Chapter Text
“I need you to be my boyfriend,” Mike blurted out.
Will froze, pencil hovering uselessly above the page. He was sat cross-legged on his bed, sketchbook propped against his knees, charcoal smudged into the side of his hand. The half-finished outline of a figure stared back at him, suddenly blurring, as if someone else had drawn it.
He blinked once. Then again.
Slowly, he lifted his eyes.
Mike was perched in his desk chair, twisted halfway around so he could face the bed. He looked like he always did when he was nervous - curled in on himself, shoulders hunched, fingers worrying at the frayed cuff of his jumper sleeve. The sleeves were too long, swallowing his hands, the wool soft and faded from too many washes. His curls stuck out at odd angles, brushing his ears and falling into his eyes, which were wide and fixed firmly on Will’s face, like he was bracing for impact.
He looked stupidly beautiful.
Will hated that his first thought was that maybe he’d imagined it.
Because he did imagine this. More often than he let himself admit. Mike asking him something like that, asking him to be his boyfriend, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like it hadn’t taken Will years to even say the word gay out loud. Like it wouldn’t crack something fragile straight down the middle of him.
The thing was, Will loved Mike. He had always loved Mike. Loving Mike felt less like a choice and more like gravity. Something he’d learned to live with, something constant and unyielding, even when he’d tried, desperately, to move on.
“Your… your what?” Will managed finally. His voice sounded distant to his own ears, thin and unsure.
Mike swallowed. “My boyfriend,” he repeated, a little quieter this time, like maybe if he said it softly enough, it wouldn’t sound as insane. “I need you to be my boyfriend.” He paused. “Just, pretend. For a bit.”
Will set the pencil down very carefully, afraid his hands might shake if he didn’t. “Mike,” he said, and then stopped, because there were about a hundred things he could say next and none of them felt safe.
It was their second year of college. They’d made it out of Hawkins, out of the wreckage and the monsters and the ghosts that still followed them in quieter moments. They shared a dorm room now. Small, cluttered, perpetually smelling faintly of instant coffee and paint. Life, by most standards, was good.
Will had tried to let it be good.
He’d gone on dates. Real ones. Coffee shops and awkward small talk and carefully neutral smiles. Freshman year, he’d even had a boyfriend for about a month. Nice, earnest, someone who held his hand under the table like it meant something. Who would kiss him. Who would take him on dates and smile at him. Will had wanted it to work. He’d wanted to feel what he was supposed to feel.
But nothing ever stuck.
Because no matter who he was sitting across from, no matter whose laugh he was pretending to memorise, there was always this quiet, traitorous part of him that compared them to Mike. And everyone came up short.
Mike, who had confessed one night in the dark of their dorm room, voice barely above a whisper, that he liked boys. Not just girls. Mike, who had stared up at the ceiling like it might fall on him for saying it, who had laughed weakly afterwards and said, “Don’t make it weird, okay? I don’t want to talk about it right now.” As if Will could ever make something like that weird.
Will had broken a little that night.
Because Mike liked boys. But he didn’t like Will.
And then, a couple of months later, Mike had told his family. And the rest of their friends. And somehow, impossibly, things had gone well. Better than well. There were no slammed doors, no angry phone calls, no sudden silences. Just awkward questions and too-long hugs and a general sense of relief that settled over Mike like a second skin.
Life was good. Great, even.
So this, whatever this was, was not supposed to be happening.
“Why?” Will asked, because it felt like the only question he could survive asking.
Mike blew out a breath and dragged a hand through his hair, making it worse. “Because,” he said, “my mom won’t stop asking if I’m seeing anyone. And ever since I told her I like boys and girls, she won’t stop nagging me. Now suddenly it’s, ‘Michael, are you dating? Michael, do you have a boyfriend? Michael, you don’t have to hide things from us.’” He grimaced. “And I panicked.” Mike shrugged sheepishly at Will. “I told her I had a boyfriend.”
Will’s chest tightened. “So your solution,” he said carefully, “was me.”
Mike looked at him then, really looked at him, and something in his expression softened, earnest and hopeful in a way that made Will’s throat ache. “You’re my best friend,” Mike said. “And mom knows you’re gay. And that you’re, like, my favourite person in the world. So when I said I had a boyfriend, she assumed and I… I never corrected her.”
Will uncrossed his legs, swinging them over the edge of the bed. “Mike,” he said slowly, things clicking into place in his mind. “When did you tell your mom that we’re dating?”
Mike winced and mumbled something.
“What?” Will asked, not hearing him.
MIke groaned. “Two months, okay. My parents think we’ve been dating for two months.”
Will flopped back on the bed. “Seriously, Mike!”
Everything suddenly made sense. Mr and Mrs Wheeler knew. So Nancy knew. And Nancy told Jonathan. And Jonathan told their mom. And Will had to endure awkward phone calls with his mom hinting that he could tell her anything and she hoped he’d bring a nice boy home soon.
His family thought he was dating Mike.
Will wished he was dating Mike.
“I’m sorry!” Mike said hurriedly. “I didn’t mean it. I just agreed with mom to get her off my back.”
