Chapter Text
“And that, folks, is why you should never listen if a lesbian turns to you and says dude, we should totally start a podcast. Thanks for tuning in this week, you’ve been listening to ‘Dear Dorothy’ and we have been your hosts, Will and Robin. See you next week!”
Will finished his outro and took a large sip of water, glancing over at Dustin who nodded and gave a thumbs up to indicate that their mics were off and the recording was saved. He turned back to Robin, who was already excitedly breaking down the dilemmas from the episode.
“We had some insane ones this week, right? Like the one about the girl who stole the bloody sheets? Crazy. This campus has a wild gay community, man. That one from the guy who was in love with his best friend was so cute, though I know it hit a bit close to home for you – your advice to him nearly made me cry. What you said about paying attention to the little things? Chills, dude.”
Will nodded distractedly, in part because he really didn’t want to talk about his own catastrophic love life, and in part because he was still caught up in an existential appreciation for how far they had come, after having just told the story of where they began on air. It was crazy to think that it was only in his freshman year, almost a year and a half ago now, that he had been out at a gay bar with Robin and they had somehow found themselves chatting to a guy around Will’s age who was freshly out and just learning to navigate the extremely messy queer scene at Purdue. They had spent the whole night in this strange gossip-turned-therapy session, and when the – significantly inebriated – guy had eventually turned to leave, he had thrown a goodbye over his shoulder that had unknowingly altered both Will’s and Robin’s lives forever.
“Thanks guys, you’re actually really good at that. You should start a podcast or something.”
And that was when Robin had whipped around to Will with huge, excited eyes and said the fateful words that all drunk university students have said at some point in their lives. And although it took a few weeks and a lot of convincing to truly come to fruition, sure enough, within a month Dear Dorothy was born.
*
Will unlocked the door to the flat he shared with Mike and pushed open the door wearily, exhaustion saturated in every muscle after a full day of classes and workshops. The day had begun early with a meeting with Robin and Dustin to debrief on the episode they had posted the day before, and it had been pretty much flat out since that point. His shoulders in particular ached something awful as he had accidentally spent four hours hunched over an easel trying to finish his final project for his module on abstract acrylics.
The first thing to catch his eye when he stepped inside the familiar hallway was the takeaway bag from his guilty pleasure Thai place near their flat that was hastily shoved in the box they used as recycling. This was quickly followed by the faint hum of music coming from the living room that he quickly recognised to be the twangy, metallic guitar riff of ‘Rebel Rebel’, a Bowie song he had recently become completely obsessed with. Will’s face broke out in a bemused grin as he dropped his canvas bag by the coatrack and slowly closed the front door.
Mike Wheeler’s dishevelled head popped around the doorway at the sound of the door clicking shut and he smiled brightly when his gaze alighted on Will. His unruly dark curls were more rumpled than usual and his face was flushed as though he had been interrupted in the middle of a scuffle with their sofa.
“Will! You’re home.”
“I am. And you’re… sweaty?”
Mike blushed and seemed to register his appearance for the first time with some surprise.
“I just wanted to finish something before you got home.”
Will felt a flush of pleasure as he always did at the idea that Mike was thinking about him when they weren’t together. Curiously, he stepped forward and bypassed Mike to enter the living room and his breath caught at the scene before him. The small coffee table that was normally littered with art supplies, Mike’s short stories or books, and their various shared comics, was now entirely clear and draped in fairy lights and a prettily patterned tablecloth that Will didn’t even know they owned. The Thai food was spread out – on plates no less – on top of the cloth, and the opening scene of Will’s favourite romcom ‘Notting Hill’, which he knew Mike hated, was paused on the TV opposite them, seemingly ready to play.
Will spun to face his best friend, who was hovering behind him, bouncing nervously as he tried to read Will’s expression.
“What is this?” Will asked, wonderment creeping into his tone.
Mike shook his fringe out of his face and scrunched his nose, two clear signs of his anxiety about the reception of this gesture.
“I know you have been having a really stressful time trying to finish that final project, and what with the podcast suddenly getting really popular-”
“Well I don’t know about really popular” Will interjected, a bit embarrassed, but Mike cut him off with a playful glare, and he bit back any further objections.
“Anyway, I know you have a tendency to forget to take care of yourself when you’re busy and stressed so I wanted to remind you that you deserve to relax, too.”
Mike’s earnest tone and sweetly concerned look felt like an attack to Will’s already fragile, smitten heart, and he knew his expression must be embarrassingly soppy.
“Thank you, Mike, this is so beautiful. You really didn’t have to. How did you even know about the Thai place, or this song?” Will wondered, realising suddenly that he had never mentioned either thing directly. Mike straightened up, looking a bit proud of himself, causing another fond twist in Will’s chest.
“You’re not very good at hiding the takeaway boxes – as much as you might try – and I noticed that you always bought it on days you needed cheering up. And as for the song, well, anytime you put the CD on you always start on this track. Also, you mentioned it a few weeks ago in passing.” He paused and flicked his gaze to somewhere in the middle distance.
“I know you, Will.”
These last words were a soft admission, and were paired with a darkening of the pretty blush on Mike’s cheeks, which Will decided not to look too closely into. Mike seemed unsure of what to do next, so Will took the lead and flopped heavily on their slightly lumpy sofa that they had found in a Goodwill round the corner when they had first moved in. He rested his head back on the upholstery and stared at an upside-down Mike, still looking a little shifty on the room’s threshold.
