Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Will dreams of a knight in a green forest. A young king with a guitar where his sword should be. An armored knee against a castle-stone floor. A black lake, as deep as a set of eyes. High, freckled cheekbones. A brush of lips against his knuckles, his neck, creeping up towards his mouth but never reaching it.

He wakes up alone.

It shouldn’t feel as cold as it does. Will wakes up alone every day, to these same blankets and these same walls, with his head pressed into these same pillows. Mike’s having been there leaves a mark, though, an indent in a pillow and a crumple in the sheets and the memory of warmth when Will presses his hand into the mattress.

He’d almost ruined everything last night. He’d gone too far, forgotten self-control. Thrown himself at Mike because he thought that a handful of easily misinterpreted ‘signals’ meant something.

Except maybe they did. You don’t know what you’re doing to me, Will.

No, Mike, he thinks, frowning at the empty pillow in front of him, I don’t know. How would I know?

And in the meantime, what the hell is Mike doing to him? Cooking him breakfasts, playing his favorite song, pledging his life in a sweaty bar, giving him his clothes, calling him beautiful…then asking if they can just watch the movie. Then acting so crushed by his own choice that Will can’t hold onto any of his anger or embarrassment. He can only hold onto Mike. That dazzling mess of a man.

Will would let Mike give him this emotional whiplash forever. He probably will. That’s the life he’s used to – everything just out of reach. Better to half-have than completely-lose. That’s why he said yes to Mike staying last night, even as he agonized over the closeness.

Speaking of, his apartment smells like cinnamon, and there’s someone playing guitar out on the landing.

He takes his time getting dressed, listening to the starts and stops of Mike on the other side of his door. He’ll pluck his way through a riff, then pause, then change the ending, then start all over again. There’s some humming that Will catches too, and some muttering and cussing and groaning. Will didn’t know songwriting was such a torturous affair.

Once he’s put on a good enough outfit and attempted to mentally prepare for the sight of Mike playing his guitar on his porch, he opens the door.

There’s a blur of startled movements and before Will can get a good look at him Mike is whirling around and leaning over the railing to catch something. The amount he’s leaning freaks Will out and he grabs the back of his jacket without thinking, yanking him back until they both ram into the side of his doorway and stumble forward. “Shit!” Mike yelps. Will just groans, his spine aching where it hit the wall. “Oh my god, Will, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he guesses, wiggling around awkwardly to assess the damage. “I’m fine.”

“I am so sorry,” Mike continues. He looks sheepish and flushed from the cold morning air, and he plucks a guitar pick out of the corner of his mouth as he talks. “That was my bad.”

“What even happened there?”

“You, uh, spooked me a little and I knocked my journal off the railing.” Mike holds up said journal, open in his hands. His scruffy black curls flutter in the breeze. His acoustic guitar is hanging around his shoulders.

“Sorry I popped the songwriting bubble.”

Mike waves a hand. “Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t going very well anyways.”

Will shrugs. “I thought it sounded nice.”

There’s a sudden stiff anxiety that takes over Mike’s body, straightening him up with wide blinking eyes. Weird. “You were listening?”

“You are right outside my door,” Will justifies. “It’s not a very thick door.”

“Fair point. Didn’t think about that.”

Mike looks a little like he’s trying to shrink into his jacket, so Will decides to give him an out. “Why does my apartment smell like cinnamon?”

“Oh! I’m making coffee cake.”

“Right.” Will can’t stop a smile, shaking his head just a little because this man confuses and charms the hell out of him. This is all he can do about it. Smile and shake his head. “Why else?”

“Someone’s gotta feed you,” Mike says with a proud little sideways grin, squishing past him to head inside. “As long as it hasn’t burnt.”

Turns out it hasn’t, and in fact what Mike takes out of his oven is some of the best coffee cake Will has ever had. For some reason that makes him a little mad. He’s in a very strange mood this morning. Mike’s not helping in the slightest because he won’t stop helping, serving Will fresh baked goods on plates and pouring him glasses of orange juice and cleaning up everything without giving him a chance to. They’re right back to where they were before last night’s strange non-admissions.

Only it doesn’t make Will giddy anymore. It just makes him confused and frustrated and tired. He feels like he’s run into a wall. Like before, all these things Mike did were fun and sweet and potentially meaningful, and that potential was intimidating but exciting. Promising. Then last night had come along and Mike had slammed on the brakes so hard there were skid marks on Wills’ heart, and now he doesn’t know what these things mean. Because Mike is too scared to acknowledge them and Will is too scared to force him to and suddenly he’s 14 years old again, and fear is controlling his life.

“I think I need to go grocery shopping,” he says as he puts the orange juice away in his woefully empty fridge.

“Me too,” Mike responds immediately from the sink, drying his hands on a dish towel and appearing at Will’s side. Will shuts the fridge door and steels himself with a deep breath.

“Don’t you have work today?” He knows he doesn’t. Mike shakes his head.

