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The windows of the studio have gone slightly foggy from the difference between the cold outside and the warmth of a room full of people. It is one of those gray New York afternoons when the sky seems to have settled permanently over the city, and the cold has followed everyone indoors, clinging to coats and scarves until the heat finally gets to them.
Will barely notices it anymore.
He has been teaching studio art long enough to know that his students will complain about the weather regardless of the season, so he leaves his own coat draped over the back of his chair and gets on with the class.
The room is arranged much as it usually is, with easels scattered across the floor and students working from different angles around a still life set up near the center. A glass vase filled with a few pale flowers sits on a wooden table, accompanied by a folded piece of dark fabric and a handful of pears that have begun to bruise at the edges.
The sight isn't particularly exciting, but that isn't the point. Will has spent enough years teaching to know that a simple arrangement can tell him far more about a student's understanding of light and proportion than something elaborate ever could.
He moves slowly between the easels, stopping whenever something catches his attention.
“No, Cameron. Don't erase that yet,” he tells one of his students, leaning slightly toward the canvas. “You're correcting the line before you've figured out what you're actually looking at.”
Cameron pauses with the eraser hovering over the paper. He glances back at the still life, then at his drawing. “Thank you, sir.”
Will gives him a small nod and moves on.
At the next easel, another student has become so absorbed in shading one of the pears that she has neglected almost everything else on the page.
“Paige, you're spending a lot of time on that pear, sweetie.”
She looks up. “Is that bad?”
“Not necessarily. Just don't let it become the most important thing on your sketch.”
“Okay…” Paige replies, scratching the back of her head. “I’ll try my best.”
Will smiles faintly. “You're allowed to move on from things, you know. So let that pear go already!”
The last part comes out with a little more enthusiasm than he intends, and a few quiet laughs come from the students nearby.
Paige finally puts her pencil down. “Fine. Goodbye, pear.”
“Yeah, that’s the spirit!”
She laughs and turns back to her drawing.
Will continues around the room, occasionally stopping to point something out or answer a question. He knows most of the students well enough by now to recognize their habits: who gets frustrated too quickly, who refuses to step away from a piece once they've started it, who needs reassurance before they'll trust their own judgment. He has learned that sometimes the best thing he can do is offer a suggestion and leave them alone long enough to figure out the rest.
Teaching has never been the part of his life he expected to enjoy as much as he does. There are days when the paperwork makes him want to walk straight out of the building and never come back, and there are days when half the class seems determined to test his patience, but he likes this part: standing among people who are still figuring out what they want their work to look like, watching them make mistakes and slowly learn how to trust their own eyes.
His own work has taught him the same lesson more times than he cares to admit.
Will eventually returns to his desk at the front of the studio, where a stack of drawings sits beside his coffee cup. He has promised himself he'll take them home tonight and finish grading them after dinner, which means, realistically, that Mike will probably find him at the kitchen table sometime around ten with a red pen in one hand and his glasses slipping down his nose.
Mike has never understood why grading has to take so long.
Will has never managed to convince him that it isn't simply because he is incapable of saying, “This looks good,” and moving on.
He picks up the first drawing and looks over the room again. “Everyone doing all right?”
A few students murmur yes. Cameron gives him a thumbs-up without looking away from his canvas, while Paige is still very much at war with her sketch.
Will shakes his head with a smile and starts marking the first paper.
He studies each drawing for a moment, comparing the students' work with the still life across the room, occasionally making a quick note beside a name or circling a section he wants to discuss with them later. He turns one drawing slightly toward the light, then reaches for the next, taking his time with each piece. Around him, the quiet scratch of pencils continues as the students work.
He gets through a few drawings before there's a knock at the studio door.
The knock comes again, a little louder this time. Will looks up from the drawing in front of him. “Come in.”
The door opens just enough for Mike to peek inside. “Hey.”
Will's eyebrows lift when he sees him. “Mike?”
“Can I steal you for a moment?”
Will glances around the room. Most of the students are still working, though a couple have already looked toward the door, their attention clearly more interested in whoever has just arrived than in their drawings.
“Yeah. Give me a second.” He sets the drawing he was grading down and walks over, stepping into the hallway and leaving the door slightly ajar behind him.
“What are you doing here?” Will asks, keeping his voice low.
Mike holds up a small paper bag. “You mentioned last night that you were running out of charcoal.”
Will looks at the bag, then back at him. “You remembered that?”
“Of course I did.”
“I thought you were going to lock yourself in your office and work on your book all day.”
“The work can wait,” Mike gives the bag a little shake. “Figured I'd bring this over before you completely ran out.”
Will takes it from him and looks inside. “Oh my God, you got the high quality ones.”
“Yeah, I remembered that too.” Mike says with a grin.
Will laughs quietly. “You really do listen to me.”
