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The second Mike walked into the room, Will knew he was doomed.
There was no helping it. Stopping the words, stopping the confession to his mom, was easy, easier than easy, especially since already, the words didn’t want to come out, didn’t want to force their way out of his aching heart. It hurt, it hurt so, so much, and had, ever since… ever since then.
Will could still feel the blood leaking from his eyes, and his hand leaped up, fingers touching below his eye rapidly, then to the other eye, to make sure, just in case, that the dampness, the wet, wasn’t there, still. Still haunting him like the feeling that encompassed his whole body. The chill that’d stayed, ever since he’d been there, been taken there, for the first time. It was worse, really, today, and had been for a while. It was like he couldn’t even breathe, for the chill cocooning him was freezing him, stealing the words from the air.
Honestly, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d start to see his breath fogging up the air, from how utterly cold it seemed to be.
Mike said something about the group being ready, or something. Will didn’t hear him, barely heard him, maybe wasn’t even listening in the first place. All he could pay attention to was the feeling of his hand, sliding down his face and quietly making its way to rest in his lap, atop a knee. Breaths shallow, Will slowly tilted his head in Mike’s direction, to appear to be some form of normal. Until he noticed what Mike himself was doing.
Fucking Mike Wheeler.
His mom, next to him, wasn’t there anymore, was she? Will stole a glance, if not to get away from Mike’s eyes. Those same old, brilliantly beautiful eyes, which could never be for him. She was there, yes, yet he couldn’t keep his eyes on her for even a second before they were hopping away, flicking to the right quickly, downwards, and then up, to catch Mike’s again. Mike, who was staring at him, like he was waiting for something.
Mike, who was comparable to Tammy in every way. You couldn’t keep your mind off of that, Byers, couldn’t you? Just for a second. Will couldn’t stop thinking about that. The blood. The look in Mike’s eyes, how he seemed to flicker out of focus, his voice warping in and out, like he was in a radio broadcast with a shitty connection. Yet the utter truth in it was what floored Will. Maybe he’d looked different. Maybe it’d felt different. Yet it was all still the same, at the end of the day, because Will fucking Byers liked Mike fucking Wheeler. And that vision he’d seen would never wink out from his mind.
Will’s mouth was dry when he opened it, and the wetness on his face was something else entirely when he opened his mouth and croaked out, “I think you need to hear this, too.”
–
Fuck.
Mike Wheeler was sitting next to him. His mom was there too, but that seemed insignificant now. Perhaps Jonathan should have been there too, perhaps everyone should have, Dustin and Lucas and El and Max and everyone, but after telling Mike to stay, Will had clamped his mouth shut. Hadn’t been able to get out another word as Mike came and sat down next to him. That had sealed the deal. Sealed Will’s mouth completely.
It shouldn’t have been such a big deal! Mike was nothing compared to Vecna, to the horrors Will’d seen, he was nothing–
He would never be nothing, Will thought, bleakly. Could never be nothing, not to him. Not ever. All of that, however, didn’t matter if Will couldn’t get a word out.
Mike chuckled, letting a slightly uneasy smile onto his face. That damn smile.
“So… What do you need?” His mom’s eyes flickered to Will’s at that, then between him and Mike, just for a moment. Gauging it.
He’d been ready. So ready, to tell his mom. Then Mike had walked in, and Will had known. He’d just known that he needed Mike to stay.
Now he was practically breaking down.
Over Mike fucking Wheeler, his silly little crush that meant nothing, no matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise. At the end of the day, Mike was just a straight man who liked El. Only El. Great for her, also! Because Will loved his sister. He loved El, he truly did, but he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like in her shoes. Just for one, small second. Maybe if he had been in her shoes, Mike would be chasing after him, instead of this bullshit Will was twisting himself into.
A shuddering breath tore through him, and his mom and Mike snapped to attention, their eyes on him. Staring. Watching. Waiting for him to say something. Anything, other than this silence that made the chill surrounding them worse. It made his thoughts worse, too, the feeling stronger than ever, that the tears on his cheeks were something much, much worse. The visions swirling through his head didn’t make matters any better, and he let out a strangled breath, hands clenched tightly together, one in a fist, the other wrapping over it, head down and against his chest. He wanted to say something. God, he needed to say something. Yet nothing would come out.
“Honey, are you okay?” Joyce reached for his hands, clearly meaning to set her hand atop his, but there was a buzzing in Will’s ears, and even the slightest touch seemed like much too hard right now, and he snatched his hands away, head jerking upwards. Mike didn’t say anything, but he appeared startled, his eyes concerned. Deeply so, even. Fucking Mike Wheeler… Why oh why couldn’t he have been a dick? A douchebag? Anything to make this easier. Anything so that Will could just pass this off as a stupid crush and not something that had been floating around for years.
