Chapter Text
It’s 90 degrees outside, they’re digging a security guard’s grave and the sand has somehow wedged its way into Will’s shoes, so forgive him if he’s looking for a distraction, and if that distraction happens to be Mike, who’s digging a few feet away from him without a care in the world. He’s discarded his blue windbreaker in favor of the white t-shirt he was wearing underneath, a smart move considering how goddamn hot it was outside. If Will thought California was bad, it was nothing compared to being in a literal desert.
Still not as hot as Mike, his brain supplies and Will nearly chokes out loud at the thought. What the hell? He’s definitely been on this road trip too long. He shakes his head and keeps digging, trying to focus on… literally anything else. Around him, the only sounds are his and Mike’s shovels hitting the sand, the rustling of Jonathan’s map on the hood of an abandoned car, and Argyle softly humming to himself in the pizza delivery van, the Purple Palm Tree Delight clearly working at keeping him calm- thank God.
Will stares down at the grave, which is almost covered now with only an arm visible, and cringes. He can’t blame Argyle for losing his shit. If you’re a first-timer to the world of monsters and other horrendous things, it can really freak you out. That isn’t to say he’s used to it, though. Some things never lose their shock value and digging a desert grave for a man who was shot right in front of him is far from an exception. He looks over at Mike, wondering what he’s thinking about all this. Or what he’s thinking about in general. Mike has always been hard to read, but this past year has been impossible. He could be thinking about how hot it was outside or what the security guard’s last words meant or whether El was doing okay. He sighs. It was probably the last one. It always was.
“Will?”
Will snaps out of it. Was he zoning out? “Yeah?”
Mike is looking at him, his expression unreadable. “Is there something you wanted to say?”
Shit. Will’s brain is already spinning with a thousand different interpretations of that question, and none of them are good. Was there something he wanted to say? How was he supposed to answer that? “No.” He shakes his head. “Sorry for staring, I’m just tired.” He pretends to yawn, and hopes it doesn’t look as fake as it felt.
“Tired, yeah,” Mike is still watching him, a slight smile at the edge of his lips. “It’s been a long day.”
“It has.” Will nods, then goes back to digging, this time not looking up. He curses himself in his head for being so obvious. While it was true that he was tired, he wasn’t nearly at the point yet where he would zone out staring at some random object, sometimes for minutes at a time. That only came with real sleep deprivation. But he knew that after two days on a road, it could become a real possibility, so he needed to be on top of his game. To stay alert. To not give in to what he wanted, which was to stare at Mike all day. His high cheekbones. His messy hair. His dark eyes. He really looked like he was out of a painting. He distantly wondered if El ever thought about him like that, like he was a work of art or out of a movie, and if she knew how lucky she was to have him. And to be able to kiss those lips, Jesus Christ.
“Will, you’re doing it again.”
Will sees Mike’s mouth move and snaps his gaze up. “What?”
“You’re staring.”
Will’s face goes red. What the fuck. Maybe he was more tired than he thought. A lot more tired, in fact. When he looks over, he sees Mike smiling to himself. “I-” He tries to redeem himself, but his mind has gone blank, seemingly determined to sabotage him. “I’m going to take a break.” He puts the shovel down. “You got it from here?”
“Yeah, of course.”
Will can’t even look at him as he turns around to walk to his self-imposed probation. He really needs to get a grip, to take a nap or something, because now he can no longer trust himself to act like a normal human being, not if Mike Wheeler is in a 10-foot radius. Fucking embarrassing.
“Hey Will, you okay?” Jonathan asks him, turned from where he’s still leaning over the giant map on the car hood.
He nods weakly. “Yeah, just tired.”
Jonathan looks at him sympathetically. “You can lie down in the back of the van if you want. I’ll tell Argyle to turn down the music.”
Will shoots him a grateful look. “Thanks.” He heads over and wrenches open the van door, climbing in and shutting it behind him. He moves so he is lying on his back in the backseat, staring up at the dusty yellow ceiling, the pungent smell of weed overtaking his senses. He decides not to say anything though because it’s the one thing keeping Argyle sane, something they all desperately needed. So instead, he closes his eyes and pictures happy times and D&D and his drawings and definitely not Mike.
