Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Somewhat close to early-June, probably, 1988. That was when everything went to shit.

It shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise, since Will Byers had been associated with bad luck and disasters for a while now.

The night started on cloud nine—other than the fact that he was so tired he wasn’t a hundred percent sure that he wasn’t already asleep and in a super convincing dream. He was in Mike’s basement with his friends—some friends they were, though, because they refused to let him so much as close his eyes. It was evidently essential that he stay up to celebrate the end of their Junior year.

Lucas, Mike and Dustin were in a heated argument next to him on the couch—probably about something stupid, but Will had zoned out a while ago. As his mind wandered, his eyes watched Max and El, who had abandoned their nail-painting endeavours (after Max had accidentally smudged more than half of hers) to attack each other with pillows.

Will didn’t mind sitting in silence. Sometimes he felt like a plant, content to just exist and soak up the sun that was his friends.

Clearly he had narrowly avoided flunking English. He winced a little at the thought, zoning back in as Max abandoned the fight to reach for a plastic bag hidden behind the couch.

“Guys!” She jostled the bag, which made several light clanging noises.

Will’s eyes widened. “Max. What the hell.”

She smiled innocently at him, then turned her attention to the other boys, who were still bickering. “Guys!”

Lucas immediately swivelled at her harsh tone. Dustin and Mike shut up too.

“What is it, Mayfield?” Mike asked in that bratty tone he always used whenever Max so much as breathed.

“Maybe if you shut your fat mouth for a second, Wheeler, I’d tell you.” Max shot back, crossing the room to sit in front of the couch.

El plopped down next to her, peering at the bag. “Is that… what I think it is?”

“Maybe,” Max replied slyly.

“How come she doesn’t get the verbal abuse?” Mike wanted to know.

“Because she’s not an insufferable prick.” With that, Max emptied the bag carelessly, causing more than a dozen cans to fall out and roll on the carpet.

Lucas snatched one of them. “Malt liquor—where’d you get these?”

“My fridge,” Max answered shortly. “So none of you guys’ve drank before?”

Will took a can, reading the label: Colt 45 Malt Liquor. Lonnie hated malt liquor; he remembered that. “Well, I drank half of my dad’s beer can when I was eight.” He put the can back down. “Then I threw up all over the rug.”

Mike, who had been weirdly stiff and silent since the reveal of the alcohol, brightened, leaning over Dustin to Will. “Oh, yeah! And your mom didn’t want to get rid of it, so she tried to scrub out the stain for days. It smelled so rank that we had to hide in your room every time I came over.”

“We did not hide in my room. And you only came over twice before she finally gave up and tossed it.”

“Yeah, yeah, deny the facts ‘cause you’re still embarrassed.”

“You know what’s embarrassing? That time when you—”

“Shut the fuck up, Byers, I swear to—”

Dustin shoved Mike’s face away, loudly interrupting, “To the temporary escape from hell!” He opened a can with a loud fssshhhh, causing foam to spill out. He thrust it out away from him and fizzy liquid dripped right onto Lucas’ lap, causing him and El to squeal.

Will laughed, warmth in his stomach. Their teasing came easily now, he and Mike, just as it used to. They were good now, linked at the hip again. The blip in their friendship seemed to have been just that—a blip.

When he glanced at Mike, he was already peering at him, seemingly unaware of the chaos around them. Mike schooled his expression to a glower of you better not finish that sentence, a playful glint in his eye .

A blip. They had each other again; they got each other. He still got to have Mike.

But not in the way you want, not really. And you’ll never stop wanting it.

Will’s mouth soured. He looked away with an uneasy smile, focusing instead on the spilled drink incident. Maybe he would drink, just to stop thoughts like that. The kind of thoughts that would ruin things all over again.

Lucas wiped at his pants in vain. “What the hell, man?”

Dustin shrugged, not looking sorry at all as Max said, “Don’t pretend we didn’t hear you. Your little squeal was higher-pitched than El’s.”

Lucas wiped his wet hands on Max’s arm, laughing when she squirmed away. She got to her feet. “I’m getting Princess some paper towels. When I get back, you guys better be blackout drunk.”

“That’s not how it works!” Dustin yelled after her. He took a swig as everyone turned to look at him expectantly. His face soured. “Eugh, that’s bad. Worth it to get plastered, though!”

Lucas rolled his eyes. “What, is this tubular all over again?”

“Bite me,” Dustin said, taking another swig.

El took a can with resolve. “I’m getting drunk, too.”

“Wait,” Lucas said, “we'll need a designated driver."

“I can,” Will volunteered.

Even though he’d considered drinking, he was fine with staying sober. Plus, now that he was thinking about it, the idea unnerved him. He couldn’t help thinking of Lonnie. Obviously he didn’t think he would get angry or violent or anything, but…

“Are you sure?” El asked at the same time Mike said, “I thought you were sleeping over.”

Will looked at him, bewildered. “We never discussed that.”

Mike considered this. “Oh. I thought we did. But if you don’t want to…”

El piped up, “Will, it’s okay. Lucas can be the driver.”

“What? I didn’t agree to this—”

“No, but you are very responsible.”

Lucas paused for the sake of appearing to consider it, but Will could tell by the small smile growing on his face that El had won. “Flattery doesn’t work on me—but okay.”

“Okay?” El repeated, bright-eyed.

“As long as I don’t have to carry any of you out.”

Mike nodded. “Just take Nancy’s keys. She won’t even notice.”

“Yeah, yeah, you all are responsible and care about the safety of the group. Whatever,” Dustin said, having been taking wincing sips of his drink the entire time.

Will snorted (Lucas pointed at Dustin, “I was referring to you!”) and noticed that Mike was still staring at him intently. He looked back at him, and it took him a second to realize Mike was looking for an answer about the sleepover. It was always hard to think coherently when he had Mike’s eyes on him, deep and expectant. He tried to sound casual as he said, “Yeah, I’ll stay over.”

Mike seemed to let out a breath. “Cool.”

Max came downstairs and handed paper towels to a grateful Lucas. She grabbed a can for herself and pushed one into his chest.

“Nope. Have to make sure we don’t get in a car crash and die.”

Max mock-pouted, cracking open her can. “What about drunkenly making out?”

Lucas made a gagging face. “Eugh. Alcohol’s nasty enough on its own—why would I want to taste it then?”

“I think we’re good on hearing about you guys making out, thanks,” Mike said, reaching for two cans. He held one out for Will to take. “Wanna try together? Count of three?”

“I dunno,” he mumbled, a little embarrassed. “It’s just…”

Mike shrugged a shoulder carelessly. “Don’t sweat it, man. There’s still the whole summer.”

Despite his easy tone, Will couldn’t help but notice that Mike looked a little downcast as he put the can back. Maybe he was hesitant too. He chewed his lip. “Maybe after.”

“Sure. No pressure.” Mike didn’t open his can, instead opting to hold it in his lap like a bomb that would explode if he so much as moved.

Will hoped nobody would comment on it; he knew Mike would get embarrassed. The last thing he wanted was for him to be in a bad mood for the rest of the night.

El opened her can. A paper towel she had cleverly placed beneath it soaked up the drippage.

“Count of three?” Max asked her.

“Plagiarizer,” Mike muttered.

She ignored him, holding out her can for El to clink with hers when she nodded. “Three… two… one!” They giggled as they brought the cans to their mouths.

“How is it?” Max asked, snorting when El responded by sticking her tongue out in disgust.

“You were right, Dustin. It’s gross.”

“The key is to take small sips,” Max said sagely.

“Or, if you’re a man like me, you suck it up and take massive swigs,” Dustin added.

Max looked like she was going to spew a sarcastic comment, but then her eyes glazed over Mike and snapped back, and Will knew he was screwed. “Are you gonna drink or keep sitting there like it’s full of bleach?”

Mike snapped to attention. “Uh, yeah,” he retorted, cheeks tinged the slightest bit red if you were looking closely, which Will was. “Pass me a napkin.”

Max handed it to him, and he took his sweet time carefully laying it on his lap.

“Okay, do you actually want to drink?” she snapped. "Because you don’t have to.”

“I do.” It seemed like he was going to leave it there, but he sighed. “It—it’s hard for me to try new things. Sometimes.”

Max softened, no doubt appreciating his (rare) sincerity. “Listen, take it at your own pace. If you don’t drink, that’s cool. If you only drink a little, also cool.”

El cut in, “Just don’t get blackout drunk, or I’m making Will come home with us.”

Mike’s bratty attitude returned. “No shit.” He cracked open his can and drank. Everyone stared, waiting for his reaction.

His face screwed up first, then he blinked rapidly, clenching his jaw as he swallowed heavily.

“Well?” Dustin said.

Mike shrugged. “You guys are exaggerating. It’s just kind of bitter.”

Several snorts.

“What? I’m serious! It’s not that bad!”

“It’s okay, Wheeler. You don’t have to pretend you didn’t throw up in your mouth,” Max said.

El burst out laughing, and others followed, falling prey to her infectious laugh while Mike insisted that he wasn’t lying, and he didn’t get why this was so funny.

Will didn’t really know either. He wondered amusedly if his friends could be drunk already and, if so, if drunkness could be transferred via proximity. He certainly felt drunk with school finally behind him and ears full of the party’s laughter.

A few hours later, the basement was in even more chaos. Luckily, Mike’s parents had taken Holly to visit family in Illinois and Nancy was upstairs, probably blasting pop music and trying to ignore them.

In this time, they’d played multiple uno matches, which became more and more heated as drinks were downed, Max and El had performed a horrible screeching rendition of Heaven is a Place on Earth, and most concerningly, Dustin had kept trying to take off his shirt because he was ‘hot’ which forced Lucas and Will to practically beg him not to until he relented.

As for Will, he hadn’t touched a single can. But he liked that only he and Lucas were sober, spending the night making fun of their friends and keeping them in line. Lucas no doubt appreciated it too; it would be hard not to get lonely being the only one without a drop of alcohol in his system. The most recent way they’d entertained themselves was by ranking the others on a scale of ‘non-functioning’ to ‘almost normal.’ Dustin was easily the worst, followed by El and then a tie between Max and Mike. Lucas, notably, had observed a considerable dip in severity after Dustin. Unsurprising.

Now it was almost midnight and a movie was on. Nobody was paying attention, though: Max and El were practically yelling over it about some celebrity while Mike was intent on telling Will just how much he despised Mr. White, their American History teacher. Dustin appeared to be trying to take his shirt off again.

“Lucas,” Will said, “I think it’s probably time.”

He eyed Dustin warily. “Yeah. Probably.”

After a while, they’d managed to shepherd everyone in front of the door. El was leaning heavily on Max.

Will told her, only half-convinced she was listening, “Remember, if mom and Hop are there, just tell them you’re tired and go to your room.”

“You don’t look like my mom,” she replied, although it sounded more like a genuine observation than a sarcastic remark.

“She’ll be fine, Will,” Max assured him, but he wasn’t convinced by her judgment given the slight slurring of her words.

Lucas took the cue to open the door.

“I’m gonna miss you guys,” Mike said abruptly, sounding genuinely sad.

Dustin threw his arms around him. “We’ll miss you too, Mikey.” Then he took it upon himself to hug everyone else. He was kind of sweaty and smelled like alcohol, but Will didn’t mind. He smiled a little at the newfound knowledge that drunk-Dustin and drunk-Mike were more sentimental.

Once everyone was out the door, Lucas waved goodbye out Nancy’s car window and hollered at them not to stay up too late, earning him an eye roll.

Will shut the door and turned to Mike. “Maybe you should just drink a cup of water and we can go to sleep.”

“No way,” Mike said, grabbing his arm, “I’m not that drunk.” He started pulling him downstairs, then spun around halfway down to face Will. “Here, hold up your hands and ask me how many fingers you’re holding up.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s for concussions.” But he still held up his hands.

“Seven. See, I’m fine! Better than fine. And I want to have fun with you. I miss our sleepovers.”

Will reddened, letting Mike lead him to the couch. Yup, drunk-Mike was definitely more sentimental. He couldn’t say he was complaining, though. Nowadays, Mike’s ‘I’m thirteen and grown up now’ phase was largely abandoned, but he still tended to hide behind an unbothered front. It was nice to hear that he cared.

Will kicked himself when his leg brushed against a plastic bag leaning against the couch.

Mike followed his gaze, cocking his head like an owl.

Will leaned over and grabbed it. “Shit, forgot to give this to Max. We should probably hide it from your parents at some point.”

“Oh, yeah. They’d, like, kill me. With a gun.” Mike paused. “Sorry.”

Will snorted. “It’s okay, Mike. I forgive you.”

To his further surprise, Mike scooted toward Will until he was pressed against the armrest and put his chin on his shoulder. “Really?”

He looked away, grateful that being drunk would probably affect Mike’s observation skills so he wouldn’t see how red he was. “Yeah, whatever. Move, your breath smells like alcohol.” It was also hot against his neck, which was another thing contributing to his rising body temperature. But he wasn’t going to say that.

Mike pouted but obliged, removing his chin from Will’s shoulder. “You said you might drink after. Do you wanna? Now?”

Drink? Alone with Mike? The thought was thrilling for some reason, like a shared secret, but Will was still wary—even more so when it was just them, alone. What if he said something he would regret?

Sensing his reluctance, Mike continued, “It’s just me, Will. It’ll just be us—and…” he trailed off, and Will thought he was finished, but then he seemed to recover his train of thought. “And, I’ve probably already done some embarrassing shit I don’t remember, but I know you would never care ‘cause you’re awesome, and maybe I’m not as awesome but you should know that I won’t care.”

Did the rambling sentence have the eloquence of Mike’s English essays? No, but it was still sweet. Will looked at the clock. It read 12:07.

Okay. It was officially the second day of summer, and it was the middle of the night, and Will was going to drink for the (official) first time with his best friend in his basement. He snatched a can from the bag, cracked it open with minimal foaming and took a swig before doubt could creep in.

The taste was bitter at first, then sweet. He swallowed and it burned going down his throat. He coughed, digging his fingers into his neck. “Shit, it burns. None of you said it burned.”

Mike grinned at his struggle. “That’s why she said to take small sips.”

“You mean Max? Since when do you trust Max?”

“I’d trust her with my life,” Mike said solemnly. Will couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. “Whaddaya think, though? Besides the burning.”

“I still think you were lying when you said you liked it—”

“I didn’t—I—”

“But it’s actually not bad. It’s sweet.”

“So when I say that, it’s a lie, but when you say it,” Mike jammed a finger into Will’s chest, “you’re… it’s not. I see how it is.”

“There’s a reason why people trust me and not you.”

“If you really like it, take three drinks right nowww,” Mike sang, grabbing the hand holding Will’s can and trying to force the can to his mouth.

“Stop!” Will cried, laughing. He smacked Mike’s hand away when the can almost reached his lips, jostling the drink and causing a bit to drip on his shirt. “I can do it myself. Watch this.”

He took a drink, holding eye contact with Mike as he did so. He tried not to show the pain of the burn in his face just to stick it. On the second sip, the burn was easier on the way down. By the third, it wasn’t even that hard not to wince. “See? Told you.”

Mike rolled his eyes, but Will could tell he was a little impressed. It made him want to drink more. Jeez, calm down or you’ll end up throwing up on another carpet.

“Let’s watch a movie. We should watch Highlander. Or WarGames.”

Will shrugged. It sounded more like Mike was talking to himself than him. Normally, Mike asked what movie he wanted to watch, but he honestly didn’t have a preference so he didn’t care.

After a while of Mike rummaging around a crate of tapes and fumbling around and cursing trying to insert one in the VCR, the TV flicked on.

“E.T.?”

“I dunno, just… thought it used to be your favourite.”

“Oh, yeah.” Will bit down a smile, a warm rush of surprised pleasure running through him. He took another drink as Mike plopped down next to him. “Are you gonna drink any more?”

Mike shrugged with his whole body. “Depends. I wanna be the same amount of drunk as you.”

“Well, how many did you have?”

“I dunno, like three? Four? No, three and a half. Did you guys throw out the fourth? I wasn’t done.”

Will remembered him and Lucas tossing a bunch of cans in the trash and covering them with a mountain of tissues to hide them. They probably could have accidentally tossed one that wasn’t finished. “Whoops.”

“Fuck you,” Mike said with no real bite to his words. He reached into the bag in Will’s lap and felt around. “Aww, there’s only a few left.”

“That’s fine, ‘cause you’re only having one more, max,” Will decided. “I’m having the rest of them.”

Mike looked surprised, his hand still in the bag. “You’re getting through four?”

“Didn’t you say we should be the same amount of drunk?”

Mike fished out a can and opened it, trying in vain to suck up the fizzing liquid before it spilled. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Don’t think I care.”

Mike shrugged again. “Just don’t chug them. Remember what Max said.”

“No, Michael, I’m going to chug four beers right now.”

After a bit of confusion where Will had to explain that he wasn’t serious and really promise not to try to chug a can, they tuned back into the movie. Mike was very proud that he could quote a line or two and do this obnoxious E.T. impression.

To have this once-engrained part of Will's childhood played back in front of him again was bittersweet. It took him back to a time when things were simpler. Before that fateful night when any sense of normalcy in his life was forcibly ripped from him. Inevitably, his thoughts drifted to Mike: back then, they were simpler, too.

But now things were finally feeling normal again. He felt like a normal kid, getting drunk and having fun on an early summer night. And Mike was here, wasn't he?

As the clock hit three-quarters after, Will was hit with a truckload of giggly elation. He was happier than he’d been in a long time.

Beside him, Mike was practically bouncing off the couch. He’d been restless since he sat down, which only worsened as he worked his way through his last can. Will himself was almost finished with his third and steadily catching up to Mike.

“Will,” Mike said suddenly, sliding off the couch like a limp noodle and ending up sitting on the floor with his curls smushed against its side. As the weather had gotten more humid, his hair had gotten curlier. It was so endearing. Cute.

Mike scooted sideways along the couch until his back was against Will’s legs. Will froze instinctively; Mike didn’t turn around, his eyes set on the TV. “Can you…?”

Will swallowed but tried to play it cool. “Use your words, Mike.”

He held his breath as Mike reached around behind his head with long arms, hands flailing around until they found one of Will’s. He tugged it to his head.

“Ohhhh,” Will said. Then he grabbed a large chunk of Mike’s hair and yanked it.

“Ow!” Mike yelped, finally turning around to face him. “Fuck was that for?”

Will blinked innocently, feeling unusually bold. “I thought that was what you wanted… since you didn’t use your words.”

Mike stared at him, face steadily reddening. “Ugh—this is stupid—”

Will put a hand on his shoulder when he tried to get up. “It’s not stupid.” Mike stared at him with wide eyes, and Will rushed to continue, “I mean, I used to fidget with your hair all the time when we were little, anyway, so it’s not weird.”

Mike nodded slowly. “Yeah.” In a brighter tone, he repeated, “Yeah. Only weird if you make it weird.”

For some reason, Will found this hysterical. “Only weird if you make it weird,” he repeated in an overly cheerful tone.

Mike laughed like it was the funniest running joke in the world.

Warmth bubbled in Will’s stomach. With Mike’s back to him, it was easier to jolt himself into motion. Tentatively, he began to run his fingers through his hair. Only weird if you make it weird.

The alcohol made it easier to forget about all the time he’d spent daydreaming about things like this over the years. He liked it, liked the fuzzy tinge it added to his thoughts, a light wash like honey that made him slow to doubt and regret.

He focused on Mike’s hair. It was thick and darker than a night’s sky. Art, Will thought vaguely.

Last year’s art class… right, they were tasked with painting someone they knew. He chose Mike despite the irrational fear of being caught —like it was incriminating evidence or some shit. But the point was: none of the shades of black he tried struck the right balance between the deepness and warmth of Mike’s hair. There was a time when Will was jealous of it, despising his own pin-straight, ordinary brown hair.

Like he’d read his mind, Mike broke the silence—minus the sounds of the movie—“I used to be jealous of your hair.”

“What? Why?”

“Because… because it was straight. It never got frizzy or tangled. And it was, like, silky smooth.” Then Mike burst out laughing. Will continued combing his fingers through his hair as he shook with laughter. “That—that sounded like a Perma Soft commercial or some shit.” Then, without missing a beat, “I wanted to steal it.”

The sudden comment took Will by surprise. He snorted. “My hair? How?”

“Like, snatch it.”

“Then I’d be bald. Did you want me to be bald?”

“No,” said Mike seriously. “Then you wouldn’t be as nice to look at.”

Will’s hand got stuck in a tangle. Mike made a short squawk of surprise. “Sorry. Tangle.”

“No, it’s…’s okay,” Mike mumbled. They returned to the movie, and Will downed his drink with his free hand and cracked open his last one while he tried to remember what Mike had been saying.

Then Mike muttered something too quiet for him to hear over the TV.

“What?”

“Do… can you do it again?”

“Do what?”

“Just… pull my hair. Feels good.”

Will’s heart practically fell into his stomach. His mouth felt dry, so he drank. “Um, okay.”

He carefully wound his hand around a few of Mike’s thick curls, wondering if this was weird. Only weird if you make it weird… he was pretty sure one of them had said that.

He paused, fisting Mike’s hair in his palm. Mike didn’t say anything and was still for the first time since they’d come into the basement.

Only weird if you make it weird. Will swallowed and gently tugged at the hair in his hand, afraid that if he pulled too hard, Mike would smack his hand away and things would be weird again.

He didn’t, though. Instead, his head followed the movement, falling back on Will’s lap. He strained to look Will in the eyes. “Do better than that.”

Will started to laugh, but his smile faded when he saw the look on Mike’s face. Like he meant it.

