Chapter Text
December is freezing.
It’s absolutely terrible, and so much worse than all his previous Decembers, even if winters in New York are always so much worse than Hawkins; with none of the cozy festivities, the city doesn’t allow for the familiarity of a quiet but cheerful season. It’s all harsh, all biting and sharp, accompanied with commercialized joy, and his own lack of immunity towards low temperature doesn’t help.
Winter is slow. It makes him slower than he likes to be, with the struggle similar to that of being underwater, slower than the rushing people around him, who push against the wind like a tidal force, while he is immobile against the cold. It brings out a loneliness in his bones, making his limbs heavier and too hollow for warmth.
Winter is slow and lonely and – cold.
Mike hates the cold.
And, he’ll admit, he’s always been rash in his use of overpowering, absolute words, and it’s ironic, being a writer who is too quick to use hate and meaningless and perfect and evil and exact. He means it when he says he hates the cold.
Still, it’s not to say he hates winter as a whole, but winter in New York is hard to find likable. It had been nicer when he was a child, back in Hawkins, with snow days and the promise of his mother’s hot chocolate, and when the snow would stay untouched and blindingly white for a day or two.
Snow never goes untouched in New York. It’s ruined quickly with tire tracks and pollution, the soppy, gray slush that stains his socks and runs the streets wet. Mike can’t stand it.
He can still confess, however, that his first December in New York, when he had moved into the city four years ago, had been much worse than this. He had been entirely unprepared, too much of his winter clothing left at home, and a jacket too small that he had to wear for a solid two weeks before he arranged the time to buy a new one.
Even then, Mike had spent hours trailing through the streets, barely in motion against the chill, excitable and eager to write and make something worthwhile, something that shows his value. He had found a spring of inspiration, just a starry-eyed small-towner in the big city.
Mike knows better, now. The spring’s run dry, and the city air leaves a bad taste in his mouth, and he’s all too familiar with the pollution that hangs low in the sky of a city that never sleeps, because – it’s tired. Everyone is tired. Mike is tired.
Mike might hate this city, he’s beginning to realize.
Dustin looks far too awake for two p.m.
“Nice sweater,” Mike greets dryly, even though it’s probably one of the ugliest sweaters he has ever seen in his life. A Christmas tree is plastered onto the front, a dull green against tan, and there’s little ornaments which, upon closer inspection, seem to have elements of the periodic table written on them. Mike would have thought it to be cool back in, like, sixth grade. Mike in the right-now is tempted to bully him.
“I look good as hell and we both know it,” Dustin replies easily, flipping the page of the menu, which is probably unnecessary, considering they’ve frequented this diner more often than either of them can recall. “Jesus, I didn’t know I was having lunch with fucking – Ebenezer Scrooge.”
Mike raises an eyebrow, sliding into the booth and taking a seat across from him. “You make that joke every year.”
“You’re grouchy every year,” Dustin counters. “Have you considered joy?”
“Sounds disgusting.” Mike pulls off his jacket, rubbing his cold ears, attempting to warm them, to no avail. He should invest in some earmuffs. “Are you getting that tomato shit again?”
Dustin makes a protesting noise. “It’s good!”
Contrary to first impressions, Mike and Dustin do, in fact, enjoy each other’s company, even in spite of their own, separate, busy schedules, the sort that comes from being an acclaimed writer and an entrepreneur who’s solving half the world's problems. Still, they see each other more often than Mike would expect. Dustin is insistent when he wants to be.
Dustin, like most good things, is a little ridiculous, and, in the middle of the diner they frequent, Mike can feel the tension in him slowly melt away, ever so thankful that one of his best friends had ended up in the city with him. Even in his ugly sweater and appalling taste in food, Mike can admit, he’s glad Dustin never lets him cancel.
Mike orders the same noodles he always does, and Dustin orders his tomato concoction that no sane person actually enjoys. Mike makes a face at the sight of it, and, like the mature twenty-two-year-olds they both are, Dustin sticks his tongue out at him.
It’s an easy Thursday, no pressing matters and no demands just yet, and it should be easy for him, but living in winter has been getting more difficult. It’s always too cold in the mornings, too dark to go out and do things, too lonely to talk to anyone. It’s isolation in the middle of a crowd. Mike despises it.
He nearly forgets about the source of the impending-doom feeling in his chest, until Dustin says, “So. Christmas.”
Mike makes a sound in acknowledgement, barely holding back a grimace at the thought, and Dustin sends him an unimpressed look. There’s a beat of silence, before Mike runs his tongue over his teeth, and forces out, “My mom called this morning.”
He had missed her call by thirty-four minutes, oblivious to the ringing of his landline when he had accidentally dozed off while writing. This wasn’t the first occurance of this happening; his own job is beginning to tire him out. He avoids his Word document like the plague.
The realization of a leftover voicemail had done more than enough to wake him up, anxiety rolling over in his stomach, and any semblance of writing motivation had vanished into thin air, a steady climb of dread filling its place.
Christmas is two weeks away. Mike knows what she called for.
“And?”
Mike doesn’t look up from his noodles. “‘And’ what?”
He knows exactly what.
Dustin sighs, long and heavy, ever so used to Mike’s difficulty. “And what’d she say?”
Mike shrugs, uncooperative.
“Mike,” Dustin says, and he doesn’t like the slight disappointment in his voice. Mike stabs at a stray piece of cabbage. “Seriously.”
“You know,” he mutters, appetite gone. He leans back, meeting Dustin’s gaze, and crosses his arms. “Same thing as always.”
“Michael,” his mother’s voice had begun, tinny but otherwise the same from how she had sounded when he had visited earlier in the summer. “Honey, I was hoping you’d pick up, because I know you’re busy with your – job and all, but I was hoping you’d find the time to –”
He had been pensive in staring at the wall across from him, the singular blank space between his bookshelf and the couch, just underneath the window of the living room, the off-white shade of the walls. His apartment had been entirely silent when her voice rang out from the phone’s speakers, “Christmas is coming up, and I was hoping you’d be able to come home from the holidays.”
Mike’s eyes had trailed up, away from the wall to the window, the dreary, dull white of the snowy sky. Guilt is still heavy in his bones.
“And I know you’ve got your fancy writing job over there, and you’d rather stay in that city, but – well, Heaven knows what kind of air they’ve got up there, and – damn it, Michael, would it kill you to spend a Christmas with us? As a family?”
There’d been a pause when she cleared her throat, regaining the composure that barely ever breaks with her. Mike doesn’t know what to call the twisting, uncomfortable feeling, low in his chest, the top of his stomach.
“Well. Anyway. I hope you consider it. Give me a call when you can. Love you.”
And that had been it.
“Dude,” Dustin begins, wide eyes when Mike finishes recounting the message, “you have got to pay her a visit.”
“No,” Mike says immediately, shaking his head, and Dustin stares at him. “No way.”
“Don’t be an asshole,” Dustin retorts, and he puts his spoon down, which is the worst of all, because now he’s getting serious about it. “I mean, it’s been, what? Four years? And the only reason you won’t go is because you’re scared of running into – ow!”
“Don’t say his name,” Mike hisses, sparing no regret when Dustin mournfully leans down to rub at his shin. “It’s not – I don’t care how long it’s been.”
Dustin continues on, undeterred. “Four years,” he emphasizes once more, and Mike glares, “and you’re still going to be petty and hold onto this grudge? You’re going to let it get in the way of seeing your family? Nancy? Holly?”
“You say that like I want to see any of them,” he mutters, except they both know it’s not true. He’ll admit that it would be nicer to hand Holly her gifts instead of mailing them again for the fourth year in a row, and – yeah, it’s been a while since he’s seen Nancy, even if he had seen his family earlier in the summer. “Besides,” he adds, “I’d rather spend Christmas here.”
Maybe this is a little bit of a depressing confession, seeing as Christmas spent in New York is usually going off to whatever party one of his college friends invited him to, or perhaps, on some of the sadder times, getting progressively drunker in his own apartment while he binges I Love Lucy again. It’d still be better than risking going back home.
“Mike,” Dustin begins, and Mike mentally prepares himself, “that is the saddest shit I’ve heard so far.” Mike groans, and Dustin clicks his tongue. “You know, statistically, people feel better when they spend time with other people, a.k.a their family. And you get, like, super depressed this time of year, and I know I’m the first person you’ve talked to, today.”
“Seasonal depression exists,” Mike mumbles. Dustin pelts his straw wrapper at him, and it hits him on the forehead. “Ow,” he remarks, for the sake of it.
“That’s not the reason and you know it,” Dustin snaps, and Mike shrugs. “Be honest. What’s stopping you? Seeing him again?”
“Yes,” Mike answers easily. Dustin looks unimpressed.
“That’s stupid,” he tells him, and – it’s a little true.
Maybe Mike is a little petty, a little bit of a coward, a little bit – everything, but he can’t be blamed. It’s almost justified. The past is to stay in the past, and if he has to skip out on every Christmas with his family from here on out to keep it that way, then so be it.
It sounds stupid. He knows it.
He digs his fingers into the denim of his jeans, and averts his gaze back to the noodles on his plate, appetite gone. He feels more exhausted than he has all week.
Dustin seems to take mercy on him when he finally turns back to his tomato disaster, picking up his spoon.
“Christmas in Hawkins,” he says. “Think about it.”
It’s almost five when he and Dustin part ways.
The sky has already turned into that muggy gray it always seems to be after four p.m., and something in him still insists it’s nearing dinner time when he wanders down the street, absentmindedly checking his watch, trying not to think about its origin too much.
It’s too early to go to bed. It’s too dark to do anything fun.
It’s cold out. The idea of his apartment feels even colder.
Mike – really doesn’t want to be alone, right now.
There’s no real question about it, however, when he continues on his path towards his apartment, detouring to walk instead of taking the subway like he had prior, a stretch of an hour ahead of him. He’d rather freeze than have to spend time by himself. His apartment is getting unbearable.
He shoves his hands deeper into his pockets, forces the back of his hands against the fabric of his jacket, as though it would force any warmth into his freezing fingers. It, predictably, does not work. He mentally adds hand warmers to his ever-growing list of things to get, as well as earmuffs. He keeps walking.
His conversation earlier is still stuck on him, leaching into his thoughts while he tries to leave it behind.
Nothing’s ever been so simple for him, however, and half his brain is caught up on not getting run over, while the other half is on overdrive, too stuck on Dustin’s rationality of it all, because – none of Mike’s avoidance is logical, not completely, and yeah, sure, he’s a little petty, but he thinks he’s deserved some pettiness after the rollercoaster that is his life.
