Third Time’s a Charm
pairing - Mike Wheeler x Will Byers
Word count: 1.9k
A/N - based on this request
In which ever since Nancy told Mike he could easily get whatever he wants using his “sad, lost boy puppy dog face”, he starts to get way too cocky with it. Will over the many years of knowing Mike has learned to not be so easily persuaded by it, and decides to teach him how it doesn’t work on everyone like he assumes.
This is a tickle fic. Please do not read if that’s not your thing.
“Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
Will paused his careful painting, giving Mike who’s laying flat on his stomach on his bed a quick side eye. “You know what.”
It was a cloudy afternoon, Will being at the Wheelers for over an hour now. Mike had a lot of school work he kept pushing to the side, and a couple of the due dates are starting to near in the next few days. He decided it’s better to start working on them with some company rather than all alone, so of course why not invite Will Byers, someone he can always have fun with no matter what they’re doing.
Will brought his own school work, which was a little different than Mike’s. It’s an art project, to no one’s surprise, and it had to be perfect according to Will. Where he’s at with it is painting the smallest of details to his claymations of people, having to make sure his hands don’t wobble too much where he smudges the paint.
After forty-five minutes had gone by, he started to feel Mike’s eyes on him, watching him focused on painting. He didn’t mind it at all, until Mike started to nag him to help him with one of his own school work that required art, but not to the degree of Will’s. Still, it is something Mike has been dreading to start, not having a single artistic bone in him.
Mike kept the sad puppy dog face, oblivious to what Will was telling him to not do. “Just help me with it whenever you can, that’s all I’m asking.”
Will sighed, dabbing his paintbrush in a water cup to add a new color. “When you mean ‘help’, you actually mean for me to just do it for you, right?”
Mike slightly threw his hands up in mock offense, although Will was right on with his assumptions. “Of course not!” That earned Mike another side glance from him. “I just don’t know how to really start it, so maybe you can help me out with that. After, I swear I’ll take on the rest.”
Will groaned, but not from Mike’s suggestion. He swiped a little too harshly when painting eyes on one of the claymation people, making it look messy. He hated a messy look on his art.
Deciding to take a deep breath and fix it later, he starts putting his attention onto the small trees he made out of cardboard, grabbing a nearby glue stick. “Are you even done with your other homework you have?”
Mike, who is still laying on his stomach with his elbows propped up, only shrugged to his question. “I mean, sorta yea. I’m kinda waiting for you to finish up so we can start my art homework, that’s the most important one.”
Will shook his head. “I don’t remember agreeing to help you with it yet.”
Mike whined. “Oh c'mon, please?” He goes back to making the face everyone cannot say no to, scrunching his eyebrows a little high with his eyes slightly crinkled up. Will can sense it, and tries everything in his power to not look over his shoulder at Mike, no matter what he says.
“I still have my own I have to work on, which I’m literally doing right now. It’s going to take awhile, I’m sorry.”
Will hears Mike sigh dramatically, which has him bite the inside of his cheek to not comment on. He feels himself on the edge of it, on the edge of almost falling for it. The slight whine caught in Mike’s tone, the scrunch of his brows and crinkle of his eyes, having a sad longing expression written all over his face. It’s the infamous lost puppy dog face, and Will has witnessed so many lose to it.
He can’t. He won’t. This art project he’s doing is worth half of his grade, he can’t abandon it to start another that’s not even his. Mike is going to learn the lesson of patience today, and that you can’t always get everything you want, no matter how hard you try. Everything is fine, just focus on folding the green paper in a way that almost looks like leaves—
“I can’t believe it.” Mike’s voice pulls Will out of his train of focus, having him pause his movements yet again. He hasn’t looked over yet, though.
“Can’t believe what?”
“That you don’t love me.”
Will perks his head up, staring at the wall in front of him for a few seconds. His left hand does a little twitch, and he finally fully faces over to look at Mike, turning his entire chair around.
There he was. On the bed, wearing that stupid lost puppy face that he hasn’t dropped once, the one where Will has the sudden urge to wipe it right off of him.
“Okay, that’s it.”
Will got up from his chair, a little too fast for Mike as he flinched and started to sit up on the bed to put a bit of distance between.
Will moved in silence, avoiding Mike’s flailing hands to grab his wrists as he settled for a seat on his waist, not wasting any time on showing his true motives by shoving his hands directly to Mike’s underarms.
Thank god nobody was home and it was just the two of them, because Mike screamed bloody-murder.
“WAHAHAIT!” Mike spluttered out through his frantic laughter, cheeks becoming tinted pink in an instant over embarrassment from how easy it always is to take him down with just a couple of wiggling fingers to his skin. He absolutely hated walking around with “the most ticklish” title in the friend group, but thankfully for him most of the time he didn't get attacked unless it was well deserved.
