Angst in My Pants (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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caiartistcollective2024-04-08 09:41 pm
partypaladin) wrote in caiartistcollective2024-04-08 09:41 pm
But the loneliness never left me
He’d felt his stomach dropping long before his plane hit the runway. It’d only been a few months since Christmas, but his nerves are still electric under his skin, keyed up and sparking at the thought of seeing Will again. He should’ve called like he said he would. He should’ve written like he’d meant to, but the truth is he can’t think of anything worth the price of a stamp, let alone the long distance charges. His own college experience sounds incredibly dry compared to Will’s stories about drag queens and gay bars. He’d thought Chicago would be more progressive than Hawkins, but so far all he’s seen is the rigidness of Academia and an advanced high school hierarchy where the athletes still get away with murder.
He isn’t bullied, exactly, though he has a sneaking suspicion that he would be if Nick hadn’t been assigned his roommate due to some random lottery drawing. He knows he’s not well liked, something that’s obvious by the way Nick’s friends tease him, not friendly but not outright hostile, either. He misses his friends. He even misses Hawkins, in his own way. But most of all, he misses Will.
He thinks that they’ll pick up where they left off at Christmas, except this time he’ll try not to let himself get too jealous about Will’s life in Cleveland or the friends that have moved into the space he used to occupy. He tells himself that he’s going to be supportive and ask more questions this time, no matter how much it hurts.
He just doesn’t expect the mouth shaped bruise on Will’s neck, or to keep catching the tail end of conversations about the guy who gave it to him. His name is Daniel and he’s Will’s first boyfriend. Mike misses how they met, but he doesn’t particularly care. Will doesn’t talk to Mike directly about him and yet it seems like Mike can't seem to escape people asking questions about him in his presence.
Mike feels stupid for worrying about long distance bills when it feels like Daniel must be calling every night, if not more. He doesn’t like the way Will slips away from him and the others to take a call, only to return half an hour later looking tired and worn down. Mike spends the whole night watching the light of the TV reflect off of Will’s unhappy face in the Byers’ living room, narrowly looking away in time when Will turns his head in his direction.
Like clock work, the phone rings exactly at 10pm three hours later and the entire Party gathered groans in unison as Will preemptively gets to his feet to take it in the other room.
“You’re going to miss the best part,” Mike blurts out as Will scoots past him with a muttered apology. Will gives him a small shrug and disappears behind the nearest bedroom door, his voice muffled and sounding far away.
When he finally emerges only a few minutes later he looks even worse than he did before. If Mike didn’t know he was upset from the look of pure misery on his face, he’d know it by the set of his shoulders and way he avoids joining the others and goes to the kitchen instead. Mike follows him into the kitchen, studying him for a moment before leaning against the doorway.
“Hey,” he says, softly. “Can you give me a ride home?”
He isn’t bullied, exactly, though he has a sneaking suspicion that he would be if Nick hadn’t been assigned his roommate due to some random lottery drawing. He knows he’s not well liked, something that’s obvious by the way Nick’s friends tease him, not friendly but not outright hostile, either. He misses his friends. He even misses Hawkins, in his own way. But most of all, he misses Will.
He thinks that they’ll pick up where they left off at Christmas, except this time he’ll try not to let himself get too jealous about Will’s life in Cleveland or the friends that have moved into the space he used to occupy. He tells himself that he’s going to be supportive and ask more questions this time, no matter how much it hurts.
He just doesn’t expect the mouth shaped bruise on Will’s neck, or to keep catching the tail end of conversations about the guy who gave it to him. His name is Daniel and he’s Will’s first boyfriend. Mike misses how they met, but he doesn’t particularly care. Will doesn’t talk to Mike directly about him and yet it seems like Mike can't seem to escape people asking questions about him in his presence.
Mike feels stupid for worrying about long distance bills when it feels like Daniel must be calling every night, if not more. He doesn’t like the way Will slips away from him and the others to take a call, only to return half an hour later looking tired and worn down. Mike spends the whole night watching the light of the TV reflect off of Will’s unhappy face in the Byers’ living room, narrowly looking away in time when Will turns his head in his direction.
Like clock work, the phone rings exactly at 10pm three hours later and the entire Party gathered groans in unison as Will preemptively gets to his feet to take it in the other room.
“You’re going to miss the best part,” Mike blurts out as Will scoots past him with a muttered apology. Will gives him a small shrug and disappears behind the nearest bedroom door, his voice muffled and sounding far away.
