Archive of Our Own ^beta

"You know, Will gets hit on every time we go out."

Max is sat on the floor, leaning against the couch in her and Will's apartment, solo cup dangling from her fingers and smug grin that means she's about to make someone the butt of her teasing. Right now, it's Will.

He's curled up on one end of their couch, sitting with a leg tucked under him and nursing his drink as he tries to disappear into the cushions.

"People slip him their dorm phone numbers in cafés, at parties, even in the library. The amount of times I answer the phone and it's someone pining after a date—" Max lowers her voice in a surprisingly good imitation of nervous college boys— "'hey, uh, does Will live here?' And I yell across the apartment, 'Will, some guy wants to take you out again,' and he always makes me hang up with— what was it the other day?"

"I said, 'tell him I'm dead,'" Will mutters with one eye screwed shut.

Max snaps her fingers. "Right, of course! 'Sorry, dude, he's dead, tough shit I guess'. I've also used 'I've actually never met anyone named Will' and 'he's my boyfriend, how did you get this number'— oh, and my personal favourite," she grins wider, clearly savouring the moment, "'he's left the country.'"

Lucas, sprawled on the floor with his back against the coffee table, raises his eyebrows at her. "He's left the country?"

"I take creative liberties with it," she says easily, "and I'm allowed to. With the amount of times I pick up and it's some guy trying to hook up with my roommate, I feel like Wheeler back when he'd spend hours on end trying to get around Will's mom's worki—"

"Okay," Mike cuts in quickly from his position by the counter, face turning a little pink, "thank you, Max. We get the idea."

It’s a little surreal having Mike here in his apartment. But watching him freehand what might be a measure or three of vodka into his cup, his glasses pushing his hair back and his knitted sweater pushed up to the elbow, Will thinks that he wouldn't mind if Mike made a home for himself in Will's life wherever he goes next.

Max stares over at Mike, eyes narrowing, as he busies himself with tightening the lid of the Coke bottle beyond reproach.

"He literally never takes anyone up on it though," she continues. "Never even been taken on a date in the whole time we've been here."

"Damn, really? I mean, you never know, Will, you might just find the one at the party tonight. Or, like, someone who will do until you find him," Lucas winks at Will with a light grin.

Mike scoffs. "Jeez, you make it sound like he’s some kind of—" he waves his hand behind the bottles vaguely, searching for the word— "walking invitation."

Max's eyebrows fly up to her hairline. "So you're saying he's unattractive now?"

"Wh— No! That's so not what I said," he flounders, the alcohol painting a flush high on his cheeks, "I just— people don't hit on Will because they just wanna get lucky. People—" Mike falters, and his jaw twitches— "people notice him. Like, immediately."

Max's lips quirk to one side. "Is that so?"

Will sinks a little deeper into the cushions.

Mike breathes hard through his nose. "Like. They see him and they think he's cute or whatever. And then they think they have a shot."

Max hums as Mike crosses the room and throws himself down on the couch next to Will without quite meeting his eye.

"But it's not just that," he continues, "because as soon as they start talking to him, they want to stay. They want him to look at them like…"

"Like?" Max prompts, eyes bright as she looks between Will and Mike.

Mike's face screws up a little before he drags a hand across his face, almost out of steam. "Like they matter."

Will’s face burns. He stares at his cup and wonders how many inches of equal parts spirit and mixer would be enough to drown in.

Max and Lucas share a long look. "You'd sure make a good wingman for him. If… you weren't acting like something else," Max finishes under her breath.

When Will finally speaks up, Mike echoes him eloquently. "What?"

"Nothing. Don't worry about it. Hey, I can see the headlines now. 'Local college boy stuns with personality. Looks don't hurt either.'"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying, you know, you'd be blind not to think Will's pretty," Mike says, more into his drink than to anybody in particular, "but… you're so much more than that."

The words hang in the silence between them as they both stare resolutely forward from their places on the couch.

Will's used to being wanted in fragments. People choosing to see whatever sides of him that best suit their intentions, wanting something quick and easy rather than wanting to get to know him. So he turns them down before giving them a chance.

But Mike sees him, all of him, and he always has.

Maybe that's why, two years on from trying to kid himself into believing what he was saying about his Tammy, Will's still not trying all that hard to find his Vickie.

Max blinks slowly at Mike, then at Will, then back at Mike.

"Did I tell you guys about this TA I can't stand?"

The party is already in full swing when they arrive.

The bass thumps low in Will's chest and the floorboards shake under his feet as his eyes adjust to the darkness and flashing neon lights.

He's vaguely aware of Max being dragged away by some course friends within a minute of entering, someone's arm looping easily with her own. He watches as Lucas, unfazed by knowing precisely three people in the city, pushes around him and strikes up casual conversation with a group of guys as they reset the college-administered dining table that's been repurposed for beer pong. They both slip into normal society, mostly healed from their trauma in Hawkins, while Will stays hovering at the sidelines.

He thinks he should hate these kinds of things. The unpredictability, the overwhelm, the loss of control. His senses slowly being overtaken by the thick haze of alcohol and exhaustion.

But standing in the entryway of an apartment he's never been in before, in a city he can't quite bring himself to call his own, Will lets his mind start to switch off.

Right now, he's got a bit of eyeliner on and he's grown comfortable in his own skin and he's tipsy enough to push away his thoughts of coursework, and futures, and 'you'd be blind not to think Will's pretty' and 'so much more than that' echoing in his head.

The last of which is significantly easier said than actually pushed away, especially when the one who voiced that particular thought is bumping his arm into Will's own to get his attention and miming drinking out of a cup, his eyebrows high and his cheeks coloured by heat or alcohol or something.

Will nods, and Mike smiles, wide and toothy. Something warm spreads up Will's chest.

Mike turns and makes a beeline for his best guess at the direction of the kitchen quickly enough that he misses the way the tips of Will's ears pinken. He runs a hand across his face, then through his hair for good measure, as he watches Mike fade into the crowd.

When you've been this in love for this long, no matter how hard you try, the fire doesn't go away.

Will squeezes himself past a few groups of people chatting over the noise and making out against walls and starts to make good on his promise of living for himself.

The bass still thumps low in his chest, the floorboards still shake under his feet. Will's eyes slip shut, his neck tips back, and the music washes over him.

His shoulders loosen, his weight sinks into his heels. He sways a little, following the push and pull of the crowd, and gets enveloped by heat and denim and sweat.

For a while, there's no room for memories of the dark, of the cold, of anything reaching out to pull him under. It feels like real, normal life.

Too soon, Will is pulled out of the sanctity that is cheap liquor and hot bodies by a pair of large hands sliding over his hips.

Instinctively, his mind supplies a name to their owner. Mike. Torturously, something flickers in his stomach at the thought.

After a heartbeat, after an unfamiliar cologne and gravelly drawl surrounds Will, he knows it's not him. It never is. He wonders if someday, he won't be slightly disappointed by that.

Will nods at— something. He's not quite sure what he agrees to, but allows himself to be pulled away from the dancing and finds himself leaning against a thin internal wall.

The neon lights flicker over the guy's face, finally giving Will a good look at him. He seems nice enough. He looks good, if a little far from Will's type. He's tall, but not lanky; his hair is wavy, but parted in the middle and affixed with too much gel; his backwards cap and loafers and rugby shirt with the collar popped make Will want to roll his eyes.

Maybe someday, the fire will die out. Maybe then, Will won't compare every guy to the one he never got to have.

"What's your name, pretty boy?"

Screw Michael Wheeler. Will can't even get complimented now without the memory of his voice infiltrating the moment, sincere and earnest and constantly bouncing between holding back and saying too much. And the memory of him explaining what makes Will worth knowing.

Act like it then, Will.

He cocks his head to the left and smiles up at the guy. "Will."

The guy's hand ghosts over his arm. Will wants to want this. "What's yours?"

"Ryan. Good to meet you, dude." The syllables run into each other a little as he leans a shoulder against the wall, mirroring Will's position. Will pushes himself upright. "You go to school here?"

It just feels like going through the motions. Meet someone new, tell them the same few facts about yourself, carefully omit the supernatural horror backstory, dance a little, maybe get a number scrawled on your arm, never follow through. Rinse and repeat.

"Yeah, I'm an art student. Graphic design, minoring in marketing. Just in case the lifelong comic book artist dream doesn't pan out."

Will's not sure whether his voice even registers with Ryan with the way his eyes are already straying to his mouth.

"Yeah, sounds… cool."

Will nods. "Cool."

"So, you, like… draw, then? I can't even draw a stick figure."

He knows he should flirt back. Laugh a little too loudly and wrap his arms around Ryan's shoulders and whisper something about getting out of here.

Instead, Will lets out a small chuckle that would sound hollow to anybody who really knows him. Rather than throwing his head back, shoulders shaking, or dropping it forward, doubling over, Will just tilts it a little to one side.

The angle shift allows his gaze to rove across the party. Not for ages, not to the extent of actually ignoring Ryan, just— quickly, before his disinterest becomes obvious.

He looks out at the party for long enough to pick out the dark eyes that Will knows he'd recognise forever.

Mike stands alone in the crowd, clutching two solo cups and staring directly at Will. His expression is unreadable save for the muscle jumping at his left jaw.

Their eyes meet and linger for a heated second, then another, until Will is pulled back into the moment by Ryan's hand curling around his upper back.

As Ryan leans in, too soon, too quickly, tongue already visible between his parted lips, Will can't help but turn his head back towards the party, towards Mike. He feels a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss press against his cheek and wrinkles his nose at the sensation.

Mike's still staring. His brow seems to have furrowed slightly.

Will twists his eyebrows up in a weak imitation of Mike's own sad-lost-puppy expression. He quirks his lips to one side and pointedly glances towards Ryan, then back to Mike, in as clear an indication of 'save me' as he can muster.

Mike downs the contents of one drink, winces a little, dumps the cup and pushes through the crowd towards Will. Thoughts of knights in shining armour— or, rather, paladins— twist their way into Will's tipsy mind as the blue, purple, pink, back to blue neon lights flash across his determined face.

Will is acutely aware that Ryan had stopped practically licking at his cheek and is trying to mumble something into his ear. Unfortunately for Ryan, he's almost entirely faded into the surroundings as Mike arrives a few feet away from them. And doesn't stop there.

He doesn't stop when he gets close enough for their arms to brush. He doesn't stop when he slips a hand to the small of Will's back, inciting a thrum of electricity through Will while Ryan's roaming hands on his body feel more like a weak static shock at best.

Mike hooks his chin over Will's shoulder. His hand clutching a full cup of something and Coke lifts in front of Will in offering. Will's heart hammers against his ribs.

"Hey Will, got your drink. This guy's not bothering you, is he?"

Wrapping himself around Will did not place highly on the list of things he expected Mike to do when he'd silently begged for an out. Drag him away for a smoke, or to play beer pong, or to find some chips? Sure. But certainly not this.

His breath is hot at Will's neck, his chest lines up against Will's back. Will indulges in the feeling, in how right it feels to have Mike against him, all over him, instead of a weak imitation.

The feeling of being wanted is a powerful drug. Being wanted by the one you want is incomparable.

"Uh, hey man, what's…"

Will sighs, his indulgence brought to a screeching halt. "Ryan, this is—"

"Mike. I'm Will's boyfriend."

Oh no.

Will's eyes widen at the word. His heart picks up, his breathing shallows.

He turns his head slightly towards Mike, who's staring at Ryan through his lashes. He's somehow not fazed by the fact that he's just resigned himself to an evening of playing gay to keep up appearances. Will glances back at Ryan, whose arms are back by his sides, bleary confusion etched across his expression.

"Um… yeah, okay. Didn't realise you were here with anyone," Ryan says, a little stilted.

Neither did I, Will almost says. He takes a long sip of the drink Mike had slipped into his hand. At his movement, Mike's other hand ghosts across Will's hipbone. Will's knees go a little weak.

"So… you go here as well, man?" Ryan asks, rubbing the back of his neck and staring out across the room in a way very reminiscent of how Will did to get Mike's attention, before doing that had turned into… this.

Mike hums, and Will feels it everywhere. "Nah, I'm just visiting. We go back… a long time, you could say," Mike says. He punctuates it with a flex of his fingers against Will's hip. The gentle pressure sends Will's heart thumping again.

Ryan shifts his weight, clearly unsure what to do with the new information. He gives a short, awkward laugh. "Right. Uh, sorry man. Didn’t mean to—"

"It's cool," Mike says easily, a hand falling away from the small of Will's back. "Happens. See you around," even though the three of them know that's a lie.

Will doesn’t look at Ryan as Mike’s hand slides into his, their fingers threading together without hesitation. It's a fuzzy sort of familiar, like the memories of doing exactly this are trapped ten, fifteen years in their past.

Mike tugs on his hand slightly, his thumb slipping up to brush the inside of Will’s wrist. "C’mon, baby," he says, voice just loud enough to carry over the music, "dance with me."

Baby.

Will’s brain short-circuits just long enough for Mike to tug him away, back into the press of bodies and heat and noise. The crowd swallows them immediately.

