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The lake was freezing as always, even in the midst of a summer heat wave. They were on the tail-end of July; Will’s least favorite time of year, when the temperature reached its peak and the air turned sticky with humidity. Switching from one extreme to another was never easy. His system threatened to go into shock as he submerged his body up to his chest, tipping his head back in a desperate attempt to stay afloat.
“Dude,” he heard Lucas say from several feet in front of him, already drenched from head to toe. He wasn’t looking back at Will, though. His eyes were set somewhere over his shoulder, pointing toward the shore that Will had just ditched in favor of this torturous ice bath.
When he turned to see what all the fuss was about, his gaze landed on Mike, arms crossed over the white cloth that was covering his chest. He’d only made it about two steps deep, the water rising to his ankles. He was wearing that grumpy little pout on his face— the one that Will always wanted to kiss away.
Not the time.
“Are you going to take your shirt off?” Lucas asked him.
Mike let his distaste for the question show, pinching his eyebrows together in disgust, as if Lucas had been insane for even suggesting such a thing. “No way. It’s cold.”
“So your solution is to let your wet t-shirt cling to your body for the rest of the day?”
It was a fair point. The air would certainly warm Mike up if he’d let it touch his skin. Mike, however, seemed to disagree. “Yes.”
“You do realise that’s a stupid idea, don’t you?” Lucas asked.
“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. His rigid arms had not dropped from their protective stance across his front. “Shut up.”
Something was wrong, Will realized with a start. Mike’s shackles were raised, and along with them rose Will’s. Desperate to save Mike from whatever imminent danger he’d run into, he started to doggy paddle his way back to shore, walking against the resistance of the water once his feet could finally reach the sandy floor. He stilled when the waves met his waist and held out a hand for Mike to take. “Come on,” he said, nodding toward the lake.
Mike’s arm lifted from his side, but he hesitated before he could accept Will’s. “Is it cold?” he asked, like he wasn’t already standing in the same water that Will was. The words were a lie— that much was obvious. Whatever was going on with Mike, it wasn’t the temperature that was making him second guess himself.
“It’s not bad,” Will said. A lie for a lie. Mike offered up a small smile anyway, latching onto his hand.
Will waded them out into the deep. By then, his body had pretty much acclimated to the temperature. He couldn’t say the same for Mike, whose posture was tense, with limbs that didn’t seem to work.
“You motherfucker,” he said, voice strained as if his vocal chords had frozen together.
Will grinned, kicking himself backward and out of his reach. Mike was forced into action, taking a visibly painful step closer with a swing of his fist. He missed by a longshot as Will continued to float away, half-lying on his back.
“You’re not going to catch me,” Will said. “You know that I’m a faster swimmer.”
A look of complete and utter offense settled over Mike’s face for a total of three seconds. As his dropped jaw snapped shut and his wide eyes narrowed into a glare, Will knew that he was screwed. Mike leaped off of the lake bed, aiming for the tackle. His gangly limbs were just about long enough for his fingers to clamp onto Will’s shoulders, dragging him down into the water.
It was a suicide mission, but a successful one nonetheless. When Will was finally able to evade his grasp, lifting his head from the freezing tide, he found that Mike’s hair was soaking wet itself, clinging to his forehead and dripping salt water into his eyes. Will rubbed at his own as he panted— more from the shock of the cold than anything.
“Caught you,” was all Mike said, seemingly just as out of breath.
Will replied by splashing water directly onto his face. And maybe into his mouth. On accident.
They dragged themselves onto the bank after only a couple hours, fingers wrinkled and sunscreen rinsed away. Will scrubbed his hair dry with his towel, then laid it on a particularly shaded patch of ground. He stared up at Mike, watching him reapply the lotion to his face, always so quick to burn with his pale skin. Mike poured an extra large glob into his palm, rubbing it up his forearm and past his elbow, only stopping when he reached the sleeve of his shirt. It clung desperately to his bicep, in a way that Will knew he typically hated.
“That can’t be comfortable,” he said as Mike finally dropped onto his towel beside him. At his questioning glance, Will nodded vaguely to his chest— which, at that point, was nearly visible through the wet, transparent fabric. He did not think about it.
Mike followed his gesture, looking down at his shirt. He paused for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to tell the truth. His guard must have lowered just a bit, because his face opened up into something a little more honest. “It’s… hell, actually.”
“Why don’t you just take it off?” Will asked. That was, evidently, the wrong thing to say. Mike’s lips pursed— an expression that he only pulled when someone ticked him off particularly badly. He always tended to tone it down whenever Will was at fault for it, like he didn’t want him to notice. Will always noticed.
Mike clearly didn’t want to talk about it. Pushing would only make him more annoyed. But what was Will supposed to do? Let him suffer? Indulge Mike in this idiotic behavior when he could wash away his doubts in a couple short sentences? Will wasn’t that kind of guy. He’d take Mike’s wrath any day if it meant that he could feel comfortable in his own skin.
