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Will walked into Mike's basement, stopping when he saw Mike staring at the surface of the desk. They were making the Wheeler's basement into a "base away from base." It was only Mike and Will in the house as the others had gone to get stuff to prepare for going into the Upside Down for the last time. One last fight and this was all over.
Mike was looming over his desk with something rolled out in front of him. Will looked through the gaps between Mike's arms and his torso.
He instantly knew what it was Mike was so focused on. He'd recognise those colours anywhere. The ones he had spent hours mixing to make sure they were perfect. Mike was perfect and he deserved the same.
Stupid.
Mike inhaled sharply, "Eleven... She didn't commission this. Did she?"
Will had basically already told him how he felt. He wasn't sure if Mike had caught on that he was Will's Tammy. The one who he was supposed to have a crush on to find out who he was. That was it. That was his purpose, "No. No, she didn't."
"Why did you lie?"
"It wasn’t a total lie. I- I meant everything I said, I just... used El to tell you that. That was what you needed to hear."
"Was it?" Mike turned to face him, his eyes slightly red, "It would've meant just as much to me - if not more- if it came from you. If you told me the full truth."
"I couldn't've told you the truth even if I wanted to and, believe me, I wanted to."
"You should've. Will, you've been my best friend since we were five. I'll always value your opinion and feelings more than anyone else's."
"Mike," Will scoffed with a breathy laugh, "You know I didn't mean it in a friend way..."
Mike bit down on his bottom lip, seemingly evaluating everything, "When you- when you told us all- that- You said you had a crush on someone. Was... was that someone... me..?" Mike asked, breath hitching.
Will looked to the floor between Mike's feet, "Yeah."
Mike was silent for a few moments, "What did you mean when... you said I was your Tammy?"
Mike was asking questions slowly, making sure that he got all the answers he wanted.
"You know Tammy Thompson?" Will asked.
"Yeah. The shit singer in Nancy's grade."
"Yeah, her. Well, the girl I was talking to about all of... this used to have a massive crush on her but it- er- it ended up just being the push she needed towards accepting herself without needing anyone to accept her first. It was just a surface level crush. When I got my powers. That's when I accepted myself. All of myself. That was when I realised that I didn't need you to accept me for me to be... well, to be me."
Mike looked almost sad at Will’s explanation, "How long have you-"
"Known?"
"-liked me?"
Will was a bit taken aback, "Oh. Erm..." He tried to think of when it started but he just couldn’t pinpoint it. It was like it had always been there, "I guess I don't remember. It's just... always been you."
The emotions were written all over Mike's face yet they were in a foreign language; one Will did not know. He missed being able to read Mike as easily as a children's book.
"Was that all I was? A surface level crush?" Mike asked, sounding hurt.
For the first time, Will actually thought about it. Robin didn't know Tammy. Will knew Mike. Really knew him. They had been best friends for over a decade. They had fought, hurt, bled, and laughed together. They understood each other better than anyone else. Or at least they did. Before Lenora.
Will remembered how he felt after the fight in the rain. How he took a baseball bat and destroyed Castle Byers. He remembered how he stifled his cries after pouring his heart out to Mike in the back of the van. He remembered the crushing feeling of Mike walking away when he had tried flirting. It was always more than a surface level crush...
"No... You- You're deep. You've always been... so deep..."
Then it clicked. He had taken Robin's little speech to mean the first person you have a crush on is there to help you figure out who you are. You aren’t supposed to start anything with them. He had misread the whole thing.
He didn't want to let go of Mike but figured he had to because that was what Robin had to do to accept herself. But he didn’t have to let go because it had always been Mike. It was never a crush. It was always something more. It was love.
Mike helped shape him into who he was. Mike was a part of him whether he liked it or not and to accept himself fully also meant that he had to accept his love for Mike. Trying to push it away would never work. He had done that for years and nothing changed.
Mike broke him from his train of thoughts, "How did you know?"
Will looked back up at him to see him holding back tears. Will should've known this would happen. Mike was freaked out and wanted to run away but that would mean he would lose his best friend, "How did I know what?"
"That- That you don't like girls?"
Will's heart dropped. Why the hell would Mike be asking that?
