Archive of Our Own

Despite what he’d like to believe, Mike Wheeler is, among other things, a coward.

It hadn’t always been like this, Mike can remember a time when bravery was more than just a title he’d given to his paladin. A time when he stood up for himself and his friends, when he would push down bullies and stand as tall as he could against monsters. Because he has been face to face with Demogorgons more times than he ever wished, stayed by his best friend’s side when he was possessed by the Mind Flayer, and faced the very same monster when it became flesh incarnate. Yet none of that feels like it should count for true bravery, not when he has so much he pushes down, ignores and locks away in the back of his mind, never to be seen again.

Because Mike isn’t stupid, he knows that many of the things he feels aren’t exactly normal, though he refuses to unpack what any of it truly means. As long as he doesn’t look at it too closely, doesn’t name whatever it is he feels stirring in his chest, then it won’t be real. Not if he can help it.

He’s locked so much away over the years.

The pit in his stomach when he saw Will dancing with a girl at the Snowball, despite being the one to convince him to do it. The deep sadness he couldn’t explain as they slow danced, mere inches away, that only stopped twisting in his gut once El entered the room. He told himself he had just been longing for someone to dance with, missing the girl he had been so sure he liked. Because he cared for her so much, and in what way could that have been other than this? So he danced with El and they kissed, and it was perfectly good. Better than their first kiss had been, by a long margin.

They started dating after that, and it was good. He liked spending time with El, even if they didn’t have much to talk about. Besides, kissing was fun and new and he enjoyed doing it, even if he felt she touched him too much sometimes. It never felt mind blowing, just like lips against his own, but El’s lips were soft and she tasted like Coke flavored chapstick so that was good enough for him. Mike was pretty sure the whole fireworks and butterflies thing was something made up for the movies anyway. It didn’t hurt when she broke up with him, not like it should have. Maybe because he knew it was a matter of time before they would get back together. It did hurt, however, when he and Will fought that very same afternoon. When he yelled words that were more of a reflection of his darkest thoughts than of anything to do with Will himself. Because sometimes he felt that he didn’t like El enough, or in the way he was supposed to. Sometimes all he wanted was to play D&D with the party and have sleepovers with Will like they used to. Except that always made the thoughts worse. The longer he spent with the party, the more he realized he didn’t feel much different towards El than the rest of them, save for the fact that they kissed sometimes. If anything, Will was the one he felt closer to. He rationalized it by saying it was because he was his first and closest friend. Most days, Mike could barely convince himself.

So when Will called him out on it, Mike found himself yelling back, throwing his worst thoughts at his best friend. It’s not my fault you don’t like girls. He felt regretful the second the words were out of his lips, blood running cold in his veins, his stomach sinking further than he ever thought possible. He apologized immediately but it did not ease the hurt in Will’s eyes. Biking in the heavy rain was a small price to pay for his forgiveness. Mike’s clothes clung uncomfortably to his skin and he could barely see in the bad weather, but it had been worth it when he found Will. Will had let it go so easily that Mike almost forgave himself for hurling at him the very same words Will had been bullied with for years. Even if it hadn’t been true, Mike had no right to say it. Any of it. Despite everything, Will forgave him. Mike wasn’t sure he deserved that. The act made his chest feel warm in a way it only ever did around Will. He shoved the feeling away before ever allowing himself to feel it properly.

He had impulsively said he loved El around that time. Because he did, she held such a special place in his heart, always would. But once he said it, once the words were out and he noticed how his friends looked at him, he realized he hadn’t truly meant it. Not in the way they took it. In the way he could only pray El hadn’t overheard. He had not been so lucky. He hadn’t been prepared for her to say it back, for her to kiss him so softly while they stood in Will’s room, his best friend’s childhood teddy bear pressed against his stomach as it gave way under him. His breath caught in the wrong way, his body locked in place. He couldn’t close his eyes, couldn’t kiss her back, not when he knew he couldn’t say the words to her again, maybe ever. The kiss left him speechless, head spinning, thoughts simultaneously too loud and not clear enough. A lightbulb of recognition that he switched off before it could be fully lit.

He didn’t know what any of it meant. He didn’t know why he missed Will more than he missed El. Like a part of him had been forcibly taken away, his very soul torn in two. He looked for his best friend in everything. Mike supposed that was because he had been without El before, a whole year where he got used to her absence, while he and Will had never been apart for more than a week. One hellish week where his life had been as good as ended. Mike slowly realized he didn’t know how to live without him in his life, giving soft commentary to his day, illustrating his stories like no one else could, understanding him without the need of a single word being spoken. He didn’t know why he couldn’t write to Will, when writing had always come so easy to him. He had no problems writing to El, sending one letter every week on the dot, all signed with his name at the bottom. The word “from” in front of it every time, because he couldn’t bring himself to write the other one, not when he didn’t mean it. Not even in writing. But his pen froze whenever he tried writing to Will. The static on his brain got too loud and he couldn’t figure out what to say, or how to say it. Everything felt like not enough. Everything felt like way too goddamn much.

He couldn’t call either, though not by the lack of trying. Because he did call. For months he called every single day, at different times, hoping that day would be the one where the line was clear, where he could listen to his best friend’s voice again and ease the pressure ever so present in his chest. He got through a total of three times. He still remembers how his heart would stop every time he heard Will’s voice again, how his own voice would fail him when he needed it most. Those three phone calls were everything to him. But they also made all the rest hurt more. So Mike stopped calling, started adding questions and remarks to Will among El’s letters (those parts were always harder to write, but he managed to push through) and willed himself to push down the nausea clawing up his throat at the thought of not speaking to Will.

What he did do, was throw himself into D&D again. Maybe he was selfish and a hypocrite, after being so happy Will had said he’d not join a new party, but playing it seemed to be the only way Mike could fill the void his best friend had left behind in his life. So he joined Hellfire, befriended cool and weird Eddie Munson who made him feel just a little bit more like himself, and started to play D&D. Hoping that he’d be able to find Will again in the rolls of the dice. It didn’t work, he still felt empty, still looked at his side expecting Will to be there, still longed for him every time they needed an extra player. He even debated on more than one occasion if maybe he should play a wizard, if only to get him back in that way. He never went through with that. Despite all of it, it had been marginally better, and he’d take that over no change at all.

Once he arrived in California that Spring Break, Mike couldn’t help but notice he was miserable. Distance was supposed to make the heart grow fonder and yet Mike hadn’t succeeded. Not for the right person, anyway. It’s not that he didn’t like seeing El again, he felt genuinely so happy once he spotted her. He hugged her tight and kissed her like he was meant to and it had been nice, so nice to see her. He had truly missed her presence. But his heart didn’t skip a beat for her, his lungs didn’t stop working when their gazes met. Not like they did when he turned to look at Will, who held a rolled up canvas in his hands. Maybe it is for a girl, I think there’s someone he likes. He hadn’t stopped thinking about it. The idea of Will liking someone stuck with him like a piece of gum on his metaphorical shoe. Uncomfortable and impossible to remove. He had hardly been able to sleep on the plane, thinking about who this person could possibly be, who this girl Will liked so much was. How much better she could ever be to him than he had ever been, stupid and cowardly Mike who couldn’t even bring himself to talk to the boy he was supposed to be best friends with. And then he saw Will holding the painting and for one single traitorous second, Mike let himself indulge in the thought that Will had brought it because it was meant for him. It felt like too much of an admission, and so he locked it away with all the others.

