Chapter Text
Okay, yeah, Mike can admit that he wanted nothing more than to bolt out of that radio station, grab Will by the elbow, and force him to admit that he was his Tammy. That Mike was the guy Will thought about before he went to bed at night, that Mike’s the guy who put butterflies in his stomach with just a smile, that he wanted to hold Mike’s hand and hear Mike’s laugh every day for the rest of his life. But before he could actually do any of that, there was the whole saving Holly and eleven other kids and keeping Hawkins from actually colliding with the Upside Down situation to deal with. And, if he’s being completely honest, he was also a little concerned that maybe, just maybe, Mike was reading things wrong.
Which is exactly why, three days after defeating Vecna and, hopefully, washing their hands of the Upside Down for the last time, Mike has called an emergency party meeting with just Dustin and Lucas. Will had raised his eyebrows in confusion when Mike had blurted it out, but because Will had also been, annoyingly enough, actively avoiding Mike since their conversation in the radio station, he had simply shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and left to go hang out with Mike’s new number one enemy, more commonly known as Robin Fucking Buckley.
Not that Robin was bad or anything. She was cool. Sort of. If you thought people who talked too fast and constantly spewed out weird shit every ten minutes were cool. Which, apparently, Will did. Not that Mike cared. Obviously.
“Dude,” Dustin blinks, sprawled out on the couch that’s been sitting down in the Wheeler basement since forever, “are you gonna talk about what the fuck is up your ass or are you going to just keep sitting there contemplating your shitty life choices? Because Steve’s supposed to be perming my hair tonight and I’d—”
“You perm your hair?”
“I am trying to maintain a tighter curl pattern, thank you very fucking much, Lucas. Some of us can’t be blessed with naturally beautiful curls, you know.” He huffs, slumping back into the couch, arms across his chest, defensive in his typical Dustin Henderson way.
“Couldn’t you just curl it—”
“I don’t want to talk about that, Sinclair. All you guys need to know is that I am not gifted with a curling iron and I will not be speaking on it any further.”
“I just feel like you could—”
“Can we focus on me? I’m having a life-altering epiphany!” Mike cuts in. “We can talk about Dustin’s hair at literally any other time.”
Lucas, folded up in the armchair, groans. “Man, Dustin and I have spent the last fifteen minutes sitting here watching you internally monologue or spiral or—fuck, I don’t know—sulk—”
“I—I—why does everyone keep saying I sulk? I don’t sulk!”
“You sulk,” Dustin chimes in with a nod. “You’re a sulker.”
“You are. You’re sulkier than any chick I know and I know Erica.”
Dustin nods, leaning over to bump his own knuckles into Lucas’s, and Mike briefly considers cancelling this emergency meeting out of pure annoyance.
“I’m not—I don’t—I’m not sulking! I’m processing!” Mike finally seethes, collapsing into the folding chair by the table they typically gather around during one of their campaigns.
“Ah. You and El are fighting, hm?”
Dustin makes a sympathetic noise. “Sorry, Buddy. We’re all ears. Until 4:30, because then I am leaving for my perm—”
“Can’t believe you do that, man—”
“What the fuck are you talking about? El and I aren’t together anymore.”
Which, apparently, successfully captures their attention, because both Dustin and Lucas whip their heads around, jaws slack and eyes wide. “When the fuck did this happen, Michael?”
Mike shrugs, because he really hasn’t kept track. One minute things were sort of okay with El. And then the next he was thanking her for the painting, for saying all that sweet shit she told Will, and she was looking at him with her big doe eyes and telling him she thought they were better apart. “She dumped me like… a long time ago? I think. I’m not sure. I didn’t really keep count. But we’re cool. We’re friends.”
“Why the fuck are you just now mentioning this?”
Mike shrugs. “I was going to, obviously! I got busy!”
“With what?” Dustin is still blinking, hard and fast.
“I—things.” Mike scratches the back of his neck, because no way in hell is he going to say that right when he was getting ready to tell them during their shared lunch period, he noticed some jackass on the basketball team making eyes at Will, which immediately triggered Mike into shepherding Will outside for a one-on-one talk to make sure that the asshole wasn’t giving him a hard time or whatever. “It was May! I remember now. She dumped me in May because it was the weekend before that douche Chance tried to ask Will to be his lab partner and then had the audacity to say he looked good in blue!”
Which, apparently, is not what Dustin and Lucas wanted to hear, because they exchange this look that Mike doesn’t really get, but whatever. They weren’t even there when that absolute asshat kept trying to talk to Will like he’d been the one that’s been his best friend since kindergarten. If anyone was going to tell Will how good he looked in blue, it was goddamn Mike Wheeler, as far as he was concerned.
“Okay. Okay. So. You and El broke up. Were you zoned out plotting how to get her back?” Lucas finally sighs, settling further into his seat. “I can ask Max for some pointers?”
