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Mike’s chance to talk to Will comes when the groups get ready to split at the lab. Everyone is gathering gear and splitting into teams. Mike is going with Will, but who knows when they’ll get another moment to talk. Maybe never. The chances of them all making it out of this alive feels unlikely-
He pushes that thought away, locks it in the same vault in his mind that he’s been locking every unhelpful thought since, well, for a while. Right now, Mike doesn’t have time for unhelpful thoughts and feelings.
He has to have time for Will though. Will, who is about to tap back into the hive mind. Will, who just confessed his biggest secret to a room full of his closest family and friends so that it can’t be used against him. So that he can protect them all.
Will is strapping an ax to his belt, something he’s unlikely to need, but Mike still feels better knowing he’s armed. He looks up and smiles as Mike walks over. Despite what they’re about to do, what they’re attempting, Will’s smile is lighter than Mike has seen it in… years. Since before he was taken, probably. Mike is reminded of sleepovers spent pouring over comics and giggling under blanket forts. He’s reminded of Will’s eyes, wide and scared, then wide and completely blank, something lurking behind them, then squinted and angry, accusing, then sincere but holding back, holding back something Mike refuses to look at closer-
He forcefully shoves all of that back into his vault too. Throws it into an abyss for good measure.
“Hey,” Will says.
“Hey,” Mike says, stepping closer (not too close, just enough to not be overheard. Not so close their shoulders bump or close enough to make out the details of Will’s eyes or-)
“What’s up?” Will’s expression is friendly and unbothered, but his tone gives away an undercurrent of apprehension.
Mike knows the feeling. Part of him wants to walk away, or make a joke, but he forces himself to look into Will’s eye. Because Will is about to go face an evil sorcerer, and he just confessed to a secret that could have cost his life, and Mike…
“I just…” He swallows hard, and watches Will’s smile falter, nerves showing through. That’s the opposite of what he wants. He steels himself and manages to say, “You were really brave, back at the Squawk. I mean, you’ve always been brave but…” he looks down, any other words drying up in his throat. How can he tell Will how what he did is so much braver than anything else he’s ever seen, that Mike would rather face a hundred demos alone than do what Will just did?
That’s not helpful right now. Lockbox. Abyss.
“Thanks Mike,” Will says softly. Mike manages to look him in the eye again to see the his smile soften.
Mike can feel the weight of unspoken words on his tongue, pressing up against dark edges in his mind, but they don’t have time for any of that, and it’s clear Will doesn’t really need whatever crap might come out of his mouth if he tried. Mike just nods and grabs his own gear.
The thing is, thoughts and memories and feelings aren’t stationary objects you can hide away or burn up like a letter. You can shove them down in some neglected crevice of your mind, but they have a life of their own. They want to be felt, experienced. They want to be acknowledged. They will do everything they can to crawl out of whatever abyss you tossed them into.
This might have taken a lot longer if a dark sorcerer didn’t drag them up to the surface.
Mike walks down the walls of the lab next to Lucas. Nancy still insists on taking the lead, shotgun at the ready, but Will is right behind her. Occasionally he pauses to focus on the hive mind and make sure their path is clear.
After one of these pauses Mike offers Will some water. Mike does not watch as he takes a swig, does not watch the bob of his throat or his lips pursed around the-
Except he was watching, and Will lowers the canteen and locks eyes with him in a piercing, knowing gaze. His eyes squint in a microexpression that Mike wouldn’t recognize if he didn’t know Will like the back of his hand. He’s angry. Mike somehow gave something away, at the worst possible time, and of course Will is angry-
Will stands up, turns away from Mike, and nods to Nancy to keep moving. Mike tries to quickly shove all of that back into a locked vault and there wasn’t anything for Will to see anyway, there wasn’t anything for him to be angry about, so Mike was just imagining it-
Mike is the last of the four of them to walk into the next hallway, and he finds himself suddenly alone. He spins around in shock, looking every which way for his sister and friends and only encounters more spores, floating around his head.
