Archive of Our Own

Mike squints down at his lap, the dimmed light of his phone illuminating the underside of his desk.

got a surprise for u, the text reads.

Mike frowns, then glances around the room. His professor is still droning on about metafiction and artificiality and whatever else today’s lecture is supposed to be on. The girl next to him has had the second season of Gilmore Girls pulled up on her laptop for the last forty minutes, and the guy on his other side is just flat-out asleep.

He sighs.

what kind of surprise

He doesn’t expect a text back, because Mike’s best friend and roommate is an idiot who keeps his phone on Do Not Disturb at all hours of the day. Which is really fucking inconvenient in situations where someone– namely, Mike– might be stranded at the store with two bags of groceries and a shut-down bus line and approximately 2% battery and zero dollars left after purchasing said groceries to call a Lyft. Or in situations where someone– namely, Mike– might be locked out after running across the street to the laundromat at one in the morning, and then forced to lug all of his tighty-whities back down the block to Lucas and Dustin’s apartment to wait for Will to wake up.

Predictably, Will does not respond. Mike stares down at the text at the bottom of his screen: william has notifications silenced.

Mike looks back up at the screen. Sometime in the last two minutes, his professor has speedrun the last fifteen slides, and now they’re talking about a book that Mike vaguely remembers seeing on the syllabus at the start of the semester, and he vaguely remembers having downloaded a PDF of it, and he also vaguely remembers not touching said PDF since the download was complete.

“Please discuss these questions for chapter three,” his professor says, “with the person sitting next to you.”

Mike glances to his left. The Gilmore Girls chick is entirely oblivious to the world. He glances to his right. Sleeping Guy seems to be on the verge of a particularly incriminating snore.

He tries again, because it doesn’t seem like he’s getting very far in regards to academic conversation today:

what kind of surprise???

No response. He frowns. Will literally texted him one minute ago. Mike doesn’t know where he went in the last sixty seconds, but the suspense is suddenly killing him. Will’s last surprise had ended with a three day hangover and Dustin Henderson almost tweeting something embarrassing enough to send Mike to an early grave, so he feels justified in being a bit apprehensive.

Sleeping Guy lets out a strange sort of snuffling noise, and Mike slumps back in his seat with a resigned sigh.

Only one hour left in the class. He really hopes Dustin isn’t invited to the surprise this time.

“Will?” Mike pushes the front door open with a frown. “What’s the surprise?”

Will’s voice floats down the hall. “What?”

“The surprise!” Mike calls, dropping his bag on the floor by the kitchen and making his way to Will’s room. He looks around. Dustin does not seem to be here, which is promising, and there’s also no tequila in sight, which is extra promising. He relaxes, ever-so-slightly. “What is it?”

“Okay, hold on,” Will says, a bit muffled by his bedroom door. “Just wait there for one second, okay?”

“Um,” Mike says, and then there’s a shuffling noise, and Will sounds much closer when he speaks.

“Close your eyes.”

“I’m getting a bit concerned,” Mike says, but he does it anyway.

“Okay,” Will says, and throws the door open. “Surprise!”

Mike opens his eyes. Then–

“Will,” he says, and it comes out a bit strangled. “Is that a puppy?”

This is a bit of a stupid question. Mike isn’t dumb. He knows what a puppy looks like. The thing in Will’s hands– a little wrinkled and brown and very covered in fur– is definitely a puppy.

“Surprise,” Will says again. “I got a dog!”

“Will. We’re not allowed to have pets in here, we’ll literally get kicked off our lease–”

“Our lease is over in a month,” Will reminds him, already distracted by the slightly illegal creature he’s currently holding. He smiles down at it. “We just have to keep it secret until then.”

“Keep it–!” Mike stares. “Will!”

“Oh, come on,” Will rolls his eyes. “Look at his little face!”

Mike looks at its little face. It is, admittedly, a very cute puppy. Plus, Will is looking at him with puppy dog eyes too– which may or may not be doing more to sway him than the actual puppy in question. He swallows. “I–”

“Please, Mike?” Will grins some more. “Can we keep him?”

This is a bad idea. This is a very, very bad idea. 

Unfortunately for Mike, he’s never had much self control in regards to Will Byers. “I–”

“He reminds me so much of our childhood dog,” Will says wistfully. “You know, the one who was my best friend and died of old age and then I cried for–”

“I can’t believe you’re using Chester to further your evil, illegal agenda,” Mike says, but he’s already smiling. It’s a really fucking cute puppy, okay? And then it opens its mouth– its tiny, wrinkled, toothless little mouth– and yawns.

That’s it. Mike feels the last shred of his self-control immediately crumble away. “I’m going to regret this,” he says, and Will laughs. “I’m really, really going to regret this.”

The first two days go about as expected. Will blows half of what’s left in his bank account on dog food. Mike quickly learns exactly what puppy pads are, and blows all of whatever’s left in his bank account on a Costco-sized box of them, lest they lose their security deposit and get kicked out in one fell swoop.

“Tell me again where you got him,” he huffs out, pulling out the Clorox wipes again. “You–”

“Craig from my Illustration class volunteers at the shelter,” Will says absentmindedly, conveniently too occupied with the puppy on his lap to help Mike clean up the fourth pee puddle of the day. “ You can’t get up when your pet is on you, Mike,” he’d chided, when Mike had glared at him. “That’s just mean.”

And maybe this was some universal law that Mike just didn’t know about, because Ted and Karen Wheeler plus dogs in the house were not two phrases that ever really went together, so he just went with it. Plus, Will had looked very– okay, he’d looked very comfortable and happy all curled up on the couch like that, so who was Mike to disturb him?

“Craig,” Mike starts, “hooked you up with a free puppy?”

“They were having a promo.” Will scratches the puppy behind the ear and it lets out a yip. “They were running out of room and then, like, four dogs had litters all at once.”

“Right,” Mike says, passing over the hardwood with a second wipe. The entire apartment smells like lemon and chlorine. “You got a free puppy from a guy named Craig?”

“He’s very nice,” Will chides. The puppy is currently biting at the fleece blanket. “Don’t be mean.”

Mike grips the Clorox wipe in his hand until the lemon-scented liquid starts foaming out onto his hand. He’s very nice. How nice can a guy named Craig really be?

“I’m not being mean. He really just gave you a puppy?”

“Not really.” Will gives him a weird look. “He gave me a flier and a ride to the shelter after class.”

Craig is not the name of a cool, chill college student who studies art and volunteers at the local animal shelter in his spare time. Craig is the name of a balding old man who lures unsuspecting twenty-somethings to his lair under the guise of a discount puppy.

