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As soon as they enter the warehouse, Will’s mind tunes into Vecna’s frequency. The party, all uniformed and guarding him, fades away as Will’s vision blurs. Will shuts his eyes. Whirlpool swirling, it becomes apparent that while the demogorgons were here before, they are not now. At least not physically.
An arm cast around his back steadies him. Mike’s hand rubs his shoulder, fingers brushing against the goosebumps on Will’s neck. The touch is an anchor. Will breathes calmly to lower his heartrate. He fights the urge to lean back where Mike stands protectively behind him, fights the urge to tip his head up and place a kiss on Mike’s jaw.
The others didn’t know about them yet. They both planned to confess soon, but Will found neither of them were in a rush to pop their happy bubble.
Mike’s careful fingers roving around Will’s jacket collar slip down his back, arm dropping away as he asks, “you okay?”
Will opens his eyes slowly and bobs his head. Will inhales through his nose and walks further inside the main floor, stopping after a couple paces. Mom, Jonathan, El, Dustin, Lucas, Max, Hopper, Nancy, Steve, and Robin all scour the leftover tables and furniture for something of use. While Will spots various papers and objects strewn throughout, nothing stands out as particularly Vecna-y.
But Will felt something when he walked in. So there must be a clue here.
Along the edge of his vision, Mike joins Dustin in looking through an empty bookshelf. As he leaves Will’s side, Mom takes his place. They stand in the front of the main room, watching as the party examines what they can find.
From his profile, Mom analyzes him. He darts his eyes to hers. Her gaze is inquisitive, near the point of prying. Did she see how Mike acted around him, however brief? Did she suspect?
Will slides his attention away, hoping she doesn’t notice how his mind wanders. He fixates rather strongly on Jonathan scanning through documents on an old desk. He struggles to calm his whirring mind.
And as he clamors for a foothold, a whoosh of dizziness flits past his eyes. Blinking, his breath stutters and holds, caught somewhere in his throat. A cottony sluggishness wraps itself around his brain, slinking behind his forehead skin and applying a squeezing pressure.
Shit.
As the world around Will compresses and fades into an abstract painting, Vecna’s mind says to his, “it’s time, William.”
~
Finished examining the shelves, Mike turns away from Dustin. Will stands at the front of the room, but Mrs. Byers is beside him now. While Mrs. Byers is surveying Hopper and El’s area, Will is looking across the room at nothing in particular. Since a distant Will is not the best thing, Mike narrows his eyes to study him more carefully.
Will stands at full height, head held high. His arms are laying flat against his sides, and while not entirely unusual, he often has his hands in his coat pockets when at rest. Breaking from his daze, Will suddenly casts his attention to the group, eyes landing on each member of the party for a long beat.
When Will’s gaze settles on Mike, darkness greets him. A coldness forks across Mike’s veins. The glimmer of affection that dots Will’s eyes are gone, no recognition of what they’ve shared, none of the private moments or memories accumulated across their lives.
That’s all the proof Mike needs.
Clamping down on his twisting fear and tossing it out the window, he brings forth the rifle around his shoulder. He advances, teeth clenching as his mouth thins.
As he raises the barrel at Will’s face, the monster within him is unmoved. Everyone around them, though, sparks to life.
“Whoa!” Nancy exclaims.
“Mike!” Lucas shouts.
“The hell, man?!” Dustin shrieks from nearby.
It’s a chorus of confusion. Mike does not move. No one approaches him.
And Will barely reacts. That alone, in Mike’s opinion, is damning.
Mike holds tight to his gun, index finger on the trigger, and does not look away from Will’s face, not for a second. He does not explain himself, despite Hopper and Nancy and El and Mrs. Byers closing in on them, hovering as if a bomb was going to go off.
Instead, the edge of a growl emerging, Mike speaks only to the monster: “Get out of Will now.”
At the order, Will’s mouth twitches upwards. It’s so wrong, so unlike Will’s authentic, gorgeous smile, that a spike of pain lances into Mike’s chest.
“Remarkable,” Will breathes, staring at Mike intensely. Dark eyes flit across Mike’s features. Upon viewing the gun, an unheard chuckle swipes across Will’s face as he says, “I underestimated you.”