Trying to break the tension, he said the first thing that popped into his head. “You know combs exist, right?” His voice sounded strange even to himself.

Mike’s expression didn’t falter. “Told you. Feels good.”

Will swallowed again. Did getting drunk induce hallucinations? This was like some kind of feverish daydream, something he could only bear to think about when it was late at night and the house was silent. “Uh—”

He felt a firm grip on the hand holding his can. He jumped, jostling Mike’s head.

“Ow,” Mike said. He tried to swipe for the can again. “Gimme. Let’s get buzzed. ”

Will dodged another one of Mike’s attacks, spilling beer on the couch. “No way. You’re… you’re already drunk, remember?"

“Bull–shit! ” Mike hooted. “I just know how to have fun. Which you know nothing about—fun. Partying.”

“Oh yeah? Well, nobody calls you the party guy. Have you ever heard anyone say, ‘Oh, there’s Mike the party guy’? The fun guy?”

Mike looked stumped by this, giving Will a rush of satisfaction, and he finished debunking his statement by continuing, “Besides, I know how to have fun.”

Mike took his head from Will’s lap and turned so he was facing him from where he sat on the floor. “Okay," his eyes slid down the length of Will's torso, "then prove it.”

Will frowned. Did Mike not think he was having fun right now? “I don’t have to prove it. I—”

“Take off your shirt.”

“What? ” Will almost laughed. “No!”

Mike flopped his head down on the couch beside Will’s legs. “Whyyy?” His voice was muffled by the pillows. “Dustin did it, and he’s the funnest.”

Will considered this and concluded that it was stupid for Mike to attribute ‘funness’ to how willing you were to take off your shirt. He opened his mouth to say that. “You should take off your shirt.” It took him a second to register the words that had come out of his mouth, and another to realize that that was in fact not what he had planned to say.

His eyes widened in panic, but Mike was already fumbling with the hem of his shirt. Will lurched forward to grab his hands. “Don’t! Don’t—I was kidding.”

Mike stopped but looked confused. “You don’t want me to? I thought you did.”

Another hot wave of panic hit Will. “I’m not… no.” He released Mike’s hands. His own shook and he gripped the fabric of his jeans to still them. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t—

“Will.” Mike’s voice stopped his spiralling and threw him back to the present.

Right. He was sitting on the couch, and he was having fun. E.T. was on the TV. A boy was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch. Frowning at him and reaching again for his shirt.

Shit. He should tell Mike to stop. He should’ve, but he didn’t want to, so he didn’t. He was too tired, and it was too late. He was so tired that he didn’t even have the energy to stop himself from watching through heavy-lidded eyes as Mike pulled his ill-fitting tee over his head, from studying how the bright light from the TV played across his skin. He was scrawny, but to Will every part of Mike was like art.

Will’s eyes finally flicked up to his face. Neither of them spoke. Then Mike croaked, “It’s not weird because we’re not—queer, okay?”

“Okay,” Will said, even though he didn’t feel okay at all. The bubbly giddiness in his stomach had increased tenfold to the point where he was afraid of doubling over from the pressure and his head hurt so bad. He wanted to go to bed. He wanted Mike to ask if he was okay. He wanted to touch his skin or pull his hair again.

Will almost jumped when he realized Mike was standing in front of him. He blinked dazedly, staring at his bare chest.

“It’s not weird,” Mike’s voice repeated, and Will’s eyes snapped up to meet his. Something was pleading in his eyes, something that had Will saying ‘yeah’ even though he had no idea what he was referring to.

Something flashed in Mike’s eyes before they dipped down. Will’s lips parted before his brain could catch up to the movement. 

Then Mike was leaning down, hands coming up clumsily to grasp at Will’s face as he pressed his lips against Will’s.

Will’s breath caught and it was over. Mike stumbled back and bumped into the end table. “Shit. Sorry, I—”

Something possessed Will to grab Mike’s arm. “It’s not weird,” he felt the need to remind him, and then he was yanking Mike back into him. Too hard, though, because Mike practically fell into him and consequently Will’s head knocked into the wall. He barely registered the pain, though, because Mike was leaning back into his space, and then the chapped and solid lips he'd memorized to a fault were there, warm and electric against his own.

There was a brief moment where Will floundered, unsure of what he was supposed to do or what Mike wanted him to do. But when Mike grabbed for his shoulders and pushed him down into the couch, Will's panicked thoughts got lost somewhere in the heat of Mike's touch. Heat like the burn of alcohol going down his throat: scary but intoxicating all the same. It was easy to follow Mike's lead, to lean his head back on the back of the couch to let Mike climb over him with his knees on either side of his thighs. Mike kissed him like he was starving, and the sweet, slightly alcoholic taste of him was so overwhelming that Will was rendered a trembling mess beneath him. It couldn’t have been longer than ten seconds, but he wasn’t in his right mind to be embarrassed.

Mike broke the kiss. Will's head lifted after him, pulled after him by some magnetic force. He registered Mike’s heaving chest, his own ragged, shallow breaths. His gaze fixed on Mike's lips, red and the slightest bit puffy. It really, really made him mourn the feeling of kissing him, so naturally his hands scrabbled out for his face. “More,” he whined, trying to make him understand. His fingers reached the back of Mike’s head and he clumsily pulled him back in.

Mike’s lips crashed into the corner of his own. He felt hot embarrassment flood through him—of course he’d messed it up. He was sure Mike would realize he was too inexperienced and get off of him, but he didn’t. Instead, he started to kiss down his jaw, and then down his neck, and God if it wasn’t enough to evaporate all of Will’s thoughts. He bit down on the inside of his cheek and grasped onto the nearest thing for support, which happened to be Mike. One hand wound itself into his hair while the other clung to the back of his neck as Mike’s lips reached his collarbone. The skin his lips had trailed over felt like it was on fire, a searing heat that was terrifying but addictive all the same.

“Mike.” It was difficult to make his mouth form words. Mike started to suck on the skin around his collarbone and Will dug his fingers into the nape of Mike's neck. “Mike.”

A breathless “what?” as Mike brought his head up from his collarbone.

“I… it’s hot,” Will got out. His head was spinning and he wanted nothing more than to be dunked into icy water. His heart was also racing; he’d never done anything like this before, and it was so good but he was afraid it was too much for his heart to handle.

Shakily, he lifted his head from the back of the couch to look at Mike—hair so beautifully mussed it made him feel nauseous—and let his arms flop to his sides.

Mike leaned back on his knees to sit on Will’s lap. “Here,” he said, but not gently in the way Will was accustomed to when Mike was trying to help him. His voice was breathless and full of want. His hands hunted for the hem of Will’s shirt in the low light.

Part of Will wanted to let him, let him do all the things he had shamefully imagined Mike doing to him. But now that the rush had worn off, he was left overwhelmed and confused. Why was Mike doing this? What did he want from him?

The bubbly feeling in his stomach turned sour. He just wanted to sleep. He lightly pushed him away. “Mike, don’t.”

Mike withdrew as if slapped. Will’s stomach churned. He hadn’t wanted to hurt him. “I’m just—it’s late. Could… can we sleep now?”

Mike nodded jerkily, practically scrambling off his lap and to his feet. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.” He stared at Will for a second, then his gaze slid to the floor and he bent awkwardly to pick up his shirt and quickly pulled it back on. Wordlessly, he disappeared into the darkness of the basement, and Will was left alone with the blaring TV.

He dimly wondered where Mike was going and wished he would come back. After a few seconds that felt painfully long, Mike returned with a sleeping bag. He cleared his throat. “You can sleep on the couch—or the floor, whatever you want.”

Will blinked. Usually, they both slept on the floor. But the thought of sleeping next to Mike then filled him with an unpleasant mixture of anxiety, excitement, and the feeling that came right before throwing up. “Couch is good.”

They brushed their teeth in silence, with nothing but the sound of the muffled TV and toothbrushes scraping against teeth to distract them from how they avoided each other’s eyes in the mirror. Will spat the taste of Mike down the drain.

When they returned to the couch and Mike turned off the TV, the silence felt like a physical thing squeezing around Will’s throat. But he was too tired and his head was pounding too hard to care.

He collapsed onto the couch, trying in vain to pull the ratty blanket over him from where he lay multiple times before giving up and resigning himself to hugging a pillow to his head. He heard the shifting of polyester and pictured Mike lying on top of his sleeping bag from his spot on the floor.

Will hoped he wasn’t mad at him. He hated being drunk. He hated that Mike wasn’t here, beside him.

Chapter Text

Will’s first thought when he woke up was I need a cup of water. So he pushed himself up from the couch, wincing as his vision filled with spots and his head pounded so hard he almost flopped right back down. Right. Last night I…

He swivelled his head to see Mike curled up on the floor, sleeping bag wrestled into a ball and clenched to his stomach.

We…

Bits and pieces came rushing back. E.T. The burn as alcohol went down his throat. Mike’s dark curls. Mike’s head on his lap. It’s not weird. Mike taking off his shirt. Mike pushing him into the couch and kissing down his neck—

What the hell. What the hell. The memories were tinged with bubbly delirium, but they were unmistakably real. Mike had kissed him with the same intensity he had about everything—had wanted him—to the point where it had been too much.

Will flushed at that. He’d been harbouring a guilty curiosity for how it would feel to be kissing his best friend for a long time: when Mike and El would break off from the group together, when Mike had actually secured a date to the dance in Sophomore year and they were a thing for a solid two weeks after, or… well, that was about the extent of Mike’s dating life. Not that Will was any better: aside from the brief nightmare that had been him and Jennifer Hayes, he’d garnered a reputation for politely rejecting girls for… reasons. It cost a small blow to his pride to wonder if Mike had really been that good at kissing or if Will was just that inexperienced and pathetically gone.

To his further shame, he realized he was staring at Mike’s sleeping form with a question in the back of his mind. More than that, a longing. A longing for Mike to be like him. 

Will rushed to tamp it down—it was the last thing he needed. His mom said people did stupid things when they were drunk and he’d seen it firsthand: Mike was probably just horny and Will happened to be there. Teenage hormones and shit.

Something like this had happened when they were eleven, he remembered. Mike had said it would be funny to pretend to be boyfriend and girlfriend, and he had them pretend to, as he’d put it, ‘suck face.’ Will had found it less funny when Mike told him to put his hands in his hair ‘like a girl.’ Long story short, Mike’s mom walked in on them, Will was asked to leave and they never brought it up again.

That was nothing compared to this. The thought of facing Mike now was mortifying. What if he asked something Will couldn’t answer? Like, why didn’t you stop me?

He decided to save the spiralling for after he got a cup of water. He rubbed at his eyes and got up from the couch. It squeaked and Mike stirred on the floor.

Shit. Shit. He couldn’t face him now, not yet—

“Will?”

Too late. Will stood rooted in place as Mike stretched like a cat, wrestling away his sleeping bag as he did so. He sat up, hair a frizzy mess and eyes still half-closed. “I’m never doing that again. Feels like someone, like, stepped on my brain.”

Be cool be cool just go along with it maybe he doesn’t even remember it’s not weird. Will laughed nervously, even though his frantic thoughts were so loud he barely heard Mike over them.

Mike finally opened his eyes. He blinked a few times, staring lazily at Will, who might as well have been staring back into the barrel of a revolver. “You—”

Whatever Mike was about to say was cut off as his eyes dropped and a million things flashed in them at once, ending in unmistakable panic.

Will willed his mouth to move, unable to stop a bit of panic from seeping into his voice. “What?” Mike’s eyes snapped to his, but he seemed incapable of doing anything but staring at him like a goldfish behind glass. “What is it?”

Like Will’s words had flipped a switch, Mike went from completely still to in incessant motion, knee bouncing and eyes darting everywhere but Will’s face. “Uh—you—it’s just—” he stopped, fixing his eyes on his lap. “Do you, um. Remember? Last night?”

Will swallowed. Mike hadn’t forgotten; of course he hadn’t. He ignored the guilty rush that came with the concrete confirmation that last night was something to discuss, something tangible and not just one of Will’s many shameful imaginings. He was glad that Mike wasn’t looking at him as he mumbled, “Yeah.” He was afraid to say anything more.

Mike grimaced. Despite everything Will had told himself, it hurt. 

“Listen, I—” Mike cut himself off abruptly, lifting his gaze as if to finally look at Will but averting his eyes at the last second. “Fuck, my head’s killing me. I’ll, um—” he scrambled to his feet—“I’ll be right back. I can get you some water and an aspirin too—I mean, only if you want?”

Will cringed internally but plastered on a close-lipped smile. Mike’s evasive awkwardness was almost identical to the infamous Lenora airport incident, when Mike had greeted him for the first time in practically a year with a grimacing smile and a tense side-hug. Then they’d fought. “Yeah, mine too. I can come up with you—”

“No!” Mike blurted. Will withdrew, stung. “Sorry, I just—just wait one second. I’ll be right back.” Then he was running up the stairs two steps at a time, and Will was left confused, a familiar kind of hurt settling in his heart.

He’d been stupid to think Mike wouldn’t leave him alone in the dark again. He’d been stupid to give him the precise means to do so, to angle his neck so Mike knew the exact spot it would hurt most to plunge the knife. Everything circled back to his stupid feelings: whether Mike knew it or not, they were a big reason for the gap that’d been steadily widening between them over the years, gone unacknowledged until only a few months ago. It was one thing when they were ruining everything safely locked up inside his mind, manifesting themself in little oversteps: an incriminating painting, a frustrated, ill-considered outburst. But Will feared he’d stepped over a dangerous line last night he couldn’t come back from, from the moment he’d let Mike’s hands touch him in the dark. 

He shouldn’t have done that. He’d spent years carefully composing himself, trying not to slip up, be who Mike needed him to be but not too much, only for it all to fall apart in one fucking night. It only made him angrier when he felt his eyes start to well up. Stupid. So stupid.

He heard Mike’s loud footsteps on the stairs and quickly blinked the tears away. It was almost scary how easy it had become to pretend around Mike. Now, though, it was all for nothing. Because he had to know, didn’t he?

It was all Will could think about as Mike handed him his cup and the aspirin, tensing as their fingers brushed.

He knows, doesn’t he?

Will popped the pill and drained the cup in one gulp, tried not to grimace, and inhaled. “If you—”

Mike started at the same time, “So—”

“Sorry. You go.”

“No, no, you.”

Will hesitated. If Mike still had something to say to him, maybe he didn’t know.

Or maybe…

He huffed out a laugh, half-awkwardness and half at his own wishful thinking. “Seriously, it was nothing.”

Mike scrutinized him with his I-don’t-believe-you-but-I-won’t-push-it expression, and the familiar mannerism eased Will’s nerves a little more. “Oookay. I was going to tell you—” he flushed again and looked away—“or maybe it’s better if I just, uh—if I just show you. Like, in a mirror.” He spun around and started toward the bathroom.

Will’s eyebrows knitted in concern. He reluctantly got up after Mike. “What, do I have a massive zit or something?”

Mike just pulled him in front of the mirror.

“I don’t…” Then Will understood.

And felt more mortified than he thought he’d felt in his entire life. “...Oh.”

Right there, above his collarbone, was a slightly red mark. A hickey. “Oh,” he repeated dumbly, because apparently that was the only word his mouth was capable of forming now.

“Yeah,” Mike said. It brought Will some comfort that he sounded just as mortified as he felt. He cheated a glance at Mike in the mirror and tried not to linger on the beautiful flush spreading across his freckle-dusted face. Tried not to think about how he’d been the one to do that. Tried, and failed.

Mike’s reflection seemed to scrabble for words. “Sorry,” he said, then cringed.

Will’s knee-jerk reaction was to snort a laugh, because Mike said it like an accident, like he’d stepped on Will’s foot or cut him off mid-sentence. He immediately regretted it as Mike shrank further into himself—an unnerving sight. One of the things Will admired most about Mike was that his body naturally took up as much space as it could, long limbs unafraid to intrude or misstep. Now he looked entirely not himself, clearly uncomfortable. Guilt squirmed uncomfortably in Will’s stomach. He wanted to put Mike at ease, to help him, but it was Will’s presence that was hurting him, wasn’t it? He opted to shut his mouth.

Mike cleared his throat. “What I mean to say is, I can steal some of my mom’s shit so… so you can, y’know. Cover it.”

“Good idea,” Will rushed to agree, and then Mike was escaping yet again.

Will hesitated in the following silence, breathing in and out of sync with the dripping of the faucet.

No one’s watching.

Slowly, slowly, he leaned forward over the sink. His hand tremored as he brought it to his collar. Tentatively, he brushed a finger over the mark—it didn’t hurt at all. But he let his hand linger there, giving in to his brain and the greedy, obsessive way in which it replayed the memory.

He wondered if Mike had ever done that to anyone else, and immediately shut down the thought because gross, El was his sister. Also, the possibility filled him with an ugly, churning jealousy he knew wasn’t fair.

Still, he brought a finger to his marked skin again, fondly and gently like it was something precious, not what he knew it was, what it meant.

Mike burst through the doorway. Will startled, woken from a trance. He quickly withdrew from the mirror and dropped his hand, but Mike appeared too preoccupied to even glance at him as he threw two handfuls of products, one of which Will recognized from his mom’s vanity, another as one of El’s sixteenth birthday gifts, into the sink. “I just picked a few different ones at random. They all look the same to me, but”—he swiped at his nose—“we can still test them all.”

There was a pause as Mike hovered awkwardly by the doorway, and Will understood. Mike was waiting for an affirmation that would put his nerves at rest, make him feel less uncomfortable—which was of course how Will made him feel now.

Yes, Mike, I promise not to kill you if you touch me or—god forbid—look me in the eye, Will wanted to say. “Is this going to take a while?” he settled on instead, deciding to channel his frankly unfair offense—because Mike’s behaviour was perfectly understandable—into acting casual even if Mike couldn’t. “‘Cause if so, I’m sitting on the toilet.”

On the upside, Mike relaxed a little as he finally stepped into the bathroom. “Why’re you assuming I’m doing it for you?”

Will scoffed and responded without thinking, “It’s your fault we have to in the first place.” At Mike’s paling, he rushed to recover as if coaxing an animal from fleeing. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to… um.”

“It’s fine,” Mike said in a cracked voice that sounded the opposite of fine. “I… whatever. Just sit already.”

Will snapped his mouth shut at the edge in Mike’s voice and sat on the toilet lid, staring at the patchy skin on his knees as Mike rifled around the sink.

As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Will needed affirmation from Mike, too. Just a bad joke, a small smile—anything. He was desperate for any sign, however abstract, to disprove the mounting fear that he’d be walking out of Mike’s house for the last time today. That Mike wouldn’t let him in ever again, because there were consequences to Will’s actions and he was supposed to know that.

Mismatched socks in his peripheral vision brought him out of his festering thoughts. Mike was standing in front of him. Part of him didn’t want to look up, thought that if he sat like this long enough, Mike might just disappear and they’d never have to acknowledge the truth. 

But that was stupid. Cowardly. He didn’t have the privilege of hiding from Mike anymore, which was his own fault. He had to face the humiliation he’d caused for himself.

Will ground his jaw and reluctantly lifted his eyes. He thought, not for the first time, how unfair and cruel it was that the sight of Mike Wheeler’s face still stole the breath from his lungs. 

There was a silence as they regarded each other in the cramped bathroom, the unspoken truth of yesterday between them.

Mike’s hand twitched, and when Will’s attention was brought to it he saw that it was gripping three products—tubes and bottles. “Hold out your arm,” came Mike’s voice, low and quiet despite the emptiness of the basement. At least it was lacking that edge from earlier.

Will wordlessly did so (“no, other side”), nothing to distract him as Mike fumbled with the cap of one of the tubes but the steady dripping of the faucet. His every instinct told him to find a way to fill the silence, but he could tell that words were on the tip of Mike’s tongue as he finally unscrewed the cap. He was gnawing at the inside of his cheek, for one, and although his posture appeared relaxed, Will could practically feel the thrumming energy radiating off of him.

Mike swiped at his nose again, then put the tube to Will’s wrist and squeezed. When nothing came out, he groaned in frustration and shook the tube probably harder than was necessary, sending specks of peachy liquid flying. “Shit,” he hissed, on edge again. Will felt strangely responsible even though he knew Mike’s anger wasn’t directed at him, not most of it anyway. “It missed you, don’t worry,” Mike told him, misinterpreting what must have shown on his face.

Will nodded faintly, eyes darting all over him. “You got some on your shirt.” His voice came out too quiet.

Mike followed his gaze and brought up the hem of his shirt, scrubbing in vain at the light blotch against grey with his thumb. Will’s eyes darted to sallow, exposed skin—then guiltily back. Mike let go just as fast, pulling his shirt down even farther. “It’ll come out in the wash,” finally he let go of the fabric, “probably.”

“Probably,” Will repeated, too terrified to meet Mike’s eyes and find telling disgust in them. 

Mike returned to squeezing product onto Will’s wrist, one hand on the tube and the other clenched at his side rather than holding up Will’s arm. It was fine. He knew why, and it didn’t hurt at all.

Pale beige spurted out onto Will’s skin. “...What are you doing?”

Mike didn’t look up. “Trying to find a good match.” At Will’s silence, he looked up. His gaze found Will’s exposed collarbone and slid up his face before he looked him in the eyes. “Like, a colour that’s tanned, but not too yellow, or…” Will found himself nodding along, even though Mike didn’t even finish his sentence and none of his words were registering. Everything was more torturous, now, because every time Mike’s eyes were on him he could recall, in vivid detail, how it felt to be consumed by them, their hot breath mingling between kisses on Mike’s couch.