“You coming, or do I have to do all this relaxing alone?”
The light teasing seemed to bring Mike back to himself, a reminder that it was only Will, his best friend of fifteen years. The same one who had been the one to hold his hair back the first time he got too drunk; seen him the first time he had tried to impress a girl by pretending he could skateboard then promptly broken his wrist; apologised to neighbours when Mike decided to streak through their neighbourhood; the one who had loved him through every embarrassing, disgusting, hilarious, awkward moment.
Not that Mike knew quite how much Will loved him. He didn’t know that he had been quietly, unintentionally breaking Will’s heart for ten years with every devastatingly crooked smile, every casual touch, and every little idiosyncrasy and eccentricity that made him so perfectly Mike.
The ache of the unrequited was an old friend to Will, almost a comfort after all these years. A reminder that everything was in order: the world was still spinning, the sun still rose in the mornings, and Will Byers still loved Mike Wheeler with every fibre of his being. Will allowed himself only a moment to acknowledge the sting as Mike smiled goofily and came over to sit on the sofa, just a little too close and yet miles away from where Will wanted him. To shake off the melancholia that had settled over him, Will thought back to the podcast episode they had posted earlier that day and an idea occurred to him.
“So, did you get a chance to listen to the new episode?” It was risky, and he knew it. But a small, masochistic part of him wanted to see Mike’s reaction. Mike shifted, a flicker of something unintelligible passing across his face before it settled back into friendly neutrality.
“No I haven’t yet. I’m saving it for my walk to lectures tomorrow since my 9am is on the opposite side of campus.”
It wasn’t uncommon for Mike to listen to the podcast a little after it was released, since he always said he liked to ‘properly savour’ the experience and set aside time for it. Will had always thought it was ridiculously sweet how invested Mike was in the show, especially considering the fact that he wasn’t actually a part of the queer community so likely couldn’t relate to a lot of what they discussed.
“Oh, well we had a pretty emotional write-in for this one.” Stupid. So stupid.
“Oh, yeah? What about?”
“Well, this guy wrote in to say he was in love with his best friend. And, like, he wanted advice on how to go about seeing if his friend was interested back or whatever. He thought his friend had no idea how he felt and he said it was killing him keeping it inside, but he had only just figured out he was queer and he wasn’t sure how to go about shifting from friendship to more with a guy, y’know?”
Will kept his tone casual, but his nerves were going haywire, hoping he wasn’t being too obvious. Mike tensed a little, looking oddly intensely at Will’s face as though trying to decipher an answer he didn’t know the question for.
“Oh right, that sounds rough. What did you suggest he do?”
Now Will was the one to hesitate.
“I, I basically told him that if he’s not ready to confess yet then it’s all in the little things. There are other ways to show people how much we love them than outright declaring it. That the most romantic thing anyone can do is to remember things about you, to know you. That what we crave above all is for someone to see every part of us and love us regardless. That he was in a unique position as this guy’s best friend to know him in such an intimate way, and it was one of the purest forms of love, so I suggested that he try to start showing him that he noticed all these things about him and see how he responds.”
Mike was nodding, and there was an odd expectancy in his expression, something akin to fear or trepidation. Will’s heart fell to his stomach. Fuck. He had been too obvious. Mike was going to know that he was speaking from experience, he probably already recognised the yearning in Will’s tone. Oh God, he had ruined the best thing in his life because he couldn’t just keep his damn mouth shut. Shit, could he somehow delete the episode before Mike heard it? He felt himself wildly scrabbling for damage control, some way to dilute what he had said, make it less personal. He cleared his throat.
“I mean, at least that was what I remember Robin talking about when she was trying to date Vicky. I remember her saying that y’know, there were signs and stuff. Small things that built up and eventually made it clear they were on the same page – honestly I should probably have let her explain it since I barely know what I’m talking about and I basically paraphrased her words.”
Will could hear the flimsy desperation of the words even as he said them, but they were better than nothing, he supposed. As Will’s rambling trailed off, he noticed that Mike’s face had fallen with what Will might have initially described as disappointment or even hurt, but that quickly melted into relief. Mike was nodding and giving a slightly shaky smile, only a shadow remaining of the former distress.
“Yeah, Robin and Vicky are cute. I-” Mike cleared his throat and ran his tongue over his canine tooth, distractedly scratching his neck. “I hope that guy’s friend likes him back. It sounds like you gave some great advice either way.”
So maybe they could pretend that Will hadn’t just practically torn out his bruised, bleeding heart and held it out on a platter to Mike right there in their scruffy, perfect home. Pretend that Will hadn’t just seen fifteen years of friendship flash before his eyes, ended with one irresponsible, unguarded moment. Will swallowed hard, and returned the grin.
“Yeah, thanks. It was a fun episode as a whole. So, are we watching this film or not? Don’t think I’ve forgotten and you’re getting out of it.”
Their eyes met once more for one heart-stopping second before Mike playfully rolled his eyes and agreed with a significant amount of grumbling, despite being the one to queue the film up. Soon enough Will was engrossed in someone else’s love story, washed away on the wave of comforting predictability that is a rom-com narrative. But as Hugh Grant clumsily began flirting with Julia Roberts on screen, somewhere in the annals of Will’s mind he couldn’t quite ignore the memory of that final look, and the electricity that jolted through him at the recognition of what was undeniably longing reflected in Mike’s dark eyes.