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The rattling of the truck drowns out all other noise as the party drives deeper into the Upside Down.
From what Will heard as they drove through the MAC-Z, Nancy had to have taken out a lot of soldiers. Hopefully, enough to make them call for reinforcements, which buys them a bit of time. Will hopes it’s enough.
Hopper is confident they lost the military, at least for now. He thinks they’ll wait to gather enough troops before they storm in, guns blazing. Will tries not to think about how that insane scenario is not that far off into the future, and how difficult it is to visualize it ending well. After all, they only really want El -- everyone knows it, even if they don’t want to say it. And El and Kali have some incredible powers -- El would probably argue he does, too, even though he disagrees -- but if they’re busy fighting Vecna when the military gets there… Well, he doesn’t see that situation ending well. Hopper tries to be optimistic, saying he thinks they’ll try to follow the truck first, but what he doesn’t say is just as loud: as soon as they realize she’s not in there, Hawkins Lab is the first place they’ll look.
They transitioned to sitting down when it became clear that they lost the military, and now they’re lining the walls of the truck, gear and weapons stockpiled in the center of their little circle. Will is wedged into a corner, some shelves on his left and Robin’s shoulder almost pressed against his right. No one’s talking much, apart from whispered one-on-one conversations that Will doesn’t care if he’s privy to or not. He knows they’re all lost in their own world, trying to prepare themselves in their own way for what’s to come. For once, no one tries to make a joke to lighten the situation, not even Robin. Will can’t blame any of them -- he feels lighter after his confession, ready even, but that doesn’t mean he’s particularly optimistic about what they’re going to face.
It’s probably for the best that they’re all crammed into a steel box. It’s easier, when it’s like this, for Will to pretend like he doesn’t know where they are. It doesn’t allow him to forget, but at least it makes it a bit easier. Still, there’s something about this place, a weight that settles onto his chest and pushes just a bit harder as they drive further and further from their tether to the real world. He’s tried so hard to push the Upside Down to the back of his brain that actually being back feels less like real life and more like one of his nightmares. Still, he’s going to have to get over it, because in just a few more miles, they’ll be disembarking from the truck and setting off toward the lab. Murray can only take them so close, with the security gate and everything, so they’re going to have to cut a hole through the fence and walk the rest of the way to the lab themselves. Will’s not ready to see the Upside Down again, much less be so close to where he spent most of his time hiding, but he doesn’t really have a choice. He thinks about what Vecna tried to show him, what Vecna thinks of him, and feels his resolve steel. He’s not going to let fear control him -- especially not fear of Vecna, and what he’s done to Will. He’s tired of that fear.
“Hey,” Robin says quietly and nudges his shoulder, dispelling his thoughts. She says it quietly enough that her voice is almost swallowed by the noise of the truck -- it’s a private conversation, or as private as they can get given the circumstances. “Are you okay?” Will shrugs.
“I mean, ‘okay’ feels kind of relative here--”
Robin cuts him off. “Yeah, that’s not really what I’m asking about.”
He knows instantly what she means. “I… I mean, it was really hard. But I’m glad I did it.”
“Yeah, I can imagine,” she says, almost wistfully. “And I am so, so, so proud of you. That was amazing.”
“Really?” Will smiles. “That’s… thank you.”
Robin bumps his shoulder with hers. “Are you kidding? I wish I could be brave like that. I remember how I felt, back before I told anyone. I felt trapped all the time, and I was always so worried that I’d do or say the wrong thing and someone would find out. I mean, being forced to say it… that was always my worst fear. I know you weren’t really forced, like, held at gunpoint or something, but feeling like you had to say something… I mean, are you okay after that?”
“Oh.” Will contemplates for a second. “I mean, yeah. I think so. I mean, Vecna showed me the worst in those visions, so I already knew the worst possible outcome it could have. And I mean, I was scared, of course, but I didn’t have to do it. I think Vecna showed me those things hoping that it would make me weaker and feel more powerless, so telling everyone was my way of rejecting that and showing him that even if he can scare me, he can’t control me anymore.” He thinks about the things he saw in those visions. Everyone’s faces falling, turning away, drawing their hands back as Will reached for them like they couldn’t bear to feel his touch. Mike looking at him with disgust, like he didn’t recognize his best friend of over ten years. Him bottling it up for longer instead of saying anything, drifting further and further from his friends until they couldn’t even be called friends anymore. They were the type of things he’d seen in his nightmares for years, ever since he understood what exactly was so different about him. But they didn’t give him the same fear they used to. Instead, they gave him anger. Anger at being underestimated by everyone, especially Vecna, for so long. It was just another one of Vecna’s attempts to prove he was weak and breakable. And Will refused to let it work, not after he had forced himself to feel that way for so long.
“Even with Vecna pushing me to do it, I’m glad I did,” he continues. “I was tired of feeling trapped, too. And I was tired of it having this power over me when it shouldn’t, because it’s not some weapon to be used against me. It’s just who I am. Now, Vecna can try to use it against me, but it doesn’t have any power anymore. Everyone in the world that I care about already knows, and the worst didn’t happen.” He smiles, still a little teary-eyed when he thinks about it. “Actually, what happened was kind of the best possible outcome.”
“Yeah, it really was,” Robin says, sounding a little awed. “I mean, you told everyone you care about and then some. God, I could never imagine being that brave. Telling three people, each separately, was scary enough. And like, one and a half of those times I was like ninety-nine percent sure that the person I was telling wasn’t gonna judge me, but that one percent just really got me every time.”
Will laughs quietly. “Well, if it helps, I don’t think I would’ve been able to say anything about it if you didn’t say it to me first.”
“At least I’m good for something, then,” she grins. “And I hope what I told you about Tammy, and, like, what you said about your Tammy… it helped?”
Will sighs and fixes his eyes on a fleck of rust high on the truck’s opposite wall. If okay is a relative term, helped is something else entirely. He knows he didn’t have to say anything about Mike, not in the same way that he had to tell everyone the truth. That’s not really the secret Vecna was trying to weaponize, not the one he had shown everyone reacting to. But… Will had sort of hoped that if he just put it out there in his speech, said ‘had’ instead of ‘have,’ or even just called it a crush rather than what it really is, it would help him move on. But even after saying all of that, after acknowledging that Mike is his Tammy, because he has to be, the weight of his feelings is still sitting like a rock in his stomach. It’s so stupid. He knows that Mike doesn’t feel the same. He can’t feel the same. Will said it himself, hours ago, in his own damn monologue, that he knows the person he likes isn’t like him. But there are still things that just… don’t line up.
It’s the way Mike can never seem to stop staring at him, or the way he deliberately saves Will a seat at the table during every meal, even though they’ve sat in the same unofficially-assigned seats for the past eighteen months. It’s the way he lets their knees bump together while they’re eating lunch at school, under the table where it’s hidden from view, and doesn’t move it for sometimes the entire lunch period. It’s the way Mike comes down to the basement nearly every day just to talk, or to get him to play a dumb game with Holly, or to watch a movie and sit slightly too close together, or to just sit down there quietly and watch as Will doodles or paints with quiet wonder on his face. Like just being in Will’s presence makes his life better. It’s the way he was so sure Will could use Vecna’s power, how Mike was the only one who believed in him, how he’d probably have kept ranting about it to anyone who’d listen for hours if they didn’t have other shit to do. It’s the look of absolute wonder and disbelief he gave Will when he stopped the demogorgons. Each thing on its own might not mean anything, so every time Will tells himself not to read into it. But all of it, all together…
He thinks about what Robin said to him a couple of days ago. Even though Mike is his Tammy -- he has to be, and Will knows that -- it still feels like the snowball is rolling. It feels like it’s been rolling for months, maybe even years, and Will doesn’t know how big it can get before it finally becomes an avalanche or he simply can’t take it anymore.
He looks back at Robin finally. “It might’ve helped,” he says haltingly. “I don’t know. Part of me still thinks… no, it’s stupid.”
