Chapter Text
September 2nd, 1989
Will -
Everyone told me time passes quickly in college, but three weeks has felt like three months. Is it the same for you, or are you better at being an adult than I am? Do we count as adults? We do, right?
It’s not that it’s hard going to classes and eating at the dining hall and all that. I can finally listen to the radio without anxiety that Robin is somehow sending secret messages in song lyrics. Laundry sucks but, like, in a normal not-life-threatening kind of way.
It all just feels kind of mundane, I guess? Everyone is talking about football games or rushing frats and I feel like I’m still waiting for something.
I don’t know what.
This letter is dumb and I’m considering not sending it, but I’ve already rewritten it twice and I have two chapters of statistics problems to finish, so here you go.
Mike
-
09/09/89
Mike,
Your letter wasn’t dumb at all! In fact, it made my whole week. I totally understand what you mean…I think I forgot what it was like to be excited about life and not just scared. I keep telling myself there’s nothing left to be scared of. Sometimes it helps me to remember that the upside down doesn’t exist anymore. We destroyed it all. Blew it up. Boom.
Sometimes remembering that moment makes it worse. Maybe there’s no right answer?
I don’t have any math classes this semester. But I do have to take a foreign language, so I chose French. I thought one day I’d like to go to the Louvre in France and order at a cafe in the native language. Oui, monsieur, un croissant!
Do you see Lucas and Max much? They called me once and told me about the friends they’ve made. They seem happy.
Are you?
Talk to you soon!
Will Byers
-
September 29th, 1989
Will-
French? Really? I don’t know why that surprises me. Are you going to start wearing berets? I’m supposed to choose a foreign language to learn, too, but I haven’t decided on one.
I’ve seen Lucas and Max a few times, but they’re both living in dorms on the opposite side of campus, and our classes are in different buildings. Sometimes I think we’re I should try harder to hang out with them. It’s not the same with just Lucas, though, and you know how much Max loves me…
Have you talked to Dustin? I tried calling once but he didn’t answer.
Midterms are coming up and I’ve been spending a lot of time finding cool places to study and write. The library here has tall ceilings and big windows. You’d like it. The art department put up a student art display last week and it made me think of you. Your drawings are way better, no joke.
Yeah, of course I’m happy. Are you?
Do you ever have nightmares? Don’t answer if that’s a weird question.
Mike
-
10/07/89
Mike,
What are you even talking about? Berets? You think everyone who speaks French just walks around dressed like mimes with glasses of wine in their hands? I thought you were above stereotypes. Très décevant.
I’m sad that you don’t see Lucas and Max much. If I were there I’d want to see you guys every day. Maybe it’s a good thing I’m not there because I’d probably show up at your dorm all the time and annoy you. I miss Dustin too. I’d even take him when he was in his angry phase. (He’s a lot better now. I had to call a few times to reach him but I finally did.)
Thanks for thinking of me. The other day I saw a painting[words scratched out]
I’ve made some friends here. The community is really accepting in ways I didn’t think I’d ever experience, and there are spaces that I can be me. That’s…a new feeling. A great feeling. Have you made friends?
It’s not weird, and the answer is yes, I do have nightmares. All the time. My roommate is half scared of me because I keep waking up in the dark yelling for someone, convinced I’m back in the upside down. He hasn’t asked me why, and I don’t know what I’d say if he did.
Yours,
Will Byers
-
October 26th, 1989
Will -
I don’t have to speak French to know that you just insulted me, and I want you to know that I’m not going to let it slide. Do NOT make me find a French-English dictionary, because I will.
You wouldn’t annoy me. You always have a standing invitation to show up at my dorm, unless you’re going to insult me in French.
I actually think it’s better that I don’t see Mucas (get it, Max + Lucas) that often. I called Dustin again, by the way, and he answered. He does sound better. Like, a lot better.
It’s great you’ve made friends. What kind of friends are they? Are they in your major? What do you guys do together? Do they play D&D?
Halloween is next week. Remember when we dressed up like the Ghostbusters? We always had a blast. I bet your new[scratched out] I hope you have some good plans for this year. Are you dressing up? Send a picture. Mucas and I are doing an Indiana Jones group costume. I wish you were here.
I don’t have any advice about the nightmares. I try not to sleep.
Mike
P.S. why do you sign your letters with your full name? I know who you are.
-
11/04/89
Mike,
Suce un œuf, Michael Wheeler.
