Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Part I. The Haunting of Will Byers

August 1989

The day after Will Byers breaks up with Mike Wheeler, the day that will eventually go down in Will's personal history record as the single worst day of his life (and there’s a lot to compete with), starts off poorly.

Not that the day of the breakup itself hadn’t been rightfully horrible - Will had felt sick to his stomach the entire time, and had cried twice before going over to Mike’s and four times after, until he felt like a hollow shell of a person, not a droplet water left in his body. But at the same time, it hadn’t felt entirely real; Mike had been there, at the very least, and even though Will had had to watch his face crumble into a million pieces and feel his arms wrap too tight around his midsection as he begged Will not to leave him, at least Will had gotten to hold him. At least he’d gotten to kiss him, one last time.

But it’s nine a.m. on the morning after, and sunlight is streaming in through the window, and Mike is not here, and Will can’t run to him for comfort like he wants to.

And the worst part, too, is that he did this to himself.

He spent a lot of yesterday and last night trying to rationalize it; Mike would have done it eventually if Will hadn’t, it’s better that they did it in person rather than over the phone three months from now when they’re at colleges miles and miles apart from each other, it’s better that they make a clean break now (Will makes a clean break, it’s all his fault, he was the one who shot them point-blank) than keep hurting each other.

All of it’s true, and here is also the fact: Will is five seconds away from driving over to Mike’s house and kissing him in his stupid perfect broken face and forgetting about the whole thing. He wonders how easily he could unravel it, all those things he said, those smart, rational things that make him want to drive a stake into his own godforsaken heart. He wonders how hard it would be to get Mike to crawl back into his arms again. 

Not hard at all, probably. Will doesn't know if that's better or worse.

Will stares at the ceiling for a beat, waves of hurt crashing over him, Mike’s words on repeat in his brain- don’tleavemedon’tleavemedon’tleaveme- his broken face and broken voice and his heart, thumping innocently inside his ribcage until Will took a hammer to it.

In one swift motion, Will throws off his covers, launches himself out of bed, and runs to the bathroom to vomit into the toilet.

Of all the things that have happened to him, this has got to be the cruelest: getting the thing he’s wanted as long as he can remember, and then having to give it up. It's like there had been cracks, all through his heart, his soul, widening and lengthening all his life with every cruel word tossed in his direction, every horror placed upon him by men with too much power who saw Will as someone with too little, every pinprick of heartbreak in those horrible years when his friends were falling in love around him and he wasn't, not in any way that mattered. 

Mike glued some of those cracks back together, in the last couple years, holding him together with a firm set of arms around his waist and kisses pressed to his face in quiet moments, but today it's like Will's starting from scratch, or something worse than that, even, like all the seal of the glue has been cracked on every last jagged piece of him, and he's slicing himself up from the inside until he's nothing but ribbons of himself, tangled and disassembled on the tiled floor and bile stinging the back of his throat.

There's a pattering of footsteps down the hall, and Jonathan pokes his head around the door to the bathroom, eyes wide. "Will?"

Will retches into the toilet two more times, then sits back on his heels, wiping his mouth and taking a shaking, stuttering breath. It does nothing to dislodge the rock sitting heavy in the space between his ribs. If there were anything left in his stomach he'd be sick again. "Hi," he says pitifully, and Jonathan's eyes widen in concern.

"Um, hi," he says, a little stiltedly, visibly deciding how far to push. "Are you okay?"

With every last ounce of effort left in his body, Will manages a weak little lie of a nod. "Yeah. Just- ate something bad last night, I think. It'll be fine."

Jonathan does not look like he believes him even a little, but he doesn't call him on it, a muscle working away in his jaw. "Okay, well, El said to ask if you want to go to the lake with her and the rest of your friends, but if you're sick-"

"Who's sick?" a voice asks, and El pokes her head around the corner, eyes widening when she takes in the sight; Will, curled up pathetically on the floor, feeling like an empty shell of a human being, chunks of the meatloaf he'd choked down last night at his mother's insistence still floating in the toilet. He sighs heavily, and reaches over to flush it. "Oh, Will, what happened?"

"Nothing," Will says through his teeth. He's not going to be able to bring himself to lie for much longer. "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine," El says bluntly, and Will lifts his head to glare at her. "Do you want me to invite the Party over here? We can keep you company while you rest."

"No," Will says immediately, shaking his head. He forces himself off the ground, snatching a plastic cup off of the counter and filling it at the sink. "No, don't do that." The only thing worse than feeling this way is Mike knowing he feels this way. He wouldn't survive it. Neither of them would. "I'll come to the lake," he decides, because he can't beg out without Mike knowing he's avoiding him on purpose. Will- he can fake it. He's never been the best liar, but he knows how to plaster on a smile. He knows how to pretend not to love Mike Wheeler.

"The fresh air will be good for me," he says vehemently, and Jonathan raises an eyebrow.

El, on the other hand, is wonderful and pure and far too honest to deserve him as a brother, so she simply bounces on the balls of her feet and claps. "Yay! I'll pack the car."

Will takes a careful sip of water, and studiously avoids Jonathan's gaze.

- 

"Mike, where are you- no, we can't just hide, we have to help them!"

"Shut up," Mike hisses through his teeth, tugging Will sharply by the arm around to the back of the shed and peering around the side of it. They're somewhere at the outskirts of  Hawkins, and Will can hear the shouts of Steve and Robin fighting off a Demodog in the background while Dustin shouts instructions. "Shut up, just be quiet for a second, okay?"

"Mike, they could die-"

"I know that," Mike snaps, turning to face him. His arm is pinned across Will's chest, pushing him back against the wall, and Will could probably squirm out from under him if he really wanted to, but Mike's touch has always been kryptonite to him. He's twice as weak, when it's Mike holding him back. "I know that, and I want to help too, but I think they've got it handled, and- and it's you he wants, okay? I'm not letting him get you."

Will stares at him, caught halfway between fury and shock. "It's just a fucking Demodog, Mike, I've shot hundreds of them-"

"I said shut up," Mike insists, and his face is all screwed up, a strange set of emotions written on it. He's been like this a lot lately; touchy, overprotective, ready to snap. Will doesn't know whether to be flattered by the attention or worried about his mental state.

Will sighs, shoving his arm away and peering around at him. Mike's at least sort of right - Robin's smacking the Demodog over and over with a blunt stick, and Steve has a hand in front of Dustin, protective. They've got it handled. It doesn't make Will feel any less guilty for ditching them, even if Mike had kind of forced him to, but still.

He turns back to Mike, hands on his hips. " Nope, sorry," he says, before he can chicken out, before a new terror rises up from the ground and snatches Mike away from him. "You're being weird. Tell me what's going on."

The strange emotion is back on Mike's face, a complicated array of stress and panic and- something like reverence, maybe, when he looks at Will. Like he's not sure he's real. It makes sense, Will supposes. He doesn't feel real, most days. But that's normal for him at this point.

"It's nothing," Mike says dismissively, the strange expression shuttering off and falling into a blank slate. "I just- you don't realize, I don't think. How important you are."

Will rolls his eyes. "I get it, Mike. Vecna wants me. But he's not getting me, so big fucking whoop."

"No, I-" Mike searches his face for a second, looking almost desperate, then closes his mouth and shakes his head. "Never mind."

Will frowns. "What?"

"Nothing, it's- never mind." Mike resolutely turns around, peering out at their friends. A second Demodog has joined them, but Robin is staring down the barrel of her gun, ready to shoot it as soon as it stops moving.

Will growls, frustrated, and tugs at Mike's shoulder, forcibly turning him back to face him. "Mike. What's going on?"

"Nothing, I just said!" Mike squeaks defensively, shrugging out of Will's grip and turning inexplicably red.

Will glares at him. "Mike, we have to talk about this. You need to tell me what’s going on, or- or at least come up with a convincing lie, because this?" he flicks a finger between them- "Isn’t working.”

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mike asks, stiffening.

"We're supposed to be friends, Mike! Just tell me what's wrong!"

Mike stares at him for a long beat. In the background, Robin's gun goes off once, then twice. Steve lets out a victory whoop, and the Demodog howls in pain.

Will stares back at Mike, and there's a few moments where neither of them say anything, and the tension between them turns from irritated to something else entirely. Will's frown deepens, and he opens his mouth to ask what's wrong, why Mike's looking at him like that, what's going on, but no words come out.

Mike's eyes drop to his mouth, and the crease in his brow tightens, and he huffs out a strained little breath. "Friends," he repeats faintly. "Yeah. I guess- if you had to pinpoint it- that would be the problem."

Will blinks once, twice. "What the hell does that mean?" he asks, feeling a little dizzy. Mike's gaze is still firmly trained on his mouth, and Will can feel that old delusion creeping in, that dangerous call of  maybe, maybe, maybe-

"Guys!" Dustin appears around the corner, out of breath and covered in Demodog blood. "It's dead, but we gotta go right now before more show up." He pauses, taking in Will's bewildered expression and Mike's stormy, overcomplicated one that Will doesn't know how to decipher. "God, can't you two pick another time to argue?" he groans, "we're very busy. Come on."

"Right, sorry," Will says faintly, not looking away from Mike. Mike very visibly swallows, and is the first to tear his gaze away. "Sorry, let's- let's go."

Mike refuses to look at him for the rest of the supply run.

-

Through a lot of avoided eye contact and a lot of awkward fumbling conversation, Will avoids sitting next to Mike on the drive to the lake. They're driving in Lucas's car, because Mike's is in the shop due to its tendency to break down every five seconds, and the car that El and Will usually share has been usurped by Jonathan while he visits from college. All of which is well and good, because while Lucas's car can technically only seat five people, driver included, they've never minded squeezing four people into the back at once.

Today, though, Will minds. He's pushed up against the left door, Dustin crammed in next to him, followed by El, then Mike on the far right. Max, apparently, gets front seat privileges for all times, because she is Lucas's girlfriend and he's gross and gentlemanly like that. Will had opted for the left corner because it's better than being crammed in the middle with Mike, or on the right side with Mike, or anywhere in Mike's general vicinity, but the problem now is that he can't really see Mike at all, and that is somehow much worse. Neither of them have spoken for the entire drive, not that anyone in the Party notices - Dustin and Max are arguing loudly and El is laughing her head off, while Lucas steadfastly focuses on not crashing the car. Usually, when either Mike or Will was quieter than usual, that fact would be brought to the Party's attention within ten minutes, but it would always be the other bringing it to attention. Today they're both quiet, and they're the only ones who notice.

It's okay, though. Will can be quiet. Will's great at being quiet. It's his default state, basically. 

So he's quiet when they all clamber out of the car and El and Max produce a cooler of snacks from the back of the car, and he's quiet when they all lay out towels and stretch out on the sand, and he's quiet when Lucas and Dustin drag Mike toward the water and immediately start a splash war, and it's all good and normal and fine on a surface level. They're getting away with it, Will thinks dimly, they dated in secret and they broke up in secret and they're devastated in secret, and no one notices. Their mission is accomplished, so why does he still feel like the world is caving in?

"You good, Will?" Lucas asks, some time later when he clambers up the shore to where Will is laying silently on his towel, staring up at the sky and trying not to think of how, not that long ago, a day like this would have been spent with Mike laying beside him, watching the sky with him, and how it would have looked all fine and normal and platonic from a distance, but Mike would have hooked a pinky finger around Will's when no one was looking, and Will would have felt as light as the clouds he's looking at by himself now. 

"Yes," he lies on instinct, a beat too late, and Lucas squints at him as he grabs a towel off the ground and swipes water out of his eyes.

"You sure?"

"Yes," Will says again, and prays Lucas won't ask a third time. He'll crack, if he has to say it again. 

Lucas looks at him for another beat, then shrugs. "Okay. Want to come swim with us?"

I'd rather die, Will thinks sourly, as he lifts himself up on his elbows and frowns down at the water, where Max and El have joined the boys. El is floating bubbles of water overhead, and Mike is laughing. It's a little forced, and his face looks strained, and he seems to be very consciously not looking in Will's direction, but he's laughing, and Will is going to die.

"Sure," he says anyway, because what other choice does he have, and Lucas grins, offering a hand that Will accepts. He pulls him to his feet, and Will trails miserably after him toward the water, trying to form his face muscles into something resembling a smile.

El drops a bubble of water onto Dustin's head, and he shrieks in offense, and Mike laughs again, low and strained but there all the same. Maybe he's a better liar than Will ever gave him credit for. 

Mike's eyes meet Will's, seemingly on accident, and then dart away again, and he swallows, a shaky breath escaping him. Will watches it all happen in a split second, and it's almost enough to make him call the whole thing off, beg Mike to take him back, confess it all to their friends in one chaotic, rambling monologue.

But then El drops a bubble of water on Will's head, and he remembers not to hope for such things.

They stay there all day, swimming and laying on the beach and slowly killing Will by accident. Lucas and Dustin climb the rocks on the edge of the shoreline and jump off them. Mike stands at the edge with his arms folded and a scowl on his face, judging them. Will hovers awkwardly at the treeline, afraid to get too close.

Lucas knocks Dustin face-first into the water, and Lucas laughs at him, and Dustin shouts about how it's your fault, you shoved me. Lucas insists it's an accident, and Mike calls bullshit, and Will cuts in, without really meaning to:

“It’s no one’s fault,” he says, with the easiest smile he can muster, but over the top of Dustin’s head he can see Mike’s eyes on him, dark and solemn. He swallows hard, and forces himself to look right at Mike when he adds, a little too softly, “It was an extenuating circumstance. You couldn’t have controlled it.”

Mike looks at him for a long moment, then presses his lips together and firmly turns his face away.

The cracks in Will's heart splinter just a little more.

Max practices floating on her back in the water, and Mike spots her, one hand under her shoulder blades. At one point, he gets distracted, and Max goes flailing into the murky depths, seaweed caught in her hair when she emerges with a furious look on her face, launching into a tirade about Mike's idiocy. It's a commonplace occurrence, things like this, but Mike's eyes go wide and he looks stricken, apologies immediately cascading from his lips with a desperation in his voice. Max backs off instantly, eyes widening and hands lifted in surrender, and Will watches her and El exchange a look; what's with him?

Mike lifts his head and meets Will's eyes, swallows hard, then disappears underwater and doesn't come back up until he runs out of breath.

They have one stilted exchange, when Dustin, who'd been sitting with them on their towels having a basically one-sided conversation about something college-related, gets up to go get something from the cooler.

"Hey," Mike says quietly, so quietly that Will's almost sure he's heard wrong until he sees the pink in Mike's cheeks, the quickened rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. He's staring steadily at the water, where El and Max and Lucas are all standing with their heads ducked as they discuss something at length, and Will tears his eyes away as he follows suit.

"Hi," he whispers, as Max throws her head back in a laugh and Lucas grins at her.

Mike blows out a breath, shifting a little on his towel. "Today sucks," he murmurs.

The acknowledgement is so surprising that Will huffs a little laugh. "Yeah," he says, halfway caught between a giggle and a sob. "It does." His eyes dart to Mike just briefly. Mike continues staring daggers at the water. "I'm sorry."

Mike makes a jerky motion with his head. "Not your fault," he murmurs, and glances at Will with a small, sad little smile on his face. "Extenuating circumstance."

Will meets his eyes and smiles back, weak and sad and so, so tired. He's so tired of running, he's so tired of pretending. He's tired of not kissing Mike Wheeler in his stupid, pretty face, and it's only been one day.

Five years, Will thinks, a little desperately, and wonders what on earth he's supposed to do while he waits. Why would he say something like that, anyway? Five years is a pipe dream. He's familiar with pipe dreams, and they hurt too much, but he supposes not as much as losing Mike permanently would. It's that old familiar ache; maybe, maybe, maybe. The universe has tried to teach him to be a realist, and Will is a fool who never listens.

"Still," he whispers, eyes caught on Mike's, trying to categorize and list each of the emotions within them, little pinpricks in his cracked heart every time he catches a new version of sadness. He swallows. "Still sorry."

Mike's lips twitch, still stuck in that strange little smile, and his bottom lip trembles just slightly. "Yeah, I know," he murmurs, and turns back to face the water. His leg nudges against Will's, knees knocking. "Me too."

I love you, Will thinks, and presses his knee more firmly against Mike's.

Mike presses back, and it's the worst I love you too Will's ever gotten.

---

Will cries again as soon as he gets home, skin pinkened from the sun and cheeks sore from the effort of keeping that stupid fake smile plastered on. He falls face-first on his bed, whole body aching with bone-deep exhaustion and devastation. He feels like he weighs twice as much as he did yesterday, and yesterday had been pretty fucking heavy. He thought that breaking up with Mike, getting that conversation out of the way, would ease some of the dread that sits low in his stomach, but it's still there, just different. More concentrated, maybe. Now, though, he has no idea what it is he's dreading.

El knocks on his door a couple times, asking if he wants to hang out, if he's hungry, if he knows where her blue flannel is. Will answers no every time, and guilt joins the dread in his gut, even as she tells him that it's okay, tells him he can come find her if he changes his mind, is perfectly cheery and warm like always. Will hates that he did this to her, to himself, stole the boy that she loved and didn't even follow through with it, and worst of all, he hasn't even told her all of his crimes. He wonders if she'd be as kind to him, if she knew.

Sometime in the evening, the knocks sound again, and Will removes his face from his pillow to stare forlornly at the door. "El," he says weakly, "I love you, but I really don't feel like-"

The door swings open, and Jonathan pokes his head in, and the rest of Will's sentence dies in his throat.

"Oh," he says, a little blankly, and Jonathan takes it as permission to enter, closing the door behind him and sitting down gingerly on the end of Will's bed. "Um. Hi."

Jonathan laughs quietly. "Hi, bud. How was the lake?"

"Great," Will lies, flopping back onto his pillows. He's utterly unconvincing, and he can't even bring himself to care. "Super fun."

"Stop lying," Jonathan replies, not unkindly, and squints at him, scooting closer. "Are you still feeling sick?"

The short answer is yes, though not in the way that Jonathan means. Not even Will's short answers are truthful. "No," he says, then frowns, lifts a shoulder, and corrects, "Well, maybe a little." He swallows hard, thinking of Mike sitting next to him on a beach towel looking anywhere but him. "Sorry."

Jonathan frowns. "Why're you sorry?"

Because I broke the most beautiful boy in the world, Will thinks, and can't bring himself to say aloud. He shakes his head, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Jonathan watches him carefully for a moment, then sighs and settles himself down onto the bed beside Will, staring up at the ceiling with him. When Will fails to answer his question, too focused on keeping the sob building in the back of his throat locked inside, Jonathan sighs and speaks in a murmur; "Okay, you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to," he says gently. "But I'm not leaving, either."

Will presses his lips together. "Why not?"

"Because you're sad," Jonathan says simply, not an ounce of pity in his voice, just simple fact. "And at the very least, I don't want you to be sad alone."

Will exhales sharply. "Oh," he whispers, and his traitorous eyes let a couple more tears slip out. "Okay."

They sit in silence for a few beats before Jonathan nudges his knee, tipping his face toward him. "Can I guess what's wrong?"

Will hesitates. "Can I stop you?"

Jonathan's eyes are wide and solemn as he stares at him. "I just want to help, Will. You used to tell me everything."

"I..." Will picks at the cuff of the sweatpants he'd changed into upon getting home - sweatpants that used to be Mike's, he realizes all at once, and his gut lurches - and frowns, fighting even more tears. "I don't know how to explain. Or- if I'm even allowed to."

"Ah." Jonathan nods in understanding, always aware of that thing they've never really said, the thing he's always known, because he knows Will better than Will even knows himself sometimes. "I see. Did something, uh. Happen?" A flash of fury crosses his face, and he demands, "You're not getting bullied again or something, are you?"

"No, no," Will says quickly. Bullying might be better, the horrible, masochistic part of him thinks. He twists his fingers in his duvet and forces the thought away. "It's- not like that."

"Okay." Jonathan shifts, brow furrowed. "Something happened, though."

Will presses his lips together. "Maybe."

"A relationship thing?" Jonathan asks carefully.

Will stares resolutely at the ceiling. "Maybe."

"A rejection?"

"No."

Jonathan's eyes trace nervously over Will's face. "A breakup?"

A singular tear escapes Will's eye. "Maybe," he whispers brokenly, and Jonathan releases a soft breath.

"Shit, Will," he murmurs, and holds out an arm. Will scoots closer, tipping his head onto Jonathan's shoulder and sniffling pathetically. He's not crying like he was yesterday, multiple hours of heaving, uncontrollable sobs, but he's pretty sure that's only because there's not enough water left in his body for it. "I'm so sorry." He squeezes Will's shoulders. "Was it... who I think it was?"

Will nods, and Jonathan sucks in a breath. "Two years," he whispers, and Jonathan exhales that same breath sharply, like he's been punched. "I'm sorry," Will says again.

Jonathan frowns. "For what?"

For him, Will thinks, Mike's face flashing through his brain, that horrified look of reluctant acceptance in the moment he'd realized that Will was going to break up with him, the way he hadn't even tried to fight it. If Will can drain the fight out of Mike Wheeler, what does that say about him? 

He shakes his head to dispel the thought. "For not telling you," he says instead, because he is - Jonathan's known about him forever, even if Will has always been too cowardly to say it aloud, and he's dating Mike's sister, for God's sake, and all he's ever done is love Will, so much, and Will has lied to him over and over for two years straight.

"Will," Jonathan says, quiet but firm, and he shakes Will's shoulders once. "You have nothing to apologize for, okay? You don't have to tell anyone anything if you don't want to."

"Still," Will mumbles, and Jonathan huffs a laugh, squeezing his arm. "Don't- don't tell anyone, okay? Not even Nancy. Actually- especially not Nancy."

"Of course," Jonathan says, so quickly that Will is almost taken aback by it.

He rolls over to look at him, squinting. "Really? You'd lie to her for me?"

Jonathan rolls his eyes. "It's not lying. I would just tell her you asked me not to say anything."

Will frowns. "Still."

(He's not sure why he's so shocked about the concept of lies by omission; he and Mike are masters at them.

Or, they were. Back when they were together.

Oh, God.)

"Will." Jonathan smiles at him, always so sure. Jonathan's always been so steady. Will's never really lost that younger-sibling awe of him. "You're my brother. I'd do anything for you, okay?"

Will swallows back a fresh bout of tears. "Okay."

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" Jonathan asks. "Or do you want to just sit here quietly? Or do you want to talk about something else?"

Will huffs a wry little laugh, swiping at his eyes. "Sitting sounds nice."

Jonathan smiles, reaching over to squeeze his arm. "I have some new records we could listen to?"

"Please," Will says instantly, aching for the one safe place he has left, that room with the weird music and funky posters and his brother, solemn and gentle and never speaking unless Will does first.

"Alright," Jonathan chuckles, and pushes himself to his feet, eyes crinkled warmly at the corners. "And- Will?" he adds, as he holds out a hand and pulls Will off the bed.

"Hmm?" he asks absently, picking at a loose thread on his - Mike's - sweatpants. He wonders if it would be completely selfish and self-destructive of him if he kept them.

Jonathan's eyes dart over his face. "You know I love you, right?"

Will blows out a soft breath, and the tight feeling in his chest dissipates just slightly. "Yeah, I know. I love you too."

And Will- he's not okay, not by a long shot, but as he settles on the floor of Jonathan's room, and Jonathan turns on the record player and sits down across from him, he realizes that the ball of dread in his stomach is just a little bit smaller.

July 1990

Will's bags are packed. His flight back to L.A. leaves in three hours. Outside, Jonathan's old car sits ready in the driveway to take him to the airport. And here is Will, laying on his childhood bed staring at the ceiling, regretting every decision he's ever made.

Regret number one: the decision to come back to Hawkins this summer.

He'd known it was a bad idea, when his mother called and begged him to come back, just for a few weeks, so we can all be together, you can get a couple weeks off of work, can't you?. He'd felt it in the pit of his stomach, that warning bell that said don't do this to yourself, please, not this time, that same alarm that goes off every time he thinks about calling him, asking after him, even thinking too much about him. The alarm that was implemented years ago now, when he'd listen to two people who he thought were in love ramble on about each other and jump in with advice, never one for self preservation, the alarm that would go off whenever he'd lose his temper with the person he was in love with and send them both spiraling and crying and falling apart. 

Will's never been good at trusting his gut. He's never been good at thinking of himself first.

So of course he went, of course he left his almost-decent job and his kind-of decent friends in that mostly-okay city, and of course he was right, that it was a bad idea, that it would make the dull ache that's been sitting on his chest for almost a year down double in size, that he'd have to dodge questions and avoid eye contact and pretend he was not dying every time he's stood in a circle with his closest friends in the world across from a boy he's loved all his life who he is not allowed to love anymore. 

Mike has been careful not to be in a room with him for more than a few minutes at a time, and never alone. They haven't spoken. Will can't decide if he wants to. He has no idea if their friends have noticed, and in all honesty, he doesn't particularly care anymore.

Regret number two: the decision to leave Hawkins this summer.

On the surface, it's fine. He works at an art gallery, back in L.A., and his hours are upped during the summer, so it makes sense for him to go back, not to use up his vacation days too quickly. He has friends there, the loose sort that he can at least hang out with sometimes when he's feeling that achey, ancient kind of loneliness that is so intrinsic to his being, even if they're not the sort of people that would actually care if he told them about that feeling. He has a job that is okay and school that is engaging and an apartment that is small and a mess but his, just that one thing that is all his own. He used to think it would feel good, to have something like that to belong to him and him alone, but in reality, he'd give anything to share that space. To share it with one person, specifically.

Regret number three: Mike Wheeler. That's what it always comes back to, every single time.

Will is kind of okay, sometimes, when he's far away from here and pretending that he's never known any other reality. He's- maybe not alright, but at least used to the concept of being without Mike, because he spent so long convincing himself that someday he’d have to be. But being back in Hawkins, seeing a face that has already changed so much in the time they've been apart, shakes everything up again. It's an earthquake to the carefully arranged tectonic plates of his heart, the ones he spends hours and days and months smoothing over in the time he's away.

Will doesn't have a lot of credit to his name where love is concerned, but at least he knows how to manage it, keep it under wraps, tuck it away and force a smile. He hates how easily Mike can undo all of that.

There's a knock at his door, and Joyce pokes her head into the room, eyebrows raised. "Will, sweetie, I thought you were going to get going."

Will sighs, propping himself up on his elbows and peering pathetically up at her. "I'm working on it."

He doesn't want to go back to L.A., that plastic place with the plastic people and not a soul he trusts. He doesn't want to stay in Hawkins, either, the opposite side of the spectrum, too much feeling slicing at him with every movement. At least in L.A. he can pretend to be made of rubber, unbreakable, devoid of weakness. God knows that's what everyone else there does.

Joyce frowns, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. "Is something wrong?"

Will shakes his head on instinct, robotic. "Fine. Just tired."

"Really? I feel like you've barely left the house since you got here," his mother says, laughing a little. "Do you want to stay a little longer? You're welcome to."

Will shakes his head again, more vehemently this time. "No, I have to go back." One extreme to the other, he thinks bitterly. If he's picking poison, he'll pick the one that won't kill him. He sits up properly, so that he seems a bit more functioning.

His mother’s brow is creased with worry, like it so often is, and Will hates that he’s the reason for it again. He hates that everyone always has to worry about him. He hates that, this time, it’s his own goddamn fault.

“Are you sure you’re okay, baby?” she asks, settling on the end of his bed, and Will feels too small in his skin, like a child again, shaking and crying in his childhood bedroom. “You’ve seemed so- sad, recently.”

Christ. Of course he has. God forbid the universe let Will Byers catch a fucking break. God forbid he be granted the small mercy of good acting abilities.

“I’m fine,” he says again anyway, because he never learns, and the crease in his mother’s forehead deepens.

Joyce, predictably, doesn’t believe him and also won’t take no for an answer, and she scoots closer, winding an arm around his shoulders. Will wishes it wasn't so comforting. He wishes he was better at being an adult. “Is it college?” she asks, and Will sighs, resigning himself to an onslaught of well-intentioned interrogation. “Do you not like L.A.?”

The truth is no, not much - he likes college, sure, but L.A. itself is not designed for souls as fragile as his own - but it’s definitely not a pressing enough of an issue to bother her with. At least L.A. is good for Will’s career. He’s getting something out of it. He gets nothing out of Hawkins, these days, if he ever did.

He grinds his teeth. “No.”

Joyce purses her lips. “Are you really going to let me keep guessing? Because I will if I have to.”

“Mom.”

She sighs again. “Fine. I’m going to go start dinner, but let me know if you need anything, okay?” She presses a kiss to the crown of his head, pats his shoulder once, and climbs to her feet. “I love you always, ‘kay? No matter what.”

Will swallows hard, lets her get all the way to the door before the words claw their way up through his throat, scratching him all the way up: “Mom, I- I’m gay.”

Immediately, Joyce swivels on her heels, a small smile spreading across her face. Will sits lamely on the bed, palms spread wide against his knees (Mike used to have the same nervous tic, Will hates this, hates himself, misses Mike like a physical thing-), breath coming in nervous gasps.

He swallows again. “I,” he starts, and then falters, but it doesn’t matter, because Joyce is already hugging him.

Will hadn’t noticed her move, but she must have, because he’s suddenly being overwhelmed by the floral scent of her perfume and the soft fabric of her sweater as she hugs him tight. “Oh, sweetie,” she murmurs, cupping the back of his head with one hand and keeping the other steady against his back. “Thank you for telling me.”

It’s not even the important thing, of course, because Will knows she already knew, in that way that she seems to know everything about him without him once having to say it, but the acknowledgement feels surprisingly good anyway. His mother pulls back, smiling at him with wide, shining eyes, and settles herself back down onto the mattress beside him. “Is that why you were sad?” she asks carefully, reaching up to brush his hair out of his eyes. “You were scared?”

It’s strange, because a year ago, the answer to that question probably would have been yes . A year ago, that fear had been the thing making him sad, had been making him and Mike both act out in ways that hurt each other, but now-

The fear isn’t gone, but it’s lessened. At the very least, it pales in comparison to the pain of losing Mike.

“Kind of,” Will answers truthfully, shifting on the mattress and silently debating the morals of telling his mother the rest of it; is it betraying Mike, outing him by proxy by telling his mother about their relationship, or is it fine because it’s his mother and she was never one of the ones they were afraid of, and- and maybe Mike has told other people about them, too, for all he knows. 

God. Will wants, not for the first time, to call Mike up and demand some clarity on these things, things that hadn’t mattered in the moment of their breakup because the breaking up part had been the most pressing on both of their minds.

Also, he just wants to call Mike in general, to hear his voice. But that’s neither here nor there.

Joyce is watching him with a carefully neutral expression. Will can tell that she wants to pry, because of course she does, and she probably already has some idea of the Mike thing anyway, or at least Will’s painfully obvious side of it, but she’s granting him the mercy of not bringing it up herself.

He takes a breath. “It’s- Mike.”

Joyce’s eyebrows raise, then settle again, and she nods once. “What about him?”

Will blows out a breath. His mother’s expression is warm, open, not even an ounce of surprise anywhere on it, and Will should have known that his heartbreak was written all over him, how clear it’s been in how he and Mike have barely spoken this summer after being inseparable for almost their entire lives before that. He knows it’s obvious how he feels about Mike, but he’s always figured everyone thought it was unrequited. He doesn’t know how to explain to his mother, his loving, incredible mother who thinks he can do no wrong, that it was requited after all, and then Will went and ruined it.

“I,” he says through his teeth, fighting tears. “I love him, Mom.”

“Oh, sweetie,” she murmurs immediately, her arm settling heavy around his shoulders. She pulls him into her side, rubbing gentle circles into his shoulder and pressing a stray kiss into his hair. “I know you do. Did something happen?”

Will bites his lip. It’s now or never, and he’s come this far, and he figures if his mother doesn’t hate him for the premise of the thing, she probably won’t hate him for the rest of it. “We dated. In high school.”

Joyce’s arm around him tenses, then relaxes again. “I see,” she says, voice carefully even, “and you’re not now?”

Will shakes his head, and he’s shaking a little, with fear or leftover adrenaline or just too much sadness concentrated into too small of a frame. “We broke up last summer. I- I broke up with him.”

He glances up just in time to see the first flicker of surprise on his mother’s face, and it gives him a sick sense of satisfaction, to shock her like that. To give her just the tiniest glimpse into this wreck that is his brain, when she thinks he can do no wrong.“Oh. That’s- oh. What happened?”

What didn’t happen , Will thinks, and it’s like a montage perpetually on repeat in his mind’s eye, all the things that happened, with him and with Mike and with everything else. The two of them kissing under an apocalyptic sky, under the bleachers when no one was watching, in secluded corners and in the back of Mike’s car and countless other places. The two of them fighting - in the rain at fourteen and in a roller rink at fifteen and in all the same places they kissed at sixteen and seventeen and eighteen. The two of them dancing and cuddling and laughing and crying and- and sometimes it felt like being with Mike meant experiencing the entire range of human emotion, from euphoria to gut-wrenching pain and everything in between.

-

"Mike!" Will laughs, squirming as Mike's fingers poke into his sides. "Stop that!"

"Stop what?" Mike giggles, pressing kisses over Will's face, light and feathery. He smells faintly of stolen vodka, the bottle rolled away across the asphalt of the parking lot. They're laying in the grass, Mike's car parked a few feet away, and everything is hazy and giggly and bright. It's almost enough for Will to forget the day before, the nasty whisper-fight they'd gotten into in the hallway of Lucas's house while the rest of their friends chattered on in the other room, oblivious.

"You're an idiot," Will teases, swallowing back the thought, the memory of saying it more furiously, with more bite, the day before. He hopes this way, Mike will know he didn't mean it.

Mike pauses, hovering over Will's face, and a small smile passes his face. "I know," he says quietly, gently. He nudges his nose against Will's, presses a sweet kiss to his lips. "I love you, though."

Will smiles back, a little weakly. He wonders if Mike means it in a self-deprecating way or as forgiveness. If it's more of a yes, I'm an idiot, and I'm sorry, and does my loving you absolve me or a yes, I know you didn't mean it, and I love you, and I forgive you. Will's not sure which is worse. 

"I love you too," he says anyway, tilting his face up and pressing a slow, lazy kiss to his lips. "So much," he tacks on, in an attempt to assuage some of the guilt crashing through him. It, predictably, does nothing. It rarely does, these days, but he tries not to think anything of it.

Mike kisses him, firm and intentional, like he knows what Will's thinking and is trying to press the reassurance against Will's mouth. His hands settle against Will's sides, thumbs swiping over his ribcage right where the guilt aches the most, right where the string tying Will together is getting irrevocably tangled, and Will's shoulders relax just slightly. He melts into Mike, skates his hands over his back and clutches him close, holding on, holding tight. Mike likes to say Will kisses him like he's trying to make sure he's real. Will doesn't think Mike knows how true that is.

Somewhere down the road, a car rattles, and an engine draws closer, and Mike freezes up under Will's palms. He jerks away, meeting Will's eyes with wide, frightened ones, a deer in the headlights, and rolls off of him just as a blue Ford rattles around the bend and disappears into the distance. They lay frozen, staring up at the sky, breathing hard, listening, waiting for the other shoe to drop, until long after the sound of the engine fades. Will can feel the thread in his chest tightening, tightening, tightening, that old fight-flight-freeze instinct kicking in. It's a shame, he thinks, that his first instinct is always freeze. It's the least useful of the three.

"Sorry," Mike whispers after a beat, body rigid, eyes still trained at the sky, lips barely moving around the words. "Sorry, I thought this spot was safe, I- God, sorry."

"It's okay," Will whispers, and it's not, exactly, okay, but it's at least better than Mike thinks it is. "They didn't see."

"Yeah, but they could have," Mike whispers. "People know what my car looks like, too."

Realistically, no one cares enough to look past Mike's car, parked alone in the dirt lot. No one would notice the abandoned bottle of vodka and the two boys laying on top of each other in the grass, especially not a random driver on a random road that realistically didn't even cast a glance in their direction in the five seconds it took them to pass them.

Theoretically, though, Will still feels like passing out.

"It's okay," he says again, like a prayer, like maybe someday it will be, like he'll be able to verbalize this thing he feels without wanting to throw up, like-

“We were scared,” Will answers finally, quiet and broken. “And we kept hurting each other. I had to make it stop.” All he’s ever wanted; to make it stop, stop, stop , all this fear he feels. Go away! Go away! Go away!

He hadn’t meant to make Mike go away. Just the fear. As it turns out, the two are irrevocably tied.

“Oh, baby,” Joyce whispers, tipping her head down to catch his eye. “I’m so sorry. How long were you feeling like that?”

Will shakes his head. “All the time,” he admits in a low voice. “We started dating when we were sixteen, and- and I was so scared for all of it. Before that, too.”

“Sixteen,” Joyce repeats faintly, more to herself than Will. “Jesus.”

Will peeks up at her, chagrined. “Did you know?”

Joyce opens her mouth, closes it again, shakes her head slowly. “I- suspected,” she says carefully, “I saw how you looked at each other, and sometimes I thought- I don’t know. I wondered if you’d ever figured it out, but I wasn't sure. I wanted to help, but I didn’t know how, and I thought it might be better to let you figure it out on your own.”

Guilt pierces Will’s heart, a parallel slice to the constant, biting pain leftover from the image of Mike’s face, a year ago while he cried and clung to Will and begged him not to leave. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“Don’t be,” Joyce says, squeezing his shoulders. “It’s all okay, sweetie, I promise. It’s all going to be okay.”

Will settles against her side, breathing a soft sigh as she rubs gentle circles into his back. It doesn’t feel better, exactly, but it is a little bit of a relief, not having to hide how much it hurts. It’s something. Progress, maybe. “Does Hop know too?” he asks absently, fiddling with the edge of his jeans.

“He doesn’t know anything for sure unless you tell him,” Joyce says firmly, knocking his shoulder with her own. “But we’ve talked about it a little. You can talk to him, if you want.”

“Maybe,” Will hedges, shifting nervously. “He’s okay with it, though?”

“Absolutely.” Joyce kisses the top of his head, patting his back gently. “I’ve been telling him since day one I’d choose you and Jonathan over him in a heartbeat if I had to.”

Will snorts. “Seriously?”

“Seriously! You’re the most important thing in my life, sweetie.” 

He smiles a little despite himself. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Of course.” She peers down at him, smiling. “You want to talk any more about it?”

Will shakes his head, sitting up a little straighter and taking a deep breath. “No, that’s okay, I just…” he shakes his head again. “I’ll be okay,” he says, and almost believes it. 

“Sure you will,” his mother says, with five hundred percent more conviction than Will had been able to muster. “You’re the strongest kid I know.”

Will snorts, swiping at his eyes as Joyce squeezes his shoulders one more time and stands up. “I don’t know about that.”

“That’s okay,” Joyce says, smiling down at him. “I do.”

December 1991

"I love your apartment," Lucas declares, as Will stands on tiptoe to peer into the back of a cupboard. "It's so weird."

Will shoots him a look over his shoulder, fingers finally closing around the neck of the dusty bottle of wine that he's been keeping there since he moved in three months ago, bought with a fake ID that he'd really only gotten for the purpose of getting into twenty-one and over clubs. It wasn't that he was waiting to share the wine with Lucas or anyone specifically, but he doesn't like drinking alone, and he's been alone lot lately.

It's fine, mostly. In a place like this, being alone is sometimes better than the alternative; schmoozing with pretentious art dweebs. For someone who's generally pretty down to Earth, or at least tries to be, Will sure chose a pretty obnoxious career.

"Thanks?" he says, flipping the cupboard door closed and waving the bottle of wine in the air. 

Lucas grins, holding out his hand, and Will passes it to him before opening a different cupboard, this time in search of glasses. "You're welcome."

He's not wrong - Will's apartment is weird. His weird art is all over the place, because he's been a funky sort of mood lately where he's been doing a lot of abstract stuff. He doesn't excel at it, as it turns out, but it's better than drawing Mike over and over again.

(He still does that, sometimes. Just less visibly, in smeary charcoal in the back of his sketchbooks in the middle of the night when he can't sleep.)

He also hasn't really unpacked, despite the fact that he moved in at the end of August, right before the school year started. It still doesn't quite feel real - having his own place, off campus, away from anyone and everyone that cares about him. It's as freeing as it is terrifying, and Will is sad here more often than he's happy, and none of it can manage to feel permanent. He stopped believing in the permanence of things a long time ago.

He's not going to say any of that to Lucas, though, easygoing smiley Lucas who flew across the country to visit him this week over winter break. Max is with El, and Dustin's doing some fancy internship thing, and Mike- well, Will has no idea what Mike is up to these days. They haven't spoken more than ten consecutive words to each other since 1989, and even when they do it's always in the presence of at least two other Party members. 

It's ridiculous. Will misses Mike. It's Lenora all over again - Will being forced into static silence, no phone calls, no letters, no signs of life, just because he's too afraid to break the possibly-unintentional lack of communication Mike has forced them into.

Unlike Lenora, though, Will knows. It's definitely intentional.

"So what have you been up to?" Lucas asks, struggling to uncork the bottle of wine. "Also, we don't need any of that," he says, waving a hand in the direction of the cabinet, where Will swears he had a couple wine glasses but now cannot find anywhere.

Will closes the cabinets and turns back to Lucas, leaning against the counter and smiling absently, trying to think of any remotely interesting details from his frightfully dreary little life. "I don't know," he says with a shrug, as Lucas gets the bottle uncorked. "I'm taking a sculpture class at school. Turns out I hate sculpting."

Lucas laughs. "Yeah, I could see that. Sensory nightmare."

"Exactly." Will holds out his hands for the wine, and Lucas hands it to him with a grin, stepping away from the counter and wandering aimlessly through the apartment. Will watches him, taking a long swig directly from the bottle as Lucas peers around at the art on the walls, the books stacked on the coffee table - Mike's book is right on top, already cracked down the spine and dog-eared despite only being released three months ago, creased most heavily on the dedication page. It's the closest Will's been able to get to Mike, lately. He doesn't know what any of it means, and why, if Mike was able to dedicate a fucking book to him, he can't pick up the phone and call him. He wonders if any of his other friends even noticed the dedication, if they assumed it was some other person he's dating, if it was maybe a family member instead, or something. He wonders if they asked, if Mike told the truth. He refuses to find out any of these answers.

Lucas doesn't seem to notice, though, settling himself on the couch and rifling through the other books on it. "Ooh, what's this?" he asks, picking up a tattered old sketchbook off the coffee table. "New Byers art?"

"What are you- oh," Will says, eyes widening in horror as he recognizes the cover. Yes, he remembers now, he'd come home after a night out, and he'd been buzzed, and the sketchbook that usually sits shoved in the back of his desk drawer had been taken out into the living room, and- "I- wait, Lucas, don't open-"

It's too late, though; the sketchbook falls open, and Will can see the charcoal drawings from here, the rows and rows of imitations of the same face.

"Don't open that," Will finishes weakly, and his heart rate increases by a thousand percent as he watches Lucas's brows draw together. "Shit," he hisses out through his teeth, and suddenly he's shaking, and his breath is coming in short gasps, and this isn't how he meant to do it, outing himself and Mike in one fell swoop, and maybe there's a way to spin it so he's at least protecting Mike's secrecy, even if his own is pretty much shot at this point-

"Hey," Lucas's voice says, through Will's panicked haze, and there's the quiet thud of the book falling shut and two hands gripping at Will's shoulders. "Hey, Will, breathe, okay? It's okay, you're okay, I got you."

"I-" Will exhales sharply, shaking his head helplessly. Lucas's grip on him tightens. 

"Here, come over here," he says gently, tugging Will over to the couch, and Will focuses very hard on not fainting as Lucas gently pushes him down onto the cushions and sits down beside him. "Breathe, man, you're okay."

