Work Text:
Rain lashes against the windows of the brownstone, glass rattling against its frame, wooden floorboards creaking and swollen from the damp. It’s cold—cold enough for the loneliness to seep through the cracks in the walls, to flutter in through the open window Carlton left open in the kitchen which, unbeknownst to Will, is the source of the impermeable chill that’s settled in every corner of their quaint Manhattan home.
It’s late. Will sits by the roaring fire, socked feet propped up on the ottoman and a paperback held open in front of his face. Jazz plays from the record player in the corner, an Ella Fitzgerald vinyl Carlton picked up for him one day at a flea market. The rain patters unrelentingly on the bay windows to his right, the half-bare tree branches tapping eerily on the glass. Will glances towards the window, pushing his reading glasses further up his nose and turning his attention back to his book.
The Great Gatsby. He’d realized he’d somehow never read it after Carlton made a reference to it over their spaghetti bolognese the other night, and so, after sifting through cardboard boxes of tattered novels in their basement, he’d managed to procure a well-loved copy.
Will’s attention drifts away from the book during a particularly boring soliloquy about Daisy. He briefly wonders what his boyfriend is doing—drinking those disgusting espresso martinis he claims to love? Dancing to some shitty pop remix in a dingy club and sliding dimes over the grimy bar counter? Carlton had said he was meeting up with high school friends, but in truth, Will didn’t really know what he was doing. With a kiss on the cheek and the flash of a toothy grin, he had slipped out the door without saying much else, let alone giving Will time to ask any questions.
Will doesn’t really mind, anyways. Carlton could be backing a guy up against the club wall for all he cares, as long as he has his books and his tea and his Ella Fitzgerald vinyl. And the rain—god, how he’d learned to love the rain, after leaving Hawkins. It used to remind him of the Mind Flayer because of the chill it always seemed to carry with it, but now—now it’s something soft, something possessing this magical and utterly soporific quality, an ever-present sound in the background that doesn’t let you think too hard about the silence.
And anyways, things with Carlton haven’t… well.
Everything has room for improvement, right? Nothing is perfect, Will reminds himself daily, and especially not relationships. In fact, relationships are probably the number-one thing that always lack perfection, and that’s what’s beautiful about them, right? Loving a person so deeply, so wholly, so entirely that you keep persisting despite their flaws because you believe in something. Loving someone so radically they wonder why. And of course Will loves radically. Loves Carlton radically. He just never expected radical to feel so… weak.
Although, it’s not like Will has much to compare his relationship to. He’s only ever had one boyfriend—Carlton—and one late-night, drunken hookup in his college dorm where he forgot boys aren’t supposed to kiss boys and woke up to a disgusted roommate and a dorm-change request (in addition to an indecency report, despite the fact that said roommate was constantly bringing girls over and Will had never said a thing).
So, ultimately, he can’t be blamed. Not when both Carlton and one-night-stand-boy have unruly black curls that flop over their eyebrows and big, dark brown eyes that take him back to a detergent-scented basement when they flutter just right. Not when they both have that alabaster skin and those delicate wrists and, almost—almost have that godawful, devastating laugh—the one that always had some magical, otherworldly ability to make Will forget about every one of his fears, make him question how he could’ve ever felt anything other than warm before. And, okay, maybe Carlton and one-night-stand-boy only have half of what he’s searching for—nobody really does. That doesn’t mean Will will never be able to love anything… else. Anyone else.
And Carlton—Carlton is the perfect stand-in, Will thinks. Or at least as close as he can get without the real thing. He has it all—the black curls, the brown doe eyes framed by long lashes, the porcelain skin, even the dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose. The affinity for ugly windbreakers. The Reeboks.
And sometimes, if Will closes his eyes, he can convince himself that it’s really—that it’s him. Almost. Almost, because he knows nothing could ever replace the real thing. Not ever.
