Chapter Text
Will lies back, already crying. It’s the kind of crying that doesn’t announce itself. No sobs, no sound, just tears slipping sideways into his hairline, soaking the pillow without asking him. His chest feels bruised from the inside out, like something pressed too hard there and never fully let go.
Mike’s side of the bed is empty.
That shouldn’t hurt the way it does. Will tells himself that immediately, firmly, like he’s laying down a rule. Mike left. That’s what Mike does. He reminds himself that he was the one who walked away first anyway. He remembers that part clearly, remembers the door closing harder than it needed to, remembers how his hands wouldn’t stop shaking afterward.
You did this, he tells himself. You panicked. You ran.
He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling, breath shallow. His lips sting when he swallows. When he brings his fingers up without thinking, they brush over tender skin that's soft, swollen and unmistakable.
His hand drops instantly. A wave of nausea hits him, sharp and cold. Not regret exactly. Not shame. Something messier. Something like grief for a version of himself that he almost destroyed.
Staying. Leaving. Wanting. All of it feels tangled together now.
He turns onto his side again, curling in on himself, trying to disappear into the sheets. The sounds of the hotel drift in faintly: the footsteps in the hallway, distant laughter, a door slamming somewhere far away. Life is continuing at a pace he can’t keep up with.
Mike could be anywhere. That thought lands heavy.
Will squeezes his eyes shut, but it only makes the images sharper. Mike’s face too close, the way his voice cracked when he shouted, the way it softened right after, like he hadn’t meant to wound, only to be heard. The heat of him. The familiarity. The unbearable ache of it.
He’s fine, Will tells himself. He always is.
The lie doesn’t hold. He sits up abruptly, breath hitching, as if his body has decided for him. His heart is pounding now, loud enough that he presses a hand to his chest, half-expecting it to hurt. There’s a pressure behind his eyes, a throb at his temples. He swings his legs over the side of the bed.
For a moment, he just sits there, hunched, elbows on his knees, staring at the ocean peeking from outside the window like it might give him answers. He tells himself he should stay. Following Mike will only make things worse. Maybe this is the space they both need, but another thought cuts through that one, raw and panicked:
What if he leaves before you fix this?
“I can’t....” he whispers to the empty room, though he doesn’t know what he’s refusing anymore. He shuts his eyes tightly. Too tight that the brightest sun couldn't even reach inside. "Not..." He breathes with his jaw clenched. "Not again..." His voice is harsher and clearer.
Will stands so fast that he gets dizzy. He grabs whatever clothes are closest, pulling them on with clumsy hands, running to the washroom to wash his hands, but not bothering to look in the mirror. He doesn’t want to see his face right now. He doesn’t want confirmation of how wrecked he looks. He just wants to go out in the world to look for Mike.
At the door, he hesitates as his hand hovers over the handle, fingers trembling. For one terrible second, he considers going back to bed. Letting the day swallow this up. Pretending it never happened. Then he thinks of Mike alone somewhere, carrying all that silence by himself.
Will opens the door.
It's not like he has anything to lose... Anything except Mike.
The hotel lobby is alive in that half-chaotic, wedding-festivities way. Everyone's voices are overlapping, suitcases rolling, florals arriving in crates that smell too sweet. Lucas stands near the front desk, sleeves rolled, helping coordinate arrivals like he’s been doing for the past week. Just two more families left and then he can go back to the room and fight with Max about floral arrangements. Again.
Wick storms up beside him to help him welcome the remaining family who's about to arrive at the hotel. He'd changed from his stupid beach-wear, but his face is still disappointed, angry and visibly annoyed. His face struts between the hallway and the entrance to see if their guests have arrived or not. Lucas looks at him and chuckles at his expression. One eyebrow arches upward, asking him what's wrong without words.
“Your friend, Mike...” Wick mutters. Lucas squints his eyes. “He's a total dickhead.”
Lucas doesn’t even look surprised. He just snorts, adjusting the welcome list. “Yeah. He gets that compliment a lot...”
“I’m serious,” Wick presses, offended on principle now. “He's rude for no reason. I've never even seen him in my life, but he acts so stupid and says shit to me like I ruined his day just by existing in his orbit.”
Lucas finally glances at him, amused. “Did you... by any chance, flirt with Will?”
