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Mike Wheeler knew six different ways to ask 'are you okay?' and none at all to answer it.
He knew how to ask El without making her feel like a science experiment again. He knew how to ask Will without making him feel cornered. He knew how to ask Dustin with a joke tucked around the edges so Dustin did not realize he was being carefully guided back into his body. He knew how to ask Lucas while passing him a basketball or a pencil or a dice bag, something to keep his hands busy while the truth came out sideways. He knew how to ask Max by not asking at all, sometimes. By saying, “Your cane’s two inches to the left,” instead of “Do you need help?”
Mike knew all of that. He knew everybody. That was the problem.
The basement was already half wrecked by the time everyone arrived, which meant the sleepover had officially started.
Dustin had kicked off his shoes in the middle of the floor like he had been raised by wolves. Lucas was sitting on the arm of the couch, one hand loosely tangled with El’s while she leaned against his hip and stole chips out of the bowl in his lap. Will was on the carpet beside the coffee table, painting a miniature and pretending he was not watching Mike move around the room. Max sat near the bottom of the stairs in her wheelchair, sunglasses pushed up into her hair, one socked foot resting against Dustin’s thigh while he sat cross-legged beside her and carefully painted her nails a dark, messy red.
“You missed half my thumb,” Max said.
“I am working under hostile conditions,” Dustin said, leaning closer to squint at her hand. “Your fingers keep moving.”
“They do that when I’m alive.”
“Could you stop?”
“Being alive?”
“Moving.”
“No.”
Dustin looked up at her, exasperated, and Max grinned in his general direction. He softened immediately. Then, because Dustin Henderson was incapable of being subtle about anything he felt, he lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles before going back to the nail polish.
Max made a face. “Sap.”
“You love it.”
“I tolerate it because your hands are warm.”
Mike saw it and felt something warm move through him. This was still new sometimes. Not new like uncertain. Not new like fragile. They had survived too much together for fragile. But new in the way spring was new after a long winter: impossible and green and almost painful to look at. They had not sat down one day and decided to become whatever this was. There had been no official meeting, no campaign-style vote, no whiteboard where Mike listed pros and cons and Dustin insisted on legal terminology.
It had happened in pieces. El holding Max’s hand at the hospital long after visiting hours ended. Lucas kissing Mike in the Wheeler kitchen one awful night after both of them had cried themselves hoarse over whether Max would wake up again. Dustin falling asleep with his face pressed into Will’s shoulder after Eddie’s funeral and waking up with Will’s hand in his hair. El kissing Dustin on the cheek because he made her laugh, then doing it again because he blushed so hard he knocked over a soda. Max saying, months later, voice rough and annoyed and scared, “Are we all dating, or are all of you just weirdly touchy?” And Dustin, without missing a beat, saying, “Both, obviously.”
Will had been the only exception with the girls, and even that had not been an exclusion so much as a different shape of love. El was his sister in every way that mattered. Max was too, though she expressed sisterhood primarily through insults and threats. Will held their hands. He kissed their foreheads sometimes. He fell asleep against them on movie nights. But it was not the same as how he looked at the boys. Not the same as the shy, aching way his fingers found Mike’s. Not the way he blushed when Lucas leaned into his space. Not the way Dustin could make him smile by kissing the back of his paint-stained hand.
They had figured it out because they had to. They had almost lost each other too many times to keep pretending love came in neat boxes.
“Okay,” Mike said, standing in the middle of the basement with his hands on his hips. “We have three sleeping bags, two air mattresses, one couch that smells like socks because Dustin spilled nacho cheese on it in July and lied about it—”
“I said I was sorry,” Dustin called.
“You said, and I quote, ‘The cheese has returned to the earth.’”
“It was a spiritual apology.”
Max tilted her head toward Dustin. “He’s not wrong.”
“Thank you,” Dustin said.
“He’s still disgusting.”
“Betrayal.”
El slipped away from Lucas and came to Mike’s side. She did not say anything at first. She simply took his hand, turned it over, and pressed a kiss to the center of his palm.
Mike’s entire train of thought vanished.
El smiled up at him, pleased with herself. “You were making the general face.”
“The what?”
“The general face.” She squeezed his hand. “Like little soldiers are marching in your head.”
