Archive of Our Own

“It’ll be fine, honey. You were best friends for years, I’m sure you’ll be able to get along. Ok?”

Karen Wheeler smiled reassuringly at her son from the driver’s seat of her station wagon, which had recently been emptied of all of Mike’s belongings into his freshman apartment.

Mike shrugged at her as he stood outside the passenger window. He sighed.

“Sure. Whatever,” he managed.

“Make sure to call me soon, okay? I want to hear all about your first week of classes,” Karen smiled.

“Okay, mom. Drive safe,” Mike said, standing back as she pulled out of her parking space and disappeared around the corner.

He glumly turned to look back at the apartment building with his hands in his pockets.

Why had he agreed to this again?

Because he hadn’t been given much of a choice, that’s why.

Too late to do anything about it now.

Mike walked back up the steps and opened the door to see Will pouring a glass of water in the kitchen. Will looked up and they locked eyes.

Shit.

Well, Mike was going to have to get used to this eventually anyway, might as well start now. They gave each other polite grimace-smiles (only a suggestion of smile on the lips, absolutely none in the eyes) before Mike started to head toward his room.

“Hey, um. I met a couple friends at the orientation talk this morning and I said they could come over tonight. Is that okay?”

Mike stopped and looked over at Will.

In many ways, Will looked the same as he’d always looked; toffee hair that swept past his ears, big, soft hazel eyes. But in the past few hours of quietly brushing by each other while unpacking, Mike had noticed how different he looked too. He was almost as tall as Mike now, and he was broad and lean. He looked like a man, which was weird to think about; the shy little kid Mike had seen on the playground all those years ago was now this handsome, grownup guy standing across from him in the kitchen. This guy who was already making college friends and plans with these college friends, whereas Mike hadn’t even tried talking to anyone on campus yet.

A lot had changed since kindergarten.

“Yea, sure,” Mike said, looking away. “I’ll just be in my room.”

“Thanks.”

Mike turned and shuffled into his new bedroom, closed the door, and collapsed on the squeaking, poor quality mattress.

The year was already off to an awkward, unpleasant start, and they were only about three hours in.

Just great.

…

It was his mom’s fault, really. She had known that Mike and Will weren’t friends anymore, but she had still insisted on them rooming together during their freshman year.

After the whole Vecna situation had been taken care of the summer after Mike and Will’s first year of high school, the Byers-Hopper family had moved to a town around two hours away from Hawkins for a fresh start. Will and El came back to visit sometimes, but things got busy, and they mostly focused on their new lives at their new high school.

Out of the party, Mike made the least effort to stay in touch. He’d always be “really busy” whenever El and Will were in town or when Max, Dustin, and Lucas would go visit them. At first, he was able to convince the party he needed space from El after their breakup, but after a while they seemed to pick up on the fact that Mike just didn’t want to see them anymore for whatever reason. They were not happy about that fact, of course, but after plenty of arguing and confrontation and Mike’s refusal to explain, they finally just let it go.

The truth was: Mike had been fine after the breakup; he wouldn’t have minded seeing El that much. But he couldn’t stand to see Will. It was too hard. He had let down Will so much for so long, had been a terrible friend, and then…

And then, freshman year, after a few weeks of Will being back from Lenora, Mike had finally come to a terrifying, gut-wrenching, mind-numbingly life-altering conclusion:

He was, in fact, not in love with his own girlfriend, but with his best friend, her brother, after having been the actual worst best friend to him in the history of best friends and having been an entirely mediocre boyfriend to his sister.

And that’s when Mike shut down.

El broke up with him soon after his realization because he could no longer figure out how to even have a conversation with her. He also started avoiding Will, and when the Byers-Hopper family moved away, he could barely even manage a polite goodbye. He hated himself for it, but he also felt like it was probably better this way.

Because he had to face it; Will was better off without him. Will deserved better friends, who treated him right, and who weren’t gay and secretly in love with him. Will deserved a good, normal life, with good, normal people, and Mike had proved that he couldn’t do anything right and that he definitely wasn’t good or normal.

And, if he was honest, part of him hoped that maybe those feelings and thoughts that scared him so much might disappear if Will was gone from his life, and he could finally get back on track, and like girls, and not be different anymore.

So Mike-and-Will just became Mike and Will, and Mike became lonelier than he’d ever been in his life.

It had been three years of basically zero contact with Will when Mike’s mom had brought it up at the dinner table that she had seen Joyce Byers at a store in the town over that day. Now that Ted was out of the picture and Nancy was off in Boston, family dinners were now just Karen, Mike, and Holly.

“She told me that Will is also going to Indiana University this fall, isn’t that nice?”

Mike shrugged. He hadn’t known Will was going there, but Indiana University was pretty big, so hopefully they could steer clear of each other pretty easily.

“That’s cool I guess,” he said, scraping his fork around his peas.

“We got to talking, and we thought it would be a good idea for you two to sign up to be roommates,” Karen said absent-mindedly, pouring herself some more water.

Mike froze, his fork falling from his hand and clattering on the table cloth.

“Wh-what? No!”

Karen looked up.

“I told her you would do it, sweetie.” Horror spread across Mike’s face, and she pursed her lips. “Come on, Mike. It’s not like you know anyone else who’s going there, and who knows what kind of person you would have to live with if you asked for a random assignment. We know Will, it makes much more sense for you two to be roommates.”

Mike felt panic welling up in his chest. He sputtered.

“No, mom, no way. I’m not doing this. We haven’t been friends in years!”

“Well maybe this will be a good opportunity to reconnect!” she said, reaching over to refill Holly’s cup. “But even if you aren’t friends, you can still be good roommates and be there for each other while you get your bearings. Then you can go live with your new friends next year.”

Mike covered his eyes with his hands. This was a worst nightmare he didn’t even know he’d had.

“You can’t just make decisions for me, mom, I’m an adult now. And I’d rather have a random roommate assignment, ok? It would be way less awkward to room with a stranger.”

Karen sighed. “I’m sorry, honey, but I think it’s too late now. And…” She said, lowering her voice a little. “Joyce told me he still struggles, alright? That whole ordeal a few years ago still affects him. She really liked the idea of him having a friend at college who understood that, and who knew his family in case something happened. So can you just stick it out for a few months?”

That struck a nerve in Mike’s heart. Will still struggled with the Upside Down memories? Did he still have those nightmares? Mike might not be Will’s friend anymore, but he still cared. Of course he did. Will had been his childhood best friend.

Even if Mike definitely and totally didn’t still think of Will that other way anymore.

Mike stared down at the table sullenly, the peas looking like little ashen eyeballs staring and taunting him from his plate.

Could he do this? Apparently he didn’t really have a choice anyway.

Maybe Will had forgotten him and it would be just like living with a stranger anyway.

Maybe it would be a big apartment, and they wouldn’t have to talk much.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt, seeing Will again after all this time, even if there was a gnawing feeling settling in his stomach at even the thought of it.

“Fine,” he said, after a moment.

Then took his plate to the sink, scraping the rest of the uncanny pea-eyeballs into the trash.

…

Mike was almost right on every count.

He and Will did act as though they were practically strangers at this point, and they certainly didn’t talk much, though the apartment was by no means spacious.

As for if it hurt to see Will?

Mike tried not to think too much about it.

The first couple months of school went by in a haze, and Mike, if he was honest, was miserable.

He hated his classes, as they were all general education requirements he needed to take before being able to take anything interesting. He wasn’t making many friends, and he really wasn’t trying very hard. After pissing off the party for the past few years (potentially past the point of no return), he was used to people not liking him much and getting by on his own. Everyone he encountered at college seemed barely tolerable at best, but there was no one he could connect with. Ever since the Upside Down had made its way into his life, it was hard for Mike to deal with people who didn’t know.

It was like if they didn’t know about that, they couldn’t know him.

Will, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have that problem at all. It’s not like he was an avid socialite or party animal or anything, but he had made a few close friends. This fact honestly rubbed it in worse for Mike, since it meant Will was making actual friends he truly connected with. Which was great, and what Will deserved, but…

Ok. It hurt to live with Will. Excruciatingly so.

Because even after three years of trying to forget about it, Mike found that he was still pretty much in love with Will. Every time they politely brushed past each other in the kitchen, or said a few polite words to each other, or when Will’s friends would come over and Mike would hide in his room, it felt like Mike was being punched in the stomach and having his heart wrenched out of his body at the same time. He used to know Will better than anyone, and now he knew nothing; he didn’t even know what classes Will was taking. He used to make Will laugh, and now it was some random girl out in the living room who wasn’t even that pretty!

And as far as Mike could tell, Will was still that beautiful, sweet kid he used to know; caring and warm and gentle and funny and artistic, and Mike had to be reminded every day that he’d given up being Will’s best friend, even if he’d known that it had been the best thing for Will. Mike also had to constantly remind himself that, even if they could be friends again, in some crazy twist of fate, it could never be what Mike truly wanted. Will was probably interested in that girl in his annoying little friend group and that was great, because Will deserved the best kind of love and a normal relationship and there wasn’t room for Mike anymore; Mike had willingly forfeited any presence in Will’s life.