Mike caught his lower lip between his teeth and turned away, rummaging through the sink to fish out another product. 

After a tense eternity, a product was deemed adequate for Will. A brand he recognized—COVERGIRL, which only made his cheeks go redder with embarrassment.

He dragged a wet tissue over his painted wrist as Mike took the acorn-shaped sponge from the side of the sink. “You don’t know how to use this.” It started like a question but ended up more like a statement.

Will tried scrubbing; some of the stubborn product had dried out in patches that refused to come off. “Nope.”

There was a pause, and Will wondered briefly how Mike knew himself. Like he had voiced the question aloud, Mike clarified, “To be clear, Holly asked me to do her makeup once and Nancy guilted me into it.”

Usually it was funny how quick Mike was to get defensive and overcompensate, but Will was too on edge and disoriented to react. “It’s probably better if you do it, then.”

“Yeah… yeah, you’re right,” Mike said, relief written on his face. Still, that thrumming, anxious energy hadn’t left. “Um… so, should I kneel, or..?”

“You’re the makeup expert.” When Mike tensed up, Will regretted opening his mouth for the second time that morning.

“Fuck off,” Mike said passively, and turned the sponge in his palm as if preparing himself. “Look up.”

The action only made Will more aware of the sound of his beating heart, of blood rushing in his ears, competing with the dripping faucet. Sounds that grew louder and louder as Mike inched closer, leaned into his space, broke the unsaid boundary.

Will kept his eyes trained on the door.

“Listen,” Mike said suddenly, pressing bottle pump to skin in the spot where his lips had been just hours ago. “What happened, I—” a pump of product—“I didn’t… I’m sorry.”

Will had known what subject Mike planned to broach the second he’d opened his mouth, but he hadn’t expected another sorry. “You keep saying that,” he replied flatly.

Mike set the bottle down with a thunk—he was already losing his cool, Will could tell without looking at him. He heard the sharp inhale of his breath before he spoke. 

“Because it was a mistake, okay?” A mistake. Will himself had convinced himself of that very fact, ahead of time, to avoid unnecessary pain. “We were drunk! We were drunk. I mean—people do stupid stuff when they’re drunk, you know?” Stupid stuff, that’s all. 

So why did it hurt so much to hear him say it?

“If it helps, I barely remember anything.” The blatant lie slipped easily from Will’s lips.

Mike blazed on as if he hadn’t even said anything. “I don’t want to let a mistake get in the way of us. You don’t deserve that, okay? Not again.”

Silence—Will didn’t know what to say and was willfully diverted by the repetitive patting of the sponge on the skin around his collarbone.

“Obviously I’m not… I like girls.”

White-hot panic reached Will before the tone of Mike’s words. He forced himself to swallow it down when he confirmed, replaying it in his mind, the lack of an implied unlike you. Just firm, anxious defensiveness. He mumbled out some kind of agreement and felt the nervous energy evaporate off of Mike as he blew out a relieved breath.

“So can we just agree to forget about this?”

There was no way Will could ever do that, not easily like Mike said it, with the corner of his mouth slightly upturned. He knew that—knew now that he’d gotten a taste of Mike, pretending would hurt so much more. It would eat him up inside until there was nothing left, and he would never say anything about it because losing Mike would hurt even more.

“Yeah, ‘course.”

On the surface, everything was normal.

For a week, they went out almost every day—to the pool, the arcade, the new mall, the junkyard, everybody’s places except Max’s (but mostly Mike’s), Lover’s Lake to skip rocks. No one noticed Will’s poorly-covered mark and it faded away in two days' time. Mike acted—no, was—so normal, always teasing and slinging an arm around Will’s shoulder without a second thought, that any remaining awkwardness fizzled out just as fast.

It was driving Will insane, which was nothing he hadn’t expected. He soaked up every second with Mike like a drowning man gulping for air; he resented him for not sharing in his sorrows. He paled under Mike’s touch but couldn’t bring himself to duck away. He was intoxicated by everything Mike did and left feeling perverted and exposed. He mourned the loss of his marked skin; without it, it felt more and more as though that night had been nothing but a delusional, drunken fantasy. Many stuffy nights tossing and turning in his bed or atop a sleeping bag at Mike’s were feverish, dredging up and piecing together as much as he could squeeze dry from his brain so obsessively he might as well call himself Sherlock-fucking-Holmes.

What Will hadn’t realized was how fragile the normalcy really was. All it took was an early night on a Thursday to shatter it.

An evil, almost otherworldly aura was coming from the beer case, set ominously on the carpet a short distance from where Will was sitting on the couch in Mike’s basement.

He’d never considered himself superstitious, but an insistent voice in his head found it absolutely necessary to avoid looking at it or even around it, lest there would be dire consequences. It was ridiculous. He obliged.

The worst part was that he could tell Mike was doing the same thing. It was objectively funny: both of them tensed up beside each other on the couch, keeping as much distance as possible from the Scary Beer Case while their friends blabbered on, entirely oblivious.

That was until inevitably the case was brought up.

Lucas gestured at it, “Maybe we should go to the junkyard or something. It’s depressing drinking holed up down here."

"Yeah," El chimed in, “if we go quick we can watch the sunset!”

Max grimaced and scratched at her sunburnt arms. "Kinda done with going outside."

Will bobbed his head. Half the time, nights around this time of year were just as dry and sweltering as the days. Plus, he reasoned, maybe staying here will put drinking off the table.

Mike nodded too. “Besides, that stuff fucked me up last time.”

“The beers? Really? You didn’t look that bad to me,” El said.

Max made a face at her. “Oh please, you could barely see two feet in front of you.”

El ignored her. “Did something happen after we left?”

Will maintained a neutral expression and fought the urge to strangle her.

Why did he have to tell El that he ended up drinking with Mike? He’d known she’d picked up on their… complicated relationship, to put it one way: he avoided discussing anything to do with Mike around her, but she was always sticking her nose in his business. As far as she was concerned (and she had told him so, half-jokingly), Mike always had a sinister ulterior motive. Considering Mike’s inability to keep a straight face and lack in the art of subtlety, Will found that hard to believe.

He watched, half-amusedly and half-anxiously, as Mike floundered around. “No,” he sputtered, blinking wildly, “but waking up feeling like I’d been run over by a double-decker bus wasn’t fun, if that counts.”

Will snorted; he couldn't help it. El leaned back, interrogation over.

"No way—killer headache, too?" Dustin chimed in.

Mike shrugged. “I mean, yeah, but probably not to the same extent...”

Dustin shook his head, looking vaguely haunted. "It was hell, man. I vomited thrice."

"I thought it was four,” Lucas said. “You said it was a ‘quartet of misery.’"

"It was hazy, goddamnit, forgive me if I'm not clear on a few of the details!"

Max talked over them to Mike, "This stuff isn’t as strong, at least according to my mom." At everyone's faces, she raised her eyebrows. "What, you thought she wouldn’t notice a massive box disappearing from her fridge?" In a softer tone, fidgeting with an elastic band on her wrist, "But—she’s cool with it. She knows I’m not gonna do anything stupid. If she met you guys, though? I dunno."

Lucas slung an arm around her shoulder in a gesture not unlike Mike coming up behind Will and throwing himself at him. “We’re responsible, what d’you mean?”

Max scoffed but stopped her fidgeting to lean into him just a little. “I wasn’t talking about responsibility. More like how you guys can’t even handle a single can without hurling your guts up.”

“Are you forgetting what you kept whispering in my ear? Lucas, you’re— "

Instantly, Max turned as red as the stripes on her t-shirt and shoved him away. "God—shut up about that! Let’s see how you” —she glared at Lucas then turned her eyes on Will with considerably less aggression—“and you handle your alcohol this time. I’ll drive. Unless anyone else wants to..?"

Will’s brain kicked into overdrive. Because either way, one of them would be drinking. Unless of course Mike volunteered and Will told everyone he wouldn’t drink, either. But that would be suspicious, wouldn't it? El would definitely be suspicious—he dreaded that night being brought up again. Besides, as long as they were around their friends, nothing would happen. At least, Mike hadn't tried anything that night. No—nothing would happen, period. It hadn't meant anything. Just because Mike was drunk didn’t mean he was going to initiate anything, and Will wouldn't want him to, drunk or not.

So he said nothing, feeling twitchy, and subtly peeked at Mike's hands in his lap to try to get a sense of how he was feeling. Every second Mike picked restlessly at his cuticles he expected him to say something, but he didn’t.

So the moment, brief as the pause between songs on a stereo, passed. Their friends started chattering again, and then a can was placed in Will’s hand and he was hit with a wave of deja vu as he read the label. Heineken.

He kept staring at the label for a long moment after that, feeling a bit sick to his stomach. 

“Are you guys okay?”

Will startled at the question, felt sicker when he looked up to see everyone staring at the two of them. He glanced at Mike and found his gaze transfixed. Like him, Mike’s eyebrows were drawn up in surprise, but there was something guilty in his eyes Will had seen many times before. “What—why wouldn’t we be?”

“You guys are like matching… I don’t know, like—” Dustin drew his shoulders up, frowned and popped his eyes out.

Lucas’ eyes lit up; he pointed at them. “Like you’ve seen a ghost!”

Will caught Mike’s eye before he could blurt something stupid: I’ve got it. He put on a sheepish smile and shrugged, turning back to the others. “We might have heatstroke.”

It was a plausible explanation: he and Mike had dawdled around Lover’s Lake long after the others got sick of swimming and agreed to meet them at the Family Video ‘in a bit,’ discussing Mike’s latest sci-fi novel idea and attacking each other with handfuls of water when they got too hot long after their sopping clothes dried and were soaked through again with sweat. Eventually, they got around to biking to Family Video only to find their friends nowhere to be seen. On the plus side, Steve immediately bought them ice cream upon seeing them (ten-cent discount, don’t be too grateful, pay me back).

El made a clicky sound that vaguely resembled a tut. “You both never listen.”

“Yeah, what part of ‘in a bit’ do you not understand?” Lucas said.

“‘In a bit’ is subjective,” Mike shot back, familiar smug attitude returning now that the threat had subsided. “Instead of insulting us, how about you guys try learning something from this? Like—”

“I already knew you were a little bitch.” Max’s response came so fast Will almost felt sorry for Mike.

Dustin hooted out a laugh from where he and El were cross-legged and hunched over some wheeled contraption they’d been fussing over for a few days now, beers cracked open in their laps.

Will bit back a smile, opening his mouth to defend Mike—but Mike, huffing out a laugh, beat him to it. “That’s rich coming from—what? ” A warning look from Lucas. “She can say all that shit and I’m supposed to just sit there and take it?”

“Yup!” Max smiled sweetly at him, an expression that Will had gathered was reserved for bullying Mike and not much else. 

Mike returned with a dark glower. Will snorted at the realization that they both had faces largely reserved for insulting each other.

Mike turned on him, glower melting into something warmer. It was a look Will had learned quickly in the beginning, a softening that smoothed out his face even as it grew sharper with each passing year. Always it reminded Will of summer, honey, all things sweet he couldn’t have. That softness leaked into a teasing smile. “What, think this is funny?”

Will felt a pang in his stomach. He ignored it, raised his eyebrows, held his hands up. “No! In fact,”—he turned to Max—“if you’re going to target him, you should target me, too. I was the one who forgot my watch.”

“No way,” Mike said, knocking his shoulder against Will’s with a jolt that spread through his whole body from the point of contact. “I basically forced you to stay.”

“Don’t try to act all noble now, Wheeler.” As if letting him in on a secret, Max scooted toward Will. “Between you and me, even if it was entirely your fault I’d still find a way to blame him.”

Will couldn’t help but smile. He wasn’t sure why Max had taken such a liking to him, ever since they’d started exchanging letters during his time in Lenora. Will wouldn’t put ‘nice’ in the top choice of words to associate with Max Mayfield, but—it was nice. “Thanks, Max. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Hello? I’m right here!” Mike exclaimed, sending Will and Max into a fit of laughter. 

Will felt bad for enabling her, he really did. But he liked the curl of heat he got in his stomach when Mike rose to the bait all red-cheeked and animated. It had always been a point of shame, but he couldn’t resist. “Sorry,” his chest was still heaving, “sorry, Mike.”

Mike crossed his arms. “Are you really? You don’t look sorry to me.”

Will finally calmed down enough to speak normally. He shoved Mike with his shoulder just in case he was actually pissed at him. “I am, swear.”

He shoved him back, eyes full of mischief. “You’ll have to make it up to me, then.”

Will’s cheeks heated, and he made some croak of agreement. Mike said it lightly, easily, but he had to know the memory it would bring to mind, didn’t he?

These moments were the ones that made Will feel like some kind of drugged-up crazy, unable to tell reality from self-made delusion. Because how can he act like nothing happened, how can he say that so casually? An arm wrapped territorially around him, eyes flicking away or lingering too long. Standing way too close for comfort, losing track of time together more days than not and laughing it off. It was all too much.

This is going to kill me, Will decided. Then, his brain taking on Hopper’s voice, I need a drink.

Like she’d read his mind, El rejoined the conversation to add, “Alcohol should help with heatstroke, right? Numbing effect, whatnot.” She waved her hands with the word, which she was of late determined to incorporate into her vocabulary.

Dustin shot her a look of utter disappointment. “Alcohol is dehydrating, El. If anything, it’ll make it worse.”

“You’re being pat-ronizing.”

“Guys,” Will interjected before Dustin could criticize El’s pronunciation or piss someone off in any other way (which was unfortunately a talent of his), “it was just a joke. Well, kind of… point is, we don’t have heatstroke.”

“Great! Then stop being weird and, y’know, loosen up.” Dustin drank deeply, made an exaggerated ahhh.

Will wasn’t sure if it was concerning how eagerly he hooked his finger on the tab, but recollections of floaty, woe-free thoughts were too tempting to care. In his peripheral vision, Mike scrambled to do the same. Will looked at him: You good?

A raised eyebrow: Why wouldn’t I be?

Will shrugged and, embarrassment and frustration mixing unpleasantly, brought the can to his lips just for something to do.

This stuff was better than malt liquor. Will was just drunk enough for that breezy, bubbly bliss, but not enough to add overwhelming nausea to the mix—revolutionary! It had only been maybe thirty, forty minutes, but already doubts and worries were melting away quicker than they could surface. It was funny: alcohol always made Lonnie explosive, like fuel to the fire when he’d already come home late and irritable. But Will? He was the most relaxed he’d felt in days, weeks, months maybe.

It had gotten to his friends, too. Max and Lucas barely lasted thirty minutes with the group before making their escape (to the laundry room, of all places).

“What was all that about drunkenly making out?” Dustin asked loudly as Max dragged Lucas away.

‘Shut up’ was their shared response, followed by ‘don’t even think about trying to ruin this for me’ and ‘she’s not drunk, it doesn’t count.’

“I can’t believe I let them do that,” Mike was saying in their absence. He was sprawled out with his head lolled off the couch now that Will had abandoned him, finally tiring of his endless stream of chatter, to watch El and Dustin work. It hadn’t dissuaded him from continuing to talk his head off. “Now I’ll never be able to set foot in that room without thinking about ‘drunkenly making out.’” He made a gagging face and threw his head back dramatically.

Dustin abruptly stopped what he was doing and sat up. “Mike, you’re great and all, but if I have to hear you open your mouth one more time, I’m going to lose my shit.”

“Yes, we are trying to prototype,” El agreed.

“Fine then,” Mike grumbled, struggling to get up off the couch. “I’m going upstairs to get a snack—and none for you guys except Will, ‘cause he’s coming with me.”

“I never agreed to that,” Will said, flush with the bubbly pleasure of being singled out.

“Oh, so you’d rather stay here with these geeks?” Mike started climbing the stairs without waiting for a response.

Will looked guiltily back at El and Dustin as he got up. “Be right back.”

El caught his hand before he could walk away. “If they have it, get us pudding pops.”

Dustin nodded encouragingly at him.

“All of our friends never want me to speak again,” was the first thing Will heard when he emerged on the first floor.

Following Mike’s voice to the kitchen, he found him leaning against the kitchen counter. “Some friends they are,” Will said as he approached. 

Sunset was spilling through the kitchen window and bathing Mike in harsh orange. His eyelashes cast shadows like fan-palm leaves down his cheeks. Beautiful, in the kind of way that had Will’s hand twitching to pick up a paintbrush.

“And on top of that, we’re out of the good Doritos. The world is against me.”

Will blinked. He turned the words over in his head until they registered. “Those are gross anyway. Do you have pudding pops in the freezer?”

Mike frowned at him. “Aren’t you going to tell me the world isn’t against me? Or make me feel better somehow?”

Will sighed at his ridiculousness and leaned against the counter next to him near the snack drawer. “Fine, then, the world is on your side, Mike. ‘Embrace all faucets of life.’” He was quoting the graffiti Mike spotted six days ago on a building side; they were still making fun of the spelling days after.

“Wh—” Mike’s eyes lit up; he snorted, knocked against the counter. “Why, thank you, Will the Wise. You always know just what to say.” His eyes still had a glint to them. Abruptly, he leaned over to throw his arms clumsily around Will, and he felt him inhale deeply against the space between his shoulder and neck.

Will flushed—overheating—and that was when he felt it. There was no other word to describe it but energy, something he’d somehow gone the entire week without consciously noticing.

Mike could be touchy with his friends; that wasn’t the weird part. This… hum, a hum of electricity— this was weird. He felt it, in Mike’s arms, with Mike’s face in the crook of his neck, left overwhelmed and flustered, only thinking, does he feel it too? Does he? Does he? 

Mike was pulling back and suddenly Will was blurting, “You’re so touchy when you’re drunk.” And feeling like he’d just broken all of their unspoken rules. Like he had to run away, now.

But Mike just grinned, blinked at him lazily. “I guess so.” His eyes narrowed, just a little bit. Will shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. Suddenly, Mike pushed his shoulder into Will’s arm, nearly knocking him off balance.

Will’s surprise morphed into exasperation at the wide grin Mike gave him. He was peering down at Will like they were playing out a campaign and he was waiting for his action. It was almost like Mike wanted him to fight back. 

Fine, then. Will jabbed his elbow into Mike’s side, where he was most sensitive, feeling a rush of satisfaction when he predictably squirmed away. 

“What was that for?” Mike had the nerve to whine. 

Will rolled his eyes at him, turning and pressing his hip into the counter to watch Mike rub at his side. “What was that for?”

“A test.”

“What?”

“It was a test,” Mike repeated, stepping closer and furrowing his eyebrows when Will backed up. “I wanted to see what you’d do.”

He took another step, and then another. Will hesitated. What shit is he playing at? 

As Mike advanced toward him, though, the safe distance between them slipping away with each tick of the clock above the fridge, Will’s suspicion gave way to panic—panic that fueled his heart’s advance up his throat as Mike got closer. 

Five ticks roared by in Will’s ears. Mike was close enough that Will could see the dilation of his pupils among a sea of dark brown iris. Ten ticks. Close enough that if Will wanted to, he could count every eyelash that fanned across Mike’s face as his eyes dipped down to Will’s lips. 

All the signs of the fight or flight response, only Will couldn’t move. He was frozen; only his mouth seemed capable of animating itself. “Mike—”

“Relax,” Mike murmured, then grabbed his hand. 

A tremor of electricity shot up Will’s arm as Mike laced their fingers together. His muscles tightened, like they were preparing him to run or pull Mike closer. “Mike,” he said, trying to keep his voice even, “what are you doing?”

Mike swallowed, throat bobbing like something got stuck on the way down. He kept his gaze trained intently on their intertwined hands. “What do you think?”

“What do I—” Will cut himself off. His eyes snapped to their hands, too, his brain hopping between screaming at him to let go of Mike and screaming at him to use his free hand to grab his face. 

He was freezing up, again. There was too much happening, to him and inside him. “I…” Will hesitated. Fuck it. “I thought you wanted to forget about that night.”

“I know. I did—do…” Mike trailed off, and even though Will was staring intently at their hands, he could picture him biting the inside of his cheek. “I know it’s bad. But I-I think about it. I think about you.” 

Will’s breath hitched as Mike slowly raised his hand up toward himself, taking Will’s hand with it. Will’s eyes tracked the movement and ended up on Mike’s face. Just like Mike had intended. Fuck.

Without warning, Mike let go of his hand. It hung loose between them, floating aimlessly without an anchor. 

Will barely registered it. He couldn’t tear his eyes from Mike’s, wide open, scared but curious. Twin pools reflecting back Will’s own racing heart. 

“I know it’s bad,” Mike repeated, like he had to explain himself to Will. Like Will wasn’t just as guilty as him. “But if—if you wanted to, you could… now.”

Will didn’t need the words that were tumbling out of Mike’s mouth to understand. He knew precisely what Mike wanted him to do. 

He was asking Will to take the first leap. To prove that Mike wouldn’t be alone in the fall. 

Will understood, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He hesitated, for only a moment—and, for only a moment, Mike’s face wavered.

“Will—”

A creak of the staircase. It was a wrench thrown in whatever trance Mike had put him in.

Will snatched his hand back, looking away from the fear flashing in Mike’s eyes as he darted as far away from Will as he could across the kitchen. Shakily, he pressed his back against the counter, hands gripping the edge, listening with bated breath as the footsteps on the stairs got louder.

It’s okay. You can pretend. You’re good at pretending.

El rounded the corner—shit, no, I can’t do this; Will’s cheeks were already reddening seeing the slight crease of her forehead. Could she tell just looking at them? He was too scared to even chance a glance at Mike.

“Hey.” He suppressed a wince at the crack in Mike’s voice.