“Hey,” Robin says, quietly but firmly, “if anyone’s stupid here, believe me, it’s not you.”
Will smiles. “I just… You know the signs you told me about?” She nods. “I… I’ve seen all of them. For a while. And I want to believe them, but part of me -- no, most of me -- knows that I’m reading too much into it. I mean, I have to be, because what I said was true. He’s not like me. So I thought saying it out loud, that he’s my Tammy, might help me more than anything else. I’m… I’m not sure if it actually did.”
Robin hums quietly, thinking. “Well, maybe not, but I understand why you said it now. I mean, I definitely felt a bit out of left field to hear you call someone ‘your Tammy’ in front of that whole room. I mean, I’m flattered to know how influential I am in your life, it just confused me that you’d put it in terms only three people would understand.”
“Oh my God,” Will’s eyes widened, “I didn’t even realize what I said.” Accidentally revealing his friend’s secret was not something he had intended with that speech. “Oh, Robin, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean--”
“Will, don’t worry,” she chuckles. “The only people who would understand the significance of Tammy are the ones who know about me, period. Vickie and I have talked about all of that stuff, and I don't really think my big fat crush on Tammy Thompson is news to Steve Harrington, given that she’s been our inside joke for, like, going on three years now, so you’re fine.”
Will smiles lightly, feeling instantly relieved. “Your inside joke?”
Robin giggles. “Turns out, making fun of her Muppet-esque singing while high on Russian drugs is really funny, but that can be a story for another day, when everything’s a bit less… uh, dire and urgent and post-apocalyptic.”
“Isn’t this just, like, mid-apocalyptic?”
Now Robin laughs fully, as bright and loud and uncaring as always. “Yeah, I guess so.”
At the sound of laughter, Mike glances over at them from further back in the truck. He meets Will’s eyes for a moment, then his gaze darts away once more. His expression, like it always seems to be these days, is unreadable. Will misses when he understood what was happening behind those eyes.
Robin also looks at Mike for a moment before turning back to Will, leaning close and speaking quietly. “Before we get to the lab, I need to talk to you about something else.”
Will sits up straighter to show he’s listening. “What?”
“Well, actually, it’s the thing you said. When you told everyone. You know, about ‘your Tammy.’”
“Oh.” Will nods. “Okay.”
“So, here’s the thing, right?” Robin turns to fully face him, talking with her hands but still staying quiet. “You keep talking about ‘your Tammy.’ And it makes me really happy that the things I’m telling you actually help. I mean, I would’ve killed to have someone there to tell me shit like this when I was figuring all of it out like you. But… I need you to understand that I’m just one person, you know? I mean, you’re the second person like me I’ve ever met, and the first one is my girlfriend. I only really know my own experience. And the beautiful thing about being like us is that no one’s experience is exactly the same as someone else’s. But that’s also kind of the sucky part, because it means that you’re going to look for guidance in the things I experienced that I’m telling you about, but the truth is that they might just… never happen to you.”
Will furrows his eyebrows. “Oh.”
“Or at least, they might not happen in the same way,” Robin continues quickly. “Or, the things that happen to you might not have ever happened to me, and in those situations, I can give you advice, but I won’t really be able to give you any guidance at all. I know this is long-winded and roundabout and overly verbose as you know me to be by now, but what I’m trying to say is that… you might not have a Tammy. At least, not in the same way I do.”
Will falters. “I-- What?”
Robin looks at him seriously. “I’m not trying to get your hopes up, or try to get you to read into things you don’t want to read into, okay? As I said, I am not going to fully understand your situation. But one thing I do want you to know is that… Tammy was never real for me. She was, like, a classroom crush, right? I thought I was so in love with her, but I never really loved her at all, just the idea of her. And she didn’t have a clue who I was -- still doesn’t, I’m sure. The point is… I never even had a chance. I had no choice but to accept it and move on, and that worked for me. But -- and forgive me in advance for possibly overstepping -- from the little I’ve seen about who I think your situation entails, I don’t think it’s really like that at all.”
“You… you don’t?” Will can’t let himself believe that’s true. “How?”
“I mean, you’ve known each other for, like, your whole lives, right? And I don’t really know all of the shit that went down before I got here, but from what your brother and Nancy have told me, it sounds like he was there for all of it. I obviously don’t understand your friendship and what you’ve gone through together, but what I do understand is that he knows you and you know him a hell of a lot better than I ever knew Tammy Thompson. So I don’t really know where you go from here, but from what I’ve seen… I wouldn’t say I think you have no choice but to accept it and move on.”
“What…” Will whispers. “No, that… but, Robin, I--”
“I’m not trying to tell you what to do,” she says quickly, “and I don’t want you to take this as my ‘expert opinion’ on this subject, because I am far from an expert. And I know this is a terrible time to throw it on you, but I wanted to say it before we get crushed by a rapidly approaching alternate dimension, or eaten by Abyss monsters, or sucked into the void by exotic matter, and holy shit, sorry, not the time, but I still can’t believe any of the shit I’m saying is like, a real possibility of what could happen. I mean, I thought the secret Russian base and flesh monster was crazy…”
“Robin,” Will cuts in sharply.
“Oh, right, yeah. Sorry. All I’m saying here is that you might not want to take everything I say as the word of the Lord or whatever, because I only know my life. And I don’t even know everything I don’t know. I just wanted to tell you, don’t assume anything. I mean, I’ve assumed my fair share about people over the years.” Her eyes travel over to where Steve sits protectively next to Dustin, and she smiles. “Sometimes, it’s really, really great to be proved wrong.”
Will looks past Steve to where Mike sits. He stares for a moment too long, and the other boy looks over and meets his gaze. Mike gives him a smile, small and close-mouthed but warm, and raises his hand in hello, the gesture just small enough not to disturb anyone around him. Will finds his mouth turning up before he’s aware of it. He raises his hand and wiggles his fingers slightly in return. Mike’s smile grows wider, and he keeps holding their eye contact for what could be seconds or minutes, before the truck shudders to a halt. Mike’s eyes are torn away as Lucas grabs his hand to pull him up, and Will misses the security of the shared moment the moment it’s over. The party begins to gather their supplies, repeating plans until they’re memorized and shoving weapons and ammo into each other’s bags. Still, through it all, Will keeps finding his eyes drawn back to Mike.
Even knowing everything, there’s still a piece of him that would like to be proved wrong.
---
“What? I’m not going to the Squawk.”
Hopper sighs in exasperation at Mike, which brings Will a strange sort of comfort. It feels familiar. “Kid, you’re the one who built the bomb and all of the timer shit. You need to be there to set it up.”
“Um, no,” Mike snaps back, “I need to be here, where I can ensure that it’s set up correctly on this side. At the Squawk, it’s easy to put together. I told Robin how to do all of it, and if she gets stuck on anything, Dustin can help her. You get how it works, right, guys?”
“Yep,” Dustin says, at the same time as Robin’s “not really.” Hopper raises his eyebrows at Mike, like it proves his point.
“Okay, well, Dustin knows, so it’s fine!”
“Mike,” Nancy sighs, shouldering her gun, “Jonathan and I can work out how to do it, and you can direct us over the walkie, okay? But the lab is… well, it’s pretty dangerous here in the Upside Down, and I think it’s better if you go with them.”
“Bullshit, it’s better!” Mike replies testily, and Will fights really hard not to smile. His best friend is so goddamn stubborn. “Nancy, I’m sorry, but neither of you knows shit about science, and I won’t be able to explain how to set up the bomb when you don’t even know the things I’m referencing. I need to be there, and you’re not going to be able to convince me otherwise.”
“Jesus Christ, Mike!” We really don’t have time for this,” she cries, sounding just as exasperated as Hopper. “Will, can you talk some sense into him?”
Will splutters, taken aback. He’s about to ask why him, but Mike beats him to it.
