mattress had enough blankets that Will wouldn’t get cold before he picked the warmest pair of pajama pants and softest t-shirt he could find for his friend. He wished that he could just have Will share his room with him, but Mike knew that might be too much too fast. If Will felt like he was backed into a corner, he would shut down completely, and Mike might never get him back. No, it was best to make sure that Will had a place to escape to, if he needed.

Mike was sitting on his bed, trying to think of what he could take down on his walls to make room for the painting Will (El? Something about it still didn’t make sense) gave him, when Will came in wearing just a towel around his waist, looking sheepish. “Sorry,” he said, avoiding looking at Mike. “I should have gotten clothes from you beforehand.”

It was probably a good thing he wasn’t looking at Mike, because Mike was definitely looking at Will. Staring, in fact, completely distracted by the water droplet rolling down Will’s chest. It took him a second longer than it should have for him to speak, voice rougher than he wanted. “Right, yeah, here you go.” He thrust the clothes he’d picked out for Will into his hands, still staring at him like a complete creep, and Will squeaked out, “Thanks,” before disappearing back to the bathroom. Mike was terrified that Will wouldn’t come back, but a minute later he reappeared looking marginally more comfortable.

“Sorry,” Will said again, rubbing a hand over his damp hair. “Shower’s free, um. Obviously.” He had never looked this out of place in Mike’s house before. Mike intended to remedy that, now.

But the thought of a hot shower after not having had one since the last hotel in Kansas three days ago was too tempting. “I’ll be quick,” he promised. “Can you just—wait here? Please?”

“I don’t want to keep you from sleeping,” Will said, a weird mix of doubt and hope in his voice.

“No, no,” Mike assured him. Too quickly, too eager, how he’d been all day. He didn’t care. “No, I just—I want to talk to you. Not in a bad way,” he added hastily, seeing how Will’s expression dropped, “just to, like…please just wait here. Please.”

“Okay,” Will agreed quietly.

Mike had never felt so disgusting in his whole life, shedding the stiff clothes he’d been wearing for almost a week straight and able to feel how greasy his hair was between his fingers. Standing under the hot stream of water until his fingers pruned up felt like heaven, but he was stepping out in about seven minutes, not wanting to give Will the opportunity to bolt. In any case, he felt clean now, and more clearheaded than before. He knew what he wanted to say and was prepared for the opposition he knew he deserved, if Will was to give it.

He was prepared, but it didn’t quell his anxiety about it.

Thankfully, Will hadn’t left. He was sitting on Mike’s bed, eyes roaming Mike’s walls with a furrowed brow. “You didn’t take them down,” he said as soon as Mike shut the door behind him.

“Your drawings?” Mike asked, slightly confused. “Of course I didn’t. Why would I?”

Will shrugged, ducking his head. “I guess I thought…never mind.” He cleared his throat. “It’s different, most of it. I like it. Where’d you get the street sign?” He was gesturing, of course, to the One Way sign pointing directly towards Mike’s open closet. Mike had done it on purpose, a tiny joke between himself and his own subconscious.

“I, uh.” Mike laughed awkwardly, running a hand nervously through his hair. “I kind of stole it.”

“Mike!” Will admonished him, but his lips were twitching.

“Look, if the construction guys didn’t want it to be taken, they shouldn’t have left it unattended!” Mike grinned and plopped himself down right next to Will on the bed, close enough that their knees knocked together. That simple touch should have been barely anything, but suddenly Mike couldn’t breathe. The feelings he’d been shoving down, only allowed out in letters unsent that hid in his closet, were boiling up again. It had happened a lot over the last week, and he’d resisted the urge to just reach out and touch so far, but. Well. “Can I hug you?” he blurted out before he could stop himself.

Never let it be said that Mike Wheeler was a selfless person, because he wasn’t.

“I—what?” Will looked so taken aback that Mike winced.

“Can I hug you?” he repeated, voice smaller now. Please say yes, he thought desperately.

Mike didn’t want to, but he held eye contact with Will for as long as Will took to search his expression. For what, Mike didn’t know, but after a long moment, Will finally nodded. “Yeah, Mike, you can hug me.” And Mike didn’t hesitate to haul Will back to his feet so he could hug him properly, full-bodied and chest to chest.

It was tense, at least at first. Mike wrapped both arms around Will’s shoulders and just held on, clinging to him rather like he had last October. One second, two, and Will hesitantly brought his hands up to Mike’s waist. When Mike didn’t release him immediately, Will sighed and melted into Mike as though his strings were cut, wrapping his arms around Mike’s torso completely and burying his face Mike’s neck. And this – this was what Mike had been missing, for years. Because he and Will had always been physically affectionate with each other as children, holding hands and hugging and sharing blankets and clothes and everything else. But then Will was taken by the Upside Down and when he came back, he didn’t let Mike touch him as much anymore. And it hurt, but Mike wondered if it was his fault all this time.

“I’m so sorry, Will,” he murmured into Will’s hair. “I’m so sorry.”

Will stiffened slightly, but he didn’t pull away. If anything, his hold tightened, just slightly, like he was afraid that Mike was going to pull away. As if. “What are you sorry for?” Will whispered.

“A lot of things,” Mike admitted. “Want me to start from the most recent and work backwards, or…?”

Will huffed a wet laugh. “You don’t—that’s not—you don’t have to do that.”

“I really do,” Mike said, and his eyes were stinging slightly, vision blurring a little. “And – I want to. You deserve it.”

Will moved away and Mike let him go reluctantly. Will’s eyes, like his own, were shining a little with unshed tears. He looked a little nervous too, but he sat back down on the edge of Mike’s bed. “Okay,” he sighed, the word coming out on an exhale. “I suppose I’ll let you.”

Mike snorted a laugh. “Well thank you, kind sir,” he joked. “How very generous of you.” Will laughed too, and when Mike had settled with his back to the head of his bed and his legs crossed beneath him, mirrored his position so they faced each other. Mike just let himself look at Will for a few seconds, trying to memorize how his hair swept across his forehead rather than lying flat after the shower. Will looked good in his clothes, Mike realized with a shiver of satisfaction. The pants were too long and the shirt was tight across his chest, but Will looked good. The thought was followed almost immediately by guilt, because he didn’t know what was going on between him and El, but it needed to be settled before Mike could allow himself to fully immerse himself in what he was pretty certain he was feeling for Will.

He shook the thought out of his head, focusing. “Okay,” he began, twisting his fingers together nervously. “So…yeah, I think working backwards is the way to go. And if I miss anything, just tell me, okay? Because…” He took a deep breath and met Will’s slightly confused gaze again. “Will, I meant what I said in Lenora, about wanting to be best friends again. I’ve missed you like crazy, and I know I’ve been really shitty at showing it, and you have no reason to believe me, but…it’s true.”

Will looked at him steadily, brow furrowed but expression open. “Tell me then.”

And once Mike got going, he really couldn’t stop until he was finished. “First of all, and I owe El an apology for this too, don’t think I don’t know, but I said a lot of things in the pizzeria that I didn’t mean. I was panicking, and it all just kind of came out really wrong, and considering Max is in a coma and Hawkins is split into fourths anyway, I don’t actually think I helped El that much, but that’s another conversation—”

“Mike, breathe,” Will chided gently.

“I didn’t mean it when I said my life started the day we found her in the woods,” Mike said in a rush. Will’s face shuttered, like he wasn’t expecting it, or didn’t want to think about it, Mike wasn’t sure. He kept going though. “It was a really, really shitty thing to say, and it wasn’t true. How could it be? That’s the day you went missing, and I lost my mind when you went missing, Will. I don’t regret finding El, not for a second, and she means the world to me, but the only thing on my mind when we found her was you, finding you. And she gave us a chance to do that, a chance I didn’t even realize there was. But my life didn’t start that day, it started long before that, in kindergarten, on the swings.”

