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“So what? Every guy’s liked another guy at some point in their lives.”
And, just like that, you could hear a pin drop.
Every body slowly turns to face Mike Wheeler. Not a breath could be heard, as though the world stopped revolving the second the words left his mouth.
Mike scans the room of the WSQK base and rolls his shoulders back, straightens his spine, uncomfortable under the scrutiny. “What? I’m being supportive. He’s,” Mike gestures to Will, whose expression is completely indecipherable, “not as different as he thinks he is.”
As Mike glances around the faces staring him down for the second time, he begins to realize not just Will is uncharacteristically unreadable; Mike can’t get a good read on anybody in the room. Shit.
In the throes of a literal apocalypse, it slipped Mike’s mind that he — like most everyone else in this room — grew up, lived, and currently stood in a small town in the middle of nowhere, Indiana, that was equally as small-minded. While Will’s closest friends and family had remained by his side, Mike hadn’t considered the rest of the ragtag gang. Would they not be as supportive of Will as he thought? Was it so easy to crack apart the rest of the party? Did they really think Will was so different? He’d been so focused on what Will was saying, so focused on schooling his expression to be mostly-neutral, he didn’t know anyone’s initial reaction to Will admitting to every person Mike could gather that Will doesn’t like girls.
“Oh, my God!” Robin explodes, a laugh gracing her slack jaw and shattering the tempered glass Mike was stuck behind. Mike practically jumps to face her. “Are we getting another look into a closet? Are we so lucky? Two in one night. I mean, wow!” Steve shoves at her shoulder and she glances back, looks back to Mike, notices the utter bewilderment painted across Mike’s face, and shuts her mouth.
So, then… This wasn’t about thinking Will was too different? Mike is instantly eased. Of course Will wasn’t too different, or any different at all. Will was just… Will. The same Will Byers that Mike Wheeler grew up with, practically hand in hand.
Then, hot on Mike’s tail, the rest of Robin’s implication catches up to Mike.
“Wh- Hold on, slow down- I’m not-” Mike curses himself for speaking up in the first place. For as eloquently as he’d like to believe he can be, the ability to string a sentence together has all but been thrown out the window. He looks to Dustin and Lucas for any help at all, but Lucas raises his hands in surrender, and Dustin simply stares at him in what Mike can only describe as awe.
Will is rooted to the ground, still surrounded by everyone close to him who had gathered him into a tight hug of knitted reassurance, eyes wide and red-rimmed. Tears still sparkle, and while his eyes had been somewhat clouded during his speech, this is the sharpest Mike has seen that shade of green in… He can’t remember how long.
Fuck, right, Will. This was supposed to be Will’s big moment. And here Mike waltzed in, with his big mouth and terrible idea of support to hijack the beautiful scene. Mike wishes a rift would open beneath him right that second to swallow him whole and send him directly to meet Vecna face-to-face himself. At least a demogorgon would make quick work of him instead of this slow, boiling, agonizing silence Mike has to sit in.
“Sorry, I’m- No! No, it’s totally cool that you don’t like girls and all,” Mike shifts his weight back onto his heels, almost leaning away from Will. He doesn’t mean what he’s saying any less, and he really does mean it with his whole heart, but he suddenly feels as though he’s crowding everyone’s space, especially Will’s. “But- I do. Like girls, I mean. I like girls. But, hey, I’m proud of you, and whoever that ‘Tommy’ person might be. Nothing you say will change that for me. You’re my best friend.”
Something Mike can’t manage to uncover shifts under Will’s expression. Similar to a thinly-veiled grimace, as though Will might throw up at that second. Jonathan tosses Will a side glance because of course he also noticed the change, still shoulder to shoulder with his brother. Wrong choice again, Wheeler. Please, Mike thinks to any higher form of existence that could be listening to this horrific moment, make this stop.
Mike’s prayer is dutifully ignored.
“Sorry, hold on, but you just said every guy’s liked another guy at some point.” Steve shakes his head, lifting his hand from his crossed arms as if he could physically put a pause on the moment to rewind the tape and examine it. “As in, like, a crush, right?”
Maybe if Mike prayed hard enough, a demogorgon would come tearing through the window and steal him away next. It can’t be that hard to tap into an other-worldly hivemind, right?
“I mean, it’s just… a mancrush, you know?” The words don’t come out right, awkward and stilted, and Mike immediately goes back to wishing Vecna would just take him already.
“What the hell is a ‘mancrush?’ That sounds like a more convoluted way to say you just- had a crush on a man,” Max says.
Mike scoffs, tries not to glare. “Fine, a bromance, whatever you want to call it.”
“That’s worse than before,” Dustin helpfully supplies. “The word ‘romance’ is even in that one.” Eleven even nods solemnly besides him, peering into Mike’s very being with eyes that look like they know way too much.
Great. Looks like everyone's voicing their opinions today.
“That- That isn’t the point!” Mike throws his hands in the air in aggravation. “Can we go back to Will already? My best friend was tortured, we can’t just move on from-”
“Oh, no no, little Wheeler,” Steve interrupts him, and Mike thinks he hates Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington more than ever right now. Even more than when he spotted Steve unsuccessfully trying to climb into his sisters’ window five years ago. “Will knows we support him and aren’t going anywhere. He put his shit into words. You, however, have some explaining to do.”
“Are you all seriously telling me you all haven’t had anything similar?” Mike demands. He’s starting to get agitated, fingers twitching at his sides. Is it really that impossible for anybody to drop anything in this town? “No actor you thought looked good in a movie, no stranger on the street you hoped you’d pass again, no one of the same- same gender that you thought looked kind of pretty or- or just nice?”
“I think Max is very pretty,” Eleven says, “and we are very good friends. Does that count?”
Mike drags his hands down his face and wants to scream.
Max beams from across the room. “You’re pretty too, El.” And her eyes land right on Mike again, smile growing sinister. “Is that what you mean, Wheeler?”
Deep breath in through the nose, slow breath out through the mouth. Or grit teeth and a clenched jaw, in Mike’s case. “Yes.”
Lucas cocks his head to the side, and any slim light Mike had of successfully getting out of this conversation is extinguished. “I don’t think that’s what Mr. Mancrush here means. Sorry, girls.” Though his face is trained to be as neutral as possible, Mike can see the grin Lucas is fighting back just behind his eyes.
Thankfully, Ms. Byers, Hopper, Murray, and Vickie decide this might have been too much to continue listening to, or might simply decide the originally-important conversation is over now, with childhood friends joking around as usual, and each of them busy themselves with leaving to continue planning the next moves. Vickie tries to guide Robin out as well, but Robin shakes her head and — Mike notices curiously out of the corner of his eye — hooks her pinkie around Vickie’s, and whispers to Vickie something about how she just has to see this unfold, and she would update Vickie once this is over. Right. Whatever that means. All Mike cares about is that there are less people in the room for him to fumble over himself in front of.
