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When he looked at Will, Michael Steven James Wheeler felt like the earth orbiting the sun—blinded by a radiant ball of light that he couldn’t live without. He needed Will, and that scared him so bad.
During a time in his life that he wasn’t proud of, that thought scared him so bad that he pushed Will away. Of course, it was stupid, in hindsight, to drive away the one thing he couldn’t live without. But his young, naive, foolish brain thought he could be normal if he ignored his need to be with Will. He could be the ordinary American man his father keeps spouting about, listening to Reagan, and get rid of the sense of shame and guilt he lived with.
But instead, he almost lost his best friend, his soulmate, and only developed more guilt and shame. He’s spent every night since Will left listening to Smalltown Boy on his walkman and crying himself to sleep.
Now that Will was back in Hawkins and he wasn’t stringing El along anymore–their separation was mutual and eventual– he finally acknowledged the one thing he’s pushed into the back of his mind for so long.
He was in love with Will.
That revelation didn’t shock him as he looked back at his life, but it definitely shook him. He’d never live the life he thought he needed. He’d never have a white-picket fence, a blond, blue-eyed wife, three kids, and a corporate job he’d eventually die at. He’d never have to become his parents. His dad.
He didn’t know if he felt more relieved or terrified.
What he did know, though, was that Will was his best friend. His first friend. His one and only. His first waking thought of the day and the last before he slept.
He couldn’t ruin their friendship over this, not again after they’d just started building it up again. But he couldn’t live with himself if something happened to either or both of them, and he’d never been able to tell.
Watching Lucas at Max’s bedside table, only able to hope she wakes up and entirely prepared to spend the rest of his life like that, awakened something in Mike. Something he could try to call desperation if he was introspective enough.
Call it desperation, maybe the need to not be alone in the afterlife, but for whatever life there may be after it, he’d want to spend it with Will.
So, a month after the world went to hell, Mike confessed his love to Will during a scouting trip for supplies.
“Will,” Mike nervously shuffled in place, hiding his shaking hands in his pockets as he watched Will crouch down into some bushes for something Mike wasn’t paying attention to.
“Yeah?” Will hadn’t turned around. Instead, he’d laid his shotgun on the ground. Every time Mike saw Will holding it, his breath would catch, and he’d lose the ability to form sentences.
“I need to tell you something.”
“How important is it?” Will sounded cautious, and Mike couldn’t blame him.
“Depends on your idea of important, but to me it’s-it's pretty important,” Mike cursed his tied tongue.
He shifted to look at Mike for a moment, where his biceps bulged against his tight polo shirt, which caused Mike to short-circuit before standing up with minimal effort.
“What’s up?”
“So-so this is going to sound weird and wrong and I know but I can’t hold it in anymore after seeing what happened to Lucas and Max and I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t tell you. And like I know this isn’t the best time but I didn’t know when else we’d be alone and also I know how gross this is and you’ll probably hate me so I’m sorry but I just-” And to his horror, tears started falling down Mike’s cheeks.
“Hey-hey it’s okay,” Will scrambled to wipe the tears off Mike’s face, smiling at him reassuringly.
“Nothing you could say would make me hate you. You’re my best friend.” Will’s tone was something he couldn’t decipher, something he’d always been bad at. Tones, social cues, and anything related to those just went over his head.
“I want to be more than friends,” he blurted out.
Will froze.
“Will, I love you, and I think I have for a long, long time. I’m sorry that I’ve acted like a complete dick over the years. I can’t live without you, and my messed up thought process was that if I pushed you away then maybe it won’t hurt if I ever lost you, but that obviously didn’t work. It’s no excuse, but I’m so genuinely sorry. I love you too much to lose you.”
“No.”
Mike faltered.
“No?”
“No, no I don’t believe you.” Will backed away from Mike, taking steps backward as he shook his head. “I can’t believe it.”
Mike was about to say something reassuring until he looked into Will’s eyes. What he saw made him pause and think. It was a mix of heartbreak, disbelief, and something like hope.
That tiny speck of hope filled Mike with determination.
“It’s okay if you don’t believe me right now, but I swear to you, I’ll do everything to prove my love to you.”
Mike had stepped closer, circling his arms around Will’s waist and keeping eye contact.
Will’s face flushed, and Mike watched him swallow thickly, which he counted as a success.
“Whatever,” Will muttered, shaking off the other’s arms and returning to his gun. “I think we’re done for the day.”
Mike hummed and spent the rest of their silent walk back to the cabin, creating plans.
~~~
Mike watched as Will stood from the couch and looked at the group. “I’m going to get a drink. Does anyone want anything?”
Everyone had met at Steve’s house as it was large enough to fit everyone comfortably. They were discussing what to do about Vecna and the leaking Upside Down a week after Mike had confessed. He hadn’t done much in the week as Will had started subtly avoiding him, but now was his chance.
