Work Text:
Mike was now a man.
Mike should have moved on by now, like all his old friends. Some were married now, some were doing extremely important scientific research that would change the world in a not-too-distant future, and some were planning to have children.
Mike, instead, had remained exactly what he had become at sixteen: a scared boy, frightened, who watched everyone rush pasthim, grow up, achieve things, while he stayed stuck, frozen, prey to his greatest fears.
Not that Mike Wheeler hadn’t achieved anything. He had beenliving in New York since 1989, the year he had moved to the campus of his university together with Will, who had spoken so highly of the programs he could attend there, in that huge city, while staying by his side. It hadn’t taken Mike long to pack hisbags, tell his parents that this was his future, and follow Will on yet another adventure — one he had no idea where it would lead, but which he was happy to take.
Will had always been his best friend, the one with whom everything was always more beautiful, more satisfying, and that too had pushed Mike not to let him go completely, not to detach himself from his side, because if it had been up to him, after everything they had been through, he would have glued Will to his chest, fully aware that he could be with him forever.
They had gotten together in the summer of 1990. It had taken Mike a whole year to understand that those feelings for Will were not just an obsession for what they had both gone through as teenagers. Mike would look at Will’s paint-stained hands and wantto kiss them one by one, even if it meant tasting chemicals in his mouth; he watched Will cover his eyes in fear during a horror movie and wished he could be the one to protect him from the outside world; Mike noticed how Will smiled and laughed whole heartedly at his terrible jokes that anyone else would have found awful, and he found himself wanting to kiss those lips and never let them go again, as if they were already part of his own body, part of his own face.
Mike admitted that it had been complicated having to explain everything at home, explain that thing to El and especially to Hopper, who hadn’t taken it in the best way. (The man had exclaimed something like “Am I really forced to have you as my son-in-law???”)
But despite the difficulties, the two boys had been together for ten years now, through ups and downs. Ups thanks to Will and his wonderful personality, his way of being, and the love he managed to show Mike in every single aspect of their life and their relationship; downs due to Mike, often unable to express his own emotions, still scared of everything that had been and everything that could still be.
Because even though ten years earlier they had killed Vecna, the absolute evil had been locked inside itself and sent back where it came from together with Demogorgons, Demodogs and other horrible things, Mike could not and could not move on. Mike lived with a weight on his shoulders, which wasn’t only because of what had happened to Will, whom he kept under control as if he were a convicted criminal, but also because of what Vecna had whispered to Mike while he was about to die — something everyone had heard, turning their gaze from the monster’s corpse to their friend, asking for explanations.
Vecna had entered Mike’s mind shortly before everything ended, shortly before he was grabbed and his head cut off, before Mike had the chance to realize that El was just a friend and that in reality he was obsessed with Will, feeling for him a love he didn’t even think he was capable of expressing.
He was with Steve, Eddie, Nancy, Jonathan and Dustin when it happened. They were climbing back up — or descending, depending on the point of view — from the Upside Down, and right when Mike was about to jump into the correct reality, Vecnahad grabbed him and dragged him back into the Upside Down, amid the screams of his friends and his sister, who had helplessly witnessed what the monster was about to do to Mike.
He had been shown three visions.
First vision
Mike found himself in his house, a silent dark house, so different from the house he was used to, especially since the Byers had moved in with them. It was cold, but not a tangible cold — something that got under his bones, something that made him tremble not only from the freezing temperature but also from fear, because it felt terribly similar to the sensation Will had described feeling for years when he sensed Vecna’s presence or the Demogorgons. In the vision he went down the stairs and found himself on the landing, right in front of the kitchen; looking in, he witnessed the most horrible spectacle his brain could process. His parents were sprawled on the kitchen floor, chests torn open by slashes Mike could easily attribute to Demogorgon claws, blood pouring out in liters while his parents died slowly, and he couldn’t help them at all. In a corner Holly was screaming, hands over herears, probably terrified by the whole situation, but also by her own voice, unable to hold back the terror. Mike understood her. Mike felt the same way — inert, as if a rope were holding him silent and still while his house fell apart.
