Chapter Text
Things were getting better. A month or so after defeating Henry and closing the Upside Down — for real this time, that was the official word they were using. It was safer. Calmer. Sure it was a kind of “better” that meant everyone still glanced twice and weirdly at shadows or clocks, but hey, it was something.
The Byers and the Wheelers still lived in the same house. It had made sense after everything in Lenora and then the “great earthquake” as the town was calling it.
Joyce and Hopper, engaged to be married now, had been house hunting for their joint family, but until then, Joyce, Jonathan, and Will squeezed into one with the Wheelers. Some nights it felt warm and full. Some nights it felt like everyone was inches away from becoming a full fledged tornado.
Will sat in the basement with his sketchbook open across his knees. A fan hummed in the corner, lifting the loose papers taped to the wall.
He had drawn every day since it ended. Mostly small things. A hand gripping a railing, a backyard fence warped by summer heat, and most of all: Mike. He had drawn his other friends too, but Mike admittedly took up most of his pages and corner margins.
Most of his art was peaceful, now, not sketched out quickly in frantic stress, the weight of the things that used to chase him through his dreams now gone, finally. He tried not to think too hard about it all.
Upstairs, someone laughed at something on the television — it was Mike’s voice, sharp and bright. It reached the basement in thin threads. Will pressed the heel of his hand to his chest and breathed through the strange feeling that rose there. Not painful or pleasant. Just a reminder that something inside him kept trying to speak.
Robin had told him once that the worst thing she ever did was letting herself be scared. Letting herself imagine that her fear would last forever. How being scared of who she was was what had held her back from being free for so long. Will had nodded, and let her words come over his body full force later, flooding him with the warmth and acceptance he needed to free himself. It saved Mike then, and saved Will a bit more each day.
There was only one thing he knew he still needed to do now, and that was telling Mike the truth. Only the full, real truth, would set him completely free.
He wasn’t sure what would happen after that. He did not let himself imagine anything too detailed. He just wanted to finally have one moment where he was not carrying a whole half of his life behind his teeth.
Will closed the sketchbook and rested his hands on the cover. Above him, footsteps moved toward the stairs. The familiar rhythm made his pulse hitch. Mike always walked the same way, like he was hurrying toward something or away from it. Will could never tell which.
He listened as the steps paused at the top. The sound of a door easing open came soon after. Then Mike, was calling softly down the stairwell, asking if Will was coming up soon.
He looked at the clock. 9:17pm.
Will shut his eyes for a heartbeat, then told him yes.
Mike didn’t close the door behind him, leaving it open for Will when he was ready.
Will and Jonathan had shared the basement for awhile, but with everything that happened — with Mike almost dying, with Will almost dying, with feeling like they could be yanked away from this world so easily — they started to share Mike’s room, then, much to Will’s thrumming nerves, share Mike’s bed.
Will climbed the first then went around to and up second flight of stairs slowly. The hall lights were off except for the soft glow underneath the doors of each bedroom. It was definitely his imagination, but the light beneath Mike’s seemed almost brighter than all the rest as it spilled across the carpet in a long warm strip. Something in Will’s chest fluttered. Anxiousness? Excitement? He tried to breathe past it.
Mike was sitting on the edge of his bed, legs drawn up as he read a comic. He looked up when Will appeared in the doorway and reached over to set the comic on his nightstand. His hair was sticking up strangely from where he had clearly been running his hands through it, and he smiled like he had been waiting.
“You took forever,” Mike said, but the words came out gentle. Almost relieved. “How’s your drawing today turning out?”
“Good. Well, I guess I’ll know when it’s done. I have to add some details,” Will answered. He set his sketchbook on the desk before the trembling of his fingers would make him drop it.
Mike’s room felt too warm. Will tried to tell himself that the heat was just from the early summer evening pressing against the windows as May turned to June. Not from his own nerves.
Mike scooted back, patting the spot beside him like he always did. It had become instinct between them. They brushed their teeth together, made breakfast together, lied down in the same tangle of blankets... Nancy had teased them once about being worse than cats, always curled up in a heap or attached at the hip anywhere else. Mike had turned pink and said it was no big deal. Will had pretended not to hear the pounding of his own heart.
He crossed the room and sat down, careful to keep his knee from bumping Mike’s. Normally he didn’t think twice about that kind of thing. Tonight, he had to choose his actions carefully, and his words even more so.