Will does as he's told, and Lucas keeps holding onto his shoulders until Will relaxes, slumping back into the couch. "Jesus," he mutters, raising his hands to his face and pressing his fingers over his eyelids, "I'm- I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Lucas says immediately. Will makes a noncommittal noise, and Lucas drags his hands away from his face. "Will, come on, I-" he takes a deep breath, looking him in the eye. "I know, okay? I know."

Will stares at him, shaking his head slowly. "You- what?"

Lucas blows out a breath. "Okay, look, I'm probably not supposed to tell you this, but- a few weeks ago I was visiting Mike, and we got a little drunk and he had a panic attack, and- and he let some things slip. Not on purpose, really, like, he wasn't trying to out you, but he just kept going I miss him over and over, and I pieced it together." He bites his lip. "I'm sorry."

He misses me, Will thinks, a little deliriously. "I- it's fine," he says, and means it more than he thought he might. "Is he- did it go okay, though?"

"Yeah, mostly," Lucas says with a shrug. "We talked for a long time after."

"That's good," Will says, forcing a gulp of air into his lungs, "That's good, I'm glad he- he has you to-"

"Will, I feel like you're not breathing again."

Will groans, falling back against the couch. "God, sorry."

-"Oh! Sorry," Mike yelps, nearly colliding with Will on the basement stairs. "Shit, sorry, you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," Will says, waving him off. He's carrying a glass of water in one hand, hanging onto the railing of the stairs with the other. He'd been headed back to the basement, where the whole Party is passed out after a night of hey-we-didn't-die celebration, and Mike is, apparently, headed in the direction Will just came from. "Where are you going?"

"Water," Mike says, gesturing to Will's glass. Will arches an eyebrow and holds it out, but Mike waves him off. "Nah, I'll get my own. Come with me, though?"

Will smiles shyly, and Mike returns it as he brushes past him up the basement steps.

There's been a lot of this, all day long, ever since Vecna went up in flames twenty-four hours ago. Immediately after it had happened, Mike had turned to Will, tears shining in his eyes, and pulled him into a firm hug, relief palpable between them. He'd whispered an 'I love you' or twenty into Will's ear before they parted, and as soon as they had, chaos had ensued. Everyone's figuring out how to rebuild after the apocalypse, how to cope with not being dead, how to cobble together an adequate celebration in the aftermath, and they've been apart for most of the day since. They've both gone a little shy, it seems. Now that it's not life-or-death, Will wonders where it leaves them with this thing, this desperate thread connecting them. It had seemed - well, maybe not easy, before, but it had seemed a lot more concrete before, in desperate kisses between rescue missions and quiet pockets of calm between battles, in nights where they clung to each other and forgot everything.

That was another lifetime, though, and in this lifetime, Will is back to being a stupid teenager with a crush. He wishes he felt more like one.

"It's weird, isn't it?" Mike asks, filling up a glass at the sink and glancing back at Will, something like amusement dancing in his eyes. 

Will frowns, taking a sip from his own glass and leaning against the counter. "Which part?"

Mike turns around, tipping his head to the side and smiling. "That we're still alive."

Will laughs breathily at that, caught between surprise and nerves and- and love, maybe. "You thought we wouldn't be?"

"I don't know." Mike shrugs. "Maybe. I think I more just didn't think far enough ahead to what would happen if we lived."

"Oh." Will thinks about that for a second, chewing on his lip. "Yeah, I guess I didn't either." He watches Mike take another sip of water, the muscles in his neck tensing, and thinks of pressing his lips to that spot, like he's done countless times in the past couple months, wonders what, exactly, is stopping him now. Urgency, maybe. It's a lot harder to feel embarrassed when you might die at any second, maybe. Mike still has a hickey on his collarbone from three days ago, the night before their final attempt at saving the world.

Will swallows hard, trying not to look at it and almost immediately failing. "So, what does happen now, do you think?"

Mike's eyebrows raise a little, and he sets his glass down, shrugging innocently. "I don't know. We go back to high school, I guess," he says in a soft voice. Will edges closer, then closer still, and Mike's breath hitches as he cages him into the corner of the counter, testing the waters. "Go back to- to normal-"

"Normal," Will murmurs, looking up at Mike with heavy lidded eyes. "Yeah."

"Will," Mike starts, pupils blown and cheeks pinks, "I-"

Will kisses him, cupping his cheeks in both hands and pulling, pulling, pulling, until Mike stumbles forward and his hands fly to his waist, circling around him, and it's so sweet and bruising and familiar, and Will's a little relieved, that the end of the end of the world didn't change much after all.

Not much, except-

"Will," Mike says, gasping away from the kiss only to plant two more on the underside of Will's jaw. "We should- the Party's right downstairs."

"Oh, right," Will says vaguely. "Yeah, sorry, we should-"

"Yeah." Mike kisses Will's neck one more time, then pulls back, looking apologetic. "We should- keep this a secret, right? At least- for now."

Will presses his forehead against Mike's, breathing him in, and resigns himself to loving this boy for the rest of time, even in hiding, in secret. He consoles himself with the thrill of the fact that there's even a 'this' to keep secret. "Yeah, probably."

Mike tilts his face up for one more quick, stolen kiss, then pulls back to grin at him. "Hey, I'm glad you're not dead."

Will snorts. "Right back at you, babe," he murmurs.

Mike holds his hand all the way back down the basement stairs. Will clings to it until the moment Mike has to let go, and even then they settle close together on the floor, Mike scooting his blue sleeping bag closer to Will's yellow one. Will listens to his breathing even back out into sleep, and falls more in love with each rise and fall of Mike's chest.

He can do secret. He's good at hiding.

He's not losing this, at least not until-

Lucas is watching him like he's a bomb that will detonate at any second. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't know," Will says faintly. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you myself."

Lucas rolls his eyes. "Fucking stop saying sorry, man," he says, not unkindly.

Will smiles a little. "Sorry," he says again, just to be a brat.

Lucas laughs, leaning back against the couch and nudging Will's knee with his own. "You can tell me now, if you want. I'll pretend to be shocked."

Will gives him a look. "You don't have to do that."

"No, I'm serious! It'll be fun." Lucas pats his knee, grinning. "Tell me."

"You're so dumb," Will says, but he smiles a little, shifting around to face him better on the couch and crossing his legs beneath him. He's not nervous, because this is Lucas, and Lucas knows, apparently, and saw his pathetic, dreary little drawings and everything, and- and still, Will is a little bit of a coward.

He takes a deep breath and commands himself to get over it. "Lucas, I'm gay."

True to form, Lucas's eyes go wide, and his mouth drops open, and he claps a hand to his chest, faux-scandalized. "You? No," he gasps.

Will rolls his eyes, and the nerves settle a little. "You're a terrible actor."

Lucas's expression drops back into an easy smile. "Thanks. You know I love you, man, right?"

Will did know this, but it's nicer to hear than he thought it would be. He wonders how things would have turned out, if he and Mike had known it could be this easy. If Hawkins had been filled with more people like Lucas Sinclair.

"Yeah, yeah," he says, but he's tearing up a little as he glances away. 

"Oh, shut up," Lucas laughs, and tugs him into a hug. Will yelps, trying to squirm away, but Lucas wraps his arms around his back and holds him in place. "I love you," he says again, and Will sighs, dropping his face onto Lucas's shoulder.

"I love you too," he murmurs back into the fabric of Lucas's t-shirt, and Lucas thumps his back once before releasing him, grinning.

"Are you seeing anyone?" he asks, waggling his eyebrows.

Will grimaces, picking at a loose thread on the couch. "No. I went on a few dates with this guy from work, but it didn't work out, so."

"Aw, why not?" Lucas grins wide. "You should get back out there!"

Will gives him a look. "Have you already forgotten the sketchbook?" he asks flatly, gesturing to it where it sits, innocent, on the coffee table, right next the bottle of wine. He grimaces again, harder and with more feeling this time, and reaches for said wine.

"Well, if you're going on dates, that's at least some progress." Lucas tips his head to the side. "Why didn't it work out?"

Will shrugs. "I don't know. He was nice, but kind of boring." It's true - his coworker, James, is a tour guide at the same museum Will works at, and they sometimes share cigarettes during their breaks and chat a little. James had asked Will out a few weeks ago, and Will had said yes because why not, because he might as well, because who even cares at this point. And it had been sort of nice, in a way, to talk to someone who doesn't know about Will's past, who doesn't look at him with concern every time the weather gets cold, who doesn't question it when Will jumps at loud noises. It had been nice, kind of, to kiss an unfamiliar pair of lips in an unfamiliar city, and pretend to be normal for just a little while.

It had almost been nice. But more than that, it had ached. James had been nice, but he's from L.A. and he likes all the art that Will thinks is pretentious and derivative, and he's never heard of DnD, and distance is nice, sometimes, from the things that Will still hurts over, but those things are irrevocably tied to the things he loves most, too. He's never been good at reinventing himself.

"You're surrounded by art majors!" Lucas exclaims, waving his arms around excitedly. "Surely some of them are interesting."

Yes, Will thinks, but they're not Mike, and that, really is the root of the problem. "Maybe," he allows unconvincingly, mostly just so that Lucas will stop talking about it. "We'll see."

There's silence for a few moments, save for the television playing quietly in the background and the taptaptap of Will's anxious fingernails against the neck of the wine bottle.

It slips out before Will can stop it: "How- um. How is he?" Lucas's eyes dart to him, eyebrows raised, and Will swallows as he adds, unnecessarily, "Mike, I mean."

Lucas's brows draw together in concern, but he smooths his face out quickly enough, always committed to acting as normal as possible in any given scenario. Will wonders how insane he'd have to act to make that calm expression break. "He's okay, I think, I don't know," Lucas says with a shrug, very pointedly not looking Will in the eye. Friends don't lie, Will thinks sourly, and wonders when the last time any of them bothered abiding by that rule was. "He and Max talk sometimes, but she doesn't always tell me what they talk about. I don't know if he's out to her or what, but he's planning to tell the whole Party in a few weeks. The book dedication was a warm-up, I think."

Well, that explains one thing, at least. "You're sure he's okay, though?" Will asks, voice shaking with how much he needs to know the answer, every time he's resisted asking, even in those horrible couple months last year when he and Jonathan didn't see each other and barely talked because Mike was staying with him and Nancy in New York, and Will didn't trust his self-control with Jonathan in such proximity to his favorite least favorite topic of conversation.

Silently, Lucas takes the bottle out of his hands and sets it on the coffee table before Will can drop it on the carpet.

"Yeah, I just said that," Lucas says slowly, which is true, but it doesn't feel like enough. Will needs to know if Mike, specifically, had said whether he was okay or not, or if it was just Lucas's personal observation, and if Mike had said one way or the other had he been lying, and can Lucas even tell when he's lying about something like that the way Will can, and is anyone checking on Mike, because they should be, Mike needs more checking on than any of them have ever really understood, and- and most importantly, Will needs to know if he even wants Mike to be okay in the first place.

It's horrible and cruel of him, but Will is honestly not sure if he wants Mike to be okay or not. Because if he is, at least that means Will can stop worrying about him all the damn time, can stop itching to call him, not even as a hey-let's-reconnect type of thing, just more of a on a scale from that day at the arcade when the Dig Dug machine glitched and let us play for free for six hours to the night of our graduation when you sobbed in my arms for three hours straight, how would you rate your well-being currently?

But if he is okay, there's a higher chance that Mike doesn't even think about anything on that scale anymore, and Will's not sure he would survive that.

Lucas looks like a deer in headlights. "Um- he was dating some girl for a while," he says, wincing, and Will digs his fingernails into his palms and tries not to scream, "but they broke up, and he told me he's gone on a couple dates lately with this guy." He pauses, glances at Will, and makes a face. "Shit, I probably shouldn't have told you any of that, sorry."

“He’s dating a guy,” Will repeats faintly, feeling dizzy. “Oh. That’s- great.”

Lucas squints at him. “Is it, though? You look like you're gonna pass out.”

Will scowls. “Don’t look at me like that. How long have they been dating?”

Lucas shrugs. “Couple weeks. He doesn’t seem that psyched about it, to be honest, but it’s Mike, so who can really tell?”

I could, Will thinks bitterly. I would be able to tell. But Mike won’t talk to him in any way other than cryptic little throwaway lines in the book he wrote about them, so he supposes it’s a moot point.

Mike dating other people was something Will spent a very long time before they dated trying to convince himself to be okay with. He knows it’s unfair and stupid to think, but he’s used to the idea of Mike dating girls. There was a time when he thought Mike ending up with a woman was inevitable. Now he knows better, but it’s still easier, somehow, than the idea of Mike dating a man who is not Will, someone with short hair and a strong jawline and the ghost of stubble when he forgets to shave, and that someone being an unknown man out there in the world who is not Will, who doesn’t know Mike like Will does - did . Will wonders if Mike ever puts a thought to it, the differences between this new guy and Will. If it matters at all to him, or worse, if the new guy is better for him than Will was.

How would you rate this relationship, he thinks, just in case Mike can read his mind from three thousand miles away, on a scale from El to me? How nice is he to you, on a scale from that time I accused you of being bad at keeping our secrets on purpose to that time I called in your favorite songs to the radio for a week straight just because you were stressed about college applications? How reliable is he, and does he even know what your favorite songs are in the first place, or anything about DnD, or that you need to be physically forced to wear your glasses or contacts so you don't bump into stuff all the time, and have you told him about me?

“Will,” Lucas says, sounding mildly concerned. “Will, man, come back to me.” He snaps his fingers in front of his face, frowning.

Will bats his hand away, scowling. “I’m fine.”

“You look like you’re being possessed again,” he says flatly.

“Fuck you.” Will folds his arms, sliding down in his chair. “Do you know anything about the guy?”

“Yes,” Lucas says warily, watching him, “but I really don’t think I should tell you.”

Will sighs, snatching the bottle of wine off of the coffee table and taking a long swig. Lucas has a point, because if he can spin out this far over Mike has gone on a couple dates with this guy, there's no telling where he'd go with more information. He can't imagine what he'd do with it, if Lucas started listing off attributes that were similar to his own, or worse, if this man is nothing like Will at all, and Mike is fine with that. He doesn't know what he'd do if whatever guy that has, apparently, taken Mike out on dates, which sounds rather public if you ask Will, which the Mike of two years ago never would have done, is good and sweet to him, the sort of person who'd never break him so excruciatingly. If mystery guy is, God forbid, a good person.

He and Mike would have died for each other, though, back in the day. They've been to hell and back together. That's got to count for something. More than any lame college student either of them go on coffee dates with ever would.

"That's probably fair," Will says to Lucas, swallowing and wiping his mouth, eyes a little wet around the edges, and Lucas kind of looks like he wants to take the bottle out of his hands again. "Sorry, I shouldn't have asked, I just..." he shakes his head, and all at once he is crying, sniffling pathetically. "Sorry," he says again, compulsively. "I haven't talked to him in, like, two years, I guess I just- wanted to hear one thing." He exhales, shaking his head. "I didn't think he'd stop talking to me completely, Lucas, I really didn't. I thought... I don't know what I thought. I thought I could at least call him sometimes or something, or that he wouldn't swear all of you to secrecy about his life, or-" he stops, biting the inside of his cheek so he can't say the last part: or start dating other people.

It's so strange, to have a whole part of his life existing outside of himself like this, walking around in a dreary city three thousand miles away and not even caring enough to call him about it. Mike has everything, all of Will's firsts, his whole childhood and history, and it's just so strange, to have all of that just disappear. To have someone out there who knows this much about you, and still can't even manage to act like it. It's strange and terrible, now, that every time Will thinks of his childhood it hurts. Every sweet, golden memory - kindergarten, elementary school, every shared lunch and pillow fort in the living room and DnD games played in Mike's basement marred by a bittersweet tint. Will only has himself to blame, for that. He's always been good at tragedy.

"Shit, Will," Lucas murmurs, and sits up, swinging his legs around and scooting closer to him on the couch. "I didn't know it was like that. I mean, I knew you weren't really talking, but..." he shakes his head. "Jesus. I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," Will says softly, then rethinks it and shakes his head. "Actually, it's not. I- I miss him."

That had been half the point of the breakup, after all. Will had wanted them both to heal a little, had wanted them to miss each other and come back from it. He'd thought giving Mike some space would help that. But he never thought Mike would take that space and run with it nearly this far. It had never occurred to Will that he wouldn't know whether Mike was healing or not. And maybe he's feeling a little petty and a little mean, and maybe he's a little tipsy right now and it's bringing out his worst qualities, but selfishly, he hopes that Mike isn't completely fine. He hopes that Mike is better, he hopes that Mike isn't falling apart with no one around to notice or care, he hopes that people are looking out for him, but the tiniest, most evil part of him hopes that Mike still can't shake the feeling of missing Will. That, when he can't fall asleep at night, he pictures Will's face, relives it all for better or for worse. That any time he starts dating someone new, he gets that same feeling that Will does, that sinking knowledge of the unshakeable part of him that still loves the boy from the swing set, the part that won't die no matter how much he tries to suffocate it. He hopes Mike isn't bothering to suffocate it, anymore.

Will wants Mike to be okay, but not so okay that he moves on.

Lucas watches him for a beat, lips twisted contemplatively. "Can I- can I ask something?"

Will nods immediately, hunched in on himself. He'll take any line of questioning, so long as it means he doesn't have to exist in this sad corner of his brain all alone. 

Lucas bites his lip, cautious, and inches a little closer, preemptively offering comfort. "What went so wrong, exactly? I get that it was, like, trauma, and- and being gay in Hawkins couldn't have been easy, but you two were always so- I don't know how to explain it, I guess. It's just, when Mike finally spilled what happened - it just made sense to me. Like, yeah. That's Mike and Will. It wouldn't have occurred to me beforehand, but as soon as he told me I couldn't imagine it any other way." He shakes his head. "That probably isn't helpful, but I guess it- it seems so odd to me, that you could just stop being MikeandWill like that."

"Jesus," Will mutters on an exhale, like the breath has been punched out of him, and Lucas looks immediately apologetic.

"Will," he starts, but Will waves a hand, sitting up a little straighter and taking a breath.

"It's fine," he says. "You're right. It's- nice, actually. Good to know I'm not crazy for wondering the same thing."

Lucas smiles hesitantly, twisting his fingers nervously in his lap. It's obvious he doesn't know how to talk about this, really, and Lucas may have always been the most outwardly empathetic of Will's friends, but he's also always been incredibly awkward about it. It's endearing. Will, suddenly, is glad that it's him he's having this conversation with.

"I guess," Will starts, wondering where he can possibly begin, how to unravel this thread. Mike is maybe the only person in the world who understands the intricacies of their relationship as well as Will does, but Lucas has been there for almost all of it, even the things they didn't show him. That must count for something. "I guess- when we were kids, we did everything together, right? Like, we were basically attached at the hip, and our personalities were different, I guess, but we lined up in all the ways that mattered. So when I was sad, he'd be sad with me, and vice versa, and when one of us was happy the other would be too, and it- it was like we shared all of our emotions, sometimes. And in the beginning, sharing all those feelings meant that we could talk to each other about them, and we understood each other in all these weird ways that wouldn't make sense to anyone else, you know?"

Lucas's lips twitch. "Yeah, I remember. I had to third-wheel you guys all the way up until Dustin showed up, remember?"

Will laughs, swiping at his face, where a few traitorous tears have quietly made their appearance. "Yeah, sorry about that. Anyway, we got older, and- well, I'm not sure which of us started it, but we stopped talking to each other like that. I realized how I felt about him when I was maybe twelve? And I didn't think I could tell him, so I didn't, and then El happened and it just kept getting worse, and all the while he was feeling the same things for me but he didn't know how to tell me either, and it all kept spiraling until Vecna, at which point it was like, fuck it, we're probably gonna die, what's the worst that could happen? So we talked again, and it worked out, kind of, and then we didn't die which was also super great, but by then we were used to having to hide things from each other." Will pauses, swallowing hard, and shakes his head. "You'd think a love confession would fix something like that, right? Like, here I am baring my soul to you, and here you are not destroying it like I thought you would, so- so that should set a pretty good precedent, right?"

"Ha." Lucas shifts, smiling a little ruefully, and pulls a knee up to his chest, eyes somewhere off in the distance. "Yeah, wouldn't it be great if it worked like that?"

Will glances at him, smiling a little, remembering a time when Lucas would frown and worry and mutter to himself over a girl with red hair who is more talented at shutting people out than anything Will has ever seen, when she'd lock herself in rooms for hours and relive her nightmares and Lucas would simply sit outside with his back against the door and wait.

Maybe he should have been patient like that for Mike. Maybe if he had, he would be sitting here with his best friend, who is probably saving up for an engagement ring for that girl now, or at least is thinking about it, and instead of feeling sad and jealous that he's got no one to think like that about, he'd be sad and jealous that the government doesn't want him to be thinking things like that in the first place. Will would take being angry at unfair rules, wedding bands he'll never wear, over being angry at himself. At Mike.

"Yeah," he agrees softly, and digs his fingers into the couch so he doesn't scream. "I just- it was weird, I guess. Because we still had that syncopation, and- and even now I still feel sad at the idea of him being sad, so we were sad and scared together just like always, but there was a step missing. We were-" he swallows hard- "I felt like I was going crazy, and I knew he was going crazy with me, but we were both pretending not to be." He blows out a breath, sinking back against the cushions. "I don't know, maybe that makes no sense. Maybe he didn't feel like that, I wouldn't know. Maybe he's fine telling this- fucking- new person all of that stuff that he made me guess at, which, like, yeah, that would probably be progress, and I'd be happy for him, or whatever, but it just doesn't feel fair that I have to know all this shit and feel all this shit and he might not even-"

"Will," Lucas cuts in mercifully, and there are hands at his shoulders, and Will's breathing, which he's only now realizing had gone quick and panicked, steadies a little. "Seriously, I can't keep reminding you to breathe, it's a basic human necessity."

Will takes a slow breath. "Sorry," he says on an exhale, and Lucas responds by lightly bopping him over the head with a palm. Will lifts a hand to Lucas's other wrist, where his hand still grips his shoulder, and squeezes tight, holding him there. Don't let go, he pleads silently, and Lucas must understand, because he squeezes his shoulder and blinks at him, ever-patient. Max is lucky, Will thinks dimly. He supposes they all are - having someone like Lucas Sinclair on your side is maybe the most validating feeling in the world.

"Okay, look," Lucas says after a moment, when Will's grip on his wrist slackens. He squeezes Will's shoulders one more time, then drops his hands. “I’ll tell you one more thing, alright?”

Will perks up, looking up at him with wide, pleading, pathetic eyes. Lucas smiles. “I’ll tell you,” he says, full of that quiet fierceness that he's always mastered so well, “that nothing about this dude matters, okay? None of it matters, because I know for a fact Mike would drop him for you in a heartbeat.”

Will is not going to cry.

(Will is a big fucking liar, and has already cried twice.)

He takes a breath. “Maybe it would be better for him,” he manages, voice quaking, “if that weren’t true.”

“God, you are such a martyr,” Lucas complains, rolling his eyes. “It’s exhausting. Are you sure you can't just talk to him?”

Will shakes his head. “I can’t. He doesn’t- if he wanted to talk to me, he would have by now.”

“He’s Mike,” Lucas says impatiently. “He’s not capable of doing anything without overthinking it for like three to four years.”

Will snorts. “Not always," he murmurs, thinking of those nights when he'd awake to the sound of pebbles hitting his bedroom window and freeze, momentarily petrified that he was about to be snatched up by some new horror, until a smiling face appeared in the frame of his window, and Will would relax and clamber out of bed to pull Mike through into the room. He'd complain all the while, hissing obligatory reprimands about how Mike was going to get caught, and was he thinking this through at all, and all of the stuff they'd fight about in the light of day but somehow managed not to matter when Mike interrupted him midsentence with a kiss, like the rude little asshole he is. Will misses him in a way he's never missed anything before. He didn't used to think that missing someone could be its own emotion, more the absence of a feeling than anything else, but he was truly and horrifically wrong.

“Most of the time he does, though,” Lucas says, which isn't untrue, so Will doesn't fight him on it. He smiles gently, nudging Will's leg. “Just think about it, okay? I get what you’re trying to do here, but Mike always comes around. Just give him the benefit of the doubt. You don't put this much effort into not talking to someone if you don't care about them. He- he loves you, in one way or another. That's never gonna change."

It makes guilt twist in Will's gut, that familiar ache of oh, I had him and I lost him, he loved me and I broke him, what's wrong with me, but it gives him a sick sort of relief, too. He loves me and he shouldn't doesn't mean he's not always going to be a little bit thrilled by the fact that he loves me.

Will bites hard on the inside of his cheek, fighting tears. "Do you think he's mad at me, though?" he asks quietly. "I didn't think he was when we broke up, but sometimes he- he changes his mind."

"I don't know, honestly," Lucas sighs, fidgeting with his hands, and Will's stomach plummets. "He probably goes back and forth. I mean, don't you?"

Will bites down hard on his lower lip, and a singular tear leaks out of his eye. "It was a mutual breakup."

"Believe me, I know," Lucas says, knocking his knee against him again. "Both of you are very insistent about that. But you were just complaining about how he won't talk to you, and- and don't you get mad, about little things like that sometimes?"

"It's not a little thing," Will says hotly, swiping furiously at his face, "It's been two years. He was my best friend, Lucas."

"Hurtful," Lucas replies, folding his arms, and grins when Will sends him a cutting look. "Sorry, not funny. But you realize you're proving my point, right?"

Will groans. "Okay, yes, fine. I'm mad, sometimes. But more at myself than him, usually."

"Well, there you go." Lucas drums his fingers against the wine bottle. "He probably feels the same."

Will blinks pitifully at him. "You see how that's still really bad, right?"

Lucas smiles. "Yeah, you're right. It sucks. All of it sucks." He sighs, flopping back onto the couch and slinging an arm around Will's shoulders. "You know what, though?" he asks, as Will makes a muffled squeak of misery and leans back against him. "I think you're gonna survive it."

Will folds his arms. "Doesn't feel like it."

"I know." Lucas pats the top of his head, and Will wrinkles his nose at him. "You're being very brave."

"You're so annoying," Will grumbles.

"You love me."

Will sighs. "Yeah," he whispers, more genuinely than originally intended. He tucks his face against Lucas's shoulder, tries not to wish it was Mike's shoulder instead. "I'm glad you're here. And you're my best friend too, by the way."

"Oh, really?" Lucas nudges him playfully. "I'm at the same level as the guy who hasn't talked to you in two years? What an honor."

Will glares at him. "You're not funny."

Lucas grins all teeth. "Sorry. Want to watch Star Wars?"

Will tilts his head back onto Lucas's shoulder with a soft thunk, nodding pitifully. "Yes please."

Lucas laughs, and Will manages a small smile.

June 1992

Mike looks sad today.

Will can't really tell if he's trying to hide it or not - their friends know, this time, unlike those horrible summers before they did, when Mike and Will would sit as far as possible from each other when forced into group hangout sessions with the Party and avoid eye contact and everyone would be too caught up in conversation to notice. Eventually, most of their friends had picked up on the fact that something had happened, and the group get-togethers had slowly dropped off, then stopped entirely when Will had officially come out to them. Add exploding his friend group to the list of things Will feels guilty about, he supposes.

Needless to say, it's been a while since he saw Mike in any capacity, and maybe Will should have known that their siblings' wedding would make emotions run high, but he's stupid, stupid, stupid, and he'd been hopeful. He'd thought maybe Mike would be doing better, and maybe he'd join the rest of their friends and dance with them and have some drinks and smile in Will's direction, and maybe later Will would sidle up to him at the bar and say hey, and Mike would turn to him with that sweet, glowing little smile of his and say oh, hi, and they'd start talking again and this time they wouldn't stop. 

Will's always been a fool.

It's fine, he reasons, downing his third drink of the night and waving to El and Lucas and Dustin, who are dancing a few paces away and beckoning him over. It's not like anyone's having a breakdown. He certainly isn't. He'd smiled at Mike during Jonathan and Nancy's vows and danced with his friends and been perfectly polite and warm. It's not like Mike couldn't walk over here and talk to him if he wanted, but it's not like Will's going to bitch and moan about the fact that he's not, either. Mike's standing in the corner with Max, bitching to her about something, and he's at perfect liberty to be doing so, and he might not look well, necessarily, but he's not sobbing or anything. Weddings are depressing enough for gay people even when their exes aren't present. Will gets it. It's fine. Will's not even wondering what Mike's saying to Max. He doesn't even care if they're talking about him. He's not even thinking about marching over there and shoving Max aside and shaking Mike by the shoulders demanding to know what he's doing wrong.

"Fuck this," Will mutters to himself, and goes to dance with his friends.

It goes great for about a half an hour. Will jumps to pop songs with El and laughs at Dustin and Lucas as they try to slow dance, tripping over each other's feet all the while, and he's not thinking about Mike at all, he's not worried about him and his big, sad eyes, and he doesn't care that Mike's not talking to him, and it's fine, it's fine, it's fine.

After a while, El begs off to go get a drink, and Dustin trails after her, shouting something about needing to use the bathroom. The beat drops, and Will grins at Lucas, sidling closer and running a hand down his bicep. Lucas grins and waggles his eyebrows at him, and Will grins back as he grabs his wrist and pulls him in closer, and it's fine, he's fine.

"You look nice," he says in Lucas's ear as he sways closer to him, a little unsteady on his feet. Three drink Will is a little bit of a bitch, and also a little bit more of a flirt than usual. He has to direct it somewhere, and since Mike is apparently not a good target- "I like your suit."

Lucas's eyebrows lift further, and he visibly presses down a smirk. "Thank you," he says, catching Will by the waist as he stumbles. "How many drinks have you had?"

Will shrugs. "Enough," he says, waggling his eyebrows, and Lucas laughs, waggling his eyebrows right back.

"You're being very subtle right now, by the way," he calls over the music, even as he keeps swaying closer to him, letting Will place a hand at his shoulder.

"Thanks," Will says with complete sincerity, leaning into Lucas's hand on his waist and grinning cheesily.

This is fine. Lucas is safe, and if Will is going to behave like a disaster, better him as the witness than Mike.

Lucas rolls his eyes. "Max is going to come over here and kill you in a minute," he warns.

Okay, Lucas is mostly safe. "She's busy," Will says dismissively. 

"I know," Lucas says, in a tone that Will does not appreciate at all. "She's standing in the corner trying to get Mike to stop acting like a grump, and don't even try to pretend that's not the real reason you're being like this."

"What, you don't believe I genuinely think you look nice?" Will says, blinking innocently up at him. "Hurtful."

"No, I know I look nice," Lucas replies easily, and Will laughs about twice as hard as he would otherwise, curling his fingers tighter around Lucas's wrists. "I just mean that you're like three inches away from kissing me, which, by the way, I will be throwing you off if you try to do. I love you, man, but not that much."

Will sighs and takes a step back, releasing Lucas's arm. "You're missing out," he says, shrugging with one shoulder. "I'm a very good kisser."

"Oh, I know," Lucas says, arching an eyebrow, "I remember the practice kissing in fifth grade, thanks, but your real boyfriend is looking over here, and he doesn't look happy."

Will's eyes dart to the Mike and Max corner, and sure enough, Mike is glaring daggers at the back of Lucas's head while Max tugs at his arm, trying to tear his attention away and looking unmistakably worried. "He's not my real boyfriend," he says to Lucas, a little belatedly, and a lot too wistfully. "I- sorry." He takes another step back, shaking his head. "Sorry, I don't know what I'm doing, I-"

Mike looks upset, and Max looks worried, and Lucas's gaze is steady and all-knowing, and Will doesn't know why he does this, why he tries so hard to pretend that he winds up hurting everyone around him. "Shit," he hisses out through his teeth, and his eyes meet Mike's for the briefest of seconds. Mike visibly swallows, and Will opens his mouth, then closes it again, and Mike turns back toward Max, and Will- Will might start crying. "I'm gonna- bathroom," he says to Lucas, who's brow is drawn together in concern.

"Okay," he says. "Okay, I- Will, I was really just teasing, I-"

"No, I know, it's fine," Will says, waving him off. "I just..."

"Yeah." Lucas gives him a nod. "Let me know if you need anything, yeah?"

"Yeah, thanks, I-" Will gets out, and then he bolts, because he has to, because he cannot stand in this room with Mike fucking Wheeler in it for another minute of his sorry excuse for a life. He pushes through the crowd of well-meaning relatives, past Dustin and El, who are having a very serious discussion over by the bar, and out into the hallway.

He careens directly into a solid mass, and he yelps and jumps backward, looking up to find Hopper smirking down at him.

"Hey, kid," Hopper says appraisingly, looking him up and down in that scrutinizing way he does. "You doing okay?"

Will takes one deep breath, then two, and forces himself to stop there lest he start hyperventilating. "Yeah, totally," he says, completely unconvincingly, and Hopper gives him a look.

"You want to talk about it?" he asks, as Will's heart rate settles a little and he leans heavily against the wall outside the bathrooms, not even caring if his suit gets wrinkled. It's blue. That's Mike's color. He doesn't know why he picked it; Mike's wearing blue too, albeit a different shade. In another life, they might have been matching. 

Stupid. Will can't believe he thought this would be a good environment for a reconciliation. Weddings are known for being overdramatic.

"No," he says, a beat too late, and folds his arms, resolutely staring at the wall. "I'm fine."

Hopper raises his eyebrows. "Don't you think I know when you're lying?"

Will glares. "Don't you have something better to be doing than interrogating me?"

He shrugs. "Not really."

Will groans, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his pack of cigarettes and lighter. At least the lighter is yellow. One fucking thing that belongs to him and not Mike. One habit he didn't get from him.

"You shouldn't smoke," Hopper says idly, leaning against the wall beside him, but he doesn't stop Will as he lights one and places it between his lips. 

Will rolls his eyes. "You smoke all the time."

"I'm older than you." 

Will stares at him, unmoved, and Hopper sighs. "Come on, Will, you're not supposed to indoors."

"Arrest me, then," Will says sullenly, and now he does look at him, glaring right into his eyes as he takes a long, pointed drag. 

Hopper glares back for a long moment, then looks away and sighs again, more pointed and heavy this time.

Will snorts, taking another drag. "Didn't think so."

"Alright, fine," Hopper says, holding his hands up in surrender. "I won't pry. But I do pick up on things, you know."

"Almost like that's your job or something," Will grumbles, and takes another drag.

"Rude," Hopper replies, but he's laughing a little. "Look, if you want me to kick his ass, just say the word."

Will gives him a look. "He didn't do anything wrong, Hop."

Hopper's eyes widen, and he points at him, grinning. "So we're admitting it now? That something happened?"

"Mmph," Will grunts noncommittally, and glances away again, hugging one arm tighter across his chest and lifting his cigarette back to his lips with the other. He tries to take another drag, but his chest shudders a little, and he nearly avoids choking on smoke. He shakes his head and takes a deep breath of clean air. He's talked to Hopper a little about the general idea of the thing, at his mother's prompting, and it's all well and good, and he knows what Hopper suspects, but- he hadn't been able to bring himself to say it. It was hard enough, looking a big, strong father figure in the eyes like that and not expecting violence when he uttered the fumbling phrase I'm- I, uh, like boys.

"It was me," he says in a mumble, back to avoiding eye contact. 

"Yeah?" Hopper tilts his head to the side, looking him up and down. "What'd you do?"

Will shrugs. "Broke his heart."

"Hmm," Hopper hums, and if he's surprised he doesn't show it. It's a little comforting, that one person on this godforsaken planet doesn't think Will is a saint. "Then why are you the one out here moping?"

Will swallows hard. "'Cause I broke mine too."

Hopper releases a slow, quiet breath, and nods once. "I'm sorry, kid."

"Yeah," Will sighs, and he glances back over at him, smiling ruefully. "It's- it is what it is."

Hopper lifts an eyebrow. "And what is it?"

Will shoots him a look. "Complicated."

Hopper's mustache twitches. "Right. Stupid question. Don't let your mom see you smoke or she'll throw a fit, yeah?" He cuffs Will's shoulder, smiling warmly down at him.

"'Course, I'm not an idiot," Will huffs, and Hopper squeezes his shoulder. "Thanks. And- for real, don't be mean to Mike."

"What if he's mean to me first?"

"Dad."

"I'm kidding." He pats Will's shoulder again. "You're a strong kid, Will. I believe in you."

Will snorts. "Thanks."

Hopper gives him a salute and a small smile, and disappears back into the reception hall.

Will leans heavily back against the wall, staring at the ceiling and taking another long drag from his cigarette. There's a sting in his throat, and he can't tell if it's from the smoking or from holding back tears.

He almost wishes he had brought someone with him today, even if it had just been a platonic date. He has some friends, some guys he's dated on and off, plenty of people that would go to a wedding with him. At least then he could pretend. But then he thinks of Mike's face, watching him with Lucas, how ill he'd looked, Max's pinched look of concern. It wouldn't have been worth it, making Mike look like that for a whole night.

He used to try to get over Mike, back before they dated when he thought there was no possibility of it ever working out.

(He thought he’d been proven wrong, that desperate day in the Upside Down when Mike had kissed him for the first time. But as it turns out, they were just as doomed as he’d initially believed - just in a different way.)

He knows there’s no point trying to get over Mike now, though. It was pointless enough even before he had a taste of the real thing. Now that he has, he knows he can’t ever forget how good the good things were. He’s a little bit cursed like that - his foolish heart has a tendency to forget the hurt too easily, and delude itself into thinking the happy was more perfect than it was.

Will knows Mike is the opposite way, though, and it kills him to know it, to be so incredibly aware of how much Mike clings to the hurt Will caused him.

-"You're angry," Will says flatly, hollowly, arms hooked around his knees as he sits back against his pillows, Mike hunched over at the foot of the bed bouncing his leg and avoiding eye contact.

"No," Mike says, like a liar, and doesn't elaborate.

"Yes you are." Will extends a leg, poking his toe into Mike's side. "Babe. Look at me, please?"

Mike sighs heavily and complies, and Will's gut lurches when he sees that his eyes are damp and red around the edges. "I'm not mad," he says again, and it sounds believable this time, but that's bad too, because the alternative to mad is sad, and Will can't take it.

"Okay," he says softly, scooting over to Mike's side of the bed and nudging his arm gently. "Listen, I'm sorry for the shit I said. I don't think you're a coward, you know that, right? If anything, I'm the coward." He lifts a hand up to Mike's head, curls his fingers through his hair and presses a sideways kiss to his temple. 

Mike bites his lip, shakes his head. "You're not," he says, the obligatory contradiction to each of their perpetual contradiction, more reflex at this point than any sort of belief in the fact that it'll change anytime soon. "And I shouldn't have freaked out, about- about Jonathan and everything, you're allowed to tell him whatever you want."

"For the record, I haven't actually told him anything," Will says, not for the first time. "All I said was that he knows, about me, and- and I'm sorry that scared you, okay?"

Mike frowns. "Well, I'm sorry I made it about me. You were right, I was being selfish, and- and maybe I'm not a coward but I do get- weird, when I'm scared, so."

"I know that." Will kisses his temple again. "I shouldn't have yelled at you."

"Yes you should have," Mike says, and Will sighs. He doesn't know how to win this battle. It's hard enough to fight with Mike; it's worse to try to get Mike to stop fighting himself.

"Okay, agree to disagree," he murmurs. "I love you, though. You're my best friend. That's never gonna change."

Mike smiles a little, shuffling his hands in his lap. "You're my best friend too, baby," he whispers, and leans into it a little this time when Will kisses his face.

"C'mere," Will says, laying back on the bed and tugging at the back of Mike's shirt until he follows suit, sighing quietly and settling himself against Will's side. "I'm sorry," Will whispers again, just for good measure, pressing a flurry of kisses to Mike's jaw, "M' sorry, m' sorry, I-"

"Stop," Mike laughs, half-shoving him away, but he doesn't protest when Will wriggles closer, winding all his limbs around him and kissing him over and over. "That tickles, Will."

"Too bad," Will says, nuzzling his face into Mike's neck and squeezing him tight. "You're my favorite person, you know?"

There's a beat of silence, and Will nudges his nose against Mike's neck, peering up at him. He can't see his face at this angle, but he can picture it perfectly. Some complicated array of emotions, starting with self-deprecation and ending with reluctant acceptance, or as close an approximation to it as he can manage.

Mike swallows. "Yeah?" he asks in a whisper, like he doesn't believe it, and Will can't fathom what he's doing wrong, if after a year of Will loving him so completely Mike still doesn't believe it.

"In the whole world," Will confirms, squeezing tighter, and Mike hums appreciatively, threading his fingers through Will's where they rest over his stomach.

He releases a soft breath. "Me too, Will. Always."

Always, Will thinks. What a strange concept. Probably too good to be-

Will is glaring at the wall, blowing smoke up into the air bitterly and wondering how long it will take for Jonathan or his mother to find him out here and reprimand him for it, when the bathroom door bursts open, and a person stumbles out, closing their eyes and taking deep breaths.

Will glances over, glances away again, then glances back and does a double take.

Not just a person. His person, except that it's not, not anymore.

Unfortunately, though, Will is too tired and sad and tipsy to care. "Bad day?" he asks before he can stop himself, and Mike whips around to face him.

Mike looks different, in ways that Will has spent half the night pretending not to catalogue. His face is sharper, hair a little longer, though tonight it's tied back and groomed more than, Will suspects, he'd normally have it. He looks charming like this, dressed in his navy blue suit and tie with his hair slicked back and maybe a little eyeliner ringing his eyes, but the lighting in here is too bad for Will to be able to tell. He looks regal. Put together, even though his expression says the opposite.

"What are you doing," Mike blurts, too loud in the echoey room, and immediately looks like he wants to shrivel up and die. Will can't help but smile a little at the quintessential Mike of it all.

"Getting some air," Will says, trying to force his voice to stay even. It mostly works. He's always been too good at hiding. "Your extended family is kind of exhausting to be around, did you know?"

"I did know," Mike agrees, and settles himself against the wall beside Will, like he doesn't have to think twice about it. Something like hope sparks in Will's chest.

He'd drop him for you in a heartbeat, Lucas's voice says in the back of his head, and Will can't help but wonder if Mike is still seeing that boy, anyway, the one who is not Will, who he wasn't particularly enthusiastic about but told Lucas about anyway. Something tells him no; for one, Mike's face this whole night, devastated and wistful. For another, if Mike were seeing anyone, they'd probably be here with him.

"I don't think you're supposed to smoke in here," Mike adds, as Will lights another one, mostly just for something to do with his hands.

"My stepdad is the chief of police," Will says, deciding to leave out the fact that there's already been a lengthy discussion on this topic between him and said stepdad tonight. "What's the worst that could happen?"

He can feel Mike's eyes on him, can feel the vibration of his soft laugh, can feel the exact moment that Mike tears his gaze away and stares resolutely at the wall. Will quickly follows suit. He will not be weak today. He will not chase after something he was foolish enough to ruin in the first place. Mike is talking to him, and that's better than he expected twenty minutes ago, and it will be enough. It has to be enough.

He could inch closer. It would be so easy. He could say hey, I missed you, are you mad at me, thanks for the book dedication, and do you ever want to break the rules and try again sooner like I do, and he could slip his hand into Mike's. He could do those things. It might kill him, to hear any of the answers, but he could.

He doesn't.

"Something wrong?" he asks instead, when Mike doesn't say anything. He's still staring at the wall, contemplative, and Will can practically hear the gears in his head turning. "Besides seeing me, I mean."

He's aiming for a joke, but it falls flat, probably because it's true. Mike's face had been tight and pained all through the ceremony, when they stood across from each other pretending to be something they weren't. Something like friends, or maybe less than that, or maybe more. What they are now is nothing, nothing at all except a tragedy in a history book.

"My family is exhausting," Mike says quietly.