1987
At first Mike hadn’t believed that could actually be a real vision. He thought it was Vecna’s way of scaring him, of making himeven more of a frightened kid, and that was why he wasn’t there when that vision truly came true, when his parents really were attacked by Demogorgons and his sister was kidnapped and dragged into the Upside Down, to take part in Vecna’s sick plan to destroy the world, to remake it in his own image and likeness. He had really stood helplessly watching his mother’s pain; even with deep wounds in her chest she had saved Robin, Vicky, Max and Lucas’s lives, then held him tight to her chest, telling herself that it would all end sooner or later, that she had been on the verge of death just as he had seen, but she had survived. He had smelled her home scent, the one all mothers who love their children carryon them, and he had relaxed, even though deep inside he now knew that the other two visions could also come true, and that they could cause even worse damage if he didn’t do something to prevent them from actually happening.
Second vision
Mike had been transported to a not-too-distant future from the one he was in when the visions were shown to him. In reality Nancy was twenty years old, while in that vision she looked about twenty-five or twenty-six. She seemed like an adult woman, dealing with her everyday life, driving her car happily and carefree on the highway. Mike looked around, not understanding what was supposed to be horrifying this time, finding himself truly inside Vecna’s mind and having already witnessed the massacre of his family. Nancy seemed to be driving on the highway toward Hawkins — maybe coming back, maybe leaving; Mike wished he had paid more attention during family trips so hecould be sure. So he turned back to watch his sister, who looked happy and carefree, even humming, holding the steering wheel with one hand while the other rested in her lap. No one else in the car with her.
Until the crash.
Nancy’s car — with Mike inside — was violently thrown sideways by a speeding, out-of-control vehicle. Mike didn’t understand the dynamics, didn’t understand how the other car hadhit his sister’s, because while he watched Nancy touch her head, injured, dazed and bleeding, he realized that the point of that vision was something else.
Nancy’s seatbelt was jammed. The girl tried to unbuckle it once, twice, three times, four times, starting to panic, but her fingers weren’t shaking — proof of how much the entire battle against Vecna had forged her over time. Nancy was a strong, independent woman, even in the craziest, most dangerous situation, where she was literally risking her life. But being that way, unfortunately, didn’t help Mike’s sister in that moment. She didn’t even notice the exact moment of her own death, as the haze took her into its arms, her fingers stopped trying to unbuckle the belt, and Nancy died like that — upside down, killed by a seatbelt that had decided not to work when it was needed most.
1994
And over the years that vision had shaped Mike, who kept seeing his sister die in that car over and over, thinking that maybe if she had managed to get out in time she could have been saved. Without staying upside down too long, without fainting from blood rushing to her head, without being rescued too manyminutes later when she had already passed out, when she no longer had consciousness and the rescuers had already found herdead. Mike had spent years keeping that car’s safety under control, even from afar, even while living in another city with Will, where they had bought their own house and lived happily.
Every time without fail Mike called his sister to ask about the brakes, whether she had checked the seatbelts, whether the winter tires had been put on, and although at first Nancy seemed annoyed, in the end she decided that if that could make her brotherfeel better, then she would let him do it. They lived far apart and she could perfectly understand the need he felt.
Every year, in addition to the times they came home for holidays or birthdays, Mike would show up at his sister’s house specifically to personally take her car for a check-up. Nancy had even changed cars over the years, but Mike didn’t care — he would have checked any car his sister owned, even for the rest of his life if necessary.
So with Will beside him, Mike would take his sister’s car to the mechanic for all the necessary checks, relaxing the overly tense muscles of the boy, while Will held his arm with his soft hands, keeping Mike anchored in the present, in what they were living right now, and not in what Vecna wanted him to think for the restof his life. Will had told him many times, had smiled at him many times and caressed him, trying to comfort him, trying to tell him that the monster was dead now, that the Upside Down no longer existed and with it everything they had experienced could stay in the past.
And Mike really tried, he desperately wanted to, because by now he was twenty-three years old, he had graduated in literature, he made his living from writing, he had a boyfriend he loved madly who in turn loved him as if he were the only important person in his life. Will was joy, love, happiness, desire, passion — but it stillwasn’t enough.
Mike was afraid.
Mike was still that sixteen-year-old kid who felt fucking terrified at the thought that Vecna could kill all the people he cared about most.