The bass is louder here, distorted through the cheap speakers. The neon lights catch over Mike's face again. A T-shirt is flung across the room.

Mike’s hand finds the small of Will’s back again, already feeling like it belongs there. Not grabbing, or demanding, just— just resting, warm and sure, in a way that makes Will’s breath stutter.

Will finishes the drink Mike handed to him. It goes down smoothly. Warmth blooms in his chest and settles low in his stomach.

Someone bumps Will's shoulder hard enough that he stumbles forward, knocking into Mike, who reacts instantly. The steadying hand at Will's back presses more firmly, keeping him close.

They stand there, faces inches apart. Will feels the music vibrating up through the soles of his shoes and into his ribs.

"Mike," Will says lowly.

"Hey."

"You’re—" he swallows. The music surges. "You’re so close."

Too close, his brain supplies, a little hysterical. Too much.

Mike doesn’t pull away. "I know."

Will's heart has too much sway over his tipsy brain. His gaze drifts down Mike's face without his permission.

"Why?" he asks, voice barely audible over the music. He stares at Mike's mouth.

Mike doesn't reply straight away. Will's eyes flick back up to meet Mike's, dark and wild. After a minute, he leans closer, his breath hot on the shell of Will’s ear, and Will gasps softly.

"Keeping up…" Mike exhales a short laugh that Will feels on his neck, "appearances."

Of course. The fake boyfriend thing. Ryan's only a few feet behind him.

"Yeah," he says, nodding and hoping it looks more assured than it feels. "Yeah."

Mike doesn't lean back all the way. Their noses are maybe two inches apart. The neon light catches on his face again.

The crowd ebbs and flows around them, unaware.

Mike’s hand stays fast at the small of his back. His thumb traces a small, unconscious line along a few ridges of his spine. His eyes flick down so quickly that Will almost misses it, before he glances somewhere behind Will's head.

His voice, low and alert, cuts through the noise. "He’s staring."

"What?"

"That guy."

"Wh— Ryan?"

"Yeah. Like he doesn't believe we're really together."

Before he can talk himself out of it, Will gives into the want. He lifts his arms and slides them over the tops of Mike's shoulders, wrists loosely wrapped together behind Mike's neck.

Mike's other hand rests low on Will's hip.

It feels cruel, almost. The object of Will's affection in the palm of his hand and wrapped around his back, but there's a ticking clock on the moment. Once Ryan starts to flirt with someone else, or goes looking for another drink, or leaves, Mike stops masquerading as his boyfriend.

A chart-topper replaces the track and the crowd surges with it. They turn a bit, narrowly avoiding a spilled drink.

Will doesn't notice that they've traded positions until a backwards cap catches in his vision.

Ryan stands where they left him, cup in hand and frown on his face. He's staring at Will's hands looped around Mike's neck. He notices Will looking back at him and raises his eyebrows.

"Is he still staring?" Mike murmurs in his ear.

"…Yeah."

"Make him believe it, then."

Maybe it's the alcohol messing with his normal brain functioning. Maybe it's the months spent turning down guys calling his and Max's dorm.

Maybe it's the way Mike's voice, low and hot in his ear, sends a shiver down his spine.

Whatever it is, Will doesn't care. He's got permission to live this moment.

Will's hands unfold behind Mike's neck, one sliding down slightly to rest between his shoulders and the other coming up to the side of Mike's neck. His fingers card into the curls just above Mike's ear. He tugs gently, just enough for Mike's breathing to hitch and his head to fall to the side, exposing the long column of his neck.

Will turns his head a fraction, gaze locked on Ryan but attention unwavering from Mike, and very deliberately presses his lips to a spot low on Mike's neck.

He feels Mike react immediately. His breath hitches, sharp and unmistakable by Will's ear; his fingertips dig in just a little harder at his hip.

For a few seconds, Will is still aware of the bodies packed around them, the music, Ryan's stare burning somewhere behind Mike's shoulders. But the world slips away as he presses back in, his mouth open a little wider, and sucks at the curve of his neck, slow and purposeful.

Mike makes a small sound, something like a sigh, but there's voice behind it. He's like a live wire underneath Will. One hand drags up Will's spine while his other arm reaches around Will's back to wrap around his waist. Fleetingly, Will wonders if Mike is as reluctant to let go once this passes as he is.

He strokes over Mike's curls, over his ear, down to cup his neck and keep him in place, his thoughts of anybody watching long since vanished and been replaced by Mike, Mike, Mike buzzing behind his eyes.

He doesn’t rush it. He mouths above his collarbone as Mike's breathing turns ragged and he tilts his head further to the side.

"Jesus," Mike mutters, and Will feels more than hears it. A small, satisfied grin tugs at the corners of his mouth against Mike's neck. His eyes slip shut as he nips at the skin and traces his tongue over the spot before pain can set in. Mike's fingers tighten where they roam across Will's back and selfishly, Will hopes they'll bruise. That there will be proof on his body that this really happened once morning comes around.

Will gets a little weak at the knees as though it's his neck being ravaged.

By the time he gets lightheaded and curses his irritating need for oxygen, his head is filled with static. He pulls back just far enough for the heat, the bass, the neon lights start to start to fall back in. And Mike's hands don't fall away from his back.

Will finally drags his eyes upwards, from where they had stuck on Mike's heaving chest up to his neck, to the normally pale skin that is flushed and darkening already. He feels a little overwhelmed by the delicious contrast— the proof of what he's done undeniable, even in the weird neon flashing lighting of someone's house party.

He can't bring himself to look Mike in the eye just yet. Instead, Will tips his head forward, his chin resting against Mike's collarbone, his forehead brushing Mike's jaw. His arms stay wrapped around Mike's shoulders. He won't be the first to let go.

Will glances out at the room through heavy lids but can't make out any backwards baseball caps in the throng of students.

Mike's hands come down to settle at his waist, tightening and relaxing like he doesn't know what he's allowed to do with them.

"That should be enough," Will's voice comes out much lower than he expects, after their breathing slows down enough to talk.

After a second, Mike's head turns. When he hums, questioning, Will feels it against his hair.

Will exhales, smiling faintly. Even though Ryan had shoved off at some point, it had still been for show. "For him to believe us."

Mike swallows. His hands drop from Will’s waist, and Will takes half a step backwards, ice in his stomach. The room surges around them; the lights too bright, the crowd too close.

Mike's eyes flick between Will's, back and forth, and he glances towards the large window. "Wanna get some air?"

Will nods.

Mike's fingers wrap around his wrist, his pulse thundering under Mike's touch, and pulls him through the crowd towards the fire escape.

The night air provides a welcome interruption to the oppressive haze of the apartment.

Mike leans against the railing and Will steps up next to him. He looks at Will, and Will looks out at the city.

Soon after, Mike fishes a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket. He settles a cigarette between his lips and, with shaky hands, flicks the lighter once. Twice. Three times. Four—

"Stupid thing," he grumbles.

Will snorts. "Mike. Stop. You've gotta— just—" He turns and steps closer, reaching out. "Here."

He cups his hands around the cigarette. His pinky brushes Mike's cheek by accident.

Mike stills. Flicks the lighter one more time and Will watches it spark to life on the first try. The flame casts an orange glow over Mike's too-close face, dancing across his features and highlighting the hollows of his cheeks.

Will drops his hands and finally, finally looks Mike in the eye.

Dark irises have been swallowed by vast pupils; dark curls at one side of his head are a tangled mess from Will's roaming hand. And…

The mark. It's dark, so dark, even in the dim light of the fire escape. Just above the collar of his T-shirt, vivid against his pale skin.

Will swallows and pulls back, leaning his forearms against the railing for the support. Mike mirrors him, takes a long drag of the cigarette, holds the smoke in his lungs for a long moment, and tips his head back on the exhale. Smoke curls between them before dissipating into the night.

Mike offers the cigarette out to him.

He takes it, grateful for something to do with his hands. Something to focus on other than Mike's neck for a few seconds. He studies the glowing embers before his gaze slides, traitorously, up to where the paper is slightly damp between his fingers.

From Mike's mouth.

His stomach swoops.

Before he can stare at it for long enough that Mike might call him out on letting it burn out, Will lifts the cigarette and wraps his lips around the end.

Surely this is some sort of half-kiss, Will wonders to himself, touching your lips exactly where someone else's were just seconds ago. The thought makes something tighten in his chest.

Damn it.

He breathes in, and out. Turns his head and holds the cigarette back out to Mike.

His eyes betray him immediately, falling to where red bleeds into purple before the cigarette even leaves his fingers.

Impossible to undo.

Heat creeps up the back of Will's neck, more so out of dawning realisation than embarrassment. The memory, that moment in the cluster of bodies, is in startling focus. Will hadn’t rushed, and Mike hadn't stopped him.

Mike catches him staring.

"What?" he asks around the cigarette.

Will blinks and meets Mike's eyes. "Nothing. I just—" he cuts himself off, glancing back at the mark reflexively.

Mike frowns, holds the cigarette with one hand and reaches up automatically with the other, fingers brushing the side of his own neck. He hisses softly before his eyes widen in understanding.

"Oh."

Will winces. "Sorry."

"No— no, it's… it's fine." Mike's eyes are huge. "It's okay."

Mike touches it again, more carefully this time, like he's confirming it's still there. A breath punches out of him.

Will watches as something heady blooms in his chest.

The thought of showing Mike around his college campus with that mark on display, with the knowledge that he left it there, is more intoxicating than the alcohol buzzing uselessly through his veins.

Before he can stop himself, Will leans closer.

His hand lifts up to Mike's neck, slowly this time, and his thumb brushes the edge of the bruise with reverence. It feels like he's tracing something that could collapse under the weight of his hand if he makes one wrong move.

Mike swallows. Will feels it under his fingers.

The realisation of what he's doing hits him like a train. Will drops his hand and leans back against the railing, flustered. "I— I didn’t mean to, like… hurt you."

Mike takes another drag, eyes never leaving Will's. "Didn’t hurt," he says. Then, quieter, "I was just surprised."

Will nods. His heart is still racing, but his hazy mind feels oddly clear.

The party pulses behind them; traffic continues beneath them.

"I knew what I was doing," he admits into the night.

Mike exhales, still staring at Will. His mouth quirks. "Yeah?"

Will nods. "I mean, I didn’t plan on it. But I didn’t exactly… stop, either."

Mike hums, considering. "Guess it did the job, then."

He offers the cigarette again. Will reaches out and this time, their fingers brush.

He takes another drag, coughs softly, hands it back. "People are going to see it," he says.

Mike shrugs. "Yeah."

Neither of them moves to go back in just yet.

Sun streams through the window into Max and Will's kitchen, catching on dust in the air.

Max is standing by the stove, spatula in hand and eggs hissing quietly in a pan. Lucas is leaning against the counter, chugging water and still wearing mismatched running shorts and hoodie. Mike is sitting at the small table, in too small plaid pyjama trousers and T-shirt, nursing a cup of coffee like a lifeline.

Will is sitting with him, pencil moving absentmindedly as he sketches each of their expressions in turn.

Lucas peers down at Will’s sketchbook. "Am I supposed to look that sweaty?"

"Yes," Will says serenely, "I'm practising realism."

"Oh, so suddenly I'm not good enough of a muse?" Max quips, tipping the eggs onto a plate.

"The best. I just like the variety too, sometimes."

Mike shifts in his chair, stretching his arms over his head with a small groan. "How are you all just… fine right now? I don’t know how you survive this every weekend."

"We don’t," Max responds lightly, "we spend a week trying to forget the downsides of drinking yourself spare and collapsing into bed with your ears ringing, and then we make the same bad decisions again."

Mike rests his chin on his hand. "I don't think I'm cut out for college."

Max sets the plate down between Mike and Will. She turns away, but her outstretched hand closes around nothing when she reaches for the salt grinder.

She whips her head back around. Her gaze narrows at the small breakfast table. Specifically, at Mike.

"Did you—" Max starts, then cuts herself off. "Hold on."

Mike blinks owlishly up at her. "What?"

She steps towards the table, finger outstretched. "Is that a hickey on your neck."

She frames it as a question, but her tone makes it apparent that she won't take no for an answer.

Will almost chokes on his orange juice.

Mike's hand flies up on instinct, as if covering it now would absolve him of her incoming tirade of questions. "No."

Lucas looks over at them from the counter, spoon stopped halfway to his mouth. "Oh my god."

Mike groans, a blush spreading across his cheeks. He tries to cover it with his other hand, unsuccessfully. "It's not—"

"It totally is!" Max's grin is devilish. "You got lucky last night then." Again, an question-not-question that Mike can't back out of.

"I did not, it wasn't like that, I just—"

Lucas leans forward, his breakfast forgotten, his expression a little incredulous. "Dude. You absolutely did."

Max squints at Mike again. "That is fresh. Like, embarrassingly fresh."

Mike drags his hand down his face. "Can we— not do this right now?"

"Oh no, we’re definitely doing this," Max says, "you're not getting out of it that easily, Wheeler. Who was it?"

