Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“He did what ?”

Max looked at him oddly. “He said yes.”

Mike looked at her, completely and utterly baffled. Dustin gave a whoop, clapping his hands, and Lucas smiled so big it took up nearly all of his face. “Finally! Will has had girls pining after him for so long, it’s a wonder he’s the last of the party to get into a relationship!” Dustin grinned now, too, watching as Will walked over to them with a notebook tucked under one arm. “Well, if it’s not the man of the hour!”

“Hey, guys,” Will said, breathlessly, as his eyes flicked over to Mike before darting away. “What did I do this time?”

The crowded cafeteria wasn’t exactly the best place to talk about this. With kids talking so loudly, it felt like a wave of sound that would just pick Mike up and wash him away. He stared at Will, and he could feel his heart breaking slightly every moment that passed. 

Lucas just laughed, adding to the tide. “You finally got a date! Well done, dude, well done.”

“Oh.” Will’s eyes slid over to Mike, almost accidentally. He looked extremely uncomfortable, but really, who was more uncomfortable here? “Thanks, I guess.”

“Jennifer Hayes has had the hots for you for ages, man! It’s a miracle you guys didn’t get together sooner,” Max said, voice unnaturally chipper, but she watching Will carefully. Mike saw her out of the corner of his eye, blue eyes scanning for his signs of distress. She was trying to be nonchalant about it, but after spending so much time together, Mike knew all her tells. He knew everyone almost better than they knew themselves. 

Or, so he thought. 

“Yeah, I’m super excited,” Will said flatly, and Dustin and Lucas clapped him on the back the way bros do, nowadays.

El walked up with her lunch tray in her hands. “Hello.” She looked at Mike, and he could feel her eyes searching him. “What’s wrong?”

The table went silent for a moment, before everyone turned to Mike. He blinked. “Nothing.”

El squinted at him. “Friends don’t-”

“El!” Dustin interrupted, and Mike thanked his lucky stars for once that his friend had little grasp of social cues when it came to their friend group. “Will got a date!”

El looked directly at Mike, understanding flashing in her eyes. “That’s wonderful, Will,” she said kindly, voice softer than usual, as she sat next to her new brother. “When is the date?”

“Friday,” Max cut in, because now she knew everything about Will, apparently. Mike closed his eyes. 

Did Will tell Max before he told Mike? Was she more important to him, now? Did their years of friendship mean nothing to him? 

It felt like it meant everything to Mike. The years he had spent pushing and pulling at Will, their relationship ebbing and flowing nearly as often as the ocean he’d heard so much about from El.

The string that had tied them together had finally snapped, hadn’t it?

Mike had been waiting for this news for ages, it seemed. First, it was younger him, confused him, waiting and waiting and waiting for Will to get a date, to move on and grow up like the rest of them had. That version of himself had been stupid, nearly stupid enough to lose Will, multiple times, but younger Mike had hoped and prayed that if Will would grow up and get a girlfriend like the rest of them, that him being with someone else would make the funny feeling Mike had go away. 

Current Mike had been dreading hearing the news. That funny feeling is what a crush is supposed to feel like, he figured out, and that crush was on no one else, but Will fucking Byers . Now it felt as though Mike had wasted so much time, so many years being young Mike, cold and selfish and confused. He wanted Will; he always had, just in different ways. Now, Mike wanted Will all to himself. 

But his time was up. Will had finally done what younger Mike had been waiting for and what current Mike had been dreading. 

He had moved on. 

The conversation had shifted somehow, thankfully, away from Will’s love life, and Mike felt like he could breathe a little bit better. He opened his eyes to find El looking at him, sympathetic in a way only she could be. 

“I’m sorry, Mike,” she said, but it echoed in his mind and her mouth didn’t move. Mike looked at her, confused, and she just tapped her temple and wiped her nose. “ We should talk.”

Mike nodded and thought “Later ” as loud as he possibly could, and El smiled at him sweetly. 

Mike’s eyes returned to his sandwich, ham and cheese and entirely unappetizing in the wake of such big news. But his sandwich was safe, it was all right to look at. 

Because if he didn’t look at it, he’d just end up looking at Will, and that would never end in anything but pain. 

But he did, anyways, just a glance up at the boy sitting across from him. Will was like a magnet, and he always drew Mike’s eyes, no matter where he was or how painful it would be. 

So Mike flicked his eyes up at his friend , and made eye contact with hazel rings. Because of course, Will was already looking at him. 

Mike looked back at his sandwich. 

***

“Michael! Get the door!”

Mike rolled his eyes as he slid out of his bed. Of course Karen would make him get the door. She was downstairs doing whatever the hell she did, he was upstairs moping, why wouldn’t she make him get the door? 

Why couldn’t he just sulk in peace ?

He rushed down the stairs, socked feet barely touching the steps as he practically flung himself down the railing to get to the door before Ted had to get up off of his chair to stop the incessant knocking. That would never end well, once the company left.

He flung open the door just in time to stop whoever was on the other side from ringing again. “Hel-“

Mike’s voice stopped working mid-sentence. What the fuck?

“Hi,” Will breathed, nearly as breathless as Mike, like he had ran here or something. Mike looked just over his shoulder to see his old bike thrown haphazardly on the grass and realized just how accurate that seemed to be. 

“Michael! Who is it?” Karen yelled, but her voice slowly lost its bite as she walked into the hall. “Will! What a pleasant surprise!”

Will blushed. “Hi, Mrs. Wheeler.”

Karen looked between them, eyes lingering on Mike for longer than what made him comfortable. “Is something wrong?”

Will’s eyes bulged and he shook his head quickly. Mike just watched him silently. “Oh, no, Mrs. Wheeler. I just needed to…” Will trailed off, seemingly at a loss for words. He glanced at Mike but quickly looked back to Karen, like looking at Mike burned him. “I just needed to talk to Mike, that's all.”

“Okay,” Karen said, stretching the vowels. She wiped her hands on a towel Mike hadn’t realized she had. “Michael, why haven’t you let him in? It’s getting cold, and you’re being rude!”

Mike blinked, shaking himself out of his daze at the drastic change in his mother’s tone. He stepped to the side, allowing Will to cross the threshold and step out of the cold.

“Thanks,” Will whispered, more to himself than Mike, it seemed, and Mike could almost hear the shiver in his voice. 

Karen pursed her lips at them in a final judgemental look before disappearing back into the kitchen. 

“Who’s there?” Ted called from his seemingly permanent place in his chair. 

“Will, Ted!” Karen yelled back, as Will led Mike to his own basement. Ted grunted in response, and it sounded mildly disgusted, and that was the last thing he heard before Will was closing the door to the basement. 

“Mike,” Will began, but Mike felt like he was going to collapse down the stairs, so he shook his head and grabbed Will’s hand to take him down the steps, ignoring how doing so sent lines of lightning through his bloodstream and flushed his cheeks. 

Once they were both comfortably sat on Mike’s worn out couch, Will tried again. “Mike, I need a favor.”

Mike gulped and ran his hands on his jeans, suddenly very aware of their proximity and of the copious amounts of sweat cascading from his palms. “Yeah?”

Will looked somewhere just over Mike’s shoulder, then down at his own hands, then over at the wall of his art that Mike has refused to take down, despite Karen and Ted’s relentless nagging. “I um…”

Mike watched as Will licked his lips, eyes following the movement with intensity he didn’t even know he was capable of. Will’s eyelids fluttered slightly, but then they shut, tight. “Can you teach me how to kiss?”

Mike’s world felt like it stopped spinning and fell off its axis. “What?” He asked, incredulous. 

Will winced at his tone. “It’s just, I’ve never kissed anybody before, and I’m sure Jennifer Hayes has kissed so many people, and I don’t want to seem inexperienced in comparison? And you and El make out like, all the time, so I thought, why not? What are friends for?” Will’s voice was pretty much squeaking when he finished talking, and he looked back to his hands.

Mike blinked at him. Was he being serious? Was Will fucking Byers, the innocent boy that was an absolute “chick magnet”, as Dustin and Lucas called him, asking Mike to help him learn how to kiss? 

Did he know about Mike’s feelings? Was there malicious intent behind this request? 

And more importantly, was this really something friends did? Did other boys do this for their friends, to help one another out? He had heard about girls doing it, but that he could understand, because girls were weird. But boys? He wasn’t sure.

Either way, boys who had feelings for the person they were going to teach how to kiss sure as hell didn’t do these sort of things. 

Boys weren’t even supposed to have feelings like that for other boys in the first place .

Mike must have sat with his mouth hanging open for much too long, because Will got up from the couch, cheeks red. “I’m sorry I asked. I’ll go now,” he rushed out, and before Mike could gather his thoughts, Will was up the stairs and out the door. 

What the fuck?

***

“What did Will want, honey?” Karen asked kindly over dinner. Mike looked up from his mashed potatoes for the first time that evening. “He seemed to leave in quite a hurry.”

“He just had a question about our…chemistry.”

Mike could see Ted frown out of the corner of his eye. “He couldn’t have just used the phone?” 

“ Ted ,” Karen chastised weakly, but really, why didn’t Will just call him?

The silence that fell over the dining table afterwards made it nearly impossible to breathe. 

***

After dinner, Mike took the phone off the hook, and before he could second guess himself, he dialed the Byers’ house. 

It had barely rung before it was picked up. “Hello?”

“Will?”  

There was silence from the other side for a long moment, and Mike held his breath. 

“Yeah?”

Mike sighed, and he could feel the tension beginning to build in his shoulders. “Just…in response to your earlier question…yeah. Yes. Sure.”

“Yeah?”

That couldn’t be hope in Will’s voice, could it?

“Yeah,” Mike confirmed.

He could hear a sigh from the other end of the line. “Awesome,” Will said, but it was muffled, like he was covering the mouthpiece with his hand. 

“Will?” Mike asked, just to get his attention again. 

“Hmm?“

“Tomorrow, after school. I’ll help.”

Mike could hear Will’s smile. “See you then.”

Mike hung up the phone feeling weirdly giddy. 

He prayed to a god he didn’t believe in that this wouldn’t turn out to be a mistake.

Chapter Text

To say that Mike had been waiting for the end of the school day would have been an outrageous understatement.

He was usually fidgety, of course; he found it incredibly hard to sit still for long periods of time. So sitting in a desk for seven hours was torture , even on the best of days. 

But on a day like today? He asked to use the restroom at least twice in every class, just to walk off his nerves.

During his sixth period, he got back from his third bathroom trip to see a baffled looking Max and a concerned Dustin staring at him.

“Dude,” Max said, holding up a hand as he sat down. “You need diapers or something?”

Mike flushed as he stuttered out a response. “Y-you look like you need diapers. Loser.”

Max looked entirely unimpressed as she popped a bubble with her gum. 

Dustin’s eyes widened. “You know, Mike, it’s really nothing to be ashamed about. It means you’ve been staying hydrated, which is really great, because hydration is something that is really difficult for most people-“

“Oh my god you guys!” Mike cried, and apparently he was so loud that it caused his near-deaf teacher to squint at them over her book. He rolled his eyes. “I just needed to walk, okay? I didn’t even go to the bathroom.”

“Well, then, that means you’re not hydrating-“

“Dustin!”

Max tapped her pencil on her chin in a textbook thinking pose. “What ever could have the Michael Wheeler going to the bathroom so many times during a class period?”

Dustin turned to Mike, a serious glint in his eye. “Mike. Buddy. Did you and El get back together.”

It wasn’t a question so much as it was an accusation. Mike winced. “No, dipshits. We’re better as friends, you guys know this.”

Max winced with him and hit Dustin’s shoulder. “Yeah, dummy. El can do so much better,” she threw her patented judgemental face at Mike while she said it.

Well, Mike wasn’t sure he deserved that .

Dustin nodded. “You guys were extremely codependent-“

“Dustin! Oh my god! Shut up!” Mike and Max said at the same time, Max reaching out to cover Dustin’s mouth with a hand. 

“I swear to god if you keep talking-“

Dustin squinted at Max. He said something, but it reached Mike’s ears as “ wha orr coo bean doe weird” . Max squinted back at him, and they engaged in a staring contest for a good thirty seconds, silently communicating before Mike’s eyes before Max removed her hands to put them up, like she was surrendering. “Why are you being so weird?”

Max guffawed. “I’m not being weird, Mike’s being weird.”

“I am not -“

“You’ve been so weird about El, what’s that about?” Dustin asked, leaning towards Max like he was interrogating her. “And you shit on Mike for being a dick, which is well deserved, by the way -“

“Hey!”

Max blushed and looked away, smacking her gum in a way that Mike couldn’t describe any way other than defensive . “El’s a good friend, and it’s not my fault this idiot has treated her so shitty!”

“Guys, I’m right here.”

Max waved him off, and Dustin shot him a look that shut him up. He wasn’t part of their conversation anymore, fine.

He looked down at the homework he had and sighed. What the fuck was he going to do knowing all the elements of the periodic table?

Mike looked out the window, mindlessly tapping his pencil on the table, until he was aware of the two pairs of eyes staring at him. “What?” He asked, turning towards them. 

Max had tears in her eyes, but she still managed to look at Mike like he was pissing her off just by existing. Dustin was holding her hand, and Mike looked between them, confused. “Did you guys just get together?”

Max sighed and turned away, squeezing Dustin’s hand once more before dropping it in favor of packing up her stuff.

Dustin stared at Mike a bit longer, pure disappointment showing on his face, a new expression Mike felt he had gotten from Steve and absolutely despised it for that reason and that reason only. 

“ What, Dustin?”

Dustin just clapped his shoulder and looked him in the eyes. “Good luck, young Jedi. May the force be with you.”

With that, the bell rang, and Mike was left sitting in chemistry like a lost puppy. 

***

When the doorbell rang after school, Mike should have been expecting it. 

He had been counting down the hours, even the minutes until Will was coming over, but he’d gotten so carried away by his homework that he’d somehow lost track of time. Whatever time hadn’t been spent nervously bouncing his knee as he studied Shakespeare had been directed towards thinking about Will, and what they were about to do. 

What Mike was about to teach him, for God’s sake.

Mike flew down the stairs in record time, before Karen could even shout at him to get the door. 

Then he remembered; she was gone, off to run one errand or another with Holly. Ted was at work, the only reason he ever left the house anymore, it seemed.

The house was empty, and Mike didn’t want to think about the implications of that .

He threw open the door and stared at Will, who was standing in the doorway and picking at his nails. “Hi,” Will said nervously, putting his hands down by his sides and then picking them up again, like he didn’t quite know what to do with them.

Mike stared, and Will stared back. They were trapped in their own little bubble, the anticipation thrumming in the air matching the feeling that was running through Mike’s veins. 

He desperately hoped Will could feel it, too.

“Um,” Will said, eloquently. He seemed to realize this, and blushed. “Can I come in?”

That snapped Mike out of his trance. “Yeah, yes, of course, sorry.” Mike stepped out of the way to let Will in, and he got an odd sense of deja vu. “Come in.”