“My mom thinks we’re dating,” Will said dazedly. “She’s been hinting every time we call and I didn’t know what she was talking about.”
Mike winced again. “I’m so sorry. But, Will, please. Please pretend to be my boyfriend. It’s just for a week. And I know you weren’t going to go visit your mom and Hop for spring break. Maybe for a few days but not for the full break. So we can go back to Hawkins and see my family and the Party for a week. Pretend we’re dating. And then after… after, I’ll tell my mom we broke up and are better off as best friends. We pretend to break up.”
A week, Will thought faintly.
Pretending to be in love with the person you were already in love with. Pretending it didn’t mean anything.
He swallowed. “And after we pretend to break up.” Will repeated.
Mike hesitated. Just for a second. Long enough for Will to notice.
“We go back to normal,” Mike said softly.
Normal.
Will nodded, because he wasn’t sure what would happen if he didn’t. Because some part of him, reckless and hopeful and very, very stupid, was already saying yes.
“Okay,” he said, softly.
Mike’s shoulders sagged like he’d been holding his breath for the last five minutes. “Okay?” he echoed, tentative, like he didn’t quite trust it yet.
“Okay,” Will repeated, forcing the word to settle in his chest. “I’ll be your boyfriend.”
Mike’s face lit up instantly, a grin breaking across his mouth so wide it almost hurt to look at. “Thank you,” he said, breathless with relief. “I swear, I’ll be the best fake boyfriend ever.”
Will snorted despite himself, the sound surprising them both. “I don’t know about that,” he said dryly. “I saw what you were like with El.”
Mike groaned and tipped his head back, the chair creaking beneath him. “Will. That was ages ago,” he protested. “And El and I are way better as friends. We were just,” he gestured vaguely with his hands, searching for the word. “Trying to force something that wasn’t there.”
Will nodded, slow and thoughtful. He couldn’t really argue with that.
Now that Mike and El were just friends, everything between them seemed easier. They laughed more. Talked more. There was no strange tension, no careful distance. Whatever they’d been clinging to back then had loosened into something softer, something that actually fit.
“It makes sense,” Will said quietly.
Mike glanced at him, expression gentler now. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Will hesitated, then added, “You’re both happier.”
Mike smiled at that, small and genuine. “We are.”
The room fell into a brief, comfortable silence. Will became acutely aware of everything at once. The scratch of fabric as Mike shifted in the chair, the slight breeze from the partially open window, the fact that he’d just agreed to pretend to be in love with the person he’d never stopped loving.
“So,” Mike said after a moment, rubbing the back of his neck. “Boyfriends, huh.”
Will’s stomach flipped.
“Yeah,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t give him away. “Guess so.”
Mike smiled at him, soft and sweet in a way that Will never saw him look at anyone else. In a way that made Will’s toes curl and his cheeks flush and his stomach tingle. He smiled back at Mike, hoping, praying, it looked natural and not completely lovestruck.
“Boyfriends,” Mike said again, like he was grounding himself. “It’s not like we’ll need to do anything different, anyways. My parents will hardly expect us to make out in front of them.”
Will blushed at the thought of making out with Mike.
He really, really wanted to make out with Mike. And he really needed to stop thinking about making out with Mike.
“But don’t jump if I hold your hand,” Mike continued, seemingly oblivious to Will’s internal freak out.
Holding hands. With Mike. Please. Oh my gosh, he might get to hold Mike’s hand.
Will shifted on the bed, tucking one leg beneath the other. He cleared his throat. “Sure,” he said.
“And maybe we should sit close together,” Mike added, rushing on. “Not all the time. Just enough that it looks real.”
Real.
Will nodded, because his voice had deserted him. He tried to imagine Mike’s hand in his, warm, familiar, fingers lacing like it meant something, and had to look away.
“Is that okay?” Mike asked, quieter now.
Will forced himself to meet his eyes. “Yeah,” he said, and meant it in the worst, most dangerous way. “It’s okay. I mean, we sit pretty close anyways.”
You touch me all the time, Will wanted to say.
But maybe Mike didn’t know he did that. Maybe it was something that Mike had done subconsciously their whole lives and he didn’t even realise.
Mike let out a breath and smiled again, relieved. “Good. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
They sat there for a moment, the air between them charged and delicate, like something that might shatter if either of them moved too quickly.
“Thank you for doing this,” Mike said quietly.
Will rolled his eyes, smiling. “Come on, Mike. We’re best friends. Of course I’ll be your boyfriend.”
Mike’s answering grin was immediate and unguarded. For a second, the room seemed to narrow around that smile, around the warmth of it, and Will didn’t think he’d ever seen Mike look more beautiful.
His chest ached.
“Right,” Mike said after a beat, spinning back around in the chair. “I should probably let you finish your work.”
“Yeah,” Will agreed, though he hadn’t moved. “Probably.”
Mike picked up his pen and stared down at his notes.
Will sat there for a long moment, staring at Mike, heart pounding far too fast for someone who’d just agreed to something simple. Harmless. Fake.
Then he shifted on the bed and looked down at his sketchbook. At the unfinished figure on the page.
With a small, resigned smile, Will turned the page and began again.