Like, if Carlton is making dinner and humming along to The Cure, Will can pretend just for a moment that it’s someone… else. But then Will realizes he would probably belt out the lyrics horrifically off-tune rather than hum them quietly, and it’s ruined. Or, sometimes when they’re making love, Carlton will tuck his head into the crook of Will’s neck, and the only thing Will can see are dark curls, and it’s easy. It’s so easy—too easy, probably, to imagine—to wish, so fucking desperately—that it were him.
Always him.
But there are things Carlton does that remind Will, perhaps a bit too vigorously, that he isn’t and will never be him.
He folds his socks the wrong way. Actually, he folds his socks in the first place. He refuses to bike anywhere. He doesn’t like David Bowie—thinks he’s “ostentatious”. He dislikes chocolate covered pretzels, and he takes his coffee without cream or sugar. He wakes up late, when Will is the one that’s supposed to be the late riser. He goes to the gym. He’s actually decent at cooking. He’s never touched a comic book a day in his life. He has no idea what Dungeons & Dragons is. The number eleven means nothing to him, and he can’t talk to will in Morse through finger taps. He prefers the right side of the bed, and Will has never had the heart to speak up and tell Carlton that he prefers the right side. His birthday is in October, when it should be in April. His freckles don’t form Canis Major. He doesn’t smile right, laugh right, love right.
He’s not—fuck, he’s not him.
Will bites the inside of his cheek to keep the tears that are stinging his eyes to keep from spilling. Every time—every fucking time Will thinks he’s finally over it, finally okay about it all—some memory, some ugly reminder that Carlton isn’t him crops up and keeps Will at arm’s length. Always keeping him near, always letting himself stay near.
Will abandons Gatsby, tossing the paperback onto the sofa without bothering to dog-ear the page. He takes off his glasses and aggressively wipes at his eyes, because no, he’s not going to cry over the boy he’s been in love with since kindergarten. He stopped that years ago. He’s not going to start again now. Especially not when his boyfriend is out, and the landline’s right there, and—
Okay, fuck. Shit.
Will stands, tossing his glasses onto the sofa behind him, crossing the living room in three purposeful strides. He hastily removes the Ella vinyl, fumbling with the vinyl sleeve as he shakily slides it back into its cover. As he flips through his record collection, he tries not to think about the folded, crinkled slip of paper with his phone number scrawled across it in messy blue ink, the slip of paper that he keeps stuffed at the back of his sketchbook, the slip of paper he’s kept for five years now, the slip of paper he’s held in trembling hands as he stood in front of the baby blue landline in the hallway downstairs far too many times. The slip of paper he’s held clenched in his fist, rocking back and forth and gasping for air, vision blurred.
No. No, he can’t go upstairs and get it. He can’t.
He has a boyfriend. He—loves his boyfriend, and his boyfriend loves him.
Said boyfriend will come back later, and wrap Will in his rain-soaked arms, and press kisses into his hair. He’ll come home, and they’ll dance in the kitchen with a bottle of wine, and maybe later they’ll make love and fall asleep in each other’s arms with nothing but a thin cotton sheet separating them. And maybe Will will finally understand his Great Gatsby references, even though he truly couldn’t care less, and while he’s at it, he might even pretend to like espresso martinis.
But it would be so easy. So easy to go upstairs and procure that smudged, cataclysmic slip of paper.
Because, realistically, boyfriend probably won’t be home tonight. Boyfriend will probably show up midday tomorrow, hair a mess, words slurred. Or, if he does show up tonight, he’ll be so drunk that Will will have to coax him inside the house and force pizza into his mouth so he doesn’t die from alcohol poisoning (which is usually how it goes on nights like this), and they’ll fall asleep on opposite sides of the bed, and his snoring will be so loud that Will will have to move to the couch (which happens most nights anyway).
Will sighs, procuring a Bowie vinyl and setting it on the player perhaps a bit more harshly than necessary. Runs a hand through his hair. Shivers and wonders where that goddamn chill is coming from, and why the fuck November is so cold this year. Tries not to think about blue ink and black curls, like he does every day.
