Archive of Our Own ^beta

See, the thing is, Mike never wanted to go to the stupid party in the first place.

Call him a self-pitying idiot, but after everything, there isn’t a whole lot he feels like doing anymore. Movie nights are nice. And D&D is still awesome, of course. But maybe that’s only because he gets to write El into his stories one way or another. Or because he gets to laugh at the scenes in the movies they used to watch together and remember the way her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled. He tries to remember her in little ways like these—He’s scared of forgetting too soon.

Graduation was rough without her. Every day is, honestly, but today sucked especially. Between the pressing heat of a half-passed summer and the stifling collar of their orange gowns, Mike felt like he couldn’t breathe. Maybe that’s why he fled his house just hours before the ceremony. Passed by the memorial on his way to the Byers-Hoppers’ cabin and kind of got stuck there until the Chief came to find him.

And then, the party. A random invite from a girl who Mike thought hated them. Turns out, Stacey doesn’t seem to think the four of them are complete and total losers, or she wouldn’t have invited them to her post-graduation bash. To be completely honest, he was almost a little excited when she stopped to talk to Dustin after his speech. (He, of course, felt like an idiot immediately after. It’s just a dumb party.)

Though one thought kept echoing around his head: It might be a dumb party, sure, maybe, but it’s also a real party. The very first one of Mike’s life, too, because it’s not like they’ve ever been invited to one before. So sue him for being curious. For agreeing to go, if only for the way his friends’ faces lit up at the idea, Will’s eyes sparkling up at him after the end of their campaign when Lucas cautiously suggested it again.

He really regrets coming here now, staring into the face of one terribly wasted Dustin Henderson.

Dustin is, by far, not the drunkest person around. In fact, Mike seems to be the only one whose balance is still halfway intact. The bad part about it is that he can’t even blame all of them, not really. Because they just graduated today, and the music playing is actually half decent, despite it being some pop mix one of Stacey’s friends popped into the boombox earlier, and there’s booze—So much booze, and if Mike wasn’t in his aforementioned state of self-pity and wallowing, he’d probably be on his fourth or fifth drink of the night by now.

But he’s a sad loser mourning his dead ex-girlfriend, standing in a random corner of a party in a house he’s never been to, with no clue where any of his friends have disappeared to. Except, well—Dustin, who’s grinning up at him drunkenly, eyes going a little unfocused.

Mike grabs the cup from him—blue, unlike in the movies, which is a strangely disappointing detail about this—and scrunches his nose at the smell of the brown concoction sloshing around inside. “God. What the fuck are you drinking?”

“Dunno,” says Dustin. “Some girl gave it to me. Didn’t really question it.”

He’s not slurring as bad as Mike thought, though he’s wobbling a bit where he’s standing. Mike slouches back against his spot on the wall when he’s sure Dustin won’t fall over anytime soon. “Where is everyone?”

“Dunno,” Dustin repeats. He’s already not paying attention to Mike anymore, too distracted by the sight of a pretty brunette who’s giggling with her friends nearby. He sighs wistfully. “Man. I miss Suzie.”

“No you don’t,” says Mike, because he’s the only one who gets to miss his ex-girlfriend around here, because she’s, well, you know—dead.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t be, anyway. She’s probably off at her last Bible camp right now or something.” Another sigh. Mike isn’t sure how much longer he can take this. He tries to change strategies.

“Where’d you last see them, then?”

“Who? Suzie?”

“Wha—No. The others, Dustin.”

“Oh. Uh, I really can’t remember. Think I saw Lucas with some of the basketball guys earlier.” Mike wrinkles his nose and Dustin snorts. “Don’t give me that look. I think him and Chase bonded over beer pong or something.”

“And Will?”

“Jeez, what is this, an interrogation? Go find him yourself if you miss him so bad.” Dustin plucks the cup back from Mike and gives it an experimental sniff, as if he really can’t quite remember what’s in it in the first place.

Mike bristles. He knows it’s supposed to be a joke. But something inside him stirs at the offhanded way Dustin says it; like a hissing cat, back arched and fur standing upright. “Shuddup.”

“Whatever man.” Dustin, who supposedly deemed the mixture good enough to drink, finishes it in one messy gulp. Mike watches as some of it spills down the sides of his lips and onto his shirt. “I’m getting another drink. You wanna come join the party or keep sulking in your corner?”

“I’m not sulking.”

“Are, too. You even found a sad little wall to do it.”

“Oh my God, Dustin, shut up,” Mike says once more, pushing off his sad little wall. “Let’s go, then.”

The party has gotten more crowded as the hours passed. On one hand, Mike despises the crammed feel of it all; the damp heat of the living room, the air tasting like stale beer and sweat, the room vibrating with the synthesized bass of some song he vaguely recognizes, but not really. On the other hand, he appreciates that he can blend into the wave of people without anyone sparing him a second glance. It’s a blessing and a curse at the same time.

Someone brushes against him, a warm and damp body, and Mike shivers away from it. Weaves his way through more people, trailing close behind Dustin so he won’t lose him in the crowd.

It’s a little quieter in the kitchen and Mike takes a deep breath when they stop at the counter, leaning his lower back against it. There’s an assortment of glass bottles scattered on top of it, some of them clinking as he leans into them. Dustin seems focused enough for Mike not to question what he’s doing. He watches him pour different kinds of clear liquids into his cup, then topping it off with soda.

“Want a shot?” Dustin asks Mike, nodding towards one of the bottles.

Mike scoffs. “I’m driving, asshole.”

“Right.” Dustin shrugs with a grin. “My bad.”

Mike rolls his eyes at him, hopes it doesn’t come off too pissy, and crosses his arms, taking in the scene in the living room. From a distance, it almost reads like one of those montages in the stupid rom-coms Holly likes to watch—there’s a sort of makeshift dance floor in the middle of the room, where a small crowd has formed. Further in the back, he can see a bunch of varsity jackets bustling about a sticky table with the same, blue cups on it. Lucas is among them, tossing balls to the other side. Then, to the far right, there’s a keg. Max is there, and Mike is pretty sure she’s kicking someone’s ass in a chugging tournament right now, though he can’t see her very well from his spot in the kitchen.

By the time he focuses back on the room he’s in, Dustin has fallen into deep conversation with some girl Mike knows from Biology class—Clara? He’s not sure—and Mike enjoys the excuse to just people-watch some more.

There’s a moment where he catches himself nodding along to the music (some dance-y New Wave number he actually enjoys) and as soon as he does, makes it a point to snap out of it immediately. Because no way in Hell Mike is actually having a good time right now. Not when there’s all these bigger thoughts and feelings he’s supposed to be having. Like death. And sadness. And the imminent threat of being left behind in a shithole town his friends will barely ever visit, except on holidays maybe, all the while Mike drowns in his sorrow and melancholy.

Well. If Mike is completely honest, he spends a lot more time feeling bad about not feeling bad enough than he does about, you know—actually losing El. Or, Jane. Fuck. He still messes that up, too.

Mike messes up a lot of things lately. Most of all, he knows he’s being a shit friend, and an even shittier boyfriend (even post-mortem), and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Because he finds himself thinking a lot less of El these days, and a lot more of Will Byers.

It started small. On a random night, a few weeks before their graduation: Movie night in the Wheelers’ basement. Except, Max and Lucas had a date night at the Hawk. (Pet Sematary was showing late. Mike is still a little miffed they went without him.) Also except, Dustin ditched them for ‘bonding time’ with Harrington. (Which translated into the two of them driving around town in Steve’s new truck “for old time’s sake”, listening to Robin’s radio show.)

These circumstances left Mike and Will hanging out alone, in a basement that was no longer just Mike’s but Will’s too. Because Will lived there now, with Mike’s family. Slept on the very pull-out couch they sprawled out on every night, watching movies and talking about everything and nothing. And that would have been fine, had Mike not been plagued by a new, strange set of intrusive thoughts about his best friend lately. Ones he is fighting very hard. And yet, they keep finding their way to the surface one way or another.

Will looks so different now, compared to before all of the shit that happened. Despite everything, Will is the one who came out on the other side stronger. Not like Mike—Lonely and sad and, for some reason, with worse eyesight. No. Will has come into himself, found his confidence. The way he carries himself is different altogether; where Mike still feels like a gangly kid most days, with limbs too long to keep track of, Will has filled out and grown into his body. It’s a quiet sort of confidence, but it’s noticeable. To Mike, it is.

He thinks back sometimes to their conversation on the tower. To Will, teary-eyed and small, practically begging Mike not to hate him. To the way Mike’s own voice shook, clinging desperately to the only thing he knows to be for Will without the threat of losing him. Best friends. There’s something almost cruel about the way his own words haunt him in his dreams now. Thoughts of how, maybe, if he could have been just a little braver, everything could have been different. Cause that’s what it always comes down to, isn’t it? He couldn’t say it then, couldn’t say it to El in her final moments either. And why?

Because Mike Wheeler is a coward. A big one at that. Still just a boy from a small town in Middle Of Nowhere, Indiana. Not even close to the good and valiant and fearless Paladin he plays in D&D, where he can be anything he ever dreamed to in real life. A true hero. A knight in shining armor.

And Mike was thinking about all of this, and maybe his eyes were straying from the TV and over to his best friend, spread out on the couch with his own gaze locked onto the screen. And, perhaps, Mike let them linger on Will’s face for a second too long; trailing the slope of his nose, over his cupid’s bow and down to his lips. Perhaps, the sight of them—pink and bitten plump where Will was chewing on them in anticipation of what was about to happen next—sent a tingle down Mike’s spine and straight to his stomach. Perhaps he wondered, if only for a second, what it would be like… To have that courage. To say it out loud. To let it be real.

He, of course, panicked and forced himself to snap out of it immediately after. Tried to think of anything else, really. The last, actually good scary movie he watched. (The Exorcist, hands down. Though thinking about it, maybe he just liked the way Will’s leg kept brushing against his own every time he got scared and scooted a little closer. Wait. He needed to stop thinking about Will.) The new Pixies record that just released earlier this month. (Will showed it to him, eyes wide and shining—fuck. Starting over.) Nancy, singing in the shower. (Madonna. He’d never admit to liking her stuff out loud. He saw Will bop along to it one time, too—and, dear God. There he was again.)

When none of those worked, he focused on El. Or, attempted to, at least. He tried to think about her laugh. Her smile. The way she’d wolf down a box of Eggos in less than five minutes without choking. But in his mind, her face kept changing. Morphing into someone else, hair lightening just so, moles appearing on sun kissed skin, one of them just above a set of plump lips.

Mike snuck another glance at Will then—almost as if he couldn’t help himself. There was the mole; a tiny, dark dot just below his nose. The tingling didn’t let up. Instead, it came back stronger.

It’s been happening for weeks ever since that night, and Mike feels horrible about it all. Mainly the fact that he’s thinking those things about Will, who doesn’t even know about the way Mike is defiling him with his brain. He’s just existing in Mike’s orbit. And it’s like Mike’s eyes have some sort of magnetic pull to the way Will’s irises have specks of green in them in the sunlight, or how he moves his hands while he’s talking, all long, charcoal-smudged fingers, or—God forbid—the sinful strip of skin that appears whenever Will stretches his hands high over his head, eyes squeezed shut and nose scrunched up in a yawn, showing off the taut muscle of his abdomen and the barely-there trail of hair leading further down.

Probably the worst part is that Mike doesn’t remember ever feeling this way about El—fuck, Jane. And maybe that makes all of this even more awful. Because what kind of boyfriend doesn’t think about his girlfriend in that way? About kissing and touching her in the ways a boyfriend should?

