Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mike Wheeler had always loved Will Byers.

It may have taken him some time to figure it out, but in the end, the result is always the same.

He could pin-point the exact moment in which his brain had finally decided to connect all of the dots, all of what had been going on with him, his feelings, his stupid, complicated feelings. It had only been a day after they had found Eleven in Nevada, and only a few hours after Eleven had broken up with him. She had realized that before being in a relationship, she first had to figure out who she was, as a person, as a human, and that her dependency on Mike would only make that harder. And while she didn’t know that Mike had felt an immense amount of relief after hearing that, he himself didn’t even realize that at that moment, she could see a sliver of it in his eyes. And it hurt, it really did.

But she didn’t let that distract her from the main issue at hand: Dealing with and defeating a monster from the Upside Down, a monster that could be considered her brother as much as DNA counts for that. She could figure out how to deal with her feelings for Mike later.

Another hour after said break-up, they had finally arrived in Hawkins after a way too long drive in a way too stuffy pizza van, and the group had soon met up with the rest of their friends. Catching the others up on all the things they had missed turned out to be less of a problem than imagined, since both groups had dealt with the same enemy during their solo missions. Vecna was everybody’s focus, and creating a plan to defeat him needed absolute attention. So, when Will noticed a headache that was much heavier than his usual ones, he didn’t feel the need to add it to the whole pile of worries the group had. When he had a nosebleed, he didn’t bother to do anything more than wipe it off as fast as possible, blaming it on all of the stress he was currently under. And when he started seeing things, like his father, Troy, the Upside Down, the Mind Flayer, it was already too late.

Their plan had been to lure Vecna to the attic of the Creel house so he could possess Max again, claiming her as his fourth and final victim, so that the young adults in the Upside Down could take him out while defenseless. Something nobody had calculated, though, was that Vecna had already set his mind on another victim, one he already knew so much about and that he already had some sort of history with. He had waited patiently for him to return into his range of control, already starting to mess with his mind the second he passed the “Welcome to Hawkins”-sign that Will had felt was more of a threat than a genuine welcome.

So when Will started being unresponsive, sitting in the stolen camper maneuvered by Steve mere minutes before the group had wanted to set their plan into action, everybody started panicking.

But for Mike, it was so much more than just simple panic. He was terrified, more scared than ever before in his life. Jumping off a cliff? Facing off against the Mind Flayer? Being shot at by the US military? It was nothing, nothing compared to the feeling of absolute dread he experienced in that moment. And that moment was when he realized that he loved Will, that he always had, and always would. Coming to a realization as such when the person he loved was in imminent danger wasn’t really the best timing, but at least it didn’t give him any time to overthink it.

Ripping the walkman from Max’s ears and screaming at the others about helping him find a cassette with Will’s favorite song, Mike showed the most emotions he had in the last few months. He had always been closed off, not showing his feelings to every other person, so his extreme reaction shocked the rest of the group almost as much as Will starting to float in the middle of the camper. As a person who wasn’t as religious as the common Hawkins resident, Mike found himself praying that the poster of the song “Boys Don’t Cry” by The Cure that he had seen in Will’s new room signified that it was his favorite song. And, “Oh thank god!”, it did. As the boy crashed back to the ground, Mike and Jonathan were already there to catch him, all three hysterically crying into each other's shoulders as soon as Will touched the ground again.

It would take him many, many days to fully process the visions Vecna had played out in Will’s mind. The moment he had heard his favorite song being played faintly in the background of him being strangled by One, he knew that he had to fight. As much as it would hurt, as much as he sometimes felt like the world would be a better place without him, as much as he would’ve loved to finally let go of all the pain. He had to go back. And when he woke up from the possession in his brother’s and Mike’s arms, he knew that he had made the right choice. They cared for him, even if not everybody knew how to show it to him in a way that would make him understand. But as he saw his best friend, tear tracks covering his face, pained and relieved cries coming out of his mouth, he felt a tinge of hope that maybe, a certain person would be able to learn how to show him that he cared, that maybe, things could go back to the way they were. And maybe, just maybe, they could even be better.

After this rather short yet very emotional scene had played out, everybody sat down in a circle again to come up with a new plan, or rather, to make some adjustments to their original plan. Everybody, except for Will and Mike. Since Max knew how emotionally draining it was to get cursed by Vecna, she insisted on letting Will sit this fight out, even though he himself was the one to counter her arguments the most. He wanted to help, he wanted to do something. If it was because he wanted to protect Hawkins, the town that made him truly miserable, or because he needed to distract himself from what he had seen only moments prior, he himself didn’t even know. But sitting here, next to Mike, the other boy having laid his arm around his shoulders in a way that was supposed to be comforting, but only made his heart beat faster, he didn’t mind having to wait in the camper as much as he previously had.

With Nancy, Robin and Steve being in the Upside Down to kill Vecna, Dustin and Eddie being used as decoys, Max, Erica and Lucas in the Creel House, Eleven in a tub full of water to help Max inside her mind and Jonathan and Argyle next to her as moral support, the boys were truly alone inside the stolen vehicle. At first, Mike had protested, wanting to stay by Eleven’s side during the fight, but she had argued that having her ex-boyfriend sitting by her side, watching her, would only make her more nervous than she already was.

So, there they were, removed from the eye of the storm physically, yet emotionally as invested as anybody else. Both boys had wanted to start a conversation at one point or another, but the silence simply felt so, so right. After a few minutes, none of them dared to destroy it by saying something as mundane as “How are you feeling?” or “Are you okay?”. They knew that they couldn’t possibly answer these questions, anyways.

But at a certain point, Mike and Will hadn’t been able to handle staying in the camper anymore, the comfortable silence being a breeding ground for continuous worries about their friends, and they joined the rest of the California crew. Since everything was looking rather calm, Jonathan took that opportunity to take Will aside and have a short, yet reassuring talk with him. He had noticed the way Will looked at Mike a long time ago, but he had wanted to give his brother the time and space to tell him himself. On their trip to Nevada, after having been helped by Suzie, he had listened to his and Mike’s talk, where Will laid his feelings bare in front of his best friend, only for him to be as oblivious as ever. So, as vaguely as possible, he reassured Will that he would love him no matter what, that he would always, always, stay by his side. And that was exactly what Will had needed to hear.

Thanks to her newly restored powers and the power of all of the happy memories she had accumulated in the last three years, Eleven was able to overpower Vecna in Max’s mind, giving the group in the Upside Down the chance to strike. And strike, they did. After their makeshift bombs and modified shotgun did their deed, nothing more than a few flakes of ash remained of their once greatest enemy, the one behind it all. Although no lives were lost, they didn’t all come by unscathed: Despite being able to stop Vecna from opening a fourth portal, earthquakes still shook Hawkins, resulting in some destroyed houses. Jason, enraged and feeling the need to exert revenge, had interrupted Lucas and Max, so Lucas wasn’t able to get Max out of her possession in time, resulting in one too many broken bones. Eddie also only barely made it out alive, Vecna being defeated a few moments before the Demobats could deal their final strike against the man.

Eleven was happy about the fact that the others had already returned, either from the Upside Down or from the Creel house, because thanks to this she was surrounded by all of her friends the moment she woke up from her trance-like state. That was exactly what she needed: Her friends by her side, together celebrating their final win against the Upside Down.
And if this wasn’t already a good enough conclusion to fall into the definition of a “happy ending”, the last surge of happiness arrived two days later in the form of the one and only Jim Hopper, after having spent the last eight months in a Soviet prison. With him being the second person in Hawkins to come back to live after being thought dead, the town went wild. Nobody knew what to believe anymore, so Dr.Owens colleague had it pretty easy to stop the manhunt for Eddie and the Hellfire Club. A few well placed lies, a little deception there, and Eddie could go on to finally try to graduate in peace. Jason and a few others aside, nobody believed him to be a murderer anymore.

And Mike? Well, he was just thrown from one complicated situation into another one. After the final battle, his brain caught up with his feelings and the full realization hit him: The reason why kissing his girlfriend had never felt quite right, the reason why he had acted so weird around Will, the reason why he hadn’t been able to say “I love you” to Eleven, it all had the same cause. Will. He was in love with his best friend. And if that wasn't already enough, said best friend was also a boy. So, you could only imagine the amount of doubt and fear that was still coursing through Mike's mind. Even after everything that had happened to him and his friends during the last few years, he saw this as one of the most shocking developments in his life. He didn't know what to do, had no idea how to process everything. But he was sure of one thing: He couldn't lose Will again, not now, not after everything.

So imagine his relief when Joyce told everyone that the family had decided to move back to Hawkins. With all threats from the supernatural, the Soviets and the government finally eliminated, the Byers had no reason to stay in the unknown state of California anymore. Well, maybe the heat and good weather could’ve convinced them to stay, if it weren’t for the history they had in Hawkins.

The town would always be a part of all of them, no matter how far they’d try to escape. The memories would stay, and so would the nightmares. Nobody knew what the future had prepared for them, if good or even worse times were to come.

But all of that wasn’t so bad if you had your friends by your side.

Chapter Text

Any normal person would’ve been ecstatic to move back to their hometown, the place where they grew up in, where all of their friends lived, where all of the memories from their childhood had been created.

But Will Byers wasn’t normal, he never had been and never would be.

Of course, he was excited to be able to see his friends daily again, to be able to go to the arcade with them, to be able to simply hang out with them after a long day at school, like every normal teenager does. But, like it was already established, Will wasn’t like every normal teenager.

Because the memories that would come back to him, living in Hawkins again, wouldn’t be full of happy days at school and joyful dinners with his family. They would be filled with pain and fear, with past and present threats from the supernatural and the world itself, which seemed to hate him simply for existing and being like he was.

Being back in the town where he spent his entire adolescence, he now didn’t only have to see all the places he had learned to hate in his nightmares, but also in his everyday life. And being thrown back into the scenarios that made his feelings for this town as negative as they were by Vecna certainly didn’t help. At all.

So, when his mother had announced them moving back to Hawkins, he truly hadn’t been as cheery as Joyce had expected him to be. She had thought that he had missed his friends, that this would help him deal with everything he had had to go through. And really, Will couldn’t blame her. She was truly happy now, with Hopper having returned and all of her family united in one place again. She deserved this happiness, god, she really did.

Therefore, in a true Will fashion, he had swallowed his own feelings and fears and doubts, feigning excitement as soon as he saw his mother the next time after her announcement. Like this, she could dismiss his initial reaction as one of simple surprise, rather than light terror.

He just had to be brave again, conquer his fears, some more irrational, some others less, and spend as much time as possible with his friends and family. Their presence had always made it so much easier to drown out the voices in his head that made him paranoid, that made him hate himself for who he was. Before being cursed by Vecna, he had thought that he had at least left that last part in his past, that he had finally fully accepted himself, that he didn’t feel disgusted by his entire being anymore. Apparently, that wasn’t the case at all, and the worries about Eleven, Hawkins and his friends had only been able to distract him from it for a set amount of time.

And now, with the situation being calm again, well, as calm as possible after circumstances as such, his whole self doubt had enough time to invade his mind full time again.

But even with his brain producing self deprecating thoughts at a faster pace than usual, there were, of course, a few rays of hope that shone some light into the darkness of his mind. The party was complete again, all his friends in one place, their friendship just like they had left it off eight months prior. After all, he hadn’t seen Dustin, Lucas and Max at all in those months, so he was extremely relieved that nothing had changed between them. He really wouldn’t have needed, or, if he was being honest with himself, survived, a falling out with his best friends so soon after his trip down trauma lane.

He was also excited to live in a new, bigger house, with his siblings, his mother and even Hopper. Although Mike would certainly not be as happy with having to see Hopper every time they decided to hang out in the Byers’ new home.

And there he was, the last ray of hope, the one that undoubtedly shone the brightest: Mike Wheeler, his best friend, his first love.

And oh, how in love he truly was. Despite Mike’s more than questionable behavior during the last year, his love didn’t falter, not even for a single second. He had hopelessly fallen for the idiot that was his earliest childhood friend, the idiot that had treated him like the most important person in his life for some time, then like a nuisance for a longer time than he had been able to accept, the idiot that had been dating his sister until a few days ago.

Their talk in the pizza van on their way to Nevada had destroyed any hope he had had for their friendship for some time. It had been the first and only time he had lied to him, telling him the painting he had given him had been commissioned by Eleven. He really couldn’t believe that Mike hadn’t got what he had been trying to say. Now, after thinking about it for some time, he only saw two possible reasonings for Mike’s behavior: He really was an extremely oblivious person and truly hadn’t noticed him sobbing right next to him. Or, he had noticed. He had got what Will had been trying to say. But, for some reason, he had decided to ignore it, to leave it as it was, to not acknowledge it further. Which of the reasons would be worse, even Will wasn’t sure of that.

But, after getting cursed by Vecna, Mike’s behavior seemed to have changed completely. The whole day of the fight, and the day after, he had never left Will’s side. Only when his mother had begged him to return home, she had been worried sick, of course, had he reluctantly left Will in his family’s custody. All of the hope that had been lost mere days before had returned stronger, so much stronger than before. Things could actually get better. And since Mike wasn’t dating Eleven anymore, and had been showering Will with so much attention, maybe… No, he couldn’t allow himself to be delusional now. It’s not like he ever thought he’d have any serious chance of truly being with Mike one day, any serious chance of Mike being his, and only his.

It was simply impossible.

Before being able to move into a new house, though, they had to drive back to California to get all of their stuff, of course. Argyle made his way back home at the same time, driving the whole way in his Surfer Boys Pizza van, as per his own request. Jonathan had tried to convince him to stay a little longer, not being ready to leave his newly found best friend behind, leaving him with no friends, except for Nancy, again. But Argyle had to go home, he knew it just as much as Jonathan did.

Jonathan had decided to drive back to California with him. If it was to help Joyce and Hopper with cleaning out their destroyed house there, because he felt guilty for dragging Argyle into this whole supernatural mess, or because he simply wanted to spend some more time with him before having their interactions limited to the occasional phone call, the result was the same.

With Joyce, Hopper and Jonathan all out of state for a few days, and an obvious lack of a house to call their own, Will and Eleven had to stay at one of their friends’ houses until the return of their parents and brother. The choice had been obvious: The Wheeler’s house was simply the biggest, with enough space to comfortably house two more guests. Eleven would’ve gladly stayed at Max’s, but she was currently in the hospital with a broken leg and two broken arms, not like her house would’ve been big enough to accommodate her. So, Mike’s house it was.

The atmosphere was, understandably, not particularly pleasant during those days. Despite having broken up with him, Eleven still loved Mike, although the same couldn’t be said for the boy. He did love her, but as a friend. Nothing more, nothing less. And Will, as always, made it his job to make their stay as comfortable as possible. He talked to Eleven for hours, consoling her and listening to her telling him about her stay at the lab in Nevada. He helped in the house, cooking dinner with Mrs. Wheeler, washing the dishes, and taking out the trash. He didn’t want to be a nuisance, after all, and wanted to give something back in exchange for the Wheeler’s hospitality. And another thing that he did was avoid Mike.

As much as he had loved being his center of attention during the days after the battle, they still hadn’t talked, at least, not in a serious way. Their last real talk had been the one in the pizza van, which, as we all know, couldn’t really be described as a talk that could “smooth things out”. Will was still hurt by Mike’s behavior back in California, and, if he was being honest with himself, Mike’s behavior during the last year, and as much and often as he had wished things could immediately go back to how they were, whatever that was supposed to mean, it sadly didn’t work as easily as that.

So, unless they could sit down and talk about everything, Will would try to avoid Mike as much as humanly possible while living in the same house as him.

Mike, on the other hand, sought out as much contact with Will as possible without making him seem weird or obsessed. He knew that there was still something hanging in the air between them, although he couldn’t decipher what it was exactly. It didn’t matter to him, anyways, he only wanted to stay by Will’s side.

And while doing that, he was always working on another apology, another way to tell Will that he had realized how much he had screwed up. But the words just wouldn’t come to him. No matter how he tried to shove sentences together, force his brain to form coherent thoughts, he could only think of one thing: How he had to apologize without accidentally letting his true feelings for Will spill out. That would, in all honesty, not only ruin the apology, but also be extremely inappropriate. After all, he had made Will sit in the last row of his life for roughly a year, and a sudden love confession would do nothing but complicate things.

And that wasn’t even the worst scenario Mike’s brain could come up with. Every time he tried to imagine himself sitting down to talk with Will, these images turned into Will laughing at him, screaming “I hate you!”, or telling everybody about the truly embarrassing crush Mike had on him, even though it was so much more than that. Even though Mike knew that Will would never do any of those things, god, he truly was too good of a person for that, he was still scared. One wrong word, and he could ruin everything. After all, Mike was really good at ruining things.

The day before the eventual return of the people currently in California, Mike could finally muster up the courage to ask Will to go down into the basement with him. To talk.
The first thing that Will saw, as soon as he had entered said basement, were all of his pictures still hanging on the walls. “You still have all of those?”, he asked Mike incredulously, a small laugh escaping his mouth. Mike could only snicker at that, mildly blushing as he saw the surprised and gleeful expression on Will’s face. “Of course. You know how much I love all of your drawings, right?”, he asked softly, smiling fondly at the other boy. That smile was immediately returned, followed by the question that he had dreaded the last few days: “Well, what did you want to talk about?”

Mike sat down on the floor, as nervous as ever, patting the ground next to him as an invitation for Will to join him. As he followed the request and flopped down less than a meter away from Mike, the boy couldn’t help but blush again. He looked so cute, with his knees perched up under his chin, patiently waiting for him to speak. He took a deep breath, let his eyes wander around the room, checking the basement door to make sure nobody was sneaking up on them, and finally started with the much needed apology.

“I know you don’t talk very much, but when you do, in the past, I was always there to listen to you. But I realized that the last few months, no, the last year, while I have been listening to you, I wasn’t really hearing what you said, you know what I mean?”, Mike had to take another breath, diverting his eyes back to Will, trying to see if he understood what he was trying to accomplish with this. Seeing the kind, but slightly confused look in his eyes, Mike decided to ditch the speech he had prepared and just say what he truly meant to communicate.

“I didn’t treat you like a best friend, not like you deserve to be treated. But you are! You are my best friend! And you deserve everything good in this world”, a shaky sigh escaped from Mike’s mouth, his trembling hands articulating along his words. He had to take a little break from talking, since he could already feel his eyes getting watery. This really wasn’t the time to let his tears slip out, he had no right to cry in this situation.

“I think, what I’m trying to say is”, he continued, voice shaking, “I should’ve spent more time with you, heard you out more, not completely ignored you like the complete asshole I am. Maybe then, what Vecna did to you wouldn’t have happened and…”

“No, stop”, Will began, seeing the tears form in his best friend's eyes, “Me getting cursed by Vecna wasn’t your fault. Your behavior certainly didn’t help, I’m not going to lie to you, but it would’ve happened no matter what. I mean, with the amount of trauma that I have, it really was only a question of when, not whether, I would get attacked by him.” He took Mike’s hand in his own, causing both of their faces to heat up a little, and let out a sigh. “Nobody can change what happened. Not the others, not me, and not you. So there’s no point in beating yourself up about it. Just… Try not to treat me like a background character in your life anymore, okay?” He said the last part with a small chuckle, and even Mike had to smile at it, nodding slightly as to show Will that he had understood him.

He tightened his grip on the other boy’s hand, feeling the rush of comfort the action brought with it calm him down in an instant. Will had always been better at words and at expressing himself than him, so it was no wonder that Mike’s apology had turned into Will comforting him.

But, after all, they seemed to have come to a mutual understanding. And that was all Will had hoped for, that was all he thought he could get from Mike.

Just how mutual everything between them was, they both hadn’t realized yet.

Chapter Text

Nobody knew what to expect from life in Hawkins after their final victory against the Upside Down and the supernatural world in general.

Because, while there weren’t any active threats anymore, the wounds and scars from the past were still there, and everybody involved who knew the whole story knew that they wouldn’t disappear any time soon.

On one hand, there were the physical repercussions of the fight during spring break.

The earthquake that Vecna had dealt as his final strike against the town he had learned to hate had probably not wrecked as much havoc as he had originally planned it to do, but it had still resulted in multiple people getting hurt, houses getting destroyed and utter chaos reigning amongst the citizens of Hawkins. While some people had been quick to blame it on the satanic cult that they believed Hellfire to be, others had tried to find a more realistic, scientific explanation for this sudden movement of the earth beneath them.

As soon as Hopper had returned from California with the others, he had taken charge of the situation, trying to sooth the masses as best as he was able to. At first, he had just wanted to take a long, well deserved break, but seeing his former subordinates running around town, trying and failing to do anything to make the situation better, he had had to accept that his vacation had to wait. Joyce had been begging him to stay away from the whole commotion and beginning stages of anarchy in the town, but he simply hadn’t been able to stand seeing his home town in shambles. He still had some love left for Hawkins, after all.

Worse than that was the psychological aftermath of the battle.

Just because the Upside Down had ceased to exist with Vecna being destroyed, didn’t mean that its influence over the few people who had fought against it had disappeared with it.

Eleven had been severely traumatized by what she had seen in the lab, similarly to Max and Will, who still suffered from the visions Vecna had shown them against their will. They were paranoid, and who could blame them? Who wouldn’t think of the Hawkins lab every time they stepped foot inside of a hospital? Who wouldn’t think about Vecna’s curse every time they saw or heard an old grandfather clock? Who wouldn’t think about the Mind Flayer every time they'd get goosebumps on the back of their neck? The paranoia, the nightmares, the panic attacks… All of that wouldn’t be as easy to fix as a few destroyed houses, not as easy to heal as a few broken bones. They would stay, for weeks, months, years to come.

Because, once you had seen what those people, those children, had seen, you wouldn’t be able to forget it either.

And it wasn’t only Eleven, Max and Will who had been marked by the Upside Down forever. Every time Lucas went to the hospital to see Max, he could only ever think of the two times he had almost lost her. Every time Dustin biked to Eddie’s trailer, he relived the moment when he thought one of his new best friends had died, only barely cheating death in the end. Every time Nancy walked by the Family Video store where she saw Steve and Robin joking around, she remembered the way they had all been nearly choked to death only a few days prior. Every time he closed his eyes, Mike saw Will, floating in the air, not responding to any of his desperate pleas.

So, it was to nobody’s surprise that everybody stayed together as much as possible, leaving each other's sides only when absolutely necessary. A positive side to all of the chaos in Hawkins had been that spring break had been extended by another week. This gave the party much more time to hang out together and, mainly, process everything they had had to go through. Max was visited in the hospital daily, not only by Lucas, but also by the rest of her friend group. They were just sitting by her bedside, telling her stories about what was going on in Hawkins, about the idocy they now witnessed daily and about the stupid theories about the earthquake the town’s residents liked to exchange. It was fun, everybody had a great time, but when the visiting hours had ended, so had their daily hang-out time. And as soon as the last goodbye was spoken, the last wave of a hand out of sight, the last pleasant memory of the day over, the silence came to invade their heads.

And with silence, only dark thoughts could follow.

Will was used to these dark thoughts. Even before getting stuck in the Upside Down, he had had his fair share of things to deal with, from getting bullied at school to getting the same treatment but worse at home, still having one too many scars that had been left as a parting gift from his father. And in the years to follow, those dark thoughts had been left to grow bigger, new ones being added as the supernatural made its way into Will's life. The slurs that he had been called his whole life, the torture that he had experienced at the hand of the Mind Flayer and the fear of being abandoned, forgotten, cast aside by his best friend made their way into his mind on a daily basis.

Even though he had much practice at silencing these mental pictures temporarily, a way to deal with them in a healthy fashion had still not been revealed to him. But he knew that someday, maybe with the support of his family and friends, he could start to live as regularly as possible again. He was just as happy as the others that they had chosen to stick together, to support each other in these trying times, to help each other with anything that may need the assistance of a friend.

Around a week after their battle against Vecna, with Hopper back in his position as Chief of the Hawkins police station, Joyce had managed to find a new house for her and her family. It was on the opposite side of Hawkins than the Byers’ last house, way closer to Mike’s and the other party members’ houses than before. It was also bigger than their last one had been, still no palace, but it was enough. It was enough for the newly formed family, consisting of the Byers, Hopper and Eleven. It was enough, because what more did they need than their love for each other?

The thing that Will liked the most about the new house, except for being able to peacefully live together with his family, was the fact that everybody got their own room, ready to be decorated based on their own tastes. Eight months prior, he had already had to decorate a new room, but their house in California had never really felt like a home, no matter how much they had tried to make it one. It had been filled with way too much grief, the atmosphere never as happy and joyful as before their move, too many memories about the town they had abandoned left behind in their minds. This could be a whole new beginning, a new beginning that finally felt right, a new beginning that could still make him have his best friends, his party, by his side.

Even though they didn’t have much stuff to put in the new house, the whole party, including Nancy, came over to help the Byers move in. With so many people gathered in one place, they stood in the way more often than not, making everything much more complicated than it had to be, but nobody was bothered by that. The company of their friends immediately made the house what Will had wished for it to be: a home.

While Hopper, Lucas and Dustin mainly helped with bringing things from the moving van into the house, Nancy and Joyce did their best at putting everything where it belonged. What Max did couldn’t exactly be described as helping: She was sitting in her wheelchair that she got for her broken leg, since walking around with crutches had presented itself as a minor problem, seeing as she also had both arms in a cast, and was barking orders at any person who would pass by her position in the kitchen. Keeping in mind that she had been severely injured, the others did what she asked from them, whether it was bringing her a glass of water or moving that flower pot on the window still a little to the right. Needless to say, she had the time of her life.

Jonathan, Eleven and Will were already busily making their room their own, painting the walls in bright colors, moving furniture as they wanted and hanging up posters. El had demanded to do everything on her own, since she was really set on the whole “finding out who she was as a person” thing, and didn’t want anybody interfering with the creative process of turning her room into a place where she could truly recognize herself. Judging from the happy laughter that could be heard from her room, even with the door closed, everything was going just as she wanted it to.

It had taken Mike hours of fruitless arguing with his mother to convince her to let him go and help his best friend with the move, since he had been grounded for having been out past his curfew three times in a row, but he just hadn't been able to get through to her. It hadn’t been his fault that he could only sit still while with his friends and that he had delayed leaving the hospital or one of his friends' houses as much as possible, as not to be alone with his thoughts. His mom didn’t know that, of course, so he couldn’t really blame her. She thought that he was just acting clingy because of the earthquake, even though that had been the least of Mike’s troubles.

Because, similarly to Will, although both of them didn’t know it, Mike was also not only dealing with the things that had happened during the battle against Vecna. He was, mainly, dealing with his feelings for Will. Because now he was perfectly sure that he was completely, and truly, in love with him. Any little speck of doubt that he had still had concerning that realization during the last few days had been completely eradicated. Spending so much time with Will again, without having to worry about the literal world ending, had made it so, so obvious to him as to only how much he cared about his best friend. And he cared about him so much more than he should care about his male best friend.

Even with the amount of pure love he felt inside of him now, he still couldn’t shake the thought that what he was feeling was gross, unnatural, nothing that he should feel.
But if his feelings were so wrong, how could they ever feel so right?

By the time Mike had given up trying to convince his mother, Will had already finished decorating his room. He was extremely happy with how it turned out. A few of his paintings were hanging on the walls, next to band posters of The Cure and The Clash, and there were pictures of his friends and family standing on his desk. Right in the middle was a copy of the photo that he had destroyed together with Castle Byers, a photo from Halloween all those years ago. Every time he looked at it, a new wave of happiness filled his heart. As terrible as that day had been for him, in the end, with everything that had happened, he still couldn’t shake the feeling that it had been one of the best days of his life.

He had painted the walls a light blue, which had been his favorite color ever since he knew that most people had a favorite color. If he was being honest, there were some other colors that he loved, like the deep brown of a certain person's eyes, or the jet black color of a certain person's hair, or the faint pink of a certain person’s lips… No, he should stop thinking like this, he sounded like a total creep.

With a sigh, Will stood up from his new bed and made his way down the stairs to the kitchen. Everybody else had already left, since there hadn’t been much to do anymore and everybody had a new curfew that they had to follow. The boy wandered around for a moment, looking around as if he didn’t exactly know who he was looking for. Another sigh escaped his mouth when he saw that this certain person had never arrived. He had wished for Mike to be here, maybe helping him with his room, or just being here to spend time with him. After his apology, the awkward energy between them had disappeared completely, being replaced by something that Will couldn’t exactly give a name to. But it didn’t feel bad, negative or particularly wrong, so he was just happy that he had his best friend back, and this time, he had him back for real. So, why wasn’t he here now?

Just as Will turned around to go back to his room, he heard a knock on the entrance door. Looking through the small window in the door, his face lit up the second he recognized a very familiar silhouette. He practically ran towards the door, opening it to reveal a soaked Mike, standing in the rain with a stupid grin on his face. “I told you I’d be here”, he stuttered, trying and failing to conceal the fact that he was extremely cold. Will let out an incredulous chuckle, pulling the other boy into the house by his shirt and closing the door behind him, so as not to let any rain into the house.

Seeing him like this, trembling and still smiling at him like he was his whole world, although Will was sure that he was only imagining that, he couldn’t help but feel some sort of pity for him. “Well, you’re a bit late, aren’t you?”, he still responded, a fake pout on his face. “Oh, so this is what it’s like?”, Mike gasped, acting offended by his friend's comment, “Here I am, sneaking out against my dear mothers wishes, just to be so rudely rejected!” At this point, neither of them could hold in their laughter anymore, making way too much noise for the time of night that it was. So much noise that a mere minute after Mike’s arrival, Hopper was standing in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, making the two boys jump away from each other. They had only now noticed how close to each other they had been standing.

Hopper cleared his throat, then said: “Incredibly sorry to interrupt… whatever this is, but your mother called, she said that if you’re not home in”, he checked his watch, “five minutes, you’ll be grounded ‘till the end of the school year.” “Oh come on!”, Mike called out, “I sneak out one time, and just then she decides to care for where I am?” He let out an annoyed huff, already dreading the speech he’d receive the moment he’d get home. Will turned to Hopper with a pleading look in his eyes, hoping to convey how much Mike’s presence right now meant to him, and Hopper’s expression softened almost instantly. Letting out an exasperated sigh, he continued: “Listen, kid, now that you’re not with El anymore, I really couldn’t care less if you stayed over for the night, but your mother sounded pretty angry over the phone. If I were you, I’d get going.” “Okay, okay, I’m already leaving”, Mike said, raising his hands in the air in a surrendering manner, “But I’m gonna make it up to you, alright? Tomorrow, last day of spring break, at mine, the whole party together. I promise.”

Will couldn’t help but let out another chuckle, seeing how seriously Mike had taken his promise, and answered softly:

“Of course, that would be perfect.”

Chapter Text

If there was one thing that Mike loved to do, that was looking at any of Will’s paintings.

That had been one of the main reasons why he had decided to decorate all of the walls in his basement with drawings that Will had made, some from when they had been children, others more recent. Now they ranged from simple pencil sketches to intricate, detailed and thought out acrylic paintings. Since Will loved drawing so much, he had gifted Mike way too many pictures to hang them all up for anybody to see, so, in addition to the paintings that were hung up in the basement, the boy had a binder full of paper, each and every piece of it a gift from Will.

The newest addition to this binder had been the painting Will had given him during their trip to Nevada, the one of their D&D party fighting a three-headed, crimson dragon.

Mike had asked himself multiple times why he hadn’t hung it up on the wall together with his other favorite paintings. He loved it so much, and it was with no doubt Will’s best work, so why would he take away the privilege of being able to gawk at this absolute masterpiece from the other people entering his basement? It wasn’t like there wasn’t any more space on the walls, just like anything in the Wheeler’s house, the basement was gigantic, with much more wall space asking to be decorated by the beauty of Will’s creations.

But something, and he could never really name it, had made him hesitate when he had tried to put the painting up. Had it been because it reminded him of the time where he was just so afraid to lose his then girlfriend? Had it been because it reminded him of Eleven, the girl who he loved, but not like that, who had broken up with him? Or had it been because of something else entirely?

It just felt so… personal, somehow. And looking at it, which he had done daily since the moment he had received it from Will, always made him feel like he had missed something, like he was still missing something. Something within the painting maybe, or within the things Will had told him when he had given it to him. He was almost sure that it was the second possibility, but what could he have missed? Will had just told him about how Eleven felt about him, right? About the way she loved and needed him, a way that Mike could never love or need her, or any other girl for that matter, if he was being totally honest with himself. So what, what, for the love of god, was he missing?

The day after his rather unsuccessful attempt of sneaking out past his curfew, he had been interrupted in his ritual of staring at Will’s most recent painting by a knock on the basement door. As quickly as possible, he put it back into the binder, still paying attention so as not to accidentally crumple it up. He knew who the person knocking had to be, which made a big smile appear on his face, and his heart beating just a bit faster, since everybody except that one person simply ran straight into the room. He had told Will countless times that he really didn’t have to knock, the basement of the Wheeler’s house being his place of refuge just as much as it had been Mike’s since their early childhood, but he still insisted on it. He didn’t want to be impolite, after all. As often as Mike reminded him of how useless it was to knock, since he still entered the basement without waiting for an answer, he secretly loved that little quirk of Will’s. It was just so, well, him.

“You’re early”, Mike said to Will, rising up from the floor, another one of his trademark stupid grins adorning his face. Will could only chuckle at that, joking back at his friend: “You know what they say, on time is late and early is on time. Oh, thinking of it, you’ve probably never heard of that, aren’t I right?” As Mike hid his face in his hands, letting out an exasperated groan, Will chuckled again, to which the other boy replied, voice being muffled by the hands covering his face: “You’re still going on about that?” “What do you mean ‘still’, it was literally yesterday!”, Will laughed, playfully hitting Mike’s shoulder. He, of course, couldn’t let it stand like that. Using the moment of surprise, he tried to tackle Will to the ground as some kind of revenge for making fun of him, which made a surprised shriek escape Will’s mouth, forgetting how much the other boy had grown during his time in California. In the past, Mike had been able to settle practically every fun little fight they had had with a quick attack on his best friend, who had always been at least 5 inches shorter and so much scrawnier than him.

But now, with Will barely an inch shorter than Mike and with much more muscle mass than before, they had to wrestle for quite some time, non stop laughing while doing so, before Mike was finally able to push Will to the ground, although he was almost entirely sure that the other boy had just let him win this time. Just as fast as the smug expression of a winner had appeared on his face did it disappear again, replaced by a look of surprise as the other boy pulled him down to the floor with him.

So, there they were, laughing and giggling on the floor, just like all those years ago, barely any space left between them. If only one of them had moved a little bit, made the tiniest motion, their hands would’ve touched ever so slightly, which would’ve been enough to turn the both of them into a blushing mess. But right now, Mike didn’t need Will’s touch to feel complete. Just lying next to him, their friendship back to how it had been, and already so much better than that, being able to look into his eyes again, that was enough.

Will was still busy laughing, so he didn’t notice that Mike had been staring at him for so much longer than other best friends stared at each other, if they even stared at each other like that at all. But Mike just couldn’t stop himself from looking at the absolute pinnacle of beauty he thought Will to be. Every time he looked at him, he noticed how much, and at the same time, how little his best friend had changed during their eight months of physical, and almost twelve months of emotional distance.

Like he had already experienced first hand, Will had gotten much taller and stronger, the definition of some muscles being visible through his shirt that was just a little bit too tight. That was a fact that Mike had been noticing way too often for his taste, but hey, who was he to complain?

During his time away, he also must’ve cut his hair, which was way shorter than it had ever been in the past. It was still one of his typical bowlcuts, though. Mike remembered how Will had always used to complain about Joyce cutting his hair in the exact same way ever since he’d been 5 years old, but Mike had always thought it looked nice. And now, with less of his beautiful face being hidden by his not less beautiful hair, Mike only appreciated that haircut even more.

And his eyes, they were still as enchanting as ever, with their hazel color changing shades every time the sun hit them in a different angle. They could go from looking warm and inviting to deep and mysterious in a fraction of a second, making Mike feel like he could discover something new inside them every time he looked, if he only concentrated enough.

Again, he was happy that he hadn’t had to go through a difficult and lengthy process to figure out his true feelings for Will. He would’ve probably pushed him away again, acting like a total douche, he had been pretty good at that even without any conflicting feelings, which would’ve made moments like these so much rarer. Like this, he could simply admire the person he was in love with, the voice in his mind telling him that he was weird, disgusting, a freak, for some reason being silenced by Will’s presence. When he was with him, it all felt so perfect, so natural, so right. But when he was alone, sitting in his room, overanalyzing his feelings and emotions, that voice only returned so much louder. Sometimes, it made him wish that he could just be normal, fall in love with a girl, maybe Eleven, and live a life like the one everybody wanted him to have. He felt so conflicted, between the love he so obviously felt for his best friend and the hate he would receive if he’d ever even try to show those feelings openly. And he despised himself for caring so much about the opinions of others, when the only people who really mattered would probably, hopefully, never react like that.

But in that moment, while he was lying right next to Will, so close that he could feel his breath on his neck, none of those thoughts crossed his mind. And how could they, when his whole being was fixated only on Will, not on his friends, not on his family, not on any other person that could think they were allowed to have any opinion in the matter of his feelings.

After having stared at him for quite some time, the boy turned around himself, trying to sneak a glance at Mike’s face, noticing how it was in the exact same position he had just taken. Mike turned as red as tomato, embarrassed that Will had caught him staring at him, and he turned his face back up to look at the walls, the ceiling, the stairs, anywhere but his best friend’s so, so beautiful face. This made yet another giggle leave Will’s mouth, to which Mike replied with a quiet whisper: “I hate you.”

If Mike had said those three words to him a few weeks earlier, Will wouldn’t have been so sure that there was no trace of truth behind them. They had been so distant, only having talked a few times during his whole stay in California, while Mike had talked to Eleven daily. He had known better than to be jealous, he had had no reason to be, after all, but he had still felt a pang of hurt in his chest every time he had answered the phone, just to hear Mike ask for Eleven after a short greeting to him. And it had only gotten worse when his best friend had visited them. All of the feelings he had thought he had buried deep enough by now had come back at the same time, only so much stronger than they had ever been before. Seeing his best friend again after such a long time of almost no talking, almost no contact, had transformed his crush-that-had-borderline-love-tendencies into full, deep love. So, back then, god, had it really only been two weeks since then?, those three words would’ve probably given him the rest, no matter how much of a playful meaning they would’ve had.

But now? He could say with good conscience that there wasn’t a single speck of real hatred in between those words. He knew how much they both cared about each other, even though, according to him, his feelings for his friend ran so much deeper than the ones the other boy had for him.

“No, you don’t”, Will responded softly, him being the one with the stupid grin on his face now. He loved teasing Mike, because, since he only had done that so rarely in the past, it always shook a new reaction out of him. This time, it was a sigh just as quiet as the words he had said a few seconds ago, followed by him turning back around, looking Will straight in the eyes, and a single sentence that made Will’s whole body shake: “Yeah, you’re right, I don’t.”

That solemn moment of silence between the two of them would’ve lasted for so much longer, if it hadn’t been for Max, Lucas, Eleven and Dustin loudly announcing their arrival by smashing open the basement door so aggressively that they probably woke up Ted from one of his naps.

