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It was late, almost nine-thirty, by the time Will accepted that Mike wasn’t going to show up before his dinner got completely cold again. With a defeated sigh, he grabbed the still-full plate and covered it to put it in the fridge, something he’s done at least for a fifth night in a row.
June had fallen asleep an hour ago, eventually, anyway, after asking twice if Daddy was still coming to read the dragon book like he’d promised, and once, quieter, if he’d forgotten again.
Will had said no, of course not. Daddy’s just running late again. He’d said it lightly, and he couldn’t help but notice how good he had become at that lately, at lying to their daughter with the sweetest smile he could muster.
His head had been pounding since three that day, the headache spreading not long after he picked up June at daycare and drove her home. It was a dull pressure behind his eyes that had settled in and refused to leave, no matter what he did and what pills he took to try and fight it.
He’d spent the afternoon sketching and erasing and sketching again, the page always remaining stubbornly blank in the end. June had sat beside him at the kitchen table with her stubby crayons, her tongue caught between her teeth in concentration, humming softly to herself as she filled page after page without hesitation, never seeming to second-guess a line. At four years old, she could draw a crooked dragon or a lopsided spaceship and beam at it, proud of her creation.
Will had watched her from the corner of his eye, watched the way her small hand moved without fear, without the tightness in the chest that had been following him for months now. He’d almost felt envious of it, that freedom, the way creation came to her like breathing, just like it had to him when he was her age. He couldn’t remember the last time it had felt that simple for him. But a bigger part of him was happy, all-consuming adoration blooming in his chest as he watched her create, carefree.
They had both been excited that morning when Mike promised he’d be home early. June had talked about it all the way to daycare, how Daddy would read to her her new book, how they’d eat dinner together like they used to, and Will had let himself believe it, too.
But with every passing hour, every glance at the clock, the quiet in the house had grown heavier, the anticipation curdling slowly into something else by the time the sky turned dark.
Three months now, three months of polite rejection emails and gallery maybes and commissions that didn’t cover what they used to. And almost three months of Mike coming home later and later at night, and leaving earlier with every passing morning.
He’d promised tonight would be different, but June had gone to bed clutching the dragon book anyway, her last words before falling asleep being that she missed her daddy.
Will was still sitting at the dining table when he heard the key turn in the lock, and relief hit first, just to be swallowed whole by anger not even a second later. There was the sound of the door opening and Mike stepping in. It wasn’t long before he was walking into the dining room, loosening his tie on his way, shoulders slumped in a way that made him look older than thirty. He looked tired, bone-tired, but Will was too angry to feel bad or care at the moment.
“Hey, baby,” Mike said softly when he saw him, like everything was normal, like it wasn’t pitch black outside when he drove into their driveway again.
He crossed the room and pressed a distracted kiss to the top of Will’s head as he passed the dining table, where Will was tapping his fingers against the wooden surface, frustratedly. Usually, Will would lean into the kiss without a second thought, tilt his face up to ask for another one on his lips, and let the long day melt away a little. Tonight, though, he stayed still, no sweet welcome falling from his mouth.
Mike paused on his way to the fridge, seemingly picking up on the rigid tension in Will’s shoulders, or the impatient pattern of his fingers tapping against the table.
He turned back slowly. “Is something wrong?”
Will looked past him, at the clock instead of Mike’s confused face. “It’s almost ten,” he said simply, making sure it came out sharply enough to show his annoyance.
Mike exhaled through his nose, a single release of air that let Will know he was getting ready for a conversation he didn’t want to have. “I know. I had to stay late.”
“When was the last time you didn’t?” Will asked, too evenly, finally looking at Mike just in time to see his jaw tighten.
“Will,” he said, almost like a warning. A warning that he was too exhausted for this right now, that things could escalate in a way they’d regret. Maybe Will should have taken the warning and backed off for now, when it was so late and the day had been so long.
“No, I’m asking,” he said instead, pushing to his feet because sitting felt too small for what was buzzing under his skin. “Because I genuinely can’t remember.”
“I can’t just clock out in the middle of-”
“You promised,” Will cut in, not even entertaining the idea of listening to his excuses again. “You promised June you’d tuck her in tonight.”
Mike blinked as, for half a second, something like confusion flickered across his face, followed by a heartbreaking realization. “Shit,” he breathed. “Fuck.”
Will almost felt sympathy for him - he usually did when he came home exhausted - but the repeating pattern of broken promises had worn his patience entirely thin. “She waited for over an hour,” he said, aiming to hurt. “She tried so hard to stay awake.”
Mike scrubbed a hand down his face. “I lost track of time.”
“You didn’t even call to let us know.”
“I was busy.”
“You still could’ve picked up the fucking phone, Mike,” Will insisted.
“I said I’m sorry.” But the apology came too quickly, sounding worn out and soulless, having become overused with no change in the cycle.
Will let out a short laugh, completely devoid of humor. “You’re sorry every night.”
“That’s not fair.” His jaw tightened as he spoke.
“What’s not fair,” Will shot back, his voice rising in volume, “is our daughter asking me why her dad doesn’t come home for dinner anymore.”
Mike flinched a little at the accusation, at the reminder, but he regained his ground quickly, anger not resigning. “I’m doing this for us,” he said, his voice climbing in volume for the first time, too, to match Will. “And you know that.”
