Archive of Our Own

When Will wakes up Christmas morning, he’s cold.

It’s not the first time he’s woken up freezing — the heater in the Wheeler’s basement is finicky at best, and it often goes out in the middle of the night, when Will’s too tired to notice it’s out and when Jonathan is either too lazy to fix it or not even in the room.

He’s immediately gripped in a familiar panic, digging its claws into his chest. His sleep shirt is askew, and the blankets are crumpled at the bottom of the mattress, which isn’t exactly helping matters. 

It takes him a solid minute to place where he is, and another to breathe normally again. It’s cold, but it’s not because he likes it cold; it’s because the heater is out again, and it’s winter in Indiana, and there is probably at least a dusting of snow outside, ready to be wrecked by kids with too much energy on Christmas morning.

Will rubs his hands over his face and takes a deep breath. There’s been a few times over the past eight or nine months — Will has begun to lose count — when he’s reminded of the terror of the upside down and everything that comes with it, even though the past few months have been vacant of any real reason to be concerned.

One of the worst things about living past the end of the world — the monotony of it all, days upon days of the same routine, broken only by the occasional crawl or panic attack or less occasional nightmare. 

He’s only just gotten over the general fear and haziness and depression that comes with November, and now he’s here, freezing on Christmas morning. 

He should do something about it, probably.

He groans, stopping himself midway through when he remembers Jonathan might actually have stayed the night down here. He sits up, body protesting against leaving the little heat left on the mattress, and then groans again when he sees that the couch is noticeably empty of any Jonathan-shaped lumps — though the sheets are significantly more messed up than they were when Will went to sleep, so maybe he actually spent the night down here.

A warm shower. A hot drink, maybe. These will help, but Will’s stuck shivering on his mattress, listening to the creak of footsteps above him. It’s early — his watch says it’s only seven thirty, but his internal clock protests and says it’s much earlier — but it is Christmas morning, so those persistent footsteps above him are probably Holly’s, bouncing around as she waits for everyone else to get up so she can open her presents from Santa. 

Will smiles, thinking about how Mike always complains with thinly-veiled affectionate about Holly breaking into his room early Christmas morning so she can jump on his bed to wake him up. The thought alone stirs a warmth in him so pervasive it gets him moving, up and out of bed and into the bathroom, change of clothes in hand.

He turns the shower on as hot as it will go and lets the water run over his skin until it feels raw, and then he keeps going for a few more minutes to make sure his body is completely warmed up from the cold. 

He’s quick to dry off, and then he’s throwing on his clothes like a madman; boxers, T-shirt, sweatshirt, sweatpants. He pulls on a pair of socks by hopping around the bathroom on one foot and then the other, and then, on the count of three so he can prepare himself for the rush of cold air when he leaves the bathroom, he opens the door.

The air is cold on his head, where his hair is still wet, curling against his head softly. Will shivers, and then runs upstairs to escape it, because there’s a high chance that the heater upstairs is working a lot better than the one down here.

He throws open the door to the stairs and is met with Mike’s surprised face on the other side.

“Oh,” Mike says, quietly, almost like an accident. His eyes are wide, and Will’s half tempted to let himself careen backwards down the stairs if it means this is the last thing he sees before he dies. 

“Hi,” Will says, awkwardly.

This seems to shake Mike out of his reverie. “Morning,” he says, and his voice is so soft Will could use it as a pillow if he wanted. His eyes slide away and then are back again, cheeks pinkening. 

 “I was just going to — we’re going to start presents soon.” He rolls his eyes, and this is more the Mike that Will was expecting, the one that he’s used to, all attitude and annoyance. Will’s never sure what to do with Mike when he’s softer, especially when that softness is reserved for Will. “Holly is so excited, she forced me to go around to wake everyone up.”

Will takes a half step forward, trying to get the two of them moving so Holly can open her presents, but Mike doesn’t move backwards, so they nearly end up bumping chests. They’re close, closer than Will has ever let himself get, and surely that sharp intake of breath Will just heard was just in his imagination. 

“Um,” Will says, because somehow, even after all these years, he’s unable to not let Mike’s proximity affect him. They’re so close Will’s able to see Mike’s eyes flick all over his face, and he tries to tamp down the flush spreading over his cheeks. “I’m going to — coffee, first.”

Mike blinks, and the spell is broken; he steps to the side, like he’s going to let Will pass. “Right,” he says, but then his brow is furrowing in that way that Will loves and Will’s bracing himself for a question. “You don’t drink coffee though.”

Will likes to pretend that he is completely and utterly unaffected by the fact that Mike knows him so well. If Mike knew him any less, it might be more tolerable to live with him, but instead their lives after the end of the world are littered with instances like this, where Mike shows just how well he knows Will and Will tries not to absolutely swoon over it. 

Mike not only knows Will, but cares about him, and something about that makes Will’s insides twist in a way he can’t quite define, a mix of jealousy and hurt and longing and love, all mixed into one.

Will ducks his head as he shuffles forward, into the kitchen. “I don’t,” he affirms, but he’s already working on putting water in the pot, because even if he doesn’t love drinking coffee, Mike has started to, and that’s reason enough to make an entire pot, Will thinks. “It’s just — the heater’s out again, and I need something to warm me up.”

Mike frowns. “Again?” He asks, and — well, Will hasn’t exactly brought it up, the last few times it’s gone out, because he doesn’t want to be a bother. He’d rather freeze, for the night or two it usually takes the heater to come back on, than trouble the Wheelers more than he already has. 

Will pours Mike’s mug of coffee first. “Here,” he says, sliding the mug towards Mike on the counter. He turns away quickly to pour his own, before he can see Mike’s face. 

