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Mike realizes something’s wrong on a Tuesday, which is annoying, because Tuesdays are supposed to be normal.
The four of them are sprawled across the floor of the basement. No El, no Max. Dustin and Lucas are arguing about something stupid in the background. But Mike doesn't care about them. His gaze is only fixed on Will, as if staring at him enough would magically fix whatever had gone wrong between them. It's infuriating, Mike thought, how Will could look so at ease around everyone else and still feel impossibly out of reach to him. The thing is, Mike didn't know what he had done. He only felt the absence, the gaping hole in his life that could only be filled by Will.
“Are you and Will good?” Dustin asks suddenly, turning his head away from Lucas.
Mike blinks. “What?”
Dustin shrugs. “You’ve just been… weird.”
"We’re not weird,” Mike says immediately. Too fast. He hears it the second the words leave his mouth. Will visibly tenses.
Lucas snorts. “That’s literally what people say when they’re weird.”
Dustin tilts his head, studying them like they’re a puzzle he already solved. “You guys fighting or something?”
“No,” Will says quickly. Almost too quickly.
Mike tries to catch his eye, to silently communicate, to ask are we okay?
But Will's head was firmly turned the other way.
Mike lets his gaze drop to the carpet, suddenly fascinated by a loose thread near his knee.
Lucas plods on, blissfully unaware. "Let's get back to the real question at hand. If you sneeze with your eyes open, would they pop out?"
“Obviously not,” Dustin says. “Don’t be stupid.”
“But how do you know?” Lucas presses. “Have you ever sneezed with your eyes open?”
Dustin sighs, long and tired. “That’s not how anatomy works.”
“Sounds like something someone with no proof would say.”
The conversation stalled at this and an uncomfortable silence fell upon the four boys. Neither Will nor Mike seemed willing to do anything at all except for avoiding each others eyes at every turn.
Mike hates how loud the silence is.
He risks a glance up. Will’s staring at the opposite wall, jaw tight, fingers twisting in the hem of his sleeve. The sight makes something ache deep in Mike’s chest. He desperately wishes that they could go back to being kids again, where they could silently make up without all the awkward talking. Mike's thoughts are interrupted by a meek voice saying:
"I'm gonna get some water."
“Oh, grab me one too,” Dustin says without looking up.
Will hesitates for half a second, fingers flexing at his sides. “Yeah. Okay.”
He heads for the stairs.
Mike is struck by an urge to stay there on the cold floor, to avoid the awkward and inevitable conversation for just a little longer. But he's not sure how much longer he can deal with this cold war. Mike wanted his best friend back.
"Wait up, I'm coming with you."
Dustin and Lucas shared wide eyed gazes at this.
The kitchen feels too bright after the dim basement, the overhead light buzzing faintly. Will goes straight to the sink, turning on the tap like it’s suddenly the most important thing in the world. Mike lingers a few steps behind him, unsure where to stand, what to do with his hands.
The silence follows them up here too.
He watches almost too concentratedly as Will fills one glass and then the other and then he grips both of them tightly in his hands. Will's back is still facing towards Mike. Good, Mike thinks. Maybe that will make this easier.
“Will, are you okay?” Mike asks finally, the words tumbling out wrong, rushed. “I know I’ve been- I mean, I’ve been really focused on El, but she’s not here anymore. We can talk now. If you want.”
"There isn't anything left to talk about Mike," Will replies flatly.
"There's nothing left to talk about? Will, you've been pushing me out. You won’t talk to me. You keep avoiding me. You just pull away and then act like I’m supposed to know why.”
"I'm not avoiding you," Will says, stunned.
"But you have been. I know you have. Don't try and deny it. Don't make me the villain here. Don't pretend that I'm the only reason for this huge distance between us. "
Mike pauses for a moment, contemplating his words.
“Ever since, since everyone started saying stuff, you've been different.”
Will's eyes narrow, his reply feeling like a bitter taste.
"Saying what?"
Mike instantly regrets opening his mouth. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Now he's opened a whole can of worms that he sincerely hoped he could have avoided. Not that Mike was disgusted or anything. No, he never would be by Will. But it scared him. The words left unspoken scared him.
Mike opens his mouth.
Closes it.
“You’ve just been… different,” Mike repeats lamely. “And I don’t know what to do about it.”
The words hang there, thin and inadequate.
Will finally turns around.
His expression is carefully blank, like he’s already decided not to let this hurt more than it has to. Somehow, that makes it worse.
“Different how?” Will asks.
Mike balks under the weight of this question. Part of him wishes that this was all Will's fault, something Will changed, something Will caused... because the alternative is terrifying.
The alternative is that the problem lives inside him.
Mike swallows.
