Archive of Our Own ^beta

The problem is this: they’ve got a lot of problems right now, and every last one of them is more important than Will and his fragile, bruised heart.

Here, Eddie — who Will does not know, but loves anyway, because he is loved by the people Will loves, and that’s enough — is still alive, but is also still in hiding, and it’s hard to receive quality medical care when you have neither a medical professional or medical facility to administer it. As it stands, they have Nancy and Mom and Hopper, who know enough to make sure Eddie doesn’t bleed out. They also have Steve and Dustin, who are entirely unhelpful in first aid, but are very good at getting in the way with their sick worry. Hopper’s cabin provides the logistical coverage they need to keep Eddie a secret, but not much else. There’s a nervous tension lingering that even the fresh air filtering through the holes scattered along the walls and ceiling isn’t enough to dissipate it.  

Further away, Max is fighting for her life. Every part of her is broken, and every part of Lucas is broken to match. It’s expected collateral damage from being there, or from loving her, or the unlucky combination of both – but it’s critical damage nonetheless. Will can’t even begin to wrap his mind around it, because despite everything, he’d always thought that all of them would make it out in one piece. And Max — fearless, unwavering Max — had always seemed the most untouchable out of the lot. He doesn’t know how it would have helped, but Will wishes he had been there. 

(He wishes it had been him instead.)

And closest to home — because it is home, no matter how much he tries to forget it — Hawkins is fractured and bleeding. The town that raised him now bears just as many scars as it left on Will, and it’s only a matter of time before both of them are left with open wounds again. An eerie quiet has settled over the town as it recovers, but Will sees it for what it really is: a countdown. This war that’s been brewing under them for years is going to bloom, right on their doorsteps, and they’re not ready. Not even close. 

It should be hard to think of anything else with everyone and everything around him falling apart, but Will finds a way — something being hard doesn’t make it impossible. The cabin is packed, the atmosphere stifling, and Will can’t breathe. He quietly slips out the back door and onto the back porch, his exit completely unnoticed in the face of more pressing matters. 

And so he sits on the back steps and stares out into the woods he knows too well, and he mourns — for his friends, for his hometown, but for himself, too. For the boy who didn’t yet know what bitterness tasted like; for the boy who had a lot to worry about, but never his own autonomy; for the boy who chose his best friend at five years old, and thought it was going to be the two of them forever. 

He thinks about all of the pieces of himself he’s given away and had ripped from him, and he clutches their ghosts close to his chest and wonders what else he will have to part with, and what will be left of him once it’s all said and done. 

He’s barely had time to himself before the door creaks open behind him – it seems his exit wasn’t as unnoticed as he thought it was, and he sighs. When all Will wants is company, he ends up alone; when all he wants is to be alone, every person in the vicinity seems drawn to him like a magnet. As the wood of the deck groans under the weight of footsteps headed in his direction, Will contemplates which is worse. 

El drops down on the step next to him without a word, and the metaphorical fist that’s got a vice grip on his heart unclenches just a bit. 

They sit quietly together for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of the forest while Will waits for his chest to loosen up enough to let him speak. El is patient with him, and she doesn’t seem to mind when all Will is able to choke out is, “Hey.” 

“Hi.” She bumps her knee against his. “Why are you out here by yourself?” 

“I don’t know,” he says, shrugging. “I just wanted some fresh air, I guess.”

El nods, still staring out at the middle distance. “Do you want fresh air alone?” 

Will considers this for a moment – he’d thought he’d wanted to be alone, but now that El’s here, he doesn’t want her to leave. “No, you can sit. It’s fine.”

“Good,” El says. She finally turns to look at him then, but Will keeps his eyes trained on the treeline ahead. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” he replies, so quickly there’s no room for it to be anything but the truth. He finally looks back at her and offers a weak smile. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m okay,” she says with a matching smile. It reminds Will of when they’d reunited in the Nevada desert, wearing clothes stiff with grime and too much wear and blood staining her upper lip. The relief that came with her words then, brighter than the desert sun, is the same one that comes now. “Are you?” 

He shrugs again. “A little freaked out, but I’m okay.” 

“Okay,” she replies softly. She reaches a hand out to squeeze his arm and keeps it there. “If that changes, tell me.” 

“I will.”

“Good.” They hold each other’s gaze for a moment longer, and it’s El who turns away first. Will watches her as she looks out at the trees again, contemplating, like she’s searching for answers between their branches. Will directs his attention back to the woods to help her look, and they’ve just settled into another comfortable quiet when El says, “I talked to Mike.” 

The fist around his heart tightens again, but Will doesn’t mind; it stops it from pounding against his rib cage at the mere mention of Mike’s name. 

“Yeah?” He tries to sound casual, aloof, but he knows El can see the way his interest has shifted. “About what?” 

“A lot of things.” she says, playing with the sleeve of his shirt absently. “He told me about your painting.” 

Will lets out a long breath. “Oh.”

“He said“ — she cuts herself off, and Will can see her brow furrow in his peripheral vision — “I don’t remember the word that he used. But he said that you told him it was my idea.” 

Shame, hot and familiar, takes hold of him. “El,” he chokes out, unable to look at her, “I’m sorry—“

“Friends don’t lie,” she says, resolute and blunt. “Friends shouldn’t lie.” Will hangs his head low, staring at his shoelaces. “But sometimes they do, and I think it’s okay.”

Will slowly lifts his head to look at her. “You do?”

“Yes,” she answers. “It wasn’t a lie meant for hurting; it was a lie meant for helping. There’s a difference.” She gives him another smile and squeezes his arm again. Will lets the contact ground him.