When he finally emerges only a few minutes later he looks even worse than he did before. If Mike didn’t know he was upset from the look of pure misery on his face, he’d know it by the set of his shoulders and way he avoids joining the others and goes to the kitchen instead. Mike follows him into the kitchen, studying him for a moment before leaning against the doorway.
“Hey,” he says, softly. “Can you give me a ride home?”
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Except that they’ve already talked today and it was fine, it was fine, except for the part where Daniel had thrown in a nasty ‘oh Mike, bet you wouldn’t hold out on him if he asked’ which sucked because he thought they’d been through this and gotten over it when Daniel asked if he had a crush on Mike on one of the first nights they were separated. Will had lied, because that’s not something he wants to dredge up after he’s spent two years battling extra hard to get the fuck over it since he got verbal confirmation that he and Mike just weren’t going to happen and because he didn’t like the tone in which his boyfriend asked. Clearly he was seen through and they are not past it and actually he doesn’t like this Daniel who sounds perpetually annoyed with him and has made overt references to not being happy that they haven’t gotten further than making out as much as he liked the one who walked him home at three in the morning in the opposite way than he needed to go because Will had looked ‘a little freaked out’ about walking home alone so late and who asked him on a date when gently rebuffed about coming inside or the Daniel who gave him his coat while walking home from said date because it was raining and he’d rather get soaked than let Will and who told him, when he was finally allowed inside one night, that it was okay and he was fine with Will being a virgin and not wanting to go there yet.
Clearly it is no longer fine and Will doesn’t know how to handle it because he’s told precisely two people about what was done to him in middle school and a third knows by accident but they don’t talk about it. He doesn’t talk about it to them and he certainly doesn’t want to talk about it to someone he’s going to have to pretzel the truth for and he’s a little upset that ‘I’m not ready’ apparently isn’t good enough anymore. And he’s already back in Hawkins so it was already haunting him like the ghost of Christmas smoke vines.
He puts the phone down after lying that he’s fine, that they’re fine, that everything is fine, he’s sorry for being over sensitive about it and he won’t hold a grudge but he’d rather Daniel stop upsetting them both over something that isn’t happening and they’ll talk about it more in person when they get back to Cleveland. Honestly he doesn’t want to go back out and keep pretending he’s okay, honestly he wants to go outside as far as he can get with his parents brick of a cordless phone and call Barbie and ask what the fuck he’s supposed to do about any of this and also smoke a cigarette and also cry about it. He can actually only have one of those things if he doesn’t want to have a full fledged breakdown on the rest of the party so he bolts for the kitchen to smoke and thanks god that Max and Dustin both hate the smell and he has an excuse to do it in another room.
He has options, he thinks as he lights up with shaky hands. Maybe he should allow one or two other people past the walls he’s erected around himself. Maybe Andi or Victor will have an insight and some kind of advice as to what the etiquette is when you tell your boyfriend you still don’t actually want to have sex with him after three months of dating, maybe they’ll know better than Barbie who is an adult and protective and fierce in the same way that Max is and will probably tell Will to dump him. Will doesn’t want to dump him, he just doesn’t want this to be an issue and clearly it is.
Maybe he is just broken. Maybe it is a good thing that Mike turned him down. He can’t imagine how much more this would hurt if it were Mike he was having to debate telling about being assaulted. Mike would never though, it would still be tough and he’d still probably have to explain why a hand sliding up his leg makes him freeze and panic and want to cry, but he’d at least try to understand. Maybe he just needs to come out with it and then Daniel will understand and stop acting like… well. Like he’s acting.
Will almost drops his cigarette when Mike speaks from the doorway. He fumbles it and narrowly avoids burning his fingers and he hates himself for being so skittish and jumpy and on edge all the time but he’s back in Hawkins and he soothes it by reminding himself that it gets worse when he walks back in and the town is still haunted.
“Oh are we done?” He asks trying to sound casual and sounding wrung out instead. His hands are still shaking.
There’s a part of him that wants to just open the floodgate and tell Mike that everything is difficult and that he drove over an obviously new part of the road earlier, where it’s finally been put back together, where one of the cracks used to be and he had to pull over to cry and that his boyfriend is mired in his own insecurities and being kinda mean right now when Will really just needs him to be gentle. There’s another part that reminds him that their friendship isn’t what it was when they were teenagers and Mike isn’t the person he goes to cry on anymore. And that makes him want to cry even more.