He sometimes feels like he doesn’t even remember her face well enough to do any of that. Many days, he stares at the only photograph he has of her—Jane, when she was thirteen or fourteen, probably, laughing in Hopper’s cabin. He trails his eyes over the familiar shape of her brows, the slope of her button nose, and wonders how he could ever even begin to forget a face like that. How he barely remembers the shade of brown her eyes were, while he could probably draw the exact shape of Will’s mouth from memory. How he seems to find new things about her in that picture every time he looks, while he can count the exact number of moles on Will’s skin by just thinking about him.

God, maybe he shouldn’t have driven here. He feels like drinking now.

As if on cue, Dustin knocks back a shot next to him. Clara has disappeared, not that Mike was paying much attention to whatever she was chewing Dustin’s ear off with. “Well, that was a disaster.”

“At least you tried, man.”

Dustin shrugs. And Mike loves his friend, but he really doesn’t want him to start talking about Suzie again, so he focuses his eyes ahead and lets him pout into his drink. The sea of bodies on the dance floor (if one can call it that) has split, and there seems to be some commotion throughout the living room. Mike follows the trail of cheering people, feet carrying him closer to the doorway, until he can see what exactly has gathered everyone’s attention.

And, well. Safe to say, it's not what he expects in the slightest.

Dustin, for once in his life, seems just as stunned as Mike. “Dude, is that—”

“Will?”

There are multiple things Mike notices about the scene in front of him.

Firstly, and probably most importantly: William Byers is dancing on a table.

Mike blinks hard. Once. Twice. The picture doesn’t change. There’s Will—His best friend since childhood; shy, awkward, nerdy Will. Only he doesn’t look like any of those things right now. In fact, Mike doesn’t think he has the words to describe the way Will looks up on that table, because his arms are thrown up with carefree laughter, cheeks flushed pink, eyes twinkling. His hair—not at all anymore in that weirdly endearing bowl cut of his, and instead grown out, over his ears a little—is pushed away from his face in a messy, I-definitely-ran-my-fingers-through-it-without-a-care kind of way. And there’s his body, of course. Broad shoulders and chest ending in a narrow waist which Will is showing off with the tightest shirt imaginable. White and almost see-through, stretching a little over his chest and tucked into his jeans. He’s moving, too; elbows high above his head, biceps flexing as his hands card through his own hair once more. Swaying his shoulders and hips to the beat of some R&B track Mike’s never heard before but will surely remember for the rest of his life now.

Those are, of course, a lot of words, most of which Mike’s brain lacks the capacity to think right now. Instead, his brain settles on one, more concise thought; that thought being: Will looks really fucking good up there.

Mike lingers on this first thought for a second longer than needed before he begins thinking the rest of them. Because, as he notices soon after: Secondly, there’s a rather large crowd forming around said table, hooting and hollering.

It’s no wonder why—Will looks absolutely divine. Fuzzy light catching around his hair like a halo, skin flushing red down his neck from the heat of the dining room, below the collar of that god awful shirt. It clings to his torso, stretching with every one of his movements, like a second skin.

Then, Will tips his head back and rolls his hips in a way that’s absolutely not good for Mike’s health.

Mike’s mouth goes dry.

He feels like tugging Will off the table by his stupid shirt. He wants to lick the exposed skin of his neck and taste the salt there. He wonders what it would be like, drinking up the confidence oozing from Will’s body, if only to feel what it’s like for a minute; if only to get to touch for a second of the night. 

Mike’s eyes are glued to the dancing boy, Will, his best friend Will, who looks absolutely glorious dancing on a mahogany table; who does not give a single fuck about what anyone else is thinking about him right now. Will, who laughs and opens his eyes again as the music changes, whose gaze locks right on Mike, still standing in the doorway—Will, who keeps looking, tiny smirk pulling at his lips—

Mike’s heart stutters and skips a beat at the sight. There’s an invisible string, humming with electricity, tied tightly around the beating vessel in his chest. Blindingly bright and strong, he can feel it between them, tugging, then pulling, then inviting him.

Because it’s one thing to look, and to want to keep looking. But it’s a whole other thing to know that Will sees him looking, and that he likes it.

The scene changes very suddenly, and Mike is reminded of his third observation, which is arguably the most important one.

Mike’s eyes are still on Will, who is no longer looking at him—instead, being pushed as more people begin climbing onto the table to join him. Will, who looks like he’s about to tip over the very edge of the improvised stage he’s made for himself, if the way he’s drunkenly swaying to the beat is any implication of his (non-existent) sobriety—who topples over a little and begins stumbling forward with the unexpected movement of the people around him, wide-eyed, closer to what can only end in a nasty fall—

Mike moves before he can think.

It’s instinct—the innate urge to catch Will, to prevent him from splitting his skull open on the edge of the table. And okay, maybe Mike is being a little dramatic, because it’s not really that high and Will slides off it more than he actually falls. But it doesn’t matter, because he gets there in time and Will drops into him, all wide-eyed and beautiful.

Mike grips him tightly, as if he could slip any second. Around them, people are unbothered; cheering, dancing, moving in close. The noise is deafening, but it doesn’t register. Mike sways a little where they’re standing. His blood is rushing in his ears, from the adrenaline, maybe. Will’s skin is damp, he can feel it through his shirt, in the places he’s splayed his palms to steady him.

Will himself does not look bothered by his graceless descent in the slightest. Just loops his arm around Mike’s shoulders, sagging into his hold, and Mike staggers with the weight of it. Will doesn’t seem to notice this either. He throws his head back and laughs. “Oh my God. Did you see that?”

His body is pressed up against Mike, all warm and flushed, like a goddamn renaissance painting. It is in this second that Mike realizes how close they are to each other—close enough to share a breath, to taste each other’s air. He can feel the rapid beat of Will’s heart against his own chest, He can smell the cologne on Will’s skin; Jonathan’s, Mike is sure, and the fact that Will deemed this a special enough occasion to wear it does a complicated thing to Mike’s heart.

Will’s own eyes dart over Mike’s face, like a question. He wobbles again, and his hand tightens around Mike’s shoulder, grips the fabric there before moving up to curl into Mike’s hair.

Mike shivers. There’s something swirling between them, wild and untamed. That same, electric feeling from before. The one that Mike has been desperately trying to drown within himself.

He feels it simmer in his chest, bubbling beneath the surface—waiting to emerge, ready to release—Mike stumbles back, lets go of Will, whose hand falls from the back of his neck. He’s looking at Mike, but Mike doesn’t look back. Just swallows hard, breathing in gulps, and mumbles something about a “bathroom” and “sorry” before he pushes through the bodies surrounding him. Past the cheering people. Past Dustin, who’s staring at him weirdly.

“You good, man?”

Mike ignores him. Keeps going. Past the doorframe. Past the blue cups scattered on the ground, scrunching under his feet. Past the suffocating feeling in his chest.

The guest bathroom is a nightmare decked out in pink tiles and a matching, fluffy toilet seat cover. But it’s also the first door that isn’t locked (or, uh, otherwise occupied) so Mike gladly takes it. There’s a buzzing sound as the measly bathroom light flickers on above the sink—it’s barely bright enough to light half the room, casting a yellow shadow onto what Mike realizes now is a purple dotted shower curtain. But Mike can’t find the switch for the ceiling one right now, and part of him really doesn’t want to see the bathroom in its full glory, let alone the sight of himself under the harsher, white light of the big lamp. He doesn’t think he can handle that. Not right now, with the way his heart seems to be beating out of his chest, slipping down the drain alongside the rest of Mike’s dignity.  

So, without looking at himself in the mirror, Mike turns the faucet as cold as he can and tries to drown out the deafening noise of the party that has followed him in here. A steady stream patters against the ceramic sink, and he leans down to splash some of it onto his face, catches more of it to rub into the hot skin of his neck.

The cool water is a welcome relief from the pressing heat of the house. His body seems alight with it, buzzing red from the inside. Mike repeats his motions until his heartbeat has slowed a little, then shuts the faucet off to finally find his own gaze in the reflection staring back at him.

He looks drunker than he should, considering his painfully sober state—curls flattened at his forehead, damp with sweat; his eyes almost black with the size of his pupils; cheeks flushed as if he’s on his fifth drink of the night when, in fact, he’s certain he’s only had a glass of water and a Gatorade he snuck from Stacey’s fridge. Tiny droplets of water run down his cheeks and over his lips. It makes his skin all shiny and his eyelashes dark, as if he’s been crying.

In short, he looks a mess. Which is ridiculous, really, because he hasn’t even danced or touched a drink at all since they got here. Mike grips the edge of the sink, knuckles turning white.

He’s not stupid. Knows exactly what it is that his body is reacting to in this way, even if he doesn’t want to acknowledge it. It’s the same thing that’s kept him up for months, forcing pictures of summer-tanned skin and paint-stained fingertips into his dreams at night. The same thing that’s haunted him for years, though it was without his knowledge back then. Before Jane died, before their fighting, before Lenora.

Despite his insistence on keeping it tightly locked away somewhere in his head, the shape of it keeps bobbing back up to the surface. Mike isn’t sure how many more times he can try and push it back under.

Before he can further examine the puddle that his mind has turned into, there’s a knock on the door, almost drowned out by the muffled music.

“Mike? You okay?”

Will’s voice cuts off his spiral of thoughts. It sounds subdued through the wood, still a little soft around the edges, and Mike can imagine him swaying against the door, gripping the handle to steady himself.

Of course he’s checking on Mike, none the wiser, especially in his drunken state. He’s just good like that. And, really, it should be Mike making sure that Will is alright, what with the amount of drinking and dancing and falling off furniture that has occurred over the past two hours. But here he is, hiding in a bathroom from his very best friend like the coward that he is. His friend, who is knocking on the door right now to check on Mike. All because Mike can’t handle the sight of him in a tight shirt, dancing on a table, without nearly going into cardiac arrest.

Another knock. This one is more insistent, and Will sounds almost impatient when he speaks again. “Mike.”

Mike takes a shuddering breath and glances at himself in the mirror once more. His eyes are still almost completely black, peeking out from underneath his fringe, but there’s not much he can do about it now, because—as he realizes, watching the door slowly swing open in the reflection—he forgot to lock it behind himself in his hurry to get away. And, okay, Will is slipping inside now and there’s nothing he can do about it—nowhere left to run.

Mike drops his gaze from the mirror as if he’s been burned. He can’t look at Will right now, or he’s seriously going to implode.

The sound of the door shutting is surprisingly soft, and Mike keeps his eyes fixed on his straining knuckles. He tries to relax them; watches his fingers uncurl from the ceramic now warmed up in his grip.

“Hey,” says Will from somewhere behind Mike. “Everything alright?”

Everything is not alright, but Will can’t know that. Mike swallows hard, nostrils flaring.

“Sure,” he says

“Can you look at me?”

He shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t, but it’s Will—blurred-around-the-edges, cheeks-flushed-from-the-alcohol, stars-in-his-eyes Will—and Mike is weak.

So, he finally lifts his eyes.

It’s a mistake. In the dim bathroom light, Will looks just as ethereal as he did back in the dining room. His eyes—dark, shiny, beautiful—are fixed on Mike’s through the mirror, twinkling with something that makes Mike’s stomach lurch dangerously. There’s a knowing glint in them. Like he can see right through the back of Mike’s head and into his skull, where his thoughts are still swirling like a tornado.

“Mike,” Will whispers again. The way he says his name... Something in his voice makes Mike’s knees go weak. He swallows it away.

“I am. Looking at you.”

Trying to, anyway. He gets distracted by the sight.

Will is leaning against the wall now, the flush on his cheeks matching the color of tiles behind him. He’s beautiful, lips forming around his words with a drunken lilt that tugs at the corners of them.

“Turn around. Please?”

