Archive of Our Own ^beta

The breakup came about after a year of barely seeing El once the military poured into Hawkins and made it next to impossible for her to go anywhere without the risk of being caught.

Honestly, Mike thought they would have broken up much sooner if they had been given the opportunity to be alone for more than a few minutes at a time. But between the government searching for her and Hopper’s continued existence being kept under wraps for the time being, chances to spend time with El at the cabin, and later the radio station when Robin, of all people, got them the keys and turned it into their main headquarters, were enthusiastically taken up by everyone. So she and Mike smiled and hugged and sat just close enough that no one else could see the awkward tension between them the four or five times they saw each other.

Then, on March 30^th of 1987, smack in the middle of Will and Mike’s sixteenth birthdays, El came up with the first real attempt to bring Max back into her body. While the others prepared a makeshift sensory deprivation tank for her in the absence of the one at the Lab (which they were, unfortunately, not able to break into), El finally took Mike aside and, for the first time in just about a year, they sat together and just talked. No one else present, no crackly Walkie-Talkie static present. Just them, sitting on the roof of WSQK with the sun setting over the trees ahead.

It became very apparent to Mike how different they both were: El was more confident, assertive, sure-footed and no longer reaching for the gaps in her vocabulary. Mike, for his part, felt more comfortable in his own skin than he had since Will went missing. Suddenly, they weren’t two little kids thrown together by circumstance anymore, forced into a relationship that everyone else expected. They weren’t adults either, but Mike thought that both of them might be on their way to becoming who they were meant to be. And he knew that El knew that what they were still pretending to be…wasn’t part of that.

From the outside, the resulting conversation might have sounded like it was just picking up where they left off. Maybe they were, in a way. But Mike said, “I do love you, you know. You’re…you’re one of my best friends. You’re so important, and I am so glad I know you.”

And El smiled sadly, and took his hand, and responded, “I’d like to know what it would be like to just be your best friend and not your girlfriend.”

“Me too.”

Ultimately, the move for Max’s mind, or soul, or whatever Vecna held hostage, failed. Even with the deprivation tank at the radio station and Lucas blaring Kate Bush in Max’s hospital room a few miles away with Mike and Will—in a very rare moment of Mike letting Will out of his sight for longer than half an hour—maintaining a Walkie-Talkie connection from either side (Mike with Lucas, and Will remaining with El), it wasn’t enough. Afterwards, El said that, for a second, she thought she’d heard Max’s voice, hiding in a memory of Starcourt Mall’s movie theater. But then Will, alerted by his inexplicable connection to Vecna, yanked El bodily out of the tub, severing the connection before he and El both collapsed, blood streaming from their noses.

Mike had never biked anywhere faster in his life, utterly terrified by the cluster of panicked voices he could hear beyond Dustin urging him to come back. When he arrived, El was just beginning to rouse, leaning heavily on Hopper’s shoulder. Mike spared a moment to squeeze her hand and accept her sleepy, defeated smile, before he all but shoved Jonathan aside so that he could perch on the couch next to Will, who was still unconscious. The five more minutes that it took for Will to wake up felt like the longest of Mike’s life, but the way his gaze honed in on Mike, and the way the residual panic melted from Will’s face as he grasped the hand Mike was clinging to, settled something deep in Mike’s very being.

The only people who really seemed to note the significance of Mike’s behavior were Hopper, Jonathan, and Robin, of all people. Later that night, before Nancy drove herself, Jonathan, Mike, and a still-exhausted Will back to the Wheeler-Byers house, as it had become, Hopper pulled Mike aside. “You and El…” he started awkwardly.

Mike, amazingly, wasn’t afraid of the consequences of telling Hopper the truth. “Broken up,” he confirmed. It was still strange, being nearly eye-to-eye with the former police chief. “Mutually. She’s one of my best friends,” he added, needing El’s adoptive father to know that she was still incredibly dear to him. “But it’s better like this. We both agreed.”

Hopper nodded slowly, searching Mike’s face intently. “You okay with that?” he asked, to Mike’s great surprise. He’d figured Hopper would be relieved at the news. Mike still nodded, and accepted Hopper’s slightly awkward but welcome one-armed hug, before turning around and wrapping an arm around Will’s waist so that he could help him to the car outside.

That same night, after Mike had Will settled in his bed and was sitting in his desk chair, alternating between drawing up a new plan for Max by the dim light of his desk lamp and just watching Will sleep, Holly came in, sniffling and clutching a stuffed bear that Mike won for her at the arcade a lifetime ago. “Nightmare?” he murmured. They were becoming more frequent for the little girl, almost as often as Will’s at that point. She refused to speak about them, and Mike assumed it was the stress of her young brain trying to make sense of her hometown tearing itself apart. Holly stopped going to their parents for comfort the third time Ted grumbled about losing sleep, and to Mike’s initial shock, chose him as the next safest place over Nancy. Though that might have had more to do with Will being there too, more often than not. Holly had always had a tiny crush on him.

Mike could relate.

She nodded, bottom lip trembling and fruitlessly scrubbing away silent tears. “M’sorry,” she mumbled, bypassing Will’s sleeping figure and climbing right up into Mike’s lap.

“None of that,” he chided gently, running a soothing hand over her hair. Truthfully, Mike secretly liked being his baby sister’s safe person. He was all too aware of being pretty absent as a brother for her first four or five years of life. Then Will gave him a slightly confusing speech about Mike being the heart and El needing him (and Mike knew now that that was a lie, but he still didn’t understand why Will lied), and Mike couldn’t figure things out with El, and Will was initially pretty distant upon returning to Hawkins too, but Holly opened his door one night about a month after the split when Will was still sleeping in the basement most nights, despite Mike’s insistence that he was happy sharing his room and his clothes and, occasionally, a bed so that Will would be more comfortable. He hadn’t been sleeping that night either, and had shot up in bed, hoping that it was Will. Holly was a surprise, but not a disappointment, and he let her stay with him that night and every subsequent night she showed up.

Ted Wheeler might think she was too old for “childish nightmares,” but Mike knew about the monsters in the dark, and if he couldn’t protect anyone else from them, he could protect Holly.

“Is he okay?” Holly whispered, glancing over at Will’s still form. If it weren’t for the minute twitches of his face very few seconds, Mike would wonder if he’d fallen into a coma like Max’s.

“He will be,” Mike told her. “You want to keep an eye on him for me for a few minutes?” Mike’s throat was burning from thirst and had been for over an hour now, but he was terrified to leave Will alone. It wasn’t the first time that Will had sensed movement from Vecna in the past year, but it was the first time he’d collapsed from it since the Mind Flayer possessed him in 1984. Mike wasn’t sure if the collapse had more to do with wrestling El singlehandedly out of the void or Vecna himself, but he was reluctant to take his eyes off of Will now. “I need to go downstairs and get some water. You want any?”

“You’ll come right back?” Holly checked, eyes wide and shiny with residual tears.

“On Hector’s life,” he promised solemnly, patting the stuffed bear on the head.

“Mike!” she giggled, but allowed Mike to place her on the bed next to Will, where she dutifully drew her knees up and put her chin on them, staring intently at Will while he slept. Mike crept out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar, and stopped to use the bathroom before going quietly downstairs.

To his surprise, Jonathan was already in the kitchen. His head snapped up at the creak of the last step under Mike’s foot. “Oh,” he said quietly, moving to make room for Mike to get a couple of glasses and fill them with water. “How is he?” he asked after taking a sip out of his own glass.

“Asleep,” Mike answered, hovering a little awkwardly. Jonathan stopped glaring daggers into Mike’s head awhile ago, right around the time it became apparent that Mike was doing everything in his power to make up for being an asshole to Will for so long, but things were still a little weird between them. Mike liked Jonathan, always had; Jonathan always played with him and Will when they were little kids without complaint, and was much more present than Nancy had been (up until recent times, at least). But Jonathan was protective over Will, rather like Mike was, and it led to them butting heads when they had differing ideas on how to do that. “Holly’s watching him for a second; she had a nightmare and I needed…” He raised the glass.

Jonathan nodded slowly, mouth pulled tight at the corner like he was thinking. “Don’t get mad at me for asking this,” he said after a minute, “okay?”

Mike thought he might know what was coming; maybe no one had called him on it yet, but he was pretty sure by now that his feelings for Will were an open secret. It was a little terrifying still, being in love with a boy. It was even more terrifying to accept it wholeheartedly, and downright heartbreaking to know that Will would probably never reciprocate, and Mike would have to be content with just being his best friend for the rest of their lives. Mike had never stopped himself for going after what he wanted before, not like this, but he’d done enough damage to Will over the years. The last thing Will needed was Mike getting his feelings all over him.

Still, Mike nodded in return and braced himself.

“He’s safe with you, right?” And that…wasn’t what Mike had expected.

“I—what?” was all he could think to say.

“Will,” Jonathan said a little impatiently, setting his glass down and fixing Mike with a stern look. “He’s safe with you?” When Mike continued to, presumably, look as lost and confused as he felt, Jonathan went on, “You always protected him when you were kids, and you’re doing it again now. It’s nice to see, especially after how distant you two were for a bit there. But I need to know, Mike, that Will is safe with you. I need to know that I can trust him with you.”

Embarrassingly, Mike’s eyes began to burn. He blinked once, twice, trying to dispel the tears before they could solidify. “Yeah,” he croaked, taking another gulp of water to disguise it. Then, more firmly: “Yes. I’d die for Will, you know that.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Jonathan said, but he didn’t clarify further. After another searching look in which Mike felt turned inside-out and exposed, he nodded to himself. “Okay.” Then he tugged Mike into a firm hug, where Mike was startled to discover that he was too tall to bury his face in Jonathan’s neck like he wanted, and retreated back upstairs, presumably to Nancy’s room.

After a minute, Mike followed, still feeling a little shaky. Holly, predictably, had fallen back asleep on top of the covers. Mike only hesitated for a second before he set the glasses of water down on Will’s side of the bed and slid in on the other side of Holly after draping his throw blanket over her. He still didn’t fall asleep for a long time, unable to stop watching Will breathe.

Finally, on Mike’s birthday, Robin cornered him in Steve’s kitchen. “Am I finally allowed to ask about it?” she burst out, bouncing up and down on her toes in barely contained excitement.

“Ask about what?” Mike replied, utterly confused. He still didn’t know why everyone insisted on having his birthday party at Steve’s house anyway, except that it had more space. Hell, he didn’t know why they were having a party in the first place. Sure, he was sixteen, and sure, they celebrated Will’s birthday with a similar party a couple of weeks ago, but Will was, well, Will, and Mike was just…Mike. Nothing special. But Steve had a weird thing about birthdays and not letting them pass without acknowledgment, so here they were.

“About you and Will!” Robin exclaimed, finally giving up on containing herself and darting forward to grab Mike by his shoulders. “Come on, I’ve been dying to talk about him with you. I knew you guys were like me, but Steve told me to leave it be—”

“Wait,” Mike interrupted, feeling the blood drain from his face. “Me and—huh?”

Robin froze, one hand in the air where she’d been gesturing towards the door, beyond which Will was presumably located somewhere. “You…you guys aren’t…?” At Mike’s helpless silence, she let him go with an emphatic, “Shit. God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s not that I’m not,” Mike said quickly, driven by some unknown force to reassure Robin. He liked the older girl, even though she was a little strange, and her friendship with Steve made almost no sense. But she and Nancy got along like a house on fire, and Robin never hesitated to make herself available for help with Spanish homework (which Mike lamented having to do in the first place, not understanding why school was even still a thing when they were in the middle of the actual end of the world) or filling awkward silences with funny, offhanded stories. “I mean – I would, with Will, but he isn’t – like me. He doesn’t like me, I mean. We’re just…we’re best friends. We have been for, like, twelve years.” And okay, he’d just unintentionally come out to someone for the first time. Second time, if you counted El guessing on the roof of WSQK when they broke up a week ago, but Mike wasn’t sure if he should.

Robin stared at him in disbelief. “You…you think that Will doesn’t like you back?”

“What do you mean, you knew we were like you?” Mike deflected, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Nuh uh, answer the question.”

“I just admitted I’m gay for the first time ever, you answer the question!” God, this was so not the place for this conversation, not when anyone could just walk in, but when did Mike ever get anything he wanted?

Robin’s eyes turned wide and round. “You’ve never told anyone?”

“Obviously not,” Mike grumbled, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest protectively. “But now I’m a little worried that I might not actually have to, if you and Steve Harrington guessed.”

“Oh, don’t worry about Steve,” Robin said dismissively, waving a hand. “He only guessed because his gaydar has vastly improved since he learned about me. And he’s safe, don’t worry. He won’t tell anyone else.”

Mike shifted uncertainly, meeting her intent gaze again. “Oh,” he said quietly. “So you…you’re…”

Robin bit her lip before taking her wallet out of her back pocket and taking something out of it. “This is my girlfriend, Vickie,” she told Mike, voice lowered confidentially. It was a small square photo, clearly cut out of a yearbook. Mike recognized the girl in it from the band last year. “We got together right after we both graduated high school. No one really knows except for Steve though. Well, and my mom, but we don’t really talk about that. It’s easier to ignore it than acknowledge that she’s never getting any grandchildren, you know? Not that she doesn’t love me!” Robin added hastily. “It’s just an adjustment! And, you know, Karen is totally way cooler than my mom, she’d never have a problem with you, I know it.”

“She’s not who I’m worried about,” Mike muttered. His mom had brought up her brother and his “long-term roommate” several times over the past couple of years, sneaking subtle glances in Mike’s direction to gauge his reaction. He’d only met his uncle a few times. He used to think it was because Uncle Greg lived in New York City and that was a bit of a far trip, but now he suspected it was more to do with Ted Wheeler’s silent but clear disapproval whenever the subject came up. Not that it discouraged Karen Wheeler from determinedly making herself a safe space for homosexuality.