He only turns back towards Mike when his own mug is full, the smell of coffee permeating from the cup. It warms his hands immediately, and for a moment, he just stands there, hands wrapped around the ceramic, letting it warm his body. 

Mike is already looking at him, studying. There’s a line in his brow, like a frown, but he doesn’t say anything, electing instead to take a sip of his coffee. 

Will follows suit, immediately wrinkling his nose. “How do you drink this?”

Mike shrugs, taking another sip. He leans back against the counter, crossing his arms and pressing his cup against his shoulder. “It helps keep me awake.”

Will mirrors him, leaving space between them. He wishes he could close the distance — it would warm him up, he thinks, even just the barest of touches, but he also knows that there is a line that he is not willing to cross. 

Will wants to know what Mike means — has he not been sleeping well? — but before he can inquire further, Mike is turning, setting his mug down on the counter behind him. His arm brushes Will’s as he does. “You might like it better with some milk and sugar, though.”

Will takes another sip, and he can’t help his wince. “Do we have some to spare?”

Mike pops his head out from behind the fridge door, looking entirely unimpressed. “It’s Christmas,” he says, deadpan, and Will snorts. Mike smiles, soft. “And if this will help make your coffee drinkable, then who gives a shit if we have enough for anyone else?”

Will can’t stop his blush, this time, so he looks down at the counter. He really doesn’t want Mike to see him flustered, even though he half does, half wonders what would happen if Mike were to blush back. 

It’s out of the question, really, but he wonders, sometimes.

“Here,” Mike says, putting the milk on the counter next to Will’s cup and then reaching in front of the both of them for the container of sugar. “Mix it how you want?”

In Will’s mind, there was never a doubt that he would fall in love with Mike. Mike’s always been so kind to him, so loving and gentle, that Will didn’t stand a chance.

Once Will’s coffee is a significantly lighter shade of brown, he offers the milk to Mike. “Do you want some?” 

Mike hesitates, and for a brief moment Will is worried he somehow said something wrong, but then Mike slowly takes the jug from him. He dumps in a generous amount of milk and then adds some sugar. When he takes a sip, his face relaxes a bit, and he sighs. “I wish every day was a holiday.”

Will tilts his head. “What do you —“

He’s interrupted by Holly running into the room and careening straight into Mike, tugging on his shirt impatiently. “Mike,” she whines, stretching the vowels. “Mike, you said you’d be quick so we could open presents.”

Mike rolls his eyes and takes another sip of his coffee. “Will needed something warm to drink,” he explains, and Holly looks at Will with big eyes. Mike looks at him, too, his message clear in his eyes. Are you ready?

Will gives a small nod, and Mike smirks, before ducking his head to get on Holly’s level, messing her hair up with his free hand in the process. “Well, let’s go then,” he says, walking towards the living room. He turns back around after a few steps, to where Holly is still standing, pouting. “Aren’t you coming, Hol?”

Holly huffs and looks at Will. “He’s so annoying,” she says, looking a lot like she wants Will to sympathize, and he does, but for different reasons. It’s annoying as all hell that Mike is so lovely, all the damn time, charming and beautiful and sweet. 

Holly grabs Will’s hand and leads him towards the living room with so much enthusiasm he nearly spills his coffee. “C’mon Will,” she says, and then Will is being pulled right past Mike, who’s watching them with something soft in his expression.

❆❆❆

Will’s curled up against the arm of the couch, under a blanket Mike immediately claimed as theirs when they walked in, squishing in next to Will so they could share the softness, the heat. It’s so much warmer up here, in the Wheeler living room, so it’s honestly a shock he made it through exchanging presents without sinking into the couch and disappearing. As it is, he’s only half awake, cheek resting delicately on his fist, head sliding further and further down towards his chest.

Fingers brush his face, just barely, and in his half conscious state Will leans into them, and they linger for a moment before they’re gone. The sudden absence sends him reeling, enough that he’s shocked back awake, met with Mike’s eyes that are way too close.

“Sorry,” Mike’s whispering, but there’s something on his face, like a smirk, that snaps Will fully out of sleep. 

“What?” He asks, but his voice sounds like it’s been dragged through gravel twice, so he clears his throat and tries again. “Mike?”

The light from the fireplace and the Christmas tree makes Mike’s cheeks look pink. “Um,” he says, and he’s not moving away, eyes flicking all over Will’s face, and Will’s a little worried.

He wipes a hand over his face — the spot that Mike’s eyes keep landing, that birthmark above Will’s lip — and tries, one more time. “What?”

Mike shakes his head, pulling him out of his reverie. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.” His eyes flick up to the top of Will’s head, not once but twice. “Do you want your present?”

Will squints at him, then reaches up towards his hair. “Mike,” Will sighs, pulling the green bow off of his head. Mike looks adequately guilty, but Will reaches forward and tries to stick it to his face anyway. Mike dodges him easily, laughing the entire time. Will huffs, falling back into the couch and crossing his arms. “Holly was right, you’re so annoying.”

He doesn’t mean it, not really, and both of them know it. 

Mike grins, almost apologetic if the glint in his eye didn’t tell Will otherwise, and asks again, “Do you want your present?”

Will blinks at him, confused, then motions to the sweater he’s now wearing instead of his sweatshirt, one that matches each of the Wheeler kids’ and, now, Jonathan. “I already have it?” 

Mike huffs, rolls his eyes. “You really thought — you thought I wouldn’t get you a present on my own?” He asks, pulling a small package out from the couch behind him and putting it in Will’s blanket clad lap. It’s wrapped haphazardly, with paper from Mike’s old physics notebook, and it sits between them like a bomb.

