Archive of Our Own

The Byers’ new house is closer to Mike’s.

This is a Development. 

Mike sees Will on the weekends. Mike sees Will on occasional school nights. Mike sees Will like he’s living with them again, stuffed into Mike’s back pocket, comfortably, reliably close.

“No fair,” Dustin bemoans. “Lucas and Will live closer to you now?” He shakes his head, burdened. “Great. I might as well skip town.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Max says, rolling her eyes. “I live far away too.”

Dustin says, “Yeah, but since when do you want to spend more time with the boys?”

Max considers. “Good point,” she says. Beside her, El laughs, looping their arms together.

Lucas grins down into his lunch tray. “It’s a conspiracy,” he jokes, and Max smiles wide and wicked.

Dustin has nothing to be concerned about. Mike had said it when they were twelve, and the truth of it hasn’t changed: they’re all his best friends - even Max, as much as he’d never admit it - and no matter of living closer or further from him is ever going to change that.

Only, well.

It’s not entirely the reality of the situation. They’re all his best friends, sure, but Will also happens to occupy a separate, mystery category that, while it certainly overlaps with best friend, is definitely a different thing altogether. Better yet, this other category Will exists in is most certainly affected by their newfound proximity.

Dustin has no reason to skip town, but Mike fears he might. 

Case in point: Will shows up to do homework together on a casual Tuesday afternoon, and Mike fears the sudden inducement of cardiac arrest. 

Holly brings them snacks, which is her painfully obvious way of loitering in Will’s general presence. This is another thing Mike has to get used to; their whole venture with and eventual defeat of Vecna a few months ago had brought Holly firmly into the crew, and her fellow abduction into the Upside Down is one she exploits on a near-daily basis to secure her spot as Will’s preferred Wheeler sibling.

As fucking if.

“Do you want a gummy worm?” she asks, pushing the bowl closer to where Will’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, a pencil behind his ear and half of his textbooks sprawled in front of him.

He blinks up at her and smiles. “Oh, thanks!”

“You know,” Holly says, saccharine sweet, “when Mike was younger, he ate so many of these that he threw up all over the living room.”

Mike says, “You’re an actual disease,” as Will says, “Wow, I, uh, I didn’t actually know that.”

She ignores Mike in favor of grinning at Will with a self-important sniff. “Yes, well, if you ever want more stories like that, just let me know.” 

“Oh, I definitely will,” Will laughs, as Mike glares and mouths gremlin! at her.

She ignores him.

“Anyway, how long did it take your mom to go back to normal after you were taken?” She sighs, long and put-upon, and throws herself over the top of Mike’s bed. “My mom is being psycho about it. She’s banned me from sleepovers until next millennia.”

Will’s smile softens some. “She'll ease up,” he says, “it just takes time.”

Mike’s not sure Joyce Byers knows the meaning of ease up. Holly lingers and chats until she decides it’s time to share more details from Mike’s sordid past; then, Mike banishes her from his room.

She laughs, takes a handful of the gummy worms for herself, and skips off the way she came.

“She’s truly a menace,” Mike says.

Will nods. “Right. I wonder where she gets it from.”

Mike makes a face of: really, me? 

Will makes a face of: definitely you.

Will stays for dinner. He charms Mike’s mom without trying, having long solidified his place as her favorite of Mike’s friends, and he earns Mike’s dad’s rarely-given respect when he mentions the part time job he’s planning to pick up this summer at the mechanic’s. 

“Wow, an actual job,” Mike's dad says, making a big show of looking at Mike. “Did someone drug my spaghetti?”

Ha ha. 

Holly gives Will part of her post-dinner chocolate bar - she's been working on the same giant Hershey’s for the better part of two weeks, with no justifiable reason -  and says, “You’ve gotta ration your resources sometimes.” Then, she widens her eyes with meaning. “When you're in hostile conditions.”

Mike rolls his eyes. They're in their living room, not the Upside Down. But Will grins and says thanks and doesn't pull her leg for the relentless brown-nosing.

He's better than Mike, anyways, who sticks his tongue out and earns a withering look in return.

Mike lingers outside while Will tightens his backpack straps and straightens his bike; he says, “Come by tomorrow,” without thinking, then hurries to make it a bit more uncaring by adding, “If you want. Mom’s making chili, we always have a fuckton of leftovers.”

Will’s lips twitch. “Well, if there’s chili.”

Mike smiles. Will smiles.

Holly slams her fist against the living room window, startling them both. From inside the house she waves goodbye once more, turning her shit-eating smile on Mike just to prove she's the certifiable worst.

Mike says, “Jesus. Leave while you still can.”

Will laughs, loud and bright, and bikes off into the night. Mike watches him go. Mike’s always watching him go. The frozen, early January air gathers around the glow of streetlamps and the huff of Mike’s breath; he stands until some of the feeling goes away, and then heads back inside.

.

Living this close means biking to school together. Will has to pass up Mike’s house anyway, so it's only convenient. Besides, they'd spent the better part of last year biking together from Mike’s place. It's not a routine anyone seems in a big rush to change.

Most mornings, Will’s already waiting at the mailbox by the time Mike and Holly shuffle out of the door. Occasionally, Mike’s mom chases them out to shove an extra muffin or bagel, wrapped in paper, into Will’s backpack. Holly chatters the whole way to Lucas’ house. Lucas joins them for the final stretch to school, and then Holly skirts off to join her friends, and Lucas can grill them about homework and spring break and whether they're coming to his upcoming game.

“Of course,” Will says. “Dustin owes me concessions, too.”

Lucas snorts. “He's this close to a gambling addiction.”

“He bet that I couldn't get Jennifer Hayes’ number.”

Mike nearly rams the front of his bike into a tree. Lucas shoots him a look. Will clarifies: “Joke’s on him,” he says, “I already had her number. We’re in art together, with Mrs. Flannery.”

“Oh, right,” Lucas says, but he keeps a wide, emphatic look on Mike, who woefully ignores it.

Physics is boring. Trig is boring. Lit is slightly less boring. He sits behind Will, and pillows his face in his arms while his classmates take turns being called on to read passages of Romeo and Juliet aloud.

The lazy afternoon sunlight catches at Will’s hair, turning chestnut to gold. Mike watches Will’s pencil sneak around the margins, looping patterns that can't be mistaken for annotations as Will sketches in the empty spaces of his book. 

Mike used to watch Will like this when they were younger, too; after that first disappearance, his eyes would gravitate towards Will in classrooms and crowds, follow him down hallways and across the sidewalk. He thinks, in hindsight, that it was his way of making sure Will was still ok: constant, close surveillance.

It’s the same now, but it’s different now too. Mike watches just as much, maybe more, but his eyes find newer details: the bone of Will’s wrist as he draws, the flex of his fingers on the pencil, the line of his profile as he tilts his head, and the way his eyes flutter shut when he yawns.

Across from him, it’s Denise Anderson’s turn to read. Her voice floats overhead: “Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.”

Mike lets himself watch, and Lit passes measured and easy, quiet and earnest as the afternoon catches Mike in a sun patch and warms the inside of his bones.

.

They all go to Lucas’ basketball game that Thursday. They split two bags of popcorn and a box of red vines. Max says, “Ew, red vines,” but still eats a good third of them.

Dustin keeps up a running commentary of the game; he’s angling for the announcer position once they start senior year, even though it’s almost exclusively occupied by whatever old man, vaguely affiliated with the school, no less, is somehow deemed worthy that year.

“You’re about the last person on this earth who needs more of an audience,” Max says, but with no real heat. She cackles when Dustin’s commentary ventures into the asinine and gives him pats on the back after particularly good puns: “Marcus really missed the mark with that one, folks!”

“Can I cheat?” El asks when they’re down fifteen.

“No,” Mike says. “Lucas expressly told you. No more helping.”

She frowns, but Mike doesn’t catch any suspicious blood trails down her nose. If any more of the opposing team’s shots careen wildly off target, he’ll know who to blame, anyway.

Will sits by Mike. His leg bumps against Mike’s when he laughs, and when he leans over to talk to El, and when he reaches for handfuls of popcorn. Mike reminds himself that this is neutral information, over and over and over again.

“Surely El can help a little,” Will comments, throwaway, when the lead widens. Dustin turns to give him a look of put-upon shock.

“Will Byers,” he says, “We’ve already discussed that. It’s immoral.”

“It’s hilarious,” Will argues, as El bargains, “Just five points.”

Max laughs, and everyone turns to wait for her permission.

“I’m his girlfriend, not a saint,” she says, grinning. “Do what you gotta do.”

The next five shots from the other team’s offense mysteriously veer off course at the last second. Wow. How strange. El wipes her nose, Will buries his smile in popcorn, and Mike catches Lucas glancing their way from across the court, his gaze openly suspicious.

“We’ve been made,” Dustin faux-whispers. “Abort, abort, abort!”

The Hawkins Tigers pull out a miraculous fourth-quarter win. Lucas voices his suspicions to various levels of confirmation. They go to Sandy’s Diner for dinner, greasy burgers and platefulls of fries. Their happiness has never felt so simple, not since they were kids; hard-earned and surreal, but still possible, despite it all.

