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Mike lingered in the basement for a minute longer. He wasn’t even sure if El was really alive. It was wishful thinking, but part of him was also pushing something down. He was pinning it down and strangling it, whatever it was, before it got the chance to speak, to tell him what it was.
He also wasn’t sure he would love her the same as he used to. She was amazing, more powerful and beautiful than any girl he had ever known. But he didn’t feel the same sort of pull towards her as he did before. He wanted to hold her and kiss her before, but now he just wanted her. He didn’t want her body, he wanted a friend. El was spectacular in every way, but she just didn’t make him feel as strongly.
Mike kissed El first because he wanted to kiss a girl. Maybe, if he kissed a girl, the bullying would stop. Maybe he would be cool enough to fly under the radar, so they didn’t even notice he was there anymore. Or maybe they would even let him in. He loved his friends now, but part of him craved the validation of being popular. Everyone would love him, he wouldn’t be made fun of. He was tired of being hurt. Mike was tired of feeling inferior.
Eleven didn’t know what love was. She spent her life trapped in a lab, her existence was reduced to an experiment. A mere instrument for their evil, cruel ideas. She could barely speak when they met, of course she didn’t know what it meant to kiss someone, or fall in love. The idea of anything Mike was accustomed to was probably foreign to her. She didn’t grow up.
So he guessed it was an accident, the way Mike and El fell together. She didn’t know what it was like to be loved, and he wanted to know a life where he felt like he was.
He let out a sigh he didn’t know he was holding in. Walking to the bookcase, he took in the names of all his friends.
Max, Lucas, Dustin, Will, Mike.
Will, Mike.
Will.
Mike’s eyes lingered on his name for longer than he felt was okay. The feeling he felt was strange. Invalid. It shouldn’t be happening. Whatever it was, Mike’s hand tightened its grip on the feeling’s throat. It surely must be dead by now.
But it wasn’t. It was something much stronger than Mike. He couldn’t defeat it if he tried, he realized.
“Mike.” It was Will’s voice.
Mike snapped out of his daze. He turned his head to find Will at the bottom of the basement stairs.
“You coming?” he asked.
Mike stuttered, taken aback.
“Yeah,” he said, voice weak and nearly a whisper.
“Well, come on.” A smile lit up Will’s face. “We don’t have forever.”
Mike paused, feet seemly stuck to the floor.
“Will,” he said.
“Yeah, what’s up?” Will said, making his way off the stairs and closer to Mike.
“How…how did you know?”
“Know what, Mike?”
His heart fluttered when Will said his name. He didn’t know why he was so nervous. Will was his best friend. What was wrong with him?
“That you don’t like girls?” Mike said, looking up at his best friend. “Well, actually, how did you know you liked boys instead?”
Will looked at him for a moment, which made him nervous.
“Well,” Will began. Mike looked at him with eager eyes. “I kind of just knew. I never liked any girls growing up. It always felt wrong. But there was this boy, and I liked him a lot. He was just the coolest, and I felt something for him that I hadn’t felt for any girl before. It was something more than I had felt for any of our other friends and, well, he’s my best friend.”
Mike watched the color leave Will’s face as soon as he realized what he just said.
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that, Mike, I’m sorry.” The words kept flowing out of him like he couldn’t stop them.
Mike put his hand on Will’s arm to calm him down.
“Hey, it’s alright. I understand. Keep talking,” Mike reassured him.
“Well, that’s pretty much it. But before I realized, I felt like I was battling something bigger than I was. And like yeah, I was, with the whole Mind Flayer, Upside Down situation. But after I realized and accepted the way I felt, it felt like something had been lifted off my chest. And I learned the only way to beat it is to stop fighting.” Will explained.
Mike thought for a moment more. Was the feeling he felt for Will the same one that he described to him? He wasn’t certain yet, but the odds were a lot higher than zero.
“Will,” Mike said after his thought, hand still on his arm.
“Yeah?”
“I think…”
Will gave Mike time. He knew what it was like. He knew how long it took to realize your own feelings. Isn’t that strange? It takes years to know how you feel sometimes. And you can’t control it. You can’t stop it. And it comes, sometimes in waves, but sometimes strong and powerful and greater than any monster and it stays like that for a long time. It stays like that for as long as needs to, sometimes forever, sometimes until it is accepted.
But Mike still loved El. He loved her at one point. Just not anymore. He couldn’t deny that. There were so many people he loved, for so long and for so many reasons he couldn’t keep it all straight in his head. Friends, family, lovers. Was the love he felt for Will the same as when they were kids? Was the love he felt for El always as bland as it is now? He didn’t know. And he had no way of knowing. But he knows how he feels now.
“I think I love you, Will.”
Will looked at him and smiled.
“I love you too, Mike.”
Mike couldn’t move his body, so Will pulled him into a tight hug. Reluctantly, Mike put his arms around his best friend. They seemed to melt into each other, like pieces of a puzzle sliding together. Will was warm and he felt like home. His hair smelled the same as it always had, the same shampoo he’s used since they’ve known each other. Mike breathed in the familiar scent and hugged him tighter. He knew with El that nothing lasts forever, but he could at least have this moment, just for now.
When they pulled apart, Mike felt cold where Will had been pressed against him.
“Mike,” Will began, “I have loved you ever since that day on the playground when we became friends. At least I think I did. I always remember feeling this way. I never felt like this for Dustin or Lucas. It was always you, Mike. It was always you. I loved your dark curls and freckles and the way you repeat yourself when you talk sometimes. And the way your head moves when you talk. The way you stand. Mike, I love it all. I love all of you. And I have for as long as I’ve remembered. I kept pushing for you and El to be together because I thought that was what you wanted. I thought you loved her. And I still think you did. You loved each other. So I thought that by seeing you happy, it would make me happy. And it did, but I wished I was in her place. I love El, she’s like a sister to me. But I had wanted so badly to be the person you loved like that. And that painting, El didn’t commission it. I painted it because I love you, Mike. Everything I said in that van, it was about me. I need you, Mike. El never told me she needed you. I just assumed she did. But I did, too. I assumed she felt the same way about you that I do. I love you. And I always have.”
“Will,” Mike said, in awe. “I–I–”
Mike was at a loss for words. He had no idea Will loved him so much. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he had loved Will all this time, too. It was just subtle. It was background noise, something he didn’t even notice until the dialogue went silent. And it was beautiful. It was so, so beautiful. And he was beautiful. Mike always thought Will was beautiful, but he always thought he was just conventionally attractive.
Mike grabbed Will’s face with his hands and kissed him. The kiss was slow, savoring the moment, speeding up once they realized it was a moment they would miss.
“What is going on down here?” Lucas asked as his footsteps pounded against the old wood stairs.
Mike and Will broke apart, lips tingling from where the other set laid. They turned their heads to the staircase where Lucas stood at the bottom.
“Come on guys, we’ve been waiting like ten minutes.”
“Sorry, Lucas. We were just talking and forgot,” Mike explained.
“I mean, I guess it’s alright,” Lucas said sarcastically. “Let’s go.”
He walked past where Will stood to get to the staircase. Will felt the brush of his hand as Mike walked by.
The look they shared told them both that they were in love.