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A weird feeling bubbled inside Mike's chest as his pen left the paper he had scribbled his words on. He had just written a love song. Normally, this wouldn't be a strange thing to do - people write love songs even sappier than his all the time. The issue was, most people didn't write them about their best friend.
Their best friend who was also a boy.
On one hand, Mike was proud of his lyricism in this one, but on the other, he couldn't get over the unsettling feeling inside him at who he had written those words about. Will had been his best friend since they were four. He had been the boy of his dreams since they were 11. They were currently 16.
Mike stuffed the paper in his folder, before slotting it under his bed. He has to stop thinking like that.
The doorbell ringing downstairs saved him from spiralling too much, and he swore to himself he wouldn’t think about his best friend like that again.
He pulled open the front door, and he had already broken his own promise.
Will was standing on his doorstep, dressed in a grey, slightly oversized hoodie. He was fiddling with the sleeves, just a little too long for his arms. His hair was a bit ruffled from where the wind had caught it, a faint pink shadow tinting his cheeks. And god, his eyes, dripping with so much warmth and comfort that he wanted to fall into them and stay there forever.
Mike felt as if his breath had been knocked out of him. He had to put physical effort into refraining from scooping Will up into his arms and keeping him there forever, which was incredibly difficult. He just looked so cozy.
“Uh… Hi?” He asked, knocking Mike out of his trance with the realisation that he had been stood in his doorway, jaw slightly slack, staring at his best friend with heart eyes. His best friend who he was in love with. His best friend who was a boy.
…His best friend who was also shivering slightly at the cold. With a start, he hurried an apology and invited Will inside. God, he was so embarrassed.
It seemed like they had hardly gotten any time alone together before the doorbell rang again, but at the same time, any moments Mike spent with Will felt like they could stretch out and last an eternity. He loved him so much it had almost become painful.
Before he knew it, their peaceful little bubble had been burst, and quite loudly at that, by the rest of the party arriving and making their way into the basement at once. Their overlapping conversations and laughter shifted the atmosphere in the basement from pure and soothing to vibrant and boisterous. Mike loved his friends, and he knew Will did too, but wow, was their presence loud.
As usual, the party fell into routine. Two people invaded Mike’s kitchen for snacks and drinks - today it was Will and Dustin. Another two gather as many blankets as they can find, which landed on Lucas and El, and whoever’s turn it was to pick the movie, well, picked the movie. Unfortunately enough for Mike, it was his turn. He had always been too indecisive about things like this to pick very quickly, and it often came down to a vote when he was choosing.
Gradually, as people started returning to the basement with everything they had gathered, fully prepared to vote for Mike’s sake, their movie night began to slot together, just as it always did. They had practiced the schedule down to perfection.
Despite it being his turn to pick, Mike wasn’t particularly invested in the movie. He was too extremely hyperaware of where his leg was touching Will’s to care about whatever was happening on the screen, yet his eyes stayed glued to it anyways, the song he had written about the boy next to him less than an hour ago swimming like sharks in his mind. When the credits rolled onto the screen, accompanied by Dustin’s protests over the ending, Mike found he couldn’t recall a single event from the movie, yet could perfectly map out every movement Will had made in the past two hours.
He was bordering on creepy at this point, he thought.
Within minutes, Dustin’s mother had arrived in her car, and then he was gone. Lucas’ mother followed, ready to pick up both him and Max, since she was staying at their house tonight. Hopper arrived next, ready to take El for a dinner they had planned.
Suddenly, Will and Mike were alone again.
Mike was overcome with the urge to play Will his song faster than he could even say his name. This wouldn’t have been unusual if Mike had played in front of any of his friends, ever, and it wouldn’t have been unusual if the song he wanted to play wasn’t a love song. The song he wanted to play to his best friend. His best friend he was in love with. His best friend who was a boy.
Before he can make a better judgement, he hears himself speak.
“Hey, uh, Will?” He could practically smell the nerves in his own voice.
“Yeah?” Will replied, turning to look at Mike.
“Can I, uh…” He sighed, knitting his eyebrows together in thought over how to word his next sentence. “Could I play you a song?”
That was clearly not what Will had expected him to say, as his eyes widened slightly, before nodding and saying, “Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, of course.”
In a frighteningly short space of time, they had made it from hovering in the kitchen to sitting on opposite ends of Mike’s bed, Will’s eyes full of wonder and curiosity as his best friend picked up his guitar. He knew it was an important moment for Mike, one full of vast amounts of trust and vulnerability.
