Chapter Text
"I thought I saw your brother hanging out with Steve Harrington in Washington Square earlier," Mike repeated, barely looking up from his stupidly loud typewriter, and Will frowned, setting the paper bag from the bodega down on his dresser with a loud bang.
"Steve 'The Hair' Harrington?" Will asked dimly as he pulled a few coke cans and a jar of pickles from the bag.
"No, Steve 'The Brains', obviously dude," Mike replied, tightening the ribbon pretentiously. Frankly, Will didn't care for this sarcastic affect from a boy too laser-focused on his mediocre novel to feed himself. Mike had skipped classes yesterday and holed himself up in his dorm with nothing but his typewriter and his thoughts and worst of all, no prepared snacks. Will would never empathize with Mike's writerly insistence on dropping everything in pursuit of the craft. He could get swept away in a painting, sure, but he could also put down the brush and sleep and feed himself and practice basic hygiene so as to not worry his loved ones.
"Hold on, when were you in Washington Square?" Will asked before sliding a toasted bagel from the bodega across the desk like it was illicit material.
"Thank God, I'm starving," Mike murmured ungratefully before dripping a glob of shmear across a recent draft page.
"Mike," Will repeated, yanking the paper from the type guide to effectively pause him. "When were you in Washington Square?"
"Hey!" he exclaimed, pulling the paper back so hard it tore a little, words till intact. "It's no big deal, I stepped out for a walk around 2," he explained casually, and Will stared at him for a moment.
"You stepped out for a walk and didn't think to pick up your own food?"
Mike shrugged, and Will continued staring, knowing the nonchalance would give way eventually. "Fine, I had a cigarette," he finally admitted sheepishly, and Will scoffed.
"You're such an idiot, Mike, that'll fucking kill you someday," Will seethed, eyes darting around the room on a mission. "Where's the pack?"
"No pack, I just bummed one from Cathy," Mike insisted. Cathy was the older lady that sat by the fountain most days offering her services as a psychic. She was kind of an NYU legend, more for her generosity with her cigarettes than her tarot readings, but Mike tended to gravitate towards legends. Will surveyed him for a long moment, that old heartaching care bubbling up in his throat before turning more scrupulous, as trained.
"At least you didn’t pick it up from the gutter this time,” he landed on eventually, and Mike pulled his glasses off his nose defiantly.
“That was one time, and I was drunk!” he exclaimed, and Will couldn’t help but smirk. He had cream cheese smeared across his chin, and instead of raising a thumb to brush it off as childhood instinct insisted, Will could only stand across the room and take pleasure at how ridiculous his obliviousness often made him.
“What were you saying about my brother and Steve?” he prompted mercifully, slumping down onto Mike’s roommate’s desk chair and kicking his Doc Martens up onto Mike’s bed (little debts repaid) to enjoy his own coke.
“I thought I saw them together in Washington Square is all,” Mike answered, twisting around finally to face Will, writing abandoned in favor of the conversation and bagel. “Didn’t get a close look though. Did you know he was in town?”
“No, but maybe Steve flew into New York this time,” Will answered, watching as Mike finally noticed the cream cheese on his chin and wiped it off with a napkin. “Jon said they’d all be in Philly this weekend. At Robin’s uncles, working on his film.”
“God, his film,” Mike groaned, and Will stifled a laugh. He loved his brother, and he’d always take his side over Mike’s, but after witnessing the latest proof of concept for The Consumer, Will found it increasingly difficult to defend his brother’s art.
“Hey, it’s nice to see him passionate about something,” Will insisted. “He’s never been so… ambitious.” Mike smiled warmly, his sunken eyes crinkling at Will’s constant generosity, and Will glanced out the window defensively, pressing down on his stuttering heart.
“Everyone in this city is ambitious about something,” Mike noted thoughtfully, following WIll’s gaze out the window, across the wintery early evening sunset. “He fits in.”
“Don’t tell him that, he’ll take it as an insult,” Will murmured, and Mike laughed, kicking Will’s legs gently before standing to dispose of his wrapper.
“You fit in, too,” Mike offered, reseating himself to face Will more directly. “I mean, you didn’t even need NYU to make friends here, you’re just–”
“Well it helps to not periodically lock yourself indoors for days at a time,” Will cut him off, perpetually inclined to resist a compliment.