“Break it up you two, nobody wants to see that!”, Max screamed at them, seeing them being all happy and shit, the others behind her laughing. The two of them stood up from the basement floor, Will wiping some clearly imaginary dust off his pants, Mike always made sure that the basement was as spotless as possible before Will came over, while Mike let out a very forced laugh. If any of the others had noticed them acting strange, they obviously didn’t find it important enough to comment on it. As the others struggled to get Max’s wheelchair down the stairs, Mike could only think about what she had said the moment she saw them, two boys, lying right next to each other, too close to be considered appropriate. But she hadn’t meant it like that, right? He was only overthinking things, right? He was panicking over nothing, right?

Right?

The whole time they were hanging out together, Mike was as tense as he hadn’t been in a long time. His laughs felt fake, his smiles either too exaggerated or non-existing, his hands never not moving around in nervous ticks. He still couldn’t get Max’s comment, as innocent as she had most likely meant it to be, out of his head. Every time he looked in the direction where Will was sitting, he quickly averted his gaze to make sure he wasn’t staring at him again, since he knew that when he was looking at him, an hour could feel like just a few seconds. After his obviously freaked out reaction to the others finding him like THAT with Will, he couldn’t afford any more suspicious actions.

And staring at his best friend with literal hearts in his eyes would most definitely count as one.

Chapter Text

Will was so, so tired of hiding.

But that’s what he had been doing his whole life. He had hid in various cabinets from his bullies in middle school, in his closet when his father had been at home after one drink too many, in Castle Byers when everything, just everything, had gotten too much. He had also hid there during his time in the Upside Down, when he had been abducted by Vecna, as he had found out a few weeks ago. One time, he hadn’t hidden, that time when he had felt like he had to be brave, and had stood right in front of the Mind Flayer, no running away, no searching for a fast escape, no hiding. Well, we all know how that one turned out.

And to this day, he was still hiding. Just that now he wasn’t hiding from something, from a physical danger that could hurt him as soon as it caught up with. He was hiding the things deep inside him, his feelings, his emotions, himself. Nobody knew how much he dreaded going back to school at Hawkins, having to see the same people that made his life hell during middle school every single day. Nobody knew about his not so new fear of the dark, how he could never sleep without some light source still lit in his room. Nobody knew that he was crying himself to sleep almost every night, either because of nightmares from earlier in the night or because of how much the universe seemed to hate his guts. Because why else would it throw so many obstacles in his way? Why else would it make his life so difficult? Why else couldn’t it just give him a damn break once in a while?

And, of course, nobody knew about him being gay. A queer. A fag. Just like so many people had predicted, from his own father to Troy to almost every boy he had come in contact with since he had turned about 10 years old. He didn’t know if it had had to do with him liking to draw and paint, or if it had been because of his cheerful and happy self or if it was just because humans were horrible, cruel creatures that would make up an opinion about somebody after having seen them once, sometimes not even knowing their name before calling them slurs straight to their face. Apparently, making others hate themselves for being different, making them feel alienated from their peers, making them feel like a mistake had always been and would always be a perverted source of happiness for some people.

So, why stop hiding? Why leave from his well-known, well accustomed hiding space? What was out there that was better than the safety it guaranteed?

The answer to that was actually quite simple: acceptance.

Because not everybody was like the people described above, god no, not everybody thrived only on negativity and hate. One of those people was his brother, Jonathan. He had always been one of his closest friends, the person he could confide in no matter what, who always had wise advice despite only being a few years older than Will himself. Without any judgment, he had listened to him on the rare occasions where his own feelings and problems seemed important enough to burden somebody else with. Often, he would only repeat the same thing over and over again, just using different words, which was: “I will be there for you no matter what. I will never abandon you. I will always take your side.” And every time, it made Will feel instantly better. So, during their last talk of that nature, during the battle against Vecna, Will had decided to finally tell Jonathan after everything was over.

And then, it was over. And he actually had to go through with it.

That being said, technically, the thing about nobody knowing about him being gay had been a lie.

Because, one day before his first day of going to school in Hawkins again, Will had entered his brother’s new room with the goal of confessing the thing that Jonathan had very probably already known about. He had always been very observant, so Will wouldn’t put it past him to have realized his biggest secret before he had been able to tell him himself.

And, ironically, that had made Will so much more terrified of telling him. Maybe Jonathan had had a hunch about him being like that, but had hoped that this hunch wouldn’t reveal itself to be true. Because who would ever want somebody like him to be their brother? He was probably hoping that one day, Will would just come home with a girlfriend, finally putting his worries about his little brother being a queer at peace. He had been raised by their father for a much longer time than Will had been, after all. During this, thankfully, short time of living with his father, Will had already internalized the things that that waste of oxygen used to shout at him. That he was disgusting, a freak of nature, a person that wouldn’t be missed should he ever disappear from the face of the earth. So why shouldn’t Jonathan think the same way about him?

Deep inside, he knew that Jonathan would never be like that. He was a truly good person, somebody who could be trusted with anything, ranging from the smallest secrets to the biggest thing that could impact somebody’s life. He would never make fun of anybody for anything, seeing as he knew how much it hurt. How much it hurt to be hated just for the way you were, to be hated for the fact that you refused to change for other people.

But the worries stayed, which made sense, looking at the way things had been in his past. And they wouldn’t go away until he had either confirmed them or proven them wrong.
So, that day, when Will had seeked out his brother, he was truly scared. Scared about what would happen to him, but even more scared about what would happen to the special bond he had with Jonathan. Wouldn’t it be selfish to ruin their whole relationship just because he felt the need to tell him about his secret? Wouldn’t it be selfish to put the burden of knowing and having to keep something like that to himself on his brother’s shoulders? Wouldn’t it be selfish to risk everything, everything they had built up over all of those years of being siblings? But in that moment, Will was ready, ready to be selfish for the first freaking time in his life.

His whole body had been shaking, hands shoved in his pockets to hide just how much they were trembling. But he had been unable to hide his eyes, already filling themselves with tears, clouding his vision. He had been kind of thankful for that, because should his confession have gone wrong, he wouldn’t have needed to see the disappointed, angry and disgusted look in his brother's eyes. The moment he had seen him, Jonathan had known that something had had to be wrong. He had never, never, seen Will this terrified, and that had had to have meant something. He had immediately enveloped him in a hug, without even knowing what Will was so miserable about. And the very second his brother’s arms had embraced him, Will had burst out into tears, breaking down completely, never having cried like that in front of anybody before, only in the safe space of his own room or Castle Byers, always alone. Between his own sobs, he hadn’t had the energy to form any words, let alone any halfway coherent sentences. But the thing he had wanted to say for so, so long, hadn’t taken that long to say to begin with. So, after a few minutes of standing there, holding onto his brother for dear life, he had finally been able to press out those three words he had never said out loud before.

And, god, how good that had felt. How liberating, having been able to share this thing that made his heart so heavy with somebody he’d trust with his life. It had been like Jonathan had really taken a part of this weight, a part of this burden of keeping something like that a secret off of his shoulders. Because the first thing he had said, after a few seconds of terrifying silence, had been: “I’m so, so proud of you.” He had said that over and over again, only stopping once Will had stopped crying. They had kept holding and comforting each other until they had heard Joyce call them down for dinner. That had been when they had looked each other in the eyes for the first time during their whole conversation, if you could even call it that, because not many words had been spoken. So much more had been said, but there had been no need to spell it out. Another small smile between the two of them, and they had made their way downstairs, Will quickly wiping his tears away so as not to alarm his mother.

Once again, Jonathan had been reminded of just how brave his little brother really was.

It had been a week since school had started again, a week since Will had told somebody about him being gay for the first time. After having come out to his brother, he had thought that now it could only get easier. He knew what to say, how to say it, and that, should something go terribly wrong, he always had at least one person to rely on. But school had destroyed all of that confidence again, because that really hadn’t taken much more than simply going to school in Hawkins.

Remembering how things used to be, looking at his situation at school now, not very much had changed. He walked past the same people as in middle school, only that now they were older, meaner and had an even more intense lust for gossip. News spread fast in Hawkins, it was a pretty small town after all. Everywhere he went, he could see and hear people glaring at him, whispering. Nothing new. Some were only wondering why he suddenly had a sister that nobody had ever seen before, which, honestly, was an appropriate reaction to what had happened, so he couldn’t really blame them for that. Others, though, were speculating on why the Byers had moved back to Hawkins so soon after first moving. And those theories mostly revolved around Will, the biggest part of them being along the lines of him “getting kicked out of his school for being a queer”. Hawkins really hadn’t changed at all, had it? For a few, admittedly short moments, he had hoped that things would be different now. That people would be more grown up, more focused on themselves than others, too busy with their own shit to even spare him a second glance. Sadly, as so often, his hopes had been disappointed.

And right there he started thinking again, why stop hiding? Nothing good would come out of him showing the world who he was, so why even bother trying? What reason was there to not keep your true self away from the public eye for the rest of your life?

But then, as soon as he entered his first class, head held as low as possible so as not to attract any unwanted attention from a certain person that he unfortunately shared the class with, he saw his reason. Sitting in the very last row, as far away from the sharp eyes of their math teacher who, for some reason, seemed to hate his guts, was Mike. His head was lying on the desk, long, black hair covering the biggest part of it. In his right hand, he held a pencil that he would very probably not use to take notes, but instead play with the whole lesson instead of paying any attention. And who could blame him? After almost seeing the world end multiple times, a math lesson really didn’t seem all that interesting. It was far too ordinary to be deserving of Mike Wheeler’s attention. But that was exactly what Will had wished for, some sense of normality, security, a truly average life of a truly average teenager. However, he was far from a truly average teenager, as much as he sometimes wished he could just be like anybody else. In these moments of weakness, he reminded himself of what Jonathan had said to him after his traumatizing stay in the Upside Down: “Nobody normal ever accomplished anything meaningful in this world.”

Getting lost in his thoughts, only realizing a bit too late that he had been staring at Mike the whole time, he quickly made his way to his seat, right next to his best friend. When he noticed Will, he swiftly raised his head from the desk, flashing a big smile at him. Will returned one with just the same amount of enthusiasm. Oh god, how much he loved that smile. Every time he saw it, he could only gaze at the small dimples appearing at both sides of Mike’s mouth, only showing themselves if the smile was truly genuine, reminding him of a time when they had been younger, of a time when they had used to smile so much more. Realizing that now, he was the reason why Mike whipped out this special smile, made the butterflies in his stomach stir faster and faster. He could feel his face heat up, praying that it wasn’t as visible as it felt like. It was only 8:00 am in the morning and Mike had already made his day so much better, yet so much difficult. The amount of power that Mike had over his emotions was kind of ridiculous, really. Only one word from his mouth could make Will’s world go upside down, only one touch from his hand could make his whole body vibrate, only one smile on his face could turn him into a lovestruck mess. But it went so much further than that. While, during the last year, Mike had made him feel miserable more often than not, now he represented a feeling of safety again. He was what Will had always wished he could have some day, despite all the odds turned against him.

Only with Mike, it didn’t feel like he had to hide anything. Not his feelings, not his emotions, not himself.

As boring as they really were, the lessons flew by as if they were nothing. With the teachers introducing one last new topic or group project before the end of the school year, every student was as busy as ever, trying not to fail miserably at the exams that would take place in a mere one and a half months. This turned out to be a perfect distraction from everything else going on at school, since he could concentrate on studying instead of the mean comments that were sometimes whispered, sometimes shouted straight to his face.

And, other than Mike, his friends, and studying, high school presented yet another possible way to keep his mind off of all the negative things it loved to think about: Hellfire. The D&D club that had been mistaken as a satanic cult a few weeks prior had welcomed him with open arms the second he had approached them on his first day of school, just like it had done with the rest of the party when they started high school in this hellhole of a town.

In the beginning, he had felt a pang of disappointment and even jealousy when he had heard that his friends had joined another party, even though he had promised that he would only play the game with them. But after being introduced to the other members of the club, with a new, official introduction to Eddie, who he had already met briefly during their successful attempt to save the world, these feelings were exchanged with those of excitement. All of those people, they were just like him. Well, probably not in the one way that would matter the most, but in the way that they all didn’t fit Hawkins’ standards of “normal”.

And Eddie was maybe the best of it all. Maybe it was just because of their mutual love for D&D, maybe it was because of the way he presented himself, maybe it was also because he kind of looked like Mike, but Will had immediately been fascinated by him. The very second he had seen him at school for the first time, making his presence known in the cafeteria, he had become his role model. Even after barely escaping death, or maybe even more so because of that, Eddie was so unapologetically himself. He didn’t care about others’ opinions about him, he didn’t care about being viewed as a weirdo, a freak, a leader of a satanic cult. Alright, maybe he did mind that last one, but he never showed it to the people that tried to make him feel miserable for being, well, him.

In short, he was everything Will wanted to be.

Chapter Text

If there was one thing everybody could agree on, it was that the day leading up to a sleepover was, most of the time, even better than the sleepover itself.

The party had decided that they’d try to prove that wrong, wanting to make their first sleepover after their final win against the Upside Down, exactly two months after said event, so awesome that no excitement of anticipation could ever measure itself with the amount of fun they’d have. They had the whole evening planned out: First, they’d go to their local supermarket to buy snacks and drinks for the rest of their night, everybody having sacrificed some of their pocket money in preparation, with Mike secretly having paid Will’s share as well. The next stop would be the Wheeler’s house, because, to nobody’s surprise, the main part of the sleepover would take place where their sleepovers had always been held. It had become kind of a tradition, because ever since the original four party members could remember, if they had spent the night together, it had always been at Mike’s. If it ain’t broke, why fix it, after all?

There, they’d watch a movie, one that they’d pick up directly after school from the Family Video Robin, Steve, and now also Eddie worked at. Since Keith had left Hawkins after the earthquake, quote, “having enough of all the shit happening here”, he had made Robin the manager, and the first thing she had done, after making Steve sweep the whole store, even though there had been nothing to sweep, had been hiring Eddie to help them out in the shop. Like this, the three of them being perched up together every afternoon, they worked way less than before, if that had even been possible. But they did what had to be done, which was lending and selling movies to the borderline annoying children that would come to visit them at least once a week.

After the movie, which would probably take them up until about 10 o’clock to finish, their plan had ended. Then they’d see if they still wanted to do anything special, or if they’d be too tired to even think of something else to do. In the past, they had never been able to stay up much later than 11 o’clock, since Mike’s father would simply disconnect the electricity to the basement in an attempt to get the boys to sleep, which, obviously, had never worked quite as well as he had hoped it would.

But before they could do all that, they still had to go to school, it was a friday, after all. The typical pre-sleepover anticipation had made the day slightly more bearable, as they had all had something to look forward to. Some classes, though, had felt like somebody had switched the clock on the wall with one that moved twice as slow, making the hour-long class feel like an eternity. One of these classes had also been the very first one in the morning, math. He didn’t mind the subject in general, but something about the lessons with their math teacher made it so much more boring for Mike. Somehow, she could turn an interesting mathematical formula into the most sleep-inducing thing somebody could talk about. Although she disliked most of the students in this class, she especially had something against Mike, for a reason not known to anybody, least of all himself. She would always call him up to the blackboard, making him solve problems she was certain he could never solve, and he had proven her wrong every single time. Why she hadn’t given up by now was as much of a mystery to him as to anyone else in that class. While he didn’t pay attention to anything the teacher was saying more often than not, he was intelligent enough to be able to figure these calculations out on his own. And, during the last months, he had also had Will to lend him a helping hand whenever he had needed him to. Because, for some reason, the teacher absolutely adored Will. Maybe it was because to her, he was like a new student, or maybe it was simply because of how nice, respectful and kind Will was. Which would make sense, since Mike was the complete opposite of that.

But that friday, not even his best friend had paid any mind to following the lesson, sketching some small drawings next to the numbers of the equation they had had to solve, glancing at him multiple times a minute, absolutely vibrating with energy. Every few minutes, Mike had leaned over ever so slightly to catch a glimpse of the other boy’s sketches, but he had always covered them up just before he could see what exactly he had been drawing, giggling after every one of his failed attempts. At one point, Mike had almost fallen out of his chair, Will’s fast reflexes being the only thing that had prevented him from crashing to the floor in an extremely embarrassing way. He had grabbed both Mike’s chair and his arm, pushing them back up while trying to hold back his laughter as well as possible. Immediately blushing when he had realized that he had been holding Mike’s arm for a little bit too long, having admired the way it had felt to finally touch him for longer than a few seconds, he had quickly turned back to the drawing he had made during the lesson. It was a small, yet scarily accurate sketch of Mike’s side profile from the way he could see it from his seat right next to him. While he had only had little time to make any improvements to the initial drawing, it had already been very detailed. Every freckle on his cheeks, the way his hair curled, the faint, yet visible dimples he had: Everything was there.

“Wow, this is great!”, Mike had exclaimed as soon as he had been able to look at the thing Will had been hiding. He had forgotten to cover it up at one point, lost in his thoughts while looking at what, or rather, who, he had drawn. Will had jumped slightly up from his chair, startled by his friend having seen the drawing he had made of him, making Mike completely lose it. The expression on Will's face and it still being as red as it had been when he had stopped Mike from falling from his chair, had made the laughter he had had to hold in the whole lesson finally escape, which had caused all of the other students to look at them with irritation written all over their faces. The teacher, finally having enough from the both of them also, had warned them: “If you disrupt this lesson one more time, I’ll send you both out, alright? So I better not hear another word from you.” Thankfully, the bell had rung in that exact moment, making the fact that both Mike and Will had burst out laughing yet again a little less embarrassing, but so much funnier for the boys. Oh, today would be just perfect.

The rest of the school day had been far from being as eventful as that first lesson, but the excitement remained. At lunch, the whole party sat with the other members of the Hellfire Club, who couldn’t have cared less about the teenagers being as restless as ever. They could only laugh at their childlike happiness, reviewing the plans they had for the day and voicing their enthusiasm out loud, for everybody to hear.

Mike, who was sitting right in between Dustin and Lucas, only noticed about half of the things the others were saying. He was far too captivated by the person opposite of him, that, who would've guessed, was Will. The boy was in a heated debate with Eleven, arguing over which movie to get from Family Video. While Will wanted to get a horror movie, for a non-apparent reason, considering he normally hated them, Eleven said that they should go with a classic rom-com, since she had watched tons of them with Joyce back in California. Mike had no real opinion on the matter, not caring what they’d watch as long as they were all together, so he had stopped listening after some time, concentrating on something far more interesting: Will’s lips. How soft they looked, only slightly chapped from picking on them so much when he was nervous, which he, sadly, was very often. How nice their shape was, perfectly fitting the rest of Will’s features, that were so unique and beautiful at the same time. How absolutely overwhelming it would feel to kiss them, and how much more he’d feel, should they decide to kiss him back. But that was just wishful thinking, and as pretty as those images were in his head, he knew that his useless pining after his best friend would only end in heartbreak and the loss of a decade long friendship.

“So, Mike, what do you think?” He only registered those words since he was staring at the mouth saying them, had anybody other than Will asked him something, he would’ve just completely overheard them. But even in this situation, he didn’t fully comprehend what he had been asked, having paid attention to the conversation about the same amount as he had during his math class today. The only thing he could say was a confused: “Huh? What are we talking about?” Lucas groaned in exasperation, Dustin reacting in a similar way, banging his head on the lunch table, and Max simply looked at him like she always did, with a hint of exhaustion and annoyance in her eyes. And Will? He just laughed at him, with that stupid, beautiful, perfect laugh he had, and eyes full of an emotion that could only be describes as pure adoration, but that was probably just his mind projecting again. “What do you think, should we get a horror movie or a rom-com to watch at your’s?”, he repeated his question, this time with a little more context. Ah, they were still on about that. There were upsides and downsides to both movie genres, with rom-coms getting boring easily and horror movies only being good if the special effects and deaths were done in a good way. Nothing from any horror movie could ever match what they had all seen, but Mike, at least, still appreciated some kind of realistic imagery when watching those movies. But rom-coms were cute, and could be a nice way to ease into the night. On the other hand, if they watched a horror movie and Will got scared, like he always did watching scary movies, maybe Mike could hold his hand to comfort him like he had always done in the past… “Horror, no question”, he replied the second his mind came to that conclusion, making Will let out a loud and triumphant “YES!”, heads from other tables turning to look at him. But he didn’t care, and neither did Mike. He loved seeing Will so happy, and if simply agreeing with his taste in movies could do that, then he’d contently do nothing else for the rest of their lives. Will deserved as much happiness as the world could give, after all.

Robin Buckley had always been obnoxiously great at reading people.

While she did have a hard time figuring out how people felt while speaking to them, being oblivious to their intentions and emotions, observing them from afar basically made it possible for her to look into the very depths of a person's soul. This is what made her have mostly non-awkward conversations with others, the noticing little details that most people would miss, proving just how insignificant they might seem. A person looking at an exit or a clock multiple times per minute made it obvious that they really didn’t want to be in that room, something she had seen multiple times at family gatherings. The way a person couldn’t sit still for even a second, their leg bouncing up and down restlessly, was a clear sign that the situation they were in just now made them uncomfortable. And just by the way two people looked at each other, she could see exactly what those people felt for the other.

When she had pointed out these things to Steve, he had scoffed and told her that she should get her ego in check, that she couldn’t just “tell” the intricate ways of the relationships between two complex human beings by analyzing how they looked at each other. And yes, he had used those exact words. Much to Robin's surprise his vocabulary had evolved from his time of being an insanely popular high school dumbass.

But to this day, and this still made Steve mad, Robin had always been right with her theories.

And that was the very reason why, when the group of teenagers she now knew so much better than she ever thought she would entered the Family Video she and her best friends worked at, she immediately moved her focus from the money in the register to two particular people from said group.

Robin really wasn’t the person to assume anybody’s sexuality, knowing that technically, in a town like Hawkins, there could be many more people like her, simply too afraid to show themselves to the cruel world. With some people, she just had a hunch, a little feeling that wouldn’t go away. Maybe it was something with their behavior, the way they talked, their style, or maybe she just had an innate sixth sense that kicked in whenever she interacted with another possibly queer person. And ever since she had first been introduced to Will, that sixth sense wouldn’t shut up, telling her again and again that they were the same. Of course, she would never voice this kind of speculation out loud, not wanting to put anybody, least of all Will, in an uncomfortable situation. But every time they talked, it was in the back of her mind, always present. She was simply relieved that maybe, just maybe, she had found somebody that could truly relate to her for the first time.

A person that she would never have guessed could ever awaken her sixth sense had been Mike Wheeler. Basically being glued to Eleven when having first met, he really had not given off the vibe she had been looking for. The way he had looked at her, with so much adoration in his eyes, being deadly afraid of ever losing her again, showering her in constant attention had been clear signs that that boy was as straight as a ruler. After all, having a girlfriend as a guy ruled out being queer, right?

Wrong. Because the way this boy looked at his best friend right now, and the way said best friend stared back at him, was definitely not how friends looked at each other. If one of them had been a girl, everybody would’ve picked up on the not so small, not so short glances that they gave each other, both turning into blushing messes when they caught each other in the act. Robin had already noticed that something had been, not necessarily off, but different between the both of them. It was something that neither of them had with any of their other friends, and while some, or rather, most, would be quick to blame them being each other's best friend, it was obviously so much more than that.

Just like during lunch, fighting had ensued as soon as the party had entered the Family Video store. While the question about the genre had been solved at school, they still had to choose what movie to watch. Max, who undoubtedly had the biggest knowledge of horror movies of them all, insisted on watching “Halloween”, her favorite movie of all time, to which Dustin had dryly reacted by saying that “it’s not Halloween, Max, it’s fucking June”, which had led to a vivid discussion between the two of them about whether some movies could be watched all year long or only during a certain festivity. The others were peacefully browsing the movies, sometimes showing a particularly interesting one to the person next to them.

Will, who had been the one to suggest watching a horror movie, was already scared shitless, just by reading the plot summaries on the backs of the cases the VHS tapes were in. Why in the world would he ever propose watching something like that, practically setting himself up? You’d think that after spending a week in the Upside Down and getting possessed by a monster from another dimension, he’d laugh at anything a horror movie could promise, but somehow, his fear had only grown, making his past love for horror movies so much smaller. Every jumpscare made him physically recoil, every scream gave him goosebumps, every monster shown only reminded him of those that weren’t purely fictional. But in the end, there had been one particular reason why he had chosen this genre: Mike had always been severely overprotective of him while watching scary stuff, so maybe, just maybe, he’d remember his old habits, perhaps even acting out of instinct, and try to protect him from the non-existent dangers that simply watching a movie in his basement could produce. And if he had to get terrified close to tears to get Mike’s affection, even though he had been much more generous with it during the past month, like hell he’s going to miss out on that opportunity.

While Will was contemplating his life choices on one end of the shelf with horror movies, Mike had been standing on the other side, stealing glances at Will from time to time. Cheeks constantly a light shade of red, he was replaying the first class of the day over and over again in his head, mostly thinking about the drawing Will had made of him during the math class, and how couldn’t he? It had been so beautiful, well, as beautiful as a portrait of him could ever be. Mike didn’t see much beauty in his face, or in himself in general. His hair was a weird mix between wavy and curly, he was way too pale, looking like a walking corpse on his worst days, the slight circles under his eyes always bothered him, just like his freckles which were so painfully visible. And, oh god, how much he hated himself sometimes. He was so easily irritable, always ignoring and pushing away the people closest to him the moment he got overwhelmed, and was a shit friend more often than not. But none of that could be seen in Will’s painting of him, and Mike felt like this little sketch would fundamentally change the way he’d look at himself in the future. There, everything about him seemed perfect, like he was always meant to be just that way, like being him was more than enough. If this was truly how Will saw him, despite all his flaws, all his defects, all his imperfections, then maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t such a bad person after all. Just that fact made him fall in love with Will all over again.

“Hey, Wheeler, there any particular reason why you’ve been staring over there for ten minutes straight?” Robin’s sudden appearance had ripped Mike out of his trance-like state, but even more so had it been her comment, which made his face turn into a weird grimace between embarrassment and shame. She had only whispered it into his ear, making sure that nobody else heard, but he was still paranoid that somehow, his friends had perfectly understood not only what she had said, but also what she had implied. Because, unbeknownst to himself until now, he had been gawking at Will during this whole train of thoughts, never averting his eyes even for a single second. And his reaction, cheeks being as red as the blood on the covers of the VHS tapes he had been holding this whole time, would certainly not have helped with convincing everybody that “it wasn’t like that”.

In reality, it had only been less than five minutes of staring, but the slight exaggeration and almost accusatory tone Robin had used had obviously given her the reaction she had predicted and hoped for. “Wha… What do you mean?”, he stuttered, still looking like she just caught him stealing candies from a child, and basically just doing anything other than making the situation seem like a totally normal human interaction. He couldn’t fully admit it, but he was terrified. Tears were almost forming in his eyes, his breathing getting more shallow. What would she do, would she say anything? Anything bad to him, calling him the names that in the past had only been used on Will, or would she simply run over to the others and tell them? But Robin only chuckled slightly, being happy about having been right once again, and whispered: “Nah, don’t worry about it, it’s all good.” She wanted to encourage him, give him some sense of safety, without saying what she had really meant out loud: “It’s okay to have a crush on your best friend, even if he’s a guy.“

After their brief, yet almost nerve-wracking interaction, Mike only stared at her in an even more dumbfounded way. The first person that found out about him liking Will, Robin, of all people, was okay with it? Fully okay? Not disgusted? Not weirded out at least a little bit? In a town like Hawkins, how was that possible? Had he maybe, in a total accident, found one of the very few people that respected people out of pure goodness, no strings attached?

He only gave Robin a small smile as a response, after that she happily returned to the counter to ring Will and the others up, who had finally decided that, yes, you COULD watch “Halloween” in June. But he could still only think of what she had said.

“It’s all good.”

In some sense, it had given him hope. If a person that could really only be considered a friend of a friend had been able to accept this, what most people would call, “unnatural” thing he felt, then maybe his friends could accept it too. Most of all, maybe Will would be able to forgive him for this, should he ever find out, maybe they could still keep being friends. But, he had to admit, that was very, very unlikely. At least one of his friends had to hate him, would he ever decide to tell them, even just statistically speaking. Because, after all, this was Hawkins, and being queer was such a big deal that it made Mike want to puke sometimes.

Oh, how desperately he wished that it didn't have to be such a big deal.

Chapter Text

The party had grossly underestimated the amount of food six people would need to be fed for an entire evening, and how much money it would cost to buy it all.

For the last half hour, they had been grabbing random things from the supermarket shelves, from popcorn to chips, chocolate to gummy worms, soda to some weird type of fruit juice Dustin liked for no apparent reason. They had been fooling around and surely annoying everybody else who had been in the store at the same time as them. But what else were they supposed to do?

It still felt so unreal: Exactly one month ago, they had finally ended the curse lying on this town, this curse that had seemed to attract danger like a pile of shit attracted flies. It hadn’t felt like a month at all, more like a lifetime, or just a few hours simultaneously. They’ve had to go through so much in these past three years, so much more than most people would experience in their whole life. From being a lab experiment to getting taken to an alternate dimension, getting convinced by the government that your best friend had died, seeing your brother being killed in front of you, all in all fighting a battle they had never consented to joining in the first place. So why shouldn’t they be allowed to have some fun now? Why shouldn’t they finally get to act their age? And if they annoyed some other people, why should they care? Those people all owed their lives to them anyways.

Sadly, right now the party also owed the cashier money, and they, of course, couldn’t use the “we saved your ass from being killed by a psychotic murderer that was presumed dead” excuse on him. Before another fight about who was at fault for their incorrect calculations could ensue, which would’ve made the workers throw them out surely, since they already stared at them with hatred in their eyes for being some of the noisiest and slowest customers they’d ever had, Mike simply pulled out his wallet to pay for the rest. Originally already having paid both his and Will’s share, since he knew that he never got that much of an allowance and would rather have him spend it on things for himself, he also didn’t have much money left, but he gladly sacrificed it for the benefit of his friends. After all, no amount of money he could possess would make him happier than seeing his friends so untroubled, so peaceful, so, well, happy.

Being that many people did have an advantage that outweighed the excessive need for food, and that was the ability to haul all of their shopping back to Mike’s house without having to take two trips. When their arms had gotten too heavy, Lucas and Dustin simply dumped their bags in Max’s lap, her being in a wheelchair making it so much easier to escape from her wrath. Laughing during the whole trip, having as much fun as they hadn’t had in a long time, reminded Will of the sleepovers the original party had had in the past. Back then, Mike’s mom had bought their snacks for them, which had made them much healthier than any of them had wished. Thankfully, Dustin, who was always prepared for anything, had smuggled in some sweets and candies in the bag he had had with him, making them go into an unexplainable sugar rush every time. Now, reminiscing on the memories, Will was sure that Mrs. Wheeler had known exactly what had been going on, but had let them do their thing, simply because she had been happy that her son had made such good friends.

Thinking about the past, Will couldn’t resist looking over to Mike. He had changed so much since then, in both his looks and his character, but underneath the stoic exterior he tried to put up so often, he was still the same boy who felt every emotion so strongly, the same boy who would do anything to cheer a sad friend up, the same boy who cared so, so deeply. The same boy who he had fallen in love with all those years ago, the same boy who he was still in love with now, only that now he was actually aware of it.

Somehow, that fact made it both easier and so much harder to conceal his feelings. He knew what he had to hide, what he had to quit doing when with other people, what he had to change about his facial expressions when looking at him. But at the same time, the feelings got stronger and stronger every passing day, soon threatening to explode all up in his face. He had been afraid of accidentally letting something slip, accidentally saying something that couldn’t just be brushed off as a totally platonic comment to say about his best friend. And even though he had technically already confessed his feelings to Mike that one day in the pizza van, saying those things again would be even harder than the first time. Because, what if Mike had actually comprehended what he had been trying to say? What if he had noticed him sobbing after lying his heart out bare, just for him to keep smiling, thinking about his girlfriend? What if he had just pretended to completely miss the hidden message between those words?

Maybe he had acted like that to spare his feelings, not having to reject him directly that way, hoping that his feelings could just fade away, like feelings so often did. But Will knew that these feelings, this honest and pure love he felt for Mike, couldn’t simply fade, go away into nothingness. He could never be able to look at him with less than utter and total adoration, ready to give him all he had, should he ever ask him to. He could never forget how it felt to be close to him, so close they were almost touching, just like that one day in Mike’s basement. He could never let go of him, not even if he so desperately wanted to. And now, after how Mike had interacted with him since he had been back in Hawkins, why would he ever even need to?

So, while transporting the stuff they had bought to the place where the sleepover should take place, the real problem had presented itself as soon as they had arrived at their destination:

Ted Wheeler, a person who had never and would never receive the “father of the year” award, notorious killjoy.

Because, as much as they had planned their whole evening, they had completely neglected asking for permission for the sleepover to happen at the Wheeler’s to begin with. Mike’s father had been less than excited when his son had begged him to allow all of his friends over, with them standing right behind him, staring at him with pleading eyes. He couldn’t understand why they’d all want to spend time with each other all the time, especially since they already saw each other at school every day. But most of all, he couldn’t fathom how Mike, or both his children, for that matter, so peculiar in their very own ways, had even managed to make that many friends. In the past, they had always only hung out with the same, small crowd of people. But now, they had found many people as, well, “peculiar”, as they themselves were. A girl with a buzzcut, a guy that wore too many rings for his taste, and god knows who else had joined their weird little gang, making his house louder and more crowded than he wished it to be multiple times a week. Only when he had seen the happiness in Mike‘s eyes when he had finally allowed his childish slumber party to happen, had his annoyance subsided, even if only by a very, very small degree.

All possible obstacles left behind them, the teenagers quickly ran to the basement to start preparing everything for the rest of the night, setting up all of the snacks they had bought in front of the small TV where they‘d watch “Halloween“. When the boys, and in addition Eleven, had told Max that they had never seen the movie before, shortly after the Byers had moved back to Hawkins, she had almost fainted from shock. Instead of doing that and blessing the others with some silence, she had held an over 30 minutes long monologue about the history of horror movies, slasher movies, more specifically, and the impact that “Halloween“ had had on the whole film industry. As interesting as these new pieces of information had been, it hadn‘t made the others want to watch the movie any more than they had done before. So, even though Max had already seen it hundreds of times, it would be the first time any of the rest of the party would watch it, meaning that the scare factor would be even bigger than if they had already seen it before.

Both Mike and Will had been thankful for that fact, and, unbeknownst to them, it had been for the exact same reason: One wanted to comfort the other, who wanted to be comforted by said person. One wanted to hold the other‘s hands, who wanted his hands to be held by said person. One wanted to cuddle into the other, protecting him from anything bad the world could ever throw at him, who wanted nothing more than to be safe from the world and anything that could harm him.

With their motivations this closely intertwined, it had been no coincidence that Will found himself sitting on the couch right in between Mike and Dustin, using the darkness of the basement to scooch over to be closer to the first one without seeming suspicious or attracting anybody‘s unwanted attention. After the movie had immediately started with a scene of Micheal Myers killing his own sister with a knife on, who would‘ve guessed, Halloween, Will had already flinched back about half a dozen times, every time sliding even closer to his best friend almost instinctively. He had almost expected him to laugh at him, making fun of his jumpiness, to look at him with a weirded out expression on his face for being so close to him, or to make him move back to where he had originally sat, reminding him of the concept of personal space.

But, opposite of what he had feared and doing so much more than he had wished, Mike draped his arm over Will‘s shoulders, pressing his body against his own, only hesitating a fraction of a second before slowly starting to caress his arm in a comforting way. His breathing had hitched for a second, as he had forgotten how to breath for just a moment after what had happened. As much as Will had been scared of the movie before now, his whole fear seemed to be replaced by something else now. His mind couldn‘t handle the conflicting feelings of undeniable love and unlimited horror, and since the first feeling was so, so much stronger than the second one, the panic had disappeared as soon as Mike had started to touch him. Another reason for him not being scared anymore could simply be that he couldn‘t concentrate on the movie at all anymore. With Mike having his hand on his arm, not moving away even to get himself something to eat, seeming as casual as ever, he was fully preoccupied with not bursting out a full blown love confession directly into his face, which, had there been any light, he would‘ve seen was just as red as his own.

Mike didn‘t know what had possessed him to act so boldly, almost cradling Will in his arms in front of the whole party. Maybe Robin‘s small, hidden encouragement from earlier that day had given him some extra courage, making him hide himself just a little less. But still, he was scared, and not of the movie he couldn‘t focus on anyways. He was scared of what Will would do, of how he‘d react to this uninterrupted contact, of what he‘d do, should he guess why Mike was being so touchy all of a sudden. Could he feel his whole body shaking, could he see the sweat on his forehead, the red on his cheeks? He‘d probably blame it on the movie they were watching, or at least that‘s what Mike told himself to calm down at least a bit. But, had Will been uncomfortable with him touching him, with how they were positioned, him now almost being on Mike‘s lap, neither of them knowing how exactly he had even arrived there, he didn‘t say anything. He didn‘t say a single word during the entirety of the movie, if he was being honest. Hadn‘t he been pressing himself into Mike as well, the boy would‘ve taken this silence as a hint to let go of him, to give him space and stop that thing that he was doing, practically full on cuddling with him. But, and he did notice that, while Will hadn‘t said anything, he also hadn‘t screamed or cried out as he normally did while watching scary movies. Even though he couldn‘t see his full face in the dark, only being able to make out some of his features, it seemed so much more peaceful than it ever did, even during a normal day.

Something about Mike‘s presence, which normally riled him up in a way that was so much more than simply positive, calmed him down in a situation like this. It was like being with Mike always made him feel better, if it was because of him being scared, or bored, or annoyed: With Mike, he was balanced, and as much as he hated to admit it, he loved that feeling more than anything. That special feeling of peace, serenity and happiness that he could only feel when he was alone with Mike. But maybe he didn‘t have to be alone with him anymore to feel like that, maybe they had developed such a close bond that every time they were together, they could make it seem like they were the only people in the whole world. And that thought only made Will‘s face, almost buried into the crook of Mike‘s neck, heat up even more.

As soon as the movie had ended, the two boys moved apart almost in a mutual understanding, knowing that the last thing either of them wanted was for the others to see them like this, in an embrace that was a little too tight to be between best friends, even though both thought that only they themself were thinking of it that way. As obvious as it would‘ve been to anybody else, had they seen the whole scene play out right in front of them, Mike and Will still believed that the feelings they had for the other were nothing more than unrequited. Even so, they could still see the pure happiness in each other's faces, having found a few hours of solemn peace, ironically while watching what was supposed to be one of the greatest horror movies of all time.

When Eleven turned on the lights again, making everybody squinch their eyes a bit because of the sudden brightness, Max excitedly asked into the round of her friends: “So, what did you think?“

Will, giving Mike a not so small, not so subtle, not so hidden smile, was the first one to answer:

“It was simply amazing.“

Chapter Text

Will had always differentiated between simply being cold and freezing.

Being cold was something that was common in winter, when the temperatures were slowly dropping and everybody knew that they’d have to bring out their warm coats. It was a feeling that you could fight by getting a nice blanket, making yourself a cup of hot chocolate and sitting in front of a fire. It had, as much as it had bothered him sometimes, always also been a feeling of comfort. Because his brother had been there to bring him that blanket, his mother to make him that hot beverage, and they’d sit in front of their fireplace all together, talking about their day or simply exchanging fun stories they’d heard. Being cold had made him feel warm in its very own way.

But if you were freezing, well, that was a whole other story. It wasn’t when you were in the comfort of your home, relaxing with your family and feeling loved. It was when you forgot your jacket at home because you slept in and had to hurry or you’d be late for school, when the bullies stole your boots and your bike so you had to walk home through the snow, feet only protected by soaked through socks, when you got locked out of your own house because your father should’ve been home, but, to nobody’s surprise, hadn’t been able to keep that promise. When you were freezing, it would feel like the cold invaded your veins, like your blood turned to ice and froze you from the inside, its jabbing presence not letting go of you, as much as you tried.