He couldn’t even bring himself to hug Will and that was perhaps the worst part. In that airport, Mike didn’t feel like himself. Dressed in clothes he only chose for the sake of others, carrying a gift he wasn’t even sure was the right color, lying to the two people who meant the most to him. Not being able to touch his best friend, lest his heart speed up in the wrong way, his gaze drift lower than it was supposed to.

Mike tried so hard to focus on El that day, to be the boyfriend she needed him to be. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from looking at Will, from being laser focused in his every movement. Noticing every eye roll, every micro expression, every forlorn gaze. Will was miserable and that was making him miserable. It bubbled up to the surface and out of him, as these things always tended to, and they fought again. Mike not being able to admit how much he wanted to, how much he genuinely tried to reach out. Will seemingly insinuating what could be only figments of Mike’s imagination. He still can’t believe he answered as if Will had truly meant it. We’re friends. We’re friends. The words spoken twice, as if the emphasis would make them stick. Would convince them to become truth. We used to be best friends. The reply hit Mike like a slap to the face. Because of course Will hadn’t meant it like that. Mike couldn’t believe he had been foolish enough to think so, even if for a single second.

El hitting Angela had come as if the blow had been dealt to his own head. Because he couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it, had Will really distracted him so badly to the point he couldn’t notice his own girlfriend’s distress? He wanted to deny it and yet the evidence was so clear in front of his eyes. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to go back to Hawkins. He wanted to never have gone to Lenora in the first place. That was too much. Way too much.

He hadn’t been able to look El in the eye after that, half out of guilt and half out of fear. Not of her, but of himself. Of how he couldn’t simply act like a boyfriend was supposed to, feel like a boyfriend was supposed to, love her like a boyfriend was supposed to. He couldn’t tell her he loved her, couldn’t even feel it. Something was wrong with him, that had to be it. When El had thrown it to his face, his countless letters with nothing but “from Mike” signed at the bottom, he had tried to say it. He still couldn’t bring himself to it. He could only admit his care for her, compare her to the superhero she was in his eyes. It didn’t seem like something she liked hearing. She was crying and he hated that he was the one to make her cry. She wasn’t happy, he kept dragging her down. She didn’t need him. She’d be better off without him. He was sure of that. The truth is, Mike was so sure, he considered pulling the metaphorical plug, breaking up with her at once, if only so they could both heal and be happy again. But that felt drastic, too drastic, too risky. It was not fair but he didn’t know how long he’d be able to push down the thoughts again without her there to redirect them. When he spoke to Will about it, he half expected Will to tell him to do it, but he didn’t, so Mike didn’t. Will encouraged him so softly and earnestly Mike almost believed the words. Her last letter to him, signed “from El,” stopped that in its tracks.

Still, he went with the others after her, not daring to even think about what she must have been going through in that place. On the way, Will gave him the painting he’d been carrying. And for only one moment, Mike felt his brain stop working. Will’s painting had been for him, after all, not some dumb girl who probably wouldn’t appreciate it. Not like he would. Then Will told him about how El had commissioned it, and Mike felt his heart sink. This had been a different painting then. Mike didn’t know why that felt so disappointing.

It was the words Will gave him in the van that allowed Mike to tell El he loved her. The way Will spoke of El’s feelings, the things she’d told him to portray and relay, made Mike dizzy in a way he’d never felt before. His chest ached with this warm feeling, longing to be known and loved in the way Will was telling him he was. Mike would never admit it but it would be a lie to say he truly meant those words. However, he had been desperate, as she laid in front of him fighting an invisible fight she had little hope of winning, he thought he’d do anything, say anything to help. Even if that meant lying. Even if that meant hurting her even further.

So he said what she needed to hear. Mike told El about how he loved her, pretending it wasn’t in the wrong way. He spoke of when he found her and how he knew in that moment that she was it for him, a lie but a pretty one. He told her that night was when his life had started, and it had been, because that night changed everything. Though not because of El. Mike can separate his life into two very different sections, before and after Will went missing. Before and after all of this happened. His old life so different from his current one it might as well have been another life entirely. So he said the words she needed, sugarcoating and stretching the truth to fit, squeezing his eyes shut and praying his voice wouldn’t falter over the fabrications. He begged her to fight and she did. They were still too late.

The two day drive back to Hawkins had been almost entirely unbearable. El wasn’t speaking to him and Will wouldn’t meet his eyes, staring out the window with the look of what Mike could only describe as misery. He sat in the middle of the two of them, alternating who he looked at and hoping at some point either would be looking back. Will broke first. He broke every time. Mikes tried not to think of why. Why El won’t look at him, after what he’s said. Why Will continued to. He was just reading too much into things again, he had to be, projecting what he wanted to be there over what he actually was. He swore he’d fix himself one day.

Mike and El weren’t talking. He had known it but the realization truly dawned on him once they got to Hawkins. El stepped around him without a second glance, closing herself in her room. They still hovered in each other’s vicinity but they didn’t speak, maybe Mike had been right to say they couldn’t come back from that fight. The thing was, he wasn’t even sure they were together, not really. They hadn’t talked about it, any of it. Her “from El” letter felt like a breakup, an unspoken one perhaps but it did, and then Mike tried to get her back with his speech but… it didn’t work. She wasn’t talking to him.

Mike and Will were close again. This one was perhaps a greater revelation. Will moved into Mike’s basement, which was simply unjustifiable in Mike’s opinion. He would have been perfectly happy to share his room with Will, had offered it even, but both of their moms shot them down. Mike didn’t know why. Despite the unfavorable sleeping arrangements, Mike enjoyed having Will close again. It was scary how easily they slipped into their old patterns, talking until late, trading drawings and stories, and refusing to let each other go until basically forced to—usually by Jonathan, who argued they needed the sleep. Mike wasn’t sure why but he had a feeling Jonathan was trying to keep them apart, which was stupid if Mike is saying so himself but whatever—and it was nice. He had known he missed Will, of course he had, but actually having him by his side again was entirely unlikely what he expected. Mike had no words to explain how good hanging out with Will felt, they just fit like no one else did, like no one else ever would. Not with Mike. He loves his friends, all of them, he does, but they are not Will. He doesn’t believe in soulmates but sometimes Mike thinks the universe made them for one another, their friendship so true it could’ve been etched into the universe itself. Befriending Will might have been an active choice, it wasn’t simply fate Mike is sure of that, but it was the best choice he’d ever made. No one else understands him like Will does. No one else makes him feel the way he feels around Will, free and happy, and like the brave knight he likes to pretend to be.

So, yes. Mike is a coward. One that stares at his floor late at night, trying to picture his best friend where he lays two stories under. Is he asleep? Is he looking to the ceiling and picturing Mike too? He wishes he knew. He wishes Will were there with him, really with him. Laying down close enough that he would be able to feel the heat from his skin and pick apart the golden brown from the green in his eyes. The feeling he refuses to name rumbles in his chest and he tries his best to ignore it. It would work better if he didn’t have to do it every night.