“Doing what exactly? Living at work?”
Mike’s frustration visibly sharpened. “I’m trying to keep us afloat here, Will.”
“It hasn’t been that bad,” Will argued back, even though he knew it wasn’t exactly true. He knew the numbers, he always knew the numbers, and he could see the bills in his head, lined up like accusations. They hadn’t been doing the best lately, but he also knew it wasn’t as bad as Mike was making it out to be.
Mike stared at him, looking like he wasn’t buying it for a second. “Oh, really? You haven’t sold anything in months!”
Those words struck deep, sounding too close to what he’d already been telling himself often lately.
Every late night Mike spent at the office suddenly felt traceable back to him. Maybe if he were better, faster, more consistent, or if he painted things people actually wanted. Then maybe Mike wouldn’t have to overwork himself every night.
What kind of partner couldn’t pull his weight?
But, with his feelings so high-strung and the headache still stabbing from behind his eye, the shame burned so hot it came out as anger instead. At that moment, it was easier to be loud than to admit that he agreed. He was furious at Mike for being right.
Mike seemed to notice he struck a nerve, but didn’t back down in the slightest, seeming to actually take the opportunity to build more momentum for his argument. “You want me home more? Great! Tell me what we’re cutting. Cause’ I can’t just sit around here waiting for things to just magically sort themselves out.” His hands gestured in the air as he spoke loudly, a familiar gesture when he was explaining something high on emotion.
Will glared at him in return, wanting to come up with anything to bring the ball back into his court again, to get the upper hand.
Frustration was boiling hot under his skin, and he suddenly got the urge to just hide away in the bedroom, lock the door, and let Mike cool down on the couch overnight. But he was the one who started the argument, and something inside wouldn’t let him back away.
“You think I don’t know I haven’t sold anything? I’m trying, Mike! You don’t have to throw it in my face!”
“I wasn’t trying to throw it in your face! I’m just being realistic here, and it’s a fact. You just want to pretend it’s not happening because it makes you feel bad.” Mike ran both hands through his hair, pacing now. “I’ve been picking up extra hours because I thought it would take the pressure off you. I come home exhausted for you, and this is what I walk into?!”
Mike’s voice was loud, razor sharp with irritation as the words bounced off the walls. The climbing aggression in his tone caught Will off guard. Because Mike argued, yes, Mike gestured, paced, but he almost never shouted, not at home, not at him, not like that.
The fact that he was now made something ugly and reactive spark in Will’s chest. He wasn’t discouraged by it, instead immediately latching onto the sudden new information. “Your boss isn’t making you stay? You said he’s been making you work overtime!”
“No,” Mike snapped back. “I volunteered. Because I thought that’s what we needed right now.”
For a second, the room fell silent. “You didn’t even tell me,” Will accused angrily. “You fucking lied to me.”
“I didn’t want you to feel worse.”
“Well, congratulations,” he said, and it came out rough, too loud. “It worked!”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was vaguely aware they should try to be quieter, that June was sleeping just down the hall, the walls separating her from them too thin to keep the noise away.
But Mike’s voice cracked even sharper now. “What do you want me to do, huh, Will? You want to lose the house? Starve?”
“It hasn’t been that dire.”
“Not yet.”
The air was thick with charged tension. Will could see Mike’s chest rising and falling with too fast breaths.
“Well, I don’t need you to martyr yourself!” Will shouted back.
“And I don’t need you pretending everything’s fine when it’s not and making it my fault when I’m just trying to take care of this family!” The tendons in Mike’s neck stood out as he gestured pointedly at Will with an accusing hand.
Will turned away because he couldn’t look at Mike’s face anymore, not like that, when it was tinted red with anger, eyebrows drawn together, making his usual features contort with aggression. He looked too tired, strained, somehow still stubbornly concerned, but he was looking at him in a way Will wasn’t used to.
Will took a step away, trying to collect his racing thoughts with an exaggerated sigh, but it wasn’t long before he heard Mike follow after him.
“Oh, great, now you’re walking away again,” he accused, his loud voice echoing in the sudden silence.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Will shot back behind his shoulder as he paced to the other side of the dining room table, his hands crossed across his chest in a poor attempt at self-soothing.
He wanted to create some distance between them, but Mike didn’t seem to like that idea, continuing to follow his steps in an attempt to keep the conversation going.
“This!” he answered, throwing his hands up, exasperated. “You start an argument, and then you shut down. You walk away. You never finish it, you just sulk on your own. We can’t keep having the same fight and then pretend it didn’t happen!”
In the midst of their movement, in the heat of the moment, Mike accidentally knocked against one of the chairs, the loud, high-pitched bang and scrape against the floor making Will wince with its suddenness. Neither paid much mind to it, though, already calculating their next words instead.
Will turned around harshly to face him again. “Well, what else is there to say? I don’t think the shouting is any more productive, but if you have something else to get off your chest, go ahead, I’m all ears!”
“I just want you to stop pushing down your emotions until they erupt! I want you to tell me what’s bothering you so we can finally work things out! You can’t just shut me out anytime it gets uncomfortable.”
Will huffed out an aggravated breath. “You want me to be honest? Fine!” he said, the volume surprising even him. “I feel like I’m raising our daughter alone lately.”
