Chapter Text
Read Demons of Change & Wildflower Eyes HERE
"Take it back
I would take it back
For just another minute
Just another chance with you
Give it up
I would give everything up" X
New York City. Spring 1996.
It all began when Will threw the last of Mike’s clothes from their closet at him, and slammed the door squarely in his face.
He was standing in the dingy hallway of their apartment building, water puddled at his feet. The ceiling light overhead buzzed and puttered on and off, which he found exceedingly irritating.
Even after months of the two of them pestering the superintendent, nothing had been done about it.
Rain poured outside. One of those spring thunderstorms that made your bones ache with the biting chill of it if you stood outside too long.
Mike bit his lip and huffed out a tattered sigh, the well of emotions he was desperate to stuff down forming a painful ball in his throat. He stood there, staring at where the wall met the ceiling and shivered. A long crack was broken in the rarely mended plaster and it dripped.
Drip, drip, drip. Torturously slow and steady. He watched as each raindrop fell into the tin bucket positioned below it, counting to one hundred before kicking it with all his might.
“Fuck!”
His roar echoed down the hallway and a door at the far end opened up, neatly coiffed white hair and a teal housecoat appearing from the sliver revealed.
“What!” he seethed at the nosy old woman. “That’s right!” he jested, sour and sarcastic, while glaring at her and fumbling with his things. He dropped a pair of pants on the ground. “Step right up to watch the faggot get thrown out!”
The woman pursed her lips, her brow creasing sharply at him with fear and disdain all at once. She quickly shut the door and Mike could hear her turn multiple locks as she retreated.
Mike grumbled obscenities to himself as he bent and picked up a small box, and the clothes that had fallen to the floor. That old woman had always been nasty, especially to Will, who used to help her carry her groceries up the stairs before she discovered he lived with a man.
Mike liked to rub it in her face when he noticed her around. He’d keep his eyes fixed on her and wink as he slipped his hand inside Will’s back pocket or kiss his neck while he bought cigarettes when they ran into each other at the convenient store downstairs. It amused him endlessly to watch the horror strike her face. The utter revulsion she had for them was certainly quieter, yet no less acrid or violent than Troy’s father. At least that asshole was honest.
If there was one thing Mike couldn’t stand, it was bigotry wrapped up in thinly veiled politeness.
Churlishly ruminating on this, Mike shoved through the door and down the steps, utterly soaked by the time he made it to where his car was parked illegally. It’s the same car his mother had bought him gently used on his eighteenth birthday, except phenomenally shittier. 1979 Crown Victoria. The thing was a gas guzzling monstrosity at this point, but Mike and Will couldn’t afford a new car. It made Mike wonder what Will was going to do now, with no halfsies on bills and no car, this apartment surely wasn’t going to work for him.
Mike grit his teeth as he threw his things in the back seat and slammed the door shut. He guessed that wasn’t his problem anymore, was it? The engine roared and Mike blasted the heat. The sob he was holding back since he got here tore violently out of his chest. He gripped the steering wheel till his knuckles turned white and rested his head against it, crying until there was nothing left to cry.
It had been four days since Will kicked him out and he had nothing to say. Mike couldn’t even get him to look at him. Instead, Will had told him to wait at the door with no feeling behind his voice and returned twice with the things he requested over the phone.
The way he avoided his gaze didn’t even give Mike the chance to gauge whether he had been crying or not. Whether he cared. What a useless, feeble end to the best thing that ever happened to him. Nothing like the incendiary fight that destroyed them days ago.
Will’s beautiful face, mutilated by rage, flashed through Mike’s mind. He threw a vase of the flowers Mike had gotten him as an early birthday present. It whizzed by Mike’s ear and smashed into the kitchen wall behind him. The neighbor banged for them to shut up, and one of Will’s framed canvases crashed to the ground.
“Get out,” Will growled, his chest heaving and eyes shining wildly.
Shoving the memory away, Mike didn’t look back at the apartment as he put the car in drive. He trickled into the side street, idling too long at the stop sign at the quiet intersection. Without Will, there was only one place in the entire world he had left to go.
He’ll return to Hawkins, Indiana for the first time since they had sent Richards packing with his tail between his legs. Since he and Will had left in his car together after they graduated, bound for college and freedom and hope.
Mike wiped his eyes roughly where his lashes were still wet. The sleeves of his coat he had pulled over his palms scratched his skin. Then he straightened his back and pressed the gas pedal down hard, speeding off into the rainstorm.
11 hours to go. 11 hours until he’s back in Hell.