“Look,” he said. Mike leveled him with a warning glare immediately. He ignored it, like a good friend would. “I don’t want to bug you about it. If you feel better with it on, that’s fine. But it’s just us, Mike. We’ve known you forever. We aren’t going to judge you for not having muscles. I mean, you’re Mike— we know that you don’t. And that’s not a bad thing!” he rushed to add when Mike gaped at him. “It’s just— who you are, you know? Like how your hair is black. It doesn’t make you objectively better or worse. It simply… is. You don’t need to hide your body from us.”
“It’s not—“ Mike started, then cut himself off with a thoughtful tilt of his head. “Well, it is that, actually. But it also isn’t.”
“What is it, then?”
“My skin,” he said, as if that should explain everything. He offered no further elaboration.
“Your skin,” Will repeated. Now, he could imagine a dozen reasons why one would be ashamed of their skin; dryness, tan lines, the rosacea that coated Mike’s arms. He did not mention any of them, in fear of instilling a brand new insecurity that Mike hadn’t thought of. Instead, he wisely asked, “What about it?”
Mike’s cheeks grew red— more so than the summer heat could ever cause. He pulled his bent legs up to his chest defensively, angling his head away from Will. Whatever nerve he just struck, it must have been a sensitive one. “It’s— nothing. Just…” Mike shrugged, obviously intending to end the conversation there.
Will was not having it. He scooted over until he was nearly sitting on Mike’s own towel, setting a hand on his shoulder. The texture of his shirt was unbearable, even to him. “Just what?”
Mike’s expression tightened into a near-grimace. “It has, like,” he said, motioning toward his back like that was supposed to mean something to Will. “You know how my face gets.”
“I do?” he asked.
“Yeah, it— you know,” he said again. Will really didn’t think that he did. “It… breaks out, and stuff.”
Oh. That he did know. They all knew about that— again, because they’d been his friend for years. Mike’s acne wasn’t the worst case that he’d ever seen, but it certainly wasn’t the best either. It was… noticeable, to say the least. Mike had never liked it— obviously. Especially not when the bullying had begun.
“Mike,” he said, squeezing his shoulder. When Mike looked up at him, his eyes were so pitiful that Will could’ve melted on the spot. “There’s nothing wrong with that. Why would you feel the need to hide it?”
“Because— it’s weird!” he exclaimed, throwing an arm out in front of him, the other still wrapped steadily around his knees, hugging them to his body. He turned fully toward Will, his mouth pulled into a frown. “It was bad enough on my face, but my back? That’s gross.”
“It’s not,” Will said adamantly. “You could never be gross.
Mike shook his head, lowering his gaze to the floor. “It’s bad, Will. Like, really bad. They leave these scars— everywhere. I just— I didn’t want to deal with the teasing.”
“I wouldn’t have teased you,” he said softly.
“That’s because you’re nice.”
The response was instant— as if Mike hadn’t even considered disagreeing. Clearly, Will’s reaction wasn’t a concern for him. But someone’s was. “Our friends are nice,” he said, less a statement than a protest.
“They’re…” Mike paused in deliberation. Why was he hesitating? He shouldn’t have been hesitating. “They like to rib,” he said eventually. “And usually I’d be fine with that. Just— not for this.”
Will pulled him into a hug. It wasn’t the best, given the awkward angle. His torso was all twisted, and Mike was sitting more side-on than anything, but it would have to do. Mike definitely needed it, judging by how easily he fell into his grasp. Personally, Will didn’t think that he had anything to worry about. There are just some lines that their friends would never cross, and his appearance was one of them. Will wasn’t going to mention that, though. Who was he to invalidate Mike’s fears?
Mike’s palms laid flat against his back, his forehead leaning against Will’s shoulder. “I have frog spots,” he said into the space between their bodies, voice so genuinely distraught that Will was transported right back to middle school.
He pulled away and stared Mike straight in the eyes. “You do not,” he said sternly. Will would not let him talk that way about himself. He would not let him repeat the very same words that their bullies used against him. “Don’t say that.”
“Sorry,” he said, though he didn’t sound very apologetic at all.
He rubbed at his back in punishment. Mike seemed to thoroughly hate it, melting into his arms with an inaudible sigh. Will's fingers traced small shapes into the fabric of his shirt; a circle, a swirl, an accidental heart that he prayed went unnoticed. He could practically feel Mike's skin beneath it, a raised bump here, a divot there. He was curious, to say the least. Concerned, to say the most. Whatever was hidden behind this shirt was tearing Mike up inside.
Maybe it was selfish. Maybe it was entirely selfless. Either way, he couldn't help but ask, “Can I see?”
Mike's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Not a good sign. "You want," he said slowly, "to see my acne."
"Yes," he said without hesitation.
Mike kept his incredulous gaze on him for several awkward seconds, as if Will was some sort of freak for asking. So what if he was? So what if he liked his acne? So what if he thought that it made Mike all the more beautiful? He was an artist— and every artist knew that the details were what made a painting truly great. Without texture, the whole thing would fall flat.
Cautiously, Mike turned around. Will could barely contain his smile— and then he realized that he didn't have to. He trusted him. Mike trusted him to see his biggest insecurity and treat it with the gentleness that it deserved.