For a second, Mike stared at him like he’d been physically struck. “That’s not fair,” he shot back. “I can’t split myself in half, Will! You don’t think I want to be home more? You think I want to be there? I’d love to just stay at home, sit around, and draw all day, but we can’t both do that, can we? Someone has to pay the bills.”
Mike’s words lodged themselves deep, not unlike a bullet. We can’t both do that, can we? For a second, Will struggled to breathe. It wasn’t just the volume now, or the frustration, it was the implication underneath it. The way it reduced everything he did, every late night at his desk, every rejected email, every unfinished canvas stacked against the wall, into sitting around.
So that’s what Mike thought. That this wasn’t real, that it wasn’t work.
Furious heat flooded his face, from anger and the old fear that maybe Mike had been carrying him all this time and was finally tired of pretending he wasn’t.
Across from him, Mike’s expression dropped, just for a fraction of a second, like he’d heard himself and wanted to grab the words back out of the air. Something almost regretful flickered in his eyes, but then his jaw tightened, and the anger snapped back into place like armor.
“Fuck you,” was all Will managed in reply, and it wasn’t as loud because it didn’t need to be anymore.
He turned away again, already heading for the hallway, because he couldn’t stay in this room another second without saying something worse, without confirming every awful suspicion currently clawing at his chest.
Behind him, he heard footsteps immediately. “Don’t-” Mike’s hand closed around his wrist.
The grip wasn’t tight; it actually felt careful, almost, a striking contrast to the loud words they’d been lashing at each other, and Will knew he could’ve easily pulled away. He knew that, because Mike wasn’t actually trying to restrain him, not really. But it was actually the unexpected gentleness of it that made his feet stop instead, rooting him in place as he turned back to face Mike.
He saw that Mike’s other hand was already in the air, gesturing, frustrated. “Don’t walk away from me,” he said, voice still raised but no longer sharp in quite the same way. “We’re not done. You don’t just get to decide when it’s over every-”
Will opened his mouth to cut in.
“Stop!” A different sound cracked through the room, and both of them froze. It came again, smaller but somehow louder for it: “Stop!”
Their heads snapped in unison toward the hallway. June stood there, in the doorway, in her purple princess pajamas, soft brown hair rumpled from sleep, big hazel-green eyes wide, scared, and teary in a way that didn’t belong on a four-year-old’s face, and especially not hers.
Her gaze dropped to Mike’s hand on Will’s wrist. “Don’t hurt Papa!” she begged desperately.
For a split moment, Will didn’t understand, the thought so far-fetched, improbable, and ridiculous that it didn’t even cross his mind, but then the realization hit him like a bucket of cold water being dumped over his head.
She thought Mike was going to hit him.
Mike must’ve understood it at the same time, because his hand fell away, quick, like he’d been burned.
June rushed forward before either of them could move, throwing herself between them and wrapping her arms around Will’s thighs in the tightest grip her small body could muster. “Don’t hurt him!” she cried again, curling around Will’s legs like a shield.
Will’s heart lurched so violently inside his rib cage that it almost hurt, and he dropped to his knees immediately, hands coming up to carefully cradle her chubby cheeks, already stained with tears. “Hey, hey-” his voice was unrecognizable now compared to minutes ago, soft and gentle as he reassured her. “Shh, sweetheart, it’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
Mike took an instinctive step toward them, the fight long gone from him as well. “June, baby, I wasn’t going to-”
June let out a frightened sound and tightened her grip on Will’s arms. “Stay away!” she yelled at Mike, louder than any of them expected, it seemed, the volume and tone shocking Will, who definitely wasn’t used to his little girl so terrified and shrieking.
Mike flinched back at her petrified voice, stopping where he was, hands half-raised like he didn’t know what to do with them, or maybe to show he meant no harm. The hurt on his face was so open it made Will’s chest physically ache for him, his expression full of shock and confusion, almost like a wounded animal.
For a moment, Will felt pulled in two directions: June trembling in his arms, and Mike standing a few feet away as if he’d just been told he was a stranger in his own home, both of their eyes welling with tears.
June shifted slightly in front of him again, small shoulders squared with determined bravery that would’ve been almost sweet under different circumstances, like her four-year-old body could physically protect him from anything.
He couldn’t comfort her here when she was, for some reason, so scared of Mike being too close. He’d have to get her out of here for long enough to calm her down, in a room without Mike.
Will swallowed against the tightness climbing his throat. “It’s okay, I’ve got her,” he said quietly, not quite able to meet Mike’s eyes. Then he gathered her up with careful movements, murmuring as he stood up with her in his arms: “C’mere, baby.”
She clung to him immediately, her small body trembling as she pressed her tear-wet face into the crook of his neck, dampening his collar, and for a moment she melted there as she used to after bad dreams. But just as quickly, she stiffened again, lifting her head to peer over her shoulder, watchful and wary, as if she had to keep herself alert from some lingering threat - from Mike.
“Just… give us a minute, okay?” Will asked, and this time he did look at Mike, long enough to see the stricken, heartbroken expression he hadn’t managed to hide before Will turned and carried their daughter down the hall.
June’s room was right next to theirs, close enough that she could pad across the hallway in the middle of the night without fear, close enough that she insisted she could “hear them breathing” if her door was open just a crack. The light-yellow walls were cluttered with her artwork, unicorns with too many legs, superheroes in colorful capes, crooked castles, and flower fields. Her pastel blue bookshelf sagged slightly in the middle from the weight of picture books, comics, and a few carefully placed action figures arranged like they were standing watch over her while she slept.
