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Will splashed the water from the sink on his face.
"I'm going to the bathroom," he had whispered. "Don't follow me, you can stay and watch the movie."
In reality, Will hadn't needed to use the bathroom at all. He just had to get away for a moment.
It wasn't like he wasn't happy, being with Mike. It was what he had always wanted. He was just terrified of someone finding out. He was used to all the slurs they would throw at him, but he didn't want Mike to have to go through all that. He wondered if it would ever not be scary to go out in public with his boyfriend.
Mike's happy with you, he reminded himself. He wants to be with you. He suggested this double date. He doesn't care about what people will think.
They were the same words Mike would always repeat to him. They somehow sounded even less reassuring coming from himself.
Will finally gained the confidence to go back into the crowded theater and swung the door open, but the back of a boy's head standing by the popcorn caught his eye. Soft, dark hair. Hair that Will knew all too well. He rolled his eyes as he approached the boy, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Mike, I told you not to follow. . . Oh." When the boy turned around, Will could clearly tell that he wasn't his boyfriend. His boyfriend didn't have massive glasses, and he wouldn't have the confused expression on his face that he does now. But still, they looked so similar. It wasn't just the hair, they had the same freckles, and dark eyes, everything. Will dropped his hand from the stranger's shoulder. "Um. Sorry. I thought you were someone else."
Will looked to the boy's left, seeing a smaller one with short hair looking at him. "Hear that, Rich? Guess you aren't the only ugly one in this town. You got a clone wandering around here," the smaller boy grinned.
The Mike clone, Rich, Will assumed, elbowed him in the ribs. The smaller boy retaliated, resulting in them completely ignoring Will, as they were too caught up in their fight. He slipped away, back into the the theater to find his seat next to Mike, with Lucas and Max in the row in front of them.
"Hey," Mike whispered with a small smile as Will sat down.
He smiled back. "Hey." Although they couldn't hold hands, or do any other couple stuff in public, Will was happy that Mike still wanted to spend time with him.
+
The pairs exit the theater through the hallway that, "if anyone finds out about, you're dead," when the movie was over. Will didn't know Steve that well, but he appreciated his willingness to help the kids at the risk of his job. Robin seemed cool, too, always having some sort of funny one-liner to say.
Steve sighed in exasperation as the group walked passed the counter and into the actual shop, making the girls who were ordering giggle.
"Holy shit, you guys," Max said, effectively stopping them from walking any further. She pointed at two boys sitting at a table eating ice cream. "Mike, he looks exactly like you."
"I thought so, too," Will agreed. "I saw them earlier, when I went to the bathroom. I thought he was Mike and accidentally started a conversation with him." Will scrunched his nose up at the embarrassing memory.
"And you didn't think to tell me that there's someone who's stolen my identity just walking around? What if he committed a crime and framed me? I would never know it was him and I'd go to jail with no way to prove my innocence," Mike chided.
Max walked up to Rich and the other boy like it was no big deal. Will could never understand her confidence when it came to engaging in conversation with strangers.
"Hey," she said. Lucas looked flustered for her, as if he were the one talking to the boys, (though, Will couldn't be sure, as his friend didn't blush the same way he did), while Mike just looked surprised that someone could look so similar to him. The two boys looked up at her, expectantly. "You look like my friend. Mike," she directed at Rich.
"Yeah, I get that a lot," Rich smiled in a strange way. It was nothing like Mike's, all soft and genuine, despite the two of them having nearly the same exact face.
"Well damn, Richie. Looks like this Mike fellow really does look just like you! I feel bad for the poor soul."
"Shut it, Eddie. I know you think I'm smokin' hot."
"As if-" The other boy started, only to be cut off my Max.
"I didn't come here to watch you two flirt." She turned around, beckoning Mike over. He was still in shock, but walked over anyway.
Now it was the two boys' turn to be in shock, as they finally saw Mike. They had been too lost in their own little world, a common trend, Will noted, to notice him beforehand, but now that they had seen him, they fully understood.
"What the fuck?" they both asked at the same time, at varying levels of enthusiasm. Eddie sounded panicky, while Richie sounded like he couldn't believe what he was seeing, almost as if he were disgusted.
"Dude, your-your face! It looks just like his face!" Eddie spoke, waving his finger between Mike and Richie.
"I think we've established that already," Max said, annoyed. "Jeez, these guys are idiots," she muttered.
"Hey! Who are you calling idiot, idiot?" Richie yelled.
"I'm not doing this. Come on Lucas, we're leaving." With that, she walked off, Lucas mouthing a quiet, "Sorry, Mike," as he trailed behind her, leaving a confused Mike and Richie to sort things out on their own.
Will walked up to stand next to his boyfriend. "Sorry about her," he said to a defeated Eddie.
"Will, we don't have time for apologies, why the hell does this guy look exactly like me?" Mike asked.
"I should be asking you the same thing," Richie said. "Only, I bet my dick is longer than yours."
Will stifled a laugh. He knew it wasn't funny, but he was just caught off guard. He hadn't expected the Mike copy to have such an interesting personality. It was much more "out there" than Mike's.
"Oh, you're so immature, Richie," Eddie said.
"That's not what your mom said last night," Richie retorted. The two traded off more insults, making this the third time today they ignored what was going on around them in favor of each other.
Mike and Will exchanged glances, deciding it wasn't worth it to interrupt. After all, the Mike clone wasn't the strangest thing they'd ever seen, and the two boys seemed uninterested in anything else at the minute.
+
"Did you think something was weird about those two?" Will asked later, in Mike's basement, their legs tangled together on the couch.
"Weird how? You mean like the way they swore a bunch and made dirty jokes?" Mike asked.
"No, not that. I mean like, the way they were obsessed with each other, you know? Like they didn't hide their relationship or anything."
"You think they were dating?"
"I don't know. It doesn't really matter if they were, what I'm trying to say is they seemed so confident in themselves. Like they didn't tone anything down just because there were other people around." The two stayed silent for a moment, thinking. "I wish we could be like that. I wish I could be like that. I wish I wasn't scared."
"I know."
"Maybe one day."
"You know it's not your fault, right?" Mike grasped his sorrowful boyfriend's hand in his own. "I'm fine how we are if you are. You don't have to do anything you aren't comfortable with until you're ready."
"I know." Will gave a soft, easy smile that Mike returned. He gave his hand a squeeze.