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After Mike shared the information he’d been asked to deliver, he realized something wasn’t right. Will’s eyes were red, glassy, and Mrs. Byers wore that familiar look of concern—the same one she always had when Will was hurting. Mike didn’t like what that might mean.
“Is everything okay?” he asked immediately.
“Yes, we’re fine. We’ll be right there.” As always, Mrs. Byers stepped in to protect her son, and Mike respected her for it—but he didn’t believe her. He’d known Will for years. He knew when something was wrong. Still, if Will didn’t want to talk about it, Mike wouldn’t force him. So he turned around, ready to leave.
“Wait.”
Will’s voice stopped him. Mike turned back without hesitation, ready to listen.
“You need to hear this.”
A small wave of relief ran through him at the thought that Will was going to tell him what was bothering him. It made him anxious in a way he couldn’t quite explain.
“Jonathan too,” Will added almost immediately. “Mom, Mike, wait here for a moment. I’ll go get Jonathan.”
And just like that, he left the room, almost in a hurry—as if he needed those few seconds to think it through one last time.
Mike sat down beside Mrss. Byers, straightening his posture the moment he did. The silence between them was strange, and he felt oddly nervous—maybe even uncomfortable—around her. He was acutely aware that over the past few months, since he’d been staying with the Byers family, he’d been trying to impress her without really meaning to. Being polite. Offering to help with anything she needed. Making sure her whole family felt comfortable, like it was his own home. Coming up with plans during their missions against Vecna and feeling relieved whenever she told him it was a good plan.
It wasn’t intentional. It just came naturally.
Mike had always looked out for Will, protecting him and taking care of him ever since they were kids. And somewhere along the way, that had turned into wanting Mrs. Byers to see him as a good friend. Someone who could take care of her son.
Will came back less than a minute later, looking a little calmer, Jonathan at his side. Jonathan’s confusion only deepened when he saw them all there. Mike caught him whispering something to Will, but Will didn’t respond. He simply walked over to the nearest couch and sat down. Jonathan, still confused—though clearly worried—seemed to understand that Will wanted him there too. He grabbed a chair and dragged it closer, sitting down so the four of them formed a loose circle.
Mike opened his mouth, ready to ask again what was going on, but closed it immediately when he saw Will shut his eyes, take a deep breath, and exhale slowly before opening them again. Will turned slightly to his left, until he was facing Mike directly.
Mike took his time looking into Will’s green eyes, trying to read what was written there. He’d always thought he was good at reading Will—understanding what he was trying to say without him needing to speak, just by the way his eyes carried emotion, by his body language. And in all the years they’d known each other, Mike had never once been wrong.
They’d been best friends since they were kids, after all.
And right now, fear was clear in Will’s gaze. Mike could tell how distressed he was by the way he blinked rapidly, trying—and failing—to keep the tears from spilling over. His legs bounced restlessly, betraying his anxiety.
As much as Mike wanted to stand up, go to Will, wrap him in a hug, and tell him everything was okay—that he could say whatever he needed to say—he didn’t. Will always took his time when it came to talking about things like this. If not today, then tomorrow. Or a few hours later.
The problem was, they didn’t have hours. They had minutes before they had to begin their final mission against Vecna.
Luckily, Will spoke.
“I didn’t say anything before because I didn’t want you to start seeing me differently,” he said, his voice tight. “Even though the truth is… I am different. I am.”
He swallowed. “And I pretended I wasn’t because I didn’t want to be. I wanted to be like everyone else. Like my friends. And the truth is—I am like you.”
Their eyes met briefly, and Mike nodded slightly, letting him know he was listening. That he understood Will meant their group. That he could keep going.
“I’m like you in almost every way,” Will continued. “We like playing D&D late into the night. We like the musty smell of Mike’s basement.”
They both let out a small laugh, knowing it was true—and knowing the rest of their friends would agree.
By now, Will was losing the fight he’d been waging against himself to keep from crying. A few tears slipped free, joining the ones already pooling at the corners of his eyes.
It hurt Mike to see him like that.
“It’s just that I—”
Will took another deep breath before saying it.
“I don’t like girls.”
The confession hit Mike like a moving car.
He doesn’t like girls.