Will lowered himself onto the edge of her small bed, which creaked faintly under their combined weight, and settled her in his lap. He gingerly brushed her light brown hair back from her damp cheeks and wiped away the last of her tears with the sleeve of his sweater.
“Hey,” he murmured, rocking her a little. “It’s okay, I’ve got you. Shh.”
She was still sniffling, her fingers knotted tightly in the fabric at his shoulder, clinging to him desperately like she was afraid of letting go.
After a minute, when her breathing steadied a little, he pressed a kiss to her temple, smelling the sweetness of her strawberry-scented shampoo in her hair. “Did you have a bad dream, honey?” he asked gently. “Is that what happened?”
He couldn’t make it fit any other way. The only explanation that even brushed against sense was that she’d woken from a nightmare and stumbled into the tail end of their shouting, her mind still halfway tangled in whatever fear had followed her out of sleep.
He and Mike had argued before, plenty of times, with raised voices, sharp words, doors shutting a little harder than necessary, and June had never reacted like that. She’d never looked at her dad like he was something to be protected against, she had never been afraid of him. And as Will turned it over and over in his head, he couldn’t find a single real reason she ever would be.
“No,” she answered, her small voice filled with certainty. “He was going to hit you. I saw it.”
Will blinked at her in confusion. “No, sweetheart,” he said firmly, keeping his voice calm and even, even as something cold crept through his chest. “He wasn’t. Dad would never do that. Why did you think that?”
She pulled back to look at him, frowning stubbornly in the way she did when she was convinced she knew better. “He grabbed you,” she insisted. “And you were yelling, and he was yelling. And Rachel said-” She stopped herself abruptly.
Rachel, the small, shy, serious-eyed girl from daycare who clung to June’s hand at pickup and had once, during a playdate in this very room, apologized for spilling her juice box like she committed a crime.
A cold understanding crept inside him even though June hadn’t finished the sentence, and Will already knew he wasn’t going to like what came next.
“What did Rachel say?” he asked carefully, smoothing his hand over her hair.
June hesitated, then said in a rush: “Rachel’s daddy hits her mommy. She told me. She said he comes home late every night because he’s kissing other girls, and then he gets mad and yells and hits her.”
For a moment, Will couldn’t speak as a dozen thoughts sparked at once, concern, anger, and the immediate awareness that this was something he would need to tell someone about, that this was not information to sit on.
Next came a long-forgotten pit in his stomach. Late every night, kissing other girls, yelling, hitting - the pattern was so familiar it made his stomach sour and twist.
Lonnie had come home late, too, not always drunk, but often enough, sometimes smelling like perfume that didn’t belong to his mom, sometimes already angry before he’d even shut the door. Will had learned early to read the temperature of the house by the weight of his father’s footsteps as he came home.
He had been four, maybe five, about the same age June was now, when he stood at the end of the hallway, small and frozen, listening to the argument bloom, turning louder and louder, with screaming and scraping of chairs and crashing of plates.
June had been in a hallway tonight too, listening to her parents’ voices rise and furniture scrape, her small world rattling in a way it never should have been. It wasn’t the same, he knew that, rationally, but she didn’t have the context to know it. She had only heard the volume, seen the movement, and felt the fear.
He had been her age once, rooted to the floor while Lonnie’s anger filled the house, too small and too frightened to move. But June hadn’t frozen; she had run toward it to put herself between him and Mike. The bravery of it hurt almost as much as the memory.
He cupped her face gently. “June, look at me,” he said carefully, but firmly enough to make sure his words got through to her, “that is not normal. That is not okay. Nobody is supposed to hit anyone, especially not the people they love.”
“But- But Rachel’s daddy does,” she hiccupped, a new tear escaping down her rounded cheek. “She said he leaves ugly marks.”
Ugly marks. He remembered the yellowed edge of a bruise blooming along his mom’s collarbone, half-hidden beneath the collar of her blouse, the way she’d smiled too brightly when she said she’d walked into a cabinet.
He remembered pressing his fingers against the dark shape on his own forearm once, fascinated by how the purple shifted toward green over days, as if his body were trying to swallow the evidence. Lonnie had called it discipline.
“I know,” Will said, throat tight with emotions. “I know, and that’s wrong. That makes him a very bad man.” Just like Lonnie was.
She studied him for a long second. “You were being so loud,” she said. “And he- he grabbed you.”
“We were loud,” he admitted. “I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have been yelling like that. But sometimes grown-ups fight. Me and Dad- we use our words, though, okay? Not our hands.” He looked her in the eyes, making sure she understood every word. “And yes, he grabbed my wrist, but not to hurt me, just to stop me from walking away. He wasn’t trying to scare me. And it didn’t hurt me at all, I promise.”
June sniffled and immediately reached for his wrist, small fingers wrapping around it with surprising seriousness. She turned his hand this way and that, inspecting the skin as if expecting to see purple bloom beneath it. Her thumb pressed lightly where Mike’s hand had been, checking, but there was nothing there but unmarked skin.
She relaxed a bit at her findings, then hesitated a little before speaking again: “Rachel said her daddy comes home late ’cause he’s kissing other girls. And Daddy’s always coming home late. I- I don’t want him to be kissing anyone else but you, Papa.”