Will smirked at him, and Mike could feel a bright blush blossoming under his eyes and across his nose. He ducked his head as he turned away from Will, leading him towards the stairs. “My parents aren’t home, but I think we should go to my room, anyways.”

“Oh.” Mike couldn’t tell if Will sounded disappointed or surprised, but it was hard to tell when he was practically bounding up the steps, taking them two at a time in both an effort to get to his room faster and to put more space between himself and Will. 

“If…if that’s okay with you, of course.” Shit . This was already weird and Mike hadn’t even touched Will yet.

God but he wanted to touch him.

Mike stopped short at his own thought, and Will bumped into his back with a small oof sound. 

“Uh-“ Mike said, like the poet he was. “We’re here.”

Yeah, dumbass. It’s not like he’s been to your house hundreds of times or anything, he knows the layout like the back of his hand!

Mike winced at his inner dialogue. Surely it wasn’t as bad as it felt, right? 

He walked into his room and sat on his bed, running his sweaty hands on his jeans over and over again in a fruitless attempt to dry them. He looked up at Will for the first time since he had let the other boy in and nearly imploded with embarrassment.

Will looked so uncomfortable , wringing his hands together and biting his lower lip, and no , that was supposed to be Mike’s job today, why was Will doing it himself -

“Will,” Mike began, his protective streak shining through like a glowing beam of sunlight on an overcast day. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

Will looked up at Mike, eyes wide. “No, please, I need to… I need to learn how to kiss.”

Mike could feel his heart fall from his chest and land somewhere near his feet. “Yeah, right, of course. You’ll be kissing Jennifer a lot soon, anyways,” Mike joked, hoping to lighten the mood. Instead, it seemed to do the opposite, his friend’s face falling. 

Stop talking!

“Erm, how about we just get started.”

Will nodded, and sat down next to Mike. “So…”

“So,” Mike started, hoping Will would interrupt his internal monologue of he’srighttherehe’srighttherehe’srightthere . “What, exactly do you need to learn?”

Will cringed. “Um…all of it?”

Mike stared at him and felt his jaw drop. “ All of it?”

Will nodded, and his face was turning a red that Mike had only seen a handful of times before. “Yeah. I’ve never kissed anybody, Mike, I have absolutely zero experience.”

Mike blinked at him. “You’ve never kissed anybody?”

Will shook his head, wiping his palms on his pants again and again, almost manically. 

Holy fuck .

Mike was going to be his first kiss.

Mike nearly collapsed right then and there. 

“Oh,” he managed, instead of melting into a puddle of goo on his floor. “Well then.”

C’mon, Wheeler. You have a brain for a reason.

“Right, okay. We’ll start with the basic um - the basic mouth to mouth?”

Will blinked, then nodded slowly, face completely blank.

Mike turned himself to face his friend, and Will mirrored his position, both of them sitting cross legged on Mike’s bed, and God if Mike hadn’t pictured this happening in so many different scenarios.

“Erm…I’m going to just go for it, okay? If you don’t like anything or you want me to stop, just say so, all right?”

Will nodded again, and Protective Mike kicked in again. “I’m going to need you to say it, sweetheart.”

Whoa! What the fuck! You were trying to make him more comfortable, not scare him away, dumbass!

Will’s eyes widened and he gulped almost comically. “O - Okay.”

“Okay,” Mike repeated back to him. Mike let his eyes drift to Will’s lips, and he could feel himself leaning closer…

Just a peck, just a peck, just a peck-

Mike gently pressed his lips against Will’s, and his eyes closed involuntarily. He brought a hand up behind Will’s head, to the back of his neck, to hold him steady, though he wasn’t sure who needed it more, in that moment.

It was bliss . 

Will’s lips were warm, and soft, and they tasted faintly of some sort of candy Joyce had always given them whenever they went to his house. Mike wanted to lick into his mouth, to find out what Will tasted like, but decided that might probably be too much for today.

Will made a happy little sigh sound, and that reminded Mike that the world still existed and he still needed oxygen.

He pulled away slowly, and Will chased his lips for a moment before it seemed he, too, remembered that breathing was a thing.

Holy shit.

Holy fuck .

Mike’s mind was blissfully blank as he stared at Will with hooded eyes. Will stared back, seeming to be on the same plane as Mike was. 

“Wow,” Mike finally managed, shaking his head a little to get his brain functioning again. 

“Wow,” Will croaked back, and he cleared his throat. “So…level two?“

Mike coughed out a laugh. “No, Will, you shouldn’t need level two for a while -“ Hopefully . Hopefully he wouldn’t need level two for a long, long time. “ - And that’s something that Jennifer can teach you.”

Will winced a little at the mention of his date, but it was gone before Mike could say anything. “Oh…okay.”

This was probably a big mistake, wasn’t it? Their relationship had just begun to claw back from the deep, deep unknown that had been California , and here they were, fucking kissing in Mike’s room, and he wanted to kiss him again, and again, and again, but he knew he couldn’t because now Will was taken, Will was dating a girl, and that hurt-

“Mike?” 

Mike was pulled back into reality by Will’s gentle hand on his face, his voice so soft Mike wanted to use it as a pillow. Mike gulped and closed his eyes, clearing them of any stinging tears that had thought that he , Mike Wheeler, king of emotional suppression, would cry after his first kiss with his best friend. 

With his first true crush .

“Yeah?” He asked, opening an eye to see Will had scooted closer, their knees nearly touching now. 

Will looked at him, and Mike basked in the glow his gaze brought, while he still could. “I’m sorry if that made things weird,” Will started, and Mike wanted to interrupt him, but his voice still wasn’t working right. “We can forget all about it, if you want.” 

Mike watched as Will folded into himself before him, and was helpless to reach out and stop him. He didn’t know how.

“We don’t have to forget it,” Mike said finally, ignoring the gaping space between the two of them now. Their knees were inches apart but it felt like miles. “I’m still game to teach you more, if you want. If not, that’s fine. Jennifer will show you what I can’t.”

“But I don’t want her to show me.”

Mike blinked. Will blinked at him, and then his eyes widened as he covered his mouth. “I - I mean, I just want to be prepared for whatever she may want to do. You know?”

Mike nodded. He knew. And if Will would be more comfortable if Mike showed him the ropes first, then…

How could he say no?

Chapter Text

Friday came way faster than Mike had been expecting. 

Before he knew it, the final bell of the week was ringing, and it was nearly time for Will’s date.

He walked out of his seventh period feeling oddly heavy, like he was wearing a weighted vest that was pulling him down. 

El was waiting for him at his locker, leaning against the cream colored metal. She looked cool , really. That was the only way Mike could describe her. Her hair was finally starting to grow back out, curling at about her shoulders now, and the bright colored shirt she was wearing was so her it hurt. 

She pushed off of the locker to let Mike put away some things he didn’t need over the weekend. “We have not talked,” she said, always straight to the point. She raised an eyebrow at him as he looked at her, pleading with his eyes. “We need to talk, Mike.”

“I know, okay? I know.” His locker door slammed a bit louder than he had intended, and he grimaced. “Can we talk later, though? I’m not feeling very well right now.”

El looked him up and down, and he slung his backpack over his shoulder to give himself something to do. “You are not sick,” El observed, falling into step beside him as he began to walk towards the front. “Come over tonight, we will talk. Mom will take you home.”

Mike sighed. A ride did sound really nice, especially compared to the walk he would have to take to get back to his house. Nancy leaving for college really just made his parents forget about their children more often than not. 

“Yeah, okay.”

El’s face lit up, a wide smile stretching across her face. She looped her arm through his and together they walked to where Joyce was going to pick them up. 

“Hey, El!”

El turned to Will with a smile that was very obviously faking her surprise. “Will! What a surprise to see you here!”

Will’s brow creased slightly, then he saw Mike standing there and froze, his face paling in a way that most definitely was not healthy. El nudged Mike, gently, and Mike looked at her. There was a mischievous glint in her eye, but also something understanding. Mike turned his attention to Will, who still hadn’t moved, eyes locked on Mike. Mike gave him a small wave. “Hi,” he said, quietly. 

“Hi,” Will replied, and it nearly got lost on the cool autumn breeze. His eyes drifted down from Mike’s eyes, down his face, before they flicked to somewhere over his shoulder. He quickly walked forward, pushing between El and Mike, and when Mike turned around, he saw Joyce’s old car idling right off the curb. 

“This is terrible,” El pointed out happily, practically skipping to the car. “We really do need to talk, don’t we?”

Mike grumbled along behind her, carefully getting in the back seat when she opened the door for him. He tried to keep as much space between himself and Will as possible, but in the small car, there was barely any room to begin with. 

El smiled at him before closing the door, walking around the car, and getting into the passenger seat. She grinned back at them innocently. 

“Ready, boys?” Joyce asked, chipper voice barely audible over the hum of the radio. They both made some noise of assent, and then the car pulled away from the curb. 

The ride was almost torture for Mike. He looked out the window at the changing trees, definitely admiring their gorgeous colors and not avoiding eye contact with Will. Joyce and El were keeping nice conversation in the front seat, about something or another, and eventually Will joined in, adding snippets of thoughts here or there. 

Mike didn’t realize how much he had missed their family dynamic until they pulled into the Byers’ driveway. The house was completely different now, because they had sold their old one when they moved to California and weren’t able to get it back, and Mike was still getting used to it not being a super long bike ride away from his house. 

El and Will had seemed to adjust to life together, and without Jonathan, extremely well, taking up the roles of brother and sister almost as quickly as real siblings do. They rushed out of the car and into the new two story house, chatting excitedly, and Mike watched them through his window. 

“I’m really surprised, you know,” Joyce said, making him jump. She made eye contact with Mike in the rearview mirror, and her expression was one that Mike had come to know as her wistful face. 

Mike looked back, confused. “Surprised about what?”

Joyce laughed, the car rocking slightly as she got out. “Oh, just that Will is going on a date with…a girl? I’m sorry, I don’t remember her name.”

“Jennifer,” Mike supplied, kind of dazed as he followed her out of the car and into the house. 

“Jennifer,” Joyce acknowledged, smiling at him warmly. “I guess I always thought that you two -”

“Mom! Look at Will!”

El rushed down the stairs, a huge grin on her face. Will followed her, much slower, in jeans and a forest green sweater that Mike had never seen before. “We picked it last night. Do you like it?”

Mike looked away. 

Joyce beamed at her kids. “Will, baby,” she said, walking forward to pull him into a hug. “You look so grown up.”

Will chuckled, looking at Mike over her shoulder. “Thanks, Mom.” He pulled away after a minute, wriggling out of Joyce’s death grip. “I better go, I guess. I’m meeting her at the theater in a little bit.”

“Mike! What do you think of Will’s outfit?” El asked suddenly, and everyone turned to look at Mike.

He looked at El with dead eyes, before he gave Will the best smile he could muster. “You look great, Will,” he said, flatly, and he really hated himself. 

Why couldn’t he be happy for his best friend? Going on his first date? 

With a girl, his brain added, helpfully. 

Will looked down at his worn Converse. “Thanks, Mike,” he said quietly, and then looked at his mom. “I think I’m ready to go now.”

Joyce’s eyes were moving back and forth between Mike and Will so fast Mike could barely make them out. She finally settled on Will, and gave him a smile. “All right, honey, let’s go.”

El gave Will a quick hug before wishing him luck as he shuffled out the door. As soon as the door closed, she looked at Mike. “You are so bad.”

Mike could feel his eyebrows fly up. “ Me? You’re the one pushing us together.”

“Yes, because you guys need help,” she retorted, rolling her eyes. “He does not like that girl, I do not think.”

Mike bristled. What was that supposed to mean? Will was going on a date with her, for God’s sake! How could he not like her?

El walked into the kitchen, and returned a moment later with a tub of ice cream and two spoons. She smiled at Mike, and finally, he could see that there was nothing behind this one except genuine concern. “Movies say that ice cream helps with sadness.”

Mike laughed for the first time in a long time, and El giggled along, handing him a spoon. They sat on the Byers’ new couch, shoveling chocolate ice cream out of the tub for who knows how long, simply enjoying each other’s company.

It was never like this when they were dating. There had always been some unsaid expectation, and whether it was put there by El or Mike or society, Mike would never know. But he had longed for something easy like this, something like he had always had -

With Will .

“I believe you and Will like each other,” El finally started, wiping some chocolate from her lips. “I do not believe that he is going on a date with a girl because he likes her.”

Mike sighed. They had talked about this before, when they had broken up. And while it hadn’t been the reason why they had broken up - neither of them were happy and they were tired of lying to each other - it was definitely a major one. 

Mike had told El with tears streaming down his face that he thought he might like someone else, and El had just nodded and patted his hand, telling him the same. 

“Is it Will?” She had asked, always so kind, yet blunt, and Mike loved her for it. 

But he didn’t love her in the way that mattered; not the way he thought he loved Will. 

“ H - How did you know?” Mike had responded, tears constricting his throat. El had just smiled at him softly, shushing him as she pulled him into a hug. 

That had been the end of that.

“Even if I did like Will, we wouldn’t be able to get together, El,” Mike said, looking at the ice cream dripping off of his spoon in sadness. “Things don’t work like that.”

El tilted her head. “What do you mean? People can love anyone, I think. I love Max.”

Mike blinked at her, and she stared back at him, owlish eyes painted in confusion. “You love Max?”

El nodded, putting her spoon in her mouth thoughtfully. “Yes, I think so. I have not told her yet because she is figuring things out with Lucas, but I told Mom and she said she would love me no matter what.” El smiled, and some sort of weight in Mike lifted. “See? People can love anybody.”

Quit hanging out with that Byers kid! He’s going to make you a fag.

Mike could feel the weight come back. It settled in his chest, heavier than it had ever been before, and he could tell that El could sense it, because she put a hand out. 

Well, if it isn’t little Wheeler. Your boyfriend left you all alone?

Mike shrugged her off and her hand fell to the couch, limp. “No, El. People are mean to…to people like me . I shouldn’t even…I shouldn’t be feeling anything for Will, in the first place. I need to just - I need to find a nice girl to marry and move in to the end of the cul de sac with.”

El’s eyes turned sad, and she grabbed his spoon from him gently. “Okay, Mike,” she said, pain evident in her voice, but she grabbed the ice cream and her spoon and left the room without any further words.

When she came back from the kitchen, Mike reached out and hugged her. “I’m sorry,” he said, overwhelmed with his emotions. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

El hugged him back and then let go, settling down next to Mike. “It is all right, Mike. I want to love who I love, but you are allowed to make your own decisions.”

With that, she turned on the television with a flick of her head, and they sat together, sharing a blanket from opposite sides of the couch until Joyce brought Will home.

Will took one look at the scene in front of him and ran up the stairs to his room. Joyce followed in with a grimace. 

“El, I think you should talk to him,” Joyce said quietly, and El nodded, switching the television off without looking. She gave Mike a hug before following her brother up the stairs. Joyce turned to Mike and gave him a tired smile. “I’ll drive you home now, Mike, if that’s all right.”

