Work Text:
Mike didn’t really care about Christmas. That isn’t to say that he hates it- it’s just that often Christmas is never really... peaceful? In his house, at least.
This year, however, was different because this year the Byers were celebrating it with them, and Mike had no idea how he was going to take this well. For one with the Byers here their house became even more chaotic than before, both families' energies being able to easily bounce off each other.
The other thing was that both families seemed to take Christmas extremely seriously. He thought dealing with his mom around Christmas was bad but now Joyce was here, and both wanted the house to look like a department store had thrown up in the house.
Every room was covered in lights or snow or anything that could be related to this stupid holiday. But Will looked happy – which didn’t really happen often anymore because he was always in fear of something happening involving the Upside Down or a Crawl or Vecna.
Will was also getting a lot closer to him. There was some sort of underlying tension between them recently whenever they spoke, he knows that after Lenora things were different between them, but it had started to feel like how they used to be before everything, before him and El, before the Upside Down.
So, Mike was now stuck in his kitchen with Will, Holly, and his mom making gingerbread for the occasion. His dad was sitting on the couch like the lazy bastard he usually is, and Joyce was hanging garlands all around the house. Nancy and Jonathan were out at work. The entire time Will was smiling and by the end of it they were all covered in flour, and Mike had somehow gotten icing on his face.
“Mike- You’ve got something on your face-” Will laughed, using his sleeve to attempt to wipe it off. “Mike stop moving- your actually horrible at staying still.”
“What I’m great at staying still.” Mike argued, trying to move away mainly because he felt his face becoming hot at Will’s touch, and he didn’t want to seem obvious.
“There we go, you look... Decent now.” Will said, smiling.
“Decent? I thought you saw me as handsome?” Oh my god there’s no way he’s flirting with Will in front of his mom and sister. Does he seem obvious? He hopes he’s not obvious.
“Hm... What do you think, Holly? I think your brother has a massive ego.” Will said, bending down and pointing at Mike. Holly nodded and threw more flour at Mike.
“Wow- Rude.” Mike said, pretending to be offended before getting some more flour at throwing it at Holly which is where Will got involved and they all seemed to just be covering each other with flour before being told by his mom to stop or else none of them would get cookies.
He wouldn’t ever be caught dead saying this, but it might be the first time in a while that he thought Christmas this year might be okay.
About a week later it seemed his mom had thought it would be a great idea to dot mistletoe on a few of the doorways around the house. His first thought was that he would like to kiss Will under one of them but quickly brushed it away because he knew those weren’t normal thoughts and that he and Will were just friends. That’s all.
He saw Nancy and Jonathan kissing under it - which felt like he was interrupting something - and he immediately rushed away and went off to find Will just so he could tell him and maybe laugh about them. When he does find Will, he’s sat on the couch in his basement, curled up drawing something.
“What are you drawing?” Mike asked, immediately plopping himself down on the couch.
“Your mom has these weird statues dotted around the entire house and I’m trying to draw one.” Will answered, not even looking up. On the table in front of him was one of the statues. It looked like some weird amalgamation of the angel Gabriel and a Muppet.
“Oh... Yeah- Those.” Mike said, giving it a weird look. “It’s meant to be like... An angel? I think. Honestly, I’m not sure. It looks more like a demon if you ask me.”
“It has like the eyes of Kermit.” Will said, looking up at the statue.
“Oh my god- Thank you! It looks like a Muppet!” Mike yelled, immediately sitting up.
“Someone should paint it green or something.” Will laughed, eyes moving from the statue to look into what felt like Mike’s soul. Looking into Will’s eyes made him want to curl up and die just from how beautiful they were.
Mike smiled, then said out of nowhere. “You know I saw Nancy and Jonathan under the mistletoe?”
“Really? I thought Nancy wasn’t into like sappy stuff like that.” Will answered, very confused.
“Yeah... It was weird. I didn’t know what to do so I just ran off.”
“I think Nancy would’ve killed you if she found out you saw them.”
“Jonathan’s kind of scary at times”
“Nancy is scary all the time.”
“Fair enough.”
The two of them fell into a comfortable silence after that, Mike somehow ending up basically lying down on the couch and Will ending up in some pretzel like position to draw. For once it felt like the world wasn’t ending.
The weeks leading up to Christmas seemed to pass much faster with the Byers because now it was somehow Christmas Eve. Mike and Will were sat on the couch in the basement, legs awkwardly tangled together as Mike read some comic and Will sketching in his sketchbook.
It was a comfortable silence, with Mike trying to subtly glance up at Will every so often to attempt to see what he was drawing.
“...can I see?”
“Nope.”
“Why?”
“It’s not done.”
“You’ve let me see unfinished stuff before.”
“This is different.”
“Just like how the painting was different.” Mike slips out on accident. Shit. He didn’t want to ruin anything; he’s going to ruin everything. He thought he fixed the tension between him and Will, and he’s ruined everything. They’re never going to be the same again.
“...What do you mean?” Will said cautiously.
“I spoke to El about the painting and she said she knew nothing about it so why did you lie about it?” The atmosphere from before was gone, it was tense and Mike was panicking the entire time on what to say and he didn’t know what to do.
“I... You needed to hear it.”
“You could’ve just told the truth, which you still haven’t told me by the way.”
“...I’ll tell you eventually.”
“Why not now?”
“Because... it’ll ruin everything and I don’t want to make Christmas awkward.”
“You’re making it awkward now-”
“Then I’ll go.” Will said, standing up and walking towards the basement door.
