Chapter Text
„But…But then I realized, he’s just my Tammy.“
Half an hour later, Mike keeps staring out of the torn-up walls of the truck, following the lighting red, pulsing walls they are crashing through – There is only one unrelenting thought in his head, repeating over and over until it feels like it is suffocating him, inside out.
Who the fuck is Tammy?
He doesn’t feel El’s hand on his arm, doesn’t feel the wind rushing through the truck, Joyce’s hair falling in her face where she is standing right next to one of the rips. There is something akin to an emptiness stuck in his chest, a big, huge empty lump he can’t get out, as much as he tries. As much as he wants to just swallow it.
He feels sick.
“You okay?”
El’s hand slides up his arm, landing on his shoulder. Mike looks at her, but he doesn’t get the words out. He isn’t even sure what he would say. What he wants to say. The emptiness strangely feels like it’s blocking up his airway, blocking up his lungs too.
I had this… this crush on someone, even though I know they’re not like me.
He blinks hard, trying to move out of whatever trance has settled over him, but it feels so hard. Hearing Will’s words repeat over and over in his mind, seeing Will’s eyes on him.
Seeing them fall to him, seeing him crumble even more when all Mike could do was look back.
“Mike?”
“Yeah.” He swallows. “Yeah, I’m good.” Her hand squeezes his shoulder, and Mike shudders. “I’m just… I’m worried.”
El’s face does something complicated. “Yeah. I think I am, too.”
It’s a big revelation for someone like El, who tries to stay strong no matter what. Who’s always been so strong, so powerful, the only one who everyone thought could end Vecna.
But she had never been able to control him, that way. Like Will had.
I know they’re not like me.
There is something akin to realization hammering behind Mike’s skull, right behind a wall he has built himself a decade ago. But that wall is so tall, so strong, that it is impossible to break through. Impossible to rip it down, because Mike is oh so scared of what he will find behind it.
Because what if – What if Will looked at him that way because – because –
“We’re here!” Murray's voice suddenly breaks through the cabin, muffled. A second later, the truck abruptly stops, sending El straight into Mike’s chest.
His arms shoot up, wrapping around her elbows, holding her. His eyes instantly go to Will.
He is in the corner closest to the end of the truck, Jonathan standing next to him like an unmoving pillar, bracing himself for impact.
Will’s eyes aren’t on him. But Jonathan’s are.
A shudder goes through Mike when he meets Jonathan’s look. He and Jonathan have always had a little bit of a strained relationship, both wanting to care about Will in their own way, both being as stubborn as they come. But Jonathan has never looked at him the way he is looking at him now.
There is anger. Old anger, maybe disappointment too.
And a reluctant amount of pity.
“Alright, move out, come on. We have no idea how long it’ll take them to come after us.”
Because yeah, there is the goddamn military. There is the end of the world, close enough to feel, close enough to almost touch.
And all Mike can think about is godforsaken Tammy.
El grips his hand as she descends from the truck, giving him a grateful nod, as he helps her down. “Have my back?”
Mike nods back. “Always.”
When they descend El into the tank, Mike can’t help but notice how determined she looks. And how scared.
It is something that has taken Mike a while to realize that El isn’t just an indestructible superhero, that she shouldn’t always have to save the world. That she is allowed to not want to have any part of this, too. That she is allowed to be scared.
He had noticed long before they began planning crawls, long before El had broken up with him for good, that El wasn’t his to keep. El doesn’t want to be put on a pedestal, doesn’t want to be treated like she is this all-knowing superhero.
El wants to be just Jane.
And Mike had only ever treated her like Eleven, and never like Jane
The love he had for her, still has for her, had molded itself into something so strangely platonic, something so much deeper, so much more painless. Turns out, when you don’t feel pressured to love someone, it comes as easily as breathing.
And Mike just isn’t in love with Jane. And Jane isn’t in love with Mike. And that is more than okay.
He watches as she closes her eyes, vanishing into Vecna's mind. Like a magnet, his eyes find Will next. He stands as close to the tank as possible, looking up at Jane with so much worry that Mike just wants to – wants –
Kali stands next to him, whispering something in his ear. It is then, that Mike decides the lump in his throat has reached its breaking point.
With determined steps, he moves towards Robin, who is standing off to the side, talking to Steve. She looks mildly confused to see him standing in front of her, but there is something in her expression that Mike doesn’t dare pinpoint. Doesn’t want to pinpoint.
“Can I talk to you for a second?”
Robin raises a brow, but nods nonetheless. “Sure, little Wheeler, what’s up? Hey–”
Mike drags her out of the door, out in the hallway. Only when he is sure they are far enough from everyone else, he stops, dropping Robin’s wrist, who shoots him a look. “Was that necessary?”