El shot Will a puzzled glance. “Hi. Dustin wants to know how long it’s going to take to get his pudding pop.”

Will hid another grimace and rushed to open the freezer. “Right, right. Sorry, uh…”

“What were you even doing?”

Since Will was very preoccupied rifling through the freezer, he left Mike the privilege of responding. “None of your business,” he said shortly, then called to Will, “we only have freezies and fudgsicles.”

El grumbled, “Great. Fudgsicles, then.”

Will grabbed three. “Want one? Mike?”

“Sure.”

The three of them walked down the stairs with their goods like nothing had happened. Which—nothing had. Only, it could’ve—would’ve, if Will hadn’t hesitated. Because Mike had asked him to. That unmistakable yet unbelievable fact tortured him the whole way down. Mike was behind him, but they didn’t talk. Will was left to wonder and spiral.

Unsurprisingly, Max and Lucas were still missing when they entered the basement. Dustin’s head snapped up when he saw them, and Mike flopped back on the couch—splaying out, Will noticed, so he couldn’t sit with him even if he wanted to.

Hope in his eyes, Dustin asked, “Pudding pops?”

El and Will sat down next to him. When she handed him the fudgsicle, he frowned as if affronted. “What is this?”

“Do you want it or not?”

He snatched it begrudgingly. “Of course I do,” he mumbled, peeling off the wrapping.

“It’s ridiculous,” Mike announced suddenly from the couch. “It’s been what—ten minutes now? Can’t they save it for later? This is a group occasion.”

Dustin stopped gnawing on his fudgsicle to let out a kettle laugh.

“What?” Mike demanded. He narrowed his eyes at El when Dustin kept laughing. “What’s wrong with him?”

She shrugged, eyeing the clearly drunk boy beside her as he slapped his knee. “You and Will do the same thing?”

Oh my god. Mike’s head snapped up from the couch, face pale and shocked.

El’s expression turned puzzled. “What? Just now—”

Dustin laughed harder, smacked her arm. “What, they were making out? ”

“Uh—no! That’s obviously not what I meant! I was talking about how they hang out by themselves a lot.”

Will cleared his throat self-consciously, rattled by the conversation. “So do you and Max.”

El shook her head. “That’s not the same.” Will fought tooth and nail not to ask her to explain in detail why and how she thought it was different.

“Oh, come on,” Dustin hooted, wiping away a tear and jostling Will by the shoulder. “It was pretty funny, wasn’t it? Come on, man, it was a joke.” He kept shaking Will when he gave him nothing more than a weak smile. “None of us actually think you guys—well, except Max, but don’t worry, we were all like, ‘shut up, Max!’—remember that, El?”

Silence. Mike’s voice, incredulous and scoffing, though Will didn’t miss its slight waver, “Max said what? When?”

“Don’t get mad or she’ll be pissed at me! She was drunk when Lucas was driving us back, we were all saying crazy shit, so…”

Mike got up. “That’s it—I’m kicking them out of the laundry room. I’m kicking you all out. I’m tired anyway.”

Dustin and El started protesting. Even though Mike’s tone was nothing but light and a little exasperated, Will felt like he wouldn’t be making them leave if it weren’t for what had happened in the kitchen. If he didn’t want to get away from him.

Will lay awake that night, staring at pitch-black nothing.

None of this was supposed to happen. They were supposed to forget—Mike had been doing a great job at that and Will had been doing a great job at pretending to do the same. Was it too late to try that again? They could come up with a million things to blame: the drinking, Mike’s impulsivity—shit, why not throw in heatstroke while they're at it? But it would all be bullshit, every one of them. They'd both know that. So where did that leave them?

It was the question that scared Will the most, and the one his brain circled back to, over and over again. He never thought he’d hate being sober as much as he did. It took way too long for sleep to find him.

Chapter Text

Will woke up from a restless night spent tossing and turning, drifting in and out of consciousness, with resolve. Well, ‘obligation’ would be a better word for it.

It was only eight in the morning, two hours before he’d normally wake up and three before he would have panicked and scrambled to get changed because he was going to be late to meet everyone at the pool. But he had to do this. He had to talk to Mike, no matter how tired he was, no matter how much he didn’t want to. It was either that or watch as their friendship of twelve years fell apart right in front of him.

Will threw on swimming trunks and a shirt. And our friends, he realized. If Mike and him had a falling-out, the party would split apart, like it had when they were Freshmen.

He stumbled into the kitchen, checking his watch like he could somehow be late to something like this. It hit him then that Mike could be asleep. Like Will, he was an oversleeper. He cursed and doubled back to the hallway, only to hear Jonathan’s voice from the kitchen calling, “Hey, Will!”

Will’s brother was home for the summer and drove out of town in the mornings for his internship: that was why Will never saw him until dinnertime, and that was only when both of them were home.

He doubled back again, peering into the kitchen at Jonathan. “Hey.” He also looked like he was in a rush, buttoning up his shirt as he gave Will a crooked smile. 

“You’ve got toothpaste on your mouth.”

Will wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Thanks.” He darted back into the hallway before his brother could ask him why he was up so early and fumbled to dial the Wheelers’ number. He knew it was rude to call this early, but the possibility of Mrs. Wheeler being passive-aggressive with him was a price he considered worth paying.

The phone rang once, twice, before someone picked up. “Karen Wheeler—who is this?”

“Hi, Mrs. Wheeler, it’s Will—”

“Oh! William! How nice to hear from you! How’s your mom doing?”

Will really didn’t have time for Mrs. Wheeler’s small talk. “She’s good, I’ll say hi to her for you. But—uh—I was wondering if… if Mike’s up?”

A short pause as his words reached the other end of the line. Finally, “Mike! Oh, sweetie, I’m afraid he’s gone out.”

Gone out?

Karen continued, “No, he’s not here. It was odd—he didn’t say where he was going.”

“Oh.” Will frowned. “Well, thanks anyway.” Mrs. Wheeler dispensed a stream of pleasantries, and he absently agreed to dinner plans in the vague future and said goodbye, lost in thought.

“Bye, William.”

Will hung up the phone and stared at the wall.

If he was right about this, he would find Mike on the way here. If he was wrong… he guessed he would bike around Hawkins looking for him. It wasn’t desperate because he had three hours to kill, anyway.

Will spun on his heel and rushed to the front door. As he passed Jonathan, “Looking for Mike?”

He didn’t have time for his teasing. “Yup,” Will replied shortly, slipping on his shoes, heart pounding for no reason. He scolded himself for it. If Mike wants to talk to me, he opened the door, it’s for the same reason I…

The boy in front of him jumped as the door swung open, almost tripping off the front porch. He flushed and seemed to scrabble for words; Will got there first. “What are you doing here?” he asked faintly, taking in the bags under Mike’s eyes and his generally sloppy appearance. It didn’t make him any less of a sight, though. Mike always looked good.

“Oh, I—” Mike’s eyes darted from Will to something behind him—“pacing. I mean-I was—I didn’t know if you were awake.”

It wasn’t really an answer.

“Mike, you could’ve just called.” Will swivelled at Jonathan’s words. He shot him a meaningful glance, and his brother retreated into the kitchen, a smile tugging at his lips. 

Will whirled back around, gripping the doorframe for support. “What’s up?” he said with a smile ten times more casual than he felt.

Mike cleared his throat, rocked on his heels. “My mom, she forced me to pick up her dry cleaning from out of town, so…”

Even if Will hadn’t called, it would be obvious Mike was lying. Did he actually… steal his family car? He looked past him; sure enough, the Wheelers’ station wagon was pulled up on the road. Will bit his lip, fought down a smile. “‘Course I’ll come.”

Mike shot him a nervous smile that turned his legs to jelly. “Cool.”

Will slid into the passenger seat with no idea what to expect. Was this some kind of game? An elaborate prank?

On top of everything, Mike really wasn’t a good driver. Will had only been witness to his… capabilities , to put it one way, twice before—and for good reason. The second and last time, Mike had hit a mailbox and narrowly avoided running over someone’s cat.

Luckily, he was able to reverse and get on the road without crashing into their mailbox. The windows were rolled down but Will didn’t look out, instead opting to keep his eyes on the front window so he could sneak glances at Mike from the corner of his eye. As trees whizzed by, Mike’s death grip on the steering wheel gradually relaxed.

Will watched him swipe windswept curls away from his face. Mike glanced over at him; their eyes met and jumped back to the road.

Finally, Mike spoke. “You could probably tell I was lying, right?”

“Well… yeah.” Will grinned at the dashboard. “I actually called your mom before you showed up and she said she had no idea where you were.”

Mike laughed, an intoxicating sound. “Wait, why were you calling anyway?”

Will flushed, having realized a second ago that he’d given himself away. “Same reason you came, I guess. I mean,” he swallowed, “I don’t know why you’re taking me out of town, but…”

“‘Cause there’s no privacy in that shithole,” Mike said—then coughed. “I mean—not to—just to talk. Obviously.”

Will flushed redder, very grateful that Mike was avoiding looking at him. “Yeah,” he echoed, “talk.”

An empty lot that looked like it might have once been a construction project was coming up. Will wasn’t sure what possessed him to point and say, “That looks private enough.” It certainly wasn’t confidence; his heart was pounding so fast he’d started to plan out how he’d blame fainting on heatstroke. Either way, it made Mike’s voice go hoarse when he mumbled, “Yeah.”

The idea of having that effect on him was thrilling. It was only when Mike pulled to a stop on the asphalt that it sank in: what it would mean if Mike liked him—like that. If fooling around that night had meant more to him than a mistake spurred on by alcohol and teenage hormones.

It would mean Mike was like him. It would mean he wasn’t alone. And maybe, just maybe, it could mean Will could have what he so desperately wanted—had wanted and hated himself for wanting for years.

He could have Mike.

“Will?”

Mike’s voice brought him back to reality, and Will realized he was staring. He blinked, registering Mike’s hand dangling in the space between them, his arm on the armrest.

“Um,” Will said intelligently. “Mike—”

“I—”

“Sorry. You go.”

“No, it’s—”

“Just say it, Mike. Please.”

Mike’s eyes snapped up. Whatever he saw in Will’s made them go soft. “I just…” He fisted the hand between them. “I was being a dick.”

Will stilled, afraid to open his mouth.

“The thing is. I just—it’s…” Mike’s mouth formed around many words but nothing came out. He let out a frustrated groan, then leaned over the armrest and pressed his lips to Will’s.

Will couldn’t even react, staring after him wide-eyed as he drew back.

“...Do you get it?” Mike’s voice was low and unsteady.

He nodded weakly, swallowing, conscious of Mike’s eyes tracking his every movement, trying to get a read on him. Will wasn’t giving him much to work with, given that he was rooted to the spot. Fuck, this was finally, actually happening, and he was sitting here frozen like a fucking idiot.

“Okay,” Mike said after it became apparent that Will wasn’t going to do anything, something like panic seeping into his voice. “Okay, so—” 

“Can you—?” The question tumbled out of Will’s mouth, but he cut himself off abruptly. He couldn’t find it in himself to finish the sentence. 

Mike paused. Will worried, for a second, that he’d have to repeat himself—which would probably be enough to kill him, actually. 

But then, the slightest nod of Mike’s head. Up and then down. 

It didn’t properly sink in at first, what that meant. But Will was prompted quickly, because Mike was already leaning back over the armrest. He forgot everything all over again when he felt Mike’s touch, hot on the underside of his neck, on the shell of his ear, on his lips.

Kissing Mike drunk out of his mind was one thing, but kissing him sober was entirely different—in a good way. Kissing Mike now was a release, an overriding of his senses, warmth and electricity everywhere. 

It was gentle at first, just the soft press of Mike’s lips between breaths. That was until, acting on impulse alone, Will pulled Mike in by the front of his shirt. He didn’t know why he did it, but it turned out to be a good idea after all when Mike made this incredibly hot sound in the back of his throat and the press of his lips turned harder, faster, until there was barely any space left to breathe. 

It all happened too fast, but Will honestly didn’t give a shit because he knew it felt good.

He gasped out a breath as Mike’s tongue skirted his bottom lip. At this point, Mike was half-bent over, awkwardly reaching for Will on his knees with only one hand on the armrest to support himself.

Will had a brilliant idea. He leaned back, just a little, trying not to let the way Mike grabbed after him go to his head. “Come on,” he said in an unfortunately wrecked voice, tugging a little where he still had a grip on the front of Mike’s shirt and praying he understood.

“Yeah,” was all Mike said before he was kissing him again. 

Will, with some difficulty, pulled away. “No—Mike—” he was sure his face was bright red—“I mean the passenger seat.”

“I know,” Mike huffed, as if they were bickering over something stupid and not in the middle of making out in his family car. “I’m getting to that.” Abruptly, he planted his hands on Will’s shoulders and tried to leverage himself up and over the armrest, only to smack his head hard on the roof. 

Will burst out laughing over a stream of curses, and then felt bad about it at the mortification on Mike’s face. It was just—it was crazy. This was crazy. 

“Asshole,” Mike muttered, red-cheeked and red-lipped in a way that made Will feel less bad about making him feel embarrassed.

“I was just surprised!” Will returned. He tried to train his face to a more serious expression when Mike gave him an expectant look. It was difficult. “I’m sorry. Very… very sorry.”

Mike gave him a long look, clearly enjoying himself. It was kind of making Will wish he would stop talking and kiss him already. “Sorry for what?”

“Sorry that you surprised me.”

Mike swung his leg over the armrest, hand coming out to dig uncomfortably into Will’s shoulder. “Asshole,” he repeated as he climbed over Will and wedged his knee between his legs, which—fuck.

Mike’s lips found Will’s again, and it was exactly what he’d wanted. It felt right, and now it was familiar, which was a wonder in and of itself. They’d found a rhythm, a push and pull, and with Mike facing him straight-on it was even easier to find where they slotted together—Mike’s lips on his, his hands on either side of Will’s jawbone, tilting his head up, Will’s heartbeat wild against Mike’s middle. 

They broke for breath, only Mike’s hands were already on him. Apparently, there was no way Will was going to get any space to calm down. 

As one of them dragged the other back in—minute details were the least of Will’s concern when he was being rewarded with Mike’s mouth on his—the pent-up heat swelled to a tide in his stomach, an all-consuming sensation that made it hard not to make a sound. He was trying, trying so hard, but then Mike’s fingers went under his shirt and found the waistband of his swimming trunks and an embarrassing, strangled sound came out. Fortunately, Will found he was too caught up in Mike’s hot hands on his skin to care. He could only register want, how much he wanted, wanted—

Mike broke off the kiss again. Will had to fight not to pull him back in, because even now he knew that would be too far. All he could do was watch as Mike carefully skirted a finger over the waistband, grazing Will’s skin as he did so. “Are you”—he was breathing hard—“really wearing your swim trunks right now?”

Will’s entire face went red, absolutely detesting Mike because he knew he was doing this on purpose. “Shut up.”

Mike’s fingers stopped their torment, slipping under Will’s shirt again. “Okay.”

They were parked in the lot for a long time after that. There were still three hours left to kill, after all.

Billy Idol competed with the wind whipping in Will’s ears.

He was high: high on the sun shining in his eyes, the pleasant flush colouring his cheeks, the sight of Mike’s thoroughly kissed lips. It didn’t occur to him to worry about what would happen when they came back, when they inevitably left the bubble of isolated bliss they’d made for themselves. It was only when a familiar sign welcoming them into Hawkins showed up in the distance that the bubble burst.

Mike wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and gave Will a once-over from the driver’s seat, his grip tightening on the wheel. “Your shirt, you gotta…”

“Oh—yeah.” Will rushed to smooth out the wrinkles, embarrassment flooding through him.

God, what was wrong with him? What, he thought they'd just waltz up to their friends and everything would be okay? No. No, it wouldn’t. Mike knew it and so did Will, just like he knew all the names he’d been called in the school hallways were true.

Abruptly, Mike pulled over at the side of the road. A lonely car honked, sped by.

“What—”

“Are you okay? With this?”

Mike’s eyes were so sincere. Will started to agree without thinking, but he barely got a word out before Mike cut him off.

“Don’t just—” he stopped, and leaned close to Will to put a hand on his thigh. “I just don’t want to hurt you. Again. Because—you know that we’ll have to…” he trailed off.

Will stared at Mike’s hand. What he was thinking was how he didn’t care how he was allowed to have Mike, as long as he did. What he said was, “I know.”

He let Mike cup his face, let his eyes find their way to Mike’s lips. Let them flutter shut as Mike pressed a chaste kiss to his lips.

It was worth it.

Will didn’t open his eyes fast enough to see the pinch of Mike’s eyebrows as he pulled back. When he did, though, Mike was staring at him with a look Will had seen before—but never here, never like this, after he’d felt Mike’s breath whisper over his lips before he’d taken them in his own. He was looking at him the way Will looked at his art as he worked: like he meant something, like he was something— someone worth dedicating hours and hours to.

Mike ducked his head, grinning. “Wanna go for a drive again soon?”

All of it would be worth it for him.

Chapter Text

After a week, everything was different but the same.

Like right now, Will and Mike were going to meet their friends like usual. And yeah, they were probably running late, but admittedly neither of them were known to be consistently punctual.

What was unusual was the fact that that instead of driving to Gator’s, they were making out in the back of Mike’s family car.

Suffice to say, it was different in a good way. A really, really good way.

“Mike, come on,” Will mumbled as Mike pressed kisses to his jaw, the crook of his neck—not hard enough to leave a mark, not again. “Mike. We’re gonna be late.” He said that like he cared, but if he was being honest he didn’t. Any care he had for timeliness was nothing compared to the thrill of it—being here with Mike, in this bubble where no one could see and everything was good and new and theirs.

Mike let out a dramatic sigh, breath hot on his neck. It sent a thrill down Will’s spine.

Everything Mike did now was thrilling. It was thrilling every time he called the phone, every time he took Will on a drive, every time he pulled him into his room and slammed the door shut. Everytime he said his name.

Because—it was Mike. The boy Will had known like the back of his hand for years and loved for longer, only now he was getting to know him in a whole different way. He still wasn’t used to it—discerning by the look in Mike’s eyes when he showed up on the doorstep that they would be going to Will’s room. Figuring out when people would be home, what was safe to talk about with Mike and what wasn’t: adjusting and tiptoeing, always tiptoeing.

Mike was always around, but they didn’t do any of the things they used to. It was the same but it couldn’t have been more different.

Not that Will was complaining. He still found it hard to believe that he could have this—have Mike. It didn’t feel real. Maybe because in a way, it wasn’t: not real like in the movies, or even real like their friends’ relationships, all whispers and swinging held hands and quick pecks on the cheek.

Case in point: Will already knew the two of them wouldn’t talk much at Gator’s because their friends would be watching.

But he didn’t care, because he didn’t want that. He wanted Mike. And right now, pressed into the backseat of the car with his touch tangible and warm and everywhere, Will felt like he had him. That was real enough to him.

Still, they were really going to be late.

He swatted at Mike’s face. “Are you deaf or what?”

“Half of them are gonna be late anyway,” Mike grumbled back, but obliged, getting off of Will and reaching awkwardly over him to open the backseat door and clamour out.

Will allowed himself a few seconds to catch his breath, listening to the crunch of gravel under Mike’s feet. 

Then he got up and into the driver’s seat. They still took the Wheelers’ family car for their drives, but Will didn’t really want to die crashing into a tree, so he’d quickly taken over driving duties.

The radio blasted. It buzzed in Will’s ears as he pulled them out of the driveway. 

Usually, he kept his mouth shut because Mike did. But—maybe it was because they had plans, or maybe just because the heatwave was finally letting off—Will found himself opening his mouth, just for the sake of talking. He did miss talking to Mike. Not that they didn’t, of course they did—they just didn’t like they used to. It was hard to put into words. It wasn’t like he was going to be verbalizing it to anyone, anyway, so there was no point trying to.

Will resisted the urge to glance at Mike, because he didn’t want to start grinning like an idiot for no reason. He kept his eyes on the road as he asked, “Uh, how’s the book going?” 

The song ended. A chipper voice started raving over the radio about a battery brand, and the slight smile Will hadn’t been able to suppress slid off his face. 

“Oh,” Mike’s voice, sounding like it did when he was somewhere in his head far away from Will. “It’s—um. Fine.”

Will nodded faintly. “Cool.”

He tried to concentrate on driving, but there wasn't much to concentrate on. It was a mostly straight route back to Hawkins. There wasn’t much to see, either. He counted five dead trees among the sea of green bordering the road, unable to withstand the sweltering heat. One gas station with a lone car parked outside. Two cars that sped by. 

What would happen if he turned the radio off? Would Mike fill the silence, or would he stay there like he was, leaving Will itching to crawl out of his own skin?

Shut up. Will went back to concentrating on nothing. He didn’t try to make conversation again until they got to Gator’s. Mike came back to life as soon as their friends were in sight. 

It was fine. Will didn’t mind the silence in Mike’s car—which had started to feel like a physical thing that took up space in there—because there was this Fleetwood song he liked that always came on the radio. It had a funky beat.

After three weeks, Will hated Fleetwood Mac.

That was all he was thinking about as he held the phone to his ear, twisting the cord around and around his finger until it was white with lack of blood flow.

“No, no one’s home. Why?” He knew why. He just wanted to make Mike uncomfortable.

Sure enough, a long silence on the other end of the line. He pictured Mike, eyes darting involuntarily around the living room, paranoid of his family’s eyes boring into his back. Shame settling its way into his stomach.

Will hated the sick thrill the thought gave him, but he couldn’t stop. He wondered if Mike felt the same way about what they did. If he avoided Will’s eyes in public because he wanted to forget.