And all of these feelings had already existed in Will before being possessed by the Mind Flayer. Now, even the cold bothered him massively, which had influenced their decision of where to move the prior year, since California was one of the warmest states in the USA. But now, back in Hawkins, not even the spring sun could warm up the air enough for Will to be completely free of discomfort. He always wore a little too much, never walking around in just a shirt, always layering his clothes while others already walked around without sleeves or with shorts. And if he was freezing, well, that, again, was a whole other story. Because now, with that feeling that reminded him just a little too much of the worst part of his short life, there was that additional fear that made his life more difficult. If he was awake, it would present itself in the form of full blown panic attacks. If he was sleeping, it made itself known with nightmares so much worse than his usual ones.

So, of course, they had had to forget to close one of the basement windows during the coldest night of spring, because apparently Will wasn’t allowed to have a single simply perfect day in his whole existence. The world did hate him, after all, so why shouldn’t it ruin one of the best days of his whole life?

The party had finally turned off the lights at one point, having chatted for another two hours after having finished the movie, and having set up their sleeping places like they had always done. The girls had needed to leave and sleep in a separate room, as demanded by Mike’s mother, so they were currently staying in the guest room, sharing the twin size bed in it, but not actually falling asleep until much later into the night, having conversations as entertaining and nonsensical as it was common at that hour.

The boys had laid out their sleeping bags in the basement, in the same spots where they had slept ever since their first ever group sleepover at Mike’s. Lucas was lying directly next to the stairs, because he had to go to the bathroom multiple times during the night and Dustin as far away from them as possible, seeing as he was a very light sleeper and would wake up every time his friend had to leave the basement otherwise. Mike and Will had always positioned their sleeping bags right next to each other, right beside the couch where they had sat on and cuddled just a few hours prior. Even now, there was less than a foot of a distance between the two of them, both being able to feel the breath of the other on their faces. Their eyes had been shut close the whole time, not wanting to stare at the other, which they both independently knew would happen as soon as they saw the sleepy silhouette of their best friend.

In the beginning, their goal of falling asleep had frequently been interrupted by a small giggle from one of the other two boys, by having remembered something funny that had been said that day, by throwing a pillow at the other or simply by having looked at one another in a weird way. But at a certain point, everybody had fallen asleep for real and total silence reigned in the room they were staying in.
And that was exactly when the nightmares had started.

At first, they had been your normal run-of-the-mill nightmares, just like Will had had them almost every single night since the day he had been taken into the Upside Down. Some scary pictures of the other dimension, a monster attacking him from behind, an entity made out of smoke high above him in the sky. You know, the typical stuff. But as soon as Will’s body had registered the gusts of the ice cold wind entering through the window, the nightmares changed. They became more brutal, not changing to a different scene whenever he was close to dying again, but making him live through his “death” multiple times, one after the other. Again, and again, and again. There was no end in sight, nothing he could do, because, no matter how fast he ran, no matter how well he hid, no matter how hard he fought back, the result was always the same. A body encased by vines, just like Barb. A torn out throat, just like Bob. A pierced through chest, just like Billy. Every death that had inadvertently been his fault, he had to go through, not once, not twice, but countless times, a seemingly never ending nightmare.

Unbeknownst to him, since he was sleeping and all, he had started shaking and crying, just quiet enough not to alert Dustin. But Mike, who had been right next to him when he had fallen asleep and who had moved even closer since that moment, had been woken up by it almost instantly. Initially, he had been as confused as anybody was for a few seconds after being woken up, but as soon as he had seen Will panicking, his sleepiness had worn off just as fast it had arrived a few hours earlier. He scooted even closer to him, now close enough to touch him without needing to extend his limbs in any way, trying to wake him up as softly as possible, quietly whispering his name directly into his ear. He didn’t want to embarrass him by waking up the others too, since he knew how much his best friend hated being a nuisance, even though Mike would never describe having nightmares after living through that many traumatic events as “being a nuisance”. But Will had always been trying not to take up too much space, not to draw any unwanted attention to himself, to stay out of the focus of the masses. Easier said than done, since apparently everything bad in the world could only see Will, targeting him with everything it had.

When he didn’t seem to wake up, his cries turning into full sobs, Mike resorted to doing the next best thing that came to his mind, gripping Will’s shoulders and shaking him lightly. He didn’t want to hurt him or scare him even worse, but he had to wake up. Mike couldn’t take this, seeing the person closest to him, HIS person, as terrified as this, not even knowing or closely being able to imagine what exactly was going on in his mind . Now, he was seriously starting to freak out too. How was it possible that nothing could wake this boy up? His right hand slowly let go of the other boy’s shoulder, moving over to his forehead, trying to check his temperature in case he was having a fever and one of the nightmares that so often came with being sick.

But, to his surprise, his skin wasn’t hot, or even warm, but freezing. The only time Mike had felt this kind of cold had been when… No, it couldn’t be. They had defeated the Upside Down. It didn’t exist anymore. There was no way in hell that the Mind Flayer could’ve come back for Will again. His initial panic became worse and worse, with Will still not waking up and his tired mind spiraling further and further, until he looked around for something that could heat up Will and saw the open basement window. “Oh fuck”, he whispered under his breath, jumping up and practically sprinting over to close the window that let in air so cold it even made him shiver. He had completely forgotten about Will’s strong dislike for the cold. In the past, he had always been able to see when he had been shivering, always having an extra blanket or a hot beverage ready, but in the rush of the things that had happened earlier that day, he had neglected preparing anything in case something like this happened, and he cursed himself for that now. How could he have forgotten something as important as this? Why couldn’t he do anything right? Was he really that big of a failure as a friend?

The moment the window had been closed and the air started to warm up again, the body warmth of the three other boys contributing to it more than anything else, Will had stopped shaking as much, but his body was still much colder than it should be. This time, when Mike grabbed his shoulders and shook him, now a little less gently than before, Will finally woke up from his nightmare with one last cry. The first thing he saw was the preoccupied face of his best friend, staring at him with an amount of worry and concern that he hadn’t thought possible. His breathing was still going fast, air rushing in and out in an irregular pattern, and his eyes were disoriented, not realizing where he was at first.

But when he was able to focus on Mike, the world stopped turning and he was able to calm himself down enough to push out a single sentence between strained breaths: “Did I… Did I wake anybody else up?” Mike only let out an incredulous scoff, a little smile decorating his so worried expression, before asking: “You just had what looked like the worst nightmare known to mankind and you’re asking if you woke anybody up? Seriously?” Realizing the ridiculousness of the whole situation, a tiny giggle escaped the other boy, but it sounded incredibly forced, his mind still replaying the scenes he had seen in front of his eyes. After having made sure that his best friend had calmed down enough, Mike whispered in a voice as soft as possible, only ever reserved for Will: “Are you okay?” Even though he already knew that no, he was definitely not okay at all, asking that question had almost felt obligatory. It had taken all of Will’s remaining energy to voice that one question, so he could only shake his head, the rest of his body still shivering from the freezing cold he felt. When Mike noticed the goosebumps of his arms, he made a decision that he was sure he’d regret the moment his other two friends would wake up.

He didn’t know where all that confidence had come from, maybe it simply stemmed from the fact that after all, he was still half asleep, but he quickly moved his sleeping bag right next to Will’s, them now touching, being as close to his friend as possible. “Come on”, he said, waving his hand like some kind of an invitation, “We’ll just sleep next to each other, we’ll get you warm again.” At first, Will didn’t move at all. The idea of possibly cuddling with Mike twice on one day seemed so beautifully impossible that he thought that he was still asleep, his nightmare having turned into a wishful dream, but when he felt Mike’s arm wrapping around his shoulders, pushing their body’s close together, his head now resting on the other boy’s chest, just like it had done a few hours prior, he knew that this was real. This was real, and happening to him, Will Byers. And when that realization hit, his face and his whole body heated up almost instantly. Needless to say, Mike’s tactic had obviously worked, even though he probably hadn’t intended it that exact way. As excited as this sleeping position had made him, he was now more tired than before going to sleep, another courtesy from the nightmares, and fell asleep after only a few minutes, Mike’s hand slowly entangling itself by brushing through his hair.

With the first rays of light entering through the very same window that had given him all those nightmares just a few hours prior, Will woke up from the sun shining directly into his face. At first, he had tried to bury it deeper into the pillow his head was lying on, so as not to get blinded by the light. He was still exhausted, so he could use some more sleep, or at least some more rest before getting up. But then, when he opened his eyes slightly, looking at a piece of fabric that was very much not his pillow, the feelings of fatigue were turned into those of confusion. His eyes were now completely open, but his tired mind still had problems with comprehending what exactly he was seeing right now. Because, realistically thinking, what he was seeing made no sense at all. From his position, it seemed like his head was resting on Mike’s chest, their legs sprawled over each other, one of his friend’s arms slung around his waist, keeping him close with no intention of ever letting him go. After a good minute of thinking that he was still dreaming, he remembered the previous night in more detail. This position he had woken up in gave him all the proof he needed that he didn’t just imagine it. Last night really happened.

As much as he would’ve loved to stay like this, as close to Mike as he’d probably never be again, he had to move away from him. Should Dustin wake up, which he would as soon as the sun would hit his face too, he couldn’t see him like this. Nobody could see him, or rather, them like this. So, he slowly removed himself from Mike’s embrace and moved his sleeping bag away from him, just enough to make it seem like they had slept through the night without being in an excessive hug the whole time.

Just like he had predicted, Dustin woke up next, only a few minutes after him. The girls joined them next, closing the basement door with such a force that it probably woke the whole house up. Max and Eleven only giggled a bit, while the boys that hadn’t only been woken up now by the girl’s inability to keep quiet hauled Max’s wheelchair down the stairs again.

When he had woken up, Mike had been disappointed to see that Will had already moved away from him, wishing they could’ve cuddled for just a bit longer, but that disappointment had subsided as soon as he saw Will staring at him, the other boy quickly looking away with a red face when he had caught him. Even now, Mike was fully convinced that his feelings for Will were one-sided, but he couldn’t exactly explain his best friend’s behavior either. He was easily flustered around him, only one deep look into each others’ eyes making his cheeks as red as Mike’s, and seemed to melt into any hug they shared.

But that he could feel the same way he did, well, that seemed completely out of question.

Chapter Text

Will wasn‘t really sure when he had decided to tell his friends about him being gay.

Maybe it had been the rest of courage from Jonathan‘s speech to him, the one during the fight against Vecna, maybe it had been the feeling of comfort created by him cuddling with Mike, not once, but twice, on one day, maybe it had been the fact that he was incredibly sleep deprived. Maybe it was just a combination of all three, but with them sitting all together in the basement yet again, after having eaten some breakfast and having gotten dressed the morning after their sleepover, he was weirdly confident. “Confident“ was probably the wrong word, though, he was more… convinced, that this was the ideal time to finally let it all out, to finally stop keeping that secret, to finally tell them, all in one go.

He had imagined that scene multiple times, it having appeared in wishful daydreams just as often as in his nightmares. There were multiple possible outcomes to this, he had gone through every single one, and, as improvised as his coming out was in the end, had taken all the necessary precautions, should one of the worse ones come true. He had waited for the end of their time together, so that he wouldn‘t have to explain to his mom why he had returned early from the sleepover, for one. Then, he had also already packed his bag with all his belongings, so he could escape the Wheelers’ house as fast as possible. In the end, he had also taken a long and nostalgic look at the whole basement, knowing that it could be the last time he‘d ever see it. The couch where they had watched so many movies together, the table where they had played DnD countless times, all of his paintings on the walls, having drawn most of them at this very place. It was a crucial part of his childhood just as much as it was for Mike, despite it not even being in his own house.

But after all, there had been only that much he could do to prepare himself for the backlash his confession could receive. He had no idea what would happen, how they‘d react, what they‘d say. Would they scream at him? Stare at him with that look of disgust he knew so well? Or would they simply stay silent, letting him imagine everything that had to go on inside them? As much as he had thought about it, and that had been a lot, he could never figure out what would be worse.

“Hey, you guys?”, he began, his breath already hitching. His thoughts were racing almost as fast as his heart, and he hadn’t even really said anything yet. Coming out to Jonathan had been hard, sure, for one because it had been the first time he had told anybody, but deep inside he had guessed that his brother already knew and didn’t mind. From the way their relationship had always been so, so close, from the way Jonathan always looked out for him, from the way they had talked while the rest of the extended party had been battling Vecna, he had gotten the idea that Jonathan would never stop loving him, no matter what. So, there had been some kind of safety net under the whole conversation, some kind of reassurance that everything would be okay. But he didn’t have anything like that with his friends. Of course, they had never said anything negative against gay people, they had never joined in with the bullies when they called him those names and they had even defended him when it had gotten too much. That was great and all, but back then, they hadn’t known that he really was the thing that Troy and his friends shouted after him. Would that knowledge have changed anything regarding their behavior?

If he was being honest with himself, he was mostly worried about what Mike would do, what he‘d say, what he‘d think. He did come from a wealthy, conservative and religious household, after all. Even if he didn’t agree with his parents on anything, from his bedtime as a child to the time he had to be home in the evening as a teenager, maybe he did pick up something from them, some ways of thinking, some ideals, some opinions. Maybe he just hid them very well, not wanting to seem like an ass in front of the party. Maybe the only reason why he hadn’t already abandoned him had been because he really had no idea about his love for him. Will knew that, should he really think of him like so many others did, it would be a good riddance. But he simply couldn’t lose him. He had been his first friend in the beginning, his best friend in the middle and the boy he loved in the end, should today signify the end of their friendship.

And then, Mike of all people turned around first, looking at him with those adorable, dark eyes, and Will was thankful that he could concentrate on something else than his trembling hands now, and asked: “Yeah, what’s up?” “Can you, uhm, can you all come over here for a second?”, he mumbled, voice already trembling a little bit too much for his taste. Before, they had all been standing, or in Max’s case, sitting around in the basement in little groups, Max and Eleven chatting about something none of the boys knew any context of, Lucas, Dustin and Mike cleaning up the bowls and glasses that they had eaten and drunk from the previous night, Will sitting on the couch in front of the TV, lost deep in his thoughts. Now, the whole party was gathered around in a small circle on the floor, everybody looking at Will expectantly, and Mike, who was sitting right next to him, with a little worry in his eyes, too. He was the first one to interrupt the silence that had settled onto the group, since they were just waiting for Will, who had no idea how he could possibly start with what he was about to say.

“Are you okay?”, his best friend asked, the worry now not only showing itself in his eyes, but in his voice, too. Will tried to look at Mike’s face, but he knew that he’d just start crying if he did that right now. He seemed to care for him so much, getting preoccupied over the slightest shift in his tone, but would that change after this confession? Would Mike change his behavior around him again? Would they ever be as close again, both physically and emotionally? Now it was too late to ask those questions. It was really now or never.

“Yeah, I’m okay, I guess. The thing is… I’ve been wanting to tell you, all of you, something, for a rather long time now”, Will said, releasing a shaky breath after only having said one sentence. This would be even more difficult than imagined. His hands were shaking uncontrollably already and he had to hide them in his pockets so they didn‘t distract him from what he was about to do. Yet, he continued, voice wavering: “And I’d just like to say it now, without any of you interrupting or anything, alright?” The others only nodded, confused about what he could tell them that would make him be as serious, and, looking at his expression, as terrified as this. “Of course, you can tell us anything”, El quickly added after nodding, so as to give him another push. Although she didn’t know what he was about to tell them, his nervousness was clearly visible on his face, and she knew that reassuring him like that would calm him down.

“Okay, alright”, he took another deep breath, letting out a small, shaky laugh after it, “So, when I was cursed by Vecna, he had much trauma and bad memories and dark secrets to choose from to torment me. Of course, he showed me a bit of everything, just to make sure I was in as much mental anguish as possible.” He let out a small chuckle, but there was no happiness to be found in it, neither was in his face. The conversation had moved in a different direction than the other teenagers had expected, but they made sure to stay silent and listen to their friend. Will wasn’t looking in any of their faces, his gaze fixed on the floorboards beneath him. “But there was this one thing that he showed me, the worst thing he showed me. I was back in middle school, on the courtyard. I was… surrounded by all of my old bullies, and my father was also there, of course, because why the hell not, and they just stood there, calling me… calling me the names they always used to call me”, he looked around now, tears already clouding his view a bit, so as to see the others reaction. To make clear what he had meant to Max and Eleven, who hadn’t really been present in that period of his life and looked confused because of it, he added: “They called me a fag, a queer, you know, the usual stuff.” The way he shrugged his shoulders after saying that terrified Max. Him acting so casual about it could only mean that it really had been a reoccurring thing.

“Other than them, you were also there, all of you. You stood next to me, and I thought that maybe you’d say something, anything to defend me. But you just started laughing, and after that… You… You joined in with them.” “Okay, that’s total bull! You know we’d never do anything like that, right?!”, Lucas called out angrily, almost jumping up from the ground, but he wasn’t angry at Will. He was angry at Vecna, because to add to everything he had done, now he even showed one of his best friends a scene that disgusting, a scene that he would never be able to forget, a scene that would make him see his friends in a different light, as fake as the vision had been. Because to him, and Lucas was sure of that, it must’ve seemed terrifyingly real. He immediately calmed down again after being aggressively shushed by Max, reminding him that Will hadn’t wanted to be interrupted. He silently thanked her, the words now coming out so much harder than before, his eyes being filled to the brim with tears: “But that’s not even the worst part.” “How the hell could that not have been the worst part?”, was a question that was written on everybody’s face, all of them looking at each other with worry too, now. Ignoring his friends’ reactions, Will continued, tears flowing freely: “The worst part is, that every time I get called these names, every time people have made, or still make a comment like that, every time they look at me like they know exactly what I am… I have to admit to myself, that… that…” He was almost full out sobbing at this point, but he wanted to finally get it over with. He was just so, so tired of hiding.

“I have to admit to myself that they’re right.”

For a moment, there was only silence. Nobody dared to move, to say a single word, to do anything but think about what Will had just told them. Then, he said one last sentence, the sentence that would maybe be the last thing he‘d ever say to them, his best friends, his party: “And I… I understand if you don‘t want anything to do with me anymore, really, but I…“ Even he himself didn‘t know how he would‘ve ended that sentence, not possibly being ready to say goodbye to his only friends, but thankfully, he was interrupted mid speaking, by Mike hugging him with everything he had in him. And that‘s what made him break down completely.

His hands were gripping at Mike’s shirt, his head resting on the other boy’s shoulder, his sobs being stifled by the fabric he cried into. He could feel Mike‘s right hand rubbing along his back in a way that was meant to be comforting, his other hand holding his head, burying itself into his hair, reminding him of their sleeping position of the prior night. The other boy was also whispering something, repeatedly saying things like “It‘s okay“ and “Everything is going to be perfectly fine“ just loud enough for him to hear, in the same soft voice he always used with him, and only him. Will had no idea what the rest of his friends were doing right now, if they were right there with Mike, if they had left, not wanting to be in the same room as him, or if they were simply still just sitting there, staring at them, staring at him. And, if he was being honest, Mike‘s presence was more than enough to keep him somewhat balanced right now. Had all the others joined in on the hug, he would‘ve probably gotten overwhelmed, since even now his breathing was already going faster than he thought humanly possible. He didn‘t know what this meant, although his best friend hugging him certainly didn‘t mean he was disgusted by him, but he had to hear it. He had to hear it from all of them.

Or else, his mind simply wouldn‘t be able to believe it.

After what had to have been only a few minutes, being in Mike‘s arms having made it feel like hours, Will softly removed himself from the hug that had become a full embrace now, looking his friends in the eyes for the first time ever since he had started talking about the visions Vecna had shown him. And, to his utter relief, nobody seemed mad, or disgusted, or even mildly weirded out. They all looked at him with nothing but love in their eyes, coming closer and taking turns at hugging him. Now that he had calmed down enough, he was able to stand all that human contact, mostly since it reassured him that everybody, every single one of his best friends, none excluded, was fully and completely okay with him being queer. With him being gay. With him, a boy, liking other boys.

When they had all settled back into their circle on the basement floor, Lucas was the first one to say something again after clearing his throat, obviously having thought about what to say exactly while he had been comforted by Mike: “I really don‘t know what to say, man, I‘ve never been in a situation like this. I have no idea what you’ve been through, but I’ve never seen you this worked up about something before, and I know that it’s a big deal, to say the least. But I would never stop being your friend because of something like this. We‘ll always stay by your side, right guys?“ If he hadn‘t already cried all the tears he had had in him, Will would‘ve started sobbing again right after hearing that. A smile as big as he was able to handle right now appeared on his face, making his expression one of pure relief. The encouraging nods from the others could only mean that they felt the same way, that they still loved him, that they still wanted to be friends with him. That they accepted him.

“Thank you“, he could only whisper, his whole throat still hurting from his breakdown only a few minutes ago, to which Dustin replied only with a shrug, a small smile on his face: “Nothing to thank us for, it‘s basic human decency.“ That made Will genuinely laugh for the first time that day, knowing just how much of a lie that was. Thinking that a queer person was just as good as any “normal“ person was so much more than that. Still seeing him the same way they saw him before he told them was more than that. Even allowing him to stay in the party was already much, much more than that.

Mike, still right next to him, not having moved away from his side even by an inch, grabbed his hand now, making a startled Will look him straight into the eyes. To his surprise, he also had tears in his eyes, along with an expression that seemed like relief, or maybe hope, nothing that would in any way fit into the situation at hand, but it didn‘t look negative at all, not even in the slightest. He was breathing shakily, almost looking as tense as Will had been in the morning, before finally getting it all out, his hand pressing Will‘s like it wasn‘t only meant to comfort the boy that had just laid out his biggest secret, but also Mike himself. The expression on his face made it easy to see that he was searching for words, imagining sentences in his head, just to scrap them again a moment later, not knowing what to say. But then, he said in what wasn‘t much more than a whisper: “This was probably so terrifying for you, and I‘m sorry if I ever made it seem like you couldn‘t tell me everything going on in your life. I’m so, so proud of you. I need you to understand that I‘ll never leave you, okay? Do you understand?“

The last part sounded almost pleading, like Mike‘s heart would shatter if he didn‘t tell him that he understood, and his face said pretty much the same. Still not having found his voice again, Will simply did what Mike had done earlier: He enveloped his friend in a hug, the closeness to him calming him down in an instant. And when Will let out a sigh that carried all his worries, all his pain, all his terrifying thoughts with it, he knew that what Mike had said was true.

Everything was going to be perfectly fine.

Chapter Text

It had taken Mike an embarrassingly long time to figure out how stupid he had been.

The full realization had hit him on the sunday after the fated sleepover, only one day after Will had told the whole party about him being gay. Mike had been sitting in the basement again, on the couch, to be precise, and had been thinking about everything that had happened the last few days. And if he said everything, he meant everything, because while at first glance it didn’t seem like all that much, it had been truly life-changing for him. To help his overworked mind process everything, he had separated the sleepover into three parts: the evening, the night and the morning.

In the evening, they had watched “Halloween”, and Mike still hadn’t discovered where all that courage had come from that had made him cuddle with Will for the whole course of the movie, but he didn’t regret it one bit. Without exaggerating, it had been one of the best moments of his life, and he couldn’t put in words how much he’d give to be able to experience something like that again.

During the night, Will had had that nightmare, and, he was only now realizing this, he had never actually told him about what had happened. It most likely had had to do with the Upside Down, seeing as the cold had made it even worse, but he couldn’t stop thinking about whether this was a more common incident than Will had wanted to admit. Of course, they all still had nightmares, him included, and how couldn’t they?, but Mike had the fleeting feeling that it happened more often to Will than he’d like. Thankfully, he had woken up in time to stop the nightmares, and after that… Well, remember how he said that he’d give anything to cuddle with Will again? Let’s just say that only thinking of what had happened after that made his face heat up as much as it had that very night.

And then, of course, there was the morning, when Will had confessed his biggest secret to them, with more fear in his voice than Mike had ever thought he’d hear from his best friend again. When he had said that last sentence, that sentence that changed everything, that sentence that he had thought would make the party abandon him, Mike’s heart had just been about to explode. Not only because of this unchallenged display of bravery from Will, the amount of pride he felt, or the way the other boy had clung onto him after everything, but because of the implications this reveal had had. Now, there was an actual, real and almost touchable chance that Will could like him, no, love him back, that he could feel the same way he did. And oh, how much that thought had terrified him.

While pondering over all of those moments, he had been looking through his binder of Will’s drawings, softly tracing over the lines with his fingers, dedicating the small part of his mind that wasn’t occupied in freaking out completely to the drawings in front of him. Then, just as he had been thinking about what this could mean for the future, for his future, for their future, he had arrived at the latest addition to the binder: The painting of their party, fighting against a three headed dragon, with him leading the group into battle. He had had to smile at all the details, cheeks turning red once again, especially at the heart on the shield his character was carrying. Every time he admired it, he had to think of what Will had said to him, back in the pizza van, about how he was the heart of the party, keeping them all together. About how he made Eleven feel like she was less of a mistake for being different. About how she’d felt about him…

Wait. That didn’t make any sense.

The dawn of understanding rising in his head, he had almost sprinted up to his room, painting in one hand, using the other to keep his balance after almost stumbling up the basement stairs. He had heard his mother faintly screaming about how there was “No running in this house!”, but he really couldn’t have cared less about that at that moment. Having arrived in his bedroom, he had janked open one of his drawers, in which he had kept the letters El had sent him from California. Even though they weren’t dating anymore, they were still good friends and the letters, while certainly not reminding him of a particularly happy point in his life, gave him some kind of nostalgia for a time where they had had a break from monsters and the supernatural.

It had been one specific letter he had been searching for, the last one he had received before going to visit her, and Will, during spring break, the one where she had first told him about a certain painting Will had been working on. After frantically having thrown all the other pieces of paper to the ground, driven by an almost desperate need to read this certain letter again, to look at the words one by one, to make sure that he remembered them correctly, he had finally found it and had immediately turned it over to the second page, knowing exactly what passage he had been looking for.

And yes, he had remembered the words correctly. There they were, right in front of him, spelling out the thing that he had completely missed, the thing that should’ve been so obvious, the thing that had bothered him every time when he had been looking at the painting: Eleven had no idea of its existence. Or rather, she had no idea of what had been painted. She had said that Will wouldn’t show it to her, even though he had always, always shown her his painting before, and that he had been acting strange. That she thought the painting was for a girl. That this painting, the very painting that Mike held in his hands right now, was for somebody he liked.

And that somebody might just have been him.

Thinking about it now, the things that Will had told him hadn’t made any sense. Why would El commission a painting of the parties' DnD characters, seeing as Mike had never, not once, talked to her about the game enough to tell her what role each person played in it, and not even include herself in it? Why would she say that he was the heart of the party, fully knowing that he, and only he, was the reason why they had drifted apart last summer? Why would she “always need him”, if less than a year ago she had been working on being more independent, on being her own person, on not letting others define her?

All of those words, all of those feelings, all of those emotions, they had all, just like the painting, come from Will. Only Will. When his brain finally processed that information, his breath hitched for a moment. Mike had obviously interpreted his speech as romantic, seeing as he had thought that the words Will had said were indirectly from Eleven, his then girlfriend, but now, seeing as they very much weren’t, there was no other explanation for it, right? Did Will, beautiful, kind, empathetic Will really feel that way? For him, this sorry excuse of a person that was just starting to try to get his life together?

Now, he only felt even more stupid than he had to begin with. Will had poured out his heart in front of him, showing him a side to him that nobody else would ever see, maybe even confessed his feelings, and he had completely missed it, all of it. A miserable whimper escaped his mouth when he thought back to another part of his friend’s speech, the part where he had said that Mike didn’t make Eleven, no, correction, Will feel like a mistake for being different, that he made him feel better for it. With what he had told the party the day before, that made so much sense, because it was exactly how Mike had felt, and still sometimes did, in regards to his feelings for Will. They made him feel weird, like he didn’t belong, like he was, well, a mistake, but the moment he saw Will, all of these doubts disappeared. He made these feelings look so beautiful, so perfect, so normal. And it gave Mike some peace that apparently, his presence was able to do the same thing for the other boy.

The only problem now was that Mike had no idea what to do with all that information. Should he keep it to himself, wait until Will would eventually mention their talk in the pizza van again? Should he drop some hints at school, indirectly telling him that he finally understood what he had been trying to say? Should he call him, tell him that he figured it all out, that he felt the same? Or would it be weird to only mention it all now, months after it had all happened? Maybe Will didn’t even feel like that anymore, maybe he would think that he was just pulling a prank on him, should he confess his feelings the very next day after him coming out, or maybe he really just interpreted it all wrong and would make a fool out of himself. After all, there was still the possibility that Will had only meant to cheer him up, or that, while he had meant what he had said, his words had no romantic intentions after all. Mike could only groan in frustration, being angry at himself, his stupidity and the state of the world that made it so hard for the two boys to just tell each other how they really felt.

And then, fueled by that hatred, the agitation of this discovery and something that could only be described as pure insanity, he ran back down the stairs, now taking both the painting and the letter with him, and entered the number of the Hopper-Byers landline into the telephone. The nervousness from earlier had been substituted by determination. Mike knew that if he didn’t say something now, he’d never say it at all and everything they both had had to go through would’ve been for nothing. The phone rang for what seemed to be an eternity, before Will finally picked it up. He could barely get out a greeting, immediately being cut off by Mike, agitated nerves making him impatient: “Come over in ten minutes. It’s important.” He facepalmed internally when he hung up the phone, thus ending the call, before his friend could even ask him what was wrong, if something had happened, if he was okay. Now, more than ever, he hoped that he hadn’t just miserably misread the signs that Will had given him over the past few months.

He could’ve asked Will to come over right now, but while waiting for him to pick up the phone, he had had another realization: That he had no idea how to actually confess his feelings to Will, which he planned to do once he was sure they were reciprocated, without either sounding like a total dumbass, a total sap or a total jerk. So, there was one last thing he had to do. He went up the stairs once again, ignoring his mother’s question about what the call was about, not caring about the lectioning he’d get in the evening for repeatedly ignoring her. This time though, his destination wasn’t his own bedroom, but his sister’s.

Having found the person she’d want to spend her whole life with, this person ironically being the brother of the boy he was in love with, she had to know what to say, how to say it, or at the very least what not to say under any circumstance. They didn’t really talk much, not being as close as Will and Jonathan by far, and were practically constantly annoyed at each other for some reason, but he knew that if he needed her, she’d always be there for him, just like he was for her. Even though he never really said it, he loved her, and he hoped that she knew that.

But as much as he loved her, he was still her little brother, so barging into her room without knocking was a must. “Michael, what did I say?”, she groaned with her typically annoyed voice, “You have no business being in my room, alright?” When she turned around to face the little nuisance also known as her brother and saw the preoccupied expression that covered his face, hands holding something, but hidden behind his back, his eyes fixated on some spot behind her, but never looking her directly in the eyes, her face immediately softened. She stood up from her bed, just having finished getting ready for a date with Jonathan, and approached Mike: “Hey, is something the matter?”

After having made the impulsive decision to call Will, the courage he had had had worn off almost instantly, leaving his nerves on fire, his mind running on overdrive and his whole body slightly shaking. He cleared his throat after closing the door to Nancy’s room as silently as possible, taking one last, deep breath before asking: “How did you know you wanted to be with Jonathan?”

Nancy was, to say the least, surprised by that question. She knew her brother, and he would never ask a question as personal as that for shits and giggles, there had to be some hidden motivation behind it. But maybe he’d reveal that if they just kept talking, she thought, so she sat back down, patting the spot on her bed right beside her as an invitation for him to join her. She had to keep this brief, though, since she still had to get to that date on time, so she gave him the short version of events: “Well, that’s not something I understood from one day to the other, it’s more complicated than that. I just feel safe with him, you know? Being with him gives me some sort of feeling of, I don’t know, peace, I guess. But I also feel like I could do anything I set my mind to and that he’d always be there, right with me. It’s hard to explain, but he just feels like… like home.” Without noticing, she had been smiling intensely the whole time, thinking about how much she loved her boyfriend, about how much he meant to her, about how excited she was to see him today, too. And Mike? Well, he had the exact same smile on his face, obviously thinking about one person in particular that made him feel the same way Jonathan made her feel. There was a comfortable silence between the two of them now, both thinking about what she had said and about their special person, her brother’s face tensing and relaxing every few seconds. Just when she wanted to ask why he had wanted to know that, he turned to her, looking her in the eyes for the first time. “And, hypothetically, if I… if I felt that way about a person, how would I tell them?”, he took another breath, “How would I tell that person that I love them?”

Just like she had thought, he hadn’t just come to her for nothing. She was a little confused, at first. Hadn’t he and Eleven broken up? Were they back together? And those matters aside, hadn’t he already told her that he loved her? When she was about to voice that last question, already having opened her mouth to do so, a sudden, fleeting thought grazed her mind. This wasn’t about Eleven at all. She closed her mouth just as fast as she had opened it, her eyes growing wider when the full realization hit. From all of his friends, there was only one person he was close enough with to develop feelings like that, only one person that she had ever seen him completely and truly happy with, that feeling of “home” that she had described clearly visible on his face. And that person wasn’t Eleven.

That person wasn’t even a girl at all.

Again, she wanted to start a sentence, reassuring him that he could tell her everything and that his secret was safe with her, when she heard the doorbell ring from downstairs. The fact that Mike’s face turned even paler at the sound made her sure of who exactly was standing right outside of their door.

"Is that person coincidentally coming here right now?", she said softly, putting her hand on his arm in a comforting way. At a loss for words, he only confirmed her suspicion with a small nod. Nancy had really wanted to give him some more advice, but she had to leave just as much as Mike did. Confessing to somebody was something that he’d have to do on his own, anyways. So, she only smiled at him again before getting up, and, right before leaving, not without adding a small wink, which left Mike as red as a tomato, she said:

"Okay, I'll get out of here, I know you'll do great, alright? And say hi to Will from me."

Chapter Text

Will had rarely been this scared to see Mike.

When they had been children, going over to Mike’s house had always been the highlight of his day. Knowing that they’d sit in his basement, either playing DnD with the rest of the party, watching cartoons or simply hanging out, just the two of them, had created an unparalleled sense of excitement every time he had taken off on his bike to go and see his best friend. He had felt like that basement was part of his home just as much as it had been part of Mike’s, but not because it was that much of an awesome place to stay at. Of course, it was much bigger than any room in his house, with its own TV and a big table, being used to play or to draw. But the one thing that had really made him this thrilled had always been Mike. He loved all of his friends, just like they loved him, but there had always been a special bond between him and his first real friend, ever since the day they had met on the swings on their first day of kindergarten. Something had always been different between the two of them, with feelings that, in the beginning, he couldn’t explain at all. Back then, he hadn’t known that there were different types of love, for family, friends and something so much more than just friends, or even best friends. But, what he had known, had been that spending time with Mike had made him happier than anything else.

Then, there was that time, a few weeks shy of being exactly one year ago, during which hanging out with Mike had hurt so much more than he had ever thought possible. From being ignored and constantly dismissed, his wishes of playing DnD being played off as his usual childish behavior, to having to see the person he loved fall in love with somebody else, that one summer had been one of the worst times of his life, even considering the parts where the supernatural had literally made his life a living hell. Every day, he had dreaded the moment he had to see Mike, arm in arm with Eleven, practically glued together and never leaving each other's side, acting just like Mike and him had had in the past. He had felt like he had been replaced by somebody who his best friend could love openly, publically, even, without having to fear anybody’s reaction. He had been happy for both of them, of course, he hadn’t been such a bad friend, after all, but the feeling of jealousy had never left him, not until the spring break of this year.

Because since then, Mike had completely changed his attitude in his regards yet again. Ever since he had broken up with El, or rather, since she had broken up with him, he had showered him with attention, physical contact and so, so many almost hidden glances from across the room. That feeling of dread he had felt up until their win against the Upside Down had disappeared completely, being replaced by the ever growing love he felt for the other boy. The ease with which they had been able to interact in the past had returned just as strong, only being weakened by the occasional awkward atmosphere between them when one of them had looked at the other, touched the other, even thought about the other for a bit too long.

And now? Now, after having been on the phone with Mike for what had to have been less than five seconds, he was worried half to death. Those seven words he had said, no context, no explanation, no hint about what had happened, had been stuck in Will’s head ever since he had heard the other boy say them. “Come over in ten minutes”, he had said, voice sounding as rushed and nervous as serious, “It’s important.”. Of course, his brain had come up with countless possible scenarios that could’ve created such a reaction, varying from him wanting to show him a new movie he had bought, wanting to give him a scare by announcing it in such a mysterious way, to somebody in Mike’s family having died. One absolutely terrifying possibility had snuck itself into his mind as well, maybe the worst of all: Mike had thought about what Will had told the party the previous day again, now having had more time to process it, and had somehow changed his opinion on the matter. Maybe now, after thinking about it for a few hours, the thought of his closest friend being gay wasn’t as appealing anymore and he wanted to end their friendship once and for all. As unrealistic as it really was, Mike’s initial reaction to him coming out having been to hug him in a way that had no other possible interpretations than total acceptance, the thought just didn’t want to go away. The whole time when Will had been riding his bike over to the Wheeler’s house, it had haunted his mind, showing him different versions of Mike calling him disgusting, a freak, a disgrace by the minute. Shaking his head, as if that could shake that little voice telling him to turn around, not to go inside, to run away, out of his head too, he walked up the stairs to the entrance door of the house he, for the first time in months, dreaded to enter again.

As soon as Nancy had opened the door, for some reason giving him a knowing and kind of encouraging smile before exiting her house, Will stormed inside, immediately looking for Mike as his first reaction. And there he was: Standing on top of the stairs, steadying himself with one hand on the railing, holding two pieces of paper in his other hand. One, he had never seen before, but it looked like a letter, and the other he recognized in a fraction of a second. His painting of the party, his painting that he had given Mike while they had been searching for his sister, his painting that he had made while thinking of nobody other than Mike the whole time. What was the meaning of this?

Even after looking his friend in the face he didn’t know much more, since he could practically see every human emotion at once or none at all on it, making his confusion only grow larger. He had thought that when he arrived here, he’d at least know if Mike was excited, sad or maybe even mad at him, but his expression was as unreadable as ever. And when he silently told him to follow him down into the basement, not having said a single word since he had arrived, he was sure that what would follow would only break his heart. Having seen the painting in his hand, he was sure that Mike had found out about his stupid crush on him, about what the painting really meant, about how he loved him so much more than a friend, and was either about to brutally reject him or simply tell him not to ever talk to him again. It couldn’t mean anything else, could it?

Mere moments later, they were sitting on the same couch where they had always sat when they had had to talk about something in a more serious way. It reminded Will of their talk on Halloween, after one of his visions from the Mind Flayer, where they had decided that, should they go crazy, they would go crazy together. That memory almost made him smile, had his mind not been as occupied with worrying as it was. Because differently than back then, neither of them was doing any talking in this instance. They were simply seated in the basement, not looking each other in the face, even though Will had tried to make eye contact multiple times by now, both of them shaking, one in anticipation, the other in fear.