“Sorry,” Mike says, not looking sorry at all. “You knew, right?”
“What?” Robin looks lost. “What did I know?”
“About Will.” Mike swallows. “You said Will didn’t need any truth serum, so you knew, right?”
Robin looks him over. Her eyebrows pull together, as if she isn’t sure what to say to that. “Are you mad he didn’t tell you before me? Or what has you in such a–”
“No!” Mike says, louder than necessary. Even though he is, a little bit. Not mad. How could he– No, definitely not mad. Hurt, maybe. That a girl Will hadn’t known for all that long was his first choice to tell. Not any of his lifelong friends, not his best friend. But that is – it is whatever. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?” Mike is sure Robin couldn’t sound any more confused. “Why does it matter then?”
“It doesn’t – It doesn’t matter.” The lump is swelling. “It’s not like I care! No, I mean I do of course because it’s Will, but it doesn’t matter, he’s – he’s still Will.”
And why does that feel like a lie? That it doesn’t matter, because it shouldn't, right? Will, liking guys, boys, it wouldn’t change anything. It couldn’t. But why does it feel like it should?
“Just–” he knows he is acting, well, irrational. But he has to know. He has to know. “Who is Tammy?”
Robin’s eyes widen, the slightest bit.
“Oh.”
“Oh?” Mike leans closer. “What does ‘Oh’ mean? Is it a good or a bad ‘Oh’?’”
Robin stares at him for a second. “Mike…” Her voice is quiet. “Why aren’t you in there with your girlfriend?”
“My – My what?” Now it is Mike’s turn to be confused. “Like, you mean Jane? El?” his brows furrow. “She’s not my girlfriend. Hasn’t been for a while. I thought it was kind of obvious.”
“Obvious?” Robin looks at him as if he has just said something really stupid. “You think that –” she points at the door, behind which everyone else is. “– Is obvious for anyone else but you?”
“Why is that – Robin, why is that of any importance right now?”
Now she is looking at him, really looking at him. It makes Mike feel kind of bare, as if she is looking exactly at the space where the big, empty lump is sitting. Where it hurts to breathe. Hurts to feel.
“Why do you want to know about Tammy, Mike?”
“Well, I mean –” Mike fumbles with the edge of his jacket. “I know Will said it doesn’t matter anymore, and I don’t even know who he meant with that – but I need to know, because I just, Robin, I need to know.”
There is something in the way she looks at him that he doesn’t quite like. Soft. Knowing.
“You remember Tammy Thompson?” Robin tilts her head.
“No?” Mike racks his brain, but he comes up with nothing. “Who in the world is Tammy Thompson?”
“She made an appearance at the pep rally, like a year and a half ago. She sang the National Anthem, and–”
“Oh god.” Mike stares. “That’s Tammy? She sounded horrendous.”
“I know,” Robin laughs, something slightly wet in her voice. “Like a muppet.”
“Pretty accurate.” Mike muses, then he soberes up. “But what has that to do with Will? Because Tammy is a girl.”
“Yeah.” There is a strange way in which Robin says it. “Yeah, Tammy’s a girl.”
She bites her lip, then mutters something that sounds strangely like ‘oh fuck it’.
“I had this huge, huge crush on Tammy Thompson a few years ago.”
This feels strongly like whiplash. “Wait, sorry, what?”
“Me.” Robin points at herself. “Crush, Tammy Thompson.”
“Okay.” Mike nods. “Okay, sure. That’s great, even though your choice is a bit – uh – muppety, but how does that –”
“I’m getting to that. Let me talk, Wheeler, God.” Robin runs a hand over her face, but she doesn’t look too mad about it. “I’m going to make this fast, but I thought she was the one. Like, seriously, I thought Tammy Thompson was the one person I was supposed to end up with. She just– I thought she was perfect. And we would be perfect, and I could be perfect –” She falters. “But eventually I realized that, well, my life wouldn’t be perfect with Tammy. She wasn’t even like me in the most important ways, especially the one that counted.”
Mike’s heart stutters. He thought that lump couldn’t get any bigger, but he was wrong; it is swallowing him whole.
Robin's eyes are shining. “She was totally obsessed with Steve, too. That certainly made me get over her so much faster. The point with Tammy was –” she looks at Mike. “It was that Tammy Thompson was just a stupid crush. A pipe dream, if you will. And well, I told Will about that, too.”
There is static in Mike’s ears.
I had this crush on someone…
I had this crush –
But then I realized he’s just my Tammy.
He had been looking at him. Will had been looking at him when he said it.
Will had called Mike his Tammy.
“Wheeler? You okay?”
Mike’s eyes snap up, looking into Robin’s. “Yeah.” Oh God, his voice is trembling. Why is his voice trembling? “Yeah, fine.”