He saw Jonathan smile softly at his younger brother, an expression that could only be read as pride. Mrs. Byers shifted in her seat; Mike couldn’t see her face.
That could only mean one thing.
If girls weren’t who Will was attracted to, then it was boys. It was simple logic—but the realization made it feel like a door had opened inside Mike. A door he’d thought would stay shut for the rest of his life.
And beyond it was a place full of possibilities.
Possibilities that, seconds ago, had been unthinkable.
Mike looked back at Will just in time to catch something like regret flicker across his expression as he glanced between the three people sitting with him. Will leaned back slightly, as if torn between staying and leaving.
In the end, he kept talking.
“I mean, I like them. Just not the way you do.” Another breath. “And I fell in love with someone… even though I know he isn’t like me.”
Mike had been holding Will’s gaze for far too long, but he didn’t care anymore. He felt hollow, waiting for something that might not be meant for him.
At some point, Mike disconnected completely from the world. It was as if he’d slipped out of his body, leaving only his thoughts behind—replaying everything Will had said, everything Mike himself had ever done or felt. Searching. Analyzing. Hoping, desperately, that the person Will was talking about was him.
Yes—Michael Wheeler found himself wishing that his childhood best friend, William Byers, was in love with him.
And for the first time in years, the thought didn’t terrify him.
When Will and El had moved to California, Mike had had far too much time to think. It took him weeks to realize that what he felt for El was no longer romantic—if it ever truly had been. After they broke up, he spent weeks lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, cycling through emotions, until something finally clicked.
He’d never stopped feeling.
His feelings had just been aimed at the wrong person.
El had mattered. Pretending otherwise would be a lie. He’d cared about her. He’d loved her, in his own way. Every time he’d worried about her, it had been genuine. But with time, he understood that it had been different with her—simpler. Easier to name.
There had been a moment, when his relationship with El had started to fall apart, when he’d caught himself wishing things were as easy and natural as they were with Will.
The thought had startled him so badly that he’d grabbed his bike and ridden through the streets, convinced he’d thought himself into insanity.
It hadn’t helped.
Because his mind picked right back up where it had left off, and he realized that everything with Will had always been easier. Every conversation carved out a space in his heart meant only for him. The way the world seemed brighter when Will laughed—and dimmer when he was hurting. The constant instinct to look for him first, whether he wanted approval or something had gone wrong. Always scanning the room for Will, like he was a fixed point in the middle of chaos.
That’s when he understood.
It wasn’t that Mike had changed.
It was that he’d been ignoring the obvious for years.
He liked girls. That was still true. But it was also true that there was someone else—someone who didn’t fit into the image he’d always had of himself, or the one his father had drilled into him his whole life.
Someone who had always been there.
Will.
Mike wasn’t a crier. He didn’t think of himself as someone prone to tears. But when he finally realized it, he remembered letting a few slip free, only for them to dry seconds later in the cold night air. He’d tried to repress it with everything he had, and all it had done was fracture both his friendship with Will and his relationship with El.
It had taken the literal near end of the world for him to finally accept the truth.
Now, thinking about it didn’t knot his chest the way it used to. There was no immediate panic. No instinctive rejection. Just a strange, almost peaceful feeling—like he’d finally stopped fighting something that had been clawing its way out of him for years.
Maybe that was why wishing to be loved back didn’t feel so impossible anymore.
Hearing Will say out loud the words Mike had never dared to voice gave him something like courage—the kind that comes from knowing you’re not alone.
“Mike?”
He snapped back to reality. The first thing he saw was Will kneeling in front of him, his hand hovering inches from Mike’s face, waving slightly.
“I thought you’d spaced out,” Will said, lowering his hand as he stood and sat back down across from him. He looked calmer now. “I called your name a few times.”
“How long was I gone?” Mike asked. His voice sounded strange, his throat dry.
“About ten minutes.”
“Oh.”
He knew it wasn’t funny—but Will laughed anyway. A soft sound, more like a breath than a laugh. But Mike knew what it was.
And he couldn’t ignore the way all the tension in his body dissolved the second he heard it.
He looked up at Will again, drawn in like a magnet. As if Will were the north pole and Mike the south, pulled into his orbit no matter what.
It amazed him how something so small—coming from the right person—could undo him completely.