Wick freezes. Blinks with a questioning stare. “I-what? I was just talking to him. I kinda liked the dude... You know it's pretty darn hard to find a good gay guy”
“Uh-huh,” Lucas says. “There it is.” He could laugh out loud.
Wick stares at him, gears turning. Then his eyes widen. “Wait. Hold on. You don’t mean-” He lowers his voice. “They’re… together?”
“God, no. Not officially." Lucas laughs under his breath, shaking his head. “I wish it was that easy..."
Wick looks genuinely stunned now. “Then why does he act like he has a stick up his ass whenever I try to talk to Will?”
Lucas exhales, glancing toward the elevators, toward the hallways. “Long story,” he says quietly. “One they’ve been avoiding for years.”
Wick swallows, suddenly awkward. “So I should.. back off?”
Lucas claps him on the shoulder. “Immediately.” he says.
Wick nods slowly, still processing, then drifts off toward the bar to get wasted on the new information. Lucas watches him go, the smile fading just a little, replaced by something closer to concern. He might have to talk to one or both of them because he's dying to figure out if something shifted in the past few days. He'd been so caught up in his wedding plans that he forgot to work on the extra quest that he put himself on.
Will's halfway down the corridor, moving too fast for someone who doesn’t know where he’s going. His fingers were knotted in the hem of his shirt like he was holding himself together by force. His hair is a mess, curls flattened in places, wild in others. There’s a faint mark on his mouth. Lower lip split just enough to look like he lost a fight or was attacked by an animal. Another bruise was blooming dark and unmistakable at the curve of his neck. It was not very visible to anyone who didn't want to notice it.
He’s turning a corner too fast, breath shallow, eyes rimmed red, when Joyce and Hopper step out of the elevator. They smell faintly of salt and sunscreen. Perfect beach day. Joyce drops her beach sandals as soon as she looks at what a mess is in front of her. She straightened her wrinkled sundress and grabbed her loose cardigan way too tight. Hopper, in his faded button-down and jeans, eyes Will and assesses immediately that something was wrong, but in the right way.
They look relaxed. Sun-warmed. A bit tanned too, but Will looked like a storm barely holding together. This contrast was surely about to hit a peak.
“Will?” Joyce says his name like she’s afraid of what she just saw. He stops short, chest heaving once before he notices the stares, fingers tightening reflexively in his sleeves.
“Oh-hey,” he says, too quick, already edging backward.
Joyce’s eyes scan him automatically. It takes her half a second to register it properly and immediately her face changes.
“Oh my god,” she breathes, crossing the space between them without hesitation. “Your mouth-Will, your lip-” She reaches up before he can stop her, thumb hovering far too close, inspecting him like he’s twelve again. Will flinches despite himself.
“It’s nothing, mom-” he mutters.
Joyce doesn’t hear it. Her gaze drops and immediately catches the bruise at his neck, dark against flushed skin. She squints, leans in closer and gasps.
“And what is that?” she asks, genuinely baffled. “Did someone grab you? That looks like- did someone hurt you, Will?”
Hopper clears his throat loudly at the realization. Will’s stomach drops straight through the floor, all the way to the basement of the hotel.
“I’m fine, mom...” Will says again, louder this time, but his voice cracks at the edges. His face is burning now, heat crawling from his ears down his neck.
Joyce kept on talking and analyzing.
“A guy came to Hopper looking for you...” she says, worried but oblivious. “Did you boys get into some kind of argument? Because this doesn’t look like a verbal disagreement, Will.”
Hopper shuts his eyes for a second. He was partially amused and partially annoyed. When he opens them, he takes in the whole picture: the split lip, the mark on Will’s neck, the way his hands won’t stay still, the way his eyes keep darting down the hallway like he’s searching for something he has lost.
“Joyce,” Hopper says evenly, “he didn’t get into a fight...”
She turns to him, confused. “Then what happened?”
Hopper shrugs, mouth twitching. He opens his mouth to say something, but the look on Will's face just makes him say nothing.
Will squeezes his eyes shut in the prediction that Hopper's going to spoil some sexual shit to his mother. He can't look his mother in the eyes after whatever he thought Hopper would say. Joyce wa sway too innocent for this world.
