Archive of Our Own

“I have an idea,” Jane says, which can only spell disaster for Will. This semester alone, Jane’s ideas have already gotten Will into more than his fair share of trouble. Like when she suggested that he sneak into the Fine Arts building on campus to steal back the canvas painting his shitty ex-boyfriend, Carlton, had tried to pass off as his own design even though Will had been the one to do most of the work. That attempt had gotten him caught by the campus’ night security guard. Or the time she thought Will should try to have a one-night-stand at a frat party and it had ended up with him handcuffed to the bedframe while the cute but douchey hipster he had been trying to hook up with left to get high and forgot to come back for him. Suffice to say, Will is getting a little sick of his twin sister’s schemes.

“No,” Will says flatly, not tearing his attention away from the sketchbook balanced on his knee. His pencil flies across the page, quickly shading the familiar cobblestones of the path that winds through the central thoroughfare of the quad. The sunlight is a little harsh against the stark white of his paper, but the fresh air is warm on his bare arms. It’s the perfect time of year for working on his art en plein air, the way all of Will’s favorite artists had once done. The spring flowers dot the quad in lovely bursts of bright yellow that Will’s fingers itch to shade, and the new leaves on the tree branches that arch over their heads offer pockets of shade that several students are taking advantage of, working on their reading or stretching out in hammocks. 

Curling her fingers around the edge of the blanket she’s laid out for them, Jane gives Will the pleading pout that she inherited from their mother. It’s the one expression that Will can never say no to. “You did not even hear what my idea was.”

Will tries not to let himself be fooled. Remember the look on the security guard’s face, he tells himself, remember how sore your wrists were from those stupid handcuffs. “I don’t have to. I already know I’m going to hate it. Your last idea didn’t end so well, remember?”

Jane shrugs, unembarrassed. “In my defense, it seemed promising at first.” Sitting with her legs crossed, wearing a crocheted white crop top that’s decorated with clumsy purple flowers that she made herself and jean cutoff shorts with bits of lace that she’s stitched to the hem, she seems far too innocent for the wicked gleam in her brown eyes. 

“No,” Will says flatly, turning away from his sister and back to his sketch.

“You need to get back out there,” Jane says, leaning over to poke him in the side of the cheek, right on the mole above his lip. “Carlton was a jerk. You can do better.” She says it with the same decisiveness that she uses for everything. 

“I know,” Will sniffs, because overall college has actually been pretty exciting. He’s had a few boyfriends that never stuck around long but were fun while they lasted, and a handful of even briefer encounters that were fun too. It’s so much better than Hawkins, Indiana, where Will had felt like he was the only gay guy in his entire school. Here, he has options. He’s just… going through a bit of a dry spell at the moment. 

He hasn’t had sex in…

Well, all semester honestly. It’s a little embarrassing that apparently his lack of a sex life is so pathetic that his sister feels the need to meddle.

Maybe Jane is right.  

Maybe he does need to do something different. 

She’s still looking at him expectantly, her thick stack of psychology textbooks untouched and forgotten in the wake of a more exciting social experiment. 

“What did you have in mind?” Will finally asks, resigned to his fate. 

Jane lets out a squeal of excitement and claps her hands together, delighted. “A game,” she says. 

“A game?” 

“Yes,” Jane nods sagely. “Max and I saw it on TV.”

“What kind of game?” Will can’t help the suspicion that seeps into his tone now. If this ends up with him trapped in handcuffs again, he is going to kill his sister. 

“One, Two, Three, He’s Yours,” Jane says, counting on her fingers. “We will watch guys walk past, and you have a choice. You can pass if you want, if you think there is someone better out there. If you pass on the second guy, however, you are not allowed to pass at all and you are stuck with the third guy when he walks by.” 

“And what do you mean by ‘stuck’ with?” Will raises an eyebrow. 

Jane hums consideringly. “In the TV show, they said that they had to get married but did not actually do it. I think it was a joke. For you…” she grins at him, wide and white and kind of terrifying, “I think you have to ask him out.” 

“What if he’s not gay?” Will asks, trying to poke holes in his sister’s logic. 

She shrugs, unperturbed. “Then he is not gay. It is just for fun, Will.” 

“Ugh, fine,” Will agrees. Just asking someone out doesn’t sound that embarrassing, and Will has to admit, some of Jane’s enthusiasm is catching. He’s starting to think that the game sounds kind of fun, since the stakes aren’t really that high. Worst comes to worst, he’ll just be shot down. That’s fine. Will’s ego can take it. Rejection doesn’t crush him like it did when he was in high school. He fills his skin better these days, his shoulders holding a confidence he had never imagined feeling when he was younger. If some random guy in the quad doesn’t want to go out with him, Will knows that it’s their loss. 

“Yay!” Jane leans in, bringing the scent of her vanilla perfume with her. She drags his sketchbook out of his hands, setting it carefully to the side and ensuring that she has his full attention. “Okay, starting now.” 

It’s busy enough in the quad on a Friday afternoon that it doesn’t take long for the first unwitting victim to cross their path. 

“No,” Will immediately vetoes as Jane bursts into startled laughter. “Pass.”

“What’s wrong with Professor Bauman?” Jane asks, but she can’t even say it with a straight face as the middle-aged professor strolls past them. She’s perfectly aware of the fact that Professor Bauman is balding and he dresses like it’s still the 1980s and he teaches mind-numbingly boring history classes (that are less actual history and more conspiracy theories that somehow always lead back to Russia). Will is also fairly certain he’s an alcoholic who keeps bottles of vodka in his desk drawers. 

“I think I can do better than someone who still thinks that the Russians planted drugs in our water supply forty years ago,” Will drawls. “Subsiquently accidentally giving people psychic powers.” 

Her answering laugh is so loud that it draws the attention of the professor himself. 

Bauman scowls at her laughter, no doubt correctly assuming that it is at his expense and then turns away, clutching his messenger bag more securely to his chest and dutifully ignoring them. 

“Okay, no sexy young student, older teacher affair for you,” Jane says, sighing. It doesn’t take her long to start giggling again, though. 

“Ew,” Will groans, digging his elbow into his sister’s side. “Please never say that again.” 

“I am sorry,” Jane barely manages to get out around the bright peals of her laughter, “it is just… now I cannot stop picturing it.” 

“Oh my god,” Will reaches over and covers her mouth with his hand. “Do not picture that. What is actually wrong with you?” 

Jane licks a wet swipe across his palm and Will pulls his hand away, with a startled exclamation of disgust. 

“Gross, how old are you? Five?” Will asks, wiping his hand dry on his jeans. 

“Yes,” Jane answers seriously. “Okay, here is number two.” 

They both lean back to watch as the next person strolling along the quad’s pathway crosses into their line of sight. 

“Oh no,” Will groans. He would recognize those ugly chinos anywhere. “Absolutely not.” 

“Agreed,” Jane crosses her arms over her chest and glares daggers at Carlton as he strolls by, pointedly not looking in their direction. Neither of them speak until after he is long gone. 

“Okay, well that means you are stuck with whoever walks by next,” Jane says. “Number three.” 

“As long as it isn’t Murray Bauman or my shitty ex, then I guess I’ll count it as a win.” 

So far, Jane’s game has been kind of a bust. Will is pretty sure that his expectation bar is so low it’s basically touching the ground after the first two people the universe randomly decided to shove into his path today. 

For a few minutes, the quad is totally quiet, aside from the creaking of the hammocks to their right. Will finds himself hoping that one of the underclassmen lounging over there will walk past them, because at least it will save him from the possibility of another middle aged professor walking by. Jane will call him a cradle robber if he dates a freshman, but it’s looking like the lesser of the evils at this point. 

“Oh!” Jane sits up and leans over, smacking Will on the arm several times in quick succession. “It’s him!” 

Will follows her gaze, narrowing his eyes and trying to see who it is that has his sister so excited. 

At first, all he can make out of the boy is a tall, dark silhouette against the bright light of the sunny afternoon, but after a moment, he can see a mop of curly black hair and glasses and a zip-up hoodie paired with scuffed converse shoes. Will has never seen him before in his life.

“Who?” 

“The boy who stares at you,” Jane says, nodding as if this is a perfectly acceptable explanation. “This is perfect. He will say yes.” 

“What do you mean ‘the boy who stares at me?’” Will questions, ignoring the second half of her statement entirely. “I’ve never even seen this guy before.” 

“You are very unobservant,” Jane tells him flatly. 

“I think I would notice someone staring at me, Jane. You’re making it sound like this guy is some kind of stalker.” 

“No,” Jane purses her lips. “I think he has a crush on you. Max does also.” 

“Why don’t I know anything about this?” Will asks. “Who even is this guy? Don’t,” he raises a hand, cutting Jane off before she can speak again. “Don’t call him ‘the boy who stares at me’ again.”

His sister mutters something Will doesn’t care to make out under her breath, but he ignores her. Instead, he turns his attention back to Number Three. Aka, the mystery man he’s supposed to go ask out on a date now and, apparently, someone that his friends have dubbed ‘the boy who stares at Will.’ He kind of can’t believe his friends know about someone who stares at him all the time and might have a crush on him and they apparently decided to just never mention it.

Especially because the boy is a little cute, actually. If Will looks past the ratty hoodie and sweatpants, that is. But he looks like Will’s type, tall and slender with pale skin and long fingers. His unruly curls are definitely not styled, but Will thinks they look almost better that way. Effortlessly casual. His glasses make him look kind of dorky, but Will likes that, too. Jane and Max are always teasing Will about what a nerd he is for spending his free time online on Baldur’s Gate and still playing Pokemon Go even though everyone else quit years ago.

If the universe has finally decided to send a cute, nice, nerdy boy into Will’s path, then maybe he can handle some latent stalking tendencies.

The guy is strolling casually in the direction of the bulletin board that stands at the far side of the quad, a stack of papers tucked under one arm. Despite Jane’s nickname for him, he hasn’t looked over once. When he reaches the bulletin board, he pauses to mess with some of the thumb tacks, and Will spies his chance.

“Okay, fine,” he sighs, cutting through Jane’s muttering. “I’ll  be right back.” 

His sister smiles at him and leans back. Then she pulls her sunglasses down from where they were nestled in her hair and slides them into place, no doubt in an attempt to make it less obvious that she’ll be watching their entire interaction. “Good. Max says that he is a loser but I knew that you would like him.” 

“Gee, thanks.” Will pushes himself up from the ground. He starts to walk away and then he thinks twice and looks back at his twin. “If this goes badly, don’t tell Max.” 

“Promise,” Jane agrees easily, holding up one hand with her pinky extended. She waves to him with it as he shakes his head and crosses the quad in the direction of the bulletin board as quickly as he can. 

Luckily (maybe?) for Will, the guy is still fiddling with the thumb tacks when Will steps up next to his side, like the decision of where exactly he hangs his flyer in the mess of posters for campus social events and ads for apartments seeking new roommates is of the utmost importance. 

Up close, Will can see that the guy is even more good-looking than he had thought from afar. His cheekbones are sharp enough to cut glass, his dark eyes heavy-lidded in a way that instantly makes Will think about what he would look like waking up in his bed in the morning and, um, it suddenly feels ten degrees warmer. Will reaches up to pull at his open collar. He’s wearing a short-sleeved plaid shirt unbuttoned over a white tee, but he suddenly wishes he had opted for a tank top instead. It is unseasonably warm today.

Or, a corner of his mind that Will is trying really hard to ignore whispers, you’re just really horny and this guy is hot. 

He even has freckles dusted across the bridge of his nose. As if life isn’t unfair enough. 

And yes, Will is fully aware of the fact that this guy is also dressed in clothes that it looks like he slept in and has eye bags so purple and bruise-like that it looks like he has never had a decent night’s sleep in his life and wears horrible wire-frame glasses that make him look like he’s sixty years old, but, well, nobody’s perfect. 

“Hey,” Will says, trying to come up with words for my sister dared me to come ask you out which I thought was stupid but you’re actually pretty cute so maybe it wasn’t the worst idea in the world that won’t make him sound like an idiot and coming up short.

The guy jumps at the sound of Will’s voice and whirls around in surprise. He tugs a pair of corded earphones free and then just gapes at Will. 

A red flush steals across his face, starting with his ears and working its way steadily across his cheeks. He whirls around, like Will might have been talking to somebody behind him. Upon seeing only empty air, he turns back to Will with a confused furrow between his brows. He opens and closes his mouth several times without saying anything before he finally gasps out, “Me?” while pointing at his own chest. 

Now that he’s turned to face Will, he can see that beneath his ratty zip-up hoodie, the guy is wearing a navy shirt that reads “Big D&D Energy” in large white font. 

“Yeah, you,” Will says, and he can’t help it. A smile tugs at the corner of his lips. The guy is just so flustered. Will has honestly never seen anyone turn that shade of red before in real life, and definitely not because of him. The nerdy t-shirt is kind of working for him, too. 

“Um, hi,” the guy says back warily. He glances side to side, like he’s waiting for someone to jump out of the bushes shouting that he’s just been punked or something. “How can I… help you?” He asks and then immediately grimaces. “Nope, sorry, that was weird. That was a weird thing to say.” 

The smile that had already been threatening gives way to an amused chuckle that Will can’t quite restrain. The guy just stares at him, dark eyes wide and mouth agape, looking a little like he just witnessed a holy miracle. 

“No, you’re good,” Will says, “I just wanted to ask you about the flyer you’re putting up. I thought maybe it was for a party.” 

“Oh,” the guy lets out a breath.

Then, before he can say anything else, Will turns on his most dazzling smile. The one he uses at the bars to get free drinks. He thinks the guy might actually, legitimately get blinded from it for a moment because he blinks very, very rapidly in response. “I’m Will, by the way.” 

“I know,” the guy replies immediately and Will feels the wattage of his smile dim just slightly. The guy is not making a very valiant attempt to avoid Will’s own slight mental stalker allegations. “Shit, no,” the guy rushes to add, his words practically tripping over themselves, “that probably sounded really creepy. Fuck. I just mean, I’ve seen you around campus before. You’re on the track team, right?” 

Will’s not sure whether the guy knowing that he runs track and thus his name is a point for or against in the imaginary ‘stalker’ tally chart he’s mentally drawing up in his brain.

“Yeah,” he says, “I do the 10k. Um, the six mile run.” 

“Wow,” the guy manages to look simultaneously impressed and disgusted at the same time, “you couldn’t pay me to run that far. That’s a… a long event. You must have a lot of… stamina,” even as the words squeak out, the guy looks as though he regrets them. Like speaking them is causing him actual, physical pain. In the end, he just kind of grimaces.

Will watches him turn an even darker shade of red (which, like, how is that even physically possible?) and he thinks yep, this one. This nerd. With his stupid t-shirt and his ugly glasses and his inability to flirt. I want this one.

He feels like he’s picking out a shelter dog. He can’t wait to bring him home.

Jesus Christ, Max will never let him live this one down.

He only feels a little bit evil when he winks and says, “I do, actually.” 

Bewilderment fills the guy’s dark eyes, and he looks wildly over his shoulder as if, again, he thinks Will’s words must be meant for someone else. Maybe the wink was a little overkill. Will’s not trying to give the guy a heart attack, after all. At least, not until after he’s gotten him to agree to dinner. 

“You never told me your name, by the way,” Will says, once the guy turns back around. “Or what your flyer is for.” 

“Oh, um, right,” the guy stammers. His teeth worry briefly at his bottom lip. “I’m Mike.” 

“It’s nice to meet you, Mike,” Will says, testing the name out on his tongue. He likes the taste of it. 

“Yeah, um, you too. Will.” Somehow, the guy - Mike - manages to turn Will’s name into a full sentence. It comes out high and breathy in his voice, and Will kind of wants to lean forward and press their lips together to swallow the sound of it. 

Jesus Christ, no wonder Jane thinks he needs to get out there more. If Mike does anything else pathetic and wonderful, Will is afraid he might start drooling. Or cum in his pants. 

And, as previously stated, he would really at least like dinner first. Or something. 

“So,” Will prompts, when Mike still doesn’t offer up any information on the mysterious stack of papers tucked under his arm. “Are you having a party?” 

“Oh, no,” Mike says, sounding like it might be the first time ever in his life that he is genuinely disappointed about this fact. He shifts and grabs the stack of flyers, sort of waving them through the air. “These are just for this game I play?” The inflection on the end of what should be a statement makes it sound more like a hesitant question. 

“You mean Dungeons & Dragons?” Will asks, nodding towards his shirt. “Are you starting a club on campus?”

A muscle in Mike’s neck jumps. He looks down at his own shirt and seems to realize what he’s chosen to wear on the day of this particular encounter. He slowly raises his head back up and wears an expression that says he would very much like the ground to open up and swallow him whole. 

“Um, no,” Mike coughs a little. “Do you, like, just watch Critical Role or-”

“I used to play, actually,” Will says, and he takes a small amount of pride in how comically wide Mike’s eyes go. They’re as big as saucers now. Aliens could fly away in them. 

“Re-really? That’s… cool. I didn’t… know that.” 

Another point in the stalker tally, Will thinks, but he doesn’t really care. He is a little alarmed to find that, no matter how many red flag stalker warning signs Mike is setting off, he’s still going to sleep with him. He doesn’t know how or when yet, but the act itself feels inevitable. 

“Yeah, unfortunately these days, the closest I can get is Baldur’s Gate. My friends think they’re all ‘too cool’ now or something.” 

Mike literally closes his eyes and sighs. “I love Baldur’s Gate.” Then he shakes himself a little and seems to remember that he still has to actually answer Will’s question. “Um, well, it’s not D&D but, I don’t know, I guess if you like that stuff then you might be interested. Here.” 

He takes one of the flyers and hands it directly to Will, shoving the rest of them unceremoniously under his arm again. 

Will’s eyes roam over the text and the extremely shitty hand-drawn graphic design. I could make this so much better for you, he thinks, and then bites his tongue hard enough he tastes iron. 

After a minute, he looks back up at Mike.

“What’s a LARP?”

“Oh, yeah! It stands for Live-Action-Role-Play. It’s basically a game, kind of like D&D, I mean you have character sheets and stats and stuff, but instead of rolling dice, you actually, like, walk around and act out what’s happening. Well, sometimes we roll dice. But mostly it’s acting.” 

“And in this one, you act like you’re… vampires?” Will asks, a little confused but trying to follow Mike’s rambling explanation. He turns the flyer back around towards Mike, pointing towards the doodle of a pair of fangs on one side of the poster.

“Yeah!” Mike nods enthusiastically. “There’s all of this lore, too. Like different vampire clans have different powers and abilities, and there’s this political hierarchy that everyone is trying to climb-” he cuts himself off abruptly. “Sorry. You probably think this sounds super lame.” 

“No, no,” Will immediately protests, both because he can’t stand the furrow between Mike’s brows and because he genuinely thinks this sounds kind of awesome. Apparently Mike left putting up the flyers until the last minute, because the event is tomorrow night. Good thing Will doesn’t have any Saturday night plans. Or, at least, not any that he doesn’t mind blowing off. “It sounds cool. I’ll definitely come check it out.” 

“You will?” Mike’s eyes go comically wide again before he quickly schools his expression back to barely contained neutrality. “I mean, that’s cool. You should! That would be… cool.” 

“Is this your place?” Will asks, gesturing this time to the bottom of the flyer where a local address is scrawled in messy handwriting. 

“Yeah, I’m hosting this month’s game,” Mike nods quickly. 

Having Mike’s home address evens out a few of the stalker tally marks in Will’s brain. At least, that’s the rationale that Will tries to use to justify his impromptu decision to himself. 

“Guess I’ll see you there, then,” Will says, stepping away from Mike and giving him a little wave. 

Mike stares after him. “Um, yeah. See… see you tomorrow.”

“It’s a date,” Will calls over his shoulder. 

Mike actually staggers back a step and raises one hand to his chest, as if he is afraid his heart is going to physically burst free. He is still flushed a bright, cherry red. 

Will folds the poster carefully and slides it into the back pocket of his acid-washed jeans, the ones that make his ass look good. Then he puts an extra sway into his step. He knows Mike is still watching him. 

He crosses the quad and drops back down beside Jane. She makes no move to take off her sunglasses, but she peers at Will over the top of them as he settles down beside her, his back to the rest of the quad. 

“He still has not put up his poster,” Jane informs him. “I think you broke his brain.” 

“I think I’m in love,” Will declares, flopping back onto their blanket dramatically. 

He stares up at the sun, high above and bright in the sky, and thinks it isn’t nearly as pretty as Mike. 

V         V

“I do not understand,” Jane says, confusion lacing her tone. “Is it a real masquerade? Like a ball?” 

“I don’t think so,” Will answers, leaning forward to study his expression in the mirror as he drags the eyeliner pencil across his upper eyelid. “I think that’s just the name.” 

“That is disappointing.” There’s a rustle of paper in the background as Jane sets the poster aside. “Do you even know how to play this game?”

“Nope,” Will says, easily enough, setting the eyeliner pencil down and assessing his appearance. He had spent a few hours on Google last night, deep diving into everything he could learn about this vampire LARP that Mike is hosting. It’s called Vampire: The Masquerade, and the ‘masquerade’ part comes from the fact that vampires have a whole secret society woven into the human world, complete with competing political factions and rival clans, as Mike promised. There are so many clans, in fact, that Will had only been able to read about a few before his head started spinning. Hopefully, he won’t be expected to have gained an entire textbook’s worth of knowledge in a single night. He’s picked up on the general aesthetic, though, and it seems like people usually dress up for these things. 

Basically, it’s a costume party for nerds.

Luckily, Halloween is Will’s absolute favorite holiday. He can’t resist an opportunity to play into the whole ‘vampire’ thing. At least a little bit. 

“How do I look?” He asks, spinning away from the mirror and facing his sister. She’s propped against the bathroom doorframe, studying him carefully. Her eyes rake over his artfully mussed hair, the smudged and chalky eyeliner he had carefully applied, the leather jacket he had borrowed from Lucas’s closet over the red silk button-up that Hopper had gotten him as an unfortunate Christmas present, to the collection of Jonathan’s clunky rings he’s in the process of sliding onto his fingers. He waves them now for dramatic effect. “Am I a creature of the night?”

“Good enough to eat,” Jane says, baring her teeth at him. 

He has a feeling that she isn’t solely referring to a vampire’s unique diet. 

“God,” a voice groans from behind her, “I can’t believe you’re going out looking like that and you’re wasting it on Wheeler, of all people.” 

Will leans around his sister to make out the sight of Max perched on the edge of his bed. She has her phone in one hand, scrolling through it relentlessly while she scowls. She has been saying some variation of this statement for the last fifteen minutes, ever since she burst through his doors and declared him in desperate need of an intervention. “Or an exorcism,” Max had amended, upon seeing his outfit. 

“What’s wrong with Mike?” Will asks. Jane digs her elbow into his side with a warning glare. “Jane’s the one who told me to go talk to him.” 

“Because she is a traitor,” Max hisses, while Jane sticks out her tongue in retaliation for the taunt. “Wheeler is the worst. Are you seriously telling me that you don’t remember him from our ‘Art History of Pompeii’ class? He never shut up and all of his opinions were wrong. It was distracting.” 

