Chapter Text
By mid-October, the campus had settled into its annual state of mild collapse. Dead leaves clung to sneaker treads, midterm schedules pulsed like open wounds across every bulletin board, and the student body moved as one exhausted organism from building to building as if powered solely by caffeine and denial.
Mike Wheeler fit in seamlessly, though in his own, very specific way—irritable, sleep-deprived, and carrying an armful of film equipment like it had personally wronged him.
He crossed the quad with the expression of someone who had rewritten the same scene fourteen times and still hated it, muttering half-formed critiques under his breath as if they were prayers. A tripod jutted over his shoulder. His hoodie was halfway zipped. His hair looked like he’d run his hand through it roughly eight times since lunch.
He had that familiar, quiet edge to him—the one that suggested existential doom mixed with artistic ambition—but anyone who knew him (and the Party knew him too well) could tell he wasn’t brooding about midterms so much as… something adjacent. Something with softer contours.
A few steps behind him, Lucas and Dustin were locked in a conversation about whether Dustin’s robot could, in theory, operate a camera.
“It has gyroscopic stability,” Dustin insisted. “Better than you, dude.”
“It tripped over a recycling bin last week,” Lucas replied.
“That bin was placed illegally!”
Mike tuned them out. Selectively. Automatically. They were background noise in the same way a heartbeat is background noise: constant, necessary, occasionally annoying.
He wasn’t heading anywhere urgent—just the editing lab, because apparently Professor Barker believed rough cuts grew like moss on neglected footage. The building loomed ahead: harsh concrete, narrow windows, and the faint hum of overworked machinery inside.
What made the afternoon strange wasn’t the assignment, or the weather, or even the threat of upcoming exams.
It was the fact that Mike had been… restless.
Not in the twitchy, high-strung way Dustin got before tests.
Not in the laser-focused, “I must conquer this” way Lucas got before games.
No—Mike’s restlessness was quieter. Internal. A kind of unspoken awareness that something in the dynamic of the semester had shifted—not dramatically, but enough to unsettle his equilibrium.
The others felt it too, though only two of them were brave enough to say it out loud when Will wasn’t around. Especially Lucas, who was unreasonably perceptive sometimes.
“You notice he gets like this when Will has studio classes all day?” Lucas murmured now, low enough that only Dustin would hear.
“I’m not deaf,” Mike snapped, not turning around. “Stop narrating my life.”
Dustin grinned, delighted. “We’re providing emotional context! You should be thanking us.”
Mike walked faster.
Inside the editing building, fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Mike swiped into Lab B, moving as if drawn by muscle memory. It wasn’t full—just a few upper-level students hunched over monitors, cultivating eye strain.
He took his usual station near the back. The moment he sat, the room swallowed him whole: humming hard drives, bluish glow, the illusion of control that came from slicing footage frame by frame.
He dropped his bag, cracked his knuckles, and opened his project.
The timeline stared back, all jitter and jump cut and discontent.
Mike exhaled through his nose, leaned back, and let the chair creak under him. The story wasn’t working. It had the wrong texture. Too polished in some places, too muddled in others. He wanted it to feel honest, but instead it felt like someone trying too hard to be honest—a subtle but fatal difference.
He scanned the clips again. His actor delivered a line meant to sound vulnerable but instead sounded like a toothpaste commercial about self-esteem.
Mike pinched the bridge of his nose.
the kind of gesture that was half frustration, half prayer. The timeline refused to cooperate. The emotion of the scene felt thin, like it had been scraped too many times.
His phone buzzed against the table.
Once.
Twice.
He ignored it. The buzzing persisted—familiar, patient, not demanding. Will was the only person who texted like that: three evenly spaced vibrations, as if asking permission to exist on Mike’s screen.
Mike sighed and reached for the phone.
Will: hey
Will: long studio day
Will: u need coffee?
Mike stared at the question, thumb hovering over the keyboard.
He typed:
Mike: can’t. in the editing lab. drowning.
The dots appeared almost instantly.