Will let himself take another breath, and his mom, apparently only now getting the hint, backed off and didn’t say a word, even though she clearly wanted to.
Mike had always been good at reading Will, and vice versa. Yet lately, it had seemed like Will couldn’t read him at all. Nothing but platonic concern in those eyes, yep! God, he was such a screwup. Subtle emotion changes were Mike’s forte, and Will wasn’t catching anything. Meanwhile, he must have been an open book to Mike! What wonderful news.
“I–,” he finally managed to force out, even though it felt like his tongue was freezing midway through pronouncing the singular syllable. His mom was still watching intently, and Mike’s eyes, from where they’d drifted away slightly, made their way back to him, slowly. It was like he didn’t even care. He totally didn’t care. Oh God, this was his worst mistake ever. Yep. Will was going to die of embarrassment right then and there.
“I,” he said again, slower, testing to word on his tongue, seeing if the frozen quality would disappear. Clearly, however, it would not, so Will was just going to have to power through this if he wanted to get anywhere today. If he didn’t want Mike to think of him as even more of a freak he surely would, after this speech.
“I’ve been… hiding something. From everyone. For a long time.” To his own surprise, not a single word came out jaggedly, a stammer stuck behind it. Just pure, simple speech. Which would surely change within time, but he was killing it right now. Even if he was pausing a lot. And avoiding Mike’s gaze, even though Mike was staring so intently at him Will wasn’t even sure he was blinking. He let out a breath, clenching his hands harder together, staring down at them. He couldn’t even look at Mike too long. It would surely make him break down, even further than he already had, and then… then he wasn’t sure.
“I–I…” Now he was back to saying that. Again. Wow, he sure needed a fucking break. “I have thought a–about this, for a long time, and–and it was only yesterday and–and today that I really… realized that I needed to, well, do something about it. Make a–a change.” He swallowed, staring intently at his hands as he felt the wet trickle down his face and tried not to think too hard about it. “There’s something–something different. About me. That none of you– none of you have ever really known. Not just you two. Jonathan, an–and El, and– everyone. Everyone else. None of them know.” God was it hard to get his words out, choked between his stammering and tears that were surely not anything else.
“I–I know that this doesn’t affect you at all a–and you probably don’t care,” as you should, Mike, “b–but I really just needed to tell you this. Both of you.” And definitely not because something else had forced him into actually proceeding into doing this. Nope. Wouldn’t be sharing that with either of them, not now, maybe not ever. Any ulterior motives could stay outside, until they were long forgotten memories and the mere thought of tears had him thinking of something much, much different.
“I–” His breath constricted, a noose wrapping tight around his throat, cold sinking in deep. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t get a single word out, his fear sinking in until it choked him. Stole all the breath from his lungs and came back for seconds. The tears wet his cheeks, and one of his hands reached up, impulsively, to brush alongside them, weakly, wetting his fingertips in vain, and the tears kept leaking from his eyes, the blood staining them red. Shit.
A hand touched his knee, coming to rest on it, lightly, but Will flinched, nonetheless.
It wasn’t his mom.
Mike.
Fucking.
Wheeler.
His breath still came in shakily. Barely so, even though it seemed louder than anything else in the room. He raised his eyes just the slightest, tear-streaked cheeks tilting upwards, his slightly wet fingertips tapping against the top of his other hand, as he looked up and met Mike’s eyes.
Mike was staring at him with such intensity, so much more than before, Will wasn’t sure how he’d mustered it. His face was so close to Will’s. So close. Hadn’t he just been sitting away from him? Had he leaned in closer? This was going to make Will’s brain short-circuit. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe, yet again, because how dare Mike Wheeler make him feel this way. How dare he be so goddamn beautiful that the cold wrapping around Will every second of the day paled in comparison on a scale of breath-takery. How dare he be so damn oblivious. How dare he be so damn far, far enough that Will would never, not even in his dreams, ever be enough beside him.
He was close now. Close enough that Will could count every freckle on his pale face. Could see the way his dark hair framed his face perfectly, clearer than ever. Will had always liked his hair. It was curly, now, always had been, really, yet it was only now that Mike had really let it grow to be this kind of curly, the curly that made Will unable to look away. They weren’t corkscrew curls. Weren’t tight, unrelentless, a mess to deal with. They were more subtle. They were cute.
Dammit.