As if Mike could ever say no to him.

So, he turns. Steadies himself with his hands behind his back, still gripping the sink. He receives a blinding grin in return, one that he couldn’t tear his eyes away from even if he tried.

“There you are.”

Only now does he notice that Will is still swaying slightly where he’s standing, even pressed up against the wall with his palms flat against it. Of course—he’s still quite drunk, will be for a while, by the looks of it. Mike swallows. Will’s words are laced with a kind of affection that makes him feel that, out of the two of them, he’s the drunk one. A million thoughts race through Mike’s brain, none of which he can say out loud, so he settles on an apology and a question that seems reasonably safe for now.

“Sorry. You… Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?” Teeth flash behind grinning lips. “You’re the one who bolted out of the room like something was chasing you.”

“You fell.”

“I didn’t fall. I…” A pause. “Okay, maybe I fell a little. But you were there.”

Mike’s chest swells with something—pride, maybe. He pushes it down. “So my question still stands. Everything fine?”

Will tuts, amused now. “‘Course. I was having fun. You should try it sometime.”

“You almost broke your neck. I’d hardly call that fun.”

He barely registers Will’s movement over the thrum of his heartbeat in his ears at the sight of him.

“Aw.” Suddenly, Will is all up in his space. Pushing off the tiled wall and stepping closer, his chest to Mike’s, hands coming up to cup his face, patting his cheek lightly. “You’re worried? Couldn’t you tell I was having a good time?”

“I, uh. No. I mean, yeah.” Why is Will touching him so much? Mike is stammering—how embarrassing. “Yeah, I could.”

Will’s eyes linger on him for a long second. “Michael Wheeler.” His lips twitch. “Sometimes, I don’t know what to do with you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mike’s voice comes out weak.

Will ignores him. His hands are still on Mike’s skin, and it’s growing hot with his touch. Mike doesn’t pull away. Couldn’t, even if he wanted to. Not while Will is looking at him so intently, fingers dropping down. They brush the skin of his neck and Mike shivers. Will smiles, small, almost imperceptible, and lets them wander further down, along the collar of Mike’s shirt.

“Did you like it? The dancing. I saw you looking, you know.”

Mike freezes. He feels weirdly caught.

Will gives a smile, a wolfish one that Mike has never seen on his gentle face before. It looks heart-stutteringly good. Does things to Mike’s stomach, really. He tightens his fingers around the sink, like it’s the only thing holding him upright.

There’s a hand gripping Mike’s jaw, turning his face back towards Will, because of course he’s looked away again. He can’t stand it, seeing Will in front of him like this, because it makes all the bad thoughts rush back into his brain with a speed that slams the air out of his lungs. The fingers on his face are warm. Will’s thumb drags across Mike’s chin.

He wonders if Will knows what he’s doing to him. He must. It’s too real right now, too close. And it makes Mike wonder if he’s known all this time, about the thoughts. About his desperate attempt at clinging to a dead girl’s memory so he doesn’t have to deal with what’s right in front of him.

“You’re doing it again,” says Will, or whispers, more like. They’re close enough that Mike can feel his breath on him.

“I’m here,” he says, but his voice sounds distant. Far away. “I… Will, I…”

All he can think about are the stars dancing in Will’s eyes. Will has never looked at him like this before. It only makes the ache in Mike’s chest worse, because now it’s not just some abstract idea of a feeling, but a real, actual thing existing between them—a chance that Will wants him, just as much as Mike wants Will.

His hands itch to reach out. To grip Will’s waist and pull him closer, closing the distance between them.

He curses himself for thinking it almost immediately, though the small second in between is pure bliss. Will is drunk. He’s not acting like himself right now, and it doesn’t mean anything. And it’s not even like it matters anyway, because Mike can’t—He shouldn’t—

“You’re really drunk,” he chokes out.

“A little,” says Will. His eyes flick over Mike’s face and his thumb does that same dragging motion over his jaw again, only this time it’s close enough to Mike’s bottom lip to catch onto it. Will’s eyes zero in on the movement, pupils dilating. “Just enough, I think.”

He looks like he wants to kiss Mike.

The thought sends a flash of heat straight into Mike’s gut and he makes a pathetic sound, somewhere between a gasp and a whine. He’s a horrible person. Will is drunk, just admitted to it himself, and all Mike is thinking about is taking advantage of his mind-altered state and—and—

God, he wants to kiss Will so bad.

But he can’t and he knows this. So, he takes a shuddering breath. Catching himself, swallowing down thoughts of lips and moles and tight fucking t-shirts, Mike tries to look away again, literally anywhere else. It’s somehow even worse—because they’re so close and now, his eyes are glued to Will’s lips. They’re smirking. Mike’s brain goes blank. There’s nothing but the soft pink of them, the stretch of them over Will’s teeth, the way his tongue glides out to wet them, leaving them oh-so-kissable. Mike catches himself leaning in a little, and Will’s eyes slide shut, and then his own do, and—

“Hello!” A sharp row of knocks makes them jump apart, accompanied by a yelling voice. “Someone in there? You have three seconds, or I’m seriously going to piss on the floor!”

Will looks flushed, and his chest is heaving. Mike is very grateful for the distance he’s put between them. His own heart is beating fast enough to make him light-headed with it, and he doesn’t dare look at Will again as he glances toward the door. “We should—”

“Yeah,” says Will, and then he’s moving and the door opens. Some guy bursts in, looking extremely drunk, his pants already half unzipped.

“Oh thank fuck, I thought I was going to piss my pants.”

And they both really don’t need to stick around for all that, Mike thinks. Will seems to share the sentiment, because they quickly pull the door shut behind them and push through the line that seems to have formed in front of it.

The sheer loudness of the party doesn’t give Mike any time to process what just almost-happened in the bathroom, so he takes a heavy breath of marijuana-stained air and follows Will back towards the living room.

Mike is feeling so incredibly flustered still, and that would be fine if Will was showing even a hint of the same trouble. Instead, he seems delightfully unbothered as he navigates through the crowd. A little smug, even, as he glances at Mike over his shoulder, as if to make sure he’s still there. It’s all a little unfair, and it makes a heated feeling bubble up in Mike’s chest.

Dustin, still set up near the kitchen, spots them rather quickly and raises his drink in a gesture of half-relief, half-accusation. “Shit man, there you are! I saw Will tumbling off, and then you were, like, both gone.”

“I’m fine,” Will supplies. He glances over at Mike from under his lashes, and he’s fucking smirking. “Just lost my balance.”

Mike’s face is red; it must be, with the way he can feel the heat radiate off it. Dustin takes notice, raises an eyebrow. “Wait, what happened? Where’d you guys sneak off to?”

He’s still drunk, dragging his words together, so it sounds more like ‘snake-off’, which Mike thinks is dumb and hilarious at the same time.

“There was no sneaking,” he says angrily, but the color of his face betrays his voice. “I had to take a leak.”

“You basically sprinted outta here.”

“It was urgent.”

“And you just had to go together?” Dustin’s eyebrows climb so high, they almost disappear underneath his cap. “Like a group of girlfriends? Did Will hold your dick for you, too?”

And, okay—Talking about Mike’s dick in any capacity (and especially regarding Will) is not a good idea right now, mainly because Mike is trying to focus his own attention away from it. He feels heat rising to his face, which, hey, at least that means the blood isn’t going anywhere else in his body.

He tries to deflect. “Jesus, Dustin! How drunk are you, man?”

Dustin seems to take the bait. There’s a dopey grin on his face now. “Very.”

“Yeah. Clearly.”

“Relax, Mike,” says Will from somewhere behind him, and there’s a warm hand on Mike’s back. It makes him think of the bathroom, about how that same hand rested against his neck, and then his face. “It’s graduation. We’re allowed to have some fun.”

Fun. It seems that’s Will’s new favorite word. How ironic.

Mike shrugs his hand off. “Whatever. I’m just the one who has to drive your sorry asses home later.”

Dustin looks between them. Even in his drunk state, his eyes are way too alert for Mike’s liking. “‘M sensing something.”

“You probably have to throw up.” Nevermind the fact that Mike is the one feeling nauseous right now.

“‘Kay, no. ‘M sensing some tension here.” Dustin’s words are slurring together and it’s making Will giggle. Mike is getting kind of annoyed, mainly. He narrows his eyebrows.

“I’m sensing my foot up your ass if you don’t shut up, Dustin.”

To be fair, Dustin does shut up. But he does so only in favor of keeling over to empty the contents of his stomach, right onto the carpet of Stacey Albright’s hallway carpet.

“Oh my God,” Will supplies unhelpfully over the retching sounds. His hands are on Mike again; gripping his shirt from behind. This time, Mike lets him. He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“That’s it. I’m calling Steve.”

“Wha—Mike!”

“You need to sober up and go home. And I still have no idea where Lucas and Max are.”

“What are you, our mom?”

“What are you, three?”

“Guys.” Will’s shoulders are shaking with laughter. He can feel it in the gentle tug of fingers at the fabric of his t-shirt. “Seriously. People are staring.”

Mike is, like, ninety percent sure that’s because of the puddle of vomit currently seeping into the carpet. He doesn’t bother pointing that out to Will though.

“I’m already feeling better,” says Dustin, pouty now. Considering he just declared Mike not-his-mom, he’s sure acting like he’s trying to convince him to let him stay out after curfew.

Mike, accepting his new role as stand-in-parent, fixes Dustin with a look that he hopes is stern enough to intimidate his friend into listening. “Stop arguing and clean this up. And stay here, I’m begging you. What’s Steve’s number?”

The following sigh is one of defeat. Dustin mutters a mouthful of numbers at Mike and begins rolling up the carpet. Mike lets him, because he’s way too sober to be dealing with this right now, and heads toward the staircase.

Will follows Mike up like a shadow. The second floor of the house is thankfully a lot more quiet and a lot less crowded than it is downstairs, but they can still hear the music from the living room up here. Mike heads straight for the wall-mounted telephone and dials Steve’s number.

Will stumbles into him from the side and Mike instinctively drops an arm around his back to steady him. As if it’s muscle memory, Will follows into the movement and slots himself between Mike and the wall, which is absolutely fine and doesn’t make his heartbeat speed up at all.

He breathes and focuses on dialing the numbers. It takes him two tries to get all the digits in the correct order, but he manages in the end. The phone rings, once, twice. Will’s hands are wandering again, and it’s distracting enough for Mike to hiss a quiet “quit it” just before Steve picks up. (Not that Will cares. He presses his face into Mike, close enough for him to feel the ghost of Will’s breath on his neck. Which… yeah.)

“Hello?”

Mike almost jumps.

“Steve. It’s Mike.”

“Wheeler?” Steve’s sleepy voice rings through the receiver, almost quiet against the booming backdrop of the bass sounding from downstairs. “What’s up? Something happen?”

“Yeah. I mean, kind of. Listen, you need to come pick up Dustin. He’s super wasted.”

“Dude,” Steve sighs. “It’s, like, 2 am on a Tuesday. You guys have been drinking?”

“I mean… still are. We’re at some graduation party.” Will hums into his neck and Mike suppresses a full-body shiver. “Not me though. I’m supposed to be driving.”

“Fucking Henderson.” He sounds less sleepy now. More annoyed. “How bad is it?”

“He threw up. On the carpet.”

“God damnit. Okay. This is fine.” It’s really not. They both know it. “I mean, you’re sober. You’ll just drive him back.”

“No, I can’t leave.” Mikes voice raises in protest. “I need to find Lucas and Max, and Will is…”

…currently fiddling with the belt loops of Mike’s jeans. His hands brush against the pale strip of skin between the pants and Mike’s ridden up shirt, just over his hipbones. The smirk on his face is nothing short of devious. Mike swats his hands away gently, catches one of Will’s wrists. “Stop it.” But his face betrays him with a burning red flush.

