Archive of Our Own

When he thinks about it, the entire problem first arises July 13th, 1989. 

The day the Byers-Hopper family visit for vacation. 

Mike wakes up at nine a.m., much earlier than he usually would, but Karen Wheeler, also known as the madwoman that is his mother, insists he wake up earlier than anyone should during summer, and won’t hear a single complaint of this when she throws a duster into his lap. 

“This house needs to be spotless,” she calls out, rushing out the room, basket full of laundry in her arms, “the Byers will be here any minute!” 

Any minute, also known as seven in the afternoon. Approximately ten hours from now. Jesus fucking Christ. 

And so, with a sigh, Mike picks up the pink-feather duster, and gets to dusting, teeth unbrushed and shirt drool-stained. 

Turns out, however, cleaning is a wonderful outlet for the excitement that Mike had been shoving down all week, which seems to finally bubble over him, so much so that it slowly morphs to nervousness, anxious at the thought of seeing Will after almost an entire year of being apart. He wonders if Will is nervous to see him, too. 

They haven’t spoken much over the past year, ever since Mrs. Byers had swept up her family and trudged to San Francisco, away from Hawkins, but close enough to keep on with her previously established life in Lenora. Mike and El had exchanged countless letters, of course, despite them having broken up, yet Mike feels himself oddly peculiar about every letter he tries to send Will, until the Dear Will ’s had built up and he ended up not sending a single one. He feels guilty about it, it’s true, but he’ll deal with that when it arrives on their doorstep at seven. 

Everything he knows about Will’s life in California is through sparse, fleeting calls that he tries to drag on for as long as possible, and the minute details El includes in her letters; Will’s painting skills have drastically improved, although Mike didn’t need to be told that, because Will’s the best artist to have ever existed, as far is Mike is concerned. 

Will paints El flowers, sometimes. He’s made a bunch of artsy friends who talk about artist things and people with fancy names that El doesn’t really know about. He shows El new songs and she likes most of them. His voice is, like, super deep and masculine and manly, now. 

Not in a – weird way.

Mike only knows that last one from the few calls they’ve exchanged, when Mike rings the Byers’, and hears a tentative, Hello?, and Mike’s insides seem to freeze up and he barely pushes out a, Will! Hey, hi, I wasn’t expecting – hey! I was – um. How are you?

His voice makes Mike’s stomach feel strange. His hands get tingly, and it’s weird. Mike doesn’t want to know why, so he doesn’t let himself think about it too much, just in case he finds something he doesn’t like. He’d psychoanalyze that if he wasn’t so terrified of himself.

As it is, he’s already got something else to be terrified of, when the clock clicks to 7:22 P.M., and the doorbell rings. 

Mike can hear the rushed footsteps of his mother, her absurdly cheery greeting when she opens the door, and he’s barely making it down the stairs when there’s the loud welcome of, “Joyce, it’s so nice to see you!” 

When Mike hurries down to the front door, feeling weirdly out of breath, and his palms are itching as he steps closer. Joyce catches sight of him, Hopper right behind her as she exclaims, “Mike! You’ve gotten so tall, sweetheart, it’s great to see you.” 

“Hi, Mrs. Byers,” Mike says awkwardly, despite having known her for several years, and the many instances of Just call me Joyce, honey. “Hey,” he greets, this time directed at Hopper. 

“Hey, kid,” the man returns, having seemingly eased up since last summer, wearing a floral Hawaiian shirt. It’s a jarring sight, and Mike kind of wants to laugh. 

“Mike, be a dear and help them carry their suitcases in,” his mom tells him, and he nods silently as he slips out the door and steps towards the driveway, where Jonathan is ducked into the driver’s seat, and the trunk is open.

He doesn’t have the chance to panic or wonder how he’s supposed to greet Jonathan of all people, when there’s suddenly arms around his body and he’s hit with the smell of artificial apples. 

“Mike!” El squeezes him, tight enough to kill him, probably, but Mike sucks in a deep breath and tries to hug her back, despite the lack of air circulation in his system. “I’m so happy to see you!” 

“Hi, El,” he croaks, a hand against her back. “It’s good to see you, too.” 

When she leans away, Mike takes notice of her hair, longer, reaching her waist, and she resembles Joyce, strangely, despite no blood-relation. She’s got clips in, hair pulled away from her face, and wears a plaid shirt. She looks nice. 

“I like the hair,” he compliments, and El beams. 

She turns away to the car, presumably grabbing the rest of her things, and Jonathan slides in a smooth, “Hey, Mike.” His hair is shorter than it had been the last time Mike had seen him, and he wears a colorful, striped shirt. Apparently, Hopper is not the only one in an abrupt change in fashion. California has changed them all, clearly.

Mike raises a hand to wave, and Jonathan pays him no mind as he pulls along a pair of suitcases to the front steps. Mike turns around. 

The trunk closes, and Will appears. 

And – alright, Mike knows this is where his problems begin. 

He doesn’t even want to get into it, because he sounds crazy, he knows, but he swears his heart stops beating when their eyes meet, and Will smiles at him and Mike is pretty sure the world freezes around them, and that’s physically impossible, whatever, but it happened. 

“Hey, Mike,” Will greets softly, and – Jesus Christ, when did he get so broad?

Okay. Well. He didn’t mean to think that, at all. He doesn’t know where that came from. 

Except he can’t even deny it, because Will Byers from last summer is definitely not the same Will Byers that’s in Mike’s driveway, t-shirt sticking around his shoulders and chest and his face is more, like, defined or something, and he’s got that California tan that people have in movies and Mike really needs to say something, and quick. 

“Will,” Mike blurts, because that’s the first thing on his mind. And then, because he sounds creepy as hell, he adds, “Hey. Hi. Um. How are you?” 

“I’m good,” Will smiles, lips upturned, and it’s cute. Good, he means. It’s good. It’s good that Will is good. Right. “Nice hair.” 

Mike raises a hand to his hair, as if he’d forgotten it existed. Christ, Wheeler, a voice that sounds distantly like Eddie scolds him, get ahold of yourself!

“Oh, right,” he mumbles, and he really hopes his face isn’t as pink as it feels. “Thanks. I, uh, started growing it out. Obviously.” 

And Will – laughs. 

Mike is pretty sure he can hear angels singing. 

“Do you need help with the suitcases?” Mike asks, more so for his sake than Will’s, because there’s a weird, warm feeling in his chest, and – Jesus, what if he’s having a heart attack right now, just when the Byers finally arrived? His mom would kill him. 

“Could you just grab the last one?” Will tilts with his head, both hands attached to two separate cases. “I’ve got the rest.” 

Mike nods quickly, and trails after Will to his house. 

Suffice to say, Mike is feeling a little confused.

Which is stupid, because he doesn’t even know what he’s so confused about. Obviously, Will has changed from the boy he used to be, because he’s no longer fourteen and small. No, instead, he’s eighteen and very much – different. 

He’s different in his style, where his clothes don’t hang off of him anymore, and instead they vaguely outline his shoulders, and he’s, like, confident now, and his voice doesn’t waver when Mike’s dad asks him about what kind of colleges he’s looking into, and he sits up a little straighter and he looks like he doesn’t mind people looking at him, which is – great, because Mike is definitely looking at – 

“What’re you doing?” 

When he blinks out of his stupor, Nancy is staring him down with a pitcher of iced tea in her hands. Mike assesses his situation (read: standing like an idiot in the middle of the kitchen, staring off into the tiled floor). 

Mike opens his mouth. “Um.” 

“Great,” Nancy dryly responds. “Here, take this out to the table. Don’t drop it,” she adds, like he’s still some clumsy ten-year-old, which – fair. 

“Whatever,” he replies, just to be annoying, and she gives him a roll of her eyes as she goes off to do – whatever she does. Make goo-goo eyes at Jonathan, probably. Yikes. 

He carries off the pitcher dutifully, making care not to trip and fall and die, and it’s all a little precarious when he holds it with one hand while he slides open the patio door, careful not to stumble when he steps out into the backyard and walk over to where there is a growing pile of burgers, and a large bowl of salad. 

“– but with last year, you would think these gas prices would stop rising, and here they are, charging me –” 

“– she doing well? I can’t remember the last time I saw her, I remember we would chat all the time when she would come by with her son – what was his name? Ricardo? Ray?” 

“Richard! He’s doing good, last I heard. He flew out to New York, I think, and Sheryl was trying to –” 

“– got around a few containers of gas in our garage, it’s a good thing to invest in when –” 

“Hey,” Will smiles when Mike slides into the seat next to him. 

“Hey,” Mike parrots back. “Hopper looks like he regrets coming back.” 

Will grins, which is – great, really good, it feels a little like he’s winning some unknown game, and he says, “I think it’s because your dad has been talking about gas prices for the last, like, fifteen minutes.” 