But sometimes, Mike wanted to ask Will about what Joyce had mentioned to his mom about struggling with the memories of the Upside Down. Part of him just wanted to talk about the Upside Down at all; in the years since it had been destroyed, it seemed like everyone had moved on and was happy to pretend like it had never existed, and Mike felt crazy that he couldn’t just let it go. Just having someone to talk about it with, anyone really, would empty some of the overwhelming stockpile of memories and feelings that had kept building up in his chest. But more than that, more than even just wanting an excuse to talk to Will (despite his constant reassurance to himself that he really should leave Will alone), the thought that Will might be silently struggling was almost unbearable to him.

But, as Mike well knew, no matter what Will needed, it wasn’t him.

Even if Will was struggling, (which, it sure didn’t look like it), it was none of Mike’s business anymore.

And that’s just the way it was.

…

When it started, Mike barely noticed.

It was a few days after Halloween and Mike was resting in his room after an afternoon class when the phone in the kitchen rang. Since he usually called his mom on the weekends, he assumed the call must be for Will, and he stayed slumped on his bed for the first several rings and waited to hear the padding of Will’s footsteps from his room. When he didn’t, he groaned and pulled himself out of bed to answer it. He yawned as he picked up the phone.

“Hello? This is Mike.”

“Oh, hi! I’m a friend of Will’s, is he home?”

Mike scowled at the sound of a young woman’s voice. He had learned that the girl in Will’s friend group had a name that started with an L, but he couldn’t make himself remember what it was. Laura? Lydia?

He craned his head to look over at Will’s room. The door was shut.

“Not sure,” he mumbled. “Can I take a message?”

“I just wanted to check in, he wasn’t in class today and he missed our lunch plans. Could you tell him that Lily called if you see him?”

“Sure,” he said. She thanked him in her annoyingly sweet and high pitched voice, and he hung up, trying not to think too hard about how Will was getting lunch one-on-one with this girl. He thought about knocking on Will’s door to relay the message, but he figured Will could hear through the door anyway. Or maybe he was asleep. Or was out somewhere else. Mike would tell him if he saw Will later. He went back to his room and flopped down on his bed, thinking about how Lily was probably the most annoying thing you could name a child.

But he did not see Will later. When Mike emerged from his room to make himself dinner, Will’s door was still closed, and he realized he’d never heard Will come in from the front door or leave his room at any point. The following afternoon, Mike got back from his class and saw that Will’s door was still closed. He sighed and worked up the courage to knock.

“Will?”

No answer.

“Will are you in there? Your friend called yesterday to ask about you.”

Still no answer. Mike furrowed his eyebrows. Was Will sick? Had he gone home without telling Mike?

“Can I come in?” He slowly turned the knob to check if it was unlocked and the door cracked open.

The shades were closed in his room, blocking out the natural light from the bright afternoon. Mike squinted through the crack in the doorway, seeing Will lying face down on the bed.

“Will? Are you okay?” Mike’s voice was more urgent now. He opened the door fully.

“Great, thanks.” Will’s voice was slightly muffled by pillows. “Now can you please leave? I’m sleeping.”

“Oh, shit, sorry.” Mike began to close the door before thinking again. He stopped. “Are you sick?”

“No?”

“So you’ve been sleeping for the past two days?”

Will rolled onto his side facing away from Mike.

“Just leave me alone man, ok? I’m fine.”

“Ok, whatever.”

Mike closed the door and dropped his backpack on their little living room couch exasperatedly. Fine, Will could do whatever he wanted. He was an adult, and it wasn’t Mike’s responsibility to check on him. If Will didn’t want him to care, then he wouldn’t.

So Mike went about the rest of his day determinedly not caring.

But not caring had never been Mike’s forte.

He stared at Will’s door as he ate his microwaved soup in the kitchen later that night. This wasn’t normal, right? Something could be really wrong. It didn’t seem like Will was even eating, and even if he had some food in his room, he wasn’t having real food.

But what was wrong? If Will wasn’t going to talk to him then what was he supposed to do?

He glanced around their little kitchen and his eye caught on the note tacked onto the fridge that had their family’s phone numbers on it.

El.

El would know what to do. El and Will were basically twins at this point, and Mike and El had talked some since their breakup, if not much. She was staying an extra year in high school —since her educational enrichment prior to freshman year had been exclusively from soap operas on Hopper’s TV— so he’d just have to call the Byers-Hopper house to get a hold of her.

Mike glanced toward Will’s door, thinking about how awkward this would be if Will heard him making the call and confronted him. But screw it, Will had started it by hibernating in his room and refusing to explain why.

He dialed the number on the fridge and smiled when El was the one that picked up.

“Hey, El, it’s Mike.”

“Mike! Hi! How are you?”

“I’m good! I actually wanted to ask you something… um. About Will. Will is…”

He paused, not sure what to say, but after a rustle on the other end of the phone, it seemed he didn’t have to.

“Oh, I can’t believe I forgot. It’s November.”

“November?” Mike scrunched his face in confusion.

“The anniversary of when he went missing, and then when he was possessed. He has a hard time in November, he locks himself in his room and doesn’t come out. It usually only lasts a few weeks though.”

Mike’s mouth fell open.

Oh.

How could he have forgotten? But as far as he’d known, this had never happened before. The doctors were talking about the “Anniversary Effect” back in 1984, but it had turned out Will wasn’t just having traumatic memories but was actually being possessed at the time. In November of 1985 Will had been in Lenora, so Mike hadn’t been there, and Will didn’t mention anything when they called that one time.

And then, of course, in the years following, Mike had been…out of the picture.

“Oh,” he breathed, glancing over to Will’s door. “Well what do you do? When it happens?”

El’s sigh was bright and tinny on the phone. “He shuts everyone out, he barely eats. There’s not much we can do until its over. The thing he likes most is when we stay out of his way, I think. It’s really hard for all of us.” She paused. “Is he locking himself in his room now?”

Mike nodded, then realized she couldn’t see. “Yea. It’s been two days, I think. Though maybe more, I think the last time I saw him was Monday, actually. I tried to talk to him, but he told me to shove off.”

“Are you friends again?” El’s tone was casual and matter of fact, but the words hit Mike somewhere in his chest. He swallowed and pursed his lips.

“Um. I… Not really, I guess.”

“Then he probably won’t want to talk to you.”

Again, casual and matter of fact. Again, a cold stab in the chest that Mike had to swallow down and not think too much about.

“Right. Ok.” He chewed his lip.

“Why did you stop being friends, Mike?”

Mike suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe. It was starting to crash in on him; early November, talking to El about Will, Will being… gone. Inaccessible. Shut in somewhere dark.

This time, El couldn’t bring Will back, and neither could Mike.

Mike used to always be the one to find Will, to fight for Will. But he’d let him go. And now…

Mike closed his eyes.

“I-I don’t know. Okay? I’m gonna go. I’ll call you if something happens.”

“Okay, Mike.”

He almost hung up the phone right then when he thought better of it.

“Thank you,” he said. “Um, I hope you’re doing well.”

“Me too, Mike. We should catch up soon.” Mike heard her sad little smile in her voice.

“Yea, we should.”

They exchanged goodbyes and Mike put the phone down, slowly turning back to the kitchen counter. He put a spoonful of soup in his mouth and choked when it was slimy and cold.

He poured his soup into the sink and then turned to face Will’s closed door and sighed. He should just leave Will alone, like El had said. He should leave him alone, like he had for the past few years.

Because just like every other time the Upside Down had become a problem in their lives, Mike was powerless, and he needed to step aside and let other people handle it.

But when Mike made himself a sandwich as a midnight snack later that night, he made two, and put the second one on a plate with some chips and a glass of water. Then he knocked on Will’s door and opened it a crack.

Will was still in bed, facing the wall. The lights were on.

“I’m leaving food on your desk,” Mike said, his voice cold when he’d meant it to be casual. He slid the plate down on the desk which was next to the door. “You can take it or leave it.”

When there was no movement or response, he closed the door and went back to his room, feeling defeated. He missed being 12, when he could put his arm around Will and Will would look up at him with eyes that told him that, even though things were scary, he knew Mike would take care of him, and that Mike taking care of him meant something to him. That Mike was helpful to him, somehow.

Now, Mike meant nothing. And he knew he deserved it; hell, he’d asked for it.

Mike sat down on his bed and buried his head in his hands.

…

The next day was Saturday, and Mike was almost relieved when Will’s friends showed up at the front door.

His first instinct, of course, was to tell them to piss off. Will was going through something they knew nothing about, and there was no way that people who had only known him 2 and a half months were going to be able to help him. Will wanted peace, and Mike wanted to protect that.

But hey, he thought, Mike wasn’t Will’s friend, and these people were. They made him laugh in the middle of the night when Mike was trying to sleep, and they were the ones in his classes and lunch plans and life. If anyone was going to be able to help Will at all, it would be them.

Mike opened the door to see Lea (Lena? Laurel?) leading the group. She smiled at Mike and asked if Will was around since they were on their way to the library.

“Um,” Mike said, swallowing. “Actually, come in. He’s not doing so great and maybe he’d um… like to see you guys. I don’t know.” He shrugged and stood aside and let Lucy and the two boys (Patrick and Neal, maybe?) through. Mike went to the kitchen and made himself look busy by pouring himself water.