“They are not little soldiers.”
“Tiny ones,” Dustin said. “With tiny clipboards.”
Lucas came over behind Mike and hooked his chin over Mike’s shoulder. “He’s planning where to put everyone so nobody kicks anyone in the ribs.”
“Because last time someone did,” Mike said.
“That was me,” Dustin admitted.
“You kicked Will in the stomach.”
“I had a dream I was punting a demodog.”
Will looked up from his miniature. “You apologized by putting a pillow over my face.”
“I panicked.”
Lucas’s arms slid around Mike’s waist from behind, warm and grounding. He kissed Mike’s cheek, then his jaw, quick and soft. “Relax. We can figure out blankets.”
Mike leaned back into him for half a second. Only half.
Then he remembered the laundry basket. “Blankets are by the shelves. Lucas, pillows from the closet? El, pizza money’s on the desk, but don’t let Dustin answer the door because he tips like we’re billionaires.”
Lucas’s arms loosened. Mike stepped away before anyone could notice how much he wanted to stay there. Will noticed anyway. Of course Will noticed. He looked at Mike for a long moment, then set down his brush and crossed the carpet. He stopped in front of Mike, close enough that their socks touched.
“Hi,” Will said quietly.
Mike blinked. “Hi?”
Will reached up and smoothed Mike’s hair back from his forehead. It was a small gesture. Familiar. Romantic in the way only knowing someone for years could be. He kissed Mike once, gently, at the corner of his mouth.
“Sleepover,” Will reminded him. “Not military operation.”
Mike’s chest squeezed. “It can be both,” he said, but his voice came out softer.
Will smiled like he had won something.
Across the room, Max groaned. “If you two start gazing, I’m leaving.”
“You can’t leave,” Dustin said. “Your nails are wet.”
“Then I’ll roll dramatically into the corner.”
El went back to the couch and curled against Max’s side instead, careful of her arm. Max stiffened for one second, then relaxed. El rested her cheek against Max’s shoulder.
“Your hair smells like strawberries,” El said.
Max’s mouth twitched. “That’s because Lucas bought the wrong shampoo.”
Lucas, returning with pillows, looked offended. “You said you liked it.”
“I do. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t wrong.”
El lifted Max’s hand and kissed her wrist, above the smudged nail polish. “I like it.”
Max went very still.
Then she said, quieter, “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
Dustin pointed the nail polish brush at El. “Do not flirt with my client while I’m working. It compromises the artistic process.”
El leaned forward and kissed Dustin’s cheek.
Dustin’s ears went red.
“Art compromised,” Lucas said.
Mike laughed. He could not help it.
For a moment, everything felt almost easy.
『••✎••』
Pizza made the basement louder. It always did.
The seating arrangement collapsed almost immediately into a pile of limbs and bad decisions. Lucas sat on the floor with his back against the couch, Max’s chair angled beside him so she could transfer if she wanted. El perched half on the couch, half on Lucas’s shoulder, feeding him crusts she did not want. Dustin sat close enough to Max that their knees touched, narrating the toppings on each slice with the solemn precision of a museum guide.
“Pepperoni at twelve o’clock,” Dustin told her. “Mushroom situation at three. Cheese avalanche at six.”
Max reached for the plate, fingers brushing his. “If there are olives, you’re dead.”
“No olives. I value my life.”
“Debatable.”
Mike handed Will a plate and immediately turned to grab napkins. Will caught his wrist. Mike paused.
Will glanced down at the untouched slice on Mike’s plate. “Sit with me?”
It was not a question about sitting. Mike knew that. He also knew El’s soda was empty, Max had not taken her medication yet, and Dustin was about to put his plate directly on the carpet even though he had been warned about that at least four hundred times.
“In a second,” Mike said.
Will’s fingers lingered, then slipped away. Mike hated the look that crossed his face. He hated more that he still moved away. By the time he sat down, his own pizza had gone cold.
Dustin had ended up with his head in Lucas’s lap, eating a slice upside down while Lucas absentmindedly ran fingers through his curls. Max had transferred from her chair to the thick blanket on the floor and was leaning against El, who was very seriously trying to wipe sauce from the corner of Max’s mouth.
“I can do that,” Max said.
“I know,” El replied.