"I- uh- I guess it's just never been girls. It's always been boys. Always been you." He whispered.
"And you've never liked a girl? Ever?"
"No."
Mike stared at him, lip quivering, he turned towards the sofa and sat down. The old springs groaned beneath him. Will sat down next to him, purposely avoiding touching Mike. That didn't matter though because Mike leaned over and hugged him.
Will wasn't expecting it. He had just confessed his love for his best friend of eleven years. He was supposed to reject him. Not hug him. He felt his shirt dampening as he realised Mike was crying. Unsure what else to do, Will hugged him back.
They stayed that way for a while before Mike finally pulled away, eyes glowing and glossy.
He began to speak, voice quivering, "I- I think at the start. I did like Eleven. But- I don't know. It was never that deep. Like a surface level crush. I think- I think she was my Tammy. I mean I couldn't even say I love you to her! Then you told us all everything. It made me realise that- that I like- I like a boy. Well, accept that I like a boy. And it's so deep. But now I don't know what to do because I think I liked Eleven but now I like this boy and I think I have for a while but I was too scared to admit it..."
Will's brain had short circuited. Mike... was like him? All these years he had been convincing himself that Mike was "normal". Will had put up doors to keep the heat inside a house without walls to try and fix Mike and El's relationship. Now he realised that the reason that relationship suffered so much was because they were trapped by the suffocating truth Mike Wheeler carried.
"You... like boys?"
Mike breathed, "A boy. But I liked Eleven, that's the thing, I-"
"You can like both?" Will explained.
Mike looked at him with a glimmer of hope and confusion in his eyes, "That doesn't feel right though... I mean I've just spent like half an hour crying over the sink because I'm just so confused," Mike chuckled with a sad grin, "You're so confident..."
"I'm really not. Telling you all... that was the scariest thing I've ever done. I ran away the first time I ever saw someone like me because that scared me. I've cried myself to sleep so many times because this- this part of me... it terrified me. It was one more thing that made me different. It made me unlovable-"
"No it doesn't." Mike cut in, sniffing back more tears.
"What?"
"We're all still here. You're still Will."
"And you're still Mike. No matter how you feel or who you like." Will smiled.
Mike's lower lip trembled as a tear fell down his cheek, "With Eleven... I've been thinking over our relationship. All of it. Start to end. I think- I started liking her because she kept me safe. She protected me."
"Superman landed on your doorstep..." Will quoted.
"I don't know why I didn't say Superwoman. Well, I think I do..." Mike looked back over at the painting and squeezed his eyes shut as if trying to telekinetically take the colors for himself, "When the lab shut down, Nancy told me that there were multiple people who thought El was a Russian boy with psionic abilities here to spy. Well, they at least thought she was a boy at first glance.
When you were missing, when we found El, she was wearing a Benny's Burgers t-shirt and it drowned her. I... thought she was a boy too. A man who was at Benny's that night thought she was you after getting a glance at her through the kitchen. I think that was why I liked her. I think I liked her because- because-"
Will could see that Mike was struggling. He remembered the feeling. He knew it like it was his own name, still felt it sometimes, too.
It was scary to be different because you didn't have the same guidance as everyone else. You always had more barriers blocking your path and obstacles to overcome. I mean, Jesus Christ, they were living through an AIDS epidemic where gay men were at the end of the finger of blame.
"Take your time." Will encouraged, softly.
Mike took a deep breath, pushing the words out before he could think for much longer, "I think I liked her because she looked like a boy." He stopped to breathe, "When her hair started to grow out... I just... I lost feelings. The more she looked like a girl... the less I liked her."
"So... you think you... don't like girls?"
"What made you so sure it was only boys?"
Will looked into his lap, "Max."
"Max?" Mike laughed, making Will smile with his teeth.
"Yeah," Will echoed Mike's laugh, "Yeah. Remember how Dustin and Lucas were obsessed with her and had some weird competition to see who they could get her to like?"
"Yeah."
"I never understood it. I tried to see why they found her attractive but to me, she was just a really cool person. I mean, she played video games and rode a skateboard. That basically made her God in thirteen year old me's eyes."
