Work Text:
"She's special, she was born special. Maybe I was one of the first people to realize that, but the truth is, when I stumbled on her in the woods, she just needed someone. It's not fate , it's not destiny , it's just simple dumb luck! And one day she's gonna realize that I'm just some random nerd that got lucky that Superman landed on his doorstep. I mean, at least Lois Lane is an ace reporter for The Daily Planet, right? But—" Mike cut his rambling short and let out a hefty sigh. "Sorry, it's so stupid given everything that's going on, it's just. . . " he struggled to find the words, "I don't know. . . I just. . . "
"You're scared of losing her," Will finished. Of course he knew what Mike was trying to say, he felt the exact same way. He knew the distance and worry Mike felt with El, only that Will felt it between himself and Mike.
Mike looked over to him, nodding with a subtle expression of worry.
"I. . . I understand what you mean," Will hesitantly said. Mike laughed lightly. "No, no, really, I do," Will smiled, but then quickly composed his expression, "And I know how it feels. It sucks."
"That's one way to say it," Mike said.
"But, listen Mike. . . If. . . If El doesn't need you anymore, is that really such a terrible thing?" He looked to Mike earnestly.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, just think about it, about how stressed you've been over your relationship. I-I think you're worried because you realize it is just dumb luck , but also because you two live so far apart now. You can't say you haven't felt some distance between you. And also now that she's going to school, well, she finally gets to live like a person now, for the first time."
"Wait, why is school important?" Mike asked.
"Well," Will laughed and looked over to Mike, who's expression remained neutral, "I just mean. . .she's finally out in the world on her own, and she's learning new things, and meeting new people. . ." Will hesitated to continue, "And sometimes. . . I don't know, I guess sometimes I think that a relationship is too much for her right now."
Mike looked down, struck by the brutally honest words he had been afraid to hear. Some part of him was always aware that this would probably be the reason he and El ended their romance, but it was difficult to decide. One one hand, he loved El and wanted to be with her, but he also worried that the right thing to do would be to let her figure life out for herself.
He wondered if El would understand. He wondered if El would care. His mind flashed back to the message El wrote for him before she left.
From, El.
That word, from , carried a heavy weight between them. Mike noticed when he no longer felt comfortable writing love in his letters, he didn't think El would notice or care too much, but she did, and once she returned that heavy word— from —he felt deep in his chest that there was a tear between them neither could mend.
"I—"
"Uh, dudes," Argyle's voice suddenly plowed through their conversation, "Not to be a buzzkill, but I totally think we took the wrong road."
"What?" Jonathon said, rubbing his eyes.
"Yeah man," Argyle held up the map, cluelessly blocking most of the windshield, "That last sign totally said West, right?"
"I-I don't know," Jonathon rubbed his eye once again, trying to keep himself as awake as possible. "Maybe?"
"Dude, we should pull over. Get a good look at this here map."
"No, no, we've wasted too much time already. We're going the right way, I'm sure," Jonathon said, clearly second-guessing himself.
"Okay man, whatever you say. No stone unturned style, I like it," Argyle laughed. Jonathon finally gave in, being too tired to risk any sort of directional mistake. He pulled over to the side of the road, and the four of them all huddled around the trunk to see the map properly.
"Okay, this is the road we should be on," Jonathon pointed at a certain line on the map, "And this is the road Argyle thinks we might be on, "he pointed to another not too far from it, but that carried to a completely different direction. Both routes traced back to an exit a few miles back, which would suggest where the location error might have happened.
"Yeah, but should we really be listening to what Argyle thinks right now?" Mike shamelessly suggested. Both Will and Jonathon knew Mike had a point, and looked at Argyle to analyze his current state.
"Wait, what happened man? Why's everyone looking at me?" Argyle asked, eyes red and low.
Will rolled his eyes. "Whatever, just—Are there any signs that might show which one we're on?" They all looked to the right. Desert. The left. More desert. Then back to the map where the two separated roads mocked them.
"There's nothing," Mike said.
"Alright, no worries, let's just get back in and try different roads," Argyle walked over to a slightly larger than average stone on the ground, "Will, man. Do you think you'd be able to recognize this rock if you saw it again? So we can end up in the same place as right now?"
The other three just looked at him in silence.