Mike got up and bunched up the blanket, lanky limbs sore from being folded in one position for so long. “Of course, Mrs. Byers. Is everything okay?”

Joyce looked at him for a long moment before ushering him out the door. “Yes, yeah, everything’s fine, dear.”

Chapter Text

“Michael! Get down here!”

Mike groaned, pulling a pillow over his head. “No!” He wanted to shout back. “Go to hell!”

He didn’t, of course; he rolled out of bed and grabbed the cleanest shirt he could find within arm’s reach. He practically slid down the stairs, his legs barely functioning from the lack of use over the weekend. 

“Michael!” Karen yelled again as Mike shuffled into the kitchen. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you for ever , it seems.”

Mike shrugged. He didn’t feel like talking. 

Karen shook her head sadly, motioning to a chair in the dining room with a hand. She sat down quietly, wrapping both of her hands around a plain white mug that held some steaming liquid in it. 

Mike pretty much collapsed into the chair. 

“Michael, what’s wrong?” She asked kindly, a worried expression painting her features. “We haven’t seen you all weekend.”

Mike shrugged, looking down at the table. 

It had been a long weekend. He’d come straight home after the Byers’ house and had locked himself in his room. 

He didn’t care that Will had gone on a date with someone else, he really didn’t. He was happy for Will, deep down; or so he had thought. When Will had returned to his house looking absolutely dejected - that had hurt. 

And he hadn’t even talked to Mike about it. He never called, he never came over…Mike had thought that people talked about their dates with their friends - 

With their best friends . 

But apparently, Will was too busy doing… whatever the hell he was doing on a weekend after a date, and Mike was left alone. 

It was so completely pathetic that Mike wanted to cry. 

Karen put a hand on his arm, and it was warm from gripping her drink. “Honey, you know that you can talk to me. You haven’t acted like this since California - “ Something dawned in her eyes. “Did something happen with El? Or Will?”

Mike shook his head. “No, Mom! Will is fine, everything is fine!”

He really didn’t mean to snap; but she recoiled her hand quickly and went back to holding her mug like it was the last life preserver on a sinking ship. “Okay, Michael,” she said quietly, moving to get up. 

“Mom -” Mike said, but she was already gone. 

***

“Dude!” Dustin said, sitting down next to Mike. “You look like you haven’t slept in months!” 

Mike squinted at him, and felt Lucas sitting down next to him. “Yeah, man, where’ve you been? We all went to the arcade yesterday and we missed you!”

Mike sighed. The arcade. They had invited him to go; mostly Lucas calling, saying “ C’mon, man! We miss you!” and Max calling later with a “You better get out here, Wheels, or I’m gonna drag you out of your house myself!”

Mike had stayed in his room, staring at the painting that Will had given him when they were in that stupid pizza van, nearly as high as Argyle and Jonathan just from proximity, driving cross country to save El. 

You’re the heart, Mike . 

“Mike?” Dustin said, waving a hand in front of Mike’s face. He flinched backwards, nearly headbutting Lucas in the process. “Dude. You totally just went to another dimension there.”

Lucas winced and hit Dustin in the arm. “Not cool, Dustin!” 

“Sorry.”

Mike waved a hand. “‘S fine,” he said, sitting up and stretching his arms over his head. “I’m just tired. School’s hitting me like a truck.”

Dustin nodded, seeming to understand as the teacher began to lecture on something having to do with history. Lucas eyed Mike for a little while longer before he turned back to the board. 

Mike sighed again. He really wanted to go to sleep. 

***

“Mike.”

Mike looked at Will with wide eyes. Will grabbed his arm and pulled him behind the rest of the party, who were arguing animatedly about whether Luke Skywalker or Han Solo was more attractive. 

“Can we…can we talk?” Will looked nervous, and something about his puppy dog eyes made Mike’s stomach flutter. 

“Yeah -” Mike’s throat was suddenly dry, why was it dry “ - yes, of course.”

“Will!” Lucas called, stopping Will from saying anything in response. “Han or Luke?” 

“Han!” Will called back, looking forward again. He grabbed Mike’s hand, yanking him forward to join the rest of the party. “Luke and Leia kiss, and she’s his sister!” 

Mike could feel his hand and face on fire, but that wasn’t just him, right? It was really hot outside…and what was he thinking, wearing a long sleeve shirt in… October ?

Dustin held up his hand, stopping anybody from adding on to Will’s argument. “They didn’t know -”

El crinkled her nose, and Max laughed into El’s arm, shoulders shaking. “That does not excuse it, Dustin. And Leia is more attractive than either of them.”

Will was still holding Mike’s hand. Mike didn’t want him to let go; the connection between them felt private, like it was his and Will’s and theirs alone.  

“Luke!” Mike blurted out, interrupting whoever was talking, he didn’t know. “Luke is cuter.”

The entire party turned to him with weird looks on their faces. Max looked like she had just eaten a lemon. “O…kay?” She said, turning to El. They changed conversations easily, and Lucas squinted at Mike for longer than Mike thought was strictly necessary. 

“You okay, man?” He asked, concern written all over his face. Mike gulped, and nodded. 

Will squeezed his hand, and Mike just about felt his heart stop. “Mike and I are gonna go hang out at his house, if that’s okay?”

Lucas nodded, eyes wide. “Yeah! That sounds like a great idea, Will. Have…” He trailed off as he glanced down. At what, Mike didn’t know, but he was suddenly aware of Will shaking his hand off, and his palm felt really, really cold. “Have fun, you two,” Lucas finished, looking back up at them with probably the most genuine smile Mike had seen on him in too long. He ran back to join the group, throwing an arm around both El and Max’s shoulders as Dustin threw his head back in a hearty laugh. 

“We don’t have to go to your house, if you don’t want to,” Will said suddenly, and Mike turned back to find that he was standing way too close for anybody to expect Mike to have any coherent thoughts, really. 

Mike took a step back, mostly to keep from launching himself at Will and backing him up against a car and -

“No, we can go, it’s fine,” he replied instead, his voice a lot lower than he had intended. He cleared his throat, and Will looked at him with some emotion that felt like a Rubik’s cube to Mike.

Completely and utterly puzzling. 

Chapter Text

“So…” Mike began, breaking up the awkward silence that had seemed to settle over the two of them like the humid air of a Midwestern summer. “What did you uh…what did you want to talk about?”

Why was his voice cracking all of a sudden?

What the actual fuck , Wheeler.

He cleared his throat and Will looked pretty much everywhere but him, eyes landing on his hands and Mike’s comforter and the One Way sign Mike had carefully placed to point at his closet.

Why had he put it there? He had no idea. It felt right, he had thought, but now Will was staring at it like he wanted to melt the metal - or plastic, whatever - off of Mike’s wall with nothing but his mind, and this was all starting to feel a lot like Mike was trying to convince El not to make Troy or other bullies hover mid-air, and he was a little more than slightly confused. 

“Will?”

Will finally looked at him, and it felt like Mike could breathe again. “I need you to teach me - um, what did you call it? Level two ?” Will did some adorable little air quotes around his last question, framing it with his fingers and knocking the breath out of Mike’s lungs. 

Again .

“Yeah, yeah. Level two,” Mike replied, sans finger quotes, once he had control of his internal organs again. 

Well, most of them, anyways.

His heart was still thump-thump ing loud enough he would be surprised if Will couldn’t hear it, and it seemed like it was trying to betray him by climbing out of his throat and plopping on the bed between them, all I’m here, love me! and shit. 

Mike blinked. Will hadn’t moved, and Mike was still (mostly) intact. 

Will was fiddling with a loose thread sticking up from Mike’s comforter, seemingly - and blissfully - unaware of Mike’s body fighting against him. “So. Level two?” He asked innocently, leaning forward almost imperceptibly, but Mike noticed, too hyper aware of everything in this situation to not.

“Ummmm -“ Mike said, and really, he was feeling so much like Shakespeare at this moment it was ridiculous. “Do you want me to like…explain it?”

Will rolled his eyes, and it was the most at ease Mike had seen him since they had reached Mike’s big, empty house. Mike smiled, a little, but then Will kept talking and he realized how truly terrified he was. “I’m not sure this is the sort of thing you can lecture somebody on, Mike. I think you have to show them.”

And wow, Will saying something like that with such confidence definitely did not do anything to Mike’s insides. They were still working perfectly fine, thank you very much. 

“You seem a little eager there, Byers,” Mike said suddenly, a burst of bravery that he hadn't expected from himself. 

Will didn’t seem to expect it, either, because his eyes were so wide Mike could see white all around the ring of hazel. His mouth opened and closed a few times, seemingly unable to decide on one or the other and driving Mike insane. “Not eager. Just truthful,” Will said, and something like pain crossed his face. In a blink, it was gone, replaced with a raised eyebrow. “So, you gonna teach me, or what?”

Mike just knew that if they were standing, instead of sitting with their lanky limbs crossed every which way underneath them on Mike’s bed, Will’s hand would be on his hip, a habit he had learned from spending too much time with Max.

The fact that if they were standing, Mike would be on the floor, cause of death Confident Will Byers is something he would rather not examine too closely.

Mike mumbled something in the affirmative, and Will sat up a little straighter, but Mike couldn’t tell if he was triumphant or nervous. 

Mike knew that he, himself, was the latter. 

“Um,” Mike said, trying to think back to all those summer makeout sessions with El. He grimaced even considering thinking about them, but it felt important to remember exactly what they did to classify as ‘level two’. Mike knew it included more than just lip-on-lip action, but he didn’t know if he was capable of doing that in such a…forced setting.

Oh, fuck it. He wasn’t sure he could do it with Will without…fucking things up, somehow.

Why was he doing this again?

“We -“ Will chose that moment to lick his lips, and Mike dutifully looked away. It wasn’t like he had noticed, anyway. “We don’t have to, if you don’t want to. I can just have Jennifer -“

“No!” Mike all but yelled, and then he clamped his mouth shut in embarrassment. Will looked at him in surprise, lips making an o shape that Mike did not notice, okay?!

“No?” Will asked cheekily, apparently regaining his brain cells faster than Mike. “Teach me, then, Mike.”

Mike sighed. “Okay…okay, fine. We’ll start with level one and then move on to level two, okay? And again, if -“

Will rolled his eyes as he leaned towards Mike. “If there’s anything I don’t like or don’t want, I tell you. Yeah, got it.”

Mike had no idea where this streak of confidence and sass came from - he hadn’t seen it in a long, long time - but it was making him feel things that he was sure were obvious to Will. Obviously, he could just blame his warm cheeks - and face and neck and ears and - on the heat, right? 

In October? His brain supplied helpfully, his first full coherent thought since he and Will had gotten to his house.

He shrugged to himself. What the hell?

Mike leaned forward, closing the distance between the two of them slowly, his lips landing square on Will’s, eyes squeezed shut. 

It felt more awkward and less than their first kiss, simultaneously. 

Mike wanted so much more , but he knew he had to take it slow. So slowly, veeeery slowly, he lifted his hands to rest on Will’s shoulders. Will made some sort of noise, and Mike pulled away, just slightly, barely leaving enough room for them to breathe on their own. “You okay?” He asked, opening his eyes to find Will’s wide with shock - or fear, but Mike was sincerely hoping for the former. 

“Y - yeah,” Will stuttered, swallowing, sending his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Yeah, I’m fine. Um. Is…is that step two?”

Mike felt like his breath was going to shatter the moment, but it felt like he had just ran a fucking marathon. “Yeah.”

Will nodded, lips pressed in a thin line. “All right,” he said, putting his hands on Mike’s shoulders. Mike smiled, and Will returned it, albeit shakily. “Keep going.”

Mike happily complied - er , just complied, as far as Will was to know. He leaned back in, a little bit faster this time, fueled by the taste of Will and the feeling of his hands on his shoulders, holding him close as Mike brushed his lips against his best friend’s. 

Mike’s hands began to wander, over Will’s shoulders, down his arms, back up again. Will’s hands mirrored Mike’s movements almost perfectly, but tentatively. When Mike moved his hands to the back of Will’s neck, gripping the boy to pull him closer, Will’s hands dropped and he made a sound that Mike swallowed easily, lips sliding together. His hands wandered up into Will’s hair, threading through the strands there easily, and Will tilted his head just slightly, deepening the kiss.

Mike was taken completely by surprise when Will’s hands found their way into Mike’s longer hair, tugging softly. He gasped; he actually fucking gasped , and Will must’ve thought it was a bad sign, because he pulled away almost immediately. 

Mike blinked at his friend, too dazed to comprehend that Will’s hands were still tangled in his hair and that his hands had found their way back down to the back of Will’s neck, keeping them close. 

“Sorry, did I-“ Will began to ask, breath hot on Mike’s lips, when the front door opened below them. 

Mike had never jumped away from someone so fast, pulling a knee up between them. Will blinked, so many times in succession that Mike wondered if he had something in his eye. 

“Michael?” Karen called, and Mike looked at Will with wide eyes. 

“‘M here, Mom!” He yelled back, rushing to his mirror to smooth his shirt and run a hand through his hair. 

“Michael, what are you -“ Karen opened his door abruptly, without knocking. “Oh. Hello, Will,” she said, eyes landing on the boy on Mike’s bed.

Will patted down his hair as he got up, nervously taking a lock and putting it this way and that. “Hi, Mrs. Wheeler.” He looked to Mike, and suddenly, both pairs of eyes were on him.

Mike could feel his face growing hot again. “Will was just here, we were hanging out,” Mike said, and it was probably the lamest lie he had ever told, because Karen raised an eyebrow and Will decided to inspect his shoes. “He was just going, now. Right, Will?”

Mike sent his best pleading eyes towards Will, and Will seemed to get the message, loud and clear. “Yeah! So er - I’ll be going now. Nice seeing you, Mrs. Wheeler. Bye, Mike.” And with that, Will was out the door before Mike had the chance to say goodbye back.

Karen sighed, looking at Mike with a stern expression. “I thought I told you to take out the trash before I got home,” she said, before turning back to the hallway and closing Mike’s door loudly, but not loud enough to be classified as a slam. 

Mike ran over and flopped on his bed, letting out a groan. He could still feel the ghosts of Will’s hands in his hair and God , this was both the best and worst idea he had ever had.

Chapter Text

“You realize,” El pointed out, holding the door open for Mike. He passed through, and looked back to see her follow him, bell ringing softly in the quiet of the store. “That this is all your fault, right?”

Mike groaned, walking over to the counter. He looked both ways, then behind all of the shelves. He hauled himself up on top of the counter like a beached seal to find what he was looking for.

“Whoa, Wheeler! What the hell?” Steve squinted at him, then at El as she slid onto the counter beside Mike. “Oh, hi, El.”

Mike guffawed, offended. “Why are you so mean to me, Steve?”

Robin let out a laugh that sounded dangerously close to a cackle. “He prefers the other Wheeler, Mike.” She got up, brushing non-existent dirt off of the bottom of her pants. “We’ll be back, dingus.”

