Archive of Our Own ^beta

Really, this is all Dustin’s fault.

If he hadn’t been the one to suggest a game night as the choice activity for Halloween this year, maybe the others wouldn’t have gotten quite so gung ho about it. And if they hadn’t been quite so gung ho about it, maybe Dustin wouldn’t have felt the need to get Steve involved, and then maybe Steve wouldn’t have gotten quite so gung ho about it, and consequently adopted that high-and-mighty attitude of his that Dustin tends to bring out in him, and then maybe Mike wouldn’t have felt the need to adopt his own high-and-mighty attitude, and then maybe he wouldn’t be making his yuck face across the dining room table, standing with his arms folded. 

Not that Will doesn’t find that face kind of adorable - like most of Mike’s available faces to choose from - but he kind of wants him in a good mood tonight. Dustin is interfering with his plan. 

“Okay,” Steve says, clapping his hands together, completely and totally oblivious to the stink eye Mike is sending him. “So, as the impartial third party, I’ve been nominated to set up the game for you guys.”

Max rolls her eyes. “Yeah, Steve, that’s the whole reason you’re here. Why do you think you even got an invite?”

Steve points an accusing finger at her. “Okay, see, that’s rude, because I’m delightful and you should have invited me anyway, and if I were not an impartial third party I’d dock you points for that.”

Mike snorts, and then tries to play it off like he didn’t, and of course fails miserably. Lucas rolls his eyes, and Will makes a face at him across the table, trying to lighten the mood. It works, kind of - Mike’s eyes land on him, and his demeanor softens ever so slightly, something almost resembling a smile tugging at his lips. Will’s stomach does a complicated series of backflips, and he barely manages to suppress a giddy grin of his own.

“You got something to say, Wheeler?” Steve asks, immediately dampening Mike’s mood again. Will generally likes Steve, but right now he’s causing a major inconvenience to him, and he kind of wishes he’d just get on with it already so Mike can stop feeling all put out at not being in charge of the game for once.

“Nope,” Mike says, bugging his eyes out at him. 

Steve wrinkles his nose, not looking like he believes him in the slightest, but he barrels on; “So, as you all know, this is a murder mystery game,” he says, which they did, in fact, already know, because Dustin started planning this whole thing weeks ago and hasn’t shut up about it. “There are cards hidden all over the house with clues on them that you’ll need to use to solve the mystery.” He punctuates this with what is probably meant to be some sort of spooky hand gesture, but really just looks like jazz hands. They all stare at him, unimpressed, aside from El, who is easily entertained, and lets out a little giggle. “No? Fine. I’m gonna deal you each one of these cards-” he holds them up- “which will have your role on it. Do not show it to any other players. One player will be assigned the role of the murderer, and the rest of you will be party guests. You’ll all work together to figure out which of you is the murderer. Any questions?”

Max raises her hand.

Steve sighs. “What now, Max?”

“Who got murdered?”

“Huh?”

“Well, there can’t be a murderer without a victim,” she says, deadpan. “Who died?”

Steve glances at Dustin for help, who regards him with a blank stare. “Um, it’s- some dude who died before the game starts, so we don’t need to assign that role to a player. There’s more info about the murder and your alibis on the role cards.”

“Can you be the victim?” Max asks, raising her eyebrows. “So we have a face to put to the name?”

Steve scrubs a hand over his face, exasperated. “Jesus, I- fine, yeah, I’m the victim. God. Any more relevant questions?”

Will raises his hand. “How is the murderer supposed to work with everyone else? Like, wouldn’t that just mean he’d be working to expose himself?”

“Well, no, you’ve got to- haven’t you people ever seen Clue?” Steve gesticulates wildly, and Lucas and Dustin both visibly bite back laughter. “You have to throw people off your scent, okay?”

El coughs. “Doesn’t the murderer in Clue have more than one victim?”

“Yeah,” Lucas says, nodding, “He picks people off every time they split up. Is that what we’re supposed to do?”

Max wrinkles her nose. “‘He’? I thought Ms. Scarlet was the murderer.”

“No, it’s Mrs. Peacock,” Will corrects with a frown.

“No, no, it’s the Green guy,” Dustin says, waving a dismissive hand. “He was a secret agent.”

“No, he was the only one who wasn’t a murderer,” Mike says impatiently, “and Mr. Wadsworth was secretly the blackmailer all along.”

El furrows her brow. “But I thought-”

“Okay!” Steve yelps. “Question time is over. I’m dealing the cards.”