“You don’t think we’d need something more distinct than a rock?” Mike said, arms crossed.
The three then disregarded Argyle’s suggestion and went back to each other.
"Ugh," Jonathon groaned, "Everything looks the same out here, there's no way to tell one place apart from another," he ran his fingers through his hair.
"Okay, okay, don't worry. Look," Will pointed at the map, "Here. The road splits. If we are going the right way, we'll get to that split, and if not, we'll just stop again and figure it out. It would take less time than if we were to go all the way back to the exit."
Jonathon followed up the road on the map with his own finger, calculating the distance and location in his head, then nodded in confirmation.
"Okay, you guys stay here, we'll be right back," he said as Argyle climbed back into his seat. Jonathon hastily folded the map and closed the trunk.
"Woah, woah! You're just gonna leave us out here?" Mike asked.
"Yeah, I mean Argyle's got a point, we need some kind of reference. Anything more distinct than a rock, right?" Jonathon defended.
Will and Mike exchanged worried glances.
"No worries, bros," Argyle chimed from the open car door, "The road is short, we'll be gone for, like, ten minutes tops. Don't even sweat it."
Jonathon nodded and pointed at Argyle as an example. "Don't even sweat it," he repeated and ran to the driver's seat.
Without another word, the car sped away leaving Will and Mike in a land of dusty ground, feeling betrayed. Several seconds of silence were spent between them in disbelief as they both watched the car go further into the distance.
". . . Well," Mike began, feeling the open sun hit against his skin, "That just happened."
"You won't believe me if I tell you it's not the first time," Will laughed.
"What?" Mike returned his laughter.
"Yeah, yeah," Will began to walk around slowly, "When we first moved, Jonathon got us lost almost every time we left the house. California roads are definitely a lot different than Hawkins."
Mike smiled, feeling a slight twinge of sadness remembering that the two people he loved most were not living in the same town as him anymore.
There was a reason he’d fallen out of contact with Will, but not one that would be easy for him to explain, and definitely not one he could use as an excuse.
After the Byers had moved, several weeks had passed before Mike got the nerve to call Will, but because of this time spent out of contact, the call was uncomfortable. There was an unavoidable awkwardness in their surface level conversations that the two refused to mention. After this, the calls became even less frequent, thus causing them to become increasingly awkward, therefore they were less frequent, and so on. The topics remained mundane, talking about what they both knew, what they were both used to—their friends and their games, mostly—but only because they were both equally terrified to go deeper and say what they had both been thinking.
I miss you.
Maybe that's why Mike stopped calling, he hated being uncomfortable with his friend, the one who was supposed to be his best friend. All of this eventually ended with a single result: The image he had built in his head of him and Will staying close throughout the move was continuously being crushed every time he spoke to him.
This didn’t only apply to his relationship with Will, but to just about everything. Supposedly, Hawkins was the same. All the buildings were the same, the roads were the same, his house was the same, his family was the same, but now the only purpose everything served was to be a canvas of his past splattered with memories.
For the first month or so after Will left, Mike was hardly seen out of his room, but Will was blissfully unaware of that.
And it was at this very moment Mike realized he didn’t know anything about Will’s life anymore, and that stung like a knife through his heart.
"What else is different?" Mike asked.
I miss you.
"Honestly, kind of everything. There’s for sure a lot more stuff to do. Like, you know how in Hawkins, there's really either the arcade, or the mall, or, like, DnD in your basement?" he laughed, "Well here, there's way more than just one mall, and there's so many arcades, and the roller rink. . .”
Will wanted to list off more, but felt uninspired to do so. After all, the main difference was nothing along the lines of locations or establishments, but more so of the people.
On the other end of Mike barely calling, Will knew himself that he was also partially to blame. He didn't care about the awkwardness, despite how much he noticed it, he was happy to talk to Mike no matter what, and that was exactly the problem. Now that they were far apart, both physically and emotionally, Will missed him more than he could stomach. On a daily basis he wished to remind Mike how much he cared for him, how much he valued their friendship, and this urge only got stronger every day, but though he wasn't angry at the glass wall put between them, he was all too well aware of it.
Simply put, he knew he wouldn't be able to keep pretending he wasn't in love with Mike, so he had to distance himself.
