notso writes things

Mike stood back, watching over where Will was passed out on the couch, the exertion from their idea with the radio tower backfiring with unintended consequences. 

Turning around, thinking he'd leave Mrs Byers alone, Mike noticed Lucas staring back at him.

“What?”

“He's gonna be fine.”

“I know,” Mike admitted with a sigh. It didn't mean that he liked seeing Will like this though. It had been amazing to witness that moment in the middle of the MAC-Z, to see Will appear to master the abilities that they'd talked about earlier. Mike had felt so proud of him, because while Mike has always believed that Will was special, now Will was finally believing it about himself.

“Then why do you look like a kicked puppy.”

Mike rolls his eyes. “I'm not - I don't.”

“Do you want a mirror?”

He doesn't understand the point Lucas is trying to make, and shoves past him towards the entrance doors. The fresh air feels nice, but it doesn't change the weight that feels like it's settled on Mike's shoulders.

“If I say something, I need you to listen,” Lucas says, following him outside.

“About what?”

“About Will.”

Something tightens in Mike's chest at the mention of Will's name, almost unnoticeable except it's always there these days. Something that he never felt in relation to Lucas or Dustin or Max or even El. But this is the first time in years that Will is putting himself in danger, the first time in years that Will has the target on his back - and Mike was the only one around to see it last time. He remembers how close they all came to losing Will, so maybe he just doesn't want to deal with that again.

Maybe he can't.

“Jesus, Lucas, what about him?”

“Who do you consider your best friend?”

“What?” Mike asks, confused. What kind of stupid question is that exactly?

“It's an easy question, Mike. Who is your best friend?”

“You are, obviously,” he replies, answering Lucas' stupid question. “But so is Dustin. And Will.”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “Let's say you actually believe that-”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“-you don't treat us all the same.”

Mike glares back at Lucas, wondering what the hell he's talking about. Of course he treats them all the same, they're all his best friends. He may have known Will the longest, but who cares that Dustin only moved to Hawkins in the fourth grade? It didn't matter.

“Do you remember a couple years ago, when Will was having those episodes with the Shadow Monster?” Another dumb question, Mike thinks, but he doesn't interrupt Lucas this time, just nodding instead. “And he had the one during trick or treating?”

They'd ended up in Loch Nora that night, Max having joined them. Mike remembers how much he hated that he'd been outvoted at the time, that Will had told Dustin and Lucas it was okay for her to join the Party for the night. Democracy be damned.

But one moment Will had been next to him, and the next he was gone. And it'd been so quiet, almost like a whisper through the air that Mike had heard Will yelling his name, his pillowcase of candy and the camcorder on the ground near the end of one of the driveways - like Will had just vanished.

He'd eventually found Will huddled in the corner of a garden stairwell nearby, arms wrapped right around his legs as if caught in a nightmare.

Mike has never been able to forget the terrified look on Will's face the moment he found him.

“Yeah, I took Will home afterwards.”

Lucas rolls his eyes, again. “You yelled at me and Dustin when we tried to help. We were worried too, but none of it mattered.”

“Yeah well, you guys were all caught up in trying to impress Max.”

“It was just trick or treating.” Lucas shakes his head, and Mike feels lost because what the hell does any of this have to do with anything?  “And you've always been like that with Will. Especially after everything that happened, so Dustin and I didn't really think too hard about it.”

“Does this conversation have a point?”

Mike knows he's always been protective of Will, but that was because he was a lot more quiet than the others. Maybe not so much now, but back then Will wasn't great at speaking up for himself, and Mike never had an issue talking back to others, letting them know exactly what he thought.

“I didn't really think much of it until the other day in the woods, when Will had that episode during lunch.”

Mike rolls his eyes, because yeah, he remembers the other day. “You jumped over the goddamn table, Lucas.”

“And you still beat me to him.”

The three of them had been messing around, Lucas being an idiot and jumping into Mike like a free fall - none of them had noticed the way Will had somehow ended up further away, until he'd grabbed onto a nearby tree for balance.

“So? I was just faster.”

“Fine, whatever. That's not the point. When we all got to Will, you and I both grabbed onto him to make sure he was okay. And the moment you noticed my hands, you looked over and glared at me.”

“Bullshit!” He yells out, because that doesn't even make sense. 

“Jesus, Mike, just listen okay? You kept a hand on Will almost the entire time, like you needed to be the only one touching him. I'm pretty sure Dustin barely even tried, after the way you glared at me. It was like Halloween all over again.”

“So I was worried, what is the big deal? Neither of you were there three years ago, you didn't see what it was like when the Mind Flayer took control of him.”

Lucas paces on the gravel, shaking his head and sounding frustrated, but Mike cannot figure out why, 

“Nothing about the way you treat Will is how you act with me and Dustin.”

“That's one example-”

“Two.”

“Whatever. I still don't see your point.”

“Because you don't want to! When you and I had that bad fight while Will was missing, we went a whole day without speaking. Remember? Dustin had to act as a mediator because you refused to apologize.” Mike moves to argue, because he's pretty sure he and Dustin have done the same thing, that wasn't anything weird, but Lucas is quicker, mining a zipper, and Mike just rolls his eyes. “No, it is different. Because remember when we had that bad fight with Will - and we were being assholes, he was right - you ran after him. I don't know what happened, but Jesus, Mike, you came back down to the basement and insisted we go find him to apologize.”

“Yeah, so?” Mike hates the reminder of that stupid fight. He knew he'd hurt Will, and he hadn't meant to.

“In the pouring rain! I couldn't even get you to understand how to get Eleven back after she broke up with you, but the moment Will was mad, you looked like a kicked puppy. Suddenly you knew how to apologize.” Lucas looks back at him, raising his eyebrows, like something should be obvious. 

But Mike didn't understand what that could be because he knew how to fix things with Will, they'd been friends long enough that it was obvious what he had to do. He'd been a jerk, and Will hadn't deserved it. What didn't Lucas understand about that?

“Does this have a point?”

“Yeah, it has a point. One that is clearly still flying right over your head.”

“Then can you tell me, so we can end this ridiculous conversation?”

“Dustin and I may be your best friends, but Will is something else to you. He always has, I think,” Lucas finally says after a moment, as if trying to carefully consider his words. “I don't know what happened when the Byers moved to California, but I do know how badly it affected you. Because you'd always mention El, and her letters, but suddenly it was like you never talked about Will. Except to complain that the phone line was busy.”

Mike shrugs his shoulders, because he doesn't know how to explain why he preferred to talk to Will on the phone instead. How it felt more real, like he was still in Hawkins, if they talked on the phone. Letters just reminded him of that weirdness that had somehow managed to grow between them that summer. And that couldn't be fixed by letters, or even phone calls - but it was better than nothing.

“It just felt like we were drifting apart,” Mike offers up, thinking maybe it'll shut Lucas up. “Growing apart. I don't know.”

“Yeah, but then you got back to Hawkins, and the two of you started being attached at the hip again.” Lucas pauses, before turning back to look at him. Mike wants to tell him that's because they were living in the same house, spending time together again. It was like things were back to normal between them - even if the world around them was going to shit. “And I'd never considered it before, because ya know, El, but it made sense.”

God, Mike hates this cryptic shit. “What made sense, Lucas?”

“That Will is something else to you, something more than just a best friend.” 

Mike stares back at him, and wants to tell him he's wrong, that it's crazy for him to think that. But then Mike allows himself to think about standing in the middle of the MAC-Z, the demogorgon hanging in the air where it'd been about to attack him, because Will was holding it in place. 

Even with everything going to shit around them - losing the kids they'd tried to save, Vecna appearing to slaughter the military stationed at the MAC-Z, all Mike has been able to think was how beautiful Will had looked standing there in total control. That finally everyone else was going to see Will the same way he always has, that they'd finally understand just how strong and capable Will is.

“Oh.”

And for a moment, it feels right. When he thinks about the way Will had smiled at him in the field when he'd jokingly compared him to Vecna. Or tries to play back the small moments like the one Lucas mentioned from during lunch the other day. It made Mike wonder if that was the first time or something that he'd been doing without even realizing it. 

But then the doubt begins to creep in, because even if he feels a certain way about Will, he has to consider all the time that Will's been spending with Robin recently. They've clearly been getting along really well, and what does any of this matter anyway if Will doesn't even like him in that way? What the hell is the point of any of this then?

“Finally, he understands.”

“It's a lot to process.”

Mike has seen the news, he's read the newspaper. He's been bullied his entire life. He's listened to the slurs that have been tossed Will's way, the assumptions made when he disappeared. The world is not nice to people like that - whether they are or not.

Boys aren't supposed to like other boys that way.

“I can't - Lucas, that's not - I shouldn't feel like this.” It feels like something inside him is cracking, a fissure that's existed for as long as he can remember. But he'd figured it out, how to work around it. If he didn't think about it, if he just ignored it, then maybe it would go away. Maybe then he could be normal. Just like everyone kept telling him he needed to act.

And he's tried, so hard, to just be exactly who people want him to be. Who they think he needs to be. 

“Because of Will?”

“Just tell me I'm wrong,” Mike finds himself saying, surprised with how much it hurts to ask Lucas to lie to him.“Tell me it's wrong.”

“I'm not gonna do that.” Lucas shakes his head, again, and Mike buries his face in his hands. “You know, a lot of people think me and Max are wrong too. It's why Billy acted the way he did to me, threatening me and stuff.”

Mike remembers all that, especially that night a couple years ago. Billy storming into the Byers house and throwing Lucas up against the wall. He'd almost forgotten about it with everything else that had happened.