“I’m sure you also never shut up and had very strong opinions, yourself, while in that lecture hall,” Will says. “You can’t just hate on Mike because he was your partner in extreme academic performance.”

He tries to rack his brain for a memory of the class, certain that he would have remembered seeing Mike there, or that he would have known his voice. He remembers learning about the frescos that decorate the perfectly preserved town, and sitting in the back of the class with Max playing hangman in the margins of their notes when the professor wasn’t paying attention. He even remembers the topic of his final paper. But Mike? No. He doesn’t remember Mike. 

Mike Wheeler, by the way. 

Max had known his last name, which was an interesting development.

“Ugh, don’t call him my partner,” Max says, and if it is possible, her scowl grows even deeper. It’s taking over half of her face now. “That is gross and weird. He’s gross and weird.” 

“I liked him,” Will shrugs, unbothered, turning back to the sink so he can add the earrings that will complete his ensemble. “He seems nice. A little awkward and nervous, maybe, but I think it’s endearing.” 

“Of course you do,” Max mutters darkly. She taps viciously on her phone screen and then turns it around. “Seriously? Him? It has to be him?”

Open on her phone screen before them is Mike Wheeler’s instagram page. 

Jane instantly leans forward and snatches Max’s phone, pulling it close and angling it so that she and Will can lean over it together. Her tongue pokes out from between her teeth in concentration as she clicks into his most recent post. 

“He only has, like, twelve posts,” Max is still complaining. “Like a serial killer.”

“He does monthly photo dumps,” Will says, his eyes roaming eagerly over the wealth of content before him. “That’s not exactly screaming serial killer behavior to me, Maxine.”

“April,” Jane reads the caption of his most recent post aloud, “tears of laughter until… your stomach hurts and you know… life is worth living. It’s a haiku,” she says, swooning against Will’s arm. “He writes poetry.” 

“Find your own crush,” Will lightly shoves at his twin. He can’t blame her, though. He’s kind of swooning, himself. Then he reaches over and swipes through the collection of pictures that made their way into the collection.

Mostly, it’s just random still shots. A mug of coffee and a slice of fresh focaccia bread from an off-campus coffee shop. The front cover of a book that Will makes a mental note to look up later. A pile of multicolored dice and poorly painted plastic D&D miniatures. The yellow tulips that line the paths of the quad, glowing in the sunset and illuminated by a string of fairy lights. There’s a few pictures that actually include some people, though. There’s a snapshot of a short guy with curly hair throwing up his arms in excitement, captured in some moment of victory around a Catan board. Another of a concert where a different guy who looks like a metal rocker from the 1980s is jamming out onstage. The last photo is the only one that has Mike in it at all. He’s turned to face the camera, a green PlayStation controller in his hands and, sure enough, Baldur’s Gate on the TV screen behind him. His lips are just barely quirking into a smile, his freckles visible across the bridge of his nose, and his hair arranged in a style that can only be called ‘bedhead.’ He’s not wearing his ugly glasses. Will wants to screenshot it immediately. Maybe set it as his lockscreen.

Would that be weird?

That would definitely be weird. 

“Do not double tap that picture, Byers,” Max warns. 

“That is not what Will wants to tap,” Jane snickers, but the laughter turns to screams as Will digs his fingers into her ribs, ticking her mercilessly. 

“Shut up, Jane!” 

In the background, he can hear Max pretending to throw up. 

His sister squeals and squirms away from him, taking the phone with her as she darts away from the bathroom and to Max’s side. She keeps scrolling. “Awe,” she coos. “He has sisters. His mom has tagged him in many posts.”

“Hah,” Max says with a huff, “it was almost worth being traumatized by the two of you to get to see Wheeler’s embarrassing childhood pictures. Next time I see him, I’m definitely still asking if he owns that Ghostbusters costume.” 

Will shakes his head, ignoring them both as he turns his attention back to the mirror for one last look. His makeup is a little smudged from the scuffle with Jane, but it actually sort of adds to the goth vibe that he’s going for, so he doesn’t worry about fixing it. 

Jane’s right, he decides, as he grins at himself in the mirror. He does look good enough to eat.    

V         V

Will double checks the address on the flyer, comparing it to the brass numbers beside the door. He definitely has the right place, and there’s enough cars in the driveway that he knows there’s some kind of event happening inside, even if he can’t hear the tell-tale blasting music of a college frat party. It’s not a frat house, though, just a little navy blue split level off-campus.  

He lifts his hand and knocks before he can talk himself out of it. 

After a moment, the door swings open to reveal a short boy with curly brown hair. He’s wearing a long black trench coat and a belt with a plastic ceremonial dagger shoved through it. He cocks his head and levels Will with a considering gaze for a moment before he turns and hollers over his shoulder, “Mike, it’s for you!” 

Will raises a hand. “Hey, I’m Will,” he says. 

The boy just stares at him. “Believe me,” he says, exhaustion dripping from his tone. “I know.” Then, he does seem to remember to offer some manners because he tacks on an introduction of his own. “I’m Dustin.”

“Dustin!” Mike’s voice drifts from the hallway, his tone whiny and petulant, “I told you that I can answer the door at my own house.”

A second later he steps through a doorway leading deeper into the house, freezing mid-stride as he takes in the sight of Will standing on his front porch.  

Gone is the nerdy boy that Will spoke to yesterday. His wayward curls have been tamed and styled, parted so they fan around his face. His ratty sweats have been replaced with a pair of black pants so tight they look like they’ve been painted on. Made of velvet or some other material that looks soft to the touch, they are studded with metal rings and laces run up the sides, from ankle to hip. A silky, blouse-like white top is tucked into them, the top buttons left undone to expose the pale expanse of Mike’s chest and the long, distracting curve of his neck. Completing the ensemble is a leather jacket, which clings to his shoulders. The monochromatic look is broken by only one thing - his eyes, which are a bright, inhuman red. Mike’s wire glasses have been forgone, and in their place he has apparently donned a set of colored contact lenses.

In short, he looks hot as fuck.

Damn, Will should have gotten into nerdy vampire games years ago. 

“You actually came,” Mike says, sounding surprised. His voice is the only part of him that seems to be the same, it still comes out high pitched and a little breathless. It’s a clear reminder that it is still the nerdy Mike Wheeler that Will spoke to by the bulletin board underneath the sexy, cool undead exterior. 

His eyes roam over Will’s form, like he’s drinking in the sight of him. From the way that Mike is holding himself suspended in midmotion and how his jaw is hanging open and slack, Will can tell that Mike hadn’t expected him to show up. 

“I came,” Will agrees, suddenly viciously glad that he had decided to. The shocked, pleased expression on Mike’s face is totally worth all of Max’s teasing. 

Dustin levels him with a flat look. “Do you even know what clan you’re supposed to be a part of?” 

Mike finally snaps into motion and he steps forward in two large steps, reaching Dustin’s side just to shove him back deeper into the house. “Go find Steve and tell him to get ready to start,” Mike orders. “I have this handled.” 

Will just flickers his gaze back and forth between the two of them, as they lock into some kind of silent battle of the wills. After a moment, Dustin throws his hands up in defeat. 

“I was just going to offer to help with character creation,” Dustin huffs. “Geez. You know it’s my favorite part of the game.”

“Dustin,” Mike hisses. “Go away.” 

Will bites his lip to keep his smile from showing. 

Dustin shakes his head ruefully, his curls bouncing, and then he ducks under Mike’s arm and disappears through the same doorway that Mike had appeared through. His voice rises as he calls for someone else, and then Will stops caring because Mike is looking directly at him again. 

“Hi,” Mike says, and it’s softer this time. 

God, Will is so fucking gone. This nerd is going to kill him. 

“Hi,” Will parrots back. Then he inclines his head. “Are you going to invite me in?” 

He might not know as much vampire lore as everyone within the house surely does, but Will knows this. Every horror movie he has ever watched taught him that vampires can’t enter a private residence without being invited in by the owner. 

Mike’s smile stretches even wider at the reference, and he leans in to brace himself on the edge of the open door frame. The new pose accentuates the long lines of his body, and Will feels his mouth water in an instinctive response. 

“Would you like to come inside?” Mike asks, leaning in just slightly. 

Will could push himself up onto his tiptoes and kiss him if he wanted to, but instead all he does is step across the border of the open doorway. He pauses halfway through the frame, tipping his head up to look at Mike through his eyelashes. 

“I would like that very much,” he says, and Mike groans like he’s killing him. Will just laughs and ducks the rest of the way into the house, feeling more than seeing Mike fall into step behind him. “So are you going to teach me how to play this game or not?” 

“Well,” Mike drawls, “Dustin is right. You need a character sheet before we get started.” 

Will thinks back to his days in middle school rolling up endless D&D characters and shoots Mike a concerned look over his shoulder. “How long is that going to take?” 

Mike goes red, that same blush that had charmed Will yesterday creeping from his ears to his cheeks, and he reaches up to rub at the back of his neck self-consciously. “Um, well, usually a while. But I, kind of, maybe, made a few characters in advance for you. Just in case, you know? I have them here.” 

Will turns around, leaving them standing face to face in Mike’s entry hall. 

The other boy reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a collection of folded papers, unfurling them and smoothing them out. There’s several pages there, obviously more than just one character. Will’s heart lurches at the sight. Mike clearly hadn’t expected him to come, and yet he had put all of this work into multiple characters for him anyways, pinning it all on the small hope that Will might show up. 

Will’s had boys who were interested in him before, of course. He’s had the guys who sidle up to him in the club and slip their hands under his shirt without asking, their breath stinking of alcohol as they mutter their dirty thoughts into his ear. He’s had the guys who linger after a late class to offer if they can walk him home, both of them well aware of the implication. He’s had dating app messages and late night texts asking if he’s awake. He’s had boyfriends who tried to claim him as their territory with ugly key-and-lock necklaces yet couldn’t tell him that they loved him. 

He’s never had this. 

Someone who cares if he shows up or not. Someone who pins their hopes to him and looks at him like he’s worth looking at for the sake of simply looking. Someone who thinks that Will’s company is worth the extra effort. 

“What?” The word punches free from Will in a strangled gasp. 

If possible, Mike looks even more embarrassed, like he’s taking Will’s question as an accusation of being too presumptuous. “Sorry,” Mike mutters, not looking up from the papers he’s flicking through, “is that too much?” 

Will shuffles back close enough for their shoes to touch and he taps Mike’s Doc Martens with the black motorcycle boots that Jane thrifted for him. “No,” Will says, which finally gets Mike to look back up at him. “Not at all.” 

Mike lets out a breath and his shoulders relax. “Well, all you need to do is pick one, then. I wasn’t really sure what kind of character you would want to play. I have a blood sorcerer, a shapeshifter, a caitiff - that’s a clanless vampire, a Toreador like me, and, um, a human thrall if you aren’t sure about learning all of the vampire clan rules right away. Then you would be tied to one of us, though. The vampires. Like in our service.”  

Will leans over to peak at the character sheets. They don’t look too different from D&D character sheets, with attributes like strength and dexterity and charisma in addition to a few stats that Will doesn’t recognize. There’s a long list of skills, too, and an area on the page for something called ‘disciplines’ that Will guesses must be the special powers the characters get. The pages are covered in Mike’s tight, scrawling handwriting. 

“I’ll do that one,” Will says. “The last one. The thrall.” 

Mike jerks his head up and looks over at Will. His red contacts flash in the halogen lights of the hallway. He swallows thickly. “Really?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Will says, the decision easy. “I’ll be tied to you. That way you can show me the ropes.” 

“Cool, cool, yeah,” Mike nods and blushes harder. “Um, thralls are usually…” he cuts himself off. “It doesn’t matter. Um, here. This is your character sheet. We play using our own version of the rules, so it’s kind of a mixture of the tabletop game and a LARP. We act most things out, but sometimes we have to roll dice for certain actions, if it’s a power or something we physically can’t act out.” He pats his front pocket, “I have some, here, though. So if something comes up, I’ll show you what to do.” 

“Sounds good,” Will takes the paper that Mike offers him and scans over it. Most of it doesn’t make much sense without the context, though, so he folds up the paper and sticks it into his back pocket like Mike had done. 

“Okay,” Mike abandons the rest of the papers on a credenza resting against the entry hall’s walls, and then puts a hand on the small of Will’s back to usher him towards the same room Dustin had disappeared into. “Then, I guess it’s time for you to meet the rest of the gang. Um, this is my place.” 

Ignoring the stairs that lead up to the second floor of the split-level, Mike opens the door that leads to his portion of the house. 

Will steps through the doorway first, his eyes flickering around the collected assembly of strange figures within. Mike’s living room is modestly decorated, with a leather sofa and two white bookcases covered in paperbacks and houseplants. The blackout curtains are drawn and someone has tossed red sheets over the standing lamps, so that the room is cast into an eerie, Halloween-party-esque glow.

There are twelve other people in the room, standing in loose groups and evidently waiting for the game to start. All of them are dressed in goth, vampire outfits of their own. Will recognizes Dustin, who is standing nearby talking to another player that Will is startled to realize he recognizes as well.

“Erica?” Will asks, addressing the freshman with a curious cock of his head. 

Lucas’s sister looks up at the sound of his voice, and then crosses her arms over her chest. “Byers? Who let you in?” 

“I did,” Mike says, appearing at Will’s shoulder. He turns to look at Will, raising a brow. “You know Erica?” 

Will shrugs. “I know her brother.”

“I didn’t know we were letting jocks play now,” Erica sniffs, still eyeing Will critically. 

Looking from side to side, Will cocks his head in confusion. “I don’t see any jocks here right now. You do know I’m not actually on the basketball team with your brother, right? Track barely counts as a sport.” 

“Just don’t screw up my game,” Erica warns him, slipping a plastic dagger free from a brace on her wrist and poking Will in the chest with it. 

Mike grabs his shoulders and pulls Will back half a step, out of Erica’s stabbing range. “You can’t trust her, anyways,” Mike whispers, his teeth grazing Will’s ear. “She’s a Tremere, one of the blood sorcerers. They’re only loyal to their own kind.” 

Erica flips Mike off, which makes Dustin laugh, and then Mike is steering Will away from them to point out the rest of the players. 

“Okay,” Mike explains, as he points towards a good-looking guy in a suit and tie with the best hair Will has ever seen in his life. He’s still leaning so close that Will can feel his breath fanning across his neck. “That’s Steve, he plays a Ventrue. They’re called the ‘Clan of Kings’ because they value wealth and power. His character, Stefan, is the Prince of our domain. That means he’s in charge. Standing with him are Nancy, that’s my older sister, and Jeff. They’re both in Clan Ventrue, too. We don’t want to piss them off.”

“Got it, stay on the good side of the people in power,” Will nods.  

“The girl hanging around Nancy is her girlfriend, Barb. She plays a clanless vampire, so she’s always trying to weasel her way into the Ventrue Clan’s alliance. Keeps her safe from the rest of us. Okay, now, you already know Erica and Dustin, they’re two of the blood sorcerers. Gareth,” Mike points towards a guy grabbing a beer from the fridge who is wearing a tweed jacket with a plastic knife strapped in a holster on his leg, “is the third. They are very powerful, which makes them valuable to Steve, but they’re always trying to get ahead and they’ll take out anyone who gets in their way. The other ones to look out for are the wild cards.” 

This time Mike points towards a guy who is dressed like an eighties rocker, with a denim vest over a leather jacket and an actual perm. Will follows his gaze. He recognizes the guy as the musician from Mike’s Instagram page. 

“That’s Eddie,” Mike says, “he plays a Gangrel. They’re the clan of shapeshifters. And the big guy standing next to him is Doug, he plays a member of Clan Brujah, the clan of troublemakers. Both of their clans are normally aligned with the Anarchists, which is the rival political faction. Everyone here is part of the Camarilla. So we need to keep an eye on them in case they’re secretly spies for the Anarchists. They might be plotting a move against Steve.” 

Will widens his eyes. He recognizes some of the words flowing from Mike’s tongue as various terms he googled last night, but he’s barely following along. “Woah, this is a lot to keep track of.” 

Mike grimaces apologetically. “Yeah. You’ll get it eventually, and things will make more sense once you actually have the context of playing. Plus, I’ll fill you in. In the corner, the girl dressed like a hippie? That’s Robin. She’s a member of Clan Malkavian. Which basically means she’s crazy. She gets prophetic visions and shit, but all of those emotions kind of drive the Malkavians insane. The redhead next to her is one of our newer players, Vickie. She’s playing a thrall, like you, cause she just tags along to appease Robin.” 

The two girls wave at Mike and Will when they see them looking over, so Will waves cheerfully back. Like Mike said, Robin is dressed like she should be strolling down the boardwalks of Venice Beach in the 1970s. She has jean cutoff shorts on, flowers embroidered on the pockets, and a purple crocheted crop top. A pair of yellow, circular sunglasses are shoved into her hair. At her side, a girl with a red pixie cut has a striped short-sleeved button-up on, with a vest over it. A giant pair of feather earrings complete the look. 

“And then there’s us,” Mike nods his head towards the last player in the room, who is making her way in their direction with a red solo cup in her hand. “Clan Toreador. We’re the most charming of all of the clans.”

“He means the sexiest,” the girl adds, close enough to join in their conversation. 

Will feels a stab of concern at the words. Mike hadn’t introduced this girl as his sister. It doesn’t help that she’s gorgeous, too, with strawberry blonde hair that’s pulled up into a high ponytail and wide blue eyes. Her delicate features mixed with the low-cut black dress she’s wearing and the clunky red-jewel-studded necklace gleaming at her throat make her look like a goth guy’s manic pixie dream girl. 

Before the jealousy can settle in, though, Mike slings one of his arms over Will’s shoulders. “Will, this is Chrissy, Eddie’s girlfriend.” 

The words ‘Eddie’s girlfriend’ put Will’s hackles down, and he reaches forward to shake Chrissy’s hand when she offers it. Her palm is still damp from the condensation on the outside of her solo cup. 

“You made a good choice, Will,” Chrissy says, an amused glint in her eyes. “Everyone knows that Clan Toreador makes the best lov-” 

“Okay!” Mike says loudly over her. “Steve! Everyone is here now, let’s get this game fucking started already.” 

“Are you even going to introduce the newbie?” Steve calls back, “You two are the ones we were waiting on, asshole.”

“Oh right,” Mike clears his throat and his gaze skirts wildly around the room, never really settling on anyone. His palm is still resting on the small of Will’s back, and Will can feel the warmth of the touch even through the three layers of clothing he has on. “Um, everybody, this is Will. Will, this is everybody.” Then he nods decisively, as if he considers the introductions properly handled. 

“Okay then,” Steve sounds like he’s trying to muffle a laugh. “Thanks for joining us, Will. Do you have a character?” 

“Yeah I do,” Will answers, “and thanks for having me.” 

“Technically, I’m the host,” Mike grumbles, low and for Will’s ears only. 

Will just laughs, and he feels more than sees Mike’s answering grin. 

And then the game begins. 

“Welcome to Elysium,” Steve intones, his voice dropping an octave as he kicks things off. “This is a reminder from your Prince that violence is forbidden within these walls and any personal grievances must be kept outside. Here, you are under my protection as Prince, and should you break my rules, you will have my Sheriff to answer to.” He nods his head towards Mike’s sister, who’s wearing a pinstriped pantsuit and black leather gloves. “So drink and be merry, but be on guard, Kindred, for there are strange happenings occurring within my Domain that need to be addressed.”

Nancy steps forward, linking her glove-covered hands in front of her. She turns around the room, pinning each of the game’s attendees under her iron stare. “Someone has been spilling unsanctioned blood within the Prince’s Domain. At this time, two thralls have gone missing over the last few weeks, their bodies turning up drained of blood and left in alleys, bite marks visible. Such messy hunting shall not be tolerated. This clear break of the masquerade, the rules all Kindred vampires abide by, risks drawing the Second Inquisition down upon us. The Prince will not risk hunters invading his territory. Your task, Kindred, is to discover which one of yourselves has broken these Camarilla rules. Trust they will be punished accordingly.” 

“Guess that’s the new storyline we’re playing tonight,” Mike whispers. “Sorry, I didn’t know that by making you a thrall, I would also be making you a target. Don’t worry, though. I’ll protect you.”

Will can’t deny it. The words cause a jolt of something hot and familiar to stir low in his gut. 

“That is all, Kindred. Be at ease.” Nancy nods to the other Ventrue player, a guy whose name Will already can’t remember. He steps over to Mike’s stereo system and turns it on, allowing a heavy bass to begin pounding through the space, loud enough to drown out the conversations of anyone who isn’t immediately next to each other. 

All part of the game, Will supposes. Clearly, from Mike’s explanations, political rivalries and factions are a big part of the gameplay. From what Will knows about these kinds of games, the players will start making moves to accuse their rivals of being the ones behind the killings, while only the game master - apparently Steve? - and the player whose character is the actual killer know what’s really going on. 

The song’s intro fades into the main chorus, a dark, moody beat filling the air.   

“Your neighbor must hate you,” Will nods towards the ceiling, and the other apartment above them. 

“Nah,” Mike says, and he waves his hand between Eddie and Chrissy. “How do you think I ended up in the game in the first place?”

“We adopted him,” Chrissy says with a smile, and Will decides that he likes her after all. 

“Okay, now the game is starting, so from here on out, you can’t call us ‘Mike’ and ‘Chrissy.’ Instead, you’ll have to refer to us as our character names.” 

Will nods in understanding, thinking back to his old middle school days. He had never played as much D&D as he would have liked, but ‘Will the Wise’ had been startlingly real to him. He wonders if Mike and Chrissy feel the same way about their vampire characters. 

Chrissy reaches two fingers into the neckline of her dress and produces a folded piece of paper from where she had apparently tucked it into her bra. She unfolds it and holds it out for Will to look at. Like the character sheets that Mike had prepared for Will, it’s completely filled in with all kinds of game information. 

“You may address me henceforth as Caterina,” she says, adopting her best attempt at an Italian accent. “Or Cat, if you’re Mike, but he only gets away with that because we share the same Sire, so we’re essentially immortal siblings. Like many of the Toreador, I am an avid collector of the arts… and its artists, and I have cultivated a careful cult following of my own thanks to my high scores in manipulation, leadership, and persuasion. I strive to recreate the way wealthy families once patronized artists in my homeland, hundreds of years ago. It was the 1400s when I was turned by my Sire, during a tumultuous attempted coup in Florence. Now, I collect acolytes as I have no real artistic talents myself, yet the aesthetic appreciation that drives all Toreador compels me to surround myself with beauty.” 

As she talks, Will finds himself sketching in a basic backstory for his own character. It’s convenient that Mike’s character belongs to a clan that is drawn to artistic types. Will won’t have to stretch very far for his character today, which is a relief since he barely knows how to play. He can’t imagine trying to juggle an accent or whole different personality on top of keeping track of everything else. Based on what Chrissy is saying, it sounds like it will make perfect sense for Will to play a character that is only a slight variation on his own self. 

“What about you?” Will asks Mike, curious what type of character Mike has chosen for himself. 

As he drops into character, Mike’s entire posture changes. He stands up straighter, instead of the perpetual slouch he’s been stuck in since Will first saw him by the bulletin board, and tucks his hands into the pockets of his pants. When he pins Will with his stare, the red contacts don’t seem like a funny costume gimmick anymore. He looks every inch the predator he is pretending to be. 