“Will you let me finish?” Mike countered, perpetually inclined to act all sincere and serious when the moment called for it. “You belong here, Will, you really do. Hawkins wasn’t big enough to hold you.”
It was true– even after dropping out to live in a shoebox with three roommates and start illustrating freelance and getting rejected by all the Greenwich Village zines, Will had found himself more secure than ever. It was strange, like ever since he’d decided to live in his truth on the eve of the apocalypse, he’d just been waiting for a fresh start, a severance of sorts to fall right into the life he’d always wanted. A sustaining career he loved, a full social calendar, new friends who intrinsically understood this newly prized part of him in a way very few back home ever had. He’d basically lucked into it, following his brother to the city in lieu of a real plan of his own. He’d never dreamed of New York specifically, but now his dreams seemed inseparable from the skyscrapers and subways and strangers and noise.
In their fourteen months living there, Mike hadn’t felt the same intrinsic pull, and Will knew that. He wondered if that was why he spent so much time in fictional worlds, reading when he wasn’t writing, writing when he wasn’t dragged along to a house party or an open mic or a gallery opening of one of Will’s friends. Mike always seemed more interested in hearing about Will’s nights out than being part of them, though.
For some indiscernible reason, Mike the storyteller had never been able to fully wrestle narrative control over his own life. Will hadn’t fully understood this when he was younger, and it had led to a lot of hurt feelings, but observing how they’d both grown or stagnated over the years made it clearer and less personal to him now. Mike was still the heart, still the first to remember to call up the party and organize visits to their respective cities during holidays, but it was difficult for him, loving everyone from a distance. He had to put his love and his grief from losing love, into something. Will understood as well as anyone why it must be poured into stories, processed as something with more tangible memory, more definite meaning. Mike loved New York, sure, but he couldn’t truly see it until he’d finished the story of Hawkins. Will knew that. Still, he hoped someday his friend would learn to write his own life more kindly.
“You belong here, too, Mike,” he said quietly, hoping the encouragement in his tone didn’t overshadow his earnestness. Will wasn’t sure if he meant here as in Manhattan or by his side, but regardless he trusted it conveyed some truth. Before he could worry about it conveying too much truth, Will cleared his throat and continued, “Anyway, since he’s in Philly, I was going to spend the weekend at Jonathan’s to get some alone time, maybe work on some stuff. Do you want to make a little artists’ retreat out of it?”
“If I join you, it won’t exactly be alone time,” Mike pointed out.
“True, but you’d be too busy writing to bug me much.” And at least I would know you were eating properly. “Also, isn’t your roommate at that fraternity rush thing tonight?”
Mike shuddered in response, then started packing up his typewriter and loose papers quickly. “I really don’t understand that guy. Why would you come all the way to New York City to do keg stands and make girls uncomfortable when you could just as easily be doing that at some state school in Michigan?”
“See? You’re practically a New Yorker,” Will insisted brightly, relishing in Mike’s grimacing smile before he buttoned up his jacket.
They made their way down the stairs of the dorm and out into the streetlit winter night, already bustling with students eager to start their Fridays right. Snow was dusting about, accumulating a little on the wet sidewalks, and Will took note of the way the white flakes brightened everything into an almost hyperreality. They crossed Houston and meandered through the numberless city blocks until they reached Jon’s building, his apartment nestled above a shoe store that made everything smell like leather and lacquer and industry.
Will searched for his spare key to Jon’s place on the ring of abundant spare keys, pondering why so many people in the city had trusted him with access to their homes, while Mike bounced on his toes and stared mildly intensely at the street vendor on the corner as he shaved slices of gyro meat for a waiting couple. “Dude, I’m actually still hungry,” he admitted frantically just as Will clicked the right key into place. “Do you mind if I…?”
“Go get sustenance now, who knows what Jonathan’s left in the fridge,” Will replied amenably before Mike, profusely thankful, bounded down the street to the halal cart.
Will left the door cracked as he climbed the stairs to Jonathan’s tiny top-floor unit, kicking a couple newspapers (the Times and the Boston Globe) off the doormat as he located the second key. Before he could turn the knob, he heard scuffling, the faint hum of Jonathan’s record player, the scratchy end of a B side looping faintly. It wasn’t like him to forget about a spinning record– in fact, he’d chastised Will a few months ago for mishandling a vintage Bob Dylan, despite the Village stores being full of them.