Mike glances over to Will, who it was the worst for. Will, who had screamed and fought and bled from his eyes and almost lost himself somewhere along the way: who had nearly died for his efforts, and then slept for a week before resurfacing, confused and bleary, with a, “Wait, did we win?”

There had been a feeling, then, a stupid, wonderful, all-encompassing one. A burst of happiness too strong to breathe around had surged from Mike’s ribs up and into his face, and Will was there, was there, with them, smiling and whole and alive, and Mike - 

Mike had been saved from doing something fatally idiotic by Dustin, and Lucas, and El, and Max, who had bowled past him to cover Will in hugs and pats and kisses to the top of his head and the side of his face. Will laughed and cried and laughed some more.

Mike had stuffed the feeling away, but since then, it’s done a particularly bad job of staying away. He feels it again now, as Will mixes ketchup and mayonnaise and hot sauce to make his own, Will-approved fry dip, the same way he always has, ever since they were kids and he realized they didn’t charge extra for the sauces already on the table. 

Mike knows him so, terribly much. It’s becoming hard to bear.

.

February is the coldest month so far. It bites at Mike’s hands and eyes; he abandons his bike for the Sibling Car instead, since Nancy’s in Boston and therefore not here to argue with him over it.

He drives in long, looping circles, all around town. There is a restless feeling in his chest, but it’s not cured by the aimless movement. It’s a feeling with a direction, but Mike refuses to chase this direction down; he prefers this instead, loud music and an intentional wasting of his own time, as his thoughts mill about somewhere just out of reach.

His mom says, “Michael Theodore Wheeler, you are paying for your own gas.” But she takes him by the shoulders to study his face before he can step past her and shimmy upstairs. She narrows her eyes. “What do I not know?”

He makes his dumbest expression. “I’m a communist. I'm a Russian plant.”

She scowls around the amused expression this earns him. “You’re a boy who lies to his mother, and you’re helping me with dinner.”

So. Mike helps her with dinner. The monotonous motion of chopping vegetables - onions, carrots, celery - soothes some of the restless feeling. So do the spoonfuls of broth his mom gives him as the stew starts to come together. She doesn't even fuss him for sneaking a chunk of the beef as she tosses it in with everything else.

At dinner, their table seems small. It does, sometimes, in the absence: the days of the Byers living with them have passed, but the quiet missing still hasn’t. 

Mike thinks his dad’s the only one who doesn't notice. He eats loudly and thoughtlessly, while Holly sighs and says, “Why didn't you invite Will over for dinner?”

“He can't come over every night,” Mike’s mom answers for him.

“Says who?”

Everyone looks at Mike’s dad, who blinks into the conversation. “What?” he asks.

“Says Joyce Byers, I’m sure,” Mike’s mom says, giving Holly a pointed look. “She’s entitled to at least some dinners with her son, I’m sure.”

Holly sniffs, but doesn't argue. Mike keeps his eyes on his plate; Will is close, and his house is close, and everything is close, except for when it was closer; except for when his house was Mike’s house, and Will was so near that it burned like a furnace in Mike’s chest, comforting and dangerous all the same.

He’d thought the resolution of everything would lessen the feeling: Vecna gone, the Byers in their own house, everything returning to normalcy. But Will is in Mike’s driveway, is popping in unannounced, is helping cook dinner, is chatting with Mike’s parents, is wedged so deeply between Mike’s bones that he’s scared of what would happen if he ever tried to kick him out again.

Mike swallows. After dinner, he goes on a walk around the neighborhood. With his coat collar up and his mittens on, he is still on the shy side of cold. The feeling of the freezing air in his lungs is a lightheaded one. He sees Will’s shape in the shadows of the streetlights, long, arching things that vanish when he gets too close.

.

But Will doesn’t vanish, and normal doesn’t return. The feeling takes up most of Mike’s time, and still he refuses to find the name for it.

They eat lunch together; their elbows bump, and Dustin complains about the sophomore’s egregious attempts to cut the cafeteria line, and their elbows bump, and Max agrees that the youth need to generally be reminded of their spot in society, and their elbows bump.

Will is always close; he is nearly always close enough to touch, and it happens in haphazard moments like this, limbs knocking together, brushing past each other’s space, never lingering, never stopping to talk about it. Their elbows bump, and bump once more when Will stands to empty his tray, and Mike is terrified of all the things he doesn’t understand.

“I’m so flunking this test,” Dustin groans, pushing his face into the table. “Someone euthanize me.”

“No one is euthanizing anyone,” Max says, while El asks, “What’s euthanizing?”

“It’s a fancy word for killing,” Lucas provides happily. Max gives him a look. “What? Is it not?”

Meanwhile, Mike watches Will cross the cafeteria, dump his tray. He’s grown back into himself, filled some of the places Vecna had tried to destroy. He smiles at the cafeteria lady as he hands over his cleared tray. He stops to talk to Jennifer Hayes, gesticulating about art or spring formal or something equally benign. He notices Mike watching on his way back, and tilts a head like: Yes? What is it?

Mike looks away. Will squeezes back into his spot, and his shoulder brushes against Mike’s as he does.

Later, as they head to their lockers for final period, he steps in line with Mike, slowing him with fingers wrapped around his wrist.

“Hey,” he says.

Mike answers, around the lump in his throat, “Hey.”

“Are you ok? You seem, I don’t know.” Will blinks, considers. The sun is happy to find his face, to capture every intricate detail of his expression so Mike can study it later. “Weird?”

“I seem weird?”

Will shrugs, makes a small smile. “Weirder than normal,” he amends.

“Ha,” Mike says. Will lets go of his wrist. Mike can breathe again, as he steps to the side and opens his locker. “Nah, I’m. I’m all good. You?”

He doesn’t look at Will, feigning searching for a textbook, but Will sounds a bit mystified when he answers. “Sure, yeah, I’m good too, I guess.”

“You guess?”

He does look now, the jittery panic of I guess instant and fatal, but Will mostly just seems confused. Right. Of course. False alarm, Wheeler. 

Will clarifies. “Yeah, I guess. I’m also definitely flunking the trig test though.”

Mike grins. He risks a hand on Will’s elbow, a small thing that he knows he’ll repeat over and over, awake at midnight. He says, “Misery loves company.”

Will quirks a smile. “Misery loves us, you mean.”

“Something like that.”

Mike takes his own hand back. They walk to the math classroom together, and Mike can’t focus on the problems swirling on his paper, too busy imagining hands in his and a smile shining his way.

.

All at once, it becomes a full blown issue. It’s been a creeping one for months, a year even, since the Byers moved back from California, since Will became an inarguable part of his life again, but the bitter cold of a fresh February sees the feeling grow arms and legs, become a creature cognizant and unhappy in Mike’s chest, banging against his ribs, demanding to be let out.

He studies the way the cold sits in Will’s face, high peaks of red in his cheeks and the tip of his nose.

He studies the way Will watches snow fall through the school windows, wistful and longing, holding his chin in his hands, forgetting to listen to Mrs. Bernard’s lecture as Mike forgets with him.

He studies the way Will breathes warmth back into his hands, cupping them around his mouth the day he forgets his mittens, puffing hot air onto angrily reddening fingers.

“I’m fine,” he insists, but Mike shoves his own mittens into Will’s pocket with an easy, “I have another pair at home anyways.”

Dustin and Lucas share looks.

The creature enjoys this studying, but it’s an enjoyment that only increases its frustration. Mike thinks: is this not enough? But the feeling demands more, always more. It wonders at pressing lips to the freezing red of Will’s cheeks and nose. It wonders at Will’s thoughts as he stares through foggy, snow-strewn windows. It wonders at taking Will’s wind-chilled hands in his own, forgoing the mittens to rub warmth there himself.

It longs to touch: it longs to feel the things it used to be content only imagining.

Mike’s not sure where to put it where it won’t burst its way out of him.

But there’s nowhere to hide either; they spend every other second together. Will invites them all to his house to do homework. They eat pizzas and down a liter of Pepsi. Mike stares as Will laughs at Dustin’s despair upon discovering that the second pizza they ordered is littered with pineapple.

“Blasphemous,” Dustin says, shaking his head. “A house full of sinners.”

If only he knew.

A few days later, it’s all of them crammed into Lucas’ truck, off to their theater’s re-run of The Empire Strikes Back. Everyone agrees that El is definitely Luke, and Max is definitely Leia, but Lucas cannot claim Han on a romantic basis alone.

“You’re more of a Jabba,” Dustin argues, which cues a small wrestling match that El speaks over: “Dustin is Chewbacca!” she declares.

“And Will is R2!” Max says, looping an arm in Will’s with a wide, sparkling smile. “Helpful and cute!”

Will laughs some more, but El nods, solemn in her decision-making. “Then Mike is C-3PO,” she says, “because he likes to complain.”

“Nah, Mike is C-3PO ‘cause he’s never more than ten fucking feet from R2,” Max adds, her sparkling smile turning devilish as she turns it on Mike. She seems to enjoy proving how certifiably awful she is; it’s a wonder she’s allowed into the world at all, free to roam the streets and cause general chaos.

“Fuck off,” Mike tells her, and she giggles and floats away to break up Dustin and Lucas’ brawl. Lucas drives them back, and with four of them crammed into the backseat, it’s hard to get a word in. Dustin argues his case for Ben Kenobi loudly and with passion, while El asks for a reminder of which character that is and Lucas continues to wax poetic about Dustin’s similarities with Chewie from the front seat.

