Chapter Text
[Friday]
Breakfast with the party is noisy and chaotic in a way that reminds Mike of those eighteen months when the Wheeler house was teeming with life, pretty much for the only time ever.
He remembers the way his mom had to bring extra chairs up from the basement- the shitty plastic ones- just to fit everyone at the dining room table, and how his dad complained every morning that Jonathan and Mike ate more than their fair share of the bacon.
More than anything, though, he remembers how good it felt to finally have Will close again after being nearly half a world apart. How, despite the giant gaping hole in the ground and the constant military surveillance and the whole ‘doomsday’ thing, Mike felt hopeful for the first time in a year. And it was all thanks to Will Byers and his luminous fucking smile that made Mike feel like maybe- just maybe- things would work out for him, after all.
Mike wishes he could feel that kind of relief now, but what he feels instead is the impossible distance between them- the miles that span the lengths of their fingertips; the deep chasm Mike falls into every time he looks at Will, and he doesn’t look back.
It's a million tiny deaths at the hands of a stranger he loves more than anything, and it’s been happening all day.
First, at Freddy’s, when Mike tried to get his attention by asking Will to pass the syrup, which he did, while looking pointedly at his own plate. Then, again at the graveyard, when Mike and Dustin put flowers on Eddie’s memorial- same as they do every year around this time- and Will clung tightly to Max at Billy’s headstone instead, staying as far away from Mike as physically possible.
It even happened once they got back to the apartment after deciding on dinner and picking out a movie to watch: Back to the Future- Dustin’s choice.
[“My TV, my pick,” Dustin had said between mouthfuls of Kung Pao chicken. “When you host, you can choose whatever dumbass movie you want to watch- but this one’s mine.”]
“No matter how many times we watch it, it still doesn’t make any sense!” Mike groans half an hour into the film, scowling at the screen. “Realistically, his parents would recognize him in the future, right? So why doesn’t Marty’s dad have a problem with the fact that his kid looks exactly like some other guy?”
On the television, Lorraine flits around Marty, pressing a cold compress to his forehead.
[“Do you mind if I sit here?” she asks.
“…No! Fine- no, that’s- good. Fine. Good,” Marty panics, right before falling off the bed.]
“Okay, first- you said realistically. There’s nothing realistic about this movie,” Lucas laments from the kitchen, where he’s spoon-feeding mashed sweet potatoes to the baby. “And second, George doesn't say anything because he values his life. Trust me, I'd do the same in his shoes... Women are scary- you guys just haven't been around one long enough to know that yet."
"Yes, we...!"
“I heard that!” Max yells, glaring silver bullets into her husband's skull.
"See?" Lucas shakes his head. "Mental cases. All of them."
Will hasn’t said a single thing the entire movie- not to Dustin, not to Lucas, and certainly not to Mike. He’s been quiet all day, and at this point, Mike is pretty sure that the rest of the party is beginning to suspect something is going on between the two of them.
“What do you think, Will?” he asks casually, picking at a fraying corner of the blanket. "Am I right, or is Lucas?"
Mike screws up his face like he's sucking on something bitter, and Lucas shoots him an odd look- one that Mike barely catches on account of his unwavering devotion to staring at the only person in the room who won't look back.
Come back to me, he wants to scream. Look at me.
Tell me what the problem is and let me fix it.
(It’s Mike. Mike is the problem. He always has been.)
“I think you’re both overthinking things,” Will frowns. “Does it really matter if they think he looks familiar? It’s 1985- at most, his parents probably think it’s a super weird coincidence,” he shakes his head. “It's not as if Marty can sit them down and explain that he’s actually a teenage time-traveling prodigy who set them up in the fifties; they’d think he was crazy.”
Will’s dark, hooded eyes meet his for a split second- just long enough for Mike to catch the way they sag under the weight of years of pent-up frustration; from precious time wasted trying to explain the same, impossible thing to a hundred different people.
Because nobody outside their little group gets it- and worse, they don’t even believe it.