Muffled static as if Mike was fidgeting with the phone. “I-I dunno, thought we could watch a movie or something.”

Probably a lie, or maybe Mike really would put on a movie so he could feel less guilty up until his hands inevitably found their way up Will’s shirt.

“Sounds good,” Will said instead of screaming. “See you in..?”

“Five. I’ll be there in five.”

“Okay, see you.” He hung up, opting to avoid the awkward goodbyes. They both knew what this was.

This: an isolated bubble of torment and shame and lust. He’d come to resent it, resent Mike—even though he knew it wasn’t fair. He’d wanted this, and he’d known what he was signing up for since the first day they’d gone driving. It was his own fault, really, still thinking they could be more than they were. 

It was just funny, to have Mike in so many ways, to hold him closer than he’d ever thought he could, only to feel like they’d never been farther apart. Somewhere between phone calls, or maybe between drives or late nights in each other’s beds, Will felt like he’d lost him. Again. Now he was trapped, alone: too ashamed to talk to anyone and too addicted to stop.

Will let out a rattly breath, trying not to pace. He was dreading Mike’s arrival but fuck, could he hurry up already? He needed to stop thinking about this. He needed Mike to put his hands on him so he could forget about everything again.

Not even thirty minutes later, Will got what he wanted. WarGames was on in the background, forgotten. His shirt was halfway over his head.

“Your room?” Mike asked, voice low and pupils blown. Will had developed a bad habit of pretending it was because Mike loved him instead of the real reason: because he wanted to use him to get himself off.

“Yeah,” Will said, and the door was slammed shut and Mike had him up against the headboard of Will’s bed. Skin warm and solid against him, shirts discarded in a heap on the floor.

Will was used to letting himself get lost in it, in the movement of Mike’s lips and body against his, in the beats of heavy breaths and buildup until the release when Mike would roll off him. They never went further than that, although Will thought about what it would be like and knew Mike did too. He barely even know how it would work. How it would feel when just touching each other felt this good already.

There was a restlessness to Mike today that just made Will think about it more. He wondered if Mike was aware of it, if he was conscious of his hips, sliding roughly against Will’s rode-up shorts, if the way he was braced up against Will also made him feel like the thin layers of fabric between them were uncomfortably lacking.

Will wouldn’t actually want to, even if he knew how. It would be too much; it would be all wrong.

He grabbed Mike’s face with both hands to separate their lips, shuffled up a little on the headboard to put some space between their bodies, trying to give him some time to calm down. Ignoring the urge to sweep his thumb back and forth over his skin, a gesture that would be entirely too intimate. “Okay?” 

Mike nodded faintly, but he was breathing hard. He looked out of it as he shifted to lean back slightly, hands clammy and burning hot on Will’s shoulders on top of the stifling summer heat. The fan barely helped.

“What… what is it?”

“Nothing, just…” Mike wiped his brow, eyes raking over Will in a way that put a lump in his throat. Eventually, Mike let go of his shoulders and sat back on his legs.

Will let out an uneven breath, staring at a cobweb on the ceiling. He was hyperaware of the sensation of cotton under him and the heat coming off of Mike’s skin, radiating through his shorts. If Mike didn’t move soon, their legs would stick together with sweat.

Will opened his mouth to tell him that, but the words died on his throat as a hot hand closed over the fabric of his shorts.

Something dropped to the pit of his stomach when realization dawned on him—was it panic? Desire? Shame? It didn’t matter; as it twisted unpleasantly in his gut, all he wanted was for it to stop.

“Do you—” Mike pulled at the fabric, hand trembling ever so slightly against Will’s skin, eyes wide and vulnerable and so, so wrong—“do you want me to?”

Will stared back at him, willing his mouth to move. It was like trying to cup water in his hands: every time he thought he’d found the words they slipped through the cracks until he was left with nothing. “Um” was all he got out.

It was enough for Mike to take his hand off of him, lurching back as if singed. “Shit. Sorry, I—” he swiped at his brow again, scooting across the bed away from Will and looking everywhere but at him. “Sorry. That was… I didn’t mean—”

“‘S okay,” Will mumbled as he sat up against his pillow. He wasn’t eager to look at Mike either.

In truth, it wasn’t okay at all. This was spiraling into something he couldn’t name anymore.

Will bit his lip, drawing his legs up to his chest and picking at the dry skin on his knees.

He wanted Mike to name it. He wanted to know what he was thinking. God, all he wanted to do was know. But Mike said nothing.

Suddenly, the words were spilling off Will’s tongue: “Are we still friends?”

He ignored the panic clawing up his throat because this was important. He just had to know, just this. This was all that mattered. He reluctantly lifted his gaze from his knees.

Mike looked completely thrown off guard, like Will had grown a second head or something. There was a brief pause, and his eyebrows came up. “You—you’re serious?”

Something snapped in Will at that. Did he really think he could pretend all the shit they’d done hadn’t completely changed them—changed everything? “Yeah, Mike, I’m serious—would you cut the bullshit for once?”

Mike’s eyes widened. Will felt brief satisfaction, then guilt. “Yes.” Mike cleared his throat and averted his gaze down at the bed. “Yeah, we’re… we’re friends. Of course we are.”

Will expected to feel relief, but he just felt sad. Mike’s mouth was pinched as he picked lint from Will’s bedspread. “Will, I—”

“So are we going to keep doing this?” His words were bitter. He should’ve let Mike speak. It was just so, so humiliating, that what they were doing was nothing more than fooling around to Mike while it was everything to him. To know that despite everything, Will still wanted.

“Yeah,” Mike mumbled. He stopped fidgeting. “If you want to.”

“I… I think we should.”

“Okay,” Mike said neutrally. He’d clearly put a wall up, which bothered Will. He just wanted at least one of them to be telling the truth. 

It was silent for a long moment. The fan blew a stray ball of lint across the bedspread.

“I hate this,” Mike blurted. Will’s head snapped up. “I hate hiding.” 

Will watched him clench his jaw, taken aback. If only Mike had said something one, two, three weeks ago. God. Maybe he’d spent it all resenting Will like Will resented him. 

“You were the one who said we had to,” Will said finally.

Mike finally looked him in the eye. The unmistakable hurt in his eyes—eyes wet with unshed tears—hit Will in the chest like a bullet. It was a rebounded blow he deserved. He’d chosen his words specifically to hurt Mike, because he was angry and selfish and had chosen to ignore just what Mike was giving up by holding his raw emotions out for him to take. 

“That’s not fair,” Mike said faintly. Then, voice climbing dangerously, “That’s not fair at all. You didn’t say anything—you never say anything.”

And this is exactly why, Will wanted to spit. “Look, I’m sorry, okay?” He huffed out an exasperated breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t try hard enough to say what you wanted me to say.”

“That’s not what I—” Mike cut himself off, his mouth forming around many words before he spoke again, carefully. “It’s just hard when I can tell you’re lying to me, and I don’t know why.”

Will clenched his knees to his chest. “Well, what about you?”

A flat, “What?”

“Why are you doing this if you hate it so much?” If you hate me so much?

Mike’s eyebrows rose; his mouth opened like he was going to spit a retort. But nothing came out. The longer he floundered, the more Will’s patience ran thin until he knew he’d have to leave now or risk breaking down in tears in front of Mike. He spurred his limbs to action, moving up and off the bed and pulling on his shirt, facing the door rather than Mike. “Can you leave? Please?”

Mike sucked in a breath, and Will hated how his body immediately swerved to give Mike his full attention. “Will—”

A key jamming into the front door. Shit. Jonathan’s early.

For a second, they froze, before they were both on their feet. Will bent and threw Mike’s shirt at him.

“Will? You home?” The sound of the front door closing and footsteps coming down the hall.

Will went to open his door before realizing they didn’t have enough time to make it back to the living room. He snatched two comics from the floor and grabbed Mike’s wrist, leading him to his bed and shoving one of the comics into his hands.

They rushed to sit against the pillow. Mike reached out.

“What—”

“Your hair,” he whispered back, hand hurriedly brushing through Will’s bangs.

Will didn’t stop him, concentrating on flipping to a natural page.

The door opened and Mike’s hand was gone.

“Oh, hey, Mike,” Jonathan said from the doorway. 

Did he see that?

“Hey,” Mike said, sounding a little strangled. 

Luckily, Will’s brother showed no indication that he’d noticed. He yawned, scratching at his neck and messing up his collar. He was in his new-ish dress shirt and slacks. He must’ve gotten off work early. “Hot as hell in here.”

Neither of them knew what to say to that.

“You guys left WarGames on.”

Will shrugged. “We’ve seen it too many times.” He scrabbled to fill the following silence, “Um, so, mom’s out with Hop tonight, and El’s at Max’s…”

“Oh. Yeah. I can make something, no problem…” Jonathan stared blearily at nowhere in particular for a few seconds, before blinking rapidly and focusing his gaze on Mike. “Uh, Mike. You wanna stay?”

Take the out. Please.

“I wish. Parents want me back for dinner.” Mike passed Will the comic. “See you?” he asked, voice way too soft, hand still on the comic in Will’s lap.

Will swallowed down a lump in his throat. “Yeah. See you, Mike.”

Then he was gone, awkwardly sidling past Jonathan in the doorway.

Will waited for his brother to walk away, but he didn’t. He just stood there, hand twisting the knob back and forth.

Ignoring his nerves, Will asked, “You tired?”

“Pretty much a given,” Jonathan answered, letting go of the doorknob to step into the room. He plopped down at the foot of Will’s bed. “How’s Mike?”

“Good,” Will said carefully, smoothing out the folded edge of a page of the comic Mike had left behind. He’d smoothed out five more pages when Jonathan spoke again. 

“You know you can talk to me.”

Will stopped smoothing, grip tightening on the edge of a page. “Yeah, why?”

This was stupid. He’d never been able to hide anything from Jonathan. His brother was frustratingly observant even though most days he looked one blink away from conking out on his feet.

Jonathan blew out a breath. “I want you to… I don’t want you to feel like you’re alone in anything. Or that you can’t reach out.”

Will sat very, very still. He was glad Jonathan was looking out the window and not at him. He didn’t know what his brother would see if he looked at him. 

“I’m here, okay? Whatever’s bothering you, I’m here.” Jonathan shifted to put a hand on Will’s knee.

Will stared at it instead of him, the thought of his brother seeing the tears brewing in his eyes only making everything worse.

“Will—maybe… maybe I won’t understand. But I’ll try, because”—Jonathan squeezed Will’s knee, and he tried to swallow away the sensation of his throat squeezing tighter, tighter—“I’m your brother. And I love you.”

“I know,” Will tried to say, but the words got stuck in his throat. “I,” he tried again, and then tears were rolling in fat drops down his face.

“C’mere,” Jonathan murmured, pulling him in.

Will scooted into his arms and collapsed; it was so easy. Three weeks’ worth of pent-up sobs racked his body as he clenched the back of Jonathan’s shirt so tight his nails bit his palms through the fabric.

Jonathan just rubbed his back until it stopped heaving.

“Sorry,” Will sniffed once his voice was even enough to speak. He felt a wobbly smile growing on his face at Jonathan’s confusion. “Your nice work shirt.”

They both snorted; ‘nice’ as in not bought secondhand and mostly lacking in the stain department.

“We’ll have to toss it,” Jonathan joked. Will appreciated it, that he didn’t baby him anymore. His brother got up and retrieved a box of tissues from the desk. He put it down next to Will, who quickly swiped at his face and nose with a tissue.

“Thanks. Um,” he inhaled shakily and said it to the wall. “It’s been going on for three weeks now. Me and Mike.”

His heart beat out of his chest. Saying it felt like admitting to something dirty, like those confessionals at church. 

“You’ve been using protection, right?”

Will stared openmouthed at him.

“Is that a yes?”

“No, because—because we haven’t—” Will pressed the back of his hand to his face and fisted it, wondering if he would die of embarrassment or shame first.

He grabbed another tissue and stared at it instead of his brother. “We—something almost happened. Tonight. But it… it wasn’t right.” He crumpled it in his palm, watched it try to unfurl. “It never is.”

Jonathan took the balled-up tissue and tossed it between his hands. “Have you tried talking to him about it?”

Does yelling at each other count? Will snorted without mirth. “You don’t get it.”

“How?”

“Because.”

“Because what?”

“Because he’s ashamed of me!”

The words hung between them.

Needing to do something, Will snatched back the tissue and smoothed it out.

He wouldn’t take the words back if he could. He’d never spoken them aloud, but he’d been thinking them for a long time. Longer than the start of him and Mike’s thing. Maybe his whole life.

Jonathan said nothing. Will supposed he had no choice but to continue. If he was being honest, he was glad for the opportunity to finally put words to everything, even if opening his mouth felt like chewing glass.

“He’s never said it, if that’s what you’re thinking, but I—I can just tell. I mean—three fucking weeks, and he can’t even tell me what”—he gestured wildly in front of him—“this is! He can’t even talk to me after… after we do things.” He hated how small his voice had gotten, how it cracked pathetically with the last word.

To his surprise, Jonathan shook his head. “No, he’s not.”

“What?”

“How long have you known Mike now?”

Will’s shoulders came up and then back down in a stilted shrug. “Twelve years.”

Jonathan put the tissue-ball down on the bed. “Will,” he said gently.

Will looked at him, going for neutrality but knowing he probably looked like he felt: scared and desperate.

“Maybe you’re right and I don’t get it,” Jonathan said, eyes invasive and warm at the same time. “But I’ve watched you two grow up. Together. From day one. So there’s no way Mike could ever—I mean it—ever be ashamed of you.”

Will hung onto his every word.

Jonathan chewed his lip. “Sometimes, when people need help, that’s when they draw into themselves the most. Maybe he’s been waiting for you to say something.”

“But…” It had been stupid of Will to assume that Mike would say something if he was having problems. It was just… the Mike he knew was loud. He did what he wanted and swept Will up in his impulsive, wonderful whims.

But maybe that was just the side of him he let Will see. Maybe he was too ashamed to be any other way.

Will reached over the tissue box and pulled his brother into a hug, startling him. “Why do you always have to be smarter than me?”

He felt Jonathan smile into his shoulder. “Give it time, man.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Will said, getting to his feet. “What d’you wanna make?”

Jonathan raised a brow. “That’s it? We’re done talking about it?”

“Yeah, unless you mind having to look through all the dumpsters in town to find your work shirts.”

“Okay,” Jonathan laughed, “grilled cheese, then. With ketchup, how you like it.”

Twenty-four hours passed, and they still hadn’t talked.

It wasn’t that Will hadn’t thought about it, or didn’t want to. It was just that he’d spent the whole day thinking about how to talk about it, and two hours before everyone was supposed to meet at Gator’s he’d decided the best solution would be to just postpone the… conversation? Confrontation? Confession? He’d figure it out tomorrow. Or the day after that.

He’d also decided that if Mike called about picking him up, he’d say he was going to walk there with El—for both of their sakes. Which was why he was now kicking gravel along an overgrown road, stuck walking in the somehow still-scorching night air with only two nosy gossips for company for the next twenty minutes.

Mike hadn’t called, anyway.

Will kicked another rock, sending it spinning into the path of an incoming car, where it was promptly sped over.

El elbowed him in the ribs, distracting him from the violent manslaughter he’d just committed.

“You there, Byers?” Max asked, something mischievous swimming in her eyes he didn’t like.

“What?” It came out like more of a retort than a question. The nausea that had been slowly consuming Will the whole day was probably to blame. His stomach really, really didn’t want him to face Mike or the rest of the party today, no matter how much he tried to convince himself that it was just them, that he’d done this before. That he could pretend.

He tried to smooth away the tension in his face, but it didn’t stop the girls from giving him weird looks. “Just tired.” Flimsy, but whatever.

“Uh-huh.” El narrowed her eyes at him, but her cheerful demeanor returned after a tense second. “Well, we were betting. Me and Max have made many bets this sum—”

“On whether Mike’s gonna be late or not,” Max jumped in. “Loser—or, well, losers in this case—buys winner a triple-scoop at Scoop’s. Each. Want in?”

Will kind of wanted to know about their other running bets, but he got the feeling they would be non-disclosable. So he shrugged and said, “Okay. Then I say he’s gonna be late and get free ice cream, easy.”

El snorted.

A grin that Will could only describe as devious was growing on Max’s face. “Is that your final bet?”

“Yeah?” he said, before realization dawned. “You’re kidding. You bet against Mike being late?”

“Yeah, and I’m gonna tell you why I’m right, so—”

El groaned. “Not again.”

“Bite me,” Max replied offhandedly. “So at first I thought there was no way, just like you guys. But then I realized that usually Mike and you drive together, and—” Will’s expression faltered involuntarily—“Listen! You guys are almost always late when that happens, but on his own Mike isn’t—”

“He is, always,” El said.

Max waved a hand. “Whatever. All I’m saying is both of you should get ready to cough up some cash.”

They walked on. Will’s heart was pounding; he felt like the rock he’d kicked into the traffic, exposed to be found and crushed.

“Where is Wheeler, anyway?” Max asked. “Shouldn’t you be driving with him? Getting up to whatever secret business it is that’s apparently way cooler than the rest of us?”

Will shrugged; it was all he had the stomach for.

“Mike’s probably being a dick,” El said. She was kind of right. “He’s been acting weird all summer.”

Max voiced her agreement, and Will focused on kicking pebbles, sure that the topic had been exhausted. Unfortunately, he was wrong.

“So have you,” El added pointedly.

“Wh—”

“You haven’t said anything weird, but you’re always making that face. Like… an abandoned puppy.” She pointed at his face. “Yeah, like that!”

Will’s face heated; he looked away. He wondered if everyone had picked up on all the sour emotions he’d apparently been doing the worst job at pushing down. If Mike had. 

“If he’s too annoying, you could always hand him over to us,” Max said to him.

El nodded, clearly fighting down a grin. “We can scare him into never opening his mouth again,” she said seriously.

“We can break his legs like sticks.”

“We can—”

“Okay, I get it!”

Max, despite all her talk, was wrong. Mike was late.

Will’s head snapped up before he could stop himself as the bell jingled. He fixed his gaze on the dim yellow washed over the table by the overhead lamp as Mike slid into the open seat across from him.

The party was stuffed into a booth: two off-colour benches against a heavily-postered wall. And aside from an old guy trying to read a newspaper in the dim light, they were the only ones in the diner—expected, since the clock on the wall told Will it was almost quarter past nine.

It should have been comforting, basically having the whole diner to themselves, but all he could think about was how there was nothing to distract him from the fidgeting boy across from him, from the eyes that were and would be on the two of them.

“You’re late,” El said from beside Will, sounding triumphant.

He snuck a glance at Mike, feeling a familiar flare of shame as he took in his flushed cheeks, his collared tee, rumpled as if thrown on hastily. As if he’d decided to dress up at the last second.

“By ten minutes,” Mike shot back.

El shrugged with a meaningful glance at Max, who was sitting beside her. “Doesn’t matter.”

Mike shifted in his spot. “Not that it’s any of your business, but my dad lost his shit and refused to give me the car keys.”

“What? Why?” Dustin asked.

Mike shrugged, but Will couldn’t help but wonder if their drives had anything to do with it. If the tension in Mike’s jaw was anything to go by, they probably did. Will probably did.

He thought back to Jonathan’s words and felt his chest tighten. If Mike’s dad had said anything, made Mike feel small or bad or anything, Will was at least a little to blame.

Heart in his throat, slowly, subtly, he nudged Mike’s leg with his shoe under the table. He held his breath and willed himself to hold it there.

Mike’s eyes jumped to meet his, and then his leg was gone.

Will had overstepped. He knew it. Still, his heart sank. He lowered his gaze.

“Still, I feel like you guys aren’t understanding the sheer value of each minute you spend with me.” It took Will a second to remember what Dustin was talking about. He felt like he was always lagging behind nowadays, always left reeling.

At the subsequent silence, Dustin raised his eyebrows. “Less than a week until you barely see me! In case you forgot!”

Max scoffed. “How could we? It’s the only thing you talk about.”

“That is so not—”

Lucas interrupted, “You do realize that the rest of us are already employed, right? But somehow, we still find time to do this stuff without relying on mommy’s allowance.”

Max snorted, reaching across the table to grab his (their?) milkshake as Dustin grumbled something under his breath. Lucas watched her do it, looking openly and thoroughly entranced.

Will felt a pang in his stomach. He ignored it and continued refusing to look in Mike’s direction.

Max swivelled the straw almost thoughtfully. “Except, Wheeler’s still a leech—aren’t you? When are you—”

Mike clapped his hands over his ears. “Shut up or I’ll get El to explode your milkshake, swear to god!”

Will could almost believe he’d never seen the wide-eyed, almost fearful look on his face before he’d jerked his leg away under the table.

El pretended to mull it over. “Maybe if you paid me.”

“See, Wheeler?” Max said, voice dripping with condescension. “That’s how the world works. Service in exchange for payment.” She took a long draw from the milkshake.

Will couldn’t help the bright smile he gave the girl he assumed to be a waitress as she came up to the table: thanks to her, the world would never have to hear whatever stupid shit had been about to come out of Mike’s mouth.

“‘Nother round of drinks?” She returned the smile, and the way her gums kind of swallowed her lips as she did so was familiar. Yeah, Will definitely knew her from somewhere. A classmate, maybe? Didn’t matter—all that mattered was her not recognizing him, because if she did it would be obvious—

“Will? Will Byers?” Shit. “Why haven’t I seen you around here?”

