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The thing no one warns you about surviving is that afterward, the world expects you to keep moving.
School starts again. Schedules snap back into place. People complain about homework and basketball tryouts and cafeteria food like nothing ever crawled out of the ground and tried to erase them.
Will Byers learns quickly that the price of being alive is pretending you’re okay with it.
He’s good at pretending.
---
Mike watches him fade in inches.
Not in any dramatic way. No crying fits. No public breakdowns. Will just thins out. Like someone slowly turning the color down. His laugh comes a beat too late, if it comes at all. His drawings stall halfway through, pencil left resting on the page like he forgot what he was reaching for.
Sometimes Mike catches him staring at nothing, eyes unfocused, breath shallow, fingers digging into his sleeve like he’s holding himself together by force.
Mike never says anything.
He remembers California too clearly. How every time he pushed, Will pulled away. How scared he looked when things got too loud, too close. So Mike learns to hover instead. Close enough to notice. Not close enough to trap him.
It’s a careful balance.
And it wears him down.
---
Nights are the worst.
Mike starts sleeping over more often, telling himself it’s normal. They’ve always done this. He brings his sleeping bag. Keeps his voice low. Pretends not to hear Will pacing at three in the morning.
But some nights, Will doesn’t pace.
Some nights, he just sits.
Mike wakes once and sees him at the edge of the bed, hunched forward, hands hanging uselessly between his knees like they don’t belong to him anymore.
“Will?” Mike whispers.
Will startles hard, like he’s been yanked back into his body.
“Sorry,” he says immediately. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t,” Mike lies, sitting up anyway.
They sit in the dark. The clock ticks too loudly. Will’s knee won’t stop bouncing.
“You ever feel,” Will starts, then stops.
Mike waits.
“…like if you relax, something bad will happen?” Will finishes.
Mike nods without thinking. “Yeah.”
The word settles between them.
Will’s shoulders drop, like he’s been holding them up for weeks.
They don’t touch. Don’t hug. Don’t do anything that might make it real.
But something shifts after that night. Mike feels it, even if he doesn’t know what to call it.
---
Weeks pass.
Mike starts noticing things he can’t unsee. How often Will looks at him, and how quickly he looks away. How Will always ends up beside him on the couch, close enough that their arms brush, but never closer. How Will stiffens whenever Mike talks about the future, like he doesn’t believe he’s included in it.
Mike starts feeling things he doesn’t want to examine.
A tightness in his chest when Will smiles at him like he’s the only safe thing in the room. A sharp, ugly twist of jealousy when someone else makes Will laugh. A constant, low fear that one day Will will disappear again and Mike won’t get there in time.
He tells himself it’s guilt.
Guilt for surviving.
Guilt for leaving.
Guilt for not knowing how to fix this.
It’s easier than admitting that some part of him wants Will’s attention in a way that has nothing to do with protection.
He has El. He reminds himself of that often. Of how simple that’s supposed to be. Of how everyone already knows what that story looks like.
What he feels with Will doesn’t fit into that story.
So he keeps it buried.
---
The argument happens quietly.
That’s what makes it worse.
They’re alone in Will’s room, late afternoon light stretching long shadows across the floor. Mike is rambling about something stupid—Dustin, probably—when he realizes Will hasn’t responded.
Will is staring at the floor.
“You okay?” Mike asks.
Will shrugs. “Yeah.”
Mike exhales slowly. “You don’t have to do that with me.”
“Do what?”
“Lie.”
Will’s jaw tightens.
“I’m not lying,” he says. “I’m just not saying everything.”
“That’s the same thing,” Mike snaps, immediately wishing he could take it back.
Silence.
Then Will stands so abruptly his chair scrapes loudly against the floor.
“You want honesty?” he says, voice shaking. “Fine. I feel like I’m rotting from the inside out. I feel like everyone else moved on and I didn’t get the memo. And every time I think I’m okay, something pulls me back under.”
Mike’s throat closes.
“And you,” Will continues, eyes burning now, “keep looking at me like you’re waiting for me to fall apart.”
“I’m not,” Mike says quickly.
“You are,” Will says. “And I can’t breathe like that.”
Mike feels sick. Because some part of him knows Will’s right.
“I’m just trying to help,” he says.
“I didn’t ask you to,” Will replies, softer immediately, like he didn’t mean it to sound so sharp.
That hurts more than the anger.
Mike steps back.
“Okay,” he says quietly. “Then I’ll stop.”
Will freezes.
“That’s not—” He cuts himself off. “That’s not what I meant.”
But Mike is already backing toward the door.
“Tell me when you do,” Mike says. “Because I can’t keep guessing.”
He leaves before Will can answer.
---
They don’t talk for three days.
The longest three days of Mike’s life.
He replays everything on a loop. Every word. Every look. He hates himself for leaving. Hates himself more for knowing he’d do it again if it meant Will didn’t feel trapped.
He thinks about El. About how he should be focusing on that. About how wanting anything else feels like betrayal.
Then he thinks about Will, sitting alone in his room, and the guilt sharpens into something else entirely.
On the fourth night, a storm rolls in.
Real thunder this time.
Mike doesn’t think. He grabs his jacket and bikes to the Byers’ house, rain soaking him through.
Will answers the door, pale and shaking.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” Mike blurts.
It’s not the truth. Not all of it.
Will stares at him for a long moment, like he’s weighing something fragile.
Then he steps aside.