“What? Why would you automatically go to Will?” he says quickly, too quickly.
Nancy raises an eyebrow and speaks deliberately, like she’s explaining a very simple concept to someone who can’t seem to grasp it. “Because he’s pretty much the only one who can get to you when you’re like this?”
Well, Will’s not going to let himself think about what that means until all of this is long over.
Mike opens his mouth to snap back, but Will jumps in before he has a chance.
“I think Mike has a point, actually,” he says.
“Thank you!”
“I mean, Dustin said he can make sure the remote timer works correctly--”
“It really is pretty simple,” Dustin cuts in, ignoring a look from Robin.
“--and what’s more important to us, getting the person who made the bomb to make sure the timer works, or actually set it up to make sure it fully destroys the exotic matter?”
Everyone is quiet, which he takes as a sign that they know which option is better.
“Besides, having extra manpower can be good if the military comes looking for El and Kali.”
“Extra manpower? Can you even shoot a gun?” Nancy hisses at Mike.
He rolls his eyes. “Well, not everyone is perfect, sharpshooter Nancy Wheeler, but yes, I can.”
She opens her mouth to argue again, but El cuts her off. “We don’t have time to argue,” she says firmly. “We need to get moving. Mike comes with us.”
Will looks at Hopper. He looks like he wants to argue, but -- shockingly -- he keeps his mouth shut. Mike tries and fails to hide a smug look, and Will shakes his head and smiles.
“Well, no use in standing around, then,” Steve cuts in. “Let’s, y’know, say our goodbyes and hit the road.”
They all exchange hugs and good luck messages, all of them trying hard not to show how scared they really are. None of them really succeeds, but the knowledge that they’re all doing it together is some comfort. Mike, Lucas, and Dustin wrap Will into a group hug, and for a second, they’re twelve again, and they just won a D&D campaign, and nothing bad has happened to any of them yet. Then they break apart, and reality rears its head.
“It’s gonna all work out,” Lucas says, smiling tightly. “I know it. Will is gonna go all wizard--”
“Sorcerer,” Mike corrects, making Will blush slightly.
“--yeah, whatever, and him and El and that other girl--”
“You mean Kali?”
“---uh, yeah, I forgot her name. Well, they are gonna kick Vecna’s ass, and then Dustin and I are gonna beat the hell out of some demogorgons and get those kids back, and then we’re gonna blow this place to smithereens and never have to come back to this hellscape ever again.”
“And I promise to never put Vecna or demogorgons or the Mind Flayer in our campaigns again,” Mike says, and they all laugh. Will doesn’t know if it’s going to be okay, but it’s nice to pretend that he does.
Eventually, the groups separate, and the Squawk group stares out at them from the back of the truck.
“We’ll be in contact,” Dustin says, holding up his walkie. Mike raises his in response.
“We’ll be ready.” They’re all quiet for a moment, then Steve raises his hand and grabs the handle on the truck door.
“Give ‘em hell,” he says, and pulls the door down as they peel away.
---
Mike and Will walk shoulder to shoulder, behind the rest of the group. El had carved a gap into the fence, and they’d ducked through one by one. He’d sort of expected Mike to fawn over El this whole time, but they’ve exchanged minimal words as the lab slowly grows closer. Instead, Mike has stayed glued to Will’s side in a way that feels so distantly familiar that it makes warmth grow in Will’s stomach. He thinks back to when the Mind Flayer took control of him back when they were thirteen -- well, what he can remember of it, anyway. It’s all so blurred and fuzzy in his mind, and there are entire parts he can’t remember at all, when he was more the Mind Flayer than himself, but there are parts that come clearer than others. Mike coming to his house, knowing something was wrong. Mike sticking by his side as they looked for Hopper, coming to the hospital with them, sleeping by his side. Will doesn’t remember the demogorgons invading the lab, but he knows Mike was there when it happened, and that he helped to get Will out. But most clearly, he remembers Mike’s teary-eyed face when they talked to him in that weird liminal space Will still can’t place, looking terrified but speaking anyway. He said becoming friends with Will was the best thing he’d ever done. He wonders if Mike even knows Will remembers that -- they’ve never talked to each other about what happened during that time. Will wonders if it would still be true.
“Are you okay?” Mike asks gently. Will gets shaken from his thoughts and sees Mike looking at him, eyes soft with concern.
“Oh, yeah. I’m fine.”
“You sure? You looked like you were somewhere else for a second.”
Will shrugs. “Yeah, I don’t know. I guess that’s kind of what this place does to you.”
Mike nods, but he still looks a bit worried. “Is it hard? Being back here?”
“Well, it’s not a walk in the park, but I’m okay.” He’s surprised to find that it actually is the truth. “Knowing the truth about what this place is, and knowing exactly what we’re up against and how we can destroy it, that really helps. It was always the not knowing that scared me the most.”
“I get that. The concept of all of this felt a lot scarier when we were younger, and none of us had any idea what was happening or how to fight it. I mean, it’s still scary as shit, obviously, but understanding it makes it better. You know, I’ve never actually been here before.”
Will glances over at him. “Really? How is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” Mike shrugs. “Well, I guess I was in here earlier today, when we found Nancy and Dustin and the others, but that was the first time. But I was so worried about finding them, it didn’t hit me until we’d already left that it was actually my first time here.”
“Huh,” Will says, thinking back. “I guess that’s true. You know, with how much we talk about the Upside Down, I forget how little time most of us have spent here.”
Mike steps carefully over a vine. “Yeah, when everyone else was here fighting Venca, we were driving through the desert for days on end. I mean, I guess I went into those vine-infested tunnels, too, but it wasn’t ever really the same thing.”
“So? Is it everything you thought it would be?”
Mike snorts. “Oh, it’s better. You know, my dream vacation has always been somewhere cold, dark, and empty, so this is kind of perfect.”
Will squints teasingly at him. “So, you think ‘cold, dark, and empty,’ and you automatically jump to an alternate dimension? You didn’t consider, like, Alaska first?”
Mike grins. “Nah, that’s too predictable. I say, go big or go home, right?”
“Do you say that? I feel like I’ve never heard that from you before.”
“Okay, well, maybe I don’t, but I just said it now, so that counts, right?”
Will laughs. “Fine, I guess I can count it. But just because I like you.” He doesn’t think about what he’s saying until it leaves his mouth. Given the truth he just told everyone, it sounds a little… revealing. He expects Mike to make a face or put some distance between them, but instead, his best friend moves closer and bumps their shoulders together in a way that can’t possibly be unintentional.
“I guess I’m pretty lucky, then,” Mike says softly. Will’s face grows warm, and he’s sure the other boy can see it. But still, Mike refuses to look away.
“Yeah, it’s definitely weird to be back here,” Will says, returning to a topic that feels like safer ground. “I mean, I was pretty nervous in the truck, thinking about how I’d feel when I saw all of it again for the first time. But actually being here… well, I feel like I’ve learned that there are bigger things to be scared about.”
Mike’s quiet for a second. “I mean, yeah, that’s true, but… now that I know what it’s actually like here, I can’t stop thinking about it. I mean, you were here for a week, all by yourself. I mean, if I were the one who got stuck here when we were twelve, I know for sure I never would’ve been able to be brave like you were. I mean, I’ve always known that you’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, but actually seeing the Upside Down is a really big reminder.”
“I’m not… that strong,” Will mumbles. “I just got lucky here.”
“Bullshit--”
“And if it were the other way around, I wouldn’t have had any idea what to do either. I mean, if my best friend went missing, I’d… shut down, probably. I’d be totally useless. But you went out and looked for me, and you never gave up, even when you realized how terrifying and impossible it was. It takes a pretty strong person to do something like that, too.”