“I’ll steal Steve’s boombox when he perms my hair tonight! He’s got a shit ton of love songs too—”
“Dude, you gotta stop stealing Steve’s shit. He’s gonna figure out it’s you—”
“I don’t—I—I do not want El back! This isn’t about El!”
“So, what’s it about then? C’mon, man, you gotta give us something to work with here.”
“Do you remember when I was asking you guys about Tammy—”
“Ah. Shit. Shoulda known.” Dustin sighs. “You’re still devastated about Will being in love with me.”
“He’s not!” Mike scowls before turning to Lucas. “Tell him!”
“You’re not Will’s Tammy,” Lucas obliges, as monotone as possible, which is pretty fucking rude, as far as Mike’s concerned.
“I totally am. Anyways, continue.”
“You—I—no! You aren’t Will’s Tammy! I—I think—well,” Mike sighs, a nervous flush trailing up his neck. “I… I think I might be. Maybe.”
And Mike’s expecting shock. He’s expecting Dustin to fall to his knees, devastated that he isn’t the object of Will’s affections, like Mike is pretty sure he would be if the roles were reversed. He expects Lucas to give him the same look he gives Erica when she’s being particularly aggravating about returning his own things from her closet to his. He isn’t expecting them to look at each other and start laughing.
“What the hell, you guys? What’s funny about this? I’m serious!”
“No, no, buddy, we hear you. We do. We also already knew that,” Dustin chuckles, wiping at a tear.
“What? No! No—no—no you didn’t! You thought you were his Tammy!”
“He didn’t, though, man. He just wanted to get under your skin.”
Mike can feel himself trying not to scream. “Why would you do that?”
“Because you’re hopelessly in love with Will and have been since we were kids, Michael. You just didn’t know it. I felt like you needed a little push to actually realize it.”
And okay, yeah, maybe Mike has been a little in love with Will since they were kids. Because Will was the only person Mike ever let sleep in his bed during a sleepover. And Will was the only one he’d ever let see him cry when he’d skin his knee or cut his hand. And Will was definitely the only member of the party that Mike had ever wondered about kissing.
“You—you guys knew?” He finally squeaks.
“Well…I mean, sort of.” Lucas shrugs, shifting to make himself more comfortable in his chair. “We never knew for sure. We just knew that yeah, you liked all of us. And it wasn’t even that we thought you liked Will more—”
“I, personally, do,” Dustin interjects.
“We just—it was different. I knew you liked Will differently than you liked us, and we knew Will liked you differently than he liked us. And then, you know, El came along and things were different for a while between you two…but I sort of figured that maybe you still felt something about Will when you made me bike in the rain across town so you could apologize to him the summer that Billy died.”
“Oh my god. I’m an idiot.”
“That’s really not news to us, Buddy.” Dustin leans over to clap him on the shoulder.
“Have you talked to Will?”
“No, I haven’t talked to Will! Because I’m a chickenshit! And because—I mean—I—what if I’m wrong? What if I’m not his Tammy?”
“Michael, you are so fucking dense. Like, the densest man I know. And I hang out with Steve regularly.”
“I think that Will thinks you’re his Tammy because you haven’t said anything,” Lucas points out, careful and practical, like Mike’s always known him to be. “And… well, it’s also probably because he, ya know, still thinks you’re dating his sister!”
“Oh god! I’m an idiot!”
“Yeah, man. Seriously. But I mean, what else can we expect from someone whose parents voted for fucking Reagan?”
It’s later that day, after Lucas and Dustin have finally dispersed, that Mike is thinking of his plan of action. Dustin had told him, at exactly 4:27, because he refused to be late for his hair plans with Steve, to stop being afraid of Will saying no when there was no reason to believe that would happen. And that if Mike didn’t man up and confess, he’d make Will fall in love with him out of spite, before storming up the stairs and out of the Wheeler house at 4:30 on the dot.
Lucas, on the other hand, had been practical. He’d listed every non-platonic thing Mike and Will had done in the history of his friendship with either of them. Eventually, he’d stood up, grabbing his backpack, and announced he’d have to go—he wanted to go do homework with Max. But before he’d left, he clapped Mike on the shoulder, looked him dead in the eye, and smiled.
“You’re Mike Wheeler, man. You were willing to jump off the cliff at the Quarry to save Dustin’s baby teeth. You’ve been ready to kick demodog ass or tackle a demogorgon with no notice for the last three years. If you can do that, you can tell our best friend—who, by the way, is literally already in love with you—that you have feelings for him. Call me later. Let me know how it went, okay?”
So now, here he was, tucked into the couch that Dustin had been occupying before he left, waiting for Will to come downstairs to the basement that had turned into his makeshift bedroom the last eighteen months.
“Mike?” Will blinks, a small, confused smile making its way onto his face as he comes down the stairs. “What are you doing down here? Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“I’m—I—I am trying to emotionally regulate,” he hears himself say slowly.