"No one," Mike answers, too fast, and Will's stomach drops. He's grateful that Lucas and Max are too preoccupied with interrogating Mike to notice his downcast expression, even though he doesn't know what he was wanting Mike to say.

Lucas snorts. "Sure."

Max props her elbow on the table, staring a bright-red Mike down. "Was it someone from the party? Was it… at the party?"

Mike hesitates for a moment. That's all it takes.

Max lights up. "Oh my god. It totally was!"

"Jeez, Max, it was not like that," Mike says, cringing at her insinuation. His words aren't helping the situation. "It was— it was just—"

"Damn," Max folds her arms, grin turned smug smirk, "didn't expect your visit to spend time with me and Will would include you getting lucky in some random college apartment. So," she raises her eyebrows, "one night stand?"

"No, God, I kissed someone. That's all. And we didn't even actually—" Mike cuts himself off, his mouth hanging open for a moment. He screws his eyes shut and lets his head drop to the table with a thud.

"Did you know about this, Will?" Lucas asks, and Will wonders if he can do the same.

Mike's head twists and cracks open one eye. It meets Will's as he worries at his bottom lip. He nods minutely.

"Yeah," Will breathes, and swallows. "It was me."

Max’s jaw drops open. "You— you gave him that?"

Lucas lets out a sound that's something between a laugh and a choke. "No way."

Will finally lifts his gaze from Mike's eyes. "Yeah. At the— um, at the party." He loses his resolve a little as Max and Lucas stare at each other, then at Mike, then back at him.

"Oh my god. This?" Max points back and forth between them. "This… explains so much. All this time. All those years in Hawkins. I mean I always wondered, but—"

Lucas cuts her off, blinking rapidly and gesticulating wildly between Will and Mike. "Wait, wait, years? How long has this been going on? How long have you two been— like, together?"

Will panics. "Wh— I— it's not—"

"It's recent."

Will's eyes snap to Mike before his mind has chance to catch up.

Recent.

The word lands heavy in Will's chest. It's not a lie, not exactly. But it's not the truth. They're treading a dangerous line here.

Will knows he could correct Mike, assuage the conversation. Laugh it off. Say no, there was just this guy, Mike saved me, had to keep up appearances.

He doesn't. As the silence stretches, the decision is sealed.

Mike is sitting up ramrod straight now, his fingers tightening against the coffee mug like he's bracing for something.

Max is the first to break the silence. "So you are together, then."

Mike casts a sidelong glance at Will. He's smiling softly, so gentle and full of something Will cannot name as hope.

"We're… figuring it out," he answers, and Will's smile mirrors Mike's.

Max tips her head at Mike again. "You do know that that is gonna be there for days, right?

Mike mutters, "Yeah. Thank you, Max, I'm aware."

Unbothered by his tone, Max grins at Will. "Nice work."

Will blushes and ducks his head, bashful.

Mike had followed Will into his bedroom to get dressed, because 'no matter how hungover you are, Wheeler, you're not driving all this way and not seeing the city.'

Will, already ready for the day, sits back on his twin bed and watches Mike take in his bedroom like it's a gallery. The night before, he and Lucas had barely had chance to shower off the grime that only comes with spending hours in a car before Max was emptying bags of chips into bowls and lining up their whole selection of spirits. Of course he would want to see what Will's room looks like in the light of day.

He stares at every tacked-up sketch curling at the corners with as much quiet reverence as the half-painted twenty-four inch canvas currently displayed on Will's easel. The art is deeply personal; Mike staring at it makes something fragile bloom in Will’s chest, as his work is laid bare in a way that feels almost intimate.

"How do you just keep getting better, Will?"

"Art college has nothing on the Hawkins High creative powerhouse that was Miss Sullivan with a set of crappy oil paints and a dream," he responds dryly, unable to let himself revel in the compliment.

Mike chuckles a little and sits down on the desk chair. "You should send me some more stuff you draw," he says in one breath. "I, um— yeah."

Will sucks in a breath and nods tentatively, and Mike's face breaks out into a smile, his eyes twinkling.

The silence that falls over them is charged.

Mike is the first to break it. "Hey, I— I'm sorry. For, like… letting the others believe we're— you know."

"Dating?"

"Yeah. I just want to make sure that I didn't, like, make anything too weird. Or overstep. I don't know. I should've asked you first."

"It's fine, Mike, honestly," Will steps in. "I mean, I didn't exactly jump in and stop you," he continues with a downturned smile and stares at a mark on the well-worn carpet.

He senses Mike fidgeting, the way he always has when he needs reassurance. "But still. We don't have to keep it up or anything. We can just say it was a misunderstanding, or— or say we broke up, or something—"

"I think Max might actually murder you if she thinks you came to visit and dumped me out of the blue," Will interrupts softly. Mike laughs, and Will's heart swells with it. He shivers slightly, the air against his skin cool against the warmth bleeding through him.

Mike stands up abruptly and grabs the dark blue scarf that Will's mom had knitted as a leaving present. He crosses the room and holds it out to Will before he's quite aware of how quickly he tried to make sure that Will's comfortable.

Staring up at him at the edge of his bed, Will notices a pink dusting on Mike's cheeks, sees how he's looking at anything except for Will. He accepts the scarf gratefully. Their fingers brush, the contact making Mike look directly at him. Will hopes his thumping heartbeat isn't audible outside his own body.

"Thanks," he whispers. Mike smiles slightly and steps back, head down as he rummages through his suitcase.

If he doesn't have to give this up, whatever this is, right now, he won't.

Before he can decide against it, Will starts hurriedly. "I guess we could just keep it up for a bit?" He glances down at Mike, kneeling on the floor and gripping a sweater, his eyes wide and unguarded. "Only if you're comfortable with that," Will continues, rushed,"I don't want you to feel weird or—"

"No, no, I'm okay. I'm not uncomfortable. I just— yeah."

Will has to protect himself though, somehow.

"What if we kept it up until New Year's?"

Putting a clock on this feels safer for his heart, even though he knows he won't forget the feeling of dating Mike Wheeler in a hurry.

"We keep it up until then, then say we broke up when I come back here next semester."

Mike nods slowly. "New Year's," he echoes quietly, then lights up. "Yeah, okay! We keep it up until you come back to Hawkins over winter break— wait, you are coming back, right? You better not be driving out to Montauk—"

"No, no," Will laughs, "my mom and Hop are booking a hotel in Indianapolis, and I— I mean, hopefully I can stay with them—"

"No, you can come to mine," Mike says with finality. "It'll be like old times, after you left Lenora. So yeah, we do long distance until you come home, we can enjoy the holidays, then we break it off once you and Max are back here and I don't have to worry too much about her attacking me. Easy."

Will doesn't believe that anything about this is going to be easy. Despite himself, he nods. "Easy."

Mike pulls the sweater over his head and Will groans inwardly at the neckline making absolutely no effort to cover the mark on his neck. He stands up, blush high on his cheeks once more. "I guess that means we get a New Year's kiss then?"

The bluntness knocks the air out of Will. He curses the way his heart leaps to his throat and, paradoxically, his stomach plummets to the floor.

He's screwed. How could he have forgotten that?

"Yeah," he mumbles. He stands up on slightly shaky legs and wraps the scarf around his neck for something to do other than keep watching Mike's reaction, trying to hide the blush before it creeps up his neck any higher.

Mike slings his jacket over one arm and heads towards the door before doing a double-take and stepping sideways towards Will. His hand comes up and above Will's head, hesitates for a beat, and gently runs his fingers through Will's hair.

Will can't move. He holds his breath.

"It, um— your scarf kind of… messed it up."

Mike's face is as close as it was last night. Now though, there's no alcohol. No bodies pushing Will closer, no random guy to 'keep up appearances' for. Mike swallows, Will tracks it, and inches away lies the other unmistakable proof of last night.

A sharp rap on Will's door startles them apart.

"Would you two please get a move on? I don't care about whatever honeymoon phase you're in, it is literally gonna be dark by the time we get outside."

Mike's tongue darts out to wet his lips. "Yeah," he calls back, a little breathless, "coming."

As the four of them make their way out of the complex, Mike's shoulder brushes his once or twice.

Three and a half days later, Will is stood in the bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror.

The past few days have been… easy. Too easy. Hanging out with Lucas and Mike, showing them around the city, falling into easy conversation like no time has passed.

This afternoon, they'd walked around campus, side by side behind Max and Lucas. Will had been acutely aware of Max's hand sliding effortlessly into Lucas' throughout the whole visit, the familiarity of their interlocked fingers never fading with the distance. He smiled as Max bumped her shoulder into Lucas', laughing at something he'd said, and saw how his eyes lit up at her reaction. He ached with want for that indisputable closeness.

Mike's hand bumping against the back of his own had startled him. He had glanced up then, only to find Mike already looking over at him, his mouth set in a determined line and his eyebrows quirked up in question.

Mike was leaving tomorrow.

So Will had brushed his outstretched fingers against Mike's in response.

Mike's breath had caught before his hand surged forward and he threaded his fingers between Will's own. The pads of his fingertips had rested halfway down Will's smaller hand.

The warmth had been sharper than at the party, when Mike had dragged him away from Ryan.

When Mike didn't pull back, Will brought his fingers down to rest against Mike's knuckles one by one. It felt astonishingly natural; Will just wished he could suspend all disbelief and pretend like this was more than playing a part.

They stayed like that all the way home.

Will looks down at his own hands in the yellow lighting of their bathroom and threads them together, one thumb stroking over the other. Something tender curls in his chest.

The door opens behind him and Will drops his hands to his sides like he's been burned.

Mike's dark eyes meet his own in the mirror.

"Oh— uh, sorry, Will, my bad," Mike says quickly, already turning away. "I'll just—"

"Wait."

Mike stops.

"It's fine, I'm nearly done, you can just— stay."

Will hears his breath catch, just barely, and watches him nod. The door clicks shut behind them.

He busies himself with splashing water against his too-warm cheeks as Mike stands behind him. He rubs a towel over his face before glancing up again. Mike's standing behind Will and staring at his own reflection.

"It's fading," he says suddenly. Will doesn't ask what.

The mark on Mike’s neck has softened at the edges. What was purplish-red a few days ago is fading into yellow. Less dramatic, almost able to be explained away. Will's watched the colour change day by day since that night, since the interrogation the morning after, since they decided to pretend.

Mike swallows. "It's not just Max and Lucas."

When Mike doesn't say anything else, Will raises his eyebrows as a sign for him to continue.

"I mean," Mike wets his lips, blinks a few times. "It's still obvious enough that people back at home are gonna notice."

He steels himself to offer Mike another out. "You could always just… ignore it, or say it was a one-time thing—"

Mike cuts him off, shaking his head. "That's— not exactly what I'm getting at."

Will frowns and cocks his head to one side.

Mike's hand comes up to trace just under the mark, just where Will had on the fire escape. Will's throat goes dry as he watches Mike's reflection.

"If—" Mike's voice cracks; he clears his throat. "If we’re gonna keep this up, which we are, it probably should look— you know. A bit more, um. Recent."

Will's brain lags behind Mike's words, too slow to understand his meaning. "…What are you saying, Mike?"

"Would you mind… touching it up?" Mike winces.

Will's grateful that the combination of the bathroom lighting and mirror and cool water clinging to his face don't betray the blush on his cheeks in its entirety.

"You really wanna do this?" Will asks, voice low. "Keep this up?"

Mike's small smile is lopsided, his expressive eyebrows twitching up. "New Year's, right?"

Will exhales and turns around. His eyes snap to Mike's neck, drift up to meet Mike's eyes, then fall back down again.

"Right," Will whispers.

He steps closer and rests a hand on the door at Mike's back, because that feels safer than his shoulders or his hips or something.

Mike tilts his head without Will needing to ask, his neck on display. The sight of him offering himself up to Will is… a lot.

He leans in.

It's slower this time. Intentional. Last time, they were trying to make a point, land a lie to escape a situation. Will's tongue darts out, tasting skin he already knows, before his lips seal over the faded bruise. The familiarity comes as a shock.

Mike stands perfectly still.

His hands stay by his sides like he's afraid of doing something wrong. Will wishes he'd just pull him closer by the waist or the small of his back. Cup a hand at the back of his head. Do something, anything, more than just stand there and breathe shallowly. But he doesn't, because this is just a practicality.

Goddamn 'appearances'.

This time, there's no accusatory eyes or tipsy haze for Will to blame for getting caught up in the moment. He wants this, and Mike… can't.

Will bites down harder than he means to. A broken moan slips out of Mike's lips.

He wrenches himself back and looks at Mike for the first time since he started. His chest is heaving, his mouth hangs open, his head tipped back against the door, angled perfectly to give Will purchase over his neck.

He— he looks wrecked. Because of Will.

His neck rivals any of Will's canvases. Deep purple dots surrounded by rosy patches, a sheen of saliva, the crescent indentation of his own teeth. There is no room to explain it away. Not any more.

Will tries to meet Mike's eyes, but he's not looking down. He follows Mike's eyeline and turns his head.

