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The night is cold when Mike crawls out onto the roof.
He knows he’s being a little bit of a stereotypical, dramatic teenager, isolating himself in the middle of a party full of his friends and family, people who have struggled alongside him for the past who-knows-how-many years, but damn it, he’s a little sad.
And – that’s probably stupid, because they’ve finally had the first time to properly rejoice in the defeat of One, rounding everyone up for a night of celebration and letting worries fall away. Mike shouldn’t be upset, but he can’t help it. He can’t help a lot of things. He’s being an idiot.
Still, he’s slinked away from a full room of his friends, light drinking going around, because they’ve deserved it, with saving the world and all, and Mike’s parents are out of town and Steve still has the house to himself and the conditions were begging for a party, if only including just those who knew about the Upside Down.
And now, he’s forced to deal with his self-imposed loneliness, because he’s an idiot and he could feel some heavy kind of melancholy pang at him when he watched Lucas wrap an arm around Max, when he could hear Dustin’s loud cackle in the room over, when his soda ran empty, when he felt so far away, his closest friends surrounding him.
Well, most of them, anyway.
Still.
Mike’s just a little lonely, all the time. He knows why, and it’s his fault, but he doesn’t know what to do. The future is coming barreling at him, and he still feels thirteen years old, and he’s growing up, but he feels like a clumsy child, and his friends are going to leave him and he doesn’t know how to be best friends with someone without making it weird and everyone is going to move on without him because he’s still some stupid kid on the inside, yelling and shrieking for someone, anyone, to pay attention to –
“Hey.”
Mike looks away from the sky, the welcomed return of stars in the absence of the cloudy presence of the Upside Down, and looks at the window he had just climbed out of.
Will pokes his head out.
Mike feels his heart turn over in its place.
“Hey,” he echoes back, suddenly nervous. He shouldn’t be nervous. This is stupid. He’s stupid.
Will gives him a small smile, generous as ever, and slowly joins Mike on the slanted platform of the roof, high off the ground and still too low for the sky. Mike looks away as Will pushes himself out, and begs himself to act normal.
Normal – God, he almost scoffs. Normal, normal, normal.
He doesn’t understand his own obsession with the word. No one he knows is normal. No one in the Party was conventional. His parents were their own mess, no matter how realistic. Nancy is a disaster of a workaholic. Jonathan is a self-labeled freak. Mrs. Byers is about to marry a fugitive from the Russian government. Steve can barely be called an adult. Robin has a girlfriend. Mike wants to kiss his best friend.
Said best friend takes a seat next to him, close enough for their shoulders to brush, because they’ve never known personal space when it comes to each other. He’s holding two soda cans. He offers the 7-Up to Mike, and he accepts.
“I was looking for you,” Will says, like it doesn’t turn Mike’s world inside out.
Mike cracks open the can, and doesn’t take a sip. His tongue feels heavy. “Sorry. Just felt – weird.”
“‘s okay,” Will shrugs, and he can feel the denim of his jacket rub against Mike’s bare arm. It’s a little cold for a summer night. Will had grown up to be the sensible one out of the two of them. “I was just worried.”
Mike tries not to feel jittery over the thought. “Well, I’m here,” he mumbles, a little awkward, a little at a loss as to what to say. He takes a sip of his soda, just so his mouth is occupied. The taste of sugary lime fizzles on his tongue, and it soothes his dry throat.
Silence is slow to rest over them, but silences have never been ordinary with them; turbulent, tempestuous, as if there was so much to say, so much unspoken, but nothing too important worth them opening their mouths for. Their silence is never wordless.
The trees rustle around them, and a chilling breeze creeps past them, brushing between their arms and tracing goosebumps up Mike’s skin. He shivers, and Will frowns, a small stitch between his eyes that Mike wants to kiss away.
“Here,” he says, already tugging off the sleeves of his jacket, selfless and ever so concerned, his mother’s son.
Mike quickly shakes his head. “It’s okay,” he insists, and he can feel his blood incriminate him on his cheeks, a scarlet flush when Will won’t listen to him, “it’s not – you’ll be cold, and –”
“I’m wearing two layers underneath this,” Will easily replies, uncaring, and he holds his jacket out to Mike, who stares at him, skeptical. Will raises an eyebrow, attractive in the ease, and Mike bites his cheek. “Come on. Let me do this.”
Let me do this, he says, like it doesn’t fuel something fiery and hot in Mike’s chest, and it’s the last straw when Mike mutedly nods, doesn’t protest when Will helps him slip his arms through the sleeves, and the warmth is immediate, still haunted by Will’s touch, and there’s the scent of the cologne he wears when he goes out, and it feels like Will is all over him.
The thought makes him blush. He hopes the moonlight isn’t too revealing.