“Will? Hey, it’s us, can we come in?” Lilian said as she knocked on his door.

“Yea, man, are you okay?” one of the guys called.

The group tentatively opened Will’s door and stepped inside the room. Mike strained his ears to hear what Will would say but to no avail.

Whatever conversation that occurred didn’t last long, as the three annoying amigos came trailing back out and closed the door behind them.

“Is he okay?” Mike yelped before he could help himself. It turned out Mike wasn’t too bad at holding onto his pride and nonchalant dignity unless it came to Will. Typical.

“He wants to be alone for a while,” the boy potentially named Neal shrugged. “Says he’s okay, though.”

Mike nodded, and the group soon headed to the library, leaving Mike alone in the quiet apartment. He spent the day anxiously trying to think of what to do, settling on knocking and leaving another sandwich and a glass of water on Will’s desk without saying anything.

It was around 9 pm when Mike heard the screams.

He sat up in bed and tossed aside his textbook that he had been half-skimming. He raced to Will’s door.

“Will? Will!” He pounded on the door. “Can I come in?”

He opened the door and saw Will in bed sitting forward against in his knees, his head in his hands. He wasn’t screaming anymore, but his shoulders were shaking with sobs.

“Hey what’s wrong? Can I…?” Mike was panicked. He rushed forward to Will’s bed but then stopped himself from sitting next to him. Instead, he stood awkwardly frozen next to the bed, looking down at Will.

“Mike, get out of here,” Will choked, not lifting his face from his hands.

“But-I-Will—”

“Just leave,” Will sobbed.

Mike almost turned toward the door, but then stopped.

Taking orders had never been Mike’s forte.

“It was a nightmare, wasn’t it? Was it the same one you used to have? With the Demogorgons?” Mike put his hands on his hips.

“I don’t want to talk about this with you,” Will said, fighting to take deep breaths. Mike sat down at the foot of his bed, giving him plenty of space.

“What about Jonathan? Or El, or your mom? Can we call them?”

Will shook his head. “I’m fine.” His sobs seemed to have subsided, but he still didn’t lift his face. “Sorry if I disturbed you. You can leave now.”

Mike glanced around the room helplessly, trying to think of something to say or do. His eyes fell on Will’s desks, and he saw two empty plates and glasses. His gaze locked there.

So he’d eaten the food.

Something in Mike kickstarted to life. He couldn’t solve Will’s problems, but he could do something. Help in some way, make something a little easier for him, even if it was just bringing him food.

So there was no way in hell was he going to leave now.

“Um,” Mike said, trying to buy time. What would help? If Will was having nightmares… he thought back to when they were kids. He whipped his head back to Will. “Wanna watch a movie?”

“No.”

“What if I’m not there?” Mike said quickly. “What if I promise to lock myself in my room, or I could just leave for a few hours. And you can just watch a movie out in the living room, take your mind off things. I could put it in for you, so you don’t have to choose.” He thought back to fall in eighth grade, when Will didn’t know his favorite Halloween candy anymore. “I know it’s hard to choose sometimes.”

“Will you please leave me alone, Mike,” Will sighed into his hands.

Mike swallowed, staring at Will. God, he wanted to get closer, hold him close, hold his hand, somehow show him how much he cared, how much he’d always cared.

Instead, he stood up.

“Ok. I’m going to put in a movie, and then I’m going to leave, and you’ll have the apartment all to yourself. And I’ll knock when I come back and give you time to go back to your room so you can avoid me. You don’t have to leave your room if you don’t want to but-but you can if you do, okay?”

When Will made no response, Mike left the room and closed the door behind him. He grabbed his backpack and keys, put in the VHS tape of The Empire Strikes Back that Will had brought from home in the living room TV and then left the apartment, slamming the door hard so Will would know he was gone.

He honestly felt a little crazy, standing in the dark November air at 9 pm on a Saturday night. He knew most people would be out partying, but he had never really been out this late on a weekend, too lame to be invited to a party and too self-conscious to be one of three kids at the library with no social life.

He figured he should try to kill at least two hours, so he headed toward main campus without much of a plan.

He found himself back on the doorstep of his apartment at 11:30, having finished a homework assignment, been kicked out the library at its closing, and bought snacks at the cafeteria that was open late on weekends. He took a deep breath, knocked loudly, then timed a minute on his watch before slowly opening the door.

Instead coming in to an empty living room with a silent TV, Mike found Will curled up on the couch watching what looked to be Return of the Jedi.

“Hey,” Mike said softly. He felt a twinge of something in his chest, some mixture of relief that Will had taken him up on his offer and also guilt at the thought that it really may have been his presence that was keeping Will from leaving his room this whole time. But, if that was true, then wouldn’t Will have run back to his room when he’d heard the knocking? Mike swallowed.

“Hey,” Will replied. He glanced up at Mike then looked back at the TV.

Mike moved into his room to unpack his backpack, then brought his snacks back into the kitchen. He grabbed a pre-wrapped sandwich and pack of cookies and shyly brought them to the couch.

“I didn’t know if you’d had dinner, so,” he said, holding them out for Will to take.

Will looked up at him and eyed him carefully, taking him in almost suspiciously. His gaze lingered on Mike’s face before drifting down to his hands and his offering.

“Why are you doing this?” Will asked quietly.

Mike furrowed his eyebrows. “What?”

“Did my mom call you? Are her and El making you do this or something?”

Mike scrunched his face. “What? No. I just wanted to help.”

“Why?” Will’s eyes still examined him like he was some riddle to solve.

Mike sat down on the opposite end of the couch and put the food on the coffee table in front of them so Will could take them if he wanted.

“’Cause you’re my—” Mike stopped himself. The forbidden words best friend hung in the air, heavy like gun smoke. God, they hadn’t been best friends in 3 years, maybe 4, maybe even more. But to Mike, when he looked at Will, no matter how distant they were, he was still Will. Still precious, still worth dying for, doing anything for.

But he couldn’t say that to Will. Not after everything he’d done.

“You’re my roommate, I want to make sure you’re okay,” he corrected awkwardly. He gave an exasperated sigh. “Look, I don’t know what it was like for you back then, but I was there. I’ve been to the Upside Down and I’ve seen Demogorgons and the Mind Flayer and fucking Vecna and whatever else. I get some of it.” He put his hands on his knees to keep them steady. “You’ve been through hell, Will, ok? And you deserve to…to have people take care of you every once in a while.”

“I don’t want you to take care of me,” Will said.

It was as good as a slap in the face, except maybe more like a knife to the heart, and actually a million times worse, but Mike just shrugged. Because he deserved that. But it didn’t mean he’d stop trying to support Will in any way possible. Including leaving him alone when necessary. He’d rather Will hate him and be taken care of than Will hate him less and be left alone with everything he had to deal with.

Mike leaned forward and opened the box of cookies, taking one out for himself.

“Then I’m not taking care of you. I went out to get snacks and now I’m watching a movie. You can have some if you want, or not. I really don’t care.”

He took a bite from his cookie and leaned back on the couch, focusing in on the movie.

“You just happened to get my favorite type of cookies, then?”

Even with Will’s harsh, sarcastic tone, Mike couldn’t help feeling a triumphant little buzz in his chest.

So he had been right, and they were still Will’s favorite.

Not everything had changed.

Mike forced his face to be stoic.

“You don’t own chocolate chip cookies. Besides, these were all they had,” he lied. Will rolled his eyes, and they turned to the movie, watching in silence.

A little while later, though, in the corner of Mike’s eye, Will leaned forward and took the sandwich and a cookie off the table. Mike fought his lips from quirking up.

When the movie ended, he glanced over to see Will’s eyes closed and his head resting back up against the couch. Mike tiptoed into Will’s room to grab the blanket from his bed and then brought it back and carefully draped it around Will.

“Are you leaving?”

Will’s voice was a small whisper, and at first Mike wondered if he’d imagined it.

“Just to my room,” he said after a moment.

“Can, um.” Will swallowed, still not opening his eyes. “Can you stay?”

“Yea,” Mike said quickly. “Yea of course. I’ll be right back.”

He went to his room to change into his sweats, then grabbed his blanket and came back to the couch.

“Leave the lights on,” Will whispered.

Mike looked at Will for a second, taking in the way his hair fell in his face the way it did when he was a kid, even though his hair was much longer now. He had that same calm look of sleep on his face, the same look he would have when he would drift off at sleepovers in the months following his week in the Upside Down, nights when Mike would get up and flip the lights back on for him after his mom would turn them out and tell them goodnight.

Mike felt a twinge in his heart.

“I know,” he whispered back.

He settled on his side of the couch with his blanket and closed his eyes. Despite the discomfort of the stiff couch beneath his back and the bright yellow lights being on, he fell asleep soon, pushing down the sad thought that this was their first sleepover in years, and unlike their old ones, they had not said goodnight or fell asleep smiling.

…

The next morning, Will was back in his room with the door shut by the time Mike opened his eyes. The lights were off now, so the only light was the late morning sunlight streaming in through the windows by the front door. Mike stretched groggily, then got up to get ready for the day.

He made it to around late afternoon before the itch to check on Will overpowered him. He got up from his homework and knocked lightly on Will’s door.