Even Mike’s therapist- a sweet old lady with a raging caffeine addiction- struggled to make sense of it all when he first started showing up to appointments in the months following the end of the world. After hearing his life's story, she not-so-subtly suggested he start going to a support group for paranoid schizophrenics.
(He almost went, too)
“Fuck Carlton.” Max raised a middle finger to the sky, looking angrily at Will. “He was never good enough for you anyway.”
Carlton.
It’s not a name Mike knows, but it’s easy to figure out what it means- what it meant- to Will. His face droops at the mention of it- not enough to make the mole by his lips disappear, but enough to make Mike want to leap up from his seat and wrap his arms around him, even though he’s probably the last person in the world Will wants touching him right now.
“He’s not dead, Max,” Will laughs darkly, blushing a pretty red color, “But, yeah. Fuck him,” he nods.
“He would be if you’d let me introduce him to Steve's bat like I wanted to,” she groans. “There’s no expiration date on that, by the way- offer valid any time.” Max drags a finger across her neck. “I’ll show him who’s crazy.”
[“Well, if we’re both going crazy, then we’ll go crazy together, right?”
“…Yeah. Crazy together.”]
Mike feels something dark and familiar settle in his gut- a feeling. One that, over the years, has become almost synonymous with ‘Anyone who so much as breathes the wrong way at Will Byers.’
Wrath.
It’s not something he’s proud of, but Mike has to physically restrain himself from storming out of the apartment, hopping on a plane, and losing his absolute shit on a total stranger.
A stranger who called Will Byers crazy.
(The man is lucky he’s not halfway to New York already)
He’s not completely unreasonable; Mike knows that it makes him sound like an insane person. That it doesn’t make any sense- that it’s possessive, and stupid, and inappropriate, considering the fractured nature of their relationship.
But it doesn’t stop that monstrous part of himself from wanting to detonate like a fucking nuke every time he hears someone utter the words ‘Zombie Boy,’ or from imagining himself plunging a dull knife over and over into the back of Will’s shitty, insignificant ex-boyfriend, just because he can.
Mike swears he’s not a violent person.
But he is a coward.
Because behind that feeling hides another one- one he doesn’t even try to name, for fear of what it could mean for his fragile sense of self.
It's awful.
Despicable.
Disgusting.
And it leaves him feeling like he’s pulling on both sides of a rope in a mental game of tug of war, with ‘Will deserves the world’ on one side, and ‘Anyone but Mike giving it to him’ on the other.
But instead of lashing out at his friends (which they obviously don't deserve), Mike quietly seethes and pretends like his chest isn’t imploding. He takes deep breaths and tells himself that everything is fine and that he’s completely okay with this conversation.
That he is so happy that Will had a boyfriend (he, of all people, deserves companionship).
That he is glad Will finally found someone to share his heart, and maybe even his bed (Mike is going to be sick).
“Have you seen anyone seriously since?” Dustin asks, interrupting Doc Brown’s detailed lecture on the nuances of the time-travel paradox. “How’s that one guy? I think his name was… Brody?”
“Brandon- and I wouldn’t know,” Will blushes, staring at the ground. “It was just a date or two- we didn’t really click. I’ve actually been spending some time away from the city- Jon and Nancy have been letting me stay with them while I figure out what I’m doing after graduation.”
Good, the venomous, unnamed feeling hums, curling around itself pleasantly. He doesn’t need a boyfriend. He only needs-
“Oh?” Max quirks an eyebrow, “-And how’s that going for you?”
“Mostly I’ve been babysitting Jo in exchange for room and board- they both work full-time, and I don’t have a regular nine-to-five, so it just made sense,” he smiles. “But I’ve been painting a lot, too- talking to a few smaller galleries on the Upper East Side. Nothing’s settled yet, so I’m trying to keep an open mind, but it's hard. My thesis advisor keeps suggesting I try looking at places in Chicago, but I really want to stay in New York- it's just nice having my whole family so close."
“Joe?” Dustin frowns, “I thought they had a daughter.”
"That's what you got out of all of the insanely impressive stuff Will just told you?" Max rolls her eyes, shoving him playfully. "Idiot."
