Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sleeping in someone else’s house is a curious thing. When they were kids, spending the night at the Wheelers’ was Will’s favorite plan for a Friday afternoon. Well—also for Saturday afternoons. And Sunday afternoons. Or really, for any afternoon of his life. Those rare weeks when he and his best friend managed to convince their parents to let him stay the entire weekend were the best.

Breakfast, talking about that comic series they loved so much; spending the morning riding their bikes around Hawkins or playing video games. Spending the afternoon playing D&D and the night laughing nonstop, whispering under the blankets long after the hour they’d been told to go to sleep. And the next day, waking up… whether it was in the basement, on the mattress on Mike’s bedroom floor, or—sometimes—in the bed his best friend slept in every night.

What more could you ask for? Wasn’t that as close as you could get to heaven on earth?

But it’s one thing to spend a night—or a weekend—and another to live for months in a house that isn’t yours. And of course, it’s not the same doing it when you’re five as when you’re sixteen… starting with the fact that your problems at five aren’t the same as your problems at sixteen. When you’re five, you usually don’t have a whole mess of hormones and runaway biochemical reactions that won’t let you think straight and that give you cold sweats every time the person you like breathes the same air as you… not to mention the murderous interdimensional entity that wants to destroy life as we know it.

Despite the discomfort of living under someone else’s roof, Will liked how little the habits in the Wheelers’ house had changed since back then. He knew by heart what time they usually served lunch and dinner, how they folded their towels, even which stair step creaked and exactly how hard you could step on it before it did. The same smell of old wood in the basement; of coffee and sweet cereal in the morning; of static electricity in the hallway carpet…

In that house, everything still seemed to be going fine, as if Hawkins didn’t have an open wound split down its middle, breathing under the ground.

That didn’t mean everything was fixed. Will was still fighting not to scream when, sometimes, he closed his eyes and saw the red of the Upside Down clouds. He forced himself to smile at the table whenever Karen Wheeler asked if he wanted more of anything, even when he hadn’t liked it at all. He fought to hide the tremor in his fingers that showed up now and then when he held a pencil.

And he fought to live with Mike Wheeler without letting the flood of emotions he felt just from hearing his name show all over his face.

Mike lived upstairs, at the end of the hall, behind a door with a movie poster whose joke Will didn’t get. The first day they arrived at that house, the moment they stepped through the front door, Will could hear him running down the stairs to greet him… even though, right before he got there, he stopped dead and appeared walking normally—casually—as if the one who’d arrived was Great-Aunt Gertrude and not his best friend. And then, seconds later, very casually tried to drag him up to his room without even giving him time to unpack his bag.

They spent that afternoon laughing, eating junk food, and talking about things that didn’t matter at all—except they mattered a whole lot to them: which Star Wars movie was best, or whether Superman had any chance of beating Sauron. An oasis of peace after the hell they’d lived through just a few days earlier.

Two weeks later, Mike burst into the basement, where Will was quietly painting. He looked shaken and sad, his eyes noticeably red and his messy hair falling over half his face. When Will asked what had happened—afraid Vecna was back, afraid the worst had happened—Mike didn’t take long to drop the bomb: he’d broken up with El. After four years together, they weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend anymore.

Mike told him their relationship wasn’t what it used to be when they met at barely twelve. El had changed and, in a way, Mike had too. After everything that happened while they were living in Lenora, and after their reunion, things hadn’t gone back to normal. And in that moment, El was obsessed with stopping Vecna and with the idea that he could use Mike as a weapon against her. But most of all, after spending months believing Hopper was dead; after the Byers accepted her as part of the family without hesitation; and after Hopper came back to her from the dead… she’d realized what she’d always wanted—and what she truly needed right then—wasn’t a boyfriend, but a family.

In that moment, Mike felt devastated, like he’d lost the person he’d thought was the love of his life. And yet, a part of him he would never admit knew they’d done the right thing. He felt it too: things weren’t like before. He didn’t feel as comfortable alone with her anymore; kissing had turned into a routine with very little meaning behind it; and he hated the idea of not being her support anymore and ending up as a nuisance—or worse, a burden—for El. And besides… for a while now, he could feel someone else making their way into his heart… and he would never hurt El because of that.

As for Will, he knew perfectly well there was nothing to be happy about that day. His friend and his sister were shattered. There were no reasons to find joy in something like that.

But he was also aware that, when he heard the news, a small part of him breathed like a knot had finally loosened. And he would never know for sure whether that was just relief that it had nothing to do with Vecna killing someone… or whether it had more to do with the now-nonexistent relationship of his best friend.

Three days passed with Mike not being Mike. And then night came. The house went dark and only the smallest sounds remained: the fridge, the whistle of the wind, the clock in the living room… Will stayed awake staring at the basement ceiling, the Wheelers’ basement now turned into the room he shared with Jonathan.

A little after midnight, he heard distant footsteps coming closer. A door opening. A creak on the stairs. Silence.

“Will?”

It was Mike, his voice so low it sounded like he was speaking that way so he wouldn’t break anything.

Will sat up faster than he would’ve liked to admit, his heart pounding way too hard in his chest.

“Yeah?”

Mike finished coming down the stairs like he was afraid the basement might swallow him. He wore an old T-shirt, hair messy, and an expression Will had only seen a handful of times: the face of someone who doesn’t know whether to ask for help or apologize.

“I can’t sleep,” he said.

It was a simple line. Normal. Something out of a cheap movie. But in Hawkins, after everything, nothing was normal. Not sleeping could mean nightmares. It could mean pain. It could mean feeling something at the back of your neck, like a cold finger pointing at you from somewhere that didn’t exist.

“Can you… can you come to my room?”

If Will hadn’t still been breathing, he would’ve thought his heart had stopped.

Without needing to say anything else, Will got out of bed, moved toward the stairs carefully so he wouldn’t wake Jonathan, and together they went up the two floors to Mike’s room.

Inside, Mike walked carefully, like the floor was ice. He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at his hands.

“I’m sorry for… all this,” he murmured, vaguely gesturing at the room and at the two of them.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Nothing is anyone’s fault and still everything’s broken,” he said. And when he looked up, Will realized his eyes were red. But he wasn’t crying. Mike almost never cried in front of anyone.

Will swallowed. He wanted to tell him he was broken too. That sometimes he woke up with his throat tight like there was still something inside him. Or that he’d been in love for years with someone he knew would never love him back.

But the words stuck to the roof of his mouth.

So he did the only thing his half-asleep brain would let him do.

“Do you…” He pointed at the pillow. “…want me to stay? Talk. Sleep. Whatever.”

Mike hesitated, like agreeing would be some kind of defeat—or worse, torture. Then he nodded and lay down on top of the comforter without really getting into bed, almost on the edge.

Will understood what it meant, and he did the same, lying down on the other edge of the bed, at a respectful distance. Almost ridiculous.

Will lost track of how long they stayed there in silence, listening to the clock.

“Do you think he’s coming back?” Mike suddenly asked.

He didn’t need to say the name. Will could feel it on his skin. That “he” that wasn’t a he—that presence that still brushed at his thoughts sometimes like it was knocking on the door.

“I don’t know,” Will answered, honest. That was all he had left: honesty. And not even for every subject.

Mike squeezed his eyes shut for a second.

“I’m scared that…,” he began, but he stopped there, the sentence hanging.

Will stared at the wall, focusing on his breathing, on his hands.

“Me too.”

It was enough.

Mike let out a breath, like he finally allowed himself to fall a little. And in that fall, his shoulder brushed Will’s.

Just a brush.

And still, Will’s chest tightened like someone had struck a match inside him.

A few minutes later, Mike pulled his legs up, grabbed the blanket, and covered himself, gesturing for Will to do the same.

“Good night, Will.”

“Good night, Mike.”

Chapter Text

Living with the Wheelers meant learning and adapting to new rules, some imposed and others agreed upon by everyone.

Don’t talk about certain things in front of Holly. Don’t keep the basement door closed “just in case” when he and Mike were alone (what danger was there in two friends being alone in a room?). Don’t mention the mall. Don’t say the word “crack” lightly. Don’t deal with the military.

It also meant seeing Mike every day. Not just seeing him every day, but seeing him in small domestic scenes that had nothing heroic about them: Mike pouring himself milk with a frown; Mike trying to fix a lamp; Mike messing with Holly; Mike arguing with Nancy over dumb stuff; Mike doing this; Mike doing that; Mike, Mike, Mike…

Sometimes Will felt like no one else lived in that house. And he also felt, almost like a sickness, the irresistible impulse to look at him when he shouldn’t. Will promised himself he wouldn’t. He promised himself he’d be normal. Be the friend. The one who’s there. The one who supports. The one who doesn’t complicate things. His best friend.

But the problem with promises is that nobody tells you what to do with what you feel when nobody’s watching.

One more rule arrived after two weeks.

It wasn’t on a list or written anywhere, and they’d never even talked about it, so how was Will supposed to know?

It was one night when he got up half-asleep, with that stupid feeling of thirst and sleep stuck to his eyes. The house was silent, the hallway light off, and the darkness made of familiar shadows: frames, corners, a hanging jacket that looked like a person until you got closer.

He walked barefoot, trying not to make noise, thinking only about getting back to bed as fast as possible.

He reached the hallway bathroom and, without thinking, turned the knob and swung the door wide open, like he would for any room.

The light inside hit him in the face, and he squinted. Weird that the bathroom light was on… unless someone was in there.

Will adjusted quickly, just as quickly as he got his answer.

Mike stood in front of the mirror, hair soaked, a towel snug around his waist. He had another towel in his left hand and the hair dryer in his right, about to switch it on. The air smelled like steam and soap. Nothing strange, nothing “movie-like.” Just… another domestic scene.

Mike looked up at the reflection and froze too.

“Will,” he said, surprised, like the name slipped out before he could think.

Will should’ve shut the door immediately. Should’ve said “sorry” and left. Or he could have simply laughed and made a joke, like any normal friend would have done.

But his body did something else: it stayed perfectly still.

Time slowed down until it almost stopped. One second. Two. Three…

Will’s brain went blank, like the world around him vanished and he couldn’t process it. Only this absurd moment existed, where he didn’t know where to put his eyes.

He’d seen Mike like that plenty of times: at the pool in swim trunks, or at his house on hot days when they both took off their shirts or even their pants until they were in underwear.

But this was different.

Mike’s hair was wet and completely messy, falling out of control over his face. Drops of water slid through the strands and down his cheeks, traveling over his cheekbones to die at the corner of his lips or fall from his jaw to the floor. Others slid shamelessly over his body in a way Will had only ever imagined touching in dreams.

Mike had never been especially hairy anywhere besides his head, so the lack of body hair only made it easier for the water to go wherever it wanted. Will fixated on one drop in particular, watching it fall from the tip of a strand to his collarbone and then get pulled by gravity: winding down his barely-defined chest and slim stomach, slipping past his navel and moving over the small strip of hip still exposed, until it vanished, soaked up by the towel that covered him from there down to mid-thigh.

Mike felt the towel starting to slip, so he awkwardly tried to adjust it so it wouldn’t fall. No anger, just nerves.

That was what snapped Will’s soul back into his body and made him realize he’d been standing there staring longer than was remotely normal.

“Sorry,” he blurted at last, voice low, almost a whisper.

Mike opened his mouth, probably to say “it’s fine” or, in some perfect universe, “wait,” but Will was already acting on pure panic.

He slammed the door. The sound bounced down the hallway like a gunshot, probably waking more than one person.

And he ran.

Not dramatically, not like in a movie… but fast enough to almost trip on the carpet. He made it back to the basement with his face burning and his heart racing, though this time he closed the door slowly, trying not to wake Jonathan, because if Jonathan asked him anything, Will wouldn’t be able to answer.

He leaned against the wood, breathing like he’d just run ten laps in the gym.

“Great, Will. Great. Normal Friend of the Year.”

He dove into bed at a ridiculous speed, pulling the blanket up over his head like it could hide him from what had just happened… or worse, from his own brain.

That was when he understood the new rule: If you find Mike Wheeler in the bathroom right after he's showered, don't stare at him like an idiot.

Will didn’t leave the basement for the rest of the day, trying to get his brain to reboot.

The next morning, the image of Mike was the first thing that flashed behind his eyes. Will tried to shove it away. It didn’t work.

He decided he’d get up early, eat fast, and avoid Mike for as long as it took to remember how to look him in the face again.

Of course, life had other plans. Life in Hawkins had a sick sense of humor.

Will was finishing warming up his milk when Mike appeared in the doorway. Will’s skin went hot. On autopilot, he pulled the mug out, still not as warm as he wanted, grabbed the cereal, and crossed to the empty dining room table like he could outrun his own thoughts.

“Hey,” he managed, barely.

He focused on the bowl in front of him as if it were a life raft. Eat. Leave. Breathe.

Behind him, he heard Mike moving around in the kitchen: the familiar clinks, the cabinet doors, the soft ding of the microwave. Then, a light touch on Will’s shoulder made him jolt.

“You’re really hungry today,” Mike said, smiling like it was just another morning.

Will blinked at him. No awkwardness. No weird look. No pause that meant we have to talk about it.

Even with the whole table empty, Mike sat down right beside him anyway. He poured himself cereal, stole the box long enough to check the back like it held secrets, and started talking immediately about what he thought was going to happen in the next issue of his favorite comic series.

And Will, who hadn’t even realized he’d been holding his breath, finally exhaled.

When Mike asked what he thought, Will stammered at first. Then the conversation caught, like a match finding paper, and suddenly he was in it with him, nodding, arguing, laughing in the right places. Grateful. Almost dizzy with relief.

They kept talking about nothing important. Which, somehow, was everything. They went for a walk. Later, they played one of their favorite video games, like two normal friends, like it was easy.

However, Will never noticed the faint red that stayed on Mike’s cheeks the whole time.

Not long after, one afternoon, Will found Mike in the garage with an open box and objects scattered like shipwreck debris: letters, a walkie-talkie, a child’s drawing of a dragon in colored pencil and, half-hidden beneath Mike’s forearm, a stack of older drawings Will recognized in the same instant he saw the corner of one.

It didn’t look like the kind of mess you accumulate over time. It looked… recent. Like someone had gone digging and then stopped mid-thought. The box lid was bent back too far, a few papers splayed out in a fan, dust disturbed in pale streaks where hands had dragged things aside.

“What are you doing?” Will asked from the doorway.

Mike startled so hard he almost knocked the box over. He slapped a hand down over the papers, too fast, too protective.

“Nothing.”

That word—nothing—was a wall.

Will stepped in, slowly but determined.

“When someone says something is ‘nothing,’ it’s because it’s something important,” Will said, teasing, trying to make his voice light.

Mike let out a dry laugh that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“I’m… cleaning. Mom said I have to organize this mess.”

He didn’t look at Will when he said it, only looked at the box. At the papers he’d tried to cover. Like they’d betrayed him.

Will’s gaze dropped again, because he couldn’t help it. There it was: his own linework, his own little way of drawing faces and hands, the kind of thing you never really unlearn. A picture he’d made for Mike years ago, back when “I like you” only existed as colored-pencil drawings and nervous gifts you gave without knowing exactly why they mattered so much.

Will had always drawn for the people he loved. Joyce, Jonathan, Dustin, Lucas… and Mike. He’d lost count of how many times he’d shoved a folded piece of paper into Mike’s hands and pretended it was no big deal.

What he hadn’t expected—what he definitely hadn’t been prepared for—was the fact that Mike had kept them.

Not just one or two, either. There were dozens. Corners bent and softened from being opened and closed, colors faded in that particular way old colored pencil does. A whole box full of proof that Will had been there, leaving pieces of himself behind, and that Mike hadn’t thrown any of them away.

Mike’s fingers were still on the top drawing, pinning it down like it might slide free. But he wasn’t treating it like a keepsake. He was treating it like evidence.

His thumb worried the edge of the paper, smoothing it once, then again—an absentminded motion that didn’t match the tightness in his jaw. His brow was furrowed, his mouth set in that concentrated line he got when he was trying to work something out. Like the drawing had a second layer he was convinced he’d missed the first time.

Will couldn’t have said why the sight made his stomach dip. It wasn’t embarrassment—Mike had seen his art a thousand times. This was something else. Something quieter. Something that sat behind Mike’s eyes and wouldn’t let him look away.

“Want help?” Will asked anyway, softer now. Sincere.

Mike hesitated. His hand hovered over the drawings for one last second, like he didn’t know whether to cover them again or admit they existed. Then he pushed another box of things toward Will.

“If you want…”

They sat on the garage floor like they used to as kids, surrounded by things that had survived monsters and lies. Afternoon light came in through the half-open door, and the dust looked more visible in it, like everything old floated back up.

Mike cleared his throat, as if grateful for something safer to hold onto than Will’s drawings. He reached into the box again—careful this time—and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

“I found this,” he said.

It was a list. In his handwriting: “Rules for D&D Night,” and underneath, names.

Something tightened in Will’s throat. Joy mixed with nostalgia.

“I forgot about this.”

“I didn’t,” Mike said, his voice softening. “I remember almost everything. From the day you disappeared to the day Hawkins cracked in four.”

Will wanted to ask what Mike meant by almost everything. Wanted to ask what he remembered saying—and what he remembered not saying. But the thought was a wire knot: sharp and tight and impossible to pull apart without cutting himself.

Instead, he pointed at the paper.

“Dustin always cheated with the rules.”

“Dustin cheats at life,” Mike replied, and for the first time in days, he smiled for real—quick and crooked. “And he still does.” He laughed, once, like he was testing whether he still remembered how.

That smile hit Will like relief. Like a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey,” Will said before he could stop himself. “Are you… okay?”

Mike’s gaze drifted back to the box, to the mess they’d made out of old memories. Like the question landed somewhere heavy. He breathed out through his nose.

“No.”

He didn’t add anything. Didn’t dress it up. Just that “no,” dry and simple, like when you run out of hit points and you can’t keep going.

Will swallowed and shifted one of the papers aside, making a little more space between them without moving away.

“Okay,” he said, quiet, understanding.

Mike lifted his gaze for a second and dropped it again, uncomfortable, like eye contact might turn the answer into something worse.

“It’s been…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Two weeks? Something like that.”

Will nodded. He counted time like that too lately: in “weeks since,” instead of normal days.

“It still hurts,” Mike admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. He sounded annoyed at himself for even saying it out loud. “Not gonna lie. And it’s… stupid, because we both knew it wasn’t working.”

He swallowed, as if the words scraped on the way out.

“It was for the best. For both of us.”

Mike’s eyes flicked to Will—quick, like a reflex—then dropped back to the box.

Will didn’t interrupt. He just listened.

Mike picked at a frayed edge of cardboard on the box, then let his hand fall flat on his thigh.

“I keep thinking I should feel one thing,” he said, like he was choosing each word carefully. “Like I should be… devastated, or mad, or relieved. And it’s all of it. It’s everything at once, and it makes me feel like a jerk.”

Will’s chest tightened, and he stayed still, like any sudden movement might make Mike stop talking.

Mike swallowed.

“I care about her,” he added quickly, like he needed it on record. “I still do. She’s…” He stopped, jaw working. “She’s been carrying so much. And the last thing I wanted was to make her feel like she had to carry me too.”

He exhaled sharply.

“And the more things got worse here,” Mike went on, “the more it felt like… like we were trying to keep something alive just because it’s what we’d always done.”

He let out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh, except it wasn’t funny.

“I couldn’t give her normal,” he said. “And I couldn’t even give her words when she needed them. I kept thinking if I just… held on hard enough, it would go back to how it was.”

His fingers worried at the cardboard again, quick and restless.

“And I did love her. I do,” he added, softer, like he was afraid saying it wrong would make him a liar. “But somewhere along the way it stopped feeling like us, and started feeling like… a thing we were supposed to be. Like if we let go, it meant everything else we survived didn’t matter.”

Mike’s jaw tightened.

“I told her I loved her when it counted. When everything was on fire and the world was ending and there was no time left to be scared,” he said, voice rough. “And part of me thought that would fix it—like saying it out loud would make everything click back into place.”

He shook his head once, small.

“It didn’t. Not really. Not the everyday part. Not the part where you’re sitting across from someone and you’re both trying and it still feels… off.”

He swallowed, staring hard at the floor.

“So when she said we should stop, when she said she needed space and she didn’t want either of us forcing something that wasn’t working anymore…” Mike’s shoulders lifted in a helpless half-shrug. “I hated it. And I understood it. And that made me feel worse.”

A beat of silence passed, thick and careful.

“I don’t want to keep replaying it until it turns into something ugly,” he said finally. “I don’t want to poison what we had just because it hurts now.”

Will stayed quiet for a second, letting the words settle.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice low. “I know it hurts.”

Mike didn’t look up, but he nodded like he’d been waiting for someone to say that, without turning it into a whole thing.

“And… for what it’s worth,” Will added, careful, “you didn’t make it worse. You didn’t drag it out just because it was easier. You did the hard thing because you both thought it was the right thing.”

Mike’s fingers stilled on the edge of the box.

“You always do that,” Will went on, softer. “You try to take care of everyone, even when you were the one hurting.”

Mike finally lifted his eyes. Tired, a little raw… and warm in a way that didn’t need words.

A strange silence settled in. Not a bad silence. Just strange. The kind where you don’t have to fill it with jokes because the jokes will come back on their own, eventually, when you can breathe again.

Mike rummaged in the box and pulled out the walkie-talkie, turning it in his hand like it was something precious and annoying at the same time.

“Dustin’s been driving me insane about having an ‘official meeting,’” he said, doing a terrible Dustin impression—too loud, too dramatic.

Will let out a small laugh.

“That sounds exactly like him.”

“And Lucas…” Mike made a face. “Lucas says if we don’t talk ‘as a team,’ we’re gonna end up worse.”

Will let out another laugh, bigger this time. “Lucas, is that you? What did you do with Mike Wheeler?”

Mike shot him a look that tried to be annoyed and failed. “Shut up.”

Will grinned. “I’m just saying. That’s a very Lucas thing to say.”

“Yeah,” Mike muttered, but it sounded fond.

Then after a beat, Mike raised the walkie like it was an idea. Like it was a lifeline disguised as a dumb plastic brick.

“We could…” He stopped. “We could talk to them tonight. Like… normal. Like before.” His eyes flicked away. “After Max and Eddie, they’re both pretty messed up.”

Like before. A dangerous phrase. But he said it like he truly needed it, like medicine.

“Yeah,” Will replied without thinking. “That sounds great.” And it was true. Inside his head it sounded like music.

Mike looked relieved, and that relief softened his face.

“Then…” he glanced at the garage clock. “Let’s go up to my room and call.”

They carried the walkie up the stairs as if they were transporting a relic. In his room, Mike closed the door and sat on the floor with his back against the bed. He motioned for Will to sit beside him.

They switched on the walkie.

“Finally!” Dustin shrieked a second later, loud enough that Mike flinched and pulled it away from his ear. “Dude, I thought you were dead or…” He cut himself off, the joke dying halfway. Then, immediately, his voice went brighter again, like he could plaster over it. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling, like, a normal amount.”

“Hi, Dustin,” Mike said flatly.

“Ooooh. Leader voice. Okay, okay.” There was a creak, like Dustin was moving around. “Lucas, they’re here.”

“About time,” Lucas’s voice came through, lower and more serious. “You guys okay?”

“Yeah,” Mike said.

Will leaned in.

“Hey.”

“WILL!” Dustin yelled again, but this time there was something threaded through it, relief, maybe. Like he needed the sound of them to prove they were real. “Tell me you brought your dice, because Hellfire needs…”

“Dustin,” Lucas cut in, gentle but firm. “Not the moment.”

“It’s always the moment,” Dustin protested automatically. And then, quieter, like he couldn’t help it, “Eddie would’ve said that.”

A beat of silence. The kind that doesn’t know where to go.

Then Dustin cleared his throat, too fast.

“Anyway. School is still a nightmare, the town is still pretending we didn’t almost die, and I’m pretty sure my science teacher is possessed.”

And suddenly, Mike’s room wasn’t just Mike’s room. It was… their room. Everyone’s. Not like before, not completely, but enough that Will’s chest could breathe again.

They talked about small things. About the upcoming school reopening “halfway.” About weird teachers. About Hawkins feeling like a town pretending it wasn’t broken. Lucas said Max… was still the same, and Mike didn’t ask anything else, but Will noticed his jaw tighten.

At some point Mike said, “We have to be ready in case something happens,” and Lucas made that confirmation sound he always made when he was serious. Dustin started rambling about traps, radios, and “strategies,” like if he kept talking fast enough the grief couldn’t catch him.

It was normal.

Normal in a way that hurts a little but also healed.

Eventually Karen called up from downstairs and said it was late and they had school the next day. Mike answered “Coming!” without moving. They said goodbye, Mike clicked the walkie off and set it on the carpet.

They stayed there in silence, like when you finish a show with a wild ending and you don’t want to talk yet.

Mike kept turning the walkie in his hand, thumb rubbing over the chipped plastic like he could smooth the night into something easier.

“That was good,” Mike said finally, looking at it like it was fragile.

“Yeah,” Will said. “Really good.”

Mike cleared his throat, then cleared it again like he was trying to buy himself courage.

“Hey…” he said, not looking at him. “You staying?”

Will’s brain took a second to understand.

“…Here?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged like he didn’t care, but his voice betrayed him. “Just… to sleep. It’s just…” He made a vague gesture, like the words were too embarrassing to hold. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”

The word alone landed in Will’s ribs like a small, quiet weight.

“Sure,” he said fast, leaving no room for doubt. “Yeah… Of course. I’ll go get the mattress and put it on the floor.”

Mike looked up like Will had said something stupid.

“What? No. Will, don’t be…” He stopped halfway, no insult. “I mean. You don’t have to.”

There was a beat where Will didn’t move, caught between habit and hope. Mike shifted like he’d realized something too late, like the whole point was that Will didn’t have to go back downstairs.

Before Will could react, Mike got up, pulled the comforter aside, and shifted over, leaving a clear space.

A space.

For Will.

Will stood there for a second, face warm, remembering that first night, how the distance between them had been so ridiculous it was like they were trying not to coexist. He could almost hear his own heartbeat arguing with his common sense.

Mike scratched the back of his neck.

“It’s… just a bed, okay? It’s not… it’s not weird.”

A small, nervous laugh escaped Will.

“Yeah. Sure. A bed. Super normal.”

“Exactly,” Mike said, way too serious.

Will got into bed carefully, like the mattress might explode if he moved too fast. He kept his hands close to himself, like they were evidence.
Mike turned off the light and lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling as if it might give him instructions.

At first, they left a “safety distance.” But the bed wasn’t big enough to hold an absurd amount of embarrassment, and exhaustion weighed more than fear. Slowly, without saying it, they shifted a little closer. Not pressed together. Not like that movie scene that had played in Will’s head so many times. Just… enough to feel Mike there.

In the dark, Mike’s breathing evened out and then faltered again, like sleep kept trying to take him and he kept slipping out of it.

Will didn’t say anything. He just stayed. Stayed like a promise.

Mike spoke in the dark, very quietly.

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” Will whispered, softer than he meant.

For a while, neither of them moved. The house creaked. Somewhere upstairs, a pipe clicked. The world kept being the world.

Eventually, Mike shifted on instinct, the blanket rustling as he tugged it a little higher, half covering Will by accident and then, not fixing it.

Will didn’t fix it either.

Will lay there for a long time, too aware of everything—the heat, the closeness, his own heartbeat. And still, somehow, when sleep finally arrived, it was easy. Deep. Almost kind.

After that night, it happened again.

Not all at once. Not like flipping a switch—more like the same thing happening twice, and then a third time, and a fourth, until it stopped needing permission.

Every few days, around the same hour, one of them grabbed the walkie and Dustin answered a moment after they finished saying, “You there?” Lucas pretended he didn’t care, but he was always there. Sometimes they argued, sometimes they laughed, sometimes they just let silence sit between them because there was nothing to say—or because the memories piled up too high in their heads.

The first time after that night, Mike kept his voice low, like he didn’t want the walls to hear how much he needed it. The second time, he laughed at something Dustin said and then went quiet so fast Will could tell the sound had surprised him. After a couple of times, it didn’t feel like a plan anymore. It was just what happened when the house went still—like reaching for a light switch in the dark without thinking.

And when they clicked off, Mike always made that blanket gesture, like it was nothing. Like it was the most normal thing in the world. Like they’d already accepted that it was just how things were.

Sometimes he did it without looking at Will. Sometimes he did it like he was daring Will to say no.

Will never did.

Some nights they talked a little longer about whatever the others had said, about something stupid, until the words ran out on their own. Some nights they didn’t talk. They just got comfortable, settled in, and let the quiet do what it did best.

Some nights Mike asked with his eyes before he ever asked with his mouth. Some nights he didn’t ask at all. He’d just pause, hover like he was waiting for Will to change his mind, and Will would already be moving, already making room in his head for yes.

At some point, without Will being able to name the exact night it happened, he fell asleep for the first time without feeling like a guest.

And Will learned another new rule: that at least for now, his place was there. In Mike’s room. In Mike’s bed. With Mike.

A little closer every night.

Chapter Text

Will woke up before Mike.

It wasn’t a clean wake-up, the kind where you open your eyes and immediately know where you are. It was more like surfacing with your throat still tight with sleep, your body heavy, your mind taking a few seconds to remember what was real and what wasn’t.

The first thing he noticed was warmth.

Not the warmth of the room: the Wheeler house was always a little cold in the mornings. This was the specific warmth of another person nearby.

Beside him, Mike was breathing slowly, in that uneven rhythm he got when he finally fell asleep after spending half the night pretending he wasn’t having trouble. The blanket covered both of them awkwardly, like someone had thrown it over them halfway and decided that was good enough.

Will stayed still.

Too aware of the weight of the sheet on his chest, of the way the mattress dipped a little more toward Mike’s side, of how close Mike’s arm was, without touching him, but close enough that the air between them felt different. He closed his eyes for a moment, just to check if it was safe. Just to buy himself one more second before remembering his life was a mess.

He barely moved to sit up when Mike mumbled something unintelligible, rolling onto his side with a soft groan, like he was protesting the fact that the world was still allowed to exist. His hair was flattened and messy, one cheek marked by the pillow, and his expression was so honestly vulnerable that Will had the sudden urge to push Mike’s bangs back with his fingers.

He didn’t.

He just stared at him for way too long, because apparently that was his specialty: staring at Mike like an idiot in those random moments, and even in the not-so-random ones, though he couldn’t pretend it was anything new.

Will carefully slid to the edge of the bed. He sat down slowly, trying not to make the bedframe creak, and searched for his socks on the floor. The tiny sound of fabric brushing the carpet felt scandalously loud.

Mike didn’t wake up.

Or at least, he pretended he didn’t.

That was also part of the game.

Will slipped out of the room holding his breath, like walking down the hallway was a high-risk mission. The house was still half-silent: a pipe knocking every so often; the fridge humming downstairs; the living-room clock counting seconds with cruel patience. There was a deceptive calm to everything, like Hawkins wasn’t broken on the inside.

In the kitchen, he poured himself a glass of water, drank too fast, and leaned against the counter, waiting for his heart to stop acting like he’d just escaped a Demogorgon.

Nothing had happened.

And still, his body behaved like it had.

He went back to Mike’s room a few minutes later, when the urge to make sure Mike was still there outweighed common sense. Mike was still in bed, this time on his back, one arm above his head and the blanket slipped down a little, like he’d lost the war against the temperature sometime during the night.

Will forced himself to look away.

It wasn’t an exception anymore.

And that was the dangerous part.

Two weeks had passed since that first night Mike had asked him to stay; two weeks in which sleeping in Mike’s bed stopped feeling like an accident, like a weird night or a one-time necessity, and started looking dangerously like a habit.

It wasn’t something they talked about during the day. There were no “hey, about last night” conversations, because if there were, maybe the borrowed normal they’d built out of blankets, walkies, and almost-whispered goodnights would crack. Normal was fragile. It was like a house of cards: touch it with the wrong finger and it collapses.

So they didn’t touch it.

It just happened.

And little by little, Will got used to ridiculous details.

To the sound of Mike turning over because he couldn’t find a position, like the mattress owed him an explanation. To the way he went still when their hands accidentally brushed in the dark, like contact could give something away. To the fact that Mike always tried to pretend he fell asleep first, like it was an absurd competition he had to win out of pride. To his face being ridiculously beautiful for someone who’d just woken up: eyes half-closed, mouth clumsy with sleep.

And Will, who was supposed to be terrified of an interdimensional entity that wanted to destroy the world, started being more terrified of the idea that Mike might realize he was too awake.

By the time nearly a month had passed, there was no denying the dynamic had turned into a routine. And Will was grateful for it with an intensity that was almost embarrassing.

Not only for the obvious, for the warmth of the body of the boy he was hopelessly in love with, but because, little by little, he could feel Vecna starting to rise again, stronger than ever.

It wasn’t constant. It wasn’t every night.

But it happened.

It didn’t take Will long to start waking up with his neck ice-cold, like someone had blown on him from inside his skin. Sometimes it was a red dream, heavy, sticky. Sometimes it was simply opening his eyes with the certainty that something was wrong, even before he understood what.

When it happened in the basement, he woke Jonathan. Jonathan, half-asleep, would sit up with his hair sticking up and that tired look only people have when they’ve learned too early how to be grown-ups. He’d tell Will he was there. He’d rest a hand on his shoulder. He’d stay with him.

Will loved him for that.

But it didn’t compare.

Not to Mike.

Because when it happened next to Mike, the world rearranged itself differently. Mike didn’t say, “What’s wrong?” like he didn’t know. Mike sat up like he knew too much.

Like fear didn’t need translation between them.

The last time it happened, Will jolted upright with the air trapped in his chest. It took him half a second to realize he was in a normal room, with posters on the walls and clothes tossed over a chair. It took another half second to notice the blanket had tangled around his legs.

Mike moved almost instantly.

He didn’t ask. He didn’t complain. He didn’t do the awkward move of pretending he’d just woken up. He sat up sharply, breathing still rough, and Will watched sleep erase itself from his face like someone had flipped a light on inside him.

Will tried to swallow the panic before it could escape through his mouth. He pressed a hand to his neck on instinct. It was freezing. Not like when you accidentally kick the covers off; this was cold that felt like it came from the inside, like his skin had been left open to something that had no right to touch him.

Mike leaned in toward him, enough to see his face in the dark.

“Will…” he murmured, voice still broken with sleep, but with a clarity that didn’t belong to someone who’d just woken up.

Will swallowed. He didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to be that again. Didn’t want to make it real by saying it out loud. But his body wouldn’t let him pretend.

“I feel it,” he whispered.

Mike went still for a second, like the words confirmed something he’d already feared. Then he reached out blindly until he found Will’s hand. He squeezed firmly, threading their fingers together, anchoring him to the moment and the place they were in.

“Don’t worry,” Mike said, low and serious. “Breathe. I’m here.”

Will obeyed. One breath in. Another. The cold didn’t disappear completely, but it lowered, like a buzz fading when someone turns the volume down.

Mike exhaled, like he’d been holding his breath too.

“I hate this,” he muttered.

Will let out a small sound that was more air than humor.

“Me too.”

Mike didn’t let go of Will’s hand, feeling the trembling fade little by little. Then he lay back down… closer. Without commenting on it. Like fear had shoved embarrassment out of the bed for a moment.

Will took a while to fall asleep again, no longer cold. The opposite: a heat in his chest that made it a little hard to breathe. Mike’s hand was an oven. No question about it.

The next morning was… a different kind of disaster.

Will woke up with that uncomfortable clarity boys sometimes get in the morning: the body running on its own, the brain taking its time to boot up, the urgent need not to think too hard while crossing from dreams into reality.

The first thing he felt was Mike’s hand still gripping his. So warm it almost burned.

The next thing was a growing discomfort lower down. Something was pressing hard. It took him a second to realize the problem wasn’t something squeezing him, he was the one pressing against his own pants.

He let go of Mike’s hand quickly. And, unfortunately for him, the moment Will released him, Mike shifted like a spring.

And as if the universe had a sense of humor, Mike sat up at the exact moment Will made the smallest move to get up.

They both froze.

Not because they looked at each other. Precisely because they didn’t. Because they understood the same thing at the same time: that certain things about physiology are normal and still make you want to disappear. Things that don’t happen when you’re five and sleeping next to your best friend, but that can be very different once you grow up.

Mike cleared his throat, red up to his ears, staring at the wall like there was a brand-new poster there.

“Well,” he said in that fake everything’s-fine voice he only used when he was nervous. “Good morning.”

Heat climbed up Will’s face. He clutched the blanket with absurd intensity, like it was a shield.

“Yeah. Morning.” He swallowed. “Did you sleep okay?”

Mike let out a brief, awkward laugh that died before it could really exist.

“Yeah. Great. Thanks for asking.”

Two seconds of silence that felt like two thousand.

Will, who usually had the gift of saying the worst possible thing at the worst possible moment, decided to say nothing. He did the smartest thing a teenage boy could do in that situation:

“I’m going to the bathroom.”

He said it too fast. He stood up too fast. And he left too fast, tripping a little on the sheet on the way out, because of course he did.

Mike looked away even harder, like looking was illegal.

“Yeah. Okay. Go,” he blurted. “I… I was gonna… I mean, after.”

Will practically fled, shut the bathroom door, and pressed his forehead to it, breathing like he’d just run half a marathon.

Great, he thought. Great, Will. Normal teenager. Normal day. Normal friend…

He washed his face, trying to erase what had just happened.

When he went back to the room, Mike was already standing, hair sticking up, pretending there was something incredibly interesting in his sock drawer. Will stepped in and paused for a second in the doorway, like the air in here was different from the rest of the house.

They didn’t look at each other.

Or rather, they looked the bare minimum necessary to function: a quick glance to measure distance, to confirm the other was still there, to make sure neither of them would say the wrong word and make everything crack.

Mike cleared his throat. Opened the drawer. Closed it. Opened it again like a solid-gold sock with diamonds in it was going to appear if he just tried hard enough.

“I think…” he started, and stopped halfway.

Will tensed instantly, because he knew that tone.

That we’re-going-to-talk-about-this tone.

But Mike didn’t say this.

He scratched the back of his neck, uncomfortable, and let out a slow breath.

“Hey,” he said finally, voice lower, more real. “I’m… I’m not going to make it weird, okay?”

The sentence floated between them: simple, almost clumsy. But perfect, because it let Will breathe again, like a knot had loosened in his chest.

Will swallowed and nodded once.

“Yeah…” he murmured. “Okay.”

Mike tipped his chin in the smallest nod, like that was enough. Like they’d just signed a treaty between two enemy governments.

“Good,” he said, and his voice sounded a little steadier.

Will bent to grab his T-shirt off the back of the chair, and the simple movement felt too aware, too loud. Mike turned his back, digging through the drawer like he was suddenly organizing the universe.

Will knew it was a way of helping. A way of saying: I don’t have to look at you for this to be normal.

Silence came back, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t a silence that screamed. It was a silence that, for once, wasn’t trying to erase them.

Right before they went downstairs for breakfast, Mike walked past him, brushing his shoulder against Will’s. It was brief. Almost casual. Almost intentional.

But it meant everything.

I’m here. We’re fine. We keep going.

Will stayed still for a second, his heart doing what it always did.