“Oh,” he manages. 

“So it’s okay,” El clarifies. 

Will nods, swallowing. “I’m sorry anyway.”

“Then I’m sorry, too.” She’s got that steel in her eyes that she always gets when she wants the final say, but Will scoffs at her anyway. 

“What are you sorry for?”

El shrugs, and says, simply, “I didn’t know that you lied, so I couldn’t help you.” 

Twin realizations hit him at once, one cutting and one soothing: Mike knows that he lied, and if Eleven had known, she would have lied for him, too. He lets her words and what they mean wash over him, and with them, something else — a fierce, overwhelming love for this girl beside him, his sister by circumstance and by choice, over and over and over again. For all that he’s lost, this gain makes up for it elevenfold. 

“I love you,” he says first, because he means it, and El deserves to hear it. 

“I know,” El says. “I love you, too.” 

Will picks at a loose thread on his sleeve. “And he – Mike knows, then. That I lied,” he says dryly. 

“Yes,” she confirms. “I’m sorry.”

Will scoffs again. “Don’t be.” He worries at his lip, biting down hard. “Is he mad?”

He feels awful for it, knows that if Mike is mad, he’s well within his right. But he has to know.

“No,” El answers quietly. “I think he is just confused.” 

He can deal with that. He nods, turning away from her again and out to the trees. He can deal with that. “Okay.” 

El’s hand moves from its place on his arm down to the inside of his wrist, snaking her fingers between his own and holding on tight. They sit together for a few moments, the rustling of leaves in the wind and the occasional birdsong keeping them company. The treeline is tall enough to shield them from the storms that bleed an angry red across the sky. Will feels himself relax for the first time in days.

And then El says, out of nowhere, “We also broke up.”

Will’s head whips to face her so quickly that he’s surprised the force of it doesn’t snap his neck. “What ?” 

“Mike and I,” El clarifies, as if Will doesn’t know exactly who she’s talking about. “We aren’t together anymore.”

“I heard you,” he says quickly, still reeling. “I just — why? After — after everything you just went through—“

“That’s why we did.”

Will just stares at her, and she stares back. “I’m confused.”

“I was, too,” she replies. She looks down at their joined hands, turning them over. “I thought that — that all I wanted was for Mike to love me. I thought that it was the only thing that was important. But with Max—“ A swell of tears cuts her off, and Will squeezes her hand tight. She takes a deep, shuddering breath and continues. “With everything that happened with Max, it made me think of something that she said to me last summer, when we went to the mall.”

“What did she say?” Will asks quietly.

El smiles at him, her eyes watery. “She said that I should figure out who I was, apart from Mike and Hopper. And I think — I think that I’ve spent enough time away from my dad to know who I am without him. I need to do that with Mike, now.”

“Oh,” he breathes out. “Are you…” he swallows. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay, Will,” she says, and Will knows she means it. “Really.”

He nods. “Well,” he starts. “For what it's worth, I think doing that is really…it’s really smart. And brave. For both of you. I’m proud of you, and when Max wakes up, I know she’ll be proud of you, too.”

His use of when and not if is intentional, because Max will wake up. He knows this because there’s no other option, and he knows this because it’s his sister who pulled her back from the brink of death. It’s his sister, who is a superhero, but above all else, is just a girl who loves her friends. Will knows that that’s the kind of thing counts for everything, especially for Max.

El must appreciate his choice of words, because she rests her head on his shoulder and whispers, her voice wavering with emotion, “Thank you.”

“Always,” Will says back, resting his head on top of hers. 

“I’m proud of you, too,” El says, when her voice is strong again a few minutes later. “For a lot of reasons. But mostly, because I think you’ve already done that.” 

“Done what?” Will asks.

“Figured out who you are apart from Mike,” she answers quietly.

Will thinks of the tether that ties his heart to Mike Wheeler, the one that pulls him right back the moment he tries to stray too far. He can’t help it — he laughs, a hollow, bitter sounding thing that feels wrong, coming from him. “I don’t think that’s true.”

“But it is true,” El insists. She lifts her head to look at him and dislodges his in the process, but he doesn’t care, suddenly very busy with staring at a tree to his left. “Will, it’s true. You know who you are.”

“And who’s that?” he asks. “Someone who—“ he bites his tongue, swallowing the rest of the sentence past the building pressure that tightens his throat. Someone who can’t stop crying, his mind fills in for him, just as his traitorous eyes begin to water. Someone who’s stuck in the past. Someone who can’t move on. Someone who doesn’t even try to. 

“Someone who is kind,” El answers softly, but her voice is loud enough to silence the one in his head. She brings her other hand over to cover his, cradling it between them. “Someone who is smart. Someone who is braver than he thinks he is. Someone who has a heart bigger than anyone I know, and always puts other people before himself, even when it makes him sad.” Tears are flowing freely down his face now, his shoulders shaking with the effort of suppressing his cries, and El clasps his hand in hers tighter as she continues. “Mike didn’t make that person. You did. And I’m so happy that he’s my brother.” 

Will’s response comes minutes later, after hastily wiping the wetness from his face and taking a breath that trembles on its way in and its way out. “And I’m so happy that you’re my sister,” he says, and thinks he’s never said anything more true. 

El laughs, happy and light, a sound that means so much to him, all things considered. “Let’s make a deal, then,” she says, bringing their hands up to her face and tucking them under her chin. 

“Okay,” he laughs, watery but affectionate. 

“I learn what it means to be me,” she declares, her eyes glinting. “You learn what it means to be selfish.” 