Fuck, Mike must be really obvious.

“Fair,” Robin said. She put the picture away and, after a moment’s hesitation, sprang forward again, this time wrapping her arms around Mike’s shoulders and giving him a hard squeeze. For the second time in a week, Mike felt like he was going to cry. “It’s okay,” Robin whispered, evidently sensing his distress in the slight shake of his shoulders. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s not your fault,” Mike sniffed, and finally returned the hug. She, like Jonathan, was too short for him to really sink into it like he wanted to, but he hunched over and did his best. “It’s just…he’s not like me. Like us. And that’s okay, but it…it hurts a little bit, sometimes. I think it’s why I clung onto El for so long. She knows now too though. She guessed. She’s okay with it.”

“You know anyone who matters will be,” Robin said firmly, giving him one last squeeze before letting go to look him in the eye. “But Mike – that boy adores you. Seriously. I saw it the moment you two started showing up at Scoops Ahoy with Lucas and Max. I’ve never seen anyone orbit each other the way you two do. It’s insane how in step you guys are.”

“That’s what over a decade of friendship will do to you,” Mike mumbled, staring at the floor.

“You’ve been friends with Lucas and Dustin forever too and you don’t act like that with them,” Robin pointed out. “Neither does Will.”

“Don’t get my hopes up,” Mike pleaded, dragging his eyes up. “Okay? I can’t – I can’t.”

“Okay,” Robin said gently, drawing him back in. “Okay.”

***

Somehow, it didn’t occur to Mike over the next six months that everyone wouldn’t just know about his and El’s breakup. He’d told Hopper and Robin, after all, and El wasn’t one for keeping secrets. Lucas had brought it up once or twice, checking on Mike’s wellbeing. Surely, word would just spread. Right?

Not right.

He discovered that Will didn’t know when December rolled around, bringing with it bitter cold that was unseasonable even for Indiana. Things were ramping up again, Mike knew it. He was beginning to suspect that Holly’s nightmares, which were nightly by this point, were more than just the terror of being an almost eight-year-old living in the end of the world. He’d started to draw the conclusion as they increased in frequency alongside sightings of lone Demodogs, which were usually preceded by Will waking up positively freezing. Will would wake up in the mornings cold and irritable, only soothed by the many layers Mike (and Joyce, when she wasn’t staying with Hopper and El) wrapped him up in, and Holly would wake up in the dead of the following night and seek out Mike. She still wouldn’t talk about them, but she left drawings strewn about the house rather like Will once had, before, during, and after the Mindflayer.

The drawings were equally hard to parse through, but Mike collected each one and, when Will woke up one night mid-September to find Mike paging through them, joined Mike in his endeavor to piece together the puzzle that was Holly Wheeler’s subconscious. And as on edge as Mike was, he still spared enough energy to feel his chest tighten and his skin buzz everywhere that he and Will touched, leaning against each other under the covers of Mike’s bed and sorting through the pictures.

According to Will, who Mike still considered the leading expert on Vecna and the Upside Down despite the fact that nearly all of them had come into some sort of contact or another with it all, nothing in Holly’s drawings screamed any sort of obvious relation. But Mike couldn’t shake the feeling that Holly was, somehow, edging into dangerous territory. And the worst part was, no one except for Will took him seriously about it. Vecna wasn’t making any moves, Nancy told him in a tone that was meant to be soothing, but always came across as condescending. Will would know if he was. They still had time. Holly was safe, just afraid like the rest of them.

But December came, and with it the cold, and with the cold, the attack.

Mike and Will, in a rare moment of Joyce loosening the reigns on her youngest son, were running a relatively low-stakes reconnaissance mission, spying on the military base at the library. They perched on the roof of the nearby church, long abandoned by its followers, talking in low voices to each other and to Robin, Dustin, and Steve via Walkie, who were based back at WSQK. Nancy and Jonathan were supposed to be breaking into Miss Kelly’s office at the high school again; she’d started showing a strange interest in Will right before Thanksgiving break, bringing up his disappearance from four years ago and telling him that if things ever got to be too much, he knew where to find her.

(Mike wasn’t actually there for the conversation, but when Will walked into their shared English class late, pale and shivering, he walked Will right back out, ignoring their teacher’s threats of detention. When it became apparent that Will wasn’t going to calm down anytime soon, Mike called Nancy to come pick them up.)

Will couldn’t explain the feeling Miss Kelly gave him and, frankly, Mike didn’t really get it either. She’d tried to talk to Mike a few times during their freshman year of high school, but unlike Max, he didn’t take her up on her offer of counseling. But when Lucas and Steve heard about the incident and promptly freaked the fuck out, everyone decided that further investigation was a necessity.

Mike hadn’t really paid much attention to what everyone else was going to be doing that night; there really wasn’t supposed to be any danger to any of it. Well, no real danger. Spying on the military was risky, sure, and breaking and entering into the school could carry some legal consequences, but honestly, Mike just saw the opportunity for some rare one-on-one time with Will that didn’t happen in the dead of night in his bedroom (not that Mike didn’t enjoy those quiet moments, even if lately they were mostly spent talking about Holly and the possibility of Vecna regaining his strength). Will, for once, was actually pretty relaxed, joking about stealing a couple of military-grade rifles for Nancy and Hopper while they were there.

“I’ll get you one too,” Mike teased, nudging him with his elbow. “Be an upgrade from Lonnie’s shitty shotgun.”

“Hey,” Will gasped, pretending to be affronted. “I’ll have you know that that shotgun is the only good thing Lonnie ever left behind. Saved me from a Demogorgon, that gun did.”

“Fine, he did one good thing, indirectly,” Mike acquiesced, leaning into Will and then just staying put. They were both dressed warmly, but the freezing cold was, in Mike’s mind, a good enough excuse to huddle close and indulge the breathless feeling of Will’s solid shoulder pressed against his. “Doesn’t make up for the rest of his shitty behavior. He never even visited after you came back from the supposed dead! Who does that?”

“To be fair, I don’t know if he actually knows I’m alive,” Will pondered. He was leaning into Mike too, heavily enough that Mike had to brace himself a little against the roof. Not that he was complaining, more than willing to accept Will’s absentminded closeness. Finally, finally, the physicality they’d shared as children had begun to make a return over the last few months. “Hell, I don’t know if he’s alive.”

“Good riddance,” Mike said darkly. “I mean—not that I want him to be dead, just—you’re better off, you know? You and Jonathan, and your mom. She’s way happier with Hopper anyway.”

Will laughed. “That’s true.” He brought his binoculars up to his face, scanning the base laid out before them. “I guess he must have been a decent enough person when they met in high school, or she wouldn’t have married him, but God, he sucked as a dad. Like, how do you suck that badly? There was a reason I spent so much time at your house when we were little, you know.”

“I’m well aware,” Mike said, feeling simultaneously warm with the knowledge that he’d provided Will with that safe space back then, and hating that it was necessary in the first place. “Your mom kept him away from us as much as she could, but even the few times I met him, he scared me, you know? Plus, I didn’t like how he talked to you. He was so mean to you, and all because we were two little five-year-olds who liked to hold hands sometimes. Like, come on! That’s what little kids do!” Not that Mike would mind if Will wanted to hold his hand now, as sixteen-year-olds.

Will snorted, lowering the binoculars and shivering slightly from the cold. Before Mike could overthink it, he wrapped an arm around Will’s shoulders, tugging him further into his side. “We should have brought a thermos of coffee or something,” he commented, keeping his voice even to hide the way his heart thumped harder at the feeling of Will sinking into the curve of his body. “It really is fucking freezing.”

“Can you imagine if Lonnie saw us now?” Something about Will’s tone seemed the slightest bit strained, but when Mike went to withdraw, he scooted unsubtly closer, so Mike stayed put. “He wouldn’t stop at name-calling, he’d be throwing punches.”

“He did that anyway,” Mike reminded him, heart soaring at the fact that Will was accepting his show of affection disguised as sharing body heat. “You may have tried to hide them, but I saw the bruises, Will. My mom did too, why else do you think she arranged with your mom to spend so many weekends at my house?”

“Little does Lonnie know you have a girlfriend.” And Will laughed again, saying the words, but there was definitely an undercurrent of…something in his tone.

Mike didn’t focus on it, if only because he was so surprised by the words themselves. “What are you talking about?”

Will twisted to look incredulously at him, face entirely too close. “Uh, Eleven? Your girlfriend of, like, three years? My sister of two years? The person who’s responsible for the fact that we’re even alive, probably?”

“Dude, we broke up,” Mike said, unable to even believe they were having this conversation.

Will gaped at him. “What?”

“What do you mean, ‘what?’” Mike did pull his arm away this time, shifting to face Will head-on, military forgotten for the time being. “El and I broke up, like, months ago. The day we tried to get Max back, remember?”

Will kept staring at Mike like he’d grown a second head. “What the fuck, Mike?” He didn’t sound angry per se, but Mike couldn’t tell what Will was thinking, and wasn’t that frustrating. “You guys broke up that long ago and you didn’t tell me?”

“I thought you knew!” Mike protested, and now Will was swiveling around too, sitting cross-legged so that their knees touched. At least he wasn’t putting distance between them, Mike thought briefly. “Hopper knows, I told Robin—”

“You told Robin?”

“I thought El would have said something, or it would have just spread around from there!” Mike continued. He felt almost panicky, like he had done something wrong. He supposed he had, but it wasn’t like he intentionally kept it from Will! Except that…maybe he had? Was the reason Mike felt safe enough to eliminate the physical distance between the two of them because he still had the vague excuse of hiding behind his supposed feelings for El? Had he been doing that?

No, he told himself firmly. If that was what it was, you wouldn’t have told anyone. Hell, you wouldn’t have broken up with El at all.

But Will was staring at him with that unreadable expression, and Mike needed to fix it.

“I’m sorry,” he said, feeling faintly like it was getting harder to breathe. “I wasn’t trying to hide it from you, I swear. I just—”

And then Will’s eyes rolled back into his head.

Mike had seen what it looked like when Will was sensing Vecna or his monsters. He remembered what it looked like when Will was possessed by the Mindflayer.

This wasn’t that.

“Will!” he cried out, louder than he should given that they weren’t very far from a bunch of military guys and not caring. He flailed about for the Walkie with one hand and grasped Will’s shoulder with the other. “Guys, something’s wrong with Will!” he said urgently as soon as he had his finger on the button.

“What do you mean?” Dustin.

“I don’t know, he’s just—”

Will cut him off with a rattling gasp, snapping back into himself. All in all, he’d been gone for about fifteen seconds. Before Mike could even blink, Will had wrapped his hand around Mike’s on the Walkie and was curling the other in the front of Mike’s shirt, his whole body shaking violently. “Will?” he said hesitantly.

“Mike, what’s going on?” Dustin’s voice crackled.

“Mike’s house,” Will rasped, eyes locked on Mike’s, round and fearful. “We need – everyone needs to – we have to go!”

Mike’s heart dropped like a stone.

***

What Nancy and El would tell Mike they saw:

Ted Wheeler was dead.

Karen Wheeler was barely clinging to life, dragging herself across the kitchen floor.

Holly was gone.

Mike, sitting in the hospital and staring numbly at the white walls, waiting for his mother to get out of surgery, couldn’t get them to tell him anything else. So he asked Will in the chair next to him, knee pressed solidly against Mike’s in comfort, previous conversation long forgotten.

“Mike…”

“You saw it,” Mike interrupted him. And Will had; Mike refused to leave Will behind, even though it slowed them down because Will was struggling to ride his bike while fighting off the visions behind his eyes. “Tell me.”

What Will told Mike:

The Demogorgon crashed loudly into the Wheelers’ backyard, smashing through the sliding glass door. Ted, in a surprising moment of bravery, grabbed a golf club and warded the Demogorgon off long enough for Karen and Holly to escape upstairs. But he fell, gutted by the Demogorgon’s claws, and it moved upstairs too.

Mike and Nancy’s rooms were left untouched, but the Demogorgon tore Holly’s apart, undoubtedly following her scent. When it didn’t find her there, it trailed through their parents’ bedroom and into the master bathroom, filled with steam from the hot bath Karen had been running. It shattered the glass door of the shower, stalked over to the bath, and then wandered away to go search elsewhere. Five more seconds, Will whispered, five more seconds and Holly and Karen would have been okay. But Holly came up for air, unable to hold her breath any longer.

Karen distracted it long enough for Holly to run down the stairs, presumably to the basement. The Demogorgon threw Karen down the stairs too, and when she landed, she hit her head. She kept fighting up until the Demogorgon got its claws into her side too, and hearing her mother’s screams, Holly came back up. The gate opened up underneath her feet, she fell through, and the Demogorgon followed.

Will’s vision cut off there.

Hearing Will tonelessly tell him the facts of what he had seen through the Demogorgon’s eyes brought feeling back into Mike’s limbs. The ache of his legs from biking across town. The sting of small cuts on his hands where he’d tumbled off his bike in the hospital parking lot, catching himself on asphalt. And in his chest, shock giving way to guilt. Guilt over not doing more to convince everyone that Holly was in danger. Guilt for not quite believing it himself. Guilt for thinking they had more time.

Guilt for making Will relive the vision and bringing him pain, again. Because that was all Mike ever did.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out, tears filling his eyes and blinding him. “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, he thought, finally descending into a full-blown panic attack.

