Archive of Our Own

The problem, Mike decides, begins promptly at breakfast.

“Michael, I need you to take your sister to school this morning,” his mother announces, back turned, idly pouring herself a cup of coffee with an unusual amount of enthusiasm, given the time of day. 

Mike’s eyes narrow at his mother, who is never this chirpy when talking about his relations with his sister. Now that Holly’s grown into her own thin, gangly limbs, she’s taken on about as much temper as Mike himself: poking and prodding at her brother, asking absurd questions, tugging on his sleeve in the middle of the night when she can’t sleep. Mike would be lying if he said these matters didn’t tick a nerve, but it’s not like he or anyone else in his family can hold any kind of resentment towards her. She happens to be quite adorable, a stark contrast from Mike’s frog-like features at her age, courtesy of her striking blue eyes and round cheeks and the dainty speckles that lace her face — but what she possesses in cuteness she lacks in empathy. Like Nancy, Mike finds himself picking fights more often than none, his sister clipping sharp remarks to embarrass him whenever the opportunity avails. 

Their mother is no stranger to their odd sibling relationship. She happens to witness the bulk of it, in fact, as Mike rarely finds himself associating with his family outside of dinner. (A very true and very sad statement, though Mike can’t find himself wanting to converse when all they do is make fun of his hair, or pretend that the silence endured at supper is bearable). His mom is always scolding him about how, since Nancy’s off at college, Holly needs a good role model in her life. That she wishes the two got along better, despite Mike’s attempts to explain that their quarrels are just standard sibling bickering. Her sudden liveliness, he concludes, must be a direct attempt to persuade Mike into her demands, pretty please, with a cherry on top.  

Karen pivots on her heels, nails clacking against the glassy granite countertop. She squints at him slightly, like she’s judging him. Mike doesn’t exactly blame her; he’s wearing a loose striped sweater that he’s only half-bothered to tuck into his pants, worn sloppy by his unkempt curls, a result of the fit he had stifled in the bathroom with a pair of kitchen scissors only half a year prior. Despite this, she manages a strained, plastic smile. It makes Mike shudder, having rendered not much different from the ones she gives the other mothers of Hawkins, sheltered by their suburban ways.

Intrinsically, Mike’s line of vision trails from his mother to his sister. Holly Wheeler is wise by nature, but she’s also seven-years-old, which means breakfast is just about the most interesting thing about her day. An assortment of blueberries fall out of her hand and into her glass of milk, a dense white gloop splashing onto the hem of Mike’s sweater. 

He turns back to his mom, eyebrows raised, as if to ask, Are you seeing this shit? Though, it’s not like he could ever actually say that to her face, so he only clicks his tongue and groans. “ Mom .”

“Uh — you better change your tone, young man,” Karen scolds. “Your father’s car broke down this morning and I am not letting your sister bike to school by herself.” She gestures with her free hand to the window, even though the blinds are stamped shut.

Despite Hawkins having remained perfectly in-tact for months, his mother is still paranoid of another ‘earthquake’. Mike at least understands where she’s coming from. Hawkins is strangely peaceful, but he knows it’s only a matter of time until One emerges again. Though, Mike doesn’t appreciate his mother’s insistence that Holly must be driven to school every day, but that she figures he and Will are well enough to bike on their own accord.

Mike watches as Holly shoots a milk-infused blueberry into her mouth. “That’s disgusting, Hols.” 

“ You’re disgusting,” Holly retorts, eyeing Mike’s own plate of scrambled eggs engulfed in maple syrup. 

“ You two .”

Their eyes snap back to their mother. 

She glares at Mike, heels digging into the floor. “All I ask is that you take Holly to school this morning and the next until your father’s car is fixed. Can you please be a good big brother and do that for her?”

Holly snorts. “Yeah, Mike, can you be a good big brother and—”

“ But —”

“No buts, Michael.” She wipes her skirt with the back of her hand. “Finish your breakfast and take her out at eight.”

Mike’s head slacks back against his chair. In parallel, Holly dramatically sighs beside him, and Mike has to dig his nails into the tablecloth to stop himself from shoveling the blueberries down her throat. 

Listen — if Holly were any other person, he wouldn’t be nearly as indignant. But the issue lies in Holly’s sheer liveliness: her tendency to trail off on her own, the fact that she might be the slowest biker in the world, her utter reluctance to listen to her big brother. That, and: his morning ride to school is the only time he gets to bask in his own thoughts. It’s his favourite part of the day. Especially because, well, he gets to talk about absolutely, nonessential nonsense with his best friend.

“I wish Nancy was here,” Mike hears Holly mutter, just barely, under her breath. She shoves a waffle in her mouth.

Mike doesn’t have it in himself to contain the eye-roll. 

A little over a year and a half ago, his family had grown from five people to seven, courtesy of Will and Jonathan’s lack of a home in Hawkins and his mother’s persistence to give them a place to stay. They quickly shrunk back down to five when Nancy and Jonathan had left for college — Emerson and NYU, respectively. But Mike had insisted Will stay, even when Hopper’s trailer had proved large enough for him and the rest of the Byers-Hopper family. It was easier this way, Mike thought, with his house so much closer to the school, the trailer on the other side of Hawkins. Will spends weekdays at the Wheeler’s hiding in Nancy’s old room, leaving a noticeable Will-shaped hole when he departs for the trailer on the weekend. Karen likes to trumpet that Will’s a part of the family now, but it sure doesn’t feel like it, given the brevity of his company. He’ll spend the night and the morning, bike to school with Mike, then disappear to who knows where — the radio station, Lucas’ or Dustin’s, the hospital. Mike hasn’t asked about his whereabouts in a while. All he knows is that Will returns around dinner, and then he gets Will all to himself.

