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Will finds Mike in a back room of the Squawk, searching through a cardboard box full of toolbox materials. “Hey, what’re you doing in here?”
Mike looks up, two different sizes of wrench in his hand. There’s a half smile aimed at him, then it’s gone. “Hey, I was about to come find you, actually. After I find the stupid wrench Murray asked me to grab. I don’t know what size fits a one and a quarter inch bolt so I’m just like – trying to fit the wrenches to the bolt head and see what works.”
“I think it’s the one in your hand that’s a little smaller, for what it’s worth.” Will says, zeroing in on the bolt sitting on the table beside the box. He crosses the threshold of the room to close the door behind him. Leaning back against it, he asks, “You got a second?”
Mike peers closely at the wrench in his hand after dropping the bigger one back into the box. He then squints at the number imprinted on the wrench and matches it to the bolt. It fits snugly and Mike chuckles, impressed. “How’d you just know that?”
Will shrugs, “Jonathan taught me a few things when he was trying to fix the car when we were in California.”
“So Murray should’ve asked you to grab the wrench, is what I’m hearing.” Mike says, setting the tools down before looking up at him. Something jolts through Will when their eyes meet, and he almost immediately has to look away again. Mike reads his expression instantly anyway. “What’s up, anyway? You look. . .afraid.”
Will scoffs, “When don’t I look afraid, these days?”
Mike smiles a little and shrugs, “I don’t know, you didn’t look very afraid when you took down those Demogorgons .”
“That kinda felt like a one-time thing.”
“Don’t be so sure, you’ve already done something just as impressive by taking over Vecna’s mind. I mean, you saved Max’s life and broke his leg. Which was awesome, by the way.” Mike reminds, sounding so proud of him it aches. “Was this what you wanted to talk about?”
“Oh, right, no. I wanted, um, to tell you about some of the things Vecna showed me. They’re things you should know before we face him again.”
Mike turns his full attention towards him, moving around to the near side of the table and leaning against it, crossing his arms. “Like what?”
“Do you remember when we had that fight a couple years ago? In the rain? When you said it’s not your fault I don’t like girls? When I still wanted to dress up and play D&D and the rest of you didn’t?” Will asks, waiting for Mike’s nod. When it comes, he continues hesitantly. “Somewhere in between being taken by Vecna and brought back, you guys grew up, and I didn’t. I felt so small, like. . .like I was trying to play catch up to everyone else in my life. It took me a long time to figure out how to act like everyone else my age, and by the time I figured it out, I’d figured something else out, too.”
Mike watches him with a growing look of confusion on his face, and Will tries to get to his point without completely humiliating himself. “The thing is, Vecna showed me getting what I wanted, then twisted it into my worst fears. He took everyone I ever loved away from me and told me it was my fault. My. Fault.” Will can feel the emotion welling in his throat at the memories of Vecna’s torture. The very real sense of devastation he’d felt while under his influence thinking he’d lost everyone and everything. He blinks away the tears and clears his throat, determined to continue though his voice wobbles now. “It felt so real that I forgot what was real and what wasn’t. I thought I’d pushed you away – been someone you couldn’t stand to be around. I thought I’d pushed Dustin and Lucas and Mom and Robin and Jane and-”
“Just spit it out, Will. Whatever it is.” Mike interrupts, sounding vaguely exasperated and still confused. His voice cuts his spiraling monologue short, and Will looks back up at him to see his best friend watching him intently.
His gaze anchors him to the moment and he lets it fill him up with ten seconds of courage. “You were right. You said I don’t like girls and you were right. I like – boys. And I just know Vecna’s going to use that against me somehow, so I had to tell you before he does. And I still want to be friends, if you want, and don’t want you to think different of me or anything – but I’d totally get it if you did.” Will’s words come out in a great rush, and he’s somewhat breathless after the admission.
Mike, on the other hand, has gone still as a statue. His expression flickers, and Will can’t read it at all. He pushes off the table to step towards him, asking, “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That you like boys?”
Will tries not to flinch at the words coming out of Mike’s mouth, so blunt and honest. He shrugs, “I don’t know, I just. . .knew. I had a crush on y—a guy, even though I know he’s not like me. But that’s not what matters right now. I just wanted to give you a heads up if Vecna shows you anything like – like that. About me. Because you’re my best friend, Mike, and you deserve to know the truth.”