That was why, during one of his annual car check-ups for Nancy, when they found a fault in the seatbelt mechanisms, Will’s hand squeezed Mike’s arm harder. Mike flinched, eyes wide, heart skipping a beat. He turned to look at his boyfriend, right in front of the mechanic who was staring at them without understanding all the commotion — they were longtime loyal customers by now and from his side everything was fine because the fault had been fixed.
But from Mike’s point of view this was yet another tragedy.
They left the car with Nancy and returned to New York, with Will driving while Mike stared out at the world passing by in strict silence. Will had known Mike since they were children; he knew his boyfriend had two ways of dealing with trauma: either talking nonstop and trying to fix things with seemingly nonsensical but spectacular plans, or complete silence.
And this was the second case.
Will respected his silence, which lasted the entire trip and even the next day — at least until that evening when Mike received a call informing him that yes, his vision had come true: Nancy had had an accident, but she was fine, she hadn’t died, because she had gotten out of the car in time, the blood hadn’t rushed to her brain, and the girl had waited for help calmly on the side of the road while people got out of other cars to check on her.
Third vision
This time Mike was thrown forward what the boy interpreted as about ten years. Given the previous visions, he had by now understood how this kind of weather forecast / death omen worked, and so when he found himself in front of the person directly involved, Mike tried to scream, to oppose what appeared before his eyes. Compared to the other visions, this time everything seemed blurred, nothing was clear to his sight — only the person directly involved and the canvas painted by his soft, paint-stained hands, which in that reality he still hadn’t realized he loved.
Mike was sixteen during the vision; he still didn’t know he loved Will, he hadn’t realized it yet, and so many things would still have to happen in their lives before their existences finally merged — but instinct made him try to grab Will by the shoulders while they vanished from his hands, because what was in front of him wasn’t reality, it was only what Vecna wanted Mike to see in his mind.
Will was smiling in the vision, happy and content, clean-shaven as Mike remembered him from his time, full of all those moles he had lost count of staring at, wondering if there were more in otherparts of his body — maybe in hidden places he could no longer see now that they had grown up. His face was the same as always, but there was something different, as if time had weighed on it, the time he had faced, like the thirty-year-old he seemed to be. His body was bigger, more solid, more present, as if he knew how to impose himself better on the world, and Mike didn’t understand how this could have happened to the small, frail sixteen-year-old Will he knew. He found himself fascinated, without even knowing why, while around him the vision began to turn tragic like the previous two.
Will and Mike were thrown back by a powerful shock wave, slamming their backs against the wall behind them while a huge explosion set the building around them on fire. Mike couldn’t see much around him, but he could hear the screams, the crying, the shouting as he got back to his feet — feeling no pain because he was only a vision in that moment, he didn’t really exist — searching for Will, to see how he was, to understand what was happening at least to him. He found him not far away, unconscious because he had hit his head against that wall. Mike crouched down, terrified, trying to grab his shoulders, his arms, his hands, but of course without succeeding. He tried to understand what was happening, but all he heard were more screams and another shockwave that shattered the glass around them, with Will still unconscious, while someone screamed at the top of their lungs that the tower was collapsing.
2001
Mike and Will had been living in New York since 1989, when they had both enrolled at NYU — one for literature, the other for art. Their parents were very happy that they had decided to attend the same university, so they could keep an eye on each other, especially Joyce who was very worried about her child’s life after everything that had happened to him. Privately, the woman hadasked Mike to keep an eye on Will also because of the coming out he had done in front of everyone when the world was about to end, because the thing she feared most in the world was that her son would be targeted for who he was, for who he loved. Mike had smiled at the woman, because he didn’t need anyone to ask him to do such a thing — Will had always been and would always be one of his top priorities.
He just hadn’t thought it would become this much of a priority.
Mike and Will had always lived in symbiosis. They had grown up together, gone to kindergarten together, all the schools. They had lived through the end of the world and they even knew the sound of each other’s farts. It was too deep a way to know a person; Mike didn’t believe he could ever share anything like that with anyone else, especially not with a girl. If something like that hadn’t happened with El who had entered their lives when they were only twelve, it would never happen with anyone else. He was sure of it.