He thrusts a card in Mike’s direction, and is met with the yuck face again, which again - cute, but not a great sign for Will’s evening plans. Mike takes it, and passes the remaining stack along to Dustin.

Will catches Mike’s eye, and again Mike’s expression softens a little. Who’d you get, he mouths at him, to which Mike raises an eyebrow and presses a finger to his lips. Not telling.

Will fake pouts at him, and Mike mirrors the expression, sticking out his lower lip comically - or, it would be comical, if Will wasn’t so immediately distracted by how much he wants to bite said lower lip. They’ve been getting flirty lately, enough that other people have started to notice - El pulled him aside last week and asked seriously if he and Mike were secretly together and sneaking around to protect her feelings. Will had told her no, of course not, but he probably hadn’t been very believable given the fact that he’d been blushing something awful, and she’d simply replied that they had her blessing regardless. 

That being said, while he’s not currently dating Mike, he’d certainly like to be. And for the first time ever, he thinks it might actually be an imminent possibility.

Which is why he needs him in a good mood tonight, and why Dustin’s game is really throwing everything for a loop. He was hoping for a quiet moment to sneak away with Mike, maybe while everyone else was watching a movie or playing a quieter, lower-stakes board game. Not for a super long time, not like he was going to ditch his friends on Halloween or anything, just- maybe long enough to do some more flirting. Ask him on a real date. Kiss him until their lips are numb. The works.

Max passes him the last remaining card in the stack, and Will peeks at it as discreetly as possible. It reads, in jaunty blue handwriting; your role is: the murderer!

Great. Now not only is Will going to have to work twice as hard to get Mike alone, he’s also going to have to throw everyone off his scent in the game. 

He glances up, hoping to catch Mike’s eye, and finds that he’s already looking at him, his eyes wide and watchful. Who’d you get, he mouths, a mimicry of Will’s question earlier. Will copies him back, holding a finger up to his lips. Not telling.

“Okay, now you have to go look for clues,” Steve says, sounding very much like he’d like to be done with this whole thing. “On your marks, get set, go!”

“Follow me, guys,” Dustin says, immediately making a beeline for the living room. Everyone else trails after him, Mike and Will bringing up the rear - Mike because he’s sulking again, Will because he wants to be as near to Mike as is physically possible.

“Stop pouting,” he mutters to him under his breath, elbowing him in the side. 

“I’m not pouting,” Mike huffs, sounding objectively pretty pouty. 

“You are,” Will says, elbowing him again just for the sake of having some contact, feeling the warmth of Mike’s ribcage against his arm. He wants to feel it under his palms, slip his hands up under his sweater and- “You’re annoyed because you’re not the one controlling the game.”

“Am not,” Mike whines, bumping their shoulders together in protest, which maybe shouldn’t make Will feel so astronomically giddy, but here he is. “I just wanted to play normal board games.”

For a second, Will lets himself wonder if Mike is annoyed by this turn of events for the same reason he is - if he was also hoping for a quiet moment for the two of them to be alone. The thought makes him dizzy. “Nah, it’s totally ‘cause you’re a control freak,” he says. 

“Am not!” Mike insists again. “I was fine with Hellfire, and I wasn’t the DM then.”

“You were fine with it because Eddie was DMing, and you thought he was sexy,” Will mutters.

Mike turns to glare at him, cheeks pinkening. “Don’t make me regret telling you that.”

Will widens his eyes innocently at him. “Sorry. Is Steve not sexy enough for you? Is that the problem?”

Mike rolls his eyes, turning back to face the group as they gather in the corner of Dustin’s living room. “No, I had my eye on someone else, actually,” he murmurs, so quietly that Will almost doesn’t hear. 

Will lets out a sound that can only be described as a squeak, face immediately flushing hot, and Mike elbows him. “Shh. Focus on the game.”

Which is some form of psychological warfare, Will’s pretty sure, and he’s going to get back at him for that later, but Dustin has somehow already unearthed a clue card from somewhere within the couch cushions, and is clearing his throat dramatically.

“Your first job as detectives,” he reads, “is to assess everyone’s alibi. Ask each player: where were you on the night of the murder?”

Everyone fumbles for their role cards, which each have a bulleted list of answers. 

“Mine says I was out at the movies with a friend,” Max says. “That’s a verifiable alibi, bitches.”

Lucas wrinkles his nose at her. “No one was questioning you.”

“Well, they should be, because that’s the point of the game.”