Just as Will had been about to ask why Mike had asked him to come here, said boy interrupted the silence by stating a fact that he had been so, so scared of him ever confronting him about: “I know that you lied to me. About the painting, I mean.” His voice was hoarse, like his throat was blocked by something, but Will had understood everything perfectly. He could feel his hands sweating profusely, focusing on them so he didn’t follow the urge of looking straight into Mike’s face and confessing everything. After all, he had no idea how much his friend had really found out, how much he had realized, how many of his not so hidden feelings he had uncovered. So, he simply answered with a small chuckle: “Took you long enough to figure that out.” This made the other boy chuckle too, before turning more serious again, and from the corner of his eye Will could see him nervously fidgeting with his fingers. As if he had read his thoughts about wanting to wait for him to reveal everything he knew, he kept going: “I know El didn’t commission it. She never said anything about me being the heart of the party, and she definitely didn’t feel the way you told me she did back when you gave this to me.” Saying this, he put the letter aside and opened the painting, looking at it with the same motivations with which Will was looking at his hands. “So, what you said about… about feeling like a mistake for being different, about me helping with that, about always needing me… That wasn’t you talking about El’s feelings for me, right?”, he whispered, and when Will had no answer to that, he continued, “That was you talking about your own feelings.”

Will was close to tears now. This wasn’t at all how he thought this would go, not at all how he thought he’d confess to Mike. Because at this point, there was no way he’d be able to explain himself without revealing his true feelings. He didn’t want to lie to him anymore, he had never done it before this instance and had felt terrible the whole time, knowing he was actively deceiving one of the most important people in his life. “So, what I want to know, basically, is…”, Mike resumed again, turning his face to the left, where the other boy was sitting, scooching a bit closer, “Why did you lie?”

Just like him, Will turned his face in his direction, finally looking him in the eyes, looking for any trace of anger, disgust or another negative feeling. But there was nothing of that to be seen, except for the same look of hope and slight relief that he had already seen the day before. Nothing that could hint at Mike being mad at him, nothing that could hint at him being disappointed, nothing that could hint at him having fully understood what his lie implied, because if he had fully understood, he definitely wouldn’t be looking at him like that anymore. But even if he hadn’t realized it by now, it was already too late to further deflect from the truth. Will had started to bounce his right leg up and down, not being able to sit calm, so, before saying the thing he thought he’d never say, he stood up from the couch and began hovering around the basement. He simply couldn’t stand sitting so close to Mike, his glance fixated on him. That hadn’t changed, even if he was now closer to the stairs than to the other boy, who was still waiting for an answer.

He took a deep, shaky breath, preparing himself for the worst, and explained: “Well, you were obviously worried about El and your relationship, so I didn’t want to make things any more complicated. I wanted you both to be happy, so I said what I thought you needed to hear to get over yourself, and that just happened to fit perfectly with my… my feelings for you.” Before Mike could say anything, already having jumped up to his feet too, now, he continued, eyes still fixed on anywhere but HIM, tears overflowing: “And the thing about you being the heart of the party, I made that up in the moment, because… because the real reason why I drew that heart on your shield was something, well, different.” From the corner of his eye he saw Mike inching closer to him, so slow that it was barely visible. His face was stuck in an unreadable expression, mouth slightly open in a way that always made the butterflies in his stomach get stronger. “When I drew that heart, back in California, I was thinking…”, he slowly turned around to face Mike, only now realizing that they were both wearing the same shirts they had worn the day he had given him the painting, “I was stupid enough to think that one day, you could love me the way I love you.”

When the other boy quickly went over to him, Will could only hear him whisper “That is all I had to hear”, before Mike grabbed his face and kissed him.

It took him a few seconds of pure shock, not being able to move at all, but then he leaned into the kiss, pressing his lips against Mike’s like he had wanted to do for so many years now. His hands moved from the boy’s shoulders up to the back of his neck, entangling themselves in his soft, curly hair. While one of the hands on him stayed on his face, cupping it more gently now, the other one fell down to his waist, pulling him even closer into the kiss. It was his first kiss, and it couldn’t feel any more perfect than this. Slowly moving his lips, as if he were testing the waters, he leaned closer and closer, the two boys fitting perfectly into each other, as if destiny had always meant for them to be together. And maybe destiny had decided that now, it was finally their turn to be happy. Will’s face heated up more and more with every second the kiss went on, and when Mike pulled away, leaving them in a soft forehead-touch, his face was as red as the dragon on the painting that made all of this even possible in the first place.

At a loss for words, only a small gasp escaped his mouth, the presence of Mike’s lips having a lasting effect on it. After a few seconds of standing so, so close, both breathing fast and clinging onto each other, Will found his voice again, faintly asking: “I… since when?” Those words, while as nonsensical and confusing as any thought his mind could produce right now, were enough for Mike to understand what he meant, so he softly moved away just enough to be able to look him in the eyes, a thrilled grin on his face, and explained everything: “I think I already liked you ages ago, but I didn’t really understand that I did. Or maybe I just subconsciously suppressed those thoughts… those thoughts about wanting to be with you, to… to be yours.” Mike had never been this nervous in his life before, his stuttering only underlining it even more. But his one hand was still on Will’s cheek, and he could feel the other boy leaning into it, which, for some reason, calmed him down immensely. “So, I guess that’s why I was acting like that last summer, and during spring break, too. The things I said to you at the roller rink, and during that one fight last year, and oh god, I’m still so, so, sorry about that, I guess I was just projecting my own feelings onto you”, he was full on rambling now, hands starting to shake again thinking about the words he had spat into his best friend’s face on that one evening where everything had gone to shit, "Like I said, I didn’t understand my feelings and why I was always feeling so… so different around you than around Dustin or Lucas or even El. And I'm sorry that because of that, I've been such an ass to you, specifically." He was truly ashamed of his behavior during the past year, and even though he had already apologized for it, he felt like he owed it to Will to apologize again.

"There's nothing to be sorry for, Mike. Yeah, you’ve acted like an ass in the past, but, honestly?", Will laughed out, taking both of Mike’s hands in his own now, no hesitation, no doubt, no fear about what this touch could do to them, "That's understandable. Those feelings, they're... they're confusing, and scary. In the past, you probably blamed them on me, and now you’re blaming them on yourself. But sometimes, there's nobody to blame, because sometimes, nobody is at fault. Sometimes, things just happen.” After letting out another small laugh, his face as relaxed as ever with a smile that couldn’t be bigger, he finished his little speech to calm Mike down again: “And I'm incredibly happy that this, us, happened."

Will was still incredibly overwhelmed from, well, everything that had happened in the last five minutes. His whole body felt like it was on fire, and especially his hands, which were still lying on Mikes’, felt like they would burn anything that came in contact with them. He slowly led Mike back to the couch, sitting down even closer to each other than before, trying to calm his mind and body down a notch. His friend, if that was even all he could call him now, was grinning from ear to ear, looking deep into his eyes without any fear of being caught for the first time. And oh, how much love his eyes held inside them. “To fully answer your question, though”, he began again, rubbing his thumb along the back of Will’s hand, “I finally understood my feelings when you got cursed by Vecna.” And if that wasn’t the most Mike Wheeler thing ever, he had no idea what was. As if he could read his thoughts, or maybe it was just because his smile had gotten even bigger, Mike laughed softly: "I guess I really have a knack for realizing my true feelings for the people I love most while they're on the verge of death."

"Wait... I'm one of the people you love most?", was the only sentence Will’s overworked mind could produce at that moment. He had never thought that somebody could ever love him that way, that somebody would ever consider him important enough to even realize those feelings, that he’d ever hear anybody, least of all Mike, say something like that. He must’ve sounded as surprised about that statement as he truly was, since the other boy could only laugh again, and respond jokingly: "I thought that me kissing you passionately already proved that." "Hmmm, I don't know, maybe you'll have to do it again, just so I’m really sure", Will said in a tone that could only be interpreted as flirty.

At that moment, Mike decided that he loved a flirty Will, simply whispering "Gladly" before kissing him again.

It was already late in the evening, and neither of the boys wished to be interrupted by one of Mike’s parents calling him up for dinner. So, with a heavy heart but a mood as elevated as never before, they had to leave on another. They knew that they’d see each other again the next day at school, but there, they could only do so much. They wouldn’t be able to hold hands in the cafeteria like Lucas and Max, they couldn’t gush about each other like Dustin did about Suzie, they couldn’t walk around kissing each others’ cheeks like every other couple at their school. All of those things, they would only be able to do in private. But if that meant that they could be together, with no judgment from anybody, no unimportant opinions from people who didn’t matter, no fear every time they passed somebody in the streets, both of them would gladly hide their relationship from the public eye.

Before leaving the basement, the place where many phases of their life had started and ended, a new one having begun that very day, Mike held Will’s hand one last time that day, and he had to ask one more thing: “What does this mean? For us?” Will only smiled back lovingly, whispering so nobody beside Mike could hear it: “It means that I love you, Mike.” Cheeks red, butterflies swarming up and down in his stomach, and pressing the other’s hand one more time, he whispered back:
“I love you too.”

And saying it had never felt so easy.

Chapter Text

Max always noticed when there was something going on with her friends.

Whether it was something positive or negative, she recognized the shifts in her friends‘ moods as easily as she recognized them in her mother, or as easily as she had had to recognize them in her stepfather and Billy in the past, initially having developed this trait as a simple medium of protection. Most of the time, she had already known in the mornings whether the following day would be a good one or not, only based on what she had seen on her “family‘s” faces. Those small pieces of information she had gathered that way had helped her survive, since she had known to avoid the two men when they had had particularly bad days without even having to talk to them.

Now, she didn‘t have to use these observational skills for her own safety anymore, being able to shift her focus on the people that really mattered, on her friends, on her real family. So, when Lucas was having a bad day, but in another sense than the people she had used to share a house with, she was able to comfort him even if he wasn‘t ready to talk about what was bothering him. When Dustin was annoyed at Steve, because, seriously, he could only ever be that annoyed at that one person in particular, she could see who of them was really at fault for one of their little fights that only ever lasted less than a day. When El hit another obstacle in her journey of figuring herself out, she, having gone through a very similar experience, was able to guide her in the right direction without actively having to tell her what to do, since that would make the whole thing unnecessary in the first place. And when there was some weird energy between Mike and Will, which there, for some reason, always seemed to be in some way or another, she had always been able to figure out what the reason for the tension had been.

Yes, she had always been able to do that, and that’s exactly why she was so irritated that one monday after their sleepover, because ever since that day, she didn‘t have the slightest idea of what the ever flying fuck was going on between those two. During the past two months, being condemned to a life with limited mobility, she had had some additional time to people-watch, which she had always used accordingly. When there wasn‘t a random couple fighting in the hallways, Robin rather clumsily trying to flirt with that one girl from band or some other unresolved relationship issue, whether platonic or romantic, hanging around, she had resorted to watching the boys previously mentioned.

As a total difference to the last year, where they had always fought for some stupid reason, sometimes not talked to each other for days, getting annoyed at everything the other one would do, although most of that energy had come from Mike, now they were constantly together, not leaving the others side unless it was desperately necessary, basically attached to each other the same way they had been when she had first met them. Where there was Mike, there was Will, and the same had proven itself to be true in the other direction. Whether it was walking to class together, even though only one of them even took that particular class, sitting right next to each other in every class they did have together or sharing their lunch when one of them, most of the time that was also Mike, had forgotten their lunch money at home.

And all of that had made perfect sense to Max. After all, they had been best friends since their early childhood, having met each other years before the rest of the party, and had been separated from one another for almost a year. She herself had also been incredibly excited to see El again, so she had assumed that it had been the same for them. The one thing that had always thrown her off a bit had been that their friendship, no, their general dynamic had only gone back to the way it had been all those years ago when Mike and Eleven had, finally, broken up for good. But since she didn‘t see any direct correlation between those two events, even though she had a faint inkling that in some way, they were, in fact, connected, she didn‘t bother to look further into that. Not her business, after all.

But now, it was that monday after the sleepover that would forever remain in her memories for multiple reasons, the party finally watching “Halloween“, her late night talk with Eleven and Will telling them all about him being gay being the most important ones. At first, she had been a bit scared that something would change within the party after Will had told them about his secret, because as much as she loved all of her friends, you could never know for sure, Hawkins wasn’t the most accepting place after all, way less so than California. If she was being totally honest, she hadn‘t been as surprised as she probably should‘ve been at what had been said that morning, but she was still incredibly proud of Will for being able to admit it not only to himself, but also to his closest friends. And based on the other‘s reactions, there had been no reason to worry of anything changing between the six of them.

But even though nothing had been evidently different than usual on said monday, both Mike and Will were acting strange in a way that even Max couldn‘t figure out the reason for. At a first glance, they behaved like always, having normal conversations and interacting like they always did, but something was… off. It wasn‘t necessarily in a bad way, she‘d even go as far as to say that things were even better between the two of them than they had been before the sleepover. It wasn‘t even anything specific that threw her off about their behavior, but she also hadn‘t been the only one to notice it. After Will had hurriedly excused himself by saying that he had forgotten something in his locker that he needed for his next class, despite there still being more than ten minutes of lunch break, and Mike following him “so he didn‘t have to run through the whole school alone“, as if that had ever bothered him before, the rest of the party had gathered in a small circle, paying attention so as not to make anybody overhear the conversation they were about to have.

“Okay, so we all agree”, Max began, looking at her remaining friends, “Something happened between them.” Lucas scoffed at that, giving her an amused look: “‘Between them’? Sounds oddly romantic, and if we know something, which, if we’re being honest, really isn’t that much, it’s that THAT is the last thing that would happen.” She hadn’t even intended for her statement to sound romantic, but, just to be sure, she entertained that idea for a few seconds, before coming to the realization that, while it would make sense out of their behavior, it’s not something she‘ll be looking into too much, simply for the sheer improbability of that ever happening. “To them, with them, between them, whatever, same difference. The point is, they’re acting weird, or, like, weirder than normal”, she continued, shooting the boy next to her an annoyed look, scrunching up her nose. He put his arms up in a defensive way, then concentrated on the matter at hand again. Just by having glanced at each other during lunch, the whole group had understood that everybody had noticed something different about the two boys, whether it had been during lunch itself, where they had been giggling like little girls every time they looked at each other in a certain way, during class or even already the day before.

Dustin was the first one to tell them about his observations, mentioning the first class he had shared with both boys. “During math, we were all just doing normal shit, nobody was listening, everything was like always. But then, Mrs. Terry asked Mike to solve an equation on the blackboard, and…”, he drummed his fingers on the lunch table as if to lead up to a great reveal, “he couldn’t solve it.” The others looked at him with confusion written on their faces. Mike always complained about school, since he faintly disliked every class except for English, still getting almost straight A’s in every subject, somehow, this being the only thing Max envied him for. It didn’t come as a surprise that he didn’t always listen during class. Seeing that none of them had comprehended what he had been trying to convey, the boy explained more carefully and slowly, as if he were talking to a group of six-year-olds: “Don’t you understand? Mike never listens to the teacher, but he always solves every equation that fucker throws at him, alright? He hasn’t failed once this whole year. Not. Once.” And then, leading up to a second big reveal, looking into the round to see if he had everybody’s attention, which he had, he ended his tale: “When he got back to his seat, I looked over to him and Will, and guess what? Those two were fucking passing notes to each other.” If everybody hadn’t already been confused before, now they were for sure. Lucas’s mouth was hanging open, both of Max’s eyebrows raised and Eleven was just looking at the other boy incredulously. Passing notes during class? How old were they, seven? And even if, they never would’ve taken Mike of all people as somebody sneaky enough to pull something like that off.

Initial surprise aside, El was quick to follow with her own story, not talking about the day at school, but about the day before, the day after their group sleepover: “Yesterday, we got a call from somebody, and Will picked it up. He stood there for what, ten seconds?, then put the phone back and practically ran off to grab his bike. He got back about thirty minutes later, just in time for dinner, and when I asked him where he went, he said that he just went on a walk.” To make her point even clearer, she repeated parts of what she had said: “A walk. With his bike.” “I bet ten bucks that it was Mike that called him”, Dustin replied, a little too excited at the chance to rip his friends off, a little habit he had gotten from hanging out with Steve and Robin too much. Unfortunately for him, and his oh so empty pockets, everybody agreed with him, except for El. “But he wouldn’t lie to me”, she whispered, eyebrows furrowed, “Friends don’t lie.”

That motto had really stuck with the whole party, but with her especially. She knew that she could trust all of her friends with her life, hell, they had proven that countless of times, but it still made her uneasy to know that her own brother was keeping something from her. “I don’t necessarily think they’re lying per se”, Max said, as soon as she saw the preoccupied expression on her best friend’s face, lying the hand that had been released from its cast a few days ago on her shoulder to comfort her, “But there’s something they’re not telling us for sure.”

Just when the bell was about to ring, signifying the end of their lunch break, Dustin suddenly had an idea and shared it with the others before they ran off to each of their classes: “Lucas, don’t we have P.E. with those two fools, like, for our last class?” When he nodded quickly, the other boy put his arms around Lucas’s and Eleven’s shoulders, not being able to get to Max who was stuck in her wheelchair, a little too low for him to reach, and whispered one last sentence before heading out to the hallways, grinning from ear to ear: “Then, ladies and gentlemen, I have a plan.”

While the rest of the class was playing basketball, Dustin and Mike were sitting on the bench, bored to death, with a few other kids that were as athletically untalented as them. They were watching their classmates with something that couldn’t quite be called attention, but they still had to be ready to join the game, should one of the players get hurt, so they kept their eyes on the court. Even though, theoretically, Mike was one of the tallest freshmen of the whole school and Dustin had perfect strategies on how to turn the game to the favor of his team, in practice they were still incredibly bad at the sport, or any sport in general. After all, sitting in a basement and playing a fantasy roleplaying game for most of their childhood hadn’t really given them much of an athletic advantage over their peers. When they had still been in middle school, the whole party had always dreaded P.E. for various reasons, but mainly for their total incompetence in anything involving sports of any kind. After Will had moved to California and Lucas had joined the basketball team, only the other two boys remained to suffer every day at the hands of their oh so cruel P.E. coach. With Will back in Hawkins, they had thought that he’d join them again on the sidelines, but right now, he was also on the court, leaving Mike and Dustin alone together once again.

But the game was entertaining to watch, since after only a few minutes, it had basically turned into a duel between Lucas and Troy, who, while they had to get their act together and get along when playing basketball in the school team they were both part of, still hated each other's guts, for obvious reasons. They had a very similar skill level, only ever missing any shots when another player from their own team stood in their way, but this duel had gotten much more interesting when a third party got involved: Will, who, thankfully, was in Lucas‘s team. During his time in California, he apparently hadn‘t only gotten taller and stronger, but also developed some serious skills in sports. Watching the boy make one shot after the other, Mike, for the first time, was more than happy that they had to wear basketball jerseys when practicing during P.E..

Dustin added Mike smiling softly during P.E. of all classes to his mental list of “Weird shit done by Mike & Will after the sleepover”, before finally confronting him and setting his plan in action. While he had planned for Will to sit next to them too, he had to be satisfied with what he’d get and change the plan a notch, maybe his friend would even be more honest without the other boy present. “Okay, seriously, what‘s up with you today?”, he began, already sounding a bit more confrontational than intended. Mike, still not removing his gaze from the basketball court, responded in barely more than a whisper: “Huh? What do you mean?” This only proving the point Dustin was about to make, he grabbed his friend by his shoulders and manually made him look into his eyes: “You‘ve been acting weird all day, spacing out at random and always staring off. See, you‘re even doing it right now!”

He had expected Mike to push off his hands, to look at him with that typical annoyance in his eyes, to respond in some kind of aggressive way, but he simply shrugged his shoulders, still fucking smiling, and whispered: “I‘m just happy, I guess.” That made Dustin scoff: “Mike Wheeler, ‘just being happy’? Yeah, right.” He could almost see the annoyance finally rise up in the other boy now, and that had just been what he had hoped for. Mike had always been more honest if angry, bursting out random love confessions, insults or moving speeches that had always had a trace of the truth hidden inside them if he was throwing one of his fits. “What‘s this supposed to be, an interrogation or something?”, he asked, one eyebrow raised, irritation very much audible in his voice. Now Dustin only had to give back the same energy. He knew it wasn’t a nice thing to do, to almost manipulate one of his best friends like that, but he also knew that he wouldn’t get any information out of him if he didn’t. And he didn’t want something between Mike and Will to push the party apart again, they had had that happen far too often in the past to risk it yet again.

“What? No, I just wanted to know what‘s going on with you! Interrogation, my ass. You can be really fucking unlikeable sometimes, you know that Mike?”, he hissed at his friend, almost immediately feeling bad about the last sentence. “Yeah, so I‘ve been told”, Mike responded with a sigh, the other boy now completely realizing that he had crossed a line. He knew that as perfect as it seemed from everybody’s point of view, Mike’s homelife wasn’t as pretty as you’d imagine. He was sure that the habit of taking everything said to him as a personal attack against him had stemmed from the fact that at home, almost everything said to him WAS, in fact, a personal attack against Mike. Dustin had already opened his mouth to apologize, but, to his complete and utter surprise, his friend did it before him, apology coming out as barely more than a whisper: “Sorry. Just ask what you want to ask me.”

Confusion was the only feeling Dustin was experiencing right now. Mike never, never apologized, to… well anybody. The only person that he had ever heard him apologize to unprompted had been Will. What the hell had happened?

To play off his reaction, he cleared his throat and did what had been asked of him: “Okay, color me confused… Just color me anything at this point, ‘cause this has been bothering me for a while now. The last time El broke up with you, you were moping around all day, being all snappy and shit, making plans to get her back and so on, or so Lucas told me. But this time, when it feels, I don’t know, more final, maybe, you‘re just… what, happy?” Even though the answer to this question probably wouldn’t reveal all too much about what was going on with Mike and Will, it would at least explain some of the strange behavior Dustin had noticed. And maybe, just maybe, answering it would bring the boy into a chatty mood and he’d reveal something else.

At first, he only furrowed his eyebrows, looked back at the court, thinking about what he had been asked for a few seconds, before revolting his gaze at his friend, who was sitting on the bench in anticipation, once again. “Yeah? It was for the best, really”, he began, a bit lost in his thoughts again, “with her trying to find herself, and me being…” He suddenly stopped talking, face getting a little red, as if he had been caught doing something wrong, illegal or immoral even. ”You being…?”, Dustin whispered. This was it, now he’d finally tell him something, what had been going on, what had resulted in this sudden change of mood, what had been bothering him, maybe, he was sure of it. But Mike shook his head as if he was trying to remove a thought from it, and ended his explanation mere seconds before the end of the game: “Nothing, doesn‘t matter. Like I said, we‘re better off as friends, and I don’t even like her like that… anymore.”

And even though he couldn’t connect the dots as to why, Dustin had noticed that the last word that had come out of Mike’s mouth had sounded incredibly forced.

When the coach made everybody gather at the center of the basketball court, Dustin could overhear a conversation between his two friends who had actually been doing sports for the past hour, not practicing their skills of manipulation like he had done. “You sure you don‘t want to join the team?”, Lucas said to Will just when the four of them joined each other to form the original party once again, to which the boy laughed, shaking his head: “No offense, but I‘d rather cut both of my legs off.” After receiving an entertained chuckle from Lucas, Will and Mike gravitated towards each other as if it were the most normal thing in the world, standing right next to each other when the P.E. teacher made an announcement: “Okay, this was the last time we stayed in the gym for this school year, freshmen. After today, we’ll go outside and run track, and no, I don’t care if it rains before anybody asks, it could snow for all I care, we’re running track.” A few irritated groans passed through the crowd of students, as a stark contrast to Will, who was practically jumping up and down from excitement. “Oh, that’s perfect! I ran track back in California, I’d say I’m pretty good at that!”, he said, bumping into Mike and looking at him with nothing but pure happiness in his eyes. The other boy responded, a fond smile adorning his face: “I’m sure you are.”

Then there were Lucas and Dustin, observing the scene and completely missing the all too obvious flirting that was going on right in front of them. Exiting the gym, Dustin updated Lucas on the outcome of his plan, simply sighing: “I don’t think we’ll get anything out of them any time soon.”

And Mike and Will were following right behind them, hands brushing against each other one too many times for two boys who, to everybody’s knowledge, were nothing more than friends.

Chapter Text

Mike had never been great at lying.

Ever since he had been a kid, you could read the truth off of his face every time he even attempted to say anything that wasn’t the explicit truth or at most a slightly modified version of it.

When he had broken a picture that had been hanging in the living room and had tried to pin it on Nancy, his eyes had started watering a little bit too much for him to have been truly honest. When he had almost burned his house down trying to make himself pancakes and leaving the stove running, he had, again, tried to blame it on his sister, who, to his misfortune, hadn’t even been at home that afternoon. When he had accidentally let Dustin’s old cat Mews escape from his house when he had been staying over one day, making his friend’s mother almost have a heart attack from worry, he had known to stay silent about the whole ordeal, since he had learned that it was better to say nothing than a much too obvious lie.

It was close to a miracle that he had never revealed anything regarding the supernatural things that had been going on in Hawkins, even purely by accident. If he was being honest with himself, there had been some damn close calls. And with some, he meant many, more than he’d ever admit to anybody. Most of them had had to do with Eleven, since basically everything the inhabitants of Hawkins, including his own parents, knew about her was one big intricate lie. But there had also been some regarding the Starcourt Mall incident from the year before, which was still hard to properly think about, and where so much had happened that he could never tell anybody about. And then, of course, there was everything about the deaths of the three teenagers who had been killed by Vecna before the extended party had been able to fully defeat him, because even though Dr. Owens’s government friend had covered that up to the best of her possibilities, some still blamed the Hellfire Club and all its members, which sometimes resulted in pretty uncomfortable questions to the boy. And with every one of these close calls, he had promised himself to get better at lying, even though it went against one of his most important principles. Needless to say, that had just been another thing he had failed at.

So, it didn’t surprise him all that much when, only one day after he had kissed Will for the first time, he realized that they wouldn’t be able to keep their newly established relationship a secret for too long.

The first part of the awareness of that fact had already come to him when they had been at school. As distracted as they had been by each other the whole day, stealing glances at each other, bumping into the other to feel their hands touch just a little too often to be purely coincidental, admiring the other from afar, even though, technically, there was no reason for them to hide it from each other anymore, they had eventually noticed that their friends had been looking at them in a rather suspicious way, whispering amongst each other, observing their every move. And when Dustin had asked him all of those questions during P.E., the full realization had hit Mike: Him and Will were very much not being subtle about being in love with each other.

Internally, he had been freaking out right there on the spot, thoughts going hundreds of miles per hour. Had the whole party detected that something had changed between him and Will? Had they realized what exactly had changed? And if yes, had anybody else noticed? In a town like Hawkins, the answer to that last question could very much mean the difference of life and death, and he wasn’t even being dramatic thinking that. After all, one of the first things that had sprung to most of Hawkins’ residents’ minds after Will had disappeared back in 1983 had been: “Has the local queer been killed by another queer? Has his father returned and done what he had always meant to do? Or did somebody take matters into their own hands and finally got rid of that freak of nature?”

Once again, he had been saved by the bell ringing, because he had known that Dustin would never have let their conversation end at that point had they started talking earlier. And the moment he had gotten close to Will on the basketball court, purposely standing a bit further away from him than he normally did so as not to attract any unwanted attention yet again, all that effort having been made null by the other boy scooching closer and closer in a way that had been absolutely adorable, his mind had finally been able to calm down again. It was crazy, just thinking about how much power Will had over his mood, his feelings, his state of mind. In the fraction of a second he could make him go from a worried mess to the happiest man on earth, simply by existing right next to him. And just that knowledge made Mike as sure as ever that approaching Will on the swings on the first day of kindergarten had really been the best decision of his whole life.

But that, unfortunately, didn‘t make his ability to lie any better, if only, it made it even worse. When Mike had come home from school that very day, still a bit panicked by the situation that had presented itself to him during his last class of the day, he had known that he simply had to go and visit Will, because even though they had seen each other at school mere minutes ago, they hadn‘t been able to see each other properly, having rather than wanting to keep their relationship a secret. Just the thought of seeing the other boy again, touching him again, maybe even kissing him again made his whole body heat up. And exactly that would prove itself to be his, how he himself would describe it, downfall.

After having thrown his backpack into his room, quickly having fixed his hair to make it look at least a bit more presentable, and having gotten a fresh change of clothes since the shirt he had worn the whole day had a little stain from lunch on it, which had only been allowed to happen because Mike hadn‘t been paying attention to his food since there had been something, or rather, someone much more beautiful and fascinating at the lunch table, he had left his room with an odd sense of purpose. He was rushing down the stairs now, almost stumbling over his own feet, so excited was he to see his friend, no, boyfriend, and oh, how good that word sounded in his head, again.

He was almost out of the door, heart practically beating out of his chest at this point, when his mother saw him. In a true motherly fashion, she yelled after him: “Mike, where are you going?“ Hand already having been on the doorknob, frustrated with himself and his inability to escape that goddamn house without attracting unwanted attention even once in his life, he walked backwards and right back into the kitchen, facing his mother who was washing the dishes. “Just… Just heading over to Will‘s“, he replied, feeling his face heat up instantly simply by saying Will‘s name. Again, frustration built up in him and he closed both of his hands into fists, hiding them behind his back so as not to be even more suspicious, if that would even be humanly possible. He had to get this under control if he wanted their relationship to stay a secret, he couldn‘t turn into a literal tomato every time somebody as much as mentioned the other boy. Not convinced, seeing the blush, excitement and irritation on his face, Mrs. Wheeler set down the plate she had just been cleaning and let out a deep sigh. She looked at her son with slight worry in her eyes, and said: “Is there maybe something you want to tell me?“ “Nope, got nothing to tell“, he mumbled, just a little too fast, a little too quiet, a little too unclear to avoid suspicion. With another sigh, his mother came even closer to him, cupping his cheek, and Mike was sure they had been found out. They had only been together for one day, and their relationship had already been discovered. He closed his eyes in anticipation, expecting to be screamed at, to be called disgusting or, in the worst case, to be kicked out of his house for being queer.

And then… There was none of all that. Mike couldn‘t describe his relief when his mother simply continued: “I know you and that Jane girl broke up some time ago, it‘s okay if you‘re dating again.“ She had interpreted the situation as wrongly as she only could have. But of course, in the eyes of a mother who had no reason to think of her son as gay, it would make perfect sense that he’d meet up with his ex-girlfriend, who just so happened to be his best friend’s sister, and hide it behind the excuse of hanging out with said best friend. She didn’t even suspect anything close to the truth. She didn’t know. And, if it were up to him, she would also never find out.

Mike‘s face now being more relaxed than before, eyes open again and being able to look his mother straight into the face, she told him one last thing before letting him go: “You can tell me anything. We just don‘t keep secrets in this household, alright?“ Oh, if only they knew. If only they knew. That thought made a small smirk appear on his face, which would stay right there for the whole time he would be riding his bike over to the Hopper-Byers residence. “No secrets here, mom, trust me“, was the last thing he said, now as calmly as possible, before finally leaving this god forsaken house, closing the entrance door with a bit too much force.

If only they knew.

The sun was shining, there was not a single cloud in the sky and it was one of the first genuinely warm days of early summer in Hawkins, yet Mike couldn‘t appreciate the weather at all, trying to get to Will as fast as possible. At first, this almost obsessive need to be with him had painfully reminded him of how things had been last summer with El, but then he had noticed one fundamental difference between those two similar feelings: Last summer, he had wanted to go see his girlfriend just to kiss her, to make out with her in her room, maybe annoy Hopper a bit, too. But with Will, he didn‘t need to be all over him, he simply wanted to be by his side, to talk about stuff that was on their minds, to tell each other funny stories, to hang out like they had always done, just with the benefit of being able to kiss him, too. But if that wouldn‘t happen that day, he wouldn‘t be disappointed at all, since he still would‘ve been able to spend time with the person he loved most.

When he reached Will‘s new house, he didn‘t even have to knock or press the doorbell to enter, since the other boy had already been awaiting his arrival by the door with the hope that Mike had felt the same necessity to see the other again that he had felt. A big smile had appeared on his face as soon as he had seen the bike approaching from the kitchen window, and he greeted his boyfriend with the same expression of pure happiness. As they made their way into Will‘s room, the only place in this house where they‘d be able to talk, do things and simply exist the way they so desperately wanted to, both boys‘ hearts ran as fast as they only ever did when the other was present.

The moment he entered the bedroom, Mike immediately closed the door behind him and, after a few seconds of contemplation, turned around the key that was able to lock it, the key that Will had begged his mother for the day before, right after having returned from his short trip to Mike, knowing that it would be useful in situations like this. But Mike didn‘t stop at simply locking the door, no, not even close. After he had done that, he doubled down, pulling out the key and looking through the keyhole, as if he were checking for danger out in the hallway. Will observed the whole scene with slight confusion, having sat down on his bed in the meantime. “What the... What are you even doing?“, he laughed out, one eyebrow raised, looking at the other boy with an entertained expression on his face. With that, Mike put the key back into its place and turned around to face Will.

Now, he was able to properly look at him with nobody to judge him, no distractions, no underlying fear of being watched by people who had no place in their business. The way the sun was hitting his face, making his hair look like a halo around his head and bathing him in a truly angelic light made his eyes, which were fixated on him, light up in a soft hazel color. At this angle, there were some freckles visible on the bridge of his nose and his cheeks, too, even though they were much less noticeable than his own, and they gave his already perfect face another special touch. Only when his glance passed over to Will’s lips, on that small birthmark right above them, on the slight curve of the top lip that he now knew what it felt like to kiss, where it always seemed to land at one point or another, had he realized that, busy with admiring the boy in the room with him, he had forgotten to answer his question.

He finally left his place by the door and made his way over to Will’s bed, sitting down right next to him with a sigh before admitting: “I'm being paranoid.“ “But why?“, he only laughed out again, finding the other‘s antics cute. At that, Mike let himself fall back into the bed completely, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling before sighing: „Well, first of all, everybody from the party, EVERYBODY, I say, noticed something about us at school.“ That made Will chuckle, since he had also gotten the feeling that the others weren’t as clueless as they had wanted them to be. “You're not wrong with that“, he mumbled before lying down himself, his glance not being on the ceiling above them but on the very boy next to him. There were a few seconds of comfortable silence before said boy chuckled too, but, as he recounted what else had happened right before his arrival here, those chuckles turned into a sheepish groan: “And then, my mom asked me where I was going just now and just thinking about you made me blush SO MUCH... it's honestly embarrassing.“ “Awwwww, that's adorable“, Will giggled, moving even closer to the other boy, before whispering right into his ear, “You're adorable.“ And after having heard that, Mike turned about the same shade of red that had adorned his face during the scene he had just opened up about.

That was it with talking for a while, since both boys were perfectly content with what they were doing right now. Mike had put his arm around Will’s waist, pulling him into his side, which inspired the boy to lay both his head and one of his hands on his chest, Mike relaxing under the new yet so familiar touch. Never before had he felt a sense of peace similar to this, and while he had already known what that feeling of “home“ was that Nancy had talked to him about the day before, now it was just as touchable as the person he had never thought would ever be his alone to touch. But there was something disturbing the total peace that had almost completely taken over his mind for the last minutes. He knew he couldn’t just ignore it, that it wouldn’t simply go away, disappear into thin air like most of his doubts normally did when he was in the presence of Will.

So, having wanted to open up about this as soon as he had arrived here, he turned his head to face the boy lying halfways on top of him and said: “A... Anyways, I don't think we'll be able to keep this, us dating, I mean, a secret for too long.“ He was only met with a faint whisper: „Us dating... That still sounds so unreal.“ And he could really only agree with that. It still hadn‘t completely sunk in that he, Mike Wheeler, was currently dating Will Byers, his first and best friend since kindergarten, the person that had never left his side no matter how unbearable he had been sometimes, a boy. If somebody would‘ve told him about this a year ago, he would‘ve laughed at that person, called them crazy, maybe he would‘ve even asked them if there was something wrong going on in their head, if maybe they just recently broke out of Pennhurst. But now, it was undoubtedly real, and he had even pinched himself multiple times, both after the kiss and during the very situation he was in now, just to make sure that he wasn‘t in fact still stuck in some absurdly wishful dream.

Interrupting his train of thought, Will returned to the topic he had addressed mere moments before: “I give us, hmm... two weeks, maximum? Before somebody finds out for real, I mean.“ That thought… oh, how much it terrified him. That somebody could really find out about them, discover what had only just begun, ruining the safety and vulnerability of their only newly established relationship. So, even though he had obviously meant this time frame as a joke, only a forced laugh was able to escape from Mike’s mouth, his whole body tensing up.

And of course, the other boy immediately picked up on it. The only lie that would come out of Mike’s mouth as flawlessly as everything else had always been the simple statement of “I’m fine”, and, coincidentally, the only person that couldn’t even be fooled by that had always been Will. So he didn’t even bother with keeping those feelings from him anymore, since he’d notice that something was wrong, that he couldn’t get a certain thought out of his head, that something was bothering him, anyway. “Does that scare you?“, the boy, still lying on his chest, hand now stroking it in a comforting way, whispered, interpreting the situation as correctly as he always did, getting more and more into his uplifting speech, “Because if yes, I don't think anybody really got it, and if they did, it's just our friends, so they wouldn't do anything, anything bad, I mean. And if other people really find out… if they bother you because of it, if they even look at you in a weird way, or if some asshole says something, I will personally... Hmph…“ His heroic rant had been interrupted by Mike kissing him, his mouth now being preoccupied with gently brushing over the chapped lips of his boyfriend. While Will had rambled about what he‘d do if somebody should attack him for what he was, for who he was, for who he loved, Mike had realized once again just how much he loved that boy.

His genuinely good, selfless, perfect boy.

Chapter Text

The day on which the ‘86 seniors of Hawkins High School would graduate had already been a wild ride for Will since the early morning.

After all, it was the last day of school for the whole party, the last official gathering of the Hellfire Club before its older members would, in Eddie’s case, finally, graduate, and, of course, also the day on which his brother would finish school. Jonathan had been waiting for this day ever since the day he had first stepped foot into the town’s high school, also known as “the place that sucked the last bit of happiness out of his already kind of tragic life”. Ironically, ever since everything regarding the Upside Down had infiltrated his life, undoubtedly making it much more complicated, high school had been much more bearable. For one, he had realized that there were much, much worse things than the likes of Steve Harrington shoving him around, picking on him and calling him a freak every time he passed them in the hallways. Other than that, he had also found a new, and, if he was being honest with himself, very unexpected friend. Nancy Wheeler, who had turned into so much more than a friend, the person who he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. The eight months in California had certainly pulled them apart a bit, with him being stoned more often than not and her not keeping as much in contact with him as he would’ve liked her too, apparently that was a Wheeler thing, and yeah, the whole college thing was still open and unresolved, but their reunion in Hawkins had mended most of the cracks in their relationship and had made it much stronger than it had ever been.

But the Byers’ stay in California hadn’t only created some tension in Jonathan’s relationship, no, it had also made him get another new friend, one of the best ones he could ever imagine. Argyle had made his life in Lenora a thousand times better, helping him with his problems by either giving him advice or, in most of the cases, a few grams of weed. But he hadn’t only been his drug supplier, of course, he had also been his best friend and he still was, even though they could only communicate through the phone now. They called each other every other day, talking about what was going on in their life, asking if everything was alright and making plans for the future. Since Argyle literally didn’t have a single plan for what he’d do after high school, meaning in a few months time, the boys had decided that he would simply move to whatever city the college Jonathan would attend was located at and find a job there, so they’d be able to hang out properly again, maybe even move into a shared flat together.

And it was one of those very phone calls that almost made Jonathan find out about Will and Mike dating.

