Chapter Text
Faint lines of light came in through the windows onto the basement floor, the dust floating around making the streaks of light clear to the eye. It was these bars of light that greeted Mike first thing in the morning.
He hated how early he naturally woke up, staying up all night yet still waking up the second the sun rose. He partially blamed Will, since they had a lot of sleepovers, and Will had a lot of nightmares— even before the upside down— which meant Will was up early and if Will was up Mike was up. Eventually, like a good dog, he trained himself to wake up before Will did so he could wake him up before he started to thrash.
But then Will was in California for over half a year and it became a rather annoying habit he tried to get rid of— especially since it seems he doesn't even need to put it to use it despite Will being back. Then a tiny persistent thought poked its way into a groove in his brain, giggling and whispering: "that means he doesn't need you anymore!"
He clenched his eyes shut trying to force the thought away and turned his head to the side to face Will, whose expression was for once not distressed while sleeping. It was nice to look at— his friend being calm and not in distress was nice to look at, not Will. Not that Will was ugly or anything there was a reason the girls always approached him, huh, guess that doesn't matter anymore since Will is gay-
Wait.
Holy shit Will is gay.
Mike's eyes popped out of his skull as the memories of last night flooded his brain. He did his best not to move, since he knew the slightest movement or sound would wake Will up. Right. The carnival, the weed, Will being weirdly good at smoking and it being weirdly-
He looked down at their arms and his right was overtop Will's left. Fuck, what if that accidentally sent the wrong signal? He silently and slowly took his arm off Will's and laid it a few inches away. He watched Will's face intently, the boy furrowing his brows the smallest bit before pulling his arm in and snuggling back under the knitted blanket, clearly in some half conscious state.
Then this other pesky thought hid itself in his brain, surfing the tidal wave of relief that came with not waking him up, and it shouted, “Cute!" Mike's brow furrowed, absolutely affronted by the thought. It was small enough to ignore, but Mike wanted to chew on it, stress over it. There was nothing better to do on a Saturday morning than stress over something stupid that probably doesn't matter.
El was cute, puppies were cute, Will was not cute, especially not when the bottom of his nose was tucked under the blanket as he slept curled up on his basement floor. Mike pulled his eyes away and stared at the ceiling instead, thinking about El as if the different images of her were each Hail Mary's absolving him. He wasn't catholic, but he hoped it worked. He was a teen boy, teen boys had thoughts, and they don't have to mean anything. He had heard some stand up comedian joke once about getting turned on by a peanut butter commercial. That didn't mean that guy was attracted to peanut butter.
His shifting finally got Will awake, and Mike's eyes snapped open as soon as he heard the soft groan. He had to catch the rare sight of Will waking up naturally in a way other than sitting up and gasping. Will's eyes cracked open and squinted, looking up at him with a furrowed brow.
"Why're you lookin' at me?" He mumbled against the shitty thin pillow folded in half. Why was Mike looking at him? It was like a dream but tainted because this isn't a dream and Mike and him are not in their twenties in their own bed, but Mike is staring at him anyway which is not good.
Every time Will spoke Mike was re-reminded of how deep his voice had gotten and he felt jealous. Yes. That was the feeling. Mike's brain scrambled to come up with words to verbalize his justification that weren't weird, and he landed on, "No nightmares!" He exclaimed in a whisper. "You woke up regular style, it's- I guess it's been a long time since I've seen that."
"Oh. Yeah I guess." Will's brows furrowed, his anxiety jolted by the left field answer, "I didn't dream at all, I don't think." He relaxed into the pillow. "That was nice."
"Yeah I didn't really dream either, maybe it's a side effect of the weed."
Will raised a brow and then slapped a hand to his forehead, "oh god right, we smoked weed."
"You smoked a lot of weed," Mike replied with a chuckle.