Mike was so focused on Will that he hadn’t even noticed the other two were gone.
“Where are Jonathan and your mom?” he asked, partly out of curiosity, partly just to fill the space.
“They left a bit ago. Said they were going to see if anyone outside needed help.”
That made sense.
Still, the realization that they were alone made Mike feel anxious. Now they could talk freely—no one else around.
He felt a kind of nervousness he hadn’t felt in years. Like when he was younger, after hours of playing D&D, and his mom would ask how long they’d really been playing. He’d lie, say a couple of hours. She’d ask again. That exact feeling—the one where telling the truth might mean getting everything taken away.
It was the same now.
He felt like any word he said might make Will pull away, stretching the space between them until it became impossible to cross. Just like he had—wrongly—done when he’d gone to California.
And suddenly, one thing weighed heavier than everything else.
He hadn’t said anything.
Will had trusted them with something he’d clearly been carrying for years—something that took immense courage to say out loud—and Mike had just sat there. Silent. Lost in his own head. Letting the quiet settle as if that were enough.
It wasn’t.
Not here. Not now.
A tightness settled in his chest—not quite guilt, but the certainty that he’d left something unfinished. Like Will had handed him a drawing he’d spent days working on, and Mike had stared at it, analyzing every line, while Will waited for his reaction.
He thought of all the things he should’ve said. All the responses that now came too late. How easy it would’ve been to say something, anything, instead of leaving Will alone with his confession.
But the moment had passed.
And now the silence felt heavy. Tangible.
Mike opened his mouth, ready to speak.
Anything.
Nothing came out.
Every word stuck in his throat, piling up without shape or order, unable to turn into something worthy of what Will had shared minutes ago.
So he did the one thing he’d always known how to do with Will.
He stood up, awkward and rushed, as if staying still were harder than moving. He hesitated for barely a second—just long enough to wonder if he was crossing an invisible line they’d never named and had never needed to.
Then, slowly, he wrapped his arms around him.
The hug wasn’t tight or rushed. It was careful. Like Mike was afraid that if he held on too hard, Will might break—or worse, pull away.
He rested his forehead against Will’s shoulder and breathed in, trying to say everything he didn’t know how to put into words: I heard you. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.
And for the first time since the confession, the silence didn’t feel empty.
Almost as quickly as he’d moved toward Will, Mike pulled back—just a little—his hands still resting on Will’s shoulders. He didn’t give Will time to react.
It wasn’t rough, just fast. Like fear had arrived a second too late and told him he’d already done enough. He took a small step back, avoiding Will’s eyes, his heart pounding in his ears.
He braced himself for awkwardness. For tension. Maybe even regret.
But when he finally looked up, he found something else entirely.
Will was smiling.
Not wide. Not exaggerated. Just small and shy, like he wasn’t sure yet if he was allowed to show it.
But it was real.
And it was for him.
Something inside Mike loosened. The pressure in his chest eased enough for him to breathe properly. Enough to realize he hadn’t ruined anything. That—for now, at least—Will was still there.
Still looking at him the same way.
For the first time in a long while, Mike didn’t feel the urge to run from what he was feeling.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I felt like… no matter what I said, it wouldn’t be enough.” A nervous laugh slipped out.
He sat back down on the couch, unsure what to do with himself.
“It’s okay. I understand.”
This time, the silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable.
Mike slouched further into the couch, resting his forearms on his knees, staring at the floor just to have something to focus on. His body felt lighter than before, like he’d let go of a weight he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying.
Even though Will was the one who had done exactly that.
Will stayed where he was, calm now, the tension from earlier gone.
“Are you okay?” Mike asked softly, like he didn’t want to break the fragile quiet around them.
Will nodded slowly.
Mike swallowed, hesitated, then went on.
“I just wanted you to know that it’s okay. That everything’s okay,” he said, lifting his head, giving the words more weight.
They weren’t grand. They didn’t promise answers or solutions.
But they were honest.
Will studied him, like he was searching Mike’s face for confirmation—for proof that he meant it. And Mike held his gaze. No rush. No fear.
“Thank you,” Will said at last, barely above a whisper.
Mike nodded, awkward again, scratching the back of his neck.
“I just wanted you to know.”
