Work Text:
Objectively, the world is ending. There is a whole other dimension after them, they’ve been on the run for longer than Mike cares to think about, Max is still in a coma and none of them have seen a slither of blue in the sky in days - months, maybe.
So, the world is ending. Objectively.
Subjectively, Mike thinks the world has been ending since that one night in 1983, since he wandered in the woods, desperately looking for the other half of his heart, tripping over outgrown roots and roaming through the darkness just to untangle the spine-chilling glome of thoughts, to not have to deal with the possibility of Will being gone from his life.
The world has been ending since Mike went into the woods, his heart set on getting his cleric back and somehow left them with a strange girl, decidedly not Will, who needed his help so desperately, that in a way, she made him feel useful. Not broken, not at fault for not asking Will to stay over that night. Useful.
But Will did come back and for some reason, Mike didn’t, couldn’t split his time between the two of them, because El was a girl and Will, unfathomably, was a boy. He was a boy and Mike longed for him, to gather him in his arms, tuck him in a blanket and kiss the top of his head. He wasn’t sure when exactly it stopped being acceptable for him to do it, but maybe, somewhere on the journey of getting El to understand how the society works, what she can and cannot do, somewhere then, Mike tripped over a few pebbles of appropriate with a boy and appropriate with a girl.
So, objectively, it’s 1986, the world is ending, the sky is red and they’re in danger of getting killed every day.
Maybe, the world should be ending because Mike and El broke up, even though he finally pushed through, finally said he loved her, hoping for it to save the world, despite his entire body screaming at him for it.
But, subjectively, the world is ending, because Mike has lost himself and he wishes it didn’t cost him losing Will too.
Mike’s been losing himself for so long, he’s not sure he even remembers who he is. Because the one thing he’s sure of is that this isn’t him. He’s not a jerk, he wears his heart on his sleeve, he’s the first one to protect his friends, he doesn’t lie. He doesn’t make Will cry.
“Will, please.”
Mike pleads, his face expressive, hurt and vulnerable in a way he hasn’t allowed it to be in a long time. Will doesn’t even spare him a look, doesn’t give him the decency of twisting the knife already daggering Mike’s heart.
“You have no right to ask anything of me.”
It’s all Mike gets in reply, when his best friend turns away, slipping through Mike’s fingers, the leftovers of their bond barely brushing past his nails. Will is going, he’s packing the necessities and getting ready to slip into the godforsaken place that has already almost taken him away a few times before.
The worst part of it all isn’t even Will’s sarcastic scoff when Mike refused to go along with the idea of sending his best friend for reconnaissance. (“It doesn’t matter that you know how to shoot a gun, Will! I’m not letting you go there!” “I don’t need a hero, Mike. Let it go.”) The worst part isn’t seeing Will tear apart from him, close himself from Mike, only his eyes sometimes betraying the hurt behind, as if he desperately wanted to reach out but stopped himself every time.
The worst part isn’t even knowing that it’s all Mike’s doing, that he’s had months, years maybe even to get in the way of the storm, to soothe the tearing with genuine apologies and explanations - to stop hurting everyone around him in a spiral of self-hate and confusion.
The worst part is that it’s gone, the time is up and there is nothing Mike can do to change Will’s mind, because his heart is set in stone - Will has agreed to save them all, risking his own death.
And there’s nothing Mike can do to stop the image of his best friend’s eyes filling with tears, walking away from him to prepare for the possibility of not coming back from engraving in his mind.
“Will!”
Mike tries again, hoping for Will to hold onto the rope of their friendship, to give Mike the benefit of the doubt one last time, to see him for the person he used to be before it’s all gone to shit, before the societal pressure got too much, before Mike vowed to fix himself, remembering too late that Will was a part of the equation too. Hoping for Will to maybe think of them as even a little bit repaired now that Mike and El aren’t glued by the hip, now that Mike is single and really, really just misses his favourite person’s smile. Now that Mike thinks about it, he can’t recall the last time he saw Will smile. He can’t recall the last time Will made conversation with him first instead of simply going along with it when Mike starts.
God, Mike’s been fucking his life up for so long, he has no idea where to place the first patch to stop it from falling completely apart.
He starts by putting his face in his hands, pressing the backs of them into his eyes to stop himself from sobbing. The world is ending, Mike is sitting on some wreck of a car in the middle of nowhere and the person he’s been in love with for - probably half of his life, if he thinks about it, wants nothing to do with him. Mike hasn’t even got around to telling Will, hasn’t even got around to thinking of what to tell him.
The world is ending, Mike is taking big breaths of dust-filled air and two of the people he cares about the most, the one he loves and the one he’s in love with, hate him.
“Mike?”
Mike lifts his head, not caring how blotchy or red his face is now that half of his heart ripped away from the rest of it and walked into the sure death.
“El.”
Mike says softly, not louder than a whisper, as he considers going back to the rest of the Party, unsure if El even wants anything to do with him at this point. He certainly wouldn’t. Mike has no idea how to get out of the suffocating guilt, consequences of his own actions hung above him like an axe. The girl he told he loved not longer than a week ago, the girl he wholeheartedly does love like a sister, the girl who he so, so wants to keep in his life but not like that, standing in front of him with a worried look.
“Can we - is that okay if we talk?”
El asks and Mike can’t really do much but scoot over, making some place on the hood of the car for her to sit. She does.
“Look - I, I guess, I don’t know what to say.”
Mike swallows the shame and rests his chin on his hands, closing his eyes not to see how much he seems to hurt and destroy everything he touches.
“I’m just - I’m sorry. I’m just sorry.”