He curls his fingers around the material, tucking it a little tighter around the sides, and prays Will doesn’t notice when he holds it a little closer than he should. Will takes a swig of Fanta. He looks nice in the night.
Nicer than nice. Lovely. Captivating. Kissable. Gorgeous. Caring. Paramount. Words aren’t enough for him. Mike has piles of poems to prove it.
“You can go back inside, you know,” Mike finally says, after a few moments of silence. It’s a late leeway, because the selfish part of him that wants Will all to himself wants Will to stay here, say that he wouldn’t be anywhere else, to kiss him, to scoot a little closer and let him know he’s here. “I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Will replies, and makes no move to get up.
Mike squints at him, and Will turns away from the street to look back. He offers a grin. Mike squints harder, despite his own lips twitching into a smile.
“Ridiculous,” he finally mutters, after he establishes that Will won’t be leaving, although a small part of him had always known Will would stay. He knocks their shoulders together, anyway, because he can.
Will’s smile is unwavering. “What? You want me to leave?”
It’s rhetorical, and Mike rolls his eyes. Will knows the answer. “I didn’t say that,” he huffs, “I just – I’m being pretty depressing.”
Will shrugs again. “I want to be here.”
Mike sticks his tongue to his teeth, feels the sharp edges dig in, tries not to notice the way his insides seem to bloom at the words. “You shouldn’t say that.”
Will blinks. “Why not?” He questions, tilting his head. He looks sweet.
Mike looks away. “Because,” he replies, and he can’t find it in him to say anything else. Nothing follows, and Will doesn’t prompt him.
It’s a weird feeling that Mike seems to be perpetually stuck in, a butterfly stuck in its cocoon, a child in an adult’s body, a body mismatched with its brain. He feels so childish, so stuck in the past, like he’s leeching onto things leaving him behind, but then there’s Will.
There’s Will, a figment of everything he wants, everything he shouldn’t want, with the joy of childhood that’s never left, the kind of love he gives to Mike freely, like Mike deserves it, like Will can’t imagine Mike to be the villain that he seems to be, like Mike isn’t some bumbling idiot, scrambling to get it together.
Will is something else. Will tugs him down to Earth when Mike starts reaching for the sun. Will sits next to him in silence and expects nothing. Will lets Mike call them best friends, lets Mike stare at his lips, lets Mike take care of him. Will is more than anything. He’s everything.
“I was thinking,” Mike suddenly begins, and he can feel it when Will turns to look at him again, “and – I know it’s a few years late, but I wanted to apologize.”
He can hear the frown in Will’s voice when he asks, “What for?”
There’s something like nervousness coursing through Mike’s blood when he says, “About the – um, the summer from a few years ago.” He chews on his cheek. “With the Mind Flayer, and stuff. Starcourt.”
There’s a beat of silence when Will doesn’t reply, and Mike is a little too terrified to look at him, so he keeps staring out into the street, the dark houses and the streetlights, the dark shadows of the trees and the pale outline of the sidewalk. The gleam of the cars. The light of the party inside seeping outside.
He can feel mortification slowly bleeding in, and Mike has always been a rambler, a motormouth of sorts. It barely ever gets him out of trouble.
“And,” he finds himself continuing, when the silence stretches on, “I just – I wanted to say sorry, ‘cause I tried to apologize then, but with everything going on, I was – I never got the chance, and,” he scowls, pressing his fingers into his palm, “I was – such a jerk back then, and I – sometimes, I feel like I still am, so I just – I wanted to say sorry, because you didn’t deserve that, and I was so – I mean, I guess I never really know what I have until I ruin it, so I just wanted to say sorry. So, sorry,” he lamely finishes, and jumping off the roof seems entirely enticing.
Will still doesn’t say anything, and Mike carefully swallows. He should’ve expected this, with his self-destructing, self-sabotaging consistency, never quite giving himself peace. He’s an idiot. God, he’s so fucking stupid, sometimes. Mike doesn’t know how Will has stuck around so long.
A hand slowly places itself on his arm, and Mike tenses. He bites his cheek, so hard he tastes blood, and the hand tugs, just enough for Mike to finally look at Will.
Mike doesn’t know what he’s expecting when he meets Will’s eyes, but he looks –
Concerned. Always so concerned.
“Mike,” he says, and Mike can feel himself crack, splinter into several pieces, “you – you don't have to say that.” Mike shakes his head, and Will lifts his hand to properly grip onto his elbow. “No, I’m serious. I forgave you a long time ago.”
He doesn’t know why that makes him feel worse. He shakes his head again. “No, you don’t – you shouldn’t.” Will’s frown deepens, and Mike keeps shaking his head. “You shouldn’t.”