Now Mike smiles bashfully. If Will didn’t know better, he’d almost think he was blushing. “Well, I just wanted to tell you that… I mean, making it through all of this, and having Vecna show you all of those things, and still being brave enough to be yourself? And obviously, nothing you could ever say would make me change how I feel about you, but it’s not like you know that for sure when you get up and tell everyone your biggest secret. It was so, so brave. I… I could never do that.”
“Oh,” he says as he realizes what Mike’s referencing. “I… I guess so, yeah. I mean, I don’t know, you’ve always been outspoken too. You’ll call someone out on the things that matter to you. I think you’re braver than you give yourself credit for.”
Mike is shaking his head, even as Will is talking. “No, no, but it’s not the same thing. I mean, I know I just say what I’m thinking, but that’s not… It’s not the same. I never know how to speak up about things that really matter, things where if I said them, I don't know how people would respond. I’m not… not brave about it like you.”
“Things that really matter?” Will repeats. “Like what?”
Mike hesitates, then opens his mouth to answer, but his eyes are torn away before he gets a chance. Will doesn’t even realize the rest of the group has slowed to a stop until he almost runs into Nancy’s back. They stumble and look up, where the lab looms above them. And at the very top…
“Is that…” Will asks.
“Exotic matter,” Nancy confirms.
“Is it supposed to look like that?” Mike asks what everyone’s wondering. Will doesn’t think he’d be able to put it into words -- it just looks like a ball of red light, writhing and pulsating, occasionally shaking like it’s desperate to be unleashed. The top of the lab is melted, with solidified drip lines coating the top floor like wax on the side of a candle. It’s unlike anything he’s ever seen before, and he thinks it’d be hard to miss if it had looked like that while he was in the Upside Down.
“Well, no,” Jonathan says. “It was basically invisible when we found it. Then Nancy destabilized it by, uh, shooting at it.”
Mike turns to his sister incredulously. “You shot at exotic matter?”
She throws her hands up, and Will doesn’t doubt she’s heard this from Dustin already. “Well, I didn’t know that’s what it was when I shot at it! I thought it was Dustin’s shield generator bullshit!”
He rolls his eyes. “Okay, but why is your first instinct to just go around shooting at everything?”
She laughs defensively. “It’s not! But surely you can admit that defaulting to shooting has usually helped us out in the past!”
“Key word ‘usually,’” Jonathan mumbles, and Nancy shoots him a look.
“Stop,” Hopper interrupts when she opens her mouth to retaliate. “So, it’s destabilized. What does that mean?”
“Well, when it’s destabilized, it disrupts physics and natural law,” Mike said. “Which I’m assuming is why the lab looks… melty. But if it didn’t already destroy everything when it initially got destabilized, then we should be okay for now. Until the bomb goes off, at least, but if everything goes right, we won’t be anywhere close by when that happens.”
If. Will tries to ignore the if.
“Okay,” Hopper says. “Then we keep moving.”
They make their way to the main entrance, and Jonathan and Nancy pull the doors open.
“The tank’s in the basement, right?” she asks, and El nods. “Okay, so you guys all head down there and get the supplies ready to make a bath for El. Jonathan and I are gonna go find the breaker room and figure out a way to get some power running in here.”
Jonathan hefts the travel generator and a bag full of electrical equipment they lugged with them. “Hopefully Dustin’s contraption works.”
“Mike,” Nancy turns to her brother, “I don’t doubt your bomb-rigging capabilities, but let’s wait for as long as possible to set up an active explosive near unstable exotic matter, yeah?"
Mike nods quickly. “Yeah, that’s probably for the best.”
“Alright, then we’ll do our thing, then regroup in the deprivation tank room, and wait around for the Squawk’s signal. Let’s go.”
The group files through the doors and splits off to go to their respective destinations. Will lingers slightly, trying not to think about all the times he’s been to this lab, how many times he’s walked through these exact doors with dread growing like a pit in his stomach. He tries not to think about all of the times they wanted him to describe exactly what happened in the Upside Down, or how they forced him to relive every minute of his time here. It’s no use lingering on any of it.
When he reaches the doors, he realizes that their group is missing a member. He turns and sees Mike frozen just a few feet from the door, looking like he’s just seen a ghost. Even though it’s as dark and empty as everything else in the Upside Down, his eyes keep darting around frantically, like he’s seeing something Will can’t.
“Mike?” he asks gently.
“Huh?” Mike looks up and shakes his head, but he looks pale and unsteady. “Oh, sorry.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing, it’s just…” he swallows thickly, “this is where we left the lab that night, when-- when Bob…”
The weight of his words settles heavily on Will. He was knocked out when it all happened, but after witnessing years of demogorgon-induced carnage, he can picture the scene clearly.
Mike’s voice wavers slightly as he speaks. “It’s not even like it was that bad for me… I mean, I was outside, I-- I didn’t even really see it happen, I just sort of… heard it, I guess, but it’s not even like I had it that bad. I mean, I-- I didn’t, so I don’t know why I’m…”
Will sees the tremble in Mike’s hand that he tries to hide by reaching up and gripping his bag strap tightly, and his heart aches. Mike tries to act so unaffected all the time, Will forgets about everything he’s gone through. He thinks most of their friends do, actually. Mike tries so, so hard not to show it, to prove to everyone else that he’s always fine, that sometimes Will wonders if he even lets himself feel anything. Will’s mind conjures a picture of his best friend as he was before all of this shit started -- loud, bright, unafraid to show his emotions and even less afraid to show his love for his friends. That’s still who he is, Will knows that, but it’s buried so deep beneath all of the stuff they’ve gone through that sometimes he wonders if Mike even remembers that part of himself.
Without thinking, he crosses the room to Mike and takes his hand. Mike’s shaken out of whatever memory he’s lost in, his eyes catching on Will’s and full of emotion.
“It’s okay,” Will whispers. “I’m here. It’ll all be okay.”
After a moment of quiet, Mike smiles. It’s not without sadness, and the look in his eyes is heavy, but it feels real, and the squeeze he gives Will’s hand confirms it.
“Thank you,” he whispers in return.
“This place holds a lot of memories for both of us,” Will says. “But we’re so much more than the shit that's happened to us. And after all of the other things we’ve faced together, this is pretty much amateur hour, right?”
Mike laughs weakly. “Yeah, you’re right.” He threads their fingers together, and Will tries not to think about how natural it feels. Like his hand was made for holding Mike’s. He gives a smile that he hopes is reassuring, so he can try not to think about how right it feels and how much that fact hurts.
After another moment, where Will waits patiently as Mike steels himself, they cross the room and follow Hopper’s voice echoing down the hallways and staircases of the lab. Finally, they catch up to the rest of the group just as they’re nearing the door to the deprivation tank room. Mike drops his hand once the others come into view, but the warmth of his touch lingers for a long time.
---
“Hey, while we’re just waiting around, can I ask you something?”
Will and Mike sit in an empty conference room on the first floor, having claimed a couple of chairs next to each other at the end of the long wooden table. Their walkie is on, so when shit starts to hit the fan, they’ll hear and get going right away, but neither of them could stand to just sit around waiting in the basement. The emptiness and eeriness of it all is enough to make Will shudder just looking at it, and he knows Mike feels the same. It’s so unnerving and science fiction-y that he forgets it’s the place where El grew up. For the first twelve years of her life, all she knew were those white-tiled walls that feel like they’re closing in on you when you look at them for too long. Since they met, not a day has gone by where Will hasn't thought that El is the strongest person he’d ever known, but seeing a physical reminder of everything she endured is a jarring reminder. The courage it takes to come back here after all of that and face down Vecna is a level Will doesn’t think he could ever possibly match.