Robin frowns, slowly reaching a hand out, putting it on Mike’s arm. “It’s okay, you know?”
“I don’t–” Mike breaks eye contact. “Robin, I don’t know, I didn’t know–”
“It’s okay.” She smiles at him gently. “It’s not my place to talk with you about this, but I hope you know that there’s nothing wrong with it, yeah?”
Mike barely digests what she is talking about, barely scrapes on the surface, but he knows, he knows. Because why does it hurt so much, being compared with a hallway crush Robin had had on a girl she hadn’t even known?
Is that all Mike is? Someone Will barely knows? Barely sees? Not his best friend? How is he just a crush to Will? And shouldn’t he be goddamn happy about it?
And god, he said he had a crush on him. Had. Past tense.
Past tense.
As in, not anymore.
Mike has to blink a few times to will the tears back in.
Yeah, he fucking knows why it hurts so much.
“Guys!”
Robin shoots a hand out in front of Mike’s body, shielding him. Mike looks at her, stunned.
Steve’s head peeks from the door at the end of the hallway. “Guys, come on, she’s found him! El has found Vecna!”
Robin immediately loosens up her rigid hold, hand falling to Mike’s wrist, now pulling him along. “Coming!”
While walking to the door, Robin turns around, flashing Mike a tight smile. “When we’ve saved the world, you can talk more with me about… this, if you want.”
Mike lets out a wet laugh. “Yeah, I would really like that.”
“I can get us through it. I can get us to the Abyss.”
Mike’s thoughts keep getting stuck on Jane’s words, which she had spoken just moments prior. Now they are moving up a staircase at the end of the building Hopper had deemed safe, because apparently whatever blob Nancy had shot had started melting through the ceiling, or whatever.
Half of the Party had gone back to the entrance, to alert for any suspicious movement, for any sighting of military officials. Because they would show up, sooner or later.
He has asked her twice already about her plan, but she evades his question every time. Mike knows it is going to be something he isn’t going to be happy with.
“I need you to trust me, Mike.”
“I do.” They take the stairs at the same time, one foot after the other. Will and Joyce right behind them, Lucas and Hopper in front of them. “I trust you so much, but I don’t know – do you just, like, want to beam yourself up there?”
That gets a smile out of her. “Don’t try to be funny.”
“I mean, come on, it’s not that –” he falters, as they reach the top of the stairs. There, a small distance above the Lab, is a giant, red, pulsing ball. Mike’s head tilts to the side. It looks just like he imagines the lump sitting inbetween his lungs feels.
Then the realisation sets in. “Wait.”
His hand grabs Jane’s arm, halting her. “You’re not serious, right?”
Jane softly removes his hand. “You told me you trust me, Mike.”
“Yeah, God, but this is – insane,” he breathes. “Nancy shot at it and almost got you evaporated. And you want to go in there?”
“I can open a gate through it, without disturbing it,” she smiles gently. “And I won’t be alone, remember? I’ll have Kali with me and Will.”
And Will.
Because, fuck, how could Mike have forgotten that Jane wasn’t the only one he was going to worry sick about? That Will is about to –
Jonathan had literally cried while saying goodbye to Will at the tank, and it is only now that Mike really understands what is about to happen. What is at stake.
Jane cocks her head. “Mike?”
He looks at her, caught. “Yeah?”
She doesn’t look at him with pity. She looks at him as if she just knows. As if all Mike is feeling is lying out in the open, flowing out of a gaping wound right across his chest. It almost feels like it.
Her hand comes up, right over his heart. When she speaks again, her voice is impossibly soft, impossibly quiet. “Go.”
Mike nods, and nods, and then he is off, zeroing in on a red jacket. Into his own red jacket that Will is wearing.
“Hey,” he breathes, once he reaches Will. “Hey, can we – can we talk, for a second?”
“Mike?” Will looks so confused to see him standing next to him that Mike feels something break in him. “I’m not sure if we have time –”
“We don’t,” comes Hopper's gruff voice, a few meters away. “Kid, we need to send them through before the military shows up. There is no time anymore.”
“No, there is.”
Lucas slides up next to them, fixing Mike with a look, while he passes him his Supercom. “10 Minutes. When you hear anything, you come back up, immediately.” His brows furrow, and he leans closer to Mike, so no one else can hear him. “Don’t fuck this up, Mike.”
Mike stares at him, stunned.
Then he gives Lucas a curt nod and grabs Will’s hand, softly tugging him back towards the staircase.
He hears Hopper's voice gain in volume, probably getting into a fight with Lucas about this, but god, Mike has never been more grateful for him, as he is right now.
It is only when they have descended two flights of stairs that Will stops him.
