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Mike noticed it in the smallest ways first.
In the way Will’s sleeves always slipped past his wrists, no matter the season. In how his collarbones cast shadows even under soft light. In the careful way he folded himself into chairs, as if taking up less space was a habit he’d never quite unlearned.
They had grown up together. Mike remembered scraped knees, mismatched heights, voices cracking at the same time. Growing was supposed to be fair like that—messy but shared. Yet somewhere along the way, Will had stalled, as if his body had missed a cue everyone else had heard.
At first, Mike told himself it was concern. That was the word that made sense. Concern sounded kind. Safe.
But concern didn’t explain the way his eyes lingered. Or the strange tightness in his chest when Will laughed and the sound seemed too big for the frame holding it. It didn’t explain why Mike memorized the angles of him, why noticing became a habit, and then something worse—something he refused to name. Somehow he couldn’t let him out of his sight, like he would miss it if he blinked.
Miss what?
The basement smelled like old carpet and soda cans, the way it always had. Dice clattered against the table, plastic figures crowded around a hand-drawn map, and Dustin was already arguing about a rule no one else remembered agreeing to.
Mike sat at the head of the table, Dungeon Master by default, binder open in front of him. He was halfway through describing a cavern when he noticed Will hadn’t reached for the snacks—or any food, really—in the almost ten hours they’ve been at it.
It shouldn’t have stood out. Will had never been the type to grab a handful as naturally as people did even when they’re not hungry. Still, the bowl of chips sat untouched beside him, fingers folded together in his lap, knuckles pale. He leaned forward when he spoke, shoulders slightly hunched, as if he were bracing himself against something invisible.
“Your character can roll perception,” Mike said, watching as Will nodded and picked up the die.
The movement was small, but Mike’s eyes followed it anyway. The way Will’s wrist bent. How loose the sleeve looked around it. For a split second, the noise of the basement—Lucas laughing, Max tapping her pencil, Dustin groaning dramatically—faded into something distant.
Will rolled. The die bounced once, twice.
“Natural twelve,” Will said softly, smiling like it was an apology.
Oh, that, miss that.
Mike forced himself to smile back and launched into the description of a hidden passage as his body threatened to combust into cold sweat. He talked too fast, words tumbling over each other, trying to keep the game moving to not bring attention to his body reaction. Trying not to think about the shape of Will’s hands, or how sharp the lines of his—still very childish despite his age—face looked under the bare bulb.
Oh boy, was he sick.
At some point, Dustin addressed what Mike had been thinking.
“Dude, you’re gonna let those go to waste?”
Will hesitated. Just a beat too long.
“I ate earlier,” he said quickly, and reached for his character sheet instead.
No one pushed. They never did. The game went on.
But Mike’s focus splintered. He missed a rule, forgot a monster’s hit points, and had to backtrack twice. Every time Will laughed or leaned in to listen, Mike felt that same strange pull—an awareness he didn’t want, didn’t understand, and definitely didn’t like. His heart beating a beat too fast by the second and his hands getting sweatier. Who the hell had decided he got to sit so close to Will this time around anyway?
Because this wasn’t how concern was supposed to feel.
Excitement, fitted just right what he felt every time he got the chance to see his friend’s underweight self.
When the campaign finally ended and everyone started packing up, Mike watched Will carefully fold his things, precise and quiet, like taking care not to disturb the air around him. And for the first time, Mike wondered how long he’d been noticing—and what it said about him that he hadn’t stopped. It made him wonder if he was the only one, he wanted to be the only one. He couldn't possibly let the others ruin this…
This?
What was exactly this?
It had come to his attention that the only ones that showed somewhat concern for the kid’s state were the girls, but then, they never really pushed it. In general, the party was aware of Will, but then again, were they? Mike drives himself crazy sometimes, he’s a little too paranoid when it comes to Will Byers, a thing that, surely, has been noticed by pretty much everyone. He just plays it off as friend concern, or rather, the others decide to think it is just that.
