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Will did it. He really just did the thing he had been fearing and dreading ever since he found out about the concept of liking boys and how it instantly resonated with him despite all the vitriol that surrounded the concept.
He came out. Not just to one person, not just to his mom or his friends. To every single person that was going to help him save the world.
He wouldn’t say he was shocked about everyone taking it so well. Everyone that was involved in the upside down defense squad, he playfully coined it, were good. They were supportive and empathetic, what type of heroes would they be if not.
But there was always a chance of backlash.
And the biggest contender for that backlash had been hovering just past his periphery ever since the moment had been broken.
Will was currently chatting with Robin as they all started gearing up for the final face off. Hopper was going around reiterating the plan to everyone with questions, finalizing the details and rerouting if anything went awry. Nancy was doing a final headcount of all the weapons, forming them into groups to be distributed.
Everyone else was loitering around. Some anxiously waiting for cues, others getting hyped from the adrenaline pumping a bit too early.
Most were just relieved about all of this being over very soon. It had taken up too much of their time, too much of their life and it would finally come to an end.
Then there was Mike.
He was standing around by himself like a goddamn idiot, he knew. But everything was just happening so fast and his brain was trying to process everything he had just heard.
It was all clicking into place so quickly in his brain.
A prolonged look here and a shift in the air there. The moment in the van and on the field and in his basement on halloween and a lingering embrace following moving trucks leaving but the touch sizzling still deep in his bones.
It all amounted to this, to this confrontation. If only Will would just look Mike’s way.
Just once.
Just one look to give Mike the signal that he could approach.
But Robin wasn’t letting up on her rambling of praises of how proud she was, which Mike didn’t understand why she was having that conversation with him. He knows that Will and Robin had gotten closer over the past couple of days but this was getting a bit ridiculous.
Who was she to be hogging up all of Will’s time?
Like of course Will didn’t seem bothered by it; he was too much of a sweetheart to cut her off. Maybe he didn’t mind it but it was starting to grate at Mike a little bit. She had hardly known the guy on a one on one basis since a few days ago.
Meanwhile his friend… best friend/crush, was staring into space waiting his turn to get even a lick of attention from the only person that he cared to be in the presence of right now.
Mike needed to talk to him. He was itching to clear some things up about the accusations Will had stated so convincingly during his speech. Unfortunately, it was starting to seem like Will didn’t want to know or have that conversation at all.
But Mike had to.
If not now then when? If he waited too long the topic would slip away along with the buzz of adrenaline that was coursing his body.
Mike wasn’t a very courageous person but with the right motivations and timing it seemed to flow more effortlessly. He would actually have to gall to take what he wants.
And take it was exactly what he had just committed to do.
He was done waiting around like an idiot.
Taking a couple steps closer to Robin’s back is as nerve wracking as it is electrifying.
Mike was really doing it. For the first time, he truly feels no hesitation about revealing his most intimate, troubling secret to another. Now with Will, it wouldn’t just be accepted but hopefully it would be embraced.
If he’s really being honest, Mike hopes it will end in something more than a simple embrace.
Robin shifts in front of him, her words fading to the background as Will finds his eyes falling past her shoulder. Mike is mid stride as their eyes lock and Will’s pulse beats out of his neck with the nerves.
Why was he coming over? What more could there possibly be to say?
Mike really wouldn’t be coming over to break it off, right? He had just agreed that he wouldn’t leave Will. But what if he felt pressured to say that.
Will so desperately hoped that wasn’t what was going to happen.
Then there was the big elephant in the room that Mike could very well be coming over here to force into the limelight again.
Will had already had a tough enough time admitting to a whole group about his embarrassingly long running love for Mike; he didn’t think he could handle being questioned about it now. Not now out of all the times. Not when they were about to fight Vecna and he needed as much focus as he could.
Reopening a barely healed wound right now was not what they needed at the moment. It would set him back by miles.
Mike’s step falters for a split second and so does the long exhale Will just allowed to escape. As Mike’s steps renew, it springs Will into action.
He doesn’t even notify Robin as he turns and bolts, leaving her in stunned confusion.
He speed-walks down the hall then turns down another corridor making for the double doors, needing to get some air.
Needing more than anything to get away from whatever that was that was about to go down.
He’s breathing so heavily that at first he doesn’t hear the trailing footfalls that are closely following him. The swinging of the door delays just barely as he crosses over it into rather stifling air. Will barely catches either before Mike calls out.