Ah, so that was in there, too.
“Dad comes home late because he’s working,” Will explained gently. “He’s been working really, really hard for us. For you and me. That’s all. Not because he’s kissing someone else.” He managed a smile. “He’s terrible at keeping secrets, remember? We’d know.”
A tiny flicker of doubt still lingered in her eyes. “What about me?” she asked. “Would he hurt me?”
The question felt like it cracked open Will’s entire chest, and he pulled her closer immediately, pressing his lips into her hair. “Never, baby,” he said, without hesitation. “Never. Dad would never hurt you.” He ran a comforting hand down her back. “He loves you more than anything else in the world.”
“Me and you,” she corrected firmly, like she took personal offense that he didn’t consider himself. “Both.”
It was something Mike said often enough that it had clearly stuck with her, usually at bedtime, kissing the tops of their heads goodnight.
“Yeah,” Will assured. “Both of us.”
She went quiet at that, thinking, processing, and then, after a few more moments, she asked, “But how can you know for sure he wouldn’t?”
The question settled between them, and Will didn’t answer right away. For a moment, he was somewhere else, back in a dim hallway, in a house where he had learned to measure safety by the volume of a man’s voice. He remembered standing very still, wanting to disappear.
He wished someone had explained to him what was normal and what wasn’t, had told him clearly: this is wrong, and it is not your fault. Jonathan did do that not long after it started, but some things he had already internalized by then anyway, and not everything could be fixed by his then-adolescent brother either.
He and Mike had promised each other, long before June was old enough to ask hard questions, that they wouldn’t lie to her about the world. They wouldn’t pretend bad things didn’t exist, that they would name them carefully, so she would always know the difference, and so that if anything ever felt wrong to her, she would have the words to explain it.
“When I was little like you,” he began thoughtfully, choosing words that would make sense without placing too much weight on her small shoulders, “my dad wasn’t very kind. He used to hit Grandma Joyce. And sometimes me and Uncle Jonathan, too.”
June’s eyes widened. “Grandpa Jim?” she asked, immediately horrified.
Will shook his head. “No, sweetheart, not Grandpa Jim. He’s not the dad I’m talking about.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Before Grandpa Jim, I had a different dad, remember? His name was Lonnie, and he wasn’t… very good at being a dad.”
“Oh,” she said quietly, absorbing that.
“And, because of that, for a long time, I thought that was just… how grown-ups were when they got angry.”
He hadn’t known any different at first, and it wasn’t until he started spending afternoons at Mike’s house, nervous and careful with his words, that something in his understanding shifted. Ted Wheeler barely looked up from his place in the recliner most days, grumbling more than engaging, but he didn’t shout, he didn’t slam doors or send plates crashing. Mike talked back to him sometimes, rolled his eyes, argued openly, and nothing drastic happened. No one flinched. The first time Will witnessed it, it had stunned him into silence.
Later, at Lucas’s house, there had been some raised voices sometimes, but they softened again just as quickly, dissolving back to normal without any violence, and it always felt safe. It had taken him years to piece it together fully, to understand that the pattern he grew up with wasn’t universal.
For a long time after that, he’d carried a quiet, awful suspicion that maybe it wasn’t fathers in general, that maybe it was just his. Or worse, maybe it was something about him that had made it happen. He had been the sensitive one, the quiet one, the one who made Lonnie’s lip curl with anger. It had seemed easier to believe he’d somehow earned it than to accept that some adults were simply cruel.
“I’m sorry,” June whispered, reaching up to touch his cheek like she was the one comforting him.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” he answered with a waver in his voice, covering her small hand with his. “I’m telling you this because that’s how I know,” he added. “I’ve seen what it looks like when someone hurts the people they love. And Daddy isn’t like that, not even a little bit.”
She studied his face like she was measuring the truth of it, and after a long moment, her shoulders dropped just a little. “I didn’t know. I was just trying to protect you,” she said. “I didn’t want you to be like Rachel’s mommy.”
Joyce and Jonathan were always saying June was just like him, from the lighter brown hair that caught gold in the sun, to the wide hazel-green eyes, the tiny scatter of moles across her face, and the way she disappeared into sketchbooks and built whole worlds with crayons and markers. She was softer than most kids, quieter.
But in moments like this, with her chin tipped up, stubborn in the face of what she thought was danger, Will saw Mike so clearly it almost made him tear up. The same loyalty, the same refusal to stand down when someone she loved was at risk. He’d seen it on playgrounds, too, when June planted herself between a crying friend and a bigger kid, once even shoving a bully hard enough to earn herself a stern talk from the daycare director. She was gentle by nature, but God, she was Wheeler when it counted.
Will remembered six-year-old Mike going rigid the first time he noticed a fading bruise peeking out from under Will’s sleeve, his small hands curling into fists, and how, after that, he hovered closer, walked a half-step in front of him on the way home from school, and took the worst of the shoves from bigger kids. He had always positioned himself like a shield. And even later, when he was still a kid and scared, he’d picked up rocks, candlesticks, anything he could hold, ready to fight monsters from another dimension. Protecting first, thinking later. June didn’t know it, but she was following his blueprint, too.
It suddenly felt warmer in his chest again, adoration for his daughter chasing out the bad memories. “I know you were,” he replied, brushing her cheek with his thumb. “Thank you, baby, that was very brave of you.”