Joyce looks back at Will, still piecing it together, worry etched deep. “Honey, you -”
“No one hurt me, mom,” Will says, a little too fast. His hands etched to hers. "I just-"
Hopper exhales, stepping forward. “Okay, that’s enough, Will. You go ahead, okay?”
Joyce blinks. “I’m just trying to understand-”
“I know,” Hopper says gently. Then, pointedly said, “...and he’s trying very hard not to crawl out of his own skin right now.”
Will opens his eyes and looks at Hopper, grateful and mortified all at once. His gaze lingers there like a silent plea. Hopper meets it. Gives a small nod as Will releases himself from his mother's hands.
“You alright?” Hopper asks him quietly.
Will swallows and nods once.
“Good,” Hopper says. “Then go...”
"Have-uh.." Will starts, then stops. His throat tightens and Hopper rolls his eyes. “Have you seen Mike?”
That name shifts the air completely. Hopper’s jaw tightens.
“No,” he says flatly.
Joyce frowns. “He had a mark on his neck too, didn’t he, Hopper?” she adds, still not realizing. “I thought it was a sunburn, but now that I think about it-”
“Joyce!” Hopper cuts in, firmer now.
"They are fighting and not just verbally, they're being physica-" She finally stops and steps back a bit. Eyes go wide in realization and a hand slowly covers her mouth, tilting her head to the ground.
Will really wanted the floor to open so he could just vanish.
Hopper steps aside, opening the hallway like a quiet mercy. “We saw him at the ocean edge. Go!” he says, whispering.
Will doesn’t wait this time. He slips past them, head down, moving faster than usual, as if he slows even a little, he’ll fall apart in front of them from shame.
Joyce watches him disappear, concern knitting her brow. “I don’t think they're okay, Hopper.”
Hopper watches the empty hallway for a long moment before answering.
“No,” he says. “They're not, but we can hope they will be...”
"Are-are they like...-"
"Yeah, I think they-yes. Let's just hope whatever it is, that bitch Wheeler isn't playing a shit stunt."
"You never liked him, Hop!" Joyce knitted her forehead together. "He's a good kid." She insists before heading out of the hallway and into her room.
Somewhere down the corridor, Will keeps on running with his heart in his throat. Aching with the fear of what he might still lose. He spots Dustin and Suzie looking at him from afar, but he pretends not to see them because he doesn't want another 'What happened?' confrontation. He needs to find Mike before it's too late.
Will runs through every possible place and scenario for hours. Hallways, lounges, bars, palm trees and every inch of the hotel premises. His feet ache from running and his eyes hurt from missing Mike. He doesn't even remember how much time has passed since he's been trying to find Mike. By the time he reaches the beach, the day has already started to give up on itself. The sun hangs low, swollen and orange, bleeding into the horizon like it’s tired of holding its shape. The air smells salty and burnt candles glow along the shoreline for the evening crowd, their flames trembling in the wind. The music drifts faintly from farther down the coast, laughter too, but it all feels distant. Muffled.
He doesn’t remember walking here. He only remembers the pressure in his chest that's getting worse the farther he goes from the room. The way his thoughts kept looping back on themselves was sharp and useless.
You should have gone after him sooner.
You should have said something different.
You should have stayed.
You should have left first.
It's a constant war.
He drags a hand through his hair and keeps walking anyway, shoes sinking into wet sand, tide licking at his ankles like it’s trying to pull him under with it. His head throbs.
Everywhere he looks, he thinks he sees Mike. Then he stops and analyzes; he's just daydreaming.
A familiar posture. Dark hair. Broad shoulders facing the water. Every time, it isn’t him. Each mistake hits harder than the last one.
By the time he finally stops, his lungs feel scraped raw. He drops down near the waterline, close enough that the waves brush the edge of his jeans. The candles and hanging decor bulbs nearby flicker wildly, throwing light across his face in uneven pulses: too bright, too dim and never steady. Just like his heartbeat.
His hands are shaking when he reaches for the cigarette. The first drag burns his throat, which clenched itself from thirst. He welcomes it.