“Then why are you doing it?”
“Because I want to.”
Max seemed to have no answer for that.
El finished, then kissed the same spot. Max’s face went red all the way to her ears.
Dustin gasped. “Max Mayfield, are you blushing?”
“No.”
“You are!”
“I’m visually impaired, not completely blind, idiot. I know you’re pointing at me.”
Dustin dropped his hand.
Lucas laughed and bent to kiss Dustin’s forehead. Dustin tilted his head back dramatically and demanded, “A real one, Sinclair,” so Lucas rolled his eyes and kissed him properly, soft and lingering, upside down and awkward enough to make both of them laugh into it.
Will, sitting beside Mike, smiled at them. Mike watched Will smile.
Then Dustin, still upside down, reached blindly toward Will. “Byers. Affection.”
Will blinked. “What?”
“I require affection. It’s medically necessary.”
“You just got some.”
“I require multitudes.”
Will’s smile turned shy, but he leaned over and kissed Dustin’s temple. Dustin hummed with exaggerated satisfaction. “Romance restored,” he announced.
Max made gagging noises. El kissed her cheek again.
“You are part of the romance,” El said.
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because I’m cool.”
Lucas snorted.
Mike should have eaten then. Everyone else was distracted. No one would have noticed if he picked up the slice, took a bite, swallowed, gave his body one single thing it had been asking for all day.
Instead he noticed Max’s medication still sitting on the side table. He got up.
Will looked at the plate in his hands.
Mike pretended not to see.
『••✎••』
The movie was The Princess Bride because Mike chose it before the debate could become a blood sport.
“Bossy,” Max said.
“You love me.”
“I tolerate you for your basement.”
“And my incredible taste.”
“I love El. El loves you. I suffer.”
Mike pointed at El. “Do you hear this?”
El, curled against Max now with their fingers woven together, smiled. “I love Mike very much.”
“See?”
El considered. “I also love Max very much.”
Max looked smug.
Dustin flopped onto the air mattress and patted the space beside him. “Mike. Come here.”
Mike narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
“Because I want to use your bony shoulder as a pillow.”
“Romantic.”
“I’m a romantic guy.”
Lucas stepped over Dustin’s legs and dropped onto the mattress beside him, grabbing Mike by the sleeve as he passed. “Come on. Sit down before you start reorganizing the entire basement by emotional vulnerability level.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“You would make it a thing,” Will said.
Mike allowed himself to be pulled down between Dustin and Lucas. Dustin immediately latched onto his arm. Lucas leaned into his other side. Will sat at Mike’s feet, back against his legs, then tipped his head back until it rested against Mike’s knee.
Mike looked down at him. Will looked up. For one quiet second, the whole basement seemed to fall away.
Then Dustin stuck his cold toes under Mike’s thigh.
Mike yelped. “What the hell?”
“My feet are cold.”
“Put on socks!”
“I’m using love.”
“That is not love. That is frostbite.”
Lucas laughed against Mike’s shoulder and kissed the side of his neck, quick enough to be casual, soft enough to make Mike’s breath catch.
Dustin noticed. Dustin always noticed romance if it gave him an opportunity to be annoying.
“Oh?” he said.
“Shut up,” Mike muttered.
Dustin grinned and kissed Mike’s cheek with a loud smack. “There. Equal opportunity affection.”
Lucas reached across Mike and flicked Dustin’s forehead. “Don’t be weird.”
“We are literally all dating. Weird is the foundation.”
“Not all,” Max said from the couch.
Will lifted his head. “Thank you.”
Max pointed vaguely toward him. “Byers is my brother.”
“And mine,” El said firmly.
Will smiled at them both, soft and grateful. “Yeah.”
Dustin leaned over Mike to look at Will. “But not mine.”
Will’s face turned pink. “No,” he said, quieter.
Dustin’s grin softened into something real. He reached down, palm open, and Will took his hand.
The movie started that way: El and Max tangled together on the couch, Lucas pressed warm against Mike’s side, Dustin holding Mike’s arm and Will’s hand at the same time, Mike caught in the center of all that love and still somehow thinking about the cups upstairs.
『••✎••』
Later, after the first movie and before the second, the basement shifted into the sleepy, affectionate mess that had become their normal.