---------
They sit on the floor of Will’s room, backs against the bed. Thunder rolls outside, steady and loud. The rain taps hard against the window, like it’s trying to get in.
Mike hasn’t moved in a while. Neither has Will.
Their shoulders touch. It feels louder than the storm.
“You can stay,” Will says again, like he’s making sure Mike heard him the first time. His voice is quiet but steady. “If you want to.”
Mike nods. “I know.”
He doesn’t pull away.
Will watches him from the corner of his eye. Mike looks tense, like he’s thinking too hard. That’s familiar. Mike’s always been like that when things matter.
“You’re not… mad, right?” Will asks.
Mike turns toward him, surprised. “What? No. Why would I be?”
Will shrugs, small. “Sometimes you get quiet like that.”
Mike exhales. “I’m just trying not to screw things up.”
That makes Will look at him properly.
“Screw what up?” he asks.
Mike opens his mouth. Stops. Looks down at his hands. “Us.”
The word lands between them.
Will doesn’t answer right away. His knee presses lightly against Mike’s. On purpose this time.
“We’re still us,” Will says. “You don’t just stop being my best friend.”
Mike swallows. “Yeah. I know.”
But he doesn’t sound convinced.
Thunder cracks. Will flinches this time, and Mike’s hand moves without thinking, resting against Will’s wrist where it’s braced on the floor.
Just that.
Will looks down at it.
Doesn’t pull away.
Mike doesn’t either. His thumb shifts, barely. It’s nothing, really. It still feels like everything.
Will’s breathing is shallow now. He turns his wrist slightly, not quite holding Mike’s hand, but close. So close.
Mike’s heart starts pounding. Loud enough he’s sure Will can hear it.
He turns toward him.
Will looks up.
They’re close. Too close to pretend this is normal. Will’s eyes flick to Mike’s mouth, then back to his eyes. His lips part like he’s about to say something.
He doesn’t.
Mike leans in.
Slow.
Giving Will time to pull back.
Will doesn’t.
Mike kisses him.
It starts soft, barely there, like he’s afraid of doing it wrong. Will freezes for a heartbeat—
Then he melts.
His hand slides into the front of Mike’s shirt, fingers curling tight. He leans in fully, pressing closer, like he’s been waiting for permission he didn’t know how to ask for.
The kiss deepens, still clumsy, still unsure, but suddenly overwhelming. Mike stops holding back. His hand slides up Will’s arm, firm now, certain, pulling him closer without thinking. It feels inevitable, like his body decided before his mind could interfere.
Will melts into it instantly.
There’s no hesitation anymore. He presses closer, like he’s been waiting for this exact moment, like his whole body recognizes it. His fingers clutch at Mike’s shirt, desperate, grounding. He kisses back with everything he has, breathless and unguarded, like he doesn’t know how not to.
Mike feels it everywhere.
In his chest, tight and burning. In his hands, steady and shaking at the same time. In the way Will leans into him instead of pulling away, like this is where he’s meant to be.
For a few seconds, Mike forgets everything else.
When they finally break apart, it’s slow. Reluctant. Their foreheads brush. Their breathing is uneven, too loud in the quiet room.
Then something shifts.
Mike pulls back first.
Not far. Just enough.
He drops his hands to his lap like they don’t belong there anymore. He stares at the floor, jaw tight, foot tapping once before he forces it still. He looks like he’s trying to rewind his thoughts, searching for a version of this where he didn’t lean in so hard, didn’t feel it so deeply.
They don’t touch again.
The space between them feels wrong now. Too empty. Like something real was there a second ago and got ripped away before it could settle.
Will stays frozen, hands still curled like they expect Mike to come back. He doesn’t. And that hurts more than if he had never kissed him at all.
“I shouldn’t have—” he starts.
Will’s throat tightens. He shakes his head quickly. “It’s fine.”
The words come out too fast. Too practiced.
Mike looks up at him. “No, it’s not. I just— I don’t want to mess things up. With you. With… everything.”
Will nods again. He’s good at that. Agreeing. Making things easier.
“Yeah,” he says. “I get it.”
He doesn’t, not really. Not how something that felt that real can suddenly be something they’re supposed to step around. But he knows Mike. Knows what that tone means. Knows when Mike is already backing away.
Mike rubs at his face. “I care about you,” he says, almost helpless. “You know that, right?”
Will forces himself to meet his eyes. He wishes Mike hadn’t said it like that. Like it needs explaining now.
“I know,” Will says.
What he doesn’t say is: that’s the problem.
Silence settles in again. The storm outside has quieted, but inside Will feels like something is still breaking, slow and painful.
Mike stands up first.
“I should probably go,” he says. He hesitates. “Just… for tonight.”
Will nods. He doesn’t trust himself to speak.
Mike lingers by the door, like he’s waiting for something. For Will to stop him. To say it was a mistake. To make it easier.
Will doesn’t.
“Night,” Mike says softly.
“Night,” Will answers.
The door clicks shut.
Will stays on the floor long after. The room feels too big now. Too empty. He presses his hand against his chest, like he can hold the feeling in place, like it won’t spill everywhere if he does.
He doesn’t cry right away.
He just sits there, staring at the spot where Mike was, replaying the way the kiss felt. How right it was. How easy it had been to lean in. How quickly it was taken back.
That’s what hurts the most.
Not that it happened.
That it mattered.
And that he’s the only one who doesn’t get to forget it.