When Argyle had called a few minutes after breakfast to prematurely congratulate his best friend for graduating, the call went its course just like always. They chatted for a few minutes, talking about the most random stuff that they could think of and that Will and Eleven had the misfortune of having to overhear, the phone being located in the kitchen where they were still eating, before the boy, who, looking at the time zone difference between California and Indiana, should technically still be asleep for another few hours, asked Jonathan to pass the phone to his brother for a second. Confused, but not totally surprised at his brother’s friend’s antics, Will walked over and took the receiver from his brother, only to be greeted by a much too loud voice practically shouting into his ear. “Heyyyy, little Byers! How ya doin’?”, Argyle began, voice as relaxed as ever, “I just wanted to ask you something, my dude.” “Okay? What’s up?”, the other boy replied, confusion now clearly visible on his face. Jonathan was still standing right next to him, which made him able to perfectly hear what Argyle said next: “Yeah, man, I was just kinda confused about something, and I asked Jonathan, but he didn’t want to tell me. Are you and that Wheeler kid dating or not, man?”

As soon as the last sentence had left his mouth, Will’s face turned as red as the phone he was holding, even though he had almost made that one fall out of his hand after hearing that statement just now, Jonathan was almost dying of laughter next to him and Eleven was just staring at them from the table, wondering why exactly she had agreed to have those two fools as her brothers. With his brother’s wheezing likely audible in the background, he stuttered into the phone after some moments of overthinking every decision that had led him to this very moment: “I… I have no idea what you’re even talking about.” “I don’t know, man, there was just this vibe, this energy between you, you know…”, he explained, but he was promptly interrupted by Will quietly hissing: “We are not dating. Goodbye, Argyle.” Then, he shoved the phone back into Jonathan’s hands, him barely being able to contain his laughter even though he had tried to calm down so as not to ruin his hair before the ceremony. The last thing he heard before storming off into his room to process what had just happened was a laugh that sounded like a tea kettle was just about to explode.

Not the most perfect start into the day, Will would say.

As soon as he had seen Mike in front of the school, having been dragged there much earlier than needed by his family to take some graduation photos with Nancy, he ran up to him to quietly tell him about the truly embarrassing scene that had played out a mere hour earlier. Over all of his stuttering, the nervous gestures of his hands and the redness of his face laid a faint feeling of relief. When Argyle had asked him whether his relationship with the other boy was purely platonic or romantic after all, he hadn’t sounded accusatory at all, no poison in his voice, no tinge of hatred audible. That could either stem from the fact that he was from California, a much more liberal state than Indiana, or because he had very probably been high, or simply because of him being, well, Argyle, but it still made Will somewhat happy that there hadn’t been any kind of negative intentions behind that question.

That didn’t change anything about the absolute awkwardness of having to tell Mike everything that had been said. He, on the other hand, had a very similar reaction to Jonathan’s: He doubled over with laughter, barely being able to stand up straight, softly hitting Will’s arm over and over like he did so often when he was laughing about something that much. After having calmed down again, Will’s kind of enraged and embarrassed expression not helping at all with that, he wiped a tear out of his eye and chuckled: “Yeah, you gotta love that guy.”

Then, they just stood around, bathing in the warm rays of the early summer sun above them, having a nice conversation about everything and nothing at the same time. But, just when the boys were about to meet up with the rest of the party, seeing their friends approach them quickly, Mike put his hand on Will’s arm, staring at him with a pained look of realization and laughing again: “You know what I just noticed? Argyle, high as fuck, realized that I love you before I did.” And this time it was Will who burst out in laughter, earning some strange looks from the people around them, but at that moment, both boys honestly couldn’t have cared less.

A few minutes before the graduation ceremony, Eddie had gathered the whole Hellfire Club together for one last time. At first, Will had thought that he’d simply want to bid them farewell, because even though they’d still all play DnD together after that day, it wouldn’t be like it had been those past months anymore, but then he had surprised the party with an announcement. “As unofficial leader of the Hellfire Club, I was always the dungeon master, I always planned the campaigns and never got to play as one of my own epic characters. And, you know, now I want to play like that again, properly. So,...”, he built up to an epic reveal, similar to how Dustin always did it, making it unclear who had copied who, “I’m passing down the mantle of DM of the Hawkins High School Hellfire Club to none other than… Micheal Wheeler!”

This made the whole group erupt in cheers, patting a surprised Mike on the back and congratulating him. But Will wasn’t surprised at all by Eddie’s decision. Yes, he was closer to Dustin than any of the other freshmen in the club, but he had never been interested in being the DM of a DnD campaign. The party’s dungeon master had always been Mike, with his indescribable talent of inventing captivating stories, telling them in a way that made everybody in the room with him hang on his lips, Will in more than just one sense, and the undeniable leadership qualities he had always displayed. Even though Will had made up the thing about him being the heart of the party in the moment he had shown the other boy his painting, the thing about him being the “leader” of their group had always been something he had thought of him. And now, with a new group to lead, Mike would be right back in his element. Will was so proud of him that he’d wanted to kiss him right on the cheek, but he stopped himself at the last moment, remembering about the presence of everybody else. It was a bit disappointing, not being able to show how much he loved his boyfriend, or even being able to show that he had a boyfriend at all, but he’d simply remember to give him an extra kiss later. He really deserved it, after all.

After this impromptu meeting, the whole party had quickly settled into their seats to watch their siblings, friends and borderline father figures graduate. The ceremony started with a speech from the principal, who talked about the things that had happened during the last few months in a way that made dead teenagers and otherworldly earthquakes sound as boring as every other speech he had ever held before. So, Will had plenty of time to glance over to Mike, who was sitting right next to him. Since both of their siblings were seniors, they had been able to get seats in the front rows and were only separated by the invisible walls they had to keep up when in public.

But nothing and nobody could stop him from innocently staring at his best friend, right? He was just as bored as him, dark eyes in a constant state of almost being rolled back in annoyance, and was fidgeting with a small loose thread of his shirt. It was obvious that his parents had made him dress up for this event, since he had only seen him wear a dressing shirt once before, and that had been at the Snow Ball back in middle school. Even though he was probably uncomfortable and hot as hell, having to wear long sleeves with the beautiful weather they were having right now, Will silently thanked Mrs. Wheeler and whatever god existed for being able to see Mike like this, because after looking at him dressed like that, the sun, which he would later blame for the red color of his face, wasn’t the only thing that made his whole body heat up.

When the principal finally finished his speech, another one followed right after it, but this one was a little more interesting. It was the speech made by the valedictorian, and, who would’ve thought, Nancy Wheeler stepped right up on the podium to talk about her time at the high school. While most people in the audience only heard her remembering what she had learned at school, how much it had impacted her life and how much it meant to her to be given this title, the extended party recognized the subtle references that she made that didn’t concern school at all. Whether it was something about being able to survive anything if you had the right people by your side, making decisions even if they didn’t look like the right ones at that moment or fighting battles that seemed bigger than yourself, all things that could also be understood metaphorically, they knew what she really meant. This made her over-long speech a tiny, but only really tiny bit more bearable.

All formalities gone through, it was finally time for the seniors to receive their diplomas. The beginning was perfectly normal, small cheers and claps coming from friends and family every time a student got called on the stage, the party having applauded extra loud for Robin and Jonathan, but then, Will could feel himself tense up when the principal began with the surnames starting with “M”. While Eddie had officially been cleared from all accusations, to some, he was still a murderer, a criminal, or simply a freak, and he didn’t want to imagine what those people, mainly Jason, would do once he was standing up on the stage in front of the whole school and everybodys’ families. Looking at Mike again, he could see the same worries in his eyes, and he was sure that if he'd be able to see the rest of the party from his seat, he’d just look into the same expression another four times. Just when he heard the name “Munson, Edward”, preparing for the worst, the unthinkable happened: He heard somebody behind him stand up as loudly as humanly possible, chair scraping on the field under it, and starting to clap and shout: “This is your year, Munson!” And that somebody was none other than Steve Harrington himself.

Maybe it was the fact that Steve Harrington, former king of Hawkins High School, voted “most likely to become famous in the future” four times in a row in the yearbook, who was still as omnipresent in its dating scene as he had always been, had started a standing ovation for Eddie “The Freak” Muson, maybe people were finally realizing just how bizarre their hate for this teenager was, or maybe the people were just happy they wouldn’t have to see him at school for yet another year, but others soon joined in on the applause, the party being the first ones to jump out of their seats and cheer louder than anybody else. From where he was standing, Will could see the bright smile on Eddie’s face and even the small tear that formed at his right eye, and when his friend and fellow apocalypse survivor took his diploma and jumped off the stage shouting “‘86, baby!”, he couldn’t do anything but let out a purely content laugh. Looking at his friends one after the other, some already waiting with their degree in their hands, some still sitting nervously in their seats, some standing in the audience, the most important “friend” right next to him, he only smiled even more and thought that maybe, just maybe, this day wasn’t going that badly after all.

And oh, how wrong he would turn out to be.

Chapter Text

The first time the party had seen Troy Walsh had been rather uneventful.

On that day, the first day of elementary school, they hadn’t even considered themselves “the party” yet. Hell, they hadn’t even all known each other, only Will and Mike having been friends since their kindergarten days. They had actually met that very day and had begun a friendship that none of them had known would last for years to come, all boys going through things that nobody could ever have imagined, always together, always by each others’ side.

When Mike and Will had entered the school building for the first time, both scared and nervous, but still excited for this new chapter of their life, they had immediately felt a bit lost with that many kids their age standing around them, both not having been children who liked to talk to people they didn’t know. They had stood close next to each other, never leaving the other’s side for even a fraction of a second, shoulders practically attached without interruption. Mike’s eyes had scanned around the room, and when he had spotted a boy with light brown curls and a “Star Wars”-shirt in an animated discussion with another boy, sporting a “Star Trek”-hoodie, he had immediately known that he and his best friend would get along perfectly with those two boys. They had quickly made their way over to them, Mike introducing them both, and had inserted themselves into the debate too. And that’s how a friendship for the ages had been born.

While they had still been talking about which sci-fi franchise was better, another boy their age had passed them with a whole posse behind him, and said boy only whispered “Nerds” before disappearing back into the masses, having spoken just loud enough for his little gang to hear him and start laughing at the group of four boys. They really hadn’t been able to care less at that moment, having just found kindred spirits in a town like Hawkins, and had only interrupted their talk to look at each other briefly, quickly resuming when that boy, whose name they’d later find out to be Troy, had left their field of view.

But it had been that second time they had seen Troy that had started their still ongoing rivalry, or, saying it like it is, their mutual hatred for each other. If their first encounter hadn’t given them the feeling to stay away from that kid, this one sure had, especially to Will and Mike, who had then warned their new friends to steer clear from Troy.

After the school day, where they had introduced themselves in front of the class one by one and had got to meet their teachers, the two boys had left the school just like they had always done in kindergarten: Hand in hand, they had said goodbye to their two new friends, Dustin and Lucas, one having a rather strong vocabulary and the other an immense amount of charme for two six year olds, before leaving to find their mothers in the big parking lot.

The hand holding had always been a safety measure so Will, as short as he had been back then, wouldn’t get lost in big crowds, and at one point they had simply gotten used to it, finding comfort in the touch of the other. But that one damned boy had had to ruin that for them, this only being one of the many things he’d try to ruin in the future. As soon as Troy had seen them, he had pointed them out to his friends, laughed with a malicious grin and shouted: “Didn’t know there were any fairies in Hawkins!” Will, being used to hearing words like that shouted at him from his father, had immediately let go of Mike’s hand, who had only looked at him in confusion before being pulled away by his best friend, tears already having started to fill his eyes.

That had been the last time they had held hands in public.

And to this day, Troy had continued to make their life at school hell on earth, not having stopped once everybody had reached high school like the party had silently hoped he would. No, in fact, he had only gotten worse, still bullying them for the exact same reasons he had picked out all those years ago, now only doing so more publically, especially in Will’s case. So much that the slurs spewn in his face on a daily basis almost didn’t faze him anymore, but, unfortunately, the emphasis lay on the “almost”. He still found himself leaving a room as soon as the other boy entered it, always keeping an eye out for any cruel pranks he could pull on him if he didn’t pay attention, and even crying on the school toilet one too many times a month. Other than that, Troy especially loved to provoke his friends by saying certain stuff about Will right into their faces, knowing they couldn’t snitch to any teacher without revealing just why him saying those things bothered them so much.

That last day of school, shortly after the ending of the graduation ceremony, the whole party had been waiting for Lucas to leave the gym where he was currently in for one last short meeting with the basketball team, sitting on a bench just outside of the building. They were bored to death, Mike and Will looking at their matching watches every few minutes and contemplating whether they should just leave for the ice-cream parlor without their friend, which resorted in Max kicking the one who voiced that option, Dustin, of course, in the shin, making him yelp in overexaggerated pain. When the door to the gym finally opened, everybody looked out for the familiar face of the last member of their group, irritation and confusion growing with each passing minute when he didn’t show up with the rest of the team. “Where the hell is that guy?”, Dustin groaned in exasperation, lying his head down on both of his hands. Will was getting nervous, leg moving up and down restlessly, thinking about what could’ve possibly happened to Lucas, since he was normally never late, especially when he knew that people were waiting for him. He was always fed up with Mike for arriving at least ten minutes too late to any of their appointments and had made it his goal to always be on time, just to be able to rub it into Mike’s face later.

Just when he considered entering the gym to go and look for his friend, the door flew open brutally and three boys came storming out, one holding both of his hands to his bleeding, very visibly broken nose and muttering swears under his breath, shooting the party a death glare before leaving the school grounds as fast as possible. Even though they had only been able to look at him for a few seconds, they had recognized that boy, accompanied by his closest co-conspirators, immediately: Troy. Having jumped up from the bench he had been sitting on, Will rushed over to the gym, his friends following right behind him, only to finally see Lucas trot out of the hall with a satisfied yet pained grin on his face, nose, while not broken, just as bloody as Troy’s. After screaming his name, Max pushed her wheelchair right over to her boyfriend, pulling his face down to hers so she could look at him better. “What the hell happened?”, she demanded to know, stroking his cheek, not pulling away even as he was softly wincing in pain. The boy only laughed, removing Max’s hand from his sore face: “You should see the other guy.” “Yeah, we saw the other guy, alright!”, Dustin almost yelled at his face, expression showing the same amount of worry and borderline fear as all of his friends’. El wordlessly handed Lucas a tissue that she had with her in her new bag, him taking it gratefully and wiping the blood from his face. Then, seeing the questioning faces of his friends, he sighed and began to recount the events from a few minutes ago.

“So, the coach just told us to keep training over the summer at first, alright? Then, he said that we should think about if we knew anybody that would maybe want to join the team next year, since many from the team graduated today”, his voice came out muffled under the tissue he was still holding to his nose, it having started to bleed again mid explanation. “Then, he wished us a good summer and let us leave”, he continued, eyes quickly moving around the whole party, his glance passing over Will more often than over the others, but never quite staying on him, “But when everybody was gone, Troy stayed back and looked at me with that awful grin he has. He walked over to me, and he must’ve overheard me talking to Will about him joining the basketball team, like, two weeks ago, after our last game in P.E.. Because, he said: ‘Don’t you dare bring that one friend of yours to the team, or you’ll see what happens’.” He stopped, eyes still never fixating on the boy Troy had mentioned. “Okay?”, Mike asked, arms folded over his chest, sounding as confused as the others felt, “But that’s not everything, right? You wouldn’t beat him up just for that, that’s not like you.” Lucas only chuckled nervously, fidgeting with the hand that wasn’t used to stop his blood from dripping on the ground below him. Now, he was looking at Will and Mike in quick succession, whispering: “Yeah, he, uh… He said something else too, after that, I mean.”

“What did he say, Lucas?”, now Will was the one demanding to know. While he didn’t majorly care about what that douche thought of him, he wanted to know what could lead his friend to react that aggressively, him normally being the most peaceful of the party. Said friend cleared his throat, eyes fixed on the pavement, before whispering again: “I… I don’t really want to repeat that.” Seeing the almost pleading expression on his friend's face, he sighed yet again, before finally admitting the last part of his conversation with Troy: “Okay. But I’m directly quoting him now, alright, no hard feelings. Just repeating exactly what he said. He said, uh,… He said: ‘You should be happy if they don’t find that fag and his little queer boyfriend in the quarry one day, and for real this time’.”

The silence that followed was almost deafening. Everybody looked either at Lucas or Will, or moved their glance from one boy to the other, eyes open in shock, anger and disgust. Dustin sucked in some air through his teeth, this being the only audible sound on the whole school grounds, everybody else already having left.

Other than being incredibly cruel, gutwrenching and bigoted, that last sentence transported Mike, Dustin, Lucas and Eleven to that one night at the quarry, that one night where they had been searching for Will again, that one night where they had found Will’s “body“ in the water. Mike remembered very little from that night, his brain having suppressed almost every memory to keep him from literally going insane, but he still had the occasional nightmares that served as proof that it really had happened, that he hadn‘t just imagined it. He could faintly recall having shoved El around, having screamed at her and having run off to get home as fast as possible, crying and sobbing into his mothers‘ arms as soon as he had seen her. He would like to say that he had never been more desperate or heartbroken than on that day, but the years to come had proven him differently. Because other than that, there had been so, so many gruesome events that a boy his age shouldn‘t have had to experience, that nobody really should have to experience, ever. But alas, he couldn‘t change the past, which only made Troy‘s comment so much worse.

“And yeah, the rest is history”, Lucas mumbled, his nose finally having stopped bleeding sometime during the time in which the others had had to process what he had just told them, “Should‘ve hit him harder, thinking about it now.“ “Yeah“, Will said, everybody watching him carefully to see if he was okay, “When I saw Troy leave the gym, I already thought: ‘No idea what happened, but he deserved that for sure.‘ But god… That was really something, huh?“ The slight, nervous chuckle with which he had ended the last sentence made the others tense up a bit, as they knew that this had always been how the boy coped with things like that being said to or about him: Trying to make the situation sound like a big joke, using humor or sarcasm to deflect from just how hurt and terrified he was. The comment, as much as he was used to hearing stuff like that, the bullying not having stopped in Lenora since apparently, his simple presence told everybody around him “Hey, I‘m gay, please hate-crime me!“, the brutality of it shocked even him. Because, combined with the first thing he had said, it sounded less like a suspicion, more like a threat, or, worse even, a promise.

Mike immediately stepped closer to him, putting his arm over his shoulder and resting his hand on his back, doing as much as he was able to in front of their friends. “Okay, we obviously know who was meant with ‘that… you know‘“, Eleven began, taking another tissue out of her bag to give to Lucas to clean his hands, “but who did he mean with the other person?“ Even though they, unsuccessfully, tried to hide it, everybody almost instinctively turned their heads over to Mike, which resulted in him looking everywhere but Will‘s face, not trying to make the situation even worse than it already was. They didn‘t know, not really, Will was sure of that, and he tried to convey that to the boy by his side with a calming glance, but in the context of Troy having identified his potential object of attraction, they had hit the nail on the head.

Mike only cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable, but not for the reasons the rest of the party might have suspected, had they known him less, and almost whispered: “Yeah, that‘s probably me. I’m just… Will is… Will and I… We’re really close, and since Troy probably doesn’t have any friends that genuinely like him, he couldn’t understand the difference between friendship and romance if it hit him square in the face. I mean, it makes sense, if you look at it that way.“ He cleared his throat yet again, now finally looking at Will, who gave him a reassuring smile, which was able to calm him down in seconds. Thinking about it for a moment, the rest of the party apparently accepted this explanation, either nodding or humming in agreement, not trying to make a bigger deal out of it.

“You know what?“, Will scoffed, a little grin adorning his face, looking at all of his friends, at those people who were so important to him, at the people who really mattered, “Fuck Troy. We‘re going to enjoy this summer, alright? So… Let‘s just forget this, and go, and get ice cream. I‘m starving.“ Since it was him who had voiced this idea, not wanting to upset him more by keeping the conversation around the topic of the fight in the gym, the others couldn‘t do anything other than agree with him, and they slowly made their way over to the town center. Giving the school behind the group one last look, Mike mumbled under his breath, just loud enough for Will, who was still walking right next to him, hands brushing against each other every other second, to hear:

“School is sure gonna be fun next year, huh?“

Chapter Text

Back on the day after they had finally kissed for the first time, Will had given his and Mike‘s relationship a good two weeks before being properly discovered by somebody.

In the end, they had been able to keep it a total secret for just a little over three weeks, Argyle’s call on the last day of school not counting, and, to both of the boy‘s surprise, it hadn‘t been Mike to spill it out. It had been Will himself.

Around a week after school had ended, the party having hung out together almost every day, Mike’s parents had decided to go on a quick weekend trip with Holly, knowing that neither of their older children would have any interest in joining them on a family vacation. They had left them some money, a few chores to handle, and many, many rules to follow during those two days where they’d be gone. But all of that, including the countless notes left around in the whole house telling them exactly what to do and what not to do, as if they were children who had never been home alone before, had been overshadowed by the knowledge that Mike and Nancy would have the house to themselves. All to themselves.

So, it had been no surprise that the first thing Nancy had done after her parents and little sister had left had been running over to the phone to call Jonathan, asking him to spend the night at their house. In the background, Mike had yelled at her to tell her boyfriend to ask Will to come over to. At first, his sister had wanted to strangle him for that intervention. He could have a sleepover with his friend the whole summer, every day even if he wanted to, since their parents hadn’t forbidden Will from staying around after 10 p.m. like they had with Jonathan, for obvious reasons. She and Jonathan had deserved that one night of peace, no mothers bursting into her room to check if she, a literal adult, was doing anything non-christian with her boyfriend of over two years, no little sister in the room next to hers being able to overhear them, no annoying brother making jokes about to whole situation straight to her face during dinner.

But then she had remembered the talk they had had a few weeks ago, where Mike had basically told her about him having a crush, no, about him being in love with Will, and the previous anger had dissipated almost instantly. Even though she had never asked him about how his talk with Will had ended, she could see that they were both as happy as ever, so it didn’t matter to her if they were, in fact, dating or still “only” friends, this being the reason why she hadn’t said anything more regarding the matter to him. She had simply sighed, forwarding her brother’s question and having smiled a little after seeing his obvious excitement when Jonathan had said that Will would be coming too. At least she had known that they’d be staying in the basement the whole night, so she and Jonathan could still do whatever they wanted to in peace.

And Mike, standing a few feet away from her, grinning from one ear to the other, had had exactly the same thought.

At the Hopper-Byers household, the situation had been a little less peaceful and a little more confrontational. While Joyce had immediately allowed Will to spend the night at Mike’s, the rest of the party not being invited not surprising her at all, since the two boys had had countless sleepovers just like that when they had been children, she hadn’t been that happy with letting her other son out of the house that day. She wasn’t stupid, Hopper wasn’t stupid, and Jonathan wasn’t stupid, so everybody involved in the conversation had known exactly what territory they were debating around, never actually saying what they had meant to say to make it a little less awkward, which had only helped to a certain degree.

Will, nosy as he was, was sitting at the kitchen table and sipping a glass of water, trying to make himself as unnoticeable as possible so he could see this whole thing play out, and had felt a bit of compassion or even pity for his brother. While he and Mike would definitely not take things to the same level as Nancy and Jonathan would do that evening, he had been certain that, should his parents have known about their relationship, they probably would’ve forbid him from staying at his boyfriend's house overnight too. But that was the good thing about secret dating: If nobody knew, nobody could do anything against it. And while thinking about the reason why they had to hide themselves had destroyed that little happiness that realization had brought with it immediately, he hadn’t been able to do much more than smile at the prospect of the following night.

At the end, Hopper of all people had been able to calm Joyce down enough for her to allow both of their sons to leave for the night. Apparently, the “three inches” rule that Mike and El had told the party about had only been put into effect because of Mike, the man being much more relaxed when it came to his other child’s relationship. Thinking about this, Will had had to chuckle to himself, revealing his presence to the rest of his family and earning himself an exasperated “What are you still doing here?” from his mother. Oh, if only Hopper knew.

A few hours later, as Jonathan had been driving them both to the Wheelers’ house, they had been engaged in pleasant conversation. Even though they could’ve just walked there, like this they had had some time to catch up with each other. Talking about their plans, their futures, their lives in general, just like they had always done in the past. During their stay in California, they hadn’t really talked that much anymore, both being too caught up in their own problems and one of them being too high most of the time to even speak to in a day to day situation. But now, back in Hawkins, it had been like their friendship had also returned back to how it had always been, both telling each other everything, or rather, almost everything, that was going on in their lives, that was bothering them, that was keeping them up at night.

When the car had stopped at their destination, Will had made a quick, joking request to his brother, wiggling his eyebrows and grinning while saying: “Hey, I know you’re excited to be with Nancy again, but don’t keep the whole house awake all night, alright?” He had seen Jonathan’s face go red just the tiniest bit, which had meant that his plan of embarrassing his brother had worked just like he had wanted it to. What were brothers for, if not to tease each other to the death?

“The same goes for you”, Jonathan had laughed back at him, almost knowing smile on his face, and now it had been Will’s turn to go red, his face having been more similar to a tomato than anything else, but not only with embarrassment, but also with a bit of fear, his mouth only being able to produce fractions of words. He hadn’t told his brother about Mike and him yet, how could he have known?

If he was being honest with himself, he had known that just like with him being gay, Jonathan had already had a hunch about his feelings for his best friend a long time ago, even though he had made it unmistakenly clear that he had never quite understood just why Will felt like that. To say the least, during the past year, Jonathan hadn’t had the best opinion about the other boy, his distinct dislike of him having become visible during their trip in the pizza van a few months ago. Why else would he have looked at Mike like he’d have loved to leave him at the side of the road during their whole trip to Nevada and Hawkins, glaring daggers at him in every possible situation? So, Will hadn’t been worried about Jonathan not wanting him to date a boy, no, he had made it very clear that he was perfectly okay with that, he had been worried that his brother would have something against him dating Mike of all people.

But just as he had been getting seriously panicked, Jonathan had added: “Nancy was always complaining about how you and Mike used to watch movies ‘till late into the night, at such a high volume that she could follow it from her room.” Will had let out a deep sigh of relief and had stepped out of the car mere seconds after that last sentence, still being a bit shaken and not wanting to alert his brother, who had been giving him a weird side look ever since his atypical reaction to his innocent request, any more than he had already had. Jonathan had followed soon after, a bit confused about the other boy’s sudden panic, but he had stopped in his tracks just as Will had entered the house, and had shouted after him: “Wait, what did you think I meant with that?” Piecing together the reaction Will had had to that one call with Argyle a few days prior and his reaction just now, everything had finally made sense. Now, he had run into the house in front of him too, wanting to catch up with Will, and just when he hadn’t been out of view anymore, he gasped: “Holy mother of god, did you two finally get your shit together?” The only answer he would receive that day had been the shutting of the basement door.

For once, seeing Mike in all of his beauty sitting in the basement, looking at him like he was the first fresh breath of air after being underwater for too long, Will couldn’t concentrate on either of those two facts, being too occupied in apologizing as soon as he got into the other boy’s field of view. Said boy’s lovestruck expression changed from happiness, excitement and peace to one of worry, confusion and even a slight fear when Will flung himself into his arms, pressing against him like he was the only thing that could keep him afloat in a sea of misery. He held onto him, gripping his shirt with his hands, still apologizing for something, Mike having no idea what for. The feeling of his boyfriend’s hands rubbing against his back in a comforting way calmed him down almost instantly, even stopping his until then uninterrupted “I’m so sorry”’s long enough for him to explain what he was even saying sorry for.

“I think… I accidentally told Jonathan about us”, he mumbled into the other boy’s shirt, hands tightly clung around his chest, being able to feel his heartbeat that was going faster than normal, head resting in the crook of his neck, this position being a reminder that after everything, Mike was still taller than him. Only for the slightest moment, the movement of the hands on his back had stopped, just long enough for Will to notice, before those hands moved up to his shoulders to hold him back a bit, being able to look the other boy in the face now. Different than expected, there was no sign of disappointment or anger written on it, but only the most sincere look of relief, mouth pulled into one of those smiles that Mike only showed when he was with him. One hand was removed from his shoulder now, too, shifting over to cup his face softly. As if it was a reflex, Will immediately leaned into it, letting out a deep sigh at the now oh so familiar touch. “It’s okay, Will, really. There’s worse people to find out”, Mike whispered, almost like he was afraid of anybody overhearing, like he didn’t want the words to reach anybody else than him, or simply because his voice adapted to the atmosphere of two secret lovers living out their life in their safe space, in the space reserved just for them, even if only for a moment.

Will, also not wanting to ruin this moment by saying anything else, especially not by apologizing again, simply leaned closer into Mike and pressed their lips against each other, the other boy leaning in just as softly. There was no rush in this kiss, no urgency, no pressure, just a sweet kind of passion, which made Will let out another sigh into his boyfriend’s mouth. They didn’t have to say anything, to hide anything, to do anything other than being together.

Because today, they had all the time in the world.

After what seemed to have been hours, time always being warped whenever he was that close to Mike, he pulled away to look at him, properly this time, taking in his every feature.

His black hair, a mix between being wavy and curly, which he had refused to cut every time his mother had brought it up, framed his face in a way that made all of his features stand out in a light that couldn’t be more positive. His lips, open ever so slightly, now a bit pink from kissing, that looked just as soft as they felt against his own. His high cheekbones, having come out sometimes during his stay in California, making him look so much older than he had looked around this time last year, gave him something so distinct that Will thought that even if he were blind, he’d be able to recognize him from touch alone, knowing exactly how they felt from stroking over them so often. The freckles adorning his nose and cheeks, only more visible now in summer, gave back some of that boyish charm that reminded him of a younger Mike, one that hadn’t had to suffer as much as present Mike had had to. He was mostly able to hide that suffering, which was almost constantly present in Will’s own face despite things having gone back to normal and so much better, but sometimes, a wave of sadness brushed over him, only to disappear again after the bad memory that had probably manifested itself in his brain had been banished once again. But now, in both of their faces, nothing but pure love and adoration was to be seen.

“Like I said, it’s okay”, Mike said again, now not whispering anymore, leading Will over to the couch on which they’d be sitting for the next few hours to watch one movie after the other, only taking occasional breaks to cover the other’s face with kisses, “I think that Nancy knows, too. I basically told her that I love you like, a few minutes before you came over that one day when, you know, I told you that I love you, too.” He said that last part with his head tilted to the side, a big grin on his face, like he still couldn’t believe that he was saying something like that to his face now. And Will almost couldn’t believe it either.

Now, they were both lying on the couch in front of the TV, watching the first “Star Wars”-movie, not like they hadn’t already seen it countless times before, and were cuddled into each other, only ever moving to get themselves some popcorn. Will, normally always so attentive when watching movies, couldn’t concentrate on it at all today, the closeness to Mike taking his attention away from what was in front of him and making him focus on how it felt to have the boy of his dreams pressed into his side, one arm around his shoulder, one of his own hands lying on the boy’s chest. He was sure that at one point, he had even closed his eyes to be entranced by the situation at hand completely, a shaky sigh escaping his mouth at much more than just one point.

His boyfriend next to him almost melting into the touch convinced him that similarly to him, the thoughts going through his head at that moment weren’t connected to the movie that was playing at all, too.

Chapter Text

The 4th of July would always be a difficult day for the party in the years to come.

Because for them, it wasn’t a holiday to celebrate America, a festivity where they’d sit around and watch the fireworks, a fun afternoon at the fair that only ever opened near Hawkins on that day, or at least not anymore. For them, it was the day of the battle at Starcourt Mall, where they had fought against the physical manifestation of the Mind Flayer, who had already terrorized them enough in the past, made out of the corpses of multiple insects, rats and even other humans, the day on which they had all thought that this time, they wouldn’t all make it, this time, they would lose, the day on which Hopper had almost lost his life and had disappeared for the eight months to come, the day Billy had died for real, having sacrificed himself for his sister and her friends, this being the only good deed that Max could ever remember her brother doing without having been able to gain anything for himself, except maybe eternal peace, in this case.

So, while everybody had to deal with their feelings surrounding that specific holiday, the rest of the party knew that it would hit Max harder than any of them. With only a few days to the anniversary of Billy’s death, they had imagined Max to be somewhat reserved, sad, maybe even grieving. Even though she had admitted her feelings about her brother’s death openly during the second attack of Vecna, him, somewhat ironically, having helped her with processing everything properly for the first time in almost a year, the trauma inflicted by seeing somebody from your family being killed right in front of you and having to deal with survivor’s guilt wouldn’t simply go away just like that. It would take time, and, as stupid as it sounded, in this case, time really was the only thing that could heal those wounds.

Keeping this in mind, it would be an understatement to say that the party had been surprised by Max’s proposal to visit the newly opened mall near Hawkins a good week before Independence Day. After the booming success of Starcourt and its sudden destruction, the county had decided to build a somewhat similar establishment, this time not directly in Hawkins, but halfway between the town and the neighboring city. It had opened just a few days ago, almost everybody already having checked it out during the holidays, and since none of her friends had suggested going there, not having brought it up just in case it would upset her, she had taken matters into her own hands.

On one of their group hangouts in Mike’s basement, she had simply presented them with the already paid bus tickets, telling them that she had no intentions to miss out on the fun that a new mall could promise because of “some minor thing that might or might not have happened at a mall last year”. After having shared a few slightly worried glances, the others had agreed to drive there the following day. Only after that had Max demanded the money for the bus fare, having bought them not out of the purity of her heart, but because she had known that her friends would only accept if she presented them with set facts, which had resulted in everybody bursting out in thunderous laughter. They had known that she was right, that dwelling on the past and letting it control the present and future would only make them suffer more than they already did. After everything that had happened, they deserved this.

Max deserved this.

At first, just after the bus had arrived at their destination, Will had been worried about running into a familiar and very much unpleasant face, meaning Troy and his gang, because who could know if they were still mad about the fight with Lucas? Maybe they wanted to get revenge, to embarrass him in front of as many people as possible, to do something to them, to him, outside of the small security that being on school grounds had always posed in favor of the party. But, even though half of Hawkins was, in fact, at the new mall that day, the boy he dreaded coming in contact with was nowhere to be seen, which had made it possible for Will to enjoy the trip without any problems, worries or distractions.

Well, without any distractions safe for his boyfriend, who brushed against him, either with his shoulder, hand or at one point or another even with his hip, almost by the minute. Only after this had happened for the tenth time had he realized just how close they were really standing. Even over the loud music and chatter, Will could hear Mike’s breathing as clear as day, even over the multiple people he was bumping into because of how packed the plaza in front of the mall was, he could feel the electricity of every single one of Mike’s subtle touches, even over the almost overwhelming smell of food from countless different places, he could faintly smell Mike’s cologne with which’s scent he was now oh so familiar with.

Entering the mall, they were walking right next to each other like always, too close for two totally platonic male best friends, too far away from each other to be immediately flagged as a couple by any bystanders, Max and Eleven in front of them, leading the way, and Dustin and Lucas just a few feet behind them, which gave him a faint feeling that they must notice something about the way him and the other boy were always touching, seemingly on accident, but way too often for it to be just that. But, even if they did, which, if he was being honest, he sincerely doubted, remembering the obliviousness regarding him and Mike which they had all shown during the last few weeks, they had the decency not to say anything about it.

While their friends were involved in vivid conversations, the girls talking about which shops they should check out first, the boys about which movie they should watch at the cinema later, him and Mike just flashed each other fond smiles, far too focused on each other to contribute anything meaningful to any of the discussions.

But the second the party stepped into the mall, the memories came back in a flash.

Eleven saw the checkered floor and remembered how, almost a year ago, she had lain on a floor similar to this one, having a part of the Mind Flayer stuck in her leg and seemingly having “used up” her powers in the following fight, making her unable to use them for the months to come.

Dustin recognized the familiar sign of a “Scoops Ahoy” shop on the second floor, reminding him of how he, Erica, Steve and Robin had almost been kidnapped by the Russians who had experimented underneath Starcourt, the latter ones having been drugged and tortured to make them spill secrets, plans and information they didn’t even possess.

Lucas looked over to a shop advertising fireworks for the nearing holiday, recalling how he had tried to destroy the monster they had fought using them, and made a mental note to tell his parents not to buy any this year, or, thinking about it a bit more, any year to follow.

Max looked at the central part of the entrance, a high hall with a glass roof, and got thrown back into the moment where she had seen Billy, the brother she had never wanted, always despised, but, for some reason, still loved, lifted up into the air by the gross tentacle made out of rotting corpses that sticked out of his bleeding chest.

Mike watched the people roaming around without a care in the world, reminiscing about the way he had felt so utterly terrified, helpless, even useless, because while his friends had been battling this creature, he had only been able to think about all the ways the people he loved most could die, about how they would all fail.

Will instinctively grabbed the back of his neck when he saw a cinema right in front of them, the building reminding him of the first time he had felt the Upside Down again after so many months of peace, of how often that had happened in the days to follow, of how excruciating that feeling had become with the Mind Flayer right in front of him.

Everybody knew that they were all thinking about it, that they were all remembering against their will, that they were all seconds away from hyperventilating and getting pushed into panic attacks. That was when El closed her eyes, took a long, deep breath, and whispered, just loud enough for the others to hear: “We’re safe. Nothing can hurt us. We can enjoy this day just like everybody else here. We can live again.” And while that wasn’t far enough to banish all the memories into the very back of their minds again, to hide them there, to keep them away from ever resurfacing again, the rest of the party nodded in agreement, calmed their breathing and finally entered the place where today, they would make new memories.

After that short speech of reassurance, the day at the mall was more fun than any of them could’ve imagined, just like Max had predicted. They hadn’t planned anything about this day beforehand, knowing that every time they did make plans, no matter if they regarded saving the world or simply shopping at a mall, they would go completely off the rails anyways, so when they did finally enter the newly constructed building, they simply let Max and El show them around the shops they recognized from Starcourt. While they didn’t want to spend their whole allowance on this one-day-trip, meaning that they could never buy everything they saw and wanted, running through various stores to try on random stuff was fun regardless.

In the beginning, it had only been the girls trying on outfits and showing them off to the others, them acting like judges on a fashion show and giving less than constructive criticism once in a while, even though or maybe especially because they had even less knowledge about clothes than their friends who were presenting them.

But after a while, the boys let themselves be reeled into trying on one or two things the girls picked out for them. For the fact that she had spent most of her rather short life locked in a lab, Eleven had an amazing style, for which she always passed the praise onto Max, who had originally helped her develop just this style in a similar situation the year before. Dustin and Lucas had been the first ones to get a so called “makeover”, which had resulted in one of them buying yet another cap, totally having missed the point of whatever Max and El had been trying to accomplish with him, earning himself an annoyed groan from both of them, and the other one falling in love with a light brown letterman jacket which, according to his girlfriend, really fit his eyes.

That only left Mike and Will who still had to fall victims to the mercy of their self-appointed stylists. After having a few shirts shoved into their arms, they were ushered into the changing rooms to try on whatever the others thought would fit them perfectly. And while Mike wasn’t so sure with what the girls had picked out for him, not being completely enthusiastic with the way the dark fabric made him look even paler, even after the others had assured him that it looked good, he was almost overwhelmed the second he saw Will step outside of the dressing room.