I miss you
"What about DnD?" Mike quickly jumped in.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, do you have a new party?"
"Um. . ." Will nervously looked down, hesitant to tell Mike he hadn’t really made any new friends.
“Sorry, I’m not trying to pry, I just. . .” Mike excused, “haven’t really talked to you for a while. Properly.”
Will had to repress a wide smile hearing Mike’s remorse for not speaking to him, or at least his desire to speak to him now.
"Well, uh, no one, really. I don't really play anymore. It's not the same without you guys," Will said timidly, then laughed, "I tried to teach El how to play once, but she wasn't really into it. Plus she kept using her powers to get the rolls she wanted."
Mike laughed, not having anything else to uphold the conversation, thus letting it slip briefly. A beat of stress passed through him every time a pause arose between them. The next viable thing to mention would be the Hellfire club, and his new friends, but this was the first one-on-one conversation he and Will had had for a long time, and he didn't want to let anything ruin it, specifically by mentioning the new party they were in.
"What about you? What's Hellfire like?" Will asked.
Mike nearly flinched at that question.
Will smiled, "Dustin told me, no worries."
Mike nodded, almost embarrassed that Will knew. For him to tell Will that he joined a new party, after refusing to play with him the summer prior—it was hard for him to admit he regretted it. It was hard to admit he had made a mistake, that he was wrong. He did apologize, back at the house, but he felt it wasn’t enough. Mike didn’t just want Will to know that he was sorry for falling out of contact with him, he needed him to know that he felt bad because he felt they had been excluding Will, and even more so felt bad because Will wasn’t there at all. The last year for Mike had been composed of mainly three things: Hellfire, thinking of what to write in his letters to El, and trying to figure out what to do about the ever constant gutting, hollowing, feeling that tore up his insides whenever he thought of Will.
Despite all this, he laughed, trying to keep the conversation light.
"If Dustin told you, then you probably heard about Eddie, right?"
"Psh, he was, like, all he talked about."
"Yeah," Mike laughed, "He's pretty cool. He's got, like, tattoos and rings and stuff. I think you’d like him."
"Well, maybe I can meet him when we get to Hawkins."
Mike smiled, "Yeah, Hellfire's great, but, you know, I've just always felt like it was. . ." A beat passed as he looked up at Will, who was looking away to scan the road down which the van disappeared, ". . . Missing something."
He began to silently reminisce over the years they spent together, his friendship with Will, his time spent with El, his relationship with El, his worries with El, his guilt with El. . .
His friend’s words repeated themselves in his head.
". . . I wonder the same thing, too, by the way," Mike said, forcing a laugh that came out more sad than intended.
"What?"
"About El, that maybe she needs more time on her own before being in a relationship," Mike looked at the ground with an expression of worry, "But. . . I don't know. . . I-I still care about her a lot, and I don't want to lose her. . .But. . ."
When Will had first suggested that, he worried he had made a mistake telling Mike what he thought, but the relief of knowing he had been thinking the same thing was incomparable.
"Do you. . . Do you think you'd be better off as just friends?" Will asked.
Mike considered the prompt for a moment, then nodded with a furrowed brow. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do."
Will left a silence between them, taking a moment to construct what he wanted to say.
"El is. . . different from most people. You know that. She doesn't have anyone else like her," Will sighed, feeling empathetic for his sister, "And if there's anyone who knows. . . that lonely kind of different, it's me," his chest seemed to tense up when he said that, a shortness of breath coming shortly thereafter.
Mike smiled, dragging his feet around the dust making random designs and patterns. "Well, I also know what it's like to be different," he added, not looking up.
Will's breathing stopped for a second as he stole a glance up at Mike, who was aware of Will's gaze, yet refused to meet it. His mind raced with a million possibilities all in an instant considering, pleading, that Mike understood the type of different he was speaking of.
Mike finally met his eyes, and Will was careful to not seem too hopeful.
"You do?" Will asked.
"Yeah," Mike stopped moving his feet, "I mean me, Lucas, Dustin, Max. . . We all know what it's like."
All at once Will's hopes crashed to the ground in a glorious blaze, but it was a feeling he was used to.