There were tears rolling down Will’s face, and Mike knew he was in a similar state. “When you asked me to be your friend,” Will said softly, and it wasn’t a question.

“Yeah,” Mike confirmed emphatically. “It was the best thing I’ve ever done. It still is.”

Will sniffled, scrubbing his face in embarrassment. “Then why would you say that?”

“Because I’m an idiot, and I say things I don’t mean when I’m panicking.” Mike wiped at his own cheeks, ignoring the urge to hide his face from Will’s searching gaze. “I thought El was dying, and you told me to help her, and I was just saying whatever I could to get her out of there. It just slipped out and…it shouldn’t have. And I’m sorry, Will. It was so unfair of me, really just the cherry on top of how awful I’ve been to you. To everyone, really, but especially to you.”

Will didn’t say anything for a moment, focusing on taking deep breaths. “I really needed to hear that,” he murmured, ducking his head. “That—it really hurt, hearing you say that to her. And…and I couldn’t even say anything, because she’s my sister, and your girlfriend, and honestly, it would make total sense if you meant it. She’s amazing.”

Mike swallowed. “Yeah, she is,” he agreed, “but so are you.”

Will went red so fast that Mike thought he might pass out. “Mike,” Will said in a rough voice, shrinking in on himself and wrapping his arms around his knees.

“No, it’s true,” Mike insisted. He couldn’t tell Will everything right now, but he could tell him this. “Will, I don’t know if I’ve ever told you how strong I think you are. You’ve put up with so much shit, from the Upside Down, from your dad, from me, and you’re still so…” He was blushing now too. “You’re still so kind, and selfless, and I don’t think anyone would blame you if you weren’t anymore after what you’ve been through, but you are.”

Will shrugged, eyes focused on the bedspread. “If you say so.”

Mike reached out a hand and nudged his shoulder, ducking his head to try and meet his eyes. “It’s the truth.”

“Go back to apologizing, will you?” Will snarked, and Mike grinned. Some things never changed, including Will’s inability to take a compliment. One day, Mike would have to work on that.

“Fine, fine,” he surrendered. “Okay, so…we’ve covered the pizzeria. I think…our fight at the roller rink.”

“Oh Mike, no—”

“No, no, you were totally right,” Mike cut him off, ignoring Will’s wide-eyed, pleading expression. “I was totally out of line there. You had every right to be upset with me. I blamed you for El lying to me, and yeah, I was hurting because I barely heard from you aside from a couple of letters, but that was so unfair of me. You weren’t her keeper, you didn’t know she’d been lying.”

“I still shouldn’t have yelled at you,” Will mumbled. “Not there, at least.”

Mike decided to give him that one. “Fine, we both should have been calmer about it. You were right though, I totally blocked you out. I just…I don’t know man, I…” He sighed, picking at a loose thread on his pajama bottoms while he gathered his thoughts. “This is going to sound really stupid.”

“What is it?” Will asked cautiously. His tears had slowed, as had Mike’s, but he was still a little red in the face.

Mike screwed up his courage, fully aware of how whiny he was about to sound. But he’d come into this determined to fix things with Will, and Will was probably the last person who would judge him. At least, he’d used to be. “I sort of figured you didn’t care about me anymore,” he said on an exhale. It came out a little jumbled, but he figured Will heard him by how his eyes widened, then narrowed in disbelief. Before he could interrupt him though, Mike hurried on. “El said in her letters how good you both were doing, how many new friends you guys had, and until everything went down at the roller rink, I had no reason to think otherwise, right? Plus you never answered the phone, the line was always busy, and the couple times you did, you never wanted to talk for very long. I guess I just thought you were, like, moving on, or something.”

Will stared at him with that patented what the fuck, Mike look he’d perfected when they were still tiny children. “Mike, that’s ridiculous,” he said, and for a second, Mike bristled. But then Will’s tone gentled. “Sorry, I just—I mean—wait,” and Will’s face shuttered again. “You called?”

Mike laughed mirthlessly, twisting the thread on his pajamas around his finger until it turned purple. “Only every other day or so,” he admitted, feeling uncomfortably warm. “I honestly thought I had your number wrong at first, but Dustin and Lucas said they’d gotten through to you just fine. And you picked up on November 6^th, which. I was really glad you did.” He felt his stomach turn over a little bit. There was something to be said for the anniversary effect, as Dr. Owens referred to it. That whole day had been awful, and hearing Will’s voice, even if only for ten minutes that evening, was the only thing that had settled Mike’s anxiety. He’d wanted nothing more the whole day than to hug Will, and knowing he couldn’t had actually driven him into such a bad panic attack that he’d had to duck into the AV room to hide.

Eddie found him, curled in a ball on the floor with his hands over his ears and seconds from passing out. That had been humiliating; Mike had been sitting with the Hellfire group at lunch for a couple of weeks by that point, but he’d steadfastly refused to join the club for a campaign despite Dustin’s cajoling. He didn’t want to play without Will, didn’t want to break the unspoken promise he’d made. But that afternoon, Eddie sat with him in the closet and helped Mike regulate his breathing before telling him about how bad it had been when his mom died, how he still couldn’t look at a picture of her without crying, and how every year on the anniversary of her death, he skipped school in favor of getting so high that he didn’t know which way was up.

“And no, kid, I’m not giving you any drugs,” Eddie said sternly, before Mike could even think to ask. “But I do think you should come to Hellfire on Friday. Henderson says you’ve been moping about at home and he’s worried about you. It’ll be good for you to get back in the game.”

Mike developed a pretty embarrassing crush on Eddie shortly thereafter. It was a good distraction from his guilt over not loving El and the confusion he felt about loving Will. It didn’t mean anything, but it felt nice. An easy crush on a completely unattainable older guy who was completely unashamed of himself and who he was. Mike had definitely needed more of that energy in his life.

Fuck, it was so unfair that Eddie was gone. Mike didn’t think he’d fully processed it yet.

“If you hadn’t called, I would have,” Will told him now, finally meeting Mike’s gaze again. “Mom took off work that day so she could stay home with me; that’s probably why the call came through. I—I’m sorry I hung up so fast. It was…a really bad day. Hearing your voice helped though.” The last part was barely more than a whisper, like Will was afraid to admit it, but it sent a flood of warmth through Mike.

“I missed you so much,” Mike admitted in return. “I know I said so already, but. I really wanted to talk to you while you were gone. And you didn’t pick up, so…”

“If I’d known you were calling, I would have called you back,” Will said firmly. “I…I wish you’d written, you know? At least to tell me you were trying to call. I know letters are weird, at least they are for me, but even just a note with a day and time, you know?”

Mike thought guiltily about the box of letters hiding in his closet. “You could’ve written too,” he pointed out. It came out more accusing than he wanted, but he’d been wondering for six months why Will hadn’t reached out either. Mike knew he was the bad guy here, for more reasons than one, but he’d thought he had a point with that one. Why did it all have to be on him?

It was Will’s turn to shrug. “I guess…I don’t know. When I left, things just felt…weird. We’d had that fight and we never really got to talk about it, you know? And…I felt really left behind, last year. I guess maybe I thought you were better off without me.”