Steve stood too, running a hand through his hair. Mike rolled his eyes. “Wait, Robs, where -?”

“ Out ,” Robin said, voice laced with something that made realization cross Steve’s eyes. He lifted his hands in surrender, and turned to the back room. “C’mon, little ones! Auntie Robin knows just the thing to help!”

***

A half an hour later found them sitting on a bench at a park, armed with enough bread to feed an army. 

“Okay, El I can understand. She’s new. You , though, Wheeler. You’ve lived in this stupid little town for how long and you’ve never come here?”

Mike shrugged, pulling off a chunk of bread and angrily tossing it into the pond. “I’ve never found any reason to. What’s so exciting about ducks?”

El was squatting in front of him, petting a duckling that had taken a liking to her. “I think it is fun here, Mike. They are cute.”

Mike rolled his eyes for what felt like the hundredth time that day. “They are cute, El, but -“

“No buts,” Robin interrupted, holding up a hand. “We are getting you in touch with nature, Mike Wheeler. You need some cleansing in your life.”

Mike pointed at the cars passing by. “There’s a street right there -“

Robin threw a piece of bread at him. Or, Mike thought she might’ve tried , because she missed quite terribly and somehow ended up bonking one of the ducks on the back. “They’re only here for, like, a week more, and then they’re flying south. Moving on, growing up, turning into lovely little ducks that will make more little ducky babies.”

El smiled as she lifted the duckling up with her powers, watching as it flapped its wings gently through the air, helpless to fight her mind. “That sounds wonderful, Robin.”

“Is there a point to all of this?” Mike asked. He didn’t mean to be so grumpy, but he was. Will and Jennifer were having another date today, and his grades were starting to drop enough to warrant getting The Talk from his parents. 

He was grumpy, and jealous, and tired .

Robin turned to him, eyes knowing. “The ducks will always come back, Mike. You have to trust that even if they move on for a little bit, they’ll come back, no matter what.”

Mike blinked at Robin. Robin blinked back. El stood up, and looked back and forth between the two of them. “Robin thinks Will still likes you. We are confident he will come back to you.”

Mike spluttered. “ El! ” He shouted, and some of the ducks lifted off and flew off, startled. “Will doesn’t like me, okay? He never has. He’s just…he’s literally dating a girl!”

Robin laughed. “Man, I thought I had pathetic gaydar. You , Wheeler, have some of the most broken gaydar I have ever seen.”

Mike took a step back. “What the fuck is gayda -“

“Will has been in love with you for -“ Robin made some big gesture, and Mike felt like he needed Steve here to translate. Mike hadn’t known Robin for long enough to be fluent in her wild hand language. “ - Jesus, as long as I’ve known you! I know. El knows. It’s kinda the most obvious thing I’ve ever seen, and we’ve faced the literal fucking apocalypse.”

Mike opened his mouth to say more, but El shushed him gently, with a hand on his shoulder. “It is okay to be scared,” she said quietly, and Robin bobbed her head along with the words, tossing some bread crumbs at the greenish water. A duck ran between Mike’s legs with an excited quack and Mike wanted to cry.

“Liking boys isn’t wrong!” Robin said, a little too loudly, and Mike looked at her with tears in his eyes. “I mean, like, for me, it is, because girls are just so much prettier and smarter and kinder and cleaner and -“

El put up a hand, and Robin’s mouth kept moving despite no words coming out. She put a hand to her throat and Mike vaguely wondered if El had to do something to her vocal chords to get her to stop talking.“There is nothing wrong with loving who you love.” She gestured to the sky, at the bright blue above them, and Mike looked up, eyes following the path her fingers traced through the air. “And I know that you are okay with liking or loving Will. But you are not the only one who feels this way, or is…is -“

“- Allowed -“

“- allowed to feel this way. Will can like boys, too, just like I can like girls, or Robin can like girls, or Steve -“

Robin made some sort of squawk that sounded so much like a duck Mike almost ignored it. El looked at her curiously. Robin’s face was flushed as she tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “El, you can’t just tell other people secrets like this!”

El furrowed her brow, nearly glaring at the older teen. “But I am helping -“

Robin shook her head. “If they want people to know, they’ll tell them themselves.”

Realization dawned on El’s face, and she went back to gently petting Mike’s arm, fingers grazing up and down his jacket sleeve, soothing in a way it never had been before. 

Mike was about to say something, something to argue or agree, he didn’t know, but then he looked over Robin’s shoulder and nearly threw up.

Walking in front of the few shops across the street, hand in hand, was Will and Jennifer. His haircut was unmistakable, and she had her head thrown back in a laugh. His shoulders were shaking, and Mike could feel his world crumble.

Was he being dramatic? 

Probably .

It still fucking hurt .

***

As soon as Mike got home and into the relative safety of his bedroom, he threw his shirt and jeans off and traded them for the softest pants he could find. A Star Wars shirt, too, one of Nancy’s old ones that had probably been Steve’s or Jonathan’s at some point, but he didn’t care, because it was soft and comfortable and all he wanted to do was burrow under his blankets.

So he did just that, hopping into bed with more enthusiasm than he had shown anything in weeks and pulling his covers up to his chin, determined to make the world outside fade to nothing but static. 

Mike really, really wanted to cry.

He tried; he tried so hard , but no tears would come. He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried…a true, gut wrenching sobbing that shook loose thoughts and emotions in him he didn’t know he was capable of having. He hadn’t had one of those in a long, long time.

Not since Will died .

Mike shivered. He tried not to think about that day, the day they pulled Will’s “body” out of the murky quarry water.

The few things that he remembered were just bits and pieces, really; riding his bike home in the dark, tears streaming down his face, flashlight flickering as his walkie talkie randomly surged with static. He had sobbed in his mom’s arms, then, but since?

He doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know how long he spends in his cocoon of blankets, either, but eventually someone’s voice comes from under his bed, so he reaches down to grab the walkie talkie, covered in dust from misuse.

“Mike? Come in, over.“

Mike looked at his walkie talkie like it would reveal the answers to the universe to him. “Will? Over.”

A pause. Mike didn’t realize he was holding his breath until his lungs felt like they might burst.

“ Yep, it’s Will. You doing okay, Mike? Over.”

Mike smiled just at the static filled voice, despite the churning ball of guilt and jealousy he felt in his stomach. “Hi, Will. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

He stopped, but a minute later realized - “over.”

“ El just said you seemed kind of upset, and I wanted to check on you. You still on for tomorrow? Over.“

Mike winced, suddenly glad Will couldn’t see him. “Yeah, yeah, I guess so. Over.“

“ Okay, see you then, Mike. Over and out.”

Over and out, indeed.

Mike threw his walkie talkie on the ground and pulled the covers over his head. If he shed a few silent tears, then that was nobody’s business but his.

Chapter Text

Mike was tired.

Yeah, sure, it was only Monday, but he was so fucking exhausted it felt like he’d been at school for two weeks straight. He just wanted to go home and go to sleep and…stay asleep.

Fuck .

Instead he was here, with Will, playing Nintendo in his room. Yeah, Dustin and Lucas were here too, and Max and El were somewhere in the house, doing whatever the fuck girls did when they hung out - seriously, what did girls do? - but somehow it still felt like only the two of them.

Sitting on Will’s bed, brushing knees with him every time they all leaned one way to try to keep Mario from falling off of a moving platform, made butterflies feel like they were going to come to life and flutter out of Mike’s mouth. Every time their hands touched when passing the controller felt like Mike’s skin was sparkling with electricity, like that one time he had accidentally spilled Pop Rocks and Coke on his chest at the same time. 

(It was Halloween, okay? His hands were shaking from too much real candy, so when he got to the fake candy, it ended badly.)

“Fuck!” Dustin shouted at one point, as Bowser absolutely demolished him. The stupid little Mario-dying-chime-thing had been something they had all heard far too much of in the last…holy shit, three hours ?

“Fuck,” Will agreed, nodding enthusiastically, and Mike closed his eyes tightly.

“Maybe we should take a break,” Lucas suggested, ever the mediator. “See what the girls are doing?”

A shriek sounded through the house right as he said that, and they all agreed silently that they would be doing anything but that.

“A game, then?” Dustin suggested, getting up from the floor and stretching. Mike heard a pop as he lifted his arms above his head and winced, feeling a sympathy pain go through his own shoulder. “Like truuuuth or daaaare.”

Will, Lucas, and Mike collectively rolled their eyes. Dustin laughed. “Shut up, would you rather get destroyed by a giant turtle with fireballs some more? Didn’t think so.”

Will shrugged. “If Peach left us for that , is she even worth saving?”

Lucas laughed, slapping Will on the back. He grinned, and Mike smiled at him, despite Will not even looking at him.

Lucas was looking at him, though. “What’s on your mind, Michael? You look like your pupils are about to turn into hearts.”

Will and Dustin turned to look at him, then, and Mike was fairly sure he wasn’t imagining the thinly masked pain on Will’s face. Like, sixty percent sure.

“Nah, nothing,” Mike replied, trying to shrug it off. He couldn’t have been the cause of that pain on Will’s face.

Could he?

Dustin shrugged. “He’s probably just thinking about some girl we don’t know. Who is it, Mike?”

It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!

Mike winced, despite himself. 

He deserved to be in that fucking Hell! He’s a fag!

“Yeah, something like that,” Mike said quietly, totally not at all avoiding the question. He sat down on Will’s bed to avoid collapsing into a heap of pining and self loathing, and ran his hand over the soft blanket underneath him to calm himself down. 

It really wasn’t his fault, right? That’s what Robin and El had said to him? Some people were just… like this , weren’t they? And Mike just so happened to be one of them. 

In love with his best friend, no less. Mike always had been an overachiever.

Mike had heard of some people being sent away to get fixed, so they wouldn’t be like this anymore. He had heard of people getting hurt or disappearing, getting taken into the woods and never coming back because they were like this . He had heard of people getting sick and dying from being like this . 

Maybe Mike didn’t want Will to reciprocate his feelings. Some deep, deep instinct ingrained in Mike wanted to protect Will; he wanted to move as far away from Will as possible to make sure he wouldn’t - he wouldn’t -

Mike couldn’t lose him. Not again, not like the first time. 

He only realized Lucas was looking at him with concern when he sat down next to him. Dustin was just observing him, bright eyes tracing all over his face as his mind moved so fast Mike could nearly hear the gears turning in his brain. 

Will didn’t look at him.

“Are you okay, man? We’re kinda worried about you,” Lucas began, putting a hand on Mike’s shoulder. 

And God, Mike wanted to cry. He wanted to scream and sob and curl up into a ball and stay there, never move again, because moving would mean the world was still turning, and he’d still have to live with this guilt that had settled in his chest, and he’d have to face the fact that he had lost his best friend and any hope he had had for a normal life at the same time. 

Hell, he’d chosen this life. Maybe he deserved it. 

Like some sort of fucked up karma. 

“Yeah,” Mike said quietly through the constricting mess that was supposed to be his throat. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just…tired.”

Dustin perked up. “Well, that’s why we’re here. To make you less tired.”

Lucas nodded in agreement, patting Mike’s shoulder once. “Yeah! Let’s go find the girls and annoy the hell out of them, that always makes me feel better when I’m feeling down.”

“Maybe we should get him some coffee -”

Mike stayed seated on the bed as Lucas and Dustin wandered out of Will’s room, probably off to either scare the girls or actually annoy them. Mike assumed the former. 

Will was still standing, awkwardly out of place in his own room, and Mike looked at him. He was gorgeous, and Mike wasn’t sure how they were sophomores and Will was only in his first relationship. 

The sunlight was just beginning to wane, floating through the blinds in lazy rays. They fell on Will like he was some sort of angelic figure; and maybe he was, to Mike.

“Is it the kissing thing?” Will asked quietly, turning to Mike. Mike blinked, taken aback by the question. “Because if it’s too much and it’s making you feel bad then we can stop! We totally don’t have to keep going, I don’t even need to be that good at kissing, and I don’t think I could ever be good at it, anyways -”

Mike held up a hand, stopping Will from rambling further. He was starting to remind Mike of Robin, minus the crazy hand motions. “Will, you’re a good kisser. And no, it’s not the kissing thing. I genuinely am just tired.”

Will bobbed his head, eyes wide. “Well, do you wanna…do you wanna sleep?”

Mike laughed, getting up. “No, Will, I want to go run a fucking marathon. Yes, of course I want to sleep, but we’re hanging out.”

“We could like - sleep together?”

Mike’s eyes widened drastically, and he was sure they were the size of saucers, at this point, because holy fuck . He was literally just having a fucking crisis about his feelings and the object of his affections asks him something like that?

Will’s face flamed, and he stumbled over his words. “No! I - I mean, we…we uh, we could like…both sleep in my bed. I’m pretty tired, too. I think. You know. We don’t have to, I’m sure you’d rather sleep in your own bed, um -”

In his mind, Mike walked forward, grabbed the sides of Will’s face, and shut him up with a kiss that showed just how much Mike was feeling, and Will would reciprocate, and they’d fall into Will’s bed and make out for hours and hours on end. 

But this was reality. Mike just blinked at him instead, shaking his head slightly to clear it of the fog that had seemed to roll in since he and Will were left in a room together. 

Alone .

“Yeah, I think I’ll just go home,” he said, inching towards the door. He wanted to stay, God, he probably should stay, but this was real life and it was getting dark and he had to bike home still. 

Will looked at him, still flustered, but with a hint of sadness in his eyes. 

“Well, um,” Mike began, before pointing to Will’s door. “I should probably go say bye to everyone else.”

Will nodded, and Mike walked out of the room as fast as he could.

Chapter Text

Mike knew what the third date meant.

It was hard not to. Everyone always seemed to talk about it. 

He’d never had a third date himself, not with El, but their relationship was…a blur, to say the least. It wasn’t meant to last. 

He wasn’t even sure they ever had dates. They’d only ever really made out. He doesn’t remember ever taking El on dates, and she sure as hell never took him on any. 

He’s not upset that she never took him on a date, he’s really not .

Even if they did go on one, it must have been so insignificant that Mike didn’t remember a single thing. He should feel bad, but they were past that, now; they were friends.

Will, on the other hand .

Will was about to go on - if Mike was counting correctly - his third date with Jennifer. Things were getting serious, and the ball of guilt and repressed emotions was getting tighter and tighter in Mike’s chest. 

The third date meant kisses - if they hadn’t already - and deciding whether or not they genuinely wanted to continue the relationship.

Mike felt that every date after this one would chip away at his insides. 

Although, if he was being honest with himself? He’d started losing Will a long, long time ago. There was no going back, there was no time like before . Mike felt like there never would be again.

He missed that time so badly it felt like his chest was hollowed out, heart carved out and held beating in his surgeon’s hand, as he watched in terror as the party moved on. 

As Will moved on.

“Mike?” Will asked, gently waving a hand in front of Mike’s face. Mike flinched away, and Will’s features softened. “What is it?”