“I’ll come with,” he volunteered, already making his way to Will, despite the flash of hesitation on the other’s face.
“Alright.”
Their journey to the kitchen was quiet and not the comfortable type they used to have. It was awkward and stilted, and Mike couldn’t help but regret his decision. But he knew it’d be worth it in the end, even if he and Will never ended up together.
Mike spoke as the two circled the kitchen, grabbing drinks for everyone.
“How has your week been? I haven’t been able to talk to you.”
Was that a gentle poke at Will? Yes. Did Mike regret seeing Will wince and curl into himself slightly? Also yes. But he was known for never being able to keep his mouth shut when he should, and this time won’t be any different.
“I’ve been okay,” Will spoke softly, his voice a gentle tune that Mike could listen to all day, “it’s been the usual. Helping at the school, looking out for creatures, visiting Max at the hospital.”
“Those sure don’t sound usual,” Mike joked, knocking Will’s shoulders gently. The boy laughed, something small and fragile but no less genuine, and Mike’s heart soared. He missed Will’s real laugh.
“Yeah, but since when have our lives ever been usual or normal?”
Mike watched Will snort a harsh breath from his nose and smiled fondly.
“Well, I know that when we met it was normal.”
“On the swings?” Will started to smile too. His eyes crinkled, and his exposed teeth showed Mike that it was a genuine, beautiful smile.
“Still the best thing I’ve ever done,” Mike murmured, letting his lids droop into what he wished he could call a smoulder but probably just made him look constipated.
Will’s eyes darted to him before he suddenly looked away. He grabbed half of the drinks and speed walked back to the living room, though he was careful not to spill anything.
Mike sighed in disappointment before grabbing his half and following.
There was always next time.
~~~
The next time they were alone together was two days later. El asked them to visit Max with her. Neither could disagree or wanted to anyway.
El took the seat next to Max, doing what she did every time she came and tried to look for Max in The Void. She’d never found her, but she won’t give up hope.
Lucas wasn’t there that day, surprisingly. Instead, El informed them that his parents wanted him home to spend time together if the world was going to end, which Mike understood. His father turned tail and ran at the first sign of danger, but his mother, who he grew a healthy respect for, stayed and was prepared to lay down her life for him and Nancy.
He made a mental note to go and hug her.
Their visit to Max was nothing new, but when El kicked them out after an hour to have some alone time, he and Will were left awkwardly outside the hospital.
“Are you doing anything after this?”
Mike asked the question softly, speaking as if Will was an animal he didn’t want to scare off. He knew Will would get annoyed at his gentleness, believing that Mike thought he was fragile, but he couldn’t help it. Whenever he looked at Will, he just wanted to hold him so tightly that the voices in his head telling him he was wrong would shut up.
“Not really. I was just planning on painting.”
Mike nodded before sticking his hands in his pockets, a new nervous tick.
“Do you want to come over? I feel like we haven’t hung out for a while and I miss you.”
Though he was embarrassed to speak his feelings, seeing the result in Will’s flushed face was worth it, even if Will suppressed it under a blank mask soon after.
“Alright,” Will feigned nonchalance, but Mike saw through his disguise.
“Cool,” Mike smiled fondly, stepping closer to Will as they walked toward Mike’s house, about 15 minutes away.
He felt Will stiffen as they walked, Mike swinging his hand close to his.
“Mike,” Will warned, glancing up at Mike but not moving away.
Mike just grinned, something impish and boyish. “It’s okay. If the world is going to end, I want it to end with us together. Crazy together, right?”
Mike watched as Will’s eyes flickered, glazing over for a second, before he resolutely turned his head away and walked faster, leaving Mike behind.
‘There’s something poetic about that,’ Mike felt a flash of pain in his chest as he watched Will get further. ‘But I’m too much of a fool to think about it anymore.’
Mike’s smile as he saw Will waiting for him up ahead lit his whole face.
~~~
Mike climbed the stairs silently, his socks snuffling the ground as he held two glasses of water. He wonders when he went from a bumbling, stumbling mess to, if he dared say it, smooth.
Looking back, he reflects that he’d ended up just being himself. Not some chipped mask he put on to save a broken piece of himself, but the complete mosaic of shattered pieces held together by gold to create a beautiful, broken picture.
He’d stopped caring about what his father, the coward, said, about anything Reagan said, or anything his mind cooked up to shame him. Then, finally, he realized that at the end of the world, who cares about what other people say about him if he might die anyway.
Why not live the little he might have left with the one person he cherished more than anything? Who decided that he had to live his life by someone else’s ideals? That he shouldn’t hold the sun in his hands just because the sky decreed it a sin?
He’d rather sin in the name of love than answer to all this is holy and rotten.
When he returned to his room after his epiphany in the hall, he froze in the doorway as he watched Will kneeling over a familiar leather journal.
“What’s this?”