“Jonathan?” he called from outside, wondering if there was possibly an intruder, then remembering his brother hardly owned anything worth stealing. Hearing no response, Will braced himself and opened the door to an empty living area. The place was small and untidy as ever, air thick with the smell of weed, a stolen diner coffee mug on the countertop reduced to an ashtray. Will coughed instinctually, then turned to lift the needle from the neglected Pixies record, when a stirring from the makeshift curtained bedroom made him go rigid.
“Struggling to pick the next album you wanna fuck me to, Byers?” asked a familiar voice, low and worn and blissed out as it drifted through the smoky apartment, and for a single horrifying moment, Will thought Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington was propositioning him. Then, as he turned to face a shirtless, tousled, noticeably hickeyed Steve, the more horrifying reality dawned on him.
“What the actual fuck?” Will asked breathlessly, immediately going pink as the color in Steve’s face drained upon realizing his error.
“Will, hey!” he greeted, overly enthusiastic in his efforts to smoothen the situation into something less unbearably awkward and bizarre. Then, perhaps realizing there were visible bite marks on his chest, he hurried behind the curtain to shrug on one of Jonathan’s too-small button-ups. “Sorry, Jon didn’t mention me visiting, huh?”
Will blinked at him, wondering if, despite everything he’d witnessed growing up, perhaps the most mind-boggling and unexpected scene of his life was Steve Harrington looking so goddamn shy in his brother’s apartment.
Just then, the pipes above their head rattled, and Jonathan stepped out of the bathroom in his boxers, looking more relaxed than Will had ever seen him high before. His gaze shifted between Steve and Will for a moment before landing on Will, not quite panicked but definitely searching for the words to explain. “Will, when did you get here?” he started jovially, then glanced back at Steve, some hidden communication transpiring between their eyes.
“Jesus Christ, the walls are not that fucking thick,” Steve exclaimed finally, gesturing to Will with frustration. “You heard me scandalize your brother twenty seconds ago, let’s just–” He waved his arms around vaguely, like that meant anything at all.
“I am so, so sorry you had to find out like this,” Jonathan said in a rush, crossing his arms over his exposed skin self-consciously. “I’ve been trying to find the right time to tell you, but I didn’t want to make a big deal of it all–”
“You didn’t want to make a big deal of sleeping with Nancy’s ex boyfriend, who broke your nice camera and called you a pervert and beat the shit out of you in high school?” Will stated directly, almost apathetic as all the feelings rushed through him. His brother being queer was one thing– not totally shocking to Will, but revealed with so little fanfare it made Will feel stupid. His brother shacking up with Steve Harrington in secret was an entirely different thing. Jonathan hadn’t even told him what had happened between them while he was in the upside down, he’d had to hear it from Mike years later as an explanation for why they were so cold with each other at the Squawk.
“I mean, technically, I beat the shit out of him,” Jonathan defended cockily, and Steve rolled his eyes from behind. “And I think you kind of liked it, Harrington,” he continued, pressing the wound indulgently, and Will could not believe they were openly flirting in front of his eyes like this after years hating each other’s guts. He’d never even seen his brother flirting with his girlfriend so brazenly before. Jonathan must be higher than the moon right now.
“Don’t make me sound like an asshole, man,” Steve sighed, pressing his palms into his eyes wearily. Will was strangely appreciative of his anxiety counterbalancing Jon’s coolness.
“Oh no, we’re good now,” Jonathan assured him, then grasped Steve’s hand gently for a moment before dropping it. “He replaced my camera by Christmas and I mean, I did steal his girlfriend, so we’re, you know, squared away.”
“For how long?” Will asked, almost shaking with anticipation of another secret revealed.
“Not long,” Steve assured him graciously, and Will relaxed a little. “We’ve been meeting up, you know, at Robin’s place in Philly since last summer. We got to know each other more, beyond the bullshit versions we’d built up, and one night in September, it kind of just–”
“This chicken and rice is fucking godsent,” Mike said, garbled through a mouthful of food, as he appeared in the doorway. Will stared blankly at him for a moment as he took in the state of their company. “Oh, hey!” he greeted, perplexed, but unwilling to set down the tin foil meal for a full investigation. “Oh my God, I did see you guys earlier in Washington Square. I told you, Will!”
No one responded for a long time, and Mike furrowed his brow in consternation. “Sorry, did I interrupt something?”