“No, I got the weekend off, remember?”

“The grocery store down here probably isn’t very convenient for you,” Will tries. He can’t look at Mike while he’s saying it because he knows once he understands what’s happening he’ll look like a sopping wet kitten with a gun to its head. But Will just can’t do it today. He’s sure he’ll be fine tomorrow, ready to take whatever Mike is willing to give and not wish for more but today, he just can’t. He needs a moment alone.

“Oh,” Mike says after a moment. “Wait, Will, what’s- are you okay?”

He leans around to try to look Will in the eyes, but Will avoids it, turning to head for his desk and grab his coat. “Don’t worry about it, Mike,” he says because he can’t lie to him.

“Will, hold on,” Mike is saying, rushing across the apartment after him. He blocks his way out the door. Will stubbornly focuses on shoving his feet into his shoes. “Will, look at me. Please.”

It’s the ‘please’ that gets him, in that soft and broken voice that cuts right through his chest. He looks up.

There’s the sopping wet kitten with the gun to its head.

“Can you please just let me go?” Will begs. “I just need an afternoon. To myself.”

“Did I do something?” Mike asks and that pisses Will off because he should know exactly what he did. He’s just not acknowledging it because then he’d have to face the step of making it right. And that’s too much for Mike Wheeler.

“I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow,” Will bites out, sidestepping him to open the door. Mike grabs his arm and pulls him back around.

“Wait, please, Will, I- I know- I didn’t-” His expression is pleading and his curls are swept over his forehead in just the right way and his grip on Will’s arm is burning warm even though his coat. But all his perfect mouth can do is stutter out the beginnings of sentences, apologies, confessions, whatever. Will doesn’t know what he’s trying to say because he won’t come out and say it.

He pulls his arm away. “Bye, Mike.”

There must have been something sharp in his voice because Mike doesn’t try to stop him, doesn’t run after him as he lets the door fall shut and makes his way downstairs. He tries not to think about the fact that he’s leaving Mike in his own apartment with no specific instructions on how or when to leave. He just needs out before he loses his mind or gets sucked back into that happy little orbit.

It’s far colder than he expected it to be but he’s glad for it, the painfully dry freeze distracting him from all his overdramatic guilt and angst. His sneakers crunch down the gravel alleyway until he reaches the sidewalk and takes a hard right. Mike is going to be fine. He can handle a little time for self-reflection. They’re both going to be fine.

He repeats the thought like a mantra, or maybe a prayer, as he tramps along the Chicago streets towards the nearest grocery store. They’re both going to be fine. Mike is his best friend. He’s not going to let his overactive imagination get in the way of the most important friendship he’s ever had, then lost, then miraculously regained. He doesn’t need more. He can’t want more. He’s going to be fine.

The grocery store is as busy as one should assume for a Sunday afternoon. He squeezes past carts filled to the brim and mothers with crying children to collect enough to fill a basket. The memorized feeling of Mike’s arms around him in bed last night, wrapping him in his own fluffy duvet and a bone-deep warmth, crowds into his mind.

Mike is attracted to him. Will is almost sure of it. What he’s not sure of is if Mike is sure, or even aware, or at all happy to feel the way he does. Maybe he’s ashamed of it. Maybe he can’t handle the idea of being undeniably queer, in practice, with another man. Maybe he just wishes it were someone other than Will. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Will is sick of maybes, and he’s sick of fear, and he’s so sick of all of it but what is he even supposed to do? Not be in love with Mike Wheeler?

He throws a bag of carrots into his basket with way too much aggression.

No, he’s not going to fall out of love with Mike and no, he’s not going to cut him out of his life. There’s a chance he could stop listening to his album on repeat while he draws, but it’s a slim one. He’s a lost cause.

By the time he gets to the cashier station he's worked himself into a familiar anxious mess, brain pinballing wildly between frustration and yearning. He keeps getting unsolicited images of Mike in armor in his mind’s eye. He’s about to lose his shit.

So he checks out, heaves his paper bag of groceries into his arms, and walks himself right to the nearest pay phone to call Jonathan.

The phone rings for a while, and it’s not Jonathan’s voice on the other end when it finally picks up.

“Jonathan Byers’ phone, who is this?”

Will’s brain takes a second to process an old but familiar tone. “Nancy?”

There's a staticky pause. “Will?”

“Oh my god.” There’s no fucking way. “Nancy Wheeler. What are you doing picking up Jonathan’s phone?”

“Well,” Nancy says, inhaling. “He’s in the bathroom.”

“Ah,” Will says. “How kind of you to make sure his phone doesn't go unanswered.”

“Wouldn't want to leave a baby brother in need.” She’s good at this game.

“You’re such a great friend to him.”

“I try.”

He scoffs, leaning back against the wall. “Any chance he can get on the phone soon? Not that I don’t want to talk to you. I’m just kind of, uh, kind of in crisis at the moment.”