Will cocks a brow at that, reaching for the light switch by the bottom stair. “Okay…why?”
“Why have you been avoiding me the last three days?”
“I—I don’t feel like I have been?” Will blinks slowly, like he isn’t necessarily sure if the lie will land.
“You have. You haven’t even waited for me so we could ride our bikes to school together,” Mike huffs.
“Okay, yeah…I’ve been avoiding you a little,” Will says with a small, shy smile. “I—it’s dumb.”
“It’s not stupid if it’s a big enough deal for you to avoid me! I mean, what, is Robin your new best friend or something?”
Will gives him that look he usually does when he thinks Mike’s being ridiculous but doesn’t find it necessary to actually call him out on it. Which is actually insane, because Mike is one hundred percent sure he’s not being dramatic, especially since he isn’t the one ditching him for some crazy, cool, older girl.
“I just—I don’t get it. Is Robin like… cooler than me or something?” And Mike actually wants to evaporate into the couch cushion when he hears how fucking pathetic he sounds.
“Mike. Hey, hey. No. That’s not—no. You’re Mike. You’re my best friend. My best friend of all my best friends,” Will soothes, quick to take the spot beside him, one hand reaching up to gently grip Mike’s wrist. “Robin just—she—she’s cool, is all. She… gets it. And…I was—I thought, now that I’ve come out, maybe you wanted us to have some space—”
“I don’t—what? Space? Space? From you? Me? No! I don’t want space from you!”
Will blinks once, eyes scrunching together, an amused, fond smile spreading across his face. “Mike, c’mon—”
“No! You c’mon! I don’t want space from you, ever! If I could put you in my backpack and take you everywhere I go, I probably would!”
“You’re ridiculous,” Will grins, nudging him with his own shoulder.
“I missed you these last couple of days,” Mike finally admits. “What do you and Robin even talk about?”
Will flushes, and Mike thinks he could combust from how pretty he looks when he does. “I—um—Robin was trying to help me… you know… move on… from my Tammy?”
And Mike feels himself stiffen. Robin Fucking Buckley needs to count her days as far as Mike’s concerned. Who the hell does she think she is? Telling Will to move on? From him? It’s not like Mike ever told Steve that he secretly thought Steve could do better than Robin, but goddammit, that’s it—that will be the first thing Mike brings up when he sees Steve again.
“Mike? You okay?”
And Mike can’t help it; he can feel the tears starting to pool in his eyes. He can feel it and he hates it. “You wanna… you wanna move on from your Tammy?”
“Well…yeah, Mike.” Will frowns gently. “He’s straight. He has a girlfriend. Are you okay—”
“I’m not—I—I am not straight! I don’t have a girlfriend! I just got mad that that dickweed Chance was talking to you and forgot to tell you guys El and I broke up!”
“What?” Will frowns.
“I love you! I have been in love with you probably forever, but I have been knowingly aware that I love you for the last three days, thank you very much! I wanted to fight Dustin for saying he was your Tammy! I wanna fight Robin when you ditch me for her! I want to fight that douche Chance when he looks at you! I held an emergency gay crisis counseling session with Dustin and Lucas literally less than two hours ago! And I want to hold your stupid hand and give you all my sweaters to wear, and kiss you any chance I get!”
Will blinks. And oh—Mike realizes—he said all of that out loud.
“You…you and El broke up?”
“Um—is that really what we’re focusing on—”
“And you went to the two straightest guys we know for gay relationship advice?” Will’s biting his lip, trying not to laugh.
Mike narrows his eyes. “I don’t know anyone that’s gay, okay? And Dustin’s an ally! And I could tell Lucas I’m an alien and I don’t think he’d blink twice—”
“They barely successfully maintain their relationships with girls—” Will starts with a grin.
“I—okay—alright, yeah, that’s fair—”
“Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up,” Will smiles, before cupping his chin, and suddenly Will’s mouth is on his.
And okay, Mike has definitely dreamed about this before. But the reality? Way fucking better. Because Will kisses like he knows what he’s doing—which Mike is actively choosing to ignore—and he tastes like mint toothpaste and Hubba Bubba Bubblegum and grape Fanta, which shouldn’t actually taste good together, but it’s Will. It’s Will Freaking Byers kissing him, and as far as Mike’s concerned, his breath could taste like onions or sardines or something completely gross and Mike would still think it was the greatest thing in the world.
“I—you—does this mean you’re going to stop trying to get over me?” Mike finally whispers when Will lets him go.
“Yeah,” Will laughs, his forehead resting against Mike’s. “You’re a really good kisser.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Will grins, eyes gleaming. “I didn’t think you’d be this good at kissing a boy, since, ya know, this is a Reagan household.”
“I didn’t—you—did Dustin tell you to say that?”
And Will’s laughing, bright and warm, tucked into his side. And Mike thinks he could definitely get used to this.