It’s just as he’s about to settle back on the sofa (to stay up just a bit longer, in case Carlton really does plan on coming home tonight) that he’s startled enough to drop his book.
A knock. On the door.
A knock on the door, despite the fact that it’s nearly midnight and it’s pouring rain outside. Carlton must be home.
With mild surprise, Will slowly rises from the couch, pulling his sweater sleeves over his hands and hugging himself tightly. Why the fuck is it so cold in this house? Will resolves to talk to Carlton about it first thing in the morning.
He shuffles over to the foyer and rubs tiredly at his eyes, too exhausted to lecture his boyfriend about boundaries and communication and shit, and preparing himself for a night full of talking down his blubbering drunk boyfriend, because he knows alcohol makes Carlton nervous, and he’s tried to tell him to not do shit like this, but it’s pointless because he never listens anyways.
Will opens the door, yawning and rubbing at his eyes. “Carly, why are you—”
“Will.”
Will’s eyes shoot open and he freezes in place, a cold dread taking root in the pit of his stomach.
He would recognize that voice anywhere. There was a time where he would follow that voice anywhere, to the ends of the earth—fuck, he still would. He still would.
Will squeezes his eyes shut, like if he just pretends this isn’t happening then it can’t be real. His grip on the doorknob tightens to the point of pain. It stings his hand but he barely even notices.
“Will,” the voice—that fucking voice—repeats with a punched-out breath. Pleading, almost.
Will swallows past the lump in his throat and dares to glance upwards, meeting the man’s eyes. The minute he does, light brown meeting dark, his world is knocked off its axis in a way it hasn’t been in five years—ripping open a healed wound because you miss how it used to bleed. For old time’s sake. Catastrophic, in every sense of the word.
“Mike,” he croaks, and the word is so painful he can barely get it out. It shreds his throat and cuts through his tongue like glass, coming out bloody and mangled and dying someplace in the space between them.
And fuck—oh god, he hasn’t changed one bit, has he?
Those dark curls, drenched and plastered against his wet skin from the rain, rivulets of water dripping down his cheeks and running down the length of his nose. The dark eyebrows that fill every page of Will’s sketchbook, perfectly arched, poised eternally on the cusp of some unplaceable emotion that Will used to spend hours upon hours analyzing and never succeeded in doing. The same eyes—dark, mercurial, ephemeral in the way they are kind, that could gaze at you one second and glare at you the next in an imperceptible but nonetheless devastating shift—now wide and begging, pleading in a way Will has scarce seen them but has him ready to drop to his knees and worship at this man’s feet, to chant yesyesyesyesyesyes to whatever he could possibly ask of him in this moment, and fuck—that’s so dangerous, so dangerous, but Will can’t bring himself to care, because he can see Canis Major freckles sprinkled over a delicate nose bridge, and the dark lashes that are batting at him threaten to bring him to his hands and knees, and Mike’s tongue darts out to wet his full lips—the same lips that Will has spent countless hours imagining against his own, how they feel under his thumb, against his neck, the inside of his thighs—and everything is crashing down on him in a matter of a single moment, every wall he’s built up over the past half a decade crumbling right in front of him, the meticulously-reconstructed reality he’s built away from the boy standing before him being pulled out from under him at breakneck speed, and it’s all so fucking pointless, because Michael Wheeler is standing there on his porch in his rain-soaked work suit, and the only thing Will wants to do in this moment is kiss him until both of them are gasping for air.
So, of course:
“Get out,” Will says, voice surprisingly steady, and as soon as the words leave his mouth he wishes he could take them back, because Mike looks like he just got punched in the gut. And it’s there, in that moment, that Will tips over some invisible edge he’s been teetering precariously on for years, because he knows if Mike doesn’t leave right this fucking second Will will do something both of them will regret.
He slams the door in Mike’s face.