When he speaks, his voice is an octave lower than normal and tinged with a faint, posh British accent. “I’m Mikhail,” he says, “I was turned back in the 1500s, in London. I was a playwright, which is what caught the eye of our Sire originally. Our Sire never cared for us much after we were turned, though, so Caterina and I learned to rely on each other. While Cat spends her time collecting mortals to worship at her altar, I find myself prone towards relative solitude, preferring the comfort of only a handful of others, though I share her appreciation for surrounding ourselves with the most beautiful works of art that humanity has to offer. While Caterina’s powers lean towards the ability to subtly manipulate emotions, I have trained my senses and reflexes so I might never be caught unawares. My highest stats are composure, resolve, and intelligence. Just because the Beast burns within all of us does not mean we need to be animals.” 

The words drip easily from Mike’s tongue, with a practiced ease and a confidence that catches Will off guard. He has to swallow twice before he trusts himself to speak without drooling. 

“Wow,” Will has to physically tear his gaze away from Mike to remember to include Chrissy in the conversation. “You guys put a lot of work into your characters! I don’t need to have anything that elaborate worked up right now, do I?” A thin waver of worry creeps into his voice, despite Will’s naturally easy-going personality, he is starting to feel just a little out of his depth. 

Mike shakes his head, and then he reaches up to shove his curls out of his eyes. “No, it’s your first game. Just follow our lead and make up whatever you want if someone asks you questions. Since you’re playing a thrall, you’ll fly under most Kindred’s radars, they don’t usually overly concern themselves with mortals.”

He says the word ‘mortals’ like he isn’t one, and Will thinks that being a vampire just fits Mike. He seems more comfortable in his pretend, undead skin than he does in his real one. 

Around the room, the groups are starting to disperse as players begin to make their way around the room in earnest. 

“So now we just go talk to people?” Will questions, “And we try to figure out who might be the one behind the killing?” 

“Exactly,” Mike flashes him a grin and he briefly loses his accent. “It’s like Among Us in real life, but no one will get killed here, because fighting is forbidden in Elysium. Chrissy and I will probably split up to cover more ground tonight since it’s the first game of the new storyline. We need to prioritize learning as much as we can. You good to stick with me?” 

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s get started.” Mike’s hand returns to the small of Will’s back and he nods a temporary farewell to Chrissy. Mike’s attention sweeps around the room, and he bites his lip as he debates where to start. After a moment, an idea seems to spark and a grin tugs at the corner of his mouth. “If we want to get more information on what’s been going on, we need an in with Clan Ventrue,” he whispers to Will, “which means finding their weak link.” 

They make their way around the edge of the room, drawing closer to the stereo system. The girl that Mike had earlier identified as his sister’s girlfriend is lingering there, watching as Nancy and Steve confer quietly amongst themselves a few steps away. She’s tall, almost as tall as Mike is, and she’s wearing a three-piece suit with a necklace meant to look like a tie. She also has fake, Halloween costume piercings glued by her left eyebrow. Her eyes are narrowed in suspicion and she jumps when Mike speaks, apparently not expecting his sudden appearance at her side. 

“Betsy,” Mike says, leaning against the wall with feigned casualness. He tries to look uninterested, as he says “Clan Ventrue is leaving you out of their business again?” There’s a leading edge to the question, letting Will know that this must be an on-going aspect of Barb’s character. 

“Mikhail,” Barb’s answering voice is flat and unamused, “don’t you have prettier things to distract yourself with than me?” She shoots a glance at Will, and he blushes at the implication that he is the prettier thing that she’s referring to. The assumption doesn’t bother Will, though. In fact, he finds he kind of likes it.

He thinks about what Chrissy said earlier.    

“You made a good choice, Will. Everyone knows that Clan Toreador makes the best lov-”

She had been about to say ‘lovers,’ surely, before Mike cut her off. 

Will tilts his head to stare at the sharp, angular jut of Mike’s chin and thinks, yeah, I can work with that. 

“If someone is killing thralls in our Prince’s domain, don’t you think Clan Toreador deserves to know the truth? We have the most thralls of all the clans, after all, and a vested interest in their well-being. I would think the Prince would want to ensure that his easiest source of blood is protected.” 

Barb eyes Mike, and then flickers her eyes back towards Nancy and Steve. “I might know something I can tell you, but I’ll need something from you in return.”

“Of course,” Mike agrees easily, waving a hand through the air lazily. “I’ll honor a deal between us as long as the payment seems reasonable. What is your request?” 

“Caterina is rumored to be the master of the Presence discipline, a skill I would most like to learn. All I ask is that you put in a good word for me with your fellow Diva.” 

Mike considers the terms of the deal, and then he nods. “Very well, I shall see what I can do. Now, tell me what you know.” 

Barb lowers her voice, as if she is afraid to be overheard by the supernatural hearing that some of the players in the room are supposed to possess. “The last thrall that was found killed belonged to Clan Tremere, that’s all I can tell you, Mikhail. The Prince would kill me if he knew I were divulging his secrets.” 

Mike trades a smile with Will. “Thanks, Betsy,” he says, “that’s all we needed to know.” Then he nods his head, gesturing for Will to follow him to the corner of the room. 

Will trails a few steps behind Mike, unable to keep his gaze from flickering over towards the members of Clan Tremere. Gareth is drinking his beer, talking to Chrissy in the kitchen. Erica is chatting with Robin and the other new player that Mike had pointed out. Dustin stands holding court with Eddie, Doug, and the guy that Will finally remembers is named Jeff. 

“Why would someone target a human thrall belonging to Clan Tremere?” He questions, once he and Mike are squished in the corner of the room, near the bookshelves. 

“I don’t know,” Mike says, his brow furrowed. He keeps the accent, evidently staying in character this time. His hand settles on Will’s waist, almost subconsciously. “Clan Tremere has the least amount of human thralls out of any of the clans, because it’s harder for them to create them,” he explains. “They won’t take the loss of one of their blood sources well.” 

“So what’s our next step?” Will asks. 

Mike hums in consideration. 

Before they can make a plan, however, the guy running everything - Steve - steps away from his conversation with Nancy and beckons them. 

Mike stiffens. “Shit, the Prince is summoning us. Follow my lead and don’t speak unless spoken to, okay?” The words are soft, but still stern. An order.

Will’s stomach jumps and his blood boils as he thinks about other types of orders that Mike could give him in that same exact tone of voice.

As they cross to the other side of Mike’s apartment, he keeps up a running thread of commentary close by Will’s ear. He has lost the accent again, so Will knows that this is Mike speaking to him right now and not his character, Mikhail. “Remember, you’re a thrall. That means you’re a human who is trying to convince a Kindred, um, I mean… me, to turn you. But I can’t do that without permission from the Prince of the domain I dwell in, so if you want to be immortal, you need to make a good first impression. We have to show respect to the Prince, he won’t tolerate anything less, but he doesn’t like a push-over either. It’s okay to show a little bit of fangs, as long as we don’t take things too far. Got it?” 

“Yeah, I can do that.” 

“Okay, cool,” Mike says. “LARP is a little different from tabletop games like D&D, because we fully act out the roles of our characters as much as we can. Is that going to bother you? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” 

“No,” Will shakes his head. “I’m good. It’s just like acting, right? I mean, it’s all pretend.”

The grin that Mike shoots him is positively wolfish. “Exactly. Um, but just in case, if you want me to stop doing something, just tell me, okay? I won’t be offended.” 

“Mike?” Will whispers, “I’m good.”

Mollified, Mike nods. “Then let’s go.” 

Steve is waiting for them over on the sofa. In the time it takes them to cross the room, he settles himself comfortably on the cushions as though the leather sofa is his throne. He has one ankle hooked over a knee and looks the very picture of confidence and comfort, despite the fact that he is wearing a three-piece suit and it’s a little warm in Mike’s apartment. 

“My Prince,” Mike stops in front of Steve and inclines his head in a show of respect. 

“Please, Mikhail,” Steve waves towards the couch beside him, “sit and join me. We have things to discuss.” 

Mike takes a seat on the cushion as far from Steve as possible, as if he is trying to maintain a respectful distance between himself and his leader. He mirrors Steve’s position, one leg crossed and resting over the other one, turned slightly in towards the Prince. 

Will hovers for a moment, uncertain where to sit. He doesn’t want to take the last cushion, which would put him firmly between Mike and Steve, since it seems like Mike left it open on purpose and also because Steve is kind of scary now that Will is seeing him up close. He has a pair of realistic looking fangs glued to his teeth and like Mike he wears unnatural colored contacts, though his are icy blue. After a moment of hesitation, Will perches on the armrest of the couch, which puts Mike’s body between him and the Prince. Surely that’s what a fragile human would do, Will muses, in a moment when he’s confronted by a terrifying vampire leader. 

Though he’s trying not to look at Will, the corners of Mike’s lips are threatening to quirk into a smile. Will watches him squash it down in an effort to stay in character. 

“Are you referring to these most recent killings, my Prince?” Mike asks. “I am surprised that this is the first that Clan Toreador is hearing of them.” 

“Yes, unfortunately it was necessary to keep the exact details of the killings on a need-to-know basis so I could gauge the responses of the clan representatives here. I am certain you can understand my need for privacy.” 

“Of course, my Prince. I did not mean to question you. I only meant to imply that if there is a threat to our mortal blood sources, then Clan Toreador should know to be on guard. As you are well aware, Caterina oversees the largest collection of blood dolls within your domain. I would hate for Kindred to have to go hungry should we be forced to shut our services down.”

Will flickers his gaze back and forth between the two men sitting on the couch before him. Though Will doesn’t recognize all of the terminology that they are using, it’s clear that Steve and Mike are playing a game of political chess right now, making moves with every subtle sentence. 

Mike is threatening the Prince, Will’s spine stiffens with the realization. Or, at the very least, he’s trying to use Clan Toreador’s control over the vampires’ feeding ground to convince Steve to give him more information. It’s a clever argument. Will wonders whether Steve will fall for it. 

“Be at peace, Mikhail,” Steve says, holding a hand placatingly in the air. “Clan Toreador has long been one of my strongest allies within the Camarilla. I did not forget that. I merely could not be seen as playing favorites. You know how temperamental the Tremere can get.”

The Tremere again. Will spins around in his seat, seeking out the three members of Clan Tremere. This is the second time that the clan’s name has come up. Erica has joined Gareth and Chrissy in the kitchen now, he notes. He can’t see Dustin at all, which strikes him as kind of odd. Mike’s apartment isn’t that big. 

“The Tremere are involved?” Mike questions, leaning back in his seat. Doing so presses his knee into Will’s thigh, but he doesn’t pull it away. His voice is thick with mock innocence, and Will can tell that Steve doesn’t buy it for a second. 

“The thrall that was killed most recently was one of theirs.” Steve’s gaze does not waver from Mike, and Will knows that somehow, something has tipped him off. He’s realized that Mike knows more than he’s supposed to. 

Mike hums consideringly and leans back, he puts one arm around the back of the couch. It rests against Will’s back, a comforting and increasingly familiar weight. It also looks a little territorial, a possessive statement to the other vampires in the room that Will belongs to him. A wordless warning. 

“Perhaps the Tremere should learn from Clan Toreador and keep their thralls on a shorter leash.” 

The words send a jolt of something hot and electric through Will. 

Mike reaches up and wraps his long fingers around the back of Will’s neck. The touch burns like a brand. Will wants to feel those fingers everywhere. “We would never permit such barbarity,” Mike continues. “Unlike some of the less civilized clans, we mean it when we offer our protection.” 

He uses his grip on Will’s neck to tilt his head up and to the side, and his thumb brushes against the smooth, unbroken skin there. He leaves goosebumps in his wake. 

“See?” Mike asks Steve. “Not even a mark on him.”  

“Yes, I see you’ve brought a new thrall to Elysium tonight, Mikhail. Where did you manage to find this one?” Amusement glimmers in Steve’s eyes and he makes no effort to keep it from his tone. Will isn’t one hundred percent sure whether the question is meant to be in character or not. 

Mike opens his mouth, maybe about to respond, but Will beats him to it. 

“Actually, Prince, I found him.” 

Mike stiffens beside him, his fingers flexing tighter around the back of Will’s neck in a way that sends all of the blood in his body rushing south, but he can’t think about that right now, because he’s just spoken for the first time in this whole game. The first move he’s making and he’s deciding to go toe-to-toe with the leader of all of the vampires in the room.

Will’s not worried. He can do this. 

“Really?” Steve considers him properly for the first time since Will sat down, looking at him not as part of the background scenery but as someone with agency in their own right. “That is an unusual story for a thrall.” 

“Maybe I’m an unusual kind of guy,” Will shrugs. “With all due respect, Prince, you don’t know me.” 

“Fuck,” Mike breathes, quiet enough that only Will can hear. 

Barking a laugh, Steve rubs his hands together delightedly, “Oh, you aren’t as passive as the Toreador blood dolls usually are. Did you decide you like them with a bit of spine, Mikhail? Unlike Caterina, you aren’t one to chase the short lived infatuation of star-struck mortals.” 

Will wrinkles his nose at the address. “I’m not a blood doll,” he protests. He isn’t exactly sure what a ‘blood doll’ is, but it doesn’t sound good. The way that Steve and Mike were talking about them earlier, the blood dolls sound like livestock. Will might not know anything about this character he’s supposed to be playing, but he knows that. 

He remembers something else that Mike had told him about thralls, though. Thralls want to be turned into a vampire. There’s only one reason Will can think of that would result in him wanting Mikhail to turn him.   

“No?” Steve raises an eyebrow in challenge. “You’re a mortal, you’re in Mikhail’s company. I have to assume that you’ve let him feed from you.” 

“Of course,” Will answers easily, and he has to bite back a smile when he sees Mike stiffen at the thought. “But allowing Mikhail to feed from me doesn’t mean I’ve agreed to join the Toreador’s flock of mindless cattle.” 

That’s a bit of a leap, but an educated guess, at least. What are games for, if not taking chances? 

“You are an insolent one, aren’t you?” Steve drums his fingers on his knees. “Perhaps I should not be surprised. Mikhail always did like a challenge.” 

“Hey,” Mike protests, his voice cracking in a way that suggests to Will that his response isn’t entirely in character. 

“Well, little mortal, if you aren’t a member of Mikhail and Caterina’s herd, then who are you? One of Clan Toreador’s retainers?” 

Another unfamiliar term. Will is getting sick of them. Especially when he has a better idea in mind. 

He doesn’t want to be Mike’s human servant. 

Will doesn’t want power or money or prestige, or any of a thousand reasons he can imagine humans might chase immortality. 

Will has always only ever wanted love.

The kind of love that lasts forever. 

The kind of love that you are willing to die for. 

He looks at Mike, wanting to make sure that he’s gauging the moment right. Will’s pretty sure that he is. Mike’s behavior near the bulletin board had certainly been indicative that he found Will attractive. Hell, Jane seems to think that Mike has a crush on him. As long as that’s true, Will’s pretty sure he won’t have a problem with what he’s about to do next. 

But he looks to double check anyways. 

Mike is already looking back at him. His brows are furrowed in confusion and Will wants to reach forward and press them smooth, but he doesn’t. 

Will tilts his head in a silent question. 

Mike nods and he shifts. He uncrosses his legs, planting both feet on the ground so that he can face Will more fully, devoting his attention to Will’s control over the conversation.  

That’s all the encouragement that Will needs, and the new way that Mike’s sitting has given him another idea.

He slips off the arm rest and onto Mike’s lap. 

Mike stiffens and for a moment, Will feels a brief flash of panic that maybe he read this wrong after all. Then, Mike shifts so that Will is perched more comfortably, and he settles one of his hands on Will’s waist, holding him steady and in place. Will can feel the lean muscles of Mike’s thighs, though he doesn’t press far enough back to feel anything else. He’s not trying to put on that kind of show. Not yet, anyways. 

“I’m not Mikhail’s servant,” Will sniffs. He reaches over for Mike’s free hand and links their fingers together. “I’m his lover.”

Mike chokes, but he tightens his grip on Will’s fingers at the same time. Will can see him out of the corner of his eye, and Mike is blushing so furiously that Will is seriously afraid he’s going to pass out. Heat is practically radiating from his cheeks, which are stained like a spilled glass of wine. He’s never looked less like a corpse, despite the fact that he’s supposed to be undead. 

Across from Will, Steve is biting his lip to keep from laughing. “Jesus, Mike, is there something you want to tell me?” 

“Shut the fuck up, Steve,” Mike growls back at him. The words reverberate through his chest. From his new position, Will can feel it. 

Maybe, Will starts to think, he shouldn’t have done this. Sure, he had teased Mike about tonight being a date and he’s pretty sure that they’ve been flirting, but maybe this is a step too far. This is Mike’s game, after all. These are his friends. At the end of the day, Will doesn’t really know anything about their dynamics or Mike’s sexuality or if he’s even out. Fuck. 

He had gotten tangled up in the thrill of the game, but this is too much. 

Shifting his weight, Will goes to slide off of Mike’s lap, suddenly hit with a rush of embarrassment. Maybe he’s just been out here making a fool of himself. 

Maybe Jane’s wrong and Mike isn’t even gay. 

Before he can get far, though, Mike’s arm slips the rest of the way around his waist and holds him in place. With his other hand, Mike lifts Will’s arm and turns it so that the pulse point at his wrist is exposed. Then he leans down and presses his lips to it. 

Will can feel Mike’s hot breath sweeping across his skin, the wet drag of his lips. 

Fuck, that’s hot. 

He loves this game. 

Then Mike lowers Will’s wrist and turns his attention back towards Steve, who is still trying to school his expression back into the practiced indifference of his character. 

“I do not share Caterina’s tendency for dalliances with mortals, it is true,” Mike allows, once more slipping back into his accent. “Yet this is no mere dalliance.” He reaches up and brushes his fingers lightly through Will’s hair, tucking it neatly behind his ear. The open care and affection in the gesture makes Will shudder. “Anything you need to say to me, Prince, you can say in front of him.” 

It’s a subtle nod back towards the actual purpose of their game, which has been more than a little deviated by Will’s declaration, and Steve looks relieved by the reminder to return to his script.

“Yes, the murders,” Steve coughs a little and reaches into his pocket to pull out two pieces of paper. “The two victims were all found in areas marked by these symbols. Do you recognize them?” 

He slides the papers onto the coffee table in front of them, and Mike hooks his chin over Will’s shoulder when he leans forward to study them. 

The papers each show a rune of some kind, two different arcane-looking symbols that Will would normally expect to see on the cover of a fantasy novel. Except they are red and wet-looking, like they were drawn in blood. Presumably Steve or one of the other players just printed them off of the internet, but the sight of them still sends shivers down Will’s spine. 

“Can I make an occult roll to see if I recognize them?” Mike asks. 

Right. Mike had mentioned that the game mixed some tabletop rules in for certain actions that they couldn’t decide just by acting out through the role-play. Steve must be one of the game masters who can call for and oversee the rules. Will is starting to see why he’s the Prince. 

“Yeah,” Steve says, sounding normal. “Go for it.” 

“Hey, Will,” Mike’s breath tickles his ears and it carries the spicy smell of cinnamon, either from his toothpaste or gum preferences, Will isn’t sure. “Can you get my dice? They’re in my pocket.” 

His pocket. Which Will is sitting on. 

Right.

Will’s pretty sure that Mike could get the dice himself, but maybe he’s nervous to do so, with Will still perched on his lap. 

Or maybe, the part of Will’s mind that he’s trying really hard not to listen to right now whispers, he just wants your hand close to his dick.

Shifting so that he’s no longer trapping Mike’s dice within his pocket, Will turns just enough that he can slide his fingers into the surprisingly deep pocket of Mike’s velvet jeans. He can feel the twitch of Mike’s thigh through the thin fabric, and he tries not to focus on it as his fingertips brush against the familiar smooth plastic of a handful of dice. He is acutely aware of Steve trying very hard not to look at them the entire time. It’s kind of an awkward angle, reaching behind him for Mike’s pocket, but there’s something hot about it too. With Mike pressed up against his back like this, his breath close to Will’s ear, it’s easy to imagine that Will is reaching behind himself for another reason entirely. It makes his mouth water, and he has to forcibly stop the train of thought before he ends up hard in front of all of Mike’s friends. 

The second it takes him to curl his fingers around the collection of plastic dice feels like it stretches for an eternity, like Will could live inside of it. Finally, he slides the dice free. As he pulls his hand from the pocket, he finds that he must have been holding his breath the whole time because his lungs are burning. 

“Here,” he says, and the word comes out breathless as he opens his hand, revealing the collection of red and black d10s resting unassumingly in the center of his palm. Unlike the D&D dice that Will knows well, these dice are marked with strange symbols that must hold different meanings for the game.

“Thanks, baby,” Mike says, in Mikhail’s accent. 

Will has to close his eyes and count backwards from a hundred before he trusts himself to be able to speak without moaning. 

Luckily, the game has moved on without him. 

“For the check, roll your intelligence and occult. You’ll need at least three successes to identify the symbols,” Steve is explaining the specifics of the roll that Mike is making, but Will can barely hear him over the pounding of his own pulse in his ears. 

“Right, okay, I have a three in both, so that’s six dice total,” Mike explains, and Will senses this is more for his benefit than Steve’s so he tries to make more of an effort to pay attention. Really, he does, but while Mike’s left hand is occupied with plucking five black dice and one red one from the collection in Will’s palm, his other hand has found a sliver of skin that’s exposed at the waistband of Will’s jeans. His rough, calloused fingertip traces the jut of Will’s hipbone, almost absentmindedly, and Will has to bite his lip.

Michael Wheeler plays dirty. 

The game. He’s supposed to be focusing on the game.

“My hunger is super low right now,” Mike says, a slight purr in his voice, “so only one hunger die.”

Right, that’s because of me, Will thinks. His hunger is low because he’s been drinking my blood. 

The image sweeps through him, sudden and swift. Mike pressing him up against a wall. His hot breath on the curve of Will’s neck. His lips creating a seal over the skin there. The way Mike would look when he pulled back, with Will’s blood on his mouth and running through his veins, and-

Yep, Will has to stop that fantasy right there. 

Mike eyes the pool of dice in his palm for a second and then he lifts them up to Will. “For luck?” He requests, like he’s in Vegas around the gambling table and Will is the pretty waitress who just happens to be nearby. 

But Will is learning that he doesn’t think he can deny Mike anything, so he leans over the dice and blows gently on them. It’s funny, he didn’t really peg Mike as being the superstitious type. 

Mike grins at him, the kind of grin that lights up his whole face. It crinkles the corners of his eyes, which would be cute normally but looks a little demonic thanks to the red contact lenses. 

“Okay, moment of truth,” Mike says, and then he rolls. 

The dice dance across the surface of the coffee table, and then clatter to their sides. 

Mike is leaning forward so far that the length of him presses against Will, he can feel Mike’s stomach against his spine, Mike’s chest against his shoulder blades, Mike’s pointy chin digging into his collarbone. 

When Mike laughs in success, it reverberates through Will’s entire body. It feels like lightning in a bottle. Will can practically taste the ozone on his tongue. 

“That’s four successes,” he crows, “and nothing on my hunger dice. Looks like I know what those symbols are after all.”