“Will, stop. Can’t we just talk?”
“There’s nothing to talk about. It's ok. You really don't have to say anything. Just forget it, I know you aren’t like that." Will is starting to sniffle and his voice is cracking.
“Will, will you please just stop. Let me—”
Mike rushes in front of him and Will keeps moving, bulldozing through him and checking Mike's shoulder in the process.
“No, I can't. I've already been tormented enough. I can't handle this right now too.”
Mike’s arm grabs Will's bicep sliding down to his wrist causing him to turn. The furrow of Mike’s brow and look of desperation in his eyes forces Will to a halt.
“If you want to keep running away from this then go, but let me tell you this.” It sounds harsh coming out of Mike's mouth but it doesn’t sting him with the quirk of Mike's frown displayed, placating it.
He's not mad at him, just determined.
“If you don’t know how I feel about you then you don’t know anything.” Mike swallows as if it could shove the words back down but now that he’s started it’s like his lips work on autopilot.
He wishes it could’ve come out more formulated, less patronizing. But maybe that was what Will needed. Mike was tired of tip toeing around the line and things being brushed off.
Will’s mouth opens like he’s about to respond but Mike beats him to the punch. “If you think I'm just gonna run away from you, from us. Then you’re wrong.”
Will's shoulders loosen but only by a fraction.
Mike is still biting with it but the sentiment of the words cool off the edge. Mike isn’t planning on abandoning him like he feared, but that still doesn’t deny the impending possibility of rejection.
Will closes his eyes and clamps his lips tightly. His head is the first to turn not wanting to be seen when the hurt washes over him.
With the turn of his body Mike's hand slips further down, fingers slotting between each other, palm to palm, not in the friendly hold that Will would’ve expected.
“When you went missing, when I thought I'd lost you. I went mad. You were the only thing, only person, I could think about.” Mike lets out a loud breath after this, pausing for the first time in his desperate plea for Will to listen and understand him.
“Once you were found I forced myself to stop thinking about you and then you got possessed and the thoughts of you came flooding right back in. All the time. By the hour. By the minute, it sometimes felt like.”
Now Will's resolve was gradually starting to crumble. He was starting to buy into it.
But that always present, damning voice continued to make him falter.
‘He is straight.’ ‘This is just intense friendship feelings.’ They spat, insistent as ever and Will believed them.
“And then everything stopped. The monsters stopped coming for you and the thoughts stopped plaguing my brain constantly.”
At that Will’s stomach dropped, a pit growing restless and queasy at his middle. He knew this was too good to be true.
Mike's hold had loosened as he got farther into retelling, allowing Will's hand to slip out of the surprisingly safe but sweaty hold of Mike's.
Will starts walking away, slow and then picking up speed. Mike doesn’t reach for him but he matches step, staying behind him but not far enough to ease Will's aching chest.
“But they never fully went away! And I thought that being with El was helping and I pushed you away because I thought that I could bury it further. The more I tried the more persistent they became. The monsters started targeting El and I was angry at myself because it wasn’t the same. The thoughts were still you and the ones about her didn’t eat me alive like the ones with you did.”
Mike’s tone had slanted into one of pleading and a nasally effect coated the ends of his words, like he was holding back the emotions welling in them.
They came fast, almost faster than Will's hurried steps like now that Mike started he wasn’t giving Will the choice to run away from this unless he heard him out. Heard everything he needed to confess, no matter how much it pained them both.
“They’d come almost as fast as they’d go. There was never a time where I consistently thought about her with no end or so much that it would make me insane.” Mike feels a pang of guilt seize in his consciousness at the admission.
He never wanted to hurt her, hurt anyone but it always ended up happening anyways. Before he would even know it he had fucked up again. And maybe he was doing just that right now too.
It wouldn’t surprise him.
“And I was so scared of it that I just ignored it. I learned to live with it and pretend that it wasn’t happening. I know it was unfair to El and I know it’s unfair to you with the way pushing it down made me act. It made me clam up and overthink. Get defensive and say the most awful things to try and combat what was actually going on inside my head. That's why I didn't write to you when you were in Lenora. It felt like it would be too obvious. It would show you just how many things I thought to tell you and show you and it would tell El just how much I have nothing to say or talk to her about.”
Will turns then, hesitantly and when Mike sees his cheeks glisten with tears, it almost makes him consider retreat.