History, Will tells himself firmly, but continues to self-sabotage when he takes the bait: "Yeah. Jonathan said he and Nancy seriously considered just eloping."

Mike snorts. "They should have. Would have been much less hassle."

Will hums noncommittally, blowing smoke up toward the ceiling thoughtfully. "For them or for you?" he asks, because he is a little bit petty, a little bit cruel, a little bit of his own worst enemy. He needs to know. He needs to peel back the layers in Mike's complicated expression and find the core of the thing; what is it you want? Is it me? Someone else? Something else entirely? Am I still your heart, like you wrote in that book, and if so, why do you treat me like a ghost?

Mike looks over at him, smiling a little, looking almost fond. "Both."

"Yeah," Will agrees quietly, and they're silent again.

Can we just stay like this? For a little while? Mike's voice echoes in the back of Will's brain, the footage of their breakup always most prominent in the montage in Will's brain.

Of course. Of course.

"You know," Will says, with forced lightness, fighting tears, "I never meant for you to stop talking to me completely." He swallows hard. "I miss my best friend."

Mike exhales sharply, and when Will glances over again, he's crying just a little, and desperately trying to pretend he's not. "I- me too," he says, choked up and breaking Will's heart and putting it back together all at once, "Me too, Will, I just... I just- got attached to being both," he continues, and Will wants to hug him, wants to bury his face in his chest and whisper I'm sorry. "Both your boyfriend and your best friend, and I think I forgot how to be just one of those things."

Fuck it. Will is going to at least try, here. He'll hate himself forever if he doesn't, even more so than he already does, and he's already caused so much damage; what's a little more?

He reaches for Mike's hand, watching his face, watching a muscle work away in Mike's jaw as he lets Will tangle their fingers together. His hand is warm and tangible and solid, and it's basically nothing, the touch, but it's been three years without this, and in reality, in Will's brain, it's everything. "Mike," Will says quietly, and Mike meets his eyes. "It's okay."

It is completely, irrefutably not, but Mike doesn't call him out on it. He never does. Will doesn't know why he expected it to be any different, now. Things are always either completely Will's fault or completely Mike's, according to the fights they've had. Mike has always been one to get stuck in black-and-white thinking.

Maybe I can make it better, Will thinks, a little desperately, maybe we can try again and I can explain everything and he'll see, he'll see that it's all just bad timing, and we can be good.

Before he can stop himself, Will reaches up, fingers pressing lightly against Mike's cheek and just barely cupping it. Mike's eyes widen, and he jerks a little, halfway leaning into him like it's almost involuntary.

There's a moment where they're trapped in time, inches from each other but a thousand words caught in the narrow space between their mouths. They stick like that for a second, as they always have been, the line between the way it always is and the way it could be shimmering in the air between them.

Then Mike's hand clasps Will's wrist, and everything shatters.

"Will," he whispers, shaking his head just slightly and looking nothing short of devastated. "Don't."

"I," Will murmurs, and swallows hard. His eyes drop to Mike's lips, and he wants, so desperately, knows it's written all over him, and an age-old shame comes surging up through his stomach. He jerks away, horrified with himself, and stares at Mike, eyes wide. "I- sorry."

Mike smiles at him, then, and it's almost worse. "S'okay. I just- I don't think I can..."

Of course he can't. Will should have known, because Mike is Mike and he is Will and he broke them, so of course Mike can't kiss him now and risk it happening again. Of course Mike is going to cling to that. Of course Mike is going to stick to a rule Will made when he was eighteen and hurting, because he's never once broken a rule Will has made, even when Will tries to break it himself.

They're not exes, because exes don't love each other this much. They're not friends or strangers or acquaintances or anything that can fit in a box. They're just two broken people who ran away to the two loneliest cities in the world, three thousand miles apart, and now they don't know how to bridge that distance.

Will takes a step back, worried that he'll do something stupid if he stays too close. "Two more years?" he offers, with a lopsided smile, thinking please, please, please, don't say this is forever, and Mike laughs, and the world rights itself just a little on its axis.

"Yeah," he says, half-laughing wetly, and Will blushes, rosy-cheeked and pleased and a little bit hopeful. "Yeah, two more years."

"Okay," Will murmurs, and he wants to- wants to hug him, or something, wants to bury himself in Mike if only for a second, but- but he can wait, just a little longer. "It- it was good to see you, Mike."

"You too," Mike whispers, and looks like he means it.

Will walks away then, and forces himself not to look back.

November 1993

For someone who lives all the way across the country, El sure doesn't seem to have a problem with flying all that distance to bother Will every two months.

"Will, you have to eat something," El says for the fourth time, shoving the box of takeout Chinese food in Will's direction across the counter. "I'm not leaving until you do."

Will glances down at the food, quickly going cold and congealed in it's container. His stomach twists. "I'm not hungry."

El sighs. "Will, I know today is hard for you, but it will be easier if you have some protein."

"I'm fine," Will says, in the least convincing tone he's ever used. "It's not even cold outside."

This, besides the art scene and college and whatever it is senior-year Will had cared about, before he lost the one thing he thought would make it all worth it, was one of his primary reasons for moving to L.A.. Unfortunately, he hates the monotony of the hot weather almost as much as he hates cold weather in the first place, because nothing is ever allowed to go his way. 

"Still," El tsks, shoving a fork in his direction and giving him a pointed glare. "You're down today. Please let me help you?"

Will sighs. She's unfair like that, asking questions she knows he can't refuse, especially after she's flown across the continent to see him under the guise of a visit but, more specifically, in order to be here with him for this week, the anniversary. She'd flown out for the anniversary of the breakup in August, too, which is almost comedic when you compare the two events, but in terms of how Will feels about them both - well, it's about on par. 

God, he's so stupid.

He takes a bite of dumpling, glaring at El all the while, and she shoots him a warm smile from across the counter. "I'm fine," he says again around a bite.

"I know," El says, because she is just as much a liar as he is. "Have you tried dating lately?" she asks, peering quizzically at him. "It might be good to put yourself out there."

Will scowls at the counter. "No. I'm not gonna date again until I get a chance to talk to Mike again." It's a vow he'd made, after the wedding - he has to make it right, has to explain himself, has to at least offer one last chance, because they promised two more years, and Will is not going to multiply one self-sabotage with another. It's been a year and a half since he went out with anyone, and within his social circles in L.A. he's kind of famous for being a recluse, but whatever. Will doesn't miss dating as a concept. He misses dating Mike.

El purses his lips. “That's a long time not to date anyone, Will.”

He scowls. “No it’s not. I went sixteen years before I ever dated anyone and it wasn’t that hard.”

El gives him a look. “Wasn't it?”

Will presses his lips together. “I waited for him before,” he points out in a low voice, fighting the tears that are always lurking somewhere in the back of his throat these days. “I can do it again.”

“I don’t care if you can or not,” El snaps, and Will glances up at her, more shocked than offended by her tone. “I care about what’s good for you.” She takes a deep breath, drumming her fingers against the counter, and her voice is thick when she continues, “You- you’ve always been so eager to torture yourself, Will. Why do you think your own happiness isn’t worth anything?”

He takes a breath, counts to ten in his head, stares at a fixed point on the wall behind El’s head and tries not to cry. “El,” he says hoarsely, “do you ever feel like- like somewhere along the way something was fundamentally broken in you?”

Will is very pointedly not looking at El’s face, but he hears her soft little exhale, feels it in the sensitive place between his ribs, where he feels everything, takes it all on too harshly. “No,” El says, very quietly, “I was made broken, remember?”

Will coughs a strangled laugh, and just barely brings himself to meet her eyes. “That’s not- that’s harsh,” he says, because he has to, because placating everyone around him always comes before examining how he himself feels.

“Shut up,” El says, not unkindly. “We are psychoanalyzing you right now, not me.”

If it were anyone else, Will would protest, but when El Hopper tells you to shut up about something, you listen. “I just meant,” he starts, voice thick, “that sometimes I worry that everything with the Upside Down - or maybe even everything before it - took something really- really key out of me, and I’m just, like, short-circuiting all the time. Either I’m stuck, like-”

Like when a Viewmaster gets caught between two slides-

I feel like I’m going crazy-

Hey, if we’re both going crazy, we’ll-

No. Will cannot do this right now.

He tries again; “I’m either stuck,” he says, the words coming out slow and deliberate and with so, so much effort. “Or moving too fast, or- glitching , or something, and everything I do is just slightly off, like- like I can’t even manage to be happy correctly, I mean, Jesus , El, he was everything .” He shakes his head, tears flowing freely again, and he hates himself for it. “He was everything, and what sort of broken fucking person gets everything they’ve ever wanted and somehow manages to talk themself out of it- into thinking it’s not enough , but he was enough, he had to have been, and I don’t know what it was that made it hurt so bad, and I don’t know why I thought this kind of hurting would be better, and-” 

His nonsensical tirade ends, abruptly and mercifully, when the sob that’s been building in the back of his throat tears its way out, and where words were just spilling out of him seconds ago he suddenly can’t manage to say a single one more.

Will breaks down, in a way he hasn’t allowed himself to since the day he broke up with Mike. He’s good at quiet, constant hurt, tears that come easy but don’t last long. If he thought he could exhale all of these horrible, sickening emotions in one fell swoop, the way that Mike used to sometimes when he’d have a big dramatic breakdown and then not shed a single tear for six months after, he’d do it. It would be so much easier for things to work that way, but they don’t, because here Will is breaking down, all of those feelings tearing their way out of him and leaving him bleeding across the kitchen counter, and it’s cathartic and terrible and it might even feel good if he wasn't so incredibly aware that, despite it all, the sadness will still be there tomorrow. This isn’t something he can get rid of by exposing, by just feeling it like his mother sometimes instructs, because he can have all the catharsis he wants and still be unable to change the fact that he does not belong to Mike Wheeler anymore. It’s a piece of glass lodged deep in his heart; when he stands still, it fades to a dull ache, but if he dares move a muscle forward or backward, it slices him all over again.

It almost startles him when a pair of warm arms wrap around him; he’d sort of forgotten that El was there as a tangible human with her own reactions rather than a canvas to scream his pain into. “Fuck, Will,” she hisses, vehement and sharp into his hair as her arms circle him, gripping tightly as he tilts into her chest and desperately tries to cling to the last remaining link to reality she’s granting him.

The phrase, so unlike her but also so uniquely her , would make Will laugh under any other circumstances, but there’s a biting truth to it. El’s bluntness is one of his favorite things about her, that infuriating calm and matter-of-fact intonation like she has the whole world figured out despite not having lived in it for half as long as the rest of them.

Rendering her speechless is a rarity, and while Will is sure it won’t last long, there’s something oddly comforting about that two-word commiseration. Yes, she’s telling him, this does suck, and I’m going to tell you why you’re wrong about some of it, but it’s still terrible and awful and I’m sorry.

He cries in her arms for a long while, El standing quiet and stoic beside him with her chin resting on top of his head and her fingers trailing thoughtfully through his hair. Finally, after what could be hours or days or years, Will lifts his head pitifully, and El locks eyes with him and presses a hand over his stuttering heart until his breaths come more evenly. 

“Sorry,” is the first word out of his mouth once he’s caught his breath. For a second he thinks El is going to tell him to shut up again, but instead she just shakes her head slowly, eyes pooling with a sadness that he immediately feels guilty for putting there.

There’s another beat of silence, and then El nods, coming to some sort of decision. “Okay,” she says, voice soft but stern, “here is what is going to happen, are you listening?”

Will nods pitifully, and she swipes a manicured finger over one cheek, brushing some of his tears away. 

“You are going to start seeing a therapist,” she says, and Will chokes out a strangled laugh, surprised. “I’m serious. It will help. We will find something that helps.”

Will nods again. “Yeah, okay.”

She smiles. “Good. You are also going to answer a question for me, just yes or no: is Mike the love of your life?”

Will blinks, and-

- With a scream and a gasp, Will jolts upright, trembling, tears leaking out the corners of his eyes, and a pair of arms loop around him, a head popping up into Will's line of sight. "What's- shit, sorry, I-"

"It's okay," Mike whispers, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him in sideways, one arm wrapped around Will's middle and the other cupping the side of his head. "It's okay, you were having a nightmare, I got you."

Will leans into him, still shaking a little, but his heart rate slows a little. He reaches up a hand and grips Mike's wrist tightly, holding him in place. Mike kisses the crown of his head, arms tight around him. Will peers out over his shoulder at the digital clock on the bedside table, wincing when he sees the time.

"Eleven fifty-three," he murmurs to Mike ruefully, who makes a soft 'hmm?' sound and tucks his face in beside Will's. "Almost made it the whole anniversary without going crazy."

Mike hums a laugh against the side of his head. "Crazy together." He kisses him again. "You okay?"

Will scoots closer, and Mike accommodates him easily, pulling him further into his lap. "Yeah, I think so. It wasn't as bad as sometimes."

"Good," Mike whispers, rubbing a soothing hand up and down Will's spine. "You want to talk about it?"

Will sighs, settling against his chest. "Nah, it's okay. I feel better already."

"Yeah?" Mike's fingers scratch along Will's scalp, nose pressed against the top of his head. "This helping?"

"Mhm." Will squirms closer. Mike is warm and smells like bodywash and laundry detergent and home, and Will could live here for a very long time, he thinks. "Thanks for staying over."

"'Course," Mike says, and for once there's no tension, there's no fear that it's incriminating, that they'll be caught. Mike is Will's best friend, and tonight is a hard night, and of course he's staying over. There's not a lot more to it, except this; warm kisses pressed to Will's face, solid arms wrapped around him, 'I love you's' whispered into his hair. "Do you want some water?"

Will shakes his head. "No, it's- I'm okay, really. Just- stay? Please? Like this?"

"Yeah," Mike agrees immediately, gentle and steady, pulling Will close to his chest. "Yeah, of course. I'm- I'm glad you're here, you know."

"In my house?" Will teases, even though he knows what Mike means, and Mike flicks his head, laughing a little.

"No, I mean- here." He kisses the top of his head. "Like this, especially. But mostly just... here. There was a time when I thought-"

"Yeah," Will cuts in, mostly so Mike won't have to voice it, that thing that almost happened, the world in which there was no Will Byers, the world in which there was no Mike Wheeler, either, as a near-direct result. "Yeah, I know." He squeezes Mike's arm. "I'm right here, Mike. As long as you want me."

Mike smiles. "Right back at you," he whispers, and curls closer, and-

“El," Will whispers, shaking his head a little, "I..."

El blinks at him, gaze fiery and steady. “Yes or no, Will. Is he the one?"

A tear leaks out of the corner of his eye. “It sounds stupid when you say it like that."

"Yes or no."

Will exhales sharply. "Yes. Yeah, yes, of course.”

“Okay," she says, so matter-of-fact, "in that case, you are going to stop dating other people like you said, because that’s not helping anyone. You are going to have this space from him and let that be okay, and then when you are ready, and not a moment sooner, you are going to fucking call him, okay?”

He laughs again, and it doesn’t hurt his ribcage nearly as much this time. “Hopeless romantic much?”

El shrugs. “I watched a lot of soap operas when Hop had me stuck in the cabin.”

“Fair.”

She smirks down at him, tilting his chin up to look her in the eye with two fingers under his jaw. “One last thing?”

“Yeah?”

Her eyes dart between his. “Don’t give up on yourself.”

Will lets out a slow breath. “Sure thing, boss,” he mumbles, but there’s an undercurrent of sincerity: I’ll try. “How’d you get so smart, anyway?”

El shrugs. “I’ve always assumed Papa made an engineering mistake.”

Will laughs, sharp and loud and- maybe not bright , but genuine. El is magic, like that.

She smiles wide and tugs him into another hug, Will’s forehead knocking into her shoulder and her arms wrapping around his own. “We will fix it together, yes?” she asks, an echo of a promise a million years ago, when she was barely his sister and Mike was barely a friend.

“Yeah,” Will echoes thickly, and it almost feels true.

Chapter Text

Part II. Will the Wise(ish)

April 1994

“You’re being weird,” Jonathan announces, six days after Will’s twenty-third birthday, as he spears a piece of chicken with his fork and waves it accusingly at Will.

Will blinks back at him serenely, his own fork poised halfway to his mouth. Jonathan has been staying with him for a few days, which has been nice. It has also been annoying , because Jonathan being here, sans Nancy, means that he’s been extra attentive about Will taking care of himself, or whatever. Hence, why he’d gone out while Will was still sleeping this morning and brought back two burrito bowls with an absurd amount of vegetables for breakfast. 

“I’m not being weird,” Will says, which is perfectly true - today’s a pretty good day, lectures about nutrition from his older brother aside. He feels good. Twenty-three is shaping up to be a good year, for lots of reasons. The five years of silence between him and a certain someone being officially over in August may or may not be one of those reasons. 

“You are,” Jonathan insists, shoving a bite into his mouth. “You’ve been weird since I got here.”

Will squints. “Do you mean ‘happy’?”

Jonathan shrugs noncommittally. “Sure, if we want to label it.”

Will rolls his eyes. “Happiness is weird now?”

“Not for most people,” Jonathan says, shrugging. “For us, I would say so, maybe. It’s all relative. What I mean is that you’re chipper , which is different than happy, and it’s an odd look on you.”

This is true. Will is many things, but he’s never been one to wear his joy outside himself. Mike used to tease that it was a rare thing, getting him to laugh for real, and he’d prove his point by climbing into his laugh and poking his fingers into Will’s sides until he burst into giggles.

Maybe that’s the sort of thing Jonathan means. Will’s been plagued by memories like that, recently, and it’s a little startling how few of them have been of the uglier times. It’s like a reminiscence, rather than a haunting.

He’s just- he’s just been doing better, lately. That’s really all it boils down to.

“Chipper is maybe overstating it,” he says instead of any of this, examining his burrito bowl. He’s already picked most of the good stuff out of it - now it’s mostly just beans and lettuce. “I think maybe I’m just in a good mood.”

“Okayyy,” Jonathan drawls out, still watching him scrutinizingly. “Why?”

“No reason.” This is also the truth. Just because Will’s been infected with a rare surge of hope lately doesn’t mean it’s justified . He takes a bite, and focuses on chewing as his mouth desperately tries to tilt upward into a small smile. “It’s my birthday.”

“Your birthday was a week ago,” Jonathan says, not unkindly. He nudges Will’s foot under the table, smiling. “I’m not trying to be annoying. It’s just nice to see.”

The stubborn smile breaks through, and Will shrugs, using his fork to pick through the food on his plate for a bite that doesn’t have as much lettuce in it. “Yeah, it is nice,” he agrees quietly. “And it’s still my birthday, for the record.”

Jonathan rolls his eyes fondly. “Based on what?”

“My birthday week ends tomorrow,” Will says primly, fishing a piece of chicken out of his bowl and popping it into his mouth. “I get all of this week, and then it’s-” he stops short, cheeks flaming. It’s my and Mike’s in-between birthday , he’d been about to say, but he’s not going to dredge that up right now. He doesn’t know if he’s still allowed to share that with him, not when they haven’t celebrated it together in so long. Still, Will has never been able to unlearn the part of him that recognizes it as the holiday it is, not when he can still so clearly picture a smiling six-year-old Mike coining it for the first time, firmly declaring that they’d celebrate it every year. “And then it’s over,” he concludes, instead of and then Mike’s birthday starts , which is what he means.

Jonathan knows, though, obviously. “Yeah, right,” he agrees seriously, amusement sparkling in his eyes. “Sorry, I forgot the rules.”

Will gives him a look. “Shut up,” he mumbles, stabbing idly at his meal. 

“I’m not teasing you!” Jonathan says, even though he kind of is. “I think it’s sweet. You should send him a birthday card.”

It’s funny, how easily Mike has become the unspoken him in his life, how Jonathan doesn’t even need to say his name for them both to know what he’s talking about. It’s probably a little pathetic, but it makes sense, in a weird way. “First of all,” he says around a bite, holding up a finger in warning, “remember how you and El agreed not to bring him up unless I did first?” He doesn’t give Jonathan a chance to answer, because it’s not a real question. “Second, it hasn’t been five years, so no. Third , this isn’t even about him, I was just making a point about my birthday being properly celebrated.”

“Uh huh,” Jonathan agrees, smirking and reaching over to nudge Will’s plate closer to him. “Eat your vegetables.”

“I’m curious,” Will says, as he reluctantly spears a leaf of lettuce on the end of his fork and pops it into his mouth. “Did Mom send you here specifically to nag me, or has she just conditioned you into believing it’s your own idea?”

Jonathan rolls his eyes. “Mom doesn’t even know I’m here right now, I’m pretty sure,” he starts, and waits until Will pops another piece of lettuce into his mouth before continuing, “and no , I just care about you.”

“M’ not a baby anymore,” Will says sullenly around a mouthful, and Jonathan smiles. 

“Yeah, you’re not,” he sighs, patting his arm commiseratingly.

Will gives him another look , and Jonathan cracks a smile. “I ate my vegetables,” he announces, pushing his plate away. This is only half true, but Jonathan doesn’t say so, just rolling his eyes and grabbing the plastic bowl, standing and dumping it in the trash along with his own. “Can we go to the record store now? And you pay? For the records? At the record store?”

Jonathan glances back over at him, quirking an eyebrow. “Thought you were an adult,” he points out. “A financially stable one, even.”

“Stable-ish, at best,” Will counters, clambering to his feet and putting his hands on his hips. “And it’s still my birthday.”

“Touche,” Jonathan agrees, and leads the way out the door.

---

“Willllll. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up wake up wa-”

“Jesus, Mike,” Will grumbles, cracking an eye open to glare at his boyfriend, who’s standing in the doorway to his room looking incredibly pleased with himself. “What?”

“That’s not a very nice way to talk to me on my birthday,” Mike hums, tipping his head to the side and letting it rest against the doorframe. “What gives, babe?”

Will rolls his eyes. “Lower your voice,” he says, lifting himself on one elbow and looking him up and down. “Who let you in the house, anyway?”

“Jonathan,” Mike says, still hovering in the doorway like he’s waiting for Will to invite him in, which is ridiculous, because Mike’s number one favorite thing in the world is barging into Will’s room unannounced and flopping on top of him. Conclusion: he’s up to something. “Still waiting for you to wish me a happy birthday,” he singsongs.

Will bites down a smile. “Your birthday isn’t until next week.”

“Oh my God, do you have to make everything so difficult?” Mike groans, finally stepping into the room and kicking the door shut behind him. He steps over to Will’s bed and smirks down at him. “Here,” he says, producing a Tupperware container and a plastic fork from behind his back and presenting Will with it. “Happy in-between birthday.”

Will sits up properly, taking the container slowly and smiling. “Happy in-between birthday,” he says fondly, glancing up at Mike as he pops open the lid. “Is this cake? For me?”

“Mhm,” Mike says proudly, rocking back and forth on his heels. “I made it. Well- Nancy made it, mostly, but I helped. Well- kind of. I was there. While she made it.”

Will laughs, dipping a finger into the frosting and tasting it. “Tell her thank you,” he says, and Mike grins wide, finally clambering onto the bed beside him and tossing his legs over his lap. “What are we doing today?”

Mike widens his eyes innocently. “Why would you assume we’re doing something?”

“Because you’ve never not planned something for our birthdays,” Will says, leaning over to poke Mike in the stomach. “Tell me.”

“You’ve already had a birthday party, asshole,” Mike defends, batting Will’s hand away. “Don’t be greedy.”

“Our friends planned that one,” Will points out, wriggling closer on the bed. Mike stares up at him with a lazy smile, hair fanned out across the duvet. “Not the same. Stop bluffing.”

Mike cracks, making a show out of rolling his eyes and reaching over to steal a chunk of birthday cake out of the Tupperware, popping it into his mouth with his fingers and licking the frosting off. “Okay, fine, we’re going to the quarry for a picnic. But you have to get dressed first, so hurry up, dorkface.”

Will snorts, taking another bite of cake. “You really have an interesting selection of pet names,” he muses, running a hand over Mike’s waist. 

Mike grins, sitting up all at once and tossing a leg over Will, slotting himself neatly over him and planting his hands on either side as he nudges him backward against the pillows. “Baby,” he says, sickeningly sweet, “sweetheart, light of my life- can you please get dressed so we can go?”

“Not like this I can’t,” Will points out flatly, mostly to distract from the growing flush in his cheeks. Mike’s nose nudges against his, eyes wide and imploring - of what, Will’s not entirely sure.

“Hmm,” Mike agrees softly, as Will carefully sets the cake container aside and winds his arms around Mike’s neck, “that is a fascinating conundrum.”

“Sure is,” Will agrees, eyebrows raised. “What are you gonna do about it?”

Mike grins wide and kisses him, and Will decides that this is probably the best birthday he’s ever had.

---

“Have you talked to him lately?” Will asks idly a few hours later, as he thumbs through a stack of records in the back corner. There’s a reason for the don’t talk about Mike unless I do first rule, and it’s exactly this: as soon as he’s mentioned, Will becomes unable to think about anything else for the rest of the day. Otherwise, he does pretty decently - not that he never thinks about Mike, but it’s certainly quieter . A static buzz. Will’s heart had been broken, and maybe still is, but it’s scarred over now. It works, still faintly pumping away in his chest, and he gets by with it, even if sometimes it pinches, or the place where it mended over aches, and it hurts. He doesn’t think it’ll ever be entirely whole again, but it feels better . It’s been such a relief, recently, to feel better. Like that moment after you’ve been sick when you finally realize that you’re not anymore, even if you’re not in full recovery yet. The part where the fever breaks and the nausea subsides and you realize that you’re going to be okay. Maybe that’s why he’s been in such a good mood, these past few weeks.

Jonathan is quiet for a minute, and when Will turns to look at him, he’s smirking faintly. 

“What?” Will asks defensively, turning back to the records to hide his flaming cheeks. “I’m just asking, very casually. How’s he doing?”

“You could call him,” Jonathan points out quietly, sidling up next to him and examining the record closest to him. “See for yourself.”

Will huffs a disgruntled noise, flipping the stack of records with more force than necessary. “No. That’s scary. I’d much rather you tell me.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Jonathan says, in an annoying sing-songy voice, and Will drops the record he’s holding back onto the shelf and turns to glare at him. Jonathan blinks back at him, unaffected. “It’s been close enough to five years, hasn’t it?”

“Four and eight-twelfths is not close enough,” Will mumbles, which is definitely the wrong answer judging by the face Jonathan makes. “I- look, I don’t want to push him, okay? I just want to know . If he’s okay, or whatever.”

Jonathan blows out a breath. “What about you, though?”

“I’m fine,” Will says, shrugging. “I just miss him. Have you read his latest book?”

“Yes,” Jonathan sighs, “but I didn’t fill it with color-coded bookmarks, and- don’t look at me like that, I saw it on your desk- and I’m not moving across a country on the off chance I might see him, unlike some people.”

Will rolls his eyes. He knew it was a mistake to tell Jonathan about his plan, not that it’s even a plan so much as an acceptance letter to teaching school sitting in his desk drawer that he doesn’t have the courage to look at for more than five minutes at a time. “That’s not why I’m doing it,” he says primly, not for the first time. “It’s a career choice.”

“A very convenient one,” Jonathan says skeptically, and then, when Will flips him off, “Look, I’m glad you’re moving to New York, okay? I’m glad I’ll actually get to see you sometimes, and I’m glad you’ll be following your dreams and all that, but I’m also worried about what’s going to happen when you’re living in the same city as Mike while you’re still not talking to him.”

Will pauses, pressing his thumb into the hard corner of the sleeve of a Billy Joel record. “You didn’t tell him I’m moving, right?”

He can see Jonathan’s eyebrows raise in his peripheral vision. He frowns, focusing very hard on the album in front of him, thumb turning red with how hard he’s pressing it against the corner. “No,” Jonathan says slowly, “but- I mean, someone’s going to tell him eventually. If not you, then Nancy or one of your friends.”

Will presses his lips together, staring directly into Billy Joel’s eyes. He doesn’t even like Billy Joel that much, but it’s better to stare at the black-and-white photograph than his brother, with his very real live face and very real live concern and very real live correct points he’s making. It’s annoying. It hurts. “I know,” he says tightly, “but- I mean, it’s not like it’s a completely done deal. I could still defer a year, or not go at all. I shouldn't have even told you about it.”

Jonathan hums, disbelieving. “You wouldn't have told me if you weren’t excited about it.”

Will scowls. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he says hotly. “Remember this morning when I was happy? Let’s go back to that.”

Jonathan makes a soft sound of assent, reaching over and carefully prying Will’s hands away from where he’s near-throttling the Piano Man. “Will, hey, look at me for a second.”

Will sighs, but reluctantly turns to face him, his wrist still clasped in Jonathan’s hands. Jonathan’s smiling faintly, eyes wide and gentle like always, and Will relaxes a little. Sometimes he feels like everyone is trying to crack him open, pry open the cavity between his ribs and fiddle with the organs inside until his heart starts behaving normally again. But Jonathan sees right into the cavity without even trying, and never pushes past. It’s a relief, to say the least.

“I’m sorry,” he says simply, squeezing Will’s hand gently. “I’m just- I just worry, but you’re right, okay? You’re not a baby anymore. I trust you.”

Will blows out a long breath, smiling a little. “Yeah, I know. It’s okay.”

“Good.” Jonathan squeezes his hand again, then releases it. “Hey, have you listened to this one yet?” he asks, grabbing an album off of the shelf, and Will, like always, tucks the word Mike into the dark recesses of his brain to be examined another time.

---

The window is open.

Will is just now noticing, as he lays in Mike’s bed with Mike’s arms looped tight around his waist, face shoved into his shoulder. There’s a summery breeze wafting through the room, fluttering the curtains, ghosting over Will’s bare shoulders as he shifts a little. He’d meant to close the window when he came in, but at that moment he’d been a little preoccupied with the boy on the other side - Mike’s hands in his hair, Mike’s mouth on his, Will stumbling forward into him and forgetting everything else in the world. It’s become a welcome routine in the past few months, since the world stopped ending and Mike kept on loving him anyway.

Now, though, it’s bothering him, the cool air stinging his skin even as he burrows further under the covers and closer to Mike. “Babe,” he whispers into Mike’s hair, gently curling his fingers through it and nosing against the side of his head. 

“Mm,” Mike hums in response, shifting a little and pressing an absent kiss to Will’s shoulder. “Yeah?”

“The window,” Will explains sleepily, still gently petting Mike’s head. “M’ cold.”

“Oh.” Mike lifts his head, blinking blearily over at the window. “Here, do you want me to-”

“I can do it,” Will says, tugging at Mike’s arm where it’s still clinging to his stomach. “Just- have to let go for a sec.”

“Oh,” Mike says again, blushing a little, “right,” and his arms slide away as he falls back onto the mattress. Will hums a laugh and kisses his forehead before slipping out of bed and crossing the room to slide the window closed. By the time he turns back around, Mike has fully usurped the side of the bed where Will had just been resting, covers pulled up high enough that he’s nothing but a tuft of black hair peeking out against the pillow.

Will smiles, something warm blooming in his chest, and sits carefully down on the edge of the bed, tugging the covers back just enough so that Mike’s sleepy eyes peer out at him. “I should go soon,” he whispers, rubbing a thumb over Mike’s cheekbone. “If my mom wakes up and I’m not home she’s going to lose her mind.”

Mike whines, wriggling around under the covers, and one hand snakes out from beneath them and grabs onto Will’s arm. “You just closed the window,” he points out, which, fair enough, is probably sending some mixed messages. “Stay a little longer, please?”

He sticks out his lower lip, pouting, and he looks absolutely ridiculous, but unfortunately he’s also incredibly beautiful, face lit up in the moonlight, eyes wide and dark. Will’s still getting used to having this, to having Mike, a beautiful boy beneath his fingertips and a feeling that’s only theirs to know. 

Will sighs, pulling the covers back further and nudging Mike back onto his side of the bed. “Fine,” he murmurs, his feigned reluctance undermined by the smile touching the corners of his lips. “Just for a little while, though, okay? Don’t let me fall asleep.”

“Mmkay,” Mike hums happily, already settling back onto Will’s chest and slinging an arm back over his stomach. He’s going to be asleep within minutes, Will knows, but it’s fine - he’s fine to stay awake, listening to Mike’s breathing, feeling the gentle rise and fall of his chest where it’s pressed against his own, staring up at the ceiling and committing it all to memory. 

Just as Will is starting to think that Mike has dozed off, he shifts, humming and pressing his face flush against Will’s chest. “I love you,” he whispers, trailing his fingers over Will’s ribcage, absent and affectionate, and Will is struck with the strangest sensation that he’s going to miss this, someday. 

But that’s ridiculous. The world stopped ending months ago. Where would Mike go? 

“I love you too,” he whispers, and presses in closer.

Will shakes away the memory of Mike’s arms looped around his waist and flops down onto the couch, running a hand through his hair as he kicks his feet up on the coffee table. These memories crop up at random times, seemingly triggered by nothing at all, and it would be kind of annoying if it wasn't so nice, to let himself think about Mike a little. Just as a small self indulgence.

“I’m putting on a movie!” he calls to Jonathan. “A normal one, not an artsy weird one!”

Jonathan calls back something unintelligible from the kitchen, and Will ignores it, leaning over and reaching for the TV remote. His hand brushes over a leather-bound book, and he pauses, frowning at it. “Is this yours?” he calls to Jonathan, abandoning the remote and reaching for it. It’s a photo album, he realizes as he flips it open, thick layers of plastic in place of pages. All of the pictures are Jonathan’s - Will can tell by the angle and the style - but he hasn’t seen a lot of them before. They’re all from his childhood, a few here and there of the Party, a couple of Nancy, a random one of Steve, for some reason, with his arm slung over Robin’s shoulders and a goofy grin on his face as he winks at the camera.

He pauses when he lands on one of him and Mike, laid smack dab in the middle of the page. They’re young, maybe ten or eleven, and they’re sitting on the back porch of Will’s old house, a blanket wrapped around both their shoulders as they lean on each other, talking about something and sipping cups of hot chocolate. Will is saying something, and Mike is smiling at him encouragingly, eyes alight and cheeks pink.

Well, if the memories weren’t plaguing him before, they’re certainly rushing back now.

“Jonathan, what’s this?” Will asks softly, smiling faintly as he traces his finger over the line of photo-Mike’s smile, the soft edges to it as he looks at Will. It feels like a vice grip on his chest, how much he misses that sweet little smile, always in his peripheral vision, always when Mike thought he couldn’t see. Younger Mike wears it more openly than Older Mike did.

“Oh,” Jonathan says, appearing from the kitchen and leaning over his shoulder. He grins when he sees what Will’s looking at. “It’s a picture.”

Will gives him a look. “Thanks. I mean, why do you have this? And- when did you take it? And why did you take it?”

“Whoa, okay, slow down,” Jonathan says, holding up both hands in surrender. “I’ve been putting together some photo albums, so I wanted to show you. I took it in ‘82, because I thought it was a good shot.”

Will glances down at the picture again, still failing to suppress his smile. “It is,” He says softly. “It’s nice.” He swallows hard, trying desperately to ignore the tears welling up in his eyes. “My best friend,” he whispers, more to himself than Jonathan, and runs his thumb over the edge of the photo. 

He glances up to find Jonathan watching him intently, a sad little smile on his face, and blushes, clearing his throat. “I- um. Sorry. These are nice.”

Jonathan smiles. “Glad you think so.”

Will looks down at the picture, at his own little eleven-year-old face. He has no idea what’s about to happen, he thinks idly. This version of himself is suspended in time, curled up with his best friend under a blanket and blissfully unaware of any reality in which he and said best friend don’t speak.

He takes a shaky breath. “Did you know about us?” he asks hesitantly. “Back when we were together?”

Jonathan considers the question for a moment, examining the array of pictures. “Not exactly,” he says, scrunching his nose. “I knew you liked him, obviously. Mom tried to ask me about it a few times, and I always told her I didn’t know anything, but.” He shrugs. “It’s hard not to see, once you know what to look for. That’s why I take pictures, you know. I catch stuff that other people miss.” He looks at the picture, then back at Will. “You loved him then, yeah?”

Will laughs wetly, swiping at his eyes. “Yeah,” he says fondly, voice tight as he presses a fingertip against the edge of the photo. “I miss when he looked at me like that. Before we started hurting each other.”

Jonathan looks at him for a long beat, then clears his throat and reaches over to start flipping through the album. “You broke up in ‘89, right?”

Will makes a pained noise, falling back against the couch and pressing the heels of his hands over his eyes. “Yes.”

“Okay, so… oh! Here.” Jonathan grabs his sleeve, tugging him back upright and pointing to a picture. “Look! July 1989.”

Will scrunches his nose, making a show of reluctance as he leans over to peer at the picture. It’s of him and Mike, as eighteen year olds this time, standing in the living room with the Party, all of them talking animatedly about something. Mike’s arm is slung over Will’s shoulders, loosely enough to make it look casual, but in the back of his mind Will thinks they probably fought about it later.

Mike’s face, though, is a different story. Will’s looking at Max, one hand raised in the air as he tells her something, barely aware of Mike next to him. But Mike’s eyes are trained firmly on Will, a lazy smile on his face as he listens to whatever Will’s saying. He looks happy. He looks in love. He looks, for all intents and purposes, exactly like the younger version of himself in the last photo.

“Will,” Jonathan says softly, knocking his knee against Will’s, “I’ve taken a lot of pictures of you guys. Trust me, nothing could ever make Mike stop looking at you like that.”

Will looks at the picture for a long minute, then collapses back against the couch again, groaning. “Fuck. Why do you even have all these, anyway?”

“It’s part of your life!” Jonathan laughs, leaning back and turning toward him. “And you’re part of my life, so I kept them. I figured you might want them, someday.”

Will cracks an eye open, frowning. “You thought we’d stay together, or something? That’s why you kept them?”

“I didn’t think anything, that’s what I’m saying,” Jonathan says, faintly exasperated. “I kept them because they’re important.” He pokes a finger into Will’s arm. “You’re important.”

Will looks at him for a long moment, then sighs and snatches the photo album off of the table. “Fine, I will consider reaching out to Mike,” he huffs, hugging it to his chest. “And I’m keeping this.”

“Fine by me on both counts,” Jonathan says, grinning wide.

---

Will turns the acceptance letter from NYU over in his hands, leg bouncing under his desk. Jonathan’s asleep in the next room, having stubbornly refused to take the bed every time Will’s offered it this week. Will had been planning on going to sleep, he really had, but he’s never been an easy sleeper. And, well. Jonathan trusts him to be responsible, and think things over, and whatever , and the annoying thing about Jonathan’s unyielding faith in him is that Will refuses to let him down, so he’d dug the letter out of his desk and is now sitting here staring at it, weighing every life decision he ever as and ever will make in the palm of his hand. 

He wasn't lying earlier when he told Jonathan that his plan to go back to school isn’t about Mike, because it’s not. He needs a life change, and this fits, it works , and he wants it. The fact that it happens to be bringing him closer to Mike is an added bonus - or, it had been, when he’d originally been formulating the plan. But now that he’s actually here, with the weight of what he’s done sitting idly in his palms in the form of a singular sheet of paper, he can’t help but fixate on the Mike of it all. How it might feel, to be in the same timezone as him again.

This, if he’s going to start admitting things, is probably where the good mood and the memories and the contemplation has been coming from. The knowledge that he could get Mike back, sometime in the near future.

He stares at the letter, the words we are pleased to offer you admission, and thinks about how it’s their in-between birthday tomorrow, which they haven’t acknowledged in five years. Will is twenty-three, and he’s gone almost half his life without Mike Wheeler. He doesn’t want Mike to have to reckon with that fact too. He doesn’t want to show up in New York four months from now with nothing to show for it. He doesn’t want to let another birthday pass without writing Mike a card.

“Goddamnit,” he mutters to himself, and tosses the letter back onto his desk, reaching for a pen and a piece of paper.

Will writes and rewrites, wondering if it’s too much to open with I’m moving to your city, not for you but kind of for you, or if it’s better to clear the air right away so Mike knows what to expect. He wonders if it would be better to call, to beg Jonathan for Mike’s phone number and dial over and over until he gets through, but then he realizes that he has no idea how to even begin a conversation with Mike anymore - how are you, do you miss me, what are you up to, are you seeing anyone, do you hate me. Even the more surface-level questions are loaded when it comes to them. He tears up no less than four pieces of paper.

He finally decides that he’s overthinking it, and that simple is better here. Next, he decides that he absolutely cannot write Mike a birthday card on a piece of notebook paper, and goes in search of proper cardstock.

“What are you doing?” Jonathan asks, startling Will badly enough that he nearly knocks his forehead into the cabinet above the drawer he’s been rifling through. He narrowly avoids it, and turns to glare at Jonathan where he’s propped up on one elbow on the sofa bed. 

“Why are you awake?” Will huffs, folding his arms self-consciously. “You have to get up early tomorrow.”

“Why are you awake?” Jonathan counters, squinting at him. “What are you doing?” he asks again, more accusatory this time.

Will sighs, shuffling his feet. “I was looking to see if I had a birthday card to write in,” he mumbles. “For… for Mike. Because- well.”

Jonathan grins. “Because you love him.”

Will’s gaze snaps back to him, brow furrowing. “Yeah, well, I’m not gonna write that in there,” he grumbles. This, of course, does not mean that it’s not true.

“It would be effective,” Jonathan replies with a shrug. “We could stop at the store on the way to the airport tomorrow.”

“No,” Will says, shaking his head and turning back to the drawer. He rifles through the mass of envelopes and stray blank cards he bought and never used until he finds the one he’s looking for, shoved in the back of the drawer from a couple years ago. “I have one.”

He’s not sure why he bought it, really. It’s a simple blue card with a yellow smiley face that reads Happy Birthday! in cheerful lettering, blank on the inside. Will had seen it at the store a few months ago and grabbed it, despite not having any upcoming birthday events to attend. Maybe, if he’s honest, it’s because it had reminded him of Mike, or a happier version of him maybe, goofy and sweet, and somewhere in the back of his mind he’d thought he should buy it just in case. He’d come home and shoved it into a drawer without thinking about it too hard, but he knows exactly where it is.

“Oh, that’s very Mike,” Jonathan says from the couch - how he has good enough eyesight to see from there, Will has no idea. “You’ve been thinking about this?”

“No,” Will defends, plucking an envelope from the drawer at random and grabbing a pen. Jonathan just looks at him, and Will sighs as he opens the card and clicks the pen a couple times. “Maybe. I’m not actually sure,” he allows, which is the absolute truth. He spends so much time fighting off thoughts of Mike that he’s not actually sure of the details of what those thoughts are.

Very aware of Jonathan’s eyes still lingering on him, Will takes a breath and writes out his message before he can think better of it - happy birthday, thanks for the book dedications, here is my phone number, done. He signs love, Will without even thinking about it, and pauses for a solid minute to reconsider the words.

“Jonathan,” he says, voice wavering, “I-”

“I’m sure whatever you wrote is fine,” Jonathan says, flopping back onto the sofa bed and tugging the blankets higher up over himself. “Go back to bed.”

Well, Will thinks, staring faintly down at the word ‘love’, it’s not like it was a secret.

He slides the card into the envelope, and fights a smile as he slinks back to his room.

---

The next week is, to put it lightly, hell. Jonathan goes back to New York the following day, under strict instructions to not tell Mike about NYU, seriously, I mean it , to which he replies that Will is sorely miscalculating the amount of contact he actually has with Mike, and Will makes a face at him. He gets Mike’s address from Jonathan before he leaves and writes it down on the envelope, marveling at the simple string of numbers and letters and wondering if it would be faster to just show up at Mike’s apartment and beg for forgiveness instead. By the time he gets up the nerve to send it, it’s five days out from Mike’s birthday, he’s feeling a little dizzy with it, the actual, real tangibility that he could hear from Mike again, assuming Mike doesn’t tear the card into shreds or burn it or something equally damning on sight.

