Chapter Text
1995
Mike’s POV
It was lightly raining outside the glass windows of the Pittsburgh International Airport when Michael Wheeler burst through the double metal doors of the boarding area. He scanned the room for someone familiar, but his face dropped when he didn’t see anyone. He quickly picked up his luggage and ran outside to meet Lucas. He scanned the wet and foggy parking lot until he noticed him. Except there’s someone else there too. He recognized the face of his childhood best friend, now buried deep in memories, or at least that’s what Mike thought. Damp hair sticking to his forehead, his hazel eyes shining, holding a burgundy suitcase. It was Will. His Will.
Suddenly, memories flooded his mind of the day Will came out to them; '“I had this crush on someone, even though I know they’re not like me. And then I realized that he’s just my Tammy.” Mike was staring at him, frozen, trying to understand what he meant by that, and why was Will looking at him like that when saying it?' 'Why was he having that flashback anyway? Was he hoping for it?'
They made eye contact. His face was too far away for him to be able to read it. Mike smiled subtly, but the distance and fogginess covered it. Mike’s heart raced as he came closer to Will.
The rain made it feel like he was walking in slow motion, and looking at the cement of the parking lot wasn’t helping. He couldn’t stop thinking about all the times at home when he was missing his best friend. After saying that in the fall of ‘87, Mike regretted it every single second, and for his 'luck', he felt like Will was distancing himself from him.
“Hi!” said Mike with a tiny bit of excitement.
“Hi Mike, it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, hasn’t it?” Lucas said as he patted Mike’s back, took his luggage, and put it into the back of the car.
Mike looked at Will, hopeful for some acknowledgment, but Will just gave him a weak smile.
“Max’s waiting at the reception, let’s go?” Lucas said while leading Mike into the back seat, Will behind them.
“How are you?” Will asks, and Mike’s happy that he started the conversation first.
“Oh, Will! How’s life in New York? Did you make any ‘friends’?” Lucas asked while driving out of the parking lot, interrupting their little moment.
“Yeah, life is fine, and no, not really,” Will replied, the corner of his eye looking at Mike.
After Will said that, Mike’s imaginary weight on his shoulders lifted, and he let out a small exhale. Though he didn’t know why exactly this was happening. 'What does this mean? Why did I, all of a sudden, become happy that my best friend didn’t have a boyfriend? What was that weight on my shoulders that I hadn’t realized was there?'
The rest of the drive was quiet, just the sound of the rain and Mike’s thoughts ringing inside his head.
“Cool! We’re almost there, so make sure you don’t leave anything behind!” Lucas spoke.
Mike helps out with Will’s and his luggage, and they follow behind Lucas, not making eye contact.
“Hey, you guys! Thank you for coming to my wedding.” Max welcomes them excitedly.
“Our wedding.” Lucas shoots back at her.
Max gives him a quick side-eye, and Lucas acknowledges it. Mike realizes how much he has missed this, them; he has been so lonely back at home staring at his typewriter; it’s better than sitting at his desk, staring at the typewriter.
‘‘Come on, I’ll take you to your room.” Max directs Mike and Will up the stairs. They make brief eye contact before turning back to Max.
When Max opens the door and gives them the key, she mentions the dinner at 7 pm, and quickly walks out, as if she knew something was going on. Mike and Will take a scan across the room.
The yellow lightning turns the sheets more green than their actual blue color. There’s a wooden nightstand on each side of the queen-sized bed. The walls are pearl white, and the floor is wooden. There’s a mini TV between the door and the hard-looking sofa. It feels pretty cozy, and it should be OK for a week; it’s nothing special.
They look at each other, confused. Mike runs out into the hallway.
‘‘Wait, Max, there’s only one bed, how are we suppos- " But before he could finish the sentence, Max cuts him off.
‘‘Not my problem! I’m sure you’ll figure something out.” Max shouts back.
Mike stands in the hallway for a few seconds, deep in his thoughts. 'Figure something out, how?'
He walks back into the room and shares what Max told him.
‘‘Wow… Well, I suppose I could sleep on the floor. I have my sleeping bag anyway, so it won’t be a problem. Let me just find it,” Will mentions, as he already digs through his backpack and suitcase.
Mike just stands there, frozen, and stares at him, thinking. 'When did he get so cute?' He quickly thinks of somewhere to sit so he doesn’t look like a statue. He sits on the hard-looking sofa, which is really quite hard, and continues to look at the boy with whom he had been best friends for a long time. All of a sudden, there’s a hope that he can’t really describe, that Will will not find his sleeping bag.