“What is what?” Mike asked, pulling his knees tighter to his chest, curling himself into a ball as close to the headboard on his bed as he could get. It was supposed to be comforting, but Mike could be hugging Will and his knees didn’t seem like enough anymore.

“What’s on that big brain of yours?” Will leaned forward, a breath away from being in Mike’s space, as he tapped a finger on Mike’s temple, gentle as always. 

Mike wasn’t sure Will could be anything but gentle, sometimes. And then he would remember the fight with Vecna and the guns and the fury in Will’s eyes and Mike would correct himself. 

Will Byers was always gentle with him.

“Nah, it’s nothing,” Mike said quietly as he turned away, mostly to avoid Will’s big, questioning eyes. 

“It doesn’t look like nothing. Michael Wheeler, I am not leaving ‘till you tell me what’s wrong.”

Mike looked at Will, then. His puppy dog eyes, his gorgeous features, all very close to Mike. He could lean forward and just kiss, if he wanted to.

It wasn’t a question of his want, though. It was a question of Will’s.

“I’m just tired, I think,” he replied instead, and Will’s lips turned down in a frown. “I’m serious!”

Will leaned back to shake his head slightly, then leaned back in. “You seem to be tired all the time, Mike. Is something wrong? Are you okay?”

God , how Mike wanted to just let everything spill. All the pent up feelings, the bottled emotions that he couldn’t let see the light of day. The parts of him that wish he had stayed in the vision Vecna had given him, just because he had gotten Will to himself, even if it wasn’t his Will, even if it was only for a few seconds. 

He couldn’t say anything, though. This Will was his Will, and he wouldn’t have any second chances, here. So he would keep everything inside, because Will was finally with a girl and was finally happy , for God’s sake. He was finally free .

Right?

Sometimes Mike doubted his own mind. Will didn’t look happy; he never talked about Jennifer with the group, even when Dustin and Lucas poked and prodded him for just the tiniest tidbit of information. 

Some small, tiny, minuscule part of Mike had hope. Maybe Jennifer and Will weren’t getting along. Maybe Jennifer and Will weren’t actually dating. Maybe Will didn’t like Jennifer at all.

Maybe he liked boys.

Maybe he likes you.

“Mike?” 

“There’s just…a lot going on, right now. How’s uh - how’s Jennifer?” Mike asked, trying desperately to change the subject and definitely not being smooth whatsoever.

Will looked extremely uncomfortable. “She’s fine. We’re…erm, going on another date tonight. Which is kinda why I wanted to see you.”

“ Things haven’t been working out between me and Jennifer…I think I’m going to break up with her.”

“I like you, Mike. I want to date you instead.”

“Yeah?” Mike licked his lips. 

Will looked down, then back up. “Um…level three?”

Mike really shouldn’t have been surprised. Of course, Will would want to be well prepared to go on his third date with his first girlfriend. 

Of course.

“If - if you want to, Mike. If this makes you uncomfortable or something then…” Will trailed off, and his cheeks were flaming a brilliant red he’d only ever seen a handful of times before. Mike smiled, despite the turmoil bubbling beneath his skin, threatening to erupt. If Will was responding like this at the mere idea of kissing Mike? Yeah, he was going to smile. 

He’d been through enough already. He’d allow himself this one pleasure. 

“Yeah, Will, I’ll teach you level three.”

Will shoulders fell from where they had been crawling up towards his ears, and he looked so relieved that Mike could’ve laughed. Then his arms tensed up again, and Mike braced himself for something about to come. “Will you…can we go over steps one and two again? Just for practice -” Will was going to be the death of him “- and you’ll never know what I’ll need for tonight, yeah? So best to be uh, be prepared.”

Will almost sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

Mike was sold before he even gave an explanation. He deserved everything that came whenever he kissed Will; the euphoria and bliss he got from kissing his best friend and crush, the terror and self hatred that followed, after Will left and he didn’t have a buffer between his thoughts and himself. 

Mike realized he hadn’t said anything, and Will was opening his mouth - probably to make some excuse as to why he had to leave or why they shouldn’t - when Mike leaned forward and pressed a finger to Will’s lips, effectively shushing him and making them both freeze. 

Will’s lips were soft. But Mike already knew that, didn’t he?

“We can practice, Will. Whatever you want,” Mike said, voice barely above a whisper. Anything louder would shatter this moment that they were sharing, and Mike would hate himself more than he already does if he let the shards slip through his fingers. 

Will just nodded, eyes fixed on Mike, and Mike’s finger on his lips. 

The butterflies were coming back, fluttering against the sides of Mike’s stomach, begging to be let out. 

Maybe if Mike tried hard enough, he could pretend this was happening to him. That they were kissing because they both wanted to, not just to practice for some girl. 

Mike was trying so hard to pretend, to set the stage for how they would be kissing if they were actually interested in each other and this wasn’t just an unrequited crush, that he was just staring at Will, mind reeling as he turned over scenario after scenario, looking for the one that would fit them best, when he felt something on his lips. 

Oh . 

Will was kissing him.

Mike was stunned . He just sat there, eyes wide, as Will kissed him, lips moving gently against his own, and oh, God. 

Will was kissing him. 

And…now, Will was pulling away. 

Mike chased his lips, leaning forward, awkwardly landing on his knees as he and Will kissed, just lips, so so softly and gently and with everything that Mike had wanted to feel when he was kissing El, but instead, he was kissing Will, his best friend, his crush, the first boy he’d ever kissed, someone he wants to marry and live the rest of his life with -

Will made some small sound that Mike eagerly swallowed, and Will brought his hands up into Mike’s hair, fingers wrapping gently around the locks and tugging. Mike was struggling to breathe, butterflies steadily thrumming against his insides, and he was sure that the room - if not the whole world - was spinning, wasn’t it? It was revolving around this, right now, this moment, their moment. 

And God , Mike needed more. 

He cupped the back of Will’s head with one hand as he gently lowered him onto his back, and yeah, this was better. 

Horizontal was what Mike had been missing. 

Will let out a stunned gasp as Mike put a hand on either side of his head, bracketing his face with elbows as he leaned down and continued exploring all these things that would elicit delicious sounds from Will’s mouth. 

Steps one and two, Will had asked for. Through the fog in his mind, Mike was pretty sure they had completed both of those things. He pulled away, and Will chased his lips for a moment before he was out of reach. 

“ Mike ,” Will whined, eyes big and pupils blown as he looked up at Mike, and Mike couldn’t really think anything else except he’s beautiful he’s beautiful he’s beautiful -

“You wanted level three, right?” Mike asked, breathless, and Will nodded slowly, like he was in a daze. “ Okay .”

Mike dove back in, kissing Will deeply. Will went along with it, like he always seemed to do. Mike was still very aware of Will’s fingers pulling on his hair, and a part of him knew he’d have to wrap this up quickly before it went too far.

But Mike didn’t want it to be over. 

He wanted to kiss Will forever.

Will sighed, shifting under Mike, and Mike remembered what he was going to do. He kept kissing Will, and then in three, two, one -

Mike licked against Will’s lips. He could feel Will’s brow bunch up - like he was confused - but after a couple seconds, his mouth opened and Mike was licking inside Will’s lips, oh god oh god oh god -

And that was Will’s tongue now, wrestling with his, and Mike felt nearly sick with how fast the butterflies were flying in his stomach. It was good , though; something completely new and wonderful and breathtaking -

Will was starting to make the cutest little sounds, cut off oh s and shit s, but best of all, stuttered Mike ’s that seemed to be coming from somewhere deep inside his soul, and it was positively terrific to see Will so flustered below him. 

Mike was vaguely aware of the sounds that were starting to pour out of him, too, but could anyone blame him? He was making out with Will , for God’s sake.

Mike really shouldn’t have been enjoying it as much as he was. Will was about to go on a date, after all.

As if the universe could read his mind, a honk sounded from the front of Mike’s house. Will jumped, nearly head butting Mike in the process. They looked at each other with wide eyes, until another couple of honks floated upstairs. 

“Mike, I -“ Will started, before cutting himself off, face red and lips puffy. Mike blinked at him, before realizing he needed to move so Will could go, so he rolled off of the other boy with what felt like a Herculean effort. “Thanks, I’ll see you later.”

With that, Will all but ran out of the room, and Mike was left sitting on his messed up bed, with wild hair and a heart that would not slow down. 

Chapter Text

“Hi, Mike!” Will called, waving to him from across the parking lot. He excitedly rolled back and forth between his toes and his heels as Mike dumped his bike at the bike rack next to the movie theater. 

Mike waved back, not as enthusiastically, and something in Will’s face fell. When Mike walked up to him, Will gave him a one armed hug, then motioned to the person occupying his other hand. “Mike, you know Jennifer.”

Jennifer was pretty. Blonde hair, blue eyes, perfect example of classic American beauty. She smiled at Mike, perfect white teeth nearly blinding him. “Hi, Mike! Nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about y - oh!”

Will nudged her with his elbow, effectively cutting her off. “We just have to wait for the rest of the Party to get here, then we can go in.”

Jennifer giggled, leaning into Will’s side. She put her head on her shoulder. “At this rate, we’re gonna miss the previews!”

Mike hated her. 

He really had no reason to; she was a nice, pretty, normal girl. And Will seemed to like her, smiling at her, even though it was a tight smile, like he was kind of uncomfortable, but that was probably just because Mike was there, witnessing his best friend’s relationship first hand. 

He just hated that she could make Will happy, that she could hold his hand and kiss his cheek and snuggle into his side and Mike was left standing alone, cold, feeling the ghost of Will’s lips on his own. 

That wasn’t even something that Mike had to himself, anymore. Will and Jennifer probably kissed all the time, maybe even did more -

Mike shivered. He brought his hands up to his biceps and rubbed, attempting and failing to warm up his sweater clad arms. Will looked at him, concerned, and Jennifer looked at Will, with some sort of knowing smile on her face, hidden barely by some faux confusion. 

“Hey, guys!” Dustin said, throwing an arm around Mike’s shoulders. “What’s up?”

Will looked flustered, eyes flitting all over the place, almost like he was trying to focus on someone else but he kept getting drawn back to Mike. Mike pretended like he didn’t notice, only shooting snarky faces at Jennifer when she wasn’t looking. 

“You must be El,” Jennifer said, taking El’s hand in hers. Her voice sounded like she was in awe, and she was staring at El with shining eyes. “It’s so good to finally meet you!”

“Hello, Jennifer,” El said, blinking at her, then down at where their hands were still connected. 

Lucas stood next to Mike and Dustin, arms crossed in front of him. “Oh, we’re about to have a throwdown, boys.”

Dustin laughed, then reached in front of Mike to bump Lucas’ fist. “Women,” he snickered, shaking his head. 

“What do you -”

“Hello, Jennifer ,” Max said, voice syrupy sweet, and Mike’s eyes widened. Will looked terrified. “I see you’ve met my very good friend, El.” 

“Hi! I’m not sure I know your name…” Jennifer said, trailing off to let Max fill in the blanks. 

Max huffed, and El shook off Jennifer’s hand to gesture to Max. “This is Max. She is our friend.”

Jennifer looked between the two of them, confusion written all over her face as Max grabbed El’s hand and led her inside the building. Will looked back at the other three boys, eyes wide, and Lucas cracked up. Dustin at least had the decency to cover his snicker with a hand as they followed the girls in. 

***

Mike somehow ended up sat next to Will for the movie. When Jennifer left to go to the bathroom, and Max and El followed her, claiming “strength in numbers” or something. Mike wasn’t really listening. 

“Are you okay?” Will asked, so quietly Mike almost didn’t hear him over the sounds of a badly edited explosion on the screen. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Mike said, in a voice that definitely sounded not at all fine. He turned to Will to find the other boy already looking at him, half of his face lit up in the sickeningly loud colors from the movie and the other half completely dark. Somehow, he still managed to make it look good. 

Will winced, like he was trying to figure out the best way to approach the subject. “You don’t seem very fine, you seem kind of upset. Is it Jennifer? Do you not like her?”

No! Mike wanted to scream at him. No, because you’re mine!

But he couldn’t do that, could he? Because Will wasn’t his, he never would be. 

“Jennifer’s fine,” Mike lied, hoping the only person in the world who could tell when Mike was lying wasn’t able to tell this time. Will looked even more upset, somehow, and Mike floundered to recover. “It’s just…different, seeing you with someone…else.”

“What do you mean, someone else?”

Mike opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to come up with an answer. “Just…someone! This is your first relationship, it’s just different.”

Will stared at Mike, unbelieving. Mike suddenly had a thought, his first real one since he’d seen Will outside. “You know what, you were acting kinda mopey when El and I were dating, so -”

Will bristled, and Mike realized he may have said something wrong. “That - that’s different, Mike. That’s completely, totally different, and what even made you think about that? What does that have to do with anything? I just wanted to make sure you were okay because you seemed kind of upset.”

Will was right. What the hell was Mike doing? 

Mike suddenly found himself looking at Will’s lips, and he realized how close they were. Mike could just lean forward, he could just brush his lips against Will’s, and it was like Mike needed to touch Will, suddenly, like he would die if he didn’t. 

It was an odd feeling, and he hadn’t let himself feel it before, but this was so overpowering that Mike almost just grabbed Will by the shirt and kissed him right there, in the crowded movie theater, with Will’s girlfriend coming back from the bathroom any second. 

Will leaned forward a little, and his eyes closed halfway, almost like he was anticipating a kiss, when he seemed to realize what he was doing, and swayed away. He cleared his throat and turned back towards the screen, and Mike was left staring at the side of Will’s head. 

*** 

After the movie ended, Jennifer’s mom came to pick her up out front. She and Will exchanged an awkward hug, and she waved to El almost for longer than she had hugged Will. El waved back, just a simple hand in the air, and Max reached up and intertwined their fingers. 

Mike squinted at them both. They were certainly more touchy than usual, especially Max. 

“She seemed nice,” Max announced as soon as Jennifer’s car pulled away from the curb. 

Will gaped at her. “You were glaring at her the whole time! I thought you were going to punch her!”

Max put up a hand. “I need to test the waters first. If she doesn’t know how to handle me being a bitch then she doesn’t deserve to handle me being nice.”

Lucas laughed, throwing an arm around her shoulders, and Max grinned up at him. El looked between them, confused. “That does not seem like a very good idea, Max.”

Max winked at her. “Well, it worked with you guys, didn’t it? And now look at me! Epitome of niceness.”

Dustin snorted. “Yeah, sure, niceness. ”

Max slapped him in the arm.

Mike watched the whole interaction distantly, like he wasn’t quite in his body. He could sense someone looking at him, though, so he turned to where he felt the eyes. 

It was Will. Of course it was Will.  

As everyone began to say their goodbyes and ride off on their bikes - or skateboards - Will stayed behind, nudging Mike’s shoulder with his own, frustratingly casual. “Want to come over? My mom’s making her famous mac’n’cheese for dinner.”