“I try.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.” Will leans in and gives Mike a quick peck on the lips before stepping back.
For a moment, they simply look at each other, both smiling.
“Well. Guess I should let you get back to your class.” Mike says finally.
“Yeah, I’d better—”
“Wait, Mr. Byers?” A voice calls from inside the studio.
Will turns toward the partially open door. Cameron is looking at them from his easel, his pencil still in his hand. “Is that your husband?”
Will glances at Mike, who is already smiling. “Uh… yes?”
A couple of students exchange looks.
“Can he come in?” A girl shouts from the back of the studio.
Will looks back inside. “Actually, he was just dropping something off.”
“Okay, but can he come in for a minute?”
A few other voices join in.
“Let him in, Sir. It’s not like we’re going to do anything.”
Will looks unconvinced. “That's exactly what someone who is about to do something would say.” The students burst out laughing at his response.
Mike shakes his head, amused. “It's fine. I don't mind.”
Will turns to him. “You don't have to stay.”
“I know that. But I want to.”
A few students make approving noises from inside the studio.
“See? They want me here.”
Will sighs, though there's a smile on his face. “Fine. But just for ten minutes!”
Mike steps into the studio, and a few students shift in their seats to make room for him. Will follows him inside, still holding the paper bag of charcoal.
“Hello, fellow art students!” Mike says, looking around at the studio.
A few people greet him back, some of them observing quietly.
Will sets the bag down on his desk, then gives his husband an encouraging smile.
There is a brief pause before a student near the back raises his hand.
Will looks at him. “Yes?”
“How long have you guys been married?”
Will glances at Mike, then back at the student. “Twenty years.”
A few students react with surprised little noises. “Twenty? Whoa…”
“That's actually really sweet.” Someone says.
Mike chuckles quietly. “Thank you.”
Another student speaks up. “Did you meet in college?”
“Nope,” Will says. “Way before that.”
Paige, who is apparently done with working on the pear sketch, looks between them. “Who made the first move?”
The two men exchange a quick glance.
“That's complicated,” Will says.
“It's really not,” Mike says, smiling.
Will looks at him. “It is from my perspective.”
That gets a few giggles from the class, and Mike shakes his head. “All right,” he says. “We can tell that story another time.”
“Nooo,” the students protest.
“You guys still have drawings to finish. You know that, right?” Will says in a tone which he only uses in the studio when he wants his students to take him seriously.
Someone near the front glances at the charcoal on Will's desk, then at Mike. “Sir, could we sketch him?”
“You want to sketch Mike?”
“Yeah. We're already drawing, and he's right there.”
A few people murmur their agreement. “That would actually be kind of fun,”
Mike looks amused by the suggestion. “I don't mind.” He announces once again.
Will studies him for a second. “You're really enjoying this. Aren’t you?”
“Maybe…”
The students laugh, and one of them has already started moving their easel around to get a better angle.
“All right, people!” Will says, giving in. “Ten minutes, like I said. Then we're going back to the still life.”
There is a collective little cheer from the room.
Mike takes a seat where they point him, settling comfortably while the students rearrange themselves around their easels. Will watches for a moment before returning to his desk, though it doesn't take long before another question comes from across the room.
“Okay, but how long have you guys actually been together?”
Will looks up. “Didn't we already answer a similar question?”
“Yeah, but I wanted to know the details.”
Another student chimes in. “Me too! Also, who proposed first?”
Will looks at Mike, who is already smiling. “You see what you've started?” he asks quietly.
“I didn't start anything.”
“You agreed to be the model!”
“I thought it would be harmless…”
Will shakes his head, amused, and looks back at the students. “Wouldn't you guys want to know anything about Mike that doesn't involve me?”
“Like what?”
“I don't know. His job. His interests. What he does when he's not being interrogated by a room full of art students.”
“Fine,” someone says. “What's your job?”
Mike looks around at them. “I'm an author.”
“What kind?”
“Fantasy.”
A few students nod, but then one of them suddenly looks up from their sketch. “Wait. What's your name again?”
“Michael Wheeler.”
The room goes quiet for half a second.
Then someone lets out a loud, “Whoa.”
A girl in the front row elbows her friend. “No way.”
“Wait, you're that Michael Wheeler?”
Mike smiles, already looking a little embarrassed. “I guess so.”
A couple of students start talking over each other.
“Oh my God.”
“I've read your books.”
“Wait, I have one of them at home.”
Will raises a hand. “Okay, okay. Keep your voices down.”
The room settles, though several students are still grinning at Mike.
“So is it true that you’ll be focusing on the gay couple in your next book? Because the storyline seems to be going that way.”
Mike chuckles, caught slightly off guard. “Fuck. My publisher would kill me if she knew I was telling you guys this.” He looks around the room, lowering his voice as if he's about to share a state secret. “But yes, I am.”