That was why, when Mike got lost watching Will’s smile, when he started anxiously waiting for Will to come back from his classes, when he understood he was in love as Will talked a mile a minute about his art — he came to the conclusion that he was in love with his best friend. By then they had been living together for about eight months in that tiny campus room, sometimes too cold and sometimes too hot, definitely too small for two teenagers who were becoming men. And the more he looked at Will, the more Mike realized he loved every masculine trait he saw in him — more than he had ever loved the feminine traits in El. He didn’thave many terms of comparison and he knew comparing him to his sister was awful, but no matter how guilty he felt, Mike couldn’t help it if those green eyes one evening attracted him so much that he ended up kissing the boy who would become the love of his life.
After their first kiss, Will avoided Mike for two days — disappeared from the entire campus — and during that time Mike discovered that Will had gone back home to his mom to clear his head. As always, Mike had made the usual mistake of staying silent, of not reading the situation well, and Will had come back to him, knocking on the door of the room they shared, without daring to lift his eyes toward those of his best friend who was far too tall. Mike had never hated being taller than Will so much.
But in the end Will had apologized — he had apologized! — and told him that something like that would never happen again. Mike, for once understanding that staying silent wasn’t the right decision, found himself grabbing Will, closing the door behind them, and making the situation clear. From that afternoon,
in a muggy September of 1990, Mike and Will became a couple.
And that only increased Mike’s fear and anxiety over the years. Will, of course, knew the source of all his fears and almost always listened to him — like when it came to the uncontrollable fear Mike had for Nancy and her car, which magically disappeared when the vision actually came true but the girl ended up safe and sound, saved by Mike himself and his paranoia.
That was why Mike was certain that the third vision would also come true, that something would happen to Will, and that if before he would never have allowed anything to happen to him, now that they were together, now that he knew he loved him, that they belonged to each other, he would put his own life on the line to prevent something like that.
He would even fight with him so much that Will would leave him, if necessary.
September 11, 2001
Will’s whole body hurt. It was a pleasant pain, though, because it was the sign of the passion Mike put into their relationship and which had never faded, not even after eleven years together. Their anniversary had been the day before and his boyfriend had taken him to eat at the most exclusive restaurant in all of New York. Will had to admit he had been quite explicit with Mike, because for months he had told him how much he wanted to go eat in that extremely elegant, extremely expensive, but also extremely romantic place. He had spent years afraid of who he was, hiding, not expressing his love for Mike, and now that he could do it, now that Mike returned that love, Will couldn’t stop — Will wanted more and more, Will wanted Mike in every way humanly possible.
That was why when the day before his boyfriend had pulled two plane tickets out of his jacket pocket, at first Will didn’t understand, thinking it was just his anniversary gift — a flight to some exotic place where he could watch his boyfriend in a swimsuit and drool over what had firmly belonged to him for eleven years now.
Then he read the destination: Netherlands.
He looked up and Mike was smiling at him, kneeling on the floornext to the table, next to Will. The tickets fell onto the expensive, perfectly ironed tablecloth while Will brought his hands to hismouth, knowing perfectly well what his boyfriend was about to do, perfectly aware of what that position could only mean.
“We heard last month that in Europe, in the Netherlands, same-sex marriage will be introduced in April, and I saw how your eyes litup, Will. I want you forever, and wanting you forever also includes making you happy, calm, satisfied, by my side. In April we’ll go to the Netherlands, my love. While we’re there… will you become my husband?”
Saying this he pulled out a simple white gold ring, for which Will immediately held out his hand and let it be slipped onto his finger while he started crying uncontrollably, because if anyone had told his twelve-year-old self this, he would never have believed it — it would never have crossed his little mind that his best friend could love him so much that he would ask him to marry him. He stoodup, made Mike stand up, and while the whole room applauded their love, he wrapped his arms around the neck of the man who was about to become his husband and cried into his shoulder, happier than ever, heart exploding with joy.
That night Mike had destroyed him physically, loved him like never before, harder than ever, and getting out of that bed had really been difficult — even though he had to, given the importance of today’s day.
He hated what he was going to do that day, for the way he would have to lie to his fiancé the very day after the marriage proposal, but it was for his career and he knew Mike would forgive him once he came home with an important contract in hand, with which he could finally make his art his definitive job. Because Will sold his works, he had his own gallery and sure, he earned enough to live comfortably — also thanks to the huge success of Mike’s books — but Will always wanted more, and now that he was Mike Wheeler’s fiancé, he knew he could have anything in his life.