“Mike, what are you doing?” he says, frowning, hands slowly sinking to his side. Mike wants to smooth over the crease between his brows. “Hopper was right, we are on a time limit, and if the military reach–”
“I’m not your Tammy.”
It rushes out of Mike. He couldn’t have stopped it anyway. “I’m not, Will.”
“What?” Will looks at him as if he has seen a ghost. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not Tammy.” Mike moves a step closer, searching. Desperate. “I can’t be your Tammy.”
Will’s face falls. “How do you even know what that means?”
“I talked to Robin. She didn’t say much, but she – she told me about Tammy.” He swallows. “And how in the end, it wasn’t much more like a crush to her.”
Will stands as still as a rod. Mike isn’t even sure if he is still breathing, but he would be blind not to notice the harsh movements of Will’s lungs. He is panicking. Why is Will panicking?
“That’s not what I –” Will swallows back what he wants to say. A film forms between his eyes. “So you know.”
Mike’s heart sinks. “That you… had a crush on me?”
Will just looks at him.
Mike bites his lip. “Did you?”
It feels like his heart is about to beat out of his chest. Something so sacred is forming in his chest, something warm, overheating his entire body. It makes the walls crumble, ever so slightly. Ever so tremendously. “Will, did you?”
Will closes his eyes, head leaning back against the Wall of the staircase. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Yeah.”
Mike hears a crack. He is pretty sure it comes from the place where his heart is supposed to be. “Oh.”
It feels like his brain stops working, like there is a delay in him catching up with what Will had just said. Because Will has had feelings for Mike at some point. There was something, there had been something before, and now it is just this broken thing, lying in front of Mike’s feet, writhing –
“I’m sorry.”
Mike’s head whips back around to Will.
“Mike, I promise I tried to stop it, I tried so hard to be different, to feel different, but it was so hard –” he puts a hand over his mouth to stifle a sob.
“Why would you ever, ever dare apologize for something like that?” Mike takes one more step towards Will, softly pulling the hand from his mouth. “What have I done to make you feel so horrible about it?”
Will stares at him, stunned, hand still forgotten in Mike’s. “You – what?” he swallows. “What do you mean?”
“I really was just your Tammy?” Mike breathes into the space between them. “Just a meaningless crush?”
“Mike.” Will’s voice is laced with unshed tears. “You can’t do that to me. Not right now.”
“I have to know.” He only grips Will’s hand tighter, gripping it like a lifeline. “Will, please, I have to know if that’s all it was to you.”
His hand trembles. “Please, Will.”
“What do you think?” The first tears slip free. Mike wants to catch them, wipe them away, but that feels wrong, too. “Are you just asking me this to make fun of me?”
“No, I –”
“Because that’s really fucking awful, Mike, and it doesn’t make it any easier to face Vecna again, if the last memory of here I’ll have is this–”
“I need to know if I’m too late!”
Mike hasn’t meant to say that out loud.
Will is silent.
It feels like minutes before he croaks out a broken “What?”
And listen, Mike gets it.
Because he hadn’t been the best type of best friend to Will before. And it has only started to make sense to him why he couldn’t seem to send a single one of his written letters to Will, why he couldn’t even hug him in Lenora. Why he had been so, so mean at times, because subconsciously he had known. He had always known. Jane had started to notice, too, after Lenora.
“God Will, there isn’t a single nerve in my body that doesn’t care for you.”
The space between them is almost gone, Mike’s face so close to Will’s, hidden inside their own bubble.
“I jumped off a cliff when I thought you were dead, because it didn’t matter to me if I would live or not, if it wasn’t with you by my side.” He ignores Will’s panicked ‘What?!’, because he needs to get this off. He needs to get this off his chest. “I watched them pull your body out of the lake, Will. And I know it wasn’t really you, but everytime I close my eyes I stil see you, lifeless on this tiny lifeboat, because it could’ve been you, it could’ve been you and it can still be you, because ever since you’ve come back from the Upside Down you haven’t known peace, like, ever, and what if –”
His voice breaks. “What if – one day, I’ll have to see you again. But it’s not a lifeboat, but something else, but it’s still your dead body, and I never told you – I could never tell you how much –” A sob tears through his body. “Will I –”
“It’s okay.” Will’s hands pull him against his body. “It’s okay, I’m here. I’m here.”
Mike shudders, tears staining Will’s red jacket, burying his face in the crook of his neck and shoulder.
Will has a hand on his neck, holding on. Holding him. “I’m sorry,” he whispers in Mike’s hair. "I'm so sorry.”
It takes a moment for Mike to break away from the safety of Will’s embrace. It might be the last time he gets to do this. “No, Will, I – I need to say this.”