He doesn’t think Mike would do that.

Mike probably wouldn't do that.

He’s on edge all week, jumping three feet in the air and scrambling to answer every time the phone rings, only for it to be a telemarketer or someone from work or, once, Jonathan checking up on him again. Will tells him that yes , he’s fine and yes, he sent the card, and no Mike hasn’t called yet but please stay out of it, I swear, Jonathan, it’s all fine either way . Which is blatantly untrue, because Will is on pins and needles imagining everything that could go wrong - the card not getting delivered, Mike throwing it out without even reading it, or worse, reading it and then throwing it out, face screwed up in disgust like it used to do whenever he was told to eat vegetables or do his homework or listen to anything Hopper said ever. Jonathan probably knows exactly what Will’s thinking, but he trusts Will, or whatever, so he doesn’t push the matter.

By Friday, Mike’s birthday, he’s so stressed about it that he’s almost forgotten to be stressed about it, in a weird sort of way, like a vague buzzing in the back of his mind that simultaneously crowds out every other thought and is so constant that you have nothing left to do but push through it anyway. It’s like how it was with all things Mike, in the beginning, when Will couldn’t blink or breathe or think without seeing his face, hearing his voice, remembering the steady beat of his pulse under Will’s thumb when he’d reach over to tangle their hands together. That feeling has never really gone away, but Will’s tolerance to it has changed, at the very least. 

The birthday card thing heightens it, though, that’s for sure.

He’s blessedly distracted by the fact that Friday is terrible. He has a shift at the museum with James, the guy he went out with three years ago who still won’t take the hint that he’s not interested, and spends most of his day both a., fighting him off and b., explaining dumb paintings to tourists over and over and over again. His misery is only compounded when, at the end of his shift, his boss, a shrewd old man named David who Will kind of really hates, calls him into his office.

“Will,” David says, when Will sidles nervously into his office, fidgeting with his hands. “Sit.”

Will sits. “Is there a problem?” he asks, already knowing there is - David always has a problem with something, usually something stupid. He thinks Will has an attitude problem, which Will finds funny for two reasons, the first of which being that everyone in L.A. has an attitude problem, and the second of which is that clearly David has never met Mike Wheeler.

“No,” David says, with forced lightness, “but I’ve noticed you slacking off again recently. Is something going on?”

Will grits his teeth. “No.”

David squints at him over the rim of his glasses. “I know this isn’t the most glamorous job,” he says, “but it’s a good jumping off point into the art world, and I don’t feel that you’re utilizing it to your full advantage.”

“Are you going to fire me?” Will asks, a spike of panic spearing his stomach. Much as he dislikes this job, it’s not completely unbearable, and it pays decently, which he really needs right now. 

“No,” David says, voice perfectly even, “but I just want you to consider stepping it up a little. You’re good at your job, I just need more focus from you.”

“Okay,” Will says meekly, swallowing and digging the toe of his shoe into the carpeted floor. He doesn’t like David - he’s condescending and pretentious and makes a habit of gaslighting employees into thinking they should be working harder than their salary indicates - but he also doesn’t like getting reprimanded, particularly by people that have authority over him. It takes him back to a place he doesn’t care to remember, fathers yelling and mothers crying and, further down the line, shriveled entities with claws for hands snapping their fingers and breaking his friends’ bones. “Sorry,” he adds, because he has to.

“It’s okay,” David promises, but his tone is still terse, and Will has to dig his fingernails into his palms to keep his composure as he exits the office.

Will spends the commute home envisioning what it would be like to quit, get a job he actually likes, live somewhere closer to people who give a shit about him. He thinks of the acceptance letter and the birthday letter and Mike, smiling at him in a reception hall at their siblings’ wedding, and nearly avoids swerving into traffic.

He’s bone tired by the time he gets home, kicking off his shoes and sighing heavily as he idly flips through his mail and leans against the counter. He almost doesn’t register it at first when the phone rings, and when he does, it’s with a faint groan and great effort that he makes himself set down his stack of mail and the stale bagel he’d been picking at and moves the five feet across the kitchen to answer.

“You know,” a voice says on the other end of the line, so painfully familiar that Will almost doesn’t recognize it, “it technically won’t have been five years until August.”

Will nearly drops the phone.

As it is, he fumbles with it for a moment, everything suddenly dizzyingly off-kilter, and squeaks something incoherent into the empty apartment. Once he’s collected himself, still holding the phone out away from himself as he pumps his fist in the air and twirls around in a little circle, mouthing he called over and over to absolutely no one, he takes a shuddering breath and presses the receiver back to his mouth. 

He lets out a very smooth, suave chuckle that very much does not sound like a squawk , and leans heavily against the counter, arranging himself into a very casual position on the off chance it will make him feel less absolutely insane. “Hello to you too,” he replies, and tries very hard to sound like he’s not utterly thrilled about it.

“Sorry,” Mike says, a smile in his voice, which makes Will feel slightly better about what a dork he’s currently being, “Hi. Hello. How are you?”

Will laughs again, warm and giddy. “I’m good,” he says, and finds it isn’t a lie - all the poison of the day he’s had, hell, the past few years he’s had, has evaporated upon hearing Mike’s voice. He’s good. He’s great. He’s the best he’s ever been. “Some creep keeps dedicating all his books to me, though.”

“Fuck you,” Mike replies, so sweetly that Will thinks he might pass out, “you can’t prove that.”

“Agree to disagree,” Will says, and then immediately winces - he used to say that a lot, now that he thinks about it. It used to be something he used against Mike, when he wanted to shut down an argument. Shut Mike down. Maybe he should have written down what he wanted to say first. “And, uh, hey,” he tries again, trying to blow past it, “if you want to wait until August, then-”

“No!” Mike squeaks, and Will laughs, relieved. “No, now is fine. Now is great , and- happy late birthday, by the way. I would have sent you a letter or something if I knew I was allowed.”

Oh. Will swallows hard, taking a slow breath. He tries not to picture Mike, standing by the phone in his own apartment, maybe with his own stack of unsent birthday cards only a few drawers away. He always thinks of Mike on his own birthday, wonders if he remembers it or is thinking about him at all, but somehow the confirmation is worse. “You’re always allowed,” he replies carefully, and is proud of himself for not letting his voice waver too much. To be fair, it’s true - Mike’s the one who set up those boundaries. Will tried to kiss him one time two years ago and has been paying penance for it ever since. “But- thanks,” he adds, a little belatedly, and swallows back the bitterness. It’s not fair to either of them to stay mad, at either himself or Mike. He just- he missed him. He missed Mike so much that it made him hate him a little, sometimes.

“Of course,” Mike says softly, and Will remembers that he doesn’t actually hate him, not now, not anymore. Not ever, really, no matter how much he wanted to. Maybe that’s the part he really hates. “Did you do anything special?” Mike asks, and it takes Will a second to remember what they were talking about. Birthdays- that’s it. How many of each others’ they’ve missed.

Will takes a deep breath, releasing the poison again. He’s calm, he’s collected, he’s not as haunted as he once was. He’s still overjoyed that he has Mike on the other end of the line. He will not spend this conversation battling a version of Mike that doesn’t exist anymore, a version who-

-is sitting on the end of his bed, shoulders hunched, and Will is trying to figure out the last time he saw him smile. A few weeks ago, probably. At least one week ago. Definitely not since before November 6th. Will hates that the anniversary affects Mike just as much as it does him.

“Do you want to talk?” he asks softly, fiddling nervously with the edge of Mike’s duvet cover. He’s been here since last night, and Mike’s barely said a word, not even when he bolted upright in the middle of the night with tears streaming down his face, gasping something vague about a nightmare before insisting that he was fine, that Will should go back to sleep. Will had reluctantly obeyed, so he doesn’t know if there were more nightmares after that, but he’d awoken with Mike’s ear pressed over Will’s ribcage, right over his heart, which seems like answer enough. 

He hadn’t pushed before, because he hadn’t wanted to accidentally make it worse, but now Mike’s just sitting there, at the end of the bed where he’d scooted after waking up, staring at the wall blankly and not looking at Will.

“Not really,” Mike answers eventually in a raspy voice. 

“Okay,” Will murmurs, hugging his knees to his chest. He wants to scoot closer, to wrap Mike up in his arms and press kisses all over his face until he cracks a smile, but he’s not sure Mike won’t push him away if he tries. He’s not like Will, who clings to him so hard after his own nightmares that he’s embarrassed by it, who cries freely and constantly and has a whole team of people who, even two years after the apocalypse, still spend half their lives worrying over him. “Anything I can do?”

“I don’t know,” Mike replies, like he always does - Will’s never entirely sure if it’s because he’s too nice to say no, thanks, I don’t want your help at all, or if he’s just too scared or too proud to ask for help, or if he just genuinely doesn’t know. 

“Okay,” Will says again, swallowing back the lump in his throat. He extends one leg out from beneath the covers, nudging his foot playfully against Mike’s arm. “I love you.”

Mike sends him a cursory half-glance, the ghost of a smile crossing his face. “Love you too.”

Will takes this as permission to crawl over to him, running careful fingertips over the line of Mike’s shoulders and dropping a kiss to the back of his neck. Mike barely reacts to the touch, simply turning back to face the wall again and biting his lip. Will sits on his heels, still rubbing slow circles into Mike’s shoulders, and nudges his nose against the side of Mike’s face, kissing along his jaw.

“Will,” Mike says after a minute of this, in a resigned, sad tone, “You’re very sweet, but-”

“But what, Mike?” Will asks, pulling away and staring imploringly at Mike’s profile. Mike is visibly trying not to look at him now, which is somehow even worse. “I’m not asking you to spill your guts or anything. I just want to be here for you.”

“You are here,” Mike points out in a low voice. He pulls his knees up to his chest, squinting at Will’s painting, hung on the wall across from them. Will hates that painting, sometimes, hates what it represents; a lie, a moment of weakness. He wishes they’d started this thing off more honestly. Maybe then Mike would fucking talk to him. 

“I know,” he murmurs, trying his level best not to sound as frustrated as he feels. “But I mean, like.” He sighs. “Just let me help you,” he begs, in his softest voice. “I want to help. You help me, when I-”

“No,” Mike interrupts flatly, and again Will’s not sure if it’s a no meaning no, I don’t want you to help or no meaning no, you can’t. “Just… please, Will, I can’t…”

Will huffs out a slow breath. “Sometimes I think you just want to be miserable,” he says quietly, watches Mike’s shoulders tense with the blow.

Mike doesn’t contradict him. He doesn’t say anything at all. Will waits one, two, three beats, then sighs and settles down on the bed beside him. “Okay,” he murmurs, defeated. “We can just sit here, then.”

He leaves his hand palm-up on the mattress between them. Mike still won’t look at him, but he takes it anyway.

Will swallows hard. This Mike sounds nothing like that Mike, he reminds himself. This Mike sounds happy, calm and pleased on the other end of the line, laughing and spilling words out faster than Will can keep up, actively trying to let him in rather than shutting down, shutting him out. He takes a breath, switching the mental film reel in his mind in the direction of the good things - birthday cakes in Tupperware containers and warm kisses in the summer night, laughter and soft smiles and a boy’s hand in his own.

Those were good things. This is a good thing.

So Will starts talking. He talks about El, about himself, a little, and asks after Mike, and listens and tries not to cry as it’s confirmed over and over; Mike does not hate him. Mike is not mad. Mike is happy to be talking to him, sounds overjoyed, actually, so Will is too. Mike’s happiness has always been infectious, even more so than his sadness, and Will would much rather focus on the good than the bad right now. He has to remind himself they’re both better, lest he fall apart.

He continues to breathe out the poison, and lets himself smile.

May 1994

“What’s wrong with you?”

Will jumps a little at the question, glancing over at James, who is standing across from him in the exhibition room at the museum. Damn, he must have spaced out again. He’s been doing that a lot - spacing out, glancing at the clock, smiling to himself randomly. It’s becoming a little bit of a problem.

Calling Mike back, after that first hesitant, giddy phone call, had been the single scariest thing Will has ever done in his life, including fighting Vecna. Not the hardest - that was breaking up with Mike - but the scariest for sure. But he’d made himself do it, because he knew Mike would expect him to, because Mike is skittish like that, and now they talk almost every day. This is great, and wonderful, and amazing, but it makes the last hour of his shift at work absolutely excruciating.

Will glances at the clock again. It’s seven o’clock in New York right now. Maybe Mike is sitting down to dinner. Maybe Mike is out at dinner, with someone. With someone . Will assumes Mike wouldn't be talking to him if there was a someone , but he’s never specifically voiced that one way or another. Will has been intermittently worrying that Mike thinks Will only wants to be friends, and it’s an especially prominent concern in moments like these, where he can’t pick up the phone and call him, and is instead forced to stand around at work wondering what Mike is doing with his day. Not that he’s opposed to just being friends, of course, but that’s definitely not his end goal. Although-

“Will.”

Will blinks, James’ pinched face coming back into focus. “You good, man?” he asks hesitantly, extending a hand as if to steady him, despite Will having given zero indication that he’s actually off balance. One of these days Will’s going to have to figure out how to reject this guy for real.

“Um, yeah,” he says tightly, and fights the urge to glance at the clock again. “Sorry, just spacing out.”

“Okay, well, space back in,” James says, a little derisively. Will, not for the first time, remembers why they didn’t go out more than a few times. “We have a tour in ten minutes.” He squints at him again, looking him over. “Seriously, though, you look insane. Is something wrong?”

“No, I’m fine,” Will says tightly. He glances at James, then at the painting he’s working on hanging up for the exhibit, which only qualifies as a painting because there is technically paint on it - a singular, near-miniscule blue dot in the dead center. Will hates it. “Hey, can I ask you something?” he asks, as James steps back and squints at the painting, presumably checking that it’s hung evenly. 

“Sure,” James says neutrally. “Can you ask it while you help me hang up this next one, though?”

The next painting is the exact same as the first, only with a green dot in the center instead of a blue one. Will sighs, and steps over to pick up one side while James grabs the other. “If, hypothetically,” he starts, very carefully keeping his eyes trained on the frame of the painting as he lifts it, “if you had an ex who lived in a different city, and you were planning on moving to that city, would you tell them?”

James frowns. “You’re moving?”

“Hypothetically,” Will restates, leveling him with a glare as he gets the left side of the painting hung on its hook. “Do you think you’d, like, owe it to them, or anything?”

“No,” James snorts, getting his side of the painting hung and stepping back to survey it. “Why would they care?”

“I don’t know,” Will muses, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. What if James is right? What difference would it make to Mike, really, knowing that Will’s moving to New York? All it changes is proximity. It doesn’t fix them . “Not even if you were on speaking terms with them?”

“Well, maybe in that case,” James says with a shrug. “I don’t think it would be a super big deal either way, though.”

Well, clearly James has never had an emotionally scarring relationship with his childhood best friend that he’s spent the last five years wondering how to rekindle. He’s probably better off for it, honestly. “Okay,” Will says dubiously, and switches from biting his lip to biting his nail.

James eyes him. “You’re moving?” he asks again.

“Maybe,” Will replies distractedly, eyeing the clock again. He needs to talk to Mike. Not about moving to New York, necessarily, just in general. He’s going to go insane if he doesn’t hear his voice in the next sixty minutes. “Not until, like, September. Probably. I don’t know.”

James hums noncommittally. “Why?”

“Getting a teaching degree,” Will says, and then, wrinkling his nose, “whatever. Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

“You’re weird,” James sighs. Will doesn’t bother arguing.

“James sounds annoying,” Mike says, exactly one hour and fifteen minutes later. Will had called him immediately upon entering the apartment - he’s still in the button-down he wears for work, the collar starting to suffocate him a little. He undoes the top button, smiling into the receiver. For all he worries, about everyone and everything but mainly about Mike, it all evaporates when he hears Mike’s voice. He’s cried from relief over it at least three times since that first phone call, almost a month ago now.

“He is,” Will agrees, undoing another button and trying to kick off his shoes without undoing the laces. “I kinda feel bad for him, though.”

“Because he likes you?” Mike says snidely, and Will bites down a grin at his tone. It’s almost too easy to make him jealous. Maybe it makes him a slightly terrible person, but he’s glad he still can. He’s glad Mike still cares that much. “That’s his problem.”

Is it your problem, too? Will wants to ask, but that’s kind of bitchy, so he doesn’t. “Yeah, well,” he agrees vaguely.

Mike hums a laugh in his ear. “You’re too nice,” he chides gently, but Will knows he doesn’t mean it. Mike, of all people, knows exactly how not nice Will can be. “Tell him to fuck off.”

“No,” Will says, finally getting his shoes off and sinking to the floor, the phone cord stretching to accommodate him. He stretches his legs out on the floor and lets his head fall back to face the ceiling. “That’s mean. Tell me about your day?”

Mike laughs again, a warm sound. “Flawless segue,” he praises, and Will grins. “Um, I don’t know. I’m trying to come up with ideas for my next book. Now that the trilogy is over I have to start from scratch.”

“Hmm,” Will hums, drumming his fingers against the floor. “Are you going to write another memoir?”

“I- hey, the trilogy is not a memoir,” Mike squeaks, but he’s still laughing a little.

“No, but basically,” Will says with a shrug.

“Yeah, okay,” Mike sighs. “I don’t know, I guess that’s sort of part of the problem. I’m not really sure where to start with this one.”

“Well, you could use your life as inspiration again,” Will points out, “just, maybe differently this time. Take a real-life situation or feeling or something and put it in a crazy sci-fi world.”

Mike hums. “What situation would I use? That I’m talking to my ex-boyfriend again?”

Will smiles, wiggling his toes against the cool linoleum floor. “I mean,” he says, as loftily as he can manage, “if that’s the most interesting thing happening in your life right now, sure, use that.”

“Oh, it’s by far the most interesting,” Mike replies easily, and Will can hear the grin in his voice.

That’s another thing that’s been happening - the flirting. Will knows Mike must see it for what it is, but he can’t tell if there’s any real meaning or conviction behind it. It’s driving him a little bit crazy, but only when he thinks about it too hard. This whole thing unravels the second he thinks about it too hard.

“Good,” he says instead, and it is.

---

He’s running.

There’s vines grasping at his ankles, thrashing with each pounding step he takes, and he can feel the sharp sting of Upside Down spores in his lungs. Mike’s hand is in his, but he can feel him slipping, can feel him struggling to keep his sweaty fingers locked around Will’s as the vines circle his legs.

“Will,” Mike gasps, and he sounds scared - Will’s been getting more and more used to it, seeing Mike scared, but it’s moments like this when it strikes a chord. When Mike’s blind conviction falters, Will knows it’s time to panic. “Shit, it’s-” his voice is cut off as he lands on the ground with a thud, the vines claiming him, and Will cries out as he’s yanked down and backward along with him.

“Mike!” he cries, scrambling to clutch at Mike’s hand, his wrist, any part of him that he can reach as they’re dragged across the forest floor, Mike’s gasping cries and wails breaking free as the vines circle his waist. His arms wind around Will’s waist and this, at least, is a minor consolation, Will thinks. If they die today, at least they die like this; clutching each other in an alternate dimension.

“Will,” Mike gasps into his chest, kicking his legs and fighting with the vines, as Will thrashes around trying to free himself while still keeping a grip on Mike. Eventually, Mike stops struggling and buries his face in Will’s neck, muttering incoherently to himself as the vines slither up around them, biting into skin and constricting organs.

Will stops fighting it too, clutching Mike closer and dipping his face down to squash against Mike’s. It’s only now that he hears what Mike’s whispering: “I love you, I love you, I love you,” over and over like a prayer.

Will takes a deep, shuddering breath, and prays with him.

Will shoots upward with a gasp, clutching one hand to his chest and fisting the sheets with the other. He’s sweating, hair plastered to his forehead, and it takes him a minute to calibrate before he can fully place where he is: 1994, not 1988. Los Angeles, not Hawkins. His own apartment, not a forest in the Upside Down.

Usually, this sort of information centers him after a nightmare, but to be fair, his nightmares usually aren’t this real anymore. They’ve faded with time, but once in a while the flashbacks will still overtake him. Those are by far the scariest - not the ones where his subconscious vaguely pulls together aspects of his worst fears, but the ones where a memory plays in perfect detail. He can’t tell himself those ones aren’t real, because they were .

He presses his forehead against his knees, taking a few deep breaths, but it’s too dark in here even with the fairy lights strung up throughout his room. He’s alone. He’s always alone.

Will is dialing the phone before he has time to think about it, curling the cord around his wrist and tugging anxiously on it. He continues taking deep breaths with each ring of the phone line, slowly but surely coming to his senses as he glances at the clock. It’s almost midnight, which means it’s almost three in the morning in New York, so Mike almost certainly isn’t awake. Still, just the thought of talking to him helps, and Will takes a shaky breath as he leans back over to his bedside table, ready to hang up.

“Will?”

Oh.

The sound of Mike’s voice, rough around the edges but real and present and there, makes the tears that have been collecting at the edges of Will’s eyes since he woke up finally spill over. “Mike,” he manages, halfway around a sob, clutching the phone back to his ear and cradling it. “Hi, I’m so sorry, I know it’s late, I-” he swallows hard, exhaling sharply and swiping away a few stray tears. God, he wishes Mike were actually here with him. He misses the way Mike used to hold him in moments like this, the way he’d wrap his arms around him and press a hand over his heart, rubbing circles into it until Will found his breath again. He misses the way Mike would kiss the tears away, sweet and light and gentle, the soft reassurances he’d murmur to him until Will drifted back to sleep, ear pressed against Mike’s chest. 

Will takes a breath. “I had a nightmare,” he tries again, hating how childish it sounds, how his voice breaks on the last syllable.

There’s a shifting sound on the other end of the line, and Mike’s voice is steady when it crackles through the phone again.

“Okay,” Mike murmurs, voice warm, “Okay, hey, it’s okay. I’ve got you, yeah? Just breathe for a minute.”

“Sorry,” Will says again, gripping the phone tight, twisting his hands in the sheets as more tears spill over. “Sorry, I shouldn't have- I-”

“Will,” Mike says, firm. “It’s okay . Just breathe.”

Will pauses mid tirade, exhaling shakily and swiping more tears away from his face, embarrassed by them even though Mike can’t see. “Right,” he whispers. 

Mike hums a warm little laugh into his ear. “It’s okay, ba- Will , you’re okay. Here, just- breathe in for five and out for five, okay? I’ll count.”

“Okay,” Will whispers meekly, and takes a shuddering breath, gripping the phone tight as Mike, true to his word, counts to five, then back down to one, and again and again until Will stops trembling quite so violently. He closes his eyes and pictures Mike, tries to conjure the feeling of his arms around him again, the gentle press of his kisses, the cadence of his voice around the word baby - which, for the record, Mike is dreaming if he thinks Will missed that slip just now.

They’re silent for a moment, Will’s breathing soft but steady and the quiet sounds of Mike shuffling around in the background. 

“Better?” Mike asks softly after a beat, hesitant but hopeful, and Will nods before remembering that Mike can’t see him.

“Y-yeah,” he says, smiling a little. “Yeah, thank you. Sorry to wake you.”

“Not a problem at all,” Mike replies easily, so breezy that Will almost forgets to feel guilty. “I was up anyway. Late-night editing and whatnot. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, it’s- it’s fine,” Will says, one hand still pressed against his flushed face. “It wasn't even that bad of a nightmare, honestly, but I guess- I guess I just felt more lonely about it than usual.”

“Oh,” Mike whispers. “Well, uh. I’m glad I could help, then. You- you know you can call me whenever, right? I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night, I just… I don’t know, I like being there for you again. I- I wish I’d been better at it when I had the chance.”

Will exhales a watery laugh, leaning back against his pillows and keeping the phone pinned to his ear with one shoulder and readjusting his blankets with the other hand. “You were plenty good.”

“Mmph,” Mike grunts, noncommittal, and Will can hear the scratch of his pen against paper in the background. Will wonders what he’s working on. “Sure.”

“I’m serious!” Will says, laughing a little so he doesn’t feel like crying. “You- the communication thing was not great, I’ll give you that, but you were always so sweet to me.” He swallows. “You are sweet.”

Mike makes a sort of squeaking noise, and Will grins. He wonders if Mike’s blushing. He, stupidly, hopes so. “I- okay, well, I don’t- okay,” he says meekly, and oh. Oh, Will loves him.

Christ. There’s no way this ends well. 

“What are you working on?” he asks, rubbing a thumb back and forth over the handset, imagining doing the same with Mike’s face, feeling his warm skin beneath his palms again. It’s a lot harder to block out how much he wants Mike, misses Mike, when it’s the middle of the night.

“I took your suggestion,” Mike says, a smile in his voice, “I’m writing what I know.”

“Oh?” Will asks, voice scratchy. His grip on the phone tightens - what else could Mike possibly have to say about them? About him? “And what’s that?”

Mike doesn’t answer right away, the soft scratching of his pen against paper the only sound filling the silence. Then, in a move that in no way actually answers Will’s question, he replies, “It’s about two boys who run away together. To- space, specifically, but, you know. The premise is personal, at least.”

Will’s thumb pauses its motion across the phone, and he frowns. “You,” he starts, and frowns deeper. “But we never…”

“Ran away? I know,” Mike laughs. “Well, I guess technically we did, but not together.”

“Right,” Will says faintly. “Are you saying you wish we had?”

“Not exactly,” Mike hedges. The shuffling noises of the papers in the background pause momentarily. “But there was a time when I wanted to, so I’m drawing from that.”

“But…” Will stares blankly out at the wall opposite him, the fairy lights making odd patterns of light across it, turning the shapes of his paintings long and stretching. “We were always gonna go to different colleges,” he points out, a little desperately, still trying to make sense of it. 

“I know,” Mike replies, “because that’s how it ended up panning out, because you wanted to go to California and I wanted to go to New York and neither of us were gonna stand in each others’ way. But I’m talking about, like, before all of those decisions were made. Like- I’d originally thought about us going to the same college, or skipping college and just getting an apartment somewhere and figuring it out from there. Or during the apocalypse, I’d always picture what would happen if we just took Hopper’s car in the middle of the night and drove until we were out of Hawkins. And then, like, before before, when we were kids, I’d always fantasize about breaking you out of the house and running away with you into the forest and living out our lives as- hobbits, or something, I don’t know.” Mike pauses, and Will can practically see him scrunching up his face like he always does when he’s only just realized how much and what he’s just said. Mike is always the last person to process his own word vomit. “I guess,” he murmurs, sounding mildly embarrassed about it now, “I didn’t really ever picture living the rest of my life without you until I had to. So that’s what I’m writing about. The way my twelve-year-old self thought things would turn out.”

“Oh,” Will breathes softly. He’s long since stopped trying to stem the flow of tears down his face - they’re collecting at his chin now, dripping onto the blankets below. “Mike, you never told me any of that.”

“I didn’t tell you lots of things,” Mike points out in a low voice, “but to be fair, I thought that one was implied.”

Will shakes his head slowly, swallowing hard and trying to get his brain to start working again. “I guess- well, I guess I thought that way too,” he allows, Mike lets out what sounds like a quiet sigh of relief on the other end of the line, “All I ever wanted was to play DnD with you for the rest of our lives, and- at first, I assumed we’d still be able to, after college.” He takes a breath. It’s been a long time since he allowed himself to go back to that place - being twelve and thirteen and fourteen, wanting so badly for it all to be over so he could just have his life back. Have Mike back. Sometimes he can’t believe how badly he let his younger self down. 

He clears his throat. “Anyway, I guess… maybe by the time it all actually happened I was pretty used to things not going the way I wanted, so.”

Mike snorts. “Yeah, true.”

They’re both silent for a minute, Will listening to the sound of Mike’s breathing and thinking about how revolutionary it is, that they’re even alive to have these heartbreaking conversations. He wonders if they’d still have imploded if they had actually run away together, or if it would have bonded them more tightly, forced them to be more honest.

“Sorry,” Mike says eventually, a bit thoughtfully. “That probably didn’t make you feel better.”

Will huffs a laugh. “Well, I’m not thinking about my nightmare anymore.”

“Small victories?” Mike offers, laughing a little now too, though it sounds watery. Will wonders if he’d teared up too. 

“Yeah,” Will agrees. “Yeah. You should let me read some of the book, when you have a draft of it.”

“Come visit me and maybe I will,” Mike goads, and Will laughs again. Mike’s been saying this at least once a day since he first made the offer, a couple weeks ago now. Will has no idea how serious he is about it. “You should get some sleep,” he adds after a beat, voice gentle.

Will hums, already readjusting to lay back down against the pillow, the phone pressed to his free ear. “Read to me?” he asks around a yawn.

Mike inhales sharply, though Will’s not sure what about - maybe it’s his voice, too soft and sweet, or the request, too familiar. He’s not sure how to stop hurting Mike with the memories of what they used to be, but he’s too tired to worry about it now. “Yeah, ‘course,” Mike replies quickly. “Mine or someone else’s?”

“Either,” Will mumbles, eyes already drifting shut. “Actually- no. Yours. Please?”

“Okay,” Mike whispers meekly, and his voice softens as he shuffles around some pages in the background. “It was almost midnight when I pulled the car around…”

---

“Will!” Mike practically yells in Will’s ear the second he picks up, a few days later. Will had fallen asleep listening to Mike read his story the other night, and when he’d woken up a couple hours later, Mike had still been on the line, quietly shuffling papers around in the background.

Why wouldn't you just hang up? Will had reprimanded sleepily, laughing a little. 

I liked knowing you were there, Mike had replied in a sheepish mumble, and Will had laughed again and thanked him and finally convinced him to hang up, if only because he knows neither have the kind of money to be paying that sort of phone bill on a regular basis. It’s left him feeling all funny, though, the quiet honesty of it, a simple kind of caring. I liked knowing you were there , not so different from the days when Will would let Mike fall asleep on his chest so he could hear his heartbeat, remind himself that Will was present and alive and breathing.

Will winces at the volume of Mike’s voice, laughing a little to himself as he spoons microwaved mac n cheese into his mouth. He’d been in the middle of dinner when Mike called, but given that dinner had really only entailed fake cheese products and television, he’d picked up. 

(Also, he would have picked up even if dinner had been a five-course gourmet meal and he’d had ten guests in the apartment, but whatever. What Mike doesn’t know won’t kill him.)

“Hi,” he says, swiping at a smear of spilled cheese on his t-shirt. “You sound happy.”

“I’m veryyyy happy,” Mike agrees jovially, followed by a thunk on the other end of the line and a muttered “shit.”

Will squints at nothing in particular, pausing with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Are you drunk?”

“Yes!” Mike exclaims, pleased that Will has puzzled it out. “And- ow , fuck, since when are all these shoes here?”

Will narrowly avoids a laugh, shoving more mac n cheese into his mouth instead. “Are you okay?”

“Mhmmm,” Mike confirms, “I made it all the way to the kitchen.”

“Oh, good job,” Will replies, shoving more pasta around with his fork. “I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks,” Mike says, though it’s unclear if he’s actually picked up on Will’s sarcasm or not. “I’m in the hallway now.”

“Where were you before now?” Will asks, a little hesitantly. He’s not- he doesn’t so much think that Mike was out with anyone in particular, but it makes his insides twist a little, thinking of Mike out at a bar, drinking, possibly getting hit on by strangers and maybe flirting back. He wonders what would happen if someone asked Mike out now, if he’d say yes even after reconnecting with Will. He hopes not. He wouldn't, in the same situation, but he’s always been far too willing to give things up if it means getting more of Mike.

“I was at a bar with Max and Lucas,” Mike says, then burps. Will’s shoulders relax a little. “I think Max’s tolerance is higher than mine, which is weird because she’s, like, tiny. She got mad when I told her that, though. Said five-three isn’t that-” he burps again- “isn’t that short.”

“Everyone is short compared to you,” Will points out, smiling a little. “You’re a giant.”

Mike makes a petulant sort of whining noise. “Nuh uh. I’m normal.”

“Yeah,” Will agrees seriously. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Uh huh,” Mike promises, as Will takes another bite of mac n cheese and listens for any more sounds of struggle from the other end of the line. He, weirdly, wishes he was there so he could help Mike get into bed safely. “M’ changing into pajamas, but it’s hard because my arms aren’t connected to my brain anymore.”

Will snorts. “Just take it one step at a time, then,” he says gently, settling deeper into the couch cushions and taking another bite. 

Mike makes a hum of assent, and it’s quiet for a few minutes save for the sounds of Mike shuffling around on the other end of the line. Will listens, smiling faintly as he mindlessly watches the muted television across from him. 

“Okay,” Mike says after a few moments, sounding significantly less chipper now. “I did it.”

Will grins. “Good job. How are you feeling?”

“Bad,” Mike whines. “All the moving made my stomach hurt. And now m’ tired.”

“Aw, I’m sorry,” Will comforts, holding back a laugh. “You should go to sleep, Mike.”

Mike grunts, displeased, and there’s more shuffling in the background. “Nooo. I wanna talk to you.”

Will rolls his eyes. “Okay, fine. At least lie down, though, yeah? I won’t hang up until you’re ready.”

He tries not to think too hard about how quickly Mike complies with this offer, letting out a pleased sound and a meek little “okay”, followed by more shuffling and then a muffled thump . “I did it,” he murmurs again, a little more uncertainly this time, like he’s seeking validation. “Talk to me now?”

“I am talking to you,” Will reminds him, though not as teasingly as he might otherwise. “What do you want me to say?”

“Mm, I don’t know. Tell me something,” Mike says sleepily on the other end of the phone. He sounds sweet like this. Will imagines lying next to him, arms wrapped around his waist, listening to his breathing in the dark, mostly so he doesn’t go crazy.

Will hums in response, setting his fork and his now-empty mac n cheese dish on the coffee table and leaning back. “About what?”

“I don’t know. Anything. You keep saying you miss me,” Mike mumbles through a yawn, and Will’s stomach tightens. “Tell me how.”

Will laughs breathily, vaguely uncomfortable. “Um, I don’t know, Mike,” he huffs, fiddling with the edge of the throw pillow beside him. “I miss you lots of ways. Less, now, but.”

“Tell me one way,” Mike pleads, voice soft around the edges with exhaustion, and it’s a sound so sweet that Will would have to be made of steel to refuse him.

“I guess,” he starts, taking a deep breath, “I missed knowing things about you. Like, I’d always think about how if something happened to you - good or bad - I’d probably be the last of our friends to know, and I'd have to hear it from someone else, and-“ he exhales sharply, fighting to keep his voice even and smiling wryly. “I hated that.”

Mike hums softly, sympathetically. Like he knows what Will means, like he feels it too. It’s comforting, in a sad sort of way. “Well,” he whispers, and Will can hear the faint sounds of him readjusting, maybe tucking his face further into his pillow. “I promise if anything interesting happens to me now you’ll be the first one to know.”

Will hums a quiet laugh, even as a stab of guilt pierces his abdomen. Here Mike is, promising him honesty, while Will’s still holding back. He still hasn’t managed to tell Mike about NYU. “Really? Not, like, Lucas or Dustin or anyone?”

“No,” Mike insists, “s’ you. Always.”

Will’s breath hitches. He imagines what Mike must look like right now - face rosy from alcohol and mouth beginning to slacken with sleep. His hair is probably all mussed up, splayed across the pillow, his limbs all bent at weird angles and eyes wide and dark. Will imagines he’s there with him, watching his expression for any hint of- of anything, really, imagines flattening a hand over Mike’s mass of curls and tucking a few behind his ear. Waiting for him to fall asleep, then dipping forward to press a kiss to his forehead, right between his eyebrows where his usual scowl would have softened as he fades into sleep. 

Will sees it like a series of problems, really; first, that he and Mike are so damn far apart, second, that they have mountains of baggage to unload, and third, that they aren’t dating. If Will solves the first problem, maybe he could solve the others.

“Good,” he whispers into the phone, running a finger over his bottom lip. The phantom feeling of Mike’s kisses is something that faded from Will’s muscle memory long ago, but now he can almost feel it again; the way Mike used to lean in during quiet, tired moments, nudging their noses together and tilting his face up until their lips met softly. 

“You- you should go to sleep, Mike,” he manages, despite what he promised about staying on the line. His throat is tight with the usual burning bittersweet regret, but something else too. Something like hope, which he knows can hurt too, but in this moment it’s so, so very nice.

“Yeah,” Mike agrees in a mumble, and Will can hear him yawning again. “Will- w’you call me tomorrow?”

“‘Course,” Will replies, dimly wondering if Mike will remember this conversation tomorrow. He grips the handset tighter, like he can hold Mike close through the phone. “Bye, Mike.”

“Bye, babe,” Mike murmurs, and something white-hot jolts through Will’s stomach at the name. Mike’s drunk, he reminds himself - he doesn’t know what he’s saying. He’s reverting back to something, back to a person who kissed Will in the dark and called him baby and did not live three thousand miles away from him. “Love you.”

Will’s throat tightens again, hope threatening to claw its way up his throat, through the phone lines and all the way to where Mike is laying in bed in his own apartment, oblivious. And it’s all still true, about how Mike is drunk and lonely and without his usual reservations, but it’s also true that he’s honest when he’s like this, and Will, despite everything, believes the two words that Mike utters as easily as breathing, believes it because he phrases it as two rather than three, like it’s casual, like Will already knows, because he does.

“I love you too, Mike,” he whispers back, Mike’s snoring already sounding from the other end of the line. 

Will hangs up, and sleeps through the night without a single nightmare.

June 1994

Will cannot believe that this is the way his life turned out.

First of all, this room is absolutely sweltering, because whoever is in charge of it does not believe in investing in air conditioning and is also definitely bending some fire codes squeezing this many people in here. That’s what you get for telling L.A. socialites that an event is “exclusive”, apparently. Will bets that not one single person here actually gives a shit about the art.

To be fair, they’re right not to - he’s at an event at a local gallery, where he and James are supposed to be scouting out new artists for the museum, but all of the art here sucks, is the problem. It’s along the same lines of the collection of tiny dot paintings, only these are worse, because they’re all black and white. Which Will might not have a problem with, except that they’re also boring , and there’s not even a splash of color anywhere to soften the blow.

Okay, so maybe he’s had a couple of the plastic cups of wine that are being served. Whatever. Technically he’s not working, so it’s fine.

“You look miserable,” James says, appearing from somewhere to Will’s left and smirking. He’s dressed a little nicer than usual, wearing pleated dress pants along with his usual button-up, which is buttoned wrong. Will deigns not to mention it. “Something wrong?”

Will doesn’t answer right away, simply looking him up and down and glancing away. “I’m going to New York on Friday.”

James’ eyebrows shoot up. “Since when?”

“Last week. It’s just for fun. There’s an exhibit at NYU that I want to go to, and I want to tour the campus. And…” he takes a breath. “Never mind, sorry.”

“You’re flying halfway across the world for an exhibit?” James asks, glancing around at the guests around them. “And you’re stressing about it right now… why?”

“Yes,” Will answers in response to the first question, because it’s easier than the truth, which is that he’d found out about the exhibit, and subsequent tours of the campus, and thought thank God, an excuse . “And- I’m just thinking about this job.”

“Ah.” James rocks back and forth on his heels, looking vaguely hopeful. “You’re having second thoughts about moving, then?”

No, Will thinks, the exact opposite . He looks back at James - James with his fake tan and too-straight teeth and ever-present agenda, even years after he and Will dated. He’ll be sad when Will leaves, and Will feels bad, but he also knows that the second he’s gone James will be angling for his job, or finding a way to use his absence to his advantage. He’s just like all these other museum goers in the room now - using a latent interest as a jumping-off point for, what? A shot at a slightly better job? Connections to slightly better people? It all seems pointless to Will. He wonders if, in all their conversations, James has actually remembered anything important about him, or bothered to read the subtext, or cared one way or another about what it is Will wants.

“No,” he says finally, with a tight smile. “I’m moving. I’m just thinking about the logistics.”

James looks vaguely disappointed, but to his credit he doesn’t say so. “Oh. Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Will says, doing his level best not to sound annoyed. “I don’t have somewhere to live, for starters.”

“What, you don’t want to live in the dorms?” James asks with a snort, and Will would laugh along with him, if he found it funny. Unfortunately, he doesn’t, and there’s only so much people-pleasing he can do in his life before his supply runs out.

“No,” he says instead, aiming for the most amiable smile he can manage. “I have to find an apartment, I guess.” He swallows hard; he hasn’t called Mike yet to tell him about his New York trip , much less his move there. He wonders if Mike will let him stay with him while he’s there this week, or if that’s too big of a step. If Will’s assuming too much by thinking that a few phone calls mean that Mike is ready to have him in his home, inescapably, for days on end. Come visit doesn’t mean come stay in my house . It could, and maybe Will would be granted some plausible deniability, if he just showed up on Mike’s doorstep with a duffel bag - you said to visit, I’m visiting - but it’s also Mike , and every would-be normal sentence out of his mouth can always mean about fifty different things than anticipated.

James gets a weird look on his face and opens his mouth to speak, but before he can there’s an arm being thrown around Will’s shoulders, jostling him around.

“Byers!” a voice cheers, and Will wriggles out of their grip to find Stacey Thompson grinning widely at him. “Good to see you, man.”

Will smiles weakly. Stacey was part of the group of art students he used to hang out with in college, and every once in a while she shows up somewhere to make his life more difficult. “Hey, Stace.”

“Some exhibit, huh?” she says, completely serious, as she glances around at the paintings - if you could call them that - hung up around them. “Alan’s super into this artist, he’s been dragging me to all her exhibits for like a month.”

Alan has been Stacey’s boyfriend for three years, for reasons Will can’t quite discern. He also, coincidentally, once made out with Will for half an hour in the hall closet of a dorm party, and has avoided him like the plague for two years since. Will hates him more for Stacey’s sake than his own.

Stacey and James chat for a few minutes about the art, as Will leans against the wall and conjures up a mental image of Mike, what he’d be doing if he were here right now. The same as Will, probably - leaning against the wall, arms folded, judging everyone, only he’d be much more vocal about it. James is annoying , Phantom-Mike declares, eyebrows scrunched together. He looks like he fell out of a J. Crew catalog, and not in a good way. I’m not even sure he’s a real person.

That’s mean , Will thinks at him, biting down a smile, not even caring how crazy he is, that he’s talking to a made-up version of his ex-boyfriend instead of just sucking it up and making small talk like a normal person. 

It’s true. And Stacey’s a brat. She thinks having a nose ring and pink hair means she’s interesting, but she’s not.

That’s even meaner.

True things sound mean sometimes, I don’t know what to tell you. She’s not special. I could totally have a nose ring.

You shouldn't.

No, but I could. Phantom-Mike glances over at him, smiling lazily. The image of him is a little blurred in Will’s mind’s eye, half of a projected memory of what he looked like the last time Will saw him, the rest a collection of ideas of what he might look like now. More freckles, maybe, broader shoulders, eyes a darker shade of brown. 

Will misses him, in the purest technical sense. It hurts to not know him, to not have a perfect idea of what he looks like now, to only recognize his voice through the crackle of a telephone line.

I miss you too, Phantom Mike says, because it’s Will’s imagination and he’s at liberty to say such things. More than these assholes ever would , he adds, nodding to James and Stacey.

Will follows his gaze thoughtfully. It’s true - even when they were all a group of friends in college, the deepest conversations they ever had were about homework assignments and midterms and what their plans were after graduation. Will has probably told Mike more about himself in the two months since they reconnected than he’s told James in the entire time they’ve worked together, including the two weeks that they dated.

“Byers.”

Will starts, blinking rapidly as Stacey waves a hand in his face, arching an eyebrow at him. “Hmm?”

“You were zoned out,” she snorts, as he swats her hand away. “Something wrong?”

Will doesn’t appreciate her tone - condescending and a little pitying, like how Owens used to talk to him before he realized that Will wasn't entirely crazy. He smiles tightly. “Nope.”