He laughed nervously, because for all he knew she had and they both hadn’t recognized each other. “Oh—I dunno, I’ve only been here twice this summer, so—”

“Oh! Well, I only started here in June, so guess it makes sense.”

Will nodded along, eager to order and rid of the visceral feeling of his friends’ eyes boring into the back of his head. “Uh, I’ll get a 7 Up.”

“Cool.” He expected her to move on to someone else, but unfortunately for him she didn’t. “So are you going to the party on Piney Wood?”

Will hadn’t heard of any party, but he didn’t care to ask. “Uh, I’m not really a party person.”

The waitress-classmate girl shoved him lightly. She was definitely flirting with him, which made him flush for entirely the wrong reasons. “Oh, come on. Promise you it’ll be f—”

Someone cleared their throat loudly.

“I’ll have a coke. Not diet.” Mike said, glaring daggers up at her through his curls.

Will watched her blanch then redden, not sure if he was amused or horrified. No, definitely horrified. She mumbled an affirmation and stiffly made her way through the rest of the table. To her credit, she still had the nerve to leave Will with an ‘I’ll see you there?’ before walking away with a straight back. Will felt so bad for her he found himself agreeing.

There was a second of stunned silence at the table before Max hissed way too loudly, “What the fuck, Mike?”

Mike shrugged with the audacity to look at her like she was crazy. “Diet coke is a scam, everyone knows—”

“Are you dense?” Lucas cut in. “You just sabotaged Will, man!”

“Oh, please,” Mike scoffed. “Even if he came to whatever lame-ass party she was talking about, she wouldn’t see him with how far apart her eyes are.”

Will set his jaw. “Mike, come on.”

Mike finally met his eyes across the table. Something flickered in his expression before he pushed himself out of the booth. “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

For someone so scared of being found out, you’d think you’d be able to hold your tongue. Will ripped his eyes from Mike’s back as he stalked away, fighting the urge to slam his head into the table.

Mike made no fucking sense. One minute he was avoidant and collected, the next he was coming at some random girl because she’d dared to make a move on someone he’d called a friend right after offering to have sex with him.

Maybe he’s jealous of you, a voice in the back of his mind whispered, settling itself near his ear. Maybe you’re just a placeholder until the next girl comes around.

He ignored it. Mike was confusing, but there was no way he could be so cruel. 

Will was just tired. Tired of all of this. He was sick of treading carefully, and more than that, he was sick of Mike’s bullshit. He was sick of tying himself in knots trying to guess what he could possibly be thinking.

“Especially pissy today,” Max remarked.

Lucas took the milkshake back from her. “He jealous or something?”

Will stared at the ceiling. “No clue.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” El said bluntly. “Nothing since that girl… that we know of.”

Will didn’t see why it was necessary to tack on that ending. “No,” he agreed neutrally, and that was that.

Dustin broke the silence, and Will got the sense that he’d been struggling not to change the subject the whole conversation. “Well, about that ‘lame-ass’ party, I was going to ask you guys if you wanted to be my plus-ones.”

“Plus-fives,” El commented.

“Exactly. So how ‘bout it?” Dustin put his hands together on the table like a businessman. “It’s a Fourth of July thing at this rich Junior’s house. I pass by it all the time—it’s got, like, a pool in the backyard and shit.”

Will rubbed the bridge of his nose. As much as he didn’t want to… “I mean, I already said I’d go—”

“Great! Man, I was worried you guys would be too antisocial to come along. This is a nice surprise.”

Lucas gave an affronted snort. “Between the two of us, you’re the antisocial one—”

“Okay, so you’re coming then! Unless you’re too much of a recluse…”

Will tuned them out, eyes on the door to the men’s washroom. It occurred to him to follow Mike. To finally, finally force him to confront this and them and everything. 

But a bigger part of Will was terrified of what Mike would have to say about him. Because as much as he resented Mike’s inability to not be full of bullshit, Will was a coward, too. Mike knew that—he’d said just as much yesterday. 

In the end, Will did nothing.

It ate away at him the entire rest of the night, even after Mike returned, even after food and drinks arrived and the booth bubbled over with laughter.

Chapter Text

Confronting Mike was like playing Russian roulette blindfolded. Strategizing was a waste of time.

That was something Will had come to learn a long time ago. Still, in the days before the party, he found himself mentally rehearsing conversation after conversation. It consumed him, just like all thoughts of Mike did.

In some, Will was angry and Mike got angrier. In others, Will was calm and Mike walked away halfway through. 

It got so bad that it infected his dreams—usually in nonsensical snippets.

But there was one vivid dream on Friday night. Vivid as in it had felt so real it'd taken a full minute to process that it hadn't actually happened, and another to slow his racing pulse. Will felt it more than he recalled it: knocking on Mike's door, shielding his ears from earsplitting, reverberating laughter; a slamming door more akin to a gun going off directly by his ear, the sound so loud he jolted awake.

Mike came over once before the day of the party. They didn’t talk about the argument. They didn’t talk much at all. 

Seeing him only made things worse. The front door clicked shut behind Mike, and the scenarios went sideways, became mangled and mixed up in a tide of shameful fantasies pushed down into the depths of Will’s mind. In these, Mike would often apologize, but with actions instead of words. Or if he did verbalize it, he would do it kneeling at Will’s feet.

It was horrible and useless. In the end, Will had nothing.

The day of the party rolled around. Lucas was going to pick everyone up, save for Dustin.

It would be stupid to try to confront Mike at the party, Will reasoned, so why should he waste more time thinking about him? What he should do is focus on looking and feeling fine. Try to feel excited about doing whatever it was people did at parties—even though he really wasn't, and had spent the days leading up to it familiarizing himself with the dread that had taken up permanent residence in the pit of his stomach.

He brushed his teeth once, twice. He combed his hair, useless because it was already flat and straight. 

I used to be jealous of your hair. A flash of unwanted memory: Mike, inky hair spilled across Will’s knees; grain of a muffled television, glow highlighting a profile drowned in dark; basement drowned in bliss, bubbly bliss.

Will stared into space and let himself wish he wasn't still just as stupid as he'd been the first night.

“Will,” came a voice—his brother’s—from outside the bathroom, “you done in there?”

Will blinked. Mechanically, he blew out a breath, released his death grip on the comb, and put it down. Focus, he reminded himself. “Yeah, sorry,” he said, half to himself and half to his brother, still waiting on the other side of the door. 

Will checked his watch as he emerged into the hallway. He still had ten minutes, and he didn’t want to spend it alone with his thoughts. 

He felt kind of mental walking around in circles outside the door while he waited for Jonathan to finish up in the bathroom, but if it was what he had to do, he was going to do it. As soon as Jonathan was out, Will was back in, ignoring his brother’s sideways look as he walked past Will back to his room. 

He knew it was in here somewhere. Opening the cupboard next to the mirror, Will scanned the shelves up to the top (reserved for Hopper, likely because Joyce couldn’t reach it); score. Hopper’s collection of colognes totalled two, but Will wasn’t picky. He grabbed them both. 

One bottle was green, with a little man on a horse engraved in gold on the front. The other had ‘sex panther’ pasted on it in bold letters. Will decided not to pick up that one.

The one he picked smelled fine enough. Will looked at himself in the mirror; he looked fine enough. That was good enough for him. 

“El!” Will called, suddenly uncomfortable looking himself in the eye. He swiped the bottles off the counter and put them back in their place, closed up the cabinet. 

Still no response, save for the pop music drifting from the room they occasionally shared since Jonathan was home. 

Will rolled his eyes, stalking over to rap on the door. El didn’t like it when he came in when the door was closed; it was technically his room, but whatever.

“Coming!” 

Uh-huh. “Five minutes!” Will called back. When it became clear that El either hadn’t heard him or wasn’t going to dignify him with a response, he resigned himself to waiting outside on the porch.

The night air was cooler than usual. Without a distraction to occupy it, Will's mind looped back to its default subject.

He didn’t want to avoid Mike tonight; he never did. But sometimes it was better to say nothing at all than to risk lashing out. Will tried to be sensible, calm, ever the mediator. But when he and Mike fought, all of that went out the window. Mike knew him better than anyone else did. He also knew exactly where to prod to make Will lose his head. 

The most sound option would be to stay quiet until he knew exactly what he wanted to say to Mike. Only, it was hard to think about that—what he wanted—and all the more difficult when he didn’t even know what Mike wanted. 

He checked his watch again, compulsively. Six minutes had passed. El was taking forever, which made no sense. The last time Will had seen her, maybe thirty minutes before she’d barricaded herself in his room, she’d looked nice and put together already.

Like she’d sensed his restlessness, El walked out the front door right then, boots clacking on the wood as she approached the edge of the porch. She sat down carefully next to Will, as if moving too recklessly would damage her getup. 

Over her colourful shirt and skirt, El wore a funky jean jacket dotted with silver stars. It looked new, probably one of the treasures she’d brought home from an afternoon spent shopping with Max. Her eyelids were painted silver, too, and her hair was all piled up on her head in a style she’d spent hours fussing over with Joyce’s curling iron.

“You look nice,” Will said. “Like, uh… Molly Ringwald.”

El’s eyes crinkled with her shy smile. “Did you just pick a random celebrity?”

“No, I was hungry and started thinking about The Breakfast Club.” He cracked a smile when El elbowed him lightly. “I mean it, though.”

Quiet washed over them. Will was hungry; he'd forgotten to eat lunch. Joyce had taken the whole family to drop by the annual festival a few hours ago, but they'd really only had snacks and corn dogs for dinner.

He checked his watch again. Lucas was five minutes late. It was probably someone else’s fault, though. Lucas was the most reliable party member, which some people loved to take advantage of.

“Are you scared?” El asked abruptly.

Will shrugged a shoulder. “Kind of.” It was their first house party, technically, but that was the least of his worries. He nudged her shoulder with his. “It’ll be fun.”

“Yeah,” El said noncommittally. “Are you going to find Kelly?” At Will’s confused silence, she gave him an amused look. “You know she was in our Algebra and Civics class.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” El said with mock-exasperation. “You are so weird.”

“So are you.” Will reached to mess up her hair, grinning when she smacked his hand away.

“You still didn’t answer my question.”

The sound of tires rolling up the path saved him from responding. Lucas rolled down the window and waved enthusiastically like a dork.

They clamoured into the backseat. Somehow, even though Mike would’ve been picked up first because he lived right next door to Lucas, he’d been exiled to the backseat, and Max was riding shotgun. Luckily, El ended up in the middle, like a sparkly human barrier separating Mike and Will.

“Alright,” Lucas said as he pulled back onto the road, ceasing the chattering drowning out the radio. “Who’s up to drive?”

“Can’t be me or him,” Max added.

“I can,” Will offered quickly.

Why not? Remembering the buzz as the alcohol made its burning way down his throat made him feel sick to his stomach anyway.

“No, I’ll do it,” El said.

Will shifted fully in his seat to evaluate her. “Why?” he asked genuinely.

“Because,” El said, something in her voice telling that she’d made up her mind and it wasn’t going to be changed. “I’m being responsible.”

It was settled. Well, after Lucas made her promise not to crash his car. Soon enough, they were parked on the road in a neighborhood next to Dustin’s. Also as per Lucas’ recommendation, they’d come late.

Will got out and let his friends’ conversation drown out his thoughts. Their words were laced with a nervous buzz. It rattled him, despite his efforts not to let it. The idea of going to a house party hosted by someone he’d never even talked to became a looming threat alongside the equally terrifying ones he’d been trying to pretend away. Those being, of course, avoiding the girl—Kelly. And Mike.

Actually, if he was being honest, the latter was the most terrifying. And it would be almost impossible, given that El made them all promise to stick together.

When they finally arrived in front of the house, Will was relieved to see Dustin amongst the buzzing crowd trickling in or lingering on the front lawn, his curly hair reminiscent of Steve’s signature style.

“What did I tell you?” was the first thing he said as the group approached.

The house was massive, and intimidating: two sprawling floors of pristine white brick with more windows than Will could count, an oversized American flag blowing in the summer breeze. The whole thing pulsed with bass coming from inside. It seemed, in every way, like a warning, like the foreboding rattle of a rattlesnake—leave now or regret it!

Too late. Inevitably, they were pulled into the sea of people and sucked into the yawning jaws of the house. Will blinked and he found himself in an expansive sitting room, people everywhere, music and talk mixing until it all became background noise.

He’d expected to feel overwhelmed, but it was surprisingly easy to lose his nerves in the crowd. Besides, at least they’d all be sticking together—nope, nevermind: looking around, he saw no one from his circle.

It was fine. All Will had to do was avoid two people and have fun. How hard could it be? Will recognized barely even a quarter of these people, and at least another quarter of them had to be already graduated, but he managed to pick out a friendly face: Jose from the art club.

They talked for a bit before too many unfamiliar, older people approached Jose. Will didn’t stick around.

He wandered around a bit, exploring the many rooms of the house—some packed with bodies and others sparse but for a group of friends, a couple or two he'd slide his gaze to the floor at. Each was well-decorated, each would probably be a mess by the morning. He went upstairs, but his exploration was cut short by a sound coming from one of the closed doors he passed that sent him scrambling back to the ground floor, red-faced with mortification. 

Eventually, he found Max by the punch bowl that was apparently and unsurprisingly spiked. Will sipped conservatively from his plastic cup while they made fun of the massive framed portraits of the same pudgy beagle he’d found in every single bathroom without fail.

Eventually, Mike wandered over, and Will struggled to get his throat to swallow the contents of his drink. Mike situated himself a safe distance from him, at least, his fingers curled under the lip of the counter he'd joined them in leaning against.

"What's up?" Mike asked, more like an aggressive shout over the music.

Max snorted. "'What's up'? Where the hell have you been?"

She'd put it a little bluntly, but Will was wondering the same thing. Maybe Mike had been avoiding him, too. The only other explanation was that he and Mike had happened to always be in different rooms at the same time. Maybe, then, Mike had been wandering around like him.

It was weird to imagine him at a party; who he might have talked to, what he might have said and done, if he'd played any drinking games or swayed to the music. He didn't think Mike would be the type to enjoy himself at these kinds of things, but, chancing a glance at him, he wore a smile on his face, a furrow on his brow.

"Trying to figure out what people do at parties," Mike responded. "I saw some dude throw up on the floor."

It occurred to Will to bring up the bathroom design choices, but he couldn't seem to get the words out. 

"Have you seen the bathrooms?" Max stuck her head out to look at Mike.

Mike craned his head to look back at her. "Yeah, why?"

"You didn't see it?" Max launched into a mockery of the beagle portraits, with an impressive level of detail considering she hadn't seen them herself. 

Will kind of tuned her out, feeling stupid standing wordlessly between the two of them and struck with the strong desire to go home. 

"...Will saw them. Did they?" Max was still talking. Jesus, why was he in such a bad mood right now? A lull, then a nudge to his side. "You good, man?" 

"Yeah," he told her, guilt compelling him to provide a conceivable explanation. "It's just weird, being here and all."

"I know, right?" Dustin yelled as he approached them. He came from the semi-large group at the other end of the kitchen.

Will hadn't noticed he was there. It was hard to tell who was who when only some rooms had the lights on, and there were so many bodies.

Dustin went up to the punch bowl and grabbed five plastic cups from the stacks.  

"What are you doing?" Max asked suspiciously.

He scooped up the orange-tinged liquid with a cup, then shot her with a wide grin. "Chugging these. There's money on the line, so I don't wanna hear you praying on my downfall."

"Oh my god," Max said, a smile creeping up on her face.

"Dude!" Mike's voice was loud in Will's ear. "How much?" 

Dustin slid the cups to the other end of the counter. "I'll tell you when I get it."

"Good luck," Will called as Dustin went to get the group's attention. 

"Thanks, but don't need it!" Dustin called over his shoulder.

It got much louder in the kitchen then, the voices of the group hovering around Dustin becoming a roar that swelled as he brought the first cup to his lips.

The three of them watched from the counter in amusement and mild concern as Dustin's throat bobbed fervently with the effort of chugging, someone shouting out the seconds passing by as he swiped his mouth with his arm and seized the next cup, serious determination in his eyes.

“I don’t want to be here when he throws up,” Max said when he’d downed three. "Tell me if he does, though," and then she was gone, swallowed up by the hordes of people in the living room.

Will watched her leave helplessly, hyperaware of Mike in his peripheral vision, shifting to let his hands fall limp by his sides.

It was then that he realized that the two of them hadn't said a single word to each other since Mike had posted himself up next to him: Mike had talked to Max, and Will had found his mouth glued shut. He was sure Mike was aware of that, too, what had been intentional on both their ends, consciously or not. It only made him feel more awkward. Not knowing where to look and not wanting to look at Mike, Will fixed his eyes on the crowd, only to be met with the sight of another person he really didn’t want to talk to—Kelly, across the kitchen island in the sitting room.

“Well,” Will said hastily, pushing off from where he was leaning against the counter with as much nonchalance as he could muster, “guess you’re on throw-up duty.”

He swore he could feel Mike’s eyes on his back as he made his escape. It was unnerving. He hated that he was thinking about the rooms upstairs with the doors that locked, wondering if Mike would say yes if Will asked. It wasn’t even that unrealistic an idea, given what they’d done already.

Will took another drink instead of slapping himself in the face. He didn’t want to get wasted, obviously; he just wanted that sweet spot of looseness and a pleasant hum.

Praying Lucas was still there, he made his way to the (second) basement living room. Sure enough, he found him amongst the basketball crowd, tossing what looked to Will like ping-pong balls into an ornate vase on the floor.

Will joined them—Lucas was miraculously semi-sober—and the game went on for a long while. That was, until someone knocked the vase over, and it only stayed intact because it landed on the edge of the carpet. Then there was only one more round before some girl with hoops that grazed her shoulders found them and ordered them to put the vase back. Will was surprised at the revelation that the balls were actually decorative and meant to go inside the vase. Rich people were weird.

He didn’t see Kelly after that, to his relief. It should have also relieved him that the same was true for Mike, but all he could think about was how much more fun this would be with him. After all, it was their first house party. These were the kinds of things they would stick together for, once. Will remembered a time when Mike took that very seriously: the certainty that they had each other in the face of terrifying, unpredictable new. That was why Will was there with Mike’s family at four in the morning when Holly was born. That was why Mike had the idea to organize a funeral for Chester and cried when Will cried during it.

He wasn’t sure when that certainty had faltered. Maybe if it hadn’t, Mike would be here right now.

The creak of the couch beside Will took him back to the present, where he was sitting motionless on the outskirts of the large game room. It reeked of smoke and cheap liquor. 

“El?” Will blinked, taking in her slightly wild eyes and the chunks of her hair that had fallen out of place. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” El yelled back, which he understood was necessary given the volume in the densely packed room, but she was practically screaming in his ear. At least he finally got a break from the sour alcohol on everyone else’s breath. “But you might want to know something.”

Will frowned, not entirely convinced this wasn’t some kind of ill-advised prank. “Yeah?”

El scooted over and whispered something harshly into his ear.

“What?”

She leaned back and gave him an annoyed look.

Will returned with an identical expression. “What? Just tell me!”

“I can’t just—”

“Why not?” he interrupted, admittedly a little freaked out now.

She pulled him in by the ear, ignoring his squawk of pain. “Because,” she whisper-shouted, “Mike just told me that you smell good. Also that he hates himself.”

A strangled laugh bubbled out of Will on instinct—a pathetic sound more akin to the whine of a dog. He could feel El’s watchful eyes on him and the cold sweat starting on the back of his neck, which made the words come out weird and breathless, “Um—he’s drunk.”

El didn’t look away. Will fought not to swipe at the back of his neck. “He is,” she said finally, in a flat tone Will didn’t like. She got up, and for a second Will believed himself miraculously off the hook before her hand was out for him to take. “It’s too loud in here,” she said, and Will really, really despised her.

She pulled him to his feet at the same time someone stumbled down the stairs and shouted, “Fireworks!” like a war cry.

Half the basement stampeded out, and Will didn’t feel that guilty about pulling his sister along into the crowd. The tide of people swept them up the stairs, and then they were on the other side of the sliding door in a backyard bigger than Will’s house, complete with the aforementioned pool. A different pop song was blasting out here, which clashed unpleasantly with the music booming inside through the door left ajar.

“El! Will! Over here!”

Will swivelled at the familiar voice, eyes passing over people taping bottles to the grass and the frankly ridiculous quantity of firework packages strewn about, which made him seriously question if the night could end without someone getting a finger or two blown off. He caught sight of his friends, who he immediately noticed looked wary as well.

Actually, no. That was a lie. The first thing he noticed was that Mike was missing from the group.

“Mike’s not with you?” Lucas asked as they approached the group.

Mike, Mike, Mike—can we shut up about Mike for once? Will had to fight not to spit the thought out. Maybe he was less sober than he’d thought.

“We thought he was with you,” El said.

“He’s probably inside, then.” Nobody did anything for a solid five seconds, and realization dawned.

“You want me to get him?” Will was asking, of course, for the slim chance that someone else would offer to go instead.

“Well,” Lucas started, a little confusedly, “yes.”

Obviously. Because Will could always be counted on to chase after Mike like a dog. Even they knew that. 

What? He shook the needlessly brooding thought away and plastered on a smile. “Be right back.”

Will slipped through the sliding door and wove his way through more people heading to the backyard, grateful when the bass drowned out the clashing instrumentals outside. He figured he’d either find Mike somewhere quiet or way too loud. The latter would be the large ground-floor areas, so he figured he’d start there.

The living room he’d entered from the backyard yielded no results. Antsy to get in and get out to avoid the ever-present Kelly threat, Will narrowly avoided knocking over someone’s drink as he hurried into the sitting room.