Lucas and Will were on the floor with the campaign notebook between them, arguing quietly over whether a paladin could multiclass without becoming “spiritually annoying.” Dustin sat behind Will, chin hooked over his shoulder, arms around his waist.
“You just don’t respect paladins because you fear moral clarity,” Dustin said.
Will turned his head slightly. “You tried to rob a temple last campaign.”
“It was a corrupt temple.”
“You didn’t know that until after you robbed it.”
“I had instincts.”
Lucas laughed and leaned across the notebook to kiss Will. It was brief and easy, the kind of kiss that had taken Lucas months to stop hesitating before. Will still looked a little dazed afterward.
Dustin groaned. “You’re both ignoring my genius.”
Lucas kissed Dustin next, just to shut him up. It worked for approximately three seconds.
On the couch, El sat with her legs tucked under her while Max leaned against her chest. El had both arms around her, careful but firm, and was describing the room in a low voice because Max’s eyes had started aching after the movie.
“Dustin is making his thinking face,” El said.
Max smiled faintly. “Constipated owl?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Lucas is smiling at Will.”
“Gross.”
“But you are smiling too.”
“I am not.”
El kissed the top of Max’s head.
Mike stood by the shelves with a stack of plates in his hands and watched them all. He loved this so much it hurt. That was the thing nobody warned you about. Love was not always warm. Sometimes it was sharp. Sometimes it pressed behind your ribs until you could not breathe. Sometimes loving five people meant feeling five different kinds of fear every time the lights flickered or a nightmare went too quiet.
He must have been standing there too long, because Max turned her head. “Mikey.”
Mike startled. “What?”
“Why are you lurking?”
“I’m not lurking.”
“You’re standing silently by the shelves like a haunted coat rack.”
Dustin craned his neck. “Oh, yeah. Very haunted.”
El opened one arm. “Come here.”
Mike’s first instinct was to say he had to take the plates upstairs.
Lucas looked at the plates. “Set them down.”
“I was just—”
“Set. Them. Down.”
Mike did.
El patted the couch cushion beside her.
Mike sat.
Immediately, El leaned into his left side and Max reached across her lap to find Mike’s hand. Her fingers bumped his wrist first, then slid down until she could lace their hands together.
“You’re cold,” Max said.
“I’m fine.”
Will’s head lifted.
Dustin’s voice sharpened. “Banned phrase.”
Mike rolled his eyes. “I’m okay, then.”
“Also suspicious,” Lucas said.
“I’m sitting, aren’t I?”
Max squeezed his hand. “Bare minimum romance.”
Mike looked at her. “What does that even mean?”
“It means if you’re going to be loved by five people, Wheeler, you have to actually let us do it.”
The words were teasing. Mostly. Mike looked away first.
El kissed his shoulder through his shirt. “We love you.”
“I know.”
Dustin came around the couch and dropped dramatically across Mike’s lap, nearly knocking the wind out of him.
“Jesus, Dustin—”
“Receive affection.”
“You’re heavy.”
“I am a growing boy.”
“You’re seventeen.”
“Still growing emotionally.”
Lucas sat on Mike’s other side and pulled Dustin’s legs into his own lap. Will came last, quieter, settling on the floor in front of Mike and resting his cheek against Mike’s knee.
For a few minutes, Mike had nowhere to go. No task to grab. No crisis to intercept.
Just El’s breath against his shoulder. Max’s fingers in his. Dustin’s weight across his thighs. Lucas’s hand rubbing slow circles over Dustin’s ankle, occasionally brushing Mike’s leg too. Will’s hair soft beneath Mike’s fingertips when Mike gave in and touched it.
It should have made him feel safe. Instead, shame rose hot in his throat. He did not know how to sit inside love without earning it.
So when Dustin shifted and asked, “Can someone get more soda?” Mike moved so quickly that Will almost fell over.
“I’ve got it,” Mike said.
The warmth disappeared from around him. No one stopped him. That was somehow worse.
『••✎••』
In the kitchen, Will found Mike braced against the counter. Will was not alone. Dustin had come upstairs too, apparently under the pretense of “quality control,” and now stood in the doorway with two soda cans tucked under one arm and a worried line between his brows.