Mike wanted to be angry about that, he really did. But he knew, deep down, that he hadn’t given Will reason to believe otherwise. “That brings me to my last apology then,” he said. “That day—”

“Mike, we really don’t have to—”

“Yeah, I think we really do,” Mike interrupted. “Because you were right, Will, you were right. I was totally ignoring you, I had been for months, and you just called me out on it. And instead of listening to you, I said…I said…”

“‘It’s not my fault you don’t like girls,’” Will murmured. It was a choked, ugly thing. It sounded like it crawled out of Will’s throat against his best efforts to keep it locked down. And it made Mike flinch, full-bodied, hearing the thing he’d thrown in Will’s face. He hadn’t meant it the way it sounded, but it didn’t matter, did it? He’d said it, and he sounded just like Troy and James and Lonnie Byers, all of the assholes who had ever insinuated that Will was…

“Will, I am so sorry,” Mike said earnestly. He took a chance and reached for Will’s hand. He let his fingers brush over the back of it, not just taking, but waiting for Will to let him. After a moment, Will did, and Mike felt relief wash through him all the way down to his toes. “I didn’t mean it. I was angry at you for calling me on my shit, and I was angry at El for dumping me, and I was angry at Max for egging her on, and I was angry at myself because I deserved it, all of it. I took it all out on you and I said the worst thing I possibly could have said.” It was the truth, but not all of it; there had been one more thing he was angry about, but he couldn’t tell Will that now. “I think – no, I know – that I was taking you for granted. I thought we’d have time to make up, but then everything happened, and…”

He trailed off, guilt overwhelming him. This was it, he knew. The make or break of their friendship. The moment that Will saw Mike for what he truly was: a selfish, horrible person who had never deserved Will’s friendship in the first place. This was the moment, and Mike knew he could never blame Will if he didn’t forgive him. If Will decided that he didn’t want Mike’s friendship anymore, then Mike would let him go.

But god, Mike didn’t want to.

Will had stopped hugging his knees sometime during Mike’s little speech, sitting criss-cross again and still holding Mike’s hand. He played with Mike’s fingers absently, staring down at them in his own hands like he was contemplating something. Mike let him, didn’t rush him, even as one minute turned into two, then three, and Mike felt like he was going to rip his own hair out from the dread.

“Mike,” Will said softly, looking up. And Mike didn’t want to, but he met Will’s gaze head-on. “Mike,” Will said again, looking a little lost, but also smiling a tiny bit. “You fucked up,” he continued, and Mike’s heart stopped. “I’m not going to try to tell you that you didn’t, because you did, and I know you know that. And I don’t totally understand all of it, but…I think I forgive you. At least, I will forgive you.”

“Yeah?” Mike breathed.

“Yeah,” Will echoed, smile spreading over his face and turning into something teasing. “As long as you don’t start ignoring me again.”

Mike laughed shakily, feeling wrung-out and slightly delirious. Maybe he should have waited to do this, given them time to rest and recuperate for a day or two. Maybe he shouldn’t have been quite this honest, but it was out now, and besides. Will deserved the truth, or as much of it as Mike was willing and able to give right now. “If I do, call me on it,” he said. He wanted it to come out jokingly, but his tone was entirely too serious, so he let it flow that way. “Seriously man; don’t let me get away with that again. You…you mean too much to me.”

Will looked at him with some unreadable expression for a few seconds before his face broke out into a grin. “Deal.” His eyes were shining with tears again, and Mike’s felt suspiciously wet too, but he didn’t look away. Finally, finally, it felt like they were on even footing again. Or, at least, it felt like they would be.

“You can say no,” Mike said tentatively after another moment, “but…I’d like it if you stayed in here tonight. Just for tonight,” he added hurriedly when Will opened his mouth, looking somewhat doubtful. “I just…want to keep talking to you. Catch up. If…if you’re up for it. I know this has been…”

“Uncomfortably emotional?” Will suggested.

Mike shrugged. “Honestly? Yes, but I could probably stand to be more emotional in general.”

It made Will smile again. “I have been wondering what you’ve been getting up to since I moved,” he said. His smile dimmed a little. “I think my old sleeping bag might be a little small though.”

Mike swallowed; this was the part he was most nervous for. “I mean—and, again, if I’m overstepping, please tell me—but we’ve shared before, right? In the motels we stayed at, yeah, but also before, and my bed is a double now, so there’s…there’s room…”

Will went red again, but he only said, “You sure?”

Mike nodded, perhaps a little too eagerly. “Yeah dude. Like old times.”

It was going on one in the morning now; Mike knew that they should really get some sleep, considering how little they’d gotten over the last week or so and the undoubtedly early mornings they would begin to endure as they prepared for the end of the world. But he really wanted to keep talking to Will, having a sneaking suspicion that the next day would bring back some of the awkwardness he’d been feeling for so long now. So he turned on the old nightlight he’d kept plugged in all this time, knowing that Will couldn’t sleep in total darkness, and turned off the lamp, and climbed under the covers on the side that was, thankfully, closest to both the door and the window. Neither of them acknowledged it, but Mike thought he could read something like gratitude on Will’s face, though it was too shadowed to really see.

For a moment, Mike thought that they would actually fall asleep in silence. But then Will whispered, “What was your favorite Hellfire campaign?”

They talked until almost four in the morning. Mike told Will about Hellfire, and Eddie, and tried to apologize for joining another party (Will didn’t let him). In return, Will told Mike about the advanced art class he’d taken in California, where he hadn’t quite made friends, but where he felt like he might fit in a little bit. At one point, Mike tentatively asked Will if he’d found the birthday present that Mike had left on his dresser in Lenora, sneaking into Will’s room while he was in the shower after their fight at Rink-o-Mania, half-wishing Will would catch him and knowing, deep down, that he wasn’t ready to acknowledge his wrongdoing yet. Will grinned, getting up briefly to pull the Hellfire shirt Mike had Eddie make out of his backpack, along with the note Mike had left on top of it:

Happy Birthday, Will the Wise!

This is part one of your present. Part two takes place this July when you come to visit me us. I think Eddie is almost as excited to meet you as I am to play another campaign with you. (I think everyone is a little sick of me talking about you all the time, but I don’t care. You’re awesome and they should know that). In the meantime, this is your official induction as an honorary member of Hellfire. I hope you like it.

Love,

Mike

(Mike didn’t mention to Will that he had agonized over whether or not to sign off with love or crazy together; for Mike, they meant the same thing anyway, and he’d used them pretty interchangeably in the unsent letters to Will in his closet. He also didn’t mention how easy it was to write when he knew it was to Will and not El.)

The conversation flowed easily in hushed voices until Mike felt his eyelids growing heavy and Will had long given up on keeping his eyes open, slurring his answers to Mike’s questions. Before he succumbed to sleep, however, Mike had one more apology: “I’m sorry I didn’t hug you at the airport. It was stupid.”

“You’re always stupid,” Will mumbled into the pillow. Then: “You hugged me now. Thank you.”

“Always.”

***

As he predicted, things were a little awkward the next morning between them. Though that may have had something to do with Mike waking up with his limbs wrapped around Will liked a particularly cuddly koala.

It wasn’t completely unprecedented; Mike, at his most comfortable, was a naturally touchy person. He wasn’t quite sure where this came from, whether it was his parents’ distance with each other and his determination to be able to show affection to those he loved, to prove that he wasn’t that way. But growing up, before their world was flipped upside down (pun intended), Mike was the first to initiate hugs, handholding, even just a comforting press of shoulders. Even as a kid, he was aware that he was physically closer with Will, though he never hesitated to follow his instincts to pull Lucas and Dustin close too, when he got the urge. It was just that the urge to be close happened more often around Will, and was stronger. He would never dream of taking responsibility for Lonnie and his brand of disdain for his own son, but Mike privately thought sometimes that Will wouldn’t have been bullied so badly by their classmates if Mike hadn’t been standing so close all the time.

This desire for physical touch extended beyond his waking moments. At least it did when it came to Will. He was more likely to offer to share his bed with Will than with Lucas and Dustin, even when he had bunk beds and there was no need for it. And, more often than not, he would wake up with at least one part of him touching Will, whether it was a hand wrapped around Will’s wrist, or a leg thrown over one of his own, or…like this. One arm shoved underneath Will’s pillow, mostly asleep at this point, the other curled around Will’s waist with his fingers curled loosely in his (Mike’s) shirt. Their legs were tangled together in such a way that Mike was positive he couldn’t possibly move without waking Will.

He hadn’t done this in the two motel rooms they’d stayed in, one on the way to find El, the other on the way back to Hawkins. He and Will had shared a bed both times, but Mike had woken up feeling cold and lonely, as if there was a whole ocean between him and Will and not a scant few inches. He lay in his own bed for a moment, slowly blinking himself away, and wondered if he’d done this subconsciously because he felt like he had permission to do so again.