“I mean, the hair!” he says, and Dustin does his best to talk over him.

Beside Mike, the side of their legs and breadth of their arms flush with each other, Will says, “I don’t mind R2 and C-3PO.”

Mike turns to look at him. Will is grinning, sheepish and pink in the dark. Highway lights flash behind his head, framing him in occasional bursts of yellows and whites. It’s not that Mike is near enough to touch him, it’s that Mike’s already touching him.

The creature asks for more anyway. Mike shoves his hands under his thighs to still the way they rattle with misplaced energy.

“Good Halloween costume,” he offers, hoping it doesn’t come out as weak as he imagines it.

Will’s smile widens, catching Mike’s attention, keeping him close. “I don’t know how we execute that, actually.”

“Spray paint. Lots of spray paint.”

Will laughs; Dustin yells, and Lucas yells back, and Mike imagines pushing Will against the cool slick of the window and kissing him until neither of them could breathe.

And then, school: all the classes he shares with Will, all the ones he doesn’t that he spends wondering about him anyways. Thinking about Will is a giddy, terrifying feeling, stuck at the base of Mike’s throat, excited and breathless and scared, sticky and hard to ignore. They sit across from each other at lunch. They complain about mutually shit scores on that trig test. They make faces when Denise Anderson gets into a surprisingly intense argument about the merits of Mercutio’s death with Joshua Hill, notorious giver-of-no-shits.

Mike mouths: Seems personal.

Will raises an eyebrow that says: Definitely personal. But the twitch of his lips seems to imply: It’s entertaining, at least.

Mike wishes he couldn’t hear full sentences at the drop of a hat, at the smallest tilt of Will’s head conveying any number of meanings, all of which Mike could pick up, examine, and understand intuitively; a language he didn’t even have to try to be fluent in. Years of exposure. Decades of backlog data. The knowing is enormous, eclipsed only by the way it makes him feel.

Nervous.

Lonesome.

Confused.

Wanting.

Will lets Max twist their hands together as they walk to ice skating that weekend, blue on red mittens, bright and cheery, and Mike longs for something so earnestly that it hurts.

The creature bares its teeth.

Mike thinks: I don’t know you. I don’t know what you’re asking me for.

But it’s a lie, and they both know it. The creature glares and slumps over, tired behind the bars of Mike’s ribs, and Mike doesn’t look at it for the rest of the day.

.

He wakes up at 3:12.

In his nightmare, Will was screaming. His eyes were rolling back into his head, and he was collapsing even as Mike did his best to support him, a hand on his shoulder, another on his waist, dragging him out of the way, through the danger, as quickly as he could.

Never quickly enough. He still loses. He always loses in his nightmares, because he lost then too: he’s forced to watch, dizzy and tossed aside, as Vecna lifts Will’s body into the air and presses a hand to his cheek: gently, delicately, with the illusion of kindness.

Mike’s stomach rolls. He squeezes his eyes shut and counts to ten, twenty, as the room spins and spins and spins in the dark: thirty, forty. At a hundred, he can barely breathe again, quick, sharp things through his nose and barking, ugly exhales.

Will’s new house is close. Less close than treading into the basement and finding him in his makeshift bed, reassuring himself that Will was ok; less close than when the reverse would happen, and Mike would wake up to a white-faced, red-eyed Will standing in the doorway of his bedroom, in the middle of the night.

But, still. Will’s new house is close, and it’s not the first time this has happened.

Mike bikes there in the midnight cold. The stars are bright and blue overhead. The moon watches at half-mast, hanging as a crescent over the tops of trees and roofs and chimneys. 

There is a spare key at the Byers’ front door, but Mike hasn’t used it in a while. 

Will leaves his window unlocked; it’s crappy enough to be pulled open from the outside.

Mike is as quiet as he can be, snagging the jutting lip of the windowsill, sliding it open. Will’s room is dark and warm. It smells freshly-cleaned, like cinnamon and citrus. Mike closes the window, and with it, traps as much of the lingering cold outside as possible.

He takes off his shoes, and his coat, his mittens and his hat. Will wakes up as he’s unwrapping his scarf; Mike’s eyes have just adjusted to the dark - Will’s got a nightlight, anyways, another thing they’ve learned along the way - and he sees the way Will turns on his side, scrunches his face, and opens bleary, squinted eyes.

He says, “It’s you, Mike?”

Mike swallows. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s me.”

There is no further preamble. Will shuffles to one side of the bed, and Mike clambers in after him. The bed is already warm, that soothing, sleep-warm that settles the nerves in his shoulders. He pulls the covers up to his chin, rolling on his side so he’s facing Will, who has his back turned to him.

Not for long, though. As soon as Mike adjusts, he rolls over too. He keeps his hands tucked against his chest, curled up to his collarbones, but his knee presses against Mike’s as their shins bump under the blanket. His eyes are wide and sleep-soft, pupils blown in the shadows.

“Wanna talk about it?” he asks.

Mike makes a sound that says: No, thank you. This is always his answer, but Will continues to ask anyway. When the circumstances are reversed - when it’s Will climbing into Mike’s bed - it’s with the same results; always has been, since they first kicked off the sporadic occasions of bed-sharing after particularly bad nightmares, months ago, in Mike’s bedroom, in the dark. Neither of them are great at talking, so Mike refuses to feel bad about it.

Will keeps staring, but it’s 3am. It’s February. Will almost died only a few short months ago: Will almost died in Mike’s nightmare, in his memories, only a few short minutes ago. It’s not unnerving as it might normally be, to be stared at. Instead, it’s a quiet, solid reminder. Will’s here. Will’s right here. Things are ok - things are actually ok.

Eventually, though, Will closes his eyes. Mike keeps watching as he complains through shut lids, “You’re fucking cold.”

“Yeah, I biked here.”

Will’s eyelashes sit long and soft on his cheeks. “‘s stupid,” he says.

“It was nice.”

“Was it?”

“Yeah, seriously. No traffic.”

Will snorts, and time passes, and Mike’s skin crawls, and Will says, “Goodnight, Mike.”

“Goodnight, Will.”

But it’s not enough. “You’re ok,” Mike blurts a moment later. A declarative statement: a promise. He can finally hope to accept it as fact, only now that Will’s so close again.

“I’m ok,” Will agrees sleepily. He winds their ankles together; he shifts a bit closer. The final dregs of fear roll off of Mike in waves, circling back into the distance. He puts a hand on Will’s shoulder anyway, just to be certain, just to make sure he’s here, warm, alive: Will. Will smiles, eyes still closed, and snakes one hand out of the covers to grab at Mike’s instead, taking it back with him, tucked against his chest, where Mike can feel the steady rise and fall of his chest, the familiar rhythm of his heart.

“Go to sleep,” Will says. He squeezes Mike’s fingers. Mike squeezes back, and then, he listens.

He goes to sleep.

.

Weeks pass this way. Mike wonders at the implications of losing one’s mind. Mike wonders how he’s supposed to continue functioning under such hostile circumstances. Mike wonders about Will, who warms with the weather, too wonderful to ignore, too terrifying to think about without hurting. 

He goes on longer walks as the weather permits it; he traces his neighborhood after dinners, gazing at the sun that begins to set more and more sluggishly, tugging at the sky, willing itself to stay up for a few minutes longer each day. 

Holly says he’s growing a particularly strange aura. His mom says he’s going to get himself sick. His dad says, “Listen to your mother.”

Mike can hardly listen to himself, let alone someone else. But the breaking point marches up towards him, unannounced and unplanned, in the form of Dustin and Lucas and what he assumes is their good intent.

“Bro,” Dustin says on a solitary Wednesday afternoon. Hop’s already swung by the school to pick up El and Will - family dinner and movie night for them - and Max has Wednesday custody of her mom’s car, and before Mike can bike away Dustin is smacking a hand on his shoulder and rooting him to the spot.

“What?” Mike asks. The sky is blue. The air is fraught with late-winter chill. Lucas is there too, baring his hands out like he’s already waiting for Mike to get defensive.

Now why would Mike get defensive.

“We’re having an intervention,” Dustin says plainly. “At my place. With pizza. Your ass is invited. Mandatorily invited.”

“Oh. Uh - is -”

“Is Will gonna be there?” Dustin guesses. “No. That’s kinda the whole fucking point.”

Oh. Oh?

They crowd around in the living room. Dustin’s mom is still on some work-sponsored cruise. It’s the sorta shit their parents pull post-apocalypse, but it means the house is theirs. Dustin orders pizza, and orders soda, and orders Mike to sit the fuck down.

“The thing with Byers,” he starts. Lucas still has his hands out in a perpetual animal-soothing position. Mike’s not sure if he should be offended or not.

“With Will?” Mike asks. He swallows. “What thing?”

Dustin rolls his eyes, but Lucas leans forward, emphatic. “The thing, dude. It’s gotta give.”

“I - what?”

Dustin says, “Look, Michael, I get it’s a lot of emotional computation and that’s not your strong suit, that’s fine, we can’t all be burdened with neurological clarity, but really, I’m losing my mind, man. If I have to watch you shoot puppy eyes at him one more time -”

“Or stare at him all through class,” Lucas adds helpfully.

