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Mike was six years old when his grandma died.
He remembers pretending to fall asleep on the drive home from the funeral. He had hoped that his parents would carry him to bed, like they used to when he was smaller. In the front seat of the car, his mom whispered sadly about missing someone like you miss a phantom limb. Like something that isn’t there anymore, but you sometimes still feel like it is.
When Lucas and Dustin talk about missing Will, that’s what it sounds like.
Dustin sometimes lingers in front of the school, before remembering that the person he’s waiting for isn’t coming. Lucas accidentally gets an extra ticket for his first basketball game, and the seat remains empty. But that’s not what it feels like to Mike.
He wishes it was.
As far as Mike can tell, and as far as he has searched, no part of Will lingers in Hawkins. And why would it, anyways? This town only ever brought him down. The people in Hawkins called him names before he was even old enough to understand what they mean. They turned the worst moments of his life into a cautionary tale, and reacted to his supposed death as though it was something a twelve-year-old boy could deserve.
(Do you see what happens, Michael?)
Mike can’t feel Will’s presence. Not like he did when Will vanished, two years ago. He’s not haunting anyone this time.
Instead, it’s as though everything that Mike once liked about Hawkins went and moved away along with him. While Mike was busy not allowing himself one last look, Will took every after-school game, every spring day spent on the swing sets, every bike race down Mirkwood, every ray of sun breaking through the branches, and packed them all into one of those cardboard boxes. Sealed and delivered to California, miles and miles away– to be enjoyed with some new friends. Even Castle Byers is destroyed. It might as well be the Upside Down version of Hawkins, for all the difference it’d make to Mike.
(Okay, woah. That might be a little too dramatic. Still, you get his point.)
Sometimes, it seems like Mike’s basement is the only place where there still might be some traces of Will left. Maybe because its walls are so heavily fortified by the drawings that line them. Mike spends a lot of his days down there. He mostly just stares at his homework, and then rewards himself with an hour of playing Nintendo.
He sees his friends in school, but it’s not the same as it used to be. Max has been pulling away from them recently, and Lucas joined the basketball team, of all things. It sometimes feels like Mike is losing them, too. And he knows that partly, that might also be his own fault. They won’t say it to his face, but he can tell they’re getting annoyed by his irritable mood.
So obviously, Will’s absence isn’t the only reason why Mike feels like a piece of shit. Even if the past few years of his life hadn’t been a waking nightmare, he’d still be fourteen– and that is a horror all of its own. Feeling like shit is a default setting, and it comes with an entire package of problems to overthink. Like the fact that he can’t even write the word "love" in the letters he sends to his girlfriend. Or the fact that he doesn’t actually enjoy kissing her.
He sometimes wonders if his parents looked at him when he was a kid, and already saw something ugly and greedy inside him. If that’s why they stopped carrying him to bed when he was six, even though they still do it for seven-year-old Holly. If maybe all of his friends finally see it too. If maybe that part of him is finally what’s on the surface.
At least there's the Hellfire Club.
Their dungeon master, a guy called Eddie, is awesome, and Mike sits on the very edge of his cafeteria chair whenever he talks. It’s weird, in a way. He wants to apply every word Eddie says, but still fears what would happen if he really did. Like, really did. Because sure, the long hair and the leather jackets are cool, but there's more to it than just the looks.
Sometimes Mike feels like he’s almost there– like he’s almost someone unique and interesting and unafraid. But then something else starts to shine through as well. A secret that he tries very hard to keep hidden, even from himself.
And so, he retracts back to safety. Except safety is scary too, isn’t it? Because what if by the time he finally decides who he is, and how much of it he wants to share, it’s already too late? What if the world already decides for him?
He thinks Eddie would like Will. Despite everything, Will has always remained the most unapologetically earnest person Mike knows. Even when it’s scary, he still dares to be himself.
But that’s different, because Mike actually likes who Will’s is. He’s not so sure that he could say the same thing about himself.
That's why he projects sometimes, and then ends up sounding like a real jerk. But he only really means to be a jerk to himself.
Anyways.
Other than Hellfire, and maybe his literature class, High School sucks just as much as Mike thought it would. He makes this known loudly and often.
You’d think, given the physical distance, that at least his friendship with Will would be out of the range of whatever destructive force overtook his life. Surely, the consequences of his sour mood couldn’t reach all the way to Lenora Hills.
Yeah, you’d think. But, well. Mike just loves to exceed expectations.