“They do- Joanna. Mike helped pick it out; it’s a literary thing,” Will nods, addressing him directly for the first time all night. “Right, Mike?”
“Uh- yeah,” he stutters, mind suddenly devoid of a single logical thought, because Will is finally looking right at him. Watching him with bright hazel eyes that aren’t quite green and aren’t quite brown- and… wow, Mike is thinking way too much about this.
The single beer he’s been nursing for the last two hours must be getting to him, because when he tries to speak again- to explain why they chose the name and to ask if moving to Chicago would truly be such a bad thing- it sounds like fragmented, garbled nonsense.
So, it’s not surprising when Max speaks up:
“You okay, Wheeler?” she waves a hand in front of his face, brows furrowing in concern. “You’re acting about twice as miserable as you usually do- Did you not sleep last night or something?”
No. He had not.
Mike doesn’t most nights- and it’s not for lack of trying.
He tosses and turns for hours, head pounding, as his thoughts bounce off the walls of his skull like the world’s least-fun game of Pong.
Sometimes he thinks about his book- other times, his friends- but most nights, he finds himself fantasizing about something else entirely- a faceless entity; a made-up character that sleeps on Mike's side of the bed in a room he's never actually been in.
He imagines them slipping under the covers and listening to Will’s gentle sighs, feeling his arms around them in the dark- warm and comforting. In his mind, the stranger knows everything about him that he used to- the way he burrows himself in the blankets when the air conditioner is going; the way he smiles when their fingers brush, lingering for a moment too long.
It’s a smoldering hell he’s forged in his own head, fueled by the most powerful thing of all: Mike’s regret and self-loathing. It's an imaginary punishment he doles out when he’s whispered that name into the dark too many times: Will Byers, Will Byers, Will Byers.
“I was up late working on my manuscript; the publisher wants a copy by March, and I’ve still got some chapters to write.” Mike frowns, leaning heavily on the armrest.
It’s not a complete lie- the publisher does want the book done by March- but ‘some chapters’ equates to over half the book, and there’s not a single chance in hell he meets the deadline.
His first novel was a mild success; Mike made enough to afford a shitty studio apartment near the community college (not that he attended a single class), and to justify staving off a nine-to-five for a few more years. But rent wasn’t cheap, and the royalties only covered so many expenses, so lately he found himself staring down the barrel of his worst nightmare: An office job.
“Must be good,” Lucas smiles, walking out of the kitchen with Liam on his hip, “-You've been working on it for over a year now.”
Yeah, those five shitty chapters Mike had managed to rewrite no less than a hundred times were just fantastic.
Dustin nodded, pulling a crisp yellow book off the shelf and opening it to the cover page. “I've got his first one right here. Signed and everything," he smirks. "Jealous?”
“We all have a signed copy, dumbass," Max rolls her eyes, grabbing the baby from Lucas and placing him on her lap with a quick kiss. “But you know, out of everything in there… I think I liked that first page the very best.”
“Ouch,” Mike winces. “Was the rest of the story that bad?”
“Nah. It was actually one of the few books I’ve ever enjoyed reading- as much as it pains me to admit,” Max shakes her head, smiling. “It’s just… El. The dedication was beautiful, Mike. Said what we all were thinking.”
The rest of the party nods, but Mike can hardly breathe.
Because the dedication they’re all talking about?
It wasn’t for El.
[To my savior, my hero, my other half:
You were the magic all along; the best story I’ll never be able to tell.
I love you.
-M]
El would have been the obvious choice; she was Mike’s girlfriend- the love of his life. But at the end of the day, he couldn’t do it- because the story wasn’t about her.
It was about Mike.
And it was about Will.
And in a way, it always had been.
“Yeah. It was perfect, man,” Lucas agrees. “Wherever she is, I’m sure she’s proud of you.”
He puts an arm around Mike’s shoulder, squeezing gently, and he feels his heart do the same in his chest.
