Chapter Text
As soon as Will stepped outside his mom’s car, he instantly felt a welcoming breeze in the air that could never be mistaken. Hawkins was back. Will was back. He felt exactly like the first time he passed by his old middle school, only a few weeks after his last year there was over. He had thought about that day all summer long, and he still couldn’t get over that feeling of old belonging and heavy nostalgia that followed him, haunted him, to high school.
Will looked at his house, closing the car door he had just gotten out from, and he just stood there, facing his well-missed home, admiring it. He never looked for perfection in anything: he always thought it was a subjective matter, so it’s easy to understand why, instead of a big hole in the wall, roughly covered with wooden panels, Christmas lights still everywhere, old rusty smell that laid familiar under Will’s nostrils, he stared in front of him and could only see himself. That home perfectly mirrored his personality, his thoughts, his memories. And yes, some, if not all, would say that place never changed throughout the years, except some damaged furniture and apparently meaningless junk that, actually, worked as trophies, achievements. But Will noticed how that house, that town and everything in between slowly changed shape, mutating into an accurate replica of his own, one that followed him, and started holding him tighter and tighter each day, wrapping him into the suffocating spiral that Will used to wear with discomfort and unease.
But all of that was always easier to bear whenever his family and friends were around. They always knew how to make him breathe whenever he felt like a python was choking him. They knew how to make him laugh, how to cheer him up, how to distract him from some horrors of his past.
He picked up his bags and got inside. Jonathan was already putting their stuff back where it was before they moved. The image of this family finally seemed normal, to Will, so much that he spontaneously smiled at the view. He carried his things in his room and ran to help his brother out.
A few minutes later, their work was interrupted by the sound of the phone ringing. Jonathan dropped the last plate in his hands on the table, and walked out of the kitchen saying “I got it”.
He picked up the handset.
“Hello?”
Will stood in the kitchen, slowing his work to focus more on the conversation in the next room.
“Yeah, we just got back”
By his tone, Will knew he wasn’t talking to Nancy.
“Yeah he’s here. Did you want to talk to him?”
At this point he guessed with little effort they were talking about him.
“Oh, okay, I’ll tell him. Can I speak to Nancy?”
Will stopped his cleaning routing with a plate in his left hand, and a wet sponge in the other. Mike.
Why was he calling now? Will started cleaning again, nervously speeding up the process. The knot in his stomach when he figured out who was calling started growing stronger, attracting more and more emotions in a big confusional mess. The number and the intensity of his thoughts started growing exponentially until he couldn’t distinguish them anymore. He just felt.
He wasn’t proud of how he left things with Mike. He wasn’t happy about his decision to silently walking away, but he figured it would make him grow. He figured that if he could just detach from him for a while it would help him. His skin started to sting the moment he remembered about March 22nd, his birthday, when Mike came to Lenora to visit them. Or just El, apparently.
“But what about us?”
“What?”
“Well, you’re mad that I didn’t talk to you? It seems like you made it super clear that you’re not interested in anything I have to say”
He tightened the grip on one of the glasses he was cleaning, clenching his jaw at the memory of that fight. That’s when he decided to let go. And in order to let his best friend go, Will actually needed more effort than before. It wasn’t the first time he had tried to keep his distance from him. The last time was on the day he destroyed Castle Byers.
“That’s just not true”
“You called maybe a couple times. It’s been a year, Mike. Meanwhile, El has like a book of letters from you”
“That’s because she’s my girlfriend, Will”
He felt a powerful fist grabbing his stomach, squeezing it and twisting it upside down. He had talked to Mike less and less until he finally thought he had no impact on his life. And he believed it, oh God he believed it. He told himself the magnetic force dragging him toward Mike would eventually disappear until he no longer felt neither the urge nor the need to constantly look for his attentions and messing up all his life for a desperate desire to be seen from him.
“And us?”
“We’re friends. We are friends”
“Well we used to be best friends”
The sound of the phone hitting the hard plastic made him return to the present moment. Jonathan came back to the kitchen.
“It was Mike,” he said, looking at Will “he wants you to come to his house”.
“What? Now?” he replied with eyes wide open.
“Yeah, he says he’s been calling all day, waiting for us to return home.”
Mike was calling all day?
Something was wrong about that. Will could sense it wasn’t a normal invitation. Their silence has been so awkward there was no way that was a genuine hangout like old times.
Like old times. He can’t go there.
“Well, you didn’t tell him I could, right?”
“Actually, yeah. Thought I’d free you from tiding up, you know” he softly laughed at his little brother, who stood still in the kitchen for a couple seconds before quietly walking away.
Am I ready to do this? Isn’t it too early? Can I handle that?
It’s not like he wanted to ignore him forever. He missed his best friend, he missed the good old times, when the biggest problem they had to deal with, in a month, was trying to extend their curfew whenever they went to the Wheeler’s basement to play DnD, he missed the way Mike used to care about him when he was having all those nightmares, and he just stood there, beside him, to reassure him. Every time.