He settles on, trying to wrap a bandage around the harsh way they broke up, slamming doors and yelling at each other, Mike unable to repeat the forced confession, unable to even think the words “I love you” without Will in his close proximity.
“Will is leaving.”
El says, nodding slightly to acknowledge the apology, yet not really accepting the olive branch Mike is trying to hold out.
“I know.”
Mike whispers in reply and looks down at his hands, trying to figure out how this is who he is. How he’s ended up like this. He wonders if this body really belongs to him, why his hands seem to break everything he puts them on. Will is leaving. God, and does Mike know this. He’s not sure if he knows anything else, or if his entire mind is just full of different images of Will leaving, not sparing Mike one look to allow him to go with him. To go crazy together.
“He’s your best friend.”
El tries again, gently knocking her knee against his, taking the olive branch and offering a bridge of empathy.
“I don’t know if I’m his anymore.”
Mike admits quietly, scared to even say the words out loud in case they become engraved in stone, faith settling. He doesn’t want them to be real.
“You are.”
El shakes her head and crosses her arms, her foot tapping on the front of the hood to get Mike’s attention.
Mike just shakes his head and blinks, trying to stop the tears in his eyes, not wanting to mourn his own mistakes. He picks at his nails, debating whether his body is still his with its soul not wanting to be close.
“Look, El, I’ve, uh. I’ve thought a lot about this.”
Mike says quietly, still not daring to look at his ex-girlfriend, when he decides to fix at least a part of his life. To have a clear card when he finally, finally talks to Will. If he ever gets to again.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I couldn’t - I can’t be who you need. You’re great and it was true, partially - what I said. I do. Love you. Just not, not like you need me to.”
Mike manages, tangling his words and trying to find the easiest way to tell El that there’s nothing wrong with her. That she’s great and smart and deserves to be loved. That there’s nothing wrong with her, but there’s everything wrong with him.
“I don’t need you to love me.”
El disagrees softly and knocks her knee against his own to get him to smile a little. Mike doesn’t, but he does knock his knee back against hers.
“I’m sorry, too. I think this is both our fault, you know? How we ended. But it is also good for us. I need to learn how to be myself without you. And you”
El presses on the letters of the last word, putting her hand over Mike’s and squeezing it.
“You deserve to love who you love, okay?”
Mike squeezes his eyes shut. She knows. El knows, she’s figured him out, figured out everything Mike’s tried to keep under wraps for years, to put a patch over and forget it even exists deep inside him. She knows everything that’s wrong with him.
“He’s special to you.”
El says softly, her eyes fixed on Mike’s as if to watch the shame drown away from his face just for a second, just for the involuntary softness that’s always there, when Will is mentioned.
“You’re all special to me.”
Mike replies, trying to hold onto the line that keeps his heart bound in strings, not letting anything from the depth swim to the surface. He decides it’s just not worth denying anymore.
“You’re all special to me but he’s Will.”
Mike reiterates and sighs, looking to the side and defensively tensing his shoulders to prepare himself for the daggers that are sure to come after the confession.
Admission of guilt, in a way.
“I know.”
El says instead, making Mike’s entire world drop on its axis, because, in some unfathomable string of events, she doesn’t hate him for it. The entire world does, just for loving the wrong person, just for being human and longing to experience the feeling of his fingers interlaced with Will’s. The entire world hates him and she doesn’t, despite having every right to.
“It’s all too much, you know?”
Mike says, relaxing his shoulders and risking a shy smile of sadness that El immediately returns, her eyes curious and soft in a way he’s sure he doesn’t deserve.
“I tried, so hard. I thought we could just be best friends, that it would be enough, but it isn’t. I just - I can’t. I still don’t know what to do, but I don’t think I can try anymore. Not like this.”
Mike mumbles, desperately hoping for El to understand the wrapped up confession. To read in between the lines and see how hard Mike has been fighting everything about himself.
And for the first time in probably the entire time they’ve known each other, she does.
“You should tell him. When he’s back.”
Mike swallows the urge to painfully correct the when to if and just shrugs his shoulders, not wanting to let his thoughts wander to the disgusted look Will could, maybe should, give him if Mike does tell him.
“We’ll see what happens.”
Mike says, omitting answering directly, because he does not have anything left in himself to go there.
“We’ll see what happens but I wanted to tell you first. Tell you why.”
El smiles at him, squeezing his hand and leaning in slightly.
“Thank you for telling me then.”
She says with soft eyes, letting Mike believe, only a little, that he’s not rotten to the core, just because he loves a boy. That maybe, just maybe, the world is ending but it’s not because of that.
“You can tell me anything, okay? I know I’m not Will, but still. I’m here.”
“Cool.”
Mike smiles - genuinely smiles back at his ex-girlfriend, feeling the ease he hasn’t maybe ever since their first kiss. Since everything started being exactly the way it should be, but never the way he wanted it to be.
“Cool.”
El replies, playfully nudging Mike again.
“We can be friends though, right?”
El asks with her eyes a little unsure, as if she hasn’t saved Mike’s life, as if he hasn’t put her through a turmoil, as if he deserves to even still have her in his life.
“Of course!”
Mike laughs, nudging El back and feeling like maybe, just maybe, the world is a little brighter now.
“I mean - yeah, of course, we’ll still be friends. Always.”
Mike leans his shoulder against El’s and for the first time in months lets himself breathe.
“Okay. I think I like it more this way.”
El nudges Mike’s shoulder and relaxes a little too, settling into the dynamic they should’ve had since the beginning instead of playing pretend like they’re puppets on strings controlled by higher expectations.
“And Mike?”
El says quietly, letting their thighs press together too as they look at the red sky, full of dust and upcoming danger. Mike turns his head to the side to look at her expectantly.
“He will come back.”