The air eased even more. There was no hurry. No pressure. Just two people sharing the same space, aware that something important had been said—even if not everything was out in the open yet.
Mike let himself take a deep breath.
And for the first time since Will had spoken, he didn’t feel the need to fill the silence.
A few minutes later, he spoke again—not to avoid the quiet, but because something still lingered in his mind, something he needed to close.
If not now, then when?
Because it wasn’t just what Will had said about himself.
It was the other thing.
The way his voice had faltered just before saying it. The way he’d avoided looking at Mike when he admitted he was in love.
Mike hadn’t stopped thinking about it.
He closed his eyes for a second, took a breath—and when he opened them again, Will was already watching him.
“Do you remember you mentioned something else?” Mike asked, letting the question hang, more rhetorical than anything.
He watched Will shift slightly, clasping his hands together, twisting them nervously. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t look away either.
“The part about being in love,” Mike continued—not to pressure him, but to steady himself. He knew Will understood. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that.”
A brief silence followed—heavy, different from the others.
“Can I ask who it is?”
Will inhaled slowly, resting his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor for a few seconds before answering.
“It’s…” he started, then stopped. “It’s someone very important to me.”
Mike nodded gently, not pushing.
“Someone from our group?” he asked quietly, something like hope stirring in his chest.
Will finally looked up. His eyes met Mike’s, and for a moment, he seemed caught between saying everything—or holding it back one more time.
“Yes,” he said at last.
He didn’t say anything else.
And it was enough.
Mike felt his heart speed up—not with panic, but with a strange, steady clarity. Like something had finally clicked into place.
“Will…” he said, swallowing. “There’s something I should tell you too.”
Will didn’t interrupt him. He didn’t move.
“When you said you liked boys,” Mike continued, “and then when you talked about being in love—I don’t really know how to explain it, but I felt this kind of inner calm.” He fell silent for a few seconds, trying to find better words. “It was like cutting a rubber band that’s been pulled tight for too long.”
He let out a short, nervous laugh, running a hand over his face.
“I felt this sort of admiration for you—for saying something that takes so much courage.” His voice softened. “And somehow, it gave me the confidence to do the same. At least with you.”
He took a deep breath before continuing.
“I like girls,” he admitted. Will gave him a confused look, and Mike lowered his gaze to his hands, gathering his courage. “That hasn’t changed. But there’s something else that took me a long time to accept.”
Silence fell between them again—different from all the ones before.
Mike felt the urge to run. To let days pass and pretend this conversation had never happened. But he didn’t.
“After you and your family left Hawkins, I had a lot of time to think,” he said, pausing, taking a deep breath before continuing. “I missed you too much, and I tried to convince myself it was just because we’d been friends since we were kids. Because we’d never really been apart.” He swallowed. “But it wasn’t just that. There was something else.”
His throat tightened, a knot forming there—but he kept going, determined to say everything this time.
“You were always different to me. You always mattered more,” he added, almost in a whisper. “More than I ever knew how to name.”
He inhaled, then exhaled.
His throat burned. He swallowed, trying to ease the feeling. It didn’t help.
“That’s why, when you said you were in love…” He stopped, the pause stretching into something that felt endless. “I found myself wishing— not for the first time —that that person was me.”
Will didn’t respond right away.
He stayed perfectly still, as if he needed to make sure he’d heard him correctly. His eyes lifted to find Mike’s, but he only held them for a second before looking down again, taking a slow, steady breath.
“Mike…” he finally said, his voice barely audible.
“And I know that’s selfish, but—”
“Mike,” Will interrupted him.
He brought a hand to his chest, as if trying to steady something that was beating far too fast inside him. He shook his head once, in disbelief, and when he looked back up at Mike, there was something different in his expression.
It wasn’t surprise and It wasn’t fear.
It was relief.
“I—” he started, then stopped. He swallowed. “I thought I was alone in that.”
Something tightened in Mike’s chest.
He watched as Will stood up and took a small step toward him, not touching him yet—like he was asking for permission even now. Mike stood up too.
“It’s you,” he finally said, without any detours. “It’s always been you.”
He didn’t smile. He didn’t cry. But his voice trembled just enough to say everything.
“I was scared to say it out loud,” Mike admitted, wanting to lift his arms toward Will, not knowing if he was allowed to.