The shirt he was wearing now was nowhere near the pale and almost dull colors he had forced himself to wear for a short period of time during his stay at California, before having recognized that, apparently, it weren’t his clothes that had made him “look gay”, it had just been himself as a person, and having decided that he simply liked colorful clothes more, like he had told Mike one day when they had been hanging out in his basement. What he was wearing now was more him again, more similar to the kind of clothes he had worn during spring break or even more like how he had used to dress the year before, at that point not yet having cared about how others perceived his clothing style. It was striped, like most of his favorite shirts, in various shades of green, a color which, according to Mike, suited him almost as much as yellow did. Like always, Will had tucked it into his pants, which, to the other boy’s eyes, already made the outfit a perfect fit. The short sleeves showed off his arms, which, as he noted once more, had become much more muscular and distracted him for a few seconds too long, just like the fact that the shirt was a little tight around the shoulders and chest. Had the others not also been focused on the other boy, they would’ve for sure found a suspicious blush, a stare that was a little too engrossed, and maybe, if they looked closely enough, even a love-struck expression on Mike’s face.

“Mike, what do you think?”, Will suddenly asked, which immediately pulled the other boy out of his trance and made him look at the face of the boy he had been shamelessly staring at, a small, insecure smile greeting him. And as Mike was looking at Will‘s face, his hair, his eyes, his lips, his arms, his chest, his whole body, if he was being honest, taking in all of the beauty in front of him, he‘d have loved to burst out a little “You look beautiful”, simply because that had been the first thought that had sprung to his mind when he had seen his boyfriend in the new shirt, and also because he’d love to see his reaction to that sentence.

But sadly, he‘d never be able to say something like that when they were with the rest of the party, least of all in the middle of a very busy mall. Lucas would do it almost daily, sometimes just whispering how beautiful she was into Max’s ear, her always telling him to shut up after saying it, lightly hitting his arm, the little giggle that came with it revealing how much she really liked it. She was a little embarrassed by her boyfriend’s antics, sure, but she loved it, because she knew that Lucas was only trying to show how much he loved her. Mike would only be able to tell his boyfriend something like that when they were alone, not in front of their friends, and especially not in public. A surge of jealousy suddenly rose up in his chest.

But it disappeared just as quickly when he concentrated on Will’s beautiful face once more, noticing how he was still looking to him for approval, and he wondered what he did to deserve somebody like him, not for the first time since they had started dating. Pushing away what he had really wanted to say, he grinned from one ear to the other and said: “It looks awesome.”

He didn’t dare to say anything more than that, because he knew that if he had, he would’ve just burst out into song about the beauty that is one William Byers. And if that simple statement was already enough to send such a rapid blush to Will’s cheeks, maybe he didn’t even have to say much more.

Apparently Mike’s reaction to the shirt had been enough to convince Will to not only buy it, but also to keep it on for the rest of their day at the mall. If he had made that decision because he liked it so much, because all of his friends had complimented him strongly or because he had noticed the way his boyfriend had looked at him while wearing it, well, that was nobody’s business but his own.

And it seemed like Mike wasn’t the only one utterly fascinated by Will in that outfit.

Chapter Text

Ironically, out of the original party, Will had always had the most luck with girls.

Just like Dustin had said during ”his” funeral, when he had been in the hospital after having been rescued from the Upside Down, his friends had told him about how Jennifer Hayes had cried for him when he had been thought dead. After his return from the dead, she had never directly talked to him again, but she hadn’t called him “Zombie Boy” like most of his classmates had done, and sometimes, during class, he had caught her staring at him from the other side of the classroom, which, according to Lucas, had been clear signs of her having a crush on him. Nobody had known that the only reason why he had even noticed her staring had been because he himself had been a little too focused on a certain person sitting right next to her.

The second time a girl had shown interest in him had been at the Snow Ball. He had had no idea who she had even been, neither knowing her by looks nor by name, but she had asked him to dance, and even though she had used that stupid and teasing name to refer to him, who had he been to say no? After all, Mike had encouraged him to go dance with her instead of standing around with him on the sidelines like two unwanted idiots, and he hadn’t had the heart to tell him, or her, that he hadn’t had the slightest amount of desire to shuffle around awkwardly on the dance floor. At least, not with this girl. Not with any girl at all. Because the whole time when he had been dancing with her, his eyes had been locked on somebody else, somebody who hadn’t even spared him the smallest glance for the rest of the evening, somebody who had moved his focus from him to the recently having reappeared girl he hadn’t known anything about.

Then, of course, there had been Lenora. He had been the new kid, mysterious, artsy and, apparently, according to one too many girls at his school, good looking. It had only taken a few weeks for the first of those girls to approach him and ask him out for a cinema date, but he had declined politely. He had had to do that multiple times, more often than he ever could’ve imagined, actually, which had been one of the main reasons why he had been flagged as a queer in Lenora, too, because what boy in his right mind would dismiss that many beautiful girls, if not for the fact that he wasn’t interested in girls at all? California was way more liberal than Indiana, there had even been two boys in his English class that had been openly dating, but that hadn’t meant that certain people wouldn’t make his life hell for having the suspicion of him being gay. But he was used to that, wasn’t he?

And on that day at the mall, he would run into another situation similar to those previously mentioned.

Before that, though, the party had gone to the cinema to watch a rerun of “Back To The Future”, a movie they had already watched multiple times on VHS since they hadn’t been able to properly watch it when it had come out, but still loved just as much as the first time they had borrowed it from the Family Video store their friends were working at. It was a classic, one of the very few movies the whole party unanimously found perfect, a fact which they had thought impossible since their taste in movies varied greatly. The moment they had seen that they would show it again on the anniversary of its release, the decision had been clear, and they had marched into the cinema with excitement coursing through their bodies, clearly visible on all of their faces.

So, there they had been, in the darkness of the movie theater, all of them sitting next to each other since, for once in their life, they had come on time and hadn’t had to sneak in after the previews had already ended, not like they would’ve had that possibility in the new mall, and of course, because why would it ever be any different?, Will and Mike had been sitting right next to each other. They had been right in the middle of the group, Lucas and Max to their left, on the very last seats next to the corridor so that Max could comfortably return to her wheelchair after the movie ended, Eleven and Dustin on their right, throwing popcorn at each other. From the corner of his eye, Will had been able to see that the couple on his left had been holding hands, not embarrassed to do so in the slightest. When they did that in front of the party, the others loved to tease them because of their lovey-dovey behavior, without an ounce of malicious intent behind their actions, the simple fact that their friends were so disgustingly and adorably in love breeding a perfect ground for jokes and teases.

But the only feeling Will had felt when he saw them doing so now had been a small tinge of jealousy. Just like every other day, a realization had hit him, one that would always cause him a stinging pain for a few moments before being able to calm himself down again: He would never be able to hold hands with Mike, hug him passionately, or even touch him for a prolonged period of time in public, least of all in a crowded mall such as the one they had been in at that moment. Showing affection like that with another boy, no matter if you were really dating or not, never ended well, as he had seen on the news a few times, always changing the channel as fast as possible after hearing reports of that kind. Every time he and the other boy got a little too close, a little too affectionate, a little too obvious, he’d mentally slap himself for being so careless, for disregarding his safety, Mike’s safety, for something as trivial as touching hands in front of other people. No matter how much it pained him, he had to keep up a certain kind of facade around his boyfriend when they were out of the safety of their rooms or the basement, not wanting to ruin what they had by acting rashly.

But here, with no light betraying them and showing their secret to the world, Will had felt brave for a second. Nobody would be able to see them, not if they didn’t look way too closely, and everybody around them had seemingly been totally engrossed by the movie playing in front of them. Without overthinking it for too long, knowing that he’d just chicken out if he had, he had taken advantage of the fact that it had been completely dark and had laid his own hand in his boyfriend’s, their shared bucket of popcorn hiding this scandalous act from the rest of the world. After a short moment where Mike had tensed up uncomfortably, suddenly being much too aware of how suspicious they’d seemed if anybody had seen them, he had visibly relaxed again, also having realized that nobody paid any attention to them at all. By now, they had been sitting so close to each other that Will had almost been able to feel the heat radiating from Mike’s face, the slight red tint that it had taken on the moment he had initiated contact only being faintly visible.

They had held hands for the whole duration of the movie, only letting go once the lights turned back on.

After the movie, the party had made their way to the new Scoops Ahoy to get themselves some ice cream to cool off, everybody being more than overheated by sitting in a closed, not air conditioned room with dozens of other people for two hours at an end. The whole group had sat down on one of the seating groups that were scattered around the mall, relaxing and chatting over the most random stuff, El and Mike trying to help Dustin with what gift he should get Suzie when they’d meet again, Max making fun of Lucas’s choice of ice cream, because apparently, “the only person that ate dark chocolate was her grandma”, and Will listening in on both conversations simultaneously while looking around the hall they were currently in, perfectly content with eating his ice cream and basking in the happiness of his friends. But a few minutes after he had started doing this, he had noticed something rather peculiar.

On the bench nearest to where they were sitting, there were some girls staring at their group, silently giggling amongst themselves, turning around quickly when he had caught them in the act. He had never been one to assume things, hating it when others wrongly interpreted his feelings just from a look on his face, but as anxious of a person as he was, he immediately assumed that the fact that those girls were constantly shooting him and his friends glances couldn’t mean anything good. “Hey, what’s their issue? They’ve been looking in our direction for the last, what, 5 minutes?”, he decided to ask the rest of the party, the slight worry in his voice only faintly audible if one concentrated enough, cautiously silent as not to alert the people he had mentioned. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had screamed it loud enough for the whole world to hear, though, since, as discreet as his friends were, they all turned around to look at the group of girls at the same time, making Will let out a silent groan at the utter embarrassments he called his best friends.

Max turned back around, already having analyzed the situation, always helping the much too oblivious boys out in circumstances where they were apparently physically unable to grasp what was happening on an emotional level, a grin as big as he had never seen one on her face before plastered on it, had an answer to his question: “I think they’re looking at you, Will.”

An incredulous sound escaped his mouth, as he gave those girls another look, seeing them all burst into yet another fit of giggles the second he acknowledged them. Max immediately resumed with her explanation, seeing the eyebrow Will had raised in disbelief: “The only people that re-joined our group since last year were you and El, and since they’re all girls and they’re giggling like crazy, it has to be you they’re staring at.” After another short pause, she added: “‘Cause random girls never used to look at us like that before you came back from California.” She continued to eat her ice cream, as if what she had just said had made anything clearer for Will, his already raised eyebrow only shooting up even more. “I…”, he mumbled, not noticing his own ice cream starting to melt all over his hand, “I’m sorry, I’m still not following.” With a sigh, Max stared Will right into his eyes, putting a hand on the shoulder Mike wasn’t pressed up against, something he also only noticed at that very moment, saying it just as it was: “They think you’re hot, Will.”

Had he been drinking anything at that point, Will was sure that he would’ve spit it all out after hearing the girl next to him say that. Luckily, he hadn’t, so the only thing showing his astonishment, surprise, maybe even shock was the fact that he had let what was left of his ice cream fall on the ground beneath him. He let out a silent curse at that, both this and his reaction making the others erupt into roaring laughter, only pulling the attention of the group of girls over to them even more.

After having recovered from the initial shock of indirectly being called hot by Max of all people and having shushed his friends aggressively, he looked at the group of girls again, now with a bit more attention, and he noticed three things that made it clear to him that there was no way they were from Hawkins, but rather from the other city near the mall: One, he had never seen them before, which, honestly, would’ve been very weird in a small town like Hawkins. Two, they were looking at the party with some kind of curiosity, not spite or even borderline disgust like the teenagers from their own town liked to do. Three, they thought that they, or better, one of them, one of those girls, could possibly have a chance with Will. While the people from his home town also didn’t know for a fact that he was gay, the rumors, bullying and name-calling had officially made him off limits to anybody from there, his status as a social pariah not being very appealing to the girls of Hawkins, not like it bothered him at all.

Well, it had made him off limits for anybody except for Mike, of course, who was now looking at him with a mixture of humor, agreement, obviously thinking just the same thing that those girls apparently did, and, if he looked closely enough, which he always did, even a tang of jealousy, for some reason. A small giggle escaped Will’s mouth at that realization, and he nudged Mike’s shoulder with his own, signaling that he of all people should know best that he had nothing to fear with those girls present.

The others were still laughing about the sheer absurdity of this situation, and only stopped after Will had threatened to push them all in front of the bus on their way home if they didn’t quit it right that instant. At this point, he was sincerely hoping that none of the girls would walk over to him, really not having the energy to reject one of them at this point. He was just happy that he had told the party about his secret already, because rejecting an objectively pretty girl for no apparent reason would’ve been very hard to explain without that certain knowledge about him.

“Hey, maybe we can send one of them over to Mike, as much as it physically pains me to say this, he doesn‘t look half as bad himself, after all”, Max giggled, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively, making Mike choke on his ice cream and Will almost break out in laughter. As if she hadn‘t noticed anything, which was unusual for Max, she just continued, wiping a tear from her eye: “I‘d try to set you up with somebody too, Will, but, no offense, that would be a little bit more complicated.”

Now it was Mike that had to hold back his laughter. The two boys shared yet another quick look, both obviously thinking about the exact same thing, and a small and amused grin appearing on both of their faces. “Nah, no problem. I‘m alright with how things are”, Will said, the big grin decorating his face, flashing short and subtle glances at the boy on his right, moving his pinky finger just close enough to the other’s hand that he could gently intertwine them behind their backs, hiding them from the plain sight they’d be exposed to if he didn’t. Mike played into this now too, replying to Max‘s earlier proposal. “Same here”, he began, a small laugh already leaving his mouth, as if what he was about to say were the pinnacle of comedy, “Also, none of those girls are really my type, you know?”

That had been too much for Will, who burst out in a wheezing laughter, the other boy joining in with him, while the others looked at them as confused as ever.

It was as if there was some inside joke between the two of them, and just the two of them at that.

Chapter Text

Growing up in the Wheeler family was far from as perfect as many people believed it was.

Of course, every family had its faults, its problems, its difficulties, some more severe than others. Thinking about this last fact, Mike always felt bad whenever he thought badly or complained about his upbringing, since he had seen with his own eyes how much worse others had it.

There were those families where the parents simply didn’t care about their children at all, leaving them in an empty house for days at a time, who probably wouldn’t even notice if their child disappeared until somebody else would point it out to them, much like Steve’s parents. One night when the whole extended party had been hanging out together in the Wheeler’s basement, said boy having had a particularly shitty day, he had confessed to all of them that as much as he had enjoyed that freedom during high school, now it only served as even more of a reminder that his parents couldn’t give less of a shit about him. That “moment of weakness”, as he had called it the next day, had been followed by a big group hug, one that even Erica had joined, not completely against her will.

Then there were families where one parent treated everybody around them just as badly as they wanted to, letting out their moods and bad days on them as if they were emotional punching bags, not caring about their wellbeing in the slightest, like Max’s stepfather. Before he had moved away again, before Billy’s death, the party would sometimes notice bruises on Max’s arms, small cuts on her cheeks, or once even a black eye, but she had always either told them she had gotten them from skating, that she had tripped on the last few steps of the stairs at home, or to mind their own business when they had asked about them. Only a few months after Starcourt, the day after her stepfather had left Hawkins, had she confirmed her friends’ suspicions and admitted that sometimes, when Billy hadn’t been home, he had taken out his anger on her instead of his own son.

And, of course, there were those families where, while one parent tried everything to keep their children safe, it simply wasn’t enough to protect them from the other parent, much like Will’s and Jonathan’s father, even though he really didn’t deserve to be called that. Both boys hated thinking about the time when he had still lived with them in their house, the time when him coming home drunk had almost been a daily occurance, the time when they would go through different versions of both physical and emotional abuse at a point in time when they had been too young to even understand what those words even meant. From cussing out Joyce in front of both of them for the most trivial of matters, to fully beating up Jonathan for defending and standing up for his brother, to calling Will those awful names at a daily basis, making him develop a deeply rooted hatred for himself and everything he was and stood for, everything had happened in that house. That had been another reason why the brothers had been happy to move into a new home once they had returned to Hawkins, making it just a little bit easier for them to repress those memories.

And the Wheelers? The only times Mike had been hit had been a light slap when he had done something vastly wrong, like lying his mother straight to the face, a harsh scolding really only happened every few weeks over an occasional bad grade or ignored chores, and the worst punishment Karen and Ted had ever been able to think of had been grounding him for a week or two. So he had nothing to complain about, right? It would be unfair to do so in front of people who had it so much worse, right? Maybe he really was the problem, overreacting at every turn and taking things too personal, right?

But he knew better. He knew that those visible things weren’t the only thing affecting him and his sisters, mostly Nancy, though, since Holly was still a bit too young to fully understand what was going on in the background, too young to see how much certain things could hurt her and her siblings in the long run, too young to read between the lines. The way their father only talked to them to either berate them about something or to criticize them, most of the time for things they had little to no control over, the way he always had something bad to say about their friends, never having agreed with their close, well, “friendships” with the Byers’ children only because of their income, their address and the rumors people liked to spread about them, the way that the only times they saw him was during dinner, him retreating to the living room as soon as possible after having returned from work: All of those things made it extremely hard to feel loved.

“Love” was a difficult term, anyways, and what could a 15 year old boy even know about it? Of course, he loved his friends, and he loved Will, the realization about in what way he loved that boy having come a bit later than he would’ve wanted it to, but in a certain sense, it was even more difficult with his family.

Mike knew that he loved his mother, who always made sure that he was doing okay at school, both with his grades and socially, who checked up on him if he didn’t leave his room for hours at a time, who knew exactly what to say when he needed to be cheered up.

He knew that he loved Nancy, even though she could be extremely annoying sometimes, because she was always there for him whenever he needed advice, because she had some sort of sixth sense that made her simply sit by his side when he wasn’t feeling well, because she was so much more badass than he had ever been able to imagine.

He also loved Holly, with her cheerfulness, her creativity, her ability to turn the most boring and uncomfortable atmosphere into a blooming conversation.

His father, well, he wasn’t so sure about. As a child, he had loved him, simply because he had thought that every child loved their father, just like every father loved their children. And then he had met Will, and that worldview had taken a swift 180. Because there was no way in the world that Lonnie loved Will, that he loved Jonathan, and if he didn’t love his sons, how big were the chances that his father also didn’t love him? There was more proof for that hypothesis than proof against it, after all. And with the way his father acted around him, the way he apparently did anything and everything to make him feel miserable, and the way he talked during family dinners, there really weren’t many reasons why Mike should love him, too.

Speaking of it, dinners at the Wheelers’ were certainly… something.

Normally they were dead silent, the tense atmosphere only sometimes being lightened by Holly telling a fun story or anecdote from her day. Other than that, not many conversations took place around the dinner table, at most some small-talk between the two older children and their mother, even though anything said was far from interesting or relevant to any of their lives in the long run. It was idle chatter, nothing earth-shattering, nothing important, nothing serious.

But sometimes, if it wasn’t dead silent, not Holly would fill the air with some emotions, but Ted, and other than when the young girl talked, his speeches certainly didn’t make the meal more pleasant, only creating even more of an uncomfortable environment. He simply loved to spew nonsense about politics he either knew way too much or way too little about, and apparently thought that dinner with his children was the perfect time to voice his carefully crafted opinions.

And, worst of all, one of his favorite topics had always been “the queers”. No matter what he had been talking about in the beginning, whether it was wars in far away countries that affected him as much as any other person in the United States, the upcoming elections where he’d definitely vote red yet again, or even the mayor’s decision to remove certain books from the library in Hawkins, he somehow always came back to that one topic. Every time he started one of his monologues, either not realizing or not caring that nobody at the table fully shared his views, apparently not even his own wife, both Nancy and Mike visibly tensed up even more than they had been before. Nancy, because she knew what it felt like to be discriminated against for something out of your control and would never return that energy to anybody. Mike, because even before he recognized that one very important fact about himself, he had already known the implications of the words and mean comments that had been thrown at Will since his early childhood, partly falling back on him, too, because of their special bond that had already shown itself at a very young age.

Normally, they would just stay silent and glance at their father with minor rage in their eyes, like it was expected of them. Stay silent, don’t talk back to your parents, don’t say or do anything that would make them think of you as unappreciative, as complicated, as “different”.

But after all those years of suffering through these meal times, after all those years of staying silent, after all those years of accumulated anger, one certain evening, Mike had finally had enough.

Ted had returned from work much later than anticipated, having worked overtime without telling his family once again, and since Karen insisted on at least eating dinner as a family to create some sort of familial feeling, they were still gathered around the dinner table when it had already gone dark outside. Needless to say, the atmosphere was even more tense than normally, everybody being tired, hungry and bored out of their minds. Then, of course, Mike’s father just had to start a conversation with his oldest daughter, despite the obvious annoyance that was already painted across her face since earlier that day.

“Nancy, when you’re at college, you need to make sure not to befriend any liberals. You know what they say about them”, he said between bites, careful not to speak while eating, this apparently being the only thing he had wanted to say for the remainder of the meal. Mike rolled his eyes discreetly, not wanting to get told off by his mother but at the same time needing to let out his thoughts of “What the hell is he on about now?” in some way without actually saying them out loud, already dreading the direction in which the conversation was about to drift off to. Nancy, who was aggressively cutting through her food, face looking like she wanted to commit mass murder, replied snappily: “No, I don’t. What do they say about the liberals?” It was obvious that Nancy was completely fed up with the topic of college, or with anything surrounding that subject, really, since she had already debated it, rather loudly, with Jonathan for more or less than an hour on the very same day, just a few hours before this fateful family dinner, the argument having ended with him storming out of the house and mumbling something about “needing to leave to take some photos in good evening lighting”. After a few seconds of silence, the only background noise being the chewing of five people, Ted answered her question: “Well, they’re either friends with queers or are queer themselves.” And if that hadn’t already made Mike’s heart beat a hundred times faster, sweat starting to form on his forehead, leg bouncing up and down nervously, the next thing he added surely did so even more: “Your brother already made that mistake, I don’t want you to repeat that.”

At first, he had thought that he had misheard his father, but after seeing the worried look that Nancy had shot him, he had fully realized the implications behind that sentence. Him and Will had allowed Jonathan to tell Nancy about them, since Mike had known that she’d be supportive because of their talk before the confessions in the basement. Will had also told him to tell Argyle, who, as his brother had told him one day, had been worried that Will was still mad at him for the question he had asked him on the phone back on graduation day. Now, that glance had told him everything he needed to know, confirming his suspicion about what his father had really meant, and after throwing down his cutlery on the table, he shouted out: “Now what the hell is that supposed to mean?” He knew exactly what that was supposed to mean. But he still held out the minimal hope that maybe, just maybe, his father hadn’t meant it like that, a hope that would be crushed mere seconds later.

Ted simply let out a small laugh, and replied with a smirk: “That Byers kid, Will, he’s always been a bit of a queer hasn’t he?” And he was still laughing. This was all just a big joke to him. He was openly insulting his son’s best friend, who, unbeknownst to him, was also his son’s boyfriend, and he didn’t think anything of it. “This is my best friend you're talking about, so you better watch what you're saying”, Mike hissed, his eyes fixated on those of his father, who was now looking at him in a way that was more shocked at his tone than anything else. There was no regret to be found in those eyes, no shame, not even the smallest bit of remorse. It was obvious that he didn’t even feel bad about that comment in the slightest. Now his mother was getting involved too, because while she certainly didn’t agree with how her husband was talking about her childrens’ friend, she would not take any disrespect in her household: “Mike, don't you talk to your father that way!”

“Why are you getting so defensive? Is it true?”, his father now said, rather incredulous for somebody who had thrown that accusation into the room in the first place. Now, Nancy wasn’t looking preoccupied anymore, more scared than anything, not for herself, but for her brother, who was almost jumping out of his seat. She knew, first hand and from stories her brother’s friends had told her, that he had a habit of shouting out things he didn’t mean to say when angry, aggravated, or frustrated, all things that he now so very visibly was. Mike gulped, trying to suppress his anger to the best of his abilities, which didn’t mean much when it came to hiding his true feelings, and said, as calmly as possible: “You don’t get to do that, to insult my friends right in front of me. Especially Will.” The realization had dawned on him as soon as he had said the other boy’s name. Why did he have to say that last part? It did nothing but make him look even more suspicious, like he wasn’t already doing a perfectly good job at that without almost spilling out his secrets in front of his whole family. Everybody had stopped eating by now, even Holly wasn’t playing with her food anymore, because while she didn’t exactly understand what the argument was about, she felt that it was more serious than any other argument her brother and father had had before.

Now, said father only rubbed his eyes, looking at Mike in slight disappointment, and sighed: “What’s so special about him, anyway? You’re always getting this worked up when we talk about him.” “You have no idea what he went through”, Mike whispered, barely audible over the rapid beating of his heart, which he was sure must’ve been heard by the rest of the table, too. That sentence held so much more weight than any of the people on that table, except maybe Nancy, could ever understand, since he wasn’t only talking about Will’s father, about the bullying, about the general anxiety that being gay in the 80’s brought with it. No, he also meant everything regarding the Upside Down, the secret supernatural happenings they all had had to deal with during the last few years, the monster that, for some reason, had always targeted Will of all people. But they didn’t know that, they didn’t know anything. He had to control himself, he had to stay calm, he had to…

“Well, half of that is his own fault, isn’t it? He decided to be that way, after all.”

And that was it. That was the line that Ted had crossed, a line that he’d never be able to step behind again, and Mike was more than ready to do the same. As soon as those last two sentences had left his father’s mouth, Mike stood up determinedly, his chair tipping over and hitting the floor beneath it because of the force it had been left with. Mike finally had enough.

“Okay, you know what? You keep Will’s name out of your fucking mouth”, he pressed out, eyes full of hatred, rage, and, for the first time in a while, honesty, not caring in the slightest about the look on his family members’ faces, about their shocked expressions, about their speechless glances at him. And after what he’d say next, there would be a total silence, only interrupted by a small gasp from Nancy, less surprised about what he said, more about the fact that he said it at all.

“And if you really want to insult a queer, you can do it, right now, straight to his face, because there's one standing directly in front of you!”

Chapter Text

Jim Hopper had never disliked Mike Wheeler.

Back when he had simply been the Chief of Hawkins Police, the worst things he had had to deal with having been some bar fights, a few breaking and enterings and the occasional aggravated assault once in a blue moon, he hadn’t even known of the boy’s existence. He had just been one of the many other citizens of the town he had sworn to protect, just a person living his own life, just another kid, happy, content, alive.

But one day, a young boy had come to the police station with a broken arm, telling some extremely detailed and one-hundred-percent made up story about a girl with psychic powers having hurt him for no reason whatsoever. Needless to say, when that boy had said something about a certain Micheal Wheeler being involved in his “attempted murder”, as he had phrased it, he had forgotten that name just as fast as the kid had said it. The first time he had perceived the previously named boy for real had been just a few days after said event, this time not in a safe environment like the station he worked at, but when he had been on his way to enter an alternate dimension to find Mike’s best friend, a certain William Byers that had disappeared a week before. After having brought him back to their world, it still felt weird calling it that, it felt weird knowing that there was another world, so different yet so similar to theirs, directly underneath their feet, Hopper had checked up on him periodically to make sure he had been fine after everything he had had to go through, and almost every time he had visited the Byers’ house, Mike had also been there, disturbing the comfortable silence he had liked to spend with Joyce. That’s how he had become accustomed to seeing that boy almost daily.

Then, less than a year after his first encounter with the Upside Down, had his whole worldview been rocked from its very base yet again. As if living with and raising a girl with superpowers in a small cabin in the woods hadn’t already added enough stress to his life, now there was a newer, bigger, scarier threat from the supernatural world about to destroy Hawkins yet again. And, of course, Joyce also had a new partner, Bob, but that hadn’t mattered to him, nope, not at all. Circling back to the initial topic, the boy he had helped save, Will, had had visions of said world, of a new monster, of a new danger to the town, looming over them all in the sky. And just like him, Mike had accompanied his friend to almost every single doctor's appointment he had had to go to to deal with the stress and the new feeling of dread that had shaken him almost daily at that point. Mike had hovered over him almost constantly, never leaving him out of his sight, ready to face off against any and every danger that the world could and would throw at Will, and he had been in a state of constant panic during the attack in the laboratory. When Eleven had returned from her “adventure”, ready to save the world once again, and Mike had discovered that Hopper had kept her still being alive a secret for all that time, he had screamed at him, hit him, fought him with all the might a 12 year old had in him. It hadn’t been like he hadn’t had any reason to do so, his anger had been more than justified, though the same had applied to his own actions, and seeing him care so deeply about the girl he now called his daughter had even made him like the boy to some extent.

All of that positivity regarding him had disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared once Mike had started dating Eleven properly, visiting the cabin every day just to make out with her behind closed doors. His cocky attitude, sassy remarks and annoying laughter that had been directed at him more often than not had taken away the last of his nerves, having resulted in him abandoning, or rather, ignoring, every piece of advice that Joyce had given him in those regards and lying to his daughter and her boyfriend, this accidentally having been the start of the decline in their relationship. But in the end, he hadn’t had much time to think about that Wheeler kid anymore, since both a well known and new threat had approached Hawkins once more. While the children had been dealing with the physical manifestation of the Mind Flayer, he, Joyce, and a group of people who all didn’t have a minimal idea of what the hell they were doing, had tried, emphasis on the “tried”, to foil the Russians’ plan to open up a new portal under Starcourt Mall. Speaking of Joyce, at that point there had also been some kind of tense air between the both of them after she had failed to turn up to a date she had promised him, Murray not having helped at all with smoothing things out. In the end, he had almost died in an explosion and had been caught by the Russian’s, thus making his worries about his daughter’s aggravating boyfriend so much smaller in the big scheme of things.

After that, being stuck in the “motherland”, thousands of miles away from his home, Mike had been the least of his worries. He had been more preoccupied with bribing a guard, escaping the prison he had been put in, and, most importantly, surviving.

A rescue mission that had involved a few more unexpected surprises than he would’ve liked, a renewed battle against a Demogorgon and the imminent destruction of Hawkins having been left in the past, “only” being left as less than faint memories in his head that would never disappear again, scarring him for the remainder of his life that, surprisingly, hadn’t already ended, a kind of normality had somehow sneaked back into his life. He had moved into a nice house with his daughter, the woman he loved, and her sons, and he had never been happier.

Having heard the news of the second and final breakup between Eleven and Mike, he had felt some kind of relief, something which, of course, he hadn’t told anybody, least of all El herself. He had hoped that now, he would need to see the boy less, because that attitude of his still rubbed him the wrong way sometimes, but his hopes had been disappointed once again: Now, it wasn’t his daughter that he was constantly attached to, but his son. Mike was over at the Hopper-Byers’ house almost daily, and if he wasn’t, Will was over at the Wheeler’s, making it very hard to spend some quality time as a family without any of his children’s friends around. But he didn’t dislike him, no, not at all, he saw how happy he made his children, especially Will in this period of time, but every time he interacted with that boy, he could see that Mike wasn’t rather fond of him, obviously not having forgiven him fully for his behavior of the previous year.

So, imagine Hopper’ surprise when one late evening, none other than Mike Wheeler appeared on his doorsteps, asking him of all people for help.

Mike hadn’t even thought about where he would go, once he had stormed out of his house after having said that last, crazy, stupid sentence straight to his fathers face. Why had he had to say that? Why couldn’t he just have defended Will without revealing his own deepest secret? Why couldn’t he just have shut his mouth once in his goddamn life? These thoughts circulating around in his head, he had simply started to run. He had run through the darkness, no goal in mind, no clear view of the road ahead of him because of the tears clouding his vision, nothing else storming through his brain other than a constant replay of the situation at dinner. Every few seconds, the scene in his head had changed from his mother’s appalled expression, to Nancy’s eyes, wide in shock and fear, to Holly, having heard everything yet having no clue why that one sentence could have produced those kinds of reactions. And, of course, his father had showed up in these nightmarish memories, too, his almost unreadable face, his eyebrows, furrowed in rage, his mouth that had been twitching to say something, and Mike hadn’t even had to imagine what it had been that he would’ve said, had he not left them all behind before giving him the chance to do so.

His lungs had ached, air entering them so irregularly that, hearing his breathing, you would’ve thought that he was either asthmatic or had been smoking for the last few decades. His heart had rushed faster than ever before, both because of the overwhelming amount of emotions making its way through his body and because of the physical exertion, heartbeat so loud in his ears that he had thought his most vital organ had left its place in his chest to move up to his head. And, as unathletic as he was, at some point his legs had almost given out under him, since, after stumbling over more pebbles and creases in the asphalt as he had thought would even be possible, his sense of balance had given up just as much as the boy himself.

Mike had run away without any goal or destination in mind, but, as if he were a magnet and that house, or rather, a certain person in it, his north pole, his body had led him to Will’s house almost instinctively. It knew that he would be safe here, that they would probably let him stay the night without asking all too many questions, that he could fall asleep in a house that, during the last few months, had grown to more of a home to him as his own house had done during the last fifteen years of his life. But it had been the place where he had grown up, after all, the place where he had spent the biggest portion of his life, the place where so many happy memories had been made, mostly in the basement, that is. But right now, it wasn’t any of that. It was the place where his dad was, the place where one of the worst moments of his life had taken place and ingrained itself into his long-term memory, the place where, the moment he’d step a foot in it again, he would have to pack his bags to get sent to some nice christian camp for a few weeks.

The Hopper-Byers’ home wasn’t that place. It was truly homely, warm, secure, everything that his own house had never really been, wasn’t now, and definitely wouldn’t be after the shitshow that had taken place today. And, of course, it was where his boyfriend, the person he loved the most in the entire world, the one and only for him in the past, present and future, lived. When Mike had stood in front of the entrance door for a few minutes before finally pressing the bell, the almost obsessive thoughts had changed their direction and had fixated themselves on the fact that he hadn’t only outed himself, but, if his parents thought about the things he had said only a little more, also Will as gay to one of the most homophobic people he knew. That had been what had made him hesitate for a moment, but, selfish as he thought himself to be, he hadn’t allowed himself to think about what this would mean for his and Will’s future, since his father definitely wouldn’t allow him to see the other boy again, should he ever even return home, that is.

And there it had been, the next thing he had worried about excessively. Would he ever return home, whatever “home” meant in that context? Would he even be allowed to go to his house again? Would he ever see Holly again or would Ted, only Ted now, he didn’t deserve the title of father, forbid him from seeing his sister and “converting her to perversion”? Before he had been able to spiral any more than he already had, the door had been opened and had revealed the figure of Jim Hopper, the very last person he had wanted to appear before him at that moment. He had hoped for Will to greet him, or Joyce, or El, or even Jonathan, who seemed to like him more now than before he had found out about him and his brother dating, but with his luck that day, why would he have expected for anything to play out like he had wanted it to?

The confusion about finding a shaking, sobbing, mere-seconds-away-from-breaking-down Mike in front of his house at, what was it, 9 pm?, was clearly visible on the man’s face, but Mike couldn’t have cared less about it, if he was being honest, which, apparently, was something he was just really good at today. “Any chance I can stay here?”, he choked out in between sobs, “Just for tonight?” He had added that last part for good measures, even though he knew that it would very much not only be a one-night stay after having realized just how much he had truly fucked up his life. There wasn’t even a hint of hesitation to be seen in his eyes when Hopper answered, leading the boy into the house with his arm firm but comforting around his shoulders: “Of course.”

The second he stepped over the doorstep, some sense of calm flooded over and into his entire body. While he was still crying, although he had no idea how he hadn’t run out of tears yet, his body was more or less under his control again and he didn’t feel like a kicked puppy anymore. At least, not completely. After having gone to the living room to shut off the TV, Hopper returned to the kitchen, where Mike had sat down on a chair for the time being. He didn’t want to talk about what had happened, he didn’t even want to think about it, let alone tell the man in front of him why exactly he had felt the need to escape from his relatively safe home at night. He hadn’t thought about what he’d do once he’d get inside, he should’ve realized that, seeing him in the middle of a full blown panic attack, they wouldn’t simply let him stay without even the slightest hint of an explanation. And he would explain, he would, but not now. Not so soon after.

So, he kept his gaze on the table, avoiding to make any kind of eye contact with Hopper, keeping his hand busy by scratching at a spot on it that must’ve been some dried food rest from dinner. No, not dinner, he couldn’t even think about the word dinner without almost throwing up all over the room. He started to scratch even harder at that spot now. If he couldn’t fix his own life, maybe he could just fix this, because, as stupid as it sounded, even to himself, that would give him that moment of satisfaction and control that he so desperately needed right now. But it wouldn’t go away, it didn’t move an inch, least of all go away completely, no matter how hard he tried. He couldn’t even clean a stain from a table.

God, he was really pathetic.

"So... you want to tell me what happened?", Hoppers voice saved him from falling back into the depths of self doubt, hate and desperation. Mike hadn’t even noticed that he was now sitting right in front of him, arms crossed in front of his body, eyes just as full of concern as his voice had been when asking that question. He still couldn’t look him in the eyes, afraid that he would burst out with anything and everything, all of the things that had happened during the last few months, all of the things that were running through his head as if their life depended on it, all of the things he didn’t think he’d ever tell anybody other than Will, some not even him.

To avoid answering the question, he simply asked one back, unruly hair covering his face so as not to be fully perceived by the man sitting opposite him: “Where is everybody?” The complete silence in the house felt weird, out of place, almost unsettling, but it fit with how he was feeling, so maybe it was just him. Normally, there was always somebody around, rummaging through the kitchen cabinets, searching a movie from the cupboard in the living room, running up and down the stairs for no other reason than the happiness that came with it, stemming from the joy of finally living in a house with multiple floors. But now, there was nothing, no sounds, no voices, no people other than him and the man he had slowly learned not to dislike during the last few months. “Joyce is still at work, but her shift should end in”, Hopper answered, checking his watch, trying not to upset the boy any more, “about half an hour. El is at a sleepover at Max’s, and Jonathan is still out doing ‘night photography’, for some reason.” Ah, he was still pissed at Nancy and the whole college thing. Something about college had been talked about during dinner, and then… No. He couldn’t keep doing this to himself. He had to stop thinking about it. He had to get his mind to concentrate on something else, something like…

“Where's Will?”, he almost only whispered now, having noticed that one very vital person had been missing from Hopper’s list of people not in the house right now. Will had to be here, where would he even be if he weren’t? Mike didn’t think he’d be able to take having to wait for Will to return from wherever he was, should he truly not be home the one evening when he really, really needed him to be. Thankfully, Hopper was able to soothe his worries: “He’s just upstairs, taking a shower, I think. But he’s been in there for over half an hour now, so he’ll be here soon. If you want him to be, of course.” “Yes”, he said, a little louder now, without any hesitation, “I need to see him. I need to talk to him. I need… I just really need him right now.” With those last few words, the tears that had stopped falling a few minutes ago without him actively noticing returned again. Noticing the desperation in his breaking voice, Hopper stood up again, and said soothingly, a small smile on his face: “Okay. I’ll go get him. After that, I’ll make you some hot chocolate, or tea, or coffee, whatever you want. A hot drink can make many problems look smaller, you know?” Mike let out a much too bitter scoff, before whispering, just loud enough for the other man to hear and flinch just the tiniest bit in concern: “Not this one.”

He had been sitting alone in the kitchen for less than two minutes, yet the time waiting for Will seemed almost endless. When he heard fast footsteps coming down the stairs, he immediately turned around to look at the very person he had wished to see from the moment he had stormed out of his house. Any other day, the sight of a Will that was fresh out of the shower, still wet hair standing up in every direction after a failed attempt at drying it with a towel, white shirt sticking against his chest from the remaining water on his body, making everything under it visible to his eyes, cheeks red from the heat of the shower, would’ve made him freak out in a much more than positive way.

But now, the only thing he could do with Will enveloping him in his strong, careful, gentle arms was breaking down completely.