And it is fine, at first. Mike calls often, and is just as often met with voice mail. He still doesn’t allow himself to be deterred, because what is he if not stubborn? It pays off, because on the occasions that his call does go through, he and Will make the most of it– talking until the hand with which Mike holds the phone grows tired. It’s easy and familiar, and Mike’s voice is suddenly softer than it has been in days.
So it’s fine, right up until it isn’t.
It’s fine, until one day in early October.
This time, Will is the one to call, which is a rare but celebrated occasion. It’s been over a week since their last conversation, so Mike is eager and impatient. He answers the call from the first phone he can reach, which happens to be the one in the kitchen. They talk like they always do, about nothing much at all.
(How is school?
Yeah, same here.
Do you guys have plans for Halloween?
Woah. That’s really cool.
No, seriously, it is!
I’m not messing with you. I’m sure it’ll look great.
Did Dustin already tell you?
Yeah, har-har. Now who’s messing around?
Oh, I mean, it’s Hawkins. Always the same.)
(Except not so much, anymore. Not without you. Don’t forget about me. I know I’m not someone people stay for, but am I at least someone you miss? Please don’t forget about me.) (He doesn’t say this part out loud.)
It’s not the call itself that does it. It’s his mom, who has been chopping up vegetables only three feet away. Her hair gets bigger and curlier each month, and Mike thinks that’s really unfair, since she still insists that he keeps his own hair neat. She looks up from her red bell pepper briefly, and asks: “How's Jane?”
Mike frowns, his hands still lingering on the telephone.
“Who said it was Jane?”
Mom smiles, like she thinks he can just be so silly sometimes. If she notices the tense edge of his words, she doesn’t let it show. “I wasn’t born yesterday, Mike,” she teases. “I know what phone calls between couples sound like.”
Then, like she hasn’t just rearranged something important and fragile in Mike’s brain, she hands him a pepper. He holds it in his hand, and stares at it as though she just handed him his own heart.
“Grab a knife from the drawer,” she instructs him. “I need it diced.”
The next time Mike calls, he remembers that exchange.
Mike can hear the smile in Will's voice when he picks up, and it’s startling how easily he can imagine it. Will, leaning against the wall of his new house. Probably wearing bright colours and flip flops, or whatever it is that Max keeps assuring him everyone in California wears. He knows the exact angles at which Will’s smile tilts, different depending on whether he’s teasing or just excited.
Closing his eyes, Mike tries to remember the angle of El’s smile.
He can't. It troubles him enough to ruin everything.
“Is El there?” he asks.
The question is out before he can stop himself, and then it’s impossible to take it back. There is a pause on the other end of the line– almost long enough for the panic to subside, and make way for regret. Almost, but not quite.
“El can’t talk on the phone.”
This time, there is no smile in his voice. Mike swallows the words he wants to say, too aware of Nancy entering the other room.
“Right,” he says instead. “Right, no, yeah. It slipped my mind for a moment.”
“She took a letter for you to the post office today, though.”
Just like how Mike should have done, but somehow forgot. Shit. His own letter hasn't even been written yet.
“Right,” he says again, shifting on his feet. “You know, I actually have a lot of homework tonight. Could we talk later?”
And that’s how it starts.
He stops answering calls, until Will eventually stops calling. He purposely calls at the times the line is usually busy– which isn’t hard, because that’s almost always. And despite that, he can’t get himself to actually maintain the distance. For every ring that goes unanswered, one more unsent letter makes its way into his drawer.
Not for El, because those letters he does send.
The drawer fills up much faster than the mailbox.
It’s not intentional, the first time it happens. He sits down to write to El, but soon realises he isn’t sure what to say. He then tries writing to Will instead, just to get himself out of the block he’s in. He doesn’t even notice signing the letter with "love" until the word is already there, glaring at him from the bottom of the torn-off notebook page. He slams the drawer shut firmly, like he’s afraid all his shame and guilt might escape it otherwise.
Still, he signs every other letter just the same.
Christmas time is tough. He thought that maybe his parents would let him visit Lenora over the holidays, and he isn’t sure if he's angry at them because they said no, or at himself for feeling relieved. He deals with it almost fine, right up until the end. There are guests in the living room, and the tie his mom made him wear is way too tight around his neck.
And Mike knows he has it good. Even if the gifts he gets from his extended family are a clear giveaway of the fact that they don’t know anything about him, they are still gifts, and he’s lucky to get anything at all.