The sun was still up, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. They had gone to see the movie immediately after school, and with the days growing rapidly shorter, Mike would have to be home sooner rather than later. 

“Sure,” Mike said, and the grin that split Will’s face was almost worth getting a scolding from his mother. He’d call her from the Byers’, anyways. 

“Maybe we could…talk? About Jennifer?” Will said, voice small and hesitant, and Mike’s stomach dropped. “And about us?”

Mike gulped and nodded. No matter how uncomfortable this conversation was going to be, they needed to have it. 

Will went to retrieve his bike from a different rack, and Mike watched him go, feeling oddly melancholy. It felt like something was about to end. 

When Will returned, though, with a big smile on his face, ready to ride home and have a nice talk with his best friend - or, whatever the hell they were, now - Mike shook off the feeling, and it was replaced with warm and fuzzy ones he got whenever he was around Will. 

“Ready?” Will asked, slinging a leg over his bike, looking back at Mike. 

Mike smiled at him, then ducked his head under the guise of getting his bike ready to go. “Yeah,” he said, quietly. 

They took off towards the Byers’ house together. 

Chapter Text

Mike was in love.

He’d known for a while now; he’d always been in love with Will, always, he’d just never put a name to it until they had grown up. 

It had always been different, with Will. 

And now, lazily making out on Will’s floor, Mike realized just how deeply he felt for the boy above him. 

They’d gotten together to talk - about them, about Jennifer, about the new Nintendo games and the campaign Mike was planning for them all in next spring - but almost as soon as Will had closed the door behind them, he’d sighed. 

“ Mike ,” was all the warning that Mike had gotten before he’d had an arms full of Will, lips pressed together. He went along with it (when had he ever been able to say no to Will?), only pulling away to ask “ bed?” .

Will had shaken his head, and clumsily lowered them both to the ground before crawling on top of Mike like his life depended on kissing him, and Mike didn’t mind one bit. 

Two realizations came to Mike mid-makeout session. 

One, that he most definitely had big fat lovey dovey romantic feelings for Will Byers. 

Two, that they were making out without Mike teaching Will any new steps to kissing.

Mike tensed, and Will must have felt it, because he backed off. “Wait, wait. You have a date soon, then?”

Will looked at him, confused. “What do you mean?”

Mike looked at the ceiling to avoid looking at Will’s eyes, big and gorgeous, and oh, God , Will was on fucking top of him. “I just…why? Now? You have a date, right?”

If Will’s face was red before, it was on fire now. “Um…” he said, running a hand through his hair nervously, and again , that was supposed to be Mike’s job. “I just thought we could practice some more…we definitely don’t have to if you don’t want to, I’m so sorry if you didn’t want to -” Will started to move off of Mike, and Mike’s mind was shouting no no no no, so he held Will in place by grabbing his hips. Will made some embarrassing squeak sound that Mike decided to ignore, and he shook his head. Will gulped in a breath.

“Will,” Mike said softly, and Will closed his eyes above him. “We can practice whenever you want.”

Will looked relieved. “Okay,” he said, leaning back down, and Mike’s lips just barely grazed Will’s again before he pulled away. “I do have a date tomorrow, though, so another level would be nice.”

Mike made some noise of agreement as he rolled them around in a way that was anything but graceful. Will giggled, and Mike basked in the gorgeous sound that reminded him of elementary school, of sunny days exploring around the quarry and late nights flipping through comic books. Mike smiled despite himself, and he leaned down to capture Will’s lips in a kiss. 

What was even another level that Mike could teach? How long until they did something stupid?

You’re already doing something stupid, dumbass.

But Will was so real underneath him. His skin was so soft, and he tasted exactly how Mike had always thought he would taste: nearly as sweet as the candy they had loved to sneak from their pantries when they were kids. Kissing him was heaven, and Mike wasn’t sure if he could ever go back to real life, after this. 

He would be ruined.

But he was okay with that. 

He would have to be okay with it. 

“Mike,” Will mumbled against his lips. “Mike, level four. Please. ” 

Mike could barely rub two brain cells together, in general. He wasn’t sure how he was expected to think at all when kissing Will. 

“Okay,” he replied, kissing Will’s lips repeatedly, trying to get a single thought to pop into his head. “Okay.”

Will’s hands were everywhere . Pulling on Mike’s hair, grasping the back of his neck, holding onto his shirt, pulling him as close as possible, slotting their bodies together as well as he could. Mike’s hands were pretty much confined to either side of Will’s head, keeping himself from collapsing on top of the other boy, But he could…

Mike slowly moved one hand down, and unbuttoned the first two buttons on Will’s flannel. Will tensed beneath him, and Mike pulled away, just enough so their lips had a breath’s space between them. “Will,” Mike whispered, and he meant it to be a question but it came out as a sigh.

“ Please.”

That was all the confirmation Mike needed to continue. Mike kissed him again, once softly, then again, deeper, and he slowly began to work his kisses down Will’s jaw and his throat. Will shifted, made a soft noise that made Mike want to just wrap him in a hug.

He hoped this would be good enough. 

Mike began to tenderly bite just above Will’s collarbone, then sucked on the spot to make it feel better. 

Or, he thought. Hopefully it would. 

Will seemed to be enjoying it, because he was writhing underneath Mike, shifting just enough that Mike nearly had to pin him down. “Will,” Mike started, crawling back up to Will’s lips. “I need you to be still.”

“Okay, okay,” Will said, pouting slightly as Mike went back to kissing his neck. Mike laughed against his skin, and he could feel Will’s giggle through his chest. Mike could barely suppress a little laugh himself, but he was too busy working a bruise onto the underside of Will’s jaw to even smile. Will was obviously getting pleasure from this, and God , so was Mike, so he wasn’t going to stop. 

And, well, hopefully Will was getting something out of this, too. Maybe after this he’d be able to suck bruises into Jennifer’s skin.

Mike’s stomach soured, butterflies that had been flitting around since they’d started hanging out (especially like this ) shriveled up and died, so he backed away. Will looked at him curiously, but didn’t question it, just reached up with a hand to tangle it in Mike’s hair and pull him down for one final kiss. “You okay?” he asked quietly, reminding Mike all too much that this was Will , sweet, innocent Will that was just kissing Mike so he could learn how to kiss for girls. 

You’re pathetic, you know that?!

Mike gulped. “Yeah,” he said, and Will raised an eyebrow. Mike chuckled, quietly, and then sighed. “Yeah, I really am, Will.”

I just hate the idea of you with someone else. 

“Okay, Mike,” Will said softly, gently getting up from under Mike and walking towards the door. He carefully rebuttoned his shirt, and Mike inwardly winced.

How could he be so stupid?

“You coming?” Will was standing at his door, holding it open for Mike, an expectant, almost hopeful look on his face, and yeah, Mike guessed he was. 

He’d always follow Will. 

***

“Hey, Will -” 

Dustin’s eyes were the size of saucers. His jaw dropped and nearly touched the ground. 

“Hey, guys,” Will said, placing his green sketchbook on the table gently, like it was a delicate treasure that needed to be handled with the utmost care.

To Mike, it was . 

Anything Will made was a treasure. 

“Will,” Lucas said slowly, like if he talked too fast, Will would spook and run away. “Uh -”

“Did you get attacked by a vampire?” Max asked, smirk on her face, apparently uncaring of whether or not Will could handle her inelegant questioning. The entire table turned to look at her in surprise, but Mike’s eyes were glued to Will’s neck. 

Oh, shit. 

Will lifted a hand to his neck self conciously. “What?” He asked, pulling his hand away like he was checking for blood. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Lucas winced. “Uh,” he motioned to his own neck like that would explain it. “You got a little -”

“You have bruises on your neck,” El said matter-of-factly. She squinted at him, and then Will’s notebook began to float above the table, ever so slightly. “Did someone hurt you?”

She looked to Mike with wide eyes, like he would reveal the answers. Some tears sprang to his eyes and El’s eyes widened almost comically. 

“No!” Will and Max said at the same time. Will looked at Max, baffled, and Max’s eyes were almost the size of Dustin’s. “I - I mean, no?”

Everyone looked at each other, waiting for an actual answer. Mike was staring at Will, trying to use the power of sheer fucking will to make the marks disappear. Lucas was looking at the ceiling, almost like he was praying, and Dustin was making whimpering noises at the table. El and Max looked like they were going to explode each other with their minds. 

The fact that El could actually do that with very little effort was beside the point. 

“Then what happened to Will?” El asked the group accusingly, breaking the awkward silence that had settled over them like a cloud. “Why is his neck bruised?”

Will slowly turned to look at Mike for the first time since he’d sat down. Mike looked back at him, terrified. 

Max’s smirk was back on her face, almost triumphant. “Sometimes, people can -”

Before she could finish, Will grabbed his notebook out of the air and stormed off. 

Oh, shit. 

Chapter Text

“Will, it’s not that bad!”

“Yeah, I mean…it’s really not!”

Mike felt terrible. 

Will had been hiding in a bathroom stall since what Mike was going to hatefully call The Incident. Lucas, Dustin, and Mike had followed him into the bathroom, and now they were all sitting on the floor outside the stall, ditching sixth period, because their friend needed them and that would have to be reason enough.

Will laughed, but it sounded wet, like he had been crying. Mike hoped he hadn’t been, that he wasn’t , but Mike knew Will too well. He had been crying. Hard. “It’s really bad, guys. It’s gotten worse since you saw it.”

Lucas looked pained. “How did you…how did you get them?”

Mike winced, and Dustin looked at him curiously. Lucas’ mouth made an o shape, and some sort of realization passed behind his eyes. He stared at Mike, and Mike put his head in his hands. 

A couple of agonizing beats passed. “I don’t know, honestly,” Will said, but the torment in his voice told otherwise. 

“Will,” Dustin said, probably as gently as he could. “Friends don’t lie.”

And, holy shit. 

That may have been too far.

“ Dustin ,” Lucas chastised, hitting Dustin on the arm. “What are you doing, man?”

Dustin put his hands up in surrender. “I’m just trying to figure things out. There are only two explanations for those bruises. Well, maybe three, if you count vampires, but -”

“Oh my god!” Will opened the door to the stall, and towered above them, looking so, so sad and so, so hurt. He looked directly at Mike. “I know who they’re from, isn’t that enough?”

Who?

Not a what , or a where , but a who.  

Mike is in such deep shit.

Lucas stood up, sending a glare towards Mike, and he put a hesitant hand on Will’s shoulder. “Do you want to tell us?”

Will stared at Mike, and Mike could feel his own anger withering. How could he be so stupid? 

He really, really, really just wanted to kiss Will, to make this all go away, to make it all better. 

But he couldn’t , it would only make matters worse, and that made the pain inside his chest so acute he could barely breathe. 

“No,” Will said, slowly, carefully, calmly. “I’m going home. I’ve got a date with Jennifer tonight, and I need to figure out how to fix this before then.” He gestured to his neck, almost aggressively, in a way Mike had never seen on Will before.

Before anybody could protest, Will stormed out of the bathroom, clutching his green notebook in one hand. 

“Well, what the fuck , Mike?”

Lucas was being much too loud for the small bathroom. Dustin looked between the two of them, confusion painting his features. “Lucas, what? Mike?”

Mike stared just over Lucas’ shoulder at some graffiti on the stall. It had two letters with a heart around them. It reminded him of what Max and El had described from the girls’ bathroom. 

Next to it was a dick, though, so he guessed that balanced out. 

Mike really, really wanted to cry. 

“Mike? Dude, what the hell? When were you gonna tell us?” Lucas’ fingers were interlocked behind his head, some indescernible emotion passing over his face, and no matter how long Mike had known him for, now, he had no idea what he was thinking. 

Mike covered his face with his hands. 

***

“Mike,” El said, putting a hand gently on Mike’s shoulder. “Can you tell us what happened? With Will?”

The Party was sitting in a circle around Mike in his basement like it was story time, or like they were about to start a campaign.

Well, the Party, without Will. 

So it wasn’t really the Party , was it?

“It’s really not a big deal,” Mike started, closing his eyes against the judgemental crowd gathered before him. He rubbed his temples with his fingers, and tried desperately to ignore the pounding headache he had had since The Incident. “We just…he -”

“You gave him,” Max started, opening and closing her mouth a couple times like she was trying to figure out how to finish. “You gave him hickies? When he’s in a relationship? ”

Mike winced. “It was an accident! I didn’t know…”

Dustin threw his hands in the air. “Mike! Buddy! You’re telling me you are what? Sixteen years old? And you didn’t know that - that doing that would give someone hickies?”

Mike sighed. He slumped forward, and El’s hand rubbed over his back. It was comforting, in ways that Mike couldn’t even begin to describe. It was never like this when they were dating. Never. And Mike was glad, because it was better as friends, somehow. 

“I knew you guys were up to something,” Lucas said quietly, gripping Max’s hand like it was the only thing protecting him from some world ending, earth shattering experience. “I just knew it.”

“Lucas -” 

“No! Why didn’t you tell us?” He stood up, pointing an accusing finger at Mike. “We don’t care, Mike! We don’t care that you guys are…are both guys, or whatever! We care about you, and we care about Will . I’m just mad you didn’t tell us. ”

“Well, what was I supposed to do, Lucas? Tell you that I was teaching my best friend how to kiss? That I was completely taking advantage of our friend? That I’m in love with him and he’s dating someone else?”

Mike didn’t remember standing up. He was breathing hard, chest heaving, and if he hadn’t wanted to collapse on the floor and start sobbing before, he really wanted to now.

“Mike…” El started, standing up behind him. Mike could feel his shoulders shaking with unshed tears, and before he knew it, there were arms wrapping around him from all sides. 

He opened his eyes and stiffened in surprise. El was behind him, Lucas and Dustin in front of him, and Max awkwardly on his side. Somehow, they all managed to hug him at once, and it felt like a giant weight was lifted from his chest. 

Mike let out a sob he felt that he had been holding in for far too long. 

“We love you, Mike,” El said softly, and Dustin and Lucas both agreed. “We just wish you had told us so we could help.”

“I’m pissed you did all of this before I got the chance to be gay,” Max declared, gently punching Mike in the arm. “We gotta stick together, all right?”

Everyone looked at Max curiously, and she shrugged, taking Lucas’ and El’s hands in hers. “I…like…both?”

El was blushing like mad as Lucas kissed Max on the cheek.

Mike didn’t really know what to say, but he understood. He understood perfectly. 

Maybe he liked b -

No. That was too much thinking for right now.

“I need you guys to help me get out of this,” Mike said. He wiped under his eyes, and the others nodded enthusiastically. 

“Yeah, yeah, of course.”

“Anything for a Party member in need,” Lucas replied, clapping Mike on the shoulder in some sort of bro-gesture he learned from basketball. 

El looked at him, and her eyes were so full of care that Mike hugged her again. “Anything for a friend,” she whispered, something knowing passing over his face, and it hit Mike in that moment just how wise she was. How wise she always had been.  