Mike is staring at himself in the mirror. Staring at them. It's obscene, seeing his own arm still bracketed around Mike, his lips puffy and eyes half-lidded. Will feels drunk from just looking at the scene.

Mike's fists are clenched by his sides, knuckles white, before Will watches him lift one shaky hand and flatten his palm against his own chest. His fingertips skim his collarbone like he's afraid to touch any higher.

"That should be enough," Will hears himself say, echoing his own words from the party without meaning to.

Mike finally looks down at him, the real him, and Will turns away from the mirror again. He barely fights the urge to glance at Mike's mouth; he isn't sure whether he could stop himself from surging forward.

This was a bad idea.

"Um." Will swallows. Breaks the eye contact first. "Goodnight, Mike."

Mike nods, but makes no attempt to move away from the door for a moment. He eventually blinks hard, refocusing, and squeezes around Will to let him leave the bathroom.

Will shuffles towards his bedroom, around the couch that holds his spare pillow and an extra duvet of Max's. He can't help but panic that clicking his bedroom door shut will close a metaphorical door between them as well.

As he reaches his room, he glances over his shoulder and sees Mike still standing in front of the mirror. One hand fists through his curls as the other is still hovering by his neck.

Please don't regret this.

Will closes his door softly and leans his forehead against it, still feeling the phantom thrum of Mike’s pulse against his lips.

A few days later, Will is hunched over his desk, pencil in his hand and tongue caught between his teeth. The tiny desk lamp throws a small circle of light across the page; everything else is in shadow.

The peace that comes with nighttime is sacred, only pure for a few hours before the city wakes up and responsibility trickles in.

The phone rings. Will startles at the noise, heart thumping, but relaxes and steadies his grip on the pencil as he hears Max sigh dramatically and pad down the hall

The graphite moves under his fingers, steady and familiar.

"He-llo?" Max's voice drifts in through his cracked door.

He adjusts his grip slightly, turns the sketchbook a fraction.

"Yeah, sorry. He's not interested."

His hand stutters a little, his pencil veering off course around the shield. He frowns and tries to correct it.

"Hate to break it to you, but he's taken…" she says in a sing-song voice. Will is well used to hearing her say that to discourage random guys, but it's different now, knowing she believes it's true. Knowing she believes that he and Mike are…

"…Even though I kind of wish he'd picked literally anybody else."

Will gives up on salvaging the line at that and leans back in his chair. He bites his upper lip in an attempt to keep from smiling at the faux rivalry between herself and Mike.

"…Dustin?"

He frowns slightly. He knows how eclectic Dustin's college schedule is, and expects he's already passed out on a textbook a few states away.

"No, I know, I know. You're just too easy to get a rise out of. Let me just—" she clears her throat, and yells, "Will! Your boyfriend wants you!"

His treacherous heart leaps at the word. He stands and crosses his bedroom, sees Max standing by the phone with a smirk, and takes the handset from her with a shaky hand.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Will," Mike responds immediately, sort of breathless. "You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm good," he responds, voice a little gravelly from disuse. "I was just drawing something." He doesn't say what. "Um. You?"

"Yeah. Um. My parents are out for dinner, Holly's at a friend's. It's— quiet." He hears Mike sigh. "I don't know, I guess I just… wanted to talk to you."

Being wanted is a terrifying weight to bear.

"You can. You always can."

So Mike does.

He talks about Hawkins, and Will feels like he's still there.

He talks about the Cure tape he'd played on loop on the drive back that had almost driven Lucas insane. About stepping in as the paladin in his sister's D&D game one evening. About his mom’s pointed request that he wear a turtleneck sweater to visit his grandma.

Will laughs at that, twists the phone cord in his fingers, then untwists it.

"You— um, you did a good job. Because it's still there."

Will bites his lip and closes his eyes.

It’s easier to talk like this, without Mike’s physical presence. This way, Will can’t hope that Mike might just reach out and touch. Especially when he says things like that.

Hoping for that is dangerous.

There's a small silence; not awkward, just careful. Then, "I miss you."

Will breathes out. "You only left four days ago, Mike."

"I know," he replies immediately. "I still miss you."

His words settle in Will's chest, warm and frightening. Distance doesn't extinguish that hopeful little flicker the way Will had half-hoped it would. "Yeah", he says softly, "I miss you too."

"I should probably let you go," Mike says reluctantly, a few minutes later, "you must want to finish your drawing, or— like, need to make dinner, or something."

Will nods, even though Mike can’t see him. "Yeah."

"Okay," Mike says. Then, quieter, "Goodnight, Will. And thank you."

Will swallows. "Yeah. It was… nice to hear you. Night, Mike."

The call ends, and Will looks down at the handset, as if he could will Mike to ring back by staring at it for long enough.

"Well, now I know why you never called any of those guys back."

He turns, slightly startled, and finds that Max is already back sitting cross-legged on the couch. Will hangs the handset back onto the cradle, fingers lingering on the back plate for a moment, before he drops his hand and walks over to sit by her.

"What did he want?" Max asks. "Because it certainly wasn't to talk to me."

Will smiles and rolls his eyes. "Just… wanted to chat, I think. Not really about anything in particular." It made him feel wanted, not just convenient.

"I'm happy for you guys, you know. Now that Wheeler's finally got his shit together and asked you out," she says with a small grin playing at her lips.

Will considers that, recalls the look he'd shot Mike at the party, the hands at his waist, the breath hot at his ear. "I think I technically made the first move. He just, um. Picked up what I was putting down."

Max's nose scrunches. "That's disgusting. I can't believe you're making Mike of all people seem cute. Ugh."

He elbows Max, giggling, and shifts so he's sitting with one leg tucked underneath himself.

"Is it weird," she asks, "doing long distance already? It's annoying for me and Lucas, even though we've been together for years— well, on and off at least."

Will shrugs. "We're… kind of used to being apart. California was rough, being without you guys, but—" he huffs a quiet laugh, "at least he isn't freezing me out this time."

Max frowns. "What d'you mean?"

The memory floods back, unbidden. The dull ache that had settled a little deeper every time he checked their postbox in Lenora and found nothing but bank statements for his mom and the handwriting he'd recognise anywhere addressed to his sister, never to him. All those nights he’d spent curled up on his bed, trying to make himself as small as he could.

He starts, voice a little shaky. He's never opened up about this to anyone before, never confessed the barely-concealed hurt— not since blowing up at Mike at the roller rink a lifetime ago. "The whole time, he phoned, like, maybe four times total."

Max seems confused. "Yeah, but he tried to. I mean, he couldn't get through very often 'cause of your mom's job. But he… told you everything in the letters."

"What letters?"

Now she's just baffled. "Will, he wrote to you constantly about Hellfire and Mr Clarke's class and Nancy's paper… all sorts of nerdy crap. You don't remember?"

Max's words hit his ears funny. His head is buzzing. "He never sent any."

Will stares at the carpet, twists a fraying thread on the couch cushion. He doesn't know how to make sense of what Max is saying. Days spent telling himself Mike was just busy fading into nights spent wondering if he had simply been outgrown.

Max’s face crumples.

"Oh," she breathes. "Will. No, he—" she reaches a hand out and covers one of Will's. "He used to scribble stuff down at school, at the arcade— anytime literally anything happened that he wanted to tell you. But he'd shove the letters in his backpack before any of us could catch a glimpse and say they were private, that they were for you."

Will swallows. This doesn’t erase the months of hurt, but it… shifts something. Something that might have been misaligned for a long time.

"You know what tipped me off?"

Will points towards his own neck in reference. "The hickey."

"Nope," she says, popping the plosive. "That was just confirmation."

Will's eyebrows draw together.

"He's always looked at you like you hung the moon and stars, but when he was here last week, anyone would think you forged them out of hydrogen and helium and named them all Mike."

Will's a little taken aback. Max isn't one to gush, least of all about Mike.

The fridge hums. Max's thumb strokes the back of his hand. The sun's probably starting to rise.

This is the quiet peace that makes honesty a little more manageable. So he starts, softly.

"I’ve wanted this for… a very long time."

Max's eyes soften. "Yeah. I remember how close you two were, during all that possession stuff a few years back, and how he would barely let you out of his sight while we were at school. But when we all hung out at the weekends, and that summer after El came back, it was like he had this huge wall he couldn't see past."

Will remembers that summer as if it was yesterday. Blazing sun and too-short shorts and too-long legs; long conversations about the secret agenda of girls that Will couldn't find a place in; rain and tears mingling on his cheeks and falling onto his handlebars.

"But he moved past all that, right? I know you guys must have gotten close while you lived together, while I was still out?"

"Yeah, it got better. But I think that's why I'm so scared to take it too far and lose what we have now."

Max nods sagely. She studies him for a moment.

"You know what I saw?"

Will glances up at her.

"A guy who didn't want to leave. Who kept making excuses to stay a bit longer, who hugged you and wouldn't let go until Lucas had to physically drag him out the door," she continues with a gentle smile. "He's not pulling away or wanting something different. He's choosing you."

Will swallows around the lump in his throat.

"He's useless at feelings. Always has been. Especially when it comes to you. But from what I've seen," she nudges his knee with her own, "you're not taking it too far."

Will lets out a long sigh. "You really think so?"

"Will, I've known the boy for, like, eight years. If you told me his middle name was actually 'Stubborn' I'd believe you. If he didn't want this with you— I really think you'd know."

Something loosens in Will's chest. His fear isn't completely gone, but it's steadier now, controllable.

"Okay," he says quietly.

Max grins, satisfied, and falls into easy conversation about her overbearing TA.

Closing his bedroom door later that night and leaning his forehead against it doesn't feel so terrifying.

Will knocks on the oak front door as he rocks back and forth on his heels, his feet crunching in the snow, and blows hot air into his hands turned stiff from the cold. His dark blue scarf is wrapped a little too tightly around his neck, wool scratching faintly at his skin.

A few more seconds pass.

He suddenly prays that Mike actually asked his mom if he could stay with them, or if they'll have to awkwardly oblige because he's got nowhere else to stay until his mom and Hopper drive down in a few days.

Suddenly, the handle twists. Light, warmth, laughter, and the smell of something baking spill out from around the figure at the door.

Mike stands there in a lumpy red sweater with the sleeves rolled up and a huge snowman stretched across his chest. His glasses are shoved up into his hair, a stray curl loose against his forehead. He's wide-eyed and a little incredulous as he stares down at Will like he's worth wanting.

If Mike would look at him like this forever, he thinks that would be enough.

They don't move for a minute. Don't say anything.

They just stand there, framed by the doorway, staring at each other as the cold wind kisses the warm air.

The silence stretches just long enough that Will starts to wonder that maybe this is it. The careful distance, the polite space he’s tried to brace for—

"Hey, Will."

Will hopes that the cold biting at his cheeks excuses the blush there. "Hi, Mike."

Mike blinks a few times and shakes his head slightly. He beams at Will. "How are— um. Come in, give me your bag, you must be freezing," he says a little too loudly, his voice finally not distorted by landline static, and waves him inside.

Will steps inside, smiling gratefully, but there are nerves just beneath it.

It's not like they haven't talked. They had called constantly, two or three times every week much to Max's self-proclaimed despair, though she always gleefully demanded a debrief afterwards.

But five weeks is a long time to go without seeing your best friend. Especially when you're about to spend the next week pretending to be his boyfriend in front of his entire family. And pretend to him that you want it to be just that: pretend.

Mike pushes the door closed behind him and turns around. They're suddenly too close. Almost nose to nose, so close that Will can see a faint sprinkle of flour smudged across Mike's sharp cheekbone.

His eyes flick over Will, take in his windswept hair and too-tight scarf, and he opens his mouth.

Nothing comes out.

Will is about to step away. Brush off the moment he was surely imagining, tug his scarf loose, and leave his heart right there on the welcome mat. But Mike surges forward then and pulls him into a crushing hug.

It knocks the breath clean out of him.

Mike's arm wraps tightly around Will's shoulders, his other hand fists in the side of Will's jacket. He tucks his face into Will's hair and breathes in slowly, deeply.

Will ends up with his face a hair away from Mike's neck, puffs of air meeting warm skin directly over the spot he knows by heart. His hands hover, uncertain, before tentatively resting at Mike's waist as his heart stutters.

Mike mumbles something into his hair, too low for Will to catch.

"Hm?"

Mike laughs lightly and slides his hand from Will's shoulder down his back. "I just said I missed you."

Will ducks his head, bashful, but his nose bumps the side of Mike's neck with the action.

Mike gasps.

The sound sends a heady spark through Will. He wonders, dangerously, if Mike is remembering that party. Or that night in his bathroom. Wonders if he just might get to do it again in Mike's house.

For appearances.

There may be a clock ticking on whatever this is, but standing in the hallway of Mike's house, wrapped in Mike's arms, he forgets to listen out for it.

"Michael?"

They spring apart— or, rather, they would, if Mike's fingers weren't still twisted in the side of Will's jacket like he might disappear if he let go.

"Who's at the— oh," Karen cuts herself off as she stands at the door to the kitchen in an apron with a tea towel slung over her shoulder.

