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The noise of the toilet flushing was loud, but at least his entire world wasn’t spinning anymore. Mike exhaled and laid his back against the door of the bathroom stall, keeping his eyelids closed in an attempt to not worsen the headache he feels creeping in. His legs were passing the gap at the bottom, resting on the floor of the stall Will was in.
The room was silent for a while. Five minutes passed. Or maybe it was ten, or twenty. Mike’s not sure, but it was enough for his head to clear.
“Will?”
A few moments passed, but there was no reply. Opening his eyes, Mike looked down to see that Will’s legs were now on his stall, mirroring him.
Mike tapped his foot on the other’s thigh. “Are you alive over there?”
“Mhm.” Will bumped his fist on Mike’s ankle.
Mike, even if Will couldn’t see him, nodded. He tried to turn his head up, but the light of the bathroom was a bright white that strained his eyesight, so he chose to keep his eyes down. More specifically, on the part of Will that he could see.
After a minute, Will spoke up again, “do you think we puked all the drugs out?”
“I think so.” Mike stated. “Ask me something.”
It made sense, asking questions to see if they were still cursed with telling the truth. Mike could feel Will’s fingertips tap a familiar rhythm on his skin while he thought of something.
Eventually, the rhythm stopped. “What’s your favorite color?”
Mike didn’t even have to think about the answer. “Yellow.”
Will scoffs. “Yellow?”
Mike felt a bit offended at the tone, like he didn’t believe Mike’s words. “What’s wrong with yellow?”
“That’s like, no one’s favorite.”
Now it was Mike’s turn to not believe him. “That’s so not true.”
“Yes it is.”
“It’s not.” Mike shook his head. “And even if it was, then good. That just means it gets to be only mine.”
He heard Will’s palm fall on his own leg, the sound making a point. “I just rolled my eyes by the way.”
Mike tilted his face sideways, not surprised to find a smile growing on his face.
“What’s your favorite then?”
Will also responded immediately. “Blue.”
“Boring blue? I expected more from an artist like you, Will.”
By the second of silence, he could hear Will roll his eyes again.
“Shut up. I like it.”
“I don’t.”
“So?” Will gently hit Mike’s leg with his foot. “Me liking it means it’s good.”
Mike nudged back. “Whatever you say, sorcerer.”
The truth serum was surely still in his system, which directly meant it was still in Will’s system. He has a feeling this might be a problem.
“Ask me something else.”
“Okay.” Will said, like he already had the exact thing he wanted to ask. “Why do you have a binder full of my drawings hidden away in your closet?”
Woops. He wasn’t meant to find that.
Unfortunately, Mike can’t keep his mouth shut, “you were in my closet?”
“I needed a jacket.”
Most of Will’s clothing was back in Lenora, so he sometimes took to using Mike’s clothes. Sometimes. Since he also had some of his own, and also shared a lot with Jonathan. Mike selfishly wishes he only took his clothes instead.
“This was last year.” Will added.
“And then you never told me that you had it.”
It’s November. Will has known about his binder for close to a whole year and said nothing at all? That thing was overflowing with Will’s drawings since 1976 to the point that it could pass off as obsession.
“Are you going to answer me or no?”
Mike paused, there’s really a lot of reasons why he has those pages. The main one is the most embarrassing one.
“…Because they were your drawings.”
He could also tell Will that it’s because the drawings consist of the party, of good memories belonging to a different version of them. Will the Wise and Mike the Brave are ninety percent of that binder. He could also say that it’s because of Will’s hard work and time that was spent on the masterpieces.
“And I thought you were good.” Mike adds.
Another reason is that caressing the paper was like caressing Will. But admitting that one would be a bit much.
“My old drawings were not good, Mike.”
“They were to me—they still are. And I like to compare them to your drawings now. See how much you changed.”
“You have every single drawing I ever made.”
He can picture the smile Will has, his voice always gets like this when he smiles. It’s the most recognizable thing to Mike.
“No, I don’t. You have so many drawings of me that you just refuse to give to me.”
“They’re for practice.” Will says as soon as Mike finishes his sentence.
