Chapter Text
The sun is starting to set, which means it’s getting late; the deeper into spring they get the longer afternoons linger, which is great for hanging out. But there’s something melancholy about a Sunday afternoon, even one spent hanging out with Mike.
Will is cross-legged on his bed with a sketchbook, drawing Mike and pretending he’s drawing the whole room. Mike is just really interesting to look at, in Will’s defense. From some angles he’s beautiful, and from others he looks kind of like an elf. He’s got a lot of interesting, dramatic expressions, and his hair never looks the same two days in a row.
Mike has been semi-distracted all afternoon, pretending to read a comic book but actually drumming his fingers on Will’s desk or fidgeting, bouncing one leg. Will, because he has an encyclopedic knowledge of Mike’s moods, can tell that this one is a general sense of we’re graduating soon and what if I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life. Will’s seen Lucas and Max do the same thing. Dustin, obviously, knows exactly what he wants to do. El doesn’t get nervous.
Maybe Will thinks Mike is distracted enough that he won’t notice when Will sighs, “My mom is worried about me.” Mike has a tendency to get lost in his own problems. Or maybe Will just has to get it off his chest because the worry has been bugging him for months.
No such luck today: Mike is actually listening. He turns to Will and says, “But it's been years since you got sucked into the Upside Down. You should have a get-out-of-jail-free card now, nothing you do will ever freak her out that badly again.”
“Ha ha. My get-out-of-jail-free card is that she’s marrying Hopper next month,” Will points out. “On the other hand, if I got pulled over for speeding or something he’d probably let me spend the night in county lock up just to teach me a lesson.” Hopper says stuff like that sometimes, even though he’s obviously joking.
“He’d do that to me,” says Mike, “but if he did that to you, your mom would kill him. Besides, he likes you.”
It’s totally possible that Hopper would let Mike cool his heels in the back of a cop car for five minutes just to give him a heart attack and teach him a lesson. But even when Mike and El were dating and driving Hopper crazy, Will noticed that Hopper actually had a soft spot for Mike. If Mike doesn’t notice, it’s because he and Hopper start shouting the minute they get around each other.
“He likes you, too,” Will says, but he hesitated long enough that Mike rolls his eyes and obviously doesn’t believe him.
“He literally threatened my life when I was just a child,” Mike says, crossing his arms.
Mike is Will’s best friend, and Will’s been at least half in love with him since they were kids, but he also remembers how unbearably obnoxious Mike and El were when they first started dating so he doesn’t really blame Hopper. If Will could have figured out how to break them up he probably would have, too, although he would have been doing it out of seething jealousy, and afterwards he’d have felt too guilty to do anything anyway. It’s tough when your two favorite people are dating and you’re in love with one of them. “And you didn’t deserve it at all,” Will says. The sarcasm is so faint that Mike almost misses it. He starts to agree and then cuts himself off, rolling his eyes at Will again to let Will know he gets it. “Anyway, you’re invited to the wedding, aren't you?”
For the last two years since they averted the apocalypse all Will’s mom has been doing is wedding planning. Well, sometimes she’s at work, and sometimes she’s giving Jonathan disapproving lectures about smoking weed, but most of the time she’s flipping through big three-ring binders with laminated pages of cakes and tablecloths and napkins and floral arrangements, or talking on the phone to people about those things. They’ve finally settled on a date, a few days after Mike and Will and the rest of the Party graduate. “That way you can help,” Joyce keeps saying to Will, and Will can’t tell if she’s joking or not. Maybe she thinks having a gay son means he’s good at decorating?
Mike is more excited that Will’s mom and Hopper are going away for their honeymoon for a couple of weeks so the whole Party will be able to hang out at the house and have an epic last summer before college. Mike keeps talking like they’re going to throw wild parties, but they’ll probably just hook the Nintendo up to the main TV in the living room and play Mario until sunrise.
“My entire family is invited,” Mike says. “I don’t exactly feel special.”
As if Will wouldn’t have insisted that they invite Mike. It would be embarrassing to point that out, though. “I guess that’s true. There are like fifty people left in Hawkins and all of them are invited to the wedding. Are your parents actually going to come?”
Mike shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t know. Mom loves to dress up and she’s been Jazzercising a lot lately. My dad…” He rolls his eyes again. “If Mom tells him to go, he’ll go. He’ll have one beer and fall asleep and snore during the ceremony.”
“That does sound like your dad,” Will agrees. Suddenly the light-heartedness drains out of him and he shrinks again, slumping back against the wall. He’s back to feeling guilty, which he hates. He puts his sketchbook down. “I just wish… I wish my mom didn’t feel like she has to worry about me. I’m not the little kid who got sucked into the Upside Down anymore.”
“She knows,” Mike says, but Will knows Mike thinks about him that way sometimes, too. Everyone does. He’s spent years of his life as the weirdest of the weirdos, the one who could feel Vecna at the back of his neck, and had the Upside Down humming through his veins. Mike’s just a normal nerd, not haunted-by-evil and nerdy. Will thinks the only person who never thinks of him like that is El, and that’s just because everyone looks at her and thinks she’s touched by the same spooky weirdness.