Why is it better that you don’t see Mucas?
That was a lot of questions. My newest friends are really nice people. There’s actually a college-sponsored club for people like me. Back in Hawkins, I would never have imagined something like that would exist. One of my classmates, Bea, invited me to join and now we all hang out, eat at the cafeteria, study, play board games sometimes. They’re from all different majors and years. There’s been no talk of D&D, but I bet Alan would join a campaign. He loves fantasy. Bea kind of reminds me of Robin–she talks a LOT. Maybe even more than Robin. But it’s weird…her girlfriend, Abby, sort of reminds me of Nancy?? Kinda weird.
Those Indiana Jones costumes sound like so much fun! Some of my art major friends and I went as crayons. I was the yellow crayon. I don’t have a picture, so I’ll sketch what it looked like below.
You should sleep. Are there any therapists on campus you could talk to?
See you soon?
Will Byers
P.S. because I want to. I’m working on asserting myself.
-
December 8th, 1989
Will-
Sorry I couldn’t make it home for Thanksgiving, but it was cool getting to talk to you on the phone. Did you see my family at all while you were in Hawkins? Were Dad and Holly still throwing up? Your family didn’t get it, did they? I heard your mom and Hopper got engaged. That’s awesome! Will they have a wedding?
So I understand now what you meant when you said your friends are like you. I don’t think I got it at first, but it clicked and I felt stupid for not understanding in the first place (seems to be a recurring problem ha ha ha). I 100% support you, by the way. I know we sort of talked about it before we all left Hawkins but it was a weird time and I wanted to tell you again: I support you.
[Short paragraph scribbled out into illegibility]
I hope you feel safe with [scribble] all of us the way you do with them. There’s no way that girl talks more than Robin, by the way. No one talks more than Robin.
Who’s Alan? Was he one of the crayons? Is he in your major?
I cut your drawing out of your letter and it’s on my bulletin board. Maybe it will be like a dreamcatcher and filter out all my bad dreams.
Mike
P.S. okay, I respect that. Sorry for the scratch outs in this letter. I’m tired of rewriting my letters a billion times.
P.P.S. respiration buccale
-
12/14/89
Mike,
Finals are ruining my life!! I can’t wait for them to be over! Ahhh!
Okay, sorry. I had to get that out. I didn’t see your family, but my mom took over this weird rice casserole that was supposed to be easy to digest. Why don’t you just call them?
Yeah! Mom’s over the moon. She loves her ring. Did you know Lonnie never actually bought her a diamond? He’s more useless every time I learn something new about him. I don’t know any details, but there will definitely be some sort of wedding. They were talking about next summer.
You didn’t respond to my question. Why is it better that you don’t see Lucas and Max that often?
Mike, I don’t know how to tell you this, but the only other person who talks about as much as Robin is you. Especially when you’re worked up.
Alan’s an Architecture major, but he’s in my French class and we’ve been studying a lot together. He wasn’t one of the crayons. He and some of his classmates dressed as the digits of pi, but they missed a number and started arguing over what order they were supposed to be in and it was the nerdiest, dorkiest thing I’ve ever seen. I laughed so hard I shot punch out of my nose. It burned!! Alan said next year I should be a green crayon instead of yellow so when I snort punch all over myself no one will be able to see it. He’s such a jerk. I think I’ll tie his shoelaces together when he’s not looking. Let’s see if he can shit talk with his face in the carpet.
You also ignored my therapist suggestion.
Can’t wait to see you guys for Christmas!!
Votre français est mauvais.
Will Byers
Mike re-reads the letter for a third, then a fourth time. He puts it down on his desk and paces away, but returns to pick it back up and read it again. There’s a hollow in his stomach that has nothing to do with his lack of breakfast.
A key clicks in the lock of the dorm room, startling him, and he shoves the letter into a desk drawer before his roommate walks in.
There’s ignorance, which is bliss, and then there’s shame. Shame is a virus.
-
To the Party, being back in the Wheeler basement proves that new chapters in life don’t invalidate or undo the previous pages. The room is more feminine now, having been taken over by Holly and her posse, and David Bowie as the Goblin King in Labyrinth watches the room from beside Mike’s Star Wars posters. It smells better too, thanks to several scented candles. The room has changed, but it’s still a place they belong.