“Nancy!” Mike calls. No response, getting more frantic he yells, “Lucas! WILL!” No response.
He yanks his walkie off his belt and tries to contact them that way. No response. Desperately he calls out to the other teams. Static.
He takes off in the direction they were headed when they disappeared. How could they have disappeared so fast? With Will they should be safer and more aware of anything coming than any other team-
He runs through to the next hallway and stops dead in his tracks. Will is standing a few yards away from him, expression blank and skin deathly pale. His eyes are entirely white.
“Will?” Mike asks, hesitant and quiet, “Where- where are Nancy and Lucas?”
He walks forward and reaches out to touch Will’s arm, desperate to draw him back from the hive mind. When he brushes Will’s skin though, he yanks his hand back. Will’s hand is so, so, much colder than it should be. Like, like-
Like when the mind flayer had him, like when Will was his spy.
As soon as he jerks his hand back Will’s eyes roll forward and lock onto Mike.
“Will, where are Nancy and Lucas?” Mike pleads.
Will stares at him blankly for a few moments, then his face contorts, so much like his face did years ago, when he was stuck in a stripped down shed-
“Liar,” Will hisses at him.
Friends don’t lie, a childish voice whispers in his ear.
Mike stumbles back and almost falls to the ground.
Will’s eyes bore into him and he says again, this time shouting in rage, “LIAR!”
“Where are Lucas and Nancy?” Mike shouts.
There’s no time to answer though, because suddenly demadogs are rushing down the hall towards them, and Mike rushes forward, desperate to grab Will and outrun them somehow, but the moment he’s close to him again Will finally moves, grabbing Mike roughly and throwing him to the ground.
Mike does his best to get back up but as soon as he gets to his knees he freezes in shock at his surroundings. He isn’t in the lab. He’s in his garage, back home. It storms outside and the air is cold, why is the garage open-
Across from him is Will, still pale and eyes still accusing and angry.
He doesn’t say anything to Mike, but Mike still hears a voice in his head, angry and mocking, It’s not my fault you don’t like girls.
Mike stumbles to his feet and runs out the open garage door, disoriented and confused and shouts, “NANCY, LUCAS, ANYBODY?”
As soon as he steps out of the garage though he stumbles, feet suddenly sticking in mud, which makes no sense, he should be on his cement drive way.
Mike looks around and finds himself at the bottom of the quarry. Ambulance lights illuminate the water and a small body is lifted out. Mike thinks he might puke, or scream or throw himself at the water.
I’m the only one who cares about Will!
Mike stumbles away from the scene and trips over a root, he finds himself hitting the hard asphalt behind the school.
“Where’s your boyfriend Wheeler?” one of the kids sneer.
“Yeah, where’s zombie boy?” laughs another.
We’re friends, we’re friends!
Mike is in his bedroom, staring at crossed out line after crossed out line. Dear Will, I miss you, Hawkins isn’t the same without you, I wish you were here, Love Mike. The last one is scribbled out so it wouldn’t be legible even if someone dug it out of the trash, but Mike remembers what it said, remembers writing it without even thinking about it until it was already on the page. He remembers not trying to write anymore letters after ripping that one up.
Mike is at the roller rink in Lenora, Will staring at him with those accusatory, angry eyes.
We’re friends, WE’RE FRIENDS, the voice in his head yells, increasingly in viciousness and volume, FRIENDS DON’T LIE. Mike turns, turns away from Will, and runs.
Then he’s just stumbling down the last few feet to his basement and hitting the carpet. He looks up and sees a blanket fort. Not the one that he kept like a shrine in his basement for El for a year, but a more poorly constructed one from his youth. A small young Will Byers sits in it, looking at Mike with eyes just as accusing as his older self. He doesn’t say anything but he doesn't need to. Mike feels his face get wet. He realizes he’s crying. He can’t remember the last time he cried.
He hears a creaking on the stairs behind him and whips around, watches in horror as Vecna descends into his basement. He stumbles back, towards Will in the tent, and it finally dawns on him what’s happening. Vecna has him, none of this is real.