He sighs. “Mine says I was walking my dog.”

Will is trying to pay attention to everyone’s answers, he really is. But the thing is that Mike is still standing so close to him, and he’s not one hundred percent sure, but he thinks he might be wearing cologne. Which is significant, because he didn’t even know Mike owned cologne, which in turn begs the question; is Mike wearing cologne for Will? That’s a mystery Will’s definitely interested in solving.

“Will?”

He blinks. “Huh?”

El is regarding him with something akin to pity, a poorly repressed smile on her face. “It’s your turn,” she says gently. “What’s your alibi?”

“Oh.” Will glances down at his card. “I was, uh, watching the sunset.”

Dustin raises an eyebrow. “Alone?”

“It doesn’t say.” Which seems like an oversight on the card’s part, if he’s being honest. Too obvious, especially for a group of nerds with an agenda.

Max rolls her eyes. “You guys need to learn to lie.”

Mike clears his throat. “Mine doesn’t say if I was alone or not either.” The back of his hand brushes against Will’s in a way that could be accidental, but it doesn’t really feel like it.

“Well, don’t draw attention to that, Mike, Jesus.”

“I’m just stating the facts!”

“Yeah, by making us all think you’re the murderer!”

“Okay!” Dustin interrupts, waving a hand at them. “The point is, we know everyone’s alibis. Now we need to find the rest of the clue cards.” He turns back toward the kitchen. “Steve!”

Steve pokes his head around the corner, frowning. “What?”

“Did you just hide the cards in here, or are there other places we should be looking?”

“Oh.” Steve screws up his face, thinking. “Um, no, I also hid them in your room and in the garage.”

“The garage? Man, come on,” Lucas groans. “It’s spooky in there.”

“Yeah, well, there weren’t a lot of hiding spaces to choose from, so.” Steve shrugs at him.

“Yes, thank you, Steve,” Dustin says diplomatically. “Now go away, you’re supposed to be murdered.”

Steve’s expression darkens. “You and your attitude are on thin ice, Henderson,” he huffs, but he vanishes back into the kitchen with no further complaint.

Mike’s hand, which is still brushing Will’s, shifts just slightly, and his pinky finger hooks loosely around Will’s own. Which is a lame, cliche move to get worked up over, probably, except that Will also might be forgetting how to breathe over it. “What if we split up?” he hears himself say, his voice coming out impressively even considering the fact that his heart is making a very valiant effort to beat right through his chest and leap into Mike’s palm, “In pairs, maybe? Mike and I can take the garage.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Lucas mutters. Will chances a glance at Mike, whose cheeks have turned a dusty shade of pink, and who is gnawing harshly on his lower lip in what appears to be an attempt to press down a smile.

Dustin, ever oblivious, shrugs. “Okay. El and I can take my room. You guys keep looking in here,” he tells Max and Lucas, and then pauses, eyes lighting up. “Ooh, we should make it a competition! First team to figure out who the murderer is wins.”

“Doesn’t the team the murderer is on have an advantage, then?” Will hears Lucas gripe, but he’s already lost interest, abandoning all pretense of subtlety as he grabs Mike by the wrist and drags him in the direction of the man door that leads to the Henderson’s garage, shoving his role card into his back pocket.

“Whoa, okay, I’m coming,” Mike says, a laugh in his voice as he stumbles after him. “You’re really invested in the game.”

“Something like that,” Will huffs, kicking the door shut behind them before he thinks better of it and plunging the garage into darkness. “Oh. Oops.”

Mike’s laughter cuts through the pitch black, low and rumbling and unfairly, unbearably attractive. “I think the light switch is over here, hold on.” He fumbles along the wall at the same time that Will reaches for the door handle, with the intention of opening it to let in enough light to see by, and their arms bump together.

“Sorry,” Will says, sounding ridiculously breathless. Get a hold of yourself, he tells himself firmly. It’s just Mike. He’s acting like they’ve never exchanged casual touches before. 

“S’ okay,” Mike murmurs absently through the dark, placing a hand on Will’s forearm - to keep track of him, probably, in the darkness - and flipping on the light switch with the other.

Will’s relieved to see, as the lights flicker on, that Mike is blushing at least as hard as he is. There’s a little smile playing at the corners of his lips - the one he was biting down earlier - and his eyebrows are raised just a little, almost expectant. This, Will thinks, this is why he’s acting so insane about him. Because yeah, it’s just Mike, his best friend of over a decade, whom he’s seen in all kinds of disarray and dysfunction, but it’s also- it’s Mike. And he’s looking at Will like he knows exactly what he’s thinking, like he wants him back, and so- yeah, Will is a little high on that notion. Sue him.