The alarm hadn’t gone off yet, so part of him was quite reluctant to get up, but his bladder was demanding attention, so with a huff Will sat up, passing a hand over his eyes still heavy with sleep and the exhaustion that Mike’s physical passion had poured into him. He stretched, feeling his mouth dry, and then automatically reached a hand behind him, searching for the warm body of hisboyfriend.
He turned.
Mike wasn’t there and the bed was cold.
So Will got up, thinking the boy might be in the bathroom — which he needed too. He shuffled out of their bedroom, calves threatening cramps. He almost laughed at the situation.
He crossed the small hallway and peeked into the bathroom, finding exactly the person he was waiting for, bent over the litterbox of the kitten they had adopted a few days earlier. Mike wasn’t wearing a shirt, just as he usually slept, a sign that he hadn’t gotten up long ago — even though the bed was cold. Will watched the muscles of his shoulders move under his skin and couldn’t resist the urge to approach Mike when he stood up and washed his hands after finishing cleaning the litter.
Mike saw him in the mirror even before he could lay his hands on his skin, and the two smiled at each other. Mike was beautiful with his long hair touching his neck, slightly messy and wavy. It had darkened even more over the years and the light beard coloring his cheeks called out to Will’s hormones — even though that day he would tell him to shave it, because sure it made Mike sexy, but when he kissed him it was really uncomfortable.
He hugged his man from behind, hiding behind his shoulders and kissing the warm skin. He smelled his masculine scent and sighed, happy, full of comfort and joy, even though a tiny part of his brain knew perfectly well that in a few hours, if Mike found out where he was (and alone), they would probably have one of the worst fights imaginable. Because ever since they had lived in New York — practically forever — Mike had tried in every way possible to keep Will out of skyscrapers.
Difficult, given the city they lived in, but when Mike couldn’t avoid the situation, he made sure the boy was never alone. Will knew the reason for that fear, he knew the nature of how real that whole story could actually be, because everything Vecna had predicted, everything he had shown Mike, had come true — and the terror paralyzed him too. He too was terribly afraid of going to the wrong place at the wrong time, that the horrible death the monster had predicted would come true — but he had to live, he had to move forward from the Upside Down, and maybe that was what Vecna had wanted from the beginning.
Maybe that was why he had made Mike’s third vision blurred, without details, while the other two had been very clear and precise — so much so that Mike had been able to prevent Nancy’s death in that accident. Will had been there that day, the day Mike learned his sister had had the accident, and hearing that she was fine, he had seen how Mike’s first thought had been him. He had turned to Will, he had read the terror in Mike’s eyes for the second time after learning that the seatbelts really had a fault, and from that day the boy’s protectiveness toward him had only increased.
Mike turned in Will’s arms and bumped their noses together, lifting his boyfriend’s chin.
“Good morning, my husband.”
Will giggled, ecstatic at that expression, and kissed Mike, immediately putting his hands in the hair at the nape of his neck. Itwas a light kiss, because Will couldn’t stop smiling from the happiness his boy had given him the day before — the realization of everything he had hoped for since he was a child and dreamed of a Mike who only had eyes for El (who, by the way, he couldn’t even hate, because he cared about that girl like a sister).
And then she really had become one.
Mike grabbed Will by the waist and turned, sitting him on the sink, then buried his face in his neck, resting on his shoulder while holding him there, hugging him. The boy really needed to pee, but his future husband was holding him like that — that way Mike had of showing he needed him — and Will neither wanted nor had the strength to push him away. Mike was everything he had always wanted, and in those eleven years he had made sure to make up for all the life he had spent keeping his distance from him, full of fear of ruining the most important friendship of his life. But he hadn’t considered that being together with your best friend, having a relationship with him, would make it the mostbeautiful thing possible.
While he let himself be hugged by Mike, as if he needed to recharge, Will’s gaze was caught by the kitten they had adopted just a few days earlier and still hadn’t named. It was calmly walking through the living room, suddenly tripping over the rug but then getting up pretending nothing happened, disappearing into the small hallway leading to the bedroom — where the kittenhad decided it would sleep with them even before either of them could object. And while Will’s gaze wandered around the room, while his arms rested on Mike’s shoulders, it stopped on the clock.
8:08
Will immediately pulled away from Mike.
“The alarm didn’t go off!”