Maybe he was ready. Maybe that was a completely normal nervous system response he would have had if anybody called. Yes, he probably would have frozen on the spot because of any of his friends calling him. Maybe he was just confusing the feeling he thought was anxiety for something else. Maybe it was excitement, or good old feelings of belonging.
He had been away from Mike for so long, it wouldn’t hurt to see him again now, would it?
His face turned serious, firm, as he walked towards the house door, waving at his brother, and he went outside to hop on his bike and manage all these new thoughts into his head, trying to organize them, while cycling reflexively towards the Wheeler’s.
-
He dropped his bike on the ground, as usual, a few feet away from the door. As usual. He took a deep breath in before knocking on his door, three times exactly. Now there was no turning back, he couldn’t have had time to pick up his bike again to run away, but the temptation was still there.
A few seconds later, he heard loud and fast steps coming from inside, and the door was eventually opened.
“You’re back,” Mike said, smiling from ear to ear “like, really back”.
He was wearing a poorly-buttoned up shirt (he probably put it on in a hurry, Will thought), a pale portion of his skin was showing from it. Will’s eyes were inevitably dragged to it, like a magnetic force he didn’t prepare for when he agreed to come there. His sight raised up again, eyes automatically looking for every single feature he memorized years ago and finding every detail right where he thought it would be.
His organs all dropped at once, leaving him with the hard choice on what to say, what to do and what to look at next. It took every single piece of him to hold him back from hugging his best friend right there and forget about everything else.
He wanted to give in, abandon his mind behind and follow his feelings into a risky, dangerously downhill road from which he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.
But he wasn’t his best friend. And he couldn’t hug him. Will actually thought he couldn’t even be able to get too close to him.
“Yeah, I am” he smiled a little, just a little, not more than that.
That was all that scared Will could take out of himself.
“That’s great,” Mike seemed to notice some kind of self-restraint in both Will’s actions and Will’s word.
“Oh hey, do you, uh,” he continued, stuttering this time, like he was trying to pick up the courage to say what he has probably been preparing and practicing all day. But, instead, he just shook his head to reconnect with the outside world and rephrase. “Come inside.”
Will nodded and followed him to his basement, like every time he went down there to play with his friends, but with a totally different feeling. He noticed something in Mike’s behavior, who wouldn’t? He knew him well enough to sense any little change in him, he practiced it for years, inevitably looking for every little hint that could reveal if mike was mad at him of if something was wrong in general.
But, you know, let’s give it the benefit of the doubt.
“You wanna sit? I have some snacks too, if you want.” the host offered as soon as they got downstairs.
“It’s okay, don’t worry.”
That didn’t sound too awkward, it was just three in the afternoon after all. He wandered around with his sight while his feet were leading him towards the couch. His eyes stopped on his personal binder, from when they used to play all together, right on the DnD table in the centre of the room. Mike followed his sight like a cat sneakily stalks a little mouse.
“You kept my binder?” he asked out of curiosity “I thought you’d thrown that away by now”. They were just too old to play, weren’t they?
Actually, what he wanted to ask was “You’re keeping my binder here?”. Too boldly of Will.
“No way, i knew you’d come back at some point,” Mike softly joked, watching will walking towards the couch and sitting on its edge. “the party is not the same without its cleric, anyway.” They both looked down for a couple of seconds. Too boldly of Mike, sure.
Mike sat not too close, not too far from Will. Who was, now, looking around Mike’s basement only to find something new on a chair. It was a white shirt that said “Hellfire club” on its front. He never saw Mike wearing it, he was sure of that. Then he noticed new dices on the table.
“What’s “Hellfire club”?” He asked calmly.
“Oh, that’s just a stupid club we’ve joined at school where we used to play DnD” Mike tilted his head to the left, looking at the shirt behind him.
Oh.
Will’s sight froze on the back of Mike’s head when he was turned. A DnD club?
He felt something both familiar and uncomfortable raising up in his spine. He nervously picked at the jeans fabric of his pants, then at his thumb with the other fingers.
They waited until I was gone to be into that game again?, Will thought.
“Okay, yeah.” He simply responded, still nonchalant (or at least trying) “So, uh, how have you been?”. Changing topics was the best thing he could do in that moment before everything in his mind came flowing unstoppably again, making him lose all sense of control.
“Nothing much, really,” Mike’s head turned around to look at Will, and he felt totally unworthy of just being able to talk to him again. “Hawkins is always the same, but, you know, it feels emptier since you guys moved. How about you? California has got to be fun, right?” He smiled, hopped a little closer to him, making sure his left knee didn’t bump Will’s right knee by accident.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s different,” he moved his sight from Mike to a random chair in front of him “there’s a lot of fun stuff to do, and some people are nice, but it doesn’t really feel like home, you know?” He turned to face Mike again.