Will turns around and presses his back to the heavy mahogany, letting his head fall back as he wraps his arms around himself and tries to catch his breath. His heart is beating erratically; his breath coming in short, smothered gasps—and suddenly he’s fourteen again, sobbing as he bikes home in the rain after his best friend tells him that “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls!”
It’s his fifteenth birthday, and he’s chasing after his best friend in a rollerskating rink and begging for any semblance of camaraderie that he’ll never end up getting anyways.
He’s sixteen, and he’s climbing a radio tower while holding onto his last shred of hope that maybe, maybe Mike feels the same.
(He doesn’t).
Will takes a deep breath, but it doesn’t really do much. He feels like he’s going to vomit.
A soft knock at the door has will shutting his eyes and covering his mouth with his hand in an attempt to muffle the sobs that fight to tear their way out of him. Fuck, he can’t do this right now—he can’t do this at all, really.
Another knock, harder this time. Rain lashes against the walls of the house like a thousand footsteps.
“Will, please,” a voice begs on the other side of the door, followed by a series of frantic knocks. “Will, fuck, please open up. Please. I know you don’t want to see me. I know you don’t want to talk to me, but if you’d—if you’d just let me explain, just give me five—five minutes, I dunno, maybe ten, or—fuck, more if you want—I can explain everything, I—”
“Go away, Mike.” Will’s voice shakes, and he’s dangerously close to breaking down in the middle of his entryway. He has a boyfriend, but he’s so in love with the man knocking on his front door, and if he would just go back to Boston then Will could just pretend he’s not and everything could go back to normal. Because it’s been working so well the past five years.
And yeah, of course Will knows where Mike lives. Of course he knows. He thinks about packing up his shit and catching the first flight to Boston every fucking day of his life.
“Will, fuck—please, Will, god, I need to talk to you,” Mike pleads from the other side of the door, and if Will didn’t know any better, he’d say he sounds desperate. “Please, Will, please, I’ll do anything you want, anything at all, just open up—we haven’t talked in five years, and—”
“You haven’t called,” Will says, swallowing the sob building up in the back of his throat as he opens the door again. Mike looks truly pitiful standing there—wet curls sticking to his forehead and neck, face crushed into a broken expression, puppy eyes blown wide. And fuck, if Will doesn’t miss him more and more each second. “You haven’t tried to contact me a single fucking time in five years, Mike. This—the last time we talked was when you said goodbye to me when I left for college. That’s it. You haven’t made any fucking effort to even—try to get in touch. Dustin and Lucas both have—so many times, Mike. Fuck, even Max has called me. We were never best friends—”
“Will, please—”
“No, Mike, best friends don’t just forget to call each other for five years—”
“I’m so sorry, I—”
“Let me finish,” Will snaps, huffing and wrapping his arms around himself. The wind blows the November chill into the brownstone, peppering Will’s face with stray raindrops and permeating his very bones with a cold so deep it feels permanent. Mike nods, swallows.
“Best friends,” he continues, tapping his fingers against the fabric of his sweater, “don’t forget to call each other for five years. They don’t forget to send birthday cards. They don’t just conveniently forget to show up to gatherings with their childhood friends—because yeah, I know you’ve been no-showing to whole group reunions but hanging out with Lucas and Dustin individually, because they fucking told me. I’m not stupid, Mike, and I don’t want any of your bullshit excuses, so just—goodbye.”
Will grips the doorknob and begins shutting the door in Mike’s face, resolving to ignore that this situation happened in the first place and return to his predictable life where he’ll kiss his boyfriend and pretend he’s not imagining it’s the man standing on his front porch right now. He’ll go back to shitty espresso martinis and reading books he hates so he can understand his boyfriend’s references, to sleeping on the couch because his boyfriend doesn’t snore right and pretending that he just “woke up early” and that’s why he’s downstairs. And Will tries not to catch a glimpse of Mike’s face—he really, really does, because he knows how weak his resolve is and how easily Mike’s always been able to shatter every ounce of willpower he possesses, and he knows how badly he wants right now—how badly he’s wanted for so long—and he knows damn well that a single bat of those big brown eyes would have him plummeting, and he’d give in, and he’d say yes to anything, and he’d let Michael Wheeler do whatever he wants to him, and that’s the most dangerous thing in the world but they’re already toeing that line right now anyways.