“Hey,” says Mike, snapping his fingers at Will. “Stop staring into space. Tell me what she’s upset about and I’ll fix it.”
He says it so confidently. It’s one of the things Will loves about Mike; he looks at a problem and no matter how impossible it is he just assumes he’s going to be able to do something about it. Mike’s not afraid of anything. Not even when he should be.
“Oh, god,” says Will. He shouldn’t have brought any of this up. Now he has to talk about it. “It’s embarrassing.”
Mike leans forward. He’s got his serious face on. Mike only has two modes – either he doesn’t notice that Will is upset at all, or he’s like a bulldozer trying to crush every obstacle in Will’s way. Sometimes Will can’t decide which one is better. “Embarrassing? C’mon. Tell me.”
Will decides not to look at Mike when he finally answers. He’s tugging on the blanket on his bed instead, folding the corner up. “Well… She wants me to bring someone to the wedding. As a date.”
“Whoa,” says Mike. “She knows you’re gay, right? You can’t just go to school and ask someone out.”
Will can’t even imagine anyone he’d want to ask out, let alone anyone else in Hawkins who’d be okay with having people know they were gay and wanting to go anywhere as a date. Jonathan keeps promising Will that he’ll go to college and things will be different, but Will knows better. He’s not just a freak, he’s a freak who can’t even find any other freaks like him. “I know. I know! But she’s worried, she says that I’m lonely. She’s already worried about me so much, you know?” Will says quietly. “I want her to see that I’m fine now.”
There’s a pause, and Will can feel Mike looking for a solution. If only there were one. “Okay… Tell her you don’t need a boyfriend to be happy. Look at me. Well, I guess look at El. She doesn’t have a boyfriend. Me. She doesn’t have me. She’s okay!”
Will snorts a tiny little laugh at Mike. “She is,” Will agrees. It’s very cool that El is his other best friend. Sometimes they sit around and talk about how much they love Mike, and sometimes they sit around and talk about how dumb Mike is. Depends on the day. She and Mike have been broken up for most of a year, and the two of them have kept up what seems like an excellent friendship, although the couple of times other girls have expressed interest in Mike or tried to flirt with him El has used her powers to make their sodas explode or everything in the locker tumble out. Will doesn’t know why she bothers; Mike didn’t notice any of it. It’s nice to think that she’d probably do the same thing for Will, if she didn’t approve of whoever he was dating. El rules.
Will decides to try and change the subject. “El has a crush on someone but she won’t tell me who.”
Mike makes a face for a second, and then catches himself and shrugs instead. “Good for her. But if you find out who you have to tell me, because if he sucks I’m gonna –”
Will loves the idea that Mike, the least threatening person in the world, is going to do something that El, an actual superhero, couldn’t do herself. “What? Beat him up?” Will asks teasingly.
“Maybe,” says Mike fiercely. Then he pauses and laughs. “Okay, no. But I’ll break into the bio lab and sneak out the formaldehyde and put it in his milk at lunch.”
“Annnnd we’re back to Hopper letting you rot in jail,” Will points out.
“You think I’d get caught? I’m crafty,” Mike says, and Will laughs, because no, he’s not. He’s brave, he’s sincere, he’s determined, and he’s loyal. But Mike’s never had a thought that wasn’t written across his face.
At least, it seems that way to Will. Maybe he’s spent too long looking at Mike’s face. Sketching it, painting it, thinking about kissing it…
“Maybe we can find you a date who isn’t some random kid at our high school,” says Mike. “Unless… Is there someone you like?”
Will freezes like the Mind Flayer has spotted him again. Does his face turn immediately red? Is he as obvious as he thinks?
“Because if there is then we should have El look at his brain and see if he’s gay, too, and then if he is you can ask him to the wedding.”
Will reminds himself to breathe. Mike is already rattling off his plan – never mind that El doesn’t really like looking in other people’s heads and wouldn’t do it just for fun, and never mind that just being gay doesn’t mean this hypothetical Hawkins student would like Will.
El says she hasn’t gone into Will’s head, and he believes her, but sometimes after Mike comes over to hang out she gives him these looks, these long, sad, searching looks like she doesn’t need a blindfold and a radio to see inside him. He knows he’s transparent, he knows Jonathan has noticed and tried, in his own awkward Jonathan way, to make him feel better about it. His mom probably knows, too.
All that really matters is that Mike doesn’t know. Will doesn’t know if it would just make Mike uncomfortable, or if it would throw the whole basis of their friendship into doubt. Either way he can’t bear the idea of Mike ever finding out.
“Mike,” Will interrupts, because sometimes if you don’t interrupt Mike he’ll talk himself right into a terrible idea. “Mike, no. No, there isn’t anyone at school I want to take to the wedding. That’s why my mom thinks I’m lonely.”
“That’s stupid,” says Mike. “You aren’t lonely, you have us.”