Because for him, it did matter. Not because of what his body did in the mornings. That was normal, biology, the stupid universe being the stupid universe, but because his body insisted on reminding him, whenever it could, of what he’d spent years pretending didn’t exist:

that he was in love with his best friend.

And still… the world hadn’t ended.

Once Will finished pulling his shirt on, they went down to the kitchen. Karen was already there, coffee mug in both hands, wearing that mom expression that knows more than it says and chooses denial as a survival strategy. She gave them an automatic smile and kept reading a wrinkled list on a scrap of paper.

“Morning,” she said without looking up. “Mike, honey, can you help me later? I don’t know what you did the other day, but the garage is a disaster.”

Mike answered with an automatic, “Yeah, Mom,” and Will felt, almost ridiculously relieved, as the world slid back into place: there was a later, there was a garage, there was a domestic complaint. There was something that wasn’t just the two of them trapped in a room with their pulse spiking.

They sat down.

Mike dropped into the chair beside him like nothing important had happened in the entire history of humanity. He nudged the cereal closer with a simple, practical motion and started talking about anything (some strip, some comic twist, some invented injustice) in that normal-life tone.

Will answered at first with his throat tight. But it didn’t take long before he followed Mike into it.

Because it was Mike. And Mike had always been that for him, no matter what happened: a plank of wood in the middle of the ocean.

Later, after doing dishes and surviving a conversation with Nancy about “school stuff” involving a reopening nobody actually wanted, Karen poked her head into the living room again, this time not as friendly as she’d been at breakfast.

“Mike. I’ve told you several times. You made the mess in the garage, so you’re the one who’s going to fix it,” Karen declared, in that tone that sounded almost military. “I don’t want to find a rat nest in the junk in a few days.”

Mike rolled his eyes.

“Great. My dream: dying between boxes.”

Will let out a small laugh. Mike’s sarcasm was a familiar language, and Will was always grateful to hear it.

Karen didn’t find it as funny. She pointed at him, leaving him no escape.

“And don’t give me the ‘I was just looking’ excuse. If you left it like that while you were searching for whatever you were searching for, you clean it up. Period.”

Mike opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it.

“Yeah, yeah. Fine, Mom.”

Karen left, muttering something about “teenagers” and “this house.”

Will glanced at Mike, still half stuck in a smile.

“Hey…” he said, lowering his voice. “The other day you were down there with me and you told me you were cleaning because your mom wanted you to organize. And now it turns out… you made the mess?”

Mike shrugged too fast.

“It’s not like I made it. It’s just… I moved stuff. You know.” He ran a hand through his hair, uncomfortable. “Whatever. You coming with me or what?”

Will blinked, not fully connecting all the dots, and finally just nodded, letting himself be pulled along by the inertia of the everyday. Of course he was going with him.

“Yeah. I’m coming.”

They went down to the garage.

The air smelled like dust, old cardboard, and that metallic tool scent from things that haven’t been used in too long. Light came in through the half-open door, and dust motes floated like the past had turned visible.

Mike knelt in front of a stack of boxes and started moving things with no clear order. It wasn’t the way you clean when you actually want to clean. It was the way you clean when you’re trying to find something without admitting it.

Will saw it immediately.

“Are you going to ‘organize,’ or are you practicing excavation?” he asked, leaning on the doorframe.

Mike huffed.

“Depends. If I find a dinosaur, do you let me keep it?”

Will crouched beside him and tugged on an old trash bag labeled Christmas with absolutely no lights inside.

“If it’s a dinosaur, no. If it’s a rat, it’s all yours.”

“How generous,” Mike muttered, pretending to be offended.

They started doing what Karen always called “making space”: shifting boxes, lifting junk, opening things they didn’t remember packing away. A bag of old tapes. Broken rackets. A box full of cables that probably didn’t work anymore. Mike lifted one of Holly’s scooters and set it aside like it was dynamite.

“Why is there so much stuff?” he complained.

Will smiled, dragging another box.

“Because your parents are incapable of throwing anything away. Sounds familiar.”

Mike rolled his eyes, ready to shoot back, but then he stopped when he found a blue plastic folder, swollen with papers and bent at the corners. It wasn’t an “important” box, nothing dramatic written on it. And still, when he picked it up, a brief laugh escaped him, like a memory had slapped him in the face without asking.

“No way…” he murmured, and opened it.

Inside were loose pages, a spiral notebook with the cover half torn off, a couple folded maps, and a bundle of sheets with big, sloppy marker letters. Will recognized Mike’s handwriting on the first line even from where he was.

“Is that…?”

Mike tried to frown, but it didn’t quite land.

“…It’s not what you think.”

Will leaned in, curious.

“Mike… that’s a campaign.”

“It’s ancient history,” Mike grumbled, but he sounded more embarrassed than defensive now. “An archaeological discovery. And we do not have to overthink it.”

Will lifted one sheet and read out loud, theatrically:

“DO NOT OPEN THIS DOOR UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE.”

Mike dropped to the floor with a resigned sigh, rubbing his face with one hand.

“Okay. Yes. It’s a campaign. Happy? But I was, what? twelve? I DM’d like a kid.”

Will laughed as he flipped through the papers carefully.

“Which is what you were. A kid.” He paused the tiniest second and added, like it slipped out and he tried to fix it midair, “And I liked you a lot… as a DM, I mean.”

Mike looked up. Just for a second, long enough that Will’s stomach tightened. For a moment, he wondered if that clarification had even been necessary, if it really hadn’t been obvious from the start, or if two “normal” friends would’ve felt the need to say it out loud.

Then Mike cleared his throat and pointed at the papers again, grabbing onto the easy thing.

“Uh-huh. Well, your twelve year old ‘DM’ was also a tyrant. Look at this.” There were dungeon doodles, lists of made-up magic items, names crossed out and rewritten, arrows everywhere, like the page had been a battlefield.

“Dustin must’ve hated you,” Will said, pointing at a note Mike had written in all caps: “NO, YOU CAN’T DO THAT.”

“Dustin hates anyone who tells him he can’t do something,” Mike replied automatically. Then, softer, almost fond, he added, “But yeah. He hated me.”

Will kept turning pages. In one corner there was a small scribble: a shield drawn in a hurry, and under it a half-erased phrase, like Mike had written it and then regretted it. Will blinked when he recognized a word among the scratches: Will the Wise. His character.

He lifted the page and held it a second longer than necessary, trying to decipher, like a detective, what Mike had written about him, with no real success.

They spent a couple more minutes flipping through the papers, making dumb comments, letting nostalgia do what it did best. Eventually, Will laughed and handed the folder back.

Mike took it slowly and slid it to the bottom of the pile with almost excessive care, like creasing it would be a crime.

“We have to be careful,” he said, trying to sound serious. “Legend has it if we fold it, a wild Dustin will appear at the window to yell at us.”

Will laughed and let it go.

As Mike closed the folder, Will caught a glimpse, just out of the corner of his eye, of a page edge with colored pencil strokes peeking out between the maps. It wasn’t like the overflowing box from the other day. It was just one loose sheet that didn’t belong there.

Mike shoved it in with his thumb and closed the folder all the way, keeping the papers from spilling.

“Okay,” Mike said, standing up. “This goes in ‘keep.’ If only to remind us how melodramatic we were.”

“We were adorable,” Will corrected.

Mike huffed, offended.

“Don’t use that word on me.”

Will was about to answer when he found something sturdier in another box: an old photo album, the hardcover kind. The front had FAMILY WHEELER written in marker.

“Oh no,” Will said, already opening it.

Mike turned instantly.

“Will. No.”

“Will. Yes,” Will shot back, flipping the first page.

Old photos: Karen pregnant, Ted holding a giant camera, Nancy in braids. And then, baby Mike, with a serious, round face that looked physically incapable of smiling.

Will clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing too loudly.

“Was Mike Wheeler born angry?”

“Close that,” Mike said, red, but with the kind of protest that was all embarrassment and no real anger. “God, why does my mom keep incriminating evidence of everything?”

Will turned the next page with ridiculous solemnity.

“Look, here you are… four years old? So cute. And here, first day of school. Those bangs should be illegal.”

“Are you seriously going to talk to me about haircuts?” Mike grumbled, without much force.

Will gave him a sarcastic, “Ha. Ha,” and turned another page, still smiling. Another photo: Mike in a suit, stiff as a board, frowning like someone had forced him to sign a contract.

“Look. Here you were mad at the world.”

“I was uncomfortable,” Mike protested. “It was a suit. Suits are a trap.”

Will laughed and kept going. The next picture was a little blurry: a table, half-deflated balloons, and Mike with cake smeared across his face, staring at the camera with absolute indignation.

“And I remember this birthday, you lost a war against the cake.”

“It was a surprise attack,” Mike said flatly. “I wasn’t prepared.”

Will was about to answer, but when he turned another page, he froze for a second without meaning to.

In a small, slightly out-of-focus photo, there were two kids in the basement: a pillow fort behind them, dice scattered on the floor… and Mike and Will together, pressed close out of pure habit, like the space between them didn’t exist yet.

They were both smiling huge, those smiles that have a life of their own, the kind you forget you’re capable of.

Mike stepped closer without realizing it, tugged in by an invisible thread. He crouched beside Will to see it better, and for a moment Will felt the warmth of Mike’s shoulder too close, the kind of closeness you don’t seek out but also don’t avoid.

Mike stared at the photo a second too long. His eyes moved from Will’s smile to his own, like he was trying to remember the exact moment the world had gotten so complicated.

Then he cleared his throat, like the sound gave him control back.

“Okay, that’s it. You’ve seen enough material to blackmail me for life.”

Will looked up, the album still open.

“Then don’t make it so easy.”

For a second Mike went still, processing. Then he made a very Responsible Adult move to close the album—but Will planted his hand on the cover, stopping it like he was keeping someone from shutting a cabinet door mid-slam.

“Hey.” Mike tried to sound serious; it came out half laugh. “Are you going to behave?”

Will didn’t move an inch.

“Make me.”

Mike sighed dramatically and tried to pull the album back by one corner… with zero real force, more pride than conviction. Will dodged with the smallest movement, like he’d trained for this his whole life.

“You’re enjoying this way too much,” Mike muttered.

“So much,” Will admitted, shameless.

Mike glanced at him with that expression that was half I hate you and half you’re making me laugh, an expression that only ever belonged to Will.

Will raised an eyebrow, victorious.

“You’re hopeless.”

Mike let out a low laugh, not even fighting it anymore.

“Me? Excuse you, you’re the one using my baby photos as a weapon.”

And still, the smile stuck at the corner of his mouth, like it annoyed him to admit he liked the game.

Finally, Will closed the album carefully and set it on the keep pile, like they’d just placed something fragile where it belonged.

“Okay,” Will said, going back to work. “Rat mission.”

“Rat mission,” Mike echoed, and this time he sounded… lighter.

Will picked up an object from the pile: an old flashlight, yellowed plastic, the battery compartment jammed halfway. He shook it; nothing rattled.

“Okay. What do we do with this? Trash or archaeology?”

Mike exhaled through his nose, half-smiling at the joke.

“Archaeology.” Then, without thinking too hard: “Just in case.”

Will frowned.

“Mike. Just in case what? It’s dead. Look.”

He tried to turn it on and nothing. When he finally pried the compartment open, an acidic tang of old batteries hit him. Inside, everything was white, eaten up by corrosion.

Mike was already opening another box too fast.

“Just in case… I don’t know.” His hand went vague in the air, like the words were too specific to hold. “In case we need to remember. Or… in case we need… stuff.”

Will held the flashlight a second longer. Then he let out a tiny snort.

“Fine. Archaeology, then.”

He shook his head, set the flashlight aside, and crouched over another box.

“Okay,” Will said, lifting a half-broken one. “This goes in ‘trash.’ This goes in ‘keep.’ And this goes in ‘what the hell is this?’”

Mike huffed, the hint of a smile tugging at his mouth.

“That last one’s my favorite.”

They kept moving boxes, stacking, sorting. Will found a packet of tangled rope that looked like it had a life of its own and threw it onto the trash pile with exaggerated theatrics. Mike pulled an old slingshot out of another box, held it for a second, then set it carefully on the keep pile.

“Is that still Lucas’s?” Will asked, trying to sound casual.

“I don’t know. Lucas leaves stuff. I keep it. End of story.”

Will rolled his eyes, ready to say you keep stuff in general out loud, but the sentence stuck to his tongue.

In one corner they found a box full of comics stacked tight, some with bent corners. Mike opened it and his face softened instantly, like his body remembered before his mind did.

“Holy crap…” he murmured.

Will crouched beside him.

“What?”

Mike pulled one out, stared at the cover, and let out a short laugh, disbelief mixed with something simpler.

“I remember arguing with you about this one.” He showed him the cover. “You said the villain was better than the hero.”

Will opened his mouth, ready to fight on instinct… and still, his breath caught when he saw Mike’s expression. It wasn’t sadness. Not exactly. It was that kind of nostalgia that tightens your chest because it reminds you what used to be easy isn’t anymore.

So Will gave him an exit. Something normal to hold onto.

“I was right,” he said, with the conviction of someone willing to die on that hill. “Villains are always better than heroes.”

Mike looked at him and finally smiled for real.

“You were unbearable.”

“Then you shouldn’t have come to rescue me from the Upside Down,” Will shot back without thinking too hard—like tossing a pebble into water just to watch the ripples.

Mike blinked… and a short, almost offended laugh escaped him.

“Sorry, I take it back,” he said, pointing the comic at him like it was a weapon. “You were unbearable and you still are.”

Will arched an eyebrow, pleased to have pulled something like lightness out of him.

“And you complained about being dramatic at twelve, but you still are.”

Mike laughed quiet, conspiratorial. You’re right, without the words.

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was… domestic. The kind you’re allowed when your hands are busy and nobody has to look at anyone too much. Will held the comic for a second, watching Mike’s thumb smooth a bent corner by habit.

Then Mike straightened up to get back to the boxes. And between one movement and the next, like it meant nothing, he started shifting a few things from the back of a shelf. It wasn’t an open search, not the kind you announce. It was more like… checking. Measuring. Looking sideways.

Will, who was about to close the comics box, spotted something behind a couple boards and an empty jar: an old wooden frame, one corner splintered and the cardboard back half peeled loose. He pulled it out without thinking too much, evaluating it with the simple logic of broken things.

“This…?” he asked, lifting it slightly. “This is ‘trash,’ right?”

Mike turned too fast. He took the frame out of Will’s hands in a motion that was just a little too quick to be casual, like his body answered before his brain could.

“Keep,” he blurted. Then he cleared his throat. “I mean… keep. I’ll handle it.”

Will blinked, thrown off by how firm that had sounded in the middle of a garage full of useless junk. But before he could ask, the bottom of a trash bag tore open with a traitorous crack and half its contents tried to escape across the floor.

“Damn it,” Will muttered, crouching quickly.

Mike had already turned his back, digging through an old toolbox. He found whatever he’d been hoping for: a roll of blue painter’s tape and a small jar of almost-dry paint. He held them for a second, then tucked them away without ceremony, too fast for it to look important.

Will didn’t say anything. He was too busy fighting the ripped bag and picking up what had spilled, trying to make sure this didn’t turn into a catastrophe again.

In the end, when the floor looked like a floor again and the “disaster” had been reduced to two clear piles and one full bag, Mike dusted off his hands and looked at the garage like he was assessing whether his mom would approve, like he hadn’t been the one who’d left half a shelf torn apart to “organize.”

“Okay,” he said with a sigh that sounded like we survived. “I think… it doesn’t look like a crime scene anymore.”

Will laughed, dust still on his fingers.

“Karen would be proud. Or at least… less mad.”

Mike made a face like that was the highest goal available. They kept going a little longer on autopilot: closing boxes, dragging bags, stacking keep and trash without thinking too hard.

When Karen called them for lunch, both of them startled, like they’d been living in a different world this whole time.

They washed their hands in the garage sink, cold water running over their fingers. For a moment, Mike stared at Will’s hands a second too long, like he was about to say something—and then he looked away.

At the table, conversation was normal. As normal as anything could be in Hawkins.

And when Holly started talking about a drawing she’d made in class, Will smiled without thinking.

“Want me to teach you how to draw a dragon later?” he asked, gentle.

Holly’s eyes went wide, like he’d offered her magic.

“Yes!”

Mike looked at Will, and there was something in that look small, quick.

Something like pride.

Or… tenderness.

Will dropped his gaze too fast, because if he stayed there, caught in those eyes, in that expression, he might break.

As the afternoon went on, the day turned more… domestic. Will sat with Holly in the living room and drew her a patient dragon, step by step, while she tried to copy him with her tongue stuck out in concentration. Mike drifted past behind them a few times, pretending he needed water, or a pencil, or any dumb excuse that let him linger and watch for a few seconds longer each time. Karen warned them not to stain the couch; Nancy cut through the room complaining about how much she hated that everyone acted like Hawkins was going to fix itself; Jonathan appeared long enough to grab a glass and vanish again.

Hawkins was still broken, but for a few hours the house managed to feel like a house.

When Holly declared the drawing finished and ran off to show her mom, Will gathered pencils from the floor with practiced calm—like it didn’t matter that Mike was there, close. Too close. Mike appeared in the living-room doorway with the walkie in his hand, lifted it slightly as a warning, and said—almost casually—that Dustin had been insisting for a while.

Will nodded, grateful for an excuse that didn’t require thinking, and followed him upstairs.

As soon as Mike’s bedroom door shut and the walkie crackled between their hands, the world became, briefly, “them.” A feeling Will loved.

The call was the usual: Dustin too excited, Lucas too sensible, and that invisible thread holding them all together without anyone naming it. When they signed off, silence returned carefully, as if it didn’t want to break anything.

Will froze, the doubt already a habit: go down to the basement, put on pajamas there, pretend it still made sense, pretend it was normal, even though the last two weeks had proven it wasn’t. His body started preparing to run before he’d even decided.

But Mike had a different idea.

This time, he didn’t ask, You staying? He didn’t have to. He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at his hands for a second, like he was sorting something out inside himself. Then he lifted the blanket a little, an invitation so familiar it didn’t need words.

Will swallowed.

The morning flashed through his head like lightning: the poster, the wall, the way neither of them had known where to look. That warm, absurd embarrassment that had tried to crawl back for a moment, despite colored dragons and normal conversations and a whole day spent pretending they were fine.

He crossed the room slowly and got into bed with more care than he ever had, if that was even possible, like the mattress might betray him. Mike rolled onto his side, turning his back for a moment. Then he rolled back, and tugged the blanket over both of them with a small, automatic motion, like he was making it clear there was no need to build a wall.

A few seconds passed. Then Mike spoke, like he needed a safe topic before silence became something else.

“In two days school reopens,” he murmured, trying for neutral and not quite managing. “Can you believe it?”

Will let out the tiniest laugh, more relief than humor.

“Can’t wait,” he said flatly.

Mike snorted, and the tension finally eased.

“Yeah, totally. Hawkins High: famous for being normal and definitely not cursed at all.”

“They’ll have to add it to the class list,” Will said, following the thread. “Math, history… ‘how to survive an interdimensional demon.’”

Mike made a sound that almost became a laugh. He turned a little more toward Will; he didn’t look at him directly, but the closeness was there, taking up space like it didn’t need to apologize anymore.

Will closed his eyes with that mix of relief and vertigo. And just like that, the morning embarrassment slipped away without saying goodbye. It didn’t matter anymore. Not to either of them.

Because maybe the new rule wasn’t act like nothing happened. Maybe it was that sometimes, not building a wall was the bravest thing you could do. Especially if that wall would end up between him and Mike Wheeler.

Chapter Text

The day before school reopened was strange in the way Hawkins had become an expert at being strange: nothing exploded, no one screamed in the street, there were no sirens… and even so, the calm felt as tight as a rope tied to two trucks pulling in opposite directions.

Will and Mike spent the morning digging through backpacks, checking that notebooks were actually complete, and hunting for pens that had apparently vanished off the face of the earth. Karen insisted they had to “get back into a routine,” like routine hadn’t been chewed up and spit out less than two months ago.

The walkie didn’t crackle once all day. Lists, backpacks, clean clothes, schedules to follow; too much got in the way. There was too much to prepare for a day nobody wanted to arrive.

That night, when Will was already halfway into his usual doubt (the basement, the pajamas, pretending this was the normal way things worked), Mike stopped him without really stopping him.

No big speech. No direct question.

Just an excuse.

“Hey, I’ve been thinking…” Mike started, scratching the back of his neck as if the words were hiding there. “If you stay in my room tonight, we can set one alarm. Tomorrow we get up at the same time. Like… coordinated. Like a team. If we each set ours, you wake up first, I wake up later, it goes off twice, Holly wakes up, my mom wakes up, everybody wakes up…”

He made a vague hand motion, as if he were sketching a chain reaction of disasters in the air.

“And also,” he added faster, like he needed to justify it better, “if we wake up together we can go down to breakfast together, which makes things easier, leave for school together, not be late on the first day, not… not end up running around the house like idiots looking for socks. And I know you’re the kind of person who gets ready fast but I’m not. I mean, I am too, but… not… you know.”

He stopped, annoyed with himself, and huffed.

“Basically: less mess, less chaos, less…” Another pause. “Less chance of my mom killing us.”

Will stayed frozen with his pajama shirt in his hand, looking at Mike like Mike had just suggested something dangerously logical.

“Would your mom kill both of us… together, or one at a time?” Will asked, buying himself time.

Mike snorted.

“Obviously me first, for being a useless son. Then you, for being an accomplice.”

It sounded like a joke. It was a joke. And yet, Will felt that familiar thing underneath it: Mike doing what he always did, building normal out of sticks and tape and hoping it held.

Will nodded like there was nothing else there, like he wasn’t painfully aware of how hard it was not to smile.

The next morning, the alarm went off like a personal insult.

Mike shut it off before it could repeat, half-buried in his pillow, then sat up wearing the face he got when the world asked too many things from him at once. Will moved slowly, his body heavy and his head way too awake for how early it was.

For an instant, the morning before tried to creep back in through the crack like an annoying memory that wouldn’t quit. It didn’t have enough strength. It faded out when Mike cleared his throat, getting ready to speak.

“I hate school,” he mumbled, voice rough. “I hate it with my entire soul.”

Will let out a small laugh.

“Welcome back to normal life,” he said flatly.

Mike turned his head just enough to look at him, and Will couldn’t help thinking that grumpy morning face was adorable.

“Have you seen my other sneaker?” Mike asked like it was the biggest problem in the universe.

Will pointed without thinking, under the bed.

“There. In the trash kingdom that is your bedroom.”

Mike made a noise halfway between a laugh and a growl as he bent down to grab it.

A few minutes later they got dressed (Will had brought his clothes up from the basement the night before so they’d be ready), brushed their teeth in turns, and went downstairs to a kitchen where Karen was already running on full power like the house was a living machine.

Holly appeared with a backpack too big for her body, bouncing like “back to school” was an adventure.

“We’re going together!” she announced like she’d just called an official meeting.

Mike and Will shared a quick look.

“Yes, boss,” Mike said.

“Yes, boss,” Will echoed.

They ate fast in the usual morning chaos. Jonathan and Nancy left for the radio station they’d only been running for a few days, using it as a base of operations with Steve and Robin. Joyce rushed out to meet up with El and Hopper for their improvised training sessions to get ready for Vecna. Meanwhile, Mike, Will, and Holly headed toward elementary school and high school.

They stepped outside with the cold clinging to their skin and that Hawkins sky, permanent gray, as if it had decided to live there forever.

Holly was already getting on her bike like it was the Olympics, helmet slightly crooked, backpack bouncing against her back. Mike adjusted the helmet strap automatically, big brother on autopilot, and Holly complained out of pure tradition.

“Mike! You’re squishing my chin.”

“It’s a helmet,” he said. “Its job is to ruin your life.”

Will let out a brief laugh, still half-asleep on the inside, and got on his bike. Mike did the same. For a moment, the three of them were lined up in the driveway like it was the most normal thing in the world.

And maybe, for a few yards, it was.

They rode in a line at first, because Holly zigzagged like the road belonged to her. Then, once she got tired of pretending she was a grown-up, she rode between them, talking nonstop about her dragon, the colors she’d chosen, how the high school was “gigantic,” and how one day she’d go there too and then Mike was “gonna freak out.”

Mike huffed.

“Yeah, sure. Hawkins High: famous for being charming and not traumatic at all.”

Will glanced at him, amused.

“Don’t traumatize her early.”

“I’m not traumatizing her. I’m preparing her,” Mike said, dead serious.

Holly stuck her tongue out and sped up like she’d just made the most important point of her life.

When they reached Holly’s school, it was a small chaos of bikes, backpacks, and kids, with her teacher waving them inside and telling them not to linger.

Holly braked badly, hopped off her bike however she could, and hugged Will around the waist without warning, like she’d decided at the very last second.

“Dragon later!” she reminded him, urgent.

Will blinked, surprised, but hugged her back carefully.

“Yeah. Later.”

Mike cleared his throat like the whole scene had caught him off guard in a weird place.

“Come on, monster,” he told Holly. “Class. And don’t bite anyone.”

“I don’t bite!” she protested, offended, and took off running.

Once they watched her disappear inside with the stream of kids, Mike and Will got back on their bikes.

The silence after Holly wasn’t awkward. It was… different. Wider.

Mike started pedaling first, slow, until Will pulled up beside him. For a while they didn’t talk. Just tires on asphalt and cold air slipping up their sleeves.

At an intersection they had to stop. Their handlebars ended up too close, as if even small things were determined to remind them of everything.

Mike stared at the light like it was a punishment.

“Ready for the circus?” he murmured.

Will exhaled through his nose, a tiny laugh.

“No.”

Mike nodded like that was exactly the right answer.

“Me neither.”

And they kept going.

When they reached Hawkins High, the building looked the same… except it didn’t. There were taped-off areas, half-replaced windows, and that weird everything-continues atmosphere that was a lie, but worked like a collective spell.

They locked up their bikes, and the second they turned around, Dustin basically appeared out of nowhere like he’d been stalking them from behind a corner.

“Finally!” he blurted, way too awake for that hour, like it’d been forever since he’d seen them and not… two days. “I thought you were gonna show up in an ambulance or a government helicopter.”

Lucas was with him, calmer, but wearing that I don’t want to do this expression he’d been carrying around like a uniform lately.

“Or worse,” Lucas added. “With Ted Wheeler driving.”

Mike shot Lucas a look like that was unforgivable.

“Don’t summon evil.”

Dustin opened his mouth to say more, but then his voice dropped, his eyes darting around like he thought the walls could hear.

“Hey… what about El? How is she?”

Will shrugged, serious.

“I saw her a few days ago. Mom and I went to bring her some stuff and… she was with Hopper.” He paused, choosing words like someone who didn’t want to tempt anything. “She’s okay. Or… as ‘okay’ as anyone can be right now.”

Mike gripped his backpack strap until the fabric creaked, then loosened it like he’d realized how hard he was pulling.

Will caught it in the corner of his eye and, without thinking, brushed Mike’s shoulder with his fingertips. Small. Just enough to say I see you without saying it out loud.

“You know she can’t just show up here without a whole pack of bloodshot military guys trying to grab her,” Will added. “And she said if Vecna attacks again, she doesn’t want to get caught sitting in history class.”

Dustin nodded with dramatic seriousness.

“Fair. History class sucks.”

Mike let out a short exhale, almost a laugh, almost nothing.

“For once, Hawkins High and Vecna are tied.”

Lucas grimaced.

“Okay. First day of ‘normal.’ Who wants to bet someone passes out in the hallway?”

Mike snorted.

“Don’t tempt fate.”

Will smiled and pulled his hand back, but Mike didn’t move away; he kept walking as if the contact were still there.

And they went in.

Inside, Hawkins High smelled like bleach and old dampness, like someone had tried to scrub fear out of the floor without knowing where to start. Cracks were covered with tape and motivational posters, and the building still looked… tired. The hallways felt narrower than usual, not because they were, but because everyone walked with their bodies pulled in, measuring distance, avoiding looking too long at anything.

Near the main entrance, a couple uniformed men leaned by a folding table. Clipboards, radios, a watchful calm that wasn’t exactly hostile, but definitely not comforting. Will saw Mike’s fists tighten for a moment. He’d noticed too.

First period was an improvised homeroom in a classroom that wasn’t theirs. The principal, wearing an I don’t want to be here face and holding cold coffee, cleared his throat and delivered the speech in the same tone people use to read evacuation procedures.

“Some areas will remain closed. If you see tape, you don’t cross it. If you hear an alarm, follow instructions. There will be security presence both inside and outside the building… and please, if you need to talk to someone, the counselor is available.”

He said security like it was neutral, like everyone in that room didn’t know what it really meant: the people up top had decided to watch them in case Hawkins broke again, live. Not to prevent it, but to profit off the ashes.

Will tried to pay attention. He really did. But there were too many sounds: chairs scraping, pens tapping desks, the thin hum overhead. Beside him, Mike silently slid him a pencil when Will’s fell and rolled away under a stranger’s desk. It was automatic, nothing. And yet, Will felt it too much.

The rest of the morning lurched by: one class where the teacher pretended the curriculum still mattered, another where half the room stared out the window like they expected smoke to rise from the ground and ash to fall from the sky. This year they’d mixed class groups “for security reasons,” according to them. Luckily for Will, he had Dustin and Lucas in just under half his classes. Even luckier, he and Mike shared all of them, which meant Will didn’t feel like he was drifting.

After that “productive” talk, they headed to their next class.

Math. Great way to start the day.

As they walked, Mike fell a step behind and fixed a twisted backpack strap on Will’s shoulder with two quick fingers. He didn’t say it was caught, and he didn’t comment. He just corrected it and nudged Will forward gently, like the hallway was a current and Will needed to float again.

At lunch, the cafeteria was loud in a contained way: too many people talking too loudly so you wouldn’t hear the tremor in what they weren’t saying. Dustin arrived with Lucas and a “this looks like a bad movie” that tried to be funny and didn’t quite succeed because it was too true. They sat together with mediocre trays and survival smiles.

“I missed this,” Dustin announced, stabbing his fork into something unidentifiable. “School lunch. The romance. The constant possibility of food poisoning.”

“Makes sense,” Lucas murmured with a knowing look. “If you survive this, you survive anything.”

Mike snorted, but Will saw him glance a beat too long at the cafeteria door, like he expected someone to appear even though he knew it wouldn’t happen.

Will didn’t say anything. He just bumped the table leg with his foot, brushing Mike’s under the table in a clumsy, minimal gesture: I’m here.

Mike blinked, came back to the moment, and let out an exhale that might have been a laugh if he’d had the energy. Under the table, he nudged Will back, barely a touch, then leaned over his tray like the cafeteria mashed potatoes were suddenly a mission.

After lunch, the day did what Hawkins always did: it kept moving like it had no shame. One more class. Another that passed with nobody really present. Teachers talked about “normal” like it was a spell that worked. Will took notes without fully absorbing them. At one point, Mike passed him a sheet with a few doodles on it. At another, Dustin twisted around to whisper something stupid that almost made them laugh out of obligation.

And then, as if someone had written it on purpose just to mess with him, Will checked his schedule and saw the last period.

P.E.

Fantastic way to end the first day back. Like he hadn’t had enough already, he still had to deal with the coach and his personal vision of the apocalypse, in whistle form.

To make it worse, that period was one of the ones they didn’t share with Dustin or Lucas. You felt it in the hallway when the flow of students split in different directions. Dustin’s “see you” sounded less animated than usual. Lucas lifted his hand halfway and disappeared down another corridor with that tight, contained hurry of his.

Will watched them go and, for a beat, felt the familiar hollow.

Then he looked at Mike, still beside him like that alone could be enough. Mike gave him a small smile. If it wasn’t enough, it helped.

When they reached the locker rooms, the noise changed texture: more shouting, more footsteps, more bodies too close. Will felt Mike beside him, not touching, but there, like a fixed point.

“If you want, I can tell the coach that…” Mike started, already holding his shirt.

“No,” Will cut him off too fast.

Mike glanced at him.

“Okay. I won’t say anything.”

Will tightened his jaw.

“I don’t want them to treat me like I’m…”

He searched for the word and couldn’t find it.

Mike found it for him.

“Like you’re the zombie kid?”

Will looked at him, defensive.

Mike shrugged.

“You’re not the zombie kid. And you’re not made of glass,” he added, without drama, like a fact.

Will went quiet. Not because he didn’t have an answer, but because he didn’t need one.

Mike finished pulling on his shirt and waited by the door. He didn’t rush Will. He didn’t stare. He just stood there, like patience was another kind of company.

Then class started. A whistle disaster.

The coach, obsessed with making sure they were “prepared for what the future brings,” set up an exercise circuit that looked more like military training than a normal high school P.E. class. They ran, jumped, did pull-ups, ran again. The whistle sounded like it was calling in the apocalypse.

Will endured it.

Thinking about anything except the burn in his arms.

When the medieval torture finally ended, the coach pointed at a pile of equipment and gestured at everything scattered across the floor.

“You two, the weaklings. Do something for once and put it away.”

Will knew who he meant before Mike even looked at him with a we’re so lucky face.

They stayed.

At first they cleaned on autopilot: dragging mats, stacking cones, tossing balls back into the metal cart that squeaked like it resented existing. Between tasks they threw out scattered comments, Mike complaining about the whistle, Will answering dryly, something stupid about which sport was the worst invention in human history. Light conversation, and in between, small comfortable silences when they focused on their hands, the weight of things, on not thinking too hard. For a while, that was enough for everything to sound… normal.

But the gym emptied around them, and with every group that left through the doors, the echo grew. Voices faded. Laughter moved farther away. Silence started seeping in like rainwater through a crack.

The problem came when Will lifted a mat and it nearly folded on top of him.

“Awesome,” he muttered, breathless. “It should be illegal to make them this heavy.”

Mike was beside him before he could start wrestling it.

“Come on, you’ve got this,” Mike said with ridiculous solemnity. “You’re doing amazing. Ten out of ten. Coach would give you a medal if he had a heart.”

“And I’d give you one for Biggest Idiot if I could,” Will shot back, laughing. “Now come help me.”

Mike cleared his throat and, still smiling, grabbed the other end.

They didn’t coordinate. Mike pulled a little too hard, and the mat gave way with a traitorous fwoomp, knocking them both off balance at once. Will stepped back, hit the soft edge, and went down on his back. Mike tried to catch it and went with him.

They both landed on the foam like the gym had decided to laugh at them.

For half a second, nothing happened.

Then Will let out a muffled laugh, the kind that escapes before you can stop it. Mike did too, his face half-buried in the mat.

“This…” Mike said, voice muffled, “this did not happen.”

“Of course not,” Will answered, trying, and failing, to sound dignified from the floor. “Hawkins High is a serious and respectable institution.”

Mike lifted his head just enough to look at him, a smile still hanging on his mouth. His bangs were plastered to his forehead, and he had that expression between offended and amused that looked way too good on him to be legal. He was breathing fast from effort and surprise, like he’d forgotten for a moment how to get air back. Will was smiling too, one of those easy smiles that happen long before you can think.

And then they really looked at each other.

It was a microsecond, one where the laughter hovered, like it didn’t know where to land. Mike’s smile loosened at the edges; Will’s shrank without him choosing it. Like, all at once, they both remembered they were too close, that Mike’s chest was rising and falling against his, that their hands had ended up in places that suddenly didn’t feel “accidental.”

The fun didn’t disappear. It just… changed shape. It got dangerous.

And the stupid part wasn’t the thought.

It was the silence.

Because suddenly there was nothing left to pick up, no mats to drag, no squeaky metal cart to pull them back into the world. Just the constant hum of the lights and the dumb heat rising from the foam, trapping their knees and elbows like the floor had decided to keep them there a little longer.

Mike was still on top of him, bracing one forearm beside Will’s head. His face was too close. Will could count his freckles if he wanted, something he couldn’t deny he’d tried to do a hundred times. He could feel Mike’s breath, uneven, brushing his face, mixing with his own.

Mike was looking at him.

Not the way you look to see if someone’s hurt, or to find an exit from a ridiculous situation. He was looking like he’d forgotten what came next. Like his brain had tripped too and gotten stuck on that second.

Will felt his laughter die in his throat, and suddenly all that was left was a kind of vertigo. He swallowed, but the knot didn’t go down. His heart was too loud for a place that big and empty, and too close to Mike’s chest, like that distance, or the lack of it, had its own sound.

Mike blinked slowly. His eyes, those eyes Will had spent the last weeks, or maybe his whole life, trying not to stare at, stayed fixed on his, like he was holding his breath while thinking it was a bad idea…

…and yet he didn’t look away.

And then Mike’s gaze dropped.

A tiny movement, almost imperceptible. From Will’s eyes to his nose, from his nose to the edge of his mouth… and finally, his lips. It could have been reflex, meaningless.

But it wasn’t.

Mike’s gaze stayed there, heavy, like a ship dropping anchor without meaning to.

Will didn’t know what to do with that.

He went completely still, like moving a millimeter might break something that hadn’t even happened yet. A prickle up his back, a ridiculous shock crawling up his spine. It wasn’t exactly fear. It was that feeling of standing on the edge of a line without knowing where the limit was. Of doing something he would almost definitely regret…

…and yet feeling every fiber of his body pushing him to do it.

Mike wet his lips quickly. Not to provoke him, just reflex. Like he was out of air too.

And he leaned in.

Just a little. Enough for the distance to change; enough for the world to dissolve like a sand pile dragged away by wind, reduced to the small space still separating their faces. Mike’s hand, pressed into the mat, tensed; fingers dug into the vinyl for grip.

Will felt like his heart was going to climb out through his throat. His mouth parted a fraction without meaning to, and in that exact instant, the tension became almost physical: a tight string in the air, vibrating with something that felt inevitable.

Something that was about to happen.

And then, right when the world seemed to tip one centimeter forward, Mike stopped at the exact edge between what could happen and what was going to happen.

It was like an alarm went off inside him, silent but urgent. He blinked, and the spell broke halfway. His expression tightened, his jaw flexed, like he’d suddenly remembered he was in a real place with real rules, and whatever he’d just brushed up against, whatever it was, had consequences. Like he’d hit the limit of a rule nobody had dared to write yet.

Mike pushed himself up too fast, like closeness burned. He slipped a little on the foam and cleared his throat, no real cough, just noise to fill the air.

“You okay?” he asked, not quite looking at him. “Here.”

He offered his hand and left it there for a beat, still, like he didn’t know what to do with the fact that it was there.

Will took a heartbeat to react. When he grabbed it, the pull was simple, practical. Still, the heat of that contact stuck to his palm like a mark.

Mike looked away the second Will was standing. He shook out his shirt harder than necessary, like it had dust on it, and dragged a hand through his bangs, messing them up even more.

“Great,” he muttered, staring anywhere but at Will. “Now it’s gonna look like…” He made a vague gesture, searching for an innocent word. “…like we fought the floor.”

Will swallowed. He forced himself to play along because the alternative was staying there, trapped.

“And I think we lost,” he said very seriously. “The floor is clearly a superior being.”

A short laugh escaped Mike, too quick, like he needed it to put the world back where it belonged. He didn’t add anything. He just grabbed the mat by one end and started pushing it toward the storage room like nothing had happened.

Will followed.