It's the same story every year, with maybe some minor variations. "Nancy is doing a great job as the editor of the paper," someone will say: "and I hear Holly was adorable in her play."
"Such smart and pretty girls," everyone else will agree. "Their parents must be so proud."
("And Mike?")
("Well, goodness. He sure has gotten tall.")
This is how Christmas Eve finds Mike (a newfound owner of many GAP gift cards) feeling terribly alone. It’s a different kind of loneliness, to be surrounded by a crowd of people, but unable to connect with any of them. The phone in his hand is being clutched like a lifeline. He loosens his tie, and leans his forehead against the wall, trying to ground himself with the sound of the ringing. It doesn’t go to voicemail this time, but nobody is picking up, either.
When Will’s voice finally speaks into his ear, he startles.
“Hello?” Will says.
Mike fails to form a response.
“Argyle, is that you?”
Of course, Will no longer has any reason to expect Mike's calls. It’s been way too long since they last spoke- and a part of Mike, that ugly and greedy part, sometimes blames Will for it, too. Sure, he didn't answer a few of his calls- but Will could have tried harder.
If he really missed Mike, wouldn't he try harder?
Who’s Argyle, he wonders. Someone important enough to call on Christmas Eve, apparently. A new friend of Will’s, maybe? Mike abruptly feels sick in the stomach.
“Hello?” Will says again. Mike hangs up without a word.
In January, he only calls once: to wish Will and the rest of the Byers family a happy New Year. It’s a strategic move, because he knows that everyone is calling everyone at New Year, and because Nancy quickly takes the phone away from him, and starts exchanging sweet nothings with Jonathan. It makes Mike scrunch up his nose, and he leaves the room almost immediately (though not without some snide comments).
The letters in the drawer nearly double in volume.
It’s stupid, but even though he has no intention of actually sending them, Mike sometimes pretends that he did. He takes them out, and he reads them like how Will would read them. That is to say, reads them like he’s doing it from Will’s point of view. He does it a lot, embarrassingly; even with things that aren’t letters. He goes about his day, and imagines what it’d be like if Will could see him, somehow.
Not in a weird way, or anything! Just… As though he’s a character in a show.
He always feels really dumb afterwards. Especially about the letters. He falls backwards onto his bed, and presses the heels of his palms against his eyelids until the migraine starts to fade away.
In February, after hearing Dustin talk about a Valentine's gift for Suzie, it occurs to him he should probably get a card for El. He almost considers getting one for Will, as well. Not for Valentine's day, obviously, but just so that he also gets something.
Even if Mike tries his worst not to act on that impulse nowadays, being protective of Will has always been an instinctive reaction. Picturing his face when El gets a card, while he barely even gets a call, makes Mike want to preemptively kick himself in the balls.
But what would a card for Will even say?
He brainstorms a few ideas in his newest letter, but they all sound way too pathetic, even for the drawer. Sorry for being a jerk. I want to hear your voice all the time, and it scares me how much. Please don’t think I’m a freak. Please say you miss me. I want to share everything with you, but sometimes I get mean, and then “everything” starts to include the loneliness I feel when you’re gone. He thinks it might be hard to find a card like that.
Although, probably not as hard as it is to find a Valentine's card that doesn’t say “I love you”.
He doesn’t get a card for Will, but he does call. Jonathan is the one to pick it up.
“Mike,” he says.
“Jonathan,” Mike responds.
An uncomfortable pause. Then:
"El can’t talk," Jonathan informs him. His voice sounds weird; slow and sluggish.
“I know that,” Mike snaps, impatient. “Could you get Will?”
And after a few nerve-wracking minutes, during which some intense shuffling can be heard from the other line, he does.
Despite the initial awkwardness, the two of them fall into a conversation relatively easily. Mike asks about Argyle, and Will asks about Mike’s literature teacher, Mr Hauser. Mike shares his plan for a visit over spring break (or, more accurately, his plan to convince his mom to let him visit). Will tells him that he took up painting. Mike says that he’ll have to show him something in March.
After that call, Mike almost thinks that things might be alright again. He still doesn’t feel the way that he should, but if he just plays it cool, maybe this won’t have to be such a disaster.
Mike is wrong.
As in, “the world is literally ending” level of wrong.
And even before the gates to the Upside Down open, things already start going to shit. Which, to be honest, he doesn’t think he deserves to take the entirety of the blame for.