“Will?” He cracked open the door. He was met with the familiar scene; the shade closed and Will lying in bed, facing the wall. “How are you?” he asked timidly, not sure how much of their “chattiness” from the night before would carry into today.

Will didn’t answer, but Mike could tell he wasn’t asleep because Will breathed louder in his sleep. He opted to move toward the window.

“How much would you hate me if I opened the shade?” He pulled a little on the chain.

“So much.”

Mike grinned a little at having been able to elicit a response. “How about two inches?” He slowly opened the shade around halfway, far more than two inches.

“Don’t you have things to do?” Will asked, his voice bored and unimpressed.

“Nope,” Mike said cheerfully. He finished opening the shade all the way, then turned to clear away the plates and cups from Will’s room.

“I don’t need a babysitter, ok?”

Mike carried the plates and cups to the kitchen then came back.

“I know. I just came in to ask, um…” Mike needed to think of a valid end to the sentence. He bit his lip. “If you still liked pizza. Because… I’m getting some.”

“You’re ordering a whole pizza for yourself.” Will’s dry tone echoed off his wall.

“For me and… my friends,” Mike said awkwardly.

“What friends?”

Of course it stung a little, but Mike found he couldn’t help from snorting. He rolled his eyes.

“Oh, you know,” he said, chuckling. “Me, and Han, and Luke, and Leia. C3PO. We’re pretty tight knit. But you could join… if you wanted.” He paused. “You could also call your friends over. I’d leave you guys alone.”

“I’m good,” Will said. Mike waited for any further comment or clarification, but when he got none, he moved toward the door.

“Ok,” he said. He began to close the door behind him.

“Pepperoni.”

It was quiet, and like last night, Mike wondered if he’d imagined it. It was one word, so simple, but somehow it made Mike feel so much warmer. It might as well have been an open armed hug.

“Cool,” he smiled, before shutting the door all the way.

…

It was later that night, and Will and Mike sat on opposite ends of the couch, an empty pizza box on the coffee table and the ending credits for Return of the Jedi playing on the TV. They hadn’t talked the whole night, but Mike felt content that Will had emerged from his room at all, let alone that Will had come out to eat without Mike even needing to knock. Mike had been expecting to just leave the pizza on his desk, but not only had Will eaten with him, he had gotten up on his own accord without being bribed or pulled out of his bed with an industrial crane.

So, as far as Mike was concerned, it had been a pretty successful evening.

Mike awkwardly got up to throw away the pizza box, not sure what to say or what came next. If Will wanted him to sleep on the couch with the lights on again he would do it in a heartbeat, but he wasn’t sure if that had just been a one-time thing. He finished shoving the pizza box in the garbage bag and came back to join Will on the couch.

“You can tell me, you know.” Will’s voice was quiet, and he didn’t look at Mike. “If El or Jonathan or my mom called you and is making you do this. I just want to know.”

Mike shook his head.

“I told you, they didn’t. I did call El to ask, um… I didn’t know what was wrong and so she told me about, you know…” He scratched his head. “But she didn’t tell me what to do. She actually told me to stay out of your way. So… can’t say she didn’t try to stop me.”

“So why are you doing this?” Will’s eyebrows moved in genuine confusion. “What, do you feel guilty or something?”

Mike moved his head back in surprise. “What?”

“You do a really stellar job at leaving me alone for 3 years, and even when our moms make us move in together you still manage to do it, but now all of a sudden you can’t? Why?”

Mike’s mouth fell open. “I-I…Will…”

Will looked at him intensely now.

“I want to know. I really want to know. I want to hear you say it.”

Mike stared into Will’s eyes, and it was like someone was trying to shove his heart down into his stomach. He knew Will was trying to look cold, but all Mike could see was hurt.

He’d hurt Will.

Terribly.

He’d put that look in Will’s eyes with his own two hands.

Mike swallowed.

“I’m sorry,” he managed, transfixed by Will’s eyes. He shut his own eyelids to try to escape their spell and force his brain to form a coherent thought. “I, um…”

How to say it all? Everything he needed to say?

He let the silence go too long, and he heard Will standing up from the couch. His eyes fluttered open.

“I don’t want your pity, ok? If I didn’t matter to you in the last 4 years then I don’t matter to you now, and you can’t just make it go back to the way it was just because you feel guilty or something.” Will began walking toward his room. “I’ll pay you back for the food soon.”

Before Mike could say something, anything, Will had walked back into his room and slammed the door shut. He waited with a pit in his stomach to hear the door be locked, and thereby be shut out of Will’s life completely.

But the sound of the door locking never came.

Whether Will just never locked his door from habit (which would explain the last few days), or some other reason, there still seemed to be hope that Mike could be there for him. He needed to talk to him, to explain himself, but he needed to give Will some time and space, so he figured he’d leave the conversation there until the next day when Will had cooled down and he had come up with the right things to say.

Which Mike cursed himself for around 2 hours later, when he heard screaming again. He shot up out of bed and into Will’s room in lightning speed.

“Will! Will are you okay?!”

Will’s lights were on, and he was lying on his back, still screaming in his sleep. Mike lunged forward and shook his shoulders, kneeling on the bed.

“Will, Will wake up, it’s just a dream.” He lowered his voice to be more calming, but he still felt panicked. Will’s face was covered with tears. “Will wake up, please, please, c’mon, Will.”

Will’s eyes shot open and he looked around wildly, still sobbing. His eyes darted around until they fixed on Mike. Mike held his shoulders firmly.

“Mike?” Will said bewilderedly, looking up at him as if he weren’t real.

“Yea, it’s me, Will. It was just a dream, ok? Just a dream, you’re okay.”

To Mike’s surprise, Will surged forward into a sitting position, throwing his arms around Mike’s neck. Will was strong now, so the force of his arms almost knocked the wind out of Mike, but he responded immediately, wrapping his arms around Will’s middle. Will’s body shook with sobs.

“Fuck,” Will whispered, burying his head in Mike’s neck. “Fuck, you were dead, everyone was dead, he killed everyone right in front of me, he wanted me to watch, fuck, Mike…”

Mike rubbed Will’s back slowly, trying to soothe the sobbing. He hadn’t hugged Will in years, and it was so different now, both of them had grown so much.

Somehow they still seemed to fit perfectly into each other, but that was not something Mike should be thinking about right now.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, though he knew it wasn’t. He just needed something to say. “It’s over now. He’s gone.”

“He’s not gone!” Will sobbed in Mike’s shoulder, shaking his head. “For everyone else, sure, yea, it’s great! It’s fine! He’s dead! It’s over!” He pulled back to look at Mike, taking him by the shoulders. “But he won’t leave me, it won’t leave me, I have to deal with it forever, it’s been years and I still have re-live it all over and over and over…” His face fell forward onto Mike’s shoulder with exhaustion, tears still streaming down his cheeks. Mike tightened his arms around him.

“Fuck I’m sorry,” Mike whispered. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Yea, well.” Will pushed away from the hug. “You haven’t been around, have you.”

“I thought…” Mike rubbed his face. “I thought I was the one that couldn’t move on, actually. The party never really wanted to talk about it anymore, and then here at school, I mean, I’m the one who can’t make friends or adjust. You seemed so happy and at ease with people who have no idea about the Upside Down, and I just… I thought I was the only one that felt, like, haunted, I guess.”

Will laughed bitterly, leaning back on his headboard and wiping his face. “Nope. Nope, I never moved on. I tried to, so fucking hard. But it won’t work, nothing works. I thought being in a new place surrounded by new people might break the anniversary-effect-thing, but I guess not.”

Mike looked down at his knee resting on the bed, a strange feeling coiling in his stomach.

“Do you think its… ‘cause I’m here? And I remind you… of…”

Will sighed and shook his head. “No, it’s not that. It’s just me. I’m just stuck there, I guess.”

Mike nodded. “Um…Did it help when we… when we slept in the same room? We could do that again, if you wanted.”

Will sighed again, not looking at Mike. “Yea,” he said. “But I’m still sore from sleeping on the couch, so. Don’t think I want to do that again.”

“I could sleep on the floor in here.”

Mike felt flashbacks to 1984, sleeping on the floor of Will’s room while he was possessed. He shuddered a little. Still, he would do it in a heartbeat. Gladly.

Will looked over the bed onto the floor, covered with clothes and notebooks. “I haven’t cleaned in weeks, you probably shouldn’t.”

Mike nodded. “Okay,” he said. He didn’t move from the bed, not sure what to do, how else he could help.

“Um,” Will said, looking away from Mike toward the wall. “You could sleep on the bed, I guess. With me. I wouldn’t say it, only it’s probably the only thing that will keep me from waking you up with my screaming. Or keep us from breaking our backs on the couch.”

Mike raised his eyebrows in surprise but replied quickly, feeling no need to even consider another answer.

“Yea, ok.”

Will’s eyes darted back to him.

“Are you sure?”

“Yea, of course,” Mike said.

If he was really honest with himself, sleeping in a bed with Will was probably a horrible idea, and he would probably spend most of the night trying to fight extreme urges to wrap his arms around Will in some very cuddly, non-platonic way. But he would do anything for Will, even if it meant lying next to him and trying desperately to pretend that he hadn’t had dreams about Will that took place in a similar context.