A male friend concerned by this other male friend.
Bullshit.
Mike pretended to reorganize his notes. He stacked papers that didn’t need stacking, aligned dice that were already straight. Anything to keep his hands busy. Anything to keep his eyes off Will. Because every time these moments come he simply couldn't know what to do with himself, especially in front of the whole party.
It didn’t work, of course.
Will sat cross-legged on the floor now, sketchbook balanced on his knee, he should probably go home, but he didn’t seem to be bothered about that. He always drew after games—characters, monsters, places that never existed but felt strangely familiar. His pencil moved with quiet confidence, quick lines forming something Mike couldn’t quite see from where he stood.
“You gonna show us that one or is it one of those secret ones?” Dustin asked, craning his neck.
Will shook his head, a small smile tugging at his mouth. “It’s not done.”
“So that's a no. Okay.”
Mike watched the way Will’s shoulder blades shifted under his shirt when he leaned forward to add detail. Watched the hollow just beneath his throat when he swallowed. The noticing came uninvited, slipping into his thoughts like static—soft but impossible to fully ignore.
He told himself to look away.
Instead, he found himself remembering things. Will as a kid, all elbows and knees. Will disappearing for days and coming back wrong somehow, quieter. Will growing older without ever quite filling out, as if part of him was still stuck in some in-between place time had forgotten.
“Hey, Mike.”
He flinched at his own name. Will was standing now, sketchbook pressed to his chest.
“Can I leave this here?” Will asked, holding it out. “I don’t wanna bend it in my bag.”
“Yeah—yeah, sure,” Mike said, taking it too quickly. Their fingers brushed, barely there, and the contact sent a jolt through him that felt wildly disproportionate. Jesus! Will was cold, so cold Mike almost hissed, he barely held himself back, trying to keep it cool.
Will didn’t seem to notice. He never did.
He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair, movements careful, almost rehearsed. Mike realized then how often Will moved like that—controlled, measured, like his body was something fragile he didn’t fully trust. And because he knew this wasn't a normal mannerism on a functional human being, he had the nerve to ask:
“You okay?”
Will paused, brow creasing just a little. “Yeah. Why?”
The question landed heavier than it should have. Mike opened his mouth, then closed it again. What was he supposed to say? You look smaller every time I see you and it excites me. I can’t stop watching you. Something is wrong and I don’t know if it’s you or me.
“Just… long game,” Mike muttered.
Will smiled, relief flickering across his face, and nodded. “Yeah. It was fun, though.”
After everyone left, the basement felt too quiet. Mike sat alone at the table, Will’s sketchbook still in his hands. He didn’t open it. Just rested his palm on the cover, feeling the faint indentation of pencil marks through cardboard.
The guilt came late, heavy and slow. Not because he had noticed—but because part of him didn’t want to stop. That realization sat in his chest, sour and unwelcome. Mike leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling, listening to the hum of the old light bulb overhead.
Later that night, he took care of himself in the shower wishing his shame would be enough to drown him.
The next day, Mike woke up feeling like shit.
It wasn’t the kind of exhaustion that came from lack of sleep—though he hadn’t slept well either—but the heavier kind, the one that settled behind his eyes and made everything feel slightly off. He lay in bed longer than usual, staring at the ceiling, replaying fragments from the night before that refused to stay quiet.
Will’s hands.
The way he hesitated.
That flicker of angst in his pretty eyes when Mike asked if he was okay.
Mike couldn't help but notice one time they were on a field day and he had been sitting on the grass while Will stood beside Dustin, both too focused on their chit-chat about some new device the curly haired one had created to feel his unmoving gaze. He thought that when you looked at him from the back, Will Byers could easily fool even the straightest man on earth. With his long hair Mike found himself loving on him a bit too much and his lanky self.
