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“Will, I was just messing around. Let’s finish for real, okay?”
Will doesn’t bother turning around, tugging his cloak over his head and grabbing his things.
“How much longer is the campaign?”
“Just forget it, Mike!”
Will whips around, glaring at him before turning back around and stuffing his belongings into his backpack.
“No!” Mike says, throwing his hands up and turning to Lucas, “You want to keep playing, right?”
“Yeah, totally!” Lucas stutters and Mike winces, but turns back to Will.
“We’ll just call the girls afterwards, alr-”
“I said forget it, Mike! I’m going home.”
Mike blinks, wide-eyed, eyes tracking the boy's movements as he stomps up the stairs. He forces his body to move as Will throws the basement door open, shoving Lucas slightly in his haste to get up the stairs. His heart is pounding in his chest, a sense of panic rising in his throat. He didn’t even want to call the girls that badly —he was just going along with what Lucas wanted, and now he’s fucked everything up.
He catches up to Will as the other boy reaches the garage, nearly tripping over the door frame.
“Will, come on. You can’t leave, it’s raining.”
Will rolls his eyes, and bites back a sarcastic retort along the lines of “wow, I couldn’t tell, you're such a psychic.”
“Listen, I said I was sorry, alright?” Mike comes up to stand next to him, talking about the campaign, and how it ‘really is amazing’, and all Will can think is stupid, stupid, stupid.
It was stupid of him to think that Mike would be thinking of anything other than El right now.
It was stupid of him to think that Mike would be thinking of him right now.
“We’re just not in the mood right now-”
Mike sounds so desperate to make him understand, and a little part of his heart twinges, clenches and hurts.
“Yeah Mike, that’s the problem. You guys are never in the mood anymore!”
He can feel the pain crawling up the back of his throat, the tears welling in his eyes as he slings his backpack straps over his shoulders.
“You’re running our party!”
“That’s not true!” Mike throws his hands up, brow furrowing and Will wants nothing more than to reach up and smooth it out with his fingertips. Instead, he says-
“Really? Then where’s Dustin right now?”
He watches Mike flounder, eyes bouncing everywhere but his face.
“See! You don’t know, and you don’t even care! And obviously he doesn’t either, and I don’t blame him!”
His chest heaves and his eyes latch on to Mikes, onto the dark brown that he’s spent years staring at through late nights doing homework and whispering secrets to under pillow forts. He shakes his head and licks his lips, forcing his heart back down into his chest.
“You’re destroying everything, and for what! So you can swap spit with some stupid girl-”
“El’s not stupid! It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!”
Will pauses.
And he stares.
He stares at the boy he’s known for nine years. The boy that has been his best friend since kindergarten, the boy that he’s spent every morning, night, and day with. The boy who he begged for when he was trapped, the boy who was at his bedside when he woke up in the hospital, the boy that took him home on halloween night. The boy that looked for him when he disappeared, the boy hasn’t left his side for nine years.
-
“I don’t know, sometimes I feel like I’m just going crazy.”
“Me too.”
“But, if we’re both going crazy, we’ll go crazy together, right?”
-
Crazy together.
They were going to go crazy together, god fucking dammit.
“I’m not trying to be a jerk. But we’re not kids anymore, okay?”
Will snaps his mind back to the present —to the boy standing in front of him and the rain pounding outside.
“I mean, what did you think, really? That we were never going to get girlfriends? We were just going to sit in my basement all day and play games for the rest of our lives?”
Mike stares at him expectantly.
“Yeah. I guess I did. I really did.”
He loses the battle with his tears, and turns away, grabbing his bike and wheeling it out of the garage. He can feel the rain on his body as soon as he’s away from cover, but it’s a welcome distraction from the erratic beating of his heart. He wipes angrily at his eyes, feet slipping on the wet concrete. He faintly hears Mike call his name, maybe once or twice, before he goes quiet.
Will bets he would have kept yelling if he was El.
He walks faster and faster and faster until his foot slips and his bike is clattering down next to him and he's bent over with his hands on his knees. He sucks in a breath and chokes on the tears streaming down his face, wiping them away harshly with his sleeve. He shudders in a breath, squeezing his eyes shut and digging his nails into his palms as he stands up. He reaches down to grab his bike, new tears falling despite his efforts.
“Will!”
He freezes, and then stands up, staring wide-eyed as Mike runs towards him.
“Will! Will, come on, I’m sorry, man.”
Mike stops right in front of him, rain jacket wrapped around his shoulders haphazardly, his shoes and socks nearly soaked through.
“I’m sorry, okay?”
Will bites his lip and feels his eyes fill with tears again. His heart is warring against itself, equal parts upset and frustrated.
“I promise we can finish the campaign, okay? Just please come back.”
Frustration wins out.
“Oh my god Mike, it wasn’t about the fucking campaign!”
Mike looks like a deer in the headlights, arm reached out halfway between them —like he was planning on dragging Will back with him.
“It was never about the campaign! It was about you!”
His voice cracks and he curses himself for it.
Mike blinks owlishly at him.
“I don’t…understand. I know you care about me Will, what-”
Will laughs despite himself, wiping at his eyes again, though he’s not sure if he’s still crying if it's just rain at this point.
“I don’t care about the campaign, Mike, I care about you! I care about us!”