After all, nobody told Mike what to expect. Nobody thought to inform him that Will would be… taller. That his voice would be deeper, but still just as pleasant as it has always been. That keeping his cool would be much harder than previously anticipated.
And it’s not like he could exactly ask, either. He can't even imagine how that would go.
(Dear El,
glad to hear that your English test went well! No, I haven’t heard from Max in a while. Could you please describe to me, in as much detail as you’d like, how much Will has changed since I last saw him? How are his shoulders looking? Are his eyes still as green as I remember?
From your shitty boyfriend, Mike.)
And as terrible as it is when Will doesn’t laugh at his joke about vomit-green socks, bigger problems soon follow. And they all follow fast.
El is in danger. They bury a man’s body in the desert. They make a sensory deprivation tank in a pizza dough freezer. Mike finally tells El what she wanted to hear, but he only does it because Will told him what he wanted to hear. The world is still ending. “What painting?” El asks when Mike tries to talk about it. They break up.
In the midst of it all, there isn’t much time to think and talk. Not about teenage angst, at least.
Or there hasn’t been, until tonight.
Two out of three members of the Byers family are sleeping in the basement of Mike's house. It used to be all three of them, but Will was woken up around one in the morning; courtesy of Mike calling him up on his walkie-talkie. Now he is in Mike’s bedroom, his hair still a little damp from the shower he took before sleep.
They’ve been going in circles for almost ten minutes. Rinse and repeat.
The topic is, of course: the painting.
Except it’s more than just that, isn’t it?
See, no matter what you might think, Mike isn’t stupid. There is a difference between repressing your feelings and being oblivious to them. And although he can hardly blame others for falling into the trap that he set for them, he can still resent them for not seeing right through it. At least a little bit.
He was prepared to be mad at Will. Because he lied, and because he got Mike to lie too. And anyway, expressing resentment hurts one's pride far less than expressing heartbreak. But the longer they talk, the more he realises that… Will probably felt it too. And maybe Mike should have seen right through him, just like he should have seen right through Mike.
In the end, their fatal mistake is almost a little funny. They simply trust each other far too much.
“It wasn’t all a lie,” Will says, quietly. He’s leaning against the desk, wearing a long sleeve shirt that he borrowed from Mike.
Mike, who never really had any thoughts about that particular shirt before, but now might consider it one of his favourites. The blue of its fabric makes Will’s eyes look more green than ever. It's no longer big on him, like Mike's shirts used to be, but he still tugs on its sleeves, like a habit he can't shake. It strikes some very specific strings in Mike’s chest.
“I really did think that’s what she felt,” Will is saying. “And I guess I thought it’d help more, coming from her.”
Mike shakes his head. He doesn’t get that. Of course, El is important to him. She always will be.
But he and El don’t really know each other that well. They’d only been friends for a week before jumping into a relationship, and the circumstances under which they did so were a far cry from normal. Not to mention the fact that they were just kids.
Still, even if he doesn't quite know her, he does know that she's amazing. And if the world doesn’t end tomorrow, Mike would love to have a chance to get to know her properly. Without pressure, or expectations, or backwards ideas about what they're supposed to be. As a friend.
But if there's anyone who knows Mike already (the good and the bad), it’s Will. And the concept of someone who knows him saying all of those things that Will had said in the van... Well that's– That would be everything that–
“Why?” Mike asks.
Will looks at him, a little puzzled. Like it's self-explanatory.
“Well, she was your girlfriend, Mike.”
Mike frowns. Something about that phrasing feels sharply familiar.
“And us?” he dares.
Will seems startled by this, at first. Then, he merely shrugs one of his shoulders.
"We’re friends," he says.
It almost sounds like a challenge.
And since Mike knows the exact angles at which Will smiles, he also knows that this is a sad one. Self-deprecating, almost. Discouraged. Mike opens his mouth, but then immediately closes it. What is there to say to that?
Will nods, like that was to be predicted. If this was indeed a challenge, it is now clear that Mike has failed.
“I think I should go,” Will says after a while, with a quick glance towards the door. But before he can so much as move, Mike clasps a hand around his forearm– effectively holding him in place.
“Wait,” he pleads. “I don’t want you to leave.”
Will looks at the hand on his arm, and then at the boy it belongs to.
“What do you want, Mike?”