"Oh, yeah. Right," he let go of his breath and began to pace, slowly and somberly so. He so desired that this conversation of being different was dropped then and there, because he was tired, to say the least—tired of his feelings, specifically this feeling. The feeling of guilt, of frustration, and most extremely, loneliness. Will had been suffering in silence for years on this constant roller-coaster of hope and despair, love and loss, happiness and depression, and now that he and Mike had reunited after all these months apart, he was nearly at the end of his line. He was exhausted from living at the mercy of Mike's complete and utter obliviousness, and he didn't want to fake another minute of shared victimization between himself and Mike. He wanted Mike to think they were both different from others, not that he was different from Mike himself.
It's one thing, Will thought, to be separated from the masses for his puerile interests, not to mention his connection to a supernatural realm, but it is a completely different thing to feel a sudden ostracism from your peers—your best friend of ten years—because of a very essential part of your being. Whether this ostracism was applied subtly or not, subconsciously or not, he knew it was coming and he felt it was his fault. Will knew who he was, and he knew who Mike was, and he knew that, as close as they were, there were some things they could never, ever share.
Mike stood confused, keeping his eyes locked on Will.
The further Will walked, the more that hollowing feeling ate at Mike’s insides.
Wait, come back, I miss you
When he and Will were talking, he felt a connection. He felt that gutting feeling cease for just a moment, and he felt that maybe, hopefully, he had properly reunited with his friend, and they could finally be close again. However, at this moment, he could feel that slipping through his fingers again, and he wondered if it was his fault, if he said something wrong.
He casually caught up to him and forced a laugh to re-establish some sense of familiarity. "You know, you, me, Lucas and Dustin—we've all been bullied our whole lives, but we've been bullied together. And we've been through a lot more than just that together," Mike pretended to be clueless to Will's disconnection, trying to see if he could gauge more of a reaction.
"That. . ." Will was ticked by Mike's persistence, but did his best to hide it, and in this attempt of keeping his frustration under wraps, his voice became timid, "That's not the kind of different I meant."
"Well, what kind of different do you mean?" Mike laughed awkwardly.
Will continued to stare at the ground, not saying anything. He could feel his face gradually heating up and he could feel his heartbeat all throughout his body. They were both simply overtaken by the silence, and unbeknownst to Mike, Will's anxiety was tearing him up from the inside. It was at this time Mike did notice Will was upset, or at least thinking about something.
"What kind of different?" He repeated.
Will opened his mouth to speak, but a pained laugh was all he could muster in that moment. His heart began to race and he found himself nervously tugging at his grey sleeve.
I must've finally lost my mind , he thought, if I'm actually about to say this.
But he knew he was backed into a corner, and he knew he couldn't just lie his way out.
"Do you remember," Will said, fighting so his trembling body wouldn't inhibit his speech, "the fight we had? Last summer?"
Mike stayed quiet, like he was hiding behind his silence. Will continued regardless of Mike or the thousand screaming voices in his mind telling him that saying all of this is a mistake.
"It was raining, we were in your garage. I was angry that you were spending all your time with El, and that when you were with us, you would only talk about El," he paused, briefly scanning Mike's face, "I said you were ruining our party just to be with some girl and you said—"
"Right. . . Right," he sighed as the same sentence played back through both of their minds.
"It's not my fault you don't like girls!"
"I'm sorry, Will. Really, that was—"
Will shook his head and looked back at Mike.
"No, Mike. . ." Knowing what he was about to say, his heart dropped and he felt a deep pain looking Mike in the eyes. He continued to dart glances back and forth from Mike and the ground, feeling a claw-like urge to be honest scraping up his throat as he took a deep breath. "You were right."
At first, Mike didn't understand what Will was saying. Then all at once, Will saw a look of denial hidden in the blackness of Mike's eyes, followed by one of terror. The very look he was expecting, and trying to avoid. In that second he finally received the answers to every question which had been holding him hostage under a fire of hope and uncertainty for years.
Mike wasn't the same as him.
Mike couldn't understand him.
Mike didn't love him the way he did.
And, most of all, Will concluded that hiding himself away had been the right thing to do all along.
As the years had passed, and Will had been figuring out who he was—secretly and alone—he was scared. He had been so incessantly terrified. For years he had been on edge and paranoid, and in this fear he sometimes even felt like he was losing his mind. He knew, more definitively so than anything he had previously known, that his feelings for Mike were unreciprocated, but even despite that, despite his unadulterated certainty, sometimes he would wonder about what could be.