Will: so that’s a yes
Mike felt his mouth twitch.
He typed:
Mike: that’s a “i’m busy”
A pause.
Will: busy people still need caffeine.
Will: i can bring it. im nearby.
Mike’s shoulders tightened—not in a bad way, just in the way someone might react to a surprise gust of warm air in cold weather.
He typed too fast:
Mike: no don’t worry abt it
Another pause.
Will: i want to
Mike’s thumb hovered again, suspended over a truth he refused to name.
He typed:
Mike: fine
Mike: lab b
No emojis. Emojis felt lethal.
He set the phone facedown as if it might explode.
He didn’t turn when the door opened a few minutes later. The lab was full of comings and goings; it could be anyone. Probably wasn’t anyone significant.
But the air shifted—the way sound softens when someone gentle walks into a room.
Mike’s fingers stilled on the keyboard.
Will approached with two coffees hooked neatly in one hand, sketchbook tucked under the other arm. He looked windblown, cheeks a little pink from outside, hair in soft disarray from the walk across campus.
The quiet that followed him wasn’t emptiness. It was… presence.
“Thought you might need rescue,” Will said.
Mike didn’t look up right away. He didn’t trust his face to behave.
“Did I ask to be rescued?” he muttered.
Will set the coffee beside him. “Your text said ‘drowning.’ I took initiative.”
A beat passed—Mike’s version of gratitude.
He finally looked at Will.
There it was again—the smile. Small, unguarded, the kind that settled around the edges rather than bursting across Will’s face. The kind that always landed softer than Mike expected and hit harder than he wanted.
“You’re a menace,” Mike said.
Will shrugged, pulling out the chair beside him. “A caffeinated menace.”
He cracked open his sketchbook. His pencil found a page with the ease of a reflex.
Mike tried—honestly tried—to focus on the timeline in front of him, but the rhythm of Will’s pencil strokes pulled his attention in like a tide.
“So… midterms,” Will said lightly, eyes on his sketch.
Mike groaned. “Let’s not.”
“That bad?”
“Worse. Barker wants ‘emotional realism.’ I’m barely managing normal realism.”
Will’s mouth curved. “There’s realism in your project. You just don’t like admitting it.”
“There’s realism in yours too,” Mike shot back.
“That’s different.”
“How?”
Will tapped his pencil against the page. “Mine’s intentional.”
Mike scoffed. “Wow. Okay. I see how it is.”
“You walked into that one.”
“Did not.”
“You did.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
They exchanged a glance—brief, bright, familiar.
The kind of look people don’t notice unless they know what they’re looking for.
Mike broke it first, jaw tightening as if something had almost slipped.
Will returned to his sketch, but his voice gentled. “Want me to look at it? The rough cut?”
Mike hesitated.
He always hesitated.
Will watching his work was different from anyone else watching it—not critical, not patronizing. Just… attentive. Soft. Like his project mattered simply because it mattered to Mike.
Mike cleared his throat. “Sure. Just—don’t judge the pacing. It’s not finished.”
“I never judge pacing,” Will said. “Only character motivation.”
“That’s worse.”
“That’s the job.”
Mike hit the spacebar. The project played.
Onscreen, an actor sat in a dim hallway, delivering a line about loneliness that was meant to sound profound and instead sounded a little like a fortune cookie.
Will leaned closer. Not dramatically—just enough that their shoulders brushed when he shifted. The contact was fleeting, barely pressure at all, but Mike froze as if someone had placed a hand over his heartbeat.
He pretended to adjust the volume.
They watched in silence, the glow from the monitor washing both of them pale. Will’s expression was thoughtful, soft around the edges, like he was taking the scene seriously in a way Mike couldn’t manage for himself.
When the clip ended, Mike waited for the critique, something defensive building in him like a reflex.
Will didn’t offer critique.
He said, very simply:
“It feels real.”
Mike’s chest tensed. “Too real?”
“No. Just… like it means something. Even if the actor doesn’t realize what he’s saying.”