Will’s bare legs looked just like those Victoria secret models Nancy had a ton of magazines of; His legs followed the shape of his bone structure almost as if he were all skin and bones, the fact was, Will Byers had so little body fat Mike could've sworn he could easily stick his hand between Will’s legs—close—and the wide space between them would probably allow him to go further, maybe even his whole forearm.
Jesus christ!
Mike sat up abruptly in a cold sweat, as if the movement alone could shake the thoughts loose. He had to get ready, after all, he had promised Will a week ago they would study that exact day. Cursing himself, Mike took the covers off and headed to the bathroom.
By the time Will arrived that afternoon, Mike had convinced himself—almost—that his body was overreacting by itself. That he’d let his imagination spiral into something ugly because that was easier than admitting he was worried. Concern. That word again. He clung to it like a lifeline.
Will was let in by his mother, as usual. It didn't take more than two minutes for the kid to be standing on his bedroom door.
“Hey,” he said, shrugging off his jacket. His voice sounded the same. Calm. Normal.
Mike forced himself not to scan him immediately. He failed anyway.
They sat on Mike’s bed, textbooks spread between them. Homework they both pretended mattered. Will crossed his legs, tucking one foot under the other knee, careful, compact. Mike hated that his brain registered it. Hated that it catalogued the way Will fit into himself.
“Did you eat?” Mike asked casually, then immediately realized there hadn't been any mind-muscle connection at all when those words left his mouth. The very few times it happened, he would think it as if his body was trying to test him.
Will glanced up, surprised. “What?”
“I mean—today. Like, uh… school lunch was gross,” Mike added quickly, words stacking on top of each other. “So—”
Will smiled, small and polite. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
There it was. That phrase. So practiced it barely sounded like an answer anymore.
They worked in silence for a while. Pencils scratched, pages turned. Mike tried to focus on equations, on dates, on anything that wasn’t the way Will’s concentration made his face go still, almost empty. Like he disappeared when he wasn’t actively performing normalcy.
Mike realized then that the problem wasn’t just that he noticed.
It was that part of him waited for it.
The awareness hit him hard enough to make his stomach turn. He stood abruptly, chair scraping back.
“I’m gonna get water,” he said, not trusting his voice to stay even.
In the kitchen, Mike leaned against the counter, breathing through his nose. He pressed his palms flat against the cool surface, grounding himself in something solid. He didn’t know what to do with these thoughts. He didn’t want to look at his best friend and feel anything except worry, protectiveness, care.
And yet.
When he came back, Will was standing by the window, sketchbook open. He’d drawn something abstract—lines folding inward, shapes collapsing into themselves. Mike recognized the feeling immediately, even if he couldn’t name it.
“That’s new,” Mike said carefully.
Will shrugged. “Just messing around.”
Mike watched him close the book, arms hugging it to his chest, like a shield.
Something in Mike tightened. Not desire. Not attraction.
Control.
The realization made him feel sick.
He understood then that whatever this was, it wasn’t about Will’s body. Not really. It was about power, about silence, about seeing something broken and wanting to hold it still instead of fixing it.
That was the part he couldn’t forgive himself for.
“Will,” Mike said quietly.
Will looked at him, fully now. Open. Trusting.
Mike swallowed. “If—” He stopped, recalibrated. His heart beating so hard he could start to feel it bumping against his chest. “You don’t have to pretend with me, you know that, right?”
Will’s expression flickered. Just for a second. Then the walls slid back into place.
“I know,” he said. “I’m really okay.”
Mike nodded, even though he was well aware that was a lie. But then, now he had confirmed something.
After Will left, Mike sat alone again, the house too quiet, the air heavy. He understood something now that scared him more than ignorance ever had.
Wanting to notice wasn’t the same as wanting to help.
And if he didn’t choose carefully, he could become another thing Will had to survive.
A few days passed before Mike saw him again.