He felt like studying, just repeating the same stuff over and over. Stuff that was in every one of his letters, that had no response from Mike whatsoever. Every letter, every call, they all contained news (now memories), questions and just every feeling that Will has ever had for Mike, all reduced to some sort of diary that Will wrote and sent with no reaction on the other part. Their friendship got lost in months of unilateral communication and unresolved issues.
“Yeah, but you’re here now, that’s what matters, right?” He smiled again, close enough to really observe Will’s face, only to notice how wiser his eyes looked.
Silence filled the room in an instant. There was nothing left to say between them, except for everything. All of it. The truth. The lies. The letters. The painting.
Silence was the best option between an awkward small talk and any of those things.
The air they breathed (both of them) felt heavy, constricting, soaked in what felt like a dead end.
To Mike, Will’s silence was devastating.
To Will, Mike’s silence was just what he had expected.
Mike broke first.
“Look, Will, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, for everything-“
“Don’t do this, come on.” Will stopped him with a resigned whisper right away, still looking in front of him, but lowering his head just a little.
“No.” Mike promptly reacted with a higher voice. “Listen to me, please.” Mike lowered his head to follow Will’s. “I know I haven’t really been the most perfect friend ever, since you moved to Lenora”
I shouldn’t have come here.
Will shook his head, like he didn’t want to hear what Mike was trying to explain. And he didn’t. It took months to finally get over the fact that his childhood best friend grew up and left him behind, he wasn’t so sure he could do any of that again.
“It’s not the same here without you, I just wanted to say that-“
Those words stung like a poisonous snake into Will’s skin, making his hands shake. He stood up instantly and interrupted him, again.
“Stop it, Mike, I don’t wanna hear it.” Will didn’t dare look at him, even though he felt his eyes on him, almost piercing into his soul.
“I think it’s better if I go now.” he continued, lowering his voice, calmer, quieter and disappointed.
Will walked over the stairs of the basement, ready to get the hell out of there.
“No, wait.” Mike shouted, panicking and instinctively standing up.
“I was stupid, Will, so stupid,” He ran to follow him. “I ruined everything. I messed up our friendship, but I’m here now, to try to make things right, because I missed you, I miss my best friend” his voice came out inevitably shaky, mirroring his true feelings. “Please, talk to me.”
As he said that last sentence, he caught Will by his arm halfway through the stairs, holding his forearm tight under his skin. His powerful grip revealed how much he wanted Will to stay, and Will’s attempt to run away revealed exactly the opposite.
“Because I missed you”, Will kept repeating in his head, uncontrollably activating a cycle he didn’t want to get into.
Yeah, he probably shouldn’t have gone there.
“I wrote to you almost every day.” Will’s voice came out unstable, but its content firm. He was finally looking into Mike’s eyes, really sinking into them like every time he’d make him a portrait. “You have no idea how that feels like.”
He felt a painful knot inside him like every time he has ever argued with him, or any other person. But Mike dragged this fight out of him, he caused this fire burning into Will’s lungs, he caused his need to burst his eyes out, difficult to resist but still manageable enough.
“I know, I read them. All of them.” His eyebrows frowned in a desperate chance to convince Will to stay. “I’ve kept them all under my bed. And I wanted to reach out, I wanted to talk to you again, but I knew I would just make things worse.” His thumb moved on his wrist to hold him tighter, resulting in a light brush on Will’s wrist.
Will stayed quiet for a couple of seconds, his breathing was hard and fast, matching his heartbeat. He felt so stupid. And so did Mike. Desperate, needy, stupid, he was willing to be everyone of those if it meant having Will by his side again. Not as his friend. As his best friend, again.
“I have to go now.” Will shoved Mike’s arm off his, then he turned back and reached the basement door.
He wasn’t actually ready to face Mike again. He wasn’t ready to argue with him again. He wasn’t ready to do anything that involved Mike.
As Will was walking towards the main entrance of the house, he heard steps behind him.
“Will, please.” Mike suddenly stood behind him.
Will stopped walking. He turned around to face Mike, in every way.
“It was my birthday.” He looked right into those dark eyes like he wanted Mike to read every feeling he was carrying in his chest. And maybe he did. “The day you came to Lenora, it was my birthday.”
He dropped the bomb, walked away and shut the door right behind him.
When did it get so complicated?, Will thought, thinking and ruminating about his birthday in Lenora. He picked up his bike and left, not to come back home. To anywhere. Anywhere that was far enough from his thoughts, his feelings and Mike.
This is so unfair.
He could swear he heard the main door of the Wheeler’s house opening after he started pedaling, but that didn’t matter anymore.
He had just crashed months of progress and thrown them out the window. He passed by the same old spot where he was taken by the Demogorgon years before. That was just the beginning. There was no point in getting better, or trying to moving on.
Welcome back to Hawkins.