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It had all started years ago, before the Byers moved to California, but now it was getting worse. In the beginning it was just a few petals every now and then. But now Will found himself spitting up full rosehips, sometimes even a thorny stem. He was scared. Terrified. And he knew it had everything to do with Mike. He didn't know how, he didn't know why, but the moment Mike walked off the plane and directly into Eleven's arms it almost felt like there was thorny vines growing down Will's throat.
Now, Mike would be visiting for a month. He had only been there for a few days and it was starting to feel like Will might just die. Every day more and more petals and thorny vines found their way out of Wills mouth. He could only try to hide the pain each time he ate or drank. Now, he was sitting in a ball on the bathroom floor, sobbing. Blood ran from his nose and his mouth, one mocking petal caught in his hair. The pain was becoming unbearable, his entire body hurt inside and out. His heart hurt, he was emotionally exhausted from third wheeling his best friend and his sister. ‘But who am I kidding,’ he thought, ‘he's not my best friend. I'm in love with that fucker.’
"AHG-" a sharp pain took over his entire body. He wretched over the toilet once more. A whole blood-red rose, stem intact, clawed its way out of his throat. The sensation of Thorned vines wrapping around his heart brought him to his knees. He collapsed on the floor in a bloody sobbing mass and passed out from the sheer pain of it all. The last thing he heard was someone yelling "ARE YOU OKAY- JESUS CHRIST WILL" and he blacked out.
-_-_-_-
He woke up in somebody's lap, hands carding through his hair and a few tears falling onto his face. Two hands took his face gently. "P-please Will. Wake up. I need you to wake up." They choked back an ugly sob, "please, please, Please." Will opened his eyes slowly, even the dim light in his bathroom hurt his eyes. Above him Will could make out a boy with black hair and a stupid patterned button up shirt. He swore he felt the pain nearly evaporate as Mike moved one hand behind Will's head and the other to continue carding through his hair.
"Oh my God Will, you're okay." He doubled over and put his head on Will's chest gingerly, "you're okay." New tears stained his face as he helped Will to sit up. He wrapped his arms around the smaller boy tightly but still carefully. Will was still a little delirious and wondered distantly as he hugged back if this was all a dream and he would wake up in a cold, dark bathroom in a moment.
"Holy fucking shit Will. You scared the shit out of me, oh my god." Mike mumbled into the crook of Will's neck. At that moment Will realized that he was tangled into a ball on the floor with his crush. And he remembered that if Eleven could see them right now she would probably be livid. Mike was hers, not Will's. He felt the familiar pricks making their way up his throat, and scrambled away from Mike. Quickly he turned back to the toilet and hurled up another rose, in full bloom. This time there was a stem. He coughed up some more blood. A lot of blood.
Will stood up and turned around, just in time to collapse back into Mikes arms. "Will!" Mike exclaimed, wrapping one arm around Will's waist and throwing Wills arm over his shoulder, grabbing his hand. "Come on, you need to lay down. That was a lot of blood. And a lot of flowers but I'll ask about that when you aren't dying." He said the last part to himself and gently walked Will down the hall to his room.
Mike laid him down onto his bed and made sure he was comfortable. "I will be right back. I need to tell your family what's up. They sent me to make sure you were okay like half an hour ago." Mike turned toward the door, but looked back at Will. "Do you need anything while I'm down there? Water? A cool washcloth?" Will groaned quietly "oh please don't tell mom about the blood and flowers. Please. And water would be nice, thank you."
"Alright, but you need to tell her eventually. This is serious. But we'll talk when I come back." Mike walked out into the hall and shut the door as quietly as possible. Will curled himself back into a ball, the pain so much worse just from Mike leaving the room. God what would he do now, Mike knew about the flowers. Would he think it was something from the upside down? He would probably believe it if Will told him he ate the flowers and was coughing them up now. After the argument they had at the arcade it felt like Mike thought he was just stupid. He had felt so helpless just like that day in the rain, like a kicked puppy.
What if I just told him the truth? The fleeting thought made Will shudder and the prickly feeling start to build at the back of his throat. But before Will could spiral, his door opened to reveal Mike with a glass of water, a thermometer, and a tentative look on his face. Will couldn't help but think it was adorable.
"Hey, do you feel any better?" He set the glass of water on Will's nightstand and sat on the edge of his bed. "No." Will answered honestly, recalling a few moments ago when he was about to cough up some more blood. Mike made a sort of sympathetic grimace. "Well your mom said to take your temperature, so open up." "What did you tell her?" "That you were throwing up and felt really sick, now open up." Mike stuck the little blue thermometer in to Will's mouth, effectively shutting him up.
Once the thermometer beeped, Mike pulled it out of Will's mouth and looked at the little screen. "Whoa, you're burning up. 99.6" Mike put his hand on Will's forehead to check again, and Will turned away flustered. "You should put on some pajama shorts and a tee shirt, crazy guy who wears long sleeves and jeans in California. I'll give you some privacy, but when I come back in you've gotta tell me what's up with this okay?" Reluctantly Will nodded and Mike went to wait in the hall.
While Will was changing, he heard eleven rather loudly ask "did you tell him yet?" Mike shushed her, but it sounded like she was smiling. Now will was frankly confused by everything around him and he almost laughed. Mike was being nice to him, lying for him even. Crying over his nearly lifeless body. And eleven and Mike had something happy to tell him? After the whole ordeal at the roller rink?