“So,” Will says, not quite sure where to start - he’s been itching to get Mike alone for the whole evening, the whole week leading up to this evening, where they’d both been constantly busy or around other people or kept getting interrupted, but now that he’s got him, he doesn’t know where to start. Is it too out of left field to just announce that he’s into him? Or to ask him out? Fuck, how do people even ask each other out? Can he just kiss him in his stupid face and call it a day?

What comes out of his mouth, for some reason, is; “No reliable alibi, huh?”

Mike’s eyebrows raise just a little bit higher, but he doesn’t call Will out for his stupidity, because he is a kind, merciful human being, with big, pretty eyes and fluffy hair and- “Apparently not. Why, are you accusing me of something?”

Will shrugs. “Maybe. Do you have a defense?”

“Not particularly.” Mike smirks. “But let’s not forget you don’t have an alibi either.”

“I do so,” Will counters, pouting at him. He’d cross his arms, if it didn’t feel too obviously gimmicky, and would also run the risk of making Mike retract his hand from where it’s still resting over his elbow. “I was watching the sunset.”

A glimmer of amusement shines behind Mike’s eyes. “Uh huh. Alone.”

“We don’t know that,” Will points out. “Watching the sunset is a very romantic activity. Maybe I was with someone.”

“Oh yeah?” Mike takes a swaying step closer, his hand sliding up from Will’s elbow to his shoulder. His voice has gone all soft and almost sultry, in a way that should sound absurd and overdone but doesn’t, not even a little. “Like who?”

Oh God, it’s happening. “None of your business,” Will sniffs. “Why would you care, anyway?”

“Well, aside from the fact that they could corroborate your story-” Mike’s hand has reached the side of Will’s neck now, is cupping it, his thumb rubbing slow circles over the space behind Will’s ear, and Will is barely repressing a shudder- “I want to know who my competition is.”

Holy fucking shit. Will releases a vaguely manic giggle, turning his face into Mike’s touch unabashedly. “Jesus Christ, Mike.”

Mike laughs, a little incredulously. “What?” he says, in his normal, non-seductive voice. “I thought I was doing pretty good.”

“You are,” Will says, eyelids fluttering as Mike’s thumb swipes under his jawline again, “that’s what’s unfair about it.”

“Unfair?” Mike pouts at him. “I thought we were having fun.”

“Mike,” Will whines, and in a fit of momentary bravery, he grabs the front of Mike’s shirt. “Come on.”

Mike laughs, but it comes out in kind of a wheeze, and he looks pretty desperate himself right about now. His other hand finds the back of Will’s head, tangles in his hair there. “Okay,” he breathes, and then he’s pulling Will the rest of the way in and kissing him - kissing him! - slow and full and deep.

Will is immediately gone on it, his entire body slumping against Mike with something akin to relief. He holds on to the front of Mike’s sweater for dear life, too dizzy to think or move or do anything other than kiss and kiss and kiss him. He’s vaguely aware of one of them making sounds, insistent little mmphs and sighs, and he thinks those sounds might belong to him but he’s not sure, he doesn’t have the cognitive function to be that aware right now. Mike, meanwhile, seems to be functioning at least marginally better than he is, because while Will just holds on and sways, Mike’s hands are all over him, sliding from his neck down to his shoulder and back up, one hand slipping down his spine and pressing against his back, pulling him in closer. Will makes an encouraging noise, stumbling further into him even though there’s not really anywhere to go, only pressing himself more firmly against his chest. That’s okay - it’s a nice place to be, Mike’s solid, warm body lined up against Will’s, his mouth on his skin, his hand slipping down and into his back pocket-

Will realizes what Mike’s doing a second too late, and he breaks the kiss just as Mike is snatching his role card right out of his pocket and holding it aloft with a shit-eating grin. “Mike!” Will yelps, affronted, trying to make a swipe for it, but he misses by a mile because - well, his motor function is a little down for the count right at the moment. “The hell are you doing?”

“I knew it!” Mike crows, holding the card up on display for him. “I knew you were the murderer, you made a face when you got the card.”

Will gives up trying to swipe the card back, instead releasing his grip on Mike’s shirt and taking a defeated step back. “You are a menace.”

“I won the game, though,” Mike says, still smug as ever.