Mike starts, flustered."Um. Mom, uh, this is—"

"I know who Will is, Mike," she cuts in gently. "I saw him every day for years, and he did live here for your sophomore year. Hi, honey, how was your journey? You made good time."

"H-hi, Mrs Wheeler," Will starts. "Thank you for letting me stay here again, really, it's so generous of you all."

Karen chuckles. "It's not a problem, honestly. Mike was desperate for me to let you stay. And I'm not convinced he wouldn't have hidden you somewhere in this house had I said no. Just… three inches, okay?"

Will glances up at Mike at that and sees him shooting a death stare at his mom, lips twitching, cheeks pink. He turns back towards Karen who's fixing him with a knowing look, eyebrows raised.

"Come on in boys, the next batch of gingerbread's almost ready," she says and turns towards the kitchen once more, "you can make sure it doesn't burn while I fold the laundry downstairs."

"It won't burn," Mike grumbles as he heads for the kitchen, "it's got another four minutes to go."

Will pulls off his scarf and tugs off his coat. He turns to the coat rack and exhales gently in surprise. The peg that had become his for over a year is still empty, like it was waiting for him to come home. He toes off his boots and pads down the hall to see Mike leaning over a cooling rack covered in an assortment of shaped cookies.

Will pushes himself up onto a stool at the breakfast bar behind Mike and takes in the flour clinging to the back of his hair as he mutters at a cookbook with concentration etched deep across his features. "Were you… did you make those, Mike?"

Mike glances back at him, then straightens with a lopsided grin. "So what if I did? Does 'makes homemade cookies' not rank highly on the list of qualities of a desirable boyfriend?"

"No, no, I was just surprised," Will giggles. Then softer, honest, "I think it definitely does rank highly."

Mike's eyes twinkle. He crosses the kitchen towards Mike, cupping something in his hand, and stops just in front of Will. Close enough that Will's knees just brush his hips. The contact is electric. Will swallows and looks up at Mike through his lashes.

Mike's hand settles lightly at the top of Will's thigh, warm through the denim. Perfectly still. Will's stomach backflips as he looks down at the touch. He can almost kid himself that this flirting isn't just for show.

But they're alone in the kitchen.

When Will looks up after Mike doesn't say anything, he realises Mike's staring down at his hand on Will's leg as well. His eyebrows twitch up in the middle.

Mike heaves out a breath and his gaze lifts to Will's, the moment— not over, just… changed. Charged.

Mike lifts his other hand instead, the one holding a gingerbread star from the cooling rack. The scent of spices and brown sugar curls between them.

"Go on," Mike says under his breath, like he's aiming for teasing but it comes out serious as he holds the star out in front of Will. "You know you want a taste."

And Will does. Of the cookie, of anything else Mike can offer. He leans forward automatically, then freezes, because it's too dangerous to act like this and be thinking like that, but Mike is still smiling down at him and his hand is right thereand—

"Okay, lovebirds, not in the kitchen."

Will gasps, jerking back as Nancy's voice drifts from the stairs.

"Hey, Will," Nancy adds dryly, leaning over the banister. "Merry Christmas."

Will lifts his hand awkwardly in greeting, face flushing to have been caught doing… whatever they were doing. Mike spins around, his hand lingering at Will's knee for a second longer than necessary before throwing up his hands— one still holding the cookie— in exaggerated protest.

"Jeez, how long have you been spying on us?"

"Long enough to know that Max was right," she answers smugly, "you two are sickeningly sweet. I wish I could go back and tell six-year-old Mike about you two after he barrelled into my room once and complained for hours that Mom said he couldn't marry you with a Ring Pop."

Mike buries his face in his hands. "Oh my god, Nance. Can you go back to Boston, like, right now?"

Nancy shoots Will a wink, smiling warmly as she wanders over and plucks a candycane-shaped piece of gingerbread from the rack. Will watches her, incredulous, mind reeling.

So Mike's mom had called him out about the hickey after he'd visited Will, and Nancy definitely knows about them, and they both seem… fine with it.

Well. More than fine. Maybe actually happy about Will being in Mike's life like this, he thinks a little bitterly. The list of people who would be devastated come January when they call off this arrangement has apparently grown beyond just Will.

"Evil," Mike mutters, peeking out from behind his fingers, "my family is evil, Will. And why has Max of all people been conspiring with my sister?"

Christmas comes, and goes.

Will's mom and Hopper show up at the Wheelers' door mid-morning bearing gifts and smiles and stories of lighthouses and fishing villages.

El gives Will a small photo album filled with postcards of artwork from galleries on every continent, and blushes with pride as she tries on the designer Mary Janes that Will had bartered with a pawnbroker for and giggles at her new namesake.

Will gives Mike a drawing of himself as his updated paladin design, including a few braids in his hair and a royal blue cape and an eyebrow piercing because 'Mom would actually kill me but he can be badass for me', and Mike treasures it like it's the crown jewels. They get matching knitted sweaters from Will's mom and matching store-bought Christmas jumpers from Mike's mom and are forced to pose for photos for hours.

Mike gives him a sketchbook, the expensive one with the thick pages and the leather cover that he'd pointed at in a shop window with Mike's hand holding his own. He's scrawled on the front page,

'For Will.

We might be crazy for doing this,
but at least we're doing it together x'

And Will's heart almost bursts.

The clock keeps ticking, the calendar keeps turning. They get closer to New Year's. Closer to when Will will have to live out the rest of his life knowing what it would feel like to be chosen by Mike Wheeler.

Maybe he should worry about how easily he slips back in to the family's routines, from the way he knows which floorboards creak to which is Mike's favourite mug. Like there truly is a place for him here.

But for now, he will help with chores and co-host basement movie nights and hang out with Holly like his own sister.

"Aw, Hol, that looks brilliant. Is that you guys?" he asks, crouched next to where she's colouring in a drawing at the kitchen table.

"Yeah! That's Mary, the illusionist, and Debbie, the thief, a-and Joshua's the ranger," pointing to each character in turn. "Derek made me let him be the paladin because he still thinks my brother is, like, Indiana Jones, for some reason. And I'm the cleric, obviously."

"Obviously." Then he leans closer and whispers, "the best character."

Holly grins down at him. Her focus returns to the drawing and Nancy picks up a pencil to colour in the ranger's cape before Holly swats her hand away.

Will stands up and lets his gaze slide over to Mike, standing by the doorway with a soft smile on his face.

Mike lets out a low whistle and sidles up to stand beside Will.

"That looks pretty great. Can I commission you for art for my campaign?" he teases, and Will shoves him in the side.

"No. You've got Will. And you barely care about drawings unless they're from him. Anyway," she presses on, undeterred by Mike's spluttering at her accusation, "Will taught me how to draw chainmail for Derek. It's all these little lines, like this." Holly demonstrates, pencil scratching fast and messily.

Mike nods slowly at Will with a downturned smile. "He must be a very good teacher."

"And yet somehow, I could never teach you proportions or perspective," Will teases.

"Maybe not. But at least I have my dazzling charm and lightning wit. And I have you."

"How could I ever forget?" Will aims for deadpan and lands somewhere near sentimental.

The way Mike stares at him with so much warmth laced in the gentle crow's feet at the corners of his eyes makes Will need to look down before his cheeks flame from eye contact. He glances at the drawing once more and remembers the amount of time he spent, colouring sketches of his own, desperately making sure the four of them were perfect.

"If you just rub the eraser over… this edge of the shield," Will gestures, finger hovering just above the drawing of Derek, "it'll look like it's catching the light."

Holly thinks for a moment, then shakes her head. "You do it. I don't wanna ruin it."

Will leans over the table a little and picks up the tiny eraser. As he flattens his palm to keep the page intact, Mike cranes over to watch.

He's always watched Will draw and paint and colour, always been enamoured with the way his brush sweeps through oil paints or watercolours and how Will knows how to tilt the pencil just so to alter the thickness of the line.

What he hasn't always done while watching, has never done in fact, is let his hand graze down Will's side to settle at the small of his back.

But he does now.

It's easy, collected, as if it's always been allowed. Just like the moment with the gingerbread, or walking the streets around Will's college campus, or a million other tiny moments that Will wouldn't have dreamed of sharing with Mike a few months ago.

Will's breath stutters anyway.

The central heating is on, and the fire in the living room is on, and the oven with another tray of gingerbread is on. So Will is confident that there is absolutely no good explanation for the shiver that zips straight up his spine except for Mike's hand, warm and grounding and definitely shouldn't be affecting him this much.

And his breath at Will's neck. They're perfectly mirroring the first moment from that party, the one that set off the last few weeks of… keeping up appearances. For a guy Will can't even remember the name of any more.

He feels it everywhere. In the way his fingers curl tighter against the paper, in the knock of his heart, in the slight weakness in his knees beneath the table.

He takes his time and rubs a careful line from the shield on Holly's drawing. Then another, at the tip of a sword to make it sparkle. And another, to show off the light beam at a character's hand.

Holly hums to herself where she sits next to him. Mike stays leaning over, quiet and intent as he watches Will's movements.

Eventually, he straightens up.

And Mike still doesn't drop his hand.

Will shivers again, and steps just out of reach before Mike can twig how much the simple touch affected him. "I—" he clears his throat, "I'm just gonna go down and… grab a sweater," he announces to nobody in particular.

And Will knows it's a stupid excuse. The house is warm enough to barely need the T-shirt on his back.

He gets two, maybe three steps away from the door before Karen's voice halts him in his tracks.

"Oh— Will, honey, if you're heading to the basement, could you bring up the stacks of bedsheets from the dryer? I've got another load to pop in soon."

Will agrees quickly, and Karen smiles.

Mike blinks over at Will like he's just been pulled out of deep water and takes a few long strides as he speaks. "Right. Um, I'll— I'll give you a hand."

Will gives him a small nod, because he couldn't explain himself if he said no, and turns away from the kitchen once more. Mike is close behind him. Until—

"Mistletoe!"

Will whirls around at Holly's yell and gapes at her, a giddy form of dread twisting in his stomach. She's earnestly pointing somewhere above Will and Mike, pencil still poised over her drawing in her other hand. He slowly, slowly tilts his head back, like if he waits long enough, the sprig might dematerialise from where it's pinned to the doorframe.

No such luck. He stares up at the pearly berries and they stare back smugly.

His eyes drift down and he sees Mike, already too close; close enough that stepping away would be too noticeable. His head is tipped back and he's mirroring Will's own expression of thinly veiled alarm. When Mike looks back down, his eyes wide and flicking between Will's left eye and his right and his mouth, Will knows they can't back out of this, not with Holly's arm still outstretched and Karen pretending to busy herself with refolding a tea towel.

"You have to kiss," Holly says petulantly from the dining table, "or it's bad luck."

Mike's jaw tenses. His eyes flick towards the kitchen, to where his mother is pretending to ignore the scene in front of her and Holly's eyebrows are raised expectantly in a way she definitely learned from Max, then flick back to Will's face. His hand hovers between them awkwardly, and then his palm is cupping Will's cheek and his head tilts a fraction to one side.

His lungs lock up around a half-drawn breath, his heart thudding so hard against his ribs it's probably audible to Mike, because he's definitely standing close enough. Will stays rooted to the spot, afraid that regardless of what he does, be that flee or peck him on the cheek or make out in the Wheelers' kitchen, will be catastrophically wrong.

Mike is only looking at his lips now, eyelids heavy as his tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip and disappears again. His thumb brushes once across Will's cheekbone. The touch is gentle, grounding, but it's terrifyingly real.

This is the last moment he could brush this off. Give Mike a lighthearted shove, pull back and steal away to the basement before something breaks between them that might not be fixable. Go back to a lifetime of pretending that he's not wanted this for as long as he can remember.

He doesn't.

Will swallows, his throat working around nothing, and nods slightly because he doesn't trust what his voice will sound like. He tilts his chin up instead, offering what he can.

Their lips meet, barely.

The touch is so soft that Will isn't entirely sure whether it counts as a kiss. Mike doesn't really press his lips forward, so Will doesn't either.

It lasts maybe a second before their noses bump awkwardly and Will flinches back on instinct.

Just like that, it's over. Will curses himself inwardly as his lips tingle, already mourning the loss of something that he hardly got to have.

"That doesn't count."

Karen clears her throat. "Holly."

Will's ears burn as he stares at the ground, one socked foot nudging at his other. She was right. That hadn’t looked like anything other than two people who don’t know how to kiss each other, which is a ridiculous problem to have when you’re supposedly dating.

Mike's hand falls from his face and he stuffs it into his pocket. "Okay. Bad luck avoided."

Will glances towards Holly and sees that she's already lost interest in favour of her drawing. He scrabbles for an excuse to leave, escape Mike's wide eyes and gentle touches before he suffocates under the weight of them. "I— um. I'm gonna get that sweater."

He takes a step out of the doorway, wincing as his shoulder brushes Mike's chest, and starts towards the basement stairs.

"Yeah," Mike says quietly behind him, "yeah. I'll— yeah." But his footsteps come closer and closer, echoing in Will's ears.