Once Jonathan and Nancy got the power on, they all went about setting up the tank. It’s a lot easier here than it has been in the past, where they can just turn a few valves rather than having to dump hundreds of pounds of salt into a tub. It just takes a bit of trial and error to make sure the conditions are correct, and then all that was left to do was wait for the signal from the Squawk team. Mike and Will ventured around until they found a room that felt normal and human enough to not give them violent flashbacks, which is where they’ve been for the past hour or so, making idle conversation and tinkering slightly with Mike’s bomb to make sure everything looks good. For all Will could tell, it seemed pretty perfect the first time Mike asked him to help him look at it, but he wasn’t going to say anything when their hands kept brushing together as they worked. Now, Mike alternates between pacing and sitting restlessly with his leg bouncing. It’s frustrating how cute Will finds Mike’s complete inability to stay still. He knows it’s just a way to work out his nerves, anyway, so he really shouldn’t be fixating on it. Will supposes he could be doing some sort of ‘mind ritual’ to prepare for the fight, the same way El and Kali are, but being here with Mike is making him feel a lot steadier than any sort of meditation ever could. Plus, his tapping into Vecna’s powers just sort of happens, and it’s so new that he doubts any sort of preparation now would be that helpful in understanding how to control it.
“Uh, Will?” Mike asks. “Did you hear me?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Will says, “I was just lost in thought. Sure.”
Mike fidgets in his seat. “I don’t know if it’s, like, cool to ask this or whatever, and I guess it’s kind of a bad time, but while we’re just sitting here, I wanted to know.”
“Uh, okay,” Will says, laughing a little nervously. “What is it?”
The response is immediate. “Who’s Tammy?”
Will falters. Whatever he expected, it wasn’t that. “Uh, what?”
“Well, it’s just, when you were talking to everyone, you mentioned that you had a crush on someone, before you realized that this guy was just… ‘your Tammy.’” Mike looks at him intently. “So I’m just wondering, who is Tammy?”
“Oh, she’s…” Will thinks about Robin and stops. “Well, who she is doesn’t really matter. It just kind of means that I thought this guy liking me back would ‘fix’ me or something, and make me feel good about myself. But it was never really about him liking me back; it was just about me.”
“About you?” Mike’s gaze is earnest and intent, like always.
“Yeah, like, I thought I needed him to like me back, and once he did, I would finally feel okay with myself. But now that I think about it, even if he did like me back, I don’t think it would’ve made anything better for me. His liking or not liking me was never the problem, and I needed to accept myself and love myself before I could accept it from other people. I don’t know, does that make sense?”
Mike nods slowly. “I think… I think I get it. So this… ‘Tammy,’ whoever he is for you, you don’t like him anymore?”
“I…” God, how does he go about talking about this without revealing every part of himself? “I don’t know. I mean, stuff like that doesn’t just go away.”
“So you do still like him?”
Will screws his eyes shut. “I don’t… Mike, why are you asking me about this?”
“I don’t know, I just feel like we don’t talk anymore, you know?” He shrugs. “I mean, I know we talk, like, we literally live in the same house, but I can’t remember the last time we talked about something real. Not anything about Vecna or the Upside Down, or some random conversation about Star Wars or D&D or something, just… us. And I feel bad that I had no idea about any of this. I feel bad I haven’t really tried before, so I wanna try now.”
Will nods slowly. “Okay.”
“So, your Tammy… did you meet him in California?”
He almost laughs. If only it were that easy. “I, uh… what makes you say that?”
“I don’t know, nothing, I guess. California’s just… really different from Indiana, right?”
Will takes a second to think about what Mike’s saying, then has to stifle a laugh. “Mike, do you think there are only gay people in California?”
“I— wha— well, no!” Mike splutters, going red. Will laughs. “I just— I mean, you’re the first one I’ve ever met!”
He raises his eyebrows. “That you know about.”
“Oh my God, I guess that’s true,” Mike says, looking like he’s reconsidering everything he knows about the world. “Jesus, I know nothing about any of this stuff.”
“You know, if Max heard you say that, she’d think you’re a complete idiot.”
“Yeah, probably,” Mike laughs. “Well, now that I think about it, yeah, that sounds really stupid. But there was something El wrote to me about at one point, while you guys were in California. I just thought maybe…”
Will stills. “What did she write?” Mike pauses, then shakes his head.
“Nothing, forget about it. Looking back, it was probably nothing. Sorry, I’m just… I’m sure this isn’t really the time you’d want to talk about any of this, with all of this—” Mike waves his arms around to emphasize his point “—going on. But I just want you to know that I care, you know? And I feel bad that you never felt like you could talk about any of this before. I mean, I feel bad I never even realized you felt like this. I had no idea.”
Will raises an eyebrow. “Really? You didn’t?”
“No. Should I have?”
Will laughs despite himself. How does he even answer that? “I mean, no, I guess not. I just— sometimes, I could’ve sworn you knew. Or had a feeling about it, at least. Like, in California, and…” Will bites his lip, but he needs to say it, “…the summer before.”
Mike’s eyes widen, and he sits up straighter. “Oh God, that fight we had. Holy shit, I’m so sorry. I regretted what I said, like, the second I said it. I don’t even know why I did, but I promise it wasn’t about you.” His eyes are so earnest, his voice so desperate to convince him that Will knows he’s telling the truth. “I would’ve never, never, said something like that to hurt you, especially knowing now… God, I was such an asshole, and I’m sorry. I guess I was just confused about a lot of things.”
“Confused?” Will asks slowly. “Confused about what things?”
Mike’s eyes widen slightly, like he’s just realized what he said. “Oh, um…”
He fidgets for a second, breaking eye contact with Will. He’s restless like this a lot, but this seems different. Almost… avoidant. Like he’s hiding something. Then…
“You know El and I broke up, right?” he blurts.
Will blinks, taken aback by the conversational whiplash. Also— “You broke up?” he echoes incredulously. “When? Why?”
“You didn’t notice? I mean, it was kind of a while ago at this point — it was around when school started again.”
“That long? That was like, almost three months ago.”
“Yeah.”
Will shakes his head. “I mean, this is news to me. Did you tell anyone? I don’t think any of us knew that happened."
“Really?” Mike frowns. “I don’t know, I thought we were kind of obvious about it. But we thought it was kind of stupid to make some big declaration about it, given everything that’s going on. Like, everyone else has their own shit to deal with, right? They can figure it out on their own eventually.”
Will’s face burns as that all-too-familiar feeling of shame begins to settle in his stomach. “Yeah, I guess a big declaration seems kind of dumb.”
Mike stares for a second, then claps a hand over his mouth. “Oh my God, no, Will, I didn’t mean—“ he buries his head in his hands. “Holy shit, I keep managing to say the wrong thing. I promise I didn’t mean it that way. Okay?”
Mike grabs Will's shoulder gently, as a reassurance, and even though Will knows it doesn’t mean anything, he still has to force himself not to lean into the touch.
“It’s fine, I get it,” Will says, though the feeling doesn’t fully fade. “What were you saying?”
“Right. El and I.” Mike refocuses. “I guess it probably should’ve happened sooner than it did, but neither of us really thought enough about it with everything else going on, and then before we realized it had just kind of fizzled down to nothing. Like, I can’t remember the last time we kissed, even before we broke up. I don’t know, things had never really been the same since California, but I’m not sure if we were ever really right for each other in the first place.”
“Really?” Will frowns. They’d always seemed like such a pair, even when he had been jealous of them. He couldn’t imagine them ‘not being right for each other.’ “Why?”
“I mean, for the first couple of months we were back in Hawkins, everything was weird, you know? We never got to see each other, because Hopper barely let her leave their cabin if not for training, and with me at school and her training, then whenever we finally were together, it would be for crawls. Not a very conducive environment to any deep emotional conversations.”
Will shrugs, smiling wryly. “I don’t know, this feels pretty deep and emotional. You could’ve found a way.”
Mike laughs and bumps his shoulder lightly. “Shut up, let me finish my story.” He’s in full ramble mode now, and Will knows he’ll just say everything that comes to mind until he’s run out of words. Their friends find it annoying, but Will never minds. It’s more endearing than he wants to admit. “So, anyway, when last summer came around, I figured we’d finally have time to hang out and talk and stuff, and air out all of the shit that happened in California. Including talking about…” he looks at Will intentionally, “the painting you gave me.”