“That makes one of us.”
Will turned a page in his sketchbook. “You do realize it. You just don’t like the realization.”
Mike looked away quickly. “Pretentious.”
“A little,” Will agreed easily. “But not wrong.”
Mike clicked a random point in the timeline, too hard. The cursor jumped. The screen froze for half a second. His pulse did the same.
Will, still drawing, said quietly, “You’re allowed to make something honest, you know.”
Mike didn’t answer.
Not because he didn’t have one—because the correct answer lived in the same part of his chest where Will’s name lived, and that part felt too breakable to touch.
To break the tension, Will nudged Mike’s foot gently with his own.
“You okay?”
Mike scoffed, grateful for the pivot. “You’re asking me that? Art Boy who hasn’t slept since freshman year?”
“I sleep,” Will said.
“When? During critiques?”
“Says the guy who brings a neck pillow to film theory.”
“It’s a medical device,” Mike said. “For, uh, spinal reasons.”
Will laughed—quiet, involuntary.
And that laugh, like always, softened something in the room.
It softened Mike too, visibly, like a crease releasing from fabric.
“Thanks for the coffee,” Mike muttered.
“You’re welcome,” Will said. Then, lower: “You can always text me, you know. Even if you’re busy.”
Mike opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
Found no safe words.
So he just said, “Yeah.”
And Will nodded like he understood the version of that word Mike didn’t say.
They left the editing lab when the sky outside had already given up on being evening and committed fully to night. The air hit them immediately—cold in that November-approaching way, the kind that settled on exposed skin like a reminder to wear more layers.
A breeze pushed at the fallen leaves along the walkway, making them scrape across the concrete. Will pulled his hood up; Mike tugged his sleeves over his hands. Neither mentioned how tired they looked. Neither needed to.
They walked side by side, past the long row of bike racks and the humanities building that always smelled faintly like printer ink. A few stray students drifted between buildings, clutching notebooks like shields.
Will rocked forward slightly on his toes with each step, as if the energy from studio classes hadn’t quite fully drained out of him. Mike, meanwhile, had the slightly hunched posture of someone who’d edited the same three seconds of footage too many times today.
“Your cut’s getting there,” Will said, nudging a tiny rock down the path with his shoe.
Mike snorted. “Yeah. In the same way an abandoned construction site is ‘getting there.’”
“You’re dramatic,” Will said lightly.
“Not dramatic. Realistic.”
“Dramatically realistic.”
Mike shoved him gently with his shoulder. “Shut up.”
Will laughed quietly, breath fogging in the cold. It wasn’t a big sound—just warm enough to cut the edge of the wind.
Mike’s phone buzzed.
He glanced down.
El: how was editing?
El: still alive?
El: hello michael
He rolled his eyes, typing back:
Mike: barely
Mike: leaving the lab now
Another bubble appeared almost instantly.
El: r u with will
Mike looked up from the screen, expression tightening for half a second.
They were walking under one of the campus lampposts now, its yellow glow washing over Will’s hair, catching faint bits of charcoal dust on his sleeve.
He typed:
Mike: yeah
Mike: why
El: :)
El: nothing
El: tell him hi
He grimaced, thumb moving fast.
Mike: he’s literally right next to me im not doing that
El: coward
Mike shoved the phone deep into his pocket, as if burying the conversation physically would make his face cool faster. He didn’t need Will seeing that. Not because it was embarrassing—okay, partly because it was embarrassing—but mostly because Will didn’t need to know how obvious things might look from the outside.
They cut across the little footbridge behind the library. Beneath them, the stream reflected the lamplight in thin, shaky ribbons. The metal railing felt icy when Mike brushed his hand along it.
“You good?” Will asked casually, not looking directly at him.
“Yeah. Just… El being El.”
“What, existential questions?”
“No. Worse. Small talk.”
Will smiled. “That is terrifying.”
Mike shrugged, trying to appear unfazed. “It’s fine. She just—checks in.”