“Uh huh.”

“Mike,” Will says. “What do you have against Craig?”

“I don’t have anything against Craig!” Mike splutters. “I just– don’t you think it’s weird that some rando just offered you a–”

“A– Mike,” Will laughs, holding the puppy up to eye level and cooing softly at it. The collar of his flannel has a small smear of bacon-flavored purée on it. “A rando? Really?”

“This dog might have come from an illegal fighting ring, Will,” Mike says, straightening up and stretching out his neck. He watches Will make funny faces for a moment, like he’s talking to a newborn baby instead of a puppy of unknown ancestry and questionable origins. “You don’t know that.”

At this, Will pauses. “Mike. Please be serious.”

“I am!” He turns around, tossing the gross Clorox wipe into the trash. What does Craig have that Mike doesn’t? Mike could start volunteering at the animal shelter. He totally could! Never mind that he doesn’t know the first thing about dogs and that cats kind of freak him out, even if they’re super adorable, and the idea of scooping poop isn’t the most appealing thing ever, but– 

You know. If Craig from Illustration 471 can do it, then so can Mike.

Note to self, he thinks, pulling out his phone and tapping away at the Notes app. Check if the shelter needs people.

“You’re so cute.”

Mike turns around so fast he almost gives himself whiplash. “What?”

Will pauses, one hand on the puppy’s head. “What?”

“Oh. You were– you were talking to the dog.”

“Yes, Mike,” Will says, looking like he’s holding back a laugh. “I was talking to the dog.”

On day four, Mike says, “We should probably give him a name, right?”

Will stops dead in his tracks, one dish still in his hand, cupboard door opened halfway. “Oh my God,” he says, his eyes going wide. He puts the dish away and smacks a hand to his forehead. “How did we forget to give him a name?”

“Don’t look at me! I spent the first three days trying not to freak out about maybe being kicked out of my house–”

“Doesn’t matter, because you’re not allowed to name him anyway.”

“What?” Mike splutters. “Why?”

“You named your toy dinosaur Rory,” Will points out, putting the last of the dishes away. “Because it roared.”

“It was funny! Roar-y was funny!”

“It was not funny, and you do not get naming rights.”

“Oh, come on,” Mike says, giving Will his best rendition of puppy-dog eyes. “It’s our dog.”

Will looks at him. His ears start to turn strangely red, and he turns away when he says, “Okay, fine. You can– I’ll allow you to submit ideas for consideration.”

“Deal,” Mike grins. Across the living room, Unnamed Dog is pawing happily at a treat-filled puzzle ball. The treat in question is yet more bacon purée from a tube, because it was on sale at the grocery store and the rest of Mike’s money has been blown on bulk boxes of puppy pads. “Idea number one–”

“Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it. That was way too quick.”

“Francis Bacon,” Mike says anyway.

Will stares. “What?”

“Because of the bacon treats.”

Will rolls his eyes so hard that for one second, Mike seriously thinks he’s about to pass out or something. “Mike,” he groans, letting his head fall into his hands. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m funny,” Mike announces, and then decides to put Maybe-Francis Bacon out of his poor, adorable misery. He unscrews the top of the puzzle ball. “Goddamn, okay, that smells awful. How do you eat this stuff?”

Maybe-Francis Bacon has zero qualms about the smelly food. If anything, he seems to enjoy it ten times more this way.

“Your tail is so tiny,” Mike notes, turning the toy so Maybe-Francis Bacon can lick the other side clean. “You must have so many tail muscles to be moving it so fast.” He looks up at Will. “Are butt muscles a thing?”

Will is watching him with a curious expression on his face, and then he crosses the living room to sit cross-legged in front of Mike. “The butt is a muscle,” he says, “gluteus maximus, ever heard of it?” And then tugs the ball out of Mike’s hand. “You’re ruining the whole point of the puzzle ball, Mike, you can’t just keep opening it for him!”

“But Francis Bacon looked so sad,” Mike whines. “I felt bad!”

“We are not calling our dog Francis Bacon, Mike.”

“Come in, it’s funny!”

“It’s animal abuse!”

“It’s– come on,” Mike tries, futilely. “You think I’m funny, I know you do.”

Will bites down on his lower lip and carefully puts the top back on the puzzle ball. “Nope,” he shakes his head, but his mouth twitches. “No, I don’t.”

Not-Francis Bacon looks sadly down at the ball, and then back up at Mike. “You do,” Mike laughs, and then, “oh, Will. Come on, man. You upset the dog.”

On day five, Mike and Will learn something very, very important about their dog.

“Oh my God,” Will whispers, desperately dangling a toy in front of it. “This thing can bark.”

“Francis Bacon, please work with me here,” Mike pleads, looking worryingly over at the doorway, like vexed neighbors are going to come charging right through it at the sound of a dog barking. Illegally, Mike might add, because their lease specifically said no pets, and that’s why Will had, extremely hypocritically, vetoed them getting a goldfish at the start of the semester.

“His name is not Francis Bacon,” Will hisses. He squeaks the toy, and Francis Bacon barks even louder. Will looks helplessly up at Mike. “Okay, what the hell do we do now?”

Mike turns back to the peephole in the door. “No mob of neighbors yet,” he notes. “Hey, let’s– maybe we should just blast some music or something to cover up the noise.”

Will frowns. “You think that’ll work?”

“Yeah, I mean, he’s not that loud,” Mike says, then crosses the living room to where Will is hunched over, cross-legged. “He’s still just a little puppy–” 

“Your baby voice sucks,” Will says, then sighs. “Okay, fine, my phone is still connected to the speaker, if you want to play something on it.”

“What’s your password, again? Mike Wheeler is the best–”

“That’s way too long for a phone password,” Will says. “And it would never be that.”

“Okay, fine, live in denial,” Mike says, as he finally gets Spotify open. He pauses. “Will.”

“Hm?”

“Why do you have three hundred and fifty playlists?”

“I have a lot of moods, okay!” Will exclaims, throwing his hands up. “I don’t know what you want me to say!”

“You’ve only made, like, twenty of these public,” Mike muses as he scrolls. And then– “Will.”

“What?”

Mike holds up Will’s phone. “Why is this one named after me?”

At this, Will turns, frowning. “What?”

Mike squints at the screen. “This playlist. It’s just called ‘Mike.” 

And wow, okay, there’s like, twelve hours of music on this thing. Mike doesn’t even think he knows enough songs to make up twelve hours of music.