Whatever the reason, Mike liked it.

His arm, however, was not happy with the current position, and he could feel Will’s breathing against his neck quicken slightly as he stirred. Mike knew exactly when Will regained conscious thought, because the hand he’d had curled over Mike’s heart splayed out like he was about to grab, followed by Will’s entire body stiffening like a board. “Hi,” Mike offered, voice a little more breathless than he would like.

“Um,” Will responded intelligently. Mike could feel the flutter of his eyelashes on his neck as Will blinked rapidly. He braced himself for Will to freak out, push him away, for all the progress they’d made last night to vanish. But Will only continued, voice slightly strained, “So you still cuddle in your sleep then.”

Mike laughed, relieved, even as his heart thumped hard in his chest. “It would appear so.”

When Will did pull away, it didn’t feel like he was trying to escape. Mike had the absurd urge to tighten his arm around Will, keep him there for a moment longer, before he forced himself to move too. They avoided eye contact for a second, but when Mike chanced a peek, Will was smiling.

Will slept in the basement after that, much to Mike’s disappointment. It was best for now, he knew. There was a lot that needed to be sorted out before Mike could start trying to figure out if Will might be feeling the same things he was. Maybe, once he’d talked to El, and they figured out just how quickly the apocalypse was going to come on, Mike could work out a way to move Will up into his room permanently.

Mike wanted to talk to El sooner than later, but for some reason, it wasn’t nearly as easy to do as it had been to talk to Will. He owed her a major apology too, he knew, first and foremost for being such a shitty boyfriend, and for all of the lies that came with it. And he didn’t mean to make excuses, not really. The first few days, he wanted to give her time with Hopper, back from the dead. She’d thought that her adoptive father was dead for almost nine months; they deserved some time to catch up. So Mike busied himself by answering his mom’s questions when she trapped him into helping her cook breakfast and dinner, something he hadn’t done in a long time but had always secretly enjoyed, as it was often the only time he got his mom to himself. The questions were uncomfortable, but he answered them honestly, or as honestly as he could without divulging the gritty, often violent details. She didn’t need to know how explicitly he had almost died so many times, but he suspected she might be reading between the lines anyway. By the time they’d finished making dinner on the third night though, he felt lighter and closer to his mom than he had in years.

During the day, as it appeared they at least had some time before things got too crazy, Mike went out with Will, Argyle, Jonathan, and Nancy to unofficially survey the damage and help out where they could. Military was already pouring in, filling the empty spaces left behind by so many families fleeing Hawkins and completely barring access to any of the four wide-open gates. The biggest base seemed to be at the library of all places, which sparked both curiosity and concern for Mike. Everyone else was either preoccupied with other matters or didn’t deem it significant enough to pay attention to. Will listened when Mike brought it up though, and at least outwardly didn’t dismiss him for it.

School, it appeared, was closed for the foreseeable future. Hawkins High and Middle were both being used as makeshift help centers and shelters for those displaced by the “earthquake.” Nancy was ridiculously stressed about what this meant in terms of graduating, and while there were definitely much bigger problems, Mike kind of understood. She was two months away from a diploma in hand and a partial scholarship to Emerson, her ticket out of Hawkins for good. Jonathan seemed less worried, but Mike suspected that could be attributed to Argyle’s seemingly never-dwindling supply of weed. Jonathan seemed much more sober than before, at least during the day.

Mike had always liked Jonathan, was even jealous of how close he and Will had always been. It wasn’t that Nancy was a bad sister; she’d played with him when they were younger, even dressed up for a few campaigns. But they’d grown apart, had been even before Will was taken in 1983. They’d promised no more secrets, and then proceeded to continue keeping even more secrets from each other. But Will and Jonathan weren’t like that, never had been (though Will admitted to Mike that they had been distant while in California). Mike was glad for it when they were little, had continued to be glad for it as they’d gotten older, and had taken small comfort in the fact that Will wouldn’t be alone in California as long as Jonathan was still there. He’d always sort of thought that he and Jonathan had a mutual understanding when it came to Will. Mike would stick by his side at school and whenever Will wasn’t home, and Jonathan could resume his brotherly responsibilities when they had to part ways. Will would always have someone to look after him, whether he knew that’s what was going on or not.

But Jonathan had spent a lot of time on their road trip glaring at Mike, and Mike wasn’t so dense that he didn’t know why. There was less glaring now that they were back in Hawkins and Mike was putting pretty much all his energy into rebuilding his and Will’s friendship. There was caution though, and as much as Mike wanted to be prickly about it, he knew he had no right to blame Jonathan for hovering, for watching Mike like he was just waiting for him to screw up again. Mike was determined not to.

So they helped out at the schools and explored Hawkins in groups to try and form a game plan. It was nice, or as nice as it could be while the Upside Down was slowly seeping into their dimension. Sometimes, Dustin joined them while they volunteered, and they went to see Lucas, steadfastly refusing to leave Max’s side, every other day. Mike got to spend time with Will pretty much constantly, though the physical distance between them was a little bigger than he wanted it to be. As much as he wanted to eliminate it, Mike knew that Will needed time to trust him again. Not just with his life, but with their relationship. It was getting easier though. Will’s smiles were less guarded, his laughter a little louder. Mike could always tell when the Upside Down was bothering him though. He believed Will when he told him that nothing was happening, but he unconsciously got into the habit of covering the back of Will’s neck with a hand when he saw the telltale shiver run through Will’s body.

Mike wasn’t sure if it was more for Will or himself, but Will also didn’t stop him from doing it (and if Mike was reading him right, seemed to relax a little faster when the warmth of Mike’s hand settled the goosebumps there), so Mike kept doing it.

Five days after getting back to Hawkins, Mike tried to go see El. “Tried” being the operative word. He didn’t mind Will and Jonathan coming along, knowing that they missed their mom and adoptive sister, and Will, at least, knew that Mike wanted to talk to El the way he’d talked to him (though Mike hadn’t told him about the part where he wanted to break up with her; he hadn’t told anyone). Jonathan was more interested in helping Hopper out with more repairs (and possibly a valid reason for space from Nancy, with whom things were still obviously tense). Mike was positive that no one would get in the way, and he and El could talk without interruption.

Except – El avoided him entirely. He’d brought some of Nancy’s old clothes, figuring she would like a more feminine wardrobe than hand-me-downs from her dad and brothers. Nancy’s taste wasn’t quite as colorful as what Max and El had picked out at the mall last summer, but there were pastel pinks and blues and a soft purple sweater in there that Mike knew she would like.

He hoped she would see it for what it was: an olive branch. Mike knew what he was preparing to do, knew it would hurt both of them, but he hoped that El would give him the chance to explain the way that Will had. This didn’t have to be an ending; he didn’t want it to be. For all that he had avoided thinking of it while they were separated by several states and thousands of miles, Mike had known, deep down, that things were always easier with El when there wasn’t the pressure of boyfriend/girlfriend over everything. If nothing else, he thought she would at least understand that part.

But that day, El shut him out. She took the box of clothes with a terse, “Tell Nancy thank you,” and went off to her room. When Mike followed despite the clear dismissal (after a deep, searching look from Hopper followed by a nod of reluctant approval), she walked right back out again before he could say a word. The whole afternoon was tense and miserable, with Mike trying desperately to catch her alone and El doing everything in her power to avoid him, short of telling him directly to stop. Will was, once again, playing mediator, or trying to. He distracted Hopper, Joyce, and Jonathan, shooting furtive glances at Mike and El all the while with an expression Mike couldn’t read. After the fourth time trying to get more than a one-word answer out of her, Mike gave up for the time being. He waved off Will’s apology, just barely restraining himself from reverting into the asshole version of himself that he was trying so hard to stop being.

