Archive of Our Own

It’s lunch time on a Wednesday when Mike listens to Dustin complaining about prom for what feels like the ninth consecutive hour of the day. He wonders if maybe problems like this shouldn’t be a little less stressful for a group of kids who saved the world before any of them could even drive.

Group, he supposes, is a word that should be used lightly. It’s really only him and Dustin who seem to have an issue with it.

“If I’d have known how much a plane ticket from Utah costs, I’d probably have diversified my portfolio a bit more,” Dustin moans. The party is having lunch where they always do, the closet of a Hellfire Club room that was left behind after the club was actually disbanded. It’s private and not heavily trafficked and perfect for a party of semi-social-outcasts to escape to in the middle of the day.

Max sighs, clearly tired of it getting brought up again. She and Lucas are sitting on the table above Dustin, leaning up against the wall. “You’re a better person than that, Henderson. Besides, you guys have been broken up for a few months anyway. I’m not sure what a plane ticket has to do with Suzie not going to the prom with you.”

“Long distance was hard,” Dustin replies, wounded. He sticks his tongue out at her and blows a raspberry. “Just because you’re taken care of doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t allowed to complain about being abysmally single for prom.”

“Hey,” comes Max’s easy response, “I think living in Vecna’s memory hellscape for two years trumps Salt Lake City in every possible way—some of us actually deserve a prom date. Not my fault the only girl in the country that would date you had to live all the way across it.”

“Ouch.” Will’s voice is light and airy. “Lighten up, Dustin. You’re not the only one without a date! If anything, Lucas and Max are the only ones with a date.”

“Damn straight.” Lucas looks smug as he slings an arm around Max’s shoulders and pulls her close to kiss her on the side of her head. “Don’t hate the player, hate the game, okay?”

As stupid as this is, Mike just can’t listen to this anymore. He flicks his gaze nervously over to Will, thankful that he’s looking amusedly at Lucas, and feels his own prom-induced anxiety bubbling up. Quashing down the weird feeling he sometimes gets when he looks at Will, Mike feels it’s his moral duty to come to Dustin’s aid, as the only other person sort of vocal about his disappointment in not having a date to the prom.

“No, I agree with Dustin,” he says meekly. “Most people will have dates so it’s, it’s kind of lame to show up without one.”

“Thank you,” Dustin says, exasperated, at exactly the same moment that Will looses a, “Lame?”

Mike blinks between them. “Well, yeah. Riding solo to a dance is like, a little embarrassing.”

“I was going to go alone,” El pipes up, leaning on one elbow. “You’re saying I am embarrassing?"

All the attention on Mike is suddenly the embarrassing thing, and he can feel his cheeks flushing. “No, not you, it’s just, who would you dance with? Trust me, I did the whole, ‘sit there and wait for someone to pick you’ thing, and if you hadn’t shown up, El, I think I would’ve sat there all night and just watched Will dance with that one girl.” In his desperation to change the subject to someone that isn’t him, Mike doesn’t even realize that he’s digging his own grave with each snap of his finger as he tries to recall that girl’s name. “Will, what was her name again? Chick with the puffy hair?”

There’s a glimmer in his eye as Will watches Mike flounder. “Jennifer Hayes?” he asks, feigning ignorance. “No, wait, that was the girl who cried at my funeral. I think the girl who danced with me was Donna Markle.”

“See?” Mike almost shouts, signaling with his hand like he’s slicing the air. “Will’s got girls crying at his funeral who he’s never even talked to, and I’m— well I’m me.”

“It would help if you had a better reputation as a boyfriend,” Max supplies unhelpfully. Mike almost winces but El, surprisingly, doesn’t poke the wound further.

“Why don’t you just ask someone, then?” she asks neutrally. “This Donna girl might dance with you this time.”

If he had it his way, Mike would forget that any of those girls knew Will existed and he’d take him to the prom himself. As it stands, he just squares his shoulders and avoids looking in Will’s direction at all.

“What if Will’s asking her?” A moment passes where it feels like everyone in the room holds their breath. “I mean,” Mike says, huffing a nervous laugh, “maybe she’s had a crush on him this whole time?”

“Because we’ve both been secretly pining for each other since that fateful day in the eighth grade,” Will says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Tell me, Mike, how it feels to be so attuned to people’s emotions.”

Mike feels his cheeks burning with embarrassment as the party joins Will in laughing at him. A quick glance at the clock over Lucas’s head tells him he has less than three minutes before the bell rings to signal the end of lunch, but he craves a dramatic exit anyway. Snatching up his backpack and hefting it over his shoulder, he turns on his heel to leave. “I’m sorry I ever tried to defend you, Dustin. I actually think I might hate all of you.”

The sound of his friends’ laughter follows him down the hall and up the stairs.

It’s a week before the subject comes up again at school, but the topic of prom hasn’t left Mike’s mind the entire time. He gains nothing from his English teacher’s lecture as he sits at his desk and spins his pencil nervously between his fingers.

English is usually Mike’s favorite class, where he can engage in snarky analysis of genuinely good texts with Coach Price and be praised for carrying the class instead of being made fun of for showing too much interest. Coincidentally, it’s also one of the only classes he shares with Will, and, somehow he got lucky enough to sit right beside him despite their opposite positions in the alphabet.

Today, though, it’s impossible for him to focus on anything other than the boy sitting next to him and just what the fuck his plans actually are for prom. Even though he knows he’ll regret not weighing in on how Holden feels trapped on the other side of life, Mike taps out his favorite two-letter word in Morse: four dots, two dots.

“HI.”

He keeps his eyes on the board, completely missing whatever it is Coach is saying, but he does catch the tiniest huff of a laugh from Will as he taps back, “HI.”

“SO PROM,” he taps, hoping that his words come across as cool and casual instead of how he actually feels, which is panicked and slightly sweaty about it. Despite his full week of private, middle-of-the-night agonizing, he’s still not really sure how to casually broach the topic of them going, much less them going together, but he supposes that the closer they get to the actual date of the dance, the less of a chance he stands.

Will taps back a question mark just as Coach Price asks him a real question, one that he doubtlessly answers without hesitation, but Mike doesn’t hear it over the sound of the blood rushing in his ears. He takes his time responding, pausing between words to make sure Coach doesn’t get annoyed by the sound. “ARE YOU GOING?”

“MAYBE,” comes Will’s response, and for the first time in his life Mike is frustrated with how limiting Morse code really is. Seriously, how on earth did people use it to communicate the really important stuff back in the day?

Instead of torturing himself further, Mike flips to an empty page in his notebook, just past his halfhearted list of symbols that describe Holden’s alienation and loneliness, and scrawls out a note, “What do you mean by maybe? Don’t you want to go? Also sorry about the whole Donna thing…”

He coughs just as he rips the page out, a loud and entirely too obvious sound that draws too much attention his way.

“Are you alright, Wheeler?” Coach Price asks, eyeing him suspiciously. “Maybe you’d better warm up those vocal chords and tell us what you think about this passage here, where Holden is asking Sally to run away with him.”

Mike clears his throat, his hand stilling on the note he was about to fold up and pass gently Will’s way. He’s thankful he’s read The Catcher in the Rye so many times because the passage comes to mind easily despite everything. “Well, I mean, he only asked her out because he’s scared of being rejected by Jane, right?” When Coach nods, Mike continues, his fingers smudging the graphite on the paper under his hand. “He feels isolated, like nobody would understand him if he got right in front of them and spilled his guts out— spilled his guts out and told the truth about how he doesn’t want to conform to society’s rules. And she’s, like, so comfortable staying that way that it makes Holden feel even more rejected and alone when she says they can’t just run away. It kind of sucks. Him realizing he didn’t love Sally anyway at the end of it is kind of his wake up call, right?”

“Wake up call for what?” Coach prompts. Mike tries not to feel the way Will’s eyes are boring into the side of his skull as he formulates an answer.

“That not ending up like all the adults around him that he hates is gonna be harder than he thought.”