Chapter Text

Mike had never felt this hopeless before.

Looking back at the last few years of his life, you would think that many situations you’d find would bring out a much more severe feeling of bottomless desperation.

There had been the day when Will had gone missing, this being the first time Mike had ever experienced that kind of numb feeling that made him go crazy at the same time, that ache inside his chest that told him that something was wrong, not necessarily with his body, but his mind, that sense of nothing working out like he wanted, no, like he needed it to. He had pushed himself and his best friends to their very limits to find the other boy, not even stopping when having found a strange girl in the woods, trying to get her to help with her just as strange powers for the search. And when that hadn’t worked, when Will’s body had been found in the Quarry, it hadn’t been a numb feeling anymore. It had been like a fire burning everything inside him, reducing everything that made him, well, him, to nothing more than ashes, leaving behind a barren wasteland of lost hope and painful memories.

The second time he had felt the feeling he would later name “despair” had been almost a year after that November that had changed his life forever. It had been when he had seen Will thrashing around in his hospital bed, needing to be constrained by multiple adults, screaming at him for being a liar. He had known that this hadn’t been his Will talking, that this had been the influence of the Mind Flayer, that Will would never accuse him of lying, because he knew better than anyone that friends didn’t lie, that he would never scream at him like that. Still, it had driven tears into his eyes, and he had had to cover his ears so as not hear that “thing” that had invaded his best friend’s body use his voice to hurt him and those he loved. Later, when they had tried to lure the real Will out of the possessed body and mind and everybody had told him stories from their past together, him himself having talked about the day they had met, on the swingset on the first day of kindergarten, and how asking him to be his friend had been the best thing he had ever done, he had had to look in dark, black, empty eyes when expecting warm, inviting, hazel ones. He had always loved the color of Will’s eyes, and seeing them like this, seeing Will like this, no memories of his past, no sense of self, no control over his body, it had broken his just recently shattered and healed heart yet again.

Then had come that terrible, terrible summer, the summer that would turn out to be the worst summer of his life despite having been meant to be the best one yet. After everything that had happened, after being dumped by El, after the fight with Will and that unforgivable thing he had said, which now, knowing just how true that statement had been, made him feel even more guilty, after the battle at Starcourt Mall: He simply had had enough. Things couldn’t get any worse, that’s what he had thought, there’s nothing that could top any of this. And then, the Byers moved away, taking Eleven, his best friend and a part of his childhood, a part of his heart, away with him. The weeks after he had said goodbye one last time had been filled with that feeling of emptiness, for the first time being accompanied by both a desire to do nothing at all for days on end and smashing everything breakable he could find against the walls of the basement where he now spent most of his time in total isolation. If he had broken the one or other vase and picture frame during those days, that was between him and himself. But another feeling had accompanied him during this oh so desperate time, and it had been the feeling of complete and utter confusion. Why hadn’t he liked it when El had kissed him before leaving? Why had his fight with Will made him feel so much worse than the breakup with El? And why, in the name of god, had he been thinking of Will more often than of his own girlfriend?

After everything regarding the Upside Down had finally been resolved and left in the past, leaving him only with some confusing and sometimes aggravating thoughts and feelings for a certain person he shouldn’t have those kinds of feelings for, he had thought that now, maybe life would go back to normal and he would never have to feel that extreme hopelessness again. He had thought that maybe, just maybe, he had already reached the bottom of utter despair and that it wouldn’t be possible for his emotional state to sink any deeper than it already had.

But no, life, the world, fate, or whatever you’d like to call the power that apparently hated him with every fiber of its being, seemed to have thrown a shovel at him and told him to keep digging, until the pit of desolation wouldn’t reach the very core of the Earth. And after that? He’d just have to continue digging even deeper.

Because here he was, lying in Will’s bed, completely enveloped into a much needed embrace by said boy, crying with no tears left to cry. His head was buried deeply into the crook of his boyfriend’s neck, both of his arms flung around his chest, gripping his shirt with all the force he could muster up after hours of sobbing and letting every negative feeling about his family that had accumulated over the past years flow out of his system, his legs entangled in Will’s. He had one hand around his waist, keeping him close and not letting go for even a fraction of a second, the other hand brushing through Mike’s tangled curls with enough attention so as not to get stuck in any of the many knots in it. Not a single word escaped from either of their mouths, only the occasional whimper from Mike and the silent, soft, comforting shushing from Will being a reminder of their presence in the room.

The light was dimmed, since both of the boys didn’t want to lay in total darkness, not after everything, primarily for Will, who, even though he had never told anybody, always had a small lamp switched on before going to sleep. The alarm clock on the nightstand showed it already being well past midnight, but neither of them had slept at all, their eyes being closed not because of the desire to fall asleep but because of the effort that it would take to keep them open at this time of the night and in this kind of emotional state.

And despite all of Will’s efforts to make him feel at home, to make him feel safe, to make him feel like he had nothing to fear, Mike was still hopeless. And how couldn’t he be? He had managed to ruin his life in the matter of minutes, simply by being too stupid to keep his mouth shut and telling his parents the one thing they never should’ve found out. Before that day, he had thought about maybe telling his mother someday, after having left for college, of course, so he would have some kind of safety net. But that net had been ripped apart right in front of his eyes, he himself having destroyed the illusion of the perfect son that he had kept up in front of his parents, even though that illusion had never been all too foolproof to begin with.

Worst of all, he had also broken Will’s trust. He knew that Will would never blame him for what he had done, for what he had said, for what he had confessed, he was much too nice of a person for that, sometimes, oh, who was he even kidding, often even too nice of a person for his own good, but he couldn’t do much else than blame himself. Would they ever be allowed to have a one-on-one sleepover again? Would he ever be allowed over to his house in the future? Would he himself be allowed to return to the house he didn’t want to call home anymore? Every time a new thought like this invaded his mind, another cry slipped out of him, making Will pull him even closer.

He didn’t deserve his affection. He didn’t deserve those comforting words. He didn’t deserve Will.

“I fucked everything up”, Mike whispered after some time, hours having passed since the last time he had spoken, instead having cried almost nonstop, making his voice sound croaky and hoarse. Despite not having told him what had happened, Will had probably been able to connect the dots from him randomly appearing at his house while crying hysterically after a family dinner. Will’s hand in his hair hesitated for a second before resuming its slow circles, after which the boy whispered back just as softly as he had spoken when leading him up to his room earlier that night: “You didn’t, believe me. Everything is going to be perfectly fine, alright?” If the sheer hopelessness of the whole situation hadn’t robbed him of the ability to laugh, Mike would’ve let out a sarcastic chuckle, but all that came out of his mouth instead of it was another ugly whimper. He didn’t know just how much he had fucked up, but he’d find out in a few hours at the latest, especially because both Joyce and Hopper would demand some kind of explanation for his state, not because they were nosy, but because they cared. Sometimes he wondered if people could care too much about somebody who didn’t deserve that much adoration.

“You deserve so much better than me”, Mike said under his breath, into the fabric of Will’s shirt, paying attention so as not to let him hear what he had said. He knew that that kind, selfless, too-good-for-this-dumpster-fire-of-a-world boy would never let him talk about himself that way, after all. But, just as another time that his luck had decided to run out on him, Will had understood every word perfectly. He removed both of his hands from Mike’s body, moving them to his shoulders to pull him away so as to make him look in his face. His expression was full of worry, shock and somehow, even love. “Hey, I don’t want to hear any of that”, he cupped his face and warned him with the voice he used so often on him, now so much deeper than it had been the last time he had had to comfort him like that, but still just as soft and careful, “I want you, alright? Nothing of that ‘you deserve better’ shit. I don’t want anything, anybody, else. I want you, you understand?” And everything combined, the adoration in his eyes, the overwhelming need of his to make him understand that he was everything he wanted, everything he needed, the soft touch of his hand on his cheek that he had immediately leaned into: It made him realize once again just how lucky he was.

Everything about this was just so Will, and how could he ever say no to Will?

Waking up the morning after, in a bed that wasn’t his own, under covers that he didn’t recognize, laying on something that very much was not his pillow, was confusing for Mike, to say the least. It took him an embarrassingly long time to remember where he was, what had happened the previous day, and what situation he was in right now. The not-pillow that turned out to be Will’s chest was slowly and steadily moving with his every breath, the boy still fast asleep and lost in a dream world, those two facts not impeding him from running his fingers through Mike’s hair in a way that made his breath hitch ever so often. He felt his face heat up, the warmth that had been produced by cuddling under heavy covers all night not being the only reason for it.

After a few minutes of having stared at the boy next to him, said boy woke up, too, and it took him just as long as Mike to process what had been happening, evocating a small chuckle from the boy laying on his chest. Mere seconds later, he realized that this had been the first time he had laughed, if you could even call it that, since the previous evening. And that realization hit him like a truck, because it brought every memory of said evening with it: Every word that had been said, every bad decision he had made, every thought that had already plagued his mind for such a long time. It threw him right back to his dining room, his family around him, staring at him with those cold, shocked, angry eyes. Deep inside, he knew that this reaction had really only been visible on Ted, that neither his mother nor his sisters had looked at him in any way that would even imply that they hated him, no matter who he was, no matter what he was, no matter who he loved, but his anxious mind decided to ignore that knowledge and make him spiral for what must’ve been the seventh time in the last twelve hours.

A few rogue tears made their way down Mike’s cheeks yet again, he was probably severely dehydrated from all of the crying by now, and he couldn’t do anything about it anymore. He had always been good at concealing his feelings, his worries, his tears, because whenever they would appear with his father present, he would only tell him that “men don’t cry”, that he “shouldn’t be such a sissy”, slowly drilling the belief that tears made him weak into his head, something that still had its hold on him all those years later. He never cried anymore, not in front of anybody, at least, because if, on some rare occasions, he did break down and let the tears flow freely, he made sure that nobody would be near to witness this moment of complete and utter fragility. But now, he didn’t have it in him to stop them, he was simply too tired, too exhausted, both in the literal and the emotional sense. He was done caring about what the world would think of him.

After all, what had the world ever done for him that would make it entitled to his worries?

The second Will felt the now so familiar wetness of tears on the hand he was steading Mike’s head with, he pulled the boy even closer into his chest, muttering words of affirmation into his hair, telling him how much he, his family, and their friends loved him, promising that everything would turn out okay. Maybe not great, maybe not even good, but okay.

But even “okay” felt too far removed from the truth that those words could comfort Mike in any way.

Chapter Text

It seemed like talking to Nancy before having a possibly life-changing conversation had become a habit of Mike’s.

A few months had passed since the first time this had happened, and god, he still couldn’t believe that he had been dating Will for that long already, since time seemed to move so much slower and so much faster whenever he was with him simultaneously. After having made that confusing and, if he was being honest, very cryptic phone call asking Will to come over to talk, the first thought that had sprung to his head had been that of having to talk to Nancy. Even now didn’t know, or rather, didn’t admit to himself, why exactly he had come to his older sister for advice: Why Nancy? Why not one of his friends? Or, why hadn’t he simply kept it to himself and dealt with it like a grown-up?

The answer to that was just as simple as the question, really. He wasn’t a grown-up, he was still just a teenager trying to deal with the complexity of life and everything it entailed. His friends, while they would’ve most likely been supportive and would’ve tried their best, had only had as much experience at life as he had, and the help they would’ve been able to give probably wouldn’t have been much more than he’d be able to figure out himself.

And while he had never been as close to Nancy as Will had been to Jonathan, for example, or even as close as Lucas and Erica, even though neither of them would ever admit to this, his sister had always been one of the people he admired most. Not only her intelligence and wisdom that had helped him make many, many decisions in his past, but also how she was connected to her emotions in a way that Mike would likely never reach had made her a role model in his eyes, and while he wouldn’t be caught dead admitting this to her, or to anybody, for that matter, even on that day he had known that the fact that Nancy had found a person she loved so wholeheartedly hadn’t been the only reason why he had sought her out. He had sought her out for comfort, for reassurance, for that feeling from his childhood that he’d get every time he shared something personal with his sister, even though, admittedly, that hadn’t happened all that often. He had simply sought out feeling loved by somebody in his family, and now he realized that Nancy would maybe be the only person from it to ever love him like that again.

It had already turned late afternoon when Mike stepped down the stairs to the kitchen for the first time after he had arrived at the house the day before, having been holed up in Will’s room the whole day, only leaving it to go to the toilet, and having spent all those hours trying to process everything that had happened. He had lain on the bed, quiet music playing in the background, the other boy right there with him, telling him in detail about a book he was reading just now and even reading the first few chapters out loud to him so as to make him understand why he loved the writing style so much, a very welcome distraction from his brain that just couldn’t stop thinking. His deep, calm voice made him relax into the blanket he was covered by, cuddling even deeper into it despite it being about a gazillion degrees outside. At one point, somewhere during chapter 2, he had closed his eyes and imagined the scene he was hearing, this helping to scare away all of the other, more recent, more horrible, more real scenes his brain could produce.

But after not having eaten since the lunch that Will had brought him up to the room he had been barricading himself in, he had felt like it was time to face the consequences of his actions, the consequences of his choices, the consequences of his words. He knew that, as nice as Hopper and especially Joyce were, they, at some point, would demand some kind of explanation from him for why he had appeared at their home at night, looking like he had just seen a bloody murder happening before his eyes, crying like there was no tomorrow.

So, when he had slowly made his way into the kitchen, Will leading the way to ask when dinner would be ready, it hadn’t surprised him at all to see both of the adults already sitting at the table, discussing something with hushed voices, the oven silently rumbling in the background. When they had seen the boys standing in the doorframe, they had immediately stopped talking, Joyce’s face softening with worry and love when looking at Mike’s pale face, red eyes and the few marks of tears that hadn’t been wiped or kissed away by Will, not like she knew that last part, as much of an important detail it was for Mike himself.

“Hey, honey”, she had addressed him, standing up from her chair and slightly walking in his direction, “I made lasagna for dinner, that’s still your favorite, right?” A small smile had appeared on his face, mirroring the one he saw on the woman opposite him, remembering how every time when he had slept over at Will’s, which hadn’t been that often since sleepovers normally took place in his basement, but had become more frequent after their first encounter with the Upside Down, Joyce had made lasagna for them, since he had mentioned once how much he liked the way she made it. Talking wasn’t something he enjoyed doing that day, though, so he had just nodded to answer her question. Then, he had heard Hopper sigh behind his soon-to-be-wife, he had proposed to her just earlier this week at one of their dates at Enzo’s, having felt like that would be the only ideal place to do so, averting his gaze so as not to look directly into the boy’s face, knowing full well that the questions filling his head would spill out the second their eyes would meet.

Mike had known that right now, they were all just trying to act as normal as possible, but the big question still hung in the room: “What the hell happened?”

And he had wanted to tell them, he really did, because, as some very wise people who had been concerned about his mental health had told him various times in the past, talking about something could really help you deal with it, process it, or even get over it, as much as he had doubted that would work in this situation. But he had still had to do one last thing before being able to spill his biggest secret for the second time in the last 24 hours, one last thing so as not to go completely crazy, one last thing to soothe his worries at least the tiniest bit.

He had asked Will with a whisper whether he could use their phone for a second, quickly making his way over to it as soon as the boy had responded with a small nod and an encouraging hand on his shoulder. He knew the number to the phone Nancy had in her room by heart, not because he had called it so often, in fact, he had only done that twice before now, but because somehow, he had already suspected that one day, he would need to talk to his sister without their parents knowing about the conversation or being able to overhear it by picking up another, connected, phone somewhere else in the house. That phone in Nancy’s room wasn’t linked to the other ones, so he knew that whatever he said on it would remain between him and his sister.

After a few painfully long seconds of waiting, the dialing tone ringing in his ear like it wanted to taunt him with the possibility that she wouldn’t pick up, he had heard the familiar voice on the other side of the phone: “Hello? Who is this?” The tone she had spoken in was nervous, rushed, almost panicked, and it was so uncharacteristical for the girl who normally spoke as if she had the whole world figured out, as if nothing could possibly throw her off track, as if you could ask her any question and she had the answer ready to go. With a little shiver of terror he had realized that this change of tone was most likely entirely his fault, and this had made him even more scared of what the situation at home was like.

“Hey Nancy”, he had whispered, voice quiet so the other people in the kitchen, who, polite as they were, had tried their hardest not to listen in on the conversation he was having, couldn’t hear him, “It’s your favorite brother speaking.” He could almost see her roll her eyes, muttering “you’re my only brother”, but not without having a small smile on her face, and had felt a rush of solace when a gasp full of relief had made its way to his ear. “Mike, hey”, she had said softly, obviously trying her hardest to sound as normal and possible in a situation like this so as not to upset him even more by walking on eggshells around him, even though everybody was already very much doing so, “How are you doing?” “Oh, I’m just splendid, how are you?”, he had answered, not being able to suppress the sarcastic scoff that had built up in his mouth. And, just like he had hoped she would, Nancy had talked back with the very same amount of sarcasm, this really making him feel like this day was just one of many others: “If being worried I’d find my brother in a ditch somewhere after he ran off at night after a big fight is considered being ‘splendid’, then yeah, I’m really fucking splendid too.” This had surprised Mike a bit, since he had only heard his sister swear in as many instances as he could count on one hand before. But she was on edge, just like him, and how couldn’t she be? He had run off, leaving her behind to face the aftermath of his outbreak all alone, meaning an enraged father, a shocked mother and a scared, confused, maybe even worried younger sister. And oh god, he had completely forgotten about Holly.

“Shit, Nancy, how’s… how’s Holly? Did dad… Did he say anything…”, he had begun, voice now shaking despite his attempt to conceal the worry the thought of his father telling his sister how much of a disgrace, how much of a mistake, how much of a freak he was brought with it. If his father hated him for who he was, which he most definitely did, that he could deal with. But if his little sister, the girl he had watched grow up, the one person at his house that was still innocent enough to be truly pure at heart, if she found him disgusting for something he had no control over? That would probably have given him the rest.

Nancy must’ve picked up on his sudden change of tone yet again, and had responded quickly so as to soothe his mind that was still running on overdrive: “She’s… She was very confused after you ran off, to say the least. Then mom and dad started fighting, and that only confused her even more. But I took her aside and explained everything to her, okay? Before dad could, anyway. And, for what it's worth, she really doesn’t care, alright? She loves you, just like I do.” He had almost burst out into tears again after having heard this, the thought of Holly being caught in the middle of everything truly having terrified him to the core, and the reassurance that those few sentences brought with them filling his heart with everything he had hoped, but not expected, to hear.

“That’s great, that’s… Thank you, Nancy, really”, had been the only thing he had been able to say, before voicing one last request to his sister, “Could you do me one last favor, though? Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I kinda left empty handed yesterday and I could really use some stuff from my room.” “Of course, is there anything specific you need?”, the comforting voice on the phone had responded quickly, and he could almost see her making a list in her head of the things a teenage boy could need after running away from home, if you could even consider what he had done as “running away”. But he trusted Nancy and her organisatory talent enough to give her all of the freedom with the stuff she would pick out, she knew better what he’d be in need of as he himself did, anyway. “Just one thing”, he had remembered mere seconds before hanging up the phone to face the confrontation between him and the adults in the kitchen, “In the basement, there’s this binder, that’s… just full of drawings. I would really, really appreciate having that with me.” And, after a few seconds and a small glance over to the boy he loved, he had added:

“It means the world to me.”

After having said his goodbyes to Nancy and having fully returned to the kitchen, seeing Will set the table, Joyce fully invested in the garlic bread she just put into the oven next to the lasagna, and Hopper leaning next to the fridge, unreadable yet somehow still worried expression on his face, he cleared his throat as a way to turn the otherwise so unwanted attention back to him. “Where’s El?”, was the first thing that came out of his mouth after a few awkward minutes of everybody shuffling around in the same room without really acknowledging neither each other nor the elephant in the room. Turning around from the oven she just checked, Joyce faced him yet again and answered: “She’s in her room, she asked us not to come in because she’s making a mixtape.” After a few seconds of silence and contemplation, she added: “I told her you slept over and were so tired from staying up all night that you didn’t want to leave Will’s room, she doesn’t know why you’re here.”

“To be fair, neither do we”, Hopper finished under his breath, saying what everybody in the room had been thinking, still earning a warning glance from Joyce for saying it out loud. Even though he had spent hours with Will now, he still hadn’t even told him why he had left his house after dinner, because he didn’t want to have to explain it all twice. Even just thinking about the whole conversation from the day before made the headache that had bothered him the whole day so much worse, and saying all of that out loud… Well, he didn’t know if he’d even be able to do it at all, let alone multiple times. But now was the chance to do it once, and do it properly.

So, he sat down at the table, nodding his head in a way to signal the others to do the same, and, as soon as Will had sat down right beside him, he grabbed his hand under the table, hoping for some last moments of subtlety and secrecy before having to shout his biggest secret out into the world yet again. The touch of their hands had certainly surprised his boyfriend, but he tried to hide his startled reaction by moving around in his chair a bit and looking everywhere but the boy next to him.

Was he ready? Not necessarily, no, not at all, but surprisingly, it didn’t feel just as scary as he had thought it would be. He had simply resigned himself to the fact that no matter how long he’d wait, no matter how much he’d overthink it, no matter how much he’d procrastinate telling them, their reaction would stay the same, their morals, social expectations and views on the world wouldn’t drastically change in the span of a day or two. Still, his heart almost beat out of his chest, and, if he was being honest, he didn’t think anybody could ever be ready for something like this.

Then, after a last, deep breath, Mike told them everything.

And if he said everything, he meant everything. He began with a small reassurance about how he wasn’t hurt, not physically, at least, and then told them about how the dinner had started, everybodys’ moods being as terrible as so often when spending time as a family, and what had been originally talked about, this meaning college and the not so subtle homophobia expressed by his father. Then, when talking about in what way the topic of the conversation had moved over to Will, he felt the hand that was tightly intertwined with his gripping it even stronger, and the face of everybody sitting at the table immediately fell even more when he told them about how Ted had implied that everything that had happened to Will had been his fault. Everybody knew the exact implications of all of those statements, and nobody interrupted Mike, neither to confirm nor to deny them.

After that last part, he didn’t say anything for a good minute, and, after clearing his throat for what must be the tenth time in the last ten minutes, Hopper asked something that had been coursing through his mind almost visibly since the very second Mike had mentioned the way his father had talked about the boy he had seen as his son ever since his return to Hawkins a few months ago: “And Ted, has he ever said those… those things about Will before?” Even though there was no edge, no blame, no hatefulness in the man’s voice, this made Mike flinch, moving away from the boy next to him just a bit, not looking at him in the slightest, as if he were scared, embarrassed, or even disappointed, mostly in himself. “No, no… I mean, not as straightforward as that”, he mumbled, feeling Will’s gaze burning on the side of his head and trying his hardest not to follow the urge of looking back into those eyes, afraid of finding some of that disappointment he felt in them, too, “But he always… he always hinted at it, I guess. And Will, I’m so, so sorry that I didn’t defend you before yesterday, I should’ve said something earlier, I should’ve…”

He was cut of by Will reaching over to envelop him in yet another hug, letting the tears that had started to form in both of their eyes almost in synch fall into each other’s shirts. Again, he felt a strong hand holding his head and running through his hair, and after a few seconds of silent crying, he didn’t have it in him to cry for real anymore, he heard a whisper right by his ear: “We’ve talked about this, okay? You have nothing to apologize for, the past is the past, you couldn’t have done anything, alright? And I’ll say it how often you need to hear it before you believe what I’m trying to tell you.” The embrace felt like it had lasted hours, even though they had already let go after just a minute or so, chairs still close enough for their shoulders to be pressed together, the touch comforting the both of them just the same. And if Joyce and Hopper shot each other a suspicious glance after having seen this exchange of affection, all four of them made the decision not to comment on it.

“But that’s not why I left, or not the main reason, though”, Mike said, voice more clear now, knowing very well that there was no going back now. “I said one… one last thing”, he took another deep breath, and looked up from the table, directly to the adults sitting opposite him, “I said that if he really wanted to insult a queer, he could do it straight to his face, because there was one standing directly in front of him.”

It had only taken Joyce a few seconds to process that last sentence before standing up, walking around the table towards Mike and enveloping him in a hug so motherly that even the mere contact made him think of his own mother, and if he had had any tears left to cry, he would’ve burt out into sobs immediately.

Joyce had been like a second mother to him his entire life, and he didn’t know what he would’ve done, should she not have reacted positively to this so minor yet so important fact about himself. She had been a source of comfort, having patched up his bloody knees as a kid just as often as his own mother, having given him advice on things that he was too young and inexperienced in life to know about as a teenager, and even when she had had to deal with her own stuff, which, very similar to her youngest son, had been almost constantly ever since that one November night in 1983, she had always been there to listen to him complain about stuff that was entirely his fault and, without even having to say anything, had made him realize that fact almost every single time. She had always been a safe space, and, should he have lost her because of this just as he had lost his family… Well, he didn’t think he would’ve been able to handle that.

“Thank you for telling us”, she mumbled as she slowly pulled away from the boy in her arms, the big smile on her face telling him everything he had to know about what she thought about him now that she knew, “And thank you for defending my son.”

That sentence had created a possibility to let out the last part of his big secret so perfect it almost didn’t seem real. Now he and Will knew that she wouldn’t judge them, that she wouldn’t think of them any differently, that she would still love them, not despite who they were, but because of who they were. So, after having shared yet another glance with Will, having seen the small nod as a sign of approval, he dropped the last bomb of the day as casually as it was possible in a situation like this, a small smirk forming on his mouth: “I mean, I would be a pretty shitty boyfriend if I didn’t, right?”

If she had been surprised by this statement, Joyce certainly didn’t show it. She simply continued smiling, now directing her eyes to her son, too, and enveloping the both of them in a group hug that Hopper, who had been as much as ignored during the last few minutes, soon joined, not without smiling just as much as everybody else and, letting out a small laugh with it, saying: “You really can’t get enough of my children, Wheeler, can you?” The last bit of awkwardness and tension had dissipated as soon as he had said this, and both Will and Mike could only laugh at that statement. Tears were still streaming out of both of the boys’ eyes, but now they were tears of happiness.

They were the tears of two boys who didn’t have to hide their affection anymore, they were the tears of two boys who didn’t have anything to fear, they were the tears of two boys in love.

Chapter Text

Everything about the situation Mike was in right now would’ve shocked a younger version of him to the very core.

If you would’ve told a 10-year-old Mike that the boy he had seen on the swing set all those years ago, just as alone as he was, would one day be the most important person in his life, the one he trusted even more than himself, and that in every single aspect, the closest thing to what some people would call “true love”, he would’ve looked at you in confusion for a few seconds, one eyebrow raised in disbelief in much the same way he still did to this day, and then would’ve asked you if maybe you hit your head some time in the past, because “boys can’t love other boys like that”. And if you would’ve asked him why ever he thought that, he would’ve shrugged with his shoulders and said something along the lines of “dad said so”, running off to join the other boy who had come to visit him to check out a new game that he found recently, happy to spend time with his friend, the first and best one he’d have for the long, and, admittedly, very stressful rest of his life.

If you would’ve told an 11-year-old Mike that his best friend who had just left after a ten hour long DnD campaign in his basement would get abducted by a monster from an alternate dimension, stay in said dimension for a week and be brought back with the help of a selfless girl with superpowers, he would’ve asked you how you got that wild idea, and whether he could use it for the next game of DnD that they’d start after finishing off the one they had almost completed on a nice November day, the last roll of the dice having been made null by the fact that he hadn’t seen the number that had appeared on it. And if you would’ve told him that you didn’t make that story up, but that it, and so many more things, so many even stranger things would happen to him and his friends, he would’ve only thrown you a weirded out side-eye, deciding to ignore the crazy person that claimed to know the future. He would probably still write down the idea for a future campaign though, it did make for an investing story, after all.

If you would’ve told a 12-year-old Mike that after everything that had happened, after almost losing Will twice in the course of a single year, both times due to the supernatural powers that did seem straight out of a fantasy novel, or maybe even a horror movie, he would see him floating in the air, only seconds away from being ripped apart by a person with much similar powers to the ones the girl he had kissed had, having to relive the most traumatic moments of his life all alone, he would’ve most likely even believed you. He had seen so much shit in that one year, ranging from monsters they had given the name of creatures from their favorite game, maybe to make the situation seem a bit more under control, like they knew anything about them at all, like they could defeat them if the dice landed just the right way, just on a high enough number, to people seemingly coming back from the dead left and right, some others meeting their untimely end for real and not returning to the world of the living with a triumphant smile and a huge packet of trauma. He would’ve asked you if he could do anything to prevent that, anything to keep Will alive, anything to help, really. And if you told him that loving the boy just as much as he loved him in return would be the best move he could make, he’d smile at you, because “of course he loved Will, how couldn’t he?”

If you told a 13-year-old Mike that one day, he would begin to be afraid of how his family would see him, of how his sisters would think of him, of how his mother would react to his biggest secret, of how his father would hate him for simply existing, he would’ve scoffed in disbelief, the full attitude of a freshly turned teenager being turned against you. He would tell you how he didn’t care about what his family thought of him, they only ignored him unless they wanted to know something about school, anyways, so why should he care about how they’d react to a secret that at that point, even he didn’t know about, or not yet, at least? And if you told him just what that secret was, his face would’ve turned as red as a tomato, and he would’ve run off to visit his girlfriend, mind you, because he liked girls, not boys. Not boys, and definitely not Will.

If you would’ve told a 14-year-old Mike that one year from the biggest fight he had ever had with his best friend, he would be making out with said best friend on his bed, he would’ve probably laughed you in the face, called you crazy, and then called the nearest hospital to check if any of its mentally ill patients had escaped recently.

But, as crazy as it would sound to said younger version of him, or any younger version of him, really, that was exactly what was happening right now.

It had been a week since the fateful dinner at the Wheeler’s, a week since he had last been at his own house, a week since he had seen or talked to either of his parents. Aside from Nancy, who, just as she had promised, had brought him some of his stuff, including the binder full of Will’s paintings, he hadn’t been in contact with the rest of his family. At first, he had wanted to ask Nancy how things were going at home, if there was still fighting or if the situation had calmed down, but he had realized just in time that the answer to that question, no matter what it would be, would only make him feel worse.

Because it really came down to this: Either his parents were, in fact, still fighting, which would’ve made him feel guilty, especially for doing this to his mother, who, as he suspected, was maybe defending him from his father, or he was the only one still affected by the words said, and the people who had raised him had simply given up on him, everything being as peaceful as ever at home, as if nothing had happened, as if his whole world hadn’t been turned upside down, as if he didn’t constantly feel as if somebody had thrown him from a 10-story building. So, he hadn’t asked, only taking the bag from his sister’s arms and thanking her before sending her off with Jonathan, urging them to get their shit together and talk about their problems surrounding college, since, surprisingly, talking about stuff that bothered you could actually help big time.

So, there he had been, a whole seven days after possibly having made the worst mistake of his whole life, sitting on Will’s bed with the other boy opposite of him, sketchbook laying on his lap, deeply concentrated on whatever drawing he had been working on. He himself had been content with staring at his boyfriend, no shame, no looking away when being caught by the only other person in the room, no extreme blush flowing onto his face when he noticed that he hadn’t blinked even once during the last minute. In the safe space that Will’s room represented to him, he didn’t have to hide those stares, full of love, admiration, and, if he was being honest, awe at just how damn good that boy looked, and his heart fluttered every time he received similar glances from the boy in front of him.

After sitting like this for what must’ve been almost half an hour, spent entirely with stealing not so hidden glances at each other and relaxing in the comfortable silence that they had managed to create, only some quiet music sounding in the background, Mike had pressed himself up with a small groan and had leaned over to look at the sketch he had been waiting to see ever since Will had started drawing it. Seeing as Will’s glances at him had been a bit more analytical than his own ones, it hadn’t surprised him at all that he had seen his own face looking back at him when getting a good look at the drawing. As always, and always really was a very good descriptor, since his face could be found in more of Will’s drawings than any other motive, it was simply immaculate, with details that even he himself had never noticed, and despite it only being a monochrome charcoal drawing, it looked as realistic as if he was looking into a mirror.

“Don’t you ever get tired of drawing me?”, he had let out with a soft laugh, one hand against the mattress to stabilize himself so as not to fall on the beautiful drawing while leaning further into the other boy, one hand having reached up to cup his cheek. He had only giggled, and god, how much he loved that sound, and how much did he wish he’d be able to hear it more often, and averted his eyes in a flustered gesture for a second before staring right back at him again. “I guess you just make for a good reference”, Will had responded confidently, a big grin plastered onto his face, moving closer on his own while carefully setting down the sketchbook on the floor next to his bed. His own hand, stained black just the tiniest bit from the charcoal he had drawn with, had found its way around his waist, and Mike couldn’t have cared less about how he’d have to throw his new shirt in the wash, not when Will was wearing that green one he had bought on their trip to the mall.

“I’m like the Dorian to your Basil, huh?”, he had whispered into his ear, close enough to feel the shiver that had been sent down the other’s spine, “Just, you know, without the whole selling your soul and murder stuff.” “Oh, admit it, you just wanted to show off that you’ve read ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’”, Will had scoffed softly, voice devoid of any of the sass that normally came with a comment of this nature, this probably being attributed to the fact that their faces had been barely an inch apart at this point. He had wanted nothing more than to kiss him right that instant, but the atmosphere that this playful teasing brought with it made him hesitate for just a moment longer.

That smirk he so often found himself having when in presence of the boy he loved only growing bigger, he had whispered yet again: “You want me to shut up, my love?” The nickname had worked just as he had hoped it would, evocating a bright blush to spread on his face, reaching all the way up to his ears and down his neck, goosebumps appearing on his arms, and his breath hitching for just a single moment, just long enough for him to notice. “Yeah, and I have a pretty good idea how to get you to do that”, it had been barely more than a mumble, their lips so close that they brushed against each other with every word said. Now it had been Mike’s breath, heart, maybe even brain, to stop working for a second, before saying a few last words in a hushed voice: “Oh, please do demonstrate.”

And that’s how they had arrived at this point, Mike pressed against the wall, his arms slung around Will’s waist as the boy kissed him with more passion than ever before, both hands buried in his curls.

The now so familiar feeling of his boyfriend’s lips on his own never stopped sending shivers down his spine, not even after having felt it so many times before, because every single time, he discovered something new about it. At first it had been things like how good their mouths fit against each other, almost like they had always been meant to connect just like that, or the way Will’s lips had stopped being slightly chapped after only a few days of dating, also noticing the taste of chapstick on them at the same time. Then, came realizations that had only become more obvious after a few weeks, when they had started getting bolder, not stopping at simply pressing their mouths against each other, but slowly and steadily sinking more and more into each other. The first time Mike had felt the other boy’s tongue sliding into his mouth, a surprised sound had quickly changed into one of pure content, and now, another few weeks later, after the surprise had worn off, he still couldn’t stop himself from sighing into every single one of their deeper kisses.

And today, he noticed that if he softly bit Will’s lower lip, the grip in his hair would get just a bit stronger for a fraction of a second before relaxing again, deepening the kiss even more afterwards, something that made him smile and giggle into the other boy’s mouth. He didn’t know how he had been able to survive before knowing just how good it felt to kiss that one person, that one friend that knew him better than anybody, better than himself, sometimes, that one boy that he loved more than anybody and anything else.

That thought, though, transported him back to the previous summer, when he had made out with Eleven every time possible, and while they had done very similar things to those he did now with Will, the feelings couldn’t be any more different. Back then, he had simply figured that kissing was just another thing couples did, and that not feeling anything when doing so was maybe, just maybe, a very normal reaction, that there wasn’t anything different about this, that there wasn’t anything wrong with him. Deep inside, though, he had always worried about whether he had been doing things the right way, about whether there was some secret trick to this that everybody but him seemed to know about, about whether she also hadn’t felt anything or if it had been just him that had been the problem. He had felt like he had to perform, to keep up appearances, to suppress something inside himself, even though at that point, he had had no idea just what had made him feel like that.

Now, with the right person, with Will, to be exact, kissing had gotten a whole new meaning and importance in his life. There was no pretending, no pressure, just pure and unfiltered passion, adoration, love, and the right kind of love, this time around. Mike had always been good with words, and while it hadn’t exactly been in the context of making people understand him how he wanted them to, words themselves have always been one of his fortés. But even he couldn‘t possibly describe the way his heart beat faster and faster, the way his stomach did one flip after the other, the way his whole body heated up and instinctively pushed itself closer to Will the moment the other boy positioned himself so that one leg was on each side of his body, his thighs grazing against his hips as they both kneeled on the bed. Will‘s hands had left their place in his hair, instead moving down to his neck and shoulders, a jolt of electricity shooting through his body at every moment where the boy touched his bare skin, their lips never having lost contact.

His own hands still firm against his boyfriend‘s hips, he decided that as beautiful as he looked in that green shirt, feeling what was hidden under it would be even better. He hadn‘t planned to pull the whole thing off, god no, they definitely hadn‘t arrived at that point of their relationship yet, but even just sneaking his hands under it turned out to be more difficult than expected. Damn Will and his oh so adorable quirk to always tuck his shirts into his pants. After a few seconds of fruitless attempts that evoked a similarly adorable giggle from the boy, he, quite literally, took matters into his own hands, taking one of Mike‘s hands into his own and leading it up his shirt, returning it to its original place of his neck afterwards.

The first few times they had made out, even though they had never quite reached the point at which they were now before, Mike had almost been overwhelmed by the amount of confidence Will displayed, making the first move for every new thing they tried, whether it had been kissing with tongue, sitting on each others laps while doing so or even leaving one or the other hickey on his neck. Now, he was delighted to feel the small shiver that his touch created as soon as his hands carefully caressed the burn scar on his left side, the one that his own sister had created when having tried to get the Mind Flayer out of him, and a mix of happiness, confidence, and maybe even pride flowed through his body, knowing that he was the only person that could lure out a reaction like that out of the boy he loved.

Those feelings were soon pushed back to make some room for that of absolute delight when Will moved away from his lips, just to trace kisses on his cheekbones, then jaw, down his neck, at last arriving at the collar of his shirt, pushing it away just enough to reach his collarbones and kiss the soft skin around them with a force that would definitely leave some marks for the following days, not like Mike minded, he didn‘t, not at all, in fact, as they would only remind him of how Will‘s soft yet daring lips had felt against his skin. While he had simply let his boyfriend do whatever he wanted while relaxing into the touch the last few times they had reached a similar point in making out, this time, a flood of confidence took over his mind and he decided to return the favor, slowly unbuttoning just the first two or three buttons on Will‘s shirt and leaning down to push one kiss after the other to the base of his neck, relishing in the quiet groans that escaped the other‘s mouth as he did so.

Mike was so focused on the boy he was kissing, on the softness of the skin underneath his lips, on those two birthmarks that he payed even closer attention to this time around, just as focused as Will, in turn, was on noticing every touch of the boy‘s hands on his waist, every breath against his neck, every pull on his skin, that neither of them heard anything that was going on outside of the bedroom.

They didn‘t hear the front door close with a bang, they didn‘t hear the group of footsteps running up the stairs, they didn’t hear two boys struggling to carry a wheelchair to the second floor.

And they most definitely didn‘t hear the door to the bedroom open, exposing them to their best friends standing right outside of it.

Chapter Text

Eleven liked to think that she knew everything about her brother.

After all, back in California, they had spent hours over hours just talking in one of their rooms, telling each other things about themselves and getting to know each other, since, even though they had spent some time together before the whole thing at Starcourt had happened, they had known next to nothing about the person that was supposed to be their sibling. They had started with mundane, almost uninteresting, small facts like their favorite color, favorite animal, favorite subject at school, even though she had had no way to even remotely be able to know about that last part, since the only times she had even seen the inside of a school had been during her efforts to save her friends, to save Hawkins, to save the world.

