Will waits until two days after Christmas to give Mike that call.
It's not that Will's changed his mind about what he needs to do, and it's not that he doesn't appreciate his therapist's advice. Carlotta is probably just blowing smoke up his ass every time she engages with him in conversation about anything related to the Upside Down, but for whatever reason, she keeps humoring him. He's got to take it all with a grain of salt, knowing that she's probably got an ulterior motive to try to break down what she probably thinks is psychosis or maybe a metaphor—but a lot of what she says does make sense, including everything she said about Will slowly desensitizing himself to being around Mike for longer and longer periods.
He knows it's good advice, and he wants to take it. It's just—when he calls Mike, he's going to put everything back into motion, and what happens then to the life he's rebuilt for himself, the one he's been piecing together brick by brick since June? Will finally feels back to normal, but if he talks to Mike again…
He avoids it as long as he can get away with it, but the 26th is a Monday, and Dustin seems somewhat impatient with Will during their usual call when Will reveals that, no, he hasn't talked to Mike yet, and no, Dustin should probably hold off on talking to Mike about any of it until Will does that. Sure, Will would love to foist the responsibility of broaching a relationship with Mike onto Dustin, but that would defeat the whole purpose of the thing, wouldn't it?
He hasn't told Mom what he's planning on doing: he doesn't think he can bear to see her reaction if he ever tells her all the reasons she ought to be ashamed of him. He hasn't told Jonathan, either, not because he's worried Jonathan will judge him but just because Will knows Jonathan will react badly to any news of Will allowing Mike back into his life again.
That leaves El as the only person in the house who might be able to help Will brace himself for what he's about to do. It's awkward because she's Mike's ex-girlfriend, but Will really has been trying to be a good brother to her lately, and part of that means letting her in on major life events, even when they're uncomfortable. So the afternoon of the 27th, after they've all polished off the leftover prime rib and green bean casserole that Will and El cooked together on Christmas Eve, Will waits until Mom and Hopper start doing the dishes and then asks El in an undertone, "Can we talk in your room for a sec?"
Things have been a little weird at home since this summer when Hopper came back from the dead, hooked up with Mom, and moved in with the Byerses. It's not that Will hates having him around or anything. Hopper went to hell and back to get Will out of the Upside Down, and Will will always love him for that. Still, Hopper moving in meant that Will had to relearn what counts as normal boundaries in his own home and get used to yet another person whom he honestly doesn't know all that well seeing Will, for example, take antidepressants at dinnertime and come out of the shower wearing nothing but a towel. It was hard enough to do it when El moved in, and doing it again with Hopper was exhausting at first.
He's had six months to normalize Hopper living in his house, though, and Will did get used to it eventually. When he and El carry their plates to the sink to give to their parents, Will kisses Mom on the cheek and allows Hopper to clap him on the back. Jonathan gives Will a questioning look, but Will shakes his head and mouths, Later, wishing that later would hold off until Will has gotten right with Mike and Jonathan no longer has any reason to feel concerned. (Fat chance, he knows.)
"Everything okay?" asks El when they close her bedroom door behind them and plop down on her bed. Her buzzcut has been growing out nicely; she's wearing her hair in big, loose curls that tower above her head.
"Yeah, I just… I made a decision to do something, and I'm worried it's going to turn out to be a horrible mistake."
"What is it?"
"It's…" God, Will doesn't want to have this conversation with her, but his therapist is out of town until January, and he knows he needs to have it with someone. "It's Mike. I think I need to start seeing him again."
To her credit, El doesn't look upset. She twists her lips, thinks, and then tentatively reaches forward to put a comforting hand on Will's knee. "Why?"
"This thing with Vecna isn't over, and I… I'm probably going to have to see him again at some point when it all goes down. And—and I miss Dustin and Lucas. Everything would just be so much easier if I didn't have to run away from Mike all the time."
"But Mike makes you sick."
"Yeah, tell me about it," Will mutters. "I mean, it's not his fault. Technically, it's my brain's reaction to him that makes me sick, not Mike himself. But—but yeah. Carlotta says that, if I want to do this, I should kind of—desensitize him to myself by talking to him for longer and longer periods. Start small, you know? Just make small talk and not talk about anything heavy. But I don't know. What if I start going backwards? What if it's like June all over again?"