“No Will don’t go-” Mike immediately said, rushing toward Will and grabbing his wrist. Will pulled away.
“Why? If I’m making it awkward, why not?”
“I don’t mean it.”
“But you do, okay? I’m sorry I lied, but I don’t know what you want me to say. I can’t tell you yet so just deal with it Mike okay!”
The room went silent. Then Mike looked up at the door, and he saw mistletoe and he didn’t know what he was thinking but he saw Will and he-
He kissed him.
Oh my god he just kissed Will Byers.
It lasted for a few moments before Mike and Will both realized what they did and Will panicked.
“I- I have to go.” Will said, rushing off.
And Mike didn’t know what to do.
The rest of the day was quiet; Will sat alone in the basement, and Mike avoided it at all costs. He didn’t know how he was going to talk to Will. He didn't know how he was going to live.
He moped around for an hour before Nancy walked up to him.
“What did you do this time?” Nancy asked.
“What do you mean? Why do you think it’s my fault.”
“It’s a fair thing to think.”
“If you’re just going to be an ass and tell me how it’s all my fault just fuck off.”
“But something happened?”
Screw Nancy and her journalism skills.
“...Will’s angry at me.”
“Are you sure he’s angry?”
“Well, we’re not speaking so.”
There was a beat for a moment.
“...You should ask him how he feels and try and explain what you did or allow him to explain what he did and then the two of you can work something out.”
Mike would think it over for a moment, then imagined how Will might’ve felt in the basement. Alone.
“Is Jonathan sleeping in your room tonight?”
Nancy paled a bit.
“We don’t share a bed-” Nancy quickly tried to defend herself.
“I don’t care if you do, I just want to know if you will.” Mike said, slightly annoyed.
“Fine, yes.”
“Okay I’ll do it then.”
Nancy looked at Mike, then spoke.
“I don’t hate you ask much as you think, I just want you to be happy. Even if you are an asshole sometimes.”
“...I guess you're an alright journalist.”
“Alright don’t push it.” Nancy said, before taking a glass of water to her bedroom and leaving Mike alone in the kitchen.
Waiting for the night to come was the longest afternoon of his life.
He sat in his living room for a bit, Holly preparing the plate for Santa. His dad passed out on the couch, and Nancy and Jonathan were sitting together. They aren’t on each other as much as Nancy was when she was with Steve – mainly because his dad wasn’t as accepting of Jonathan as he was with Steve. Sometimes he wonders how he would feel if Mike was with a man.
They all went to bed shortly after, Mike had to wait to hear Jonathan’s footsteps go up the basement stairs before he could make his move. Mike quickly rushed downstairs as quietly as he could, passing Jonathan on the way, who glanced at him and gave him a look. He didn’t know how to describe it.
He knocked on the door.
“Will? Will can I come in?”
Silence.
“Okay.”
He’d walk into the room; Will was curled up on the couch buried in quilts and didn’t look up to meet his eyes. He looked cute when his hair was messy.
“I-” Mike hesitated. “I’m sorry about earlier. You don’t have to tell me about the painting, I- I don’t even care about the painting. I just don’t want you to hate me. I don’t even know why I did it.”
Will wouldn’t look at him still, and he felt as if the ground would swallow him whole. Then he said-
“Did you mean it? Did you want to... Kiss me? For real.” He sounded so quiet, broken. It made Mike physically hurt.
“...Yeah.”
“What about El-”
“We broke up.”
“...” Will went quiet.
“I thought you loved her?”
“I-I do but-” He’d hesitate. “I love someone else more.”
Will looked up, his eyes staring back into Mike’s.
“Who?”
Mike froze, then he spoke.
“You. I love you Will and I always have.” Fuck he’s fucked it all up again.
Then Will looked like he was going to cry and said.
“You’re joking, this isn’t real. You’re not real-”
“No, I am. I am Will. I love you and I’m sorry.” Mike said, crying now.
“Then I love you too and I don’t want you to hate me.”
Mike lay down next to Will, hugging him.
“Fuck what do we do now?” Mike asked, sobbing into Will’s hair.
“You could... Stay here tonight? Just for a bit.”
“I’d do anything you want.” Mike answered.
They didn’t move for the rest of the night; Will curled up in Mike’s arms. It’s the best sleep either of them has ever had.
Christmas day came soon after and the air felt electric. Mike and Will barely left each other’s side at the Wheeler house. Under the dinner table they found some way to secretly hold each other's hands, and they somehow thought they were subtle.
At Hopper’s cabin they tried to pretend none of it happened, and they all played shitty Christmas party games and got a tiny bit drunk – well as much as they could without Hopper or Joyce noticing.
By the end of the day, it somehow ended the same; the two of them curled up together.
Mike suddenly got up. “Shit I forgot something.”
“What?” Will asked.
“Close your eyes.” Mike said.
He ran out of the room before coming back in with a box.
“Okay, open them.”
Will opened them, looking at the wrapping paper.
“You didn’t have to-”
“No shut up, Merry Christmas.”
Will looked at it, before opening it and seeing what’s inside.
“Mike...”
It was a photo of them when they were younger.
“You just look sad recently and I thought maybe thinking about the past would make you feel better for a bit.”
“...shut up I’m going to cry.”
“Good.” Mike said, laughing slightly.
“I like it, thank you. I feel bad now I didn't get you anything.”
“You didn’t have to, you being here is the only gift I need.”
And Mike leaned in and kissed him for a second time and thought Christmas this year was actually okay.