Will grunts as he can’t find his sleeping bag. After all, it isn’t like they never shared a bed: when Dustin, Lucas, Will, and Mike were younger, sleepovers were maybe one of their favorite things to do, as they could do such cool things as roleplaying as their D&D characters or even watch movies.
Since Will came back from the upside-down, Mike and Will slept together a lot of times, making the sorcerer feel safer close to the paladin. So it is just like old times, a sleepover with his all-time best friend. But it’s still awkward when you don’t see each other for a long time.
“Looks like we’re gonna need to sleep together in the bed after all,” Will says, with a flirty subtone to his voice. Mike notices it, but tries not to think much of that—they’re best friends after all, and best friends do it all the time, right? Plus, he’ll have what he was wanting, right? Just best friend behavior.
They both look at the bed, and Mike says:
“On which side do you wanna sleep?”
“I can sleep on the left” Will answers.
“OK”
They both climb onto their respective sides, Mike being more on the front and Will leaning on one of his pillows. Mike grabs the TV remote and scrolls through the channels, deciding on MTV.
Mike starts to regret not talking about the new limited-edition comic he found with him. If Will had seen it, he would have totally wanted to read it, and Mike could even have shown him his favorite panels. 'I’m sure he would have loved it… Maybe I could talk to him about it; maybe the atmosphere will change, and we’ll talk like we used to when we were little, being absolute fans of every nerdy thing we could get our hands on. Oh, to have a conversation like before with him again… Well, I still have time, so I hope I can talk to him next time.'
While Will is busy watching the video clip of “7” by Prince, Mike takes a quick look at Will, and can’t help but stare and admire the way his cheekbones and jawline got sharper, but his signature smile and eyes were still there. All of a sudden, Mike slightly started to blush, but he blamed it on the heat.
“It’s too hot, isn’t it? Maybe I can turn the heat a little bit lower?”
“Yeah, um, OK,” Will responded, but with a certain tone that Mike couldn’t identify.
Mike stood up and went to check the heater. It was in one of the lowest modes already, but if it was, then… 'Why am I sensing some kind of heat in my face? Was it the running? Everything but that. Everyone admires their best friend, right?'. Suddenly, Mike realized Will was actually trembling a little.
“Will, you can talk to me. Are you cold? I don’t mind being a little hot if you’re not freezing.” Mike asked, with his soft voice that was reserved only for Will.
“Just a little anyway,” Will said. “Actually, could you turn the heat up? It’s giving me goosebumps”.
Mike knew why the goosebumps were appearing; it was because of the upside-down, which was sealed, but the government-issued therapy for the trauma wasn’t gonna work that quickly when they spent their whole teenage years trying to battle it. After all, Mike knew him better than anyone, or so he used to.
He quickly turned the heat up so that Will could feel comfortable.
“Thanks. By the way, what time is it?” Will asked, gently smiling.
Mike looked at the clock. “It’s 6 pm. We still have one hour ‘till dinner. I think I’m gonna shower and get ready.”
Mike walked to his luggage, picked up some clothes and toiletries, and went to the bathroom to take a shower. While he was showering, he could hear the TV playing, but he didn’t think that he’s actually that invested in music videos. 'He probably is sorting some things or drawing,' he thought to himself.
Around 15 minutes later, Mike got out of the bathroom refreshed, ready to go, though they still had 45 minutes. When he got out, he scanned the room for Will and quickly found him sitting at his side of the bed, looking at Mike, wearing black formal pants and a navy blue shirt. Mike couldn’t stop himself from thinking that he looked really good. Well, he’s sort of supposed to lift his best friend, right?
“Oh, you look excellent,” Mike said, trying so hard to sound normal and casual, but it backfired a little.
“Thanks, you too,” Will replied, while blushing, and Mike sensed some heat going through his face, but he blamed it again on the increased heat.
There was a long pause, where you could only hear the sound of rain.
“Well, we should tidy our bed and our things for us to come back and have everything ready, right?” Will said, and Mike nodded in response. Mike was thrilled that they were talking, even if just over small things; he was happy to spend time with his best friend.
In college, Mike found some friends, but none of them made him as good as Will had, and when he heard about Max and Lucas’ wedding, he proposed that he could come and help with the preparations, hoping that Will had done the same.
After they were done tidying up, they turned on the TV again and went through some channels.
After a while of insufferable silence, they decided to go down to the reception and sit in the lobby waiting for everyone.
A couple of minutes later, everyone was gathered around the lobby.
"OK, time to start. Get ready, people, for the most painful hour of your life." Max said, ironically, leading everyone to the dining room.