He says it out loud, squeezing his eyes shut, he can get out of this, “It isn’t real,” his voice croaks.
“It isn’t real,” mocks Will from behind him. Mike whips back around and Will isn’t a kid anymore. He’s looming over Mike, eyes white and face angry, “Isn’t it though?”
Suddenly he feels a large hand wrap around his neck and lift him up, slam him against a wall, or a-
Oh god, he thinks, eyes darting around frantically as his air is slowly cut off. The landscape around him as Max described it, red and desolate and empty except for Vecna, who is even more horrific up close.
Inches away from his face Vecna whispers, “Are you ready to admit the truth Mike?”
Mike claws at Vecna’s hand, but it’s no use. Vecna carries on, voice somehow both soft and dripping acid, “There’s no more excuses to hide behind. Your secrets, you don’t keep them to protect anyone else. You’re not being brave for your friends, you’re not holding it together for your family.
“It’s a lie. You’re not brave at all. You are a coward. You are a liar. You are selfish.”
Mike tries to shake his head, thinks about what Max said about how Vecna gets into your head, about what Will said and Vecna using your secrets against you-
“You knew how he felt,” Vecna hisses, “and you said nothing. You lied to him, you lied to everyone else, you lied to yourself,” his voice turns softer, almost soothing, “do you have any idea how much you hurt him? All the ways you failed him?”
Mike tries, really tries to block out Vecna’s words. The vault is gone though, destroyed, dragged up from the abyss and all of his worst secrets aren’t even weapons to use against him. They’re just the truth. This is just who he is.
“You have been failing everyone,” Vecna says, “your friends-”
Dustin, who’s been a mess since Eddie’s death and Mike doesn't know what to say, and he’s grieving Eddie too, but Eddie didn’t die in his arms. Lucas, grieving and visiting Max everyday. Max, who he can barely bring himself to see at all, Max who was struggling and who Mike never tried to help, he hardly ever had a kind word to say to her-
“-what about your precious El?” Vecna sneers, “She’s your real victim isn’t she? You told her you loved her, that you needed her, but she’s just another shield for you to hide, just another way to run away from the truth-”
Mike, rolling his eyes when Will wants to play DnD in the basement. Mike, yelling at Will about not liking girls. Mike, writing letters and then destroying them before addressing new ones to the person he’s supposed to want to write to. Mike, afraid to hug his friend properly in an airport because what if he isn’t able to let go? What if the hug lasts too long? What if they see it on his face? Lockbox. Abyss. Except the lockbox has been dragged up, the contents spilling out . We’re friends. We’re FRIENDS. Will’s face crumbling, Mike ignoring that too.
Will, still being so kind, such a good friend. His painting. His words: “You’re the heart.” Remembering those words should make Mike feel better, but it’s worse than all the rest because the guilt is going to crush him and that’s why it was supposed to be locked away.
“I did not ask Will to make it,” El tells him, confused, “I saw him work on it though. It does look good.” He doesn’t ask Will about it.
Will smiles at him, bashful, even in an apocalypse, so full of life. His gentle shove sends a shockwave through Mike’s body. Mike turns, leaves, and hopes Robin, waiting for them by the trapdoor, doesn’t notice the expression on his face.
Will tells everyone he doesn’t like girls and Mike is shocked and scared because he has all of this locked in a vault and Will is waving around the key. Then he says his crush isn’t like him, and that it doesn’t matter.
Mike knows it’s not true and he knows how much the lie really hurt and he knows he’s a coward. Will cries and Mike is torn between wanting to run from the room and cradle him in his arms in front of everyone. Instead he waits until Dustin and Lucas have already risen to embrace him, until he thinks he can do it without spilling all his own secrets in front of everyone.
Will told everyone so he could protect them in this fight. Mike didn’t because he has never been Mike the Brave. What a dumb lie, and what an obvious truth: that he is a coward and always has been.
He wonders if love has the power to damn someone.