“Oh,” Will says simply, and then he’s leaping up off the floor and crossing the room to the kitchen in four giant steps. “Give me that.” He snatches the phone right out of Mike’s hand, and Mike lets out a small noise of affront.

“Hey!”

“That’s– you don’t need to see that,” Will says, turning strangely pink. “I was just– it’s just some songs I thought you might, um. They remind me of you.”

Mike blinks. “You have twelve hours of songs that remind you of me?”

“I listen to a lot of music,” Will mumbles, scrolling rapidly through the playlist. “Sue me.”

The tips of his ears are blooming a brilliant crimson. Mike swallows, then looks away.

“Well, no offense,” Mike starts, leaning against a chair with one hand, “but why do all your emo songs remind you of me?”

“I– The Cure is not emo,” Will splutters. “They’re rock. Good rock.”

Above them, there’s the muffled, droning sounds of a vacuum turning on. Francis Bacon yips at the ceiling. “Okay, fine,” Mike concedes. “But it’s all so– what’s the word?”

“Good?” Will offers, still scrolling at light speed. He doesn’t take his eyes off the phone. “Pinnacle of music? Auditory masterpiece?”

“Brooding,” Mike corrects. “Do you ever listen to anything that isn’t some guy in the eighties pining over a girl that’s way out of his league?”

“Do you ever listen to anything that isn’t some guy from 2014 pining over a girl that’s way out of his league?” Will shoots back.

Mike does not grace him with a response. The correct answer is yes, of course, because Mike listens to a lot of things, thank you, but Will has seen his recent listening activity and he’s been on a bit of a boyband kick for the past couple of weeks, so. The ball is very much not in his court right now. 

Will flashes him a smug smile. “Ha.”

The speaker makes a small ding as the bluetooth connects, and then the music starts up. “Hey,” Will says, eyes lighting up. “I have a name idea.”

“I don’t care if Monday’s blue,” Robert Smith sings. 

Mike raises his eyebrows. “First, you are so predictable. The Cure? Again? And second, we’re not naming our dog Robert Smith, Will.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. That’s a terrible name for a dog,” Will starts. He pauses. “But Morrissey, on the other hand–”

“Will.”

“What?”

Mike can’t help it. He starts laughing. “Will.”

Over in the living room, Not-Morrissey is still barking futilely at the ceiling, but it’s mostly noiseless now. His little tail wags against the patterned rug on the living room floor, the vacuum noise and frantic yips drowned out by “And Sunday always comes too late–”

“It could be cool!” Will protests, crossing his arms, but he’s on the verge of a laugh too, Mike can tell. He doesn’t know whether Will is just emotive, expressive beyond his means, or whether it’s just something Mike’s been able to pick up on, knowing him as long as he has. It’s nice either way. It’s like being in on a little secret, knowing he’s making Will laugh even before he actually does it. “It’s unique!”

“It’s pretentious, is what it is,” Mike wheezes. “You, Will Byers, are pretentious, and our dog is going to get bullied relentlessly at the dog park.”

“We don’t even have a dog park nearby,” Will says, rolling his eyes. “But– fine!”

“You’re so predictable,” Mike says again, because it’s true. Will leans against a chair, mirroring Mike’s position. “The Cure? Really?”

“It’s a good song! I know you know the words!”

“It’s Friday, I’m in love,” Mike deadpans, and then Will throws his head back in soft laughter.

“Yeah, there you go,” he says, smiling big enough for his eyes to get all crinkled up at the corners. “There might be hope for you yet, Wheeler.”

“One day, I’ll make you play something else,” Mike promises, watching Will bend down to pick up a stray chew toy left lying around on the floor. “You’re obsessed with this song. It’s not healthy, you know.”

Will ignores him. “Tuesday, Wednesday, stay in bed,” he sings along. Then, straightening– “It was already on the playlist!”

“That, and,” Mike says, “you’re obsessed.”

“It’s a good song!”

“Yeah, it’s– wait,” Mike frowns.

Will tilts his head at him, inquiring. “What?”

“Did you– is this on your me playlist?”

“My–”

“Songs that remind you of me,” Mike says, and Will’s eyes widen, just a little bit.

“Um. Yes. No! Maybe. A little, yeah,” he concedes at last, looking pointedly away, anywhere but Mike’s own eyes. “It might be.”

Mike smiles, wide enough so he can feel it. The half-admission makes him feel strangely warm, an irrationally happy thrum sparking to life under his skin. “This song makes you think of me?”

“God, Mike,” Will groans, dropping his head into his hands. “I never should have said anything, you’re so insufferable. Yeah, it’s on the– actually, let’s pretend the playlist doesn’t exist, anymore, I think that’s–”

“Oh no,” Mike grins, and then he tugs Will’s phone smoothly out of his hand. “No, I need to see what else is on here, you can’t just make a playlist about me and not show me–”

Will lunges forward, all but shrieking, “I can, and I will– Mike, give that back!”

Mike isn’t that much taller than Will anymore, but it’s in times like these when he’s particularly grateful for that two inch difference he can lord over Will’s head. There’s something about it, watching the furrow in Will’s brow, how Mike knows he’s not actually angry, because then the frown deepens and his jaw sets and Mike can just tell. No, this is– this is a lot more entertaining than it should be, pressing Will’s buttons, just for fun. “You’ve got to reach higher,” Mike goads, just to see Will roll his eyes and lean bodily into his space. Just– just because he can.

Then– Will’s foot catches on the leg of the chair as he moves, the one Mike is leaning on, and he stumbles forward, catching himself lightly around Mike’s waist with a small gasp. “Ah– shit, sorry–”

“Whoa,” Mike says, lifting an automatic hand up to steady him. Will is gripping gently at his shoulder to right himself, pushing up. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Will breathes out, “I’m just– you know. Clumsy.”

“Yeah,” Mike agrees, throat suddenly gone very dry. “We know. I know. I live with you.”

Will doesn’t say anything for a moment, just looks up at him with a strange expression on his face. “Dressed up to the eyes,” Robert croons, “it’s a wonderful surprise–”

A beat passes. Then–

“Thanks,” Will is saying, and he promptly plucks his phone out of Mike’s slackened grip. He straightens, brushing off the front of his shirt, smiling softly. “And no, you don’t get to see.”

“I–” Mike starts, staring. His heart has picked up speed in his chest, a burning memory of Will’s hand on his side, his shoulder. “You are so–”

Will slides his phone into his back pocket. “You can never get enough,” he sings along, the ghost of a laugh laced through his voice. He reaches out, grasping at Mike’s wrists, tugging him forward as he belts out, “Enough of this stuff, it’s Friday, I’m in love!”