He doesn’t quite know what she means by that, but he bristles anyway. “El, I can’t just—“

“You can. You should,” she interrupts. She levels him with a look that makes Will feel completely bare. “Just talk to him, Will.” 

His cheeks flush so suddenly that it’s as if El lit a match and held it to his face. She didn't say what she meant, not exactly, but she didn't have to: she knows. “I’m not going to — you just broke up with him. He’s probably hurting. And he doesn’t even know that I—“ he stops, because he can’t just say that out loud – not to his sister, who is trying to gift wrap something that’s not hers to give, not really. “Whatever,” he continues. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not going to happen.”

El watches this all happen with poorly concealed amusement. “I’m not the one who broke up with him,” she says.

“What?” Will chokes out. “You said—“ 

“I said that we broke up,” El points out. “I said it’s what I wanted, too. I did not say that I was the one who did it.”

Which means Mike is the one who did it. Mike, who wrote El a box full of letters while they were gone, and flew across the country to chase after her. Mike, who pulled out every stop so they could find her, who was bent over a crinkled paper map every time Will let his hungry eyes wander. Mike, who professed his love for El in the kitchen of a borrowed pizza parlor just last week, whose life started the day he found her in the woods. Mike, who did and said all of this while Will watched, caught between bitter jealousy and guilty love and devastating heartbreak. 

El’s reason for wanting to be apart makes sense. But what is Mike’s? 

“El…” he says, his voice weary and his heart tired. He will not get his hopes up. He will not. 

She just smiles at him, a look in her eye like she knows something that he doesn’t. “Talk to him. Be selfish.”

With Hopper’s cabin being the size it is and the state it’s in and his childhood home offering its trauma to a whole new family, space is tight for an extended stay. While Mom stays at the cabin with Hopper in case Eddie needs immediate medical assistance, the rest of them have been relocated to the Wheeler house. Nancy has graciously accepted Holly into her bed so that El can have Holly’s room; Jonathan has taken up residence in the Wheeler’s only guest room; and Will has been exiled to the basement. 

It’s a tight, temporary squeeze as they look for a more permanent solution, but Will is extremely grateful — not just for the hospitality, but because this house — this basement, in particular — feels more like his home than the house he grew up in miles away. Ingrained in these walls are some of his best memories in this town, and with the worst of them ever present all around him, simple comforts are all he has. 

(His borrowed wardrobe of Mike’s old hand-me-downs are a simple comfort, too – and with them, complicated feelings of guilt and shame he is all too familiar with.) 

He sighs and turns over on the couch that’s been his bed the past few nights, laying so that his back is pressed to the seat cushion. Sleep has been evading him since they crossed over Indiana state lines, and this couch — albeit better than the back of a pizza delivery van — isn’t making it any easier. There isn’t as much wiggle room as there used to be, and he wants to sleep on his left side, but that would expose his back to the rest of the room. He can’t switch his pillow to the other end of the couch, either, because then he won’t be able to see the door. He heaves out another sigh, staring up at the ceiling and wondering how it’s possible to be bad at something that’s such a basic human function. 

Then again, there are a lot of basic human functions he’s bad at, so he shouldn’t be surprised.

The sound of the door at the top of the steps creaking open jostles him from his thoughts. Whoever it is closes it behind them quietly, turning the handle and holding it there so that the latch doesn’t click as loudly. Will pushes himself up, tense — the footsteps leading down the steps are gentle and quiet, but each one makes his heart pound harder in his chest. 

Socked feet come into view, attached to long legs, and then it’s Mike who pokes his head around the banister, looking sheepish. 

“Hey,” he greets softly. “You going to sleep?”

Will shrugs, trying very hard to act like he isn’t startled. “I wasn’t planning on it.” 

“Cool,” Mike says. He descends the last few steps until he hits the floor, and then edges closer to the couch where Will is sitting, woven blanket bunched up in his lap. “Can I — is it alright if I stayed?” 

“Of course,” Will answers immediately. “It’s your house, Mike.” 

Mike smiles, ducking his head. “I know, I know. I just—“ He bites his lip, and Will looks anywhere that isn’t the way Mike’s teeth tug at his bottom lip. “I don’t want to force you to hang out with me, or anything.”

Will snorts. “You’re not,” he says, pulling the rest of the blanket so it’s fully on his side and gesturing to the open space next to him. “Sit.”

“Okay,” Mike says, crossing the last of the distance in one step and dropping down to the space Will indicated for him, one leg tucked up on the couch and the other hanging off the edge. “Cool.”

“Cool,” Will parrots.

Mike doesn’t respond, and they fall into a silence that is decidedly uncool. Stupidly, Will feels his eyes burn, and he looks down to the blanket he’s got clenched in his fists — he should be used to uncomfortable silences with Mike, now. Somehow, this has become their bread and butter.

“This is awkward,” Mike says aloud. “Why is this awkward?” 

“I don’t know,” Will says to the blanket. “I just think that there’s probably so much going on that it feels weird sitting in your basement and trying to pretend like things are normal.” 

“Yeah,“ Mike says. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He taps out an erratic beat against his thigh, his long fingers moving nervously. “And I guess I’m just — I’m kind of losing my mind over you, man."

Will’s head snaps up. “Over me?”

“Yeah,” Mike repeats. He runs a hand through his hair, and Will watches, transfixed, as the curls part for his fingers and then fall right back into place, as if his hand had never been there at all. “I don’t — I hate that you have this connection to him, to the Upside Down. I mean, yeah, sure, it’s probably going to be super useful when this all comes to head again, but I just—“ He makes a frustrated noise, and his gaze falls to his lap. “I wish that it didn’t have to be you.” His voice is quiet. “You’ve already gone through so much. It doesn’t seem fair.” 