My mom isn’t worried that I don’t have friends, she’s worried I’ll never find love, Will thinks. He’s scared of that, too. The list of impossibilities keeps stacking up: this mythical boy would have to be a nerd, and not mind that Will is shy and awkward, and be gay, and find Will attractive. On top of all that, he has to be alive right now in the 1980s, and in the same state – preferably the same town – as Will, so they can find each other. It feels impossible, like throwing a dart into the ocean from an airplane and hoping to hit a tadpole. The universe isn’t going to line up like that, not for Will. It loves to make him suffer.
“I just want my mom to have this one day when she isn’t worried about me,” says Will miserably. “She deserves to have a wedding that’s about her. But you know how she is. I can tell her a thousand times that I’m not lonely, but…” But I am, Will doesn’t say, because he doesn’t want Mike to worry about him, either. “But she still will.”
Mike gets this funny, far-away look on his face and nods. “Hmm,” he says.
Will wants to pick up his sketchbook again. From this angle Mike’s eyelashes and his hair are just-so and it makes him look beautiful, outlined in the setting sunlight. Will has so many sketches of Mike it’s honestly embarrassing. He clenches his hands into fists and doesn’t let himself move.
“It’s like three weeks until the wedding, right?” Mike says slowly.
“It’s literally right after we graduate. You don’t have the last day of school written down? You aren’t counting down the days?” Will asks.
“Right, right,” Mike says, which means he isn’t really listening, he’s planning something. Will gets a little flutter of nerves. Mike with a plan can be a very dangerous thing.
“Miiiike,” says Will. It’s best to find out what’s up with Mike as quickly as possible. “What are you thinking?”
“I have an idea,” says Mike.
Yeah, no shit. Ice cubes form in Will’s stomach. “How dangerous is it?” Will asks. “Like, should I call Dustin to talk you down, or should I call Nancy to be ready to drive us to the hospital?”
Mike turns to Will and his expression, even for Mike Wheeler, is intense. “No,” says Mike, “you can’t tell anyone or it won’t work.”
Will has been friends with Mike for thirteen years; he can feel that this is a bad idea deep in his bones. And yet… It’s Mike. “Or what won’t work?” Will asks. It’s like picking up a rock you know a spider will be under.
Mike gets up and closes Will’s door. Hopper doesn’t make them keep it open but sometimes Will does anyway, because every now and then lying around alone with Mike on his bed just makes his chest ache too much. If the door is open he can tell himself You can’t do anything right now, someone will see.
Mike leans back against the door. His eyes are lit up with that special maniacal gleam that the Wheelers get right before they do something insane, like when Nancy says, “Then we have to go kill Vecna ourselves,” or whatever. “Take me to the wedding,” says Mike.
“Yeah,” says Will slowly, “you’ll be at the wedding. Obviously.”
“As your date. A Party member requires assistance, so it’s my duty to help. Fact,” says Mike, holding up one finger, “your mom would never believe you were dating someone you weren’t already friends with. Fact: your brother keeps hinting that you have some stupid crush on one of us, which makes it plausible. Fact–”
“Mike,” says Will. He can hear the ocean in his ears, a weird roaring far-away noise. “Mike.”
Mike is holding up three fingers. “—I don’t care what anyone in this stupid town thinks of me anyway, I’m going to Northwestern in three months. Fact: you’d get what you want because your mom wouldn’t be worried about you. She likes me, right? Fact: it would make my dad so mad.”
“And…that’s a bonus?” Is the room spinning? Of all Mike Wheeler’s reckless, insane plans, this one… This one feels the most like Mike jumping off the cliff at the quarry. Dustin told him about that over and over, Can you believe the things Mike will do for his friends? Will doesn’t want to see Mike break his neck just for him.
“He’s a pain in the ass,” says Mike, “and after this literally anyone I bring home would be better. Shit, that sounded bad. You’re great, of course, but my dad would have a heart attack. You know what I mean.”
Sometimes Mike’s mouth moves faster than his brain. Will just nods. Whether Mike’s dad approves of him dating Will or not is moot. It’s not even in Will’s top one hundred problems with this plan right now.
“But the thing is, if you tell anyone, and I mean anyone, then everyone will know. Because your mom… Man, she has a way of looking at you, and you just have to tell her the truth. She should work for the Russians. So we can’t tell Dustin or Lucas or Max, and I won’t tell Nancy and you don’t tell Jonathan. El promised not to look into our minds–”
“I’m not really worried about her,” says Will honestly, because if El looks at his brain she’ll see he’s in love with Mike, no problem there.
Mike beams. “She’s great, right? Okay, I did it. I solved the problem.”
“Mike,” says Will, trying for patience. “Are you insane? You haven’t solved anything. This makes no sense. You’re gonna – You want to – You think we can pretend to be dating?”
The look Mike gives him is somewhere between confused and totally blank. “Yeah, of course,” he says. “We already hang out all the time. If we close the door they don’t know what we’re doing in here. We could totally be dating.”
“They… I mean, I think they know we’re not.” His face is burning. How can Mike be saying this with a straight face?
“They don’t know shit,” says Mike confidently.
Will can’t believe that this is even a conversation, let alone an argument. “They know you’re not gay,” says Will, dropping his voice to a whisper when he says it. How can Mike even be suggesting this? It’s only because he has no idea how it makes Will feel, going to school every day, feeling completely alone and different and terrified.