El nods. "June wasn't your choice, though. This would be your choice, and you would have your pills."
She has a point: Will had only banked on having one painful phone call with Mike this summer, not on Mike driving down to Sullivan and embarking on the road trip from hell with Will and Jonathan while Will was off his trazodone. If he calls Mike now, Will can control it—put his exposure to Mike on his terms.
Besides, he's been through therapy now, hasn't he? He's learned coping mechanisms and stuff that he didn't have last summer. He just spent most of his last session talking about what he can do to stay himself if and when he calls Mike up.
El's wrong about one thing, though: this isn't a choice, not really. Sure, it's up to Will whether to plunge back into some kind of relationship with Mike now or to wait until Vecna returns, but he is going to have to do it at some point. The only part that Will gets to decide is when and how to do it.
"I'm sorry if this is weird for you, talking about this," Will tells her now. "I know your feelings for Mike are… complicated."
She half-smiles. "It's okay. I'd rather you tell me than have to hide it."
"How are you doing with him these days, anyway?"
Shrugging, El replies, "Better. I miss him, but I don't think I need him."
"That's good. That's really good."
"Do you need him?"
Will really has to think about this one. "I don't think so, but I didn't think so before he showed up in June, either, and look how that ended."
"It's different this time," El assures him. "Starting small, right? You only will do as much as you can manage."
She's sitting against the headboard, and Will scoots so that he's next to her and slouches down, laying his head on her shoulder. "Yeah. Only what I can manage."
It feels nice, hanging out with El, but a quarter of an hour later, they both know he's only staying in there any longer to avoid the inevitable. "Go," El encourages him. "Tell me how it goes after?"
"Yeah, of course."
Reluctantly, he lifts his head off of her and shifts out of bed onto the ground. "Go," says El, leaning closer to playfully shove Will's arm.
"I'm going, I'm going, I'm going."
This is not a conversation Will wants anyone to overhear, so he goes downstairs to use the basement phone instead of the one in the kitchen. God, this is really happening, isn't it? He's going to hear Mike's voice. He's going to fall apart.
He's not going to fall apart, Will tells himself firmly. He's going to make pleasantries for ten minutes and then hang up. He calls the shots, not his brain. His brain is just a stupid, malfunctioning body part, and Will knows better than to let it rule the roost.
He's got the phone number Dustin gave him written on a slip of paper, and he pulls it out of his pocket and stares down at it for a few seconds. He's really doing this. He's really going to talk to Mike again.
Will is so nervous that he can barely stand, so he plucks the phone out of its cradle and sits down with it on the floor. The dial tone trills out for a long moment in his ear before he summons all of his courage and punches in Mike's number.
The phone rings three times before somebody picks it up. "Wheeler residence."
It's not Mike, thank god. "Hi, Mrs. Wheeler. It's Will Byers."
"Will! What a pleasant surprise. How are things with you and your family?"
He can do this. He can talk to Mrs. Wheeler. She isn't Mike, and Mike isn't on the line, not yet. "They're good. We're good. It's really good to have Hopper back."
"I'm sure, I'm sure. Let me just go and get Michael for you."
"Thanks, Mrs. Wheeler."
He can still hang up, he tells himself frantically as the line goes quiet. There's still time. If he hangs up, Mike probably will know better than to call him back, and all of this will be over.
He doesn't hang up. Moments later, Mike comes to the phone. "Will? Is that really you?" His voice sounds high-pitched and surprised and—hopeful?
"Yeah, it's me." Will's voice sounds weird and phlegmy; he clears his throat. "Hi."
"Hi. Is everything okay?"
"I… yeah. Everything's fine."
"It's just—I wasn't expecting to hear from you… ever, really."
"I know. I'm sorry. I—"
"Don't be sorry." Why does everyone keep telling Will that? "I just—it's really, really good to hear your voice."
Will, of course, has no idea what to say to this. Is it good to hear Mike's voice? He doesn't know. All he knows is that his heart is hammering out of his chest, and he doesn't know whether the pit in his stomach is all anxious or maybe—maybe—a little excited, too. Still, he's had enough excitement to last a lifetime and then some. He's tried so hard to find stability, and nothing about what he's doing here is stable.
