Chapter Text
"Mike, let's get out of here."
"You know, I've waited my whole life for someone to say that to me."
Will gets back to Hawkins first.
Even after all those months of his mom and Hopper living in Montauk, the cabin is still the same, completely untouched. So Will and Jonathan decide to use it as their little hotel for the month. The boys had been invited to their parents' place in Montauk, but Jonathan and Will both separately made plans with their friends to reunite in Hawkins for their first holiday break. So they would spend the next two weeks doing their best not to burn the cabin to the ground before their mom, El, and Hopper came back to celebrate Christmas with them.
El had vanished for a while between the final battle and graduation, and it fucked their entire party up for a while, but over the summer, Dr. Owens came back and told them all that before El escaped the NINA Project, he had given her a secret location to find him if she needed protection, and she had run away there until they found a way to stop Dr. Kay's experiments. Once they did, El didn't return to Hawkins, choosing instead to live with their parents in Montauk.
She had finally visited Will at RISD last month, and it was genuinely the happiest moment of his life when he'd wrapped his arms around her and heard her breath fill the air, so beautiful and alive. It was then that she revealed to him she officially broke up with Mike over a phone call, she got a very kind tutor in New York to help her, and she would come back to Hawkins one last time to celebrate Christmas with everyone. Will knew Lucas, Dustin, and Max were ecstatic about it.
Once Will finishes unpacking and setting up his air mattress in El's room, he stops by the Sinclairs to say hi, skillfully averting his eyes from the other house he knew well on this block, and is met with the kindest welcome home he could have imagined. Sue insists he stay for dinner, Erica is excited to show him her new campaign, and Charles asks him a bunch of questions about his first semester. Lucas and Max are due to come home within the next few days, and Will promises he'll be over again a bunch once they do.
When it's over, Will has a strange ache. He isn't ready for the isolation of the cabin.
Light snow trickles from the sky as he walks down the familiar streets. All the old stores him and his friends used to spend their time getting lost in. He peeks through the doors of the dark Palace Arcade. It used to be open so much later than this. The kids of today will never know the feeling of late nights playing games and devouring fries.
Will has no idea where he's planning on going until he's standing right in front of it.
It's strange seeing Melvald's like this. Apparently it did used to have a diner attached back in the 50s that they eventually closed, but while Will and his friends were away at school, it finally reopened. He had spoken to Dustin, Lucas, and Max on the phone and said they should go over break, but after all the plans they made over the summer that they ended up being too busy to fulfill, who knew if they'd get around to it? At least one of them should try it out.
The air changes the second he walks in.
The second he hears the voice.
"Hey, we're closing in like fifteen minutes, what do you..."
The entire room goes silent as their eyes met. The only sound is the pen clattering from his hands to the floor.
"Will."
"This whole town just sucks," Will continued as the pair leaned against the basement wall. His mom had just broken the news that they were moving to California, something he hadn't told his friends yet. But it got him thinking. "We thought the Mind Flayer was dead the first time, who's to say it won't come back again."
Mike shrugged, running a hand through his hair. "It might. It probably will."
"Everyone here sucks. Our dreams, your dreams, they're so much bigger than this place. You can be so much more."
"So what are you saying?"
"Let's get out of here. You and me. Before it's too late."
Mike didn't even hesitate. "Where would we go?"
The door closes behind Will, sealing them in.
"Mike."
"W- what are you doing here?"
"I didn't check the hours," Will admits. "Just wanted to see the place."
"Oh. Yeah, I mean, we're closing in like fifteen minutes," Mike repeats, "but I can grab you something if you, you know, need."
Will shakes his head. "No. No, it's okay."
"Cool."
Will tries to distract himself by glancing around, but it's just your standard run-of-the-mill diner. His eyes keep coming back to Mike, whose hair is growing long again, sticking out from under the red and white cap, his fingers tapping mindlessly against his knee, dark purple bags under his eyes.
"I didn't know you were coming back," Mike finally says. How would he? Will wants to ask. Mike hadn't spoken to him since graduation.
"Yeah, I just got in today. Everyone else is coming later this week or right before Christmas."
Mike's Adam's Apple bobs as he swallows. He opens his mouth to say something, but then closes it and nods before deciding on, "How's art school?"
"It's awesome," Will admits, unable to stop the smile from forming on his face. "My professors are great. I've made some really cool friends. And Rhode Island's actually really fun."
Mike scrunches his nose up. "It's tiny. How fun could it be?"
"No tinier than Hawkins," Will reminds him. "And we had fun here."
Had.
Mike nods again. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right."
Will racks his brain trying to think of something else to ask Mike about. "How long have you been working here?"
Mike taps the pen against notepad. "Oh, uh, since it opened. Back in August." He shrugs. "My parents were sick of me wasting time in my room, and Holly wouldn't let me join her campaigns, so I figured I may as well make some good money."
Will raises an eyebrow. "And is it? Good money?"
Mike smiles for the first time since Will walked in. But something about the smile looks strained and unnatural. Like he somehow forgot how to do it. "No," he answers. "No it's not."
Will allows himself a tiny chuckle at that. "What about your writing? You ever start that book you were telling us about?"
The book Mike said he was going to write at their graduation dinner. The last time the two had spoken before right now.