“It’s better if I have only one face to perfect instead of trying to do seven other people.” Will adds, he speaks about it like he needs to defend himself. “And we always hang out, so it just makes sense that I use you for practice.”
“So why can’t you give me the finished ones?”
Will shifted, sitting up to delay his answer. It was enough of a pause for Mike to worry if he was being too obvious.
“…I need to look back at them to see what I need to do better the next time I draw.”
Sure, that tracks, but Mike would like to have them. “You’re just being greedy.”
“So what if I am? They’re mine.”
“But it’s of me so technically it should be mine.”
Will doesn’t reply instantly, which makes Mike hope that he might actually give in and gift him the drawings of himself that he well deserves.
“I’m so done with you.”
As much as Mike thinks that should be true, he’s glad it’s not.
“I’m right.”
“Whatever.” Will kicks Mike slightly harder this time. “It’s your turn to ask.”
Despite knowing that the kick was meant to annoy him, he still grins like an idiot. Mike finds it endearing. Mike finds everything that Will does endearing. He thinks for a while, wondering what else he could ask that would give him some clue to whether or not he should ask about what he really wants to know.
He decides. “Do you like sleeping with me?”
Will almost shouts. “What?”
Mike feels his face get the tiniest bit red. He corrects himself, “like, next to me, in my bed.”
“Uh,” Will lets out a laugh, “why?”
“Because—” He stills, really just wanting to know if he’s a bother to Will. “Everyone I’ve ever slept next to tells me that I move every two seconds.”
“I mean, yeah, you move.”
“How much?”
“I sometimes wake up with you right next to me, like, glued to me. And sometimes your leg or your arm’s on me.”
It sounds like him. But Mike can’t really grasp that he’s been doing this for pretty much a year and a half. And further, that Will hasn’t complained about him once. Well, at least not to his face.
“And you hog the blanket a lot.”
“Oh.” Mike internally cringes. “Sorry.”
“That part’s not really a problem though, since you sleep so close to me anyway.”
Will always woke up before Mike, so, even if Mike woke up sprawled in the middle of the bed, he didn’t think that was a big deal. Thinking about it now, Will probably gave up on sleep and woke up because of Mike’s movement.
“You should’ve told me that I was stopping you from sleeping.”
“No, it—it kinda helped. You know, with the warmth.”
Mike nodded, before remembering that Will couldn’t see him. “Okay. That’s good.”
He has about ten different follow up questions on a spinning wheel inside of his head. But he can’t decide which one he wants to ask next because the time for his turn runs out as Will speaks up.
“Why’d you fail the Spanish test?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Really?” Mike responded, deadpan.
“Yeah. We studied together, I thought you were getting better at it.”
Mike takes a breath. “I was distracted.”
“By what?”
“You.”
A moment passed. Will’s voice got quieter, “…really?”
Mike shrugged. “It’s not that crazy.”
“Yes it is, Mike.” A thump came from the other stall. “You’re so stupid.”
“Not as stupid as you banging your head against the wall.”
He heard another thump. “That was your fault.”
Mike bit his lip in an attempt to stifle his grin. “I didn’t make you do that.”
“You basically did.”
Will shifted, his legs disappeared from Mike’s stall. He saw Will bring them up to his chest, wrapping his arms around his knees.
It’s his turn, and there’s a lot of things that Mike wants to know, but there’s only one thing he cares about at the moment. And he blurts the letters out before his drugged brain starts to overthink everything.
“Have you ever been in love?” Mike asks.
He’s worried that the question is too straightforward, or that it’s too different of a question compared to the others, or that Will’s answer would be no.
“I have.” Will pauses. “Have you?”
“Yeah.”
Will audibly inhales, “…makes sense.”
“It does?”
“You and El were, like, the perfect couple.”
Mike blinks. “No we weren’t.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re not with her anymore.”
Mike doesn’t say anything back. He feels himself get sick once more for a moment, and glances to the toilet next to him, but—to his own surprise—he manages to push it down.
“Do you still love her?”
“…I never did, Will.”
Will huffs a laugh. “That’s bullshit.”
He shakes his head. There’s not really a way he can explain that he didn’t love her without spilling the truth. He doesn’t want to talk about her every single time the topic of love comes up and he’s with Will.
