But the loneliness never left me

[partypaladin]

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?”

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[partypaladin]

"No, don't," Mike says, shaking his head, his eyes catching the glimmer of tear tracks on Will's face in the light from the street lamp at the curb. Amazing how he'd managed to upset Will more than Daniel had in the space of a five minute drive. It feels like he's got a guilt shaped anvil on his chest. If only there was a cliff nearby for him to throw himself off of. He wonders if he can talk Will into driving five more minutes to the quarry. "I was being an asshole."

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."

[willtheunwise]

“You were trying to help,” Will sniffs, unwilling to let Mike blame himself for the fact that he reached his limit with everyone and everything so he picked a fight then immediately started crying about it. And Mike was right, Daniel has been being shitty, Will just doesn’t want to ruin it all over a bad week and he doesn’t want his friends to hate his boyfriend but said boyfriend isn’t making that easy.

“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.

[partypaladin]

"Yeah," Mike huffs with a grimace. "How am I doing?" He's pretty sure that he's failed completely at helping, but at least Will knows that was what he was trying to do, before he made everything worse.

"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."

[willtheunwise]

The revelation that Mike is unhappy at college hurts more than the romantic heartbreak and it makes Wills guts tighten uncomfortably. He made Mike cry, he made Mike believe he doesn’t need him, oh god, he’s every bit as terrible as he thinks he is. He can’t pretend that he’s not just as culpable in this as he could at fourteen because Mike has done nothing but try and try since Will pulled him up on it, there’s no fight in the rain to hide behind this time.

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.

[partypaladin]

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?"

[willtheunwise]

It doesn’t work like Will intended, Mike doesn’t reject him, he doesn’t feel any better, just terrified.

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.

[partypaladin]

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."

[willtheunwise]

“Okay.” Will manages, pushing himself back into the drivers seat and straightening his shirt.

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.

[partypaladin]

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.