Will screws his eyes shut for a minute. There's no escaping this, then. He pushes the basement door open with his hip and flicks the light on before making his way down the stairs, Mike hot on his heels.

He stares out at the room.

Mike's basement had gone from being a safe haven away from Will's dad, to the home of his fondest memories of the young party, to housing all the ways in which he lagged behind his friends, to where he'd lay awake and stare at the years of his own drawings tacked on the walls, staring down at him. It's the perfect setting for more time spent tossing and turning as Will marks off day after day until New Year's on the calendar in his mind.

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

"…Will?"

Will exhales through his nose and turns to look at Mike. "Yeah?"

Mike's hands twitch by his sides. "I'm— sorry about upstairs. Um— yeah."

"You don't have to be."

"It was… bad. I-I mean, it wasn't bad like—" he gestures vaguely between the two of them, and sighs. "It was barely even a real kiss."

Will bites the tip of his tongue. "It probably wasn't very…" he winces, "convincing."

"Yeah."

Silence stretches around them, only interrupted by the basement heater clicking to life.

Will takes a deep breath. "We're gonna have to do it again."

Mike's eyebrows raise slightly and he glances down at Will's lips. God.

"New Year's," Will clarifies when Mike doesn't say anything, "probably in front of more people. Um. Your family, mine, the Party."

Mike nods slowly. "If it's like that again, they're gonna know we were just pretending, and I'll probably get jumped by Max or Jonathan straight into next Christmas," he laughs, but it comes out a little strained.

Will is careful when he asks, "what are you saying?"

"I want it to feel real." He swallows. Shuffles closer. "I want to practice."

Will's pulse stutters. "Practice… kissing?"

Mike bites his lip and nods, the movement slight but sure. "Just— just tell me to stop if it’s not what you want. I mean it."

He can't think about Mike's words too hard. Instead, he tilts his head back a fraction. "And," he says quietly, his head spinning, "if it is what I want?"

Mike doesn’t answer out loud.

He takes another step closer to Will, and the air shifts between them.

Suddenly, Mike overwhelms his senses. Takes over his visual field, Christmas spices lingering on his shirt, palm comes up to rest against Will's cheek and it's all he can feel.

Will forgets to breathe. His eyes slip shut.

Mike brushes his nose against Will’s, deliberate this time.

But he doesn't rush in and close the distance all the way. And Will realises that Mike's waiting for him.

That Will is the one in control. That realisation of being chosen, wanted, cared for, known, courses through Will's veins and crafts a home for itself within his very cells.

Will tilts his head up a fraction and finally meets Mike's lips.

They don't bump teeth or both turn the same way or miss the other's mouth or anything. It just works. It's short and gentle and over too quickly.

Mike exhales a soft laugh against Will's mouth. "That was better."

Will doesn't trust his voice. He nods once.

Mike swallows. His eyes flick between Will's eyes, then down to his lips, and get stuck there. "We could probably…" he trails off and licks his lips, and Will's stomach flips at the thought that he's tasting him there, "make sure it, um. Wasn't a fluke?"

"Please," Will exhales sharply, and it's enough.

They meet properly this time, the touch still soft but unmistakably real.

Blood rushes in his ears.

Will feels more than hears Mike's shaky sighs against his own mouth. He pushes forward with a little more pressure and Mike makes a low, broken sound that courses straight through Will.

The dam bursts.

Will's hands are in Mike's hair before he realises he's moved, fingers threading through the curls, holding him close. Mike's hand fly out to lay flat over Will's heart and settle low on his hip, pulling him close.

They break apart and reconnect over and over.

His touch, his heat, his sounds are addictive.

Mike's fingers trace the hem of his sweater, pushing it up a little with cautious movements.

Will shudders with desire. His tongue flicks out and meets Mike's bottom lip without thinking.

Mike takes in a shaky breath through his nose and his hand slips under Will's sweater like it belongs there.

The cold fingertips against his lower back make Will gasp and Mike jerks back instantly as if he's finally realised what they're doing.

"Sorry— oh my god, sorry, I— I got carried away—" Mike splutters.

"I didn't exactly… stop you," Will says breathlessly, his chest heaving in time with Mike's. He licks his lips, tastes Mike there— and sees Mike track the movement.

"I— um. I think that'll be believable enough."

Mike nods, dazed, and Will realises with a pang of white-hot guilt that his hands are still tangled in Mike's hair.

He takes a step back and pulls the door of Nancy's old closet open, out of Mike's sight for a moment. As he scans through a couple of sweaters with one hand, he runs a shaky finger across his bottom lip, swollen and spit-slick.

They unload the dryer and Will follows Mike back upstairs.

After that, Mike kisses him. A lot.

A quick brush of his lips in Will's hair. A peck on the cheek as he's peeling a whole bag of carrots. A kiss dropped on his shoulder as he stands up from the couch and stretches before offering a sleepy 'goodnight'.

It's usually around other people. Occasionally, when Will can blame alcohol or tiredness or something, when they're alone. But never like that afternoon in the basement. Never on the lips again.

Tonight is no different.

The Party had barrelled into the Wheeler house the night before New Year's Eve in a tangle of coats and scarves and laughter, Dustin wielding his brand new Back to the Future Part III tape. They'd collapsed into the basement like no time had passed.

The TV hums to life as Dustin slides the tape into the VHS player.

Lucas and Max immediately claim the armchair, squishing together without needing to share a word, Max’s legs draped over Lucas’s lap.

Will watches them with a small, fond smile.

They've been to literal hell and back together, but somehow, came out the other side steadier for it. Will sees Max bump her shoulder into Lucas', giggling at whatever he whispers in her ear. Lucas threads their hands together easily.

It's muscle memory to them.

Will's hand twitches in his lap.

El sinks down on a beanbag, eyes glued to the screen, enraptured the second the Universal logo fades in. Dustin claims the D&D table, borrowing the paints Will keeps at Mike's house to paint a tiny cat-like familiar for El and providing a running commentary of the science behind time travel.

That leaves Mike and Will with the couch.

They sit down at opposite ends, leaning against the arms, the space between them weirdly uncharted. Will tries to school his focus to the DeLorean racketeering through dust and sunlight in the Wild West.

Lucas snorts then and Max whacks him playfully, unable to keep a smirk off her face.

"Guys, shut up," Dustin moans, "you're gonna miss the— oh wait. Never mind. You already did."

Max flips him off without looking and settles into Lucas' arms again.

Will watches them, watches how easily it comes to them— opening themselves up to casual intimacy like this, flicking between playfights and adoration without thinking twice.

He thinks back to that day, the final hours before the worlds collided, that he'd told them all. How the room had gone quiet, the moment had gone fuzzy at the edges. Nobody had made it weird or awkward. Nobody had pulled away.

He thinks of Mike, because he always does, breathless and earnest halfway up the radio tower. His wide with the same warmth he'd always carried for Will, ever since the swings.

Will hadn't had the words, back then, to describe the feeling of Mike pulling him into a tight hug outside elementary school, with watery eyes and shaky hands from knowing the weight of his father's shotgun.

He hadn't wanted to use the words that were thrown at him in hallways when he and Mike had sat on this very couch and whispered things they couldn't say to anybody else. He didn't want those words to touch something so safe.

And yes, there had been fear, sharp and stinging, as he’d cycled home soaked through and shaking. Wondering if the world had already decided something about him before he had.

But Mike had still been there the next day.

They'd been inseparable as kids. Learning each other's reading speeds as they flicked through the same comic. Sharing sleeping bags and secrets into the darkness because nobody else would understand. Knowing what the other sounded like as they slept.

After the final battle, throughout their senior year, Will's family rented a place two streets over from Mike and Lucas. They'd fallen into easy routines of late-night radioing and shared dinners. Close not out of desperation, but for the comfort that comes with proximity.

Stronger, Will thinks, glancing sideways at Mike's profile, seeing how the glow of the screen catches in his eyes. They came out of the chaos different, but stronger.

The movie barrels on. A saloon fight breaks out on screen.

Will laughs softly at Dustin’s indignant commentary, El rummages for a fresh bag of popcorn, and Mike watches on rapturously, cupping his chin with one hand while the other rests flat on the couch cushion between them.

Sitting there in the dark, in the strange week before Christmas and New Year's where time stretches out, Will wonders what's stopping him from reaching a hand out and mirroring Lucas and Max's easy hold.

Somebody wins the fight, maybe. And Will's mind comes up empty.

He stretches out an arm and lets it fall palm-down onto the cushion, interrupting the grain of the blanket.

Mike's pinky brushes his own immediately.

Will's eyes flick up to Mike's face. He's still staring at the screen but a small smile plays at his lips.

The music picks up as Marty is dragged through dust behind a horse. Will stares at their hands like he might spoil the moment if he looks away.

Slowly, carefully, Mike turns his hand over so his palm is face up.

Waiting.

Warmth blooms in Will's chest. He doesn't hesitate, doesn't explain away the moment in his mind. He just threads his fingers through Mike's. And it is easy. He wants this to become muscle memory, too.

Mike's thumb brushes over his own, and Will relaxes back into the cushions, his focus on the soft warmth under his palm.

A steam whistle shrieks through the speakers and Will leaps at the sudden noise. His hand tightens in Mike's instinctively.

"Hey," Mike murmurs, barely audible over the movie, "come here, I've got you."

His hand slips from Will's as he holds his arm out in invitation. Will doesn't pretend not to understand.

He scoots across the couch and ducks underneath Mike's arm, letting it settle across his shoulders. Mike presses a soft kiss into his hair and Will bites his lip around a smile.

"Oh my god," Max starts dryly, "you're whipped, Wheeler."

"And?" Mike shoots back, not missing a beat. "You're curled up with your boyfriend literally right now, so why can't I be with mine?"

"I think it's cute."

"Thank you El, I am cute. And Will agrees. Don't you, Will?"

"Okay— first of all, that is not what she said. And second, he—" Max points an outstretched finger at Will— "is definitely biased."

Mike's lips purse as he frowns and tightens his grip around Will's shoulders.

Max clicks her tongue. "Relax. Nobody's trying to steal him from you."

Lucas zones back in to the conversation then. "She's right, dude. You look like you might bite anyone who tries to."

"Yes, thank you," Max waves her arms emphatically at Lucas. "So two votes for they're cringe and one for they're cute, because Will does not count— sorry Will— so either we tie, or I win. What do you think, Dustin?" She cocks her head to the side, grinning.

Dustin stares out over the group and rolls his eyes. "What I think is that there's a perfectly good film on that we're missing. And we don't need to debate how far gone Mike is when he's acted like this for literally the entire ten years I have known him."

"I have not," he huffs indignantly and scowls at the giggles that break out around the room. "I just— I take care of him, okay?"

"I know you do. That is why," Max stretches out a little to stare Mike down and continues slowly with a sly grin, "I let you date my… best friend."

Her obvious attempt to get a rise out of Mike works perfectly. "Wait, wait, wait, what makes you think I need yourpermission? I'm the one who's known Will for, like, fifteen years. Just because you guys share a-a kitchen does not make you best friends, obviously? And just because I'm dating him does not mean he's not still my best friend!"

Will lets his head fall into the crook of Mike’s neck as they bicker back and forth with increasingly irritated huffs from Dustin. Mike is noticeably less physically animated than he usually is when he gets into a debate with Max, careful not to jostle Will's head or shift his arm too much. Will smiles to himself as Max provokes him and Mike continuously takes the bait.

The movie keeps playing, Dustin gushes about the practical effects of sending a steam train hurtling towards a ravine, and Will's gaze slides up to an eventually quiet Mike.

He shifts, then shifts again, adjusting until he's leaning more fully against Mike. He tilts his head up until his cheek sits on Mike's shoulder and stares up at him through his lashes.

This face, his face, is burned into his retinas like the score panel at the top of the Dig Dug screen. It's morphed over the years Will has known him: youthful squishy cheeks reforming into breathtaking bone structure; hair curly and tamed, longer and cut short, parted and messily pushed forward. But the smile that makes you feel giddy inside and the eyes that land on you like you're the only person in the room have never changed, not in fifteen years.

Will wonders, fleetingly, whether he'll be lucky enough to see them stay the same for the next fifteen years.

For now, he studies the freckle in the hollow of Mike's cheek, the one he always makes sure to include in any lifelike portrait or doodle.

He wants to kiss it.

Something warm and rich curls in his stomach at the thought that after years of holding back so much of what he ached to do, maybe he can let himself give in, just once.

The world didn't collapse in on itself when he laid his hand down next to Mike's. In fact, the world got a damn sight sweeter when he did, leaving Will with an arm around his shoulders and his face tucked in Mike's neck.

So Will pushes up an inch and kisses it gently.

Mike gasps, head whipping around to stare down at Will as red spots bloom high on his cheeks. "Will."

"Sorry," Will whispers automatically, but has to bite his top lip to hide his smile.

Mike shakes his head rapidly. "No— no, it's just… you haven't done that before," he finishes quietly. Will can't focus on his incredulous expression and sparkling eyes too hard right now.