“MIKE!” his head struggles against Vecna’s grip, thrashing and looking around the red hellscape looking for the owner of the voice. Looking for Will.
“He can’t help you now,” Vecna tells him, “and if he knew, would he even want to?” he gets Mike’s face back in his iron grip and peers into his eyes, “After you left him alone? After you promised to protect him and then abandoned him?”
“MIKE!” Will’s voice is far away but he can still hear all of the raw edges of it, “MIKE CAN YOU HEAR ME? WHATEVER HE IS SAYING, DON’T LISTEN TO HIM.” He hears sobs, “YOU HAVE TO LIVE MIKE, YOU HAVE TO LIVE. WE NEED YOU. THE PARTY NEEDS YOU. HOLLY NEEDS YOU. NANCY AND YOUR PARENTS NEED YOU.”
“They don’t need you,” Vecna hisses, “what have you done? Moved some toy pieces around a map? Hit a monster on the head with a shovel?”
Mike can’t breath, can barely see as his vision gets dark. Vecna leans close, speaks into his ear, “This mission was doomed to fail. It will fail because of you Mike, you are the real weak link. You can’t even live up to your claim of being a good friend.”
Mike would sob if he had any air left. His body is going limp, last bits of consciousness slipping away-
“I NEED YOU MIKE. PLEASE, I STILL NEED YOU.”
…
Do you want to be my friend?
Sometimes memories, feelings, thoughts, they have a life of their own. This one takes its chance to be heard.
We are going to find Will.
Will giggles with him under a pillow fort, eyes as bright as Mike has ever seen them.
We’re going to find Will. because there is no way he’s giving up on him, not ever, no matter how much danger and “bad men” he has to face.
A kid shoves him into a locker, “Where’s your zombie boyfriend?” but Dustin yells after them, calling them assholes. Lucas grabs his hand and helps pull him back up. Their support makes him feel….
They make him feel brave.
The bravest girl he’s ever met looks at him like he’s something wonderful and he thinks he did something right.
He wonders if love has the power to save someone.
Will smiles bashfully and shoves him gently and Mike, walking away, thinks, for a moment, Maybe, maybe someday.
He’s so scared but he can’t keep running from Will, not if it might hurt him.
Maybe someday.
Will still smiles at him so softly, a smile reserved for a precious few people that Mike is apparently still a part of, despite everything. He doesn’t really get it but, but-
Maybe someday.
“You are a coward,” Vecna hisses.
“MIKE!” some force rips the hand off his throat, viney arm snapping and splintering. Then an ankle splinters and breaks underneath him too. Vecna howls in anger as Mike crumples to the rough ground. His vision blackens completely, his head feels so heavy, and then his thoughts and vision clear a bit.
Vecna lurches towards him and Mike scrambles back.
He thinks suddenly: Someday can’t come if he dies.
“It is too late for you Mike Wheeler,” he seethes, “You and all your friends will die. It will be your fault.”
And Mike understands. Vecna isn’t attacking Mike for fun, or because he’s the weak link, or because Mike deserves it. He’s targeting him specifically, because the party does need him. El needs him. Will needs him. His sisters and his parents and his friends need him. Maybe they don’t need him now, maybe he hasn’t been a great friend before. They need him after. They need him to tell the truth. They need him to be a good friend. They need to heal with him, not from his loss.
So right now they need him to be brave. He scrambles to his feet and looks around, looks for what Max described, a door, an escape, anything-
“MIKE!” he whips his head to the voice and there, in the distance Will, screaming, looking up, looking up because, well Mike must be floating oh god-
“MIKE!”
“WILL!” his voice is hoarse but he screams with all his might. He runs, he runs and doesn’t look back at what he knows is behind him. He runs and he thinks about, about swing sets and pillow forts and tabletop games and bike rides and hiking up dumb big hills and movies and drawings pinned to his wall and paint and his mother’s face and-
The first thing Mike feels is a hard collision. Not with the floor, with another body. Bodies?