“You okay?” Mike asked. He tilted his head a little, trying to see Will’s face. He was always good at noticing small shifts, even the ones Will wished he could hide.
“I’m fine,” Will said.
Mike watched him for a few seconds. Then he leaned back until he was lying against the pillows and glanced at the ceiling. He waited for Will to follow him down.
Will lay beside him, staring up at the same spot. They had done this a hundred nights already, only inches apart, sharing the quiet.
Somewhere in the house, a pipe rattled as heat settled in. The sound traveled faintly through the walls.
Mike shifted, his shoulder brushing Will’s. It was small, just a light touch of their arms. It didn’t feel small in Will’s chest.
“You sure you’re okay?” Mike asked again, softer. “You’re quiet. More than usual.”
Will turned his head. Mike’s face was only a breath away. His eyes were bright in the low light, full of that earnest, stubborn worry he always carried around like it was part of his bones. For a moment Will let himself look at him the way he always wanted to, with nothing held back, with every memory of every year they had survived pressed into the small space between them. It was likely the last time he’d get to look at him like this.
“I need to tell you something,” Will said. His voice sounded steady, somehow, though he felt anything but steady inside.
Mike shifted again. Not away. Closer, if anything. “Okay. Tell me.”
Will swallowed. He had imagined this being clean and simple. It was clearly already much harder than that.
His chest tightened. He looked down at his hands.
“Hey,” Mike said, and Will heard him sit up a bit. A moment later a hand rested lightly on his arm, gentle, never pushing. “You can tell me.”
Will closed his eyes for a second, hearing Robin’s voice in his head telling him the key to being free. Then softly, he opened them.
The world hadn’t suddenly changed around them. Mike was still there, warm and close, waiting with all the patience in him. He sat cross-legged now, one hand resting near Will’s on the blanket. Not touching, not inching closer, just there. A steady point in a room that felt too close and not close enough at the same time.
Will breathed in.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen when the demos went after you all,” he said quietly. “When Henry had me and just... said these awful things and then moments later seeing that thing leap for you?...” His fingers curled in the blanket.
Mike didn’t move except to lower his hand a little, closer to Will’s but still not touching. Listening with every part of himself. His lips and brow twitched the way it tended to do when something made him upset. He was remembering it. Will could tell by the way his shoulders pulled back a little, as if the memory lived somewhere deep between his lungs.
He drew in another breath, steadying himself.
“When I opened my eyes and used my powers for the first time, it wasn’t because I wasn’t scared,” he said. “I was. Terrified, actually. I thought I might lose you.” His voice thinned at the edges, eyes stinging with tears at the thought of it. “But then I remembered something Robin told me. About how she spent years being scared of herself. How that fear was heavier than anything else she carried.”
He let his hand fall flat against the blanket. This all felt like the moment before stepping into deep water. He took one step, then another, and kept going.
“So I tried it too,” Will said. “I stopped fighting myself. All the parts I kept trying to hide… I actually looked at them. Accepted them.” He swallowed. “And finally I felt lighter. Like something inside me finally let go.”
Mike swallowed too, the sound small in the quiet. He shifted closer, careful, trying not to startle anything fragile.
“I accepted myself,” Will said. “For the first time, I wasn’t running.”
The weight of the words settled through him, grounding and terrifying at once.
“And when I did that, I felt this… power. Not my powers, power. Just. Strength? Strength to decide who I wanted to be. And what I wanted to hold on to.”
Mike’s brows pulled together. His hands were twisted in the blanket now, like he was holding himself still, keeping himself from reaching out.
“Will,” he murmured softly, but Will kept going.
He turned his head, meeting Mike’s eyes. They were wide and dark, and Will could feel Mike listening with every part of him.
“When I reached for my powers that night, it wasn’t just to fight the demogorgons,” Will said quietly. “I don’t think I would’ve been strong enough if I hadn’t seen you. If I hadn’t almost lost you. Right there in front of me. If I hadn’t accepted what I’d been pushing down for so long.” He felt the words settle low in his chest. “Because the idea of losing you? That scared me more than anything else ever has. More than Henry. More than the Upside Down. More than myself.”
A small, helpless laugh slipped out of him. “And, you know… the idea of Robin and Lucas was scary too, of course. But mostly you.”
Mike’s lips parted like he was about to say something, his brows twitched again, eyes looking at him softly in that way he used to do when they were kids.