Still, it's just like last June—he didn't realize how much he missed Mike until he heard his voice. Mike is here. Mike is back. Mike didn't disappear from this earth just because Will walked away. Why is that always so hard to remember?
He know she ought to give Mike an explanation as to why Will is calling him, but suddenly, the words don't want to come out. "I'm trying to get better," Will finally says, "and I just wanted to—we're not supposed to talk for long, and we're not supposed to talk about anything heavy. But I thought we could talk for a little while. Is that okay?"
Mike gives a relieved sort of laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, of course that's okay. We can talk about anything you want."
He knows what he's supposed to ask Mike about—he wrote down ahead of time a list of questions to ask him. How's Mike's senior year going? What's his latest D&D campaign about? Has he heard back from Purdue yet? Will's staring straight at the paper, but instead, what comes out of his mouth is, "Are you super mad at me?"
"What?" says Mike blankly. "No way. I'm not mad at you at all. Why would I be mad?"
"I know it's not fair of me to just show up like this after all the times I told you I couldn't be around you. I know it's not fair that I don't know how to make you understand what's happening inside my head whenever I…"
"Hang on a second, okay? I'm going to call you back from the phone in my room. Don't go anywhere, okay?"
Will feels numb. "Okay."
"Okay."
The line disconnects. Will climbs up off the ground to put the phone back in its cradle, then backs up and slouches against the wall for support. It seems to take forever for the phone to start to ring; when it does, he seizes it after half a ring.
"Mike?"
"I'm here."
"Hi."
"Hi. Will, it's not…" Mike sighs. "I'm not mad. I'm really confused, okay? But I'm not mad. If anything, I'm happy, if this means I get to be in your life again. Do I get to be in your life again?"
"I don't know yet. I just thought… I mean, I want to get better. I want to face things instead of running away from them. I want to be ready if Vecna comes back and you and I have to…"
Mike pauses. "This is about Vecna?" he says in a completely different voice.
"Yes. No. It—I mean, it's not like you don't mean anything to me anymore. You matter a lot to me."
"You matter a lot to me, too," says Mike quietly. Something wrenches itself inside of Will's stomach. "Remember when I told you in June that I've had a lot of time to think about how I… what my feelings for you are?"
If Will were smart, he'd backpedal. If Will had his best interests in mind, he'd cut Mike right off and bring up his list of questions. But he can't help himself. "Yeah."
"Well, I've had even more time to think, and I… I don't know if I'm going to know for sure unless we actually try anything, but I don't—this thing where I keep trying to save you, it's not because I have some kind of complex. It's you. I want to do it because it's you. I want to do a lot of things with you. And I know that isn't what you need, but—"
Will feels like he's going to be sick. "I should go."
"Oh. Right. Sorry."
"No, it's—can we talk again soon? Maybe tomorrow? I just need to—process."
"Yeah, no problem. Sorry," Mike repeats. His words are respectful, but his tone is dejected, even self-critical.
It's Will's turn to say, "Don't be sorry. I just—I—we'll talk tomorrow, okay? I'll call you. Will you be home?"
"I'll be busy during the day," says Mike, sounding a little more like his usual self, "but I'll be free in the evening—eight at the latest, maybe. That's seven your time, right?"
"Cool. Thanks. I'll… I guess I'll talk to you then."
"Will?" says Mike quickly before Will can hang up.
Shit. "Yeah?"
"Are you sure everything is okay?"
No. "Yeah. Thanks, Mike. Bye."
I want to do a lot of things with you. A part of Will desperately wishes he could have held on long enough to get some clarification on what exactly Mike meant by that, but he knows he did the right thing hanging up—knows he's not anywhere near ready to have that conversation.
He does a quick self-check. He still feels nauseous, but he doesn't think it's because Mike made him uncomfortable: he thinks it's just a lot for Will to have taken this step. He's okay, though. His head is swimming, but he takes some deep, calming breaths and walks mechanically up the stairs and into his bedroom, where he takes out his sketchpad and starts to draw.
Mike is not his whole world. He has other people, and he has other things, and he's engaging with them right now. He's allowed to feel thrown by interacting with Mike, and just because he does doesn't have to mean that thoughts of Mike are going to consume everything he is or erase everything Will has worked for.
But he's got to be careful if he wants to stop things from going that way. He knows that.
He pulls out his Walkman and presses play.