“What did you mean?” Will’s voice is quiet and cracked, stood on unsteady ground, raw with sobs that had wracked his body not even ten minutes ago. But, something had changed about his expression once again that Mike does thankfully recognize this time around. He’s looking at Mike as if he’s deep in thought, reminding Mike of all the times Will was about to pick up a crayon, or a paint brush. Will is studying Mike.
Mike feels his shoulders begin to unknot for the first time today. In weeks, even. Maybe months.
He stares back at Will.
“Oh my God,” Dustin rolls his eyes and reaches forward to push Mike back to reality, serving to actually knock Mike back a step with how unprepared he was, and waves a hand dramatically in front of Mike’s face. “Hellooo, anybody home? We’re still looking for answers here, buddy-boy.”
Mike opens his mouth to snap back, then closes it when nothing leaves his lips. He looks back at Will, wordlessly begging for any help he could offer. Will’s shoulders lift briefly in such a faint shrug, Mike is convinced he’s the only one who caught it.
But, Steve also catches it. “Hey, hey, hey, you don’t get to ask the only other guy who doesn’t like girls for help on this. Of course he’d agree with you, that’s why we’re here in the first place.”
“I still like girls,” Mike tries again, but his words land on deaf ears.
Jonathan shrugs. “I mean, I kind of get it.” Steve fixes a look onto Jonathan that looks something akin to horror mixed with shock. Mike’s head whips around so fast, he thinks he’s given himself whiplash. Robin whispers, seemingly to herself, about tonight being record-breaking. Even Will spares a disbelieving look to his brother. Nancy doesn’t look the least bit surprised, the edges of her mouth twitching upwards. “Thinking some actors are cool, at least. A celebrity crush, right?”
Relief floods Mike’s body so rapidly, he feels seasick. “Yes! God, yes, that’s exactly it, thank you, Jonathan! Why has nobody else gotten that?”
“Probably because you tried to call it a bromance and that’s usually reserved for people you personally know, right? Like, a friendship?” Robin looks around the room for any form of agreement, which she gets a chorus of.
The relief Mike feels ebbs away into low tide once more.
“So, who’s the lucky guy?” Dustin elbows Mike in the ribs and receives a jolt and a glare in response. “Will had a ‘Tammy,’ what do you have?”
“Nothing!” Mike sputters out. “No one! I dated El for like, two years, remember?”
Eleven frowns. “I do not think it’s fair to compare me to Will’s ‘Tammy.’ If anything, Mike, you were my Tammy.”
“Jesus Christ.” Mike thinks he’s going to die here.
“It has to be one of us, right?” Lucas gestures between himself, Dustin, and Will. “Since, I mean, Robin is right about the whole friendship thing. And I’m pretty sure we’re Mike’s only bromance-worthy friends.”
Mike is definitely going to die here.
The conversation following turns to static in Mike’s ears. Dustin argues that it’s obviously himself, with his charming looks, and Lucas scoffs because he’s clearly the better looking and more fit of the options. Eleven offers up something much less welcome about Mike’s favorite Star Wars character, Luke Skywalker, to which Max adds that Luke Skywalker has brown hair, not unlike Eleven, and Dustin uses that to his advantage because then clearly Mike’s type is brunettes.
Aimlessly, Mike’s eyes slide to Will, who has remained silent since Mike ineffectively dodged his question. His blood, previously glacier-cold, burns scalding-hot when he finds Will already looking at him. Still thoughtful, still studying.
Static morphs into a roar.
Abruptly, Mike stands from where he tried his hardest to disappear into the couch, catching the attention of the room once again. “This is stupid,” he announces in an attempt to force the universe close whatever stupid, stupid can he’d opened. “I have stuff to do. You guys can continue whatever this is without me. I’m leaving.”
Once again, everybody falls silent. Mike doesn’t spare a second glance to Will, instead fixes his stare on his shoes as he stomps away. He shoves past Steve, Robin, and Nancy, of which he dreads the most bearing witness to this catastrophe. And Nancy hasn’t said a word. Eyes burn the back of Mike’s head as he turns the corner.
Finally, finally, Mike is outside. It’s only early November, but the bitter cold of Indiana bites the inside of his cheeks as he inhales the relatively clean air. It’s much colder than it should be at this time of year, Mike notes, nose already turning pink and fingertips beginning to ache. Maybe it has something to do with the rift to the already acrid Upside Down tearing his hometown into quadrants. Mike hadn’t actually been inside the alternate dimension before, the furthest he’d gone being the tunnels in 1984, but Eleven and Will simply described it as cold and wet the one time he’d asked, and Mike never brought it up again.
Maybe Hopper or Ms. Byers will let him bum a cigarette. Mike doesn’t smoke, or even drink for that matter, but the stress of the impeding apocalypse in addition to whatever that was makes him consider it, if only for a moment. He could use it to his advantage, a mostly-truthful claim to get away from conversations he doesn’t want to have and situations he doesn’t want to be in to have a smoke break instead. It could be warmer than whatever frozen hell Mike's standing in now.
Instead, Mike finds himself sitting on the roof of the radio station, staring out into the horizon he’s supposed to save. He doesn’t think anyone had tried to trail him, and there’s a chance they don’t know where exactly he’s run off to. But Mike knows that everyone knows it’d be stupid for him to leave the WSQK station grounds when they’re all at risk of being Vecna’d at any point.
It’s suffocating.
After minutes or hours Mike can’t bring himself to count, footsteps ring out behind him, and Mike closes his eyes in defeat. Here comes Eleven, maybe with Max in tow, to scold him for acting pretty immaturely. For ruining Will’s moment, for turning it into something else. Maybe it was Jonathan coming to chew him out, to tell Mike he should have been more supportive to the boy who’d already been through so much and was about to go through so much more, and Mike should have kept his mouth shut. In a weak attempt to stave off whatever fight Mike had coming, he says to the unnamed footsteps, “Look, whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it. I get it, I should’ve-”
Nancy sets herself down besides him. A gun she had strapped to her hip clatters against whatever gritty material the roof is made out of and digs into her thigh, and she pulls it out to set it to her side, opposite of Mike. Mike briefly considers asking her to execute him right here in some amalgamation of a half-joke, half-plead-for-mercy, but with everything else, he bites his tongue.
“Hey,” Nancy simply says, matching Mike’s gaze out towards the view. The sun is beginning to set, trees casting shadows that seem a little too dark against the grass.
Mike swallows around what feels like a boulder in his throat. “Hey.”
Silence.
Before the Upside Down, Karen Wheeler was lucky to convince her children to get along simply in the same room. Mike faintly remembers a promise they’d shared midst what he considers the first round of hell to tell each other everything from that point on. Clearly, that promise didn’t mean a whole lot to either of them. Mike can barely recall the last time he’d even been alone with his sister. Not that he’d really want to verbally tell her much of anything anyway. She understood enough of it, similarly to how he understood enough of her exhaustion without her saying a word. Speaking was never a common occurrence in the Wheeler household.