“Oh, hey, Will!” 

Just great. Not that he didn’t like Bill; it just wasn’t the time.

“Hey,” Will said, but his eyes were on the crowd. On Mike, who was easy to pick out by his dark curls and height. By the girl with him—Kelly.

The girl he was kissing.

“Sorry, I just—I need to…” Will took a step back, through the archway. Bass pounded in his ears.

Jonathan was wrong. He was wrong.

Fuck this. Will was going to go back to his friends and tell them Mike would find his way over himself. Will was going to ignore him the rest of the night, and then… shit, he’d deal with the rest later. For now, he just had to focus on getting out of here.

He walked out in a daze, barely registering elbowing limbs and hollering voices until he emerged on the other side of the sliding door.

Rapidly, Will blinked against the cool night air. In the nearly-empty space between the bodies crowded around the fireworks at the far end of the grass and the people packed inside the house, he felt suddenly alone.

“Will!”

His stomach twisted and he picked up the pace, trying in vain to reach the crowd before—

“Will, come on, man—”

Will wrenched Mike's hand off his shoulder as he whirled around. The look on his face just made everything worse. “Stop it.”

“Can we please just talk somewhere quieter—”

“Stop! Just—stop!”

Mike had the nerve to recoil, staring at him with wide, unsettlingly vulnerable eyes. He wasn’t supposed to look at Will like that when other people were around, watching. When Mike spoke, his voice sounded equally wrong. “Stop what?”

Will took a shaky breath, tried to rein back his temper, his mortification. It didn't work. “Stop talking like that. Stop acting like you care about-about this”—he stuck out a shaking hand between them—“when it’s obvious that you don’t give a single shit!”

“I do! I do, can we—” Mike faltered, eyes anxiously darting around behind Will. “Can we please talk somewhere else?”

Will stared at him. “God, you’re a coward.” His voice didn’t sound like his, his words someone else’s. They dripped with venom, all the pent-up ugliness he'd been trying to hide to prevent something exactly like this from happening.

Mike’s face crumpled, and Will felt even less like himself when watching him gave him a sick thrill that made his heart hurt a little less. 

But he wasn’t going to let himself feel guilty on Mike’s behalf right now. Will set his jaw. “I’m tired, okay? I’m going.”

“Wait,” he heard Mike shout as he stalked away. He let the distant roar of the crowd swallow it up.

Mike’s hand found his shoulder again. Will slowed despite himself, biting the inside of his cheek—hard—before turning to shrug it off.

Mike’s hand lost its grip easily, but he didn’t back off. His other hand came up to cup Will’s face.

“Wh—”

Then Mike kissed him on the mouth. In front of everyone.

For a second, Will only registered the buzzing in his ears. Could have been people, or flies, or all in his head.

Mike's lips were overly hot. Will felt overly hot. This was surreal, and so, so wrong—a perversity of something that had been their secret, once, sacred, even, though Will had never had the guts to say it out loud. Three weeks ago, he would’ve thought this meant Mike loved him—like some grand romantic gesture straight out of a movie. Now he was too scared and angry to think it was anything other than stupid.

Will pushed Mike off hard, breaths coming fast. “Don’t.” He turned and almost rammed right into Jack T. from English.

“What did I fuckin’ say?” he hooted, as if Will wasn’t right in front of him. “Byers and Wheeler, two little—”

Will shoulder checked him as he stalked inside, ignoring the shouts and laughs that followed. His skin felt like it was burning up, like he was running a fever.

Pushing past waves of people as he reached the front door—the light at the end of the tunnel—brought him back to school hallways, shoes and clothes that were too big and bright for him, freak and fairy all over again. Every laugh felt targeted in his direction. Every passing glance was a knowing one. 

When it was just Mike and him, it was much easier not to confront it. Another secret between the two of them, another world they'd created for themselves, entirely barred from reality. And no, it hadn't stayed that way. And yes, it had been naive of Will to assume it would. But now the barrier was gone. Mike had broken it, impulsivity and inability to use his words coming back to bite them both in the ass, and now it was real. 

It: what they were. Couple o' queers, Lonnie would have said.

Will flung open the front door. Still he felt stifling heat, even as cool air hit his face. He left the house, walked down the path past the front lawn. His ears rang in the absence of booming music. The ringing dimmed, and dimmed.

It was completely silent save for his footsteps and shallow breathing. It was here, in the lonely, empty street, that Will let his face crumple. 

He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to do. He'd thought he had, but he'd been stupid.

The salt of tears on his tongue. A wake-up call. He told himself to memorize it, the mortification, the anger, Byers and Wheeler, two little— 

But what he could picture most vividly was Mike’s face as he let him go. It was the one thing he knew he'd never forget: his eyes, wide in paralyzed fear. His bobbing throat, like he was desperately scrabbling for words that didn't come.

Will knew he’d left him when he was most vulnerable. People had seen. Their friends could have seen.

It was a long walk home. It gave him plenty of time to think about it, over and over.

Chapter Text

Will woke up and immediately bolted to the bathroom to heave his guts up. 

Shakily pushing himself up from the toilet bowl, he opted not to look at what he knew would mostly be bile swirling and mingling with the toilet water. He swiped hair slick with sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and flushed. 

The sink ran hot. Will glanced at himself in the mirror and knew. 

This was no hangover, no fever. His pulse was too high, his eyes too wide and darting. Gooseflesh pricked his arms like his body was anticipating something he couldn’t see. Danger, in the air and every scattered thought.  

No, this was a bad day—an ‘episode,’ as the doctors had put it, and the other adults had quickly adopted.  

Will still had them. Even now. They didn’t happen often, so it was easy to pretend they didn’t exist. His friends knew what it meant when he took a day off school, anyway. They never said anything about it, something Will had never explicitly asked of them but appreciated nonetheless. 

Mike was really the only one out of them with the unspoken right to acknowledge it. Other than him, it was only Will’s family—so Mike was kind of like an honorary member, in a way. Often he would bike over after school with some sort of entertainment for Will: a song on tape, a stupid story he’d plucked from the day, some comics. 

Will nearly gagged again. 

He used to cling to the warmth in those memories—Mike, a guiding light in a sea of terrifying dark. Now there was nothing to cling to. He was untethered, empty. It was way too hot in the bathroom.

“Will!”

Will startled, pulse skyrocketing. His breaths were coming too fast; he fought to slow them. It was only his mom. 

“I’m making toast—come here and get some if you want it, okay?”

Will wiped more sweat from his forehead. He was dreading facing her; she’d have questions, and he wouldn’t have answers. His voice came out more like a croak, “Just lemme shower first.”

After a brief pause where he wasn’t sure she’d heard him, “Sounds good to me, sir.”

Dial cranked all the way left, the water was ice-cold relief. Will closed his eyes against the streaks lashing down and scrubbed a hand over his face. 

He could tell his mom to call the Wheelers’ residence, get Mike and everyone else to leave him alone for the day. That was what he wanted, wasn’t it? The idea of any of his friends seeing him now made his heart clench so tight it was hard to breathe. 

The soap bar slipped from Will’s shaky hands to the floor. He picked it back up. He finished up his shower as quickly as he could stomach. He stepped out. 

The towel was scratchy, the fibers like minuscule teeth gnawing on his skin. 

Back in his room, he picked a shirt at random, one of the few haphazardly thrown about. Before, the slight mess hadn’t bothered him much, just one of those things he told himself to get to but never did. Now, though, it was unacceptable. 

Still only half-clothed, clutching the shirt to his chest, Will made sweeps around the room: once, twice, picking up random articles of clothing, a Reese’s Pieces wrapper, a balled-up piece of paper. Only when everything was the way it was supposed to be could he relax. 

He laid the shirt out on his lap as steadily as he could. It was plain gray and linty, nothing special. He had plenty of clean shirts like it. 

The difference was—this was Mike’s shirt. He’d forgotten it one morning, and because Will hadn’t had the nerve to move it from the edge of his desk, it had stayed there since. Really, he’d been waiting for Mike to notice it. 

Now, Will was weak enough to reach for it. Weak enough to bury his face in the fabric and breathe it in: faint traces of sweat, the detergent Karen had been using as long as Will had known him. The smell of Mike. Of safety, of home. 

Will resigned himself to pulling the shirt over his head and quietly padded out of his room.

His mom was in the kitchen when he came in. “Look who finally showed,” she said without turning around. “Got any big plans for the day?”

Will wanted to respond, but he could barely even swallow. His throat felt like sandpaper rubbing against itself. Only then did it register just how thirsty he was. He crossed the room and stopped in front of the cupboard, to the right of his mom. He felt her eyes boring into his back as he reached for the handle, and his hands chose that exact moment to start shaking like crazy so he couldn’t get a proper grip. 

Fuck, Will really couldn’t do anything, could he? He was still the same freak he’d been three years ago, swallowed up by his clothes and missing school half the time, coddled and powerless. Pathetically, tears pricked his eyes.

“Oh, sweetie.” Mom, coming up behind him. “Let me, I can—”

“It’s fine.”

“But—”

“I said it’s fine.” The words were like acid on Will’s tongue. “Sorry, I…” He needed to get himself a cup of water. The handle was his anchor; he kept a white-knuckled grip on it until the shaking stopped.

He pulled open the cabinet. He took a plastic cup. He filled it at the sink. Gulped it down, filled it again. Staring at his socks, he approached the dining table his mom was fidgeting at and sat down.

Joyce reached out to rub his back. She started gingerly, “One of those days, mm?”

He nodded.

She went quiet. Will focused on the reassuring warmth of her hand on his back. “You’ve… this hasn’t happened before, has it? Never during the summertime.”

“No.”

She looked at him with a crinkled brow, let out a deep sigh that turned into an ‘okay.’ “El’s out. She didn’t make it clear where exactly, so I’m willing to bet it has to do with that ice cream boy at the mall Max was trying to set her up with.”

She was trying to make him feel better. Will managed to smile weakly back, trying not to wonder if El was purposefully giving him space.

“And as much as I’d love to spend the whole day with my boy,” Joyce continued, letting out an unsteady sigh, “I—I have to get to work, so… what d’you say you call a friend over?” Which really meant: “Mike? You boys could order in, put on a movie—”

“He’ll want to go out with everyone else.”

His mom gave him a look. “I’m sure he’d rather spend time with you. He came by when—”

“Mom. Jonathan could make us breakfast every day when he was my age. I can—”

A knock at the door.

Joyce patted his back like she was about to get up, but didn’t. “I think it’s a good idea for you to… to have company, at least until your sister gets back. Anyone would want it, if they were—” more impatient raps on the door; she got up and stalked down the hall, “fuck’s sake—yes, coming, coming…”

Silence.

“Oh, hi, Mike!”

Will’s chest tightened around his heart. He didn’t want to see Mike. He wanted to be alone. Alone was safe. Mike was not, not right now.

Panic gripped him by the throat as words echoed down the hall: What a coincidence! Will isn’t feeling great, we thought he could phone you, yeah, sorry for showing up out of the blue, really, it’s okay. Hushed voices, footsteps coming closer down the hall. Will sat, unable to stop their approach, trying to slow his breathing.

Then Mike was hovering in the hallway, wide-eyed at the state of him.

Itchy, hot shame. Will felt every time Mike had to see him like this; he felt it then as Mike took in his glassy eyes and pasty face, his white knuckles from his death grip on the cup, his body, clammy all over. Over the years, he’d become accustomed to feeling it, even knowing that Mike only wanted to help—and now, he didn’t know why Mike had bothered to come at all.

Mike’s eyes dropped to the floor. Will wondered if he was feeling guilty. He hoped he was. Just looking at Mike now made him sick to his stomach; he might as well hope that Mike was feeling worse.

When Joyce came in a little hurriedly and kissed Will on his forehead, it set in that she was leaving him with Mike.

Wait! Tell him to forget it, please, a childish voice screamed at her as she crossed the room, stuffing things into her purse as she went, and paused to settle her hand on Mike’s shoulder.

“You boys look out for each other, okay? I’m off to work—Mike, thanks again, here’s a five to order in.” She patted his shoulder twice, opened her mouth to say something to Will, but changed it to “I’ll be back at five or so, ‘kay?”

“Okay.”

She gave him a tight-lipped smile, crinkle returning to her brow. “Okay. I love you.”

“Love you.”

Then she was gone, and it was quiet. 

Mike opened his mouth and closed it; fidgeted, opened it again. “How bad is—” 

“Why are you here?” Will asked flatly. 

He watched Mike look at the floor for a long moment and flinched when his eyes leapt up to meet his. Mike’s eyes were so dark they should’ve looked empty, but instead they thrived with something so strong Will had to look away. “Why?” he repeated.

The sink dripped once, twice. 

“I know I fucked up. I didn’t mean it, any of it.”

Don’t, Will had told Mike, before he’d left him in the dark backyard. But it’d been too late for that. What was done was done. It was almost laughable that Mike thought he could take it all back with a few empty words. But Will was already fighting to control his breathing, and arguing would make things a thousand times worse. He kept his voice firm without a drop of panic, “I really don’t want to talk about this right now.” 

Mike inhaled: trying to keep calm, something Will knew wouldn’t last. “Yeah, I—I get that.” He took a step forward. Will’s heartbeat spiked, and Mike stopped at the agitation that must have shown on his face. His eyebrows contorted, drew together. “Will, I just want to help.” 

Danger, his body told him as Mike took another step, and another. Will shook his head frantically. “I don’t want your help.” He just wanted Mike to go away.

But Mike only swallowed, hard, and said, “Please.”  

This was how it always went. Mike fucked up and came crawling back with a devastated crack in his desperate voice, and Will forgave him every time. 

“I don’t want your help,” Will repeated, louder this time. And he meant it. Accepting Mike’s help now would mean falling back into a trap. He couldn’t do that; not to himself, not to Mike.

Mike shook his head like Will was the one being irrational here. He approached the table—too close, close enough that he could reach out and touch Will if he wanted. Will’s entire body tensed up, danger, danger—“Just—I’m not going to let you be miserable all alone, and it’s my fault, so just let me—”

“No!” The outburst shocked them both. Mike opened his mouth but Will cut him off, because Mike needed to stop talking, “No, you’re not helping, Mike! Why do you—you’re just—” His lungs felt twisted in knots. He gulped in a breath, then another, gripping the table like a lifeline. A tremor shook through his whole body.

“Will.” A voice from far away, reverberating between his ears and leaving his head reeling. “Breathe. Just breathe.”

Will’s head was pounding so hard he thought he might die. He sputtered out between pants, “I—I am—”

“Breathe with me then. Can you do that?” A light hand on his arm.

Will latched onto it with a white-knuckled grip. He tried desperately to slow his breathing in time with a softly repeated ‘in’ and ‘out’—the warmth made it a little easier. His grip on the hand loosened until it was slack; until he felt the soft sensation of fingers laced with his own. He focused on the sound of the sink’s dripping, irregular as his ragged breaths, and it quieted the ringing in his ears.

After fourteen drips, Mike left him. A strangled, panicked sound that was supposed to be a ‘wait’ escaped his dry mouth.

“I’ll be right back—promise, okay?”

Mike’s face was streaked with tears. Will saw them before Mike turned away and bolted down the hall—too fast to hear him acknowledge that he’d said anything at all.

In his absence, Will forced himself to get up and refill his cup of water. He thought he might pass out when he stood, but he didn’t. He made it to the sink and forced himself to drink. He didn’t have the energy to register anything other than the lukewarm water running down his throat and the rise and fall of his chest. Later, he would be disappointed in himself for this—for all of this.

When he got back to the table, Mike was there, fiddling with the old stereo Jonathan gave Will when he went off to NYU.

Will felt something like fondness in his heart. He had too many memories like this not to feel it. Mike had let him keep all of the tapes he’d played him over the years, even when he hadn’t understood why, because half of them were shitty recordings with snippets of commercials or abrupt cut-offs at the end.

Will sat in the chair next to Mike as he slotted in a mixtape. A faint smile flitted across his lips as he stared at the table. “Bowie?”

“Uh—yeah,” Mike’s nerves were palpable. Will was hyperaware of his own irregular heartbeat, teetering on the edge of losing it again. “Yeah. There’s, well, Bowie… The Clash, Joy Division, The Cure—um—Tubeway and…” He trailed off at Will’s expression, eyes jumping down to the table as soon as Will looked at him. “I made it for you.”

“When?”

Mike bit his lip. “A while ago.”

Will didn’t push it. “Thanks,” he said softly.

They sat like that for a while, listening. When Will’s mind started to wander, Mike would bring him back by rambling—about random things, like Holly or his to-be sci-fi novel or the new campaign he was mulling over.

Then it was over. The house was entirely engulfed in silence, as if holding its breath. 

Will supposed there was no use trying to hide from it anymore. Mike was here, and he’d already witnessed Will going into hysterics—he was probably akin to a bomb that could go off at any second in Mike’s mind. There was really no point in holding back anymore. Nowhere to run.

“Do they know?” he asked, quietly. 

Mike looked up from the table. His eyes took a little longer to focus on Will’s face, like he’d been deep in thought. “...The party?” 

It was probably immature, that title. Still, letting go of it would be like breaking a pact. As a party, they were inseparable, a single unit. Will braced himself for what he already knew. 

“Yeah.”

Mike didn’t elaborate, which meant he hadn’t talked to them since. Will swallowed. Everything was going to shit, and it was all Mike’s fault.

But hadn’t Will wanted this, in a twisted way? Hadn’t he resented Mike for hiding? In truth, he’d been scared, too. Really scared. He’d just hidden behind the childish excuse of Mike started it.

Maybe if Will wasn’t such a coward. Maybe if he’d actually talked to Mike like Jonathan had told him to. Maybe, maybe, maybe. It didn’t matter now.

“God,” Will huffed under his breath, snorting mirthlessly. He could acknowledge that there was something comedic about all of this: how long the two of them had kept the charade going, until it had inevitably all come crashing down. 

Mike shrank back a little at the word. Will recalled his stricken, flushed face from the night before. Seeing his own shame reflected in the contortion of Mike’s features. 

Mike had hurt him. Still, they were tethered to each other—and each other’s pain. Any other circumstance, and it would be borderline masochistic for Will to hold himself back from reaching for Mike, offering him the comfort they both needed. 

Mike was looking at the table, not him. “I’m sorry.” His curls were falling over his eyes. He’d angled his face away. He was still hiding, even now. Or maybe, after how badly he’d made a mess of everything, he thought he had all the more reason to.   

Still, Will could see it in his jaw, clenching and unclenching; his fisted hand in his lap. Mike was trying not to cry.

“I’m really sorry, I—” he clenched his jaw again. “I never meant for any of this to happen.” It sounded like he was reassuring both Will and himself. 

Will believed that. It wasn’t an explanation. “What did you want to happen, then?” Mike said nothing. Will hedged forward, all the while carefully monitoring what little he could glean from Mike’s body language. He didn’t want to push too hard. He didn’t know what he would do if Mike started crying because of him. “Did you want to keep it a secret forever? Were you planning on—on stopping when you got sick of it?” Did you want me to tell you how much I wished we could be more than you could stomach? Did you want me more than you should have? 

Mike’s knee was bouncing in a blur by the time Will was finished. “I didn’t want to stop.” His knee faltered, falling out of its rhythm, then went right back to bouncing. “I… I don’t know, I just…” he threw up his hands and let out an aggravated groan. “I don’t know.”

It hadn’t escaped Will, Mike’s summer-long aversion to bringing up his feelings and Will in the same sentence. Still, at first, he had ignored it, willingly substituting Mike’s actions for the words he wished he would say. 

Now, Will was painfully aware of his own disappointment. Now, he was going to tell Mike directly. 

“Mike,” he started. “Mike, can you look at me?”

Mike’s knee froze altogether. Slowly, he turned his eyes away from the table to meet Will’s—wet, beautiful eyes, wide and conflicted. 

Will had always believed himself at Mike’s mercy this summer: Mike dragged him around, executed his every whim, while Will was left abandoned in the dark at the end of each night. The Mike in his mind had amalgamated into someone entirely different from the person he was sitting next to now: a gangly teenage boy who was passionate about the stories inside his head and didn’t know how to talk to girls. A confused boy, who felt just as lost as Will did. 

Again, he resisted the urge to reach out, to cradle Mike’s face close to his own. “I hate this, too, you know that? I hate it when we fight, more than anything.” He steeled himself for what he was going to say next, turning the words over and over in his mind until eventually he just forced them out. “But ‘I don’t know’ isn’t enough.”

Mike didn’t shout. He didn’t get angry. He just bit his lip and dropped his eyes in shame. “I know. I should’ve…” He trailed off. Abruptly, he started, “I just ran over here, this morning, without a plan. Did you know that?” He met Will’s gaze again. “It was like, all I could think about was fixing everything and making it right again. I couldn’t do anything else—it was killing me. But you’re right. I’m just spewing bullshit, and—and you don’t deserve that at all, so…”

Will chose his words carefully. “I don’t need you to fix everything, Mike. I just want you to tell me the truth.”

Mike nodded, multiple times, throat bobbing. His eyebrows knit: deep in thought. “Can you…” He stopped, started again. “Tomorrow. Don’t let anyone else on the phone too long, ‘cause I’m gonna call you, okay?”

A small smile found itself on Will’s face. “You’re gonna call me? How come?”

“Just… just trust me, okay?” Mike was grinning, too, but there was something vehement in his eyes. 

“Okay,” Will said softly. There was something distinctly Mike-like about this, about the plan that was no doubt already forming in his mind. He felt a tug of longing in his chest. It’d been weeks since he’d seen Mike like this: thoughtful, kind of ridiculous. “Um, El should be coming soon.”