“I, uh, wrote this just before everyone got here. I don’t know, I just… I wanted you to hear it.” Mike spoke, receiving a nod from Will as he began to play.
Gentle strums fill the air, and Will is instantly mesmerised. His awe only grows when Mike begins to sing, a sound he hadn’t heard in so, so many years and didn’t realise how much he missed.
“I guess it’s just another one of those nights when I’ll spend way too much time on something so small that no one really cares about at all,” His voice is like an angel’s, and Will decides then and there that this is his favourite song. He hopes it never leaves his head. “I guess it’s just another one of those thoughts and I can’t really find a cause, whether it’s all just in my mind or something more here in my life.”
It’s then that Will feels the song slap him in the chest.
“It’s you, it’s you. Oh god, it’s you, it’s you. If you’re awake then I am too, if you’re lost then I’ll find you, if you’re hurt then I’ll fix you.” Memories swarm his mind as Mike makes direct eye contact whilst he sings. “If you go blind I’ll describe the view, if you can’t feel then I’ll hold you, if you fall know I’ve got you.”
Without warning, it hits him like a tonne of bricks. It’s a love song. Mike is singing a love song.
To him.
“And if you fall down too far and I can’t see you through these marks, and your eyes are covered in stars, and my head’s filling with tar, don’t worry, we’ll find another way out.”
Will’s entrancement seems to strengthen as Mike plays the instrumental, focussing on hitting every note right. It fills him with such a warm feeling to know Mike cares so much about what he’s playing to him. The room floods with emotion, radiating off of one and off of the other, both trying to absorb the fact that this means as much to each other as it does to themselves.
When Mike begins to sing again, Will swears his heart is going to beat out of his chest. It’s a wonder any music can even be heard over its unsteady thumping.
“Your silhouette doesn’t look quite right, and I can never find the time to bury my hands in words. I’d grow a new kind of evergreen tree, just for you and me. On second thoughts, will you even remember me?” Will honestly feels like he’s been stabbed as the words sink in. Mike actually thought he wouldn’t feel the same? Had he really been that oblivious the entire time? “But it’s always been you.” The line repeats, but Will feels in a daze until the words change slightly, and his heart manages to pick up its pace despite feeling like it’s already beating at a thousand beats a minute. “It’s always been you, is it me for you?”
The final chord hangs in the air with the thousands of unsaid words between them.
Will doesn’t want to break the silence, but he knows he has to.
“Oh my god, Mike, that was so beautiful.” A tension seems to leave his shoulders as he processes the complement. Will hated that he thought he wouldn’t like it. “Seriously, I loved that.”
Mike placed down his guitar, and Will took the opportunity to move closer to him.
“Thank you, I… I didn’t think you’d like it.” He said, eyes moving to the floor before coming back up to look Will in the eyes. That was when he knew he had to make his move.
Will took a deep breath, fiddling with the sleeves of his hoodie.
“God, I hope I’m reading this right, but, uh…” He sighed. It was now or never. “I, uh, I feel the same about you.”
Before the words were even fully out, Mike’s eyes had grown wide. Will desperately hoped that was a good thing.
“You… You do?” When a smile began to spread across his best friend’s face, Will knew that it was.
“Yeah, I-“
“I really didn’t think you would. I honestly thought I would play you the song a-and you wouldn’t like it or you wouldn’t realise it was about you or-“
“Mike.”
“Or maybe you would realise but you just wouldn’t feel the same, so you’d just try to play it off, which actually would have been the worst possible outcome-“
”Mike.”
“Because I would have just told you everything and you wouldn’t have-“
Will’s lips on his seemed to shut him up pretty quickly, even if by the time he had registered the situation, Will had already pulled away, eyes wide.
“I- oh my god I am so sorry I didn’t think about that at all, you just seemed so… so I just… I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to I sw-“
This time it was Will’s turn to be cut off by his best friend’s lips, except this one lasted long enough for him to kiss back. Mike’s hand tangled itself in his hair, the other rested gently on his waist, whilst Will’s found his cheeks. The unsaid words that hung between them suddenly didn’t matter anymore, turning into an electricity which seemed to course through their veins.
When they pulled away, their foreheads rested against each other, eyes still closed and hands still in place.
Years of locked away feelings and secret glances felt like nothing now, suppressed emotions and a lifetime of being just far enough apart to not cause suspicion but as close together as they could possibly get, washed away in an instant. It had taken them a while, walking a long and tedious path filled with anxiety, guilt, and self-hatred - let alone the monsters and the alternate dimension and the possession and the death and the destruction and, well, everything else that had happened.
So maybe it had taken them a while, but god, it was so, so worth it.