Lucas, Will, and Nancy have caught him in an awkward embrace and quickly lower him to the ground. They all have tears streaming down their faces. Will’s nose is profusely bleeding.
They stare at him with big eyes and Mike, opening his mouth with the intention to say something comforting, let out a sob. He realizes his face is wet with tears.
Nancy wipes his face with shaking hands, “Mike,” she whispers, voice breaking. God he must’ve really scared her.
“Sorry,” he croaks out. Nancy shakes her head violently and more tears stream from her face.
“Is there uhm,” Lucas starts, hesitant, “something we need to talk about man?”
Mike laughs, a little wet, “I’ve maybe been uh, repressing some stuff.” Mike wants to look at Will, so he does. He’s wiped some of the blood from his nose but there’s still some red smeared by his left cheek. He’s watching Mike with bright, wild eyes, still breathing heavily.
Mike wants all of this to be over so bad. He wants it to be over and he wants to figure out how they fit together after all of this.
Lucas grips his shoulder tightly, “I thought we established that that’s a pretty dumb thing to do before going to battle an evil mind sorcerer.”
“Sorry,” he says again, because he really hasn’t said it enough, and because they really don’t have time to unpack everything in Mike’s head.
“Mike,” Nancy says, “you don’t need to be sorry, you need to tell us what is going on, what’s happening with you?” her voice is wobbling and he grabs her hand.
“I’m ok Nancy, really,” he says softly, “Vecna was just trying to mess with my head, and, and there’s some stuff I guess I need to deal with but,” he takes a deep breath, “he’s not going to get me. He’s not.”
“He can’t,” Will’s voice is hoarse when he finally speaks, “you can’t die Mike. You have to live, you have to.”
“Ok.” Mike says.
“Promise,” he says, demanding, eyes boring into him. No anger, just sincerity and clear desperation.
“I promise,” Mike croaks, “and I promise, I promise I’ll get my shit figured out. I-” he squeezes his sister’s hand and glances between all three of them, “I haven’t been a very good friend recently-” they all start to protest and he shakes his head, “no, stop, I haven’t been. I’ve been, to absorbed trying to keep it together with everything going on, and trying to be reliable, I stopped trying to rely on any of you,” his voice breaks a bit and they don’t have time for this, the timing is massively inconvenient, but he needs to say this first, “I’m done burying everything I’m afraid of though, I promise.”
Lucas and Nancy still look nervous, well, terrified. Will locks eyes with him though, and nods, “Ok,” and offers Mike a hand.
Mike lets himself be pulled up, Nancy hands him a water bottle, Lucas still has a hand gripping his shoulder and Mike lets himself take a moment to get acclimated to standing again.
Will has his eyes closed, and Mike can see his eyes swivel back and forth under his eye lids as he peeks into the hive mind again. He opens his eyes, and says, “We’re clear ahead,” Nancy nods, squeezes Mike’s hand one more time, and leads the group forwards.
Mike really loves his badass, pragmatic sister. He really needs to live, and get to see who she becomes without the end of the world looming over their heads.
Lucas thumps him on the shoulder and says, “If you feel anything weird, if you think for even a second that he’s trying again…” Mike nods and that seems to satisfy Lucas for now. He follows close behind Nancy.
Before Will can follow Mike grabs his arm.
He looks at Mike with his serious, bright, eyes. Mike misses his smile from earlier so much it aches.
“Are you sure you’ll be ok?” he whispers.
Mike nods and says, “Thank you.”
“Thank me?”
“For being such a good friend, and kicking Vecna’s ass, and for pulling me back. I heard you calling.”
His brows furrow, “We were all calling to you Mike.”
Mike processes that for a moment, then admits, “You’re the one I heard.” It’s not a grand confession, it’s not even close to everything he needs to say, but he thinks it might be enough for now.
Maybe someday.
Tears shine in Will's eyes and he rushes forward, wrapping Mike in a tight hug. “Never scare me like that again,” he whispers.
Mike laughs a little, “Hypocrite. Do you know how many scares you’ve given me the last few years?”