Will doesn’t quite know what to do with that. 

“Well,” he says, stilted. He twists the blanket in his hands, and his thumb pokes through a gap in the knitting. “Thank you, for thinking that. But…I’m glad that it’s me. I don’t want anyone else to go through this.” 

And it’s true; for all the times he has thought to himself why me?, the times he has thought not them, please, not them have always been louder, frequenter. 

Mike laughs, but it’s a sound that lacks humor. “Of course you’re glad.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “You’re like, stupidly selfless sometimes, you know that?”

“I’ve been told recently that that’s the case, yeah,” Will says sheepishly. 

“Yeah?” Mike finally turns his attention back to Will, and Will’s heart flutters in his chest. “Good. You know that you can like, be upset that you’re at the center of all this, right? You can be pissed, or, or — sad, that you’re the one that has to deal with it. You’re allowed to think it’s unfair, because it is. It’s so unfair, and you don’t deserve any of it.” 

This kind of thing — a big, emotional declaration, delivered with the kind of ferocity only Mike can achieve — is standard fare for Mike. But for Will — whose standard fare is to keep all of his thoughts and feelings close to his chest, where they can’t be crushed by anyone else’s hands but his own — big, emotional declarations are hard to hear, and even harder to say. And this — what Mike said, sounding so sure — it’s the first time anyone’s ever said that, about Will. It’s the first time someone has said, plain and simple, that Will doesn’t deserve what’s happened to him.

Will’s not sure that it’s true — how does Mike know he doesn’t deserve it? How does he know? — but it’s nice to hear. He brings his knee to his chest, resting his chin on top of it. There is an ache at the back of his throat born not from sadness, but from a strange sort of gratitude. 

“Thank you, Mike,” he says, because his mother raised him right and did it all on her own, too. His voice is miraculously steady, nothing short of a miracle. 

Mike smiles at him, the sharp angles of his face softening with it. “Any time.”

Will inhales shakily, and holds the breath in his lungs until he’s sure that his exhale is going to come out even. “Can we talk about something else?” he asks quietly.

“Of course,” Mike says quickly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you upset—“

“It’s fine,” Will interrupts. And it is — it’s not Mike’s fault that Will can’t receive kindness like a normal person. Not really. “Don’t worry about it.” They are quiet for another heartbeat. “So, um. Are you — how are you doing?”

Mike’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I just — I talked to El.”

“Oh,” says Mike.

“Yeah,” says Will, still fiddling with the blanket. “I guess I’m just — confused? I mean, after everything that happened at the pizza place—“ 

“It’s because of everything that happened at the pizza place,” Mike says. 

Will frowns. “What do you mean?”

“It’s…” He makes a frustrated noise, and drags a hand through his hair again. He won’t look at Will. “It’s a couple of things. I’m nervous to say some of them.” 

Will hugs his leg closer to his chest. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t really want to,” Mike says. “But I have to. I have to say them out loud, or I never will, and some of them…” he sighs. “Some of them are things that you have to hear.”

“Oh,” Will chokes out, more of a breath than a word.

“Yeah,” Mike says. He shifts, pivoting to his right so that he’s facing Will, now, fixing him with a look that’s caught between determined and nervous. “I guess, first off — I’m sorry, Will. I’m really, really sorry.”

This is the last thing that Will expected to hear. “What?” He asks. His arms tighten around his leg. “For what?”

“I’ve been pretty shitty to you since you moved,” Mike says quietly. “Since — since before you moved, even. I never got to apologize for what I said to you that night, but I — it was awful.” He looks away, his gaze falling on the table they’ve spent countless hours at, whittling away at campaigns that took weeks to plan. It’s the same table that Will found himself sitting at alone, waiting, all of last summer. “And, I don’t know. Maybe feeling so awful for it was one of the reasons I pulled away from you this past year, but it’s not an excuse.” He looks back to Will now. “The point is, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I said to you that night. I’m sorry for not reaching out more. I’m sorry for joining a new party without you. I’m sorry for the way that I acted in California. I know that it probably doesn’t feel like it, but you’re my best friend, Will. I’ll understand if you’re still upset, but…” He smiles, a shy thing, the same one he first showed Will on a swing set some ten odd years ago. “You’re always going to be that, for me.” 

Will doesn’t know when he started crying, but he’s not surprised that his face is damp with it, tears running down his cheeks and neck and pooling in the loose collar of his – Mike’s – crewneck. He licks his lips and tastes salt, and he only speaks when he’s sure that his voice won’t crack from the tightness in his throat. 

“You’re always going to be that for me, too,” he says.

Mike smiles, quietly delighted, like this isn’t the answer he was expecting. “Yeah?”

Will smiles back, certain that he looks pathetic, and more certain that he doesn’t care. “Yeah.”

“I promise that I’ll do a better job of showing it,” Mike swears. “Of saying it, too. It’s been brought to my attention lately that I’m pretty shit at doing that.” 

Will lets out a wet little laugh, rubbing his face against the fabric of his sweatpants to dry away some of his tears. “Hey, I didn’t say it.”

“No,” Mike laughs, more self-deprecating. “But El did, and she had every right to.”

“Is that why you guys…” Will trails off with a sniff.

Mike tilts his head. “Kind of?” He plays with the bottom of his t-shirt nervously. “Remember when I told you that we had this fight, and it felt more real, more grown up?” Will nods, and Mike continues, ”It was about that. About me not telling her that I loved her.” 

