Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Newton’s first law goes like this: an object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by a net external force.

_______________

Mike Wheeler’s life is…well, boring.

He wakes up at the same time everyday, to the same jarring chime of the same unrelenting alarm clock. He shoves his feet into the same worn slippers and shuffles off to the bathroom to brush his teeth with the same frayed toothbrush. He spits, rinses, and checks the time. He’ll invariably be running at least a few minutes late, so flossing gets skipped. Oh well, he’ll do it in the evening. Then it’s off to the kitchen to grab a bowl of the same cereal, and eat it in front of the television playing the same sitcom with the same cheesy laugh track. 

After the episode ends and his bowl is empty, Mike checks his watch and is somehow always shocked to discover that he should have left five minutes ago. He dashes out the door  with a rushed goodbye to his mom shouted over his shoulder. He finds his bike tucked away at the side of the house, waiting for him like it always is. He swings a leg over and pushes off, pedalling furiously all the way to school.

Really, it’s a five minute bike ride, but if you’re in a hurry (and Mike always is), you can make it in three. Which means he pulls up in front of Hawkins High almost exactly one minute before first period.

The school day is always a blur. He tunes in for the science classes and sometimes math, but he drifts through his other classes as if on autopilot. Mostly, he lets his brain wander to more important things, like trying to figure out the exact logistics of time travel in Star Trek, or picking monsters for the party’s next campaign.

Lunch offers the day’s only reprieve from the mind numbing tedium that is the American public school system. Even then, he sits himself down at the same table in the same cafeteria with the same group of lovable losers. Most days they even have variations of the same conversation: Max cracks dirty joke after dirty joke, which El will inevitably ask a blushing Will to explain to her, all while Dustin and Lucas shout over each other about whatever they’ve managed to find a way to argue about that day, usually resorting to Mike as a tiebreaker in the end. 

But too soon the bell interrupts them with a shrill ring, and they all shuffle off to their respective classes.

The second half of the day is somehow double the length of the first half. It drags by like a snail through molasses. Most of this time, Mike spends with his eyes fixed on the second hand of the wall-mounted clock, trying to make it go faster with sheer power of will. (No luck yet.)

Eventually, mercifully, that final bell rings, and it is the most beautiful thing Mike has ever heard in his life.

He finds the rest of the Party standing out front of the school, around the bike rack they’ve commandeered for themselves. They stand there, usually for a good fifteen minutes, arguing about where to spend their afternoon. Of course, the options are limited by the fact that this is Hawkins, and there are only about three things to do there anyway. Usually, they wind up at either the theatre or the arcade.

The afternoon always races by like it’s trying to break a record, and before Mike knows it he’s saying goodbye and heading home in the paper-thin light of a purple dusk. When he arrives (with a mumbled apology to his mom for staying out after sundown, again ), he plops down to dinner, and then a few hours of half-assed homework.

Then, all too soon, sleep is tugging at his eyelids, and Mike collapses into bed, all earlier promises of evening flossing forgotten.

And then when he wakes up, he does it all again. And again. And again.

…Yeah, boring is the word for it. 

But hey, boring isn’t that bad. Boring is good. Boring is safe. Boring means no extra dimensional monsters trying to kill him and his friends.

Actually, they’ve gone almost four years now without a single otherworldly evil threatening the town (unless you count the sudden steady increase of mullets popping up over the past few months, which has, needless to say, been a dark time). And Mike finds a certain comfort in the monotony that freedom from monsters and evil government organisations offers. There’s something reassuring about knowing exactly how your day will go before it even starts; about knowing who you’ll talk to, what they’ll say, and how you’ll respond. 

There is comfort in predictability, and it’s something Mike has come to rely on, these past few peaceful—if boring—years.

Unfortunately, that means that when that routine is broken—when that predictability is yanked out from under him like a load-bearing pillar from a building—it sometimes takes Mike a minute to adjust.

Like right now, for instance.

Mike is standing in the middle of his own basement, halfway between the couch and the table, holding a Coke he doesn’t remember wanting, with his mouth hanging open like he’s forgotten how to close it. Just barely, he registers the conversation continuing around him as if his entire world view wasn’t just shattered to a million pieces in front of them.

“Wait, Will, do it again, I forgot to act surprised.” Lucas’ voice is drenched with faux-sincerity offset by the kindness in his laughter. Will laughs too.

“What, I guess you already knew?”

“Only since, like, third grade, dude.”

“And here I was thinking I was so sneaky. Damn.” Will’s voice is light, full of laughter, but even in his dazed state, Mike can detect a slight waver in it. “Dustin, did you know—oh!” There’s the soft thud of bodies colliding, and Mike has to assume Dustin has just tackled Will with a hug—he can only assume, because his eyes are turned the other way and he can’t seem to un-stick them no matter how hard he tries.

“Ymh hmun euh mmm beh fend en I luh yah,” comes Dustin’s voice, muffled by the bear hug he has Will trapped in.

“What?”
“I said ‘you're one of my best friends and I love you’.”

“Thanks, Dustin.” The waver fades a little from his voice. “You’re one of my best friends too.” There’s a pause. “Uh, are you gonna let me go, or…?”
“No,” Dustin says, voice muffled again. “’m showing my support.”