Will doesn’t say ‘can’t you wait for Lucas?’ and he doesn’t say ‘I’m not sure I can drive right now’ or ‘I don’t want to put myself in a moving metal box with you because I think it might break me’ and just says “Yeah… I… Yeah sure. If you’re ready to go. Sure. I can drive you.” and he pops the cherry off his half smoked cigarette into the ash tray and puts the remaining half into the packet so he can finish it later.
“Let me just…” He strides past Mike, back to the living room and says he’s going to drive Mike home now and it was nice seeing them all and he’ll be at the diner at one tomorrow and he ignores Lucas’s look of confusion and Max’s mouthed ‘what the fuck?’ and grabs his coat and his car keys and gestures to Mike to follow him outside to the car.
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He jogs to catch up with him, grabbing his jacket on the way out. It's been a rainy spring break, much to everyone's dismay, and though it's not raining at the moment, he can smell it on the air. He waits until he's inside the car before he turns to Will. "Are you okay?"
His brow is furrowed in concern and he clenches his fingers nervously in the pockets of his jacket. This is the first time they've been alone since he's arrived and he's grateful for the chance to talk to Will one on one, but he also feels strange nerves twisting in his stomach.
He pauses a moment before frowning. "Did you and Daniel break up?"
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Is he okay? He’s doing frenzied math and geography to try and avoid driving somewhere that’ll make him need to pull over and dry heave but won’t be super obviously the long way around so no. Not really. “Yeah, I’m fine.” It’s stilted, robotic, it isn’t even a smooth lie, he’s usually so good at those, shockingly so really.
He starts the car and immediately stalls. And again. And a third time. “Sorry, I’ve been having this problem.” He hasn’t. “It’s probably the clutch.” Truth, it is the clutch, or moreso that it isn’t connecting properly when Wills leg is shaking but still, the clutch is the second most contributing factor beyond Wills inability to keep his shit together.
Mike looks upset and it takes a moment of Will letting the engine run and trying again, then putting the car into gear when it mercifully runs before he actually registers what Mike asked next. Which… Okay great. His best friend (is he? Still?) potentially thinks as little of him as his boyfriend apparently does.
“No.” Will answers tonelessly, trying to bite back I get that nobody in this car thinks I’m worth dating but I have not been dumped. Yet. “He’s not enjoying being on holiday where the motto is “get as much beer and pussy as you can” with all his straight friends, when his only other queer friend was smart enough not to go and his boyfriend couldn’t afford it. He took his misery out on me earlier and called to apologise for it.” It’s almost the truth, Will just leaves out the part where it’s been like this all week and will probably continue to be for the next few days. And the details about his sex life, or lack thereof.
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There was a time when Will wouldn't have bothered even trying to say he was fine when he wasn't. The fact that he does so now feels like a punch to Mike's gut. As much as he hates being faced with it, things have changed and Will is no longer the open book he used to be. When Mike tries to turn to the well read and dog-eared pages of their childhood he finds that he can't find those familiar catches in place. They've been smoothed out and the pages he used to know by heart are blank to him now. Mike swallows and tries to hide the hurt in his expression at the lie that's thrown out so casually, like Mike is anyone else.
The car stalls and Mike swears he can feel Will's agitation grow with each attempt to start it up. It feels like he's on the edge of something, even if Mike isn't sure what. He wants to reach out and put an arm on his shoulder, tell him to breathe that whatever happens, it's going to be okay, but he knows Will won't appreciate those kinds of platitudes. They both know that the world rarely works that way.
"Oh," Mike says in response to Will's explanation, sinking down slightly in his seat. It stings more than he thought it would to hear Will call himself someone's boyfriend. Mike knows he screwed up when they'd talked about the kiss. He'd felt Will pull away from him over the next year and then physically put nearly 400 miles between them when they'd graduated, but the holidays had given him hope that maybe they could get back part of what they'd lost. Maybe the book wasn't closed to him permanently. Mike stares out the window, the windshield wipers moving to keep up with the fat drops of rain that have begun falling against the glass. He glances back over to Will, taking a breath before voicing the question crawling up his throat. . "What do you mean, he took it out on you? What did he say?"
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He hasn’t got the first clue how to bridge the chasm anymore and it’s like Mike doesn’t know how either. He doesn’t reach out, physically or otherwise, where he would have before. Will can’t think about it because he’ll start to cry and if he cries he’ll have to pull over and they’ll be stuck in this strange limbo waiting for the guillotine to drop and sever their bond for good.
It hurts more than looking at the memorial where the library once stood. It hurts more than every mean thing Daniel has said over the phone. He spoke once about ripping the bandaid off and now they’re soaked and he’s still bleeding and he can’t just do it.