“There was a whole case that went to the Supreme Court too. All that had to happen just to make people see they were wrong.”

“So you don't-” Mike stumbles, trying to figure out how to not sound like a complete moron. “It doesn't bother you? About me - about this?”

“Why would it? You’re still my best friend, man.”

Mike nods, grateful. “But how do I - what about Will?”

“What about him?”

“He's gonna hate me.”

Lucas laughs, throwing his head back, and making Mike regret saying anything. Asshole.

“Are you purposely this dense?”

“Jesus, Lucas, I'm trying here okay?”

“Fine, fine. I mean, I haven't had this conversation with Will, but I dunno man. You ever wonder why he's the only one of us to never get a girlfriend? To not even seem interested in girls? And it's not like the girls aren't interested either.”

Mike buries his face in his hands again. Those words he'd yelled at Will years ago echo through his head, it's not my fault you don't like girls. God, what a fucking asshole he'd been. What the hell had ever possessed Will to even forgive him? 

“He’s gonna hate me,” Mike repeats, because how does any of this end? Isn't it just better - easier - to shove everything back down into its box and forget about it? He's already experienced nearly losing Will too many times, he cannot do it again. Even if he does feel a certain way about him, he'd rather have Will in his life as a friend than not at all. Isn’t some better than none? “Lucas, what do I do if he hates me?”

“He's not going to hate you, jeez. This is Will we're talking about.”

He doesn't understand how Lucas sounds so sure of everything. So stupidly calm. Because Mike feels like his stomach is in his throat.

“I've been doing a lot of thinking, all those hours at the hospital with Max,” Lucas continues, dropping down onto the step at the opposite end, leaning back against the brick and facing Mike. “I know she's gonna give me so much shit for making her listen to me talk about everyone else. But it helps, ya know? Thinking about what she'd say back. Sometimes I just sit there in the quiet, hoping to notice some sort of movement from her - anything to tell me she’s still in there.”

As Lucas talks about Max, Mike realizes that maybe he’s been a bit unfair to Lucas, that perhaps he does understand a bit of what he’s gone through with Will. Even if Lucas hadn’t been there to witness it with Will at the Byers or the lab, was what was happening with Max now really all that different? 

“I thought she was cool, ya know?” Lucas says, continuing after a moment. “High score on Dig Dug, the skateboarding, her sense of humor. And the more I talked to her - the more I got to know her - the more I liked her. Because I didn’t just want her to like me back, I wanted to be friends with her too. Talking with her, spending time together.”

Mike sighs, because even if he didn’t like Max in the beginning, he had to admit things had changed as time went on. And now it really did kinda suck not having her around. But he at least gets the point Lucas is making - mostly in regards to Will. It's not hard to think of things they have in common - from all their D&D adventures to similar tastes in movies and video games - but they're not so alike they're the same person. Complimentary, Mike thinks after a moment. Especially when Mike takes over planning their D&D campaigns - something he loves doing - and Will always provides the necessary artwork to accompany it. And on top of all that, Mike just really loves spending time with Will. There have even been moments over the last eighteen months he's wished he hadn't gotten rid of his bunk beds, just so they could have an excuse to sleep in the same room now that the Byers have been living in his house.

He freezes when he thinks about El, realizing it's a struggle to remember all the letters they'd written back and forth last year. They'd talked about school a lot, Mike had always mentioned Hellfire, but he feels stuck when he tries to come up with anything resembling a shared interest. In fact, he knows the only thing he'd thought about - or maybe obsessed over - during the plane ride to California has been how Eleven had mentioned Will’s painting something for someone he liked.

Except-

“Shit.”

Lucas stares at him, tilting his head in confusion, but all Mike can think about is how incredibly stupid he's been. Because Will had lied to him. El didn't know anything about the painting, she couldn't have asked him to paint it. That painting of the Party as their D&D characters, fighting a three-headed dragon.

How had it taken him this long to realize it?

“Lucas, I'm an idiot.”

“Uh, yeah. Welcome to the conversation,” Lucas replies, laughing at him. Mike knows he deserves it.

“How did you know,” Mike finds himself asking, suddenly wondering if it's more than just his own feelings he's been ignoring. “That Max liked you back?”

“She made it pretty obvious when she asked me to dance at the Snowball and kissed me.”  Lucas replies way too easily for Mike, and his answer doesn't help but at all. “Did Will do something?”

Mike tries to think about everything that's happened, but trying to focus on specific moments with Will feels like he'd have to replay his entire life over in his mind. It's easier to focus on just one right now.

“Will gave me this painting he'd done, back when I visited California. It's so cool, Lucas. It's all of us - you, me, Will, Dustin - as our D&D characters. And El, she'd mentioned in one of her letters that he was painting, but she thought it was for a girl he liked. But when he gave it to me, he told me - Lucas, Will lied to me. He's never lied to me.”

“Lied about what?”

“The painting, that stupid-” Mike cuts himself off, glancing back towards the doors that lead back inside the radio station. Back to where Will is. “He told me El asked him to make it. And he just, he - this whole speech about-”

Mike can't say it, because he can't believe how stupid he was.

Will told him how he felt, and he'd been so stuck inside his own head worrying about Eleven, about needing to find her, he'd completely missed it.

“Speech about what?” Lucas asks, eyebrows raised and hands held out, like he's waiting for Mike to explain. 

“It was after El was arrested, and I was worried about her, ya know? And Will did that thing he's so good at doing, getting me out of my own head when I need it.”

“Still not seeing the problem.”

Mike laughs, thinking of his own stupidity, how blind he's been. Maybe his own actions have been visible enough for Lucas and Dustin to pick on, but Will's were quieter. 

“Lucas, I'm an absolute idiot.”

Now, at least, he knows what he has to do to fix this. Because if everything has been there, right in front of him the entire time, he needs to make sure Will knows that Mike sees him. He was just a little slow on the uptake. And he knows that he's gonna spend well, forever, making it up to Will now. To make sure Will knows that it wasn't that he ignored everything on purpose, he was just an idiot.

Will stares at the ceiling of the basement, knowing he's not falling asleep any time soon. The last couple days have been non-stop and he knows that if he doesn't at least get a couple hours sleep, his entire body is going to crash at the moment he least expects it. There's a buzz under his skin however, the thrill of having unlocked his abilities relating to the Hive Mind, how he's now able to tap into it and control the demogorgons. 

He's alone of course, Jonathan and Nancy having already retreated upstairs to Nancy's room after their time in the Upside Down.

The only other person in the house is Mike, who's upstairs alone in his own bedroom. 

It'd been so weird coming back to Hawkins after being away for the past year. He'd been surprised to see Mike's bunk beds gone, but realized it had probably been part of the whole growing up that had happened. It made him miss the days when they'd been younger, when they'd spend all night staying awake to talk instead of sleep. There'd always been something comforting about sleeping in Mike's room, about getting to spend that time together, that Will found himself missing now.

Throwing the covers off, Will shakes his head and quietly walks up the stairs to the first floor. Sleep isn't happening.

He's been back in Hawkins a year and a half now, and can't say it has all been perfect. He's witnessed the slow disintegration of the Wheelers' marriage in moments where they think no one is around to hear - quiet arguments full of angry jabs at one another. It's different from the fights he remembers between his own parents, which had been loud enough that he and Jonathan couldn’t escape them. Mike never mentions it, but Will has seen it in his eyes, and on his face, that the fighting gets to him just the same.

The kitchen was the first thing they cleaned up, no one wanting the reminder of the demogorgon attack from earlier. The scene had made Will freeze in place, as he'd stared at the aftermath, wondering if he could have stopped it had his mom not pulled him out of his vision. Now that he knew how to control them.

Will gets as far as outside Mike's bedroom door, hand posed to knock when he second guesses himself. Mike is, after all, probably asleep. And what good does it do to bring him into Will's insomnia problems? At least one of them should get some decent sleep.

He's barely taken three steps back downstairs when he hears the quiet creak of the hinge of a bedroom door, and pauses to glance behind him.

“Will?”

“Sorry, just couldn't sleep-”

Mike doesn't let him finish. “Me either.”

They end up back down in the basement, sitting on the sofa together. It feels comfortable and familiar, but there's something else there now too. Three years ago, he and Mike had been closer than ever. Even with everything happening with the Mind Flayer at the time, Mike had never treated him differently, had never tried to coddle him or baby him just because of the things that were happening. And then everything else had happened, and California had happened, and Will thought he could use the distance as the reason the two of them weren't close anymore. And he'd tried, for almost a year, he'd tried so hard to not let it be known how much it hurt to not talk to Mike, to not write him. For months, he tried to subsist solely on the crumbs El offered up, trying to ignore the pain in his chest at just how often she received a new letter.

But instead of solidifying that distance, Mike's visit during Spring Break has seemed to cause the opposite. It'd been the beginning of the two of them reaffirming their friendship, and during the car ride through the desert Will hadn't been able to stop thinking about how Mike had admitted to missing him. How Hawkins wasn't Hawkins without him. 

And then there was the last eighteen months. A year and a half of eating breakfast and biking to school together. Sitting on the floor of Mike's bedroom while they did their homework together. Eighteen months of sitting across from one another at lunch and planning crawls together. Sure, they were older, but something about them started to feel familiar and comforting, bringing back memories of a time when everything felt much simpler.

“I keep thinking of that night,” Mike says quietly, breaking the silence of the basement. “When they pulled the fake body out of the water.”