With his stomach still tight and the unbearable certainty that for an instant they’d been dangerously close to something neither of them knew how to name.

The storage room smelled like old plastic and dried sweat. Together they slid the mat into place without speaking, without looking more than necessary, like the foam was still stuck to their skin.

When they came back out, they kept cleaning with a hurry that wasn’t hurry: cones, ropes, the squeaky metal cart… anything, as long as there was work between them before silence got big enough to crush them.

Near the end, Will looked up and noticed something weird: the coach was gone. No whistle, no voice, no orders. Just the dead scoreboard, the floor lines like scars, and the feeling the building had gone too still.

Mike noticed too. Neither of them said it, but both were grateful there was no one left who might’ve seen what they’d come so close to doing.

With jittery nerves, Mike checked the gym clock, then the door, then the clock again like he could argue with it.

“Crap,” he said, voice a little messy. “We’re going to get locked in here forever. We’ll eat basketballs. We’ll die young.”

It was a joke, yeah.

But it sounded like something said to avoid saying something else.

Will grabbed the only safe thing: playing along.

“Tragic,” he said, pushing the cart so it wouldn’t squeal. “Though I think soccer balls have more nutrients.”

Mike let out a snort that almost became a laugh.

“Leather protein,” he declared solemnly, like it was science.

Then Mike tried to shove three balls into the cart at once, the last thing they needed to finish, and one bounced off the edge and shot away, rolling across the floor with a hollow bong that echoed around the empty gym like a bad idea.

Mike watched it go, still for a moment, and then, inevitably:

“Perfect. There goes our food supply.”

Will went after it without thinking. Stopped it with his foot, picked it up, and held it with absurd seriousness like he was evaluating its “nutritional value.”

“This one tastes like rubber and disappointment.”

That time, Mike actually laughed. Not big. Not clean. Just a quick, necessary, real sound.

“Soccer balls have more vitamins,” he repeated, nodding like it mattered.

“Sure,” Will said. “Imaginary vitamins.”

They put the last ball in, closed the cart, and stood there for a moment like the gym might shove them back into silence again.

Then Mike grabbed the handle with determination.

“Come on,” he said, too practical. “Before this turns into a Greek tragedy.”

The door opened without drama. They weren’t locked in. Of course they weren’t.

They left the cart where it belonged, by the storage room, slotted into place, and only then did Will realize he’d been holding his breath. They walked toward the locker rooms still talking about “edible” balls and fake vitamins, like that conversation was a narrow hallway they could move through without brushing against anything dangerous.

And for a few yards, it worked.

In the locker room, lockers boomed hollow. The air was damp and smelled like cheap deodorant, but the worst part was the silence, the kind that didn’t even let you hear your own thoughts. There was only a distant slam, the drip of a shower not fully closed, and the low hum of the lights.

Mike opened his locker. Will opened his. Side by side. Minimal looking. Just enough.

Mike cleared his throat, tugging at the collar of his sweat-stuck shirt with a grimace.

“Will, I think I’m gonna shower quick,” he said, like he needed it to sound like a normal decision, a routine, anything that wasn’t what happened a minute ago. “I’m… gross. I feel like the gym is still on me. And…” He gestured vaguely without looking. “Today there’s nobody here. Literally the only reason I’d shower here.”

Will felt heat creep up his ears and hated that his body had a memory. Still, he managed to answer normally.

“Okay. I’ll wait.”

Mike went still for a moment, like he wanted to say more and couldn’t find where to put it, like his body was still on that mat.

“Won’t be long,” he murmured finally.

Water started up on the other side.

Will sat on the bench, staring at his hands. Listening to the water. The echo. His own heart insisting on being dramatic.

Time stretched into small things: a pipe dripping, the lights buzzing, the towel Will kept folding and unfolding without realizing.

When Mike came back dressed, hair damp and towel in his hand, Will looked up and had to remind himself to breathe.

It was nothing. And yet, it was perfect. Perfect in that unfair way where normal becomes impossible when it’s Mike. A stupid smile slipped onto Will’s face before he could stop it. It was just a boy in regular clothes, wet hair stuck to his forehead, cheeks still a little flushed from the shower heat. Nothing special.

And yet, to Will, it felt like staring at the best painting in the world and not knowing where to put his eyes.

Mike stopped by his locker, rubbing his hair with the towel.

“Hey,” he said, not quite looking at him. “If you want… you should probably shower too. You sweated a lot.”

Will hesitated. He hadn’t planned to shower there. He never did. But the locker room was still empty, the day had been too full, and the water sounded like something easy: noise, steam, something that didn’t demand thinking.

So he nodded before he could regret it.

“Okay,” he said. “Will you wait?”

Mike nodded so fast it almost looked like relief.

“Yeah. Of course.”

Will grabbed his stuff quickly and slipped into the showers without looking back. Water hit his skin and, for a few seconds, it was almost easy not to think. He washed fast, no lingering, like staying another minute would turn it into something important.

He finished quickly. Reached out for the towel.

Found nothing.

Will closed his eyes.

Then looked once.

Twice.

Like repeating it might make it appear.

He’d brought the soap. Clean clothes. Everything except the towel. He swallowed, leaned his forehead against the cold tile for a moment, and cursed silently.

No choice.

“Mike?” he called, trying not to sound like a disaster.

The answer came instantly, too alert.

“What? Will? You okay?”

Will let himself laugh a little, because Mike always jumped straight to worst-case.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just…” He exhaled. “I left my towel out there.”

A long second.

Then:

“Oh. Okay… yeah.”

Footsteps approached. Each one added another point of nervous energy to Will’s body. Then Mike appeared without stepping all the way in, sticking his head in the bare minimum, arm extended like he was delivering an official document. The towel hung from his hand like a white flag while he stared at the floor in an almost exaggerated way.

“Here,” he said with absurd seriousness. “I didn’t see anything. I didn’t hear anything. This didn’t happen.”

Will let out a muffled laugh, grabbed the towel, and pulled it inside.

“You’re an idiot.”

“I’m responsible,” Mike corrected.

“Thanks,” Will murmured, smiling despite himself.

“You’re welcome,” Mike said, and his voice sounded softer, like the joke had lowered something they both felt.

Will dried off fast, got dressed, and came out.

Mike was lying on the bench staring at the ceiling like he was waiting for the universe to give him instructions.

When he heard Will, he sat up sharply, too fast for someone pretending he was calm.

For a beat they just stayed there, in that strange bubble of empty space, with the world too big on the other side of the door.

Mike spoke first, like he couldn’t keep something inside that was burning him.

“Do you think…” he started, then stopped. “Do you think all of this is… weird?”

Will blinked. For a moment, fear flooded him.

“What do you… mean?”

Mike made a frustrated motion with his hand like he knew what he meant but didn’t know how to say it without breaking something.

“I don’t know. Just… everything.” And then, lower: “But… us too. Sometimes.”

Something loosened inside Will, because there it was, the thing Mike had been dodging with jokes and borrowed normal.

Will swallowed.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “It’s weird. Everything. We’re not…” He searched. “We’re not the same.”

Mike nodded like it hurt and relieved him at the same time.

“I hate that,” he said. “I hate that things break and no one tells you how to fix them.”

Will looked at him.

Mike looked back, finally. Direct. Serious.

“But no matter what happens…” Mike said, like every word cost him. “I don’t want it to be weird between us. I don’t want to lose that. Not with you.”

The silence went still. Even the echo felt like it was listening.

Will felt the knot in his throat, that old thing that always showed up when Mike said with you like it was a promise.

“Okay,” he whispered.

Mike frowned like that wasn’t enough.

“No, seriously,” he insisted, more vulnerable. “Promise me.”

Will felt a hit of fear, because promises were dangerous in Hawkins. Hawkins ate promises like breakfast.

But Mike wasn’t asking him to promise they’d win.

Just to promise they wouldn’t give up.

Will breathed.

“I promise,” he said slowly, like he was building it word by word. “We’re going to be okay. We are.”

Mike let out a breath like he’d been holding it for weeks. He nodded once, small, almost invisible, like that was enough for now.

Neither of them moved right away.

Not because they didn’t know what to do, but because moving meant going back to the real world: the noise, the hallways, the door, whatever waited outside this empty locker room that, for a moment, felt like a room outside the universe.

Will noticed his hands were shaking a little, so he did the only thing he could: closed his backpack, zipped it, adjusted his hoodie like it was armor.

Mike did the same, too methodical. Towel into the bag. Locker shut. Tugged it again to make sure it clicked. Then his hand stayed on the metal a second too long, eyes on nothing.

“Come on,” he murmured finally, not quite looking at Will, like saying it quietly would keep things from changing shape. “Let’s go before… I don’t know. Before that whistle comes back into our lives.”

Will let out a tiny, relieved laugh and nodded.

They stepped into the hallway, and the school was something else now: half-lit, some doors taped shut, their footsteps echoing where there had been shouting. Through a lobby window, a couple soldiers stood at the main entrance, still, like new furniture in Hawkins. Will felt an old stab of anger, but Mike didn’t say anything. He just tightened his backpack strap a little and kept walking with that stubborn I’m not giving them one more second energy.

Outside, there was almost no one left. The parking lot looked enormous. The late-afternoon air already smelled like night cold.

Their bikes were still where they’d left them, lined up at the rack. Will crouched to undo the lock, fingers clumsy from cold and exhaustion. Mike was beside him doing the same, and with a badly timed movement, their hands brushed on the same cold metal.

Will’s instinct to pull away hit him hard.

But he stopped halfway.

The promise was still fresh inside him, stuck there like warmth in his chest in the middle of the freezing morning. So he didn’t move his hand. He left it there, still, for one second longer than normal, like that minimal contact counted too. Like running wasn’t an option anymore.

Mike didn’t pull away either.

They just kept working the lock like nothing… and at the same time, like that “nothing” meant more than it should.

“Dustin said he’s heading out,” Will said, just to say something that didn’t hurt, remembering the lunchtime “see you later” and Dustin’s face when he’d mentioned fixing Cerebro or whatever.

Mike nodded.

“And Lucas…” He paused. “He had to stop by… you know.”

He didn’t have to say Max. Will nodded too. Some things were too big for a sentence.

Once they freed the locks, they got on their bikes and started pedaling.

At first they rode in silence, the kind that wasn’t punishment. It was recovery. Cold air hit their faces, washing the day off a little. Will rode beside Mike at the same speed, like they’d decided without talking that neither of them would pull ahead, neither would fall behind.

“If they call us ‘weaklings’ again tomorrow, we run,” Mike said.

Will breathed out through his nose.

“To where?”

Mike tightened his grip on the handlebars and raised an eyebrow, fake serious.

“Anywhere without whistles.”

Will shook his head, but his mouth lifted on its own.

“You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah,” Mike admitted, and for a moment his voice went softer. “But today… thanks for putting up with me.”

Will swallowed, not sure why that hit so hard.

“Always,” he said, and they pushed off when the light changed.

They rode on, wheel to wheel, headed home.

They didn’t talk much after that. They didn’t need to. The air between them felt different, not because it was weird.

Because it was chosen.

And that night, when Will paused for a moment at the edge of the basement stairs with his pajamas in his hand, Mike didn’t even try to invent a new excuse. He just leaned his head out of the doorway with that awkward calm of someone learning not to run.

“You coming?” he asked, like it was obvious.

Will felt something inside him click into place.

“Yeah,” he said.

And when the lights went out and the house went back to creaking in the dark, Will understood the new rule that had quietly formed: no matter how weird the world got, Mike Wheeler was still going to be a safe place.

Chapter Text

Their promise didn’t change the world.

Hawkins stayed Hawkins, a town slapping Band-Aids over a wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding. The high school still smelled like bleach and bewilderment. The soldiers were still at the entrance, as if standing perfectly still was a way to control anything. And Vecna still existed, even if he didn’t show his face.

But something small did change. Almost invisible.

In the days after that moment in the locker room, it wasn’t just that Mike stayed close to Will, that had already become the norm these past weeks. The new part was subtler, harder to catch: without ever talking about it, they stopped dodging each other. Not in big, obvious ways, more in the tiny gestures that used to get cut off out of fear, they might mean too much.

It was brushing arms in a crowded hallway, shoulder to shoulder by accident, without either of them jerking away like they’d touched fire. It was Mike waiting at the end of class, leaning against a wall or lounging on his desk with fake boredom, like it was nothing, like he wasn’t counting minutes. It was the sidewalk thing, always the same side, Mike slipping between Will and the street without realizing it, with an ease that was almost infuriating, like the world still had simple rules: this gets protected, this gets kept safe.

Sometimes it was so small Will wondered if he was imagining it. A quick tug to straighten Will’s backpack strap and a gentle push back into the hallway’s flow, like the school was a current and Will just needed to float again. Two fingers sweeping hair out of Will’s eyes when the wind insisted on being a jerk, and then Mike would look straight ahead like it never happened. Looks that lasted a second too long, long enough to leave Will’s stomach suspended, and then nothing: no joke to slice the air, no quip to rescue them. It wasn’t necessary. They just kept walking, like they were testing, without giving themselves permission, how far they could go without breaking.

Will noticed all of it. And, as always, he hated it a little and loved it a lot.

He hated it because his brain kept hunting for a safe explanation. Mike looks after me because he thinks I’m fragile. Mike hovers because Vecna broke me and now I need watching. Mike does this because he feels guilty. Mike acts like this because…

And he loved it because no matter how he tried to pick it apart, the truth kept slipping through the cracks: Mike was there. Regardless of why. And he was there in a way that didn’t feel like monitoring, but like choosing.

Friday arrived with no ceremony. Last period, last bell, that same forced relief Hawkins had carried since the world cracked open: if you walk fast, maybe it won’t catch you. Outside, the wind bit like it had teeth.

At the bike rack, Dustin showed up with his helmet half-fastened and a weird kind of urgency, like he was carrying something heavier than his backpack.

“I’m out,” he said, trying to dress it up as normal. “I’ve gotta… do stuff.”

Will would’ve bet “stuff” meant Cerebro and overthinking, but he didn’t ask. Lucas arrived a second later, quieter, with that tight hurry he got when he didn’t want anyone looking too closely at his face.

“Me too,” he murmured, avoiding their eyes. “I’m stopping by… you know.”

The hospital. No need to say it.

Mike lifted his hand in an awkward goodbye. Dustin threw a ridiculous little military salute that didn’t land as funny as he wanted. Then they split off in different directions, each carrying their own way of surviving.

Will and Mike got on their bikes and pushed off almost at the same time. Side by side.

Mike talked as they rode. About Holly, who was obsessed with her dragon and had decided the high school was “a mountain” and one day she’d climb it too. About math exercises. About a dumb joke about the coach that Will answered with an automatic comeback.

And then the world shifted.

It wasn’t the familiar cold at the back of his neck. It wasn’t a clean warning, nothing polite. It was like something, very far away and right up close at the same time, turned inside the same frequency Will carried under his skin. A sharp internal yank, like an invisible hand nudging his stomach an inch out of place. A thin buzz behind his eyes, a burst of static that made the street look like someone had dimmed the brightness of the world.

Will braked without meaning to.

Mike reacted instantly and stopped so hard his front wheel skidded a little, leaving him a few yards ahead.

“Will!”

Mike’s voice flipped on a dime. No “what’s wrong?” first, just that immediate, serious tone, like something inside Mike had switched on before he even knew why. Will swallowed. Looked at the sidewalk, a house with its porch light on, a dog barking at nothing. Normal things.

“Nothing,” Will lied, because saying Vecna in the middle of a street felt like summoning him, and because the last thing he wanted was to scare Mike and make it bigger. “I just… got dizzy.”

Mike didn’t buy it. He rolled closer on his bike, cutting the space between them like the air itself was a problem.

“Does it hurt? Your head? Where?”

He didn’t say Do you feel it?, but Will heard it anyway. He didn’t say again, but it was there, in his clenched jaw.

Will opened his mouth to stick to the lie—then the buzz trembled through him again, clearer now, like a second heartbeat layered over his own.

“It… moved,” he admitted, low, like the words weighed something. “Something. Like…”

Will couldn’t finish it. Like a huge door had come loose from its frame. Like someone, somewhere that wasn’t a place, had started walking.

Mike understood all the same.

He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t demand details. He didn’t try to fix it with logic.

He just pulled up until they were wheel to wheel, too close to be casual, and set a hand on Will’s forearm, firm, like he could hold him to the world that way.

“Hey,” Mike murmured. “Look at me for a second.”

Will swallowed and barely nodded, because it was easier to do that than explain the rest. He felt Mike’s hand slide from his shoulder to his cheek, thumb brushing his skin, a thoughtless, tiny gesture. It lasted one breath. Then Mike withdrew his hand, not sharply, but quick and precise, like he’d remembered, too late, what he was doing.

“Let’s go,” Mike decided, already turning his bike. “Home.”

“Mike…”

“I’m not arguing,” he cut in, then dropped his voice, almost pleading. “Please.”

Will didn’t have the strength to fight it. They pedaled faster, silent, the wind hitting their faces like a warning while Mike kept his eyes on Will in case it happened again. Will tried to breathe normally. Tried to convince himself it was exhaustion, or hunger, or a bad day stacked on another.

But that buzz… that buzz wasn’t his.

When they reached the Wheelers’, Mike ditched his bike without really looking and went inside with Will right behind him, guiding him with a light hand at his back, helping without gripping, like he was trying to keep Will anchored in the world.

Karen moved around with a laundry basket, as if constant motion could hold everything else at bay. Holly was on the floor coloring with her tongue sticking out, focused. Ted stayed buried behind the newspaper like it was a valid shelter. Nancy, Jonathan, and Joyce still weren’t home yet.

“Everything okay?” Karen asked, taking in Will’s pale face and Mike’s nerves.

Mike smiled fast, too fast.

“Yeah, Mom. Just… tired.”

He put on that nothing’s wrong voice he put on when he wanted the entire universe to stop asking questions.

Karen didn’t fully buy it.

She looked at Mike, then at Will, and that small crease appeared between her brows, the one that showed up whenever something didn’t fit, even if she tried to pretend it did.

“Tired?” she repeated more slowly. “Will, honey, you don’t look so good…”

Will opened his mouth, but nothing convincing came out. Mike stepped in half a pace, just enough to fill the gap before the silence got suspicious.

“We were… talking with Dustin and Lucas,” he said quickly. “And… he didn’t eat much. That’s all. He just needs to sit down and rest.”

Will stayed still while Karen examined him, trying not to look any weirder than he already felt.

“He’s fine,” Mike insisted, and the hurry in his voice betrayed him a little. “He just needs to sit for a bit. I’ve got it.”

Karen held his gaze like she wanted to push through the sentence and see what was underneath.

“Okay,” she relented at last, but not completely. “But if you get dizzy, if something hurts, if… anything, you tell me. You hear me?”

Will nodded with a tired smile. Mike moved before his mom’s attention could snag on the silence again.

“Yes. Yeah, of course. We promise.”

And like that closed the subject, Mike reached for Will’s hand and took it. It wasn’t a hard tug, more a quick, gentle, almost automatic move, just enough to guide him toward the hallway.

Except the warmth it sent through Will was anything but automatic.

The second they were out of Karen’s line of sight, Mike stopped. Will stayed beside him with that strange expression halfway between thanks and I’m not making this a big deal in front of your family, concentrating on anything except the exact place where Mike’s fingers had held him so firmly.

Mike looked at him for a second too long, then finally let go.

“You’ve gotta drop your bag downstairs, right?” he said, pointing toward the basement like he’d just remembered a crucial detail of household logistics. “Before my mom sees it and thinks you brought… I don’t know, a bomb.”

Will let out a short laugh, grateful for the exit.

“It’s a normal backpack, Mike.”

“That’s exactly what someone with a bomb would say.”

Will rolled his eyes but followed him.

They went down the basement stairs into that cold, old-wood air. Will set his backpack beside his increasingly unused bed, simple enough, except he took half a second longer than necessary, like he needed a task to keep from thinking.

Mike lingered behind him, quiet, looking anywhere but the back of Will’s neck: the lined-up miniatures, a game box on the shelf, the worn edge of the table.

“Hey,” Mike said at last, and his voice came out lower than he meant. “Before… what happened…”

Will turned his head a fraction.

“It wasn’t ‘nothing,’” he corrected, trying to make it smaller. “It just… wasn’t exactly the same as always.”

Mike let out a short exhale, dissatisfied.

“Okay,” he said, and it was clearly his way of not panicking internally. “Then what was it?”

Will shrugged, more frustrated than embarrassed.

“I was fine. I really was. And then…” he searched for the exact spot— “it was like something yanked me from the inside. One second. Like I got… shifted. And then the cold came, you know, the neck and all that, but not like a stab. More like…” His hand hovered near his throat, instinctive. “Like a door opening.”

Mike frowned.

“Did you get lightheaded?”

“No. Not like that. It was… like I got unplugged for a second. Like everything stayed the same, but I was outside it.” He touched his chest. “A hollow right here, all at once. And then… movement. Like he was doing something. Like he woke up for a moment and I felt it.”

He didn’t need a last name.

Mike went still for a beat. Then he stepped closer, not crowding him, but close enough that Will felt him on his skin. Maybe Mike couldn’t fix it. But he could be there.

“Did he show you anything? Did you see…”

“No,” Will said quickly, firm. “I didn’t see anything. It wasn’t a vision or… any of that. Just the feeling. Like a stronger signal. Like the radio’s on the same station and someone suddenly cranks the volume.”

Mike’s jaw tightened, and the fear slipped out around the edges.

“Shit.”

Will huffed, humorless.

“Yeah. Exactly.”

A short, thoughtful silence.

“Okay… I’m not going to freak out,” Mike said finally, too fast, like words could hold the air together. “But if it happens again, you tell me. The second you feel it.”

Will exhaled through his nose, half exasperated.

“Mike, you saw it. It’s not exactly something I can hide.”

Mike clenched his jaw, then forced it loose, angry at himself.

“I know. I just…” He stopped, searching for the right shape of the sentence. “I mean don’t try to keep it to yourself. Don’t carry it alone or shrink it down. Not with me. If it happens again, you tell me. Even if it’s just, ‘Mike, it’s happening.’”

Will went quiet for a second. Heat crept up his face, like that sentence hit a nerve. He swallowed and nodded once, small.

“Okay.”

Mike let out a breath, still not satisfied, but accepting it. Then his brows pulled together, because Will’s cheeks were still too warm for “fine.”

“You’re flushed,” Mike said, like he’d just noticed. “Does your head hurt?”

“No, it’s just…” Will ran out of words, and the blush got worse, which did not help.

Mike lifted his hand without thinking. Stopped halfway, like he’d suddenly remembered he was about to cross some invisible line. It didn’t stop him.

“Come here a second.”

“Mike, I’m not…”

“Will.” His name sounded like a gentle brake, not an order. “Just a second.”

Mike touched Will’s forehead with the back of his fingers—quick, practical, checking something obvious.

“You don’t feel too hot or too cold,” Mike murmured, more to himself than to Will.

And still, he didn’t pull away right away. Instead, he shifted his hand, like he needed a better confirmation, something more solid than logic. His palm settled against Will’s forehead, warm, steady, and suddenly the distance between them was too small to pretend it was casual.

Will didn’t move. Not because he wanted to pull away and couldn’t, because his body decided this counted. That arguing now was impossible.

“Looks like no fever…” Mike added, but it sounded like the good news wasn’t enough.

“Told you,” Will whispered, swallowing.

Mike’s hand lowered slightly. It wasn’t a clear decision, more an inevitable continuation: forehead to temple, temple to cheek. He held Will’s face with a softness that didn’t match the tension in his shoulders, like the gesture was the only thing he could do without everything coming undone again.

“Just… stay with me, okay?” Mike said, very quiet.

Will breathed slowly.

“I’m with you,” he answered, simple.

It didn’t sound comfortable. It sounded like fact.

Mike didn’t reply right away, but something in his posture eased, barely. His fingers stayed at Will’s jaw like letting go would let the world slip out of alignment again.

“Let me try something,” Mike murmured, his voice smaller than it should’ve been. “It’s stupid, but… I think it’ll tell me your actual temperature. Hands can be wrong sometimes. If it bugs you, tell me.”

Will felt his brain short-circuit as Mike leaned in slowly, shrinking the last bit of space until he rested his forehead against Will’s.

The touch was light. Simple. A gesture that would make sense in any other context.

But down there, with the basement quiet around them and the thin light pressing shadows into corners, nothing was simple.

Will’s breath caught halfway. Mike’s did too. It was calm shared warmth and, at the same time, absurd electricity, like every thought was scrambling for an exit.

“You’re right. No fever,” Mike repeated. Feeling his voice that close tightened something inside Will. “But you’re… warm.”

Will let out a tiny laugh that was almost just air.

“We just biked home, genius.”

Mike should’ve laughed. He didn’t. He stayed there one second longer, too still, like the joke wasn’t enough to pull him back from wherever he’d gone.

“Yeah,” Mike said.

And that “yeah” wasn’t an answer. It was something else.

Will didn’t close his eyes. He fought hard not to. He didn’t widen them either. He just looked at Mike from that impossible distance, feeling Mike’s thumbs still at his jaw like even they were holding their breath.

“And you?” Will asked softly. “Are you okay?”

Mike blinked, like the question gave him permission to be a person again.

“Yeah,” he said too quickly. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

He blinked again and broke the contact, but not abruptly. He pulled back slowly, like moving too fast would admit he’d done something wrong. He lowered his hands, though it took him an extra second to let go completely, like he wanted to memorize the shape of Will’s face through his fingers without daring to look at it.

He cleared his throat.

“Okay. Should we go back up?” Mike said, forcing normal. “Before my mom comes down and thinks I’m practicing medicine in the basement…”

Will laughed, this time, for real, though the air shook a little on the way out.

“You’d be a terrible doctor.”

Mike snorted, fake-offended.

“For your information, there are tons of medical things I would be great at,” he said, trying to sound as obnoxious as possible.

Will raised an eyebrow, slow, like he was winding him up.

“Oh yeah? Give me an example of one of those ‘medical things.’”

“Mouth to mouth, for example.”

Mike froze for a full second, like the words arrived late in his own ears.

Will said nothing. Just looked at him. A lot.

Mike blinked, cornered.

“The CPR kind, Will. The CPR kind.”

“How professional.”

“I’m extremely professional,” Mike said, clearly out of places to put his hands. “I’ve seen… movies.”

“That explains a lot…”

Mike let out a short, embarrassed laugh, then pointed toward the stairs like they could fix this entire conversation.

“Come on. Before you decide to faint just to test me.”

At that, Will looked away like the basement floor had suddenly become the most fascinating thing in the world. He couldn’t help feeling the echo of that touch on his skin: the tingling where Mike had held his face, impossible to ignore.

Before heading up, Will unzipped his backpack and pulled out a book, clinging to it like it was a respectable excuse.

“I’m bringing this,” he said. “So it looks like I have a life.”

“That’s very believable.”

“If you want, you could do the same. We can do homework together…”

Mike made an exaggerated sound of complaint and then, immediately, did exactly what Will said.

Upstairs, the living room was still in “normal house” mode: Holly watching her favorite show while Karen folded laundry with that calm that held everything in place. Karen glanced up. Her eyes went straight to Will, then to Mike.

“Better?” she asked, carefully.

“Yes,” Will said before Mike could do it for him. And it sounded pretty real. “I just needed to… sit down for a minute.”

Karen nodded, but her gaze lingered a beat too long, like she wanted to make sure the words were true. Then she let it go as Will sat at the living room table like it was casual.

Mike sat beside him. Will opened his book like he knew exactly what he was doing. Mike copied him, elbows on the table with a seriousness that fooled no one.

For a while, it almost felt like they could trick the day.

Pages turned. They underlined things neither of them would remember tomorrow. They tossed quiet, stupid comments back and forth and laughed like the air had boundaries. Will corrected one of Mike’s answers and Mike looked at him like Will had just saved his life in a war.

At some point, their knees brushed under the table.

Barely anything, a tiny accidental touch. Enough to make Will’s back tense on reflex.

Will kept reading like he could. Mike kept writing like he could. And the contact stayed there, steady, like a footnote neither of them wanted to erase.

Not long after, Holly looked up from the TV with eyes shiny with boredom and mischief.

“Can I use the red?”

“It’s behind you, with the rest of your paints you’ve left all over the floor,” Will said without looking up.

Holly checked. The red marker was right there. Still, she decided reality was optional.

“No, I mean, can I use THE red-red? Yours, the one that looks like blood.”

From the kitchen, Karen shouted the moment she heard:

“Holly!!”

“What? It’s a color.”

Mike let out an exhale halfway between a laugh and a sigh. He glanced at Will, just to make sure he was still there, and Will, already feeling a smile at the corner of his mouth, let it bloom fully when he caught that look, like it was only for Mike.

Mike dropped his gaze again almost immediately, a small but obvious flicker of nerves.

It got late without anyone announcing it. Outside, darkness fell early: autumn dark, rushing in like it had somewhere to be. Inside, even with the calm of that domestic afternoon, Will still felt like if he blinked wrong he might feel that internal yank again. Subtle, but too present. Too unsettling.

Mike must’ve felt it too, because every so often his pencil would pause and his gaze would go still on the back of Will’s neck, like he was a D&D character whose main quest was guarding that exact spot on the map.

Will flipped back a page.

“You’ve been on the same line three times,” Mike murmured.

“I’m… reviewing,” Will lied.

“Sure,” Mike said, gentle, not teasing. “Very scholarly.”

Will opened his mouth to shoot back, but Mike lifted his hand, hesitated, and brushed a lock of hair off Will’s eyes. Quick. Awkward. Like it was reflex and he regretted it halfway through.

That was when Holly, who’d been bored of absolutely everything for ten minutes, lifted her head from her markers like she’d just smelled gasoline.

“Mom. Mike’s doing weird things to Will!”

Silence dropped instantly, like someone had shut a door.

Ted cleared his throat behind his stack of papers, offended, but not enough to actually look up from the newspaper.

Karen called from the kitchen, voice pitched just loud enough for Holly to hear, with that exhausted mom-tone of someone who’s fought too many wars over smaller things.

“Holly…”

Holly grinned like a tiny arsonist delighted with herself.

“What? You didn’t see it, but he touched Will’s hair. The hair, Mom.”

“I’m sure he just moved it out of the way, honey. So he can see,” Karen said calmly. “That’s what friends do.”

Holly leaned onto her elbows, dramatic.

“That’s what people in love do.”

Mike went rigid for a second, like he’d been caught stealing.

“I… I wasn’t…” he started.

Karen appeared in the doorway, unbothered, and didn’t even let him finish; she supplied the ending for him without blinking.

“He was being helpful. That’s all. And you were coloring. Keep going.”

Holly frowned, offended by the lack of drama.

“But he touched his hair.”

Mike opened his mouth again, trapped between denying it and sounding guilty. His eyes flicked to Will like he needed emergency instructions.

And Will, heart doing something ridiculous, cut in with a calm he didn’t feel.

“He was checking if I was dying. It’s his hobby.”

Mike looked at him, grateful and exasperated at once.

“It is not a hobby.”

“It is,” Will insisted, committing to the bit. “He likes it.”

Holly froze for a beat like she’d heard a magic word. She’d almost surrendered, defeated by her mother’s logic, but that sentence gave her oxygen: innocent, no malice, and to Holly, an official invitation to set the world on fire. Her eyes lit up with dangerous joy.

“Mike likes Will!”

Will choked on a laugh, instantly realizing the catastrophic mistake of putting those two words in the same sentence.

“Holly,” Karen warned.

Holly repeated it even louder.

“Mike likes Will! Mike likes Will…!”

Mike stared for half a second like his brain tripped over the phrase, then shot up from his chair like the floor was on fire.

“You’re dead. Get over here, you little gremlin.”

Holly shrieked with laughter and tore down the hallway, thrilled with the chaos she’d created. Mission accomplished, wildly successful.

Mike went after her immediately, and the “you’re dead” came out tighter than playful, like he needed to catch her before she could throw another grenade.

“Get back here,” he repeated through his teeth, actually speeding up.

Holly whipped around the corner like a firecracker, and Mike followed fast, too determined for a game; not to scare her or win, but to stop her before she could drop another bomb.

Karen let out a long sigh, almost resigned. Ted muttered something about “kids.” The house filled with noise again.

Will stayed sitting, perfectly still, book open, heart making a sound it absolutely shouldn’t.

When Mike returned, bangs messed up, patience hanging by a thread, he collapsed into his chair while he caught his breath, like he’d run a marathon just to put out a fire.

Holly peeked around the doorframe, victorious, wearing the smile of someone who’s found a new button and plans to press it until it breaks.

“You’re gonna kiss!”

“No,” Mike said way too fast.

Will pressed his lips together, staring at some random line in his book, because if he looked at Mike or Holly he was terrified something would slip out, something too obvious. Something that sounded like the truth.

Holly opened her mouth to keep going, but Karen reappeared at the kitchen doorway with a dish towel in hand, like she’d come purely to check the house was still standing.

“Holly, wash your hands. Now. Dinner’s almost ready.”

“But Mom, I haven’t touched anything!”

“Exactly. Go.”

And like that, Holly finally accepted defeat, grumbling her way off under the basic laws of dinner, letting the living room volume drop again.

The quiet she left behind wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was manageable. Like when someone turns off an appliance that’s been buzzing too long, and you realize you were tense the whole time.

Mike ran a hand through his bangs, still in big-brother emergency mode. Then he looked at Will, checking that the fire hadn’t burned anything important.

Will held the gaze for a second, fighting the blush and the urge to lift the book like a shield between himself and the world.

“Your sister is an agent of chaos,” Will murmured.

Mike exhaled, somewhere between a laugh and surrender.

“She’s a tiny monster,” he whispered back, and a small, real smile finally showed up.

Will’s own stuck for a beat. He tucked it away fast, like slipping something into a pocket before anyone saw, except Mike caught it anyway. And for a second, that was enough to make the world stop squeezing.

From the kitchen, Karen called with the tone of someone who had decided that tonight, no matter what, dinner was happening.

“Boys. Table.”

A little later, the front door opened. Voices, footsteps, the familiar sound of keys dropped into the bowl. Joyce appeared in the kitchen doorway looking exhausted with that I survived the day energy.

A few minutes after that, drawn in by the smell of food, Nancy and Jonathan came in too, arguing about something that sounded urgent, though it probably wasn’t.

Dinner was… surprisingly normal. Ted offered an opinion nobody asked for. Holly complained about broccoli like it was a personal betrayal. Karen talked with Joyce about the grocery store, about Holly’s school, about anything that wasn’t the invisible crack Hawkins had left in everyone’s life. Jonathan and Nancy talked about their next plans for the radio station.

Will ate more than he expected, even with that thin layer of alertness still under everything, like the earlier tug had left an internal bruise, a reminder that Vecna could move whenever he wanted, and when he did, Will could feel it in his bones.

Mike, meanwhile, seemed to have decided his job was to watch without making a performance of it. He didn’t stare. He didn’t ask every two minutes. He just stayed close, present in that quiet way that didn’t feel like control, but like company.

At one point, Holly launched into a ridiculously long story about her dragon, exaggerating every detail like she was narrating an epic battle between good and evil that would define the world. Mike tried to correct her, Karen gave him a let her look, and Will choked on laughter right as Mike muttered, very low:

“I swear we didn’t raise her like this.”

Will coughed to cover it, drank water, and shook his head, smiling.

“I think she takes after her big brother.”

Mike glanced at him, mock-offended.

“I didn’t expect you to betray me like that.”

And the stupidity of it reminded them the world was still turning.

When they finished, Karen started clearing plates with Joyce helping. Ted reclaimed the TV remote like dinner had been an act of citizenship. Holly disappeared toward the bathroom while Jonathan and Nancy went to their room to work on the last details of whatever plan they were building.

Will stood up on instinct to help, and Mike did too, almost at the same time. They ended up in the kitchen (one washing, the other drying) like it was an old house rule. Tonight, it was their turn.

For a while, they didn’t talk. Just water, dishes, the domestic sound of things returning to where they belonged.

Mike handed Will a plate. Their fingers brushed, brief, unavoidable. And neither of them snapped away.

Will felt it like a small internal click, like something settling into place.

When there was nothing left to do, Will dried his hands on the kitchen towel and paused, looking toward the basement stairs. The usual path. The habit. Only now “normal” meant something else.

Mike leaned against the counter, waiting. No rush. No pressure.

Will swallowed, told himself it was the most reasonable thing in the world. That he didn’t have to make it big. That he didn’t have to turn it into a request.

Still, he said it.

“Hey…” His voice came out low. “Do you mind if I… sleep upstairs tonight?”

Mike blinked like, for a fraction of a second, he didn’t understand the sentence was real.

It was the first time Will asked out loud, no excuse needed, no Mike having to invent one.

Then Mike nodded. Fast. Too bright to hide.

“Yeah,” he said simply, like a fact he’d been waiting all day to be allowed to say. “Of course I don’t mind.”

Something loosened in Will’s chest. Not a victory. Not a dramatic twist. Just… choosing not to go downstairs.

Mike straightened like he’d been given an important task.

“I’m gonna…” He jerked his thumb at himself, awkward. “Get things ready. Like… my room. Like always.”

Like always. Will let out a small laugh.

“Good luck with that. It’s a disaster.”

Mike huffed.

“Don’t sabotage me, Byers.”

They moved almost at the same time. Mike turned off lights, checked that Holly wasn’t plotting a second wave of destruction, and went upstairs first, impatient in a way he tried not to look.

Will followed.

And halfway up, he realized something simple: asking hadn’t cost him as much as he’d thought.

Mike went into his room, turned on the small lamp, and started moving on autopilot: opening a drawer, pulling out a shirt, tossing a towel into the hamper, clearing off the bed so there was space... Automatic motions, too methodical.

Will hovered in the doorway for a second, watching that routine like it belonged to another life.

Mike looked up.

“What?”

Will shook his head.

“Nothing.”

Mike accepted it without thinking. He went to the closet and pulled out an old T-shirt, one of the ones Will had “borrowed” so many times it barely counted as borrowing anymore. Will’s pajamas were downstairs in the basement, but neither of them bothered turning that into a problem.

“Here. Put it on. It’s cold.”

Will took it. The cotton smelled like detergent… and underneath that, like Mike. He had to turn his face a little so it wouldn’t show.

They changed quickly, practical movements, few words, like talking would make the cold air sharper. When they were done, they slid under the blankets almost at the same time, shoulder to shoulder, finding warmth without naming it.

For a second, it looked like what they were aiming for: making it seem normal.

The light went out.

And then, with the dark acting like both a wall and permission, the silence changed shape. It turned intimate. Close. Full of things they weren’t saying.

Will lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. He heard Mike breathing beside him, felt the mattress give slightly when Mike shifted.

A few seconds passed.

Mike spoke softly, like he’d been holding the sentence all the way home.

“Tomorrow… Jonathan and Nancy said we should all meet at the radio station. We can tell the others. I mean…” A pause. “If you want.”

Will didn’t ask tell them what. No need.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “Okay. Tomorrow we tell them.”

Mike made a tiny sound, almost nothing, like the answer lifted something off him.

The mattress dipped again when Mike turned his head toward Will.

“I hate this.”

Will let out a small breath of a laugh.

“Me too.”

The quiet settled again, but it didn’t press down. It was the kind that stays to keep you company.

