Work Text:
Will is staring at dozens of drawings laid out on his bed when Mike gets back to their shoebox apartment.
Will turns around to watch him bustle in, cheeks pink from the February chill. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Mike beams at him, quickly shedding off his layers- coat, hat, scarf, sweater, no gloves because he hates wearing them. He joins Will by his bed, wrapping arms around his middle and resting his chin on his shoulder. “What’re you working on?”
Will swallows hard and ignores the feeling of butterflies in his stomach. He’s still getting used to the new level of casual touch between them. “I uh- My professor invited me to be a part of this exhibit- it’s about, uhm, a progression- that’s really distracting.”
Mike’s hands pauses where it was stroking Will’s stomach, where he knows Will is sensitive. “Sorry,” he says sheepishly, lifting his head from Wil’s shoulder and moving to stand next to him instead of behind.
Will takes a steadying breath, “Uhm, this exhibit is supposed to have some of my current pieces and some from when I was a kid.”
“Oh, I love that one,” Mike says, pointing to a drawing Will did in middle school of the party as knights, with different colored capes and made up house sigils in the corner.
“Me too, but it’s not just supposed to be pieces I like. I’m supposed to find a story within them, or at least a progression of like, focus and style. It’s hard because I didn’t keep a lot of my old art. He wanted stuff going back at least seven or eight years for anyone participating, and I’m barely scraping by with this. I really wish I still had drawing from when I was a kid, I know my mom has some, but I have to submit stuff to him by tomorrow, and she wouldn’t be able to ship them here in time-”
“Oh!” Mike exclaims, he turns around and walks to his side of the room, because they still technically have their own sides even though Will almost always sleeps in Mike’s bed now. At this point they should just get rid of their single beds and get a queen. It would be a more comfortable sleeping arrangement and make better use of their tiny studio apartment.
It feels like a big deal though. They only got together a few weeks ago, and the memory of Mike’s teary eyed love confession only feels half real sometimes. Mike said he’s always loved him, confident and sure, but to Will it feels like it came out of nowhere. Things are good between them, really good, but he still can’t help feeling like it’s fragile too, potentially temporary. So getting a shared bed, instead of just crashing in each other's, feels like too permanent a move, even if it technically makes sense.
Will watches curiously as Mike kneels down by the bookshelf next to his bed. He pulls a plain black binder out from a spot next to his D&D guides and brings it back to Will, brandishing it proudly, “Would these help?”
Will takes it, expecting some of the highschool D&D stuff and drawings Will did of their characters, which would definitely be helpful. He’s considering showcasing his long relationship with fantasy and how that’s affected the romantic and surreal aspects of his paintings now.
The first page isn’t a D&D drawing though. It’s a sketch Will did a few months ago while he and Mike were in the library. Mike was half hunched over his text book, exhausted as they studied for finals. Will should have been working on his project, but he sketched Mike instead. His hands anyway, one curled around a disposable coffee cup and the other taking notes. It was just on a piece of scrap paper, and Will was going to toss it, but Mike saw and asked to keep it.
“The older stuff is in the back,” Mike says.
Confused, Will flips to the very back, then quickly goes from confused to stunned. It’s a kid’s drawing, a little kid’s. It’s well enough done to make out a castle with high towers and moat. Something green that’s maybe meant to be a dragon is flying in one corner, and a rainbow arcs in the other. In the bottom right WILL is written in wobbly letters.
“I don’t even remember making… how do you have this?” Will asks, completely flabbergasted.
“You gave it to me,” Mike says simply, like it’s obvious.
“Mike I- I must have given it to you when we were like, five. Almost 15 years ago. You kept it that whole time?”
Mike looks at him quizzically, “What do you think I did with the drawings you gave me?” He gestures to the binder, and Will gapes at him, finally understanding.
He sits down heavily on the edge of his bed, on one of the few spots not currently taken up with his own collection of his childhood art. He quickly realizes it’s much smaller than Mike’s. There’s probably over a hundred drawings in here. From the wobbly lines of childhood where you can’t tell if Will the Wise is holding a wand or has a weird arm, to more detailed drawings of his middle school days, to sketches that Mike’s held onto more recently. He feels a lump forming rapidly in his throat as he rifles through the pages.
He looks up at Mike, still standing next to the bed, looking awkward. “Uhm is this making me seem like a total obsessed freak?”
Will shakes his head and forces the lump in his throat down, “No, of course not, this is-” wonderful, unexpected, a sign of devotion I wasn’t expecting, “-exactly what I needed, thank you.”
Mike smiles, pleased, and leans down to peck Will on the lips, “Happy to help.”
Wil glances at the drawings scattered all over his bed. In a rare moment of impulsivity he asks, “Do you think we should get a bigger bed, get rid of the twins?”
“I was thinking that too,” Mike says immediately, “Until then we could just push them together. Wanna do some rearranging tonight?”
“Yeah sure, just let me get this cleaned up.”
Mike waves his hand, “Finish what you’re doing, we can move furniture later. What do you want for dinner? I’ll cook.”
“Yikes.”
Mike scoffs and pushes Will’s shoulder playfully, “I’m not that bad.”
“You’ve gotten better,” Will acknowledges.
Mike works on cooking dinner in the corner of their apartment where the miniscule kitchen is situated. Will goes back to flipping through the binder, fingers reverent with the pages, not just because they’re his childhood artwork, but because they’re physical proof of the years and years of devotion between them. Will always gifted Mike his favorite pieces, and Mike would hang them on his bedroom or basement walls, where they would stay for months or years. Will didn’t know what happened to them when they got replaced with newer drawings, hadn’t even really thought about it. He didn’t know Mike kept every one of them. And they’re not back in his childhood room at his parent’s house, he brought it to college. He must have kept it in his dorm room freshman year, and now it’s one of the things taking up the precious space in their tiny apartment, right next to his bed.
Will carefully selects pieces for the art exhibit, finding through lines in fantasy, magic, and Mike.
It’s time to get a new bed.