Will was not going to take that trust for granted. Slowly, he reached for the hem of his shirt, lifting it just to the waistband of his swim trunks. When Mike didn't stop him, he pulled it carefully upwards, not sparing his back a single glance until the shirt was over his head completely. He set the damp cloth onto the towel beside him, then finally allowed himself to look.
It was— not horrible. Not ugly by any means. There was barely an inch of skin that didn't have some sort of mark, whether it be a scar or a fresh, reddened bump. His hand raised from his side as he let his fingertips graze one of the larger spots. It was a faded purple, smooth against his touch. Others were pinker; more ragged, like the skin had grown back incorrectly. Mike had been picking at those— he knew. He always had a bad habit of doing that.
Will only realized his silence when Mike nervously asked him, “Is it… bad?”
“No," he said, shaking his head, though Mike couldn't see him. "Not at all.”
Mike spun himself back around, grabbing his shirt from the floor and holding it in front of his stomach, trying to discreetly block it from view. It didn't work. Will could see the scars that lined his torso, though definitely fewer and further between. One in particular stood out to him: a valley much, much deeper than all the rest. It was freshly picked at, and Will could tell that it was not the first time it had been. His hand moved forth without his permission, itching to feel.
Mike caught his wrist just before he could make contact, guiding his hand down to rest on his own knee. Guilt rushed through him immediately. Boundaries, he reminded himself. But then, Mike said, “You don’t… have to. I know it’s gross.”
And that couldn't be further from the truth. If Will didn't want to touch, he wouldn’t. He didn't just caress people's chests out of pity. He shook his head, glancing into Mike's eyes for the first time since he turned back around. There was a vulnerability there— one that Will was dying to wipe away. “I think you’re really pretty."
He regretted the words the second he’d said them. It was pretty. It. Why could he never reassure Mike without revealing too much?
Mike didn't say a word. His lips parted as he sat there, staring at his flushed face. Will wished that he could know what he was thinking; if he was disgusted, or if the confession went straight over his head. Mike’s forehead creased just slightly, perplexed. He looked as if he were considering something deeply.
Will opened his mouth to say something; an apology, probably. The sound was caught by another pair of lips the moment it escaped him. They slipped between his own, a slick, warm pressure that Will had never had the privilege of knowing. He didn't dare move a muscle; didn't even close his eyes. How could he? Mike was kissing him.
And then he wasn't. Mike pulled away just as abruptly as he had surged forward. Will was left grieving before he could even process what he once had.
"I'm so sorry," Mike said, his voice full of panic. Why was he panicking? He was the one who did it.
The distance between them had grown in a matter of seconds. Mike was perched cross-legged in the center of his towel, as if he hadn't practically climbed onto Will's own just moments ago. He was facing the lake again, head buried in his hands. Will felt the urge to reach out, but his arm only made it so far against the shock.
"I don't know why I did that," he said to his lap. "Just because you said— you didn't mean—"
He did mean. He meant very much. Unfortunately, his vocal chords did not seem to want to cooperate with him.
And so, he did the only thing that he could.
Will cupped a hand around the back of his neck. Startled, Mike lifted his head, turning toward Will and leaving those gorgeous lips exposed. He didn't think that he'd ever be able to forget them. Not anymore. Not after he'd learned how they felt pressed against his.
Thankfully, he didn't have to.
Will tugged him forward, crashing their lips together hard. It was brief; nothing more than a peck. Nothing like the way Mike had kissed him. It got the message across nonetheless.
Mike's face broke out into a wide smile. "You… yeah?"
Will nodded against his forehead, mirroring him.
"Oh thank god," he said, throwing his arms around his shoulders. "That would have been so embarrassing. I kept my feelings hidden for years, only to crack because of a stupid compliment."
Years? Mike had liked him for years? Why had Will not complimented him sooner? It would have saved him so much heartache.
"You really think I'm pretty?" Mike asked quietly, like he was scared that speaking it into existence would cause Will to change his mind.
He released a soft, disbelieving chuckle. "That's what you're caught up on?" he asked. Mike's resulting laugh brushed against his lips, forcing him to repress a shudder. "I think you're beautiful," he said honestly.
Mike's grin brightened for just a moment before it began to fade. He lowered his eyes as a sudden sadness clouded over them. "Even with…"
Will's hand rose to his cheek, guiding his gaze upward. "Because of," he said. At Mike’s doubtful expression, Will placed a kiss to the bumpy, irritated patch of skin beside his mouth. "You're perfect like this."
Mike sucked in a sharp breath, but he didn't break eye contact. He looked… nervous. Will liked it. He liked making him nervous. Slowly, he tipped his chin upwards, inching his mouth closer and closer to Mike's.
Impatient as ever, Mike was the one that sealed the distance, pulling their chests flush. Finally, it wasn’t sopping wet. Will relished in the feeling of warm skin as he was tackled to the ground, making sure to take full advantage of being able to run his fingertips along the scars on Mike's back.