Because even if it is gone already, and even if Mike is nothing more than Tammy Thompson, he needs to get it off. For himself. For Will.
“What I said to you, in the rain, during summer –” his voice falters. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”
He runs a hand over his face, collecting stray tears. “I didn’t even know back then, I was just projecting, because there was a reason I spent so much time with Jane, and talked so much about her, because I wasn’t thinking about her, not ever. It was always y–”
“Mike, it’s okay.” Will smiles slightly, hand enclosing Mike’s again. “I’m not mad about that.”
“You can’t just forgive me for every awful thing I do to you,” Mike whispers, squeezing Will’s hand back.
“I can.” Something is flickering across Will’s face. “It’s you.”
“That makes it worse.” Mike’s field of vision starts to become blurry again. “I wrote you letters when you were in California, you know? For every single one I wrote Jane, I wrote you two more. But I never sent them, and now I know why, but it was such an awful thing to do, to not just – deal with it better, to let you think I didn’t care anymore – but I was so scared, Will, I was so scared.”
Will’s other hand finds its way to Mike’s hair, slowly running through it. It makes Mike want to sob all over again. When they had had sleepovers after Will had been released from the hospital after his week in the Upside Down, Mike wouldn’t leave his side. And it wasn’t always Will having nightmares.
At some point, Will had started running a hand through his hair whenever Mike woke up, gasping his name.
He hasn’t felt Will’s hand in his hair in such a long time. And it is all his fault.
“Why would you be scared of me?” Will whispers in the space between them.
“Not you.” Mike swallows.
“I couldn’t write to Jane that I loved her. I just – I never could.” He takes a breath. “The first letter I wrote to you, I signed with ‘Love, Mike’.”
Will’s hand pauses, but when Mike looks at him, searching, scared, Will bites his lip and continues running it through his hair.
“I just – I ripped it apart.” Mike chokes out. “I didn’t even realize I had written that until I wanted to put it in an envelope, and then I just – I tore your letter apart.”
With a hand on Mike’s neck, Will turns his head towards him. “I understand, Mike.”
“I never sent them.”
“I understand.”
“You –” Mike swallows. “I couldn’t stop writing them. I wanted to, I even stopped for a week, and tried to call instead. But I could never get through the line, and I missed you, Will. I missed you so much – And so I poured everything in the letters.”
He is talking himself ragged, breathing harder than he would after a sprint across the football field, but he needs to say this. “At first, I didn’t sign them anymore, because I was so scared I would write it again. I would sign it like that again. But the next time it happened, I didn’t rip the letter.”
Mike’s eyes find Will’s. “I didn’t rip it. I couldn’t. But I also didn’t send it, because, because –” God, why is this so hard? “And I kept writing Will, I kept writing to you every time I thought about you. Every time I wanted to have you near me.”
Will looks at him, stunned, but also – open. Something akin to hope crossed his face. Mike’s throat runs dry. “I have a box under my bed, with every single unsent letter I wrote to you.”
He grips Will’s hand tighter. “A hundred and thirty-seven of them.”
Will chokes around nothing. “You – What?”
“So no,” Mike continues, tear streaks across his face. “I’m not trying to make fun of you. I’m just – I’m trying to see if –”
There is so much bubbling out of him, and he has problems keeping still, keeping himself in check. The world is fucking ending, and all he can do is cry over something he has already lost so long ago. “You said that the person you had a crush on, that they weren’t like you.”
Badum Badum Badum
“You said they weren’t.” Mike knows he is repeating himself, stumbling over words, following up sentences that make no sense together, but – "But I am,” he whispers, his nose almost touching Will’s. “I am like you.”
It is the first time he has said it. The first time he dares to voice it out, even though it isn’t what he actually wants to hear. What he wants to say.
But Will’s eyes shine as bright as morning light. “You are?”
“Yeah.” Mike chokes out, tears running down his face. “I am, and I understand if you don’t – If you don’t want me anymore, or that part of me, because I’ve been horrible to you, and If it was just a stupid crush, then I –”
“I lied.” Will touches his neck, making their foreheads touch. “Mike, I lied. You’re not a stupid crush, how could you be?”
He is crying, too, openly. He has always been so much better at being emotional than Mike has ever been.
“I just – I wanted you to be my Tammy so bad, because if you were–” He breaks off for a second, searching. “If you were my Tammy, all of this would be so much easier. And you could be happy with El without me, that was always the plan, it’s all I ever wanted –”
And in that second, Mike understands something trivial. Something that was given to him when he had needed it the most. Something that is still hanging in his room, proudly displayed, even though he and Jane had broken up. But he could never give it back to her. Because Will had made it.
“That painting–” he starts, opening his eyes. “Jane didn’t commission it, did she?”