“Alright, buddy.” Will pats him on the back. “Alright.”

“And we ,” starts Max, gesturing between herself and El, “are obviously cool with it.”

“Very cool,” El adds, lifting their linked hands as if in proof.

“Good to know.” Will chuckles. “Thanks, guys.”

“Seriously, man, welcome outta the closet! The air is better out here.” Max inhales loudly, and lets out a dramatic sigh. “Tastes like sweet, sweet homosexuality.” Everyone laughs at that, except Mike. 

Now, by this point, it is becoming more and more evident to everyone, including Mike, that he is the only one who hasn’t said anything at all. He knows he has to, knows he needs to show his support for one of his oldest and closest friends. Unfortunately, his brain stopped working the second Will had spilled those two words out onto the floor between them, so the only thing that comes out when Mike opens his mouth is:
“Wait, you’re gay?” Every head in the room swivels towards him.

“Um…yeah?” Will answers slowly. He says it like Mike has just asked if the sky is really blue, or if The Empire Strikes back is actually a good movie. Like it’s something obvious.

Which it isn’t. Not to Mike, anyway. 

Something about it just isn’t making sense in his brain. He feels like a cartoon robot about to explode—all of his thoughts have been reduced to one long string of DOES NOT COMPUTE!

He tries to make this revelation fit with all the things he knows about Will, everything he’s learned about him in the many years they’ve spent at each other’s sides. He tries to place it somewhere between he likes strawberry ice cream best and he hates being cold and he wants to go to France and he’s scared of heights and he’s a surprisingly fast runner . But can’t get it to fit right in his head. 

It’s like for the past decade, he’s been trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle, carefully placing piece after piece. And then, when he thinks he’s finally finished, he finds one last piece stuck to the bottom of the box. He doesn’t think there’s space for it in the picture he’s made.

But Mike is a scientist at heart, and he knows how to draw a conclusion from the available data, even if it contradicts his hypothesis.

He starts, just like he always does when facing an unknown, with what he does know—the “data” he has so far. Here’s what he comes up with:

1. Will has never once shown romantic interest in a girl. 
2. He’s always been different from the other boys at school. 
3. When he was a kid, Will used to have a lot of ugly words spat at him. Words that mean gay.
4. He got so upset that time Mike said it wasn’t his fault he didn’t like girls. (Those were ugly words too. Mike still hates himself for throwing them at him. )
5. Will is more tactile than Dustin or Lucas. He and Mike hug more often, or lean against each other on the couch.
6. Sometimes when Mike looks at him, he sees something swimming in Will’s eyes, just under the surface. Something sad. Something big.
7. He really likes Han Solo. Like, a lot.
8. He literally just fucking said he was gay, Jesus Christ, Mike.

And if that’s the data set, there’s really only one reasonable conclusion to draw, which Mike’s mind articulates eloquently as: oh .

“Oh,” he says aloud.

“...Oh?” Will looks nervous now, and Mike can’t stand the fact that he’s the one who put that expression on his face. “Is that, like…cool with you?

“Mike Wheeler,” Max cuts in, getting to her feet to stand opposite him, “if the next words out of your mouth aren’t ‘hell yeah it is’, you’re gonna be spending the evening in the ER. Will is too nice to beat you up, but I’m not.”

“Nonononono it’s cool, it’s cool, of course it’s cool!” Mike raises his hands like he’s being arrested. Max squints at him for a minute, but she nods.

“Really?” Will’s voice is soft again.

“Yeah.” He meets Will’s eyes, needing him to know he means it. “Will, you’re my best friend. I…” He reaches for the words, but can’t find them. Either the words are too big, or the feeling is. “You’re my best friend,” he says again, softer. 

Will smiles at him. And just like that, all the puzzle pieces fit, and the picture is whole, and it’s beautiful.

Then all the tension leaks out of the room like air from a tire. Like a sigh of relief. 

Mike stays sitting next to Will on the carpet for the rest of the night, which passes by in a blur of easy smiles and infectious laughter. Every so often, Mike’s eyes stray to Will’s face and he’s a little awe-struck by how much lighter he looks—in both senses of the word. He has so much less to carry now, and everything about him is brighter because of it. He looks like the sun.

It’s one of those nights that no one wants to end, but that always ends anyway. First Dustin, then Lucas, then Max and El say their goodbyes and head out. Will lingers a little longer, though, and Mike is glad.

“Thanks for tonight, Mike,” he says eventually. “Really.”

“Yeah, of course,” Mike says, not knowing what he’s being thanked for. “Anytime.” They’re both quiet for a while.

“Hey, can I ask—” Mike starts at the exact time Will says:

“So are you—” They stop, and laugh. 

“You go,” says Mike.

“Oh, I was just gonna ask…” He lifts a hand to the back of his neck and looks down. “I mean, you’re, uh, really cool with me being gay?”

“Really really,” Mike answers honestly. “Promise.” Will nods.

“It’s just, you were kinda…”

“I know.” Mike winces. “Sorry. I was just…processing, I guess. I was surprised.” 

“Yeah? I think you were the only one.”

“Yeah, well I’m not a great detective. I always lose at Clue.” That makes Will laugh. He knows it’s true.

“Yeah, well Dustin is freakishly good at that game, anyway. No normal human stands a chance when he’s playing.”

