Work Text:
Dustin has been in love with Will since the fourth grade. Which was a while ago. And for being what Dustin considers one of his best-kept secrets, a lot of people know.
He hasn’t told Will. Obviously. But Steve, Lucas, and Max know, and ever since he asked Mike if Will talks about him when he isn’t around, he’s pretty sure Mike knows. Suzie knows, and when they’re not busy being couple-y over the comms, she’s hyping Dustin up to confess. Max told El on accident, so she knows now, too. Even his Mom knows!! It’d be embarrassing if he didn’t give a shit. How could liking Will Byers in any capacity be embarrassing? It’s like saying you like ice cream. Duh. Of course you do.
So, despite the fact that everybody most important to him knows besides Will, Dustin likes to think he’s on the down-low. Super subtle.
Unsurprisingly, this is not the case.
The two boys- Dustin Henderson and the very object of his affections, his beloved friend Will Byers- are currently sprawled across the floor of Dustin’s bedroom, doing science homework.
Dustin likes to consider himself something of a science whiz, but he’s not so advanced when he’s alone with Will. He really truly can’t help but get distracted and look at him. And honestly, it’s not his fault Will’s just so pretty! So while Will answers questions about cells, Dustin watches him. In a very not subtle way.
Will looks up from his textbook.
“Do I have something on my face?”
Dustin blinks. Whoops.
“No! What? You look fine. Great, even.”
Nice save. Will didn’t look super convinced.
Alongside not looking convinced, he also looked very pink. He goes back to his homework, but doesn’t start writing again. Dustin, a little embarrassed, decides to stop looking at him, which doesn’t last for long.
“Dustin?”
He looks up. Wow, Will looks really uneasy. Maybe he wants to go home, because he’s sick, or because he’s creeping him out. Hopefully not the latter.
He tries to be chill. “Yeah Will?”, with a smile. It just makes him flush more.
“I uh, like you. Romantically?”
Dustin thinks the air must’ve been sucked out of his lungs.
“Holy shit.”
Will looks light he might throw up.
“Holy shit !! Me? ME? Will, are you kidding? I’ve been in love with you since like, the day we met! I’m - oh shit, am I supposed to wait to say I love you? Until six months or whatever? God, I’m so-”
Will shakes his head fondly.
“You wanna date me for at least six months?”
Dustin has never been more confused in his life. Duh he wants to. Who wouldn’t? He’d give his left arm for a week.
“I mean, I was kinda gunning for forever, but uh, whatever works for your schedule?”
God. Of course Dustin would say that. One day he is going to kiss him silly.
“You’re so dumb,” Will says, laughing lightly to cover how flustered he is.
Dustin places a hand over his heart, and puts on an accent nobody has heard before, like ever. “Wounded by my own boyfriend! However shall I recover?”
If the requited love wasn’t enough to make both of them lose their minds, the realization that hypothetically, if they both wanted to, they could date, does. Will somehow gets even pinker, and covers his face with his hands, and Dustin stims by messing with his fingers. God. They get to date. Dustin is going to kiss him one day.
After they both calm down, Dustin moves his homework out of the way and starts shifting positions.
“This is kinda embarrassing, but I don’t think I can kiss you right now, like I might pass out, but maybe we can hug, even though we hug the rest of our friends all the time?”
Will nods and crawls over to Dustin.
Dustin laughs, and holds onto Will, and he thinks this might be the greatest study session that he will ever sit in on. Will takes a deep breath and he mirrors him without thinking about it, over the moon to just be sitting here like this with Will.
Will: “God. Mike’s gonna be so happy this finally happened. Maybe he’ll finally shut up for once.”
Dustin looks at him. “Mike knows?”
“He told me you definitely liked me, which means if I didn’t confess he’d start meddling, and we all know how good that goes, sooo…”
Dustin laughs, and Will can feel his stomach moving because they’re so close. They’re more cuddling than hugging at this point- Will’s kind of draped on top of his curly-haired counterpart, who has his arms around him, and they’re just lounging. It’s nice.
“Well then holy shit, thank you for getting the balls to tell me, because that would’ve been awful .”
Will laughs too now, “Right? Can you imagine Mike trying to parent trap us or something? And he’d eventually pull everybody in on it, too, you know he would.”
“God he fucking would, that little shit! And everybody’d help so quick too, because I told basically everybody how whipped I was-”
“You told everybody ?” Will asks, and he sounds like he’s two seconds away from laughing.
Dustin can feel his ears burning.
“I mean, yeah?? I couldn’t- Will, I don’t think you’ve grasped that I’ve had a crush on you since fourth grade . Like, not even kidding. Eventually I was just like ‘oh my god, if i don’t tell everybody who’s willing to listen to me talk about Will right now , I’m gonna die, talking to my mom and my girlfriend is not enough ’ and I told pretty much everybody, and like-”
“Hold on, your mom knows?”
“Yeah, the day I met you in Clarke’s class, she asked if I'd made any friends and I said not yet, but there’s this boy in the front row who’s really cute, so I might try and talk to him, and I mean. I guess I kinda didn’t expect it to work, so it was gonna be just a one-off little crush mention. Which obviously didn’t work for a multitude of reasons.”
Will’s quiet for a minute, and Dustin worries he may have said something wrong, or did something bad, but Will starts shaking, and then he starts laughing. Really hard.
“I’m sorry!” He makes out between giggles, “it’s just- you’re like, for real crazy about me!”
Dustin opens his mouth, face red.
“Yeah, yeah, don’t flatter yourself,” he says, and Will laughs some more.
“I don’t need to, you already do it for me.”
Dustin scoots away from Will, eyebrows scrunched together.
“Oh yeah? Well what if I just didn’t from here on out? Maybe I just won’t share my thoughts about you anymore.”
Will smiles sweetly, and it makes Dustin want to kiss his stupid sarcastic face.
“So you’re telling me if I didn’t look sad right now and ask you to say nice things, you’d refuse?”
Dustin throws his arms up in the air. “That’s a completely different scenario, and I-”
Suddenly, Dustin’s mom starts hollering through the house that Jonathan’s here to pick Will up, and Dustin helps pack his stuff up. He’s about to open his bedroom door and walk Will out, but he grabs his sleeve before he can turn the doorknob.
Will crosses his arms, and then uncrosses them, and then huffs.
“I know we already talked about this, so it’s fine if we don’t, but uh.. can we kiss? Really fast? Just before I go?”
Dustin goes beet red, and nods. Will steps closer to him, and Dustin looks up at him, and even though it’s only by four inches, Will’s taller than him now, which is unbelievable. I mean, did Will think about how that would make Dustin feel? He used to be almost a foot taller when they met, and now-
Will cups Dustin’s face in his hands, and Dustin thinks his room has never been so quiet yet so loud at the same time.
And then Will kisses him, and Dustin kisses him back. It’s nothing fancy, or show-stopping, neither of them feel like they could fly to the moon and back. But Dustin’s knees are kind of wobbly when they pull away, and Will looks like he just came downstairs on Christmas day. Dustin blinks at him, kind of mesmerized.
“Okay,” he says, 100-watt smile beaming, “bye!”
He waves weakly to Will’s back as he leaves, closes his bedroom door, and lays flat on his bed. Giddy, he grabs for his desk, finds what he’s looking for, and grins into the receiver.
“Suzie, do you copy?”