Before Will can answer, Mike slaps the bow on top of it. “Ta-da?”

Will snorts and grabs the bow, placing it gently on Mike’s shoulder, letting his fingers linger for a second too long. “So considerate,” he mumbles, and then he picks up the gift. 

It’s only when he picks it up that he realizes it’s two small boxes tied together with some twine, which Will knows is easier to find than ribbon.

“Mike, you didn’t have to —“ Will’s interrupted by Mike’s hand put up between him, stopping him mid-sentence. Will shrinks back into the couch. “Thank you. Your gift is —“

“On the tree, I know, I saw it,” Mike says, smiling. He finally seems to realize he’s leaning into Will’s space, so he moves back, from where he was sitting on one of his legs crossed under him. Will only mourns the loss for a moment before Mike’s arm comes to rest on the back of the couch, behind Will’s head, and his heart skips a beat. “I wanted to wait for you to open it.”

He hops up to go grab his gift and Will takes the opportunity to stutter in a breath, his lungs finally working again. Before he can fully recover, Mike’s back, sitting close enough that they’re pressed together, shoulder to knee, and Will sort of thinks he might die.

“You first,” Mike says, and he suddenly seems nervous, fidgeting with the thick envelope in his hands. His knee is bouncing now, rapid fire, and Will wants to reach out to still it but he thinks if he touches Mike’s knee — or, god forbid, his thigh — he might actually explode into a million pieces. 

Will takes a deep breath and unties the twine, then finds the seam of the smaller box, gently easing the tape away from the paper. He’s been in the habit of unwrapping gifts with care since he was little, back when they couldn’t afford to spend too much on wrapping paper and so his mom would wrap his gifts carefully, loosely enough that he could open it without ripping it so they could reuse it. It’s far different from the way the Wheelers open presents — haphazard, with a certain ferocity Will has seen them display in every aspect of their life. 

The paper comes away easily, like Mike knew Will’s habit — because of course he does — and wrapped his gift accordingly.

Will is left with a small tray of paints, tubes in every color of the rainbow, plus some. Will’s paints were abandoned in his room in California, and are probably still there, and every day he misses them — misses the way his fingers would ache from holding the brush, the way he had perpetual stains on his hands and nearly every piece of clothing he owned. He’s been thinking about getting some more, but the ones that he would’ve gotten would’ve been nowhere near this nice. 

There’s a handful of brushes in the pack, too, and Will can feel his eyes tearing up despite himself. “Mike,” he whispers, running his fingers over the package, reverent. When he can finally tear his eyes away, they find Mike, who’s watching him intently, body still thrumming with a certain nervous energy.

“You like them?” He asks, breathless, and Will laughs. It comes out wet, soaked with the tears caught in his throat, and he wipes his eyes.

“They’re perfect,” he says, honestly, and Mike lights up with a smile on his face. 

“Good,” he says, and Will sets his paints aside while Mike continues. “I wasn’t sure, like, you know, if you would like these ones, or if you’d want any paints at all, since you —” Mike cuts himself off, and Will looks at him curiously. Why wouldn’t Will want paints? 

Mike shakes his head, then continues. “Anyway. I’m glad you like them.” He points to the other present in Will’s lap and then pulls his hand back, digging it into the space between their thighs. Will decidedly does not think about all of the points of contact between Mike’s fingers and his leg. “Open that one?”

“I was getting there,” Will quips, and Mike relaxes a bit against him, shoulders sinking down from where they were rising steadily towards his ears. 

Will’s just as gentle with this paper, and when it falls away he’s left with a small book, spiral bound with a simple black cover. He runs his fingers over the sides and opens it, met with blank pages. He flips through and looks at Mike again, a teary grin on his face. “Mike,” he says, softly, and Mike ducks his head, avoiding eye contact. Will drops his eyes too, looking instead at where his fingers are tracing the edges of the thick paper. “This is beautiful. I can’t wait to fill the pages.”

Mike clears his throat awkwardly. “You can — the cover, too, if you want. I got a blank one so you could decorate it however you want.”

Will’s been tempted to kiss Mike before, and one would think that would mean he knows when it’s going to come. As it is, he’s never prepared for it, the impulse that thrums through his veins and makes him lightheaded. 

So he doesn’t lean forward and actually kiss him, Will leans over and puts his head on Mike’s shoulder, breath shaking as it comes out of his lungs. “You’re so thoughtful,” he whispers, and he flips through the pages backwards, one more time, ending on the cover again. 

Something catches his eye — Mike’s messy scrawl, on the inside of the front cover, and Will’s breath catches. 

“Can I open mine now?” Mike asks, ignoring the compliment. His head has turned to face Will, even though Will’s eyes are focused on the book in his hands. 

Will closes the book — he might die if he reads the inscription right now, so he elects to save it for later, even though his curiosity feels like it might eat him alive — and sits up, nodding. “Yeah — yeah.”

Mike opens the envelope carefully, and when he pulls out the pages of sketches that Will has been saving — most from the past few months, but a few from California, when he would draw Mike from memory and then go lay down in his bed and hold his pillow tight to his chest and cry — Will keeps his eyes trained on where their knees are touching, instead of Mike’s face. 

“I just — I saw all my art on the walls of the basement and thought you might want some more,” he explains quietly, when Mike says nothing. He’s rifling through the sketches with a certain reverence, the way he always treats Will’s art, and his silence is scaring Will, just a little bit. 

Was it too much for a gift? Will was worried about some of the sketches, that they had been done with too much love, that the feeling that overwhelms his chest whenever he thinks about Mike was obvious in the care with which he treated every scrape of the pencil, every shaded jawline or carefully placed freckle. 