Will’s body arches closer, maneuvering so that Mike’s rifle aims directly for Will’s chest. The others are either completely silent or expressing surprise at the truth becoming ever clearer to them. To them, not to him. To Mike, the truth was blindingly obvious: that’s not his boyfriend talking.
“You’d shoot him,” Will says, observing Mike uncomfortably, “you’d shoot him to save him, wouldn’t you?”
Hand clenching the gun, Mike casts away the jitters that threaten to rise and take control. He will not let fear or monsters rule him, not ever. He incrementally presses his index finger on the trigger, staring hard in answer.
Even if it makes Mike sick, yes, he would shoot Will to get Vecna out of him.
“You would,” Will’s tone slithers, “I can see you now, Michael. I can see the love you have for him.”
Mike’s heart thumps erratically. Vecna knows, knows what they've been hiding. This is not how things were supposed to go. Yet, rejecting the truth is impossible. Mike has loved Will since he could remember. Mike would never deny that, not even to spare himself.
Mike expels a breath to stop his mind from running away. He calms, keeping the rifle steady. With all of his composure, he says, “let go of Will. You have until the count of three. One.”
The monster lets out a humorless laugh. “No need to count, Michael. This has been,” he searches for a word, then verbalizes, “illuminating.”
And in a single blink, the hold Vecna has on Will spirits away. A lightbulb on the ceiling flickers, then shines at full brightness.
As Will’s knees buckle, a messy collapse imminent, Mike pushes the rifle behind his back and closes the distance between them. Arms open, Will’s body twists towards his. Mike sweeps one arm under Will’s thighs, the other around his back. Bending his stance, Mike uses the momentum to hold himself steady while coaxing Will into a bridal carry. Through strength Mike didn’t know he had, he rises and lifts a dazed Will.
Will’s head lolls into Mike’s clavicle, a little hum of awareness buzzing from Will’s mouth. Mike casts his lashes down, murmuring, “hey, I’m here.”
“Mm,” Will manages, further acknowledging by placing an arm around Mike’s neck. His skin is cold to the touch, a temporary mark of Vecna, but Mike runs warm, so he doesn’t mind. Will’s fingers curl around Mike’s nape, mingling into his hair.
Heartbeat fluttering, Mike flickers over to the couch to the right of his vision. He makes the snap decision to bound towards the closest he could find to comfort, his hold on Will impenetrable. He keeps his steps as even as possible to not jolt Will’s uneasy wavelength. The energy bouncing from Will’s head to Mike’s throat is vulnerable, raw and frayed from the mental barrage. Mike wishes he had the power to take this pain away from Will.
Reaching the couch, Mike carefully drops to one knee, using his arms to shift Will’s weight. Untucking his legs, Will goes into the cushions without hesitation, curling himself to face Mike. Head resting on a pillow, Will’s eyes spark with the golden light Mike is used to seeing there. Mike’s mouth quirks upwards at the attentiveness reflected back at him, so lovely and familiar. Tired as he was, Will’s essence remains a beacon.
An odd shift in weight around his back reminds Mike of the rifle. Tearing his attention from Will’s face, he unshoulders the gun and places it gently on the ground, barrel facing away. He also takes the opportunity to change to a crisscross position on the ground, staying fairly level with Will’s sideways eyeline.
After that brief pause, Mike’s gaze is on Will again, drinking him in bit by bit. While this scare isn’t remotely close to the worst one, Mike sighs inwardly in relief that it’s over.
Before Mike could speak, Will manages, “how long was I gone?”
The way he asks wrenches something loose in Mike’s heart. And the use of ‘gone’, not ‘out’, has Mike leaning even closer to Will’s face to assure him, “only for a few minutes, babe. Nothing to worry about, okay?”
Nostrils flaring in acceptance, Will scans the truth in Mike’s expression and mumbles, “m’kay.”
Before Mike allows a silence to slip for too long, he asks gently, “need another minute here?”
Will nods, his body relaxing into the couch. Mike is used to looking after Will when this happens, so he runs over the list of things he’s done in the past that helped Will recover, from comforting him in the middle of the night to letting him fire bullets into pumpkins. The decision on what to do in this case is easy.
“Wanna talk about it?” Mike prompts in a quiet voice.