He doesn’t know how to explain the complexity of it all to Dustin. Half of it is pettiness, sure, he won’t deny that, but the rest of it – it’s nearly incomprehensible to anyone besides him, the tangle of bitterness that resides in an ugly knot in his head, and the thought of trying to undo it sends him in a spiral. He wouldn’t know where to start.
A clean beginning would say that running into – him would send Mike to an early grave, that he’s too mortified to even try and imagine how that would go, and it’s true, that the sight of seeing someone for so long would be devastating. He knows that.
Still, there’s the sadness, the constant misery of having been ignored for so long, losing his best friend and his home in one dramatic swoop, and the confusion in not being contacted, the hurt of it all, and, laid in thick layers over it all, enough to almost cover the hurt and misery and bitterness, is anger.
Mike hates thinking about him.
And now, when he’d been content in staying in his shitty apartment over the holidays, all alone when he knows his friends would be drinking eggnog without him in Hawkins, Dustin has the audacity to tell him to think about it, like it doesn’t nearly drive him insane at the mere prospect of bumping into him again, seeing him, being forced to know that, in the sea of the world, the one person that he had wanted to be seen by didn’t care enough to speak to him.
Mike isn’t sure if he could handle it, seeing him again, with the sudden confrontation, the horrible intervention of someone from the past. He’s not sure he could do it, and some part of him thinks he might just burst into nothingness on mere eye contact.
Maybe, though, the devil on his shoulder, which looks awfully a lot like Dustin, offers, it could give Mike some benefit, being able to finally visit his family again for the holidays, maybe see all his best friends at once again. Maybe it would also offer some kind of exposure therapy, going home and getting his worst fears out of the way.
Maybe it would be good to bump into him.
Maybe it would finally offer some closure.
Closure.
Closure, which – Mike hates, loathes, despises, even.
Closure, which, he reasons as he blindly turns onto a street, is pretty stupid, in his opinion, and there’s a stab of resentment in his stomach, because – why would he need closure, of all things, from someone that he’s left far behind him? It’s stupid. He doesn’t understand why someone he’s tried so hard to leave in the past is still haunting him.
He supposes that’s the bitterness of cutting off a thing before it’s bloomed, or maybe dragging a corpse along far after it’s begun rotting. Maybe it's both, in killing something before its prime and trying to bring it to life afterwards.
Mike hasn’t been trying to bring it back to life. He’s been trying to bury it for the past four years. It’s still shuffling behind him. He doesn’t get it.
He jumps when there’s a clatter on the ground, and he blinks out of his thoughts to look down, met with his keys having dropped out of his hands. He picks them up, turning to his apartment’s door. He doesn’t even remember taking the elevator.
Mike, even if he doesn’t get it, knows why, though. Why it still haunts him. Why he’s still thinking about him.
It’s the payoff of growing up with someone for so long, for entwining roots and learning someone like the back of his hand, when he’s been nearly forced to memorize someone unintentionally and, by association, become a little bit of each other, no matter how unwillingly. Even if Mike tries to cut off all his roots, some part of him will always belong to –
Mike stumbles a little when he steps into his apartment, grimacing at the squeak of his shoes, and he drops his keys into the bowl beside the door. That familiar guilt is rushing back once more, the ugly mixture of regret and anger and sadness and everything he hates thinking about, the same force that propels him away from Hawkins.
He shoves off his shoes, and forces himself to think about something else. Anything else.
He begins to tug off his coat.
Mike’s too tired to think about – him, of all people.
“You look like shit.”
“Thanks,” Mike flatly replies, taking a seat across from his manager. “Nice to see you, too.”
It’d be no use denying it, however, because he does, in fact, look like shit.
He had woken up exhausted, blanket weighing him down like gravity itself had been working against him, rendering him immobile for an additional thirty minutes, and it hadn’t been until one p.m. that he had forced himself to get out of bed. He’s still lacking the motivation to do so.
His apartment had been startlingly quieter than usual, a strange echo following his movements, and he had known today to be a mess when he’d taken a look at himself and immediately grimaced. He had spared a glance at his hair, before shoving on a beanie and calling it a day.
If he could have, Mike would have settled on staying home today, feeling colder than usual and body feeling heavier than he would have liked. Even so, his manager, Amanda, does not do well with sudden meeting cancellations, and they were set to meet at three.
“So,” she begins, and it's only by her tone that Mike can tell what’s to come next. “It’s been three weeks since you’ve given me a progress update. What have you done since mid-November?”
“Um,” Mike begins eloquently, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, “I finished reading, like, two books. And I finally got to finish building my bookshelf, so that was cool. Um. I saw Dustin yesterday.”
Now that he says it out loud, he’s beginning to realize that his life is kind of – really boring.
Amanda gives him a long look. “I’m talking about your book, Michael. How much progress have you made?”
Mike presses his palms together. Amanda does not look happy, he is realizing.
“I finished planning it out?” He offers hesitantly.
“You said that last time.”
In fact, she seems to be getting gradually less unhappy. It’s decreasing at an exponential rate, really.
They stare at each other, Mike’s knee bouncing while he fidgets where he sits, and Amanda looks back at him, face stoic.
He feels like a child.
Amanda presses her lips together. “It’s been four months since you were supposed to start this book,” she says, and Mike is tempted to bash his head in. “Since then, you have yet to make any progress, despite it being over a year since your last one.”
Well. When she says it like that, he sounds a little – lacking.
“I don’t know, I’ve,” Mike gestures vaguely, “been in a writer’s block. I just need to get out of it.”
She replies tonelessly, “You said that last time, too.”
Mike chews on his lip. “Okay, well, I just – I don’t know what to tell you. I just haven’t been able to write.”
It’s nothing less than the truth, no matter how much he hates to say so; there’s been some kind of black hole in him recently, sucking out every bit of motivation to do anything other than stay in his bed, and, by the amount of hours he’s spent boring his eyes into a blank document, one would think he had at least written a paragraph of nonsense.
Instead, he approaches empty-handed, and the guilt that’s been shadowing him comes into full view during late nights, during the times he tries to brainstorm and comes up with nothing, during walks home, during times like this.
He’s all out of inspiration, he barely has the energy to exist, and he’s tired all the time. If he didn’t know any better, he’d announce himself nothing more than dead.
Amanda falls silent, nails tapping on the polished wood of her desk as she stares at him, contemplative and considering. He hates it. She chews on her inner cheek in thought, eyebrows furrowed, and Mike focuses on his shoes against the hardwood floor.
His boots are still a little shiny from the melted snow, coating the black, and one of his shoelaces’ loops is tied bigger than the other. He fights the urge to lean down and fix it.
“I think,” Amanda slowly suggests, as if cautious, “a break would be good for you.”
Mike presses his lips together, and barely holds back a scream.
Almost like Dustin’s words had placed a curse upon him, Mike thinks about it.
He wants to yell every time he considers going back home.
A break would be good for you.
Jesus Christ.
It’s as though the world had taken his brief evaluation of his own bitterness as a sign, as if it was some underlying will persevering through it all, begging to be noticed, a well-hidden want to return home, even if he clearly, blatantly, obviously, does not want to even think about going back home.
He thinks about going back home.
It’s impossible not to.
For the first time in four years, Mike genuinely, properly considers going back to Hawkins, and it’s a terrible time.
Three, full days are spent staring up at his ceiling, too much thought as he pictures the possible outcomes of visiting his old home, what it would be like to see his aunts and uncles that always drop by and maybe even his cousins, the old friends he hasn’t seen in person in so long. His hands are shaky when he weighs the pros and cons of going.
It’s a terrible three days. Mike has never liked thinking.
He debates meeting his own demise via suffocation by pillow at around midnight, and he’s still trying to decide if the risk of running into figures from the past is worth it, and it’s only after four, incredibly cheesy Hallmark movies, one of which, he would like to clarify, he did not cry over, that he finally comes to a decision.
He calls Dustin at six a.m., before he has a chance to change his mind. He almost hangs up twice.
Dustin makes an incoherent garbling noise, and greets, “G’uh?”
“I’ll go,” Mike says, which, in his defense, felt like all he needed to say.
Thankfully, it only takes a few seconds of silence for it to click, and Mike flinches when Dustin shrieks, “Dude, this is great! I’m so glad, hold on, let me put pants on, we’ve gotta –”
He calls his mother at a more acceptable time, and she greets him with more excitement than he thinks reasonably garnered, and she holds almost the exact same amount of surprise as Dustin in her voice, and Mike winces when she accidentally yells into his ear, already planning out a variety of activities before he’s even bought a plane ticket.
Dustin invites himself over the following Wednesday, and the day is spent finding the earliest flight to Hawkins.
Granted, Dustin does most of it, directing Mike to pack at least two weeks’ worth of clothes while he deals with the plane tickets, knowing far too well that Mike would back out of it if it were left up to him. Maybe it’s for the best, and especially when Mike attempts to back out of it thrice, not even halfway through packing.
His manager is more overjoyed than anyone else in Mike’s life when he announces he’ll be taking a break for the first time in two years. He feels a little offended when she hurries him out of her office, with a firm reminder that he is not to call her or any part of management while he’s away.
“In the nicest way possible,” she had told him, patting his shoulder, “I do not want to hear a single word from you for the next three weeks. Goodbye.”
She had shut the door in his face before he had any chance to respond.
Dustin buys two plane tickets for them both, Mike packs a large suitcase, as well as a carry-on, and Mike is – regretting it.
It’s a day before their flight, and Mike says, “I might be sick.”
“Those are just nerves,” Dustin waves off, not looking up from whatever paper he’s scribbling away on. “You’ll be fine. I’ll hold your hand on the plane.”
“Do not,” Mike replies immediately, and Dustin cackles. “Asshole. I might actually be sick, you know. Like, for real.”
Dustin looks up from the paper, ballpoint pen between his fingers and curls unruly in the afternoon. There’s a strange, queasy feeling in Mike’s stomach.
Dustin raises an eyebrow. “Are you?”
“Maybe,” Mike admits, turning over to shove his face into the couch cushion. He doesn’t think he’s physically sick, but he might as well be, with the rate of his heart skyrocketing every time he thinks about his flight tomorrow. He’s not even afraid of plane rides.
The sickness sprouts from the possible premise of what might wait for him back home, past a Christmas dinner and seeing his family and listening to cheery music on the radio. He wonders how many people from Hawkins are still there. He’s terrified of one in particular.
He doesn’t let himself think about it any longer, lest he actually get sick.