Because from fear, hope is always born. In such a shameless and embarrassing way, the most wishful of thinking shines through. Maybe because there is a possibility of rescue, maybe just because we want to die being happy.
This hope came in the shape of doubt; wondering if he was in fact incorrect in thinking he was a mistake, that he had nobody who was truly like him, and most of all that Mike did not return his feelings.
But now, in front of Mike, the person he so desired to trust most in the world, Will could accept that he was gay, he could accept that most people weren't like him, but the most difficult thing for him to accept was that he was in fact right about everything—about what people would think of him, and about Mike.
He didn't know what Mike would say next, but regardless, he didn't want to hear it, because he knew it wasn't going to be what he wanted. With shaking legs and a pain in his throat, he began to walk fast—away from Mike.
Mike's heart instantly sank with regret of not reacting in a better way. "Will! Will, where are you going? We have to wait for them!" After realizing Will wasn't stopping, he ran after him and grabbed his arm to keep him from going further. "Will!"
The touch between them filled Will with such a chilling euphoria, yet it came mixed with a bitter pain that burned from his arm all throughout him. Their eyes met, Mikes' filled with worry of losing his friend, and Wills' filled with sorrow knowing he already did.
Mike nearly choked on his own words before he even spoke. He didn't know what to say, but he also wanted to say everything. "I'm sorry I said that to you last summer, it doesn't matter that it's true! It doesn't make any difference! Like I said, I understand what it's like to be differe—"
"No, Mike, you don't understand!" Will pulled himself away, "You'll never understand!"
Leaving Mike with one final stare, he attempted to storm away again before Mike could see his eyes fill with tears.
Mike was being torn limb from limb by his own indecisiveness, and because of this he was frozen in place. He wanted to tell Will. Tell him what specifically? He didn't know, maybe nothing, maybe everything. It could be he only wanted Will to tell him something, but he was too panicked to decide.
They could both hear the pizza van beginning to approach them. To Will, knowing the topic would shortly be dropped beckoned to him like a light at the end of a seemingly never-ending tunnel, but to Mike it was the opposite. Though the moment was heated, some part of Mike was overcome with relief that these feelings they both had were getting an opportunity to expose themselves, but with Jonathon and Argyle to soon return, he knew he didn't have any time left to tell Will everything, but he also knew that if he didn't say anything now, he could lose him forever.
"Will!" Mike shouted. "Will, listen to me!"
Will turned around to see Mike, stood the same but with a different demeanor. His breathing was inconsistent, as if he was struggling to get the words out. He held his arms in front of himself, his posture shrinking slightly.
"I do understand."
—
A little over an hour had passed after they got back on track. Jonathon finally seemed to recover from the fact that Argyle was correct about their route, and was now focused on getting to a gas station as quickly as possible. The dial on the dashboard indicating gas levels had broken a long time ago, so there was no way to predict when the van would suddenly stop. All that could be done is keep track of the miles they had driven and estimate from there, and at this point they had long passed the "guessing" area.
After Jonathon being on the verge of imploding from nerves for the past half hour or so, they finally saw a sign in the distance. This sign had logos of various fast food establishments, a rest stop, but most importantly, a gas station. Jonathon let out a sigh of relief as Argyle whistled low.
"I'm gonna get so many snacks, man, it's gonna blow your mind."
Both Mike and Will had been too distracted by their own tension to care about anything else. The relief of knowing they wouldn't have to get out and push the van wasn't enough to outweigh the unresolved vulnerability left hanging between them.
After filling up the tank, both Jonathon and Argyle headed inside the convenience store.
"You guys want anything?" Jonathon shouted from the door.
"No, we're alright!" Will gave a polite smile and watched them walk inside. Both he and Mike kept their gazes on them longer than was necessary, just so they wouldn't have to look at each other. Honestly, looking at anything else seemed better than looking at each other.
Eventually, Will resorted back to his natural sitting position, and the slight shifting noise he made told Mike to do the same. He slid the van door shut, the noise of the latches connecting propelling them into soundproofed discomfort.