“I don’t get it,” El tells him from across the table, “money is arbitrary.” 

Mike does suppose, after saving the world five different times, that the general order of society seems a little pointless. “I mean, I guess,” he reasons, and he doesn’t really like to think about the world he lives in without wanting to bash his head in, “I’ve never really thought about it.” 

El squints at him. “Why not?” 

“Holly is so grown up now,” Will smoothly interrupts, directing their attention to where she plays in the grass, near the patio with two dolls and a miniature car. “I always forget she’s not four anymore.” 

“She’s a menace,” Mike announces, and Will raises his eyebrows. “She hates everybody but Nancy. She revolts against bed time.” 

El hums. “Nancy is the most sensible of your family,” she agrees, and Mike makes an indignant sound. 

“She is not,” he protests, except it’s more defensive for the sake of it, and Will poorly contains a laugh, and Mike grins when he nudges at his arm. “Hey, don’t laugh!” 

“I’m not laughing,” Will says, biting away a smile. It’s cute. He’s cute. Mike wants to hold his face in his hands. 

Mike blinks. That’s – he’s not going to think too hard about that. 

“Uh-huh,” he replies smartly, and then it’s time to eat. 

The burgers are great, even though he’d rather roll over and die than compliment Hopper to his face, and the sodas and ice tea taste a little sweeter with Will next to him, with El discreetly levitating cucumber slices into her mouth, with fireworks shooting overhead for the Fourth of July. 

Despite the sparse phone calls and the inability to send any letters, it feels like there had been no distance between them at all, none that Mike can detect or care for when Will sits next to him, scoots a little closer when both his dad and Hopper join them at the table, when Will’s bare arm presses against Mike’s, and Mike spends a normal amount of time thinking about it. 

When Will laughs, it’s with the sensible, moderate amount of attention that Mike pays to it, the peek of his front teeth poking out, the blush on his cheeks from the summer heat, the curl of his hair around his ears, his nape, his steady hands that curl around a plastic cup. Mike is – Mike just missed him, is all. 

And Mike knows it’s ridiculous, because the Byers-Hopper family have only been back for a few hours, but something in him also knows – this is the happiest he’s been all year. 

“Byers!” 

Will, unfortunately, only gets a few moments to prepare before Lucas launches himself onto him, and Mike brings out a steadying hand when he stumbles under the impact, a low oof when Lucas nearly tackles him under the weight of his hug. 

“Move it,” Dustin says, and pries Lucas off to attach himself onto Will. Lucas remains off for only a moment, before joining in on a group hug, and Mike squints as they stumble together clumsily. 

Dustin picks his head up from Will’s shoulder, giving Mike a look, until he reaches out and grapples Mike by the arm, bodily colliding into a messy hug that nearly has them careening into the ground.

“Shit,” Mike smartly observes, as his body is now attached to the side of Lucas and his nose shoved into Will’s hair, which is – not a bad place to be, actually, even though Dustin’s grip on his arm is probably cutting off the blood circulation to his hand, but suddenly having a strong whiff of Will’s shampoo isn’t the worst thing to happen to him. 

“Hi,” Will chokes out, muffled and definitely suffocating, “good – to see you – guys –” 

“You’re going to kill him before he even gets in the water,” Max huffs, pulling them all away, and Lucas squawking in protest as he stumbles away, looking entirely unashamed, and Mike and Dustin following suit, Mike’s face feeling weirdly warm. Max steps forward just to give Will a quick hug, patting him on the back, before crossing her arms. “Finally,” she says, scowling. “We’ve been waiting forever.” 

Dustin squints at her. “You got here five minutes ago.” 

“We’ve been waiting forever,” El emphasizes, and Max nods.

Mike rolls his eyes. “You said we were meeting up at one,” he recalls. “Not our fault you decided to get here early.” 

“You just want Will all to yourself,” El decides, and leaves Mike to gape while she turns away. “Let’s go in the water, now.” 

“I need sunscreen,” Dustin remembers, as they slowly make their way to the shore of the lake. “I looked like the Kool-Aid man last time.” He shudders. “Never again.” 

“I don’t know how you didn’t tan in the slightest,” Lucas notes, leaning over to flick at him, and Dustin swats at him. “Kool-Aid man is better than pasty white boy.” 

“My body is a temple,” Dustin sniffs. “A temple made of exclusively white material that is incredibly susceptible to sunburns, but it’s a temple.” 

“Good fucking God,” Max says, and plops onto the ground, reaching for a bottle of sunscreen. She’s quick to place some cream into El’s awaiting hands. “Just put your sunscreen on and let’s go.” 

Mike lands on the picnic blanket, wincing as the sun shines into his eyes. The air is pleasantly warm, teetering on setting him sweaty, and Lover’s Lake is surprisingly sparse, most having set off to the local pool. Michael Jackson blares from Max’s boombox, and Lucas’ shouts echo into the sky when he cannonballs into the lake. 

El cheers as she follows close by, Lucas shrieking in alarm when she lands right next to him, and Dustin only spares a moment to lather on a thick layer of sunscreen before joining. 

Mike spares no decorum in tugging off his shirt quickly and effectively, peering at his own pale, pale skin, and he grimaces. It’s like he can feel his skin roasting under the sun already. 

“Hey,” he says, turning to look at Will, “want to –” 

It’s at that very moment that, for reasons completely and utterly unknown to anyone at all, every single possible word he has ever learned from any language ever has suddenly disappeared from his brain, and his throat feels relevant to the Sahara Desert. 

None of this, of course, has to do with the fact that Will is very, very, very – shirtless. 

Will blinks at him. “Are you okay?” 

“Shoulders,” Mike says, sounding vaguely chipmunk-like, and he hears Max barely choke down a snicker. Will gives him a lost look, and Mike’s face feels, a little, like he has just splashed an entire gallon of burning lava onto it. “You,” he tries again, before clearing his throat. “We – water.” 

He’s trying not to think too hard about him being shirtless, sitting next to Will, who is also shirtless and definitely looking at Mike, which is making him more nervous than it should, considering Will’s seen him eat eight bags of Doritos in great succession several times. 

“We, water,” Will tonelessly echoes. 

Max, as Mike knows her to be, ever since her villainous self barged into their friend group ever so long ago, seems to raise her levels of being generally terrible and the worst enemy Mike’s ever had, when she nods. “You heard him. We, water.” She shrugs. “I don’t know how he could be any clearer.”

“I’m going to drown you,” Mike immediately replies. 

She doesn’t flinch. “You’ll die trying.” 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Will questions, the worried furrowing of his eyebrows when he looks at Will. “You’re a little red.” 

“I’m great,” Mike says convincingly. “Very okay. So okay. The okayest.” 

“Sure,” Will replies, sounding a little skeptical. “What are –” 

“Let’s go in the water,” Mike blurts, and doesn’t wait for a response when he abruptly gets up and heads into the lake. 

Thankfully, the universe spares the littlest bit of mercy to Mike’s miserable life when they’re swimming, going deep enough to have their bodies disappearing underwater up to their necks, blurred bodies while they thrash and flick water at each other and float along under the sun. 

Summer is, Mike will admit, a million times better like this, with Will floating on his back and El floating a large sphere of water to dump over Dustin’s head, even when Lucas throws a strand of seaweed at Mike, and it hits bull’s eye on his nose. 

He’s half sure he’s going to be bright pink from sunburn tomorrow, but he can’t find it in him to care – not like this, at least, not when the lake is refreshingly cool against the summer sun, laughter bouncing off the trees and the splash of water, Dustin holding his breath underwater for a shockingly long amount of time, and Max winning their race to swim to the other side of the lake. 

And, especially, not like this, with Will’s bright smile that nearly competes against the sun, the splatter of water on his cheeks and his wet hair curled against his forehead, his nape tan and his laughter unabashed. Mike, like this, can’t find it in him to feel anything less than happy, not even when Max pulls him under water and he contemplates murder for not the first time. 

“You’re totally getting sunburned.” 

Mike looks up to where Will stands above him, wet hair and sun haloed behind him, and Mike, for a moment, nearly forgets himself, staring at Will’s pink cheeks and grin for longer than necessary. 

“You,” he says, and remembers the clump of sandwich still in his mouth, which he is still getting through, curled over himself on a beach towel like a shrimp with scoliosis. He swallows and clears his throat. “Um. I meant – I’ll deal with it later.” 

Will snorts, dropping down to sit beside him. “You mean complaining about it until someone gives in and slathers you in aloe vera?” 

Someone, unspokenly, means Will, even if Mike’s done his fair share of doing the same for him. Now, however, the memory makes him flush even darker under his presumably sunburnt skin, and he shakes his head. 

“I have no idea what you mean,” he replies coolly, or as coolly as he can, i.e., not very coolly at all, and Will grins at him, generous as he always is, and Mike spends a second longer staring at it, just to imprint it in memory, just for rainy days. 