“Or stare at him all through class,” Dustin agrees. “I’m going to go over there and tell the man myself.”

Mike’s heart is racing. The pizza solidifies in his stomach. “Tell him what,” he says.

Lucas widens his eyes. Dustin widens his eyes. Lucas puts his hands out in what is becoming less calming and more desperate of a gesture. Dustin turns to face Lucas and says, “Did I fuck this up? Is it too early? I could’ve sworn that -”

“Easy, Mike, chill,” Lucas says, ignoring Dustin. “Just, uh. Maybe, like - like, what do you think we’re talking about?”

The thing has its face pressed against its little ribcage prison; it’s having a wonderful time. It only ever seems to do this at Mike’s expense.

“I. I dunno.”

“Ok, that’s. Ok, well, then.” Lucas forces a laugh that’s deeply unbelievable. “Just forget we said anything then, I guess! You just have seemed, uh, off, and - actually, you know, forget I said that too. Just forget all of this, um.” He carefully lowers one hand to snag a pizza from the still-open box, holding it out in Mike’s general direction with a benevolent sort of look. “Pizza?”

“How has Robin not talked to you yet?” Dustin wonders aloud. “This is crazy. Ok, whatever, too quick on the draw, we’ll talk about this later.” He claps his hands together, smiles huge and disorienting. “In other news, we were talking about going bowling this weekend, do you think -”

“Wait,” Mike says. The thing pushes the words forward, tossing them from Mike’s ribs up his throat and out into the world, where he knows they can’t be taken back. He knows this; he’s always been deeply, critically aware of this.

He hears his own voice say, “You - you can tell?”

Quiet. Lucas blinks. Dustin glances at Lucas. Lucas says, carefully, with eyes only for Mike, “Tell what, exactly?”

The pizza is still hanging between them.

Mike swallows. Mike digs his fingers into his pants. Mike thinks: What do I have to fucking lose?

They’ve saved the world; they’ve saved the world, and they’ve saved each other too, a million times along the way. Mike doesn’t know why he still insists on running. It’s becoming exhausting, actually.

“That I.” Breathe. “That I. With Will. That, you know.”

Dustin’s eyebrows shoot up. Lucas’ shoot down. “Know what?” Dustin prompts. 

Mike squeezes his eyes shut. “That I.” Fuck it. “That I like him. Like. Really like him.”

Time slides, slick and uncertain. He’s never got as far as imagining this; it never seemed the sort of thing that would end well.

Mike forces his eyes open. Mike braces himself. Mike expects something somehow below the worst. 

Dustin is smiling. Lucas is smiling.

Dustin says, “That you like like him,” and then adds, higher-pitched and crooning, “That you wanna hold his hands and stare at him all through physics and make out under the bleachers and -”

“Mike and Will, sitting in a tree!” Lucas adds happily, all of it caught on a laugh. “K-I-S-S-I-”

“Oh my god, and his birthday’s right around the corner!” Dustin says. hands smacking against his cheeks in giddy realization. “Oh my god, and you’re gonna get him a really romantic present, and it’s gonna be super cute, and -”

“Max is gonna lose her shit! Do you know how long -”

“Max, what about El? She’s been bugging me about it since we kicked Vecna’s ugly ass, everyday, I swear, Dustin, have they talked? Dustin, did you mention it to Mike? Dustin, can you please -”

“No, Max is definitely worse,” Lucas says. The pizza dangles precariously as he waves his hand around with emphasis. “Lucas, I did not sit in a coma for over a year to watch Mike Wheeler pine like a moron for the foreseeable -”

Dustin barks out a laugh, and Lucas dissolves along with him. A clump of cheese and pepperoni slides off of the pizza and onto Mike’s knee. 

It’s not how he saw this going.

“I didn’t know,” Mike says through numb lips, but it’s not entirely true. He stares at the pizza slop on his knee, and continues. “Or, uh. I didn’t think I could know. Or should know, maybe. Um.” He glances up, at where they’ve gone full quiet again to stare at him. Wide, encouraging eyes. He feels his chest get tight.

He says, with something strange in his voice, “You’re not mad?”

Dustin gets there first, but Lucas gets there more violently. In the span of a second, they’re in a rib-cracking hug, squeezed tight around Mike, and he’s either crying or laughing or something in between.

Time passes, much more kindly this time. Mike says, “I’ve got pizza on my pants.”

Dustin says, “You’ve got two idiot friends is what you’ve got, and more in the wings, and you couldn’t get rid of us that easily.” He leans back to beam at Mike and roll his eyes, all fond. “Please.”

Lucas slaps Mike on the back. Dustin grabs him some paper towels. They finish off the pizza, and the soda, and then Dustin asks, “Do you wanna talk about it?”

So. Mike talks about it. The creature throws a party in his ribcage. By the end, Dustin’s smile is all crammed into his eyes and Lucas has a hand on his knee.

“Dude,” he says, with not a bit of sympathy, “you’ve got it pretty bad.”

Mike presses his face into his hands. “I know. I know.”

“Good thing you’ve got the Love Doctor here to assist you,” Dustin says above him. “Please, if I can help Steve Harrington through his relationship woes, I can certainly help you.”

Lucas makes a face. “Did you help him though? Really?”

Dustin hums, considers. “Hm. Jury’s out, I guess.” 

Mike sneaks a look through the cracks of his fingers and grins. Laughs, as Dustin laughs, and Lucas laughs too. He feels like an idiot, maybe, but a happy one, at least.

.

It should be linear, after that. Mike assumes it will be, anyway.

He assumes wrongly. Approaching Will with this newfound information feels about as stupid as throwing himself in front of a car: high potential for instant humiliation and possible death.

So. He watches. Continues watching. March sneaks its way forward, skidding under his feet. Winter officially returns to slumber; spring awakens inside of Mike’s chest, fervent and weed-like as blooms lift from his stomach and into his throat.

He watches. Dustin watches him watching. So does Lucas. The way they watch says: Grow some balls, moron!

Mike pretends not to notice. They must've not’ve told the others - which, well, is sweet of them - because Max and El intercept all this watching with raised eyebrows and questioning looks. He pretends not to notice these too.

Meanwhile, Will lets his hair grow. He trades huge coats for patchwork jackets. He keeps wearing Mike’s borrowed mittens. He goes on a weekend camping trip with his mom, El, and Hop and comes back laughing and full. He says, “Hop taught me how to fish.”

Mike says, “Wow. Very rugged and suave of you.”

Will grins. Mike can’t help it. He steps closer, bumps their shoulders together. He watches, as Will’s face lights up at the contact. Will’s eyebrows twitch. His expression changes. It settles lighter, somehow, tinged at the edges with something pointed and curious.

Mike wonders if Will’s been wondering as much as he has.

“Rugged and suave,” Will says, his lips raising some more. “You know me.”

“I do,” Mike blurts, because it’s true. He does.

Will blinks at him.

Mike blinks back.

Will says, “I threw it back into the lake, though. Hop said it was big enough to eat, but, ya know. He seemed like he had more to do with his life. The fish, that is.”

“Oh yeah? Like, swim around? Eat algae?”

Will shrugs. The motion further bumps their shoulders. “Something like that,” he says.

“You don’t like fish, anyways,” Mike says.

Will blinks again. Mike blinks again back. 

“Yeah,” Will agrees eventually. “Well, you could’ve eaten my portion, if you were there.”

And Mike would’ve. He likes fish. When he was younger, his dad would take him on fishing trips with his uncle, long, boring things that at least ended with good meals: fresh, white walleye and crispy, roasted potatoes.

Will knows this, or rather, Will remembers this. 

Mike thinks: it hurts me to know you.

Mike thinks: does it hurt you to know me too?

The thing seizes Mike’s hands. The weeds in his chest stretch into his face. They’re standing outside Mike’s house; Will had stopped to say hi, to drop off a souvenir he’d snagged for the Wheeler’s, a little Michigan magnet for their fridge. Anyone could be watching from the window. Anyone could be watching from any of the neighbor’s windows too. Mike suddenly and enthusiastically doesn’t care. He thinks of tucking his hands into the pockets of Will’s jacket. He thinks of tugging him close by the belt loop. He thinks of saying that he missed Will this weekend into the shell of his ear, the curl of his hair, the quiet crinkling of his eyes. He thinks of kissing Will, here, by his front door, where Will has always belonged.

But: he thinks of the car too, the imaginary one that will disembowel him if he’s wrong. Could he be wrong? It becomes hard to tell, when Will is staring at him like this, imploring hazel eyes, close enough that he’s gazing up through his lashes with a silent, searching, ocean-deep look. 

There’s a slamming sound behind him. Mike jumps. Will jumps. Holly, from inside, laughs and laughs and laughs, but comes out a moment later to insist that, “I was not trying to scare you, I just wanted to ask Will if he’s ever read Jungle Book? It’s kinda awesome. I think you’d like it! Right now, I’m on this scene where -”

The moment shifts, and passes. Mike watches Will leave, a glance tossed behind him, over and over and over.

.

He comes to their house for dinner two days later. Mike’s mom gives him an extra serving of mashed potatoes and the best looking cut of meat. 

Will says, “Thanks, Mrs. Wheeler,” and Mike’s mom beams.

“No need for thanks,” she says, taking a moment to pat a hand in his hair. “You’re always welcome here, William.”