The most obvious sketches — the ones that Will draws when he’s alone in the basement late at night, a single dim light on, non-dominant hand gripping his thigh hard enough to bruise — those ones stayed in his sketchbook, under his pillow, the best place he could find to hide it. Nobody will ever see those ones, not if Will can help it. 

The ones in Mike’s hands, though, feel obvious now. The drawings upon drawings of Mike’s hands, of his face from every possible angle, of the way his hair curls over his ears or the way it would fall around his shoulders before he cut it. Will should’ve kept it all to himself, but it’s too late now. 

It’s not like every sketch in there is of Mike. There are some of all of their friends together, some of El or Lucas or Dustin, even one or two of Max in her hospital bed, hair cascading over the pillow. There’s one that Holly requested he draw of her, and then right next to it Holly’s drawing of Will in crayon. There’s the Wheeler’s basement stairs, and their house, and the tree outside Mike’s window. 

It’s just — Mike’s silence, combined with the fact that his gaze lingers on the sketches of him, makes Will nervous. 

Mike turns towards him, some sort of soft look on his face that Will can’t quite decipher. “You drew these?” He asks, even though it’s obvious. 

Will confirms with a stunned nod. 

“God, you’re so talented, Will,” he says, flipping through them quicker now, eyes racing page to page. “These are fantastic, holy shit.”

“I’m just glad you like them,” Will says, but his voice comes out weak, threatening to crack on every word. 

Mike turns towards him one more time, expression easier to read this time. Thoughtful, considering. Will braces himself for a question. 

“Boys!” Karen’s voice is high pitched from the kitchen, and Mike jumps, pulling away from Will on the couch. He takes one last look at the sketches in his hand and puts them, with great care, back in the envelope. “Breakfast is ready!”

Mike stands. “I’m starving,” he says, and then stretches his long limbs this way and that. He looks back towards Will and holds up the envelope with a small, almost hesitant smile on his face. “I can’t wait to frame these.”

With that, he walks towards the dining room, leaving Will alone with a racing heart. 

He blows out a long breath and opens his sketchbook to the first page, curiosity about the inscription finally getting the better of him. 

For Will the Wise, Creator of Worlds. 

Will runs his fingers over the ink, like it can transfer what Mike was feeling when he wrote it. His hands feel like they’re shaking, a bit too much. 

Your Loyal Paladin, Mike the Brave. 

❆❆❆

It’s after their early Christmas dinner that Holly asks if they can take her to the park. 

“I want to build a snowman,” she explains, and before Mike and Will can even say one way or another if they want to go with her, Karen is already bundling them all up, Holly the most. 

They’re gathering the snow for the torso of their snowman when Mike brings it up. 

“So, I was thinking,” he starts, and Will freezes, halfway through helping Holly roll their small snowball into a larger one that they can stack.

So that’s why Mike has been exceptionally quiet all day. Will noticed, but didn’t have the chance to say anything because after the two of them ate breakfast, they got roped into playing a game of Monopoly with their siblings — which was really a terrible idea, considering how competitive they all are — and now they’re here, and Mike has been making easy small talk with Holly and Will’s been trying to figure out a way to bring it up without making it seem weird that he notices things like this. 

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Will says, earning him a playful shove from Mike, and he laughs, giddy with the warmth that spreads through his body, radiating from the point of contact. “Thinking about —?”

He’s serious this time, and Mike senses it, because he turns to look at Will, tilting his head. There are snowflakes in his eyelashes, and little locks of hair are sticking out from underneath his beanie and framing his face, and he looks so good Will wants to cry, even if his tears will freeze on his cheeks. 

“You,” Mike says, breathless, and Will’s face must convey the way his body goes into acute shock because Mike follows up quickly. “I mean — you being cold. The heater? Um, I just — I don’t want you to sleep in the basement again tonight if it’s super cold, that’s all.”

He looks away abruptly, busying himself with grabbing a handful of snow and packing it into a snowball in his hands until it’s simply a ball of ice. 

Will’s still processing, brain feeling like it’s moving through molasses. “You don’t want me to sleep in the basement if it’s cold,” he repeats, still incredulous, and Mike huffs. 

“You don’t have to make it weird,” he says petulantly, even though he was definitely the one to make it weird. “I was just — sleep in my room, tonight.”

Will’s mind whites out. He’s not sure what to say, how to react, anything; Mike wants him to sleep in his room, even though he hasn’t wanted that since they first moved into the Wheeler house. Mike actively helped them move into the basement, helped Will and Jonathan make their beds in the basement and dropped some of Mike’s old clothes on the mattress there for Will to borrow until Murray could get them some more. Will was almost positive that meant that Mike wanted his room back, back for just himself, without Will taking up room in there. Will was sure Mike needed the space, and he was more than happy to give it to him, because it meant he could stay up late thinking about Mike without the overwhelming guilt that came with hearing his steady breathing from the bed next to him. 

Will’s lack of a reply leaves space in the air between them for Mike to elaborate, to continue, which was probably a mistake on Will’s part. “And we could, you know —” he says, and no, Will doesn’t know, but Mike’s going to barrel on anyway so he doesn’t bother saying anything, even if he could think of something to say. Mike’s eyes are ping-ponging from Will’s face to his shoes, back and forth, so fast that Will wonders if he’s even seeing anything. “You could open that new sketchbook of yours and, like, draw. I could model, if you wanted.”

Will’s going to die. Christmas day, 1986, three years and forty-nine days after he was taken by an inter-dimensional eldritch horror, eight months after the beginning of the end of the world. Will’s going to die today with snow in his hair, wrapped in a scarf unevenly knitted by Karen Wheeler, and it’s going to be all Mike’s fault. 