“Right,” he says. “So you won’t come complaining to me?” 

“No way,” Mike answers. “I’ve never done that in my life.” 

“Never,” Will agrees, smiling, and Mike can’t help but return it.

There’s the distant shout of their friends, followed by a loud crash of water, and the heat of the sun beating down on them. Mike can feel the lake water cooling on him, and the warmth of Will’s body, even now, his bare knee pushed against Mike’s outstretched legs. Will’s hand is pressed against the grassy ground between them, and Mike spends an unordinary amount of time staring at it. 

Not in any which way that could be interpreted as anything other than completely and utterly and perfectly platonic, of course, because – Mike is definitely thinking about plucking Will’s hand off the ground and into his own hand, slotting his water-dotted fingers through Mike’s, and their palms would probably start to sweat, holding hands in the buzzing summer, but it wouldn’t matter, because they’d be holding hands. 

And that’s abnormal to think, Mike knows, but this isn’t the weirdest thing he’s thought about between him and Will, and they held hands all the time as a kid, and this is probably just those few, childish urges that he’s been having and trying to ignore since forever coming back to haunt him again. 

Besides, it’s not like Mike’s thinking about kissing Will, or anything.

Not that he hasn’t thought about it, but that’s not – that isn’t that weird.

Right. Anyway. 

The moment – which, Mike would like to say, there totally and absolutely was a moment, but a completely normal, platonic, non-romantic moment between childhood best friends – is immediately shattered when Lucas collapses on the ground in front of them. 

“Hand me a sandwich,” Lucas heaves out, seeming near death as he pants. They stare at him, and it’s only after he slowly catches his breath that he opens his eyes to look at Will. “I,” he says emphatically, “am never playing chicken with your sister ever again.” 

Will laughs, shifting where he sits, and their shoulders bump. Mike thinks about it a normal amount, and passes Lucas a sandwich. “She literally has superpowers,” Mike mentions, and Will reaches out to pat Lucas on the knee sympathetically. “I don’t know how you thought you’d win.” 

Lucas makes an indignant noise. “My bad for thinking she’d play fair.” 

“We did play fair,” Max says, El trailing behind her, and she comes close enough to poke Lucas with her foot, and he half-heartedly swats at her, evidently too exhausted to defend himself. “You guys just suck.” 

“I’m no genius,” Dustin says, “but us sucking had nothing to do with the literal tidal wave that took us down.” 

El shrugs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you know what they’re talking about?” She asks, looking over at Max. 

Max purses her lips, widening her eyes as she shrugs, bringing her hands up in mock-bewilderment. “No idea,” she chirps, and Dustin chucks a chip at her, which he sorely misses with. She leans over to throw a pebble at him, which hits him right between the eyes. 

“Dude,” Lucas says, after a moment, when they’re all peacefully chewing, raising his eyebrows at Mike, “you’re, like, bright pink.” 

They all take the liberty of staring at him suddenly, and it’s a little creepy, heads turning toward him, and he presses his lips together. “Don’t mention it,” he mutters, and El poorly suppresses a giggle. A tube hovers over to him, before promptly opening and splattering sunscreen over his face, and he lets out a very manly shriek. 

“What the hell,” he groans, sunscreen dripping into his eyes, “is your issue?”

“Now your face is no longer pink,” El reasons, and Dustin nods sagely. 

“She’s got a point,” he adds. “Now we won’t have to hear you bitching about how much your body hurts.” 

“Where is the – loyalty,” Mike huffs. “The friendship, the –” 

He abruptly shuts up when Will’s warm hand lightly swipes over his cheek, dripping with sunscreen, before brushing over his arm, smearing cream over his skin, shining in the sunlight. It’s an innocent gesture, except Mike’s stomach is moments away from imploding with butterflies – or moths, or birds, or something fluttery with wings and inhibiting the area underneath his esophagus. 

When he gives Will a wide-eyed look, he merely shrugs. “It was about to go to waste,” he explains, gesturing to where the sunscreen on his face is slowly trickling down his neck. Mike feels aflame. 

Lucas snickers. “On second thought,” he says, “El, maybe he does need more sunscreen.” The tube of sunscreen begins to ominously hover again. 

“Fuck off,” Mike returns, gaze unwavering from Will, and Max lets out a bubbling laugh. 

“Oh my God,” Dustin mutters, and he sounds awfully far away, “he’s, like – fuschia.”

Will grins at him, and Mike’s insides feel, a little, like they’re melting. 

“Why do you look like that?” 

Mike blinks, looking up from his bowl of cereal. Nancy stands next to the doorway of the kitchen, leaning over for an apple. 

“Sunburn,” he answers, and Nancy snorts. 

“Yeah,” she replies, eyeing the visibly irritated skin on his arms with raised eyebrows, “I can see that. I mean, why do you look like you just got the best news of your life?”

Mike immediately lets his smile drop. “Didn’t realize happiness was a crime around here,” he mutters, and shoves a spoonful of Cocoa Puffs into his mouth. 

“No, no,” Nancy says, stepping away, with her keys in her hand, and she’s a little awkward as she clarifies, “it’s – it’s good. It’s good.” 

“Right.” He watches her roll her eyes. 

“I’m serious,” she insists, just as she steps out, “it’s good.” There’s a pause, a contemplative look flashing across her face, before she adds, “I’m glad.” 

It sounds sincere. He clears his throat, and purses his lips together. “Um. Okay.” 

“Okay,” she echoes. 

They stare at each other. A bird chirps outside. 

“Eat the last pack of chips, and I’ll kill you,” Nancy says, and makes her leave. 

Mike presses his lips together, and looks down at his bowl full of now-chocolate milk.

Life doesn’t feel too bad – even if he goes chip-less for lunch. 

It’s after a long day of tomfoolery and lazing around in the sun with the Party, with the sun well past the horizon, and he’s pretty sure the entire neighborhood is asleep, that Mike peers over the edge of his bed and whispers, “Will.” 

Unfortunately for the state of Will’s sleep schedule and general maintenance of proper rest, they’ve been set to sharing a room for the entirety of the Byers-Hopper’s visit, which is, in Mike’s humble opinion, the best idea ever, and especially during times like these, when he’s too amped up to sleep and aching to poke and prod at Will. 

He stares at Will in a self-affirmed not-creepy fashion, the gentle curves of his face highlighted in the dim lighting of his bedroom, and the red shirt that compliments him so well, until Will opens an eye and looks up at Mike. 

“What?” 

Mike offers a cheesy grin. “Wanna sneak out?” 

They stare at each other. Will’s mouth slowly curls in a smile. 

That is how, about ten minutes later, they’ve carefully, and very clumsily on Mike’s part, climb out of his bedroom window and roll into his junky car, old and worthless enough for it not to matter too much if Mike accidentally drives straight into a tree in the middle of the night. He only just remembers to grab his keys. 

Will taps his fingers on the door as Mike backs out of the driveway, extra careful as he does so, special cargo and all. Mike asks, “Where do you want to go?” 

Will hums. “I don’t know. I thought you had a place in mind.” 

Mike shrugs, although he isn’t too sure if it goes seen. “I don’t know. You haven’t been in Hawkins for a while. You don’t have anywhere you want to see?” 

“At one thirty-two a.m.?” Will questions, and Mike can hear the smile in his voice. 

He feigns checking the lane next to him to hide his smile. “Absolutely,” he replies, and Will’s laugh is light and boneless. 

The destination, for Mike, at least, had never been the point – the point, of course, had mostly been to spend more time with Will, to have them both awake together a little longer, for an excuse to have some more one-on-one time with him, even if they’re already sharing a room. 

If he blows off some more money on gas and probably contributes to the rising rates of pollution, then he’s going to simply have to ignore that downer for the way Will’s tapping matches up to the click of Mike’s turn signal, even in the midst of an empty, empty street, or for Will’s mumbled singing to the sort of soft music that only ever plays on radios past midnight, or the spineless conversation they hold, or Will’s airy laughter, or Will’s eyes in the moonlight, or Will, Will, Will. 

In the end, neither of them make up their minds as to where to go, and Mike drives around aimlessly until Will insists they stop near the same hilltop that Cerebro rests upon, looming over the roofs of Hawkins from afar, and starry skies for miles. They hike up the side of the grassy hill, a little too loud with their laughter and clumsy in the night. 

Mike, once they’ve nearly reached the top, flops onto the ground, heaving from the exertion, and when he looks up to the sky, he’s met with Will gazing down at him. It’s preferable to the starry night. He blows a strand of hair out of his eyes, and Will grins. 

“Worn out?” He questions, even if it’s clear. 

Mike huffs a breath. The grass tickles his arms, and the summer air is cool during the night. “You’re not?” 