Tonight, the room is littered with cast-off coats, and a pile of snow boots weeps on a mat by the stairs. A Christmas tree, smaller than the one in the main living room, has been erected in a corner. Four feet of popcorn on a string lies across a sheet on the back of the couch. Holly liked the idea of popcorn garlands but had realized why it wasn’t popular anymore: stringing popcorn is more difficult than it looks, especially when your older siblings refuse to help.
“-wouldn’t believe the equipment in the laboratory,” Dustin says, sprawled over one side of the sofa. The popcorn string rolls down onto his head, and he pushes it back with one hand. “They’re working with the team that put the satellites into orbit this year, and they say it’s going to revolutionize communication. I got to use one of the new Macintosh Portables AND adjust their radio antenna specs.”
“That’s crazy, man,” Lucas replies from the other side of the sofa, Max in between them. “They’re letting you do all this? As a freshman?”
Dustin scoffs, spreading his hands. “What does age have to do with it? I showed the blueprints for Cerebro to one of the TAs and she said it was third year-level work. Of course they’re going to let me into the lab.”
“I still can’t believe you built Cerebro all by yourself,” Will says with a soft smile.
“I mean, Suzie helped with some of the calculations,” Dustin admits. “I’ll take full credit for the hardware and assembly, though.”
“Do you still talk to her?”
Dustin shakes his head. “Not really. Not in a bad way, though. I reached back out to her after…you know…and she was doing well. She’d actually been trying to find a way to get into Hawkins to check on me during the quarantine, but couldn’t find a way around the military.”
“Aww,” Max says, putting a hand on her heart. “That’s so sweet! You didn’t keep that going?”
“She’s at BYU in Utah. That’s, what, twenty-four hours of driving? I’m a busy man.” The popcorn string rolls down onto Dustin’s head again, and he swats it away.
“That giant radio at the lab can’t reach Utah?” Will asks.
“It definitely could, but–”
Lucas cuts him off with a smirk. “I know why he’s not calling her.”
Max tilts her head, all innocence. “Why would that be?”
“He doesn’t want everyone at MIT to hear.”
“Hear what?” Wickedness blooms on Max’s face.
Dustin hesitates, then his eyes narrow to slits. “No.”
Lucas nods slowly. “Oh yes.”
“No! No–guys–I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU START SINGING–”
The door at the top of the stairs crashes open, stopping Lucas and Max’s duet at the first note. The Party collectively leans forward, looking up the stairs, then Will and Lucas jump to their feet as Mike appears, struggling with an overladen tray. “Let me help,” Lucas offers, taking a plate of cookies.
Mike protests as Will reaches for the hot cocoa. “Let me help,” Will scolds, gathering steaming mugs.
“At least wait until I’m down the stairs,” Mike argues, wobbling and adjusting as weight is redistributed.
“You’ll fall–”
“I’ve got it–”
“You definitely do not have it.” Will’s voice is low as he focuses on the drinks.
“See, this is your problem, Wheeler,” Max calls from the couch. “You always think you’ve got it.”
Mike stills, shooting Max a dark look. “Thanks,” he mutters as he follows Will down the stairs to set the tray on the folding table. He claps his hands together once. “Okay, Mom made like five different types of cookies and she said if we don’t eat them all she’s going to make you take them home with you.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Dustin replies, already crunching into a pinwheel. “Oh man, these are so much better than my mom’s.”
“I’m gonna tell her you said that,” Lucas threatens.
Dustin’s face creases in horror. “Please don’t. I’m serious.”
Mike grins as the locusts he calls friends descend on the snacks. He’s missed this. He hadn’t known how much he missed it until right this moment. He’s missed it so much, in fact, it annoys him. “Anyone need anything?”
The others give him thumbs up or shake their heads, mouths full. Mike drops his lanky body into an armchair, still smiling. His eyes wander past Lucas’ arm draped over Max’s shoulders, Dustin’s MIT hat, and come to rest on Will’s hands wrapped around a Santa mug. Those fingers twitch, and Mike’s gaze rises to find Will looking back. They both half-smile, and the buzzing in Mike’s ears drowns out everything else in the room.
Maybe if he faked a headache they’d all go home early and he could talk Will into a sleepover, like old times. Letters are great, but he’d like to hear about the semester straight from his mouth.
He must be too obvious. Will’s smile stagnates and his eyes dart away, and Mike feels ridiculous. He grabs a mug of cocoa–anything he can do with his hands to look occupied.