They were at Lucas’s place this time, sprawled across the living room floor with half-finished sodas and an old movie playing in the background—something none of them were really paying attention to because they had probably watched it before. Max and Lucas argued quietly about the ending, Dustin laughed too loud at jokes that weren’t funny anymore, and Will sat on the edge of the couch, sketchbook balanced on his can-like thighs.
Mike had taken the floor beside him.
He didn’t mean to look. That was the lie he told himself first.
From where he sat, Will was framed in stillness—back straight, shoulders narrow, legs folded in on themselves like punctuation marks. There was something almost unreal about how sharply his body outlined itself against the light from the TV, like he’d been drawn instead of built.
Mike’s thoughts slipped before he could catch them.
Not desire. Not attraction.
Measurement.
Comparison.
His mind did that thing again—cataloguing, dissecting, reducing Will to lines and spaces instead of a person. The thought landed wrong the moment it formed, heavy and intrusive, and Mike felt his stomach twist with the immediate understanding that he’d crossed somewhere he shouldn’t have even approached.
He looked away sharply, heart pounding, crotch pulsing.
What scared him wasn’t the image itself.
It was how easy it had been.
Will shifted on the couch, pulling his knees a little closer together, as if on instinct. The movement snapped Mike back into the room, into the sound of voices and laughter and the low hum of the TV. He focused on Dustin’s voice, on the carpet beneath his hands, on anything solid enough to ground him.
“Mike?” Will glanced back at him. “You okay? You usually discuss the end of ‘The Thing’ very passionately.”
“Yeah,” Mike said too fast. “No. I'm fine, Just tired.”
Will studied him for a second longer than necessary. Not suspicious—just attentive. That familiar, gentle awareness that made Mike feel both seen and undeserving of it.
Later, when everyone got up for snacks, naturally, Will stayed behind, flipping a page in his sketchbook. Mike forced himself to stand on the opposite side of the room, putting distance where his thoughts had failed to.
He understood something then with terrifying clarity:
These weren’t feelings he could confess.
They weren’t thoughts he could share.
They were something he had to stop—actively, deliberately—before they became another silent harm Will never asked for.
Because Will deserved a friend who looked at him and saw a person.
Not a pattern.
Not a shape.
Not a problem to be consumed.
But let's be real for a moment, Mike was not that person and he was painfully aware of that.
Maybe it was about time he finally accepted he was far too gone now.
Will had learned, over the years, how to exist quietly.
Not silence exactly—he could talk, laugh, participate—but a softer way of being, one that required less space. Less attention. He knew how to fold himself into rooms so he wouldn’t disrupt the balance, how to sit so his presence felt optional.
It wasn’t something he consciously decided. It was just… easier.
That afternoon at Lucas’s house, the air felt heavier than usual. The movie droned on in the background, its colors washing over the walls, but Will couldn’t focus on it. He balanced his sketchbook on his knees, pencil hovering above the page, waiting for something inside him to loosen.
He was aware of Mike behind him.
He always was.
Not in the way people talked about awareness—nothing warm or comforting. Just a pressure. Like standing too close to a window and feeling the glass at your back. Mike hadn’t said anything strange. He hadn’t touched him. But Will could feel the attention, intermittent and sharp, like static.
It made his shoulders tense.
Will adjusted his position without really thinking, drawing his legs closer, grounding himself in the familiar ache of holding too tight. He focused on the lines he was drawing—curves collapsing into angles, shapes closing in on themselves. He liked drawings that didn’t breathe too much. They felt honest.
He wondered, not for the first time, if everyone noticed.
If everyone saw what he saw when he looked in the mirror: a body that never quite caught up, that refused to settle into something solid. He didn’t weigh himself anymore—numbers had become too loud—but he knew the feeling of lightness, of edges too close to the surface. Even his mom had given up trying to see the state of her son’s body, he wouldn't let her, he couldn't. It will make her sad, he didn't want to see that expression directed to him. Will knew the rules. The rituals. The quiet negotiations he made with himself every day. He’d just had to go with it, endure it.