Will giggles, but relents.

“He’s drunk too. Besides,” Mike continues. His fingers are still circling Will’s wrist. Without realizing, he drags the pad of his thumb over the soft skin on the inside, where he could probably feel Will’s pulse if he lingered long enough. Will’s eyes snap to his and Mike has to look away for a second to retain his line of thoughts. He settles for watching his thumb ghost over the bone of Will’s wrist. “Uh. I can’t drop Dustin home like this. He’s a disaster. His mom’s going to freak.”

There’s a moment of silence, nothing but the static of the line ringing out through the receiver. Then, “Someone there with you, Wheeler? A girl you like?”

He can tell Steve is grinning. When Mike looks at Will again, he realizes Will’s eyes have never left him. Hazel, blinking up at him innocently, the specks of green in them amplified by the string lights surrounding them. Mike prays to the Gods above Will didn’t hear that last sentence, despite being close enough to. He swallows around his stuttering heart, blood rushing to his cheeks. “I—No! It’s not—That’s not—”

“No worries man, I get it. Trust me, I do.” Steve’s voice sounds mischievous. Mike wants to bang his head against the wall, but Will is still there, tucked between him and the wall-mounted phone receiver. His hand, the one that isn’t held in Mike’s grip, is moving more boldly now, dragging over the flushed skin of Mike’s neck, and Mike wonders for a second if Will is just pretending to be stupid drunk, despite what he said in the bathroom. Just so he can lean on him more—Touch him more—Drive him crazy. But that would mean—That would—

“So? Where are you?” Steve’s voice calls out, more impatient now.

“Stacey’s.” Mike sounds a little breathless, even to his own ears.

“Stacey Albright?”

“Yeah? I guess. Can you come?”

“Is her sister there?”

“Why—What does that matter?”

“We may have had a falling out.” There’s some rustling as Steve appears to pull on his jacket. “Or two.”

“Jesus. You dumped Stacey’s sister? Really, Steve?”

“It’ll be fine,” says Steve, and it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself a little bit. His keys jingle over the line. “Meet me outside, though. By the fence, yeah? I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Okay,” says Mike, and Steve mutters another confirmation, and then the line goes dead.

Mike is left with a beeping sound in his ear and Will’s burning touch against the spot where his neck and shoulder meet.

“Steve is on his way,” he says.

Will smiles at him, amused. “Okay.” He doesn’t move. Just blinks up at Mike, like a baby deer. It’s infuriating. Mike isn’t looking at his lips at all.

“We should probably get downstairs,” he says. “Make sure Dustin isn’t trying to bury that carpet in the backyard.”

“Probably, yeah.”

“Okay.”

He’s thinking about the bathroom again. About Will’s eyes that look like they have galaxies swirling in them. They do right now. Mike is drowning in it, gasping for air oh-so-desperately.

“Okay,” he says again and pushes off, away from Will and the warmth that he brought into Mike’s space. “C’mon then.”

Outside, the cool air washes over Mike’s clammy skin like the first rain breaking a heatwave. The sky is inky black when he looks up, but the stars are barely out, hidden behind clouds, grey in the darkness. It’s not like Mike is paying attention to that, anyway—not when Will’s hand keeps brushing against his, splayed out on the small of Dustin’s back. They have him propped up between them, with his head lolling forward onto his chest, and Mike is glad that his display of teenage idiocy sobered Will up enough to help Mike with this, because God, Dustin is heavy. His feet drag over the driveway a little as they stumble towards the white picket fence at the edge of the lawn, where the shrubbery is growing over it, just like Steve instructed.

They didn’t ask him what happened to the carpet. It’s probably better that they don’t know.

Dustin flops to the ground with a relieved grunt. “Thassit. ‘M never drinking again. Fuck, why do people do this to ’emselves?”

“I think you’re just a lightweight,” teases Will. He’s leaning against the fence next to Dustin’s head, body curved forward in a way that makes his shirt strain against his chest. “I drank way more than you, and I’m already sober again.”

“Rude,” quips Dustin from where he’s sprawled on the curb. “Considering you fell off, like, a freaking table.”

“I didn’t actually fall, I just kind of stumbled—”

Dustin wiggles his brows. “Yeah, right into Mike’s arms like some damsel in—”

They all jump when the bushes behind them start moving.

“The fuck,” Mike shrieks, totally keeping his composure. He wobbles a bit, but Will’s hands are on him again, gripping his shirt, and it’s steadying enough for him not to trip over his own feet. “Someone there?”

There’s a rustling sound, then a giggle. It sounds eerily familiar, and Mike narrows his brows. “What the—Lucas? What are you—Dude!”

“Oh my God,” Will gasps. “Are you dry-humping your girlfriend in a bush?”

“Bet there’s more’an one bush involved in th—”

“Dude.” And that’s Lucas’ voice, no doubt. He appears from behind the shrubbery, sheepish looking, with two drinks in hand and a windswept Max trailing behind him, sporting a disrespectfully unbothered expression and a row of hickeys across the column of her throat. Will looks torn between wanting to laugh and needing to throw up, but Lucas beats him to his reaction. “How much did you let Dustin drink?”

“I’m not his fucking keeper,” quips Mike. “He can do what he wants. And, more importantly—at least he’s not dry-humping in a bush, hello!”

“Okay, there was no dry-humping involved. Anyone say that word again, they’re banned from movie night picks for a month,” says Max. She runs her fingers through her hair—it’s so much shorter now, and she’s still getting used to having it in her face all the time. “And keep my bush out of your filthy mouth, Henderson.”

“A month!” Dustin seems appalled, and also completely ignores the second part of Max’s exclamation. “No fair. Don’t think we’ll forget this. Hooking up in the damn shrubbery.” (On account of the alcohol, it sounds more like “shruffery”, which almost makes Mike laugh. Next to Max, Will is having significantly less luck keeping his composure.) “There’s something off the college bucket list.”

“You made a sex bucket list?”

“’Course I did. Research purposes.”

“Okay. Ugh. I do not want to think about you and the words ‘sex research’ in the same sentence ever again.”

“Oh, but we have to listen to you two go at it out in the open?”

“At least someone here is getting some. And besides, we were here first.” Max sticks her tongue out at Dustin and moves to lean her hip on the fence, next to Will. “Speaking of. Why exactly are we hanging out on Stacey’s front lawn?”

“Steve’s getting Dustin,” Will grins. “’Cause he’s wasted.”

“Your mom’s wasted.”

Lucas looks appalled at this. “Dude. What did Mrs. Byers ever do to you?”

Dustin’s face falls. “Swear, that’s not what I—”

“You guys are annoying,” Max sighs. “I need a smoke. Anyone want one?”

She plucks a pack of Newports from the back pocket of her jeans—a newer habit she picked up from some guy at the skate park. They’re menthol, which Mike likes to give her shit for, though he doesn’t feel like it right now. Not when Will scoots closer to Max against the fence, holding his hand out to grab the pack.

“I wanna try one.”

It’s just not fair, Mike thinks: The way Will’s fingers look as he holds the cigarette between them. The easy manner in which he lifts it to the corner of his lips and tucks it in between. The curve of his body as he leans forward and into the flame offered by Max’s lighter. There’s more, of course: The inhale, careful at first and then hard enough to make the cherry glow. The barely-there cough that evens out into laughter and then another drag. And then, once Will gets the hang of it: Slow smoke curling from his mouth, thick and white, swirling into the air before disappearing.

“Someone got the hang of it,” says Max, and Will grins at her, nudging their shoulders together, blowing more smoke while his expression drops into a dreamy, half-lidded look of contentment.

Mike is aware he’s staring, but it’s hard to tear his eyes away from the beautiful boy in front of him. Will looks so cool. It’s a little disorienting. Which probably why Mike barely notices Lucas sidle up to him, arms crossing as he sips at one of the two cups he’s still holding.

“You good, buddy?”

“I’m fantastic,” says Mike, tearing his gaze from his two giggling friends, leaning against the fence. He’s feeling a bit snarky all of a sudden. “Will almost broke his neck falling off the dining table, Dustin barfed on Stacey’s carpet and you two dry-humped in a bush.”

“Jesus. Movie night privileges revoked, Wheeler!” Max glares.

“And I’m the only sober person at this party, apparently,” adds Mike, and it takes everything in him not to stick his tongue out at Max. They both know he gets movie privileges every time, since it’s his basement they’re always hanging out in, anyway.

“Wait—” Lucas’ cup pauses halfway to his face, like he’s only just now catching up to what it is that Mike said. “Will almost did what?”

“Mike’s being dramatic,” says Will and uses the distraction to pluck one of the drinks from Lucas’ hand. “Literally nothing happened. It was barely a tumble.”

The look he throws Mike over the rim of the blue cup is almost daring. Mike ignores the way it tugs at his insides and rolls his eyes, opting for more snark instead. “Right. You really shouldn’t drink any more of that.”

“There’s more than enough,” says Will, like the brat he is. “Right, Lucas?”

Lucas snorts. “Definitely. I lost at beer pong, like, so bad. Pretty sure there’s another cup somewhere in the bush that I was s’posed to be drinking.” Now that he’s mentioning it, Lucas does seem rather tipsy, too.

“Totally not the point,” says Mike. His butt is starting to go numb where he’s leaning against the fence, so he pushes off and shakes his legs out. “But whatever.”

Will’s eyebrows raise, but he says nothing. Beside him, Max squishes the cigarette butt under her shoe and glares at Mike. “What are you, the fun police?”

Mike scoffs. “You literally suck, Maxine. Corrupting the youth with indecent exposure and toothpaste smokes.”

“You suck, asshole, don’t fucking call me—”

“Okay, that’s enough, guys,” says Lucas. He steps between them, like some human shield, which only makes Mike angrier. “Mike, stop talking like a cop. Max, stop being a dick. There. Sorted.”

“Whatever,” Mike says, the corners of his lips turning down. “I’m never DD-ing again. See if I care.”

(He’s joking, of course. He’d always rather his friends get home safe, even if they’re fighting over dumb shit. But for now, he keeps glaring at Max over Lucas’ shoulder. Will seems delighted at the whole exchange, which Mike is totally not paying attention to at all.)

In the end, it’s closer to thirty-five minutes that have passed by the time that Steve’s midnight blue Ranger pulls up to the curb, Bon Jovi blasting from it even with the windows up. Dustin looks half elated, half terrified to see his best friend climb out of the car. Steve has the intimidating-dad-stare down to a T, hands on his hips and everything. He looks down at the pile of boy on the pavement, legs scrambled and crossed over each other. “Jesus Christ, Henderson. Someone help me get him up, come on.”

It is, of course, Mike who helps him. Dustin gives the group a pathetic wave from the passenger seat, just as Steve hands him a plastic trash bag and rolls the window down for him.

“The rest of you still good? Sinclair?”

“Aye, Sir.” Lucas gives a mock salute.

Steve’s gaze falls on Will, who’s still holding the last of his cigarette between his fingers. “Are you smoking?” He seems to only just realize.

Will gives a nonchalant shrug, lips quirking up at the corners. “Don’t tell Jonathan?”

“You kids are gonna be the death of me,” Steve mutters. He claps Mike on the shoulder. “Thanks for calling. I got him from here. You guys enjoy the rest of the party.” Glances over said shoulder to fix the rest of them with a fatherly glare. “But not too much, yeah, Baby Byers?”

“Not doing anything you wouldn’t do.”

Will’s eyes are twinkling. Steve gives a sigh and drags his hand over his face. “That’s less comforting than you’d think.”