Will has read the newspaper articles, has heard the story from Jonathan, and even from Mike, Lucas, and Dustin about that night. Back when they'd first told him, it'd been right after his mom had found him in the Upside Down, and no one had focused on it too long. It'd been a blip in the bigger story they'd told, almost irrelevant once he'd been found.

“And it's so stupid, because it wasn't you. You're fine, obviously,” Mike tries to cover up but Will can hear the difference in his voice. He knows him too well, there's something else there. “I came so close to losing you for good that night. It felt like I had.”

“It's not stupid,” he replies quickly, imagining if their roles had been reversed. If Mike had been the one taken instead. Will isn't sure he'd have been able to do half the things Mike has done.

“And just when it felt like everything might go back to normal, it got worse.” Will doesn't need to ask to know he's referring to Vecna and the Mind Flayer. “I’ve never felt so helpless. And it just kept reminding me of the year before.”

It'd been so much easier to open up to Mike about what had been going on, because Mike never treated him differently. He'd tried to explain everything to his mom, and he loves that no matter what she was there to help him. But she still had a tendency to treat him like a child, like he wasn't able to handle anything on his own. He may have been terrified at the time of the way the Mind Flayer had tried to lock him away inside his own mind, but he just wished she'd have had a little more faith in him.

“And I thought, maybe if I didn't care so much, if I didn't give him a reason to keep picking you, things would get easier. Better.”

Will turns to look at Mike, because it's something he's never considered before. He's never imagined that Mike pushed him away because of everything that happened. Because while that summer he'd tried to hold onto childhood, especially feeling like it'd been torn away from him - Mike had gone the opposite direction. Suddenly he was spending his whole days with El, and trying to pass off whatever version of normal that was. 

But that summer, nothing had come for Will. There'd been the Mind Flayer, but it'd attached itself to a new host, and caused a different kind of problem in Hawkins.

“You think he chose me because of you?”

It feels like such a stupid question the moment Will asks, but he wants to understand. He needs to understand.

“It sounds so stupid with everything you've gone though.”

“It's not a competition, Mike.”

“Eleven helped us find you when you were missing, and she closed the gate when you told us how to stop Vecna that first time. I needed her because she helped keep you safe.” Mike swipes away at his face, and Will notices how glossy his eyes have become. It's been a long time since he's seen Mike cry, he realizes. Probably years now. “El is my superhero because she kept you safe when I couldn't. But now, I mean, now you don't need either of us.”

Will shakes his head, despite knowing that Mike isn't turned towards him. If only Mike knew just how important he is. “Just because I have these abilities doesn't mean I don't need you, or my mom, or anyone else. Everything about what I can do, the things I can see and feel - it scares me. Like one day the Hive Mind will take over and I'll lose myself to it.”

He realizes as the words leave his mouth that he's said the exact thing that Mike has been talking about this entire time. Losing himself to the Hive Mind means once again fulfilling that belief Mike has about losing him. But he can't do any of this, can't keep himself grounded, without Mike either.

“You won’t,” Mike replies instead, and Will watches the way his fingers press into the fabric of his pajama pants, as if trying to keep them still.

“Mike-”

“You won’t, okay? I won’t let it happen.”

Will wants to believe that, he wants to put his faith into Mike’s words like he’s always done. He thinks back to when the Vecna and the Mind Flayer possessed him, the way Mike had been there the entire time, trying to convince him that the Mind Flayer wouldn’t win. Even when Will didn’t have that kind of confidence in himself, Mike still did.

Mike always did.

Robin’s speech about not putting his entire life into one person echoes through his mind, but Will knows this isn’t the same. He doesn’t need Mike to fix his life, he just needs him to be there next to him. Supporting him. His best friend.

Mike stays quiet for far longer than Will expects, and when he looks over, he notices the way Mike's brow is furrowed like he's concentrating on something.

“Will?”

“Yeah?”

“Why'd you lie about the painting?”

It's been eighteen months since he gave Mike the painting he'd done right before he'd arrived in California. It hadn't mattered that Mike was arriving on Will's birthday, because to him just seeing Mike for the first time in eight months had been enough of a present, he'd wanted to make something to remind Mike of how important he was. The way Will always saw him - their leader and Dungeon Master. The heart of the Party. And despite all those months of trying to push Mike away, when faced with the prospect of seeing him in person again, Will felt like he folded so easily, giving it up and just accepting that he'd missed Mike.

The lie had rolled easily off his tongue that day on the van, after seeing how badly Mike needed to get out of his own head. At the time, the distance between them made Will believe that everything he'd felt for Mike was one-sided, that Mike was happy with Eleven - that it wasn't worth ruining their lifelong friendship over his stupid crush. Because that was how he tried to rationalize it to himself.

“I didn't-”

“Maybe I was too caught up in finding Eleven at the time to notice, and that's my own fault.” Mike turns to look at him, and Will wishes the earth would swallow him whole. “But you've never lied to me before, so I didn't realize until later.”

“It wasn't a lie.”

“You said it was from El-”

Will shakes his head, feeling tears threatening to spill over, sliding down his cheeks. His heart pounds in his chest, and Will wonders if Mike can hear it.  “I know. I know I did. But everything else I said, that was the truth. I didn't lie to you about that, Mike.”

He should have seen this conversation coming.

Mike stands up abruptly, heading for the stairs, and leaving Will alone in the basement again. He listens as Mike's footsteps go through the kitchen and up the stairs to the second floor, wondering if that's the end of the conversation tonight. He'd deserve it, if it is. 

But then, he hears Mike's footsteps on the stairs again, this time going down to the first floor and retracing his steps back to the basement. Now, Mike races down the basement stairs holding a shoebox in his hand.

Will stares at him, standing on the other side of the coffee table, holding out the box to him, before finally taking it when Mike raises an eyebrow.

Neither of them say a word as Will sets it down on the table, and gently lifts the lid off.

Inside are letters - envelopes addressed to Will at the house in California, but no stamp and no return address. Carefully, Will cards his fingers through them, eventually picking the one sitting on top up and flipping it around to see the flap is tucked in and there's a date written in the center in Mike's familiar scrawl.

3/21/86

The day before Mike arrived in California over Spring Break.

He quickly glances up to where Mike is still standing, hovering over the table.

“Every time I wrote a letter to El, I wrote one to you. I just never sent yours.”

Will tries to think of how often El got a new letter from Mike, how sometimes it’d been twice a week, as if Mike just never stopped writing. He holds up the envelope in his hand, making sure Mike can see the date.

“This was the day before you came to California.”

Mike nods, a slight uptick of a smile in the corner of his lips. “I'd just gotten the last letter from El before my flight.”

Will flips open the flap, carefully sliding the letter out. It's notebook paper, ripped from one of Mike's spiral notebooks for school. 

Will- Tomorrow is my flight to Lenora to visit you. I'm looking forward to seeing California for the first time.  I know I write this a lot, but Hawkins isn't the same without you. I thought it would get easier the longer you were gone, that I'd get used to not seeing you every day. Not being able to play D&D or mess around during AV Club together. But it still hurts as bad as the day I watched you leave. Eleven wrote and said you're painting something for someone you like. You'll have to tell me about it when I get to California. She said you've refused to show anyone, but does that also include me?

Will reads and re-reads the bit about the painting over and over again, replaying their awkward greeting at the airport in his head. He'd been so excited, he'd had a plan to just try and let things go back to normal. He thought the painting would help, but Mike had acted like he didn't want to touch him, like it was too much to even give him a hug and Will had second guessed everything he'd been thinking about doing. 

“It was so stupid,” Mike says, and Will glances up to where Mike is standing, staring down at him. “Like I had any right to be jealous you were making art for someone else.”

Jealous. Now it made sense why Mike had acted the way he did. Why he’d asked about the painting. And why he’d seemed surprised when Will finally gave it to him in the van later on.

Mike had been thinking about it the entire time.

“Does it… change anything?” Will asks, carefully folding the letter back up, and slipping it back into its envelope. He doesn’t need to read the rest of it anymore.

“Does what?”

Will thinks about what Robin had told him earlier, about not being scared. He thinks about every shoulder touch, every brush of the knee and bump of the elbow between them for the last eighteen months. All of the ways they've effortlessly fit back into each other's lives even with everything else that's happened.

He stands up, maneuvering around the coffee table so he’s standing in front of Mike, placing them on equal footing. 

“Knowing the painting was always for you.”

He watches the way Mike's eyes lock on his own, the rise and fall of his chest, the slight parting of his lips. This time he doesn't break it, doesn't shy away and let the fear take over. 

Will takes the leap instead.

He's never kissed anyone before, but it doesn't stop him from pushing forward to press their lips together. Mike's slight height on him means Will has to tilt his face up a little. He means for it to be quick, to pull away and make sure he hasn't just done something that he shouldn't have. Ruined everything between them with one fearless decision.

Instead, he feels hands settle on his hips, Mike’s fingers gently pulling him closer, and Will goes easily. He slides his hands up Mike’s bare arms, fingertips delicately brushing along the bare skin as Mike presses back into the kiss. Will’s heart pounds in his chest, his mind yelling at him that he’s kissing Mike Wheeler. He’s kissing Mike in the basement of the Wheeler house.

And Mike is kissing him back.

Even as their lips separate, their foreheads stay pressed together, both of them breathing heavy in the shared space between them. 

Will doesn’t want to stop touching Mike either, now that he’s had the chance to know what it’s like.

“Mike?”

“Y-yeah?”

Will tries to calm himself, stop his heart from feeling like it’s going to beat right out of his chest. 

“After this is all over, would you go out on a date with me?”