“No,” Will chokes out, eyes tightly pressed together. “No, she didn’t.”
Mike swallows. “What you said in the van, what you told me Jane told you – was that you talking, too?”
Will looks to the side, and all Mike wants to do is pull him back in, hold him as close as possible. Let him not disappear again.
“Yeah.” Will nods, not meeting Mike’s eyes. “I thought it would mean so much more if it came from El, than from me. The painting was just – I wanted to give it to you at the airport, but you – I mean, you acted so disinterested, so I didn’t think you would be happy about it, or even want to see it, if I made it. I felt stupid for thinking it would be a great gift, you know?”
Oh Will. Oh, you lovely, wonderful human being.
“I lied to you, and I’m so, so sorry for that – I’m so sorry, Mike, God.” Finally, he turns his head, meeting Mike’s eyes. “But everything I told you – Everything I said –” he swallows around nothing. “Of course it’s true. Of course, I meant every single word. And it was my way of closing that chapter of my life, too. Falling in love with your straight best friend, whose girlfriend is your sister, that’s just so stupid.” All Mike can do is watch, silently, as Will breaks apart.
“But that didn’t work out well, did it?” He laughs, wetly. “I tried to get over it, I wanted to be over you so badly, Mike, you don’t understand how much I wished all these stupid, stupid feelings to just go to hell.” Will’s hand slips from his hair. “But I couldn’t.”
He presses his eyes together, tears leaking from them. “I couldn’t, Mike, I couldn’t, and I tried, I tried so hard –”
“It’s okay.” Mike’s hands are on Will’s face. Holding, touching. Feeling. “It’s okay, it’s okay, Will.”
“God, Mike, there isn’t a single universe, a single timeline where I don’t feel that way for you. There was never another option, not for me. There was never going to be someone else.”
Mike’s nose touches Will’s. It’s cold. “You don’t – you mean that? All of it?”
Will laughs, weakly. “How could I not?”
“Because you’re Will Byers. And I'm just Mike Wheeler.” He can’t hold back a sob. “I hurt you so much, I was horrible to you, how could you – how could you still –”
“It’s exactly because you’re Mike Wheeler.” Will leans impossible closer, and Mike’s eyes fall towards his lips. Wet, shiny from fallen tears. “It’s because you’re kind. It’s because you have never let me feel incompetent or made me feel less, it’s because you care, so much, about everything.” Mike can’t look away. He can’t lift his gaze. “It’s because you were the first to be here, by my side, always. Because you love reading badly-written comics just to critique them, because you are the only person in the world who could ever understand me, the only person I show my unfinished sketches to, even if they’re not perfect, because I know you don’t care.”
Will’s hand is back on his neck. Mike can’t breathe. “I love you, because you’re Mike Wheeler. Because you’re everything to me. There’s nothing in this world that will ever change that.”
Static.
All Mike can hear, feel, it is all static.
I love you, because–
I love you
“Will,” Mike speaks, so close. So unbelievable, intensely close. “Will.”
He holds Will’s face in his hands, touching him like he is something precious. Like it is the only time he will ever get to do this.
He swipes his thumb over Will’s cheek, gently. He is searching in his eyes for something, anything, a hesitation, maybe. Anything to stop him from doing something stupid. Something so so stupid.
In Will’s eyes, he finds nothing but an emotion so close to what he is feeling. Something that the ball lodged between his ribs, his lungs, has been telling him all along.
They are close. They are so close.
Will’s fingers tighten around his neck.
The lump inside Mike grows.
“Will,” he presses out one more time, and then he surges forward.
The first thing Mike notices, is how soft Will’s lips feel.
The second, that he is trembling. His fingers brush over Will’s cheek, reaching up to his cheekbones, grazing his hair. Will gasps wetly against him.
It’s just a press of lips, just the barest hint of a kiss, but it’s everything to Mike, it’s everything.
But then he notices that Will’s hand has fallen from his neck. That Will is standing there, letting himself be kissed, but he is so still.
As much as it pains him, Mike takes a step back.
Oh god. Oh god, what had he done? Why would he – Oh, he just has to ruin everything, doesn't he? Every good thing that is thrown in his lap, ruined by him –
“I’m so sorry, Will –”, he’s shaking, oh, he’s shaking so badly. “I don’t know why – I read this wrong, I’m sorry, I’m –”
“You idiot,” Will whispers in the space between them. His hand grabs Mike by the front of his vest, yanking him back against him. Back to his lips.
Mike makes a sound in the back of his throat, needy, wanting.
There is something existential happening to him.
The walls in his head are crumbling, crashing into themselves, falling like domino pieces, down, down, down. He hadn‘t known it would be like this. He could have never imagined kissing Will Byers would be so –
Terrifying. And so, so empirical. It feels like a match has been lit in his body, turning everything cold into a gooey warmth, cleansing him from everything cruel Mike is supposed to be. It feels like it’s burning the ball from his throat.