“Thanks, Will. I’ll keep that in mind next game night.” They’re quiet for another minute, but it’s a comfortable kind of quiet.

“So, uh, what were you gonna say?”

“Oh, yeah,” Mike says, having already forgotten he was going to say anything at all. “I was gonna ask how long you’ve known. That you’re gay, I mean. Only if you feel comfortable telling me, obviously,” he adds quickly.

“Oh,” Will says. He seems surprised by the question, but not upset. He smiles a little. “A really long time, Mike.” Part of him wants to ask how long a really long time is, but he doesn’t. There was something in Will’s voice when he answered that makes him hesitate to pry any further. Instead he just nods, and says:

“Cool.”

“Cool,” Will repeats with a smile. They’re quiet for a minute longer, but then Mike yawns, which makes Will yawn, which makes them both laugh. “Alright, I should go. Thanks again.” He turns to leave.

“Hey.” Will turns back towards him. He’s not sure what makes him do it, but Mike darts out a hand to grab Will’s. “Thanks for telling me.” He squeezes once and lets go. 

“Yeah.” Will is still smiling as he turns and climbs the stairs out of view. “Goodnight, Mike.”

Mike can still feel the warmth of Will’s fingers against his palm.

_______________

Or maybe Newton’s first law goes like this: a teenage boy living in stasis will continue living in stasis until he’s shaken by some external revelation. And something is set into motion. 

Chapter Text

Newton’s second law: an object’s acceleration is directly proportional to the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to the object’s mass. This can be expressed mathematically by the equation a = F/m .

_______________

If you had told Mike a week ago—or, hell, even a day ago—that the quiet, predictable routine of his life was being held up almost entirely by the pillar that is Will Byers’ heterosexuality, he probably would have told you, respectfully, to please leave him the fuck alone, since you are so obviously delusional.

And yet, the day after Mike finds out that Will is, in fact, not straight at all, he also finds that his familiar, structured routine has been shattered to a million tiny, gay pieces right in front of him.

That morning, Mike wakes up before his alarm. That’s right: Mike Wheeler wakes up on his own , nearly half an hour before his alarm is set to go off . This has never happened before, not once, in all of Mike’s seventeen years on this earth.

And it’s even more shocking than it would usually be, because he was hardly able to string together more than a couple minutes of sleep last night. His mind was busy running in circles around certain little tidbits of information he’s recently learned. (Like, as a random, non-specific example, the fact that Will is gay. And likes boys. And probably wants to kiss boys on their soft, pink lips and stare into their dark eyes and hold their warm hands in his. Or something.) 

Suffice it to say that when Mike cracks open an eye after his last few minutes of fitful slumber, he’s far from well rested. But he also knows there isn’t a chance in hell that he’ll be getting back to sleep now, so up he gets, a full twenty eight minutes before his alarm.

He brushes his teeth in slow, lazy circles, and tries to avoid meeting his own bagged eyes in the mirror. (He doesn’t need the visual reminder; he knows damn well that he’s tired.) Even after he spits and rinses, his watch tells him he’s still way ahead of schedule. So for the first time in God knows how long, Mike actually has time to floss his teeth. 

As it turns out, he doesn’t like flossing his teeth. At all. It stings and the floss comes away red and it makes his teeth ache somehow. He files away the whole experience under let’s not do that again .

In the kitchen now—and still an unprecedented eighteen minutes ahead of schedule—Mike shuffles to the cupboard to grab his daily bowl of Count Chocula. Except, when he reaches for the box, he finds it empty aside for a few lone pieces at the bottom. This is a second enormous wrench thrown into the gears of his routine.

What you’ve got to understand is that Mike Wheeler has eaten a bowl of Count Chocula Chocolatey Cereal with Spooky-Fun Marshmallows every weekday morning for as long as he can remember. (They always have a box in the house for Holly, and it’s surprisingly nutritious, actually, so Mike’s not really that immature at all, if you think about it and…oh, shut up.) The act of munching on spoonful after spoonful of crunchy chocolate goodness is another one of those easily recognizable landmarks that has always helped Mike position himself in the predictable landscape of his day. 

Only, today they ran out.

And, like, logically , Mike knows that this can’t possibly have anything to do with what happened last night. He does. He’s had years worth lessons in science classes warning of the perils of conflating correlation with causation. And yet a tiny little stupid part of his mind is drawing a great big red arrow straight from Will comes out as gay to sudden Count Chocula Shortage . 

It’s stupid, he knows it is, but he can’t help it; he’s all out of joint. Out of equilibrium. And he knows it started last night. He just doesn’t know exactly why.

Will is gay. So what? Mike doesn’t have a problem with that, not at all. Gay is cool, he’s fine with gay. Hey, his first ever girlfriend is gay, and he dealt with that pretty well, didn’t he? So it’s not that. And sure, he was a little surprised about Will, but it also makes a lot of sense. So why is he still thinking about it? Why does it feel like his whole life has just teetered out of balance like a seesaw?

And why are they out of Count Chocula?

Okay, so that last one is probably unrelated. (Hey, get off his back. He’s operating on like zero hours of sleep, here.)

He shakes his head in spite of himself and grabs a bowl of Cheerios instead. They don’t even compare.