The driver’s door slams shut. Dustin gives a weak wave, clutching the trash bag as they drive off, into the night. When Mike turns back, Will is finishing off the last of Lucas’ drink, and the look he throws Mike afterward is nothing short of provocative.

He looks… well, drunk definitely is one way to describe it. Cheekbones flushed, despite the fresh air surrounding them. Eyes drooping, trailing over Mike. Sweat collecting at his brows, which should be gross, but somehow only makes him look more beautiful, skin glistening in the moonlight.

Mike snatches the cup from him, but it’s already empty. Will gives a triumphant smirk, head tilting sideways. “Oops.”

“Guys, really? He just sobered up!”

“Wee-ooh! Fun police!” Max yells and pushes off the fence. “Suck it, Wheeler. You’re such a control freak, my God.”

“And you’re like a rabid dog. Unnecessarily aggressive,” Mike grits out between his teeth. Max glares at him and steps closer to punch him on the arm. “Ow!”

“I’m done hanging with you losers,” she says and gives Mike the finger.

“What’d I do?” Will mutters from his spot on the fence. Max doesn’t seem to hear him. Only glares some more over her shoulder as she stumbles back towards the house.

From the spot next to him, Lucas sends Mike a look. The one reserved for when he’s very annoyed with Michael Wheeler, specifically. “Great, man. Now you’ve pissed her off.”

“She’s been pissed off. It’s not my fault your girlfriend is like that.”

“And how would that be, exactly?”

“You know.” Mike doesn’t actually know. He gives a half-shrug towards Max’s retreating form. “That.”

Lucas raises his brows. “And they say you’re the sober one.”

“Go look after her, Lucas,” Will interrupts, coming up behind Mike. “She’s still drunk, and I need s’more air anyway.”

“Yeah. Whatever,” Mike sniffs.

Lucas rolls his eyes, equal amounts fond and annoyed. “Just… come find us later. We’ll be inside.”

Mike watches his back as he disappears back into the house.

This is not good. He shouldn’t be out here, alone with Will, again, because evidently Mike can’t be trusted with his decisions right now. He was about to kiss Will in that bathroom, like the absolute idiot that he is. And no matter how much he might have thought Will wanted it too, he’s still drunk right now, which means Mike can’t. He shouldn’t even be thinking about it. Not so openly. Not in any way that could ever make Will realize the magnitude of the situation Mike finds himself in.

He doesn’t dare finish that particular line of thought. The one where, deep down, he knows what all of this means. The reason why it feels like he can’t breathe around Will sometimes, why he can’t even think about him for too long before his chest feels like it’s caving in on itself.

Mike avalanche of thoughts is interrupted by Will stumbling into his side. Instinctively, his arm comes up to wrap around his shoulders and Will all but melts into the touch, tucking himself into the crook of his arm.

“Come on,” Mike says, ignoring the flutter in his chest. “Let’s walk for a bit.”

He might need it more than Will. Neither of them mentions it.

Mike brings Will away from the house, where there’s less noise and less people. A little way from the property, there’s a swing set. It feels a bit too obvious; too romantic, almost, and he nearly steers them past it and back around. But Will, suddenly open-eyed where he’s still leaning on his shoulder, squeals in delight and hauls himself toward one of the seats.

“Oh my God, Mike, look. It’s for us.”

Casual. Like that sentence alone isn’t supposed to make Mike’s heart do a flip in his chest. Because it is for them, entirely and utterly. Almost sacred in a way. Reminiscent of the way they met, close to thirteen years ago now.

Two boys on a swing set. Blue seats, yellow framework. This one is plain steel and white plastic, but Mike still sees the colors dance in front of him. He looks at Will, with his flushed cheeks and wide smile. Watches as he swings back and forth a couple times before pulling Max’s cigarettes from his front pocket.

“I want another.”

He must have swiped them from Max, or maybe she left them outside when she stormed off. Mike lowers himself onto the other seat and glances at Will, who’s tucking the cigarette between his lips in an unfairly practiced manner, considering it’s the second one he’s ever had. He clicks the lighter a couple times, holds it up to illuminate the planes of his face, the shadow of his cheekbones and jaw. Who even looks good trying to light a cigarette? Will puffs on it, one time, then another to keep the tip glowing.

“Since when do you smoke?” Mike tries to deflect his thoughts from wandering too far again.

“Since tonight, I guess.” Another drag. This one makes Will’s face scrunch up, nose wrinkling as he coughs out a small cloud of white. “Oh God.”

“You okay?”

Will coughs again and leans his head against the chain link holding up his seat. “Yeah. First one was better, though. This one’s making me dizzy.”

“Give that here,” says Mike, who’s had enough. He plucks the offending smoke from Will’s fingers despite his protest, holding it out of Will’s reach. “I think that’s enough for now.”

“You’re so bossy.”

“I’m worried. There’s a difference.”

Will smirks and wraps his fingers around the chain. His face is bright, lit up by the moonlight. “’S okay. I kinda like it.”

There’s that voice again, the breathy one. Mike doesn’t know what to say, face growing hot. Instead of answering, he looks down at the cigarette tucked between his middle and forefinger. The tip is still glowing, and his eyes catch on the filter. On the spot where Will’s lips have just been.

He doesn’t know what comes over him. But he’s tired of fighting his urges. So, Mike lifts the cigarette to his mouth and sucks on it.

It’s pretty gross at first, and Mike has to cough a little, but once his throat relaxes, he tries again. The smoke is heavy in his mouth, clinging to his airway as he breathes it down, but it leaves a pleasant buzz in his veins that is only amplified by the weight of Will’s eyes on him.

He allows himself another drag, and then one more. Lets the smoke settle into his lungs until his heart doesn’t threaten to beat out of his chest anymore. Mike kind of likes the heady feeling that comes with it—like a prickle under his skin that rises to his skull and makes the world go quiet for a moment.

Only when he exhales for the third time does he look back over at Will. He’s hunched over, leaning against the swing chain, body turned towards Mike. His mouth is slightly parted, all perfect and pink. And his eyes, God. They’re dark, almost black in the moonlight, following the trail of translucent smoke curling from Mike’s lips before snapping back to his face. He doesn’t seem to be breathing. Just waiting, with flushed cheeks and a wild look in his eyes.

Will looks exactly how Mike felt watching him smoke before. Like he wants to devour him whole and leave no trace behind. As if he needs to, in order to keep breathing.

Mike flicks his tongue out, runs it over his bottom lip. Shivers when he watches Will’s pupils dilate, following the movement.

It’s fucking exhilarating.

“Since when do you smoke?” Will is going for a teasing tone, but it comes out a little breathless. Mike smirks bravely, cigarette still tucked between his lips, and his insides burn when Will’s eyes flick down to it again.

“Since tonight, I guess,” he echoes.

Will snorts. “Hypocrite.”

Mike is thinking about the bathroom again. The soft pressure of Will’s body molding to his. The feeling of his hands on Mike, all confident and unapologetic.

And Will is looking far too kissable right now, body tilted towards Mike like that, so he decides he needs to change strategies. Quickly. Before he does something unforgivably stupid.

Mike inhales another shaky breath filled with smoke and fights the cough threatening to claw its way out of his throat.

“Do you feel a bit better?” he asks, and just like that, the moment is over. A small cloud of smoke drifts over in Will’s direction, making him blink and pull back a little, though he’s still watching Mike.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m… not dizzy anymore.”

“Good.” Mike misses Will’s eyes on him.

“Kinda wanna go dance s’more,” Will says, kicking at the ground with his foot. He still seems a bit drunk, though not as much as before.

Mike watches as he swings back and forth a little, barely enough to really count. “Oh, because last time went so well.”

“It seemed like a good idea in the moment, okay!” Will laughs, a short and breathy sound that sends a shiver up Mike’s spine. “Besides, you were there to catch me.”

He says it so simply. As if it’s the most obvious thing in the world; Mike being there to catch Will when he falls.

(It is, really. Mike knows it, too.)

“Well, don’t count on it again.” The half-smoked cigarette drops to the ground and Mike puts it out with the sole of his Converse. He’s lying between his teeth, like the sucker he is.

Will pouts at that, but there’s a smile playing at his lips again after, when he pushes off the swing. He’s not stumbling as badly anymore when they make their way back to the house, but it’s still enough to excuse Mike’s hand sneaking around his middle. Neither of them mentions it. There’s no need.

And they keep close to each other for the rest of the evening—a blur of people and blue cups and the way Will moves under the string lights of the living room. Mike is woozy with it, and when Will grabs his wrist to keep track of him in the crowd, fingers resting over his hammering pulse, he feels like he might have died and gone to heaven a little bit.

He watches Will sway to the music as they walk. Watches the way his body flows, effortless and free. It feels almost wistful, in a way. As if he can taste the honesty of it all on the tip of his tongue, a bittersweet hint of what Mike could have if he only allowed himself. If only he was able to.

When they find Max and Lucas, it’s in the kitchen and Max has calmed down enough to not roll her eyes at Mike when she spots him trudging in behind Will—though this might be because she’s absolutely hammered, with Lucas steadying her against the counter, and, “Yeah, I think it might be time to go,” says Lucas as he slings her arm around his own shoulder.

So, for the second time that night, Mike helps lugging someone out the front door of Stacey Albright’s family home, although this time they’re heading directly for Nancy’s old Mercury. She left it to Mike after her departure for Boston, much to his delight—he’s been cruising the five of them around most of the summer. (And was forced to drop Holly at the occasional birthday party. But whatever. Freedom. Or something pretty close, at least.)

Hawkins is deserted at three AM, and if Mike goes a little over the speed limit down Cornwallis, no one is there to witness it. He wouldn’t usually, not with Max screeching about having to throw up in the backseat, but Will is giggling next to him, all bright and beautiful. Mike wants to hear that sound over and over again, tattoo it on his chest right over his heart.

He knows he should drop Will off first—it’s such a detour, going back and forth between Lucas and the cabin. But Mike selfishly wants a little more time alone with Will. And maybe his friends notice that he’s taking the long way home, but they all seem too far gone to care about it right now. Mike is still drunk off the high that hides in the way Will looked at him tonight, so he doesn’t either. Just keeps going, with the windows down and the cool wind dancing in his hair.

It's a short drive anyway, though by the time Mike turns onto Maple Street, Max is half asleep, drooling on Lucas’ shoulder. Mike stops at the Sinclair house and Lucas gives him a nod and a “Thanks, man,” before lifting Max out of the car. They watch them disappear into the house, tiny figures in the dark, before Mike puts the car in reverse.

“You can put on some music, if you like.”

“You only have Tears For Fears in here,” says Will.

Mike grins. “They’re good!” he says, which makes Will scoff but put a cassette in anyway. The sound fills the car, paints the night in dreamy colors. Mike wants to conserve the moment in a bottle so he can take it with him everywhere and remember it forever.

“I wanted to be with you alone,” he sings instead, voice cracking where he goes up at the end. “And talk about the weather.”

Will snorts next to him. “That’s so cheesy.”

“It’s great and you know it,” Mike insists, delighting in the way Will’s face is lighting up at his stupid singing. He drums his palms on the steering wheel, nodding his head to the beat, and it seems like it’s taking Will a lot of effort not to burst out laughing. “You’re just, just wasting time…”

There’s a squeezing feeling clawed around his heart that he always experiences when thinking about the passing of time for too long. In the dark moments, he wonders what the future will bring for all of them. Whether they’ll still be friends by this time next year. Whether he’ll ever get to have Will like this again. As his best friend from Shithole Hawkins, driving around after a night out. Probably not.

Something happens and I’m head over heels, Orzabal’s voice taunts him. I never find out until I’m head over heels.