Instead, he worked with Joyce to repair the kitchen cabinets and helped Hopper fiddle with the air conditioning unit until cool air finally began to flood the little cabin. Mike, admittedly, knew nothing of household appliances nor how to repair them, but Hopper didn’t seem to need him to do much other than keep the parts carefully separated and to hand him things now and then. Mike expected it to be a lot more uncomfortable than it was; he’d written off Hopper’s affectionate embrace a few days ago as a one-off. But Hopper seemed genuinely interested in what Mike and the rest of the Party had been doing since he was kidnapped by the Soviets, and in return, answered Mike’s curious questions about what had happened to him without revealing any explicit details. Mike knew that it had to have been ten times worse than Hopper was describing, but if the former police chief wanted to try and protect him from further trauma, Mike wasn’t going to stop him.

When El came over to them briefly to ask Hopper a question and immediately flounced away again without even a glance at Mike, Hopper patted his shoulder consolingly. “Give her time, kid,” he said gruffly. “She’ll come around.” Mike wondered if Hopper would be quite as sympathetic when he realized that Mike intended to break up with his daughter.

It was much like that every time Mike saw El after that the next few weeks. He saw her at the hospital a couple of times, hood over her head and eyes downcast, but she stuck to Lucas like glue and wouldn’t budge from his side. Lucas and Will both shot him apologetic looks, and Will always asked him if he was okay once they got back to Mike’s house. Mike always answered the same thing: “I will be once we talk.” And it was true. One way or another, whether things went well or terribly, he would be okay. At least he’d know where he and El stood.

Mike’s fifteen birthday was a quiet, but enjoyable affair. El was absent, Joyce (unconvincingly) citing food poisoning. Hopper stayed behind with her, and Mike wished he could be more disappointed about her missing presence than he actually was. His mom made him a cake, frosted messily with Holly’s help, and despite the fact that his dad insisted she was far too old for it at this point, Mike held her in his lap the whole night and let her help him blow out the candles. Holly was growing increasingly lonely, what with school cancelled and their mom’s determination to keep at least one of her children out of harm’s way. Mike and Nancy had snuck her out with them on short trips to the grocery store once or twice, but the little girl was going stir-crazy, and if all Mike could do for her was share his birthday with her, then that’s what he would do.

He really wasn’t expecting a whole lot in terms of gifts, what with the whole beginning-of-the-end happening outside. He was pleasantly surprised when his parents presented him with a videogame he’d been eyeing. Nancy and Jonathan gave him a mixtape based on what Nancy, apparently, heard the most of coming from his room or basement. Lucas, Dustin, and Will had gone in together on a very expensive-looking, leather-bound notebook embossed with a Thessalhydra on the front for Mike to copy down old campaigns or write new ones (he pretended that his eyes didn’t well up with tears when he opened that one). To Mike’s surprised gratitude, Robin and Steve gave him a few horror movies that were missing from his collection downstairs.

He’d gotten to know Steve over the last few years, first from his stint dating Nancy and then slightly better after Dustin and him formed their weird, brotherly bond. Robin, however, was still somewhat of a mystery to Mike. And, at least since last summer, Robin had become Steve’s almost-constant companion. Once or twice, he’d found himself sharing a table at the school library with her while he struggled through Spanish homework and she offered unasked-for assistance, which Mike accepted warily. It wasn’t that he disliked her, and given the fact that Dustin was the most available of their Party over the past several months, he spent more time with her than he’d have ever done on his own during frequent visits to the video store. But she looked at him sometimes, when she thought he couldn’t see, like she was trying to puzzle him out. It was unsettling, and he didn’t like thinking about what she might be learning about him.

She was around even more now, constantly hanging out with Nancy or volunteering at Hawkins High and Middle when he (and Will, who he never went anywhere without anymore) were there. Mike was growing more at ease around her, having spent a couple of afternoons making peanut butter sandwiches or folding clothes at the same table. She was awkward, sure, but she knew a lot of random trivia and, despite her unsubtle examining of his character, didn’t ask a lot of awkward questions. Sometimes it seemed like she might be testing the waters, but she always backed off the second Mike showed any signs of clamming up.

He'd retaliated one day by asking her why she and Steve weren’t dating. She hadn’t stopped laughing for five minutes straight, and when she did, it was only to call Steve over from the nonperishable donations table and tell him about it. After another five minutes of hysterical giggling from the two of them, Mike decided he didn’t need to know what the deal was with their relationship.

Later that night, Will admitted sheepishly that he hadn’t originally been part of Lucas and Dustin’s gift. “I had something for you, but I kind of forgot it when we were trying not to get shot to death,” he explained. Mike took the opportunity to hug him (he was trying to do that more, ease them both into the physicality they’d once had; he knew it was selfish of him, but he didn’t particularly want to stop) and tell him that there were no worries. “You should tell me what it was supposed to be though,” Mike said cheekily when he let Will go. To his surprise, Will flushed a deep red and changed the subject. Mike didn’t ask again, sensing a landmine that he wasn’t sure they were strong enough to step on yet.

A week later, Mike finally received the proverbial kick in the ass he needed to stop skirting the subject with El. It was getting a little ridiculous, her avoidance of him, and the thing was, he missed her. Not the way everyone thought he did, but he missed her nonetheless. He just wasn’t expecting the kick in the ass to come from Max, of all people.

He and Will had stopped by the hospital that morning, determined to pull Lucas away for at least a few hours. He had started going home to sleep sometimes at his parents’ insistence, but all daylight hours were spent at Max’s bedside, and the toll it was taking on him was evident in the stubble accumulating on his cheeks and the heavy bags under his eyes. It took half an hour and the bribe of Karen Wheeler’s homemade chocolate chip cookies, plus Steve coming to take his place while he was gone, but Lucas finally left with them. They took him to the one diner that remained open in Hawkins for breakfast, where he ate like he hadn’t realized he was even hungry, before they headed to Hawkins High to volunteer for a few hours.

Mike cajoled the supervisor into letting them take over the food donations table, where he and Will reluctantly pulled small smiles and, eventually, huffs of laughter from Lucas by making exaggerated impressions of what Jonathan and Argyle were like when they were high together (Argyle had left the previous day, called back to California by his parents). The three of them were having a pretty good time, all things considered, stacking cans and sorting through perishables and nonperishables. Mike, as always, could feel the foot or so of distance between himself and Will like there was a physical wall there, and he thought he saw Lucas sneak a couple of questioning looks at them, but Mike chose to focus on the task in front of him rather than acknowledge any of it.

And then, everything went to shit.

If Will hadn’t stiffened beside him, Mike wouldn’t have noticed anything was wrong. But Will did, and Mike instinctively reached for the nape of his neck, ready to provide the only comfort Will allowed right now. But then—

“Well, well,” a taunting voice called, carrying across the gym. “Look what we have here.”

“Here we go,” Lucas muttered under his breath, squaring his shoulders.

The thing was, Mike had barely even seen Troy and James all year. They didn’t share any classes, and while Lucas shared his athletics period with them, they hadn’t really been bothering him much either. And Mike had had bigger problems than worrying about his childhood bullies, especially since they’d pretty much left him alone after El snapped Troy’s arm. But here Troy was, smirk zeroing in on Will in particular. And Mike knew that Will didn’t like it when people babied him, but he stepped in front of him anyway, shielding him from view as best he could. He had about four inches on Troy at this point; he didn’t really think that he could stop Troy from targeting Will if he really wanted to, but it was worth it to Mike to try.

“Where’s your fourth musketeer?” Troy taunted. “Too busy crying over that freak Munsen?”

At Mike’s right, Lucas took a step closer, expression unreadable. Behind him, Mike felt a hand come to rest between his shoulder blades. Not holding on, just resting. It was the first time Will had initiated a touch with him first since they returned to Hawkins, and Mike just barely suppressed a flinch of surprise. It completely wiped out any anger that had begun to bubble up at Troy’s words – at first.