This just had to be an exception.
“You aren’t the only one,” Nancy says, eyes still on the landscape ahead of them, and Mike’s jaw twitches.
He tries to tiptoe around the subject. Fails. “What do you mean?” His voice sounds weird to his own ears.
Nancy looks unimpressed. Mike grimaces, “You, and Eleven, and whoever else don’t count. You’re a girl, you’re supposed to like boys.”
The warning look Nancy shoots him is more than enough to convince him to shut his mouth again. “Yes, Mike, I’m a girl, and I like boys.” She sounds annoyed. Mike doesn’t blame her. “But, I hear about other things, too. Like, how you can like boys and girls.”
Holy shit, maybe Robin was right about there being a two-in-one deal today after all.
“Uh,” Mike says. Graceful.
“And, if there’s anything you ever wanted to talk to me about, like boys…”
Oh. This again. It wasn’t about Nancy.
Nancy is trying her damndest to lead a horse to water, but Mike refuses to even look at the reflection. His brows furrow back into the scowl he’d been wearing earlier, fingers bunched into his sleeves. “How many times do I have to repeat myself? I don’t- I’m not like that,” Mike grits out. He doesn’t like his own tone. It reminds him too much of his father. Nausea turns in his stomach, and Mike rushes onwards before it overtakes him. “It’s fine if Will is, it’s fine if you are, I don’t care. But I don’t feel that way about other guys, I just- What I was talking about was one guy — one! — and I thought every guy had one exception before they knew any better. One brief, stupid little stint that never mattered and wouldn’t have gone anywhere anyway. Do you seriously think I would have dated El for so long otherwise?”
If it were any other topic, the way Mike’s bristling would have gotten him a hard smack upside the head from Nancy at the minimum. She doesn’t move, though, despite Mike bracing for it already.
“I just want you to feel like you can talk to me about anything, Mike, no matter what,” Nancy carefully says in response, as though she’s practiced it before. Then, a pause, and Nancy narrows her eyes at him. Mike feels hot under her keen stare, with flushed cheeks and a bitter taste on his tongue.
“Then… wait, you did like another boy at one point?”
Mike might seriously fling himself off the side of the building.
He can’t keep dancing around this. He’s exhausted, and Nancy won’t stop watching, patiently waiting with her unused shovel while Mike digs his own grave.
After a long, long moment of silence that drags on like knives through Mike’s chest, tearing open an ancient scar once thought healed and leaving a gaping wound that pulses blood in time with his heartbeat, a breath leaves his lips: “At one point.”
And Nancy knows there’s only one answer to the unspoken question of who?
Mike almost jumps away like a skittish, wild animal when Nancy wraps her arms around her little brother. She pulls him close to her chest as if he’s 12 all over again, rests her chin atop his mop of unkempt hair, and Mike lets her. Finds comfort in his sister in a rare moment of something close-adjacent to peace.
As if she could read his deepest fears plain as the text of one of her articles, she whispers, “I won’t tell anyone.”
Mike manages a wet laugh through her sweater. “Half of Hawkins already knows, I’m pretty sure. Royally screwed that up already.”
He can hear the smile in her voice when she replies, “Well, I’ll make sure they don’t tell anybody either. Everyone in that room knows how good of a shot I am.”
A pause.
“Plus, you might still have a shot.”
Mike recoils from Nancy, previously comforting words scathing his exposed heart, and gapes at her. “You can’t be serious, Nance. I’m not- I’m not doing that again. Especially since El and I, like, just broke up. Not to mention it’s the actual end of the world. Or did you somehow forget?”
There comes the scolding smack, and Mike whines from the sharp pain. He rubs the back of his neck and glares at Nancy like a wounded dog.
“Cut it out, Michael.” Nancy’s eyes bore into him, and he turns away from her in a lame attempt to escape it.
“If he didn’t hate me before, he definitely does now,” Mike mutters. “Besides, I’ve said, like, 50 times that it’s all in the past now. I don’t think he ever even saw me like- like that. What would be the point?”
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
The prolonged quiet forces Mike to glance at Nancy to be certain she hadn’t just been possessed. He doesn’t really know what he’d do if his sister’s eyes had gone white mid-conversation; they never talked about that either. But, no, Nancy only looks incredulous, plainly considering Mike to be an idiot, and Mike rolls his eyes as he looks away again.
“You’re hopeless.”
“And you’re annoying,” Mike retorts as he gets to his feet. “It’s cold. I’m going back inside.”
Nancy doesn’t follow him this time.
The indoors welcomes Mike with the warmth of a mostly functional heating unit. He rubs his hands together in a forced attempt to act in total normality, as if the last hour of his life wasn't a top five contender for the worst situations he’s ever put himself in. God, Mike, can’t you think before you speak?
He busies himself with what he pretends is preparation for the upcoming battle to end the Upside Down and the Abyss and Vecna and whatever evil lurks on the other side for good. Picking up random objects to move around, inspecting weapons, fidgeting with locks and lights for any remnant of a flicker that would tell him it’s decisively go time. He leaves rooms when he hears approaching footsteps, he takes longer routes around the building to avoid the familiar voices. He can’t bring himself to face anybody.
In reality, Mike’s body is completely on autopilot. He tries to focus on what his hands are thoughtlessly doing, but is repeatedly drawn back into the recesses of his mind. He turns over words and sentences again and again as though this time something new will be uncovered, and finds nothing new each time.
The unhesitating assumption that Mike is also queer has, to put it simply, left him reeling. Sure, Robin had implied it first, but Mike didn’t know Robin, not personally at least, and vice versa. She could think whatever she wanted about anybody, even if Mike did think it a little odd that she had drawn such conclusions so swiftly. But for his closest childhood friends and his blood-related sister to entail the same thing… They knew he dated Eleven for years. Sure, the relationship sucked, but Mike was still with a girl. Who else had thought that about Mike? And Steve’s reaction- Did most guys really never have a passing butterfly at the thought of another man? Mike knew the opinions most of the citizens of his town had of such a concept, including Ted Wheeler and his snide remarks during Will’s initial disappearance, as if the tragedy was an opportunity to teach Mike a lesson and not the worst week of Mike’s life. But for those opinions to form, the idea had to exist first, right? An unspoken solidarity that no man ever spoke of. Except for Big-Mouthed Mike, for whatever reason he truthfully can’t manage to put into words.
The memory of each individual expression is inspected with a fervor Mike hasn’t felt in a long while. Most seemed shocked, surprised, confused. Jonathan had, completely unexpectedly, agreed with Mike despite his initial disarray, but in hindsight, was he just giving Mike an out? Mike circles through each reaction again. And again. And again.
He lands on Will, again, and again, and again. Indecipherable, unreadable.
Something dark and gritty coils deep in Mike’s stomach.
It’s not that he thought Will would suddenly never speak to Mike again, but Will had to at least hate him a little for pulling that stunt. Mike would hate himself, in Will’s position. Hell, Mike hates himself now. How could he not?