-
He doesn’t know how long he was out, but he wakes up to a hand gently nudging his shoulder. “Will, scoot over,” Mike is whispering. “We’re leaving now.”
He blinks his eyes, trying to remember where he was. “What?”
Mike looks excited. “We found the phone number inside of the security guard’s pen. It was rolled up on a piece of paper. Now we just gotta find a payphone and call it.”
Will rubs his eyes, trying to process the information. “The phone number he was trying to tell us?”
“That would be the one.”
Will grins sleepily. They were finally making progress. “That’s great news.”
“Not like you were any help,” Mike jokes, but there’s no bite to it. In fact, it’s softer than usual. Will turns to him curiously, but he’s already looking away. “Now move over. We’re on a mission.”
Will grumbles but gets up, scooting to the left and strapping on his seatbelt. “But see? I was tired.”
Mike looks at him. “I never said you weren’t.”
“Yeah, but that’s why I was-” he cuts himself off. Why was he mentioning this again? “Nevermind. Let’s drive.”
Mike looks at him for a second too long before turning his head to the front. “Let’s drive,” he repeats.
“Right on dudes, heard ya loud and clear.” And then Argyle is accelerating too fast and everyone yells out in protest and things are finally back on track.
-
Two hours later, they’d located a phone booth and dialed the number only to hear a weird fax noise ringing back at them. It immediately reminded Will of the movie WarGames, where a guy called a number only to hear a similar sound, and later in the movie learned it meant he was calling a computer. And when computers were involved, there was only one person who could help- Suzie, Dustin’s girlfriend. So they piled back into the van and sped off toward Salt Lake City, Jonathan driving, Argyle drumming his fingers along on the dashboard to some reggae song that Will wasn’t even sure you could call music, Mike staring out the window next to him, and Will debating whether he should try and sleep again. Any defense against slipping up and having his feelings show was valuable in his book. But his plans were soon thwarted when he hears Argyle complain from the front seat. “I’m hungry, man! We haven’t eaten all day.”
“We had that pizza you delivered to us this morning,” Jonathan offers.
Argyle holds out his hand. “One, it was crushed with all the… violence. So it wasn’t as good. And two, that was six hours ago. C’mon, man! Have some sympathy.”
Jonathan sighs in defeat. “You’re right. And I doubt Suzie’s family will have a full-course meal laid out for us by the time we get there.” Without taking his eyes off the road, he fishes the map out of the glove compartment. “Try and find the nearest gas station.”
Argyle’s face lights up. “Hell yeah.” He grabs it from him, scanning intently. After a minute, he leans back. “We’re in luck, my dudes. There should be an exit in…” He studies the map. “Right now.”
“Right now?”
Argyle looks up, pointing at a sign marked Exit 154. “Right now!”
“Shit.” Jonathan swerves and the van rumbles as it drives over some grass, narrowly missing the sign, and with a bump they make it onto the exit. “Holy shit.”
“That timing though,” Argyle responds joyfully. “Talk about fast food.”
Jonathan shakes his head, but there’s a small smile on his lips. Argyle is good for him, Will realizes. They balance each other out. He pauses. Just like me and Mike. But before Will can go too far down that train of thought, they’re pulling into the gas station parking lot. Jonathan pops his door open. “I’m gonna fill up the gas. I’ll meet you guys in there.”
They all nod, hopping out. Mike groans as he stretches his legs. “Is this what being old feels like?”
“We’ll find out someday,” Will quips. Mike laughs at the comment and the sound does something to Will’s heart. The feeling is short-lived though as he really thinks about what he said. Is there any guarantee they’ll make it to old age? In a town like Hawkins, it wasn’t promised. Far from it, actually. He’s experienced it firsthand.
“You okay?” Mike whispers. Will turns to see him giving him a concerned look.
“Yeah,” Will replies automatically. “Just thinking. About Hawkins and well, everything,” he chuckles.