Dustin seems to take sympathy on him when he leans over to somewhat comfortingly pat him on the knee. “If you actually feel sick,” he begins to say, “you know we can always –”
“No,” Mike shakes his head, frowning, “I’ll – we’re going.” Dustin keeps patting his leg, and half of him wants to shoo him away. “I would’ve had to go back, eventually.”
Dustin makes a considering noise. “If it, like, really sucks,” he says, “we can just grab a flight back early.”
Mike nods into the couch, closing his eyes. He slowly breathes out.
“I’m nervous.”
Dustin pauses, before patting his knee once more. “You’ll be fine.”
“I’m going to die.”
Dustin gives him a firmer pat.
“You’ll be fine.”
Mike is not fine.
In fact, he would go as far as to say that he is the complete opposite of fine, stomach doing acrobatic jumps when he’s trying hard to seem normal and put together while Dustin gets their tickets settled. He thinks he might pass out, at this point, with his shaky hands, and he had nearly dropped his carry-on onto his head when he had been placing it overhead. He’s going to die.
I’ll be fine, he repeats to himself, even if the words feel a little shallow as he turns to look out the window. At least Dustin had granted him the window seat. There are small miracles.
It’s only a three hour flight, yet it feels so much longer; he supposes that’s the cruelty of knowing the presence of doom on the other side. His ears pop when the plane takes to the air, and Dustin shoves on his headphones to listen to some audiobook about, like, biochemical engineering, or something.
Mike spends half the flight digging his fingers into his thighs, trying hard not to panic over something so – ridiculous, because no one should be so nervous, seeing his friends that he’s survived the apocalypse with. That’s stupid. He’s being stupid.
Still, he can’t help it. With over four years of avoiding one person in particular, it’s difficult to reason with the illogical part of him that begins to sweat every time he thinks about Hawkins, who used to reside there before he left, who he’s been trying to leave behind for so long. It’s stupid. It’s true.
He tries not to think too much about it, and instead tries to suffocate himself in reading The Hobbit for the thirteenth time.
Mike’s knee begins to bounce again when they land.
His heart is aflutter when he’s standing outside the airport with Dustin, who rambles on about something Mike can’t quite bring himself to focus on, with his nerves bidding him useless to properly pay attention to anything else, and he’d feel bad about it if Dustin’s monologues weren’t one-sided most of the time anyway.
“– fucking starving, God, we should’ve brought some snacks. I could so go for a grilled cheese sandwich right now.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You think Sunny’s is still in business?”
“I don’t know, Dustin.”
“God, I hope they are. They have some amazing fucking sandwiches, you know, which is crazy, because an okay sandwich is pretty common, but there’s, like, levels to a good sandwich, and then an amazing sandwich? It’s like birthing a fucking – universe in your mouth, dude, and it’s –”
“Totally.”
Salvation, thankfully, arrives in the same old blue car of Ted Wheeler, who rolls up to greet them against the airport.
His dad steps out and peers over his glasses to look at him. “Michael.”
Mike clutches the handle of his suitcase a little tighter. “Hi, Dad.”
“Hey, Mr. Wheeler!” Dustin chirps, and Ted Wheeler stares at him.
“Jesus Christ,” he says. “Just get your bags in the car.”
The car ride back, surprisingly, isn’t as awkward as Mike had predicted, sliding into the passenger’s seat, and Dustin pushes his hands and legs against his seat from the back, before Mike turns around and tries to smack him. This brief war is, inevitably, paused when his father enters the car as well, and they both fall deadly silent as they drive away from the airport.
The stark difference between New York and Hawkins is not lost on him; the contrast is almost startling, with nearly-silent streets, and there’s barely any pedestrians when they ride past homes, with the occasional figure or two in padded coats, slowly shoveling snow out of their driveway.
The radio plays quietly, and, as silence settles upon them, his dad reluctantly, awkwardly asks, “How was the flight?”
Mike’s grimaces. He’d forgotten how terrible Ted Wheeler is with father-son conversation. Or conversation in general. “It was fine,” he replies.
The radio keeps playing.
“Hey,” Dustin says, “I love this song.”
Mike leans forward, and turns up the volume. George Michael’s voice blasts through the car.
It almost feels like learning how to ride a bike again, attempting to straighten all the tipped-over locations in his mind. The highway back is less familiar than it used to be, and he can’t recall which exit they take to Hawkins even if his life depended on it. He had forgotten there was a gas station on the road back.
Benny’s abandoned place had skipped his mind, the run-down building passing by, and he can’t tell if the people in the house next to it are the same that used to live there. He tries to guess which street is next several times. He fails miserably.
Despite being back a few times in the past four years, he had only ever been back for a weekend and some. Each time, however, always has him feeling a little clumsy in his body, as if he had grown to look down at the buildings instead of up. The trees surrounding them had always felt suffocating as a child. They feel more protective, this time around, a wall for Mike to hide behind.
The time to drop off Dustin, unfortunately, comes sooner than later, and when he’s strolling away with his bags in his arms, it’s just Mike and his father in the car. The awkwardness feels much more palpable, now. The radio croons about the blessed rains down in Africa.
Mike tries to soothe the nervousness festering inside him, and stares out the window.
Karen Wheeler nearly kills her son upon sight.
“Mom,” Mike wheezes out, and he can feel his ribs being crushed under the surprisingly strong arms of his mother, who squeezes him of all air, the scent of her perfume hitting him in the face, and he tries to suck in a breath.
She, mercifully, finally lets go after a thorough, traumatizing hug, and holds him near by the shoulders. “God, Michael, don’t you eat in that city? What are they feeding you?”
“I eat just fine, Mom,” Mike insists, wisely holding back the fact he probably hasn’t eaten a vegetable in several days.
His mother pats his cheek, frowning just a tad. “Well, maybe it’s all the work you do. Writing and all, that probably wears you down, right? Oh, you know, I’ve been slowly working my way through your last book – which one was it? The – well, anyway, Sheryl from book club loved it, even though it’s a little violent for my taste, and I can’t really follow with the complicated names of all the aliens and –”
“Monsters, Mom,” he absentmindedly corrects, tugging his suitcase inside. She’s been leading him up the steps of their house, and she ushers him in as he tries not to drop his duffel bag. “They’re monsters.”
“Right, that,” his mom nods, a little mindless when she walks away into the kitchen, and Mike stares up to the flight of stairs in front of him, his suitcase beside him. The air smells of the specific signature of a household, one that would go unnoticed if he hadn’t been gone for so long. “Monsters and whatnot, it confuses me, but – Holly! Come say hi to your brother! – you know, I like it, honey, I do, but have you considered writing something less –”
She gestures with a hand, and Mike looks away to raise an eyebrow in her direction. “Weird?”
“Calm,” she settles on saying. “You know, you wrote that one mystery story, and that one was good, it really was.” There’s a pause as she washes her hands. “Another one of those wouldn’t go unappreciated,” she adds, a little unsubtly, loud over the rush of the sink.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Mike retorts, and turns away when there’s the sound of hurried footsteps, and he gets only a second of preparation before a body is hurled in his direction. “Holy sh –”
“Hi, Mike,” Holly greets, arms around his waist, squeezing once, until she lets go and steps away. “You never come home for Christmas.”
Mike winces. “Yeah. Sorry, I just – missed you guys so much,” he replies, overly sweet.
“Bull,” she claims, and Mike gapes. “Bye.”
Mike watches as she climbs back up to her room, and looks over to his mother, who washes a tomato. He’d forgotten how terrible twelve-year-olds were.
Much to his dismay, Mike spends the next few moments lugging up his suitcase into his room, huffing and puffing while he noisily lets it collapse onto his floor, and it feels weird when he looks around in his old bedroom.
It looks the same as it always does; bare, blue walls, the same shade he's had them for the first eighteen years of his life, and it feels a lot more daunting when it isn't covered with the signs and posters he had hung up. The closet is entirely empty, and his bedsheets are the same white tan-lined sheets he remembers, although they're undoubtedly freshly washed, under the watchful eye of his mother. It’s the same as it always is, yet it’s still jarring. He feels too big for the room.
He doesn’t have the effort to properly take out his things from his suitcase, and instead takes out a change of clothes and lets the luggage sit, messily opened, against the closet door. His mother drops by for only a moment, just to offer any snacks, and he insists he’s too tired to eat anything, even if his stomach is only occupying the pretzels they had handed out on the flight.
It’s only eight p.m. when his head hits the pillow, and he’s out like a light.
He has no memory of dreaming when he wakes up.
It’s comfortably warm under his covers, and the clock that still remains on his nightstand claims it to be only a little past ten. He barely ever wakes up this early, and maybe it's the exhaustion and nervousness of the past few days finally coming to an end. Yet, he doesn’t feel like moving.
Thankfully, there isn’t much to do when he’s just arrived, a casual Tuesday when he finally rolls out of bed and spends a solid minute brushing his teeth, zoning out while he stares at himself in the mirror. He can’t find it in him to care about the mess of his hair. His right shoulder has a drool stain.
When he finally arrives downstairs, it feels strangely reminiscent, almost comforting when he walks into the kitchen, Holly off to school and his father already at work, with his mother doing her workout in the living room. He makes himself a bowl of cereal, and spares a glance towards the basement door.
He’s sure it’s clean, deprived of any artifacts from four years ago that would ever indicate the hundreds of times he and his friends have spent in his basement, but the idea of going down there and being forced to deal with it all, right now, feels like too much. It’d be a knife to an old wound. It feels like too much. He can’t do it. Not right now.
He’s not sure if it’s changed or not. He’s too afraid to question it. He doesn’t want to think about it anymore. He’s always been a coward.
After a staring competition with the doorknob, Mike turns away, and continues to munch on his Cap’n Crunch.
The following days pass by easily.
Mike helps his mother bake cookies, which is pretty nice, and goes somewhat smoothly, even if he almost adds one too many eggs, and he leaves the decorating to her. It’s nicer than he would have assumed it to be, and Holly steals three of them before Mike catches her.
Nancy arrives Wednesday night, and her top makes her look like a bathbomb, a comment that she doesn’t appreciate when she whacks Mike with a glove. Mike has dinner with his whole family for the first time in almost six months, and it’s – nice. Nicer than when he was a teenager.
El drops by on Thursday.
He swings open the door, and is promptly met with a cheerful, “Mike!”
“Hey, El,” Mike barely gets out, before he’s tugged into a hug, and he’s beginning to wonder if all the women in his life weightlift in their free time, because, for perhaps the third time this week, his body feels like it’s being crushed when El hugs him, arms around his shoulders and pressing him to her puffy jacket. “I missed you,” he wheezes.
