Chapter Text
Mike has always had a soft spot for Will, ever since they met.
They have an odd sort of connection, past reading minds and more like—reading hearts? That sounds corny, Mike knows, but he can’t think of another way to phrase it, because his chest physically hurts with the way Will is currently looking at him.
He’s looking scared, for some reason, and Mike can’t very well have that, now. Things are supposed to be good, or at least not bad this summer. Hawkins is on lockdown, and the bad things are supposed to be locked away, too, at least mostly.
Sure, there’s the military watch all day and all night, and everyone has their marching orders to pretend things are normal, and they know to pretend monsters aren’t real and that bumps in the night don’t exist, but really, things are kinda fine lately. Things are orderly.
So the bad things aren’t here, because the bad things are out there, yet Will is looking at Mike like there’s something to be scared of, it must be because he’s scared of him.
And that certainly won’t do.
There’s nothing to be scared of in the Wheelers’ basement past the fact that it’s a shitty, cold basement, but Will looks like he wants to cry, and all they’ve done is sat down on the couch because Will has something important to talk to Mike about.
Except they’ve been sitting in silence for a full ninety seconds, just looking at their own legs instead of at each other.
“D-do want me to start?” Mike asks, not sure what Will is getting at with this whole production.
“No!” Will nearly shouts, jumping a bit in place. Settling back down, he reassures himself as much as Mike, “no. I’ve got this.”
The tone is actually kind of cute, but it’s not a new one. Will being brave isn’t anything new, but Will talking to himself kind of is. Usually he talks to Mike like this, rather than getting stuck in his head.
Hell, Will’s probably the bravest person Mike knows, at this rate.
So rather than interrupt his thoughts again, Mike hums, tapping his fingers along his leg. He gives Will time, rather than rushing him, because he would willingly sit like this for hours, just basking in their time together. He starts to look at Will out of the corner of his eye while he waits, and he licks his lips a few times as he looks.
Will’s—well, Will’s grown up in a lot of the same ways Mike has, of course, they’ve both gotten taller and lanky over the years, but in the ways that Mike thinks he’s gone angular, Will has a softness to him. His eyes don’t pierce, exactly, so much as they look into things and into people. Mike envies him that magical ability, because Will is nothing if not magical.
And maybe he’ll have to tell Will that, if Will doesn’t eventually actually say something to him.
They’ve gotten over their recent awkwardness, Mike is pretty sure. And now that he and El aren’t trying to fool themselves into dating each other anymore, now that they’ve realized their love is platonic rather than romantic, Mike is pretty sure most of the awkwardness in general is gone from his life.
Except for this fucking interminable non-conversation, anyway.
So he keeps humming to himself, waiting for Will to catch up to whatever is bothering him.
“Just do it,” Will mutters, and it startles Mike.
“What’d you say?” he asks, bumping his shoulder into Will’s.
Will squeaks, mouth and eyes clamping shut.
So much for that, then.
Mike gives up trying to figure out what Will is going to say, instead looking at him sideways from his spot on the couch. Will’s hair has finally grown out, and it’s getting shaggy around his eyes, getting tangled around his ears. His eyelashes swoop over his closed eyes, and his sharp nose twitches like he can feel Mike watching him.
Maybe he can, because he finally opens his eyes, turning to look at Mike. “I have something to tell you.” He repositions himself on the sofa, one leg tucked beneath him, his body sideways so he can face Mike there.
“Right.” Mike knows better than to fuck up— whatever this is, because Will looks like he have an anxiety attack if he so much as fidgets wrong. Mike turns, too, leaning against the back of the couch so they’re facing one another head-on.
“But before I—but I need you to try not to freak out. You don’t have to promise me not to freak out, but try not to. Please.”
Mike reaches over and grabs one of Will’s wrists, like a real promise. Like an okay, man, I’ve got you. He even verbalizes it. “Okay. Sure.”
Will steels himself silently, moving his wrist so his hand is face-up, so that Mike can hold it. Which—sure, if that’s what this moment needs, Mike can do that. He grasps Will’s hand softly, but Will squeezes hard, like it’s a lifeline for him right now.
Mike furrows his brow at Will, because he can hear how loudly Will is breathing right now. “Will? Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay. I’m here.”
He mutters something again, something like fuck it and then he looks Mike dead in the eyes.
“I’m gay.”
Mike blinks, expecting a speech or at least a revelation, but all he gets is a declaration of something he actually already knew.
But he can’t very well say that can he?
Except something in his face must give him away—the near-laugh bubbling at the back of his throat, maybe—because Will pouts at him, just a little. Then he clears his throat, taking his hand back from Mike’s.
“Mike?” he eventually says, and, right, Mike’s been quiet a little too long after that, what, lame confession?
“Yeah? Oh, yeah, okay. You’re gay. Okay.” He reaches back out to take Will’s hand. “Is—is that what you wanted to tell me?”
“Yes?”
“Oh.” Mike purses his lips. “Because I kind of already knew that.”
“You what?”
“Well, you’re an easy tell!”
“Am not!”
“You turn red and spluttery every time Steve takes his shirt off! Hell, you get red and spluttery every time I take my shirt off, and I’m not even hot or anything, I don’t know what that’s about—I, wait, what? Why are you laughing?”
Because Will is definitely laughing, but it’s a sort of wet laugh, like he might also be crying a little bit.
“Not hot,” he mutters, laughing harder. “Shut up, Mike, not hot.”
“Shut up what?” Mike splutters.
“Yes, you are hot, you idiot! But you—you took all the wind out of my sails, with all that blustering about Steve. I don’t like Steve like that.”
“What?” Mike asks, before shaking himself. “It’s not such a crazy thing to think you might! I don’t know! He’s hot!”