“He should be out any second.” The next pause is weighted. “Listen, Will, I know it’s not really my business, but I have to ask. Is this crisis anything to do with my brother?”

He could lie, say no and feign offense that she would assume such a thing when he obviously has a million other things in his very full life that could be giving him crisis. But Nancy knows Mike, and he’s too tired to put up a ruse. “How did you know?”

“Bad feeling,” Nancy answers, sighing a little. “What did he do?”

That’s not an easy question to answer. He doesn’t exactly want to go into the vivid details of him pinning her brother to a couch only to get brutally rejected – that’s violently embarrassing and not at all information he’d want to hear about his own brother. He does, however, know from a previous conversation with Jonathan that Nancy is aware of Mike’s queerness. “Sent some mixed signals.”

Nancy hums. “So, he’s being a coward.”

Will blinks at the wall across from him in surprise, then laughs in disbelief. “You said it.”

“I figured.”

“It’s weird because he’s usually the bravest person I know,” Will says, instinctually jumping to Mike’s defense. He remembers watching Mike take on playground bullies twice his size, refusing to let their taunting go unanswered like Will did. He'd always been that brave defender. He still is, despite it all.

“You would think that, wouldn't you?” It’s a comment that makes him stiffen in offense – on Mike’s behalf, not his own – but there's no actual bite to it. Nancy sounds bemused, a little wistful. “Mike is brave, you’re right. He’s spitfire and gasoline. Always so ready to yell and protect everyone. But let me ask you something – how often have you seen him cry?”

Will’s entire body pauses. It takes him far too long to think of an answer. “He used to get so angry at your mom that he’d tear up.”

Nancy laughs. “Yeah, when he was seven. Anything older?”

Nothing comes to mind. Not a bike crash, not a failed exam, not a fight with his family – not even the day Will moved away. Mike doesn't cry. Not in front of Will, at least. “I don't… I don't know.” It’s somehow a deeply shameful admission.

“I worry about him sometimes,” Nancy responds softly, almost like her mind is elsewhere, with her brother – wherever he is after Will abandoned him. “I worry about him all the time, actually. He holds onto so much and he never lets himself really feel any of it.”

She pauses and Will can’t think of a single thing to say. He’s never really seen Mike cry. Ever.

“And, look, I’m not trying to make excuses for him,” Nancy continues. “Just because he has issues acknowledging his vulnerabilities doesn't mean you should suffer. He needs to buck the hell up.” She huffs slightly. “I want to believe that he will. I’d like to tell you that he will.”

There’s a distant voice on the other end of the line, the shuffling of fabric and a muffled conversation before Nancy says: “Okay, Jonathan’s back. Sorry if I said too much.”

“No,” Will says quickly, before she hands the phone off. “Thank you, Nancy.”

“You deserve the world, Will,” she tells him. “And I know this is so, so selfish of me to ask but…just give him one more chance, okay? He-” She cuts herself off with a tiny exhale that crackles the phone line. “Just one more chance.”

Will would give Mike a million more chances, but he’s not going to tell her that because he doesn't want to sound like the doormat that he is in front of the Nancy Wheeler. “Okay.”

“Thanks, Will. We’ll talk more later. I want to hear about the publishing job!”

A smile makes it onto his face despite his intense urge to start sobbing. “Okay, Nancy. Later.”

There’s another round of shuffling, and then his brother’s familiar scratchy tone. “Hey, bud. You alright?”

“I don't know,” Will answers honestly. “Nancy’s in your apartment.”

“You noticed.” Jonathan sounds so done with his shit already and he’s barely even started. “She spent the night, we’re back together, end of conversation. Your turn.”

“That is so not the end of that conversation!” Will gasps, hitting his hand against the pay phone wall. “When did this happen? How? Have you told mom?”

“She’s my next call. Stop distracting.”

“Maybe I need a good distraction. Did you tell her you still love her?”

Jonathan groans. “Yes, I did. Now-”

Will cuts him off with a gleeful laugh, for a moment forgetting his own woes. “Jonathan!! That’s amazing! What did she say?”

“What did Mike say?”

That knocks the wind right the fuck out of him. He falls dead silent, staring at the wall in front of him and gaping. He doesn't recover for multiple seconds. “That,” he manages eventually, “is the meanest thing you have ever done to me.”

“Sorry.” At least he sounds genuinely apologetic. “So… you haven't said anything?”

“No, I haven't said-,” Will snaps, then huffs and knock his head back against the glass. “Everything is terrible. Well, everything was terrible. Nancy gave me some insight.”

He has never seen Mike cry. The thought keeps cycling around his brain. It feels somehow connected to the fact that he’d practically had to force Mike to talk about his own interests yesterday, instead of just make everything about Will. Mike didn't like things to be about him. Or if it had to be, he liked to present a very specific, controlled version of himself. A version with no weaknesses, no needs, only an unending well of charm and helpfulness. It kinda made Will sick to think about. He’d just let Mike do all that for him.

