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Mike Wheeler was gay.
Mike Wheeler had a girlfriend.
Mike Wheeler was gay.
Mike Wheeler liked Will Byers.
He sighed, throwing himself onto his bed. It was a rare moment in the Wheeler-Byers household where it was quiet and he was allowed to hear himself think. Which, of course, meant he was returning back to his ongoing, months long existential crisis.
Mike was gay. Mike liked Will. But he had also liked El once upon a time, hadn’t he?
Or had she just reminded him of Will?
God, he didn’t know, and the whole situation was fucked and he was a horrible person who deserved to die alone–
“What the fuck is your problem?” Nancy asked. Mike jumped, sitting up, then glared at her.
“Get out.”
“Stop moping and get off your ass. We all know you miss El and are a sad hormonal teenager, whatever, we’ve all been there, but it's a rare second that we have a moment in the house without Mom and Dad and I want to go over the plan for our next crawl.”
Mike groaned, flopping back down on his bed. He did not want to talk about a crawl of all things right now.
“Get up.”
“Get out.”
“Mike.”
He didn’t respond and he didn’t feel like talking.
The bed dipped and he felt Nancy sit.
“What's wrong?” she asked.
“Nothings wrong,” he said, voice muffled by his arms, which he was using to hide his face. God, he was so pathetic he wanted to cry.
“Come on dude, something's wrong. What is it?”
“Maybe the fact that the whole world is going to shit and the government is invading and we can’t find Vecna and Max is in a coma and I can barely see El–”
Nancy pushed off the bed, going towards the door, “Fine. Don’t tell me then, but remember that I at least tried to be a good sister–”
“I like Will,” he blurted out. Nancy paused, hand frozen on the door handle. Mike's cheeks burned with shame and his nose grew prickly with the feeling that he was about to cry. God, why had he said anything. Nancy probably hated him now and was going to go tell Mom and Dad and Holly and Dustin and Lucas and worst of all El and Will and they would hate him and he would lose everyone–
He didn’t realize he was crying until Nancy hugged him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, fully sobbing now, “I’m sorry. I know it’s wrong and I shouldn’t feel like this and I’m horrible and disgusting and–”
“Stop,” Nancy said, pulling away to look at his face. “Stop it. You are none of those things, Mike. None of them.”
Mike started crying again and Nancy hugged him again and they stayed like that for a moment, the only sound in the room Mike's soft sobs. This may have been the longest these two had gone without fighting.
He voiced that thought and Nancy laughed.
“Probably,” she said, pulling away to look at his face again. She wiped some tears from his cheeks. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
He sniffed, and nodded. God, he wanted to talk about it. He wanted to talk about it more than anything. He had wanted to talk about it for so long that now, when given the chance to, he had no idea what to say.
“When did…?” she hesitated, “I mean, how long…?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I realized it about two months into the Byers living here. But, I don’t know how long I’ve liked him. Maybe it was always him.”
Nancy's eyes softened, “Oh Mike.”
He buried his face in his hands, “What do I do? I mean, god, being… gay… and El…”
Neither of them said anything for a moment.
“I just… I don’t think I ever really liked El, you know? I mean she's one of my best friends and I love her, but–”
“You don’t love her,” Nancy said, understanding.
“Yeah. I just… I felt like that's what I was supposed to feel. I felt like since everyone was telling me I liked her or that I was supposed to like her, that the next thing to do was say I did and act like I did. And I just got so caught up in it that I thought I did. Or, maybe eventually I did like her–for a time, at least–but not in any way that really mattered in the end. I think maybe the idea of dating a super hero appealed to me more than anything else. I don’t know. But…” he hesitated, wondering how much to share, how much of his soul he should bare to his sister. She was looking at him, not with disgust like he always thought she would, but with love and understanding. “But,” he continued, now firmer and more confident, “I know what I feel for Will. I have never been able to know what I feel so surely. Everything is always muddled and mixed with the people telling me what I should feel and the people telling me what I shouldn’t feel, and yet I know what I do feel. I never felt that with El. With her everything was always loud and angry and complicated and I never knew what was happening and we were always fighting or on the verge of a fight and neither of us were really happy. With Will though, it’s quiet. It’s like my brain and heart are finally in sync and I am allowed to feel something right for once in my life. I mean, it’s still complicated, obviously, but it’s just… it feels right.”
Nancy nodded, “I get it. That's how it was with Steve and Johnathan. Miss Popular and Mister Popular. Everyone thought that me and Steve were what was right,” she said.
“And you choose the weird kid with the camera over everyone else.”
She laughed, nodding, “I choose the weird kid with the camera over everyone else.”
I leaned my head on her shoulder and she put her head on mine.
“Does Will know how you feel?” she asked.
I shrugged, “Probably not. I mean, I haven’t told him or anyone else and I thought that I’ve been doing a pretty good job of hiding it.”
Nancy hesitated.
“What?”
“I did, well, I did kind of think that there was something going on between you two. Not necessarily romantic!” she rushed to say, seeing the look of panic on her little brother's face. “But you two seem closer, seem like something clicked between you two and you can finally be normal again instead of fighting all the time like you guys did before he left for California."
Mike sighed, putting his head in his hands again, “God. I’m so fucked.”
Nancy patted his back, “It’s not obvious. But I’m your older sister. I notice these things.”
Mike looked up at her, “Do you hate me now?”
“What? Why on Earth would I hate you?”
“I know you said that I’m not but… it is unnatural, isn’t it? I mean, that's what everyone says. Do you think Mom and Dad think like that? Dustin, Lucas, Max, Holly? Will?” He was panicking again, thinking of all the people he may lose just because he liked a boy.
“Slow down, Mike.” Nancy put her hands on Mike's shoulders, grounding him and forcing him to look at her. “Look, the world may say these things and think these things, but that doesn’t make it true. People right now are just… scared and misguided. They’ll come around.”
Mike nodded and they hugged again.
“I love you, Nancy.”
“I love you too, Mike.”