Mike shifted once more, a small adjustment, like he was wrestling with an idea. Will felt it in the mattress, in the air, in that way Mike moved when something mattered.

Then, unhurried, Mike asked:

“Can I…?”

Will blinked in the dark, confused.

“What?”

A second passed where Mike didn’t answer, like he hated having to translate into words what his body had already decided. Will heard his breathing, a little louder than normal.

“Can I… hold you?” Mike said. “I mean… if it helps. If it doesn’t bother you.”

Something loosened in Will’s chest, like his body understood before he did. And at the same time everything else tightened, because the question itself wasn’t dangerous.

What was dangerous was what it meant that Mike asked like that, slow, careful, permission first, like it mattered too much.

Will reached for a simple reason. The afternoon tremor. The way he’d been pulled out of alignment. Mike’s habit of trying to fix what couldn’t be fixed.

And still, his ears burned in the dark.

This wasn’t just any hug. Not a “good job.” Not an automatic gesture.

It was a choice.

Will swallowed, felt a “yes” trying to escape too fast, and held it back for half a second just so he could breathe first.

“Yeah,” he said at last, quieter. “Yeah. It helps.”

And like he needed to make it easy, he added, awkward:

“It… it doesn’t bother me.”

He shifted slightly, making space. A tiny movement, but clear. Like leaving a door cracked open.

Mike took a heartbeat before he moved, like he was holding back something that ran too deep in him. Then he eased in carefully, almost testing the ground, and slid an arm around Will’s waist. When it finally closed, the embrace was firm without squeezing, warm without invading, drawing Will in with gentle pressure, like saying here without words.

Will went still for a moment, startled that something so simple could hit so hard. His heart jumped, ridiculous, runaway, like it had taken off sprinting without him. Mike’s heat, the safety of that weight behind him, the way the world finally stopped shifting so much.

And without thinking, Will let his back fit against Mike’s chest.

It was a tiny, almost clumsy adjustment, like his body was feeling along the edge of something new and still found the exact spot on the first try.

At first he stayed stiff out of habit, out of memory, everything he’d learned not to ask for. But Mike’s warmth was steady, solid, and the weight of his arm, plus his breath at Will’s neck, kept him too aware, like his senses had sharpened all at once.

Little by little, the tension melted without Will having to order it to.

Will let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Mike noticed and tightened the hold a fraction.

“Like this? You comfortable?”

“Like this,” Will whispered.

It wasn’t movie romance. It wasn’t confession.

It was… shelter. Safety. Not because the world would stop being horrible, but because for a while, Mike was holding the edge so it wouldn’t fall.

Mike rested his chin near Will’s shoulder without quite touching.

“About today…” Mike said, slow, like he was measuring where to step. “Sorry if I smothered you.”

Will frowned, even though Mike couldn’t see.

“You didn’t.”

Mike snugged the hug a little, like he needed to make sure that was true.

“It’s just… sometimes I don’t know what to do, and I do… this.”

“This is good,” Will said simply, and his voice shook just a little. Because it wasn’t just good. It was perfect. Will couldn’t ask for anything better.

Mike exhaled, almost laughing.

“Great. Then officially my strategy is… hug you and wait for the universe to get tired.”

Will laughed softly, more real.

“You’re ridiculous.”

Mike laughed too. The embrace tightened a touch, barely, and a clean little jolt ran through Will, like his body suddenly remembered exactly where he was. His heart kept leaping, keeping him too awake.

“You know what? My mom or yours is going to think I kidnapped you,” Mike murmured with a small laugh.

Will breathed a silent laugh, surprised by the comment.

“Your mother accepted weeks ago that I live here. And my mom hasn’t been in this house enough lately to notice.”

“No, seriously.” Mike made a noise between indignation and exhaustion. “Today she looked at me like I was about to give you a ring or something.”

Will nearly choked on air, trying to hide how happy the idea made him for one second.

“God, no.”

“I know,” Mike said solemnly. “I can’t even find my other sneaker. Imagine a ring.”

Will smiled into the pillow.

“You could ask Holly. She’s got a schedule. Today she seemed very committed to that whole idea.”

“Holly would have a speech prepared,” Mike murmured. “And confetti.”

Will let out a low laugh.

“That’s what scares me.”

“Me too,” Mike said, and his arm adjusted warmer around him. “Good night, Byers.”

Will stayed still for a second, like those two words had to be accepted carefully.

“Good night, Mike,” he whispered back.

Saying his name like that, no last name, no jokes around it, almost no space between their bodies, left something strange in Will’s throat. It didn’t hurt. It just… weighed. Like a small truth that was finally allowed to be said.

Mike didn’t answer with words. He just exhaled slowly, and the arm around Will’s waist settled again, steady, not tight, like he was marking the exact place where Will could rest without being afraid of anything beyond them.

Will set his hand on Mike’s wrist, barely a touch, like checking he was there. Like giving himself permission.

The house creaked in its usual language: pipes, old wood, a town that didn’t know how to be normal again. Will thought about what he’d felt that afternoon, that internal yank that wasn’t just a memory, and the meeting tomorrow at the radio station.

And still, his body didn’t stay on guard.

He sank into Mike’s warmth, and despite the relentless jitter in him, sleep found him without a fight.

And that was how Will learned a new rule: if something shifted again in the dark, he didn’t have to hold it alone. Sometimes the brave thing is staying. Letting himself be held. And Mike Wheeler knew exactly how to hold him without ever making him feel small.

Chapter Text

Will woke up before the sun fully made up its mind.

It wasn’t a jolt, and it wasn’t a nightmare. It was his body remembering, all at once, where he was. And who he was with.

The warmth came first. A steady weight around his waist, a soft pressure against his stomach, and Mike’s breathing brushing the back of his neck in that slow, deep rhythm of someone still asleep. Like the world had agreed, for a few hours, to leave them alone.

Outside, Hawkins was still Hawkins: the shy chorus of birds, the murmur of a car braking at the corner, distant voices crossing on the sidewalk as if there weren’t cracks under the asphalt. The town forcing routine forward, stubborn, like pretending was another way to survive.

But here, in this too-familiar room with old posters, shelves packed with comics, and clothes tossed around with a questionable “system,” something was… aligned.

Will didn’t move. He was afraid that if he did, he’d break the illusion, undo the night, and turn it back into nothing but a shameful thought living inside his head.

Mike’s arm fit like it had memorized his shape overnight. It didn’t squeeze. It didn’t crowd him. It was just there. And Will hated, in that way where hate and want are dangerously similar, how easily his body accepted it.

Because last night had happened. It wasn’t exhaustion. It wasn’t confusion. Mike had asked permission. Mike had held him. And Mike was still holding him now, like it was normal.

Will tried to shift carefully, just enough to orient himself, to remind his brain the world still had corners. He slid a hand toward the nightstand, feeling for air and distance.

That movement must have nudged the mattress, because Mike stirred behind him.

First came a small adjustment. Then, without anyone choosing it, the arm around Will tightened a little.

Like a reflex.

Like a sleepy refusal.

Will went still.

Mike mumbled something that wasn’t quite a word. A rough, half-asleep sound that lodged in Will somewhere between his stomach and his throat.

“…No.”

It was so simple, so human, that it landed like a direct hit to the center of Will’s chest.

Mike wasn’t awake. Not really.

But his body had decided Will wasn’t leaving.

Will swallowed again, this time with a tiny laugh stuck in his lungs. He didn’t let it out. It felt like too much. Too intimate, too true, too dangerous.

Because that was the thing about Mike. When he did something, even by accident, it felt like he meant it. No half measures. No safety distance.

Will stayed still for a few more seconds, giving Mike time to settle. His breathing returned to its slow rhythm, like nothing had happened, like he hadn’t just tightened the whole world around Will.

That was when Will noticed his own heart.

It was racing.

Not from panic. Not from fear. More like… feeling with nowhere to go. A sprint with no finish line. A small animal kicking at the bars of its cage.

Will closed his eyes for a moment, just to breathe, just to turn the volume down.

And inevitably, he thought the one thing he wasn’t supposed to.

He could tell him.

He could wait until Mike got up. He could turn slowly. He could look at him and say “thanks” like there wasn’t anything else underneath. He could say “it helps” like it was a practical conclusion. He could say “I don’t want to go” like leaving this bed was the only thing he was afraid of.

He could say…

Will opened his eyes.

No. He couldn’t.

Because with Mike, words never stayed on the surface. With Mike, words always meant something.

And that could mean letting something rise that Will couldn’t allow to surface. Something he couldn’t allow Mike to know. Will already had enough things in his head that meant too much.

He forced himself to move, very slowly, just enough to turn his face a little. He wanted to see Mike. Only see him. Confirm he was still there, that this wasn’t safety his exhausted brain had invented.

Morning light slipped in through a gap in the curtain, a pale line on the wall. It didn’t illuminate everything, but it traced Mike’s profile.

His bangs were a mess, one cheek pressed into the pillow, his mouth slightly open. He slept with an expression he never wore awake, like the world didn’t owe him anything, like he didn’t have to stay alert for every invisible danger.

Will looked at him without permission.

Something tightened in his throat, an unbearable tenderness. A gentle pressure, like someone was pushing from inside his chest.

Mike’s arm stayed around him. His hand rested on Will’s shirt, and Will’s skin there prickled.

Like his body had a second language.

Will moved again, just barely, reaching for the edge of the sheet so he could remember there was a world outside this bed. A tiny motion.

It was enough.

Mike’s arm tensed for an instant, reflex again, then settled back over him more firmly, like sleep itself knew how to protect. His breathing shifted, closer.

“…Will?” Mike murmured, half-asleep, voice thick.

Will froze, his heart doing a ridiculous jump.

“Nothing,” he whispered. “I… woke you up.”

Mike took a second to answer. He registered the weight of his own arm around Will, like he’d just discovered it. And he still didn’t let go. Instead he adjusted his hand a little over Will’s stomach, a small warm touch that said I’m here without saying it.

“No,” Mike said, and it sounded true even before he fully woke. “I’m okay.”

Will swallowed. He could have turned. He could have searched for Mike’s face. He didn’t, but he didn’t pull away either.

Mike opened his eyes just enough to look over Will’s shoulder, a gaze that was blurry and real at the same time. That second, that second of recognition and calm, was too much.

Will didn’t know what to do with how easy it was to be there without explaining anything. With the absurd idea that if he stayed still long enough, the world might tolerate it.

His pulse sped up, traitorous. One beat after another, like his body was celebrating something his mind refused to name.

And just when Will thought maybe, just maybe, he could turn, or say something dumb so he wouldn’t drown in the quiet…

A sharp voice exploded on the other side of the door.

“MIKE! MIIIIKE!”

Will startled, and Mike’s arm snapped tense, fully awake in a single second.

“What…?” Mike mumbled, blinking.

The door opened without knocking.

Holly appeared like a projectile shaped like a little girl. Her hair looked like it had fought her pillow and lost, and she was holding something red.

A marker.

Of course.

“I can’t find the red-red!” she announced dramatically, like she was reporting a national disaster.

She went still for a second, staring at the bed.

Staring at them.

Will felt heat rush up his face like someone had poured scalding water under his skin.

Mike took a second longer to process it. He blinked. Looked at Holly. Looked at Will. Noticed his arm around him.

And for the first time in Will’s life, Mike Wheeler looked like he’d run out of instructions.

“Holly,” Mike started, trying for firm and coming out cracked with sleep. “What are you doing?”

Holly didn’t answer. Her expression shifted slowly, like a brilliant idea had just landed in her head.

“Oh.”

Mike sat up fast, clumsy, and the movement left Will too exposed, too aware of the cold air outside the blankets, too aware that his back had been fitted against Mike’s chest half a second ago.

“It’s not what…” Mike began, then stopped, because he didn’t even know what he was denying.

Holly smiled.

That smile.

Will had seen it yesterday, and it never meant anything good.

“Mooooom,” Holly sang, without taking her eyes off them.

“HOLLY!” came Karen’s voice from the hallway, approaching with quick steps. “What did I tell you about barging into other people’s rooms like you…”

Karen appeared in the doorway, ready for battle.

Then she stopped too.

She took in the scene: Mike sitting up too fast, Will red up to his ears, blankets in disarray, all of it at an hour no one should be perceived by anyone.

Karen raised her eyebrows. She didn’t speak for a second.

And that second was, for Will, worse than any lecture.

Then Karen sighed. A long sigh full of I survived a lethal earthquake and motherhood, this won’t kill me.

“Holly. Out.”

“But…”

“The ‘red-red’ is in your box. The same box you ignored ten minutes ago. So, out.”

Holly frowned, offended by the lack of spectacle.

“But…”

Karen looked at her with that calm, dangerous patience only mothers have when they’re one step away from consequences.

“Out, sweetheart.”

Holly shuffled off, but before she left she waved like she was greeting an invisible audience.

“I’ll leave you to it,” she said, grinning ear to ear.

The silence after that was lethal.

Mike dragged a hand down his face like he could slap himself awake.

Karen watched them a beat longer, measuring something Will didn’t want to know about. Then, either giving it no weight or giving it weight and hiding it expertly, she changed lanes like someone avoiding a crash.

“Breakfast in ten minutes. Then you’re going to the radio station, right?” She looked at Mike. “Nancy said something about a meeting with friends.”

Mike nodded too fast.

“Yeah. Yeah, we’re going.”

Karen nodded too. Her gaze slid to Will, gentle but exact.

“Feeling better, honey?”

Will swallowed and forced a nod like his entire body wasn’t a bright, glittering alarm.

“Yeah. I’m fine. It was just… tiredness.”

Karen accepted that with a small gesture.

“Okay. Then get dressed. And Mike, please open the window for a while. Your room has smelled like sweat and feet for days.”

Mike let out a “Mom” that was both indignant and defeated, while Will shifted, suddenly thinking he might have contributed to that particular scent profile.

Karen left.

When the door shut and the hallway noise faded, Will released the breath he’d been hoarding since Holly’s entrance.

Mike sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall like he wanted to pretend the world didn’t exist.

Will cleared his throat.

“Nice wake-up,” he murmured.

Mike turned to him, and Will saw something in his expression, a faint warmth he didn’t remember seeing before. It wasn’t only embarrassment, though there was plenty of that. It was something else, quieter, more private. Like he was also processing the fact that he’d woken up with Will in his arms.

“Yeah,” Mike said, voice recovering a bit of normal. “Great. Perfect. My sister can blackmail us until we’re forty.”

Will laughed at last. Small, but real.

And that laugh, even trembling slightly, turned the volume down.

Mike stood up fast, like movement could save him from thinking.

“Okay. Breakfast. Radio. Plans to save the world. Normal Saturday stuff.”

Will sat up too, carefully.

And in that moment, when their bodies fully separated and Mike’s warmth stopped wrapping his back, Will felt a quick hollow.

An absence. Like his body had taken note of the exact place where it felt right. Where it wanted to be.

Mike opened a drawer, pulled out a sweatshirt, and tossed it to Will like it was a rehearsed routine.

“Put it on if you’re cold at breakfast,” he said, not looking at him directly.

Will caught it and pressed it against his chest for one second before putting it on. Not because he was cold. Because it smelled like home, like detergent, like Mike.

And because since last night, those things were winning the war against his common sense.

Breakfast was a strange mix of “normal house” and “improvised command center.”

Ted was in his usual spot, newspaper up like a shield against any conversation that required feelings. Karen moved around with cups and plates in that steady efficiency that held the house up like a pillar. Holly had decided the “red-red” crisis was ancient history and was now busy pulverizing cereal like a protest. Joyce sat at the table looking like she’d slept too little, eyes far too awake anyway. Jonathan sat beside her, eating without real appetite, like chewing was a way to keep moving. Nancy came in last, hair half tied back, a folder under her arm, like even in a kitchen she could be working.

Will sat down and, for a second, didn’t know what to do with his hands.

Mike sat beside him like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like Holly hadn’t caught them in the same bed with basically no space between them after a whole night wrapped together. Like the heat of that bed wasn’t a shared secret.

And that, all by itself, was a gesture.

With Karen in the kitchen and Ted ignoring them completely, Jonathan spoke first in that big-brother tone that tried to sound relaxed and never succeeded.

“Steve said he’ll open the station at ten. Robin’s already there, she said something about getting today’s program ready.”

Nancy nodded, flipping through papers.

“I got maps from city hall. Roadblocks, access points, everything they’ve closed off since…” She stopped, because no one wanted to say since the world broke.

Joyce drank coffee like it was medicine.

“Hopper’s with El. They’re going to…” She paused, searching for words that sounded normal. “They’re training a bit more. But El wants to come by later, even if it’s just for a minute.”

Will felt it instantly and involuntarily, the way Mike went rigid beside him.

It wasn’t a visible flinch. It was a shift in density, like the air suddenly weighed something different.

Will focused on his spoon and watched Mike swallow.

“Okay,” Mike said, and the word came out too neutral. “She can come.”

Will felt a small stab in his stomach at what those words could mean.

Because El was part of the group. Because El had been his girlfriend. Because El was… El.

And Will already had enough things he didn’t know where to put, and plenty more he put in exactly the wrong place.

Karen came back into the dining room with a couple plates, upbeat enough.

“Please eat a little more,” she said, pushing a plate of toast to the center. “You’re going to spend the morning running around, and on an empty stomach you’ll faint. Speaking from experience.”

“Mom, what experience?” Holly asked through a mouthful.

Karen looked at her with absolute calm.

“The experience of living with you people.”

Holly accepted that as scientifically irrefutable and went back to her cereal.

Will bit into toast without hunger, only because it gave him something to do.

Mike ate too, quick and mechanical, but Will noticed Mike’s knee bouncing under the table. Small. Restless.

Like the meeting at the radio station mattered for a thousand reasons, and also for one he wasn’t naming.

Will didn’t ask.

He didn’t want to give that a word yet.

When they finished, Joyce got up first.

“I’m going to…” She gestured toward the hall. “Call Hopper, tell him to come straight later. And grab… stuff.”

Nancy gathered her papers.

“I’ll go ahead with Jonathan. I want to check the station equipment, see what’s usable.”

Jonathan nodded, already standing.

“Murray said he got extra walkies.”

“Murray gets things like it’s his job,” Mike muttered, and it sounded enough like a joke that nobody treated it as real.

Will glanced at him. Mike smiled for half a second, barely there. A small nervous curve, like he was asking without saying it: don’t leave me alone today.

Will felt that smile move something inside him. He swallowed the urge to reach for Mike’s hand, to rub his thumb across the back of it. Instead, he nodded once, minimal.

Mike saw it, and he seemed to breathe a little better.

They left the house with cold air slapping their faces.

Not the clean cold of winter. Autumn cold, damp and insistent, slipping through clothes like it had rights.

Mike and Will went by bike. Dustin and Lucas waited at their usual intersection, the one that used to be where they met to go to someone’s house or waste time. Now it was something else, a meeting point learned through scares, like Hawkins had decided this was how normal worked now.

Dustin showed up with his backpack loaded like he was heading on a polar expedition.

“I brought stuff,” he announced proudly.

Lucas looked at him with the calm exhaustion of someone who had accepted Dustin Henderson would never be a normal person.

“What stuff?”

“Useful stuff. Cables. An extra flashlight. A pack of cookies. A screwdriver. And…” Dustin rummaged. “Okay, I also brought a little figure in case we need morale.”

Lucas closed his eyes for one second.

“What figure?”

Dustin grinned.

“Gandalf.”

“Why?”

“Because it never hurts to have a wizard judging you in the middle of a suicide mission.”

Will let out a small laugh. Mike didn’t fully laugh, but his shoulders loosened a millimeter.

Lucas looked at Will with a caution he hadn’t had before the hospital. Last night Mike had hit the walkie button and said, “Will felt something weird. He’s fine. We’ll talk tomorrow,” in a voice that meant do not ask me more right now.

“You… okay?” Lucas asked, and ten other questions lived inside that one.

Will nodded.

“Yeah. Really. It was just… a signal. Stronger than usual, but that’s it.”

Lucas didn’t believe the word “just” in any universe, but he didn’t argue.

“Okay.”

Dustin hitched his backpack like a general.

“Then let’s move. Robin’s going to kill us if we’re late. That girl measures time in units of sarcasm and verbal violence.”

They rode together.

Mike stayed alongside Will, almost brushing wheels, like any distance between them was a safety hazard.

Will noticed, and instead of tensing like he would have before, he simply… let it be.

That was the new thing. Letting it be. Not turning every brush of contact into an alarm.

Even if his heart kept doing insane things with no respect for logic.

They didn’t take long. When they arrived, the station smelled like warm cables and fresh coffee.

Steve was at the entrance, leaning on the frame like he owned the place, a key hanging from one finger. He wore a jacket far too light for the cold, because Steve Harrington had a personal relationship with not being cold based entirely on ego.

Robin appeared behind him with a folder and two pens stuck into her hair.

“You’re late,” she said, no greeting.

Dustin glanced at his watch and tapped it with his thumb, like he could bully it back to life.

“We’re…” he started, and the rest died halfway. “Whatever.”

Robin lifted a brow.

“Your watch is dead, Dustin.”

Dustin blinked once. Nodded slowly, like he’d been accepting it for hours.

“Yeah. Well. A lot of things have been dying lately.”

A small, uncomfortable silence followed. Steve cleared his throat, trying to break it without crushing it.

“Welcome to the saddest place on earth to plan group suicides.”

“Inspiring, Steve,” Mike muttered, with no real energy to fight the tone.

Steve shrugged.

“It’s true.”

They led them inside.

The station had a main room with tables and cables, a big microphone in a booth, and a whiteboard someone, probably Robin, had already filled with arrows and words: “ACCESS,” “SCHEDULES,” “SIGNALS,” “DON’T DIE.”

Will stared at the board for a second.

That “DON’T DIE” felt like the most sensible plan they’d ever written.

Nancy and Jonathan were already there, maps spread over a table. Nancy held a marker, marking points with precision. Jonathan held the paper flat so it wouldn’t fold.

Joyce came in a few minutes later with the face of someone who had been running on sheer willpower for years.

“Hopper and El are on their way,” she said, no preamble. “They’ll head over when they’re done and they’ll be careful not to draw attention, you know. But she wanted to see all of you one more time, before this whole madness starts again.”

Mike tensed again. Will felt it like a temperature change.

Dustin opened his arms, though the gesture looked more automatic than celebratory.

“Okay. Final campaign mode.”

Steve rolled his eyes and scanned the room until he landed on Mike and Will. His expression went a little more careful.

He looked at Will for a beat. Steve Harrington could be a disaster at plenty of things, but for the past year he’d developed a weirdly excellent radar for what wasn’t being said. Still, he didn’t comment.

“Alright,” Steve said, softer. “Let’s… do this.”

Nancy cleared her throat, authoritative.

“We have two problems,” she said bluntly. “One, we don’t know what Vecna is doing right now. Two, Hawkins is full of cracks and unstable zones. Any of them could be an access point, or a trap.”

Jonathan pointed at the map.

“The big rifts are watched by the military. Around them there are areas where the air changes, dead vegetation shows up, and everything feels… wrong. Like the town is, I don’t know, contaminated in certain spots.”

Dustin raised a hand.

“That sounds like the ‘veil between dimensions’ is weakening.”

Robin looked at him.

“Can you say that like a human being?”

“The separation between our world and the Upside Down might be getting thinner,” Dustin translated.

“Thank you.”

Lucas shifted in his chair, uncomfortable.

“So what are we supposed to do?” he asked, and his voice was fatigue and anger braided together. “Because the last time we ‘did something’ we almost died, and Max…”

He didn’t finish.

Silence held for a tense second, like a pulled wire.

Will felt the familiar pressure.

Beside him, Mike made a tiny movement, his knee brushing Will’s. An anchor, a reminder that he was right there, letting Will breathe again.

Nancy spoke again, more careful this time.

“I know. And we’re not saying we do something reckless tomorrow. But…” She looked at Will. “It’s been weeks. We need to start moving smart.”

Will swallowed. It was time, so he forced himself to speak.

“Yesterday I felt it again,” he said, first, because he needed that clear. “It had been a while, but yesterday it happened. I didn’t see anything. It was… a sensation. Like the cold at the back of my neck, but different too. Like when you’re listening to the radio and suddenly…” He gestured. “Someone turns the volume up.”

Dustin nodded fast, getting it.

Will kept going, because if he stopped it would stick in his throat.

“It was like… he was moving. He’s angry. He’s still damaged. But he’s started doing something. I felt it.”

Steve frowned.

“So that means he’s… active?”

Will hesitated.

“Yeah. I think so. I don’t know what he’s planning, and I don’t think he can do much yet, but… he’s not still anymore.”

Robin crossed her arms.

“Okay. So we’ve got ‘Vecna did something’ and ‘Will is basically an antenna.’”

“You summarized my trauma really well in one sentence,” Will murmured, with a small laugh.

Robin lifted both hands.

“No, no. I mean it as… useful. Like, we can use it. It’s an advantage.”

Lucas looked at Will, serious.

“And if it happens again?”

Before Will could answer, Mike spoke.

“He’ll tell me,” Mike said, and his voice didn’t leave room for debate.

Will looked at him, startled.

Mike didn’t look back. He stared at the table, the board, anything. But the sentence stayed there, solid.

Dustin blinked, and his expression shifted into something very specific: I noticed something, and I’m not saying it out loud because I value my life.

Nancy inhaled and returned to the point.

“If Vecna is moving, we need to figure out where. Right now all we have are access points and places under watch.”

Jonathan tapped a spot on the map.

“Downtown is screwed. The big rift is basically a military base. But near the lake they’re less concentrated. We think we can start there.”

Steve straightened like he’d heard someone chanting his name.

“And before anyone says it, yes, I can go. But I’m not going to be an idiot, okay?”

Robin looked at him with affection and patience.

“Steve, sweetheart, we’re not handing out medals today. Today we look. With our eyes. From this side.”

Nancy nodded, grateful she didn’t have to fight that battle.

“Exactly. No one crosses today. It’s just recon. Gather info from Hawkins, mark points, figure out what’s changing, and most importantly, watch the military.”

Jonathan nodded quickly.

“Patterns, schedules, who goes in and out, what areas they’re closing. If we’re going to move, we need to know where we can and where we can’t.”

“I can improve the radio,” Dustin added. “Fixed channel, less interference, protocols. If anyone moves, we’ll know. If the military shifts something, we’ll know too.”

Robin pointed her pen in approval.

“Yes. Communication and map. No ‘I’ll just pop in for a second,’ because no one ever goes in for a second.”

Joyce spoke then, firm. Not dramatic, just law.

“And if we cross later, we do it with rules. We’ll decide who goes and there’ll be a time limit. We do it right or we don’t do it.”

Mike nodded faster than he meant to.

“Yeah. Okay.”

And in that “yeah,” Will heard a thousand unspoken things: yes because if I don’t do something I’ll go insane, yes because if he moves I have to be there, yes because if something happens to you and I’m not…

Will dropped his eyes. That was the dangerous part, that Mike sounded like that even when he was talking strategy.

Robin tapped the table with her pen.

“Alright. Teams.”

Jonathan rubbed his face.

“We can split up. Nancy and I go with Steve to check the lake access. Robin stays at base with Dustin as our radio operator.”

Dustin nodded, grateful for a concrete job.

“Works for me.”

Lucas spoke quietly.

“I… can go, but then I have to stop by the hospital.”

No one argued. That was a new law.

Will felt Mike’s eyes on him. Not pressure. A silent question.

And you?

Will swallowed.

His instinct was to say I’ll go. Because he always had. Because fear had never taken away his need to be useful.

But he also knew what his mom would do if he said it. She’d step in front. She’d try to hold him up.

And Will… didn’t want that. He didn’t want to go back to being handled like glass.

“I can…” he started.

Joyce was about to interrupt, but Mike beat her to it. Not rudely, just fast, like he was afraid of being too late.

“I think it’d be good if you stayed here,” Mike said. “With the walkies. And…” He stopped, searching for a way to say it that didn’t sound like an order. “If you feel anything, you tell us. You’re useful here too.”

Joyce nodded, backing him without drama.

“I agree, Will. We need you here,” she said.

Will felt a sting of wounded pride mixed with something softer. They weren’t saying you can’t. They were saying I don’t want to risk you.

It still hurt, a little.

Nancy looked at Mike, then at Will.

“Today we’re not doing anything dangerous. If you want to come, it shouldn’t be a problem,” she said simply, and from Nancy that was a huge concession.

Will opened his mouth.

He wanted to say I’m not a kid. He wanted to say I was there too. He wanted to say if something moves I might be the only one who notices in time.

But under all of that was the memory of last night. The hug. The permission. The exact place where he’d been able to rest.

And he realized something uncomfortable: part of him wanted to stay. Not from fear. From… choice.

Will swallowed.

“I’ll stay,” he said at last, surprised by how natural it sounded.

Joyce let out a breath, relieved. Mike did something similar, not as obvious, but Will saw it anyway.

Dustin raised his hand again, slipping into logistics mode.

“Base here: Robin, Dustin, Mrs. Byers, and Will. Recon team: Steve, Nancy, Jonathan, Lucas. And Mike… Mike?”

Everyone looked at Mike. Mike glanced at Will, quick, like he was measuring something.

“I’ll go with recon,” he said. “But I’ll come back fast. And… if anything happens, tell me.”

“It” was plural, but Will heard the singular hiding underneath.

Robin inhaled, sealing it.

“Okay. We have a plan. We have teams. We have a radio station that looks like a bunker with microphones. Perfect. Anything else before we all die horribly at the hands of a power-wielding maniac?”

As if the universe heard her, the door sounded right then.

Heavy footsteps.

Hopper walked in like the station was a police precinct, face like thunder and the world on his shoulders, wearing that old jacket that always seemed to smell like smoke and woods.

El came in behind him. Hair pulled back, serious expression, tired eyes. Something about her was different from the last time Will saw her. Not just power. Something older. A kind of grown-up exhaustion in someone way too young.

El scanned the room, and when she saw Mike, she went still for a beat.

Mike did too.

It wasn’t movie dramatic. No swelling music. Just two people remembering that some things break because they have to.

Hopper cleared his throat, uncomfortable.

“I heard you’re planning a trip to hell,” he grunted.

Steve raised his voice.

“Hi, chief. No, we’re not going to hell today. We’re staying here. Watching from a distance.”

Hopper gave him the paternal disgust look.

“Don’t call me ‘chief.’”

Robin, for some reason, waved.

“Hi, Hopper. Don’t worry, we have a plan. Well. Something like one.”

Hopper sighed like he wanted to go live in a cave.

“Of course.”

El hadn’t taken her eyes off Mike.

Mike swallowed.

“Hi,” he said, and the word came out small.

El nodded.

“Hi.”

Will felt a strange pull in his stomach. Not pain yet, just the anticipation of pain, like when you see a wave coming and you know it’s going to soak you and you can’t stop it.

Nancy saved the air the way she always did, decisive.

“We’re doing recon,” she explained. “Not a full incursion. Just measuring. Testing comms. Observing the military. Evaluating.”

Robin rounded it out.

“Two groups. Base stays: me, Mrs. Byers, Dustin, and Will. Recon team: Steve, Jonathan, Lucas, Mike, and Nancy.”

Hopper nodded once, fitting the pieces together.

“Good.” His gaze swept the ones going out. “If they stop you, don’t argue. If you notice anything weird, you leave. Period.”

Steve opened his mouth, halfway to a heroic speech that never made it out.

“Yeah.”

Robin looked up, dry.

“Sorry, who are you and what did you do with Steve Harrington?”

Steve didn’t look at her, faking exhaustion.

“Today I don’t feel like getting a rifle pointed at me.”

El turned to Will. The way she looked at him was direct, no detours, but gentle too, like she’d learned how to ask without squeezing.

“Will, are you okay?” she said, worried. “You don’t look good.”

Will swallowed. He didn’t want to repeat it, but it was information, the kind that got more dangerous if you kept it quiet.

“I’m… okay,” he said, and steadied it with what came next. “But yesterday, biking back with Mike, I felt something. I already told everyone.”

Several pairs of eyes focused on him. Will kept his gaze on El, because it was easier to talk to one person than to a chorus.

“It was like usual, but stronger,” he explained. “Like he was moving with a clear purpose, whatever it is.”

A tiny pause.

“But yes. I’m fine.”

El held his gaze a beat longer, like she suspected he wasn’t telling the full truth. Then she looked down, and when she spoke again her voice was quieter.

“I… can’t find him. I tried with the bath a lot, but it’s empty. He’s not anywhere.”

The sentence fell with a strange weight, like it changed the room’s temperature.

“Great,” Robin muttered, humorless. “Henry learned to hide.”

Hopper cut through before anyone spiraled.

“We’ll find him,” he said, blunt. “And we’ll end him.”

No one cheered, but everyone felt it settle like obligation.

Hopper tipped his chin at El, more reminder than command.

“Today I’m joining them for recon. You stay here. We can’t expose you yet, and if there’s trouble I want you one call away.”

El didn’t look offended. She nodded with that tired acceptance of someone who already knew her place in everyone’s plans, even if she was counting the days until she could act.

“Okay.”

Mike didn’t fully look away from El. He didn’t fully meet her gaze either. His eyes kept going there and back, like he couldn’t find the right distance.

Will noticed everything and forced himself not to make it big.

They’re friends. They loved each other, in some way. Maybe they still did, just different.

He didn’t have the right to claim anything. Mike and he were friends. They would never be anything else.

Will repeated those lines in his head like a spell, like saying them enough times could stop his heart from doing something stupid.

The meeting kept going with practical details: schedules, supplies, routes. Dustin insisting on simple codes. Robin insisting the codes shouldn’t sound like a cult because “we’ve already got enough apocalypse.”

Will took notes because writing gave him a fake sense of control.

But sometimes his attention drifted to Mike: the way he leaned over the map, the way his brow creased, the way he bit the inside of his cheek when he focused.

And how his gaze kept brushing El and staying there one second too long.

Not hunger. Not want.

History.

Will told himself it was normal. No one stops caring about someone overnight, even if the shape of that care changes.

Still, every time Mike looked at El, Will’s stomach went weightless, like when the front wheel of a bike lifts and you don’t know if you’re about to crash.

The meeting ended with Robin saying, “Okay, everyone out before I turn into a ghost,” and Steve replying, “I’m already a social ghost, it’s fine.”

They organized to leave.

Steve, Nancy, Jonathan, and Lucas would go check the lake access, measure, and return. Hopper would stay nearby in the car “just in case.” Robin, Dustin, Joyce, and Will would stay at the station testing comms and logging everything.

And Mike, who was supposed to go with recon, got stopped by Hopper with a gesture.

“Mike,” Hopper said, and it sounded like come here before you do something stupid.

Mike walked over, tense. El went still at the sound, and Will couldn’t stop his eyes from following the same point.

He wasn’t spying, he told himself. He was just… in the same room.

Hopper spoke low, though not low enough to be private.

“Look, counting me, that’s five. One too many in the car. I need you to stay here today. I need you to protect them,” Hopper said, and it was obvious he didn’t mean only today. He meant don’t lose anyone. Hold what can still be held.

Mike nodded.

“Yeah.”

Hopper looked at El.

“And you, don’t wander.”

El nodded.

Hopper sighed and stepped away like he’d done something emotionally exhausting just by saying those two sentences.

As soon as Steve said they were ready, the station shifted. Footsteps, doors, the sense of everything starting again.

But Mike and El stayed facing each other for a second, standing with all that air between them that wasn’t empty. It was history. It was what everyone knew without saying.

El spoke first.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Mike blinked, caught off guard.

“For what?”

El dropped her eyes for a moment, and when she raised them again there was something firm under the sadness, almost stubborn.

“For… everything. For leaving you… alone with this.”

Mike shook his head fast.

“No. It’s not… it’s not like that.”

Will thought it was incredible how easily Mike slipped into that tone, the one Will knew. The one that said I get it without saying it.

El looked at him, honest, almost pained.

“Mike, I… I love you.”

Will felt his blood go cold.

Not because El said it.

Because it was true.

Because even if it wasn’t romantic, even if it wasn’t, it sounded like something that had lived too long in the center of her chest to be improvised.

Mike swallowed. His throat moved.

“I love you too.”

The words came out clean. No doubt. No awkwardness. And Will’s world stopped spinning.

“You know that,” Mike added softly, like proof wasn’t needed.

El nodded.

“But…” She paused like the words were stones. “It didn’t work.”

Mike closed his eyes for a second.

“No,” he admitted. “It didn’t.”

El lifted her gaze, and there was a strange, grown-up acceptance in it.

“It’s okay,” she said calmly. “We can… keep going. Be… us.”

Us.

The word hit Will like something physical.

Mike looked at her.

And he smiled a little, like someone accepting something that hurts.

“Yeah,” he said. “We can.”

El stepped closer.

Mike stayed still for a beat.

Then, like it was the only thing they still knew how to do, they hugged.

It was brief. Not tight. Not desperate.

But it was a hug, the kind that carves its own space in memory and keeps a private meaning.

When they pulled apart, when it should have been over, Mike didn’t fully remove his hand. His fingers stayed a second longer on El’s arm, extended, like he was still checking she was there.

El looked at him like she was about to say something, and Mike tipped his head just enough to answer in a low voice. Will didn’t catch the words. He only saw the motion, the way Mike looked… gentle.

El nodded once, small, and her expression eased a fraction.

Will felt something inside him shrink.

It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t resentment.

It was that small sting of having let himself believe. That childish, stupid feeling of oh.

Oh, right.

Idiot.

What did you expect?

El stepped away first. Mike rubbed a hand over his face, trying to hide that it still hurt a little.

Will looked away in time, like his eyes hadn’t registered every second.

Like his brain hadn’t recorded it in high definition.

Like his heart hadn’t just said I told you so, not cruelly, just with the dry resignation of the inevitable.

Then he did the only thing he could do without breaking in front of everyone: he kept his thoughts from taking over his body.

Once the recon team left and the station went quieter, Will moved on autopilot.

He helped Robin connect cables. He handed Dustin a walkie. He wrote down frequencies.

Anything to avoid thinking.

Because being busy was better than thinking.

Not thinking has consequences, like not staying invisible. Robin watched him quietly for a second.

“You okay?” she asked, and it didn’t sound casual. It sounded like I saw you.

Will nodded too fast.

“Yeah.”

Robin didn’t push right away. She was a lot of things, but she wasn’t insensitive.

“Okay,” she said, then added, “If you feel like screaming at the wall, just so you know, the walls here have heard worse. People used to come record ad jingles. That was real terror.”

Will let out a tiny grateful laugh.

He tried to answer, but Dustin, too busy building his “communications center” to notice subtext, spoke first.

“Alright, sound check,” he announced. “Robin, you on the mic. Will, you on the walkie. Me doing… magic.”

Robin rolled her eyes.

“Dustin, you’re not a wizard.”

“I’m a scientist, which is basically the same thing, just with worse parties.”

Will gripped the walkie, listening to the static. Normally it would be familiar, background, life.

This time it turned into a memory sound, dragging up yesterday’s buzz.

Will swallowed.

He felt a faint echo at the back of his neck. Not cold, just the shadow of possibility.

He tensed.

Robin saw it.

“Hey,” she murmured, lowering her voice. “Will. You okay?”

Will blinked himself back.