They were now both facing forward in their seats, Will tugging at his sleeve, Mike playing with his fingers.
"Hey, so um. . ." Mike began, but was cut off by Will sighing. "What?" Mike asked.
"Just. . . I know you saying that means that we're gonna have to talk about it."
"Do you not want to talk about it?"
"Not really, no," Will looked out the window.
"So you'd just rather sit in awkward silence for the rest of the trip?" The courage Mike had been building in the past hour was now being smothered by Will's honesty floating through the air.
"Kind of, yeah "
Mike couldn't remember the last time he saw Will upset like this, thus leaving him stuck. He didn't want to hurt his friend any further, but couldn't put the right words together. Now Mike wasn’t sure what to do. He’d only been shut down by Will once before, and that was when Mike knew he was in the wrong. He knew he had to approach the situation with caution, but wasn’t sure where to begin.
"Sorry, is all I was going to say,” Mike said. He eventually figured it was just better to get straight to the point of what he wanted to say rather than over complicate things with his own feelings.
Will ignored him at first, then let out a small laugh.
He meant what he said, he truly wanted to stop hearing about it. He thought that if he continued to ignore it, Mike, everything, somehow everything would go back to the way it was, but hearing Mike apologize sparked a curiosity Will so desperately wanted to satisfy.
"About what?"
"Just. . . for the fight. I don't like fighting with you."
"I don't know, I wouldn't really call it a fight. . ."
"Well, are you mad at me?"
"Mad? No. . . no, I'm not mad, I'm just. . ." He paused, reflecting over his own emotions. He shrugged. "I guess a little bit."
Mike laughed. "I feel like I've apologized to you too many times this week," he glanced at Will, who wasn't returning so much as his gaze. Mike retracted back into himself, realizing his friend wasn't in the mood for joking around. He kept his body language quiet and to himself, being nervous to even have his body pointed towards Will. He stayed facing forward, his hands hanging in between his spread legs. "I know I've been distant, and. . . a bit of an asshole, it's just. . ." There was a beat of silence, "You're right, I've been stressed about El and I think. . . I think I just wanted to be mad at anyone except her and myself."
Will let Mike sit in his own words for a few moments.
"I wanted to be mad, and so I ended up being mad at you for no reason. It's not your fault she lied to me, it's not your fault I didn't call, I was just being stupid." They both laughed at Mike's expense, "And I'm sorry, just for everything."
Though Will stayed silent, Mike could feel the tense air unknotting itself. He moved himself towards Will ever so slightly.
"I meant what I said, back at your house. I really don't want to fight with you, and I think everything would be easier if we were. . . best friends again."
Their eye contact made the flowers blossom in Will's stomach again, luring the butterflies. Half of him didn’t want to lean into his own emotions too eagerly, but the other half was weak and desperate.
"I. . . I'd like that too," Will said, fighting a relieved smile. They both smiled, locking their eyes. Laughing away the remaining awkwardness, Mike finally felt like he had gotten his friend back.
Will felt the same way, though one fatal question burned through his mind.
He had been harshly debating with himself over whether to ask about it or not, but in this close moment, while having this heart-to-heart, he realized it was now or never.
"I do have one question, though," Will said, beginning to tug at his sleeve. Mike nodded in acknowledgement. "When you said that you understand. . ." Will said timidly. Mike let out a shy laugh and looked away. "What did you mean by that?"
Mike didn't know how to phrase what he wanted to say, nor did he even completely understand what he wanted to say. His posture slouched and his hands hanging between his spread legs, he just looked at Will, going from his left eye, to his right eye, to his nose, to his cheeks, to his lips. . .
His breath caught in his throat, being filled with a desire he'd been fighting tooth and nail to keep at bay, but now that they had made up, now that all of their emotions were out in the open. . .
Now or never.
Mike then leaned forward, placing his hand overtop Will's on his lap, and his other hand coming up in a swift movement to cup Will's jaw. Using this hand position he quickly guided Will's face to the space between them, and all within a split second their lips connected in a tender fashion. The connection was soft, though Will could feel both Mike's lips and hands trembling against his own.
