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Robin
Robin didn't push him to do it; more like she gave him a gentle shove. He didn't have the benefit of Russian truth serum to loosen his lips and make baring heartrending secrets plausible, so a gentle shove would have to be enough.
Will straightened up and tugged his shirt down. "Right, practice run."
"Practice run," Robin reiterated behind him. "Trust me, it'll be fine."
She knew it would be, not that she'd had a chance to talk to Steve about it since he came back from the Upside Down. Even without a heads-up, she trusted him to do right by Will.
Will
"Hey! Steve!" Will said, wincing as the "Steve" squeaked and faded, his voice petering out with his anxiety.
"Will!" Steve greeted him with a very manly side back pat. "I heard you were a real, uh, sorcerer? Right?"
Will laughed, "Yeah, because it's like in me." He could feel himself flush. "But, uh, like from within me?"
Steve raised his eyebrows like he didn't know what to do with that. Or maybe he didn't know how to talk to Will. How the fuck was he supposed to do this? He didn't know Steve. Steve was Dustin's guy. Lucas' buddy. Not Will's anything.
A voice that sounded a lot like Robin, gentle but firm, reminded him that Steve wasn't anything to Robin either, and he still accepted her when she dropped her bomb on him.
The longer Will stayed silent, the higher Steve's eyebrows rose until Will was, like, sure Steve's eyebrows would merge with his hairline.
Steve came to the rescue. "Well, uh, thanks for saving Robin's life. And Mike and Lucas' lives, too. Just Robin, you know? She's like my person."
She said the same thing about Steve. That he was her person. And that could only happen when he knew everything about her. And he accepted her while drugged to tell the truth - which meant he wasn't lying to Robin about it.
Will took a deep breath and reminded himself that he could do this.
"Hey, Steve?"
"Yeah, buddy?" Steve looked at him with his big brown eyes, and for the first time, Will noticed the concern there. He'd seen that expression pointed at Dustin all the time in the last year, but it was the first time Will saw it pointed at him. Jesus, it was worse than his Mom. How did Dustin handle this without caving in immediately?
"Robin said. Well, I wanted you to know that-"
"You're shaking," Steve interrupted, pushing Will down onto the couch behind him. "Are you okay? Do I need to get Jonathan?" He shoved a Bopper from his jacket pocket into Will's hand. "Here, eat this, and I'll go find another Byers for you."
"No!" Will shouted. He didn't mean to shout, but Steve hovering like that was a lot. Seriously, how did Dustin survive? "No, I just need to say something, and it's kinda hard to do."
"Okay?" Steve sat down on the couch arm next to Will.
"I'm gay." Will spat out before he could talk himself out of it.
Steve blinked twice, and in the moments in between the two blinks, Will saw empires rise and fall, whole galaxies born and die.
"Oh, hey, uh, congratulations! That's hard, I mean, I've heard that it can be. Well," Steve threw his hands up. "What the hell do you say in response?" He patted Will on the arm again, but this time it felt different, not an easy type of vague familiarity he was used to from Steve, but instead, like Steve supported Will.
"Congratulations are nice, actually," Will threw Steve a bone.
"Yeah?" Steve smiled at him. "Last time I did this, I insulted h- um- the person's crush. And trust me, the person was worth insulting, but I don't think that was the best way to do it. You know, looking back."
"You insulted Tammy?"
"Oh, thank God, she told you." Steve nearly flopped in half, wheezing out a breath. "Yeah, Robin said she had hopes and dreams! Tammy Thompson sounds like a muppet when she sings, and she tried to make it in Nashville. That's not dreams, that's delusion."
Will laughed. In for a penny, in for a pound. He whispered, "I have a crush on Mike." He didn't know if he wanted someone to rag him or tell him he had good taste. Didn't matter now; the truth was out there. Spoken and all he felt was relief.
Steve blinked a few times. "Is this a gay hazing thing? Get your straight friend to rag on your crush? Is that what's happening?" Steve shook his head. "Look, I get having a crush on a Wheeler. And Mike's not that bad, all things considered. He's nowhere near as big a shit as Dustin can be, and Dustin's my guy. And," He jumped up in his excitement. "At least you have a crush on a person who knows you exist! Hell, he even likes you."
"Do you think he likes me like I like him?"
“Oh, woah, nope. That's out of my league. When it comes to this stuff, I'm like a bat boy. I'm here to support the team, but I'm not on the team. You know?"
"Not really."
"Well, sports metaphors are all you're gonna get from me. You want to talk about the risks and rewards of telling your crush? Talk to Robin. She'll have good advice."
"Good advice for what?" Lucas walked into the room and flopped down on the couch next to Will.
Will stared at Lucas, his brain on fire with panic.
"For pet lizards," Steve said without a hitch. "Robin was obsessed with them as a girl. Will was thinking of talking to Dustin, but he's only raised a turtle. And no, we're not counting Dart as anything useful here either." Steve said, cutting off an unspoken protest Lucas was already forming. "Robin has a bunch of rants about the difference in caring for unusual pets, and that's like a big one. I, for one, thought a turtle was a lizard."
"Aren't they?" Lucas asked?
"According to Robin? No."
"Yeah, I'm gonna go find Robin. Talk to her about lizards." Will said, shooting up from the couch. "Bye, guys."
"Later," Lucas called out before he said something to Steve that Will couldn't make out over the blood rushing through his ears.
He'd told someone. He told Steve Harrington of all people, but he told someone. And it went well. Better than Robin, apparently, because Steve kinda liked Mike. More than he liked Tammy, at least.
Oh my God, he told someone he was gay. He told someone about Mike. Holy crap, this was something he could do. He could do this. Steve was brilliant. He had to find Robin right now, because he had a lot to share with her.