Mike shrugs. “Kids at school have called me gay plenty of times. Clearly some people think I’m gay.”
“So, what, we tell people that you’re magically gay now and we’re–” oh god, it kind of hurts to say it, Will swallows hard, “—we’re dating, and we go to the wedding, and then…?”
“We’ll plan it like a campaign,” says Mike thoughtfully. “Our mission is to infiltrate a wedding. I have high charisma so I have good deception. You’ve always had great persuasion.”
Mike, Will has always thought, rolls terribly on insight. “And what, I rolled Charm Person on you and made you gay? How does the campaign end? Mike, you haven’t thought about it—”
“We go off to college and meet other people and tell everyone we broke up, or whatever,” Mike says, waving Will off. “Easy. Me and El are still friends, Lucas and Max are still friends.”
Mike hasn’t addressed Will’s major point, Will can’t help but notice. “We can’t just act like normal otherwise,” Will points out. “We’d have to… We’d have to actually act like…” He’d have to pretend that he was pretending to be in love with Mike. He’d need to fool everyone and double-fool Mike so he doesn’t catch on that Will isn’t lying. Absolutely impossible. Will decides to drop the nuclear bomb on this conversation, the thing that will one-hundred-percent dissuade Mike. “We’d have to actually kiss.”
“I know,” says Mike, but with a fractional hesitation.
Okay good, Will thinks. Even Mike can agree this is too crazy and they can’t possibly do it. He takes a deep breath. “I’ll figure something else out. Or maybe my mom will be so distracted by the actual wedding that she won’t even–”
“We should try,” Mike interrupts.
Never mind; Will misinterpreted that pause. It was Mike psyching himself up, not Mike realizing he was being insane. “Try how?”
Mike clenches his fists and nods like he just won an argument with himself. “Stand up. I think we can do this.”
“I don’t know what we’re talking about anymore,” Will says, but he stands up. When has he ever not done what Mike wants to do? His life would actually be a lot easier if he didn’t want to be around Mike, doing whatever stupid thing Mike has planned.
“It’s not that weird,” Mike says. “Honestly, I think we’d only have to hold hands and maybe kiss, like, once, and then we could just tell people you’re too shy.”
“You’re serious—” starts Will, voice cracking because Oh my god, Mike.
“If this is horrible then we don’t have to, just tell me. But I think we can make this work. Here.” Mike stands right in front of him.
Will freezes. He knows that he absolutely needs to put a stop to this. No one is going to believe this crazy story, and Mike is going to ruin his own life which Will doesn’t want.
Unfortunately, Will has been imagining kissing Mike for years, and a tiny little voice in the back of his head says, This is your only chance.
It’s really hard to get Mike to stop once he’s decided on something, Will tells himself. And don’t you want to improve all those sketches? He knows he’s making excuses. But what if he just lets Mike do this one, tiny, idiotic thing, and then he tells Mike that they really, really can’t do this, and saves Mike from himself. Is that awful of him? Maybe if he rolls really, really high on deception he can get just this one kiss with Mike, and Mike never has to know that Will’s desperately in love with him.
“Have you kissed anyone?” Mike asks quietly. Will shakes his head. Mike knows that, who does he think Will has been kissing without him around? Will’s heart starts banging in his chest. Tell him no, he thinks, but he can’t make the word come out because he doesn’t really want to.
He’s not used to seeing Mike up this close, so near that Will can feel him breathing. I’ll have to do some sketches of just his eyes, Will thinks absurdly. The way his hair, curling gently, is falling across his forehead, and his dark, serious eyebrows.
“It’s okay,” says Mike, and for a second Will thinks he can see the panic in Will’s face and he’s going to back away. “When you meet someone you really like you can call that your real first kiss,” Mike goes on reassuringly. “This doesn’t have to ruin that for you.”
Because kissing Mike, the way he’s been imagining since he was old enough to find kissing appealing, that would be just awful. That would ruin things. Mike is so stupid sometimes. Back up, make him stop, Will thinks, but instead he nods, because he doesn’t know what his voice would sound like if he tried to say anything right now.
“You look nervous,” Mike says, frowning. “I totally know what I’m doing.”
You definitely don’t, Will wants to shout.
Mike leans in and kisses him.
Will doesn’t know what to expect. Mike’s mouth touches his and neither of them move. It’s like when Mike’s little sister makes her dolls kiss. Just two guys standing there, mouths closed, gently touching each other. This is not what Will thought his first kiss would be like. Will’s heart is banging so hard against his ribs he thinks Mike can probably feel it. Mike closed his eyes but Will was too startled, and all he can see is Mike’s out-of-focus hair and his lashes.
It’s awkward and uncomfortable. A beat passes, and then another and Mike pulls back a fraction. Okay, you did it, it’s over, Will thinks, with a sharp sense of loss in the pit of his stomach. One kiss with Mike to remember for his entire life, and he just stood there. He’s so useless.