Will was beside Mike, one hand hovering near his back.
“You disappeared,” Will said.
“I was getting drinks.”
Dustin lifted the cans. “I got the drinks.”
Mike stared at them.
“Oh,” he said.
Dustin’s expression shifted from teasing to alarmed. “Mike?”
Mike turned back to the counter. “Sorry. I forgot.”
Will’s hand landed gently between his shoulder blades. “When did you eat?”
Mike huffed. “You too?”
Dustin came closer. “Answer the question.”
“I had pizza.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Mike looked at him.
Dustin’s mouth pressed thin. “I was literally lying on you for half the movie. You smelled like cold pizza. You did not eat pizza.”
“That’s disgusting and weirdly observant.”
“I contain multitudes,” Dustin said, but his voice was too soft.
Will’s hand moved slowly up and down Mike’s back. “Come downstairs. Sit with us. Eat something.”
Mike almost said yes.
Then the basement erupted below them.
“Dustin!” Lucas shouted. “You took all the soda!”
Dustin shouted back, “That was the mission!”
Max yelled, “If one of those is grape, I call it!”
El called, “I do not like grape!”
Mike closed his eyes. Will’s hand stilled.
“I’m coming,” Mike called.
Will’s fingers curled gently into the back of his shirt, not holding him there, just asking. Mike stepped away anyway.
『••✎••』
By one in the morning, everyone was supposed to be asleep. Nobody was asleep.
They had made a nest of the basement, all blankets and pillows and soft touches. Max was back in her wheelchair for a while, legs hurting too much for the floor, and El had dragged a blanket over both of them so she could sit cross-legged beside the chair with her head resting against Max’s knee. Max had one hand in El’s hair, petting clumsily, her face turned toward the sound of El’s voice.
Lucas and Dustin were sharing the air mattress, though sharing was generous. Dustin had taken up most of it and Lucas had retaliated by lying directly on top of him.
“I can’t breathe,” Dustin said.
“You’re talking, so you can breathe.”
“Will, help.”
Will, lying near Mike, looked over. “I’m very comfortable.”
“Betrayed by my beloved.”
Lucas propped his chin on Dustin’s chest. “One of your beloveds is busy.”
Dustin smiled despite himself and reached up to touch Lucas’s face. Lucas turned his head and kissed his palm.
Mike watched them. He felt warm. He felt cold.
El lifted her head from Max’s knee. “Mike?”
He blinked. “Yeah?”
“Come here.”
“I am here.”
“No. Here.” She held out her hand.
Max also held out her hand, though slightly in the wrong direction. El guided it gently until Max’s fingers found Mike’s sleeve.
Mike let himself be pulled down onto the floor beside them.
El kissed him first, soft and sure. Then Max tugged him closer by the shirt.
“Careful,” he said automatically. “Your shoulder—”
“Shut up, Wheeler.”
Then she kissed him too.
It was not graceful. Max kissed like she did everything else: direct, impatient, daring him to make a big deal out of it. Her fingers curled in his shirt. Her sunglasses bumped his forehead. Mike laughed against her mouth, and she pulled back just enough to say, “Don’t ruin the moment.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
El smiled and kissed Max’s cheek. Max’s grip on Mike softened.
For a second, Mike let himself stay there: El’s hand on his neck, Max’s fingers still hooked in his shirt, both of them close and warm and alive.
Then Max’s breath caught. Pain. Small, almost hidden. Mike heard it. He always heard it.
“Do you need the heating pad?”
Max’s face closed. The softness vanished so fast Mike felt the loss like a slap.
“I can get it,” she said.
“I know. I was just—”
“I can get it.”
The room went quieter.
Lucas sat up on the air mattress. Dustin pushed himself onto his elbows. Will turned toward them.
Mike lifted his hands. “Okay.”
Max’s jaw worked.
El looked between them, worried.
Mike stood. Too fast. The room grayed at the edges, but he blinked it away. “I’m just going to—”
“Mike,” Will said.
“What?”
Will’s eyes searched his face. “Sit down.”
“I’m already up.”
“That is not a reason.”
“I’m fine.”
The banned phrase landed in the middle of the room like a glass dropped on concrete.
Dustin sat all the way up. “Nope.”
Mike looked at him. “What?”