“I missed you, too,” she lets him know, letting go to finally let Mike breathe, and he steps aside to let her in. “I wanted to come by yesterday,” she says, stepping onto the Wheeler’s Welcome mat, tugging off her hat, “but I had to help clean the house.”
“That’s okay,” Mike dismisses. It’s now that he gets a good look at her, with her braided pigtails and pink cheeks, flushed from the frosty air. Her eyes are a little wide open like they always are, and he’s missed her, he really has. “I like the hair.”
“Thank you,” she chirps, beaming. “I can braid yours. It’s long enough, and it’s,” she squints at his hair for a moment, “not looking very good.”
Mike stares at her. He did not miss this part of their friendship. “Thanks.”
El grins at him, and Mike leads her into the kitchen with the promise of hot chocolate, for the fact that El looks a little like she’s freezing, and Mike will take any chance for something sweet.
He can hear the television from where his father is occupied in the living room when he passes by, and Holly and his mother are upstairs, and it’s – always a little bit of a strange feeling, having a house so full of life, in contrast to his lonely apartment in the middle of the city. He’s never liked being alone.
El updates him on the bits of her life she hasn’t already informed him of during their frequent calls, where Janice With the Cat Hair, a common visitor of El’s job at Hawkins Public Library, has seemed to make it a personal goal of her’s to receive as many fines as possible, and the kids that come by for the days El gets to read aloud to the children.
In turn, Mike gets to reveal how boring, exactly, his life has been since approximately over a week ago, where he remarks of Dustin’s horrifying taste in food and his questionable sweater style, as well as his own slight shortcomings in writing his book. Unfortunately, El does not seem to have much advice in his writing endeavors.
“I don’t think The Very Hungry Caterpillar will have much inspiration,” El notes, clutching her Happy Birthday! mug. “Maybe you can write about a man who is also very hungry.”
Mike grimaces. “Someone already wrote about Hannibal.”
El takes a long sip of her drink, a contemplative look on her face, before she says, “Maybe you need a change.”
Mike frowns and turns to look at her, where she sits across from him. “What? To write?”
She nods. “A change can bring new perspective and provoke inspiration,” she replies, sounding a little like she’s quoting something. She pauses, before adding, “Or maybe something is bothering you.”
At that, she looks more knowing than he would like her to, and he sends her a look. “Nothing’s bothering me.”
“Friends don’t lie,” she sings, and Mike facepalms.
“Nothing is bothering me,” he insists. “I’m just – in a writer’s block.”
“Because something is bothering you,” El reasons. Mike stares at her. “Am I wrong?”
He rubs his eyes, letting out a slight sigh, before letting his hands drop. “Even if something was bothering me,” he begins, “which – there isn’t, but if there was, then it would have no effect on my writing.” El doesn’t respond as she drinks, and Mike purses his lips. “And it would be none of your business.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Is it so wrong of me to care about my friend?” She questions, faux innocence plastered on her face, and Mike gives her an unamused look. They stare at each other, until El gives a casual, one-shoulder shrug, and it’s pointed when she adds, “And I think it is my business if it involves my bro–”
“Okay!” Mike interrupts, a little loud when he gets up to wash his mug. “Wow, the weather today has been so – snowy. There sure is snow out there.”
El looks unimpressed. “It’s winter.”
“Astute observation,” Mike comments. “Do you want more hot chocolate, or what?”
El nods immediately. “Yes, please.”
The afternoon slips by easily, much easier than he would have suspected, because, despite El being swell company, there has still been the unease of being back in Hawkins for the holidays, even if he’s been slowly settling into it for the past three days.
As it is, they venture out of the house after a while, for the sake of there being virtually nothing to do with a house neither of them quite live in anymore. There’s no need to call out his exit when he’s a full grown adult now, but it still makes him feel strange when he leaves with no announcement, so he writes a small, scribbled sticky note stuck on the fridge while El tugs her boots back on, over her pink, poodle-covered socks.
It’s cold, but not unbearably, and Mike almost begins to think the sweatshirt he wears underneath his jacket may have been overkill, just as the chill properly begins to settle in.
The town around them is, predictably, incredibly different from the city; there is no rush to compete against, the mercy of a slow-paced place like Hawkins, with the adventures and high stakes over and done with.
Instead, there is the syrupy-slow move of the town, no ideas bigger than the trees that surround them. It had felt stifling, once upon a time, but he can find himself to appreciate it, the break that it gives him from the fast express train of New York. He lets himself fall back into it, into only walking next to El, and refuses to think outside of his cold hands.
They, much to the amusement of both of them, end up trailing towards Lover’s Lake, the water an ashy white, thick in its icy state. There is, predictably, no one else around, and Lover’s Lake has lost its charm over the past few years, more of a grim reminder of the things they’ve survived than anything else. Mike can almost imagine the split of the earth still haunting the bottom of the lake like an old scar.
Despite the cold, Mike is content with only walking around, frosty air and washed-out skies, and silences with El have been something he has learned to cherish, when their past relationship had allowed no room for comfortable silences, that overhanging pressure to stay in action when together.
It’s nicer, now, being best friends. Silences with El are in their own category, both contemplative and light, a space for Mike to think while in company. It’s good.
The silence, surprisingly, is broken when they’re still tracing the edge of the frozen shore, light tracks in the thinner parts of the snow, where it’s already been beaten into the dirt ground. Mike carefully steps over a rock, and El says, “Mike.”
He looks up from the ground to face her. “Yeah?”
She looks soft in winter, pink nose and a pink scarf around her neck. “I love you.”
“Oh.” He offers a slanted smile, appreciative, because it feels nice to hear, even if she says it often over letters, she doesn’t go long without reminding him. “I love you, too,” he reminds her, and he can feel his own face heat up in the littlest bit of embarrassment, never the one to say it so easily.
El returns his small smile, but it fades quickly, and she comes to a stop. Mike pauses beside her, and she turns in place to look at him straight on, which he replicates. It’s a little funny, with her still being shorter, but her gaze is steady.
It’s entirely disorientating when she tells him, “You look sad.”
He blinks, before quickly shaking his head.
“I – what? That’s – I was – I’m not sad, El,” he denies, even if El looks entirely unaffected, watching while he waves her words away. “I’m not sad.”
She doesn’t look convinced, but she doesn’t say anything when Mike shakes his head again, frowning a little and feeling a little bit disarray, because he’s not – sad, he isn’t. He isn’t. He has no reason to be.
El frowns, a stitch between her eyebrows, and it’s so achingly familiar, it almost hurts to think about it. He averts his eyes, and she raises a gloved hand to place on his shoulder, grounding, but it’s still almost suffocating, almost like a trap.
It’s quiet, with an obvious lack of anyone else around. He resists the urge to fidget, and curls his hands into fists into his pockets.
“You can pretend,” El starts to say, and Mike forces himself to meet her eyes, ever so perceptive, “that nothing is bothering you.”
Mike’s frown deepens. “El, seriously, I –”
“But I’m your friend,” she continues, undeterred, and – it often feels like guilt has made a home in his body, “and I can – see that you are unhappy, Mike. Even if you try to hide it.”
Worst of all, he thinks, is the concern so prevalent in her face, the clear worry in the crease between her eyes and the downward tilt of her mouth, and Mike’s throat feels awfully dry and it feels, a little, like his eyes are burning.
I’m okay, he wants to say, because he is. He isn’t sad.
Sorry, he almost spills out. El’s stare renders him wordless.
“I love you,” she says again, and she squeezes his shoulder, just the littlest bit. “And I’m here for you.” The words nearly sound practiced, like she’s heard them a hundred times before, but there’s nothing but sincerity when she tells him so, unwavering gaze and firm grip on his shoulder.
“Thanks, El,” he croaks out, sounding a little too fragile for his liking, and he quickly clears his throat. “Thanks.”
She gives him a small smile, one that has him wishing he had the courage to visit her in Hawkins more often, let himself peer into his past for a second, if only to hear more of El outside of quick calls and long letters. They keep up quite often, yet some part of him always aches to have the company that only comes from seeing his friends eye-to-eye, even if he’s taller than most of them.
The snow glimmers around them. The sun is clouded over by hazy clouds. Mike’s fingers poke into his pockets’ fabric.
“We want to have lunch together,” El finally says, after a moment, looking oddly hesitant, and Mike nearly questions who we consists of, until she continues, “all six of us.”
Almost immediately, his stomach begins to twist uncomfortably. “El, I wouldn’t –”
“It’s been years,” she interrupts, and he grimaces, “and I miss being together. All of us. Together. As friends. A family.” Mike pinches the bridge of his nose, knowing what’s to come next. El’s voice is overly dramatic, exaggeratedly wistful as she says, “All my friends have left, and I feel so lonely, Mike, and I grew up very –”
“You’re evil,” he says, and El gives him an innocent smile. “One day, the whole guilt-tripping thing is going to stop working, you know.”
“No, it won’t,” she chirps, and they both know it’s true. “Will you come?”
“El,” Mike wearily begins, but it’s no use when El frowns, already looking terribly disappointed, and she skirts her eyes to the ground, letting out a little, dramatic sigh.
When she looks back up at him, her eyes are wide and pleading, and she puts her hands together. “Please?”
Mike stares at her, trying very, very hard not to fall for it.
El lets out a sniffle.
He groans. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
Mike supposes it’s his fault for having such a soft spot for her, even if it’s a given, with their shared history of monsters and other, more embarrassing parts of their friendship. Even now, she knows how to tug him along to whatever terrible idea she has in mind.
She’s already cheering when he sighs, “Fine. I’ll – I’ll go.”
“Yes!” She raises her arms up in victory, moving forward to catch him in a hug, which he briefly returns, before she lets go and hops around. “Finally! We have planned for Sunny’s on Saturday, but if you cannot make it, then tell me. We can make changes.”
For a moment, he almost debates making up some excuse, except she’s always been more knowing than he wishes she were, and he, instead, merely nods. “I can make it.”
“Thank you,” she says again, hands grabbing at his elbows, and he flushes under the sincerity of it. “Really.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles, waving it off. “Whatever.”
The smile El sends him is almost worth it.
He’s probably a horrible person to regret agreeing to go.
Because – he would turn the world inside out for his friends, he’d be willing to go through their childhood all over again for them if he had to, he’d do the impossible for them, but –
Seeing – seeing him again feels much worse than the impossible. It feels like his body stretching into a black hole. It feels like descending to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. It feels like New York. It feels much worse than New York. It feels – hopeless.