“What about you?” He asks, diverting the attention from himself.
“What about me?”
“You said you’ve been in love.” Mike lets his words linger around them. “Was it someone in Lenora?”
A moment passes, then Will whispers, “no.”
His voice is soft, vulnerable. It sounds like he didn’t want to admit it.
“So, was it someone here?”
Will hums.
“Is it, like, in the past? Or do you still have these feelings?”
“I don’t think I’ll ever stop having these feelings.”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Mike can tell he doesn’t want to talk about this in the bathroom of a military base. Maybe Will doesn’t want to talk about it ever, but Mike can’t help himself. This might be his only chance to know. He wants to know. Needs to know if he misinterpreted that painting.
“Do I know her?”
Will chuckles. “I’d hope so.”
“…is that a yes?”
“Yes, I think it’s a yes.”
Mike swallows sharply. “Can you tell me about it?”
He heard Will shift. Looking down, Mike could see Will hug himself tighter, nails scratching at the back of his palms.
“When you talked about her, I didn’t really care at first.”
Mike inhaled.
“But then she came back. He continued. “And you started paying all of your attention to her.”
Mike furrowed his brows, was he hearing this right?
Will adds. “Seeing you with her all the time hurt. Especially after, you know, we had a special connection. I mean—at least I thought we did.”
El has powers, and she found him in the Upside Down years ago. Will was connected to the hive mind, and he had just gotten powers before the military kidnapped them. They do have a special connection.
“And this… disconnection, continued even after we moved. I thought we could get better. I even thought that, maybe, the distance would make the feelings go away.”
A beat. “It didn’t.” Will stated.
Mike started mindlessly playing with the hem of his shirt as he listened.
“And she would get letters, and letters, and letters. And she just kept getting letters from you.”
Will hesitated, then started again. “I did read some. You didn’t say much in most of them. I guess there wasn’t a lot happening, but, I know that if it was me, I would talk about even the littlest things. Just to make the page longer.”
He did send a lot of pieces of paper to her, but barely any of them had many paragraphs. He wasted all his words on the letters to Will that he never sent.
“And then, you visited, and it was a disaster.”
Mike really doesn’t want to think about the mess that California made of him.
“She was lying to you. And you didn’t believe me until you saw her get hurt. Which was really shitty. And she got arrested, and you were so worried about her. And I was worried too, but my worry came from something else. You wanted her back because you wanted her.”
Will’s voice quivered.
“We then got her back, and you said that you loved her… and some other things—and I know it’s bad that I felt that way when you two loved each other. But it hurt, and I couldn’t control how I felt, no matter how much I didn’t want to feel this way.”
He didn’t really know what to think. Will just spoke about El for the past however many minutes. It didn’t make sense, confused was an understatement.
“Isn’t that weird?” Mike asked.
“…what is?”
“You and El, is she not basically your sister?”
He saw Will pause, and the room was so silent that Mike could hear his own blood stream flow through him for a split second.
Then, Will laughed, loudly. It took Mike by surprise.
“Will? What’s funny?”
He didn’t get an answer as Will kept laughing. It didn’t help his confusion. And despite having a bubble of sadness making its way into his veins, the sound of Will’s laughter made him smile.
“What?”
“Jesus Christ, Mike.” He said between breaths.
Mike repeated himself, “what?”
Will exhaled, able to compose himself. “El is my sister. I do not like her like that.”
“Okay…” Mike nods, he doesn’t want to assume the wrong thing and make a fool out of himself. “Then, what do you mean?”
“Is it not obvious?”
Mike opened his mouth, but nothing came out, words stuck in the lump in his throat.
Will continued. “I was jealous of her. I wanted to be her.”
“Oh.” Mike breathed out.
“Yeah. Oh.”
“Am I—Am I misreading this?”
“No. You’re thinking right.”
Mike’s heart rate shot up into his head immediately, he felt the beat of it all over his body. It was making him dizzy.
“When? When did you start…”
“I don’t know the exact moment, I think what I felt for you grew gradually. But I do remember realizing that what I felt was something more.”
Logically, he knows Will wouldn’t joke about this, but Mike can’t believe it.
“When did you realize?” Mike questions.