He was aware of Will speaking to him in a low voice, aware that they were moving on stumbling legs. But things kept blurring together, choppy like his breathing, head aching and chest too tight. “Breathe, Mike,” he heard Will saying urgently. The sound of a heart monitor registered briefly. The feeling of a hand running through his hair, of someone’s shoulder under his cheek.

“There you go,” Will murmured as Mike’s vision stopped ebbing in and out and his own rattling breaths filled his ears. “Breathe, Mike, just breathe.”

They were in Max’s hospital room, Mike realized fuzzily. Sitting on the floor between her bed and the window, out of direct view of the door. Mike was practically sitting in Will’s lap, legs drawn up to his chest with one of Will’s arms wrapped around his back, the other cradling Mike’s head to the crook of his neck. Mike’s fingers ached when he uncurled his fists, nail divots in his palm, but he reached up and laid his fingers over Will’s pulse point in his neck. Will let him. More than that, he kept holding Mike close, despite the fact that Mike was really too tall for this position to be sustainable. Sure enough, his neck and back were beginning to protest the contortion required for Will to have Mike tucked against his chest like this. “M’sorry,” Mike mumbled into the skin of Will’s neck, which was wet from the tears still streaming down Mike’s face.

“Are you seriously apologizing for having a panic attack?” Will laughed in disbelief, holding Mike tighter even though Mike was not intending to move anytime soon.

“No,” Mike said, closing his eyes, “I’m apologizing for making you tell me about it. That was a really shitty thing to do.”

When he felt Will’s fingers under his chin, tilting his head up so that Mike was forced to make eye contact with him, Mike’s breath caught all over again. This was not the time, he knew that, but Will was so close, and there wasn’t any amount of tragedy in the world that would stop Mike from noticing the proximity. “Don’t be stupid,” Will admonished him. He looked exhausted, like the mere act of staying conscious was taking a heavy toll, but his eyes were bright, alert and focused on Mike. When Mike didn’t say anything else, entirely lost in Will’s eyes, he swallowed. “I’m – is this okay? I shouldn’t have…”

“Please don’t let go,” Mike said, embarrassingly fast, but he felt like he would shake apart if Will let go of him now.

“Okay,” Will said softly, letting Mike tuck his face back into his neck. “I’m not going anywhere.”

They stayed like that for possibly hours, mostly silent but for a single, weak joke about, “If only Lonnie could see us now,” from Mike.

“Fuck that guy,” Will said immediately, holding Mike tighter. “The fuck does he know?”

Yeah, Mike thought as Nancy finally found them, looking like she was going to berate them for disappearing until she saw the position they were in. Her gaze softened into something warm and sad as she informed them that hers and Mike’s mom was out of surgery and ready for visitors. Fuck that guy.

Robin was right. Anyone who mattered wasn’t going to care that Mike was in love with his best friend, even if said best friend never felt the same way.

But that was a concern for later.

***

Nancy and Jonathan snuck back into the Wheeler house to grab some essentials a few days later, but given that it was now a crime scene, the Wheeler and Byers children relocated to Steve’s house for the foreseeable future. Steve was more than happy to have them, eager to fill his massive house given that it was just him and Robin, now that both sets of their parents had given up on Hawkins seemingly for good. It was a massive house, but not quite massive enough for everyone to get their own room, and without a basement for Will to retreat to now and then, he and Mike were sharing a bed pretty much every night now.

Well, they sort of had been already anyway, but now there wasn’t a sleeping bag on the floor for plausible deniability, and no one offered one. For his part, Mike was done pretending. There were more important things to worry about, like finding Holly. He didn’t know what Will thought about the whole thing, but he wasn’t complaining, so Mike didn’t press.

He expected things to be weirder between Steve, Jonathan, and Nancy, but the three of them, along with Robin and, more often than not, her girlfriend Vickie, all seemed to be getting along beautifully. It meant that, unless the rest of the Party was present, he and Will were left to their own devices the majority of the time. Again, Mike wasn’t complaining. It meant that he could continue obliterating any semblance of personal space that might be remaining between them, and that Will could continue ignoring it or pretending he didn’t notice Mike doing it, whichever it was. If anyone asked, which they weren’t, Mike was just seeking out comfort from his best friend. His father was dead, his mother awake but seriously injured in the hospital, and his little sister was trapped in an alternate dimension. Bigger fish to fry and all that.

That didn’t stop Robin from shooting them sly, gleeful glances every time she saw them together though.

Focus, Mike told himself sternly for the millionth time. The last six days had crawled by. Much like when Will was missing just over four years ago, Mike wasn’t sleeping more than a few hours a night, was barely eating. He wouldn’t be doing either of those things if Will hadn’t taken to carrying around an alarm clock in his backpack, set during the day to go off at mealtimes so he could pester Mike into choking down a few bites of food. “You’re not going to get her back if you can’t even function,” he kept insisting. If it were anyone else sticking to Mike’s side like glue and staring daggers at him until he gave in, Mike would have been throwing punches by now. But beyond the constant fear bubbling like acid in his stomach, all Mike could feel towards Will was gratitude and, as always, love so consuming he felt like he was choking on it. In the best way, of course.

It was very, very contradictory.

“Focus,” he muttered out loud, earning himself an odd look from Steve, the only other person in the room right then. Will was taking a shower that was undoubtedly hot enough that Mike would be met with a solid wall of steam if he opened the bathroom door. Mike was very pointedly not thinking about Will in the shower. No sir, not the time for that, especially because that was his straight best friend, and Mike could accept being in love with Will, but he refused to be a perv about it. No matter what, Will would be safe with Mike, even if he didn’t realize the effort Mike was making to make sure.

“Jonathan and Nancy will be back soon,” Steve offered awkwardly. “Maybe they’ll have something that can help.”

That was another thing. To Mike’s great annoyance, everyone had taken to treating him like they often treated Will: with caution and kid gloves. Mike had always made a pointed effort not to baby Will, knowing how much he hated it, but having never been on the receiving end, Mike hadn’t really understood just how much it sucked. No one was letting him do anything to assist in getting Holly back. It was completely unfair, especially because Nancy wasn’t being put on the bench, as Steve would put it. No, she got to jump through a gate to the Upside Down and try to find Holly herself while Mike had to stay at Steve’s house and lose his fucking mind.

Hadn’t he proven by now that he could hold his own in the face of danger? Wasn’t he the one who helped carry Will out of Hawkins Lab during the attack of the Demodogs? Wasn’t he the one who came up with the plan to burn the tunnels and distract the ’Dogs long enough for El to close the gate and Joyce to free Will from the Mindflayer? Didn’t he lure Billy into a sauna and proceed to hit him over the head with a metal pipe, and carry El (with Max’s help) through Starcourt to get away from the Mindflayer, and protect Will with his own body from the spray of bullets in the Byers’ California house, and—

And jump off a cliff to save Dustin’s teeth when you had almost given up on finding Will, and almost get yourself killed by Brenner’s men when you were twelve trying to protect El, and almost get killed by said Demodogs, and get a concussion from Billy, and almost get shot multiple times—

So perhaps Mike had a bit of a self-sacrificial streak. What-the-fuck-ever. Better Mike than literally anyone else, because everyone except for him had something to offer, and he was just Mike. Weak, selfish, hopelessly-in-love-with-his-best-friend Mike who, upon getting an inkling of what that meant, proceeded to become the biggest asshole on the fucking planet to everyone who cared about him and only stopped because the boy he loved gave him a painting that was not commissioned by his girlfriend at the time, Mike knew now. Add coward to the list, because he’d had that confirmed by Eleven almost four months ago now and he still hadn’t confronted Will about it, too afraid of breaking them again.

“Holly’s younger than Will was,” he said to Steve, trying to keep his voice level and not just start screaming his frustration, “and unlike Will, she doesn’t know how to defend herself. She never had to. The longer she’s out there, the more likely it is that she doesn’t make it, or Vecna takes the opportunity to make her a spy the way he tried to make Will be a spy.”

“If anyone can find her, it’s Nancy—”

“I know that Nancy can find her, okay?” And Mike couldn’t stop anger now, even though Steve didn’t deserve it, because he was so tired of being treated like this. “But Vecna has her, okay? God only knows that the fuck he’s doing to her mind, like he’s been doing for fucking months, and I told you guys! I said that her nightmares weren’t normal! I’m the one who’s been up with her every night, not Nancy! Not my parents, not Nancy, me! I have all of the drawings she made of her nightmares, I did my best to make her feel safe, and it didn’t matter, because none of you listened to me! She’s gone!”

God, Mike couldn’t remember being this fucking furious since he found out that Hopper had been keeping El hidden and isolated. He’d yelled like this too back then, raged and slammed his fists uselessly against Hopper’s chest until the exhaustion set into his bones. He’d barely been sleeping then too, spending every fucking second next to Will’s bedside, terrified of losing him again. How many times was Mike going to have to lose it before someone took him seriously? How many times was he going to have to lose people he loved before he was able to figure out how to actually be useful for once in his goddamn life?

More than anything at that moment, he wanted Steve to shout back. He wanted an excuse to start swinging, knowing full well he would never beat Steve in a fight. He wanted the pain he felt to be real. He wanted to be able to look in the mirror and press on the bruises and feel the ache flare to life, to be able to point at the blood and say see? I have a reason to be like this! But Steve was just looking at him with that sad, pitying look on his face that everyone kept giving him.

It wasn’t fair.

“Mike,” Will said softly behind him, and the fight drained from Mike all in one go, leaving him feeling shaky with bone-deep exhaustion and shame burning his throat like acid. What right did Mike have to be like this when Will was reliving the hell he’d gone through as a kid and had never truly escaped? Fuck, but Mike was an asshole.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, meaning it for Will, for Steve. For anyone but himself. He stood abruptly, swaying on his feet with black spots dancing across his vision as the blood rushed from his head, and started moving before he was quite ready. He didn’t get far before Will caught him by the elbows, ducking his head a little to look Mike in the eyes. Mike avoided his gaze, focusing instead on a fleck of lint on Will’s shirt – Mike’s shirt, actually, given that it was pulled a little too tightly across Will’s chest. That was fair; Mike had been drowning in Will’s favorite hoodie all day.

Whatever Will saw in his face made him nod to himself and say, “Okay. Come on.” He wrapped an arm around Mike’s shoulders and said to Steve, “Unless Nancy and Jonathan have something definitive, tell them it can wait till morning.”

“No—” Mike began, but Will cut him off with a sharp look.

“You’re going to sleep,” Will told him, tone leaving no room for argument, “and that’s the end of it. If they have anything truly helpful, then they can wake us up, but otherwise, you’re sleeping until the sun comes up tomorrow.”

“I can’t,” Mike protested, feeling panicky at the prospect of trying. “Not while Holly’s missing—”

“I’m not asking.” Will was guiding him out of the room, ignoring Steve’s poorly hidden snicker behind them. “If you can’t sleep, then you’re staying in bed and resting. And so help me God, Mike, if you try to get up, I will tie you down, you get me?”

The image flashed behind Mike’s eyes faster than he could banish it in his slightly delirious state of mind, accompanied by the thought of a lot fewer clothes and a lot more bare skin, and heat, and Will, Will, Will—

“Fine,” Mike said weakly, knowing he was bright red and unable to do a thing about it. “You’re staying too though, you’ve barely slept more than I have.”

“Only because I’ve been worrying about you,” Will muttered, nudging Mike into their shared bedroom and shutting the door behind them.

Mike sank down onto the edge of the unmade bed, limbs heavy and skin buzzing in that overstimulated way he got when he hadn’t been sleeping enough. “That’s stupid,” he said before he could stop himself, mind still distracted by half-formed thoughts of Will in various states of undress. It was a lot harder to ignore now that Mike actually knew what that looked like, having lived with Will for the better part of two years now. There was only so much protection offered by an unlocked door and Mike had never been that good at remembering to knock. “I’m not worth worrying over.”

Will leveled him a look of such disbelief, Mike almost laughed. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say, and you’ve said a lot of stupid shit.”

“Stupider than the time I said that Cyndi Lauper is better than The Clash?” Mike teased. He let Will manhandle him under the covers, determined to be as difficult about this as possible even though he knew he would let Will win. He always did nowadays.

“They aren’t even the same genre of music,” Will said, face twisting in disgust. “It’s like saying that ice cream is better than, like, a ribeye. There’s literally no point of comparison.” He climbed in next to Mike after turning off the main lamp and turning on the nightlight that Jonathan had retrieved from Mike’s bedroom. Mike opened his mouth to needle Will further, hoping to distract him with a stupid argument and maybe make him laugh, but Will reached out and shoved Mike around until he was on his side with Will spooned up behind him, arm draped over his waist. It made Mike’s breath catch in his throat, heart stuttering and then pounding so hard he thought that Will had to be able to hear it. Certainly he could feel it, given his hand was curled over Mike’s heart. “Figured we’d skip the part where we pretend you won’t just end up cuddling me in your sleep anyway,” Will murmured into the back of Mike’s neck.

Mike swallowed, suppressed a shudder, and, before he could talk himself out of it, grabbed the hand Will had over his heart and twined their fingers together. “You just want to make sure I don’t sneak out once you’re asleep,” he grumbled, trying to disguise the shivery pleasure he was feeling with fake irritation. He wasn’t sure he was successful.

“You caught me.” Will’s voice sounded a little odd too, but Mike was hurtling towards sleep already, warm and comfortable and, for the moment, safe. He could overanalyze this later.

***

Thirteen hours of dead sleep later, broken only once by Mike stumbling blindly through the dark house to the bathroom to pee before being pulled back into Will’s chest immediately upon returning to bed, Steve set a plate of scrambled eggs and pancakes in front of Mike at the dining table with a firm command to eat it all, or Steve’s feelings would be hurt. Mike still felt drained, but his thoughts were clearer, easier to make cooperate than before. Anxiety and dread still pooled in his gut, but it wasn’t clouding his judgment and influencing his emotions quite so intensely. He was loathe to admit it, but Will had made the right call, forcing him to get a full night’s sleep.