He inches closer, pressing Will against the railing behind him.
This will never be able to be undone. Mike will forever be ruined for everything else. For anyone else.
Will opens his mouth against him, hot breath mingling with his own. His hand is back on Mike’s hair, touching, touching him. It makes Mike melt, press even closer.
There is no more space between them, and still, Mike wants to crawl inside of Will. Wants to make a home for himself there and never leave, never be anywhere else. He doesn’t think he has ever felt so safe, so serene, being with someone else.
Whatever he had with Jane, it wasn’t this. It was never supposed to be this.
“Mike,” Will whispers against his lips, urgent, but Mike can’t bear to be separated; he can’t. Everything in his brain screams to reconnect their lips, to keep kissing Will, so he does. He kisses Will, and Will kisses back, and it’s all he can think about.
Screw the end of the world.
Will gives in, his other hand moving up Mike’s chest, settling over his rapidly beating heart. He’s feeling how scared Mike is. He feels it right under his palm, but he doesn’t pull away; if anything, he presses even closer.
He’s going to die. Mike is going to die if he ever lets go of Will.
He feels Will’s hand move down to his side, gripping his waist. God, how he wishes he wasn‘t wearing a jacket. How he wishes Will could touch bare skin, feel him on him more, make this more real. Not like a dream. Not like once this ends, all is over.
He takes Will’s bottom lip between his own, pulling a sound from him that will replay in his head over and over, until his last breath. His hand runs over Will’s face, mapping it out, mapping him out.
There’s a desperation to it, to the way they move together. Like they are becoming one, and could be ripped apart any minute. Because they will be. Because Will will disappear somewhere he has never been before, and Mike will stay here, and he will wait, and wait, and wait for any sign, for Will to come back to him, for Will not to –
He hasn’t realized he has started crying. Will moves away, just a fraction. Just to look him in the eyes.
“Mike?”
That does it.
Mike crashes into him, his face pressed to Will’s neck, feeling so small. Feeling like this is the only place he could ever be, that makes him feel whole. Like, there is still something out there that makes it worth staying.
He can’t stop crying, no matter how much he tries to keep the sounds at bay. They just spill out of him, and it gets even worse when Will’s hands come up and wrap around Mike’s back. He hasn’t cried like that in years; god, he hates crying in front of anyone but himself.
But he isn’t ashamed now. How could he, when it’s Will who’s holding onto him as if he were his lifeline, too?
“I’m sorry,” he gasps, into the hot skin of Will’s neck. “I'm so sorry I didn’t notice. I’m sorry I’m so late, that I’m so –” he’s cut off by another sob, burying his face further into Will’s neck, into the jacket Will is wearing, into Mike’s jacket.
It feels like a dam breaking, everything horrible and shameful spilling over into everything Will is giving him. He is stripped bare, completely and utterly bare, and he doesn’t care. For the first time in his life, he just doesn’t care about bottling everything up.
“It’s okay, Mike.” Will turns his face into his hair, pressing a kiss above his brow. “There is nothing you have to be sorry for.”
“I have –”, he gasps, wetly. “So much, to be sorry for, Will. And I –”
He moves up, the slightest bit, to look him in the eyes. Will stares back at him, pupils dilated. Mike drinks it in, drinks in every ounce of Will’s silhouette he is able to make out in the low-lit staircase.
“I can’t lose you. I’m not losing you.”
“You won’t.” Will grabs his hand, puts it over Will’s chest. His heart is beating as fast as Mike’s. “You won’t, Mike. You’re not losing me.”
“You’re going in there, with Jane, and you might not come back out.” His voice is ragged. “You might not come back to me. How am I supposed to let you go, when there’s a chance I will never hold you again?”
“Because it will never be over, otherwise.” Will’s hand reaches for his cheek, tracing tear tracks. “Because we can’t keep living like this, in fear. I’m so tired of living with this dread that he’ll use me like that again, against my friends.” he closes his eyes. “Against you.”
Mike feels the tears pooling again, but he only listens as Will speaks. “I have never felt so violated, so desecrated as I did when he – when he –” He grips Mike’s bicep, steadying himself. “It can’t happen again. And I need to be up there when this all ends. I need to.”
“I know.” Mike is smiling sadly through the tears. “I know. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“Yeah,” Will laughs, wetly. “I don’t like it either.”
A static sound cuts through the silence, crackling coming from Mike’s back pocket. Frowning, he pulls the Supercom from his pants, pulling the antenna out.
Will takes it from his hand, gently, turning the dial up. Lucas' voice comes from the speaker, uneven and choppy.