Without hesitation, Will says in a similarly-soft tone, “Vecna was here to throw us off. He tried to talk to me, saying it was time for me to do something, but I don’t know what. I heard your voice, so I focused on fighting him, getting control back. Then he let me go.”
Processing, Mike cannot help his widening smile. Will continues to be the strongest person he knows. Even after years of pain at the hands of monsters, Will doesn’t give up. Never has, and never will. Mike believes in his very core that he has never loved anyone more.
Will must pick up on his thoughts, because his smile brightens his face, sunlight cracking through clouds. A teasing ‘stop it’ shaped in his mouth has Mike flushing.
And as he remembers what Will mentioned about Vecna, Mike says, “we’ll get him next time. You did awesome. Ready to go, sorcerer?”
Snorting as always at the pet name, Will lets out an affirmative hum. He uses an arm to push himself into a sitting position, shoes on the floor. As he does, Mike rises to his feet, hovering rather closely to the couch. He looks down as Will fixes his hair and tips his head up. Those dazzling eyes have Mike stuttering for a long second, how they look as if Mike was the savior, not the other way around. It hits Mike, then, that he very much threatened and pointed a gun at Vecna with nothing but the need to protect Will bolstering him, and that was a little crazy. But god, Mike would do anything for Will, so he has no regrets.
Mike brings forward a hand, which Will catches with his fingers. The interlocking and squeeze is so familiar that Mike’s heart aches, the kind of ache he doesn’t want to stop. His insides swoop as Will stands, a small gust of air tickling Mike’s pores. Will’s face is right next to his, lashes batting prettily up at Mike’s eyeline. They share a look for a beat, and Will untwines his fingers from Mike’s grip. Will stands on his own, completely steady after such a draining attack, and Mike is amazed, for the hundredth time, at Will’s resilience.
Will’s gaze catches sight of movement past Mike’s shoulder, and he pauses. With screeching clarity, Mike realizes why.
The entire party is behind him.
While it’s not necessarily uneasiness that passes in the following glance between Mike and Will, it’s certainly unexpected to have to explain themselves before they planned. There’s nothing they can do about it now, though. So with that shared thought, they both face the ten expressions reflecting back at them. The range of emotions, while none are negative, is truly comical, so much so Mike can’t help himself.
“So,” Mike says, “anyone who placed bets on us being together, make yourself known now so we can high five.”
Will knocks his temple on Mike’s shoulder, hiding a part of his face with a hand as he groans, “oh my god, Mike.”
“What?” Mike blanches, grinning as Will emerges flustered. He hears scattered laughter, most of it from Dustin and Steve. “I’m actually curious!”
Huffing and leaning away from Mike, Will says to the crowd, “you don’t have to answer that.”
“I will,” Robin says, moving forward to beam at both of them, “and yes, I think Lucas needs to pay up.”
Mike gasps, gaping at his friend. “Lucas?!”
“Dude,” Will says, unable to mask his surprise and amusement.
“In my defense,” Lucas steps up and hands a victorious Robin a bill, “you guys always act like that, so I didn’t think it would happen.”
Max shakes her head and smiles at an ecstatic Robin celebrating the win. She says to Mike and Will, “I had a feeling last week when we were at the Squawk and you were both bickering over who could have the last bag of Bugles.”
Mike chuckles at the memory. Will confirms, “we shared it.”
Rolling her eyes, Max says, “I know, dorks.”
Dustin is next to make himself known, arriving with his arms open and an exclamatory, “I think it’s hug time!”
Mike and Will share a smile just as Dustin wraps an arm around each of them. El, Max, Lucas, Robin, and Steve aren’t far behind. The group is rounded out by Jonathan, Nancy, Hopper, and Mrs. Byers, who are all more amused than anything.
The hug lasts a long time, and Mike catches Mrs. Byers look at the two of them with warmth and a dash of relief. Having her approval made Mike feel even more extraordinary.
When they finally pull apart, Jonathan says, “let’s get back to the Squawk. Snacks are on me!”
There’s some light cheering, but Nancy points out, “technically, snacks are on Robin since she’s living there.”
Robin shrugs as the group starts to file towards the warehouse entrance. Conversations break off in amiable chatter and laughter. Will bunks his arm against Mike’s to get his attention. Mike glances over to see a sunshine smile on Will’s face.
Since that said it all, Mike matches the smile as the two leave the warehouse behind.