Will snorted, unable to help himself, and Jonathan joined him in a giddy, relieved chuckle. It was almost sweet how Mike, through either ignorance or respectfully feigned ignorance, left it entirely up to them to continue the story, or not. Will looked to his brother, who nodded with a careful smile.
“Steve’s just catching me up on when and where he and my brother started… fooling around,” Will explained, barely able to finish the sentence through his persistent astonishment. Mike gratified him with a shared shell-shocked expression, finally setting down his food and closing the door behind him.
“Dating,” Steve corrected, and Jonathan scoffed slightly.
“Sorry, it’s just, we don’t go on dates, Steve,” he protested. “Whenever I’m in Hawkins, there’s no good reason to leave your house, and whenever you’re in the city you’re utterly uninterested in going to shows or restaurants or museums…”
“Yeah, why would I be when I’m here to see you?” Steve argued confidently, and Will felt his stomach twist, recklessly envious of the surety and sincerity of the admission. “I like your apartment, Byers,” he continued, tone softer, warmer than ever. “It’s cozy.” Jonathan pressed his lips together in an admonishing smile and swayed into Steve’s space comfortably, Steve’s arm lifting to invite him closer. Will felt like he was going insane.
“Listening to music and smoking doesn’t qualify as a date,” Jonathan reiterated, any intended venom missing as he bumped his hip against Steve’s.
“Okay,” Mike interrupted, leaning heavily against the door like he was trying his damndest to project an air of nonchalance. “So does Nancy know about this?”
Will let out a nervous laugh, then bit his lip as Mike elbowed him firmly.
“Yeah, she knows,” Steve answered, running a hand through his hair. “Robin’s not exactly great at keeping secrets, so… had to rip off the bandaid there.”
“Robin knows?” Will asked dumbly. Of course Robin knew. He’d learned over the course of their friendship that after that first big secret had slipped out (with the aid of Russian truth serum), there were essentially no secrets between her and Steve for the rest of all time. They’d basically morphed into a singular codependent consciousness, almost in the know before the other could even call them up to share.
“Yeah, Robin knows,” Steve affirmed, meeting Will’s gaze meaningfully. Will could only laugh, remembering his initial bewilderment upon learning Steve was the first person Robin had trusted with her truest self. Birds of a feather flock together.
“Nancy’s supportive,” Jonathan added, addressing Mike. “I mean, it’s absolutely insane, of course, so she took a minute to process, but she came around faster than we did, naturally.”
Mike nodded, comprehending more slowly, and Will wondered which of them was taking the news better. The apartment lingered in silence for a moment, Will’s mind still racing with questions he judged it better to ask Jonathan in private.
“Hey,” Jonathan sighed, finally ending the silence. “So I bet you guys were expecting an empty apartment, sorry,” he continued, searching Will’s eyes for confirmation. Will was too dizzy, too overwhelmed with new information to even think about a blank canvas right now. “We can go, if you need to work…”
“Or we can go get a drink somewhere?” Will offered, glancing at Mike wearily. “The four of us?”
“You probably want to put on some pants first,” Mike contributed sagely, and Steve stared at him judiciously before his eyes softened for Jonathan. One final silent contact, a question.
“Sure thing,” Steve confirmed, sounding thoroughly annoyed to be asked to leave Jonathan and the luxurious privacy of his apartment, but gracious enough to give it a shot for Jonathan. To be fair, drinking with Steve Harrington was the last thing Will ever imagined doing in New York, but something told him there were more stories to be told here. “I’ll get some pants on,” he added pointedly.
Mike finished up his second meal quickly, his eyes flitting around the apartment and meeting Will’s every now and then to convey how almost objectionally crazy this new pairing was. Will was grateful he wasn’t the only one. Steve and Jonathan cleaned up quickly, even taking a moment to fix up their hair before joining the younger duo by the door. Since when did Jonathan fix up his hair?
“Alright, double date,” Steve announced, making eyes at Jonathan in a revoltingly adorable way even as Will flinched at the implication of the word, ‘double’. Mike only laughed at the absurdity of the whole situation, and Will felt like that laugh gave him permission to enjoy himself again, at least until he learned more upsettingly intimate details of Steve and Jonathan’s relationship. He needed about three beers before that could happen. “Let’s hit the town, fellas.”