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He should have been the first of the party to stand up.
Mike should have been the first to unabashedly assure Will that it was okay–more than okay to be himself to the fullest extent. Should’ve been the first to wrap his arms around Will, even before Jonathan had the chance, holding him tightly in a crushing embrace; a moment he would wish were private before the others joined in, too.
But Mike didn’t do any of that.
Though he wanted to. Mike instantly regrets that he didn’t, but his focus got caught on words that struck him like a freight train.
‘I had this crush… He was just my Tammy.’
After his visit to Lenora, Mike began to consider that Will's feelings towards him could potentially be something... more. Though Mike had been painfully oblivious of his best friend’s feelings for so long, even he would end up connecting at least some of the dots:
Will had been working on a painting, as told by El in one of her letters to Mike. El believed Will was painting something for a new crush he had in California. Will brought a painting to the airport that he was supposedly ‘still working on,’ (why would he bring an unfinished art piece to the airport when he definitely wasn’t going to work on it there?). Coincidentally, days later, Will presented a painting to Mike he had created for him, allegedly commissioned by El. Will had poured…her heart out(?) to him about what the painting represented–feelings in stark contrast to what El had felt towards Mike during his visit.
After they all left Lenora and arrived back at Hopper's cabin, Mike had taken the chance to ask El about the painting, in hopes the mention of it could maybe spark a conversation, and repair this tangible, seemingly unfixable tension between them, no matter what the outcome could be. But all the question brought him was even more confusion.
El had no idea what Mike was talking about.
What could this mean, other than maybe Will trying to meddle in their relationship and help work out the kinks? But Will hadn’t known there were any problems between them until around the time he gave Mike the painting–one that he had clearly been painstakingly working on prior to his visit. The timing made no sense, which destroyed the theory. The only theory that was holding up? The feelings Will shared with Mike were actually his own, under the guise of being El’s. It seemed he could very well be his best friend’s crush, to put the feelings lightly. And, truthfully? Mike could live with this. He definitely, undeniably could accept that reality. But what he can’t live with? Couldn’t even begin to accept?
The idea that Will, now apparently, had let this ‘crush’ go.
Once Mike snapped out of his bombardment of racing thoughts, he’d, of course, joined the party in wholeheartedly accepting Will, sealing the moment with a tender group hug, and some tears shed, too.
After the intense, yet alleviating moment came to a beautifully assuring close, and the plans of action were gone over for the hundredth time, all members of the party made their exits, striding towards their last (as well as, for some, first) journey to the Upside Down. However, Will decided he’d stay behind, ‘just for a few minutes,’ he promised.
Despite the overwhelming support and acceptance and love he had received from literally everyone he cares about, it was still overwhelming, nonetheless. He needed a moment alone to collect himself, especially before their plan to save the world took action. Really, no one could blame him.
While the others of course respected Will’s wishes without question, Mike lingered behind the moving bodies. He watched cautiously as everyone made their way out of the building, leaning his back against the frame of the door once they were all finally out. Yet to be noticed, he trained his eyes on Will, watching as he took a seat on the little green couch, a shaky sigh escaping his throat.
Now, as he stands in silence observing the boy, Mike can practically feel the tension buzzing off him. He clenches his jaw tightly, swallowing thickly before closing the door–a wordless signal to Will that he is still here.
Will jumps slightly at the sudden sound, raising his downturned head, glossy eyes meeting with an unexpected look of distress. Mike may not be the best at verbalizing what he’s feeling, but more often than not, it’ll be written all over his face to analyze anyway.
“Mike?” Will questions, slightly adjusting his posture as he looks at his best friend; confused not only by him staying behind, but shutting the door as well, a sure sign of wanting a moment of privacy. He swallows.
“I’m sorry,” Mike starts. No plan. Mike…actually doesn’t know where he will go with this. Where he should. Like, at all. Those words are simply the first to leave his mouth; the ones he wants Will to hear outright.
Will blinks, staying silent for a beat. “For what?”
Mike inhales, then vaguely motions his hands. “That you couldn’t have…done that under different circumstances.” Just one of the many things he’s sorry for. “It isn’t fair.”