“I get what you mean.” Mike smiles sympathetically. “It’s… a lot sometimes.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
They both laugh at that, and then follow Argyle into the gas station. Will looks around. It’s exactly what he would expect from a 7/11 in the middle of nowhere. The welcome mat is covered in sand and the whole store has a deflated, dusty feel to it, like the heat has weighed it down. He starts scanning the shelves for anything resembling a meal, and his eyes freeze on an aisle to his right, not because of the contents, but because of the guy standing in it. He’s about their age, his hair combed back with a few strands falling in his face, and even from here Will can see how blue his eyes are. In other words, he’s attractive. His face flushes when the guy suddenly looks at him. He looks down quickly, embarrassed. What was it with him and staring today? Then a second, more pressing thought shoots through him. Did Mike notice? He searches around and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees Mike has already made his way over to the chip aisle, scanning the choices without a care in the world. The last thing he needed was Mike seeing him staring at a guy, especially after that day’s events. When he looks back though, the guy is still looking at him and Will freezes. His mind flashes back to years ago when he was called things like “fairy” and “freak” and he internally braces himself for the guy to have the same reaction. But when he looks at him, he realizes his gaze isn’t judgmental or disgusted, it’s curious, maybe even friendly. What?
The guy smiles slightly and motions him over. Did he just- is this happening? His heart is pounding now, but he puts on a brave face, walking over. Up close, the guy is even more attractive and Will realizes he kind of looks like Ilan Mitchell-Smith from The Wild Life.
“Yeah, what- what’s up?” he stutters.
The guy looks down, where he’s holding one candy bar in each hand. “Which one would you choose?”
Will follows his gaze, seeing a Kit Kat and a Snickers bar, although the words on the wrapper might as well have been written in a foreign language for how nervous he was. He takes a deep breath. “Well the Kit Kat is good if you only want to have a little bit and save some for later, because you can break it off, you know? But the Snickers bar has caramel and nuts in it, which adds some flavor.” Why is he going into so much detail? What was he, a store employee? “Unless you’re allergic to nuts, in which case obviously don’t eat that one.”
Surprisingly, the guy laughs at that and Will’s chest flushes with pride. He doesn’t know what it was about this guy, but if he can make him laugh, he feels better about himself. A lot better. Like he’s in a different life, one where he isn’t a freak or outsider or labeled “zombie boy” by an entire town, but instead is able to stand in a candy aisle and make a cute guy laugh without the weight of the world on his shoulders. He looks up at him, feeling braver. “So did that make your choice any easier?”
“It may have complicated it actually,” the guy responds playfully. He pauses, thinking, and a strand of hair falls into his eye. Will fights the urge to stare. “I guess an even more important criteria would be which one you would choose.”
Will’s face reddens at the comment and he smiles shyly. “Probably the Kit Kat.”
“Bingo.” He lowers his voice. “I was going to choose that one the entire time. I just pretended like I couldn’t to talk to you, honestly.”
Will is floored. There is no way this was really happening. He has to still be dreaming in the van. “I… thank you.”
The guy smiles, looking around conspiratorially before turning back to him. “What’s your name?”
“Will,” he chokes out. “Will Byers.”
“Nice to meet you, Will Byers.”
He nods, even though his heart is beating out of his chest. “And you?”
“Gabe. Gabriel. It doesn’t matter which you call me.” For the first time, the guy looks nervous and Will’s eyes widen at the realization. This was real.
“Cool. That’s a… good name.” He internally facepalms at his response, but the guy just laughs.
“Y’know, I’ve never heard that before. It is a good name now that I think about it.”
Will snorts despite himself. “Glad to help you realize it.”
“Yeah, it’s much apprecia-”
“Sorry to interrupt.” Mike is standing at the end of the aisle, looking between them.
Will startles. If he was afraid of Mike seeing him staring at an attractive guy, getting caught talking to one was a thousand times worse. “Hey Mike, uh-” he stutters out, knowing his face was red. Knowing this was so, so obvious. “This is Gabe.”
“Hi, Gabe,” Mike says icily.
“Um.” Will feels sweat break out on the back of his neck. “He just needed some help picking out a candy bar.”
“Yeah,” Gabe responds smoothly. “He gave me some good advice.”
Will is almost scared at the way Mike is looking at the guy, his eyes dark. “Do you work here or something?”