There had to be something he could do. Something that Mike couldn’t stop him from doing.

“Yeah?” Jonathan is waiting for him to explain, but his mind is moving too fast for his mouth.

“Yeah. I think- I think I need to go home.”

“Are you not home right now?”

“I'm at a pay phone, I ran away to- you know what, never mind. You don't need to know.”

“Okay? Are you gonna be alright?”

“Yeah,” Will says, partially to himself, nodding even though Jonathan can't see him. He needs to get out of this booth. He needs to do something. “I think so. We’ll see.”

Mike doesn’t know. Mike doesn't know.

“Congratulations again,” he rushes into the phone. “To you and Nancy. Have fun. Tell mom I say hi. Bye, love you.”

“Will- what- bye?” Jonathan stutters. “Love you too. Please be alright.”

“I will be.” He hangs and grabs his grocery bag off the floor before shoving out of the booth and sucking in a breath of frigid air. What can he do? Cook something? Paint something? Write a poem? He can't write poems. That’s an awful idea. He needs a better idea.

When he finally gets back to his apartment, it's empty. And cleaner than he left it. Because of course of it is.

On his kitchen counter, right by where he dumps his grocery bag, is the half-eaten coffee cake, covered in tin foil and garnished with a little folded note. Mike’s unmistakable handwriting scrawls across the front: Will.

Will shoves his groceries aside and picks up the note, unfolding it anxiously.

Dear Will,
Hi! Sorry if this is cheesy. And sorry about last night. And this morning. And every confusing thing I’ve ever done because I’m a complete mess that can’t seem to pull myself together when it comes to you. You deserve better. I’ll be better. See you tomorrow night, unless you don't want to see me, in which case just don't open the door when I knock and I’ll take the hint. Sorry again.
Yours,
Mike
P.S. The cake is best warm!!

There are multiple crossed out valediction attempts that Will can’t read, because somehow there were options more vulnerable than ‘yours.’ Will doesn't let himself linger on that.

He has until tomorrow night. A little over 24 hours.

He has an idea.

There’s no update about the Lord of the Rings job all through Monday, and Will is glad for it. He doesn't know how he’d handle an update either way without being able to immediately call Mike. Mike, who is on his mind from 9-5 and beyond as he tries to hide the piece he’s working on among the sketchy drafts for the cover he’s supposed to be making. He can’t decide if he’s still mad at him. He wants to be. The drawing is making it difficult, though.

He leaves his office building to no one loitering in the lobby and arrives home to no one loitering on his landing and starts to preemptively mope. Then get anxious. Then get mad. Then flop down on his bed and groan at his ceiling because it’s barely 6pm and Mike has a life. He feels immature and insane and so, so impatient. All he knows is that Mike better be ready to switch things up, or he is really going to lose it.

Switch things up. What does he mean by that, exactly?

What had he even been trying to do that other night, straddling Mike against his couch like someone with an ounce of real confidence?

He had been high. Just like when he’d been drunk on Halloween, physically unable to keep his hands off his handsome knight. Inhibitions released, Will is handsy. He’s learning that about himself.

He’s not high or drunk right now, nor does he plan to be. He wants to be dead sober for this. Whatever ‘this’ is about to be.

Someone knocks on his door at 6:27pm. It startles him so much that he almost shrieks, not because he hadn’t expected it but because he’d been so damned wound up waiting for it. Suddenly his heart is in his throat and the A3 colored pencil piece of his desk is the ugliest thing he’s ever made. He forces a deep breath.

It's Mike. He can handle Mike.

Slowly, purposefully, he moves calmly to the door and pulls it open.

Out on his landing is the most beautiful man he has ever seen. Mike is illuminated by the orange porch light and the soft yellow glow of Will’s own apartment, making his dark eyes shine and his highlighting his pale freckled cheeks. His lashes are long and gentle, his hair perfectly ruffled, overdo for a haircut that Will really does not want him to get. He’s wearing that stupidly handsome leather jacket and ratty black jeans, his acoustic guitar strapped to his back. There’s a cozy blue grandma sweater under the jacket, and this half-surprised, half-yearning look on his face.

“Hi,” he says, breathy and bewildered. He didn't think Will would open the door. Will wants to kiss him. He wants to kiss him so bad that saliva floods his mouth and he has to swallow before he speaks. Gross. Embarrassing. Stand up.

“Hi,” he manages, stepping aside. “Come on in.”

Mike enters, glancing at him multiple times as he passes before gently kicking his boots off in the entry hall and standing awkwardly in place. Will closes the door. The air is thick with a tension he’s desperate to break.

“Relax, Mike. It’s just me.”

Mike blinks at him, both hands gripping his guitar strap over his chest. “That’s kinda the problem.”

That should feel like an insult, but Mike is so hoarse and nervous that he almost smiles. “At least sit down.”