Mike blinked from where he’d been staring dazedly at Will. “Oh, yeah.” He pushed himself out of the chair and stood, shaking out his legs. “I’ll leave before she can blow my head off.”

“Yeah, you might want to avoid her for a little bit.” 

Mike nodded and gripped the top of the chair with one hand. “If she doesn’t come soon, though, and it gets bad again… just call, okay? I’ll pick up.” He let go of the chair and turned to go, only to spin back around. “Oh, and you can keep the mixtape, obviously. And my shirt.” 

Mike hurried away too fast to witness Will’s flush reach his ears. “Get better!” came his voice from down the hallway. Then, the click of the front door. 

Will didn’t know how long he spent sitting at the table in Mike’s absence, turning the mixtape over in his hands. But he was pulled out of his stupor with a jolt upon hearing the jangle of a key in the front door, tape nearly clattering to the floor. 

Frantically, he swivelled in his chair, looking for somewhere to hide the tape, somewhere to escape El’s eagle eye. 

“Hi.” Shit.

“Hey,” Will mumbled back. 

Both of them were good at knowing when the other needed space, which Will was eternally grateful for in an otherwise slightly overbearing family, especially when it came to his episodes. He prayed she would leave him alone, now. 

El stayed where she was standing next to the hallway rather than approaching, which was a good sign. She looked him up and down with a crinkle in her brow that reminded Will of their mom. 

It set in, like being dunked in ice-cold water: just what she could see, now, when she looked at her brother. Fuck the tape—that was the least mortifying thing El could ask about right now. 

“Are you okay?” came El’s voice. The tenderness in it startled Will out of his thoughts. He’d been expecting anger, confusion, a blunt snap judgment of Mike or him. Because they’d lied to her—lied to the whole party. They’d broken the Rule of Law. 

“I’m sorry,” Will said instead of answering, because the last thing he wanted to do was lie again. “And not just because you found out. It’s not because I didn’t trust you, it’s…”

Her eyebrows managed to crinkle and furrow at the same time. “None of us are mad at either of you, you know that, right?”

Will said nothing. He didn’t know. He had no idea what this whole thing meant for their party—it was a problem they’d never had to deal with before. And he really didn’t want to think about that right now, not when he had Mike to worry about on top of the rest of the party.

“I am going to pretend you said yes. Also, it’s none of our business what’s going on with you and Mike. Even Max knows that.”

Will huffed out a little laugh. “Okay.”

El opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “Did Mike visit?”

“You literally just said it was none of your business.”

She had the decency to look slightly flustered. “I know—but—that tape, it says ‘to Will,’ so…”

Will covered it with his hand reflexively. “Okay, good talk.”

“Yes, good talk.” El vanished down the hallway, clearly biting down a grin.

“Take Jonathan’s room, please,” Will called after her.

“Obviously!” came her voice back.

Will didn’t sleep great, but it was better than it’d been in the past. 

He was determined not to wait by the phone, so he busied himself working on a painting he’d been neglecting: it was kind of inspired by the 60s album covers he’d sifted through during a trip to the record store with the party, on the cusp of school’s end. He made the hard choice to work without music and leave his door open, figuring he wouldn’t miss Mike’s call that way.

Some part of him worried the call would never come. He tried to ignore it, but it nagged at him, making it difficult to focus at first. But in time, Will got lost in the familiarity of picking up colour, swiping it across the canvas; the brush, functioning as an extension of his hand. 

“Will!” 

Will snapped back into the world, a feeling he hadn’t realized he would miss so much until he was actually feeling it. Looking up, there was his brother, standing in the doorway. “Yeah?”

“Uh, Mike says to meet him outside at eleven.”

Will felt his face burn under Jonathan’s knowing gaze. How had he managed to miss the ringing? “Okay. Um, thanks.” 

Jonathan snorted, pushing off the doorframe. “Have fun.”

Will let him go, unable to think of anything to say in response to that. He put down his paintbrush and wiped his hands on a tissue. His watch said it was already 10:52. At this point, Mike might as well have just shown up on his own.

He spent the whole grand total of eight minutes trying to wash paint out of his bangs before eventually giving up and hurrying to the door. He blew out a breath from behind it. There was a kind of dread that he’d come to associate with seeing Mike as of late—an itch he’d refused to scratch this morning. But now, with the prospect of having to talk about two nights ago and two weeks ago and maybe even twelve years ago waiting probably no more than twenty feet away from him, Will had to fight against the knee-jerk urge to turn right back around and barricade himself in his room until Mike left. 

He fisted and unfisted his hand, bit the bullet and reached for the knob—and suppressed a crude exclamation at the subsequent pounding on the other side of the door. 

Will swung it open and was met with a blinking Mike standing on his porch. He looked good—put-together, different from the effortless attractiveness Will associated him with. He didn’t know what to make of it.

“Jesus, that was fast,” Mike said immediately.

“It’s eleven,” was all Will could think to say in response. He wasn’t sure how to approach this—Mike. Already things felt tense, the anticipation of confrontation hanging between them. Between the nerves showing in Mike’s shifting eyes and the pit of dread in Will’s stomach, it felt like every word that slipped from Will’s lips carried extra weight. The only thing he was sure of was that he had to stay on the offensive. Willingly forgetting what had brought them both here in the first place—that was a mistake he’d made before. He wouldn’t make it again.

Mike nodded, visibly swallowing. There was a beat of awkward silence where Will’s gaze slid behind him—and fixed on the car in the driveway.

“I thought your dad took the keys?”

Mike looked behind him, too, as if he’d forgotten how he’d ended up at Will’s house. “Oh—yeah! I was—right, I was gonna…” Trailing off, he turned back reluctantly to look at Will. “I stole them back.”

“Rebellious,” Will said neutrally, careful to keep any sarcasm out of his tone.

Mike seemed to read it that way, anyway. “I had to, ‘cause Nance left on her stupid journaling trip.”

Will vaguely recalled Mike telling him about that a while back—another milestone reminding him of summer’s gradual exit. It felt like it had come much too soon, and simultaneously like a thousand years had passed between that conversation and now. An odd feeling. 

“So we’re going somewhere, then?” Will asked.

Mike’s mouth turned up in a tentative smile. “Yeah. You’ll like it, I swear.”
Will nodded, even though he didn’t fully believe it.  

There was a certain finality in sliding into the passenger seat and slamming the door shut. After this, things would change—they had to. 

He was just scared that it wouldn’t be for the better. 

“Want the radio on?” Mike asked, pulling out of the driveway gracelessly as ever. 

“Yeah.” Will watched as Mike reached over to the radio with one hand, watched his fingers tremble slightly as they fumbled with the dials. “Uh, Mike?”
The radio jolted to life; a monotone voice Mike turned down. “Yeah?”

“How far away is… how long is it going to be?”

“Oh.” A pause. “Uh, two minutes?”

Will turned fully to look at him. He let himself linger only briefly on the hint of pink flush colouring Mike’s features. “Dude.”

Mike appeared too focused on driving to turn and look at him. That was, until they reached a stop sign and an old man started crossing the street with a hunched gait so slow that Mike visibly cringed. Still, he kept his eyes trained on the road.

Will pressed on, “Why even go through all that trouble for the car?”

“Because,” Mike said, and it seemed he was going to leave it at that. The old man still had half the road to go, though. Mike groaned. “It’s stupid. It—I thought it would be easier, you know, with the radio, and looking out the window instead of at… at you.”

“I think,” Will started, watching as the man put cane to sidewalk, followed by one foot and then the other. “You should go.”

“Huh?” It took another second for Mike to notice that the road was pedestrian-free, and he promptly stepped on the gas. 

“And,” Will continued as the shops bracketing the road fell away and were replaced by trees and the occasional house, “I think… I think you’re getting too far in your head. Just… all I want is for us to be on the same page. For once.”  

“I know. I know, I just…” Mike trailed off. They slowed, and Mike pulled them to a stop perpendicular to a familiar clearing of trees. If Will craned his neck far enough, he’d be able to see the glistening surface of Lover’s Lake between the trees.  

“I’m bisexual,” Mike blurted.   

Will whipped back around reflexively, surprise emptying his brain of anything to say in response. 

Muffled chattering on the radio filled the otherwise dead quiet. Mike’s grip on the wheel tightened until his shoulders were bunched up, like he was bracing for a blow. 

Something. Will had to say something. “Uh—”

“And I swear, that’s not why I did what I did at the party, with that girl—with Kelly.” Mike still wasn’t looking at him, his words growing faster and more frantic as he went on, “It’s not like I—like I’m some kind of perverted freak who goes around lusting after everyone, you know?” 

“Mike,” Will said, trying to get him to look at him. It didn’t work. “I wasn’t thinking that,” he tried again. “I don’t know why anyone would.” 

No response; Mike was blinking hard, eyes fixed out the front window. 

Will bit the inside of his cheek. Unbuckled his seatbelt. Carefully, he scooted to the edge of his seat, watching the slight twitch of Mike’s eyebrows as he reached over the armrest. When he wrapped Mike in a tentative hug, slightly uncomfortable from where he was pitched forward to meet him, he knew it could be read as an act of forgiveness, of giving in. But there was nothing else he could think to do to show Mike that he understood—maybe not in the same way, but maybe that didn’t matter at all. Maybe all that mattered was that Mike knew he wasn’t alone. 

And yet, he was still as a statue in Will’s arms, as if afraid to move; afraid to breathe. 

“Hey,” Will tried again, channeling his brother; the soft way he had with words, how he made him feel safe. “It’s okay.” 

Those words were all it took. Mike’s whole body gave way to the contact, head falling forward, chin bumping Will’s shoulder. The sobs came, then.

Will could have confused them for bouts of uncontrollable laughter, if not for the wetness steadily soaking through his shirt. They came in waves: heaving, discordant, strangled—sounds he had never heard Mike make and found excruciating to listen to. Will held him tighter, tighter, tighter; trying to help him but selfishly trying to help himself, too, to make Mike stop so he wouldn’t feel this horrible panic anymore. 

Eventually, he did. It was sudden, like his body had given out on him.
“Mike?” Will said into his hair, relief and anxiety muddling the tone of his voice.

A pause. “Fuck, that was embarrassing.”

Will made a little huff of laughter, half in disbelief at the evenness of Mike’s voice. A laugh Mike returned. “It’s okay. You, uh…” There were a thousand things he could say, but all of them felt risky, regrettable, stupid. He settled on the one thing he needed Mike to know. “That was really brave of you, okay? Really brave.”

Mike was gripping the back of Will’s shirt, hard. “Why—do you really think that?”

“What?”

“All of this happened because I’m a coward. You know that. You said it.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Because I am, okay?” Mike cut in, strongly enough to make Will’s excuses die on his tongue. He sniffled. His palm went slack against Will’s back. “I am.”

The radio droned on. “Yeah, well,” Will murmured, “so was I.”

“But I dragged you into—”

“I knew what we were doing, Mike.” He felt Mike recoil slightly at the flat assertion of his words, but he needed him to understand. He needed him to look at him. 

Slowly, he pulled back, took Mike’s face in his hands. “We were both scared, okay? And I don’t blame us.” He fought to keep Mike’s eyes from darting away. “Mike, I—I know better than anyone how stupid people can be. They don’t understand, and they say things, and it hurts.”

Mike’s eyes were welling up again. “But I hurt you. And not just because I was scared, because—” he stopped, taking a steadying breath. 

Will waited, brushing a finger over Mike’s cheek, back and forth.

“That night at the party, I went up to her—to Kelly. I kissed her.”

The prospect of those answers had made that night a near sleepless one for Will. His mind had taunted him, told him over and over that his worst thoughts had been right all along, that Mike really had been jealous of him. But it hadn’t added up. Because Mike had kissed him, after, a desperate, vulnerable act. It still didn’t make sense to him. 

A voice in the back of Will’s mind wondered if it was because Mike simply couldn’t choose; one he shoved away, disgusted with himself.

Mike was searching his face for something. “Do you get it now? I did it on purpose, and I wanted you to see.”

Will shook his head. “Why are you telling me this?”

Mike looked slightly taken aback by the question. “Because!” 

Non-answer. Will took his hands from Mike’s face, leaned back to evaluate him. Mike squirmed under his gaze. 

Looking at him, Will started to understand. And resisted the urge to slap Mike across the face and shake him, hard. “Don’t—do you really think you can do that? Because you can’t.”

Mike looked back at him, wide-eyed. “I’m not doing anything.”

“Bullshit. You’re my best friend, asshole.” Will took a breath, judging by the disbelief on Mike’s face that he should probably tone it down. He just hated it when Mike did this—made things worse for himself on purpose. He was like a tornado at his worst—destructive, to others, but himself most of all. Will didn’t understand most of it. He’d always been one to push things down as long as he could. 

In a gentler voice, he continued, “You know that, right? That no matter what, I’m not going anywhere.”

A tear slipped down Mike’s cheek. He’d closed his eyes to avoid looking at Will. Still, he was listening.

“I know you. I know you’re not a bad person.”

Mike’s breath hitched as Will wiped the tear away. “That’s only because of you,” he murmured. Quietly. “Because you’re so—so good, even though I keep fucking things up, all the time.”

Will didn’t know what to say to that.

Mike opened his eyes, and they were so openly fond that Will almost looked away so Mike wouldn’t see his face heat up. “Like, what you said yesterday. I just kept telling myself I owed it to you to figure it out—like, what I am. I wouldn’t have gone otherwise.” At the confusion on Will’s face, he clarified, “Robin. I went to talk to her yesterday. Which I know is weird as fuck, since we barely even know each other, and yeah, it was awkward as hell, but I—” his voice wavered slightly, “I didn’t have anyone else to go to.” 

Something Will had come to learn from years of coming to the Wheeler house was that within those walls, the subject of homosexuality was to be avoided if they could help it—except when it came to the whole AIDS epidemic. Will had also learned of Ted Wheeler’s strong opinions on that subject, which was why he always preferred to eat quickly when he stayed over for dinner. 

Will had Jonathan. His whole family, really. But Mike? He and Nancy weren’t close like Will and his brother. The Wheeler family wasn’t like theirs—they didn’t talk to each other, much less about this. Robin probably was the only person who’d understand, because she was quite possibly the only openly gay person in Hawkins.
Will bit his lip. “God, Mike, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to say that,” he replied shortly. He seemed eager to move away from the topic, so Will didn’t push it. “Anyway, she told me what it meant—bisexual. I mean, I’d heard of it, kind of. But people say it’s not real—like, you’re either gay or not, so…”

Will scoffed. “That’s stupid.”

“I know.” Abruptly, Mike brought his hands up to his face and dragged a chunk of hair down with his nails. “It’s all stupid,” he said, mouth squished by his palms, “but still, I really didn’t want it to be me. I’d been trying to ignore it. Since, like, the summer after eighth grade.” 

The summer after… “But you were with El, then,” Will said, phrasing it like a question even though he knew the answer.

Mike took his hands off his face. Will realized his misstep. “It wasn’t like I was going to cheat on her, just because I—” he cut himself off. 

“Right,” Will said, hot guilt flooding through him. “Sorry.”

Mike shrugged as if to say, It’s whatever—which Will didn’t believe for a second. Abruptly, Mike jolted up in the car seat. “Shit, I almost forgot!” he turned and flung open the car door, leaving Will reeling from the whiplash, “You know where we are, right? C’mon, I wanna show you something cool.” 

Will hesitated as Mike went around the car, wondering if he should apologize again. But he had a feeling Mike wanted to forget about it, at least for now. It was probably uncomfortable enough for him to talk about this stuff alone without worrying about shrugging off apologies. 

Eventually, Will’s thoughts became less helpful and more spirally and he realized he’d been in the car a few beats too long. He got out and trailed after Mike, beat-up sneakers leaving dust trails in the dirt as he weaved through trees and emerged behind him.

Mike had taken them to a small clearing that tapered into smooth rock near the edge of Lover’s Lake. The sun’s reflection on the lake was so bright Will nearly had to shield his eyes looking at it, but he could still pick out a dozen or so swimmers scattered around its perimeter. 

It was a weird feeling, knowing the only cover he and Mike had was a low-hanging tree, knowing they were in plain view of anyone. He kind of didn’t give a shit anymore. It seemed Mike didn’t, either, as he stepped down to the water’s edge and gestured for Will to join him.

Will did so, eyes squinted. Mike’s figure was cut out by a halo of bright light, the rest of him swallowed by cold blue shadow. 

“Wanna go for a swim?” Mike asked.

“I don’t have trunks.”

Mike was already pulling off his shirt. “You’re wearing boxers,” he said through the fabric, “I hope.” 

“Yeah, but—” Will flushed, not knowing where to look. It was stupid, affording Mike this propriety, considering how close in contact they’d been as of late. To put it one way. “Why didn’t you tell me to change?”

Mike walked off in his peripheral vision. “It would’ve spoiled the surprise,” he called from somewhere behind Will.

Fine, then. Will stripped off his shirt and turned to toss it on the rocks. His eye caught on Mike, who was shucking off his shoes next to where he’d put his clothes—actually, mostly on the ridiculous pair of neon green swim trunks he had on. Will took off his own shoes and tossed them at Mike’s back, causing him to squawk and spin to face Will.

“What was that for?”

“You look ridiculous.”

Mike rubbed his back with exaggerated tenderness. “Asshole.” He approached, evaluating Will through squinted eyes. “You’re swimming in your shorts?”

“Yeah,” Will said. Mike was still looking, which made him feel hot all over. He cleared his throat, letting a hint of a smile leak onto his face. “Is that going to be a problem?”

Mike’s eyes leapt up. “No—I just—it was just a question.”

Will snorted and walked off the edge to wade into the water. The chill of it spread quickly from his feet to the top of his head, but it wasn’t unpleasant. He’d always liked the getting into the lake most—the slick algae, the smooth press of stone against his heels. 

He heard a splash behind him as Mike got in after him. Will kept walking—slowly, and eventually weightlessly—until his toes only grazed the lake bed and he was forced to tread. Then he fell back against the water, starfishing on his back. A wave lapped over his skin and he knew Mike had followed suit.

Neither of them said anything for a long while. Just closed their eyes against the harsh sun and soaked up the relief it provided from the ice-cold water—ignoring the unavoidable sunburns they’d be sporting if they stayed on their backs long enough. 

Then, Will opened his mouth. “I think this is the first time I’ve actually felt relaxed in the past month.” His voice didn’t fully reach his ears. The water acted as a safety net; it was like anything he said was lost to the waves.

“Sorry. Again,” came Mike’s voice in response. Muffled.

Will hesitated. 

He’d come to associate the past few weeks with bitter words, salty tears. Lies that piled and piled on top of themselves; waiting by the phone for a call he knew would never come. But still, still—“I don’t regret it. Not all of it.” He strained to hear Mike’s response. When nothing came, he asked, “Do you?”

Immediately, “No.”

He heard a surge of water beside him: Mike pushing himself up. Will ducked under the water and emerged upright to face him, treading water. 

Mike was staring at him, barely even treading himself. His hair was sopping wet and stuck to his face in multiple places.

Will reached to move the strands out of the way. “You’ve got hair in your—”

“I think I’ve been in love with you for years,” Mike blurted. His face flushed red, mixing with the teal of the water that played across his skin. 

Will’s hand froze. He willed it to keep moving. Gently, he took the hair back from Mike’s face. Mike’s eyes tracked his every movement, and Will realized he’d forgotten to respond. “Same,” he got out, breathlessly. 

‘Same’? Are you kidding me? 

But Mike’s face broke into a glorious smile. Suddenly, Will lost his train of thought. There was only the soft exhale of Mike’s breath, just barely ghosting over his face.

Will felt something tug at his chest, a gravitational pull to the boy only a stride away in the water, one he’d been familiar with as long as he’d known him. He took Mike by both his hands and started taking them backwards, back to the water’s edge, to the soft algae and smooth rocks. 

“What’re you doing?” Mike asked as Will pulled him along. He almost sounded shy. The early afternoon sun reflected in eyes that roved tentatively over Will’s face.

The two of them could stand at this point, balanced on a large rock under the water. “I don’t want us to drown,” Will mumbled. Finally, was all he was thinking as he stepped closer to take Mike’s damp face in his hand. Finally, as Mike’s eyes widened and then fluttered shut, as he pitched down to let Will take his lips in his own.

Mike was warm. He always was—his kisses, too, could be scalding, consuming like wildfire. But Will wasn’t used to this kind of warmth. It was slow, intentional, smooth like honey—a heat that spread gradually throughout Will’s body. 

Mike adjusted their faces so they fit together in that perfect way they always did, his nose just barely brushing Will’s cheek. He was gentle in a way Will was entirely unused to. It was almost more overwhelming than roughness.

He slid his hand into Mike’s hair, settled his fingers at the base of his neck. He couldn’t help the sigh that came out of him, then—all that was going through his mind, like a revelation, was finally. 

This was it. This was certainty. Maybe Will was just young and stupid, but at that moment, he’d never been so sure of anything else in his life. He was sure that he loved the boy in his hands, now and for the rest of his life.

They came apart. For a little while, they stayed like that—faces close, just breathing together. 

“Do you think,” Will started, quietly, “we can try to… to take it slow? This time?”

“Yeah. Of course.” 

“Okay.” Will closed his eyes. He was smiling so hard it almost hurt. 

Mike lightly knocked their heads together, making Will open his eyes again. He leaned back slightly and murmured, “You’re beautiful.” And promptly pushed Will into the water.

Will surfaced, sputtering. “You just had to ruin it!” he yelped, and grabbed for Mike’s ankle to bring him down with him.