Mike’s stumbling over his words, and his clumsiness and nervousness translates to his feet, and suddenly he’s tripping every other step, plunging forward before catching himself. He’s looking up at Will in a panic, and as much as Will wants to ask him to rewind, to walk Will through his thought process, the urge to calm Mike down, to comfort him when he’s obviously on the verge of breaking down, overtakes everything else. 

“Okay,” he says, and Mike full-on stops — walking, talking, everything. He’s still, and Will stops a step ahead of him and looks back, eyes locked on the collar of Mike’s jacket. If he looks at his face he thinks his own might shine bright enough to be used as a beacon for planes flying over their heads. “Yeah, okay.”

Words that ultimately do not mean much — an agreement, but not comfort — but it’s enough to make a grin break out on Mike’s face wide enough to part the clouds, and Will can’t help the small smile that crawls onto his own face, even as snowflakes melt as soon as they touch his cheeks. “Yeah?” Mike repeats, in that way he does that makes Will feel so heard. 

“Yeah,” Will says, and then Mike’s walking again, bumping their shoulders together as he passes, and Will feels brave enough to add something more. “It’ll be fun.”

Mike nods, tossing the ice ball still in his hand back and forth once with a surprising amount of athletic aptitude and then attempting again before sending it sailing over his hand. He glances at Will, and Will’s trying his best to stifle his laugh, he really is, but it bubbles over the hand he pressed against his mouth, and watching Mike be so utterly himself combined with the giddiness of Mike touching him, Mike asking him to sleep in his room, Mike giving him permission to sketch him — it all builds and builds in a crescendo until Will’s doubled over with laughter, wiping tears from his eyes. 

“You’re so —” Mike says, but he’s laughing too, and Will stands up to grin at him, eyebrow raised in a challenge. “— mean.” 

“Am I?” Will asks, breathless from laughter, and Mike smiles at him, soft like the fresh snow falling around them. “Am I really?”

This bravery is still novel to him and he’s still clumsy with it, but he can’t help himself, not when he and Mike are hesitant friends again, not when Mike signed his Christmas gift with Your Loyal Paladin. 

“Shut up,” Mike mumbles, which just sends Will into a fit of giggles again, and then he’s shrieking as Mike shoves a handful of snow down the back of his jacket. 

“Mike,” Will gasps, contorting his body to avoid the sudden onslaught of cold, and Mike’s face pales for a split second. 

“Shit,” he says, and he looks concerned. “Shit, Will, I’m sorry, I didn’t think about the cold and your neck, I’m —”

He’s cut off by Will’s swift retaliation — two handfuls of snow scooped and flung into Mike’s face, leaving him sputtering, and Will’s shrieking again and running away when Mike wipes the snow away to reveal his grin, and then Holly is joining in the fun by lobbing incomplete snowballs at the two of them and it’s cold but Will feels so, so warm.

The three of them reach a truce, eventually, and Will’s clothes are soaked and he’s already chilled to the bone, so it’s not as big of a deal for him to drop to the ground and make a snow angel in the dimming light after their snowman has three parts to his body and two eyes and a smile made out of rocks. 

Mike drops next to him, and their hands brush when they move them. 

❆❆❆

In the shower, Will swears he’s going to be normal.

It’s his second shower of the day, so he spends most of it just warming up from the freezing cold that had settled in his bones on the walk home, when the sun had set just below the horizon and the wind had picked up enough to make him shiver so hard his teeth chattered.

Mike had wrapped an arm around his shoulders, though, so he’s mostly fine with being cold if it means this — open touches and invitations to sleepovers, like they used to do.

There’s a brief moment where he looks at himself in the mirror, studying the way his hair curls at the ends when it’s wet, and he wonders — is this a face that Mike wants to kiss?

Probably not. The very, very likely answer to this question is no, but sometimes Mike does things that could maybe be misconstrued, if you were to look at it with certain rose colored glasses on and your head tilted at a thirty seven degree angle. Sometimes, Will wonders.

He probably won’t be finding out tonight, but that doesn’t stop the hope from swelling up in his chest, unbidden, heart growing a few sizes at the mere prospect.

It’s enough to just be near Mike. That’s what he has to tell himself. 

He makes his way upstairs with only mild trepidation. For some reason, as soon as the two of them made it inside and went their separate ways, peeling layers of clothes off right in the entryway as Holly ran upstairs for the first shower, Will had this idea that somehow, some way, Mike would take back his invitation, would rescind his offer just moments before Will took him up on it. 

Will wouldn’t blame him, necessarily; it’s been a long, tiring day, and to want your own bedroom free of your best friend who’s secretly in love with you — though, of course, Mike doesn’t know that and probably never will — isn’t a completely unexpected reaction. 

The basement is still cold, though, and Will is still cold and Mike is still one of the kindest — though he hides it quite well when he wants to — people he’s ever met. Will figures it can’t hurt to ask; he’s been met with enough rejection in his life that being denied this, tonight, will only sting a bit. 

Besides, he’s had the whole day of being close to Mike. A few months ago, that would have been more than enough; hell, last Christmas Will would have killed to have done what he did today, instead of spending the day slouched on his couch in Lenora watching reruns of Rudolph while El sat next to him and read her latest letter from Mike, while Will was left with bare hands that he dug into his thighs in front of his family and then clenched his pillow with when he was alone in his room and the tears flowed freely. 

That Will probably wouldn’t have survived this much direct contact with Mike — and the Will that’s holding a new sketchbook to his chest and dragging the blanket that’s been designated as his up to Mike’s room right now isn’t necessarily guaranteed to survive it all, either — but he also thought that Mike didn’t want to be friends anymore, full stop, which turned out to be blatantly false. 