“Nope. You don’t get to say that and run away.”
“I’m not running away.”
“You are literally angled toward the stairs.”
Mike looked down at his own feet. He was.
Lucas stood slowly. “Mike, when did you last eat?”
“Oh my God,” Mike snapped. “Can everyone stop asking me that?”
El flinched.
Mike saw it and hated himself instantly.
“El,” he said. “I didn’t mean—”
“You keep saying that,” Lucas said.
Mike turned to him. “What?”
Lucas’s face was tight, worried and frustrated and scared. “You keep snapping and then saying you didn’t mean it.”
The room held its breath.
Mike looked around at them.
Dustin, hair mussed and eyes too wide. Lucas, standing near the mattress like he was trying not to spook him. El with one hand still on Max’s knee. Max turned toward his voice, mouth pressed into a thin line. Will on the floor, pale and silent.
All of them looking at him. All of them loving him. All of them seeing too much.
Mike could not stand it.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” he said.
El’s voice was small. “We want you to let us love you back.”
Something in Mike cracked.
“You do,” he said.
“No,” Max said. “We touch you. We kiss you. We sleep on you like a bunch of emotionally damaged cats. That’s not the same thing as you letting us take care of you.”
Dustin nodded, eyes wet. “You let us love you when it doesn’t cost you control.”
Mike stared at him.
Dustin looked like he regretted saying it, but he did not take it back.
Will’s voice was quiet. “You let us hold your hand. You don’t let us hold anything heavy.”
Mike’s heart pounded.
Lucas stepped closer. “You think if you need too much, we’ll stop?”
“No,” Mike said immediately. But the word came out wrong. It came out scared.
The room changed.
El’s eyes filled with tears.
Mike backed up. “No. That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?” Lucas asked.
Mike’s breathing had gone wrong. Too fast and not deep enough. “I don’t know.”
Dustin stood too. “Mike—”
“I don’t know!” Mike’s voice cracked. He dragged both hands through his hair. “I don’t know, okay? I don’t know how to do this part.”
“What part?” Max asked, softer now.
“This!” He gestured helplessly at all of them. “Being loved like it’s not a job. Being here and not checking if everyone’s okay. Having all of you look at me like you want something from me, and I know you don’t, I know you don’t, but it feels like—”
He stopped. His throat closed.
Will stood slowly. “Like what?”
Mike laughed once. It sounded awful. “Like I only know what to do with love when someone is bleeding.”
Nobody moved.
Mike’s eyes burned. “I know nightmares. I know panic attacks. I know pain scales and medications and which lights bother Max’s eyes and what songs help El sleep and when Dustin’s joking because he’s scared and when Lucas goes quiet because he thinks he has to be strong and when Will touches his neck like he’s checking if Vecna left a door open.”
Will’s face crumpled.
Mike’s voice dropped. “I know how to take care of you.”
El whispered, “But not yourself.”
Mike shook his head. The room blurred. “I don’t know how to need things in this house,” he said. “I only know how to be needed.”
Silence.
Then Dustin crossed the room and hugged him. Hard.
Mike stood frozen, arms trapped awkwardly between them.
Dustin’s face pressed into his shoulder. “You’re an idiot,” he whispered.
Mike let out a broken laugh. “Thanks.”
Dustin’s arms tightened. “You’re our idiot.”
Lucas came next, wrapping both of them up from the side. He kissed Mike’s temple, then Dustin’s hair. El stood and joined carefully, tucking herself under Mike’s arm. Will stepped in front of Mike and took his face in both hands. He did not kiss him at first. He just looked at him. Mike’s mouth trembled. Will kissed him then, soft and sad and full of everything neither of them knew how to say. Then he kissed Dustin’s cheek, because Dustin was crying too, and Lucas’s jaw because Lucas looked like he was holding himself together with wire.
Max swore under her breath. “Someone bring the group hug to me,” she said, voice thick. “I’m not getting up.”
That made Mike laugh for real. It also made the room tilt. He blinked hard.
Will pulled back. “Mike?”
“I’m okay,” Mike said automatically.
Dustin made a strangled sound. “Banned phrase, Wheeler.”
Mike tried to smile. The basement went white at the edges. His knees disappeared. Someone shouted his name. Then the floor rose up and took him.