Mike’s knee bounces under the table, a nonstop rhythm that Holly clocks with a look, but doesn’t mention. They talk about school. They talk about summer plans. They talk about senior year, barreling their way. They talk and talk, and Mike mostly listens; it strikes him as abruptly surreal, how much Will is already wedged into not just his life, but their life. His mom’s fond grins. Holly’s adoring gazes, her nonstop brown-nosing. His dad, oblivious and there but unbothered, too: no longer commenting on Will’s added presence, just accepting it as fact. 

The way Nancy had leaned in over her winter break and said, under her breath, “He looks like he’s doing better. Keep an eye on him, while I’m gone, ok?”

Like it was her brother, not Jonathan’s. Like the entire Wheeler family had adjusted course to make sure Will could walk with them, too.

Will helps clean dishes with Holly after dinner. They chat about what art supplies she should ask for next, comparing the merits of focusing on sketches or focusing on paintings. Mike hears her say, “Well, all I know is that oil painting is for snobs,” and Will laughs, loud and surprised, sudsy hands and a solid, steady something that makes the walls warmer, the lights brighter, the air more able to fight the chill.

The magnet he bought them lingers on the top right corner of the fridge. His art is up in the basement, and Mike’s bedroom. There’s an extra coat in the closet for when he forgets his, and a tupperware with his name on it already waiting in the fridge so he can bring leftovers home with him. 

Losing him - pushing him away - would kill Mike this time, he realizes. It almost killed him the first time; it would be a thing unbearable to do again.

Part of Mike still itches to try anyway. It’s the part of him he hates most, that reacts to the thrilling, nervous fear by forcing a blind eye, shoving hands at whatever - whoever - is making the hard floor of his mind crack and strain. Mike’s shoved Will away before, hard, and with purpose, because of things he didn’t yet understand and was too terrified to try to. With Will gone, he could forget. He could go on, eyes on the ground, never daring to look too far up.

It’s a coward’s choice. Mike has not been a coward for a long time, now. He realizes, planted to their kitchen floor, that he doesn’t want to be one ever again.

And yet; and yet. When he helps Will shove the tupperware into his backpack, walks him to the street with Will’s bike between them, he voices nothing. 

He says, instead, “I hope that shit doesn’t bust in your bag.”

Will shrugs, tosses a smile at Mike. “You think Drissler will accept my homework if it’s covered in potatoes and peas?”

Mike winces. “Ew, dude. No.”

But Will lingers. He looks at Mike a second too long. He narrows his eyes. He says, “You were quiet at dinner.”

“Huh?”

“Tonight. Are you ok?”

He remembers, weeks ago now, forever ago now, Will posing the same question in the school hallway, as Mike found excuses to be close, excuses for his eyes to track and trace.

He thinks about the fact that Dustin and Lucas, of all people, knew. Does Will, too? What does he see, when Mike’s busy thinking?

“Mike?”

Mike blinks. Will’s got a hand on his forearm, and his eyebrows dip a bit. “Is it. Did you have another nightmare, last night?”

“What? No, no, Will, I’m - I’m good.”

Will looks unconvinced. Mike glances at his hand, still on Mike’s arm, and Will follows the motion. He pulls his hand away, slowly, and tucks it back around the handlebars of his bike. When Mike looks back up at him, Will’s expression is unreadable.

“You’ll talk to me about it eventually,” Will says, “right? Whatever’s going on.”

“Uh. Sure. Yeah, sure.”

Will nods. He gives Mike one more last, long look, and then nods again. “Ok, well, if my bag smells like pork tomorrow, you’ll know why.”

Mike grins. He watches until Will fades into the distance. Then, he goes inside, beelines for the bathroom, and burns the jittery feeling off with water and soap.

.

At bowling, they order nachos. Dustin says, “This is alarmingly unsanitary,” but continues shoving the same fingers he’s wiping nacho-cheese off of into the holes of the bowling ball, tossing spares and splits and the occasional gutter ball.

Will and El sit by each other, laughing at misses, whispering into each other’s ears, sharing a shoulder and mind. They’ve done this more and more, since they’ve been back in Hawkins: Max has taken to calling them The Twins, which, while unfactual, seems to be a nickname they enjoy. 

El holds Will’s hand, tipping over herself with laughter as Lucas throws the ball so hard it bounces, straight into the gutter.

Mike realizes all at once what he has to do.

“Hey,” he says after his round. El and Will glance up. He shifts, but keeps his eyes on El. “Wanna do a concessions refill? Help me pick out some candy and shit?”

She raises an eyebrow, glances at Will, then looks back at Mike and shrugs. “Sure. Is this a ploy to make me steal?”

“What? No.”

“I have stolen before. With my powers.”

“Jesus, El, no, I, just -”

Will detaches their hands, grinning. “It’s alright,” he says, “I support theft for a moral cause.”

“I don’t think we are a moral cause,” El argues, but she grins too, standing up to follow Mike.

They only make it halfway to the concessions bar. Mike drags her by the elbow into the tight, stinky corner by the water fountain - the one where Dustin once spilled an entire soda down his shirt in sixth grade - and says, “Listen.”

If El is surprised by this detour, she doesn’t show it. “I’m listening,” she says instead.

“When you broke up with me.”

She smiles a bit, like it’s a fond memory; asshole. “Yes. I remember.”

“You said.” He swallows. “You said it was because I wasn’t honest. With myself.”

She nods. “You weren’t.”

“I know. I know, but - but I’m trying to be, now, and I just. I. What did you mean, when you said that?”

“We’ve already talked about this, Mike, why -”

“No, I get it, I - I didn’t love you the way I thought I did, or said I did, or wanted to, even I - it wasn’t the truth, I know, but. Was there anything else? When you said it, did you mean anything else?”

She’s always had a closeness with her emotions that terrified Mike. He feared what she felt, and what she saw. It bubbles to the surface now, as her eyes fill with tears in the span of two seconds flat. But she’s not frowning. Her lips twitch towards a smile, and something in the set of it looks relieved.

“Oh, Mike,” she says, and grabs both of his hands in hers, and smiles so soft and real it hurts. “Did you finally figure it out?”

When she had broken up with him, he had only just been beginning to understand. But when she’d called him on the lie, her expression had always stuck with him. It said: There is more to this. It’s not just that you don’t love me, it’s that there’s something you’re not seeing.

He sees it now. Or, well: he’s willing to look at it, finally. Maybe these are the same thing, after all.

“I always had a feeling,” she says, “that there was someone else you loved. After - after we almost lost him, and I saw how you reacted, I.” She shrugs, her smile going a bit lopsided, her eyes still wet with unshed tears. “I knew.”

“I didn’t.”

“But you do, now. Don’t you?”

He looks behind them, at where Will has just stepped up for his turn.

“Yeah,” he says. “I, uh. Yes, I do. I guess that’s shitty, for you, or whatever, so I wanted to tell you and, I don’t know -”

She lets go of one hand to poke him in the chest. “Not shitty,” she says plainly. “I broke up with you, remember? Besides, I am happier with us not together.”

“Ouch.”

“Happier with us together as friends,” she clarifies, rolling her eyes.

He feels the smile in his cheeks. “Yeah. Yeah, me too.”

But then, she pokes him again, hard enough to hurt this time. Her expression sharpens, turning to steel and ice. “But, Mike. If you hurt him.” She raises her eyebrows, all threat. “I will kill you.”

He swallows. “Right, yes, understood, and -”

“Or banish you to the Upside Down,” she adds helpfully. “Henry’s not around anymore. Maybe you will find it nice there.”

“Jesus, El. Consider not hanging out with Max so much.”

She smiles, sugar sweet, and delivers one final poke before grabbing his wrist and dragging them both to concessions. They get popcorn and red vines and soda refills. Mike bowls a strike. Will kicks his own foot against Mike’s, toe to ankle. 

“Alright, prodigy,” he jokes.

Mike says, “Don’t. You’re gonna jinx me.”

Sure enough, Mike’s next two rolls veer off-course. He blames the creature in his ribs, which has grown too big to fit there anymore.

.

Mike runs a one-shot for Will’s birthday. It’s meant to be around four hours of play, but the girls, who have never played D&D before, get majorly invested in the character development. Max’s tiefling rogue spends all her time between battles digging up the other character’s backstories, while El’s elf barbarian flirts madly with every enemy they encounter. The boys, who are more used to grand battles and plots than asinine character investment, jump at this new pivot in gameplay. Lucas divulges a deep, tragic, on-the-spot backstory while the group recovers from a battle. Dustin gives his bard a family, children at home who he longs to return to. Will, playing a gnomish cleric for this game, waxes poetic about his long-lost human love, who he hopes to return to with glory and treasure after their quest.

Mike has the best time DM-ing. He plants little easter eggs and plotlines that he knows Will will particularly enjoy, keeping things fantastical and strange and light to avoid dredging up any of the real life shit from their own battles.

Will has confessed, after everything, that he doesn’t always enjoy playing wizard class anymore. “It’s different, once you’ve lived it,” he’d said, a creeping smile, and Mike’s lungs had squeezed too tight to breathe.