“Not too much, no,” Will replies, and he joins Mike in the grass, close enough for their arms to brush, if only for a second. “Probably from us having to hike up here constantly for Cerebro, that one summer.” There’s a second, before he nudges Mike lightly with an elbow. “Not that you or El would know.”

“Hey,” Mike protests, and it lacks any bitterness as he barely pushes Will back, who goes easily, body shaking with humor. “You came back mean.” 

“I’m just saying!” Will grins, teeth gleaming in the night, and Mike tears his eyes away to look up at the sky, or else he might stare for too long. 

The sky itself, inarguably, is also beautiful, in the casual way the world is so often, in glimmering lakes and pink sunsets and cool breezes and birdsongs, in the warmth of Will’s arm against his, the cool grass underneath him, the softness of Mike’s shirt pressed against his back. 

It all seems to only heighten with Will next to him, a layer of saturation to beauty that Mike has never been able to quite pinpoint. He could spend the rest of his life staring up at the sky with Will, starry or not. 

After a silent, but not wordless, moment, Will says, “It’s pretty.”

“Yeah.” Mike glues his eyes to the sky, and ignores the bubbling temptation to look over and gauge in Will’s reaction. He can’t help it, though, when his gaze skirts over to Will, in the flop of his hair, how the corners of his mouth are lifted in a smile, and he quickly looks away. The blades of grass are smooth between his fingers. “It is.” Amidst the inky purple sky, the stars glimmer attractively. It’s hard to look at the empty spaces in between. Mike presses his lips together. “I’ve never really looked at them before. Properly, I mean.” 

Will hums. “You can’t really see the stars in California.”

Mike blinks. “Really?” 

“Yeah. Too much pollution.” He can hear and feel it when Will shifts. “It sucks, but – you know. It’s extra nice, when you get to see them here.” There’s a pause, until he asks, “Do you know any constellations?” 

Mike shakes his head, hair rubbing against the earth. “Nope.” 

“Me neither,” Will replies, and Mike snorts. 

He chews on his lip, quietness passing, before he raises a lazy hand, pointing to a random star. “That one’s Brian.” 

There’s a pause, before Will turns to look at him. Mike meets his eyes easily. Will’s eyebrows raise. “Brian?” 

Mike shrugs, ignoring his own mouth lifting up in a smile. “Yeah.” 

Will breathes out a slight laugh, until he points to a star to the left. “Margaret,” he decides. 

Mike nods in acknowledgement. He points to another star. “Helga.”

“Earl.”

“Bartholomew.” 

“Gunther.”

“Gunther,” Mike chokes, and Will’s laugh is bright when it startles out of him, and when he looks over, Will’s eyes are scrunched upward and his cheeks bunch up, open-mouthed in a laugh. Mike grins at him, something sweet curling in his chest. “No one – who the hell –” 

“I don’t know,” Will rasps out, sounding worn, and it’s ridiculously insignificant, but it feels worth more than the world when Mike’s cheeks hurt from smiling so hard. “I don’t know, it was the first name I thought of, who is naming their child Bartholomew –” 

Mike blames it on the sleep deprivation, the tiredness of the day finally catching up to them when they find more humor in it than they sensibly should, giggling too hard at the stars they name and the fuzzy feeling taking over Mike’s body when they curl into each other, heads nearly knocking and bodies shaking. 

“This is so stupid,” Will breathes out, after a while, but Mike can hear the smile in his voice. 

“That’s why you’re laughing,” Mike points out sagely, and Will sighs. 

Mike is glad to lose track of time, at the edge of Hawkins, in the middle of the night, staring up at the night sky while a summer breeze crawls over them, grass poking into their hair. Exhaustion, sleepiness, slowly but surely, makes its way to Mike, who bites down a yawn. He’d risk falling asleep on a hill to stay a little longer with Will. 

He, compellingly, has the urge to give into the tiredness and roll over, tuck into Will’s warm side and let himself fall asleep. Will wouldn’t mind, he doesn’t think. Mike could claim it to be him turning his favors from their shared sleepovers from when they were younger, always shoving their sleeping bags the closest between the four of them. 

Now, there are no sleeping bags, no guise for it all when their arms are firmly touching, and Mike is entirely content with falling asleep at Will’s side. He rolls his tongue over in his mouth, and tugs onto the last bit of awakeness. 

“I’m glad you’re back, you know,” Mike mumbles, after a while, when the exhaustion is enough for him to confess such a thing without dying from mortification. “It’s – I missed you.” 

“I missed you, too,” is Will’s easy admission. 

“Oh.” Mike slowly blinks at the stars. “Nice,” he says, although he’s not sure which bit is, if it’s the mutual feeling, or knowing he matters, still, when he’s half a country away. 

“Yeah.” Will moves, again, their hands bumping, and it feels like they’re holding the sun in the space between. Mike, despite himself, lets a yawn slip. “Want to go back?” 

“Sure,” Mike’s slow reply comes. “Just – a few more minutes.” 

“Okay,” Will murmurs. Mike feels sunburnt all over again. 

Time moves on, and the stars shine quietly. 

“Bad idea.” 

“Good idea,” Dustin counters immediately, “great idea, actually, best idea I’ve ever had, I’d even argue.” 

Max looks down at him disdainfully, from where he crouches on the ground, angling his hand, which holds the bean bag the carny had given him a moment ago. The carnival employee lets out a withering sigh, where he stands away from a tall tower of bottles. 

“You look like an idiot,” Max tells him, “you know that, right?” 

“I’m a genius,” he says, and chucks the ball at the bottles. 

The tower comes crashing down. 

“Oh my God,” Will laughs from the ground, when they all gather for lunch, later, strewn on the grass, with loud carnival music and the screams of children behind them, “how did you even get that?” 

“Physics,” Dustin answers smugly, dropping to sit beside Lucas, before shoving a large stuffed platypus between them. Lucas gives him a look. “His name is Jeremy.” 

“Jeremy looks freaky, dude,” Lucas informs him, warily glancing at the wide eyes of the platypus, which emptily stare back. “It’s got, like, crazy-people eyes.” 

Max sniffs. “It looks like you.” 

“It does look a little,” El scrunches her nose, “weird.” 

“Jealousy is a disease,” Dustin says easily, and Lucas rolls his eyes. 

“It’s practically the size of you,” Will comments, and Dustin gives the plushie an appreciative pat. 

Mike turns to look down at him. “Do you want one?” He demands, and Will’s smile widens. 

“No,” he answers simply, and Mike halts in his plans of figuring out how to win every single game stall with only three tickets left. “Carnival prizes always look," he pauses, before he settles on, "creepy.” 

The usual summer carnival thrown at Hawkins every year is nothing to be taken for granted, and especially not in a midwestern town where nothing particularly special, other than the occasional apocalypse or so, happens. It’s only predictable for them all to wind up chewing on fried dough and pretzels, dizzy and thrilled from rides and rollercoasters. 

Will lays in the grass beside him, bathing in the sun without burning, and Mike would curse his tanning abilities if he didn’t look so good, and Will’s head had laid on the space right next to Mike’s thigh, until he had patted his denim-covered leg and Will had scooted up to use Mike’s limb as a makeshift pillow. 

The contact feels much heavier than it should, as if pressing him down to the dirt of the earth, and his thigh feels oddly tingly, now, and every time Will shifts even microscopically, it’s as though his entire body is experiencing some kind of chemical reaction in his membrane. Maybe he’s having an aneurysm. 

Will’s hair looks soft. 

Mike fists a hand into the grass. 

They split up again after their sixth rollercoaster, Max and Lucas parting to the ferris wheel, and the four of them return to the Gravitron, stuck to the padded walls while the ride spins in place, and they stumble on the way out, wobbly on their legs. Will leans on his right, and Mike ignores the way his stomach feels a little funny afterwards. Maybe the ride was a bad idea right after lunch. 

They go on a rampage of winning every carnival game they try, with the combined use of Dustin and Mike’s knowledge of physics, Dustin’s lack of social dignity, as well as El’s use of subtle powers, and Mike is all too satisfied when he hands Will a large stuffed tiger, and he can’t explain the flurry of something electric when Will grins at him. 

It’s later, when the sun slowly begins to set, that El drags Dustin off to the ferris wheel as well, wanting to get a glimpse of a view so high, and Will tugs Mike along to the haunted house that stands beside it, and Mike lets himself follow. 

“This,” he says, when they walk in, “is so lame.” 

Will hushes him, and Mike looks at him, in the eerie blue glow of the low light, and faux cobwebs hang close to Mike’s head, the wood creaking underneath them in the dark room. “Come on,” Will whispers, and continues walking. Mike shakes his head, despite his smile. 

Mike can’t find himself to care for it too much when they’ve faced much worse, and the fact he has Will’s warm arm pressing against his while they walk, and he supposes the tameness of this house compared to their reality is the appeal, and especially for Will, the horror-enthusiast that he is. 