The boy in question sat next to Mike, chair pulled close enough that they were sitting flush against each other. Mike could only guess that it was Will’s best effort to offer comfort, as he had barely stopped touching Mike in some form or fashion over the past week, but Mike was not going to complain. Robin could waggle her eyebrows all she wanted, and Jonathan and Nancy could hide smiles behind their hands, and Steve could make pointed, but good-natured digs, and Mike would not say a goddamn word. He would keep accepting the proximity and let Will drizzle maple syrup over his eggs while he was at it.

As he suspected, Jonathan and Nancy hadn’t accomplished anything other than nearly getting eaten by Demobats the night before. “They’re clustered around the library,” Nancy said. She was pale too, face drawn and hair frizzier than normal. Mike felt a pang of guilt for a second; maybe Holly had picked Mike to protect her, but she was Nancy’s baby sister too. Nancy was just as desperate to find her as he was, she was just better at hiding her fear. She always had been. “Could be that he has her there.”

Will flinched, full-bodied, at the words. When Mike looked sideways at him, the color had completely drained from his face. “The—the library?” Mike knew why; they all did. Hopper and Joyce had found Will there, unconscious, with a vine shoved down his throat pulsing god-knew-what into his system. Mike hated thinking about it, always had, knowing that Will had been violated like that. According to Will, he didn’t remember much after getting knocked out, trying to escape the Demogorgon. But sometimes, before they’d given up on pretending they weren’t just going to end up sharing Mike’s bed anyway, he’d wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of Will choking on nothing, and it always took at least another minute after Mike brought him out of the nightmare to be able to stop.

It was bad enough that Will had to live with that memory, that violation. If Holly was enduring that now…

Mike didn’t realize that his breaths were starting to come out choppily until Will’s hand wrapped around his, fingers forcing themselves between Mike’s and unclenching the fist he’d made on his thigh. “It means she’s still alive,” Will continued quietly, voice steadier than a second ago. He wasn’t looking at Mike, but his thumb stroked soothingly over his skin, rubbing tiny circles while Mike clung to him like a lifeline. “If he took her there, it was for a reason.”

“How are we going to get her out though?” Jonathan looked and sounded distressed, both at the prospect of getting Holly out alive and watching his little brother relive the worst time of his life. “It’s like they’re guarding it. Demogorgons, ’Dogs, ’Bats…there’s no way we’ll get in.”

“We need to get everyone together,” Nancy said decisively. “Today. Robin—”

“Already on it,” Robin said, getting up to grab a Walkie.

“Come on,” Will said to Mike in a low voice, tugging him up by their still-interlocked fingers. “Let’s go for a walk.” They made for the back door.

“Don’t go further than the tree line,” Steve warned.

The second the glass door closed behind them, Mike let out his breath in a rush. “I don’t want her to go through what you went through,” he ground out desperately, the words grating painfully past the lump in his throat. There wasn’t much use, given the others already knew that he and Will were closer than two boys should be, but he used their hands to pull Will out of sight of the door before he let go, only to fall directly into Will’s body. Will, for his part, seemed to have been expecting this, catching Mike’s weight and letting him collapse into him. “I hate this, I hate this—”

“I know,” Will murmured, running a hand over the back of Mike’s head. “I know. I don’t – I don’t want this for her either. For anyone, ever. It’s…it’s so stupid, because it’s been so long now, and I don’t remember it, but it’s like my body does, and sometimes…fuck, I’m sorry, this isn’t helping—”

“You can tell me,” Mike gasped out, not even trying to pretend that he wasn’t crying at this point. “I want you to tell me, you shouldn’t have to bottle it up—”

“Maybe he doesn’t – maybe he hasn’t done it to her yet,” Will said unconvincingly, voice wavering where his mouth was pressed against the side of Mike’s head. His hold on Mike was tightening now too, like the weight of their combined fear was too much. “We can get her out before he does—”

Mike let out a sob, holding onto Will so tightly that it had to hurt, but Will wasn’t stopping him. “I can’t – I can’t think about it—talk about something else, please.”

The words spilled out of Will’s mouth so fast that Mike knew he’d been thinking about it already, had just been waiting for Mike to give the go-ahead: “Why did you and El break up?”

And it was comically unimportant right now, really. Unimportant and so not the time, but Mike could already hear Will trying to take it back, and, well, there wasn’t much that Mike wouldn’t give Will if he only asked, and God knew he never did. “I didn’t love her,” he said hollowly, and finally let go of Will. “I mean…I did, I do, but not…I wasn’t in love with her. I never have been.”

Will released him cautiously, hands hovering in the foot or so of space between their bodies like he was afraid of letting Mike go very far. “But you…you told her you did,” he protested weakly. There was something fragile in his expression, on the verge of cracking down the middle. Mike could relate. “You said…you said your life started the day you found her in the woods. That you loved her since then—”

“I lied.” Mike laughed, and there was absolutely nothing funny about it. “Will, everything I said that night was bullshit. I was disappointed when we found her, because she wasn’t you. God, I was ready to send her to Pennhurst the next day, just so I could go back to looking for you. Then she recognized your picture, and I realized she could help us, so I kept her around. And yeah, I did grow to love her, but it wasn’t like that, it wasn’t. It never was! I just dated her because it seemed like the thing I was supposed to do, but the whole time, I wasn’t in love with her. I was—” He swallowed hard, eyes stinging with fresh tears. “I love her like I love Lucas, or Dustin, or Max. Like a friend.”

Will nodded slowly. “Like me.”

“No,” Mike said before he could stop himself, “not like you.”

He didn’t mean to; it slipped out in the worst way possible, but there was no taking it back now, and Will’s face shuttered brokenly. “Oh,” he whispered, taking a step back and wrapping his arms around himself.

“No,” Mike said immediately, stepping forward and grabbing Will’s elbow. “I don’t – that’s not what I mean.”

“Then, what—?”

“You’re my best friend, Will.” Mike was desperate to make Will understand, and terrified of the consequences. But he was so tired, physically and mentally and emotionally, and something had to give. There were too many things crowding his brain; he had to let one out. “You’re my best friend. And, yeah, so are Lucas and Dustin, and Max and El, but you – we’re – it’s different. We always have been, ever since we met, and it took me a long time to figure out why, but when I did, it…it made sense. And that scared the shit out of me.”

“What do you mean, it’s different?” Will’s gaze hardened. Mike could practically see the old walls he’d put up between them coming back up. “Different how?”

“Come on, Will. You know.” He has to know, Mike thought.

“Clearly I don’t!” Will looked like he regretted starting this conversation. He looked like Mike was breaking his heart.

“God,” and Mike ran a hand through his hair, turning his gaze up to the reddened sky above them. “Will, I couldn’t balance being your friend and being El’s boyfriend! It felt like it had to be one or the other, and I only figured out why as you were driving away two years ago. And I tried, okay? I tried to stop it, I tried to be better, I tried to be normal – I tried so hard to call you, or write to you, but the signal was busy and the words didn’t come out right, or they came out too honest, and I was already losing you—”

“What are you even talking about?” Will demanded, face morphing into surprise and confusion.

“I love you, okay?” Mike burst out, flinging both arms outward. “I love you!”

For a long moment, it felt like everything stopped. Will stood frozen in front of him, within arm’s reach but so, so far away. Then: “What?”

There wasn’t any use hiding anymore. It was out there; Mike had finally said it out loud. It couldn’t be taken back, and Mike didn’t want to. So he went for broke: “I love you,” he repeated, softer this time. “I’m in love with you. And I know what people say about it, okay? I know that – I know that it’s supposed to be wrong. But, Will, I – it’s – loving you is easy. It’s the most natural thing in the world for me to do. It always has been. I don’t know exactly when it turned into what it is now, but I always…it makes sense.”

He took a deep breath. “My mom always told me and Nancy to fall in love with someone who was more than just a girlfriend or a boyfriend. She said we should choose someone who can also be a partner. A best friend. And when I was little, I thought that was perfect, because I already had a best friend. But Mom said it wasn’t the same thing, and Dad, well.” He spared a brief thought to the fact that it should hurt more, thinking about his father. Maybe there just wasn’t space for that pain right now. Maybe, once everything was settled, he could mourn his dad. But right now, it didn’t matter. “And we got older, and your dad was already an asshole, but everyone else started being assholes about how close we were too, so…I don’t know. I got confused, I think. But I’m not anymore, Will.”

“Mike—”

“I love you,” Mike interrupted. Now that he had said it once, it felt like he couldn’t stop. And Will was going to try to make him, Mike knew; Will looked dumbstruck, like his whole world had been rocked. Mike needed to say it as many times as he could before Will made him shut up. “I’m in love with you, Will. And I know you don’t feel that way about me, and that’s okay. I wasn’t – I don’t expect anything. In fact,” and Mike felt like he was about to cry again, “I know that this means you don’t want to be friends with me anymore. But you asked, so.”

“Mike, no—”

“Guys,” and it was Steve interrupting now, poking his head out the door. “We’ve gotta jet; El has an idea.” He paused to look closer at them: Mike, standing with his shoulders hunched and his arms curled protectively over his front, and Will, staring at Mike with an unreadable expression and hand slightly outstretched, like he was trying to grab Mike’s shoulder. Mike could practically see the video game lettering appear over Steve’s head with the words MOM MODE: ACTIVATED. In any other situation, it would have been funny, but right now…

“We just need another minute, Steve,” Will started.

“No, we’re good,” Mike cut him off firmly. “Let’s go.” He still felt afraid, terrified, a tangled mess of emotions that he didn’t know how to unravel, but – at least he’d let go of the biggest secret. The worst one, or the best one, depending on who asked. Loving Will was easy; it was the next part that was going to be hard. But Steve had just bought him some time.

When he went back into the house after Steve, Will followed.

***

Mike couldn’t remember the last time that every single person who had ever been a part of their continued efforts to eliminate the threat of the Upside Down had been in the same room.

It made Max’s absence all the more glaring; everyone was here, except for her. Dr. Owens had made an appearance, looking slightly out of place without a white lab coat. Murray Bauman had driven in from his bunker in Illinois (or wherever he was from) and was standing next to Hopper and Joyce, face unusually serious. Speaking of Hopper, his Russian friend from his time in a Russian prison camp rounded out the grown-ups. Vickie leaned against the wall next to Robin, shoulders brushing with how close they stood. (Mike wondered if the others saw it too, or if he just knew to pay attention.) Erica sat between Lucas and Dustin on an old couch someone had dragged in. Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve hovered near the door, already armed to the teeth despite the fact that Eleven hadn’t actually told anyone her idea yet.

Speaking of El – she stood alone in the middle of the room, jaw set in what Mike recognized as determination. “I think we can get Max and Holly back,” she began, “but it’s going to take all of us.”

Apparently, El had been spending a lot of time in the mindscape since Holly was taken. She was able to confirm that Holly was in the library, alive, at least as of last night. Asleep (or unconscious), but alive. Not alone though; Vecna was with her. It explained the guard of monsters that Nancy and Jonathan had seen posted, at least. Vecna wasn’t taking any chances.

The question was, why was Holly not strung up like Will had been? Mike thought he might have a theory about that: “When he took Will, he needed him to help build his army,” he said, swallowing nausea when he remembered Will finally telling him about the tiny Upside Down slugs he’d been vomiting up for months on end, so, so long ago. “And he did, even figured out how to keep building it without a host body. He had to, especially after Will fought him off. He tried to make Will his spy, right? But all that accomplished was giving Will insight into his mind, to his plans. Will always knows when he’s going to make a move; he can’t risk that again. Taking Holly wasn’t a ploy to make a new spy, it was—”

“He needs her as bait,” Will murmured from beside Mike.

“Exactly,” Mike agreed, turning his head to meet Will’s eyes for the first time since they left Steve’s house. He’d been avoiding his gaze this whole time, despite the fact that Will had been staring holes into the side of Mike’s head pretty much since Mike told him he loved him. More than that, Will wasn’t leaving any space between them, arms brushing with every breath. In the car, sitting squished against Mike despite the fact that there was ample room, and now. And Mike, well, he wasn’t going to move away. Not if this was the last time he got to be close to Will like this.

Forget Robin and Vickie, maybe he should be worried about everyone clocking him and Will, if only because they shouldn’t get the wrong idea. Will wasn’t like him. It wasn’t like that, even though Mike wanted it to be.

I really just couldn’t have kept my damn mouth shut.

“He wants to bait us down there,” Mike continued, tearing his gaze away from Will to look at everyone else. “He knew Eleven would be able to find Holly, and he knows we won’t leave Holly to die.”

“But why Holly?” Nancy wondered. “If he’s trying to get Eleven or Will—”

“Maybe that’s part of it though,” Jonathan spoke up, looking at Mike with a thoughtful look. “Maybe it wasn’t about Holly at all; maybe he just took her because she was easier to grab than—”

“Mike,” Hopper said gruffly, and Mike looked at him expectantly, then more puzzled when he didn’t say anything more to him. Then it dawned on him – Vecna had been inside Will’s head, inside El’s, inside Nancy’s, inside all of their heads, probably. And from the outside, it wasn’t a difficult conclusion to draw that Mike was the person that appeared to be the most important to Will and El.

