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The first time that Will had heard Mike talking in his sleep was when they were in first grade. It was Will’s first sleepover, Mike’s, too. Lucas, far cooler than them, had already had multiple sleepovers before, whether at his relatives or with his other friends.
Will had been asleep, jolted out of his sleep when he heard someone say his name. He had turned to Mike, who was laying on the couch above where Lucas and Will were spread out in their sleeping bags.
A moment later, Mike had said his name again. “Will,” he had said, quietly, his brow furrowed. Then his face had smoothed out. “Yeah—play four square.” Only his voice had been muffled, so Will was never fully sure if that’s what he had said, but pretty sure.
It happens again throughout the years, on nights when Mike falls asleep while they’re watching Ghostbusters, or when their D&D campaign runs far too late into the night. Mike is always the first one passed out, Will always seems to be the last one asleep. He had asked Dustin and Lucas once if they had heard Mike, they had looked at him like he was crazy then laughed at him.
Not at Will. At Mike. For talking in his sleep. At least Will was pretty sure that they weren’t laughing at him. Mike was the one rehashing one of his and Will’s conversations in his sleep.
Will can’t even remember now what conversation Mike had repeated in his sleep. Not like it matters now, he’s pretty sure Dustin and Lucas wouldn’t remember that night anyway. The only reason Will remembers it now is because as the time has passed, Mike’s conversations in his sleep have only increased. Will thought sleep-talking was supposed to go away with age.
He stares at Mike who’s sleeping on his floor. After he had woken from a nightmare, Mike was there, letting himself into Will’s room in the middle of the night. That’s what he gets for having to share a house with the Wheelers.
Mike mumbles something in his sleep and Will pulls his pillow over his head. He really doesn’t want to hear whatever Mike is talking about, he’s pretty sure he heard El’s name and he does not need to know what Mike and his sister are getting up to—even if this is supposed to be the end of the world.
“No—” Mike mumbles and Will sits upright, listening closer in case Mike is the one having a nightmare now. “No.”
Will is this close to waking Mike up when he speaks up again. “Yeah. You’re right, El.” His next words are muffled, but Will makes out something about friends. Nothing important then. Will shoves his head back into his pillow, but Mike just doesn’t shut up. “I—love you, even—not my girlfriend anymore.”
Will’s head snaps back over to Mike. Is Mike…dreaming about breaking up with El?
“Yeah—he’s—best friend—he’d never—I’m not even—” Mike’s mumbles fade to unintelligibility as he rolls over and falls into a quieter sleep.
Will stares at him for a moment longer. He needs to…talk to Mike about this in the morning. If he’s dreaming about breaking up with El amicably, obviously there’s something very wrong.
Will falls back into a fitful sleep, being woken up the next morning by Nancy telling them to come down for breakfast. Will stares at Mike for a second before shaking his head. It’s not worth it to get into right now. There are bigger things to worry about—like Holly getting kidnapped and Vecna coming back.
Will wishes he had time to talk to Mike about things as trivial as Mike’s relationship. Between the plans and searching for Holly and…everything else, there just isn’t time for what feel like frivolous problems. Not that Mike’s relationship with El is a problem, of course, but. Will is curious.
He doesn’t get a chance to ask about it—about Mike and El until a little later. El, Jonathan and Dustin are in the Upside Down searching for Holly, and Lucas is with Max in the hospital. There’s a moment where it’s just him and Mike, on the couch in the Squawk with the TV on to some dumb movie that neither of them are watching, but it beats sitting around anxiously waiting for any news.
Will glances at Mike every few seconds. It’s definitely not the time to ask, but he can’t help himself, the question has been turning in his mind ever since he heard Mike talking in his sleep that night. “So,” Will says and immediately cringes. Great way to start.
Mike’s head turns to him, his eyes are slightly vacant and tired, but he still offers Will a small smile. “So?” he repeats.
“Uh, do you remember when you slept in my room? A few days ago?”
Mike’s brows furrow. “Yeah? Why? Did something happen? The nightmare you had—was it Vecna?”