“You know,” Will murmurs, as they step into another room, “I thought it would –” 

A poorly dressed clown appears, and they both jump. 

“Shit!” Mike yelps, stumbling backward, and he brings out an arm in front of Will, his hands on Mike’s arm. He had frozen beside Mike, hand wrapped around his elbow and suddenly so much closer, and Mike lets himself take the brunt of it as the clown leers close. When he blinks and isn’t immediately, brutally murdered, he remembers who and where he is. 

Will lets out a puff of breath next to him. The clown’s makeup glows under the dark lights, its clothes tattered and smudged with something dark, and it isn’t as scary as it is surprising, and Mike grimaces at how close it tilts toward him. 

“Jesus,” he mutters, and the clown shuffles away. “That was – pretty good, actually.” 

Will huffs a laugh behind him, before he steps to stand beside him. “I thought this was lame.” 

“It was,” Mike sniffs, and mourns the way Will lets his hands drop, “before the clown.”

“Sure,” Will replies agreeably. His smile is – enticing. Mike feels like one of the moths that keep flurrying into his home and bumping into the light bulbs. He kind of wants the clown to come back, just to have Will’s hands on him again, just to have an excuse to pull him close again, just for an opportunity again. 

He blinks at himself. An opportunity for what? 

When he glances at Will, who peers behind him, eyes shining in the low, blue light, he frowns at himself, the way his mind won’t let go of wanting to touch him again. It’s a common urge, he’ll admit it, but never so strong. He looks down at his hands. 

He clears his throat, and, with all the suaveness and smoothness that he holds in his noodly body, throws an arm around Will’s shoulders. 

Will, thankfully, does not immediately pick him up and launch him out of the doors and into the rollercoaster nearby to crash and die on impact, and instead gives him a quirk of his mouth. Mike turns away before he starts to stare, or something equally creepy.

“Let’s go,” he says, and they keep walking. 

Unfortunately, the jump-scares after are not so severe to have Will pull Mike into him again, which is – probably a normal thing to keep thinking about, or he hopes it is, and they breathe in the fresh, cool air of the summer night when they walk out. Will hasn’t moved away from under his arm. He’s hoping his face doesn’t look as warm as it feels. 

They wander off for slushies, syrupy sweet and cold on his tongue, coloring it purple when Mike offers to swap his blue raspberry for Will’s cherry when Will eyes his cup, and he’s always been indifferent to slushie flavors, but never Will. 

It’s worth drinking cherry, anyway, for the way Will’s lips stain the slightest bit blue. He looks sweet. Mike spends a very, very, very – small amount of time staring at his mouth. He takes a long sip of cherry-flavored ice. 

It takes a moment to find the rest of their friends lingering at the bottom of the Ferris wheel, with Dustin’s ridiculously large platypus plushie and a collection of other toys in El’s arms, Max and Lucas holding the ones she doesn’t have enough space for. 

Mike looks at the plush tiger in Will’s arms. “Do you want me to hold that for you?” 

Will looks at him, and there’s something indiscernible that flashes across his face, before he smiles. “It’s okay,” he replies, and nudges Mike with his elbow. “Want to switch back?” He lightly shakes the cup in his hand, and Mike shakes his head. 

“It’s –” 

“Hey, lovebirds!” 

Mike looks away, lips twisting in a scowl when he spots Max with her hands cupped around her mouth, and Lucas brings up a hand to stifle a laugh. Mike raises a hand to flip them off. 

“Move your asses!” Dustin shouts. He wonders if saving the world was worth the appalling lack of respect around here.

“I hate them,” Mike mutters, and he begrudgingly follows as Will begins to walk. 

“No, you don’t,” Will reminds him. 

“I hate them,” he repeats, and Will gives him a light pat on the arm. 

They do not, unfortunately, shrivel up into tiny little pieces under Mike’s glare, and instead remain standing beside the gate of the Ferris wheel when they both reach the rest of the group. Lucas leans back against the metal fence, an eyebrow quirked inquisitively. Mike fights the urge to throw a large rock at him. “Look who decided to join us.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Mike replies, and crosses his arms. “Are we going home?” 

Lucas grins. “Depends. Are you gonna ditch us to canoodle again?” He raises his hands to wiggle his fingers suggestively, and Max snorts. 

“Canoodle,” Mike echoes, feeling a little lightheaded, and Will chokes out something like a surprised laugh, and there’s the sudden flash of him and Will and – canoodling, which is – what is this, the 1950’s, and then he’s thinking about Will’s mouth, blue-stained and probably reminiscent of blue raspberry, and the back of the haunted house they had just left, and pulling Will closer by the arms, his short-sleeved shirt, and his mouth, tinged with color and smiling, and sweet, definitely sweet, and – canoodling. “We didn’t even – there was no –” 

“You guys left us first,” Will points out, seemingly having recovered much faster than Mike, who’s still hung up on stage three of shock. 

Mike clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says usefully. 

Max presses her lips together. “Irrelevant.”

“We couldn’t find you,” El mentions, ignoring the way Lucas makes a panicked noise. “I said to check the haunted house, but Lucas wanted to start a bet on if you were making ou– mmphmphmm –” 

She glares as she continues to muffledly chatter behind Lucas’ hand, who offers a wide smile. “We thought you guys were otherwise occupied,” he says innocently, and Mike squints at him. When he glances at Will, he looks suspiciously pink in the face. 

There’s a long beat of silence. 

“Anyways,” Dustin loudly continues, “one more ride?” 

Mike is, if anything, stubborn. 

This has been said by his mother, his friends, Ms. Janice from third grade, his lab partner from junior year Chemistry. Mike, like any other teenager facing an identity crisis, is very scarcely sure of any facet of himself, but in this regard, he knows – he is, above all, stubborn. 

Persistent, if he was going to be nice about it. Absolutely annoying, if he wasn’t. 

Either way, the point is – his mind is usually made up before he knows it. 

Therefore, when the clock is slowly ticking to two a.m., Will is asleep below him, and Mike’s still staring up at his ceiling with the words lovebirds and canoodle floating around in his head, he knows he is, to put it eloquently, fucked. 

Canoodle – Mike has never canoodled in his life, other than that brief, mortifying period of his life where he was an unbearable thirteen-year-old, but that couldn’t be held against him; everyone is unbearable at thirteen. He refuses to count such a thing.

And, anyway, that’s only partially what his mind is so stuck up on, if only because the rest of the equation includes canoodling with – Will. 

Will Byers. His best friend. The person currently sleeping on his floor. 

Mike makes his way downstairs. 

He doesn’t get it, really, because nothing had even pointed to the concept of them – canoodling, or doing anything, really, because Mike is an incredibly respectable boy with tons of self-restraint, and if he was canoodling anyone, and especially Will, then he’d be sure to at least do it right, maybe ask him out to a date first, and charm his socks off and maybe hold his hand, too, until they’re standing under a downpour of rain and dramatically confessing their love, and then he’d lean in, and – 

“Mike?” 

He abruptly looks up. 

“Um,” he says.

Jonathan rubs at his eyes. “What are you doing?” 

Mike glances between the box of cereal in his hands and where Jonathan stands at the basement door, hair messy enough to tell he had been asleep. He weighs his options while Jonathan makes his way to the sink. 

“Nothing,” he eventually responds, sounding appropriately elusive, and then, “what are you doing?” 

Jonathan blinks at him. He has a glass in his hand. “Getting some water.”

“Oh.” Mike opens his mouth, before closing it. That is, evidently, much less suspicious than what Mike’s up to. “Um. Okay.” 

“O–kay,” he replies, squinting at Mike, and Jonathan, he supposes, would probably be a little more off-put by his unnerving nature if he wasn’t stuck to Will’s side since they were five and Jonathan nine. 

Which. Speaking of Will. 

It’s not like he hasn’t thought about it. 

Canoodling with Will. 

That – sounds strange. 

All he means is, is that it’d be a little impossible not to think about it; Will is nothing if not irresistible, he can easily admit that, and, with his sweet, always sincere smile and steady presence, Mike doesn’t know how anyone could not think of kissing him once or twice, or holding his hand, or even taking him out to dinner, brushing the hair out of his eyes, too, maybe even – 

“Are you okay?” 

Christ. Can’t a man fantasize about his best friend in peace?

“I’m great,” Mike answers, turning back to Jonathan. “Why?” 

Jonathan gives him a look. “You’ve been staring at that box of Cocoa Puffs for the past, like, three minutes.” 

Mike looks down at his hands. Oh. Right. 

“I’m fine,” he says, and places the box back on the shelf. “I was just – thinking about the nutritional value of children’s cereal.” 

“Right,” Jonathan says slowly, looking increasingly concerned. 

A long pause follows. 

Mike clears his throat. “It has an incredibly high sugar concentration.”

Jonathan stares at him. 