Will’s stomach drops.
“But it still wasn’t really the same,” Mike continues. “Even when we did get the chance to talk, we just… never really did. We fell back into our old bullshit of just pretending like everything was fine all the time. So then I was like, ‘Well, I can’t just bring up the painting out of nowhere when it’s been this long, I’ll just wait for whenever she sees it in my room, and I’ll thank her then.’”
“It’s up in your room?” Will asks gently. Even with all the time they spend in the basement together, Will can never bring himself to go and knock on the door to Mike’s room. It feels… too much, somehow, like a boundary he can’t bring himself to cross, and Mike’s never invited him up, either. He had no idea Mike even liked the painting that much -- it’s not what he should be focusing on, he knows, but he can’t help it.
Mike grins. “Are you kidding? Of course it’s on my wall. It’s, like, the coolest thing anyone’s ever given me. And it means a lot more because it’s from someone I care about.”
Will's breath catches, before he remembers. Mike thinks it’s from El, not him. Goddamn oblivious Mike Wheeler.
“But anyway, she was never even allowed to come to my house. So, there went that plan. So I just kind of put it off forever, and let all of the shit we weren’t saying grow and grow, until one day I just kind of… snapped. I finally just asked her why it felt like nothing was different when we were supposed to have everything figured out now. Like, she gave me the painting, and I gave her that whole freaking speech in the pizza place, so we both said what we wanted the other to say, so why wasn’t anything different? And that’s when I realized…” Mike looks Will straight in the eyes, and it sends shivers down his spine. “El didn’t know anything about the painting. She didn’t ‘commission’ it. She didn’t even know what it was a painting of.”
Will feels lightheaded. He literally killed three demogorgons a couple of days ago, and told just everyone he knows his biggest secret, yet somehow this feels more like impending doom. “Oh.”
“But honestly, that whole thing was kind of the push I needed to open my eyes,” Mike says earnestly. “And then I realized that we weren’t really right for each other in the first place. I mean, I know this sounds like beating a dead horse because I just whined to you about it the whole time we were in California, but you know the problems we had, right?”
Will nods quickly. “Oh, trust me, I remember.”
Mike smiles sheepishly. “Yeah, I figured. Sorry. But I thought that whatever I said to El in California was what the two of us needed to fix everything. But what I finally understood when we talked about the painting was that neither of us really understood each other, and we both wanted things that the other couldn’t really give. And I know exactly how I messed up, too, because the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I never really… meant what I said in that pizza place. Like, any of it. I was just saying what I thought she needed to hear, kind of like what I thought she did with that painting.”
Will thinks back to that night, him standing behind Mike while trying to pretend like his world wasn’t falling apart with every sentence Mike said. Still, the words stick in his mind: I feel like my life started that day I found you in the woods. Like most of the things his best friend says, Will knows he blurted it out without thinking. But that didn’t make it hurt less in the moment. So this is… interesting to hear.
“And once I realized that, everything just kind of came crashing down,” Mike continues. “It was just a bunch of messy shit I don’t know how to really explain. Just a lot of us talking and saying everything we haven’t said for, like, years at this point. She said that she never wanted to be my superhero, she didn’t want me to see her like that, but, like, how could I not? I mean, she literally saved my life. Like, so many times. And me… I want to feel needed, you know? Like, I need to have someone who wants me to see them as a superhero, someone who feels stronger when I’m around, not weaker because of it. And I think El knew that she’d never be able to feel like that.”
Will tries to ignore how everything Mike just said is a regurgitation of the veiled confession he gave in the back of that stupid pizza van. He tries to ignore the fact that he’s everything Mike apparently needs, except for the one crucial thing that makes it impossible for Mike to ever love him in the same way. Dwelling on it won’t make it any easier.
“So we broke up. And it was a little weird at first, but it was like once we didn’t have the pretense of being together, I could see that my feelings didn’t actually change at all.”
Will blinks. “They… what?”
“Like, once we were just friends, I realized that it kinda felt more right anyway. Like maybe that’s how I’d been feeling about her for a long time without realizing it. Like maybe that’s how we were always meant to be in the first place.”
“So…” he says slowly, “all this time, when you guys are talking before crawls, or like, having a moment by yourselves or something…”
“It’s all platonic,” Mike says simply.
Will feels like his brain is breaking. Mike continues talking.
“So, the only thing I was still stuck on was that painting. Because I didn’t understand. Why did you lie to me? Were you just telling me what I wanted to hear? Did it ever even mean anything, or was it just my stupid brain overreaching like always and seeing something that wasn’t there? I think about it every day. Like, every day. Just sitting here, trying to figure it out. And I’ve never wanted to bring it up before now, because I was so sure that it was just me reading too much into it, or being an idiot and just seeing something that wasn’t there, and I was so scared I’d say something crazy or weird or whatever and scare you away, but now… now I’m not sure anymore.” He laughs exasperatedly. “And it’s so stupid, because the world’s literally ending and the sky is falling and all of this other important shit, but I just can’t stop thinking about that goddamn painting, and how if something were to happen to one of us and I never got to ask you about it I would spend the rest of my life wondering and I just can’t stand the thought of that.” He takes a deep breath. “So, like, what’s that thing you said earlier? You didn’t want to have any secrets or anything left unsaid that could be used against you?”
Will nods shakily.
Mike nods in return. “Yeah, okay. So maybe this is that… for me.”
“Okay,” Will says slowly after a moment, even though it’s entirely too much to process, “but I don’t think I understand. You… what are you actually asking me?”
Mike seems at a loss for words. Maybe he doesn’t even know what he’s asking. Will gets how that feels. Will glances down and sees Mike’s hand shake slightly before he clenches it tightly into a fist. Finally, he meets Will’s eyes, his mouth set in a nervous line.
“I guess I want to ask… was I seeing something that wasn’t there?”
Will feels his heart rise in his throat, but he can’t let it take control of him. Not right now. He takes a breath, albeit a shallow one, and refuses to let himself break their eye contact. Slowly, deliberately, he asks: “I don’t know. What exactly did you think you were seeing?”
Mike exhales slowly. He bites his lip slightly, in that way he does when he’s about to say something difficult. “Okay, I’m about to say a lot of shit all at once. Because I don’t know how to explain one piece without explaining, like, all of it. So just, even if you think you know where it’s going, and you want to cut me off, please let me finish, okay? I…” he swallows thickly. “I need to say all of this. At least once.”
“Mike, what…”
“I don’t even know if El and I ever really liked each other in the way we thought we did,” he begins. “Like, I know that sounds crazy, because we were together for so long, but sometimes it felt like we were, I don’t know, playing at a relationship? Like, pretending, but I don’t even know who we were pretending for. Like, that whole summer in ‘85, everything just felt so… forced. Like, when we’d be kissing, or just hanging out in Hop’s cabin, or being all clingy and annoying when the whole party hung out. And especially when we fought, and Lucas would give me all of these dumb ideas on how to make it up to her, and then we’d get back together without ever really talking through anything, and it just went on and on, you know?” He’s talking faster now, and Will’s not sure if he’s even taken a breath in the last minute. “Or, like, when Hopper tried to stop us from seeing each other, I probably could’ve managed a way around it, you know? But part of me didn’t want to, because it finally felt like I could get a break from the performance. It was like I got so wrapped up in the whole idea of being a boyfriend that I didn’t stop to think about if I actually liked any of it. Maybe I just wanted to be really focused on it so I didn’t have to think about how empty and surface-level it all felt.”
“It?” Will asks quietly.