“Okay!” Mike laughs, arms gone loose and pliant in Will’s grip. “Okay, it’s– what are you doing?”

“Not dancing, that’s for sure,” Will decides, releasing his hold on Mike’s hands. “Because I can’t dance, and you can’t dance.” Then, getting a contemplative look on his face, Will squints and says, “Hey, is Friday a weird name for a dog?”

“Objectively, yes,” Mike says, still weirdly crowded into Will’s space. Objectively, Friday is kind of a weird name for a dog. Except– Will’s cheeks are flushed and his eyes are bright and he’s humming along lightly to the music, and Mike is rapidly realizing that there honestly isn’t much he wouldn’t agree to, at the moment, if only Will would ask it of him. “But I could be persuaded.”

This is kind of a lie. There isn’t all that much persuasion that needs to be happening, but it’s clearly the right thing to say, because Will lights up, grinning from ear to ear. “Oh great,” he says, and then he runs over, scoops Friday up, and plants a kiss right on top of his head. “Hi, Friday.”

“It’s better than Morrissey,” Mike agrees, watching Will coo gently. Friday has, mercifully, stopped barking, and is now biting gently at the dangling strings of Will’s hoodie with his wrinkled little mouth.

Cool, cool. This is fine. Really.

Christ, Mike thinks, leaning back against the chair for support. Holy shit.

Mike wakes up four days later feeling like he might be dying.

He’d fallen asleep on the couch last night, watching some late-night special on Animal Planet, so that explains the immediate pain shooting up his neck. Surprisingly enough, six feet of limbs do not fit comfortably on their curbside-donation couch. That’s the first thing.

Second, he can’t breathe.

Mike’s eyes fly open. “What–”

“Good morning,” a voice calls from the kitchen. “Apparently, you’re more comfortable than a dog bed.”

Mike blinks, rubbing a very cramped night of sleep out of his eyes, and looks down. Friday is curled up on his chest, four little paws sticking out sideways, head resting over Mike’s sternum. And look, Mike’s not, like, a mushy gushy kind of guy, no matter what Will or Lucas or Dustin or anyone have to say about it. And they do– have things to say about it, that is. They have many, many things to say about it, and whether or not they’re true being disregarded for the moment–

–this is maybe the best day of Mike’s life.

“Oh my God,” he whispers, so as not to disturb Friday– who may or may not be asleep, it’s hard to tell. “Will. Will!”

Will comes running in from the kitchen. He’s already dressed, jeans and a windbreaker thrown on over a sweater, even though it can’t be past eight-thirty on a Saturday. He’s clutching a spatula in one hand, eyes widened in mild alarm. “What? What happened?”

“Look,” Mike gestures, grinning. “Isn’t this cute?”

Will stops dead in his tracks. “You– what?”

“He fell asleep on me,” Mike whispers, focusing very carefully on holding still, even though his neck is kind of on fire and he’ll be dealing with the repercussions of contorting himself like this for the next two weeks, because he’s barely twenty one and he already has the hips of an eighty-year-old man. “He fell asleep on me!”

Will takes in a long, slow breath. “Don’t call for me like that if you’re not dying,” he says, but he’s smiling before he even finishes the sentence. “And yes, I can see that.”

“This is the best day of my life,” Mike decides on the spot. Friday makes a small snuffling noise and twitches in his sleep, and a very dignified noise slips out of Mike’s throat. “Aw.”

“He was like that when I left my room,” Will laughs. “It was cute. I took pictures.”

“Good. This is very– um. Okay, wait, so when you say pictures–”

“You drooled a little,” Will says simply. “And your hair looks great right now, by the way.”

“I’ll kill you,” Mike says, making absolutely no move to get up or even say it in a slightly more convincing tone of voice. “I will. Seriously.”

“Sure,” Will smirks, then turns back to the kitchen with a look of faint alarm. “Oh shit, my eggs–!”

“That’s what you get,” Mike murmurs, even though Will is already out of earshot. And then, louder: “Hey, where are you going, anyway?”

“I’m meeting El at the farmer’s market,” Will says, and then there’s the soft clinking of dishes being pulled out of cabinets. “Apparently the summer berries are starting to come into season. Or something.”

“Okay,” Mike says slowly, reaching a hand to scratch softly behind Friday’s ear. “I didn’t take you as a berry enthusiast.”

“Oh, I’m not. But she said she’d make me muffins if I went, so.”

“Oh, cool. Bring me some?” Mike asks, the end of the sentence dragging out into a yawn. 

Will walks back out of the kitchen, holding a plate in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other. He sits down on the other end of the sofa, plops the mug down onto the coffee table, and says, “No, actually, I think I’ll eat them all myself.”

Mike wiggles his feet, trapped between Will and the back of the couch, and frowns. “Rude. You know how I feel about El’s muffins.”

“Then you should’ve woken up an hour ago and come with me,” Will says simply, spooning scrambled eggs into his mouth.

Mike watches him chew, a little dot of syrup clinging to the corner of his mouth. “I can’t believe you still put syrup on your eggs.”

“You’re the one who introduced me to it! Plus, I saw you do it two days ago.”

“Okay, well, you were the one who listened to eight-year-old me,” Mike laughs. Friday stirs lightly, lifting his head up off Mike’s chest. “Oh, great. I woke the dog.”

“The dog needs to be taken outside anyway.” Will takes a sip of coffee. “You want?”

Mike crinkles his nose. “Ew. No thanks.”

“Suit yourself,” Will shrugs. “You still have some drool on your cheek, by the way.”

Mike is halfway through a very thrilling documentary on deep sea creatures when his phone dings softly next to him. He picks it up, squinting at the screen.

maggiano’s?

He grins. chicken parm please, he taps out. Will still has Do Not Disturb on, but this time, the response is almost instantaneous.

do u want anything to drink

They have wine in the fridge, even if it is the tragically boxed variety, because Mike isn’t exactly at the sort of age where he can afford to be blowing big bucks on the good stuff. 

just garlic bread

ordering u a side of brussels sprouts, comes Will’s reply. forcing u to eat ur veggies

Mike snorts softly at the screen. In front of him, the screen is flashing footage of anglerfish, and the narrator is saying something about sharp teeth and funky eyes. they don’t even have sprouts on the menu, he types.

i’ll special order it just for u, Will says. be home in thirty

see u soon, Mike types. And then, on a whim, xoxo

Will doesn’t respond after that. william has notifications silenced, the screen reads up at him, just like always. Mike sighs, then tosses his phone onto the couch next to him. Friday is lounging in his bed in the corner of the living room, gnawing happily at his favorite chew toy.