“Are you high?” 

“Am I – no!” Mike sputters, ears on fire, and this is probably the worst interaction they’ve ever had since they’ve known each other. “No, I’m not fucking – no.” 

“It’s okay if you are,” Jonathan continues anyway, seeming a little awkward, “I mean, at your age, I was pretty –”

“I’m not high,” Mike insists, and Jonathan appears to not give approximately any fucks about this. “Seriously.” 

“Sure,” he shrugs, and Mike pinches the bridge of his nose. “But if you –” 

“Jonathan,” Mike complains, and he raises his hands in surrender. 

“Alright, alright,” Jonathan replies, laughing a little, “I believe you.” He taps his fingers against the counter, and Mike kind of doesn’t know what to do with his body, now, standing awkwardly next to the shelf of snacks and still thinking about Will and the way his hair curls around his ears. “Are you sure you’re okay?” 

“Yeah,” Mike says convincingly. 

Jonathan stares at him, and this is probably why he’s so close with his brother, because there’s something about his stare that’s beginning to compel Mike to confess every thought in his brain. Against the detriment of his friendship with Jonathan’s younger brother, his thoughts stay in his skull. 

“Okay,” he finally says, after a while. He seems to be trying to convey something with his eyes, because they’re kind of boring into his soul now, and Mike is – Mike feels weirdly seen, actually. This is weird. Spending three a.m. in the kitchen is weird. Staring into his best friend’s brother’s eyes at three a.m. in his kitchen is weird. “But I’m here. If you want to talk about – anything.” 

That’s nice of him, Mike thinks. “Thanks.” 

“Sure.” He watches Jonathan down the rest of his water, before leaning off the counter. “Night.” 

“Night,” Mike mumbles, and Jonathan disappears into the basement once more. 

Anyway. 

Back to thinking about kissing Will. 

He immediately pauses, and looks around, as though Jonathan might pop up again to ask if he’s high again. With that stare, Mike wouldn’t be surprised if he had a radar for people thinking about making the moves on his younger brother. 

He stares at the basement door, before quickly leaving the kitchen. 

Head a little foggy, he heads upstairs again, stumbling a little on the steps, and he can’t help the way his mind snags on the thought of Will. Granted, he had fleetingly thought of Will and dating in the same sentence, but only ever sparingly, in the moments where he lets his guard down and impulsively thinks, Wouldn’t it be nice if –

The thought is much more emphatic, now, he decides, when he slips back into bed. Maybe because the idea feels much more real now, much more palpable, with Will back next to him, refusing to shy away from Mike’s hands and smile summery and sweet. He is all too tempting of anything and everything Mike has been trying to not think about too hard.

He leans over the edge of the bed, and peers below, to where Will sleeps, in a bundle of pillows and blankets. The rise and release of his breath is steady, mouth just barely agape and his hair splayed against the pillow case.

Mike bites his lip, before collapsing against his pillow.

He lets out a sigh.

He’s doomed. 

Thankfully, Mike gets to enjoy the perks of being doomed, which mostly include getting to sit unnervingly close to Will with no one batting an eye. 

It’s an easy Sunday, nearing sunset while they hang out on the curb of the street, with Mike sitting so close to Will that they might just meld into each other, which would be kind of awkward, actually. He makes absolutely no move to scoot away. 

Dustin lays on the grassy space next to the road while Max tries to keep El from rolling off her skateboard. The lessons are going a little rocky, and Lucas, who is also disastrous on anything with wheels, offers commentary that no one asked for. 

“You have to stand steady,” he offers, and Max turns to give him a flat look. 

“Don’t forget to keep your eyes open,” Dustin snorts. 

Lucas nods with the inferred wisdom of someone who hasn’t dug through trash on several, separate occasions. “I panicked and closed my eyes the first time I rolled down the street.” 

“Nerd,” Dustin boos, and yelps when Lucas smacks him on the leg. 

“Did you learn how to surf?” Mike suddenly asks, turning to look at Will, definitely not thinking incredibly hard about Will and beaches and water and shorts and Will and beaches and Will and Will and Will. “In California?” 

Will shakes his head. “We only ever got to visit the beach a few times, and Argyle is,” he pauses, seemingly searching for the right word, “not a great teacher.” 

Mike raises his eyebrows. “I never would’ve guessed.” Will lets out a small laugh, and something in Mike gleams with pride. They watch as Max slowly guides El to move across the road, rocky all the while. “I mean, for what it’s worth, I bet you probably looked cool.” 

“No way,” Will denies, “I felt like an idiot. I could barely stand half the time.” He leans forward to rest his elbows on his brought-up knees. “At least El has both feet on the board.” 

Mike nudges at him. “Don’t worry,” he says, “I would’ve been impressed.” 

Will shakes his head again, glancing away and smile looking something akin to fond, and Mike – can’t help the thought that creeps into his brain. 

“Ridiculous,” Will murmurs. 

Mike wants to kiss him. 

“Hey!” Max calls, and they both look up. She has her skateboard in her hands, and Dustin is already off the ground, dusting himself off. “Stop flirting and let’s go.” 

Mike can feel his face heating up, and it can’t be blamed on the setting sun, the sky turning darker by the minute, and he opens his mouth to protest that they were not, unfortunately, flirting, even though he wouldn’t be protesting if they were. 

God. He’s half-afraid there might be hearts circling around his head. 

Will beats him to it, however, to say, “Yeah, hold on.” 

And it’s nothing worth being hung up on, but Mike thinks too hard about it anyway, with the lack of clarification or denial that Will offers, that no, they weren’t flirting, and it’d be crazy to imply otherwise, and it feels all the more incriminating, as if they’d been caught doing something they weren’t doing at all, making his stomach twist inside out when Will doesn’t go on to correct them. Mike’s palms feel weirdly sweaty. 

Will doesn’t say any of that, and instead looks down at him when Mike still hasn’t gotten up from the ground. It hurts, a little, to look at him, when the sun shadows his edges, and Mike gets a rush of something indiscernible in his lungs. 

Mike – really wants to kiss him. 

“Are you coming?” 

“Yeah,” Mike croaks, and pushes himself off the cement. 

“Ferris Bueller?” 

Lucas purses his lips. “Nah.”

Dustin pulls out another tape. “The Shining?” 

“That got old after the first time.” 

“Dead Poets Society?” 

Lucas raises his eyebrows. “Right now?” 

Dustin shrugs. “Robocop?”

“What,” Max interrupts, “the fuck is this movie line-up?” 

That night finds them scattered around Mike’s basement once again, and, for once, the room feels all the more full with Will next to him, who tries to chuck popcorn into Lucas’ mouth, while Dustin pulls out a miniature Tower of Pisa of cassette tapes. It wobbles vicariously, and Mike is half-surprised it hasn’t clattered to the ground yet. 

“Classics,” Dustin reasons, “masterpieces, the greatest ones to have come out that we haven’t watched to death.” 

Mike gives Dustin a look. “You’re including Robocop in that?” 

“Hey,” Lucas protests, “Robocop is good.” 

El frowns. “What’s Robocop?” 

Dustin shoves the tape into the player. 

Despite himself, Mike can’t bring himself to pay too much attention to the movie, with Will next to him and their arms firmly pressed together, and El is ultra-focused on the screen while Dustin pipes up with trivia facts and Lucas hushes him, until Max whacks them both with a throw pillow. 

It is, undeniably, the most at-home he has felt in so long, as cheesily and embarrassingly true the admission turns out to be, because being around Will usually has him feeling cheesy and embarrassing. He can’t find it in him to care too much, anyway. Not with Will beside him, a warm weight, welcome even in the swell of summer. Having him so close is worth sweating buckets. Is that gross? Is – 

Will’s head lolls to the side, and Mike’s mind abruptly shuts off. 

He blinks as he ditches any guise of paying attention to the movie, instead turning to his right, where Will’s head is leaned back, spine slumped against the back of the sofa and oh-so heavily into Mike’s side. It’s unabashed, unrelenting, only the kind of no-preservation, his-entire-weight-on-Mike’s-right-arm that comes with being asleep. Will’s asleep. 

His face is faced up to the ceiling, nearly, eyes shut, and hair falling over his forehead, and Mike curls his fingers into his palm. His breathing comes out steady, and his face is clear of any tension. 

It feels selfish, the satisfaction that, even after so long, Will feels at ease to fall asleep on his shoulder – his, ditching Dustin’s, who sits on his other side, and instead leans into Mike, Mike, Mike, and it’s probably self-absorbed, but he doesn’t care, he decides, he doesn’t care, because it’s his shoulder that Will’s pressing his cheek into, and Mike can feel the puffs of his warm breath ghosting his bare skin. 

Take that, Dustin. 

Which is – wow. Maybe he needs to do some self-evaluating. He did not peg himself as the jealous type. 