“Do you remember that day we fought in the rain?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
It’s not my fault you don’t like girls. “Oh.”
Mike turned his head up and brought his hands to his face, rubbing his eyes. That made him realize. He has half a mind to crawl inside the other stall and tell Will that he’s allowed to punch Mike as much as he wants. The other half is telling him to stay put and to never ever leave this specific spot.
“Can I tell you something else?”
He hums in response, though Mike’s almost sure what he hears will only make him hate himself even more.
“The storm never destroyed Castle Byers. I did.”
Mike let his hands fall to his lap. “Why? That was your safe haven.”
“Exactly. I went there after the fight so I could be alone with myself, where I could cry in peace without anyone bothering me. Then I saw a picture of us together, and I just felt so stupid. I couldn’t look at it.”
Mike closed his eyes as Will spoke, absorbing everything.
“It made me remember some things. I was so sad that I ended up getting mad enough to destroy it. And I wasn’t mad at you, I was mad at myself. For feeling what I felt—what I still feel.”
He’s not sure if Will is telling him all of this because of the truth serum they were injected with or because Mike hasn’t freaked out on him yet.
He sits up. “What did you remember?”
“Mike, how many questions are you gonna ask?”
“I’m sorry. I just wanna know.”
Will inhaled through his nose. “…After El came back. You pretty much stopped hanging out with me. You changed. We changed.”
Mike forced himself to swallow as to not interrupt Will with his side of the story.
“I know we still hung out with the rest of the party. But we stopped hanging out just us two, there always had to be another person with us. I didn’t mind hanging with Lucas or Dustin or Max. But I wanted to be with you.”
“You didn’t want to hang out with El?”
“No. And this sounds weird, but it was like she stole you from me—which doesn’t make sense cause we were friends, but—I just—we weren’t best friends anymore.”
Mike looked at the gap between the stalls and had an idea.
“And part of me feels bad for it because I know that she had helped when I first went into the Upside Down, and I know she dealt with terrible things in the past, but… honestly? I didn’t care, I just wanted my Mike back.”
Mike blinked. Will was pouring his heart out and Mike was letting his words make him giddy inside. This really wasn’t the time.
“I mean,” Will scoffed. “I still don’t even understand why she was with you back then. She barely knew left from right, and you had nothing in common, and you didn’t even go on dates—it was all just making out, for months. Doesn’t that get boring?”
It was silent for a full sixty seconds after that, the air in the room was strained with tension. Mike felt awkward, he couldn’t speak but he also couldn’t deny any of it. Will probably felt awkward too.
“I’m sorry.” Will adds. “It’s—weird. This is weird.”
“No, no. It’s not.”
Before he could stop himself, Mike leaned forward and grabbed the bottom of the stall currently separating him from Will. He pushed himself forward, sliding into Will’s stall, his leg brushed Will’s as he moved. When inside, he propped himself up and sat against the wall.
Glancing at Will, he wasn’t looking back at him. He saw how Will’s eyes were watering, threatening to spill tears out.
Will hid his head in his arms, curling into a ball. “Can you not look at me?”
“I like looking at you.” The softness in his own words startled himself.
“Don’t say that.” Will’s voice was muffled.
Still, Mike couldn’t tear his eyes away from Will. He sat up, shifting an inch closer to Will’s space in the process. He rested his feet on the wall tiles in front of him and placed his palms flat on the cold floor, trying to ground himself.
“…I’m sorry.” Mike blurted out. “For all of it. Everything after the snowball went to shit, and it’s my fault.”
He glanced at Will, who gave no sign of life besides audible breathing.
Mike swallowed the fear down. “I wasn’t bullshitting when I said I never loved El.”
He wanted to reach out to the boy beside him, to just outright tell him that he was the same, since it would make this a whole less of a problem.
“I think I made myself think that I liked her in that way because everyone else thought I did.”
Though, Mike knew that simply saying the feelings were reciprocated wasn’t enough. Will explained himself, so he had too as well. It was only fair.
“At the snowball, we were all there, and that girl came to ask you to dance. And it was like, nauseating. I thought we were different than the others. But, you were dancing with a girl, and I was alone. Then El came in, and, since you weren’t there, I went with her.”