“Friday,” Mike says woefully, slumping down into the cushions. “Can I tell you a secret?”

Friday squeaks the toy in response, which Mike takes to mean yes. He sighs again. “I think I like Will,” he says aloud to the empty living room. 

At this, Friday drops the chew toy and cocks his head, as if to say Duh.

“Yeah, okay, don’t give me that look,” Mike chides, and then immediately stops dead in his tracks. “Great,” he groans, “I’m talking to my dog. Like seriously talking to my dog.”

Squeak squeak. 

When Will shows up half an hour later, Mike is attempting to wrestle the chew toy out of Friday’s mouth, sprawled lengthwise across the couch. “How does something so small have such crazy jaw strength,” he pants, as he hears the front door click shut.

Across the room, Will laughs. “I literally left you in this exact position three hours ago,” he remarks, then drops a couple of bags onto the table. “Have you moved at all since then?”

“Yes,” Mike grunts softly. “I showered and– oh, this is embarrassing,” he says, then lets go of the toy. Friday squeaks it once in triumph, then settles onto the soft divot of the sofa, curled up with his tail brushing softly against Mike’s knee. 

“Mike Wheeler versus a ten pound puppy,” Will says, pulling takeout boxes out of a plastic bag. “The winner might surprise you!”

“Oh, shut up,” Mike grumbles, but there’s no bite behind it. He gets up, stretching his arms over his head, shaking out his legs. Will watches him with a bit of an amused expression on his face and wordlessly hands him one of the boxes. “You didn’t seriously get me brussels sprouts, did you?”

Will holds his gaze for one more second, unblinking, and then breaks. “No,” he snorts, “unfortunately ‘my best friend is suffering from a severe vitamin deficiency’ was not sufficient cause for them to add a new item to their menu.”

“Shame,” Mike hums, twirling a strand of spaghetti around his fork. He hops up onto the clean spot on the counter, unmarred by dishes that have yet to be done or any sticky remnants of the maple syrup incident from two days ago. “Really a shame.”

Will sticks a fork into his own pasta, something green and ridiculously vegetable-filled. “When you wither away into nothing, don’t say I didn’t try.”

A few moments of comfortable silence pass by, with Will digging into his lunch right there, standing up in the corner of the kitchen. “How was the farmer’s market?” Mike asks, in between bites.  

“It was pretty good.” Will’s digging through the fridge for aforementioned wine, because apparently, three p.m. on a Saturday is an appropriate time to drink refrigerated wine from a carton. “I had no idea carrots could get so expensive.”

“Muffins?” Mike asks hopefully.

Will rolls his eyes. “In the tote,” he says, and Mike lets out a happy little noise around his mouthful of breaded chicken. “El says hi, by the way, and has asked me to yell at you about never texting her back.”

“I forget,” Mike complains, “I never text anyone back.”

“You text me back just fine.”

“You’re– that’s different!”

Will raises an eyebrow, sliding a filled wine glass over across the counter. “How?”

“You’re my roommate,” Mike protests, feeling his face get warm. “I need to text you back, in case it’s, like, an emergency.”

“You responded to my text about lunch in about four seconds,” Will points out.

“Yeah! The emergency being we haven’t done groceries yet and I was just hungry.”

Will gives him another indecipherable look, and sips at his wine. He pulls a face. “This sucks.”

“Yeah, well, it was four dollars,” Mike quips, and then, thinking about how he most definitely has a track record of responding to Will’s texts in an embarrassingly short turnover period, downs most of his glass in one go.

Because Mike has declared this an Inside Day, and because Will still has on clothes that are socially acceptable to wear outside, he takes Friday for his  walk. Walk meaning a stroll around the building and then coming back up, because Friday is small and trips over his own legs and is a little tiny baby who gets tired very fast.

It’s a whole big ordeal, getting him out of the building without being seen, but for once, their apartment on the fourth floor comes in handy. They’re right by the fire escape, and Mike or Will can just sneak out that way.

“This is going to be an issue when he gets bigger,” Will says, tucking Friday partially inside his windbreaker. It is, objectively and also subjectively, one of the cutest things Mike had ever seen. His head peeks out right over Will’s chest, and Mike isn’t sure if he’s caught on to the concept of a walk yet, but he’s excited either way, wiggling around inside Will’s jacket until Will is fighting back laughter. “Okay, that tickles!”

“Well, when he gets older, we’ll make sure to be in an apartment that actually allows dogs,” Mike says absentmindedly, still hunting around the living room for the poop bags.

A beat passes, then two, where Will doesn’t say anything. Mike doesn’t notice until he locates the poop bags where they’ve rolled under the sofa, and retrieves them with a triumphant Aha! “Got them,” he says, then turns around, “I– Will?”

Will is staring at him, mouth slightly open, eyes wife. “You,” he starts, then clears his throat. “You still want to live with me? After?”

“I– well, yeah,” Mike says, the roll of doggy bags held loosely in one hand. “We got a dog, Will, I’m not about to, like, kick you out onto the curb–”

“Right, obviously,” Will agrees, blushing a bright red. Mike isn’t sure what exactly it is that Will has to be so embarrassed about, so he frowns, wordlessly passing the bags over. Will tucks them inside his pocket. “I mean, I didn’t think you didn’t want to live with me anymore, but we hadn’t, like, talked about it officially, and our lease is over in a month and I wasn’t sure if you wanted to renew or if you wanted to live with someone else, or–” 

“Will,” Mike laughs, “I– who else would I want to live with? You’re my best friend.”

Best friend falls flat on his tongue. Roommate. Any of those words. It doesn’t seem to be conveying the real depth of it, what it means to memorize the steps of someone’s routine just by hearing them move around in the morning. What it means to eat all your meals together. Two favorite mugs side by side in the cupboard.

And then, because Will is still very red and still not saying anything, he adds, “And I’m not letting go of Friday that easily.”

At this, Will smiles, looks down at the nose poking out of his jacket. “I thought you didn’t even want him.”

“I was wary,” Mike points out. “That’s different. He won me over in three seconds, so he’s our dog now and I’m never letting him out of my sight.”

“Yeah, well, we’re a package deal. So you’re stuck with me. Sorry.”

“Good,” Mike says, entirely without thinking. He pauses. “I mean. Um.”

“Good,” Will echoes, before Mike can start to spiral about what good means. He looks outside and says, “Okay, I’m gonna go before it gets too dark.”

“Okay,” Mike says, still standing in the middle of the living room like an idiot. Will waves once, before ducking through the window and out of sight.