“She’s sweet like that,” Will said.
“She’s also persistent.”
“That too.”
They walked another few steps. The cold settled deeper into their hands, their sleeves, their breath.
Then Will’s phone buzzed.
He looked down—reflexive, almost apologetic—and the faintest smile lifted at the corner of his mouth. Not a big grin. Just… recognition. Amusement. Something warm.
He typed a quick reply. Pocketed the phone again.
Mike’s ears went hot instantly, which was inconvenient because everything else about him was freezing. He stared straight ahead, jaw tightening by accident.
Will didn’t notice. Or he pretended not to.
“So,” Mike said, too casually, “studio run long today?”
“Mm,” Will hummed. “Critique day.”
“Bad?”
“Not really. Just long. People talking in circles.”
“Art-speak?”
“Oh, the worst kind,” Will said, smiling again. “Lots of ‘gesture of interiority’ and ‘emotional scaffolding.’”
“That sounds illegal.”
“It felt illegal.”
Mike huffed a laugh, stuffing his hands deeper into his hoodie. He didn’t want to think about the buzzing phone. About the smile. About the fact that Will smiled completely differently at him—soft, direct—than he did at whoever was texting.
Not that he was cataloguing smiles.
He wasn’t.
“You cold?” Will asked.
“No,” Mike lied, shivering slightly.
Will pretended not to notice. They passed a group of students carrying takeout boxes that smelled like questionable Chinese food. Someone skateboarded by too close, nearly clipping Mike’s elbow.
He glared. Will laughed under his breath.
By the time they reached the residence hall, the warm air blowing from the lobby felt like heaven. They stepped inside together, shaking off the cold like two people who’d always done it this way.
A cluster of students sat on the lounge couches, half-asleep under blankets, textbooks open like props. A microwave beeped from the communal kitchen.
They reached the stairwell.
“You heading up?” Mike asked, nodding toward the second floor.
“Yeah. Dustin probably rearranged the room again.”
Mike snorted. “What is it this time? ‘Optimized airflow’?”
“Last week he said he improved ‘the chi.’”
“That sounds like him.”
Will smiled—small, warm, meant only for the moment.
Another buzz vibrated from his pocket.
Will didn’t check this one. He thumbed the notification off without looking, as if deciding to stay in the moment instead.
Mike looked at the stairs, then at Will, then back at the stairs. “So… you finishing your piece tonight?”
“Probably,” Will said. “If Dustin sleeps early.”
“Right. Robot boy has an 8am.”
“He has an 8am every day.”
“Still won’t stop him from lecturing you on lighting at two in the morning.”
Will laughed. “He tries.”
“You let him.”
“He’s excited.”
Mike shook his head, trying not to smile. “You’re too nice.”
“No,” Will said lightly. “You’re too mean.”
“That’s what balances us.”
Will’s eyes flicked up—not lingering, just connecting for a second longer than necessary.
A beat passed. Not tense. Just… full.
Will shifted his weight. “So… night?”
Mike swallowed. “Yeah. Night.”
Will lifted two fingers in a small wave, turned toward his floor, and started down the hallway—hood up, sketchbook under one arm, phone buzzing again as he walked.
Mike watched him go for half a heartbeat longer than he meant to.
Then he headed for the stairs, hands shoved deep in his sleeves, ears still warm from something he’d never name out loud.
Not yet.
Mike pushed open the door to his room expecting either silence or Lucas doing push-ups because he can (and does more often than not).
Instead, Max was sprawled on Lucas’s bed like she owned it, a half-empty bag of chips balanced on her stomach, and El was curled in Mike’s desk chair turning a pen over in her hands as if she’d forgotten what pens were for.
Lucas sat at his desk, earbuds half-in, immediately pausing whatever he was watching.
All three looked up.
“Finally,” Max said, as if Mike had been gone for years. “We were about to send out a search party.”
Mike closed the door with his foot. “This is my room. Why do I feel like the intruder?”
“Because you have scary ‘I need to lie down for four days’ energy,” Lucas said.