Mike smiled, eyes twinkling in the sunlight piercing the worn, old, translucent curtains, "Me either." They fell into a stuffy silence for a few moments before Mike spoke again, "You won't tell anyone, will you?"
"No! Of course not! Why would I do that?"
"I didn't think you would but you know. Still figuring stuff out."
"Yeah, I get it. Who's the boy?"
Mike smacked his lips, "He- I- I feel so strongly about him..." He paused, staring into Will’s eyes for a solid five seconds before glancing down to his lips and looking away.
Will had noticed Mike's general avoidance of some of the questions he was asking. If this was still relatively new to Mike, he had every right to be acting this way.
"When did you realise you liked him?"
"When you moved away. The first time El said I love you to me. I realised I didn't feel the same and why. I also realised that I had liked him for a while before that. Since the Snow Ball."
"That's... so long."
Mike paused again, scrunching his nose, "Do you still have some bravery left over? Can I borrow it?"
"You've already got enough bravery in you. You don't need me."
"I do, Will. I do and I always will."
"...Okay. You can borrow some bravery then."
Mike stood from the sofa and began pacing, Will standing so their eyes could be level. Well, level enough.
"Look," Mike began, stopping in front of Will, "I have been a piece of shit to you for years and you deserved none of it. I was trying to repress how I felt but just ended up projecting it onto you. I'm so sorry. I thought that if I acknowledged how I really felt then I would never know love again. But then you told us all and I saw how everyone reacted and realised that even if no one ever loves me romantically, at least I still have my friends. Then you started talking about your crush on me and how you put me down to being your Tammy and I just- I am not your Tammy. I don't want to be, Will. I want to be Mike. Your Mike."
Mike stared at him with tears welling in his eyes, threatening to trickle down his rosy cheeks. He seemed almost breathless.
Will's eyes were wide and the grave dug by his own hand for his heart seemed to fill. The breeze blew against it, causing his heart to shiver and race. This... wasn't real? It couldn't be.
"Mike-"
"You said Tammy was a surface level crush. You said I was deep. I can't be your Ta-"
Will didn't know what possessed him in that moment but he needed to stop Mike from piercing holes in his own heart any more over stupid words Will had said because he misunderstood something. He cupped his hands around Mike's face and kissed him.
He had never kissed anyone before and quite frankly didn't have a clue what to do but even in his state of working things out, it was one of the best things he had ever experienced. He couldn't imagine a world where he hadn't done this anymore. As their lips met, he finally felt whole. Like this was the key to being entirely secure in who he was. He needed someone to love him back in the same way that he did. That was all he was missing.
Mike froze at first before he slowly melted into the kiss. His hands found Will's waist and pulled him closer, like he was afraid to let go. They stood there getting lost in each other the way they would have been able to for years had Will told the truth sooner.
It sucked that he was basically forced to tell everyone that he was gay so that Vecna would have one less thing to control him with but he was so happy that this was the outcome.
After all the time he spent waiting, trying to shut down his dreams and fantasies, crying, hurting, suffocating, he finally got what he wanted. For the first time in his life, he got it and there was nothing that could take it away when he felt so powerful and loved.
This feeling empowered him. It gave him the strength to keep fighting. And right now, Will was pretty sure that he could fight the world and win.
After far too long but not enough time at all, they were forced apart by the ever-growing need for oxygen. They pressed their foreheads together as they breathed.
"Come to think of it..." Will smiled, "I don't think you were my Tammy. I think I was lucky enough not to have one."
"Why did you say I was?"
"I misunderstood Ro- the girl I was talking to when she told me. I thought she meant that the first person you had a crush on was only there to help you accept yourself. Nothing was ever supposed to be real between you." Mike's eyes twinkled and Will was mesmerised, "You were never a crush. You've always been so much more."
Mike smiled, "Yeah. I think you have too. I just hate that it took me so long to be okay with it."
Will closed his eyes, "I've liked you for so long... I was actually starting to go crazy."
"Well," Mike inhaled, "You know what they say; love makes you crazy."
Will's heart skipped a beat at the word. Love. He opened his eyes and met Mike's gaze, "Well... if we're going crazy then we’ll go crazy together, right?"
Mike snorted as his cheeks flushed, "Yeah. Crazy together.”