Jonathan nodded. “He took Holly because he knew that Mike would never leave her; I mean, it’s no secret that Holly was having nightmares, and she always went to Mike about them. If Vecna was sending the nightmares, it makes sense that he knew she was confiding in Mike. So when he’s strong enough, or the time is right, or whatever, he grabs Holly, and waits for Mike to go get her. And then once he has Mike…”

The thing was, it made sense. Pretty much everyone in that room had to stop Mike from storming into the Upside Down unprepared at some point or another that week. If it hadn’t been for Will being at his side 24/7 and Mike being utterly unwilling to ever put Will in danger, he would have slipped past all of them.

Lucas broke the silence. “You said you have a way to get Holly and Max back,” he said to El.

She nodded. “Yes. That’s the other thing.”

Without telling anyone else (except for Hopper), El had been searching for Max again as well. Not just with a blindfold and static crackling through the air, but in the makeshift sensory deprivation tank. Will was, understandably, pissed about this, given Vecna almost found her like that last time. She’d been exhausted for days afterward, as had Will. But, somehow, she’d avoided detection this time, and successfully entered Max’s mind in the process. More than that, she’d talked to Max.

“It was like…like there was a curtain between us,” El said slowly. “I could see her, hear her, but she was…muffled. Blurred. Like the connection wasn’t…strong enough. But she told me…she told me that she had seen Holly.”

“Holly?” Mike exclaimed before he could stop himself. “But—how? I thought we figured out that Vecna’s mindscape isn’t actually in the Upside Down.”

“It isn’t,” El confirmed, “but that’s the thing; Holly is asleep in the Upside Down, from what I saw. Or…comatose, like Max. Her body is…empty now, but her mind is inside One’s. Max found her there between memories. She tried to bring Holly back into her memories with her, but she couldn’t reach her.”

Mike could see by the other’s faces that El’s explanation wasn’t quite translating the way she wanted to. They all knew how, when Max was cursed and they tried to defeat Vecna the first time, she hid inside her own memories to get away from him. Vecna dragged her in, but she took back control that way. But Holly didn’t know to do that; if Vecna had her trapped there, God only knew the torturous images she was enduring. It made sense, to Mike at least, that Max had continued to hide inside her own head, jumping from memory to memory to stay ahead of Vecna. However, if he caught up, or broke in, then she’d had enough time to see Holly. Talk to her. Max had to keep running though, or risk getting caught, and Holly wasn’t quite old enough for a quick explanation to teach her what to do. Max had to leave her behind and, if Mike knew Max (and he did), it killed her to do so.

Mike understood, but the others didn’t.

Except for Will.

“So they’re still connected to Vecna,” Will said quietly. “Both of them. But that means they’re also connected to each other.”

“Yes,” El said, sounding relieved that someone else was able to put it into simpler words. “And I think we can get them out now. For real.”

El’s plan was this:

They needed to send a group into the Upside Down to retrieve Holly’s physical body. Extremely dangerous, to be sure, but there was no use in waking her up if Vecna was just going to be able to bring her back under his curse again. While they did that, El needed to dive back into the mindscape and get Max and Holly together and, hopefully, forge a strong enough connection to wake them up for good. The problem with that was, she didn’t know how.

“I have a very good relationship with Max,” El mulled, “and good memories. They are what I used to find her; she must have jumped into one with me in it. When I spoke to her, I told her to try and stay in them, because I would be coming back soon. But I do not know Holly, how to reach her.”

“So how do you get Holly out?” Nancy asked. She, like Mike, was growing a little twitchy with impatience.

“I believe that I can bring someone in with me,” El said. “The mindscape is…complicated. For me, it becomes a physical place, something to…explore. It has become that for Max too, and likely for Holly as well, if she knew how. But any one of us, I think, can go into it. You have, Nancy, when One showed you his vision. He had control, but you moved through it, right? I think that, like him, I can ‘curse’ someone. But will not be a curse; it will just be my mind. And then, whoever comes with me can move freely, with my help. I just do not know who to bring. It has to be someone with a strong connection to both Max and Holly, yes, but there needs to be a good memory to jump off from. A memory of them both, together. And I do not think any of you have that.”

“I do,” Nancy said immediately, even as the gears in Mike’s head started turning. “When Max was cursed the first time, she and Holly colored some pictures together. I don’t know that they were really talking necessarily, but—”

El smiled, a little sadly. “I do not think that will be enough. It has to be stronger, and whoever comes with me needs to be a part of it.”

Okay, Mike thought, straightening up and squaring his shoulders. “I can do it,” he said.

Every head in the room swiveled to him in disbelief. “Dude,” Lucas scoffed, “you and Max hate each other.”

And that – that was fair. Because Mike and Max had hated each other, or at least pretended to. At the very least, around other people, they did not get along. Max knew where to needle Mike where it hurt, and Mike hadn’t been good at accepting criticism back then. Max entered their lives at a point of great stress for Mike, given that Will was experiencing the Upside Down again, El was still gone, and Mike already didn’t like change. Even after grudgingly accepting her into the Party, they didn’t hang out alone. Lucas, at the very least, was always present, and usually Will too, on their frequent trips to the movie theater. And that summer when things fell apart, Mike had found it easier to blame Max than himself. She could take the heat, and throw it right back, so he had no problem doing so.

But then the Byers left, and Mike was left knowing that things between him and Will were fractured and, besides that, he was in love with him and not with El, who was also leaving. And Max, well. Max was mourning the big brother she had never really had, torn between knowing who Billy had been and who she had wanted him to be, and the sacrifice he made in his final moments that proved that he could have been that person. She broke up with Lucas because she couldn’t keep pretending to be okay and didn’t want to drag him down with her, and withdrew into herself where almost no one could reach her. And, until Mike reluctantly joined Hellfire at Dustin’s insistence, he had been in a similar boat. They had gravitated towards each other, first in the class they shared just with each other, and later after hers and Lucas’s breakup, when she showed up at his door with tear tracks and a helpless expression.

Mike wasn’t sure what he and Max were, really. Closer than acquaintances, certainly, but friends didn’t feel like the right word. There was absolutely nothing romantic about it, no matter what Mike’s dad seemed to think (Mike’s mom had been suspiciously quiet on the subject). Thrown together by similar emotional states and an inability to actually talk about it, more often than not, they just sat in near silence. Max never called before she turned up; she never biked home from school with Mike, but sometimes she would show up about a half hour later anyway, like she’d gotten halfway back to her own house and changed her mind. They’d sit at the kitchen table and do their geometry homework, occasionally helping each other with problems, or Mike would turn on a movie in the basement and they’d play card games, or they would go up to Mike’s room and listen to music. Sometimes Max would talk about how horrible Billy had been, except for the time he, in a rare good mood, decided to teach her to drive his car. Mike, in turn, would tell her about the times that Will dared Mike to do something stupid like climb the tree in the Byers’ backyard with too-short arms and legs, or ride his bike without touching the handlebars.

And, sometimes, Holly would wander over to the kitchen table, or down into the basement, or up into Mike’s room, and plop herself down with her crayons, insisting they color with her. They’d pass hours like that, Mike and Max and Holly, until Mike’s mom called them for dinner, always with an invitation for Max to join, which she did, about half the time.

Mike hadn’t realized how precious those moments had become until they got back to Hawkins and found Max in a coma. Missing her was like missing a limb.

Mike never told anyone, not even Will. Back then, he hadn’t known how to explain to Lucas that he was hanging out with his ex-girlfriend semi-regularly. He told himself he was protecting Lucas’s feelings, but really, he thought that he just didn’t want to have to choose between the two of them.

He told them all now though. There was no choice; Mike held the key to both Max and Holly, and there was no time to lose. Thankfully, Lucas didn’t seem angry about it, just confused. “Why didn’t you just tell me?” he asked. “I would have – I mean, I think I would have been okay with it. I was spending all my time with the basketball team anyway by then.”

“Yeah man,” Dustin chimed in, “maybe we wouldn’t have been so worried about you if we’d known you were hanging out with someone. Jesus, we thought you were just sitting in your basement all alone that whole time, except for Hellfire. We were worried.” He looked at El and Will. “Seriously, after you guys left, all he did was mope around and write a fuck ton of letters to you both and call your house in California and complain about it when you wouldn’t answer—”

“Okay!” Mike cut off the last part of Dustin’s words, directed at Will. It wasn’t anything Will didn’t know, necessarily; Mike had, after all, swallowed his pride not long after returning to Hawkins and admitted that he had, actually, tried calling Will several times while the Byers were gone. He’d had to, given how awkward things were between them, what with living in the same house with no way to get away from each other and Mike’s feelings taking up so much space in his head that having Will so close, yet out of reach, hurt. Will didn’t know about the letters though, the ones that Mike hadn’t been able to bring himself to send. Hell, Mike didn’t know how Dustin knew about the letters. “I’m sorry,” he said to Lucas, ignoring Will’s intent stare on the side of his head. “I just…I didn’t want you to get mad and tell me to stop hanging out with her, you know?”

“I wouldn’t have done that,” Lucas protested, looking offended.

“No, I—I just mean, I didn’t want you to misunderstand, I guess,” Mike muttered, looking down at his feet. “I didn’t want you to think it was something it wasn’t. Just…like, we all missed Will and El, you know? But Max…neither of us were really okay, like at all, and she didn’t make me talk about it, and vice versa, so…”

“You could just hang out in silence,” Dustin finished sagely. “Yeah dude, we get that. We’re not stupid, you know? You needed someone to just be quiet with. I suck at that, and Lucas doesn’t like people to bottle up their shit, so it makes sense. Just would have been nice to know that we were worrying for nothing.”

“Not for nothing!” Lucas reached a hand over Erica’s head and smacked Dustin’s shoulder. “We were perfectly valid in our concern—”

“So you can do it, you think?” El asked Mike, ignoring Dustin and Lucas’s descent into pointless bickering. “Form the connection between us and Max and Holly?”

“Yes,” Mike said firmly. “I can do it.”

“So Mike and El will go into the mindscape to find them,” Hopper said gruffly. “That doesn’t solve the issue of Vecna having Holly under the guard of several dozen monsters. How do we get her out without any of us ending up dead?”

“Some sort of distraction?” Steve piped up. “Robin and I have been fiddling with the radio frequencies; maybe we can use those?”

“But can you penetrate the Upside Down with them?” Nancy frowned.

While Robin and Steve launched into an explanation of what they’d been doing at the station, Mike pondered Will’s unusual silence beside him. At the mention of a diversion, he’d fully expected Will to offer himself up; it was a logical conclusion, baiting Vecna with one of the people he wanted most. Will and El were at the center of everything, had been since 1983, and with El being needed to form the bridge to Max and Holly, then Will was the other choice. Not that Mike would ever have let him, nor would anyone else. But Will didn’t even suggest it.

Against his better judgment, Mike nudged Will with his elbow, still standing so close that they were practically glued at the hip. “So, what, you’re not going to argue about doing some self-sacrificial bullshit?” he whispered, just loud enough for Will to hear and no one else. “Seems out of character.” He tried to keep his tone light, teasing, and winced at the undercurrent of anxiety. Will knew everything now; Mike’s time as his best friend was coming to an end, and soon.

It hurt.

“Not this time,” Will answered, nudging Mike back. “Someone has to keep an eye on you, right?”

“I don’t think you coming into the mindscape is a good idea either,” Mike said with a frown. “It’s risky enough, El spending so much time there. If you come in too, it’s asking Vecna to notice.”

“I don’t mean that.” Will held Mike’s gaze with a determined look on his face. Determined, and something softer that Mike couldn’t parse, and something…daring. Like he was challenging Mike. “I mean that, whenever El goes in, someone grounds her, right? Me, or Hopper, or you. Stands to reason that someone’s going to have to anchor you too.”

“I guess…” Mike wasn’t quite sure what Will was trying to say.

Will rolled his eyes with a fond expression, like Mike’s cluelessness was endearing rather than irritating. “Well, I’m the obvious choice, aren’t I?” Mike temporarily lost the ability to speak and Will went on. “Nancy’s going to go get Holly, that’s no question. Dustin’s going to help Robin and Vickie with whatever they’re doing, and Lucas is probably going to go back to the hospital to watch over Max and be there when she wakes.” When, not if. “Besides, it’s like you said earlier: you and me, it’s different. We’re different. So I’ll be the one to stay with you and bring you back if need be.”

Mike swallowed hard at the statement, at how easily Will threw his own words back at him. “You don’t have to do that,” he managed to say, voice embarrassingly raspy.

“No, I don’t,” Will said steadily. There was something in his eyes, something Mike could figure out, if he just had a little more time, or if they were alone. Because it didn’t sound like Will was doing this just because he knew Mike was in love with him, or because they were best friends. It sounded like Will wanted to stay with Mike, which meant—

He didn’t get to finish the thought, not with Murray suddenly clapping his hands loudly, drawing everyone’s attention. “Okay then,” he said loudly. “Let’s get ready. I assume we’re going to get this going tonight, yes?”

A second sensory deprivation tank was made up, close enough to the first that El and Mike could hold hands somewhat awkwardly over the edges and hopefully stay connected that way. Robin, Dustin, Vickie, and Murray set about readying the radio van outside, rigging it with some sort of makeshift satellite. Lucas and Erica, predictably, set off for the hospital. Joyce, it was decided, would be El’s anchor, while Hopper and his Russian friend accompanied Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve into the Upside Down. They were heavily armed, sporting stolen semi-automatic rifles from the military (Nancy and Hopper), the sawed-off shotgun that Nancy had made last year (Hopper’s Russian friend), a flame thrower (Jonathan), the infamous nail bat (Steve), and cattle prods for each of them, plus a belt of grenades. When the hell did they get all of this shit? Mike had time to wonder before they were bidding their goodbyes.