A bright glow comes through the window as a car passes by the house. Suddenly caught in the headlights, Mike tries his best to form a coherent response. Really, he does.
But it’s hard, with Will standing so close to him. If he speaks now, he's scared that all of the things he has been hiding will finally find their way out. And he already knows what those things will sum up to, because- Well.
Because he has physical proof of it, right inside his drawer.
“Right,” says Will. He starts to slip away again, but Mike tightens the grasp on his arm before he can go too far.
“Wait,” he says again, voice edging on desperation. There is a gentle breeze outside, and it runs its fingers through Will’s hair. Mike wishes he could do that too. Instead, he carefully allows his hold to loosen, and slowly trails his hand down Will’s arm, all the way to his hand.
“Can I…" he laces their fingers together, and takes another breath. It might very well be his last. "Can I show you something?”
Once Will nods, Mike reaches for the drawer beside them. Operating fast is necessary, or else he's just going to chicken out again. He hands the letters over like they are a ticking time bomb.
It’s silent for a very long time.
Then:
“They’re all…”
Will’s voice trails off.
Mike chances a glance in his direction– the first one since he handed him the letters. The low glow of his bed lamp casts a golden light on Will’s face, and Mike can clearly see the blush dusting his cheeks. Involuntarily, Mike’s eyes fall to his lips. The action is more familiar to him than he cares to admit.
“Yeah,” he says. Even if Will never finished his sentence, Mike thinks he knows what he was going to say. “I’m sorry I didn’t send them.”
Their eyes meet, and it's all so clear now. Mike wonders how he managed not to see it before.
“Why didn’t you?” Will asks.
Mike shrugs, sheepishly.
“The same reason you lied about the painting.”
Will's breath catches. When Mike's eyes fall to his lips this time, it’s more than voluntary.
He leans in, impulsively, but loses the nerve at the very last second, when he is already an inch away from Will’s mouth. He lingers just for a moment, and then presses a small kiss to the beauty mark just above his lips.
Barely a brush, and then moves away.
He is about to ask for permission, but the first two words barely make it past his lips before Will pulls him in by the strings of his hoodie, and kisses him for real.
Although far too keen and clumsy, it’s the exact kind of kiss that Mike has been waiting for. The kind that makes your stomach drop, and your brain go numb. One of Mike’s hands falls down to Will’s waist, pulling him closer, and the other settles beneath his chin, tilting his head for a better angle.
He keeps them there after the kiss ends.
“Ask me again,” Mike whispers. “Ask me what I want.”
His nervous hand clutches the fabric of Will’s shirt tightly, but Will doesn’t seem to notice it. His eyes trail up, from Mike’s lips to his eyes. Whatever it is that he sees there, it makes him smile. A happy smile.
“What do you want, Mike?”
Compared to the way he said it earlier, this is so much softer. If the question from earlier was a challenge, this one is the gentlest nudge. And Mike thinks he finally knows the answer.
He doesn’t want to be the Hawkins definition of normal, like he once thought he did. He doesn't want to fade into the background of his own life.
He doesn’t even want to be needed. He doesn't want to feel like he's only worth something when he has something to offer. He doesn't want to keep retreating to safety. He doesn't want to lose anyone else because he was busy trying to be somebody else.
He wants for someone to look at him, and to see that little boy with something ugly and greedy inside him. To see everything that he has been afraid to show, and to still want him around forever. To look at him, and know him, and still just:
“Stay?”
The word is a small plea, spoken barely inches away from the lips he just kissed. The soft smile that graces them never falters.
“Of course,” Will says. Coming from him, it sounds like the easiest, most certain thing in the world.
Mike smiles now, too. He pulls Will sharply towards himself, and hugs him with his entire body, burrowing his face into his shoulder. Will holds him back just as tightly, drawing lines against his spine with his fingers. Mike nearly shudders at the touch, even though the night breeze doesn’t feel so cold anymore.
He isn’t sure how long they stay that way. Enough to start feeling like he could fall asleep on his feet, certainly. And perhaps even long enough for that to actually happen.
He wakes up in his bed that morning, although he has no memory of getting there.
With one of Mike’s arms over his waist, Will is still asleep, right by his side. His hair spreads across Mike’s pillow, like morning sunlight across a lake. There are sleep lines on his cheek, from where the pillowcase got bunched up. At this moment, that feels like the most important thing in the world. Outside, Hawkins is slowly being devoured by darkness.
And yet, it finally feels like home again.