“Oh. It’s okay.” Will shifts slightly, shaky fingers tugging at the holes of his sleeves.
“Who knows if I'd ever have the guts to do it otherwise? I mean, I don’t know if I'd even get the chance to do it after tonight--”
“Whoa, hey,” Mike interrupts. His body moves on autopilot as he strides over to the couch, plopping himself down at Will’s side. He grips his hand tightly on Will's shoulder, locking his eyes on his. Moves his face close enough to feel it as Will's breath hitches against his lips.
“You’re getting through this, Will. We all are,” he promises. “There's absolutely no reality where Vecna ever wins this. Okay? Especially not when the whole party is finally back together.”
Will nods softly.
“I know,” he agrees, placing a hand tentatively over Mike's. Contrary to his uncertain touch, Will sounds convinced, and Mike's tense shoulders loosen up a smidge.
“But on the off chance things don’t go as planned...I’m glad I told you.” Will’s eyes finally shift away as the words leave his mouth. “All of you. Even though, yeah, it wasn’t ideal…But your responses were,” his eyes slowly travel back to Mike’s, a small smile creeping up on his face. “So thank you,” he whispers, his index and middle fingers hooking softly around Mike’s.
Mike’s stomach begins to flutter. He melts into a warm puddle as Will so goddamn sweetly thanks him for being understanding at all, despite being a god damn idiot who didn’t jump up at the first chance to comfort and assure Will. An idiot who didn't do near enough. The world truly doesn’t deserve this boy. Mike definitely included. He smiles back rather bashfully in response, until the grin fades into something more like discontent as his mind rudely drags him back to a moment of Will's speech that dug at his insides.
“Hey, uh, Will,” Mike starts awkwardly, needlessly clearing his throat. “I wanted to ask–who’s Tammy? I mean, I don't know if I exactly…followed what you meant by that.”
Will’s gentle smile falls into something somehow more fragile. Breakable. He should have expected Mike to question the vague mention of some stranger, who was apparently pivotal to his own self acceptance. Rather, he did expect it, just…didn’t expect Mike to ask him about it now. He takes a deep, quiet breath, slowly removing his hand from Mike’s as he settles his hands in his lap instead, fixing his eyes aimlessly on the table in front of him.
Mike silently mourns the loss of contact, his fingers slightly twitching in the cold absence of Will’s.
“I, um. I have this friend. And, she’s like…me. Or well, the opposite of me, I guess?” Will fumbles. “I mean, she likes girls. And she—she had this crush on a girl named Tammy…And she thought that if Tammy had feelings for her, she could finally be comfortable with herself. But that crush…” Will slowly searches Mike's eyes, clearly looking for something before averting them again. He sighs softly. “It didn't work out; Tammy wasn’t like her. She liked someone else–a boy. And obviously, it hurt her a lot…But after a while, she realized that the crush she had on Tammy seemed to be based on a hope to find acceptance from someone else, rather than acceptance from herself.”
An uncomfortable heat runs through Mike's bones. A sickly feeling gnaws at his stomach. So that’s what a ‘Tammy’ is. He fidgets aimlessly with the strap wrapped around his thigh.
“Oh,” Mike responds very intelligently, far too long after Will has stopped talking to be acceptable. But of course, Will remains patient.
“So…your crush. Your crush was like that? The same as Tammy?” he questions. “Like, it…he didn’t actually mean much else to you?”
Will turns his head so quickly, he could have gotten whiplash from the movement.
“What?” His heart starts to hammer uncomfortably hard. If he wasn’t so focused on Mike right now, he might be worried the beating could break a rib.
“You didn’t love him.” Said as a fact by Mike, not a question. “He was just a fleeting crush you already got over. Someone who helped you accept yourself.”
Will's throat goes dry.
No. Nonono.
“I mean, I wouldn't…say it’s the exact same situation?” he admits, and doesn’t know why he does. Will should shut this conversation down, now, and keep anything else ambiguous for the rest of his life. He already let Mike and everyone else in his life know he doesn't like girls–it doesn't need to go any deeper than that. For Mike's sake. Their friendship’s sake. It’s worth far too much to him to risk ruining.