He jumped down from the sink and ran into the bedroom, grabbing the alarm clock on the nightstand, scaring the kitten who was desperately trying to jump onto the bed but was too small to reach with its little paws.
“Fuck, fuck!” he exclaimed, grabbing a pair of boxers and running back to the bathroom to get in the shower, running into Mike again on the way and stopping in front of him.
“It’s super late!”
“I know.”
Time almost stopped.
“What do you mean ‘I know’?”
All the hurry Will felt in his muscles was extinguished by Mike who was still standing in front of the sink, exactly where he hadleft him, casually dropping that piece of information that could be the breaking point.
“What do you mean ‘I know’, Mike?!”
At that point the taller boy moved, positioning himself right in front of Will.
“And you — what do you mean you have to go to the World Trade Center?”
Will swallowed, caught red-handed in turn. He hadn’t told Mike. Somehow he must have found out, and that made all of Will’s certainties waver for a moment — certainties he had built over the years, learning to stand up to his boyfriend without always letting him win, as had almost always happened when they were kids.
“How do you know?”
“Is it really necessary to know how I found out, or is it more important that you lied to me for weeks?”
Will automatically took a step back, because he knew it was unfair— he had made such an important decision alone, without talking to Mike, and not only because it concerned his work, not only for money or something material, but because it concerned his life, it concerned the visions Mike had had with Vecna, and most of all it concerned his death. And yet years had passed. Will wanted to move forward and had decided to do this because he knew it was time, he knew he had to go on — they couldn’t let Vecna control their lives even after fourteen years.
“Mike, it’s my passion, my job.”
“No! We’re talking about your life here! You could go there and die — do you realize that?”
Will really wanted to huff and roll his eyes, because Mike couldbe so dramatic at times, yet he didn’t feel like contradicting him too much in that moment, because he knew Mike was a man terrified to death by the visions that monster had shown him. He had even thought about taking him to therapy, but what could he possibly tell a psychologist? He would simply be labeledschizophrenic, with psychosis and similar things, because no one would ever believe in a multidimensional monster that controls other monsters and kidnaps children to bring about the end of the world.
“Let me take a shower — it’s not too late yet,” Will decided to say, ignoring Mike and walking past him, guilt making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. That behavior wasn’t like him, but it was important to get that contract, and somehow he would also convince his future husband that everything would be fine and that this wouldn’t be the time when Vecna’s vision would come true.
But Mike grabbed him by the wrist, stopping him again.
“No, please! I was hoping that by turning off your alarm you would wake up later.”
“What?! You turned off my alarm?” Will practically yelled, because in doing that Mike was basically acting behind his back, without even confronting the person he had decided to share his life with forever.
Mike scratched the back of his neck, caught, and Will shook his hand so the boy’s grip would release his wrist.
“I thought the proposal you made me yesterday meant something, I thought you wanted to spend your whole life with me, to share everything together — every joy, every pain — and that this wouldn’t start with sabotage!”
Mike brought a hand to his chest, as if hit by a bullet fired straightfrom the lips of his beloved.
“And you then? You’re going exactly where I asked you not to go — especially without me, without involving me. If you really have to die, I’d rather die with you.”
This time Will let his eyes roll to the ceiling, because he didn’t need to hear Mike being dramatic right now. He was angry with him like never before — so much that his hands were shaking and his eyes stung with tears. Will wasn’t a man with a strong character; he wasn’t used to conflict. Sure, he was used to fear and unfortunately to death, but he hated arguing with the people he loved — especially with Mike, who had always been the center of his entire existence.
“I have to go sign a contract, Mike. You could come in with me up to the restaurants and that’s it, but then I’d have to go on alone. What’s the point? And anyway, you could have talked to me aboutit yesterday instead of coming up with a plan to ruin my day.”
Mike fell silent, and maybe Will thought he had gone too far in showing his exasperation at his fear, but he couldn’t help it — he couldn’t always be the one holding back all his feelings, and eventhough he felt guilty, for once he wanted to be the one who won.
“Look, Mike — I’m going to take a shower now and then I’m going to leave at lightning speed hoping I can still catch the last possible subway. You won’t stop me and you’ll let me go this time. Then I promise I’ll never keep secrets again and I’ll stay glued to your side for the rest of my life.”
Mike tried to object, but Will smiled at him and pushed him out the door, proceeding with what he had decided would be his plan.