Michael Wheeler was supposed to be better than this. He was supposed to be smart, put together, and know exactly what to say to support his loved ones, to guide everybody to safety. He was supposed to plan ahead, to be a leader, to be the leader.
Michael Wheeler certainly wasn’t supposed to be like that. Interrupting his best friends’ massive moment with a clunky comment he wished he could take back as soon as he heard himself, speaking the unspoken truth about admiring boys in passing- a boy. Michael Wheeler wasn’t meant to turn out this way.
Mike swallows, and it tastes like gravel scraping the inside of his throat.
It’s not like he’d had much luck even mimicking the man he was supposed to be lately, anyway.
“Mike?” comes a small voice from behind him. Everything grinds to a halt. Mike blinks back to reality, glances outside at the change in lighting. The sun is mostly behind the trees now, only slivers of light making it through the brush. Mike doesn’t know when it got so dark.
Will steps through the threshold of the doorway, wringing his hands together like he’s worried Mike will negatively react to his mere existence. Mike wants to scoff at the notion out loud. And he almost does, until he looks up to meet Will’s eyes.
In the midst of Mike’s avoidance, he’d forgotten altogether the toll this must have taken on Will. Will, in all his strength and pride, looks awful. There are deep, deep bags under his dull, skittish eyes, his lips are cracked and dehydrated, his shoulders tight yet slumped with exhaustion. He really, really looks sick. If they weren’t under constant threat, Mike would have taken Will straight to Hawkins Memorial Hospital himself.
Despite it all, the windows surrounding the radio station allow for the last hints of golden sunlight to catch through the cracks of the blinds, and bathe Will in a light Mike can’t seem to stop catching him in.
Forever selfish as he continually proves to be. Mike sincerely loathes himself.
“Yeah?” he forces out, but it sounds not too far off from a pained whine, and both Will and Mike wince away from the noise.
Will moves half a step back. It’s a mile to Mike.
“I’m- Sorry, um,” Will breaks the eye contact and focuses somewhere over Mike’s shoulder. Another mile. “Everyone else went outside to take care of set up.” He hesitates. “Are you okay?”
Vines seep up from the deepest pit of his stomach through Mike’s throat. How could Will be worried about Mike in a time like this? Will, who kept the suffering he was put through time and time again hidden deep in his bones. Will, hell’s personal selection to torture since he and Mike were such a small 12 years old. Will, who chooses it time after time if it means his loved ones are safe. Will, who stands on the brink of death every year, and Mike can’t do anything to save him from threat before it’s too late.
Mike feels sick.
“Yeah. Yeah,” he croaks out. He can’t seem to say anything else.
Will looks unconvinced. There’s something heavy on the tip of his tongue, and the weight of it forces his mouth into a thin-lipped frown. Mike, frozen where he stood, can only wait for Will to either let it sink into the pit of his stomach, or spit a crater between them.
After eons, Will asks, “Is this about earlier?” There’s a tremble towards the back of his voice that Mike’s not convinced Will meant for him to hear. “Because- Mike, I care about you, and I want to stay friends. But, if you’re not- not okay with that, with me, and that was some kind of- sick joke, then-”
Reality crashes down onto Mike harder than the Abyss could ever dream of colliding with Hawkins. His body doesn’t feel his own, like his conscience is suddenly across an ocean from Will. There’s a burn coating the back of his tongue, his throat, his face, his eyes. His mouth opens while Will continues on, continues avoiding looking directly at Mike, but anything Mike can think to say is caught in his closing throat. He can barely hear Will through the pounding of blood in his ears.
Mike has never fucked up so, so bad in his measly, messed up life.
“And I know, I know I should have waited until after we stop Vecna, until after everything calms down, but he- I was so scared, Mike, and I had to do something about it before he-”
“Will.”
Mike’s voice doesn’t sound his own. Strangled and forced out by scraping against the lump in his throat.
Will screeches to a stop, the rest of his shallow breath audible as the words die on his lips. He stares up at Mike again, eyes wide and expectant, but Mike is certain that Will expects Mike to do something awful. What exactly, Mike doesn’t know. Mike can’t even bring himself to imagine it.
“It’s… It’s okay,” Mike manages, and he doesn’t even believe himself. He thinks briefly about hitting himself in the head with a rock. The scent of his blood would surely attract that demogorgon he’s been hoping would appear solely for him. Mike shakes his head and tries again. “Seriously, Will, that wasn’t- I didn’t even mean to say that. I didn’t mean it at all. But I do support you, I always do.” A half-truth, but a truth nonetheless.
Will relaxes only a smidge, hands loosening ever so slightly where his fingers were knotted into his sleeves. But Mike can tell he’s still guarded, jumpy, shoulders braced for an impact that would never come. There’s a long, unmoving pause between the two, then Will quietly says, “That was mean, Mike.” Mike’s eyebrows knot together as Will hesitates once more to consider his next words. A fluorescent light dims above them. “You can’t just… say stuff like that. Not to me, and not about that. You should know how much it means to me.”
The truth Mike had attempted, and clearly failed yet again, to skirt around swells deep in his heart, stuttering his pulse and sucking the heat out of Mike’s blood. He fidgets with the open zipper of his vest, the cold metal grounding him just enough to conceive any response to Will that wouldn’t be vomiting up too much honesty. But the more he desperately tries to come up with anything, the more dread pools in his gut, threatening to drown him alongside his heart. His hopeless eyes search Will’s, and all he finds is hurt, rejection, and fear that Will never should have known in the first place.
Mike drags his hand down his face and averts his eyes. He’s already ruined their friendship once with his staple avoidance, and now has been continually pummelling it further into the ground more and more with every sentence he tries to speak. Every word that isn’t the full truth is another engraved letter on the tombstone of Mike and Will’s friendship.
His decision is made before he asks himself the question.
Would you rather let Will hate you forever and never move on from it, or tell him everything you’ve been hiding? You’re supposed to be best friends, after all.
It’s just Will. Your best friend. Your sorcerer.
“I’m sorry,” Mike finally says, but it comes out strained. Will frowns. Mike meets Wills eyes again though, with intention, and before Will can stop him, “I regret saying it, I was being an idiot. But,” Mike is certainly going to throw up, throat constricting around his voice, “I wasn’t joking.”
Will’s frown deepens and he crosses his arms. “I just told you not to kid about that sort of stuff-”
“I know! I know, just, let me get this out, please.” Mike takes a step forward, attempting to close the distance between them, but Will leans away from his advances, and Mike stops again, the toe of his boot squeaking against the floor. Another light blinks. “I’m not like you, nobody could be like you. I mean, you’re the Will Byers, the Sorcerer! You took Vecna and the hivemind head on! I can’t even begin to dream of being someone like you.” A smile tugs at the corners of Mike’s mouth the longer he rambles. Will doesn’t reciprocate, only shifts his weight under Mike’s eyes. “And, yeah, I don’t like- like boys like that, I’m still pretty sure I like girls,” Will quirks an eyebrow. Mike does his best to ignore it, “but… what if there was someone really special, you know? An exception, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Everyone has one. That doesn’t change who they are, or what they like, it’s just… special.”