The instant that Coach Price nods and turns his attention to another student, Mike releases a tense breath. Beneath his hand, his scrawled note has gotten a little crumpled and damp from his palm, but he folds it up and slips it onto Will’s desk before he can think too hard about it.

Will passes it back the second Coach turns around to write something on the board.

“What happened to going alone being lame?? Did you decide to ask someone in the end? :P And don’t worry about the Donna thing I was just teasing you!

Mike considers this, considers Holden and Sally and Jane. “You’re looking at the lamest person in this classroom, so no.” Then he considers it a little more and feels marginally braver and adds another line. “Want to go alone together?” He can’t look when he hands the note back to Will, he doesn’t want to know what kind of expression crosses his face when he reads the thinly veiled invitation.

Just as the bell rings to signal the end of class, Will places the note, unfolded, back on Mike’s desk. “Why not?” is the last thing it says, in Will’s small, neat handwriting. Will’s looking at him with a glimmer in his eye and Mike’s not really sure if he just made the biggest mistake of his life or the best decision by far, but he gathers his stuff and follows Will out of the classroom before he can make up his mind.

The chaos of class change finds Mike trailing behind Will helplessly as he navigates through the throng of other students, slipping easily between them, whereas Mike’s bumping into people left and right as he hurries to keep up. By the time they make it back to their lockers, Mike’s certain that if he wasn’t following behind the one person he wants to go to the prom with, nobody would accept his invitation from the sheer number of toes he’s just stepped on.

“So, uh, can I come pick you up?” Mike asks, rubbing at the back of his neck nervously. He’s not even sure what he has to be nervous about—the hard part’s theoretically over.

Will’s rummaging through his locker so intensely that Mike’s not even really sure he heard him. Just when he’s about to repeat himself, to his utter mortification, Will turns and faces him with a tiny smile and asks, “Uh, what?”

The way Will’s looking at him is enough to make Mike almost rethink his next words. Almost being one key word, and think being the other. “Well, I mean. I just thought that, um, maybe you’d prefer it if I drove you instead of your mom? Or, or maybe you thought you’d walk, since you— since you don’t have your license? Which, I still don’t really get, by the way. But walking’s fine! You might, like, get mud on your shoes or your suit but like, I won’t knock it—”

“Yes, Mike,” Will interrupts, mercifully. “You can pick me up. How’s eight?”

Mike blinks at him, acutely aware of his rambling and how red his face must be because even his ears are burning. Without thinking, he brings up a hand to cover his cheek and finds it warm. “Yeah! Yes, eight is perfect.”

The look Will shoots him is nothing short of devilish, and Mike finds he doesn’t even have it in him to make a quip about it. Instead, Will reaches out to brush his knuckles against Mike’s shoulder in a gentle punch, grinning. “Breathe. Nobody’ll even be paying enough attention to notice you showed up alone. They’ll all be sucking face or drunk on shitty punch, your cool-guy reputation will be saved.”

Only Mike isn’t a cool guy. And he won’t be showing up alone.

The bell rings before he can say anything to that effect, and suddenly Will is slamming his locker shut and muttering something about calculus. Before he regains control of his voice, he’s alone and rapidly approaching being late to chemistry. As usual.

He turns on his heel and rushes down the hall, unaware that he’s still only got his English notebook in hand and the sheet of paper with Will’s handwriting on it.

Why not?

Saturday, May 20th is approaching entirely too quickly for Mike’s liking.

On the first, Mike scrambles to buy their tickets before Will has a chance to get his own. It doesn’t matter that they’re kind of more expensive than he’d thought they would be or that he’d had to ask his mom for a little extra cash to be able to get them, it’s the principle of the thing. Mike’s the one who asked, technically, so he’s got to be the one to get the tickets.

His pen hovers awkwardly on the space to write his date’s name, a requirement to buy more than one ticket. He settles on simple initials, W.B., and hopes that nobody looks too closely at the line before they hand him the tickets. Thankfully, the two kids selling them couldn’t give less of a shit about the job, but he still scurries away as fast as possible once he has the tickets in his hand. It’s not like he’s committing any sort of crime, having paid for the two slips of paper that he stuffs into his pocket as he runs, but Mike still feels like if anyone besides him thinks about it too long, it probably wouldn’t be a very good thing.

“Here,” he says, sidling up to Will at his locker on the morning of the second, draping one arm over his shoulder and holding the prom ticket between two fingers. “This makes it official.”

Will exhales through his nose, a sharp sound that’s somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. “Really?”

“You said we could go alone together,” Mike says, trying not to sound as nervous as he feels. “Kind of need tickets for that.”

“I did say that, didn’t I?” Will muses. He shuts his locker almost a little too forcefully and it makes Mike jump, his arm slipping off of Will’s shoulder. Will snatches the ticket playfully, though, and something about the way he’s smiling as if in spite of himself makes Mike’s heart do a funny little flip. “Guess I can’t back out now, since you spent money and all.”

“I hope you weren’t planning on standing me up for the prom,” Mike says, feigning hurt as he clutches his chest. “I’d have cried all night.”

Will grabs one of Mike’s backpack straps and pulls, rolling his eyes as he starts to drag Mike down the hall in the direction of their first classes. “You’re so dramatic, you know that?”

Mike spends the rest of the day trying not to think about Will’s knuckles brushing against the spot on his chest just above his heart.

On the seventh, Dustin finds a date. Or rather, a date finds him.

“Dustin, would you go to the prom with me?” El asks casually. They’re all laying around on the grass around Lover’s Lake, the water too cold for swimming but the day too nice to stay cooped inside.

Shooting up from where he’s laying, Dustin’s face is one of pure surprise. “W-what?”

“I want someone to dance with,” she says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world to go to prom with your friend. And based on how easy she makes it seem, maybe it is that simple. “Also, we’re all a little tired of hearing you complain about dying alone. Will you come with me?”

“Yeah! Totally!” Dustin stands and pulls El to her feet, spinning her around in an over-exaggerated dance that could just as easily be a waltz as it could be a foxtrot for all Mike knows about partner dancing. Distantly, he wonders if maybe he should practice before prom.

As he watches El laughing and Dustin whirling her around and around, Mike hears Will’s gentle laughter to his left. He turns his attention to the boy beside him and tries not to look too obvious about watching Will move his pencil confidently across the page of his sketchbook. The handful of small drawings scattered all over pique Mike’s curiosity further.

“What are you drawing?” Mike asks, trying to lean into Will’s space to shamelessly get a closer look at the drawings. Will, for all his skill and talent, is stupidly protective about things that aren’t finished. For once, though, Will moves his hand and shows Mike without protest. In a corner of the page is Dustin, a shocked expression on his face and a few twigs and leaves sticking out of his hair.

“His expression was too good,” he whispers, quickly sketching beside Dustin’s face the rough shape of their friends as they dance barefoot in the grass. “Bet he didn’t wake up this morning thinking he’d get asked to prom.” Will laughs again before he moves to turn his sketchbook away from Mike, signalling the end of his benevolence, but Mike stops him with a gentle hand. On the rest of the page are doodles of the whole party as Will sees them, smiling in the afternoon sun or nearly dozing in the grass. The hand Will had moved to show him the drawing of Dustin lays conspicuously on the last face, the one he can only assume is of him since he’s the only one missing. Interesting.

“These are great,” Mike whispers back, unsure why he feels the need to be quiet but keeping his voice down all the same. “You really caught that shit-eating expression Max always has.” Mike nudges Will in the hopes of him revealing the drawing of himself and is satisfied when a mess of dark curls peeks out from between Will’s fingers. “Is that one me?”

Will glances quickly between Mike’s face and the alleged drawing of it, and if Mike didn’t know any better he’d say that Will’s cheeks flush slightly as he deliberates showing him. Finally, he relents and shoves the whole sketchbook at Mike weakly. “Y-yeah. Gang’s all here.”

As Mike looks at the rough sketch of his own face, he briefly wonders if he’s actually that handsome. It’s a side profile, and Mike’s looking off somewhere he can only assume is the lake in the distance. His brow is relaxed and the sharp lines of his nose for once look balanced with the equally sharp lines of his jaw. His lips are rounded and slightly parted and for a second, Mike wonders if this is who Will sees when he looks at him.