“You’re the one I’m talking to right now, though, Mike,” Will says, like maybe he’s not catching his point, and, fuck, maybe he’s not, maybe the fact that Will is gay wasn’t the revelation, because Will is still staring at him like he has to figure something else out. “And—you’re the one I’m talking about, too,” he adds softly.
“Because you think I’m—hot?” Mike asks, brows up beneath his bangs. He’s definitely going to need Will to explain himself a little bit more, because if there’s anything he knows, it’s that Will is a little bit smarter than him.
“Yep. I’m kind of in love with you, actually.”
“Oh.” Mike can’t take his hand away from Will’s, the way he’s clutching it, not that he wants to. Except his nose is itchy, and his face feels really, really hot, and there’s a lot of information he’s not exactly processing right now. “With me?”
“Yeah.”
This being a revelation, this hits Mike like a truck. This is something he never expected.
Mike expected quite a few things, between himself and Will. He expected Will to come out eventually, or to let his coming-out be quiet and obvious to everyone. He expected Will to save the world from the fucking apocalypse and then move to a big city and find a boyfriend and maybe have a commitment ceremony with that boyfriend and probably adopt a dog, and maybe adopt a few weird children. He expected Will to do great, very consequential things, and then quietly leave him, Mike, behind in Hawkins, to sort through his own complicated feelings alone.
He expected some cute Christmas cards that would leave his heart feeling hollow, well-intentioned letters and phone calls and updates, maybe a few visits a year. He expected their friendship would stay strong because of history and circumstance, and because of the intensity of their mothers’ insistence.
He never, ever expected Mike to be in love with him.
Never that.
“Can you repeat that, please?” Now it’s Mike’s turn to squeak, but he holds onto Will’s hand, because Will has a few silent tears coming down his cheeks. “Just once, really quick.”
“I’m in love with you.”
“Oh.”
“And I don’t, like, expect you to say it back, but I really thought you deserved to know.”
“Thanks for that,” Mike grinds out, tears welling in his own eyes. “I’m just—a little confused, is all.”
“About which bit?” Will asks, not unkindly, but a little sharply.
“About the part where you ignored me for a while, I think that part was confusing. Were you in love with me then?”
“I was—going through something,” Will said slowly. “But yeah. I think so.”
“Oh god, Will. Fuck, you—you had to do that all alone, didn’t you? I’m so sorry, I didn’t even—I mean, I wasn’t there.”
“Literally, I mean, no, but I wasn’t here in Hawkins, anyway, and distances are hard. I get it.”
“I mean, hell, I thought I felt lonely without you. I didn’t stop to imagine how alone you were feeling.”
“Without you. Yeah.”
“I thought—I thought you—El said you had a girl you liked? Out there in California. And I thought she was fucking with me, because I knew you were at least mostly into boys—”
“There wasn’t ever any girl, no,” Will agrees, squeezing Mike’s hand again. “There’s only ever been you.”
“Are—are you sure? Because I’ve seen the way you look at Steve—” Mike cuts himself short as he ducks away from the pillow Will tries to hit him with.
“Come on, Mike. It’s only ever been you. You have to know that.”
“I guess I was joking about the Steve part.”
“Can you stop talking about Steve when I’m trying to tell you that I’m in love with you? Please?” Will begs, and, right, Mike is definitely screwing this up.
“I’m definitely screwing this up, aren’t I?”
Will gives Mike a watery laugh. “Not really, actually, which is how I know I must really be in love with you.”
Mike takes a moment to consider this, to process it all, along with his own feelings. The rapid-fire speed he does this should be considered remarkable, actually, because he quickly shakes himself and settles back in. “Okay. I’m in.”
“You’re in? What does that mean, Mike?”
“I’m in, I’m down, let’s do this.”
“Do—what?” Will asks, brows furrowing.
“Well you—you did have a plan, or something, right? You didn’t just expect nothing to happen now, did you?”
Will blinks, five or six times. “I don’t know what I thought. I never imagined past this part, actually.”
Mike finds this hard to believe. “I find that really hard to believe, Will the Wise. You didn’t ask for advice, or anything?”
“From who? Who would I ask for advice about this?”
Mike can think of a few people, but he stays silent, waiting.
“Okay, fine, so I did talk to Robin a little bit, but that’s different! Her situation isn’t the same at all.”
“And? What did she say?”
“Besides some nonsense about Enzo’s being cursed, she didn’t really have much advice, actually. But that’s because she only just started dating Vicky—” and here Will clamps his mouth shut.
“Dating?” Mike ekes out, brain short-circuiting.
“I’m not sure I was supposed to tell you that, actually.”
“You want to date me?”
Will grins so wide that Mike can nearly see all his teeth. “Mike, of course I want to date you. I just—didn’t think you wanted to date me.”
And that’s the point of this entire fucking conversation, isn’t it? Does Mike want to date him?
“Oh.” Mike’s brain, still fuzzy, collects itself a little, just as he realizes he’s been silent a bit too long.
“Mike?”
His brain searches his heart, and his heart has always had a soft spot for Will. That spot is currently a mushy mess, because he’s pretty sure that he, too, is in love with Will.
He puts that thought aside to answer the question at hand, though. Taking Will’s hand again, squeezing it tight enough to cut off circulation, he says, “Yes, I’d like to date you, Will. Thanks for asking.”
They dissolve into giggles on the couch, just like they used to, just like nothing’s changed at all. And maybe nothing important has changed, except that now they’re holding hands on the couch as they plan which movie to go to, just the two of them.
And if Mike goes to sleep thinking of kissing Will good-night the next time he sees him, well, that’s his own secret to keep.