“Because you cheated,” Will huffs. “You can’t just read my card, you’re supposed to figure it out on your own.”

“Well, I actually did figure it out,” Mike says with a shrug, dropping his arm and sliding the card into his own pocket, “because you said you were watching the sunset, but the little story blurb on the cards says it was cloudy on the night of the murder, so actually I was just confirming my hypothesis.” When Will doesn’t respond to this, only pouts at him, he sidles close again and taps a finger against his cheek. “Besides,” he says slyly, “it’s not my fault you let your guard down.”

“It is,” Will grunts. “You tricked me. Do you even like me, or was it all a ruse for the game?”

Immediately, Mike’s smug expression vanishes. “No, wait,” he says, grabbing Will’s shoulders with both hands and squeezing, “I do, I do like you, I like you so much, I promise.”

Will just sniffs at him, feigning disinterest, although it’s pretty damn hard not to react to the admission that Mike not only likes him, apparently, but likes him so much, like maybe even as much as Will likes him. “I don’t know. It’s pretty suspicious timing.”

Mike shakes his head emphatically. “No, no, I was- it was just a stupid stunt, I thought it would be funny, I promise I wasn’t-” Will tries to hold back a snort, and fails. The panic drains from Mike’s face, and he releases his grip on Will’s shoulders. “Oh. You’re fucking with me.”

Will nods, still giggling. “Yeah.”

“And you say I’m the one being unfair,” Mike sighs. “Maybe I don’t like you after all.”

“Sure you don’t.” Will grins, reaching up to loop his arms around his neck. “I like you too, by the way. So much.”

Mike’s eyebrows lift in faint surprise, and a glorious blush rises to his cheeks, but he pushes past it, looking down at him with a lazy, euphoric grin. “Yeah,” he says, “I got that when you went and shoved your tongue down my-”

“Okay,” Will huffs, face flaming, “shut up and kiss me again before I change my mind.”

“On it, boss,” Mike says with a mock salute, and before Will can yell at him again for being annoying, he kisses him again, and Will kind of forgets what his point was going to be in the first place.

That’s how their friends find them, twenty-odd minutes later; wrapped around each other in the stairwell, kissing slow and languid and open-mouthed, an occasional giddy giggle escaping one or both of them when they come up for air.

“You guys,” Dustin groans, startling them apart - Will hadn’t heard the door open, and by the looks of it neither had Mike. “You’re supposed to be playing the game!”

“We were,” Mike says, recovering quickly from his shock and returning his hands to their rightful place on either side of Will’s hips. “We’re done. I won.” He jerks his head dismissively at the Party. “Now go away, we’re busy.”

“For the record,” Will says over his shoulder, as Mike swoops back in and starts kissing the side of his face, “he won because he read my role card and figured out I was the murderer.”

“Oh, come on, Mike, that is so cheating,” Lucas huffs, crossing his arms. “I thought you of all people would take this seriously.”

“Like I said,” Mike says, from somewhere around Will’s clavicle, “I was preoccupied.”

Max sighs. “Whatever, I was getting fed up with this anyway. Can we play a regular board game now?”

“Ooh, I want to play Monopoly,” El chimes in, and there’s a murmur of assent from the rest of them as they all disappear back in the direction of the living room.

Will waits a beat, then taps the back of Mike’s head gently. “Mike.”

Mike is still singularly focused on kissing every available inch of Will’s neck, it appears, but he hums in response, the sound vibrating against Will’s skin. Will shivers.

“Come on, we gotta go join the others,” he forces himself to say, even though he’s sorely tempted to close the garage door and keep making out with Mike for the rest of the foreseeable future. “We can’t be the couple that ditches our friends at a party.”

This gets Mike to lift his head up to look at him again, eyebrows raised. “Oh? So we’re a couple now, then?”

Will flushes, realizing what he just said. “Um. I mean, only if you want to be.”

Mike kisses him again, quick and sloppy and enthusiastic. “I like you so much,” he reiterates, halfway into Will’s mouth.

Will smiles so wide his cheeks hurt. He has a feeling he’s going to be doing that a lot from here on out. “So that’s a yes, then?”

“Yes.” Another kiss. “Please.”

“Okay, good.” Will steps back, slipping his hand into Mike’s. “Hey,” he says casually, as he pushes through the garage door, “are you wearing cologne?”

Mike blushes. “Oh. Um. Maybe? Why?”

Will presses down a smile as he leads them back into the living room. “No reason.”