“I don’t know,” he says, and it comes out sharper than he means it to. Defensive. Cornered. “You’re just.. quiet. You look at me like I did something wrong, and then you won’t tell me what it is. And I do want to know.”
Will lets out a slow breath through his nose.
“I’m not punishing you,” he says. “I’m just tired, Mike.”
“Tired of what?” Mike asks immediately.
Will hesitates. Just for a second. “Of feeling like I’m always the one reaching out. Of feeling second best.”
That makes something twist in Mike's chest. Guilt. Visceral and painful.
“That’s not fair,” he says, reflexively. “You know I care.”
“I know you say you do,” Will replies. “I just don’t always feel it.”
Mike's shoulders tenses. Will didn't know how much he cared? Mike thought he was obvious. Perhaps too obvious.
“I just want things to be normal again,” Mike mutters.
Will’s laugh is soft, hollow. “Normal for who?”
Mike doesn’t answer.
Because normal means not thinking too hard about the way Will looks at him.
Normal means not noticing how much it hurts to lose his attention.
Normal means pretending the ache in his chest is just friendship and nothing more.
And that could never happen. Never.
Will turns back to the counter, jaw tight. “I can’t do this,” he says quietly.
Mike’s chest tightens with panic. “Do what?”
“Keep waiting for you to be ready to see me,” Will replies. “And blaming me when you’re not.”
He picks up the glasses.
Mike can feel what will happen if he lets Will leave. He feels that their friendship will be broken, perhaps forever, if he doesn't say something right now.
"Wait," Mike blurts, his mouth moving before his mind.
"I'm not blaming you. I promise I'm not. I'm just saying that you were the one that changed first. You stopped talking to me, you were the one that started acting like being in my presence was a crime."
Will's knuckles tightened around the glasses. Mike took a steadying breath.
“And everyone started saying things,” Mike continues, his voice rising despite himself. “Stuff about you. About us. And you just let it happen. You got all quiet and weird and expected me to just… know what to do with that.”
Mike hates the way these words sound as soon as he says them. They sound harsh and bitter. They sound like relief.
"So this is my fault."
Mike bristles. “I didn’t ask for people to start talking. I didn’t ask for things to get complicated.”
"No," Will stated. "But you were the one that decided that those words were more important than our friendship. I felt your embarrassment, your shame. I just did the job you were too scared to do."
Mike flinches like he’s been struck.
He wants to vehemently deny this, to call Will a liar. These statements die on his tongue. Deep down, really deep down, Mike knew those words got to him. He wished they didn't but they did. He can feel Will's eyes on him. He can't decipher the look there. Disappointment? Shame? Anger?
“I wasn’t ashamed of you,” Mike says, desperate now. “I was just scared.”
"Of what?"
"You know what." Mike gestures helplessly. "Of people looking at us weirdly, of them thinking things."
"Of them being right."
The silence that follows is devastating.
“I was trying to protect us,” Mike says, voice cracking. “I didn’t want them to ruin it.”
Will shakes his head slowly. “You didn’t protect us, Mike. You protected yourself. Don't pretend to not know that."
Mike presses his palms into his eyes, breathing fast. “I don’t know how to be-” He breaks off, unable to finish. Unable to say it. “I don’t know how to be what you want.”
"I want you, Mike. I want you to see yourself as I see you."
The words knock the air out of him. Mike slowly raises his head from the safe embrace of his hands. He looks up to see Will's eyes. They are full of love.
True, deep love. Not in the abstract, not in the safe, childhood way he’s always told himself. In a way that scares him enough to make him cruel. In a way that makes him choose silence over honesty. In a way that makes him push Will away and then ache for the space left behind.
That love scares him.
But it also feels like the only thing that has ever been real.
Because even when he was pushing Will away, even when he was choosing silence and safety and normal, that love was still there. Waiting. Patient in a way Mike never deserved.
He looks at Will and realizes this is the part he’s been running from. Not the stares, not the whispers, not the words people throw around like weapons, but the fact that loving Will means being seen. Fully. Unavoidably.
And that terrifies him.
But it also feels exhilarating.
How can it feel like anything but when Will is still there, staring at him like he's worth every hurled insult and strange look?
And for the first time, Mike thinks that the scariest thing isn't loving Will at all.
Maybe it’s letting himself believe that love doesn’t have to be something he’s ashamed of.
Mike realizes something else on a Tuesday, which is unfair, because Tuesdays were supposed to be normal.
They’re not fixed. Not really. The fear is still there, coiled tight in his chest, and the words he’s too afraid to say are still lodged in his throat. But Will is still here. Still standing close enough that their shoulders almost touch, still looking at him like he’s worth the waiting. And for the first time, Mike understands that normal was never the goal. Maybe it never had been. Maybe this, messy and frightening and real, is what choosing Will looks like.