Work Text:
Mike liked to think that he and Will had grown closer since they moved in together, the Fall of Sophomore year.
Impossibly closer.
They spend their mornings together, Will makes the toast and eggs, while he makes their coffee. They sit at their small table and converse quietly, knees often knocking under the table, Will’s foot sometimes brushing gently up Mike’s leg while they listen to the morning news on the radio.
Afternoons were often spent apart, due to their clashing schedules. Although, Mike would dash from his English lectures to meet with Will for lunch on the days he wasn’t holed up in his art studio.
Once they were free from the burdens of lectures and horrendous part time jobs, they would spend the evening cooking dinners and trying new recipes out, and when that inevitably failed, they would order in food from their favourite take-out.
Mike enjoyed the evenings they spent together, however he enjoyed the nights most of all.
As soon as the sun began to set and the darkness slowly crept into their small apartment, the lines began to blur between Will and himself.
Whether they were curled up on the couch, elbows knocking as they fought over custody of the popcorn bowl or sharing a duvet while gossiping about anything and everything they had heard over the day.
nine times out of ten they ended the day in Mike’s bed.
Mike, the ever greedy man he was, wished that statistic was just a little bit higher.
Mike knew the nights made both of them braver.
He knew the shadows of the night made it easier to pretend. It made it easier to ignore what they were doing.
If it were bright out, Will wouldn’t dare to do half the stuff he does when the curtains are pulled. The hand that often traces his face late at night would never make an appearance during their morning chats over the quiet radio, his hand would never reach out and grab his own while they ate lunch, meanwhile, at night his hand was a soothing presence, traversing across his spine.
Mike supposes he is a bit of a hypocrite himself.
He can’t talk about being brave, seeing as he has never dared to do anything like that either.
Mike thinks they spend a lot of time teetering over the edge of what if. Too much time if Mike was being completely honest. He has stayed up far too many times wondering if he should take the final leap. If he should be the one to bridge the gap between him and Will. If he should be brave, not just in the shadows of the night. After all he was meant to be ‘Mike the Brave’.
Was he really deserving of this title if he was too scared to ask a simple question?
Too scared to go after what he wanted.
Too scared, while the sun was still up to witness his actions.
Well none of those routines and rituals mattered right now, as today was Sunday.
Which meant it was Mike and Will’s designated cleaning day.
The ‘tradition’ had started when they moved in together.
It began unintentionally. Sunday was the only day that the two of them were off from work and had no classes, so it was the perfect day to clean.
Two years on, and now he and Will still saved their Sunday’s for cleaning time.
It had become a ritual, an excuse to spend more time with each other. As if they didn’t spend almost every minute of the day glued to each other's hip anyways.
Mike was currently separating the pile of clothes that were freshly washed, which was quite pointless as over the years the clothes stopped being ‘Will’s’ or ‘Mike’s’. It was more so a temporary label, until eventually one of them would fish a hoodie out of the nearest closet when they were cold. The clothes simply became theirs, a joint ownership.
Mike started to feel a bit dizzy when referring to anything relating to him and Will as ‘theirs’.
He shook his head, a hopeless effort to get rid of the on coming spell of dizziness, which so often appeared whenever Will was near. Could he still call it ‘dizziness’, or was lusting a more fitting word, longing?, yearning?. Mike had read countless pieces and tales based around romance during his lectures. You would think this would mean he would be able to pinpoint the exact word to use to describe how he felt about Will, but alas.
Maybe the word didn’t exist yet.
Maybe he felt too much for a simple word.
How could he possibly encapsulate how he felt about someone, about Will, in one word?
It felt impossible.
He glanced to his right.
Will was there.
Of course he was.
He was neatly folding their clothes. Separating them by article of clothing. Tidily putting the socks into a corner of the sofa. Everything Will did, he did elegantly. Even something so mundane as rolling socks.
It made Mike hold his breath. Not wanting his breathing to disrupt Will.
Mike was staring. He was very aware of this fact.
It seemed Will was well aware of this as well. He sent Mike a quick smirk.