Mike sinks in his seat and Will wants to apologise for everything, sorry I love you, sorry I didn’t fight for us when you told me you couldn’t do it, sorry I’m terrified that if I let you in you’ll realise I’m a lost cause too, sorry I didn’t die and I’m just killing everything I touch instead. He blinks and tries to stop his eyes from prickling. Knuckles turning white on the steeling wheel. He clenches his lip between his teeth, bites down until it stings and he feels like he can speak without apologising for existing at all.
“It doesn’t matter what he said, he just snapped at me and I overreacted.” He’s always overreacting, too sensitive, feeling everything too deeply, letting his feelings get hurt when he should let things wash over him instead. Everything his father hated. “I feel bad that I ruined both our evenings, that’s all.”
Will lets it sit for a moment and he wants to tell Mike that he’s not sure this relationship is going to work, he’s not sure anybody deserves to have to cope with him and his litany of issues. “He’s great usually, he’s just having a bad time and I’m… I don’t know. It’s hard being back here, seeing everything we lost and being back in all the places where…” he hiccups trying to swallow the feelings. “We’re going the long way.” Will admits taking a turn in the wrong direction. “I can’t go past the place I had to bundle my brother into Steve’s car while we tried to save his leg and his life. I can’t do it. I can’t unsee the blood.”
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Mike knows he should've kept his mouth shut. He can see it in the way Will's fingers tense on the steering wheel and the way he bites his lip. He can't see his jawline, but he imagines it tightening as he grits his teeth. Mike has no right to ask about his boyfriend. Mike has no right to be hurt by him just saying the word. Not when he had been the one who hadn't been brave enough to take the next step when he'd had the chance.
Will's voice is even, even if he thinks he might hear an edge of irritation to it, or maybe it's just Mike's imagination reading into things. He can't trust his feelings with Will any more. That's part of the problem. Still, he doesn't like the way Will falls on the sword for Daniel. The way he immediately takes all the blame as if he's prone to hysterics. As if he hadn't spent all night looking troubled by whatever Daniel had said earlier, a thousand miles away from his friends and family, even if he was in the same room.
Mike can feel the words bubbling up in his chest and even before they reach his throat, he knows they're only going to make things worse. If Will is upset now, Mike judging his boyfriend will not help that, and yet he can't let it go. Not when Will looks so miserable. "Or, you reacted to someone snapping at their boyfriend about a shitty vacation that they had nothing to do with and can do nothing about." The words come out fast and a little heated, defensive, even though Mike has no part in this fight. No skin in the game. And that's also the problem, isn't it?
Mike swallows, fighting the urge to roll his eyes when Will says Daniel's usually better. If he was better, he wouldn't be ruining Will's vacation just because he couldn't afford to go with him and his friends. If he was better, he would be here to support Will, not hounding him on the phone and drawing him away from the people who he'd come home to visit. He curls his hands into fists in his pockets, staring at the dashboard as Will admits that they're going the long way. Mike hadn't noticed, but he understands.
"I don't mind," he says, his voice a little quieter. He watches raindrops roll down the passenger side window, wishing he could just ask Will to pull over so they could talk. So he could try to make him feel better. Try to find a way to make him laugh. Tell him he's sorry for not calling or writing. Instead, the silence draws out between them until Mike can't take it anymore and he reaches out to turn on the radio. "Are you going to the Hideout to see Eddie play tomorrow?"
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Will feels the frustration bubbling up. He swallows it and tries to move past it. “I probably will yeah. I think the rest of the party are going.” He knows Max and El are regulars there since the rest of them left.
Will tries to leave it alone. He tries to not poke the bear with a stick. He knows Mike was just defending him. He’s wrong for being irritated. The bars of Lovesong by the Cure play through the radio as if mocking him.
“I don’t appreciate you judging my boyfriend by the way,” he doesn’t mean to say it. He certainly doesn’t mean to say anything further but his brain to mouth filter isn’t functioning like it should. “He wouldn’t be the first person to start a fight and say something he doesn’t mean, Mike.” His voice is still calm and even, and he hates himself as soon as he’s said it. At least he was gentle with the knife, even when he knew he was sliding it between Mikes ribs. At least he didn’t make ‘we’re friends’ sound like an inconvenience, at least it wasn’t ’it’s not my fault you don’t like girls.’