Mike knows he’s kind of a bad person. One more fault amongst many isn’t too noticeable.
He could ditch them, except that El had looked entirely earnest, some part of it genuine when she had I can see that you’re unhappy, and what is a little bit more torture amongst a miserable man like him? He knows that it’d be terrible of him not to show up, because he had agreed to go, and the hope on El’s face had been too sincere, and Dustin had reassured him the entire way here, and some part of him misses Lucas and Max terribly, and –
It feels hopeless, and he feels evil, and maybe El had been a little right, because there’s no reason for him to be so unhappy, so sad, but all he seems to do is lead to his own doom, plant seeds to his own pain, walking in the chill instead of taking the subway, depriving himself of introspection, some self-reflection, refusing to look in the mirror and shoving his head in his pillow and trying to suffocate himself.
When he rolls over to face the blank ceiling, some part of him knows he’s going to go.
Perhaps he had already made up his mind, because the guilt of not showing up would kill him, a little, and he wouldn’t be able to return to his stupid, lonely apartment without feeling a little sick, which is stupid, because he already feels a little nauseous at the mere thought of the oncoming Saturday.
It’s a peach pit in his stomach he’s too familiar with, the sort that weighs him down and has him feeling so oddly exhausted, like he’s swallowed lead by the fistfuls, like he’s about to face the end of the world all on his own, and it’s stupid, he knows, it’s ridiculous, absurd, preposterous for him to be so nervous, so scared to meet his friends for lunch at a diner they’re plenty familiar with.
Still, the awareness of it doesn’t hold back the feeling of dread, because he knows it’s stupid to be so afraid, but he knows who else would be going. The one soul he hasn’t spoken to in so long, the one person who could probably break him in half with one dismissive glance.
God, the thought of it almost makes him want to shout, scream, yell, shriek, something, anything.
Mike settles for staring up at his stupid, blue ceiling, in his stupid, clean bed, in the stupid, bare room he hasn’t lived in for years, feeling stupid, stupid, stupid.
He’s being childish about it, petty, even, if Dustin were here, and El would call him a fool, and both of them would point out that he needs to be mature about this, that it’s been long enough, that he needs to grow up, that he’s being stupid, because the entire ordeal is stupid, something that could probably be fixed if Mike and – him just sat together and talked civilly for the first time in so long.
Mike knows that.
He can’t find it in him to care.
Perhaps some part of him is almost eager for confrontation, to know what’s changed and what hasn’t, if the past four years has treated Mike any better than the one, single person he hasn’t spoken to in so long. He isn’t sure if he wants both of them to feel so terrible. Maybe he’s a bad person for hoping so. Misery loves company, or whatever.
He’s an asshole for thinking so, he knows that, but – knowing has never absolved him of anything. He, despite what his friends think, is more self-aware than he’d like to be, yet the awareness of his own actions has never stopped him from doing what he does. He might be self aware, but he’s still a bad person.
He’s allowed to be, he thinks. He’s allowed to be a jerk if he’s the one who had gotten abandoned, even if some terrible, horribly honest part of him can admit that it’s his fault, too, for refusing to reach out first.
But Mike didn’t come to Hawkins for any sense of self-actualization, some kind of emotional wall in him to finally come crumbling down and have whatever thing – bothering him, as El had said, to remove itself from him and perhaps refill his well of inspiration, maybe even rid this fog of constant indifference, exhaustion, nothingness that keeps following him, give him some corpse to bloom out of, return to his lonely apartment and fill it with his own zeal for life.
Mike didn’t come here for any of that. He’s here for – Christmas. That’s it.
And so, turning over and forcefully fisting his hands into his blanket, squeezing his eyes shut, he decides, he’ll try to be a little mature about it, because, sure, he’s never been the most emotionally intelligent as a child, and, yeah, some part of him physically recoils at the thought of the oncoming Saturday, but – he’ll try.
Something in him is already tracing out how lunch will go, ever the planner, and he knows he’ll probably be carefully silent, intentional in avoiding any skeptical, scrutinizing eyes, and, for the sake of the rest of their friends, he’ll be sure to stay quiet, hold back and jabs or scowls, poke at the food in front of him and try not to think about everything too hard.
Maybe he’ll fail, maybe he’ll snap, maybe he’ll leave before he has the chance, maybe he’ll be too quiet, maybe his friends will realize how uninteresting he is to be around, maybe they’ll turn to leave him behind, too, maybe they’ll ditch him, maybe he’ll ditch them. Maybe.
Maybe.
Saturday arrives uneventfully.
The world, unfortunately, doesn’t end when he wakes up, groans at the realization of being alive for another day, and stumbles when he rolls out of bed, nearly falling over and landing face-first into the hardwood floor. The sky is a bleary white, and the snow glitters on the ground, and Mike grimaces as he heads to freshen up.
The morning passes by too fast for his liking, because lunch rolls around quicker than he wants it to, and suddenly he’s pushing the door open to the diner he’s frequented for so long, bell jingling above his head, and he’s barely taken a step inside, but he wonders if there’s still time to turn around and go –
“Mike!”
Mike winces when Dustin’s voice rings through the diner, and it’s a small mercy when he finds the diner fairly vacant, with a worker swiping down the front counter that pays them no attention, and his friends are all shoved into a booth near the window.
Dustin waves him over, sitting in the booth with his puffy jacket pulled off of him, Max across from him and leaning forward with her head in her hand, and Lucas waving back just as eagerly.
Mike, despite himself, smiles when he spots them, momentarily forgetting the festering fear inside him when he walks over. Lucas hops out of his seat to loop him into a hug, patting him on the back, and Mike feels his entire spine readjust.
“Mike!” He exclaims, squeezing him, before he lets go. “Good to see you, man.”
“Hey, Lucas,” he forces out, and heaves in a breath when Lucas lets go of him. He stumbles back to slide into the seat beside Dustin, and Lucas sits back down, grinning widely.
“Wheeler,” Max plainly greets, although the corners of her mouth are upturned. “Sucks to see you here.”
“Fuck you,” he returns kindly, and she flicks a wrapper at him that he barely dodges.
Dustin takes the time to sit next to Lucas, who says, “We weren’t actually sure if you were going to show.”
Dustin snorts. “Ten bucks says he dips when everyone else shows up,” he mutters, except it’s very clearly heard by everyone in the booth, and Lucas, presumably, kicks at him, if the yelp from Dustin is any indication.
“Dude,” Lucas hisses, and Max rolls her eyes.
Mike tries to ignore the hurricane in his stomach. “Thanks, Dustin.”
He shrugs. “I had to hear you mope for the past four years. I’m allowed.”
Which is – fair, probably, and Max disregards it all when she, very much unsubtly, asks, “So, where is,” she pauses, before settling on, “El?”
“They – uh, she should be here soon,” Lucas replies, sounding awkward.
Mike stares at the both of them. “You can say his name, you know,” he says, and there’s something else rising in him – mortification, a little bit, shame, for being an inconvenience like this. “I’m not going to drop dead if you mention him by name.”
Dustin raises his eyebrows. “Really? Because last time I checked, you –”
“Shut the fuck up,” Mike retorts, swatting at him, and Dustin squawks in indignation. “It’s – not a big deal. It’s – it’s fine.”
“Uh-huh,” Max dryly replies. “Is that why you’re avoiding his name, or?”
Mike feels his stomach twist over. “I –”
“Byers!”
Mike, for the life of him, can’t help it when he flinches, partially at the name, partially at the volume in which Lucas calls out, and it’s stupid, because Mike can feel himself frosting over all over again, like winter itself has entered the diner and is set on freezing Mike to death.
And – standing a little behind El, who hugs Max like she hasn’t seen her in years, and Lucas gives him the same pat he had given Mike, a bright grin to follow, and Max gives him a little smile, too, and – with the barest bit of pink in the cheeks, eyes a little teary from the cold, and hands shoved in his pockets, giving Mike some sort of frostbite, stands Winter.
“Hi,” Will says.
Mike wants to die. There’s no better way to say it.
“It’s Will’s fault we are late,” El adds, pulling off her coat, and – she probably says something after that, something that makes Will sputter and flush a little, and Max laughs and Lucas grins and Dustin jostles around next to Mike, and Mike –
Mike’s head feels a little bit like it’s been replaced by a tumble of rocks, absent of life yet so roaringly loud, the rush of blood in his ears, and it’s a momentary heart attack when El moves towards Max’s side of the booth, before she slides over to sit beside Mike, and he forces himself to calm down when Will takes a seat next to Max.
His – he’s supposed to be normal, he knows, but it’s a futile reminder when his tongue feels so heavy and his stomach probably resembles a pretzel, an entire death of crows in his chest, and Will is –
Will is there, half a booth away, and this is the closest they’ve been in so long, and he’s spared no glance towards Mike, and Mike forces his eyes to look down at the table, the two shakers of salt and pepper, the napkin holder in between, the gestures of Lucas’ hands behind them, and he’s trying so hard not to pay attention to Will.
Mike has never been strong, though, and especially when it came to Will. It’s a sour thing to acknowledge, the part of him that is so weak against Will, even after four years of silence, of a sudden and unclosed wound of a parting, no goodbye’s and no explanations.
Mike forces himself to shove that thought away. This is definitely not the time.
His own predictions come alive, somewhat disappointingly, when he bites his tongue and barely participates in conversation, only speaking when someone prods him with a question, and he keeps his eyes away from the other side of the booth, pays too much attention to Dustin’s elbow knocking into his side from time to time, just to have something to stick to.
It’s like a terrible recreation of their years before, when they’d come in here all the time, shoving each other into the booth and chattering over each other, days stretching beyond them and time slipping by. It had been comfortable, easy. Natural. Familiar.
Now, however, Mike feels like he’s learning how to walk again, just something not quite right when he puts one foot in front of the other, and he’s trying hard to remember how to talk to everyone at once again, because he’s tried his best to keep up with his friends, but they haven’t all been in the same city, much less the same room, in several years.
He could consider it a slow recollection, remembering the juxtaposition of Max’s snark with the softness she looks at them with, El’s observant eyes when she taps on Mike’s knee, just to ask a silent, Are you okay?, and he gives the slightest of nods, and Dustin’s contagious laughter that catches onto the rest of them like wildfire.
When the waiter comes around, holding a little notepad with a pen angled, none of them spare a glance towards their menus.