Mike doesn’t keep moving away, like Will expects. Instead he says softly, “You have to kiss me back.” He puts a hand on Will’s jaw and tilts his head, very slightly, and suddenly it makes sense, they fit together. That’s how mouths are supposed to line up, that’s what you do with your nose. Oh, Will starts to say, which means he opens his mouth very slightly. Mike’s mouth presses against his and this is different, this is soft and coaxing. He knows what Mike’s mouth tastes like now.
Will doesn’t mean to, but he makes a soft noise, an embarrassing little gasp. His hands are on Mike’s shoulders and he should use them to push Mike back and stop this craziness, but he grabs Mike’s t-shirt with both hands instead. It’s almost like his mouth knows what to do all by itself, moving against Mike’s, tentative and careful until he feels Mike smiling. His brain is just shouting over and over You can feel Mike’s smile, those are his lips, he’s touching you–
The door bangs open. “I made grilled cheese,” says Will’s mom.
Will jerks back like he just got attacked by a monster, and Mike turns so quickly he almost falls. Will's mom is standing in the door of his room, eyes wide, still holding the doorknob.
“Oh!” she says. “Oh, I… I should have knocked!”
“Oh no,” Will starts, looking helplessly at her. His face feels like it’s on fire. “It’s not what you think.”
“It’s not?” his mom asks, making that apologetic face she makes when she thinks Will’s lying but she’s too nice to call him out on it.
“No,” says Will quickly. “Mike, tell her.”
Mike’s mouth is still open and he looks as uncertain as Will feels. He looks at Will's mom, and then at Will. Something settles into his expression that Will doesn’t totally recognize. Make something up, Will thinks, but Mike reaches over and grabs Will’s hand. Will stares at Mike’s fingers touching him like he’s never seen them before.
“It’s exactly what you think,” says Mike. “We didn’t know how to tell you.”
“Mike!” squeaks Will, because Mike is lying to his mother which has to be one of those things the universe smites you for.
“You don’t have to tell me anything!” his mom says quickly. “Oh, Will! Oh, Mike.” She ruffles Will’s hair and he ducks away from her hand automatically, and then she turns and beams at Mike. “Boys! This is so nice!”
“Yeah,” says Mike. He doesn’t look at Will, maybe because Will is still gaping at him in outrage. “It is nice, right? Something you were probably worried about, and now you don’t have to be anymore.” He squeezes Will’s hand.
Oh my god, he’s really doing this. Will is going to throttle him.
Will’s mom claps her hands together. “I don’t know if I was worried about this, exactly, but it is nice to know that I was right. Aww, you guys. Let me grab the camera.”
“Mom, no,” Will tries, but it’s too late, she’s already out of the room. “You have lost your mind, we can’t pretend–” he hisses at Mike.
“I can if you can,” Mike whispers back, half a promise and half a dare. “That wasn’t so awful, right?”
No, it wasn’t awful. It was wonderful, and Will feels so guilty about letting the kiss happen that he could die. “I don’t want you to ruin your own life,” Will says.
Mike shrugs impatiently. “Getting called names isn’t scarier than facing monsters from the Upside Down, Will.”
Yes it is, it’s just a totally different kind of fear, Will thinks. Mike doesn’t understand. Getting called queer doesn’t hurt him the same way because he knows it’s not true. Will doesn’t want Mike to go through what Will has gone through, even if Mike doesn’t care.
“We can’t lie to our friends for almost a month,” Will starts reasonably.
His mom reappears with Jonathan’s polaroid camera. “Stand next to each other. Oh, this is so cute. Smile!”
Mike puts his arm around Will’s waist, and Will doesn’t know what to do, so he just stands there. Mike’s arm is so warm against his back.
“Will, smile! I can’t wait to take a picture of you two before prom.” She takes three pictures in quick succession and then puts the camera down. “...Are you two going to prom?”
“Yeah, Mike,” Will asks in what he hopes is a withering you-idiot tone. “Are we going to prom?” The implication, obviously, is that that would be impossible and insane and he hopes that pointing this out will make it clear to Mike.
Mike makes a face. “If you want to, Will,” he says, in the exact same you-idiot tone.
“I don’t actually know if the school will let you,” Joyce says, mostly to herself. “Will, honey, do you want me to call the principal and tell him that he has to let you bring Mike as your date–”
“No!” says Will quickly, horrified almost beyond words.
“I’m only trying to help,” she protests. “You have as much of a right to bring Mike as El would have.”
God, there’s a weird reminder. “Mom, no.” I don’t want to spend prom night having some football player kick the shit out of both of us, he thinks. “Mike and I…” He trails off.
“We’re not really prom guys,” Mike says.
She sighs. “Jonathan ‘wasn’t really a prom guy,’ either. None of you ever let me do all the normal mom stuff. Maybe El wants to go dress shopping and pick out a corsage. I bet Hop would cry.” She sounds like she wants him to cry. Women, Will thinks, are very strange.
“Okay, well come on out, guys. The grilled cheese sandwiches are getting cold, and Mike, your mom wants you home before it gets too dark out.”
“Mom, can we have one second to talk–” Will tries to edge her out so he can close the door and explain to Mike why this is not going to work.
“Nah, it’s okay,” says Mike.