He swallows, realizing he hasn’t said anything in a few seconds. “You, uh, forgot the scar above my eyebrow.” He points to the space where Will drew his hair curling away from his forehead, “There.”

Will looks up at him and smiles. “No, I didn’t. It’s on the other side.” He reaches up a hand and turns Mike’s head gently, tracing a finger lightly on the scar in question. “Right there.”

Anything Mike could’ve come up with in response dies on his tongue as Lucas hollers in their direction, “Are you two coming? We’re gonna have to hurry if we want to still make the 4:30 Pet Sematary showing.”

“Coming!” Will shouts back, releasing Mike like he’s burned him.

Saturday, the thirteenth, Mike has a gentle spiral about what exactly he’s wearing to the prom. You know, the one that’s a week away.

He’s perched on his bed, staring into his closet as though he could actually see anything that’s in there. He doesn’t need to, though, because he knows his suit options are severely limited. As in, he only has the one black suit he wore to his Great Aunt Tina’s funeral earlier in the year, which makes him depressed to think about.

Who goes to a dance in the same clothes they wore to a funeral?

Mike thinks back to the only other dance he’s ever been to, back in middle school—the Snow Ball. He’d worn a mismatched outfit then, a brown jacket and a grey sweater paired with a blue button-down. Don’t even get him started about the red tie. How had he thought that looked good?

Before his gentle spiral turns into a full-blown panic, he reaches for his radio and calls for the only person he trusts not to be a dick about this.

“Lucas, do you copy?”

A few seconds pass in silence, and Mike sighs. “Ugh, please be there. Lucas, this is Mike. Do you copy?”

“Hey Mike, I copy,” comes Lucas’s voice crackling through the airwaves. “Do I detect a hint of misery in your voice?”

Mike lets the silence hang for a second before rolling his eyes and pushing to talk. “Lucas, how many times do I have to remind you? Use your prowords, over.”

“We aren’t twelve anymore, man. I’ll talk over the radio however I damn well please.” He’d probably sound more annoyed if he wasn’t so bored from running the same bit for the last ten years.

“Well how else do we know when we’re finished? Without them, you can just get interr—”

“Precisely,” Lucas cuts him off, sounding smug. “So, what’s got your panties in a twist?”

Mike grimaces. “Fine.” He pauses for a second, unsure how to bring it up in a totally non-embarrassing way. “I don’t know what to wear.”

“We’re just going to the diner,” Lucas replies, definitely thinking Mike’s concerned about what outfit he’ll wear to get burgers and shakes with the party later tonight. “Just wear whatever combo of jeans and a weird sweater you have laying around—I’m sure Will’l still like it for whatever reason.” There’s a hint of teasing in his voice, but what makes it worse is that Mike is sure he’s being at least a little sincere.

“No,” Mike hisses, holding the radio close to his lips even though he knows it makes the audio quality tank. “For prom, I don’t know what to wear for prom.”

“Ohhh.” Lucas drags out the vowel sound and Mike wants to lock himself in his closet between his weird sweaters and funeral suit and never come out. As if reading his mind, Lucas quips, “The funeral suit not cutting it?”

Mike winces. “No, the funeral suit is not cutting it. I need your help, badly.”

“About time you came crawling to the Sinclair Fashion House,” Lucas drawls. Mike’s seriously considering just turning off his radio and never seeing him again. “How much money do you have?”

Following the scattered drawings of Will’s that he has pinned along the wall, Mike’s eyes settle on the prom ticket he has stuck up there as well—purely so he wouldn’t lose it! “Not a lot,” he says, frowning. “The tickets kind of took priority.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Lucas amends. “Meet me at the end of the driveway in five, I have some ideas of where we might be able to find you something that’s within budget. Over and out, asshole.”

It turns out that Lucas’s idea of in budget starts at the big department store, which is so far out of reach right now it’s laughable. He defends it, saying they have to start somewhere, and besides, they can at least get an idea for what Mike might look good in if they start at a place with all the options. So that’s where they begin, with Lucas shoving Mike into a dressing room along with ten suits of all cuts and colors.

“I feel ridiculous,” Mike calls from inside the dressing room, looking at himself in the mirror. Lucas’s first choice was a baby blue monstrosity, complete with a vest and a ruffle that’s faintly reminiscent of a slug.

“Well come out and show me.” Lucas sounds like his mother as he sits just outside the door and it makes Mike’s cheeks flush.

When he steps out, Lucas, mercifully, doesn’t laugh. Instead he furrows his brows and rubs at his chin, asks Mike to turn in a circle before he says a word. “So, the sizing is good,” he says, motioning for Mike to come closer and turn his back so he can run a hand along the space between his shoulders. It draws a shiver. “Let’s ditch any of the suits we grabbed that weren’t this size.” He pushes Mike’s shoulder to get him to turn again and he points down to the ruff. “I never want to see you in another ruffle like this again,” he says, as though he weren’t the one to select the thing. Before Mike can protest, Lucas runs his finger up and paps Mike on the nose, like he used to do when they were kids and he would trick Dustin into thinking he had something on his shirt. Mike lets out an indignant yelp and turns to flee into the dressing room, Lucas’s laughter following him.

The rest of their time in the department store goes pretty quickly, with Lucas only bringing Mike a couple more options to try after they’d purged the room of any ill-fitting suits. The black ones reminded them both too much of the funeral suit, and any other colors kind of just made Mike look ill.

“This is tough,” Lucas says as they walk back to his car. “You’re too pale to really pull off a colored suit, but now we have all kinds of associations with black…”

Mike rolls his eyes, “Yeah, yeah. Little white boy can’t pull off an interesting suit.”

Lucas chokes out a laugh as he gets in the car. “You said it, not me.”

They’re thankfully leaving the parking lot just as Mike spots the arrival of a gaggle of football players. Mike burns with jealousy at the thought that those boys are on the same crusade he is but will have infinitely better luck.

Their next stop is blessedly devoid of any of their classmates, but Mike eyes the Goodwill sign warily.

“Are you sure we have a shot at finding something here?” he asks as Lucas locks the car doors. “We kind of made a complete 180 from the other store.”

“You never know what you’ll find at a secondhand shop.” Lucas slings an arm over his shoulder and steers him toward the door. “We could hit the jackpot, but your privileged ass wouldn’t know it because your mom only shops at the fancy stores.”

Mike rolls his eyes—as if Lucas’s mom doesn’t shop at the exact same places his mom does. Lucas’s apparent love of secondhand shops at least explains some of the more interesting things he wears, so Mike’s willing to at least give it a shot.

As they browse the racks, it very quickly becomes apparent that their options are limited. “Looks like some other people had the same idea,” Mike mutters, rummaging through hanger after hanger of oversized tweed coats.

He’s just starting to lose hope when he hears Lucas’s voice ring out from across the aisle, “Jackpot!” Mike’s head snaps up to see Lucas holding up a deep blue coat with what looks like black on the front. The lack of detail even though Lucas isn’t that far away makes Mike distantly wonder if maybe he needs glasses. As Lucas approaches, he realizes it’s velvet on the lapels. He must make a face because Lucas jumps to its defense quickly. “Listen, I know it’s a little dated and there’s like, one weird stain on the sleeve, but you have to try it on. The tag inside says it’s literally your size.

Lucas shoves it in Mike’s hands and motions toward the single dressing room. As he’s standing in the cramped room, Mike examines the suit more closely. The suit itself is an inky cobalt color, trimmed with a luxurious black velvet along the lapels and pocket slits. The pants have a matching velvet stripe along the outside seam and waist, and the cut of it is vaguely reminiscent of something his dad would’ve worn fifteen years ago to go to work. The stain on the elbow isn’t too noticeable, and he figures it could probably come out if he scrubbed hard enough. All in all, he’s not sure if he hates it or loves it. He is sure that Lucas won’t let him leave without at least trying it, though, so he slips into it and steps out to show him.