“Yeah, totally, it’s nothing,” he lied.

Robin watched him for a second.

“Okay,” she accepted, because forcing it wouldn’t help. “But if it’s something, you tell me. I’m not your mom or Mike, but I can also go into emergency mode.”

Will nodded.

And then, like the universe had a sick sense of timing, the walkie in Will’s hand crackled.

“Base, do you copy?” Nancy’s voice, distorted.

Will forced himself to breathe. He answered like a professional, like he wasn’t sixteen and the world didn’t feel like it could end at any moment.

“We copy. Go ahead.”

Dustin gave a thumbs-up on reflex, like the gesture could summon better times.

Robin sat up straighter, focused.

Nancy’s voice continued, mixed with wind.

“We’re near the lake. We can see…” Static cut in. “…a zone where the air feels wrong. Steve says…” More static. “…he’s going to check it with Hopper.”

Will tightened his grip.

“Copy. Be careful.”

A second of silence.

Then Jonathan.

“Will, you there?”

Will answered immediately.

“Yeah.”

Jonathan hesitated, like he didn’t want to say it.

“Do you feel anything?”

Will closed his eyes.

He listened to his body, searched for the signal, that internal radio.

Nothing.

Only his heart, fast for different reasons.

“No,” he said. “Not right now.”

“Okay,” Jonathan replied, and the word sounded like relief mixed with worry.

Will let out air.

Robin touched his arm for a second, gentle.

Dustin muttered, “This is officially the worst field trip in history.”

Will almost laughed on instinct.

When the team came back an hour later, they walked into the station with mud on their shoes and expressions that said even when nothing happens here, nothing is ever relaxing.

Steve spoke first, exaggerated as always, trying to cover fear.

“Alright. Good news, we didn’t die. Bad news, the air out there tastes like a portal to hell. Confirmed.”

Robin looked at him.

“That’s not ‘bad,’ that’s ‘horrifying,’ Steve.”

Nancy dropped the maps on the table.

“The lake rift doesn’t extend much farther than this point,” she said, tapping the paper, “and these two spots seem to be the least guarded.”

Hopper grunted.

“And they’re still dangerous.”

El looked at Will, direct.

“Do you feel anything now?”

Will shook his head.

“No.”

El frowned, frustrated, and then Lucas, who had been quiet, spoke suddenly.

“So what do we do?” he asked.

Nancy took a breath.

“We set a schedule. Small trips. Measure. Then, when we’re sure, we go in, find him.” She looked at Will, then at El. “And we listen for any clues Will and El can give us.”

The sentence landed like a new weight on Will’s shoulders, heavy and silent. Almost immediately he felt something else: a familiar presence settling behind him.

Mike, who’d been across the room staring into nothing, moved without sound until he was only inches away. Will felt Mike’s warmth before any contact, felt Mike’s breath near his neck like a soft mark.

Will turned on instinct.

Mike looked back.

For one second, Will let himself believe the hug with El meant nothing. That it could be something else. That it could fit without breaking. That he wasn’t an idiot for leaving a crack open.

Then Mike stepped away, braced both hands on the table, and looked down at the rough calendar Dustin had started sketching.

“Incursion one,” Dustin murmured, writing in big letters. “Tomorrow.”

Robin smacked his pen.

“Dustin, not tomorrow.”

Dustin opened his mouth.

“Why not?”

“Because ‘tomorrow’ is too soon. Have you been listening to anything I said?”

Hopper let out a dry laugh.

“She’s right.”

Jonathan looked at his mom, then at Lucas.

“Tomorrow… Lucas said he wanted to go to the hospital in the morning. And we…” He glanced at Nancy. “We need to talk to people, get rope and equipment.”

Steve pointed at himself.

“I get rope.”

Robin stared at him.

“From where?”

Steve smiled.

“I have contacts.”

“Steve, your ‘contacts’ are hardware store guys who feel sorry for you.”

“That still counts as contacts.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Joyce cut in. “I’ve been talking to Murray, and I think we found a way to make him our supplier. Ask him for what you want, and he’ll try to get it.”

The talk kept going, maps and voices overlapping, but Will’s attention snagged on Mike. After checking the plan, Mike drifted back to Will’s side, shoulder to shoulder, leaving only a thin slice of air between them.

He was there, close enough that pretending was impossible.

Will felt the ridiculous temptation to brush Mike’s hand.

He didn’t.

Because in his head the earlier hug kept replaying. The “I love you.” The “us.”

And one cold, repeated thought: there’s no chance. Not with me.

He told himself like a new rule.

Like accepting it early would hurt less.

The station emptied out little by little.

Lucas left early, because the hospital was an appointment. Dustin and Robin went to pack things into a box “in case the world explodes someday and we need to know where Gandalf is.” Steve stayed arguing with Hopper over who was more stubborn while Joyce tried to fix El’s hair.

Eventually people filtered out and headed home. When only Mike and Will were left in a corner, putting papers away, silence slipped in between them like a third presence.

Mike folded a map too slowly.

Will stacked pens with absurd precision.

Neither of them said what they were thinking.

Will forced himself to move, to breathe, to do normal things with his hands. It was easier to organize objects than to organize what had been sitting in his chest for hours: the brief hug, the “I love you,” the “us,” Mike’s hand staying a second too long on El’s arm like he was checking something.

Will had already decided, repeated like a rule, that there was no chance. Not with him.

So he couldn’t afford to look affected. He couldn’t afford to let it show.

But Mike was Mike. And when it came to Will, Mike had always been able to see what no one else could.

“You okay?” Mike asked at last, low.

It didn’t sound casual. It sounded like I’ve been watching you.

Will nodded too fast.

“Yeah.”

Mike didn’t move. He just looked at Will for a second, like the “yeah” had arrived with a wrinkle in it.

“No,” Mike said quietly. Not a scold, just an observation. “You’re not.”

Will froze with a pen in his hand. He felt the urge to say something smart or funny, something that would shut the conversation like a door. Nothing came.

“I’m tired,” Will said finally, clinging to the easiest truth. “It’s been… a long day.”

Mike exhaled through his nose like that was true and still not enough.

“I know you,” Mike murmured.

The sentence tickled somewhere dangerous, because it disarmed without touching.

Will dropped his gaze to the papers, taking shelter in practical things.

“It’s nothing, Mike. Really.”

Mike took a small step. He didn’t crowd him, but he filled the space enough that Will felt him like a warm wall he wasn’t allowed to lean on.

“Will.”

His name again, gentle brake, like a hand on the shoulder.

Will swallowed.

He didn’t want to talk. Talking meant admitting there was something. Admitting there was something meant admitting he’d been an idiot to believe, even for a second, that the crack he’d left open wasn’t just imagination.

Mike waited. He didn’t push. He didn’t leave either.

Then he tipped his chin toward the recording booth.

“Come here a second.”

Not an order. More like: let’s breathe without eyes, even if no one’s left.

Will hesitated just long enough for pride to try and protest a decision that had already been made.

Then he followed.

Inside the booth, the sound changed. It dulled. It went closer. Like the world on the other side of the glass was a little farther away. Mike closed the door carefully, like the gesture could keep something safe.

They stood facing each other with the big microphone between them like an absurd witness.

Will realized, all at once, how aware he was of his own body. Too awake. Too exposed.

Mike ran a hand through his bangs, nervous, and for a moment he looked like he was searching the ceiling for instructions.

“I don’t know how to talk,” Mike said suddenly.

Will blinked.

“Yes, you do.”

Mike let out a short humorless laugh.

“No. I know how to argue. I know how to yell. I know how to say stupid things when I’m uncomfortable.” He paused, then looked at Will again with something raw. “I don’t know what to do when I look at you and you seem… like you’re really far away, even when you’re right in front of me.”

Will’s stomach tightened, because that was exactly what had happened. Common sense had tried to leave before it hurt more.

“It’s not that bad,” Will lied.

Mike shook his head slowly, like he didn’t believe him at all.

Will felt his heart rise into his throat.

“I saw you earlier,” Mike5 said. He didn’t add with El. He didn’t say her name. He didn’t name the gesture. He left the sentence hanging like a door cracked open. “I saw you when…” He tried to continue, but the words wouldn’t come clean. “Forget it.”

Because that cracked door was dangerous. Because for one clear, almost cruel second, Will felt a gap, the absurd possibility of saying something.

It didn’t have to be everything. It didn’t have to be a confession. Just a small truth, small enough to fit between breaths.

You matter to me. It hurt. I don’t want to pretend I’m fine all the time.

I love you.

He could have said it.

He could have let Mike finish the sentence. He could have asked what did you see and forced Mike to look straight at what he was hinting at without naming.

He could have made that “I saw you” become “I’m seeing you” for real.

But common sense fell over him like a wet blanket, fast and heavy, bringing the recent proof, silent and clear, that he was looking where he shouldn’t. That he was reading signals where there were only habits and care.

There’s no chance. Not with you.

So he grabbed the one thing he knew how to do well: hide what he really felt.

“Seriously, Mike, I’m fine,” Will said, tightening his voice until it sounded firm. “It’s just being tired. And Vecna, and… everything.”

Mike watched him a second. The patience on his face was the kind that hurt, because it wasn’t condescending. It was careful.

“Okay,” Mike said, but it didn’t sound like I believe you. It sounded like I’m here anyway.

Will swallowed.

Mike shifted to the side, braced a hand on the booth table, and looked down, like speaking while looking at Will was too much. A few seconds later he looked up again.

“It’s just…” Mike started, then stopped. Tried again. “Earlier… you seemed off.”

Will tensed without meaning to.

Mike tilted his head, uncertain, like he regretted opening his mouth.

“And maybe…” He cut off, frustrated. “I don’t know. Maybe I did something, or said something, and you… took it the wrong way. And I don’t want you to…”

The sentence collapsed before it landed anywhere. Mike took a deep breath, like he didn’t know how to keep going without naming anything.

“I don’t want you to sit with… with that,” he finished, vague, a little clumsy.

Will’s stomach tightened hard.

Because in Will’s head, “that” had a name. It had a gesture. It had an exact place where it hurt. And Will couldn’t, shouldn’t, let Mike get close to that conclusion.

Panic shoved words out before he could shape them.

“Mike, you don’t have to justify yourself to me.”

Mike blinked, like that didn’t match what he’d been trying to say.

Will forced himself to seal it, firmer, sharper, like locking a bolt from the inside.

“Really. We’re friends.”

Silence made a strange sound, like the air had run out of instructions.

Mike stayed still for a second, thrown off. His hand on the table tightened on the edge, tiny and almost invisible, like he’d hit a wall he hadn’t seen coming.

“Oh,” Mike said, and it didn’t sound like understanding. It sounded like recalculating.

His eyes moved around the booth. There was tiredness there, yes, but also something short and sharp that wasn’t anger. It was frustration, like he’d tried to hold something carefully and it slipped through his fingers and shattered.

“Yeah,” he nodded finally, too slow. “Sure. Friends.”

Hearing the word in Mike’s mouth made the booth feel smaller, the mic between them and the glass sealing the world out.

Will felt a jab of guilt, absurd, because he was the one who’d been repeating that line for weeks like a truth. It was logical. It was safe.

So why did it hurt to hear Mike say it?

Mike dragged a hand through his bangs again, rougher than he meant, like something was stuck in him and he didn’t know how to swallow it.

“You’re right,” Mike murmured.

He said it like being right wasn’t comfort, just a wall to hit again and again.

“I don’t want you to…” Mike tried, and stopped like each word was a tightrope. “I don’t want you to feel…” Another pause.

Will gave a small humorless laugh.

“I don’t feel anything,” he lied, and it was an especially bad lie.

Mike looked at him. No reproach, just a quiet pain that didn’t ask for anything and still didn’t leave.

“You do,” Mike said very softly. “We all do. Me too.”

Will opened his mouth to deny, to cover it, to shove it into another subject. He didn’t get there in time.

Mike took a deep breath, like he was resigning himself to the only safe thing they could name without breaking.

“This scares me,” Mike said, gesturing vaguely at everything that wouldn’t fit inside the booth: Hawkins, the cracks, the soldiers, the calendar on the wall, a future that felt like a joke. “It scares me that we make plans like we’ve got time. It scares me that tomorrow someone…” He swallowed. “That tomorrow someone doesn’t come back.”

The tightness in Will’s chest changed shape. It settled. It became easier to breathe.

“Yeah,” Will whispered. “Me too.”

They stood still for a second. The silence wasn’t awkward. It was heavy, full, like a blanket you couldn’t tell was protecting you or suffocating you.

Will thought again, inevitable: we’re just friends.

He repeated it like it protected him.

Like it didn’t hurt.

Mike moved first, but not to close the distance completely. Just to exist. He rubbed the back of his neck, looked down at the microphone like it could give instructions, then lifted his gaze to Will with a strange expression caught between tired and careful.

He raised his hand, stopped halfway, hesitated.

He didn’t touch Will’s skin. He brushed the sleeve of Will’s sweatshirt, two fingers against the fabric. Minimal contact, almost nothing, like he didn’t want to take up space.

“I’m not going to let you carry it alone.,” Mike murmured.

Something loosened in Will’s chest, and at the same time everything else tightened. That sentence was a place. Somewhere to stay. And that was exactly what made it dangerous.

“Mike…” Will whispered, and didn’t know what came after.

Mike didn’t say come here. He didn’t pull. He didn’t do anything that looked like a big decision.

He just stayed there, still, two fingers on the cloth, offering an exit without forcing Will to take it.

Will breathed in deep.

And then his body betrayed him in the simplest way: he took one step.

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t brave. It was almost a stumble forward, like the day’s weight had finally tipped inside him, and the only solid thing in front of him was Mike.

Mike took a heartbeat to react, like he was out of instructions too. Then his hands came up, awkward at first, finding where to fit without crowding, without making it weird.

In the end he did what he always did when he couldn’t fix something.

He held it.

One arm around Will’s back, steady but not tight, and the other hand sliding slowly from Will’s shoulder blades up to his shoulders, stopping there, still. No stroking. No claiming. Just… anchoring.

Will stayed stiff for a second, habit, fear of meaning too much, the stupid shame of wanting.

But Mike’s warmth was constant. And the booth’s quiet made everything more real: Mike’s breathing, the soft creak of fabric, Will’s heartbeat hammering his ribs like it wanted to report him.

Will lowered his head and rested his forehead, without thinking, against Mike’s chest.

Small gesture, huge effect.

The world turned its volume down.

Mike exhaled slowly, like he’d been holding air too.

“Like this?” Mike asked quietly. It wasn’t “can I,” but it carried the same care. “Is this okay?”

Will nodded against his chest, voiceless at first. Then he managed one muffled word.

“Yeah.”

Mike tightened the hold just a touch. Not harder, just a small confirmation, like saying okay, here.

Will swallowed. His throat was warm, not from fear.

From everything he wasn’t saying.

“I’m sorry,” slipped out of him automatically, like apologizing was the only thing he knew how to do when something mattered too much.

Mike let out a short humorless laugh, and the hand at Will’s neck stayed steadier.

“Stop apologizing for existing,” Mike murmured.

Will gave a wet, ridiculous laugh that hurt a little in his chest. He shook his head against Mike’s shoulder.

“I don’t know how to do anything else.”

Mike didn’t answer right away. He just breathed in deep, and Will felt it, that tiny surrender, like Mike accepting there weren’t perfect words, that he couldn’t fix everything, that all he could offer was this.

Holding.

Will closed his eyes.

This is nothing, he tried to tell himself.

This is friendship. This is shared fear. This is… survival.

But his heart, traitor, refused every safe explanation.

Mike murmured so low it sounded like he was saying it to himself.

“I’m not leaving.”

Will didn’t move. He didn’t pull away.

He let that “I’m not leaving” settle into his body like a dangerous promise.

For a few seconds inside that booth, sealed off from the world, there were only the two of them.

They went back home when the sky was starting to darken, though it wasn’t night yet.

Hawkins had that odd autumn light, like the day never fully committed. Like even the sun was afraid to look too hard.

On the Wheelers’ porch, Mike set his bike down and waited for Will to get off. Will took a second longer than usual, hand still on the handlebar, like the metal could anchor him.

Mike looked at him.

“What?”

Will shook his head quickly.

“Nothing.”

The word came out too automatic. Mike didn’t argue. He just stepped closer and touched Will’s wrist for an instant, a small check-in, then pulled his hand back like it didn’t matter as much as it did.

Will swallowed. His mind tried to grab the logical thing, the safe thing, the rule he’d been repeating all day.

But bodies didn’t understand rules.

They went inside. The house was in “family” mode: Ted using the TV as a shield, Karen in the kitchen, Holly on the floor, Joyce talking on the phone in a low voice, Jonathan and Nancy arguing about something that sounded deeper than it probably was.

Holly looked up for a second, and the memory hit Will like a jolt, the door swinging open that morning. He looked away before his face gave him away completely.

Everything kept going.

And still, Will felt out of place. Not because of the house. Because of himself.

Because he’d spent all day holding two things at once: war and care. Fear and warmth. And at some point, without noticing, he started to be more afraid of one than the other. Not what came from the cracks, but what came from Mike without meaning to, without promising anything, and still staying.

They ate something simple with conversation that mostly didn’t matter. Will answered when he had to, nodded when he had to, laughed when Holly made some overconfident comment.

And when the house slowly shut down around them, Will found himself in front of the basement stairs again.

The usual way down.

Habit.

Distance.

Mike stood beside him, unhurried, not pushing. Like he’d learned that asking Will to stay wasn’t a sentence, it was a risk.

Will looked down. The basement was safe for the wrong reasons, because nothing down there could ever be mistaken for hope.

Then he looked up, and his stomach tightened, because upstairs was the other kind of danger, the kind that doesn’t injure you, but still hurts.

Don’t confuse it, one part of him said, quick and cold.

You don’t need it, another added, proud.

He’ll never be what you want, whispered the third, the oldest one, the one that already knew how misplaced hopes ended.

And still the last part of him, the one tired of surviving alone, didn’t argue. It didn’t search for words. It just leaned slowly toward the light.

Mike spoke softly, like he didn’t want to crack anything.

“You can…” He stopped, recalibrating. “If you want.”

He didn’t say upstairs. He didn’t say "with me". He left the exact space for Will to choose without feeling trapped.

That gentleness hurt, sweet and cruel at once.

Will swallowed. His yes got stuck for a second, like his body and his brain were negotiating.

Downstairs is easy.

Upstairs is…

“Yeah,” Will whispered finally, almost out of air. “If you don’t mind.”

Mike blinked, and relief flashed across his face so fast it nearly looked like betrayal of his own self-control.

“Of course not.”

They went up. In the bedroom, Mike did his awkward routine: clearing things, pretending normal, finding a shirt like fabric could distract them from what they’d just decided a couple hours ago. Will changed in silence, every motion too deliberate, like his body was waiting to be punished for choosing what every part of him wanted.

When the light went out, the darkness didn’t feel empty. It felt attentive.

Mike shifted beside him. Will waited for a question, a sentence, something that would name what happened in the booth.

It didn’t come.

Instead, Mike moved closer slowly, with that instinctive caution, and wrapped his arm around Will’s waist like returning to a safe position after a scare.

No squeezing. No claiming. Just holding.

Will stayed still for one beat, habit again, then let his back settle in place, like his body had been waiting for permission all day.

He breathed.

For a moment, it felt like the world could stay horrible, and he could still endure it.

In the dark, Will rested his hand on Mike’s wrist, barely there, like checking it was real, like touch was the only way not to think too much.

Don’t get your hopes up, he told himself, trying to make it sound like a rule.

And in the end, the only truth that came out, manageable and sharp as a new rule, was something else: in Hawkins, even comfort could be dangerous, especially when it came from Mike Wheeler.

Chapter Text

Will woke with his face buried in fabric that smelled like detergent, and something familiar his half-asleep brain couldn’t quite place.

For a few seconds he stayed there, suspended, not fully opening his eyes. That soft sensation where your body returns before your mind does.

The smell wasn’t strange. It was just… unexpected, the way you dream of home and, when you wake, it takes a moment to remember you’re somewhere else.

He breathed in again, slower. It was nice, close. The kind of scent that could settle him and put his world back in order.

He inhaled once more, senses sharper this time.

Then he recognized it.

Mike.

The thought took a heartbeat to land, as if his brain needed to check twice before letting it be true. The dark was still a shield, so he didn’t move. He just let the memory catch up, gently, like a tide.

He was pressed against him.

Face to face.

At some point in the night he must have turned in his sleep until his cheek ended up against Mike’s chest, his nose brushing Mike’s T-shirt, his ear catching that slow heartbeat that didn’t feel real when you thought about it too hard. Mike’s arm was around his back, yes, but the hug wasn’t a wall anymore. It was a circle. A place.

And the hand.

Will’s shirt had ridden up a little, so part of Mike’s hand was resting directly on the small of his back.

Not all of it, not like something planned. Just a few fingers slipping under the hem, finding skin as if that was how you made sure Will was still there. Mike’s thumb traced, without knowing it, a slow arc along Will’s side, a tiny, repeated stroke, calm in its persistence.

Will's tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth, unable to decide whether moving meant saving himself or getting lost.

The world still hadn’t started making noise, and that was the most dangerous part. For a while, no one would demand they be anything else.

The house creaked in the distance, old wood settling. A radiator sighed and complained. By the window, the blinds let in a weak, bluish light, as if morning were testing the ground carefully.

Will opened his eyes.

From here he could see Mike if he lifted his head just a little. He could look at his jaw, the shadow of his mouth, the messy fringe. He could confirm, without having to imagine it, that Mike was real, that this wasn’t some comfort his mind had invented to keep him from falling apart.

He didn’t do it yet.

Because looking meant admitting it.

And admitting it meant pushing on a door Will had spent all of yesterday holding shut with everything he had.

Friends, he reminded himself, automatically.

The word still tasted like metal.

He’d said it in the recording booth to save himself. To stop Mike. To lock himself in a place where he wouldn’t have to face what he’d seen hours earlier: Mike and El, the “me too,” the “us,” the way Mike had smiled like he was accepting a pain he already knew.

And yet here he was, with Mike’s hand against his bare skin, as if the word “friends” had no power over their bodies.

Will tried to pull away.

Not because he wanted distance, but because he was afraid he wouldn’t.

He shifted his shoulder, barely, just enough to put a little air between them, to remind himself the world still had edges.

Mike’s hand went still for a second.

As if Will’s skin had spoken for him.

Then, half asleep, Mike tightened the hug just enough to keep that space from growing.

Not a grip.

A soft refusal.

Something inside Will scrambled with an absurd mix of relief and fear.

“Are you… awake?” Mike murmured, voice rough with sleep, not lifting his face.

Will froze. Mike’s thumb started moving again, a slow line over his skin, like a question asked without words.

“Yeah,” Will whispered, and hated how vulnerable it sounded.

It took Mike a second to fully register what was happening. Will felt it in the shift of him, in the way his breathing adjusted, in how the hug went from automatic to… chosen.

“Okay,” Mike said quietly, like he’d just decided the world could wait one more minute.

Will forced himself to lift his head a fraction, just enough to see Mike’s face.

Mike’s eyes were half open, heavy. He wore that strange expression he only ever had asleep, no defenses, no strategy. His gaze settled on Will like he’d been looking for him for years and only now was allowed to find him.

Mike didn’t say anything.

But he did something. He slid his hand a little farther under the edge of Will’s shirt, unhurried, without any obvious intention, until his whole palm was on Will’s skin, warm and complete. A touch that didn’t fit inside any comfortable explanation.

Will’s chest started rising and falling too fast.

He could have moved Mike’s hand away.

He could have cracked a joke.

He could have gone back to the rule, the lock, the don’t get confused.

And still, for one second, just one, an almost insolent thought flashed through Will like tired rebellion: so what?

They were only friends. That was the agreement. That was what Will kept telling himself so he wouldn’t fall.

So whatever this was, it couldn’t be wrong. It couldn’t mean anything that mattered.

So he did the only thing his short-circuiting brain would let him do. He moved.

Not to escape. The opposite. He turned slowly inside the embrace, searching for air, searching for… Mike, until he ended up facing him properly, cheek sunk into the mattress, forehead against Mike’s chest, tucking himself into the hollow Mike had made for him alone.

His hand found Mike’s side, ribs, fabric, heat, and stayed there, open, as if he needed proof it was real.

And in that gesture, without naming anything, he was saying the same thing back: keep going, if you want.

Mike went still for a heartbeat, like that shift rearranged his whole world. His gaze dropped to Will’s eyes, careful, asking.

“Like this… is it okay?” he murmured, almost too soft to hear.

Will nodded once, tiny, because if he spoke his voice would break.

Mike exhaled like he’d been holding air for days, then slowly rested his chin on Will’s hair, pressing him to his chest.

It wasn’t a hug that said I’m here, or everything will be fine.

It was something else, more primal and, somehow, inevitable. A gesture too hard to fake. Something Will didn’t dare label with words.

Will closed his eyes.

Even though he tried not to, his mind kept hunting for a name for the way Mike was touching him, no claiming, no promises, and still staying, just so Will could make it manageable. Logical.

This is friendship.

This is shared fear.

This is…

But the body didn’t accept rules that easily.

And then, without meaning to, a sigh slipped out of Will. Small. Just a thread of air, like his body had forgotten to brace for a second. Like it had found a place that fit and didn’t know how to hide it.

Mike didn’t comment. He didn’t change the rhythm. If he noticed, he ignored it with that kind of care you don’t announce.

Mike’s hand moved slowly, drawing a lazy circle on Will’s skin, and Will thought, with a clarity that made him angry, that nobody strokes you like that out of friendship. Not when no one’s watching. Not when there’s no reason.

The thought scared him so badly he opened his eyes.

Mike felt it.

“What?” he whispered, suddenly alert, as if he’d learned to read any change in Will as danger.

Will swallowed.

He couldn’t say, you’re touching me and I don’t know how to survive what it means.

He couldn’t say, I saw you with her yesterday and remembered I don’t get to want anything.

He couldn’t say, if you look at me like that, you break me.

“Nothing,” he lied, too fast.

Mike didn’t believe him. It showed in his eyes. But he didn’t push.

He didn’t pull his hand away either.

He only loosened the circle of the touch, slowing it down like a truce.

“Okay,” Mike said, and it didn’t sound like I believe you. It sounded like I’m staying.

Will was about to say something, anything, when a voice from downstairs cut through the house like an arrow.

“MICHAEL!”

The jolt tightened every muscle in Will.

Not just because of the shout, but because all at once the caress stopped being something they could pretend. Mike’s thumb froze, his palm anchored to Will’s skin like the gesture had been exposed under a giant neon sign. Like Mike’s body had remembered there was a world outside this bed.

Mike groaned miserably against Will’s hair.

“No,” he muttered. “No, no, no.”

Footsteps came up the stairs with the cheerful determination of someone who did not understand closed doors should be respected.

Will’s eyes snapped fully open.

The coldest part of his mind tried to stand up, organize, give orders: separate, sit up, act normal.

But his body was still there, cheek on Mike’s chest, in a space that now belonged to him, and it didn’t want to let go.

Mike lifted his head a little. Their eyes met for an instant, very close, too close.

“She’s coming in,” Will whispered, lower than he meant, like the sentence got stuck halfway between alarm and resignation.

“I know,” Mike murmured, nerves threading his voice.

They stayed still for a second, listening to the steps and the way the world, inevitably, came back to claim them.

Will blinked slowly, as if that gesture could buy him time.

“What do we do?” he asked, and hated that it sounded like what do we do about us, even though that wasn’t what he meant.

Mike blinked, staring at the door like it was a countdown.

“I guess we… separate,” he said, with no conviction. “At least… so it doesn’t look like…”

He didn’t finish, because they both knew what he meant, and neither of them could put it into words.

Mike finally moved his hand. He pulled his palm away slowly, like every inch was effort. Cold air filled the place that had been warm, and Will felt the emptiness like a small slap.

Mike’s arm loosened too, and Will used that space to sit up. He didn’t flee the bed, there was nowhere to go, but he straightened, tugged the sheet up, searching for a posture that said normal even though his lungs still didn’t know how to work.

Mike sat up beside him, awkward, disoriented. He ran a hand through his hair as if he could reorder himself from the outside first.

The footsteps reached the landing.

But instead of the door flying open, there was a quick, almost timid knock on the wood.

Knock-knock.

The door opened a crack.

“Mike? Will?” The voice was low, cautious.

Joyce.

She leaned in just enough to see them and took a moment to process the scene. She’d caught them too early, too close, the room still dark, the bed too rumpled to blame on sleep alone. She saw Will’s face, Mike’s, the sheet clenched tight in their hands, and that particular kind of silence that comes from something not yet named.

Joyce paused. Her eyes, always so awake, measured without intruding.

Then, as if she immediately understood it wasn’t necessary to understand, and she didn’t have to break it, she eased back.

“Sorry,” she said softly, like she was apologizing to the air. “Holly’s looking for you, Mike.”

From the hallway, Holly’s voice appeared at once, offended by the concept of a closed door.

“Mrs. Byers! Tell him to come down! It’s an EMERGENCY!”

Will noted, absurdly, that emergency in Holly’s mouth meant anything but.

Joyce turned her head toward the hall.

“It is not an emergency,” she said with that steady firmness only Joyce could manage without sounding harsh. “And you don’t go into other people’s rooms without permission, do you hear me?”

“Buuuut…”

“Holly.” One name, spoken like a rule.

There was a theatrical huff.

Will thought, good. Thank God. It’s over.

And then, like the universe couldn’t resist landing the punchline, a small shadow slid past Joyce’s leg.

Holly.

She slipped just far enough to poke her head around the frame, the same relentless energy, eyes too bright.

Her gaze jumped to the bed.

To the sheet.

To the distance they’d built in a hurry.

Her face lit up like she’d found treasure.

“Aaaah,” she said slowly, satisfied, not explaining anything. Just… filing it away.

Will's shoulders stiffened.

Beside him, Mike went rigid like someone had shot him with an ice-cold water pistol.

“Holly,” Joyce said, not raising her voice, and still sounding more dangerous than any shout. “Out. Now.”

Holly grinned wider, like the word out was an invitation to perform, and backed up with insulting slowness.

“Okaaay,” she sang, and before leaving she added, delighted, “I’m just saying, don’t pretend later that I didn’t warn you.”

Joyce closed her eyes for a second. Exhaled. Then looked back inside at them, tired but not angry.

“Ten minutes,” she said. “Then you come down, okay? You need breakfast.”

Will nodded without sound.

Mike did too.

Joyce shut the door with the same care she’d opened it.

When the click came, the silence left behind wasn’t intimate anymore. It was interrupted, the air still vibrating where Holly had stuck her head in.

Mike leaned back a little, staring at the ceiling like he wanted to negotiate with God.

“Great,” he muttered, dry, humorless. “Yesterday it was my mom. Today it’s yours.”

Will ran his thumb along the edge of his nail, a minimal gesture of self-control.

Two moms.

Two adult looks that hadn’t said anything, but had seen enough to make Will want to shrink, and at the same time, for some humiliating reason, want to hold on.

Because the worst part was they hadn’t done anything.

And still it felt like everyone understood better than the two of them did.

Mike sat up fast, as if staying still was dangerous, as if nothing had happened.

“Okay,” he said, too practical. “Let’s go. Breakfast, normal life, and… domestic tragedies.”

Will moved too, calm on the outside, costing him more than it should.

Before he stood, he felt the exact spot along his side where Mike’s hand had been, like his skin had taken notes.

Like his traitor body wanted it again.

That was when Will’s doubts tightened inside him, stubborn and silent.

Friends, sure.

But what kind of friends leave the air like that, like something happened that nobody’s brave enough to explain?

Luckily, breakfast was loud enough to hide thoughts.

Ted was behind his newspaper as always. Karen moved through the kitchen with focused efficiency, sliding plates onto the table like she could feed the apocalypse into submission. When she finally sat, she ate almost without noticing, already thinking about what came next. Holly sat swinging her legs, eyes too sharp for someone who was, technically, still a kid.

Joyce sat with her coffee like it was a tool, not a drink.

Jonathan leaned on the counter, picking at toast with the distant attention of someone who’d been pretending not to be absent for too long.

Nancy was already in motion, a folder under her arm, lips moving like she was running a mental list.

Will sat down and immediately felt Holly’s stare on him like a flashlight.

He kept his eyes on his plate.

Mike sat beside him, close enough that their knees brushed under the table.

Will’s body registered everything. Mike didn’t move away.

Holly made a small, satisfied noise, which earned her a tap from Mike under the table. Not hard, just enough to warn her that he knew exactly what she was doing.

Holly grinned wider and, a few seconds later, raised her hand.

“I have a question,” she announced.

“No,” Mike said instantly.

Karen didn’t even look up.

“Holly…”

Holly dropped her hand with dramatic defeat.

Will kept his face neutral with the focus of someone disarming a bomb.

Holly leaned forward anyway, lowering her voice into a theatrical whisper that was not discreet at all.

“So,” she said, eyes shining, “are you two going to be gross and…?”

Mike shoved a piece of toast into her mouth with the speed of pure survival instinct.

“Holly,” he hissed, sounding more like a prayer than a warning.

She chewed with exaggerated innocence, far too pleased with herself.

Will’s cheeks burned so hard he could almost feel the heat coming off his skin.

Joyce’s eyes moved between them for a second, curious and careful.

Then Joyce did what Joyce always did when she spotted a loose thread that could unravel something. She redirected.

“So… what’s your plan today?” she asked Nancy, perfectly normal. “Just so I know what time you’ll be out and… I can organize myself.”

Nancy exhaled, grateful for a topic that wasn’t teenage humiliation or looks that meant too much.

“Errands,” she said simply. “We’ll stop by the radio station for a bit, help Robin tidy up. I think Dustin wants to check something with the equipment because it ‘makes weird noises,’ you know how he is. Then we’ll go downtown to pick up a couple things.”

Ted turned a page of the newspaper like the world could end in the kitchen and he’d still refuse to acknowledge it.

Karen, on the other hand, made that tiny mother gesture of listening without listening too hard.

“As long as you’re back for lunch,” she said, practical. “And nobody brings more junk into this house. We have enough.”

“That’s a direct threat to my lifestyle,” Mike muttered, low enough to be a joke, loud enough that Karen heard it.

Karen gave him a flat look.

“It’s a promise, Michael.”

Mike opened his mouth to argue, then his eyes drifted, by instinct, to Holly, who looked far too happy, like someone watching the exact spot a disaster is about to happen.

“And you,” Mike said, without conviction. “Not a word today. Okay?”

Holly blinked, offended at the mere idea of limits.

“What? I didn’t do anything!” she protested, very serious, mouth still half full.

Mike turned to her, incredulous.

“I didn’t realize your memory was that short.”

Holly lifted her chin, ready to defend her case.

“It’s true! The door was open,” she said like it was irrefutable evidence. “Mrs. Byers opened it. So technically I didn’t ‘go in without knocking.’ I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Will felt his stomach tighten, like he could see exactly where this was headed and still couldn’t stop it.

Holly, of course, went straight there.

“Also,” she added, delighted by her own defense, “Will was there.”

She said it like it settled any moral trial waiting in the air.

Heat crawled up Will’s neck. He focused on his plate with absurd intensity, like bacon could absorb him.

Mike went still for a second, like someone had thrown a rock at his forehead.

“Holly,” he said, trying for normal and landing on tense, “that has nothing to do with it.”

Holly frowned, genuinely confused.

“Of course it does,” she insisted. “If Will can be in your room at that time, I don’t understand why I can’t.”

Joyce stared into her cup like she’d decided, with all her strength, not to get involved. Karen raised her eyebrows a millimeter.

“Holly, sweetie,” Karen said with dangerous calm, “eat. And stop talking about other people’s rooms at the table.”

“I am eating,” Holly protested, but her gaze stayed locked on Mike with a very specific satisfaction. “I’m just saying I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Mike opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.

“That’s not…” he started, then stopped, because explaining why it wasn’t a real argument would only make it worse.

Will kept his gaze pinned to his food. He was aware of Ted’s silence behind the paper, of the kitchen functioning like nothing was happening, of his own pulse in his throat.

“The door was…” Will blurted softly, then instantly cursed himself. “Half open.”

Without looking too much, Mike brushed Will’s knee under the table. A quick, automatic touch that could mean stop, you’re making it worse, and still made something ridiculous happen in Will’s chest.

Mike took a breath, turning to Holly with desperate intensity.

“Please.”

Holly watched him for a second, then smiled slowly, like she’d just tucked something away in an invisible drawer.

“Fine,” she granted, far too pleased. “But the TV remote is mine today. And I want new markers. The good ones.”

Mike shut his eyes for a moment, defeated.

“Fine,” he said, drained. “But shut up now.”

Holly made an exaggerated gesture of zipping her mouth closed.

“Holly’s honor.”

Will forced himself to breathe.

And, like he needed a plank to hold onto, he repeated the rule again, late and with very little conviction.

Friends.

When breakfast broke apart, plates to the sink, chairs scraping, voices moving on to other tasks, Sunday opened the way Hawkins opened now: half routine, half waiting.

Nancy and Jonathan left first, with that hurry that tried to sound like we’re just running errands and really meant don’t waste time. Joyce put her jacket on almost at the same moment, pure instinct. Joyce didn’t know how to sit still when something was in motion, even if she didn’t say it in front of Ted and Karen.

As soon as the door shut, the house breathed differently.

Quieter. More aware.

Karen, who’d been operating like the morning was a checklist, paused in the kitchen doorway. She looked around at the dishes, the crumbs, the lingering “earthquake” marks in corners and shifted furniture, and said, like it was the most normal thing in the world:

“I need to check some boxes in the basement. And before you tell me no,” she looked at Mike, “I don’t feel like arguing today.”

Mike opened his mouth to protest on reflex, then closed it without energy.

“Okay,” he muttered.

Will would have offered to help out of habit, but Karen had already included him without asking.

“Will, give me a hand, will you? We’ll finish faster and then you can go wherever you want.”

It wasn’t a trap. It was Karen being Karen, finding small tasks so she wouldn’t have to look straight at the big ones.

Will nodded.

As he did, he caught Mike looking at him from the corner of his eye. Not pressure. A silent question: are you okay with that?

Will gave a tiny gesture that could mean yes or whatever, and Mike understood what it really was: I’m staying with you, no need to negotiate it.

They went down to the basement.

Karen rolled up her sleeves with practical energy.

“Find the box that says ‘CHRISTMAS’ and the one that says ‘PHOTOS.’ I want them upstairs. And that stack of books, I don’t even know why it’s down here.”

Will grabbed a box and immediately got dust in his nose. Mike grabbed another at the same time. Their fingers brushed on the cardboard, a small accident that shouldn’t have done anything to anyone.

Will’s pulse sped up.

Mike went still too for a second, then kept moving like nothing happened, like ignoring it was the only way they could both keep breathing.

They carried boxes up and down several times without saying what they knew.

Karen filled the air with normal complaints: the heater making weird noises, Ted forgetting to take out the trash again, Holly being at that age where “everything is a drama.” Mike answered with one-word sounds. Will nodded. The three of them pretended, each in their own way, that it was a regular Sunday.

Sometimes Karen disappeared into another room to put things away, and the hallway went quiet.

Just Mike and Will holding a box, or standing by a shelf, too close because the space was narrow and because, since yesterday, distance had become something negotiated with the body.