They end up playing for most of the day, crammed into Mike’s basement, like they always are. Will’s mom is there, upstairs with Mike’s, and together they churn out all of their favorite snack foods - pizza bagels and chips with dip and brownies and pigs-in-a-blanket - until the campaign finally ends and they can summon everyone upstairs for cake and ice cream.

It’s an Oreo cake, Will’s favorite that his mom’s made every year: chocolate cake with a cream cheese, oreo filling. It looks noticeably less lopsided this year, which Mike figures is probably due to his own mom’s involvement. 

The piping, Happy Birthday Will! is courtesy of Holly though. It’s pretty obvious, for the neatly piped, pink flowers surrounding the words.

They all sing happy birthday, and the candlelight fills Will’s face with sparkling warmth, cascading in the angles of his cheeks and the green of his eyes. He blows out the candles, and while everyone demands he share his wish, Will only shakes his head, grinning.

“Bad luck,” he surmises, and everyone groans but agrees. Still, Mike doesn’t miss the way his eyes dart up to meet Mike’s across the table.

They divvy up the cake. They exchange presents. When Will opens Mike’s - the sketchbook and watercolors Mike had caught him eyeing a few weeks ago in the store - he looks over with a surprised little look that says: Oh, you noticed!

Of course Mike noticed. Mike always notices. 

They all pitch in to clean up, and Holly glues herself to Will’s side - forbidden from cleaning with the rest of them - to pick out a movie to watch together in the living room. Holly’s never seen the first Indiana Jones, a fundamental misstep on Mike’s part, so they settle on this. Mike’s dad meanders upstairs, not even grumbling about his TV being taken, but the rest of them - even Mike and Will’s moms - fit together on couches and the floor to watch the movie together.

Will ends up next to Mike, on the big couch. Under the same blanket, their knees bump. Their elbows collide. Mike lets his hand wander to the crook of Will’s elbow, tracing down to his wrist, and then landing on Will’s hand, lacing their fingers together.

Will glances over. His head tilts some. His eyes are all question. 

Mike has the answers, this time. He just can’t quite say them yet, not with everyone else around. It’s enough to squeeze Will’s hand, hidden by the blanket, and feel Will squeeze his back.

The movie ends. Everyone packs up to head home. Mike itches to ask Will to stay. Itches to bring them to his bedroom, where eyes won’t follow, and say what he needs to say, do what he wants to do. But Joyce is already sweeping Will into her arms, carting him off with the rest. Mike isn’t even upset: he thinks of Will’s hand in his. He thinks of the quiet look in Will’s eyes when he’d seen Mike’s gift. He thinks of the way Will had cornered him, on the stairs out of the basement, and said, “Mike. Thank you. The campaign - it was awesome.”

“I’m glad you liked it. It was for you.”

Will had nodded. His eyes had searched Mike’s face, and landed on his lips.

Mike’s stomach had clenched. Mike had thought: He likes me too. Does this mean he likes me too?

But it’s Mike and the creature that spend the night together. Having officially outgrown his ribs, it stretches the length of his body instead, fusing with his bones and muscles, his fingers and eyes. The feeling is everywhere; it’s made a mess inside of him, one Mike’s not sure how to even begin to clean up.

April, he decides. It’s happening in April.

.

April arrives, rainy and green. Flowers bloom on the bushes outside of school. The trees spit buds and new branches. Everything gray and dusty shakes itself off and reemerges from the long, quiet night of winter. The world peels apart, exposing that, underneath the frozen shield of winter, it had remained untouched and alive after all.

The frenzied, suffocating buzz of February and March buckles under its own weight; with April, the things that had strangled Mike unfurl softer, kinder leaves, tendrils that feel less like fear and more like excitement. Dread sloughs off to reveal possibility and a giddy feeling that flutters in his stomach.

He remembers a conversation he’d overheard between Nancy and their mom, years ago now, when she and Jonathan had just started dating.

“Steve was great - is great,” Nancy had stressed, “But Jonathan. He gives me butterflies.”

Maybe the creature was butterflies all along; maybe it’s also bloomed with spring, poked legs from the cage of Mike’s chest to reveal it too had been waiting for warmer weather to reveal its true nature.

Mike bikes with Will and Holly to school. Mike sits across from Will at lunch. Mike allows his looks to linger, and catches Will’s too, ones he never seemed to notice before. In the crowds of assembly. In the quiet of classrooms. In their mutual homework-doing, cast between textbooks and pencil cases. 

Max smacks Mike on the arm; they’re at Dustin’s, but the others are all in the kitchen preparing snacks. “How am I the last to know this shit?” she whisper-fusses at him.

Mike shrugs. He’s not even upset; he’s smiling, even, not able to help himself. “Your boyfriend cornered me about it. Blame him.”

“I’ll blame you both,” she says, but she’s smiling too. “So, what, you gonna do something about it then?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Ooh, man has a plan now?”

“Shut up.”

“Well, what’s this plan involve, huh? We can workshop it. Hit me with the details, Wheeler.”

Mike says, “It’s less details and more a timeline.”

She nods. “Ok. And the timeline is?”

“This month. Sometime this month.”

Her mouth drops open. “This month? Holy shit. Holy shit, it’s really - this is really happening, huh?”

“I mean, unless he, you know, doesn’t like me back, or, whatever.”

Mike’s open-mouthed shock transforms into flat, deadpan really? “Dude. You two are the single most oblivious motherfuckers I have ever -”

“Team Snack is back!” Dustin announces, and the conversation is canned. Will’s fully lost the jackets now. He’s in a simple, loose long-sleeve, a dark green thing that makes his eyes glow. Looking at him causes the butterflies to surge up Mike’s throat, dance under the skin of his cheeks.

Will catches Mike’s eye and grins, a small, wondering thing. Mike returns it happily, and when they sit on the floor together, comparing trig homework, he bumps their shoulders. Will bumps them back. It’s the simplest joy, and Mike can’t believe he’d ever made it so complicated.

.

The first week of April speeds into the second. Mike crafts The Day. He’ll invite Will over for breakfast. They’ll read comic books together in Mike’s room. He’ll bring him to Sandy’s for dinner - burgers and fries and milkshakes. He’ll drive Will home, and he’ll make sure it’s a Friday: Joyce and Hop working late shifts, El easy to convince into a sleepover at Max’s. He’ll tell him the truth, in his car, or in the Byers’ house, or in any of the spots along the way. Whatever happens next will happen next.

Mike imagines it in his head, over and over and over. Plans for obstacles or adjustments; plans how to say, “No, I’ve got it,” and pay for Will’s meal. Plans how to show someone he’s loved for maybe his entire life that he’s loved him for maybe his entire life.

Fantasticizing about it takes up all of his free time. He goes on his walks, but they feel less aimless and more purposeful than before. Holly says, “Your aura is all spring-y now. I like it.”

Mike’s mom says, “Someone’s been in a good mood recently. Anything I should know about?”

Mike’s dad says, “Could it be you’ve found summer employment? Or is that too much to ask.”

Mike’s mom rolls her eyes, but pats Mike’s shoulders, happy, if not knowing fully why.

Everything is foolproof, and wonderful, and great. But. Mike forgets their overall track record with the universe: things don’t tend to happen quite so seamlessly for them. 

El and Max have a girls’ trip with Joyce the weekend of April 15th. Mike thinks: This could be it. The boys plan a hangout day on Saturday, “Out of spite,” Lucas says, “for being excluded on the basis of sex.”

“Discrimination,” Dustin agrees, “of the highest form.”

Will rolls his eyes. “They invited me, you know, but I decided to sit this one out.”

Lucas’ mouth drops open. “My god,” he says. “Excluded on the basis of, just, favoritism, then.”

Will laughs, and Dustin grimaces. “Won’t hold up in court, I fear,” he says.

Mike shrugs. “Whatever. It’s warm enough, yeah? Do you guys wanna go to the creek?”

Dustin’s grimace slides into an approving smile and a pat on Mike’s shoulder. “I knew we kept you around for a reason, Wheeler.” His smile is toothy and wide. “The Ideas Man.”

The creek - The Creek, at least to Hawkins’ residents - is one of the less known summer spots, frequented by gangly teens and the occasional middle-schooler once the weather starts to warm up. Catching it early spring is always best, waters highest from regular rains and snow-melt. It’s a winding, blue thing, careening through the woods not far from the Byers’ old house.

They pack sunscreen and sandwiches, a picnic blanket and towels and a few beers snuck from Mike’s dad’s stash. Lucas wiggles his eyebrows, holding the bottle in his hand. “Ah, yeah. Now, we’re men.”

As if.

The day holds out on them, though. The bright catch of the sun makes the still-mostly-freezing dip of the water manageable. They take turns screaming as they run in, toes and then knees and then, finally, heads, when Dustin shoves Lucas under the water as the first victim.

Lucas resurfaces gasping and glaring. “You piece of absolute -”

Dustin cackles, wading away as fast as he can. Not fast enough; Lucas is too combat veteran for them these days. He takes Dustin down easily, and exerts his revenge on Will and Mike too despite their reminders that they were only innocent bystanders.

The water is freezing. It punches the breath out of Mike’s lungs. So does Will, laughing and shivering and laughing some more, caught in a sunbeam, arms draped loosely over the water’s surface, bright and singular. The green of spring suits him, a backdrop of flowers and new life and the promise of warmer, louder, better down the line.