Will stares at Mike. Mike stares back. His breath feels heavy like he just ran a marathon, and to his heart, he might as well have. He’s tugged one loose thread, and now the whole thing is beginning to unravel.
“You’re serious,” Will says.
Mike can only nod.
“Micheal, that is not at all what a ‘mancrush’ or a ‘bromance’ is.”
Mike groans. “Look, that wasn’t- I panicked, alright? Is that what you want to hear?”
Will narrows his eyes at Mike in a way that is scarily reminiscent of Ms. Byers and her reprimanding of Hopper. “...Are you messing with me?”
“I’m not!” Mike scoffs indignantly, “Jesus, do you need me to spell it out for you?”
Will mutters, “It’ll make it easier for both of us if you did.”
Unfortunately for the both of them, Mike tends to complicate things. “I…” he flounders, glancing around the room as if a poster or records on a shelf nearby held all the solutions for him. Ultimately, he lands on a quiet, “I don’t know how to.”
The scrutinizing glint in Will’s eyes returns from when Mike had first spilled those stupid words. Mike straightens a little under Will’s silent analysis, not wanting to appear as small and as scared as he felt. The thought that they should switch titles, and Will should be dubbed Will the Brave flits through his head. Though, Mike couldn’t take the title of Mike the Wise after today, or any day after the summer of 1986, for that matter. Mike the Brute, maybe.
Fuck, Mike, drop the D&D for one second.
Will is still quiet, and if you had asked Mike, he would have said they stood there for days rather than the few seconds it had truly been.
“You don’t like boys,” Will says slowly. Mike nods an affirmation. “But… there is- or was, an exception.” Mike swallows, and nods again.
Speaking it out loud meant speaking it into existence. It was becoming all too real for Mike, for him to acknowledge that there was — is — an exception. Because Mike likes girls. Mike doesn’t like boys. Saying it out loud meant acknowledging that Mike- Mike turned out wrong. Mike turned out to be everything he wasn’t supposed to be.
But… Will thought the same of himself. Will thought he was different, a mistake, something meant to be shoved aside and disregarded. Will thought he was wrong. And Mike can’t think of any statement more misguided and inaccurate than Will Byers turned out wrong.
In the very back of his mind, buried under distractions and padlocked into a small, ill-fitting box, Mike knew if he didn’t swallow his pride and spit out everything to Will, there was a possibility he never would have another chance. There was a possibility that not everybody would return to Hawkins. A percentage Mike didn’t want to consider, but a percentage nonetheless.
“Someone who matters more than the rest of the world,” Mike whispers. His body takes another step forward without his permission, another mile closer. “A once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
Their eyes don’t break the hold they have on each other. Electricity buzzes around them. The overhead lights seem almost too bright.
Mike stumbles. “But, I know you have that Tommy person, and I know you’ll be happy with that, as long as they treat you the way you deserve to be treated, and-”
“Tammy. I said, Tammy.”
Mike blinks, thrown off, then his face pinches together in puzzlement. “Isn’t that a girls name?”
Will rolls his eyes and Mike can only smile pathetically. As disconcerted as Mike is, he can’t help chasing for Will’s personality through the cracks of hell.
“There is no other person I’m interested in dating, Mike. It was a metaphor.”
The revelation that there wasn’t some other person Will was interested in, boy or girl, lifts Mike of a weight he hadn’t known he was carrying. A breath he’d been holding for God knows how long — since the beginning of Will’s monologue, since the day he saw Will again in California, since seeing Will in that dingy, dark hospital after a week of endless searching, since they met on those swingsets in kindergarten — is exhaled for the first time. Mike feels lightheaded with relief.
“Shitty metaphor,” leaves Mike’s mouth before his brain can catch up. Will gives him a look of disbelief and he clamps his mouth shut. Again? Really?
Will’s fingers are clenched into his sleeves, nails digging into his skin through the fabric, sure to leave marks that won’t fade for hours. A bead of blood rolls from Will’s nose, and Will quickly swipes it away, tilting his body away from Mike as if there was some slim hope Mike wouldn’t have noticed. Mike fixes his eyes onto Will’s hands, and an overwhelming urge he’d become so accustomed to stomping into its unmarked grave makes his hands twitch. The urge to reach forward and touch Will, to unclench his hands, to loosen his knuckles.
“Who… who was your exception?”
Will’s voice is meager. He looks like he might be sick right there, as though the question isn’t one he wanted to ask, but had to. And Mike had to speak the answer into this unforgiving, bitter, cold world.
Nancy’s voice rings in his head. Plus, you might still have a shot.
Mike steels himself against how abruptly unsteady he feels, locks the door in the nondescript faces of screams that Michael Wheeler wasn’t meant to turn out this way, and takes another step forward. Another mile closer. Then another, and another, until there’s no distance left between them.
“Will,” Mike breathes. “Who else would it be?”
And he means that question more than anything he’s meant in his whole life. Will was- is the experience. Mike can’t imagine anyone, or anything that could even come close to Will Byers. The ups and downs, everything Mike has done with and for and to Will. The light that Will lives in, the light that Will is. Even if Will couldn’t see it himself, even if he considered himself and everything he blames himself for a mistake, Mike was always mesmerized by Will and everything surrounding him. Ever since they were young together and Mike was enchanted by the drawings Will would give him; ever since they were middle schoolers together and Mike never stopped looking for Will’s light in the grave darkness; ever since Will fell to his knees in that military outpost, blood and dirt smeared across his face, and Mike couldn’t fathom looking away. Mike was always drawn to Will. No matter the question, no matter the cost, Will was always the answer.
Will doesn’t seem to accept it. He knots his fingers together, and doesn’t look at Mike; looking anywhere but Mike, he notes. “It could be El,” Will chokes, like it’s tearing him apart from the inside. Mike frowns. “She- she’s everything, you know.” Everything I can’t be.
And, in a way, Will isn’t wrong. Eleven is special, and Eleven did whip Mike’s life into a whirlwind. But Mike doesn’t want El, or anything that Will isn’t. Truthfully, he’s not confident he ever did love El the way she wanted him to. Maybe he just wanted the normalcy of liking a girl that seemed to like him back, in the misery of rifts and monsters they were too little to hold their own against. They were young, stupid, and blindly feeling their way through a relationship that started on tumultuous ground at best. It was just what they were supposed to do.
Mike, as selfish as ever, wants something for himself, something that feels right instead of normal.
He rests his hands on Wills’ shoulders, cringing a little when Will unmistakably flinches in his grasp, but he’s got his attention again.