“No.” Gabe tenses. “Just a customer.”
“A customer?” Mike raises an eyebrow. “So shouldn’t you be shopping and not harassing people?”
“I wasn’t harassing him,” Gabe shoots out, defensive, and honestly a little scared. Like he got caught doing something wrong. Will knew the feeling all too well. “I was just asking his opinion.”
Will feels like he wants to crawl into a hole and never come out. “Mike, it’s not a big deal, seriously.”
Gabe takes the moment to whisper to him. “Is he your friend?”
Will nods. “Yeah, he’s-”
“He’s my friend,” Mike cuts him off, still looking at Gabe.
“Okay, so?” Gabe arches an eyebrow. “He can’t have other friends?”
Mike steps forward. “What’s your problem?”
Will’s mouth falls open. This was going wrong. This was going so wrong. He prays that what started out was a dream was actually a nightmare and he’d be waking up in the van any second. Even if it meant that this attractive guy showing interest in him never happened, he was willing to trade for it.
“Will?” Mike is looking at him. “Is he bothering you?”
“No- we’re-” He clears his throat. “We’re just talking.”
“Talking?” Mike says, a little too loud. “I thought you were giving him advice.”
“We are- I mean, we were-” Will stumbles over his words. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Hard to explain?” Mike repeats.
Why did he say that? Will cringes. “I just meant…” He sighs heavily. “I don’t know, Mike. Just let us be for like five minutes. I still have to pick out my snacks.”
Mike reels back at the words. “Okay, fine, I’ll let you guys be. Just don’t forget that we have an actual mission to complete and if we spend too much time gallivanting and fucking around, the government officials will be on our ass and this whole road trip will be for nothing!” His chest is heaving and Will stares at him with wide eyes. “We’ll be up there. Waiting.” Mike jerks his thumb toward the check-out counter and looks between them, before turning around and leaving.
The silence is loud in Mike’s absence and Will can almost hear his and Gabe’s hearts pounding in unison.
“Can I ask you something?”
Will turns to him. “Sure.”
“Is your friend schizophrenic?”
“What?”
“I mean, he has clear temperamental issues and said something about FBI agents?”
Will knows it’s not funny and he knows he shouldn’t be laughing, but he is. At the absurdity of the situation and the fact that he was talking to this hot stranger and that he’s been on a road trip for two days and Mike just lost his shit in a Utah gas station. It’s hilarious. His life is hilarious.
His laughter dies down when he sees Mike staring at them from the front counter. He looks away. “Um, he’s not schizophrenic,” he explains quietly. “We’ve been on a road trip for a while now trying to find our friend and…” he trails off. “Sleep deprivation is quite a drug.”
Luckily his simple explanation is enough because Gabe is nodding his head in agreement. “My brother suffers from insomnia. I can believe it.”
At that moment, the door chimes and Jonathan walks in, looking around. “That’s actually my brother, up there.” Will is grateful for the distraction and waves, trying to catch his attention.
Jonathan sees him and waves back, although slightly confused. Will watches as he finds Argyle, who currently is sticking his head in a freezer door to escape the heat, then Mike, who is still watching them, and then him and Gabe again. Suddenly, he looks amused.
Gabe coughs from beside him. “I didn’t mean to distract you from shopping,” he says sheepishly. “It seems like you guys are in a hurry.”
“Yeah, but not that much of a hurry.” Will rolls his eyes. “But thanks, this was a…” He’s suddenly nervous again as he meets Gabe’s eyes. “Good conversation.”
“It really was.” It looks like there’s something else Gabe wants to say, but he hesitates, looking over Will’s shoulder. Will doesn’t even have to turn around to know it’s Mike from across the room. “Um, see you around,” he says nervously.
“See you around,” Will repeats, even though he knows realistically they’ll never cross paths again. And then Gabe is gone, leaving him alone in the candy aisle. After his initial thought of what just happened, it really hits him. This was his one chance of moving on from Mike and it was conveniently destroyed by Mike himself. Actually, scratch that. This was his one chance of meeting someone like him, who liked guys and knew the struggles and could’ve been someone to talk to about it all. But now, the opportunity was gone forever because Mike scared him off. He takes a deep breath, frustrated tears pricking his eyes. Before he can think any further, he walks over to the next aisle and grabs some random snacks, barely even looking at the labels, before walking to the check-out counter and dropping them down. As the cashier rings him out, he pointedly avoids Mike’s stare because he if he doesn’t, he might lose his shit right then and there.