"I smoked a lot of weed." He repeated in agreement, laughing quietly. "What did we do?" Will had vague memories of the carnival and getting to Mike's house and then going home and getting back here, at some point he was upset, but it was all blurry.
"Oh well uh... we talked, and it wasn't the best way to do it, but you uh..." Mike winced, trying to think of a way to say it as Will's eyes widened. "We know you're gay now basically," he mumbled as fast as humanly possible, giving him an apologetic look.
Will felt like he was about to pass out, his breath catching in his throat. Holy shit. "Maybe I shouldn't smoke weed anymore." He muttered, shifting further from Mike. He didn't know how he had revealed he was gay, anything was possible. What if he was being weird with him or something??
"No it's okay! We're all fine with it, and Max and El too."
Will felt like he was going to die, "Max and El know?!"
"Yeah remember you went to your place after accidentally telling us?"
Will's brows furrowed then his eyes widened, the memories clearing, and though he was relieved that it was a run of the mill admittance and he hadn't just slipped and called Mike cute at some point, he was still very pissed. "Oh god. Oh god! You piece of shit! You guys literally got me high to interrogate me, I’m gonna fucking kill you."
Mike knows he should feel bad and he does but it doesn't quite dampen the joy he feels when hearing Will curse. "I'm sorry, we're all sorry, we were just.. overeager to be there for you I guess. Like Dustin said, we should've waited for you to tell us."
Will sighed and flopped onto his back, "and like I said last night it was probably the only way you'd get me to admit it…” he thought about it a little more, and even if it sucked, the outcome seemed okay, good even. “And now I can relax a little more with you guys, which is nice I guess. Net good even if I'm still mad."
"I'm glad you're still mad, I would be." He gave Will a devious smirk and proceeded to pout his lips out in a face he discovered a while ago dubbed 'plastic surgery face' and said in a high pitched nasal voice dubbed 'porn star voice' (pathetically based exclusively off of very light night ads for videotape sets and no actual porn), "I need to be punished." He stretched his body out and rolled around, making Will laugh, which was a sweet but rare sound, which made it feel earned. He was then smacked with a spare throw pillow right in the temple and he went down. "I've been wounded, betrayed by... a friend..." he gasped out as if they were his last words, Will rolling his eyes.
The fond smile slipped off Will’s face as he stared at the ground, trying to think through it all. "You guys really don't care?"
"Of course not, I mean it was weird for like a second, but the way El was weird for a second and then we all just accepted it and moved on."
Will squinted at him, puzzled, "Are you comparing your best friend being a queer to your girlfriend having psionic superpowers?" His tone was light, a bit teasing, enjoying the new style of entertainment he’s unlocked in the form of his friends awkwardly stumbling around talking about the mere concept of homosexuality. It was probably going to be exhausting going forward, but it was fun for now.
"I found out about the superpowers before she was my girlfriend, and I mean, they're both something you have to hide.” Will couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of the statement and his justification. "I'm just saying if we can accept a girl with superpowers we can accept one gay guy,” Mike defended.
"Just one? What if I get a super hot boyfriend who learns about all the upside down stuff?" He asked, testing the limits of Mike’s comfort.
Mike furrowed his brows, his body viscerally rejecting that idea wholesale without much knowledge as to why. "No outside partners in the party!"
"But Max-"
"Max was in the party before she and Lucas started dating."
"Okay but you guys all wanted her in the party cuz you liked her anyways,"
"I didn't like her!"
"Okay but still." Will gave him a look. "So no super hot boyfriend in the party?"
"You can keep your theoretical super hot boyfriend outside, like a dog when you go into a bar."
"What if he's like super good at DnD?"
"Firstly I'd be offended on your behalf if he wasn't, secondly, still no."
Will chuckled and tilted to the side a bit to say, "Thanks dad." It's not like it matters anyway, there won't be any super hot boyfriend while he only has eyes for his lanky best friend who recently acquired a mullet. He knew his taste was questionable, but he accepted it like every other trouble in his life.