“Indeed you do,” Steve nods, “you recognize the sigils as being tied to two blood sorcery rituals. The first symbol is part of a Land’s Sustenance ritual, while the second belongs to a Compel the Inanimate ritual.”

“Blood Sorcery,” Mike growls in Mikhail’s accent once more, slipping easily back into character now that the dice roll’s results have been tallied. “I know which clan is behind this foul magic. It can only be the work of the Tremere, themselves. Yet what could they hope to accomplish with such brazen displays of violence within their Prince’s domain?” 

The plot of the storyline is pulling Will back in now, and he leans forward to pick up one of the pages, studying it himself. “Perhaps they do not care if the Prince learns of their actions. Could they be making an active move against him?” 

Mike swears, low and dark and full of plenty of colorful medieval commentary, casting his attention around the room. “Where is Damian?” He wonders aloud. 

Will had wondered the exact same thing earlier, he notes, clocking once again that Dustin is the only member of Clan Tremere that is unaccounted for. 

“Something’s happening,” Will whispers to him. “Dustin, I mean, Damian has been missing for awhile now. I noticed it earlier.” 

Mike swings his head back to Steve, who is watching them piece things together with only the faintest twitch of his lips to give away his amusement. “My Prince, I know that we are here under the sacred oaths of Elysium, but I beg your leave to investigate this manner and to have your permission to engage in physical violence should it be necessary to subdue Damian and bring him into your custody.” 

Steve pauses, cocking his head in deliberation before he nods. “Very well. Permission granted, but only if it is clear that Damian is making a move against the Camarilla or myself. It would not do to start a war for no reason, Mikhail. And Clan Tremere will be ruthless in their retaliation should your accusation prove false.”

“I understand, my Prince.” 

“Then go. I will inform the Sheriff of your discovery.” 

Mike shifts his thigh, a subtle nudge to Will’s ass that he interprets as a silent request to stand. Slipping from Mike’s lap, Will hovers near the arm of the couch and looks around the room while Mike rises.

Something else is bothering him. 

He skims the groups once more, several of them have shifted to include different people than before, and more than a handful of them keep looking over towards Mike. Because of how long he’s been talking to Steve, Will hopes, but he is a little afraid that it might be because of his lap-sitting stunt.

Chrissy is watching them with undisguised amusement, as she sips out of her solo cup and nods along to what Barb is saying. 

Several of the guys have set up a game of beer pong on Mike’s dining room table. Doug and Jeff play, while Erica watches on unamused. 

Gareth and Nancy are talking by the speakers, Steve halfway towards them. 

“Hey, Mike,” Will says, “what happened to the hippies?” 

Mike’s fingers brush against the back of Will’s hand, like he can’t decide whether to take it or not, but he follows Will’s lead and takes note of who’s missing. 

“Eddie’s not in here either,” Mike replies, breaking character again now that the two of them are alone. “Oh fuck, if Dustin grabbed a game master, then shit really must be going down.”

“What is this ritual, anyways?” 

“Rituals, technically,” Mike corrects, his teeth worrying at his bottom lip. “Um, basically the Tremere’s blood rituals are like spells in D&D, right? So Compel the Inanimate is a spell that grants temporary control over an inanimate object. Like, you could order a lock to unlock itself or a gun to eject its magazine. Little things. That one’s not too worrying. The other one, Land’s Sustenance? That one is tied to the physical location of a powerful nexus of supernatural earth energy. With it, a Blood Sorcerer can tap into the earth’s ley lines, creating a mystical bond between the caster and the targeted land. Um, basically it allows Dustin’s character to feed off the extra magical energy, making him stronger, but in return, the place becomes tainted with suffering. Anyone injured within its boundaries will take more damage than they usually would. But those are small rituals, usually. Relatively, at least. They just need blood from the caster, not anyone else. The fact that Damian accompanied them with an actual blood sacrifice means he’s gearing up for something bigger.”

The explanation rolls easily off Mike’s tongue, as if he has the entire rulebook memorized forwards and backwards. Will can picture him, curled up in his bedroom at night, with an oversized university sweatshirt on and a textbook-sized book about pretend vampire lore in his hands. 

“And those rituals usually go together?” Will questions.

“No.” The furrow is back between Mike’s brow. “Not unless they’re part of the… shit! I know what he’s up to. Oh, Dustin, you clever bastard.” 

Mike’s thoughts are running too quickly to catch and he doesn’t have the background knowledge of the game to leap to the same conclusions. “What? Mike, what does that mean?” 

“He’s trying to complete a Fisher King chain ritual,” Mike says, as if those words make any sense to Will. Seeing the confusion in the lines of Will’s face, Mike rewinds. “It builds on the effects of the other rituals and makes the Sorcerer who casts the spell truly become one with the land - meaning that they can perceive events across the domain and learn secrets from the land itself. In effect, they gain control over the Domain. He’s trying to steal Prince Stefan’s territory right out from underneath him. This is a bid for the Princedom.” 

“So if he’s trying to finish the ritual, he needs another blood sacrifice, right?”

Mike realizes the answer in the same moment Will does, and they say the name in unison. “Vickie.”

The only other human character at the party. 

“Okay,” Mike says, his voice low, “my apartment isn’t that big and my bedroom is off limits during the game, so they have to be in my study. If it comes to a fight, leave Dustin’s character to me, okay? He’s pretty powerful and you’re only mortal. I’ll deal with him. You just focus on getting Vickie to safety.” 

“Yeah,” Will agrees, the word coming out as a sigh as he imagines Mike defending him like one of the white knights he used to dream about. 

With the pulsing baseline of the club music accompanying them, Mike grabs his dice and then leads his way through his apartment. Will is close enough behind him that his toes touch the back of Mike’s heels more than once. They circle the leather couch, bypass the table of red solo cups, and skirt the kitchen entirely. Instead, Mike leads Will down a narrow hallway that he hadn’t noticed initially. It leads off the kitchen and to a trio of wooden doors. One is open, revealing a small bathroom. The door at the far end is shut completely, presumably Mike’s bedroom. 

Oh, if these were different circumstances, Will would love to ignore whatever Dustin is doing and just shove Mike into that bedroom so he could get him out of those ridiculous velvet jeans, but alas, Vickie’s life is in danger and that has to take precedence over Will’s burning need to get Mike’s mouth on his. 

He can worry about getting an invite into Mike’s bedroom after the game is over. 

The last door is cracked, and a thin sliver of yellow lamplight spills into the dark hallway. There’s the raised pitch of voices inside, though still muffled enough by the thump of the music that Will can’t actually make out what they’re saying. 

“Are you ready, my love?” Mike asks, and it’s in his Mikhail voice this time. 

My love. 

It’s the second time tonight that Mike has used a pet name for Will. ‘Baby’ had been one thing. Will’s been called that before, by guys at clubs who didn’t know his real name and even Carlton once or twice. No one has ever called Will ‘my love.’ And they certainly haven’t said the words like they meant them. 

Mike sounds like he means them. 

And, yeah, maybe it’s all just pretend and in-character, but Will’s pretty sure there are some things that you can’t fake. The lightning crackling in the hallway between them right now is definitely one of them. 

But he can’t question it. Not right now. So he just grins at Mike, teeth flashing white in the dark hallway. “Ready when you are.” 

“And you’ll-”

“Yes, I’ll stay behind you,” Will agrees, already knowing what Mike was going to ask him. “I’m ready to see my man in action.” 

Mike groans, a noise that is entirely too raw and unfiltered for their slightly public setting. “You’re killing me right now,” he tells Will, in his normal voice, deadly serious. “Seriously. If Dustin kicks my ass, I’m blaming you.” 

Will shrugs. “Fair enough.” 

Then that’s all the words they have time for, because Mike pushes the door to the study open. 

The room is almost innocuous in its normality, except for the odd collection of characters collected inside. Like Mike had said, it is a small study. The room is probably meant to be the apartment’s second bedroom, but instead it’s been turned into a nerd’s own personal haven. Posters and fan art from Elden Ring, Skyrim, and Baldur’s Gate cover one wall. There’s a sturdy bookshelf lined with rulebooks for D&D and other TTRPGs, as well as a collection of board games with titles that Will has always wanted to try - Catan, Slay the Spire, Sleeping Gods, Mysterium, Talisman, Arkham Horror. There’s also an elaborate PC gaming set-up, a customized computer and standing microphone and camera, like maybe Mike streams his games. The only thing that seems slightly out of place is an end table containing an actual honest-to-god typewriter of all things.     

“-eed you to roll Strength and Brawl,” Eddie is in the middle of saying. The words die in his throat as the door to the study clatters against the wall. He looks entirely too passive for the rest of the scene around him, crouching low to the ground to look over a pool of dice. He’s perched in the middle of a tense standoff between Dustin and Robin, a showdown that is only moments away from being resolved by a roll of the dice from the sounds of things. 

Vickie is pressed into the corner closest to the door, with Robin standing protectively in front of her. The redhead doesn’t look particularly frightened, despite the fact that her life is supposedly on the line, but Robin’s righteous anger looks real enough. 

Across from them, Dustin stands with his plastic knife raised to threaten the pair. 

“Hey, Mike,” Eddie greets cheerfully, “are you guys officially joining the scene?” 

Dustin and Robin are frozen, and Will realizes that they’ve effectively put the game on pause until they know if Mike’s interruption is intentional or accidental. 

“Yeah,” Mike says normally, before switching to his accent. “Damian, let them go.” 

The current dice roll is forgotten as Dustin swings the dagger around to point it towards Mike instead. He scowls at his friend. “Stay out of this, Camarilla lapdog. This is Tremere business.”

“The hell it is,” Mike spits. “Open violence within the walls of Elysium? This is a declaration of war, Usurper. Back down before you actually spill blood and perhaps Prince Stefan will let you live.” Mike bares his teeth, and then seems to remember something. He reaches into an inner pocket of his jacket, pulling out a pair of cheap, plastic Halloween fangs and sliding them into his mouth. With his red eyes flashing in the dim light of the room, the fangs actually manage to look a little intimidating, rather than just cheesy.  

Dustin rolls his eyes overdramatically. “The Prince doesn’t scare me. And neither do you, Diva.” 

As Dustin speaks, Mike responds by shifting farther into the room, pulling Will along behind him. 

He’s placing us between Dustin and Robin, Will realizes. Their bodies are forming a living barricade between Dustin and the girls. Mike’s stance is all too clear. He’s issuing a challenge to the Tremere Blood Sorcerer. If Dustin wants to get his hands on Vickie, he’s going to have to go through Mike.

“Eddie, I want to activate my Celerity discipline,” Mike says. The words come out a little muffled due to the combination of the fangs and his continued attempt at an accent. 

“Sure,” Eddie agrees easily. “That will raise your hunger level by a point, but you’ll gain supernatural quickness.” 

“Then I attack.” 

“Dustin, are you fighting back?”

“Hell yeah I am!” Dustin says, and all of the coldness is gone from his voice. Now, he just sounds excited. “Let’s see what you can do, Mikhail.” 

Eddie scoops up a handful of dice, counting them out and handing them back to Dustin. “Okay, so Mikhail, if you’re using your Celerity discipline to fuel your attack, go ahead and roll Dexterity and Brawl for me. Damian, you can give me Strength and Brawl.” 

“I’m activating my Blurred Momentum ability,” Mike adds, “so if Damian’s attack has less successes than my Celerity rating, he misses entirely.” 

“Okay then,” Eddie nods. “Then let’s fight, boys.” 

Mike and Dustin crouch down with Eddie, both of them preparing to roll their dice and looking deadly serious. It’s a little funny, the sight of all three boys in their elaborate vampire costumes crouching around the floor and rolling dice to determine the outcome of a superpower-fueled vampire battle. Will doesn’t laugh, though. He’s too busy fulfilling the mission that Mike had given him. 

He spins around to Robin and Vickie. Robin looks shellshocked at the sudden turn of events, and she’s slowly sliding her character sheet back into the front pocket of her cutoffs, as if she’s realized she’s not going to need to fight after all. Vickie looks like she’s trying to bite back a laugh at the sight of the boys.

“Wow,” she comments lightly, “who knew I’d end up with a bunch of boys fighting over me. I feel like I’m back in Marching Band.” 

“Shut up,” Robin shakes her head, and her sunglasses almost fall off. She reaches up to snatch at them before they can fall off entirely. “You’re very desirable, Vic.” 

“Yeah, watching you fight to defend my honor was cute,” Vickie fires back. 

Will melts a little at the sight of the two girls smiling at each other, but he reaches forward and shoves them both towards the door anyways. “Okay, enough sweet talk,” he says in a low voice, so he doesn’t interrupt Eddie’s ruling just a few feet away. “You guys need to get out of here, okay? Mike, I mean, um, Mikhail will deal with this. Just get back to safety and tell the Prince what’s going on. Mikhail might need backup.”

“Sure, sounds good,” Robin replies easily enough. “Come on, Vic, let’s get you out of here before you end up vampire chow.” 

She tugs Vickie along and then the two girls slip through the open doorway. Halfway into the hallway, though, Robin pauses and looks back towards Will. “Hey, new kid, try not to end up as vampire chow, yourself.”

“I won’t,” Will promises. 

“At least, not if you don’t want to be, anyways,” Robin tacks on, her eyes twinkling. “Okay, byeeeeee.” The word accompanies her down the hall as Vickie tugs her away, and it doesn’t cut off until Will closes the door. 

He presses his back to the firm wood, taking in the scene before him. 

Dustin is cackling with laughter as he counts out the numbers of successes he’s rolled. “Thank you, dice gods,” he crows. “That’s a hit against you, Mikhail. Even with your Blurred Momentum activated. Get fucked!” 

“Damnit,” Mike growls, as he pulls his character sheet and a pencil out of his pocket, scribbling something onto it. “That’s another point of hunger, too.” 

“Okay, so Damian, you have the advantage right now,” Eddie says. “You’ve managed to shove off Mikhail’s attack and send him sprawling to the ground.” As Eddie narrates, Mike acts the line out accordingly, dropping down to the ground. Eddie doesn’t pay him any attention. “What do you do next?”

Dustin whips his head around the room, and his eyes widen dramatically when he clocks the disappearance of Robin and Vickie. Then his eyes lock on Will’s and he narrows them in a challenge. 

“Well, Mikhail, it looks like you thought that you could get one over me by having your thrall get the Kook and her human toy to safety. Alas, one mortal is good as any other. Shall we see how red your blood runs, child?” 

Oh fuck. Dustin is kind of terrifying, now that he’s aiming that plastic dagger towards Will. 

Mike pushes himself up to his hands and knees, and he looks at Will. “Your character sheet, Will! You’re my thrall, you can access a single one of my powers! Activate Celerity and get out of here!” He sounds almost pleading, like he is genuinely upset that Will’s stupid character with no real backstory of his own might actually die. 

Will slips his fingers into his pocket and carefully unfolds the character sheet that Mike had so diligently prepared for him. He scans it over and finds that Mike is right. Carefully spelled out is a single special ability. Celerity, the increased speed and dexterity that might allow him to escape from Dustin and make it back to the rest of the party. He could find Nancy’s character, or Steve’s. Someone more powerful. Someone who could save Mikhail. 

If he does, though, there’s no guarantee that Mikhail will be alive by the time he gets back.

He’s pinned against the door, Dustin grinning wickedly at him, but he won’t leave Mike. Not even to save himself. 

“I activate Celerity,” Will tells Eddie. 

Mike slumps in relief, letting out a huff of air that Will just barely hears over the pounding of blood in his own ears. 

“And then I try to disarm Damian,” Will continues. 

Head snapping back up, betrayal etched on his features, Mike pins Will in place with his red gaze. “No! Will, he’s a Fifth Generation vampire, he’s too strong. Don’t do this!” 

Will can’t look at him. If he looks at him, he’ll give in and do what Mike wants. He can’t do that right now. 

“Are you sure?” Eddie asks. Will doesn’t know the older guy, well, at all, but even he can read the trepidation in his brown eyes. The game master rocks back on his heels and looks between Dustin and Will. “It’ll be a tough roll.”

“I’m doing it,” Will says. Firm. Leaving no room for argument. 

“Okay then,” Dustin shoves the dagger back into his belt and rubs his hands together eagerly. “You heard the man, let’s roll.”

Mike sits up, and he scoops up his collection of dice, offering them wordlessly to Will. 

Crouching down beside him, Will takes advantage of Dustin and Eddie’s momentary distraction over collecting the other set of dice to whisper, “It’ll be okay, Mike.” 

Mike grimaces at him. He sounds too serious and there’s no trace of Mikhail’s accent when he replies, “I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.” 

Will’s fingertips brush the pads of Mike’s palm as he collects the dice. He feels it like a static shock.  

“Wait,” Mike says suddenly, curling his fingers around Will’s own. “I’m going to help him. I won’t let him do it alone.” 

Eddie glances at Dustin, who just shrugs. “Sure,” Dustin nods, “I was distracted, I might not have noticed Mikhail taking another action.” 

“Okay, I’ll allow it,” Eddie nods. “What action are you taking?” 

Mike’s jaw works as he chews on the plastic of his fake fangs, and then he says “Unseen Strike.” 

Dustin gapes at him in shock. “When the fuck did you unlock that? And why don’t I know about it?” 

“Can’t trust the Tremere with my secrets, sorry man.” Despite his words, Mike doesn’t actually look very sorry at all. Especially not when it might give them just the advantage that they need to get the drop on Dustin. 

Will’s not too sure what Unseen Strike consists of, though he can guess. 

Eddie considers all of them evenly for a moment, bracing himself against a desk that holds Mike’s PC set-up. Neon lights pulse from the PC’s tower unit, alternating between blue and yellow. “Okay,” he says, “I want a three way contested roll. Will, you’ll be rolling Dexterity and Brawl. Dustin, you’ll be rolling Strength and Brawl. Same goes for you, Mike. Because of your Unseen Strike, if you win the contested roll, you’ll automatically deal extra damage. And you’re activating another blood ability, so that will be a point of Hunger, too.” 

“Great,” Mike bares his fake teeth wolfishly at Dustin. 

The next few seconds are filled with the rattling of plastic as they all count out the dice required for their rolls. Will is the only one left with a handful of completely black dice, since he’s technically still a mortal and doesn’t have to contest against the Hunger for blood that burns within Dustin and Mike’s characters. Dustin has two hunger dice. Mike has four. 

The red dice outnumber the black in Mike’s palm, and Will swallows at the sight. Something about the red dice makes him nervous. 

And then they roll.

The dice clatter against the hardwood floor of Mike’s study, revealing the same strange symbols as before. Eddie counts out the results for them, but Mike doesn’t look up from where his eyes are burning a hole into a single red dice that has landed with the symbol of a skull showing. 

“Dustin and Will, you guys tied. So both of you are locked into a battle for the dagger, grabbing onto it but not able to wrench it free from the other. Mike, what did you get?” 

“I got a Messy Critical,” Mike says, sounding like a man haunted. 

“What does that mean?” Will whispers. 

Mike turns his head to look at him, and he’s gone even paler than before. “It means I won, I got Dustin. But the combination of the Hunger and the violence is too much, the Beast is awake. I’m not in control of myself anymore.” 

“Oh fuck,” Dustin says, and he looks a little afraid for himself for the first time since the scene started. 

“Alright, let’s set the scene back up,” Eddie says. “Will, Dustin, you guys are in the middle of the room tusseling over the dagger.” 

Dustin takes his former position, pulling his plastic dagger free once more and raising it in front of himself. 

Will pushes himself up off the floor and stands in front of him. “What? I just grab onto it?” 

“Sure,” Dustin says easily. “Here, like this.” He reaches over and helps Will position his own hands around the grip of the dagger as well, until they both have a secure grip on it. “Yeah, that’s good,” Dustin says, friendly and amiable despite the fact that they’re trying to kill each other. 

“Now you, Mikhail,” Eddie instructs. “You disappear from your spot on the ground and reappear behind Damian in an attempt to subdue him.”

Mike’s mile long legs unfold and he rises from the ground to circle around and take his place behind Dustin. 

“Using your supernatural strength, you wrench Damian’s arm backwards, all of you fighting for control over the dagger. Mikhail, you manage to get a grip on the blade and pull it free from the other two, but as you do so, the blade catches on Will’s forearm and slashes through his fragile mortal skin. Will, you’re going to take two points of damage from that. At the scent of the fresh blood, Mikhail, your Hunger rears its ugly head and you feel the Beast rising up within you. Your vision goes red as you lose yourself in the attack against Damian with singleminded brutality.”

Will and Dustin both release their grips on the knife, letting Mike take it from them. While he repositions himself to attack Dustin, Will sneaks a glance at his character sheet. Two points taken away from his health won’t kill him, but, ouch, that hurt. He only has three points left. 

“With the power of the Beast controlling you,” Eddie continues to narrate, “Damian doesn’t stand a chance. You dig the dagger into his chest. The stab to the heart weakens him, although the blade won’t kill him. Then you reach forward and snap his neck. That won’t kill him either, but it will keep him down long enough for the Sheriff and Prince to deal with him.” 

Dustin groans in defeat and drops down to the ground, stretching out like a corpse in a horror movie and pretending to be unconscious, although he shoots Will a wink from the ground. 

Mike stands in the middle of the room, the plastic knife out to the side, and then he looks directly at Will. His face is almost impassive, red eye contacts reflecting the glowing neon light flashing from his PC. “Then what do I do?” He asks. 

Oh.

Will suddenly understands why Mike had sounded so worried about the Messy Critical. If he’s not in control of his actions, if the only things driving him are Hunger and instinct… then it might not matter that he saved Will from Dustin. He might not be able to save Will from himself. And Will’s character is still bleeding. 

He almost imagines he can hear the plink, plink, plink of blood dripping down his arm from the pretend knife wound. He doesn’t need to imagine the tortured twist of Mike’s lips. 

“Mikhail,” Will says, as quiet and slow as if he were trying to calm a frightened wild animal. “It’s me. You know me.” 

“Mikhail is called to the smell of the blood, driven only by the need to feed. Go ahead and give me a Willpower check.” 

Mike makes quick work of rolling the dice, thankfully the four red dice come up blank this time. No more Messy Criticals or Failures. 

“Three successes,” Mike says, and Will is certain that he sounds relieved. 

“Mikhail, you’re called by the smell of the Blood, and the Beast is pushing on you. It urges you to feed, to devour, to kill, as the Beast knows the only way it can ever be fully sated is to take a human life. But you push back against the urge, recognizing the mortal standing in front of you. What thread of humanity do you grasp onto to pull yourself back to your senses?”

“Will,” Mike says, and his name comes out on a ragged exhale. “I think about Will. About how much I care for him. He’s my partner. I would never harm him.” 

“Awe,” Dustin coos from down on the ground, peering up through cracked eyes.

“Shush,” Eddie scolds him. “You’re supposed to be unconscious. Okay, Mikhail, you see the mortal standing in front of you and you recognize the shape of him. The fall of his hair, the familiar color of his eyes. It cuts through the red haze of your thoughts and you force the Beast back down. You will not lose yourself further on this day.” 

Mike lets out a rough gasp and drops the dagger. It clatters loudly to the floor. Then he sprints across the stretch of the room to pull Will into his arms. 