“Um, I heard about the others and their Halloween costumes,” Will says to Dustin. “Do they have Halloween at MIT?”
“Dude, the only thing mega-nerds are better at than studying is having fun,” Dustin replies. “I went as a 80486 microprocessor. It was a riot.”
“How?” Mike asks.
“Tinfoil. So much tinfoil. Wait, what were you guys?”
Max grins. “I was a guy you might know a little something about…someone named Indiana Jones.”
“That’s amazing! Lucas, what were you?”
“Elsa Schneider,” Lucas replies, sheepish as Dustin squeaks with delight. “The love interest.”
“Did you wear a wig? Tell me you wore a wig.”
“Oh, he wore a wig,” Max affirms. “He ROCKED that wig.”
Dustin claps his hands and roars with laughter. “Oh man, I can’t believe I missed that! Mike? What were you? The Holy Grail?”
“Close. I was the Grail Knight. Max dusted me with cornstarch.” Mike’s cheeks hurt; he hasn’t smiled this much in months.
Max groans. “Yeah, I’m still finding cornstarch in my shoes.”
“Worth it,” Lucas holds his hands up for high-fives, which Max and Mike happily oblige. “Will, I heard something about colors?”
“Crayons,” Will corrects, hiding his own smile behind a fist. “A yellow crayon, to be precise. We had a whole rainbow.”
“Appropriate,” Max teases.
Will ducks his head instinctively. Dustin reaches over to jostle his chair. “Come on. It’s just us.” His voice is softer than usual and he gives the chair one last shake as Will’s head rises like a turtle coming out of its shell.
Lucas nods vigorously, his goofy smile sobering into something earnest. “Just us, man. It’s all good.”
“You’re safe,” Max adds.
Her eyes flick to Mike with expectation, and he knows it’s his turn to reassure Will, to prove that nothing has changed, that nothing ever will change. The longer the moment stretches however, the faster his heart beats, and the farther apart his thoughts scatter. He’s thought many times, laying in his dorm bed, about what he’d say in a moment like this. Now that it’s here, though, every word feels like a step too far.
There’s a deep well of things he should say. There’s so much he needs to explain, so many questions and confessions, and it’s all knotted up together so tightly that pulling one thread might undo him, or strangle him.
He feels strangled now. “Yeah,” he finally forces out, and the beat of silence that follows informs him that his false enthusiasm fooled no one.
Max’s disappointment is scalding. He doesn’t dare look at Will.
“Tell us about your friends,” Max demands, leaning her chin on her fist. “What kind of people are in Fine Arts programs in the big city?” Will obliges, launching into a description of his classmates, and Mike zones out to simmer in shame until Max says, bouncing her eyebrows, “Anyone…special?”
The room slams back into focus. Mike jerks his head up, meets Will’s eyes again, and takes an overlarge swig from his mug. The hot cocoa is still hot, and it singes his tongue.
Of course Will should find someone special. Just because he…at one time…for just a moment…thought of him–of Mike–like that never meant that he always would. Will said it himself that afternoon before they all went to battle: he’d had a crush. He was looking at Mike when he said it, whether he’d meant to or not.
Just a crush.
And I know…I know he’s not like me, he’d said, pretty tears pouring down his pretty cheeks.
He knew Mike was straight. Normal.
Mike knew it, too. Until he fucking didn’t. Because why, if he was so goddamn straight, did he look back over a decade of friendship with Will and feel like he was falling down an endless flight of stairs?
Sure, his friendship with Will was different from the others; it always had been. The whispers in dark rooms, close enough to feel each other’s breath. The way the air thrummed when Will looked at him like that, hair standing up on his neck like lightning was about to strike. The careful, measured way they pretended it wasn’t happening.
The more he’d thought about it, the more fog lifted–every excuse he’d ever made to touch him, every conversation that felt like a puzzle, every time that someone put their hands on Will and Mike felt like he must have been bitten by a werewolf because he was going to jump out of his skin and maul them.
No one knew what Mike needed the way Will knew. No one understood Will the way Mike understood him. No one was allowed.
It’s incredible how much they both knew.
Turns out, neither of them knew shit.
“‘Special?’” Will repeats. He jerks his eyes away from Mike.
“Special. Roommate? Tutor that makes you want to study a little extra?”
Dustin snorts. “Will doesn’t need tutoring. He’s not a moron like Troy.”
