Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Mike i have told you so many times, this is wrong." Ted Wheeler spoke loud in the quiet.

Mike looked up from his food. It was dinnertime and they were eating spaghetti and salad. Although mike wasn't exactly sure what kind of salad it was he didn't care. He barely even touched his food anyway. Mike had been upset all week for a variety of different reasons but he managed to hid it from his family for the most part except for nancy, he could rarely hid anything from her.

"Why do you care who i like, you didn't have problem El..." Mike rolled his eyes and mumbled under his breath.

"El was girl, why would i have a problem with her!"

"So what? Why does it matter that she's a girl and the person i like isn't"

"Because its wrong Michael, Its always been wrong to like the same gender." Ted Said, firmly.

"So you don't even care if I'm happy, you only care that me liking a boy, one who makes me happy, is wrong. See this is what I've been saying, you don't care." Mike yelled, his voice breaking.

"Michael, don't you raise your voice at me." Ted established.

"I'm done with this." Mike slammed his hands down on the table, making a loud noise that made holly jump and got up abruptly.

Mike went over to the door, putting his shoes on and then grabbing the door handle.

"Michael-" Karen began.

"Leave me alone." Mike yelled, heading out of the house, slamming the door on his way out.

"Mike!" Nancy yelled after him. She turned towards her dad, "C'mon dad."

"He's being a baby over nothing."

"He's been upset all week, you just don't pay enough attention to him to notice!" Nancy complained. She put her plate n=in the sink and headed out the door, having a sneaking suspicion that she knew where he was heading.

~

Mike had been walking for awhile, he absolutely hated how far away will's house was from his. Normally he wouldn't complain because he could just bike there but this time he had to walk because holly accidentally broke his bike last week. He was mad at first but he slowly came to a realization that it was just an accident and he shouldn't get mad at her for an accident. It wasn't until now, when he actually had to walk that he finally realized just how far away will's house really was..

Mike had walked around town in circles for a little bit before making it to Will's house which resulted in his ankles hurting by the time he got there. Mike felt like he wanted to cry but he forced himself to shove his feelings down. Mike hesitated for a moment before knocking on the door, a moment later, Joyce opened the door.

"Mike? What are doing here so late?" Joyce asked.

"I-" Mike opened his mouth to respond and was surprised to find that he had no words. He thought for a moment then: "No reason, i just- I need to talk to Will about something..." Mike could feel his bottled emotions seeping into his voice, dying to get out and Mike cursed himself for it.

Joyce looked at him and sighed. "Okay, Will's in his room. Just let me know if you need anything, okay?" She stepped aside, letting Mike in.

"Okay." Mike mumbled, closing the door behind him. Mike went to Wills room and lightly knocked on the door. For a moment there was silence, then suddenly, the door swung open and Will stood Infront of him, his clothes and hands stained with paint..

""Mike? What are you doing here?" Will asked, cleaning the paint off his hands with a disinfecting wipe.

"I- Uh- I just- I need to talk to you... about something..." Mike whispered, almost as if he was embarrassed but will couldn't see why that would be the case.

Will dropped the disinfecting wipes into a small trashcan next to the door. "Okay," Will began, walking over to his desk. He sat down in the chair next to the desk, which happened to be a rollie chair that he randomly found and took, and started closing the open paint bottles sitting on his desk. "Why don't you sit down." Will requested as he finished closing the paint and started wiping the paint off his brushes before it dried. Mike hesitantly walked over and sat down on wills bed.

"So, What's going on with you?" Will asked, setting his clean paintbrushes in a blue and yellow heart-shaped clay mug. This mug-Mike remembered making this in his ceramics class earlier this year. He remembered making this cup with will in mind and he remembered giving will this cup a couple weeks ago. "I mean, you've been acting sorta off all week." Will continued, turning his chair towards Mike.

"Yeah- i just-" Mike stammered trying to find words to explain how he feels with actually saying how he feels. Mike looked down at his lap, and unintentionally began bouncing his leg. Mike silently cursed himself for these unintentional little hints. However, Mike couldn't fool Will, no matter how much he tried. Will recognized these signs easily, especially considering the fact that he used to show these exact signs and nobody seemed to notice them. Now that one of wills very best friends was showing these signs, he felt as if he was fourteen again, sitting alone and bouncing his leg nervously in that roller rink.

"Mike?" Will said, scooting his chair away from his desk and rolling it towards to bed.