Mike felt his cheeks heating, and he turned away ignoring the fact that he got caught staring.
Will bumped his shoulder, forcing Mike to turn back around. “Hey, you” he said gently as he continued to roll up the socks that had a pair that survived the dreaded wash day.
“Hey” Mike parroted back, smiling over at Will, nearly forgetting the pile of clothes he was meant to be separating right now.
“What you staring for?” Will asked, a teasing lilt in his tone.
Mike tried his best to suppress the red on his cheeks from darkening further. Of course Will caught him staring, and of course he’s bringing it up.
“Admiring the view,” Mike fired back, trying to keep his voice as steady as possible.
It was still bright outside, his actions would not be able to be concealed by the shadows of the night, but screw it.
“Oh” Will simply replied, the red that stained Mike’s own cheeks was slowly spilling across his face, painting his cheeks in a bright red.
Mike didn’t know how to respond.
Was that a good ‘oh’, or a bad one.
What did ‘oh’ even mean?
Mike was pulled from his thoughts by a soft click. Bringing the room to a silence that Mike could’ve sworn was there the whole time.
He could’ve sworn the only sounds he could hear was the sound of Will’s soft breath and the sound of his own heart beating at a rapid pace.
But apparently not. The cassette player had apparently been playing the whole time. Which only made Mike even more aware of the silence he was submerged in now.
“Do you want to pick the music now?” Will asked quietly, once again pulling Mike out of his thoughts, like some sort of anchor.
Mike just nodded and slowly made his way over to where the player was laying on the coffee table, and the assortment of tapes it lay beside.
Mike started rummaging through the pile. He paused to look at each individual tape, examining the songs on each one. Even though he knew which tape he was going to pick out.
He eventually found it at the bottom of the small pile. It was labelled For Will x. It was Mike’s favourite tape, even though it contained zero of his own favourite songs, it was still his favourite. Although he may be a little biased, as it was Will’s favourite tape.
And Mike took a little pride in that, seeing as he was the one who gave him the infamous tape.
Last Christmas.
To some it may seem like a cop out. A lazy last ditch effort.
But not for Mike.
Mike knew Will.
Mike had heard Will mention about how his cassette player was starting to act a bit dodgy.
He would only mention it in passing, but Mike remembered, as he so often did with topics regarding Will.
So that Christmas he got Will a brand spanking new cassette player. A pretty one, that wouldn’t almost explode if you tried to even slightly turn the volume up.
And of course he couldn’t just give him an empty player, so he compiled a list of songs he knew Will loved.
Songs he had often caught him mumbling under his breath while they were cleaning, or songs he would go out of his way to play while he was mindlessly sketching in the living room.
He didn’t put them in any specific order, just secretly scrawled down the names when he overheard the quiet humming. He made a decently long mixtape. Which turned out perfect on the first attempt, mind you.
He brushed his thumb gently over Will’s name, which was carefully scribbled in his own handwriting, and smiled to himself.
He inserted the mixtape and pressed play.
His smile only grew wider when he turned back around and saw the look of pure delight on Will’s face as the opening notes of ‘Just Like Heaven’ began to play out.
“I love this song” Will said as his eyes crinkled while looking over at Mike.
“I know” Mike simply replied, making his way back over to the sofa.
He took one last look at the pile of unseparated clothes.
Screw it. Sunday still had a lot more hours in the day. They could continue their cleaning ritual later. Right now, Mike was feeling brave.
He quickly tugged Will’s wrist, causing him to drop the sock he was currently trying to find a pair to.
“Mike!” he exclaimed, at the other boy's sudden burst of energy.
Mike just laughed as he dragged Will to the centre of the room, completely disregarding all the clothes strewn around the place. “Will!” he parroted back, swinging the boy’s arms back and forth.
“What are you doing?” He asked, trying and failing to suppress his giggles.
“We are dancing” Mike responded, moving their arms about more, as if it was the most obvious thing on Earth.
Will continued to laugh as Mike continued to move their arms around, moving to the beat of the music, “are we now?”