“No.” Will shakes his head immediately, pressing his hand down against one of the worn couch cushions. “No, not anything like that.”
“What is it, then?” Mike asks.
“Did you know that you talk in your sleep?” As soon as the words are out of Will’s mouth, Mike groans.
“Yes,” he says, sounding mildly anguished. “Holly heard me reliving a conversation I had with one of my teachers. I was trying to get a better grade—she’s never let me live it down.”
Will smiles a little at that. “Do you do that often? Relive conversations, I mean.”
Mike’s gaze turns a little suspicious, and Will tries not to stare at the adorable wrinkle in his brow. “Why? Did I say something?”
“Yeah. I mean yeah you did, but—”
“Just tell me, I’m sure I’ve said more embarrassing things before in front of my family.”
“You were…I mean I think you were breaking up…with El? In your dream?” Will’s voice lilts up like it’s a question even though that’s almost definitely what happened.
Mike’s brows smooth out. “Oh. That’s it?”
Will shakes his head a little in confusion. “What do you mean that’s it? You broke up with your girlfriend in your dream. Don’t you think that like says something? About you? About your relationship?”
It’s Mike’s turn to stare. He looks at Will with those slightly vacant eyes—whether because of all the trauma they’ve endured or just because Mike genuinely doesn’t have a thought in his head, Will can’t quite be sure. “...no?” Mike says, like he’s unsure.
“No,” Will says back.
“I mean maybe? I mean it probably would if we were still together,” Mike says casually. Casually. As if he hasn't just turned Will’s entire world on its head.
“What!?” Will practically shrieks and then quiets down because his mom is downstairs and he really really doesn’t need her to witness this conversation.
“We broke up like six months ago, I don’t know, a little after the quarantine first started, mabye. I don't really remember,” Mike says. He’s looking at Will like Will is the crazy one.
“You broke up, why?” Will asks, his voice perhaps slightly more high pitched than normal.
Mike just shrugs. “We realized we were better off as friends. I mean she’s still my best friend and I love her, but we were each other's first relationships and we’ve just grown apart. The last few months it didn't really even feel like we were in a relationsip anymore.” And then he turns back to the TV, like nothing's happened, like he didn’t just shatter every image Will has ever had of him and El.
Mike doesn't mention it after, so Will doesn’t either. Once again, they have bigger things to deal with. They make a plan to save the kids, they lose the kids, Vecna shows up, the demogorgons tear through half the military’s soldiers, Will apparently has superpowers. It’s an eventful few days.
It doesn’t seem to stop there, it feels like there isn’t a moment of rest. Will’s mom does the best she can to keep him out of everything but she can’t. He’s a part of this as much as everyone else, more maybe with the way Vecna has used him as a spy and wants to use his friends against him. It nearly works. Will doesn’t think he’s strong enough to tell them at first, but somehow he manages so Will comes out and it’s…it’s as hard as he thought it would be but his friends still love him and that’s all he can really ask for right now.
Later, when it’s just Will and Mike on the radio tower, Will can’t help himself, he wants reassurance from Mike. He prods him, just a bit during their conversation, because Mike is his best friend and his opinion probably means the most to Will out of anyone.
“What matters is that you’re still here and you think we can still be friends,” Will says quietly, glancing at Mike. He hasn’t seemed any different but it is different, Will knows it and Mike must, too.
“Friends?” Mike says, with a small smile. “No thanks,” he continues and for a split second, Will’s heart jumps into his throat. “Best friends.” Will, for perhaps slightly longer than a split second, considers pushing Mike off the side of the radio tower.
Will huffs a laugh, trying to process the series of emotions that Mike Wheeler has just put him through as Mike starts climbing up the tower again.
They climb the tower, they make it into the Abyss, they find the Mindflayer, they defeat the Mindflayer, they save Holly, they kill Vecna. It’s over. Will can hardly believe it’s over. He knows it’s going to take longer to sink in as they climb back down the radio tower.