Trying desperately to cling to any bits of his routine as he can, he plops down in front of the TV with his cereal. Since he’s a good fifteen minutes earlier than usual, though, none of the shows he usually favours are even airing. In the end, he just puts on one of those infomercial channels.

After he’s finished his Cheerios (and learned a lot about how all his multitudes of challenges with regular pans could be solved with the Non-Stick, Non-Toxic, All-New WonderPan™, for just three small payments of $9.99!), Mike sets his bowl in the sink and checks his watch yet again. Still early.

But he’d rather get out of the house than just putter around waiting for his usual time of departure, so he grabs a jacket and pulls on his runners. He’s halfway out the door when his mom calls him.

“Mike, honey?” She’s just come down the stairs herself, still wrapped in her fluffy housecoat. “Are you leaving already?”

“Yeah.” He shuffles back in to give her a quick squeeze. “Bye, Mom.”

“You’re early,” she says, in obvious amazement.

“I know,” he answers miserably. 

He misses his routine.

Technically, Mike could take the bike ride to school a little more leisurely since he has the time, but he huffs and puffs along at his usual break-neck speed out of habit. This means he pulls up to school a full ten minutes before first period, an event totally and completely unprecedented in all his highschool career.

He spots his friends grouped around the far bike rack, and he waves a hand in greeting as he wheels his own bike over.

“Hey guys!”

“Woah…what?” says Dustin. He and the rest of them are staring at Mike like he’s grown a second nose. (Which he’s pretty sure he hasn’t. But hey, you never know in Hawkins.)

“Uh, what do you mean ‘what’?” He glances around at the five pairs of wide eyes trained on him. “Guys, seriously, what?”

“You’re...not…late.” El’s voice is filled with genuine amazement.

“I’ve literally never even seen you this early in the morning,” says Max, equally dumbfounded. The others nod their agreement.

“Yeah,” says Lucas. “I mean, I didn’t even know you existed before 8:09 AM. I mean, I had my suspicions, but I’d never seen proof until now.”

“Screw you guys!” Mike’s words are undermined by the laughter in his voice. “I’m not always late.”

“Yes you are,” say five voices as one. That makes them all laugh.

“Whatever,” says Mike with a roll of his eyes. “I can be early if I want to be. Maybe I’m turning over a new leaf.” Now it’s everyone else’s turn to roll their eyes.

They do leave Mike more or less alone after that, though, and he relaxes a little as he listens to their familiar banter. They talk and joke and laugh just like they always do, and Mike feels a little silly for making such a big deal about last night in his head. Of course it doesn’t change anything. Will is still Will, and they’re still them.

So all things considered, he’s feeling a little better, a little more himself, by the time he sits down for his first class of the day: Calculus. That is, he feels better for about twelve seconds.

“Good morning, class. So I’m sure you all remember about the quiz today…” starts his teacher and oh no . Mike did not, in fact, remember about the quiz today.

He was supposed to study for that, he remembers now. He planned to study after everyone left. Except, by the time everyone left it was already so late and his mind was so full of woah, Will likes boys , that he forgot he had a quiz at all and hopped straight into bed without studying a thing.

Whoops.

Now, he’s staring at the page of equations that blur together in front of his tired eyes, as he tries to remember anything about derivatives. It’s like…slope, right?

God, he’s so fucked.

The bell rings seventy-five minutes later, and Mike’s page is still blank. He’s been having this problem, see, where every time he reads a question and politely asks his brain to please help find the freaking answer, the only thing his mind will offer up is hey, did you know Will likes boys? And Mike will answer back that yes, actually, he did know that, but that’s not gonna help him pass Calculus, and would his brain please help him out here? At which point his brain will answer, Oh yeah, yeah. No problem at all. Hey, did you know that Will likes boys?

This goes on for an hour and fifteen minutes.

In the end, Mike just sighs and hands in his paper, totally blank aside from his name at the top. And he’s pretty sure he misspelled that too.

English class passes in a haze of simple prepositions and correlative conjunctions, and then suddenly it’s lunch.

Mike plops down with his tray at their habitual table, and his mood must be evident on his face, because Will turns to him with a concerned expression right away.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” He always knows when to ask that. El might have most of the superpowers in their friend group, but Will has that one.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Mike answers, only lying a little. It does feel more fine when he’s sitting here with his friends. “I just flunked a calc test.” Everyone turns to stare at him, and at least one fork comes clattering to the table. Lucas is the first to break the shocked silence.

“You? You failed a math test?”

“Uh…yeah?”

“But you’ve never failed a test in your whole life!”

“Well,” starts Dustin with a giggle, “unless you count the Beep Test in ninth grade.”

“Yeah. I didn’t even know it was possible to get a negative score on that thing.”

“Oh, fuck off, Max. My score wasn’t negative,” Mike shoots back. “It was just very, very close to zero,” he adds with a mumble. That cracks everyone up.

“Okay, enough about Mike and his many, many failures,” says Max. Despite the delivery, Mike is thankful for the change in subject. “What I want to know, Will,” she continues, turning to him, “is when are we gonna get to meet your B-O-Y-F-R-I-E-N-D?” And boy, Mike must really be tired, because it takes him a full fifteen seconds to string together those letters in his head. When he does, he chokes on a spoonful of mashed potatoes.