It’s still part of the game, Will reminds himself, as he presses his nose into Mike’s neck and feels the other boy’s dark curls tickle his cheeks. It’s part of the game, but it doesn’t feel like it as Mike crushes their bodies together. The embrace is solid and steadying and over far too soon as Mike pulls back to sweep his gaze over Will as if he hasn’t seen him in years. The red contacts immediately catch and linger on Will’s forearm. 

“You’re bleeding,” Mike says, in Mikhail’s accent once more, as he presses gentle fingers to the skin of Will’s wrist. He lifts the arm and presses his lips together, as if he doesn’t want Will to see the fangs he still wears there. 

With his free hand, Will reaches up to run his fingers through Mike’s hair. His thumb brushes against the bony jut of Mike’s temple and he lets it linger there. “And you’re hungry.” 

“I’m fine,” Mike protests automatically. He leans down and presses his mouth to the fabric of Will’s jacket. Even through the layers, Will imagines he can almost feel the hot siren’s call of Mike’s mouth. 

Then Mike pulls away, “I drag my mouth along the shallow cut that the dagger left, not feeding from you, but sealing the wound.” 

“Thank you, my love,” Will says, the term of affection clumsier on his tongue than it had been on Mike’s, but something about it still seems right. 

“You’re safe, that’s all that matters,” Mike says, and then he tips their foreheads together. For a moment, they just stand there, breathing in each other’s air. 

The peace is broken when Eddie claps his hands, a cruel reminder to Will that they aren’t as alone as they feel. “And scene!” The game master declares. “Great job, you guys. I say we head back to the main group to join in the rest of the game. Dustin, you’ll have to stand trial before the Sheriff and the Prince, and I imagine there will be an inquiry into the other members of Clan Tremere as well, let’s go back and fill the people in on what happened. You know, dive into the second half of the game.” 

“Sounds good,” Dustin says cheerfully, stretching out like a cat on the floor.  

“Right,” Mike sounds slightly strangled as he pulls away from Will. His cheeks are bright pink. He isn’t quite meeting Will’s eye. “The game. Um, yeah, let’s get… back to it.” 

In a silence that is neither awkward nor comfortable, they make quick work of cleaning up Mike’s study. They collect the dice that have rolled under Mike’s desk, Eddie makes sure everyone has their character sheets, and Will tries not to get too distracted looking at the collection of Funko Pops that Mike has artfully arranged on shelves. 

“Is that Garrus?” Will asks, “From Mass Effect?” 

Mike rubs at the back of his neck. “Yeah.” 

“Funny, I would have pegged you as a Kaidan romancer.” Will keeps his tone light, teasing. 

Mike throws his hands out wide to the side. He’s finally speaking normally again, no longer slightly muffled by the plastic vampire fangs that he’s returned to his jacket pocket. “What?! Garrus is Shepard’s best friend. It’s obviously the superior relationship. They trust each other so much that they literally follow each other to hell and back. He’s the only original crew member to join up for the suicide mission in Mass Effect Two with, like, zero hesitation.” Mike’s  fully rambling now. “No Shepard-”

“Without Vakarian,” Will finishes the quote, and he smiles at Mike. “Yeah, I’m not arguing with you. Garrus is my favorite companion, too.” 

“Oh,” Mike looks mollified, and then he tilts his head to the side, considering Will seriously. 

Will waits for him to say something else, but Mike doesn’t. He just shakes his head and crouches down to pick up a pencil that one of them had dropped at some point. 

Then Eddie leads the way to the rest of the party. Mike falls into step beside Dustin, the two of them arguing about their various powers and abilities and the total luck of the dice rolls in tones that convey the conversation as well traveled territory. 

At the back of the group, Will just bites his lip to keep from smiling too wide.

This game that he and Mike are playing is starting to feel like it isn’t much of a game at all.

V         V

The rest of the night passes in a blur. Eddie and Steve guide the players through a few more scenes, but Mike and Will let other characters take the lead since they’ve kind of had their moment in the spotlight already. Nancy questions Erica and Gareth before the crowd of assembled vampires, making them prove their innocence. Neither of them seem to have any connection to Dustin’s scheme, so they manage to escape Nancy’s inquiry with their lives intact. Dustin isn’t so lucky. His character is dragged before Steve, who calls on Jeff to help administer the punishment of leaving Dustin’s character staked out in the sunlight come morning until the sun burns him to ashes. Dustin puts on a good show of delivering a final speech, cursing all of those who would dare to stand with the Prince and the Camarilla instead of seeking freedom with the Anarchs and making vague promises of power to any who would dare to help him escape. 

It’s all very dramatic and fun. 

Will watches it all, wide-eyed, with Mike’s arm draped casually around his shoulders. 

In the end, Steve orders to have Dustin “restrained” in Mike’s study, with Jeff standing guard. Then, once the rogue Tremere has been dealt with and the hand on the clock is ticking closer and closer to midnight, Steve claps his hands together. 

“Alright, Kindred,” he says, queuing up a new playlist that starts thumping through Mike’s speaker system. “Now that all of that unpleasantness is dealt with… let’s party!” 

“The game is almost over, now,” Mike whispers in explanation. “People will hang out for a little longer and then they’ll start to trickle out before it gets too late. We always wrap up with a less formal scene like this, let everyone destress after the events of the night, you know?” 

“Makes sense,” Will agrees. “After my attempted murder, I could certainly use a drink.” 

He feels more than sees Mike’s smile. “Got it.” 

Which is how they find themselves in the kitchen.

Will boosts himself onto the counter and sits, kicking his legs lightly back and forth. He watches Mike make his way around the tiny space. He pulls a carton of orange juice from the fridge, pouring a generous amount into two red solo cups. Then he adds a splash of vodka to each. His long fingers look good wrapped around the bottle as he returns it to its spot among a collection of a variety of liquors.

Accepting the cup that Mike offers him, Will knocks back a quick swallow of the screwdriver to stop himself from imagining what else Mike’s fingers would look good wrapped around.

Mike takes a sip of his own and then steps forward, positioning himself between Will’s knees and leaning into his space. “So,” he asks, and his breath smells like oranges, “what did you think of your first game?” 

Swallowing, Will cocks his head to the side. He opens his mouth to answer, but before he can, the click of heels on the tile floor of the kitchen interrupts them. 

“Mikhail,” Chrissy says in her fake Italian accent as she joins them. Her makeup is sweaty and smudged, dark mascara ringing her eyes, but her smile is as bright as it had been earlier. “Sounds like you had quite the hero moment tonight.”

Part of Will expects Mike to stiffen and jump away from him, but he doesn’t. He merely turns around to face Chrissy, bracing himself against the counter. The move puts his back almost flush with Will’s chest, so Will retaliates by leaning forward and draping himself over Mike. 

“I suppose,” Mike says, slipping easily back into his posh, British accent. “Someone had to stop Damian. I shudder to imagine the Domain under Tremere control.” 

Chrissy barks a laugh, and she moves to make herself a drink of her own. “In any case, this should earn Clan Toreador some points with Prince Stefan. Now that Tremere has embarrassed itself so completely, he’ll have no choice but to see that Clan Toreador are Ventrue’s closest allies.” 

“Hey,” Robin interjects as she and Vickie step into the kitchen, too. “Clan Malkavian is right here, you know. We’re just as loyal to the Camarilla as you Divas.” 

Mike’s shoulders shake with the silent laugh he tries to bite back, but Will feels it against his entire body. He sets his drink to the side and then wraps an arm around Mike, looping it across his chest and gripping the slick material of his leather jacket. It’s really too warm in the kitchen for their jackets now. Will feels flushed. Mike must be dying. 

“Sure you are,” Chrissy says, placatingly. The amused curl of her lip suggests that she very much does not agree. She’s just too polite to say it out loud. “So,” she turns back to Mike and Will and wiggles her eyebrows expectantly. “What happened with Damian? And not the official story that Stefan and Nat just fed us. I want the real story.” 

“Well he was trying to kill Vic,” Robin reaches up and adjusts the sunglasses that are on the verge of falling out of her hair entirely. “To complete some creepy blood ritual thing. And I’m only an Eleventh Generation vampire, so I was toast until Mikhail showed up.” 

“Yeah, it was so scary,” Vickie adds, though she sounds more sarcastic than anything else. Will is starting to pick up on the fact that she’s not particularly ‘into’ the game. 

“Then Mikhail squared off against Damian and went all rawr on him, flashing his fangs and shit,” Robin continues, on a roll now. “He distracted Damian while Will got me and Vic out. Um, that is your character name, right?”

“Yeah,” Will nods, “this time, anyways. I’ll actually think of something for next time.” 

Mike whips his head around to look at him, their faces so close together that their noses brush. Will goes a little cross-eyed. “Wait, next time?” He questions, breaking character. 

Will’s cheeks feel like they’re fever hot under the weight of Mike’s red contact lenses. For a moment neither of them blink. “Um, yeah, if that’s cool. This has been… fun.”  

“Yeah,” Mike nods so fast he almost knocks their foreheads together. “Yeah, that’s definitely cool. Um. Cool.” 

“Oh my god,” Chrissy says, “there’s two of them now.” 

“Leave them alone,” Robin scolds. “I think they’re cute.”

“Both of you shut up,” Mike grits out, tearing his gaze away from Will to frown at his friends, “I hate you.” 

“No you don’t,” Robin sing-songs as she pours a drink that she passes to Vickie. “You love us. You love us so much that you risked your precious character to save us. I don’t want to hear it, Baby Wheeler. You can’t deny it anymore.” 

Will leans back, hating to break his contact with Mike, but he actually needs the drink that Mike poured for him. He uses the red solo cup to hide his smile, letting the taste of orange juice and vodka splash across his tongue.

“Mikhail risked himself to stop a threat to the Camarilla,” Mike crosses his arms over his chest, frowning at Robin. “It was an in-character decision.” 

“Sure,” Robin agrees easily in a voice that says she absolutely does not believe him. “Wait,” she pauses and cocks her head like a dog listening to a high pitched sound only they can hear. “I love this song! Let’s dance!” 

Then she spins on her heel, grabbing onto Vickie and tugging her back out into the living room. 

“Well,” Chrissy asks, wiggling her eyebrows at them in invitation, “you heard the girl. Let’s dance.” 

“Do we have to?” Mike groans, looking like he has no intention of leaving the kitchen at all. 

At least, not until Will puts his lips close to his ear and whispers, “Can we? Please?” 

“Fuck,” Mike reaches up and drags a hand down his face. “Fine. Fine, yes, we can dance.” 

Chrissy lets out a whoop of excitement, downing the rest of her drink before tossing the solo cup carelessly into Mike’s sink. “Let’s go, boys!” She enthuses, her eyes sparkling with amusement. 

Stepping away from the counter, Mike turns and offers Will a hand to help him jump down. His palm feels warm against Will’s own, slightly rough with callouses and a little damp with the lingering condensation from the orange juice carton. His fingers slot perfectly between Will’s, though. It feels easy. Right. Will doesn’t let go, even after his feet are planted on the ground. 

The music is louder in the living room, the moody atmospheric playlist from earlier replaced with upbeat club EDM. It reverberates through the house in a way that seems to promise Will that he will have a migraine in the morning, but he can’t bring himself to care. Mike strips off his leather jacket, separating their hands long enough for him to toss it onto the couch before he’s reaching for Will again. 

Robin and Vickie are already laughing and spinning together in a version of a slow dance that absolutely does not match the tempo of the song playing. For the first time all night, Vickie looks like she’s actually having fun. Erica, Doug, and Gareth are jumping around scream-singing the lyrics in each other’s faces. Chrissy flounces over to Eddie, grabs his arm and wraps it around herself, grinding against him in a way that makes Will flush and immediately look away.

He snaps his head to the side and finds himself looking right at Mike. 

Without letting go of their combined grip, Mike bows and offers Will his other hand. “Can I have this dance, my love?” He asks, slipping easily into Mikhail’s accent once more. 

“Always,” Will returns, and he can’t stop his grin at the bashful way that Mike drops his gaze even as he tugs Will into his arm. 

It’s clear that Mike is no dancer. His movements are stiff and unnatural, a little flailing, like he doesn’t know what to do with his long limbs. 

Most of Will’s experience with dancing consists of hot, sweaty grinding on club floors or twerking with Max at fraternity parties, but he doesn’t mind Mike’s inexperience. There’s something wholesome about the way that he’s fumbling through the motions. 

Will spins around in his arms, leaving them pressed chest to chest. The white shirt that Mike is wearing has slipped off his shoulder slightly, leaving the pale skin of his collarbone exposed. He has a freckle there that Will wants to press his lips to. With the flush high on his cheeks, the salty sweat on his skin, his curls going every which direction as he nods his head to the beat, he looks thoroughly debauched. Will wants to be the reason he looks like that.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Robin lift Vickie’s wrist to her mouth, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the bare skin there. 

He nods towards it. “What are they doing?” 

Mike follows his gaze. “Feeding,” he says, still in character. “Victoria is Rose’s bonded human thrall. She’s offering her blood for Rose to feed upon, to sustain her through the day while we sleep.”

Will watches the display for a moment. There’s something sensual about it. Vickie has her head thrown backwards, and sweat plasters her short, red curls to her neck. Robin has one hand curled around Vickie’s wrist, her other  reaches up to cup the side of Vickie’s face in a moment of tenderness. 

“We call it the Kiss,” Mike whispers, and Will doesn’t think that he’s imagining the rough drag of the words. “Feeding from a living victim. It’s the most intimate thing a vampire can experience, one of the few things that can cut through the emotional distance from mortals we gain when we are Turned. And it doesn’t hurt the mortal, either. It’s kind of like… a high. Pleasure so great it can be addicting.” 

The slow drawl of Mike’s words in that goddamn British accent sends a jolt of heat through Will’s body and his dick twitches in response. He can’t stop himself from pressing closer and shifting until he can brush his fingertips along the dark circles beneath Mike’s eyes. 

“I’m your bonded human thrall,” Will reminds him, “I could do that for you.” 

He’s not sure either of them are entirely in character anymore. 

The noise that Mike makes, partially muffled into Will’s hair, can only be described as a groan. “I’m so hungry,” Mike whispers, “how do you know I’ll stop? I could kill you.”

He has a feeling Mike is really asking something else. Permission of a different kind.

“You won’t,” Will says it like a vow, like a fact. Tries to imbue his answer into the make-believe words. “I trust you.” 

Then, in the red light of the party, with the steady thump of club music muffling the sounds they make before any of Mike’s friends can overhear, Mike shifts to raise Will’s wrist to his mouth. He pushes the fabric of Will’s jacket and shirt away, exposing his bare skin. His breath is warm, moist, and it makes goosebumps prickle the back of Will’s neck. “Where do you want me?” Mike asks, and he sounds wrecked already. “Here?” 

“Yes.” 

With permission granted, Mike’s lips settle onto Will’s pulse point. 

Part of Will wants to close his eyes, but the other part of him wants to watch. So he does. He watches as Mike Wheeler presses a series of hot, open-mouthed kisses to the tanned expanse of his forearm. Every smooth drag of Mike’s mouth feels like it leaves lightning crackling beneath Will’s skin. For a moment, Mike just lingers there, like he’s trying to memorize the taste of the salt on Will’s skin. Then he straightens. 

The colored contacts Mike wears prevents Will from seeing how wide Mike’s pupils are blown, but he can imagine. 

“Where else?” Mike asks. Pleads. He leans in and tucks his nose to the gap between Will’s ear and neck. His lips just barely brush the pulse point there. He’s sure that Mike must be able to feel the way his blood is pumping beneath his skin. “Here?” 

“Please,” Will says, the word punching out of him on a sigh. 

It isn’t a stretch of his imagination at all to pretend that he’s experiencing the hottest, most addicting feeling in his life as Mike lowers his mouth the rest of the way and presses a soft, feather-light kiss to the hinge of Will’s jaw. 

He’s not sure when, but at some point, Mike’s hands have settled against his waist. His long fingers have slipped beneath Will’s shirt. They brush rhythmically over the jut of Will’s hipbones, almost absentmindedly, leaving trails of fire in their wake. His own hands have fisted into the smooth, silk fabric of Mike’s shirt, pulling him closer and crushing their bodies together. 

He can smell the lingering hint of Irish Springs soap on Mike’s skin and a hint of husky sandalwood that clings to his hair, either from his shampoo or some other product. Beneath it all is just the scent of Mike, sweaty and human and warm. Familiar in a way that he has no right to be. 

The soft, slightly-chapped pads of Mike’s lips press themselves to his skin. Soft, fluttering kisses that are there and gone again, never really lingering where Will wants them but achingly gentle. Like he’s someone who deserves tenderness. Like Mike is someone who is capable of taking care of him.

It makes his heart ache. 

“Mike,” he sighs. All pretenses of the game are gone now. He just wants Mike closer. He wants those warm hands everywhere, wants to capture those chapped lips with his own. 

He wants to know what it feels like when they aren’t pretending to be other people. 

One hand uncurls from Mike’s shirt and slips around to the back of his neck. His fingers tangle into the damp curls there, and he tightens his grip. He feels Mike’s answering whine as it glides across his spit-slick skin. 

“More,” he somehow finds it in himself to say, “I need more.”

Like the words have released Mike from holding himself back, his hands tighten their grip and then he’s pushing Will backwards. His mouth never leaves Will’s neck as they stumble back a few steps, until Will’s spine connects almost painfully with the wall. He doesn’t care. 

The new support helps to keep him upright when Mike seals his lips over the pulse-point on Will’s neck and sucks. 

A wave of pleasure jolts through Will’s body as he arcs backwards, tipping his head to give Mike better access. 

For a moment all he can feel is the wet heat of Mike’s mouth. His lips roam up and down the expanse of Will’s neck, firmer now than before. There’s the sharp bite of his teeth, a burst of pain that’s just on the right side of pleasure. Then Mike’s tongue is dragging across the mark, soothing it before the burn can become properly distracting. 

Will’s skin is humming with how overstimulated he feels, and if Mike does that again, they’re going to have a problem. Will can feel his dick twitching in his pants, and it takes every aspect of willpower that he has to keep himself from doing something that would be really embarrassing with a crowd of people at Mike’s back. A crowd of people that Will needs gone immediately so that he can have Mike to himself. 

From the half-hard bulge in Mike’s own jeans, pressed against his thigh, Will knows that they’re having similar thoughts. 

“Wait,” the word feels like it takes far too much energy to dredge up from the depths of Will’s brain. He loosens his grip on Mike’s shirt, splaying his fingers flat. “Mike.” 

“Hm,” Mike hums against his skin, but he goes absolutely still. He doesn’t put his mouth on Will again, just freezes with his lips a few inches above the hickey he just left. His breath is ragged as he pants into Will’s ear. 

“We need to,” Will starts, making a frustrated noise when words fail to rise in his hormone-muddled mind. “Company,” he finally settles on. “You still have company.” 

“Right,” Mike agrees, though he doesn’t sound bothered by the fact. “They can watch.” 

“Mike,” Will scolds. 

He feels Mike slowly collect himself as he pulls away, not far, but leaving enough space between their bodies for both of them to calm down. His chest rises and falls beneath Will’s fingers. His gaze flickers rapidly over Will’s appearance. 

If Will thought Mike had looked debauched before, he doesn’t even want to imagine what he looks like himself right now. 

“Sorry,” Mike says, still slightly strangled and out of breath. Carefully, he frees his right hand and tucks a piece of loose hair back behind Will’s ear. Achingly gentle. “Just… I’ve wanted to do that since… forever, maybe.” 

It’s Will’s turn to lose his breath now. The words stun him more than Mike’s kiss had. He’s lucky the wall is still holding him upright. “Define forever.” 

He isn’t stupid. 

He knows that Mike likes him. 

He’s known that Mike likes him since the moment Mike had tugged out his corded earphones, put a hand on his own chest, and said “Me?” like he thought the assumption couldn’t possibly be true. 

Will thinks about Jane calling Mike ‘the boy who stares at you’ and Max casually mentioning that Mike had been in a class they took freshman year. Which, if Jane is right, and she usually is, means that Mike has probably liked him for three fucking years. 

He just needs to hear it. 

Mike’s left thumb sweeps across his hipbone, more intentional this time. Then he slides his fingers out from underneath Will’s shirt. He doesn’t go far, though. He just hooks them through the belt loops on Will’s jeans, keeping them tethered. He’s bright red again now, flushed from both the heat and embarrassment, but he’s honest and his voice doesn’t shake when he says “Since you sat three rows in front of me in Professor Clarke’s class. You know, the freshman intro one about Pompeii.” 

“How have I gone three years without knowing you?” Will asks. 

“I was kind of scared of you, a little. Like, you’re so far out of my league it’s insane.” Mike smiles bashfully at him, and it makes him look younger. It softens his features, makes the hard contrast of his red contacts seem startlingly out of place. 

Will kind of wishes he wasn’t wearing them. If Mike had on his old man wire-frame glasses from yesterday, Will would be able to read the expression in his dark eyes right now. 

“I’m not out of anyone’s league,” Will immediately protests. Sure, maybe he’s filled out a bit since high school. Grown into his looks and grown out the god-awful bowl cut his mother had cursed him with for the first sixteen years of his life. He gets invited to frat parties and out for drinks with the other guys on the track team and he finds it easier to feel like he belongs than he used to. 

But he’s still just Will Byers.

Mike stares at Will like he’s just stuck a piece of tinfoil on his head and has started spouting about how it protects from mind control powers. “Hm,” Mike hums, unconvinced. “I definitely didn’t think you could ever like me. Not in a million years.” 

“Well, I do,” Will says, and he takes great pleasure in watching Mike flush and duck his head to hide it behind his curls. “Like you.” 

“Yeah, I’m getting that,” Mike says, but he still sounds a little shocked about it. Like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. He brushes his fingers across the bruise that Will can already feel forming on his neck, his touch feather soft. “Jesus, I mauled you. Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-” 

Will cuts him off. “Mike, I asked you to.” 

The expression on Mike’s face is utter, adorable confusion. He furrows his brows and purses his lips and wrinkles his nose. Like he really cannot fathom that Will is equally into him. 

That’s something that Will is going to need to rectify, he decides. And there’s one easy way to take care of that. 

So before Mike can say anything else stupid, Will tilts his head. “Can I stay over tonight?” 

All of Mike’s breath escapes him in a shocked exhale, and it sounds a little like he chokes on his own tongue in his rush to answer. “Um, yeah,” he says, as eloquent as ever. “Obviously. Always. Um, that was too much. Fuck. I just mean… yes. Yes, you can stay over. I think I’ll actually die if you do.” 

Will laughs and leans forward to press his lips to the apple of Mike’s cheek, determined to put him out of his misery. “Okay,” he says, like it’s easy, “then I’ll stay.”  

V         V

So he does.

It doesn’t take long for the others to begin to leave, like Mike had promised. Dustin and Steve are the first pair to go, because Dustin keeps whining about how there’s nothing for him to do since his character is imprisoned and Steve is his ride, apparently. Eventually Steve throws his hands up in defeat and agrees to go grab his keys while Dustin says his goodbyes. Will had kind of thought he might be mad at Mike for getting his character killed, but there doesn’t seem to be any bad blood as Dustin throws his arms around Mike and then claps him on the shoulder. He even offers Will a high five before he leaves, and tells him that he ‘did alright, for a newbie.’ Erica ends up tagging along with them, and she and Dustin spend the entire walk towards the front door loudly pestering Steve into taking them for slurpees at the 7-Eleven down the street. The music cuts off as Steve’s phone automatically disconnects from Mike’s speakers, and a few seconds later there’s the sound of a sports car roaring out of the driveway. 