The fear was beginning to crawl up into his throat, watching Nancy swing into the other WSQK van. Mike was already at risk of losing one sister forever, their father was dead, their mother in the hospital. He didn’t know if he could stand to lose Nancy too. No, they weren’t close like Will and Jonathan, but there had never been a doubt in Mike’s mind that Nancy had his back, and vice versa. And, no, the goal today wasn’t to kill Vecna, just to sneak in, get Holly’s unconscious form, and get back out, but the odds of them achieving that without complications were slim.

“Nance,” he said roughly.

She looked around, van door still ajar. At whatever she saw on his face, the set of her jaw softened and she got back out, crossing to him and hugging him hard. “It’s going to be okay,” she murmured. “We’ll get her back. We’ll get them both back.”

“Don’t die,” Mike said, getting a mouthful of her frizzy hair in the process. “Okay?”

She pulled away, smiled, and got back into the van.

Mike didn’t have any more time to dwell on the danger they were putting themselves in. He changed into an old pair of sweats and a t-shirt that he was pretty sure belonged to Will at one point, but had been commandeered by El. Her entire wardrobe at this point consisted of clothing from pretty much all of them, and while she usually favored things from Nancy, she tended to lean towards Will and Mike’s hand-me-downs when she was feeling anxious. Mike was grateful now, even if the sweats were too short and the shirt too loose. It didn’t matter, not when it was just going to get soaked anyway.

He had a brief memory flash through his head as he climbed into the makeshift tank, accepting a pair of blacked-out goggles from Will, of goofing off with Eleven in a pizzeria in Nevada right before everything went to shit. They hadn’t known how badly things were about to go then, and they didn’t know what might go wrong now. Perhaps they should have taken more time to plan, to work out contingencies. Maybe they were walking right into Vecna’s trap; maybe Mike was about to have his limbs snapped and his mind taken over like Max. Fear shot through him as he blindly laid back in the water, assisted by Will, until he was floating face-up and sightless.

But what choice did they have?

He felt Will pull his right hand over the lip of the tub until his fingers met El’s, and they interlocked. Somewhere in the room, a tape began to play. “That’s mine,” he said in surprise, hearing familiar synth begin.

“It’s a mix,” Will corrected, voice somewhere off to the side, but close. Mike’s free hand was taken too, and even blinded, Mike knew the shape of Will’s hand anywhere. “Robin’s been making dozens of mixes, apparently. This one has stuff for you, for Max, for El. Nothing for Holly, but we didn’t know what she likes.”

“I don’t either,” Mike answered, feeling a pang of guilt. If he’d just paid more attention…

“Focus, Mike,” El said quietly from his other side, fingers tightening around his. “Think of Max and Holly. Find a memory, and go into it. I will find you there.”

“What if I mess up?” Mike wondered, full of anxious dread. “What if I get us stuck, or—”

“We will not get stuck,” El said firmly. “I can guide us once we are inside, and Will and Mom can pull us out any time. This is not like the pizzeria,” she added softly, and Mike knew what she meant. The words he’d said to her, afraid and hating himself and unable to stop, had been lies. His and El’s bond was stronger than ever now that they weren’t kidding themselves about what it really was, but back then… “Now, Mike. You can do this.”

“I’m right here,” Will’s promised, accompanied by a squeeze of their hands. It was enough.

Mike began to remember.

***

The first thing that registered was that he was alone.

Mike wasn’t sure he’d done it right; Max should be here, and Holly, sitting in the basement with him. But everything else, from the smooth crayon in his hand, to the Ghostbusters theme playing on the TV, to the smell of the popcorn that he’d made for him and Max before Holly interrupted…it was so real.

“You did it,” El said softly from behind him.

Mike whipped around so fast that his neck twinged a little. It was El as she was now: hair natural and wavy, curling just beneath her shoulders, wearing a The Clash t-shirt she’d gotten into the tank with. She was bone-dry, as was Mike, and yet…if Mike focused, he could still feel the water lapping around his body, feel the phantom of Will’s hand clutching his left, and El’s softer grip in his right. It was disorienting, to say the least.

“Where are Max and Holly?” he asked instead of dwelling on it, still afraid of ruining it.

“It…” El frowned, looking around. “It does not…work like that. The memory is more of a…setting. If you were just remembering, it would not feel real, and Max and Holly would be as they were. But the way this works…we will come back here in a minute,” she said decisively. “For now, we have to move into a memory with Max and I. I asked her, last night, to stay in the mall if she can. The day I dumped your ass, remember? It is something that all three of us were part of; I thought that it would be the best option.”

Mike grinned at the memory. In retrospect, the entire ordeal was ridiculously funny. Mike, following Lucas’s lead like an idiot, only to fail so epically. His smile faded slightly, thinking of the aftermath with Will. Really, that summer had been Mike at his absolute worst.

“Good,” El told him, and the phantom hand in his became more real as she stepped close enough to take his hand here too. “Come on.”

She led him upstairs and through the basement door, but instead of opening up into the main floor of his house, they stepped into Starcourt Mall.

“This is so trippy,” Mike murmured, looking around in awe at the bright colors. It was empty of people here too, but he thought he could hear the echoes of laughter, of chatter, of hundreds of pairs of feet and rustling clothing. Some pop song he didn’t care for played loudly, twining with Kate Bush from the real world a little unpleasantly.

“Where are you guys?” Will’s disembodied voice startled him, echoey and somewhat staticky.

“The mall?” Mike didn’t mean for it to come out as a question, but he wasn’t sure what he had done to make Will hear him when he hadn’t seemed to hear him and El before. The pressure around his left hand increased a little, bringing him back into himself a little. It was contradictory, because by all means, Will should be distracting him, pulling him out of the memory. But Mike just felt anchored – anchored in his mind and in his body.

So trippy.

“Come on,” El repeated, dragging him quickly towards the GAP store. “This is where Max and I spent a lot of time.”

And, really, Mike thought it would take longer to find Max. He thought they would have to wander the mall for hours, or jump into a new memory. He thought that Vecna would somehow appear first, or that Will would have to yank them out and that the whole thing would fail.

He wasn’t expecting to walk through the huge doors to the GAP and see Max standing there, staring up at a mannequin with a bored expression on her face.

“Holy shit,” he gasped. “Max?”

She turned, eyes wide. “Mike?”

She looked like she had in the spring of 1986, on what would have been her last day awake. The longer she’d gone on in her coma, the more sunken her face had become, her body skinny and bony, hair dull; hospital nutrients through a vein could keep her alive, but it didn’t stop her from atrophying, though Lucas, Nancy, and Robin had taken to doing certain physical therapy exercises with her once her limbs healed so that she didn’t lose too much muscle. Mike had never participated, feeling awkward, but he’d watched enough. But this Max, she was alive. A little thin, like she hadn’t been eating enough (because she hadn’t, back then, and neither was Mike), but healthy. Herself.

“You’re really here,” Max breathed. “You guys found me.”

When she launched towards them, Mike fully expected her to fling herself into El’s arms. Maybe he and Max were closer now, but they weren’t very touchy, at least not with each other. So when she collided with him hard enough for a small oof to escape his lips, knocking him back forcefully enough that he had to let go of El’s hand, he almost didn’t hug her back. Over Max’s shoulder, El’s eyes were filling with tears, drinking in the sight of her best friend greedily. It was that, rather than Max’s embrace, that prompted Mike to wrap his arms securely around Max’s waist, squeezing so hard that he lifted her right off the ground.

“Oh my god,” Mike heard someone saying, over and over, and finally realized that it was himself. “Oh my god, oh my god—”

“She’s there?” Will’s voice said somewhere over their heads, tone urgent and hopeful. “You have Max?”

Max released Mike, looking around wildly. “Wait—Will?”

“He is not here,” El told her, and Max promptly about-faced and threw her arms around El too.

“How the hell did you guys do this?” Max finally asked, after clinging to El for several long moments. “I get why El is here, but how did you get here? Why can I hear Will? Where the hell are you guys?”

“It’s a long story,” Mike said, shifting on his feet, “but basically El is a genius and figured out how to bring me in, and Will is tethering me to the other side, and apparently you and me are actually good enough friends now that this whole thing is banking on that.”

“Goddamn it, Wheeler,” Max deadpanned, “I don’t want to owe you my life!” But her eyes were sparkling with joy and affection and, after a second, she hugged him again. Mike didn’t hesitate to hug back this time, rocking them back and forth on their heels a few times. “So how are we getting Holly?” she questioned when she’d let go again, looking between Mike, El, and the ceiling, as though Will might appear there. “I talked to her again briefly, after you told me to try and stay here,” and she was talking more to El now. “I had to leave a couple of times to distract Vecna from her. She still wouldn’t come with me, and as far as I know, she’s still in his awful fucking house, but he’s sort of torn between us right now and can’t really keep an eye on us both. I wanted to try to buy her time to escape—”

“Is she okay?” Mike choked out, grabbing Max’s hand with his left and simultaneously feeling Will’s grip tighten. He still wasn’t sure how much Will was hearing, but he must at least know how distressed Mike is for him to be reacting like that.

“She’s scared shitless,” Max said bluntly, but her face softened sympathetically. “I tried to explain the memory thing to her, but I don’t think she gets it. I’ve only gotten a few minutes with her two or three times. She knows enough to run from him though.”

“Can you take us to her?” El cut in, eyes wide. “I think I can pull all of us out, but Holly will need to be able to move into a memory for it to work.”

Something like fear flashed across Max’s face. “He might be there,” she warned, voice wavering slightly. “He was chasing me, but he might have gone back if he decided I wasn’t worth it. He likes to talk to us,” and she looked at Mike now. “I can take it, but Holly…I heard him tell her that you’re going to die, Mike, and it’ll be her fault. You shouldn’t – it’s good to see you, but you really shouldn’t be here.”

“We didn’t have a choice,” El said firmly. “No one but Mike had a strong memory of you and Holly together.”

“And I wasn’t going to leave her,” Mike added defiantly. “Or you, for that matter. I’ve been pretty fucking useless since all of this started, but if this is the most I can do, then I’ll do it.”

Max shook her head, clearly unimpressed, but before she could say anything, Will’s voice echoed, “You and me are going to have to have a talk about your self-esteem, Michael.”

“Okay, seriously, how is he hearing all of this?” Mike said to El. “We couldn’t hear what you were saying unless you wanted us to.”

El shrugged, but her eyes were twinkling a little beyond the anxiety filling her face. “You two are the closest friends I have ever seen; there is a reason that he is the one tethering you, and why we were not supposed to be together.”

“El,” Mike said, jaw dropping in dismay.

“You guys broke up?” came from Max at the same time, utterly gleeful.

“Later,” El told her, smiling conspiratorially. “Right now, we need to find Holly.”

“Right, yeah,” Max said, turning serious again. “Okay.” She grabbed Mike and El’s hands, taking a deep breath. “El, you probably remember it, but Mike, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Vecna’s lair before…don’t let go of my hand, okay? We’re going to have to move fast.”

Before they could move back towards the entrance to the GAP, Will spoke again, tone shifting from lighthearted teasing to something darker that filled Mike with dread. “Whatever the others are doing, it’s working,” he said. Mike imagined his free hand rising to the back of his neck, perhaps looking at Joyce across the two tubs with unfocused eyes. “He’s – he’s pissed. I think…I think they must be getting close.”

“That’ll be the diversion!” someone – Robin, Mike thought, which meant that Dustin and Murray were the ones to actually drive the WSQK van to the gate like they’d planned – said faintly, sounding much further away than Will. “How’s it going over there, guys?”

Too many moving parts for Mike to keep track of, but he tried now, and the world began to blur around him slightly. For a moment, the mall flickered, ebbing into the pitch black of the goggles a few times. “Shit, Mike, no, focus,” Will, sounding less echoey, said urgently. Beside Mike, Max yanked on his hand, tugging him towards her, and at the same time, he felt Will’s fingers interlock with his, curling his arm until Mike could feel a faint heartbeat rabbiting against the back of his hand.

“Don’t you fucking leave me here, Wheeler,” Max warned. “I will never let you live it down if you fuck this up.”

“And how would you manage that?” Mike snarked, blinking rapidly a few times until the image of the mall sharpened, becoming real again. “You’d be here, and I’d be there.”

“If I die, I will haunt your ass.” Max’s tone was harsh, but when Mike looked over at her, he saw the terror of being left behind etched across her features. He squeezed her hand apologetically, and felt his fingers tighten around Will’s too, and stopped trying to think too hard about it all.

“Trust them,” El murmured from Max’s other side. “They can do this.”

“Let’s go.” And Max pulled them both back towards the center of the mall, towards the entrance, into the parking lot—

Well, that’s horrifying, Mike thought.

The world around them melted into a red, swirling haze. Pieces of a house hung in the air, floating seemingly aimlessly about. But the worst part was the bodies – people Mike only vaguely recognized as a friend of Nancy’s on the Hawkins High newspaper, a cheerleader, and a guy who had been on the basketball team with Lucas. Fred, Chrissy, and Patrick. All three were strung up against tall pillars that seemingly towered so high that they disappeared into the red mist above, limbs twisted and eyes melted out of their skulls. A fourth pillar stood empty, vines hanging lifelessly from it like they’d lost their purpose. From the way Max averted her gaze, Mike figured that was where Vecna had hoisted her up that day.

Speaking of – Vecna wasn’t here as far as Mike could tell. Granted, he didn’t know what Vecna was supposed to look like outside of a vague description from El (Nancy outright refused to speak of her experience). Beside him, Max exhaled forcefully, like she had been holding her breath in anticipation.

In the very center of everything, crouched with hands covering her ears and eyes squeezed shut, was Holly.