At the bottom, El disappears into the Upside Down as it explodes, Mike tries to run after her but he’s held back.
Things aren’t truly peaceful for a while longer. The military takes its time withdrawing its claws from Hawkins; they don’t believe that the Upside Down—and El—are truly gone at first. Eventually, they leave, pardoning Hopper and Nancy as long as they all promise to keep their mouths shut about what happened with the Upside Down and with Vecna.
A year passes as they all readjust to normal, or whatever normal feels like for kids who have spent their childhood battling monsters. It’s strange, going back to high school and having to act like any of them actually care about passing their classes (okay, well Dustin does, but he’s the only one). Will, after a while, finds that he doesn’t actually mind that much. It’s nice to be worried about normal things like his calculus grade, if he’s ever going to get over this stupid freaking crush on Mike Wheeler and what’ll happen next in their D&D campaign.
Now that Vecna is dead and there are no demogorgons to battle, Will actually has time to worry about his love life, really the lack thereof and this godforsaken crush on Mike that just won’t go away.
He had gone to Robin a couple times after everything had happened and she had laughed at him goodnaturedly and commiserated with him, promising that he would get over it eventually. It’s hard, though, when he catches Mike staring at him sometimes and when Mike seems to want to spend almost every moment of every day with him now. He chalks it up to Mike being happy to finally get the normalcy that they should’ve throughout middle and high school.
“You should sleep over, tonight,” Mike says as he’s walking Will to his English class after lunch. Their classes aren’t even in the same direction, but Mike for some reason chooses to walk with Will and makes himself late to fifth period pretty much everyday.
“Would your mom let me?”
“My mom loves you.” Mike scoffs. “Plus it’s a Friday and you were supposed to show me that drawing of the campaign you’ve been working on all week yesterday and you didn’t.” Mike crosses his arms over his chest, the two of them pausing in front of Will’s class.
Will hesitates for just a second, but he’s never been able to say no to Mike. “Sure, I’ll sleep over.”
“Great!” Mike says, darting off as the warning bell rings. “You can call your mom from my house.”
Will just nods at Mike’s retreating form as he heads into the classroom so he can doodle through another lecture on the wonders of Shakespeare. Mike finds him after school, dragging him to the bike racks (they’re old enough to have their licenses but none of them had quite been ready to give up their bikes yet).
Mike rambles on about some thing or other and Will tries his best not to stare at him with hearts in his eyes. The one good thing about Mike’s obliviousness is that he seems to never have realized that he was the one Will was talking about when he said he had a crush on someone who could never reciprocate—and that he doesn’t figure it out now when Will is so very obvious.
The second they get to the Wheelers house, Mike tries to drag Will down to the basement. “We gotta get there first before Holly does,” he’s saying. Will just laughs and lets Mike drag him by the hand.
Once they’re in the basement, Mike drops his backpack on the floor and pulls out his campaign binder. He refuses to tell Will what his next plans are, but he likes to work on writing the campaign while Will sketches. Will calls his mom before he joins Mike at the table.
“Is that the drawing?” Mike asks when Will flips his sketchbook open to his most recent drawing.
“Uh, yeah,” Will says, sliding the book across the table so Mike can see.
“Holy shit, Will, this is great,” Mike says, studying Will’s drawing. Will fights a blush as Mike compliments just about every aspect of the drawing he possibly can.
“It’s nothing,” Will mumbles.
“No, seriously, this is great, you could be in like the Louvre,” Mike tells him. Will shakes his head fondly.
“And Lucas is going to be in the NBA and Dustin is going to win a Nobel prize,” Will says.
“They are and you are,” Mike says confidently, like he knows everything that’s going to happen in the future. Will just shakes his head again.
“Don’t you have a campaign to write?”
They’re quiet after that, working in comfortable silence until Mrs. Wheeler calls them up for dinner. Dinner with the Wheelers is always chaotic as Mike argues with Holly over who gets the basement when and Mrs. and Mr. Wheeler drink at least three quarters of a bottle before dinner is halfway over. It’s a good kind of chaotic, lively, warm.