For some reason Mike nods as he slips the guitar off his shoulders to shed his jacket and sit gingerly on the couch. The more nervous he seems, the more Will wants to smile. It feels a little mean, but he can't help but think that Mike’s nerves point to something new. A break in the pattern of safe, meaningless flirtation. Mike takes a deep breath and starts to say something.

“I have something for you,” Will interrupts. Mike freezes with his mouth open, then frowns, then glances around like he’s forgotten his line and needs someone off stage to help him. Will almost laughs, affection bubbling in his chest.

“I don't need anything,” Mike finally manages to say, even as Will gets the piece he’s been working on off his desk and carries it to the couch. He sits next to him and offers it facedown.

“You don't have to need it.” He pushes the paper towards him until he finally takes it, giving him one more confused glance before turning it over and looking down.

It clearly takes him a second to process what he’s looking at, his brows inching together and upwards as his eyes rove carefully across the paper, his lips twitching. Then he smiles. Small at first but growing as he looks up and down the borders of the drawing, thumbs tracing and recognizing each detail in turn. Will could almost cry with relief. That’s the smile he’d wanted to see when he stayed up most of last night, frantically drawing.

The piece is all colored pencil, centrally focused on Mike as Will sees him when he’s on stage – which is to say glowing and joyful and handsome and bathed in light. He’s in motion, grinning at his deep blue guitar as he steps to the beat and strums some incredible riff, wearing his baggy jeans and a David Bowie T-shirt.

Surrounding him, meanwhile, is a hodge-podge of symbols and references from their childhood to now. Miniatures of Mike the Brave and Will the Wise, guitar picks, leaves of Lórien, a cardboard sword crossed with his current one. Mixtapes and microphones and tiny horses and the Holy Grail. A folded dungeon master screen. Clouds and a dragon he tried to draw like a medieval monk would have. African and European swallows. Branches of the white tree of Gondor. Some random hearts, too, which are the most embarrassing space fillers he could've possibly used. He swears he zoned out for those. Turned into his 13-year-old self, distracting himself in math by writing MW + WB in his notebook then scribbling it out so hard the page ripped.

“This is incredible,” Mike says finally, looking at him then the art then him again, then the art again. “Will, I don't even- this is insane. Is that me?”

Will has to laugh. “Of course it is. Who else?”

“I don't know, it looks like me, I just-,” Mike stutters, attention snapping back to him. “I didn't want to assume.”

“Yes, Mike, it’s you,” Will confirms again. He presses his hands between his knees in an attempt to stay calm and steady, chewing the inside of his lip to cope with how badly he wants to surge forward. He needs to say what he needs Mike to hear. “You’re not just a knight in shining armor to me, okay?”

Mike’s grin falters, and he sits up a little. “What?”

“I drew this because I wanted you to see you how I see you,” Will forces out, incredibly determined despite the nerves fighting his every word. “It’s not about what you do for me. It’s just about you.”

Mike would look less affected if Will had punched him in the nose. He doesn't respond, just stares back at him with wide dark eyes and twitching brows.

“Mike.” Will reached out to place a hand on his knees, like Mike has done for him a million times. “I’m not saying I don’t care about the things you do for me. I love my free breakfasts and clean kitchen and I’m never going to stop you from carrying my stuff. I just…I want you to know that those things aren't what-“ He stops before he says what make me love you. “It’s about you.”

Mike’s face is an open book. Will can see him cringe back, a subtle panicked scramble to deny, deny, deny because this is too much and Will’s pressed too far into the parts of him that he’s so desperate to hide. Will squeezes his knee, hard, and lets the eye contact break so Mike can defuse without fear.

Please don’t run.

A few moments pass in agonizing silence. Then, finally: “Okay.”

His voice is wavering and quiet and he clears his throat afterwards. Will gets to look at him again. His eyes are wet.

His eyes are wet.

Before Will can process that further Mike blinks the unshed tears away and sits up straight, still holding the drawing between his hands like a priceless treasure. “Thank you,” he says, voice a little steadier. He swipes a finger across his forehead to pull a curl out of his eye, tucking it behind his ear. “I, uh, have something for you too.”

“Wouldn't have anything to do with the guitar, would it?” Will jokes, trying to shake off the cautiousness that had fallen over him. Mike had stayed. He’d accepted it. At least in words, even if he didn't genuinely believe it. That's okay. Will could keep telling him until he did.

Mike makes a face of exaggerated nervousness, gently placing Will’s drawing on the side table before picking up his guitar. “Maybe…would that be a bad thing?”

Will draws his hand off Mike’s knee to settle back against the arm of the couch, pulling his legs up to face Mike completely. “Not at all.”

“Phew.” Mike makes a big show of wiping nonexistent sweat off his forehead before adjusting his guitar in his lap to pluck at the strings and fiddle with the tuning knobs. His knee bounces a little before he stills it. Butterflies start to wake up in Will’s stomach, anticipating and tentative. “Alright,” Mike says after a moment, glancing up. “Be nice. I finished this an hour ago.”