So naturally, Will glances up one last time. And of course it’s the most heartstopping thing in the world, because Mike’s brows are furrowed and folded in a way Will wants to kiss smooth, and his expression is twisted into something Will’s never seen him wear before but he knows he wants gone, and just for a second Will considers swinging the door open, grabbing Mike by the face, and tugging him all the way upstairs to his boyfriend’s bed. But before Will can do much of anything, Mike shoots his arm out and scrambles to stop the door before it gets farther than even an inch.
“I love you,” Mike chokes out, voice cracking.
When Will was a boy, his mother used to always warn him about how fleeting things were, how inevitable change was, how important it was to savor the moment and never take anything for granted. He didn’t understand the notion much when he was younger—how could he? He had his three best friends, and the detergent-scented basement he loved so much, and a shared obsession with a tabletop roleplay game that he could never seem to stop thinking about. And, of course, he had his crayons, and his mother, and his older brother’s walkman mixtape made just for him. Who was he, a simple-minded seven year old boy, to be questioning the inner workings of the universe like that?
Will can pinpoint exactly three cataclysmic, fate-altering moments in his life.
The first one occurred when he was eleven. It’s actually rather insignificant to remember, and stupid, really—sitting cross-legged in Mike’s basement, just the two of them, and watching his best friend’s futile attempts to blow an errant curl out of his face. Will can’t even remember what they were actually doing—he just remembers the singular moment, how the curl kept bouncing back into place no matter what Mike did to brush it out of his face, and how something had slotted into place in Will’s mind; a big, daunting label for the thing he’d been feeling for years but was always too young and too clueless to name. That moment, that realization, would set up every interaction with his best friend from that point forward, bleeding into every conversation and seeping into every glance across crowded rooms.
The second and perhaps the most life-altering event was November 6th, 1983. The day Will went missing. The day he realized that the real world was scary and dark and cruel, and life was not, in fact, limited to his best friend’s dingy basement and his big brother’s mixtapes, but in fact far eviller and far vaster than he could’ve ever imagined. This was the day that Will’s life was turned upside down; a day that would permanently change every single thing about him and every single thing he thought he knew about the world. This was the day that he realized perhaps Joyce was right—that your life can change in a fraction of a second and to never, ever take things for granted.
This precise moment—when the words I love you have slipped out of Michael Wheeler’s mouth and hang suspended in the air between them—Will realizes, is his third cataclysmic, fate-altering moment. He’s distantly reminded of his mother, and her mantra about fleeting time and inevitable change, and suddenly nothing else matters, because Will physically feels every barrier come crashing down all at once within him, and suddenly Carlton is the last thing on his mind as he grips Mike’s collar with both hands and pulls his best friend into the entryway, slamming the door behind them.
“You—what?” he asks with a punched-out breath as he drops his hands back to his sides and takes three safe steps back. Rain runs down Mike’s body, dripping in rivulets and soaking the Persian rug below their feet. Despite Mike being the one who’s just stood outside in the pouring rain, Will is the one shaking.
And god, the way Mike is looking at him—Will wishes he could bottle its essence and keep it on his bedside table. Trademark puppy eyes blown wide, brows pinched with—worry? Care? In typical fashion, Will can’t really tell, but he supposes it doesn’t matter, because the crease between them is begging to be kissed smooth and suddenly that’s all Will can think about. The tip of Mike’s tongue is caught between his lips, like there’s something he wants to say but can’t quite get the words out, the syllables trapped between his teeth.