They've stopped walking and Mike realizes a little abruptly for how present he feels.
“I-I was scared.” His voice breaks at first, not because it's untrue but the weight of Will’s eyes now on him is tempting to dwindling his courage.
“But I'm not anymore. Not after seeing you back there. Not after what you sacrificed by telling us. How brave you were. It’s funny the whole point of my DND persona is bravery. But I've never had that. You were always the brave one, not me.”
Mike knows he’s going off script, playing the pity card instead of explaining himself without the self deprecation. He doesn't think he knows how to explain without sounding like he’s making excuses.
“But I want to try. This is me trying… to be brave.”
Will’s body has slackened almost entirely, no more tension in his shoulders, posture loosening from the arms crossed stance he had defaulted in to hide himself while walking away from the situation. Now his hands laid loosely to his sides.
“You're the only boy I ever think abt. The only boy I’ve ever cared about. The only boy I would go crazy over. Go crazy together with. The only person I would search the world for. The only person I would search multiple dimensions for." Mike doesn’t even notice when the wording has switched, turning the word boy into person.
Will does and it changes everything.
It was a thing that he couldn’t twist. With “boy” he could say that Mike said it because it singled out girls, with “person” he had to acknowledge that it was him out of everyone that Mike has ever met.
Mike was still going, regaining the determination he had while tailing Will prior. “The only person that can make my mind race and my stomach ache with butterflies. The only person that makes my heart skip a beat. The only person that I lo-"
Mike's voice trails off as he notices the shift in Will's face, eyebrows drawn down, head shaking just slightly back and forth, and lips squeezed into a tight line.
For a split second Mike almost thinks he’s read this wrong. That he had just totally overshot the extent that Will's feelings ran for him.
Or worse.
That he had shot the ball where there wasn’t even a hoop.
What if Mike just made up the part where Will looked at him dead on while tilting his head in pained acceptance as he choked out an “I know they're not like me?”
Mike doesn’t spiral too far down that train of thought when he feels it.
It snaps him out of his second guessing. The gentle press of chapped lips, a little wet but mostly from salty tears.
It wasn’t a proper kiss, not really, just a hard pressure. A little too forced to be enjoyable and Mike’s mouth had been half open from being mid word while Will’s were puckered a little too much.
Though the spark was what really mattered, not the technicality of it.
It made Mike's head spin, his stomach lurch in the best way. Heart pitter-pattering at the speed of light, hands shaking and itching to touch.
He’s about to reach out when Will pulls away, quick and already blubbering apologies that zipped right over Mike’s head.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I’m sorry if I made you uncom-“ Will squeaks as Mike pulls him back in.
And this time Will let everything fall away, brain processing only one motion. Will had never kissed anyone before and he was sure that first peck was an embarrassingly good indicator of that.
This one was miles better.
Mike's mouth was spit soft and parted gently to slot between Will's non-puckered lips. It took him a minute to get used to the sensation.
There was less pressure than before a feather light press that made his eyes slip shut, almost in an eye rolling effect. His knees would’ve buckled if he weren’t so aware of his body right now.
Mike's hand hesitantly slid against the warmth of Will's sides. They settle there lightly, barely there as if Mike was intentionally hovering so as to not scare him away. Like a person would while trying to pet a startled rabbit.
As the touch becomes more steady, more grounding, the presses of their mouths morph into an addictive push and pull.
Will has no idea if he is any good at this but it feels amazing regardless.
He mimics Mike’s speed and pressure, trying to find a balance between Mike leading and his need to contribute as a very willing participant. Finding the courage to touch Mike in return, Will places his own hands a little riskily on Mike's hip.
Mike's rhythm stutters at the touch and Will prides himself giddily in his head.
He was doing it. He was making Mike feel things. Things he’s always dreamt and secretly yearned to share with Mike.
Will was sharing a kiss with Mike Wheeler right now.
And not even just any kiss, a really good, pleasurable, addictive kiss. It was like they couldn’t stop and neither of them wanted to.
Mike takes a step a little forward bringing their bodies closer and it sends a thrill up his spine.
His hands have migrated to the dip of Will’s lower back and he doesn’t hesitate to remap his hold either. One hand moving up to cup Mike’s bicep and the other curling around to splay a little higher on Mike's back.
Tilting his head a fraction more, Mike's mouth adds a bit more friction, more so sucking on Will's bottom lip than just mouthing at it. Will mimic him and it feels like heaven.