“Oh,” says Will. 

“Yeah,” Mike huffs out, hands still twisting the fabric of his shirt. “And I mean — I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not when it mattered, anyway.” 

As uncomfortable as it is to still be caught in the middle of a relationship that doesn’t even exist anymore, Will can’t sit by and let Mike sell himself short. “But you did say it when it mattered,” he says slowly, like that’ll help the words stick better. “At the pizza place, you—“

“Took what you said and spit it back out at El?” Mike interrupts. Will’s mouth snaps shut, his teeth clicking together from the force of it. “Yeah, I did. I know that you noticed.” 

“I mean, yes,” Will relents. “But it doesn’t — what matters is that it gave El the strength to fight. You did that, Mike.” 

But Mike just shakes his head. “No, I really didn’t.”

“Mike—“

“Will,” Mike says forcefully. Whatever Will was about to say dies on the tip of his tongue. “I appreciate you and what you’re trying to do, but it wasn’t me. It was Max that helped El fight. It was their memories together that gave her strength. What I said…” he trails off, then shrugs. “El saw right through me.” 

Will’s brows furrow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I didn’t mean it,” Mike says, his voice quiet. Will feels himself lean forward. “It’s not that I don’t — love her, because I do, but just…not in the way that I should, you know?”

Will’s very familiar with that kind of love. He nods, and Mike barrels on. 

“That’s why I couldn’t say it to her before, and that’s why what I said to her was basically just everything you told me. I don’t know. I guess I just got caught up in what she wanted to hear, and what I thought I should feel, that I was afraid to say what I really felt.” He unclenches his fists, and Will stares at the bunched fabric left in their wake. “But all I ended up doing was hurting both of you.”

“Both of us?” asks Will, eyes flicking back up to Mike’s face. 

“What I said,” Mike says slowly. “About my life starting the day I found her in the woods.” Will physically flinches like it’s the first time he’s hearing the words again, and Mike grimaces. “That was fucked up, Will, and I’m sorry.” 

His voice cracks, and Will claws at the blanket pooled around his feet again, desperately needing to fix it. “It’s okay,” he says quickly. It’s not, he thinks, not really — but maybe if he says it enough, it’ll heal both of them. “It’s okay, Mike.”

But Mike shakes his head. “No, it’s not,” he says. “Finding El that night definitely changed my life, and I think it was a good change, but I shouldn’t have said that. You were missing, Will. I didn’t mean to make it sound like my life started once you were gone, because that’s so far from the truth.” 

“Mike, really,” Will tries again, still feeling that desperate need to soothe, soothe, soothe. “It’s okay. I know now that’s not what you meant.” 

“It’s still not okay,” Mike insists stubbornly. “But I’m glad that you know that. Because the truth is, my life started the day we met and became friends. It was so long ago, so it’s not like I really remember anything from before then, you know? It’s always been you and me, so when you went missing…” He stops, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “I know that you don’t like to talk about this, so I’ll try to make it quick, but just — hear me out?” 

Will hesitates. He wants to say no, to pull the blanket over his head and hide, to tell Mike to fuck off. But Mike isn’t trying to take more from Will by rehashing that dreadful week in November — no, he’s trying to give part of himself to Will. An olive branch, a peace offering, a piece of himself that might not perfectly fill the hole Will’s been bearing for three years, but big enough that it doesn’t feel so empty.

So Will swallows past that ever present lump in his throat, hugs his knee closer to his chest, and he says, “I’m listening.”

Mike looks surprised, like he wasn’t expecting Will to actually let him speak, but he recovers quickly. “When you went missing,” he starts, and his hands move to the bottom of his shirt again as if on their own accord, “I lost my mind. I was fighting with everyone, sneaking out to look for you when Hopper and my mom specifically told me not to…and that’s when we found El. When we were looking for you. I wanted to help her and keep her safe, but once I realized what she could do, that she could help us find you…” He shrugs. “That’s all that mattered to me.” 

An involuntary breath pushes its way past Will’s lips, but he doesn’t dare speak.

“And of course, in hindsight, that’s not fair to El,” Mike continues. “But it was all I cared about, then. And when the police…when they found your” —his brows furrow, and while his breath shakes on the way in, it comes out even— “your body at the quarry, I completely flipped on her. I hated her, Will. Obviously, that wasn’t really you, and she ended up being the reason we ended up finding you and getting you out alive, but — but when I think about it, a lot of that initial attachment to El…that was because of you. I’ve gotten to know her as her own person since then, and she’s amazing, and I do love her. But my fixation with her being a superhero? That comes back to you.” 

“Oh,” Will says stupidly. 

Mike laughs quietly. “Yeah,” he says. “So that’s why we broke up. Because she’s incredible, but she’s more than the girl with superpowers who helped me find my best friend, and I love her, but not in the way a boyfriend should love his girlfriend.” He shrugs. “She needs to learn what it means to be El without me giving her some fucked up hero complex.” 

Will lifts his head from where it’s resting on his knee and nods. “That’s pretty much what she told me,” he says quietly. “That she already learned who she is without Hopper, and now she has to learn who she is without you. Max told her that, last summer.” 

“And last summer, I would have said that Max was conspiring to turn El against me.” He ducks his head. “Now, I just know she’s right, and I’m glad that El…”

Has someone like her, Will fills in mentally when Mike trails off. The image of Max, broken and bruised and small in her hospital bed, is there when he closes his eyes. He shakes his head, clearing it from his mind, and reaches forward and covers Mike’s hand with his own. He doesn’t speak until Mike raises his head and looks at him. 