“He’s thinking about how he’s gonna ditch us all in the fall,” James says with an eyeroll. 

This was, actually, sort of what Will was thinking about, but he keeps his mouth shut about it, just smiling pleasantly as Stacey whips around to look at him, mouth falling open. “You’re leaving? Where are you going?”

“New York,” Will says, and feels a stab of guilt - technically, it’s not confirmed or anything, and he should probably get around to telling his real friends and family and longtime love interest about it before he tells his- acquaintances? - about it, but he does get a sick sort of satisfaction when Stacey’s eyes widen in shock. “I’m going back to school there.”

“Seriously?” Stacey shakes her head, looking him up and down. “I gotta admit, Byers, I kinda thought you’d stay here forever.”

Will bristles. “Why’s that?” he asks, as evenly as he can manage.

She shrugs. “You’re very habituated ,” she says. “I figure you make a lot of decisions based on outside influence.”

“Jesus, Stace,” James says, wrinkling his nose. “Way to be subtle about it.”

“You agree with her?” Will asks, arching a brow, doing his level best to pretend he thinks this is funny, because it is, sort of. They aren’t wrong , exactly, but it doesn’t feel great to be pigeonholed by people who have never once bothered to ask him about his personal life.

“I mean, I wouldn't say it like that,” James says, shifting from foot to foot nervously. “You’re just a very consistent person, that’s all.”

Consistently there to be walked all over, is what he means - and he’s right. Everyone always expects Will to be there , to be quiet and sweet and available. He’s always taken for granted in that way.

Not by Mike, though. Not anymore.

“Good for you, though,” Stacey muses, drumming her manicured fingernails against her hip as she looks at him appraisingly. “It’ll probably be good for you. Change of scenery and all that.”

Neither of them have said whether they’ll miss him, Will notices. This is probably fair; he won’t miss them either. But still.

“Yeah,” he agrees, smiling more to himself than to them now. “Yeah, I think so too.” He makes a show of glancing at his watch, and sighs. “Shit, I have to get going. I’ll see you around, guys.”

He gives them both a wave, and they wave back vaguely, already locked into a new topic of conversation, barely noticing how obviously he’s trying to escape from them. It’s almost laughable, how forgettable Will is to them - someone they judge and analyze and forget about as soon as he’s out of sight. Will used to think it was freeing. Now, he thinks it’s sad.

He steps out onto the street, a cool breeze wafting through the air as he inhales and takes a minute to collect himself. Phantom Mike appears beside him, more a glitching image than anything else at this point, and grins. Come visit me , he says, an echo of Real Mike’s voice on the phone, several times over now.

Will laughs, arching an eyebrow at him. “Okay, Wheeler,” he whispers to the empty sidewalk, as Phantom Mike’s slender frame fades away into the night, “you’ve got yourself a deal.”

---

Will has maybe lost his mind.

That’s the only explanation for why he is here, sitting on a plane a full two days before he’d intended to leave, with no plan for what happens when he lands other than Mike, Mike, Mike. He thinks that hearing Mike say I love you to him again, that drunken night on the phone, might have permanently robbed him of the ability to be objective about anything for the rest of his life.

He’s staring out the window, bouncing his leg rapidly as he watches the plane taxi across the tarmac. He has maybe two minutes to change his mind about this, and even then it would be a long shot - would the stewardess let him off the plane if he claimed a medical emergency? How could he fake something serious enough for that?

The truth of the matter is that it doesn’t matter, because he’s not going to take it all back now. He’s had plenty of opportunities to back out, from the time he woke up this morning and looked at the clock and thought I’m going to go see him to the time he got to the airport to the moment they called his boarding group. He’s probably making a bad decision, or at the very least an ill-informed one, but it’s already been made by now. He’s going to see Mike, and he’s going to look at Mike’s beautiful face and talk to him in person and he’s going to figure out what happens now, how he can get him back, whether Mike wants him to, and he’ll have more to go on than just a disembodied voice on the other end of the phone to tell if Mike is lying about it one way or another.

“You don’t need to worry, dear,” says a voice to his left, and Will jumps, glancing over at the woman sitting in the seat next to him. He’d been so out of it that he hadn’t even noticed her sit down. “It’s all very safe.”

Will stares at her blankly - somewhere around the time he lost his fucking mind, he must have also lost the ability to speak normally. 

The woman, who looks to be in her late sixties and is wearing a silk scarf in a nauseating shade of green, peers over the rim of her glasses at him. “The plane,” she clarifies. “Are you a first time flier?”

Will clears his throat, glancing out the window again and then back at her. “Oh. Oh, um- no, sorry.” He stops bouncing his leg, digging his fingers into the seat instead. He has no qualms about flying - it’s the landing he’s worried about. 

Will Mike even want to see him? What if he’s mad that Will didn’t call first? What if Will has somehow misunderstood, and all those offers for Will to come visit were just pleasantries, and he didn’t actually mean it? 

Those are all real and valid concerns. The fact is also this: Will is going to go see Mike anyway.

His seatmate is still eyeing him quizzically. “You seem nervous,” she observes. No shit , Will thinks, and then immediately feels bad. She’s just trying to help, probably. 

“Yeah, well,” he mumbles, and doesn’t elaborate. His leg is bouncing again. He can’t control it, at this point.

“Where are you headed?” she asks, adjusting her scarf. Will represses a sigh. “I’m going to visit my son. He’s getting married.”

Must be nice , Will thinks bitterly. “I’m going to visit someone,” he says truthfully. Even if Mike yells in his face and casts him off his front stoop, he’ll go see Jonathan, or El if he feels like driving out of the city. He has some safety nets, at the very least. Not very good ones, because a rejection from Mike would probably devastate him beyond all measure, but still. “It’s a surprise,” he adds, and suppresses a wince.

“Oh, how romantic,” the woman sighs, evidently picking up on the everything about his current state that indicates the nature of his relationship with the someone he’s visiting. “What’s her name?”

Will bites his lip, wondering how worth it is to lie. On the one hand, he’s stuck with this woman for the next six hours. On the other, if she thinks he’s a heathen she might leave him alone. 

Fuck it. If he’s going to be insane enough to fly across the country for Mike, he might as well be honest about it. “His name is Mike,” he answers tightly, and her eyebrows lift.

“Oh!” she says cheerfully, undeterred. Part of Will relaxes, but the rest of him is disappointed that there are still words coming out of her mouth. “That’s nice. My nephew is gay. His name is Robert Walters, do you know him?”

Will looks at her for a long moment. “Yes,” he deadpans eventually, then turns back to the window. He actually does know a gay guy named Robert, but Scarf Lady doesn’t need to know that. It’s almost definitely not her nephew, anyway.

She seems annoyingly unbothered by his sarcasm, or else she just doesn’t notice it. “Why are you visiting Mike?”

That one, Will can’t answer as easily. He swallows hard, still staring out the window, and digs his fingers into the seat as he thinks. “Because,” he says eventually, sending Scarf Lady another cursory glance, “I…” he swallows back the I love him that desperately wants to escape his throat; Mike should hear it first, before he goes around telling strangers about it. “He’s my best friend,” he settles on, and this, at least, he can say with conviction.

Scarf Lady smiles serenely at him. “That’s sweet.”

Will bites his lip, nods once, and looks back out the window again. Maybe it is sweet. Maybe it’s insane. Maybe he’s lost his mind. There’s really no way of knowing, at this point.

“I wish my son’s fiancee was as sweet as you,” Scarf Lady sighs, flicking lint off her shirt and sighing. “She’s an accountant, and she won’t stop talking about it. It’s dreadfully boring. I wish he’d settle down with someone more creative .”

Despite everything, Will smiles. “Mike’s a writer,” he murmurs, half to himself. He has Mike’s latest book tucked away in his suitcase - not particularly because he wants to reread it, but because it makes him feel better to have it near him. It’s like a security blanket, or something. God, he’s pathetic. If Mike does kick him out of his apartment at first sight, he’d probably be justified.

“Mike sounds much better than Carla ,” Scarf Lady says derisively. “You’re right to fight for him.”

Will’s smile grows a little. Validation from strangers about a situation as complicated as this is a bit of a reach, but it’s validation nonetheless. “Yeah, maybe.” He meets her eyes again, a little sheepishly. “I’m Will, by the way.”

“Wendy,” she replies with a smile, and reaches over to shake his hand. “You’re a very nice young man, Will.”

Well, Will thinks, at least he has that going for him.

---

Mike is beautiful.

This is the first thing Will thinks when the door swings open, Mike’s eyes wide and hair tousled, terrified at being awoken in the middle of the night like this but softening immediately when he sees Will, as he nods and tells him he can stay and leads him inside the apartment. Will tries not to read too much into it while he watches Mike’s shoulders relax, his face split into a small, incredulous smile, voice timid when he asks, “You needed to see me? Why?”

All of Will’s worries about Mike turning him away dissipate with those words, replaced by a soft incredulity. As if there would ever be a world in which Will did not want to see him.

He opts not to tell Mike about NYU yet, though, as he trails after him into the kitchen, instead citing the exhibit - which is at least a half-truth - and silently thanking the universe that Mike’s sleep-deprived brain doesn’t think to question it. He wishes Mike didn’t trust him so blindly, sometimes. Everyone always trusts Will, and he leads them all to ruin at least sixty percent of the time. He still sends mental apologies to Bob on a regular basis, like a fucked-up prayer of some kind.

He watches Mike set about making tea as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, caring for Will, making him feel at home. He supposes maybe it is. Maybe instincts like that don’t go away, even after five years. Maybe caring about Will is as intrinsic to Mike as caring about Mike is to Will.

Then comes the thought again, as Mike places a steaming mug in front of him: he’s beautiful . Even in his stupid pink t-shirt (World’s Silliest Goose! , it reads, which isn’t not true), and his eyes still crusty with sleep, hair a mess and spilling over his shoulders, Mike is Will’s heart in human form, completely unaware of how marvelous he is.

“So,” Mike says eventually, eyeing him over his mug, “Why did you decide to come early?”

Ah. So maybe he doesn’t trust him quite as blindly as Will initially thought. That’s probably fair. It stings, but it’s fair. White lies have always been Will’s specialty, and Mike knows that better than anyone. 

“I told you,” he murmurs, because he doesn’t have a singular backup defense, “missed you.”

This, at least, is the absolute truth.

---

Will wakes up in Mike Wheeler’s bed.

It’s been quite a while since this happened, and the fact that they’re all wrapped up in each other does nothing to help Will’s poor, confused little brain, which is valiantly trying to revert to its teenage state, where waking up with Mike meant that he got to wriggle closer and press open mouthed kisses to his face and neck and generally- be happy, basically. He always treasured those moments, when they were both sleepy and warm and sweet with each other, before the light of day brought all their problems rushing back.

It also doesn’t help that, when Will tries to pull away, Mike unceremoniously yanks him back onto the bed - and subsequently himself - and demands that they go back to sleep for another two to three hours. Will is a guest in his home, of course, and as such has no right to decline such an offer, so he lets it happen when Mike’s arms circle his waist again, and he allows himself to press a kiss into his hair, as one minor self indulgence.

And now here he is, two to three hours later, lying in peaceful silence with the sheets pooled around his waist as he watches Mike’s chest rise and fall gently. Mike’s skin is flushed and warm to the touch, freckles scattered across his pale, delicate skin, lips parted just barely as he breathes, and again Will thinks he’s beautiful. He wants to take a picture, wants to sketch out the scene before him like it’s a goddamn renaissance painting, wants to kiss him there, over the quirk of his lips, the spaces under his eyes, right over the cluster of freckles that Mike has always insisted are ugly.

He can't, though, so he forces himself to ignore the buzzing, happy feeling under his skin and digs his fingers into his palms. This is the price he has to pay for being the one to break them - that Mike is here, soft and quiet and sweet, and Will cannot kiss him about it.

It’s bad enough not to have it, that feeling, Mike , but it’s another thing entirely to have had it, known what it’s like to hold Mike Wheeler in his arms and kiss him stupid and whisper I love you ’s to him in the dark, and then lose it all over again. It was almost manageable when they were apart, a dull ache in his chest, but now that he’s next to Mike again, it’s a different beast entirely.

 It’s nothing like how they fell in love the first time - slow and then fast, picking up speed like a ball rolling down a hill, until finally exploding at the base of a cliff. It’s an ache left over from the explosion, with the foundations of something new just starting to assemble themselves in the rubble.

Assuming Will doesn’t find a way to ruin it first. But his therapist would probably say he needs to have a growth mindset , so he ignores that thought for now.

Mike stirs, releasing a soft whine and rolling over in bed, slinging an arm around Will’s waist and tugging him closer. He shoves his face against the side of Will’s head, toes wriggling under the covers as he tucks his socked feet under Will’s calves, and goes still again, breathing deeply.

“Mike,” Will says after a moment, smiling out at the soft blue of Mike’s bedroom wall, “are you smelling my hair?”

“No,” Mike says, like a liar, because Will can feel the proof for himself from where Mike’s nose is pressed against his scalp, lips brushing the strands when he speaks. He makes a disbelieving noise, and Mike sighs quietly, noticeably not letting go. “Your shampoo is different.”

“Yeah, because I don’t use the cheap three-in-one shampoo my mom buys anymore,” Will snorts, wiggling a little in his grip. “Get off, weirdo.”

Mike whines again, more petulantly this time, but loosens his grip by about five percent, letting his head fall back so he can look at Will properly. “You’re the weirdo,” he counters, nose wrinkling.

Will smiles gently. “Sure,” he agrees seriously. Mike smiles, and Will traces the line of it with his eyes - Mike looks a little more tired, now, a little bit haggard or weary or worn, but he still smiles the same. Bright, wide, boyish, like he just can’t help it. Will isn’t ready for how relieved he feels at the familiarity of it. “You look different,” he whispers, blinking blearily at Mike’s sunlit face, “older.”

Mike’s eyebrows lift, and it faintly occurs to Will to be embarrassed, but then Mike’s hand settles against Will’s waist, and Will forgets to care about the rules. “Yeah? S’ that good or bad?”

Will hums, lifting one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “I don’t know. Just something I noticed.” It’s actually something he’s thought about - if he’d still be as in love with this version of Mike, someone that he doesn’t really know. He’d worried, initially, before they reconnected, if he would even be able to find the person he’d had to give up beneath all the facets of him. Five years is a long time.

But Mike’s face, while a bit more filled out, a few new freckles here and there, a stronger jawline, maybe, is still Mike’s . His eyes are still wide and dark and glittering, and that sweet smile hasn’t left his lips, and Will, ever the fool, still loves him. Of course he does. He’d never really expected otherwise.

“Have I become more beautiful with age?” Mike teases now, rolling over into Will’s space, their noses inches apart. Will musters every ounce of self control in his sleepy body, and does not lean forward to kiss him. 

“Mm,” he says, smiling a little as Mike taps a fingertip against his nose. “You’ve always been beautiful.”

Mike released a soft breath. “Really?” he asks, faintly surprised, and Will’s brow creases.

He props himself up on one elbow, staring down at him. “What do you mean, really ,” he huffs, “don’t people tell you that?”

“Well, you have,” Mike mumbles, blushing faintly and rolling over onto his back, eyes darting away from Will’s. Will’s stomach does a complicated twisting thing. “But that was a while ago.”

“No one else has ever called you beautiful?” Will demands, suddenly furious, and Mike’s mouth ticks up a little. “That’s bullshit.”

“Okay, calm down,” Mike says lightly, lifting a palm and gently tugging Will back down onto the mattress. Will scowls but allows it, settling down onto the pillow and gazing over at Mike, watching the pleased little smile at the corners of his lips grow. “It’s just a word.”

“You literally make your living off of words,” Will points out, and Mike snorts. 

“Point taken.” He tilts his head toward Will again, smiling faintly, fingers brushing over Will’s knuckles under the covers, and if Will wanted to, he could-

He could - 

He could kiss Mike now, he thinks, watching as Mike flicks the burner on at the stove, humming faintly to himself. It’s Saturday, and no one is home, and Mike is wearing his old, stretched-out Hellfire t-shirt and sweatpants and looks very sweet and domestic and cozy, and Will wants to kiss him. It’s been a good couple weeks, the first consecutive ones in a while.

“You okay?” Mike asks, glancing over his shoulder at Will with an easy smile, like nothing has ever or will ever be wrong. Like they’ve never fought in their lives, like no odds are stacked against them, like they’re normal. It’s nice, seeing Mike smile like that. It’s nice to imagine all that for a second. Unfortunately, Will does not trust it at all. “You got quiet.”

Will blinks, smiling back a little absently as Mike cracks an egg into the pan on the stove and pokes at it with a spatula. “Yeah, sorry. Just thinking.”

“Mm,” Mike hums, rocking back and forth as he watches the surface of the egg bubble. “About what?”

“You,” Will answers truthfully, which is what he always says when asked such questions. It’s the truest and most simple form of the very complicated answer. He thinks about Mike always, but the context spans the entire range of human emotion.

Mike seems to take it as a positive thing today, though, glancing at him again with a pleased little smile. “Yeah? What about me?”

Will shrugs, migrating to stand next to Mike, hip pressed against the counter as he angles his body toward him. “I don’t know. I’m glad you came over.”

He is, even if it’s a little surreal, standing in a kitchen with Mike Wheeler, still in his pajamas, making breakfast together and flirting and just- existing in the same space like this. It’s weird and wonderful and a little bit terrifying. It’s days like these when he can almost imagine this is how his life turns out; this sweet, mundane little existence with Mike, shared kitchens and breakfasts and everything else. It’s a nice thought, but then he remembers that it’s not real, that in an hour or so the rest of his family will be home and Mike will have to be gone, lest they ask questions, lest he and Mike start fighting over those questions again. He doesn’t have this, not yet, not really. It’s dangerous to pretend.

But Mike smiles at him, and oh, Will wants it to be real so badly. Every niggling thought that it won’t last is outweighed by the overwhelming desire to keep it anyway. “Me, too,” Mike murmurs, leaning forward and bumping his nose against Will’s. “It’s been good lately, yeah?”

Will doesn’t know if he means life in general, or their relationship, or something else entirely, but Mike’s right - it has been good, relatively. He hates that he’s the sort of person that poisons the good times with worry that it will turn bad. “Yeah,” he says, smiling a little, trying to force that worry away. Mike is close enough to touch, close enough that Will can breathe him in, can let the noise in his brain fade just a little. Not to a dangerous level, but enough to relax. Just for a minute.

Mike grins and tilts his face up, and Will gets his morning kiss.

(The eggs burn. Will tries not to see it as a sign.)

“Hey, are you hungry?” Mike asks, glancing over at the clock, and the moment shatters, Will falling pathetically back onto his pillow where he’d been edging forward just slightly, thinking maybe, maybe, maybe . Mike lifts himself up on his elbow, smiling easily down at him. His face is carefully neutral, like maybe he’d been thinking the same thing as Will, like maybe he thought better of it. Will thinks of two years ago, a hand on his shoulder and a soft don’t , and the shame washes over him anew. “It’s almost noon.”

“Um, sure,” Will says, as evenly as he can manage, sitting up and tossing back the covers. “I- yeah, that would be nice.”

The smile reemerges, and it looks like hope.

---

“I’m gonna show you around New York,” Mike announces later, after they’ve eaten and cleaned up breakfast and have been sitting at the counter, chatting mindlessly while Mike’s cat, Arlo, curls himself in Will’s lap. He hops up, grabbing his and Will’s empty coffee mugs off of the table and carrying over to the sink.

Will arches an eyebrow, still petting Arlo mindlessly. “I’ve been here before, you know,” he points out, as Mike wipes his hands on his jeans and turns back to face him. “My brother lives here.”

Mike makes a face at him. “I know,” he huffs, reaching over to unceremoniously steal Arlo out of Will’s lap, cradling him in his arms and cooing softly at him. Will nearly faints at the sight. “But there’s some places I want to show you specifically.” He lifts his gaze from where he’d been kissing the top of Arlo’s head, studiously ignoring the cat’s insistent squirming against him, and smiles sheepishly at Will. “I mean, if you’re not, like, doing anything else. Before the exhibit. Sorry, I shouldn't have just assumed that- that you’d want to hang out with me the whole time.”

Will releases a soft breath, halfway between a laugh and a wheeze. Mike’s stare has turned hesitant, smile freezing up a little with a perceived rejection, and it makes Will ache a little, how ready Mike is to believe he’s unwanted.

“Of course I do,” he says, voice wavering a little. He clears his throat, plastering on his most confident, flirty smile. That’s- that’s probably safer, than being real right now. “Of course I want to hang out with you, let’s do it.”

Instantly, Mike’s shoulders relax, and his smile softens into that beautiful, genuine one. “Okay,” he breathes, nodding, “okay, cool. I’m gonna be honest, though, a lot of them are just cool bookstores, but there’s also-”

“Oh my God,” Will laughs, hopping off of his stool and heading for the door, grabbing his coat off the hook by the door. 

Mike scowls at him in offense, finally releasing a squirming Arlo and grabbing his own jacket. “What?”

Will shakes his head, smiling. “Nothing.” I love you . “Let’s go.”

They go to no less than four bookstores, which is fine, because Mike’s right, they are pretty cool, and in each one Will drags them around until he finds the section with Mike’s books, and runs his fingers over the spines lovingly as Mike groans and begs him to stop.

“Oh, this is the best place,” Mike says eventually, as he drags Will by the sleeve down the block of a quiet side street in Brooklyn. “You’re gonna like this.”

“Oh, am I,” Will laughs, as Mike pulls them to a stop outside a slightly broken-down building with dozens of electric signs in the window. Will’s mouth falls open, and he turns to Mike, grinning. “An arcade? Seriously?”

Mike rolls his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re too old for an arcade , William,” he huffs, which wasn't, actually, at all what Will was trying to tell him, but he goes along with it. “C’mon, it’s the best one in the city!”

“That can’t be true,” Will says, half-laughing as Mike pulls him forward through the doors. 

“Okay, it’s the closest one in the city!” Mike amends, in the exact same cheery tone, and Will’s laughter rings out as Mike leads him over to the Dig Dug machine and slots a quarter in before Will can protest.

“You come here often?” Will teases, bumping Mike’s hip with his own as he takes over the controls, Mike hovering over his shoulder to watch. 

Mike flushes. His fingers are still loosely clasped around Will’s sleeve, and he doesn’t seem to want to let go, which is cool, because Will doesn’t want him to let go either, even if it’s restricting his movement abilities. “Yeah, sometimes,” he says, breath hot in Will’s ear as he leans closer. “Mostly- um. When I’m having a bad day, and I need to… need to feel like a kid, you know?”

Will’s hands falter on the controls, and he glances up at him. Mike’s looking down at him with an intensity that makes Will feel a little dizzy. “Yeah,” he says faintly, as Mike’s eyes trace over him like he’s searching for something. “Yeah, that, uh- that makes sense.”

He clears his throat and quickly turns back to the game. Mike adjusts his grip on his sleeve, shifting to cling to his bicep instead and leaning against him properly. Will wonders if, to random passerby, they look like they’re on a date. He wonders, briefly, if they are on a date.

Five years ago, the thought of them being seen out in public together like this, flirting and touching each other with- with Mike making those eyes at him, like he’s the most important person in the world, would have terrified Will. He and Mike would have fought about it afterward, probably - Mike, you can’t do shit like that, don’t you understand what it means to- to be like this, don’t you know what a death sentence that is?

Of course I know that, Will, I’m just- I don’t know how to do this, okay? This is new, and-

It doesn’t matter. Just- don’t do it again.

In this moment, though, Will realizes that he doesn’t, actually, care. Not even a little. He wants people to think he’s dating Mike. First and foremost, he wants to actually be dating Mike, but he’ll take this for now.

So sue him if he leans into Mike’s grip a little, grins up at him as he fiddles with the controls. It’s certainly not the worst thing he’s done.

“There’s this one arcade that just opened up a few blocks from my apartment,” Will says after a while, when his turn ends and he steps aside to let Mike take his shot. “I haven’t been yet. Maybe I should.”

“Yeah, totally,” Mike says, snorting a little as he slots another quarter into the machine. “Because your Dig Dug skills have really declined since high school. I mean, seriously, ba- Will , it’s like-”

“Okay,” Will huffs, trying very hard not to notice that this is the second time Mike has almost called him baby . Third, if you count the night of the drunken phone calls and the I love you ’s, but Will has been trying even harder not to think about that one. Mike never acknowledged it, so he can only assume he doesn’t remember. As for the others, well- Mike’s always been significantly less subtle than he thinks he is. Will clears his throat. “I just meant- I don’t know. It’s been a while since I just had fun like this.”

Mike hums, a little too knowingly. “With me, or just in general?”

Will allows himself to be a little brave, tipping his head onto Mike’s shoulder for just a moment. “Both,” he murmurs into the cotton of Mike’s t-shirt. “This is nice.”

He hears it when Mike’s breath catches, briefly, and feels it when he tilts his face, lips brushing over the top of Will’s head. “Yeah,” he murmurs, “it is.”

Will tucks a smile away into Mike’s shoulder, then hip-checks him out of the way as he reclaims the controls on Dig Dug.

“Hey!” Mike squawks, laughing a little. “Rude.”

“It’s my turn!” Will insists, waving a hand at him. “Get out of my space, I’m gonna beat your score.”

“Yeah, sure,” Mike snorts. “You’re gonna need a lot more practice before that happens. Like, years’ worth. You’ve fallen behind, Byers.”

“Okay, Mike,” Will huffs, lifting one hand from the controllers to flip him off. “Now hush, you’re affecting my focus.”

“Mm, I’m that much of a distraction?” Mike asks, hooking his chin over Will’s shoulder and peering up at him. Will intends to flinch away, he truly does, except that, in the end, he doesn’t. “Interesting.”

“Thought I told you to get out of my space,” Will murmurs, poking his side. Mike squeaks and leans away.

“I thought it was hyperbole,” he defends, pouting. “Or perhaps a frivolous, lighthearted jab of some kind.”

Will snorts. “God,” he murmurs, mostly to himself. Mike is incredibly endearing like this, so wholly unaware of how captivating he is, how rare of a person.

Mike frowns at him, petulant. “What?”

“No, nothing, sorry,” Will says quickly, shaking his head. “I’m just- you’re so funny.”

Mike continues pouting, but leans against the side of the machine anyway, still gazing intently at him. “Why, what’s funny?” he asks petulantly, and Will, against his better judgment, lets the game end as he releases the controls and meets Mike’s eye.

“Nothing,” he says again, even though it’s not, “It’s just, I don’t know anyone else who says things like frivolous lighthearted jab in a regular conversation. Or even words like hyperbole , for fuck’s sake.” He pauses, considering. “Well, maybe the second one’s not true, but anyone else who talks like that sounds like they’re trying to be pretentious.”

Mike arches an eyebrow. “And I don’t? That’s good, I guess. I worry sometimes.”

Will laughs, shaking his head. “No, that’s why it’s funny. You says shit like that all the time like it’s normal, and you don’t even realize that half the people you’re talking to have no idea what they mean.”

Mike grins. “Little do they know, I’m not even a college graduate.”

“No,” Will hums in agreement, and resists an old urge to reach over and wind his fingers in the hem of Mike’s shirt, to tug him closer, flirt a little more obnoxiously. “You just spend too much time reading.”

“Guilty as charged,” Mike confirms, eyes dancing, pleased, maybe, at Will’s tone, the way he’s verging on the idea of flirting even if he’s not being as overt as he’d like to. He takes Will’s momentary lapse in focus as an opportunity to take over again on Dig Dug, Will stepping aside before he has time to think otherwise. He imagines winding an arm around Mike’s waist, pressing his face into the space between his shoulder blades the way he used to, breathing him in, relishing the feeling of another person warm and solid against him.

He doesn’t do it, obviously. But he wants it, remembers it, so bad he can practically feel it anyway. He wonders if Mike’s imagined the same thing, if their morning cuddle meant anything at all or if it was just one of those weird Mike things that he is somehow able to justify in some weird corner of his brain.

He- well, he hadn’t forgotten how much he loves Mike, exactly, but he’d forgotten how it felt to be this aware of it; to see the freckles on Mike’s cheeks up close and meet his sparkling eyes from across a countertop or in the middle of a crowded street, to have him close and be overwhelmed by the rush of affection he feels at the simple presence of him, his easy movements and bright smiles. Not for the first time, he wonders at how he ever thought he’d be able to get over Mike - a love like this doesn’t just dissolve into thin air. The best Will is ever going to be able to do is put it on a back burner.

“Your turn!” Mike announces after a minute, turning back to him with a bright grin, and Will smiles as he steps back over to the machine.

---

Will ends up taking Mike with him to see the exhibit at NYU, both as a test to see what he thinks of the environment, if maybe he’d approve of Will going here, and also because Mike is kind of hard to get rid of, in the best way possible. Will doesn’t know how to escape his constant, overwhelming presence, nor does he want to.

The installation is a series of paintings by an artist Will likes, though he suspects Mike is catching on to the fact that he doesn’t like her enough to fly across the country just to see her art. Still, he keeps his mouth shut about it, simply trailing after Will around the exhibit and making quiet comments about each of the paintings.

“They’re so… visceral,” he says at one point, gazing up at a vaguely abstract portrait of a young woman standing on a sidewalk in the rain. “I don’t know what it is, exactly, but there’s like- they’re very human.”

Will smiles. “Yeah,” he agrees softly, bumping Mike’s shoulder with his own. “That’s what I like about this woman’s art. It says something without being overbearing about it. Not like the other shit I have to see in L.A.”

Mike glances over at him, smirking. “Why’d you stay there so long, anyway?” he asks, and Will can hear the effort he’s making not to be more judgemental about it. “If you hate it so much.”

“I don’t know,” Will muses, fiddling with the cuff of his shirt. “I guess- I guess I wanted to figure out who I was outside of- outside of before , maybe? Something drastically different than Hawkins was nice.”

“Hm.” Mike draws out the sound, interested, verging on flirty, maybe, or some slightly sadder version of it. He looks back at the painting, nudging Will’s shoulder gently. “Did you? Find yourself?”

Will snorts. “It sounds dumb when you say it like that, but- yeah, I guess, sort of.”

Mike’s shoulders stiffen a little, and his hand does a little twitching thing where it rests at his side, like he’s flicking something away. “And- who is that person, would you say?”

Someone who’s in love with you , Will thinks immediately, but he’s smart enough not to say it. It’s a little reductive, anyway - he has things outside of Mike. He has strings that aren’t tied to him, but maybe that’s why it’s thrown this specific want into such sharp contrast - when your needs are met, your wants are that much more biting.

He takes a breath. “I… I have a better understanding of what I want, now, I think,” he settles on. “Even if L.A. isn’t really that.”

“Yeah? What do you want, then?” Mike asks, voice tight, and looks back at him again, brows drawn together and eyes wide, verging on pleading.

Will looks at him for a minute, considering. “I guess… I don’t know,” he deflects eventually, because saying I want you, it’s you, please take me back in the middle of this crowded museum seems like a little too much. “I want to go back to school, I guess. I want to be close to the people I care about. I’ve been… kind of MIA the past few years. With everyone, not just you. I miss everyone.” He takes a shaky breath, smiling a little. “I think I kind of lost the breakup,” he jokes absently. 

Mike laughs, a little confusedly. “What do you mean?”

“You’re all, like, successful and attractive and shit,” Will explains, “and I’m, like, this recluse with a dead-end job and a useless degree that’s already having to rethink his entire life at twenty-three.” He bites his lip, still staring at the painting intently, before shaking himself out of it and glancing back at Mike with a small smile. “That’s supposedly what defines the winner of a breakup, right? Making your ex regret it.”

Mike takes a breath. “Attractive?” he squeaks, as if that’s the most significant thing Will’s just said.

Will snorts. “Yeah, duh,” he says, trying not to think about it or let his eyes linger for too long. Mike must notice the way Will’s eyes rove over him anyway, because his mouth ticks up into a tiny smile. “Is that a surprise to you? I called you beautiful before.”

Mike’s face screws up thoughtfully. “I guess. I don’t think it’s quite the same, though.” He pauses, giving Will a searching look. “Anyway- I mean, do you?”

“What?” Will asks, voice hoarse. Mike’s are so wide, so dark and intense and beautiful. It makes it difficult to keep track of a conversation.

Mike swallows. Neither of them are looking at the painting anymore. “Regret it.”

Will bites his lip, thinking about it for a minute. “I don’t know,” he says finally - a cop-out answer, but Mike doesn’t seem to think so, just blinking at him, looking at him like Will is the only thing that matters in the whole universe. It scares Will, sometimes. The intensity of Mike.

“Me neither,” Mike says quietly after a beat, shaking his head slowly. “But for what it’s worth, if we’re counting winners and losers, I don’t think I won the breakup at all. I don’t think that’s possible.” He swallows again, and Will’s traitorous eyes track the movement of their own accord. “Not when I lost you.”

Will exhales quietly, inching just a little bit closer, until he can feel the body heat emanating from Mike. “Oh,” he says dumbly, voice thick.

“Oh,” Mike repeats, the ghost of a smile crossing his face. “I guess I just- if nothing else, I regret that, was my point.”

“Yeah,” Will says quickly, a bit desperately, “yeah, I regret that too. I didn’t- I didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” Mike murmurs. “That part was mostly me. I’m just trying to tell you I’m sorry.”

Will exhales shakily, suddenly feeling like the whole world has shrunk down to just the two of them. “Oh,” he whispers again, feeling the sharp sting of tears at the backs of his eyes and fighting it desperately. He didn’t realize how much it mattered to him, getting an apology for the static silence that’s existed between them for so long, but now that he’s getting one it feels- good. A little excruciating, like stitches placed in an open wound, but healing. “Okay. I forgive you.”

He’s said this before, but it feels better like this, face to face, where he can see Mike’s pleased little smile stretch out the corners of his mouth, his face flush a pleasant pink. “Thank you,” he whispers, and reaches over to squeeze Will’s hand.

A warm feeling blooms in Will’s chest, and he squeezes back, releasing a quiet breath as Mike inches just a little bit closer.

“Will,” Mike says softly, fingers still wound tight around Will’s, “I…”

“Oh my God, Mike?” 

Both of them jump, Mike dropping Will’s hand and trying to pass it off by running a hand through his hair as he turns to face the person that’s materialized behind them, a tall woman with bleached blonde hair tucked neatly back into a tight bun. She’s regarding Mike with poorly concealed derision, hands on her hips as she taps the toe of her incredibly tall black stilettos against the floor.

Mike coughs. “Jocelyn,” he says, sounding so strangled it would be funny if Will had any clue what was going on, “Hey. Nice to see you again.”

“Uh huh,” she says, but her mouth ticks up into the tiniest smile. “You too. What the fuck are you doing here?”

Will chokes on air, taken aback by her directness, but Mike just smiles faintly and shrugs. “I wanted to see the exhibit. Will’s showing me,” he adds, blushing a little and gesturing to him awkwardly. He glances over and meets Will’s eyes, looking indescribably fond. Will’s stomach does a complicated series of motions inside him.

“Hi,” he manages, awkwardly waving to Jocelyn, “I’m Will. Mike’s- uh. Mike’s friend.”

Her eyebrows shoot up, and the tiny smile on her face spreads to a full blown grin. “Oh,” she says, with poorly masked glee. “Oh, you’re Will. I see.”

“Um,” Mike says, shuffling his feet and turning the approximate shade of Max Mayfield’s hair, “You know, I don’t really think we need to get into-”

Jocelyn interrupts him with a snort. “Calm down, it’s fine.” She turns back to Will, extending a hand. “Sorry, hi. I’m Jocelyn. I’ve heard lots about you.”

“Oh,” Will squeaks, face flushing crimson to match Mike’s as he cautiously shakes her hand. “Um. Cool?”

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Mike asks Jocelyn, as she pulls her hand away from Will and replaces it in its proper position on her hip. 

“I work here,” she says, shrugging. “I’m in admin.”

Will’s eyebrows raise in interest. “Oh, really? You- you work for the school?”

She gives him an odd look. “Yeah. I help run the admissions office.”

Will opens his mouth to ask a follow up question or thirty about the school, but suddenly remembers where he is and who he’s with and, most importantly, that he doesn’t even know this woman, and shuts it again. Mike is the one to give him an odd look this time, and he pretends not to notice.

“I thought you worked in marketing,” Mike says, folding his arms, and Jocelyn rolls her eyes.

“Believe it or not, Mike, my life has actually continued to progress in the three years since you last spoke to me,” she says, not unkindly. He stammers something unintelligible, and she waves it off. “It’s fine. I actually worked in communications, which transfers over nicely to an admin job, so here I am.” She shrugs, taking a step back. “Anyway, I should go, but- good seeing you, Mike. And nice to meet you, Will,” she adds, nodding at him, and with one last small wave, she slips away across the room, heels clacking on the tile floor.

There’s silence for a minute, and then Mike sighs. “Okay,” he starts, turning back to Will, “so-”

“Your ex?” Will cuts in before Mike gets a chance to say it, turning to him and arching an eyebrow. “She seems nice.”

Mike groans, burying his face in his hands. “Please don’t.”

“She’s heard a lot about me?” Will continues, ignoring Mike’s warning, half-question and half-statement. Mike peeks through his fingers at him, looking slightly miserable but also maybe like he’s on the verge of a laugh.

“I kind of have this thing where I can’t shut up about you,” he mumbles, which has absolutely no right to be as endearing of a statement as it is. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Will laughs, “I mean, maybe not for her , but whatever.”

Mike drops his hands with a sigh, taking a few steps away toward the nearest wall and leaning against it, so they’re less in line with the foot traffic through the room. Will follows, crowding into his space as much as he can, short of wrapping all of his limbs around him. “Yeah, that was her issue too.” He winces. “Sorry, this is weird.”

“It’s fine,” Will says again, because it has to be, because he doesn’t have the right to act like it’s not. “This kind of stuff was bound to come up at some point. You can tell me more, if you want. I seriously don’t mind.”

This makes Mike flush pink around the edges, and he scoots closer, hooking a finger around the cuff of Will’s sleeve again. Will smiles - Mike’s always been like this, constantly inching closer, finding ways to fully usurp Will’s personal space. It’s nice, in a weird way. Will has missed it. “I mean, there’s not a lot to tell,” Mike mumbles, shrugging. “I dated Jocelyn a few years ago for a couple months, and we broke up because I just- I don’t know, she got sick of me, I guess.” Will nods slowly, fighting back a wave of fury at Jocelyn - how could anyone get sick of Mike? He supposes he doesn’t have a leg to stand on, though, being mad at Mike’s exes for dumping him. Not when he’s one of said exes.

Mike coughs. “It never would have worked anyway, though. She’s way too much like Max.”

Will laughs at that, letting his momentary outrage wash away, the leftover particles of it seeping into his skin where all his resentment hides. “I did notice that, yeah.”

Mike smiles a little. “Thought you might. Anyway, I dated a couple people after her, too, but none of it ever really went anywhere.”

Will lifts an eyebrow. “Guys or girls?”

Mike flushes redder. “Girls, mostly. A couple guys, but- oh, this is embarrassing- it was way too easy to picture you instead, when I dated men, and it didn’t feel fair, so.”

How funny, that Will’s been trying to get as close as he can to Mike while Mike has been trying to get further away from Will. He remembers three years ago, crying to Lucas over Mike dating some guy, and feels a sick sense of satisfaction that he was right, then, when he wondered if Mike ever imagined it was Will in his place. It’s just a little bit gratifying, to that stupid petty part of him that he still hasn’t figured out how to kill off - imagining Mike, talking to some guy who is not Will and imagining what Will would say instead. Going on a date with him to some restaurant and wondering if Will would have liked it. Kissing lips that are not Will’s, hands on another person’s body, consumed with the phantom memory of Will beneath his palms instead. Feeling all the ways Will felt, the few times he dated other men. 

At the very least, it makes it sting a little less than it might otherwise.

“I’m not friends with any of them, though,” Mike adds, making a face. “None of those relationships ended well.”

“That makes sense to me,” Will says, a little unthinkingly, and claps a hand over his mouth in horror as Mike’s mouth falls open in offense.

“Hey,” Mike reprimands, but he’s laughing, and Will’s laughing too by the time he removes his hand from his mouth.

“Sorry!” he squeaks, leaning heavily against the wall, Mike leaning against it opposite him, mirroring his position. “I didn’t mean it like that, just, you’re very dramatic. I don’t know if amicable breakups are really your thing.”

“Correction, I’m passionate ,” Mike retorts, folding his arms.

“Yeah,” Will says softly, looking him up and down and taking a deep breath. “Yeah, you are.”

Mike grins. “What about you? Now you owe me your dating history.”

Will rolls his eyes. “It’s not that interesting. There’s James, obviously, who- ugh . Whatever. And there was this one guy Aiden that I dated for a few months in college, and then a couple people I went on random dates with here and there that never went anywhere.”

“Aiden,” Mike repeats, very clearly trying to keep the derision out of his voice and very clearly failing. “Why’d you break up?”

Will shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess it just wasn't working. I was-” he clears his throat- “I was trying to get over someone, at the time, so.”

Mike flushes. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Will says softly, eyes darting away out at the near-empty museum. Then, to paper over the awkwardness- “Uh- anyway. I haven’t dated much beyond that.”

Mike’s eyebrows draw together. “Why not?”

Will bites his lip, thinking of El leaning against his kitchen counter two years ago, pushing a cold container of takeout Chinese food in his direction and telling him not to give up on himself. “Um. I guess… it just wasn't helping. Me. With- much of anything, really.”

“Oh.” Mike looks at him, solemn. “You were really struggling that much?”

Will shakes his head slowly. “I… I don’t know. I don’t think it was so much about how I was struggling , I guess I just- it didn’t seem worth it.”

Mike’s eyes are dark and glittering when they land on him again, the intensity so strong it nearly bowls Will over. “Why not?” he asks, voice almost a whisper.

Will swallows hard. “Our five years weren't up,” he says simply, and watches Mike’s contort in about fifty different ways in the span of two seconds. Then, clearing his throat and pushing himself off the wall, he offers Mike his hand and a small smile. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I’m starving.”

---

Will leaves on Saturday afternoon, and he still has not told Mike about NYU. He also, incidentally, hasn’t asked to get back together with him, even though it feels like he maybe could if he wanted, and he might get a yes. But in order to ask to get back together, they have to first examine everything that went wrong the first time they were together, and that’s too daunting a task when Will is enjoying himself so much.

And he is enjoying himself. He and Mike go to museums and bookstores and cafes, and they hang out in Mike’s apartment and watch TV and chat about things that don’t matter, and it’s so nice . Will can’t remember the last time things were this easy with Mike. It’s so relaxing, to talk to him like he’s just Mike, instead of my boyfriend, Mike, or my longtime unrequited crush, Mike, or my ex-boyfriend, Mike . And of course Mike is still his ex, and Will still loves him, but he’s also a friend that Will hasn’t talked to in a very long time, and it’s nice to just catch up. It’s less dramatic this way, in adulthood. Their lives are bigger now.

So he doesn’t tell Mike about NYU, and when they do bring up their relationship, Will is careful not to let them linger on the subject for long enough for the tears to build in the backs of his eyes, or any more apologies spill from his lips. Maybe he’s a coward. Maybe he’s just finally smart enough to know how not to ruin a near-perfect thing. In reality, it’s probably somewhere in between.

Mike spends all of Sunday morning bitching and moaning about Will leaving, pulling Will back into bed at least three times when Will tries to get up to start packing, then scowling all the way through making them breakfast.

“You should come back sometime,” he says eventually, regarding Will with an odd gleam in his eyes as Will kneels on the floor by his duffel bag, rearranging his clothes to fit more neatly into it. He’s wearing one of Mike’s t-shirts, which he’d told Mike he’d put on by mistake when in fact he very much did not, and Mike had replied that he should keep it, he didn’t care. They’re both liars, but at least it evens out most of the time. “This was fun.”