He let out a small, shaky laugh. “I guess you know the rest. You and mom yelling at me not to pass out, you shouting yourself hoarse, carrying me out before Henry walked out of the gate again.”
Mike’s mouth tilted into a fragile smile, remembering. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that scared in my life. For you, I mean. Not of you,” he murmured. “You were… incredible.”
He glanced at Mike then, gifting him a smile. It was small, almost hidden. He looked down at the blanket pooled over both their legs, at the soft place where Mike’s hand hovered close to his.
For a moment he didn’t speak, gathering the confidence until he could again.
“There’s… more,” he said quietly.
Mike nodded tenderly. “I’m listening,” he said.
Will swallowed down tersely, his throat feeling dry. His pulse was loud in his ears.
He swallowed and kept going before fear had a chance to grow legs again. “It didn’t all hit me at once,” Will said softly. “It was more like… something I’d been walking around for years. Something I kept sidestepping until I couldn’t anymore. And once I saw it, once I let myself see it, I couldn’t unsee it. I think you’ve seen parts of it too. I just… I couldn’t say it. Not without feeling like everything would break.”
Mike’s hand twitched again the smallest amount.
“When I took that look inside myself,” Will said. “I saw all sorts of things. And maybe the most important one? Was you. You were everywhere. Every moment where I felt brave, or felt like myself. Every time the world felt like it could be good again.”
His voice trembled. “You’re in everything.”
Will felt his breath falter. This was it. The point where he couldn’t walk it back, couldn’t pretend he meant something else. Ripping off the bandaid.
He lifted his eyes to Mike’s, and his heart hurt at how open Mike still looked, like he had no idea what was coming.
“I love you, Mike,” he whispered, voice so quiet and raw and pained as a tear rolled down his face. “And not just in a friend way. You’re in everything because you are everything.”
Will’s breath caught on the last word. Saying what he said felt like stepping off a cliff. No net. No parachute. Nothing to soften his fall.
For a second Mike didn’t move. He only blinked, his eyes wide in the dim light of the room. The quiet stretched thin between them. Will braced himself for the break, the one he had always been afraid of.
But Mike’s face didn’t fall: it softened.
Slowly, almost unbelievingly, Mike lifted a hand and touched the side of Will’s face. His thumb brushed the path the tear had taken. His eyes shone, stunned and full, like someone who hadn’t just been handed something potentially life altering.
“Will,” Mike breathed, and the way he said it made Will’s chest ache. It was gentle, reverent, like Will had done something miraculous to him.
Mike took his thumb away from Will’s cheek and wrapped that arm around his neck, the other pulling around his waist into a hug that drew Will in completely, settling him against Mike’s chest until they could lie down together on the bed. Will felt Mike’s breath tremble as it fanned against the top of his hair.
Will… hadn’t expected this response.
Mike’s voice was quiet above him. Barely there. “That’s… Jesus, Will. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” His voice cracked when he talked, and Will couldn’t see him from the angle he was at, but it almost sounded like he was crying, too.
Will closed his eyes. For a moment, he let himself bask in this moment. Let himself imagine that maybe this was what it might be like if Mike felt the same way. If this wasn’t goodbye to the last fragile thread of hope he’d been carrying.
But that wasn’t the case, and the thought curled in on itself as quickly as it came. Hope collapsed as quickly as it had risen.
This was it, now. The truth was out in the open, and Mike didn’t feel the same back.
For a long while, which Will felt too embarrassed to admit, part of the reason he left this secret unsaid was so he could cling on to the smallest scrap of possibility. A little imaginary corner of his mind and heart where he could pretend Mike might maybe, just maybe, one day feel something more.
It was foolish, he knew this. But it had been his.
And now? Now it was gone.
What once was a deeply kept secret had been spoken into the air and answered with kindness, yes, but not of the love Will thought about in his dreams.
Will felt it settle in him, quietly aching in its finality.
His body curled in on itself before he could stop it. The warmth of Mike’s arms only made the truth sting more, like pressure on a wound. Good, but so painful.
He tried to breathe through it. Mike was still holding him close, unaware of the cracks fracturing their way through Will’s chest like webs of the most venomous spider. Will pressed his forehead against Mike’s shirt and finally let the tears fall, slow at first and then steady, slipping into the cotton.
Mike’s hand drew up and down ever so slowly on his back. Will hoped he couldn’t feel how badly he was trembling.