A new song, then. Not a cover or a reworked meaning. A new song written just for this.

With one more nervous clearing of his throat, Mike starts to play a four-note riff. Two sets of two, up and then down, repeated. In the middle of the fifth cycle, he starts to sing. His voice is strong but gentle, raw and a little nervous, and Will can’t stop a sigh.

“Please forgive me, if I act a little strange, for I know not what I do,” he begins, eyes trained on his guitar. “Feels like lightning running through my veins, every time I look at you… every time I look at you.”

Holy shit.

Mike starts to play a punchier tune, still plucking individual low strings instead of strumming chords. “Help me out here, all my words are falling short, and there’s so much I want to say. Wanna tell you just how good it feels, when you look at me that way…” He hums an extension of the lyrics, glancing up at Will and immediately stumbling on the riff. A too-high note, an off-kilter twang of string against fret. He looks back down with redder cheeks. Will grins. “When you look at me that way.”

This is amazing. This is a dream. This is everything Will has ever wanted.

“Throw a stone and watch the ripples flow, moving out across the bay.” Mike’s voice is full and yearning and Will would be already across the couch right now if he didn't want to hear the rest of this song so badly. “Like a stone I fall into your eyes, deep into that mystery… deep into some mystery.”

His fingers move to the higher strings and tease out a circular pattern of notes, twanging and smooth and beautiful. “I got half a mind to scream out loud, I got half a mind to die. So I won’t ever have to lose you, boy, won’t ever have to say goodbye…I won't ever have to lie…won’t ever have to say goodbye.”

Mike is more than attracted to him. Mike might very well be in love with him.

Holy shit.

The high, circular music repeats a few bars before he switches to a simple, single note per beat background that brings his wavering voice to the center of attention. Every inch of Will’s skin is alive and buzzing.

“Please forgive me, if I act a little strange, for I know not what I do… feels like lightning running through my veins, every time I look at you… every time I look at you.”

His thumb teases out one more low note and he finally looks up, meeting Will’s eyes with an expression that hits him like a battering ram to the lungs.

“Every time I look at you.”

The music lingers in the air even after the guitar strings must have stopped moving, after Mike's lips have sealed together in a nervous, wavering line. They stay frozen in time, mirroring each other on Will’s shitty secondhand couch, Mike’s guitar now limp in his hands. There are no instructions for what to do next. They're in uncharted waters.

Will wants to move but he can't, because now that it’s quiet the doubt is creeping in. What if he’s getting overexcited again? What if Mike isn’t ready? What if he can’t trust his instincts, and he’s still too much, and there’s too much to be afraid of, and-

There’s an abrupt and discordant clatter of wood and sharp metal strings as Mike drops his guitar to the floor to dive across the couch and crash his lips into Will’s.

The butterflies in his stomach explode and force a whine up and out of his throat, one hand shooting up to Mike’s hair and the other grabbing a fistful of his sweater to drag him closer. Mike makes some kind of noise in response, a groan or maybe a sigh. He tilts his head until their lips align properly, pressing between Will's legs as deft fingers find his waist and pull him down the couch. Every single sense is overwhelmed, overpowered, overridden until all Will can be is Mike, Mike, Mike. He's like a paint tube in a pressure cooker, an outlet with too many appliances plugged in. He’s an explosion of color and light. He’s a fire hazard. He’s going to die but he’s going to die happy.

There’s another pitchy sigh from the back of Mike’s throat right into Will’s mouth and it flips a switch in his brain. He pushes himself up on one arm, nipping at Mike’s bottom lip and sitting up until he’s sat in his lap, legs wrapped tight around his waist. He shoves his hands up under Mike’s sweater and shivers at the contact when Mike does the same. Skin on skin on lips on skin on breath on hands on skin. This is real. This is happening. That’s Mike Wheeler’s hand, that’s his mouth, that’s his whine, those are his teeth. This is what it feels like when your dream boy wants you so bad he’s crying.

He’s crying.

Holy shit, Mike is crying.

Will has to actually brace himself against Mike’s shoulders to break the kiss, leaning back just far enough to see his face. He looks wrecked. That's the only word for it. He’s bright red underneath all those freckles, his hair mussed by Will’s hands and his shoulders bobbing as he pants through wet, parted lips. He’s gripping onto Will’s waist underneath his shirt like he’ll die if he goes anywhere. And there are tears pooling in his desperate dark eyes, staining his high cheekbones and curving across his jaw.

All he had to do to make Mike cry was kiss him.

He’s never felt more powerful. He’s certainly never felt more wanted. He tries not to let it get to his head.

“Mike?”