“Even if I’m little,” she added.
He smiled against her hair again. “Especially because you’re little.”
He held her there for another minute, rocking a little in the dim light of her night lamp.
“Hey,” he said afterward. “Do you want to go see Daddy again? He’s probably feeling a little sad right now.”
Her head lifted immediately. “Sad?” she echoed, as if the concept of him being upset offended her.
Will nodded. “Yeah. I think he’s worried you might be scared of him.”
That did it, and she slid off his lap before he’d even fully set her down, nodding hard, already halfway to the door. “I’m not,” she declared, as if Mike could hear her through the walls.
Will had to quicken his step to keep up as she hurried down the short hallway, her small feet padding determinedly against the floor.
The dining room was empty when they reached it, and they found Mike in the living room instead, sitting on the couch, elbows braced on his knees, his head bowed into his hands. The lamp beside him cast a soft halo of light that made the red around his eyes harder to ignore when he looked up at the sound of their footsteps and at June’s small, urgent “Daddy!”. Something in his expression flickered, hopeful yet still wary.
“Hi, bug,” he said, voice rough, already pushing himself up to his feet. “Can I… can I talk to you?”
Instead of responding to him, June ran straight into his body, nearly knocking the breath from his lungs as she wrapped her arms around his thighs, and they both stumbled a bit backwards.
“I’m sorry!” she burst out into the fabric of his work clothes. “I yelled at you.”
At four, she barely reached higher than his hips when standing upright, so he immediately dropped down to his knees, hitting the rug with a soft thud, so he could fold her properly into his arms. “No, I’m sorry,” he breathed into her hair, voice rougher than usual. “I didn’t mean to scare you, sweetheart.”
She sniffed. “I just thought you were gonna hurt Papa.”
For just a second, his face gave him away, something cracking under the weight of her words. “I would never hurt him,” he said seriously. “I would never lay a hand on him like that - or you. Never ever. You two are my whole world.”
“I know,” she assured quickly, clinging tighter. “I’m sorry I thought that, Daddy.”
Mike pulled back and cupped her face. “Hey. Don’t apologize for trying to keep Papa safe,” he said, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. “I’m proud of you for that, bug. But you don’t ever have to keep him safe from me, okay?” His tone softened into something teasing. “We’re on the same team.”
She sniffled, considering that. “Same team,” she repeated.
At the sight of the two of them, Will felt his fill with overwhelming warmth and love for his little family, so intense it almost ached. They were both so serious about it, about him, so fiercely, earnestly protective in their own ways that he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. For a fleeting, dizzy second, he wished he could reach back through time and tell the scared little boy he used to be that this was waiting for him, this kind of love, this kind of safety.
After a moment, June glanced between them. “Can I sleep in your room with you tonight?”
Mike didn’t hesitate. “Yeah,” he said at the same time Will nodded. “Of course you can.”
After that, the night recentered back onto old, familiar tracks. Mike did what he always did when the world felt even slightly unbalanced; he moved through the house, checking the front door, then the back, fingers testing the locks twice, then once more for good measure. He made a slow circuit past the windows, pressing lightly against the frames every so often. It was an old habit, one born in a different lifetime of flickering lights and Demogorgons, and it had never quite left him. June followed him the whole time like a small shadow.
Mike showered first. When he came back into the bedroom, his towel-dried hair damp and messy, he lifted June onto their bed and sat cross-legged behind her, already making quick work of separating her hair into sections. By the time Will stepped out of the bathroom later, toweling his own hair dry, they were nearly finished, with Mike’s brows furrowed in concentration as he secured the last braid, fingers deft and skillful from years of practice.
Will lingered in the doorway for a few seconds longer, enjoying the domestic sight, unnoticed. It was such an ordinary moment, one he’s seen a hundred times, with Mike on their bed, braiding their daughter’s hair so it would be wavy in the morning, and yet it still managed to undo him a little.
“Book,” June reminded him as soon as he was finished, twisting around to look at Mike once the last braid was tied off. “You promised you’d read to me.”
Will glanced at the clock on the nightstand and exhaled. “It’s ten-thirty, Junie. You have to wake up early for daycare tomorrow.”
Her eyes widened in betrayal, round and devastating.
Mike didn’t even try to fight against the pleading look, folding embarrassingly quickly. “We can read just a little,” he offered carefully.
Will held out for all of five seconds longer of June’s begging eyes before sighing in defeat, too. “Fine. Just a little.”
With an excited ‘Thank you!’ from their daughter, they settled under the covers. Will curled around her from behind, one arm draped securely over her middle, her small back fitting perfectly against his chest. Mike sat on the edge of the mattress with the book in his hands, clearing his throat with theatrical seriousness before launching into the story.
He did all the voices, using exaggerated accents, pitching his voice up to imitate the Princess, then dropping low to voice the dragon, committing to it fully the way he always tried to do because June loved it so much. She giggled once, then twice, and then her body slowly went slack against Will’s arm, out like a light before they’ve even reached page seven.
Mike noticed it first, his voice softening mid-sentence, tapering off as he glanced down at her face, her mouth parted slightly, lashes resting heavy against her cheeks.
He closed the book quietly and set it aside, then, leaning over, he pressed the gentlest kiss to her temple. “I love you, bug,” he whispered, even though she was already too far gone to hear it.