Will focuses very hard on straightening out the creases of the button-down he’s folding, hoping Mike doesn’t notice how much he’s blushing. Mike, obviously, is going to notice, but at the very least he could refrain from mentioning it, do Will a solid in that regard just once. “Maybe,” he says evasively, thinking of the acceptance letter from NYU sitting in his desk drawer at home and, as usual, fighting off an immense wave of guilt. He wonders if he’ll ever stop feeling sorry for his entire existence. “You should come to L.A. next time,” he deflects instead, once he’s composed himself a little, glancing up at where Mike’s perched on the end of his bed and arching a brow at him.

“You don’t even like it there,” Mike points out, wrinkling his nose, and Will laughs quietly as he goes back to folding.

He tries not to take the statement as a rejection, but it’s hard. Mike is always a little more reserved about their relationship than Will is. Maybe it was wrong to even suggest Mike would take a leap like that, like Will did. Maybe Mike thinks he’s a fool for even taking that leap himself.

Will bites the inside of his cheek, warding the thought away. This is always how it starts - he always assumes the worst, even when Mike has given him zero reason to believe it. He knows Mike doesn’t think he’s an idiot. It’s a little harder to believe something like that, though, when Will himself believes he’s an idiot.

“I like it fine,” he says neutrally, siphoning any emotions out of the words as they leave his mouth, in that way he’s perfected over the years of being a., a basket case, b., a gay person who occasionally must act straight for survival reasons, and c., someone who works with a bunch of morons that can’t ever find out that they’re morons. It’s a tactic that also, incidentally, works very well for deceiving ex-boyfriends, but in his defense, that was never the original intention. “I’d like it better if you were there,” he adds, equally tonelessly, but he has a feeling that no amount of robotic delivery could erase the incriminating nature of that statement.

Still, it makes Mike smile, so maybe it’s worth it.

“Maybe,” he replies quietly, and his voice is the opposite - too many emotions to count. Maybe Will wears his heart on his sleeve more than Mike does, but he knows how to fold his hands behind his back to cover it. Mike’s heart is constantly spilling out of him, a mess that’s visible to the naked eye but impossible to decode.

Unless you’re Will. Will knows how to decode him. It just happens to be a very exhausting process, so he opts out a lot of the time.

He finishes packing his duffel and zips it shut, meeting Mike’s eyes again with a shy smile. “I should get going,” he says softly, a little regretfully. Mike, to his credit, has dropped the whining act now that the time of departure has actually arrived, and nods gracefully, hopping to his feet and offering Will a hand.

“I’ll walk you out,” he says as he pulls Will to his feet, as if his apartment is not 700 square feet at best, but Will keeps his mouth shut, just nodding and slinging his duffel over his shoulder as Mike trails after him toward the door.

Will pauses when he reaches it, one hand hovering over the handle as he turns back to look at Mike, who’s standing a few paces behind with a wide-eyed sort of innocence to his demeanor, like a lost puppy. He’s wondering if he’ll ever see Will again, Will realizes, and it hits him with a jolt that he will . Will is going to live here, and Mike has no idea.

Now is not the time to tell him, though, so he swallows hard and offers him a lopsided smile. “It was- it was nice to see you, Mike,” he says softly, shyly, hitching his bag higher up his shoulder. “You’re- I missed hanging out with you. Is that weird to say?”

Mike shrugs, smiling wide. “Maybe. I don’t know. We had something great,” he says reverently, eyes on him, always on Will, “not perfect, but great. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to admit that. And I definitely don’t think it’s a bad thing to try to get some of that back.”

Will flushes red, clutching harder at the strap of his bag and doing his level best not to release a very undignified squeak . “Yeah,” he agrees, “yeah, I think- um.” He clears his throat. “Hey, Mike?” he asks, heart pounding hard in his chest. Mike lifts his eyebrows, face open and honest and so, so beautiful. “Are we… does this mean we’re friends again?”

Mike’s lips part, then stretch into a wide smile. He releases a strangled little breath, nodding slowly. “Yeah,” he says, half-laughing, “yeah, I mean- of course we’re friends, Will. Best friends.”

“Really?” Will asks, too elated to sound as skeptical about it as he intends. “Because I thought- I mean, you were the one who said you couldn’t be, anymore. At- at the wedding.”

“I know,” Mike says, a pinched expression passing over his face. “I’m sorry. But… I don’t feel that way anymore, so. We can retract that precedent, if that’s what you want.” He smiles sheepishly, shrugging one shoulder. “I couldn’t not know you if I tried.”

Will chokes on a half-laugh, half-sob, and his grip on his bag falters a little. He’s mortified to find tears forming at the edges of his eyes, and it’s a welcome thing when Mike steps forward and wraps him in a firm hug, squeezing tight. “Me neither,” he says tearfully into Mike’s shoulder, as Mike’s hands rub soothing circles into his shoulder blades. 

Eventually, Mike pulls back, giving his shoulders one last appraising squeeze as he looks him up and down. “You should go,” he whispers. “Otherwise you might miss your flight and get stuck here with me forever.”

“Yeah,” Will murmurs. “That would be a real tragedy.” Mike hasn’t let go of him yet. One of his hands drifts up to cup Will’s jaw, and Will tilts forward just a little, watching as Mike swallows hard, lips parted.

Mike exhales quietly, and before Will has time to process it, he leans forward and presses a quick kiss to his cheek. “I’ll see you around,” he says, lightly teasing and more charming than it should be. He steps back, nearly tripping over Arlo in the process, which undercuts the smoothness a little bit, but Will only manages to feel more charmed by him.

He bites down a laugh, watching Mike quickly right himself and try to recover, blushing furiously. “You won’t, actually,” he points out, as Arlo comes up to paw at his feet, cocking his little head at Will as though asking him not to leave. Will nudges his toe against Arlo’s paw, silently begging him not to tempt him. “See me around, I mean. Because I live three thousand miles away.”

“Okay, I’ll call you,” Mike amends with an eyeroll, and Will laughs as he takes another step toward the door, Arlo meowing in offense and swatting at his shoelaces with a paw. Mike sighs and reaches down to scoop him up. “Leave him alone,” he coos at the cat, stroking his head soothingly and cradling him against his chest. “Will’s gotta go, I know, it is a bummer, but- stop biting me, oh my God-”

“Bye, Mike,” Will laughs, and Mike gives him a little wave over the top of Arlo’s head as he slips out the door.

July 1994

“I cannot believe you,” Dustin announces in Will’s ear, for maybe the fourth time this morning. “You are so completely chickenshit.”

“I am aware of this, thank you,” Will sighs, once again, as he swipes a stack of half-finished sketches off of his coffee table, the cordless phone tucked between his ear and his shoulder. He’s stress cleaning, which is not a great outlet, as it turns out, because he keeps his apartment tidy enough that there’s not a lot of cleaning to actually be done. Hence, why he’s talking to Dustin, and hence, why Dustin is bullying him. “Look, I’m sorry, there just wasn't a good time to talk to him about- about us while I was staying with him last time.”

“Okay, first of all,” Dustin says, and Will rolls his eyes at the mental image of him wagging a finger at him, “from the sound of it, literally the only thing you talked about while you were there was your relationship. Which, by the way, is part of why you’re so chickenshit, because you somehow managed to not bend that into getting back together with him.”

Will rifles through the sketches, frowning when he sees one of Mike, a rough outline of his sleeping face against a pillow, back in his apartment in New York. “Again,” he murmurs, tracing a fingertip over the line of Mike’s jaw, “I know all this already.”

“Second of all,” Dustin continues, undeterred, “there’s never gonna be a perfect time, because Mike is, like, the most awkward person on planet Earth, and there’s never a perfect time to have any sort of conversation with him. So you need to kill that mindset before he shows up in L.A., for real.”

Will’s stomach does a happy little flipping thing at the word both - it’s an old ingrained feeling from their pre-relationship days, being happy at any acknowledgement that Mike even remotely cares about him, even when he knows by now that Mike cares about him so much that it’s actually sort of a problem. He smiles a little and folds up the sketch, tucking it into his breast pocket and gathering up the other papers to toss into the recycling bin he’d dragged in from the kitchen. “I know,” he says again, a little distractedly, “but- I do think we maybe should focus first on the fact that he hasn’t actually told me that he’s coming to L.A.”

“That’s because he’s an idiot,” Dustin says with a sigh. “Which goes back to my first point.”

The first thing Dustin had said upon picking up the phone twenty minutes ago was Mike’s on a plane to L.A. right now, did you know , to which Will had responded yes, thanks for that, I do know, because he’s seen the signs at the bookstore advertising his book signing all week, and has been waiting on edge for Mike to mention it during all of their daily phone calls. Mike has not, in fact, mentioned it, but it’s fine. Will knows how to coax him out of hiding, usually. It only sometimes blows up in his face.

“He’s not an idiot,” he tells Dustin now, wrinkling his nose. It’s not entirely true - Mike is, sort of, an idiot, if in a very loveable and endearing way, because he says whatever he’s thinking without any filter whatsoever and he’s a terrible liar and he acts out dramatic DnD-based scenes in public, but the thing about all that is that he’s the same sort of idiot that Will is, at least in the ways that matter.

God, Will misses him. It’s absurd how much he’s missed Mike since he left New York last month, even though they talk every day. He can’t even hear Mike’s voice anymore without thinking about kissing him, which is incredibly inconvenient when Mike is on the other side of the country.

“He’s adorable,” he adds, just to be annoying.

Dustin fakes a gag. “Dude, come on, I don’t want to give you advice if you’re gonna be like that.”

“To be fair, I didn’t actually ask for your advice.” Will points out. “And,” he adds, before Dustin can protest, “he’s probably just nervous. He’ll tell me, and if he doesn’t, I’ll just go to his book signing tomorrow to see him.”

“Oh, yes, take him by surprise in public, that’ll go well,” Dustin says sarcastically. “Because Mike always copes well with new information. Remember in sixth grade when we failed to warn him beforehand that it was frog dissection day in biology? Remember? Remember how bad he freaked out, Will? I think that was his first panic attack. That’s what you’re up against here.”

“I do remember that, believe it or not,” Will says, wrinkling his nose, “because you and Lucas bailed and I was the one who had to splash water in his face until he stopped hyperventilating. Also, that wasn't his first panic attack, because his first panic attack was in fifth grade, the first time his mom put all his stuff in donation boxes without asking.” He pauses. “I don’t know why she still kept doing it after that. Did she just not know, or did she not care? Do you know if she ever knew about any of that?”

Dustin is silent for a beat. Then he clears his throat and, in a very lofty tone, starts, “Will, obviously I don’t have any of those answers, because I’m not fucking obsessed with him.”

“Sure, sure, makes sense,” Will muses, then shakes himself, pulling himself out of his momentary reverie. “Anyway, that’s exactly my point! Which is that I know him.” He smiles a little, satisfied, as he settles himself on the couch and surveys the room. It actually looks worse now than it did before, because he’d pulled out everything he owns with the purpose of reorganizing it, but he’d sort of lost his momentum halfway through and now there are books and art supplies stacked all across the living room floor. Unfortunately, he simply can’t bring himself to care. “It’s gonna be fine.”

Dustin hums. “Sure, maybe. If you don’t chicken out again.”

“Okay, this is not a productive conversation,” Will huffs, and pulls the phone away from his ear to glare at it. “I’m hanging up.”

“Wait, wait,” Dustin yelps, as Will reluctantly puts the phone back to his ear, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I believe in you, man. Go get him.”

Will hums a laugh. His hand flits to his pocket, skimming over the edge of the folded-up sketch. “I’ll do my best. Thanks.”

“Anytime,” he says jovially. “Don’t be chickenshit!”

“Okay, goodbye , Dustin.”

---

Will doesn’t know where this sudden burst of confidence came from, but less than two hours later he finds himself on the phone with Mike, uttering the words “have dinner with me,” like it’s a command and not a question that he desperately hopes Mike will say yes to.

Maybe it’s because he’s prepared this time, has thought things through and has decided it’s time to do it - to have the conversations that scared him back in New York, and to tell Mike the truth about moving there, and to ask the second question that he wants Mike to say yes to, the bigger and scarier one that has a much bigger payoff if it works out the way he wants.

Dustin’s right about him chickening out last time, but Will’s going to be brave this weekend. He doesn’t have any other choice - this is very likely his last opportunity to talk to Mike face-to-face before he actually decides whether to move, and he has a feeling that the getting-back-together conversation might not go over as well if it’s preceded by Mike finding out that Will’s been living in the same city as him for months without telling him so.

“You mean, tonight?” Mike asks after a beat, and Will can hear the waver in his voice. He sounds nervous. Will’s heart clenches painfully, but he barrels on anyway.

“Tonight,” he says, as gently as he can. “Unless you don’t want to?” he offers as an afterthought, always room for an out, with Mike. Always open to rejection.

Like he suspects, it doesn’t come. “I do want to,” Mike says, sounding mildly annoyed at the insinuation that he wouldn't, “but you’re just…”

Will blows out a breath, smiling a little. “I know,” he says softly, because he does. Mike is braver than he realizes most of the time, but in this case, Will can be brave enough for both of them. He owes him that much, at the very least. He just needs to see Mike’s face, and it’ll all be okay.

He has to believe that.

He tells Mike to meet him in an hour, and hangs up before either of them can think better of it.

---

Will taps his finger on the rim of his glass, anxiously bouncing his leg as he watches the window. He’d gotten here a good ten minutes too early, despite knowing that Mike is chronically late, and has been making himself sickeningly anxious about it every since. The confidence from earlier is slowly but surely evaporating, and he keeps reminding himself of his goals; see Mike. Spill his guts. Kiss him in the face.

It shouldn't be that hard, right?

He’s been pretty obvious, he thinks, what with all the cuddling and flirting and conversations that are just on this side of too honest. Sure, he’s held a few things back - namely, that he’s moving to New York, and also the fact that he hasn’t outright stated that yes, he still loves Mike more than words can express. He knows Mike will need to hear both of those things before they can agree to date again, and maybe a couple assurances that it won’t be like last time too, because Mike is the kind of person who needs people’s intentions clearly stated to him before he can begin to believe it. But it’s not like he’s given Mike any reason not to think he wants this. It’s not like Mike’s been all that subtle, either. They both just need one final push, one more brutally honest conversation.

Yeah. Will can do this.

“Hey,” a voice says, from somewhere to Will’s left. Will’s heart rate quickens, thinking for the briefest second that Mike is here, that he somehow slipped in when Will wasn't looking, but when he turns to face the guy leaning against the bar beside him, he’s met with blue eyes and short hair and a distressing lack of freckles. “I like your jacket,” the guy says, nodding at it with a small smile.

“Oh,” Will says, trying his level best not to sound disappointed about the distinct lack of Mike anywhere to be seen. “Um. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” the guy replies, sidling a little closer. “I’m Anthony.”

Okay, apparently they’re talking now. Anthony, who objectively is very handsome, but unfortunately isn’t Mike , is blocking Will’s view of the window. Will, briefly, wonders how rude it would be to ask him to move aside, just a little, so that Will can continue keeping watch. “Oh,” he says again, a little distractedly. “I’m- Will.”

“Nice to meet you, Will,” Anthony says, smiling a little. He edges closer. “You come here often?”

“Not really,” Will says. He can just make out the edge of the door around Anthony’s shoulder, so he’ll see it if it swings open. Probably. 

“Mm. Didn’t think so. I’m here most nights, and I’m pretty sure I would have recognized you.”

Anthony edges closer still, which is a little bit of a problem, because Will is very protective of his personal space and Anthony smells like cheap liquor and cigarettes - to be fair, Will probably does too, but hopefully in a more cute and sexy way rather than a gross annoying way like Anthony. Maybe he should have put on more cologne. 

At the very least, though, Anthony’s very obvious flirting tactics do allow Will to see the window again, so he doesn’t say anything. He squints, thinking for a second he sees a flash of black hair and a leather jacket, but he blinks again and it’s gone. “Can I buy you a drink?” Anthony asks, fingers brushing over Will’s on top of the bar, and Will jerks his eyes away from the window.

“Um- sorry,” he says, a little stiltedly. “I’m, uh. Taken.” Might as well admit it, at this point. “I’m waiting for someone.”

“Ah.” To his credit, Anthony immediately backs up, and his hand retreats. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Will says, and resumes his staring out the window as Anthony disappears toward the other end of the bar.

He waits.

He waits longer.

The minutes tick by excruciatingly slowly, as Will searches for more and more excuses for Mike, like he always does. Maybe he got lost. Maybe he couldn’t get a cab. Maybe he got held up by a gaggle of crazed fans, because he’s sort of a famous author now or whatever - God, what a weird concept. His Mike, who used to eat dirt on the playground and came up with nerdy DnD plotlines and saved Will’s life a bunch of times, famous .

He trips out over that for a while, and when he glances at the clock again, it’s been sixty minutes since Mike agreed to meet him here. Sixty. Six-zero. One full hour.

“He’s not coming,” Will whispers to himself, and briefly considers throwing his glass at the wall.

“So,” a voice says, and Will glances up to find Anthony still hunched over at the end of the bar, an eyebrow quirked at him. “No offense, but it seems like the someone you were waiting for isn’t-“

“Go away,” Will tells him flatly, and he holds his hands up in surrender.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says genially, “I’ll be over here if you change your mind.”

“Oh my God ,” Will huffs, and hops off of his barstool with no further comment, tossing a wad of cash onto the counter. Anthony doesn’t even seem to register him leaving, simply turning back to his beer and humming quietly to himself. Will digs his fingernails into his palm and grits his teeth as he steps out into the street, willing himself to breathe .

It’s fine. It’s fine . Mike is- well, Mike chickened out, didn’t he? Dustin probably should have been yelling at him over the phone earlier instead of Will. Maybe he did, and he chickened out anyway, which is worse.

At the very least, he’s right about Mike being an idiot.

Maybe Will jumped the gun on this whole thing, anyway. Maybe he should have waited until August to get back in touch with Mike, because Mike’s the sort of person who cares deeply about arbitrary dates like that, and Will knows that and he’d pushed him anyway. He’d pushed him again, too, when he kept calling, and when he showed up at his apartment in the middle of the night and allowed Mike to invite him in, and he’d probably known better, somewhere in the back of his mind. This is what always went wrong in their relationship - Will pushing Mike for answers, for clarity, and Mike not knowing how to give it to him. It’s not Mike’s fault that Will wants to crack him open the same way Will always automatically cracked himself open for Mike, without Mike even needing to ask. They’re probably never going to be even in that regard - Mike takes longer to calibrate than Will does, longer to realize what he’s feeling while Will realizes it too quickly and too much.

Will almost doesn’t register it when he sees the flash of black hair and leather jacket again, this time through the window of the bar on the corner of the street. Then, when he does register it, he does a double take, thinking that he conjured it up from thinking too hard about- about him .

Upon a third glance, however, he comes to the conclusion that the person slumped over at the counter inside this dive bar is, in fact, his person.

Jesus Christ. All this time Will’s been agonizing over Mike, and he’s been sitting in a bar three blocks away. He stands in the street for a minute, watching Mike take a sip of his drink and wave it around in the bartender’s face, saying something to her with a uniquely Mike kind of emphasis. More specifically, a uniquely Drunk Mike kind of emphasis. Mike, Will realizes, is absolutely shitfaced.

Will grits his teeth, and goes in to rescue him.

Chapter Text

Part III. The Cleric and the Paladin

July 1994 (continued)

Will’s not sure what time it is when he stumbles out of Mike’s room, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and yawning. Mike’s still dead to the world, faceplanted into a pillow with his hair spilling out over the sheets, and he’d had to do some very creative maneuvering to get out from underneath him and go in search of water. 

The house is quiet - Mrs. Wheeler is running errands with Holly and Mr. Wheeler is at work and Nancy is off with Jonathan, Will’s pretty sure. They’re both home for a few weeks this summer, before the Party goes off to college.

Will’s been especially worried about that lately - college, living thousands of miles away from everything he’s ever known. From Mike. There’s a sense of impending doom deep in his gut, and every little needling comment about it from Mike only seals it. I’m going to miss you, Will, what are we going to do, Will, I don’t understand why we have to keep fighting like this when we only have a couple more months together, Will, can’t we just table it?

It’s been a rough few weeks. But mornings like this are nice, where Will doesn’t have to scramble out of Mike’s window at the crack of dawn to make it back home before anyone wakes up and discovers him missing, or worse - discovers him half-clothed in his best friend’s bed. His mom and Hopper went out late last night and won’t be up for several hours, and he’d left a note on his pillow saying he went to Dustin’s just in case. There’s no one around, no threat of discovery, nothing to fight about. Just him and Mike curled up together, warm limbs tangled together.

Or so he thought. He rounds the corner to the kitchen, and is met with a surprised yelp and a flash of brown hair. “Oh!” Nancy says, clutching a hand to her chest and narrowly avoiding spilling her coffee. “Jesus, you scared me.”

Will freezes, eyes wide and darting around the kitchen. Clearly, there’s no getting out of this - she’s right there in front of him, and he’s wearing her brother’s t-shirt, and she’s already talking to him. An excuse, he thinks wildly, heart thumping away in his chest. What reason could he possibly have for being here? “Oh, hi,” he says awkwardly after a beat, when he realizes it’s his turn to speak. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were home.”

“It’s okay,” Nancy says warmly, smiling as she gestures to the coffee pot on the counter. “You want some?”

Will nods slowly, eyeing her warily. She doesn’t seem particularly surprised that he’s here, nor does she seem suspicious of the how and why. Does she already know? No - Mike wouldn’t have told her, and even if she’d figured it out on her own she wouldn’t be acting this casual about it. “Sure, thanks.”

She pours him a mug and hands it over, and he takes it with shaking hands, leaning against the counter and wondering how quickly he can possibly escape. “Is Mike still asleep?” she asks conversationally, and Will nearly chokes, forcing down a sip of coffee to cover it.

“Uh, yeah,” he manages, bobbing his head awkwardly. “I, uh. I thought you were with Jonathan today?” 

“Oh, yeah,” Nancy says, laughing a little as she takes another sip. “We’re still going out, I just wanted to come home and grab a change of clothes. Sorry to startle you.”

Will flushes pink, quickly running through his options. “That’s okay,” he says quickly, “I just- um, I came by to grab some stuff I left here last week.”

“Oh,” she says, giving him a shrewd once-over, and dammit. If she wasn’t suspicious before, she certainly is now - why can’t Will ever think of good excuses? And he’s always yelling at Mike for the same thing. God, he’s a hypocrite. “Well, okay. If Mike doesn’t wake up soon just kick him in the ribs, that usually does the trick.”

Will snorts. He likes Nancy, he has to admit, even if she’s on the verge of giving him a heart attack right now. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Nancy smirks, tapping a fingernail against the rim of her mug, and they fall silent for a minute, Will staring into his coffee and Nancy watching him with a kind of eagle-eyed keenness that he absolutely doesn’t like. He prays that his (Mike’s) shirt collar covers the marks he knows are dusting his collarbones. He’d forgotten to check in the mirror before coming out here. Stupid.

“Hey,” Nancy says after a beat, as Will sips at his coffee and tries very hard not to faint, “can I ask you something?”

Will’s grip on his mug tightens enough that he’s worried it might break. He makes himself look up at her again, feigning nonchalance. “Sure,” he says with a shrug that probably looks more like a twitch of some kind.

Nancy purses her lips, tipping her head in the direction of the stairs. Will thinks of Mike, still blessedly asleep in the room above, and swallows back a surge of jealousy at his ignorance to the conversation going on in the kitchen. Will should have just stayed in bed for another twenty minutes. “Is he… okay?”

Will blinks. Of all the questions he’d thought she might be asking, that one wasn’t even in the top ten. “Who, Mike?”

“Yeah.” She bites her lip, looking inexplicably nervous. “I just… he seems off lately. I think college is going to be a hard change for him, and I don’t- I mean, he doesn’t talk to me, so. I don’t really know, but I just want to make sure.”

Will’s chest pangs painfully, and he takes another sip of coffee to stall as he searches for an answer. She’s right - Mike doesn’t handle change well, and this is a pretty fucking big one. That, and the rapid deterioration of their relationship as of late - the beginning of the end, as he’ll think of it later - and the truthful answer is no, Mike probably isn’t okay.

But the real truth is that Will doesn’t have any way to know either, because Mike doesn’t tell him. He cries in his arms at night and screams in his face during the day, but in the peaceful moments in between all he ever wants to do is kiss and flirt and keep the uglier stuff at bay, always complaining about not wanting to ruin the moment by dredging it all up again. 

Will certainly knows more than Nancy does, though, that’s for sure, and he feels bad, so he forces a small smile and replies, “Yeah, I think he’ll be okay. You’re right, it’s just- change.”

“Yeah.” She smiles back, a little sadly, and drains the rest of her coffee before dropping the mug in the sink. “Well, I’m glad he has such good friends.”

Yeah, Will thinks idly as Nancy straightens up, smoothing out her blouse and flashing a bright, calm grin. Friends.

“Bye, Nance,” he says, and she gives him a wave as she disappears out the front door.

“What took you so long?” Mike mumbles when Will eventually slips back into his room, shaken but relieved that they’re still in the clear. He locks the bedroom door behind him, just in case.

“Oh, nothing,” Will replies - no need to stress him out with the Nancy stuff - and climbs back into bed beside him, wrapping his arms tight around his abdomen from behind. “I was just making coffee.” 

Mike hums his acknowledgement, his hands coming up to clasp on top of Will’s. Will wriggles closer, pressing a firm kiss to the nape of his neck, and tries his best to memorize the solidness of him, to be grateful that he’s here at all, to not worry for once about whatever it is Mike’s hiding behind his perpetually locked ribcage. 

“Mike?” he asks after a minute, feeling Mike’s breath slowly even out again beneath his arms. Mike grunts in response, and Will squeezes him gently, kissing his bare shoulder. “Are you… okay?”

Mike hums again, rolling over in Will’s arms and shoving his face into his neck, keeping his eyes closed all the while. “Of course,” he replies easily, such a practiced lie that Will almost lets himself believe it. “I have you.”

“Right,” Will agrees faintly, pulling him closer and running a hand over his shoulder blades. “Me.”

Will sighs into the darkness, rolling over in bed for the fourth time since dragging Mike upstairs. Mike’s snoring, face slackened out with sleep and dried tears still marking tracks along his cheeks. His words from earlier, in Will’s car after he drove him home from the bar, are still bouncing around Will’s skull - you know too much. Things I won’t even admit to myself. It’s annoying . 

Will, at this moment, doesn’t feel like he knows anything. He’s turning it all over in his brain - the bar, Mike stumbling out to his car and trying to shove him away, telling him he didn’t need him, pouting in the car and crying in Will’s bed. And before that- their relationship, all of the fighting and making up and kissing in secret and all but ignoring each other in public. Those last couple months, when Will knew it was going to come to an end but couldn’t bring himself to sharpen the ax just yet, when he could tell Mike was thinking the same and it killed him just a little. When he stood in the kitchen across from his future sister-in-law, watching her beg him to tell her that her brother was okay, and realized he didn’t have an answer.

He relives it in silence, their whole story flashing through his brain, and still he can’t make sense of it all. He can’t see the ending, or the plot points leading up to it. He has no idea where to go from here, and he’d thought Mike might be able to help him with that, but now he’s not so sure.

He has no right to be mad, really. This is how it goes with Mike sometimes - to get him to admit to something, to behave a certain way, to convince him that it’s okay if he commits to a decision, you have to make that choice for him and hope his confidence level rises to match your own.

(Not that Will has ever had a lot of confidence to begin with. He fakes it, mostly, when he can. This is probably part of the problem.)

Sometimes it works. Other times it freaks him out more, and he bails on the whole thing entirely. It’s on Will for not preparing for that possibility, probably. It’s on him for pushing too much on Mike too quickly.

Maybe Mike’s right. Maybe Mike doesn’t need Will, Will who is always too much, always asking for more, always getting ahead of himself and forgetting to ground himself in reality. But clearly Mike needs something , and Will has no idea how to give that to him. He doesn’t know how to help, and he’s bleeding himself dry trying.

He sighs and rolls over again, forcing his eyes shut so that he doesn’t have to look at Mike’s face, pale and beautiful in the moonlight. He slips his arms around Mike’s waist again, and Mike shifts in his sleep, grunting softly and bringing an unconscious arm up to sling over Will’s shoulders. If Will keeps his eyes closed, he can pretend Mike’s holding him on purpose again like he did back in New York, and if he breathes through his mouth he can ignore the scent of alcohol on Mike’s breath, and if he forces his mind to be quiet he can forget about how he broke Mike’s heart in half, and maybe if he can do all those things he can also force out the nagging thought that by doing so he killed any chance of Mike ever trusting him again. If Mike wouldn’t talk to him even when they were together, how could he possibly be comfortable enough to do it now?

A stray tear escapes his eye despite his best efforts, and Will ducks his head to rest against Mike’s chest, breathing him in. Here, where the smell of alcohol is not so prevalent, he can catch a whiff of Mike’s cologne, the tang of leather from the jacket he’d been wearing, that scent that’s uniquely Mike’s. That’s just it, he thinks - Mike can be a complete wreck of a human being, can hurt Will over and over, can fuck things up beyond belief, and all Will is ever going to end up thinking about is how good he smells, how pretty he is even when he cries, his wide eyes begging for forgiveness. The truth of the matter is that for every shitty thing Mike does, Will can think of fifty sweet gestures to make up for it. He knows that nights like tonight are his moments of weakness, not who he is.

Mike shifts in his sleep again, drawing Will just the slightest bit closer, and Will knows he’ll forgive him by the time the sun rises.

---

When the sun does rise, Mike, naturally, is still passed out in Will’s bed. Will, having gotten a few precious hours of restless sleep, is awakened by the sunlight streaming in through the crack in the blinds, and can’t force himself to stay there any longer, so he wriggles out from underneath Mike and slips out of bed.

In the light of day, the melancholy from last night has seeped from his bones just the slightest bit, and he can think a little more clearly, form a plan of action. Mike still has his book signing today, Will knows, so he heads for the bathroom first, brushing his teeth and running a comb through his hair before laying out a spare toothbrush, glass of water, and Aspirin for Mike. He pulls on jeans and a t-shirt at random, then wanders into the kitchen and flicks the stove on.

Making breakfast provides a nice routine, mindless and rhythmic, while he sorts through his options in his mind. There’s a tiny, vindictive part of him that wants to punish Mike, but the bigger part of him, the part that laid out all those supplies for him in the bathroom just now, knows he won’t go through with it. Instead, he sets out an extra plate for him, and pops another piece of bread in the toaster.

He just needs to know what the problem is, he decides as he watches his scrambled eggs sizzle in the pan. Mike never tells him what the problem is. If he could just get him to tell him that, he’s sure it would make a difference. The issue is, he has no idea how to do that, so- whatever! He’ll be nice, like always, because being mean will only make things worse, and he doesn’t have a particularly high tolerance for being mean to Mike anyway.

It’s going to be fine.

He thinks, briefly, of the NYU acceptance letter still sitting in his desk, where he’s been too afraid to look at it ever since he visited Mike in New York. Maybe he shouldn’t go, after all. Maybe it’ll be too much for Mike - maybe Will’s forcing things on him like he does with everything else. No one ever treats Mike as gently as they should. Will either has to quit tiptoeing around this and tell him or he needs to let it go as a pipe dream.

He’s debating the merits of each option - on the one, he wants to move, and he wants to be near Mike, but on the other, telling him that is the most terrifying thing in the world - when Mike stumbles out into the kitchen, yawning and rubbing his head.

Will’s heart leaps into his throat with- what? Sympathy, maybe; he hopes Mike took the painkillers he left out. But also… it’s Mike. Will’s never going to be able to look at him without thinking I want to kiss him . 

“Hey,” he says, forcing his voice to stay normal. “I’m glad you’re up,” he adds truthfully, as Mike blinks blearily at him, “how are you feeling?”

Mike stares at him for a beat, still calibrating, and Will tries to look as nonchalant as possible as he spoons eggs onto a plate for himself and dry toast onto a second plate for Mike. “Shitty,” Mike says after a beat, voice scratchy.

Will smiles a little. “Yeah, I bet. Here, sit down.”

Mike’s movements are slow and stilted as he lowers himself into a stool by the counter, eyeing the spread Will’s prepared like it might be poisoned. Will hands him his plate and a cup of coffee, and he makes a face. “Nope.”

Will sighs. It’s understandable - Mike had been drunk enough to bring him to tears last night, which in general for him translates to pretty fucking drunk , but Will would rather not argue with him like he’s a child when he’s already so overwhelmed. “Just a couple bites, please?” he tries, on the off chance Mike will listen.

Mike scowls, even as he tries to take a tiny bite of the toast. “I told you I don’t need this,” he mutters, bitter. Will flinches, recalling his screwed up expression on the curb outside the bar last night - I don’t need you. I’m fine. I have a hotel room . 

Will can’t help it- his patience is worn thin. “And I told you, you’re a fucking idiot,” he replies before he can stop himself, and Mike flinches like he’s been slapped.

Fuck. Will doesn’t know how to do this with him. He doesn’t know how to argue in a way that Mike will listen, he doesn’t know how to pull them out of that old pattern, how to create something more constructive. He doesn’t know what he’s doing wrong .

“You’re mad at me,” Mike whispers, and he sounds absolutely devastated, and Will wants to cry.

“No,” he forces out, and takes a sip of his coffee to force down the lump in his throat. “I’m just…”

He can’t finish the sentence without breaking down, but Mike doesn’t need him to. “Disappointed?” he supplies, a self-deprecating irony in his voice. Will hates it when he uses that tone.

Still, it’s meant to be a joke, so he offers a cursory smile. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s- I don’t know, Mike.”

It’s a little bit of a lie - he does know what it is, but the issue is there’s too much here and he doesn’t know where to begin. The issue is that Mike is sad, and the issue is that Mike was mean to him, and the issue is that Mike hates himself more for that than Will ever could, and Will isn’t sure if loving Mike is the solution or just another problem to add to the pile. He’d like to think it’s the former. 

“You’re so confusing,” Mike mutters, as he tears off another chunk of toast and pops it into his mouth, chewing slowly and methodically.

Will raises an eyebrow. “Oh, I’m confusing?” he asks before he can stop himself, crossing the line into irritation just a little. He’s sick of sifting through the mountain of problems between them and not having Mike give him a single answer. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Mike confirms, giving him a look that is very plainly begging Will to contest him, to give him the fight he clearly wants. He’s not sure why Mike does that - maybe he thinks he deserves it. Maybe he thinks Will’s holding back by being nice to him, like Will just walks around all day waiting for an opportunity to be mean to him, like Will has a whole secret stash of horrible thoughts he thinks about Mike. Like Will has ever felt anything but love for him, and granted, Mike is fucking annoying sometimes, but Will’s spent five years learning that he’d still rather die than lose him again. "You're always too nice , and lying to make me feel better, and I never know if-"

“I don’t lie to you,” Will cuts in, more sharply than he intends, but he doesn’t miss the flash of satisfaction on Mike’s face as he sits back in his chair, shoulders squared, ready for a real argument.

“Spring break, 1986,” he cites, and Will rolls his eyes.

“That’s the hill you’re going to die on?” he asks, less harshly this time, just gently reprimanding. He reaches across the counter to flick Mike’s forehead, and Mike bats his hand away, looking irritated, though Will’s not sure if that’s due to his actual comeback or the lack of real bite to it. He wanted Will to yell, probably, but Will simply doesn’t have the energy. Besides, there’s a tiny, petty part of him that doesn’t want to give Mike the satisfaction.

“I could,” Mike points out sullenly.

Will sighs. “Fine.” A silence falls over them, and Mike opens his mouth like he’s about to start another fight, but Will cuts him off. “Can you please just eat something, Mike,” he says quietly, feeling a little dejected, a little hopeless, and Mike’s face contorts with guilt. “I’m worried about you.”

He expects Mike to tell him he doesn’t need him again, but instead he just takes another small bite, blinking hard and fast, and looks up at him weakly. “I’m sorry,” he whispers sincerely, which Will had already deduced, but it’s nice to hear it aloud, he guesses. “I’m being a brat.”

“A bit,” Will allows, aiming for a joke, and Mike’s mouth twitches violently like he’s trying to smile. Will contemplates kissing him, but this probably isn’t the best time, so he shoves the coffee cup in his direction instead. “You can make it up to me by drinking your coffee.”

Mike looks at him woundedly, like this is the most difficult task Will could possibly have asked of him, but takes a sip anyway, grimacing. “Will?” he asks in a small voice, and when Will hums in response, “last night, did I try to, uh…”

His face pinkens, and Will raises an eyebrow, mildly pleased. “Try to what?”

Mike whines, leaning forward to rest his forehead against the counter. “Don’t bully me, I’m hungover.”

Will hums a laugh, and he can’t resist reaching out, brushing gentle fingers through Mike’s hair. Mike makes an appreciative noise. “No, you didn’t try to kiss me,” he promises, trying very hard to keep the pleased note out of his voice, because- no, it’s true, Mike didn’t try to kiss him, had only mumbled vague apologies and self-deprecations and cried a couple times, but the fact that he’s asking now means that maybe he’d wanted to, and maybe Will should have known that anyway, but it’s- it’s validation, at the very least. “Do you… want to talk about it?” he offers hesitantly, maybe a little hopefully, and Mike winces, lifting his head.

“What do you want me to say?” he whines miserably, and Will deflates again, just a little. At least he’s looking him in the eye again.

“I don’t know,” he sighs, “do you want to tell me why you were being a crazy idiot last night?”

Mike quirks an eyebrow. “Crazy together.”

Will sighs again, more pointedly this time, and Mike has the decency to look embarrassed. “Okay, if you’re too hungover to do this right now, that’s fine, but I just wanted… just wanted to see. If there was anything you…” he trails off. Anything you wanted to tell me. Anything you wanted to explain, or ask, or give me a chance to tell you, because God knows I have plenty of those - “Nevermind, whatever. Finish your coffee.”

Mike’s eyebrows draw together, and he opens his mouth, but no words come out. He looks vaguely panicked, like he knows Will wants him to say something, anything, but doesn’t know what. Will would give him a hint if he had any of the answers. He closes his mouth after a beat, just shaking his head slowly. “I’m sorry,” he whispers again eventually, at a loss.

Will smiles weakly. “Yeah, I know.”

---

Will drums his fingers against the counter, staring at the patch of sunlight on the kitchen floor streaming through the window as he listens to the phone ring. He dropped Mike off at his book signing a little over an hour ago, after gently encouraging him to put on some clothes and run a brush through his hair. Mike had shot him apologetic glances the whole car ride, fiddling nervously with his fingers, and Will hadn’t known how to deal with it, so he’d pretended not to see, simply offering him a soft smile and a quick kiss on the cheek as he parked in front of the bookstore.

It’s not fair . Will never gets to be angry. Will always has to patch everyone up, and it’s not that he wants to yell at Mike, but- maybe it’s childish, but he wishes Mike would stop putting them in situations where he has to decide between calm rationality and a screaming match. He wants this to be easy . He wants to tell Mike he loves him and have that be the end of it. 

He probably shouldn’t be bothering Max with this, but he doesn’t know what else to do. He needs to- he doesn’t know what he needs. To bounce his thoughts off someone, basically, someone who isn’t El or Jonathan and won’t talk to him with that thinly veiled concern, gently suggesting solutions that Will knows in his heart won’t work. He needs to explain the impossibility of the situation and just have someone say shit, that sucks , and let him sit with it for a while. Mike used to be good at that, before he became the situation Will was upset over.

Also, maybe he’s feeling a little petty, a little rejected, and he wants confirmation that he’s allowed to. Jonathan would tell him to do what’s right. El would tell him to talk to Mike. Max will- well, he doesn’t know what she’s going to do, but not that . She and Mike have a strange connection, but a strong one. He trusts her opinion.

“Hey,” he says as soon as the line gets picked up, “so first of all, I’m sorry it’s been ages since we’ve talked, but-”

“Will?”

Will pauses, scrunching his nose. “El?”

“Yeah.” There’s a sound of shuffling on the other end, and El sounds concerned when she asks, haltingly, “why are you calling Max?”

“Why are you picking up Max’s phone?” Will counters, and she huffs a breath.

“She is in the bathroom, and Lucas went to get more wine. What’s wrong?”

Will blinks. “You’re hanging out with both of them?”

“Well, they live together,” El says plainly, which Will knew , obviously, but whatever. “It is a package deal. I don’t mind. Anyway, what’s wrong? Did something happen with Mike?”

He’s clearly not going to get more information on the Lucas and Max situation, so he sighs, boosting himself onto the counter and extending one socked foot until the light from the window catches it. “May I remind you that I wasn’t actually calling for you?”

“You may,” El allows, “but it doesn’t matter. What happened?”

Will groans. “Can you just get me Max, please?”

“You haven’t talked to Max in nine months,” El points out, “I know because she was complaining to me last week about how she could have reproduced an entire human being by now and you wouldn’t have even heard about it.”

Will squints, moving his toe from side to side, in and out of the patch of light. “I probably would have heard,” he mumbles, sullen.

“What ever ,” El huffs. “My point was that you wouldn’t be calling her unless something was wrong.”

“What if I’m calling for Lucas?” Will snips, just to be annoying, and El groans. “I totally could be.”

“You just said you weren’t,” she says impatiently. “Tell me what happened.”

Will scowls, dropping his leg. “Nothing happened!” he lies, not very believably based on the sound El makes on the other end of the line. “It’s fine. Mike’s visiting, and he’s at a book signing right now, and it’s all fine . We’re gonna be fine. I just wanted to ask Max something.”

“What did you want to ask her?” El says, ignoring the first part, probably account of it only being fifty percent true, and she probably could have figured out all the true parts on her own anyway. 

“None of your business,” Will squawks, “can’t I have some privacy?”

El sighs. “Okay, whatever. I’ll just call Mike. Or get Max to tell me later.”

There’s a shuffling on the other end of the line, a slightly muffled question, and El’s voice is distant when she answers something along the lines of what Mike did to Will this time . Will wants to tell her to be nicer, because Will has broken them just as much as Mike has, but she’s clearly not talking to him. “Okay, Max is here!”

“Um,” Will says, frowning, “hang on, before you go I’d like to revisit where you said you were gonna call Mike -”

“It was just an option!” El says brightly, “something I was considering. For a minute. Anyway, here’s Max-”

“Do not call him,” Will says, holding up a finger as though El can see him, “El, seriously, I don’t need you to-”

“I’m passing you to Max now!” El says cheerfully.

Will lets his head loll back against the wall, repressing a groan. “She’s gonna call him,” he whispers to himself. “She’s gonna call him immediately.”

“Probably,” Max agrees, startling him. He sits up again, squinting at the wall. “What’s got you all hot and bothered, Byers?”

Will rolls his eyes, smiling to himself a little. “Hi, Max. Nice talking to you too.”

“I know,” she replies evenly. “So what’s up? You only ever call me if you’re in distress.”

Will winces. “That’s not…” he tries weakly, then gives up, because it is, of course it is. He avoids talking to most people from his old life these days, because he knows he won’t be able to keep up the happy facade in front of them. He clears his throat. “I’m sorry,” he corrects. That’s always a good starting point.

Max hums a laugh in his ear. “I forgive you,” she says, which Will appreciates it - he hates being told it’s okay when it’s not. He hates bullshitting, empty words. Max doesn’t bother with many of those. “You are in distress, though, right?”