“You know, all of it. The fights, our conversations, the things we had in common.” Mike finally pauses, hesitating. He’s an anxious person, but this might be the most nervous Will’s ever seen him. It makes his heart ache. “Or, maybe I wanted to be really focused on it,” Mike says, slowly now, “so I didn’t have to think about how none of it ever felt empty or surface-level with…”
“With who?” Mike’s quiet for so long, Will almost asks the question again, even though he’s positive Mike heard him the first time. Then, he whispers, so faint and fleeting that if Will didn’t see his lips move, he wouldn’t have known he said anything at all.
“With… with you.” Even though they’re in a wormhole, Will swears he feels the world stop turning for a second. Because this… it can’t be real. It shouldn’t be possible. It defies every law of the universe Will’s spent his life learning. So he begins to shake his head. “Mike, wait--”
“No, Will, let me explain, please.” Another deep breath. “I know I was such an asshole that summer, and the whole time you were in California, and it tore me up every day. I wasn’t myself at all. I mean, I almost got a goddamn mohawk, like, what was I thinking?”
Will snorts despite himself, and Mike falters, cutting himself off mid-rant. “Sorry, not the time,” Will says quickly. “But that would’ve been pretty terrible.”
Mike laughs nervously. “God, I know. But that’s the way I acted for, like, a year. It was like I didn’t know how to be me without you around. And any time I tried to think about what that might mean, I just got sadder and more lost and confused. And I tried to write, and call, and do all of this stuff, but I don’t think I ever really tried hard enough. I didn’t let myself try hard enough, because I was scared that if I actually dug deep enough, I wouldn’t like what I found. Because I missed all of you guys, I really did, but what scared me was that I never once missed El in the same way I missed you.”
Will doesn’t know what to say. He might not even remember how to breathe. It’s everything he’s ever wanted to hear, but right now, when he’s finally accepted the impossibility of it all, hearing it just might kill him. It… it can’t be real.
“I thought if I just ignored it, it would go away. So I tried to. And I think it worked, for a while. It was easy to convince myself that I didn’t feel any of those things when you were, like, a thousand miles away. But when I saw you guys at the airport, it all came crashing back. The feelings. The… scariness of it all. And I couldn’t stop thinking that everyone else could see it too, you know? That if I let myself get close to you again, it would all spill over and pour out for everyone to see. And they would all know how fake I was, how… wrong it was for me to miss you like that. But if I just kept ignoring all of it, kept ignoring you, then I could keep it all buried. So that’s what I tried to do. And it killed me that I couldn’t talk to you, could barely even look at you, without feeling like every wall I put up was going to break, but I needed to do it. I didn’t have a choice. And then the roller rink shit happened, and El got taken, and it all went to shit. And, like, every second she was gone, every moment we were together in that van, I was sure everyone would be able to see it. How… messed up I was. Like, even when my girlfriend was kidnapped by government agents, I couldn’t stop thinking about you, or looking at you, or wanting to talk to you. It was so confusing, it felt so wrong, that I didn’t know what to do. I just wanted everything to make sense again.”
Will had never heard his exact feelings put into words before. Wrong. Confused. Alone. It was everything he’d felt for years. But Mike couldn’t feel any of those things, not in the same way. Mike wasn’t like him. Right?
“Then, when I got that painting, it felt like a relief to hear those things you said, and know that they came from El,” Mike said. “It felt like it was supposed to be the answer to everything I didn’t understand about us and everything I didn’t understand about myself. El finally made me feel like I was enough for her, like she saw me in the way I needed to be seen, all of that stuff. It was great. But afterward, nothing had changed. I mean, in our relationship, but also… in me. Having that confirmation didn’t make anything better, and I didn’t know why. Or maybe I did, and I just didn’t want to say it. Either way, I still felt just as… wrong as I did before.” He exhales shakily. “So when she said she had no idea about the painting, for a second, I felt so relieved. I was relieved, because I realized that deep down I had never actually wanted the painting to be from her. And then I felt ashamed, because I realized that the things you told me only meant something when I could pretend that they actually came from you.”
Will can’t breathe.
“But I… I don’t understand it. I’m not supposed…” he swallows thickly, but continues. “I’m not supposed to like you this way. But I think I do, and I think I have for a really, really long time, even though I never let myself think about it. It’s like, the more I look back, the more I see that there wasn’t one moment that made me realize that I feel this way. It’s always been there, growing my whole life, until I got old enough to understand that the way I should feel about my girlfriend is the way I feel about someone I’m not supposed to feel that way about.
“So that painting… I mean, I know it’s stupid, but I’ve been clinging onto some stupid chance that maybe all those things you said in the van… were true. That they weren’t from El after all. And for the longest time, I swore I would never say anything because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship, but earlier, when you said all of that stuff… the way you feel… I think I feel the same way, too.”
“You… you do?”
Mike nods. “I think so. And I know that just because you like guys doesn’t mean you like me, but with the painting and all of it, I need to know.”
“You need to know what?”
Mike looks at him with such intensity, Will can’t pretend he doesn’t know what it means. He speaks slowly, meaningfully. “This guy you thought was your Tammy… are you sure he’s not like you?”
Will searches his eyes for any sign he’s reading this wrong. It’s not there, but he still can’t believe it. “I… I didn’t think he was.”
“And now what do you think?”
“Now?” He takes a shuddering breath. “Now, I’m not so sure.”
Mike’s eyes look impossibly hopeful. The faintest smile appears on his lips. “Really?”
“Really,” Will breathes. “But… I need you to say exactly what you mean. Because otherwise I don’t… I need you to say it.”
Mike grabs his hand. It’s warm, and Mike’s thumb brushes gently over his knuckles. That alone is more than Will thinks he’s able to handle.
“Will,” he says gently, his voice full of emotion, “I really like you. No, I… I think I love you. I think I’m in love with you. And I have been for longer than I know how to explain. And I know I pushed you away, and acted weird, and did all of this stuff that must’ve made no sense, but all of it was because I wasn’t ready to admit it to myself. I mean, I was so sure that you’d never ever like me back. But here, at the end of the world, I wanted you to know. And I guess I’m hoping that you’ll say you love me too.”
Mike bites his lip nervously, staring into Will’s eyes like there’s nowhere else he’d rather look. If those Vecna visions were out of Will’s nightmares, then this has to be straight out of his dreams. It’s everything, everything that he never even dared to let himself hope Mike might say. It doesn’t make sense that Mike could feel like this. He was so sure that Mike wasn’t like him, so sure that he said it in a room with everyone he knows. This switch is more than he could’ve ever possibly dreamed, more than anything he could’ve hoped to ask for. It’s… It’s perfect.
He freezes. It’s perfect.
Too perfect.
“Will?” Mike asks cautiously, seeing the shift in his eyes. “Is… are you okay?”
“No,” Will whispers. “No.”
Mike’s face falls. “No… no what?”
“This… this isn’t real. No. I’m not doing this again.” It’s too good to be true. It can’t be. It has to be him. “You can’t keep doing this to me.”
“Will, I’m not doing anything--”
“Don’t lie!” Will rips his hand from Mike’s grasp and stands up, beginning to back away. “I… I don’t believe this! I know it’s not happening, it can’t be happening.”
Oh God, he needs to find a way out, some sort of tether to reality. What’s Vecna been doing, all this time, while Will has been in a trance? Is everyone okay? Did he find a way to hurt El, or Jonathan, or Mike? He can’t believe he was stupid enough to fall for this. He needs to snap out of it, but this Mike keeps walking towards him, hands raised in surrender like he’s approaching a wild animal.
“Will, I promise this is real, okay? I’m not… this isn’t Vecna. It’s just me.”
“No,” Will shakes his head. He feels tears roll down his face. “No, I don’t believe you. Just stop doing this to me. Stop making me think… just stop.”
“Will,” Mike repeats firmly, “I promise this is real.”
Will’s back hits a wall, and Mike steps toward him until he has nowhere else to go. He tries to take his hand again, but Will draws it up to his chest before he has a chance.
“I don’t believe you,” he whispers again.
“I… Will, I swear this is happening.”