♡

It all comes to a head about four months after their return to Hawkins, which in all honesty surprises Mike. He really thought he had gotten away with all of it, his uncertain but seemingly still existing relationship with El, his weird feelings towards Will. He should’ve known he wouldn’t be so lucky. He has never been.

It’s early morning when his walkie goes off by his bedside, softly calling his name. Or well, earlier than it had any right to be. El always had been an early riser. Mike blinks the sleep out his eyes as he answers.

“Yeah?”His head hurts, his eyes can hardly focus on the morning light. He immediately knows he didn’t sleep nearly enough for whatever is happening right now.

“I need to talk to you,” El says, as if it’s simple. As if the words don’t fill him with dread, shooting adrenaline into his veins and waking him up better than his morning coffee would.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes.” She sounds calm, so Mike thinks this probably isn’t an Upside Down related emergency. He breathes once, twice, willing himself to calm down. “Can you come over? It’s important.”

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

He knows he could make the trip in about ten minutes if he really wished, but something in his gut tells him not to. Something about the calm gives away this isn’t a conversation that will go well for him. They’ve never done well in the calm, Mike and El, something in the routine not letting them mesh in the way they should be able to. Mike tries not to think too hard about how their relationship crumbles under the peace and quiet of everyday life. It didn’t use to, in the early days, but he supposes that was just the novelty of it. Once that wore off, they had to learn how they fit alongside each other and the longer they tried to find that balance, the more apparent it became that it did not exist. Mike can’t help but feel it is his fault.

Mike draws his legs up and folds himself over, sitting in bed and resting his forehead against his knees. He runs a hand through his hair and sighs deeply. He has a feeling he knows exactly what this conversation is going to be.

“Shit.”

♡

The trail to Hopper’s cabin is surprisingly difficult this time around. This shouldn’t be the case, Mike has biked this road many times before, perhaps not as often as he should’ve but he’s done it enough times to remember the route with ease. It’s never been a particular challenging track but something feels different this time around. His legs feel heavier, his breath shallower, his vision seems to be just slightly out of focus. It’s disorienting.

He eventually makes it to the cabin, no doubt later than he said he would show up but there nonetheless. The door opens before he has the chance to knock. El stands on the doorway, her hair is up and she wears workout clothes and a carefully blank facial expression.

“Uhm, hi,” Mike says, a little dumbly. He shallows hard, he doesn’t know why he’s so nervous. El’s mouth ticks up just slightly, not a smile but the beginning of what could become one.

“Hi, Mike.”

She pulls the door open all the way and moves to the side, gesturing for him to come in. He crosses the threshold slowly, as if it were a portal he instinctively knew he should be weary of. El sidesteps him after closing the door and leads them both to the couch. They sit on opposite ends, a full empty cushion left in the middle.

“So, what did,” Mike starts, looking sideways at her before looking down at his feet, gulping once again, “what did you want to talk about?”

“I’ve been thinking a lot for the past few months,” El says, looking over at him, eyes and voice gentle as if she was worried he’d be scared away, “and I think we should break up, for good.”

Oh. That’s what this is. Mike would be lying to say he didn’t see it coming, he knew they weren’t working and he knew that El knew it too. He just had kind of assumed they were just going to slowly fizzle out and let the relationship end without talking about it, if he were truly honest he half thought that had already happened. He never expected a direct confrontation and that alone is enough for his brain to malfunction.

“What,” he croaks, snapping his head up to meet her gaze. He finds nothing in her eyes but resolve, “what, why?”

“Mike,” she sighs, as if saying his name was a chore, “when was the last time we kissed?”

It’s a non sequitur, or at least it seems like one to Mike, because what does that have to do with anything?

“I,” he hesitates, honestly unable to recall. It’s true they hadn’t done much of being a couple recently, but they were still one. It couldn’t have been too far back, Mike’s memory must only be failing him, “I don’t know, not that long ago.”

El shakes her head, peering over from the corner of her eye so as to not look at him straight on. She sits with her back straight, body and face facing forward towards the wall. “It was in Lenora.”

This makes him stop. It couldn’t be, that would be before the non-breakup breakup letter. Before his speech. She must be remembering wrong. She has to be.

“What?” The question sounds a little more harsh than he wished, but he blames it on the confusion he feels. El only shakes her head again, before speaking so very softly.

“Four months and you didn’t even notice.”

There’s a pit in his stomach, made all the worse by the fact that he knows she isn’t wrong. He wishes she was, wishes he was someone who felt his girlfriend’s absence in the way he was supposed to. Because he genuinely had not noticed, not because he didn’t enjoy kissing her, but because it wasn’t high on his priorities list, not anymore. It had been when he was younger, and kissing was something fun and new and the only way he could figure out how to show her how much he cared, but then something shifted. Something changed that day in Will’s bedroom and he hadn’t quite been able to kiss her the same since. Without feeling like he was essentially lying to her, which was the last thing he wanted to do.

“I can do better,” he rushes out, perhaps slightly too fast. El doesn’t look convinced, “I can, I can do better for you. You know how much I care—“

“You care but you don’t love me,” she turns to him, reaching a hand out to gesture at his chest, he can’t help but think of Will. He never realizes how alike they had grown in their mannerisms while in California. There’s a sort of determination in her eyes that tells Mike she won’t be relenting any time soon, “you said you did and I don’t know why but I know you lied.”

“No!” He doesn’t mean to yell, but he can feel his voice becoming louder, tinged with the desperate need for her to believe the words he knows were lies. “No I didn’t, Eleven I,” he is almost glad she interrupts him, because truth be told Mike has no idea what he was going to say next.

“Why do you still call me that?” She asks, tone flat and impersonal, “I don’t think you would if you did love me.”

She might as well have slapped him across the face, because he really should know better. He should know not to call her by what the lab called her, what Brennan called her. He should know that, and yet he still did it, all the time. Mostly to himself. Mike gifted her a new name and then didn’t even bother to use it enough for it to stick in his own brain. Guilt crashes over him like a tidal wave. Because he can’t prove her wrong. He should be able to. Should be able to tell her he loves her again, like he had only months prior. But the words still make his tongue taste like bile. He tries anyway.

“I do, I do! I—“

“You don’t. Not in a girlfriend way.” Her voice is steady, leaving no room for disagreement. Yet she reaches out and takes his hands on hers, in what Mike thinks must be an attempt at comfort. “I heard Will make you say it. I know nothing you said was true.”

Oh. Mike had almost forgot about that. About Will encouraging him to keep going when Mike hesitated. Will calling him the heart and that being what pushed him over. He hadn’t considered El would have been able to hear it and that was perhaps a severe miscalculation, of course she could hear it. She had talked to Will herself only moments prior.

“El,” he can hear the sadness in his own voice. He won’t call it pity, because he doesn’t think that’s quite right, but he feels sad for her. For what he put her through. He doesn’t have an excuse for it, nor a good explanation. Mike can’t blame her for dumping him.

“You lie.” El says, narrowing her eyes at him and holding his hands harder in a way Mike is pretty sure is meant to hurt. It does. “I know you didn’t love me that first day. You just wanted to find him.”