“ Max ,” Will hisses, flushing. “Why don’t you say that a little louder, I’m not sure the whole cafeteria heard you.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Here, watch.” She raises her voice to a near-shout. “Hey, my name is Max Mayfield, and I’m a big ol’ L-E-S-B-I-A-N!” Not a single head turns their way. “See? None of these jackasses know how to spell, it’s fine.” Will chuckles a little and relaxes. Mike, for his part, is still choking quietly on mashed potatoes. El thumps him on the back absentmindedly.

“Anyway, that was a good try, Max, but I see through your little plot,” says Will. “You could just ask me if I’m seeing someone, you know.” Max rolls her eyes.

“ Fine . So…are you seeing anyone?”

“I hate to admit it, but I am, devastatingly, single,” admits Will. Just then, the potatoes dislodge from Mike’s throat and he gulps in a big breath.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, it seems that in the enormous gay teen dating pool that is Hawkins, no guy wants a piece of all this.” Will waves his hand in a general gesture at himself with a laugh. “Hard to believe, I know.” That is hard to believe , Mike finds himself thinking. Then he wonders where the hell that thought came from.

“El,” starts Max, “we have a new mission. We gotta find someone for Will.” El nods conspiratorially, and Mike tries to work out why that thought makes his stomach twist.

“Uh, that’s nice, but you don’t have to…” starts Will, but he’s drowned out by Max and El’s plotting.

The rest of the day blurs by in a haze similar to the morning—though, thankfully, there are no other tests Mike has forgotten about. By the time he makes it back home that afternoon, he’s even more tired than he was in the morning, which he wouldn’t have thought possible.

He slogs through a few hours of homework (more calculus, dear God), but neither his heart nor his mind is really in it. His mind is busy running in circles about Will liking boys, about Will holding some boy’s hand, about Will blushing as he leans it to kiss some boy right on his lips. And his heart…well, Mike’s not really sure what his heart is doing.

Tired of thinking and tired of feeling, Mike ends up putting himself to bed before the clock even strikes nine. He falls asleep in seconds.

And he dreams.

_______________

Newton’s second law states that an object is accelerated more the lighter it is, and the larger the net force acting on it is.

So let’s say that there’s a boy who only weighs about a hundred and twenty pounds (if he rounds up), who is living in a state of equilibrium—that is, living in stasis. And let’s say that this boy is suddenly struck by the immeasurable force of some previously unanticipated knowledge. And it sets something moving inside of him. Well, as a result of the relatively low mass and high force, the rate of acceleration will be high, too. 

That is to say that that feeling, that something that was set in to motion? It's going to start picking up speed.

And fast.

Chapter Text

Newton’s third law: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

_______________

This past week, Mike has been a bit of a mess, to put it mildly. 

To put it spicily, he’s been a total fucking disaster of a human being.

Over the past five days, he’s managed to walk face first into no less than five different walls, spend three whole minutes pulling on a door clearly labelled “push”, and bike all the way to school with his shoes on the wrong feet. Twice .

His head has been in the clouds, to say the least. More like the upper stratosphere, really. What has him so preoccupied? Here's a hint: it starts with “W” and ends in “-ill likes boys”.

It’s still the Will thing. Of course it’s the Will thing.

Like, Mike is pretty much comfortable with the fact that, yeah, Will is definitely gay. He’s gotten to the point where Will Byers equals gay is a balanced equation in his head. An unquestionably true statement.

But what he can’t figure out, what he can’t for the life of him turn into any kind of logical statement anywhere in his mixed up brain, is why he cares so much. How come this was the thing to throw him for a loop, when he’s fought monsters and dated a superhero and fought secret Russian spies? How come this , of all the batshit things he’s done and seen in his life, was the one to turn him into a Calculus-test-failing, wrong-shoe-wearing zombie?

Mike can’t make sense of it. Which, of course, means he becomes even more distracted trying to figure it out and runs into even more walls as a result.

Yeah. He’s a mess.

And so, when he wakes up on Saturday morning to the sun in his eyes and a blessed lack of alarm clock screeching, Mike’s first thought is Thank God . Today, at least, he won’t have to make a fool of himself. No school, no leaving the house at all, if he’s lucky. Just him, and some much deserved peace and quiet.

DING-DONG .

The doorbell echoes through the house, shattering both the quiet and Mike’s hopes for the day. 

He stays still on the bed, listening. He waits for the creak of a stair or the thud of footsteps. Anything that means he won’t have to be the one to tear himself from his bed to get the door.

After a minute, though, no sound comes and he resigns himself to his terrible, terrible fate.

He groans as he throws off the covers and stumbles, bleary-eyed, out of bed. Still in his pyjamas, he shuffles towards the stairs. He drags his feet a little as he goes, half-hoping that whoever is at the door will get impatient and leave.

DING-DONG .

Okay, so yes to the impatient part, but apparently no to the leaving. Great . Mike makes his way to the door, walking even slower now.

You know, Mike had plans for today. He was going to take some time to sort things out. He was gonna do some serious thinking, alone , and hopefully figure out what’s going on with him. Figure out why he’s been acting so…crazy. Figure out why he’s been so fixated on this whole thing with—

“Will?” says Mike, mouth hanging open as wide as the door between them.