“You know, it’s not just morons who need tutoring,” Max chides. “You can be amazing at one class and suck at another.”
“...are you admitting that you have a tutor?”
“No.” Max looks at Mike and her head tilts just a bit, just enough to express to him that all of this is intentional. “Mike does, though, don’t you?”
It’s a testament to Mike’s bond with Lucas that the rest of the too-hot cocoa doesn’t end up in Max’s lap. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I? It’s free through the school and psychology makes no sense.”
Dustin’s jaw drops. “Dude. You need a tutor for psychology?”
“I missed a few classes,” Mike snaps. “So what?”
Whatever inflammatory comment Dustin plans to say next is cut off by Will, whose voice is gentle. “I have a tutor for French. Not even upper level French, like French 101. I’m so bad at it, guys, seriously. If anyone’s a moron here, it’s me.”
“No one is a moron,” Lucas states, making a cutting motion in the air with his hand.
Dustin gets the hint. “I’m totally kidding, by the way. Tutors are great resources.”
“The tutor wasn’t even the point,” Max says with a sigh. “Is your French tutor a guy or a girl, Will?”
“A guy.”
“Is he cute?”
“Definitely not.”
“Damn.” Max squints at Will. “But there’s someone who is, isn’t there?”
Will’s naturally rosy cheeks darken. He looks at the floor, then at the ceiling, the smallest smile pulling at his lips. One shoulder rises in a half-shrug. “Maybe.”
Lucas and Dustin clamor over each other, heckling him, and Mike chokes silently. “I knew it!” Max crows. “Tell me everything!”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Will protests, red but pleased. “Nothing’s happened yet.”
“‘Yet?’” Max squeals.
Will puts his hands over his face, hiding his grin. “Oh my god. Stop!”
“Tell us, tell us, tell us–”
“His name is Alan. He’s in my French class but some extended member of his family speaks it, so his pronunciation is perfect. We eat together at the foreign language table on Thursdays.” Will spits the words out as his fingers twist together anxiously. “Last week he bought my lunch.”
Dustin is cookie-drunk with crumbs all over his sweater. “For a poor college student, lunch is practically a proposal.”
“Hold onto a man that buys you food,” Lucas adds.
“Why am I always the one buying you lunch?” Max asks, twisting around to look at her boyfriend.
Lucas cheeses at her. “Because you love me.”
“Presumptuous of you,” Max fires back.
The conversation turns to cafeteria food. Will laughs and sips his drink, and his eyes stay far from the chair where Mike sits, drowning and alone.
-
Cold weather used to bring Mike joy; it meant holidays, presents, sledding, cookies. His parents would set fires in the living room grate, and the smell of the burning log would float up the stairs to his bedroom. He would close his eyes and pretend that he was in a hobbit hole in the heart of the Shire, warm and cozy and safe. Unlike Bilbo, he didn’t need to wait for a wizard to knock on the door; a wizard slept on the floor beside his bed almost every weekend. Gandalf had nothing on Will the Wise.
Everything changed that November night. The cold became a beast, empty and terrible in Mike’s bones, and if he still dreads the dropping temperature, winter must infest Will’s mind like lice. If things were still the way they used to be, Mike could be there for Will as often as he’d let him–they could stay warm under a quilt, distracted by their own imaginations, hand in hand if need be.
But things aren’t the way they used to be.
On a night like tonight, with ragged flakes of snow drifting in the still air, it was impossible not to be transported to another world, one where ash and rot floated in a damp, windless abyss. It was in that world, jolting against the wall of a crowded truck, that Mike had realized two truths.
The first truth was that he would always love El the same way he loved her at that moment. It didn’t matter what did or didn’t happen between them, or that they had broken up not long after she’d come back from Lenora; he loved her.
As a child he’d believed everything could be sorted like skittles into all the colors of the rainbow; yellow was yellow and purple was purple and that was that. As an adult he realized life wasn’t that easy. Sometimes purple was red when you tilted it a certain way, sometimes yellow could be green depending on your mood, and sometimes a color had no name at all.
The word ‘love’ was like that. He loved El truly, honestly, with all his scrawny, emotionally constipated heart. He’d told her so in a dim kitchen as she floated in a pizza freezer filled with brine, and it wasn’t a lie.