Will laughs and pulls back and Mike shoves him a bit, playful, and they grin at each. Mike nods down the hall and they start walking to where Nancy and Lucas are waiting a dozen yards away.
Mike wonders what they think of their little private conversation in the wake of Mike almost dying. He wonders if they can read it all on his face, if Will can.
It doesn’t matter at all. It matters so much.
Maybe someday.
Someday soon, Mike promises himself.
Right now though? He wants to watch his badass sister shoot Vecna in the face.
Everyone is just revelling in the fact that they succeeded, that they’re alive, that they all made it out.
There are still things to figure out. They need to figure out a permanent solution for El, and for Kali, who still seems to be actively at risk to kill El and herself. Mike can’t really bring it in himself to hate her for it. He wonders who El would’ve become without him, without their friends, without having so much to live for. He has no idea what to do about the bigger problems for them, but he decides he’ll make an effort to befriend Kali.
Will sets down next to him on the grass and they watch the sunrise with everyone else, spread out around the front of the Squawk. Will offers him a bag of chips and a juice, which Mike gratefully accepts with a smile.
Will smiles back, light, easy, all of the demons plaguing him for the last five years finally gone.
Mike wants to lean into him and never let go.
There’s some things he should say.
There are people around who will hear if he says them.
He should say them anyway.
“Will,” he says, voice soft. Not soft because he really cares who hears, but soft because this moment feels precious, hopeful.
Will looks at him, skin washed in the glowing sun and eyes gazing at him warmly, “What’s up?”
He says it with a goofy lilt to his voice. He’s enjoying the afterglow of everything. Enjoying his first moment of getting to live in peace. Part of Mike doesn’t want to disturb it for anything, but Will deserves the truth. They both do.
“I’m sorry I never said anything.”
Will cocks his head to the side, genuine confusion written on his features, and says, “About what?”
Mike swallows and fights the urge to look away, but he can’t, he has to do this. It’s crazy, because he’s been trying to bury all of this to the point he really was barely aware of it the last few years. Now that it’s all been dredged to the surface, he can’t wait. Mike’s never done anything in half measures, really. He’s all in or all out.
“I knew how you felt about me, and I never said anything,” this confession hurts to say aloud, and it hurts to see the understanding flash in Will’s eyes, the pain, for him to gulp and look away.
“Oh,” he says softly.
It’s quiet for a moment, then Will says, “It’s not your fault Mike, I never said anything either. It’s not like I gave you an actual chance to reject me.”
Mike shakes his head. He wants to address the rejection thing but first, “No, I was a bad friend. You were hurting and I- I was too scared to do anything.”
“So was I,” Will says, looking back out to the sunset. Part of Mike is relieved at the break in eye contact, the intensity of it. Another part of him never wants to stop looking into Will’s eyes again.
“You weren’t a bad friend Mike, at least not anymore than I was,” Will sighs, “I guess neither of us were being very honest.”
Mike shakes his head, “It’s worse than that though,” he says. Will looks at him, brow furrowed, but doesn’t say anything, letting Mike take his time saying what he needs to say.
“I-” Mike swallows hard. He wants to look at Will while he says it, but, well, maybe it’s ok to be a little bit of a coward, and keep his eyes closed, if he can just get the words out, “I let you think you were alone. I… I let you think I didn’t feel the same way.” His voice comes out hoarse at the end.
It’s quiet for a long moment and Mike cracks his eyes open.
Mike watches confusion slowly morph into surprise and Will lets out a quiet, “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Mike croaks out, “so you know, I uh, don’t think I’ve been a very good friend.”
Will seems to take that in as they stare at each other. Mike waits quietly for Will’s judgment, feeling raw and exposed but also… well it’s not as bad as he thought it would be, laying it all out. Letting all of his messiest feelings, all of his uneven edges be seen.
“Oh Mike, you’re, god you’re not a bad friend. Not for this, not- Mike I understand.”