Will shifted closer to the wall, leaving room for Mike to slide under the covers beside him.

The bed was a little larger than a twin, so there was enough room so that Mike didn’t have to teeter on the edge of the mattress. Still, there was probably less than two inches separating their shoulders, which was definitely and totally not a distracting thought for Mike.

He lay on his back, looking up at the yellow ceiling light.  Will lay on his back for a moment before turning on his side to face away from Mike.

“Will?” Mike said softly.

“Yea.”

“Um.” Mike grasped for words in his mind, feeling like they were all running outside of his reach. But he couldn’t stop thinking of the hurt in Will’s eyes from a few hours before. Everything he’d said that Mike had just let hang in the air unexplained. “You didn’t… stop mattering to me. For the past four years. I know it seems like it.”

There was a pause. “Yea, it does.”

Mike swallowed. “But I-I…”

How could he possibly explain? That he’d fallen in love with Will? And felt so guilty and afraid? That he thought if he could distance himself from Will he could distance himself from that part of him that he’d been taught he shouldn’t have? That he thought Will would have a better life without him being a shitty friend all the time?

But he had to explain. At least part of it.

“I thought you’d be better off without me,” he finished. “I knew I’d been a horrible friend to you, for a long time, and I felt like there was just something wrong with me and I couldn’t be better than what I was. I thought you deserved to get away from me.”

There was a silence that stretched taut over Mike’s body like a coffin, making him lose his breath.

Then Will turned over to face him.

“What?” Will breathed.

Mike closed his eyes, the overhead light painting his inner eyelids orange.

“I just felt… Worthless, I guess. And you deserved to be best friends with someone who wasn’t worthless.”

Mike opened his eyes again. Will had propped himself up on one his arms and now was looking down at Mike with big sad eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Will whispered.

Mike’s lips quirked up a little in a sad smile. “I guess I knew you were too good of a person to just agree with me and let me go. And I guess… I guess I sort of tried to tell you in the van. On the way back from Lenora. I mean, I was talking about El, but it wasn’t El’s fault I felt worthless. I just didn’t know that yet.”

“But then, after, I told you…” Will said, his eyebrows knit.

“That El needed me and didn’t want to lose me. That she thought I was the heart. Which was nice of you, I really did appreciate it, but. Wasn’t true in the end, I guess.”

Will lowered himself back to lying on the bed, now lying on his back beside Mike.

There was a short pause.

“You’re not worthless,” Will said softly.

Mike chuckled a little through his nose, but really inside, the simple words had a profound effect. He willed away the sting of tears in the front of his skull.

 “Thanks, Will,” he said.

“And I-I…” Will said. “I wasn’t better off without you.”

Mike turned his head to look at Will. Will’s eyes were closed, and Mike could still see some of the tear stains from earlier on his cheeks. It took every ounce of strength he had not to reach out a thumb to brush them away, or wrap his arm around Will’s waist and hold him close.

“Not that I ever thought I would be,” Mike whispered. “But neither was I.”

Will didn’t respond, and soon Mike heard his breath even out into sleep. He allowed himself to keep looking at Will, drinking in all his features that he usually never allowed himself to dwell on. He thought of 14-year-old Mike and how enamored he’d been with Will, despite all his efforts not to be. He laughed internally, thinking about the intense gay panic 14-year-old Mike would have experienced if he’d ever seen the beautiful creature before him now, looking even more like Will, the way that all children look more like themselves as they get older.

Time away from Will hadn’t made Will any less beautiful to him.

And he really had been anything but better off without Will.

“I’m in love with you,” Mike whispered, so softly he could barely even hear himself.

A tear trickled down his face and wiped it away roughly. He closed his eyes, feeling sleep coming on.

…

The next morning, Mike tiptoed out of Will’s room to get ready for class, taking one last look at Will before closing the door behind him.

Mike took a deep breath looking in the mirror, running a hand through his curls.

Today was November 6^th.

He put a pop tart and glass of water on Will’s desk before running off to class. The whole afternoon of classes, all he could think about was Will and that night 6 years ago, how he’d let Will ride away on his bike into the dark, how that was almost the last time he’d seen him alive.

After his third class, he hurried home, feeling sick at the thought of leaving Will alone any longer than he had to.

Clambering back into the apartment, however, he heard voices in Will’s room. He paused by the front door, then continued into the kitchen. He glanced through the crack in the doorway to Will’s room to see Louise sitting at the foot of Will’s bed. Mike began to dig through the fridge, totally not jealous or affected by this development whatsoever.

So, Will had a friend. A girl-friend. A friend that was a girl. A girl that made him laugh when their friend group came over. A girl that checked in on him when he wasn’t doing well. Fine, that was fine. That was really good, actually, Will deserved that. Will deserved every good thing the world had to offer.

Mike heard footsteps and looked up to see Lauren closing the door behind her. She gave him a sad little smile.

“Hey,” she said.

As if they were friends. Ugh.

“Hey! Um.” Mike tried to fake enthusiasm for Will’s sake. He looked at the shut door. “How’s he feeling?”

She shook her head. “He doesn’t seem to be doing any better, he said he couldn’t go to class today. I guess he just wants to be alone, I don’t know. He’ll barely talk to me.” She sighed. “I brought him the homework, I guess that’s all I can do.”

“Oh, yea. That’s nice of you,” Mike said, putting a glass under the tap.

“If he needs anything else, will you let me know? I can make him food or bring anything he needs. Here, let me write down my apartment’s phone number.”

Lana took a pen out of her cardigan pocket and walked to the fridge toward the piece of paper with the Byers’ and Wheelers’ phone numbers.

This was too much for Mike.

She may be Will’s friend, his friend that’s a girl, or hell, she might even be his girlfriend, but she wasn’t family like the Wheelers and Byers were. They were connected in a way she could never be included in, even after all this time.

“Hey!” Mike yelped, causing Lucifer to pause and frown at him. He awkwardly moved toward his backpack, pulling out a sheet of paper. “Um. Use this, that paper is full.”

“Oh,” Leda smiled. “Sure.” She wrote her phone number in disgustingly cutesy blocky numbers and her name —it was Lily, right, he knew that— and then gave Mike one last annoyingly sweet, genuine look. “Make sure to let me know, okay? I want to help.”

Mike forced his lips upward, trying not to noticeably grimace. This is Will’s girlfriend. This is Will’s girlfriend. She has a right to help. He wants her to help. He probably wants her help way more than yours.

“Uh, yea. I’ll let you know.”

Then she was gone, and Mike tucked the paper with her number away in a cabinet, not wanting to look at it anymore.

He knocked on Will’s door.

“Will?”

He opened it to see Will lying face up, staring at the ceiling in the darkened room.

“Um.” Mike took a few awkward steps into the room, hands shoved in his pockets. “I was gonna order Chinese for dinner, do you want anything?”

He watched as Will swallowed, Adam’s apple slowly shifting up and down his throat.

“Uh, I don’t know.”

Mike looked down for a moment.

“Maybe I’ll just accidentally get too much General Zhou’s chicken?” Mike said slowly. “And double the amount of rice I wanted? And I’ll feel really dumb about it too, but, you know, what can you do.”

Will tilted his head slightly toward Mike, meeting his eyes. The suggestion of a smile painted Will’s lips, filling Mike’s whole body with something warm and sweet.

“Ok,” Will said softly.

A few hours later, Mike brought the food to Will’s bedroom door, thinking he would definitely want to eat alone on today of all days, but Will got up from his bed and led them back to the living room couch. They poked at their takeout boxes in silence for a while.

“It’s November 6^th,” Will said after a few minutes.

Mike looked up from his side of the couch.

“Yea,” he croaked. He cleared his throat. “Yea it is.”

“Happy anniversary to me.”

Mike stared at Will, who looked at Mike with a blank look before a little grin played on his lips. Mike grinned a little too.

“Happy anniversary,” Mike chuckled, shaking his head.

Will slowly nibbled at some rice. “It was a great campaign that day, that you planned. I remember it took, like, 10 hours.”

Mike nodded. “Yea. That was really fun.” He licked his lips, looking down at his food. He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help it. “Sometimes I think about how all of it could have been avoided if I’d just asked you to sleepover.” He glanced up Will.

Will furrowed his eyebrows. “What?”

Mike shrugged. “I just… if I’d just asked you to sleepover, and like begged my mom enough, if I’d not let you go… it never would have happened. We’d have gone to school the next day, and everything would have been normal. I just… wish I could go back in time for a redo, sometimes.”

Will looked at Mike for a second.

“It’s not your fault, Mike,” Will said slowly. “He… before we killed him, he said he’d wanted me. It wasn’t an accident that I was taken. I think he would have taken me no matter what. If not then, then another night. There was nothing you could have done. Or anyone.”

Mike nodded, a sadness weighing on him but also a feeling that some hand that had its grasp around his heart for years had finally let go. Like maybe he’d needed to hear that for a very long time.

“I wish there was, though,” Mike said with a sigh. “Something we could have done to prevent it all from ever happening.”

Will had a sad little smile. “Me too.”

Mike leaned back on the couch, getting an idea.

“Well, maybe we rewrite the story.”

Will gave him a look. “What?”