“Had fun?”
Correction, he was going to lose his shit right now. “Yeah, until you interrupted.”
Mike seems surprised at his answer and goes silent.
Jonathan is looking at him sympathetically. “Will, it’s okay. We’ll just get back on the road and in a few hours we’ll be-”
“Yeah, I know,” Will cuts him off, not in the mood to talk. “Thanks for the itinerary.”
Now Jonathan goes silent and Will almost feels bad, almost, but then he remembers that Jonathan has Nancy and Mike has El and they would never understand how he felt. And even if they both were single, they could find girls no problem. Finding a guy who likes guys? Close to impossible. Once again he wishes he was dreaming because if he lost this opportunity in real life, he didn’t know if he could handle it. Not to mention the guy was actually attractive. He takes a deep breath, staring down at his bagged snacks, and realizes one of the labels was in Japanese. Fantastic.
“Alright my dudes, we ready to roll on outta here?” Argyle walks up with his hand deep in a Doritos bag, chewing loudly.
“Did you pay for those?” Jonathan scrunches up his eyebrows.
“Shit,” Argyle says. “Give me a sec.”
As Argyle pays for the chips, Will can feel Mike watching him. And Jonathan too. He knew later on he was going to beat himself up for being so obvious, but right now he didn’t care, because his one chance was gone forever and there was nothing he could-
“Hey,” a breathless voice says to his right. Will turns to see Gabe again, and he’s looking nervous- no- terrified. “Take this.”
Will looks down, seeing a slip of paper with a number scribbled onto it. He glances up in surprise. “I-”
“Just take it.” Gabe’s eyes are sincere but frantic, like this was a life or death situation. And in a lot of ways, it was. Will could understand that. So he quickly takes the slip of paper from him, clutching it tightly. “You’re right, it was a good conversation,” Gabe whispers. “We should continue it.”
“We should,” Will replies, in awe. “I… thank you.”
He must look grateful because Gabe’s face lights up at his reaction. “No problem.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Well, see ya.”
“See ya,” he says shyly.
Gabe turns to leave and they all watch him go, the door dinging behind him.
“That,” Argyle says, “was a pretty boy.”
Mike whips his head around. “No he wasn’t.”
“Are you blind, my dude?” Argyle puts another chip in his mouth. “Also, this may be my weed brain talking, but I have no idea who that guy was.” He looks around, waiting for a response, but no one says anything. “Does anyone know who that guy-”
“Ask Will.” Mike is looking at him now, his gaze betraying anger and hurt. What the hell? But before Will can react, Mike grabs his snacks and leaves, the door shutting loudly behind him. The three of them stand there for a moment.
Oblivious to the situation, Argyle turns to him. “So who is that guy?”
Jonathan clears his throat. “Uh… let’s…” He looks at Will and seems to be debating something in his mind. “Let’s take a walk, Argyle.”
“A walk?” Argyle looks confused. Then he snaps his fingers, smiling. “Oh you mean, a walk.”
“Yeah, sure, a walk,” Jonathan mumbles.
Argyle grins. “Will, little dude, we will return shortly. I guess you could say we’re going on a short trip.” He snorts as his joke and Jonathan rolls his eyes.
As they turn to walk out, Jonathan casts a glance at Will. “Talk to him,” he mouths. Will’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. Did he mean Gabe? But then it hits him and he shakes his head, scared.
Jonathan gives him a stern look and nods toward the van, where Will can see Mike leaning against it, staring into the distance. “C’mon.” Jonathan’s eyes are insistent, and in that moment Will knows his brother knows more than he thought he did. Maybe even more than Will did himself.
“I…” He opens his mouth and then trails off. Finally, he shakes his head, relenting. “Fine.”