“I love you,” he says shakily. He blinks, and a raindrop falls from his lashes. Runs down the length of his face. “I’m in love with you, Will.”
Will just stares. What else is he supposed to do? The boy he’s been in love with since as long as he can remember just said he loves him back, and, quite frankly, Will has no idea what to do with that. How do you process words that fundamentally alter… everything? Will certainly has no idea, so he stands there, lips parted like an idiot with not a clue about how to feel in this moment. There is so much sadness, so much rage, and so much leftover love that he carries with him for the man standing, dripping wet, in his entryway. So much of everything. Too much, maybe.
“I’m so in love with you, Will,” Mike breathes, chest heaving, “and I’m so sorry—so fucking sorry I never tried to call.”
Will swallows, some white-hot emotion suddenly bubbling up inside him and threatening to spill over his edges. He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Will chokes out, shaking his head. “You’re not—you’re not in love with me, Mike.”
Because of course he’s not. Mike is—Mike likes girls. Mike has always liked girls, and he’s made it very clear.
A white hand delicately circles Will’s wrist, gently pulling it away from his face. Will looks up, meeting Mike’s eyes. There are worlds within them.
He shakes his head, slow, purposeful. “No,” he says, voice low in a way that makes some awful heat pool at the base of Will’s spine. “No, Will, I do know what I’m talking about. I know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Will swallows, scanning Mike’s face, searching desperately for any sign that this is a prank, that he’s gravely mishearing, that none of this is real. The warmth from Mike’s hand that still circles Will’s wrist seeps into his skin and seems to warm the chill that’s settled into the marrow of his bones, the chill that permeates the wooden floorboards of this house like a disease.
Will releases a punched-out breath, because not a thing on Mike’s face suggests that this isn’t real. In fact, he’s never seen him more sincere.
“Will,” Mike breathes, barely more than a whisper, something meant for only the two of them.
“Mike,” Will croaks, the words nearly getting caught in his throat, hot tears pricking the backs of his eyes dangerously. “I have a boyfriend.”
Mike pauses, eyes scanning Will’s face, his grip on him loosening slightly. His lips part on a soft breath.
“You do?” he asks after a beat, voice low. He tugs his bottom lip between his teeth, eyes flicking back and forth between Will’s.
Will nods, albeit hesitantly. “Yeah,” he manages to choke out hoarsely.
“Where is he?” Mike asks, dropping Will’s hand unceremoniously, eyes shuttering as some invisible barrier goes up between them. He’s suddenly unreachable, closed off—in the same way he used to do when they were kids. Will sees right through it. “I want to meet him.”
Will shakes his head in disbelief, scoffing. “Now you wanna be polite.”
And then Will takes one purposeful stride, effectively closing the space between them. He grabs Mike’s collar with both hands and tugs him down to his level, pressing his lips to Mike’s so hard that their teeth knock together, because only god knows how long he’s been waiting to do this.
It’s not so much a kiss as it is Will punching Mike in the face with his lips, because love and rage are two sides of the same coin anyways, a double-edged sword, and Will’s a little too familiar with the way the hilt feels.
The kiss is chaste—not long or lingering, no movement or opening of mouths. Will’s eyes are squeezed shut, but when he pulls away and dares to meet Mike’s gaze, he finds the other man’s eyes blown wide in surprise, a lovely pink color painting his cheeks and nose. God, he forgot Mike blushes on his nose.
“Your… boyfriend,” Mike stammers, eyes ricocheting back and forth between both of Will’s like a ping pong ball, searching. Will only tightens his grip on Mike’s collar, slowly running his hand up the length of Mike’s throat and cupping the back of his neck.
“He’s not you,” Will breathes, shaking his head as he looks up into Mike’s eyes. “Nobody’s you.”
And there it is. That look. The one that Will has only ever seen Mike use on Eleven before, the one that used to linger in the forefront of his mind as he’d gasp into his pillow at night, the one that fills every page of his sketchbook. His heart, his muse, every doodle in the margins and every word written between the lines, standing right in front of him with his lashes fluttering and a soft sigh tumbling from his parted lips.