“Wow,” Lucas says, frozen where he stands. “Mike Wheeler, maybe you’re good-looking after all!” Mike feels himself flush as he follows the instruction of Lucas’s index finger to spin like a pageant queen again. “This is it, man, you look great.”

“I—I don’t know,” Mike stammers, suddenly self-conscious. “It feels like a little too much, maybe the black one is the way to go? Will won’t even remember when I wore it last, I was out of town!”

Lucas levels him with a glare. “Man, you’re crazy if you think Will wouldn’t notice, the guy has an eye for detail that’s honestly kind of freaky. And anyway, when else will you get the chance to wear something like this if not for prom? Come on, live a little.”

“Easy for you to say!” Mike feels his shoulders rise up to his ears, defensively. “What are you wearing, then?”

“White suit, black trim,” Lucas replies easily. “Max will be in red and we thought the white would be a nice contrast.” He smirks, crossing his arms. “So how about you reconsider this being ‘too much’ again?”

Mike runs a hand along the soft velvet, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror through the dressing room door. He does kind of look good, in like a slightly outdated way. If he considers the clothes he usually wears when he gets to choose what to buy, it’s honestly on par.

“What about the rest?” he asks. Neither of them had thought to bring the requisite accessories to try stuff on, and something about a faded The Cure tee shirt isn’t really summoning visions of prom success.

Lucas squints at him. “Well, we know you have a white dress shirt, and don’t you have black shoes?” Mike nods, remembering the way they pinch his toes. “Go with that, and I think Dustin has a black bowtie you can borrow. Unsure if it’ll clash with the velvet but it’s better than nothing.”

The price tag hanging by his wrist stops him, and Mike sighs again. “Well, dream’s dead, actually. Turns out I can’t even afford a secondhand suit right now.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Lucas says, waggling his wallet in his face. “Consider it a deposit to future happiness.”

Mike cracks a smile. “Aw, Lucas, you do have a soul.”

“Not yours, jackass. I meant mine,” Lucas replies, jabbing his finger into Mike’s chest. “You’ve been insufferable about Will for ages, I can’t keep watching you make a fool of yourself.”

“W-what?” Mike gulps. “Shut— shut the fuck up man.” He starts walking to the dressing room—if he can’t verbally end the conversation, then he’ll physically shut Lucas out. He doesn’t want to hear this from him.

“I’m your best friend, man,” Lucas singsongs, trailing behind him. “I can see right through your flimsy excuses and metaphors, even if someone else can’t.” Mike shuts the door in his face, begging him to be quiet. Muffled, through the door, Lucas imparts one final piece of wisdom. “It’s fine, because guess who else I’m best friends with and can also see right through? Just don’t do anything stupid and prom should be a great time for you both.”

Mike wishes he would just die, right here in the Goodwill dressing room.

The morning of the twentieth, Mike’s a nervous wreck. So much so, that his mother banishes him from the house, asking him to go pick her some flowers from the hill just outside of town instead of tainting her home with his nervous energy.

He walks, opting to take the time outside for what it is and try to relax a little.

After he and Lucas finished gathering the final pieces of his outfit, namely Dustin’s bowtie and a shiny belt that Lucas’s dad hardly ever wore, Mike actually felt pretty good about the outfit. Lucas was right that it fit him like a glove, and once it was properly styled Mike didn’t feel like he was heading to one of his dad’s holiday parties they used to go to when he was really little. He felt cool, dare he say a little handsome.

Mike really hopes Will agrees.

Which, really, is why he’s so nervous. It’s the Will of it all. Especially after what Lucas said.

As he reaches the peak of Weathertop, where the prettiest flowers grow, Mike is glad his mom can tell when he needs to get away from it all. It’s a little embarrassing, sure, to be told by your mom to stop freaking out about prom, but damn if he doesn’t feel like he can breathe a little easier up here.

He sets to work, collecting gentle handfuls of yellow flowers. The last time he did this, he was picking flowers to take across the country to El. Why he thought they’d keep nicely and fix the weirdness between them, he honestly can’t say anymore. Regardless, Mike finds himself gravitating toward the same flowers as last time. One time, Will painted this hill in all its springtime glory. He’d told Mike that the yellow blossoms that covered most of the hill were goldenrod, and something about the name was romantic to Mike at the time. Now, he looks for the other flowers Will had mentioned, asters, and adds them to the growing bundle in his hands.

It’s funny, in a way, that Will noted the same flowers he had, all those months ago.

Feeling like he needs to switch it up, he adds a few unnamed red ones to the mix, just for a little pizazz. Mike carries the blooms home in a vase his mother had provided, filled with water from a plastic bottle he thought to stick in his backpack at the last minute. He feels a little silly, walking back through town with a vase of flowers clutched to his chest, but when he arrives home and places it in the middle of the dining table, he’s oddly at ease.

That sensation quickly ebbs when he realizes he really should start getting ready for the dance and that he’s rapidly running out of time to tame his curls into a somewhat presentable but still-him style. He remembers how hard they teased Dustin for showing up to the Snow Ball with Steve “The Hair” Harrington’s products on his head, but he finds now that he can’t really blame him for wanting to look nice, different.

An embarrassingly long amount of time later, Mike smooths his coat and looks at himself in the mirror. Not half bad, if he says so himself.

Lucas was right about darker colors suiting him, and Mike’s honestly kind of glad they went with blue. Looking around his room and realizing that almost everything he owns is in some shade of the same color, he wonders if maybe he shouldn’t try to expand that.

His bowtie is about as straight as he can get it, despite Dustin’s best efforts to show him how to tie it. It’ll have to do, he supposes, as he stoops to tie his laces and head over to Will’s.

As a last-minute addition, Mike grabs his Walkman with the headphone splitter and sticks it in an inside pocket of his coat next to his prom ticket, more out of habit than anything else.

“Well don’t you look handsome,” Mike’s mother coos, smiling at him from her position at the bottom of the stairs. “My little boy’s all grown up. Off to prom and then before I know it you’ll be off to college…”

“Come on mom,” Mike says fondly. He leans over to give her a kiss on the cheek once he finishes his descent. “That’s not for another few months.”

His dad is nowhere to be seen, as usual, but that doesn’t bother Mike anymore. In the time since the end of the world, his mom has become more comfortable spending time with herself and her kids, and it makes Mike happy to see his mom happy without the constant looming threat of Ted Wheeler’s judgement.

“Now just you wait a second,” she says, stopping him from continuing on and out the front door. Mike would complain, but he knows that such an action would only delay him further. A quick glance at the clock on the wall confirms he has a few more minutes before he’s actually in danger of being late. “Remember that time I took that floral arranging class? These are for you.”

Refocusing his gaze on his mom, Mike sees she’s holding out two small bundles of flowers, bright yellow and purple and striking red. He gulps.

“I probably would’ve picked different colors myself—I did when I went to prom with your father and he had no idea about the corsage—but beggars can’t be choosers. You still picked some pretty ones,” she says breezily. “No self-respecting son of mine is showing up to pick up his date without flowers, except I figured Will would appreciate a boutonniere more than a corsage.”

Instantly Mike is hot and flustered. “Mom! He’s— Will’s not my date, for christ’s sake! We’re just, we’re just going together!” His mom is still looking at him expectantly, holding out the flowers. “I mean, not together together, just showing up at the same time. Please.”

“Regardless,” she says, pressing them into his hands, “this is your one and only senior prom, honey. Now, don’t put these on until you get to his house! I don’t want you smooshing them with your seatbelt on the way there.”

Now, where Mike was worried he wouldn’t get his mother to let him leave, she’s the one practically shoving him out the door. “Have fun! Don’t be home too late, you know how Joyce is about curfew!”

The entire drive to Will’s house, the boutonnieres distract Mike from where they sit in the passenger seat. By the time he pulls up to the Byers residence, he’s all but decided he’s not bringing them inside. He can’t believe his mom tricked him into picking the flowers for his own embarrassing prom accessory, but maybe that’s what pushes him to scoop them up before he can think too hard about it.