“Hey, Mike.”

_______________

Will has been having one of the best weeks of his life.

It’s a little strange, considering how his week started; he’s not sure he’s ever been more scared than he was right before he said those words for the very first time. That feeling, that nauseating, dizzying, god-awful feeling that had filled him up like air in a balloon right before he said it…that was maybe the worst he’s ever felt. And he’s counting his time in the Upside Down.

But then he did say it. He took those two words that he’d kept inside, hidden and protected, for so long, and he let them fall right out of his mouth and onto the floor for everyone to see.

I’m gay.

He remembers the stab of fear he felt as he heard the words come out of his mouth and realised that there was no way to put them back in. That fear almost swallowed him right up. (Fear is an awful thing to be swallowed by. Its belly is vast, and there isn’t any light down there.) It would’ve too, Will thinks, if Lucas hadn’t broken the silence just then. 

But he did break the silence, with a joke and a loving smile, and sent that ugly fear back to the depths.

And Will knew it was going to be okay.

Mike did, admittedly, take a couple minutes to say anything at all. This didn’t make Will as nervous as it might have, though, because he’s always known that Mike isn’t the best with change. (He still remembers when Colin Baker replaced Peter Davison as the Doctor; Mike hardly talked for a week.) But after a few minutes of slack-jawed silence, he had come around whole-heartedly, just like Will knew he would. 

And what started as the scariest night of his life became one of the best. All of that sticky, hungry fear was replaced by a golden joy, and Will felt himself relax for the first time in a long, long time. The night was similar enough to most of the nights the Party gets together—a familiar mix of half-finished board games and talked-over movies—but it felt different. Maybe because Will felt different. Lighter, somehow. More himself, too.

And that same feeling stayed with him for the rest of the week. He was so happy his life was soaked through with it. He found himself raising his hand in class and smiling at people in the halls. He picked out his brightest shirts in the mornings and painted for hours in the evenings. At lunch, he sat squeezed between Dustin and Max at the Party’s habitual table, laughing and chatting and loving them all so much he felt it in his chest. He was so, so grateful to have friends like his.

Which isn’t to say they never get on his nerves; Max and El somehow became convinced over the course of the week that it was their duty to find him a man, despite his numerous objections. (“Gay-lesbian solidarity, Byers!” Max yelled over his protests). Now, this was a problem for several reasons, not the least of which was the fact that he wasn’t sure two sapphics were the absolute most qualified people to find him a boyfriend. Mostly, though, this was a problem because he was already sort-of, kind-of, maybe, definitely in love with Mike.

Yeah, try explaining that one to the girls. Sorry, Max and Eleven, but I’m really not looking for a boyfriend right now. Why? Oh, because I’m head over heels for Mike Wheeler. You know him? About yay tall, mop of black hair, my best friend for well over a decade, staunchly heterosexual? Not the easiest conversation. Which is why Will has elected to avoid it at all costs, and go along with their increasingly absurd boyfriend suggestions—including such winners as Stacey Albright’s cousin from Minnesota, and that one cute guy who works at the pretzel stand—as if he’d ever be interested.

God, though, he’s gotta stop falling for straight men. First Han Solo, now this.

Because of course Will knows that this will not, cannot go anywhere. Not at all, not ever. But he also knows he just can’t help it. He loves him. And he has for a really, really long time.

The thing is, however long he’s loved Mike, he’s known him for even longer. He knows his favourite ice cream flavour (mint chip, for some godforsaken reason), his favourite season (fall-turning-winter), and his favourite colour (yellow, which just happens to bring out the gold in his stupid, beautiful eyes). He also knows when Mike has something on his mind. And this past week? He’s been brooding on something big . Will can see it in the far-off look in his eyes, hear it in his uncharacteristic quiet.

He’s not sure what it is that has him so pensive, not exactly, but by lunchtime on Friday, it was starting to make him nervous. Which was why he was so pleased when Mike agreed to hangout on the weekend.

“Yeah, yeah, that sounds cool,” Mike said, trying to take a bite of pasta and missing his mouth by a good three inches.

“Really?” Will beamed at him. Maybe they’d get a chance to talk, to work out what’s been going on with him. “Awesome! Does tomorrow work?”

“Tomorrow,” Mike echoed, nodding his head in a vague motion of assent.

“Cool. When should I come over?” Will asked, but his friend was staring into space again. “Like...the morning? Or the evening?” he prodded.

“Morning,” he echoed again.

“Great! I’ll see you then.” Will smiled. This week was shaping up alright after all.

_______________

Could Mike’s week get any worse? (And no, Universe, that was not a challenge.)

It’s not that he’s not happy to see Will—he’s pretty much always happy to see Will. But he’s totally caught off guard, and he’s in ratty Star Wars pyjamas, and his brain is still made of scrambled eggs.

“Will! Hi! Um, hey,” he says stupidly. “You’re, uh, here.”

“I’m here,” Will says, and there’s a distinct glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “We had plans, remember?”

“Did I remember? Of course I did…” he starts, but Will just sort of gives him a look. “...n’t. Didn’t. I did not remember, no,” he admits with a wince. “Sorry, Will. I’ve been kinda…” He waves a hand all around in a vague pantomime of his general state of disaster. Will covers his mouth with his hand, and it takes Mike a minute to realise he’s laughing.