“Is he sleeping?”

“Uh,” Mike replies, looking away from Will, to where El peers up at him from the floor. He might be blushing. He feels oddly caught. “Yeah. Yeah, he’s – he’s asleep.” 

They wince when there’s a startling crash, followed by shooting, from the T.V., and Lucas scrambles to lower the volume. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters, the remote falling out of his hands and onto the floor with a loud clatter, and it skids away from him, before Max groans and grabs it herself. 

They nervously glance to Will. He’s always been a light sleeper, jumpy during the night, and prone to waking up. 

He doesn’t budge. 

Lucas lets out a sigh of relief, and Max leans over to flick at him. 

The movie continues, but Mike is oddly absent from it, anyway, most of his mind still stuck on Will beside him, every small movement he makes, the way his hand twitches once or twice, the sigh he quietly lets out, before adjusting. He hardly moves away from Mike. Mike’s arm feels like T.V. static. 

It’s warm, in the summer night, air conditioning pooling into the basement. Mike feels strangely aflame with Will on him like this, and he can’t tell if it’s weird to feel so – strange about it, heart thumping wildly while Will is asleep. It almost feels oddly exploitive, feeding into Mike’s batshit, crazy delusions, like more movie nights where it’s just the two of them, where they rewatch Star Wars for the hundredth time until Will falls asleep on his shoulder and Mike is freaking out over it like an insane lunatic. 

Will’s hand twitches between them again. He wonders what Will could possibly be dreaming about right now. He thinks way too hard about holding his hand. 

But that’s – weird, to hold someone’s hand without their permission, probably, so he keeps his insane lunatic hands to himself and tries to focus on the movie. 

And, to the surprise of a grand total of no one, he fails miserably. 

It’s hours later when Mike wakes up. 

Or maybe it’s only been a few minutes, an hour at most, since everyone else had pulled out their sleeping bags, and Mike couldn’t bring himself to disturb Will out of his slumber, vouching to instead remain as Will’s makeshift, human pillow, and stay stuck to the couch. 

It’s much later, now, when Mike wakes up, the side of his neck sore and met with silence. 

The basement is low of light, quiet with only the rush of the air conditioning and Dustin’s subtle snoring, and he lets out a heavy exhale as he shifts on the couch, wincing when his neck protests at his moving. The scattered sleeping bags on the floor barely move, from Lucas’ limbs tossed about next to Max, who burrows deep into her own bag. El has a single arm outstretched to the coffee table, where Dustin’s head lies as he snores, mouth agape and drooling. Mike grimaces. 

Will is nowhere to be found. 

And, listen, he knows that it’s definitely embarrassing and probably codependent, the quick flash of panic he feels, before he rubs at his eyes and remembers when and where they are. He thinks he’s allowed to be a little embarrassing and codependent, though, after saving the literal world on four different occasions. 

Mike gets up, groaning at the way his bones sound reminiscent of Rice Krispies, his joints simultaneously snapping, crackling, and popping as he stretches. 

He contemplates himself, before making his way up the stairs. 

He can’t help the relief he feels, anyway, despite his reasonable part of the brain scolding him for his dramatics, when he steps into the kitchen and finds Will at the sink. 

“Can’t sleep?” 

Will looks away from where he had been staring out the uncurtained window, nearly blue in the moonlight when he shrugs. His hair is slightly tussled, and Mike wants to do something crazy, like run his hands through it. Will would let him, probably, if he asked. The thought feels wildly criminatory. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs, the word squished and crowded in his barely-moving mouth. Mike wants – a lot, actually, and he quickly looks away. “I woke up a few minutes ago. You?” 

“Same.” He’s half-talking to the ground, and turns away to instead look at the walls. He probably looks insane. “I woke up just now, though.” 

Will nods, and silence falls over them. 

It’s nothing uncomfortable, but Mike gets the urge to talk anyway, that impulsive part of him that amps up to one-hundred when he’s around Will, ever since he came back, the dam of thoughts he’s been trying to mop up that simply isn’t working. The silence tempts it, he would say, as though all the sane, rational parts of him are for naught when Will’s alone and looking at him in the dead of night. He has nice eyes. 

Mike feels nervous. It’s strange, it’s stupid, but there’s no other way to say it; some weird mixture of nervousness, the fright of something he’s trying to hold back slipping out of his mouth, because everything in him begs to confess anything and everything when it comes to Will. Some part of him begs to go right back downstairs, stop entertaining the crazy half of him and fall back asleep, lest he confess something he shouldn’t. 

Mike is a lot of things. Stubborn. Persistent. Annoying. 

Impulsive and insane, probably, because he’s still standing there like a dummy, trying so hard not to stare at Will and wax poetic about his – eyes, or something, which he definitely and absolutely and totally has not done before. Anyway. 

Mike’s a lot of things. Nervous. Crazy. 

An idiot. 

“Wanna sneak out?” 

Will blinks. “Yeah?” 

Mike swallows, before shrugging, trying to shoulder off the nervousness piling up on him. This is Will, after all. If nothing else, he’s seen Mike willingly eat dirt when they were seven. He breathes in. “Yeah. Why not?” He can definitely list a few reasons why not, starting with I am and ending in madly in love with you, let’s kiss immediately. 

Will’s mouth tilts into a smile. 

“Why not,” he agrees. 

Mike might become the main contributor to air pollution, at this rate. 

The streets are awfully empty as they ride around, no real conversation as they wander around, and it’s halfway through some ballad on the radio that they head off to Lover’s Lake. 

The irony is not lost on Mike, who turns a deep, deep red every time he thinks about the implication of admitting he and Will had gone off to Lover’s Lake, together, all alone, in the middle of the night. He can vaguely hear the universe laughing at him. 

Will’s fingers don’t tap along to the quiet song crooning on the radio, but his eyes are wide and glossy in the shine of the moon, and Mike sneaks in more glances than he probably should, at the risk of any nearby mailboxes. He can’t help it. 

There is not much talk, this time, but it’s still good. They’ve never needed words to talk, anyway, and he’s missed this, he thinks, and it’s probably a weird thing, to miss shared silences of all things, but he likes the lack of demand for things to be spoken. Will’s never been demanding in any way, and especially not now. Mike’s missed it – missed him. 

His hand is steady on the steering wheel when he thinks about it, and it shouldn’t be a surprise. It had been living under his skin for so long, and it’s an easy admission, or it should be, knowing that he’s missed Will. 

Of course, he’s missed Will, but so much more achingly than he’s missed anyone else. He supposes the full force of it hadn’t come until he had Will next to him again, and suddenly he’s being hit with the force of a semi truck running him over eight times in great succession with the realization that he missed Will. He missed Will. 

He missed Will.

God, he’s, like, sweating at the thought. His hands are unnervingly clammy. It’s gross. 

“Oh, wow,” Will says, and swings the door open to step out. 

The lake is, surprisingly, lacking anyone else, shocking for a summer night like this. The waters are an inky, midnight blue, the eye of the moon shining back on the surface, and the ripple of unseen waves reaching out to the shore. It’d be more terrifying than beautiful if Will weren’t here. 

Mike discreetly wipes his palms on his pants as he follows, breathing in the cool air, and the rustle of trees washes over the sky, the welcoming presence of the glittering stars and the flickering fireflies, glowing in and out of sight. Will pays no attention to the rocky exhale Mike lets out, and instead takes a seat on the hood of the car. 

“We should’ve brought food,” Mike comments, although he can’t tell if that’s a weird thing to think, if it makes coming out here together more intentional than it already is, if it implies that he’d been thinking about it, if he’s thinking too hard about it, if it’s weird of him to suggest something that makes this all feel so much more date-like. 

“Next time,” Will replies easily, because he isn’t insane and on overdrive. Mike – doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. 

And – next time. God, Mike’s heart might just jump out of his throat, because Will said next time, and Mike’s already thinking about it, sneaking out again and grabbing food beforehand, sharing drinks on the hood of his car and staring at the swipe of grease on Will’s lower lip, and the thought that maybe, possibly, Will also likes him, would also like to spend time together, maybe would also like to hang out some more. 

Mike pauses. Maybe Will would like to hang out some more? They’ve been best friends for nearly thirteen years, Mike is losing his fucking mind, no one told him being in love would make him lose all his IQ points so – 

“Are you okay?” 

Mike breaks out of his thoughts to look at Will. “I – yeah,” he bobs his head in a nod. “‘Course. Why?” 

Will shrugs. “You’ve just been standing there for the past, like, two minutes.” 

Mike resists the urge to walk into the lake. “Oh,” he says, cheeks warming. “Right.” 

He tries not to feel painfully obvious as he takes a seat next to Will on the hood of the car. The radio still plays quietly, and it is a little serene, a little amazing, Mike would like to say, and Will, thankfully, brushes off the bizarre nature of Mike and looks out onto the lake. 