Mike takes a sharp breath, suddenly reminded of that night. The emptiness inside of him when he noticed Will wasn’t at school. The pure, unbridled despair that coursed through his veins when he learned he had gone missing. The desperation that stopped his lungs from working while he tried to figure out a way, any way, that would allow him to look for Will. Because he couldn’t imagine standing still while his best friend, his favorite person in the whole wide world, was gone. He remembered the hope he felt when he saw El in the woods, the hope of finding a kid his age of roughly the correct size. He also remembered the sadness, confusion, and pain that came with realizing it wasn’t Will that they had found. Of course he had grown to care, really care, for El. But she wasn't the one he was looking for that night. The one he kept looking for over and over again ever since.

El’s voice is soft when she says, “you always just wanted Will.”

Mike feels his heart stutter inside his rib cage, as if it had decided to quit on him at that very second. Because her words make him think, truly think, about everything. About the locked closet in the back of his mind where he’s been shoving thoughts away for years. He doesn’t dare to open it. He doesn’t think he’ll like what he would find.

“El that’s not true, it’s not true,” he answers, but the reaction is delayed. Mike’s voice is shaky, his lungs don’t work right, and he just knows he doesn’t sound convincing. Not even to himself.

“It is. It’s okay,” her grip on his hands slackens, and she smiles at him but it looks sad, “I thought about it and it’s okay.” El nods to herself, rubs her thumbs over the back of Mike’s hands, and looks him in the eyes as she says, “I think it’s about time you stop lying to yourself.”

It must be a fraction of a second, but that door at the back of mind unlocks and Mike swears he can see his life flash before his eyes. Will slow-dancing with some girl at the snowball and the deep sadness that came with watching the scene. Mike feeling like he didn’t want El to touch him while they kissed. His fight with Will hurting more than their breakup. The vile words he threw out at him, accusing his best friend of not liking girls, behaving like one of his bullies. Projecting onto him. The pain he felt while Will was away, the way he would lose his breath when he heard his voice. The deep sense of wrongness he felt at hearing Will liked someone—someone else. Someone who was not him.

Mike himself is surprised when the sob comes out of him. He yanks his hands free from El’s so he can cover his mouth, in a feeble attempt to muffle the sound. It doesn’t quite work.

His thoughts are running a mile a minute, everything he ever knew about himself rearranging into place, until it clicked. Until he made sense of why he could never tell El he loved her. Of why losing Will, each time, had felt like losing a part of his own soul. Of why having him back felt like the biggest euphoria imaginable. Of course he was unable to tell El he loved her, not when it wasn’t true, and a small part of him had always known it. Not when he’d always—

Not when he has only ever loved—

“I’m sorry,“ the words tumble out of his lips clumsily, he doesn’t use them often, can’t even remember the last time he’s said them to her or if he ever did at all. He’s always been more of an actions guy, has never been good at putting words to his emotions. Thinking of it now, it perhaps might have been a method of self preservation. If he couldn’t put his feelings into words, he wouldn’t know what they were. “I’m sorry, El.” He hadn’t meant to cry, honestly he doesn’t know how it happened. He’s never been a crier, but as he folds himself inwards, bending down at the wait and using his hands to hold his head above his knees, he can’t stop the tears from flowing. They’re sparse, his voice more affected than his eyes, but he feels the tears running down his face, sees them as they stain his jeans darker. “I didn’t, I never meant to hurt you.”

“It’s okay,” El says softly. From the corner of his eye he can see her as she sends him a tentative smile and runs a hand over his back, her featherlight touch might as well be a figment of his imagination.

“No. No it isn’t,” he whips his head up to look at her, her image vaguely blurry though his tears. How could she even say that? Doesn’t she know what this means? For either of them? “I hurt you, all because I’m,” his voice fails. He doesn’t know if he can acknowledge it out loud. Not now. Maybe not ever. God how he missed the ignorant bliss of half an hour ago. “I was born wrong and—“

“Mike,” El calls out to him, pressing her hand more firmly against his back. He barely registers it in his panic.

“I’m so sorry, I tried so hard to,”he stumbles over the words that pour out of him in an unorganized heap. His mouth tastes like bile and he feels ever so slightly dizzy, “to love you like I should but I just, I couldn’t because,” he trails off again, his brain failing to come up with the correct words to say it. There needs to be a way to say this besides the ones he knows, the ones he heard being thrown at Will so many times over the years. “Because I’m—“

“Mike, you are not wrong.”

El says it like it’s the truth, like his entire sense of self hasn’t just crumbled under him. The worst part is, he knows she’s right. Mike knows he’d be saying that exact same thing were someone else having this realization in front of him only yesterday. But this is different. Because this is him. Mike would support anyone in this situation, has done before as he stood up to Will’s bullies. But maybe this is different because it’s real, not rumors people came up with to have an excuse to shit on the actual angel on earth that is Will Byers. This is real, and maybe that is what’s different. Or maybe it is just that he was comfortable with it being other people. When it’s himself, that’s when it gets truly scary. Because this isn’t something he can unsee. This is going to shape the rest of his life and, knowing what he knows of people, he doesn’t think that’s a good kind of shaping.

“No, no I am,” he says softly, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, feeling them sting but thankful the tears stopped coming. He is not sure on how much he means it. Maybe it’s too mean to say that about himself, but if he wasn’t then he’d be able to love El like she wanted. Like he thought he wanted. Like everyone expected him to. He does love her, he knows that, but not in the right way. Not in the way everyone assumed he did when he first said it. For a second, he wishes he could. Wishes he could’ve stopped himself from ever hurting her, because she didn’t deserve it. She never deserved to have a boyfriend she has to dump because he simply can’t love her.

“You’re not.” El raises a hand to his cheek, cupping his face and tilting it towards her. Her eyes are glistening just slightly and she has a sad smile on her lips. “You just love him. It’s alright.”

He inhales sharply at the word love. Because he does. He really, really does. He never had a name for the sentiment, but he knew he felt different towards Will than all of his other friends. He wanted to stay by his side forever. Couldn’t imagine what life would be like without him. He hadn’t wanted to name the feeling because it would inevitably lead him here, crying for the first time in a long time, life as he knew crumbling around him. Because what else could it have been if not love?

“It’s not,” he more whispers than says, not because loving Will is wrong. It could never be, not when it’s Will. But because it’s not alright that he led her on for so long, so many years he had forced her to live a lie. That wasn’t alright. That wasn’t fair. To either of them. As much as this hurts, Mike wishes he had known sooner, if only so he would have never hurt a friend so dear to him.

“It is.” El says harshly, placing her other hand on his other cheek and squishing his face up, ensuring he is looking at her. “Mike, I wasn’t happy, we weren’t happy. We just lied to each other a lot.”

“El,” he attempts to speak but the sound comes out distorted by her grip.

“I will always love you. But like a friend, not a boyfriend.” She says, and the words help return the air to his lungs. This is good. He doesn’t want to lose her friendship, doesn’t think he could survive it. “I think,” she stops, looks away, as if searching for the right words to say, “I think I loved the idea of a boyfriend more than I loved you as a boyfriend,” she lets go of his face, sliding her hands down to hold him by the shoulders, “is that how you felt too?”