“Yea,” Mike said, waving his fork enthusiastically. “Like it’s a campaign. And instead of rolling a 7 that night, you roll a 14, and the Demogorgon doesn’t get you, and then there’s another roll where you send the Demogorgon back to the shadow realm and seal the gateway. And then I roll for a sleepover, and I win, and you stay at my house that night. Just for good measure.”

Will rolled his eyes but had a little grin on his face. “But that’s not what happened, Mike. Besides, the DM can’t roll for things.”

Mike shrugged sheepishly. He looked down. “I know. It’s just… nice to imagine what could have been. In a different timeline, maybe.”

In the pause that followed, Mike couldn’t help but also think of the last three years. What would have happened if he hadn’t decided Will was better off without him. If he hadn’t let go of Will then, just like he’d let him go that November night so many years ago.

“Yea, it is,” Will mused, looking thoughtfully into his rice. “I probably would have gone to Hawkins High with you guys.”

Maybe you would have stayed my friend, Mike heard. He felt a pang in his chest.

“Yea,” Mike smiled weakly. “We all would have joined Hellfire together. ‘Vecna’ would just have been some ugly freak in one of Eddie’s D&D guides.”

Will nodded with a weak chuckle. Then he tilted his head in thought. “I guess El wouldn’t be my sister, though. And my mom and Hop wouldn’t have gotten together, or even Jonathan and Nancy.” He shrugged. “So there are some good things about this timeline, I guess.”

Mike stared at Will. Sudden tears began sparking in his eyes. Of course Will could still see the good in such a shitty situation, the beauty in all the abject ugliness. Maybe that’s why he was an artist.

Maybe that’s why Mike was still so fucking in love with him.

Maybe you’re right, Will, Mike thought. Except in this timeline, I let you go, which is the worst thing I’ve ever done.

“Yea,” Mike managed to choke out. “Yea you’re right.”

A little later on, the boys had finished their dinner and Mike stood awkwardly in the kitchen, watching Will wash his fork.

“Um, I should head to bed early, I have a morning class tomorrow,” Mike said.

Do you want to sleep with me again? went unsaid, but Mike didn’t want to make Will feel uncomfortable by asking. Especially having realized just how much Lily was in the picture, Mike realized it was probably weird for Will to sleep in the same bed as another guy when he probably was interested in or involved with a girl.

“Ok,” Will said, still looking down into the sink. “Um, can I…?”

“Yea, yea, of course,” Mike said too quickly, then coughed in some lame attempt to cover the awkwardness. “I’m just gonna go change.”

Mike slipped into his bedroom to throw on his sweats and a t-shirt, but before he could go back out to Will’s room, Will was knocking and entering. He had changed too (into different PJ sweats from before, but still, it was a good sign, Mike thought) and had his hands deep in his grey sweats pockets.

Will looks nice in sweats, Mike definitely didn’t notice.

“I never come in here,” Will mused, looking around at the room. It had basically the same layout of Will’s, but Mike only had a few posters up in contrast to Will’s collection.

“You’re missing out,” Mike smirked as he collapsed back onto his bed. “It’s way better than your room.”

“Is it?” Will smirked back a little. He might just as well have told Mike he was absolutely wonderful, in terms of how many butterflies it put in Mike’s stomach to see Will joking around with him like this again.

“Oh yea. For one, my window has the view of the dumpster.”

Will chuckled as he peered outside into the dark. “Oh God, sorry. When we were moving in my mom just picked a room and I followed her lead. You must have thought I was doing it out of spite or something.”

Mike laughed, put his hands behind his head. “No, I know you better than that. Besides, I would have deserved it anyway.”

As soon as he said the first part, he wondered if he’d stepped too far. Even after all these years, Will still felt so familiar, like his favorite book or movie he hadn’t picked up in a little while. To say that he knew Will didn’t feel like a stretch, but maybe it was. And maybe Will thought it was.

But Will just turned and smiled, shrugging a little.

“Maybe.”

Mike was flooded with a memory.

I didn’t say it.

You didn’t have to.

He stared at Will, as if looking at him was a button on a time machine that could bring him back to that moment.

That moment when they were still friends, and Mike was on his way to repairing their friendship after those months he thought he’d lost Will after the move to Lenora.

Back before he’d ruined everything for good.

Will looked at him for a moment longer before moving to close the door, and then the closet door.

“No demogorgons in here, right?”

Mike chuckled and got off the bed. “Just in case, you get in first. While it’s eating me, you escape out the window.”

“I won’t have enough time,” Will said, crawling into the bed and settling in beside the wall. “You’re too skinny, he’ll finish you in seconds.”

Mike huffed, crawling in beside him. “Hey! I’m not that skinny. Besides, I’m long. He’ll have to work his way up all 6 feet, it’ll take at least more than a few seconds.”

“You’re not 6 feet.”

“Shut up.”

The boys lay on their backs, heads turned to look at each other with real grins on their faces. How they were here, together, joking about being eaten by demogorgons on the night of November 6^th all these years later, Mike didn’t know, but he knew he could look at Will smile forever. Particularly now that his smile was for Mike again. At Mike again. With Mike again.

It was like they were 12 again, but also different. They were so much older, and so much had happened, but maybe, just maybe, they were still Mike-and-Will somehow.

Mike wished he could hold on forever.

In that moment, of course, Mike remembered something that reminded him things were definitely not like how they were when they were 12.

“So…” he said awkwardly. “How was your visit with your friend? Today? I talked to her on her way out.” He turned on his side to face Will, not doing a great job at hiding how interested he was in what Will’s answer would be.

“I heard that,” Will said, eyes wandering up to look at the ceiling. “I was surprised, actually. When you said you’d call her. You’re a very, um. You know. Do-everything-yourself type.”

Mike’s chest swelled a little. Even if Will was teasing him, the fact that Will felt like he still knew him like that made him feel fuzzy inside. Even if they were discussing the girl that Mike couldn’t help but envy because she was probably living all of Mike’s dreams.

Right. They were talking about the girl who was living Mike’s dreams. He swallowed.

“Uh yeah, well. I figured if something came up, you know, she deserved to know. I figured you’d want her to know, if she was your girlfriend and all…”

Will’s eyes quickly flicked to Mike’s, and he huffed out a short laugh. “What?”

Mike raised an eyebrow. “Well I-I thought that…”

Will shook his head. “No.” He laughed a little again. “No, she’s just my friend. I mean, she’s great. But yea, no.”

Even though he knew he had no right to, Mike felt a wave of relief and joy spill over him at this news. He didn’t even bother with the: well that doesn’t mean they won’t date eventually! Or the: that doesn’t mean he likes boys!

Especially the: and that sure as hell doesn’t mean he likes you!

Mike could spiral in all that stuff later. At that moment, he just glowed.

“Oh, got it, yea. Cool,” Mike managed, staring at Will. Will looked back and gave a nod.

“Cool.”

Mike flipped onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.

“I’m sorry for bugging you this week,” Mike said a little shyly. He suddenly realized, as much as he thought he was being helpful, maybe this whole thing had been really selfish, and Will was just the most incredible person on the planet and was trying to placate him on today of all days and—

“It’s okay,” Will said. “Actually, I, um. I kind of needed it. So thank you.”

Mike turned his head to look at Will again. God there was so much he wanted to say. Of course, Will. Anything for you. I’m glad I could do anything at all. I love you.

“Happy anniversary,” Mike said with a weak smile, his voice cracking.

Will looked at him, returning the little smile. “Thanks.”

“Sweet dreams,” Mike said.

Will snorted. “Now you’re just being mean.”

Mike chuckled softly. “No, I’m serious. If you see the demogorgon, or Vecna, or whoever the fuck in your dreams, tell them we’re having a sleepover tonight so they can’t take you, and they can go to hell.”

Will rolled his eyes playfully before closing them. “Ok.”

Mike allowed himself a moment of imagining what it would be like to put his arm over Will, pulling him close. To plant a kiss on the top of his head and feel his chest rise and fall against his. Then he turned his head back to face the ceiling and closed his eyes.

Will shifted beside him, and suddenly a hand fell lightly on Mike’s chest. Mike’s breath caught at the touch.

“Can I?” Will murmured.  Mike paused, not sure how to get his tongue to work. “If my hand falls, I’ll know the demogorgon got you and I can make my escape.”

Mike couldn’t help the little laugh that escaped, causing Will’s hand to flutter with his chest.

“Yea, sure,” Mike managed. He tried to think of a joke in response, but all he could do was think about the place where Will’s hand met his body, and how the hand was almost directly over his heart, and how Will touching his heart felt so stupidly poetically right even though it totally utterly shouldn’t.

Mike drifted off into a deep sleep, dreaming of paladins and clerics and shields with red hearts on them.

…

Mike blinked open his eyes and glanced over at the alarm clock beside his bed.

8:20 am.

He had 10 minutes before he needed to start getting ready.

He sighed, shifting his head to the side a little to look at Will.

Will had moved a little during the night so that his head was facing Mike’s shoulder, and his hand had fallen from Mike’s chest and now lightly grasped Mike’s arm. His hair fell in his eyes a little and his pink lips were slightly parted.

Mike thought he maybe had never seen anything so beautiful.