When Mike rings the doorbell, it’s just a few seconds before Joyce is throwing open the door and pulling him inside.

“Hey Mike! You look so handsome, honey,” she says, eerily similar to what his own mom said. “Will, Mike’s here!”

“Hi, Mrs. Byers,” Mike mumbles, his mouth suddenly dry at the thought of Will seeing him dressed like this. What if he went super casual and Mike looks way too fancy in comparison? What if he thinks the flowers are dumb and Mike has to laugh it off and give them to his mother instead?

Mike’s train of thought is forcefully and violently derailed when Will rounds the corner and he hears him whisper his name almost reverently, “Mike…”

Will is a vision in grey—or is it green?—as he stands frozen at the end of the hallway from his bedroom. The color of his suit is playing tricks on Mike’s eyes, such a deep and rich grey that it shifts green, and the cut is enough to make his breath hitch in his chest. Will’s waist is accentuated beautifully by a pair of pleated pants that sits high and a vest that looks like it was made for him. His jacket is unbuttoned and his gold tie is askew and what wouldn’t Mike do to straighten it for him.

But his hands are full, so he just looks at Will and tries to find his words.

“W-Will, you look…” Mike clears his throat. “Nice, you look really nice.”

Mike’s words seem to snap Will out of whatever trance he was in because his face splits into a lovely smile and he approaches him. “You look pretty nice yourself,” he says, bracing both hands on Mike’s shoulders to take him in. “Did you do your hair differently today?”

Dumbly, Mike nods. “These are, uh, for you.”

“Oh, those are beautiful!” Mike almost jumps at the sound of Joyce’s voice—he’d just about forgotten she was there. “Those bring back memories…”

“Thank you.” Will reaches out to grab one of the bundles from Mike and the moment their fingers brush, Mike swears he feels a jolt go through his body. Will finds the pin Mike’s mom left in it easily and attaches it gingerly to his lapel. It sits beautifully right above his heart, and all of a sudden Mike is so glad he picked those himself.

He fumbles with his own for a moment, unsure just how Will managed to make it look so easy.

“Here, let me,” Will murmurs, taking the pin from Mike. “I don’t need you stabbing yourself and getting blood on that nice suit.”

Mike holds his breath as Will brushes his hands along his velvet lapel, smoothing the fabric. He almost flinches when Will sticks the pin through the flowers and the fabric, but Will’s other hand slips inside his jacket to catch the tip of the pin before it can poke Mike. In that second, a bright flash of light and the sound of a shutter brings them back to reality, and Will lets out a quick, “Ouch, mom! Jeez, you made me poke myself!”

Will finishes pinning the flowers before he sticks the tip of his finger between his lips, and it’s so distracting that Mike almost misses Joyce’s apology. “Sorry, honey! I just promised Karen I’d take pictures of the two of you before you left, I had to keep my promise!”

“Yeah, posed pictures,” Will mutters under his breath. “Not sneak attacks.”

“You can keep this one, then,” Joyce says cheerily, holding a still-developing polaroid shot between two fingers like she holds her cigarettes. She places it facedown on the coffee table before ushering them to the closed front door, motioning for them to smile and pose.

“Are you okay?” Mike whispers, still thinking about the way Will’s lips closed around his injured finger.

Will rolls his eyes. “Yes, Mike, I’m fine.” Mike freezes as Will straightens his bowtie, smiling fondly at him as he says, “All that tutoring from Dustin and you still can’t get this thing tied right?”

“You weren’t supposed to know about that,” Mike replies sullenly. “And that’s rich,” he says, tugging Will’s tie straight, “coming from you.” Will just sticks out his tongue briefly before leaning against Mike’s side, turning to face his mother. They take several photos, enough to make sure both mothers and the boys get a picture to keep for themselves.

Will scurries to his room after Joyce hands him his picture, throwing an, “Almost forgot my ticket,” over his shoulder as he goes.

Once Will’s out of earshot, Joyce turns to Mike and does her best impression of Hop. “Back before midnight. And no drugs, or you won’t live to see graduation,” she says, arms crossed and brows furrowed. Mike blinks back, stunned, and she cracks a smile. “I’m only half joking. Hopper drove El to Dustin’s and made me promise to scare you a little! Have fun, make good choices.”

Mike nods just as Will returns and motions to the door. “Ready?” In lieu of an answer, Will grabs Mike’s wrist and strings him along behind him. Mike barely has a chance to snag the first polaroid he sees off the table and follow, saluting Mrs. Byers with the photograph as they go.

“I thought she’d never let us go,” Will says with a sigh as they pull out of his street.

“Yeah,” Mike agrees, his vocabulary suddenly extremely limited. He swallows and remembers the picture in his lap, placing it upright in the same compartment on the dash that holds his cassettes. It’s now that he gets a good look at which one he’d grabbed, and it’s the one where Will’s pinning on his boutonniere.

“That’s a good one,” Will murmurs, tracing a finger along the bottom edge. “Shame I stabbed the shit out of myself in the process.”

Unable to stop himself, Mike reaches out to snatch Will’s hand and bring it up to his face. “Did it really hurt that bad?” In the dim light he can hardly see the tip of Will’s middle finger but he convinces himself he can make out a tiny pinprick of red just there, on the pad. Were Mike a little crazier or the night a little darker, he might’ve brought Will’s hand to his lips. As it stands, Mike’s just a little too aware of himself and how the streetlights intermittently illuminate the cab of his car, so he just squeezes it instead before releasing Will.

“Uh, no,” Will says carefully, “not— not really. I’m just kidding.”

“So, how bad do we think this is about to be?” Mike blurts, desperate to change the subject. “You said people would either be making out or drunk, how serious were you being?”

Will snorts a little laugh. “Pretty serious, I don’t think it’s that hard to sneak a flask in under the principal’s nose, Robin said she and Steve had no issues when they did it. I give it thirty seconds before we see one or both things happen.”

“And how long do you give it before we ditch?” Mike’s trying so hard to keep his eyes focused on the road but he sneaks a glance in Will’s direction as he shifts gears and finds Will’s already looking at him.

“We should at least stay for an hour,” Will says playfully. “You did spend money on those tickets, and I need to see if Dustin steps on El’s toes while they dance. He said he’s been practicing, but we both know he’s almost as uncoordinated as you are.”

“Rude.” Mike knows he’s easily the most awkward out of the whole party, but Will doesn’t have to say it. “Guess that’s fair though, I need Lucas to see the fruits of his labor. Most of the outfit was all him.”

Will laughs, the sound bouncing in Mike’s head as he drives over the curb at the entrance of the school parking lot. He grips tightly on Mike’s hand as it closes on the gear shift, a strained, “Mike!” escaping Will’s lips.

They argue about how bad it really is to hit a couple curb checks the whole way from the parking lot towards the gym.

“Name?” Mrs. Kilroy, the librarian, is in charge of taking admission and she looks like she’d rather be anywhere else but here. More like Mrs. Killjoy. She holds out her hand expectantly as she goes down her list of attendees, poised to mark off Mike’s name.

“Uh, Wheeler,” Mike says, taking Will’s ticket from his hand surreptitiously to hand over. He hopes he sounds casual, because until this very second he’d forgotten that in order to even get the ticket he had to put someone’s name down as his date, and that he kind of didn’t. He steps in front of Will slightly, as if he could shield him from the look Mrs. Killjoy shoots him when she sees the initials W.B. printed beside Mike’s name.

She looks him up and down, shifting her gaze to Will behind him once she’s had enough of Mike’s countenance. “Proceed,” she says, begrudgingly. Mike wants to grab Will’s hand to be sure he doesn’t end up stuck there on the sidewalk outside, but he doesn’t want to give her any ammo to deny them entry. Her look was bad enough. Instead, he tugs lightly on the cuff of Will’s jacket and they hurry indoors.

“That was weird,” he says, aiming for lighthearted but probably landing somewhere near strained instead.