Mike was blinking too much to the point it became manual instead of automatic. He licked his dry lips as he tried to make the truth come out.
“...I don’t know how to explain it.” He paused. “You were with her, so I thought that there was no way that you could feel the way that I felt. And, like you, and Lucas, and Dustin, I had to dance with a girl too.”
“I had to be normal.” He added.
Will lifted his head up in his direction, Mike saw the glint in his eyes through his peripheral vision. It made him more self-conscious.
He didn’t dare look back.
“And I—I think I knew what it was right then.” Mike stuttered out. “I also knew that I didn’t like El like that, but, I’m supposed to. So I thought that if I spent more time with her, I would end up having feelings for her. And, you know, you’re supposed to kiss.”
Will was watching him intensely now, Mike sensed his gaze on the side of his face.
“So I did, and… I didn’t like it. But that makes no sense, because, I’m meant to. So, I thought that if I kept doing it, eventually, I’d end up liking it. And I’d end up actually liking her.”
Mike took a moment to deeply inhale and exhale, silently urging the cracks in his voice to leave.
“I felt something—for—for you.”
He risked a glance at Will, and saw that the red in his eyes were still present.
“I realized that at the Snowball, but I thought that I could get rid of it.”
Somewhere inside him, Mike thinks he’s being too vague. He knows Will would understand him, and he thinks this speech isn’t doing justice to how deep this really goes for him.
“And then you and your family left for California, and I realized that, no matter how much I tried, I would never get rid of it—I would never be normal. And I would always feel for you what I was meant to feel for El.”
As much as it pained him to speak this part of him out loud, he let the words linger. He wanted Will to know that, as long as he’s here, he’d never be alone.
“And even though I knew that I wasn’t normal I still tried to be… Am I making sense?”
Will nodded, lips parted.
“So, earlier, when I said that I was in love. I wasn’t talking about El.”
“You were talking about… me?” Will says, softly. There was a light in his eyes that Mike’s never seen before. It felt like a spell.
“Yeah.”
Will shifts, his skin brushing Mike’s. “…do you still feel that way?”
“I do.” Mike stated. “Do you still feel that way towards me?”
“I do.” Will confirmed.
It was reciprocated, this was now something that they both knew. But Mike made no move, and neither did Will. They just sat there on the floor, in silence, for various awkward elongated minutes. Playing eye-tag as Will looked at Mike when he looked away, and Mike looked at Will when he looked away. This lasted long enough for their breathing patterns to end up in sync.
“Uh,” Mike laughed. “What now?”
“I don’t know. Aren’t you supposed to be the expert on this?”
The smile on Will’s face fully grew after Mike laughed, it encouraged Mike’s grin to get bigger as well. Mike adverted his gaze down, more shy than he wants to admit.
“I’m not an expert on anything.”
“Well now you’re just lying for no reason.”
Will bumped his knee against Mike’s on purpose this time. Mike nudged him back.
The silence returned, but this time Mike actually had time to digest everything that was just throw out into the room. Replaying every interaction he ever had with Will—especially the ones in the last few months—and seeing them from a new perspective. One where there was no realm of possibility where it could be unrequited.
“You love me.” Mike huffed out, testing the words on his tongue. It didn’t seem real.
“Is that really so surprising?”
“It is, to me. I guess I just thought that you were too good to be like me.”
“Shut up.”
“Why don’t you make me?”
Mike stilled once he realized what he said, but he wouldn’t take it back now. Will widened his eyes at Mike, and shook his head.
“…I’m not kissing you.”
“Why not?” Mike didn’t try to conceal the disappointment.
“We just threw up, Mike. That’s disgusting.”
Oh, yeah, he was too focused on Will that he forgot about that. Again, he wonders for a second why this feeling is requited.
Will continued. “Whenever we get home, we’re both taking a shower, and then… we can figure this out.”
Mike nodded. “Okay… but we are going to be more?”
“I mean—If you want to.”
“Yeah, do you?”
“Yeah.”
He swallows. That was basically confirmation that they’re dating, right?