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Mike feels a chill run down his spine at the implications of Will's words, immediately replaced by a white hot flash of anger. His jaw tenses as he whips his head around to stare at Will. His mind is such a jumble of white noise that it takes him a moment to even formulate a response and when he does, it's delivered in an instant. "Sorry I'm judging your boyfriend who is off with his douchey friends instead of here with you," Mike snaps, his brow furrowed in frustration.
His stomach churns, hot and uncomfortable as he shifts to glare at Will. "I'm sorry, I think it's ridiculous that he calls you every night and you always look worse afterward. I'm sorry that Hawkins is such a shitshow that you hate coming back here. I guess we're just not as cool or amazing as your new friends are."
Mike snaps his mouth shut, closing his eyes before pulling out one of his bloodless hands to rub over it. He let's out a deep sigh and sinks back into his seat. He really could've done a lot better than to show exactly what Will was pointing out. It's just been building inside him for the last few days and besides, Will had been the one to draw first blood.
He fully expects Will to pull over and kick him out. "I didn't.. this wasn't what I wanted," he says, his voice low as he moves to unbuckle his seat belt. "I don't want to fight."
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“Fuck. You.” He whispers harshly.
Mike doesn’t get him anymore. The guillotine had already dropped, he just hadn’t realised. He feels stupid for not seeing it sooner, for daring to hope when hope has never gotten him anything but hurt.
“Fine, truth is my boyfriend,” he emphasises the words because it hasn’t entirely escaped him that Mike doesn’t seem to like him having one and he’s hanging somewhere nebulously over whether he thinks Mike isn’t as cool with the gay thing as he thought he would be or he’s jealous, which he isn’t allowed to be because he walked away. “Doesn’t like you.” At least he’s honest. At least he doesn’t try to insist they’re all friends here while his partner hates his best friend like when El hated him as much as he hated her. “He knows I had a crush on you and I don’t know I guess maybe he thinks I’m unhappy spending time around someone who broke my fucking heart.” Will has a full grasp on the knife now and he’s twisting it and his conscience is screaming at him to stop as he carves into the wreckage of the best friendship he’s ever had. “I can’t exactly tell him it’s because I’m stuck back in a place that got overrun by monsters and it’s nothing to do with any of you.” Take that, you’re wrong, Mike.
“And put your fucking seatbelt back on, you’re not walking home in the dark alone, you might have been able to get over the fear it’s all coming back as soon as you let your guard down but I haven’t and I can’t handle it.” He hates how vulnerable that sounds under all the barely contained rage, hates that he’s admitting that he isn’t over it yet when he’s trying to be angry.
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But Will goes on and Mike winces at the way he uses the word as a weapon. Not only does it mean that he hasn't fooled anyone all week, least of all Will, but that Will knows exactly how much he dislikes it and is using it against him on purpose. His mind blanks at the next bit of information. Why would Will's boyfriend not like him? He's never even met the guy!
And then there's a certain kind of hilarious irony to the fact that Daniel hates him for the same reason he hates Daniel. Because he makes Will miserable. Because he broke Will's heart. And even though he's carried around that knowledge with him every day since that day he'd done it, this is the first time Will's said it out loud. It's a critical hit. Guilt settles on his chest, crushing it down and making it hard to breathe. Mike's breath picks up as his body determines if it's safer to fight or flee or freeze. He freezes, staring at his best friend like a deer in headlights.
He presses his tongue against the roof of his mouth, desperately fighting the sudden urge to cry. He had wanted to make Will feel better, to get him away from everyone else and try to help, not push him into this. He knows the only way he can avoid crying is if he gets out of the car now. If he walks away from Will. If he closes the book and ends the story because trying to change the ending is just making it worse. He lets out a shaky breath and swallows down the sick feeling gathering at the back of his throat.
He doesn't get out of the car. He does lick his lips and grind his teeth together to fight the urge to cry as he slowly buckles his seatbelt and looks out the passenger window so he doesn't have to look at Will. The first chords of Tainted Love plays over the radio and Mike feels like the universe is singing his thoughts out loud as he tries to pull himself together.
When he trusts himself to speak, he does, his voice quiet but thankfully sounding more steady than he feels. "I'm not over it," he says, slowly. "I'm still scared too, sometimes."
He forces himself to look over at Will. "I think part of me always will be. There's so many bad memories. I don't blame you for not wanting to be back here."
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Sometimes he forgets that hurting Mike means hurting himself too until he’s done it. Maybe they’re just really bad for each other. Will needs to let him go but he can’t live with the idea of letting him out of the car to walk the last three streets. He knows he shouldn’t drive and cry but he can feel the tears seeping into the collar of his shirt, the streetlights halo at the edges but his vision doesn’t blur enough to justify pulling over.