『••✎••』
When he came back, love was everywhere. That was the first thing he noticed. Not fear, though there was fear too. Not pain, though his head hurt and his body felt distant and wrong.
Love.
Will’s fingers pressed to his wrist, trembling as he counted Mike’s pulse under his breath. El’s hand rested in his hair, not moving, just there. Lucas knelt beside him, one hand on Mike’s shoulder and the other clutching Dustin’s so tightly their knuckles had gone pale. Dustin was crying openly, his free hand pressed over his mouth. Max had somehow gotten herself down from the chair, or half down, anyway. She was on the floor beside his legs, one hand clamped around his ankle like she could keep him in the world by force.
Mike blinked at the ceiling.
“Say something,” Dustin whispered.
Mike swallowed. His tongue felt wrong. “This is,” he rasped, “a terrible group hug.”
Dustin laughed and sobbed at the same time. “I hate you.”
Max’s grip tightened. “Don’t joke.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“Sorry.”
El leaned over him, tears shining on her cheeks. “You scared us.”
Mike looked at her. The instinct came immediately. Comfort her. Fix it. Make the fear go away. He opened his mouth.
Will’s hand moved from his wrist to his chest.
“Don’t,” Will whispered.
Mike looked at him.
Will’s face was wrecked. “Don’t make us feel better. Just be here.”
Mike’s mouth closed. That was harder than anything. Lucas kissed the back of Mike’s hand. Once. Then again. Like he was checking that Mike was solid.
Dustin pressed his forehead to Mike’s arm. “You fainted, asshole.”
“Romantic,” Mike whispered.
“Shut up.”
Max’s voice shook. “You don’t get to die because you forgot food exists.”
“I didn’t die.”
“Semantics.”
El bent and kissed Mike’s forehead. Then his cheek. Then the corner of his mouth, barely there.
“I love you,” she said.
Mike’s eyes filled.
Lucas said it next. Then Dustin, muffled against his sleeve. Then Will, barely audible. Max did not say it right away, but her thumb moved once against his ankle. Then she muttered, “Unfortunately, I love you too.”
Mike cried then. Quietly. Helplessly. No one asked him to stop.
『••✎••』
After Karen came down, after juice and crackers and a worried mother’s hands and Ted’s useless but earnest “drink more fluids, Michael,” the basement settled into a new kind of quiet.
Mike sat on the couch wrapped in two blankets. He was no longer allowed to hold his own glass without supervision, which was humiliating. Dustin kept calling himself Mike’s “hydration manager” until Max threatened to demote him to “basement raccoon.”
Lucas sat beside Mike and held the glass while Mike drank.
Mike glared at him weakly. “I can hold orange juice.”
“Can you?”
“Yes.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow.
Mike looked away. “Probably.”
Lucas kissed his cheek. “Then probably tomorrow.”
El sat on Mike’s other side, one arm wrapped around his waist. Max had transferred back into her wheelchair and rolled close enough that her knee touched Mike’s. Every few minutes, she reached out and tapped his leg like she was checking he was still there.
Dustin sat on the coffee table in front of him, despite the fact that everyone knew Mrs. Wheeler hated that. He held one of Mike’s hands in both of his and kept rubbing his thumb over Mike’s knuckles.
Will sat on the floor between Mike’s feet, leaning back against the couch. Mike’s hand rested in his hair. Neither of them had said anything about it. Neither of them needed to.
“I ruined the sleepover,” Mike said.
Dustin immediately leaned forward and kissed his knuckles. “Incorrect.”
Lucas kissed Mike’s shoulder. “Very incorrect.”
El kissed the side of his neck, then rested her face there. “We are still sleeping over.”
Max snorted. “You think fainting gets you out of cuddling? Amateur.”
Mike looked at her. “I’m being punished with affection?”
“Yes.”
“That seems legally questionable.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you became medically dramatic.”
Dustin nodded solemnly. “The sentence is love.”
Will tilted his head back against Mike’s knee and looked up at him. “No parole.”
Mike laughed, and it hurt, but in a good way.
Then Lucas sobered. “We need to change things.”
Mike’s smile faded.
El’s arm tightened around him. “Not because you are bad.”