It’s a strange feeling, like reciting something he thought he had forgotten, like he can’t think about it or else he’d forget, when Lucas orders the same burger he always gets, with the same order of Coke, and Mike could recall it all so easily, the inconsistency in her order but the fries Max will always get, the milkshake El insists on, Dustin’s asking of extra pickles, and –
“No onions, please,” Will requests, because they make his mouth taste weird afterwards, and he always asks for a, “Fanta, too. Um. Thank you.”
Something in him almost detests remembering it all, knowing these people like the back of his hand, because he’s gone through hell and back for them, but it feels wrong, knowing so much about a person that hasn’t looked at him since he’s gotten here.
Mike barely tastes the 7-Up he periodically sips at, and he tosses a fry at Lucas when he mentions looking more vampire-like than usual, which Max backs up, like she does, and when El excuses herself to the bathroom, he swears he can feel Will’s eyes on him for the briefest of moments. He doesn’t look to confirm it.
It feels, a little bit, like walking on stilts, and Mike is too aware of his own body, the lanky thing he carries himself in, and he wonders if he looks different, if he looks worse or better – worse, probably, even if some part of him hopes he looks better, if only to prove that he has never needed Will. He doesn’t want to think about the validity, the truth of it, any longer than he has to.
“You,” Lucas claims, “are a freak.”
“It’s good!” Dustin protests, because he is an abomination who likes fries dipped in milkshakes, and Mike wrinkles his nose.
“You have the worst taste of anyone I have ever met,” Mike tells him, and Max snorts as Dustin’s mouth drops in shock.
“Asshole,” he announces. “It’s not my fault none of you have the – acquired and sophisticated palate like someone such as myself. One day, you guys are going to finally give my food combos a try, and your minds will be blown, and you’ll be –”
“Please stop talking,” El interrupts, sitting back down, and Dustin sends her a betrayed look. Mike tries not to notice when Will lets out a small laugh. His fingers dig into his thighs, and he leans forward to shove a fry into his mouth. The taste barely registers.
“We could go see a movie?” Lucas suggests, after a while, because friends like to keep seeing each other when they have the chance, because, unlike Mike, the idea of going back home and hibernating for the next two and a half weeks did not seem as appealing to them as it did him.
Dustin raises an eyebrow. “And see what?”
“I’m pretty sure they’re showing Jurassic Park again,” Will mentions. Mike attempts to hold back the urge to dissect every word that comes out of his mouth.
Dustin hums. “I don’t know. I’ve already seen it.”
“It’s Hawkins,” Max groans. “There’s nothing else to do.”
They do, in the end, agree to the movies later that week, and Mike finds himself agreeing to go, if only to not cause a scene, and El sends him a grateful little smile, and he avoids her eyes as they begin to pay for their food.
And it’s – his body still tilts towards flight-or-fight, and he’s still too aware of every move Will makes, while simultaneously trying so hard not to pay any attention at all, and his hands push against the fabric of his jacket in his pockets, feeling so out of place when he waits near the doors to leave.
Lucas, Max, and Dustin all crowd around the cashier, presumably settling whatever way of paying, and El makes her way towards him, Will accompanying her while fiddling with the pair of red gloves in his hands, and maybe it’s Mike’s fault for not turning around and rushing out the doors, jamming the key into his mother’s car that he’s borrowed, and driving right back home with no goodbye, because El abruptly decides the need to wash her hands, and suddenly –
It’s just him and Will standing near the doors.
Mike would bet countless amounts of money that El’s hands are perfectly clean.
Mike carefully trains his eyes ahead of him, and he tries so hard not to notice the movements to the right of him, the flash of red where Will tugs on his gloves, and Mike hates how he writes it all down to memory, how he keeps paying attention to someone who doesn’t care about him anymore. He wishes he could stop caring, too.
He bites his cheek, pretends it doesn’t hurt when it begins to sting, and distantly hears Max call Lucas an idiot. El is nowhere to be seen.
Neither of them speak, and the wind outside rattles the doors, just the littlest bit. It had snowed all night, and there had been ice in his driveway, which he had nearly slipped on as he had attempted to climb into the driver’s seat, hoping none of his neighbors had noticed.
It’s still barely snowing, through the windows that surround the glass portion of the diner’s walls, and he focuses on that, doesn’t pay any mind to the slight swish of Will’s coat, the squeak of his boots, how his presence seems to intrude into Mike’s view, even when he’s trying to zone out into nothingness.
It’s a relief when the rest of their friends depart from the cashier, where Dustin hurriedly zips up his jacket, and they’ve barely reached the doors, their loud company, when El returns, patting her hands dry and stepping to stand next to Max, who doesn’t question it when she links their arms together, and Lucas jostles at Dustin, who’s presumably said something preposterous again, and Dustin’s cheeks bunch up when he smiles.
Mike, suddenly, feels very lonely.
He doesn’t think about it when he holds the door open for them all, ignoring the chill that seems to get worse, creeping up his sleeves and settling in his chest while his friends pile out of the diner, and Lucas says, “Will, dude, you got, like, tall.”
He hates how he pays too much attention when Will sheepishly laughs it off, dismissive, and how Mike wouldn’t know of any difference in height, because he hasn’t properly looked at Will since they’ve gotten here.
El passes him by, patting his arm, and then it’s just him holding the door open, and he hurries to catch up, careful not to stumble when there’s still snow coating the ground, freshly piled, and the air is freezing. He pushes his hands against his pockets, and walks behind Will, so careful not to take the chance and take him in, analyze the backside of his jacket, the broadness of his shoulders, the curl of the hair around his neck. Mike isn’t so desperate as to grapple at just the crumbs of looking at someone he used to know.
He is so focused on not looking, in fact, that it’s only a second before both Will and Lucas slip on the hidden onslaught of ice, that Mike grabs onto Will before he topples onto the ground with a startled yelp.
He’s sure Lucas is fine, if both Dustin and Max hurrying to grab at him is any indication, but Mike can’t help the jolt that goes through him, like he’s committed some crime when his hands grip at Will’s arms and help him back up to his feet. The fabric of his jacket is cold to the touch, and Mike wishes he had worn some gloves.
“Sorry,” Will hurriedly apologizes, quickly leaning away like it’d hurt to have Mike touch him, and he latches onto the brick wall beside them, pink in the face and trying to regain his balance. His eyes flicker to Mike, before looking away, awkward when he says again, “Sorry, I – I didn’t mean to –”
“It’s fine,” Mike mutters, and, despite himself, it comes out the slightest bit frosty, a little too cold, and the poison he’s been swallowing down all afternoon seeps out the tiniest bit. Guilt comes after him quickly, but he’s never been able to take back his words. He bites his tongue.
Will blinks, furrowing his eyebrows, and his mouth twists downward, just slightly.
“Right,” he mumbles, clearing his throat, and he’s reluctant when he begins walking again, shoulders a little tense, and Mike realizes he’s staring again when he looks away, gazing at the careful movements of Will’s steps.
He curls his fingers into his palms, flexing his fingers once more, before shoving them back into his pockets. He rolls his tongue over in his mouth, and continues walking.
When he gets into his car, waving as his friends give him a chorus of goodbyes, heading to their separate destinations, it all feels too cold, to reminiscent of New York, yet not similar in the slightest, and – he doesn’t understand how it could be so familiar, anyway, so accurate to the same cold, the same loneliness, the same emptiness in his body when he turns up the heat in the car and slowly swerves onto the road.
The streets are generously decorated with Christmas lights, wreaths and little accessories on several doors, and there’s few pedestrians who stroll amongst the streets, with mothers holding hands with their children, couples walking together, men in business suits walking home, and it’s quiet, less crowded, more comfortable.
And, despite it all, Mike feels inexplicably lonely.
He turns on the radio, and pretends to ignore his own thoughts.
Contrary to popular belief, Mike knows he’s a jerk.
He’s always been mean, harsh around the edges, a little too protective and a little too possessive, and he does not do well with strangers. Most of these things are his fault, he knows that, and he’s always been brash, quick to bite back like a bad dog. Half of the time, he wonders how any of his friends still stand to be around him.
Mike is a jerk, and he’s a loser, and he feels guilty.
Granted, it’s probably not much to feel guilty over, being a little stand-offish when regarding Will, who has ignored him for the past four years, but, even with the sharp edge of his exterior, Mike is all too fast in guilt, too acquainted with being the villain in every exchange, even if he’s no good at apologizing first when it matters.
All this being said, that night finds him in his kitchen, crunching on an apple while the rest of his family gets ready for bed, the television playing quietly, and he can hear Holly playing some kind of Madonna song from her room upstairs.
Even in spite of all this, he feels so oddly vacant, looking through a camera lens while his stare bores into the kitchen island, and it’s difficult, trying to organize his thoughts when he’s lost in them like this, like he’s part of the puzzle, a small speck of color in the grand scheme of things. He’s never been one for the bigger picture.
If he’s honest with himself, he can admit that most of his turmoil comes from Will.
It’s pathetic, and he feels pathetic, because, as far as Mike is aware, Will has not spared him a single thought, while Mike feels like every thought he’s had so far in Hawkins has led back to Will, back to their silence, back to being abandoned. It’s entirely reflective of their relationship, where Mike seems to care too much, and Will won’t even look at him, and both of them refuse to discuss the elephant in the room.
Evidently, he was, presumably, the only one to mean it, in shared promises on Halloweens together, the closeness that Mike, guiltily, had always thought over too much, and he’d guess he’s the fool for believing any of that would amount to any future together. Mike – doesn’t even know what he did wrong, or if he’s always just been a choice in proximity. Maybe Will had realized how disposable Mike was when he was finally out of sight, out of mind.
He supposes it’s his fault for digging half his heart into the ground between them, for believing that, after alternate dimensions and bullies bigger than men, they would be able to survive a little distance, that their friendship would stand beyond Mike moving away for college.
And, now, years later, all they have to account for the life they had grown in together, is an uncomfortable silence and an elephant in between.
His hands are sticky with apple juice, and the apple borders on sour when he bites into the fruit. He knows he cares too much, even now, and he can never help it, ever the victim to his own emotions, and he’s still turning over the next few weeks in his apple juice-stained hands.
Avoiding Will, clearly, will be difficult, with their friend group, their families, and he knows his own mother is throwing a get-together in a few days, where he’s expected to invite over his friends, and, by proxy, Will. Dustin’s mother would be inviting them all to her house on Friday. He knows it’d be impossible not to speak to him.
Talking to Will would also prove to be unbearable, even, if the stilted speech between them was any indication, the lack of any conversation all afternoon, the coldness in Mike’s own voice that bleeds out without intention. He’s never been in control of his own body, markedly. He hates it.