Will gives him a half smile and crosses his arms over his chest. “Sort of expected something like that, you know. Two boys showing up to prom, and all.” Mike hates how he makes that sound. Like they’re doing something wrong. He studies Will’s face and almost says something else, something probably incriminating beyond measure, but he’s saved by the sound of Lucas and Dustin flagging them down over the music.

“You two clean up nice,” Max says when they reach their friends.

Mike gives her a once over, taking in her dress, before he replies, “You too, Mayfield.” He’s not even being facetious, for once. Max does look beautiful with her hair swept up off her shoulders and in a sparkling red dress. Next to Lucas in his white tux, they make quite the pair.

Beside them, Dustin and El stand practically matching in similar shades of purple. Dustin, of course, has a shimmering jacket that somehow makes him look cool as hell instead of like a loser—Mike could never pull that off.

“Are you guys ready to dance the night away?” Dustin asks, waggling his eyebrows and pulling El in close to his side. Clearly the excitement of being here with a girl hasn’t worn off yet, but when did that happen?

Will shifts on his feet, smiling blithely but looking over in the direction of the tables and chairs. Away from the dance floor. “I think I’ll watch you guys, I’m not much of a dancer.”

“We’ll hang out for a bit,” Lucas says hurriedly, reaching for Max’s hand to lead her towards the table Will’s eyeing.

“No! Really, you guys. You should go dance, have fun!” Will pipes up, glancing nervously between the members of the party. “I’ll— we’ll be fine, don’t worry about it.”

Not waiting to be told twice, Dustin pulls El along to the dance floor, immediately assimilating themselves into the crowd. Lucas hesitates a second longer, but Will nudges Max and she leads them both to join Dustin and El.

And then there were two.

Mike follows at a short distance as Will picks his way toward an empty table and sits. The look on his face as he watches the crowd is technically pleasant, but Mike knows better. There’s a storm in Will’s eyes that wasn’t there when he picked him up.

“You’re sure you don’t want to dance?” Mike asks Will sheepishly. He doesn’t recognize the poppy beat that’s playing too loudly over the speakers, but Will’s tapping his foot along. The look he gives Mike is close to miserable in contrast. “What?”

“You’re crazy,” Will says, leaning farther back in his seat. “No way we’re dancing here. We’ll be hearing about it well past graduation.”

Mike does a double take. “Seriously? You were right about people being wasted, nobody’ll think twice about it!”

The throng of bodies on the dance floor trembles along to the beat, chests and cheeks pressed together like each couple is one being. Even Dustin and El are energetically moving to the groove, albeit more respectfully separated. Mike can just hear Hopper’s threats to Dustin now. But maybe that was the wrong thing to say, by the way Will blinks at him.

“You saw the look we got at the entrance, Mike,” Will says, his voice almost too low to hear over the music. “If you really want to dance, why not ask one of those girls over there that are staring at you like you’re the last glass of water in the desert?”

Mike shifts his gaze to said group of girls, noticing their hungry stares at once. He nearly scoffs—these girls hardly give him the time of day on a normal week at school, they’re just desperate to have someone’s arm to hang off of before they become the topic of hushed conversation on Monday. “I came here with you, though,” he says sternly. “Why would I want to dance with them when you’re right here?”

“You didn’t though, Mike. We just showed up together.” Will looks like he wants to say something else, but he shakes his head and stands abruptly. “I’m getting some of that punch, want any?” By the state of everyone around them, Mike could take one guess and be correct in assuming it’s been spiked to dangerous levels. He shakes his head just as Will wanders off and he wonders what he can do to turn this around.

His eyes land on Max and Lucas as they sway in the crowd to a significantly slower song than a moment ago. Max’s head rests on Lucas’s shoulder. He feels a little stab of jealousy before he snuffs it out, remembering how Billy’s not-so-subtle racism had threatened to keep the two of them apart when things were just getting started between them. He finds Will across the dance floor, downing a glass of punch before he fills two more glasses and slips between the crowd. An uneasy feeling settles in Mike’s stomach at the sight.

“Stronger than I thought,” Will says simply as he plops down in his seat next to Mike again. His eyes scan the crowd but don’t really focus on any one thing. “You sure you don’t want any?”

Will holds out the second glass to Mike and he can smell the liquor from here, so he shakes his head again. “One of us is driving.” Will shrugs in a “suit yourself” motion and takes another long drink from his glass, almost emptying it in one go. They sit in silence for three more songs before it becomes too much for Mike to bear, the way Will’s quickly progressing to sitting slumped against the back of his chair, so he stands and pulls Will along with him. “Let’s get out of here,” he says gently, trying to keep annoyance out of his voice.

“But we just got here,” Will protests weakly. They bump into a few people and garner some nasty looks, but Mike’s more concerned about making it to the door before Will stumbles a little too heavily to write it off as nothing.

“We made it like, half an hour,” Mike says distractedly, scanning the crowd to make eye contact with Lucas or Dustin. Lucas’s eyes find him and Mike throws up a little salute, to which Lucas simply nods. “You said it yourself, we’d leave once we saw the party. We did that, let’s go.”

Will hums as they burst through the doors to the gym and are greeted by the cool nighttime air. The muffled bumping of the bass through the doors is a welcome change, the music was starting to give Mike a headache. “Okay sure, let’s go.”

Whatever was in the punch, Mike’s glad he got Will out of there before he could partake in much more. He’s clearly more relaxed than he was earlier, but he didn’t have enough to make him slur his words or stumble about dangerously. As they make it to the car and Mike’s watching to ensure Will buckles himself in, he’s reminded of what his mom said about ruining his flowers with the seatbelt. Thankfully, the seatbelt cuts across the right side of Will’s chest, not the left, so his boutonniere stays intact. Mike’s not sure why that makes him breathe a little easier, but it does as he pulls gently out of the parking lot, careful not to hit the curb again.

They drive in silence for a while, Will staring out the window and Mike trying not to stare at Will.

“I almost forgot,” Will mutters, rummaging in his coat pockets. “Made this!”

He’s holding up a cassette case but Mike can’t make out the cover in the darkness. “Pop it in,” he says instead of asking what it is.

Will shakes his head, pointing instead to the park as they pass it on the left for the fourth time. Mike’s just been driving in circles, certain he can’t take Will home until he’s completely sober again but also unsure where they could go that wouldn’t make things weirder. “Pull over there. Do you have your Walkman?”

Mike nods as he eases the car to the side of the road. After he parks, he gropes around in the backseat for the two sets of headphones he keeps there—one for always, one for emergencies.

Steadier on his feet than when they left the dance, Will leads Mike to the deserted playground, lit by only a couple streetlights. He takes a seat on the swingset and motions for Mike to hand him the cassette player, which Mike does with no hesitation.

“I had a feeling we’d leave early,” he says quietly, popping open the case and removing a cassette with the words Mike, Prom ‘89 scrawled on it in neat handwriting. “Figured prom night still needed a soundtrack, though.” He plugs in the headphones to the splitter, putting one set over his ears and handing the other to Mike as he sits next to him on the swings. Will holds the Walkman in the space between them, making sure the cords reach them both.

Boston’s More Than a Feeling fills Mike’s head once Will hits play.

Weird choice, but he can’t knock it. Boston is a guilty pleasure.

After the guitar solo, Will turns down the volume but doesn’t pause the music entirely. “Sorry we left so early,” he mumbles. “After you spent all that money for the tickets and everything. That sucks.”

Mike shakes his head but finds he can’t think of anything to say. No worries, dude? Come on.

“Why’d you ask me to prom?” Will asks after a moment. He sounds tired. “I mean I guess if we focus on the semantics, you really didn’t. But to anyone who was watching tonight, it sure looked like it.”

“Why not?” Mike mirrors Will’s own response to the original question, afraid to say anything else.

“No, like, seriously,” Will insists. “We could’ve done something else tonight, or just not done anything. Why prom?”

Mike sighs as Brad Delp reminds him that it’s more than a feeling.

“I mean, you only get the one, right?” he supplies, trying to find the right words.

“Yeah, and you could’ve gone with anyone else,” Will replies sullenly. “Any of those girls we saw would’ve been glad to go with you.”