He slid into bed and under the covers behind them, fitting himself closely against Will’s back, his arm circling both him and June. The room settled into that deep quiet that could only come once June was fully asleep for the day.
Will was already drifting, the adrenaline leaving him after the eventful evening and pulling him under in heavy waves. He was brought back when Mike’s voice suddenly brushed against the back of his neck.
“Hey,” he whispered.
Will hummed faintly in answer, already too tired to open his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Mike said, the words sounding like he’d been holding them in his mouth for a while. “About earlier. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Will stirred a little more at that, enough to blink himself halfway awake. “It was my fault,” he murmured back. “I came at you out of nowhere. I literally ambushed you. You were just trying to take care of us.”
Mike tightened his arm around both of them. “No,” he breathed. “Don’t do that, don’t make excuses for me. I was a total dick.”
“You were just exhausted.”
Mike’s voice roughened slightly: “I basically implied you sit around all day and draw like it’s nothing. Like it’s not real work. And that’s not what I think, like, at all.”
Will swallowed, eyes pressing closed.
“You’re the most talented person I know,” Mike went on, still trying to keep quiet so he wouldn’t disturb June. “You’re just in a tough spot right now. That happens. It doesn’t erase everything you’ve done or everything you’re going to do. It won’t last- it can’t, because you’re… you’re you. You’re going to be so successful, Will, I know it.”
Will let out a soft, embarrassed huff. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Really.”
“It’s not,” Mike insisted, pressing his forehead to the back of Will’s head, his breath tickling Will’s neck enough to raise goosebumps. “I should’ve been there. Instead, I’ve just been-” He exhaled, like he was frustrated with himself. “Burying myself in work. Coming home late and exhausted, and barely talking. You were struggling, and I- I didn’t even see how bad it was.”
Will adjusted himself slightly and turned his head so he could glance back at him. In the dark, Mike’s expression was mostly shadow, but the tension in it was unmistakable.
“We’re not even doing that badly,” Mike admitted after a moment. “That’s the stupid part. We’re fine. I just… I get so scared. I want everything to be perfect. I want to spoil you both. I don’t ever want June to worry about money, or you to feel like you can’t just create because of me.” He hesitated. “I think I just- I don’t know. I grew up watching my dad act like providing was the only thing that mattered. Like if the house was big enough and the bills were paid, that meant he was a good husband. A good father. And I guess some part of me is just… terrified of not being enough. Like, my brain just panics and keeps going through worst-case scenarios.”
It was easy, sometimes, to forget that Mike had grown up greatly shaped by his dad’s behaviour, too. Not because of fists or shouting, but by the absence. A father who measured worth in square footage and paychecks, who believed sitting at the dinner table counted as presence even though he never really looked up from his newspaper. Ted had never been cruel the way Lonnie was, but he had been distant in a way that left its own imprint on Mike’s self-image.
And the thing was, Mike was trying so hard to be different, Will could feel it every day. He read every book June shoved at him, did every ridiculous character voice, built blanket forts, braided her hair every time she asked, was at every class recital clapping the loudest in the crowd. He told her he loved her a dozen times a day without hesitation or embarrassment. He was present in all the ways that mattered, and yet, without meaning to these past months, he’d started chasing longer hours and later evenings, slipping into the same trap of thinking that if he could just earn a little more, then everything would finally feel safe. Will knew he wasn’t coming home late because he didn’t care, but because he cared so much it scared him.
But Will remembered empty cupboards, Joyce stretching a meal thin enough that it could pass for dinner three nights in a row. The way the heat had been rationed some winters, sweaters layered even indoors, yet his breath was still visible in the mornings. He remembered watching his mom sit at the kitchen table with a stack of overdue bills and a calculator, her mouth set in a tight line, trying desperately not to let Will and Jonathan see how scared she was. He knew what “not enough” felt like, not as a concept, but as something he lived through for years, before Jonathan was old enough and started picking up odd jobs to help out.
“We’re not there,” he said softly. “Not even close. I know what that looks like, Mike. This isn’t it.”
He could feel Mike’s arm tighten again, almost reflexively.
Yes, the numbers on Mike’s paycheck fluctuated sometimes. Yes, there were months where commissions were slower, or unexpected expenses popped up, and Will knew those dips made something in Mike’s chest tighten, some inherited alarm bell ringing that said you’re failing, you’re slipping, you’re not providing the way you should. He knew it probably bruised Mike’s pride that they weren’t as effortlessly comfortable as the Wheelers had been growing up, that there wasn’t endless cushion, no second thought behind every purchase.
But they were comfortable, they were secure, the fridge was full, and the lights stayed on. June had more books than she could finish in a month and two parents who loved her more than anything, and showed it.
“The most important way you can spoil us,” Will continued, “is just being here. You, not money. June doesn’t care about any of that, and I don’t either.”
Mike let out a shaky little laugh against his hair. “I can be home more,” he answered. “For real this time. I’ll talk to my boss, I’ll cut back.”
Will nodded faintly. “And I’ll talk to you more about this stuff,” he promised back. “Before I blow up at you. I just… I hate feeling like I’m failing.”
“You’re not, sweetheart,” Mike assured instantly.
“Neither are you.”
Will felt himself smile, sleep already tugging at him again, pulling him under.
He was almost gone when he felt Mike rearrange himself behind him, stirring him back into consciousness with another whisper.