Will’s hand is gentle where it holds onto him, and it’s enough for Mike not to begin deteriorating, rooting him to the roof, and Mike wants him to hold onto him everywhere, maybe hold him down and help him repair the shell of a person he is.
“I can,” Will replies, certainty in his voice, “and I will.”
Mike doesn’t get it. “I don’t know why you would.”
Will gives him a look. “We were kids, Mike.”
“We’re still kids,” Mike mutters, and Will nudges his side. He lets himself get jostled, lets himself get tugged back when he leans away, lets Will press them closer together than they were before. He probably doesn’t deserve it, but – God, does he want it.
“Maybe,” Will muses, and he lets out a sigh. He pushes his shoulder against Mike’s, and he pushes back, just the slightest. “I haven’t really felt like a kid for a long time, but – we were only thirteen, Mike. We’ve changed.” There’s a pause. “You’ve changed.”
Mike shrugs. “Doesn’t feel like it.” He brushes a tongue over the new wound in his cheek, and pushes away a wince. “I still feel like an idiot.”
“You were never an idiot.” Mike gives him a look, and Will stares back, undeterred, until he rolls his eyes, no meanness. “Maybe you were a little stupid, sometimes, but so was I. We all were. And I forgive you.”
He says it with so much conviction, so much certainty, Mike doesn’t know how to refute it. Maybe it’s because he’s right, because they were all a little stupid at times, whether it be with romance or puberty or harsh words or peer pressure or saving the world or superpowers.
It could also do with the fact that Will has always been convincing, or that Mike has always been one to sway under Will’s word, because he’s always been pliant with Will. It’s nothing he can help.
And, well, if Will says he’s forgiven, then Mike knows he can’t change his mind, even if he wants to.
“Okay,” he finally mumbles, defeated, and Will smiles, small and sweet. It’s undeserved. Mike wants to kiss him. Mike is an idiot. “Fine.”
“Fine ,” Will mimics, and Mike lets out a light laugh, pushing against him, and then they sway where they sit, pushing against each other in good fun, not too forceful, lest they tumble off the roof and, like, die. Mike isn’t that stupid.
They stop after a few moments, but their arms are still pressed together, and neither of them move away. Their sodas sit forgotten.
“We should play again,” Mike suddenly decides, and he glances over at Will, who meets his gaze. "D&D."
“Okay,” he agrees easily. “I mean, I haven’t played in a long time, but sure.”
It makes Mike feel giddy, like this one wish isn’t so ridiculous, and it’s not too childish, and Will usually entertains Mike’s antics, but still. He can’t help it when something bright takes up his ribcage.
“You never played in Lenora?” Mike questions, even though he’s half-certain of the answer.
Will doesn’t look away. “I said I wouldn’t,” he reminds Mike, and Mike had replayed the words not possible, not possible, not possible over and over in his head for the several months afterwards, but it still takes him by surprise.
“Oh,” Mike breathes out, sucking in a breath, and he can’t help it when he still sounds surprised.
Will keeps staring. “Did you want me to?” He asks, and – the mere idea of Will moving on and getting a new party and doing the things Mike did to him nearly breaks him in half, and Mike is a hypocrite, an asshole, a bad friend, but, above all, he is selfish.
“Of course not,” he shakes his head, although it’s a contradiction when he says, “I just – I would’ve deserved it, I guess. Would’ve served me right.”
Will doesn’t say anything, for a moment, and Mike knows he talks a bit too much, sometimes, except he doesn’t know if what he said was any grander than anything else said in this conversation, but Will is twisting around in his spot, almost moving away, and he fully faces Mike when he asks, “Why do you do that?”
He’s frowning again, and his eyebrows are furrowed, and he looks genuinely puzzled. Mike blinks. “What?”
“Why do you,” Will gestures, “act like – like that? Like you don’t – I don’t get it. I – Mike, you know you’re my best friend, right?”
“Yeah,” he says, except it doesn’t really ever resonate, no matter how much Will tells him so, because the idea feels far away and he feels like he’s always trying to make it up to Will, always trying to be the best he can be, and Will makes him feel needed, almost wanted, and that’s something Mike can’t let himself fully have.
Will seems to hear his own doubt, because he’s still frowning. “Seriously,” he says, “you haven’t – you’re not, like, a bad person, Mike. You – you’re my best friend. My best friend.” He emphasizes it like it’s not something of mere status, like it means something otherworldly. “You have no idea how –”
He cuts himself off with a groan, a hand in his hair, and he looks exasperated. Mike opens his mouth to apologize, and Will shoots him a look. He rubs a hand against his cheek, and stares at Mike for a long moment. He chews on his lip, and seems to brace himself.
“I love you,” he says, like it’s a fact. Like he means it. “You need to know that.”