And then Mike’s near, like he never has been before, tangling his fingers in the hair at the base of Will’s skull and pulling him close, eyes fluttering shut, pressing his lips against Will’s so softly, like he’s scared he’ll shatter if he pushes too hard. Like he’ll break under his touch.
Will’s breath hitches in his throat. Fuck—he doesn’t—okay, so the boy he’s been in love with for his entire life is kissing him, and he suddenly doesn’t know what to do or how to think—but then Mike’s other hand comes up and cups Will’s face, and his thumb gently traces Will’s cheekbones, and it’s doing such lovely, horrible things to him, and suddenly there’s not much else to do other than melt into the boy his mouth is pressed against.
Will sighs, mouth opening as he searches for more. Mike takes Will’s bottom lip between his teeth, and oh—there’s his tongue, slow and lovely and searching, opening Will up and uncovering parts of him he’d thought he’d hidden away. Will can taste him, can taste Mike everywhere in his mouth, and he’s so sweet, fuck—like brown sugar, leaving everything a saccharine, cloying mess.
“I’m so in love with you,” Mike mumbles against Will’s mouth. He swallows every syllable, lets them tumble down his throat and ricochet against his ribs, fizzing golden and warm somewhere just above his stomach. Lets the warmth spread from his core to the very tips of his fingers and toes.
And then no, no—Mike is pulling away, and Will chases desperately after his lips, but Mike’s hands come and hold his face in place so gently.
Both of their chests are heaving from the emotion, from the culmination and subsequent release of years and years of this damned back and forth they’ve so memorized.
“What?” Will whispers, horrified to find his voice come out whiny. “Come back.”
The corners of Mike’s lips twitch, briefly. His thumb softly traces the arch of Will’s brow, smooths down the hairs.
“Bowie, hm?” he asks, chuckling.
Will blinks at him slowly. Fuck, the vinyl. It’s still playing from the living room.
“Bowie,” Will parrots back, shrugging. “He’s timeless.”
Mike smiles. A real, teeth-and-all smile. A rain droplet runs from his soaking hair down his face, and Will wipes it away with his thumb. Mike leans into the touch.
“I drove straight here after work, you know,” he says, gazing at Will through dark lashes.
“Mike, it’s almost four hours,” Will croaks.
“Yeah? Well, I made it in three,” he says, kissing the palm of Will’s hand that still lingers on his face. “I sped all the way here.”
“God—why?”
Mike covers Will’s hand with his own, lacing their fingers together.
“The painting,” he says softly.
“The—fuck,” Will curses, breath catching in his throat. The painting. He hasn’t thought about the painting in years. If he’s being honest, he thought Mike forgot about it too.
But—Will never explained its origins to Mike. He never told him that El didn’t commission it, so how—
“Jonathan,” is all Mike says. “Jonathan told me everything.”
Will releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding, scanning Mike’s face. “Jonathan told you everything,” he parrots back.
Mike nods. “I came as soon as I could. I—fuck, Will, he told me everything. We—we fought about something stupid, and he said that you had—god, it doesn’t even matter, does it? I’ll explain it all, but I guess what I’m trying to say right now—fuck, this is hard.”
Mike runs a stressed hand through his curls, and Will cups his face in his hands. Mike meets Will’s gaze and leans into his touch.
“It’s you, Will,” he says softly, and Will swears his name has never sounded so beautiful. “It’s you. Of course it is. It’s always been you. Dunno how I ever missed it.”
“It’s me?” Will asks, voice trembling, chest aching.