Mike has to do something. He splashes water Will’s way. Will takes it on the chest and raises an eyebrow. 

“Unwise,” he jokes, and splashes Mike back, right in the face. He tips over laughing as Mike ends up swallowing most of it, open-mouthed and not-quite-fast-enough to dodge.

They eat their sandwiches, swig the not-yet-too-warm beers, lay out on towels and bake in the sunlight for a bit. Mike steals looks. The scattershot moles painted on Will’s back. The way the cold has spread pink like a blush from his neck down his chest. The pinprick of goosebumps on his sun-drying skin, and the line of his ribs as he bends over to grab his sandwich.

Mike wants to press his mouth to each knob of his spine, the curve of his collarbone, the spot where his heart sits behind his sternum. He knows he wants this; he wants to want this.

And then, back into the water. Hitting the cold again is instantly-sobering. Dustin says, “Fuck, was it this cold the first time? Fuck.”

They swim around. They look for good rocks along the creek bed. Lucas finds a good jumping point to cannonball into slightly deeper water. Dustin gives him categories - “Dive! Bellyflop!” - and then the other two give him ratings out of ten on his performance. 

Mike floats closer to Will. In the cold slick of the water, he lets their arms brush. Will looks at him; Mike looks at him too. They both miss Lucas’ jump, and he complains the whole way back up and out of the water about, “How ridiculous this shit is. Make me jump again because you weren’t paying attention, sure, it’s not like I’m putting my fucking heart into these jumps or anything, just -”

Will laughs, wading away from Mike to intercept Lucas halfway. “Here, here, that’s on me. I’ll do this one in your leave.”

Lucas raises an eyebrow, but nods. “Be my guest.”

Will treks up to the jumping point. Lucas joins Mike and says, quietly, “Now if you give him a ten out of ten, I’ll know it’s biased, alright? That shit’s not fair.”

Mike turns a look on him, as innocent as he can. “I’d never.”

Lucas seems generally suspicious, but he just hums and turns his attention back to where Will is prepping his jump. Dustin calls to Will, “Pencil!” and Will nods. He makes a show of straightening his arms and legs, likely gunning for more points, and then jumps in, no fanfare. It’s a good pencil; body straight, minimal splash, slipping past the surface of the water with ease. 

Will resurfaces and Mike immediately yells, “Ten out of ten!”

Lucas elbows him. “Man, not cool,” but Mike can hear him smiling.

Dustin laughs, and Mike watches Will hang there in the water for a second. His expression dips, slightly confused. He looks down, then looks back up.

“I think I - cut myself?”

For a moment, no one says anything, until Dustin says, “Come again?”

“On a rock, or something,” Will says. “My foot.”

Mike feels the familiar sensation of: of course he would. Of course it’d be Will. Of course. It’s a familiar sensation, to be struck with worry, fast and hard, at the prospect of something being wrong with him. 

Sure enough, Dustin helps him over to the shallower, wading water, and when Will lifts his foot out of the water -

“Yeesh,” Dustin says. The cut’s a jagged, long thing, from the sole of his foot to the top of his heel, and it wells immediately with blood upon breaking the surface.

“Byers, you - you can’t do things by halves, huh?” Lucas says, as Mike says, “Ok, come on, let’s. God, and we didn’t bring any first aid shit, of fucking course -”

“In my car,” Dustin says. The three of them - fully unnecessarily, maybe, but Mike is past the point of realizing such a thing - are manhandling Will towards the edge of the water, and then out to where their towels are still splayed in the sun. Will keeps his foot above the ground so it doesn’t touch the dirt. Mike shrivels his nose at the thought of mud and creek water in an open wound.

Why Will - why always Will?”

“In my car,” Dustin repeats. “I’ve got shit in my car.”

“I’ll go get it,” Lucas says. 

Dustin takes one look at where Mike’s lowering Will onto the towel and says, insistent, “I’m coming with you.”

Mike shoots him a look that says good fucking idea. It’s not like it’s their fault, obviously, but it’s hard to shake: that thing that wants everyone out of the goddamn way anytime Will’s hurt, so he can handle it, because he can handle it. 

Will laughs, a little surprised sounding. “Um, it’s not that big of a deal.”

“You say that now,” Dustin says, round, earnest eyes, “‘til you get tetanus, dude.”

“Not helpful,” Lucas says, shoving wet feet into his tennis shoes. Dustin does the same, tossing on his shirt and then throwing Lucas’ his way too.

“We’ll be right back,” Lucas says, and Dustin groans, “Man, I’m totally gonna chafe. God fucking -”

Will says, “Seriously, guys, I can -”

But they’re already off. Responding to Will Related Emergencies is hardwired in them by this point. They’re gone, squeaking and squelching as they jog off, and Mike is left with Will, and his confused little grin, and his bleeding foot.

“Really,” Will says as soon as the others are out of earshot. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Let me see.”

Will lifts his foot, and Mike grimaces. The cut’s bleeding in earnest now, mixing with lake water, dripping down Will’s skin and onto the ground. It can’t be that deep, but Mike thinks about germs and infection, about Dustin mentioning tetanus. Was it a rock, or a broken bottle someone’d chucked in last summer, or any number of stupid shit that could be sitting at the bottom of a creek, waiting to be stepped on by Will Fucking Byers?

“Does it hurt?” he demands.

Will shrugs. Shirtless, slippery, sunny Will, who doesn’t seem nearly as bothered as everyone else. “Not really,” he says.

“Sure,” Mike says, not fully buying it. He grabs the nearest bottle of water, uncaps it and pours it down Will’s foot. The lake water and blood wash away, dripping down Will’s heel, but more blood immediately pools when Mike stops pouring. Fuck. He grabs the cleanest of their towels and presses it to Will’s foot, and then grabs the next cleanest and says, “Let’s dry you off, get you in a shirt? Then -”

“Mike.”

Will is looking at him. Really looking at him. The eyes full of questions; a laugh gathered in the corner of them. “Seriously. I’m fine.”

“I know, I just.” 

“I’ve dealt with worse.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean -”

That doesn’t mean it’s not somehow scary, every time, a live wire, an instinct. It doesn’t mean that Mike will ever stop wanting to care for Will, no matter how miniscule the problem might seem.

“Mike,” Will insists again. He grabs at Mike’s forearm. He keeps his expression light, but he says, “Is this part of why you’ve been acting weird? I told you a million times, I’m ok - really, I’m ok. I’m good. Everything’s good. You don’t have to, you know. Fix everything.”

Mike can’t find the words to explain himself. He says, instead, “Here’s a towel, and here’s your shirt.”

Will’s expression gets pointy, but he listens, and Mike tries not to stare as he dries off his chest and tugs on his shirt. Mike tugs his on too, but doesn’t stop watching Will. His face is still damp; his hair is still wet. He’s dripping on the collar of his shirt.

“Let me help,” Mike says. Will watches, wordless, as Mike grabs the towel and scrunches it in Will’s hair, rubbing it through like his mom used to do for him after baths, when he was still an idiot kid. 

He moves the towel down to Will’s cheek. Will continues watching, and then he says, “You’re freaking me out.”

“I’m being normal,” Mike argues.

“Is that what you think this is?”

“Sure is.”

“Right, and next time I get a papercut, I guess you’ll be there with stitches to -”

Mike doesn’t mean to say it. But Will’s making a pissy little face at him, his face of when will everyone accept that I’m not in danger anymore, and it’s just - it’s so Will, so annoyed and righteous, and Mike just - Mike’s got a towel on the side of his face, and a hand in his damp hair, and he can’t help it.

He blurts, “I love you.”

Whatever Will’s saying is cut short. His mouth drops open. His expression blanks out, eyes widening, eyebrows shooting up.

Mike says, “Like. I’m in love with you.”

Will is damp and shivery. They’re surrounded by half-empty beer bottles and mostly-eaten sandwiches; wet socks and Will’s bloody foot. Mike’s inability to be chill. Will’s inability to let people dote. And the massive, years-old fucking elephant in the room, that Mike has got to be frankly insane to decide to point out now, of all times.

He had a plan: he was going to pay for dinner. He was going to make a day of it. What the hell was it all for, if he was just going to spit it out like a moron the second shit hit the fan?

“I -” Will starts, stops. He blinks. His eyebrows dip low now, but his mouth stays open. Confused. Stunned. Trying to make fucking sense of it. “What?”

“Stop getting fucking hurt, dumbass,” Mike says. “You’re stressing me out.”

Will laughs, high and stunned. “Oh, I’m stressing you out? You’re gonna have to run it back for me, Mike, because I’m pretty sure I’m either hallucinating or drunk or -”

The butterflies are a united front; they start to go positively apeshit in his stomach, and Mike can’t stop. “I love you,” he says again. “I love you, and so don’t tell me not to be pissed at whatever fucking rock did this shit to you, because I am. I will continue to be, actually.”

“You - you’re pissed at the rock?” Will laughs again, disbelieving, but it’s beginning to register; Mike can tell in the abrupt, burning giddiness in Will’s cheeks. “You - what?”

“Did you not hear the rest of what I said?”

“No, yeah, I heard it, I just - I don’t - I’m going into shock, or something, I can’t -”

Well. In for a penny, in for a pound. Mike says, “I’m going to kiss you now.”