It had been like this for a few weeks, and they had slowly started to trust each other as if they had been friends for years, which had meant that they had moved on from those initial topics and had started talking about things that weren’t as fun and lighthearted. They had shared their experiences with the Upside Down, the Mind Flayer, and Vecna, since after all, he had been behind everything from the very beginning, they had told stories about moments when they had felt so utterly helpless that they had thought the world was, in fact, going to end, though not because of supernatural forces this time around, they had voiced their worries about the upcoming school year, with it being El’s first time at school and Will’s first time away from the, quite literal, hellhole that was Hawkins, Indiana.

When spring break had arrived and things had started to go south again, they had already had a bond that many siblings could only dream of. Shared trauma did that to you, sure, but they had also spent so much time together outside of almost apocalyptic scenarios at that point that they really did know almost everything about each other. But the emphasis had really lain on the “almost”, since Will had had no idea that El had been continuously lying to Mike in her letters, and El had had no idea that Will was gay, even though she had suspected it after he had almost started crying while explaining to her why some people had shoved a note with a certain word starting with the letter “f” into his locker.

The point remained, though, that except for a few very personal, embarrassing, or simply unimportant things, Eleven knew everything about Will.

Or at least, so she had thought. Because during the last two months, she had noticed some changes in the boy that she had been unable to find an explanation for.

It hadn’t been like that one time in California, at the beginning of November, when he hadn’t spoken to anybody and had spent the entire day in his room, or like a few days before the beginning of spring break, when he had been nervous almost constantly, his legs never having stopped shaking during class or at dinner, or even like immediately after the sleepover, when she had been so sure that he was keeping something from her, something exciting, something big, something possibly life-changing, or at least for him.

If she had to describe it as simply as possible, she would say that there was a new calmness around him, a new state of being relaxed, the shoulders that had always been so tense in the past getting a break once in a while, a new aura of confidence, even. He had been more talkative, participating in conversations at dinner more often than not, even with Hopper, who he had kept a safe distance around for rather obvious reasons surrounding his history with father figures, more lighthearted, making jokes with the party that made everybody burst out in fits of laughter every single time, because who knew Will could be that funny?, more open with sharing what was on his mind, sometimes heading over to her room in the evening to talk like they had done back in California. And somehow, he was still hiding something, and she couldn’t for the world figure out what that was.

She had started observing him a bit more thoroughly, those last two weeks especially, after having noticed something particularly strange for the first time. It had been on one of their big group sleepovers in Mike’s basement, just after they had all changed into their pajamas and had settled down for a few more minutes before the girls would’ve had to leave for the guest room, when she had nudged Max to ask her if she knew what those dark red spots on Mike’s lower neck were. Obviously, the boy had made the mistake of wearing a too low cut shirt, since he would’ve probably wanted to hide what Max had very loudly pointed out to be hickeys to the whole group.

After that, everybody had been talking over one another, Max barely being able to contain her laughter, Dustin chewing him out for not telling them who he was seeing and keeping this important information to himself, Lucas trying not to double over and wake the whole house up when his girlfriend had complimented the person responsible for the thorough work in a tone that had so obviously been making fun of Mike. And Will had sat right next to the embarrassed boy, head almost as red as Max’s hair, trying to laugh with the group, but it had sounded so incredibly forced to a point where she had wanted to ask him if he had been feeling okay. But he had had that look on him that had made it obvious that he hadn’t wanted any attention on him in that moment, so she had let the hand that had been reaching out to him drop, and had almost forgotten about the whole thing the morning after, having been far too sleep-deprived to form any coherent thought.

But then, a week later, when she had found Mike at the dinner table eating lasagna with her family, looking like he hadn’t slept at all the last night, and a few days after that, when he still hadn’t left their house to go home at some point, and then, when she had discovered more of those red spots on the base of his neck, she had played with the thought that maybe they weren’t hickeys as Max and the others had suspected. After all, he had never mentioned anything about a new girlfriend before, and had refused to elaborate on anything after that sleepover, ignoring any of the other boys’ questions surrounding this mystery girl.

Maybe, just maybe, he had had to leave home because of his parents, and even though they certainly didn’t look like the kind of people to hurt their own child, she herself knew better than anyone that appearances could deceive massively, and this had worried her enough to bring it up to Hopper a few days ago when they had been watching a movie in the afternoon, just the two of them. And, even though he had denied it, saying that it wasn’t anything like that and that Mike would tell her why he had been staying over for so long when he was ready, obviously knowing more about this than he had wanted to admit, his face had still shown just a tad of, well, not necessarily hate or anything as extreme at that, more annoyance, which, no matter how you looked at the situation, didn’t fit into the picture at all, which only led to more confusion reigning in El’s head.

After all of the pondering she had done, after telling the rest of the party about her worries, leaving out her previous theory that her father had disproven, after having gone to the store with her friends to pick out all kinds of sweets to cheer up the boy who had been oddly down for the last week, entering her brother’s room to surprise him, she had expected anything, really, except for finding said boy making out with her brother behind not so locked doors.

Being so engrossed in finshing the job he had started, namely kissing Will’s neck as passionately as ever, the thing that had made him jump away from the other boy had been an insanely loud "HOLY FUCK!" by none other than Dustin Henderson, followed by a similarly loud silence when the group of people standing in the door stared at the two boys on the bed, now not sitting on each others’ laps anymore, with them staring back just as shocked. Even if they hadn’t barged in on them full on making out like they had done, their position would still have been compromising as hell, with Mike’s hands up Will’s shirt, said boy pushing him against the wall and keeping him there with his thighs pressing in on his hips, streaks of charcoal all over Will’s hands as well as Mike’s shirt, arms and neck, both of their hair messed up, their lips wet and red from kissing so much, both of their necks and collarbones already covered in those exact same spots that had been pointed out by Max on the sleepover two weeks ago.

“It’s not what it looks…! It’s…”, Mike pressed out the panicked start of a sentence before abandoning his rather pathetic attempt of a cover story with an exasperated groan, earning himself a raised eyebrow and despite everything, a quite entertained smile from Will, who was just as panicked as him, before the rest of the party could scramble into the room without saying another word, shocked expressions still all but gone from their faces. Eleven, who had been the last one to enter, slowly closed the door behind her to give the group some privacy, as if that had worked out for the two boys in front of her before. Mike shot his boyfriend a worried glance, eyes wide and breath going quick, looking into an expression much the same as his. Will slowly took his hand into his own one, never ceasing to look him straight in the eyes, and pressing it in a calming manner, meant to comfort both the other boy and himself, and nodded at him in a way that signified that everything would be okay, that their friends wouldn’t be mad, that they would react positively, but something in his eyes showed that even he wasn’t fully convinced of any of those things.

For a few moments, nobody said anything, simply staring at each other with hundreds of emotions and questions flying through their heads. Mike, and Will too, were waiting for their friends to scream at them, laugh at them, congratulate them, maybe, but if he was being honest, he was really just waiting for any reaction from them at all, with the second boy trying to tuck in his shirt again, as inconspicuous as possible, which, in this situation, was not at all, face heating up even more in the process, which forced Max to press a hand to her mouth to suppress her laughter, which worked about as well as the boys’ attempt to hide their relationship. The other teenagers were looking at them with just as many questions written clearly on their faces, simply waiting for them to start talking, expecting some kind of explanation, a rundown of how the hell this had happened, and a few details, maybe. He couldn’t look into people’s heads like El could, but he didn’t have to do so to see the confusion slowly building up inside his friends. He let out an exasperated sigh, knowing that there was no going back now. But maybe, just maybe, that wasn’t even so bad.

After the silence had been going on for a little too long for his taste, Mike cleared his throat and asked shakily, nerves strained as ever, Will’s hand, since now it really didn’t matter anymore if they saw them holding hands and being couple-y, pressing his own: “So, what brings you here on such a nice day?” “Well, we originally came here to cheer you up…”, Lucas began, just to be interrupted by Max, whose wheelchair he was using to steady himself, not fully trusting his legs after walking in on a scene like that. “But it seems like Will found another way to do that just alright”, she added with a smirk and a wink, which made everybody, including the boys who, until now, had felt like they were just waiting to be interrogated by the FBI, burst out laughing and dispelled the tense atmosphere almost completely. One thing that the comment sadly did not do, was make the others forget what they had just seen, which would’ve made the whole situation a hell of a lot easier.

Mike knew that their friends wouldn’t disapprove of them or anything, they had undeniably shown their support for Will, and Lucas and Max had made it clear that dating somebody from inside the party also wasn’t a problem, even during that phase from the previous year where they had broken up every few days just to get back together a few hours later, so, if he was looking at this rationally, he wouldn’t have anything to worry about. But he wouldn’t be Micheal Wheeler if he didn’t worry about anything and everything, so worry he did.

Now, he was mostly scared of how they’d react to them keeping their relationship a secret, because it wasn’t like he didn’t trust them, he really did, and he didn’t want them to think any differently. Apparently, his friends interpreted his worry quite differently, which did make sense, seeing as they had just caught their two male friends making out, which most likely would’ve urged a very different reaction than theirs out of most people from Hawkins, and after sharing a few looks between each other, this made them jump on the bed too and envelop him and the boy on his right in a big group hug, Max joining in from her wheelchair, and mumble various words to assure them that everything was alright, that they weren’t mad at all, that they would always love them just the same. And even though Mike had already been convinced of most of those facts, he couldn’t stop a few tears that had been building up in his eyes from falling, because really hearing it made it feel real for the first time.

After letting go of each other after about a minute, everybody sitting either on the bed or on the floor right next to it now, the atmosphere having calmed down yet again, Lucas was the first one to ask the question everybody was dying to have answered, and, being the pure soul that he was, was also trying to approach the subject as respectfully as possible: “So… How long has this, I mean, you two, uh… dating, I assume?, been going on?” “It’s not been that long, I swear”, Will began with a rushed voice, still a bit defensive, obviously worried about the exact same thing as Mike, “Just a few months, we started dating right after I came out to you.” After having processed this information, a look of realization flashed over Max’s face, soon followed by the rest of the group, as Dustin shouted out, jumping up from his place on the floor in the process: “I KNEW there was something going on after that! You were acting so fucking weird at school on the monday after, you realize that, right?” This made Mike burst out in a fit of laughter yet again, especially after remembering the questioning from Dustin he had had to go through during P.E. that day, infecting Will to do so too and fall into him while wheezing. A few days ago, this closeness in front of their friends would’ve made him panic, look around to see if anybody noticed that this wasn’t a normal touch of friendship, and maybe even slightly shove the boy away from him, which would’ve earned him a sad yet understanding look from him. But now… Now, they were free. Free to be themselves in front of the people they cared about the most.

Then, after they had calmed down enough to be able to understand what the others were saying, the two boys had to listen to all the ways they had been obviously and suspiciously enamored with each other, like the lovesick looks, the “accidental” brushing of their hands, or the times were both of them would leave for their respective classes together a few minutes earlier than everybody else, teasing back that despite everything, the others still didn’t figure it out faster, having to see them kiss to put the final pieces of the puzzle together.

“For what it’s worth, we already talked about telling you after everything has blown over”, Will said softly at one point, looking at his boyfriend, who he could call just that in front of his friends, with nothing but love, adoration and pride. It wasn’t every day that you came out to your friends, and he would know, after all. He hadn’t noticed the confused expressions on the others’ faces, as had Mike, which led Eleven to peak up and ask: “Okay, but what is ‘everything’?”

The previously so comfortable atmosphere tensed up immediately after that question, noticeable by everybody in the room, and Mike almost wanted to start crying again, just thinking about, well, “everything”, as they had called it. Because “everything” was such a simple word for such a heart-shattering, life-destroying, or maybe just life-changing thing, if using the word “just” would be in any way appropriate, or accurate, to use about that situation. He had tried to be more optimistic about it those last few days, and if it had worked, well, he would leave that open for others to make an opinion about.

But one thing he did know, was that he didn’t want to cry anymore. He had shed tears so often during that week, not having stopped at all on the first day and only anymore doing so at night since the day before, but never in front of everybody other than Will. Of course, he knew that he could trust the rest of the party just as much, but seeing him break down had always been a privilege, if you could call it so, of Will’s, even since before they had started dating. So, seeing as they were still looking at him with worry very much visible in their eyes, waiting for, but not so much expecting a thorough answer, he took a deep breath and summarized the events from earlier that week in one sentence, not wanting to tell the whole story again, because, like he had said, he was not interested in shedding any more tears: “I might have accidentally told my parents about me, well, being gay, and I ran away to avoid dealing with the consequences.” He heard somebody, most likely Dustin, suck in a breath of air sharply, but other than that the silence was absolute yet again. Next to the alarmed expression his friends’ faces were now wearing, he could also see a bit of doubt about the last part shining through, which prompted him to add on: “I wasn’t kicked out or anything, promise, I just left before… before Ted could do it for real, I guess.”

Now, to his dismay, he couldn’t only see worry on his friends, but, if he looked close enough, a bit of pity. After everything that had happened in his life, Mike could say with certainty that one of the things he hated most was being pitied, since he neither felt like he deserved it, nor liked the way it made him feel like he was looked down on, a feeling which he was much too familiar with after fifteen years of living in the Wheeler household. He often liked to act like it didn’t affect him at all, the way his parents were so closed off around him, the way he knew that they would talk about him behind his back in the evening, the way they somehow found something to criticize in everything, and everybody, that he loved. Sometimes, it had simply gotten too much to deal with, though, and he had locked himself in his room to let out any of the dozens of emotions that swirled through his head simultaneously, ranging from pure rage to severe disappointment, directed at his parents just as much as at himself. He had never wanted anybody to find him, since he simply couldn’t bear to look at a face that would only scream “I can’t do anything concrete to help you, so I’ll just tread on eggshells around you from now on”. So no, pity was the last thing he wanted from his friends, from anybody, really, especially not now.

Everybody had noticed the change of the mood, leading to Will leaning even closer into Mike, one hand reaching over to pull him into a side-hug, this being the most he could do from the positions they had both taken on the bed, and to Max bringing in a much needed change of subject, resorting to lighten the mood by teasing Mike yet again: "Okay, but earlier, when we caught you ‘in the act’, as you would say… You were really going to hit us with the 'It's not what it looks like'?" Despite his thoughts going a thousand miles an hour again and his whole being trying to fight the urge to break down in front of the people he loved most, he could only let out a loud laugh at that, the others soon joining in, and mumble with a small smile on his face, staring lovingly at the grinning boy beside him: “Yeah, I have no idea where I was going to go with that.”

After about an hour of chatting, filled with some anecdotes about the things they had hidden during those last two months and many questions from the rest of the party, including Dustin asking about whether El or Will was the better kisser, earning him a smack across the head with the pillow sitting right next to Mike, their friends slowly trudged out of the house to make their way home, not before making some plans for the following day, cautiously avoiding any mention of anything they would’ve done if they had the Wheelers’ basement for themselves. Eleven, being the good host that she was, escorted them to the door, and then Mike was alone with Will again.

A big sigh escaped from his mouth as soon as the door to the room was closed once again, and he gave himself the satisfaction of pulling Will into a short, sweet kiss before letting himself fall down on the bed, more than exhausted from what had happened just that day. The other boy followed suit, burying his head into the crook of his neck, so close that he felt his calm breaths on his skin. That closeness reminded him again of what they had done before getting interrupted, sending a slight blush to his face. He would’ve loved to continue where they had left off, but he was simply too tired to get into the right state of mind for that and he could only guess that the same applied for his boyfriend, who looked like he was seconds away from falling asleep on him. With a small chuckle, he whispered into his soft, auburn hair: “I think that was enough commotion for today, huh?”

And it was at that very moment that the doorbell rang.

Chapter Text

Karen Wheeler had always suspected that there was something different about her only son.

Many people, when hearing the word “different”, would immediately think of it with a negative connotation.

You would call the only non-christian family in your neighborhood “different”, staring at them from your kitchen window every time they got into the car to drive to the nearest synagogue that was still almost an hour away. You would call the man that could always be found in a pub “different”, completely dismissing the fact that he had been fighting in Vietnam just a little more than a decade ago. You would call the two older women who had never found themselves husbands and lived together because of this “different”, because how could their lives be fulfilled without a husband and children?

In the past, Karen had also used that word in much the same situations, she had heard her grandparents and parents do so when she had been a child, and just like with everything else she had learned from them, she had kept that use of “different” and engrained it in her own life, because that had simply been what people had expected of her. She had always chased the expectations that others had had of her, knowing that one day, she would end up married, in a nice house, with two or three kids and a stable income, not by working herself, no, she would be a house-wife, but from her husband that she may or may not love. But that hadn’t mattered, of course not. When she had been a young girl, she had always told herself that she would search for the man of her dreams, her very own prince charming, a knight in shining armor, or, how others would call that man, the love of her life.

And then she had grown up and had learned that what she wanted wouldn’t matter, because if she wouldn’t be married by the age of 20, the money from her parents would stop flowing. True love had been hard to come by those days, anyways, so, as much as she hated to admit it, she had had to settle for the man that was Ted Wheeler. At first, she had told herself that “Yes, this is what love is supposed to feel like”, or that feeling nothing when spending time with the man she was engaged to wasn’t weird, wasn’t, well, “different”, and then she had tried to convince herself that the feelings would come eventually. And if you have to tell yourself that when walking down the aisle, you should know that somewhere in your life, you’ve made a wrong turn.

She had always shied around using the word “love”, having said “I love you” in the presence of her husband for the first time when straddling a new-born Nancy in her arms, and even then it hadn’t been meant for him to hear. But it didn’t matter that she never said it, because he didn’t, either. Both of them had agreed to this arrangement, both had said yes to the prospect of building their very own, very normal, very ordinary family, even if they had to abstain from any real romantic love to do so. The fact that they didn’t love each other was something they both knew, but never talked about, because why should they? It had been working out just fine, right?

And then, her son, who had been born a few years after Nancy and had been the second person she had said “I love you” to in the last few years, and had been five years old at that point, had introduced her to his new best friend, a certain William Byers that he had met on the swings in kindergarten. The moment she had heard his last name, the word “different” had shot into her mind.

The Byers weren’t from their neighborhood, no, far from it, they weren’t as active in the church and she had been sure that she had heard some less than nice rumors floating around town about that particular family. But Mike had never looked so happy, so energetic, so blissfully invested in a personal connection to another kid his age before that she had tried to force those thoughts out of her head, or at least back them into a far corner of it. Ted, of course, hadn’t been as thoughtful about the matter as she had, now that she was thinking about it, when had he ever been?, and hadn’t shied away from making comments about his best, and only, friend’s family, home life and financial situation right in front of Mike. It had been at that moment, when she had seen her son’s head drop after he had been so excited to go to Will’s house for a sleepover, that she had decided that she would try to change her use of the word “different”, and if that had been for her son’s sake as much as for the satisfaction of doing something in a way that had been so vastly different from the way her husband did it, nobody had had to know.

And that would turn out to be a good decision, since the next two friends Mike had brought home also both had something “different” about them. For Lucas, it had been something that she, personally, had never had a problem with, and that people were slowly but steadily getting less brave about openly being against, but in a town like Hawkins, it still was something that set him apart from his peers. Then, there was Dustin, one of the smartest kids that she had ever had the pleasure of interacting with, who coincidentally was missing his teeth and his collarbone, suffering from a condition that in itself didn’t make his life harder, but made other people try to do so in its place.

And, of course, there was still Will, who had never left her son’s side during the whole of elementary school, and as they had grown older, the rumors about him had grown louder and louder, until they had made their way back to Ted. He, naturally, had had to make his own comments about them, mostly at the dinner table where Mike had been able to hear everything perfectly, most likely because he had wanted him to stop being friends with the “local queer” without ever straight up saying it. And Karen had never been more proud of Mike when he had only grown closer to the boy instead of abandoning him like many others in his place would have. Often she had thought about what she would’ve done in this situation, and it had scared her to realize that she seriously didn’t know.

The next few years had passed almost in a blurr. Nancy had gotten herself a nice and respectable boyfriend from a nice and respectable family, Mike and his friends had started going to middle school and playing a game that talked about themes she hadn’t been very happy with, and her youngest, Holly, had disagreed with her father for the first time, something for which he had blamed Mike, as uninvolved as he had been in the whole matter. At first, she hadn’t realized why Ted had started criticizing so much about their son, not until she had discovered that some of the names that Will would be called at school had rubbed off onto Mike as well. At that point, the word “different” had already had a neutral definition in her mind and for the first time, she had felt comfortable describing her own son with it, because there really had been no denying that there was, in fact, something different about him.

All of his friends had something different about them, so what were the chances that he didn’t? From her own time at school, she knew that normally, the kids who were “different” would flock together just as much as the kids who were popular, and what group Mike and his friends had belonged to wasn’t really that hard to guess. So, what could be “different” about him? Because something was there, she had been sure of that, and the older Mike got, the more he had tried so desperately to be as normal as possible, the more she was convinced of the fact that he wasn’t. And now, with him in high school, she didn’t mean that in any negative way anymore. It had taken her some time to get truly comfortable with her new use of the word “different”, but changing some fundamental parts of the way she viewed the world was about as easy as you would suspect it to be.

Those last few years had really been far from uneventful, from Will going missing to a sudden mall fire and almost otherworldly earthquakes shaking her hometown, and her older children always being involved with the happenings in one way or another, but other than that, she had noticed that something had been bothering Mike. It had started during the last summer, right after the Byers had moved to California and had taken his girlfriend with them, for a reason that nobody had ever really explained to her, either because they didn’t think she’d care or because they didn’t know either. His mood had started getting worse and worse, the almost constant moping around from before the move being replaced by a constant frown on his face and a complete refusal to talk to anybody for the first few days of what she’d later call “the period of utter and total confusion”.

Because, other than moodiness and passive-aggressiveness, confusion had been one of the most visible emotions on the face that her son had tried so hard to make unreadable. But she was his mother, and mothers always knew if something was going on with their children. Which is why whatever was bothering Mike was bothering her too, because she couldn’t figure out what exactly it was. He didn’t seem to majorly dislike high school, having found a new friend and mentor in a senior running a DnD club, getting almost perfect grades, the “almost” really only bothering Ted, of all people, and she could find him either reading or writing letters to his girlfriend daily. So, what was she missing?

Only a few days ago had everything started to make sense. She had of course noticed how much his mood had lightened the moment the Byers had moved back to Hawkins, with small smiles on his face almost constantly, an aura of peace surrounding him, and a general new happiness radiating off of him, but she had originally attributed this to the fact that with the Byers, his girlfriend, Jane, had come back too. She had hidden her surprise when Mike had announced that they had broken up, not seeming particularly sad about the end of his first and over one-year-long relationship. And then, when he had openly defended Will against his father for the first time and had told them all something that he probably hadn’t meant to ever share with them, and really, who could blame him for that?, the final piece of the puzzle had put itself in place.

Will. It had always been Will. When he had gone missing, Mike had been devastated. When he had still suffered from that one week he had spent god knows where in the woods a year later, Mike had almost been obsessively overprotective over him. When the boys had had a fight, and a serious one at that, she had heard Mike cry in his room for hours afterwards. When he had moved thousands of miles away, Mike’s mood had dropped severely. When he had returned, it had risen to levels she had believed unreachable to any human being, only being reserved for the angels up in the sky. When he had been insulted by Ted, Mike had finally let out what he, and, if she was being honest, also herself, had been wanting to yell at him for some years now.

When Will was happy, Mike was happy. When Will was scared, Mike was there to comfort him. When Will was in danger, Mike was ready to go overboard to help him. There was no Mike without Will, and there was no Will without Mike.

So, where else could he be now, after that total mess of a family dinner where he had at last confirmed her suspicions about him being “different”?

At first, Mike had wanted to shut the door in his mother’s face as soon as he had opened it, seeing her standing on the front porch with an almost apologetic smile on her face.

He hadn’t even known where that urge had come from, seeing as he specifically remembered Nancy saying that she and Ted had been fighting, and why would they if she thought the same things about him that his father did? She must’ve defended him, right? Or maybe they had just fought about who had fucked up in raising him for him to turn out queer, that was another possibility, as much as he wanted to pretend like it wasn’t.

His mother had never joined in on the homophobic rants his father loved to make, but she had never stopped him, either. She had been a neutral energy in those conversations, evening out some of the tension that had always built up at the dinner table, although sometimes her apathy regarding the topic had almost made him just as mad at her as at Ted. Sometimes, he would’ve preferred if she had laughed at his father’s jokes, if she had made it known that she agreed with him, if she had straight up called somebody the names that he knew he had been called by his father at least once before that dinner, and definitely more than once afterwards. Because then, he would’ve known what to expect, whether to send her home and tell her to never talk to him again before she could say the same to him or to invite her in to really talk about it.

But he didn’t know, he had no idea what was going through her head, what she thought of him, if she even still saw him as her son or if she had already disowned him in every sense except legally. So there they were, looking at each other with no words spoken, her with a piece of paper that she shuffled around nervously in her hands, him with Will standing right behind him, that being the only reason why he hadn’t already ran inside and locked himself in a room somewhere. It had taken them all of three minutes of tense staring, definitely without any tears forming in his eyes, nope, no tears to be seen, before his mother broke the silence with a quiet question, sounding as insecure as he had never heard her before: “May I come in?” Mike didn’t trust himself to speak without either breaking down in her arms, something that he wasn’t sure he would be allowed to do anymore, or full on starting to scream at her because the person who his anger was really directed at of course wasn’t showing himself.

So he only gave her a quick nod before turning around and pulling Will into the kitchen, hoping that she’d get the message to follow them. He heard the door close a few seconds after having sat down at the table, the boys unconsciously having positioned themselves in the same way as when he had told Joyce and Hopper about what had happened that had made him run away from home. Then, his mother walked in and sat down on the chair Joyce had used, and Mike prayed to a god he doesn’t fully believe in that this was somehow a sign that things would turn out just as well as they had that day.

At first, it was just silence again, all three people in the kitchen looking everywhere except at each other, even though Mike’s and Will’s eyes would cross paths a few times, lingering for a few seconds before moving away again. Underneath the table, Will had put his hand on his knee, this immediately impeding it from shaking as much as it had before he had done so. After the uncomfortable silence had become all too unbearable, Mike said as clear and steady as possible, head held up, still not meeting his mother’s eyes: “So, did you want to say something or did you just come here to waste my time?”

He hadn’t meant for it to come out as mean as it did, making his mother flinch just the tiniest bit, but in the end, he found a weird sense of satisfaction in it. It’s not like he had something planned for the rest of the day, but he wanted to make her feel guilty, for stopping by after a week of no contact, for taking so long to come to him, for disturbing the peace that he had created around him and this family, around him and his friends, around him and Will. She cleared her throat before speaking, shuffling the piece of paper, which, by looking at it so as not to have to look at his mother he had discovered to be a letter, around in her hands, shooting a fast glance over to the boy next to him: “I want to talk, yes. Privately.” And that’s when Mike’s anger had started to rise yet again, the calming presence of his boyfriend’s hand on his leg only being able to partly suppress it. Who did she think she was, to make demands in this situation?

“Anything you want to say to me, Will can hear too”, he pushed out, finally looking at his mother’s face to let her read his emotions off of his face if she hadn’t already been able to guess them, “or you can just leave right away.” Still hidden, he moved his own hand up to his leg to take Will’s hand in his own, pressing it harder than what could possibly be comfortable for him, but he didn’t say anything. As much as he wanted him to stay, in the end, it was still between him and his mother. She let out a sigh that took him back to all of the times she had sighed like that, with a mix of sadness, exasperation and maybe even a tinge of shame, and held up the letter in her hand as if passing the burden of having it onto him: “I planned on just sending this to you and leaving it at that, you know? But then I thought… Well, just read it, maybe then you’ll understand.” He didn’t know if she had thought that would make him less angry, but it only led to the opposite. To not let out everything on Will’s poor hand, he closed the hand that wasn’t being held to a fist, letting his nails sink onto his palm hard enough to make it hurt.

What would be in there that his mother hadn’t wanted to tell him straight to his face? Would it be a goodbye? Would it be a request to get all of his stuff and never come back? Or would it simply be a copy of an official document telling him that he was legally disowned? So many questions were coursing through his mind, his mother’s hand that was still holding the piece of paper that would decide his fate was almost terrifyingly calm, and he knew that the only way to get answers would be to read that damn letter.

With one swift motion, he grabbed the paper, still not letting go of Will, who had been shooting him continuous looks, asking if he was alright, showing his support of whatever decision he would make, telling him he’ll always be here with him, without having to use any words to do so. More than ever, Mike was unimaginably happy that he was here with him, to hold his hand, to help him with this hurricane of emotions inside himself, to simply keep him company in a time where he had felt as lonely as never before. One last glance to his left, one last time taking in the beauty that was Will Byers, something that had always given him a boost of confidence, one last deep breath, and then he opened the letter and started reading:

“Dear Michael,

I know what you’re probably thinking right now. ‘Why did she write a letter instead of talking to me?’, or something along those lines. And I know that because I know you, because I know who you are, as much as you’ve most likely been doubting that, and I can’t even blame you for it. I haven’t always been the best mother to you, and I wanted to apologize for that. But to come back to the matter at hand, I wrote this letter because I didn’t know if you wanted to see me, and, again, I couldn’t blame you if you didn’t.
You’re getting tired of me beating around the bush, right? So let me get to what I wanted to tell you with this whole thing: I do not care that you’re queer, not even a little bit, not at all. Sure, I had to wrap my head around it at first, and it took me some time to fully understand, but now I think I do. And, apologies if I have interpreted this situation incorrectly, just ignore this next passage if I have, I also do not care if you’re dating Will. He’s a good boy, very nice and respectable. He’s always been my favorite out of your friends, but don’t tell them I said this, alright?

Unfortunately, your father isn’t quite on the same page as me on this matter, but when have we ever been on the same page about anything, really? Well, it seems like we are on one thing, because we have decided that maybe it would be better for him to leave for a bit. Oh god, that sounded like I wanted to explain the concept of divorce to a 5-year-old. But you’re not a child anymore, I don’t have to lie to you: I don’t know if he’ll ever come back for good, or if we’ll even get a divorce, or if he’ll ever change, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up on that last part. I told you I wouldn’t lie, right? But now, should you decide to come back home, know that you’ll be greeted with open arms. Take your time and come back when you’re ready, I won’t force you to do anything you’re not comfortable with.

I hope you will forgive me for not saying anything earlier. Just know that I will always love you, no matter what.

Love,
Mom”

And if before, Mike had thought that he would break down again on that day, he would be proven right as soon as he enveloped his mother in a hug that conveyed more emotions than words could ever do.

Chapter Text

Will Byers had always loved Mike Wheeler.

It didn’t really take him that much time to figure it out, but in the end, the result is always the same.

He couldn’t pin-point the exact moment in which his heart had decided to mess up his friendship, his life and his feelings, his stupid, complicated feelings. Because there hadn't been one specific moment in which he had realized that, “Hey, I’m in love with my best friend, who is not only painfully unavailable, but also a guy”. No, there had been countless occasions, some small, some less so, in which he had felt his heart grow, his whole body heat up, his hands start shaking, his very being screaming at him that this was the person that he’d want to spend the rest of his life with. And most of these moments, he could still recall as if they had happened yesterday.

There had been the first day of kindergarten, when he had sat on the swings all alone, no friends he could talk, play, or draw with, and Mike had approached him to ask whether he wanted to be his friend, and he had said yes, not knowing how much he’d thank himself for doing so in the future.

There had been all those times in his early childhood when he had sat in the Wheeler’s basement with Mike, just with him, and they had read comics, drawn something, listened to music, because what they had been doing hadn’t mattered, as long as they had done it together.

There had been the games of DnD, where he had been fully entranced by Mike’s voice as he told the party an intricate story of heroes, monsters and the way the good side always prevailed, which had almost made him believe in that last fact before having to return home and seeing first-hand that no, the good guys didn’t always win, sometimes the bad guys were just too strong, too drunk, too mean.

There had been the countless hours they had spent in Castle Byers after his father had decided to abandon his family, in which Mike had tried so, so hard to convince him that this hadn’t been his fault, that this had been fully on Lonnie, that one day, he would be happy that he had left them alone.

There had been those afternoons after a particularly hard day at school, when Troy had spat one more slur into his face than normal, making it difficult to keep the tears from spilling out, and Mike had been the only person able to cheer him up, even though that had only made that particular feeling in his stomach grow, the one that told him that his father, Troy, and so many others, had been right about him all along.

There had been that time in the hospital, just when he had been saved from the Upside Down, when Mike had rushed into his room and had hugged him with a force that you wouldn’t expect from a small boy like him, and then hadn’t left the room for hours, coming back every single day to check up on him, promising every other hour that he would never leave him alone ever again.

There had been those following months, when he had woken up screaming every night, plagued by nightmares worse than he could’ve ever imagined them, hadn’t he been trapped in an alternate dimension for a week, and he would find Mike sleeping right next to his bed, calming him down in an instant so he wouldn’t wake anybody else, because he knew how much he hated being a burden on others, only ignoring this dislike in his own regards.

There had been those flashes of anger in which he had confessed his frustration about everybody treating him like he was weak, like he couldn’t take care of himself, like he couldn’t survive on his own anymore, after which Mike had assured him that he was fully convinced that he was the bravest person he had ever met, and had continued to treat him just like he had always done, and if he acted softer with him than with others, none of them had mentioned it, since it had simply always been like that.

There had been the flashbacks that he had started getting, seeming more real than he would’ve liked, that had sent him right back into the Upside Down, in which he had always called out for Mike first, almost out of instinct, and the boy had been able to pull him back to reality every single time.

There had been that one Halloween after a particularly nasty flashback, one that hadn’t even felt like a simple flashback anymore, but could you really call anything in those regards simple?, where Mike had listened to his worries and had promised that, should they go crazy, they would go crazy together.

There had been the speech in the shed, where he had been possessed by the Mind Flayer, but still conscious enough to hear every word Mike had said, everything about how asking him to be his friend had been the best thing he had ever done, and the portion of his mind that hadn’t been occupied had wanted to do nothing more than to scream that saying yes had been the best thing he had done in return.

There had been all of those times when he had cried in his room about feeling guilty for the death of the closest thing he’d had that could’ve been considered a father figure, he had even considered telling Bob about those confusing feelings about his best friend once, and when Mike had found out about the amount of hate for himself that had filled his mind, he had made it his very own mission to make everybody around him honor Bob Newby, the superhero.

There had been many days from the previous summer he would rather not think about all too much anymore, because even though he had gotten talked over, dismissed, ridiculed, laughed at, or straight up ignored, he still hadn’t been able to put out the flame of adoration that he felt for Mike, his best friend, who had had a girlfriend, a new person he would talk about to everybody that would listen.

There had been those few moments where he had still seen some kind of care, worry, even, in Mike’s eyes, since, even though he barely even acknowledge his existence anymore, he could still tell better than anyone when something was going on with him, when he wasn’t feeling well, when he was tired of the world and the way it seemed to hate him just as much as he himself loved a certain other person.

There had been hours over hours in which he had worked on the painting he had planned to show Mike to confess his ever growing feelings, knowing full well that it wouldn’t lead anywhere except rejection or maybe even the loss of the best friendship he could ever imagine, but he simply hadn’t been able to keep the whirlwind of emotions inside his body anymore, and art had always been his favorite way to channel everything inside of him into something productive.

There had been those few conversations he had had with Mike during their time in California and on the road to Hawkins, in which he had tried to be subtle, yet still somewhat obvious about what exactly he was talking about, only running into one wall of obliviousness after the other, and god, for such an observing person Mike really had no idea how to process others’ emotions.

There had been the first gasp of air that he had taken after having been possessed by Vecna, having been saved by his favorite song and so many happy memories, every single one of the before mentioned ones having flashed through his mind while in trance, the very breath that he had taken from the safe place that had been Mike’s arms.

There had been those longing stares with which he had admired Mike from afar, careful not to do so too often and get caught, either by others or by Mike himself, but many times, when he had lifted his head to wonder how somebody could ever be this beautiful, he had been the one to catch the boy staring at him, first.

There had been way too many close calls where he had been so, so close to Mike, and so near to giving in and finally kissing him, and every time that had almost happened, he had entertained the idea that maybe, just maybe, he had seen the same wish in Mike’s eyes, too.

There had been the sleepover, where he had practically jumped onto Mike after the first jumpscare from the horror movie they had been watching, and before he had been able to move as far away from him as possible in embarrassment, he had slung an arm around him and had even urged him to cuddle closer, and Will had never felt this safe before.

There had been the nightmare that had been caused by the cold air in the basement, which Mike had woken him up from, and instead of being annoyed from being kept awake in the middle of the night, he had offered to sleep in a comforting embrace, making one of his deeply hidden wishes turn into reality.

There had been him telling the party about being gay, and the amount of happiness caused by the unconditional support he had gotten from everybody had only been surpassed by the feeling of something, which in a loss for better words, he had called “home”, that had been triggered by Mike hugging him for the third time in the span of twelve hours.

There had been their first kiss, which would turn out to be only one of many more to follow, where Mike had been the one to close the last few inches of space between the two of them, giving them both the satisfaction of finally being able to openly love the person they had been hiding their feelings for for so long.

There had been all of the other kisses, in supply closets at school, behind locked doors at home, or in the woods, everywhere except for in public, where the sadness and frustration of having to hide something as pure and beautiful as this had subsided as soon as their lips had met.

There had been the adoring stares replacing the longing ones, with eyes not moving away when meeting each other, and feelings left out in the open, only for the other one to understand.

There had been Lucas’ fight with Troy, where they had both realized just how much their friends loved them, and how much they’d defend them, even if they eventually found out about them, and he had never wanted to kiss Mike in front of the others more than in that moment.

There had been his slip up with Jonathan, leading to the first two people finding out about them after only three weeks of dating, and instead of hate, they, again, had only received love in return for their biggest secrets, even if the situation could’ve been handled a lot better, looking back at it now.

There had been their trip to the mall, and if admiring each other while shopping for new clothes, holding hands in the darkness of a cinema and seeing Mike getting jealous of a group of girls that found him attractive couldn’t be described as the best date ever, he didn’t know what could.

There had been the aftermath of the fated dinner at the Wheeler’s, days full of sadness, regret and panic, days brimming with anxiety, days where he hadn’t known if he could even do anything to help, to which Mike had told him that simply being there for him would mean the world to him.

There had been the moment where they had told his mother and Hopper about their relationship, and despite everything that he had gone through in the past, the chance of scaring away yet another possible father figure had terrified him more than anything else could these days, but he had done it together with Mike, and if Mike could do it, so could he.

There had been the truly embarrassing scene of the rest of the party walking in on them making out, and the consequential teasing from both sides had lifted his spirits in a way that normally only Mike could, and he had been able to see that the other boy felt just the same.

There had been the letter from Mike’s mother, and the accumulated anger, sadness and fear for his boyfriend’s future had finally made their way out of his system when he had joined into the now group-hug, as requested by Mike himself, and, as weird as it sounded, it had never made him happier to see the boy leave his house than on that day.

There was the moment just now, the both of them having returned to the swings where they had first met, holding hands and staring into the sunset with nothing but pure and unfiltered love to give each other.

So no, he had no idea when exactly he had started loving Mike, or at least started loving him like that.

One thing that he did know, however, was that he had already loved him even before he fully knew what the word “love” even meant.