“Why would I go back to El when I have you right here?” Mike grins. Will’s eyes bore deep into Mike’s soul, freakishly similar to how Eleven’s eyes could do the same. Carefully guarded, but something Mike can’t name sparking behind that all familiar green. Mike hurriedly continues before he gets lost in the blaze. “Yeah, she’s cool, she’s an awesome friend and everything, but that was barely a relationship. If we ever went back to that, I think we’d end up hating each other. Or, she’d blow my head up.” Will huffs a faint chuckle, and Mike’s heartbeat flutters at the sound, spurring him onwards. “Will, it’s you. I can’t imagine a life without you, and I don’t want to. You’re my exception- you’re that special person for me.”
Will looks up at Mike with a mixture of emotions Mike can’t even begin to sort out. But he doesn’t back down this time, only watching as every feeling twists across Will’s face all at once. Until Will drops his head with something that sounds like a subdued sob, and Mike’s smile fades.
“Will? What’s wrong? Did- Did I say the wrong thing?” Panic builds in Mike’s ribs, his brows furrowed together. Will’s face is covered by his bangs, Mike can’t get a good look at him, and he’s really beginning to consider taking it all back. Then Will shakes his head.
“No, no, you didn’t…” Will croaks, and he’s definitely crying now, tears on his cheeks reflecting the light around them, “you didn’t say anything wrong, I swear.”
“Then what- Why are you crying? Does something hurt?”
Will opens his mouth again to reply, but nothing successfully comes out, so he closes it again. Mike, against his better judgment, lifts one of his hands from Will’s shoulder and, feather-light, grazes his fingers against Will’s cheek. The gesture was only to catch his tears, but Will just barely leans into his touch, and Mike can’t think of anything but keeping his hand right there. They remain for a moment longer, until Will shrugs Mike’s hands off of him. But before Mike can open his mouth to apologize, protest, argue — he doesn’t know which — Will is wrapping his arms around Mike as tightly as humanly possible, maybe even tighter, clutching the cloth at his back, breath shuddering into Mike’s chest.
Mike freezes before his brain can connect what’s happening, then he’s hugging Will just as strong. He buries his face into Will’s hair before he lets himself think about it, and closes his eyes. Will smells like smoke and sweat, and Mike has never loved scent either more. There they stand, clutching onto each other like it’s the end of the world — which, Mike considers for a moment more, it is.
“This is real, right? Not just another vision?” Will mumbles, voice thick with emotion, and Mike can feel a wet spot where Will’s face is pressed into his shoulder soaking through the fabric of his jacket. “I guess you wouldn’t know anyway.”
Mike cards his hand through Will’s hair, trying to pay no mind to the way his fingers tremble. In the back of his mind, he thinks about tearing Vecna apart with his bare hands for taking this moment away from Will, by even just slightly tainting it. “Yeah. Yeah, this is real. I’m pretty sure he only gives you visions of bad stuff happening to you, and this is pretty good, right?”
Will laughs, shaky and short, but a laugh nonetheless. “Yeah, this is pretty good,” Will says. Mike’s heart soars.
But Mike can only stay in one spot for so long. “So… what’s the verdict?” Will blinks up at him through wet lashes. Mike stutters, “Um, I mean- What do you say? In response, to all of that.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“It can’t hurt to check.”
“Oh my god, Mike- I can’t believe I like you as much as I do.”
Mike breaks out into a wide grin. “You like me?”
Will groans and pushes his hands against Mike’s chest, but Mike’s arms stay latched around him, keeping him in place. “Yes, Mike. I like you. Did that demo earlier land a hit on you? Should we keep an eye on you the rest of the night?”
Mike shrugs. “I like you too, Will Byers,” he says instead, and speaking it into this cold, broken world doesn’t feel so scary for once.
A chorus of blinking fluorescents responds to Mike’s confession. Will unexpectedly collapses back into Mike’s body, and Mike has to catch the both of them with a step back to keep from crashing to the floor. “Woah- Okay, down we go,” Mike mutters, sinking onto the closest couch with Will curled into his side. It’s like he belongs there with how perfectly he fits, Mike muses. They’re kind of tangled together now, with one of Will’s knees resting on Mike’s thigh and Mike wrapped around Will as much as he comfortably could be without straining. Will’s shoulder is digging into his ribs just a bit, but Mike can’t find it in himself to move away from the contact. Will’s nose is bleeding again, staining a spot into Mike’s coat, and Mike lightly dabs it away with the corner of his sleeve. “You okay?”
Will, in spite of how exhausted he looks, with fresh tears welled in his eyes, nods. He takes a second to compose himself before croaking, “It’s just been so, so long, and you were with… I- I wanted to give up so badly.” An unspoken not just on you rings between them. Will chokes on another sob.
Mike stares down at Will, a hand sliding from where he was cradling his cheek to the back of his neck, fingertips nestled into the hair at Will’s nape. He has so many questions, so many explanations he wants that second, but Will is already overwhelmed with reality, and Mike has to shove down all the words on his lips. This is better anyway, pressed as close to Will as physically possible in their position.
Will’s breath gradually evens as Mike draws his fingers up and down Will’s back. His cheek is resting on Mike’s shoulder, his hair brushing Mike’s chin with each inhale Mike takes. His hands are to himself now, hugging himself. Mike can’t see Will’s face at this angle, but he assumes Will’s eyes are closed in a state of almost-rest that he definitely needs.
There’s a chance not everybody will return to Hawkins. Mike needs answers before he loses this forever. He should wait until after, when Hawkins is deemed safe and everyone is freed from this hell, but the fear of losing Will again and having to dream about what could have been for the rest of his life is more than enough to dislodge his voice from where it had been stuck in his throat.
“...How long has it been?” he eventually lands on. His tone comes out as a trace of his usual self, and he’s not sure Will even heard him at first, but Will hums such a soft sound in response and nuzzles just barely further into Mike’s shoulder.
“I don’t know. Probably forever.”
Forever is a very long time. Mike would know.
Something in Mike’s gut twists at the implication of Will experiencing the torment of forever, without Mike even so much as picking up a hint of the struggle. Mike knew about the rumors surrounding Will’s disappearance, the stories people would mutter as if Will wouldn’t hear — maybe they didn’t care if he did — and the names Will’s father would spit, the names Mike has heard his father grunt under his breath before Mike was old enough to knew what they meant. Because Will was always so gentle, so kind, and so loving that it meant something had to be wrong with him. Mike could act under the spotlight; pretend that it didn’t apply to him too and pretend that those words didn’t nip at his heart in the dark of night. Mike was guarded and careful from the beginning, but he had never afforded the consideration that Will was acting too.
Will wore his heart on his sleeve, and Mike could always see when Will was hurting, affected by something Will never wanted to name. It could be the subtlest of twitches in Will’s expression, and Mike would catch it. Will hated being a burden to others, from his family to the party to Mike alone. Now, though, Mike realizes Will had to pretend a lot more than Mike ever saw; similarly to how Mike forced himself to feign as though a brush of the shoulders wasn’t electrifying, or a graze of the fingers wasn’t enough to make his heart skip a beat.