Will's shoulders instantly rose as his heart dropped. He inhaled sharply and didn't let go of his breath, almost like he had forgotten how to breathe. The best way his feeling could be described is as if the most astounding, breathtaking firework show was exploding all throughout his chest with fire and smoke in colours not even fathomable by the human mind spreading over his ribcage. If butterflies had only been lightly tickling his stomach before, they were now flying around in a chaotic, uncontrollable frenzy.
Mike then pulled his lips away from Will's as quickly as he had connected them, leaving a burning sensation wherever he touched.
He kept his hand on Will, only moving it down to grasp the side of his neck. He looked Will nervously in the eyes as Will panted, face red and eyes wide. Will's gaze darted around Mike's face in complete disbelief of everything that had just happened. He made sure to account for every aspect of the situation as quickly as he could.
Mike's right hand on his neck with his thumb on his jaw, Mike's left hand covering his hand resting on his thigh, Mike's beautiful face only inches away from his own, Mike's entire body angled in his direction, Mike's deep eyes staring into his own, Mike's lips which had just been on his own.
His eyes eventually narrowed to look only back and forth between Mike's eyes and lips, recounting the last ten seconds and trying his very best to understand that Mike had just kissed him. Will's mind was too frozen in shock to say anything, but something deep within him knew he wanted it to happen again, causing him to move closer by an inch, just for a second.
An overwhelming relief washed over Mike just from that subtle movement, and so he kept his gaze fixated on Will's lips until his eyes closed and he kissed him once again, only this time with more certainty, with more passion, and this time, Will kissed back. Relishing in having Mike this close to him, he was filled with a desire to touch him more, feel even closer. He tenderly closed his hand around Mike's wrist next to his face, and on some deep level told Mike that kissing him like this was the bare minimum of what he would allow him to do. Will's eyebrows unintentionally furrowed, his entire being overcome with the passionate, all consuming feeling.
Mike's hand then slid from Will's face to the nape of his neck, feeling the base of his hair against his palm and fingers. This sent an unfamiliar tingle down Will's spine, and not only did he welcome it, but he used it to push even further. He placed his hand on Mike's left thigh, not wasting a moment before sliding it up the outward side and grasping his hip, his thumb angled in the dip of his hip bone.
Mike's breathing was sharp and desperate, like he was just trying not to explode from his emotions overtaking him. On the other hand, Will's breathing was deep and passionate, trying to take in every aspect of this moment he'd been dreaming of for years.
The softness of each other’s lips, the subtle feeling of their noses pressing into each other’s cheeks, the heat starting at their mouths and coursing through their bodies, and the unspoken warmth of knowing they were feeling the same way. In this moment, they craved everything about each other, to be face to face, lips to lips, skin to skin.
They separated, their foreheads pressed together panting quietly and trying to catch their breaths. They both smiled, and let out a laugh coated with mild curious embarrassment.
Hearing the latch of the car door unlock, both of them instantly shot back to their original positions, all of their attention completely drawn to Jonathon and Argyle.
Their entrances were both sloppy as they were trying not to drop any of the several bags of junk food and drinks they bought.
“Licorice for the weirdo who likes licorice,” Argyle said, throwing one of the bags at Mike.
“Uh, thanks,” Mike replied, not fully sure he was even conscious after what had just happened. His hair was slightly ruffled and his cheeks remained red, and Will was no different.
Will was especially having trouble immediately reverting back to pretending everything is normal after kissing the boy he’s been in love with for years, understandably so. He didn’t even know where to begin processing it.
He’d gone through it in his head probably a million times over, what kissing Mike would be like. It would always happen to cross his mind at least once while they were biking together, or while they were at the arcade, or while playing DnD; he’d think about it before going to bed, or he’d even sometimes doodle it in his notebook during class, either scribbling it out or tearing up so nobody would ever see it.
He had imagined every detail, every touch, every movement, the look that Mike would have in his eyes, and now he knew it all. He knew it all in reality, and it was worlds better than anything he ever had in his head, and he felt if he didn’t control his thoughts or his breathing in this moment he could very well explode.
His first kiss with Mike Wheeler. His first kiss—was with Mike Wheeler.
The sound of the old engine now filled their ears, and the van was back on the road.
Will inched in hand over to Mike’s, where he interlocked their fingers. Mike tried to push down a smile, but failed miserably as they locked eyes, sharing a look that both said the same thing:
I missed you