It all almost has him feeling – angry, something adjacent to it, a genre of it, something mean and unforgiving rearing its head at the thought of needing to be around Will once more, because he had known it to be a bad idea, coming back home for the holidays, and Will is treating him like some ghost he can ignore, something he doesn’t want to acknowledge, doesn’t – need to acknowledge.
If he lets it sit, Mike can tell it’s anger.
He bites on an apple seed.
“And you are – okay?”
Mike runs his inner cheek raw, considering his options, before he forces out, “I’m fine, El.”
There’s a pause, a slight shuffling on the other end of the landline. “You don’t sound fine.”
“Well, I am,” he replies. “I’m fine. Is he – coming with you?”
“I asked and Will said yes,” El answers, and Mike raises his eyebrows at the wall across from him.
“You’re sure you didn’t just tell him he was coming?”
Another pause. “Maybe I am sure,” she sniffs, sounding not sure at all. “We are both coming to the party.”
Mike sighs.
If Karen Wheeler is known to be anything, it is sociable.
This, of course, means the flurry of people that show up at Mike’s house is no surprise, because he doesn’t recognize half of these people, outside of his friends’ parents, and he knows some are from the work parties his father attends sometimes, bringing his mother along, or the book club she’s in, or, for some reason, the cashier from Melvard’s.
As it is, Mike is accustomed to the ruckus, and he, with a little bit of effort, slinks past groups of mingling adults to answer the door, to which Max appears, looking unamused and wearing a puffy pair of pink earmuffs, which Mike vividly recalls El gifting her.
“I forgot your mom invites half the town,” she comments when they pass by the living room, flooded with guests, as well as the hallway littered with people, until they slip into the kitchen, where there is the barest bit of reprieve, only a handful of others accompanying the other side of the room, across where Dustin and Lucas are attempting to throw pretzels into each others’ mouths, and failing terrifically. For all Lucas is athletic, Dustin is brilliant, and both of them, on occasion, sensical, they mutually seem to lose brain cells with the other around.
“You’re sweeping that up,” Mike tells them, just as another pretzel bounces off Lucas’ cheek. Dustin groans, and Lucas leans down to pick a discarded pretzel, plopping it into his mouth.
Max wrinkles her nose at him. “Seriously?”
“What?” He questions, crunching. “Five second rule!”
Mike has no time to contribute anything at all, however, when the doorbell rings once more, and he suppresses a groan as he steps away, walking back into the hallway, calling out, “I’ll get it!”, over the cheery Christmas music and the low rumble of friendly chatter.
No one else is rushing to get the door, it seems, and he finally stumbles out of the crowd to twist the door open, trying to ignore the swoop of his stomach when he finds Joyce Byers on his front step, Will just tall enough to peer over her.
Mike carefully avoids looking at him to greet, “Hi, Mrs. Byers.”
“Mike,” she coos, a smile lighting her face, and she ushers him into a hug, “honey, it feels like you get taller every time I see you! And how many times have I said it’s Joyce?”
“Sorry,” he mumbles, warm in the face, and she pats his shoulder as they both lean away.
She steps into the house, and Jonathan throws an easy, “Hey, Mike.”
“Hi,” he replies, just as Jonathan disappears behind his mother, and suddenly, it’s just him, Will, and El.
“It’s very loud,” El observes.
Mike gives her a weak smile, which probably looks more concerning than anything, by the raise of her eyebrows. “Come on,” he says, and he doesn’t turn around to check if they follow him.
The rest of his friends still remain in the kitchen, where Max has found a seat on the counter, and Dustin and Lucas stand next to the island, the surface covered with snacks. El and Will trail after him, and El levitates a handful of chips into her palm, which the rest of the guests are, thankfully, unaware of.
“You’re both embarrassing,” Max is saying, nudging Lucas with her shoe, who sends her a wide grin.
“And he’s a coward,” Dustin exclaims, and Lucas brings up a hand to facepalm.
Mike can’t help it when he looks at Will, who has a raised eyebrow as he questions, “Why’s he a coward?”
“I won Go Fish against him last night,” Lucas elaborates, through a mouthful of – something, “like, eight times, and he’s being a sore loser about it.”
“It was a fluke!” Dustin protests, and Max rolls her eyes. “Listen, I barely get to indulge in – simple pleasures, such as meaningless card games, when I’m in New York. Let me have this.”
She gives him a strange look. “Just get Mike to play.”
Dustin waves her off. “Trying to get him to leave his apartment is like pulling literal teeth. He already tries to cancel our once-a-week lunch, no way he’s playing Go Fish with me.” He pauses, before adding, “Plus, he’s shit at it.”
Mike ignores the questioning glance El sends his way to scoff. “Yeah, ‘cause Go Fish sucks.”
“Asshole,” Dustin retorts.
“I have Monopoly,” Mike mentions, when another couple of guests wander into the kitchen, eyeing the snacks next to them, “up in my room. If you guys want to play.”
Graciously, no one questions why he isn’t offering up the basement, and Lucas shrugs in agreement. “Yeah, sure.”
“I want the dog,” El announces, and no one protests.
Will keeps flinching.
Over the course of the next two hours, the party carrying on below as they all clamber onto Mike’s bed, pulling up his bean bag and swivel chair to make room, their game of Monopoly, no matter how vicious it becomes, seems to fade away every time any part of Mike threatens to bump into Will, who – keeps flinching.
The first time it happens, when they both reach for their own pieces, where Will would always go for the boat and Mike would pick the car, Will’s fingers stutter back when Mike grabs the miniature car, placed right beside the boat, and Mike brushes it off, because he – doesn’t care. He doesn’t.
The second time, when Will doesn’t reach out and grab the fake money Mike hands out, is easy to ignore, and he places it on the space of the board in front of him. After the third, fourth, fifth time of Will recoiling from merely being near Mike is undeniable. It stings.
And Mike – knows he’s been a little unwelcoming, both distant and cold, but, sue him, he doesn’t think he’s all that inclined to be so kind, and especially when Will hasn’t exactly made any attempt to speak to him, either, which, he supposes, he shouldn’t have expected anything different if the last few years were any indication.
That’s bitter of him to think, he knows, and he’s being petty, but he feels like an strung up, open-cut wound, and Will’s coldness feels like salt rubbed into injury, sharp and hurtful when he seems to jolt out of the way, just before either of them could make the mistake of touching.
“I am not paying for the –”
“It’s your second fucking roll, and you literally landing on my property, you can’t just move your stupid piece and pretend you –”
“– don’t care, I do not care, I’m not paying your ridiculous fucking –”
It’s only an indication of how stuck in his head he is when Max and Dustin’s argument barely registers, even with their heightened voices, and Lucas pinches the bridge of his nose, and El is eyeing the pile of money left in the box. Mike makes a point to nudge it away from her, and she squints at him.
“How about you just pay half?” Will suggests, both voices halting at his words.
Dustin’s eyes flicker between him and Max, before making a noise of acquiescence, handing over a singular slip of purple. “I hate you and this game.”
“Suck my dick,” Max returns cheerfully, and Lucas swipes the die off the board.
El watches as the die tumbles out of Lucas’ hands, and he makes a show of hopping over her property, to which she rolls her eyes, a good-natured smile on her lips. Mike would join her in the joy, except for the half of him that is so caught up in the clear avoidance of Will’s. He hates how Will takes up his mind so easily, even now, even always. It’s torture.
“Alright, Byers,” Lucas says, dropping the die into Will’s lap, “your turn.”
Will silently shakes the die, before it scatters onto the board and lands on a four. Mike can already tell where it’s about to land when they all watch Will move his piece four spaces, until it lands onto Park Place.
Mike clears his throat. “Um. Seventy dollars.”
It’s an eerily silent exchange, the rest of their friends watching as Will fishes out seventy dollars from his pile of paper money, and hikes it over to Mike, placing it right beside him instead of his awaiting hand, eyes averted.
Mike bites his cheek, and tucks the money away.
“O–kay,” Max begins, eyebrows raised, taking the die and throwing it onto the board. It lands on a six. Her piece hovers over Connecticut Avenue. “Son of a bitch.”
“Suck my dick, Maxine!” Dustin shouts, and El is clearly trying to press away a smile as Max glares at him. “Pay up, asshole.”
The game continues on, except Mike’s mind doesn’t, too focused on the way Will seems to be actively leaning away from him, and it’s – awkward, he knows it is, by the way Max raises her eyebrows at their tense silence, the looks Lucas keeps sending their direction, but they all seem to have it in their good graces not to mention it. Mike almost wishes they would.
It all comes to a head, he would say, when Lucas’ stomach growls unnaturally loudly, and they all putter downstairs once more for snacks, where the kitchen counter is still unmoved of refreshments, albeit bowls being a little emptier than they had been before.
Mike passes Max a can of Sprite, and Dustin nearly elbows him when he dumps a large pile of chips onto his paper plate. Will, very quietly, stands next to him, and Mike makes an active attempt not to care about it too much when he grabs an empty plastic cup and makes a move to grab the bottle of soda.
Will is already reaching for it, and it’s almost comedic, if not concerning, the way his arm jerks back before their fingers brush, like he’s been electrocuted, and Mike isn’t sure if it’s merely for the effort of it all, the conscious effort Will makes not to touch him, like he’s something dangerous, unwanted, repulsive, too much to touch, but Mike – can’t take it.
His hand falls short of the bottle, curling around the empty air and into a fist, and he, for the first time in so long, looks at Will.
“I don’t bite,” he scowls, because he’s always been a bark, no bite, kind of guy, and Will should know that, but he looks up with surprise written clear in his face, eyebrows furrowed and hands pausing where they hover in the air. Mike can’t help it when he adds, cartoonishly bitter, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost think you were avoiding me.”
Will’s eyes flicker between him and the people around them. “I’m not avoiding you,” he responds carefully, and his gaze drops for a moment when he says so, ever the reliant tell.
Mike scoffs, a laugh that sounds more bitter than he wishes, and it’s a little loud, and he’s sure someone else has noticed their slight debacle. “Right,” he replies dryly, “and I didn’t get the cold shoulder for the past four years.”
He says it a little plainly, no use in being quiet about it, and he hears El mumble something, except Will is placing his cup down a little forcefully, and Mike feels some sick twist of satisfaction in his stomach.
“Mike,” Will says, all underlyingly venomous and tinged dark, and it’s familiar, Mike thinks, and maybe this is the most familiar they’ll ever be, the closest Mike will ever get to who they were before, in fights and passive aggressive whispers. “Really?”