And that really shouldn’t be as endearing as it is, but it’s Will, and Mike is becoming increasingly sure that disproportionately endearing might actually be Will’s legal middle name.

The thing is, their current place kind of sucks. There’s no getting around that, because Will and Mike are both in college on a budget– that didn’t originally include puppy expenses, but it’s alright– and finding a place within said budget that was also close to campus meant it was either their current place, or the one down the street with a long and mysterious history of dead residents.

Will had put his foot down at the mere mention of the murder building, so here they are. Paint peeling off the walls, a very questionable plumbing system, and appliances that break, like, every four weeks. It sucks and it’s totally a scam, but the pathetic thing is that before Will brought Friday home, moving somewhere else hadn’t even been on Mike’s radar. Not only because apartment hunting is an ordeal he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy, and not even because it would be hard to find a place that’s any better, but because those are all things Mike never really found himself caring about.

Sure, the hot water never lasts more than five minutes and Mike spends his life’s earnings on enough fuzzy socks to stay warm through the winter months, but none of that stuff really matters. Because at the end of the day, Mike would rather come home to this clusterfuck of an apartment building than a mansion anywhere else, if it meant Will would be waiting there on the sofa for him.

Maybe that should’ve clued him onto something way before he actually caught on. But better late than never, right?

Right?

Mike sighs, pulling out two plates and dumping their leftovers from lunch into them, because it’s a little less sad this way than eating their second meal of the day right out of the paper takeout boxes. They still haven’t done the groceries.

Will pops back in through the window just as the microwave timer goes off with a ding! “Hey,” Will pants, and Mike turns around, both plates in hand.

“Hey– whoa, okay, what the hell happened?”

“It started raining,” Will says, which is pretty obvious now, actually, considering the water dripping down the collar of his jacket and the general dampness of it all. “Did you really not notice?”

Truthfully, Mike had not noticed even a little, because he’d had his headphones on and was thinking that whole thing about apartment hunting and Will and, you know, living in apartments with Will. “Uh, no?”

“Sometimes I think the world could end and you’d sleep right through it,” Will says, and then he’s shrugging out of the jacket. Friday’s damp little head pokes out as Will peels the windbreaker off, little tail wagging. “He’s, uh. He’s very wet, by the way.”

“I can see that,” Mike laughs. It’s not like Friday has a lot of fur in the first place, but whatever he has has gone dark and stuck down, making him look even more small and wrinkled than before. “I’ll dry him off, and you should, uh.”

“I smell like wet dog.” Will crinkles up his nose. “I can take the hint okay, let me go shower and I’ll be right back.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Mike calls, as Will’s form retreats down the hallway to the bathroom. And he can’t see Will anymore, but he’s willing to bet his right leg that Will just shot him the finger over his shoulder, so.

Mike’s started in on his dinner when Will comes out, Friday making big, pleading eyes at the leftover chicken on Mike’s plate. “You can’t have this,” Mike says, holding the fork out of reach. “It’s not good for you, you know.”

Will laughs softly from the kitchen. “Are you talking to the dog?”

Mike looks up, ready to shoot back with Yeah, like you don’t do it, but it fizzles out into nothing almost immediately. Will’s got one hand on the microwave door, dressed in plaid pajama pants and what’s definitely, one-hundred percent, Mike’s sweatshirt. And therefore, what comes out of Mike’s mouth, instead of anything sarcastic or smart or funny in the slightest, is one mildly embarrassing, “Is that my sweater?”

“Maybe,” Will responds smoothly. “I thought it was mine.”

This is a flat-out lie, because the sweater says Whale, hello there! with a drawing of a cartoon whale on it and Will Byers would never buy that for himself ever in his entire life. “Uh huh,” Mike says, watching the collar of his sweatshirt grow steadily darker from where the ends of Will’s damp hair are brushing against it, and fights back the urge to shove one fist in his mouth and scream.

Friday, meanwhile, takes advantage of Mike’s temporary moment of weakness to steal the last bite of chicken right off of Mike’s fork.

“Wh– hey! Friday!”

“What can I say? He knows what he wants,” Will says, as his pasta finishes reheating– again. “You want anything to drink?”

“Water please,” Mike says, except he’s got a mouthful of spaghetti so it comes out all jumbled and gross. Will rolls his eyes, but grabs another glass anyway.

“You’re disgusting.”

“You love it,” Mike says, then immediately picks a stray spaghetti noodle off his sweatpants. “Ah, shit, I spilled.”

Will sits down on the opposite side of the sofa, smirks at him, and says, “I rest my case.”

On instinct, Mike stretches out his legs, crossing his ankles and throwing them into Will’s lap. Will doesn’t even flinch, just lifts his plate up until it’s balancing on Mike’s shins, and continues to eat like this is a totally normal thing. And it is, apparently. Mike’s starting to realize just how nonexistent his concept of personal space is around Will. “So,” Mike says casually. “What do you want to watch?”

Will raises an eyebrow. “Is this just your way of telling me you want to watch more Animal Planet?”

“No,” Mike pouts, then, at Will raising his other eyebrow, concedes, “yeah. Maybe.”

Will wait one second, two, then swallows and says, “Okay. Fine.”

The documentary they end up choosing is something about chimpanzees, and for all of his halfhearted protests, Mike knows Will is enjoying himself. He chimes in between bites with things like “Oh, its face is so hairy,” and “How do they know which fruits are safe to eat,” and “Hey, Mike, that one looks like you when you wake up.”

Mike throws a stray noodle at him, and Will picks it off his cheek, throwing his head back in soft laughter. The room is lit up with the green light of the forest scenery and the quiet background chatter of the narrator’s voice, and something settles in Mike’s stomach, warm and pleased. He feels– happy. Which maybe should feel a bit diminutive, but it isn’t, not in the slightest. Mike is happy. He thinks, maybe, that he’d like to sit here on this couch with Will, eating twice-reheated leftovers and laughing at dumb jokes and watching TV with their dog– their dog!– for a very long time.

“You’re staring,” Will says quietly, his hand stilling where it was rubbing slow circles on Mike’s ankle.

“What?”

“You’re staring,” Will repeats, a bit self-consciously this time. “What is it?”

“I,” Mike exhales. He takes a moment to collect himself, but what comes out of his mouth anyway is, “You should. You should keep the sweater. It looks good on you.”

Great. Apparently there’s a lot of room for improvement on the subtlety front.

Will frowns. “But you love this sweater.”

“Ha!” Mike exclaims, and Friday lifts his head off the carpet to look up, startled. “I knew you knew it wasn’t yours!”