Mike gulped and nodded. 

He couldn’t help but remember that that was his reasoning for getting into this mess in the first place. 

Chapter Text

The next few days were torture. 

He hadn’t seen Will since The Incident, and whether that was because Will was avoiding him, or because the Party was keeping them apart, Mike had no idea. Regardless, Will hadn’t been at lunch with the Party in days, and Mike hadn’t even seen him in the hallways, where their paths usually crossed. 

Mike was sitting in chemistry, being absolutely miserable, when Max finally flicked his head. “Get your head out of your ass, Wheeler. You know he just needs a little bit of time to deal with this in his own Will way.”

“ Max ,” Mike whined, putting a head on her shoulder. She humored him for a moment before shoving his head off, and he let it fall to the table. “I miss him. We’ve never been apart for this long…” 

Except for when he disappeared.

Mike didn’t say it. He couldn’t. He just sighed and hoped Max would understand. 

They’d never purposefully been apart for this long. They’d never avoided each other for this long. They cared too much for each other to stay away for more than a couple of hours. 

It was like some sort of magnetic force, some sort of string tying them together, and Mike’s body and head and chest were aching with the tautness of the string, with how far away Will seemed to be. 

Mike had been okay with the idea of them being magnets, similar in polarity, close enough to exist simultaneously, to be together as friends, best friends , as close as he could get without ever touching. 

But then this had happened. Mike had no idea what they were, anymore. 

And now Will was getting drawn away by someone else, someone he could actually touch and be with and connect with in a way that Mike could never offer, would never be able to offer. 

Not while they were living in Hawkins, Indiana, and definitely not now. People like him just…didn’t ever get what they wanted.

And Mike wanted Will so, so badly. Mike wanted to continue to hug him and kiss him and be his friend, but he wanted to be so much more, too. He wanted to be Will’s slow dancing in the middle of the night. He wanted to be Will’s waking up early and laying in bed, content with just staring at each other as sunlight slanted in on them.  

He wanted to be there for Will, until the world ended. 

Again. 

But something about them being together was disgusting to other people, for some reason Mike would never begin to understand. Mike had seen it before, people’s revulsion, back when he and Will used to sit too close together and just be , fingers interlocking for comfort from the big, scary monster that was life. 

Until they dealt with actual big, scary monsters, both from the Upside Down and from their own lives. 

Troy. 

Ted.

Lonnie. 

Mike. 

It became harder to just be together when they were in the picture. 

Mike could feel someone sit down next to him, and Dustin put a hand on his shoulder, bathroom pass hitting the table with a soft thump . He thought he heard a took you long enough from Max’s direction, but he ignored it. “You may want to be careful, Mike,” Dustin  said quietly, leaning down so he could be heard. “I think stuff is about to get real bad real quick.”

“Dustin -” Max started, but Mike was already sitting up, looking at Dustin as his stomach began to churn with unease. 

“What the fuck does that mean?” 

“I’m just saying,” Dustin said, pain in his eyes. He hesitated for a moment, and his silence spoke volumes. “There’s, uh, some stuff going on in the hallway I don’t think yo -”

Mike was out the door before he even finished his sentence. He could vaguely hear his chemistry teacher giving a half hearted protest, but he ignored it, too focused on finding what the fuck Dustin was talking about. 

Will .

Was he okay? Was he hurt? What was going on?

Mike ran down the hall, trying to find signs of anything wrong, any signs that Will might be in danger, but he just ran across some kids working in pairs on the floor. He was panting, and he hadn’t even run that far -

“Serves him right,” someone said, down another hall, and Mike crept up slowly, peeking around the corner like doing so might get him hurt, like there might be a demogorgon lurking around each and every corner of the dimly lit school hallways. 

Who knew, anymore. He had to be careful. 

Two boys were standing down the hall, a duffel bag at their feet. “What did he think, he was just going to date Jennifer and then cheat with another disgusting faggot like him? And he thought he was gonna get away with it?”

Mike saw red. His pulse was thrumming loudly in his ears, so much so he couldn’t hear anything else, as he stalked down the hallway to the two boys. 

“What did you just say?” Mike asked, standing up to his full height, just a smidge taller of the tallest of the two.

The boys snickered. Mike may have been taller, but they were definitely wider. “About what? The little fag Byers?”

Mike gritted his teeth.

The boys laughed. “Aw, is he your boyfriend ? Did you come to protect him ?”

Mike curled his hand into a fist and raised it. Doing so made both of the bullies jump, then bust out laughing nervously. They weren’t scared of Mike, they were scared of him being crazy enough to do something stupid. 

With the way they were talking about Will, it would be a miracle if Mike didn’t do something stupid and reckless and crazy. 

Crazy together. 

One of the bullies reached forward and shoved Mike, but he barely moved, shock sharp enough to keep him in place. “What the fuck do you want?”

Mike stared just next to them, at Will’s locker, at what they had done. 

So many slurs were written on it, that Mike was barely able to discern one from the other. They all ran together, a disgusting line of hate, and Mike nearly started crying right then and there. 

“So, what are you gonna do, Wheeler? Fight us?”

Mike curled up a fist to do so when he hesitated. What good would it do? If he swung first, the fight that would surely ensue would be his fault, and he would be the one to get suspended or expelled. It didn’t matter what his reasons were, or that he was helping a friend - or someone more. 

So Mike took a deep breath and turned on his heel. He walked away, determined to help Will some other way, some way that would keep them both out of trouble and both out of harm’s way, because if things continued to happen to that degree, and Mike chose to fight?

He would be expelled before any punches could even be thrown. 

“Fucking fairy,” one of the boys behind him said, but Mike kept walking. He walked all the way to the janitor’s closet - ignored the couple that was in there, making noises that Mike sincerely hoped he could forget - and grabbed some cleaning products that he recognized the labels of from his mom’s  closet. He walked all the way back to the hallway where the boys had been, and waited for them to leave. 

It was a few minutes, but Mike had time. He wasn’t planning on going back to class, anyways. 

Once they finally left - after some more sickening words and even worse laughter - Mike calmly walked to Will’s locker, and started scrubbing. 

He scrubbed, and he scrubbed, and he scrubbed. The bubbles began to turn a gross black from the marker that the boys had used, but Mike continued to scrub until his hands were raw and every trace of hate was gone from Will’s locker, running in a dark line down to the floor. 

Will would be none the wiser. Once he wiped off all the suds, Mike could barely tell that there had been anything there in the first place. The locker was slightly shinier than all the others around it, but he didn’t really care. He returned the cleaning supplies to the janitor’s closet and stayed in there, hugging his knees to his chest as tightly as he could. His hands were burning, and the skin felt like it might crack off, but Mike just stayed there, sitting in the dark and praying another couple wouldn’t stumble in here.  

When the bell finally rang, he walked out and joined the crowd surging towards the front of the school, desperate to get out and started on their weekend. 

Mike was just another face in the crowd. Never anything special. 

He would just have to be okay with that

Chapter Text

“Michael! Someone’s here for you!”

Mike sat up like a zombie arising from his grave. After blinking a couple of times, he remembered who he was and what, exactly, would be worth getting out of bed for. 

Will was the only person he would really care to see, right now. Maybe even El, but only her, not the packaged deal that had been her and Max since Max had announced she likes both . 

Mike had accepted it, and then proceeded to ignore any and all hope for him that had sparked from that moment. 

“Michael! Hurry up!”

Maybe it really was Will at the door…

Maybe Will had come to see him, to explain where he had been, that he had been waiting for the drama and gossip to die down, that he didn’t care anymore and that he had broken up with Jennifer, that he really, truly loved Mike and Mike only, that he wasn’t faking the kisses. Just like Mike wasn’t. 

With that in mind, Mike rolled out of bed and sprinted down the stairs with so much speed and agility he might as well try out for the basketball team with Lucas. 

“Will?” He asked, hope and hurt and a whole swirl of emotions he didn’t really want to name, all of them soaring within him as he looked to the door. 

Dustin and Lucas stood in the doorway, Mike’s backpack in hand. All of those feelings Mike had been getting withered and dropped to the floor. Mike smiled, but it felt like his face was cracking nearly as much as his hands had, just a few hours earlier. “Oh, hey, guys.”

The two boys in the entrance way shared a glance, and Mike tried not to look too disappointed. 

He loved his friends, he did. But they weren’t Will . They would never be Will.

Which, that’s such a shitty thing to think, if Mike examined it too closely. He should love all his friends equally, but Will had always been different, had always been special.

Mike was such a shitty friend.

“Mike,” Dustin started, and his voice sounded like it was balancing precariously on an edge, one wrong word or facial expression from a free fall. “We -”

“Michael! Come do your chores! And did you do your homework today?”

Mike grimaced, reaching forward to grab his backpack out of Lucas’ hand, nodding a silent thank you as he began to trudge back upstairs. 

Dustin and Lucas followed him. “Mike, we need to talk.”

Mike sighed. They always needed to talk, these days. “Do we have to do this now?”

“Yeah,” Lucas said, but he looked nearly as uncomfortable as Mike. “We do.”

They weren’t budging, so Mike let out another - probably overdramatic - sigh and motioned for them to follow him. He showed them into his room, even though they had been there a million times, but they let him keep up the facade of being in control for a few extra seconds. 

“Sorry,” Mike grumbled, picking up one of the shirts up off the floor and tossing it in the general direction of his closet, trying and failing to clean up the chaos that was his room. The floor was still buried, but he was going to pretend they weren’t stranded in a sea of clothes. 

He had been pretending so much recently. 

He dumped his backpack under his desk - probably its home for the weekend, if he was being realistic - and collapsed on his bed, ready for a scolding or really depressing talk about feelings .

“We saw what you did, Mike,” Dustin started, standing awkwardly in the space between Mike’s closet and his doorway. Mike had never seen him so uncomfortable. “To Will’s locker. It was really sweet of you.”

“But we’re worried about you, man. You can’t just be ditching class to stop bullies from messing with Will,” Lucas interjected, taking a step towards the heap that was Mike Wheeler. “Your grades are already slipping enough as it is, and you ditching class isn’t gonna help. And if they keep falling -”

“What, Lucas? I can’t take care of my friend?” Mike asked, petty as all hell and not caring one bit. What did they want him to do? Stand back and watch Will get bullied? 

No. Not again. Not ever again, if Mike could help it.

“That’s not what I’m saying and you know it, Mike!” Lucas started, loudly, and Mike could feel his heart drop somewhere into his stomach. Lucas closed his eyes and inhaled, calming himself. “We’ve all been dealing with bullies our whole lives. And Will gets the worst of it, you know that. But he’s a big boy now. You’ve got to let him take care of himself. Not everything has to fall on your shoulders. He’s not your responsibility, anymore. Honestly, I don’t think he ever was!”

Dustin was nodding along to everything Lucas said. Mike really wanted to groan and maybe hurl himself out of his window. “Will’s dealt with this shit before, he knows how to handle himself. And he knows he can come to us when he needs help. You need to focus on yourself, Mike. You can’t do everything for him.”

“Just because he’s dealt with it before doesn’t mean he should have to deal with it again!” Mike said, sitting up. “You guys act like it’s easier to deal with after you’ve been experiencing it for a while. He’s been on the receiving end of shitty things for years . That doesn’t just go away!”

“You’re right, man, but so have you! You’ve been dealing with an absolute shitstorm of a life the past couple of years, and you just expect us to think that you’re okay? That you’re fine?” Lucas was getting angry again, but this wasn’t the sort of angry he got at bullies, or at his basketball friends. No, this was the kind of angry he got at Max when she had bags under her eyes and was wearing long sleeves in the middle of summer but claimed she was fine. This was the kind of angry he got when he cared. 

“I don’t know! I am fine!” Mike was getting close to yelling now, too, and Dustin’s eyes were getting wider and wider. 

“You’re not fine, Mike!” Lucas said, closing the distance between them and throwing his hands up, grabbing Mike by the shoulders and shaking him. “You’re ignoring us, and you’re ignoring your responsibilities, and your life! We just want you to be okay.”

“No matter how much you like Will, you have to learn how to live without him, Mike,” Dustin said quietly, and Lucas turned around to scold him when he held up a hand. “We’re your friends, too. You can talk to us.”

Mike just stared at them, mouth agape. 

You have to learn how to live without him.

Why should he? Why should he learn how to live without Will?

They were friends . They were never going to be anything more. They were friends just like Mike and Dustin. Mike and Lucas. Lucas and Dustin. 

Lucas and Max. 

Max and El.

Will and Mike. 

And yeah, maybe…maybe Mike had been a little codependent, with El. When they were together, he didn’t feel like he could live without her, but that was mostly because he was terrified. 

Terrified of her, of the world, and of himself.

He wasn’t scared of her powers, really. Or the fact that she was - is - a superhero. 

He was more scared of the fact that he didn’t love her, not really. Not the way she wanted to be loved. Not in the way she needed to be loved. 

He didn’t love her the way he was supposed to love a girl, his girlfriend. He didn’t love her the way that he loved Will. 

And yeah, maybe El couldn’t treat him right, either. She wouldn’t need him the way that he needed to be needed. She didn’t love him. 

And he was fine with that. They were better as friends, anyway. 

But Will ?

Will had always been there. El was like the tide, always coming and going, but Will was Mike’s rock. 

Always there. Always steady.

And maybe Will didn’t need Mike, necessarily. But they complemented each other so, so well. Too well to be just friends, too well for two people spawned randomly into existence at the same time in the same universe, meant to be just parallel to each other for the rest of their lives. 

Will didn’t need Mike. But Mike could be - wanted to be - the parts that completed him, the parts that made him feel whole. 

Being around Will did that for Mike.

So, Mike didn’t need Will. He wanted Will. And those were two completely different things.

 “ Dustin ,” Lucas chastised, and Mike was pulled back to reality. He blinked at them both, in a daze and so, so tired. 

“I think you guys should go,” Mike said quietly. He laid back down in his bed, a little stunned. 

Lucas almost looked disappointed. “Yeah, okay, Mike. You’re right, we’re sorry. You know where to find us though.”

“Yeah.”

“And don’t be afraid to call us!” Dustin said as he was dragged out of the room. 

And they were gone. 

Mike stared at his open door for a little bit longer before flipping over and pulling the covers above his head.

Chapter Text

“Mike.”

Mike rolled his pillow on top of his head. Why couldn’t his mom just leave him alone? He just wanted to continue to sleep. For as long as he could. 

It was that, or face the real world, and the latter did not seem appealing whatsoever.

“Mike!” 

That voice wasn’t his mom’s. 

He peaked out from under his pillow, but right as he did so, someone sat down on the bed, and he could see their hands rubbing up and down some dark jeans, and somehow Mike just knew . 

“Will, I can’t -”

“Shut up and listen to me, Mike,” Will grumbled, and Mike sat up to look at him. As soon as Mike’s eyes were on him, though, Will’s tough facade crumbled, revealing the deflated boy beneath. “How could I be so stupid ?”