After dinner, they watch a movie on the couch, just the two of them while the rest of Mike’s family go off to do other things. Mike falls asleep halfway through the movie, Will wonders if he’ll say anything in his sleep tonight. There had been a few other times since Will had heard him talking about El, but nothing as serious or interesting as that, mostly Mike just relives mundane conversations in his sleep. His dreams must be some of the most boring on the planet.
Will wakes Mike when the movie is over, Mike grumbles but drags himself up the stairs to his room. Will pulls out the sleeping bag they keep for him from under the bed. Mike passes out without brushing his teeth about two minutes later.
Will is close to falling asleep when he hears it. Mike. Sleep talking. Again.
He feels bad listening in, but Will is nothing if not a little nosy about his best friends life, so he tunes in to what Mike is saying.
“Best friends?” Mike says, in that exact tone from the conversation on the radio tower. “—thanks.” Great. Will gets to relive one of the most embarrassing moments of his life while Mike sleeps on, unaware.
Will waits for Mike to tell him that they’re best friends.
“More—friends—I want—yeah. Yeah,” Mike says in his sleep and Will sits straight up in his sleeping bag, looking over to where Mike is smiling in his sleep, his face pressed up against the pillow. “—kiss?”
What the fuck.
Is.
No.
There’s no way.
Mike is not dreaming about some alternate version of reality where he returned Will’s feelings and wanted to kiss him.
“Will,” Mike breathes in his sleep in a way that is not wholly PG. Will thinks he might scream. He can’t do this. Not right now. Not like this.
He bolts out of Mike’s room and to the bathroom, locking himself in. Maybe he should’ve grabbed his pillow and sleeping bag so he can sleep in the bathtub.
If there’s one thing that Will is sure of it’s that Mike Wheeler is going to be the death of him. Tonight…Will’ll sleep on the couch tonight. There’s no way he’s going to listen to Mike…fantasize about him.
To reiterate, what the fuck?
Will creeps back into Mike’s room to grab his pillow and his sleeping bag, but he must rustle the sleeping bag too loudly because when he glances at Mike, Mike’s eye is cracked open. From what Will can tell in the dim light, his face looks a little flushed.
“Where’re you going?” Mike slurs, his brow furrowing into an adorable pout.
“Uh,” Will answers intelligently.
“Did something happen?” Mike whispers, sitting up in his bed, suddenly alert.
“No, uh. You were just…talking in your sleep again,” Will mumbles, pretending to look out the window even though the curtains are drawn.
“Oh,” Mike says and Will is pretty sure his face gets even redder. “Did you—like—hear what I said?”
“Some of it,” Will admits quietly.
“Oh,” Mike says again.
They stare at each other sort of awkwardly for a long moment. Will tries to ignore the way Mike’s hair is adorably rumpled and the pillow lines indented on his face.
“Uh, I mean—” Mike says at the same time that Will says, “Listen—”
“You go first,” Will says, rubbing his neck awkwardly and then withdrawing his hand immediately in case Mike thinks it’s Vecna-related even though Vecna is one-hundred percent dead. Like head chopped clean off dead. He's maybe not thinking fully straight, at the moment, sue him.
“I was just—do you remember what I said to you on the radio tower?” Mike asks, his hands fidgeting with his blanket.
“How could I forget?” Will asks, unimpressed.
“Right. I mean it was such a stupid thing to say—I don’t know what was going through my head. I mean obviously there was the Vecna stuff and everything but, what I said was really dumb. I was just—I think I was deflecting?” Mike says, his voice going up at the end.
“Deflecting?” Will raises his brows, still very much so unimpressed.
“Yeah, I—I think…I mean not think—I mean I’ve been thinking for the past like year or whatever about everything that you said and how you’re—you know—and you were looking at me when you said all that about liking someone who couldn’t like you back and—you have a crush on me, right?”
Will stares at Mike. Stares and stares and then stares some more for good measure. “It took you a year to figure out that I was talking about you?” Will asks, dumbfounded. Mike is smart, but not in matters of the heart, apparently.