“Oh, shut up,” Will rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning. “Whatever.”

It’s a nice smile, too. Mike swallows and looks away. “Do you really think that one looks like me?” he asks.

“Only before nine a.m.,” Will responds. “Except the baby chimp is cuter. Sorry.”

Mike doesn’t even have anything to say in response. Will is kind of right. The baby chimp has him beat, no doubt about it.

Mike knows he dozed off at some point, but he isn’t sure how long he’s been out. All he knows is that he’s horizontal now, and he definitely hadn’t been before, and he’s lying on top of something very warm and also very Will-shaped. The third thing is that Will’s hand is resting on Mike’s lower back, and Mike’s face is tucked into the curve of Will’s shoulder, and all of a sudden, he doesn’t feel very inclined to move from this position at all.

Under him, Will shifts slightly and groans. It seems like maybe he dozed off too, because when he says, “Mike?” it comes out a bit soft around the edges, caught slipping out of his mouth before he maybe really meant it to.

Mike holds his breath. He has the strangest feeling that if he moves, if he says something that gives away that he’s awake, then this might end far too soon. That Will is going to sit up, push him off with a smile, then stumble down the hall into his own room and off to sleep.

Selfishly, Mike doesn’t want that. He wants this moment to go on forever– the soft snuffling in the corner where Friday has dozed off, the muffled thumping of the dishwasher running. The scent of Will’s shampoo, soft and clean and familiar.

“Mike?” Will whispers again, barely discernible even in the quiet of the living room, like he doesn’t want to wake Mike up if he hasn’t already. One of them must have turned the TV off before falling asleep, because the noise from that is silenced too, and it’s just them– soft, steady breathing that Mike wouldn't even be able to hear if he wasn’t this close.

And he is– this close, that is. It’s nice. Will is solid and warm under him, the fabric of Mike’s sweatshirt soft against his cheek where it’s been washed so many times. It’s nice. Really nice. Mike thinks he could drift off to sleep again really quickly like this, no pretending.

He fights back a shiver as Will lets out a long exhale, ghosting against Mike’s ear, and shifts his hand slightly against where it’s splayed across Mike’s lower back, moving to the side of his waist. His other hand comes to rest gently between his shoulder blades, and then they still.

“Mike,” Will whispers for a third time, kind of into the top of his head and just slightly more urgent than before, so maybe it’s time to, like, wake up.

“Mm?” Mike says, turning his head slightly and peeling his eyes open. “What?” 

“We should take Friday out,” Will whispers, still talking more into Mike’s hair than to Mike himself. “Before we fall asleep for real.”

Mike loves his dog. He really, really does. He’s starting to think he adores him more than anything on this planet– except for one thing, with which he’s tragically tied in first place. Which is still impressive, considering that Mike Wheeler has had a dog for about two weeks and has had Will Byers for about sixteen years, but still. “Right,” Mike groans, blinking blearily. “Right, we should– yes, we should do that.”

Neither of them move. Will’s thumb is rubbing little circles on his upper back, absentmindedly, like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. “Maybe actually getting up would help,” Will laughs after a minute.

“Make me,” Mike mumbles, still more than a third of the way to sleep and getting closer by the second, lulled by Will’s quiet breathing and the hand moving steadily against his back and how warm he is.

Will does not make him. Will does not say anything, actually, and for one fleeting second, Mike entertains a thought that’s equal parts terrifying and thrilling– that maybe Will wants this moment to go on for as long as he does. That maybe he’s reluctant to move for the same reasons Mike is.

“That’s what I thought,” Mike says smugly at Will’s lack of response. He shoves his face further into Will’s neck with a pleased sound. “Friday can wait a few minutes.”

Will lets out a strangely strangled, stilted noise. “You’re squishing me,” he huffs, but there’s no urgency to it.

“Living with me has its downsides.”

“You’re never going to let me hear the end of it if I say this,” Will murmurs, still stroking his back with one hand. “But I don’t think there are. Like, any.”

Mike pauses, then lifts himself up onto his forearms. Will’s hand falls away from his back, and he lets out a small noise of surprise, but doesn’t move. “What? Really?”

Will blinks up at him. “Yes, really. And I know you’re going to get so annoying about that, so I just want to preface this by saying that this doesn’t mean you’re not insufferable and the worst, but–”

“You think I’m the perfect roommate,” Mike finished, already grinning down at him before Will can complete his sentence. “Oh my God, you do!”

“Mike!” Will squeezes his eyes shut, laughing, probably because his hands are still trapped under Mike’s arms and he can’t maneuver them out well enough to shove his face into them. “Okay, you know what, I’m sorry I said–”

“I like living with you too,” Mike breathes out, before his nerves can betray him, and Will goes still and wide-eyed under him. “A lot. I can’t, um. I can’t imagine living with anyone else.”

That feels like it should be a big and scary thing, and Mike isn’t, like, sounding the wedding bells or anything because he hasn’t even managed to muster up the courage to ask Will out, which he’s pretty sure you have to do before you marry someone. And, actually, he’s not really sure where that came from either– backtrack! Back it up, Wheeler– but the bottom line here is that it’s true. 

He knows it is, the second he says it; he knows that this is, without a doubt, the truest thing he’s ever said. He can’t imagine living with anyone else, can’t imagine coming home to anyone else after a long day or spending Saturday nights in with anyone else or taking care of a dog with anyone else. Jesus H. Christ.

It’s just Will, and a whole lot of Will– preferably in a less shitty apartment that allows pets and maybe has one less bedroom and, like, gross couples towel sets and matching pajamas or whatever– but Will nonetheless.

“Maybe with one less bedroom though,” Mike blurts out, because his train of thought is currently averaging a healthy two thousand miles per hour through his brain, which may or may not be related to Will under him, wearing his sweatshirt. And it’s not until Will’s eyes get impossibly wider that he realizes he even said anything in the first place.

“I– what?”

“Um,” Mike says, and then promptly wonders whether it would be too obviously embarrassing if he ran over to the window and hurled himself down the steps of the fire escape.

He settles on yes, because they’re only on the fourth floor and he’d probably break every bone in his body but ultimately survive, which would be a thousand times more humiliating than if he just died. “Um,” he tries again. “What?”

“You said,” Will points out, “with one less bedroom.”

“Not in a weird way,” Mike says, immediately trying to do damage control and, immediately, doing unfathomably more damage anyway. “I just meant–”

“Mike.”

“Yeah?”