In one of those silences, Mike found an old VHS tape.

He held it for a moment, reading the label.

“‘Vacation ‘77,’” he murmured, like he only needed the sound of a voice.

Will swallowed.

“Holly wasn’t even born.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, and for one second a tired smile slipped out. “And I still feel like she’s been messing with me forever.”

Will let out a small laugh that came easier than it should have.

Mike glanced at him. The smile stalled halfway, like he also felt how dangerous it was that laughing together still worked that well.

They didn’t take much longer to finish helping Karen, and Sunday kept moving forward with that false calm Hawkins used like makeup.

At noon, the phone rang from the living room. Karen answered with a dish towel still in her hand, listened for two seconds, then raised her voice toward the hall, amused and tired at the same time.

“Mike! It’s Dustin! And he says…” she looked at the receiver like she needed to confirm, “‘don’t forget Gandalf,’ whatever that means.”

From the other end, Dustin was loud enough to blast through the receiver and half the house.

“IT’S VITAL, MRS. WHEELER!”

Will, where he stood, couldn’t help it. A small laugh escaped. It sounded normal. It sounded like before. For one second, like the world still had recognizable pieces.

Mike went to take the phone without looking at him too much, but Will saw Mike’s shoulders loosen when he heard Dustin. How, even in the middle of everything, something stupid could still work like a rope.

Karen hung up with a sigh and went back to her routine, returning to a simple task so she wouldn’t have to think about others.

The afternoon filled with small things. Holly appeared with a stuck zipper like it was a national emergency. Karen fought a drawer that refused to close.

Will helped where he could. Out of habit, sure, but also because keeping his hands busy was easier than having a free mind. Mike stayed close the whole time without making a show of it, showing up when a box needed holding, reaching something on a high shelf, hovering a meter away from Will like it was practical and not something else, something he couldn’t explain and that, lately, always brought him to the same place: near Will.

At one point Holly announced something absurd, something about “adults don’t know how to organize” with insulting seriousness, and Mike laughed for real. Will laughed with him without thinking.

That was when Will felt the faintest itch along the back of his neck.

A trace. An echo. Not a signal, not a clear message.

Just Will’s body reminding him that even while you were laughing, Hawkins still had its hand on your shoulder.

Will’s smile faded without permission.

Mike saw it instantly.

Mike always saw it.

He didn’t say anything in front of the others. He just moved close enough that Will could feel his warmth along the side of his arm and murmured without looking straight at him, like it would hurt less that way.

“You okay?”

There it was again.

Will nodded too fast.

“Yeah.”

Mike’s eyes didn’t believe him.

But he didn’t press. He didn’t expose him.

He only stayed close, like his presence could be a barrier between Will and everything else.

Will’s heart did that stupid sprint again.

He hated it.

He loved it.

When the house finally settled, Ted buried in the TV, Karen tidying quietly, Holly disappearing into her room with her markers like treasure, Sunday took on that old-paper color that clings to your skin.

The afternoon turned cold. Wind slipped through cracks like it knew where to hurt.

At the agreed time, Mike and Will left with their bikes in silence. The air smelled of damp soil and rotting leaves, that autumn cold that doesn’t stab, it seeps, patient, into seams.

Mike rode close, wheel to wheel, like distance was a safety hazard. Will noticed and didn’t know what to do with how easy it was to let it happen. With how strange it was that something could feel good and, for that reason alone, dangerous.

When they reached the radio station, Robin was already standing by the whiteboard, hair half tied back, a folder in one hand. Dustin had built his “communications center” with the solemnity of someone constructing air-traffic control. Steve was in a chair, stretching his legs like he’d decided survival included comfort whenever possible.

“Okay,” Robin said the moment she saw them. “Quick meeting.. If anyone turns this into a monologue, I swear on my trauma I will bite.”

“That sounds like a protocol,” Dustin muttered, offended.

“It is,” Robin confirmed. “It’s called ‘shut up and survive.’”

Nancy set a bag of “stuff” on the table without explaining what it was. Jonathan unrolled a map like he was opening a familiar wound. Lucas wasn’t there yet; no one needed to ask why. There were new silences now. They weren’t awkward, just inevitable.

Will leaned against the edge of a table, trying to make his hands look normal. Trying to make his body forget, even for five minutes, Mike’s hand on his skin that morning.

It didn’t work.

Mike stayed close without making it obvious. He didn’t touch him, didn’t stare too hard, but he was there. Will felt him the way you feel a heater that’s been turned off but still holds warmth.

Dustin cleared his throat and pointed at the walkies with far too much energy for the time of day.

“Alright. Fixed channel. No switching frequencies just because. If anyone says ‘do you copy?’ three times in a row, something is wrong. And if there’s weird interference…”

“Dustin,” Robin cut in, pointing at his dead watch. “We have ten minutes before I become unbearable.”

Steve lifted an eyebrow.

“More?”

Robin gave him a look that could kill.

“Keep talking and you’ll find out.”

Nancy took control with her particular precision. It wasn’t cold, it was a lifeline.

“Today we only want a clear schedule. Short shifts. Nothing heroic. If anyone sees unusual military movement, write it down. If checkpoints change, we mark it. And if anyone feels… something,” she didn’t look at Will directly, but even aimed at everyone, the sentence still grazed him, “you say so. No arguing. No ‘it’s probably nothing.’”

Will felt his neck tighten, like his body responded to his name even when nobody said it.

Dustin nodded fast, satisfied.

“Simple code,” he added. “No full names on the walkie. And if someone says ‘change of plan,’ it means ‘I’m heading back now.’”

“And it also means ‘don’t ask questions over the walkie,’ thank you,” Robin finished, writing something in giant letters.

For a second, the sound of a car outside cut the room.

Everyone glanced at the door on reflex.

It was collective, but Will noticed it differently in Mike: the way his gaze lingered a beat too long on the frame, like he expected someone to fill that space.

It wasn’t longing. It wasn’t tenderness.

It was habit. Checking the place where someone used to be.

Will forced himself not to turn it into a story. Not to give it shape. Not to let it hurt.

The door opened and Hopper walked in late, wearing the face of a man who’d survived too much to be impressed by a meeting.

He didn’t have El with him.

Hopper dropped his hat on a chair and glared at the board like he wanted to shoot it.

“So have you decided how you’re going to do this without dying?” he grunted.

“We’re working on it,” Nancy said, firm.

Hopper grunted again, which in Hopper language meant approval.

His gaze swept the room and paused on Will, exact. Will felt that familiar pressure, being seen as a fragile point on the map.

They didn’t linger. They couldn’t. The group’s energy was different now: accumulated exhaustion, contained nerves, the shared sense that every day was a day closer to something they didn’t want to name.

They reviewed shifts, ran two quick comms tests. The walkie crackled with static and, for a second, Will had the urge to search for the “inner radio” at the back of his neck, like the sound would wake it.

Nothing.

Only the echo of the morning, and the strange weight of knowing his body could feel safe in the middle of the end of the world, as long as Mike was close.

Hopper left before anyone could stop him. No speeches. He just took the air with him, the way adults do when they’re scared and don’t want to spread it.

When the meeting ended, Robin snapped the folder shut.

“Okay. Done. Everybody out. Before someone gets the brilliant idea to improvise a mission.”

Steve stood and stretched like the whole thing had been physical training.

“Great. We survived another Sunday.”

Will grabbed his hoodie, slung his bag over his shoulder, and when he stepped into the cold air he realized it was fully dark. Hawkins with its trembling streetlights, its strange quiet streets, its broken normal trying to keep going.

Mike fell into step beside him without speaking. He didn’t reach for Will’s hand. He didn’t brush him.

But at the first stop sign, without looking, he extended his hand and caught the back of Will’s hoodie for half a second, like he was steadying him, like he was keeping him from drifting.

Will’s breath cut off.

Mike let go instantly, like the reflex shouldn’t have existed.

Neither of them said anything.

Because words were dangerous.

Because what you said could become real.

Back home, everything slowed down. Dinner went like it always did, a bright, filling noise in the dining room. When it ended, people disappeared into rooms like tired ghosts.

Holly fell asleep on the couch with a book open on her chest, mouth slightly open, one hand still clutching a marker like she’d gone down fighting.

Karen draped a blanket over her, gentle as a sigh.

Will watched from the doorway and felt something twist inside him, a strange ache that wasn’t exactly jealousy, but it brushed close.

How Karen could care so openly.

How Mike cared like it was an instinct he couldn’t shut off.

How Will cared like it was a secret.

Will kept doing small things on autopilot. Carrying a glass to the kitchen. Folding a blanket over the back of a chair. Putting a book back on a shelf. Not because it mattered, but because moving was easier than thinking.

He went upstairs without deciding to, like his feet already knew the route.

In the dim upstairs hallway, Will only stopped when he was standing in front of Mike’s room, and that bothered him because he didn’t remember choosing to be there.

The door was ajar, leaking a thin line of light, and for a second Will stared at that gap like it was a sign. Like the whole day, Mike’s hand on his skin, Joyce’s look, Holly’s satisfied smile, had condensed into that narrow space.

He didn’t keep thinking.

He pushed the door with two fingers and stepped in like he’d done it a thousand times.

Inside, Mike was standing by the chair, digging through a drawer with mechanical movements. He lifted his head when he heard Will, looked at him for a beat, then went back to what he was doing, as if Will’s presence wasn’t a question but another part of the room, expected. Normal.

And that was when, already inside, the weight returned.

The bed.

The darkness that would come after.

How easy it would be to repeat last night like there were no consequences.

Friends, he reminded himself, too late and too quietly, as if the word could rise between them like a railing.

His traitor body didn’t react to the word.

It reacted to the place: the warmth still held in the room, the scent of Mike soaked into everything, the invisible space Mike always left beside him even when he didn’t say it out loud.

Mike shut the drawer and scratched the back of his neck, not sure what to say.

“My mom,” he murmured at last, jerking his chin toward a half-folded pile of clothes on the chair, “has declared war on chaos.”

Will let out a small laugh, grateful for a sentence that didn’t demand anything.

“Took her long enough.”

Mike made a little yes, sure gesture and, like he needed his hands occupied so he didn’t occupy the rest, he changed his shirt with his back turned, fast and awkward. It wasn’t prudishness. It was care.

Will stood a second longer than necessary, painfully aware of every inch of the room: the chair, the lamp, and especially the bed, too small for two people and, at the same time, too big for everything they didn’t know how to name.

He could say good night and leave.

He could go down to the basement and let the cold be his excuse.

He could do the right thing.

But when Mike sat on the edge of the bed and looked up again, he didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask. He didn’t offer.

He just waited, like the choice had to be Will’s, even though deep down they both knew there wasn’t much to choose.

Will swallowed.

He sat on the other side of the bed like it was the most normal thing in the world.

And only then, when it was already done, when it was too late to pretend he wasn’t here, the question pierced him: what kind of friends look for each other like this without saying it?

Chapter Text

Mike didn’t move right away. He sat with his hands on his knees, like his body knew what to do but his head had to check the manual.

“My mom is going to kill me,” he muttered after a second, not quite looking at Will. “And my sister… my sister is already making… files.”

Will let out a tiny, almost silent laugh that buzzed in his chest.

“You earned it.”

Mike turned his head with tired indignation.

“Me? I earned it?”

Will shrugged, but it came out clumsy. Not for lack of sarcasm. For everything else.

“She’s been blackmailing you since she learned to talk.”

Mike dropped his forehead forward for a moment, like he wanted to disappear into his own breathing.

“Markers and the TV remote,” he repeated, defeated. “That’s my sentence.”

Will laughed again, softer. It tasted like something old, like he’d had it tucked in a pocket from before Hawkins learned how to break.

Mike heard it. Something in his face loosened for a second, like that laugh proved Will was still there.

Then, like Mike’s brain had to finish the damage report, he added, without raising his voice:

“And… your mom saw us too.”

He didn’t say how. He didn’t say when. He didn’t say what. He just let it fall the way you drop a truth that’s light on the outside and heavy underneath.

Will swallowed, suddenly remembering his mom’s face in the doorway, the careful way she’d closed it, like protecting them was a choice.

“Yeah,” Will said, and it came out too small.

Mike ran a hand through his hair, nervous.

“That’s two moms,” he murmured, trying to make it a joke and not quite making it work. “Statistically, that’s a pattern.”

Will breathed out a brief laugh that died quickly.

Because the silence that followed wasn’t awkward.

It was… aware.

Like they were sitting on the edge of something they couldn’t name and didn’t want to shove with words in case it fell apart.

Mike looked at the bed, then the floor, then Will. His throat moved, like he was swallowing something he wanted to say too quickly.

“Hey,” he said at last, more serious. “About… this.”

Will felt the hit in his stomach before he even understood the sentence.

Mike didn’t look at him for a second, like speaking while holding Will’s gaze would be too much.

“I don’t want you to feel… trapped,” he said, choosing each word like he was walking on glass. “Or like you have to do this because, I don’t know, because you feel obligated.”

Will went still, hands on his knees, suddenly too aware of his own breathing.

Mike gestured vaguely toward the other side of the room.

“I can pull the mattress out. Or you can go down to the basement if you’d rather. Seriously.” He finally looked up, and there was no pressure in it, just care. “If you don’t want to anymore, if it makes you uncomfortable, I get it.”

The “I get it” hurt the most.

Because it was true. Mike would get it. Mike would respect it. Mike would give him space.

Mike always gave space.

Will thought how easy it would be to say, yeah, better. Pretend normal. Go back to safe.

He thought about the rule he’d been repeating since yesterday like armor: we’re just friends. Don’t get confused. It’s never going to be what you want.

And still, when he pictured the basement, the cold, the empty dark, the house sounds without the weight of another breath at the back of his neck, something in his chest clenched hard.

He couldn’t.

Even if he wished he could.

Will looked at the ground.

“No,” he started, voice rough. “It doesn’t make me uncomfortable.”

It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was the piece he could say without collapsing.

Mike watched him for a second, like he was checking if the answer was real.

Will held the look just long enough that it wouldn’t sound like a lie. Because it wasn’t.

“I’m okay here,” he added, quieter, like the words burned a little. “If… if you’re okay.”

Mike blinked. Relief crossed his face so fast it almost looked like a slip.

“Yeah,” he said too quickly. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

They sat in silence for a beat. Will felt, with uncomfortable clarity, that what he’d just said was surrender. Not to Mike. To himself.

To what he wanted.

To what he didn’t have the right to want.

Mike stood to turn off the light, but paused with his hand on the switch. He glanced over his shoulder.

“Do you want me to…?” he began, and the sentence died before it was born.

Will swallowed and nodded.

“Yes,” he said, so low it was almost just air. “Turn it off.”

The lamp clicked. Darkness fell like a blanket.

For a moment, Will stared at nothing, listening to the room: old wood creaking, a distant car, the faint hum of the house breathing. The kind of sounds that reminded you everything kept going, even when you didn’t know how.

Mike lay down first, slow. Not close enough to crowd him, just close enough that the leftover space felt like a mistake.

Will lay down too, stiff for a heartbeat out of habit.

He closed his eyes.

Friends, he tried to tell himself, but the word came up short, like a T-shirt that doesn’t fit you anymore.

Mike shifted.

Not a jolt. Just a tiny adjustment, like he was searching for the exact spot where his body stopped bracing.

Will lowered his chin a millimeter, searching for the exact gap where what he was feeling wouldn't be noticeable.

“Hey,” Mike murmured in the dark.

Will opened his eyes even though he didn’t need to.

“What?”

Mike took a second to answer. He moved behind Will, restless, like he couldn’t find the right position.

“My hands are freezing.”

“Then put them under the blanket.”

“They are under the blanket,” Mike protested, and Will felt the clumsy brush of his fingers against the fabric. “It’s not working. It’s like…” He paused, offended by his own body. “Like my blood decided to take the day off.”

Will gave the blanket a tiny kick, as if that were a decent protest.

“Poor Mike. Victim of biology.”

“Don’t laugh.” Mike rubbed his hands fast, like he could bully them into cooperating. “Seriously, they’re ice.”

“And what do you want me to do about it?”

Mike went still for a moment, like he was gauging whether the joke would land.

“I need… a heat source.”

Will turned his head a little, wary even though the smile gave him away.

“Mike.”

“Just for a second,” Mike insisted, voice too innocent to be trustworthy. “I promise I won’t, I don’t know, sue you for being a human radiator afterward.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“Will,” Mike said, and his name sounded softer. “I mean it. They’re really cold.”

Will was about to say something, but then he felt Mike’s arm slide around his waist under the blanket. The movement was easy, almost ordinary, like Mike’s body already knew the route. His hand rested on Will’s stomach for a second, over the T-shirt, still, as if asking permission without saying it.

“See?” Mike murmured, like he was proving a theory. “There’s heat here.”

“That’s my body, genius.”

“Exactly. Body. Heat. Solution.”

Before Will could organize a convincing complaint, Mike found the hem of his shirt with a tiny, almost casual motion and slipped his hand underneath.

The cold touch tore a full-body shiver out of Will, instant and traitorous.

“Shit,” Will whispered, a muffled laugh escaping anyway. “Mike!”

Mike laughed too, pressed to Will’s back, that short laugh he used when he was far too pleased with himself.

“Told you.”

“That is freezing.”

“Exactly,” Mike said, sounding proud. “Irrefutable proof. I need emergency heat.”

Will twisted a little, trying to push his hand away without really doing it, without turning it into a no. He nudged Mike’s wrist with two fingers, more protest than rejection.

“Don’t… don’t do that.”

“This?” Mike drew a couple quick circles on his skin, just to annoy him.

Will flinched at the cold, laughing again, though the sound cracked a little in his chest.

“Mike.”

“I’m just warming up,” Mike said, like he was granting Will a victory. “It’s life or death.”

“Now I get where your sister got the drama. You know it doesn’t work like that.”

“Shut up, it does.” Mike paused for effect. “I’m a… thermal predator.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“Of course it is. I’m being one right now.”

Will shook his head in the dark, smiling despite himself. His body loosened little by little as it got used to Mike’s temperature, like laughter and exhaustion did the persuading for him. Mike’s hand stayed under his shirt, still with the same goal: stealing warmth, like he was playing at surviving winter.

“If my mom comes up,” Mike murmured suddenly, like the thought dropped onto him, “and sees us again…”

Will snorted.

“Your mom isn’t coming up. They’re asleep. Or pretending they are while they spy on us.”

“My mom pretends really well.”

“Yours, yeah. Mine…” Will trailed off, remembering the door closing carefully, the silence that had been protection. “Mine doesn’t pretend. She just… looks at you with that face that says, I know all your secrets.”

Mike went still for a second. His hand did too, like the comment dragged something more serious into the room.

“Yeah,” Mike said very quietly. “I know.”

The laughter faded slowly, not all at once, more like a light dimming before you notice.

The room kept breathing: creaking wood, a car far away, the hum of the house. Under all of it, Mike’s rhythm against Will, too close for the body not to start understanding things.

Mike’s hand moved again. Not in playful circles anymore. Slower. More deliberate. As if, without saying it out loud, he’d changed the question from “Am I bothering you?” to “Can I keep going?”

Will’s breath caught for a second. He felt the contact shift slightly, unhurried, as if Mike were tracing the map of his breathing.

And Will, without meaning to, let out the smallest sigh.

He heard it himself. He hated it. And at the same time… he couldn’t fully regret it.

Mike didn’t say anything. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t make the easy comment. He just stayed there, his mouth near Will’s ear, as if he’d decided to store that sound in the same place he kept the important things.

“Will,” he murmured after a moment.

“What?”

Mike waited a heartbeat.

“Tell me if… if you want me to stop.”

It didn’t sound like obligation or guilt. It sounded like pure care. Like Mike holding the edge of something, giving Will the way out without pushing him toward it.

Will swallowed. His throat stung a little, as if the truth weighed more than it should.

“No,” he said first, too fast.

Then, slower, as if correcting himself:

“I’m fine,” he answered at last, very softly. “I’m… comfortable.”

Mike didn’t respond with words. He did it with his hand. He softened the motion, as if that confirmation had let him lower his guard and, at the same time, placed more responsibility in his fingers.

Will felt the hand travel a little higher, slow, without demanding anything. At first, it had stayed on his stomach, the palm making small circular movements, spreading caresses across the whole area. Now it began to glide over his abdomen like an explorer stepping into unknown territory.

Will closed his eyes.

Mike’s hand paused for an instant on its way up, there in that no-man’s-land, as if he were charting the new discovery. When he seemed satisfied, he continued upward until he reached the summit: Will’s chest.

An unavoidable sigh filled the silence of the room.

“Mike…”

Will’s chest started to heat up like an oven on full blast, while his heart, already too active, now behaved as if its main goal were to break out of his ribcage.

None of that mattered to Mike. He carried on as if he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, stop the rush of sensations he was setting off in both of them. His hand adapted quickly to its new place and began to treat that area like a playground.

First he slid to Will’s right pec, stroking it, letting his fingers skim over Will’s skin. Then he shifted his attention to the left, following the path to that new spot. This time, his little expedition led him to a small rise against the skin. It was small, soft, pleasant under his touch. Mike lingered there, letting his palm indulge it, feeling how it slowly began to push back against him. Then he changed position, letting the pads of his fingers toy with that little pillar as it grew more sensitive by the second, pinching it, rolling it, flicking it with a merciless focus.

Another inevitable sigh slipped from Will’s lips.

“Ah… Mi… Mike…”

Mike kept going for several seconds, too absorbed in what he was doing. He traveled between both pectorals, feeling every inch of Will’s skin and working those small pink buds. When he decided he’d had enough of that territory, he slid back down, using Will’s abdomen like a slide until he returned to his stomach.

And in the darkness, with Mike pressed to his back, with the weight of his arm around him like a newly learned habit, an inevitable, absurd, terrible question slipped in:

Do two friends do this?

The answer came in the form of another sigh he couldn’t hide.

Mike heard it. And as if it plugged him back into the world, he went still for a second.

“Sorry,” he murmured, almost automatic, as if he thought he’d gone too far.

Will opened his eyes again, even though he still couldn’t see anything.

“No,” he said, firmer than he expected. “It’s not… it’s not that.”

Mike didn’t move, but Will felt him tense slightly, attentive.

“Then…” Mike swallowed. “Then I’m here.”

The hand continued, slow. Unhurried. And the room, for the first time all night, stopped feeling like a place where they were hiding from something and started feeling like a place where they could stay.

Will leaned his back a little more into Mike’s chest. Another millimeter. Another complete surrender.

Mike tightened the embrace just a touch, as if answering okay without saying it.

Will swallowed. He felt his pulse in his throat, high, telling on him.

And then, without knowing exactly when his caution cracked, the thought came with unbearable clarity: he wanted to kiss him. Not “someday.” Not “if things were different.” Now. In this darkness. With that arm holding him as if it were the only stable thing in the night.

He couldn’t stop the memory of what had happened that day at the gym from flooding his mind: the mat, the half-laugh, the silence that had stuck between them… and Mike’s gaze dropping, dropping to his mouth. The almost that had left him with the feeling something had been left unfinished.

Will didn’t want another almost.

He moved a millimeter, as if he were only getting comfortable. As if it weren’t a decision. He turned his head slowly, at first just to breathe better… and then a little more, because part of him already knew where he was going.

Mike tensed behind him. He didn’t pull away. He didn’t stop him. He just stayed very still, alert, as if one move too many could break something.

Will felt Mike’s breath at the corner of his mouth before he even saw him. His nose brushed Mike’s, a centimeters-wide accident, and the entire world collapsed into the tiny space between them.

Will opened his eyes again, though he could still barely see.

Mike was in the same place. So close it seemed impossible that nothing would happen.

And Will stayed there, his mouth a sigh away from Mike’s, waiting for the world to decide for them during that moment that stretched too long. Neither of them moved away, and the air seemed to go still between their lips, as if it, too, were holding its breath.

Mike’s hand kept moving under the T-shirt, slow, unhurried, drawing warmth that no longer had anything to do with “my hands are cold.” Will felt how the touch anchored his body, how each small caress told him I’m here in a way that didn’t resemble any of Mike’s jokes.

Will swallowed.

The gym memory came back with cruel precision: the mat, the half-laugh, the downward look, the almost that broke right before it became real. Now the almost was here again, pressed to his mouth, and Will had to make a conscious effort not to close the distance. Not to lean in that millimeter his body had been begging for all night.

Mike breathed close. Will felt that air at the corner of his mouth, like a question without a voice.

“Mike…” Will whispered, and the name came out like a way of touching him.

Mike didn’t answer right away. His fingers went still for a second, as if the word had stopped him. As if he’d understood it too well.

Then, very slowly, Mike pulled his face back just a little. Not enough to escape. Only enough for Will to breathe again without feeling like he might fall into him.

“Tomorrow…” Mike murmured, and the word sounded strangely fragile in the dark. “Tomorrow we have class.”

Will stared at him from that impossible distance, and for a second he wanted to say kiss me in plain words, as if naming it would make it simple.

He didn’t.

Instead, Will exhaled slowly.

“You’re right. We have to get up early,” he admitted, as if they were talking about homework and not… this. “And tomorrow my mother is going to ask me why I look like I haven’t slept in two years.”

Mike let out a sound that was half laugh, half relief that Will was still there, with him, without breaking it.

“Exactly. And my mother is going to do that…” Mike paused, searching for the word. “That mom silence.”

The joke gave them a safe edge to hold on to, and even so, nothing went completely back to normal. Because Mike didn’t remove his hand. Because the blanket was still too small. Because Will could still feel, on his mouth, the ghost of the kiss they hadn’t given each other.

Mike shifted carefully, as if he were settling in to sleep, but the movement was also a choice: returning to their earlier position, to what they could justify as “habit,” as “warmth,” as “it’s nothing.”

Will let himself be guided. He turned slowly until he was on his back to Mike again, fitting into his chest as if that shape were the only one his body remembered.

Mike tightened the embrace again.

And then the hand under the T-shirt started moving once more with a calm slowness, less playful and more… steady. Like a gesture that demanded nothing as it traveled up and down Will’s torso, tracing every centimeter of skin. As if Mike were making sure Will wasn’t going anywhere this time.

Will closed his eyes.

The room became a room again: the distant hum of the house, old wood, the world insisting that tomorrow would exist. But there, in the dark, Will could only count the rhythm of Mike’s breathing, the weight of his arm at his waist, and that soft touch that stayed with him like a promise neither of them dared to speak.

“Good night,” Mike murmured after a while, his voice already half-asleep.

Will took a second to answer, as if he were afraid the words good night might close a door.

“Good night,” he whispered.

Mike tightened the embrace just enough to say I’m still here.

Will felt one last tiny caress, like the end of a sentence.

And he fell asleep like that: with the night around him, Mike’s chest against his back, his touch on his torso, and the unbearable certainty. Sweet, dangerous. That there were things that hadn’t happened… but hadn’t gone away, either.

* * *

The night slipped past them without either of them noticing, the way warmth disappears when you fall asleep by accident. The room went quiet, and for once, the quiet didn’t hurt.

Until it wasn’t night anymore.

A sharp knock on the door, not loud but plenty, cracked through sleep like a thrown rock.

“Michael!” Karen’s voice came from the other side. “You’re going to be late again.”

Mike shot upright, disoriented, his hair pointing in every direction. It took him a second to remember where everything was: the lamp, the window, the blanket twisted into a mess… and the warm weight pressed to his back.

Will blinked, still half-asleep. His face was buried in the pillow, and he had that brief calm that only exists before the world starts demanding things from you.

Mike searched for the clock with his eyes.

He froze.

“Shit,” he whispered.

Will frowned, trying to focus. “What time is it?”

Mike swallowed. “Time to run. Or we’re going to be really late.”

That woke Will faster than coffee ever could. He sat up too, clumsy, and the blanket slid to the floor with zero dignity. There was no room for embarrassment, no time to process last night, not even for that slow second where you sometimes let yourself remember where your hands are.

Just urgency.

“Okay. Okay, okay,” Will muttered, already feeling around for his shirt.

Mike sprang out of bed, nearly tripped on the chair, and started digging through a drawer like the school was going to vanish if he didn’t find socks in the next five seconds.

“I can’t believe this,” Mike said. “My mom warned me yesterday. She warned me.”

“Your mom warns you every day,” Will replied, voice rough. “That doesn’t count.”

“It counts, because today she was right.”

Will pulled his sweatshirt on inside out, cursed under his breath, and fixed it without losing a second. Mike shoved his jeans on with one hand and tried to tame his hair with the other, which was pointless.

“Your backpack?” Mike asked.

Will went still for a beat, like his brain had forgotten objects existed.

“Downstairs,” he said finally. “In the basement.”

“Great.” Mike dragged a hand down his face. “Perfect. I love living on the edge.”

Footsteps sounded in the hall.

Both of them froze for a microsecond, pure reflex.

“Did you hear that?” Will whispered.

“Yeah.” Mike stared at the door like it might explode. “Don’t look weird. Don’t breathe weird.”

Will looked at him like he wanted to ask how you’re supposed to breathe weird, but there wasn’t time. Mike cracked the door just enough to stick his head out.

“Coming!” he yelled, way too cheerful to be believable.

“Five minutes!” Karen called from downstairs, and five minutes sounded exactly like don’t test me.

Mike shut the door and leaned against it for a second, exhaling.

Will was already on his feet, collecting his shoes and whatever dignity he could find.

“Okay,” Will said, tugging his sweatshirt into place. “Go.”

They took the stairs like a fire was chasing them. Will dove toward the basement, grabbed his backpack from where he’d left it, and sprinted back up two steps at a time with Mike right behind him.

In the kitchen, Karen stood there with a mug in hand, already dressed, already ready, with that look that sees everything even when it pretends it doesn’t.

She said nothing.

No raised eyebrow. No smile. No comment.

She just nodded toward the counter, where two half-wrapped pieces of toast and an apple waited.

“Take that,” she said, like they were soldiers headed off to war against algebra or syntax. “And coats. It’s cold.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Mike blurted, grabbing a piece of toast without looking.

“Thanks,” Will added, taking the apple.

Karen nodded and went back to her mug as if everything was normal, as if she hadn’t noticed anything odd, as if the house had no opinions.

Holly sprinted past with her backpack, hair a disaster, and didn’t even look at them. They weren’t the only ones who were going to be late.

For some reason, that was a huge relief.

They shoved out the door, almost bumping into each other. The morning air hit their faces, cold and real. Mike got on his bike with an awkward jerk. Will followed, still half-asleep in his bones.

“We didn’t have breakfast,” Will said, chewing the apple like it was a crime.

“We’re having breakfast now,” Mike answered, toast in his mouth.

Will let out a short laugh, and the sound vanished into the air.

They pedaled fast. The neighborhood slid by like a set. The rush stole any chance they had to talk about last night, to look at each other too long, to do anything except arrive.

Still, at the intersection before the main road, Mike slowed a little and glanced at Will from the corner of his eye.

Will caught it and met his look for a second.

It wasn’t we need to talk. It wasn’t do you regret it. It wasn’t anything that big.

It was just that tiny acknowledgment of something still there under the hurry, like a covered ember.

Then Mike looked forward again.

“If we’re late,” he said, forcing normal, “I’m blaming your apple.”

“The apple is innocent,” Will replied.

“You’re not. You’re…” Mike frowned, searching. “A bad influence.”

Will snorted. “You let me live in your house.”

“That is true.”

They kept pedaling. The school appeared in the distance, gray and inevitable, full of people and noise and narrow hallways with no space for what wasn’t being said.

They parked however they could. They got off almost at the same time. Mike swung his backpack onto his shoulder and took a deep breath.

“Okay,” he said, more to himself than to Will. “School mode.”

Will nodded. “School mode.”

They nodded at the soldiers by the door and went inside. Fast, messy-haired, hearts still a little too awake for it to be just Monday morning.

* * *

The school swallowed them with white light, crowded hallways, lockers slamming.

Mike walked beside Will, close out of habit, but not touching him. That absence, tiny and unfair, was the first thing that tied a knot in Will’s stomach.

It wasn’t that he missed Mike’s hand.

It was that his body remembered it.

He was still carrying the momentum of the morning: shared warmth, the ridiculous certainty that for a few hours everything had been easy. On the bike, Mike had made some stupid comment, something about being late, something about the cold, and Will had laughed for real. It was only a second, but Will held onto it the way you hold a rope: everything’s fine.

Now, inside the school, that rope pulled tight against his chest.

In first period, the teacher talked about something that sounded important, but the voice reached Will muffled, like he was hearing it through water. Mike sat beside him, hunched over his notebook, his pen tapping in a nervous rhythm.

Will tried to focus on the board. He really did. But his mind kept snapping back to the same things: Mike’s breath at the back of his neck, that “are you comfortable?” said in the dark, their faces too close, Mike’s hand moving across his torso.

The way everything had been so soft, so perfect, and at the same time, so dangerous.

And, like always when his head got too full, his fingers looked for an exit.

His pencil started moving without permission.

At first it was just doodles: lines that meant nothing, shadows to take up space. Then, inevitably, the strokes turned careful. A curve that looked like a half-smile. The slope of a nose. Hair falling in messy strands Will had seen a thousand times and still never got tired of.

He only noticed when his wrist started to ache.

He looked down and felt his whole body go cold.

It was Mike.

Not a perfect portrait, not something you could hang on a wall without your hands shaking. Worse than that. The kind of drawing that comes out when you aren’t pretending. The kind of truth that slips out through the tip of a pencil.

Will’s pulse spiked. He froze with the graphite suspended, like he’d been caught stealing.

How long has that been there?

How much can you see?

Heat rushed up his neck. He tried to cover it with his hand, clumsy, but it was already too late.

Mike shifted in his chair right then. Maybe to stretch. Maybe because he felt that stare Will had been carrying for years. He turned his head just slightly, and his eyes landed on the page.

It wasn’t oh, a drawing.

It was recognition.

Mike’s expression went still, like something hit him from the inside. The pen tapping stopped. And when Mike looked up at Will, there was something in his eyes Will couldn’t read, surprise too clean, attention too bare, and that was what scared him.

Because Will could read other things.

He could read Mike’s nervousness when someone talked too close, that awkward where-do-I-put-my-hands discomfort that lived in his silence. He could read that scene from a few days ago, Mike laughing with someone in the hall like, for one second, the world fit him easily in a direction that didn’t hurt. He could read, too, the way El’s name sometimes slipped into a sentence, like brushing a scar to see if it still itched.

But whatever was on Mike’s face now didn’t look like any of that.

For an instant, Will thought, it’s fine. He’s just surprised I drew him out of nowhere.

And then his brain, cruel, served him the conclusion fully formed, hot and exact.

He didn’t like it.

It bothered him.

You ruined it.

Mike looked away first, fast, like he’d stared at something too bright. He forced himself to stare at the board with exaggerated focus, like chalk could save him.

Will, hands freezing, swallowed and flipped the page over as if that could erase it, as if hiding it could make it less real.

He didn’t hear the rest of class. He only heard one word repeating in the echo of his own blood.

Friends.

Friends.

Friends.

By third period, Will didn’t know if he felt sick or just exposed. After every class, Mike used the minute when the teacher stepped out to stand up and disappear into the hall, coming back right as the next lesson started. He didn’t give Will a chance to ask anything. Not even a chance to pretend nothing was happening.

Will carried that kind of shame that makes your skin feel too small, like your body doesn’t have enough space to hold you. The worst part was he couldn’t fix it. There wasn’t a clean sentence that said sorry for loving you without breaking apart.

And Mike didn’t fix it either. He didn’t act like nothing happened, but he didn’t turn it into something they could name. He just shoved it somewhere it didn’t fit, unable to pretend everything was okay.

At lunch, Mike barely ate. He answered Dustin with noises that wanted to be sentences. He laughed once at something Lucas said, but the laugh came out wrong, like it never made it all the way up from his chest.

Sometimes Will caught him looking over… and Mike would cut the contact like it burned. A brief, automatic move that wasn’t casual even when it tried to be.

Will’s stomach twisted every time.

When the last bell rang, the hallway turned into chaos: lockers slamming, people pushing, voices too loud for a day that weighed on Will like he’d been living inside it for weeks. He shoved his books into his bag with clumsy hands and didn’t look at Mike. He didn’t want to see the confirmation on Mike’s face of what his head had been repeating since first period.

In the hall, Mike walked beside him like always, but he didn’t look at him. It wasn’t an obvious snub, Mike never did that. It was worse: that careful distance people put up when something’s in their hands and they don’t know where to set it down.

Will tried to convince himself he was imagining it.

He wasn’t.

And the worst part was that it didn’t get better outside.

The ride home had no fight, no sharp sentence. Sometimes Will thought he might’ve preferred that. Pain was easier to place when it had a shape. Instead, there was silence.

Mike pedaled a little ahead, like he needed air. Will followed, not sure whether to speed up and catch him or hang back and not get in the way.

At every crossing, every stoplight, Will waited for a look that said okay, we’re fine. Like it had always happened. Like Mike had always done.

But this time, Mike stared straight ahead with a rigid seriousness, like looking at Will would open a door he wasn’t ready to step through.

When they got there, the house greeted them with that normalcy that always felt like a cruel joke: the smell of food, the TV on somewhere, creaky floors, Karen asking “How was your day?” in a tone that didn’t demand too much.

Mike answered just enough.

So did Will.

And as soon as he could, Mike went upstairs like it was another item on a list. He didn’t slam the door. He didn’t do anything dramatic. He just vanished, and the sound of his steps hung in the air for a second, like a door no one had actually slammed.

The afternoon stretched like chewing gum. Light shifted across the walls, the house hit that strange point where everything goes quieter for no reason, and Mike still didn’t come down.

Will stayed downstairs, trying to exist the way you’re supposed to exist. He helped with a few things, tried to study, answered Holly when she asked him something pointless. Inside, everything was turned up too high: the notebook, Mike’s eyes dropping onto the drawing, the way he’d looked away, and then a whole day of tiny cuts, silences stacking into certainty.

He knows, Will thought.

He understood. And he didn’t like it.

When dinner came and Karen called for Mike, Mike didn’t come down.

Karen raised her voice once, practical.

“Mike! Dinner!”

A pause. A noise upstairs. Nothing.

Karen went up in the end, and from the dining room Will heard a muffled exchange, words without shape that slipped away down the stairs. Karen came back down alone, mouth tight, that mother expression that’s already doing the math in silence.

“He says he’s not hungry,” she announced, like it was a fact and not another crack.

Will looked down at his plate. The food looked the same as always, but it tasted like cardboard from the first bite. It wasn’t hunger he was missing.

It was air.

Afterward, they cleared the table, the TV kept talking to itself, and the house eased into that end-of-day rhythm where everything shuts down in turns.

The rest of the night went long and low, nothing happening, just small sounds and silences that lasted too long. That was the problem. If Mike had come down angry, if he’d said something harsh, if he’d looked at Will like he was disappointed, or like he hated him, Will would’ve known where to put his hands. He would’ve known what to try to fix, what never to do again. He would’ve known why it hurt and where the end was.

But Mike didn’t do any of that.

Mike simply wasn’t there.

And that absence turned every small thing into a threat: a drawer shifting upstairs, a door clicking, the silence after.

Will went up once with a stupid excuse, grabbing a book, dropping something off, and stood in the hall staring at Mike’s door, listening despite himself. There was no music. No voice. Just the occasional sound of someone moving like they were walking in circles.

