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Mike wasn’t sure why his world tilted on its axis the moment Will said it. It shouldn’t have mattered. Will was Will, and Mike didn’t care about the rest of it. He didn’t!
I don’t like girls.
Those words began haunting him the moment they were out, so much so that he almost missed the implication that came after.
Will had had a crush.
On him.
In retrospect, perhaps it had been obvious. Maybe Mike had always known, somewhere deep down in the darkest chasms of his chest, locked in a vault marked ‘Do not enter’. But Mike hadn’t thought about it, even if he’d known that vault existed, even if it had pushed against his heart, frantically banging for him to crack the door open and bask in the information locked inside.
Mike hadn’t thought about it. He’d turned his head and his heart until his denial was so strong, Will finally confessing the truth sucker punched him right in the gut.
He didn’t know how to react. He should have been the first to assure Will that he would never go anywhere, but it took Lucas and Dustin beating him to it before Mike’s brain booted up enough for him to act. And even then, it was autopilot guiding him, his brain too busy trying to make sense of everything going on inside it:
Will didn’t like girls.
Will liked him. Or, had—that part was unclear. Mike wasn’t sure if the tightness in his chest came from Will liking him or not knowing if Will still liked him. It shouldn’t matter, should it? He loved Will as a friend, no matter what, but it was El he was in love with.
But was he, really? Mike had always told himself that, yes, of course he was. El was his everything. His world. But something had always been missing. Wrong. And if it hadn’t, then, why now, when faced with Will’s confession, was Mike doubting everything he’d ever thought he knew? Why was his heart thudding in his chest as he watched Will hug people who weren’t him, as he watched Will glance his way and then look away just as quickly.
As he watched Will.
Will, who’d had a crush on him.
Will, who believed that Mike wasn’t like him.
And Mike wasn’t like him… was he?
But if he wasn’t, then why did it hurt so much? Why had the vault in his chest had its door ripped from its hinges, battering his rib cage as it was discarded?
And why, above all else, did Mike suddenly feel like he was mourning the loss of the world? His world that was meant to be El.
If she really was all Mike wanted—needed—then why did he feel like this?
Lost.
Hopeless.
Alone.
Everyone was leaving the room, ready to get on with saving the world, and Mike was just standing there, numb, feeling like his world had just imploded. Like they’d already lost the battle, and the others just hadn’t realised yet.
“Will,” he croaked, the name escaping his lips before the boy in question could flee the room without a backwards glance.
“We don’t have to talk about it, Mike,” Will said softly. His eyes were still full of tears, and Mike found himself wanting to reach up and brush them away. “I… I would rather we didn’t.”
But what if Mike needed to talk about it? Was that selfish of him? To demand that Will put his comfort aside so Mike could make sense of the burning debris raining down upon him?
Will had caused it all, though, hadn’t he? He’d been the sorcerer who’d ripped free the vault door with his mind, resulting in the carnage falling around him, threatening to knock Mike from his feet.
Mike thought, perhaps, he was owed something.
So, he asked, “How long?”
“Mike—” Will was backing up, his eyes darting to the exit like he thought he might make a break for it. Had Mike not proven time and time again that he’d follow Will everywhere?
“I need to know how long,” Mike said, practically pleaded.
How long had Will been banging on the door? How long had Mike ignored him before Will had finally just ripped it from its hinges?
How long had he been an idiot?
“Does it matter?”
“Yes!” Will flinched at the ferocity of Mike’s answer, and Mike softened, wanting to reach out but afraid to. “It matters to me, Will. Please.”
Why did it matter, though? Why did Mike care? His mind was a tornado, and Mike couldn’t make sense of a damn thing right now. Perhaps, more than anything else, that was why he needed to know. When everything else was chaos, Mike needed to understand at least one thing.
Right now, he was rolling nat 1s. Will had the ability to boost his turn enough that he could survive what came next.
After that?
…Mike wasn’t sure what came after that.
He’d worry about it later, after the storm had calmed and Mike understood his own mind a little better. That was a thing that would happen, right?
Eventually?
Right now, though— “Please, Will,” he begged. Will’s eyes locked on his, and they softened. There was still fear in them, but there was something else, too. Something Mike wanted to grasp and hold onto for dear life.
“Almost from the beginning, I think,” Will said, his voice soft. “I didn’t understand it to begin with, not properly. As it grew, it became clearer and clearer, until I was sure.”
“How did you grow it?” Mike didn’t know why he needed to know so badly. He felt like the answer could solve everything, so long as Will was willing to provide it.
“I don’t know,” Will said, clearly uncomfortable, clearly desperate to be anywhere but there. Desperate to be anywhere but with Mike. And didn’t that just hurt more than anything else that had happened over the past few years? “It just happened. How did you know you were in love with El?”
I don’t know, Mike thought, desperately. I’ve never really known.
Not in any certain way. Not enough to be sure.
How could one ever really be sure of anything, anyway? Mike had always thought he was certain of everything, but he’d been naive. He’d been clueless.
And now the world he thought he understood pretty well made no damn sense at all.
“We need to go,” Will said, sounding choked. “We need to finish this.”
“And after?”
“Will there be an after?”
“Of course there will!” He’d been wrong about so much, but Mike wasn’t wrong about that. They’d have an After, all of them. They’d beat Vecna and save the day. And after—
“After, we can go back to normal,” Will promised. He smiled hopefully at the suggestion, and Mike hated that his heart sunk. What was wrong with him?!
“The same as before?”
Will’s smile dropped. “You don’t want to?”
Yes.
No?
Mike wasn’t sure. He didn’t know how to answer, not quite yet.
But Will looked like he was going to cry again, and there was nothing worse than seeing Will cry.
“I want it to be better,” Mike admitted. That was answer enough for now. It was the best Mike had in him, and, it seemed, it was enough. Will’s smile returned, his eyes sparkling with tears and hope. Mike smiled right back at him, bright and earnest. “Come on, Will the Wise. Let’s go save the day.” Mike held out his hand and, after a moment of wide-eyed hesitance, Will took it.
His world was still chaos, the tornado sweeping the contents of the vault round and around so that Mike couldn’t make heads nor tails of it all, but with his palm pressed against Will’s, Mike had at last found the eye of the storm.
The rest, he could figure out later.
First, they needed to save the world.
First, Mike needed to fix his world, whatever, or whoever, that might be.