Mike looked up and once he locked eyes with Will he felt all his fear, doubt and confusion sinking and settling away. For the first time in months he finally felt at ease. Like nothing else mattered in the world, like nobody else mattered. Like the only thing worth paying attention to was Will and this confusing conversation he came over to have.

"Mike tell me, what's going on with you?" Will asked again, putting his hand on Mike's knee to stop it from bouncing, his knee positioned between mike's.

"I just-" Mike stammered. He breathed shakily and tried to calm his emotions that were threatening to pour out right in front of will. Mike couldn't have that, mike couldn't afford to be vulnerable right now. "I'm just so confused." Mike continued.

"Confused? Confused about what?" Will asked, his voice relatively soft, taking on the effect Mike's voice used to have towards will.

"I don't know, a lot of things..." Mike was on the verge of tears and he knew it, and he hated the fact that he was being so pathetic right now. "I got into a fight with my dad earlier." Began mumbled, his voice cracking, which again Mike thought was pathetic.

"Really?" Will asked, unsure whether what he was feeling towards Ted was anger, annoyance, or just overall hate but whatever the feeling was, will knew it wasn't good.

Mike nodded. "Yeah, i got upset, i stormed out. i don't know why, i just... i couldn't stand to be there anymore, i needed a break, i needed to talk to someone other than Nancy. Don't get me wrong, I like that Nancy cares enough to listen to me complain but sometimes i just... sometimes i just need to talk to someone who I'm not related to." Mike complained.

"Yeah, i guess i understand what your saying... But i have a sneaking suspicion that's not the only thing that upset you?"

"Yeah, i don't know I've been upset all week and i don't even know why."

There was silence for a while, As if neither of them knew what to say. After what felt like an eternity, mike decided to ask Will the question he really came here to ask.

"Hey Will?" Mike began, looking down at his lap, heat rising to his cheeks.

Yeah?" Will asked, his confusion obvious in his voice.

"I- Uh- How-" Mike stammered, trying to find the words to phrase his question without sounding judgy because he wasn't trying to be, it was a genuine question. "How- How did you- How did you know you like guys?"

Silence, then: "That's an odd question..."

...

"Right... Sorry, i just-" Mike began, stammering out of embarrassment.

"But," Will interrupted, 'Its an odd question that i can answer."

...

Mike felt his hands shaking, why they were shaking he wasn't exactly sure, he just knew they were shaking.

After a moment of silence Will continued. "I'm not exactly sure how i came to the realization that i like boys, i just sorta knew. I guess there were hints towards it, like how i never really felt any sort of attraction to a girl, like ever. Honestly, when i was in Lenora, A girl tried flirting with me but... i don't know i didn't feel anything towards her, if anything the flirting kind of made me uncomfortable. But Mike, you don't have choose to like one or the other, you can like both boys and girls. I think Robin mentioned the term for that is bisexual, so... even if you like a guy doesn't mean your gay, you could be bi if that's what your confused about."

"Huh..." Mike mumbled under his breath.

"What did you fight with you dad about?" Will asked, curiosity getting the best of him.

"Uh... He- He doesn't agree with the fact that i like a boy- He think its wrong.... He doesn't even seem-" Mike's voice cracked mid sentence" He- He doesn't seem to- to even care that I'm happy just that's its wrong." Mike felt his emotions that he's bottling up and pushing down start to boil over, ready to spill at any given moment.

"Hey.." Will started slowly rubbing mike's knee in a comforting way, "Don't listen to him mike, okay, He doesn't know what he's talking about." Will waited for a respond from Mike and when he didn't give one will continued, "Mike, Whatever you have going on, you don't deserve it, no matter how much you ay think you do, trust me you don't deserve any of it. Mike, Your worth more than this, so much more than this."

Chapter Text

Hey so a little thing, I'm sorry its been taking me so long to get chapter 2 for this fic out, I've just been struggling with school recently and I've been trying to get a job but my mom said i cant get a job until i get my grades up so I'm focusing on that.

Also its been a bit of struggle y'know with Christmas coming up and i don't start winter break until the day before Christmas eve and while I'm on break I'm going to try to work on my missing assignment because those are a big priority for me.

However i do have a week and a half off for winter break so once i get done working on my missing assignments ill try my best to work on as much of chapter 2 as i can.

Thank you for being patient with me and I'm really trying to get it done as soon as possible but y'know school is kinda hard.