Well, not a complete lie, anyway. His love for her was real…but it wasn’t the kind of love she wanted, the kind with lips and hands and desire. It was an I’ll keep you safe forever kind of love, a you’ll always be accepted kind of love. He’d tried (really hard!) to love her the way she wanted. He tried to want her, to picture a future together with a house and a family and the things men and women do together but dear god almighty he’d rather jump off the fucking quarry edge again than imagine her in the lacy underthings he saw at the mall. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t even pretend.
He would always love her, but he would never love her.
The second truth was not that he loves Will. He’d known he loves Will for years. His love for Will had started with a question on a swingset and had grown like a tree, pushing roots into his foundations and cracking his walls. Will was such a fixture that he had considered it only natural to love him, only natural to stay near him, organize his life around him and his needs.
By the time the lips and hands and desire had started, El was in his life, and Mike had figured that he was sort of…getting the wires crossed. It made sense; going from kissing El in her bedroom to sitting next to Will in a dark theater, fingers brushing in the popcorn bucket.
The woman on the television channel his father watched on Sundays said that young men were susceptible to this kind of self-deception. They got confused, she said, if they didn’t spend enough time with appropriate young women.
El was the only young woman Mike spent time with if you didn’t count Max, and Mike did not count Max.
So of course Mike was going to have thoughts. He was used to touching Will in all sorts of innocent ways; arms and thighs pressed together side by side in cramped backseats of cars, hands clasped in times of stress, excited hugs when the Party conquered the campaign. Of course he was going to imagine what it would feel like if he, for instance, tripped in an empty hallway, pulling Will down to the floor with him, their legs tangling like power cords and Will’s weight on his body.
It was normal that he would think about being somehow locked in a tiny closet together, Will pressed up against him, chest to chest and hips to hips, no help for it but to twine their arms around each other’s waists, fingers digging in–
Or maybe in the movie theater, in the very back row where no one can see, maybe Will’s hand could crawl up his neck, turning and tugging his face closer and closer, eyes fluttering shut–or maybe open and fierce? Maybe Mike likes that better–and their lips could find each other in the dark, salty and sweet and soft–
It was all very natural and normal, he thought, and Will seemed to be in the same situation. After all, Will spent even less time with girls, so of course the electricity would run both ways.
He’d never outright ask if Will felt the same way, not when kids at school and the gym teacher and Lonnie the Dickhead were always on his case, making him feel self-conscious. The last thing Will needed was one more person making normal human experiences seem like something wrong and dangerous.
One day they’d both grow up and start kissing girls and everything would be the way it was supposed to be.
Was he stupid?
No.
Yes?
He must be.
The second truth was not that he loves Will, it was that he loves Will, and it’s not going away. He loves him the way Leia loves Han, the way Wesley loves Buttercup, the way a man is supposed to love a woman. The wrong way. The way that was supposed to stop at some point. Maybe his confusion had become malignant, permanent, or maybe he was broken from the start and never stood a chance.
He had enough experience at that point to know that he couldn’t escape…those feelings just by putting distance between himself and Will. Eddie had proven that. It’s not just Will, it’s the male body in general: broad shoulders and corded forearms and full, smirking lips make Mike’s mouth dry and head empty. Tight jeans. Confidence. The way a full Adam’s apple moves when he laughs.
It’s not just Will. But oh, god, it is Will.
It’s the way his hazel eyes are so honest, so genuine. It’s his smiles: the crooked, cautious one, the confused-but-rolling-with-it one, the one so big and bright it’s painful to look at. The face that Mike is convinced has only been seen by him and him alone–a hesitant, heated, half-smile behind dark, fine lashes.
It’s the way his fingers wrap around pencils as he loses himself in a sketch, lips twitching in concentration. It’s his clever mind tempered with a deep, unending well of good nature. It’s the way he always takes Mike’s side in an argument, even when Mike is wrong, especially when Mike is wrong. It’s his unbreakable spirit behind his soft, gentle heart.
It’s Will, it’s Will. Mike would die for him, kill for him. Mike would do anything for him except be honest.
In that truck, rattling through a rotten hellscape en route to fight a Lovecraftian horror, Mike decided that he was done being distracted by bullshit. None of the extra stuff mattered. Fuck polite society, fuck the woman on the television, fuck the mouth breathers at school, and fuck expectations. Sure, Will said that he was just a crush, but if you want the truth, you don’t listen to Will’s words, you watch his face. Maybe Will couldn’t say what he really felt. Maybe he felt the same way that Mike felt, burned the way Mike burned, and maybe they could navigate this fucked up world together.