“Where’s your partner in crime, Walsh?” Lucas shot back. “He leave you behind? Oh – wait – he did that a long time ago, didn’t he? Traded you in for the bigger bullies on the football team?”

“Shut it, Midnight,” Troy growled. “You think you’re hot shit now? Going to take over as the star basketball player? About the only thing your kind is good for.”

“Shut up, Troy,” Mike said in a low voice. His fists had curled up at his sides without his permission, but Will’s hand steadied him.

Troy laughed, a barking, ugly thing. “Oh, Frogface speaks!” But something uncertain entered his gaze, there and gone in a heartbeat. Remembering El, no doubt. “Aww, protecting your boyfriend? How sweet.” Mike felt Will’s hand twitch against his back before it fell away, taking with it a tiny bit of Mike’s self-control and filling him with regret. “You haven’t always been able to protect him though, have you? Zombie Boy, come back to life. Tell me, Zombie Boy, what exactly did happen to you that week? The other queers get you?”

Mike edged further in front of Will, knowing full well that blocking him from Troy’s view wouldn’t stop the onslaught. His vision was turning red with every word out of Troy’s mouth. Will stayed silent, close enough to Mike that he could feel his shallow breathing hitting the back of his neck. He didn’t want to know what Will’s face looked like right then; if he saw the devastation there, he might lose it. But Troy wasn’t stopping: “Should’ve just stayed in fairyland, Zombie Boy. Maybe you can go back! Go jump into one of those freak rifts, there’s one right outside! You’ll love it there, I promise, you and all the other fa—”

Mike didn’t remember making the choice to move. If Lucas or Will tried to stop him, he didn’t know. One second, he was standing with the table between him and Troy. The next, his hand was throbbing, knuckles bloody, and Troy was doubled over in pain right in front of him, holding his face where Mike had punched him.

He was aware of people starting to gather, of Lucas hurrying around the table and Will standing stock still, mouth gaping open. But he paid them no mind. Instead, he curled his bloody fist in the collar of Troy’s shirt and hauled him into his space so that the other boy’s shocked, fearful expression was the only thing he could see. “Don’t you ever call him or anyone that,” Mike spat in Troy’s face, “ever again. Don’t even look at him. You understand me?”

Troy squeaked out an affirmative and wrenched himself out of Mike’s grip, hurrying away without looking back. Mike watched him retreat with some strange feeling of satisfaction. “Dude,” Lucas said quietly, “you good?” He looked…proud, maybe? Mike was pretty sure that was pride mixed in with the apprehension on his face.

“Yeah,” Mike responded, the rage draining out of him as quickly as it had come. Someone handed him an ice pack, which he accepted absently as he rounded the table again. “I think I’ve wanted to do that for a really long time,” he admitted after a moment. He was afraid to look at Will, not knowing what he would find there. Had he noticed that Mike didn’t care about Troy calling him Will’s boyfriend? Did he know about the zing of electricity that raced up his spine at the accusation? The dizzying, giddy sensation brought on by words that weren’t even true?

But Will was reaching out for his injured hand, inspecting it closely. “Doesn’t look broken,” he said evenly, every light touch sending Mike’s pulse into overdrive. “How bad does it hurt?”

“Not bad,” Mike lied. Truthfully, he would probably have to wrap it when they got home later if the ice didn’t prevent the swelling that was already occurring.

Will hummed, contemplative. “You didn’t have to do that,” he murmured, so soft it was barely a breath. “I can handle Troy; we’ve dealt with worse, after all.” When Mike dragged his eyes from their hands to Will’s face, he felt abruptly like he’d been bathed in sunlight. Will’s eyes shone with gratitude and something else Mike couldn’t name, something closer to what Will used to look at him with when they were younger. Mike’s reaction to it was the same as it had been back then: warm pleasure followed by something shivery and hot and guilty. The guilt was lesser though, easier to ignore in favor of the better feelings.

“I was happy to,” Mike said, a touch too honest and pathetically earnest. “Besides, it’s about time someone punched him.”

“I think you actually broke his nose,” Lucas commented. He was looking between Mike and Will with a fond, exasperated expression. Will flushed like he’d forgotten Lucas was there, releasing Mike’s hand and giving him back the ice pack. “Max would have loved that.” It was the first time Lucas had said her name without the threat of tears. It seemed to trigger something else for him though: “Oh shit, I never – hang on.” Mike and Will watched in confusion as he dug through the backpack he’d brought with him. “Here,” he said, thrusting two envelopes with their respective names at them. “From Max. She…she wrote us all, just in case. A failsafe, she said.” His eyes were shiny, but no tears fell against the determined set of his jaw.

Mike looked down at his letter in disbelief, aching hand forgotten for a moment. “She wrote me?” he questioned. Will seemed to be in a similar boat, looking at the envelope in his hand like it was a bomb. Mike wasn’t sure why he was so trepidatious about it; Max had liked Will, at least. Maybe over the last several months, Mike had formed a tentative truce with her, what with their shared creative writing class and mutual mourning of distant best friends, but he didn’t think they had been close enough to warrant, what, a goodbye letter? He may have come to enjoy Max’s company, but he’d thought she only grudgingly tolerated him at best.

Lucas didn’t seem to share their surprise. “You guys were – are – her friends. Of course she wrote you letters. Guys, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to you, we all went on double – we all went to the movies together, like, twice a week last summer.” Mike was pretty sure he’d been about to call their outings double dates. A year ago, Mike would have vehemently denied it. Today, Mike thought that was probably an apt description.

He carefully avoided looking to see Will’s thoughts on the matter.

With his hand out of commission for at least a little while, Mike took a seat on an empty wooden crate against the wall, letting Will and Lucas’s continuing chatter about Max fade into the background as they picked up where they left off. He fiddled with the envelope, staring at his name on the front in Max’s familiar, messy handwriting. She used to tease him about his loopy, half-cursive, half-print handwriting in their creative writing class, calling it girly. He’d mocked her chicken scratch in return, pretending he couldn’t read her short stories during peer review.

(She was a decent writer. Sometimes Mike had thought about asking her to help him write a campaign for Will.)

After a few minutes, he bit the bullet and opened it. A single sheet of lined paper, folded a little crookedly into thirds, fell into his hand. He unfolded it one-handedly, letting the envelope drop to the floor, and began to read.

Mike,

Okay, yeah, this is weird, I know. But against all odds, we’re friends. At least, I think we are. I hope we are, or this is really embarrassing. Point being, I care about you, and I think I’d regret it if I didn’t say bye to you. I hope this isn’t goodbye.

Thank you for sharing your snacks with me in creative writing this year. I know Lucas put you up to it, but it still meant something to me. You could have told him to fuck off. You could have told me to fuck off after I broke up with him. I didn’t tell you how grateful I was that you hung out with me after I did that. I think I thought you would just understand, because you get me in a weird way, or at least I think you do. But just in case I’m wrong and you are actually as stupid as I used to think you were, then here it is. I’m grateful for you, and I’m glad I know you. I wouldn’t be writing this in your shitty basement if I didn’t. It’s safe here.

Take care of Lucas for me, please. I know you will, because you care about us even when you’re being a dick. I’m saying it anyway though: take care of him. I don’t want him to fall apart over me. I’ve put him through enough.

And lastly: take care of yourself. Maybe be honest with yourself too. I know you miss El, but I think you miss Will more. I’m pretty sure you’re in love with him and I hope you know that’s okay. You talk about El like she moved away, but you talk about Will like he’s dead. He’s not dead. Whatever is going on between you two, I know you can fix it. Just stop being stupid about it.

Thank you for letting me join your Party. I’m sorry I’ve been such a shitty part of it the last few months.

From

Love

Your Zoomer always (whether you like it or not),

Max

Mike didn’t bother to try and hide the tears dripping down his face and onto the page, slightly blurring whatever she’d crossed out so insistently in the last paragraph. Based on the context, he thought it was probably about Will. Fuck, but he missed her.