Will went back down without even trying to knock.

He couldn’t. He didn’t want to confirm what he already suspected.

As the house went to sleep, Will felt the idea of another night become impossible. He couldn’t walk into that room and try to repeat last night as if nothing had changed, not when everything had changed in his head, not when he was convinced Mike looked at him differently, when it was obvious Mike was holding something back.

So when Karen said goodnight and Holly disappeared upstairs, Will waited a bit. Just long enough for the house to settle into routine. Then he stood quietly and went down to the basement.

It was colder down there. It always was. The air smelled faintly damp and stored-away things, and the bare bulb lit the space like it was tired of existing too. Will went down the steps carefully, with the false calm of someone who’s already made a decision.

He crouched to pull out the spare blanket and the thin mattress he’d bothered to keep because he didn’t use it anymore. He hadn’t done this in a long time. Lately the basement was just a place he passed through, a place to drop his backpack and pretend things were normal.

Lately, Will… slept upstairs.

Lately, he thought, bitter. Like it had been an agreement and not surrender.

He spread the mattress on the floor with practical movements, made it as straight as he could, like geometry could contain shame. Then he sat for a moment, hugging his knees, staring at nothing.

He forced himself to listen to the basement: the faint buzz of the bulb, the distant click of the refrigerator upstairs, the damp old air and the smell of things no one touched until they had to.

Down there, for the first time all day, no one was looking at him. No one could see his face. No one could read his thoughts. It was a relief and a punishment at the same time.

Will rested his forehead on his knees. He imagined Mike upstairs in his room, thinking. He remembered the way Mike’s eyes had turned away from the page, like he’d seen something he didn’t want to know.

Maybe that was it, he thought.

Maybe I finally ruined it.

He tried to convince himself he could sleep there tonight. That it was an adult decision. That he was giving Mike space Mike hadn’t asked for. But thinking it only left him with a stubborn, dry sadness, like someone had switched off a light inside him.

That was when the fear turned solid.

What if Mike acts like this tomorrow too?

What if it passes? What if it passes… at the cost of pushing me away?

He stayed there a long time, until cold crept into his socks and the idea of being alone became unbearable. He curled in on himself, trying to keep as much body heat as possible, while the day’s thoughts crowded his head and pulled him away from the floor.

Will thought it was going to be a long night fighting his demons.

The stairs creaked.

He went still, his whole body alert, like when something brushes the back of your neck and you don’t know if it’s cold or memory.

Another creak. Closer.

Mike’s shape appeared at the bottom of the steps, cut out by the light from upstairs. He wasn’t rushing. He wasn’t furious. He moved like he’d been searching for courage one step at a time.

“Will.”

His voice came out low, careful. Almost like it had been in the school hallway, but down here it sounded more real.

Will half rose, pure instinct, like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

“I…” he started, and the sentence didn’t find a place. “I was just going to…”

Mike looked at the mattress on the floor, the folded blanket, the whole scene, and something tightened in his face, not anger, more like impact.

“Are you going to sleep down here?”

Will swallowed. All the explanations he’d built in his head suddenly sounded ridiculous.

“I thought…” He shrugged, awkward. “I thought maybe it was better.”

Mike took one more step down. The light drew his expression clearly: tired, nervous, a decision sitting heavy in his chest.

“No,” he said. It wasn’t an order. It was a plea dressed up as firmness. “No. I don’t want you sleeping down here.”

Will stared at him, unable to tell whether that was kindness, pity, or guilt.

“Mike, I…”

Mike exhaled like he’d been holding his breath all day.

“Come with me,” he said. Then, softer, “Please.”

Please again.

Will felt something inside him loosen by a millimeter, just enough to hurt.

Mike held out his hand, hesitated for a second like he wasn’t sure touching was allowed anymore. Then he left it there, open, waiting.

Will looked at it for one heartbeat. Then he took it.

The contact didn’t fix everything. Not instantly. But it gave him something basic back: the sense that Mike was still Mike.

They went upstairs without speaking. Every step had its own sound. Every creak said this matters.

Up in the hall, the house was dark and still. No laughter, no voices, no mothers. Just the real night. Mike opened his bedroom door carefully, like sound could wake everything.

They went in. Mike shut it.

The room was the same as always, the chair, the books, the black window, but Will felt it differently, like the air still remembered the shape of last night.

Mike stood there for a second, staring at the floor, his fists tightening and loosening like he was rehearsing.

Will waited without moving.

Finally, Mike looked up.

“We have to talk,” he said, again, but here it sounded less like a threat and more like need.

Will’s throat tightened.

“Okay,” he whispered.

And for the first time all day, Mike didn’t stare straight ahead to escape. He stood there and looked at Will like he’d finally found where all the pieces were supposed to go.

Chapter Text

Mike stayed by the door for one more second, as if the moment he stepped forward there would be no going back, no way to pretend again.

Will didn’t move either. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, what to do with his body, where to put his eyes so it wouldn’t look like a confession all by itself. The room smelled like a long afternoon and worn clothes. That improvised “home” smell, routines repeated until they almost counted as normal, had faded a little, as if the day had been slowly eating it away.

A couple of heartbeats passed. Silence gathered in Will’s throat like something physical, something he couldn’t swallow or spit out.

He couldn’t stand it.

He couldn’t stand the waiting. He couldn’t stand what his body did when Mike looked at him like that.

Because Mike wasn’t looking at him the way he always did. It wasn’t that quick, “You okay?” and then a joke to save them both. This was steady. Direct. A look with Will as its main target.

Will felt his stomach drop, like he already knew the price of that look was too high.

“Are you mad?” he asked finally, his voice a thread. It wasn’t the important question, but it was the only one he could survive without breaking.

Mike blinked, like he hadn’t expected it.

“What? No. I’m not mad,” he said too fast, as if Will needed to know that before anything else. “That’s not it. Why would I be?”

Will let out a breath, but the pressure in his chest didn’t shift. It stayed stuck there, stubborn, like his body refused to believe any version of it’s fine when the world had spent months proving the opposite.

“Then… what?” he whispered.

Mike took a few steps into the room, toward Will. Not quickly. Not aggressively. With the careful approach you use with something you care about, something you don’t want to scare, like he was stepping into a place he didn’t know how to name either.

He rubbed a hand over his mouth, frustrated, like he was trying to erase words so different ones would appear. He swallowed, searching for a way to start.

Then Mike said, very low, almost out of air, “It was me.”

The sentence landed with unbearable precision, and Will’s heart sped up even though this wasn’t new. He’d known from the first second Mike hadn’t met his eyes today.

Still, he had to do something. He tried to keep his face blank. He tried to play dumb. It didn’t work. It never worked with Mike.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Will managed, and even to him it sounded wrong.

Mike’s eyes sharpened, not with anger, but with urgent clarity.

“Will,” he said, and his name sounded like a warning and a plea at the same time. “No.”

Will’s throat tightened.

“It was just…”

“It wasn’t ‘just,’” Mike cut in, not harsh but insistent, like he’d been holding it in all day and if he didn’t say it now it would eat him alive. “I saw it.”

Will dropped his gaze to the floor. His face burned. He stayed perfectly still while Mike took one more step closer, slowly, as if every inch was a negotiation with the air around them.

Mike’s voice lowered, gentler, like he didn’t want to spook him.

“Do you know how many times I’ve sat next to you while you draw?” he asked. “At school, in my basement, in my room when we pretend we’re doing homework. Sometimes you don’t even realize you’re doing it.”

Will pressed his fingers into his jeans to keep from shaking. His breathing turned shallow.

Because that was the worst part. Mike was right. Will drew the way other people breathed. His hand moved on its own before his mind could stop it.

“And you drew me,” Mike said, like he was still testing the sentence to see if it was real. “You drew me like you weren’t thinking. Like it just… happened. Without looking at me.”

Mike swallowed. He was trying not to sound like he felt “wrong” for saying it, like naming the drawing was an invasion, when Will was the one who’d invaded someone else’s space with his truth, without meaning to, from the first line.

“You drew my face from memory, Will,” Mike added, quieter. “It wasn’t a doodle. It wasn’t ‘eyes, nose, mouth.’ It was… me.”

Will opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

His mind screamed a thousand emergency exits. I just like drawing people. You were right there. I draw everyone. Anything that sounded normal.

None of it was true. And Mike had learned to recognize when Will tried to dress a truth up in pretty sentences.

Mike dragged a hand through his hair, frustrated with himself.

“I’ve been weird since then, I know. But it’s not because it bothered me,” he said, forcing the words to fit. “It’s because I’ve been thinking all day. And because I think I’m an idiot who’s been missing things for way too long.”

Will’s pulse climbed into his throat, loud and unforgiving. His body understood the danger even as his brain kept pretending there was still an alternative.

“I saw you,” Mike said, lower. “And it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, a drawing.’ It was… it was you.”

Will stared at the floor. His ears felt like they were on fire with something close to physical shame.

“I didn’t want you to see it.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, soft and devastating. “But I did.”

The silence thickened. Will heard the house settle, a car somewhere far away, the world insisting on existing while they were on the edge of breaking theirs. That stubbornness of the universe, continuing to function while you’re falling apart.

Mike took a deep breath, like what came next was going to cost him.

“And then I started thinking about… other things,” he hesitated. “Things I haven’t wanted to think about too much, because when I did, it made me feel like I was crazy, or like I didn’t understand what was happening around me.”

Will’s heart sped up again, and for a second he relived that moment at the radio station like a shadow he didn’t want to name. The “I love you,” the hug, the “us” Will had forced himself to read as history instead of present. The way he’d told himself, of course, it’s always going to be girls, don’t be an idiot. There isn’t an option.

He didn’t want to drag that moment into this. It was his shame, his wound. Mike and El weren’t to blame. The pressure existed anyway.

Mike pressed his lips together and kept going.

“The painting…”

Will’s blood went cold. He already knew what that could mean.

Mike looked up in time to see the impact, like he’d been bracing for it and it still hurt to do it.

“In California,” he continued, choosing his words like he was walking on glass. “The one you gave me in the van. The one you explained like it was… like El had asked you to.”

Will’s mouth went dry.

“I believed you,” Mike said, and it didn’t sound like an accusation. It sounded raw, honest. “I wanted to believe you because it was easier.”

Mike raked his hand through his hair, frustrated.

“Back then my head was full of other things. El, me, Hawkins, everything that was broken. Everything except… what was right in front of my face.”

He took another slow step closer. Will felt that warmth at chest level like the air had gotten too hot.

“But then I started remembering it properly. Over time. When my head wasn’t so loud,” Mike swallowed. “And I started realizing things didn’t add up.”

He didn’t sound like someone pointing fingers. He sounded like someone who’d been rebuilding a whole house in his mind and had finally found the missing brick.

“Because you know I still have that painting, Will. What you might not know is I’ve looked at it more times than I could count.”

Will’s vision blurred a little.

“And I’ve always, always tried not to ask myself why it made me feel weird things,” Mike said, like he was embarrassed even admitting it. “Because I already had enough weird things. Same as you, same as everyone. Too much strange stuff in my life to go looking for more.”

A nervous laugh tried to claw its way up his throat, pure reflex.

“And because, too,” Mike added, and the fear showed there, “because if I asked myself too hard, the answer might be something I wouldn’t know how to handle.”

His voice almost broke, so he paused, trying to find the right way in without shattering anything.

“And today, with the notebook, it was like someone turned a flashlight on in the dark,” he said. “Like I could finally see what I’ve been avoiding looking at straight on.”

Will lifted his chin.

“And what… what was it?”

Mike looked down. His fingers flexed at his sides, like they were trying to grab onto something.

“That painting didn’t look like ‘a favor,’” he murmured. “It looked like… like someone trying to say something without saying it.”

Cold sweat broke across Will’s skin.

Mike lifted his gaze again. There was no judgment there. There was fear. There was care. There was a desperate need not to get this wrong.

“Will, I need the truth. Did El really ask you to paint it?” he asked, direct and still careful. “Did she?”

Will’s throat closed.

He could lie.

He could say the same thing again, the same sentence wrapped in pretty paper, the same emergency exit he’d always used.

But Mike was looking at him like, this time, he wouldn’t survive another lie.

Will dropped his eyes.

“No,” he said finally, voice small. “I painted it.”

Mike didn’t move, but something in his face tightened, like the confirmation hurt even if it was what he’d been waiting for.

Will pressed his lips together, feeling words tangle in his throat, his voice getting shakier and less sure.

“I mean… I did it because I wanted to. Because it came out that way. Because it was… easier… I don’t know. I know it sounds stupid, I…”

“It’s not stupid,” Mike said immediately, like he’d seen the word before Will could even land on it.

Will let out a broken laugh with no humor, right on the edge of crying.

“Yes, it is.”

“No,” Mike insisted, almost fierce in how gentle he was. “It isn’t.”

Mike swallowed, and that was where the whole thing clicked together.

“Because the painting, you explained it like it was from El,” he said, and it was hard to miss how much effort it took not to rush. “Like you were just… passing it along.”

Mike’s jaw tightened, riding out a wave.

“But I remember your face. I remember how you looked at me when you said those things. I remember how your voice shook when you said I was the heart and that…” He stopped. “And that she needed me.”

He took one deep breath, forcing himself to keep going.

“And the worst part is I… I believed all of it,” he admitted, and the sentence sounded like defeat. “I believed you were speaking for her. I believed you were being ‘the messenger.’ I believed you… I believed you weren’t part of that conversation.”

Mike paused.

“And then I remembered the booth,” he added. “How you said ‘friends’ like it was the only thing you had left to keep from falling. Like you were cutting something off.”

Will's knees buckled for a second. Something tightened in his chest.

“That’s what we were,” Will whispered. “And what I hope we still are.”

“We are,” Mike said, and the but was there anyway. “But you said it like… like you were trying to convince yourself, or trying to break something.”

Will couldn’t breathe.

And then, like Mike was following the full map of his own memories, he dropped the last piece.

“And I remembered the gym.”

The mat. The half-laugh. The strange silence. The look dropping, dropping to Will’s mouth. The almost that had stayed lodged like a pretty splinter.

Something in Will’s chest slammed shut, an old protective reflex.

“Mike, please…”

Mike shook his head like he knew Will was going to try to hide and he wasn’t going to let him this time.

“Listen to me,” he asked, and there it was again, that please Mike almost never used.

Will felt exposed from the inside out.

That was the worst part. Not I caught you. Not I knew it. It was Mike looking back, remembering, giving it shape. Giving it a name. Showing the evidence of how long Will had been hiding. How long he’d been lying, pretending they were normal friends.

Mike lifted his eyes again. No judgment. Fear, care, and something else too. Determination. The kind that comes from deciding to face the truth, even if it scares you, even if you don’t like what you might find.

“Will… you…” He paused, like he was forcing himself to say it right. “Are you in love with me?”

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t a scene. That was why it was unbearable.

Will closed his eyes.

For a second he wanted to lie. Say no. Say it was a drawing. Say it was lack of sleep. Say it was anything except the truth.

But he remembered the whole day. Mike looking away too fast. The absence of his hand. The careful distance.

He remembered the silent, empty chair beside him, the cold basement, the mattress on the floor.

And he understood, with dry clarity, that there was no clean exit anymore. It didn’t matter if he lied, because even then he probably couldn’t fix what had been breaking in front of him, slow and inevitable.

He opened his eyes.

His voice came out small but steady, like a jump with no net.

“Yes,” he said. “I am.”

Mike didn’t move.

Not backward. Not forward.

He just stood there, looking at Will like he’d finally heard a sound that had been circling him for months and had finally landed.

Will looked at the door for a moment, as if leaving were a real temptation.

He forced himself to keep going before fear won.

“And I didn’t want you to know,” he added. “Because… because you’re you. And I…” He let out a broken laugh. “I don’t get to ask you for anything.”

His throat burned while a tear slid down his face.

“I just wanted…” He swallowed. “I just wanted us to stay friends, to stay together. I didn’t want you looking at me like I’m weird. I didn’t want you feeling trapped, or pushing me away, like I’m one more thing you need to get rid of.”

Mike took a step closer without even realizing it, and this time Will backed away as more tears welled up in his eyes.

“Will, I would never…”

“And El…” Will blurted, because the poison always found a way out. “I saw you. I saw you with her. And I know… I know you like girls. I know what you had was real, and I can’t compete with that. I don’t want to compete with anything. I just…” His voice cracked, and the tears broke loose. “I just don’t want to lose you, Mike. I… I don’t want to lose you.”

There.

That was the ugliest truth: being left scared him more than not being loved ever did.

Mike didn’t move at first. Just stood there, staring at Will like he’d been handed something fragile and already broken.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Exhaled, long and uneven.

Will finally came apart. Sobs caught in his throat, sharp and humiliating. He turned his face away, but it was too late.

Will hated himself in that moment. He hated the way his chest hitched, the way he couldn’t stop the sound of it, crying in front of Mike for something Mike was causing and still wasn’t Mike’s fault.

He nodded mechanically, already bracing himself for disappearing. For the prudent distance he knew would follow.

“I should go,” he whispered—the kind of thing you said when you’d just shattered in front of your favorite person.

“No, wait.” Mike reached out without thinking, then stopped himself. “Will—” He scrubbed his face hard. “I don’t know how to say this. I don’t know how to say it right.”

Will froze, struggling to silence his sobs, but they escaped anyway, harsh and uncontrollable.

Mike's eyes were wide open and bright in a way that made Will's stomach clench even more.

“I care about El,” Mike said, and Will flinched on instinct, pain without blame and still inevitable, cutting through him like reflex.

Mike saw it and shook his head quickly.

“No,” he said right away. “Not like that. Not like…” He swallowed, searching. “She matters to me. She always will. And yes, it hurt to break up with her. Of course it hurt. But…”

Mike took another step.

They were too close to pretend.

“But what I felt… what I feel when I look at you,” Mike said. His throat moved like the words were hard to shape. “It’s not the same. It never was.”

Will’s eyes burned, confused.

Mike pressed his lips together, like he was afraid of saying the wrong thing and losing everything.

“Today, when I saw the drawing, it didn’t disgust me. It didn’t annoy me.” A tiny, disbelieving laugh slipped out. “It scared me. Because it was like… the universe was pointing at my face and telling me something I’ve been avoiding for months.”

Will whispered, almost voiceless, “Mike…”

Mike held his gaze, stubborn and vulnerable.

“I think I’ve been in love with you for a long time,” he said.

The room tilted. Will went still, like he didn’t understand the language while his body forgot how to regulate its own temperature. A violent heat rushed up his chest, an impossible mix of relief and panic.

“No,” Will breathed automatically. “No, you’re not… Mike, you…”

“Yes,” Mike cut in, and his voice shook on the word the way one accepts an inevitable truth. “And I’m an idiot for not knowing. Or for knowing and pretending I didn’t… I don’t know.”

Will opened his mouth again. No clean air came. Only that high pulse in his throat, like his body wanted to scream for him.

For a second, Mike looked like he needed somewhere to set the weight of what came next.

“When you left for Lenora,” he whispered, “it was like someone pulled the ground out from under me. And I didn’t understand,” Mike went on, louder. “I didn’t understand why it hurt like that, why…” He pressed his lips together. “Why I couldn’t fix it with anything. So I just… tried to put the ground back where it used to be. Like if I pretended hard enough, I’d forget.”

Will swallowed a sob inward and it lodged in his chest. Mike took a step without realizing it and forced himself to stop, like he was measuring the exact distance Will could handle.

“And then,” he added, and he couldn’t stop now, “the gym happened.”

The heat returned, higher this time. Will felt his ears burn. He swallowed; his throat stung like the air had turned thick.

“When we fell… the only thing I could think about was kissing you,” Mike said, and it didn’t sound like a pretty line. It sounded like a memory that hurt to say out loud. “And I got scared. Because I thought I was losing it, or that… I don’t know. That it was a stupid idea that would pass.”

Will shook his head, barely, pure reflex, like his body didn’t know what to do with that truth. His hands hung at his sides, useless.

Mike exhaled, trembling, and kept going before the courage slipped away.

“And then… the booth, when you said ‘friends.’” The word fell like a door clicking shut.

Will’s vision blurred for a second. The word came back like a delayed punch.

“I believed it because it was safer,” Mike admitted, jaw tight. “Because I thought, ‘okay’. Fine, Mike, then shut up. Be a good friend. Be his best friend. Don’t make it about you.”

Disbelief rose in Will’s throat. He didn’t know what face to make. He didn’t know how to stay standing while the foundation he’d built for so long was shaking itself apart.

Mike reached out and brushed Will’s wrist. The touch was minimal, and still something in Will loosened inside, like his body recognized that kind of care before his mind could catch up.

“And finally, last night…” Mike said, and his voice dropped a fraction. “Last night we almost…”

He didn’t finish.

He didn’t have to.

Will remembered Mike’s mouth impossibly close, tomorrow we have school said like a soft escape, the hand under his shirt, heat traced with patience. The memory cracked across his chest, and for the first time he couldn’t tell if he wanted to laugh or fall apart.

Will swallowed. This time his voice trembled.

“I didn’t want to…” he started, and broke. “I didn’t want to pressure you. Or ruin you. Or…”

“You’re not ruining me,” Mike said, and this time it sounded like a choice. “You’re…” He searched for the word, frustrated. “You’re making me feel like I can breathe again.”

Will let out a wet, ridiculous, disbelieving laugh.

“You’re so dramatic.”

“Yeah,” Mike admitted, and for the first time in hours a real smile showed up, tiny. “But it doesn’t change anything. I still like you.”

Mike lifted his hand and touched Will’s cheek with his fingertips.

Will didn’t pull away.
He couldn’t.

Mike’s thumb brushed beneath his eye, wiping away a tear with a tenderness that felt like it could split him open from the inside.

Will just looked at him.

And then, without asking his head for permission, his gaze dropped.

To Mike’s mouth.

Like at the gym. Like last night. Like his body only knew how to steer him in that direction.

Michael Wheeler, the boy he'd been in love with ever since he'd been allowed to know the meaning of that word, had just confessed his feelings. He'd confirmed that he felt the same way about him. And yet, his mind was incapable of processing it properly. He had built such a high wall to keep that hope at bay that, now that it was crumbling, nothing seemed to make sense. At that moment, he only understood one thing clearly: that he needed to feel it to confirm that it was real.

Mike noticed.

He didn’t move. Not to come closer, not to run. He stayed perfectly still, as if he were offering Will the smallest possible choice: a millimeter.

Will lifted his hand. He grabbed his sweatshirt at the front, his fist closing like an anchor, as if, suddenly, the only way to stop himself from falling was through that fabric beneath under his fingers.

Mike inhaled, sharp. Almost a flinch. He dipped his head to make up the height difference, and his eyes widened slightly. For a second it looked like he was going to say Will’s name… but nothing came out.

Will didn’t speak either.

He just tugged. Not hard. Just enough.

Just enough for the space between them to give way.

And then, it happened.

The kiss didn’t come pretty. It came inevitable.

Mike’s mouth found his with contained urgency, like he’d spent months clenching something inside himself and, all at once, someone had broken the last barrier. It wasn’t delicate. It wasn’t cinematic. It was real: hot, shaking, fear still clinging to the edges, and that need that comes from saying friends too many times so your chest won’t crack.

Will felt the world slipping through his fingers and, for the first time, he didn’t try to hold on.

He stayed there, breath cut short, as if everything he’d built to survive—the jokes, the silences, the careful distances—was melting all at once.

And he kissed him back.

With the clumsy ferocity of someone finally reaching something he’d wanted so badly it had started to hurt. Because that mouth, that tiny distance that always stopped halfway, had been an obsession for too long. Years of looks that lasted a second too long, of unfinished sentences, of nights where Mike’s name sounded different inside his head. His body didn’t have to learn anything. It only had to stop holding itself back.

Mike’s hand slid up to the back of Will’s neck and stayed there, firm, warm, like an anchor and an order at the same time. A desperate gesture, almost reverent, as if he needed to make sure Will was really there, that he wouldn’t dissolve between his fingers. He pulled him in with that grip, fitting him to his body, claiming the contact the way you drink water after you’ve been dying of thirst.

The kiss intensified immediately. Lips opening and closing in a rhythm that was almost hypnotic, a haste that wasn’t haste so much as hunger. Mike kissed like he’d waited too long to make that choice and now didn’t want to give back even a millimeter. Like the world could collapse at any moment and the only thing that mattered was this instant. This contact.

Will let out a tremor, more due to desire than vertigo.

He tried to follow as best he could. At first he ran out of air, ran out of calm. He felt awkward, overwhelmed by the fact that it was really happening, by the simple texture of lips he’d imagined so many times without ever letting himself name it. Even so, his hands found their way.

One arm wrapped around Mike’s waist and pulled him in, erasing the space between their bodies until heat became one thing. The other hand slid up to Mike’s head and disappeared into that dark hair. He ruffled it, stroked it, clung to it with an almost childish need, like it was the only thing keeping him connected to reality.

It was a rushed, frantic, nearly desperate kiss. Will stumbled through it like someone who had never kissed anyone before, and still it didn’t matter. Every inch of his skin was want. Their mouths searched and crashed together in a wet, absurd, precious struggle in which Mike had the advantage… but somehow they were both winning.

Because it wasn’t only a kiss.

It was the sum of everything they hadn’t done. The answer to every time they’d gotten too close and backed off with a fake smile. The echo of every I shouldn’t turned into I can’t take it anymore.

Will smothered a broken little moan against Mike’s lips, a sound that betrayed him completely.

And Mike hung there for a second in that tremble, like someone had shoved him to the floor. He felt the impulse to pull back. To breathe. To slow down before crossing a line that, once crossed, couldn’t be uncrossed.

But the heat of Will pressed to him erased the intention the moment it was born.

His fingers at the back of Will’s neck tightened a little, making sure he was still there, and his mouth found Will’s again, deeper, more insistent. Then, without thinking too hard, he caught Will’s lower lip between his teeth.

It was a brief bite, controlled… and still intense enough to pull a shiver out of Will.

“Ah…” He couldn’t help it, and surprise made his mouth part.

Mike felt that opening like an invitation he’d been waiting for for years. He gave in.

His tongue brushed first, just a test that raised gooseflesh on Will’s skin, and then it slipped in with intent, claiming space, exploring. It was a hit of heat and dizziness. A brutal now.

Will froze for an instant, not knowing what to do. No experience, no map. Just his body reacting before his mind could catch up. A chill ran up his spine when he felt Mike’s tongue and realized it wasn’t only lips anymore. His first answer was clumsy: an attempt to follow, to keep the rhythm, not to fall behind.

Mike felt it.

And instead of stopping, he guided him.

He moved with a hungry patience, setting the pace with small pressures, with brushes that became longer, wetter, deeper. His tongue met Will’s again and again, not like a fight, but like a slow pursuit that kept quickening. Mike tasted, insisted, stayed a second too long, as if he wanted to memorize the exact way Will trembled.

Will answered as best he could, following, copying, giving in. With every soft push from Mike something inside him loosened. With every drag of contact he lost his breath. He gripped Mike’s waist harder, pulled him in until there was no space at all, like touch was the only solid thing in a world that had just turned ungovernable.

And Mike, feeling that pull, lost the last scrap of control he had left.

He went back to Will’s lower lip with his teeth, this time slower, messier, and when Will let out a gasp, Mike used it to go deeper. To take the rhythm. To explore Will’s mouth with a voracious certainty. Their tongues met fully, tangled, and the kiss turned almost indecent: hot, relentless, as if years of wanting had piled up under their skin and finally found a way out.

Will let out another moan, louder, more broken. And this time it had a name.

“Mike…” he said it against his mouth, like a plea and a revelation.

It went straight through him.

Mike became abruptly, painfully aware. Of his name on Will’s tongue, of the shake in Will’s body, of the way he was following blind and still asking for more. The world snapped back into place like a lash. With it came the need for air.

They separated only enough to breathe.

But they didn’t let go.

Mike kept his forehead a breath away from Will’s, his hand still at the back of his neck, like he feared that if he loosened even slightly Will would regret it and bolt. His mouth stayed parted, red, wet. His chest rose and fell too fast.

Will looked the same: flushed, panting, lips swollen, breathing ragged. And when Mike lifted his gaze, he saw it.

Something dark and bright, an edge of desire. Lust, almost. That Will didn’t know how to fake. As if Will’s body had decided to speak for him.

“Are you…?” Mike started, voiceless, unable to finish the question.

Because the answer was right there. In the way Will stayed pressed to him, in the way his hands didn’t release him, in the way he looked at him.

And before Mike could say anything else, Will grabbed him and closed the distance again, fast, urgent, like that strip of air was an offense.

The collision was clumsier than the first, more anxious. Teeth brushing, breath slipping between mouths, pulse still racing. Will kissed like someone throwing himself into water that’s too deep without knowing how to swim, with no intention of climbing out, and Mike understood immediately.

He held Will’s neck more firmly and corrected the angle with the smallest movement, deeply gentle. He parted his lips a little, invited him open, and when Will did, Mike slid his tongue in again, slower this time, setting a steady cadence. A soft press, a retreat, another wet stroke that guided him without hurry and without mercy. Will followed as best he could, imitating, returning the touch with an uncertainty that kept turning into hunger.

And that was where the kiss truly changed.

It wasn’t only urgency anymore. It was insistence.

Mike kept him in that slow rhythm as if he were savoring him, as if he could finally allow himself to stay. His tongue didn’t push like blows, but like waves. It brushed, pressed, withdrew just enough to return with a calm that felt almost obscene. Every time Will tried to follow and lost the beat, Mike corrected him with something tiny. A twist of his hand at Will’s nape, a gentle pressure to his lip. Pulling him back into place without dropping him, without letting him fall.

Air slipped between their mouths, hot, shared. There was moisture, the inevitable sound of lips opening and closing when you no longer care if it’s pretty. Mike pulled back a millimeter, just enough to bite Will’s lower lip again, slower, more deliberate, and instead of letting go, he licked it afterward, like apology and asking for more at the same time.

Will answered the only way he could: chasing him. Opening when Mike invited him, copying the movement with clumsy hunger, letting his tongue follow blind. And every time he got it right, every time he managed to return the stroke, Mike took him with a deeper kiss, like a reward that unmade him from the inside. Will felt his whole skin go hot, his pulse climb to his throat, everything becoming too close and still not enough.

Mike’s hand at the back of his neck tightened again. Not force. Need. Keeping him there, pressed close, breathing into his mouth. His other hand slid to Will’s waist and pulled him in sharply, taking away the last margin for thinking. The kiss opened wider, dirtier, tongue finding him and finding him again, exploring without hurry and without concessions.

Will let out a moan that broke against their lips.

“Mike…” again, lower, like the name slipped out of his throat.

They went on until breathing became impossible. Mike hovered for a second, his mouth still brushing Will’s, then drew back just enough to inhale. Still close, still anchored by hands, lips wet, chests rising and falling too fast.

Only a couple of centimeters. Enough for air. Enough to look at each other.

And in that silence, heavy, shaking, irreversible, the years they’d spent holding back fell behind them like a door finally swinging shut on its own.

Will rested his forehead against Mike’s, trembling. And in an absurd moment, a tiny, wet laugh escaped him, like he didn’t know where to put everything that had just happened.

Mike let out something similar, more fractured, more disbelieving.

They stared from too close, eyes bright, like they were checking it was real… like neither of them wanted to blink in case it shattered.

“I…” Will wet his lip without thinking. It still stung a little. “I don’t know if… if I did it right.”

Mike blinked, and the smile that appeared was small, shaky, real.

“You…” He had to breathe again. “You were perfect.”

Will shook his head, incredulous, like he couldn’t believe either the compliment or the word perfect applied to him.

“I don’t know how to kiss,” he confessed quickly, like saying it gave him an excuse not to feel so exposed. “I don’t know… anything.”

Mike leaned his forehead to Will’s again, barely, and his thumb lingered for a second at the corner of Will’s mouth, where the kissing had left him red.

“I do know how to kiss,” he murmured, half joke, half tremor. “I can teach you… if you want.”

Will let out a small laugh through tears.

“Cool.”

“Cool,” Mike repeated, and the brush of his thumb was so soft it almost hurt. Like he still couldn’t believe he was allowed to touch him like this.

Will made a tiny face, as if he’d suddenly remembered he had a mouth.

“My lip burns,” he added, like the complaint was the only solid thing he could grab onto.

Mike let out a low laugh, still broken, and ran his thumb gently along the corner again.

“You’re going to have to get used to it,” he murmured. “If you keep pulling me in like that.”

Then Mike drew a deep breath, and something in his expression went serious in a very specific place, as if happiness had a sharp edge they couldn’t ignore.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “About today. About letting you think that…” He shook his head, searching. “That you disgusted me, or that you were… I don’t know.”

A brief, cracked laugh shook out of him.

“It’s not that. It’s the opposite. It’s just…” He swallowed. “You matter too much.”

Will went still. His chest hurt in a clean way.

“I… thought you were going to ask me to… to leave.”

Mike’s jaw tightened.

“I went looking for you in the basement because I almost lost it imagining you down there,” he said simply, like that was the only thing that mattered. “I don’t want you thinking again that you can’t count on me. Or that your place is far from me.”

Emotion hit Will so hard it rose straight to his eyes again.

“Mike…”

Mike looked at him like that “Mike” was a rope. Like it pulled him in.

And then, without saying anything else, he leaned in and kissed him again.

This time there was no rush. There was confirmation.

A slower kiss, deeper, like an answer to everything Will hadn’t known how to ask for. You’re not leaving. I’m not pushing you away. I’m not letting go.

They stayed like that a while longer, still standing, trading kisses and breath until seconds turned into minutes and disbelief softened into certainty.

Finally, Mike looked at him, eyes too wide for calm.

“Come on,” he said at last, and this time he didn’t ask fear for permission.

He guided him to the bed with a hand at his waist, careful but certain, carrying the reality of having spent a whole day thinking he’d lost him and not wanting to repeat it.

They lay down without perfect ceremony. Mike pulled up the blankets, and Will let himself sink, still stunned by the impossible fact that he could do it without lying to himself.

For a second, Will stayed rigid, like his body still expected someone to say no.

Mike stroked his back.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly.

Will nodded, awkward.

“Yeah. It’s just…” He swallowed. “I’m just trying not to wake up.”

Mike let out a gentle laugh.

“You’re not dreaming.”

Will turned his head just enough to look at him.

“You know… tomorrow we have class,” he murmured, the same line as last night, but different now. It wasn’t escape anymore. It was reality returning. “And we’re going to be dead.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, and kissed him briefly near the corner of his mouth. “We’re going to be dead.”

Will closed his eyes.

And with a slowness that felt like a new kind of care, he shifted until his forehead rested against Mike’s chest.

Mike wrapped an arm around him. He slid his hand under Will’s shirt, searching for the contact of his skin, warm, real, like he needed to verify it. Like now that it was allowed, his body didn’t know how to stop saying here, I need you.

Will let out a breath.

He felt Mike’s heartbeat under his cheek. The weight of the embrace. The simple relief of not having to invent a new rule every time the world cracked a little more.

Because the new rule, finally, was easy.

It wasn’t a lock. It wasn’t the need to keep calling it friends so it would hurt less.

It was something truer, more dangerous and, precisely because of that, perfect in its simplicity: I don’t have to hide. Not with Mike Wheeler.

And while the house kept creaking with its nighttime life and Hawkins stayed Hawkins on the other side of the window. Cracks, cold, soldiers who never quite slept. With the possibility of something shifting out there… or inside him. Will let himself have one sweet, sharp certainty: that from now on, if someone asked what “normal” was, he could point to that chest, that hand on his back, that warmth without guilt…

…and say it without his voice breaking.

“Good night,” Mike murmured, already half-asleep.

Will smiled against his shirt.

“Good night.”

And for the first time, the routine didn’t sound like a spell to keep from falling.

It sounded like home.

Chapter Text

Will woke wrapped in warmth. The kind of overwhelming, cocooning warmth you only ever feel in dreams, warmth you want close on a freezing winter night: the weight of an arm around his waist, steady breath at the nape of his neck, the soft pressure of Mike’s chest against his back. Like the world had decided, for once, to hold him in place instead of yanking the ground out from under his feet.

For a moment, he didn’t open his eyes.

He didn’t move.

He stayed suspended in that soft point between sleep and waking, where the body comes back before the mind can ruin it with questions. Where you can pretend, for two breaths, that nothing exists beyond the room, beyond the bed, beyond the quiet hum of the house.

Mike’s hand rested on his stomach, over the thin cotton of Will’s T-shirt, fingers splayed like an affirmation of what had happened. It felt like certainty. Like Mike’s body had learned a new truth and refused to unlearn it.

Will exhaled slowly.

His own breathing came out steady, and that surprised him. As if the night had shifted something into place inside his chest. As if the place where panic lived had stepped aside to make room for something else.

Then the memory hit him, not like a shock, but like a slow ache blooming.

It came back all at once: the door closing, the “we need to talk” hanging in the air, and the impossible question spoken under his breath.

Are you in love with me?

Will heard himself say yes before he could regret it.

And then Mike. Fear in his eyes, stubbornness in his mouth. Saying it back like he was hauling Will out of deep water:

I think I’ve been in love with you for a long time.

And what came after. Mike’s lips.

Will’s throat tightened. He let the air out carefully, as if exhaling too fast might break something.

Behind him, Mike moved.

Not much, just the small kind of shift you make in your sleep. But it dragged a thread of awareness into the room, and Will felt the hand on his stomach tighten for a second, like Mike’s body recognized the change before his mind did.

“Will?” Mike’s voice was rough, half-asleep, and the way he said his name was different, in the best way. Like it belonged in his mouth more than it ever had.

Will still didn’t trust his voice, so he only nodded.

Mike let out a soft laugh into his hair.

“Were you just… lying there thinking?” he murmured.

Will tried to act normal about it. Tried to turn it into a joke. Tried not to let the whole world show on his face, even if Mike couldn’t see it.

“Maybe.”

“Terrifying.”

Will felt the curve of Mike’s mouth against his head. Warm, lazy. So close that something in his chest loosened.

“What time is it?” Will whispered, because time was safe. Time had rules. Time could be checked and managed.

Mike made a protesting sound, like the question was an insult to the bed, as he nudged their bodies closer.

“Too early.”

“That’s not a time.”

“An evil time,” Mike said, burying his face in the pillow and talking like the fabric could protect him from clocks and existence in general.

Will let out a silent laugh, small, almost disbelieving.

And then he really noticed it.

Not the time. Not the day. Not the house.

The fact that Mike was still there, pressed to him, subtly adjusting their bodies so no empty space dared break their contact.

Will stayed still for one heartbeat, listening to Mike’s breath at his neck, feeling the hand on his stomach like a tangible reminder of what had happened only hours ago. Of them. His chest tightened with a ridiculous mix of vertigo and relief, like someone had moved a wall he’d been bracing with his shoulder for years.

Mike lifted his head a little.

Just enough to look at him.

And that look was different. There was no distance. No automatic caution of friends. No retreat.

There was permission.

Will moved before he could think too much. He turned slowly inside Mike’s arm, careful not to make the moment sharp. He rolled until he was facing Mike, still close, their knees brushing under the blanket, just like they’d fallen asleep last night. The room was dim, early light slipping through the blinds in pale stripes. Half of Mike’s face was in shadow, hair messy, eyes heavy with sleep.