“A date?” Mike asks, and Will can hear the way he’s smiling even if he can’t see it clearly. “Like, to the movies?”

“Yeah,” Will replies with a laugh, pulling back away from him just enough to see Mike’s face. Wanting to make sure this is really happening. “A date to the movies.”

It’s one of the things Will has always been adamant about for when he did finally get the chance to date someone. It would never be just hanging out at home, making out in their bedrooms all the time. He didn’t want to hide away from the world like that, and hated the idea of how sometimes that’s all people seemed to need to constitute they were in a relationship. No, he wanted to go places and do things with the person he liked, and he even wanted it to include their friends sometimes. Like the way he’s seen Lucas and Max, how they had been able to effortlessly fit their relationship into their existing friendship, while never making the rest of the Party feel like they were being ignored.

That was what he wanted.

And nothing about his relationship with Mike had to change. They are always going to be friends - best friends - first. It was just that now there was the added bonus of kissing.

Just the thought of it all made Will smile. That it wasn’t just a possibility anymore, but a reality.

That’s when he notices that Mike is smiling, a quiet laugh escaping, but his gaze never looking away from Will.

“What’s so funny?” Will asks, raising a questioning eyebrow.

“Just how stupid I was all this time. How wrong everyone else was, and I believed them.” Mike furrows his brow again, and Will wants to press his fingertip to it and smooth out the lines. “It was like I wasn’t seeing what I already knew.”

“You’re seeing now.”

“Yeah,” Mike replies, the smile returning to his face once again. “You’re always here to knock some sense into me.”

Just as Mike presses in to kiss him again, their lips gently coming together, the door to the basement is thrown open, slamming against the railing, startling them both. Will jumps in place, but doesn’t let go of Mike - whoever is interrupting them be damned. 

Lucas is standing at the top of the stairs, hand on the door to keep it open, and breathing heavily like he’s out of breath.

“Finally!” Lucas calls down, shaking his head at them. “Glad I didn’t have to be the one to knock your heads together.”

Mike sighs next to him, and Will sneaks a look, catching how he rolls his eyes. But he wants to know what Lucas is talking about - what has Lucas noticed from them to make that sort of remark?

“What do you want, Lucas?”

Bobby knew he’d fucked up.

Disobeying Captain Fajardo’s orders in order to locate Jones hadn’t been the smartest decision, but he stood by what he’d said. Those recruits were his responsibility, and one of them wasn’t going to end up lost in the swamp on his watch. It’d been some sort of miracle that he and Cope had located him at all. 

But the weight of… everything… had started to feel as though it was crashing down on top of him. And frankly, how could it not? His own fucking words to Maitra before leaving Guam had been the catalyst for everything that was happening to him. At the time, he'd thought… he knew he needed to separate himself from those rumors. It wasn't that he didn't love Aaron, that he didn't want to leave him on his own - but the Marine Corps was his life. Even a rumor like that could have severe consequences.

The worst part of all of this was how completely alone Bobby felt. He never had someone who he has ever truly been open with, at least not before Aaron. It's supposed to be the person you call a best friend, but even after all their years together in the Corps, Maitra still has no idea Bobby was a homosexual. And Bobby knew what would happen if he ever found out too. It'd be the same vicious judgmental words he'd had about Aaron. 

Did Maitra even realize how incredibly fucking lucky he was? That he got to tell the world about the person he loved, got to marry them and celebrate it with friends and family? Probably just took it for granted, Bobby knew. Most people seemed to. And there wasn't a day that went by since he was a teenager, since Bobby realized he was never going to look at a woman the way everyone told him he should, that he didn't wish he was the same as everyone else. Being different was nothing more than a curse.

If he hadn't panicked that day back in Guam, if he'd laughed off Maitra's words instead, how different would their lives be right now? Would Aaron have resigned his commission, Bobby forgoing the reenlistment, and would the two of them be living together somewhere else in the Pacific? Perhaps gone back to the States and moved somewhere they could be together? It's a fantasy now, but it's something he knows was just within reach for a moment several months ago.

And to make it all worse, Bobby knew that Aaron probably had no idea how it had been him that set this all in motion. Rumors were rumors, the brass couldn't do shit with rumors. NCIS doesn't get involved over rumors and gossip. But they'd clearly done their homework, given they'd known about the tattoo he and Aaron both had. To the untrained eye, it looked like nothing more than a Marine tattooing the Marine Corps words into his skin. But in their foolishness, he and Aaron decided to get it in the same place - above their hearts. Now it was the only piece of Aaron he had left.

He hears the door open behind him, where he’s taken a seat in Captain Fajardo’s office until she returns from The Crucible. He hadn’t bothered to take the time to change out of his cammies, was ready to take whatever she threw at him. Because he knew he’d fucked up in regards to the bar fight - that had been the biggest error in judgement in his life. He could still feel the sting of the broken skin on his knuckles from the ensuing fight.

“Sergeant.”

Bobby snaps to attention, standing up and waiting as Captain Fajardo walks around to the other side of her desk. 

“Ma’am.”

“At ease,” she snaps at him, fire lacing her voice. “You want to explain how disobeying my orders, and almost going UA is supposed to help you?”

He doesn’t know how to explain more than he already has. After all, she’d put the pieces together herself, and he’d offered up more information than he ever should have. 

When he doesn’t say anything, she unsurprisingly continues. “Recruit Jones will be fine. And Recruit Cope finished the Crucible, and has rejoined his platoon to celebrate.”

Bobby doesn’t move, but he welcomes the news that Cope was given the opportunity to finish the Crucible, despite disobeying an order as well. He supposes, given everything going on, and the safe return of Recruit Jones, Captain Fajardo thought it was the least of the infractions she was dealing with and let it go. A rarity, he knows.

“Civilian police is going to arrest you for the assault, sergeant. They’re currently in General Cochran’s office.”

“Understood, ma’am.”

----------

In the beginning, he and Aaron end up in the gym on base at the same time - early enough in the morning before most people are awake. At first, they keep their distance, two men just going through their routines. But as time goes on, and their schedules continue to overlap, they start chatting more and more in between reps and machine switches. Eventually, they do their morning runs together - paths that lead them through bits of jungle to the beach, isolated and away from prying eyes.

It gets easier to talk, Bobby slowly opening up about enlisting at eighteen - fresh out of high school and desperate to prove himself. He listens as Aaron tells him about college, and the expectations placed on him by a father whose name he carried. Stretched out in the sand, Bobby listens to Aaron prattle on about computers and coding, about how learning to take apart and reassemble a rifle was not much different than doing the same to a television or radio. Bobby mentions the equipment on his parent’s farm, but knows he doesn't have the same enthusiasm in his words. Aaron speaks with so much passion, Bobby knows he's never felt that way about anything in his life.

He kisses Aaron for the first time sitting on the beach after an evening run. There's sand everywhere, sweat clinging to their skin and clothes, but all Bobby can focus on is the softness of Aaron's lips. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a voice tries to tell him that kissing an officer is a bad idea. But he doesn't listen, because Aaron kisses him back, one hand gripping the back of his neck, and making Bobby forget why he should care at all.

The first time they agree to meet up off base, it's at a motel a couple miles away. Bobby gets the room, and fidgets the entire time as he waits for Aaron to arrive - drawing the curtains closed, checking the room is decent enough, and staring his own reflection down in the mirror hoping it doesn't convey the nervousness he feels inside. Later on, when Bobby needs a moment alone with his thoughts to consider just what this means to him, he lights a cigarette and watches where Aaron sleeps on the bed. And when Aaron catches him staring, coaxing him back into the bed, Bobby lets his nerves get the best of him, his movements stiff and awkward until Aaron is taking hold of his hand and pulling Bobby up against his back. 

They fall asleep like that, Bobby's face pressed against the back of Aaron's neck, and a small smile spread across his face as he finally relaxes into the embrace.

Weeks go by, and with the more time they spend together, the further Bobby feels himself falling in love. He tried at first to resist it, thinking how crazy it was - Aaron is an officer, and almost ten years older than him. There are rules in the Marine Corps about fraternization between enlisted and officers, chains of command that get blurred by the kind of relationship they have. There's an argument somewhere, he's sure, about a lower ranking enlisted being unable to resist a higher ranking commissioned officer's command - but he balks at the idea. He and Aaron have been spending time together for long enough now that it's clear to Bobby that when it's just the two of them, all of the ranks and titles are stripped away. 

Two months before he transfers out of Guam, Bobby comes up with the idea of the matching tattoos. At that point it's been a couple months of hotel room meetups, and who knows how many weeks of morning runs and weight room work outs before that. The morning sun is just cresting over the horizon, Bobby leaning against the headboard, one hand gently carding through Aaron's hair as he sleeps on, unaware of the storm brewing inside Bobby's head. There's no public dating, no marriage for people like them, but there's an ache in Bobby's chest that tells him he wants to make some sort of commitment to Aaron.

“Keep doing that,” Aaron mumbles against Bobby's thigh, as he begins to stir awake. “Feels nice.”

Bobby chuckles, realizing that while lost in his thoughts his fingers have stopped moving through Aaron's hair. But instead of starting again, he slides down the bed, letting his fingertips trace Aaron's face instead - down his forehead, across his eyebrow, past the corner of his eye to the curve of his jawline. Gently, he slides the pad of his thumb across Aaron's lips, leaning in and pressing his own to them.

The words he wants to say remain lodged in his throat. I love you I love you I love you. Something about Aaron feels like forever to him. And it's a terrifying thought, because the only other thing that has felt like forever in his life is the Marines. He thinks of the Marine Corps motto, Semper Fidelis, and the commitment of its meaning. When two people get married, they make a promise to always be faithful to one another - and wasn't that the same thing he wanted to do with Aaron? A promise to be faithful? 