Mike tilted his head, slightly, nodding at Will, a soft smile on his face. That fucking smile.
Shit.
Will was surely blushing now.
God, he needed to get over his stupid fantasy crush. It was never happening. Stop dreaming. These signs, the signs Robin told him about? They were all just… up there. In his head. They would never be more. Could never be more.
Will swallowed back the saliva building up in his mouth. His mouth felt dry, even still. Felt like he couldn’t breathe, either, like it always had, yet something in Mike’s gaze had made him stop, rewind, and get back on fucking track.
“Th–The point is…” Was he really doing this? Was he really fucking doing this? He was just skipping there. Skipping his whole prepared speech (it hadn’t been prepared, you absolute idiot, it had been on a whim, a fucking whim) so he wouldn’t have to look Mike in those beautiful, beautiful eyes and say something awful. Something off track. Something terrible, something worse than anything else he’d already seen.
“I–I–” Stammering on the ‘I’s again. God, what had he been thinking? If the tears pouring down his face were anything, if the boy sitting next to him was anything, clearly, he hadn’t.
“I–”
He snuck a peek. Just one. If he was going down, he could at least see Mike looking at him, not angry, one last time, right?
“–don’t like girls.”
Well, that was a stupid way to say it. What the fuck was he thinking? Mike had already expressed enough similar to this, he didn’t need to add on to it! Even if it had been years ago!
“I’m gay.”
Fuck, had he just said that?
Will was sure he was cutting off the circulation to his fingers now, with how tightly his hands were intertwined. If staring at something long enough killed it, his hands would be dead.
Will himself would be bones, from how long Mike had been looking at him.
“You’re…”
That was Mike. Mike started to say something, something Will was sure he wouldn’t like. Yet he never got the chance.
“Honey, that doesn’t change anything.”
Will looked up, only slightly, and to the side, to glance at his mom, blurrily, through the tears in his eyes. Oh God, his mom. He hadn’t even thought about his mom! She was here too, and she’d just seen how he’d been acting towards Mike, oh God, oh God– he was screwed– utterly fucked–
“You know that, right?” It took a long second to comprehend her words. Even longer to act on them, because she kept talking. And he sat there, frozen to his seat, feeling it both literally and figuratively.
“You know that no matter what, you’ll always be my boy, got it? No matter what you say or do, you’ll always be my boy. My little boy,” his mom whispered, one of her hands landing atop his tightly clenched ones. They relaxed, just the slightest, but the thoughts in his head were going a trillion miles and hours and Mike still hadn’t said anything–
Joyce got up, and Will barely breathed, his wide eyes tracking her every movement.
“I really would like to be with you right now, and I can hardly get myself to move.” She smiled, a bit strained, but it made something in Will’s chest release its hold on him. “But I think you two need to talk more than I need my son in my sight every hour of the day.”
Was she–? Did she–?
The sound of her footsteps faded quickly, and Will was suddenly alone. With Mike.
Mike fucking Wheeler.
“You’re–?” Mike repeated, again, and even though Will couldn’t find the courage to look Mike in the eyes, he could still feel how utterly confused Mike was feeling, just through his tone of voice. His fucking Tammy. Of course he felt like this, he– he– he was probably going to see right through him! Mike knew him better than anyone. The second he knew that Will was gay? Totally going to see. Right through him. That Will liked Mike.
Then came the subsequent, immediate, turn down of the feelings.
May as well quit while he was ahead and go out and tell him he liked him, too, huh? It had been a funky couple of days, and no matter what had happened on the field, what had happened with Vecna totally overpowered it. No matter what, Will was certain of that. Now all he had to do was work up the courage to say something. Just fucking say something. Please.
“I had a crush on this guy.” Oh, fuck. Why was he saying this? Why was he saying this? He was so, so, screwed. Digging himself a deeper hole, he guessed.
“And he… he doesn’t feel the same about me. I mean, I’ve known him like, forever, so I guess it was kinda awkward, but… I mean, I know his girlfriend pretty well too and she’s cool and well, he’s like the coolest person ever and I was just so. So jealous. For so long. He would like, you know, hang out with her over me and the rest of our friends and, uh, other shit like that. Ignore us. So he could hang out with her. And I guess maybe I… wanted the one he was hanging out with… to be me.”
Breath shallow, all Will could hear was Mike’s own breath beside him, as he slowly lifted his gaze to stare his best friend in the eyes. His best friend. Nothing more. Nothing ever.
“I guess I wanted the one he was ignoring everything for to be me. The one he would hug. The one he’d write letters to. The one he’d make out with. The one he’d dance with, the one he’d ask to dance. Over and over. I wished I was her. So, so bad.”