Mike watches tears well up in Will’s eyes and wonders why his own face is wet and then realizes oh, oh he’s crying too.
Will swipes at his face and laughs, “God Mike, all things considered I think you’ve been a pretty remarkable friend-”
Mike shakes his head, “No, no I haven’t, but I’ll be better, if you’ll let me try-”
Will laughs again, a joyous sound even as it’s mixed in with tears, “If I’ll let you try?”
“Well, you know, we have time now. For the happily ever after stuff, so I think I can probably figure it out...”
“Oh?” Will smiles, face still wet, “and what does our happily ever look like?”
“Well, first up is getting out of shit hole Hawkins.”
“Hawkins isn’t all shit,” Will says, “It’s where I got to know you.”
“You also almost died a bunch.”
Will shrugs, smiling, “I would go through it all again, if it meant knowing you.”
Mike feels his throat close up, and all the words he wants to say fail him. Instead he shakily moves his hand across the grass until it’s on top of Will’s. Will looks down at their hand and slowly turns his over, so that their palms are touching. Mike’s pretty sure his hand is about to get really sweaty and gross but he’s also pretty sure Will won’t care. It’s silly. They’ve held hands before, sat next to each other for hours watching movies, pressed against each other. They used to giggle in blanket forts late into the night and fall asleep with their heads on the same pillow. Somehow it’s the same. Somehow it’s completely different. Electricity is tingling between their hands and Mike wonders if his hair is standing on end.
Will leans forward until their foreheads are pressed together and Mike can feel the shaky exhale of his breath against his own mouth.
It’s the most bizarre and easy thing in the world to lean forward and press his lips against Will’s.
Mike has loved this boy all of his life. He loved him before he had any idea what love was. He grew up with him, was irrevocably changed and shaped by him the moment they met on that swingset. He was never going to be able to remove his heart from the source.
It’s just a chaste press of lips before they both lean back. Will’s cheeks are dusted pink, and he really does glow in the light of the sunrise.
He hears a loud cheer and turns, startled, to see Vickie, beaming, and Robin, literally pumping her fist in the air. Their other friends are also looking at them, all of them either sporting a surprised ‘oh’ face or a happy grin. None of them look angry or disgusted, but Mike still feels his own cheeks go red. He takes a deep breath and refuses to give into feelings of embarrassment or shame.
He smiles at them and turns back to Will. Will’s face has also turned progressively redder as he realizes how closely they are being watched.
In a whisper, Will asks, “Are you sure about this?”
“Yes,” Mike says firmly, “are you?”
“Yes,” Will breathes, leaving no room for disagreement.
“Well, this sucks,” Lucas suddenly, loudly, says. Will and Mike turn to him in surprise.
Mike is about to ask what’s wrong but Lucas continues unprompted, talking in Max’s ear as if to whisper but actually speaking loud enough for the whole group to hear him say:
“Mike was so goddamn annoying last time he was in a relationship.”
Max laughs and says, “Yeah Will can definitely do better.”
“Hey!” Mike exclaims. Will just laughs along with them and Mike rolls his eyes.
“We’re just joking,” Lucas says when the giggles die down.
“Yeah we’re happy for you,” Max says, smiling down at them from her wheelchair, “Lucas and I are way cuter than you though.”
Mike laughs this time and just says, “Yeah, you guys are great together.” He knows his face must look horribly sappy based on the look Max gives, him but he doesn’t care.
There are more things Mike wants to say to Will, proper apologies, and explanations. They can stay unsaid for a bit longer though. It’s ok to rest in this moment. He continues to joke with his friends, all of them going back and forth from teasing and bickering to heart aching sincerity. They’re all so happy to be alive, to have survived and gotten everyone out. As the sun becomes visible fatigue starts to cloud his brain. Without really thinking about it he leans his head against Will’s shoulder. Without hesitation Wills wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close. Mike hears an awwww from Robin and flips her off without turning around, setting his friends into another round of giggles.
He can’t help his own smile as the sun warms his skin, and Will’s breath tickles his cheek.
Someday.