He can’t even be mad when Mike speaks again and he’s still being gentle, Will doesn’t deserve gentle. He doesn’t want it either, he wants Mike to be angry with him and to make losing him hurt less. Will keeps his breathing as quiet as he can, tries not to let it show that he’s crying. He’s good at it, practiced, silent crying is a skill he’s had plenty of opportunities to perfect.
The car rounds the corner of the street and Will doesn’t want to. He could just keep going and not look back. Take them both far away from monsters and other people’s cruelty, run until there’s nothing left to run from but himself and maybe when they get there Mike can talk him out of doing that too. But he can’t. Mike deserves so much fucking better than him, that’s why Will let him go in the first place and he doesn’t understand why Mike insists on coming back.
“I’m sorry.” He manages as he pulls up to the Wheeler house. “I was upset with myself, I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.” He sounds like fucking Daniel, maybe that is who he’s supposed to be with, someone who comes across as gentle but has a vicious streak. It’s not like he’s any better.
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He sighs, not ready to exit the car and leave things like this. He only has two more days before he has to drive back to school and it suddenly doesn't feel like enough time to try to fix the damage he's done. He doesn't know how many times he can go around blowing up his relationships and still have the most important people in his life turn around and forgive him. El had. And Will...Mike doesn't know how much more he can ask of him before he decides he's not worth it.
"If I were him, I'd be calling too." If Mike was Will's boyfriend, they wouldn't even be having this fight. There would be no Daniel. No crying. No disconnect. No regrets. But that's just a fantasy that Mike needs to let go of because the longer he holds onto it the more bitter he feels. "You're right, I shouldn't have been so judgemental. I shouldn't have said what I said."
"I just..." Mike takes a deep breath. "I feel like I'm losing you and it makes me stupid."
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“It’s not your fault I’m over sensitive, it’s not his either, it’s like you said, there’s so many bad memories… I get…” Will searches for the words that will make Mike understand, wipes his face with his sleeve and regrets it when his cheek stings under the tears and denim. “Stuck in the viewmaster.”
If Mike were him… Maybe he’s a little less certain that Mike would get it than he was an hour ago, but he would try and that’s what counts. That’s also what hurts.
“Don’t you ever think it would be better if you did?” Fresh tears spring in his eyes. “I’m a mess and we fight and we don’t talk and I hurt you…” Sometimes Will wonders if Mikes heart breaks like his does but he’s too afraid of the answer.
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"I don't know if you are over sensitive," Mike says, crossing his arms and looking down at his feet. "It's hard not to be sensitive when everywhere you look there's a reminder of what we've been through." It's part of why most of them got out of Hawkins as fast and as far as they could. But it's different for Will, he knows that. There's so much more associated with the town that he saved but still rejects him.
"No," Mike says firmly, his eyes bright with tears. Finally, he allows himself to reach out and put a hand on Will's arm. "Will, you're my best friend. I'm sorry I didn't call. I guess, I've been embarrassed about how much I'm not doing. Every time I think about it, I picture you out with your friends and coming home to an awkward answering machine message from your childhood friend that you don't need any more." His voice cracks at the end and the tears spill over and Mike wipes them away in frustration.
"I don't know how I fit or where I belong any more and that's not your fault. Home doesn't feel like home and school is..." He lets out a low breath. "It's not what I thought it would be." He hasn't actually said it out loud, outside of his head and now that he's managed to put it into words he thinks it sounds stupid. It's nothing compared to fighting One or surviving the last few years. It had felt like he was drowning in the bigness of it inside his head, but outside of it, it seems so small. "It's stupid, I know."
"Maybe i deserve to be hurt," he says, blinking away tears. "I know I hurt you. And I know it's not ever going to go back to the way it was because of what I did, but I don't want to lose you. I can't." He pulls his hand back to wipe at his eyes again. "Unless you want me to. I don't want to keep hurting you just because I don't know what to do without you."
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Will has been trying to let Mike go so hard he’s ruined their friendship. He was rude, he was mean, and Mike is still right there trying. Every time Will pushes him away he comes right back and there’s only one thing he hasn’t done and it’s the hardest thing of all - honesty.
“I do need you, I always will.” Mike is the first person who has managed to pull off making him feel his emotions with complete clarity instead of a veil of unreality all week and while moving them off to somewhere nebulously separate works to blunt them it does mean that sometimes Will explodes and leaves a trail of devastation in his wake.