“I mean I suspected, especially because Dustin and Lucas were making fun of me, but I didn’t like know know until recently,” Mike says awkwardly.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” Mike says back. Will is pretty sure this is the single most awkward conversation he’s had with anyone. “But like. You were wrong.”
Will unwittingly feels his mouth drop open. “I was wrong about…what, being gay?”
Mike immediately shakes his head, turning bright red and waving his arm kind of haphazardly. “No! No, that’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?” Will sets down his sleeping bag and pillow, realizing he’s still clutching them to his chest.
“I meant that—I mean like—when you said that…the guy—me—couldn’t like you back.” Mike pauses for a long moment, Will’s heart feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest. “You were wrong.”
“What?” Will says, his eyes feel like they’re going to bug out of his skull. If he hadn’t already dropped his sleeping bag and pillow he would’ve now.
“I—I like you,” Mike admits softly, his eyes turned down to his lap. He glances up at Will, his eyes immediately dropping back down after. “Like a lot. Like I’m in love with you, I think.”
“Oh,” Will breathes. “Are you sure?”
He catches Mike’s eye a moment later. “Let me prove it to you?”
Will nods mutely then stands there for another moment like an idiot. Mike pushing the blanket off his lap and standing is what finally snaps him out of his frozen state. He walks up to Mike cautiously, like none of this is real, like it could all vanish in an instant.
“Hi,” Mike murmurs when they’re so close Will can feel Mike’s breath on his lips.
“Hi,” Will says back lamely.
“Can I—?” Mike says, cutting himself off, but his eyes are focused down at Will’s lips.
Will nods without saying a word, a second later Mike pushes forward, tentatively pressing their lips together. Will leans in slightly. Mike’s lips are chapped and warm and Will thinks he might die.
The kiss is soft. Sweet. Everything Will thinks he’s ever wanted. Mike pulls back after a second. “Is it good?” he asks nervously.
Will huffs a soft laugh. “Yeah, it’s good, Mike. Really good.”
Mike grins and leans forward, pressing a more insistent kiss to Will’s lips. Between the two of them, Will knows Mike has more experience, so he lets Mike lead, simply enjoying the feeling of being kissed.
Will doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of kissing Mike. It’s the most perfect feeling he thinks he’s ever experienced.
After a few more kisses, they end up lying side by side on Mike’s bed, Mike’s right hand entwined with Will’s left one.
“When did you find out?” Will asks. “That you might…be like me?”
“After El and I broke up—I did really like her—and I think I, um, still like girls, but then I couldn’t stop looking at you and I kept thinking that you were really pretty and eventually it got to be a little too much. And I realized that I felt the same way about you as I did with El at the beginning of our relationship. I mean I denied it for a really long time, evidently. I don't think I would've said anything if you hadn't heard me. Maybe I would've one day but it would've taken me a long time.”
Will nods even though Mike is looking up at the ceiling. “It's hard,” Will says quietly.
“Yeah,” Mike agrees. “If you had never come out, I'm not sure I would've figured it out.”
“I’m glad you did,” Will murmurs.
“I’m pretty sure Dustin and Lucas—and El and Max now that I think about it—figured it out before I did.” Mike laughs lightly.
“Probably.”
Mike shoves him a little with his free hand. “You’re not supposed to agree,” Mike says, shoving Will again and somehow ends up straddling Will’s lap.
He leans down like he can’t help himself and presses their lips together in another soft kiss. Will is pretty sure Mike can’t get enough of kissing him either.
When they pull apart, Will grins. “We’re not going to be able to keep this from everyone else for like even a second.”
Mike groans and buries his face in Will’s shoulder.
Here, tucked into Mike Wheeler’s bed with Mike kissing him like it’s normal, like it’s okay, Will thinks he’s finally found the place where he belongs—where he feels safe—where he wants to spend the rest of his life.
He loves Mike Wheeler.
Mike Wheeler loves him back.