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The world is ending.
Not because a wormhole hovers somewhere above their heads, threatening to draw them into oblivion – but because Will Byers just stood in front of everyone and said a great many things that made Mike’s skin simmer uncomfortably. Messy hair sticks to his sweat-slicked forehead, and Mike isn’t sure what day it is anymore.
Or why he’s so angry.
And the thing is, Will Byers has never been able to hide a single secret from Mike, so the boy wasn’t completely floored when the words I don’t like girls left Will’s lips. There had been signs, and while Mike didn’t expect there to be a concert-hall-sized audience when his best friend finally revealed who he is, he still brimmed with pride.
And irritation.
There’s at least an hour before they hurtle towards the end of days in a beaten-up van, which is a good thing because Mike simply cannot breathe. Somewhere between Tammy Thompson and this very moment, his lungs began to protest their own existence, and Mike can’t get enough air in. Early evening blankets the radio station in darkness, and Mike Wheeler clutches his chest under the stars to the thunderous beat of his runaway heart.
“Shit,” he mumbles, because it would be mortifying to die before they even arrive at the final showdown. But his pulse is racing, and he’s dying, and he’s still pissed, and absolutely nothing is going right today.
“What– fuck, Mike?” Jonathan tumbles around the corner with Robin in tow, eyes wide when he takes in half-collapsed Mike sagging against the wall. He gulps in air, shaking his head with bulging eyes.
“Oh my god!” Robin skids to a stop. “Oh god. Should I get help? I should get help–”
Jonathan shakes his head, kneeling in front of Mike to place solid hands on his shoulders. “No, it’s a panic attack.” He keeps his voice at a low hum. “Just concentrate on me, okay? Look at me, hold my arms if you need to. Got it?”
And Mike thinks he’s probably never held Jonathan’s arms before, but there are a lot of firsts today, so he does it anyway. The word still spins around him, and breathing is a distant memory, but he isn’t going to crumple to the floor alone, at least.
“What happened?” Robin whispers, the concern in her voice twisting Mike’s stomach. The longer his fingers dig into the fabric of Jonathan’s t-shirt, and his knees scrape painfully against the concrete, the more air he’s able to suck in.
“That’s it, you’re doing great,” Jonathan murmurs, throwing a surreptitious frown towards Robin. “A few more breaths and you’re back to normal.”
He’s half-right, because Mike can breathe again, but he doesn’t think anything is normal.
“She’s going to be okay, you know.” Robin chews her lip in concern. “They’ll get the van, and she’ll do the hand thing, and she’ll be fine–”
Mike’s brows knit together, the word coming out in a short gasp. “What?”
Robin pauses. “El. Your girlfriend, right?” She turns to Jonathan. “Oh god, am I mixing up the kids again? Honestly, my mother always tells me–”
“No,” Jonathan says simply, never taking his eyes off Mike. In fact, he feels borderline scrutinised as Will’s brother tilts his head, gazing towards him curiously. “He’s not worried about El.”
Robin glances towards the radio station. “Oh, uh– Nancy?”
Mike opens his mouth, but it isn’t him who speaks.
“Will,” Jonathan says quietly.
The word drops like a bomb in the silence of the evening, and it’s odd the way that even hearing his best friend’s name has such a profound effect on him. Mike isn’t sure why Robin’s lips part, and about a thousand emotions wash over her face in the span of a few seconds. She clears her throat, and her voice doesn’t sound quite right. “Oh. Oh.”
“I’m totally fine now, you two can go back,” Mike wheezes, but Jonathan shakes his head.
“Your sister would probably shoot me if I left you here like this.” Jonathan raises an eyebrow towards Mike. “And we both know she doesn’t miss.”
So they laugh, and Mike still feels wrecked, and maybe Vecna has taken a hatchet to his mind because he still doesn’t have a goddamn clue why. Gay is fine – good, actually – even if his father nodded when Reagan called it a tragic illness, Mike knows Ted Wheeler is full of shit. He knows it’s okay, and that even if he had ever had thoughts like that, it would be perfectly fine. He knows it.
He does.
“Is there, uh– is there a reason you’re so..?” Robin drops to the floor, legs crossed, as she gestures towards Mike. Jonathan shoots her a look Mike can’t decipher.
“Maybe we should give him a second to get his breath back, Robin.”
“Or we could let him get some fresh air,” Robin replies pointedly. Mike is too weary to read between the lines, the simmering anger that had him in a chokehold only moments ago bleeding out into a heavy sadness. God, Mike hates looking this weak. At least Will isn’t here to see it. The boy stood on a flaming battlefield last night with his hand outstretched to save him, while Mike could only choke on his own breath at the sheer magnetism of the moment. That is Will Byers (sorcerer), and now Mike is a crumpled mess having a panic attack because... because why?