And Mike doesn’t really need to know anything, and Mike probably could have put that idea together, anyway, being best friends for over ten years, and it’s never needed saying, because a lot of things in their relationship goes without saying, but Will tells it to him, no room for confusion and no space for misunderstandings.
Mike still can’t wrap his mind around it.
“I love you,” Will repeats. It doesn’t lose its potency. Mike nearly feels dizzy.
“You,” he says, and his palms itch, tongue heavy and his eyes itch, too. “You don’t –”
Will tugs him into a kiss.
It takes him by surprise, because Mike can’t imagine a rational universe where Will would want to kiss him, but he’s gone through enough damage to know this is reality, that it’s real when Will pulls him in, insistent and certain, lips soft and noses bumping just barely.
He knows its real, if only because their kisses Mike has always fantasized about had been more hesitant, more unsure, more reluctant and blushing, and – Mike is blushing, feeling warm to the tips of his fingers, lightning in his palms, but he couldn’t have thought of this if he tried.
Will holds onto him like a lifeline, like he needs Mike close, and he’s tilting his head further to the right, the fists coiled into Mike’s collar uncurling and sliding around Mike’s neck, placed against the peak of his skin and his shoulders, and Mike shivers when a hand tangles into his hair, tugs at it the way Will has always known him to like it.
It’s all sugar and artificial citrus, soft and something almost familiar, because everything is so reminiscent of Will, in his force turned hesitancy, almost leaning away when Mike hasn’t properly moved, but this is probably the best day of his life, so Mike pushes forward, eager and leaning, leaning, leaning.
His hand stays glued to the roof for stability, unsure, but he lets himself have just one thing when he raises a shaky hand to Will’s side, tries not to die right then when Will tries to push into it, encouraging and welcoming like he usually is.
It’s only after Mike’s brain slowly turns out of its sluggish state that he leans away, almost panicked, because Will had just said he loved him, and then he had kissed him, and he probably knows that Mike would twist the world backwards for him, but he needs to know the rest.
“I love you too,” Mike breathes out, almost rushed, like he can’t say the words fast enough, “I – I need you to know that.”
Will’s lips twitch, and he stares, like he’s trying to figure Mike out, like Mike wouldn’t unfurl his fists and claw out his heart if Will only asked. His fingers press into Mike’s skin, and he’s grinning like he can’t believe it, and his nose brushes against Mike’s cheek when they kiss again.
Will kisses Mike’s bottom lip once, twice, and leans away to cradle Mike’s cheek like he’s something reverent after the third. Mike doesn’t know what to do under his stare, his heavy gaze, and he doesn’t think he’d ever like to live without it. He doesn’t think he could.
He can’t help it when he leans in, this time, and he’d feel bad about it if Will didn’t smile into it, let out a sigh of satisfaction and clutch onto Mike’s shoulder a little tighter, thumb swiping over his cheek and tilting them both closer. It’s a sweet kiss. Will has always been sweet to his core, underneath snark and sincerity.
When they lean away, they stay close anyway, just enough for Mike to push his forehead against Will’s shoulder, for Will to brush a hand through Mike’s hair, always the exception to Mike’s prickly self, for Mike to press his nose against Will’s neck, nosing at the skin, cherishing the slight hitch of breath.
The party continues on without them, warm and alight, and Mike matches it, for the first time all night, like the ugly thing resonating in his bones has curled away, has let him have this, for just once. Everything in Mike has always bended backwards for Will, anyway.
His lips brush against Will’s collarbone when Mike mentions, “I don’t know if you were serious, but I – we should play.”
“What? D&D?” Will question, and Mike gives a small nod. Will’s hand doesn’t stop in Mike’s hair. “Of course, I was serious. I want to.”
“Okay," Mike replies, a little meek, and Will lets out a small laugh. It’s contagious, and he almost looks up to see Will smile. As it is, he’s comfortable. “I haven’t really – played,” Mike admits, pressing his fingers into the jacket’s sleeve, “since, like, freshman year, but – I want to, again. With you.”
Will sounds fond when he replies, “Yeah?”
Mike’s throat feels dry again. “Yeah,” he answers, and he knows he’s blushing. He lifts himself from Will’s shoulder to gauge his reaction when he adds, “You know, a party, but – just you and me.”
Will’s eyes are shiny and hopeful in the moonlight. His lips are upturned and pink. Mike watches when Will blushes pretty, pink under the pale light of the night, and Mike wants to hold him, wants to pull him close, wants him everywhere.
And – he’s allowed to, he thinks, or, at least, Will lets him, when Mike’s crowding against Will again, lips brushing, and Mike can’t help the happiness that takes hold of him.
“Just us,” Will says, and his hand presses Mike closer. “Sounds good to me.”