Mike’s silence stretched.
Will glanced back.
Sometimes he wondered if he was imagining moments like this, moments when Mike looked… wrong. Not angry. Not distant. Just pulled inward, like he was bracing against something. Their eyes met, and for a moment Will felt exposed in a way he couldn’t name, like a door had been opened somewhere without his permission. Because out of all his friends somehow Mike Wheeler was always the one who could see right through him.
“You okay?” Will asked, because that was the script. Because checking on others was easier than being checked on.
Mike answered too fast.
Will nodded, accepting it on the surface, even though something in his chest tightened. He told himself he was imagining it. He was good at that—dismissing instincts, smoothing things over, pretending discomfort was just noise. Later, when everyone got up, Will stayed seated. Moving felt complicated all of a sudden. He flipped a page in his sketchbook and pressed the pencil down harder than necessary, grounding himself in the resistance.
He thought about his body the way he often did in public spaces: as something visible but not quite real. Like a draft version that everyone else could see more clearly than he could. He wondered if Mike saw it too. If Mike noticed the things Will tried not to.
The idea made his stomach twist—not with fear exactly, but with something closer to shame. The old kind. The kind that told him his body was a problem people had to work around. It made him want to burst into tears.
When Mike moved to the other side of the room, the pressure eased. Will noticed that too. The distance felt deliberate. Protective, maybe. Or avoidant.
He wasn’t sure anymore.
Will stayed on the couch even after the room shifted.
He heard it happen—the scrape of shoes on carpet, the pop of soda cans opening, Dustin’s voice rising as he followed Lucas into the kitchen. The air felt different without the noise clustered around him, heavier in a way that pressed inward instead of expanding.
Mike didn’t move closer.
That stood out more than anything else.
Will kept his eyes on his sketchbook, but his awareness stretched, thin and tense, tracking Mike’s position across the room. He could picture him there without looking: standing too straight, hands probably shoved into his pockets, gaze fixed anywhere except where Will sat.
The distance felt intentional.
Will’s pencil slowed. He added lines he didn’t mean to—tight, repetitive strokes that crowded the page. His chest tightened in response, a familiar echo. He paused, lifted the pencil, flexed his fingers like he needed to remind himself they were still there.
Don’t be weird, he told himself.
You’re imagining it.
But imagining things had always been his weak spot. He imagined monsters when he was a kid, imagined danger where adults promised there was none. He imagined feelings before he had words for them. Sometimes imagining how he survived. Sometimes it was how he got hurt.
He shifted on the couch, unfolding his legs and then pulling them back in again, unable to settle. His body felt too noticeable all of a sudden—too present. He tugged at the hem of his shorts, a reflex so ingrained he barely registered it.
“Will?”
Mike’s voice made him flinch despite himself.
He looked up.
Mike stood a few feet away now, not close enough to feel invasive, not far enough to be accidental. His expression was careful, like he was stepping through something fragile.
“They’re gonna put another movie on,” Mike said. “You wanna—uh—stay here, or…?”
The question felt heavier than it should have, like there was another one folded inside it.
“I’m okay here,” Will said.
The words came easily. Too easily.
Mike nodded, relief flashing across his face before he smoothed it away. “Okay. Cool.”
He didn’t sit back down.
When Mike turned to leave again, something in Will’s chest pulled tight—not jealousy, not longing, but a sharp, quiet fear. The kind that whispered that he’d done something wrong without knowing what it was.
“Mike?” Will said before he could stop himself.
Mike turned back immediately. “Yeah?”
Will hesitated. He didn’t know what he wanted to ask. Did I do something? Are you mad at me? Why does it feel like you’re looking at me differently? Do i disgust you?
Instead, he said, “You’ve been… kind of distant.”
The words hung between them, fragile.
Mike swallowed. “I’m not—” He stopped, ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
Will frowned slightly. “You’re not. You never do.”