“He might not be ready for fresh air,” Jonathan replies, raising an eyebrow. “We talked about this not five minutes ago.”
Robin throws her arms towards the sky. “And now everything has changed! We were working with faulty information.”
Jonathan glances at Mike. “We don’t know that.”
Mike finally thuds the last foot to the floor, sighing as his head lolls back. “Please stop talking about me in literally the worst code ever. I’m dying, not stupid.”
Jonathan’s lips quirk upwards. “You aren’t dying, Mike.”
“I will if you both keep talking,” he mutters, chest rising and falling more slowly as his mind wanders without permission.
Mike thinks that Will used to have a crush on him, way back in the days of heavy grief when the Byers lived in Lenora. Mike had written and discarded a thousand letters, so troubled by the idea that Will being so far away was slowly killing him. When he found out he lied about the painting, the thought had never left his mind: Will liked him. Will thought all those things about him. He had pored over the idea every night for weeks, never letting his thoughts burrow too deep, because if he ever succumbed to that feeling, it would be a whole other wormhole threatening to swallow him.
That particular wormhole had been chasing him since the day he met Will Byers, and he was only ready to deal with one cataclysmic event at a time.
Now, one of two things is true. Will got over his crush on Mike and fell for somebody else while they all tried to save the world. Or, Mike is Tammy Thompson. And being a Tammy Thompson hardly sounds like something to brag about.
Lose-lose.
But why does it feel like such a loss? Mike is straight. He is – he’s thought about it a lot, actually, because he had a girlfriend and he worked really hard at it, even if it never felt… right. Like jamming a puzzle piece where it doesn't fit and presenting it to everyone like they're supposed to see it as anything but a mismatched mosaic of bullshit. His best friend having a crush on him is no problem. And yet, his best friend not having a crush on him feels like a hell of a problem.
Suddenly, it feels like his chest is being crushed again.
“Woah.” Jonathan grabs Mike’s arm. “Okay, you’re not going inside. Mike, what’s this about? Are you scared?”
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
“No.” Mike exhales a shaky breath.
“Is it what Will said?” Robin asks softly. Mike’s eyes flutter closed because it feels as though the entire world is staring into the very depths of his troubled soul. When moments tick by in silence, and he dares open them again, the two are simply gazing at him as if they know something he does not.
“You know Will cares about you a lot,” Jonathan murmurs. “I don’t… I’ve never known a bond like the one the two of you share. It’s… special.”
Mike shakes his head frustratedly. “And yet he never told me... this.” He swallows a shuddering breath. “Who was he talking about? Why… why didn’t he tell me before this? I'm not the same as... as Murray, or the girl from the hospital.”
He hates how broken his voice sounds. He hates that he comes across like a lost child reaching out for something that isn’t his; begging his best friend’s brother for scraps of information about Will’s life. He also knows this isn't why he's upset, but his emotions are getting all tangled, and now he just sounds like an idiot.
Robin smiles, just slightly. “You want to know about his crush?”
Mike tries to sound casual. "Yeah, he's... Will. I'm kinda supposed to be in the loop."
“Does it bother you?” Jonathan asks, and a flush reddens Mike’s neck because he thinks Jonathan is teasing him. Briefly, he wishes Nancy were here to shoot all three of them.
“Why would it bother me?” He scowls, sounding like a petulant child. As soon as the words leave his lips, he sighs. “I’m not– I’m not bothered. I’m just curious.”
“Hm.” Robin hums thoughtfully. “I was curious once, too. Do you know who Tammy Thompson is?”
Mike isn’t sure who Tammy Thompson is, but he sort of hopes she gets sucked into the wormhole before they destroy it. “No.”
“Well, she was my crush,” Robin says, and Mike tries to hide his surprise. “It’s totally fine, you can be shocked. Anyway, I thought she was the one, blah blah, but she wasn’t! She was the straight girl who had no interest in me, and it was my cue to move on and love myself, and the world got a little brighter after that.” Robin pauses for breath, locking gazes with Mike. “And… I gave some advice to Will. Bad advice, now I think about it–”
“Robin…” Jonathan warns.
“What advice?” Mike sits up and leans a little closer to the girl before him, whose cheeks have pinkened in the evening cold. She eyes him right back, expression softening.
“I think I assumed he had a Tammy Thompson in his life,” she says quietly, “and I don’t think he does.”
When Will left for Lenora, Mike hoped it was normal that it felt as though someone had ripped his heart from his chest and pulverised it. He often prayed it was normal that he would move his pinkie finger in the hope it might brush Will’s for that moment of raw electricity he never got even kissing El. He would plead for it to be normal that it took everything in him not to sneak down into the basement in the dead of night when he heard Jonathan crack the door to Nancy’s room, and climb into bed with his best friend.