The world has completely stopped around him and all he can see and hear and feel is Mike, Mike, Mike.
All around him, over him, in front of him, surrounding him.
They are practically hugging now, and the pressure of their chests rising and falling together on the same breaths make them feel connected, like one body. Their own special hive mind that only acts on the command of each other.
Nothing felt better than being close, not knowing where one body met and the other ended. It felt like they were trying to crawl into each other’s skin, take up a permanent place inside each other’s body.
Will is starting to feel a little light headed from it all but he loved it.
He fucking loved kissing.
He doesn’t know if he could handle going without it now. It would have to be ingrained into his daily routine now.
Wake up, peck Mike. Go to school, kiss under the bleachers with Mike. Do homework, make out with Mike while on his lap. Go to sleep, not before he had his good night kiss from Mike.
He was going to get addicted to this. He was already sure of that.
It wasn’t that far-fetched either, he was already addicted to Mike. He had already spent plenty of time thinking about it and day dreaming without even feeling the real thing before.
This, he could never have imagined it to feel like this. So good it practically felt like he was floating in space, an out of body experience almost.
Everything around merely dulled and all that was left was hands, bodies, mouths, lips, and Mike.
Their hands are now roaming more exploratory but not too much to be indecent.
It's more of a massage than anything. Firm presses to the spine, hands sliding up to cup around shoulders. Knuckles grazing necks and fingers caressing behind ears.
Mike was going insane with it all.
So much was happening at once it was almost overwhelming keeping track of which hand is where and every place their body touched.
Kissing El was never like this.
It wasn’t passionate or electrifying. It didn't have him frantic and crazed to keep going. He almost always got bored with kissing her and it wasn’t like it was unpleasant at all.
It’s just what they did. It was normal and did make him feel proud when she would pull back and smile at him.
But the act itself had never been the main reason he stuck with it. It was mainly to earn that smile and fill the void of silence they would unfortunately fall into.
To put it simply it just wasn’t this.
It wasn’t hands eager to touch every square inch of appropriate skin they could reach. It wasn't lips slotting together at a rhythm that forced you to acknowledge the addictive, very hot sound of mouths sucking on another.
It didn’t cause that flutter in your stomach or that involuntary noise to escape between the cracks if you weren’t being careful enough.
It wasn’t this.
Mike was way out of his element here with everything that he was feeling all at once but Will was responding ok.
Actually he was really responsive and felt just as eager as Mike was. It made him feel wanted and that fact made it all the more euphoric.
The passion of it all was overriding everything.
Even their surroundings that were now starting to fill with people. Multiple people outside gathered ready to battle a demonic villain and it was nothing but a hazy backdrop to their own preoccupied senses.
Mike is just about to introduce his tongue into the mix when a voice forces them apart.
“Hey, love birds!” Will jerks back in horror as his sister's voice rings out across the field of grass. “You guys coming or do we have to save the world while your tongues down my brother's throat.”
The comment is clearly directed at Mike and there is no ill intent in El’s voice but Will still shrinks back. “El, it- it’s not what it looks like,” but there is no response from El, instead Mike retorts.
“Ha ha so funny” It's obviously in a sarcastic, teasing way and El smiles back at him as he just watches mouth agape.
“What just happened?”
“Oh um we kinda broke up… I mean not kinda we did break up. Actually we never really got back together after our fight during spring break. Once El stopped shutting me out we had a talk and decided we work better as friends.”
Mike awkwardly rubs the back of his neck but stops mid movement getting a little flustered at the reminder that Will's hands had just touched him there.
“Oh, yeah, that makes sense. I probably should’ve gotten that information before I um… yeah.” Will makes a gesture with his hand noncommittally, hoping the message comes across without words.
And it does but Mike has developed a craving for mischief.
“Oh, you mean when you kissed me out of the blue?“ Mike lightly nudges Will's shoulder, earning a playful eye roll from the other.
The amusement dies down and Will's eyes fall in an act of abrupt shyness. He just now processes the heat that radiates from his face, cheeks undoubtedly a deep red.
“Yeah… that.” And it’s such a light delivery that it has Mike's heart stuttering in his chest. Will glances up and meets Mike's sparkling eyes of adoration.
Mike smiles dopey and wide.
Will returns it small but conveying every year of silent pining, finally being acknowledged and reciprocated.