“It precedes you,” Max added.
El gave him a tiny wave. “Hi, Mike.”
He lifted a hand in return, dropping his backpack by the door. “Why are you all here?”
“We’re studying,” Max said, though there wasn’t a single open textbook in sight.
“And this room has better heat than ours,” El added.
“Our room is fine,” Mike said.
“No,” Max said, sitting up. “Your heater doesn’t make that weird rattling noise like it’s going to explode.”
“That’s ambiance,” Lucas said.
Mike scrubbed a hand over his face. All he wanted was to fall onto his bed and let reality fade for a few minutes—just enough time to imagine an alternate timeline where he wasn’t a walking knot of feelings and Will wasn’t… Will.
He stared at his bed. His bed stared back. It looked perfect. Dangerous.
Max squinted at him. “You’re doing it.”
Mike blinked. “Doing what.”
“That thing where you zone out and start seeing visions,” Max said.
“I’m literally standing here.”
“Yeah, standing and thinking super hard,” she said. “It’s creepy.”
Lucas nodded. “You walked in looking like a Victorian ghost.”
Mike glared. “I’m tired.”
“You’re always tired,” Lucas said. “This was a special kind of tired.”
El leaned forward, chin on her knee. “You look… floaty.”
Mike frowned. “Floaty isn’t a real description.”
“It is now,” Max said. “Tell us who you were daydreaming about.”
He nearly choked. “Excuse me?”
“Oh my god,” Max deadpanned. “The guilt face. That was immediate.”
Mike dropped onto his mattress, arms splaying out, staring at the ceiling. “You guys need hobbies.”
“We have hobbies,” Lucas said.
“Yeah,” Max added, “and one of them is bullying you.”
El nodded cheerfully. “It’s very fun.”
Mike groaned into his hands. “Why do I let any of you into my room?”
“Because you love us,” Max said.
“No.”
“Yes,” Lucas said.
El’s smile softened. “You just looked… spaced-out. Like you were thinking about something nice.”
That made Mike’s stomach tighten embarrassingly fast.
He mumbled, “Wasn’t.”
Max scoffed. “Right. And I’m the Queen of England.”
Lucas threw a chip at her. She caught it in her mouth like she’d been training for it her whole life.
Mike closed his eyes. Just for a second. He pictured Will—hood still damp from the cold, phone buzzing in his pocket, that small smile he didn’t realize he had.
Warmth flared under Mike’s skin, traitorous and impossible to ignore.
Max’s voice broke through the thought. “You’re doing it again!”
Mike sat up too fast. “I’m not— I wasn’t— can you all stop diagnosing me with… whatever this is.”
“Crushing,” Max said.
“Hard,” Lucas added.
El covered her mouth, but her eyes were glinting. “It’s cute.”
Mike let himself fall back again, blanket half-draped across his chest like a defeated cape. “I hate all of you.”
“You don’t,” Max said.
“You really don’t,” Lucas echoed.
El’s tone softened. “We like when you’re happy.”
Mike cracked one eye open.
“I’m not—happy,” he muttered weakly.
Max smirked. “You will be.”
That shut him up immediately.
The room went quiet for a moment—warm, cluttered, lived-in.
Mike stared at the ceiling and pretended his heart wasn’t doing the stupid thing it always did now.
He wished the blanket would swallow him whole.
Or at least muffle how obvious he probably sounded.
The evening slouched forward in no particular direction, exactly the way nights in shared dorm rooms tend to do.
Max stayed sprawled across Lucas’s bed, stealing his pillow and refusing to apologize. El had migrated from Mike’s desk chair to the floor, legs folded neatly underneath her as she organized her flashcards with the precision of a surgeon.
Lucas eventually put music on—low, something with a soft beat—just enough to keep the room from feeling too quiet.
And somehow, despite the midterm chaos, despite the clutter and the fluorescent lighting and Mike’s lingering desire to disappear under his blankets, it all felt familiar. Comfortable. A little dumb in the best way.