He knows the others would scold him about thinking this way if they knew. Especially Will. It's why he tries not to linger on it for too long, much like he doesn’t now.

Mike looks over at Will, who’s humming along to the music now despite his earlier protest, and bottles his memory to save for one of those dark moments.

Don’t take my heart, don’t break my heart… Don’t throw it away.

Max never got her cigarettes back, so Mike lights another one out of the window of Nancy’s car, if only for the way it makes Will’s eyes linger on him from his spot in the passenger seat. Resting his elbow by the rolled down window, he lets the smoke drag outside and into the night air. Mike decides that maybe he likes the taste of menthol in his lungs if it makes Will look at him like this every time, eyes all dark and half-lidded.

Mike has a hard time focusing on driving.

The tape is over just as he pulls up to the cabin, leaves and sticks crunching under tires. There’s a moment of silence, but it’s not uncomfortable. When their eyes meet, something crackles in between them and Mike is reminded of the bathroom. Of the swings. Of the countless moments tonight where he could have reached out and touched, made it real.

Will opens his mouth, then closes it again. Swallows. Then speaks.

“You know, for a second, I thought you were going to kiss me on those swings.”

There is suddenly no air inside Mike’s lungs at all.

This is unexpected. Uncharted territory. Because the thing, carefully constructed and held together by silence and yearning, is now out in the open between them, and Mike doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

Something complicated passes over his face, raw and unfiltered. He can tell it shows in his eyes, in the tilt of his lips, because Will leans back, away from him, and gives an embarrassed little laugh, as if the admission startled himself. “Sorry. I guess I still am a little bit drunk after all. I don’t know why I said that.”

Mike says nothing. He’s still processing Will’s words, the implications of it. Mike, kissing Will. He glances at Will’s lips. Will is chewing on them, seemingly nervous. Mike wants to reach out and touch. To run his fingers over them. He wants to lean over the center console and bring his own mouth to it and swallow whatever sounds would spill out. He wants to cup his palms around Will’s jaw and stroke his thumbs over his blushing cheeks and—

“Just… forget about it, yeah?” Will undoes his seatbelt and gets out of the car faster than Mike can blink. It seems he got lost in these thoughts for a second too long, because now he’s watching Will lean down and give him another glance, paired with a resigned little smile. “Thanks for the ride.” Like he even has to thank him for that. “Good night, Mike.”

The passenger door clicks shut.

Mike is an idiot.

His body is faster than his brain this time. Before he can really think about what it is that he’s doing, he’s tripping out of the car. “Will! Wait!”

Will, already at the front door, turns. His expression is so eager it almost hurts a little. Mike stumbles with the weight of it, catches himself on the hood of Nancy’s car.

“Let me walk you to your room?”

His voice tilts up at the end, the question coming out weak. Will’s lips quirk.

“Ever the gentleman. You treat all your best friends like this?”

He looks beautiful in the moonlight. Mike swallows.

“No,” he says, voice a little breathless. “Just you.”

It comes out way too serious.

Will gives a husky laugh, almost shy, as he pushes open the door of the cabin. “Come on, then.”

Hopper and Mrs. Byers are out for the week—left with Jonathan, right after their graduation ceremony to go look at a place in Montauk they’re hoping to buy. Mike knows this because Will told him a few days ago. It’s why he planned the D&D session for that night, and partly why he let them sweet-talk him into going to the party.

And Mike knows all this, yes, but the weight of it only begins settling into his body now. Because him and Will have been flirting, or at least Mike’s pretty sure that’s the case now that Will’s said something about kissing, and they’re currently alone in Will’s room, in a cabin in the middle of the woods, where no one will hear them or walk in because it’s close to four AM on a Wednesday morning.

God, he needs to get his mind out of the gutter.

Will’s room is sparse, mostly cluttered with things he’s collected over the past two years while living in Mike’s basement. Hopper spent the better part of two months after, well… everything adding it to the cabin. It looks that way, too; just a bit too new, with the wood paneling still smelling fresh. He supposes Will doesn’t see the point in making it feel lived in. Not when he’s leaving for New York in only a couple weeks. But Mike spots some personal touches here and there: A row of movie posters pinned to the wall with thumbtacks (Jaws, Little Shop of Horrors, Stand By Me), a couple inserts from the records Will seems to especially enjoy (Bowie, The Cure, Depeche Mode) and, of course, his drawings—the latter take up most of the space, not only on the walls, but the desk and bedside table as well, and there’s canvases stacked between the closet and the wall, some of them more finished than others.

Mike stands there, just looking, until he realizes a long beat has passed and he’s lingering awkwardly, caught halfway between the door and the middle of the room. Will doesn’t seem to mind or care. His hands fly to the button on his jeans, zipper coming down with a small sound that seems deafeningly loud in the quiet of his bedroom.

Mike quickly averts his eyes, instead focusing on the photographs hanging from a string of fairy lights on the wall—some of the party, and some of Jonathan. There’s one of Jane, too. Different than the one Mike has. This one must have been taken in Lenora, because she has the bangs in it, the ones that made her look like Mrs. Byers a little bit.

And, God, thinking about his dead ex or Will’s mother are both really fucking bad ideas right now. But when Mike turns back around, Will is sitting on his bed in just his boxers and that offensive fucking t-shirt, so maybe he should’ve just kept his eyes on the photos, honestly.

Will is staring again, trailing up and down Mike’s silhouette. “You’re being weird.”

“What? I’m not,” Mike protests. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “Why am I weird?”

“You’re all awkward and tense,” says Will. “Let’s put on some music.”

And, yeah, music’s good. Something for Mike to do. He walks over to the stereo tucked between Will’s art supplies. “Any requests?”

“No Tears For Fears.”

“Ha ha.”

Mike settles on one of Jonathan’s old mixtapes, because he guesses he can’t go wrong with those. He presses play and lets the first notes ring out in the room. When he turns back around, Will is watching him, expression unreadable. He pulls the covers around himself like a cocoon and pats the space beside himself. “Come sit down, weirdo.”

Mike, like the hopeless idiot that he is, comes and sits. He’s still tense, perched awkwardly at the edge of Will’s mattress. God, he needs to relax. It’s starting to get pathetic.

Will seems to feel the same tension in Mike. He eyes him, blanket dropping from around his shoulders and coming to rest around his waist. Mike is twisting his fingers where he’s leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and Will’s eyebrows raise at the sight.

“You know, I have weed, if you want.”

And isn’t Will just full of surprises tonight? Mike’s brain short-circuits. “Huh?”

Will shrinks in on himself a little, but he’s laughing. “Thought it might help you… calm down a bit.”

Mike is still stuck on the image of a stoned Will Byers, eyes rimmed red and glassy. He’d look so pretty, too. Even more than he already does, blinking up at Mike from his spot on the bed.

“Where’d you get weed? Is that—do you do that, like, on the regular?”

Will’s sheepish now. “Jonathan left his stash when he went to New York. He, uh. I smoked with him once.”

Mike’s mouth opens, then closes again. Because he used to pride himself on knowing everything there is to know about his best friend, but now he doesn’t—and not just some small thing either. Will smokes weed now. Jonathan showed him how. And Mike didn’t know. It bugs him more than it should.

Beside him, Will rolls out his shoulders. He doesn’t seem embarrassed, per se, but his eyes are anywhere but on Mike, tiny smile still playing at his lips.

“I don’t know. We don’t have to.”

Mike swallows. “I just—Some other time, maybe.”

Because he will go mindlessly stupid around Will if he adds the haze of weed to the swirling mix of thoughts inside his brain right now. Considering how dumb Jonathan and Argyle got in California, it doesn’t seem like the best move. Mike doesn’t want to do anything crazy. And he certainly doesn’t want to drown in thoughts of death and destruction of the world while he’s here, either—he can beat himself up for banishing Jane from his thoughts tomorrow, but right now, he’s here. In Will’s room. In Will’s bed, his mind unhelpfully supplies.

Mike shifts his weight. The mattress dips, sliding Will ever so closer to him.

“Yeah. You’re probably right,” Will says. There’s a pause. “Just… wanted to keep the buzz for a little longer, I guess. Feels like it makes everything easier, sometimes.”

“You’re not drunk anymore?”

“Dunno.” His eyes burn on Mike’s face. “Feels like it, a little bit. Not as much as before.”

With the liquid courage gone, he doesn’t hold Mike’s stare as confidently as before. Something about the shyness of it all jumpstarts Mike’s heart and squeezes tight. Because it is just Will, after all—His Will, best friend Will. Dressed differently and acting more confidently, but he’s still there, still the boy Mike met on those swings. It makes him think back, to when everything seemed so much easier.

For a tiny moment, Mike is ten again, sprawled across the floor of his basement, with maps and dice and monster manuals strewn around him. Will is there, and he sits glued to Mike’s lips, to the way he describes the forest and the fields, to the voices Mike puts on when the bad guys finally attack. Mike enjoys every second of it, drinks it up greedily.

For a beat, he’s fourteen, and this time it’s his own gaze, stuck to his best friend’s face. Because they’re in California and Will looks different, and Mike has eyes that love to wander. And he’s not dumb—he notices, in retrospect, how Will’s own glances have grown longer and his looks more lingering. How, deep down, Mike knows that he doesn’t mind it half as much as he should.

For a third, seemingly infinite second, Mike is sixteen. It’s barely two years ago, Will has just moved into the basement and Mike keeps catching himself with his wandering eyes whenever Will steps out of the bathroom wrapped in nothing but a towel around his waist. He lets them drift when Will’s shirt clings to his skin after a particularly long patrol. He doesn’t bother turning his head away when Will sprawls out on the sticky leather sofa, shorts riding higher up his thighs in the pressing warmth of their summer movie nights.

They’re eighteen now. Freshly graduated, with their futures all planned out. Well, Will has it figured out, at least. It’s odd to think about how they won’t be experiencing it all together from now on. How Will is going to start this next adventure alone, in a strange city full of new faces. He’s going to be happy there. Free. Find new friends, better ones than Mike, probably. Fall in love. Make a life for himself.

There’s a lump in Mike’s throat and he tries to swallow around it. He focuses on the music instead, tries to let it wash over his mind to keep it from spiraling.

Will’s knee nudges his own and Mike sucks in a shaky breath.

“So. You’re still here.” Not accusatory, but amused. Will is smiling as he says it. His leg comes to rest against Mike’s, a calming warmth.

Mike exhales, long and hard. “I am.”

“And you’ve walked me to my room.”

“Yeah.” Mike pauses. “Is that—Do you want me to go?”

Will shakes his head with a hum. “No. I never want you to go.”

It’s so painfully honest. Mike’s heart clenches around the words; they fill it despite being the wrong shape—despite meaning something different than Mike wants them to.

He swallows. His mouth is very dry.

“Good,” he says, after a beat. “Just making sure you’re not in imminent danger of falling off any furniture, you know.”

Will throws him an amused look. “Shut up.”

“Menacing, this bed. It’s a good thing I’m here, really.”

“Oh my God, Mike, you’re gonna use that against me forever, aren’t you?” His eyes are twinkling.

Mike bites back a grin of his own. He fails. “Maybe.”

A laugh bubbles from Will’s chest at that, and the sound finally lets Mike relax. Accompanied by the humming of David Byrne’s voice, he gets more comfortable, settling on the bed with his back against the wall. Will does the same after a moment. His hair is all messy still, sticking up in the back where he’s run his hands through most often. Mike feels like carding his own fingers through. He wants to feel the softness, the damp at the back of Will’s neck, the tender spot behind his ear. He wants to pull on it, tilt Will’s head back and bury his own face in the crook of his neck to breathe him in.