“Holly,” Mike breathed, and neither El nor Max tried to stop him when he dashed forward, stumbling slightly in his hurry. “Holly, oh my God.” He skidded to a halt next to her, bending down to pick her up in the same motion—

“No!” Holly shrieked, scrambling backwards.

“Holls—” Mike tried, stomach plummeting.

“Don’t touch me!” she sobbed, holding a hand out when he tried to step towards her. Mike stopped dead, chancing a glance back at Max and El. El looked confused, but Max…Max looked devastated, and beneath that, resigned. “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me…” Holly’s face crumpled, tears streaming down her face as she curled back in on herself, hand still outstretched as if to keep Mike away.

“Holly,” he whispered, kneeling down slower this time. For the second time that day, Mike felt like his heart was about to snap right in half. First it had been Will, shocked and confused and something Mike couldn’t figure out, but surely nothing good. Now it was Holly, crying so hard he thought she might vomit, refusing to let him come any closer. Refusing to let him protect her the way he should have.

God, but Mike needed to fix at least one of those things.

“Holly, look at me,” he tried again, ducking his head to try and make eye contact. “It’s me, okay? It’s me. I’m sorry I let him take you – I should have been there, I know, I’m so sorry—”

“You killed my dad,” Holly whimpered, still avoiding his pleading gaze. “You killed my mom, and Nancy, and Mike, and everyone—just make it stop, make it stop, please!”

“I’m here, Holls.” Mike felt tears slipping down his cheeks now too, hardly able to bear the combined weight of Holly’s fear and his own. From the corner of his eye, he saw Max and El edging closer, the former laser-focused on Mike and Holly, the latter peering around cautiously. He trusted El to keep them safe for now, and that Will would know if Vecna was coming back, and kept looking straight at Holly. “I’m right here. I’m real, I’m alive. Whatever that asshole’s been showing you, it’s not real. All of this?” He waved a hand as if to encompass their surroundings and Holly’s eyes followed it warily. “It’s just in his head.”

“You mean in my head,” Holly corrected, and then clamped her mouth shut and closed her eyes.

“No, I mean in his head,” Mike told her. He took the opportunity to shift closer on his heels, until all Holly would have to do was lean forward for her little hand to touch his shoulder. “That’s where we are right now: in Vecna’s head. That’s what we call him. He has other names, like One or Henry, but we call him Vecna.”

“He doesn’t look like he did in my dreams,” Holly whispered, eyes still closed. Her tears were slowing, but she was shivering so hard she was practically vibrating. “He looked like a man in one of those old movies Mom likes. I called him—I called him Mr. Whatsit, because he wouldn’t tell me his name. He just…talked to me. But he got really mean, and the dreams got really bad…” She raised her head, just enough to peer at Mike. “He kept telling me that you were gonna die, and then that thing got me, and…and…I can’t leave,” she cried out, the tears beginning anew. “Mike, I can’t get out, and you aren’t real—”

This time, when Mike moved towards her, she didn’t run away. Mike wasted no time, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her up despite the fact that she was almost certainly too big for it now. “I’m real,” he promised. “I’m real, and I’m going to get you out of here. Okay? Me and Max and El are here to get you out.”

“Guys,” Will’s voice resounded in warning, “the others have Holly in the Upside Down. Robin says they’re coming back; if you’re going to get out, you need to do it now.”

“Okay,” Mike said, setting Holly down and kneeling again to put his hands on her shoulders. “Okay Holls, we’re going to play a game. It’s an easy one.”

“You always cheat at games with me,” Holly pouted, briefly overcoming her terror. The mist was beginning to swirl menacingly around them.

“You know how I keep leaving, Holly?” Max said, kneeling down too. Behind them, El put a hand on both Mike and Max’s shoulders. “It’s because I keep going into my memories. Vecna – Mr. Whatsit – he can’t get me there. I tried to teach you, but I did it wrong. I kept telling you to go into your own, but I should have just brought you with me. I’m sorry, I’m so dense sometimes.” She kept her tone light, but Mike could hear the underlying urgency.

“You’re smarter than Mike,” Holly mumbled.

“That is incredibly rude,” Mike said, pretending to be offended, “but not the point right now. The point is, Holls, we’re going to go into a memory now: yours, and mine, and Max’s. Remember New Years Eve when you were in kindergarten? Mom and Dad had that really boring party with Dad’s work friends, so we watched Sleeping Beauty and played Go Fish and colored? And Max came over too?”

“Yes,” Holly sniffled.

“Well, I need you to think about that night really hard,” Mike told her, squeezing her hand in emphasis, “okay? Focus on it as hard as you can.”

“But why?”

“Because we’re going to go there,” Max said, looking up in alarm as lightning split the red sky above. “All you have to do is remember it, and we’ll get you there. Okay?”

“Mike, you have thirty seconds or we’re pulling you out,” Will warned. His voice was trembling a little.

“Don’t leave!” Holly wailed, clutching onto Mike until he lifted her back up into his arms.

“I won’t,” Mike swore, hating himself for making that promise when he knew he was at Will’s mercy. “Close your eyes, Holls. Think of New Years Eve.” He turned on his heel as Max began to guide him by his elbow, pulled along herself by El, whose nose was starting to bleed. Mike didn’t know what she was doing, but he imagined she was keeping Vecna at bay somehow. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up, a horrible chill running through his body, but he kept walking.

“Mike, he’s coming!” Will yelled.

“Mike,” Holly sobbed.

“Hold onto me, Holly,” Mike murmured, holding his baby sister so tightly it must hurt. “Don’t open your eyes, just remember New Years Eve, we’re almost there, we’re almost—”

“Michael,” a deep voice boomed, overpowering Holly’s whimpers in his ear. “Max.”

“Mike!” Will weeped.

For a heart-stopping moment, Mike felt like he hit an invisible wall, unable to push past the last of the floating furniture’s invisible barrier. In front of him, Max whirled around, eyes wide with terror. But then El, without looking back, raised a hand and slashed it across her own body with a shriek of anger, and they all stumbled forward and—

Right into Mike’s basement.

“We don’t have much time,” El gasped, blood flowing freely from her nose now and into her mouth as she spoke. “Will?”

“Robin’s calling the others,” Joyce’s voice, further away than Will’s but not as far as Robin’s before, said steadily. “The Upside Down group is almost back to the gate; Lucas has Max’s music ready. Hold on for one more minute.”

“Mom—” Will began. Mike could feel the death grip Will had on his hand, like he was ready to throw caution to the wind and end this all himself.

“Will, I am not leaving without Holly and Max!” Mike shouted, hugging Holly closer.

“Where’s Will?” she whispered, pulling her face from his neck to peer around the basement, as though Will was waiting in a corner. For now, she didn’t seem inclined to question the change in setting. “Why can I hear him?”

It occurred to Mike that, if this worked, she was about to jolt awake in her own body, and Mike would decidedly not be there. “Holly,” he said, setting her down so that he could look her in the eyes again. “I need you not to be afraid, okay? In a few seconds, we’re going to pull you out of here, but when you wake up, you’ll be with Nancy. She’s bringing you back; I’ll see you when you guys get back.”

“I don’t want you to leave,” Holly cried, clutching at his shirt desperately.

“It’ll just be for a few minutes,” Mike soothed her, trying so hard to keep his expression even. What if it didn’t work? What if Will and Joyce pulled him and El back out, and Lucas got Max, but Holly didn’t wake up? What if Vecna caught up? What if—

“They’re through!” Robin said sharply. “They’re back!”

The basement was flickering around them, one of Will’s arms wrapping around Mike’s shoulders. “It’ll be okay,” he said to Holly. Next to him, Max vanished, and the basement rumbled. From somewhere far away, he thought he heard a roar of rage. “It’s okay, Holly, it’s okay—” El disappeared too, mouth open in an alarmed shout. “Wake up now, wake up—”

Mike’s eyes flew open and he immediately began to hyperventilate, forgetting for a moment why he was blind. A second later, he was blinded again, this time by bright light, forcing his eyes shut as Will ripped the goggles off his face and hauled him bodily out of the tank. They tumbled right to the floor, Mike landing on top of Will in a tangle of limbs. His teeth slammed painfully together when his chin hit Will’s shoulder and he wheezed when Will’s elbow dug into his stomach. “Oh my god,” Will was saying, wrestling Mike into a sitting position before he had quite figured out how to move his limbs again. “Holy shit, Mike, holy shit—” Mike felt hands on either side of his face and a forehead pressing hard into his own and, when he opened his eyes, Will’s face slowly swam into focus, way too close and making Mike’s heart skip. “You are never doing that again,” Will growled the moment he realized that Mike had come back to himself. “Never again.”

Mike was inclined to agree with him; all he could do for a minute was clutch Will’s wrists where he still cradled Mike’s face, gasping for air as he regained the ability to control his own body, his real body. Jesus Christ, if this was what El went through every time she did this…

There was too much going on; Robin was speaking from across the room, too fast to understand; Vickie bounced anxiously between her girlfriend and the group of wet bodies on the floor; he heard El and Joyce speaking softly to each other; and Will wasn’t letting go of Mike. If anything, he was folding Mike even closer, pulling him between his legs rather like how he had held Mike in the hospital a week ago. “You’re here,” Will murmured into Mike’s hair, arms wrapped securely around Mike’s torso. “It’s okay, you’re here.”

“Are you okay?” Mike asked hoarsely. It registered that he was shivering from the chill of wet clothes clinging to his skin now, but Will was practically vibrating against him. He wondered how Will was even conscious at this point; there was blood smeared on his face and he looked seconds away from passing out, but he just kept holding Mike, hands moving over Mike’s skin like he was making sure he was real.

“Am I okay?” Will said disbelievingly, pulling away just enough to meet Mike’s eyes. “He almost got you, and you’re asking me if I’m okay?”

“Obviously,” Mike answered, the word barely even a breath. He felt himself fading a little bit, slumping further into Will. He couldn’t go to sleep yet though, not when he didn’t know—

A shock of red hair appeared in his vision, and for a wild moment, Mike thought it was Max. But it was just Vickie, holding a Walkie Talkie up to his and Will’s bent heads. “Listen,” she said gently, and released the button.

“Hey guys,” a weak voice crackled, staticky and quiet, but unmistakable. “Guess I owe you one, Mike.”

“Max.”

Robin bounded over as well, grinning hugely. “They’re back,” she announced. Mike didn’t have time to ask who? before the door slammed open so hard that it bounced off the wall.

“Mike!”

“Hey, Holls,” he said sleepily. Will’s arms were slackening around him, evidently losing his battle to stay awake. “Told you I’d get you out.”

He succumbed to unconsciousness with his head on Will’s shoulder and his baby sister’s arms wrapped around his neck.

***

Annoyingly, Mike, Will, and El had to wait two more days before they could go to the hospital to see Max.

The adults (namely Joyce and Hopper) decided it would be easiest to keep an eye on the three of them while they recovered if they just stayed at WSQK. When Mike woke up, a solid twelve hours after being unceremoniously yanked out of the mindscape, Nancy and Holly were sitting by his cot, seemingly just waiting for him to open his eyes. Across the small room, Will was already sitting up in his own cot, playing poker with Jonathan and Steve. Mike felt a pang of longing, wishing that he’d woken up in the same bed as Will, until he remembered what he did. What he said. Will wasn’t going to want that anymore; Mike had to get used to sleeping—and waking up—alone again.

To distract himself, he begged to go see Max. But Nancy was insistent that he rest, and he contented himself with a brief conversation via Walkie. For this, Will stumbled over to sit next to him on the cot, heads bent together to hear her voice better. Holly, after a minute, climbed up as well to thank Max for helping her escape “the bad man’s house.” Max tired out quickly, drifting back to sleep (real sleep), so Lucas and Dustin filled them in on her condition.

Given that she’d been in Vecna’s mindscape and running for her life as long as she had, she was significantly more exhausted than Mike and Will were. Which was completely fair, in Mike’s opinion. What was not fair was that she had woken up blind and partially paralyzed, though the doctors were optimistic that the paralysis was temporary. The blindness, well. It was unlikely she would ever see much more than shadows again.

According to Lucas, when Max was awake to talk about it, she was taking it surprisingly well. “She keeps complaining about owing you,” Lucas said fondly.

“We can call it even,” Mike told him. “She helped us save Holly; this is her one freebie.”

The good thing about Nancy and Jonathan hovering was that he wasn’t left alone with Will. Even when night fell again, they just pulled up chairs and settled by their respective siblings’ cots. (Mike was surprised that Joyce wasn’t there constantly too, but Hopper was putting his foot down, apparently. She and El were sharing El’s makeshift room for the time being.) It was a little irritating, when on the morning of the second day, Nancy was still hesitant to let him walk by himself to the bathroom. But she was providing a barrier between him and the unfinished conversation with Will.

Will was thinking about it too, Mike knew. He barely took his eyes off of Mike, all the way until they finally convinced Nancy and Jonathan to drive them to the hospital by that afternoon. Like he had in Steve’s car a few days ago, he sat in the middle of the bench seat, knee pressed solidly to Mike’s even though he could have easily put El between them. And Mike – Mike didn’t get it. Why was Will doing this? Did he think Mike was going to fall apart if Will outright rejected him? It would hurt like hell, but it already did, and Mike was living with it. He’d probably never fall in love with anyone else after this, but that was okay. Right now, he thought that, if Will just allowed the space that he undoubtedly wanted to put between them, they might recover enough to remain friends. Eventually. Maybe. But Will was sticking to him like glue, and Mike was torn between dragging it out and ripping off the band-aid, so to speak.

El, for her part, seemed to find the whole affair extremely amusing. Mike did not appreciate this.