“Because we love you,” Lucas said.
Dustin nodded. “And because apparently kissing you stupid isn’t enough to make you understand you’re allowed to have needs.”
Mike flushed. “Can we not phrase it like that in front of my unconscious dignity?”
“Your dignity fainted too,” Max said.
Will’s hand found Mike’s ankle under the blanket. “One thing.”
Mike looked down. “What?”
“Say one thing you need.”
Panic sparked in his chest.
El kissed his shoulder again. “Only one.”
Mike looked around at them. Dustin holding his hand. Lucas pressed warm to his side. El wrapped around him like she could keep him together. Max close enough to touch. Will watching him with those eyes that had always seen too much and stayed anyway.
One thing.
“I need…” Mike’s voice came out rough.
Nobody moved.
“I need someone to make sure I eat tomorrow,” he whispered. “Because I don’t think I’ll remember.”
The silence that followed was not empty.
Lucas nodded first. “I’ll make breakfast.”
“I’ll help,” El said.
Dustin squeezed Mike’s hand. “I’ll make lunch.”
Max lifted her brows. “Can you cook?”
“No,” Dustin said. “But I can assemble. I will create sandwiches of love.”
Will smiled faintly. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t poison you.”
Mike looked at Max. She shrugged. “I’ll make sure you actually eat it. I’m great at threats.”
El leaned across Mike and kissed Max’s cheek. “You are.”
Max tried to look annoyed. Failed.
Lucas reached over Mike’s lap to take Max’s hand. Dustin leaned forward and kissed Lucas’s wrist. Will turned his face into Mike’s knee. El’s fingers slid into Mike’s hair.
It was messy. A ridiculous tangle of affection and fear and exhaustion. It was theirs.
『••✎••』
When they finally lay down again, Mike was not in the center. That was the first thing he noticed.
Usually, somehow, he ended up there. The point everyone curved around. El’s head on his chest. Will close enough to feel his breathing. Dustin and Lucas and Max all within reach, as if Mike’s body were the campfire they had built against the dark.
Tonight, they rearranged. Lucas took the outside near Max’s wheelchair so he could help if she needed to transfer. Max lay on the thick mattress with El curled against her, their hands linked over Max’s stomach. El kissed Max’s shoulder before settling, and Max muttered, “Sap,” but did not let go. Dustin lay behind Lucas, one arm thrown over his waist, fingers reaching far enough to hook into Will’s sleeve. Will lay facing Mike, one hand open between them. His other hand rested over Dustin’s.
A chain. That was what it was. Not a pile around Mike. A chain, warm and living, with everyone holding everyone else.
Mike stared at it until his vision blurred.
El lifted her head. “Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“Hand.”
He gave it to her. She kissed his fingers and placed his hand in Will’s. Will squeezed.
Lucas, half-asleep already, reached back and found Mike’s ankle under the blanket. Dustin’s foot pressed against Mike’s calf. Max, somehow aware of all of this despite looking half-dead with exhaustion, mumbled, “No escaping, Wheeler.”
Mike laughed softly.
“I’m not escaping.”
“Good.”
Will’s thumb brushed Mike’s knuckles. “Sleep.”
Mike looked at him. “What if somebody needs something?”
“Then somebody will help.”
“What if I miss it?”
Dustin’s sleepy voice floated from behind Lucas. “Then one of your five incredibly hot partners will handle it.”
Max groaned. “Never say that again.”
Lucas laughed into his pillow.
El said, very seriously, “He is right.”
Will’s face went pink even in the low light.
Mike smiled.
The world was still broken upstairs. Hawkins was still scarred. There would be pain tomorrow. There would be fear. There would be moments when Mike forgot and reached for control because control had once looked so much like survival that he had mistaken it for love.
But tonight, Dustin’s hand was holding Will’s sleeve. Will was holding Mike. Mike was holding El. El was holding Max. Max was holding Lucas. Lucas was holding Dustin.
The heart did not beat for itself. It beat to pump blood to the body. But it was not supposed to work alone, either.
In the Wheeler basement, surrounded by kisses and blankets and the people he loved most in a world that had tried over and over to take them from him, Mike let his eyes close.
For the first time in a long time, he did not stay awake counting everyone else’s breaths.
He let them count his.