“El, I,” Mike breathes out, thinking about it. He kind of hates how much sense that makes. He loves El as a friend, of course he does, but he loved even more the idea of having a girlfriend. It’s what he was meant to do, what he was meant to want. Having a girlfriend meant he got to be normal, when sometimes he felt anything but. “I think so.”

The admission feels heavy on his tongue. He feels awful about leading her on for so long, for locking himself away so much that he didn’t even notice he was doing it until she confronted him about it. “I just, you’re so cool, and,” Mike starts to say, in an attempt to explain to her why he had done it, just what feelings he had mistaken for so long. Trying to show her how his caring never never been a lie, “and smart, and you’re strong, and you’re a superhe—”

El cuts him off before he can finish speaking, “I don’t want to be a superhero, Mike.”

He thinks he had known that, somewhere in the back of his head, thinks that was also something he had locked away. Because El being a superhero? That was one of the coolest things he thought anyone could be. It was easy to get that feeling and repackage it as love. Maybe that’s why he clung to that for so long. He sighs, “I know. I really am sorry.”

“You don’t have to be.” Her smile grows wider, her voice somehow even gentler. “Just promise me you’ll be better to him.”

“Oh, c’mon don’t say that,” Mike throws his head back, embarrassed. He can feel the heat in his face and it takes everything in him not to bury himself into the couch so El wouldn’t see him flushed. “He probably doesn’t even,” his voice trails off. Not being able to say the words about Will not liking him back. Will probably isn’t even— Doesn’t even like guys, let alone Mike. El doesn’t seem to agree with him, squeezing his shoulder once again when she catches the sadness in his tone.

“Mike, it’s Will, of course he loves you,” she says, like it’s simple. Like it’s a given. Like it is anything besides his deepest wishful thoughts. “I know you’re smart enough to know he told you that.”

“What,” the way he says it, quick and with a flat tone, it barely even sounds like a question. Mike can’t make sense of it, the idea that Will would like him back, because Mike could never deserve him. He had been such a bad friend, pulling away and not being able to act normal around him for no good reason. Projecting onto him words that caused him hurt. If anything, Mike hopes Will doesn’t like him, if only so that would mean his actions did not have deep consequences. Mike thinks he could deal with loving Will forever, because he really doesn’t see this changing, without ever being loved in return if it means that Will won’t ever be hurt. Not by him. He already caused too much of that.

“I saw he gave you the painting,” El clarifies, “you had it in the van on the way back.”

Mike didn’t understand what the painting had to do with any of this, not when El had commissioned it herself. Will had simply relayed her feelings back to him, that did not mean he liked Mike, even if he had been the ones saying the words. He starts to ask about it, because he doesn’t think it would make sense for them to be talking about the same painting. El’s voice overlaps his own.

“The one you—”

“The one I thought was for a girl he liked.”

Mike can almost feel the way his brain shuts down, he doesn’t know what expression he makes but the shock must be present in it. Because Mike remembers that letter, the one where El had said Will was painting and she suspected he liked someone because he was “acting weird.” When Will had brought the painting he gave to him to the airport, Mike had also assumed it to be the same painting, and then he thought maybe there were more than one. But if El didn’t commission it like Will said she did, then there was a chance that could have been the same painting. Mike doesn’t know how to feel about this. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up.

“But he said,”Mike is honestly confused about this. Will always tell him the truth. Always. It is difficult to imagine a reality where that isn’t the case. Even more so to imagine this reality is one where that is the case. “Why would he lie to me?”

“Lie?” El looks as confused as him, a frown taking shape between her eyebrows. Mike shallows hard before trying to explain.

“He gave me this whole speech, said it was from you, that you told him what to paint,” he says, really thinking about it for the first time. He knew something about this had never quite added up right, El asking Will to paint this but never delivering it herself, not even mentioning it. Or the feelings it was supposed to represent. The painting wasn’t even something personal to the two of them, but something only Mike likes.

“Mike,” El calls out, trying to get his attention, but he can’t stop the words from spilling out of his mouth once they’ve started.

“God, I’m such an idiot,” he all but shouts at himself, giving himself the time to properly think about the painting. It’s of the party, the original party, as their D&D characters fight a hydra. He goes over the party members as they look painted in his head, looking briefly at El before looking away. He realizes she isn’t in the painting at all. “You don’t like D&D, you probably don’t even know what a hydra is!”

“A hydra?”

“The monster in the painting,” he explains, realizing that if she has to ask this, then there’s no way Will was telling the truth. He lifts a hand to his mouth, suddenly sick to his stomach, “oh my god I’m so stupid.”

“You’re not.” El’s tone leaves no room for argument, “you were lying to yourself.”

“In denial,” he’s not sure El hears him, with how the words are little more than a whisper, muffled by his hand, “yeah, I know.”

“God I wanted it to be from him too,” Mike sighs so much louder now, remembering what he had felt in the van. “I felt so guilty when he told me you commissioned it, because,” because of the way his chest lit up with joy when he first saw the painting. And the way his heart sank the moment his girlfriend was mentioned. “Because I wanted so badly to be the person he liked, or, or above them maybe, and I felt so awful to know it wasn’t true.” He’s breathing hard, the words and his feelings finally settling in. “Shit, El, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” It’s not but he doesn’t have it in him to argue it right now, not when he knows she won’t change her mind. He doesn’t deserve her, the way she’s being so kind to him, he has never deserved her.

“What do I do?” He turns to her, anxiety clawing up his throat. Because this is serious. Will is his best friend and this—this thing? It is the kind of thing that can generally destroy a friendship. He can’t lose Will. He just can’t. “I can’t, this could ruin everything.”

“It won’t.”

“It might,” he can hear the insecurity in his own voice, the uncertainty. Because Will can’t like him like this, that much he knows. Mike has always been the clingier one, the one initiating all physical contact, the one making plans for the two of them while simply Will followed. He had never thought about it twice, but looking back it makes sense why he was so different. Why he never wanted to treat Dustin and Lucas the same. Still, Will doesn’t do the things he does, so Mike knows this is one sided. It must be. He tries to ignore the hole he feels where his heart should be.

“I won’t. Even if Will didn’t like you back, which he does, he wouldn’t stop being your friend.” Mike doesn’t know where she gets this confidence, this certainty, but he can’t say she’s wrong either. He tries to imagine it, Will learning about all of this, in every scenario he is kind. He’d promise Mike nothing between them ever had to change, hugging him tightly and saying they would still be best friends despite it. Mike hates how that doesn’t feel like enough.

“He’s too nice,” he says softly, shaking his head, because it is true. Mike takes another deep breath, calming himself, and sits up straighter, looking at El in the eyes, “I am very sorry, about this, about, not realizing earlier I guess.”

“It’s okay,” El takes his hand on hers and squeezes it. She smiles at him when he looks at her, soft and genuine. “Just, promise me you’ll be happy? Both of you.”

Mike does his best to smile back. His heart and voice break a little as he says, “I’ll try.”

♡

After that, it’s like a switch has flipped inside Mike’s brain.