Aaron cracks an eye open, first looking at him, and then leaning back to glance towards the window. 

“Come back to sleep,” he mumbles, gently bumping against where Bobby's head is resting on the pillow. “We still got time.”

“Aaron,” Bobby tries instead, feeling as if the words are stuck in his throat. “You ever think of getting a tattoo?”

They know they have to be careful, and decide on two different tattoo artists in different parts of the island the next week on their weekly meetup night. There’s still the risk of being seen together, but it feels worth it that night. Each of their tattoos only takes about an hour, before they’re heading to the hotel, both of them riding a bit of a high.

For Bobby, the Marines has always felt like he finally had a purpose in life - something to aspire to. He knew from a young age he was never going to follow in his parent’s footsteps, staying and working on the farm for the rest of his life. It sounded like a miserable existence, never getting to experience anything out in the world, being tied to the same piece of land forever. Enlisting in the Marines at least offered him a chance to experience something different for once in his life. A chance to become someone else.

So when Aaron floats the idea of resigning his commission, Bobby can’t help but tell him to fuck off. It feels like a pipe dream of an idea at first, even with his re-enlistment coming up in a couple months. But he allows himself to dream, something for himself, outside the idea of the Marines and a cause bigger than him. Something he can take that’s just for him, a kind of happiness that perhaps isn’t as far out of grasp as he’d once believed it to be. Maybe he can be selfish too.

The week before it all goes to shit, before he pulls strings and gets on a plane back to the States, Bobby can’t stop tracing his fingers over the tattoo on Aaron’s chest. The silent promise of their future together.

“You ever been in love before?” He finds himself asking, his thoughts too loud to stay inside his head.

“Came close,” Aaron replies quietly. “What about you, Sergeant?”

Bobby kneels between Aaron’s open legs, placing his hands on the sides of his face, and pressing in to kiss him. He’d been in love once - or perhaps it was just something he thought of as love at sixteen years old. What he knows now is that it felt nothing like it does with Aaron.

“Once, when I was too young to know better. But I’ve always known there’s no white picket fence in my future.”

----------

It’s humiliating, of course. 

Article 128. Dishonorable discharge for aggravated assault. Three years imprisonment.

The jackass he beat up that night at the bar stays in a coma just long enough for the case to go to court. Then there’s medical records and doctor testimonies about the man’s injuries, plus the concussion he’d suffered that just added to the severity of what got handed down onto Bobby as a result.

Bobby feels like drifts for months afterwards, finally ending up in New York City, figuring it might be easier to slip between the cracks there. The humiliation of what happened to him making him happier to cut ties with everything and everyone regarding the Marine Corps. Can't see the disappointed looks on people's faces from hundreds of miles away, at least. 

He’d once told Cope, “you have to kill your old self to become your best self.” But even he hadn’t been his best self at the time. Who was he to give such advice when he was so good at setting his entire life alight?

Bobby had been an expert at lying to himself.

He was smart at least, living on base, keeping his expenses low all those years. It means that he has some money in a savings account, enough to get himself a shitty apartment in a third-floor walkup in Brooklyn. The landlord waves him off when he mentions the assault charge and the discharge from the Corp, handing him a piece of paper with an address and name on it.

“If you need work, you might do well there.”

The job ends up being private security - hired muscle at a club in Manhattan. Bobby laughs at the idea of having to strong arm people into behaving, how similar it is to what he’d done as a Drill Instructor in the grand scheme of things, just less discipline and more chaos. And at the end of the day, it’s a steady paycheck if nothing else.

He’s surprised, not long after, when he receives a letter from Parris Island. It’s from Captain Fajardo, checking in on him. He had to respect her, she cared for the people in her charge, expending more energy into their care and wellbeing than he ever remembered seeing from his other superiors. It was the first time it felt like someone actually cared about what happened to him, that he wasn’t just out there on his own struggling to survive. And Bobby knows he didn’t fully appreciate it at the time, everything she’d done for him even in those short few weeks they’d known each other.

What surprises him is the address she includes with the letter, somewhere in California. 

Its none of my business, but when you’re ready, I know you’ll do the right thing.

The weight of her words hits him square in the chest, knees buckling beneath him and sending him crashing onto the floor of the kitchen. He barely registers the way he bangs the back of his head on one of the cabinet doors, or how hard his knees hit the tile. He doesn’t realize he’s crying until the tears are dripping off his face, hitting the letter still clutched in his hand. 

Would Aaron even want to talk to him? 

He puts the address on the fridge with one of the generic magnets, letting it judge him every time he walks into the kitchen. Every time he opens the fridge. Eventually he memorizes the address, knows it just as well as the one for this new shitty apartment he lives in. Knows it better than the one for his parents farm in upstate New York. 

For weeks, the address haunts him, consuming his thoughts from the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to sleep at night. He dreams of seeing Aaron again, about the kind of conversation they would have the first time they see each other again. Remembers what it was like to kiss Aaron, to hold him while they slept. Bobby finds himself absently tracing the tattoo on his chest, thinking of the promise and commitment they’d made to one another in that decision. In his dreams, sometimes he imagines Aaron forgiving him for making a mess of everything. Other times there are nightmares, times when Aaron doesn’t want anything to do with him, calling him a coward instead. Bobby doesn’t even disagree, waking up in a cold sweat and hating himself for everything that's happened.

But before he manages to get the balls to do something with the address, Maitra finds him. 

“You're a hard one to track down,” Maitra laughs, walking through the front door to the apartment after Bobby's buzzed him into the building. He immediately makes himself at home, poking his head into the bedroom, the bathroom, and craning his neck up and down to judge the view outside. “This place is a goddamn shoebox, Sullivan.”

Bobby shrugs. “Better than a jail cell.”

He grabs two bottles of beer from the fridge, holding one out to Maitra, who takes it and flops onto the futon that serves as Bobby's living room couch. 

“Never answered my letters, jackass.”

“Didn't have anything to say.”

“Glad to know you’re okay now,” Maitra says, rolling his eyes. “Since you couldn’t even fucking let me know where you were moving.”

“Just felt like a change of pace.”

Maitra frowns, staring back at him and dramatically waving his free hand around. “Here? You thought you'd get a chance of pace… here?”

“I'm not a Marine anymore. Gotta go where I think I can find work,” Bobby leans against the counter, taking a sip of his own beer. “So what the hell are you doing here?”

“Kelly wanted to do the tourist thing - Broadway, Statue of Liberty, Central Park. She’s wandering around doing that shopping thing women love to do. Thought I’d track you down in the meantime.”

“Miss me that much?”

He’s had years to think about everything that happened that led up to that moment he landed in prison. Realizing that it had been his own sheer stupidity that resulted in the mess that enfolded - including everything that happened to Aaron. And it all started that moment Maitra warned him to stay away from Aaron, and instead of laughing it off, Bobby had played along. And in saving himself, he instead put the target on Aaron’s back - one that eventually was going to lead back to himself as well.

“When you disappear for years and leave me with shit.” Maitra shakes his head, taking a swig of his beer and leaning forward on the futon. “So what the hell happened? You’ve never gotten in a bar fight the entire fucking time I’ve known you.”

Bobby shifts against the counter where he’s standing, trying to come up with an explanation that Maitra will believe.

“Just snapped,” Bobby replies after a moment, shrugging his shoulders and trying to act nonchalant as possible about the incident.

Maitra laughs, leaning back against the futon. “Yeah, guess I’d probably too, being around recruits all day. Remember when we were that young and stupid?”

And for a moment, Bobby thinks that’s it - he’s given Maitra a reasonable enough excuse about what happened, they can move on and never discuss it again. 

But life is never that easy.

“D’you hear about the new bullshit that got passed? Suddenly, it’s okay for there to be faggots in the military.”

Bobby had read about the enactment of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which in all honestly hadn’t sounded like it would change much from how things already were. 

“Yeah, we do get the newspaper in prison, you know.”

“And letters, I hear.” Maitra rolls his eyes, clearly not gonna let it go that Bobby never got in touch with him. “Remember that Major, the one you said come onto you - right before you left Guam? Well, he ended up getting kicked out not long after your ass landed in prison.”

Bobby wonders if Maitra will ever put the pieces together, to look at the bigger picture and see how it all crumbled for Bobby starting with that moment in Guam where Maitra warned him to stay away from Aaron. 

“I didn’t, uh… didn’t keep up much with what was going on.”

“Heard NCIS gave you some trouble. Cuz well, I had to include what you told me when I reported him.”

Bobby shakes his head, playing along. “Nah, they were just being thorough.”

It’s a nice enough visit, to be able to see Maitra again and catch up. But it’s a reminder to Bobby that there are always going to be people in his life that don’t know him, despite what they believe otherwise. That there are parts of himself that he can’t reveal to most people, for fear of what they’d do or say. 

The mask that he had to put on during Maitra’s visit comes back off, and for the first time in years, Bobby realizes just how heavy it had been to wear.

----------

A-

I’m sorry. For everything.

Maybe you were right. Maybe we should have stuck to the plan . Still not sure I’m a white picket fence guy though.

How does a third floor walk up in New York City sound instead?

-B

----------

Bobby feels like his head has barely hit the pillow after a shift, when the buzzer for the building door goes off. 

“Who the fuck-” he curses to no one except himself, tossing the blankets off and stomping out to the front door of the apartment where the intercom is. He gets a peak at the clock in the kitchen - 7:12am, and hopes whoever is keeping him from sleep has a good goddamn excuse.