8:28
Will thanked the heavens that he had managed to leave the house so early despite Mike’s boycott. He had no idea how he had taken only twenty minutes between showering and getting dressed, but maybe it was because he had prepared everything a few days earlier in view of such an important day. He had to show his work to a group of people who would decide whether or not to accepthis paintings for exhibition in even more important galleries worldwide and who might also commission works for other artists— which would give him an even higher salary than just sales. Sure, it wouldn’t be deeply artistic work — there would always be a piece of him in every canvas, even if it wasn’t his own ideas and inspiration — but he wanted something stable, lasting, so he could best afford the life he wanted to share for all eternity with Mike.
The same man who the day before had given him the most beautiful marriage proposal he could ever have heard — but alsothe same man who had turned off his alarm to ruin his plans. And no matter how much Will tried to understand Mike — he really tried — sabotage was not a good way to start that long and happy life together.
8:40
Will arrived in front of the Twin Towers well ahead of time. He looked up at the two huge gray giants in front of him and smiled, checking the clock again and then turning toward the café on his right, just out of the subway.
That was one of the places where Mike and Will sometimes had breakfast, and given how he felt toward his boyfriend right now, Will decided to go in and sit in the most secluded, hidden corner — the one they always sat in when they went there together — so he could have Mike close even in that moment. He had to admithe was anxious — not only for how he had left Mike that morning (standing in front of the door, eyes shiny, breathing short, while Will closed the door behind him), but also for the omen Vecna hadcast over him and for the interview that would define his life for quite a while.
With the black coffee that Mike loved so much in his hands, Will tried not to think about his boyfriend right now — who was probably calling one of their friends to keep busy and try not to think about the mortal danger his boyfriend was exposing himself to. But he knew that if the situation were reversed, he would have acted the same way, so he decided — taking a sip of that bitter stuff he didn’t even like — that he would forgive Mike as soon asthat meeting was over, no matter how it went, because he loved him too much, because seeing him so hurt had torn his soul apart.
Even art was put aside compared to the love Will felt for Mike.
Will sighed and decided it was time to get up and enter the North Tower, where the rest of his life was waiting for him.
8:45
Will’s phone rings.
Lost in his thoughts, the boy heard it only shortly after it actually started ringing and therefore missed the call at first. When he saw who was calling, though — for the same reason he had drunk that bitter black coffee he hated — he called back.
“Hi Mike.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m on the sidewalk in front of our favorite bar.”
Will heard Mike sigh through the receiver and imagined what state his boyfriend must be in. He felt terribly guilty for being there, for not having listened to the love of his life, for having wanted to do this thing anyway even though all his life the signals had been screaming at him not to. Yet Will had spent his entire childhood and part of his adolescence afraid of Vecna and he didn’t want to let him condition his adult life too — even now that he was dead.
“Mike, as soon as I get home we’ll decide something for our wedding, okay?” And somehow he hoped this could give Mike the signal that everything was fine, that the war flag had been lowered and that Will had him — who would protect him for the rest of hislife — and that things would be good from then on simply because they were together, that Will wasn’t alone, that Mike knew who he was, who he loved, that there were no more secrets and that Vecna no longer really had control over their lives.
They were the masters of their future. The only ones who could decide what and how it would happen.
“Come back as soon as possible.”
8:46
A loud boom and then smoke.
The screams.
Will looked up at the sky.
“Oh my god,” Will whispered.
“What’s happening?” Mike asked from the other side of the receiver, hearing the noises around his boyfriend.
“Mike, Jesus Christ.”
“Will, what’s going on? Talk to me, please!”
“The North Tower has been hit by something — there’s smoke and fire.”
Around Will, total chaos. People calling emergency services and the police, some in panic, some frozen like statues like the boy who was on the phone with his boyfriend. He looked at the sky and how it was turning gray from the smoke rising from that building, and Will found himself thinking that if Mike hadn’t called him right at that moment, he might have been inside the building; that if he hadn’t felt guilty and decided to go into that café to taste Mike’s favorite coffee, he would have been inside that tower; that if Mike hadn’t turned off his alarm, he might have been in the middle of those flames.
“Will, Will! Are you okay?!” Mike’s voice brought him back to him, while the cell phone trembled in his hands.
“Mike… you saved my life. Again.”