And still, when he looked at Will, there was no distance there.

No caution.

No escape.

Will stopped breathing for a second as Mike blinked, faintly perplexed, like he was still waking up, like he was recalibrating reality.

Then his eyes softened.

“Hey…” he said quietly, like that one syllable held everything he didn’t know how to say yet.

Will’s mouth went dry.

He didn’t want to speak first. Speaking made it real. Speaking made it fragile. Speaking turned it into something that could be questioned, analyzed, weighed against rules and labels and the fact that the world outside the bed was still dangerous.

So he did the other thing.

He leaned in and kissed Mike.

The first second was gentle. The rest spilled over, because that moment he felt how real it was again. The mouth, the warmth, the certainty. His sanity vanished, just like last night.

The hunger was still there, coiled under his skin since the night before. Because Mike’s mouth had been the answer to years of almost. Because waking up and seeing him here, still here, felt like a miracle he didn’t trust enough not to grab with both hands.

Mike made a small sound, surprised, delighted, wrecked, and kissed him back immediately, like he’d been waiting for it all night, even asleep.

Will’s hand found the hem of Mike’s shirt and tugged.

Mike’s fingers slid into his hair, anchoring him, pulling him closer with a careful urgency that lit Will up from head to toe. The kiss deepened. Warmer, surer, less frantic than last night but just as hungry. Like they weren’t trying to convince themselves anymore. Like they were confirming something they’d already decided.

Will felt Mike smile against his mouth, barely.

It should’ve made him laugh.

Instead, it made him kiss harder, because that tiny smile was the most dangerous thing in the world. Proof he wasn’t dreaming, and proof that Mike was happy.

They pulled apart seconds later, because their lungs demanded air.

Will stayed close, their foreheads almost touching.

Mike’s lips were red. Will’s probably were too, and a little sore from the way Mike had paid attention to them yesterday. The air between them felt charged and soft at the same time, like the room was holding its breath with them.

Mike stared at him from inches away, mouth parted, lips tingling from what had just happened.

He blinked once.

“Fuck…” it slipped out of him, hoarse, almost voiceless.

Will frowned, still breathless.

“What?”

Mike let out a short, disbelieving laugh and shook his head, like it was the only thing he could do without losing control, while his eyes dropped back to Will’s mouth with longing.

“That you just kissed me like you’re trying to ruin my ability to function for the rest of the day.”

Will pressed his lips together, trying not to smile.

“I did not.”

Mike raised his eyebrows, sleepy and indignant.

“Will, I literally cannot think. My brain is completely offline.”

“That sounds like your problem.”

Mike’s mouth curved.

“Okay, wow,” he murmured. “New era. Will Byers, public menace.”

Will shook his head, but he couldn’t stop smiling. The smile felt too big for his face, like it had been waiting for years to exist.

Mike’s hand slid up to Will’s cheek, thumb brushing the corner of his mouth, and Will’s breath hitched anyway because, Jesus. He would never get used to that.

Mike saw his reaction, eyes bright.

“Does it still hurt?” he asked softly.

Will blinked, confused for a beat.

Then he remembered. His lip.

He touched the tender spot with his fingertips and felt a faint sting.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “A little.”

Mike’s expression turned guilty and proud at the same time.

“Sorry,” he said automatically, then hesitated. “I’m not sorry.”

Will made a sound that was half laugh, half mortified groan.

“Mike.”

Mike leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth, right where it stung, so gentle it felt like an apology made of warmth.

Then he did it again.

And after that, he claimed every inch of Will’s lips again, slow and deep, like he was trying to memorize his mouth in daylight.

Will came undone.

He shouldn’t. He had class. He had a life. He had a world that was still trying to kill them.

But Mike kissed him like the world could wait.

And for one second, it did.

Will let out a low, surrendered sound, and the kiss gradually turned wetter, more open. Mike’s tongue brushed his, calm at first, like he was testing, then with a confidence that made Will’s stomach flip in the best way. Will followed as best he could, stumbling at first, and Mike responded like it was the hottest thing in the world, guiding him, setting the pace, pulling him closer with a hand at his waist.

Will was the one who finally broke contact. Inexperience made controlling his breathing harder.

…and in that tiny gesture, Mike found a new way to make Will’s world worse.

Instead of going back to his mouth, Mike went lower.

He kissed along Will’s jawline first, slow, like he was choosing a route. Then he brushed the skin under Will’s ear with his open mouth warm, and Will felt a shiver tear up his spine with ridiculous force.

“Mike…” Will protested on an exhale, but the protest cracked on the name.

Mike didn’t answer with words. His tongue slid out for a moment, slow, like he was marking territory with a patience that wasn’t patience at all. It was intent. A wet stroke that froze Will for a second, not knowing what to do with his hands, not knowing whether to laugh or beg.

“What are you doing?”

Mike made a low sound, almost a laugh against his skin.

“Shut up,” he murmured, and “shut up” was a caress.

Then he kissed his neck again, lower. Another kiss. Another. Each one a little slower, a little more insistent, like he was hunting for the exact spot where Will stopped being Will and turned into pure tremor.

Will tried to push his face away with a clumsy movement and failed, because his hands didn’t go to shove him off. They went to grab on.

The shirt.

The back of his neck.

And finally, the messy strands of hair at the top of Mike’s head.

Anything that reminded him that it was real.

“Mike… no,” Will said again, but it didn’t sound like no. It sounded like you’re killing me.

Mike lifted his head just enough to look at him from there, from Will’s neck, mouth red, eyes dark with sleep and desire tangled together.

He went still for a beat.

And Will, instead of pulling away, tipped his head back a little more, baring his throat. Completely open, completely accessible, completely surrendered to Mike’s pleasure.

Mike exhaled against his skin with a smug little smile.

And then he did it.

Mike’s mouth closed over the soft spot on Will’s neck with cruel calm. First came tongue. Wet, slow, tasting the reaction. Then pressure. Lower lip pushing, upper lip holding, hot air slipping between skin and mouth.

Will went rigid for a second, trying to decide if it was too much… and right then Mike sucked, firm, not violent, but with no concessions. Just enough for Will to feel the sweet sting, the exact pull in flesh, the heat spreading like a stain.

A broken moan spilled out of Will and filled the room.

“Mike!” he complained, and the complaint came out shaking.

Mike didn’t pull away. He shifted the angle with a tiny movement and sucked again, slower, like he was taking his time. Like he wanted the mark to stay put for a long time.

Will closed his eyes. His body gave in without argument. His hand in Mike’s hair tightened, not to push him away, but to keep him there, like Mike’s mouth was something he didn’t want to escape even while pretending he did.

When Mike finally pulled back, he did it slowly, his mouth still brushing Will’s skin, trying to stretch the contact as long as possible.

Then he licked the spot once, gentle, like apology and asking for more at the same time.

Will opened his eyes, dazed.

“You…” he started, voiceless, and had to inhale. “You gave me a…”

Mike smiled with indecent satisfaction.

“Yeah.”

Will touched his neck with his fingers and felt the area hot, sensitive. He glanced at the dresser mirror and saw the color.

Visible.

His stomach flipped, and not with disgust.

“You’re an asshole,” Will said, but it didn’t come out serious.

Mike shrugged like it was the most normal thing in the world.

“Your lips weren’t enough for me. And you should get used to it. Pretty soon your neck won’t be enough either.”

Will stared at him for a second, flushed, not sure whether he wanted to kill him or kiss him.

He chose the second.

He grabbed Mike by the shirt and yanked him in, giving him his mouth back with the same urgency he’d used to complain. The kiss was wet and open, and Mike responded, delighted, like he’d just been handed the exact thing he wanted. The dream of every kid who gets away with something: a reward after a great act of mischief.

They separated only because they needed air again.

Will stayed a breath away.

“Don’t do that again before class,” he murmured, like he was setting a rule.

Mike kissed him, short. A period that wasn’t an ending.

“I’m not promising anything. You know it’ll happen again. And you know you’ll let me.”

Will sighed, defeated.

And then, from the hallway, the house made a sound.

A floorboard creaked.

They both froze. Will’s eyes flew open.

“Did you hear that?”

Mike nodded slowly, lips still too wet.

“Yeah.”

They stared at each other, terrified and ridiculous, like the world was about to walk in and remind them that walls and rules existed.

Will lowered his voice.

“Do you think it’s my mom or yours?”

Mike swallowed.

“Or worse. It could be Holly.”

“Why do you always say ‘worse’?”

Mike looked at him like it was obvious.

“Because our moms have filters. Holly doesn’t have filters. Holly has… a mental file.”

Will let out a nervous laugh right as another creak sounded closer.

And that was the end of any dignity.

Mike yanked the blanket up like a shield and ducked underneath, dragging Will with him.

Inside their improvised darkness, their breaths mixed.

Will covered his mouth with his fist to keep from laughing.

“We’re pathetic.”

“Shut up,” Mike whispered. “I don’t want anyone catching me while you’re walking around with that on your neck.”

Will’s hand flew to his neck on reflex.

“Mike!”

Under the blanket, Mike pointed blindly, indignant, like that absolved him.

“You started it.”

“Me?”

“You kissed me good morning like you wanted to destroy me,” Mike muttered. Then he cut himself off, offended by existence. “And then you let me make decisions.”

Will smothered his laugh in the blanket.

“You’re impossible.”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “But you’re kissing me anyway.”

They went still, listening.

They waited for the knock on the door. A voice from the hall. The invasion.

It didn’t come.

Only the normal silence of a house waking up.

Relief slid in slowly, like a muscle unclenching.

Mike lifted the blanket a little and poked his head out with absurd caution. He looked toward the door. Nothing.

He ducked back down.

“Nothing happened,” he whispered, almost offended.

Will let out a shaky breath.

They surfaced again.

The pale light of the room returned them to the world. The clock. Consequences.

And for the first time since they’d woken up, the silence turned serious.

Mike rubbed a hand over his face, like he was forcing himself to land.

“Can we talk?” he asked, no joking this time.

Will nodded.

“Yeah.”

Mike looked at him carefully, like he was afraid one wrong word would make him disappear.

“Last night…” Mike started, and his breath cracked. “We said things. We told each other things.”

“Yeah.”

“And now…” Mike drew a deep breath. “Now I don’t want this to turn into something that only exists in a room under a blanket.”

Will’s chest tightened.

“I don’t want that either.”

Mike blinked.

“So what do you want?”

Will held his gaze, even with the vulnerability sitting right there in his throat.

“I want to be with you. Without making up excuses. Without the word ‘friends’ in the middle again.”

Mike closed his eyes for a second, like the sentence hurt because he needed it so badly.

When he opened them, his eyes were shining.

“Me too,” he said quickly. “I want to be with you. I want…” His voice wavered. “I want you in my future, Will.”

Will went still, like that word was too big.

“Future?”

Mike swallowed.

“Yeah. Even if it’s hard. Even if…” His gaze flicked away for a second, like Vecna’s name was written on the wall. “Even if all of this is still there.”

Will felt the familiar prickle at the back of his neck, like a shadow.

And still, for the first time, he didn’t feel alone inside it.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Will admitted.

Mike took his hand.

“No. But you’re not doing it alone.”

Will squeezed his fingers, nodded.

“No.”

Mike breathed like he’d just made a life-changing decision.

“Then…” he said, and for a second he looked nervous again, like he was back in primary school. “Do you want to be my boyfriend?”

Will froze for one heartbeat.

The word was simple, and that was why it was perfect.

“Yes,” he said, no escape. “Of course I do.”

Mike’s shoulders dropped.

“Fuck,” he whispered, smiling like he was breaking. “Awesome.”

Will looked at him, still needing to hear everything plain.

“And you… you love me?”

Mike didn’t hesitate.

He touched Will’s cheek with a tenderness that hurt.

“I love you,” he said. “A lot. And I’m not going to pretend that isn’t true anymore.”

Will’s eyes went wet.

“Me too.”

Mike kissed him then, long and deep, like it was the only possible answer.

When they parted, they stayed with their foreheads pressed together.

Will let out a tiny laugh.

“Okay. So… now what?”

Mike smiled, serious and happy at once.

“Now…” he began, and you could see the impulse to say everything in one breath. “Now we try to go back to reality. Take a shower like normal people, go downstairs for breakfast, go to school… and act like our biggest problem is an interdimensional demon.”

Will exhaled a short laugh through his nose.

“That’s going to be hard.”

Mike looked down for a moment, and when he looked up again there was something careful in his expression, like he was measuring the question before letting it go.

“How about we… keep it secret for now?” he said softly. “It’s not that I’m embarrassed. It’s just…” He paused, searching. “I just want it to be ours for a second. So we can breathe before everyone has opinions.”

Will blinked as he listened. The idea didn’t hurt. If anything, it gave him… calm.

He nodded slowly.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “A little time. Until…” He swallowed. “Until we’re ready.”

Mike exhaled, relieved, and squeezed his hand.

“Okay. Then… shower,” he murmured. “And breakfast. And then… school.”

Will blinked at him, like something inside him had switched back on.

He glanced at the nightstand.

The clock.

His eyes widened.

“Mike.”

“What?”

“It’s really late.”

Mike turned, saw the time, and sat up like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on him.

“Fuck!”

Will shot up, tangling in the sheet and his own happiness.

“How is that possible?”

Mike started hunting for clothes with clumsy hands.

“Because you kiss me and my brain shuts off,” he said accusingly.

Will looked at him, offended.

“That is not my fault.”

“Yes it is,” Mike shot back, yanking his jeans on halfway. “You’re a bad influence.”

Will pulled on his hoodie in a hurry.

“You did this,” he whispered, pointing at his neck.

Mike looked, and a proud smile slipped out.

“I like it. Makes you hotter than you already are.”

Will grabbed his shirt, yanked him in, and kissed him short and hard, like punishment.

Mike laughed against his mouth.

“That doesn’t help.”

“I’m not trying to help,” Will said, pulling back breathless. “Move.”

Mike let out a short laugh, still half-choked, and nodded like starting the day took actual physical effort.

Then Will caught himself in the mirror again and the hickey smacked him with reality: red, obvious, right where skin was easiest to betray. His ears went hot.

Mike saw it, and without asking the world for permission, he tugged Will’s hoodie collar up a little with a quick, practical gesture. The kind of gesture you do when you’ve spent your whole life taking care of someone without calling it care.

“That doesn’t cover it,” Will muttered, half complaint, half laugh.

Mike looked down at the collar.

And smiled, satisfied.

“I didn’t do it thinking you could cover it.”

Will glared at him for exactly as long as it took Mike to brush his mouth with Will’s.

A brief kiss. Sweet. Like a “sorry” that was really a “I like it too much.”

“Mike…”

“Yeah,” Mike whispered. “Okay. Let’s go. Before they lock the school.”

They went downstairs with hurry as an excuse.

There was light, coffee smell, and that feeling of a house running like nothing enormous had just happened to them.

Joyce stood by the counter with a mug in her hand. Karen already had half of breakfast handled like mornings were a checklist. Holly, of course, was sitting there way too awake for the hour.

Will froze for half a second in the doorway.

Mike cleared his throat like it could rearrange their faces.

“Morning,” he said, too fast.

“Morning,” Joyce replied, and she looked up at the exact wrong time.

Her gaze flicked over their mouths. Swollen, still a little wet. It paused for a beat at the small split on Will’s lip… then dropped to his neck.

Heat rushed up Will like a fire.

Joyce blinked once. Said nothing. Just pointed at a plate of toast.

“Eat something quick before you go. You’re already late.”

Karen looked up then. She glanced at Joyce and made a tiny, knowing motion of confirmation.

“And bundle up before you leave,” Karen added. “It’s cold.”

“Thanks,” Will murmured, grabbing a piece of toast like a life raft.

Holly, meanwhile, said nothing at first.

She kept eating like nothing was happening, stirring her cereal with suspicious calm. For one second, Will almost thought maybe she hadn’t noticed. She was just a kid, halfway into adolescence. She didn’t have to know what every little gesture meant, right…?

Then Holly looked up.

She stared at both of them and a giggle slipped through her teeth, like she was trying to swallow it and couldn’t.

Mike went rigid.

Will felt his ears burn.

Holly covered her mouth with her hand, aggressively polite.

“Sorry,” she said, not sorry at all.

Karen didn’t even raise her voice.

“Don’t start, Holly.”

“What?” Holly dropped her hand and pointed at them with her spoon like she was indicating a scientific fact. “I’m just worried. You look like…” She paused, thinking. “Like you didn’t sleep much. Is something wrong?”

Will choked on air.

Mike opened his mouth, closed it.

“It’s… early,” he managed. “Don’t worry. We’re fine.”

Holly nodded very seriously, then smiled again under her breath.

“Yeah. That. Early.”

Karen set the dish towel on the counter with a soft thump.

“Holly, eat.”

Holly obeyed… sort of. She took a bite, and while she chewed, she murmured low enough that only they could hear:

“Also, doesn’t Will have something on his neck? Did a bug bite him? A tall bug with dark hair, maybe?”

And she tapped her own neck with a finger, copying the exact spot.

Will felt his brain shut off as Mike let out a tiny, defeated groan.

“We’re leaving,” Mike said, too fast.

“Go,” Joyce replied. “Don’t forget your keys.”

“And be careful,” Karen added.

Holly lifted her hand in a sweet, innocent wave.

“Have fun… like last night,” she sing-songed.

“This kid…” Joyce and Karen said at the same time.

Holly smiled with her mouth full.

* * *

They got to school with their pulses still high, like the cold outside air hadn’t finished putting out what happened in that room.

Will tugged his hoodie up on reflex, feeling his neck flare hot at random moments. Mike glanced once and looked away like it was too much.

They forced themselves down the hallway like two normal people, but their bodies kept telling a different story.

They’d made it on time, so they went looking for their friends before class to walk in together. The second they spotted them down the corridor, Dustin ran over, talking a mile a minute about the walkie-talkies and how sick he was of Steve and Robin not understanding anything he explained.

Then Dustin stopped.

His eyes flicked between them like radar.

He narrowed them.

“Oh my God,” Dustin whispered.

Mike froze while Will’s soul attempted to exit his body.

Dustin’s expression changed in three seconds: confusion, suspicion, realization, and then…

Horrified delight.

“Oh my God,” he said again, louder. “You guys are… you’re… you’re…”

“Dustin,” Mike hissed. “The whole school does not need to know.”

“OH MY GOD.”

Dustin slapped his hand over his own mouth, eyes huge.

Lucas appeared behind him, a little thrown by Dustin’s reaction.

“What?” Lucas asked. “What’s…?”

Dustin grabbed Lucas by the sleeve and dragged him like he was about to reveal state secrets.

Lucas leaned in, skeptical, while Dustin whispered in his ear.

When he finished, Lucas lifted his eyebrows. Looked at Will and Mike. Then at their faces.

And because Lucas Sinclair was Lucas Sinclair, he said, with very little emotion:

“About time.”

Will’s face went up in flames.

Mike looked like he wanted to laugh and die simultaneously.

Dustin’s eyes went even wider.

“Lucas!” he whispered, scandalized. “You’re not surprised?”

Lucas shrugged.

“I have eyes.”

Dustin stared at him like he’d been betrayed.

“You all had eyes and nobody told me?” he demanded.

A laugh escaped Will. Small, shaky.

Mike’s shoulders loosened a little.

Dustin watched them, still vibrating.

Then, suddenly, his face softened.

“Okay,” Dustin said, and the huge grin on his face was completely sincere. “That’s awesome.”

Mike blinked.

Will blinked too.

Dustin nodded firmly, like he’d decided it was a fact, period.

“Awesome,” he repeated. “Just… cool. But also, if you break each other’s hearts, I’m setting something on fire.”

“Dustin,” Lucas said flatly. “That’s not how threats work.”

“It is for me,” Dustin huffed, pointing at Mike. “And you, Wheeler, if you hurt him…”

“Dustin,” Mike said, exhausted.

Dustin grinned, then whispered:

“I’m going to be unbearable about this.”

Mike groaned.

Lucas clapped Mike on the shoulder once, quick and solid.

“Seriously,” Lucas said, lower. “Good.”

And he kept walking like he hadn’t just rearranged Will’s entire world with one word.

Dustin lingered just long enough to whisper:

“I’m telling Max in my head.”

Then he sprinted off again.

Will stood there, dazed.

Mike looked at him.

Will laughed. For real. Shaky, but real.

Mike gave him a wide, helpless smile.

And Will thought, with a clarity that unclenched something inside him: if they know and nothing breaks… maybe it isn’t so bad.

The rest of the day was still a day. Classes existed. Teachers talked. Hawkins kept pressing its cold hand over their lives.

* * *

A week.

That was how long they lasted in that strange state of clandestine happiness and impossible logistics.

A week of learning how to exist in public without their bodies rushing toward each other’s mouths. A week of walking the halls at a “reasonable” distance, like the space between them hadn’t turned into a new language. A week of touches that weren’t touches. A hand passing a pencil and lingering a second too long, a knee finding another under a table, a look that lasted and cut off just in time. A week of getting home with their lips still burning from everything they couldn’t do outside.

It wasn’t even that no one knew, because Dustin and Lucas knew from minute one and nothing happened. It was that saying it out loud, at home, with all the pieces in place, still made them dizzy. Not because they feared losing anyone. Because of an old habit of not asking for too much. Because of that feeling that if you name it, the universe can hear you and decide to take it away.

And Holly made sure that vertigo was also a sport.

Holly was the real apocalypse.

The first day, she only watched.

Too much.

Like she was taking notes with her eyes: the way Mike always drifted toward Will even when they pretended otherwise, the way Will went a little still whenever Mike entered a room, like his body remembered before his mind did.

The second day, she started practical blackmail.

“The remote is mine,” she announced one afternoon, sitting on the couch like she owned the house. “And I want markers. The good ones.”

Mike lifted his head, defeated.

“Why are you like this?”

Holly blinked, offended by the mere idea of limits.

“Because I’m protecting your secret.”

Will, in the kitchen, tried not to laugh.

“That’s not protecting,” he muttered.

Holly turned her head toward him with eerie calm.

“Of course it is. If I say it out loud, you have to deny it and you get stressed. If I don’t say it, that doesn’t happen. It’s better.”

Mike groaned.

“See? Emotional blackmail.”

“It’s support,” Holly insisted, like the word could cover any crime.

The third day was the “innocent observations.”

At the breakfast table, Holly pointed at Mike’s plate with offensive seriousness.

“Mike, pass me the salt. You can do it, you have long hands.”

“Holly,” Joyce warned without looking up from her coffee.

“What?” Holly shrugged, angelic. “I’m just saying Will’s boyfriend…”

Mike choked on air.

“Holly.”

“Sorry, Will’s friend,” Holly corrected, and the word sounded exactly like I know.

Karen didn’t say anything. She just took a sip of coffee with that calm mom look that meant she’d already done the math. Joyce passed Will the butter without looking too hard, like protecting them was a daily decision.

Nancy, at the other end, raised an eyebrow and kept eating like she wasn’t witnessing a domestic crime.

Ted turned a page of the newspaper.

And Jonathan, who’d spent his whole life noticing things without commenting, looked at them for one second. Only one. Then he looked away with that big-brother expression that meant okay, got it.

The fourth time Holly did it, Will actually choked on his water.

Joyce thumped his back without saying anything, and Will knew, with a mix of relief and embarrassment, that yes. They already knew.

Holly also had a special talent for appearing at the worst possible moment.

One afternoon, Will and Mike were alone upstairs in the hallway with that new tension of we can touch and we can’t touch here. Mike brushed Will’s wrist with his fingers, barely, and Will felt the urge to smile.

Holly appeared like a ghost.

“Ooh,” she said brightly. “Almost.”

Mike turned murderous.

“Where do you come from?”

“Downstairs,” Holly replied, like that explained her teleportation powers. “This house isn’t that big.”

Will covered his face with a hand, out of sheer exhaustion.

“I swear I’m putting her up for adoption,” Mike muttered.

“To whom?” Will whispered.

Mike looked at him.

“To Vecna. He can take her.”

Will let out a broken laugh, and Holly walked off wearing the expression of someone who’d achieved her goal, whatever it was.

At school, things were subtler, but no less real. Mike and Will tried to “behave,” but their bodies betrayed them with humiliating ease. Dustin caught them looking at each other and made that satisfied little sound under his breath. Lucas, when he saw them too close, just said, “Do whatever you want, just not in front of my salad,” and kept walking.

The weird part was that nothing broke.

No one pointed. No one rejected them. No one demanded explanations. It wasn’t like everyone knew. Most people didn’t even imagine it. But two of the most important people in their lives didn’t break, and that was more than enough.

By the sixth day, Holly wasn’t blackmailing them for markers anymore.

She was blackmailing them for entertainment.

“If you’re going to be boyfriends,” she said one afternoon from the couch without looking up from her book, “do it right.”

Mike went completely still.

Will almost fell off his chair.

Joyce, from the kitchen, said without looking:

“Enough, Holly.”

Holly looked up, innocent.

“What? I’m giving advice.”

Karen gave her a flat look.

“No one needs it.”

Holly smiled.

“Yes, they do. Otherwise, it takes them eight centuries.”

Will looked at Mike.

Mike looked at Will.

And they understood the same thing at the same time.

They were dragging out something that was already obvious. They were suffering through a secret that protected no one. The only thing they were doing was feeding Holly unlimited material.

That night, when the house finally calmed down for real, Will and Mike lingered in the kitchen pretending to clean something that didn’t need cleaning.

Mike looked at him, tired and happy at once.

“Holly’s going to kill us,” he murmured.

Will let out a tiny laugh.

“Holly already killed us. She’s just extending the suffering.”

Mike leaned against the counter, swallowed like he was arranging himself inside.

“We should tell them,” he said finally.

Will went still for a second.

A chill rose at the back of his neck, but not from Vecna. From an old fear that had turned into habit.

“Who?” he whispered, even though he already knew.

Mike arched his brows like Will was kidding.

“Everyone,” he said simply. “My mom, your mom… Nancy, Jonathan, even my dad.” A short laugh slipped out. “Will. They love us. And they already know.”

Will exhaled, almost laughing at how absurdly true it was.

“They already know,” he repeated.

“Yeah,” Mike said, his voice softening. “And I don’t care who ‘knows.’ What I want is for you to be able to breathe.”

Will looked at him and understood it wasn’t about courage. It was about peace.

He nodded slowly.

“Okay.”

And this time the word wasn’t a bridge to panic.

It was a step toward home.

* * *

They didn’t make a big scene.

Just a Sunday afternoon with Joyce on the couch with her coffee, Karen folding something on a chair, Ted behind the newspaper, Nancy with a notebook on her knees, Holly on the floor with markers, and Jonathan leaning on the doorway with a half-eaten sandwich, trying to look casual and failing.

Will and Mike stood there for a second, together, like two people about to jump without a net.

Mike cleared his throat.

“Ahem.”

Karen looked up first, then Joyce. Nancy didn’t bother lifting her eyes even though she was listening. Jonathan raised an eyebrow with that big-brother look that had seen too much and still didn’t know whether to laugh or protect. Ted turned a page, unbothered. Holly, of course, stared without blinking.

“We…” Mike started.

Will felt the urge to run, and at the same time he felt Mike’s hand brush his fingers, just enough to hold him.

“We’re together,” Will said at last, no detours.

A brief silence followed. Not awkward. More like… the universe pausing out of politeness.

Holly reacted first, as she always did.

She froze for a second, marker in hand, like the world had stopped just for her. Then she shot up, triumphant, raising it like a microphone.

“I TOLD YOU!”

“Sweetie,” Karen said, and sweetie was already a warning.

Joyce just lifted an eyebrow.

Holly didn’t sit down. She grinned, delighted with herself. How could she not be? She’d been right all along, and she could also see her brother with the love of his life, his childhood best friend, someone Holly adored. Holly planned to enjoy this.

Joyce held Holly’s gaze for one more beat… then, like she decided she wasn’t going to fight joy, she let out a breath and looked at Will and Mike.

Her expression softened, clean and relieved.

“Great,” Joyce said, and it sounded like relief. “I’m happy for you.”

She didn’t say it like she was “accepting.” She said it like she could finally stop worrying about something.

Karen closed her eyes for a second, like she was setting down a weight she’d carried on her shoulders for a while.

“Me too,” she said. “Really.” She looked at them, practical, but with an edge of tenderness. “Just… take care of each other. And don’t let me hear things from Holly that I don’t want to know.”

“I would never!” Holly protested, offended, like she hadn’t spent a week extorting them.

Nancy snorted.

“Finally. It was painfully obvious.”

Jonathan huffed, and a long-held tension left his chest with the movement.

“Yeah,” he said, no drama. “It was… pretty obvious, guys. Subtle isn’t your thing.”

Will looked at all of them, pulse still high, and the question slipped out before he could stop it.

“Was it really that obvious?”

Nancy pointed her pen at him, mercilessly.

“Will.” She gestured like the answer was self-evident. “You look at Mike like the rest of the room stops existing when he talks.”

Will went red.

Mike opened his mouth to protest, but Jonathan beat him to it with a half-smile.

“And you,” he said to Mike, “you’ve been acting like Will is your center of gravity for years. You always look for him. When something happens, you’re the first one to turn to him. You can get mad at the whole world… and still you can’t stay mad at him.”

Mike blinked, stunned, like they were describing someone else.

Joyce nodded gently.

“And also,” she added, “every time Will was doing badly, you were the first to notice. And when you were doing badly… Will, honey, you were at his side before he even asked.”

Karen dipped her head in the smallest motion, like she was finishing a sentence she’d been holding back.

“And honestly, since we’ve all been in this house together, it only took seeing how you two kept finding each other. Even when you didn’t touch. The distance between you was… decorative.”

Holly let out a satisfied little giggle.

“Uh-huh. And you thought you were discreet,” she added, delighted. “But you literally got idiot faces when the other one walked into the room.”

Nancy looked over her notebook and snorted.

“I would’ve used different words,” she said, “but yeah. She’s right.”

Jonathan nodded, half laughing.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Holly grinned wider, smug as anything.

“Thank you.”

Joyce lifted her mug to hide a smile.

Karen shook her head, but not angry.

“Okay, that’s enough,” she murmured. “One victory a day, please.”

Holly zipped her lips in the air, happy, and sat back down on the floor.

“Anyway,” Joyce said, “I think the only people who hadn’t figured it out yet were you two.”

Nancy nodded slightly.

“Yeah. At first it was funny watching how desperate you were for each other. Then it started being sad.”

Will swallowed, still not sure where to put himself.

“Okay, okay,” he muttered, defeated. “I get it.”

Joyce stood then and, without making a production of it, walked over and hugged Will briefly. A simple mom gesture.

“I’m happy,” she said softly. “Really. I love you, kiddo.”

Will’s throat tightened.

Karen cleared her throat like she was about to say something “practical,” and what came out was honest.

“And you, Mike…” she said, looking at him with that steady firmness. “I love you a lot, okay? And I’m glad to see you like this.”

Mike blinked, caught off guard.

Karen made a small motion with her hand, like she didn’t want it to turn into a big thing.

“Just… take care of each other. Both of you.” She held his gaze a beat longer. “And don’t spiral thinking this is going to break something. If it’s good, it stays.”

You could see Mike’s chest loosen in his face.

“Thanks, Mom,” he said quietly.

Karen nodded, satisfied, like she’d put something important where it belonged.

Jonathan looked at Will for another second, his eyes softening.

“As long as you’re good together… everything will be good,” he said. Then paused. “Will, if you’re happy, I’m happy.”

Will’s eyes went wet. He nodded once, unable to speak.

Ted lowered the newspaper a little, looked at them, blinked.

“Uh-huh,” he said neutrally. “Are you done? Can I go back to reading? Let me know when there’s actual new news.”

Holly stared at him, outraged.

“Dad, this is big news!”

Ted raised the paper again.

“It’s news, but it’s not new.” A tiny pause. “I’m happy for you.”

And he was back in his own world.

It was so Ted that Will laughed.

And in that laugh, the “secret” stopped being a lock.

It turned into air.

* * *

El found out later.

It wasn’t weird, because El wasn’t the same as before. She’d been through too much for childish jealousy, and they’d been through too much to make it a drama. Still, Mike told her carefully, with that awkward reverence he got when something truly mattered, like he was defusing a bomb with shaking hands.

What showed on her face was small, but real: clean joy, without sharp edges.

El looked at both of them, like she was checking something she already suspected.

“Are you okay?” she asked, and it didn’t sound like politeness. It sounded like care.

Mike swallowed.

“Yeah,” he said, hoarse. “We’re… really good. We’re happy.”

El held that answer for a moment, like she was weighing it in her hand. Then she nodded slowly, satisfied.

“I’m glad,” she said simply, and there was something solid in the simplicity. “You deserve it.”

Will’s throat tightened.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

El drew a deep breath and lifted her chin, not to challenge, but to claim herself.

“Then we do it together,” she said. “Out there. Vecna. Everything. I’m not losing you.”

Will’s eyes went wet.

“Yeah,” he said. “Together.”

And that was the strange part: the word together, said like that, without mystery, didn’t feel like a fragile spell.

It felt like a decision.

None of it made life safe. It didn’t erase the cracks or the cold seeping through them. It didn’t make the military presence vanish, or that constant buzz of forced “normal” the town wore like a mask.

The incursions had started. Shifts changing, strange movement at the edges, interference that sometimes came through the walkies like a thread of static no one could explain. Hopper going into the Upside Down with whatever equipment they could gather. Vecna still a name no one wanted to say too loud, like it might draw his attention again.

And Will still felt, some days, that prickling at the back of his neck. Sometimes faint, like an echo. Sometimes clearer, like a shadow resting a hand on his throat and reminding him darkness had a memory.

The difference was that he didn’t have to swallow it alone anymore.

When cold crawled up his spine or his pulse spiked for no reason, Mike noticed. Not always with words. Sometimes with something tiny: a hand brushing his elbow as he passed, a voiceless look at me, the warmth of Mike’s body pressed to his at the exact moment the world seemed to tilt.

And Will, who’d spent years thinking wanting was a risk, learned something new:

Wanting could be shelter, too.

One night, weeks later, they were standing by the window in Mike’s room, watching the street’s last scraps of life, the house breathing behind them. Life kept going, stubborn.

Will noticed it when Mike stepped aside.

The painting was on the wall, framed now. Not hidden in a drawer, not leaned face-down like something that might accuse them if they looked too long. Clean edges. Glass catching the light. A place.

Will’s chest tightened.

“You… framed it.”

“Yeah.” Mike’s ears went pink while he scratched the back of his neck. “I found that frame again. The one I said I wasn’t getting rid of.”

 “Why?” Will asked, quieter, With a small smile on his lips, a mixture of happiness and true joy.

“Because it’s yours,” Mike said, looking at him like the answer was obvious. Then, softer, like he was finally letting himself say it without flinching. “And because it’s… us.”

Will swallowed, nodding once. “Okay,” he breathed. “Yeah.”

Will’s chest was still tight when his fingers went to the back of his neck on reflex, automatic, familiar.

The air shifted and the mood changed at that moment. Mike caught his hand immediately.

“Do you feel it?” Mike asked softly.

Will nodded.

“Sometimes.”

Mike squeezed his fingers.

“Don’t worry, Will. I’m here,” he said, steady. “I always will be.”

Will breathed.

He could feel the fear, yes.

But he could also feel Mike’s hand.

“Don’t let go,” he whispered.

Mike looked at him with that serious face he wore when he told the truth without decoration.

“Never.”

Will let out a small, disbelieving laugh. Then his eyes went wet.

“A week ago Holly was extorting me for markers,” he murmured, like the sentence was proof that life stayed absurd even in the middle of the end of the world.

Mike snorted.

“Holly is still extorting us by threatening to tell our moms the ‘gross stuff’ she thinks we do.”

Will actually laughed this time.

“Yeah. I guess some things are hard to change.” He made an exaggerated pout, amused. “Although part of that is your fault. If you didn’t leave so many marks, this wouldn’t happen.”

Mike leaned in and kissed his temple. Then his cheekbone. Then, inevitably, his mouth. A slow, warm kiss, the kind that didn’t carry the urgency of finally anymore, but the certainty of here.

When they parted, Mike rested his forehead against Will’s.

“You know what the worst part is?” Mike murmured.

“What?”

Mike let out a low laugh, a little embarrassed.

“I’ve wanted you for so long that I don’t know if I’m happy right now or if I’m… panicking. Maybe it’s both.”

A smile slipped out of Will.

“That sounds like you.”

“I don’t want to mess it up,” Mike said simply, and the honesty trembled a little. “I don’t want to do something wrong and… I don’t know. Lose you.”

Will squeezed his hand and rolled his eyes, fond.

“Mike, please. I survived having you two inches away a thousand times without touching you. I’m not running now that I finally can. You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Michael.”

Mike laughed.

“Is that a ‘we’re indestructible’?”

“That’s an ‘you’re unbearable’,” Will corrected, and his smile betrayed him. “And a ‘I’m yours.’”

Mike stared at him from very close, like he needed to hear it again.

“I’m yours?”

Will lifted a hand to the back of Mike’s neck, soft, like he didn’t need permission anymore.

“I’m yours,” he said. “Which means you’re mine, so you’re going to have to accept that I’m going to kiss you and touch you whenever I feel like it.”

Mike huffed, delighted.

“That sounds like a threat.”

“It is.”

Mike’s eyes dipped to his mouth for a second.

“Great. I love threats.”

Will laughed quietly.

“You asked for it, Wheeler.”

Will brushed his mouth with a short kiss, almost a seal, and the smile stayed stuck to his lips.

Mike looked at him for a second, like he still couldn’t believe he got to have him this close without paying a price.

“Okay,” Mike murmured, putting on a seriousness that didn’t last. “Then… officially, I’m doomed.”

Will arched an eyebrow.

“Told you.”

“No,” Mike said, shaking his head slowly, smile gentler now. “I mean… if I’m going to be yours, you have to accept something too.”

Will leaned in a millimeter.

“What?”

Mike brushed Will’s lip with his thumb, right where the small split still was, with a tenderness that undid him.

“That I’m not going anywhere.”

Will’s chest tightened, but he didn’t let it show too much. It came out as a joke, because that was how he kept from breaking.

“Good,” he murmured. “Because I’m not letting go either.”

Mike laughed under his breath.

“Then we’re screwed.”

“We’re…” Will paused, searching for the right word. “Good.”

Mike looked at him, truly serious now, like Hawkins still existed somewhere in the corners of the room even while they stood here.

“Outside is still a mess,” he said simply.

Will nodded.

“Yeah.”

Mike squeezed his hand, like he could build a wall between them and everything else with that gesture.

“But this…” he whispered. “This is ours.”

Will swallowed and let himself smile.

“Ours,” he repeated.

Mike didn’t say anything else. He leaned in and kissed him again, slow, unhurried, like he was signing the agreement with his mouth. Will received it without thinking, without counting seconds, without bargaining with fear. Just staying.

When they parted, they stayed with their foreheads brushing, breathing the same air.

And Will understood it with calm clarity: the future could still be dangerous, yes.

But it wasn’t empty anymore.

Because if anyone asked him what “normal” was, he wouldn’t have to invent a word to protect himself.

He could just point to that hand in his.

And finally say, without his voice shaking:

“This.”