The smoke fills his lungs, grounds him just enough to keep him from collapsing forward. He stares out at the ocean, eyes stinging, jaw clenched so tight it aches. The wind tugs at his clothes, at his hair, at everything loose inside him. He lets out a breath that sounds suspiciously like a sob. He hates this part. He hates waiting. He hates that he is the one who always waits. This moment is just like every other anxiety-infused situation where he is kept in the dark about what the future holds for him. The endless second-guessing eats at him from the inside out. It makes him hate himself and he hates how quiet everything feels without Mike nearby, how even the ocean can’t drown out the echo of his voice, his anger, his confusion and doubts.
"I thought you loved me."
Will presses the heel of his palm into his eye, hard.
“I do...” he whispers to no one. "I do..."
Tears come anyway. Hot, sudden and humiliating. They slide down his face unchecked, mixing with sea spray and smoke, blurring everything until the world becomes nothing but light and water and ache.
He doesn’t notice Lucas at first. He is farther up the beach, standing with Max near one of the low stone walls that mark the edge of the hotel property. They’re both holding drinks they’ve long forgotten about. Lucas’s attention isn’t really on the ocean or the lame family get-together behind them. He's fixed squarely on Will.
On the way, his shoulders are hunched inward like he’s trying to fold himself smaller. On the cigarette trembling between his fingers. On the way, his head bows, again and again, like the weight of it is too much to hold up.
Max follows Lucas’s gaze, her expression softening immediately.
“Should we go talk to him?” she asks quietly.
Lucas doesn’t answer right away. He watches Will inhale, exhale. Watches him swipe at his face angrily, like he’s mad at himself for feeling anything at all. Watches him stare out at the water like it might give him answers, but it never has.
Lucas’s mouth twists. “Maybe not,” he says finally.
Max looks at him, surprised. “Lucas-”
“I know,” he cuts in gently. “I know what it looks like.”
He shifts his weight, jaw tightening. “But I think... I think we pushed too hard.”
Max’s brow furrows. "I don't get it, Lucas.”
“I mean,” Lucas says, exhaling slowly, “that sometimes you don’t fix things by locking people in the same space and hoping they figure it out.” His eyes never leave Will.
“I think we just made the mess even louder than it was supposed to be.” He adds, quieter.
Max watches Will again. Really watches him this time. The way he curls inward on himself. The way the ocean keeps reaching for him and pulling back, over and over, like it can’t decide if it wants to claim him or spare him.
They stand there in silence, the weight of it settling between them, while the sky darkens inch by inch and the candles burn lower. Down by the water, Will crushes the cigarette into the sand with shaking fingers. He wipes his face hard, angry at the tears, angry at himself, angry at how much space Mike still occupies inside his chest.
Then he pushes himself to his feet. His legs feel unsteady, but his resolve sharpens into something desperate and reckless and very alive.
He turns away from the ocean.
If Mike isn’t here or in the halls or the rooms or the places he's already checked, then Will will go farther. He starts walking again, past the candles, past the edge of the hotel lights, toward the darker stretch of beach where the buildings thin out and the world feels rougher, older.
Toward anywhere Mike might have gone to disappear. He told himself that he won't stop this time. This time, he would only stand still when he could see his Mike.
The hotel disappears behind him faster than Will expects. He's almost half a mile outside the premises of the hotel. He doesn't have a clue how long he's been walking now, but he does remember that it's been ten minutes since the hotel's lights faded in distance. The ocean waves began to become merciless, like they were cold, cruel and unforgiving. The sand has turned rougher under his shoes. This part of the beach isn’t meant for weddings, dances, or cozy shenanigans. It was meant for winds that bite harder, lights that never work and teenagers who are sneaking out of their houses at night.
Will walked anyway. His body is running on something close to instinct now. Every step feels wrong but necessary. It's like picking at a wound because you need to know how deep it really is. The farther he goes, the more the world shifts.
He starts seeing what he expected to. Teenagers cluster near driftwood fires, laughing too loudly, passing bottles back and forth like they’re daring the night to notice them. High school lovers and frat party teens run barefoot closer to the water, shrieking as the waves chase them back. A few couples sit tangled together, silhouettes pressed close, oblivious to everything else.
Will slips through all of it unseen. His thoughts keep circling the same question:
Where would you go if you wanted to vanish?
Then he sees it. A lonesome cabin that sits half a mile out. He clocks it as haunted one. Maybe it holds a folklore that he isnt interested in. He's about to find out anyway. The structure was crooked and stubborn against the shoreline, as if it refused to rot properly. Old police markings still ghost the door, bleached nearly invisible by the sand, salt and continuous sun. The windows are dark and somewhat shattered. One side faces the ocean, the other turned inward toward scrub grass and broken fencing. It looks abandoned in the way things do when the world has moved on without them.