Mike is a terrible and selfish person. An awful best friend who just can’t seem to stop wanting. Who yearns to know the smell of Will’s skin, the feel of his lips and the taste of his tongue. Who craves to pull him closer, to trap him underneath and ruin him. And worse—to hold Will after, to whisper sweetness into the crook of his neck, to kiss the corners of his mouth just because he can and because Will wants him to.

It's a strange duality that exists within Mike, because he isn’t an idiot. He can recognize tonight for what it is. And Will has been initiating things tonight. He thinks back to their almost-kiss. To the feeling of Will’s fingers on his collar, brushing his throat. To the way Will looked at him on the swings, leaning in, mouth parted and ready and waiting.

Mike wanted to give into it so bad. He still does. His hands twitch on his thighs and he grips them tightly, presses his nails into the fabric to ground himself a bit.

There’s the logic of them, of Will possibly wanting him in that way, too, from the outside. And then there’s this, inside. A dark and ugly coil in Mike’s chest that tells him it’s wrong, that he’s disgusting and that Will could never want him like that. Not beyond their friendship. Not beyond the clear line that Mike drew between them when he chose Jane, over and over. When he placed Will in the neatly drawn box titled ‘best friend’ on the tower. When he decided that he could never have this, because he isn’t supposed to want it and because he doesn’t deserve to, anyway.

But, Mike thinks as he steals another glance at Will to find him already looking back, this always happens: The moment their eyes meet, all of the sunken feelings bubble back up to the surface of Mike’s chest. And he only has so much patience. He only has so many tries before he can’t keep pushing them back under and force them to drown.

Right now, they’re all floating in the shallow end of his heart. And he’s so goddamn tired of fighting.

Will looks beautiful. It’s like Mike is seeing him for the first time, and because he’s weak, he lets himself have a moment to take it all in—everything he’s observed every single second he and Will have shared a space tonight, only it feels amplified by a million. The soft mess of his hair. The gentle flush on his cheeks. The perfect pink of his lips and the shape of his jaw. The broadness of his shoulders, the tightness of the shirt that started all of this in the first place. The way Mike wonders what he would find underneath if he dared to reach out and touch. The questions spinning around his mind: Is Will’s heart beating as fast as his own? Is he itching to reach out and touch, the same way Mike is?

The way Will is looking at him feels like a resounding ‘yes’. Mike’s voice is hoarse when he speaks. “You’ve gotta stop.”

“I’m not doing anything.” Will’s head is tilted, eyes questioning. His smile small, but knowing. Mike’s brain short-circuits for the second time that night.

“You’re sitting there, looking all pretty.”

Immediately, Will’s lips part in a small gasp. Mike sucks in a breath, cheeks flaming red.

“Um. I mean.”

Fuck.

“It’s okay.” Will has that look in his eyes again. The one from the swings. “I like that you think I’m pretty.”

Yeah, there’s no way Mike is breathing right now. He feels a weird buzzing sensation under his skin that only seems to grow with every word.

“I liked the way you looked at me at the party, too. When I danced. And then after, in the bathroom. On the swings. Made me feel… I don’t know.”

He’s blushing.

And maybe it’s what Will is saying, or the sight of him in his bed with the sheets pooling around his hips. Maybe it’s the bad thoughts that keep creeping in, or maybe Mike is just tired of fighting them all the time—of calling them bad without even knowing whether that’s true or not.

Whatever it is, he decides in one split second that he’s going to be brave, right now.

“I wanted to, you know.”

Will looks at him, confused and handsome. Mike swallows. Tries again. He needs to do this, needs to be honest so that Will knows the real, true extent of it.

“Kiss you, I mean. On the swings.”

At that, Will goes very still. “Yeah?”

His voice is barely a whisper. And the way he says it—all taken aback, like a deer in headlights, like he didn’t actually expect Mike to utter the words—almost makes Mike stop. But, well, he has started talking now, so he might as well put it all out in the open.

“In the bathroom, too. I’ve… wanted to for a while, I think.”

He can’t read Will’s expression at all. It’s a newer development, one that Mike greatly despises right now.

“How—How long?” Will’s voice is breathless.

“I mean, I didn’t realize until you moved in.”

“That’s—” Will exhales unsteadily, half-laughing, half-disbelieving. “Mike, that was almost two years ago.”

“I… Yeah. It was.”

“You’ve been wanting to kiss me for two years?”

“I don’t think you—” Mike is growing frustrated. Will’s not getting it. “Every time you brushed past me in the hallway, every time you came out of the shower in just your stupid towel. It was—I kind of died inside. God, it was torture Will, and I got so scared because that’s not how you’re supposed to feel about your best friend, those are girlfriend feelings.”

Will blinks at him. “Mike—”

“But I didn’t—I don’t think I—Fuck. I mean, I’ve never felt that way about Jane. I tried to. But it felt so different. Wrong. I don’t know. And I felt so guilty about it. About thinking of you in that way. I didn’t mean to. I tried to stop, but tonight, you just…” His voice cracks. It’s embarrassing, but not enough to get him to stop talking. “I mean, you looked so—so good on that table, you don’t even—and then, in the bathroom. Fuck, Will. And I just… I’ve thought about it so many times. Having you that close. But I was so scared every time, because I couldn’t—It wasn’t—”

He cuts himself off. Takes a gasping breath of air, wringing his hands in his lap.

Will says nothing for a really long moment, and, well, Mike might have really fucked it up now. But at least it’s out there now. Weirdly enough, he feels lighter.

There’s a tiny pressure against his knee. Will’s foot, still covered by the blanket, resting by his thigh. Mike focuses on it, anchors all his anxiety in that single touch.

“I get it,” says Will, tone soft. “Trust me, I do. But… You knew I wanted to. You must have. Why…”

He cuts himself off.

What Mike hears is: Why didn’t you kiss me at the party? Why didn’t you say anything? Why did you carry this around for so long, when I was right here?

Mike shrugs, voice shaky. “Still scared, I guess.”

“Of me?”

“No. Never you.” Mike says quickly. “Of… what it would mean. For myself. What it could do…” He swallows. “To us. And you were drunk. It didn’t seem like the right thing to do.”

“But you wanted to.”

It’s not a question. Mike gives a breathy laugh and doesn’t look at Will.

“Yeah, Will. I really wanted to.”

The confession sounds out in the room. It bounces off the wood panel walls, drowned out against the frantic thumping of Mike’s heart. He’s so nervous, and Will is just sitting there, looking. Processing.

It is the first time Mike admitted it out loud, after all.

Will seems to be thinking for another moment before he speaks again, voice quiet and deep. “Do you still want to?”

“I never don’t want to kiss you.” Mike admits in an abashed chuckle. “That’s the problem.”

His eyes latch onto the pictures on the wall. They’re too tiny to make out from his spot on Will’s bed, but it doesn’t matter either way—Mike is painfully aware of Will next to him, of the way his own chest is heaving, of the hammering sound of his heart. Will’s eyes follow Mike’s line of sight.

“Don’t think about her right now.”

Suddenly, Will’s fingers are on his jaw again. If that single touch was fire, Mike would be burning. It’s all-consuming—and the fact that Will thinks there could be anything else going on in his head right now is, honestly, ridiculous. He lets Will turn his head back, and oh—they’re so close suddenly. Will is leaning into him from the side, hand cradling Mike’s face, their noses almost touching.

“I’m not,” whispers Mike. His breath is coming faster, mingling with Will’s. He can feel it on his lips. “That’s another problem.”

Will’s mouth quirks. “M-hm. I don’t think it’s a problem, personally. It’s not—We’re not bad people because of it.”

“Will,” says Mike, desperately clinging to the shape of it on his tongue. His eyes are frantic, darting between Will’s, then down, then back up again. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I do know.”

“You’re—you’re still tipsy.”

“I’m not,” says Will. And, fuck, Mike knows he’s telling the truth. “I’ve thought about this so many times, Mike.” Will’s thumb drags over his jawbone. “From every angle. Because I felt like a horrible friend and an even worse brother for wanting you like that.”

Mike is pretty sure he’s stopped breathing. His eyes dart over Will’s face, frantic.

“But the world almost ended, and I realized that I can’t let those things hold me back from what I really want.”

He’s so close close close and Mike is not thinking about all the reasons he shouldn’t do this at all anymore.

“Will—” he says, brokenly. Desperately. Will’s nose brushes against his, and Mike can feel the vibration of his voice reflected off Will’s lips as he speaks, despite it being in a whisper. “Your mouth is getting, like, really close to mine.”

“That’s because I’m trying to get you to kiss me, Mike,” Will murmurs.

And, well. Mike’s restraint snaps like a rubber band pulled too tight. Finally, he leans in. Like he wants to. Like he’s been wanting to.

It’s not good at first. He gets the angle all wrong, and their lips don’t align right. He can feel Will’s foot digging into his knee and he doesn’t quite know where to put his hands. Mike pulls back despite not wanting to, breath coming impossibly fast, and for a second, he thinks he’s fucked it all up beyond repair. Panic starts to set in—What if this was wrong, what if he’s just a drunk mistake to Will, what if he already regrets it—

But then, Will grabs onto the front of his shirt, pulls him back in. They slot together, Will’s lips soft on his, softer than he could have ever imagined them to be. Mike lets his hands settle onto his waist, just above the comforter pooling around them, and he tilts his head to the side a little. Will gives a tiny, shuddering breath against his mouth, gasps a broken-sounding plea in the form of Mike’s name into it and suddenly, it all starts making sense.

There’s the slow drag of lips against his own, the warmth of them. The trembling intake of breath that Mike can feel mirrored in his own lungs. The way Will’s fingers tighten in his t-shirt before relaxing again to run up over Mike’s chest and to the back of his neck. It makes the tiny hairs there stand up and a shiver race down Mike’s spine.

Then, there’s the unmistakable, Will-shaped scent surrounding Mike. The perfume Will took from Jonathan’s drawer in the bathroom. The laundry detergent from Melvald’s, that specific brand from the bottom shelf Joyce always uses—The one that reminds Mike of late nights spent reading comics under Will’s comforter, trying and failing to shush each other’s laughter in the shine of the flashlight. And, beneath all of those, something else. Something Mike has been itching to breathe in all night, something he knows as just Will, his best friend, his person, his comfort, his Will.

And there’s a new thing now, one that Mike gets to categorize alongside those others. Because when he runs his hands over Will’s waist and under the hem of his shirt, Will lets out a gasp into his mouth that deepens their kiss. And when Mike’s tongue presses against the seam of Will’s mouth, Will lets him in and pushes his own against Mike’s in a sinful, wet slide, and Mike gets to finally add Will’s taste to his list of things that he always knew he needed and never wants to miss again.

Maybe Mike didn’t want to go to Stacey’s stupid party, but right now, he’s really fucking glad he did.

He’s drowning in Will, diving in head-first. Mike’s fingers grip into the skin of Will’s waist and it’s like thy were made to stay there forever. Before he even knows what’s happening, Will is climbing on top of him, thighs spread on either side of Mike’s. The way he looks down at Mike makes something inside him gasp for air. He’s painfully aware of every point of touch; from the hands in his hair to the chest against his, and it’s making him go a little bit insane, honestly. But he can’t even bring himself to care for any of it. Mike’s mind is blissfully blank right now, filled with nothing but the boy in his lap, his best friend, his Will.

“You’re so…” Beautiful? Breathtaking? Incredible?

Mike doesn’t have the words. None of them are big enough for what this moment feels like to him. But it seems like he doesn’t need them anyway, because Will just smiles and leans down to kiss him again, and, well. There go the thoughts again when Mike all but melts into him.

Because the way Will kisses him feels like the first breath of air Mike has taken in years.

And then, Will’s fingers tighten in his hair and he tilts Mike’s head back a little, and the kiss turns into more.