He turns the engine off and clasps his hands in his lap to stop himself reaching out. “I lied a little bit,” he’s going to be sick. He’s going to have to open the door and vomit on the pavement of the nice neighbourhood. It wouldn’t be the first time. “I don’t think Daniel gives a fuck that you broke my heart, it’s just that…” This whole thing already feels like a break up. It feels worse than their talk on the cabin porch, maybe because Will was hiding and wasn’t being honest and it’s the honesty that stirs up the shame.
A fresh wave of tears cascades and he can’t do anything about them. He should have carried on driving, he should have just taken them as far away as he could go. He really just wants to hold on even though it hurts.
“I know I can’t have you.” Will hates how tiny it comes out, how he sobs a little between the words. “I can’t get over you either.” He’d be angry with someone for it too, he’d be hurt knowing he was being settled for, he thought he’d hidden it well enough but he knows Daniel has seen through him. “I’m probably going to get dumped over it. He hasn’t done it yet but I can feel it coming. I won’t blame him when he does.”
He takes a deep breath. He means to say ‘I don’t trust me either’. He means to say it and not do anything to prove it. Really he does. Instead he moves to push the buttons on both their seatbelts. Grabs Mike by the collar as he manoeuvres and ends up with the gear stick digging into his thigh and he’s barely on his seat and the cup holder is full of who knows what because El has majority custody of the car but it doesn’t matter. Because nothing else matters outside of the fact that Will refuses to walk away without kissing Mike at least one more time. So he’ll take awkwardly holding himself between two car seats so he can press his lips to Mikes.
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Will's words are an echo of the ones he'd said in the van so many years ago. When he'd told him that El would always need him. He'd been wrong about El, but Mike knows now that conversation hadn't really been about El at all. Mike hopes that he's not wrong. He hopes that there's still room somewhere in Will's life for him, though he knows it's not where he wants to be most.
Mike swallows when Will says that he lied, trying to mentally prepare himself for the moment when Will will finally admit that he doesn't need him. That his life is better without him. That all Mike does is remind him of Hawkins, of their nightmare of a past, of the way he let him down. His heart is beating so fast that Mike feels hot all over, like he's drunk too many cups of coffee and he might throw up.
He still can't help but wince at broke my heart because he feels it each time like a stab to his own. He broke both their hearts without even trying and now they're just left holding the pieces. Then Will goes on and Mike feels like the world stops. His heart stutters in his chest as he looks back at Will with wide, hopeful eyes It's selfish. It's so selfish, that hope that blossoms in his chest and quickly spreads through the rest of his body as Will moves closer. His hands move on their own accord, desperately grasping for Will's shirt to pull him closer, to kiss him back.
And then reality comes crashing down at the sound of an approaching car, the headlights sweeping across the front seat. Mike breaks the kiss, pulling back like he's been burned, afraid of being spotted. Their neighbor, old Mr. Johnson, passes without looking in their direction once. Mike looks back at Will, letting out the breath he was holding. Guilt settles on his features as he furrows his brow. "Shit, I'm sorry."
He doesn't know what he's doing. Will has a boyfriend. They're in Hawkins, where a mob had practically haunted Eddie down for being a murderer just because he was different. He wants to kiss him again so badly, but this is stupid. He glances towards his basement door, lit by a lone porch light. "Do you want to come in?"
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It’s all falling apart and Will doesn’t want to hope, doesn’t want to hang everything on this being any different than last time and he knows what will happen if he accepts the invitation to go inside. The problem is that he wants to. They go inside, they kiss more, Will allows himself to be touched, lets himself give Mike the thing his actual boyfriend wants from him, god he has a boyfriend and he’s going to break someone else’s heart, he’s so selfish. And then what? What happens after that? They live 400 miles apart. They can barely maintain a friendship at that distance.
“If I come in…” Will hates himself. He hates himself for trying to save them by breaking them. “We do what?” He doesn’t want to be the sensible one, he hates being the sensible one. “And then what? Can you promise me you’re going to give us a shot this time? That you won’t change your mind in the cold light of morning, can you swear you won’t do that this time?”
Tell me it’ll be different, please, please tell me you’ll try. But Mike jumped away like he’d been burned and Will knows it’s different in Hawkins, that they can’t tell Mikes parents, that it’s a massive risk, it’s just a case of whether Mike believes that they can do this somewhere else. Whether Mike thinks he’s worth it or not. Will secretly doesn’t honestly believe that he is.