“We should talk,” Will says again. He really is going to murder Mike.
“What is there to talk about?” Mike asks.
“Mike,” Will hisses.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone about this,” his mom says quickly. “Not if you don’t want me to.”
“Tell anyone about what?” Hopper asks, walking up behind her. He puts his chin on her shoulder and she pretends like she always does that his beard tickles. It’s very cute how much he likes Will’s mom. “Dinner smells delicious.” He kisses her cheek.
“Oh, the boys are… Well. The boys are…” She looks at them meaningfully.
“Up to no good, I bet,” says Hopper with a little smirk.
Will sees Mike’s face and his stomach sinks until it bottoms out. Will pictures himself running in slow motion, shouting Nooooooo just a little too slowly.
“Me and Will are dating,” says Mike gleefully.
Joyce winces. “I walked in on them.”
“You what–” Hopper shouts, his joking smile replaced by what Will thinks might be real horror.
“Kissing!” Will interrupts quickly. “Jeez, Mom, you made it sound terrible. We were just kissing.”
Hopper turns to stare at Mike. Mike goes from looking extremely proud of himself to finally just a little bit embarrassed, and shrinks back half a step to stand next to Will. “Just kissing,” he repeats.
Will can’t tell if Hopper is going to keep shouting or have a heart attack and keel over right there. “You,” he says, pointing at Mike. “Again?”
“This is different!” Mike objects.
“Stop, we’re not–” It’s time for Will to tell everyone the truth, because Mike is just flinging himself off of quarry ledges left and right today. “It’s not like that, actually.”
“Will is embarrassed,” his mom says, in a loud whisper that makes Will want to die. She elbows Hopper. “This is his first boyfriend.”
“He had to–” Hopper starts, and then cuts himself off. “You know what? Congratulations. Good for both of you for finally getting your heads out of your asses.”
Will has no idea what that’s supposed to mean. The more people who know about this, the worse it’s going to be for Mike when everyone realizes this is all fake. And Will's going to feel so guilty when he has to tell them all the truth. Why isn’t anyone listening to him?
But Mike is Mike, and that means he never turns back. “Thanks,” he says, putting his arm around Will again, like when his mom was taking pictures. Will doesn’t know what to do. He loves the feeling of Mike’s arm around him, he’s imagined it so many times, and Mike doesn’t know that Will secretly wants all of this. He’s accidentally tricked Mike, and that makes him feel guilty, too. How can he live with himself?
“I wanna talk to you,” says Hopper, half a growl, and points at Mike.
Mike puts his chin up and swallows hard. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay. Fine.”
“Mike,” Will whispers, trying one more time.
“Too late,” says Mike quietly, flashing him a quick grin. The grin knocks Will sideways, it always has, the way Mike’s whole face lights up, the sparkle in his eyes. God, Will is so easy for him. Mike looks over at Hopper and Will's mom for a microsecond and then leans in and kisses Will on the cheek. “It won’t be awful,” Mike promises in a whisper, hot in Will’s ear, and Will shivers. Then Mike lets go and asks Hopper, with a good attempt at nonchalance, “So what do you want to talk about?”
“Oh, I think you know,” says Hopper, clapping a hand on Mike’s shoulder and steering him down the hallway.
Will’s mom is looking at him. She’s obviously trying not to cry, smiling a little too hard. She’s waiting for him to say something.
Oh, god. If Will tells her now she’ll be so upset. And if he has to say why he did it she’ll be heartbroken. He really is backed into a corner.
“Mom,” Will says finally, sighing.
“I’m just so happy for you,” she says in a watery voice.
Will is so uncomfortable, and the worst part is the little voice in his head screaming Imagine if this were all real! “You’re being weird. It’s… It’s just Mike,” he says.
She gives him a knowing look. “Is it? Is it just Mike?”
Okay, she definitely knows about his crush. Will’s cheeks get hot again. “Mommmm,” he says.
“Have you told Jonathan? Or El?” She gasps. “Have you told anyone?”
“No! Not yet. This was…the first…” He fidgets and cuts himself off.
Her eyes go big again and she whispers, “Your first kiss?”
Is it any wonder that Will likes to play D&D and pretend to be someone else, somewhere else? Or that he hides in his room all the time? This is so embarrassing, how is he supposed to live like this?
“Never mind, don’t tell me! None of my business, of course!” she says, clapping her hands together. “Let’s get dinner ready for everyone. And if we don’t hear Hopper and Mike coming back in five minutes, I’ll go check to make sure everyone’s still alive.”
Will doesn’t know what else to do, so he follows her to the kitchen and helps her put out plates for everyone, even though ninety percent of the time they don’t all eat at the table. Apparently this is an occasion. El comes out of her room to join them and Will's mom looks at him expectantly.
“Dinner is ready?” El asks.
“In just a second. Will has something to tell you,” says his mom. She’s almost vibrating.
Will has managed not to lie to anyone outright, but right now he can’t see a way out of this that doesn’t hurt someone’s feelings really badly. He and Mike can be dating for today and then break up tomorrow when he actually fully kills Mike.
