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The bar smelled like stale beer , and Mike was sitting on the curb outside of it, shivering in his jacket.
Will pulled up and rolled down the window. "Get in."
"Will." Mike looked up with the profound relief of someone rescued from the bottom of the ocean. "You came."
"You texted me fourteen times."
"I need you"
"I know. Get in the car, Mike."
"Yay!"
Will rolled his eyes, but he was already smiling, reaching over to push the passenger door open.
Mike climbed in with the careful, exaggerated movements of someone who knew they were unsteady and was trying very hard not to show it, which was somehow more endearing than if he'd just been a mess about it.
He dropped into the seat, pulled the door shut with slightly too much force, and then went still.
Inhaled slowly.
"Your car smells nice," he said, with great sincerity. "It smells like you."
Will faced forward very deliberately and put the car in drive.
"Okay," he said.
"That's a compliment."
"I know it is."
"You smell good, Will."
"Mike."
"I'm just saying." Mike tipped his head back against the headrest, eyes drifting shut, a small satisfied smile on his face like he'd said something reasonable and was done with it.
Will kept his eyes on the road.
His ears were completely red and he was deeply grateful, for the dark.
Getting Mike up three flights of stairs was an adventure. He was cooperative but slow, pausing on the second landing to tell Will at length that he was a really good friend, like a really good friend, had anyone ever told him that, someone should tell him every day.
"Almost there," Will said, steering him by the shoulders.
"I mean it."
"I know you do."
He got him through the door, got his jacket off, got him horizontal on the couch with a blanket pulled up. Mike was already drooping, eyes heavy, but Will had seen this before — he'd rally. He always rallied, right around the forty minute mark, for one last burst of consciousness before he went fully under.
Will went to the kitchen to get water.
He could hear Mike from the other room, the soft shuffle of him moving around on the couch, and then a quiet: "C'mon, c'mon—"
Will came back in.
Mike was sitting up, squinting at his phone with tremendous concentration, thumb hunting unsteadily around the screen.
"What are you doing?"
"I need to call him."
"Call who?"
"My boyfriend." Mike said it simply, without looking up, like it was obvious. Like it was just a fact about the world.
Will stood very still in the doorway.
"Mike." He came and sat on the coffee table across from him, setting down the water glass. "You don't have a boyfriend."
Mike looked up. His brow furrowed with what appeared to be genuine offense.
"Yes I do!" He said it with complete confidence. "His name is Will."
The water glass almost slipped out of Will's hand.
"I'm sorry— what?"
Mike opened his mouth. Closed it. Something flickered across his face, a brief, distant signal from the sober part of his brain, and then it was gone.
"Well," he said, after a moment of careful reflection. "He's not actually my boyfriend , not yet."
Will stared at him."Okay—"
"But he will be." Mike nodded, very certain. "Probably. Maybe." The certainty flickered. "I'm working on it."
Will sat very still, face red.
"His name is Will," he said finally, very carefully.
"Mm."
Mike had already looked back down at his phone, unbothered. "Pretty name, right?"
"Yeah," Will said. His voice came out a little strange. "Really pretty name."
"I was gonna ask him. I had a whole thing planned out. What I'd say." Mike's thumb stilled on the screen, going briefly wistful. "I keep rewriting it in my head. I can never get it right."
Something warm bloomed slow and open in Will's chest. He ducked his head, let himself smile just for a second where Mike couldn't see it properly.
"That sounds nice, Mike."
"He's so out of my league though," Mike continued, conversationally, like this was just a simple problem he was working around. "Like— okay. He's an angel. And I'm an ant."
"That's not—"
"A very devoted ant," Mike added seriously. "Who thinks about him all the time."
Will pressed his lips together very hard.
"I really don't think that's accurate," he managed.
"I come up with reasons to see him." Mike said it like a confession, quiet and a little rueful. "Is that bad? That's probably bad."
"I think that's sweet."
"I texted him yesterday to ask if he wanted to get food and I wasn't even hungry." Mike considered this with a small, crooked smile. "I ate a whole meal. Wasn't hungry at all." A pause. "Worth it though."
Will looked at him — at the loose, unguarded honesty of him, every careful wall completely dissolved, nothing left but this — and thought: you have no idea.
"He sounds worth it," Will said.