The air in the small space of the bathroom stall was suffocating, in a good way. They’re both frozen, doing nothing but existing next to each other, and Mike has no idea what he should do next. Which is going to become a problem if he spends their entire relationship—relationship?—being unsure of what to do.
Mike’s always been the initiator, but that was during their friendship, where he could do anything with Will and pass it off as something that close best friends do. Now, everything he does will have a meaning—well, it still had a meaning before, but it’s different now since Will is sure of it.
He throws a couple quick glances at Will’s hand, which is on the cold floor, between their bodies. And before he can second guess himself, he reaches his own hand down to place it on top of Will’s.
Mike does everything in his power to not see Will’s reaction as he knows it will make himself explode. They’ve held hands before, actually, they’ve been a lot more physical than this. Like when they cuddle during movie nights, and apparently when Mike throws his limbs on Will’s in the middle of the night, but none of that was ever in a romantic light.
After a hot minute, Will’s hand moves, shifting his palm upward, turning it, and wrapping his fingers around Mike’s in a light handhold.
Mike doesn’t hesitate to interlock fingers.
He meets Will’s eyes as they both look up to each other, and their mouths quirked upwards at the same time.
Mike feels open and exposed in front of someone who knows the whole truth. For the first time, he doesn’t just crave the thought of someone knowing him in his entirety and still liking him. He has it.
He spends the next few minutes in his head. Thinking of him and Will, together. In the past, in the future, and in the present. He has a theory Will is going through the same thing that he is right now—since both of them keep repeatedly making eye contact when attempting to stare. At least Mike wants to stare. He’ll have to get used to being allowed to do that now.
“Do you think we’re gonna be awkward around each other now?” Mike asked.
Will squeezed Mike’s hand. “Probably. But I don’t think it’ll last long. We’ll go back to usual in like a week.”
“The usual, but, dating. Right?”
“That, yeah.” Will looked up, and they held eye contact this time. “Boyfriends.”
He nods. “Boyfriends.”
Suddenly, the door sprang open with a loud bang as it bounced against the wall. They jumped, barely having any time to bask in this new label. Robin and Lucas ran in, both seeming frantic and panicked, out of breath.
“Okay. What the hell?” Robin quietly shouted, gesturing to the both of them on the floor.
Lucas stood next to her, they were both panting, like they had just run from something—or, most likely, someone.
Mike turned his head to look at Will, who was already looking at him. Then, the two burst out laughing, subconsciously leaning into each other. Will’s other hand found Mike’s knee, and Mike instantly felt his face heat up even more than it was.
He was sure the two people stood at the entrance didn’t find anything funny.
“You two are drugged by the military and you run away from us?” Lucas asked, staring at them.
The laughter died down. Tilting his head up, Mike saw Lucas not so secretly eyeing their handhold, but instead of separating the contact, Mike felt his grip tighten on Will’s.
“We didn’t run away. We just…” Will’s eyes found Mike’s, and he smiled. “We left.”
Mike snorted.
“That’s the same thing.” Lucas said, exasperated.
Robin just sighed, shaking her head. “I never thought I’d be on Dustin’s end of this.”
“What?” Everyone else questioned, at the same time.
“Don’t worry about it, this is just—nostalgic.”
Lucas squinted at her. “How is this nostalgic?”
“Hello?” Mike interrupted them. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be saving us here or something?”
They didn’t seem too thrilled to be helping them, but they did. He had to let go of Will as Lucas helped him stand up.
Stepping out the stall, he looked back at Will and Robin behind them, and saw her throw him a wink. It made Will sheepish as he glanced at Mike.
“Alright.” Robin whispered. “We need to leave, quick.”
She made her way to the door and looked to both ends of the corridor, she gestured for the three behind her to follow as she stepped out.
They all left, flooding out the bathroom, Robin was at the front while Lucas stayed at the back. He pressed against Will as they walked out, less worried about the military threat around them as he should be.
“Why’d she wink at you?”
He intended to whisper, but he’s pretty sure everyone in the vicinity heard him. He would be embarrassed about it if he was in a head space where he was able to care.
Will just grinned. “I’ll tell you after, Mike. Tonight.”
Mike nodded, he was looking forward to tonight. And every night and day after this, as long as he had Will next to him.