He’s not proud to admit it but he goes straight home, careful to not be spotted, locks himself in his room, and cries for about an hour. It’s not like him, Mike has always prided himself on how he was able to contain his emotions. He can’t remember the last time he cried this much, it must’ve been years ago. He supposes one can only push down and ignore so much, everyone must have their breaking point and apparently for Mike the point of no return was realizing he is, well, what he is.

He still can’t say it, even to himself. Mike has never been religious, not really, but he was raised in close enough proximity to it that their prejudice stuck deep. He remembers going to church with his Nana when he was younger, the sermons he couldn’t quite understand echoing around his ears, teaching about the types of people he just wasn’t allowed to be. He has heard enough of his father’s comments to know exactly what this means for him. Because Mike was never against—against people like him. He always thought no one deserves to be picked on for who they love. He stood beside Will when he was bullied, even as those insults were hurled at him many times by proxy. Now though, now it feels different. It’s one thing to feel bad for other people, to know what they go through simply for who they are and feel it is unfair and undeserved. It’s a completely other thing to know that this person is him. That he would be the one suffering, the target behind every slur and hateful comment, all because of something he didn’t choose. Couldn’t choose. Probably wouldn’t choose if he actually had the choice.

Of course it makes sense, Mike had never been too interested in girls, El being his exception. He had never been interested in any girls before her and he had always thought it was just because he had been so young but maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe it never had been. Maybe Lucas was right and he just liked that El was nice to him. Maybe El was right and he just liked the way having a girlfriend made him normal. Because Mike being, well, Mike, it explains so much. It explains why he could tell when a woman was pretty but had to consciously make a decision to think about it. It explains why when Lucas and Dustin went on and on about Princess Leia, Mike had always been more drawn to Han Solo. He was objectively badass and impressive and Mike really thought he just appreciated the character. Thinking about it now, though, there had been something else there too. Something that kept him looking, even when he didn’t know why. It explains how, he loathes to admit, down right embarrassing had been around Eddie the prior semester. He was just so cool and he was as unafraid to be himself in ways Mike never could be and he was a great storyteller and so funny and—and Mike was there, smiling more often than he should, growing out his hair, wearing different clothes, and trying to fit himself into what he thought would make Eddie like him more. Holy shit, Mike is an idiot.

Still, those were small things, fleeting moments that meant little. They all paled in comparison to what he now realizes he feels for his best friend. All the love he’s tried so hard to keep down for so long.

Now that Mike knows that’s what this is, he can’t imagine what he’d be like if he didn’t love Will. The feeling is so intertwined with his very being he cannot fathom not feeling it. He thinks that’s why it was so easy to push it away. It was always there so he just got used to it, like it was white noise he learned to tune out over the years. Of course he cares about Will deeply, wants to be by his side at all times, would do anything to keep him safe and happy, he was his first and closest friend. It made sense their friendship was different from the others, he had known Will first. It was so easy to rationalize it away that he never stopped to consider what else it could mean. But God, now that he knows, now that the dam is broken, he can’t stop seeing it.

It’s in the way he can’t ever truly be mad at him, even when Will is being objectively mean, because he always deserves it when he is. It’s in the way he sees Will in everything, in every mini he has to paint by himself, in each one of Holly’s crayons, and every Reese’s chocolate. It’s in the way he loves every drawing Will has ever made. He always has. He has them pinned into the walls, his favorites in a binder he keeps under his bed, so he can look at it whenever he misses Will. Shit, he sounds so sappy, he cannot believe it took him this long to realize it. It’s in the way he wants Will safe, always by his side, and happy. In the way he thinks he would do anything to keep him happy, even if he fails quite often. Maybe he can do better, be better, now that he knows.

So maybe he would choose it still, if he had the choice. Because choosing it, choosing this, means he gets to love Will. And Mike cannot imagine a choice more worthwhile.

He flips himself over to stare at his ceiling while he lays in bed and lets the tears well up in his eyes. The painting, Will’s painting, is just barely visible on his peripheral vision. The sight makes his heart clench.

He is so screwed.

♡

Mike Wheeler, he quickly realizes, is a really bad actor.

He doesn’t know how he did it before, how he just looked at Will without letting his eyes linger. How he heard his laugh—which sounds so much lower now and Mike isn’t sure what to do with that when he feels it echo in his own heart—without tripping over his feet. How he used to be able to just touch him, without feeling every point of contact fire as if he had been electrocuted. Maybe Mike had been onto something with the whole repression thing because at this point, he feels he is being so obvious there’s no way everyone else hasn’t caught on yet.

Or well, almost no one, he is pretty sure Jonathan knows, which is downright mortifying. He hasn’t said anything to Mike, not outright, but he keeps sending him weird looks. Every time he gets a little too close to Will, laughs a little too hard in his presence, lets his gaze linger for longer than it should. Jonathan is always there looking straight at him, eyes slightly narrow, as if he can see what Mike is thinking. As if he knows and is disgusted by him. If that wasn’t enough, Jonathan also keeps trying to keep Mike and Will away from one another. The worst part is Mike doesn’t even know why, it’s not like he’ll corrupt Will with his feelings, it doesn’t work like that. Yet Jonathan keeps himself close, always watching, always there, never allowing the two of them a moment alone while in Mike’s house. It’s fine, really, because Jonathan has nothing to worry about. Will doesn’t love Mike back, that much is obvious regardless of what El says. Mike just wishes Jonathan would chill out, even if for a little while.

All things considered though, he can deal with Jonathan, it’s a little annoying but not a huge deal. The real issue would be tipping off Lucas.

Because Lucas knows him better than anyone else (save Will) and is probably his real best friend, now that he realizes Will has a separate category of his own. Lucas has never once shied away from calling him out on his bullshit, and he’s perceptive. Way too perceptive. Mike feels he has to be extra aware of himself when around him, because he knows a single suspicious sign will be the only thing needed for him to realize it immediately.

And maybe that would be okay, Mike is pretty sure Lucas would be good about this. He might be taken aback, not expecting this development, but Mike doesn’t think he’ll be anything but supportive. At the very least he’ll be much better than Jonathan. The issue is, once Lucas knows, he’ll never Mike live it down, and Mike isn’t sure he can take his teasing, any amount of it, without instantaneously combusting. At least he’d take Lucas with him, if he were to die in a ball of fire by embarrassment.

He manages to survive without being found out, which he thinks must be a testament for how gone he had been on Will for so long that his slip ups don’t even register to Lucas or Dustin. Because he does slip, all the damn time. He stares at Will for a little too long, sometimes being careless enough that he lets his gaze drift down. Will has such nice lips, they look really soft, Mike often finds himself having to make a conscious effort not to lean down. He’s also protective, perhaps overtly so. He uses every opportunity to touch Will, an arm around his shoulders, a bump of elbows and knees, anything to feel that tiny shock of electricity Will’s touch sends his way.

He’s softer around Will, gentler without ever meaning to be. He apologizes to him when he does wrong, without the need to be prompted, simply because he deserves it. He drops anything he’s doing to do whatever Will asks of him, because he’d much rather do that anyway. He can feel his gaze soften when he looks at him, his lips bending into an involuntary smile. It’s worth it for all the times Will looks back.

So yes, Mike is obvious, really obvious. And if no one can see it, then it must be because he has always acted this way. Mike cannot believe he had never noticed it before, if he has always been this bad. Denial must be one hell of a drug.