Will will take what he can get, without taking it himself. He’s willing to just have what Mike can give him, as long as Mike is the one on the other side. 

He raises his hand to knock, a few soft raps against Mike’s door. There’s a paper sign taped to the wood — Mike, in big, rainbow letters in Holly’s handwriting — and Will’s heart clenches. 

The house is quieting down, Jonathan and Nancy the only ones left downstairs at the television. The two of them had spent the whole day giggling and being generally in love with each other — and, simultaneously, fighting over whose properties were whose in Monopoly — and Will is happy for his big brother, he really is, but it also feels inconsiderate to him that a Byers ended up with a Wheeler and it wasn’t him and Mike. It’s cruel, maybe, but Will also can’t fault him for making the most of what he has; that’s what Will’s doing, too, except what he is allowed to have is very different from what Nancy gives to Jonathan. 

And Jonathan and Will still talk, sometimes, although it’s much more stilted, most of the time. Will’s not entirely sure why — it hasn’t been the same since they got back from Lenora, since Jonathan told him I’m always here for you, no matter what — but it’s half enough that Jonathan hugged him tight when he opened his gift, a tiny figurine of what Mike and Will imagined his DND class to be. 

That figurine is hanging proudly on the tree now, Will knows. The tree is the same as when he was little — smaller, maybe, or maybe Will’s just grown an indescribable amount — and they changed the lights outside from multi-colored to white, since Joyce would be staying with them over the holidays and she still panics when she sees the rainbow lights. It’s cozy downstairs, with the tree and the fireplace and the lights shining in the window, so Will can’t exactly blame the happy couple for spending time down there — and yet somehow Will knows that it’s nowhere near as comfortable as Mike’s room is probably going to be. 

If he’s let in. There’s no answer to his knock, so he tries again, to no avail. 

Then, it registers — the shower is still on, down the hall, and Mike is probably the one in there, warming up after Will, in a moment of bravery, lifted his shirt and jacked and shoved snow against his bare skin. It electrified him, enough that he needed to pull away to steady his breathing before he started hyperventilating during a snowball fight, but then Mike had grabbed his arm and pulled him down into the snow with him, and Will was never really able to catch his breath. 

Should Will wait outside? He’s not sure if it would be more awkward for Mike to stumble upon him outside his door, uncomfortable like he doesn’t belong, or to see Will just went into his room like he does. 

He’s caught in the middle when he hears the shower turn off, and the prospect of Mike finding him out here — standing and staring blankly at the door in front of him — spurs him into action. He reaches for the door handle before he can stop himself, and then he opens the door, leaving it open a few inches behind him. 

He’s breathing hard, for some reason, and he should really figure out a way to not let his body react so much to Mike, but that’s maybe something he can figure out another time. He drops his blanket on Mike’s bed — not that he expects to sleep there, obviously, but because he doesn’t quite want to put it on the ground if he doesn’t have to — and then sits at Mike’s desk, twirling his chair around once, twice, before pausing and looking at the painting hung on his wall. 

Mike got him more paints for Christmas, and all Will has been able to think about all day is how badly he wants to paint Mike, give him something else to treasure, and have it be from Will, this time. He wants to sign his name at the bottom of his art and mean it; he wants Mike to know that those paints mean a lot to him, and that Mike means a lot to him, and that Will will paint for Mike for as long as he can hold a brush.

He turns around and flips open his sketchbook to the second page — the first page is reserved for a small self portrait and a stylized inscription of the year, but Will doesn’t really want to start on that right now. Instead, his fingers are itching to sketch Mike — which he has special permission to do, tonight — and so he starts drawing the face he knows like the back of his hand, the face that he remembers almost better than his own. 

It’s quiet, but even if the walls were shaking with music or the end of the world — like they sometimes did, in Lenora, and like they sometimes did, earlier in the year — Will would be able to draw, would be able to tune out the rest of the world in favor of focusing on the way the lead of his pencil scratches along the surface of the page to create Mike’s cheekbones, or the way Mike looks in his head, frozen in an artist’s pose. 

He finds himself humming only when he feels it in his throat — songs that remind him of Mike, a few bars of Tears for Fears bleeds into Bowie bleeds into that one song by The Smiths that he doesn’t let himself listen to anymore, not after his cassette unwound from listening to it so many times, especially in California with his headphones pressed over his ears. 

He writes a few of the lyrics on the backside of the front page, just to get it out of his head, to get himself to focus; good times, for a change —

“You started without me?” 

Will jumps, pulse skyrocketing, and slams his sketchbook closed out of habit. 

“What?” He breathes, and Mike is just standing in the doorway to his room, leaning against the frame, watching him with his arms crossed. Will blinks. “How long have you been standing there?”

Mike hums. “Not long,” he assures, but Will’s not quite sure he believes him. 

“You scared me,” Will says — the obvious, but he can’t quite underscore enough how fast his heart is beating, hard against his chest like it wants to escape and land on the floor between them. Somehow being caught drawing Mike — even just his face, which is decidedly not what fills the pages of his secret notebook under his pillow — feels just as incriminating, if not more so, than being caught changing or something. It’s not like he’s doing anything wrong, exactly, but he just doesn’t want to have to explain — even though he probably will, because it’s Mike. 

“Sorry,” Mike says, wincing a bit, and this time he sounds genuine. He moves into the room easily, closing the door behind him, and Will tries not to stare at the sweatpants he’s wearing, or the fact that his sweater matches the one Will has on right now. “I just — you seemed so focused, I didn’t want to mess you up.”