“Me and Mike, are, uh…” Will says, and swallows uncomfortably. God, his mom looks happy. “We, uh… I hope it’s not weird for you? He kissed me.” So far it’s strictly the truth.
“Ohhhh,” says El. She doesn’t look surprised, actually. Why doesn’t she look surprised? She nods thoughtfully. “That makes sense.”
“It does?” Will’s voice cracks. What the hell is she talking about? Never mind; he sees a tiny light at the end of the tunnel. “If you don’t like it, though, obviously we’ll stop. In fact, it’s weird, right? Your ex-boyfriend and me. We should probably just–”
“I am happy for you,” says El, putting her hand on his arm. “You deserve to have what you want.”
Shit. Will doesn’t know what to say to that.
“He does, doesn’t he?” says his mom in that teary voice again.
“Mom, stop, I’m serious. You can’t freak out like this,” Will says. He’s whining, he can hear it in his own voice. If she gets her expectations up, then breaking up with Mike tomorrow becomes even more difficult. “We haven’t even decided anything, you’re getting way ahead of yourself here.”
“Oh, please,” says his mom. She puts grilled cheese sandwiches on plates around the table. “Getting ahead of myself would be planning your wedding. I’m just happy! You’re happy, El’s happy, I’m happy!”
Will sits down at the table and slumps. Mike got them into this, maybe Mike can figure out how to get them out without upsetting anyone. Will can’t think of anything.
Hopper walks back in, and he hasn’t killed Mike, so that’s good. Mike grins at Will and Will immediately recognizes the We’re getting away with it glint in his eyes. If they break his mom's heart it’s possible Hopper will kill both of them.
“Everything go okay?” Will asks in a low voice. Mike sits down next to him.
Mike shrugs and leans in close. “He bought it. What else matters?”
That’s not an answer. Will frowns. “What did he say? What happened?”
Mike reaches for a plate and smiles at Joyce instead of answering Will. Will still can’t believe that Mike, a guy who is so transparent he might as well be a window, thinks they’ll get away with lying about this.
El sits down next to Mike and gives him a serious look. “Take good care with him,” she says.
“Yeah, of course,” says Mike, mouth half full of grilled cheese as he passes her one.
“Mike, I am serious,” says El.
“Excuse me, I am an amazing boyfriend,” says Mike. He tips his chair back on two legs and El frowns and moves it back down without actually touching it. Mike huffs a little bit.
“Take this seriously,” says El, and there’s an edge of threat in her voice.
Mike shoves the rest of the sandwich in his mouth and holds his hands up apologetically. “I’m always serious–” he starts.
Will decides it’s time to jump in. “It’s fine, he doesn’t need to take it seriously because we haven’t decided if it’s serious or not. We’re just goofing around.” He’s going to find an escape hatch from this conversation if it kills him.
Hopper, El, and his mom all turn to look at him with identical disapproval. So does Mike, actually. “Will, honey, I’m glad you don’t want to get too serious too fast,” his mom says, in the voice that means she thinks he’s ridiculous. “But let’s not diminish how important this is. How exciting this is!”
No one is listening. Will sighs.
Mike nudges him. “Exciting, right?” he says, with a dumb lopsided grin that should honestly make Will mad but doesn’t, because he’s been in love with that smile forever.
How horrible would it be to just…let everyone think they’re dating? Just for a couple of weeks until the wedding? Will’s stomach goes absolutely crazy at the idea of kissing Mike again; he finally knows why people describe it as ‘butterflies.’ Is it horribly selfish of him to let this play out long enough to get one more kiss?
“Mike, your mom really did want you to start heading home,” says Will's mom. “Not that I’m rushing you out, you know you’re always welcome here. Always.”
Will doesn’t think Mike gets what his mom means by that. The quiet If you’re gay and you ever need anywhere to go you’re always welcome here. Mike has never had to listen for that. But Will appreciates her, even if she’s horrifically embarrassing, and he knows how lucky he is to have her.
He hates that she’s wasting all this kindness on something that’s fake.
“Cool, yeah, of course,” says Mike. “Sorry to eat and run.”
“Oh, I’m sure we’ll see more of you,” sighs Hopper. Everyone is sitting down to eat, so it’s a great chance for Will to hustle Mike toward the door. Mike grabs his bag and slings it over his shoulder, waving to El and Will's mom as he goes.
WIll pushes him outside and closes the door. “This is a terrible idea! What were you thinking?”
“Too late now,” says Mike, who doesn’t look sorry at all. “The campaign is underway!”
“Mike,” says Will, with a little bit of despair. “You’ll have to behave like we’re dating at school, too. At school.” Maybe they can deceive their friends for a little while, but Will absolutely despairs at the idea of trying to keep Charm Person going long enough to fool Mike for three weeks. He’s a double agent again and he hates it.
“Yeah,” says Mike, “I know. You’re worrying too much. No one pays attention to losers anyway, and our friends will already know. If anyone hassles us El will throw them into a wall.”