Shaking his head, Will opened to the door to let Mike back into his room. Will turned back to sit on his bed and grab a sip of the water Mike had brought him. The aforementioned curly haired boy was just sort of staring at him. When Will looked over concerned, he snapped out of it. And now will was more confused because what the hell was Mike even looking at. He was wearing pretty normal pjs, some basketball shorts and a slightly oversized old Star Wars tee.
Mike sat next to Will on his bed. Really close actually, and Will stuttered a little as he asked "so what were you supposed to tell me?"
"Nuh uh, you can't just change the subject. Tell me what's up with roses." Mike said, changing the subject. "I'll tell you my thing after you tell me yours because right now, you coughing up blood and roses is more important." Will sighed. "Fiiiiiine."
"Honestly I don't really know what's going on. I've tried looking it up in the library in Hawkins and here, but didn't find anything. I even asked Dustin about it and he said he's never even heard of something like this. It started a long time ago, actually. It wasn't bad at first but the longer I go the worse it gets." Mike frowned, "how long ago did it start? You were still in Hawkins? Why didn't you ever tell me?" He rattled off questions at light speed. "It started about a year and a half ago. And I didn't tell you because it started the night of our- the night we had that big fight in your garage. I um, sort of wrecked castle Byers and when I realized what I had just done my knees gave out and I coughed up a bunch of blood and three rose petals."
Will was looking at the ground, eyes watery. But when he looked back to Mike, he saw tears running down his cheeks. "I am so, so sorry Will. I've been a complete jackass to you for so long. I- Well I distanced myself from you because I was projecting myself onto you. And I know that I have no excuse for how awful of a friend I've been. But, do you want to know why I was being like that?" Will found himself nodding quickly. Mike was right, it would take a while for Will to forgive him. But he needed to know why his best friend had treated him like that.
"That summer I realized a lot of things about myself, but I didn't like those things because I wasn't supposed to be like that. And well, in my head you represented those things. I pushed you away so I could "protect myself" from them but honestly it killed me. And when Eleven dumped me that day it felt like my plans to keep myself "normal" we're slipping out from under my feet and you and your addictive everything were pulling me under. That night when we fought and I told you "it's not my fault you don't like girls" I was almost entirely directing those words at myself." Mike took in a big shaky breath, steeling himself for his next words. "I guess what I'm trying to tell you is that I'm gay. And I've had feeling for you for a while. I realized it that night we got you back from the mind flayer, that I couldn't bear to lose you again. El was asking me if I had told you yet because we broke up yesterday. I told her the truth. And she told me that I should tell you. So um, here I am." Mike smiled sheepishly at Will. Will just stared at him.
Could it even be possible? Will had to be dreaming. Mike was gay? And has feelings for Will?
"Pinch me." He said flatly. "What." Mikes smile dropped into a look of confusion. "I said pinch me, I've got to be dreaming." Mike just looked at Will funny at first. "Um, okay then." He reached over and pinched Will. Hard.
"You Fucker-"
"Hey, you told me to pinch you."
Will just took Mikes face in between his hands and kissed the shit-eating grin right off the taller boys face. Mike reciprocated immediately, and Will felt the weight of those flowers that he'd been carrying for so long retract. Away from his throat, away from his heart. Back into his stomach and then just gone. Gone, finally.
The kiss was messy, but sweet and full of love. They pulled away from each other and
put their foreheads together. Will felt like he was floating.
"I take it that means you like me too?" Mike asked softly. "Obviously you idiot, I've liked you for so long." He kissed Mike again. And again, and again. It was addicting.
"That was my first kiss." Will whispered between little pecks.
Mike pulled away, eyes wide. "How can a boy like," he gestured at Will widely, "you go so long without kissing anybody?"
"What do you mean a boy like me? I'm just some scrawny nerd who can draw." Will crossed his arms judgmentally.
"Scrawny? You've gotten toned since you left Hawkins. You like, have muscles and a tan. You're hot." Mike blushed at the last statement but did not retract it. "Is that why you were staring at me? It's literally not that different." Will was also blushing now. "What? It's so different. Can I?" Mike gestures to his right arm. "Uh, sure?" Will was a bit confused.
Mike grabbed his upper arm and rolled the sleeve of his shirt up. "Literally look, you are so tan. You used to be so pasty."
"Well yeah, the sun actually shines here. It was cloudy 99% of the time in Hawkins. I'm like a plant, I need sunlight to grow."
"Have you been working out?" Mike seemed curious. "Yeah, a couple times a week. My therapist recommended it." Will was proud of himself honestly. He had hated gym class as a kid. Physical activity was not his jam.
"That's hot." Mike replied, pulling Will in by his shirt for another kiss. "You judge yourself too harshly. You should try thinking about yourself the way I think about you." Mike suggested with a little smile. "And how do you see me?"
"I literally just called you hot like three times, idiot." Mike rolled his eyes. Will took the moment of distraction and tackled Mike onto his bed, pinning the boy underneath himself. "How about now?" Will asked innocently. Mike just blushes hard and kissed him again.
Suddenly the door burst open and Hopper just stared at them with his eyes wide. Will scrambled off of Mike and fixed his disheveled self. "Hopper- um- I-" but Will went ignored as Hopper just backed out of Will's room and closed the door.
Down the hall a little ways they heard him say rather loudly, "Joyce I think I'm gonna kill him."
"So I guess we aren't going to be a secret, huh." Will asked, an apologetic look on his face.
"Why would I want to keep us a secret anyway? I want the whole world to know that I'm yours and you're mine, if you'll have me." Mike looked up with a sheepish smile, but eyes that asked him desperately to say yes.
Will just kissed the taller boy again and said "of course"
-_-_-_-
The next day Mike pointedly avoided Hopper. He didn't want to die.