Mike didn’t want to pretend anymore, and he didn’t want Will to either. Not while they’re standing at the edge of the world.
Afterwards, Mike knows it will be a different story. They would still have to play an act in the public eye, they would still have to seem as though they were nothing more than best friends. But to each other, Mike knows it could be different. Only they would know the truth behind the act, the truth behind each glance and each twitch of the lips and each grab of the wrist.
Mike is okay with that. Someday, he’d shout his love for Will from the rooftops, and someday the whole world would listen. Until that day comes, he’s okay with the truth of Mike and Will being for their eyes alone.
But right now, they’re running out of time. It has to be nightfall by now. It won’t be long before someone comes searching for Will, before someone, probably Jonathan or Eleven or Ms. Byers, gets worried about his prolonged absence. Mike can’t blame them; he, too, gets antsy and worried when he doesn’t know where Will is. He is still Mike, though, and Mike, as self-centered as it may be, wants Will all to himself for as long as they can sit together before it’s time to save the world.
And Mike still needs to know everything there is to know.
Seemingly, though, so does Will. Before Mike can gather the courage to break the silence, Will does it for him. “What’s going to happen now?” he asks, quiet and timid. Mike hates how scared Will sounds. And Mike hates that he doesn’t have an reply.
“I don’t know,” he breathes into the space between them. Will tenses. A light flickers. “But, I do know that I don’t want to lose you.”
Will tiredly laughs. “Mike, you’re not going to lose me. I’m going to like you for as long as I’m alive. Even if it’s the worst, and even if nothing comes from it, even if we’re half a world apart. I can’t get over you.”
Mike allows a light smile, barely visible. “I’m sorry,” he says, though he’s not sure what he’s sorry for. That it might be the worst for Will? That Will can’t get over him? That Will ever tried in the first place? That Mike almost did lose Will so, so, so many times?
“Don’t be. It’s not like you could help it.”
Mike wants to protest. He definitely could’ve helped make it easier, lessen the load, make it so Will didn’t have to struggle so long, or so alone. But starting an argument here, with Will still pressed into the side of his body and his arms still around Wills shoulders, both of them overworked and drained, might be the stupidest thing that has ever crossed his mind.
Will seems to sense the objection building in Mike’s throat, because he sits up enough to meet Mike’s eyes again, and it all dies in Mike’s throat. Mike swallows down the remnants.
“I… I want to be with you,” he manages instead. Will looks pained by those words, his face contorting in a subtle way only Mike ever notices. Mike simultaneously can’t fathom what he’s doing wrong, and completely understands why. If this sucks for Mike, he can’t imagine how badly this must suck for Will. “I just don’t know how that would,” Mike gestures an arm in a wide motion, to the rest of the world, “I don’t know. Work? Look? How are we supposed to do that?”
“There’s no supposed to,” Will mutters. “We just… do.”
Mike stares at Will. Will stares back.
Then, all too fast, Mike blurts, “Can I kiss you?” And wants to hit himself in the head with a rock again. Maybe he could convince Mayfield to do it.
Will freezes. The look on his face is… Mike can’t decipher it for the life of him. Hopeful? Scared? Something in between?
Then, Will begins to laugh. His chest bursts with giggles, and he pulls his hands away from Mike to clutch his own stomach, literally doubling over. His forehead lands on Mike’s shoulder midst his laughter and Mike will not dare to move. He can only watch Will laugh like he’s experiencing sunlight for the first time all over again, amazement and love written as plain as day over his face. He can’t remember the last time he heard Will laugh like that, a real laugh, and he’s enamored. Even though Will’s laughter is directed at Mike.
“Sorry- I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-” Mike starts, tips of his ears burning red.
“No, Mike- It- it’s okay,” Will stops him as he tries to catch his breath. “That was just- You really need to work on that.”
Mike frowns. “Work on what?” And, well- Yeah, Mike can admit he does need to work on his ability to string words together into a coherent sentence and his inability to think before he speaks. The past, what, five hours of his life? have been the most stressful hours he’s ever lived through, and he’s watched a lot of people and monsters die before his very eyes. But he’s not about to admit that to Will, on top of everything else he’s already confessed. Mike Wheeler’s ego has taken enough hits for the day.
Then Will huffs, but affection is dancing just past his eyes, and any further protests on Mike’s mind wilt.
“You can,” Will whispers. He won’t look away from Mike and has yet to fully lose contact with Mike, like he’s scared Mike will disappear if he’s not careful to keep his grip on him. As real as this feels, Mike really can’t blame him for that fear. He hasn’t looked away from Will once since he’d closed the distance between them, because he’s scared too. The thought that this is some cruel vision Vecna is watching play out from the pits of Mike’s mind to learn his deepest desires, that he’s truthfully hovering several feet above decaying ground with white eyes stained by blood leaking from his waterlines is a thought that doesn’t pass easily.
Stop, Mike thinks, stern and louder than any merciless form of self-hatred had ever been to him before. I’d come back, for Will.
“Kiss me, I mean,” Will adds when Mike doesn’t move, hot flush creeping up the back of his neck, nervously fidgeting with the shoulder seam of Mike’s jacket. Mike is swept back to the present, where he’s sitting besides Will, who Mike likes, and who not only likes Mike back but has just agreed to let Michael Wheeler kiss him.
Mike feels dizzy. Like his eyes are suddenly magnetized, his stare is drawn to Will’s lips, chapped and parted. The wind is knocked out of Mike. He swallows, and before his head can even think of putting off what he’s only allowed himself to dream about in the dead of night since he was 14 years old for another second, he ducks his head and clashes his lips with Will’s.
Mike’s first thought is that Will is so warm. Will doesn’t typically run hot, often utilizing his ice-cold fingertips against Mike to make him jump and swat Will away, but Will’s lips are different. Slightly dry, slightly unsure, but, God, Mike can’t imagine anything warmer.
Mike’s second thought is about Eleven. Not that she’d be mad — she likely expected this for years to come, as perceptive as she is — but that kissing her never felt like this. Kissing El was just an action Mike had to do sometimes because he had to appease to the standards of a relationship, and El’s only concept of being a perfect girlfriend-boyfriend relationship was from the programs she’d watch with Max. It was okay, not good nor bad; just had to be done to prove what they were to each other.
But kissing Will felt like he was breathing the sparks of life into Mike for the first time. Mike’s heart feels alive, stumbling over itself as it learned to run. Will’s quiet gasp for air against his lips only fuels the flames, and suddenly Mike knows what exactly the appeal of kissing is as the fire burns across his skin. He could do this forever.