A few students react with delighted little noises.
Will shakes his head as he walks behind one of the easels, looking over the sketch in progress. “Can you guys at least pretend you're still in an art class?”
“We are,” someone says. “We're practicing observational drawing.”
Someone at the back of the studio raises his hand. “Have you ever gone to one of those conventions? Like, where you do Q&As and sign books?”
“Of course,” Mike says. “I've done plenty of those.”
“What are they like?”
“Exhausting.”
The class cracks up at the honest answer.
“No, they're fun,” Mike adds. “It's just a lot of talking in one day. And eventually you stop remembering what city you're in.”
Will pauses beside a student's easel, leaning slightly to look at their drawing. “Your proportions are much better,” he says quietly. “Keep going.”
He moves on while the questions continue behind him.
“Do you have any famous writer friends?”
Mike considers that for a moment. “Sorry to disappoint you guys, but I'm not really close with any other famous people.”
A few disappointed sounds arise from the studio.
“I know. Tragic.” Mike jokes.
“Though,” he continues, “one time George R. R. Martin held an elevator door for me at a convention.”
The room immediately erupts.
“Seriously?”
“No way.”
“What did you say?”
“I thanked him,” Mike says. “What else was I supposed to say?”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Not really. He held the door, I got in, he got off. And then I spent the next five minutes wondering whether I should have said something more interesting.”
Will looks over from another student's sketch. “Can you guys believe that he’s told me this story like four times?”
“Because it was a good story,” Mike says, looking entirely unapologetic. “It’s not every day that you get to meet the author of A Game of Thrones, am I right, people?"
A few students make approving noises, and Mike shakes his head before turning back toward the class.
“Anyway, Mr. Wheeler. Tell us your top three favorite books as an established author.”
“And you have to answer now. No extra time!” someone says.
“I know, I know.” Mike takes a moment to think, tapping his fingers lightly against his knee. “The Fellowship of the Ring. On the Road. Oh, and East of Eden.”
“That’s a pretty random combination.” Paige comments, not looking up from her drawing.
“Well, I never said there was going to be a theme!”
Will, still making his way around the room, glances over at him. “I'm surprised you didn't pick one of your own.”
“I'm not that narcissistic.”
“Good to know.”
“Besides,” Mike says, “I have to leave room for other writers to impress me.”
For a little while, the questions stay centered on Mike’s writing, but eventually someone seems to remember that they are sitting in an art studio with their professor's husband and not at a book signing.
“So where do you guys live?” they ask.
Will is standing beside one of the easels, looking down at a charcoal sketch. He lifts the paper by its edges and tilts it slightly toward the window.
“Greenwich Village,” Mike answers.
A few students nod appreciatively. “That's nice.”
“It is,” Will says, still studying the drawing. “Very expensive, but nice.”
“Do you like living there?”
“We do,” Mike says. “We've been there a long time.”
Will lowers the sketch and looks at the student who drew it. “Your values are getting better. You're still losing some of the darker areas around the base, though.”
The student nods, glancing back at their drawing.
Will sets it down and moves to the next one, pushing his glasses higher on his nose as he looks it over.
“Who cooks?” someone asks.
“Will does.”
Will looks over the top of his glasses. “Yeah, I guess.”
“He’s so much better than me.” Mike glances at his husband.
“Well, that doesn't mean you don't cook, though.”
“I didn't say I didn't.”
Will turns back to the drawing in his hands. “He makes dessert sometimes.”
“Very occasionally,”
A student smiles. “What kind of dessert?”
“Apple pie,” Mike says. “My mom's recipe.”
That gets a few reactions from around the room. “Is it good?”
Mike looks at Will. “He'll tell you it's good.”
Will's mouth twitches. “It is good,” he says. “He's very good at it.”
Mike gives him a pleased little smile. “Why, thank you, Professor Byers.”
Will shakes his head and looks back down at the drawing in his hands.
The room fills with a few quiet laughs before another student speaks. “Okay, but do you guys ever fight?”
Mike’s expression shifts into an amused smile. “Of course,” he says. “We've been together a long time.”
“What's it usually about?”
Will adjusts his glasses, thinking for a second. “Usually something incredibly important.”
Mike looks at him. “Like?”
“I don't know.” Will places his hands at his sides, glancing briefly toward the ceiling as he searches for an example. “You leaving your stuff on the table and not even bothering to clean it up. Especially when we're having people over.”
Mike gives him an incredulous look. “That's your example? I thought you were gonna bring up the—”
“—but did I lie?” Will cuts him off, giving him a pointed look that makes it clear he's not going into any more detail about their personal lives.
Mike catches the look. “No, I suppose you didn't.”
Will adjusts his glasses. “Yeah, guys. This is what we fight about. I guess we're pretty boring.”