But Mike leans in closer.
“How is it different? Tell me.” Words intensely spoken. Unbridled yearning mistaken for something more like taunting.
“Mike…” Will whimpers out a plea of his name as every last muscle in his body tenses up. His mind is begging him to scoot back, get as far away from Mike and this moment as possible, but he’s completely frozen. He he may very well close in on himself, like a spider after death. He really might have just got caught in a web he didn't realize Mike was weaving, and doesn’t understand why it was woven to begin with.
It would be impossible not to sense Will's growing discomfort, and Mike places a ginger, yet firm hand on Will's knee, determined to soothe him.
“Hey,” Mike starts softly, a tone of voice only ever spoken to Will. Specially reserved for Will. “I’m your best friend. You're my best friend,” he reminds, locking his eyes on Will's blown pupils. “I want to know everything you’ve been going through all this time…you know? What you’ve kept from me…” Mike pleas, absentmindedly brushing a thumb over Will's knee.
Will's blood pressure has raised so greatly he would probably collapse upon standing. He sucks on his lower lip for a moment, attempting and failing to ground himself.
“I…” he starts, trying to swallow down his anxiety as he searches for a place to begin. How could he ever deny Mike, especially when he speaks to him so caringly?
Screw Vecna’s curse. The Curse of Mike is something so much worse.
“My…my friend–the one who liked Tammy. She has a girlfriend now. Someone she really loves,” Will starts. “When I found out about that, I asked her how she knew her feelings were reciprocated this time…How she knew it was safe to make a move on her.”
Mike’s eyes remain trained on Will as he listens intently. Will doesn't think Mike has blinked in over a minute.
“She told me to look out for certain signals from him.” Signals Will will not name right now. His feelings for Mike would be a goddamn dead giveaway if he did, assuming Mike isn’t that oblivious to his own actions.
“And, uh, the signals–they were there. They'd actually been there for longer than I even realized.” He chuckles a little, and Mike offers a soft smile.
“But I think–I think I read them all wrong? Read way too much into them,” he lightly shakes his head as he dwells on it, embarrassed even now.
“I even…tried to signal back.” Will's voice dwindles down to something smaller, hazel eyes drifting shyly from Mike's again. “But he didn’t respond the way I thought he would. The way I’d hoped. It made me rethink everything.” His voice is beginning to crack, and his face flushes as he catches the sound in his own ears.
“I want to be over him, like she was able to get over Tammy. I want him to just be my Tammy, but, god, I know he’s so much more than that. Even though I know he and I can't ever be more.” He trails teary eyes back to Mike's own glistening, a less than halfhearted smile on Will’s lips.
“Because…
we’re just…friends.”
Oh. Oh.
Mike's heart twists. It falls in on itself, shattering until it’s reduced to dust. His hand instinctively squeezes Will's knee. He is so much more than desperate to reassure him, yet so unsure of how without revealing a secret of his own. The secret. But, fuck, isn’t that just what he owes Will, if this is truly what Mike thinks it is? Hopes to god it could be?
He does owe it. So he takes the chance.
“Best friends,” Mike corrects softly, speaking through the nauseating constriction in his throat.
A beat goes by. Will could swear his heart stops pumping blood.
“Mike…” he whispers shakily, on the verge of his very being crumbling right in front of Mike. He’s finally, undeniably been found out. After years of push and pull between wanting Mike to know, and fearing he’d ever realize it.
There’s no going back from this. There would be no way to.
“Will,” Mike whispers back, far more gently than the other.
Just the sound of his name forces out a small, pained cry from Will’s throat, and Mike's heart just wrenches.
“Will,” he repeats, the heartache thick in his voice. “Listen to me.” He steals one of Will's hands from his lap, tightly entwining trembling fingers with his own.
“I don't want to be your ‘Tammy’. I'm not,” Mike admits. “How could you ever consider that I would be? After everything?” The question is not accusatory, despite his hurt. Only sympathetic. Softly spoken.
“What signal did I miss, Will? Tell me,” he pleads, squeezing the boy’s smaller hand in his.