“I just hope she’s somewhere nice,” Dustin smiles, staring at a picture on the wall. It's one Jonathan took of the whole party and El in '85- they had just come in from playing in the snow all day, and all of their cheeks are bright red from the cold. “Someplace that's warm, with a whole bunch of sand and water and not a single person for miles and miles…”
They still don’t know it was for him.
For Will.
Why does Mike want them to know?
What the fuck is wrong with him?
“Dude… El’s never even seen the ocean. How was that the first thing you thought of?”
“Jesus, fine! If you know her so well, where do you think she is?” Dustin huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. “I just thought she might want to see like… a dolphin, or something!”
“A dolphin?” Max barks, doubling over with laughter. “El saved the entire world, and the best you can come up with is that she's at the beach right now watching fucking dolphins? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!”
Mike's friends are smiling, happy, having fun- and he feels like he’s on the verge of losing it for the fifth time in twenty-four hours, because sitting right there on the page, mocking him in ten-point font, are a handful of words he managed to suppress the memory of ever writing:
[I love you.
-M]
He'd signed it and everything.
Of all the problems Mike Wheeler has ever had, those three words have caused him the most grief. He can’t even look at Will, too afraid that his eyes will scream what his lips have not: That Mike’s a liar- to his friends, to his family- and worst of all, to himself.
And Will’s the only one who knows it.
It’s no coincidence that the day after his book came out, the phone sang its final song- a somber eulogy for a dying relationship. One that he killed by being both too little and too much. Too Mike. He never got confirmation that Will understood the whole thing was about them, about something that ran far deeper than friends, best friends- but his silence said it all.
“If you don’t like my answer, come up with something better,” Dustin challenges, eyes narrowed at Lucas. “But I, for one, think El would love the beach.”
“You’re just saying that because you like the beach, asshole. She’d like the mountains way better- the clear air, the trees… I could totally see her, like, hiding out there, in a secret cave or something. Like Obi-Wan!”
Mike never understood why he could give those words so easily to his sister, to his friends- even to his parents- but not to El. Never to El.
Not even when it mattered most.
And that makes Mike a terrible, horrible person.
Completely oblivious to his internal struggle, Max turns the television up a notch:
[“This is all wrong,” Lorraine gasps, recoiling from Marty with a hand pressed to her lips. “I don’t know what it is, but when I kiss you… It’s like I’m kissing my brother. I guess that doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
“…Believe me,” Marty nods knowingly. “It makes perfect sense.]
“Yeah- she’s just like him!” Dustin says excitedly. “El’s even got the force!”
"Yeah, but... wasn't Kenobi alone in that cave for like twenty years?" Max winces. "I don't know that I want to imagine my best friend like that. Seems kinda depressing to me."
[“This is all wrong..."]
Mike loves El.
Of course he does.
He loved her before he even knew what love was. They spent their entire childhood wrapped up in each other, blinded by the thrill of being wanted for the first time in that way. She was his first crush- his first kiss.
…God knows they did that enough.
[“It’s like I’m kissing my brother. I guess that doesn’t make any sense, does it?”]
Mike liked kissing El, too. It was a good way to pass the time- like a skill he was honing. Sometimes it felt a little weird, but he chalked that up to the way he was still learning- that they were both learning. Together.
Because real life was nothing like the movies: relationships weren’t desperate and wanting and push and pull and burning alive. Theirs was a comfortable one. Subdued.
And sometimes, it was nothing at all.
So, maybe Mike should have felt something while kissing El. A tug. A spark. Anything.
And maybe he shouldn’t have felt dirty every time she tried to put her hands on him.
But that wasn't so bad… Right? If all kisses are like that.
[“…Believe me, it makes perfect sense.”]
But they aren’t.
And Mike knows it.
---
1977 was an unseasonably warm year; it took until the week before Halloween for the leaves to start changing color and fall to the ground in crunchy piles big enough for Mike and his friends to play in, and another three days after that for Karen to nag Ted Wheeler to the point of digging out the old, cobweb-covered rake from the shed, which he promptly handed to a six-year-old Mike with three words:
“Go on, get.”