Mike nods, circling one of Will’s wrists and kissing his palm, his fingers, the creases of his skin. “It’s you, Will. I’m so—you have no fucking idea how sorry I am for not realizing it sooner. I probably did, and that’s why I never tried to get in touch, because I was—fuck, I was so scared, and even if I haven’t had a name for it until now, it’s always been there, it’s always—and it’s so strong it scares me, Will—you scare me, you know that? Because you’re so sure of yourself, and you know yourself so—well, and you came to terms with this part of you when you were, like, sixteen, and—and I’ve been chasing that for years without realizing, and I’ve hurt you so badly in the process, and I’m so fucking sorry, you have no idea, baby, I’m so fucking sorry—”
“Mike.”
“—and I love you, William Byers, so much it scares me, so much it takes over every part of my life, it’s—fuck, I love you.” Mike’s voice cracks as he kisses frantically down Will’s wrist. “I love you.” Kiss. “I love you.” Another kiss, a little farther down. “I love you I love you I love you. I know I don’t deserve you,” he whispers into Will’s skin, “but god knows that doesn’t mean I want you any less. And all I’ve ever done is—is hurt you, but I’m so selfish, and you’re the only thing I want, the only thing I’ve ever wanted, really, so—fuck your boyfriend, fuck everyone who’s ever had you, because I want you all to myself. Mine, all mine.”
Will just stares. This isn’t happening, right? This can’t be happening. But it is, and it has to be, because Michael Wheeler is tracing shapes down Will’s face and gazing at him so reverently Will feels sick with it. He swallows and seems to get over whatever invisible force is holding him back, because now he’s nodding so frantically he feels dizzy, and he’s grasping at the front of Mike’s shirt, desperate for purchase as his world gets kicked off kilter.
“Yes, yes,” Will chokes out, his voice a shaky and broken thing. “Yours. Yours, Mike. I’m yours.”
And then Mike takes Will’s face in his hands and they’re kissing again, because sometimes words just aren’t enough.
Will sighs, looping his arms around Mike’s neck and tangling his fingers in the sopping dark curls. Mike grips Will’s hips and pulls, bringing their bodies flush together, and then he’s pressing his palms into the small of Will’s back, running his hands up and down Will’s waist, carding fingers through his hair and over his neck and tugging on the end of his sweater like he’s never touched Will in his life, and he needs to feel or he’ll starve.
“Mine,” Mike gasps, coming up for air and pressing his lips to the corner of Will’s mouth. He moves lower, pressing warm kisses to Will’s jaw. “Mine,” he whines between each one. “Mine, mine mine,” he repeats like a prayer as he moves down Will’s neck, sucking and nipping and leaving marks Will won’t be able to explain to Carlton.
Oh, fuck Carlton. Who gives a shit about Carlton? Certainly not Will—not when Mike’s flattening his tongue and running it along the length of his collarbone, murmuring needy mines into Will’s skin like he’s praying to a god.
Mike trails kisses back up Will’s neck until he meets his mouth, where he presses his lips against Will’s slowly, softly, and works him open a second time with that tongue. It’s hot and wet and sweet, their breaths mixing together, lips slipping against each other, and Will doesn’t know where he ends and Mike begins. It’s slow, lazy, languid, as if they haven’t been waiting their whole lives for this, and it’s sweet enough to rot Will’s teeth out.
Will bites down on Mike’s bottom lip, swallowing the whine that comes from the back of the other boy’s throat, and from then on it’s all cotton stuffed into Will’s ears and white buzzing in his head, and fuck, he’s—oh, god, he’s dizzy, because Mike is baby blue skies and rusty metal and cotton candy and Tide detergent, and Will is so tired—tired of waiting, tired of being patient, tired of smiling politely and nodding where he’s supposed to and never taking what he wants. And, really, he’s never wanted anything more than the boy whose fingers are dipping below his waistband, whose dripping wet hair he has his own fingers tangled in—the boy who’s whispering I love you over and over again into Will’s open mouth. And Will has every single intention of dragging this boy upstairs and making love to him in his boyfriend’s bed and never, ever letting him go.
And so he takes what he wants for the first time in his life.