Will is caught between laughing and crying, so he does a little bit of both in a choked sob. Maybe he is just in denial, but Mike’s response is unclear to him. He doesn't want to be his Tammy…why? Because he wants to mean more to Will than something like that? Or because, god forbid, Mike actually reciprocates how he feels? Either way, he’s at least too overwhelmed to deny that Mike’s assumption is true--this is about him.
“It’s stupid–” he cries.
“It’s not,” Mike promises in an instant. He raises the hand that is not holding Will’s to caress his cheek, wiping a warm tear away with his thumb. “It’s not.”
Will concedes, a feeling of defeat clouding over him.
“When…When we were walking in the field,” Will admits. “The conversation we had–you told me I was like a sorcerer. I just…I was crazy enough to think you might somehow be flirting with me, especially because you’d been giving me signals all day. So I stupidly shoved you to flirt back, but then you walked away and–”
“Will.” With a sympathetic warmth in his voice, he interrupts the boy for the umpteenth time. Not out of selfishness, but in hopes to reassure Will as quickly as possible. To take his undeserved pain away.
“You weren’t crazy for thinking that,” Mike assures, holding Will’s face a tad more firmly, forcing Will’s eyes to meet with his.
“I was absolutely, one hundred percent, undeniably flirting with you,” Mike admits. His cheeks are warm as the words leave his mouth and dance in his own ears. It’s more than surreal to admit, but there’s no reason to hide it now. Not with each and every one of their cards lying on the table, begging to be examined at all angles.
Mouth slightly agape, Will takes in a short breath, brows furrowing in question, disbelief. Mike smiles a bit shyly, giving him a small nod before walking him through it.
“Will, when you shoved me like that, I was totally caught off guard,” he explains. “I got so… flustered–I had to walk away from you before you could tell what it did to me," Mike chuckles. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you give me a…signal like that. I hardly knew what to do with it, so I went the safe route and did nothing but be a coward,” he explains, the disappointment in himself seeping through his words. “I was stupid, Will. Not you. Never you.”
Will is speechless. The explanation…actually makes perfect sense, especially given that Will had been almost positive that Mike really had been flirting with him. Had been for a while now. But Will doesn't tend to be a very lucky guy. It’s hard to wrap his head around that this is real, and Mike is willing to be honest.
“You…” he begins. Doesn’t know how or where to start. He’s known Mike for nearly his entire life. Probably even longer than that, in past lives together. “How long?” he chokes out. He doesn’t need to say more for Mike to understand.
“Too long to have not said something a while ago,” Mike admits, trying not to let the regret of it lace into his words. The look in his eyes is already telling enough.
Will lets out a short laugh, relating a little too deeply to not feel a sting in his chest. Despite everything, he hopes Mike never had to feel the same pain Will did over him. Residual tears slide down his cheeks, and Mike catches them for him quickly.
“Jesus Christ, Mike–you like me?” It should be obvious by now, and it is. But Will needs solid proof. He needs to hear absolute confirmation from Mike’s mouth. Because this…this isn’t the sort of thing that happens to Will.
Mike can’t blame Will’s resistance to believe him, not after all that Mike has put him through over the years. He vows in this moment to make it all up to Will and then some, somehow.
“Well, I’d argue that’s a very lackluster way to put my feelings for you, but yeah. I like you, Will,” Mike confirms.
Will’s lip trembles. He trembles. After all the scarring turmoil he has been drowning in for years has finally got him somewhere. Has got him here. He’s made his way to the surface, and he feels like he can finally breathe. And yet, it’s so overwhelming that he can’t help but choke on the feeling, anyway.
“Mike,” he cries, and can barely finish speaking his name before being pulled into a bone crushing hug, the kind Mike regrets not giving him earlier.
“I’ve been such an ignorant asshole, Will. For so damn long.” Mike’s voice is straining, but he carries on. “I must’ve…I know put you through so much bullshit you’d never even begin to deserve, but you still…still–”
It’s Will’s turn to interrupt him. His words are muffled into Mike’s camo vest. “Because I know you. Because I love you, Mike. I know you didn’t mean to. That isn’t who you are.”
A small, pained sob leaves Mike’s throat.
