Chapter Text
The next time Mike was alone with Will, they were sorting through the last of the stuff in the basement of the WSQK Radio Station, putting anything useful into boxes that would be loaded onto the truck.
Or, theoretically, that’s what they were doing. At the moment, Mike was sorting through a cardboard box that contained a bunch of unopened instruction manuals for an array of different things, none of which would be particularly useful for fighting Vecna in the Upside Down.
Some of the instruction manuals were pretty heavy though. Maybe they could throw them at the demobats, or something.
Mike smiled at his own joke, and was about to repeat it to Will, but froze when he noticed Will’s expression.
Will was looking through a tin container of old radio parts, having been ordered to find something specific for Dustin. He seemed…distracted, though, looking past the container and off into space. His eyebrows were furrowed together, and he was chewing on the inside of his cheek. He looked deep in thought, and Mike wished Will would share whatever he was thinking about with him, so that Mike could fix whatever was causing that wrinkle between Will’s brows. Though, these days, there wasn’t much fixing Mike could do. But still, he wished Will would tell him anyways.
“Will?” Mike called out, worried for his friend. Will startled at the sound of Mike’s voice, the distressed expression falling off of his face as he turned towards Mike.
“Uh—sorry, yeah?” He questioned, his hazel eyes focused on Mike. Mike’s joke seemed especially stupid now, under Will’s attentive gaze.
“Are you okay?” Mike asked instead.
“Hm? Oh, y-yeah, I’m fine!” Will answered unconvincingly, turning his attention back to the radio parts.
“Are you sure?” Mike pressed, trying to catch Will’s eye again.
“Yeah,” Will reaffirmed, rubbing his thumb over one of the radio parts from the container. “Just…nervous, I guess. I mean, we all are.” He was right. Everyone was scared about their final confrontation with Vecna. Especially when the world as they knew it was at stake. But, this wasn’t their first time facing something like this. Mike just hoped it would be their last time.
“Hey.” Mike voiced, placing his hand on Will’s shoulder. Will looked up, his bright eyes finding Mike’s again. “It’s all gonna work out. We’re going to save Holly and those other kids, defeat Vecna, and destroy the Upside Down once and for all!”
Will rolled his eyes, but his lips curled up in a small smile and the wrinkle disappeared from between his brows. “How could you possibly know that?”
“I just do,” Mike declared, taking his hand back from Will’s shoulder. (His hand felt strangely warm where it had been touching Will. Will must have really good circulation.) “I mean, you and El both have really cool powers, maybe I have the power of foresight!”
Will’s small smile morphed into a fully fledged grin at Mike’s antics, and Mike’s chest warmed at the sight. He continued.
“I can see it now!” Mike proclaimed, closing his eyes and putting his hand in the air as he pretended to “sense” the future. “After we defeat Vecna, we’ll graduate high school, maybe go to college, and then get jobs. You’ll be a world famous artist, who does the official art for D&D books, and I’ll get a horrible finance job like my dad, but I’ll write novels on the side. We’ll move out of Hawkins, maybe to, like…San Francisco or something, i-it doesn’t really matter where, and we’ll buy houses right next to each other and live there until we get too old, and then our grandchildren will put us in the same old folks' home.”
This vision of the future…it was different from the one he had told El. But that was because El and Will were different. That had been what El needed to hear, and this…this was for Will. And it was working.
Will’s smile widened, and he gave Mike an incredulous look. “We would be neighbors?!”
“Yep!” Mike exclaimed. “And your dog, a big, fluffy one, named E.T. or something, would always be getting into my backyard, and it would be a real test on our friendship, but we’d make it through. We always do.”
Will giggled, but then he looked off to the side, smiling softly to himself. “That would be nice. Living next to you and El, I mean.”
“R-right, El!” Mike agreed, not sure why the words felt wrong in his mouth. “It would just be me, El, you…and your future boyfriend, I guess.”
Mike didn’t even realize what he’d said wrong until the radio part dropped from Will’s hand onto the floor, the sound of it hitting the ground echoing across the empty basement. When Mike looked up, the smile had dropped from Will’s face, and his hazel eyes were blown wide as he stared at Mike.
Freudian slip.
…Shit.
“What?!” Will exclaimed. Mike was quick to backpedal.
“I m-mean girlfriend! I meant to say girlfriend, not boyfriend—I mean not not boyfriend, just whoever…I mean not there has to be—not that you have to…just, um—“ Mike cut himself off, looking up at Will. But Will wasn’t looking back at him. His gaze was off to the side, his eyebrows furrowed as the gears in his head turned. Finally, his eyes found Mike’s again, and in them, he seemed to find the answer to whatever he question he was asking.
“D-did you…did you hear?” Will stuttered. “W-with me and…Max?”
Mike bit his lip, hard, before letting out a sigh and deciding to tell the truth. “Um…yeah. I did.”
Will’s face reddened, and he looked away. Mike immediately felt guilty, and jumped to defend himself.
“I didn’t mean to! I wasn’t trying to, like, eavesdrop, or anything, I was just walking past and I just happened to overhear and I—“ Mike sighed, his shoulders sagging. “I’m really sorry, Will, I never should have brought it up.”
Will was staring at the floor again, his eyes darting back and forth. He didn’t look like he was listening, and Mike was about to repeat himself when Will spoke.
“And you’re…you’re okay with it?” Will questioned, his lip quivering.
With Will telling Max before Mike? Well, he wasn’t ecstatic about that fact, but he didn’t blame Will! Mike thought, before he realized what Will meant.
“Wha—“ He started, collecting his thoughts before he could say anything stupid. He grabbed Will’s shoulder again, forcing him to make eye contact. “Will, of course I’m okay with it. I—…Did you really think I wouldn’t be? Did you really think that anything could…could change the way I feel about you?”
A single tear fell from Will’s eyes, and Mike couldn’t stop the hand that gripped Will’s shoulder from moving up to his face, and wiping away the tear with his thumb. His hand stayed there, cupping Will’s cheek.
“You’re my best friend.” Mike said, his voice a whisper. “And nothing, nothing, could ever make me stop…caring about you.”
Will opened his lips slightly to take in a shaky breath, and for some reason Mike’s eyes followed the movement. His thumb traced Will’s cheekbone, and that feeling was back, that guilty, warm feeling that lit a fire in his chest. It seemed to draw him closer to Will, until there were only a few inches between the two. Mike watched as Will opened his mouth to say something, but the words were lost as Nancy’s voice rang down the stairs.
“MIKE!!”
The two boys sprang apart, and Mike was quick to jump to his feet and walk away.
“YEAH?!” He shouted, already making his way up the stairs as Will sat where Mike had left him, frozen in place.
“Did you find anything useful?” Nancy questioned from the top of the staircase.
Will heard Mike admit that No, they hadn’t and he heard Nancy chastising him, asking him what they were doing for 20 minutes then, and reminding him of the imminent world ending. Meanwhile, Will was dumbfounded.
What…just happened? Was Will crazy, or had Mike been about to…? No, Will was crazy. He had to be! Because in what world had Mike Wheeler almost…? No, definitely not.