“Guys…back upstairs…mil–...here..”
Will’s eyebrows draw together, and he pulls it up to his ear. Mike’s hands are still on his body.
“...–you hear me?...military close–...Will, come up–...Over.”
Will turns the dial again. “I’ll be up in a second. Over.” He hands the Supercom back to Mike, Will's hand grazing his in the process.
Mike lingers before putting it back into his back pocket. He swallows, once, twice, meeting Will’s eyes, who are already on him. “You have to go.”
“Yeah.” Will nods, and nods, but he’s not moving; he’s standing right where he is, caged up against the railing by Mike, like he’s waiting for something, anything.
Mike pulls him into a hug.
“Come back to me,” he whispers in his hair. “Come back to me, Will.”
“I will.” Will whispers back, like it’s something sacred, a promise. “I will.”
“You can read all the letters. All one hundred and thirty-seven of them.” Mike sobs. “And you can make fun of me for using stupid comic book references, and the doodles I tried to draw on them.” He leans his head against Will’s, foreheads touching.
Will is looking at him as if Mike is his entire world. The tears don’t stop.
“And I’ll take you out. When all of this is over, I’ll take you on a date, and I will pick you up even if you still live at my house by then, and I’ll get you flowers, and –” he chokes on a sob, leans his cheek into Will’s hand, who’s softly running a thumb over his skin. “And I’ll tell you that I love you.”
Taking in Will’s stunned expression, he smiles into the thumb that had stopped just short above his mouth. “Because I’ll get you back. Because we’ll have time.”
Will nods mutely, his eyes big, his pupils dilated. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Mike closes his hand behind Will’s neck. “Because you deserve something more than this. You deserve more than me saying this in a melted staircase.”
Will laughs, pressing his eyes together, tears leaking out of them. “God, you’re so stupid.”
“I know.” There is so much adoration in his voice, he can hardly contain it. “I know, I know, Will, I’m so goddamn stupid for you.”
It strangely feels like an end, and Mike prays to every God he has ever known that this isn’t the case. That it’s just paranoia talking, his everlasting fear of losing everyone who was ever dear to him. He has to believe it, because if he doesn’t, what’s left?
“I promise,” Will leans closer. “I promise we’ll get Holly out of there. And we’ll come back. All of us.”
Mike nodded, still holding onto Will. “Okay. Okay.”
“You need to let me go, Mike.” Will softly tries to loosen Mike’s hands around his biceps, but Mike can’t, he can’t let go, because what if – what if –
“Mike.”
“Fuck.”
Mike surges forward, taking Will’s lips into a last, bruising kiss. And it really feels like the last time he'll get to do this. To touch Will. To kiss Will.
Will leans into it, back arching of the railing, and into Mike. There’s a small voice in the back of his head, telling him that Will doesn’t want to let go either.
And god, how he wishes time would just stop. And they would stay here, even if it is a stupid staircase, even if it is dark and he can't make out most of their surroundings anyway, he would give everything to keep Will with him. Just for a second longer. Just one.
“Don’t leave,” he sobs against Will’s lips. “Please don’t leave me, I know I deserve it, but please–”
“Mike.” Will swipes Mike’s tears away, but they just keep coming. He isn’t able to catch them all. “I need you to trust me on this. You always do, right?”
“I know.” He can’t see most of Will because of the blurriness of his eyes, and he tries to blink it away because he needs to see him. “I do. I’m just so, so scared.”
“Me too.” Will nods, breathing Mike in. “Me too, but it’ll be fine, okay? I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Okay.” There is a hole in Mike’s chest, growing. “Okay, yeah.”
This time, when Will tries to remove his hands from him, Mike lets him.
Somewhere, far under them, voices ricochet. Mike hears a gun go off. He tenses.
“I’ll come back to you,” Will presses a kiss to his cheek, lingering for just a second. “It’ll be over before you know it.”
And then he steps away from Mike, and it’s then that it really, really hits him.
I love him. I love Will Byers.
“I love you, Mike Wheeler.” Will squeezes his hand. “Say it back to me when I see you again.”
I love you, I love you, I love you–
“I will.” There’s static in his head. “I will.”
Will smiles at him, crooked and somber, and then he turns away, with one last press of his hand.
Mike watches Will’s back retreat until he can’t see him anymore. He hears sounds, gunshots, a definite sign he needs to go, now – but he lingers.
The match lit inside of him is still burning.
I should’ve said it, I should have told him I loved him, I should have –
He presses his eyes closed, one last time. Readying himself before he faces whatever is going on down in the lobby.
“I love you, Will Byers,” he whispers into the silence, his chest aching with the weight of it.
He opens the door to the hallway, facing dread.
His chest burns with everything unsaid.