Will scoffs. He feels like he might be closer to acting normally now, but he’s not quite sure. “So you decided to give me a heart attack instead?”

Mike’s close enough now that Will can smell the soap he used, and he’s kinda lightheaded from the proximity, from the smell of peppermint that’s invading his space right now. “The heart attack was an unintentional consequence,” he says, and then he’s leaning one hand on the desk and he’s so close Will can see his freckles in the low light of the lamp on his desk. “What are you working on?”

Will flushes. He’s never going to be able to be around Mike without blushing, probably, but it also doesn’t help when Mike asks him questions like that, in his soft, low voice that drives Will crazy and that haunts his thoughts late at night, when he’s alone in his room.  

“Just getting started on your request,” Will mumbles. He keeps his hand splayed over the front cover, holding it closed like it’s actively trying to open itself instead of being like, an inanimate object. Mike’s looking at him expectantly, and his hair is wet and it’s sending a drop of water down the side of his neck that Will wants to trace with his tongue. “It’s not finished yet.”

Mike turns, giving Will a moment’s reprieve, and then he’s leaning against the desk, his thigh brushing Will’s arm. “Can I see it anyway?”

Will scoffs. “No? It’s not finished yet means it’s bad, Mike,” he says, and Mike makes some sound of protest as he gives Will one last once over before pushing away from the desk. 

He’s pulling off his sweater as he walks away, up over his head, and Will should look away, he really should, but he just can’t bring himself to. Mike’s pale skin is pulled taut over his muscles, and Will wants to bite him — or, at the very least, spend hours upon hours doing anatomy sketches, studies of Mike and the way his body looks. “I don’t think any of your art could be bad,” Mike says, and he sounds honest in the way he says it, earnest in a way that Will can only afford to be half of the time he talks to Mike. He glances at Will over his bare shoulder and Will looks away, caught. His face feels like it’s about to spontaneously combust. “The only way I’m going to be patient is if you come sit on my bed with me?”

Will’s eyes snap back just in time to see the bare skin of Mike’s back disappear beneath a white T-shirt, and that’s almost more distracting than seeing him with nothing on. “You want me to?” He asks, and it’s not a complete question but it gets the job done. 

Mike rolls his eyes and crawls into his bed, leaning against the headboard. He pats the space next to him in response, and after a moment’s hesitation — Will’s really getting a bit too comfortable with this domestic feeling — he grabs his sketchbook, pencil, and goes to sit next to Mike. 

Their shoulders are not quite brushing, but Will can almost feel the weight of Mike’s touch heavier because of the space between them. It feels charged, though that’s probably just in Will’s head. 

He’s breathing hard, he realizes too late, but Mike is watching him again, expectant look on his face. Will’s gripping his sketchbook so hard his knuckles are white. 

“The whole point of this deal was that you would draw,” Mike explains gently, bumping their knees together, and Will’s normal about it, he really is. The squeak that escapes his throat is unrelated. 

“Right,” Will manages, sounding much too affected. He’s distracted by the fact that the mattress dips under where Mike is sitting, and that the gravity of him is pulling Will closer, despite his best efforts to stay in his own space. 

Will takes it back — he doesn’t think he’d be able to sketch under just any conditions, because doing anything this close to Mike is impossible. His brain is short circuiting. 

“Can you —” Will blurts, and Mike looks at him curiously, head tilted. Will swallows, hard. “Can you maybe — sit at the bottom of the bed?” Mike looks momentarily hurt, so Will’s quick to tack on, “So I can see you better, while I sketch you.”

Something about the low light makes it look like Mike is blushing, but it must be just that — a trick of the light. “Sure,” he says, and then he’s crawling away, going to lay at the foot of the bed. He hesitates, on all fours, and Will digs his fingers into his thighs. “Um — how do you want me?”

Will’s going to die. “Just — whatever’s comfortable, where I can see your face.” He opens his sketchbook, and there’s Mike, or the outline of him, anyway. He taps the eraser side of his pencil on the page as Mike gets comfortable on his stomach. 

“Can you pass me my book?” He asks, and Will’s already making short strokes with the pencil with his dominant hand when he reaches over to grab the novel off the nightstand. He turns the lamp on first, bathing the room in a brighter glow, and this — this is better, because now he can see Mike’s face, real and in front of him and not shrouded in shadow. Their fingers don’t brush when Will hands him the book, but Will half wishes they would. “Thanks.”

Will hums his acknowledgement, and then he’s completely focused again, alternating between watching the way the curve of Mike’s neck appears on the page and stealing glances at his muse in front of him. There’s no reason to be secretive about it, so he lets himself look; Mike’s so beautiful, and Will can’t use any other words to describe him because his brain sort of turns to mush after that. If Will were a sculptor, Mike would be carved out of marble — his sharp jawline that Will wants to press kisses underneath, the cut of his cheekbones so pronounced it should really be illegal. All of it lends itself so well to art, and Will gets a secret thrill from being the first artist in history — and, perhaps if he’s lucky, the only one — to have such a perfect subject, walking art that Will gets to translate — personality and all — to the page or his canvas. 

If the world didn’t want him to be in love with a boy, it shouldn’t have given him Mike Wheeler, the sweetest, smartest, and most stubborn person Will has ever known. Will didn’t stand a chance. 

Time stretches and slows; it’s quiet, save for the sound of the rustling of pages and the soft scratch of pencil against thick paper. Mike’s coming to life on the page in front of him, hair curling soft against his forehead just like it is on the boy in front of him, and Will wonders, for about the hundredth time, if his love is obvious in the way he draws, how he portrays Mike on the page. He wants to know, but he also has no way to ask without incriminating himself. 