The danger is a lot more real since Mike uttered the word 'practice'.

"Are you guys even watching the damn movie?"

"Yes," Mike and Will say at the same time, and stare forwards.

Soon, too soon, a steam-powered train roars onto screen, flux capacitor affixed to the top, and the credits roll.

Lucas extracts himself from the armchair and slinks up the stairs, yawning.Max has already moved on, pulling El up from the beanbag and giggling about their sleepover like they're thirteen again. Dustin pulls the tape from the VHS player, pockets it once he's wrapped the now-dry miniature in purple tissue paper, and follows the others out of the basement with a note to see them tomorrow night.

New Year's.

Then it's just Mike and Will, and suddenly the basement seems to stretch on for miles. Mike stands up from the couch and Will follows him, will follow the possibility of more closeness to the top of the house if Mike wants.

"So," Mike starts as he reaches the bottom of the stairs, "that was fun."

"Yeah."

"Um. Everything the others were saying, about— about how I look at you, how I've always looked at you, apparently—"

Will nudges his arm. "It's fine, Mike. They were just teasing, I know."

Mike sucks in a breath then and doesn't let it go. His mouth opens like he wants to say something else.

Will waits patiently, but it builds into nerves. Was he weirded out by the hand holding, or the cuddling, or— or the cheek kiss? Oh god, Will panics, he's pushed too far, made it too obvious—

"It was really nice. To hang out. With you," Mike says, stilted. His tongue flicks out and his eyes dart around the room as if there's something left unsaid. But it assuages Will's guilt.

He nods. "I… yeah. I really enjoyed it."

Mike nods in response and grins widely. He blinks at Will, looks at him for a moment, and pulls him into another hug. It's not as crushing as the one in his hallway a few days ago, but it's no less intense. And, Will thinks faintly, much sweeter for not being bundled in so many thick layers.

Will’s chest presses into Mike’s, his cheek finds the familiar slope of his shoulder. His arms come up to wrap around Mike's waist and smiles into his shoulder about how real he feels under his palms.

Mike's fingertips loosen at his shoulder and his hand slips forward, over the muscle, onto his collarbone. His fingertips rest at a spot low on Will's neck.

The same place that he'd learned the contours of with his tongue on Mike.

Will's knees go weak.

They're standing right where Mike had suggested they practice kissing, and Will had let himself get carried away against Mike's mouth. He's staring down at Will with his huge eyes and his twitching eyebrows and his mouth slightly open.

And he's looking at where his thumb shifts against Will's neck, over where his traitorous pulse flutters.

Heat seeps through Will's veins and his fingers tingle against Mike's ribs.

It's the night before New Year's. Would it be so bad to act like he needs the practice again?

"Um. I'll see you in the… morning?" Mike says under his breath, and Will is too late.

His hands drop to his sides and Mike's do the same. They could have been curled up together on that couch for a week straight and Will would still want to keep that contact for a few more minutes.

Will nods stiffly, forces words to form over his tongue while he wants to do something else with it. "Yeah. Night, Mike."

Will stands there for a long moment after Mike disappears up the stairs.

The house settles on its foundations around him. He can still recognise the sound of Mike's footsteps up the staircase, of running water and Mike's bedroom door clicking shut somewhere above him.

His neck still feels alight where Mike's fingers had rested long after he crawls into his sleeping bag.

The clock is ticking.

Will drifts through the edges of the party, looking for a place for himself.

He tries to relax. Laughs when he's supposed to, downs a drink and then another. Says a few sentences about city life to his and Lucas' moms, follows Jonathan outside for a smoke, and paints 1990 across a delighted El's cheek in purple glitter.

It should be easier here than in some college apartment, he thinks, to switch his mind off. Here, in a house full of people who see him for who he is. He wants to sing along too loudly and dance with his friends badly and shout out the countdown when the time comes.

But tonight, it's not working. The clock is still ticking, louder now than the thrum of the music.

"Hey Will," Nancy appears at his shoulder, "have you seen Mike?"

And that's the kicker. It's 11:29 p.m., December 31st, 1989, and Mike Wheeler is nowhere to be seen.

Will fiddles with the ring on his middle finger, the one that Mike had slid off absently and tried on his own the other night.

"Um…" his voice comes out thinner than he meant it to, and he coughs. "No, I— I haven't seen him."

"Oh really? I thought he'd be with you. If you see him, let him know Mom's looking for him, will you?"

Will has no choice but to nod politely, and Nancy falls back into the crowd.

He's got half a mind to steal away to the basement and hope nobody's already drunkenly hooking up in there when El and Max appear at his side.

"Hey you. What's up? Need a drink?" Max asks, noticing his downcast expression.

Will sighs heavily. "I might. Can't find Mike," he pouts. El immediately plants her hands on his shoulders and balances on her tiptoes, peering around the room like an overeager meerkat as if all six feet of Mike are just hidden somewhere in the crowd of preteens and smalltown moms.

Max rolls her eyes. "Why does everyone want to find Mike all of a sudden? He'll be—" she waves her arm vaguely— "writing some festive campaign where we all, like, turn into reindeer or something. Nancy's asked me where he is twice already, and why the hell would I know? I don't think we've had a one-on-one conversation in, like, four years, and personally I'm more than happy to keep it that way."

She softens when she notices how Will deflates. "Whatever nerdy crap he's doing, I'm sure he wouldn't mind if youinterrupted him. I'll cover if Mrs Wheeler comes asking again. Now go find your boyfriend before New Year's," she finishes lightly with a wink.

"That's what I'm trying to do," Will mutters through gritted teeth and turns away from the girls, making a beeline for the staircase. He hears El say something about When Harry Met Sally and he's grateful he's walking just out of earshot.

God, Will wishes and wishes that tonight would be the start of the rest of his life. Instead, he's sitting on the stairs and realising that he can't keep up appearances any more.

He knows who he wants to spend the rest of his life with, but for someone like Will, he has to learn to live with the fact that this— a taste of what could've been, trapped inside his mind— is all he gets to have.

Will pushes himself up on shaky legs and pads towards the bathroom, seeking some water and some refuge, but it's locked. He's not facing the throng of Mike's relatives getting wine-drunk in the kitchen either, so he turns back around and creeps up the stairs.

The upstairs landing is dark except for a soft pink glow from the crack in Holly's bedroom door. A Tiffany record filters through the outdated charts playing downstairs.

He means to walk past. Reach the bathroom and splash some water in his face and maybe hide until he hears the countdown. But after a year and a half of living in this house, he'd become close with Holly, and wants to check on her.

He listens by the door for a moment and can't hear anything other than the slightly tinny music, so he peeks through the gap in the door.

She's curled up in bed already, her hair twisted in two plaits that she certainly picked up alongside Max's exasperated looks.

And perched at the edge of her bed, back to the door, is Mike.

Will shifts slightly and a floorboard creaks under his foot. He freezes. Mike's head whips around at the sound and he catches sight of Will's face in the doorway. His confusion dissolves as quickly as it appears, leaving more warmth than Will deserves in its wake.

He stands up from the bed carefully, fiddles with the stereo's volume dial for a moment, and pads softly out of Holly's bedroom.

His hand comes up to rest gently at Will's arm. "Hey, Will, you okay?"

Will nods, embarrassed that Mike must think he'd been spying or something. "Yeah. You?" he offers stiffly.

"Yeah. I was just sat with Holly for a bit, because some idiots down the street let off fireworks ridiculously early and she hates loud noises after everything that happened. So I lent her my stereo and she asked if I could stay until she fell asleep." He glances back into the room and pulls the door closed. "Did you need something?"

He's not irritated, or expectant; he's just giving Will space. Unobservant, lovely, exhausting, patient Mike.

Will hesitates and has to look away, because the pink lighting shining across Mike's features makes him look so inviting, and his thumb is stroking at Will's bicep, and Will knows what his lips feel like against his own.

It feels too big to admit out loud, but the words fall out of him anyway. "I… I came looking for you."

"Really?"

Yes, really. Because it's nearly midnight, and if this is the last chance that I will ever get to kiss you, I don't want to miss it, he thinks miserably.

Instead, Will glances down at his watch. "It's… eleven thirty-seven."

Mike blinks at him, then his eyes widen as his lips part, just slightly. He knows.

He knows that Will is skulking around his house just wanting to kiss him again for his own gains, all the while he was making sure his little sister didn't get scared by fireworks.

Mike inhales sharply, then stops himself, hand dragging across his mouth.

"Will," he starts, "before we go down, I—"

"Please," Will cuts in, hating how his voice cracks around the name, "whatever it is you're gonna say, just— wait until it's next year."

Mike steels himself, and shakes his head.

"I-I can't."

"Can't what?"

"I can't wait."

"What could possibly be so urgent that—" Will snaps his mouth closed before he says something he can't take back, something like that you have to end this before you kiss me one last time.

Mike stares around the empty hallway frantically before sliding his hand down to Will's wrist and pulling him into his own bedroom, the door clicking shut behind Will.

He leans against it and runs a hand through his hair. He almost laughs at the sound of Mike's alarm clock ticking on his bedside table, mocking him for being this desperate.

Mike paces back and forth for a moment. Will is silently begging him to say anything other than I can't do this, we can't kiss, this was a mistake, but isn't ready when Mike blurts out, "I don't want it to be fake."

Will screws his eyes shut for a moment, hurt. "That's why we practiced, Mike! So it would look real enough! That's what this was all for. All the phone calls, the touches, the— the goddamn hickey touch up? The fact you kissed me like that in your basement?"

Will breathes heavily as his eyes flick frantically between Mike's, hands balled into fists by his sides.

Mike's breathing hard too, eyebrows knitted together and lips twitching.

He starts slowly. "I didn't say… it shouldn't seem fake."

Whatever Will's drunk that evening must be catching up to him now, with the way he can't form a coherent thought and his tongue feels too big for his mouth all of a sudden.

"Will, please," Mike groans. Rubs his hand across his mouth again. Takes half a step closer. "You— you have to know what I mean. Don't make me… spell it out."

Will is terrified. Misinterpreting this could fracture something that Will isn't sure could be fully mended.

"I need you to."

Mike looks at Will then, really looks, and maybe eyes really are the windows to the soul because he looks like he's seeing something that Will has tried to keep buried for a very long time.

He takes another step closer so that Will can feel Mike's breath against his mouth.

"I need to know," Will repeats lowly, "that you mean… what I think you mean."

Mike tears his gaze away from Will's face and looks down, and Will looks down with him, so that they're both staring down at Mike's shaking hand that hangs in the shrinking space between them.

Will feels his fingers loosen and stretch out of their own accord. He looks up, and Mike's already looking at him as his fingertip slowly, slowly hooks around Will's thumb. Will gasps, and Mike heaves out a sigh.

"I don't… want it to be fake any more."

Will's ear is ringing slightly. He shifts his hand slightly so that Will's palm meets Mike's clammy one. Mike's mouth twitches into a tiny smile.

Will can't let fear rule over him. Not now, not when Mike is looking at him with so much genuine hope. "Neither do I," he whispers, and he could cry with the weight that's lifted from him in that second.

"Is it… is it okay that I don't think it ever was fake?"

He still sounds so nervous, somehow, as if he's only realising this as he's saying it.

Will nods, eyes glistening, and grips Mike's hand hard.

"I want to kiss you so badly it terrifies me and not just tonight but for— yeah," Mike heaves out in one breath, losing his resolve by the end, and Will can't even wonder what he would've said because he's too busy trying to grasp the weight of Mike's words without doing something totally inappropriate like crying.

They can talk about what comes after tonight, later. Will swallows around the lump threatening to form in his throat.

"Do it."

And still Mike looks overwhelmed, unsure, afraid to push Will too far.

There's no danger of that.

"Kiss me how you want to."

Mike drops Will's hand, cups his face in both of his hands, and crashes their lips together.

Immediately, Will's insatiable.

This is what it means to be wanted by Mike Wheeler.

Their lips meet over and over, mouths moving in sync as their heads tilt just enough to interlock perfectly.

Mike acts instantly, instinctively.

There's no foreheads touching or noses brushing or barely-there press of the lips this time. There's no hesitation. He kisses Will like he needs it to breathe.

Will sighs a small, broken sound into Mike's mouth and grips at one of Mike's wrists, a little overwhelmed by Mike's unwavering want, and kisses back just as hard. It's dizzying.

Mike's thumb strokes over Will's jaw, pushing it down slightly so it opens with a soft pop. Then, Mike's tongue is swiping across his bottom lip, asking, and Will's darts out in confirmation as he reaches out to pull Mike closer by the hip.

He's so close that his body is flush with Will's front, a sharp contrast to the cool and solid shape of the door at his back. His knee slips between Will's thighs, tentative at first before it settles there with intention. Will breaks the kiss with a broken whine.

Mike freezes. "Hey, is—"

"Yeah," Will heaves out quickly. He swallows, then adds, "yeah. Please."

Mike nods, eyes wild, and leans back in.