It looks wrong here, but familiar in a way that makes Will’s chest tighten. It looks like Hopper's cabin, but only if it were abandoned for ages.
His pace slows without him meaning it to. Something about the place pulls at him. Maybe a memory, maybe the shape of it, or the fact that it looks like the kind of space someone would choose when they don’t want to be found but also don’t want to be alone.
There are kids nearby, perched on the steps and the low wall beside it, laughing and daring each other to go closer to the door. Someone kicks a rock at the door. Someone else dares them to knock.
Will barely hears them because there’s smoke. Not drifting aimlessly like the others on the beach but curling deliberately from the backside of the cabin, thin and steady, cutting into the dark.
His heart stutters and he stops walking. For a moment, he just stands there, frozen, breath caught halfway in his chest. The night feels suddenly too quiet, too aware of him. The ocean crashes behind him, impatient, like it’s urging him forward.
Don’t get your hopes up, a voice in his head warns. You’ve done this all day.
His feet move anyway, but his heart pounds like a hammer. Something about being alone in the dark and cold, chilly nights still haunts Will. It's been years. The upside-down has been closed and dead for ages now, but the dark and cold still trigger something in him. His chest starts caving in. Each step toward the cabin feels heavier than the last. His pulse is loud in his ears now, drowning out the misbehaving laughter behind him. He rounds the side slowly, almost reverently, like he’s afraid of startling whatever’s there.
Then he sees him and his heart skips a beat.
Mike is sitting on the sand, back against the cabin wall, knees drawn up loosely. His shoulders are shaking. His head is bowed so low that his hair hides his face completely. A cigarette burns forgotten between his fingers, ash dangerously long, smoke rising and dissolving into the night. A streetlight is the only thing that's illuminating a bit of him.
He looks wrecked. Not angry. Not defensive. Broken open.
The sight hits Will so hard it nearly knocks the breath out of him. It stops him in his tracks. Not fear. Not pride.
The sudden, terrifying clarity of what was happening in front of him. He hated to look at Mike like this. He hated it when he cried. He hated it when he was upset. He hated it when anything was bothering him and right now, all of those things were because of him.
Mike lets out a sound that's small, raw and dragged straight from his chest. Will feels like a blade scratched him between his ribs. All the anger drains out of him in one violent rush, leaving only urgency behind. He steps forward before he can think better of it. The hard sand crunches under his shoe and Mike's head shoots up. He stiffens with his eyes wild and red-rimmed before he recognizes Will in the faint streetlight.
Mike doesn’t move at first, like he was frozen. He just stared at Will like he was seeing a ghost that the ocean dragged up for him. He was sure that it was just an illusion that came into being from whatever hole he crawled into. Maybe it was punishment. Maybe it was mercy. His mouth opens, then closes. His hand trembles enough that ash finally falls, scattering onto the sand between them.
"Mike, you scared me." Will almost let out a sob as he knelt in front of him.
“Don’t-” Mike says hoarsely, before Will can say anything. His voice cracks immediately, like it’s been waiting to. “If you’re here to yell at me, just-”
"I wasn't- I-I'm not here to do that." Will swallows hard. He scoots a step closer to him, slowly and deliberately, like he’s approaching something wounded. His voice isn’t sharp. It’s wrecked. “I was just- just trying to find you. You made me worried sick, Mike.”
Mike's voice came out bitter and broken. He scrubs his sleeve across his face, furious at the tears that won’t stop. “Yeah? Congratulations. You- you found me.” He forced out a chuckle from his dried-up throat.
Silence stretches between them, thick and heavy. The ocean roars behind them, indifferent. Will kneels a bit in front of him without asking to take a good look at his face. He doesn’t touch him yet. He just stays close enough that Mike can feel his presence like heat.
“You scared me,” Will says quietly. His tone was not harsh or accusing, just honest.
Mike’s shoulders collapse in on themselves. “I-I scared myself.”
Another long pause. Mike exhaled shakily again, like something inside him finally given up.
“She came to me,” he says. It felt like a confession.