It was coming though: the snap. By the time the three of them walked into Max’s room, Will was twisting his hands together impatiently, casting sideways glances at Mike and trying to catch his eye, walking so close behind that he kept stepping on Mike’s heels. And Mike needed to get it over with, he knew that, and he would. He would. But the déjà vu he’d felt for a split second, walking into that room, washed away as quickly as it came. Because Lucas was smiling, and Dustin was chattering about the different tricks she could learn with her wheelchair, more animated than he had been in well over a year, and Max, well.

Max was sitting up in bed, head turned in their direction, smiling broadly.

“About fucking time,” she said, holding out her arms.

Mike let El collapse into them first, sobbing as she clutched onto her friend. Max smoothed a hand over her hair, surprise flitting across her face at the length before it straightened out again. Mike thought that it must be disorienting, losing so much time. He didn’t get to dwell on it though, because Max was letting go of El with one hand and making an impatient, grabby motion. “If you two don’t get your asses over here and hug me, I’m ending our friendships.”

“We don’t want to squish you,” Will offered, but he nudged Mike forward and, together, they piled in as well.

“Holy shit, Byers, what the hell have they been feeding you?” Max dramatically felt up Will’s bicep before running a hand through his hair. “Your hair’s different too! What the hell?”

“The hair’s recent-ish,” Mike said absently, “but he’s been buff since California.”

“You think I’m buff?” Will said, sounding surprised. Shit, Mike needed to shut the fuck up.

Thankfully, Lucas came to Mike’s rescue. “Dude, the only other person here who can outlift you is me,” he said matter-of-factly. “You’re, like, stupid buff.”

“This is so unfair,” Max lamented, flinging herself back onto her pillows dramatically. “Will got hot and I can’t even see it—”

“I did not,” Will argued, looking redder by the second.

“You did,” Lucas and Dustin said together.

“Ditching the bowl cut?” Dustin went on. “Amazing choice. The ladies of Hawkins can’t keep their eyes off you, dude.”

“The ones in California couldn’t either,” El added sagely.

Jealousy shot through Mike’s body, even though he had no right to feel that way. He made to get off Max’s bed and finally put some space between him and Will, who had yet to take a hand off of Mike in some form or fashion despite Max and El being between them, but Max curled a hand into his shirt before he could get very far and wrapped an arm around his neck again. “I’m not done,” she grumbled, and then, quiet enough that the others wouldn’t hear, “Don’t be stupid, Wheeler, he likes you back.”

“Shut up,” Mike mumbled, but let her pull him around until Will and El had to move to one of the several chairs scattered around her bed to make room for Mike to perch a little awkwardly on the edge of the tiny bed with an arm around Max’s shoulders as she leaned comfortably into his side. The touchiness was still a little unexpected, coming from her, but Mike had never been one to complain about physical closeness with his friends (as bad as it sounded, that had been the only reason he’d made out with El so much; not because he particularly enjoyed the kissing, but because he felt wanted). Besides, once Max got over the whole Mike was a key part in saving her life thing, she’d probably go back to pushing his buttons and trying to piss him off.

Once she seemed satisfied with their position, Max started asking Will and El questions about what she’d missed in the last year and nine months. Mike cast a cautious look at Lucas, nervous about what he would think of Max’s clinginess to someone who was decidedly not her boyfriend(?), and had lied (by omission) about hanging out with her for so long to boot. But Lucas didn’t seem fazed at all, just settled in a chair on Mike’s other side and put his feet up on the bed so that they overlapped Mike’s and Max’s legs. Still, Mike tilted his head towards him and murmured, “We’re good, right?”

Lucas laughed, barely drawing anyone else’s attention. “Dude, we’re fine,” he insisted, punching Mike’s shoulder gently. “It just would have been good to know that I didn’t have to worry about you two as much as I did freshman year. And, no offense, but I’d be much more worried about El moving in on my girl than you. You’ve obviously got your eye on someone else.” And, to Mike’s horror, he cast a subtle look at Will, whose eyes kept darting over to Mike every few seconds like he was making sure Mike was still there.

Mike did not like his feelings for Will being clocked twice by two of his best friends in very short succession. “Dude.” Did everyone know that Mike was hopelessly in love with Will? Had he really been that shitty at hiding it?

Apparently, the answer was yes, because Lucas just smirked at him knowingly before joining in when El started telling Max about their first attempt to rescue her in the spring.

Mike did his best to stay present, talking at all the right moments and laughing when necessary, but he was acutely aware of Will’s staring becoming more and more blatant. The tension between them stretched like a rubber band ready to snap at the slightest provocation, and while Mike was more than happy continuing to test its limits, Will was evidently losing patience. Exactly forty-seven minutes after their arrival in Max’s hospital room, Will stood abruptly. The scrape of the chair silenced everybody as they looked at him expectantly.

“I need to talk to Mike for a minute,” he said, tone leaving no room for argument.

“Can’t it wait?” Mike said weakly anyway. The glare Will shot at him was answer enough, and he grudgingly detangled himself from the mass of limbs that he, Max, and Lucas had become and rounded the bed. Will grabbed his wrist and tugged him out of the room, and as they went, he heard Max mutter to the others, “Anyone else sort of wish they’d have this conversation with us here?”

“Not if it’s going to end in them making out,” Lucas replied, smirk evident in his voice.

“What are you guys even talking about?” Dustin asked, earning himself a collective groan.

The door shut before they could hear anything else.

They passed Jonathan and Nancy in the waiting room on that floor. Will ignored Jonathan’s questioning glance as he continued to pull Mike along, sparing Nancy a, “We’re good, just need to talk about something,” when she asked where they were going. Will said nothing else until they had gotten outside of the hospital and rounded the corner of the building, coming to a little fenced-off courtyard that, thankfully, no one else occupied right then. Then, and only then, did he release Mike’s wrist, turning instead to fix Mike with an intense expression that Mike couldn’t make out.

Here it is, Mike thought unhappily. “Will—”

“Did you mean it?” Will said urgently. And…that wasn’t what he was supposed to say. Or sound like. Or look like. “That you…?”

Mike frowned, hopelessly confused. “What, that I love you?” Will stood close enough that Mike could see him stop breathing at the words. It didn’t make sense, none of it made sense. But Mike kept speaking anyway, mildly offended that Will was really questioning his feelings right now. “Yeah, I meant it. I wouldn’t joke about that, Will, but—”

Anything else Mike might have said was smothered by Will kissing him hard. It was slightly off center, given that he caught Mike mid-word and Mike wasn’t ready for it, but he slid a hand over Mike’s jaw and tilted his head down a little, and oh. That was – Mike felt like his brain was melting, a little bit, torn between shock, and confusion, and hope, and—

Will pulled back slightly, pressing his forehead to Mike’s. “Michael Wheeler, if you don’t kiss me back right now—”

“God, right, okay—”

Mike wasn’t any more prepared for it than before, but he wrapped both arms around Will’s waist all the same and slotted their mouths together like he’d thought about doing for what was probably years by now. It didn’t feel like a first kiss, not with how Will pressed into Mike’s body until Mike’s back hit the wall behind him, nor the way Will wound the fingers of one hand through his hair. It felt…familiar, easy, but so, so new all the same. Mike wasn’t sure how he had gone so long without this, and he didn’t know if he'd ever be able to do so again.

But— “Are you sure?” he asked, tearing away so he could look Will in the eyes. Will, for his part, looked slightly crazed, eyes wide and hazy and darting from Mike’s own, down to his mouth, and back up again like he didn’t know where to look. If Will looked like that after only being kissed for less than a minute, Mike wasn’t going to survive this. He looked wrecked, which was about how Mike felt, so maybe that was fair.

“Am I sure?” Will scoffed in disbelief. “The hell kind of question is that?”

“You try kissing the person you’ve wanted to be with for longer than you even knew!” Mike said defensively, wanting to shrink in on himself but unable to, not with Will standing chest-to-chest with him and nudging their noses together like he was thinking about shutting Mike up with his mouth again.

“I am!”

“You – huh?” Mike said intelligently. What?

“Jesus, you are so dense sometimes, I swear to God,” Will muttered. He punctuated the words with another kiss, far too brief for Mike’s liking. “Everything you said at Steve’s house? It’s the same for me, except you said you can’t pinpoint a moment, and I can.”

“You…you love me?” Mike kind of hated how small his voice sounded right now, insecurity and awe bleeding out and filling the miniscule space left between them. He wasn’t sure he could be blamed though, not when he had been expecting Will to, at best, let the distance grow between them until they were more friends of friends than actual friends themselves.

“Mike, I made you a painting in which you are quite literally my knight in shining armor,” Will told him, looking extremely unimpressed. “I know you know by now that El did not commission that.”

Mike did know, had known even before he and El broke up, but he sort of figured that if Will lied about the things El supposedly said, then he didn’t mean them at all. The painting was still dear to Mike, still hung proudly on his wall as a physical representation of the friendship he and Will had rebuilt, as well as Lucas and Dustin. But now Will was looking at Mike like he wanted to crawl into his chest and live there, and it was remarkably similar to how Will had been looking at him for…years, really. Less than before, but Mike wondered if he just hadn’t been looking for it, utterly convinced that it wasn’t a possibility.

“To be fair,” Mike started.

“If you’re about to say I’m oblivious too, you can shove it,” Will interrupted him, smirking slightly. “You had a girlfriend that you were obsessed with and you ignored me for a year.”

“Okay, but see, I actually did call you in California, like, constantly, the line was just busy, and I know El told you to call me back because I asked her to ask you in my letters to her. Secondly, the only reason I didn’t write to you was because, as you said in one of your couple of letters, letters are hard. Either you say too much or not enough, and I always remember stuff I wanted to say after they’re already sent, and if I knew they were going to you, I wanted it to be perfect, so I just…didn’t send any at all.” He could see that he was sort of blowing Will’s mind a little bit by the way his jaw dropped slightly and his hand tightened in Mike’s hair, inadvertently sending a bolt of heat down his spine, which was so not the time, Jesus Christ. “Also, Will, I adore them, but I would not offer to share my bed with Lucas and Dustin unless there was literally no other option, and if I did, there would be a pillow wall, and absolutely no cuddling whatsoever.”

“You were just cuddling with Max!”

“Do you really think I’m harboring secret romantic feelings for Max?” It was Mike’s turn to be unimpressed.

“You’ve been harboring them for me,” Will grumbled, but he was grinning.

Rather than take the bait, Mike kissed him again, squeezing Will’s hip and nudging his fingers underneath his slightly untucked shirt to touch the warm skin of his side. It had the desired effect of Will’s mouth dropping open enough for Mike to run his tongue across Will’s bottom lip, pulling a quiet whine from his throat.

“But seriously,” because Mike, in this instance, was going to need explicit confirmation that Will at least felt a fraction of what Mike felt for him (not that kind of explicit, though Mike wouldn’t be opposed if Will wasn’t, at some point), “you, uh…”

“Oh my God.” Will laughed, head thrown back and utterly beautiful. I want to keep him, Mike thought absently. “I love you too, you absolute idiot.”

“Cool,” Mike said breathlessly, and pulled Will back in.

Bonus

“So,” Dustin said, steepling his fingers under his chin and looking like he was solving an incredibly complex mathematical equation, “you guys are telling me that Mike and Will have been secretly pining for each other and I didn’t notice?” Lucas, Max, and El all nodded with varying expressions of seriousness (El) and exasperation (Max). “No way, there’s no way I would have missed that!”

“Dude,” Lucas groaned, “you still think that Steve and Robin are secretly dating, even when it’s stupidly obvious that they aren’t. Also, you’re the one who pointed out that Mike has a, and I quote, ‘Will voice’ that he does not use with anyone else! How are you missing this?” He turned to look at El. “When you and Mike broke up, you told me you thought he had feelings for someone, but you wouldn’t say who, right? Not that you should tell us, because that would be totally out of line! But come on, back me up!”

“Mike has always been different with Will,” El confirmed, smiling a mysterious little smile. “There is a reason that Will was his anchor in retrieving Max and Holly. I do not think it is a…coincidence?” She tapped Max’s hand and Max nodded an affirmative. “A coincidence that Will could hear everything that Mike was saying in the mindscape too, even when Mike didn’t intend for him to.”

“They have absolutely zero concept of personal space, either of them,” Lucas added.

“Mike was just cuddling with Max!” Dustin protested, flinging an arm out.

“Ew,” Max said, wrinkling her nose. “Don’t imply that he’s in love with me, that’s disgusting. Also,” and she tugged El up on the bed and tucked herself into El’s side, “you going to try to imply that me and El are in love too? Maybe I just like platonic touch, Dusty-Bun.”

“Don’t call me that, how many times—”

Lucas briefly noted that El’s face went slightly pink and puzzled, glancing down at Max as she and Dustin bickered. Interesting, he thought, remembering his earlier comment to Mike about El moving in on his girl. It had been a joke, but maybe…

Something to think about, but Lucas didn’t necessarily think he was upset about it.

“God, someone open a window, it’s so stuffy in here,” Max said finally, dismissing Dustin’s squawk of offense at being interrupted.

“Are you sure?” El asked, shifting a little like she was trying to get comfortable. “It is very cold outside.”

“Well, God knows when they’ll actually let me go outside, so I’ll take whatever fresh air I can get.”

Lucas acquiesced, moving to open the window. There was a screen over it, but he could see down into the little courtyard a couple of floors below, and… “Hey Dustin,” he said, grinning. “Get over here.”

Dustin’s unintelligible grumbles came to an abrupt stop when he joined Lucas at the window and peered outside. “I hate all of you,” he decided, but couldn’t quite stop the surprised, gleeful smile spreading across his face at the sight of Mike and Will making out.