“Speak for yourself, mister.” Mike responds, grinning.
A few giggles from the students fill the studio, and Will can't help smiling at his Mike. Before anyone can ask another question, he looks at the clock and straightens. “Okay, guys. That's ten minutes.”
The students immediately start to protest:
“Already?”
“No!”
“One more question!”
“Come on, Mr. Byers.”
Will laughs, shaking his head. “Nope. Mr. Wheeler has to go.”
The complaints continue for another few seconds, but Mike is already getting to his feet, clearly amused by the whole thing. “All right, all right,” he says, holding up a hand. “Thank you guys for having me. And for sketching me.”
A few students smile and look down at their drawings.
“I can't wait to see them at home when my husband grades them.”
Will looks over. “What are you talking about, those were for fun. There’s no grading.”
Mike pauses. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously.”
“I thought I was getting professional feedback.”
“You were the model. That's all you were.”
“Wow. So my portraits aren't even good enough to get graded?” Mike puts a hand over his heart, feigning offense. “Okay. I get it. You hate me.”
The students chuckle again, and Will shakes his head, already smiling.
“I have to say, Will. I'm wounded.”
“Then I wish you a fast recovery.”
Mike shakes his head, smiling as he walks toward the door. Just before he steps out, he glances back at his husband. “I'll be at that café across campus.”
Will gives him a small nod. “Okay.”
“See you in a bit.”
“See you.”
Mike gives the class one last wave. “Good luck with the drawings, guys!”
A few students say goodbye as he leaves, and Will watches him disappear through the doorway before turning back toward the room.
“All right, people!” He says, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Back to your drawings.”
There are a few final laughs, but gradually the students turn back toward their work, pencils and charcoal moving across paper once again.
By the time Will makes it across campus, the afternoon has started to fade into evening.
Mike is already at the café, sitting near the window with a cup of coffee in front of him. He looks up when he sees his husband approaching and smiles. He reaches for the second cup sitting across from him. “Here.”
Will takes off his glasses for a moment, rubbing the bridge of his nose before sitting down. He picks up the cup and looks at it. “My usual?”
“Obviously.”
He takes a sip, then looks at Mike over the rim of the cup. “Wow. You know my coffee order? What are you, like, in love with me or something?”
Mike’s mouth curves into a grin. “You could say that.”
Will looks down at his coffee, but he's still smiling. He reaches across the table, brushing his fingers against Mike’s hand before letting them rest there.
“So,” he says after a moment, “how was the rest of class?”
“Normal. Pretty boring, actually.”
“And how was it after I left?”
“Much more normal.”
Mike laughs quietly.
Will glances out the window, then back at him. “I think they liked you.”
“Well, the feeling’s mutual. However I think they’re very curious, we probably answered like fifty questions about our lives.”
“That is one word for it.” Will says, grinning. His thumb moves idly over the back of Mike’s hand.
“But yeah, like I said, I think they enjoyed having you there.”
“I'm glad.” Mike gives his hand a small squeeze. “And you?”
Will looks at him. “What about me?”
“Did you enjoy having me there?”
He pretends to consider it, even though the smile on his face gives him away. “I suppose.”
Mike raises an eyebrow.
Will finally laughs. “Yes. I did.”
“Oh, thank God.”
Mike suddenly seems to remember something. “Oh, guess what I saw on the subway.”
“What did you see, sweetheart?”
“There was a guy doing pull-ups on the subway handles.”
“Really?”
“Mhm. Full-on pull-ups.” Mike says, shaking his head in disgust. “Oh, and he was shirtless.”
Will's eyebrows lift, and Mike is already smiling. “I swear to God. He was doing them right in the middle of the car, like it was his personal gym. Then he started asking people for money.”
Will shakes his head, trying not to laugh. “Classic New York.”
“Exactly. And then, because apparently that wasn't enough, I realized I was on the wrong train.”
“You were?”
“Yeah. So I got off and had to walk here from fucking Brooklyn.”
Will finally laughs, his fingers reaching across the table to give Mike’s hand a gentle squeeze.
Mike is still shaking his head. “I'm serious. My feet are killing me.”
Will watches him for a moment, smiling softly. The way his husband tells stories has always been one of those little things he never gets tired of—the gestures, the exaggerated expressions, the way he gets so invested in the most ridiculous details that he sometimes forgets where the story started.
“Will?” Mike says. “Are you listening?”
Will takes another sip of his coffee, still smiling. “Yeah, sorry. Zoned out.”
Mike stares at him for a second before laughing, and Will joins him.
For a while, they simply sit there together, their coffees slowly getting cold between them, the city moving beyond the window. Will could probably sit there for hours, listening to Mike talk about absolutely nothing and watching the evening pass around them.
He doesn't need anything more than that.