Mike winces as he twirled the pen in his fingers, staring at it like it was an old friend. "Oh, no, that... that never really got anywhere."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
Mike shakes his head. "Don't be. Writing... it was just something I filled time with was a kid. I'm not really into it anymore."
Will hates that, even after months of Mike barely being a part of his life anymore, he can still read all of Mike's tells. And he can still tell when Mike was lying.
But now Mike is walking away to start wiping down the counter. Will glances at the door. Maybe he should leave.
"Where are you staying tonight?" Mike's voice brings him back.
"Uh, Hop's cabin. It's still empty."
"Oh," Mike nods, looking like he wants to say more. "That's convenient."
"Sure is." Will sticks his hands in his pockets and rocks back and forth as Mike finishes cleaning up. He has this weird wish that he'd brought one of his drawings. Maybe Mike would be interested to see what Will's been up to all this time. Will for sure would have loved to read that book. But if Mike is still living in Hawkins, working at some shitty diner, writing in his past, there's really only one other thing to ask him about. "Are you, uh, you still dating that girl?"
"Hmm? Oh, Charlotte? Yeah. Yeah, she's great."
Will obviously never met this girl—Charlotte—but Lucas reported seeing Mike usher her into his house a few times when he came home for Thanksgiving. Lucas claimed he'd tried to ask Mike about her when they both went out at the same time to get the mail, but Mike hadn't given him any detail before he turned around and holed himself back up in his house.
"We're- we're great. We're doing great. She's..." Mike sighs, "she's a girl, Will. I don't know. She doesn't know anything about what we went through, and she just doesn't get it."
Will nods. It had been hard for him to try to date too, aside from the obvious of not knowing which guys were safe to approach, but even if he did find someone into him, how would he be able to explain the extent of everything he'd been through? How would he ever be able to have a fulfilling life with someone who would never know the deepest, darkest parts of him?
To this day, Will still doesn't get it. Why Mike suddenly avoided all of their calls until they just stopped trying, when they're the only ones that understand him. Fully understand him.
"She goes to school like twenty minutes from here, so I get to see her a lot when she comes home on weekends," Mike continues as he grabs a broom. "You know, if I'm not working those days."
"You ever think about where you're gonna go to school?" Will can't help the question from slipping out.
Mike stiffens, his hands shaking over the handle of the broom before he forces himself to start sweeping. "I don't know. Honestly, I don't even know if I will. Things are... good here. I don't think I could ever really leave it. Maybe I'll go where Lottie goes." He looks up and gives Will a half-assed grin. "It's cool that you got out, though."
"Yeah, well, it's no Mexico."
His mouth clamps shut. Why the hell did he say that?
"Mexico." Will said the first thing that came to mind.
"Mexico? Why Mexico?"
"It's far from here. We can escape. We can forget. And it's warm. We won't have to wait for summer. We just bring a bathing suit."
"I don't have one."
"Then you'll buy one. Even better. We don't have to pack. We can just grab our passports and go right now."
"Right now?"
"Yeah, right now. Go to the bus station, catch the first one out of here. Ride it 'til it gets us to Mexico. We'll figure it out from there, but at least we'll be far. Far away from this place."
"Okay," Mike said. "Let's do it."
Will's eyes widened as he jumped to his feet. "Let's do it?"
Mike rose to his feet as well. "Fuck it. Let's go. Let's get out of here. You and me. Let's go to Mexico."
Will's heart was racing a mile a minute. "Okay. Let's go to Mexico."
"Boys!" Karen called down to the basement. "Dinner's ready!"
Will isn't even sure Mike remembers. They never brought it up again. Never told any of their friends. After dinner, Will went home and collapsed into bed, not having the energy to sketch the drawing of them in Mexico, and by the time he woke up in the morning, he just didn't want to anymore.
"Yeah," Mike finally says. "But it's something."
"It's something alright."
The air lingers between them, begging them to step towards each other, to say something, to do anything, when a man appears around the corner of the kitchen. "Michael! Place closes in five minutes! Finish up out here!"
"Okay!" Mike calls before turning back to Will. "Guess I gotta finish cleaning."
"Yeah. Yeah I should probably head home."
"Will I..." Mike swallows hard again before finishing his sentence, his eyes getting cloudy as he spoke. "Will I see you at all again this break?"
Everything in Will wants to say yes. But he hadn't even planned on seeing him this first time. And he isn't sure he can handle it again.
"Jonathan's coming in tomorrow, and we have a lot planned. I'm not sure I'll have time."
Mike nods and blinks rapidly a few times so that his eyes clear, and Will can see the beautiful brown swirls in them. "Makes sense. Maybe another time."
"Maybe," Will agrees.
They both know it's a lie.
"And at least we'll always have Mexico."
Will allows himself one more smile. "Yeah. We'll always have Mexico."
He finally turns around and places his hand on the doorknob. Eventually, once his friends get in, he'll have to make up some sort of excuse about why they can't go to Melvald's. Maybe he'll just say he went and the food sucks and actually they should just avoid downtown Hawkins and honestly they don't need to hang out at the Sinclair house, Lucas and Max can come to the cabin or Dustin's house to hang out.
The cool air slaps Will in the face as he takes his first step out.
"Merry Christmas, Will," Mike's voice comes from behind him.
It's Will's turn to blink his eyes, only for him, the tears don't go away. He stares out into the town as he says back, "Merry Christmas, Mike."