Mike let his eyelids slide down just a little to rest his eyes, but he was still watching as Will woke up. Will sleepily blinked a few times, and Mike waited for Will’s eyes to turn up toward his.

Which they did. But not before Will did something very… interesting.

He leaned his face forward over the inch between them and planted a light kiss on Mike’s shoulder.

Mike didn’t process this very quickly. To be fair, he had just woken up, and his eyes were barely even open, and the kiss was so light he couldn’t even be sure that the nerves in his shoulder had alerted him correctly. So, barely anything had occurred in his brain by the time Will was looking up at him and a horrified realization was spreading across his face at seeing that Mike was awake.

“Shit.” Will sat up immediately, his eyes suddenly wide. He covered his face with his hand and groaned. “Shit, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He crawled off the foot of the bed to get around Mike and hurried toward the door, stumbling a little in his sleepiness.

“No, no it’s ok, you-Will…” Mike sat up and scrubbed his eyes, still not quite sure what had happened.

“Um, that was—” Will stopped by the door, turning back but not looking at Mike. He face was bright red. “I’m sorry. Um. Have a nice class.”

With that, Will was out of the room, and Mike heard the slam of Will’s door a few seconds later. Mike swung his feet over the bed and looked down at his knees, his eyebrows furrowed.

Will had… kissed him?

Well, his shoulder.

Did that mean…?

Mike closed his eyes and shook his head.

No, Mike, it didn’t mean.

It didn’t mean anything. Will had just woken up, and he’d probably thought Mike was someone else. Will had been confused and sleepy and he obviously deeply regretted it.

The clock now read 8:26, and Mike got up to get dressed.

It was clear that Mike needed to convince Will that he would forget it and he knew it didn’t mean anything.

But shit, Will had kissed him.

Will had kissed him.

Will had kissed him.

It was hard to not blush as he shrugged on a sweater and buttoned his jeans. Of course it meant nothing, of course, of course, but shit.

The love of his life had kissed his shoulder, and it might just have been the best of moment of his life, so he was going to let himself enjoy it just a little before shoving in a dark, back corner of his mind for Will’s sake.

Mike got back to the apartment in the late afternoon, and immediately made a sandwich for Will in case he was hungry. He knocked on Will’s door with a plate.

“Will?” He turned the knob.

The door was locked.

Mike’s eyes widened.

“Hey, Will? Can you open up? I have food. Well, um, a sandwich. Will?” He kept knocking.’

He kept turning the knob back and forth, as if that would unlock the door. He looked around desperately. Maybe Will went out? Or was in the bathroom? But then why would his door be locked when it only had a lock on the inside?

Mike suddenly felt his heart drop. This whole time, Will had kept the door unlocked, even though he had never wanted to talk to anyone. Even after telling him to shove off, Will had still allowed Mike to come inside by leaving the door unlocked. But now that was over. Mike was locked out, and he wasn’t sure what to do, or how to help, and whether he had ruined everything. Again. Like he always did.

And more importantly, what if Will wasn’t ok in there?

He felt himself start to panic.

“Shit, shit, Will please just answer me, okay? Just let me know you’re okay. Alright? Please? Will!” He knocked incessantly, pressing his mouth to the door.

The door opened and Will stood in front of him in the sweats he’d worn the night before, his hair a wild mess. His face looked heartbroken. He didn’t meet Mike’s eye.

“I’m fine,” Will muttered.

“Okay,” Mike replied breathlessly, feeling something release its grip on his chest. “Um. Are you sure?”

“Yup.”

“Okay. I-I’ll just…” Mike held out the plate awkwardly, but when Will didn’t take it, he slid it onto Will’s desk and then backed away from the doorway. Will leaned on the doorframe, still not looking at Mike. Mike sat down on the couch and swallowed, feeling helpless. “Do you… want to talk about it?”

“No, I don’t want to talk about it, Mike.” Will put a hand to his face. He huffed in exasperation. “We-we can’t just go back to way things were, alright?”

Mike felt frozen, staring up at Will from where he sat.

“Uh, yea, no, I understand. We don’t have to talk, or-or be friends, I get that after everything I’ve…”

Will let his hand fall from his face and with slap on his leg.

“Mike don’t you get it?!”

If Mike was frozen before, he was encased in a solid block of ice now. He tried to find words, any words, but he was utterly lost.

“Um…?”

Will grimaced. “El told you, Mike. El told you that when November comes, I can’t talk to anyone, no one can help me or get through to me. But then you just come waltzing in, and-and—” Will looked at Mike as if it should be obvious, but Mike was still stuck, blinking up at Will. “Hell, I kissed you!”

Mike’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Uh, yea. Um. On the shoulder,” Mike mumbled. Will threw his hands up in the air at that helpful clarification. Mike tried to push forward, remembering what he told himself that morning. “But that’s okay, Will, I get it, you thought I was someone else or you were dreaming or something, don’t worry about it.”

Will shook his head slowly. He sighed. “No, Mike. I woke up and I saw it was you and I kissed you.” He swallowed. “Ok?”

Mike’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth then closed it again, not sure what this meant or what the hell was going on because his brain was about three steps behind and he was pretty sure it probably had been all his life.

“Ok,” he said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“So…” Will took a shaky breath. “I’d get if you were uncomfortable, if you wanted a new roommate or whatever next semester. But even if you didn’t care, I can’t… I can’t go back to being your best friend. I know you need to feel needed or whatever, but you can’t just win me back as your friend like that, I can’t do it, ok, I can’t. You were great this week. Thank you. But I can’t do it anymore, so… go be needed somewhere else.”

Mike’s mouth fell open. He had never been shot in the chest but he wondered if this might be something in the realm of what that felt like.

“I-I…” Mike sputtered. “I didn’t do it to win you back, Will. Or to feel needed, I-I just…” He looked down. “I just wanted to help. To make sure you were okay.”

“Why now?!” Will was practically yelling at this point. “You didn’t give a damn for three years whether I was okay—"

“Of course I gave a damn, Will, I just didn’t think I could be around you and pretend I wasn’t in love with you! Ok?” Mike stood up as he spoke, waving his arms. Will fell silent, looking at him wide eyed. “But then I realized, hey, I guess I managed to do that for the past three months so...”

Mike exhaled, covering his face with his hands. In no world had he planned to say that, but it was too late now.

“You…?” Will’s voice was small, almost frail from across the room. “That’s why you…?”

Mike gulped, lowering his hands a little. Might as well go on.

“I thought I couldn’t pretend. I thought you deserved a best friend who was normal and who treated you right. Someone like—” Mike motioned toward the door. “Like Lily, I don’t know. And I thought if I disappeared from your life I could kill that part of me that wasn’t supposed to love you like that. But, um.” Mike shrugged with a sigh. “It didn’t work, so.” He finally lifted his eyes up toward Will cautiously, trying to gauge his reaction.

Will’s eyes were wide.

“So… so you still…?”  Mike looked down and nodded. There was a pause. “Would it have changed anything if you knew I’d felt the same?”

Mike’s eyes darted up.

What?

Will had…?

Mike’s brain was still three steps behind, but he tried to grab it and yank it forward because—

“What? You did?” Mike almost choked on the words. Will nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Will threw up his hands, almost laughing. “Why didn’t you tell me?! Plus I… I tried to tell you. In the pizza van.  With the painting. I mean I was trying to help you and El, but I was also… I was really talking about myself. When I said all those things.”

Mike stared at Will, his eyes and mouth open. Memories of that day played in his head.

You make her feel like she’s not a mistake at all, like she’s better for being different.

El needs you, Mike. And she always will.

Will had told him. Will had told him he’d always need Mike and Mike had let him go.

Three years.

“Holy shit,” Mike whispered. “Shit, Will, if I’d just…” Tears began forming in his eyes.

“But would it have made a difference though?” Will said. “If you… if you wanted to kill the part of you that felt that way, then would you really have wanted to be with me back then? Would it have worked between us?”

Will was taking slow steps toward Mike.

Mike swallowed, looking down in thought. He remembered how broken and confused he had felt about it back then, how scared he had felt around his parents once he’d realized the truth. How he’d pushed Will away no matter what he did or said. How long it had taken him to accept that he liked boys and not girls. Will and not El.

“I… I don’t know. Maybe not, I guess.”

“And how about now?”

Will was a few feet in front of Mike now.

Mike paused. He looked at Will, hair still a mess and eyes brimming with emotion and one of his sweatpants riding up his calf, and Mike loved him, and Mike loved loving him. He wasn’t scared of it anymore. He hadn’t been for a long time.

“I want to be with you now, Will.”

Will put his hands in his pockets.

“So,” Will said softly, hazel eyes shining. “There are some good things about this timeline, then.”

And then Mike couldn’t take it anymore and he lunged forward and threw his arms around Will, clutching Will close against his body with all of his strength, burying his head in Will’s shoulder. Will acted at the same time, wrapping his arms around Mike’s back, holding him so tightly Mike almost couldn’t breathe.

“Shit, Will. I’m so sorry,” Mike choked, tears rolling down his cheeks onto Will’s shirt.