And, because Mike hardly did anything alone in those days- a stark contrast to the quiet solitude of his adult life- he also managed to involve not only his big sister, but also Will and his big brother, who Mike was pretty sure had a crush on Nancy (gross!).
That was how the four of them found themselves in the Wheelers’ backyard on a sunny Sunday afternoon in November, yelling and running around and tackling each other into piles of leaves even taller than Jonathan.
“This is our house, because there are lots of trees, and I’m the best at climbing them!” Mike smiled, wide and toothy, save for one in the front that had fallen out while eating a candy bar on Halloween night. “Will lives with me, so… Jonathan and Nancy have to live in the pile over there- the one with all the bugs!” he shuddered.
Mike hated bugs.
“Nuh-uh!” Nancy whined, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m pretending to be the mom, and Jonathan is the dad, so we get to live in the nice house! You two are just the babies, so you live with the bugs- not us.” She looked at Jonathan and narrowed her eyes until he backed her up with a delayed, “Yeah!”
Something hot and angry flared in Mike's chest, because he wasn’t a baby- and he certainly wasn’t Will’s brother, either. That was not how they played this game.
Leave it to Know-It-All Nancy to come in and ruin everything.
“That’s the worst idea I ever heard,” Mike pouted, flopping over into the leaves with an annoyed huff. “Will isn’t my brother- we’re married. Brothers can’t get married- that’s gross!”
“Boys can’t get married, stupid,” Nancy rolled her eyes, gesturing between the two of them. “You need to have a girl. Those are the rules.”
The rules?
Mike wasn’t aware of any of those, but if what Nancy said was true, then he was never getting married. Much less to a disgusting girl.
He loved Will; wasn’t that all that mattered? Besides, he hated being told what to do- especially by Nancy.
Mike felt the beginnings of frustrated tears prick at the corners of his eyes. He tried to blink them away, but they rolled down his cheeks defiantly, leaving little wet track marks down the sides of his face.
He wouldn’t marry a girl; he was going to marry Will, and they were going to live in Mike’s basement and play games forever and ever, until they were old and gross like his Nana.
He’d show Nancy.
So, Mike marched right over to Will and picked up his hand. Then he held it out to his sister and screamed, “Yes, they can!”
And they did.
---
“Obi-Wan eventually left the cave to train with Luke,” Will adds, smiling warmly. “-Maybe we just need to find another kid with crazy powers, and we could get her to come back, too.”
“Uh… Don’t we have one of those right here? What was it that Mike called you?” Lucas raises an eyebrow, smirking at him. “Will’s a sorcerer, not a wizard! His powers are innate!”
“Jesus Christ, dude, you were so annoying with that shit," Dustin shakes his head.
"I don't even..." Will stops short of a full sentence, realizing Mike isn't paying attention to them at all. He puts a hand on his shoulder, but the world around Mike is spinning so fast, he hardly even notices the electric touch. "...Mike?"
He's spiraling.
Down, down, down.
“…Wheeler, you okay?”
“Holy shit, is he breathing?”
---
Twenty minutes and a careful search through Nancy’s closet for something that could pass as a veil later, Mike found himself standing at the end of the aisle waiting for Will- not for the first time. With Jonathan as their witness and Nancy as the officiant, Mike couldn’t remember ever being happier-
Except when Will showed up on the opposite end of the makeshift aisle holding a bouquet made of yellow leaves and Karen’s wilting marigolds, and wearing one of Nancy’s white lace church skirts fastened to his head with barrettes.
Nancy adjusted her suit jacket (stolen from Ted), opened her bible (a well-loved copy of A Wrinkle in Time), and cleared her throat, looking pointedly at Mike. “Repeat after me: I, Michael Theodore Wheeler…”
He knew he was supposed to be listening to Nancy, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the boy in front of him.
Mike had been to weddings- plenty of them- he was even the ring bearer when his aunt Jeanine got married last spring. But of all the brides he had ever seen, Will Byers was the prettiest by far.
“I, Michael Theodore Wheeler.”