His chest is heaving as Mike's lips press against the corner of his mouth and up along his jaw until he's mouthing at a spot directly under Will's ear. He feels Mike's teeth graze the hoop in his earlobe and he practically whimpers, and he should really be more embarrassed about the noise than he is.

Will's fingers card through the hair at the back of Mike's head and pulls him closer as Mike ducks his head a little and starts to suck at a spot just above his collarbone.

Exactly where Will had left two hickeys on Mike weeks ago.

"You look so pretty like this," Mike murmurs, and Will's eyes fly open in shock.

And he gasps sharply. Because across from Mike's bedroom door is a full-length mirror.

He watches as Mike's hands roam up and down him, from the nape of his neck to very low on his hips. He pants as he stares at the back of Mike's head where it's tucked into the crook of his shoulder, where he's sucking a bruise onto Will.

No way to explain it away, and no need to.

Every fantasy he's ever had, every way he's imagined what it would be like to be wanted by Mike Wheeler, melts away as he stares at their reflections against Mike's bedroom door. It's as if their very atoms had once burned brightly in the same star and are finally finding each other again.

"I know I do."

Mike pulls away an inch and Will almost giggles despite himself at the dichotomy of his confused eyebrows and kiss-bruised mouth.

Mike turns his head and meets Will's eyes in the mirror, their positions from Will's college bathroom now reversed.

"Jesus, Will, oh my god," Mike pants out before his head whips around again, irises swallowed by his huge pupils as he dives towards Will's mouth again.

His hand drags up Will's chest and rests gently against Will's neck, tracing the mark just like Will had done on someone's fire escape.

Maybe it had never been for appearances.

Mike pushes down on the fresh mark with a fingertip and Will's vision goes fuzzy. "I wanted to do this when I kissed you in the basement."

Will feels like he's walking on a cloud. "I wonder if I'd have believed you if you'd said, 'Will, I have to give you a hickey, it's for practice,'" he teases, and Mike buries his face in his neck. "But I wanted you to as well."

And Mike is everywhere again.

It's too much and not enough but what it absolutely is not is something Will wants to put a stop to. He isn't sure quite what he's done to deserve it when Mike's watch beeps from where his hand rests very low at the small of Will's back.

Mike lifts his arm, pushes a button on the watch, and avoids his eyes, sheepish. "I, um, set a… an alarm. So I didn't… miss midnight with you. If Hol couldn't sleep."

The overwhelming heat of the moment dissipates, and Will's just full of love. This is pure, unabashed love, and it always has been. And if there's some higher power out there to take pity on a boy who's never considered himself lucky, it always will be.

Will grins ear to ear and pulls Mike in for another kiss that's frankly terrible until he can stop smiling. But it still gets heated again within seconds. Will's hands slide down Mike's back to the hem of his shirt and he tugs it upwards a little, relishing in the noise Mike makes when he feels Will's hands on his skin.

"Come on, we have to go down," Mike murmurs against his mouth, shivering when Will's nails rake across his back, "gotta— hah— keep up appearances."

"Fuck appearances," Will grumbles, but lets himself be pulled away from the door and led down the stairs, Mike's fingers woven tightly between his own.

The house is alive with excitement. People drink and laugh and dance, and Mike does not let go.

"Mike! Dude, where were you? You nearly missed the countdown!" Dustin shouts from somewhere behind them. They spin around and catch eyes with the group in varying levels of disarray.

"Hey, man, I— um, I was with Hol," he says. It's not a lie, but the way he rubs at the back of his neck makes it seem like one. As does their mussed hair and half-untucked shirts.

"I see you found him, alright," Max smirks, eyes sparkling as she stares pointedly at Will's neck.

And that definitely makes it seem like a lie.

Will hardly has it in him to care, not with his pulse thumping at the spot and Mike's hand in his own.

At some point in Mike's bedroom, the ticking clock on their in hindsight ridiculous scheme had ground to a halt.

When the ten-second countdown he's been dreading for weeks finally hits, Will has no fears of the future.

Max yanks Lucas close, El darts towards Dustin, and Will pushes up onto his tiptoes, wraps his arms around Mike's shoulders, and kisses him sweetly.

"Happy New Year, baby," Mike murmurs against his ear as the room erupts.

It's been less than thirty minutes since he's been able to do this properly and Will thinks he could forgo food and shelter and whatever other things are apparently basic needs if he could just stay like this with Mike.

But far too soon there's a hand clapping on his shoulder and a few whoops behind him, and he turns in Mike's arms.

Hopper is fixing Mike a disgruntled look that Will things he means to be stern, Will's mom is beaming as he throws her arms around her, and El is almost bouncing up and down waiting to kiss him on the cheek and murmur, "if he hurts you, I will kill him."

The room erupts into a rendition of Auld Lang Syne and Will seizes the moment as a distraction.

He loops his arms around Mike's neck and whispers against the shell of his ear.

"Is that good enough for appearances?"

Mike grins down at him, spins Will around and pushes him gently in the direction of the stairs. They giggle as their friends wolf-whistle in the crowd and fumble up the stairs, crashing into each other and the banister in an effort to keep their hands on each other.

They reach the upstairs landing and Will shoves Mike against a wall, peppering his face with kisses until he can see the blush under Mike's freckles even in the dim light.

Will pulls back reluctantly and shoves open Mike's bedroom door, crossing to stand in the middle of the room as Mike follows him in and locks it behind them.

He turns then, hands flat on the door behind him, and pulls his bottom lip between his teeth as he stares through his lashes at Will.

It's got to be a skill to look up at somebody who's three inches shorter than you.

Will's face heats up under his gaze. "What?"

Mike blinks as though he hadn't noticed he'd been staring. "Just looking at you."

Will's stomach nosedives. He shivers.

Mike pushes off from the door and holds eye contact with Will as he steps towards his bed. He lowers himself slowly onto the comforter and pushes his hands back to recline a little, his legs falling open slightly.

Will punches out a breath. "God, Mike, you're gonna kill me."

The smirk that breaks out across Mike's features is saccharine. "Come here, baby."

Will rubs shaky hands up and down his flaming cheeks. He takes two steps and stands between Mike's legs.

He lifts a hand and musses up Mike's curls, because he can, and traces a fingertip across the freckles decorating Mike's cheekbones, because he can. Because it's intoxicating to watch Mike react to his touch and push his cheek into Will's palm.

Mike hooks a finger into Will's belt loop and pulls him to stand properly between his legs. And Will overbalances a little, has to hold on to Mike's shoulders and lands with a knee on the bed between Mike's thighs.

"Oh god, I was trying to be smooth," Mike groans, and Will dissolves into giggles, and suddenly, they're just them.

The Mike and Will that they've always been, except they can be everything they want with each other now. No more pretending.

So when Will kneels down properly and kisses him again, because he can, it's perfect.

Will nips at Mike's bottom lip and smiles when Mike's fingers tighten at his waist in response. He skims his tongue across Mike's bottom lip, revelling in the sound he elicits.

Mike's hands stray from his waist, roaming up and down Will's back, until he grunts under Will.

Against Mike's mouth, Will mumbles, "what?"

He pulls Will's shirt loose from where it's tucked into his jeans and shoves it up. "Off."

Will sits back on Mike's thighs, drinks in how debauched he looks, flushed and panting a little with a new mark blooming under his jaw. He shivers with pride and anticipation as his arms cross over and he wraps his fingertips around the hem of his shirt. Slowly, his eyes fixed on Mike, he pulls it up over his head and throws it somewhere behind him.

Mike reaches out, but doesn't quite touch. He stares up, his puppy-dog eyes out in full force, and asks softly, "can I?"

Will is overcome by his need to keep checking in with what Will wants. He slides his tongue over his teeth and nods quickly, head tipping back. Offering himself up silently. Mike's nails scrape over his chest and shoulders, and his mouth follows suit, sucking at random spots across Will's chest that make him shiver and sigh.

"I should've done this weeks ago. Hell, I should've done this years ago, oh god, Will. If only I'd known. Thank god for Ryan, right?"

Will is taken aback with that. "Who… what are you even… talking about?"

"The guy. From the party?" Mike voices over his heart. "He was all over you the night we arrived."

"Okay… I mean, he kissed me on the cheek and, like, put his arm around me."

Mike grunts and presses another kiss to his collarbone. Will's eyes widen.

"Were you jealous? Is that what made you drape yourself over me and call me your boyfriend?"

Mike pouts and shrugs. Will's heart feels so full. He tucks a finger under Mike's chin and pushes it up, so his chin rests against Will's sternum and his eyes are still huge with desire and his lips are an indecent shade of red.

"You could've just, like, pulled me away for a smoke or something," Will says, voice turning gravelly as Mike starts on the other side of his neck, "you didn't have to resign yourself to two months of pretending to date me all because you left with a hickey, Wheeler."

Mike nips against his neck and Will shivers in his lap and he wraps his leg around Mike's hip, pushing them closer and punching a sigh out of both of them.

"I mean, it worked out on the end," Mike grins.

Will presses his lips to Mike's nose, and he crinkles it. "You're ridiculous, I love you."

It slips out too easily and Will freezes for a moment.

But Mike's face breaks into an easy smile, his hands hot and grounding at Will's hips. "I love you too, but I am notridiculous. I was just… concerned for your safety, or defending your honour, or something."

"My honour?"

"Shut up."

Will grins. "Make me."

And it's terribly cliché but here, in 1990, warm and breathless in Mike's lap with his heart thudding, Will couldn't care less.

After a long while, their kisses become slow and sweet, their hands still, and Will's brain gets fuzzy from the oxytocin and late hour. He unhooks his leg from around Mike's hips and presses a chaste kiss to his lips before pushing back and standing between his parted legs. Mike refuses to let go of his hips.

"Where you going, Will?" Mike asks sleepily "where could you possibly have to go?"

"Back to—" Will's voice breaks off in a yawn that makes his jaw crack— "the basement, Mike, it's gotta be, like, two in the morning by now. Everyone's probably asleep already."

Mike hums, noncommittal. He leans forward slightly so his chin rests on Will's stomach where he stares up at him, lashes heavy and eyebrows twitched up in want.

"Which is why you should stay here," he says, "so you don't wake anyone up."

"Mike," Will groans as he tries unsuccessfully to pull himself out of Mike's grasp, but Mike's grip tightens reflexively.

His nose wrinkles as he grumbles, petulant and dangerously endearing. "No, stay here, I wanna sleep with you."

Will gasps at that as heat floods his face. "I—" he swallows, "Mike, I just really don't know if I'm ready for—"

Mike blinks at him slowly, confused for a minute, until his sleepy eyes widen as the realisation of what he's said finally dawns on him. He looks like he might pass out as he scrambles to sit upright.

"Oh my god, no. No, no, that's not— I didn't mean it like that— I mean, I didn't not mean it like that, I-I do want— that, with you, sometime, if you wanted it as well, but not now—"

Will laughs softly, any tension dissolving as he reaches out and cups Mike’s wrist from where he's trying to hide behind his hands. "You dork."

Mike exhales shakily, still cringing a little but relieved.

"So," Will murmurs, "sleep?"

Mike gives him a warm smile and nods. He stands and shuffles to the closet, grabs a few old T-shirts and pyjama pants. They change quickly before Mike climbs back onto the bed and raises an arm in invitation. Will crawls over and collapses against him, hitching an ankle over Mike's and letting his hand rest against Mike's chest.

Sleep comes easy when you're this content in the arms of the person you love.

In the morning, the first morning of the rest of their lives, Mike and Will drag their chairs close enough together for their knees to touch.

Mike eats breakfast with his non-dominant hand because he won't let go of Will's, fingers laced between his own on his lap. He spills cereal milk twice and doesn't care.

They're exhausted. There are matching shadows beneath their eyes and faint, unmistakable marks blooming at their throats, but their eyes sparkle whenever they meet.

Later that afternoon, Holly is sprawled on her stomach on the living room floor, kicking her feet and surrounded by colourful pencil crayons.

"What’re you working on?" Will asks, sinking down beside her.

She hums. "Something for your next campaign. Mike said he might use some of my art 'now that I've had lessons from Will the Wise', and I want it to be perfect."

"Can I see?"

She finally turns the page towards him, glancing up to catch his reaction.

It's a huge party now— the four of them, Max and El, and slightly smaller at one side, Holly's drawn herself. Will holds his breath as he takes it in.

She's probably used every single colour from the box, some of the figures are a little squished. Lucas' bow is a bit crooked and Holly's staff is twice the size of her and Max's hair is fire-engine red, but there's careful chainmail and artful spots where light catches on shields.

Lucas and Max’s figures are holding hands. So are Dustin and El’s.

Will’s chest tightens as he realises his and Mike’s are too.

"That's… so cool, Hol. Thank you," he says, voice a little thick as footsteps sound behind him.

Will feels a familiar hand against his shoulder.

Holly looks up at him, grinning. "I drew all of us, Mike, do you like it? Will thinks it's cool. So it's gotta be good enough for you."

Will glances up at Mike and sees the same heartfelt smile as his. Mike's fingers tighten against his shoulder.

"Looks perfect," he says quietly. Will leans in to the touch, and it's all he needs.