“Yes we are, you said you love this song” Mike teased, a large grin on his face.
“I do,” Will agreed, a matching grin growing on his own face.
At that, Mike let go of one of his hands to twirl him around, failing to suppress his giggles.
When he spun back around, he was closer than Mike anticipated.
Mike just stared.
He didn’t care how obvious he was being.
Didn’t care about how the music faded into the back of his mind the longer he stared at Will. The longer he admired his beauty.
Will was staring too.
Which only made Mike realise how close they were. He could feel Will’s warm breath. He was so close he could almost feel the breath on his own lips.
Screw it, he decided.
He didn’t care about the fact that it was still bright outside. He didn’t care that he could no longer hide his feelings behind the shadows, couldn’t pull his true thoughts back with the curtains.
He was going to take the leap.
He was going to be brave.
He hadn’t realised how long he had been staring at Will’s lips. Didn’t know how many seconds, minutes, hours even he had lost looking at his plush, soft, lips.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked, barely above a whisper, his eyes not leaving those lips.
Which seemed to be a blessing in disguise, as his body had seemed to have tuned out all the noises around him.
He was only able to pay attention to the way the word ‘yes’ formed on Will’s mouth.
That’s the last thing he remembers paying attention to anyways, before he surged forwards, connecting himself to Will’s lips as fast as he could.
He knew he had time ahead of him, but even a millisecond without being as close to Will as he possibly could, felt like a trillion years.
The kiss was innocent.
Will tasted sweet, like sugar. Similar to how the punnet of strawberries the two had devoured earlier had tasted.
The taste reminded him of home.
Which all things considered was true, as Will was his home.
The kiss was over pretty quick, although it felt like it lasted ages.
However they needed to catch their breaths, lest they die of lack of oxygen after they had just levelled up their friendship? relationship?. Mike wasn’t too sure on what label to put on the two of them right now, and he doesn’t even know why he was thinking about all that irrelevant nonsense when Will was right in front of him.
Will, with his kiss stained lips, all thanks to Mike.
Will, who looked like some sort of honest to god angel right in front of him.
Will, who now had his face cranned into Mike’s neck, his warm breath leaving soft sighs there.
All that happened because Mike took a leap.
He was finally brave.
He finally took his chance, and the sun was gleaning across the floorboards, reaching further and further out to the two as the minutes passed, almost as if it was congratulating Mike. Congratulating him for growing a pair of balls or something, and finally acting on his feelings while Mr Sunshine himself was there to witness it.
“I love this song” Will whispered into his neck, as the final chords of the song began to fade into silence, gearing up for the next song that would eventually play.
“I love you” Mike whispered back, causing Will to remove his face from Mike’s neck and face him.
The smile that appeared on his face was a mix of pure shock and adoration.
“I love you too” he whispered back, his eyes never leaving Mike’s.
Mike could feel the smile on his own face growing as wide as Will’s, he began peppering small kisses all over his face, causing Will to burst into a fit of giggles.
“Mike–stop” he exclaimed, through fits of laughter.
Mike continued to pepper kisses, although it grew increasingly harder to do so, as he also began to grow a case of the giggles.
“Make me-mph” he began to tease, but Will was prepared, he grabbed Mike’s face, and pressed a kiss to his lips, successfully making him stop.
Mike practically sighed into the kiss, this one lasting slightly longer than the last.
Once they pulled apart, Mike was severely out of breath.
He knew how stupid he must look right now, how lovesick he must look. But he could not care less. Not when he has the boy of his dreams right in front of him.
“I’ve been dying to do that” Will admitted quietly his eyes never leaving Mike’s
“Me too” Mike whispered back, trying to bite his lip to hide how much he wanted to expand his smile right now.
“Why now?”
“I don’t know, if I’m being honest” Mike shrugged, “was just feeling brave”
At that confession, Will practically dragged him to the sofa, ignoring the abandoned pile of clothes that still had to be sorted and folded.
Who cared anyways?
They could finish off the laundry later, or tomorrow, or whenever.
But right now, all Mike wanted to do was kiss Will stupid.