“Take you, William Jacob Byers…”
Mike wondered what it might be like to get married for real:
Would his parents come? Would Will’s mom cry when he walked out in his veil? Would their friends want to be in the wedding too?
He knew one thing for sure: He and Will would eat lots of cake and get tons of cool presents and dance all night long to all of Jonathan’s records, which he would obviously let them borrow for the big party afterwards.
Why else have a wedding?
“Take you, William Jacob Byers.”
“To be my lawfully wedded- uh,” Nancy looked Will up and down, pausing momentarily, “-husband?”
Both boys giggled into their hands. Husband.
That was a silly word.
“To be my lawfully wedded husband.”
“To have and to hold from this day forward…”
He only stopped laughing when Nancy nudged him, reminding him to take his vows seriously- Nancy took everything seriously.
Mike thought that sounded like a terribly boring thing to do.
“To have and to hold from this day forward.”
“For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer…”
Mike was confident he had that part down- Will was always falling and scraping his knees.
Luckily, he knew where the Band-Aids were in both of their houses. His mom always bought the colorful ones- Mike got all the blue bandages, Will got the yellow ones, and they saved the red for Nancy and baby Holly.
“For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer.”
“In sickness and in health, to love and to cherish…”
He did love Will.
So much.
Mike wasn’t so sure he knew what ‘cherish’ meant, but he knew it was something nice; something that would make Will happy.
Making Will happy was his favorite thing to do.
“In sickness and in health, to love and to cherish.”
“Till death do us part.”
Mike didn’t like that word: Death.
It made him feel sad, like when Dad told him that Swimmy jumped out of the tank, or when Mom made him wear all black and say “I’m sorry” to a bunch of her crying friends. He didn’t ever want to think about Will like that.
They were never going to be apart. Mike would make sure of it.
“I’m not saying that.” Mike crossed his arms, glaring up at Nancy with tears in his eyes. “Will can’t die- I won’t let him.”
“But you have to say it,” Nancy pursed her lips in annoyance. “Or you’re not married.”
He looked at Will with pleading eyes.
“It’s okay, Mikey. I won’t die- you can say it,” he smiled. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
He trusted Will- if he said he wouldn’t die, he meant it.
“Okay,” Mike sniffled, wiping the moisture from his face. “Till death do us part.”
“Finally!” Nancy cheered, “You may now kiss the bride!”
---
He doesn’t remember when Mikey became Mike, or when crayons became pencils that became typewriters. But he does remember every detail about what it felt like to kiss Will Byers.
(Impossibly warm and astonishingly bright, like he contained the very sun itself in the space between his lips.)
Mike remembers and feels the world as he knows it slipping through his fingers like grains of sand.
Because kissing boys isn’t allowed to feel like that.
It’s not allowed to feel good.
And Mike isn't supposed to wish that kissing El felt like kissing his best friend.
“Should we… should we call someone? He’s literally not responding to anything.”
“His eyes are open- do you think he’s being…?”
“No. No way. That fucker is dead- I’m not even entertaining that idea.”
“-Mike, c’mon. Come back to us.”
---
To this day, Mike isn’t entirely sure why he did it.
Maybe it was how real the wedding felt with both Jonathan and Nancy there, or the way talking about Will going away made him feel sick to his stomach- but when Nancy told him to kiss Will, he did.
It was a little thing- just a quick peck that left both boys blushing and staring at each other with wide eyes- but it was enough to drag Ted Wheeler out of his comfortable armchair and send him storming across the yard to yank them apart.
“Absolutely not!” Ted bellowed, dragging Mike inside by the shell of his ear. “Not in my house!”
Mike chanced one last look at Will- still blushing but now hiding behind Jonathan- and wondered what they could have done that was so wrong.
“Will is going home,” Ted stated, grabbing the rotary phone off the wall and spinning the dial. He glared at Mike and pointed to the stairwell before grunting, “Go to your room. I don’t want to look at you right now.”
“Ted, come on, they’re just kids!” his mom cried, putting a gentle hand on Mike’s shoulder to pull him to her. He hid his face in her dress, soaking the pretty pink material with his tears. “It was a game, wasn’t it, baby? Michael?”