Mike’s fingers tighten around his waist, making him suck in a sharp, subtle inhale. His eyes rove over Will’s face with a reverent awe that puts his nightclub kneeling to shame. Then he leans in and presses his lips to his cheek, right under his left eye. He keeps going, each kiss to each new part of Will’s face as light as a feather, coaxing out a symphony of little huffs and sighs. His nose, his brow, his forehead, his jaw. Will feels like he’s about to pass out from erratic breathing.

“Mike-”

Those soft lips press against his mouth and shut him right up, a kiss that starts slow and easy until Mike’s tongue enters the equation and Will stops being able to think. Mike tastes like the salt of his own tears and Will is a deeply perverted, fucked-up man because that does something for him.

The kiss deepens and Will heaves a breath into it, digging his hands into Mike’s hair and pulling just because he can. Mike reacts beautifully, whining into his mouth and jolting forward, dropping him onto his back with his legs still tangled around Mike’s waist. He pulls again and Mike bites his lip. He drags his hand higher and pulls again and Mike’s mouth drops to his neck. Then further down past his collarbone, pulling his shirt so far it probably stretches out permanently. God is real. Magic is real. Dreams come true. He can have everything he ever wanted. Jesus Christ.

---

Mike doesn’t cry. Will makes him cry.

He also makes him fucking insane. Mike has never wanted to be closer to another human being in his entire life. ‘Want’ doesn’t feel like a strong enough word, and neither does ‘need’, and neither does ‘close.’ Try as he might no better words come to mind because Will fucking Byers is moaning into his mouth and its all he can do to not bite him so hard he bleeds. It’s an overwhelming and shockingly violent impulse he’s never had before and that’s probably because Will is the only person he’s ever needed this badly. He doesn’t care about anything else. He doesn’t care about the guitar he dropped on the floor or the friends he’s been avoiding all day or the crick in his neck from how he’s angling his head because Will is here and Will is kissing him and his only job in the entire world is making Will happy. In this moment, for all he cares, that’s the only goal he’s ever had.

“Mike,” Will breathes. He turns his head to the side, so Mike kisses the hollow of his neck, relishing his shaky inhale. Will’s hand tenses in his hair. “Mike.”

“Will,” Mike responds, head swimming. Will tugs his hair again and he can’t swallow the groan fast enough. He also can’t find it in himself to be embarrassed right now. Will’s other hand moves to his cheek, thumb swiping against dried tears. He’s barely even embarrassed about that part.

“Where are we going with this?”

Will’s voice is low and rough and Mike feels himself turn tomato-red, choking on his own spit and coughing slightly. “What?” There are many places they could go with this and Mike is not emotionally prepared for any of them. He could be, though. He could be.

Another tug at his hair, this time paired with a sheepish look. “I mean, like, in general.”

There are no more gears in Mike’s head to turn. They’ve all fallen out and left him empty and stupid and lovestruck beyond belief. “What?”

“Miiiikeee,” Will whines. He’s fighting a losing battle, trying to get Mike to understand half-questions and implications when every fill-in-the-blank answer still accessible to his broken mind is beyond inappropriate. “Why did you kiss me?”

Oh. “I needed to,” Mike answers easily. Will stares up at him with those wide hazel eyes.

“You needed to?”

Mike doesn’t understand what’s so noteworthy about the statement. It’s true. He’d sung his stupid song, and Will had looked so happy during it that everything had just fallen into place and it was the only way forward. Like a damn had broken inside of him and he’d drown if he didn’t latch onto Will’s mouth right that second. He needed to. He needed him.

“Like…you thought you needed to so I wouldn’t be mad?”

“What?!” Mike splutters, stiffening from where he’d relaxed over Will on the couch. “No! What?”

Will shrinks into his shoulders with an embarrassed little frown, eyes flitting away. “I don’t know, I just-”

“I needed you,” Mike interrupts, the words tumbling out in a desperate rush. “I need you so bad, Will, oh my god, it’s been driving me insane. You have no idea. I dream about this.”

Will stops trying to disappear into himself like a turtle and breaks into a barely restrained grin, his cheeks flushing pink. “Oh?”

“You-,” Mike starts to continue but Will curls his hand into a fist in the hair at his nape and he loses all capacity for speech, words turning into a wavering exhale. Fuck. “Oh my god, you piece of shit, you-” Will does it again and Mike can’t hold himself together anymore, tucking a hand under Will’s neck to pull him up into an open-mouthed kiss. Will gasps then giggles then sighs. Then the motherfucker pulls away.

“Okay, you need me,” he says cheekily. “Now what?”

“Now…,” Mike echoes dumbly, because trying to hold onto a thought right now is like trying to catch a massive slippery fish. “Now we do this forever.”

“Forever.”

“Yeah, forever.” Mike kisses him again because he has to. “Quit your job.”

Will laughs, a buzzing sensation against his lips that he wants to feel a million times over. From now on he has to experience everything Will says and does with at least two of his senses. At least. “So, a relationship?”