“What about us, Will!” Mike cries, throwing his hands up again. It’s a habit he’s had ever since he was old enough to understand defiance. Will would remember.
“Us, Mike!” Will explodes. “What happened to us? We used to be inseparable, you used to be my best friend!"
“I still am your-”
“It sure as hell doesn’t feel like it!” Will cuts him off. “You know what it does feel like, Michael?”
Mike flinches at the use of his full name.
“It feels like I missed so much while I was gone, that I don’t even know you anymore. It feels like your entire world view changed, like all you’re interested in is El! You don’t give a shit about your friends anymore, apparently, because all that's on your mind is making out with your new girlfriend.”
Will spits out the last word with venom that claws up his throat and deposits itself onto his tongue. His chest is heaving, hands trembling at his sides from the adrenaline coursing through his veins. He feels powerful in a way that he’s rarely experienced —like he has full control over the outcome of this situation. Hell, he could probably spit out everything on his mind and still feel this confident.
“What’s wrong with me wanting to make out with my girlfriend!”
“Nothing, Mike! That’s the problem! There’s nothing wrong with it, and I hate it and it isn’t fair!”
Will can feel his tongue becoming too thick for his mouth and his eyes welling up again.
“It’s not fair that she gets to have you when I-”
Will bites his tongue, heart beating erratically in his ears.
That's a line he’s not going to cross.
A line that he’s told himself he’s never going to cross.
Mike takes a shuddering breath before stalking over on shaky legs until he’s standing directly in front of Will. His breath catches in his throat, and Mike is close enough for him to count his freckles and catch the glare of the streetlamp on his drenched hair.
“Will” Mike asks, voice shaky. “Will, finish your sentence”
Will shakes his head, eyes locked onto Mikes.
“Will” Mike begs, and Will’s heart breaks just a little bit.
“Will, please, what were you going to say?” He looks a little crazed now, and Will’s heart is beating so fast, he’s sure that Mike can hear it even through the rain. He takes one more step forward and suddenly their chests are pressed together and Mike is gripping his arms so tight there's sure to be a bruise left.
“Mike-” his voice is strained, “I can’t.”
“Why” Mike pleads. “Why can’t you tell me?”
“You would hate me.” And he’s so sure. He’s so sure that they would be done for, that Mike would back up, disgusted and horrified that he’d touched a boy who was like that. He’s so sure that Mike would think that he’s revolting, that he would tell him that he needs to get ‘fixed’, that he can get better. He so scared that Mike will hate him, that he’ll be appalled that he ever shared a space with a boy who thinks like that.
He's so scared that Mike will end up sounding just like Lonnie.
“Will,” he breathes, “I could never hate you.”
And even though he promised himself he would never say it —that if he never said it, it would never be real— he finds the words pressing at the back of his teeth, a grenade ready to explode. As much he’s terrified, he finds that he still trusts Mike with his life. That he probably does a foolish amount, an amount that will probably get him killed one day.
“It’s not fair that she gets to have you” he nearly whispers, “when I’m in love with you.”
Will expects frantic steps backwards. He expects shouting and spitting and horrible words that have been engrained in his head from the time he realized he wasn’t like other boys. What he doesn’t expect is for Mike to make a strangled noise in the back of his throat and practically crumple to the ground.
“Mike?” the hands gripping onto his arms fall away and Will frantically drops to the ground, kneeling in front of the boy.
Fuck, he’s ruined everything, hasn’t he? Mike probably hates him now, and he’s going to tell Dustin and Lucas and Max and his Mom and Jonathan and-
“Will”
Will snaps his head up to where it had fallen into his hands to find Mike staring at the ground, shaking.
“Will, I don’t hate you.”
Will deflates like a balloon and his eyes spill over again.
“Good, good, I-good” he chokes out.
“I could never hate you. Not with the way you laugh, and the way you smile, and the way you're so nervous all the time.Not with the way you’re always there, or the way you always try to think positively. Not with the way you're so thoughtful, with the way you're kind and still so soft despite everything.”
Mike wipes at his eyes, and Will’s heart seizes. He doesn't remember the last time he saw Mike cry.
“It might be impossible for me to hate you” Mike lets out a wet laugh, but it’s more a puff of air than anything. Will bites back the smile that's threatening to break out and sniffles, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Sometimes, I’m with El,” Will's heart drops. “And we’ll go to the arcade or the diner or the mall and all I can think is ‘god, this would be so much better with Will’.”
Mike laughs again, but it’s more self deprecating than amused.
“And sometimes, I’ll be at her place and Hop will tell us to leave the door open 3 inches, and all I can think is ‘I wonder if Joyce would say the same thing’.”
Will freezes.
He knows what Mike and El do in their bedrooms with the doors closed —he’s 14 for god's sake, of course he knows. But, if Mike–does that–but it can't.
Can it?
“Mike-”
“Will.”
Mike looks up and reaches his hands toward him until he’s cupping Will's face, brushing his thumb under his eye.
“Will, as much as I love her, she doesn’t have me.”
Will’s breath hitches and he feels like his heart is going to beat out of his chest. Mike looks painfully earnest —like he’s rummaging around in Will’s very soul.
“She doesn’t have me.” he repeats.
“Not like you do. ”