Mike cried harder- why was his dad being so mean? He was only having fun with his friends- he didn’t mean to kiss Will- it was an accident! He hadn’t meant anything by it.
“I don’t give a shit what it was, Karen! Kids who need to be taught the difference between right and wrong- and that was wrong.”
“He doesn’t know any better…” she sighed, rubbing comforting circles into his back as he sobbed. “I know that wasn’t… okay, but they’re little boys, Ted. You’re telling me you never did anything silly when you were a kid?”
He needed to get back to Will- Will, who could make anything better, and who always knew the right things to say to calm Mike down and make him stop crying. His mom’s hugs were good, but Will’s were the best.
Mike thought he might solve all the world’s problems if Will could just fit his arms around it.
“Not like this. I don’t understand what’s wrong with them. When Lonnie gets word of this, he’s going to lose it…”
“Which is why you're not going to tell him,” Karen warned, glaring at Mike’s dad. “Joyce and those boys have been through enough this year.”
“Fine,” he grunted, "But I don’t want to see those Byers around here for at least a week… a month.”
Will was back three days later. Karen picked him up in her car and let him right in, and Mike never thought about that one sunny Sunday afternoon in November again.
Until tonight.
---
“Mike! What the hell is going on, man?”
He doesn't...
He can't...
Pandora’s box opened, and something's come out- something Mike is afraid he’ll never be able to get back in.
Because there, in the back corner of his mind, hidden away behind unsent letters and shared looks and crazy together, is the one thing Mike Wheeler has spent his entire life trying to forget:
A kiss that made him feel something.
“Talk to us, Wheeler..."
Suddenly, Mike has all the answers (he had them all along).
He knows why he could never give El those words, and why he tried so hard to make a broken thing whole. He knows why he pushes people away- why he pushed Will away- and why, despite that, he has never felt free of him a day in his life. He knows why he never left this stinking town and never tried to make anything of himself; why, just like in the Upside Down, time stopped for Mike Wheeler on November 6th, 1983.
He knows everything now, because he knows he’s in love with Will Byers.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Mike is in love with Will.
With his best friend, who he can’t even talk to anymore because things got weird, and Mike pulled away, and Will let him.
With the person he wrote an entire fucking book about, then completely stopped talking to because he was afraid that Will would see right through him; that he would understand the feelings that Mike himself couldn't even begin to comprehend.
And now it's too late.
It's too late because he's already lost Will forever, and he's never going to get to tell him how he feels because Mike Wheeler is a pathetic loser who took nine fucking years to realize the most obvious thing in the entire world.
Shit, shit, shit.
Fuck.
“That’s it, I’m calling 9-1-1,” Lucas says, shaking his head and pushing up from the couch. “Any objections?”
[ "Hey, also... about the last few days-"
"You don't have to say anything. I... I was being a total jerk to El; I deserved it."
"No! No... no no, you didn't deserve anything. Listen, the truth is, the last... year... has been weird. You know? I mean, you know Max and Lucas and Dustin- they're- they're great. They're great. It's just... It's Hawkins. It's not the same without you. And I feel like maybe I was worrying too much about El... and I don't know... maybe I feel like I lost you or something. Does that make sense?"]
Had he always been that oblivious?
"We've waited long enough- do it."
"Mike, last chance, buddy. Say something, or I'm pressing 'Call'."
[ "These past months, she's been... lost without you. She's so different from other people, and... it's really scary to be different. When you're different... sometimes you feel like... like a mistake. But you make her feel like she's not a mistake at all- like she's better for being different. And that gives her the courage to fight on. If she was mean to you, or- or she seemed like she was pushing you away... It's probably just because she was scared of losing you, just as you're scared of losing her. And... if she was going to lose you, I think she'd rather just... get it over with quick- like ripping off a Band-Aid. Because losing you-it just hurts- it hurts too much.]
"Do it," Max winces, and Lucas nods.