"He'd be testing my dominance in my domain." Mike justified, unsure why he was suddenly feeling so angry, he didn't like Max right away he shouldn't have to justify not liking this imaginary douchebag who probably wouldn't be good enough for him anyway.
Will scoffed, "what are you like a monkey? Are you going to screech away the hordes of queer teens after me in Hawkins?"
"Yes, I will go full ape brain."
"Oh god not full ape brain-”
"Will you guys shut up?" Dustin groaned from the couch, grabbing the pillow used before and smacking Mike again.
"Ow! Why just me?"
"Because we did a wrong to Will last night which means he gets a punch and I don't want him picking me."
"Thanks Dustin," Will said with a grin in that sickeningly innocent voice that made Mike roll his eyes.
"What happened to shaking hands?"
"We're men now, not children Mike," Dustin said seriously. "And if I were Will you're first on the punching block so watch your mouth."
Will, unaware of this new rule, simply accepted it with a shrug and slugged Mike in the arm. "Hey!"
"You wanted to be punished right?" Will asked with an evil grin and Mike broke for a moment, his mind, body, and soul truly going ape brain. He forcibly filled his mind with awful things to clear his head as he hit Will with the same dense throw pillow. "Hey that's... gay-ist!"
"What?"
Will shrugged, "Just like hitting Lucas is racist.”
Mike turned to Lucas' sleeping form and a "don't even think about it." emerged from under the blanket.
"I think the term is homophobic," Dustin mumbled, his face squished into the pillow, recalling it from some article or news segment.
"Thank you for expanding my vocabulary, that term will become very useful." Will said, a sly smile on his face, an expression Mike normally loved but now filled him with dread. "You young men have no idea the monster you've let escape." He added in his DM voice, one he hasn't broken out in awhile.
"A gay dragon?" Dustin suggested, Will falling back against his pillow with a laugh.
"He just wants to settle down and be with a nice dragon guy y'know?" Mike added in a Mom voice.
"He torches assholes with his fire breath. Literal flamer." Will said with a smirk and a small laugh.
"Flamer?" Dustin asked.
Will sighed, tempted to tell him that his 7 minutes of questions were up 8 hours ago, but relented. "I heard.. every homophobic term under the sun at Lenora Hills. It's the insult version of 'flaming homosexual.' It was my name for like a month…” he mumbled, already regretting explaining it.
"What's that?" Mike asked, eyebrows raised. He always liked to believe he wasn't that sheltered but he was proven wrong daily.
Will rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically, "It's like Saturday Night Live gay guys, the stereotype, super effeminate. I guess I qualified in their eyes, so yeah, mini vocab lesson over." Just thinking about it made him angry again, so he prayed for a change in topic and the Angel in question was Mrs. Wheeler opening the door and telling the boys breakfast was ready.
And breakfast, in the wise words of Argyle, schmacked. None of them had had any real food after lunch yesterday so the warm pancakes were like heaven (and three of them might still have a bit of a weed hangover (which is basically a mix of simply still being a little high and kinda sleepy)). They ate up mostly silently, interspersed with ideas of going back to the carnival even though they were broke, and going to the arcade even though they were broke. They even thought about just messing around in the woods or something like they were 10 and didn't think about monsters, but the weather answered for them. Gray clouds were moving in, and the weather guy on the news confirmed their suspicions of rain, limiting their activities to indoor. "We have some credit at family video if you guys want to try and sprint over there." Mrs. Wheeler suggested, eyeing the clouds outside.
"Is it even open this early?" Mike asked.
"Based on how much Steve bi- complains about having the opening shift I think so." Dustin said.
"Thanks Mrs. Wheeler," Will said with a smile.
Mike looked over to him and then back to his Mom, "Yeah thanks mom." Karen raised an eyebrow. When was the last time those words had come out of his mouth? She was glad Will was back, he was a positive influence.