“It’s ok,” Will whispered. “But if you leave me…”

“If you think I’m letting you go again you’re crazy,” Mike said, squeezing Will as hard as he could and leaning back to pick him up off the ground. Will was lean but dense with muscle, and Mike was still on the lanky side, so Mike struggled and tipped them off balance, causing them to stumble backward onto the couch, laughing. True to his word, Mike didn’t let go of Will and held him tightly, tangled up on the couch.

“What about me deserving better than you,” Will said teasingly from Mike’s shoulder.

“You do,” Mike said without a second thought. “But, um.” He leaned his face into Will’s neck. “I think you make me better. So… as long as you’re willing to have me around.”

Will nodded.

“Ok,” he whispered.

Mike pulled back a little to look at Will, though they still sat with their arms around each other.

“And Lily’s not your girlfriend,” Mike said.

“And Lily’s not my girlfriend,” Will said with a little smile.

“Because you love me.”

Will cocked his head to the side.

“Mm. It’s really because I don’t like girls…” At the sight of Mike’s frown, Will rolled his eyes, unable to hold back a smile. “But I also love you.”

Mike grinned and leaned forward to playfully plant a kiss on Will’s shoulder. Will laughed.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anyth—”

“I don’t care,” Will giggled, as Mike kept kissing his shoulder. “Stopp, Mike!”

And Mike did stop, but only to tackle Will in another breath-preventing hug, and Will laughed and hugged him back.

…

Later that night, Will and Mike lay cuddled together in Mike’s bed, Mike’s head nested on Will’s shoulder and his arms draped tightly over Will’s torso. They lay silently, Will still struggling to talk a lot (especially after a very talkative, emotionally taxing afternoon), but their silences were finally comfortable again, and Mike felt sure that Will would tell Mike if he needed something.

Mike almost felt like crying, being so close to Will, having him in his arms after so long of trying not to want it. He finally allowed himself to want it, and somehow, despite all the odds, now he had it.

“Mike,” Will murmured.

“Yea,” Mike said, nuzzling the side of his face in Will’s chest.

“It has been three years. What if, um, I don’t know. We’re really different now. And you think you’re into me because you think I’m still who I was when I was 14.”

Mike looked up at Will’s face to see a little smile, which put Mike at ease. He propped himself up on his elbow to look at Will better while they talked.

“You were pretty cute when you were 14,” Mike grinned. Will rolled his eyes. “But ok, fair. Catch me up. Tell me everything.”

Will raised an eyebrow, looking up at Mike. “Everything?”

“Yea. What was high school like. And this semester too. I um…” Mike smiled a little sheepishly. “Sometimes I’d try to eavesdrop when you and your friends were over so I could learn something about you. But I could only hear loud noises like laughter and stuff. It didn’t really work.”

Will laughed. “Mike!” He gave Mike a playful little shove, and Mike bowed his head into Will’s shoulder in blushing embarrassment. He gave Will’s shoulder another kiss, which somehow was already an established inside joke and tradition.

“Yea, yea, ok. I’m sorry. But now I don’t have to eavesdrop, so…” He brought his head back up to look at Will.

“Ok,” Will sighed. “I guess um. High school was okay. I mainly stuck with El, and I had a few friends from art class. I saw Lucas and Dustin sometimes, but, you know. Basketball, Hellfire, girlfriends…” Will gave a little smile. “Everyone got busy.”

Mike looked down. “Yea.”

“It was okay. Everything was pretty boring, but that was a good thing after… you know, everything. Boring is kinda good now, I think we’ve had enough excitement for a lifetime.” Will chuckled, casually reaching a hand up to play with Mike’s hair. “I spent a lot of time painting. Hanging out with my family. Trying not to think about um…” Will gave him a shy look then looked away.

Mike swallowed, looking intently down at Will, hanging on every word.

“And this semester…” Will continued, thinking to himself. “It’s been okay. My classes are sorta boring. I like my new friends, though it’s different, you know. It won’t ever be like the party. But I think that’s okay. ‘Cause I sort of feel like, no matter where we go, the party is always, like, connected? Like whenever I see them again, it’s almost like nothing changed.”

Mike absentmindedly traced the collar of Will’s shirt with his finger.

“Guess not with me, though,” he said, trying to quirk up his lips.

“I mean…” Will shrugged a little sheepishly. “Yes and no.”

Mike furrowed his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, obviously it’s been awkward. But seeing you again… I mean I felt the same. I tried not to, but I felt the same that I did when we were kids, or even the past few years. It almost felt right to live with you, even if we weren’t friends. I mean… God this is stupid…” Will chuckled weakly.

“What?” Mike urged.

“I knew I shouldn’t, but sometimes I’d just lie in bed and think about how you were in the room right next to me. Like we were close again, and you’d come take care of me if I-I…” Will looked up at the ceiling, a sad look stealing over his face. “I mean I figured you didn’t care, and you wouldn’t ever want to, but sometimes I’d just imagine that… there’d be a moment where you’d care again and it would be me and you again. God I sound so pathetic.” He chuckled but his eyes were wet.

Mike was fucking melting. Tears sprang to his eyes.

“No,” he said hoarsely. “No you don’t, Will. I did that too.” He brought his hand up to cup Will’s cheek. “I just thought you’d hate me, after everything, or at least wouldn’t care anymore. But if I’d known, fuck, I would have done something a lot sooner.”

Will looked up at him, his eyes soft and glistening and beautiful. Their faces were inches apart, and Mike’s eyes were darting around Will’s face.

“Well,” Will said softly. His eyes flickered to focus on a point lower down on Mike’s face. “You could do something now.”

Mike was now staring at Will’s lips too, finding it hard to focus on anything else. He cleared his throat a little.

“Oh, um, are you sure?” he said. “I mean, you’re going through a lot, and I… you know, wouldn’t want you to feel…” He trailed off.

“You’re right,” Will sighed, still not moving away. “But, to be fair, I was also going through a lot for the past four years, because everyone I knew got to go make out with their crushes while I was stuck in my room pining for my best friend from kindergarten…” He grinned a little. “Besides, depending on how many hidden rows of teeth you have, it might be a nice distraction from seeing demogorgons every time I close my eyes.”

Mike laughed and rolled his eyes. “Well, if you’re sure…”

Will nodded.

Still holding Will’s cheek, he stroked him with his thumb and leaned forward, watching as Will’s thick eyelashes flickered down before closing his own eyes.

Will’s lips were warm and soft, and for a lingering moment, their lips just rested together, pressed softly against each other. Then Will’s hand moved from Mike’s hair to his shoulder, and he moved his head a little to deepen the kiss, slotting their lips together firmly.

Mike certainly had no complaints.

Mike got absolutely lost in it. He wasn’t sure how long it was, that they lay facing each other, pressing kiss after kiss on each other’s lips, until he felt Will shift his leg over Mike, crawling to lie on top of him as they kissed. Mike moaned, his mouth dropping open from the unexpected increase in contact, and Will took that as an invitation to lightly swipe his tongue into Mike’s mouth. Mike licked at his tongue, then bit lightly at Will’s lip. Will groaned.

Again. Mike had absolutely no complaints. Just then, he probably could not think of a thing on earth to complain about. And that was saying something for Mike Wheeler.

After a while, Will pulled back slightly to catch his breath, and the two just looked at each other, their chests heaving as they panted.

“How are my teeth?” Mike asked in between breaths.

Will’s brow furrowed then un-furrowed as he remembered his demogorgon comment.

“Oh, yea, um. Fine. Good. Really good.”

Mike grinned widely and Will blushed a deep crimson.

“Shut up,” Will said, a sheepish smile on his face.

“I didn’t say anyth—”

And then Will was kissing him again, and Mike was grinning into Will’s lips and reaching up under Will’s shirt to stroke his back, and Mike thought if he was going to spend his life being shut up by Will, this is was going to be a good life.

…

The following weeks were still hard for Will. While he slowly built his way back up to going to classes, he still spent a lot of his time in his room, and he spent each night in Mike’s bed sleeping with the lights on (which Mike didn’t mind in the least). He continued to have nightmares, even when he slept next to Mike, but Mike did his best to be there for Will in any way he could.

Eventually, Will started to be able to let his friends back in, and while Mike was preparing himself to start to feel jealous again, he found himself being invited to spend time with them (both by Will and by the others). Apparently, they (even Lily) were actually lovely people, and Mike started think that maybe he could make friends at college after all, even if they didn’t know about the Upside Down. He had Will, and he and Will shared that past, for better or for worse, and they knew they could support each other through it.

So maybe, now, little by little, Mike could start to move on.

It was about a week before Mike went home for Thanksgiving, and he knew he had two calls to make. First, he called El; he told her his side of the story with regards to him getting together with Will (as Will had already told her and gotten her blessing), and finally caught up with her, having a real conversation like they hadn’t had in years. Instead of acting as a bleak reminder in his mind of how he wasn’t “normal” because he couldn’t love her like he thought he should, now El could just be El; lovely, and funny, and kind, and a real friend that he couldn’t wait to see again.

After that first phone call, Mike called his mom. Despite Mike’s usual aversion to sappy stuff (with anyone other than Will, of course), he thanked her for completely meddling in his life and forcing him to room with the last person on the planet that he had ever wanted to see again.

Karen’s warm smile could be heard over the phone.

“Oh you’re welcome, honey. I’m glad you two are getting along.”