“She’ll be okay,” Will says, fiercer than he feels. “We have to believe that.”

Mike blinks wetly, his cheeks tinged pink. Will thinks of the boy who rejected Max from the minute she stepped into their orbit, who wouldn’t even give her the time of day and tried to keep even the smallest scraps of their adventures out of her reach with made-up rules and restrictions. Will thinks of that boy and reconciles him with the one sitting in front of him, whose love for that girl and their friendship is choking him in the wake of her being hurt. 

Will thinks that if Max saw this Mike Wheeler, ready to cry for her, she might just wake up.

(Even if it’s just to taunt him for it.)

“I think,” says Will carefully, when it’s clear Mike has nothing else to say, “As it stands, you and El being very grown up about this.” He stares at their hands, and feels awful for the way he commits the sight to memory. “And I think, because of that, you’ll be able to come back from it stronger than ever.” 

Mike sniffs. “We will,” he says, “As friends. She deserves to have someone who feels about her the way that I—“ He cuts himself off, and that curious pink that’s coloring his cheeks spreads down his neck, down to the part of his chest that Will can see from where the collar of his t-shirt is stretched out. He quickly averts his eyes as Mike finishes, “I should have. But that won’t be me.”

“Well,” Will says, chewing on his lip and still looking at the wall. His own notebook paper drawings stare back at him, held in place with Scotch tape and push pins. “Good. I was tired of being a third wheel.”

“Right,” Mike laughs. “And now, you don’t have to lie about any more paintings.” 

Will recoils, gaze tearing away from his old drawings and pulling his hand back from Mike’s like he’s been burned. “About that,” he says, voice thick with shame, “I’m so sorry—“

“Don’t be,” Mike interrupts gently, raising his hand. “I’m not mad. I get it. I get why you did.” 

“Oh,” Will says, deflating. “Um, okay.”

Mike smiles at him, soft and sweet. Will’s heart flips over in his chest without his permission. “Can I ask you something, though?”

You can ask whatever you want as long as you keep looking at me like that, his mind says. “Go for it,” his mouth says. 

“Everything you said,” he begins, “About El, and how she feels…was that — is that how you feel?”

Will remembers with startling clarity what he said to Mike in the van, the only time he’s ever lied to the other boy and been able to hold his ground over it. Talking about his feelings has always been hard for Will, but it had been easy, then, to slap El’s name onto them and offer them to Mike willingly. He doesn’t regret doing it – he really believes it’s what Mike needed to hear, at the time – but he regrets how easy it was to see right through him.  

“Yeah,” he says, his voice hoarse. “Yeah, it is.”

Mike nods, unsurprised. “I’m sorry that you feel like that,” he says, his voice so quiet that Will has to lean forward to hear him better. “For the record, I’ll — I’ll always need you too, Will. Always.”

God, he’s going to cry again. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Mike says. “Like I said, Hawkins isn’t the same without you. I realized that the minute you left. Amongst some…other things.” 

Will cocks his head. “What other things?”

Mike flushes that same enticing pink again, and buries his face in his hands. “You’re really going to make me say it?” 

“What?” Will asks, alarmed at the sudden change in Mike’s demeanor. “No, I mean — if you don’t want to say it, you don’t have to. I just — you brought it up, so I thought — I didn’t mean to pressure you or anything—“

“No, no, you didn’t,” Mike cuts in. “You’re fine, Will. You’re fine. I should say it. I’m just — I’m just scared, I don’t know.”

“If you’re not ready—“ Will starts, still confused. 

“What I feel for you is what I should have felt for El,” Mike says, all in one breath, the words fumbling over one another in their haste to get out of his mouth. 

Will’s brain promptly short circuits.

That’s not what Mike is supposed to say. Will doesn’t know what Mike is supposed to say, doesn’t know what he imagined Mike saying, but he knows that it’s not that. This admission, this confession, this reciprocation — this kind of thing doesn’t happen to Will, to boys like him. Will comes in second place, Will watches as life happens to everyone else. Will only knows how to love in one-sided tragedy. Will doesn’t get what he wants handed to him on a shining, silver platter in Mike Wheeler’s basement while the rest of the world crumbles around them. 

“What?” he manages to croak out, still trying to make sense of it all. 

“I’m sorry,” Mike says immediately, hiding his burning face in his hands again. “I know, I’m sorry—“

“Would you stop apologizing?” Will interrupts. His voice is shaking. “Give me a second to process, here. I don’t think that I heard you right.”

“Don’t make me say it again,” Mike mumbles, the sound of it muffled by his palms. 

Will lets his leg fall away from his chest and shifts closer, bringing his shaking hands up and circling them around Mike’s wrists. He tugs, prying them away from Mike’s face, and Mike lets him, staring at Will’s hands where they touch his skin.

“Mike,” Will says softly, and he waits until Mike looks him in the eye until he continues. “Mike, please.”  

Mike swallows, clearly nervous. “What I feel for you,” he repeats, “Is what I should have felt for El.” The words hang between them for a moment, both of them adjusting to their weight. “I figured it out as you guys were driving away. And I just…I panicked. That’s why I didn’t write, that’s why I barely called, that’s why I didn’t hug you at the airport. I was angry at you for making me feel that way, and angrier at myself for not feeling that way about El, and I didn’t know how else to deal with it. But I just ended up hurting you both, and I’ve said sorry for it about fifty times now, so I’m just gonna. Stop talking.”