When Will next looks up, Mike is looking at him like he’d never seen him before. Like some curtain has fallen out of the way separating him from an answer to an important question. He takes one step closer, then two, and suddenly they’re barely two feet apart and Will is backed fully against the door. Mike watches him closely, gaze scanning every inch of his face. They linger somewhere below his nose, and Will can’t help but be drawn to glance down at Mike’s mouth too as it parts slightly. He hears Mike take a slow inhale, then on a somewhat shaky exhale, says, “What if you’re wrong? What if – we’re not friends?”
“What?” Will asks, heart falling through the floorboards and landing somewhere in the Upside Down. This is it, then. This truth he told Mike is the end of their relationship as he knows it.
He’s just lost his best friend.
Mike grimaces, shaking his head a little. He hesitates, cheeks turning pink before he speaks again softly, but no less sure of himself. "No, wait, that's not what I meant. I meant like. . .more than friends. Not – not just friends.”
“Mike. . .” Will starts, sure he’s misunderstanding something. The desperate want in his body wars with the rationale in his head that there’s no way this is happening. A kind of panic rises in him, at once terrified and thrilled. He can’t do anything but gape at the boy hovering so close to him he can feel his body heat and see the way his Adam’s apple jumps in his throat when he swallows. Irrational hope floods his body – Mike sure looks like he wants to kiss him. But is he just making that up in his head? As he watches Mike watch him, the seconds stretching like taffy between them, there’s a sincerity there that feels impossible to fake. If this is a prank, he’ll never forgive him.
“What kinds of things did Vecna show you?” Mike is at once intense and gentle, the question coming out quiet.
Will shrugs, trying to remember how to breathe and wondering what the hell to say to a question like that. He tries not to let his gaze flicker back and forth between Mike’s mouth and his eyes, failing miserably. He opts for honesty, saying, “I’m pretty sure you can imagine what kinds of things, considering what I just told you.”
Mike halts what has been a constant forward motion inching towards Will with a hand on the door beside his head. With another look of dawning understanding – and is that excitement? – he smirks a little and asks quietly, “But did he show you. . .this?” His gaze flickers down, then slowly up. Will can only watch Mike as his eyes linger on his mouth, then nose, and finally eyes, where his expression softens into something open and wanting for a split second, before Mike’s mouth slots against his in a devastatingly gentle kiss.
Without even consciously deciding to, Will arches against him from ribcage to hip. An arm wraps around his waist like it was born to be there and his own hands find Mike’s hips. Then Mike draws back to look at him and Will’s heart is taking off at the speed of light at the sheer elation in his gaze. They’re both panting, and the moment stretches on long enough for him to break eye contact and huff an embarrassed chuckle. He’s already halfway to rejection despite all contrary evidence, when Mike kisses him again and there’s a new urgency to it.
Will lights up underneath his touch, so bright he’s sure everyone can see. Eyes closed, he becomes aware of his staccato breathing, and the creak of the wooden door behind him. His mouth is warm and soft and everything Will imagined it to be. If this is what a good kiss feels like, he never wants it to stop.
He promptly forgets all about that when copper hits his tongue and Mike draws away with a hiss and a curse. “Shit, sorry.” He lifts his hand from his waist to wipe away the bead of blood from Will’s now split lip with the pad of his thumb. He doesn’t even feel the sting of the torn, chapped skin, watching as Mike casually sucks the blood off his finger before wiping another bead of it away.
“It’s okay.” Will breathes, letting his head thump back against the door to take Mike in. In the dim lighting from the room’s singular, dirty window, Mike’s brown eyes look almost black. His hair is hidden mostly under the beanie, but stray curls escape at his temples nonetheless. Will follows the line of his eyebrows to the strong arch of his nose, his cupid’s bow, and the cut of his jaw. He’s beautiful.
“If you don’t quit smiling so wide, it’ll never stop bleeding.” Mike admonishes with a small laugh. His thumb brushes against his lip one more time but Will turns his face into his palm to kiss it.
“It doesn’t even hurt, I’m fine.” He mumbles into his hand, unable to keep the smile down. Mike’s hand stills where it now cradles his cheek, his own expression softening again.
Never in a million years could he have predicted this was how it would go. Had he thought about it? Yeah. Wanted it? Sure. But he never expected. . .this. Being looked at like he’s something beautiful. Being touched with a reverence that gives him goosebumps. Being cared for as if Mike wants to wash away even the smallest of his hurts. Will chuckles, suddenly a bit delirious with amazement. Since kindergarten he’d known the way he was friends with Mike was different, but hadn’t known they’d end up in this moment, reciprocally. Mike, his best friend, looking at him like he too is stunned this is actually happening.
Somehow they’ve managed to tear apart their friendship of over a decade not to end it, but to reveal something entirely new beneath. And on the eve of the end of the world, of all days.