Mike started a clumsy conversation halfway up the radio tower, waiting for the sky to fall and unable to focus on anything else until this situation was addressed. He apologized, stumbling over phrasing, and Will waved it away just like Mike knew he would. None of his words or explanations sounded as good aloud as they had in his head, and before he could reach the important parts, the parts he needed to say, Will was speaking.
He hadn’t understood it all himself, Will said, and he needed things to happen the way that they happened. He needed to find his own way. He was glad Mike hadn’t abandoned him (what must Will think of him to even consider that a possibility?).
Then he looked at Mike and asked if they could still be friends.
He must have known that Mike knew, yet he was asking to be friends. His face was carefully blank, oddly unreadable.
Maybe Mike was missing something. Maybe Will had erected a wall to hide behind, a smokescreen to keep himself safe. Maybe Will the Wise needed Mike the Brave to break that wall down.
He’d ease into it casually.
“Friends?” Mike began, heart pounding hard enough to nauseate him. “No thanks–”
His words cracked Will’s blank face, just as intended, but instead of hope or understanding, Mike saw the one expression he feared: Will cringed.
Oh god. Oh god.
He’d read this all wrong. Will wasn’t protecting himself, he was protecting Mike from the shame of it all. He was gently, carefully letting Mike know that this was his decision, this was what he wanted: friends. Nothing more.
His words weren’t some sort of code. He’d meant everything he’d said–whatever was between them had been nothing more than a crush, a fleeting fancy, an obstacle to be overcome on the way to self-actualization.
The problem wasn’t liking boys, the problem was liking Mike. He was glad to turn the page. He was moving on.
He wanted to be friends.
Friends.
Mike repeated the word so many times in his head that it lost meaning and became sounds.
The sky was still falling and Will wanted to be friends.
Of course.
Mike could learn to live with that. Obviously. Duh.
He’d have to.
“Best friends,” he finished, swallowing splinters.
Will’s brilliant smile lit up the dusk.
Friends.
So Mike did what he does best; he took his feelings and squashed them into the smallest blob possible and stuffed that blob in a deep crevice, somewhere between his fear of heights and the knowledge that he was a disappointment to his father.
That fetid world collapsed, blown apart by a bomb born from Mike’s hands. The cataclysm swallowed the rotten mockery of Hawkins, swallowed the conversation on the radio tower, and in the end it swallowed El, too.
The world was saved and Mike was lost, groping for direction in a world he no longer knew how to fit in.
Now Mike stands outside on a cold December night, watching his friends get into their cars or on their bicycles. Dustin goes first, loaded with tupperware full of cookies. Max drove Lucas, and before she gets in the driver’s seat, she pins Mike with a disappointed glare. “Get your shit together, Wheeler,” she calls out.
Will is, like always, the last one to go. “What’s that all about?” He asks as Max’s tail lights shrink in the distance.
Mike shrugs. “Max being Max.” He’s too burnt out to unpack what she might or might not guess about him.
Snow falls faster, thicker, catching and glittering in Will’s hair. “I should go before the roads get bad,” he says, though he lingers, hands in his coat pockets.
Mike wants to brush the flakes from Will’s eyelashes with his thumbs. He wants to pull him back inside and up to his room, close the door, and kiss the cold from his lips. He wants to beg him–switch languages. Stop learning French.
Don’t let some other guy buy you lunch.
Don’t fall in love with someone else.
Please.
He has no right to say any of this, so he shoves his own hands in his pockets and looks up at the stars.
They bid each other goodnight and Will gets into his car and drives away. He’ll go home to Jonathan, his mother, and Hopper. He’ll sleep in his bed. He’ll eat Christmas supper complete with Ms. Byers’ watery mashed potatoes. After all the presents are opened and all the leftovers packed away, he’ll drive back to college.
Then at some point he’ll see the young man who speaks French with flawless pronunciation and he’ll smile at him from beneath those dark, fine lashes, all rosy cheeks and front teeth.
This is fine, Mike tells himself over and over like a mantra as Will’s car turns the bend at the end of the road. This is fine.
He’d asked him that day on the swingset - do you want to be friends?
Will had agreed, and it was the best thing Mike had ever done.
We’re friends!
We’re friends.
Mike Wheeler doesn’t want to be friends with Will Byers anymore.