Mike isn’t stupid. He had wondered if maybe – just maybe – being willing to die for your friend, aching to touch him and often wanting to kiss him could amount to more than the closest friendship he’s ever known. The trouble came when the intrusive thoughts lingered for more than half a second before he shoved them all the way back down to the places nobody could see. He had a girlfriend once. Straight. Case closed.
He had always thought everything with Will was so different. How lucky, he had mused, to have friends, and then to have that. To be Mike the Brave and Will the Wise, The Paladin and The Cleric. A bond so true that often they didn't even need words to say the things other people used their voices to speak. Different.
Then Will sat there and said it so, so many times:
Different. Different, like Mike. The same as Mike, maybe. The two had always been so similar - and in that moment, different didn’t feel quite so terrifying anymore if he got to share it with Will.
But before he’d had the chance to wrap his mind around the words – the connotations about himself – Will had started on about discarding this Tammy, and… and if that was Mike, then what? And if it wasn’t Mike, then…
What?
So, he’s pissed. And confused.
“I’m not going to say much here, because it’s not my place,” Jonathan says carefully, “but I think you should have a conversation with my brother. You guys have always been joined at the hip.” He smiles. “I’m sure he’d like having his best friend weigh in on this whole life-changing thing, you know? And if nothing else, you can... get on the same page.”
But Mike’s jaw twitches. “I… can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because… because,” Mike says, and he can’t explain it to them. He can’t. So then he’s breathless again, and Robin is shaking her head and ignoring Jonathan’s third look sent her way.
“No, Byers, do not tell me to shut up.” Robin shakes her head. “Look at him! This is killing him!”
Jonathan meets her eyes with a hint of amusement. “I wasn’t going to. Talk away.”
“Oh. Oh, okay, well–” Robin cuts herself off, taking a breath and gathering Mike’s hands in hers. It’s oddly comforting to the boy, so he allows it. “I’m not going to ask you anything. You don’t have to say a word. But… but the beautiful thing about Will is that he’s different, and he knows it’s okay. That there will be people who don’t think it’s okay, and those people are assholes – and nobody in that building is an asshole.” Robin gestures towards the radio station, moonlight swimming through the tears in her eyes. “Those are your people – the only ones who matter. If you were different – and I’m not saying you are – but if you are, then god.” A smile breaks out on her face. “You’re so safe. You’re so safe with those people, Mike Wheeler.”
Mike doesn’t know what to do with a lump this size in his throat, so he simply nods, pleading with himself to hold it together until they leave. Jonathan clears his throat, squeezing Mike’s shoulder.
“You kids have seen and done things that nobody ever should,” he says, voice cracking a little. “The strength you’ve all shown this whole time is… It’s insane, Mike.” Jonathan releases the boy, sending a half-smile laden with something heavy. “What’s one more scary thing?”
So they touch him one last time, and suddenly he’s alone outside, no longer gasping for air and yet still feeling like somebody has stolen all the oxygen from his lungs. Somewhere, another world descends upon theirs, and it could all be over.
And if it is, then Mike needs to wake the fuck up.
He and El broke up all that time ago for more reasons than they were simply incompatible. And actually, El said something with a small smile that always stuck with him:
“I think it was someone else even before the day you found me, Mike. You were not looking for me. I think… I think you found the wrong person. In a lot of ways.”
Mike did what he always did – shoved it down – but something about Will’s words back in the radio station had years of repressed feelings flooding to the surface, until Mike was doubled over, gasping for air and furious at his best friend.
Tammy Thompson.
No, he’s Mike Wheeler. And he’s been best friends with Will Byers since his life really started. He’s screwed everything up a thousand times, let all this confusion bubbling inside him muddy their relationship and change the rules in ways he might not be able to take back. But Mike is freefalling, because Will liked him once – he’s sure of it. And as sure as anything he’s ever known, Mike knows he’s desperately and irreversibly in love with Will Byers, the boy who came back to him all that time ago. And he thinks he always has been, if he's finally ready to be honest with himself. With him.
Will and Mike share everything.
So if Mike is in love with Will… then Will is in love with Mike.
Aligned. Always.
No past tense, no crush, no Tammy. Because Mike thinks Will was 95% honest back there, and he’s going to march right into that building, grab his best friend, and demand that last 5%. He’s going to ask Will if he’s really Tammy Thompson, if he’s really something so small as a crush when he thinks perhaps the universe made sure these two boys found one another. That if they were both going to face endless tragedy and become the reason the world sees another day, it would be together.
And he knows it. Sure as breathing, he knows Will loves him too. Because what else is this? What else could it be? A crush is for strangers, this… This is everything.
So a bubbling laugh escapes Mike’s lips, and he mentally kisses Robin and Jonathan for dragging him back from the brink. The world is ending, and a planet is going to crash into theirs, and death chases them around every corner, but Mike Wheeler is in love with Will Byers.
And that seems a hell of a good reason to fight.
(They win.)