"He really is." Mike's smile went softer.
"You should tell him."
Mike snorted. "Sure."
"I'm serious—"
"Do you want to see a picture of him?"
Will blinked. "Sure."
Mike pulled his phone close to his chest. "No."
Will stared at him. "You just offered—"
"I'm not going to show you a picture of him." Mike's expression shifted into something deeply sincere and slightly suspicious. "He's my boyfriend. Not yours."
Will opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Looked at Mike— who was sitting there with his phone pressed to his sternum like he was protecting something precious, guard fully up, completely serious.
Will looked down at the floor
He pressed his fist to his mouth.
He was not going to laugh. He was absolutely not going to laugh.
"Okay," Will managed. "Fair enough."
"I just don't want you getting any ideas," Mike said reasonably.
"No ideas. Got it."
"He's very pretty."
"You mentioned that."
"It bears repeating." Mike sighed, long and heartfelt, like the weight of Will's prettiness was genuinely a lot to carry. "I need to tell him. I've decided. I'm going to tell him."
"Yeah?"
"Mm." He said it like it was settled. Like he'd just resolved something important.
Mike went quiet, fingers knotting together nervously"Do- do you think he'll say no?"
Will smiled" mike, he'd be a complete idiot to say no"
Mike finally lowered the phone and picked up the water glass from the table without being asked, which was a small miracle. He took a long drink and leaned back against the cushions, tilting his head up at the ceiling.
"He's good too. Not just— not surface good. Actually good. All the way through good. You know how some people are just genuinely, actually good?"
"I know what you mean," Will said quietly.
"Like that. He's like that."
"He sounds great." Will's voice did something slightly strange on the last word. He didn't think Mike noticed.
Mike didn't notice.
"He really is." His whole face went soft in a way Will had never quite seen before. Open and unguarded and completely unselfconscious, every careful layer just gone. "I've been carrying it around for so long. I just love him so much. It's— it's a lot. It's really a lot to have inside you."
Will looked at him, "You should tell him," he said quietly.
Mike rolled his head to look at him, skeptical but fond. "You don't even know who he is."
Will said nothing.
"Maybe," Mike said after a moment, looking back at the ceiling. His eyes were getting heavy, the rally finally fading for good. "Maybe I'll tell him."
"You should."
"Mm." A long pause. His breathing slowed. The hand holding the water glass went slack and Will leaned over carefully and took it from him before it could tip.
Then, half asleep, very soft: "Don't tell Will though."
He said it to the ceiling. To no one. Like he'd forgotten entirely who he was talking to.
Will set the glass down on the table.
"It's a secret," Mike murmured. He brought one finger up to his lips slowly. "Shh."
"I won't tell him," Will whispered.
"He doesn't know."
"I know he doesn't."
"He's my boyfriend," Mike said, almost inaudible now, already most of the way gone. "He just doesn't know yet."
Will sat with that for a moment. Let it settle over him like something warm.
Then he reached over and gently pushed a strand of hair away from Mike's face, tucking it back careful and soft.
Mike's eyes opened. Slow and heavy-lidded, barely there. He looked up at Will with the unfocused, dreamy confusion of someone halfway between two worlds.
Then something in his expression went quiet and wondering.
"You kind of look like him," he murmured. "You look just like him."
Will's chest ached so cleanly it almost felt like relief.
"Yeah?" he said softly.
Mike's eyes fluttered, fighting sleep and losing. "Hi, Will."
Will smiled. Small and private and just for himself, just for this lamp-lit room, just for Mike who was already almost somewhere else entirely.
"Hi, Mike."
A long, slow beat. Mike looked up at him, eyes suddenly a little wider, like something had surfaced from very far down.
"I love you," he whispered. Simple. Plain. Like it had always just been sitting there waiting to be said out loud.
Will's breath caught.
"I love you too," he said softly.
Mike's brow lifted, slow and wondering, like this was the best news he'd ever received. "Really?"
Will gave a small nod "Yeah."
Mike smiled. Wide and unguarded and completely, helplessly happy.
"Sweet," he murmured.
His eyes closed.
The smile stayed on his face, settled there like it belonged, like it had always belonged, and Will sat in the warm quiet of the room and watched him sleep and felt something in his chest go very, very still.
In the best possible way.