Will’s breath catches. He knows immediately who she is.
“Eleven,” Mike continues, staring down at his hands like they don’t belong to him. Dry and frozen. “In my head. Over and over. Not like comforting or... lovingly.” He swallows. “She- she was cruel. She was cruel to me. She broke me." He breathed through clattering teeth. Will engulfed his arms around him in a comforting way. He wanted to keep the cold away from him. Mike held him back instantly, both arms swung on his shoulders. "Sh-she kept showing me you-" His voice was calmer than before, but he had no control over the choice of his words. They came out shaky as if his mind was shivering too. "You- you were taken from me... again and again. She showed me you... leaving. Again and again. Every version of us being broken. Every time we were pulled apart.”
Will’s chest tightens painfully. "Mike-" He breathed out, almost crying.
“I didn't know she was alive for a long, long time, but when she came-” Mike says, voice hollow. “I almost wished she didn't." These words struck Will like a bullet in the chest. How could Mike not want to see Eleven? What did she do to make him hate her like this? "I mourned her after she died, but I mourned what we were long before she was gone."
Will was confused at this point. What was Mike trying to say? He didn't interrupt him, just gripped him a little tighter to let him know that he was here and he was listening.
“At first, I was okay with it. Knowing she was out there and knowing that she's living her life the-the way she wanted but the she- she started haunting me." Mike sighed. "She made me... she made me re-live every bad thing that ever happened to you. To us!" Another shaky breath tore his sentence. "I didn’t know how to survive that. I didn't know how to survive losing you again." He laughs again, but this time it caves inward.
Will finally reaches back to look at Mike's face. He's very confused and very out of his element. Trying to figure out what Mike is saying. His fingers curl around Mike’s wrist, grounding, warm. Mike flinches in return, but he doesn’t pull away.
“We never told anyone...” Mike whispers. “About us... ending things. We kept waiting for the right moment. We thought, God, we thought we had time. I thought announcing a-a breakup wasn't okay when we were trying to figure out a way to find Vecna.” His voice breaks fully now. “So we pretended. F-for almost a year."
Will was shocked at this point. His eyes were just widening with the realization that the love he always admired from afar was a hoax.
"She kept on telling me to talk to the person that I- that I liked ins-instead of her. That made me act like such a shitty boyfriend to her..." He coughed and held his hands out to grab Will's shoulders. "...and then one day she was gone and I never got to explain to her...”
Tears started to spill freely now, like a river from his eyes.
“I loved her...” Mike said brokenly. “I did. I still do, a part of me will always do, but she wasn’t-” He shakes his head, frustrated with himself, with the years. “It wasn’t the way everyone thought. It wasn’t the way I thought love was supposed to be.”
Will’s eyes started to burn with the sting of tears.
“I loved her,” Mike says again fiercely, like he needs Will to understand this part. “It was… different. She was more than a friend. She was family. She was my miracle, but she wasn’t-” He falters, shakes his head. “She wasn’t you, Will.”
Will let out a sob he didn't even know he was holding. It felt like something sinister and something very touching at the same time.
“I didn't even have any words for it, Will. I didn't know what I was feeling, if I was feeling it right and I kept on thinking how it would just break us apart if I ever said this out loud to you.” Mike continues, words tumbling out like he’s been holding them underwater for years. “Then you- you gave these feelings a shoulder when you told everyone about you.... I was still- I was still a coward-" He chokes. “I lost her before I could even tell her this because she always deserved to know the whole truth.”
He finally looks up at Will. His eyes mirror the rivers of his own eyes. Will’s grip tightened on Mike's shoulder.
"I couldn't tell you that because I was so ashamed of letting her die without clarity and I thought maybe I do deserve this pain. Maybe I deserve losing you because I could never ever earn your love. Not in a million years can someone like me be deserving of you-"
“Mike, shutup-” he says immediately, voice fierce despite the tears on his own face. “You don’t deserve to live this pain alone. You didn't deserve what happened to you and if I feel like anyone in this world deserves happiness, it's you. You deserve love. You deserve to have the good that you see in people-”
Mike shakes his head weakly. “I’ve loved you, Will. I have loved you since before I knew what loving you meant.”
The words hang there, fragile and enormous. Will’s breath stutters. His forehead presses gently against Mike’s, their noses almost touching, both of them shaking.