“Yeah?” He snaps, not hiding his annoyance.

It’s quiet for a moment before a voice - an all too familiar voice - comes through the speaker.

“Bobby?”

His entire body freezes, his finger poised over the button to reply back. It’s been weeks since he wrote the letter to Aaron, so long in fact, he’d begun to think that it was in fact the final nail in the coffin, and that Aaron wanted nothing else to do with him. 

Instead, the motherfucker was here. 

In New York City. 

Outside his building door.

For a moment, panic rushes through him. What if someone sees? What if someone sees Aaron standing outside, and knows he’s here to visit him? It’s old fears bubbling to the surface, the need to keep every interaction between them private. Secret. 

But New York City isn’t Apra Harbor.

“Come on up.”

After taking a deep breath to steady himself, he throws the door open, listening as Aaron walks down the hallway and up the first flight of stairs. The sound echoes upwards, the anticipation building in Bobby’s chest. If Aaron is here, if he traveled here from California instead of writing or calling or just straight up ignoring the letter, it had to mean something.

Bobby doesn’t even try to hide the smile on his face as Aaron clears the last couple stairs onto the landing of the third floor. He’s got a backpack, carrying a duffel in his left hand, and looks better than the Aaron that has been haunting his dreams for the past couple years. 

Because this is real.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

The words slip out before he can stop them, the only thought going through his mind.

“Got your letter,” Aaron responds instead, a smile on his dumb face that has Bobby reaching out to wrap his arms around him, pulling him into a tight hug. He takes a moment to bury his face in the crook of Aaron’s neck, taking in the familiar scent of soap and sandalwood. Bobby had always thought the Marines was the place that he felt most at home - the only place that would ever feel like home. 

But maybe he was wrong about that.

“And what? Hopped on a fucking plane?”

Aaron ignores the question, pushing past him to walk inside the apartment, dropping the bags by the door before turning back to face him. 

“Heard what happened to you, about the assault.” Aaron reaches out and takes hold of his hands, thumbs gently rubbing against the knuckles. Sometimes it still feels like the bar fight was yesterday, that Bobby can still feel the sting caused by the broken skin. “Didn’t know if you wanted me to get in contact.”

“I uh, I needed to apologize,” Bobby stutters out, the words coming too fast but he knows he has to say them, pulling out of Aaron’s grasp and walking towards the kitchen. He doesn’t deserve Aaron’s touch. Not until he comes clean. Not until the truth is out. “For everything I did.”

“You got re-assigned-”

Bobby holds a hand up, willing Aaron to stop talking. “I wanted to leave.”

The silence that falls over the room becomes deafening, the only noise from the train passing by a block away, and the distant sound of someone’s music being played way too loud from their car. Bobby watches as Aaron freezes in the middle of the room, staring back at him, obviously trying to wrap his head around the bombshell revelation he’s just dropped.

“I panicked,” Bobby continues after a moment. “The Marines - it’s all I have, it’s all I am - and I thought I could get out on my own terms. But then there were rumors, and the idea of them catching up to me…” 

He feels the tears in his eyes, threatening to spill over and down his cheeks. Bobby hates crying like this, hates how it makes him feel weak and out of control. And this is definitely one of those moments, as he hastily wipes at his eyes, desperate to not let Aaron see him like this. But there’s nothing about this situation that allows him to be in control.

“I was angry, after finding out you’d left. Everything we’d talked about, our plans-”

“Good,” Bobby interrupts. “You should be angry at me.”

“But then NCIS started sniffing around, and I got arrested and I realized I was glad that you weren’t around. That you weren’t going to be dragged down too.”

Bobby didn’t deserve Aaron. He didn’t deserve this beautiful, handsome, kind, intelligent man who had, for whatever insane reason, decided to get on a plane and fly across the country rather than send a letter. Or even make a phone call. They were already past the point that Bobby thought Aaron should have walked back out the door, because how could he still be here, standing in the middle of his shitty apartment knowing that Bobby had left without a word, and still was here listening to him try and string the words together to explain every fucked up decision he’d made afterwards?

“It didn't matter. They still knew,” Bobby replies quietly, remembering the questioning he'd undergone from NCIS. “And I couldn't - I couldn't handle the idea that I was to blame for it all.”

“You can't control how people talk, Bobby.”

“Maitra warned me away from you, and I - I panicked. It's why he reported you.” Bobby wants the ground to swallow him whole so he doesn't have to look at Aaron. Because he knows this is going to be the moment Aaron grabs his bags and walks out the door, realizing the mistake he'd made. For as much as he's happy that Aaron is here, that they can clear the air finally about what happened, he feels like the biggest asshole in the world.

But Aaron doesn't leave. Doesn't grab his bags and say that he regrets the decision to come to New York.

Instead, Bobby watches as Aaron walks closer to him, reaching out and placing a hand on his chest, above his heart and above the Semper Fi tattoo.

“What happened on Parris Island?” It should be an easy question, but Bobby just stares back at Aaron instead, trying to understand his meaning. “I know your service record, I know that getting arrested for a bar fight isn't something you do.”

Bobby wishes there was a simple explanation, that perhaps if he had been the type to initiate physical fights like that, it wouldn't have been such a shock to anyone. They'd have at least just expected it from him and moved on. But he's got medals and awards for conduct and behavior instead, reminders of the perfect Marine he's been since enlisting at eighteen. 

“I didn't handle it well - learning you'd been arrested.”

It'd been a sticking point in the case against him as well, the rapid decline in his behavior once he arrived at Parris Island following his exemplary service beforehand. And Bobby had no explanation for it either, given that he couldn't exactly admit it was that he couldn't handle his own actions and their involvement in getting the man he loved arrested. 

“By that time, I believed you wouldn't want anything to do with me because of what I'd done,” Bobby continues, remembering the hatred he'd felt at the time, mostly towards himself. The guy at the bar has just managed to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, and it'd set Bobby off. Giving him an outlet for the anger at himself that had been bubbling beneath the surface. “So it didn't matter what I did.”

And somehow, after all that, Aaron just keeps looking at him the same way he always has. The same beautiful brown eyes that pulled Bobby in all those years ago. 

“I remember, when I had a moment of doubt about us, you reminded me of how much you love me.” Aaron slides his hands up to Bobby's neck, gently cradling his face in his hands and leaning in to press their lips together. Bobby goes, kissing him back, even if he still doesn't believe he deserves it. “So I'm doing the same, Bobby. That if I need to get a tattoo saying it, I will.”

Exhaustion starts catching up with him, as much as he'd like to continue their conversation. He's been awake for the last 15 hours, and Bobby can't help yawning right there in Aaron's face.

“Sorry, was about to get some sleep when you showed up,” he apologizes, surprised when Aaron just smiles back at him.

“Then let's go get some shut-eye.”

Bobby stares back at Aaron, wondering how he can be so accepting of everything. When Aaron had his moment of doubt, just weeks before Bobby up and fled Guam, it'd been about their relationship. He remembered Aaron sounding resigned to it being nothing more than just a weekly hookup in a shitty motel room. And that has been after they'd gotten their tattoos. At the time, Bobby had been the one steadfast in knowing what they were, what Aaron meant to him. And it was always more than just a weekly hookup to him.

And of course, everything is different now. Never before have they been in a committed relationship like this, one that others around them know about, and one where Alex feels like he can be public about his feelings for Michael. The pendant of alien glass around his neck, laying against his chest, feels like a promise that Alex intends to make good on one day.

The first problem he encounters this year, however, is where to put the tree. Typically he just rearranges the study, moving the couch from under the windows to against the wall, and putting the tree there instead. It's only temporary, and it makes the house feel a tiny bit more festive.

But when he drags the box out of the storage, and stands in the open doorway to the study, Alex realizes he doesn't want to keep the tree out of the way this year.

Wanting is something he's teaching himself is okay - he's allowed to be selfish. He's allowed to do things and desire things simply because they make him happy. And right now, he wants to put the Christmas tree in the living room, because he wants to be able to cuddle with Michael on the couch, with the fireplace going, and really see if all that fuss about coziness is actually true. There's simply never been the opportunity before where it was possible, and now that it is, Alex finds he wants to experience it for himself.

“There's nowhere to put it,” he whines to Maria on the phone, standing in the middle of the living room, surveying the furniture.

“And the study is not an option?”

Alex sighs, glancing down the hallway, the reasons floating through his mind. “No.”

“So we just need to figure out a different spot for you,” Maria replies, sounding much more confident than Alex feels. There's another voice in the background, and Alex can just make out Maria explaining his dilemma, realizing after a moment that she’s speaking to Rosa.

“Is that Rosa? I can call back-”

“She says you're overthinking it,” Maria pushes on, ignoring him. “And I agree with her.”

“Great,” he grumbles, falling down on the sofa and staring up at the ceiling. 

Overthinking is something that he knows he does on occasion, especially in regards to Michael. Because Alex can’t think of any time in his professional life - a decade in the Air Force, including officer school and two completed tours - where he’s had the same doubts and worries. Things just always seemed easier when he can fall back on facts and logic.

And Michael, well. Alex knows his feelings for Michael are sometimes anything but logical.

“What about in that space next to the dining table?” Maria asks, pulling him out of his thoughts. 

Alex glances over where there’s a potted plant in the corner near the doors that lead out to the patio; the decor in the wall alcoves; and the guitar he has leaning in the corner near his bedroom doorway. It might work, he thinks, but it’d be a tight fit. And he doesn’t really want the tree to be sticking out awkwardly, especially if he’s putting it somewhere he might trip over coming out of the bedroom.