Jonathan nods in satisfaction and then him and Argyle finally leave. Once they’re gone, Will lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. Talk about what? If anything, Mike should be meeting him inside to talk, to apologize for almost ruining his chances with the closest thing to happiness he’s had in the past year. But no, instead Mike is the one sulking by the van and Will is the one that has to be the bigger man and talk to him first. And he cannot emphasize this enough, talk about what?
He blows out a frustrated breath. He should be gloating right now with butterflies in his stomach, he should be memorizing Gabe’s number by heart, he should be replaying their conversation over and over, but instead, even with another guy’s phone number in his hand, Mike is still somehow the center of his universe. He shakes his head, pushing open the door.
Once he enters the parking lot, Mike glances at him briefly, still leaning against the van. “Where are Jonathan and Argyle?”
Will pauses. “Um, they went on a ‘walk.’” He holds up air quotes.
“Of course.” Mike rolls his eyes. “Of fucking course.”
Will narrows his eyes. “Why are you being like this?”
“Like what?”
“Mike, c’mon. You’re being-” His mind flits through several words. Moody? Impatient? Jealous? The last one has him swallowing a laugh. It was way too true but way too unrealistic for him to even think about right now. “Difficult.”
Mike’s eyebrows shoot up. “Difficult? I’m the difficult one? When everyone else is taking their sweet time but I just want to get back on the road?”
“I applaud your diligence.” Will fake claps. “So noble. So responsible. But maybe some of us just want to relax. Or take a ten-minute break.”
“You sure took a ten-minute break.”
Will stares at him, at his crossed arms and furrowed brow and clenched jaw. Fuck it. “You are jealous, aren’t you?”
“What?” Mike whips toward him.
He can feel himself start to smile. “You’re jealous that Gabe hit on me.”
“Jealous?” Mike pauses, processing, and Will can see him go through several emotions. Confusion, then anger, then unmistakable fear. His face goes blank. “I wasn’t jealous, I was trying to protect you.”
“Protect me?”
“Yeah.” Mike straightens up. “He was clearly harassing you and I wanted to stop him. You were uncomfortable.”
Will has to stop the laugh that rises up in his throat. “Uncomfortable?”
Mike nods. “You looked nervous.”
“I looked nervous?”
“Yeah, so I did what any friend would do and stepped in.”
Will stares at him in disbelief, but Mike just looks back at him, like a weight was lifted off his chest. He really believes what he’s saying. But Will didn’t have time to psychoanalyze whether this was a giant defense mechanism or repressed feelings or something similar. Any other week he would’ve, would’ve dedicated hours to it, to every facial expression and tone of voice and word spoken. He would’ve written poems about it and created drawings and made paintings. But not now, not when he had Gabe’s number safely in his pocket and finally had a guarantee. Not a guess or a hope or an unrequited love. A guarantee. So even if this was the most hope he’d seen in the past decade, he had to squash it. “You know what Mike? You’re right. I was scared. The stranger danger had me rooted to the spot and I was so glad you stepped in. Thank you so much.”
Mike doesn’t pick up on any of the sarcasm. “You’re welcome.”
“Great,” Will says stiffly. He looks to the side, hoping that Jonathan and Argyle were on their way back, but instead sees them laughing hysterically by the 7/11 dumpster, looking very far from their way back. He huffs in frustration, walking over to Mike and leaning against the van.
“So you’re not gonna call him then?”
“What?” Will turns his head.
“So it’s decided.” Mike is finally looking at him. “You’re not going to call him?”
A wave of irritation shoots through him. Why did he keep pushing this? “I still might.”
Mike’s face closes off again. “Wow, okay. So fuck me then.”
Will’s heart speeds up. Did that mean-? “Wait, what?”
Mike rolls his eyes. “I literally just told you about stranger danger. But feel free to disregard it, whatever.”
Of course. “It’s not stranger danger, it’s-” He takes a deep breath, calming himself, trying to hop off whatever roller coaster ride Mike currently had him on. “He was a nice guy. And I could use to have another… friend.”
Mike crosses his arms, staring forward again. “I just think it’s a bad idea.”
“Why? Why is it a bad idea?”
“You just met him! You don’t know what his motives are.”