His friends’ general obliviousness is good though, because the longer he thinks about it, the more far-fetched the idea of Will liking him back seems. Will doesn’t look like he does, doesn’t stare at Mike the way Mike can’t stop himself from staring at Will. He tells himself it’s fine, as the party slowly settles into a routine of school and the crawls and Mike into one of having to physically stop himself from kissing Will every three business seconds. As long as he gets to keep Will by his side, even as a friend (a best friend), then this is nothing that Mike can’t deal with. Even if that means repressing his feelings again. At least he has the practice.

♡

Everything goes well until it doesn’t.

That crawl wasn’t meant to be anything special, it was a routine mission, and yet so much had happened so fast. First Hopper got stuck, then Holly was taken and his parents wounded. It all happened so fast he had no time to even process it. He’s sitting in the hospital waiting room when he realizes just how fast life can turn around. How everything can change in a matter of minutes. It makes him think, really think.

He could die. It’s genuinely a possibility. They could all die, if they failed, if they couldn’t stop Vecna. Sixteen is far too young to die, especially when he feels he just barely started to truly live, like he was meant to. That is, if he even started at all. Could that really be said when he was lying to everyone but himself? Mike’s not sure.

He soaks up the warmth from his coffee, letting the drink heat his hands while he looks at its dark surface and thinks that maybe, just maybe, it’s time to stop being cowardly. Because he might die. His friends might die. Will might die. He doesn’t want to imagine a future in which that one happens and he is left alive. He knows it could very well happen. So maybe it is time to stop being scared of himself, maybe it’s time to truly become Mike The Brave. Maybe it’s finally time to do the things he won’t regret not having done.

Mike takes a sip of his coffee as he makes this promise to himself, he’s not sure he can follow through with it, but he decides that he’ll sure as hell at least try.

♡

Robin’s plan is, all things considered, not bad. Mike kind of hates to admit that, not because he doesn’t like the plan, he does, it’s honestly probably their best shot. It’s not even that he doesn’t like Robin either, he doesn’t know her much but she’s cool, smart, funny enough to hang around when he has to. He never disliked her necessarily, but he might now. He might because Will won’t leave her side. It’s pathetic, really.

Will hasn’t done anything wrong, he’s allowed to like a girl, even if Mike thinks she’s entirely too old for him. He honestly never considered this could happen, as selfish as it is he sort of hoped Will was like him. Of course he wasn’t, being bullied for it doesn’t mean he has to be, well, that. Mike should know, he wasn’t bullied for it and yet there he was. Still queer. He’s trying to say it more, to take away the weird connotation he has in his mind around the word. It’s not quite so easy.

Robin is, at the end of the day, an alright choice. She probably won’t like Will back due to the whole being older thing so Mike doesn’t feel he has much to worry about right now. He’ll jump the bridge of Will getting a girlfriend when they get to it. He also can’t help but hope the day never comes, which is unfair. Will deserves to be loved, more than anyone else ever has. He deserves someone who will stick by his side no matter what, take him on nice dates, and kiss him when he’s sad and honestly just at about all other times. Mike really wishes that person could be him, he thinks he’d do a great job for Will now that the feelings come naturally. Since he can’t, he’ll just have to come to terms with hoping Will finds someone that is good to him. And then he’ll do his very best to be polite and supportive, because Will also deserves that from his best friend. It’s an impossible task but he thinks he could do it for him. It would just take a whole lot of self discipline. At least he has time to learn it.

Mike watches as Robin and the others walk towards the tunnels, Will keeping himself a small distance apart from them and Mike even further behind Will. They’re all talking, Robin teasing Lucas about something. MIke decides he should close the distance between him and Will, because he looks lost in thought and a little sad and Mike desperately needs to change that. Ms. Byers says something about believing in people as Mike sidesteps, drifting to Will’s side, their elbows bumping as he overcorrects just slightly. Will looks up at him, with a confused look on this face.

“Your mom and Robin are getting along better,” Mike offers, training his eyes forward. He doesn’t know for sure that Will likes Robin, but he has a hunch, with how close these two have been recently. So he figures, maybe Will would tell him, if he brought it up first, that and the fact that if he does then he really must be glad about this new development.

“Well, it didn’t hurt that mom scared off that demo,” Mike turns to look at him, unable not to give him his full attention, “saved Robin’s life,” Will catches his eyes, “everybody’s life.”

Mike forces himself to break eye contact. He can’t let himself stare for too long, not when it could make Will uncomfortable if he saw the longing Mike is sure he isn’t able to mask. No talking about Robin then, that’s alright, he can pivot, he figures Will is really proud of him mom too. Honestly, from what he’s heard, so is Mike.

“So, when your mom, when she had her axe, you could see her?” Mike looks up at Will again, trying to find the answers in his face (it’s a nice face). Mike has a theory, one that is perhaps a little far fetched, about why she wasn’t attacked and he wants to know if it could possibly be true. “Like, through the demo’s eyes?”

“Yeah, and I was so close to the hive, it’s like,” Will's confirmation rings true to his theory. He might actually be onto something, “I could feel what it was feeling, like, like this anger,” Mike can’t imagine what feeling the hive’s emotions would be like. Will is so much stronger than he could ever be, “and I was still in there too. And I was afraid. I was afraid for my mom.”

“You wanted to protect her,” Mike says simply, the dots connecting in his brain in the way he knew they would. Will wanted to protect his mom, could see her, could feel the hive. Mike’s theory is this: maybe the hive could feel him right back.

“Yeah but I,” Will stutters, “I just couldn’t. It was like this scary movie you just can’t turn off.”

“Are you positive you didn’t?” Mike turns to Will, stopping them both in their tracks, gesturing with a hand toward his best friend. Because if Mike is right, then that means he had done it, had protected her like he wanted. Will, for one, looks confused.

“Didn’t what?”

“Turn off the scary movie,” he says, borrowing the analogy. “Protect your mom, not the other way around,”Mike hands him the idea like a suggestion, but it doesn’t feel like one to him. It feels like the inevitability that’s been building since Will first was able to spy on the hive. “I mean, no offense I know she's badass and everything, but y’know?”

“Yeah, she’s 5 foot 3,” Will laughs and it’s not a big one, it’s more of a scoff than anything, but Mike drinks it up as if it were. He really likes Will’s laugh, really likes the way his voice has deepened around it. He should make Will laugh more.

“Yeah,” Mike agrees easily. Though if he were being honest he thinks he’d agree with anything Will could ever say if he were looking at him like that, “and Vecna likes to control the hive mind like a puppet master. So maybe when you tap into the hive you can pull the strings too.”

“Except I’m not Vecna,” Will says, tone split between confused and amused.

“You sorta are,” Mike fights the smile threading to overtake his face, of course Will isn’t Vecna, he’s way too good to ever be like that villain. But he might just be able to use his powers, if Mike is right.

Will does that scoffing laugh again, taking it as the light banger Mike knew he would, and Mike kind of wants to kiss the sound off his mouth. “You are to say that I’m evil and hellbent on destroying the world?”