And that. That wasn’t directed at Mike. That was said more to Will himself than to Mike. 

Huh?

“Will, what? You weren’t stupid, you’re never stupid, I was the stupid one, I don’t understand -”

“This entire…this entire thing was my idea, Mike. And now you’re dealing with so much shit because of it, and so is Jennifer, and so is the entire Party, and it’s just -” Will put his head in his hands and heaved in a breath. Mike watched carefully, debating whether to reach a hand out to comfort Will or if doing so would just make matters worse. 

Knowing Mike, he’d probably make them worse. He had never been skilled at conflict resolution, or comforting people; honestly, the best he could do was listen and feel miserable himself because of how terrible he was at helping. 

“It’s gone off the rails,” Will whispered, head still in his hands. “I didn’t mean for it to get this far.”

Okay. What the fuck?

Mike officially had no idea what the fuck was going on, anymore. 

“What happened?” He asked, quietly, after the moment of silence they were sharing became too much to bear. 

Will’s shoulders shuddered. “Jennifer and I…we were never really dating.”

What.

“What?” Mike voiced, stunned. His brain was making a screeching noise, like when an arcade game was glitching out, devoid of anything except for the power to complete basic functions. 

“No, that - that’s not what I meant. Like, we were really dating, but it wasn’t…it wasn’t real. To me.” Will looked at Mike through his fingers, and it vaguely looked like he was trapped behind bars. “Does that make any sense?”

Normally, Mike would nod and say yeah, total sense! because he just got Will like that, Will just made sense. But these were not normal times. His brain was functioning about as well as Dustin’s first prototype of an electromagnetic detector was. 

He had absolutely nothing. 

“I’m sorry,” Will sighed, pulling his hands down and rubbing them up and down his thighs once before bringing them up to his arms. “I - I knew, I knew I shouldn’t have…but I just thought what could one kiss hurt? I thought it would help…” Will looked away, eyes focusing on something on Mike’s ceiling. Mike couldn’t drag his eyes away from Will if he tried. “I thought it would help me be normal. You know? I thought it would…I thought it would make it easier to move on.”

“Will.” Mike’s voice was raspy from disuse, and maybe his throat constricting, but that was unimportant. There was a disconnect between Mike and Will, one that had never been there before, and it was absolutely terrifying to Mike, because he didn’t understand. What the hell was Will trying to say? “What are you talking about?”

Will sniffled, and that’s when Mike realized he was crying . A single, fat tear dropped down his cheek, but he wiped it away before Mike could do so himself. “You said…in the rain, you said…” He cut himself off with a choked sob, and Mike reached forward to put his hand on Will’s, despite being stunned into silence.

The rain. Their conversation - their fight in the rain. Mike remembered it all too well. 

He was hurt, and panicking, and so, so, confused, and for some reason, he decided it would be a good idea to take it out on Will. Mike had said some nasty things to him and had let him go into the storm. He wasn’t sure which of the two had been less like him, but both hurt him so much afterwards that he had practically dragged Lucas across town in the rain to apologize. 

All of that, because El had broken up with Mike, his shield gone. He couldn’t hide anymore; he didn’t really know what he was hiding from in the first place, just that seeing Will made him feel how it should have felt seeing El, how it had felt seeing her sometimes. It was scary, but he had dealt with scary things before, and he dealt with them by ignoring them. 

So when El had broken up with him? And Will didn’t seem to give a shit, was trying to play the game that had defined their childhood, and had seemed to define their relationship, too? That had pissed Mike off. 

It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!

Mike winced at the memory alone. It was painful to think about. He had no idea why he had said that, and Will had looked absolutely disgusted when Mike had spat it in his face. 

Before Will had left, Mike had even told him he needed to grow up. Will . The one that had had his childhood prematurely taken from him by another dimension. If anyone deserved to try and live out the final remnants of his childhood dreams, before they were shredded by the harsh reality that they lived in, it was Will. 

Will composed himself enough to continue, and it snapped Mike out of the memories and the barbed wire guilt that still wrapped around his heart every once in a while, squeezing until it hurt to breathe, to exist. “You said I needed to grow up, and get a girlfriend, and no matter…no matter how much I loathed that idea, I had hoped that if I did it, maybe you wouldn’t hate me. So when Jennifer asked me out, I said yes…I said yes, Mike, fuck! I can’t believe I did that.”

Mike looked at Will with wide eyes. “You think I hate you?” He asked, voice barely above a whisper. “You think I could ever hate you?”

But Will was on a tangent, and he didn’t pause to answer Mike. “Then she tried to kiss me, and it was…it was terrible! So I thought, ‘well, maybe I can ask Mike to teach me how to kiss, maybe that will make this all easier!’ But no , God, no, that was an even worse idea, because now I’m addicted to this thing that I know I’ll never be able to have myself, and -”

Which, wait, what? “If you didn’t like kissing me, why didn’t you just say so? Why didn’t you just talk to me, Will?”

That stopped Will in his tracks. He looked at Mike with tears in his eyes, and Mike wanted to wrap him up in a big hug, but he was frozen, stuck to just watch his best friend break down in front of him. 

When Will finally spoke, his voice was so small Mike could barely hear him. “It’s not that I didn’t like kissing you, Mike. It’s that I liked kissing you too much.”

Chapter Text

Mike stared at Will, eyes wide, mouth hanging open, shock written all over his face.

I liked kissing you too much. 

What did that mean, exactly? 

Mike was pretty sure it could only mean one thing, but - no. No, that would never happen, could never happen, was so incredibly impossible that Mike wanted to cry. Will couldn’t like him back, he couldn’t.

Could he?

If he did - hypothetically, of course, because Mike knew he never could - then Mike wanted to wrap Will in the biggest hug ever, because this , the big fat feelings that Mike had in his chest for the boy sitting in front of him, were nothing at all like the ones described in books and movies and Hallmark cards. 

No, the feelings Mike had were so hurtful, so depressing, so… beautiful in their agony. Mike knew that because he felt so much, it would hurt, it would hurt to see Will with someone else, it would hurt to know that Mike could never have him, it would hurt to know that he would never be accepted. That he’d always be different. 

But Mike wouldn’t trade these feelings for anything in the world. He got to feel these things for his best friend, someone who would be in his life forever, regardless of whether it was in a romantic sense or not. 

Will was staring back at Mike, tears making his eyes shine, and Mike blinked himself out of his inner rant. Will took a deep breath and looked away, down at his hands. “Please don’t hate me, Mike. I didn’t know…I thought I was strong enough.”

Mike grabbed one of Will’s hands, eliciting a jump from the other boy. “Will,” he started, and when did he start crying? He didn’t realize he was crying. “I could never hate you.”

Will let out a sob, and Mike slid over to put his arm around the other boy in a half hug made awkward only by their position next to each other on the bed, not by the situation. 

Should he say something? Will was crying in his arms, Mike felt like he should say something, but he had no idea what. He wasn’t emotionally equipped to deal with something like this. 

“Jennifer…she’s been dealing with a lot, too. She…she thinks and feels the same way as me and it’s so terrible and dirty and -”

Mike rubbed his hands up and down Will’s shoulder, shushing him gently. What did that mean, exactly? Did Jennifer like Mike too? Was this all some ploy to make Mike jealous? Except…Will and Jennifer would be competing for his affections - not that it would be much of a competition - so the two of them getting together wouldn’t necessarily be the best thing for either of them. “Will, I honestly have no idea what you’re trying to say,” Mike admitted quietly, and Will nodded into his shoulder. 

“I know,” Will replied, then he sat up to look at Mike. Mike couldn’t help himself - he looked down at Will’s lips. They were magnetic, now that Mike knew what they felt like and tasted like. Despite the bullies, the people who would never let Mike and Will be together, Mike still loved Will. 

Mike leaned forward, just the smallest bit. “Can you…I mean, if you want to, can you try to expl -”

He hadn’t meant to press his lips to Will’s, but it just happened, and they both just sat there for a second, lips slotted together like that was where they belonged, before Will brought a hand up to Mike’s hair and the invisible wall between them crashed down. 

Will swung a leg around to straddle Mike’s hips, somehow managing to keep their lips together and his hands tangled in Mike’s hair in the process, and Mike nodded enthusiastically, even though that made kissing really hard. Will pulled on his hair and whoa, okay, Mike’s head stopped moving both inside and out. 

He put his hands on Will’s hips - mostly just to make sure he wouldn’t slide off of Mike’s legs and land on the floor, because wouldn’t that be terrible - and pulled Will closer, as close as he could get without crawling inside Will’s soul and just staying there. 

Will made some sort of noise that Mike had only heard when they were together like this , and Mike’s fingers dug into Will’s jeans on their own volition.

And this…Mike had missed this. Will seemed to know everything that felt amazing, he knew how to make Mike’s body sing, but El had been able to figure that out, too.

But it hadn’t been as great as this, it hadn’t been as…all consuming as this. El never would have climbed on top of Mike like Will was doing now; Mike never would have let her. 

Will was different. Will…Mike wanted Will, he wanted to kiss Will, but he also wanted to dance with Will in the middle of the night, he wanted to wake up and see the sunlight streaming down on Will’s face and making him sparkle, he wanted to hold hands with Will in a crowded room and not care about bullies like Troy or Ted or Lonnie. 

Mike didn’t want to just kiss Will, he wanted Will. In every way possible. 

And maybe, just maybe, Will wanted him, too.

And maybe this realization was one that he’d had before, but having it in the midst of kissing Will for the first time in much too long was a lot. 

He didn’t mean to start crying with Will in his lap and his tongue in his mouth, but he did. 

“Hey,” Will said, pulling away a little bit, pressing a feather light kiss to Mike’s lips. “What’s wrong?”

Mike shook his head and tried to keep kissing Will, but he pulled away further and put his hands on Mike’s shoulders. Mike looked up at him with the best pleading eyes that he could muster. “Please just…kiss me?”

Will looked at Mike like he was some puzzle that Will was struggling to understand. He swiped a thumb over Mike’s cheek and frowned. “Mike, you’re - you’re crying .”

And yeah, Mike was. He was so confused about so many things; how this whole thing with Will had started, what exactly was going on with Jennifer, and if Will knew that this had never been fake, not to Mike. 

And Will was looking at Mike like he hung the stars, and he was kissing Mike even though Mike was a dumbass and had messed everything up in the heat of the moment. 

I love you . 

The words surprised Mike, but they didn’t, at the same time. He’d been thinking it, he’d known it for a while, but he didn’t know why he suddenly started thinking it right then.

Will was looking at him with wide eyes, now. His lips were parted, and Mike couldn’t help it; he stared , because Will’s lips were red from Mike’s teeth and, well, he could stare, because at this point, if Will didn’t know how Mike felt about him, then Mike wasn’t sure what else to do. 

“You…love me?”

Wait -

Chapter Text

“You guys are disgusting.”

Mike squinted at Max and wrinkled his nose. “We’re not even doing anything, Maxine.”

Will was laughing beside him, hiding his face in his shoulder, and Mike couldn’t bring himself to be mad, not really. 

Max scoffed. “I don’t even have to look at you guys to know you guys are doing something sickening. Honestly, it’s like we’re not even in the room anymore,” she complained, pouting at Lucas and El. Lucas laughed and put an arm around her shoulder. 

“We’re not any worse than you guys! We can’t even do what you guys are doing right now,” Will pointed out through his laughter, and Mike pointed at him, agreeing. 

“At least you guys have someone here!” Dustin whined, and Mike would feel bad for him, but it was his choice to have a long distance relationship with Suzie in the first place, so Mike decided it was his own fault he was feeling lonely. 

“Yeah!” Jennifer said, setting her lunch tray down next to Dustin. Then she paused. “What are we talking about?”

“Mike and Will are being gross!” Max said loudly, over the protests of Mike and Will. 

Jennifer looked at them, considering, then at Lucas and Max, and she seemed to decide something. “I don’t think Mike and Will are being as gross as you and Lucas right now, Max.”

Max threw her hands up as Mike and Will cheered, and Will held his hand out for a high five. Jennifer slapped his palm, then looked down at Will’s other hand, and Mike couldn’t help the color that raised to his cheeks. Her mouth dropped open, then shook her head in disappointment. “I take it back, they are being really gross.”

“Yes!” Max cried, standing up, and Lucas’ arm fell from her shoulder. “I knew you guys were doing something disgustingly cute! Stop!”

Mike wrinkled his nose at her as he raised his and Will’s intertwined hands. “Make us.”

Maybe that was a mistake, because Max nearly leaped across the table to pry their hands apart, laughing the whole time, and Dustin still complained about Suzie not being there, and El was holding up her hand to keep her milk from spilling in the process. 

Will was giggling so hard that his hand was holding Mike’s in a death grip by the time that Max sat back down in a huff. “ Max ,” he chastised, and then he turned to Jennifer. “Can you believe this?”

Jennifer was grinning back at Will, and Mike gripped Will’s hand tighter despite himself. “At least you guys aren’t being so annoying about it. Some couples here are obnoxious .”

Some couples.

Mike smiled, and he leaned into Will’s shoulder to hide how pleased he was that Jennifer considered them a couple. That they were a couple. 

It had been easy, really; asking Will if he wanted to date him. Especially after Mike had accidentally confessed his love for him. 

Will had said it back, and then they’d stayed in Mike’s room for a long, long time. 

And yeah, they’d talked eventually, but…Mike liked kissing. A lot. Especially when he was kissing Will. So talking? That hadn’t really been a first priority. 

A girl came up behind Jennifer and put her hand on her shoulder. She whispered something into her ear, and Jennifer laughed and turned a bright red. 

“I’ve got to go…study,” she said suddenly, standing up and giving a small wave to El. El waved back, and Max grabbed her hand to hold it under the table. 

“Hypocrite,” Mike said under his breath, and Will squeezed his hand. 

As Jennifer walked by them, Will gave her a thumbs up and a fist bump. She made some sort of fanning motion, and Mike laughed. “I’m glad she’s moved on,” Will observed quietly, and Mike nodded to no one in particular. 

Dustin groaned. “What does a guy have to do to get a date that lives around here?”

The entire table laughed at his misfortune as Lucas did his best to comfort him. 

Things were good. Great , even. Spectacular. A plethora of adjectives came to Mike’s mind, and every single one of them had positive connotations. 

Things were finally going to be okay . 

As the bell rang, ending lunch, and everyone began to get up and move around, Mike stayed sitting. Will must’ve sensed something was up, because he ended his conversation with El to stay put next to Mike, always staying with him. He pinned Mike with a curious look, and Mike looked both ways before leaning forward and pressing a soft kiss to Will’s lips. 

The rush of people in the cafeteria made it easy for them to get lost in the crowd, and honestly, even if someone did see them, Mike didn’t really care. 

Let them look. 

Mike was in love, and nothing was going to change that. He didn’t care if people saw, anymore; he just wanted to be with Will. 

Will pulled away slightly just to smile at him, then he dove back in for one more kiss. 

A real kiss.