“Mike?” Will said hesitantly. He and Lucas were looking at him with twin expressions of concern and sadness.

Mike sniffled once before standing abruptly, letting the ice pack fall to the floor. “I have to go do something,” he said. “I’ll meet you back at home, okay?” He carefully folded the letter back up and slipped it into his pocket before he gave both of them brief embraces. He forced himself not to cling to Will too hard.

“Okay,” Will said, sounding uncertain. “Radio me – us – when you get where you’re going, yeah? Be safe.”

Mike flashed him a genuine grin. “Don’t worry, I’m not going monster hunting. I’ll be fine.”

“No offense man, but the monsters would be hunting you, not the other way around,” Lucas teased. But they let him go without further conversation, and Mike swore he felt Will’s eyes follow him all the way out the door.

***

Joyce’s car wasn’t outside the cabin, nor was anyone else’s. Mike avoided the trip wires and various other traps he knew were set, picking his way to the door. The cabin looked much better than before; the windows had been the last things that needed repair, but at some point the boards had been replaced with glass again. They were covered by dark curtains, completely hiding the inside from view. He paused, just for a second, and took a deep breath before raising his fist and rapping out the unique knock assigned to him.

For a solid minute, Mike stood in silence, surrounded by the sounds of the birds that had slowly returned to the woods around the cabin. He was about to knock again, or pull out his Walkie and try to radio for El, when the door finally creaked open. There was no one behind it, but as he stepped inside and shut it behind him, El came slowly out of her room. “Mike,” she said, sounding surprised. Almost like she hadn’t actually expected it to be him, or for him to have bolted in some fucked up game of ding-dong-ditch.

“Hey,” he responded. She was wearing what looked like one of Will’s old pairs of khaki shorts and one of the shirts he’d given her that had belonged to Nancy. Her hair was starting to grow out again, just a bit, enough for the natural curl of it to begin to show. “I know you’re pissed at me,” he went on before the silence could become too long or uncomfortable. “You have every right to be. I’ve been a really shitty boyfriend for…probably the whole time, honestly, and there isn’t an excuse for it, but I wanted to try to explain. But mostly I wanted to apologize.”

El eyed him warily. “Mike,” she said, tone somewhere between gentle and admonishing, “I do not think that you can fix our relationship. I do not think I want to fix our relationship. I have…I have been thinking, since I was at NINA, that maybe you should not be my boyfriend anymore.”

Mike swallowed. He should feel hurt by the words, he wanted to be hurt by the words. But all she’d done was beat him to the punch. This was what he came here for, so at least they were starting out on the same page. “I know,” he told her, voice breaking a little. “And I think you’re right.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “You do?”

“Yeah,” Mike breathed. “I still owe you an explanation for everything though. And, like, a dozen apologies. Because – maybe we shouldn’t be in a relationship anymore, but I do love you, El, I do, and I still want to be your friend. We were good at friends, remember? At least…I thought we were.”

El gestured to the couch and they crossed over to it, sitting on opposite sides but facing each other. When he’d done this with Will, the night they returned to Hawkins, they’d sat close enough to touch. There was an entire cushion between him and El though, and where that distance with Will had felt painful and impossible to bridge, right now it was comforting. He and El needed the space for the words he needed to say.

“We were good at friends,” El confirmed, corner of her mouth twitching up slightly. “But Mike – you do not love me. You lied, Mike. You only said that because Will told you to. I know it.”

“You’re right. And I’m sorry, El, I’m so sorry. The thing is – I’ve been really mixed up for awhile now, about you, and about—” Mike breathed in sharply, cutting himself off. He didn’t know if he wanted to bring his feelings for Will into this, for several reasons, but mostly because he wasn’t ready to say it out loud yet. “I mean it though. I do love you,” and it was easy to say now, in the context he meant it in, “because you’re amazing, and smart, and you’re so important to me. But…I’m not in love with you, not the way a boyfriend should love a girlfriend. I love you like—”

“Like a friend,” El finished, and he knew he wasn’t imagining the relief in her voice.

“Yeah, exactly,” he said, nodding vigorously. “And I’m sorry for that.”

“Mike,” she said again, and she didn’t move closer, but she did hold out a hand. He took it gratefully, and it felt so much easier without the weight of lies in it. “You are right; you’ve been a shitty boyfriend. But you have never been a bad friend. I liked being your friend. It was…better.” She looked down at her lap. “I am sorry too. For lying to you while I was in Lenora. I…I did not want you to worry about me. I did not want you to think that you needed to save me. And…I think I wanted to figure out who I was without you. So that when you visited, maybe I could be that person. But I wasn’t. I was not anybody. And when you found out, you looked at me like…like…”

Mike felt shame rise up in his throat like bile. “That wasn’t your fault,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t even think to ask. It took Will pointing out what was going on for me to even realize anything was wrong. And I fucking yelled at him for it, like it was his fault. I blamed everyone but myself, like I always do.”

“I would have lied if you asked,” El admitted. “I did not want you to know. I think…I think that I knew that you and me would not last. So I wanted one last good day with you.”

They let the words settle for a minute. “Mike,” she said, and he almost flinched at the fire in her gaze. “I do not want to be a superhero. I am not a superhero. Please be honest with me: are my powers the only thing you like about me?”

And Mike’s heart broke a little, hearing the pain there. “El, no,” he said. He squeezed her hand, but it didn’t feel like enough when there were tears welling up in her eyes. He edged closer and, when she nodded, scooted closer until he could wrap an arm around her shoulders. “No, El, God, I’m so sorry. You are so much more than your powers, you have to know that. I never meant to make you feel like you aren’t.”

“I am afraid that that is all I am,” she whispered. “All I am good for.”

“It’s not,” Mike said firmly, giving her a little shake. “You’re funny, and kind, and beautiful, and one of the best people I’ve ever met. With or without your powers.”

“But you kept me around because of them.” The words weren’t accusatory, just stated as fact. And Mike, no matter how much he wanted to flinch away from them, knew that they were true. “At least at first. Right?”

He sighed. “At first, yes. I…I wanted to find Will, and you were the best chance we had. But when I got to know you, really know you…I wanted to help you too. Because you were my friend and I cared about you. I think…I think, afterwards, that I got confused. I wanted to be in love with you, I really did. I really thought I was, but then…I don’t know. Being with you, it was what I was supposed to do, you know? It’s what everyone expected. I was coming to terms with just wanting to be your friend after we fought in Lenora, but then Will gave me the painting you commissioned and told me what you’d said about me, and I didn’t know how to tell you. I just wanted to find you again, so that we could talk about it. But there wasn’t time.”

El leaned away slightly, frowning at him. “What is…commission?”

Mike frowned too, the question that he’d been mulling in the back of his mind for the past few weeks coming to the forefront. “It’s when you ask someone to make something for them,” he explained slowly. “Tell them what to write, or draw.” El’s brows just furrowed more. “El…was the painting from you?”

“No,” she said simply. “I told you, in my last letter, that I did not know what Will was painting. He would not show me. I thought…I thought it might be for a girl.” She huffed a laugh, a sad little thing. “I guess I was wrong about that too. I like having Will as my…as my brother. But he is hard to understand, sometimes. Or maybe I just don’t know how to tell what people are thinking. Maybe I am a bad sister.”

“No, no,” Mike protested, squeezing her shoulders again. His head was spinning, but he wasn’t as shocked as he knew he probably should be. Will had lied to him; Will never lied to him. Why did Will lie to him? The answer was there, somewhere, if he could parse it out. “No, El, you’re not a bad sister. Will and Jonathan have both missed you the past few weeks. Will told me how much easier you made Lenora.” That much was true, at least; both Will and Jonathan had said that El filled out the hole that had been in their family since Lonnie left.

El laughed again, harsher and self-deprecating. “Will might have actually made friends if not for me. Instead, he was just the weird girl’s twin brother.”