“Prove it, then.” He’ll call Vecna’s bluff.
“Uh…,” Mike runs a hand through his hair. “Okay, how do I prove it, then?”
Will stops for a second. “What?”
“You don’t believe me, so what can I do to show you that this is real? That it’s not Vecna? Because I promise, it’s not. It’s just me.”
“I-- I don’t… I don’t know,” Will whispers. Mike looks at him for a second, then very slowly and very gently, he reaches a hand up and cups Will’s cheek. Will almost flinches away at the touch, but the look in Mike’s eyes stops him. Gently, Mike wipes away his tears.
“I’m going to do something. Please don’t hate me for this.”
“What--”
“I just need you to trust me, okay?”
Will shakes his head lightly. “I don’t…”
“Will,” Mike says. “Please trust me.”
He looks deep into Mike’s eyes, and even though he knows he shouldn’t buy it, there’s something there that feels so… real. So human, so Mike, in a way he really, really hopes Vecna can’t fake. Because God, he wants this to be real. So finally, against his better judgment, Will nods. “Okay,” he whispers.
“Okay,” Mike replies gently. He’s closer than Will realized, almost close enough that they’re sharing the same breaths. Still, he seems to get impossibly closer. “Just… close your eyes.”
Will listens and lets them flutter shut. He can barely breathe, or think, or do anything. The only thing he’s aware of is Mike, right there in front of him, closer than he’s ever been before. Closer than Will’s ever let himself dream he might someday be. He thinks he knows what’s about to happen. Please, please, please, let this be real, he thinks, and then Mike’s lips are on his.
The kiss is soft and gentle, tender but hesitant. It’s so light, Will wonders if it really is just a figment of his imagination. He wants to let himself sink into it, to actually kiss him back, but his body still feels trapped in fight-or-flight. Is this really the moment he’s thought about for years? Is it actually happening?
He feels Mike pull away, and he opens his eyes again.
“Are you… Was that okay?” he asks. “Will?”
The Mike he sees standing before him isn’t one he’s used to. He’s wide-eyed and worrying his lip, brows knitted together. He looks the most unsure and vulnerable Will’s ever seen him. And it’s such a real emotion, so honest and open and purely Mike, that the last shreds of doubt vanish from Will’s brain. That look of pure human emotion, full of concern and hope and love, couldn’t be recreated by anyone else, especially Vecna. Not when he embodies the opposite of everything Mike is.
So, Will faces the truth: Mike Wheeler, the boy he’s been in love with since he knew what love was, just kissed him. And now, Will knows it’s real.
He steps forward and, bringing his hand to rest on the back of his neck, pulls Mike into another kiss. And this time, it’s not soft or uncertain. He kisses Mike hard, with all of the urgency and desperation of someone who’s waited to get the one thing they wanted for a very, very long time. Mike makes a noise of surprise, and then he’s kissing Will back, and it’s better than anything Will has ever imagined.
Will stands on his tiptoes so he can deepen the kiss, and Mike’s hand comes to rest reassuringly on his waist. He runs his hands through Mike’s long, soft hair, and the other boy gasps into his mouth. Will takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss further, opening his mouth and letting their tongues brush together. It’s warm and wet, and it sets his nerve endings on fire. Even through the layers of sweat and grime, he tastes like something so undeniably Mike that Will’s sure he’ll never be able to get used to it. Mike sucks his lower lip into his mouth and bites it gently, and it forces a sound out of him that Mike swallows greedily with another kiss. His hand moves from Will’s waist to his lower back, and he pulls him closer until it’s not clear where one body stops, and the other begins. It feels like heaven. It feels like he could do this forever. Will’s never done this before, but it feels so right that he understands every stupid, cheesy love song that’s ever existed.
Finally, they have to break apart, just to get some air. They’re both breathing heavily, grinning like idiots, their foreheads pressed together. Mike looks at Will like he’s seeing him for the first time.
“So?” Mike whispers. “Was that real enough for you?”
“I’m not sure,” he whispers back. “You might need to try it again, just to make sure.”
Mike laughs and shoves Will back by the shoulder so his back hits the wall. Will smirks and reaches out, grabbing the front of Mike’s vest to pull him back in for another kiss. Mike falls into him, laughing, and their mouths find each other like it’s what they were made to do. Their lips slot together, and Will sighs into his mouth out of pure happiness.
He doesn’t know how long they stay there like that, kissing deeply and lovingly. It could’ve been minutes, or it could’ve been hours. Either way, it’s not nearly long enough before they’re forced apart by the crackle of their walkie-talkie.
“Mike and Will, do you guys copy?” Nancy’s voice calls out, coming through tinny but comprehensible.
They break the kiss, and Mike frowns over at the table like the interruption personally offends him. It makes Will smile wider than he has in a long time.
“Do you think she’ll leave us alone if we don’t answer?” he asks.
“Uh,” Will raises an eyebrow, looking meaningfully around at their surroundings, “I’m gonna say probably not.”
“Oh, right. Shit,” Mike says, but he’s smiling too. “I kind of forgot all of this was happening.”
Will laughs as Nancy’s insistent “Mike and Will, come in!” rings out again.
Mike untangles himself from Will and goes to pick up the walkie. “Yes, we copy.”
“We just heard from the Squawk team. They said it’s almost time to start, so Will, you need to get down here with El and Kali, and Mike, Jonathan, and I will help you find a safe path up to the roof, okay?”
Mike looks at Will, who nods. “Sounds good,” he says into the walkie, “We’ll be right down.”
It only takes them a minute to gather up their things, but Will grabs Mike’s hand before they can leave the room.
“Wait,” he says, and Mike turns to face him. “I just wanted to tell you that... I love you too.”
As the words register in Mike’s brain, his face splits into the biggest smile Will’s ever seen. He looks so beautiful, and so completely, unashamedly happy. “Really? You do?”
“Yeah,” Will says, sporting a grin to match Mike’s, “I do. I love you.”
“I love you,” he says again, like he can’t believe it. “Oh my God, I love you.”
He pulls Will into a kiss, even though neither of them can stop smiling. It’s clunky and silly and kind of a mess, but it's absolutely perfect.
“And hey,” he says when they break apart, “whatever happens, we’re going to be okay. I mean, we’ve got to make it out on the other side of this, because there’s literally nothing I want more than to kiss you again.”
“Really?” Will smiles wryly. “The whole ‘saving the world’ aspect isn’t your biggest motivator?”
“I mean, it’s up there, but--”
Will kisses him again, just to shut him up. “You’re an idiot, Mike Wheeler.” He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to that, being able to kiss Mike whenever he wants, but if all goes right, then he’ll have plenty of time for that.
Mike grins. “And you’re amazing, Will Byers.”
They walk toward the basement, hands intertwined like that’s the way they were always meant to be. Mike rambles reassurances as they walk, and Will doesn’t know which one of them it’s for, but he stays quiet and lets Mike talk either way.
“Everything’s going to be okay, I really do believe that. And I just know you’re going to kick Vecna’s ass. I mean, you’re a sorcerer. You’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met, and I’ve never doubted you for a second. You know that, right?”
Will smiles as his stomach fills with butterflies. “I mean, I figured, but thanks for the reminder.” Mike rolls his eyes and bumps their shoulders together, and Will has no doubt in his mind that it’s intentional. God, he loves Mike so much.
Finally, they arrive at the door to the deprivation tank room, and they drop each other’s hands once more. And yet, it doesn’t feel like admitting defeat or giving up on anything. Instead, it feels like a promise. A reassurance of everything that’s happened between them, and a promise that there will be time for everything that’s to come. They push open the door, and Will’s head feels clearer than he can ever remember it feeling. He feels prepared, and for the first time, he’s ready to face Vecna with absolutely nothing holding him back.
And as they walk into the room and Mike shoots him a reassuring smile, honest and bright and full of love, Will feels more hopeful than he has in a very, very long time.