Will’s mouth is hot on his, tongue slipping out and against Mike’s, nails grazing his scalp. Mike can’t fight the embarrassing whine that sounds from his throat. It only seems to spur Will on—His legs tighten around Mike and he presses impossibly closer. Mike’s hands slide up, over the soft skin of Will’s sides, towards his ribcage. But the shirt—the goddamn fucking shirt that Mike loves and loathes at the same time—restricts his movement, tight fabric stilling him by the wrists.

Mike feels like a little boy, caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He pulls back with a frustrated groan and tugs at the shirt. “I fucking hate this thing.”

Above him, Will’s face is wild and wonderful. He leans back a little, balancing on Mike’s lap, and gives a tiny smirk. Hazel eyes find Mike’s brown ones. “I thought you liked the way I looked in it.”

Mike does. Because Will is beautiful and he’s embarrassingly gone for him.

He swallows. “Fuck.”

His hands are on Will again before he makes a conscious effort to touch, pulling the shirt up as far as it will go. Like this is where they belong. Will’s skin is like velvet; silky to the touch and carrying a barely developed summer tan. He shivers when Mike runs his fingers back up his sides and around to his back, and gasps when Mike tugs him forward to drop his forehead right to the center of Will’s chest.

“Will,” he pleads, though he doesn’t know what for.

Absolution, maybe?

Will’s fingers are gentle in Mike’s hair, twisting the curls around as he cards them through at the back of his neck. It’s calming and wonderful and Mike only hates himself a little bit for the way he leans into the touch. His forehead rubs against the fabric of Will’s shirt as he shifts closer. Will doesn’t seem to mind. His weight is comforting on top of Mike, bracketing him in.

“You okay?” Will hums, voice soft.

Mike doesn’t reply. Just curls his arms tight around Will’s middle and breathes him in for a second, letting the moment wash over him.

“I’m okay,” he replies eventually, when both their breathing has evened out again. “Just… A lot.”

“Do you. Um.” Will’s hand falls from Mike’s hair to his shoulder, fiddling with the collar of his shirt. “Do you regret what just happened?”

“What? No! God, Will, no, that’s not—” Mike pulls back a little to look at Will. His hands, splayed over Will’s back, grip tightly, as if he’s afraid he might disappear. “I promise that I don’t. At all, you hear me?”

“Okay,” Will says, voice shaky. “That’s—good. I’m glad.”

“I just wanted this for so long,” Mike admits. “And I haven’t let myself feel a lot of it. And it’s just—”

“A lot,” Will finishes with a nod. His fingers press against Mike’s pulse, right over his throat. “I understand.”

“You’re so…” Mike says again. He still has no idea what comes next. His eyes find Will’s, and he squeezes his waist in the hope of conveying even a fraction of the things he’s feeling right now. “I like you so much, Will.”

Will holds his gaze, smile beautifully blinding. He’s the sun, Mike thinks. He’s always had a habit of orbiting around Will, anyway.

“Kiss me again?” asks Will, and Mike smiles back and tilts his head up.

Mike does kiss him.

Softly, at first.

Then intensely. Hungrily.

In fact, they spend a long while kissing. Lazily, then more heated again. Then deeper, sliding down onto the bed with Will caught beneath him, bodies warm against each other.

Mike doesn’t think he’s ever kissed someone this much. It’s like his mouth has developed a mind of its own; whenever Will pulls away to catch his breath, Mike just latches onto whatever spot of skin is available to him and leaves more kisses there. He sucks purpling bruises into Will’s neck until he’s gasping and shivering underneath him. He licks his way up his throat and lets the taste of Will’s skin linger on his tongue. He presses a tiny and soft kiss to the tender spot behind Will’s ear and relishes in the sound it pulls from his throat.

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this,” Mike breathes against Will’s lips. Will shudders, all soft and pliant beneath him. It’s a privilege to get to see him like this, Mike is well-aware. “How long I’ve tried to make my head stop thinking about it.”

The corners of Will’s lips quirk upward. “Two years, give or take?”

“You’re impossible,” Mike groans into his neck, then bites down. Just because he can. Will yelps, but it comes out a little breathy.

“For the record,” he gasps when Mike sucks the skin into his mouth again, burying his fingers in his hair, “I’ve thought about this probably a million times, so.”

There’s a wet plop as Mike releases the freshly bruised spot in favor of a grin. “Yeah?”

“I’ve liked you since we were twelve, Mike. I’ve thought about kissing you in just about every position under the sun.”

At that, Mike’s body goes a little hot. He gives a tiny, involuntary whine into the crook of Will’s neck. “You can’t just say stuff like that.”

The vibration of Will’s laughter is muffled against his own chest. When Mike pulls back, his eyes are twinkling up at him. Mike counts at least seven different galaxies in them. There’s a pulsing twinge resting underneath his ribs, small but achy.

“What’s wrong?” asks Will, brows creasing, and something about the fact that he just knows makes Mike’s insides flutter.

He reaches out to trace the furrow of Will’s brow with his fingers.

“I’m just…” Scared. Worried. Neither of those, and both at the same time. “I don’t want to let you down.”

“You’re not gonna do that.”

“Well, I don’t plan to. But I mess things up all the time. I’ve hurt you so many times, over and over again.” There’s a beat. “Turns out, I’m not really good at being brave after all.”

“Mike.” Will’s voice is stern, but gentle. He’s so warm beneath Mike. Real and solid. “Tonight was… so much more than I ever thought I could have.”

“But that’s the problem, isn’t it? You didn’t think you could have this. You didn’t think I wanted you like that until tonight, because I was too scared to show you. Too scared to let myself, even.” Mike is trembling. “I’m a coward, Will. I have been. I still am.”

Will sits up under him so abruptly that Mike topples off him. It doesn’t deter him in the slightest.

“Stop it. I wouldn’t change a thing about it, okay? There’s a reason for all of it. Why you were with El back then.”

“Will—”

“No, listen to me!” Will is leaning over him, fingers digging into Mike’s jaw. “It had to happen this way, and it might have taken us a stupid long time, but… We’re here now, and you’re the best person I know, Mike. You’re my best friend in the whole world. You’re not a coward.”

Mike’s eyes are burning. He tries (and fails) to blink it away. Will’s look a bit shiny, too, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it. Out of the two of them, he’s always been the one to embrace his emotions, rather than run from them.

“And it doesn’t matter what happens tomorrow, or the day after,” Will continues. “Because I really, really want to keep kissing you. Even if it’s just for tonight.”

“It’s not,” Mike says immediately, voice raw. “I promise it’s not.”

God, he hopes it isn’t. He wants to keep Will close like this forever. Taste him with his tongue, feel him with his hands. Make the hairs at the nape of his neck stand with every touch.

“Good,” says Will simply, and leans down to kiss Mike again.

This one is different than the others—sweet and gentle and kind. It’s everything Mike needed and more. And it makes a hunger stir within him; one that’s hard to contain now that he knows Will wants him, too.

So, he doesn’t.

There’s a surprised sound when Mike surges forward to push Will on his back again. He’s above him now, staring down at Will with his wrist pressed into the mattress. Will’s eyes darken until they are almost completely black, lips parted, breath coming ragged. And Mike can’t take the sight of him anymore, all flushed and beautiful and perfect for him. His other hand grips the curve of Will’s hip and he lowers himself down between his legs.

“Yeah,” he says, taking in Will’s wide-eyed stare. “Good.”

Mike leans forward once more to press their lips together.

Will responds eagerly, parting them in a low moan as soon as Mike’s tongue brushes against him. His fingers are curled into his shirt tightly, like a lifeline, as he pulls Mike closer against him to deepen the kiss.

It’s nothing like it was with El—the innocent, pre-pubescent lock of lips; the angle of his body as he tried to give as little points of contact as possible, never quite knowing where to put his hands. He remembers wondering if that was all there was supposed to be to it. And yes, sure, they were fifteen back then, but he recalls the way Lucas used to talk about Max, about how they couldn’t stop sucking faces in front of the Party even if they tried, and how Mike felt weirdly put on the spot whenever Lucas raised his eyebrows at him in that conspiratorial ‘you get it, right?’ type of way.

Safe to say, he did not get it.

Well, until now.

Because kissing Will, it turns out, comes easier to Mike than breathing.

He finds himself pushing impossibly closer, even with their bodies pressed flush, because he just can’t get enough of the way Will feels beneath him. His hands roam on their own; over his hips, up his shirt, then down again, over the swell of his ass, gripping the thigh just underneath. The sound Will makes at that is so sinful, Mike needs to take a second to huff heavy breaths into the skin of his neck, squeezing his eyes shut.

Will tugs at his curls impatiently, pulling Mike’s face back to his to capture his lips in another kiss, and something about the urgency, the desperation of it all has heat licking at Mike from inside. He surrenders to the feeling, hikes Will’s leg higher up on his hip and swallows the sounds spilling from Will’s mouth into his. Their tongues slide together in a messy, slick dance and when he pulls back, it’s only to suck Will’s bottom lip into his mouth. And then their mouths are on one another again, continuing like choreography. It’s eager and chaotic and so, so hot.

Mike feels crazy. His whole body is burning inside out. Will’s skin is soft under his palms, warm to the touch, and he’s sure this is what heaven must be like. And, well—he knew from the way Will’s body moved on that table that he must know what he’s doing. But to see him squirm on the mattress; to feel him arch against Mike because of the way he’s touching him… That’s a whole different thing altogether.

After a while, Mike lets himself get completely lost in it. Truthfully, there could be a bomb setting off just outside the cabin and he probably wouldn’t notice. His mind is full of Will, Will, only Will.

It's close to six AM when their eyes begin growing heavy and their kisses sloppy.

The mixtape has long stopped playing and they’re lying on Will’s bed, fronts tucked against each other with Mike’s arms around Will. He is having a hard time keeping his eyes open, but he does so only to keep looking for a minute longer—to take in the moment, because truly, he doesn’t want to miss a second of it.

He can’t believe he’s really here, holding Will in his arms. He can’t believe they kissed for hours. He can’t believe Will has been wanting to kiss him this badly, too. His lips still tingle with it, an invisible reminder that he’s not dreaming. That this is actually real and happening to him right now.

Mike keeps anticipating the guilt to creep back into his chest, but there’s nothing other than Will’s slowed breaths puffing against him as the other boy begins drifting off to sleep. It’s unfamiliar because it feels so light, and Mike is used to carrying heavier at this point. But he doesn’t mind the gentle relief from the usual storm brewing inside him.  

Slowly, so as not to disturb Will, he shifts his weight a bit, settles Will’s head on his arm differently. Then, just because he can, he presses a lingering kiss to Will’s hair, burying his nose in it.

I love you. His head is screaming it. So much.

“Hm?” Will stirs when he feels the brush of lips against him. His eyes blink open for a second, warm and familiar. He’s still wearing the shirt, though Mike’s hands are underneath it, fingertips ghosting over the broad of Will’s back and leaving goosebumps in their wake. “You ‘kay?”

His voice is all soft and sleepy, and it tugs at Mike in a familiar way, though it doesn’t come with the same, aching feeling anymore.

He will worry about everything else tomorrow. Because for the first time in weeks, his heart isn’t the same, aching puddle it has been. It feels like the calm after the storm in a way. And though the thoughts and feelings he’s been trying so hard to suppress are still floating at the surface, it’s the first time that Mike doesn’t care. Just floats alongside them, on his back, enjoying the sun on his face.

For now, he’s here. In Will’s bed, holding him. Will, his best friend, his person, his comfort, his Will.

And maybe, just for this moment, Mike can allow that to be enough.

His arms tighten around Will.

“Yeah,” Mike whispers. “I really am.”