He feels like he’s cocked a loaded gun to his own heart. He waits for Mike to pull the trigger.
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Mike can feel his heart sink the moment will says if, the hope inside him withers up and disappears like smoke. Mike doesn't have an answer to his question. He knows what he would like to do if they go inside. He knows that he wants to kiss him for hours, fall asleep on the couch together, or up in his bedroom, wake up and play video games until it's time to meet the others, feel whole again in the knowledge that he hasn't lost him. He wants it so badly he can feel it like an ache in his bones.
Can you promise me you're going to give it a shot? That you won't change your mind in the cold light of morning? Can you swear you won't do that this time?
Mike stares at Will, the corners of his mouth twitching as he considers each of these questions. He could tell him what he wants to hear, but that's always been the most important rule in the Party. Friends don't lie. And Will had been his first friend. His best friend. The most important person to be honest with. Everything had fallen apart because Mike hadn't been honest enough to just tell him how he was feeling. To do anything less than to be honest right now would be unforgivable. Even if it hurts like hell.
"I want to," Mike says, biting his lip. "I've wanted to." I've wanted you. He takes in a shaky breath, feeling his eyes well up again. "But I can't..." He feels them spill over as he looks back at Will. "I don't know if I can give you what he does." Each word feels like a cut to his wrists. "We couldn't tell anyone."
Because that would mean that he was gay and that would mean putting a target on Will, himself and their families. Because it's more than just about the two of them, even if it shouldn't be. And Daniel probably takes Will out on dates, gets to take him home and kiss him and touch him and...
Mike feels bile rise up into his throat. He can't do that. He lives in Chicago and he hates it, but he's stuck there for the next three years. Three years of phone calls and letters and not being able to touch Will or see him unless it's a holiday or the summer. He knows it's not fair to Will or himself. He thinks it would just be more hurt building up between them. He wouldn't lose him, but why would Will want to hang on to that? How could he not resent Mike for holding him back?
He feels dizzy and unsteady, the way he'd felt after losing too much blood that one time. Part of him wishes he could pass out and put this conversation off for later. It feels like the end. Like that last night all over again, except he knows death isn't a possibility. He's going to have to live with it this time. "I think I..." The word is on the edge of his tongue but it feels too hard to say. This time not because he doesn't mean it but because of how much he does. He presses his lips together to keep himself from saying it. To keep himself from dragging Will along any more than he already has. He sniffs, wiping at his face with his sleeve. "I don't want to break your heart again."
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He told himself to expect the worst. He knew Mike would rather pull the trigger than take a chance on him. He knew that and he still allowed himself to believe for a moment that this wasn’t going to be the outcome.
He wants to scream and cry and beg for Mike to just try. He can be a secret but he can’t be a best friend who he treats like a boyfriend but won’t commit to it. He could shrug it off, go inside and prove that he’s worth it. It probably wouldn’t work on account of the fact that he actually isn’t.
Will takes a deep breath and when he lets it out the sense of detached calm sweeps over him again. Blunting his emotions. Making it feel as though he’s floating above the whole horrible scene.
Mike doesn’t want to break his heart again but somehow doesn’t seem to understand that he just did. Will was a fool to expect it to be different. They can’t bridge the gap, it’s too wide.
“For the record,” Will tries to force emotion back into his voice but it’s gone. “I get it. And I’m not angry. But I don’t think I can be around you right now.”
Tears burn his eyes but don’t fall.
“Call me if you change your mind, I need to go home now.” He flips the switch at the side of the steering wheel that unlocks all the doors.
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Mike can see Will pull back inside himself, out of reach and emotionless, and it blurs his vision because he's the reason. He doesn't want to break his heart again any more than he wants to break his own, and yet here he is again, staring at the shards lying between them. Except this time he knows there's no gluing them back together. He'd come back hoping that he could cross some of the distance between them and all he'd managed was to make it insurmountable.
He almost wishes Will were angry. He'd be willing to take on any yelling or insults better than he can the sheer impassivity in his voice. Mike hears finality in it as he unlocks the doors and he gropes blindly for the handle, the world a blur. "I'm sorry," Mike says, his voice breaking as his fingers find the handle and he pulls. The door swings open and Mike stumbles out of the car, his knees weak. He gets hallway to the basement door before a sob escapes his mouth and he can't hold it in anymore. He turns back toward the car at the curb, to finish telling Will what he should have. To say the biggest truth of them all.
But Will is already gone.