Will’s hands settle on his back again, grounding and steady. Mike takes in a sharp breath. “You need to breathe,” Will is saying, eyes still wide and cheeks dusted with a brilliant pink, but he’s smiling now.

“I– I am breathing,” Mike splutters, and Will laughs softly. “I– sorry, that’s not what I meant to say. I mean, I would’ve gotten there eventually, but I thought I’d maybe work up to the one bed thing, because that’s not the greatest jumping-off point for this conversation, I realize, and–”

“Mike.”

“Yeah?”

Will rubs one hand down Mike’s spine in a motion that’s simultaneously very soothing and strangely endearing, and it would probably be a little counterproductive to try and, like, kiss Will before he can even work up the courage to ask about kissing Will– but God if Mike isn’t close to doing it anyway. “You’re going to give yourself an aneurysm. I’m not going anywhere,” Will smiles.

It sounds like he means it, too. Like he’s really not going to get up and bolt if Mike says the big, scary things that are running through his mind. Like maybe he already knows about the big scary things running through Mike’s mind, but he’s staying anyway.

“Okay,” Mike says. Will is meeting his gaze with a steadiness that Mike envies more than anything. Their noses are– their faces are very close right now, and it’s very distracting, and not really helping with the whole being articulate thing. Mike takes another deep breath. “So the thing is,” he starts, “I want to live with you.”

Will’s carefully neutral expression falters. “Um–”

“But,” Mike thunders on, before this momentary burst of courage can fail him. “I mean, like, I want gross matching towels and gross matching pajamas and, I don’t know, His and His mugs in the cupboard or something. Even if we never use them and they’re just there as a gag, and I want to– I want to dance around in the kitchen with you and your dumb, snooty playlists and I want to kiss you, kind of.”

“Oh,” Will breathes out. Any hint of laughter or amusement on his face is gone. “Mike–”

“No, scratch that,” Mike says hurriedly, because Will’s eyes look very hazel in this light and his lips also look very– “I don’t want to kiss you kind of. I want to kiss you. Full stop. Kind of a lot. Actually, scratch that again. I want to kiss you, a lot. Full stop.”

“Mike!” Will says again. He looks overwhelmed. He looks like how Mike is feeling, right about now. “I– do you mean that?”

Mike blinks. “Yeah, of course. Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know,” Will whispers. His eyes flicker down, once, and he swallows. “Has anyone ever told you you talk a lot?”

“Yeah,” Mike says, “you.”

Will lets out a breathy laugh. “Okay, yeah. Do you really want to kiss me?”

“A lot,” Mike confirms. This close up, he can count the dark smudge of Will’s lashes, all the little flecks of green in his eyes. “I think about kissing you, like, all the time.”

“Oh.”

“Is that– okay?”

“Mike,” Will starts, then smiles. “I made a playlist of songs that remind me of you. What do you think?”

“Um,” Mike says, even as something swells up inside his chest, lighter than air and sweeter than honey. He can feel his face breaking out into the most ridiculous grin ever as he says, “You have very particular music taste?”

Will shoots him a look. “I want to kiss you too,” he rolls his eyes, “but maybe not so much anymore–”

“No!” Mike laughs, and Will’s eyes land on him again. “No, okay, let me try that again, hold on–”

“Mike, I swear to God–”

“Will,” Mike starts, and Will’s mouth falls closed. “I want to kiss you. And I want to move into a new place with you and have matching everything with you and be the most clueless parents Friday could possibly ever have, but mostly I just really, really want to kiss you.”

Will takes in a breath, quiet and stilted, and lifts his hand up to brush a lock of hair out of Mike’s eyes. “Then I think,” he whispers, “you should kiss me.”

Mike is falling into the kiss before he can really tell what’s happening, and there’s a beat, maybe two, where it hasn’t yet registered– where his hands are on Will’s face and Will’s hand has dropped down to his shoulder from where it had been hovering around Mike’s hair. For a moment, he thinks maybe he misheard– maybe Will said you shouldn’t kiss me, not ever, and Mike just made the biggest, most embarrassing mistake of his life. Then Will makes a soft, startled sound, and his hand immediately moves back up into Mike’s hair, and oh, Mike thinks, head swimming with absolute sensory overload. Oh.

It’s warm, and it’s comfortable, and Mike doesn’t know how or why he spent so many years of his life not kissing Will, when it’s so clear that this was how things were supposed to be. Will, his hair just barely still damp from his shower, pushed back against the sofa cushions from the gentle force of the kiss. His hands are already finding their way into Mike’s hair, skirting down his back, restless and impatient.

Maybe Will thought about this just as much as he had. Maybe Will had wanted this for just as long, if the way his hands move are any indication– like he needs them everywhere at the same time, like holding Mike in just one way isn’t enough. Maybe Will has also wanted all of those things Mike was talking about earlier– in a more eloquent sense than Mike was able to articulate it, sure, but maybe–

The thought, suddenly, is too much. Mike tucks it away, hooks a finger under Will’s chin to turn his face upwards, ever-so-slightly–

“Mike,” Will breathes out. It’s nothing special, just his name– Mike– but Will saying it like that is making him flush warm, making him blush what’s probably a seriously embarrassing shade of red.

Mike pulls away, against every ounce of better judgment he has, to say, “What?”

Will’s cheeks are flushed, and his hair is, unfortunately, very messed up, but Mike thinks he’s never looked better. “We really do need to take Friday out,” Will murmurs, but he’s staring, unabashedly, at Mike’s mouth and not making a single move to get up, so Mike takes all of this with a singular grain of salt.

“One minute,” Mike insists, leaning in to chase the traces of late-evening sleep off of Will’s lips. It works for a moment; Will makes a small noise of contentment and relaxes back into the pillows, fingers twitching on Mike’s waist. Good, Mike thinks, half-delirious and giddy with the sensation, biting softly at Will’s lower lip and then pressing an answering kiss there. This is good.

“Mike,” Will says again, a little more urgently this time but no less disappointed, and yeah, okay, Mike can take the hint. “There’s only so many puppy pads we can afford.”

“Look. I love Friday,” Mike starts, sitting up and stretching out with a soft groan. “But he’s a menace.”

“He takes after you,” Will laughs, not making a move to get up. “Okay, hurry up, I want to make out some more.”

“You– why do I have to be the one to take him?”

“Because you love me,” Will says simply, lying back against the pillows. “And you love Friday.”

And, well. Both of those things are true, so there’s not much Mike can argue otherwise.

“Come on, Friday,” he grumbles, and scoops the dog up from where he’d been curled up, half-asleep on the floor. Friday lets out a small, startled yip. “Let’s go before it rains. Again.”