Mike scoffs. The song changes, those first few perfect seconds of Just Like Heaven play. Mike loses his mind for a moment and stands.

“First of all,” he says, gently taking the Walkman from Will and tucking it back in his coat pocket, “you seem to forget I’m not popular in any sense of the word. They just wanted a warm body.” He hesitates. “Or they could’ve been staring at you. I mean, look at yourself.” Will looks up at him in confusion as the lyrics start.

Show me how you do that trick…

“Secondly,” Mike continues, “I wouldn’t have wanted to go with anyone else. You’re the only person that I think I’d even want to slow dance with.” He holds out his hand as the beat picks up in earnest, tapping his foot in the mulch. “Come on…”

This time it’s Will that hesitates. “Friends don’t do that,” he says weakly, eyeing Mike warily.

“Just go with it,” Mike replies breezily. “We can do whatever we want.”

He takes Will’s hand and pulls him from his seat on the swing, moving in time to the music as he backs up from the structure. He mouths the words at Will and something must give, because Will smiles back at him and closes the distance between them. Not too much, mind you, but just enough.

Will’s free hand lands on Mike’s shoulder. Mike’s finds its way to Will’s waist.

Mike spins them clumsily and the cords of their headphones threaten to tangle between their chests. He’s glad for the energy of the song, that the beat carries them through the playground at a fast clip rather than a slow sway. Will’s laughing and they’re tripping over the curb of the sidewalk and for just one moment, everything is perfect.

You, just like heaven.

“See?” Mike asks in the seconds between this song ending and the next beginning. “I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else.”

The Promise starts to play and Mike wonders if these songs are all being heard a few miles away at prom or if this is Will’s idea of a romantic playlist. If it is, he’s right.

“Still,” Will says, avoiding Mike’s gaze as they slow to the new tempo. “This probably isn’t how you envisioned senior prom…”

Mike deposits Will’s other hand on his shoulder, opting to place both of his on Will’s waist. He draws them ever closer, daring to ask, in a low tone, “What did you envision for my senior prom, then?”

Will swallows, turning his head away from Mike’s. “I don’t know. Maybe you’d have asked that girl in English that’s always staring right at you, Heather? You could’ve matched your tie to her dress, brought her a corsage, held— held her hand across the parking lot?”

You know in the end, I’ll always be there.

“You could’ve waltzed right in,” he says, a little laugh on the tail end, “and not gotten weird looks about it. You’d definitely have danced, more than this, and the slow songs wouldn’t have been… awkward.” Mike tightens his grip, ever so little. Will’s breath hitches and he turns to look into Mike’s eyes, finally. They’re dazzling, Will’s eyes, even in the dim lighting of the playground. “You could’ve kissed her, even. Right there on the dance floor. And nobody would’ve said— they wouldn’t have said anything.”

Gotta tell you, need to tell you.

“Who says I don’t still want that?” Mike blurts, unable to stop himself.

Will blinks, dumbstruck.

“Friends don’t do that,” he whispers again, as if his words were capable of stopping the way he leans in, ever so slightly.

For just one split second of insanity, Mike lets his lips brush against Will’s in the quiet space between songs. For a single moment, the only sound is the spring breeze in the trees and the chirping of crickets.

Head Over Heels interrupts that moment spectacularly. For an instant, Mike considers pausing the music.

He doesn’t.

“So tell me again, what I wanted for my senior prom,” Mike mutters, unable to keep himself from staring at Will’s lips. They glisten, just a little, and Mike can’t help but notice that that’s his own spit causing that. In any other scenario that would probably gross him out, but right now it’s incredibly distracting.

“Don’t tease, Mike,” Will says, his voice hardly more than a whisper. There’s anxiety there, a little fear.

Don't take my heart, don’t break my heart.

“How am I teasing?” he asks, genuinely confused.

Will splays his fingers across Mike’s chest, smoothing the lapels of his jacket just like he did earlier. His pinky lingers next to a goldenrod blossom before he pushes away slightly. Mike’s never been more grateful for the short length of the headphone cables. They stand there like that, Mike afraid to say anything and scare Will away, Will staring at Mike’s heartspace, until the music fades into If You Leave. Internally, Mike screams—Will’s always been good at picking the right music, but this is just ridiculous.

“I mean,” Will starts, just as the song promises one more night, “don’t do all of this if— if you don’t mean it.”

“All of what?” he asks, and he’s genuinely not trying to be difficult. Mike just needs to hear Will say it, needs verbal confirmation before he proceeds and potentially fucks all of this up beyond repair.

Will clicks his tongue, pulling back enough that his headphones slip down and around his neck. Mike still holds him, unwilling to let go. “This! All of this. The— the prom, the slow dancing. Ki-kissing me in the playground where we met… It’s too much, Mike. I can’t— we can’t… It’s just too much.”

Mike releases Will with one hand just long enough to reach into his jacket and pause the music, taking off his own headphones before he replaces his hand firmly on Will’s back.

“So you’re saying that you don’t want this, then?”

The silence of the spring evening is deafening, but he just couldn’t listen to the crooning voice of Andy McCluskey anymore.

“That’s the problem, Mike.” Will’s voice is hardly audible and he’s not looking Mike in the eye. “I do want this, like, too much. And you— and you don’t, so. Don’t tease me. We can just forget this whole thing. Let me go, please. You can take me home now, I’m stone-cold sober.”

“When did you ever ask?” Mike’s struggling to keep his voice level against the shaking of his nerves. “You’re making a lot of assumptions here. You didn’t ask me what I want, so you can’t possibly know.”

When Will finally looks up to meet Mike’s gaze, his eyes are shining in a way that’s too close to tears for Mike’s liking.

“Ask me,” he prompts, trying really hard not to kiss Will again.

Will sighs, resigned. “What do you want, Mike?”

In the space between them, Mike exhales a short breath and tries to concentrate on Will’s eyes rather than his lips. Those eyes that are now welling up with tears.

“I want you,” Mike says simply.

Will jerks his head back, almost as if the words struck him. A tear slips down his cheek with the motion and he swipes at it roughly with his wrist.

“Is that so hard to believe?” he adds, when the silence stretches on a little too long. Mike’s still holding Will with two hands clasped tightly around his lower back, unwilling to let him slip away and end the conversation. When Will nods, still looking away like he doesn’t trust his words and he doesn’t trust his gaze, Mike’s heart crumples a little. He did that.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been kind of confused about my own feelings and haven’t really stopped to consider how you felt.” Will shakes his head and Mike repeats himself, “I didn’t stop to consider how you felt! I was so focused on myself, if I was obsessed with you in like a friend way or if it was possible that I might like, actually—”

Will finally slides his eyes toward Mike’s and the scrutiny there is unnerving enough to steal his words away. Mike feels like a bug under a microscope, but he makes himself hold Will’s gaze for however long it takes for him to find what he’s looking for. Then Will’s lips stretch into a small smile. “Obsessed with me?” he teases, and for a second they’re not hovering along the precipice of the end of their friendship, they’re just Mike and Will again.

Mike rolls his eyes but he reaches up to cradle Will’s face with both his hands anyway. “Yeah, I’m kind of obsessed with you. And maybe friends don’t take their friends to prom or kiss them when that plan fails, but friends also don’t lie. I wouldn’t ever t-tease you,” he stumbles on the word Will used earlier, “I wouldn’t ever do all of this if I didn’t mean it. You’re not— this isn’t a joke.” He strokes Will’s cheeks gently with his thumbs, almost unable to keep himself from leaning in for another kiss. But this is important, so even though he does swipe his tongue over his bottom lip, he keeps a respectful distance. “You know, I kind of agonized about this?”

“Yeah?” Will leans into the touch, and Mike swears his gaze had dropped for a fraction of a second to track the movement of Mike’s tongue.

“After you all clowned on me at lunch that time, I almost wasn’t brave enough to ask you to go,” he clarifies. “And then even after you said yes—”

“I never said yes to going with you,” Will says playfully, interrupting him. “You asked me if I wanted to go alone, together. There’s a difference.”