“No, I don’t think so.”

There’s a bit of shuffling on the other end of the line, and then Alex hears Rosa loud and clear, realizing he’s been put on speaker.

“What about in that corner? Next to the sofa?”

Alex twists to look to his right where the end table is currently placed. It’s a large enough space in the corner if he moves the table and the plant - but isn’t the point of this to be able to see the tree while sitting on the couch? It really would just look like it was shoved into the only available spot between the couch and his keyboard bench.

“The couch would be in the way.”

Rosa sighs, rather loudly, and says something that Alex can’t quite make out, probably meant only for Maria anyway. While he listens to them chatter amongst themselves, he wonders about next to the fireplace, but figures there probably isn’t enough room and the tree would cover part of the TV - and it’d definitely make it harder to get to the record player. 

“Are you up for moving some furniture?” Rosa asks after a moment. “Because I think I have an idea, if I remember your house correctly, and Maria says I am.”

Not letting himself get too hopeful, Alex nods his head as if she can see him. “Yeah, if it’ll make this whole thing work.”

“Move your keyboard bench.”

For a moment, Alex wants to argue and ask where he’s going to put his music set-up in the meantime, but the answer is obvious. If he moves the keyboard, and his audio equipment into the study, they can go against the wall where he typically puts the couch when the tree is in there. It feels like such a simple solution, he’s annoyed at himself for not thinking of it. 

“You two are geniuses,” he replies quickly, pushing himself up off the sofa. “Love you both, but I gotta go.”

He hears the two of them giggling on the other end, and ends the call. 

None of the furniture he needs to move is actually heavy, thankfully. And he hopes he can get it done before Michael gets home - because he’d like to be able to at least have the tree up. First, he gets the bench - it’s the smallest and lightest part. Then all of the smaller items - the guitars, the sound mixing equipment, the speakers, and finally - the keyboard itself. The table, however, presents its own dilemma. It’s a little too big, and a little too awkward in size for him to lift all on his own.

Alex falls back onto the sofa, frustrated with himself and his own limitations, when he hears the front door open, close, followed then by the familiar sound of Michael’s boots on the floor.

“Rearranging?” Michael asks, and Alex turns slowly to look over at him, noticing the way he’s taking in the emptiness of the space where his instrument set up used to be.

“Trying.”

Michael nods his head, glancing around the living room and dining room, as if looking for something. “Where’d the rest of it go?”

“In the study.” 

He watches as Michael disappears out of view, his footsteps receding down the hallway, and then back towards him, as if Michael had needed to see for himself where the missing equipment had gone. 

“So we just need to move the table?” Michael finally asks, sitting down on the coffee table and sliding over until he’s across from Alex, reaching out and taking his hands in his, letting their fingers slide together. “Any particular reason for this change? You seemed pretty settled in how you had the house set up.”

Alex lifts his left hand, along with Michael’s, and motions vaguely towards the box with the Christmas tree that’s on the floor next to the dining table.

“I thought - I think it'd be nice to be able to enjoy the tree out here.” Alex doesn't know why his own reasoning feels dumb - it's his own home. A house he bought with his own money and has worked to furnish how he wants. “Since it's our first Christmas together.”

Slowly, a smile spreads across Michael's face, as he gently tugs Alex's hands towards him. Alex goes, letting himself be pulled forward until Michael is pressing their lips together - once, twice, three times. The smile never leaving his face, either.

Alex pulls one hand out of Michael's grasp, reaching out to slide it up along Michael's chest to cup his face, letting the tips of his fingers slide into the curls at the back of Michael's neck. His hair is longer - obviously in need of a trim, but Alex likes something about it like this as well. 

Especially when it means watching that one stubborn curl fall over Michael's eyes as he works. Or as he cooks. Or even as he's just talking while they're sitting on the patio chairs outside, Michael telling him about the dreams he had as a child, searching for home in the night sky.

“So where’d you put it last year?”

“Uh, the study,” he replies with a sigh, still frustrated with himself. “Christmas was never a big affair growing up. And here I just - I never saw much reason to go all out on decorating.”

Michael’s eyes go soft, and Alex feels a little less like an idiot for admitting something like this. 

“Max and Isobel always tried - especially when we were kids,” Michael says, his attention drifting back down to their hands, letting his fingers drift lightly across the skin. “Think they wanted to make sure I felt included. Never really got a real Christmas otherwise.”

Alex’s heart breaks for the childhood Michael should have been able to have growing up. That he’d been left to fend for himself so often in ways that no child should have had to do.

“That’s why I wanted to tree in here,” Alex tries again, gently tugging at Michael’s hands, pulling him towards where he’s sitting on the couch. He smiles at the easy way Michael moves, first pinning him against the back as their lips meet, sliding onto his lap and dropping his hands. Michael’s hands slide up to cup his face, kissing him over and over again as Alex drops his hands to his thighs. He doesn’t stop his hips from bucking up against Michael.

“Good thing for you,” Michael says after a moment, pulling away and Alex feels his hands drop down flat against his chest as he looks up to see a familiar smirk, “that your boyfriend is an alien who can move things with his mind.”

It’s always fascinating for Alex to watch Michael use his abilities, watching as the table slowly glides across the floor of the living room, freeing up the empty space in front of the bay window. 

Between the two of them, they carefully get the table moved into the study, and set everything to rights with his equipment, which seems to calm the remaining nerves Alex had about everything. 

Getting the tree together is easiest, the two of them laughing as they try and fluff the branches out enough to make it look somewhat like a tree before decorating it in the small collection of ornaments Alex has purchased and collected through the last several years. He sits on the coffee table to sort through the containers, Michael choosing to be the one to hang them up, taking any leads Alex chooses to give him about placement. 

And it’s then, as he watches Michael place the silver star at the top, that it hits Alex just how right all of this actually feels. How perhaps this is what has been missing for the holiday to feel like it’s more than just a date on the calendar. That perhaps next year they’ll be doing this not as boyfriends, but as husbands instead.

Husbands, Alex repeats to himself. Because he’d asked Michael to marry him, and Michael had said yes.

He watches as Michael effortlessly gets a fire going in the fireplace, fascinated by the way the flames burst from his hand, the logs lighting with minimal effort. 

“Is that why you run hot?” Alex can’t help but ask, raising an eyebrow at Michael and nodding at the fireplace. He knows enough about the alien’s biology to know the elevated temperature the alien’s have is related to their species, but it feels like a good moment to joke. He knows he’s tried in the past to make a similar remark in the past, but the timing hadn’t been right, and it hadn’t landed how he’d intended.

This time, however, he watches as a smile spreads across Michael’s face, his eyes lighting up in amusement. 

They settle onto the sofa, fingers laced together, Alex pushed into Michael’s side as they both take in the quiet moment around them. 

“What did you used to do for Christmas?” Michael asks, his voice quiet next to Alex. “Since coming back here?”

“Spend time with Maria and Mimi,” he replies, turning to look at Michael, noticing the way he’s focused on him, eyes bright and golden in the warm haze of the firelight. “Maria called me a grinch the first year I got back because I didn’t decorate.”

“But not this year.”

Alex shakes his head, leaning up to press a kiss to Michael’s lips. 

He knows he's dropping a bombshell on her, because they've technically only just started dating officially and publicly for the first time ever. No one really knows about the years of back and forth between them, and how hard they'd been trying to get to a place to be together. And Alex knows that part of that is his own fault, for keeping Michael his own closely guarded secret.

But he's never going to regret the things he's done to keep Michael safe.

He doesn't know what to expect in regards to a reaction from her, so the initial shock that crosses her face isn't a surprise.But as the words sink in, she hits him on the arm, her shock quickly morphing into something else.

“When?”

“While I was stuck in that alternate dimension.”

Her eyes narrow ever so slightly, and he immediately wonders if she's doing the math.

“That was weeks ago!”

And she's right, it was weeks ago. During that fit of desperation where for a moment Alex believed he wasn't going to survive whatever health issues the alternate dimension was causing him. It had been a dying wish at the time, to make sure he got to at least ask Michael to marry him before he died.

But as the black fractals burns receded, eventually disappearing completely, Alex had understood what an emotional and rash decision it had been. It wasn't that he wanted to take it back - he refused to see a downside in being engaged to Michael - but at least now they had time.

Time to date, properly. Time to do all the things they'd never gotten a chance before.

“It wasn't important with all that other stuff going on-”

“Yes it was!”

“-but I wanted you to know because I have a favor to ask.”

“I don't know,” Maria immediately replies, turning away from him. “I'm kinda mad at you right now.”

He knows she's lying.

“We want to get married here,” he continues, motioning around to the gazebo and the town square, “and have the reception at the Pony.”

She finally looks back at him, as if considering. “Did you talk to Isobel? She's the one with all the town events planning background.”

“Michael's telling her.”

Alex can't remember what made them decide today, of all days, was the one they were going to start telling people about the engagement and their plans for the wedding. There's been weeks now of dates to the Crashdown, and Planet 7, and even to the Pony. They've taken walks around town together, holding hands and letting everyone see. He's even pushed Michael against the bricks on the side of the Crashdown to kiss him when he's been overcome with the urge to feel his lips.

And then there's been watching Michael slowly move into the house. The way it was clear that he'd been trying in those days Alex had been trapped in the alternate dimension, but clearly still had trouble with moving completely out of the junkyard. It'd been slow - some clothes first, Alex making space in the closet and letting Michael choose which side he wanted. The slow appearance of Michael's textbooks and research materials from his trailer had Alex reconsidering the set up in the study. Quiet mornings waking up together, having breakfast on the terrace together or long showers after a round of slow morning sex. 