“But–” Will starts
“Relax. It’s going fine so far, all of them believed us. We got a nat twenty on deception and your mom is happy. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Mike doesn’t know that Will is actually rolling deception against him, too, and it feels terrible. “Well, yeah, but…” Will is so mad at Mike, and at the same time he really does appreciate what Mike is trying to do.That’s how things go with Mike a lot. Will wants to kill him and kiss him at the same time. “But you haven’t thought this through. Tomorrow I’m just going to tell them we broke up, and–”
“Why, so we did all this for nothing? No way. We’re committed.”
The door opens behind Will. “Food’s getting cold,” Hopper says.
At least, Will thinks that’s what Hopper says. Mike grabs Will’s t-shirt with both hands and drags him into a kiss and Will is so startled that their noses bump. He opens his mouth to say something like What are you doing?!? but that gets swallowed by Mike and they are just…
Kissing.
Will is ever so slightly off-balance from the way Mike pulled him in, and he puts his hands on Mike’s shoulders to steady himself. His first thought is Mike is more solid than I expected, which comes as enough of a shock that it barely has time to register before it’s swept away completely by the second thought: This is an actual kiss. Last time they were just sort of figuring it out, faking their way through it, but this time Mike seems a lot more confident. He’s putting on a show for Hopper, but it’s working on Will, too. Never mind the circumstances, Mike grabbed him and kissed him like in a movie.
Will didn’t know he could swoon, but here he is. He is melting against Mike. Mike actually does know what he’s doing when he kisses, it turns out.
“Ahem,” says Hopper. Will has his hands on Mike’s shoulders; he could push him away. Why isn’t he pushing him away? Why hasn’t Mike jumped back like he did last time?
Hopper gets a little louder. “You’ll see each other at school in twelve hours, fellas.”
This is insane. Will braces his hands against Mike’s shoulder and pushes himself back. Away. Out of the danger zone. He hadn’t realized part of kissing was that your mouth tingles afterwards, and your heart is beating so hard that your fingers go numb. “Sorry,” he tries, but his voice isn’t working.
He expects Mike to jump in, to say something smug and loud about Yeah we’re dating now, deal with it that will make Hopper growl. Mike just stands there, looking at him. And he’s definitely looking at Will, not at Hopper, because Will can absolutely feel Mike’s eyes on him.
Mike’s mouth is so much redder than usual. He’s going to have to draw that later, Mike with his eyes so dark and serious looking at Will with this odd intensity, and his mouth looking softer than normal. Kissable. Will has done his fair share of thinking about Mike’s mouth, okay, he’s sketched Mike a lot, but his mouth has never looked like this before.
Hopper sighs. “We’re all just gonna stand here, huh? Say goodnight, Will.” He puts a hand on Will’s shoulder.
Will almost feels like he’s landing back in his own body. The last thirty seconds were so weird. “You better get home,” he says. This time he manages to make actual words. Can Mike tell he actually likes when they kiss? He crosses his fingers that Mike’s insight rolls stay terrible.
Mike blinks. “Yeah,” he says, suddenly normal again. “Right, sure, I’ll see you tomorrow. ‘Night, Hop.”
Hopper pulls Will back into the house. “Will,” he says, and then sighs again. “I’m not gonna have to… Listen, I don’t know, with all the gay, exactly how it works, but if you need to hear about the birds and the bees–”
“No,” says Will. Tonight has ping-ponged from the most humiliating moment of his life to the most confusing and back again every minute or so. “We take health sophomore year, I’m good. Please don’t.”
“And they…” Hopper looks so uncomfortable, but grimly determined. “They talked about condoms? I know when those hormones get going it can be hard to remember, but you gotta be smart about this stuff.”
“I’m smart, okay, and it’s not that serious, Hop, jeez.” Will’s face is so red it feels like it’s on fire. He ducks under Hopper’s arm and starts back into the kitchen. Hopper doesn’t need to know that that’s probably the last kiss Will is going to get in his entire life. Condoms are not a problem.
“Hey. Hang on. Will, wait.” Hopper puts his hand on Will’s shoulder again and Will stops, defeated.
Will turns around. This is going to be horrible, whatever it is. “Yeah?” he asks.
“I just wanna say… I’m glad. You deserve to have something you want,” says Hopper. He’s quiet, for Hopper. “Someone you want. Everything’s been so shitty all these years, and I’m just… I’m just glad things worked out.”
Will hadn’t expected that at all. “Oh,” he says, and his eyes start to burn. He hates crying in front of Hopper, Hopper is this big tough guy who only ever shows feelings by yelling about stuff, and he makes Will feel like a baby sometimes. “Thanks.”
Hopper pulls him into a hug. It’s really nice. Will’s dad hasn’t been around in a long time, and Hopper doesn’t usually try to do dad stuff like hugs.
It’s not until later, when Will is lying in bed staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out how to have the fewest casualties possible at school tomorrow, that he stops and wonders.
You deserve to have someone you want, Hopper said. Which means he knew…
Oh, god. If Hopper knows, and his mom knows, and El seemed like she maybe knew, too, then that makes suddenly breaking up with Mike this week a lot harder. And also it’s so embarrassing. He’s completely transparent to everyone except Mike.
“Fuck,” says Will to himself, and rolls over to try and smother himself with a pillow.