Love.
He is by far the richest goddamn man in the world, being loved by Will. And the least worthy of it, he’s sure.
“But I still did it anyway,” he mourns, “and I’m so fucking sorry. I’ll never forgive myself for any pain I’ve ever put you through. God, Will, I love you– I’ve never been so sure of anything more in my life. I just want to see you happy, Will. I want to make you happy.”
Now it’s Will holding to Mike like he’s his life source.
“Mike, it’s okay.”
Mike shakes his head fervently against Will’s neck.
“No, it's not. I treated you like total shit when I visited you in California. Treated you like shit before that, when you weren't even here. A-And I blamed you for the distance between us even though I didn’t even send you any of those goddamn letters I wrote you. Fuck, Will, I was so stupid. So, so stupid. I’m so sorry.”
Now Will openly sobs, and Mike sobs right back. They hold each other so tightly, allowing themselves to be the blubbering, lovestruck idiots they are for a few moments.
Will has so many questions, so many things from over the years he wants to admit to Mike. But for right now, with time very much not on their side, this is all he truly needs to begin his heart’s long overdue reparations.
“I forgive you, Mike.” Will’s voice is slightly more steady, yet remains a bit out of breath. He slowly pulls away to look at Mike’s face, his heart aching to see the tears spilled on his cheeks. Now, it’s Will’s turn to wipe Mike’s tears as he cups his face in both his hands, gently swiping his thumbs against his stupidly soft skin. “You’re my best friend. Nothing could ever change that.”
Mike nods, taking in a deep breath to begin steadying himself. He holds his hands over Will’s, aching to keep their contact as close as possible for as long as possible, especially as he realizes they must pull away soon. The world is quite literally depending on them to save it right now.
“When this is all over…Once we’re safe. We’ll talk more, okay? We’ll talk so much more. About everything. I wish we could now, but…”
“But we’ve kinda got the entire world to save?” Will smirks softly.
Both boys chuckle, despite the suffocating weight of it all. Being with each other can make anything just a bit lighter. Even the very real possibility of armageddon.
“Yeah. No big deal, really,” Mike sighs. He squeezes to Will’s hands before letting go, grasping onto Will’s sides instead. He takes a quiet moment to simply drink in the sight of Will. His beautiful, beautiful Will.
“But for now, before we go out there. I want to make sure you know I love you, Will. I’ve been in love with you for so much longer than I was even aware,” he reminds, wanting Will to hear it through confident words that aren’t caught between wild sobs. “I refuse to waste any more time ignoring it, or being afraid of it. I just want to be with you, Will, and I hope you do, too.”
Will lets out a breath that he feels like he’s been holding in his entire life. And then the rest of the air is knocked out of him as he refuses to let fear get in his way, either. He pulls the boy in closer by the hold he has on his face, kissing Mike Wheeler on the lips like he’s dreamed of doing since he was twelve. It’s short, but incredibly warm and tender, as well as reciprocated by the boy he loves so dearly.
“Of course I do. I thought you were done being stupid,” Will laughs breathlessly against Mike’s curled lips.
“Hardly.” Mike kisses him again. Because he can. And he doesn’t know when he will be able to again. But he doesn’t dwell on it now, instead smiling unabashedly at Will after he pulls away, then stands up with an extended hand to help him up from the couch.
“C’mon. World to save, remember?” Mike lightly teases as he pulls Will up. They squeeze each other's hands as they share a look, Will giving him a nod as they walk together toward the exit. But Will pauses as Mike reaches for the doorknob with his free hand, releasing the one Mike holds his own with. Mike turns his head, brows furrowed deeply in question as Will lets him go.
“You don’t have to,” Will explains. “In front of everyone.”
Mike’s face softens. He reaches out without hesitation, and grips his hand tighter than before.
“The only thing I'm ashamed of is how I treated you before, Will. Not of you,” Mike whispers, pulling the boy’s hand up to kiss his knuckles gently.
Will has to hold back the tears that are forming once again, but this time, they’re accompanied with a bright smile. He nods again, wiping his eyes as they exit the radio station together, marching towards the truck that waits on them, hand in hand.