Will doesn’t realize until Mike is finished speaking that he’s still holding onto Mike’s wrists, his grip loose but still there. The contact is somewhat grounding, which is good, because Will feels a strange mixture of lightheaded and borderline delirious. He wonders, absently, if this is the feeling Jonathan has been chasing all these months he’s been getting high instead of dealing with his problems. 

Mike…Mike likes him. Mike’s been weird for the past year because he’s liked Will this entire time, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. He’d wanted and he’d yearned just as badly as Will had, the same song sung a different way. Mike, who Will has loved for as long as he’s known what love is, loves Will right back. 

And Mike, who just poured his heart out to Will, is growing increasingly fidgety.

“Um,” he says, stilted. “Say something, please.”

Will shakes his head, hoping the action will bring back some semblance of sanity. “I, um. Me too,” he says lamely.

“What?” Mike asks, breathless. 

“The way you feel about me,” Will clarifies. His hands tighten around Mike’s wrists. “I, uh, I also feel that way. About you.”

Mike looks properly shocked. “What?” 

“The thing that I said in the van,” Will says carefully. “About…about feeling like a mistake, and then about how you make me feel like I’m not a mistake.” He rubs his thumbs over the soft skin at the inside of Mike’s wrist, and Mike shudders. “That was about how I like…boys, the way that I should like girls, because everyone always says that it’s wrong. But the way that I feel about — about you, I don’t…I don’t feel wrong, you know? Because what you make me feel feels natural. Like it’s right. That’s…that’s what I meant.”

“Oh,” Mike’s voice is hoarse. “Oh.” 

“Yeah,” Will replies. 

“Okay,” says Mike. “Okay, um. Cool.”

“Cool,” says Will, biting back a smile. 

“Yeah, cool,” says Mike again. He’s smiling, too, shy but bright. “Really cool.”

“Really cool,” Will laughs. Mike is an idiot, and Will likes him so much. 

Mike’s eyes flicker downward, and then back up. “Can I, um—“

It takes another pointed glance down for Will to realize exactly where he’s looking and what he’s asking, and when he does, he short circuits for a second time.

“Yeah,” he says quickly. He retracts his hands to his own lap, twisting them in the blanket nervously. “Yeah, yes, absolutely.” 

Mike nods, scooting closer until their knees knock together, his bony kneecap searing where it touches Will’s through the fabric of their sleep pants. Will barely has time to get embarrassed over the way that their knees touching overwhelms him, because now he has to make time to be overwhelmed over the fact that Mike hasn’t stopped getting closer. He keeps inching forward, slowly, uncertain – like he thinks that if he gets too close, Will is going to bolt from the spot.

If Will weren’t so focused on keeping his breath even and steady, he’d tell Mike that he doesn’t have to worry about that; he’s planted himself here, has sunken his roots into this couch and let them make a home for themselves. He couldn’t leave, even if he wanted to, even if this wasn’t what he wanted.

And god, is this what Will wants. How many times has he pictured this exact scene — Mike’s face, an inch from his own, all freckles and dark eyelashes and sharp cheekbones up close for Will to study and stare without restraint? What it would feel like for their breath to mingle, to trade oxygen back and forth until there’s no room to share anymore? He’s thought about it so many times that part of him is convinced that this is another one of those daydreams, the ones he’d feel guilty about for having but never enough to stop them — the ones he’d keep coming back to, over and over again, well-worn and dog-eared like a favorite novel.

But this is not one of his favorite novels or wildest daydreams — this is real. Will knows that it is, because even as Mike’s eyes are fluttering closed, Will’s stay open, watching. Watching and cataloging and savoring, because he never thought he’d have this, and if closes his eyes too soon, he’s afraid he won’t get it. 

Their noses brush. If Will were to speak, their lips would touch. They stay like that for a heartbeat or two — ten, using Will’s to count — the breath caught between their lips warm and heavy, existing in this last moment before they get to know each other for the second time in the past decade. 

And just when Will thinks he can’t stand it anymore, Mike bridges that gap, presses their lips together, and Will’s eyes finally full shut. 

Will has never kissed or been kissed, so he has nothing to compare it to — the way Mike’s mouth stacks against his, warm and dry and a little chapped. It’s hesitant and shy, a little static, and Will knows, deep down, that it’s nothing spectacular. In the grand scheme of things, of all the first kisses anyone has ever had, he’s sure this one is nothing special, isn’t even in the running for it. 

But it’s his first kiss, and it’s Mike. It’s Mike, his best friend. Mike, who Will remembers being there before there was anything worth remembering. It’s Mike, who lifts a hand to the side of Will’s face and keeps it there, who uses it to guide Will’s chin up and tilts his head just so, and—oh. 

Suddenly, Will gets it.

He gets why Mike and Lucas had ditched him all last summer. He gets why Jonathan disappears with Nancy for hours on end. He gets each and every one of those girls who had ever found themselves following Steve Harrington through an unmarked path in the woods. All of them, in pursuit of the same thing: this feeling, right here. Mike sighs into his mouth, and Will’s lips part in surprise, and he gets it. 

Mike pulls back, just enough so that they can breathe in each other’s space again. His lips are wetter than they were when he first pressed them to Will’s. Will stares at them through his eyelashes, transfixed. 

“Okay?” Mike asks, barely above a whisper. 

Will nods. “Yes,” he manages, his voice caught in his throat. 

“Good.” Mike tips his forehead forward and rests it against Will’s, and that’s where he stays, seemingly content to sit here and trade oxygen with Will, back and forth.

A moment ago, Will would have been okay with that, too. An hour ago, breathing the same air as Mike, their faces bent close together like they are now, was a pipe dream. Now, Will’s mouth knows Mike Wheeler’s, and the weight of his hand is still on Will’s cheek, and close is not close enough.