“I have to find out somehow.”
Mike turns to him. “So you’re really gonna call him?”
“Yes, I’m going to call him, Mike. Can you just drop it already?”
“Fine.” It goes silent for a moment. Then Mike’s voice is soft. “Just don’t forget about us. Our friendship.”
Will knocks his head back against the van, tears stinging his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Mike.”
“I’m just saying, if you’re adding someone else to the mix-”
“Someone else to the mix?” Something inside Will breaks. “What are you afraid of? That I won’t call you, won’t send any letters, will completely forget about you for a year?” his voice cracks and Mike looks at him. “That you’ll be a third wheel with me and Gabe, is that what you’re afraid of?”
“Will, I didn’t-”
“At least this friend cares what I have to say. At least he won’t ignore me when someone better comes along.”
Mike looks at him in realization. “Are you talking about us?”
“Of course I’m talking about us!” Will feels a tear slide down his cheek. “And now I have a chance to… to move on like you have.”
Mike turns to him anxiously. “I haven’t moved on.”
“You have, Mike, even if you don’t realize it. It used to be us against the world, us against everything, but ever since El…” He shakes his head before he says too much. He already wasn’t going to live this down. “Forget it.”
Mike opens his mouth to say something, but closes it, hesitating.
“We are back, my dudes.”
Will has never been happier to hear Argyle’s voice in his life.
“Did we come back too soon?” Jonathan is looking at him with concern.
“The timing couldn’t be better,” Will says with a watery laugh. “Mike couldn’t wait to get back on the road actually.”
“Yeah,” Mike plays along, and Will’s heart breaks at his nonchalance. “Let’s get going.”
“Okay,” Jonathan says, although he looks less than sure. “Let’s go then.”
As they get into the van, Will feels numb, the excitement from talking to Gabe replaced with the feeling of heartbreak he’d grown accustomed to the past year. Loss. Aching nostalgia. Missing the old Mike, the version of him that didn’t exist anymore, the one who did everything to protect him from the Demogorgon and then later the Mind Flayer, the one who insisted on sleeping by his hospital bed after everyone left, the one who said asking Will to be his friend was the best thing he’s ever done, the one who actually cared about him. A fresh wave of tears springs to his eyes and he turns his head closer toward the window, watching the blurred desert landscape pass by. How was it possible that he was grieving someone who was sitting right next to him?
“…should get to Suzie’s in about three hours,” Jonathan is saying up front. “Sound good to everyone?”
“Hell yea,” Argyle says.
“Yup,” Mike says to his right.
Silence.
“Will?” Jonathan is looking at him in the rearview mirror, concerned. “Does that sound good to you?”
Will just nods, not trusting his voice. It looks like there’s more Jonathan wants to say to him, but he glances furtively at everyone else in the van, sighs, and then reaches down to turn on the music. A second later, the sound of reggae fills the air, obnoxiously bouncing against the tin sides of the van. Usually Will would be annoyed, but this time he’s grateful for the distraction from his thoughts. He closes his eyes, leaning his head against the window.
“Will?” he hears Mike say quietly from next to him. The whispered sound of his name takes him back to when they were kids, laughing and whispering in the dark during a sleepover or Halloween night or while hiding from the latest monster, and a lump forms in his throat at the memories. He keeps his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. “Will, I’m sorry,” Mike whispers, his voice wavering. Will squeezes his eyes shut, not giving in, because if he sat up, Mike would see his eyes are full of tears, and if he sees Mike, the tears wouldn’t stop. He keeps his breathing slow and even, and a few seconds later, he hears Mike say something again, so quiet it’s like he’s saying it to himself. “You always did fall asleep fast. I remember.”
Was he talking about their sleepovers? Mike was trying to kill him here. He bites his lip, trying not to make a sound, trying not to cry, trying to think about anything else because he was not going to start reflecting on the times him and Mike would fall asleep with their sleeping bags inches away from each other, not if he wanted to avoid crying in a van in the middle of Utah.
He hears a rustling and then feels Mike move away from him. Will lets out an inaudible sigh of relief, pressing further against the window. And then, after a few more minutes of pretending to be asleep, he finally is.