That wasn’t entirely true, but it wasn’t a lie either. Whatever the discomfort was, it didn’t feel like Mike’s fault. It felt older than that. Like something Will carried with him everywhere and only noticed when someone stood too close.
Mike nodded again, but this time it didn’t seem to reassure him.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “Just—if I ever do, tell me. Yeah?”
Will nodded.
The room felt emptier afterward, even when the others came back in with fresh snacks and loud opinions. Will accepted a soda but didn’t open it. He rested it against his leg, feeling the cold seep through the aluminum, grounding him in something simple and physical.
He wondered what Mike saw when he looked at him.
He wondered if everyone saw it.
What if they saw?
What would they think of him?
He felt like throwing up.
The thoughts made his stomach twist, with something brittle and sharp. The old fear that his body was speaking a language he didn’t understand, telling stories he never agreed to tell.
When it was time to leave, Will packed his sketchbook carefully, fingers lingering on the cover like it might steady him. He hugged it to his chest as he stood, shoulders curling inward without permission. As he stepped outside into the cool air, Will breathed in deeply, letting the night settle around him. He told himself he was fine. He told himself Mike was just stressed. He told himself distance was safer than whatever that tension had been.
Still, as he biked home alone, one thought followed him, quiet but persistent:
If Mike was stepping back to protect him—
Then why did it feel like he was the one being left behind?
On the walk home later, Will replayed the day in fragments. Mike’s unusual quiet persona. The way his gaze slid away too quickly. The sense of being almost understood and then not at all.
He told himself it didn’t matter.
He told himself he was fine.
But that night, lying in bed with his sketchbook open beside him, Will stared at the ceiling and thought—not for the first time—about how strange it was to want to disappear and be seen at the same time.
And how dangerous it felt to think that someone might be doing both to him.
Mike hadn’t meant to linger in Nancy’s room.
His mom had called him halfway up the stairs, arms full of freshly folded laundry.
“Take these to your sister, please.”
So he did. Or tried to.
Nancy wasn’t there, the room quiet and faintly smelling of detergent and something floral Mike had never been able to place but was too familiar with. He set the stack down on her bed, turned to leave—and stopped.
One of the items had slipped loose.
A pair of shorts. Soft fabric, light-colored, folded smaller than the rest. Mike stared at them longer than necessary before realizing he was doing it. He swallowed and picked them up, meaning only to refold them properly.
That was the moment the thought appeared.
Not sudden. Not explosive.
Just… there.
Will could fit into these.
The idea landed wrong immediately, like stepping on unstable ground. Mike’s grip tightened reflexively around the fabric, knuckles whitening.
It was a bad idea.
He was insane.
He knew that. Instantly, clearly, undeniably.
And yet—his brain, traitorous and meticulous, started building the logic anyway. Not desire. Not curiosity in the way he’d felt about people before. It was something colder. Something about scale. About proof. About seeing whether the quiet calculations his mind kept making would align with reality.
That scared him more than the thought itself.
Mike sat on the edge of Nancy’s bed, shorts still in his hands, heart beating too fast for such a small, stupid moment. He imagined asking Will—casually, jokingly, pretending it meant nothing.
Hey, this is dumb, but can you maybe try these on?
The image made his stomach twist.
It would humiliate Will. Or confuse him. Or worse—make him think this was normal. That Mike’s thoughts were.
Mike squeezed his eyes shut.
This is exactly what not helping looks like.
The realization came with a sharp, bitter clarity. This wasn’t concern dressed up badly. This wasn’t awkward care. This was crossing a line and pretending it was harmless because it hadn’t been crossed yet. He stood abruptly, folded the shorts with more care than necessary, and placed them back on the pile. His hands lingered for a second too long before he forced himself to step away.
Mike left Nancy’s room without looking back.
Downstairs, he washed his hands, scrubbing harder than necessary, like he could erase the thought through friction alone. He leaned over the sink afterward, breathing slowly, grounding himself in the cool porcelain, in the ordinary sounds of the house.