Max tossed a chip into the air and caught it. “I should get an award for this.”
“That’s not skill,” Lucas said without looking up. “That’s luck.”
“No,” Max said. “Luck is dating you. Chip-catching is pure talent.”
Lucas, unfazed, threw a balled-up sock at her. She dodged it without moving her head.
El giggled softly.
Mike stretched out on his bed, hands behind his head, letting the ceiling blur a little. He wasn’t participating in the chaos, but he wasn’t not participating either. It was one of those moods where just existing among people you trusted was enough.
“You guys hungry?” Lucas asked eventually.
Max perked up instantly. “Always.”
“There are ramen packets in your drawer,” El said helpfully.
“That’s Mike’s drawer,” Lucas said. “He organizes his snacks.”
Mike frowned. “They’re not snacks. They’re emergency provisions.”
Max snorted. “You’d eat ramen as a last dying act.”
“Better than eating despair,” Mike said.
El nodded sagely. “Despair has no nutritional value.”
The room fell into quiet for a moment—not awkward, just… full. The kind of silence that comes from shared years and too many inside jokes to count.
At some point, Max checked her phone and groaned. “We should go. El, we still have to read that psych thing.”
El gathered her highlighters. “The chapter about attachment patterns?”
“That’s the one,” Max said, grabbing her backpack. “Spoiler: we all fail at them.”
El smiled, softening the joke. “Not all of us.”
Max glanced at Mike as she slung the strap over her shoulder. “Try not to dissolve into a puddle while we’re gone.”
Mike waved a lazy hand. “No promises.”
El paused by the door, giving him a little look—gentle, knowing, not pushy. Just a flicker of something like take care of yourself.
“Goodnight, Mike,” she said.
“Night,” he replied.
The door shut behind them with a soft click.
And just like that, the room felt different—not empty, but quieter. Something unspoken settled in the space between the two beds.
Lucas tossed his phone aside and leaned back in his chair, eyeing Mike with the vague suspicion of someone who has facts but needs confirmation.
“So,” Lucas said.
Mike groaned. “Don’t start.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
Lucas shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Lucas.”
“Mike.”
Mike dragged a pillow over his face. “Please. I can’t handle a motivational speech right now.”
Lucas snorted. “Do I look like the motivational speech type?”
“Yes,” Mike said, muffled. “Annoyingly so.”
A beat. Then:
“I’m not giving you a speech,” Lucas said, voice softer now, easy in that way he gets when he stops trying to be funny. “Just… checking in.”
Mike lowered the pillow, staring at the ceiling again. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah,” Lucas said mildly. “You always say that right before you’re very not fine.”
“I’m just tired.”
“You’re always tired.”
Mike let out a breath, more honest than he meant it to be. “It’s been a weird day.”
Lucas nodded slowly. “Yeah. Looked like it.”
Mike shot him a look. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” Lucas said. “Just—you get this face.”
“My face is normal.”
“Your face is a billboard,” Lucas said, amused. “Like, the giant kind on a highway.”
Mike chose not to respond.
Lucas leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees. “For real though—whatever’s going on in your head? You don’t have to say anything about it. I’m just… here.”
Mike didn’t answer right away. He didn’t need to. Lucas wasn’t the type to fill silence with extra words.
Finally, Mike said quietly, “I know.”
Lucas nodded once. “Cool.”
Then, after a beat:
“Also, if you want ramen, you have to make it. I’m not doing it for you.”
Mike threw a pillow at him. Lucas dodged it with a laugh.
And just like that, the moment was over—neither heavy nor brushed aside, just absorbed back into the room the way old conversations were.
The dorm hummed around them. Far down the hall, someone laughed too loudly. A sink ran. A door slammed.
Mike lay back, staring at the ceiling, not quite ready to sleep, not quite ready to think too hard.
But for the first time all day, the tension in his chest loosened just a little.
Not because anything had changed.
Just because, for a moment, he didn’t feel alone inside it.