Robin and Vickie leave next. Will’s not even sure they say goodbye at all, they’re just there on the makeshift dance floor one minute and then gone the next. From the complete lack of concern over this social slight from their friends, Will gathers that this must be a relatively common experience. 

Then it’s Nancy and Barb. With her girlfriend waiting for her by the door, Nancy swings by to hug her little brother goodbye, a fact that Mike looks totally embarrassed by and Will subsequently finds viciously endearing. When she pulls away, she wiggles her eyebrows and tells Mike to have fun tonight in a voice just loud enough for Will to overhear, which makes Mike burn bright red and lean in to whisper furiously at her. Will bites his lip to keep from laughing and waves a cheerful goodbye as Mike literally shoves his sister out the door. 

The guys, Gareth, Doug, and Jeff, linger to play one last game of beer pong with Eddie. Will sits on the back of the couch with Chrissy, sipping his screwdriver and cheering alongside her whenever Eddie and Gareth get a point against Doug and Jeff. Mike stands nearby too. He’s shrugged his leather jacket back on and he’s tapping his foot on the ground while looking at an imaginary watch, as if that will help get his friends out of his house any faster. After the game, the whole group of them decide to head upstairs to Chrissy and Eddie’s place to continue the party. 

While Chrissy bids Mike farewell in the doorway, Will grabs a black grocery bag someone had left in the kitchen and wanders the apartment, tossing away the solo cups that Mike’s friends have left scattered and abandoned around the place. It’s not the disgusting remnants of a frat party, just the sign of a group of friends who were slightly too tipsy to remember to pick up after themselves. It’s okay, Will doesn’t mind.

There’s something almost domestic about wandering around Mike’s apartment, cleaning it up. 

He’s finished before Chrissy’s even left, and he ties off the bag and tosses it onto the floor of the kitchen before wandering slowly back out to the living room. Then he tucks his hands into his pockets and waits. 

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Chrissy is saying, as she reaches up to smack a kiss to the side of Mike’s face. Her lips twitch into a smirk as she pulls away, and her gaze lingers on Will long enough for him to start to be self-conscious about the mark on his neck that he knows his own jacket isn’t quite managing to hide. “Bye, boys,” and then she spins to follow after Eddie and the others, who are already halfway up the stairs. 

“Bye,” Mike calls back, and then he eases the door closed. 

His hand lingers on the knob for a moment, and then he turns to look at Will. Will, who’s still standing in the middle of the living room with his hands in his pockets, staring right back at him.

They’re alone. 

And Will’s not going anywhere. 

The remaining hours of the night stretch ahead before them, glorious and completely void of anywhere else either of them need to be. Mike’s friends are gone. There are no classes in the morning. No parents waiting with expected curfews. 

Just complete and utter freedom. 

“Jesus Christ, I thought they’d never leave,” Mike says, and then he closes the lingering space between them with two of his long strides. 

Like a scene from a movie, both of Mike’s hands come up to frame Will’s face. His grip is sturdy as he holds Will in place, even as Will feels his body swaying instinctively closer, caught in Mike’s gravity like he’s a moon in orbit. Then Mike’s lips crash down onto his own. 

At first there’s just the dry press of Mike’s chapped lips, but then he sighs against Will’s mouth and Will takes the opportunity to tilt his head to the side, turning the chaste kiss into something warmer and wetter.

Mike’s hot breath wafts across his face, and his tongue tastes like oranges when Will licks into his mouth.

It’s immediately obvious that Mike doesn’t have much experience. His tongue drags across Will’s own hesitantly, clumsily mirroring Will’s movements. What he lacks in experience, though, Mike more than makes up for with enthusiasm. His hands slide down to Will’s shoulders, around his neck, slipping down to trace the tops of his ribs, the flat stretch of his stomach. Like he is trying to memorize the shape of Will beneath his hands. 

Will is not a moon anymore. He’s a meteor, a white hot streak of fire across the night sky. He’s entered Mike’s atmosphere and now his body burns everywhere that Mike touches him. It’s too much and not enough, all at the same time.

“Fuck,” Mike peels away with a breathless laugh, his forehead resting against Will’s. His chest is heaving, brushing against Will’s own with each ragged inhale. “You’re so hot. I should have done that the second you walked through the door. I literally feel like you put a spell on me. You’re, like, a sorcerer or something.”

A giggle slips out before Will can stop it, and he touches his fingers to the neckline of Mike’s shirt. “I’m not the one wearing this,” he teases, “you’re the sexiest vampire I’ve ever seen.” 

It’s not even an exaggeration. The white shirt is damp with sweat, making it go slightly sheer. Will can make out tantalizing hints of Mike’s skin beneath the fabric, the dusky pink peaks of his nipples, a scattering of freckles here and there, the sharp jut of his collarbones. The laces on his velvet jeans have gone loose, and Will kind of wants to untie them the rest of the way with his teeth. His sweaty curls brush the collar of his leather jacket. He looks like an undead James Dean, except the hot flush across his skin tells Will that he is very much alive.  

Mike’s brows climb all the way up his forehead, his mouth dropping open in an ‘o’ of surprise. “I should have known you’d have a vampire fetish,” he says, sounding slightly shocked by his own words. He brushes his fingers across the mark he made on Will’s neck, pressing just enough for the freshness of the bruise to send a pulse of pleasure through Will’s body. “If you wanted me to bite you again, you could have just asked.”

Reaching up to place his thumb on the meat of Mike’s bottom lip, Will pulls it down just enough to pretend to be studying Mike’s teeth. “Hm,” he cocks his head to the side, “I don’t see any fangs here.” 

Mike’s lips twitch in amusement, and Will feels it beneath his thumb. If he shifts just a little bit, he could invite Mike to suck his finger into his mouth, and the visual sends most of the blood that’s left in Will’s body rushing south. They’ve barely kissed and he’s already half hard, his skin buzzing enough that he’s afraid he might actually lose his mind if Mike doesn’t put his hands on him soon. 

Jesus, Will’s dry spell was worse than he thought. He legitimately feels like he’ll only last thirty seconds once Mike touches him, as eager and nervous as a virgin. 

“Well… I can fix that,” Mike says, and Will struggles to pick up the threads of their conversations. 

Right. Vampire jokes. Fangs. 

Wait… fangs?

Reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket, Mike produces the same cheap, plastic Halloween vampire teeth that he had been wearing earlier. 

And Will can’t help it, he bursts into bright peals of laughter. “And what are you going to do with those?” 

“Hm,” Mike pretends to consider, not looking embarrassed despite Will’s laughter, like he can sense that it’s with him rather than at him. Then he slides the plastic fangs into his mouth, covering his teeth. The bulk of them causes his lips to bulge around the hard plastic in a way that doesn’t look entirely comfortable. It’s not exactly sexy, either, just nerdy and a little silly, but Will has been cursed to find everything that Mike does right now hot as fuck. “What would you like me to do with them, Sorcerer?” The words come out thick and slightly slurred. 

Before Will can answer, Mike leans in and presses the plastic of the fangs to the side of Will’s cheek. He can feel the scrape of the plastic against his skin as Mike drags them lower, following the curve of his neck. His breath puffs across Will’s skin and then he opens his mouth, pressing the plastic fangs lightly into the meat of Will’s shoulder in the pantomime of a bite.

It doesn’t hurt, just tickles, and Will can’t stop another giggle from slipping out.

“Oh, you think this is funny, huh?” Mike asks. Then he drops to his knees in front of Will and Will stops laughing. The giggle dies in his throat at the sight of Mike kneeling on the hardwood floor in the middle of his own living room. Mike’s tall enough that his face is level with Will’s stomach and he leans forward to press the fangs to the patch of Will’s shirt that’s directly above his belly button. 

No, there’s nothing funny about this anymore, Will thinks. His fingers tangle into Mike’s hair without conscious thought. The sight of Mike kneeling before him like this, close enough to Will’s crotch that there’s no way he’s oblivious to the tent in Will’s increasingly uncomfortable jeans, feels almost holy. 

For a moment, Mike just lingers there, mouthing at the fabric of Will’s red shirt. Then he tips his head back, his eyes are half-lidded, which makes the red contacts seem a little more human. “Is this okay?” He asks, and Will kind of loves him for it. 

Even though he had asked to stay over, even though they both knew what was implied within the request, even though Mike’s face is literally inches away from his erection, Will knows if he asked Mike to stop right now that he would. 

He doesn’t want to use Will for his body. This isn’t just a quick, sloppy handjob in the club bathroom. Or two people perfunctionally getting each other off in the bedroom at a frat party. It isn’t even the mediocre, scheduled sex that Will and Carlton had filled their dorm room nights with when they ran out of things to talk about. 

If Will stopped them right now and told Mike that all he wanted to do tonight was lounge together on Mike’s couch and play Mario Kart, he know Mike would be okay with that. 

So yes. He’s more than okay with what Mike’s doing right now. He presses down on Mike’s head in wordless encouragement, a whine dragging itself from the back of his throat. 

Then, taking the increased pressure as the agreement that it is, Mike sinks down further and presses his hot, open mouth to the front of Will’s jeans. 

It’s almost stupid how the sensation makes Will tip his head back, his right fingers tightening their grip on Mike’s curls while his left arm reaches behind him wildly to grab onto the arm of the couch, bracing himself upright. He can’t actually feel the heat of Mike’s breath on his bare skin, not how he wants to. Not with two layers of fabric, his jeans and his boxers, between them. But he can feel the increased pressure on his head as the plastic fangs press into the front of his jeans. 

“Mike,” Will sighs, the word punched out of him on a long thread of air that turns to a strangled moan as Mike opens his mouth wider and drags the edge of the plastic fangs over the length of him. 

Peeling away just far enough that he can talk, Mike shifts so that his hands are resting on Will’s hips. Holding him in place against the soft edge of the couch. His long fingers slip beneath Will’s shirt, skating along his bare skin. “Yeah, baby?” 

The pet name, no pretense behind it this time, has Will groaning. “Feels good.” 

Mike smiles at him around the fake fangs, which really results mostly in his eyes crinkling. He has crow’s feet, Will realizes, which makes him ache with fondness for some reason. Then Mike resumes his ministrations. 

He doesn’t unbutton Will’s jeans, just presses hot, open-mouthed kisses up and down the bulge of Will’s pants. The increased pressure from the plastic fangs scrapes along the thick fabric of the jeans, and the friction has Will making a series of noises that he would be embarrassed about if he was capable of conscious thought. Soft, dragging whines that he’s never heard himself make before. 

When the sensation gets to be too much, when Will is desperate to give as good as he’s getting, he grabs onto Mike’s elbows and hauls him back up to his feet. 

His legs are quivering, and if Mike keeps going, Will doesn’t think he’s going to be able to keep himself standing upright. 

“How was that?” Mike has the audacity to ask, as he spits the vampire fangs into his open palm. He wipes them dry on his own pants and then shoves them unceremoniously into his jean pocket. 

Will wrinkles his nose at the sight, despite his burning desire to get Mike’s mouth on his own again. “I give you points for creativity,” he allows.

“Oh?” 

“Yeah,” Will says, and then he gets his hands on Mike’s waist. He pushes, gently, until Mike takes a few shuffling steps backwards. Will follows. There’s a thud as Mike’s back collides with the wooden door to his apartment. “Can I touch you?” 

The words have Mike arching his back like a cat, his hips pressing forward into Will’s own even while his head tips forward and lands on Will’s shoulder. “Please,” he says. His mouth seeks out the junction of Will’s neck, pressing a series of wet kisses there. 

Will lets his fingers skate along the waist of Mike’s jeans and then trail lower. Like he had thought when he first saw them, the strange velvet-like material of the jeans is soft to the touch. In obvious contrast, the shape of Mike is already hard and aching, so Will presses his palm exactly where Mike wants him. 

“Fuck,” Mike growls, low and near his ear. His entire body shudders at Will’s touch, and his teeth nip at Will’s skin in response. It’s hard enough that Will knows there will be another mark to join the first one on the pale stretch of his neck, and high enough up this time that there will be no hope of covering it up. He doesn’t care.

Not as he sets to work memorizing the shape of Mike through his jeans. Mike’s tall and slender, so it’s not exactly a surprise that he feels long and skinny beneath Will’s hand, perfectly proportioned for his body. Both of them are hard enough now that the jeans they wear are more painful than anything else, but Will doesn’t want to rush. 

They have all night. 

So instead of reaching his hand into Mike’s pants and granting him the relief he knows the other boy is desperate for, Will moves his hand out of the way and steps even closer. He grabs Mike’s hips, pressing him against the door as if he’s pinning him in place. Mike’s own hands are tangled in the lapels of Will’s jacket, crushing them closer together. 

Will shifts, lining them up, and then he rocks his hips into Mike’s. 

“Argh,” Mike lets out a garbled sound that is muffled against Will’s neck, his hot breath on the shell of Will’s ear. All Will can hear is the pound of his own pulse and Mike’s strangled attempt to drag air into his lungs.

The sensation sends white-hot shooting stars across Will’s vision, but if Will is a meteor then Mike is going supernova. 

The other boy’s body wracks and shudders against Will’s own. He can feel Mike’s dick twitching and pulsing, even through both layers of their jeans, and Mike’s given up all pretense of kissing at Will’s neck. Now he’s just panting against Will’s skin, his mouth open. A series of rough, primal moans are stringing out of Mike, and Will helps them along by rocking his hips into Mike’s again. This time, Mike bites out something that might be Will’s name, before it’s swallowed by another, drawn-out groan. 

Will’s fingers, still toying at the hemline of Mike’s jeans, slip lower again. The patch of velvet at the front of Mike’s crotch is wet and warm. 

He bites his lip. He doesn’t want Mike to think he’s laughing at him. 

“Did you just-”

“Shut up,” Mike groans, and he presses his face harder into the side of Will’s neck. His cheeks are fever hot, Will can feel the warmth emanating from them. His weight is pressing down on Will, too, like his legs are too shaky to hold himself up. “This is so embarrassing.” 

“No it isn’t,” Will immediately protests. Maybe it would be, if Will were a different kind of person, but he’s not. He means what he says. Will is still so hopelessly charmed by Mike that he finds it endearing, this knowledge that Mike was so desperate to have him that Will didn’t even have to touch him in order to have him cumming in his pants. It makes Will feel kind of powerful. 

Maybe he is a sorcerer after all. 

“It is. It’s like I’m fourteen again. I should be able to last longer than thirty seconds.” 

“Well,” Will slides the pads of his fingers along a strip of bare skin that’s exposed from the way that Mike’s white shirt has rucked up on one side. He turns his hand, brushing the cold metal of the rings he wears through the patch of dark hair that he finds beneath Mike’s belly button. Mike’s entire body shivers in response, still overstimulated from his orgasm. He can feel Mike’s dick against his leg. A moment ago it had been starting to soften. Now it stirs with interest, and Will knows that Mike is worked up enough that his… premature response doesn’t have to mean the end of their night. 

Plus, Will’s still hard himself, and as hot as it is to make out with Mike in his vampire costume with his lace-up pants and his red contacts and his fucking fangs, Will doesn’t actually want his first time with Mike to be a rushed fuck against the wall while they’re still wearing their costumes. He wants to take his time. 

He wants them both to be themselves. Ordinary and normal and, yes, maybe a little dorky. 

“We could try again,” Will offers. 

Mike jerks his head up so fast that he almost knocks their skulls together, and he studies Will very intently. Like he can’t believe that Will still wants to stay. He’s still flushed. His curls are sort of flattened on one side now. His lips are red and kiss-swollen. “Really?” 

He still sounds skeptical, so Will shifts to grab the back of Mike’s neck and pull him in for a soft, lingering kiss. He lets his mouth suck Mike’s bottom lip between his own, but he doesn’t do anything to escalate the kiss further. Instead, he pulls back and leaves their foreheads pressed together. He’s close enough now that he can see the freckles dotted across the bridge of Mike’s nose, even in the dim red lighting. There are entire constellations of them. 

“Yes,” Will says, “but not like this.” With his other hand, he tugs at the front of Mike’s shirt. “Not as characters.” Then he leans in, so he can breathe his next words directly into Mike’s ear. “I don’t want to fuck Mikhail. I want to spend the night with you, Mike.” 

Mike’s red-contact disguised eyes flicker back and forth between Will’s own, and then he presses forward to drag his lips across Will’s own in a chaste kiss. He still tastes like oranges. 

“Yeah,” Mike says, when he pulls away. He still sounds like he can’t believe his luck, like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, but his fingers curl even tighter into the fabric of Will’s jacket. Like the sensation of grounding Will in place in front of him might finally be enough to convince him that this is actually real. “That sounds really, really, really good.” He punctuates each ‘really’ with a kiss to the tip of Will’s nose. 

It’s, maybe, Will’s favorite part of the night so far.

Will touches the crinkles by the side of Mike’s eyes, just because he can. Mike smiles in response and the crow’s feet deepen beneath Will’s fingertip. 

“Where’s your bedroom, Mike?”

V         V

For a moment, the heated exchange in the living room is replaced with an intimate domesticity that startles Will with how normal it is. Mike takes his hand, like he had done at the party, but also different because it isn’t part of a show anymore, and he walks Will down the hallway to the closed door that had been marked as off-limits earlier. He turns on the light and lets Will step inside, says nothing as Will spins in a slow circle and takes in all of the elements of the room that are just so Mike.

He has another bookshelf in this room, although it’s covered not with books or games but with tiny, badly painted model armies for Warhammer 40k. There’s a milk crate full of records and an honest to god record player. Mike has vintage Marvel posters on his wall, mostly Spider-Man, and there’s a shelf containing a collection of what can only be described as action figures. There’s a blue plaque mounted to the wall, a customized mock YouTube play button that says “presented to PaladinPlays for passing 5,000 subscribers.” Will had clocked the microphone and camera earlier, but this finally drives it home that somewhere on the internet, YouTube and Twitch being the most likely places, there are probably dozens of video clips of Mike playing video games. He needs to watch them all immediately. 

Mike follows his gaze to the plaque and rubs the back of his neck self-consciously. “Um, my little sister got me that,” he explains. “It’s not a real one or anything. It’s just from Etsy, I think.” 

“Five thousand subscribers is a lot of people, Mike,” Will comments. And then, because he wants Mike to know that he’s serious, he continues. “That’s really cool.”

“I don’t know about cool. I mostly just stream my solo Baldur’s Gate run or World of Warcraft with Dustin, sometimes. I think my channel is about as nerdy as you can get.”

“And as we have previously established,” Will challenges, “nerdy stuff is cool.” 

“It’s still kind of blowing my mind that you like all this stuff,” Mike says, as he moves to his dresser and starts pulling the drawers open. He’s turned away from Will to do so, and Will wonders if it’s an intentional move. So he doesn’t have to look at Will while he speaks. “I mean, Will Byers? Star of the track team? A nerd? It’s like I’ve died and gone to some kind of wet dream heaven.” 

The words startle a laugh out of Will, more a sudden snort of amusement than anything that could be considered even remotely sexy. 

“What?” Mike is defensive, and the drawer slams just a little too hard as he turns back around, plaid pajama pants held to his chest like a shield. “Why are you laughing at me?”

“I’m not laughing at you.” 

“You are.” 

“No, it’s just,” Will takes a few steps closer to Mike. The laughter is gone from his voice, now it’s just soft and soothing. “I wish you could have known me in middle school. I had a bowl cut, Mike. I drew fanart of my Skyrim character and turned it in as art class assignments on a regular basis. I wore Star Wars pajama sets. I was very much not cool.” 

“I thought nerdy stuff was cool,” Mike immediately parrots at him. He’s smiling again though, which is all that Will really wanted. 

Will just rolls his eyes.

Then Mike softens, and his voice is quieter than before when he says “I wish I could have known you in middle school, too. I think we would have been friends.” 

Part of Will wants to immediately protest that they are definitely not friends. Friends don’t press hickeys onto each other’s necks or do whatever the hell it was that Mike did in the living room with those plastic vampire fangs. Friends definitely don’t do the kinds of things that Will is imagining doing to Mike the second he gets him out of that costume and into his bed. 

But most of Will just wants to sigh at the quiet tenderness of the admission. At the lingering trace of loneliness that clings to Mike’s tone as his voice wraps around the word. 

He tries to imagine meeting Mike Wheeler as a gangly, awkward preteen who hadn’t grown into his legs yet. He was probably the type of kid who always carried a book with him everywhere and who sat alone to read at lunch instead of talking with the rest of the people at his table. He got picked last in dodgeball and probably won science fairs without trying and spent his afternoons at home playing Call of Duty while rage-baiting grown men on Xbox Live.  

Yes, in another lifetime, they probably could have been friends.

Best friends.

In this lifetime, Will just cocks his head to the side. Lets his voice dip lower and takes delight in watching Mike swallow at the sound. “Take out your contacts, Mike.” 

“Oh. Right. Yeah. Here.” Mike seems to remember what he was in the middle of doing because he offers the plaid pile in his arms towards Will. It’s not just one set of pajama pants, Will realizes, but two. His heart stutters against his chest, tap dancing along his rib cage. “Um, you wanted us to take our costumes off… right?”

This boy is going to kill him. 

Will had been thinking more along the lines of just stripping down and climbing beneath the covers, but this is good too. Better, even. Softer. Less like they’re virtual strangers who are about to have a one night stand and more like this could be the start of… well, Will isn’t exactly sure what, but something. 

“Yeah,” Will says, “sounds good.” 

He doesn’t even complain when Mike scoops two graphic t-shirts of his floor, letting Will choose between a black shirt with a white design showing a boulder at the bottom of a hill that reads ‘I had potential’ and a yellow shirt that just says ‘NON PLAYABLE CHARACTER’ in large blue font.  

Will chooses the yellow one. Obviously. 

They take turns changing in the bathroom, and then Mike digs a spare toothbrush out of his medicine cabinet. They brush their teeth side by side standing over the sink, their elbows knocking together. Mike looks extremely undignified, foam dripping out of his mouth, curls going every which way, still with those damn red contacts in. 

It’s everything that Will has ever wanted. 

He sits on the counter and watches Mike remove the colored lenses, placing them carefully into a tiny storage container that he clicks shut with a snap. 

For the first time all night, Will can actually see the warm affection in Mike’s chocolate eyes.

He reaches forward to push Mike’s curls off his forehead, and lets himself stare because there’s no reason not to. 

“There you are,” Will says.

Mike smiles back at him as if to say here I am. 

V         V

Back in Mike’s room, the last of their transformations are completed. Will stands by his bedside dresser and carefully takes off each of the rings on his fingers, letting them fall to the wood with soft, satisfying clinks.

Mike roots around for a while, disappears to his study briefly, and then returns triumphantly with his wire-frame glasses in hand. “Found them!” He says, waving them in Will’s direction. He slides them on and, oh, there’s the boy that Will met in front of the bulletin board. He’s standing right there, in the middle of his bedroom, wearing gray and black pajama pants that are just a little too short at the ankles. No false confidence, no pretense, no excuses. Nothing to hide behind. 