Mike’s third thought is a slow, building panic. Shoved against Will, each in an awkward position on such an ugly couch, his body is contorting weirdly to be able to reach Will, and the reality of the situation is undeniable. Mike is kissing a boy, Mike Wheeler is kissing his best friend, and there’s no coming back from this, no matter what the outcome is. Everyone important in Mike’s life is less than 100 yards away from the two of them, and anyone could come in at any second. And no matter how much Mike tries to suppress the fear twisting his expression, Will notices, because of course he does, and breaks away from Mike. Mike half-heartedly tries to chase the warm safety he wants to wrap himself in forever but only ends up pressing his forehead to Will’s. He doesn’t open his eyes, focused only on the heat of Will’s skin.
“Mike,” Will says, quiet. “We don’t have to-”
“No!” Mike interrupts, opening his eyes as if only holding Will’s gaze would convey everything Mike couldn’t put into words. “No, I really- I want to. I just-” He pulls back enough to readjust his position and turns to fully face Will, who doesn’t move. One of Mike’s arms is still squeezed against the back of the couch, between the cushion and Mike’s side, unsure where exactly it’s supposed to go, but it’s already at a much better angle. Mike breaths a soft smile, trying his damndest to not look like he’s scared for his life right now. “Can- Can I try again?”
Will watches Mike, conflict clear on his expression, though Mike isn’t entirely sure what the conflict is over, and now Mike is even more terrified Will will say no and that was Mike’s only chance and he just totally screwed that up too, until the edges of Will’s lips quirk upwards into a faint smile.
“If you want,” Will concedes. Mike’s mouth twitches into a grimace.
“Wait- Do you want to?”
Will gives Mike an exasperated look and Mike begins another prayer for some other-worldly force to please figure out what to do with him. Then Will’s fingers are sliding along Mike’s jaw into his hair, then Will is kissing Mike, and Mike’s internal self-loathing shuts its mouth. One of Mike’s hands comes up to grip Will’s wrist, if only to steady himself, and the other is hovering weirdly above Will’s waist, but Mike leans into Will’s kiss with everything he’s got, eyebrows knit together in focus. He’s doing everything in his non-supernatural-power to pour everything he wants to say, everything he has left to confess into Will’s open mouth, but Will’s tongue swipes across Mike’s bottom lip, and what was left of Mike’s brain turns to mush.
Why haven’t they been doing this forever? is all Mike can think. Who knew kissing could feel this good?
Mike doesn’t even notice when every light in the building, from neon to fluorescent to battery-powered, begins blinking in a uniform song. He’s too busy drowning in Will, all of Will, everything he can swallow of Will’s very essence. Only when every fuse around them blows to sparks do they jump apart, and Mike immediately tastes copper smudged against his mouth. Will, outline barely visible as Mike’s eyes adjust, somehow even sounds dazed from the way he’s breathing so heavily. Mike can feel Will’s eyes on him, burning hot under the intensity of Will, and Mike figures he himself doesn’t sound too far off.
Will blinks a couple times, regathering himself, but doesn’t separate himself from where he and Mike are still tangled together. He looks around the now dark space, realizes that every light in and outside of the building has been shattered or otherwise broken, and a hand moves back from cradling Mike to touch the drop of red beginning to curve around his bottom lip. “Shit,” Will curses, and attempts to sit up a little straighter, then clearly thinks better of it and sags into Mike. Mike drops his hand from Will’s wrist and opts to wrap his arms back around Will.
“What-”
“Don’t,” Will mutters, with no real bite behind his tone. “I just- I don’t want to think about that.”
Mike nods, and rests his cheek atop of Will’s head. He’s going to have forever to never let Will live that down, anyway. “That was kind of cool.”
Will huffs. “‘Kind of cool?’” he parrots, sounding a smidge indignant.
“It’s not so often that you kiss your best friend and he blows up every light.”
“Mike.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Footsteps echo through the empty halls, and Mike sits up a little straighter with a sparse glance to Will. Will doesn’t move an inch — Mike’s even convinced Will sinks further into Mike’s body — so Mike doesn’t move either.
“Damn flashlights, you’re supposed to work- Oh!” Robin almost breezes by the doorway, but stops midstep to whip around and face Mike and Will. Mike grimaces a sort-of-smile and lifts a hand from behind Will in a sort-of-wave. Robin rubs her eyes with the heels of her palms and squints, then crosses the room in four strides. “Sorry, it’s really dark in here. Flashlights are broken- more like everything’s broken, actually.” Robin crouches to meet their eye level. “Are you guys okay? Is he okay? With his whole… you know?”
Mike watches Robin’s every movement. He doesn’t budge. “He’s-”
“I’m fine, Robin,” Will cuts in before Mike can answer. The exhaustion is clear in his voice, and he doesn’t sound fine, but who are Mike or Robin to protest? Will falters at the tone of his own voice. “Sorry, just…” Will gestures to the darkness with a roll of his wrist, “still getting used to the whole- hivemind thing.”
“No, yeah, that’s super cool!” Robin seems pretty enthusiastic, despite the complete lack of power the building has currently. Mike is more than a little lost. His thumb begins stroking light circles into Will’s side; whether it’s to soothe Will or himself, he doesn’t know. Despite how dim it is, Robin’s eyes are immediately drawn to the movement.
Mike freezes. His hand hovers just above Will.
Then, Robin lights up and grins at Will. Will can only afford Robin a sheepish smile back. Mike is not privy to their telepathic conversation, eyes flicking between the two in an attempt to get any understanding of their thoughts.
“Well!” Robin stands after a moment and claps her hands together. Mike and Will wince at the sudden noise, but Robin doesn’t pay them any mind. “Now that the whole building’s lost power and Hopper’s grumbling about the breaker- Oh, right, everyone else is looking for you guys. Mostly Will. Sorry, Mike.” To be expected. “You guys can stay here, you look like you really need the rest. I’ll tell everyone else you’re both okay, Ms. Byers and Jonathan and Hopper might come talk to you guys though. And I’ll find, like, a lantern or something to bring you.” She spins on her heel and begins walking out of the room.
In the doorway, Robin pauses. “Some avalanche though, huh?” she says over her shoulder with a last sly look to Will.
Will nods, and Mike can feel his skin heat under his fingertips. “Yeah,” Will manages, “some avalanche.” Robin laughs, way too pleased for their situation, and disappears into the depths of the building.
Mike has never been so confused in his life, and he had only just accepted he’d been in love with his best friend his entire existence a few hours ago.
“What the hell did that mean?” he whispers to Will as if Robin was still in earshot.
Will scrunches his nose and cocks his head to the side. Mike can’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of endearment. “Nothing, it’s nothing.” Mike looks unimpressed. “I’ll tell you later.”
“You’ll tell me later.” Does Mike seriously have to live through the end of the world just to figure out what secret codes his best friend is speaking in to someone Mike barely knows?
“Yeah.” Will sounds much too amused in Mike’s flat reaction. Mike huffs. “I promise, I’ll tell you everything.”
Mike can accept that. He presses a kiss to Will’s temple in a show of approving his terms, and interlaces his fingers with Will’s. Will stares down at their hands together, and smiles. They’d have forever to figure the rest of this mess out, later.