He can't breathe. He can't- his lungs won't inflate, and the truth presses so hard against the back of Mike’s teeth that he knows they’ll shatter if he doesn’t open his mouth.
“…It was for Will!” he gasps.
Oxygen fills his chest, bringing a little life back to Mike's corpse-like body. Around him, all of his friends stare, wide-eyed and silent.
“I’m sorry, but… What the fuck?” Max hisses, looking at Mike angrily. "Lucas, hang up the phone."
"Already on it."
The receiver clicks into place.
“The- the dedication...” Mike blanches, nervously fiddling with his thumbs in his lap. “-In the book. It was for Will, not Eleven.”
“Why…?” Lucas frowns, shaking his head. “-Were you seriously this worked up over a dedication? It’s not that big a deal, man. We just assumed, I guess… it really doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” Mike chokes, looking directly at Will. "-It matters. To me."
“Okay, so you wrote it for Will. That’s cool,” Dustin nods, trying to diffuse the obvious tension in the room. "Uh, who...? Who's the next one for, then?" he jokes. "It had better be..."
Max shoots him a venomous look, and he mumbles a quiet, "Yeah, no- sorry," and sinks into the couch.
Across the room, Will stares at the ground, unblinking.
“I’m… I’ll… I just want...” he stumbles, standing up and drying his hands on his jeans. "I need a... Excuse me."
Mike watches as Will escapes through the balcony door and into the frigid night.
“What the fuck is going on between the two of you?” Max asks, looking at him accusingly, "What did you do?"
He doesn't even need to say it. Max already knows he was the one responsible for their end; Mike's all four horsemen of the apocalypse rolled into one.
“Dude, what are you waiting for?” Lucas raises an eyebrow. “Go. Fix it.”
With what? Mike wants to ask. With another lie?
By telling Will that yes, the book was for him and about him, but not like... in a weird way, because Mike is totally and completely normal about their very platonic semi-friendship (if he could even call it that anymore)?
But he's done that before. He's been down that road, and Mike knows what happens once he reaches the end:
It all falls apart again.
Over and over and over again.
So, for once, Mike decides to tell the truth.
Outside, the stars are bright. It’s one of the few good things about living in the middle of fucking nowhere- there are always stars out, even on the cloudy nights.
But tonight, Mike doesn’t notice them. He’s too distracted by Will’s eyes, and the way they reflect the starlight, and how Mike really wouldn’t mind pressing a kiss to the smooth expanse of skin between them, if Will would only let him.
(Of course he won't; why would he?)
“Go back inside, Mike,” Will sighs, not even turning to look at him. “I’m fine.”
But fine isn't standing outside alone when it's fifteen below, clutching the railing like it's the only thing keeping you from jumping to your death. Fine doesn't sound like Will sounds right now; his voice is wavering and cracking at odd places, like he's been on the verge of crying for hours.
“You didn’t bring a jacket,” Mike states, inching towards him cautiously. "It's cold."
A solitary wisp of frozen breath curls through the air between them.
“So? It’s not your job to take care of me,” Will huffs, incredulous. “It was never your job.”
“I know that.” Mike looks over the railing at the empty street below. “It was always just something I enjoyed doing. For you.”
“Well, don’t,” Will groans, gripping the cool metal harder. “We’re grown up now. I don't need you watching over me like I'm some...” he shakes his head. "-Like I'm weak."
"I never thought that about you."
Silence.
Then, a whisper in the dark:
“Why, then?”
Mike swallows down the lump in his throat.
“Because you’re my best friend, Will. Because I love you," (he really, really does). "Because... Because despite everything that’s happened, there’s no one in this world I care about more- now, or then- than you.” Mike lets out a shaky sigh, running his hands through his hair. “Happy?”
Will nods.
“It’s about us, right?” he pauses, looking at Mike out of the corners of his eyes. “Your book. It’s about you and me.”
“It is.”
There it is. Plain as day.
Why does he still want to vomit so bad?
“Did you mean it? What you wrote… Mike- did you mean it?”
He chokes on each syllable, but he says them anyway:
“Every. Last. Word.”
And Mike walks back inside.