“Totally,” Mike has to break eye contact as the stupid smile crawls up his face, he enjoys teasing Will like this. He should do it more often. “No, I'm just saying that you’re like a wizard, like him.”

“In D&D, Mike,” Will teases him back, his tone soft and his lips bent in the loveliest smile. Mike feels his heart swell with affection. Because he made Will smile like that. He and no one else. “Not real life.”

“True.” Mike grants him, he’s not a wizard, not someone who’s had to study to gain every single ability. Will is simply special, with something like magic running through his veins. “In real life you’re more like a sorcerer because your powers don’t come from a book of spells, they’re innate.”

Will laughs again, but this time it has no sound, Mike immediately misses it.

“Listen, as far as crazy theories go, I’ve had crazier,” he says, trying to convince Will of what he is saying. Because he truly believes it. Because Will is special, he has always been, Mike just knows it, “and with Eleven in the upside down, we really need some magic up here.”

Will looks him up and down then, that beautiful smile still on his face, and shoves Mike on the chest. It’s a light touch, more playful than anything. Like he’s telling Mike to just shut up and stop being sappy. Mike feels his heart stutter under Will’s hand, electricity running in his veins, which is stupid because there’s at least two layers of clothes covering him. And yet it’s still there. It’s too much. Mike feels like he’s on the verge of doing something stupid.

So he lets go, Mike allows himself one second where looks up and down, committing the scene to memory. The smile on his lips, the soft look in his eyes, the way he seems to glow under the afternoon sunlight. God, he’s so beautiful. Mike gives himself the self indulgence of looking at Will and then walks away, smiling to himself all the while. He thinks he could deal with Will never loving him back if only he gets to keep this.

Mike notices Robin quickly get into the tunnels as he comes closer and really hopes she had not been watching. He really doesn’t need this right now. His light mood is quickly replaced by annoyance, he should’ve known he couldn’t keep anything good. Not for long.

♡

Mike tries his best not to notice how Will and Robin drift behind in the tunnels, seemingly in deep conversation. He tries not to notice how they stop, letting the others move even further away. He doesn’t look back as he hears them laughing amongst themselves, standing so close their heads and shoulders almost bump, lost in their own little world with no space for the rest of them. It’s none of his business. Even if he feels it should be. Even if he knows Robin would never understand Will like Mike does, would never be as good to him as Mike would. He tries his hardest not to roll his eyes, not missing the look Lucas gives him, and starts using his shovel to soften the earth.

And if, once everything goes wrong and the pipe starts to leak, Mike makes a point of asking for Will specifically to help him, only so he could use it as an opportunity to get him away from Robin. Then well, no one besides him had to know. Will comes willingly, as Mike knew he would. Takes off his jacket when Mike asks, and isn’t that a thought? Mike shakes that one out his brain but if he just so happens to purposefully place his hands above Will’s own, so he can at least know what their fingers feel like when intertwined, he doesn’t think anyone could blame him.

♡

It is ridiculously easy for Mike to accept his untimely death.

Truth be told, everything that happened after leaving the barracks feels like a blur. One second he was being held back by soldiers as the earth split open, countless demogorgons jumping out of the ground and attacking with all their might. Next thing he knows he was leading the kids around, hoping to get them into the tunnels again. Then Vecna shows up and all but puppets Will around. He can’t hear what he says, but it must not be good, from the look on Will’s face. Then the kids are gone and so is Vecna and all the soldiers are dead and Mike lets himself believe, for one second, that this will be it, at least for today. That they’ll get to leave and regroup and rethink their strategies. But then the demos are back and one of them jumps straight at him, claws ready to strike. Mike only has the time to shield his face and brace himself for impact.

He doesn’t want to die, not when there is still so much pending for him. Holly is still missing, his parents in the hospital, and Nancy in the Upside Down. Would any of them ever know what became of him? He hopes not, he figures it might hurt less that way. He had told himself he wanted to live with no regrets and yet here he is, about to die at the ripe age of sixteen without ever having told his best friend how much he loved him. Mike shuts his eyes tight, foolishly thinking that maybe it won’t hurt as much if he doesn’t see it happening.

The impact never comes.

Mike slowly looks up and finds the demo is, in fact, still there. Jumping as if ready to pounce on him but still, frozen in midair. Mike breathes hard, his heartbeat thunders in his chest, his bloop pumps in his ears. He is alive. He can barely believe it.

He doesn’t have to look to know who is behind the demo, but he looks anyway. He wouldn’t miss the sight of Will as he stands tall, eyes rolled back and arm outstretched, stopping the demogorgon in his tracks. Tapping into the hive and taking control of it, saving his life. Like Mike knew he would. Mike watches as he brings up his other arm, then his head, and gestures only slightly. The demo breaks from the inside, its limbs snapping in unnatural directions before it falls lifeless to the ground. Will lets down his arms, opens his hands, and falls to his knees, cleaning a nosebleed with his sleeves.

Time all but slows down. Mike finds it hard to breathe. He has to make a conscious effort to keep his lungs going because if he lets himself forget, he thinks they would just stop. Frozen as he drinks in the sight of his best friend, soaked to the bone and panting hard as he kneels in the hard asphalt. Look, Mike has always known he enjoys looking at Will, it’s easy to notice it when he’s just always been so wonderful, with his shy smiles and his pretty eyes, and the way he is just a smidge shorter than Mike himself. But this? The way he looks right now, completely wrecked and yet still standing? He looks incredible. The truth is, this is probably the most attractive thing Mike has seen in his life. So he stares more openly than he ever allowed himself to. He can feel his heart race so fast he’d believe himself to be dying under any other circumstance. Maybe he still is.

He allows himself about ten seconds of staring, half because he needs the moment to last as long as possible and half because he thinks his legs would give out under him if he tried to walk. Then Will looks up, breathing heavily, and his eyes lock with Mike’s. Mike breaks out of his spell and then he’s running, he doesn’t think he can last a single second longer without being by Will’s side.

“Will!” He yells as he moves closer, throwing himself into his knees as he falls in front of his best friend, “that was amazing!”

Will doesn’t say anything, he seems dazed, his eyes unfocused, but he smiles at Mike. The sweetest most adorable little smile and it takes everything in Mike to not kiss it out of his lips right then and there. He does the only other thing he can do with his body and throws his arms around will, “you are amazing.”

Mike hugs Will tightly, and decides this is it. He doesn’t know if Will could ever like him back, but he’s tired of regretting things. Of not taking his chances and staying still when he shouldn’t. Maybe he won’t roll the Nat20 he needs for Will to love him back, but this doesn’t mean he’ll roll a Nat1 either. He just has to beat whatever DC the universe has chosen for him, and Mike has a feeling this one might just work out in his favor.

Whatever comes next he’s done running away from his feelings. Done pretending he wouldn’t take everything Will allowed him to, however little that is. He holds Will close and lets himself feel his heart race as Will’s hard breathing shakes both of their bodies. Mike lets himself feel the warmth in his gut and the sparks in every point of contact. He lets himself love Will like he was always meant to.

Mike Wheeler is tired, drenched in sink water, and feeling like he’d just been dropped out of an emotional rollercoaster, when he decides to take the final step and stop being scared of loving his best friend.

It’s the most free he’s felt in years.