“Yeah, Mike. I’ve noticed.” Shit. Has he been that obvious of a mess? (He already knows the answer is a resounding yes.)

“Oh. You, uh, did?”

“Yeah, dude,” he says, laughing again. “Yesterday I watched you try to take a bite of a fully wrapped Twinkie.”

“Oh God, really?” Mike definitely doesn’t remember doing that, but it’s not quite as out of character for him recently as he would have liked.

“Uh, yeah. ” Will doesn’t bother trying to hide his laughter now, but it’s so infectious that Mike doesn’t mind in the slightest. “You didn’t stop when you bit into the cellophane, either. You just kept kinda trying to gnaw through it.” Mike puts his burning face into his hands. This is karma, isn’t it? This is divine punishment for some long-forgotten sin.

“ Any way,” he says, as he turns inside, face still bright red. “Come on in.”

Mike leads Will inside and down to the basement, suddenly hyper-aware that he literally just rolled out of bed, and definitely looks it. Will, on the other hand, looks as put together as always. He’s been dressing differently lately, Mike’s noticed. Happier, somehow. Brighter. It suits him.

They settle on opposite ends on the couch. Will tucks one leg under himself and rests his head on his arm. He looks so natural like that. He looks like he belongs here, in this basement. Here, with Mike.

“Have you eaten?” Will’s voice shakes him from his contemplation, and he’s suddenly aware that he’s been staring at him for too long. He looks away.

“Hmm?”

“Breakfast, Mike. Have you eaten it?”

“Breakfast,” he repeats, finally processing the question. “No, actually. I just woke up.” As if his bed-headed, pyjama-clad state didn’t make that embarrassingly obvious.

“You want to go grab something now? I don’t mind.”

“No, no, it’s alright. I’m not hungry.” Truth be told, Mike couldn’t really tell you if he’s hungry or not, because his stomach is busy doing this weird fluttery thing—whatever the fuck that’s about.

“Okay.” They’re quiet for a minute, then. And okay, the talking wasn’t going great, but silence is somehow worse. Mike blurts out the first thing he can think to say.

“So you don’t have a boyfriend?” Good job, Mike. Super neutral, normal conversation starter you picked, there. At least Will doesn’t seem to mind the abrupt segue or the new topic.

“Despite Max and El’s best efforts, no,” he answers, and a feeling suspiciously like relief washes over Mike.

“What, they haven’t found anyone you like?” Will shakes his head.

“Not for lack of trying, though. They’ve been relentless.” Then Will smiles. “Maybe I just have high standards.”

“Do you?”

“I guess so.” He smiles again, but it’s a little sad. He shakes his head. “Anyway, I didn’t come here to talk about my complete and depressing lack of boyfriends. What’s up with you?”

“Me?”
“Yeah, why have you been all…” He waves a hand around, mimicking Mike’s motion from earlier.

Mike understands the question. It’s the same one he’s been asking himself all week. Only, suddenly he thinks he might know the answer. Not the whole answer, maybe, not yet. But an inkling, at least. A hypothesis. A hypothesis that has something to do with the flutter in his stomach and the heat in his face and that beat his heart skipped when Will smiled. It’s also a hypothesis that solves a whole lot more than the mystery of his own weirdness over the past week. It’s one that explains years of cheeks flushing for no reason, of dreams and feelings he can’t explain, of his heart doing funny things in his chest when he looks at his best friend. It’s one that explains a whole lifetime of knowing he’s just a little different, but not ever knowing why . He thinks he knows why, now.

Suddenly he’s aware of Will’s hand on his arm, and oh, he must have been quiet for too long, because there Will is, right next to him, with a worried look in his eyes.

“Will—” he starts, and there must be something in his voice, because Will meets his eyes, and his face is right there, and don’t hypotheses need to be experimentally validated?

Mike leans in and kisses him.

And Will kisses him back. Just as sweet, just as firm, just as hopeful; Will kisses him back .

Chapter Text

_______________

“What we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean.” ― Sir Isaac Newton

_______________

Mike Wheeler might know the best combo move in Double Dragon, pi to twenty-five digits, and every single word to both versions of 99 Red Balloons , but when it comes to things that actually matter, the list of things he knows is a short one. 

It is much, much shorter than the list of the things he doesn’t know. That list is far too long to transcribe here in its entirety, but an incomplete version is shown below, for your convenience.

A Noncomprehensive Account of Things Mike Wheeler Does Not Know

• How to prepare any food beyond Eggos, cereal, and tap water
• Any language other than English (and the odd word in Klingon)
• How to draw one of those cool, twisty letter S’s that everybody but him seems to be able to draw
• If “inflammable” means something can catch fire, or can’t catch fire
• How to spell the word “people” without thinking “pee-oh-pull” quietly to himself, because that’s how he was taught in the first grade
• Why the government can’t just print more money. (Yes, people have explained it to him before. No, he still doesn’t get it.)
• How to watch Dead Poets Society without crying

Presently—and much to his chagrin—Mike is discovering something else that belongs at the very top of that list, and that is:

• What the hell to say to your life-long best friend, who has very recently come out as gay and whom you’ve been awkward as fuck around for the past week, after you’ve impulsively kissed them on the mouth, despite having given no previous impression that you were romantically interested in them or in people of their gender at all.