Then, as though he’s read his thoughts, Mike’s expression falls into sudden grief and all Will can do is kiss him again in an attempt to wipe the look away. This one lingers like they’re both realizing it might be their last. They’re crushed against each other now, Mike anchoring him to the door with torso and hips, and Will’s hands drifting up his back to pull him closer. They’re about to hop in a van and pull off a plan that has about an eighty/twenty chance of destroying the world, or saving it, and he tries to focus only on what’s right here, right now. Mike. What the press of his mouth feels like, and the stutter of his heart beating arrhythmically alongside his own. It’s all so new and Will wishes to memorize all of him.
When he pulls back for a breath either seconds or hours later, Will rests his forehead against Mike’s. They stay there for several moments, just breathing. Eventually Mike whispers, “So. . .was that what Vecna showed you? Kissing. . a boy?”
“Not just any boy, Mike.” Will breathes back with half a laugh.
“. . .Me?”
“Who else?”
“Oh my god. How didn’t I see it sooner?” Mike sounds incredulous and a bit dazed. Then it sharpens into regret, “I’m so sorry. All this time I had no idea-"
“It’s okay. Nobody did – except maybe Jonathan.” Will chuckles properly this time, a feeling blooming in his chest. Relief and. . .something else. Hope, maybe.
Mike’s brows crease slightly in confusion, “Jon—”
The rest of his sentence never leaves his mouth as a knock at the door shatters the spun glass moment. They both startle violently, ricocheting off each other. Will steps away from the door as Mike backs around the table to reach back into the box a half second before Jonathan pokes his head inside. “Will? Are you th - oh, good.” His brother relaxes the moment his eyes land on him, not that Will can meet his gaze. He’s facing away from the door and leaning on the table with the palms of his hands, trying to wash the sharp sting of sudden terror from his mouth, and the much warmer taste of Mike. He makes the mistake of glancing up, only to see Mike still staring wide-eyed at him. Jonathan continues, oblivious. “We gotta go. Mike, Murray’s still waiting on that wrench and says if you’re the one to make us late for a ‘date with death’ – his words, not mine – he blames you for the end of the world.”
“Y-yeah, uh, be right there.” Mike says, voice unsteady. His confidence from before has vanished completely. Jonathan leaves and Mike’s stricken gaze stays fixed on him.
“It’s okay, Mike.” Will says, lifting his hands to reassure him.
“So, you’re saying that he – he knows? I didn’t even know!” Mike looks at him with growing anxiety that settles into every feature, arms gesturing wildly towards the now ajar door.
Will remembers that exact panic the first time he’d realized he liked boys. Or rather – a – boy. The confused fear that now swims in Mike’s gaze is nothing new to him. Now it’s his turn to round the side of the table and step towards the other. “Mike, hey.”
Mike’s looking through Will more than at him now. “Hey, what?”
“Jonathan’s right; we should go.”
“Right, right.” Mike nods, distant.
“We have a world to save, after all.”
“Mhm.”
“And boys to kiss.” Will says when it’s clear he’s still not listening. He fights down a laugh when Mike startles and frowns at him.
“What?”
“Just – if we survive this. . .let’s talk, okay?” Will reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder. The touch seems to snap him out of it, and he takes a deep inhale. Mike nods, eyes swinging to his touch. They watch it progress as it slides down his arm to link pinkies with him, and Mike twists his hand to thread all their fingers together.
He looks up, then, and gives him a smile. A genuine smile. That’s the first he’s seen Mike smile in days, and it feels like the sun coming out on a cloudy day. The warmth of it settles low in Will’s stomach.
“Yeah, let’s talk.”
Will smiles broadly back at him, more relieved than he can say that Mike feels the same after all these years. That he got to tell him before the end of the world, not after. And so, despite dropping Mike’s hand the second they cross the threshold of the room to join the others, Will is still smiling and bumping shoulders with Mike as they walk outside to the van.
As Mike splits off toward Murray and Will rounds the back of the truck, Robin catches his eye and raises her eyebrows. She asks a silent – something’s changed. What changed?
He fights down an embarrassed chuckle and mimes forming a snowball and throwing it at her, mouthing the word ‘avalanche’; to which Robin lets out a loud, surprised laugh, startling Steve who climbs up into the truck ahead of her. Will laughs along as she stops and turns, giving him a two-fingered salute and a wink.
Inside the truck, Steve asks what they could possibly have to laugh about right now and Jonathan echoes the sentiment. It dissolves into a truck full of chatter for a few moments as Dustin and Lucas join the conversation. And despite the fact they’re driving to near-certain death, Will feels impossibly grateful to the people surrounding him.