Will had the uncanny ability to detect whenever someone was near. A survival tactic he’d developed after his kidnapping in ‘83. Mike felt horrible that Will could never live the life he deserved.
“Uh-It’s-You know-Like-Mm,” Mike scrambled to place the water on the desk to kneel in front of Will. He hovered his hands over the journal, some special part of himself, but Will snatched it, not unkindly, to keep it away.
“What’s this?”
Will flipped to a page, and Mike’s stomach flipped with it.
The moon, in all that it glows,
Will never beat the
Brightness of the sun.
Let the moon revolve around the
Earth, and the Earth
Around the Sun.
The Earth knows its home,
And the Sun shines
So brightly,
my dear Soleil.
On the next page of the open book, it read.
I see the stars drip down your cheeks
To create their own galaxies. I opened
My eyes to watch the milky way spin
Inside your chest. I cupped my hands
Around a burning star, and I flicked
It away to shoot across our sky to
Dance across your eyes to shine
On your cheeks to dry them, until
It lands in your chest, where my
Universe was born.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you on purpose, and I love you on accident.
I love your broken pieces, and I love your chipped edges.
I love your sunny skies, and I love your rainy days.
I love you on purpose, and I love you on accident.
I love you.
“I wrote it for-to-for you,” Mike muttered, growing red.
“Me?” Will blinked with wide eyes, “Why?”
At that, Mike took one of Will’s hands and held it, staring into his eyes with what he could only describe as a lovesick expression.
“Because you are my every waking thought. The sun I revolve around that brightens my life. My first priority and last regret. I’ve said that meeting you is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and it still is. You’re my favorite person of all time, the stars that light up my night sky. I’d move the heavens for you, walk myself down to hell if you were down there. Wherever you go, I aim to follow. I’ll never leave you again because the thought of you not being there is too much for me to bare.”
Honestly, Mike thought he nailed it. He didn’t know where all of this came from, but he knew it was from the heart.
Will’s eyes were misty as he struggled to keep his trembling lips still.
“I love you, Will Byers. I love you with my whole heart, and no matter what happens, no matter what life throws at us, I plan to be by your side for the rest of time.”
Finally, Will broke and threw himself at Mike. He fell back a bit, Will being a lot stronger and more built than he was, but he tried his best to hold them both up with Will clinging so tightly.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Will babbled into his neck, tears leaking from his eyes.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Mike murmured, pressing a kiss to the closest part of Will he could reach, “I just had to prove how much I loved you, and that’s easy for me. I love you with every breath I breathe, every step I take, and every moment I live. Loving you is as easy as the stars shine.”
Will sobbed again as he nuzzled into Mike’s neck.
“I love you too. I’m sorry, I love you, I love you, I love you.”
Mike smiled sadly as he held onto Will.
It took a while for Will to calm down, but when he did, he pulled away from Mike. Then, he collected himself until he slid back and looked at Mike with tired eyes.
“It was hard to believe you when you said you loved me. I mean, after our argument in the rain,” Mike winced, “your father’s attitude,” another wince, “and how I thought you were in love with El,” a full-blown shudder, “it broke my heart. So I finally took the initiative to let it go, to move on and rip off the bandaid.”
“Your talk in the van,” Mike whispered in horror. Will just nodded sadly. “Yeah. I finally started to force myself to move on. I thought ‘take what you can get, Will. Don’t be greedy. Just be a friend’. And I tried. I tried so hard to just be a friend.”
Will started tearing up again, and Mike started to reach out to comfort him, but Will held his hand up in protest and cooled himself down.
“But then you told me you loved me, and I didn’t know what to believe. I honestly thought you were making fun of me at first–that you found out about my- crush and-”
“I’d never do that to you, Will,” Mike interrupted, “even if I didn’t love you, I’d never make fun of you for something like that.”
Will smiled sardonically. “It’s because you’re so good, Mike. You’re so good that I couldn’t help but fall for you. Isn’t that pathetic? Falling for your best friend,” he seemed to be speaking to himself at that point, his tone turning bitter and angry.
“Then I guess I’m pathetic.”
Will looked up at Mike’s declaration, only to find the boy much closer than before.
“Do you believe me when I say I love you, now?”
Mike laid his hand on Will’s cheek, tilting Will’s head to smile at him bashfully.
“Yeah,” Will relaxed, leaning into Mike’s hand, “I do.”
Mike, giddily, leaned forward, his breath ghosting Will’s face as he asked, “is this okay?”
Will responded by leaning in.
Their kiss was chaste by all standards but lit up fireworks in Mike’s brain.
All he could think about was Will.
Will, Will, Will.
Even though it wasn’t anything new, it still excited and terrified Mike to no end.
‘What’ll happen after this? How will everyone respond? What about Vecna and the Upside Down?’
A million questions ran through Mike’s mind. But when he pulled back and saw the stars in Will’s eyes, he knew one thing.
He was home.