Not Mikhail.

Just Mike.

Just Mike, whose smile is almost blinding as he says “I can see you again.” He sounds delighted by the fact, even though it’s been maybe five minutes since he took his contacts out. Like he’d look at Will forever if he could and never get bored of the sight.

Faced with such obvious enthusiasm at nothing more than his continued existence, Will really doesn’t have a choice. 

He has to kiss this silly, stupid, wonderful, perfectly imperfect boy.

Pressing up on his tiptoes, Will slides their lips together in a chaste brush that isn’t really a real kiss at all because they’re both grinning like idiots. Soft, fluttery butterflies swirl to life in Will’s stomach. He feels, deliriously, for some reason, like laughing. He’s like a kid again, a giggling preteen with a school crush. It’s familiar and brand new all at the same time.  

It’s the early hours of the morning now, but Mike’s room is bright as day, all the lights still on. There’s a lamp on his dresser, and an overhead on the ceiling above. Normally when Will does things like this, he does them in dimly lit environments so he can pretend that the person he’s with is whoever he wants them to be. So he can pretend they might actually look like they give a damn about him.

He doesn’t need the lights off this time.

Wants them on, actually. So he can see what Mike looks like while he makes him come undone.

Like right now. Mike’s mouth hangs slightly open, his tongue pinched between his teeth. Behind the frames of his glasses, his eyes are unfocused. His cheeks are still so, so pink. Will’s pretty sure the flush might be permanent at this point. He kind of likes how easily all of Mike’s emotions are spelled out across his face. There’s no guessing game.

“Um,” Mike swallows. “Should we go to bed?” 

“Sure, Mike,” Will says. Laughter bubbles beneath the tenor of his words. “Let’s go to bed.” 

The hardwood floor is cold beneath Will’s feet as makes his way to the corner of the room where Mike’s bed is tucked. It’s kind of a mess, blankets still rumpled from the night before. Obviously Mike wasn’t expecting company. He has a collection of empty coffee mugs on his dresser, still filled with the dredges left behind on indeterminate dates. There’s enough dirty clothes around the foot of the bed that Will is uncertain whether Mike is capable of doing laundry at all. 

He can’t find it in himself to be bothered by the untidiness of his surroundings. 

Sinking back onto Mike’s mattress, Will crawls across the blue duvet and curls up on his side against the wall. He can still see Mike from this angle, standing in the middle of the room, and he pats the bed next to him in an open invitation. 

For a moment, Mike just gapes at him, taking in the sight of Will stretched across his mattress with an open jaw and squinty eyes. Will is a little afraid he’s about to witness the human equivalent of a computer blue screen, but after about thirty seconds of staring, Mike moves to join him.

Despite the fact that Will’s still pretty sure neither of them are planning on sleeping, Mike mirrors Will’s position. He climbs into bed and lays on his side so he can face Will. He even tucks his hands under his cheek, causing it to squish adorably. His curls fan across the pillow. His glasses are crooked, and one of the rubber pads has left a red mark on the bridge of his nose. 

“Hi,” Will whispers, like they’re at a slumber party. 

“Hi,” Mike breathes back.  

Then Will presses forward and kisses him again. 

Mike’s mouth is already sliding open to meet him this time. A warm heat that has a little to do with Mike himself and a lot to do with the taste of his cinnamon toothpaste greets Will. He slides their mouths together. Slowly. Lazily. 

Shifting a little closer, Will hooks his ankle around Mike’s own bony one. He feels Mike’s sock slip further down his calf. He slides his hands into Mike’s curls and lets his thumb rest at the hinge of his jaw. 

It’s as easy and as natural as breathing. And even when it isn’t, even when Mike shifts his head and their noses knock together and Will laughs into his mouth, it doesn’t feel awkward. Instead of ruining the moment, the laughter becomes a part of it. Wraps him and Mike up in a tiny bubble made up of the things they share now. Like amusement and toothpaste and pajamas.

When Will pulls away, Mike immediately starts rambling again. He seems physically incapable of shutting himself up if Will’s not doing it for him. 

“Did you have fun at the game tonight? I mean, I guess you must have, since you said you might come back. But, like, it wasn’t too nerdy for you? All the talking in accents and dice rolling and costumes? Even though the lore is super confusing and I didn’t really explain it very well-”

“It was good, Mike. Really.”

“Well, I really should have told you more about the Camarilla and, like, the different clans.” 

“I’ll learn,” Will answers, unbothered. “And I already told you, I’ve done the whole ‘talking in accents and dice rolling and costumes’ thing before.”

“Yeah, in middle school.” Mike wrinkles his nose. It makes his glasses go even more crooked. “It’s different in middle school.” 

“Yeah, it was different,” Will agrees. “I didn’t have friends that were nearly as cool as yours. I couldn’t find two people to play with me. You have, like, ten.” 

“I didn’t used to,” Mike admits. He bites his lip, chewing on it in a way that’s obviously a nervous habit but is also more than slightly distracting to Will in his extremely turned-on state. “I didn’t really have any friends until I moved here.” 

“Would it surprise you if I said that I didn’t either?” Will lets out a huff of air, not surprised when Mike’s eyes widen comically large behind his glasses. 

“Um, yes,” Mike says, nodding his head against the pillow. “You’re so… you.” He raises one hand in the air, as if to encompass everything that Will apparently is with the single gesture. Then, apparently sensing that Will is unsatisfied by the answer, he continues. “Everybody loves you. You’re always quiet and respectful in class. You helped the track team actually place for the first time ever, so you’re basically school royalty. You’re friendly to every single person you meet and have this way of treating them like… like you know them and they matter.”  

“Wow.” It’s the only word Will can come up with.

Mike immediately blanches and his dark eyes go a little wild, like a prey animal backed into a corner. “That was too much again, wasn’t it? Everytime we get… I just go and make it weird.” 

“No,” Will reaches up and puts his palm to the side of Mike’s face, feeling the warm flush of his cheeks, still fever hot. “No one’s ever said anything like that to me before.” 

“And that’s a good thing?” Mike checks. “That I am? It’s not a bad thing? I kind of talk a lot. Most people just tell me to shut up.” 

“It’s a good thing,” Will agrees, “and I don’t want you to shut up.” 

“Okay,” Mike agrees, and then he doesn’t. 

Will thinks maybe they both needed this, before things go any farther than they already have. They sort of skipped right to the end of the date without covering any of the dinner conversation topics that should have come up by now, like what they want to do with their degrees after graduation or how many siblings they have or where they’re from.

So they spend the next hour learning everything they don’t already know about each other. 

Mike is most interested in hearing about Will’s old D&D campaigns. He wants to know what character class Will played (Cleric) and whether he ever tried DMing (yes, but no one listened to him) and if he spent all of his allowance on plastic dice (no, Will diligently used the same pair so that his mom never felt like she had to buy him more). 

In return, Will learns that Mike likes to write (fantasy, of course) and that he wants to be a novelist one day (like Brandon Sanderson, with a whole universe of interconnected stories) and that he already has one manuscript mostly finished (but it will never see the light of day, according to Mike, because it’s so bad). 

They talk about the cities they might want to live in one day, and Mike visibly bites his lip to keep from grinning when they both count down from three and say New York in unison. Mike also thinks he might like Providence, while Will is partial to San Francisco. 

He learns that Mike absolutely hates the heat and yet is constantly freezing. He would rather be layered in blankets in a snowy cabin with a book in hand than anywhere close to the beach. Will explains how he runs warm but can’t stand the cold. How his favorite place to be is in a museum gallery, with sunlight streaming through the glass and art adorning every wall. 

They get to know each other. Really know each other.

He learns that Mike’s favorite color is blue. That he was born and raised in the suburbs outside of Indianapolis. That, in addition to Nancy, he has a younger sister named Holly whom he very clearly adores. He learns that Mike doesn’t really get along with his dad, that his mom reacted better to him coming out than he expected, and that he has some smartmouthed cousin that he absolutely can’t stand. 

He finds out that Mike got his glasses right before starting college. That he met Eddie and Dustin through the on-campus D&D club. That it was Mike’s idea to start the vampire LARP and now it’s one of their most regular games. 

He talks about his art and watches Mike trace the callouses that various paint brushes have left on his hands. Feels his heart stutter in his chest when Mike lifts that same hand to his mouth and brushes his lips lightly across Will’s knuckles.  

They talk until Will is sure that they’ll run out of things to talk about, except they never do. Every conversation spills into another one, sometimes silly and sometimes as deathly serious as who they main in Mario Kart. 

And, as the night drags on, they keep shifting closer and closer together until they’re no longer talking at all. Until they’re kissing again.     

Will’s warm breath is fogging Mike’s glasses up slightly at this angle, so Will isn’t surprised when Mike rolls them over. He tugs at Will until he’s flat on his back, head resting comfortably on Mike’s pillows. A sharp elbow knocks the rest of the air from Will’s lungs as Mike settles himself across his chest. 

“Oof,” Will groans as the weight of Mike presses down on him, their chests completely flush. “You’re heavy.”

“Shut up.”

It’s an exaggeration, anyways. In truth, Mike’s presence atop him doesn’t make Will feel trapped like the position sometimes does. Instead, it feels comforting. Like Mike is a very bony, angular weighted blanket. 

They are both smiling so widely that the next kiss becomes all teeth, and they knock together almost painfully until, eventually, Mike pulls away. He brushes his fingers across the pair of marks he has left on Will’s neck. 

“You like that, don’t you?” Will asks. Confidence hums in his veins now. He knows he could ask Mike for the sun and he would give it to him. A little dirty talk, the kind that usually turns Will into a flustered mess when he tries it, isn’t going to kill him. “Seeing something on my skin that you put there.” 

“Yeah,” Mike doesn’t even try to deny it. “You’re so pretty.” 

Before Will can reply, Mike leans in and presses a gentle kiss to the first mark, and then the second. He retraces his steps until his nose brushes against Will’s ear. His voice is more like a throaty rumble when he says “Do you want another one?” It’s a question but the need with which he says it turns it into something pleading and desperate. 

“Not here,” Will says, because the two marks on his neck are damning enough already. Impossible to conceal. Jane will never let him hear the end of it. 

“Where?” Mike kisses his way back down Will’s neck. His fingers curl into the edge of Will’s - Mike’s, his brain helpfully supplies - t-shirt. He leans back, sitting up on his knees so he can look down at Will. His eyes have landed somewhere in the direction of Will’s collarbone. It’s just barely showing through the shirt’s stretched-wide neckline. “Here?” 

“Yeah,” Will breathes, and then he sits up far enough that Mike can help him peel his t-shirt off. 

The sudden chill of the air conditioned room is shocking after the warm press of two bodies in a confined space, and Will shudders instinctively as he watches Mike take in the sight of his bare torso for the first time. Will is no longer uncomfortable with his looks, he’s lean and muscular from his track conditioning, tanned from so much time spent on the field. But he’s also human and he has slightly visible tan lines in the shape of his uniform’s singlet top, a few moles scattered here and there, seemingly at random. He still doesn’t really have hair on his chest yet, but a patch of soft, downy fuzz is just visible above the waistline of his borrowed pants. A perfectly average example of the male body.

Mike doesn’t appear to share the sentiment. His hands hover reverently over Will’s chest. The chocolate brown of his eyes have been swallowed entirely by the black hole that his pupils have become. He’s biting his own lip hard enough Will is afraid the chapped skin will finally lose the battle it’s so clearly been fighting.  

“Mike,” Will prompts, when it becomes clear that Mike isn’t going to say anything. “Your shirt?” 

“Huh? Oh. Right.” Mike reaches down and pulls his own shirt over his head. It gets caught on his ear and dislodges his glasses. “Shit. Fuck. I swear, I don’t normally have a problem with this. I take my clothes off all the time. I mean, wait, not like this. I’ve never taken my clothes off like this in my life. I just mean I get dressed every day. Like a normal person.” 

The whole time he rambles he struggles to get the shirt off and toss it onto the floor. Then he fixes his glasses, and returns to his previously scheduled staring.

Will doesn’t mind. Because now, he’s staring right back. 

Mike’s white shirt at the party hadn’t left much to the imagination by the end there, but this is the first time that Will is seeing him in proper lighting. Mike’s torso is the same pale, blank canvas as the rest of him. He doesn’t have moles like Will does, but he has tiny freckles dotted across his skin. There’s one patch in particular that Will already decides he loves, a little trio of freckles that form a triangle on his left upper arm, a few inches below his shoulder. A happy trail of dark hair calls to Will like a siren song, tempting him with the promise of further discoveries that await beyond the pajama pant’s elastic waistband. His nipples, which had looked pink in the red lighting of the living room, are actually a dusky brown. He’s slender enough that Will can see the jut of his ribs. He has an outie belly button. 

He can’t believe that he’s the first person to look at Mike like this. 

To touch Mike like this. 

“Do you want to stop?” Will asks, giving Mike the same out that he had been offered earlier. If Mike pulls back, if he decides that this is too much, too soon, and really he’d rather play Nintendo Switch in their boxers until they’re tired enough to sleep… well, that would be alright too. “We can wait. Go slow.” 

“Fuck that,” Mike says immediately. He swings one leg over Will, repositions so he’s straddling Will’s hips and leans in to hover over his chest. “I’ve been waiting for three years. You’re the one who finally caught up.” There’s a glint of vulnerability in his dark eyes now, and Will wonders if he is afraid that if he lets the moment slide through his fingertips, that it won’t come again. Does the whole night feel like one big fever dream for Mike? The way it does for Will?

“Okay,” Will says, his hands fluttering to rest on Mike’s waist. Then he loses all thread of rational thought when Mike leans low to suck another bruise to the juncture of his collarbone. The shift of his weight and the new angle causes their dicks to press together, separated only by the thin cotton of their respective pants. Will hisses at the contact, his fingers tightening on Mike’s hips until he knows the touch is hard enough to bruise. 

Mike’s answering groan is muffled into Will’s skin, and then the friction is amplified with the now familiar feeling of Mike’s lips latching onto a patch of Will’s skin, the tight prickling of the suction that has Will’s back arching off the bed. 

Long fingers slide down his chest, pressing him down and holding him still while Mike continues to nip and lick a new mark somewhere only he’ll know about. Then, when Will is shuddering so badly he thinks he might not be able to take any more, Mike leans back and sits up, his weight resting on his knees. The friction Will had been chasing disappears with the new space between them, and Will whines in disappointment.

Mike looks down at Will, sprawled beneath him on the bed. His lips are plump and red and slick with spit, and he looks entirely too satisfied with himself. “There,” he says, while Will catches his breath. “Now you won’t forget about me.” 

“Forget-” the word dies, half-strangled in Will’s throat. It’s hard to think with Mike sitting over him like this, with his long fingers sweeping across Will’s ribs like he’s counting them and their crotches just inches away from each other. The thin material of their matching pajama pants is doing absolutely nothing to hide how completely turned on they both are. It’s a struggle to pull the words he’s looking for from the depths of his brain, but eventually Will manages. “I’m not going to forget about you, Mike. This isn’t… I don’t… I’m not going to take your virginity and then ghost you like some dick.” 

Mike’s fingers tap a nervous rhythm against Will’s ribcage. “No,” he swallows, and he very suddenly won’t meet Will’s eyes. “You’re too nice for that.”

He still sounds like he thinks Will is going to evaporate into thin air the moment he closes his eyes. There’s the slightest waver in his voice.

“Mike, I’m serious,” Will says. “We’ll wake up together tomorrow and then I’m going to take you out for breakfast so we can talk about things. About what we want.”

“What we want,” Mike repeats, incredulous. 

“Yes, you idiot.” 

The words have the intended effect. Mike’s fingers stop their anxious tapping. A tension that Will hadn’t known to look for disappears from the brace of his shoulder. The furrow between his brows smoothes. 

“Okay,” Mike says, and the smile he graces Will with is as bright and brilliant and blinding as sunshine. His nose wrinkles and his eyes crinkle and his teeth are crooked and his glasses are a little foggy and, oh, Will is so sure that he could love this boy. “Okay, cool.” 

“Yes, very cool,” Will agrees. “Now stop talking and kiss me.”

“Okay,” Mike says again, the third time in as many minutes, and then he leans down. 

Will’s expecting Mike’s kiss to land on his mouth, so he sucks in a surprised gasp of air when Mike’s lips press to his sternum instead. Once again, enthusiasm makes up for inexperience as Mike licks a wet stripe down the plane of Will’s stomach. He presses a gentle kiss above Will’s belly button and then shifts so he can sink lower. His nose brushes through the patch of hair that disappears down into Will’s pajama pants and then Mike echoes what he did before, but there are no plastic vampire teeth involved this time. 

He opens his mouth and drops it over the shape of Will’s hard dick, breathing hot air that Will can actually feel this time. He whines at the sensation. Mike is so close to where Will wants him, and yet not close enough. His lips trace the outline of Will’s cock, and every shift of his mouth has the cotton of Will’s boxers chafing against his hard-on. Will never thought that someone kissing him like this, over his clothes, mouth not even touching skin, could be so erotic. But it is. 

Then Mike looks at him through half-lidded eyes. 

Will thinks he could almost come just from the sight of that alone, Mike crouched between his legs, his fingers pulling Will’s thighs apart, his dark eyes hooded and blown-out. 

It makes Will think of earlier, bracing himself against the arm of the couch while Mike dropped to his knees in front of him. The silky slide of Mike’s hair between his fingers and the smooth leather of the couch beneath his palm. The foreign scrape of the plastic vampire fangs and the artificial red of Mike’s contacts.

That had been a fantasy brought to life. 

This is even better. 

“I’ve never done this before,” Mike says, his fingers hooking into the waistband of Will’s pants. “You have to tell me what to do.” He looks so earnest. Like he really is willing to do anything Will tells him.

Will has never been the more experienced one in bed before. Has never been the one to issue instructions and have them instantly, immediately followed. Has never had a partner who hangs on to his every word like Mike seems to. 

“You want me to teach you how to blow me?” Will double checks, because Mike is so new to all of this, and he doesn’t want to rush in until it’s too much, too fast. 

“Please,” the answering plea is little more than a huff of air.      

Fuck. Will swallows thickly. That’s hot. 

The expression on Mike’s face can only be described as hungry. It’s the same expression he had worn when he was pretending to be a vampire craving Will’s human blood, but now it’s for another reason entirely. He licks his lips subconsciously and Will’s eyes track the movement of his tongue.

He can do this. 

He can let Mike do this.  

“Start slow,” Will tells him, “and do what you were doing before, just… on my skin this time. You can touch me. I want you to.” 

“Okay,” Mike says, and then he slips his hand into Will’s pants. His fingers - those long, long fingers that Will has been watching all night - curl around the shape of Will. He shudders in Mike’s hand. It feels impossibly good already, just the slide of Mike’s fingers up and down his shaft. Will knows some guys find handjobs boring, but he’s never been one of them. It’s the knowledge that it’s Mike’s hands on him that draws a whine out of his mouth. 

And, listen, Will is aware of the fact that it’s not objectively good. Mike’s hand is dry and their skin chafes together almost painfully. He’s clearly never done this to someone who isn’t himself before and the movement of his wrist is a little jerky and sudden. But he has a tiny wrinkle between his brows now, right above the bridge of his glasses, and Will thinks that the sight of Mike sitting back and biting his lip in concentration makes up for any discomfort.

“Take my pants off, Mike.” 

Mike responds instantly, pushing Will’s pajamas and boxers down with his other hand. “Holy fuck,” Mike whispers, almost to himself, as Will’s dick springs free, entirely too visible in the bright room. There’s a drop of precum glistening at the slit, and Mike runs his thumb over it with wonder, making Will see stars. 

If Mike thinks seeing a dick other than his own up close and personal for the first time is kind of weird, he doesn’t comment on it. Instead he says “You liked that,” with something like wonder lacing his tone. 

Will doesn’t have a chance to respond before Mike is leaning forward and taking his dick into his mouth. 

“Agh,” Will groans, and it isn’t exactly a good sound this time as his hands flail out wildly and land in Mike’s hair, tugging him back. “Teeth,” he warns, about fifteen seconds too late. “Watch the teeth.” 

The pleasure that had been clouding his brain in a hazy fog has briefly lifted in response to the sensation that had crossed to the far side of the line between pain and pleasure. Having Mike’s toy fangs on his dick with the safety measure of jeans to protect him from the scrape of the plastic had been one thing, but despite the jokes, Will’s pretty sure he doesn’t actually have a vampire fetish. And Mike’s teeth are sharp. 

Mike immediately pulls back. He hasn’t even really done anything yet and there’s already a tendril of drool clinging to his lip. He reaches up and wipes his chin with the back of his hand. His neck and cheeks have gone red again, but his searching gaze is roaming over Will’s face, like he’s desperate to determine if the pain is lasting. He looks a little horrified with himself. “Did that hurt?”

“A little,” Will admits, because his reaction has already given him away. He uses his grip on Mike’s hair to gently push him back down, encouraging him to return to his former position. “It’s okay, you can try again. Just kind of use your lips as a shield.”

Mike wiggles and leans forward until he’s in the vicinity of Will’s face again just long enough for him to press a soft, chaste kiss to his lips. “Sorry, baby,” he whispers and hot cinnamon-scented air wafts across Will’s cheeks. Then he pulls back and tries to take Will into his mouth again. 

It goes a little better this time. Mike is a quick learner. He slides his lips around the head, bobbing up and down a little as he adjusts to the feel of Will in his mouth. The warm, wet heat is the only thing that Will can focus on, and he tightens his fingers into Mike’s curls.

Mike likes that. Will can feel the answering hum rumble through his chest. 

It’s the last conscious realization that he has before Mike hollows out his cheeks and sucks.

The warm, familiar burn in his gut is fanned into a wildfire beneath Mike’s ministrations and Will sinks back into the pillow, throwing one arm over his face to shield his eyes from the combined assault of the bright light of the room and the sight of Mike’s full lips sliding over his dick. The image is already burned into his retinas. 

“That’s good,” he babbles, barely able to form a coherent thought. “Just like that. You can take me deeper, Mike.” 

Mike seems to appreciate the instructions, because the words drag a low groan from somewhere deep in his chest. And then he listens. His jaw opens wider and he sinks down. He brings a hand up to wrap around the base of Will’s dick, covering the part he can’t quite manage to get into his mouth, and the sensation of both Mike’s mouth and fingers on him is almost too much. 

Then Mike begins to move in earnest and Will knows he really won’t last long. 

Not when he’s been worked up forever, the most worked up he’s been in ages.

With his eyes squashed closed, his entire world is cloaked in the darkness behind his own eyelids. The universe becomes the sensations that Mike is coaxing from his body. There’s only the frantic, uneven breaths that tear from Mike’s lungs like he keeps trying to hold his breath and failing. The squeeze of his fingers as they tighten ever so imperceptively around Will, holding his dick steady while Mike fucks it with his mouth. It’s messy and wet and hot. Despite the fact that Will knows Mike is an amateur, there is no trace of uncertainty in his movements. Mike’s technique may be rudimentary, but, damn, Will’s not certain that he’s ever had someone so goddamn eager suck his dick before. It’s like Mike’s mouth is everywhere all at once, mapping Will’s body like he’s an explorer charting previously undiscovered land.     