Everyone came in and took their designated seats. The room was compact and had mirrors on both sides of the walls. There was a landscape painting, followed by a white rose illustration, and in the middle was a rectangular wooden table with eight chairs. On the table, there were chicken wings, salad, potatoes, and some crispy patas, probably inquired by Max.
Will and Mike sat next to each other, with Nancy and Robin in front of them. Next to Mike was Dustin, and in front of him was Steve. In the back was Max, and in the front was Lucas.
“I’m so glad that all of you guys could come help with our wedding, despite all the colleges and everything. It means so much to us that you could help with it. Thanks” Lucas said, smiling ear to ear.
“And for that, we’d like to announce what you guys will need to do, because there’s no way out anymore. So, Robin and Nancy, could you guys help us with the general planning?” Max announced with her smirky and feeling ‘proud’ voice.
“Yeah, of course,” Robin replied, and Nancy nodded in agreement.
“Will and Mike, could you organize the welcome party and collect the fittings? Oh, and plan the dances?”
“Um, yeah, of course,” Will responded, and Mike was thrilled that he’d have time with his best friend. He nodded in agreement.
“Dustin, Steve, could you guys be the ‘animators’? We need more fun, the wedding’s too boring for now.”
“Yes!” Dustin screamed, high-fiving Steve.
“OK, perfect! Now we can get to the normal parts of dinner,” Max finalized, as she picked one crispy pata. “Enjoy!”
As Max said that, everyone started serving themselves.
"So, how has everyone been? I know we haven’t gotten time to catch up because we’ve been so busy trying to control all the chaos." Max said, looking at Lucas. "Robin, we haven’t heard a lot from you. How’s college?’’
"College is fun, everyone is friendly and quite loud, and I’m currently working on an essay; it’s about cannibalism, and I was actually thinking of asking Jonathan for help, but he’s-" Everyone quiets down and stares at her. "Oops, sorry, I guess this isn’t a really appropriate topic for dinner.” She says with an awkward giggle.
"I’ve also been to quite a few parties, which is a nice change from home, even though college parties are probably cleaner than high school parties, but unfortunately, I wouldn’t know.”
Mike’s eyes zone out through the mirror, where he notices Will looking at him. Will’s eyes are looking at his, while Mike can’t control himself, and his eyes land on Will’s lips. “Crap.” Mike tries to quickly return his gaze to Will’s eyes.
Will starts to look more intensely in Mike’s eyes, trying to read it as a book. In the meantime, Mike accidentally brushes his shoe against something. He keeps brushing up against it, until Will glances over at him, real eye contact this time, and says:
“Uhm, do you mind moving your foot?”
At first, Mike doesn’t realize what he’s talking about, but then clocks him, and realizes he’s been brushing Will’s foot. Heat comes across his face, and he quickly drags away his foot. He stares at his food, trying to forget what just happened.
“So, Lucas, when do we need to collect the fittings?” Mike asked, trying to distract himself from what just happened.
“Around 3 PM tomorrow at the wedding clothing store near the hotel. Can you guys try on and pick our things up?” Lucas replied.
They both nodded in agreement.
The time passed quickly with all the chatting going on, and next thing you know, it’s already 9 PM, and everyone is saying their good nights and heading back to their rooms.
Will and Mike find themselves walking in the corridors, staring awkwardly at the floor as they get to their room.
When they get to their room, Mike opens the door for Will, and Will hurries to get to the bathroom.
“If it’s okay with you, I’m going to go shower now,” Will says.
“Yeah, of course,” Mike replies quietly. He’s kinda glad to be left alone after a long and confusing day. He heads near the bed, getting his clothes ready for tomorrow.
Once Will got out of the shower, water was dripping on the floor. As Will stood there uncomfortably, Mike realized he was staring intensely, again. He stood up, avoiding talking, and went to the bathroom.
Once he got out, Will was already in bed with his sketchbook, doodling.
After a while of silence, Mike comprehends that he’s been stupid all this time trying to avoid Will. After all, he’s been waiting for this moment, the day they see each other again. Mike goes up to the bed and sits down on it, ready to start a conversation.
“Wanna get breakfast tomorrow? We should have plenty of time before we need to pick up the suits, and everyone will be busy anyway.” Mike asks, and he realizes he might have said too much, but to his surprise, he notices that Will’s eyes are sort of shining.
“Yeah, that sounds fun. I saw a beautiful cafe when we drove here. We should try that out.” Will answered, unsurely blushing. Mike nods.
After a little while, Mike falls asleep, making sure that his feelings are buried deep down, but never unreachable.