But in the end, Michael agreed to break the news to Isobel, and Max. And Alex got Maria, Liz, and Kyle. 

He knew Isobel would be the tougher work, because Michael would have to reel in her attempts at planning some big fancy event. Neither of them wanted it, they'd talked a bit about it already - Michael agreeing that small and simple was enough for them. He'd even made a comment that if Isobel wants to plan a big wedding, she can do it for Liz, or Maria - or even her own.

“I'm so happy for you,” Maria finally replies, leaning forward and wrapping him in her arms. Alex immediately relaxes into her embrace, feeling the tension that has settled into his shoulders earlier melt away. He can't explain why he was nervous to tell her, only that he worried she'd say it was too soon. 

A fear that he knows is mostly unfounded - Maria has always been, and still is, one of his biggest supporters in life.

When she pulls back, he watches as she glances around, as if taking the gazebo in with a new perspective, turning back to look at him. “You really meant it, didn't you? That you wanted to get married here.”

Of course she remembered that day between them, Alex doesn't know why he's surprised. 

“You know I didn't like to dream too hard about things,” he replies, knowing she understands his old good enough dreams, “but everything feels different now.”

She nods along as he speaks, taking hold of his hands, her attention turning to his fingers.

“No ring?”

Alex laughs at that, because it hadn't really crossed his mind that they'd need any sort of engagement rings. It's such a normative tradition - but then again, there is something that perhaps could mean the same thing.

Freeing one of his hands, Alex reaches up and pulls out the alien glass pendant necklace from where it's tucked beneath his shirt, holding it out for Maria to see.

“Michael gave me this, right before I left on the trip with Forrest,” he explains, holding the pendant in between his fingers. “I almost lost it in that other dimension, but Michael found it.”

Maria smiles, rolling her eyes just a bit. “Guerin really just became a jewelry maker overnight, didn't he?”

The question makes him realize she's not wearing her bracelet, which means the injections of the cure that Liz developed seem to be holding. He's heard Kyle talk about how there's been some small changes to her brain scans, perhaps an effect of the protein being reintroduced into her system.

But it means that he's not going to have to watch her slip away. That she's not going to become lost, like Mimi has. 

“No more bracelet?” He asks, sliding his hand down to her wrist.

She shakes her head in response. “Doesn't seem to be a point now.”

He supposes that's true as well.

“So,” Maria says after a moment, smiling back at him. “Are we going to be strong arming Arturo to cook for this thing?”

The thing is, Alex doesn't want to let them remove it from the menu, even if he's the only one to ever order it so that it generates at least a bit of revenue. The timing of it appearing on the menu at the Crashdown had felt almost serendipitous - it first made an appearance the summer after senior year, Arturo clearly trying to add some new puns to the menu in his own effort to distract from the hurt of both Rosa's death and Liz's sudden departure. He knew it'd disappeared some time during the decade he was away - not enough people ordering it to justify keeping the option on the menu for long. But once he'd been back in town, once he'd been fully settled into Roswell once more, Alex had inquired to Arturo one day if he could whip one up for him, for nostalgia's sake.

And within a couple days, it had been added back.

Liz had taken note almost immediately when she'd arrived back in town several months later, wasting no time demanding to know the reason why. But back then, Alex couldn't tell her. Because back then, there was no Alex and Michael - if anything there was only Alex and the mysterious Museum Guy. And to admit why he liked seeing the Bananas Foster Ranch milkshake on the menu felt almost like a declaration. It felt like once someone knew about him and Michael, it was too easy to connect the remaining dots.

“I don't understand,” Michael says, forgoing sticking his finger back in the glass again and just pulling the entire thing over towards him, straw between his lips as he sucks the ice cream up into his mouth.

“Took me way way too long to realize but-” Liz turns to look down at him, an eyebrow raised. “You want to do the honors?”

Alex wants to tell Liz to get lost, to take the milkshake with her and forget this entire exchange ever happened. But there's something in the way Michael is looking back at him, waiting expectantly for the answer, that makes Alex feel a tiny bit braver.

“It reminded me of you, Michael.”

He immediately covers his face in his hands, screwing his eyes shut and groaning at himself for the embarrassment he feels. He knows he shouldn't, that it's just another thing on a laundry list of items that have long allowed Alex to think about Michael when he couldn't actually talk about him in public, or mention him to anyone. 

He hears the familiar sound of Liz walking away from the table, boots stomping on the linoleum floor as she goes, and slowly drops his hands to see Michael watching him. Michael reaches over to gently grab hold of his hands, pulling them the rest of the way down, but not letting go and resting them on the table together between them.

“Hasn't this been on the menu since we were kids?”

“Summer after senior year, actually.”

A smile spreads across Michael's face as he tugs at their hands, pulling Alex's own up to his lips and pressing a kiss to the knuckles. It's the simplest little action, but it has Alex's heart soaring in his chest. Two years ago, he never could have imagined being able to do any of this with someone he liked - let alone with Michael. And there once was a time where he believed that no matter who he dated, who he tried to have a public relationship with, his father would always find some way to interfere. His goal became trying to be happy enough , find something he could live with so that no one else would ever know what it was like to be at the end of his father's rage.

Maria had always been his plan for happy enough, the plans made long ago sometime in high school before Michael Guerin swooped in and stole his guitar. He always knew that while he would never be in love with her, he'd never feel that rush of excitement that came with falling in love with someone - but he loved her enough, and she was the safest he ever managed to feel at a time when there was no one else in his life reminding him of his own worth. Her presence has always been his safety net, that person who no matter what, will always be there for him - and he would always be there for her in return.

But his father's death had changed everything for him. No longer did he have to look over his shoulder, no longer did he feel like there would always be someone lurking around the corner, ready to ruin any moment of happiness Alex may try and take for himself. And now, with the statue in the square gone, he didn't have to stare at the reminder each time he walked through town with Michael, the two of them holding hands and strolling down the sidewalk. For the first time in his life, Alex felt like he was starting to truly reap the benefits of the war he'd been waging since he was a kid.

“Didn't know you were so sentimental, Manes.”

Alex smiles at Michael across the table, because there's no way that's true. Not when Michael had found him last year in that portal dimension, sitting on the tailgate of Michael's truck, watching reels that contained his own memories as if they were movies.

Alex gently removes his hand from Michael's, and carefully pulls the milkshake glass towards himself across the table. He takes a sip from the straw, savoring the taste of banana and caramel. Nothing about the flavor of the milkshake reminds Alex about Michael, it's always been completely and totally about the name.

“Liked having things that reminded me of you, even before there was really an us .”

Michael chuckles quietly in response. “Would you change anything? If you could?”

It's a question Alex has asked himself before, not necessarily needing an answer, but more just a general curiosity. And while he wishes the incident in the shed never happened, Alex wonders who they both would be as people right now without it. Because he knows that, regardless of what happened there that night, there's also the incident with Noah, and Isobel, and Rosa that took place that night - a whole combination of which was the reason in the end that Michael gave up his scholarship to UNM, and stayed in Roswell for the next decade instead. Would he change his father, perhaps? But that would require going back even further and convincing Harlan that the aliens who crash landed in 1947 weren't dangerous, they weren't invaders, and they weren't here to murder humans. Everything feels like dominoes, one event after another, but all of them tied together.

“Only if you and I still ended up here,” he replies, carefully considering his words.

Liz comes back over to the table, looking slightly impatient. There's a brand new stain on the front of her uniform - something that looks like rocket relish, Alex thinks.

“Everything okay, Ortecho?”

“You have ten seconds to order.”

Michael laughs out loud, smiling over at him across the table. “Such great service here.”

Liz thrusts her arm out in front of Michael, showing him the face of the watch on her wrist.

“May I remind you, I have a life outside this diner. And a date with a very handsome, very sexy cowboy tonight. So god help you if I don't clock out from my shift in exactly 28 minutes.”

They both quickly place orders - hamburgers, fries, extra flying sauce. Liz glares at both of them as Michael asks for another Bananas Foster Ranch milkshake, but Alex decides to opt for Abducted by Chocolate instead. 

Better to dip his fries into.

“I'd ban both of you if I didn't think Papi would just ignore it.”

Alex watches Liz head towards the kitchen, pausing the scribble their orders down on her pad and sticking it in the window. The cafe is busy - a typical midday lunch rush, and Alex had been working from home today, so he'd shown up at the junkyard unannounced to ask Michael to grab something to eat with him. It felt like one of the perks of working from home instead of commuting out to Deep Sky for the day, because that would mean he wouldn't be home until closer to dinner if he did a full day at the office. Plus, he's certain that Sanders doesn't mind him dragging Michael away for an hour or so. The old man might be a crank, but Alex is convinced there is a soft spot buried somewhere deep inside him.

He turns back towards Michael, only to see him watching him, as if there is nowhere else to look in the whole of the diner. The milkshake glass is at the end of the table, Michael having finished the last of it off rather quickly, like now that he's learned why it's still on the menu he actually likes it.

“How'd you get them to keep this on the menu if it doesn't sell?” Michael asks, bumping the empty glass with his hand for emphasis.

Alex doesn’t know the answer to that question, only that every time it has been taken off, he's come into the diner and tried to order it. Perhaps it's less trouble to keep it on the menu than deal with explaining to each new waiter that gets hired why if a certain customer orders that one specific milkshake that isn't actually on the menu, they still have to make it for him.