“I was afraid of losing you,” Will and Mike said at the same time.
They let out a soft laugh at the coincidence.
“And right now,” Will added, after everything, “it feels like I didn’t. Like I didn’t lose you.”
Mike didn’t speak right away.
He nodded slightly, as if any words he tried to find would fall short. None of them felt big enough to hold everything he wanted to say. The knot of nerves twisting in his stomach was no longer born from fear of rejection, but from the intensity of being seen in a way he had never allowed before.
“To be honest,” Mike said, “I don’t really know what to do with myself right now.”
The confession came with a soft, nervous laugh—almost shy. Will answered with a small smile of his own, just as uncertain.
“I think it’s okay not to know,” he said, stepping a little closer. “We can figure it out together.”
Mike let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
Without overthinking it, he extended his hand between them, brushing lightly against Will’s. There was no rush, no firm decision behind it—just a clumsy, honest gesture. More of a quiet question than anything else.
Will hesitated for barely a second before taking it.
The contact was simple, but it was enough for both of them to tense—and then relax—at the same time, like something had clicked into place without needing any explanation.
“This is weird,” Mike murmured, not letting go. Not as a complaint—just saying it out loud.
Will let out a quiet laugh.
“A little,” he admitted. “But not bad.”
Mike shook his head, smiling too. “It feels right,” he added.
Silence wrapped around them again, but it didn’t weigh on them anymore. Now it felt warm. Shared.
Mike took a small step forward—the last one needed to close the space between them. He didn’t let go of Will’s hand. Instead, he pulled him into a tight embrace, the kind you don’t need to ask permission for because it comes from necessity. Because he knew they both wanted it.
Will returned it instantly, holding onto him just as tightly, as if he’d been waiting for that moment for a very long time.
Mike closed his eyes, resting his chin on top of Will’s head and wrapping his other arm around his shoulders, pulling him more securely against his chest.
They stayed like that for several minutes—just the two of them in that room, holding hands, sharing a silence that no one else could have understood. Mike didn’t want to pull away. He wanted to stay like that for the rest of his life, pretending no one else existed.
But they couldn’t.
Vecna was still out there. His sister was still trapped with him. There was a plan they had to follow.
Mike pulled back just enough to look Will straight in the eyes.
“Thank you for not giving up on me,” he said. “Even when it took me way too long to figure it out.”
He let out a small laugh, but it sounded more pained than he would have liked.
Will shook his head slowly.
“I never did.”
Mike hadn’t realized how much he needed to hear those three words until they were spoken out loud.
Their hands were still intertwined, trembling less with every passing second. He lifted one of them and, carefully, pressed a kiss to Will’s knuckles—watching his reaction the entire time. If anything felt wrong, Will would say so.
Then he moved higher, placing a soft kiss against his forehead, heavy with something old and protective.
Will closed his eyes, letting out a slow breath that spoke of how relaxed he was. When he opened them again, Mike was already there—close enough that they could feel each other’s breath.
There was no rush.
There were no doubts.
Just that suspended second, when they both understood they had already crossed every line that truly mattered. That they both wanted what was so clearly about to happen.
Mike leaned in first—just slightly—as if giving Will the chance to pull away.
Will didn’t.
It felt like everything moved in slow motion. Mike first withdrew his arm from Will’s shoulder and lifted his hand to his face, resting it gently against the left side of his cheek, his thumb brushing softly over his skin. He watched as Will closed his eyes once more before closing his own.
Seconds later, their lips brushed together, and it amazed him how such a simple act could make everything in the world feel right. Like this was where he belonged—hands tightly held, standing within Will’s personal space, their lips meeting at last.
It was a soft kiss. Uncertain. Brief. Nothing spectacular. Nothing perfect. Nothing extraordinary. But very real—like everything they had built up to that moment. As if it were something they’d been building ever since the day Mike asked Will, that lonely, sad kid swinging by himself, if he wanted to be his friend.
When they pulled apart, Mike wrapped Will back into a tight embrace.
Mike smiled, still a little in disbelief.
“I think,” he said quietly. “I think this doesn’t feel wrong either.”
He felt Will smile against him.
“No,” Will replied. “It feels right.”
And for the first time in a long while, Mike agreed with himself.