Will snorts. When am I not , he thinks idly, and it’s sharply true; there’s always just a little bit of panic thrumming under the surface of his skin, a quiet buzz that is usually ignorable but spikes every once in a while. He’s not sure how to live without it, at this point. “Yeah, I guess so,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “It’s- I mean, he’s just… and NYU, it’s- I don’t know what to-”

“Will,” Max cuts in, not unkindly, “stop. Back up. Who, what, when, where, why?”

Will laughs sheepishly. “Right, sorry. Um- Mike, he’s here in L.A., and he’s being a dick but I just- I love him, because I’m an idiot, and I got into NYU and I don’t know how to tell him.”

“And you came to me for advice?” Max asks, and Will can practically hear her eyebrow raise. “I’m probably the second most emotionally constipated of our friends, after Mike.”

Will laughs again, a little hysterically. “Actually, I came to you for validation in thinking he’s being a dick.”

“Oh,” Max says, brightening a little, and it makes Will feel just a little bit better, a little more normal , like he’s in a simple, uncomplicated relationship and just needs to vent to a friend instead of- whatever it is he’s doing. “That I can do. What happened?”

Will tries his level best not to feel like a horrible person as he relays the gist of the previous night - it is, as Erica Sinclair might say, “just the facts” - but despite his request for commiseration, he finds himself doing his best to keep the story as objective as possible anyway. He knows Max wouldn’t truly judge Mike, wouldn’t condemn him or anything like that, but he feels this constant need to defend him sometimes, even from other people that love him. Sometimes he wonders what the difference is between defending and making excuses.

“Christ,” Max muses when he’s done, which, yeah, pretty accurately sums up the situation. “I really thought he was doing better.”

“I thought so too,” Will says thickly - despite his attempted objectivity, he’d struggled to get through the story without crying, both for himself and for Mike. “I think maybe it’s my fault. I- I bring this out in him.”

Max is silent for a minute, though it’s a comfortable sort of quiet; more like she’s considering his words than judging them. “I don’t know,” she says after a minute. “When you guys first started talking again he was, like, disgustingly happy.”

Something jolts in Will’s chest, and he inhales sharply. “Really?” he asks meekly, and Max scoffs on the other end of the line.

“Yeah, really,” she says, like it’s obvious. “He’s obsessed with you. It was like he- he believed in himself again, you know?”

“Oh,” Will says dumbly, throat constricting with unshed tears again, and he clears it a couple times before continuing, “Did he- did he not before?”

“I don’t know,” Max sighs. “Maybe. He’s starting to, I think, with the books and everything. Sometimes he still gets drunk and calls me crying, but… I would rather he do that than pretend nothing’s wrong, you know? He feels things more vocally now. I’d call that progress.”

Will swallows hard, unsure how to respond to that. He grips the counter tightly, knuckles turning white, thinks of what Mike looks like when he’s happy, tries to conjure up that sweet, boyish expression in his mind’s eye. It comes easily; it’s his favorite Mike expression, if he had to pick one. He loved putting that look on his face. Still does. If there’s any chance he could do that again…

“I think you’re good for him, Will,” Max says quietly after a beat, when it becomes clear Will has no response.

“Maybe,” Will allows, brows pinching together. “But-”

“No. You are.” She coughs. “And, like- I’m not gonna tell you that you guys shouldn’t have broken up, because I break up with Lucas all the time, but I will tell you that he’s definitely happier when you’re around than not. Even if it’s not romantic or whatever, it’s… you guys are like half each other’s childhoods, right? That’s not easy to let go of. I mean, I didn’t even join the Party until seventh grade and I’d still kill for all of you, so.”

Will laughs wetly. “Yeah, right back at you.”

“I know,” she says warmly. “That’s my point. I’m not judging you for the breakup, but this whole silence thing was never gonna be a good solution. It just makes jumping back in that much more complicated.” She pauses. “Sorry, I just realized you said you didn’t actually want advice. Do you still want me to tell you he’s a dick? Because that’s true too.”

“No, that’s okay,” Will says, shaking his head and smiling a little despite everything. “I mean, he is sometimes, but so am I. I don’t even really care about the stuff last night, I just…” he blows out a breath. “I just don’t know what to do.”

“When El broke up with Mike,” Max says thoughtfully after a moment, as Will stares blankly at a syrup stain on his counter, thinks of quiet mornings with Mike when they were allowed to exist, on those rare occasions as teenagers when they’d gotten the house to themselves and had made breakfast together and kissed against countertops and, just for a moment, let themselves believe they were normal. He misses those days. He misses that denial. “When they broke up- she told me something, about you.”

“Oh?” he asks, a little belatedly. “What?”

“She said it was weird that you didn’t already know,” Max says, voice hesitant, “That she had to be the one to tell you. Because you were rooming with him, during the apocalypse or whatever.”

Will huffs a wry little laugh. “Yeah, he was still avoiding me then. I think he thought if he told me about the breakup it would expose him, or something.”

“Yes, Mike is very confusing, we know this,” Max says, a little impatiently, and Will laughs again, a little hysterically. “And he was still hurting you then. But that wasn't what she was confused about. She said it was your face.”

“My face?” Will repeats weakly. “What about it?”

“You were surprised,” Max says, tone soft, “I remember because she used the word stunned , and I didn’t know she even knew that word.” She huffs a little laugh. “She didn’t get it then, but she mentioned it in passing the other day, and- I mean, it makes sense now. You couldn’t believe that anyone wouldn't want to be with Mike.”

Will chokes out a strangled noise, his stupid eyes once again filled with stupid tears. Maybe it’s better to be getting them out of the way now, at least, before he sees Mike again. Whatever conversation they need to have is probably going to be easier if he’s not speaking through sobs. “Ironic,” he hisses out through his teeth, and Max hums sympathetically in his ear.

“Sorry,” she says, a little stiltedly. Will is struck with a random memory - him crying in the basement at the Wheeler’s during a particularly rough battle during the apocalypse, Max poking her head in and wincing at the sight of him, telling him hey, sorry, I suck at this stuff, you can tell me to fuck off if you want , and then sitting there and hugging him anyway when he begged her not to leave him alone. He feels a rush of affection for her, grateful for the millionth time that Dustin and Lucas chose this particular girl to fixate on in seventh grade. “I thought that would be helpful, I don’t know.”

 Will snorts. “Reminding me that I love him? I’m pretty aware of that, thanks, Max.”

“No!” she huffs, frustrated, “Well- yes , but I more meant, like, you were fifteen years old and you couldn’t fathom a reality where you wouldn't want to be with Mike, and then you broke up with him anyway, and that sucked, but you never stopped wanting to be with him. Can you actually envision a world where you guys don’t end up back together?”

Will huffs out a breath. “I could,” he retorts, just to be contradictory. “For the last part, anyway.”

“Okay,” Max says diplomatically, but Will can tell she’s gritting her teeth through it, “do you want to?”

Will groans, slumping forward onto the cool counter and knocking his forehead against it, phone still pressed to his ear. “No.”

“Okay,” Max says again, more forcefully this time. “Then fucking fight for him, dumbass. It won’t kill you to be selfish once in a blue moon.”

“You have a really skewed concept of what a pep talk is,” Will gripes.

“You have a really skewed concept of normal ex dynamics,” Max replies immediately, like she was ready for it. “You should definitely tell him about NYU,” she adds, and there’s a sound of rustling on the other end of the line, and she sounds a little more distracted, like now that she’s moved on to the more logical part of the conversation she doesn’t need to focus as hard. “Just so he has all the information. I don’t think you should decide whether or not to move based on him, or anything, but at least you’ll know how he feels about it.”

“Yeah,” Will sighs, leaning back against the counter and flicking the kettle on. “I know. I’m just- scared, but. Yeah.”

“It’s not like you have to get back together with him,” Max reminds him. “But I wouldn’t recommend completely cutting him off again either. He’d die from attention deficit or something.”

Will snorts. “Fair enough.”

“Mike’s kind of an idiot,” Max adds thoughtfully after a beat, “But he loves you. Deep down he’s still just this sweet, scared little kid who wants to be loved.”

Will swallows hard. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I know. And I- I mean, I do, obviously. Love him.”

“‘Course you do,” Max says, voice warm, “we all do. Sometimes with him you just kinda have to bash him over the head with it until he believes you.” She pauses. “Also, don’t tell him I said any of this.”

Will laughs, for real this time, feeling significantly lighter than he had when he woke up this morning. “I don’t know, you said some pretty nice stuff. He might like to hear it.”

“I’ll end your life, Byers,” she says calmly, in a way that makes Will absolutely believe her. He laughs again.

“Bye, Max,” he hums, smiling into the receiver. “Love you.”

“Call me more, then,” she gripes, but there’s no bite to it, and a moment later she adds, a little begrudgingly, “Love you too.”

Will laughs again, all the way up until the line clicks silent.

---

It’s kind of crazy how many people are here, Will thinks as he leans against the outer wall of the bookstore, turning Mike’s book over in his hands idly. The line is almost out the door, though it’s starting to dwindle a little now that the signing is almost over. All different kinds of people, too - little kids bouncing eagerly on the balls of their feet while their parents do their best to corral them and college kids chatting and laughing in line and a group of boys that reminds Will of the Party, back in the day, animatedly discussing a plotline from the second book.

It makes Will oddly proud, seeing how many people Mike’s touched with his writing. He wonders if Mike feels it too, the genuine adoration these people feel for him. He hopes so. Mike never realizes how much impact he has on people until it's too late.

He taps a foot against the concrete, watching as the last few people disappear into the store before turning his gaze to the book in his hands. He flips open the cover, running his fingertips over the dedication idly. To my heart. You know who you are .

Will takes a shaky breath, letting the cover fall shut again. His heart . Right. Sometimes he thinks Mike gives him too much credit.

The doors swing open again, and Will tucks the book back into his bag as Mike emerges from inside, looking harried. His eyes land on Will, and his mouth drops open comically, like it’s somehow a shock - like he thinks Will would have just abandoned him, after this morning.

“There he is,” Will says gently, lifting a hand in greeting, and Mike’s brows pinch together the way they always do when he’s trying not to cry. “Famous author Mike Wheeler.”

“Semi famous at best,” Mike croaks out, vaguely strangled, and takes a stilted step toward him. “Um. What are you doing here?”

Will swallows hard. “Thought you might need a ride home,” he says truthfully. Not the whole truth, of course, but- small victories. 

“Right,” Mike says faintly, gaze sliding over to Will’s car, parked at the end of the block. “Um. Just to be clear, do you mean your home, or the hotel?”

Mine , Will thinks immediately, clutching his hand tightly around the strap of his bag. Please. Please don’t leave. Not like this. “Up to you,” he manages, like the mature adult he is. “Also, you know, I thought maybe I should get my book signed for once.”

Mike blushes adorably as Will pulls the book and a pen from his bag. He takes both items hesitantly and peers sheepishly up at him. “The dedication wasn’t enough for you?”

Will huffs a laugh, a little more at ease now by Mike’s expression, soft and open as he gazes down at the battered book, running a fingertip over one of the dog-eared pages. “Call me crazy,” he hums, and Mike meets his eyes again, a shy smile threatening to break out across his face, “but there’s just something about a handwritten note.”

Mike bites his lip, shrugging one shoulder. “Well,” he huffs, “I hate to break it to you, but the book signing is over, so-”

“Michael,” Will cuts in, kicking him with the toe of his shoe, “I wasn’t about to stand in line for you like a common civilian , or something.”

Mike snorts, but diligently flips open the cover and clicks the pen a couple times, considering. Will bites his lip, shifting from foot to foot in anticipation as Mike slowly presses the tip of his pen to the page and scribbles something like he’s trying not to think about it too hard. He finishes writing and shoves it back at him, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, as Will takes the book back and cautiously slips a finger under the cover, not sure if he wants to read what Mike wrote. “For everything.”

Will takes a breath, then flips open the cover before he can think better of it. Mike has crossed out the original dedication, correcting it with the words: To Will. I’ll always need you . Love, Mike.

Right. Cool. A very nice sentiment, which Will is definitely not going to start crying about. He flips the cover closed decisively, swallows back the lump in his throat, and forces a smile. “I forgive you,” he says, and means it.

Mike’s eyes track him as he places the book in his bag again, a small smile lingering on his lips. “You know,” he hedges, tone light and verging on flirty, if Will’s brave enough to categorize it that way, “for a book that came out three months ago, you sure seem to have read it a lot.”

Will shrugs, feigning nonchalance, even though Mike’s perfectly correct - Will reads all of Mike’s books religiously. It’s refreshing, getting a full view into his mind, even if the actual events he discusses are years past now. “Yeah, well.” He points to his car. “So, need a ride home?”

Mike considers for a moment, then nods shyly. “Only if it’s your home,” he says, verging on flirty.

Will grins.

They talk quietly as Will drives them back to his apartment, Mike slumped in the front seat with his arms crossed over his chest, making himself small. Will wants to reach across the console and offer his hand, but he’s afraid Mike won’t take it or, worse, will push him away. He doesn’t know what the rules are, anymore. If there should be any at all.

He’s debating this, clutching the steering wheel as he stops slowly at a red light, when Mike speaks up again, voice timid and on the verge of breaking:

“Do I make you sad?”

The question slices through him like a white-hot knife, cutting him to his core. Mike has a knack for asking the hard questions, the ones that Will wants to yell at him for even thinking up in the first place, if only because he doesn’t know how else to respond.

He breathes in slowly, methodically, focusing on not crashing the car as he turns off onto a side street and grips the wheel tightly. “Why do you ask?” he tries, for the sake of stall time.

Mike makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, like Will’s confirmed something for him, and Will fights back a wave of panic, because he didn’t , Mike doesn’t , he didn’t mean it- he never means it the way Mike thinks- “You know why.”

"No," Will says quickly. "No, you don't- you don't make me sad, Mike, I just…” He shakes his head frantically, pulling into the parking lot for his apartment, the car shuddering to a halt in time with his erratic heart rate. “I'm sad when you're sad. But you, as a person, make me really, really happy."

"You're crying,” Mike points out, voice flat and resigned.

Will gives him a look, probably undercut by the very real tears in his eyes. He’d barely even noticed they were there until Mike pointed it out. “You’re sad,” he counters with a sniffle.

It’s a surprise when Mike’s arms reach for him, his torso stretching across the center console at an awkward angle to pull Will in, elbows knocking against the steering wheel, and Will has to laugh a little about the Mike of it all - clumsy but trying , always trying so hard, and maybe it’s this, above all else, that makes hope worm its way into his ribcage. He leans in and presses his face to Mike’s shoulder, and Mike squeezes his shoulder gently.

“Everything is okay,” Mike whispers, sounding like he’s trying to convince himself just as much as Will.

It’s the craziest thing - Will almost believes him. 

They go upstairs.

Will runs the words over in his brain as Mike wanders into his kitchen, looking around and taking it all in as if for the first time; I’m sorry, I love you, and there’s this little acceptance letter from NYU that I wanted to talk to you about, what would you say if…

He’s about to say it- there’s a speech somewhere in the jumble of words resting on his tongue, if he could just string them together properly - he should learn to be a writer like Mike, he’d probably make bank writing about all the nonsense he feels on a daily basis - when Mike speaks, loud and jarring in the quiet of the apartment.

"I'm sorry about last night.”

Will glances at him, arching a brow and opening his mouth to point out that Mike said that already, and that he gets it, and he forgives him, and by the way what if he moved to New York, but true to form Mike is incapable of making just one statement at once. "I know, I know I've already said it, but- it's true," he insists, which Will hadn’t doubted before, but- he gets it, he forgives him, et cetera. "It's stupid, I was being stupid. I just saw you at the restaurant and you were talking to some guy, and I just- I don't know. I freaked, and I shouldn't have stood you up like that, I'm sorry."

It’s almost funny - that after everything, that seedy guy who hit on Will for five minutes was what did it for Mike. "Well," he huffs, fighting a little smile at the irony, "If your plan was to run away, you certainly weren't very successful."

"Yeah, well," Mike hums, and this is also striking Will as amusing - that Mike is choosing this moment to flirt with him. "Maybe if you weren't, like, stalking me, we wouldn't be in this position."

Will smirks, because it’s fun, because he can . Mike doesn’t look ready to bolt - maybe Will can take advantage of that. Maybe they have time. It’s unnerving how easily Mike is able to make him feel like a giddy teenager with a crush. He didn’t even feel like a giddy teenager when he was a teenager. "I stalk because I care,” he says, and then, more seriously, “I only talked to that guy for, like, two minutes before he got the message that I wasn't interested. But I'm sorry you got freaked out."

Mike shakes his head. "S' not your fault," he says, and right, no, it never is - Will’s been letting Mike take the fall for them for years now. "I get freaked out by literally everything."

Will frowns. "I don't think that's quite true. Remember when you stabbed that Demodog with a bread knife?"

Mike shakes his head ruefully. "Supernatural stuff is different,” he says. “It's, like, obviously you have to kill the monsters, because they're evil and everything, but when it's me , like. How do I fight the problem when it is literally just myself?"

"What- problem ,” Will says weakly, shaking his head slowly and bracing one hand against the counter. The words are like a knife to the chest - hearing Mike condemn himself so easily makes his stomach twist unpleasantly, like how he felt when they were together every time they’d fight over something stupid and Mike’s face would screw up like he was trying not to cry. He’s been letting Mike take the fall for them since he was sixteen, and this is where it’s brought them; Mike, standing in Will’s kitchen avoiding his gaze as he calmly calls himself a problem like it’s something he’s accepted as reality.

Mike shrugs, oblivious to Will’s inner turmoil. "I don't know. I was an asshole to you, that's not a problem?"

Will can’t not reach for him in a time like this. He steps over to him and takes hold of his wrist, squeezing gently and rubbing his thumb against the back of his hand. "I know how you work, Mike," he whispers, smiling as best he can. "I know you didn't mean any of it. Plus,” he adds, looking him up and down and aiming for a joke, “you kind of look like a disaster right now, so it's hard to be mad at you."

"You lent me this shirt," Mike defends, face flushing pink, and Will laughs, reaching up to brush Mike’s hair out of his eyes.

"I'm kidding," he assures him, and then, on a whim, "You're a very cute disaster."

It has its desired effect - Mike’s face immediately morphs from easy self-deprecation into an adorably flustered grimace. "Um. Thanks?"

"You're welcome," Will says neutrally, and it’s the biggest relief in the world when Mike turns his hand over and slots their fingers together. "You're not a problem, Mike,” he says firmly.

“Promise?” Mike whispers, looking near tears again as he clutches at Will’s hand, and Will sees what Max meant on the phone earlier - he looks so young like this, a kid with a scraped knee asking Will to kiss it better. It makes Will’s chest hurt.

“I promise,” he says, and Mike’s eyes slide closed, a small, relieved smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

He’s so beautiful. Will leans over to kiss his forehead, just because he can, because he has to, because he knows this has always been the quickest way to soothe Mike’s anxieties - coaxing them out with gentle touches and soft words, then smoothing out the wrinkles as best he can. Mike’s smile grows a little at the touch, and Will leans over to flick the radio on before wrapping Mike in his arms and tugging him into the middle of the kitchen floor. “C’mere.”

“What are you doing?” Mike asks, quirking an eyebrow, “Are we- dancing?”

"I am," Will points out, "You're just standing there."

“You’re a freak,” Mike tells him plainly, but he looks kind of awed, and he leans into Will’s touch, pulling him in until Will drops his head to rest against his shoulder.

“I’m your freak,” he whispers, more sincerely than he’d originally intended, but Mike just laughs and sways gently with him. He feels so solid under Will, so real . It’s a nice reminder. It’s nice to get out of his own head for once, to just relax into Mike’s arms.

He squeezes him tighter and lifts him into the air, spinning around once before Mike yelps in protest and taps at his shoulder. “Will, stop, I’m still hungover.”

Will sets him down immediately, laughing sheepishly. "Right, sorry. You okay?"

Mike tucks his face into Will’s neck, taking a couple deep breaths before answering. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

Will kisses the top of his head. “Okay. Are you planning on moving anytime soon?”

“Not really,” Mike replies, but lifts his head anyway, eyes sparkling. Will forgot how easy it is to make him light up like this, how just a few simple words of praise can keep his insecurities at bay. Maybe- maybe he is good for Mike, after all.

He swallows hard. “You should know something,” he whispers, nose brushing against Mike’s with their proximity. 

Mike raises an eyebrow, clearly aiming for a smirking expression but looking more nervous than anything else as his eyes dart down to Will’s lips. "Oh, yeah? What's that?"

Will takes a slow breath, steeling himself. He’s never been good with words, but this is Mike, and he needs- he needs this. Will would rather die than live in a world where Mike doesn’t know how loved he is. "There was no other guy to freak out about, last night," he forces out, and Mike’s eyebrows lift, his lips parting. "I mean, it's not like I haven't dated anyone else,” Will continues in a rush, blushing, “but really- there's no need to freak out about any of them, either, because- I love you." He squeezes Mike’s hip on a reflex, and Mike squeezes back. His eyes are wet around the edges. Oh God. "I love you again, and I love you still, and I love you always, so just- do yourself a favor and try to love you too, yeah?"

Mike gasps out a sob, but he’s smiling, nodding enthusiastically as he locks his arms around Will’s waist. “I’m working on it,” he promises, as Will lifts a hand to brush some of his tears away. “I’m working so hard, Will.”

“I know,” Will says, and he’s trembling a little too now, with adrenaline, maybe, or the dizzying array of emotions he’s experiencing. “I know you are, baby.”

“Baby,” Mike repeats softly, eyes wide, awed.

“Sorry,” Will murmurs, even though he’s not, smirking a little. “Old habits,” he adds, which isn’t true either - or, maybe it is, but it had definitely been more calculated a phrase than that. He wanted Mike to hear it. He wanted to bring them back to what they were.

Mike shakes his head, tears still flowing freely down his cheeks. "Don't- apologize. Don't ever apologize, for anything, I- you-"

"Okay," Will agrees before he can think better of it, "I'm not sorry, then, and you shouldn't be either, and-"

"I love you too," Mike cuts in, which Will probably could have figured out on his own but still makes him want to jump for joy or cry or hug him and spin him around in circles again, hangover be damned, "Um- but you probably know that, and I interrupted you, so-”

Mike is many things. He’s a boy made of fire, of fierce passion, and he commits himself to everything he does. He’s sweet and kind and doesn’t know it, and he’s scared and intense and unintentionally cruel, and it hurts sometimes, to love someone who burns that bright.

But Will could never stop loving him, because the most important thing about Mike Wheeler is this: he always comes back.

"Mike," Will interrupts, which Mike looks incredibly grateful for, "I'm going to kiss you now."

The first time they kiss, it’s in the Upside Down, surrounded by about twenty Demodog carcasses.

“Holy shit,” Will breathes, slinging his gun back over his shoulder and running a hand through his sweaty hair. Mike steps back from where he’d been nudging one of the bodies with a stick, making sure it’s fully dead. “Are you okay?”

“Um,” Mike says tightly, voice strained and breathing labored. “Yeah? I- I think so. I don’t think I’ve seen this many in one place since- since the tunnels.”

“Yeah,” Will agrees absently, surveying the nearest body. He’d shot it in the throat, and its blood oozes an almost black shade of red onto the forest floor. “Jesus. We should- we should keep going, we have to get back to the others.”

“Right,” Mike says faintly, “right, yeah.” He glances over at him quickly, squinting. “You’re okay?”

“Physically, yeah,” Will replies with a smile, expecting Mike to snort appreciatively and agree, but instead Mike’s face contorts, and he glances away again.

“Yeah. Let’s go,” he decides in an odd voice, like he’s aiming for snippy but landing somewhere a little more vulnerable. He sets off, boots crunching through the underbrush with each solid, determined footstep.

Will frowns. “Wait, Mike,” he says, scrambling to follow him and struggling to keep up with his long stride. For someone who resolutely refused to run the mile in P.E. for all three years of middle school, Mike sure can move fast when he wants to. “Are you mad, did I say something wrong?”

“No,” Mike says, in that odd tone again, and it clicks this time, what it is- Mike’s crying.

The realization stops Will in his tracks, giving Mike enough time to get a few more paces ahead of him, and he nearly trips over his own feet trying to catch up again. “Mike!” he tries again, as Mike sniffles and swipes an irritated hand across his face. Will catches his arm as he tries to lower it, yanking him to a stop and staring up at him imploringly. “Hey,” he says gently, squeezing his arm and resisting the ever-present urge to reach up and cup Mike’s cheek. “Hey, what’s wrong? I’m here, I’m right here.”

“I know,” Mike sniffles, shuffling his feet and not meeting Will’s eyes, “I know, I’m sorry, I just- everything’s so fucked up, and we keep almost dying and you’re- you deserve better than-” he cuts himself off with a choked sob. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Will says, as calmly as he can manage while internally freaking out. Mike hasn’t cried in front of him in years, and this is quickly nearing full-on mental breakdown territory, which is probably good for the sake of catharsis, but not so much when they’re in the middle of an evil alternate dimension. “Mike, hey, look at me.” Mike does as he’s told, lower lip wobbling and eyes red-rimmed. It makes Will’s heart ache. “Tell me again?” Will asks gently, squeezing his arm again so he’s not tempted to do more - to reach out and touch, hold, press his lips to the tear tracks marring that beautiful face. “It’s okay, I’m here for you.”

“That’s the problem,” Mike wails, taking a step back, Will’s hand falling pathetically away from his arm. “You’re always here, but I want- I want more than- I want things I shouldn’t, and you’re so good , all the time, and it’s driving me crazy and I’m so scared I’m gonna lose you and-” he hiccups, shaking his head vehemently. “I have to- you’re going to hate me if I tell you.”

Will opens his mouth helplessly, arms still half-extended on the off chance Mike wants to collapse into them. “I could never hate you,” he says weakly, because he doesn’t know what else to say. “Really, I wouldn’t. We don’t have to talk about this right now, though, I promise it’s okay.”

“It’s not, it’s not, I- fuck,” Mike says, running a hand through his hair.

Will watches, nerves bubbling inside of him. He has an inkling, something in him that recognizes the fear in his eyes, the panicked stumbling over his words - it’s familiar to him, the same way he feels every time Mike starts yelling about girlfriends and growing up, every time he asks what about us? and Mike’s face contorts like that, but it’s not- it can’t be- “Mike, I’m serious, you don’t have to say anything if you don’t-”

“-No,” Mike interrupts, then winces. “Sorry, just… I should be able to talk about this. I need to say this, I just don’t- I don’t know how.”

His voice breaks on the last word, and something snaps inside Will’s chest. Everything goes crashing through him at once, every repressed desire, every concealed heartbreak, and he’s moving before he quite knows what he’s doing, stepping forward and cupping Mike’s face with his hands. Mike looks up at him with wide, wet eyes, and Will can almost see it in them, now - the devotion in them. This, too, crashes through him, the intensity of it almost too much to bear. “Words are overrated,” he whispers, tears sliding down his cheeks - maybe, maybe, maybe - “I just need you to tell me to stop if you- if this isn’t-”

Mike shakes his head, eyes wide. He’s trembling a little under Will’s palms. “Why would I tell you to stop?” he asks, sounding nothing short of incredulous.

Will exhales sharply, and then they’re kissing.

It’s messy and heated and desperate, and Will’s heart is pounding and suffering from severe whiplash from devastation to elation, and everything’s spinning, spinning, spinning, and-

-and-

-and this is nothing like that.

This is warm and sweet, like being wrapped in a fuzzy blanket, like hot chocolate and laughter on a cold winter afternoon. Mike’s arms are wrapped around him, draped around his waist, and his nose digs into Will’s cheek as he languidly presses their lips together. It feels familiar, despite the way the shape of Mike’s torso has filled out, his hair grown out longer, the scratch of stubble against Will’s face when as teenagers he was always clean shaved. Mike has changed, but this is the same - this feeling. It feels like home.

It’s a bit of a trick, reconciling this version of Mike with the one he’d spent so long memorizing, but all at once, they’re kissing again, and it all slots together, and Will gets it. Gets him.

It’s funny, how much kissing Mike feels like absolution.

“Second first kiss,” Mike murmurs against his lips, half-laughing and hitching him closer.

Will hums, blinking up at him and smiling shyly. “Ha, yeah. It’s- good, right?”

“Very good,” Mike agrees, and dives back in so enthusiastically that Will stumbles a little, giggling hazily as Mike’s hands press against his back and his tongue slips into his mouth. He winds up pressed against the counter, Mike’s hands up his shirt, settling into the welcoming heat of it. It’s almost impressive, the way Mike seems to remember all the right ways to kiss him, every light touch and teasing scrape of teeth against lips that makes him shudder in approval.

He almost wants to point it out, except that then Mike might stop, and he never wants this to end, ever. His stomach lurches painfully when he thinks of Mike leaving for New York tomorrow, leaving him , and he hangs on tighter so he doesn’t have to think about things like NYU and teaching school and, more specifically, the fact that he still has to tell Mike about it.

“We should talk more,” he mumbles, because he is nothing if not self-sabotaging, and Mike huffs an annoyed breath into his mouth.

“Totally,” he agrees flatly, pulling back to squint at him. “Later, though.”

Will snorts. “Okay,” he agrees, and Mike’s grin is blinding as he scoops him back up into his arms.

The kissing decidedly doesn’t stop, which is good, because now that it’s started, Will doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of it. It’s like that dam he’s been suppressing for the last five years has finally broken, and now he’s starved for any and every ounce of physical touch he can get from Mike - which, to be fair, Mike doesn’t seem to have any problem granting.

They make out against the counter, then on the couch, then in between movements as Will pulls Mike up from the couch and quietly but firmly tells him that they have to go get his stuff from the hotel he’d checked into. Mike makes several halfhearted protest about how he doesn’t need his stuff, and can’t he just borrow Will’s clothes, but Will kisses his forehead and tells him there’s no point in paying for another night at the hotel when he wants him right here, and that shuts Mike up pretty quickly.

Will goes into his room to grab a pair of shoes while Mike stands by the door waiting for him, and when he gets back, he’s struck by the simple presence of Mike, leaning casually against the wall and examining one of the paintings hung on it with a gentle, pleased expression. He looks right here, with Will. Will didn’t realize how lonely his apartment felt until now.

“Hey,” Will hums teasingly as he reaches him, reaching over to tangle their fingers together. “Missed you.”

Mike glances up, smiling absently. Will half-expects him to tease him for having missed him in the thirty seconds it took for him to go grab his shoes, but instead he just squeezes his hand and murmurs, “Missed you too.”

Will hesitates for a beat, trying to decide what it is he wants in this moment, before deciding he just wants to be close , and pulls Mike in by the sleeve. Mike makes a soft noise of surprise, but goes willingly, letting Will fold him into his arms and hold on tight. Will releases a shaky breath, the solidness of the contact washing over him, soothing any remaining anxieties. It’s the first thing he can ever remember wanting from Mike - touch, innocent but solid. Just to be held by him. Luckily, Mike has rarely denied him that desire, even before everything.

Now is no exception - Mike rests his cheek against the top of Will’s head, rubbing a thumb across Will’s shoulder blade and swaying a little as he holds him. “You okay, sweetheart?” he asks softly, pressing a stray kiss into Will’s hair.

Will smiles a little, tucking it away against Mike’s collarbone and squeezing him tighter. “Mhm. I think so.”

“Okay,” Mike says simply, taking it at face value for once, which is good, because Will means it. He kisses Will’s head again, hugging him close, and they both linger there for a long few minutes, Will’s face hidden in Mike’s neck and Mike’s cheek pressed against his hair, just holding each other. It feels nice to be held like this, simple and unhurried. He could live for a very long time in this moment, he thinks. 

Mike must be thinking something similar, because his arms tighten around Will, just barely, and one hand comes up to cup the back of his head, gently holding him there where Will’s face is tucked into his neck. Will hums appreciatively, pressing his cheek against his shoulder and inhaling his scent slowly. Leather, cedar. The musty scent of old books and ink. Mike , and underneath it, the smell of Will’s laundry detergent, the clean smell of deodorant; Mike must have borrowed some this morning. This, somehow, is more comforting than any of the rest - his own life bleeding into Mike’s, just in this one small way.

Mike’s other arm wraps fully across his back, snaking around to grasp his opposite hip and pulling him flush against him. His nose is still buried in Will’s hair, and Will can feel his breath fanning out across the top of his skull, like he’s breathing him in just as methodically Will is. He squeezes Will’s hip again, pressing another kiss to the top of his head, and it’s maybe the firmest I love you Will has ever received from him.

He squeezes back, locking his arms firmly around Mike’s waist, and nudges his nose against the line of his throat. “You smell nice,” he mumbles, eyes having long since fluttered shut. He can feel Mike’s hair ticking the side of his face, can sense the movement when Mike swallows, humming a soft laugh.

“Thanks,” he murmurs. “You’re…” he trails off, shaking his head slightly and pressing his lips firmly to the crown of Will’s skull. “I missed you,” he reiterates eventually, seemingly at a loss for better words. Will always has that effect on him - it’s not so much that he restricts Mike’s ability to speak or express himself, because God knows Mike can talk for ages when he wants to, and Will would never in a million years want him to stop - but he always struggles to explain how he feels where Will’s concerned. 

Maybe Will just has to listen harder.

He takes a shaky breath and finally pulls back, immediately missing the tactile contact and warmth of the embrace, but he has a feeling that if he’d held on much longer he would have started confessing to things that he himself isn’t even completely aware of yet. Things stuffed behind his ribcage ages ago that are aching to escape, but whose exact nature and implications haven’t quite reached his own brain stem.

Mike blinks at him, a soft smile turning his features gentle, eyes a little red and damp around the edges. Will kindly pretends not to notice; he’s sure he doesn’t look much better. “We should- uh. We should go,” he whispers, afraid to speak too loud and ruin whatever precious thing they’ve built in this apartment in the last couple hours. He’s already afraid that leaving at all will shatter it, but more importantly, he wants Mike to stay with him, and he’ll feel a lot more confident about that happening once Mike’s belongings are physically here too. 

Mike’s smile grows, and he bobs his head a little sheepishly. “Lead the way, my liege,” he says in a low, flirty voice, and Will laughs, rolling his eyes affectionately and reaching up to flick his forehead. 

“Dork,” he accuses, and Mike giggles, bright and pleased, and swoops in to kiss both his cheeks, cupping his cheeks and making obnoxious smacking noises as he presses kiss after kiss to his skin. Will shrieks with laughter, the reflective quiet of a few minutes ago dissipating steadily as Mike’s nose digs into his temple. He trails kisses over his cheeks and jawline, then catches him full on the mouth in a firm, bruising kiss before pulling back again, smirking.

“Okay,” he hums, clearly pleased with himself. “Let’s go.”

---

When they get back to the apartment, Mike dumps his bag unceremoniously on the floor and snatches Will up by the waist again, pushing him back until he’s pressed against the counter and their lips are locked against each other hungrily.

Will ends up sitting on the counter, Mike standing between his knees with one hand cupping his neck and the other gripping his thigh. Will drinks him in, lets Mike keep pushing, pushing, pushing, until they have to come up for air.

Mike’s eyes, wide and dark, stare up at him through his lashes. He nudges Will’s knee, arching an eyebrow as he shuffles closer. He slips one hand under his shirt and presses a thumb into his side, cocking his head at him inquisitively.

Will’s heart rate quickens. “Later,” he says breathlessly, and leans in for another quick kiss. “I believe you promised to have dinner with me.”

Guilt flashes across Mike’s face, but he quickly papers over it with a smirk. “Yeah? You gonna cook for me, Byers?”

Will settles into the easy teasing, and refuses to think of the consequences. “Maybe. If you’re nice to me.”

There’s the guilt again, and Will regrets it instantly. He debates apologizing, but decides that will make it too real, and judging by the smile Mike plasters on, he feels the same.

Still, he’s gentle when he kisses Mike again, cupping his jaw and rubbing his thumb back and forth over his skin. Mike smiles into it, just a little, and Will pulls away to kiss the tip of his nose before gently pushing Mike back to make room for him to slide off the counter.

He finds a package of mac n cheese in the cupboard and sets about boiling water. Mike raises his eyebrow at the food choice, and Will gives him a look.

“For old times sake!” he says brightly, shaking the box at him, and Mike’s mouth ticks up into a fond little smile. “Remember during the apocalypse when we’d make this all the time? It was the only good ration we could ever find and the two of us would sneak into the kitchen and make some in the middle of the night.”

Mike laughs. “Yeah, I remember. Nancy always got so pissed that we were hogging it.” He boosts himself up onto the counter where Will had just been sitting, legs swinging idly.

“We were, to be fair,” Will says. He sets the box back down while he waits for the water to boil, sidles up between Mike’s knees and grins up at him. “Is it weird that I get nostalgic for those nights sometimes? Like- not the Upside Down stuff, obviously, but I liked when it was the two of us against the world like that.”

Mike smiles, bumping his nose against Will’s. “Yeah, I know what you mean. It was- weird, and scary and everything, but…”

He trails off, a contemplative look in his eyes, but Will can fill in the blanks easily enough: but that was when we first fell in love.

Tears burn the back of his throat, but it feels a little sweeter, remembering it with Mike rather than alone, at night when he can’t keep the sad thoughts away. He tilts his face up, pressing a quick kiss to Mike’s lips, then another, smiling when he pulls away.

Mike tilts his head to the side, smiling back a little confusedly. “What’s that for?” he asks, as though they have not been making out for most of the evening. 

Will lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Old time’s sake.”

 “Oh.” Mike’s eyes crinkle up at the corners, bright and dancing and slightly bittersweet. “That’s…” he shakes his head, at a loss, lips parted and looking a little awed. “That’s nice.”

Will grins . “You’re nice.”

Mike’s brow crinkles in disagreement. He opens his mouth, closes it again, shakes his head minutely. Will rolls his eyes and shoves a hand up into his hair, just behind his ear. He tilts Mike’s face toward himself, and Mike pouts but allows himself to be moved. 

“You’re nice,” he says again, more quietly this time, looking right into his eyes, and Mike still looks like he wants to argue but he just exhales quietly and smirks fondly down at him. 

“Okay,” Mike agrees quietly, hesitantly. “I’m nice.”

Will grins wider, and rises up on tiptoe to kiss him again.

Will only remembers about the mac n cheese when the water boils over, and he hurries to take it off the heat and dump in the noodles while Mike laughs at him. Mike flicks the radio on again, and slides off the counter to “help” with the cooking, despite the utter lack of need for such a thing, but then he starts singing in his overdramatic, raspy voice, and Will is laughing , so much that his chest hurts, and, look, it’s not like he was never happy in the five years they’ve been apart, but it was a lot harder to get him to feel like this; giddy, warm, flushed. 

It’s a little odd, too, to realize that even when he and Mike were together the first time, he didn’t laugh this easy. It feels like he’s gotten something back, but it feels better, too, in a convoluted sort of way. 

“Here,” Will says, after they’ve fake-argued for ten minutes about the proper way to mix in the cheese powder and they’re both holding bowls of pasta, standing up and leaning against the counters opposite each other. He grabs the ketchup bottle out of the fridge and passes it to Mike. “For your gross eating habits. Eggs with syrup and ketchup with pasta, right?”

He quirks an eyebrow, and Mike wrinkles his nose at him but immediately begins dumping ketchup onto his mac and cheese anyway, which makes Will feel far more relieved than he should. It’s good to know that some things never change. Mike is still Mike. Will is still Will. They’re still in love. Those are hard, immovable facts, and it’s comforting to think about.

“Right,” Mike confirms in a grumble, trying and failing to act offended. “Also pickles with popcorn,” he adds, which is probably the most blasphemous thing Will has ever heard, and makes him grin anyway.

“Forgot that one, my bad,” he says, and Mike ducks his head to hide a smile.

“You like my gross eating habits,” he announces, and hands back the ketchup like some sort of defiance. “I know you do.”

Will sighs, and makes a show out of reluctantly squeezing out a pool of ketchup into his bowl. “Yeah, maybe,” he concedes. He sets the bottle down and chances a glance up at Mike, heart leaping into his throat when he adds, a little too softly; “You did a number on me, Wheeler.”

Mike’s mouth ticks up into a fond little smile, even if his eyes stay wide and sad. 

His eyes weren’t always so sad all the time. Will wonders if that’s his own fault or a side effect of Mike’s trauma or something else entirely.

“Right back at you,” Mike says quietly, and gestures Will close again.

It takes them longer to finish eating than it should, because they’re both talking animatedly about things that don’t matter and Will keeps tilting his face up for a kiss every few seconds, a compulsion he’s finally allowed to act on. Mike complies easily, interrupting himself mid sentence to kiss Will’s lips, forehead, nose, everywhere he can reach from his perch on the counter.

After an hour or so, Mike’s fork finally scrapes the bottom of his bowl, and he hops off the counter, flicking the tap on and grabbing the sponge off the little rack Will keeps it on.

“Mike,” Will protests immediately, weakly, “Let me.”

“Nope,” Mike replies cheerfully, and sends Will a bright grin over his shoulder as he starts scrubbing at the pot Will had used.

Will makes a face at him and hip-checks him out of the way. “Yes,” he says firmly, attempting to snatch the sponge out of Mike’s hand, but Mike easily lifts it over his head. “I- Mike , come on, you wouldn't let me do them when we were at your apartment.”

Mike stares down at him, impassive, and Will sighs. 

He’s a little brave (and maybe a little cruel too) when he reaches out to trail a finger over Mike’s hip, right where his shirt is riding up from his arm still stretched in the air above them. “Please?” he asks, glancing up at Mike through his lashes.

Predictably, Mike’s defiant expression shutters, then melts entirely, and he drops the sponge into Will’s waiting palm. “You’re an evil man,” he says, and settles himself resignedly on one of the stools at the counter.

Will watches him, a fond little smile tugging at his lips, before turning to the dishes and firmly commanding himself to snap out of it. This isn’t anything, officially. He lives here, and Mike lives there, and they were a fucking mess before and- and Will is terrified.

He thinks of the letter from NYU, the envelope torn and the contents folded haphazardly back inside, still tucked away in his desk, and his stomach twists.

When he finishes the dishes, he sidles back over to Mike, who’s sitting with his arms folded, glaring petulantly at the wall. He stops in front of him, hands on his hips and a smirk on his face, and Mike’s eyes reluctantly trail up to meet his own. “Evil,” he says again.

Will rolls his eyes. “So sorry for being a good host,” he replies, “won’t happen again.”

Mike’s sour expression breaks, and he grins wide as he reaches up and tugs on Will’s wrist gently. “D’you want to watch a movie or something?” he asks, pressing an absent kiss to Will’s knuckles.

It’s an innocent ask, Will knows. Movie nights were their thing , once upon a time, in a time when nights alone in Mike’s basement were pretty much the closest thing to a date that they could manage. It was a thing even before that, too, since they were stupid little kids staying up too late on sleepovers giggling into each other’s ears until Karen Wheeler marched downstairs and turned the TV off herself.

Those memories don’t ache nearly as much, now, but they do strike fear in Will. It’s too familiar, too much like old times, and he doesn’t know what it is Mike wants or expects out of this and he’s not ready to ask. The evening so far has already been so horribly wonderfully domestic, but Will is not going to allow himself to be foolish enough to think it will last. Mike is unpredictable, and this situation is a minefield, and Will can’t let himself get too comfortable. That’s something he’s learned, in his long life of disappointment; that it always comes, in the form of a punch or a cruel name or a hell dimension opened up beneath his feet. In the form of a relationship that hurts too much, when he thought it would be nothing but bliss.

Will opts to take the easy way out, just for a little while longer. He plasters on a smirk, and he flips his hand around, tangling his fingers with Mike’s. “Not particularly,” he says, and before Mike can open his dumb, gorgeous mouth to ask what he’d rather do, he tugs sharply on his arm, dragging Mike to his feet and sending him stumbling against his chest, laughing and catching himself on Will’s waist. The anxiety in Will’s chest settles just a little, and he winds his arms around Mike’s neck. “C’mere,” he murmurs, and draws him in for a deep kiss. 

