For Will it felt like getting stabbed a million times. He thought he and Mike could end up on semi-decent terms since they had one class together, but even that wasn't guaranteed.

  It absolutely sucked losing the one person who knew everything about you from your favorite color to your favorite movie to your pain to your laughter. It especially sucked losing that person when they weren't even dead. You'd have to look at them every day and get slapped in the face a million times over and over again because of it.

What made it worse was that Mike had been the only person who knew about his PTSD from living with his abusive dad for a few years as a kid before Joyce got custody. Only Mike knew Will to the bottom of his soul, and at any given moment, he could use it against him if he wanted to.

  As Will rode his bike home alongside Dustin and Lucas, his mind was far away from conversations about whether to go to the mall or the arcade this weekend. "Will," Lucas called. "Will!"

  The blue-eyed boy looked over at him, snapping slightly. "What?"
"Damn, calm down. Dustin and I were wondering why you ran off at lunch like that."
"Because of stupid Troy Walsh and stupid Mike."

"You got to give him a break, man. At some point he had to leave the bird's nest." Dustin shrugged, steering towards Will.

"I guess."

  "Yeah, he was an asshole for ghosting us the entire summer, but at some point he'll come around," Lucas stated even though it didn't entirely sound like he believed his own words.
"I guess," Will repeated.
"Hey, I gotta go get something from the store. My mom told me to pick it up after school."
"On the first day?" Dustin raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, you know how my mom is. I'll catch you guys later," With a wave of his hand, he turned his bike around and headed to a certain part of the woods before either Lucas or Dustin could offer to tag along or to question him any further.

✰ ✰ ✰

   He dropped his bike in the dirt by the tree where he and Mike normally placed theirs, but he stopped in his tracks because he saw Mike's maroon bike carefully resting on the tree trunk. His heart hammered in his chest again. Was Mike really here? He thought. Nah, he probably dropped his bike off here because stupid Troy Walsh gives him rides around town I bet.
   Whatever the chances were, he carelessly dropped his olive green bike down to the ground and practically ran to the creek, stumbling over at least two tree roots along the pathway. He pushed a few bushes aside and there he saw Mike. Just Mike. No Troy Walsh, no James Dante, no Allison, and no El.
   He sat on the ground wearing his clothes from this morning. It was obvious he had gone home to only grab his bike.

Will sat down beside him. He didn't say anything, and neither did Mike. They sat in silence looking at the greenish-blue water before them. It wasn't an awkward or a sad kind of silence, it was their own silence, and it was comforting and peaceful to have someone to just be quiet with. Everyone deserved to have that kind of person.

"Will?" Mike said quietly, looking up at him. He hadn't noticed before, but he did now; in Mike's lap was a case of beer, probably one of Ted's. Will looked into Mike's brown eyes and swallowed a little nervously. He was scared at what Mike would say next.

"You wanna split this with me?"

✰ ✰ ✰

Mike was laughing hysterically and was cracking jokes to Will as if they hadn't been fighting in the boys' bathroom at school just hours earlier. Mike had already drank a bottle and was now on his second one. Will was only a quarter into his first, but was already feeling the effects of the alcohol. He figured that Mike probably picked up the drinking thing after he started hanging with Troy Walsh and his friends this summer. The only other time he'd ever seen the freckled boy drink was at Easter or Christmas dinner when Karen would let him have a sip of her wine.

"God, Will, you know something funny?" He took a sip of his beer. "Your shoes are my favorite color." And by just saying that, he started laughing again. Will shook his head, his face a light pink as he smiled.

He had a feeling that this moment wouldn't last forever and by tomorrow, things would be the same once more. Mike would go on back to Troy and James and Greg and Allison and Jennifer and El, and he'd leave Dustin, Lucas, and him in the dirt. "Shut up." Will shook his head, smiling.

"You know you're so cute, right?" Mike chuckled, his cheeks brightening.

Will had been taking a sip of his beer when he coughed and sputtered, some of it running down the corners of his lips. "What–What did you say?"

Completely ignoring his question, he pretended to be offended at the sputtering. "Oh my God, Will, you're wasting my dad's beer!"

"Sorry..." He mumbled with an embarrassed smile. Is it hot or it is just me? He thought.

Suddenly, Mike leaned forward and with his thumb, he wiped the beer away from the side of the smaller boy's mouth. "You've always been so clumsy," He chuckled, looking at Will's lips and then up into his eyes.

Will felt his heart hammering in his ears. His breath hitched in his throat. Jesus, he knew he would regret this tomorrow, and he wasn't sure if it was the adrenaline pumping in his veins or the alcohol kicking in, but he leaned forward and kissed Mike.

Even when drunk, he expected him to push him away, to protest, to say "I'm not gay!" but instead, Mike held Will's face in the palm of his right hand as he set down his beer bottle and kissed him back.

After a need to pull away for fresh air, Will leaned back. His breaths were shaky and he saw stars in his vision. "I've been wanting to do that for a while now, but you beat me to it," Mike grinned, suddenly shy as he took another swig from his beer.

✰ ✰ ✰

At least an hour or two had passed, and in those two hours, Will and Mike just laid in the sandy dirt, laughing about everything and nothing. Mike even kept giving Will a peck on the lips every few minutes, and it felt nice even if Will wasn't a girl.
Mike sat up, "We should get going."
Will whined slightly. "Do we have to?"
"Yeah, you didn't go home yet, did you? "Joyce is gonna kill you if you come home ten minutes later than this." Mike laughed, booping his nose.
"Yeah, and your dad is gonna kill you for stealing his beer and running off with it, Mike Wheeler," Will giggled, saying his name funny.

✰ ✰ ✰

The two boys had decided that Mike would spend the night at Will's house. They had put the rest of the beer at the bottom of Will's bag and were riding down the empty road on their bikes. It felt like they were the only ones left in the world, and if they really were, Will didn't mind.

author's note—
this chapter took a random rollercoaster but i got bored and decided to add in a little twist even though it's literally only the third chapter and boom we already got the underage drinking thrown in and wow mike and will kissed omg ajdjririejssn ik this chapter seemed rushed and kinda sucky but trust me, my writing is more decent than this. give me a chance. (: