Archive of Our Own ^beta

They had all made it out, somehow.

They felt like they were wading through three feet of sludgy water, the toxic atmosphere of the Upside Down still clinging to them like a second skin. They were still filthy, their skin streaked in layers upon layers of sweat and grime. They were still vulnerable, one misstep away from tumbling off precipice of a cliff and into the crashing waves below, the emotional whiplash of the past several hours having left them scraped raw and sensitive. They had been stretched to within an inch of their lives, their fatigued limbs hardly managing to hold them upright.

The memory of Jane standing in that portal seconds away from death still replayed behind their eyelids on a loop, the image of a corpse in the shape of their daughter, sister, or dearest friend still drawing breath and pumping blood. Of those excruciating minutes before salvation arrived in the form of Dr Owens and his cavalry, giving Hopper the distraction he needed to reach Jane and drag her away from the portal and firmly into his arms, holding her close as she shook and shook and shook. Of the moment following in which Jane clung to Hopper, hands locked around his neck as sobs tore through her, completely soaking through his clothes. Her repeated whispers of ‘thank you thank you thank you thank you’ deafeningly loud in the unnatural silence of the warehouse they had been shuffled into as Dr Kay was subdued.

The mere thought of how close they had come losing Jane forever still made them convulse and burst into sporadic fits of tears.

They were absolutely drained – physically, emotionally and mentally. They had experienced trauma that would take them years to unravel, adding onto the ever-growing pile of demons that would trail behind them for the rest of their lives. A pile that, truth be told, had turned into an unscalable mountain somewhere along the way.

Considering all of that, this was absolutely, unquestionably, categorically the worst possible time for this.

And yet – after Dr Owens’ government officials had finally let them go, after looking them all over for what could have been either minutes or hours; after making it clear (in not so many words) that any attempts to leave Hawkins before returning for interrogation would be ill-advised; after they all returned to the WSQK, trembling and incapable of speech, moving around the space like ghosts, like if any false step would shatter the fragile reality they found themselves in and thrust them right back into the Abyss; after they all, without discussion, huddled together on the floor of the same room, some washing up as much as they could in the bathroom sink and changing perfunctorily, some not bothering; after many hours of staring at the ceiling and listening to the sounds of everyone’s breaths, repeating they’re alive they’re alive they’re alive like a mantra inside his head – when Mike made his quiet and tentative way between the sleeping bodies of their loved ones towards Will, when he nudged him on the shoulder and motioned for Will to follow him, he didn’t refuse.

When Mike wordlessly led Will out of the station and grabbed two of the bikes propped up next to the entrance at random, holding one out in Will’s direction, Will swung his leg over the seat without protest. When he started to feel recognition prod at his very tired brain as they wheeled onto the familiar path towards Maple Street, he didn’t comment. When Mike dismounted in front of his abandoned and eerily empty house, letting his bike clatter to the pavement without a single glance, as he entered the house and headed for his room, taking the stairs two at a time, Will trailed after him and didn’t question it.

Now though, as he watched Mike pace the wreckage that had become of his room with heavy-lidded eyes – watching his feet conveniently side-step the detritus of his destroyed closet in a way that suggested this hadn’t been the first time he’d been there since the attack – Will started to question it.

It had been upwards of fifteen minutes, probably, and Mike still hadn’t said a word. Will had been willing to let him work it out in peace, knowing Mike well enough to know that whatever it was, he would get there once he was ready, and trusting that he would not have dragged Will out here after the night they’ve had without good reason. But now, once the reprieve of being able to lean motionlessly against the wall was starting to feel less like a reprieve and more like a punishment for his aching muscles, and his thoughts had started to drift longingly to the nest of blankets awaiting them back at the WSQK, he was reconsidering his stance. Not to mention, Mike’s pacing was starting to give him a headache.

Just as he was working up to saying something, Mike shifted gears, pivoting on his right foot and bending over the ruins of his closet. Will watched him fish around in the debris with nothing but a furrowed brow and mild confusion for a beat, until he registered that Mike was letting the sharp edges of wood and cement scrape and catch at his skin without so much as a flinch. The thought set alarm bells off in his chest, cutting through the soup in his brain.  

“Hey… Mike…” he forced out weakly, his throat protesting from dehydration and disuse, pushing off the wall and inching towards Mike as every muscle in his body creaked and groaned in protest. “Mike…”

Mike straightened up so fast it gave Will vertigo. He’d clearly located whatever it was he had been searching for, but was keeping it out of view for now, concealing it behind his back as he turned towards Will.

Will knew he should be focusing on that, but he was too tired to resist his brain’s pull to appreciate how Mike looked then, illuminated partially by the moonlight falling through his window – like Will, he had taken the time to change out of their disgusting, Upside Down drenched clothes into the spares they had stashed at the station (Will more out of necessity rather than desire for comfort, the mind flayer’s blood having soaked through every inch of fabric and coloured it a deep obsidian), now in a soft-looking navy sweater and sweats, but hadn’t done much else; he still had dried blood smeared over his cheek, the dust and dirt of the abyss still caked strands of his hair. He had deep, dark circles under his eyes that Will knew originated from far more than just a few days of fitful sleep, and he looked haunted by many years of daily fear and terror, but even so, he was beautiful.

Even through the bone-deep fatigue that should have impaired all of his organs’ ability to function, Will still felt his heart clench. He was never going to get over him.

Mike stood there for a moment, suspended in motion, sucking in his bottom lip. There was an impossible to comprehend blend of emotions flickering behind his eyes – Will thought he caught snatches of fear, despair, desperation, cautious hope – his head felt close to bursting just from the attempt of trying to identify them, so he gave up. He was supposed to have kicked the habit of trying to figure out the inner workings of Mike Wheeler, anyway.

Mike shifted for a few more seconds, adjusting his stance, mouth dropping open then immediately falling closed again, his teeth returning to his bottom lip. Even through the haze of exhaustion this made something twist in Will’s stomach; he hated seeing Mike uncertain like this. He felt the familiar itch to fix whatever had caused the tense set to Mike’s jaw niggling at him from the back of his brain, spurring him to take a couple small steps in Mike’s direction. Mike swallowed.

“I need you to tell me the truth about this,” he finally said, the words escaping him on a single shaky exhale. He flung his arms around to his front, drawing attention to the object in his hands.

It took Will a few moments to register what it was Mike was holding, still stuck on trying to mend Mike’s discomfort. It was a rolled up, surprisingly intact piece of canvas. Mike’s fingers latched onto it in a way that seemed almost possessive, seemingly unaware that his grip was creasing it.

A very familiar, very unfortunate roll of canvas that Will had hoped he’d never have to see again.

Jesus, not this thing.

A flame of panic awakened in his stomach, a match being struck in a room where a fire had long since died out but the gas that had started it continued trickling in quietly and invisibly, waiting for a day when it would ignite once again – he had to spare a second to be impressed with himself for being able to feel such a strong emotion after all this – but he wouldn’t let it grip him, not entirely. The fact that Mike still had the painting, let alone that it occupied his thoughts enough to drag Will here to talk about it after they had just defeated the inter-dimensional being that had threatened their world for decades now really, was something that he could agonise over later.

“Mike, seriously?” he sighed, and he had to give himself his flowers once again over how controlled his voice sounded, even if he couldn’t quite bring himself to meet Mike’s eyes. “You dragged me over here after everything for this? I’m sure this is something we can talk about after we’ve had some rest.” Or, preferably, never.

A strangled sound escaped Mike, and after that Will wasn’t able to resist the pull to look at him. His eyes were as wide as saucers, lips thrown open in silent protest (and deep red from Mike’s teeth, but Will tried not to let himself notice that), eyebrows scrunched up in that endearing way of his. He looked like a cornered animal, which confused Will more than anything – if anyone should feel cornered in this situation, it was him.

“Please, Will,” he choked out, launching into a walk so suddenly that Will almost flinched. He made it over to his desk, braced himself on the chair for a second before pushing it away and letting it roll across the room. All his movements were jagged, aborted, like he had lost control of his body. But when he placed the canvas on the desk and spread it open, his touch was gentle, almost… reverent. “I can’t- I need-” he hung his head over painting, shuddering out a breath, “I need to know, Will. Please.”

He sounded so vulnerable and so broken that Will almost caved immediately, chest feeling hollow at Mike’s tone. But he couldn’t – not with this. Not when not twenty-four hours ago he had told him, along with his mom and Jonathan, that he was gay. Not when, if Will surrendered this one last piece of the puzzle, Mike would have the whole picture laid out in front of him clear as day.

He wouldn’t be able to survive almost losing his sister and actually losing Mike all within a matter of hours.

Skin crawling and heart pounding, Will redirected his gaze, dropping to his left hand, where he had started fiddling with a loose thread of the sleeve of his hoodie. If he concentrated hard enough, he could swear that he could feel the edge of the sword hanging over his head ruffling the tips of his hair.  “What is it that you need to know, Mike?”

He heard something that sounded like a slap of a hand on a clothed thigh, but he didn’t look up to check if he was right. “The truth, Will.”

“What truth, Mike?”

“Will-”

The frustration in Mike’s voice was so apparent that Will was forced to lift his gaze, heart pounding in his throat. The expression in his eyes was so raw, so open… it made Will want to shrink back even more, to close himself off completely and run away. He was being obtuse, and dismissive, and intentionally cruel, he knew – knew and felt terrible about it. But he couldn’t, wouldn’t reveal this piece of himself that he has protected for so long, not when for the first time in years he felt like Mike saw him for who he was and maybe wouldn’t push him away. Not when his love for Mike was maybe the one part of himself he held most precious, almost like a vital organ. Not when it was something that had propelled him forward through all the shit they’ve gone through, something that had been a tether in moments when he was most hopeless, something that helped him access the powers that just helped them defeat Vecna and the Mind Flayer, for fuck’s sake.

He couldn’t help the instinct to be defensive, Mike’s questioning feeling like the invasive prodding of surgical instruments trying to claw at his insides.

“What, Mike?” he bit back, trying to erect a wall between himself and Mike’s distressed eyes. “I don’t know what you want me to say, or why this is relevant now, of all times.”

Mike’s shoulders collapsed, something draining out of him as he toyed with the zipper of his jacket. He considered, eyes bouncing between different points in the room, landing on Will more often than not. Will hated it; it made him feel flayed open. He also hated not being able to judge how much Mike was able to see in the darkness – his eyes had adjusted enough to be able to see shifts in Mike’s expression, the stitch of his eyebrows, the rise and fall of his shoulders. But with Will centred in the moonlight, would Mike be able to see the colour bleeding out of his face in panic? The way his eyes flicked away momentarily in avoidance, the way he swallowed when he lied?

No, he decided, hit by a sudden clarity, he couldn’t do this.

“Let’s go,” he stated resolutely, voice harsher than he intended it to be, already spinning towards the still-open door.

“I know El didn’t commission it.”

“Mike, seriously-”

“Stupid, really, how long it took me to notice,” that caught Will’s attention. Hating himself, he closed his eyes, swallowed, then twisted back around so he could see Mike. He was looking away from him, gaze fixed on the painting beside him. His jaw was twitching, as if he was testing how his words tasted before speaking them. “Our D&D characters? She didn’t even know what they are, why would she have ever thought of that? And-” his gaze flicked over to Will, settling somewhere between his nose and his throat, Will couldn’t really tell where and it was infuriating him, “-the words didn’t really sound like hers, anyway.”

Will froze, a chill spreading up his spine, breath caught in his chest. His stomach fluttered violently, and he hated his body for being capable of reacting like that at a time like this.

Mike looked back to the painting, the furrow in his brow looking thoughtful now, rather than harried. “You know, I asked her about it, kind of,” he went back to worrying his lip, “I stopped as soon as it was clear she didn’t know what I was talking about.”

Will didn’t dare to breathe, the pounding in his chest threatening to rip straight through. Don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this-

Mike cleared his throat, and seemed reluctant to press on all of a sudden, shifting his weight from foot to foot and stubbornly avoiding looking at Will, even as Will searched his face with a ferocity he was sure Mike must have felt burning into his skin.

“You know, um,” he continued, throwing a glance so brief in Will’s direction that he could’ve blinked and missed it. There was a charge to the air between them now, the type of electricity that made the world feel like it was on a tipping point before a storm. “El talked to me right- right b-before. Um. Wanted to say goodbye, or…” he let out a shaky exhale, tongue darting out to lick his lips, “or to talk her out of it, maybe.”

Will felt like he’d been sucker-punched in the gut. His legs took a step towards Mike without his permission. “What?”

“Yeah,” Mike confirmed, letting the confession settle over them. He didn’t try to explain himself, didn’t try to make excuses, just let the words hang in the air between them. He continued only once Will was close enough to make out the freckles dotting his nose, even in the darkness. “She told me what she was doing and asked me to understand and waited, and I, I c-couldn’t…”

He sucked in a deep breath, and angled his gaze towards Will, out of the corners of his eyes. It was only now that Will was close enough that he could analyse all of the minutiae of Mike’s expression – the flutter of his eyebrows, the purse of his lips, the flinching of his eyelids from the effort of maintaining eye contact – that Will could put a word to the emotion radiating off of Mike in waves.

Shame.

Not being able to withstand the scrutiny any longer, Mike broke, words starting to gush out like a dam breaking. “I couldn’t tell her I loved her,” Will’s jaw dropped, but before he could even begin to process the admission Mike had broken away from the bubble created by their proximity and started pacing again (it was only with the absence of Mike’s body heat that he noticed it had been warming his skin in the first place). “She was going to die, Will, and I couldn’t tell her I loved her back,” both hands were in his hair now, tugging at his roots as he traced and retraced a set path with his footsteps. Will was speechless. “And, I know that like, we weren’t really together anymore, and she didn’t even want it in that way, but she was about to die and she needed comfort or- or a reason and I couldn’t- I couldn’t…”

Will felt a gargantuan lump forming in his throat, and a weakness to his legs that threatened collapse if he didn’t sit down in a second, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. Thought after thought chased each other in his brain, reversing on each other, swerving and twisting to evade each other, but eventually all crashing into a puddle of messy, non-sensical goo. He tried to latch onto at least one of them, to pull it out and flatten it into something coherent in front of his eyes, but it was all in vain.

Why was Mike telling him this?

Mike paused, tilting his head towards Will. He searched for something in his expression, gaze hovering wildly over his widened eyes, his parted lips, focusing in on the way his throat convulsed as he tried to swallow the lump down and get something, anything out. Whatever it was Mike was looking for he clearly didn’t find it, a strangled noise escaping his throat as he pressed his palms to his eyes.

Regardless, it seemed he was too far gone to stop now.

“And, um,” he pressed out, voice sounding dangerously unsteady, “all I could… all I could think about was this painting and about how- about how even if she told me she loved me she didn’t, not in the way you told me she did, not in the-” this last part in a broken whisper Will had to strain to hear, “-not in the way I wanted.”

It was a horrible, awful thing to say. And Will was a horrible, awful person for the way his heart rate picked up, and the way hope started creeping its way up his throat, familiar yet twisted. Not hope that his feelings for Mike were reciprocated – that was a horse he’d managed to beat to death enough times that it was well and truly underground – but hope that Mike and Jane were truly broken, that what they had was well beyond fixing, and he wouldn’t have to suffer through watching their relationship unfold in front of his eyes anymore.

He hated himself for it, but he’d serve his penance another time.

Mike peeked out at him from underneath one hand, shame clear and overwhelming in his expression. Will felt an ugly sliver of satisfaction curling somewhere in his core; Mike should be ashamed. His sister had been on the verge of sacrificing herself and yet he still somehow managed to make it about himself.

As was he. Will was too self-aware to not realise the satisfaction had nothing to do with Jane and everything with not having to sit with the shame alone.

 “Would you please say something?” Mike broke the silence, the pleading tone prevalent in his voice. Irrationally, Will felt a wave of anger wash over him. Mike had dragged him here in the middle of the night after the most difficult experience any of them had ever lived through, spilled his guts about how he didn’t love Jane because she couldn’t feel about him the way Will actually did feel, and he wanted… what? To be patted on the back and assured that someone would feel that way about him one day? Some girl out that that wasn’t Jane or Will?

He wished Mike wasn’t still capable of surprising him with his audacity.

“What do you want me to say?” Will barked out, letting frustration leak into his voice a bit more than he had intended to – he hated losing control, but Mike had a way of pressing all of his most sensitive buttons with effortless precision. He crossed his arms over his chest, preemptively trying to protect himself from whatever outburst he was sure would follow from Mike after that.

He was right, of course. They were like a rubber band, whenever they would grate at each other long enough for the friction to detonate into a confrontation – steadily stretching from both ends until one let go, prompting the other to pull back further and snap back even harder.

Mike’s hands dropped from his face, expression incredulous.

“What do I- the truth, Will!”

Will was reaching the end of his tether. He groaned, running a hand through his hair before bringing it down to pinch the bridge of his nose. “What fucking truth, Mike?!”

Mike scoffed, throwing his hands up. Will could see from the way his jaw was flexing that he was trying his hardest to pull his punches, which – that was a first.

“You know what I mean.”

Will gritted his teeth. The storm had well and truly begun and he could feel the electricity that had blown in with it making his hair stand on end. “I really wish you would enlighten me, Michael.”

He knew the use of his full name always aggravated Mike in this context. The pleasure he felt at watching Mike’s eye twitch and nostril flare was short-lived.

“How about,” Mike started, the edge to his words slightly different now, as if he had flipped a coin and it had landed on the other side. “About why you lied? Why you said it was from El, if it wasn’t?!”

He wanted to scream. “Does that really matter?”

“Yes, it matters! Do you think I would be asking if it didn’t?!” Mike yelled, voice cracking. There was something feverish in his eyes as they cast around Will’s face (still searching, always searching) that made Will feel exposed, like an artwork on display in the centre of an empty room. “And why would you say she felt that way about me, if she didn’t?! And- and-” Mike seemed to need to gather himself for a second, straightening up and rubbing a trembling hand over his mouth, “-is… is what you said even true?”

Will wanted to rage back, keep on biting and biting and biting until they were left with nothing but scraps of each other – the heat, anger and tension of the argument scratching an itch somewhere deep inside him, setting his veins alight and and making him feel alive in a way he hadn’t felt in a while – but there was a vulnerability to Mike’s words now that immediately dampened the urge.

He bit down on his irritation, holding Mike’s gaze even if it was making his skin crawl. His throat was tight, a pressure building that he refused to acknowledge. He swallowed it down, hard.

“Was what true?”

Will half-expected Mike to return to the comfortable push and pull of their rubber band when Will once again evaded answering with another question, but instead he shook Will to his core; his eyes softened, the emotions digging to the surface of his stare so open, so unguarded.

He was… begging. Begging Will to be honest with him.

“What you said about me being the heart. And- and… n-needing me.”

Will felt his face heat; he prayed to whatever was or wasn’t out there that Mike would not be able to see the change in the limited light. He returned to distracting himself with the loose thread of his sleeve, biting the inside of his cheek as he strained his brain trying to think of any possible way to stall. He found nothing.

Worst of all, he knew he wouldn’t be able to lie or avoid answering if Mike asked the right question, not after he had looked at him that way.

And, fuck, why did Mike even remember what he had said in that van over a hear and a half ago?!

Deflect. Deflect deflect deflect.

“Well,” he started, chewing on his lip. Mike’s eyes followed the action and stayed there for a beat too long. Will’s stomach flipped, the flush of his face flaring and spreading. He needed to focus. “It may not have been her words, and she may not feel that way now, but I… I’m guessing-”

“No, not her,” Mike interrupted, “you. Did you mean it?”

Fuck. Jesus. Fuck.

His ears were burning, and he was starting to sweat, and he felt like he was itching everywhere, and he kept on salivating, and Mike needed to stop looking at his lips before he did something stupid-

“Yes,” he breathed out, voice breaking. Instantly, he felt like a bucket of icy water had been tipped over him, his breathing starting to quicken. He grabbed onto his sleeve tightly, nails digging into the fabric. Mike stared at him with an intensity that made him feel like a bug under a microscope.

Well, too late for that, apparently.

For a moment, they were as still as the room they were in. The silence of the night was oppressive, pressing down around them and locking them into this stalemate where neither of them dared to shatter it save for with the sound of their choppy breaths. Some invisible force prevented them from breaking eye contact, pulling taught as their gazes grasped for purchase in each other, anything to make sense of what line in the sand they had just reached, and how to propel them over it.

Eventually, Mike seemed to find it, whatever it was.

“Fuck,” he whispered on a heavy breath, closing his eyes as something seemed to settle over him. His hand shook as he abruptly raised it, slipping it into his hair. The moonlight catching in his curls made them look like a halo surrounding his head, Will observed unhelpfully. “Fuck, okay.”

And this was just unfair, because whatever Mike had just understood Will hadn’t; he was still suspended in this charged moment, choking on the weight of his biggest and most closely kept secret sitting in the air between them. An irrational part of him wanted to claw at Mike, to dig his nails into flesh and scream at him, demand, beg, whatever it took for Mike to share whatever he had found, to stop burrowing deeper into the wound he had just torn open inside Will.

Mike’s eyes drifted open. Will wanted to vomit.

“Okay,” he repeated, taking a step towards Will. He resisted the urge to reclaim the distance, skin prickling. He watched Mike make his way closer, chest growing tighter with every inch of space disappearing between them. He nothing something unreadable shift in Mike’s gaze, saw his jaw clench, felt a tingling brush of air somewhere off too his side as Mike shook a hand out, letting it dangle somewhere that felt much closer to Will than to Mike (felt – he didn’t dare let himself check). His eyes were inexplicably drawn to the pattern the dried blood had left on his skin.

Mike stopped when he was close enough that Will had to strain to look into his eyes, close enough that he could feel Mike’s breath ghosting over his skin like a caress. They stood there for a moment, eyes still locked, the coil steadily tightening in Will’s chest becoming unbearable. Then, Mike’s gaze dropped somewhere lower to his right, and Will felt a gentle tug at the sleeve had had been so preoccupied with. He had to look, disbelieving, but no, he had been right – Mike’s hand. Mike’s hand which was now, achingly slowly, travelling up his forearm, then his arm. It was exceedingly gentle, the barest of brushes, but Will felt every section of skin Mike hand trailed over burn all the same. He lifted his gaze back up, desperate for answers, but Mike refused to meet him.

He stopped at his shoulder, pads of his fingers pressing down slightly harder. Will’s breath hitched; Mike didn’t miss it.

He finally turned his attention back to Will’s, searching for something in his face, lips slightly parted. If Will didn’t know any better, he’d say there was something darker in his eyes than usual, something desperate; he blamed it on the low light.

Mike’s gaze flicked down to Will’s lips.

His brain short circuited; there was no way he could blame that on the low light. He tried to grasp onto any explanation that wasn’t the one constantly trying to force its way into the forefront of his mind, but it was starting to get increasingly difficult. All of the evidence he had been desperately trying not to read into all night was starting to stack up so high he was struggling to see over it, and that look might have been the last block on the Jenga tower. Because there was no way to explain Mike drawing closer, his hand drifting nearer and nearer to his neck, drawing tantalising spirals into his clothed skin as he went, there was no way that Mike was still staring at his lips-

He had about half a second to process before Mike’s hand was lifting to his jaw, as if getting bored of his own torturous pace, fingers threading into the hair at the nape of Will’s neck. Shivers erupted from the point of contact and dispersed down his back. Mike swallowed, tongue dipping out to wet his lips, eyes darting up to meet Will’s briefly. And with that, the tower fell, Will not being able to find any arguments to counteract it any longer. The thought registered with a heavy thud in his stomach, which quickly melted and spread through his insides like hot honey.

Mike was going to kiss him.

“Please don’t-” Mike whispered, thumb coasting over Will’s cheekbone. Will didn’t get to find out what it was he wasn’t supposed to do.

Mike crashed into him, uncoordinated and feverish; the very first press of Mike’s lips to his too rough, too off-centre, the tip of his nose stabbing into Will’s cheekbone awkwardly and his tooth snagging on his bottom lip unpleasantly.

It was perfect.

At some point in the years Will had known Mike, Will was never able to place exactly when, a bubble had popped into existence inside his chest. It had started growing whenever he was in the other boy’s presence – expanding and expanding and expanding, the pressure building with every accidental brush of the hand; every look that ended abruptly with diverted eyes and a blush; every press of legs that he struggled increasingly to not call intentional; every shared smile that ruptured and cracked something inside him, that with time started to feel more and more like a secret they couldn’t let anyone else in on.

Now, with Mike’s hand on his jaw and fingers tangled in his hair, it finally burst; burst in a rain of fire and heat, spreading through his veins like poison, pumping through his body from his heart to the tips of his fingers and toes.

He suddenly felt very awake.

He felt the pressure of Mike’s lips ease off slightly, could sense signs that he was preparing to retreat; embarrassingly, he threw himself against Mike without a second thought, the need to keep him right where he was pushing him over the edge. He stumbled forward, shaking hands brushing over Mike’s chest, coasting over his jaw and snaking into his curls. He had no idea what he was doing, but he had years upon years of repressed feelings’ worth of enthusiasm to make up for it, and he poured it all into the press of his mouth on Mike’s.

And maybe it wasn’t so embarrassing, because as soon as Mike felt the kiss was reciprocated he let out a desperate sound Will wouldn’t let himself label as a whine (for the sake of his own sanity), and wrapped his free arm around Will’s waist, pulling him closer.

The butterflies in his stomach that were ever-present around Mike exploded, beating their wings with a ferocity that was almost making him nauseated. He pressed even closer, curling his fingers into Mike’s curls tighter and lifting onto his toes so he could slot his lips more comfortably to Mike’s after they parted. He let Mike lead him back, still not comfortable enough to set the pace, but the reaction it spurred in Mike was worth it.

He let out another breathy sound, then wrapped his left arm even tighter around Will, letting his hand travel upwards over Will’s back and tug him forward so they were chest to chest. Those tell-tale tingles burned once again at the contact. The other hand, the one still on the nape of Will’s neck, trailed back down over Will’s jaw, leaving more shivers in its wake.

Will’s head was spinning. He was melting into Mike, any and all coherent thought evaporating with every press of Mike’s mouth to his, every small hint of tongue every time their lips re-latched, every flush of heat that spread from his toes to the tip of his head, every brush of fingers on his back or now on his neck-

And then Mike was pulling back, the hand that had previously been on his jaw pressing gently against his chest, but not before tugging on Will’s bottom lip gently with his teeth and- oh-

Mike detached himself, retreating slightly, and Will flushed furiously at the noise that escaped him at the sudden lack of Mike in his personal space. He didn’t even withdraw that far for crying out loud – he was still enveloped in his scent (admittedly not a very becoming one, after the day and night they’ve had, but still Mike and still everything he wanted), still breathing the same air, still so close that he wouldn’t have been able to look into his eyes without leaning back.

All in all, very telling. He didn’t need Mike knowing how desperate he was for him right away.

Judging by the way the corner of Mike’s lips quirked, he hadn’t been very successful in concealing that. Will braced for whatever teasing comment was coming his way, but Mike didn’t say anything, just stared at Will with hooded eyes (eyes still glued to his lips) chest heaving as he caught his breath.

It was only then that Will realised how breathless he was. He tried to suck down a few fat gulps, hoping the oxygen would make him even the slightest bit more clear-headed. Failing that, he slid his hands out of Mike’s hair and over his face, tracing the shape of his ears with his thumbs, the curve of his cheekbones, then finally the shape of his lips, pressing his top lip down gently. He watched Mike’s eyelids flutter from the contact, felt the jittery breath pierce straight through him with another jolt. The knowledge that he had elicited this reaction from Mike was making his head swim.

Mike adjusted his grip, sliding his hand lower down Will’s back, the other trailing down his chest and abdomen before settling on his waist. Will’s breath hitched, which made Mike’s eyelids flutter in acknowledgment, but his gaze never left his lips. It was suddenly getting hotter again, and Mike’s eyelids were lowering, and he was leaning in again-

A thought crashed into his brain and tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop it.

“Um,” he uttered, way too loud in the quiet of the empty house. “Don’t what?”

“Huh?” Mike responded distractedly, and Will was quite sure he hadn’t heard what he said; if his heart was pounding in his ears anywhere near as loudly as Will’s was in his, that wouldn’t surprise him. Mike had stopped inching closer, but hadn’t pulled back either, his focus still fixed on a singular point. It hit Will that if he closed the distance his question would immediately be forgotten and they’d be kissing again, if he wanted to. Which, he very much did want to.

“You said ‘please don’t’. ‘Please don’t’ what?”

Jesus, what was wrong with him?

Mike did seem to hear this time, corners of his lips curling into a smirk, and Will knew he was in trouble. He removed his gaze from Will’s mouth for the first time in what felt like hours (Will felt like he could breathe again), flickering up to catch Will’s, eyes sparkling.

“‘Please don’t hate me’,” he explained, and Will noted with satisfaction that he sounded just as undone as he had, voice cracking. His eyes returned to their former position, almost like making a point, “but I think I don’t have to worry about that, huh?”

Will felt the ever-present blush on his face flare up. He was gripped with the sudden urge to wipe that smile off Mike’s face, one way or another, so he adjusted his right hand, dropping it to Mike’s shoulder and giving it a light shove. It had the opposite of the intended effect – if anything, Mike grinned even wider.

Will breathed out, blood roaring in his veins. He wondered if anyone had ever spontaneously combusted from kissing before. And, Mike, God, he was not helping – the way he was watching him… it was intoxicating. He never wanted it to stop. He needed it to stop immediately.

“What are you so smug about?” he questioned in an attempt to redirect his brain before it leaked out of his ears.

“Well…” Mike started with a glint in his eye, removing the hand that had just landed on Will’s hip and brining it to run through the hair at Will’s temple, gently pushing it out of his face. Will wanted to feel embarrassed for the way he instinctively leaned into the touch, eyes drifting shut, but couldn’t. “I just found out Will Byers likes me, so I think I’m well within my rights.”

His eyes snapped open, the opportunity to tease Mike back too tempting to resist. “Like you? That’s awfully presumptuous of you, don’t you think?”

Mike’s smile grew even wider, if at all possible. His hand settled on Will’s jaw, thumb rubbling circles into his cheek and slowly turning his brain into mush. He coaxed Will closer until his mouth hovered just over his ear, lips brushing over his skin as he whispered, “Well… we were just kissing, so…”

Will trembled, shivers ghosting over his scalp, then pulled back to look at Mike. He couldn’t really argue the point.

He decided to kiss him instead.

He shifted back onto his tiptoes, using the hold he still had on Mike’s face as leverage to draw him down, and closed the minuscule space between them. The butterflies fluttering inside him were sure to rip right through the lining of his stomach soon enough.

As soon as their mouths connected Will dropped his hands onto Mike’s chest, and started trailing them wherever he could, finally allowed to touch Mike the way he had always wanted to – down his chest with one hand, as far as he could reach with their bodies pressed together, over his shoulder with the other, down his bicep, up and over to his back. Mike sighed into the kiss, the sound reverberating through Will’s entire body. Then gently, slowly, Mike started nudging Will backwards, pushing and pushing until he hit the wall.

A gasp ripped out of Will as he felt the surface connect against his back, and he broke away for a moment, eyes catching on the door to his left, which was still wide open. He had enough presence of mind to be grateful that the house was empty, but not enough to remember the literal hole leading through Mike’s closet to his parents’ room.

Mike took this opportunity to press a kiss to his jaw, and all coherent thought flooded out of his brain. He tipped his head back against the wall, which Mike took as encouragement to trail kisses down his neck, each one slower and more lingering than the last. Then, a hand detached from Will’s jaw, smoothing down his shoulder and bicep before dropping onto his waist, where it toyed with the hem of his hoodie for a while before slipping underneath, resting on the bare skin of Will’s waist.

Will inhaled sharply at the difference in temperature, prompting Mike to draw back up to eye level, a very frustrating grin splitting his face. “Problem, Byers?”

Will’s face burned. You’d think he’d get tired of that by now, but this re-contextualised every single time he’d gotten flushed and flustered around Mike over the years in a way he was going to have a hard time not replaying in his mind for hours upon hours after this.

“Shut up and kiss me,” he said simply, which had a mesmerising effect on Mike that he would have to file away for deconstruction later; he blinked a few times, owlishly, his jaw snapped shut almost comically fast, and his hand clenched on his waist. Then, swallowing, he obeyed without comment.

Most definitely to be agonised over later.

This time when they reconnected, the kiss was instantly hungrier, deeper. Mike pressed into him harder, open-mouthed, tongue caressing his with every kiss, and-

Oh.

This was what he had been waiting for; the taste and feel of Mike’s tongue against his, the heat of his touch splayed on his abdomen, the heady mindless rush in his head. This was what the romance books he snuck from Jane were preparing him for, what his mom had warned him about with a glint in her eye, what made his friends decide to completely forsake their childhood in the span of one bleak summer.

The wait had been so, so worth it.

His head was swimming, nothing able to break through the haze in his brain anymore except Mike Mike Mike Mike’s lips Mike’s tongue Mike Mike’s hands Mike and he was burning, every point of contact with Mike scorching, and he wanted him closer, wanted to tug and tug until their bodies melded together to the point where you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began and-

Ok, Jesus, enough.

“Mike,” he croaked out, turning his head to the side without warning so that Mike’s kiss landed on this cheek instead, uncoordinated and sloppy. His entire body protested, screaming at him to attach himself back to Mike; the fact that he couldn’t think of a single reason for why he shouldn’t was confirmation enough that he needed space, and urgently.

“Mike,” he repeated since the other boy didn’t seem to have heard him, already journeying back down to his neck. This time though, his voice seemed to break through, as he slowly, reluctantly, detached his mouth from Will. He didn’t draw back right away though, tilting his head down to rest his forehead on Will’s shoulder for a few beats. Will didn’t complain, grateful for the moment of respite to catch his breath.

Eventually, though, he attempted to speak again. “We should…” he started, not sure where the sentence was supposed to end.

Mike seemed to get it though. “Yeah,” he agreed, nodding against Will, his curls tickling Will’s collarbone. He got the urge to run his hand through those curls again, so he did.

This got Mike to raise his head again, something passing behind his eyes that Will was having a very hard time putting his finger on. He couldn’t help noticing, though, how good Mike looked like this – hair ruffled and messy, lips swollen, eyes glazed over.

He bit his lip before he could say something stupid like I love you.

Mike tracked the movement, as Will was starting to notice he always seemed to do, which, another thing to put in the for later pile. He stayed there, entranced, for a few seconds, before dropping his head back down, onto Will’s chest this time.

“Thank God,” he breathed against Will’s chest, the sound almost muffled by Will’s hoodie, but Will caught it.

“What?” he said, heart caught in his chest, and gently tugged on the ends of Mike’s hair to bring his face back up. Mike followed without protest but seemed reluctant to speak. If Will didn’t know any better (and had more light to prove it one way or the other), he’d say that Mike’s entire face was flushed. “Mike.”

Mike sighed, seemingly resigned to the fact that he might as well be honest, considering, well. “I said thank God.” Will raised his eyebrows, demanding elaboration. “Thank God that… I didn’t read this wrong and that you’re… gay,” this punched a shocked laugh out of Will’s chest. Mike’s gaze dropped to his mouth, pensive, “that I kissed you.”

Will’s heartbeat picked up at that, lips buzzing with the memory of Mike pressed against him. The butterflies in his belly rioted, beating at the walls of their enclosure with unparalleled fervour. He was melting into the moment, pads of his fingers rubbing the tufts of Mike’s hair between them absently, a light and elated and entirely too revealing smile creeping onto this face. Mike mirrored his expression, the hand at his back shifting slightly and starting to rub circles into his-

Then, all at once, everything shattered with a single thought:

Jane.

They had forgotten about Jane, Will’s sister whom he cherished and loved dearly and whom he almost lost today, but, most importantly, who was Mike’s girlfriend.

And who would be absolutely devastated at what they had just done.

Will tore out of Mike’s embrace as if he had been burned. He felt Mike’s hand linger at his waist, trying to chase him, but he slapped it away.

If there had ever been any doubt about him going to hell, this solidified it without a doubt.

He paused only once he got enough distance from Mike that he couldn’t feel the gravity surrounding Mike that always pulled Will towards him anymore, back facing him resolutely so he wouldn’t be forced to see Mike’s reaction to his sudden departure. He just so happened to end up right in front of Mike’s desk; fist pressed to his mouth to try to circumvent the roiling of his stomach, his eyes roaming over the object that had started this all.

He heard Mike release a shuddering breath. He crushed his eyes closed, mentally trying to block it out. “Will?” He sounded so uncertain, voice so small. Will felt bile rise up his throat.

He heard a shift behind him, and the prickling on the back of his neck was enough to confirm that Mike was in his proximity again, and he had brought that gravity back with him. Fingers grasped at his elbow; he shook them off, something cold and unpleasant tipping down his spine.

“Will?” Mike tried again, and attempted a different tactic of catching Will’s attention, sidling over to the left to insert himself into his periphery; Will refused to let him, turning away every time he caught a glimpse of his shadow. “Will, I-” there was a distressed quality to his voice now, and it was cracking something open in Will. “Will, please. I’m really going to start panicking if you don’t look at me right now.”

Will took a deep, steadying breath. He hadn’t nearly gotten his nausea under control, but he couldn’t help imagining how’d he’d feel if he was on the receiving end of this behaviour from Mike in that moment, and he couldn’t do that to him much longer.

Peeling his eyes open, he turned around.

The sight of Mike devastated him; his arms were crossed over his chest in an unnaturally stiff manner, both hands clenched in the sleeves of his sweater; his eyes were unreadable, but the deep furrow in his eyebrows and rapid blinking gave him away; his lips, already kiss-swollen, were being mercilessly ravaged by his teeth. It made his throat close up, the guilt at making Mike look like this harsh and scorching.

Most of all, though, he was gripped by the debilitating and overwhelming desire to step back into Mike’s orbit, to smooth away the furrow of his brow, to wrap his arms around him, rest his head on Mike’s chest and let everything else fade away to the sound of Mike’s heartbeat.

He wrapped his arms around his middle and dug his fingers into his sides, hard.

The undefinable look in Mike’s eyes dissolved, replaced by something pleading as he searched for something in his face. “Will, if this is about what we’ve done-”

He broke his temporary silence in a hot flash. “Yes, it’s about what we’ve done, Mike!”

Mike reacted as if he’d been slapped, recoiling. His breath came in quick bursts, an intense blend of hurt and panic flashing through his eyes. Will realised his mistake immediately.

Shit, fuck, not like that, not like that.

“No, Mike, I didn’t- not like- fuck,” he jumped to correct, voice frenzied. Mike looked maybe a fraction less like he’d just had the ground ripped out from under his feet, but still like a single word could tip him over into the wrong side of hyperventilating. So, Will decided to say the one and only word that should have been able to explain everything: “El.”

A sliver of recognition trickled into Mike’s expression. “Oh,” he said, nose wrinkling as he seemed to test the weight of what Will had said in his head. And then, understanding seemed to flood in all at once. “Oh. Oh, Will, no.”

Mike crossed the distance between them in two strides, latching onto Will’s elbows. Will tried to flinch away; Mike didn’t let him, grip tightening. He lowered himself to Will’s line of sight, trying to draw Will’s eyes to meet his. Will refused, gaze flickering between the shadows above Mike’s shoulders, difficult as it was with Mike dominating his field of vision. Mike growled, jerking him forward slightly by the elbows. “Will.”

Oh, fine.

Reluctantly, Will met his gaze. He knew that look – determined, unyielding; Mike wasn’t going to back down. Will felt his stomach twist in apprehension.

“Will, I need you to listen carefully and understand this: El and I are not together.”

Will heart slammed in his chest, slow and heavy. What?

“What?” he said, voice hoarse, vocalising the only thought rolling through his head a like a high-speed carnival ride.

“I told you; we aren’t together.”

His brain froze, tripping over the part of Mike’s sentence that just didn’t fit. “What you told me was that you aren’t really together. There’s a very big difference between not together and not really together, Mike.”

Mike grimaced, his discomfort at being confronted with the vague nature of his words from earlier apparent in the way he shifted in place. His hold on Will’s elbows twisted, thumbs digging into the divots on the insides of his arms. “Yeah that’s… that’s fair.”

Will suppressed a groan. “So, which is it?”

Mike jolted, shaking his head as if trying to clear it of any thought. His curls bounced around his face in a manner that Will found much too entrancing. “We’re not,” he answered, voice steady and certain. Will’s disbelief must’ve been evident, because he immediately            followed up with an even more resolute, “we’re not. Okay, listen,” Mike breathed out, the exhale heavy and tremulous, then stroked his hands down Will’s arms in a soothing manner. Will, weak as he was, let him. “I know what I said sounded… how it sounded,” Will huffed out an assenting noise, “but El and I… we haven’t really been together for a long time. Trust me.”

Again, with the really. “You’re not doing a great job of reassuring me.”

Mike threw back his head, chest rumbling with a pained sound Will could almost swear he could feel through their shared point of contact. As if Will was the one being unreasonable here. “Will… okay, c’mere.”

Mike tried to draw him forward by the elbows, gesturing over to the bed behind them with his head. Will hesitated. On the one hand, exhaustion was starting to slam back into his bones with an intensity that was making even the rubble of Mike’s closet look like an inviting place to rest his head, so they might as well sit for this conversation. Sitting wasn’t giving in, it wasn’t forgiveness. But on the other hand…

On the other, he could already feel his resolve crumbling at an alarming rate. He could already see himself drawing into Mike, nestling his head into his shoulder, accepting any answer he gave him. Even though he had given him nowhere close to a satisfying explanation, even though he had dug himself deeper, if anything.

With a soft sigh and small nod, he relented. He always relented.

Mike led them to the bed, lowering Will down before sitting himself. Too close. Will shuffled away, trying to put a healthy measure of distance between them, which was made difficult by the fact that Mike still had a vice-like grip on his arms and refused to ease off. He watched Will do this with a huff and gentle roll of his eyes, but didn’t try to stop him.

“Okay, so,” Mike started once Will had situated himself, blowing a stray curl out of his face. Will felt his fingers twitch. “We haven’t been together for months now. Maybe even since we got back from California. And I know how it sounds when I say this, but it’s only because we haven’t had an official break-up conversation-”

Will gaped. “You haven’t had a proper conversation about it?!”

Mike scrambled. “No, but… would you just listen?” despite everything, despite the panic fluttering in his chest and his blood turning cold and the slowly settling thought that he had in fact lost his sister forever today, Will had to bite back a smile.

He was so deeply, irrevocably fucked. So desperately in love with this boy.

He nodded, signalling for Mike to continue. Mike took a deep breath.

“What I’ve been trying to say is that maybe we already started drifting since California, maybe a bit later. Either way, it wasn’t until many months later that we both accepted it. Around the time that I asked about the…” he trailed off, gaze shifting. Will’s stomach churned; he didn’t need to turn to know what Mike was looking at. “We already hadn’t kissed or done anything romantic for months then, and when we both let go of those expectations something… shifted. We didn’t need to have a conversation, we both just… felt it,” Mike punctuated this with a brief glance back at Will and a squeeze of his elbows. “I…realised she would never love me the way I wanted, and I could never love her the way…” he sucked in a breath, chewing on his lips, gaze cutting away from the painting and onto where his thumbs were digging into the insides of Will’s elbows.

Will’s brain screeched to a stop. Mike could never love Jane in a… certain way, and it was the painting that had made him realise it.

Will’s painting. Will’s feelings.

He tried not to linger on the various ways Mike’s sentence could have ended if he hadn’t cut himself off, but his mind supplied them anyway.

The way she deserved. The way I wanted to. The way she wanted me to. And, the most terrifying yet exhilarating option: not the way I love you.

He couldn’t let himself obsess over it.

Even so, he knew he would. Later.

“Uh, ok,” he acknowledged intelligently, licking his lips to try to combat the sudden cotton-like feeling in his mouth. Mike’s eyebrows were drawn up in that puppy dog way of his, his lower lip jutting out in a way that was just so unfair. “And you’re sure Jane feels the same way?”

Mike’s eyes lit up, a smile starting to pull at his cheeks, and Will wanted to kick himself; he’d been too obvious, his acceptance too quick. Mike knew he was crumbling. “Yes. One-hundred percent.”

Will nodded, swallowing around the dryness of his throat. There was just one thing though. “But,” he started, trying to make sense of anything around the sudden warmth of Mike’s gaze. “You said that you couldn’t tell her you loved her back.”

Mike’s growing smile wavered a smidge. “Oh. That.”

Yes, that. That very big, elephant-sized, gaping hole in his argument.

Mike released a tense breath, something that sounded both like freedom and a cage. “She wasn’t looking for it in that way. She was just… she was sure she was about to die, and she was looking for comfort, something warm to carry with her to the next life, but I was just so stuck on never being able to say it before, and why I couldn’t, and the context of those previous times and not wanting to lie to her in her last moments… and I just… I couldn’t. Not even then,” something in his smile turned sad, his eyes looking suspiciously moist. He let out a huff that Will assumed was supposed to be a self-deprecating laugh, but it sounded wrong in his ears, too harsh. “The worst thing was, she seemed to understand. She hugged me, told me to be happy…”

He deflated, spent from the emotional labour, wet eyes dripping with guilt and something so raw and sensitive as he looked up at Will through a curtain of lashes. As if he was bracing for something. Will couldn’t take it anymore.

He freed one of his hands from Mike’s clutches, brining it up to cradle Mike’s cheek. Mike’s eyelids fluttered.

“Okay,” he said, giving in.

“Okay?” Mike repeated, the hope painfully obvious in his voice.

“Okay.”

Something fell into place with the confirmation, a seismic shift that lodged a rock into a crevice it would never be moved from again. A point of no return.

Mike exhaled in relief, tension melting away from his shoulders. He shifted closer to Will on the bed, pressing their thighs against each other, bringing his now-free hand to draw patterns into Will’s knee. Will didn’t pull away.

The energy in the room morphed into something new entirely with the nervous clearing of Mike’s throat.

“So, um,” Mike uttered, squirming in his seat, eyes flickering constantly to the little he could see of Will’s hand on his face from his periphery for a beat, before dropping to his lap. He dislodged his hand from Will’s elbow, freeing it only to trail down Will’s forearm and latch onto his fingers, fiddling with them interchangeably; Will felt that familiar buzzing and heat beneath his skin again. “Just for clarity’s sake… you do like me, right?”

Will could have laughed. “Mike, what about anything tonight could have given you the impression that I don’t?”

Mike floundered, gaze fixed resolutely on where he was still playing with Will’s hand. His movements were a bit more erratic, hand shaking slightly. “Well, I don’t- I don’t know… I just…” he finally lifted his head to look at Will, and oh. Now that he was the one bathed in moonlight, Will could undeniably see that he was blushing. “I just wanted to make sure that we’re on- on the same page. Because…”

He cut himself off, breath hitching as he stared at Will. Will felt his heart rate pick up.

“Because…?”

“Because I would really like to kiss you again, after this,” Mike pushed out, all in one breath. Will’s belly swooped. “A-and also date you. Take you out on dates, I mean. Woo you. All that stuff.”

Will’s brain stuttered. “Woo me?”

The blush on Mike’s face was impossible to ignore now. “Okay, come on, you know what I mean,” he searched Will’s face, eyebrows pinched and eyes wide and hopeful, but so palpably nervous and apprehensive, and it was so painfully endearing-

Will adjusted his grip on Mike’s face and leaned in to kiss him. He felt Mike immediately melt into it.

He pulled away before either of them could get the bright idea to deepen it – it was not a kiss meant to escalate, but to reassure. Mike’s smile was giddy, eyes glowing, but there was still something in his expression-

“Okay, see, that feels like an answer, but-”

Will burst into giggles, tilting forward to drop his forehead onto Mike’s shoulder. “Yes, Mike, I want to date you.”

When he straightened up, the smile that split Mike’s was absolutely blinding.

“Just so we’re clear though,” he said, because he still couldn’t quite let this go, “we will not be doing any of that until I get a clear indication from Jane’s side that she is just as convinced as you are that you two are broken up. Whether you prompt this or me, I need to hear it from her. Deal?”

Mike grinned, nothing able to push past the euphoric haze he was in now. “Deal.”

There wasn’t much to say after that, the long-sought point of resolution finally reached. However, they weren’t willing to expose this new precious thing between them to the merciless scrutiny of the outside world just yet. They stayed there for a while longer; fingers tangled, foreheads pressed together and breaths intermingling as they supported each other’s weight, the exhaustion from before creeping in steadily now that the initial exhilaration of romantic reciprocity had fizzled out slowly, leaving them with the – just as important, but admittedly less explosive – comfortable and peaceful hum of a promise of things to come.

The reluctance to pop the timeless bubble they now found themselves in was keenly felt by both of them – as long as they refused to leave it they could pretend; pretend that they wouldn’t have to hide; pretend that the world didn’t hate them just for being what they were; pretend that the very real possibility they could lose everyone they loved just for daring to choose something good, something that made them happy didn’t exist.

Pretend that every day of their lives from here on out wouldn’t be an uphill battle.

Well, not more of an uphill battle than it already had been, for boys like them, but an uphill battle all the same.

Eventually, though, Will was forced to face the necessity of their departure. The silence they had been suspended in started to disappear, the occasional trill of birdsong starting to break through the night. The moonlight they had been bathed in started to increase in brightness, Will coming to the realisation that he could now make out the slight purple hue of Mike’s sweater, the one that had seemed pure navy just a while before. Not to mention, Mike’s head, which had landed on Will’s shoulder anywhere between minutes to an hour earlier, was starting to dip regularly, requiring constant readjustment from Mike.

Sighing internally, Will brought his free hand up to toy with one of the curls that had fallen into Mike’s face, not quite able to bring himself to wake him just yet. He looked so… peaceful like this. Will hadn’t seen him look like that since… well, not since November 6^th, 1983. There were a few nights that came close in these past months since they returned from California, nights wracked with nightmares that spurred them to wordlessly climb into bed together, seeking comfort in nothing but the awareness of the other’s presence beside them. But none of them made Mike look quite so… unburdened.

Will felt his heart clench, stomach churning. The intense wave of love for Mike that suddenly hit him caught him off guard, the words almost tumbling off his tongue with zero resistance. He bit down on the offending organ, hard, clenching his jaw shut. He knew Mike was sleeping, and he probably wouldn’t have heard them, but still, he wouldn’t, couldn’t do this. Couldn’t risk scaring Mike off with the intensity of what he felt when he had just got him, not when he had zero inclination of how deep Mike’s feelings ran, or how long he’d been aware of them.

For all Will knew, Mike could’ve stumbled upon the realisation that he liked boys five seconds before he had kissed Will. Maybe he wasn’t even sure of it until their lips were pressed together.

Will knew he was being ungenerous, considering some of what Mike had said after, but he had had this buried inside him so long, had killed and re-killed hope so many times, that he’d bite his tongue as many times as it took.

He dove down to bury his face in Mike’s curls instead, as fluffy and soft as he’d always imagined, but also still caked in gunk and dirt and God knew what else, and only then released his teeth’s grip on his tongue. Only then, let his jaw relax. Only then, let himself mouth the words into Mike’s hair, where they would live and die inside this bubble once they left it behind.

He’d let himself have that much.

Despite Will’s efforts not to wake him, Mike begun to sir. Whether it was from the sensation of Will’s hot breath against his scalp, or the soft thunk of Will’s head dropping onto his, or the tickling against his nose from Will tugging at one of his curls, or none of those at all – Will didn’t know – but he felt a tiny pang of guilt for it regardless.

“Mmhm,” Mike groaned, twisting to bury himself deeper into Will’s neck, throwing an arm around his abdomen and grabbing at the fabric of Will’s hoodie at his waist. Will felt himself flush despite himself. Well, this was just worse, entirely counteractive to his current goal of getting Mike and himself away and out of here.

He had to, unfortunately, start taking matters into his own hands.

“Mike,” he whispered, voice slightly hoarse from misuse. He didn’t like the suggestion of how long they’d been sitting there in silence from that. He brought his other hand up from where it had been resting on the mattress up to Mike’s shoulder, jostling it slightly. “Mike, we have to go.”

Mike only groaned again, and nestled in closer.

This was going just swimmingly.

“Mike,” Will tried again, a hint of desperation present in his voice. Mike’s hand just drifted lower to rest on his hip. Will huffed, casting his glance around Mike’s rapidly brightening room for anything that could aid him in his plight.

The problem was, he wasn’t really opposed to staying in Mike’s room, entangled in each other and breathing in each other’s warmth, however questionable the liveability of Mike’s room was at that moment. No, as a matter of fact, it was preferable – it would have been so easy to just resign into the moment, deny the existence of reality for at least a few more hours. He could already imagine his eyes slipping shut, could already feel himself succumbing, falling back onto the bed, Mike’s weight on him firm and grounding. He already knew that would be the best sleep he’d ever have in his life.

He also knew that if the crew back at the WSQK woke up to find them gone after what they’d all just been through that day (yesterday?), in a moment when they were still all very tender and vulnerable, that would be a brutal and unnecessary shock to the system. His, mother, if she found him missing after all that, may actually suffer cardiac arrest.

So, he really needed to get them up now.

He wrapped his hands around Mike’s face, bracketing his jaw, and lifted his head from his shoulder. He immediately mourned the loss, but it was starting to have the desired effect – Mike let out a dissatisfied whine, his brow drawing down and his eyelids fluttering gently.

“Mike,” he repeated, slightly harsher this time. Apart from a few more flutters of the eyelids, it wasn’t breaking through Mike’s haze of sleep. Will bit back an irritated huff. It was time for drastic measures.

He dipped forward and captured Mike’s lips with his, desperately ignoring the effect it had on him. He pushed in, kiss almost bruising, instantly tangling his hand into the hair at Mike’s nape and tugging, teeth seeking purchase on Mike’s bottom lip and biting down. He had to wake up, for fuck’s sake.

Mike’s reaction was immediate, if leisurely. First, he felt Mike’s lips pull up into a smile against his own, then a slight twitch against his hip. Then, all at once, he responded; he leaned into Will, adjusting the angle of his face so he could press into the kiss with intention; he dipped the hand that had been fiddling with the trim of Will’s hoodie under his clothes, fingers splaying across his stomach; he sighed into the kiss, shifting to hover over Will, slowly and inconspicuously pushing him backwards, and backwards…

Will was so close, so close to surrendering into it, so close to forgetting the intention behind kissing Mike in the first place, letting it all drift into the wind… but then he felt the brush of bedsheets against the back of his head and jerked awake.

He sat back up with a jolt, the momentum of the action almost knocking their heads together. He scooted backwards on the bed in a frenzy, urgently needing to put distance between himself and Mike. He had almost let himself forget the bigger picture again; he felt the need to knock his head on the wall behind him, shake some fragments of sense loose in his head. Better yet, stick it into a bucket of freezing water.

Mike let him do this without protest, the residue of sleep still leaving him dazed, his reaction time slow. The smile stretching his lips, however, was far too aware and much too self-satisfied.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Will groaned, scrubbing a hand down his face. He tried to pour some irritation into the words, but he was still too wired to make it sound convincing. “I was only trying to wake you up.”

Mike quirked an eyebrow, smirk growing wider, if anything. He saw a familiar glint appear in his eyes and knew that whatever Mike was about to say next would piss him off. “Accosting your paladin while he’s unconscious? Think of the scandal, sorcerer.”

He had been right. He dropped his head in his hands, groaning.

He hated that Mike had the energy to slip into his dungeon master voice, at this time. He hated how corny it was. He hated how helplessly endeared he was.

He hated how the words your paladin had made his heart skip a beat.

“Okay, Mike,” he recovered quickly, letting his hands drift away and sticking his gaze firmly onto Mike. He didn’t have time to linger on every little thing Mike had said that night that made his head spin in circles; as with everything else he’d already delegated to a pile in the corner of his mind, later. “We really have to get back now. If anyone back at the station wakes up and notices we’re gone…”

That seemed to snap Mike out of the haze he was in, blinking a few times and tearing his eyes away from where they had been on a slow but steady journey down to Will’s lips. Typical.

Once recovered, he twisted this way and that to take in the appearance of his room, only now seeming to absorb the fact that it was much lighter than it should have been. His face morphed into a grimace as he seemed to battle with accepting the fact that they did really have to leave. After a few reluctant moments of staring off into space somewhere near Will’s shoulder, he jerked his head in an almost imperceptible nod. “Yeah, fuck, okay.”

Only then did he let his attention shift back onto Will. When their eyes met, Will’s breath almost caught – he could see the same uncertainty, the same exact worries and hesitance mirrored in his gaze. He softened immediately, but he didn’t reach out to Mike; he knew exactly where they’d end up again if he did.

“Listen, I know,” he said instead, holding Mike’s gaze and hoping it would be able to communicate everything he wasn’t able to with words. His body leaned forwards slightly to provide some measure of comfort – at this point he couldn’t tell if that was a conscious choice, or if his body automatically gravitated towards Mike after more than five seconds of distance. “But we’ll manage it together, right?”

Mike’s lips quirked into a smile, something Will wasn’t capable of discerning flashing in his eyes. “Crazy together.”

Will’s breath did catch in his chest this time, mouth falling open. He felt those treacherous words from earlier bubbling up in his throat yet again, and had to scramble desperately to shove them back into the locked box in his chest they had somehow managed to escape from. How did Mike even remember things like this?

He swallowed, lamenting to himself about the very real threat to his sanity that Mike Wheeler posed. “Yeah, crazy together,” he let out a tremulous breath, slotting his hands together in his lap so they would stop shaking. Then, deciding not to overthink it, “for the record, I would really like to hold your hand right now, but I know we’d just end up kissing again if I did and… we really can’t afford that right now.”

The smile pulling at Mike’s lips was exceptionally infuriating. It did nothing to help with his resolution not to kiss him. “Would we, now?”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes, we would. Now we really have to go.”

He pushed himself off the bed and jumped up before Mike could spy his blush, carefully skirting around Mike’s range of motion (though he knew if Mike really wanted to, his lanky limbs would probably reach everywhere). Then, brushing his hands down his sweats, more out of a desire to dispel nerves than to try to actually dislodge any dust, he turned to Mike expectantly.

Mike just stared at him for a few seconds, biting down on his lip, but eventually straightened and followed Will off the bed, rolling his limbs up in a manner that suggested they weighed tonnes.

Which, to be fair, they might have done.

Immediately, when he stood face-to-face with Mike, Will felt that buzz that made him hyper-aware of where Mike was in relation to him at all times, the one that made him want to drift into his orbit and follow him wherever he decided to go, in this dimension or any other.

He swallowed, not letting himself notice the fact that Mike caught the movement.

“After you,” he said, sidestepping so the way to Mike’s door was clear. Mike huffed, as if he was ridiculous (which he might have been, considering he was closest to the door, but the thought of having Mike behind him made him feel so unsettled and dizzy that he thought he might have fallen down the stairs on purpose, just to see if Mike would catch him), but obeyed, the disturbance of air as Mike passed him prickling his skin.

He moved to parrot Mike’s footsteps, but his eyes caught on canvas spread over Mike’s desk before could, the colours much more vibrant now in the low light.

A feeling he couldn’t quite make sense of scratched at his insides as he thought of the painting; a part of him wanted to burst into hysterical laughter, the other to cry. There was a time where he wished for nothing more than for Mike to throw it away, so they could both forget about it and Mike would never get the chance to scrutinise it too deeply. There was a time when it represented one of the most painful memories of his life. There was a time when it was a physical manifestation of his most secret feelings, the boldest a confession a boy like him would ever dare to make.

Now, he realised with a grimace, he’d probably have to feel some begrudging measure of gratitude towards it.

He followed Mike out onto the landing, shutting the door behind him with a click.

The morning arrived far too quickly, slipping its tendrils into the radio station with one small action after the other. Gentle, yet unapologetic.

First, the careful patter of feet on the concrete floor of the basement. Then, the scent of freshly brewed coffee wafting in from the break room. The soft hum of voices starting to exchange hellos and reassurances, breaking the stalemate of yesterdays hush, welcoming in the acceptance that it really had been the end.

Will peeled his eyes open slowly, mourning the extra hours of sleep he knew he wouldn’t be able to get now, the conviction punctuated by the burning of his eyes, the pressure in his head. He tried to judge the time of day by the angle at which rays of sun fell in through the windows; it looked like early morning, probably no later than eight o'clock. Which meant they’d gotten… probably four hours sleep, if they were lucky.

They had reached the WSQK just as the first slivers of dawn had started cresting over the trees and hills of Hawkins. They had dropped their bikes unceremoniously, letting them fall to the gravel with a clatter, limbs jelly-like and trembling from overuse. Will had turned away to climb up the front steps without a thought, his brain nothing but static, when Mike had pulled him in for one last kiss.

It had felt different, in the light of the sunrise. Like a promise.

His eyes drifted to the side on instinct.

Jonathan had already vacated his spot beside him, as had his mom beyond him. When his eyes found Mike across the empty space, the other boy was already looking at him.

Will’s breath escaped his lungs.

He had expected everything to feel different after the events of last night. And- it did, for him. It felt like a huge tear had been ripped into the fabric of his reality, making space for this truth that completely re-contextualised everything he had ever believed about himself and Mike. It felt like he had been walking around half-blind his entire life, and could finally see the world with a new clarity. It felt like confirmation that maybe, he hadn’t been the one that was wrong. Maybe everyone else had been.

But in the grand scheme of things, the world rolled on by as if nothing had changed. The sun still rose, time still ticked by, their loved ones still woke up and made coffee and smiled at each other, ignorant of the monumental shift that had occurred in the lives of two teenage boys just hours before. Unsympathetic to the exhaustion still tugging at their bones, not understanding why they’ll both be hugging the walls today, dozing off onto each other’s shoulders.

Mike smiled softly at him. Their shared plight. Their secret burden to bear.

Will felt something familiar ripple through him, a hunger that he had had to ignore and squash down and bury time and time again by averting his eyes, by stepping away, by stamping platonic on the end of every sentence that slipped out his mouth. For the first time ever, he didn’t have to; he could let himself indulge in it.

He rolled over onto his side, answered Mike’s smile with one of his own. They couldn’t speak, too aware of the bodies still littering the room around them, couldn’t put a voice to all the sentiments bubbling inside their chests – I still want this, I still want you, I don’t regret it.

But sometimes, a shared look was enough.

Will held Mike’s gaze for a moment longer, feeling it on his skin like a physical caress, then pushed himself up. His head was swimming, dots dancing across his bleary vision and the room spinning in a way that was very indicative of how the day ahead of him would look, but life waited for no one.

His gave himself a moment to catalogue the remaining sleeping members of their patchwork family; Lucas and Max beside him – Max resting on the couch, Lucas on the floor below her, fingers tangled in the space between them; Steve on the other side of the room, huddled under the wall still stamped with traces of their many plans over the past months, bracketed by Dustin and Robin; Nancy, with her arms wrapped so tightly around Holly he wouldn’t be surprised if she was cutting off the girl’s circulation.

The sight settled something deep inside him, dislodging a weight he had been unknowingly carrying on his shoulders ever since he first was taken. It was over. They were safe.

He chanced one last glance at Mike, whose gaze had stayed glued to Will even as his eyelids drooped shut (the implications of which made his skin burn), and let the scent of coffee guide him up the staircase.

As soon as he saw Jane upstairs, hovering near the entrance to the break room, he rushed to her and pulled her into a crushing hug. He felt her chest convulse as a shocked breath knocked free of her lungs, but he didn’t even have to wait a second before she threw her arms back around him.

Her grip on him was suffocating, the way she latched onto his hair to keep him close almost painful, but he didn’t care. He was just as desperate to breathe her in, to prove that she was real, that she had survived. Every nail clawing into his nape, every scratch at his arm, every stamp of her foot on his when she stumbled into him only working to solidify her existence.

At a certain point her shoulders started shaking, and Will held her through her sobs. He held her until her chest stopped rattling, until tears stopped soaking through into his shirt, until her vice-like grip on his neck loosened. And even then, he continued to hold her.

It was only once they separated, holding each others faces since they were still unwilling to let go completely, that he realised he had been crying too. El gave him a watery smile while wiping the wetness on his cheek; he returned the favour. As usual, they didn’t need words to communicate.

When he finally turned towards the kitchenette, hand in hand with Jane, their mother had tears in her eyes too.

The opportunity to hear Jane’s view on the state of her and Mike’s relationship arrived much sooner than he had been prepared for.

He had expected to wait for days, weeks even, keeping a respectful distance from Mike all the while. As respectful as he could manage, anyway, what with Mike already having tried various tactics to try to get his hands on Will a grand total of seventeen times in the eight short hours they had been awake. All very covert, of course – claiming he needed Will’s help to carry a box just so he could press his pinky against Will’s as he handed it over; choosing to  squeeze past right behind Will whenever he got the chance instead of choosing an alternate route just so he could brush his chest against Will’s; fingers trailing over the small of Will’s back when no-one was looking; pulling Will into dark and isolated corners whenever the both of them ‘just so happened’ to find themselves near one.

Will was finding it increasingly difficult to evade him.

As a collective, they all seemed to come to an unspoken agreement not to make any plans for that day, not to set any expectations. They gave themselves one day to just exist – to live and to feel and to process. Rebuilding from the scars the Upside Down had left them riddled with could come later.

Unsurprisingly, Hopper and Joyce didn’t want to lose sight of Jane for even a second that day – they were gripped with panic every time she left the room, running through the WSQK shouting her name even when she disappeared for a few minutes to use the bathroom without mentioning it first. She caught on quickly that for that day only she would need to narrate all of her choices, for everyone’s peace of mind.  

Eventually though, they were awarded with a moment for only the six of them, the original party – Hopper had headed out with Murray and Jonathan to get their hands on some food and supplies for their large company without arousing too many suspicions, while Joyce accepted the fact that nothing would happen to Jane while in the company of her closest friends and tried not to hover, satisfying herself with nonchalantly walking past every five minutes to peek in and receive visual confirmation that Jane was still there.

They spread out in the sitting area of the main room, Lucas and Max claiming one couch (Lucas insisted on carrying her over to it so she could finally sit in his lap again, ignoring Max’s protests that she was fine in the wheelchair), Will the other, Dustin spreading out in an armchair in a position that could not possibly be comfortable. Jane had opted to situate herself on top of the coffee table, legs crossed, an aura of unbeatable focus around her as she painted her nails with the polish Nancy had left lying around the station months ago, then Max’s.

Mike, of course, did not hesitate a second before plopping down on the couch beside Will, much closer than necessary. Not close enough for suspicion, but close enough for Will’s skin to buzz with the suggestion of touch.

They didn’t speak at first, words completely unnecessary (and, arguably, insufficient) to communicate the depth of relief they felt at having survived, at being granted this chance to sit in one room together again, seeking comfort in each other’s company. Not only that, but the knowledge that they all had futures they could start looking forward to now, futures that involved them all – there was nothing they could say that could quite encompass everything they felt about that.

It was inevitable that Dustin would break the silence at some point, though.

He let out an extended sigh, drawing all eyes to him. His eyes, however, were glued to the resident couple in the room, filled with something warm and sparkling.

“It’s so nice to see you two together in one room again,” he explained, tilting his head to rest his temple on his closed fist, fond smile on his face as he gazed at Max and Lucas. “I mean, in one room and both awake. Lucas was really insufferable without you; made me wonder how we ever stood his company before we met you, actually.”

Max chuckled, while Lucas rolled his eyes at Dustin and reached behind Max to flip the bird at him from over her shoulder. When Max turned her attention to Lucas, there was something disarmingly soft and loving in her eyes.

“Is that true? Were you insufferable without me?”

Lucas let out a sigh, but the affection in his eyes as he focused back in on his girlfriend screamed volumes. “Dustin is a dick. But, yes, he’s right.”

Their smiles absolutely glowed as they looked at each other. If Will looked at them from a certain angle, he was almost convinced he could see a light shining on them from above, bathing them in a warm halo that seemed to scream ‘look at us! You tried to break us, but you failed! And we’ll bounce back even stronger than ever!’.

“Aww, adorable,” Dustin commentated, twisting his nose in a way that contradicted his words. “Nauseating, but adorable.”

Will had to agree, barring the nauseating part. He could feel the specific type of warmth he always felt when watching Max and Lucas interact with each other spread through his chest. Undeniably, it was accompanied by the cold twist of envy that always followed whenever he saw two people happy and in love, the one he had tried to eradicate time and time again over the years. Although, that envy-

He dared cut his eyes towards Mike momentarily. Mike wasn’t looking at him – as a matter of fact, he seemed to be a bit too intent on not looking at him, keeping his gaze resolutely trained forward. But, where Will had expected Mike to be rolling his eyes, or at least looking a bit put out, the way he usually did whenever he had to witness anything even close to PDA (completely oblivious to how hypocritical it was, considering his behaviour with Jane at age fourteen), instead there was a slight upwards tick to the corner of his mouth, and his eyes held a certain softness to them. Will felt the subtle weight of an arm landing behind him on the couch. Huh.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to feel that envy for much longer.

“No, just adorable,” Jane said, vocalising Will’s thoughts on the matter. She was sitting with her back to Will and Mike now, so he wasn’t able to parse her expression, but she had put aside the nail polish for the first time since they had sat down and shifted her attention from Max’s hand to gaze up at her and Lucas, so he guessed that told him everything he needed to know.

“Thank you, Jane,” Max said, turning away from Lucas to fix Dustin with a puncturing look Will thought Dustin was very brave to not shrink away from. “Let me guess: no one could ever be as adorable as you and Suzie?”

Will sucked in a breath, trying to school his expression into one of neutrality. He heard Mike whisper a gentle ‘yikes’ next to him. Dustin grimaced, squirming in his seat.

The topic of Suzie was one they had given up on bringing up around Dustin after a number of months, still not having managed to wheedle out the full story of what had happened there even after a year and change. At best, Dustin would grumble, shut down and stare at his hands for the rest of whatever hang out they had been at, at worst he’d blow their heads off and storm out. It had almost become as volatile of a subject matter as Eddie, the only difference being that Dustin would bring Eddie up whenever he could of his own volition, insistent that nobody be allowed to forget him. The only one who’d managed to pry anything out of him about his ex-girlfriend was Jane, but she’d never divulged anything no matter how much they pleaded.

All this to say, they all (Max and Dustin excluded) held their breath.

“No, uh,” Dustin started awkwardly, tapping his fingers on the arms of his chair in an uncoordinated manner. His eyes shifted around the room frantically, unwilling to meet anyone’s gaze. “Well, this is awkward. No easy way to say it: Suzie and I broke up.”

He punctuated the last statement by leaning forward and splaying his hands in a ‘there you have it’ kind of gesture. Will, Lucas, and Mike gaped. Max’s jaw dropped.

“Dustin Henderson! You can’t be serious!”

“No, he is, unfortunately,” Will confirmed, once he’d gotten over the shock of Dustin’s lack of outburst. Max’s gaze flicked to him briefly, disbelief evident, before landing back on Dustin. Will had enough sense of mind to shoot Dustin a sympathetic glance, recognising the dangerous look in Max’s eyes.

“Dustin! How did you manage to mess it up with a girl like Suzie?!”

Dustin tipped backwards once again, deflating in his seat in an attempt to escape Max’s judgmental gaze. His voice rose to a comically high pitch. “Me?! Why do you instantly assume it was me?!

“Because it had to be you, she was literally perfect for you!”

“She was not perfect-”

“Must I remind you of ‘hotter than Phoebe Cates’? Helping us save the world with whatever Planck’s Constant is? Never-ending story?!”

This devolved into a round of chastisement that went on for a while. Will and Lucas exchanged pained yet amused smiles all the way through it; Jane let go of Max’s hand completely now so she could try to stifle her giggles. They were willing to just let it happen, the familiar sound of bickering wrapping around them like a comforting blanket. It was so nice to feel normal again, even if it was bittersweet, in a way – as happy as it made them that Max was back, the missing piece whose lack they had sorely felt in these discussions the past year and a half finally slotting into place, it did bring into sharp focus everything that she had missed. They’d have to make sure to put effort into getting her caught up.

Max punctuated the end of her speech with a deep sigh, leaning back into Lucas as much as her body would allow. If she had had full control of her body, Will could imagine she would be upright by now, pausing in her pacing to place a cool hand to her forehead. Dustin looked thoroughly reprimanded, gaze fixed on his hands as he picked at his nails.

She fell silent for a moment, letting Dustin sit with the mistakes of his actions. Then, she flicked her gaze over to Jane, whose focus had returned to Max’s hand as soon as she had calmed a little.

“Honestly, I leave for a little while and you all fall apart,” she continued, Lucas making his disdain at the phrase ‘a little while’ very clear with the chocked noise that escaped his lungs. Max shifted her focus to Mike, and something seemed to hit her, eyes darting between Mike and El before they eventually settled on Mike. Her eyes widened; Will felt a thud in his chest. “Don’t tell me you two broke up as well?”

Will felt like the air had been sucked out of the room; his pulse picked up, hammering in his ears, his hands suddenly clammy. This was it – the moment he would find out if he was actually allowed to want Mike (maybe not just want… maybe even have), or if he was a horrible, awful person who had spent a good chunk of the previous night making out with his sister’s boyfriend. If he would actually be permitted to… date Mike (his face almost flushed at just the thought of the word), or if their relationship would fissure and crack right down the middle, resulting in a catastrophic downfall of their friendship.

All in all, stakes were small.

The rest of the room seemed completely oblivious to Will’s plight – eyes swivelled to Mike in curiosity, yes, but Lucas and Dustin both seemed completely confident in what the answer would be. Dustin even shot Max an incredulous look that suggested she’d grown an extra head, as if she hadn’t completely torn him to shreds moments prior.

Mike though – Mike knew. He bumped his arm against his shoulder imperceptibly. It made his nerves settle, just the tiniest bit.

“We did, actually,” Jane answered. Easily, casually, as if the simple statement hadn’t just changed everything.

The relief that crashed into him was debilitating; it rushed through him like a gushing river, the buzzing in his veins making him feel dizzy. He could see spots starting to dance across his vision, felt his hands start to shake. He needed to breathe – he felt like he hadn’t taken a breath in minutes – but he knew that a lack of reaction, an ability to keep composure, to suppress this secret just like he had successfully managed to for years prior was crucial at this moment. So, he bit down on his lip, clamped his hands together, kept his gaze forward. Just a few minutes. Just a few minutes.

Mike curled his fingers into the hem of Will’s shirt.

“You what?!” the question echoed in the room, bouncing off the walls from three different directions, in three different tones. Dustin, incredulous; Lucas, worried; Max, elated (she quickly schooled her expression into what she obviously considered to be concern, once she realised she might have come off as a tad too enthusiastic. It read more like how Dustin looked whenever he tried to hold back a rant about something he was an expert in, and not very successfully).

Will would have laughed at her reaction, if he wasn’t half convinced it would come out as a sob instead.

Three pairs of eyes bore into Mike, expectantly. Jane, seemingly finished with her task, rested her hands on the bench behind her and casually leaned back on them, soft smile on her face. She was more than content to let Mike handle this one.

Mike tensed a bit under their attention; Will could sense the shift in the energy radiating off him, the light stiffening of his arm, the quiet, yet harsh, inhale through his nose. Will ached to provide even the tiniest bit of comfort in the way Mike had for him, but he didn’t have the luxury of doing so in a way that would go unnoticed. All he could do was lean into Mike’s touch on his shoulder, just the slightest bit. Mike’s thumb twitched against his back.

“Yeah, we did,” Mike confirmed, sounding almost as unaffected and nonchalant as Jane had. “It was… months ago, now.”

The effect the confirmation had on the room was magical. Dustin and Lucas’s jaws dropped open, and they shared a look that communicated they would be discussing this at length later. Max was still trying to force her expression into something more neutral, but her eyes sparkled with barely concealed joy. Jane was trying to hide a smile behind her hand, eyes glittering with amusement.

Above all, though, there was a thrum of excitement in the air that they hadn’t felt in a very, very long time. The normal kind, the kind that came with being a teenager sharing a juicy piece of gossip, not the apocalyptic multi-dimensional kind.

It sent a dizzying kind of giddiness through Will’s chest.

“Months ago?! Mike-”

“Yeah, months?! Dude, you could have told us!”

“As happy as this makes me, I better not learn you’ve done anything to hurt my girl, Wheeler.”

Mike huffed, a puff of air that raised goosebumps at the back of Will’s neck. He addressed Max’s statement only. “You always think the worst of me,” when Max gave him a look as if to say: ‘prove me wrong’, Mike sighed and clarified, “no, I didn’t. It was mutual.”

Will could see the questions brewing; Dustin leaning forward in his seat in the way he did whenever there was a particularly intriguing puzzle to figure out; Lucas’s gaze flicking between Mike and Jane with an expression that warred between wanting to reassure his friends and wanting to satisfy his own curiosity; Max’s eyebrows lifted in a way that suggested she didn’t quite take Mike at his word, but unable to conceal how her eyes lit up in victory.

Before the barrage could begin, however, Lucas’s gaze fell onto Will, and his eyebrows knitted together as if realising something. Will felt panic rip through him. “Wait, Will, you don’t seem surprised. You knew?”

Oh. Right. He’d been so focused on not having any reaction that he forgot a lack of reaction gave almost as much away in and of itself.

He strained for anything to say and came up blank. Yes, he had known, technically, but he hadn’t even been sure until seconds ago. Would that be considered something weird, out of the ordinary, if he had known and kept it from the rest of his friends? And would it be worse if he pretended to have known for months, or just a few days? Or if he claimed his lack of reaction was from something else entirely?

He was scrambling, mouth falling open and closed like a fish.

“I-I, uh… I mean, kinda…” he uttered finally, eloquently. Miked poked him in the back, shoulder twitching with the effort of holding back a laugh. Will wished he could elbow him in the abdomen without it being too conspicuous.

Dustin shifted forward even more, incredulous. “Kinda? What do you mean, kinda?”

Will opened his mouth, brain tripping over all of the ways he could possibly deflect, but Max interrupted, like a merciful angel, before he could settle on any of them. “Oh, does it matter? Of course Wheeler told Will, those two are never able to keep anything from each other. Now, El, tell me everything-”

Will let the conversation fade away around him, daring to glance up at Mike now that the focus had lifted from them. Mike met his eyes instantly, as if he had been waiting for that, as if the same gravitational pull Will always felt in his presence worked the other way too. He raised an eyebrow, traces of the Mike who loved pushing his button and getting under his skin present all over his face – everywhere but his eyes.

His eyes held that quality in them that they always did when he looked at Will, the one that Will had never been able to place. There was affection, yes – this he had always been at the forefront, the only emotion he had been able to recognise. But there was also fondness, desire, longing, admiration and…

Love?

He chased the thought away as soon as it could form. He wouldn’t speculate, wouldn’t build up hope only for it do end in crushing disappointment. It wasn’t fair to Mike – he had no way of knowing how deep Will’s feelings ran, and Will couldn’t expect him to return them; he already had more of Mike than he ever dreamed he could.

He couldn’t help wondering though, if Mike could see the same emotions mirrored back at him. If he was giving everything away just by looking at him, if he had already been doing so for years.

He sighed, dropping back to rest against the couch, the lack of sleep suddenly pulling him under. He couldn’t help noticing how Mike had chased the action, how his gaze had stayed glued to him. How it had dipped down to his lips, briefly. Didn’t miss the way it made his belly flip.

Mike was going to be the death of him.

The pressure of Will’s weight on his hand pulled Mike down too, but he had to remove his hand from Will to rest between them as their backs hit the couch. Will felt a twinge of disappointment, even though he knew it was well justified; Mike’s hand on his back from this angle would have been difficult to explain.

Mike bumped his shoulder. “You okay?”

Will settled back into the couch, considering this. He considered the giddy feeling in his chest, the prospect of dating Mike now real and true, even if he still couldn’t quite believe it. He considered the buzzing under his skin from Mike’s proximity, the weight of his limbs. He considered his eyelids drooping lower and lower over his eyes. Maybe, if he let them shut, he’d have an excuse to start drifting closer to Mike. Maybe, if he let himself succumb to the exhaustion clawing at him, he’d be able to rest his head against Mike’s shoulder, and no one would be the wiser. Maybe, if he fell asleep, Mike would be able to let his arm drift towards him and draw him into his chest without anyone batting an eye. Maybe, if Mike’s head dropped onto his while they were both asleep, nobody would think anything of it, lack of consciousness their claim to innocence.

And maybe, just maybe, this new thing between them wasn’t impossible. Maybe, just maybe, they’d manage.

He smiled at Mike. “Perfect.”