He wished he could lie here forever. He wished he could disappear. He wished he could pretend this embrace was under different circumstances but the reality was much too difficult to ignore.
Will swallowed hard and his voice came out tight the next he spoke. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He wasn’t sure what he meant. Sorry for telling the truth? Or sorry for wanting too much? Sorry for breaking the only beautiful thing he had left?
Mike’s arms curled tighter around him, gentle, almost protective. It only made Will cry harder.
“Sorry?” Mike shifted above him, confused, maybe a little sad, but soft. “Will… no. You did nothing wrong. You hear me? Nothing.”
Will wished he could believe him. He wished he could lift his head and see something other than the truth he already knew. Because even wrapped in Mike’s arms, even held like he was a precious stone, he could feel the edges of change creeping in.
This was the end of hoping. The end of the little imagined future he used to build in the moments before sleep, when the house was quiet and it felt safe to pretend.
Mike didn’t say anything else after that. He just stayed there with him, arms looped around Will’s waist, tracing invisible patterns on his back, and the nape of his neck. It sent shivers up his spine.
The room was dim and quiet. Will could hear the soft rasp of Mike’s breathing above him, could feel the steady rise and fall of it against him. If he focused hard enough, he could almost pretend it helped. He could almost pretend the hurt didn’t throb so rough beneath his ribs.
He tried to shove it down, let it all pass and take this for what it was, swiftly moving on. But the ache didn’t go anywhere, it only grew heavier in the silence and in Mike’s hold. Every second they stayed like this, Will felt another tremor climb through him, another wave of sadness he didn’t know how to hide.
Mike’s hand kept its slow path along his spine, and Will felt the warmth of it like sunlight on something frozen. It was kind. So kind it made everything so much worse.
He didn’t know how long they lay there. Long enough that the wet patch on Mike’s shirt cooled against his cheek. Long enough that Will’s uneven and shaky breaths started to feel like strangulation as he tried to keep them quiet. He didn’t want Mike to notice how badly he was unraveling.
But something inside him was slipping. A slow, tightening panic. The pressure behind his chest kept climbing, like he’d swallowed too much air and now it was pressing back against him. The room felt small. Mike’s arms felt too much. Too gentle, too good, too everything he knew he couldn’t have.
He shifted a little, hoping Mike wouldn’t notice. Mike only adjusted with him, pulling him closer in some instinct he had always had for Will. It sent a rush of heat and shame up Will’s throat.
“I just… I need a second,” Will said quietly. His voice wavered.
Mike loosened his hold immediately. “O-Oh. Yeah, of course. Are you okay?”
Will nodded, though he couldn’t seem to catch a full breath. “Yeah. Just… gimme a second. I’ll be right back.”
He didn’t wait for Mike to say anything else. He slipped out of the bed too fast, the cool air hitting his skin like a shock. The floor tilted under him as he stood, and he steadied himself on the edge of the dresser before opening the door and stepping out the room.
Will shakily made his way into the bathroom and shut the door. He twisted the lock behind him fast until it clicked, then pressed himself against the door.
The moment he was alone, his legs felt weak. He wobbled forward and braced both hands on the sink, bowing his head as a tight, frantic sort of breath clawed its way up his throat.
The air felt thin. His chest felt too tight. His heart beat too fast and too loud, as if it were trying to break its way out and god, the nausea. He felt like spewing his guts out but nothing came out, just a moment of him gagging and dry heaving.
He tried to swallow everything down, to then breathe slow, but it only made the panic surge higher as the oxygen intake made him dizzy, head swimming with pressure. His eyes blurred as fresh tears rose, spilling warm and fast down his face. He gripped the porcelain harder, knuckles pale.
It was too much. The grief, the embarrassment, the crushing truth that he had finally said everything and still ended up alone. It pressed in on him like a hand wrapped tightly around his already fragile heart.
A thin sound escaped him, one he didn’t recognize as his own. He tried to muffle it in the crook of his arm. He didn’t want Mike to hear. Mike had done enough, been gentle enough, and Will didn’t want to make him feel worse.
He turned around and slid down the sink’s cabinet doors until he was sitting on the small rug beneath him, knees pulled close, breath coming in sharp little stutters he couldn’t stop. He pressed a shaking hand over his mouth, squeezing his eyes shut.
He told himself it would pass soon.
It had to.
It had to.