It’s beautiful. It barely compares to Will. 

He can’t bring himself to look away. 

He does, however, have a shred of dignity to preserve, and quickly looks to the sky when Will turns to him, and he feels like an idiot, but he can’t help it, how scatterbrained and stupid he gets around Will. He doesn’t know how to stop it. He isn’t sure if he wants to. 

“Hey,” he murmurs, after a moment, “there’s Brian.” 

Will lets out a small snicker, and there’s the familiar rush of pride. “Right next to Earl,” he adds, and Mike nods. 

“The gang’s all here,” he says, and when he glances at Will, his smile gleams in the night. Mike wants – to kiss him. 

Crickets chirp in the night, and there’s some sort of string-song playing on the radio, not the sort either of them ever really listen to, but it’s nice, in the tranquil night. Mike doesn’t know how he’ll survive without nights like these, he thinks, when Will isn’t there to name stars with him and never waver when Mike acts like an idiot. 

“What’re you thinking about?” 

Mike blinks, and turns to Will. He’s already looking at Mike, head tilted and curious in the look of his eyes, how he stares at Mike. It makes him feel peeled open, raw and revealed, because Will has always been able to see right through him. 

For that, he knows there’s no real use to lie. “Everything, I guess,” he answers, because it’s true. Will is, kind of, everything, and – it’s cheesy and terrible, the kind of stuff that his mom gets teary-eyed over on the television, but, most of all, it’s true. 

Mike internally grimaces. Is this what love does to people? Make them unbearably embarrassing? He can’t take it, if it does. 

Will lets out a hum. “Anything in particular?” 

You, Mike wants to say immediately. He, of course, does not say this, because he might be the most embarrassing person alive right now, but he’ll cling onto the last bit of dignity he has. 

“I don’t know.” Mike chews on his lip. “You, I guess.” 

Scratch that – scratch everything. This is humiliating. This is mortifying. Mike is going to set himself on fire. 

“Oh,” Will says, and he sounds surprised. He probably shouldn’t be, because Mike’s terrible, very bad, no-good crush is obnoxiously and ridiculously obvious. “Really?” 

Mike swallows. “Yeah,” he replies, and his voice sounds awkward, even to his own ears. “Just – I’m going to miss you.” 

It doesn’t cover half of it. 

Will knocks his shoe into Mike’s. “I’m right here, you know.” 

“I know,” and it’s half the problem, too, because he knows, and he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it, about Will being right there, right next to him, eyes staring deep into his soul, and Mike is beginning to think the Byers’ have a weird staring superpower or something. “Um. What about you?” 

Will stares at him. “What?” 

Mike chews on his cheek. “What are you thinking about?” 

Will shrugs. “You,” he says. 

Mike can feel his heart still. “Oh,” he returns stupidly. “That’s – um.” It feels like jumping straight into an erupting volcano when he asks, “What – what about?” 

“You’ve been zoning out a lot,” Will observes, and Mike can feel his face heat up. He wouldn’t be surprised if he were on fire, right now. It’d be on par with the ridiculous shit going on in his head, right now. 

He doesn’t pry, but Mike can feel the unsaid question anyway. “I’m okay,” he says, and it’s the truth. “I’ve just been thinking.” 

Will’s smile is coy and entirely, unfairly attractive. “About me?” 

It’s said like a joke. “Yeah,” Mike responds honestly. “About you.”

The surprise comes back again, it seems, Will blinking once, twice, and Mike can’t tell if it’s hopeful thinking that Will turns a little pink. It makes him look all the sweeter, the more touchable. Mike wants him under his arms again. 

Will glances away, before looking back at him, as if he can’t help it. Mike hopes he doesn’t look like a fool, right now, biting his lip to hold back any more confessions that teeter on the tip of his tongue, and Will’s eyes on him are so heavy. Mike resists the urge to fiddle with his hands. He presses his fingers into his thighs. They’re sweaty again. 

“That’s,” Will says, and doesn’t continue. His fingers twitch again, and Mike thinks about him again, sleeping on his shoulder and hands twitching, as if wanting to reach out for something. He almost wants to ask what he’d been dreaming about. 

“Sorry,” Mike says, and it comes out as a whisper, “I didn’t –”

“No, it’s – it’s not – bad,” Will hurriedly tells him, “it’s not – I’m not mad, or anything. Or weirded out.” He bites his cheek, a nervous tic, and Mike wants to ask what there’s to be nervous about. It’s only just them. “I’m just confused, I guess.” 

Mike furrows his eyebrows. “About what?” 

Will brings up a hand to rub at his neck, sheepish when he shrugs again. “I don’t know,” he mumbles. The way his eyes keep flickering to Mike says otherwise. 

He’s nervous, is the thing, Mike can tell, and he doesn’t get it. Mike, at least, has his own ludicrous reasons, half of them having to do with the odd thump of his heart every time he merely thinks about Will, and Will – isn’t like that, not about Mike at least, or he’s pretty sure, except –

Will’s nervous. There’s no doubting it, with the bite of his cheek, how his hands have stopped twitching to instead be curled into a fist, the retreat and return of him looking at Mike. Undeniably, he’s nervous, but not negatively so, blushing high on his cheeks and not having moved away. 

It almost makes Mike hopeful, makes him think about their friends’ implications, the way Will has never shied away from any of it. It makes him feel stupid, but not upsettingly so. Stupid in the way Will makes him. Crazy, even, that weird, unknown way his heart twists and turns in his chest, the red-hot way his blood seems to course through him, now, the strangeness of it all, of his sweaty hands, his warm face, his heart. 

There’s no real mystery about it, if he were to be honest. There’s no actual question about it at all.

Mike swallows. 

“Can I kiss you?”

Will’s hand loosens. Mike wants to hold it. 

“Me?” He questions, eyes wide, as if there could possibly be anyone else, as if Mike has ever even – looked at anyone else, and Will – doesn’t seem upset. 

He certainly hasn’t climbed back into the car and demanded to be taken back, at least, which is a pretty good sign, Mike would say, even though it feels like he’s on the verge of a heart attack. 

“Yeah,” he says, humiliating in the way his voice cracks straight in the middle of the word. Will doesn’t seem to care. “Um. You.” 

“I,” Will responds, and they stare at each other. “Really?” 

He sounds – 

He sounds hopeful. 

Mike presses his fingers into his thighs. “Yeah. Really.” 

“Oh,” he says, and Mike watches him swallow, the motion of his throat, and he blinks sporadically, before he seems to jerk back into his body, and his hand moves toward him, and then, “I – I mean, yeah, yes – you – yes. Please.”

The crickets chirp, and the fireflies glow, and the lake reaches out, and Mike reaches out, and then his hand is on Will’s shoulder. He swallows. His body has never felt so heavy. He’s never been so in-the-moment. 

“Okay,” Mike breathes out. 

Will leans into him. 

It’s quiet, and the trees brush against each other, but it’s lost in the small hitch of Will’s breath, the way he exhales, the tide of his body when he moves closer. Mike’s hand clutches at his shoulder, and he can’t help it when he touches, another hand on his arm, and then their lips brush, and – Will’s kissing him. 

His mind feels endlessly dizzy, doomed, and he forgets himself, for a second, when his shoulders slump from relief and into Will, holding him a little tighter, a little closer, and Will’s hand brushes against his side, before pressing into his ribcage, against the flighty bird of Mike’s heart.

Will’s mouth is a little chapped, soft anyway, and it only lasts a moment until they lean away, but Mike is a little insatiable at times, and moves in again to kiss Will, tilting his head to the right and shivering under Will’s touch. It’s soft and sincere and sweet, almost, the underlying sleep and summer that haunts both of them but feels all the better on Will. 

Will’s hands come up to cup at Mike’s face, and Mike thinks he could probably drown in the heat of his palms, and he can feel his heart swoon in its place. Will is caring in this regard, too, when he kisses, tentative in the swipe of his tongue and fingers sliding into Mike’s hair, and it’s everything, and Mike was right, he’s never doubting himself again, because Will is everything. 

Mike’s going to miss this, he thinks. He won’t be able to live after this, he knows it, he’s never going to be the same after Will’s mouth has been on him. He’s going to miss this. He’s going to miss Will terribly. 

“Hey,” Will mumbles, low-lidded and swallowing when he leans away. 

“Hi,” Mike replies, feeling vaguely like a balloon. His brain has never felt so empty.

“Hi,” Will grins. It’s amazing. It’s the best thing Mike’s ever seen. He wants to kiss it immediately. “I’m right here.” 

Mike bites at his lip. “Yeah.” He scoots a little closer, knees bumping, and Will is warm. He’s warm, like he always is, and Mike has never felt so present. He beams. “I know.” 

Will smiles. “Okay. Kiss me.”

Mike’s never been able to resist him, and there’s no mystery about it at all.