“He doesn’t see it that way,” Mike told her.

This wasn’t the time to think about the painting, but he couldn’t help it. Mike wondered if he should be angrier about the fact that Will lied so blatantly. But…he’d known, in the pizza van, that something was off about what Will was telling him. El hadn’t been pushing him away, at least not before he got to Lenora. And Will…he’d been so emotional about it. Will had always been expressive, sure, maybe not so much in past years unless he was at his breaking point, but Mike had generally been able to tell what he was feeling at any given point just by the set of Will’s shoulders. Will had tried to hide the tears, but Mike had seen his distress in the hunch of his back, in his silent shaking when he turned towards the window afterwards and wouldn’t look at Mike again, even when Mike inched close enough for their knees to knock together, unable (unwilling, he corrected himself in his head) to offer any more comfort than that without drawing Jonathan and Argyle’s attention.

Mike had suspected for awhile that Will might be gay. Since the Snowball in eighth grade, subconsciously maybe longer. Will had looked terrified of the idea of dancing with that girl, holding his arms stiffly so that their bodies were as far apart as they could be. Mike had felt bad, pushing him to do so, and then had been surprised by the ugly jealousy he’d felt watching them. Before El came into the gym and saved him from his own thoughts, he’d been absently considering how Will would react if Mike had asked him to dance. It would have been friendly, Mike had rationalized, before dismissing the thought entirely. Two boys couldn’t dance together like that, he knew, not without getting the crap beaten out of them.

But he couldn’t quite get the image out of his head, anytime he was alone at night, so he’d done his best to banish it by spending every free second with El. Hating himself for what he felt, unable to see the hypocrisy of hating himself when he would never hate Will.

El, it seemed, was thinking about the painting too. “I do not understand why he would hide that it was for you,” she said contemplatively. She’d relaxed against his side, fiddling with a loose thread on her shorts. Mike didn’t think they’d ever just…sat together like this. He’d always been too tense before, too aware of everywhere they touched. It felt nice now, without the pressure of it having to mean anything. “Or tell you that it was from me. You are best friends; he has given you a lot of drawings before. You have that folder of them.”

It was a binder, actually, stuffed to the brim with drawings Mike had received (and stolen) from Will. Even more decorated the walls of the basement and his bedroom. He chose not to bring that up now though. “You said…you wrote that you thought it was for a girl,” he said slowly. “Someone he liked.”

El shrugged. “As I said, Will is hard to understand sometimes. He keeps secrets that I do not think need to be secrets.”

“Like what?” The words came out before Mike could stop them, overeager and pushy.

El nudged him with her elbow. “Friends do not lie,” she admonished, “but secrets are different. I will not tell you what he asked me not to tell anyone.”

Mike laughed, both disappointed and proud of her. “Fair enough,” he said. He wanted to tell her about the words Will had given him alongside the painting, ask her what she thought they meant. If he was right about Will, then…were they from him? Did Will think Mike was the heart of the Party? Did Mike make Will feel better for being different? It was hard to believe, especially after what Mike had said last summer. And he'd apologized, and Will accepted it, but Mike hadn’t exactly made himself a safe place for homosexuality. At least, not until today, although it was possible that his actions today could be indicative simply of denying that Will was gay, and not defending him for it.

Speaking of – El had taken his hand again, pulling his arm off her shoulder to inspect it. “You are hurt,” she stated, prodding his split, swollen knuckles. Mike hissed in pain; he’d forgotten about it. “What happened?”

He laughed darkly. “I punched Troy. Remember him? The one whose arm you broke?”

El’s face pinched in anger. “He made you jump off the cliff and tried to hurt Dustin.”

“Yeah, that’s the one. He came up to me, Lucas, and Will today at the help center and started in with his bullshit. Called Will some really bad things and, I don’t know, I guess I lost it a little.” He flexed his hand, wincing as his skin protested at the stretch. “I’ve never punched someone before; I didn’t realize it would hurt me too. I broke his nose though.” He probably shouldn’t sound so satisfactory about that.

But El looked happy to hear it. “Good,” she said savagely. Then: “What did he call Will?”

It was Mike’s turn to twist his fingers together nervously. “He called him – fuck, I don’t like saying it. Uh…he called him queer and…more of the same.”

“What is queer?” Her eyes were wide, confused.

Mike was surprised; had she never heard the term before? She had to have; it was all over the news, what with the epidemic going on. “It’s a really shitty thing to call someone who likes people of the same gender,” he said carefully, gauging her reaction. “Like guys who like other guys, or girls who like other girls. It’s an insult.”

El frowned again. “What is wrong with that?”

And…what was wrong with that? Truly? Mike had never stopped to consider that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t something that had to be bad. All he’d ever been told was that it was wrong, and he’d grown up seeing how unsafe it was, at least in small-town Hawkins. Had seen the disapproval in Ted Wheeler’s face when he and Will would run around as tiny children, holding hands like lifelines. He’d seen it in the bruises Will showed him like secrets, in the disdain of Lonnie Byers’ face the few times Mike had been at the Byers’ house before the sack of shit abandoned his family. He’d tried to squash it down in his chest, pretend that he didn’t look at Will and feel butterflies erupt in his stomach. That holding his hand didn’t make warmth wash through him, and that Will’s arms around him didn’t feel like coming home. He only ever let the thoughts fully form in the dark of night, when he could barely see his hand in front of his own face and he could swallow the shame of imagining his best friend’s bare chest when he had a hand wrapped around himself and a choked off gasp on his tongue.

But El, apparently, had no such qualms. It had never occurred to her that she should. Mike was still uncomfortable with the line of conversation, because he’d spent so long hating himself over it and was still figuring out how not to, even though feeling like this for Will was the most natural thing in the world and, if the painting was any indication, maybe Will felt the same way about him. And if Will felt that way about Mike, then how could it be wrong? Will was never wrong. Couldn’t be. Impossible.

“Troy’s just an asshole,” Mike said evasively. “He was just trying to hurt Will, so I punched him.”

El was looking at him closely, but she didn’t push it. “I am glad that Will has you to protect him,” she said. “Neither of us had that in California.”

Mike didn’t answer that, but that curl of warmth was in his chest again. He’d always wanted to protect Will, and after spending so long choking down the urge to, it had felt good to let it out. Instead, he asked, “So…are we good? You and me? Can we…can we be friends?”

El nodded, smiling softly at him. “Friends,” she said. “That is all.”

“Yeah,” Mike agreed. “That’s all.”

It was exactly what they both needed.

***

Mike told Will about talking to El that night, avoiding the details but mentioning that they patched things up. Will nodded, smiled, and something passed across his face so quickly that Mike couldn’t quite catch it, but it looked…sad. But Will continued to be relaxed, animated, and Mike wondered if he’d imagined it.

He almost, almost, asked about the painting. He wanted so badly to know if he was right, if Will’s words were true, just about himself and not El. He wanted to grab Will’s hand and tell him that he felt the same. That Will made Mike feel better for being different, that loving him was as natural as breathing. That no matter what anyone else said, loving Will could never be wrong.

He didn’t. He was terrified of being wrong. But they were alone in the basement, Jonathan having snuck up to Nancy’s room after their parents went to bed, and there was no one to stop Mike from grabbing Will’s hand. “You and me, we’re safer together,” he said seriously, looking Will in the eye. “We’re stronger together.” It was the closest he could get to a confession while still having plausible deniability. I love you, he thought fiercely, finally allowed to, and hoped that Will knew that was what the words were supposed to mean.

Will was looking at him with the same expression he’d worn in the gym earlier that day, holding Mike’s bloody hand with both of his own. Expression broken open in the best way, jaw slack and eyes shining with warmth and something that Mike couldn’t name. “Yeah?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Mike answered fervently.

Will tugged him into a hug, arms tight around Mike’s waist, and buried his face in Mike’s neck. Neither one of them let go for a long time.