Will’s eyes, wide and incredulous, and the way his grip on Mike becomes desperate in the switch of a second. “Would you?” he squeaks.

Mike would, and Mike will, and Mike does. It’s disastrously far from all the things he’s dreamed up; pressed against the wall of Will’s room, the back of Mike’s car, the panels of his door. Despite this, it’s also a million times better. Mike’s got Will’s face cupped in his hands - one of which is still holding the stupid towel - and Will’s got his hands on Mike’s forearms, and they meet somewhere in the middle. 

It’s mostly graceless. Mike thinks that might be from how long this thing has been building. The graceful, quiet moments are behind them: the hand holding, the shoulder bumping, the lingering stares. It’s all led to this: the slide of their lips and the noise Will makes, high and wanting, as Mike forgoes whatever uncertainty he’s carted around the past few years to press deeper, move with more urgency. It’s teeth before it’s tongue, and then it’s heat, a cloying, dizzying thing that longs for so much more than Mike feels strong enough to carry.

The butterflies throw a party. Meanwhile, Mike throws the towel, needing more room to touch, and maneuver, and hold. He keeps one hand on Will’s jaw but moves the other to the back of his head, scratching at the hair there. Will’s whole body shudders, and he angles himself closer to Mike, his own hands still tugging loosely at Mike’s arms, keeping him near, pulling him nearer.

Mike says, “I love you,” into Will’s open mouth, and doesn’t let Will respond. Not with words, anyway. Will finds other ways; he’s smart, like that. He lets go of one of Mike’s arms to sneak a hand up his shirt, toying with the hem and then planting fingers on Mike’s ribs, trailing around to his back. The touch makes Mike shiver, the tracing patterns feather-light and fond. Mike tugs at Will’s bottom lip with his teeth; Will digs blunt nails into the skin of his waist.

And then, whoops! Will’s crowded close in Mike’s lap. Mike’s mouth is on his neck. Will shakes like a fresh April breeze, and when Mike trails lips back up to his mouth, Will laughs, bright and pleased.

Mike kisses him again, and again, until the feeling is hot and disorienting behind his eyes. He buries his face in Will’s hair to catch his breath, lips tingly, blood loud in his ears. Will smells like lakewater, and cinnamon, and home. He’s got his fingers in Mike’s hair now too, and Mike feels his breath catch as Will scrapes at the base of his skull.

“I can’t believe -” Will pants, but cuts himself off to laugh again. “I can’t believe this is how you decide to tell me.”

Mike takes another breath, closes his eyes, wills himself to calm down. “It wasn’t my plan,” he grumbles.

Will’s voice is all fond, breathless and happy. “Oh? You had a plan?”

“Wine and dine-ing you. At Sandy’s.”

Will laughs, and then moves his other hand to pull Mike’s face out of his shoulder. The look he gives Mike is so full of affection that it’s a physical thing, a hand wrapped around Mike’s heart.

“I don’t think they sell wine at Sandy’s,” Will points out helpfully. 

“I hadn’t gotten that far.”

“It’s ok. I like your Plan B, actually. Very spontaneous.”

“Rugged and suave,” Mike says.

Will laughs some more - can’t stop laughing, the sound spinning easy and light. “You know me,” he says, and then puts his two hands on Mike’s cheeks, holding his face steady and strong. 

“I love you,” he tells Mike, with sincerity enough to hurt. His eyes are wide and honest. His lips are swollen and pink. He’s smiling, and he gives Mike’s head a tiny little shake in his hands, like this’ll help his words sink in. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

He kisses Mike, easy now, second-nature already, and Mike can feel the way it’s about to snowball out of their control when Will - always the better of the two - pulls away.

“We can’t scar Dustin and Lucas,” he says, but he bellies it with another quick kiss on Mike’s lips, then his cheeks, then his lips once more. “We’ll never hear the end of it.”

“They’ve been busting my balls about it,” Mike confesses, and chases another kiss out of Will too. Long and seeking. Enough to earn him another sound, that shoots straight into Mike’s gut. Focus, Mike. He tips their foreheads together and says, “Apparently I’m obvious. And stupid.”

“You weren’t obvious to me,” Will says, whispering it into the space between them. Mike feels the words, just out of reach. “Not so obvious it wasn’t still fucking scary.”

“I know.”

Sugar-sweet, Will adds, “But stupid? Maybe a little. Only sometimes.”

The miniscule distance is still too much. Mike leans in again, captures Will’s top lip, kisses him softer, simpler. Easy. Easy as breathing. He tilts his head, moves his lips to the corner of Will's, then the flush of his cheeks. “That makes two of us, then,” he says, pressing the words into the curve of Will's cheekbones, then the line of his jaw.

“And when have I been stupid?” Will demands, voice pitching petulant again as Mike steals kisses up the side of his face, beside the corner of his eye.

“When you jump onto rocks,” he answers after a moment.

Will hums. Mike can feel the sound vibrating his skin, as Will moves to press his face into the side of Mike’s now, tilting against him, cheek to cheek, like he enjoys this as much as Mike does, maybe: just being close.

“The rock jumped onto me,” he argues, the words buzzing against Mike’s ear.

“I’m sure it did.”

“Besides.” Will pulls away now so he can fix Mike with a look. Flushed face, puffy lips, and eyes Mike knows better than his own. “Only one of us decided to be a baby about that.”

“Baby,” Mike echoes with a scoff, but the word lands differently. Will stares, and Mike stares back. He grins, feels it all in his face, crowding around in his chest, and he puts a hand back on Will’s cheek, traces the line from bone to temple, following the same path his lips had already tracked. “Baby,” he repeats, and Will’s face glows bright pink in the sunlight.

“Is it not too early for petnames?” he argues, but it’s weak, bellied by the pleased red in his cheeks and ears.

“If you say so, baby,” Mike teases.

Will slaps his arm, scandalized but painfully, obviously happy, and then scoots away. “Really, though, I don’t want this to be how we break the news, so -”

“Right, yeah.”

It’s easy to go back to checking on Will’s foot, but it’s less easy to stop the smile that keeps reaching up into the corners of his cheeks.

“Stop with the face!” Will complains.

“I can’t! It’s just my face!”

“You look like a dope.”

“Get in line, Byers.”

Will sticks out his tongue - Mike takes awful note of the action - and then the others are back. Panting, and with a little red and white box. 

Mike does his best to school whatever he looks like right now. He’s not too worried about it, actually. He’s so happy it hurts.

“That - uphill - sucked,” Dustin gasps, bending over at his knees. They’re too exhausted to notice, which is a win Mike decides to take, actually. Lucas helps wrap Will’s foot, and Dustin wheezes and supervises, and Mike stares at Will, who mostly refuses to make eye contact, even as Mike can see his lips twitching in a runaway smile.

“Looking better, Byers,” Lucas says once he’s finished, clapping his hands on his thighs. He looks up at Will, and Mike watches his eyes narrow some. He glances at Mike a moment, and then his eyes widen, huge and knowing.

Mike glares a glare of: Don’t make a fucking scene.

Lucas swallows and nods, urgent once given a task, and Will either doesn’t catch it or doesn’t care. Dustin, for his part, remains oblivious, and they help Will put on one shoe and then carry his other, packing everything up and heading back to the car. It takes a while, especially with Will mostly-hobbling, one arm over Mike, the other over Lucas. Dustin continues to supervise and direct and talk about the merits of making sure they’re all up to date with their tetanus vaccinations.

“It’ll get you, tetanus,” he says gravely.

“Dude. Name one person tetanus has gotten.”

Dustin gestures largely, but can’t think of anyone specific. They laugh, and then they’re there, in the car. The other two in the front, Will and Mike in the back. Dustin and Lucas argue about, whatever the fuck. Doesn’t matter. Mike lets his hand sneak over to find Will’s. Will shoots him a look, a sly, grinning little thing that makes Mike’s heartbeat rush in his ears. He returns Mike’s grip, laces their fingers, and squeezes. 

Mike loves him. Mike loves him so, terribly much. And when they get back, Will is convinced easily into dinner at the Wheeler’s. He lets Holly talk his ear off and lets Mike’s mom better wrap up his foot and lets Mike’s dad complain about the bums who throw their beer bottles in the river and, later, lets Mike press him against the familiar soft of his bed and kiss him until neither of them can breathe. It’s an overwhelming thing, to be with Will Byers, but Mike thinks, maybe, he can start to get used to it.

“You’re a sap,” Will accuses as Mike presses lips to the inside of his wrist, in the driveway, after Will’s finally convinced the both of them he definitely needs to go home, lest his mom freak out. But Will’s eyes melt at the gesture, and he looks around just once before raising his wrist to his own lips and pressing a kiss there too, an indirect thing that settles like a blanket over Mike’s shoulders.

“Pot,” Mike says, “meet kettle.”

“Ha.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“What for?”

“Breakfast. At Sandy’s.”

Will grins. “I’ll have to check out their wine list.”

Mike grins too. “I’ve heard it’s a bit of a doozy.”

Mike watches Will go - again, always - but it’s different this time. He knows Will will be back; he knows he’s never too far, not really. A house closer than before, a spot at Mike’s table, fingers wedged right into Mike’s heart. 

It’s a Development. But Mike’s decided he likes change, actually. Who would’ve thought.