"She made me see everything. I saw your body at the quarry. I saw you at the lab, fighting for your life. I saw us being stupid and so dumb and I saw all the moments I hurt you in-"
"Mike-"
"I saw him taking you away and I couldn't stop him." He lay down in his lap, crying and shaking violently. "She just stood there while I cried and pleaded, Will." Mike huffs a broken sound that might be a laugh. "I told her I can't lose you again and again. I already have a reality to live in that does not have you and she still wouldn't stop... Maybe it was her revenge on me because I never told her I loved her without being a prick about it."
Will was on the verge of a breakdown by then.
"Did you ever..." Will huffed in between breaths. "Did you ever open my letters, Mike? The ones I sent you after graduation."
"I-I did, but I- I didn't have the heart to write you back because I knew you- you would just run back to me. Leave your life and-"
"It was not your call to make, Mike. If I want to run back to you. It's my choice..."
"I couldn't do it to you. I replied. I wrote back to every single letter, but I didn't send them... Because every letter had a confession that made me feel like I was a shitty person. I - I waited too long for things to be okay and they just, shattered more..."
“She showed me too,” Will admits, voice barely audible. “When she came to me, we just... we talked for maybe hours,” He lets out a shaky laugh through tears. “I told her how mom wanted a daughter before she came into our lives and then-" He was audibly crying at this moment. "I told her about Hopper and mom and Jon and how broken we were after her... She just said she knows and she'll visit everyone, but won't speak or show them."
"Yeah, I-I felt her, multiple times.... I-I thought I was going insane." He let out a small chuckle.
"She kept saying we were idiots, Mike.” Will nodded, holding Mike's hair in his hands, gently. "She grilled me for the name of the person I loved. I-I couldn't tell her, so she invaded. I laughed and then I cried and I asked her why she would do that and she just said: 'Dead people don't have manners.' I just laughed again."
“She wanted me to talk to you and when I said that you've moved on, she almost killed me...”
They both were laughing and crying at the same time at this point. Unable to make any sense of what they were talking about.
Mike’s hands come up, gripping Will’s shirt like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. “I thought I’d lost you again...” he says, voice small. “When I-I ran and somehow ended up here. I thought that if I made my way back, you'll- you'll just be gone and I'd never see you again. I-I didn’t think I could survive that. Not again.”
“You didn’t lose me,” Will says firmly. “You never did, Mike. All you had to do was write me back and I would've run. I would've left everything and just been back in your arms. If Eleven didn't tell me, I wouldn't have known that you felt the same.” His eyes orbited him and his shivering features and broken eyes. "I wrote you every. damn. time. Mike. When she told me you aren't feeling okay. When I heard you're struggling or not talking or aren't meeting or picking up calls and last spring I was outside your door for hours and no one opened up, Mike. I thought maybe Eleven is wrong or maybe she really is dead and I'm making this up to cope..."
Mike closes his eyes. When he opens them, they’re full of something raw and open. He was terrified.
“I love you,” he says. No hesitation this time. Just the truth. Bare and raw. “I’ve loved you for so long it feels like it seeped into my bones before I even learned about it.”
Will breaks. He pulls Mike into him fully. Arms wrapping tight around him. It was grounding and real. Mike clutches back just as hard, like he’s afraid Will might still disappear if he loosens his grip.
“I love you too,” Will whispers into his hair. “I loved you long before I even knew what love was. I never stopped. I just learned how to live with it. I just learned how to survive with it being incomplete.”
"It doesn't have to be incomplete..."
They stay like that for several long moments, breathing each other in, the ocean crashing, the night holding them gently instead of threatening to swallow them whole. For the first time in a long time, the future doesn’t feel like something waiting to take another person away.
It feels like something they might finally walk into together.
“I’m here,” Will says softly. “I didn’t disappear. I was scared, but I’m not anymore. I'm here for you and nothing could ever make me stop loving you.” He reassured him.
Mike leans into the touch like it’s oxygen. His forehead presses against Will’s shoulder. His crying sounds were inconsistent now, but they were still being felt. It was quieter now; the hollow buried deep inside them wasn't eating them now because they're no longer alone. It's past midnight and they've been crying and confessing since yesterday.
They have each other.
It's just Day 7 and Lucas' plan has worked wonders already.