Like right now, in only Will’s eyes.
“You just couldn’t leave me be, huh?” Will calmly talked over Mike’s giggly protests and pleas that fell on deaf ears, trying to press half of his face in a nearby pillow to muffle his laughs that are soon to become hiccupy. Will squeals when tickled to pieces, which Mike adores. For Mike, he hiccups, which Will adores. The littlest details in both their laughs that gets them to pray for opportunities to fall in their laps as an excuse to get one another.
“You just had to keep bugging me while I was doing my work.” His left hand started to travel lower, getting him on the start of his upper ribs. Mike bucked his hips, but Will barely moved from where he was sitting on his waist. Mike is starting to think that maybe joining Lucas whenever he heads to the gym isn’t a bad idea after all, because he would’ve already gotten out of this. He’s sure of it.
Will kept talking, ignoring how bad the rapid squeezing to Mike’s side is getting him to cackle nonstop. “You just had to go and try and trick me using your sad puppy dog eyes, huh? Did you really think that was going to work on me? I need you to think again.”
Will decided to have a heart and stop for a moment, letting him catch his breath. Mike furrows his brows in a mock of confusion, yet his big smile and sheepish giggles tell Will otherwise that he knows exactly what he’s talking about.
“Ihihi dohon’t— huh?? Puppy dog eyes…? Whahat do yohou mean—“ but Mike couldn’t finish his sentence as more giggles cut through, because Will started to lightly prod in various places around his stomach and sides as he narrowed his eyes down at him. “Oh yeah, act dumb, because that’s gonna make me stop tickling you.”
Will has been itching to go in for the kill, for the one spot that nearly has Mike see heaven itself from how terribly it tickles. He couldn’t resist anymore, and decided Mike didn’t deserve any build-up for it anyway, not today at least. After a couple of more pokes and prods up and down his sides, he all of a sudden latches his hands firmly on each side of Mike’s hips, poised for a brutal attack.
Mike was barely given any time to register what’s to come, gasping before letting a giggly shrill overtake him from fingers now rapidly pinching his hipbones, so loud it nearly had Will stop to cover his poor ears. Yet he just laughs alongside Mike over his ridiculous squirming that gets him nowhere and the hiccups in between his laughs that come from deep within the chest. God, he could do this all day if homework wasn’t silently calling his name this entire time, having to put an end to this soon.
“IHIHIM— IHIHIM—“ Mike squeezed his eyes shut to try and stop the tears from laughing so hard to roll down his rosy cheeks, but it’s quite inevitable. Will can’t help but start to softly smile down at the sight underneath him, resorting to scribbling at the hips so Mike can have a chance to speak.
“You’re…? You’re what?” Will teases gently, slowing the tickles altogether once he can tell that Mike’s giggly hiccups in between are starting to get painful. The sight of Mike being so relieved to finally bless his lungs with air, cheeks burning, body all limp has pulled Will’s heart strings a little, starting to rub small soothing circles on all the spots he targeted in the last three minutes as a quiet ‘sorry’ if he ever went too far.
He never goes too far whenever he tickles Mike, though. If anything, small disappointment waved over him the second Will stopped, wishing tickles didn’t tire him out so easily so it could go for longer without Will ever overthinking he’s done too much.
But of course, the thought of Will ever finding out how much this enjoys Mike would surely kill him on the spot from humiliation. He’ll continue to stay silent.
For now.
“I’m sohohorehehey…” He finished his sentence after a couple of more moments pulling himself together, slowly opening his eyes to look up at a smiling Will who holds so much love for him behind his gaze.
His hands go right back to his hipbones, resting there to give the illusion he’ll start back up again, having Mike flinch. “I don’t think you are.”
Will lets a few seconds go by of watching Mike let out another batch of giggly pleas, shaking his head, hands wrapping tight around Will’s wrists but not doing much to push back. He’s not even tickling him, yet Mike is doing so much laughing that it’s satisfying enough for Will to call it quits.
“But,” he swiftly gets off of Mike’s waist, heading back to his chair while biting the inside of his cheek to stop himself from grinning over Mike’s dumbfounded expression over him going back to his art project like nothing happened. He picks up where he left off on paper macheing the trees, grabbing the glue stick nearby that’s already got the cap off. “This project won’t finish itself, so I’ll let it go. For now.”
From behind, Will hears quiet shuffling, assuming Mike is sitting up to go fetch his own half unfinished homework, thinking how right Will is. It won’t finish itself.
However, he sees Mike pull his own wheeling chair next to Will from his peripheral vision, making him stop to look up with a raise of a brow.
“Then, when you’re done, you’ll hundred percent help with mine, yes?”
Cue the look.
And Mike’s room was filled with laughter once again, never learning his lesson.