Mike runs his tongue across Will’s slit, apparently unbothered by the salty precum that Will can feel leaking there. Then he pulls off completely and licks a long wet stripe to the underside of Will’s dick from base to tip.

Will’s vision goes spotty for a moment, white splotches dancing on the inside of his eyelids as he tucks his face into the pillows. The scent of Mike’s shampoo surrounds him, something woodsy and earthy, with a faint hint of vanilla beneath the musk. A warm wave of pleasure completely overtakes him, and he surrenders himself to Mike’s diligent hands and dirty mouth. 

As if he can sense that Will’s a little too close to the edge, Mike pulls off from his dick and then presses a wet open-mouthed kiss to the inside of Will’s thigh instead. His fingers are still curled around Will, and they stroke him slowly, lazily, almost teasingly. 

It’s both too much and not enough and it’s driving Will mad.  

“How was that?” Mike asks, and his voice is rough and raw. “Was that as hot for you as it was for me?” 

Will drags his arm off of his face, feeling like the simple movement is as much of a struggle as Sisyphus’s attempt to push that damn boulder up the hill. He needs to look at Mike, though. He wants to know what Mike looks like when he’s admitting that the act of blowing Will until he was writhing into the bedsheets has been turning him on. 

Turns out, the answer is that Mike looks even more disheveled and rumpled than he had before. He’s sitting up, one hand still working Will lazily. His other hand is on Will’s thigh, pushing his legs apart gently. His curls are plastered to his forehead and the nape of his neck with sweat, and his skin is glistening and damp in the lamplight. His glasses are almost falling off completely, and while Will stares up at him, a little dazed, Mike turns and uses his own shoulder to push them back into place. So that he doesn’t have to take his hands off of Will. 

Will tries to follow the thread of Mike’s question. He finally finds his voice. “Yeah, that was really, really good.” He’s out of breath, panting heavily with the exertion. He feels as sweaty as Mike looks. 

Mike leans forward, hovering in Will’s space again until their breath mingles. “What else can we do? What else do you want me to do?” 

Will’s moving entirely on instinct now, and his entire body is screaming at him that he needs Mike to take his pants off. He wants to get his hands on Mike the way Mike has his hands on him right now. 

So instead of answering Mike, Will decides to show him. 

Shifting his weight, Will nudges Mike out of his lap and sends him sprawling onto the bed next to him. All of the air bursts from his lungs, and for a moment Mike just lays there, slightly stunned. Will doesn’t give him a chance to recover before he swings a leg over Mike’s waist and switches their positions. 

Will’s on top now, most of his weight resting on his knees as he holds himself above Mike. The other boy’s dark hair spreads across the pillow, surrounding him like a halo. Will watches the bob of his prominent Adam’s apple. “Oh,” Mike says, and then it turns into a strangled moan because Will has reached into his pajamas and pulled his dick out. 

It rests between them, hard and aching and untouched. A rush of satisfaction floods through Will when he realizes that Mike’s already dripping precum, too. If Will doesn’t get his hands on Mike soon, he has a feeling that Mike’s going to be coming untouched for the second time in a single evening, and the thought is so absolutely insane that it almost makes Will want to laugh.

They’re both equally exposed now, resting side by side against Mike’s stomach. They’re red, quivering, and barely holding on to the edge. It won’t take much for either of them to chase after their release, Will knows, and this is Mike’s first time having sex with another person. He wants them to do it together.

Mike’s eyes are as wide as saucers as he studies the image of them side by side. Mike’s dick is longer than Will’s is, though Will’s is just a little bit thicker. They look good together like this. From the way Mike is staring, Will knows that he is thinking the same.

“So,” Mike says, and he sounds a little nervous again for some reason, “should we roll initiative to see who gets to cum first?” 

And it’s just such a Mike thing to say while they’re sitting here like this that it makes Will roll his eyes. “Technically,” Will says, “you already did.” Though, now that he thinks about it, there’s no trace of Mike’s mess from earlier. He must have cleaned himself up when he changed clothes. 

“Shut up,” Mike groans, “I thought we weren’t talking about that. That wasn’t sexy. It was more like I fumbled my Constitution roll.” 

“It was a little sexy,” Will says, “to know that you want me that badly.” 

A hint of vulnerability slinks back into Mike’s expression, barely perceptible but Will knows to watch for it. Is already learning what it means when the corner of Mike’s mouth twitches and his eyes shift from side to side uncertainly. “Maybe I was just really horny.” 

“Maybe,” Will leans in and drags his lips across Mike’s. He can taste himself on Mike’s tongue, the sensation slightly odd but not exactly unpleasant. Then he pulls back. “How badly do you want me, Mike?” 

This time, Mike doesn’t try to deflect. He leans up and chases after Will, presses his lips to the apple of Will’s cheek, his temple, his chin, and finally his mouth. “If you don’t put your hands on me soon, I think I’ll die,” Mike whispers. Like it’s a secret. Like it’s a confession. 

“Okay,” Will whispers back. Then he licks his own palm, ignoring the salty taste of sweat on his skin, and takes both of their dicks into his grip. He can barely hold both of them at once, but the sound that Mike makes, a hiss of pleasure at the sensation of them pressing together, is worth it. 

“Put your hand over mine,” Will tells him.

Mike doesn’t need any further prompting. He immediately covers Will’s hand with his own. 

Will starts the rhythm, pumping his hand up and down, and Mike follows his lead. His dick is still wet from Mike’s mouth, and both of them are leaking enough precum that they slide together smoothly. Will’s hand glides easily up and down as he teaches Mike how to jerk them both off in tandem.  

Warm, electric waves of pleasure are pulsing through Will’s body now and he tips forward, capturing Mike’s mouth with his own for these final few seconds. Mike moans directly into Will’s mouth, and Will swallows the sound. The kiss tastes strongly of salt and sweat, overriding the now fading heat of the cinnamon. The kiss grows wetter and sloppier as their hands move faster, until they’re basically just moaning into each other’s mouths. Will can feel Mike’s thighs quivering beneath him and he knows that the other boy is close again. 

He’s holding on, though, like he’s determined that he’s not going to come again until Will does, and there’s something so breathtakingly hot about that. 

Mike’s free arm has wrapped around Will’s torso, climbing up his back and bracing him in place. He can feel Mike’s fingers wrapping around the back of his neck. His own free hand has landed on the bed near their bodies, fisting into the fabric of Mike’s bedsheets. 

“I’ve got you,” Mike says, between kisses, and it’s that promise, in Mike’s wrecked voice, that has Will tumbling over the edge.

He buries his face in the crook of Mike’s neck and lets Mike coax him through the orgasm that tears through him. His awareness of the world narrows down to the sensation of Mike’s dick twitching against his own, the curl of Mike’s fingers as they press into the back of his neck, Mike’s breathless moans in his ear. 

He feels so good it’s almost painful, and the noises that spill from him are needy and embarrassing. The spots filling his vision have expanded until all he can see and feel is white, hot heat. If Mike was a star going supernova, then Will in a state of nuclear fusion. It’s the act of creation. It’s a star’s light turning on for the first time. It’s rebirth.  

Will’s never cum so hard that he blacks out, but he supposes there’s a first time for everything. 

When the world comes back into focus, Will’s aware of Mike grunting in his ear, still pumping himself through his own orgasm. His mouth drags across Will’s shoulder, the only part of him that Mike can really reach at their given angle, and he’s muttering a long string of words that run together almost indistinguishably, nonsensical babbling. 

“Feels so good, baby. Oh my god. Fuck. You’re literally magic. Will, I-” He groans one last time, and then Will feels sticky ropes of Mike’s cum splash over his hand and across his stomach. 

For a moment, Mike just lies there, stupified. “Jesus Christ,” he finally curses, and then he holds Will steady as Will sits back up.

They’re a mess. 

Will’s cum paints the lower plane of Mike’s stomach, his coarse, dark pubic hair, and his outie belly button. Will looks down and sees that he’s similarly covered. Both of their hands are completely drenched in a combination of drool and cum, still wrapped around a pair of dicks that are already going soft. 

Flexing his fingers, Will pulls his hand free and then flops onto his back, laying beside Mike on the bed in a state of dazed, post-orgasm bliss. “You can say that again,” he agrees. 

“Is it always like that?” Mike asks. His dirty hand trails through the mess of cum on his stomach, playing with it almost idly in a way that has Will’s limp dick threatening to twitch with interest again despite the fact that he’s incapable of coming twice in a row. He turns his head on the pillow to look at Will, and Will instinctively mirrors the movement. “So…” Mike trails off for a moment, searching for the word, “intense?”

Will swallows and he watches Mike’s eyes track the movement. “No,” he admits. “Not… it hasn’t been. For me.”

“But it was this time?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Cool,” Mike says, as eloquent as ever, but his dark eyes are shining. Actually, they might still be watering a little bit from the orgasm, but Will isn’t going to call him out on it. 

“Cool,” Will echoes back as they lay there staring at each other. 

Eventually the ick factor of their combined mess motivates Mike to lean over the edge of the bed and grab a discarded t-shirt for them to wipe themselves down with. 

Will isn’t able to stop the laugh that bursts from him at the sight of the particular t-shirt that Mike has handed him, even as he drags it through the partially dried cum on his stomach. 

“What?” Mike asks, as he waits for his turn to clean up. 

In answer, Will merely holds the shirt up, so that Mike can read the familiar font of the text. ‘Big D&D Energy.’ Mike’s shirt from the day before. “Who knew, this shirt is weirdly accurate,” Will teases. 

Mike flushes bright red and snatches it from Will, determinedly not looking at it as he rubs it across his stomach. Then he tosses it carelessly back onto the floor. “What?” He says, to Will’s raised eyebrow, “I’ll do laundry tomorrow.” 

“Hm,” Will hums unconvinced, as they both tuck themselves back into their respective pajama pants. “Can you get the light?” 

“If I can walk,” Mike shoots back, and he only sounds a little like he’s joking. But he does stand and turn off the overhead light, leaving them in only the soft, golden yellow of the lamp. 

By the time he’s back, Will has wiggled his way under the covers and is already turned on his side, mirroring their positions from earlier. 

Mike takes off his glasses, turns off the lamp, and climbs into bed with him. The mattress dips beneath his weight as he settles, and Will has to blink several times before his eyes adjust to the darkness of the room. There’s a thin sliver of light from a gap in Mike’s curtains, the moon or the start of an early sunrise, Will isn’t exactly sure. He has no concept of what time it is. 

He’s a little afraid that his promised breakfast might end up being at five p.m.  

“So… that stamina you were boasting about,” Mike starts, a teasing note to his voice but there’s an undercurrent of something needy and hopeful to it as well. 

“We’re not going another round tonight,” Will laughs, the exhaustion flooding through him all at once now that the adrenaline and high is fading. Mike’s bed feels really good, and his pillows are really soft, and it all smells like sandalwood and vanilla and Mike. His eyelids are heavy already. 

“Why not?” Mike’s practically whining now. “I finally understand what all the fuss is about. No wonder people don’t want to do anything else.” 

“Because not all of us can bounce back in thirty seconds, you weirdo. You have a frighteningly high libido.”

“Thank you,” Mike says, like it’s a compliment. Yet despite his teasing and prompting, he looks like he’s going soft with sleep around the edges too. The hard angles of his features look softer as he relaxes. It makes him look younger. 

“Maybe, if we get some sleep, we can… do stuff when we wake up,” Will offers, already fantasizing about what else he could teach Mike to do with those long fingers of his. 

“Like morning sex?” Mike asks, greeting the prospect with far more energy than Will is certain he would be capable of summoning right now. 

“Sure,” Will laughs. 

There’s a rustling nose as Mike shifts around on the bed and then he’s closer to Will. His face glows like the moon as he pokes a finger to the mole above Will’s lip. 

“Hey, Will,” he says, and his voice has dipped down into something quiet and tender now, “did you know that moles are actually places where your soulmate kissed you in a past life?” 

Will thinks of the dark marks that dot his chest, his back, his thighs. There’s even one on the underside of his dick. Mike couldn’t have missed it in the bright light. 

“I didn’t know that,” Will whispers back. 

“Yeah,” Mike says, and he leans forward to press his lips to the mark directly above Will’s own. “Goodnight, Will.” 

“Goodnight, Mike.” 

Sleep is already pulling Will under before he even really finishes speaking. He thinks Mike might whisper something else, but if he does, Will doesn’t catch it as he finally gives in to unconsciousness. 

V         V

One night in Mike’s bed becomes two, and two becomes three, and so on and so forth until Will kind of forgets that he technically has an apartment of his own to go back to sometimes. As days blend into weeks, more and more of his stuff keeps migrating to Mike’s, anyways. It starts small and innocuous. His own toothbrush by Mike’s sink. An overnight bag with extra boxers and jeans for when he stays the night. Then it's a drawer for him to leave some clothes in because it’s convenient. Mike sets up an easel for him in the office so they can work side by side in the evenings while Mike’s at his PC or typewriter and Will’s various art supplies start to pop up in all corners of Mike’s place. There are paint tubes on his bedside dresser. Sketchpads on his coffee table. A jug of turpentine under the sink. Mike buys a second gaming chair, so Will can set up his laptop and they can play a tandem Baldur’s Gate run while sitting side by side, yelling at each other when the battles get stressful. They spend an entire Saturday sitting at the dining table with all of Mike’s Vampire: The Masquerade rulebooks spread out between them as they make Will a character of his own for the game. Will joins Mike for the sessions of the on-campus D&D club with Dustin and Eddie and he drags Mike along with him to Wednesday night trivia with Jane, Lucas, and Max - much to Max’s chagrin. They sign up for a class on Tolkien together in the fall, both needing extra elective credits and wanting to make the most of their upcoming senior year. And every night they tumble into bed together, sometimes just to sleep in matching pajama pants and mismatched socks, and sometimes they don’t sleep at all. 

Will’s life has become everything he always wanted. 

And it has all culminated in this moment. 

He’s already in the hallways when the doorbell rings. Sue him, he’s a little nervous. 

The separate universes that are Mike’s friends and Will’s friends are about to collide for the first time. If things go well, their lives will finally be completely merged. Or things might go terribly and they discover that their friends can’t stand to be in the same room as each other. You know, nothing to stress about. 

“Hey,” Mike slings an arm around his waist. “You ready for this?” 

“Yes,” Will says, and then immediately contradicts himself. “No.” 

“It’s gonna be good,” Mike says, pressing a kiss to the top of Will’s head. “They’re gonna have fun.” 

Will relaxes into his boyfriend. “They are,” he agrees, “okay, moment of truth.” 

“Wait,” Mike tugs him back. He’s dressed for the game in tight black skinny jeans and a black silk shirt and clunky combat boots covered in silver studs. His hair is artfully disarrayed and his predatory leer paired with the red contacts he wears has Will swallowing thickly. He leans forward and presses a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss to Will’s mouth. “There,” he says, when he pulls away, “I had to do that before Max yells at me every time I try.” 

“You’re insufferable,” Will says, in a tone of voice that tells Mike he means the exact opposite. 

Mike shifts and nips lightly at Will’s earlobe. “Only for you, baby. Now go get your friends before Max kicks my door down. You know she’ll do it.” 

Will is still laughing when he swings the door open to reveal the motley collection of his friends waiting with various stages of patience on Mike’s front porch. 

Over the past few weeks, Will has diligently helped all of them prepare for their first game, rolling up their characters and helping pick out their outfits. All of that hard work has paid off. 

Lucas and Max coordinated their outfits, obviously. They’re playing a pair of vampires from Clan Ventrue. Lucas is wearing a brown suit that Jane and Max thrifted a few weeks back, with a sage green shirt beneath it that he’s left unbuttoned almost the entire way down. Max is in a silk sheath dress made of an emerald green fabric that’s just a few shades darker than Lucas’s shirt. She has a pair of strappy golden heels on, and layers and layers of necklaces. Chunky costume jewelry earrings and gold glitter eyeshadow complete the look. 

Jane, on the other hand, coordinated her outfit with Will’s. 

After days spent reading through all the different Clans and debating their pros and cons with Mike, Will had decided that his official character would be a member of Clan Lasombra. The Clan was known for acting as puppeteers behind the background of the Camarilla, a group of survivors who fought against the odds and came out on top, with the power to manipulate and control the shadows around them to cloak them from sight or create shadow servants that can interact with the world. Will’s character is a more modern generation of vampire than Mike’s. Will decided he was turned back in the early 2000s, so his go-to costume is a striped white and black long sleeved shirt with a black band tee overtop it, black skinny jeans that are just a little too tight, and beat-up converse. He completes the look with eyeliner and red contacts identical to Mike’s. 

As soon as she heard about Will’s character, Jane asked if she could play another vampire who shared the same Sire, basically the vampire equivalent of his sister. And, well, how could Will say no to that? 

So now his twin sister is standing on his porch looking like she should be an extra in a My Chemical Romance music video. She’s wearing a black skirt and a corset top with her fishnet tights tucked into a pair of combat boots. She’s gone all out with the makeup, too. Purple lipstick and liquid eyeliner cat eyes and a tiny black heart drawn on one cheek. Somehow, she’s even added pink streaks to her hair. Will hopes they wash out before they go home for the summer, or their mom will kill him for getting her into this. 

“Oh my god,” Jane squeals, launching herself at Will, “we look amazing!” 

Will laughs. “Oh my god, you guys look great,” he says around his sister’s shoulder. 

He senses a familiar presence at his back before he sees Mike give a little wave out of the corner of his eye as his boyfriend joins him in the doorway. “Hi guys,” he greets. “Come on in, the game will be starting soon.” 

“Damn,” Lucas whistles. “We should have got contacts like that, Max. Those are badass, man!” 

Max visibly shudders at the idea of having anything in common with Mike, and she shoulders her way through the doorway, knocking into Mike purposefully as she does. 

“Wheeler,” she says, begrudgingly. 

“Mayfield,” Mike parrots back, sticking his tongue out at her when she’s not looking. 

The gang spills into Mike’s hallway, but he lets Will take the lead in guiding them into the actual apartment. Despite joint social outings, this is their first time visiting Mike’s place. Will wants them to feel comfortable here. 

He holds the door open for them. “We’re in here,” he says, “it doesn’t normally look like a vampire’s lair… but, well, you know. Um, come on in, we’ll introduce you to everybody.” 

Jane is clinging to Mike’s arm. She adopted him instantly as soon as Will formally introduced them, and she’s already gushing about how cute Mike’s place is and whether the art hanging on the walls in the hallway was done by Will (spoiler alert, it was). She cuts herself off as she takes in the sight of the room, decorated as it is for the game. “Oh my god, this looks so fun.” 

Most of the others are already there. Steve and Eddie appear to be in the midst of some kind of challenge to see who can shotgun a beer faster, while Nancy times them with an honest-to-god stopwatch. Gareth and Jeff have a pair of acoustic guitars out, and they’re picking out the notes to a very slow version of a Metallica song while Chrissy sings and Vickie and Robin clap along. Dustin is halfway to the kitchen, but he deviates his path and swings towards them instead. 

“Well met, strangers,” he calls, waving to Lucas and Max. Then his hand freezes and his jaw drops as he takes in the sight of Jane. He goes pink and Will raises his eyebrows at Mike, who looks like he’s trying really hard not to laugh. 

“Michael,” Dustin says, his voice coming out slightly strangled, “who is this goddess among women that is accompanying you this evening?” 

“Dustin, this is Jane,” Mike introduces. “Will’s sister.” 

“It is my pleasure, Lady Jane,” Dustin says, and then to Jane’s absolute giggling delight, he leans forward and takes her hand in his own, bowing over it and pressing a soft kiss to it like he’s an old timey knight and Jane is a princess. 

“The pleasure is all mine,” Jane says as she drops into an attempt at a curtsey. 

Will is pretty sure Dustin might possibly be about to spontaneously burst apart on the spot. 

“No,” Max groans aloud, “there’s four of them now. You’re all so lame.” 

Mike fakes a smile that definitely looks more like a grimace. “And the lovely redhead is Max. My nemesis.” 

“Just wait until the game starts, Wheeler. I’ll find a way to kill your immortal ass, so help me god.” 

“What she means,” Lucas cuts in, putting his hand over his girlfriend’s mouth, “is that it’s really nice to meet you. And my name is Lucas.” 

“Uh huh.” Dustin is paying them absolutely no attention. 

Will nestles back into Mike’s side and presses up on his tiptoes so he can whisper into his ear. “Well that went better than expected.” 

Mike snorts. “Better than expected? I think you just earned yourself a new in-law. Dustin. Hey, Dustin. Stop staring at Jane. Does the fact that you’re here tonight mean you finally made a new character?” 

Dustin tears his gaze away from Jane long enough to nod. “Oh yeah,” he says distractedly. “Clan Banu Haqim.”

Mike muffles his groan into Will’s neck. “No! I’m going to have to kill you again.” 

“You can try,” Dustin sounds almost cheerful at the prospect. “What about you, Will? Steve mentioned that you’ve been playing a new character.” 

“I have,” Will agrees, “Mike and I rolled him up together. He’s a Shadow from Clan Lasombra. I’m calling him Wynn.” 

“Badass,” Dustin nods, then he turns back and starts to ask Jane about her character. 

It doesn’t take long for the rest of the players to trickle in. Chrissy flounces over at some point and sweeps Max up into a conversation, and Lucas wanders over to grab a beer and join in Steve and Eddie’s game. Mike wraps his arms around Will from behind and they stand and watch their friends intermingle. Will can’t keep the smile off his face. 

“So,” Mike says, “do you think tonight will be the night when Wynn finally stops denying that he has feelings for Mikhail?”

“I think you have that backwards,” Will comments lightly. “I seem to recall that Mikhail was the one who stopped Wynn last week, claiming he was broken-hearted over some mortal.”

“Well,” Mike kisses the side of Will’s neck. “He was a really special mortal.” 

“Hey, Mike,” Will says, and he tips his head up so he can nose at the underside of Mike’s chin. 

“Yeah, baby?” 

The words that have been blooming in Will’s chest since, well, honestly, probably the first morning that he woke up in Mike’s bed finally burst free. “I love you.” 

Mike’s entire body goes stiff with shock, and then he relaxes, melting back against Will like they were molded to fit together. Maybe they were. His arms tighten around Will, and he tips his head down to press his lips to Will’s in a kiss so gentle and safe that Will can’t help but sigh against it. 

One of Mike’s hands comes up and he grabs Will’s chin, his thumb brushing against Will’s lower lip as he pulls away to beam down at him. His eyes have gone so crinkly that Will doesn’t even mind that he has the red contacts in. He can see how happy Mike is anyways.

He knows he’s reflecting that joy right back, like they are a pair of binary stars twinkling messages in morse code to each other while spinning around each other’s orbit. 

“I know,” Mike says, because he is, first and foremost, a massive nerd who can never resist the opportunity to reference Star Wars. Before Will can even roll his eyes, though, he adds, “And I love you too.” 

They’re still kissing about ten minutes later when Steve finally claps his hands together to call them all to attention. “Good Evening, Kindred,” he says, “are we ready to get this game started?”