This, he knows how to do. This doesn’t require feelings, or watching Mike’s face flash with guilt, or looking at much of anything, actually. Will can close his eyes and lean into Mike, feel the man he loves beneath his palms, and that’s all that matters.

Mike drags him closer, and Will starts pushing him down the hall, letting himself forget about disappointment for just a little while longer.

---

They still haven’t talked about it, hours later as they lay quietly in Will’s bed, the room lit softly by the glow of the fairy lights strung up along the ceiling as Will rests his head on Mike’s shoulder and Mike idly traces his fingertips back and forth along Will’s shoulder blades. Will’s been trying to come up with a segue into the whole I’m moving to New York debacle, but the moment is too nice to ruin, so he keeps chickening out, simply leaning over and kissing him again every time the words almost fall from his lips.

“This is cool,” Mike says eventually, plucking a glass paperweight with a tiny paintbrush suspended inside it off of Will’s bedside table and twirling it idly in his hands. Will smiles, rolling onto his side and hooking one leg over Mike’s. 

“Thanks. It was a gift.”

Mike arches an eyebrow, pausing with the paperweight still dangling from his fingertips. “Oh?”

Will smiles a little, running an idle hand across Mike’s chest. “Yeah. From my- friend, Adrian.”

Mike squints at him. “Friend,” he repeats flatly, and Will snorts.

“Ex. Turned friend,” he corrects, gently taking the paperweight from Mike before he can drop it on his own face and crack his skull open. “We only dated for a few weeks, and we don’t really talk that much anymore, but.” He lets his head roll to the side, smiling lazily. “You’d like him, I think.”

Mike raises an eyebrow, and Will knows what he’s thinking - Mike’s not possessive, exactly, but the idea of him liking any of Will’s exes is frankly laughable. “Hmm,” he hums, skeptical, and Will laughs.

“Well, maybe you would,” he corrects. “He’s fun. Goofy.”

“Well, if he’s so great, why didn’t it work out?” Mike says, in an impressively even tone, considering. 

Will snorts. “I like how hard you’re trying not to be jealous right now,” he says, in an attempt to lighten the mood, but Mike’s face screws up, and he makes a disgruntled noise.

“This is what I mean when I say I’m an asshole,” he grumbles, in a joking enough tone, but Will’s always been able to read his self-deprecation clearer than anyone else.

Other people think Mike is mean or loud or full of himself. Will hates it, sometimes, how wrong they are, hates that they’ve made Mike believe it too.

“I don’t date assholes,” Will sniffs, and Mike’s eyes widen just the slightest bit. Will swallows; there’s ambiguity here, surely, he could just as well be talking about the first time, he isn’t giving himself away, he will not be foolish enough to believe that dating Mike is what’s happening here. It’s just Mike , half his brain points out, but Will’s been foolish for Mike for ages now and it has not gotten any less embarrassing over time.

He clears his throat, Mike’s eyes still wide and gaze on him turned burning. Or maybe that’s just the way Will is reading it; Mike’s stare has always made his skin feel red-hot. “Anyway. We dated when I was twenty. I liked him, but- I was trying to get over someone, at the time-” his eyes dart to the someone in question, and his heart lurches when he sees the somber expression on Mike’s face. “-and I thought that trying to date someone new might help but in the end it just made it worse.”

Mike’s lips twitch. “I’ve been there.”

Will can’t think for too long about what that might mean. “Right, well,” he says stiltedly, and Mike’s smile widens just slightly, “Anyway, I broke up with him and we agreed to be friends, but we kinda drifted after a while.”

Adrian hadn’t asked for a reason for the breakup, even though Will had known he knew. He’s always been a little self-sabotaging in that regard, unable to stop himself from spilling his guts about the beautiful boy whose heart he’d broken, and Adrian, to his credit, had listened, and had also had the decency not to bring it up unless Will did first.

Will blows out a soft breath. He lets his hand drop, and Mike quietly reaches over and takes the paperweight from his hand, setting it gently back on the table. “He got diagnosed with AIDS last year.”

Mike’s mouth falls open, and he lifts himself up on his side, gazing down at Will with wide eyes. “Shit,” he breathes, a heaviness settling over him. He turns back to the ceiling, contemplative, but his hand finds Will’s beneath the covers and squeezes tight. “For real?”

It almost makes Will smile; he’d missed Mike’s awkward bluntness, a little abrasive at times and definitely offensive in some cases, but Will has always found comfort in it. Mike knows when a situation can’t be fixed, and he knows when to fight for something.

It’s a sign of how much Will hurt him, then, that Mike didn’t fight for him when they broke up.

“We’re not that close,” Will says again, like that makes it better, like the fact that he isn’t close to Adrian means his death will matter less, and immediately feels guilty for it. “I don’t know how to feel about it,” he half-corrects, which is the absolute truth.

“I never know how to feel about anything,” Mike replies, a little hollowly, and that does make Will smile.

“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” he whispers, emboldened by the shroud of darkness around the two of them.

“You give me too much,” Mike counters, which is maybe a little true too.

Will chooses not to fight this battle right now, though, and instead laces his fingers through Mike’s, thumb brushing over the back of his hand.

Mike welcomes the movement, unfurling his fingers to make room for Will’s slotted between them, and his voice is quiet and gentle when he murmurs, “I’d hate to lose you like that.”

Will squeezes his eyes shut, curling closer to Mike and squeezing his hand tighter, pressing a firm kiss to his shoulder. He hates this feeling. He’s always been the type to care too much - when they were kids, he would refuse to let Mike kill bugs, no matter how much he hated the things, however much grief they caused him. Mike, ever the caretaker, would nod seriously and trap them with plastic cups instead, and Will would cry anyway because he didn’t like the idea of them being trapped. 

If he can care that much about an insect, it terrifies him to think how much he cares about people. It hurts him far too often. 

When he opens his eyes again, Mike’s face is right there, eyes wide and earnest and mouth pulled downward in a sympathetic frown. Something seizes in Will’s chest, and he lifts himself up abruptly, sealing their lips together firm and hard and cupping the back of Mike’s head to hold him in place.

Mike makes a muffled noise against him, lifting a hand to cup his cheek, and his hips press up against Will’s again. “Will,” he murmurs, as Will lifts up on his elbows and stares down at him with blown pupils and tousled hair, “I’m not going anywhere.”

This is a lie. Mike’s flight leaves tomorrow evening, Will knows, but he doesn’t call him out on it. Their time is running out, and they need to talk for real, but he’s- he’s scared. He’s not sure how to not be scared, and he’d much rather take advantage of Mike being here and real and present than face that. 

“Are you okay?” Mike asks quietly, thumb rubbing gentle across Will’s jaw.

Will takes a breath. “Ask me later,” he whispers.

Mike tilts his chin up for a kiss, soft and sweet. “Okay.”

Will smiles down at him, a little sadly, and nudges their noses together. “Hold me again?” he asks hesitantly, feeling a little shaky, and Mike holds up his arms, open for Will to fall into as he curls back against him. Mike wraps his arms around him, tight and firm, and Will releases a quiet sigh of relief.

---

Will wakes up with a jolt in the middle of the night. This, of course, isn’t rare - his nightmares have gotten farther and fewer between over the years, but he’s definitely a perpetual insomniac, which doesn’t really seem to be going away any time soon. Tonight, though, is better, because Mike is here, and his arm is draped over Will, though he doesn’t stir. His hair tickles Will’s nose, and Will props himself up on one arm to peer down at him, carefully extracting himself from beneath his grip so as not to wake him. 

Mike looks so gorgeous like this, face slackened with sleep, no hint of the anguish he’d seen there earlier, the contorted expressions he made last night while telling Will all the ways in which he was being horrible. Will wants to shake him awake just to tell him one more time that it’s okay, that he’s not horrible, that Will loves him so much. That he wants him back, that he promises he won’t give him up as easily this time.

Will presses a hand over Mike’s chest, right over the heart that he broke. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, rubbing a gentle circle over the spot. “I’m so sorry, Mike.”

Mike doesn’t move. Will can’t tell if he’s actually asleep or faking it - if it’s the latter, then Mike has gotten significantly better at acting in the past few years.

He watches Mike for a moment, the moonlight lighting up the angles of his face, his pale skin glowing. His chest rises and falls under Will’s palm, hair spilling out across the pillows.

He’s beautiful. Will cannot break him again.

“I love you,” he whispers in the dark, and leans over to press a kiss over his heart where his hand has been resting. Mike’s pulse thumps its response innocuously beneath his lips, and it sounds like forgiveness.

Will slips out of bed, wandering out to the kitchen for a glass of water. He drinks it while staring out at the window, out at the grimy street full of overly-glamorous people that he hates, around at this tiny apartment that has always made him feel more sad than independent. 

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, and thinks of the man sleeping down the hall, and thinks about how he feels more like home than anything in this stupid city ever has.

“God damnit ,” Will says aloud, setting his glass down in the sink with a sharp clink. He slips back down the hall, pointedly ignoring the Mike-shaped mass still sprawled out on the bed as he makes a beeline for his desk drawer, to the letter burning a hole in it. 

He pulls it out, scans the first few lines even though he has them memorized by now, has lost sleep over them:

Dear Mr. Byers,

We are pleased to offer you admission to NYU Steinhardt…

Will sighs, biting his lip and casting a glance over at Mike. “Yeah, okay,” he whispers to himself, a small smile tugging at his lips as he watches Mike shift in his sleep, features slackened out and cheek creased from the pillow. “Okay.”

He puts the letter back and climbs carefully back into bed, drawing an arm around Mike’s stomach. Mike stirs, eyelids fluttering.

“Baby,” he mumbles sleepily, as Will presses a kiss to his shoulder, “Where’d you go?”

“Just getting some water,” Will whispers, and bites down a smile.

“Mkay,” Mike murmurs, content, and nestles closer to Will as the night washes over them.

Yeah. Yeah, okay.

---

“Can I ask where we’re going?” Mike asks, as Will tosses a shirt at him the next morning, pulling on his own pair of jeans as Mike rifles through his suitcase. 

“Told you,” Will says, quirking a brow at him. “Coffee.”

Mike rolls his eyes affectionately, pulling on Will’s t-shirt without making a single comment about how he has plenty of his own shirts neatly stacked in the suitcase in front of him, which Will is grateful for. It’ll make him feel better, for the impending conversation, to see proof of Mike’s feelings for him. Quell the nerves, at the very least.

This is going to be a good thing, though, he’s pretty sure, unless Mike’s about to unveil some huge secret like I’m actually seeing someone else, sorry or I’m on the run from the government and now you’re implicated or this was all just some huge stunt to get material for my next book, whoops! All of which are, okay, pretty unlikely, but whatever. 

Will’s going to tell him about NYU, and he’s going to ask him if Mike wants to get back together, and he’s not going to let Mike leave for New York again before they’re both definitively sure of the right answer.

He’s not sure what the right answer is. He is, nonsensically, hoping Mike will be able to tell him.

“I’m borrowing this,” he declares, mostly as a distraction, and snatches a pink t-shirt off the top of the pile in Mike’s suitcase. 

Mike laughs as Will slips it over his head, glancing down in satisfaction at the World’s Silliest Goose! lettering displayed across the front. “You like that shirt more than I do.”

“Cool, I’ll keep it then,” Will says plainly, and leans across the bed to kiss him.

As soon as they’re both dressed, Will leads them outside and down the street to the bookshop and cafe on the corner, Mike laughing as he grasps his wrist and trails along behind him. Will orders for them both, and Mike insists on paying - as another apology for last night, Will’s sure, though he doesn’t say so - and they settle in at a corner table, Mike blushing as he glances around at the other patrons. Will knows how he feels - it’s still strange, being in public like this together. Never in a million years would they have dared do so as teenagers.

“So tell me something,” Will says finally, watching Mike pick at his ham and cheese croissant.

“Shoot,” Mike agrees absently, tearing off a flake of crust and popping it in his mouth, never one to eat food like a normal person.

Will steadies himself. Here goes. One rough conversation and he’ll know for sure where they stand, and he’s promising himself right now that whatever it is, he’ll be okay with it. If Mike isn’t ready, if he just wants to be friends, that’s fine . Just please let him say that they can still talk. Will can’t lose him again completely. 

“All that stuff I said yesterday,” Will says haltingly, Mike still smiling encouragingly at him, so different from the boy who’d stood in his kitchen yesterday morning calling himself a problem over and over. “You didn’t know?”

“That you love me?” Mike squeaks, flushing adorably. Will nods, smirking a little. “I mean- well, I hoped , but… no, I didn’t know for sure.”

“Okay,” Will says, taking a steadying breath. “And, follow up question, do you really think you’re a- a problem?”

If Mike notices the way his voice cracks on the word, he doesn’t show it, simply taking a long sip of coffee, contemplating. “Well, I don’t know if I’d say it like that, but.”

But you did , Will thinks, a little sadly, you did say it . “So you thought you were the problem when we broke up?” he prompts softly, and Mike squints at him.

“I don’t know,” he says, in a surprisingly level voice. “I knew you didn’t want to end it, but. I guess I worried that at some point you’d realize I’d never be good enough. I've been trying to- to get better, but. I don't know. I still feel like a fraud, sometimes. Like I tricked you."

Will swallows hard, desperately fighting tears. Maybe it was a mistake to pick a public environment for this conversation. “Oh,” he says tightly. “Well, for the record, Mike, I know when I’m being tricked, and-” his voice breaks, and he shakes his head, bringing a hand up to his lips and fighting tears. “Oh God, I messed up,” he whispers, and watches Mike’s brow crinkle as he does the math; this isn’t how it used to go. Will knows how Mike sees it - that he is always the first to fuck up and the first to apologize, years of handshakes and I drew first blood and kisses smeared across Will’s cheeks, mingling with both of their tears. It’s the order of things that Mike abides by, but Will thinks that for this to work they’re going to need to change some things, starting with the idea that there’s any correct hierarchy in regards to their emotions.

“You didn’t,” Mike insists, because he’s the sweetest idiot on the face of the planet. “You said it wasn’t my fault. I knew you believed that, but I never did.”

“Mike,” Will bites out, a little desperately, and Mike widens his eyes at him like what? as if it’s normal , for him to be to blame for everything. Will hates this. He hates it so much. He has to fix it. “Hey, listen to me, I- I was happy with you, okay?” he laughs, a little hysterically. “I loved you. I still do. And we were both traumatized kids and we started this thing in a really fucking insane intense way, which made it hard to communicate, but none of that is your fault, okay?” He reaches across the table and takes Mike’s hand, squeezing tight so he knows . “You don’t have to be perfect. I never needed that from you, I just wanted to be there for you, and it’s not- it’s not about whether you’re better. It’s about whether you can let me in this time.” He smiles weakly, and Mike smiles back, squeezing his fingers in answer. “You’re my person. It was the wrong time for us, but you’re not bad, I swear. You were just eighteen.”

“I know that,” Mike says on an exhale, eyes shining with unshed tears. “I know that now, I think,” he whispers, and for whatever reasoning, Will believes him. “I do have to point out that it’s really hard to have this conversation when you’re wearing that shirt, though.”

Will laughs. “I fucking love this shirt,” he says - I fucking love you - “And I think it’s funny.”

“I know,” Mike agrees, and his tone, warm and affectionate, makes Will blush. “So why are we talking about this now, anyway?”

Will’s heart rate quickens, and he pictures the NYU acceptance letter still sitting in his desk. Maybe he should have brought it, simply handed it to Mike instead of trying to explain himself. 

Unfortunately, he didn’t think that far ahead, so he just swallows hard and says, “Mike, I have to tell you something.”

This is probably not a great way to phrase it, judging by the panic that flashes across Mike’s expression before quickly being replaced by forced lightness. “Uh oh,” he squeaks.

Will waves him off. “It’s not bad, I promise,” he says quickly, and Mike’s shoulders drop, “I just- I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you, but.” He pauses, thinking, then cautiously starts, “remember how I wanted to go back to school and get a teaching degree?”

“Oh,” Mike says, and he nods happily, evidently put at ease. “Yeah, course. And I really think you should, Will, you’d be great-”

“I’m not done,” Will laughs, though the praise does make the nerves in his gut settle just a little. “It’s just- the program I’ve been considering, it’s um- it’s through NYU,” he says in a rush. Rip off the bandaid and all that, right? “I applied in the spring, and I got in, and I think I’m going to go, going to move there. To New York.” He steadfastly stares at the table, afraid to see what expression Mike’s making right now. “Um, I didn’t tell you at first because I didn’t know what you’d say, and I’m telling you now because it’s relevant to- to us -” -if there is an us to speak of, he thinks, a little deliriously- “and technically there’s still time to defer and I don’t know how you want to do this or if we are doing this but-”

“Will,” Mike cuts in mercifully, and Will sucks in a hard breath, eyes snapping up to him sheepishly. “Just shut up for a second,” Mike says, not unkindly.

“Sorry,” Will breathes, tittering a nervous laugh, “I’ve been- kind of stressing about this, can you tell?”

Mike is a beautiful, perfect man, and he reaches across the table to sandwich Will’s hand between his own, squeezing gently, and Will feels like that’s an answer all on its own. “Will,” he says sincerely, smiling giddily, “that’s the greatest news I’ve ever heard in my life.”

There’s a very distinct probability that Will is about to start crying. “Yeah?”

Mike laughs, squeezing his hand again and nodding frantically. “Are you kidding me? It’s your dream job and you’re my dream person . Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Mike,” Will scolds gently, lifting their hands and pressing a kiss to his knuckles. “You can’t just say stuff like that.”

“Fucking watch me,” Mike counters plainly. “Also, New York rent is pretty expensive-” Will’s breath quickens- “So you might need a roommate.”

Okay. Okay, so maybe they are doing this. Will’s chest tightens painfully, and he kisses Mike’s hand firmly one more time before releasing him and leaning back in his chair, giving himself some space to think. “Hmm. Do you know anyone that might be interested?”

He doesn’t know how he expects Mike to respond - with a joke, maybe, or something ambiguous, allowing all the room in the world for a rejection, but instead he simply shrugs and says, “Yeah. Me.”

Mike is different. Will can see this, in the assuredness of his tone, the gentle slope of his shoulders, relaxed. He thinks of everything Mike has told him in the past twenty-four hours - everything about how he’s been feeling, his anxieties, his worries - and for the first time it occurs to him that the old Mike would never have told him any of that stuff at all. No matter how panicked, how unsure, this Mike wants to try, he wants Will , and maybe that’s all that matters. Maybe it’s okay that Mike’s not one hundred percent okay, because more space from Will wouldn’t have helped with it anyway. Maybe Will can help, because Mike is willing to let him.

“Mike,” he whispers, and Mike winces, bracing himself for rejection, “I definitely want this, okay? But I need you to think for a second, because if I come live with you and then we fall apart again, I…” He swallows back the lump in his throat. “I don’t think- I know I can’t lose you like that again, and I know we said we’d try again but we were eighteen and stupid then, so I wouldn’t hold it against you if you didn’t want to.”

Mike considers him for a moment, oddly calm, like he’s actually contemplating his answer instead of figuring out how to sidestep the question. “You know,” he says eventually, “I think if I really tried I could have loved someone else.”

Will snorts, shaking his head in confusion. “You,” he says, and then laughs again, because Mike is- Mike is so ridiculous. Talking to him is like having eighteen different conversations at once. God, he loves him.

“Bear with me,” Mike says, smirking a little, and links their hands again. “I just meant- if you said that you wanted to stay friends or something, I could do that. And I think eventually I could even learn to be happy in a different relationship, but I don’t want to, okay? I choose you. I’ll always choose you. However I can.” He shrugs sheepishly.

“Oh.” Will stares at him. This is different too - once, in the months leading up to the breakup, Will had offhandedly said something about how maybe they weren’t right for each other, and Mike had lost his mind, shaking his head frantically and insisting that Will just wasn’t listening , no matter how many times Will told him he didn’t know what he was suppose to be listening to . There hadn’t been any discussion of choice there, just of fate, and meant to be , and other nonsense like that. Will doesn’t think they’re fated anymore, and clearly Mike doesn’t either - but this is better. Choosing happiness is better than falling into it by accident.

“I think I know what you mean,” he says eventually, when he realizes Mike is waiting for him to speak. “Me too. I choose you too. Obviously. ” He flashes on Mike standing in the hallway at Nancy and Jonathan’s wedding, near tears and complaining about how he couldn’t compartmentalize their relationship, and chuckles wryly. “I guess you relearned it, then, huh? How to separate best friend from- from something more.”

“I think so,” Mike says, and looks like he means it. “It’s not like I could just stop having feelings for you-” Will might faint, if he thinks about it too hard- “but it’s not so all or nothing now. So I guess that’s your answer, if you’re worried about losing me again.” He knocks their shoes together under the table, tipping his head to the side encouragingly. “You wouldn’t.”

“Fuck,” Will says vehemently, swiping at his eyes as he realizes a few of the tears have escaped his eyes. “We shouldn’t have had this conversation in public.” He shakes his head, smiling. “Mike, I’m really fucking proud of you, do you know that?”

Mike ducks his head, and Will can see that his shoulders are trembling a little, with nerves or adrenaline or something else. Mike’s not used to hearing people are proud of him, if Will had to hazard a guess. “Thanks, Will,” he whispers. “I’m trying.”

Will sighs, stirring the ice in his drink idly and rubbing his thumb over the back of Mike’s knuckles. "I hated myself for so long after we broke up," he murmurs, Mike’s eyebrows arching in surprise at the words. "I mean, you were everything to me, and I just... let you go. I kept thinking about how much my fourteen-year-old self would have hated me for that. I had the thing I'd wanted ever since I could remember, and then I ruined it." 

At Mike’s pained expression, he hurriedly continues, “And don't say I had to ruin it, or whatever, because this is never going to work if you act like I'm a martyr or something. The point we were at by the time we broke up was- it was sort of the only option by then, but you should know that I wasn't as good to you as I should have been.” He blows out a breath, shaking his head slowly. It’s easier now that he’s actually saying it aloud - all that guilt he’s held in the back of his brain all these years finally being brought to light to be examined, hopefully forgiven, and neatly tucked away again. “I was- impatient. I wanted you to show me things about yourself that you weren't ready to admit to and I knew you blamed yourself for our issues and I let you take the fall for it, and- and I'm sorry," he concludes. He’s having trouble stopping the words now that he’s started, but Mike isn’t stopping him, simply, sitting there listening. "I'm sorry and I'm trying to be better, so I think it's good if we- if we set that precedent now, so. I'm not letting you take all the blame for everything that went wrong with us."

Mike takes a shaky breath, taking it all in. He glances around the cafe, at the books on the shelves, back at Will, seeming to come to some sort of decision, and Will holds his breath. He knows they both know it’s all true; he’s curious to see whether Mike will accept it, or if he’ll make excuses for him again. If Mike is this different, if he can make this final change.

Finally, Mike clears his throat, smiling at him and shrugging one shoulder. “Call it even?” he offers.

Will laughs, a wild happiness breaking free from where he’d been carefully keeping it restrained and flooding his body with warmth. “Yeah,” he hums, nodding, smiling radiantly at the beautiful boy across from him - his beautiful boy. “Yeah, that works.”

---

August 1994

“Guess what,” Mike announces, on the fifth day of Will living in his house, as he saunters into the kitchen to wrap his arms around Will’s middle. Will is half-focused on making lunch while he rifles through a box of the meager kitchen supplies he’d packed from his old apartment, because apparently Mike doesn’t own more than one butter knife, which is currently dirty. 

He hums in acknowledgement, reaching up blindly to pat the side of Mike’s face. “What, baby?”

Mike presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw. “Today’s the five year anniversary of that time you dumped my ass.”

Will pauses with one hand clutching a metal whisk and cranes his neck to look at him, wrinkling his nose. “Thought we talked about that phrasing.”

“Sorry,” Mike says, like a liar, and kisses his face again. “I thought it was funny.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Will grumbles, going back to searching through his dishware. “Do you want to celebrate or something?”

“Kinda,” Mike mutters, and Will sighs, dropping the whisk back into the box and twisting around in his grip to face him.

“Mike, tell me you’re joking.”

Mike snorts, releasing him and leaning back against the counter. “I’m joking. But it’s symbolic, no?”

Will gives him a look, though he fails to suppress the smile that tugs at his lips. “Let’s keep the symbolism to your stories.”

Mike grins, hopping up onto the counter and kicking his legs happily. “Speaking of which, I think I have a draft of the next book.”

“No shit, really?” Will asks, grinning wide as he abandons the dishware box and comes to stand between Mike’s knees, resting one hand on his thigh and rising up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. It’s been a month since Mike left L.A., and they’d done long-distance for a few weeks while Will packed up his things and prepared to move to New York with him. In the meantime, Mike’s been working nonstop on a draft of his new book - according to him, the cure to the writer’s block he’s been battling for a few months now turned out to be happiness. Will had blown a raspberry into the phone when he heard him say that, because while his boyfriend is the sweetest person on the face of the planet, there are some things that are too much even for Will. “The one about the runaway boys?” he asks, as if it would be any other one.

Mike snorts. “Yeah, you could call it that.”

Will kisses him again, on the lips this time, and Mike hums appreciatively. “Does that mean I get to read it?” Will asks, quirking an eyebrow, pleased with the way Mike flushes prettily at his tone.

“If you want,” he says sheepishly, bonking his forehead against Will’s lightly, and Will grins, squeezing his thigh before stepping back and surveying the boxes. 

“We have not been very productive in the unpacking department, have you noticed?” he asks, pursing his lips.

“Yeah,” Mike grunts noncommittally, extending a socked foot to nudge at one of the boxes on the floor. “We should probably get on that.”

Will gives him a look. “You said that two days ago.”

Mike sniffs. “I’ve been busy writing.”

Will snorts. “Uh huh.”

“I have!” Mike yelps, clutching a hand to his chest in mock offense. “Are you saying my job isn’t important? You know I’m the sole provider for this household right now-”

“Okay, okay, stop,” Will says, laughing. He offers a hand, and Mike takes it as he slides off the counter, smiling ruefully. “Here, put some dishes away,” he demands, handing him the whisk, and Mike wrinkles his nose.

“Why do you even have all this baking stuff?” Mike asks, stalking over to the counter where there’s a large pot containing two spatulas and shoving the whisk in beside them. “Do you bake?”

“Not really,” Will says with a shrug, pulling out a handful of forks and opening Mike’s silverware drawer, “but El does, so. A lot of that stuff is just crap she left at my apartment. My old apartment,” he amends, at Mike’s eyebrow raise. “This is my apartment now. Here. With you. Because I love you.”

Mike smirks, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “Guess it’s a good thing you live closer to her now, huh,” he hums, placing one hand on the small of Will’s back as he reaches above them to slide a stack of plates into the cabinet. 

Will smiles and leans into his touch, bumping his shoulder gently with his own. “Yeah, it’s nice. Never really made sense for me to live so far away in the first place, now that I think about it.” Mike lowers his arm, smirking as he tilts his head to look at Will. “Everyone I love is here,” he says softly.

“You’re so cute,” Mike hums, kissing the tip of his nose, then his lips, soft and sweet and slow. “If you’re angling to get out of helping unpack that’s not going to happen, though.”

Will groans, tossing his head back, and Mike laughs as he loops his arms around him again, pressing a flurry of kisses to his neck. “I did most of it, though,” he whines, as Mike bites his collarbone teasingly, “I moved all the books and hung up my clothes and- stop biting me, oh my God.”

“I’ve helped plenty,” Mike says, reluctantly from pulling away from Will’s neck. “You can’t just charm your way out of doing legwork.”

“Disagree,” Will says vehemently. “I’m irresistible to you. You think I’m perfect and you want to do all the work because you know it’ll make me happy.”

Mike squints. “Put some dishes away,” he mimics, lightly shoving at his chest, and Will laughs, kissing his cheek quickly.

“You’re sure I couldn’t just stand over here and look pretty?” he tries, even as he grabs an electric mixer out of the box and waves it around. “Offer compliments, maybe?”

“You can do both of those things and still help,” Mike points out, and Will wrinkles his nose at him.

“Fine,” he mumbles, and they settle into a companionable silence as they keep unpacking.

“Hey,” Mike says after a beat, glancing over his shoulder with a smirk. “Guess what.”

Will grins at him. “What?”

Mike bops him over the head with a wooden mixing spoon. “I love you.”

Will snorts, snatching the spoon away. “Thank God for that,” he murmurs, and then, glancing back into the box, “oh shit, I found the butter knives!”

Chapter Text

March 1999

five more years later

“Oh! Good, you made it,” Becky says, less than three seconds after Will pushes open the door to the bookshop. She’s got three pens haphazardly tucked into the auburn braid at the side of her head, and is chewing on the end of a fourth one as she examines a clipboard full of- well, Will’s not actually sure. Important writer things, probably. He’s known her for five years and he’s still not actually sure what her role as Mike’s press agent actually entails.

He offers her what he hopes is a reassuring smile, though it feels a bit like trying to diffuse a bomb that is already counting down to detonation. Becky’s always been a little bit- well, nervous is the kindest word he can think of, but he likes her, and she’s definitely been an asset to Mike’s career, considering her job is telling authors not to say dumb shit and- well, Mike is Mike , so. She’s a friend in Will’s books. “Yeah, sorry I’m late. Has it started?”

“Yeah, a few minutes ago,” she says distractedly, already turning on her heel and striding quickly toward the back of the store - Will can only assume she means for him to follow her. “He hasn’t insulted anyone yet, which is good.”

“Well, the Q&A portion hasn’t started yet,” Will points out, and Becky pauses, shuddering and glancing over her shoulder at him with mild horror.

“God, don’t remind me,” she groans, and Will grins. “Okay, here, you can sit over here with the press team,” she continues, quickly shaking herself out of it and gesturing to a line of chairs along the wall, off to the side of the rows of chairs for the patrons. It’s Mike’s first writer’s panel for his latest book, and Will can see him up at the front of the room, seated next to his fellow panelist - a sci-fi writer whose name Will kind of forgets, Pamela or Patty or something like that - and talking animatedly about plot devices. As he watches, Mike’s gaze darts toward him, and he pauses for a beat, a slow smile stretching across his face, and his fingers twitch on the table in a tiny wave. Will's face breaks out into a stupidly giddy little smile and he waves back, and Mike’s face pinkens adorably as he tears his eyes away and goes back to his discussion, looking a significantly more flustered than he did before.

“Will,” Becky says, snapping her fingers at him, and he snaps himself out of it, giving her an apologetic look. He settles down into one of the chairs marked press team, though he thinks calling it a press team is a little generous, considering the team consists of Becky and Mike’s editor - and Will, as an honorary member he supposes.

Said editor, Rachel, gives him a cursory glance over the top of the binder of papers she’s writing in, followed by a tight smile. “Hello, William,” she says, sounding like she’s fighting very hard to keep the derision out of her voice, “nice to see you. I hear it’s your birthday.”

Will smirks a little. “It is. Did you get me a present?”

“I said hello to you, that was my present,” Rachel mutters, and goes back to scribbling in her binder. Tearing apart another client’s manuscript, if Will had to hazard a guess. He and Rachel don’t exactly have the best relationship - once, during a particularly intense round of editing, Will had hijacked Mike’s phone call with her and yelled at her for twenty minutes for being too harsh. She’d had no issue yelling back, and Mike had eventually been forced to intervene by snatching the phone back from Will and lightly teasing, kids, calm down, I love you both equally. Will had been so offended by this comment that he’d made him sleep on the couch for three days straight.

He settles back against his chair, gracefully accepting Rachel’s decision to ignore him, and smiles a little as he listens to Mike talk. His fellow panelist has joined in now, and is talking about something from her last book- something about aliens being a metaphor for the protagonist’s fear of change, or something, and Mike is nodding along seriously, drumming his fingers on the table in thought.

Becky flits around for a few minutes, making sure the last few audience members find their seats, then settles down into the chair beside Will, clicking her pen nervously. “Be normal,” she mutters under her breath in Mike’s direction, like a prayer of some sort. “Don’t say ‘fuck’. Don’t spoil your book again.”

Will laughs, squeezing her arm gently, and the pen clicking stops for just a moment. “It’s okay,” he assures her, knocking their shoulders together. “He’s gonna be fine.”

“He’s going to send me to an early grave,” Becky grumbles, shaking her head. “You told him to act professional today, right? He listens to you more than me, which is annoying, because my job is to tell him what to do and say, but whatever.”

Will snorts. “He’s a grown man, Becky, he can take care of himself,” he huffs, and then, when she gives him a look, “and yeah, of course I reminded him.”

Becky giggles, patting his arm affectionately, and they fall into a comfortable silence, Will watching Mike with poorly concealed admiration and Becky watching him with poorly concealed trepidation. Rachel is still scribbling vigorously in the margins of the manuscript she’s editing, but apparently she’s listening, because she’s nodding along approvingly and huffing little laughs at all the right moments. Will wants to demand that she give Mike her full attention, but historically speaking telling her to do anything doesn’t go over well, so he bites his tongue and focuses on his boyfriend.

As the talking portion draws to a close, and one of the bookstore employees produces a cordless microphone for the audience for the Q&A portion, Mike holds up a hand, quelling the flow of chatter rising from the crowd. “Also,” he says, grinning a little and quirking an eyebrow, and Will thinks oh no , “I would like to give a special shoutout to my partner, who is very generously here supporting me even on his birthday.” He gestures to Will, meeting his eyes with a sly smirk. Will fights a smile of his own and folds his arms, shaking his head disapprovingly at him. “Everyone please wish Will a happy birthday!” he concludes, and the chorus of “happy birthday”s from the mildly confused crowd just barely drown out his clarifier of  “or die by my blade.”

Becky grins, nudging Will with her knee. “He’s obsessed with you,” she murmurs.

“I know,” Will mumbles, still shaking his head at Mike, though the smile that has officially broken out across his face probably gives him away. Still, he mouths I’m going to kill you at him for good measure, and Mike blows him a kiss, eyes sparkling.

The Q&A section of the afternoon goes smoothly, which is probably good news for Becky’s nervous system, and then the crowd is released to mill about, partaking in the spread of appetizers at one end of the room and flipping through the stacks of Mike and what’s-her-name’s books on various tables. Will excuses himself from his seat with the so-called press team and meanders over to the writer’s table, sidling up to Mike from behind and draping an arm over his shoulders. The other author- Patricia or whoever- is locked in a deep conversation with one of the booksellers at the other end of the table.

“Hey,” Mike says, craning his neck up to look at him and sending him a self-satisfied grin. “Did you like my shoutout?”

“Not at all,” Will lies, and Mike pulls a face at him, “it was highly embarrassing. And I thought we preferred the term ‘boyfriend’ to ‘partner’.”

Mike rolls his eyes. “Felt safer,” he says, and Will very kindly does not point out that they are actively flirting in the middle of the store, and the crowd could probably have guessed the nature of their relationship based on the content of Mike’s books anyway. Will has found, on average, that it doesn't particularly matter, anyway; Mike has admitted that he did lose some fans around the time of publishing his third book, in which the two main male characters - their characters - ended up together, but since then his fanbase has been loyal overall, if a little smaller than it was originally. It's so different to how it was - going to events with his semi-famous boyfriend, being introduced as his boyfriend, barely thinking twice about it, where once upon a time they couldn't even hold hands at the lunch table without people asking questions.

“You loved it,” Mike adds, resting his face against Will’s side as Will cards his hand absently through his hair. “You love me.”

“The evidence points in that direction, yes,” Will sighs, and Mike giggles, driving an elbow into his side. Will yelps and pulls away, laughing and leaning against the back wall as Mike twists around in his seat to face him. “You spoke very eloquently,” he adds, smiling at him and running a finger along his jawline. “I’m so proud of you, you know?”

Mike flushes. “Thanks,” he murmurs, tipping his head to press a kiss to the meat of Will’s palm. It took a while for him to accept praise like this - even for the first year or so after they got back together, he’d duck his head and mumble evasions at every compliment Will offered, but he’s gotten better at accepting praise genuinely. Will’s proud of him for that too - he told him so once, and Mike had turned tomato red and whined that now you’re just piling it on, let me breathe.

Will smiles, satisfied, and withdraws his hand. “How long before you’re out of here?”

Mike glances at the clock on the wall, mouth twisted in thought. “Another hour or so, probably. Most of the books being sold are already signed but sometimes people want to come up and ask more questions.”

Will wrinkles his nose. “They should keep their questions to the Q&A portion,” he huffs, “these systems are in place for a reason.”

Mike grins. “I know, right? I said that to Becky and she told me in no uncertain terms that I was not to express that sentiment to any customer.”

“She’s probably single-handedly stopped your career from crashing and burning,” Will points out, and Mike wrinkles his nose at him, which means that he knows it too but dislikes having to admit it aloud. Will grins, dipping forward to press a kiss to the top of his head. “We’re still doing dinner tonight, right?” he asks.

Mike hums appreciatively, hooking a finger through Will’s belt loop, drawing him closer. “Yeah, we can go meet the others as soon as I’m done with this. Max says she has a very important present for you, but I can’t tell if it’s something particularly special or if she’s just saying that she’s special.”

Will laughs. “Probably some combination of both.”

“Probably,” Mike agrees with a grin, and Will leans over to kiss him again, on the lips this time.

“Hey!” Becky calls from across the room when they part, sending them both a burning glare over the rim of her glasses. “No canoodling at professional events!”

Mike snorts, releasing Will’s belt loop and turning around properly in his chair again. “Sorry, Becky,” he calls back, though he doesn’t particularly sound like he means it.

Will smiles, leaning back against the wall as a young boy approaches Mike’s table clutching a copy of his book and smiling shyly. Mike asks him his name in a soft voice, taking the book and scribbling down a message on the title page for him, and the boy giggles, pleased, as he cracks a joke about aliens. Will watches him, heart bubbling over with that strange, insurmountable joy that he’s grown accustomed to these past few years, sometimes so ridiculously buoyant that he feels like he must be dreaming. 

It’s not like they’re perfect now - obviously not, if the way they got back together is any indication. Mike is still stubborn and brash and says the wrong thing at least forty percent of the time. Will still loses patience with him sometimes, or shuts him out on a particularly rough day instead of asking for help, and vice versa. They argue. Will cries a lot. Mike cries a lot. They both still wake up in the night from nightmares of twisting vines and red, apocalyptic skies, but it’s nice, to have someone lying there beside you to stir awake and rock you back to sleep on those nights. And then there are days like today - days when the sun is shining, and they’re both in good enough moods to flirt in the back of bookstores and narrowly avoid giving Mike’s press agent heart failure. There are days when Mike shows up to Will's art classroom during his lunch break or grading periods and brings him flowers or snacks or simply a warm smile, and those days are good too - not to mention Will's students love Mike's books, and the fact that Will shares a home and a life with him gains him extra respect with certain crowds. There’s a lot of good in Will’s life now. Will’s twenty-eight today, and it’s a nice thing, to be able to say he’s spent another year being happy with his choices.

Mike hands the little boy his book back and waves him off with a smile, glancing at Will over his shoulder. “You don’t have to stay here, you know,” he points out, quirking an eyebrow. “You can leave and come back when I’m done, I won’t be offended.”

Will rolls his eyes. “Please,” he huffs, kicking the back of his chair with the toe of his shoe. “Where would I go?”

“I don’t know,” Mike huffs, shrugging, “you could go home and give Arlo some attention.”

“Arlo will be fine,” Will says plainly, “and we’re not on speaking terms right now anyway, so.”

Mike raises an eyebrow. “You’re not on speaking terms with the cat?”

“No,” Will confirms, shaking his head, “because he tore up the canvas I was going to use for my next commission, and that shit is not cheap.”

“Well, if you’d remembered to replace the cardboard on his scratching post-”

Will rolls his eyes. “Okay, are you trying to kick me out? Because if you want me gone, I can just-”

“No!” Mike yelps, laughing and catching Will’s arm, placing a gentle kiss to the back of his hand. “No, no, I want you here, I swear. Just offering you an out. In case.”

Will gives him a look, squeezing his hand lightly. This is a tendency of Mike’s that hasn’t gone away quite so easily - the urge to apologize, excuse, offer himself up for rejection - but at least now he lets Will in on the decision instead of cutting him out entirely. “Okay, well, I don’t want it,” he says firmly, and Mike smiles a little, faintly relieved. Will nods to the stack of books on the table, smirking. “Wanna sign a book for me? Since it’s my birthday and all?”

Mike frowns at him. “You know we have like three boxes of these at home, right? Specifically for friends and family?”

“One box,” Will corrects, “and no offense, but I want my copy to be a little more personalized than your friends and family discounted copies-”

“You’re saying you’re not my friend?” Mike asks, pouting and dropping Will’s arm even as he reaches for a book at the top of the stack. “You wound me.”

“Aww,” Will coos, reaching over to squeeze his shoulder in apology, “of course I’m your friend, babe. Best friend.”

“Good,” Mike sniffs, already scribbling away at the title page. “Don’t you ever forget it.” He signs his name with a flourish and hands Will the book, and Will grins, kissing the top of his head and flipping the cover open to read the inscription.

To my wonderful, beautiful boyfriend, as a thank you for restraining himself from killing Rachel this week even though I know he wanted to. Happy birthday. Love, Mike.

“Ha,” Will snorts appreciatively. “Thanks. It was a real struggle.”

“Proud of you,” Mike says distractedly, patting his hand as another gaggle of customers approach the table.

Will smiles, flipping through the first few pages of the book, even though he practically has it memorized by now after at least three rounds of editing when Mike came to him in near tears begging him to help him figure out how to tweak it just that last little bit . Will had been wholly unhelpful in an editing sense, because he’s clueless about such things and his rose-colored lenses make it impossible for him to see anything Mike writes as less than perfect, but he’s pretty sure all Mike really needed at that point in the process was for someone to tell him he was doing a good job anyway.

Mike has asked him a few times, over the years, which of his books are Will’s favorite, and Will hasn’t been able to come up with an answer. At first, Mike complained that Will was being too nice, assuming that Will thought that by choosing a favorite he’d be dissing the others, but it’s not exactly that. Will had finally been able to put it into words last fall, after reading Mike’s manuscript for this latest book for the first time - they’re not just books to me, he’d said, at Mike’s calculating eyebrow raise. They’re, like, stages of your life. You can tell through the writing where you were at, mentally, when you wrote it. So it’s like- like picking which version of you I like the most, which obviously I can’t do.

Mike had contemplated this for a moment, reading glasses still perched on the end of his nose, before sniffing and quietly correcting, stages of our life.

Right, Will had agreed, ruffling his hair and kissing the space between his eyebrows, right over the rim of his glasses. Our life. And then, on second thought, he’d added, I do like it when you’re happy, though, if that helps narrow it down.

“Will,” Becky says, appearing beside him and startling him so badly that he narrowly avoids dropping Mike’s five hundred-page book on his foot. 

“Jesus, what?” he gasps, clutching a hand to his chest and glaring at her.

“No canoodling ,” she says meaningfully, and turns on her heel again with no further comment, disappearing into the crowd with her eyes glued to her notebook.

“We weren’t even doing anything that time!” Will shouts after her, and she neatly flips him off over her shoulder, calling back something about him making that gooey face again, as she flits over to Rachel and murmurs something to her. “She’s on my list now too,” he murmurs to Mike, who pauses his conversation with one of the twenty-something girls at the table to offer him a sympathetic look. 

“You should probably find somewhere else to be before she stabs you with that pen,” he murmurs, a little regretfully, and Will feigns a pout even as he swoops in to kiss him on the cheek before stepping down from the raised platform the press team has generously been referring to as the stage. “Love you. I’ll come find you when I’m done.”

“Love you too,” Will hums, smiling as the girls from before animatedly begin talking at Mike again, and slinks off into the corner to thumb through the book.

Not a bad birthday, all things considered.