Mike stares at him, and tries to ignore the hurt of such a realization.
Will stares back, before they both seem to break. Mike turns around, and doesn’t turn around to check if Will is following him. The kitchen is awfully quiet.
The garage is cold and dark when they step out.
“What the hell was that?” Will asks immediately, sharp and offensive. “Seriously?”
“Nice,” Mike replies, “now you give enough of a shit to talk to me.”
Will visibly tenses, straightens, and he’s still shorter than Mike, even if he’s definitely the more stronger of the two. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t be fucking stupid,” Mike snaps, and Will sets his jaw. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” Will replies, “maybe I thought you could handle being mature for just a few more days.” His hands keep curling and uncurling, an old habit. Mike hates how he remembers. “But I – whatever.” He doesn’t waver from Mike’s glare. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have come.”
Something in him breaks at that, maybe because he’s hurt, maybe because it’d give him something sharp to hold. “Stop – acting like that,” Mike says irritably, and he wonders why it feels like they’re both ready to jump into a fist fight. Neither of them had ever been violent. “I –”
– don’t care if you’re gone, he wants to say, except that’s not quite true, because he had always cared, even before he arrived, even before his mother had called, even before he had ever moved to New York. He’s always cared. That’s the problem.
“– am not – trying to drive you away,” Mike finally bites out, and Will’s eyebrows raise, skeptical. Mike’s scowl deepens. “I just want an explanation.”
Will scoffs. “For what?”
“What do you mean ‘for what’?” Mike asks incredulously. “What do – for why you decided to ignore me for the past four years!” He gestures between them, and his hand barely misses Will’s chest. Will doesn’t flinch away. “For why you – you went completely radio silent after I moved, for why you suddenly, what? Stopped giving a shit about me? Forgot that I existed? Just decided to be an asshole?”
“I didn’t just decide anything,” Will spits out, harsh and mean, unlike the person Mike had known before. “It was clear that if you wanted to talk, you’d call me! And then you didn’t!”
He jabs his hand into Mike’s shoulder, and the force of it makes him stumble back, just a little. It doesn’t hurt through the thick layer of the sweater Mike has on, but the notion splinters through his skin, anyway.
“Because you never did!” Mike argues, and he’s right, because he had waited for Will to call him, had wanted a sign that he wasn’t just something to be forgotten the second he was out of view. Clearly, he’s as replaceable as he suspected. “I – I waited for so long, and you never called once! You had my number,” he ticks it off on his fingers, “you had my address, you could’ve asked any of our friends in case you lost either of those, and you – you didn’t try to talk to me.” He towers over Will. “Not even – not once.”
Will’s anger, for a second, flickers, a flash of regret, before he shakes his head, and suddenly, he’s angry all over again. “No,” he says, firm, “no, that’s – how is this all my fault? Why am I the bad guy?” His voice isn’t as loud, but steady still, and his stare is heavy. “Why couldn’t you call?” Mike bites his cheek, and Will doesn’t relent. “I wasn’t the only one with a phone, Mike.”
Will says his name like a curse, and it feels like poison, and Mike can’t help it when he flinches, and Will’s shoulders drop.
“I’m tired of this,” he says, like he’s giving up. “I’m not – I can’t do this again.”
Mike’s face twists in bitterness. “Do what?”
“This,” Will emphasizes, motioning around them – the dark, empty sky, the quiet fall of snow, the muffled chatter from inside, their faces foggy and messy in the night. They’re close but oceans away, and the distance between them feels impossibly far. Will is shaking his head. “I – I can’t do this again. It’s like every time I see you again, it’s – I feel like I’m running in circles. I can’t do this.”
With this, he swerves on his heel, turning away from Mike and heading back inside, and Mike blinks at his distancing figure for a second, before hurrying after him, something like concern and anger and trepidation churning inside him.
Their friends are still scattered around the kitchen when they reenter, but it’s not an arrival when Will walks past them to grab his coat, and Lucas frowns as he watches him shrug it back on. “Hey, you good?”
“I’m fine,” Will replies, flat and clean. “I’m just going home.”
“Do you want me to come?” El questions, looking concerned, and Will waves her off.
“No,” he shoves an arm through his sleeve, “I’ll walk.”
There’s a beat, before Dustin, a little unnecessarily, asks, “Are you coming back?”
Will moves to the door without zipping his coat. “I don’t think so,” he says, simple, but something in Mike feels like it’s been stepped on when Will spares him no glance and pulls open the door, a quick gust of cold air before he shuts it behind him with a quiet click.
Silence passes, until –
“Dude,” Dustin says, turning to Mike, and the rest follow, “what happened?”
“Nothing,” Mike answers frostily, jaw set, and Dustin gives him an unamused look.
He tries for no decorum when he brushes past his friends, feeling their eyes on him as he twists the doorknob and pulls it open, ignoring the immediate chill that washes over him and the goosebumps that rise on his arms. It’s dark out, streets barely lit with the orange shade of the lights towering overhead, and Will is stalking off his driveway and onto the street.
Mike hurries off the stairs, snow crunching under his shoes as he chases after Will. “Wait!”
Will, predictably, does not wait, figure tense and coiled tight as he keeps walking, and it stings when he doesn’t even look back, doesn’t even try and pretend he cares as he gives Mike no mercy in reacting.
Mike, thankfully, has legs long enough to easily catch up with him, and maybe it’s a little cruel of him to be, still, so desperate, so stubborn like he’s always been when he curls a cold hand around Will’s shoulder and forces him to freeze. He pulls him back, and Will –
He looks tired. “What?”
Mike bites down his pride. “I don’t want you to go.”
Will’s frown doesn’t let up. “Tough luck. I want to go home.”
“No, you don’t,” Mike replies, sounding more sure than he probably should, and Will raises his eyebrows. “Dude. Come on, don’t – don’t be like this.”
Will looks at him, frosty when he bites out, “Like what?”
“Like – I’m some terrible person!” Mike says, nearly shouts in the quiet night, and Will looks unsurprised as he merely stares, unresponsive, and it only fuels the fire Mike rides on. “I wasn’t – I’m not just some – jerk, you know. You keep making it sound like I wanted us to stop talking.”
Will sounds like he knows the answer when he asks, “Didn’t you?”
“No!” Mike’s voice cracks, and he can’t find it in him to be embarrassed. He shakes his head, stepping closer, and he looms a little over Will, even after all these years. “I never – you – of course, not. Why would I ever want – how could you even think that?”
“How could I not?” Will laughs bitterly, gesturing between them. “You never called, you never wrote – I never heard from you, except for the times El would graciously let me know how great you were doing without me.” He scowls. “It was just like Lenora. What did you want me to do? Beg for your attention again?”
“Stop – talking like that,” Mike snaps, and his body feels like it’s burning, and he hates the way Will talks about it all. “You’re not some – some thing that needs to – beg for anything. I didn’t call because you never called. I wasn’t even sure if you wanted to hear from me anymore, or if you even wanted me around after I left, and then I left, and guess what? I heard nothing from you!”
Will jabs a hand into Mike’s shoulder, harsh and forceful. “Because I needed you to call first!”
“So, what?” Mike argues. “What do you want me to say? That it’s my fault for not reading your mind?”
And then Will – falls silent, for a moment, and Mike feels like a bomb ready to explode, fuse burnt and waiting for some kind of result, except Will is silent and he is eerily still and he’s only staring at Mike.
He looks like a figment of Mike’s worst imagination, the type of thing he feared to see if he ever came back to Hawkins during this time of year, with the whites of his eyes and the downturned twist of his mouth, hands curled into fists, and Mike, for the most briefest of moments, is almost afraid Will might punch him. The thought nearly makes him vomit.
They’re both breathing a little hard, and the street is quiet and the snow is quiet and the sky is dark, ashy gray and they’ve never been here, in this silence, the space between war and something else, tiptoeing purgatory.
Will’s hands unfurl.
“No,” he says, and Mike stares at him.
“No?” He repeats incredulously.
“No,” Will replies firmly, and he shakes his head. “I – I don’t want you to say it’s your fault. It’s not.”
Mike squints at him. It all feels like some kind of trick. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” Will forces out, “that it’s not your fault. Maybe – maybe it’s neither of our faults.”
A deep, unending kind of dread begins to fall over him, and he almost feels a little sick. He had preferred being accused over this, because this is uncharted territory – somewhere far worse than purgatory, far beyond Hell and wearing a clay mask over its face. It’s much worse than anything Mike knows how to deal with.
He’s almost afraid of what’s to come next. “What?”
“Mike,” Will says, and it sounds – it shouldn’t sound so defeated in his mouth, like there’s nothing left in him, and Mike wants to shake him by the shoulders, yell something to make him angry and fired up all over again. “Please.”
Mike shakes his head, eyebrows furrowed and frowning. “No, what’re you saying?”
“Maybe it’s no one’s fault,” Will finally answers, and he looks – exhausted. “Sometimes, people just – grow apart, alright? And if that’s what happened to us, then that’s – that’s no one’s fault. It happens. People just drift apart. It just – happens.”
Not to us, Mike wants to say. Not to us, he wants to deny, except it’s true. It’s true, and it hurts, and he’s been running from it for the past four years, and Will is hitting him with it now. Mike almost wishes Will had punched him instead.
“Don’t say that,” Mike shakes his head, pressing his nails into his palm, and it distantly prickles with pain. “That’s –”
“Look, Mike,” Will interrupts, and he rubs an eye with a hand, dropping it to look almost frustrated. “We haven’t seen each other in years, and the first thing we do is fight. It happened last time, and it’ll happen again. Don’t you think that means something?”
Mike bites his cheek. “I think it means we need to get better at talking.”
“Well, I’m talking.” Will shrugs, and his gaze averts to the ground. “I’m not – saying we can’t be in each other’s lives, alright? We have our friends, and we have our families, and it’s not – we can’t avoid that.”
“Will,” Mike warily tries, “you can’t –”
“And I – I don’t hate you,” Will continues. “I just think maybe we need to stop – trying. We need to stop trying. We clearly stopped talking for a reason, and you – you’ll always matter to me, I swear. But I’m not doing this anymore. I can’t.”
He shakes his head, and stumbles a little when he takes a step back.
Mike, for the life of him, can’t bring himself to walk forward.
“Will,” he attempts, one last time, and his voice cracks, just a little. He swallows. “Please.”
Will spares him one last glance, and he nearly looks unrecognizable. “Sorry,” Will mumbles, quiet in the night, and walks away.
Something in Mike crumbles. It keeps snowing.