“Hey,” he said, sounding almost uncertain now. “Did I… did I actually hurt you? When I grabbed your wrist before?”
Will huffed out a sleepy breath. “What? No.”
But Mike was already moving, carefully easing Will’s arm out from where it was draped over June’s middle. He turned Will’s wrist gently in the dim spill of moonlight from the window, thumb brushing over the skin like he was searching for evidence, exactly like June had done before in her room.
Will let out a quiet, incredulous giggle. “Oh my God,” he muttered. “You’re being dramatic.”
“I just want to make sure,” Mike murmured back, serious, still inspecting.
“There’s nothing there, Mike,” Will whispered. “You barely held me.”
Mike’s thumb made one last pass over his pulse point anyway before he pressed a soft, loving kiss to the inside of his wrist and let it settle back around June.
“I’m sorry I raised my voice at you,” he said after. “I hate doing that.”
Will shifted slightly so he could tilt his head back enough to meet his eyes again. “I raised mine first.”
“Still,” Mike insisted. “I don’t ever want to sound like that with you.”
Will hesitated, thoughts replaying the events of the evening. Then he spoke. “June- she told me something about her friend Rachel. You remember her? She came over for a playdate a while back.”
“Yeah… I remember her. What about her?”
“She said her dad hits her mom,” Will said, careful not to let his voice waver too much. “That’s why she panicked earlier. She thought that’s what’s happening between us.”
“Oh, fuck.” He exhaled, and Will could feel the arm slung around him leave to run through his hair. “If that’s true- we’re going to have to do something about it- tell someone. That…”
“Yeah,” Will nodded. “I know. But she’s only four… she just told me what she heard. We’ll have to make sure, somehow, first. Figure out what to do.”
He almost left it there. His old instinct - to compartmentalize, to handle it quietly in his own head so he didn’t weigh anyone else down - flickered through him out of habit. For years, that had been easier, but he’d just promised not to bottle things up as much. And if there was anyone he didn’t have to protect from the messy parts of his brain, it was Mike.
Will traced a small, idle pattern on June’s pajama sleeve. “It just- this whole situation, it… got me thinking,” he admitted. “About Lonnie and stuff.”
He didn’t have to explain what stuff meant; the implication came clear enough with the name.
He could feel Mike go very still behind him, tensing at his words. “Did you,” he asked carefully, “even for a second tonight… think I’d actually hit you?”
At the almost fragile sound of his voice, Will didn’t hesitate: “Of course not, Mike. Not even for a moment.”
Mike’s breath left him in a slow exhale against Will’s shoulder, relaxing a bit again.
“You know,” Will continued softly, because he promised he’d talk more, “When we were younger… sometimes my body reacted before my brain did. When we fought.”
Mike let out a faint, knowing hum, and Will knew they both still remembered. At nineteen, twenty years old, at university in their small apartment, arguments turning louder because lovers’ spats were something they hadn’t known how to manage between them yet. The first time Mike had thrown his hands up in exasperation and Will had flinched, quick, involuntary, purely on reflex.
“I never thought you would,” Will said now, voice low so it doesn’t disturb June. “Even back then, it wasn’t about you specifically, you know? I think it was just, like… pattern recognition. Yelling, and seeing a hand in the air.”
Mike nodded faintly against the back of his head. “I get it.”
Back then, he had always deflated instantly when it happened, hands dropping, anger dissolving into horror and apology instead. He’d learned quickly, though, his gestures turning softer, his tone not rising even when arguing.
They hadn’t really known how to talk about it back then, those first few years after they got together, or even before, when they were best friends. Everything had felt too raw and too close to the surface, and neither of them had the language for ‘trauma responses’ or ‘conditioned reflexes’ or any of the things Will could name now because of therapy.
But they had understood each other anyway, always subconsciously attuned. Mike had known about Lonnie since they were small enough that the word abuse didn’t really exist in their vocabulary at all. There hadn’t been long, detailed discussions about cause and correlations, just silent adjustments. Mike’s hand movements were more thought-out, his voice gentler, and he learned, instinctively, how to reach for him. Will hadn’t always had the energy to dig up those memories, to dissect them, so they’d simply worked around the flinches and the nightmares, Mike pulling him close and comforting him without demanding explanations.
“It hasn’t happened in a long time,” Will added.
“No,” Mike agreed. “It hasn’t.”
Because his body knew now, too, after years together.
Mike pressed his face into the curve of Will’s neck, his arm tightening around both him and June. “I would never,” he said again, firm. “Not you, not her. Not ever.”
“I know,” Will said, because he did, because there was little else he was as sure of in his life.
Mike rearranged himself again, lifting his body onto one elbow to lean over Will. Will turned his head to look at him, catching a quick glimpse of his sharp features in the darkness before Mike closed the distance and pressed their mouths together. The hand he wasn’t bracing his weight on came up to cup Will’s cheek gently, brushing his thumb along his cheekbone in a few caring passes.
Will hadn’t even realized the pure extent of how much he’d missed having Mike like this.
“I love you, baby,” Mike whispered against his lips before pulling away.
Will smiled into the dark, hoping Mike could see how happy he made him, even with the absence of light.
“I love you, too.”
Mike settled back into place, then pressed one last lingering kiss beneath his ear, and this time, when sleep pulled at them, neither of them fought it.