“Yes,” Mike agrees emphatically, because that’s the word fish that had been escaping him. “Yes, that, absolutely that. You can never do this with anyone else. I will fall on my sword.”

Will laughs again. Mike props himself up above him.

“I am not kidding.”

“Oh.” Will looks like he’s trying to be concerned but can’t fake it. “Okay. No one else.”

“Ever.”

“Ever,” Will agrees, placing a hand over his heart. “On the honor of my kingdom and crown.”

That’s a serious enough oath for Mike.

Three words, a responding oath, bubble up his throat and very nearly tumble out of his mouth without a thought. He bites his tongue right before they do. Will looks up at him in eyes he could live in, eyes like a planet unto themselves, flushed pink cheeks and hair pushed off his forehead and lips bitten raw. Will looks up at him like he’s something worth looking at, like it’s about him. Like he would read every stupid thing Mike ever writes and listen to him talk about medieval epic poetry for hours and show him a version of himself that looks like he’s actually worth loving. The words don’t come out by accident. He says them on purpose, with forethought and anxiety to spare. The power of Will overwhelms the pit of fear.

“I love you.”

The speed at which Will’s face changes knocks the wind out of him. Shock and disbelief and confusion and a moment of restraint, that same old denial of hope, like he won’t let himself hear that confession out of Mike’s mouth.

“Will, I love you,” Mike insists, pressing a palm to his cheek. “I’m in love with you. Whatever.” It’s not poetic and it’s not smooth but he has to get it out. “I have been forever, but I didn’t notice until Halloween, which is stupid because it’s all always been about you.”

The hesitance starts to crack, and something brighter starts to shine through. Will’s hand slides from his hair to the side of his neck, cradling his face.

“Every love song I’ve ever written is about you,” he admits finally, somehow finding it in himself to start crying again. He’s a wound rubbed raw and Will can see him bleed. He doesn’t care. He wants him to see. Something about Will bearing witness makes it okay, makes it beautiful. “I want to be everything you think I am.”

“I love you, too,” Will breathes, eyes roving over his face and it shouldn’t be so surprising but it is, because this is Will he’s looking at and Will he’s talking to and Will he’s caging against a ratty beige couch like he has any right to position himself above an angel on Earth. Will who held him, kissed him, drew him into something he barely recognizes but somehow sees in the mirror. Will who knows him, really knows him, and still wants him. Loves him.

It's a lot to take in.

“Are you okay?” Will’s thumb brushes soft against his cheek again. Mike blinks through his tears and finds that Will’s crying too, which for some reason makes him laugh.

“Yeah. I’m okay. Are you?”

Will smiles, a tear rolling down his cheek into the corner of his mouth. “Never been better.”

A memory crashes into Mike’s brain, a moment mere weeks ago on this very couch. Will, breathing shallowly and staring up at the ceiling. The cassette player churning out the raw confessions of Robert Smith over a background of iconic melodies and riffs. Why are you so far away, she said, why won’t you ever know that I’m in love with you? That I’m in love with you.

“Oh my god.” Mike is the biggest idiot that’s ever been born. “Oh my god, you tried to tell me this already.”

One of Will’s brows lifts ever so slightly, his head tilting against the arm of the couch. “You mean…?”

“Just Like Heaven,” Mike confirms, staring down at him a little slack jawed. “Weeks ago, when you played that out of nowhere and just kinda sat here. You meant- did you- did you?”

Will groans, pulling Mike down to hide his face in his neck. “Maybe. That’s embarrassing.”

“You’re embarrassed?” Mike splutters. “I’m the idiot! How did I miss that?”

“I have no idea,” Will laughs. “But we figured it out.”

He relaxes away from Mike’s neck, and the loss of warmth is upsetting. He leans down to press their foreheads together, making the tips of their noses brush. He could spend a lifetime just touching this man.

“What made you notice?”

“What?” he sighs dumbly.

“You said you didn’t notice until Halloween.”

Mike hums, pressing a kiss to Will’s nose. “All I wanted to do was dance with you. Or kiss you, but I tried to do that and it didn’t work.”

Will’s breath fans against his face and makes his stomach flutter. “You did?”

“Yeah,” Mike admits. “The music got in the way.”

“Oh.” It’s almost funny how breathless he sounds. His fingers twitch against Mike’s face. “So, you liked my outfit?”

Mike leans back a little to meet his eyes. “I swear I’ve already admitted that I did.”

Will shrugs, smiling with those big doe eyes, all innocent and completely misleading. “I’m just checking.”

“Yes, Will,” Mike surrenders, pressing a kiss to his neck and sucking lightly. “I fantasize about you dressed as an elven prince. Max is right, I’m insane.”

Will giggles a little. “What did Max say?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Was I distracting?”

“Yes.”

“And did you say every love song?”

Mike’s face burns like crazy. “Oh my god, Will, yes. You’re being evil.”

“I’m just checking,” he says again. Then he pulls Mike into a kiss that makes the entire world disappear.