When Will brings their mouths together again, he is, strangely enough, thinking of the Upside Down. He pushes straight past the pieces that make him flinch and recoil and thinks, instead, of the light — of the way it glowed and shimmered, golden and warm, whenever Will reached for it. He brings his nervous hands up to Mike’s neck and threads his fingers through the hair that curls there, and he imagines his fingertips trailing stardust and turning dark strands golden in their wake. He imagines the two of them bathed in that special kind of sunlight that only magic brings, and wonders how anyone could think of this as wrong and bad when every nerve ending in his body is alive with how right and good it is. He kisses Mike, still getting used to it, and wonders why he’s ever spent time doing anything else, when Mike Wheeler has always been right here and has always known how to kiss Will like this — like Will is someone precious, someone worthy of love. Like Will is someone who can create light with his hands, and deserves to stand in the glow of it. 

El’s words come from earlier come back to him, echoing around him: you learn what it means to be selfish.

With each brush of Mike's lips against his own, Will knows: he’s learning. 

Mike kisses him, and Will kisses him back, and he laces his fingers together where they meet at the back of Mike’s neck and uses them as leverage as he falls back into the pillow at the end of the couch and brings Mike with him. Mike braces himself with hands on either side of Will’s head, and he laughs into Will’s mouth, soft and fond. Will can feel the rumble of it against his lips.  

He isn’t sure how long they’ve been kissing when Mike finally pulls away, far enough back that they can see each other’s faces without having to go cross-eyed. His eyes are dark and his face is flushed and his mouth is red from where it has met Will’s, over and over and over. Will’s hands twitch where they’re still linked on Mike’s neck, itching to recreate this beautiful boy in paint with reds and pinks and browns. Or maybe not paint — maybe oil pastels, creamy and soft, so that Will can touch the pigment with his fingers and smooth it over the planes of Mike’s face, spread pink over his cheeks and the tip of his nose the way it does in real life. Then, he can trace the shape of Mike’s mouth with his finger, make his lips bright and kiss-swollen the way they look now, the way Will’s mouth made them look.

He makes a desperate, tortured noise, ripping out from the back of his throat without his permission, and tries to pull Mike back down again.

But Mike barely gives, letting their mouths meet one more time in a kiss that’s far too chaste before breaking away again. Will tries to chase after him, pulling and tugging on Mike’s neck to get closer, but Mike just laughs at him and says, very fondly, “Will.”

Will thinks of all the mean things Mike has ever done to him, on accident and on purpose, and thinks that this is the meanest: that Mike could be looking so awfully like that, and not be kissing Will about it. 

He swallows thickly, staring up at the other boy. “What,” he says, voice wrecked and deep – the sound of it is surprising to his own ears. 

“Hi,” Mike says.

“Hi,” Will repeats incredulously. “You stopped kissing me to say hi?”

Mike laughs. “That, and we should probably try to sleep.” 

“Sleep,” Will parrots. Some part of Will registers that he’s right — he’s sure that it’s late, that they’ll need to be up in just a few hours to continue dealing with the end of the world as they know it. But a bigger part of him is wondering why Mike would want to sleep when they’ve found a much better use for their time in not sleeping. 

“Yes,” Mike says, looking down at Will with such affection that Will feels his face flush and burn from it. Before Will can force his sluggish thoughts to band together and form a coherent counterargument, Mike flops down half on top of him , shoving his face into the space where Will’s neck meets his shoulder. He’s bony and sharp, and it’s not particularly comfortable, but it’s worth it for the way that his breath puffs out against Will’s neck as he repeats, quietly, “Sleep.”

Maybe sleep isn’t so bad of an idea after all. 

Will curls his hand in Mike’s hair and stares up at the ceiling, his lips still tingling from where they met Mike’s. His chest aches, a familiar sensation, but the way his heart clenches is foreign, and it takes Will a moment to diagnose it: he’s happy. The weight of it is unoppressive and secure, and Will lets it drag him into sleep.

Mike’s face is still tucked against his neck when they wake a few hours later, the morning sunlight subdued where it’s filtering into the room through the blinds on the basement door. Will stretches what he can of the limbs that aren’t pinned to the couch by an armful of boy, and said boy makes no effort to make it easier for him, moving only so that he can tilt his head back enough to look at Will’s face. 

“Good morning,” he says quietly, lips curled into a sleepy, dopey smile.

Will smiles back, the first time in a long while he can remember it being so easy. “Morning.”

Mike lifts his head just enough to brush their lips together, his mouth sticky and dry from sleep. Will leans into it anyway, morning breath be damned, because he’s still in disbelief that this is a thing he’s allowed to have. It falls apart too soon, and only because both of them are smiling too wide to keep their lips together. 

“This is weird,” Will finds himself saying, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he’s even thought them through. 

Mike’s smile falters. “It is?”

“Good weird,” Will clarifies quickly. He wants to reach up and smooth the crease between Mike’s brows, so he does. “Very good weird.” 

Will’s clumsy words do their job in bringing that smile back, untamed and unreserved, and Will cradles Mike’s face in his hands and holds it there.

They still have things to worry about – Eddie and Max, their broken hometown, the fight that’s only just starting – all things to be tended to and mended, shattered, jagged pieces that need work to be made whole again.

Will’s heart used to be among those broken things. Not anymore.

“Good weird,” Mike agrees, and in an act of newly learned selfishness, Will lets everything else get lost in the feeling of Mike’s lips on his.