Mike’s hands drop to brace Will’s shoulders and give him a little shake. “Yeah, I know, asshole. I couldn’t just ask you. And then later, Lucas—he said something like—”

“Wait, Lucas?” Will asks, scrunching his nose.

Mike sighs, exasperated. “Could you just let me talk?” He doesn’t let his voice show it, he never raises his voice at Will. “Yeah, he— he’s been kind of teasing me about you and it sort of made me panic a little.” Will arches an eyebrow and Mike feels his face ablaze. “Like when I was trying to pick something to wear tonight, he thought I was talking about that night we went to the diner? And he said something about you liking whatever stupid sweater I’d wear, which, in my defense, I have some really good sweaters and—”

“Oh, I’ll kill him.” Will’s head drops against Mike’s shoulder. “He only said that because I said one time… God, what a jerk.”

“You said…?” Mike prompts, a giddy feeling rising in his chest despite his embarrassment.

Will sighs. “I said you looked cute in that blue sweater with the weird splotches on it.” Mike chortles and Will snaps his burning gaze up to meet Mike’s. “I swear, I didn’t think anyone was listening and it, it sort of just slipped out? I promise I wasn’t planning on like, preying on you or something and—”

“Woah, woah. Preying on me?”

Mike watches as Will’s adam’s apple bobs around a tense swallow. “Y-yeah. You saw how the librarian looked at us. People in Hawkins don’t really… understand the way I— the way I feel about boys. You. I was afraid if you found out that I… like you… that you’d feel like I was taking advantage of your friendship. And that’s the last thing I wanted! So I figured I wouldn’t ever tell you— and yeah. Here we are anyway, I guess.”

“If anything, I was the one that took advantage of your friendship.” Will freezes as Mike’s words register. “I took advantage of the fact that I just assumed you’d always be there, that I could take my time figuring out my feelings and that you’d still be around and give me a shot once I did. It wasn’t fair to like, flirt with you when I wasn’t even sure what I was doing was flirting.

“So I’m sorry, Will. And I’m gonna be as clear as I can be because I don’t want to mess this up: I like you, like a ton. I like the way you make me feel and who I am when you’re around. I like spending time with you and coming up with the lamest excuses ever—like going alone to prom together—just to spend some time with you away from the party. And I’m really glad you always go along with it, because maybe it means I stand a chance with you if I don’t blow it.”

Mike lets the end of his sentence hang for a few seconds before he laughs nervously. “Come on, I couldn’t get you to shut up a minute ago, say something.”

Instead of indulging him right away, Will envelops Mike in a hug. It’s neither desperate nor pitying, it just is. For a second he doesn’t know what to do about it and he freezes at the feeling of Will’s hands traveling up his back and holding him gently before he lets himself melt into it.

“You didn’t blow it,” Will murmurs, and his voice is so close to Mike’s ear that it sends a shiver down his spine. He releases Mike from the hug but doesn’t let go entirely, returning to their not-quite-dancing stance as he speaks. “And you didn’t take advantage of me, I don’t think you could’ve if you tried. It took me years to untangle the mess inside my head, of course you wouldn’t have figured it out that fast.”

“Years?” Mike asks, dumbfounded. To which Will just rolls his eyes and smiles.

“Yeah, years. I’m talking full-blown crush at age eight, I’m lucky you’re not very self-aware.”

Mike blinks. “That must’ve been so lonely.”

“Not really. I had the party, I had you.” Will flashes a small smile. “Those months in California really showed me that there are places outside of Hawkins where I could be happy, but I’m always at my best when I’m with you guys.”

He slips the headphones from around his neck and places them on Mike’s, backing away with a gleam in his eye. Mike, already missing the contact, follows behind him like a dog, like he always does, until Will sits back on his swing and looks up at him. The orange lighting of the playground’s floodlights paints Will with a golden glow that’s almost ethereal, and just looking at him is so distracting that Mike almost misses what he says next.

“So when you said you wanted me…” His eyelashes are long and they flutter as he blinks. “You meant it?”

Mike gulps, draws a shuddering breath. He reaches to grasp at the swingset chains, just above where Will’s holding on. “In just about every possible way,” he whispers, and he hopes his ragged voice doesn’t sound as desperate to Will as it does to him. “Can— can I kiss you?”

Will pushes back slightly against the ground, straightening his legs and moving away from Mike until their faces are almost level. The action draws Mike with him, though, because he doesn’t let go of the chains, so when they stop moving they’re standing face to face and so, so close.

“Yes, please,” Will responds, ever so politely.

Mike finds Will’s suit lapels and pulls, gently, until there’s no room between them at all. He presses his lips against Will’s solidly, reveling in the sharp exhale the act pulls from him.

Will’s lips are soft, and they move uncertainly at first, and it occurs to Mike that this might just be Will’s second kiss—the first having been stolen by him mere minutes earlier. It isn’t long, though, before Will’s tangling his fingers in Mike’s hair and taking advantage of the gasp he looses, sucking Mike’s bottom lip in a way that makes him feel dizzy. Figures he’d be good at kissing.

They kiss like that for what could be minutes just as easily as it could be hours, Will leaning back against the swing and Mike standing between his legs. Mike’s hands roam, finding the fine hairs at the base of Will’s neck, the mole just under his ear, the thrumming of his heart against his jugular. Will’s own tug at Mike’s curls and ghost over his cheekbones, never once stopping their careful exploration as they kiss.

When they slow, trading lazy kisses back and forth like popcorn, Will lets out a giddy laugh that Mike can’t help but reciprocate.

Glancing at his watch, Mike does a double take—the digits flash 12:13.

“Your mom’s gonna kill me,” he wheezes, dodging Will as he leans in for another kiss. “Let’s go before she sics Hopper on me.”

He pulls Will along behind him, their fingers intertwined as they run across the playground and back to the car. Holly’s favorite song pops into his head as he hears Will’s laughter over his shoulder.

Running just as fast as we can, holding onto one another’s hands.

He smiles.

“Hey, by the way,” Will says once he’s buckled and Mike shifts into first gear. He unpins his boutonniere and holds it up to the window, using the passing light of street lamps to fuel his investigation. “Where did these flowers come from? Weathertop?”

Embarrassed, Mike winces. “Ah, you see. My mom, she kind of tricked me. I think I was pissing her off being nervous about tonight so she told me to get some air and pick her some flowers. She ambushed me with these as I was trying to leave.”

Will chuckles. “The day you outsmart your mom is the day the world really ends.” He spends a moment of thoughtful contemplation, turning the small bundle over in his hands. “Goldenrod, asters, and I think these are firepinks. You might’ve not known what you were doing but damn if you didn’t pick some good ones… New beginnings, trust, l-love.”

“How do you reckon that? They’re just flowers.” Mike gingerly places his gearshift hand on Will’s knee in the interim, silently pleased that Will likes the flowers as much as he’d hoped he would.

“El showed me this book on flower language once,” Will says as they’re turning into his driveway. “Turns out you can say a lot without saying it out loud.”

When Mike kisses Will goodnight on his doorstep, it’s like something right out of a movie. He could stand right here and kiss Will all night, but they’re late for curfew and Hop literally could come out here at any moment to skin Mike alive, so he presses one final kiss to Will’s cheek and turns to go.

“Thanks, for tonight,” Will calls, one hand on the doorknob. “I had fun, you know, despite…”

“Me too.” Mike isn’t really sure what else you’re supposed to say when you drop your prom date off at home so he adds a final, “Call you tomorrow!” as he settles back into the driver’s seat.

He sticks around to make sure Will gets inside okay and purposefully does not look at the porch in the rear view as he goes because he knows what angry, middle-aged glare is waiting on him.

The Walkman with the mixtape rattles around in the backseat and Mike thinks tomorrow he’ll have Will play the whole thing for him, since they didn’t get to hear most of the tracks he picked. For tonight, he’ll look at the picture on his dash and remember the way Will’s fingers felt in his hair.

That’s enough for now.