Mike gets bored of his book — or finishes it, Will can’t really tell — and sets it down, electing instead to watch Will watch him, chin resting on his knuckles. It makes Will’s skin buzz, but he doesn’t let that distract him, lets it influence the gentle tapping that turns into constellations of freckles instead. 

Will’s slowly but surely sinking lower and lower onto the mattress, and he should really start setting up his bed on the floor, but he’s so warm, and Mike is looking at him with this softness that makes him comfortable enough to just openly stare as his eyelids get heavy, and —

“— beautiful, Will,” Mike is saying, and Will blinks his eyes open where he’s laying back against Mike’s pillow. His pencil is still held loosely in his hand, but Mike is gently pulling his sketchbook out of his hands, studying it with wide eyes.

Will hands him the pencil, too, for good measure. “Thanks,” he says, because he’s not entirely sure what Mike was referring to as beautiful, but he can hazard a guess that it was his drawing. “You are, too.”

That didn’t make sense. In the haze of sleep, Will knows that didn’t make sense, but doesn’t really care, not when Mike’s looking at him with that same gaze with which he was just looking at his art, and Will’s so comfortable he could cry. 

“Let’s go to sleep,” Mike whispers, soft, and Will’s completely on board with that idea. He wiggles until he’s under the covers, eyes half open and watching as Mike crawls over him to get out of bed. If he was more awake, he’d be freaking out about the proximity — one of Mike’s thighs on either side of his hips, even just for a split second — but instead he just watches, waiting for Mike to come back. 

He hears his sketchbook hit the wood of Mike’s nightstand, and then Mike walks away, and as much as Will wants to, he can’t stay awake for long enough to wait for Mike to come back from wherever it is he’s going.

Will’s not exactly sure how long he’s asleep for, but he’s woken up again by something soft bumping against his arms. 

“Mike?” He asks, groggily, and when he looks down, there’s a stuffed animal of some sort being placed on his chest. The tiger’s looking at him with beaded eyes, and it has a small smile stitched into its face, and Will can’t help the sleepy grin that spreads across his face. 

“Do you like it?” Mike whispers, and it’s then that Will realizes that Mike’s laying on his side next to him, looking intently. He must have climbed back over me, Will thinks absently. 

“I love it,” he says softly, and then he hugs the tiger to his chest. He turns towards Mike, bodies closed parentheses on the mattress, and his eyes fall closed. “Where did you get it?”

Mike makes some sort of noise, and his foot is pressing against Will’s shin, a soft but steady pressure. “Santa,” he says, and that doesn’t make any sense, but Will lets it go. “It’s yours.”

Will blinks open his eyes, with a lot of effort. “Really?”

Mike’s watching him, and it’s so dark that Will can only see him because of their proximity. “Really,” he affirms, and Will smiles, pulling the tiger closer to his chest. 

“Thanks, Mike,” Will says, and there’s a certain softness, a vulnerability he doesn’t normally show, but it’s Christmas and the boy he loves more than anything in the world just gave him a stuffed tiger.

“Yeah,” Mike says, and it’s so quiet Will can barely hear it. He’s half asleep when he hears, “Goodnight, Will.”

Will’s pulled into sleep too quickly to respond. 

❆❆❆

When Will wakes up, he’s so warm. 

The heat is radiating from behind him, and it’s only when he tries to move to stretch that he realizes the heat is all coming from Mike, who is pressed against him, chest to back. His arm is slung over Will’s torso, hand resting on the bare skin of Will’s stomach where his shirt rides up, and his fingers press into his skin like a brand. 

Will should get up. Will should never leave this bed, ever. He needs to run. 

Mike’s breath fans over the back of Will’s neck, and it makes him shiver, arms tightening around the tiger he’s clutching to his chest. Will tries, desperately, not to let his body react further than that. 

He checks the watch on his wrist, the one that matches the one on the arm draped over his midsection. It reads just after eight, which Will figures is an acceptable time to slip out of bed, if Mike were to ask him about it — which, he knows he won’t. 

It’s been half torture and half the best Christmas gift he’s ever gotten to have been offered to spend the night in Mike’s room. Will can feel himself sinking back into Mike’s steady presence, and he wants — to let himself have this, to pretend that this is real, for this to be real — but he knows if he has it once he’ll crave it forever. One of the worst parts about having known Mike for so long is that Will remembers, in excruciating detail, how it felt to hold Mike’s hand or kiss him on the cheek or be kissed on the cheek, before they realized that was something that boys don't do. He remembers it all, in bits and pieces that are fuzzy around the edges, but it always makes him ache. 

He knows the same will happen if he stays here, if he memorizes the way Mike feels pressed against him, he’ll torture himself with it every night he doesn’t have it. He’ll feel the ghost of Mike longer than he’ll feel the real thing, and that’s not something Will’s sure he can put himself through and survive. 

He takes a deep breath — steadying, fortifying — and then wraps his fingers around Mike’s wrist, gently pulling it away from his stomach. Behind him, Mike sniffles, moving closer, and Will shuts his eyes tight.

He can feel Mike’s pulse fluttering under his fingertips, and he can suddenly feel the tears pricking the back of his eyes, and he needs to get out of here before he wakes Mike up because he's crying, overwhelmed with love and desire. 

Gently, Will places Mike’s arm behind him, and he scoots forward, away from Mike, as carefully as he can. He’s out of bed quickly, replacing the blankets behind him, and he just stands there for a brief moment, memorizing the way Mike lies there, the steady rise and fall of his chest, the way his hair falls on the pillow like a halo. 

Will grabs his tiger, sketchbook, pencil, and blanket, and then he’s out the door.