Well and truly speechless for maybe the first time in his life, Mike pulls back from the kiss slowly, slowly. His eyes flutter open (when did he close them?), and he stares at Will.

Will, who he just kissed. 

Will, who kissed him back . 

And he’s staring at Mike, too, eyes wide and bright and beautiful. His lips are still parted ever-so-slightly and just a little redder than normal. Because of the kiss, Mike’s mind supplies helpfully. Because you kissed him. That thought alone is enough to add a few long seconds to his stunned silence.

And he knows he should say something, needs to say something. But he can’t. He doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to say it, doesn’t know anything at all.

But Will does. 

“That was…” He smiles, small and tentative and just a little guarded. “Mike, what was that?” It’s the small, barely-there waver of trepidation in his voice that gives Mike the strength to gather up the words living inside him and breath out a soft:

“Nice.” He clears his throat. “That was…nice.” It’s not the answer he meant to give, not really the answer to Will’s question, but God it’s the truth. 

“Yeah,” Will says, “it was.” And his smile isn’t guarded at all, now. Mike grins back.

There’s a lot more they need to say to each other—confessions, apologies, promises, plans—and they will, eventually. But right now, they just sit there, grinning like a couple of goofballs, in silence and in something else, something that neither of them names just then, but that feels an awful lot like love.

_______________

The day seems to linger and stretch before them, like taffy in the summer heat. Time is a far-away concept as the two of them lie on that sun-soaked couch, trading questions, and stories, and jokes, and, yes, kisses. 

“Since kindergarten,” Will says, at one point. 

Their hands are intertwined, now, and have been since Mike’s stumbling confession. (He doesn’t completely remember the confession itself, but that he’s relatively sure included both the word “like-like” and “par'Mach ”. He was bright red and babbling aimlessly by the end of it, but Will gave him a smile so warm and bright that it was worth it.)

“Hmm?” Mike asks absently. He’s finding it a little hard to hold Will’s hand and follow the thread of the conversation at the same time. He’s only human, after all, and his heart can only take so much.

“Last week,” Will explains, “you asked me how long I’ve known.” Mike remembers.

“You said a long time.”

“Yeah. But the real answer, or the precise answer, I guess, is kindergarten. That’s the first time I realized I was gay.” 

“Really?” Will nods. “Wow.” 

All Mike remembers learning in kindergarten was the alphabet song. He wonders what it would be like to know yourself like that, so young. To grow up knowing yourself. He wonders if it would have made things easier or harder. Maybe both.

_______________

By the time Mike works up the courage to just go ahead and ask a stupid question, the sun already low in the sky. He’s sprawled across the couch now, lying on his stomach, and Will is sitting on the carpeted floor, back braced against the couch. They’re still holding hands, though.

And in the end, it’s the sight of their hands, all caught up in each other, that helps him find the guts to ask his question. Because he knows that no matter what he says, no matter how dumb the question, Will won’t let go of his hand.

Mike takes a deep breath and just asks.

“Will, am I gay?” Will smiles at him, but doesn’t laugh.

“You’re asking me if you’re gay?”

“I mean…yeah?” He shrugs, but feels his cheeks heat. “You kinda seem like the most qualified person to ask.” Will does laugh, now, but it’s the warm, loving kind of laugh.

“Well, I appreciate your confidence in my queer credentials, but I think that you’re actually the most qualified, in this case. Like, literally the only qualified person.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “Yeah, I know.”

And Mike does know that much, at least. But the thing is, he doesn’t know -know, not about himself. Not if he’s gay or queer or something else. Not if he likes just boys or boys-and-girls or girls-plus-Will or just Will. 

He just…doesn’t know. (Hey, look at that—another one for the list!)

“Will, I…” He sighs again. “I don’t know. I have no idea.”

“Okay,” he says simply, never once loosening his grip on Mike’s hand.

“...‘Okay’?”

“Yeah, it’s okay.” Will turns to him with this look in his eye—this patient, kind, soft, understanding, loving look. And he smiles. “You don’t have to know.” 

Mike can’t help but stare at him. Because no one’s ever told him that before. Never once has anyone looked him in the eyes and told him that it’s okay to just… not know .

“You mean, like, right now?” Because of course he has to know eventually…Doesn’t he? But Will just shrugs.

“Yeah, right now. But also ever.” He squeezes his hand. “If it would make you happy to know for sure if you’re gay or bisexual or something else, then I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually. But if you don’t, then that’s okay too.” It’s a long minute before Mike can manage a soft:

“Oh.” And another long minute before he sniffs and adds, “Okay.”

“Okay.” Will squeezes his hand and doesn’t say a word about the tears that may or may not currently be blurring Mike’s vision. They’re happy tears, mostly. Relief-tears. Love-tears, if those are a thing. 

Once he’s gathered himself, Will sneaks a soft kiss onto his cheek. 

“You wanna play Space Invaders?” 

“Yeah,” Mike says around the lump in his throat. “Yeah, I do.”

And so they play, and they laugh, and they wrestle over the controller, and they never once let go of each other’s hands.

_______________

What Mike doesn’t know is an ocean, but he’s learning how to swim.