Slowly, he let go of his hands, unclenching them. Mike was still staring at him, harder than ever, not even a single blink escaping his eyes.
“I guess he was just my Tammy, you know? Like… the one who would never like me back. Even if I loved him. So, so much.”
That was it. That was the final straw. Will was fucked. Completely and totally screwed over. Yep. Mike would say something soon. He would completely freak out. Completely and totally freak out on him. Yep. He was so ready for it. That was it. Nothing good would come out of this. Will had just outright admitted that he, William Byers, liked Michael Wheeler. This was the worst day of his life.
Mike’s mouth opened and closed. Like a fish. Like he was gasping for air that wouldn’t come.
Until it snapped open and he said something.
“How do you know he didn’t feel the same?”
What?
What the fuck?
Was this a fever-induced dream? Maybe Will was lying in bed right now, dreaming about this.
Because what the actual hell had Mike just said?
Will’s mouth opened, then closed, for the words he wanted simply wouldn’t come to him. Wouldn’t open his mouth and speak for him. Fortunately, he didn’t have to, because Mike. Mike fucking Wheeler, decided it was his turn to talk, and oh boy, he sure had some words to say.
“I mean, well, I don’t think you ever really asked him…?” Mike’s eyes were the ones falling away from Will’s face this time. “I know this is sudden and all. But I really– I well– since you said it– I mean, I kinda have to, don’t I?” He stumbled over his words, those brilliant eyes of his making their way back to Will’s for just a moment before he smiled. Just a little bit, but it was a smile. A Mike Wheeler, trademark, smile.
Now that he thought about it, had Mike ever really given anyone besides Will that sort of smile?
“...What are you saying?” Will whispered, his eyes blown wide upon Mike’s words. Mike’s confession. Mike was confessing? To Will? That he… like Will? What sort of world was this? It… it couldn’t be real.
Mike’s trademark smile grew into even more of his trademark smile, slowly but steadily.
“I’m saying I wish the one I’d been ignoring everyone for was you.”
Oh my God.
Will really was going insane.
“I wish I’d been hugging you. That I’d written letters to you. Made out with you. Danced with you. Over and over again, I’ve wished that it’d been you.”
“But you can’t have–!” Will blurted, his eyes fixated on Mike. This time, he was the one staring. He was the one staring, completely and totally, unblinkingly, at the other. Not Mike, who, still, stared back, like his life depended on it.
“I can’t have what?” Mike whispered, his voice softer than ever. Slowly, with a hand, he reached out, resting just a finger, then two, his whole hand, atop Will’s. “Will… you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever laid eyes on, and I’m sorry it took me so long to notice.” His eyes, from where they’d been resting on their hands, made their way back up to Will’s face in time for a smile to flood it. That damn smile.
Will trembled. Stared, eyes flickering from their hands, to his eyes. Hands. Eyes. Hands. Eyes. How could– how could he–? How could Mike, Mike Wheeler, ever love him? This must have been fake. Somehow, this must have been fake. Because there was no way. He’d been certain, so, so certain, that Mike was his Tammy. Everything Robin had said just confirmed it for him. Yet… there was a strange, giddy feeling, deep down in his gut, that grew with every passing second. One that’d started, overpowering the cold, the never ending chill in the air. It’d pushed past the feelings, all the other feelings, of guilt, sadness, pure fear and exhaustion. It told him one thing.
This was real.
If anything could tell him that, it was the look in Mike’s eyes and the feeling in his gut. The feeling that everything was okay, if not for a moment. Everything was right. He wasn’t lying. That was pure, total, unbridled truth, coming from Mike Wheeler himself. Slowly, Will shifted his hand, curling it around the one sitting atop his. Holding his hand. Holding Mike Wheeler’s hand.
“You promise?” he whispered, quiet as could be.
“I promise,” Mike whispered, right away. Right back to him, the boy who’d just been so certain that he wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t ever be anything to him.
It didn’t quite make any sense. Maybe not right now. Maybe not ever. Mike liked Will. Will liked Mike. Those were the two eternal truths Will would hold himself to in the moment, those two sentences. He had to, or he was sure he’d break down. Mike’s hand in his, and a promise. That he wasn’t lying. He liked him back. And maybe everything, anything that came next, would be okay.
“Hey.”
Will looked up from their hands, meeting Mike Wheeler’s extraordinarily beautiful eyes.
“Want to dance?”
He smiled, a smile not quite as beautiful as Mike’s, but it worked. They worked.
“I would love to.”