He understood something then, with a heaviness that settled deep in his chest:
The danger wasn’t wanting to look.
It was wanting to test.
And if he ever let himself believe that involving Will was a “good idea,” then he would become a person who used Will’s body to answer questions that had nothing to do with him. That was something Mike refused to be.
Mike didn’t see Will for two days after that day.
It wasn’t intentional at first. Schedules didn’t line up, excuses came easily. At school, he would no longer sit next to him. By the third day, avoidance had turned deliberate. Mike told himself it was temporary. Necessary. Still, when Will showed up at his door that afternoon, sketchbook under his arm, Mike’s chest tightened.
Had Will decided to take the matter into his own hands?
“Hey,” Will said, soft as ever. “Can I come in?”
Mike stepped aside automatically, letting him in. The house felt too small all of a sudden. Too quiet.
They ended up in the basement again—not because Mike wanted to, but because some habits were hard to break and he sure as hell wouldn't let himself be inside his room alone with Will. The shorter sat on the couch, curling into himself without realizing it. Mike stayed standing this time, leaning against the opposite wall like distance was something he could measure and control.
The illusion of free will.
They talked about everything and nothing. School. A movie Will wanted to see. Dustin being insufferable in a new and innovative way. Mike nodded in the right places, laughed when expected. But his thoughts pressed closer and closer to the surface, heavy with everything he hadn’t said.
Will, i’ve been thinking things I shouldn’t.
I’m scared of my own head.
Something in me is wrong.
The words crowded his throat.
Will glanced up at him, head tilted. “You’re doing it again.”
Mike froze. “Doing what?”
“Looking like you’re about to apologize for something I don’t know about,” Will said gently. Not accusing. Just observant.
That was it. The opening he wouldn't dare to take entirely.
Mike’s heart started pounding, loud enough that he was almost sure Will could hear it. For a split second, he imagined telling the truth—the whole truth. Imagined watching Will’s expression change, confusion giving way to hurt, trust cracking into something brittle.
He couldn’t do that to him. What was he thinking?
So Mike chose a different honesty.
“I’ve been… off,” he said finally. “Lately.”
Will waited. He was good at that.
“I realized I haven’t been a great friend,” Mike continued, words slow and careful, like stepping stones across thin ice. “Not because of anything you did. Just—because I haven’t been handling my own stuff well.”
Will frowned slightly. “What kind of stuff?”
“The kind that makes you forget what your purpose is,” Mike said quietly. “Which is to care about people without making it about yourself.”
The silence stretched.
Will looked down at his hands, turning the words over. “Did I make you uncomfortable?”
“No,” Mike said immediately. Too fast. Then he corrected himself. “I mean—no, but I don’t want you to ever feel that way around me. And if I’ve been acting weird, or distant, or too… focused—” He stopped, breath catching. “That’s on me.”
Will’s shoulders relaxed just a fraction.
“I thought you were mad at me,” Will admitted.
The words hit harder than Mike expected.
“I could never be,” Mike said, and this time there was no hesitation.
He took a step closer—not invading, not retreating—just enough to feel real again.
“I don’t need you to be anything other than what you already are,” Mike added. “And if I ever make you feel like you do… you tell me. Promise.”
Will studied him for a long moment. Then he nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “I promise.”
Something eased in Mike’s chest. Not relief. Not forgiveness.
Accountability.
They didn’t hug. They didn’t resolve anything cleanly. Will stayed for a while longer, drawing quietly, and Mike sat across from him, present in a way that felt deliberate instead of compulsive.
Later, after Will left, Mike stayed in the basement alone.
He knew this wasn’t over. Thoughts didn’t disappear just because you named their edges. But he’d made a choice—to redirect, to be honest without being harmful, to put Will’s safety above his own need to unburden.
It wasn’t redemption.
But it was a safe spot.
And for now, that had to be enough.