Anyway.

Nancy. Mike was thinking about Nancy. 

Well — Holly clearly has a favourite sibling, even though she’s six states away and more than a decade older. And sure, Mike knows he’s not the best brother in the world. He’s impulsive and irrational and sometimes a piece of shit, but he really doesn’t like the implication that Nancy is better than him in every way, shape, and form. 

“Why,” Mike starts, “because you like her so much more and talk shit about me on the phone —”

“ Language ,” his mother tsks .

“Yeah, Mike, language .”

“Great,” Mike grumbles, scarfing down the last of his scrambled eggs. “Holly, you know you don’t have to repeat everything Mom says, right?”

Holly shrugs, tugging on the collar of her jumper. “Is Will coming?” 

The mention of Will is startling. “I mean — probably,” Mike mutters, carrying his dish to the kitchen. “Unless he wants to bike to school by himself.” 

Peering down at the sink, Mike notices a patterned plate covered in crumbs at the top of the pile. Will’s. It’s the one he always uses, for some reason. 

Mike frowns.

It’s not exactly out of the ordinary for Will to avoid him these days, but this is a new low. And — okay — Mike gets that Wheeler family breakfast and dinner aren’t exactly the most thrilling pursuits of the day, but they’re supposed to be best friends. Which, by proxy, means they’re supposed to have each others’ backs. Mike doesn’t like having to endure Holly’s retorts and his mother’s insistence to point out all of his flaws without being able to whisper something stupid into Will’s ear afterwards. His laugh makes it worth it. 

But Will’s been weird, lately. Waking up early just to have breakfast without speaking to Mike. Pretending he doesn’t catch Mike’s eye by their lockers, or in their shared History class. Trickling to Nancy’s — his room at nine pm sharp, without saying goodnight. Mike’s fucked up in the past, yeah, but he thought he was being a better friend now. He doesn’t understand why there’s some giant, gaping tear in the midst of their relationship, that they’ve been working so inextricably hard to ignore. And okay — that sounds a little weird. Not like a relationship , relationship, because they’re not romantically involved, but more of a friendship, because a friendship is a relationship, right? He just doesn’t understand why Will was so fixated on mending their relationship over Spring Break, but when Mike had begun to rekindle what was lost, Will wasn’t holding up his end of the bargain. 

Mike just wants to call Will his best friend and have the term fit. Not a loose definition they feel they must abide by. 

As Mike tosses his plate into the sink, he quickly remembers the task at hand. He turns to stare at Holly, who looks as if she’s just spent twenty-four hours withstanding Indiana heatstroke, and raises an eyebrow. “ Why ?” he asks, although the answer is quite apparent to anyone who’s spent the last week with her. 

“No reason,” she blurts, shoving a blueberry down her throat in an attempt to obscure the blush that has crept over her face. Yeah, right , Mike wants to say, with an excessively theatrical eye-roll to accompany it. Her massive crush on Will Byers should be palpable to all of Indiana at this point. 

Something sour tinges Mike’s stomach as he comes to think of this, and it’s only when his mother asks him to fetch Will so they can be out the door in the next ten minutes that he realizes what it is. 

It’s jealousy , his brain supplies, while he clambers up the stairs to Will’s room, though he quickly suppresses it on account that it doesn’t make any sense. Why would he be jealous about Holly’s crush on Will? For one — Holly’s like, seven-years-old, meaning her dreams of being Will’s girlfriend will never extend past the boundary of her imagination. And it’s not like someone having a crush on Will is a foreign concept; Will’s toothy grin and broad shoulders pretty much make him this year’s Steve Harrington. But this bitter feeling, the one that brews in Mike’s stomach this very moment, the one that makes his chest tense to the point where he feels like he can’t breathe, is the very one he gets whenever he sees a girl mindlessly flirting with his best friend. A feeling so strong, Mike can only wish El will open another gate to let Vecna and his goons swallow the entire population of Hawkins. 

It’s jealousy , his brain says again, and Mike digs his fingers into the wood of the railing. He’s not — he’s not jealous . There’s not even a reason to be jealous. Maybe it stings a little, sure, when every girl in their history class saunters to Will for help with the homework when, hello , Mike is right there, but it’s not like Mike could be jealous of that. He’s scrawny, ill-tempered, and quite unapproachable to anyone he doesn’t know. He completely understands why they all flock to Will and not him. Will’s a good looking guy, objectively so. He has nice arms and a nice smile, and his dorky haircut is unfathomably not-so dorking-looking anymore. Mike can all see where they’re coming from — he has eyes . But Mike’s not jealous of that. That’s not it. 

Listen, Mike’s not dumb , okay? He’s had the highest grade in his class for every English course he’s taken at Hawkins High and has never gotten under an eighty-five percent in a single one of his classes. (Except, maybe, Spanish in freshman year — although that’s a frankly unrelated matter.) But he’s a little life dumb when it comes to feelings. And not like, feelings feelings, because that’s not what’s going on between him and Will — but it’s in his nature to be a little confused about anything involving his emotions. His brain is constantly whirring. It hasn’t left him alone since seventh grade. He’s not jealous of Holly having a crush on Will. That’s ridiculous. It’s not like he has a crush on — 

Mike quietly raps against Will’s door. He takes a second to fix his mused hair in the reflection of the doorknob, because he — well, he actually doesn’t know why he does that. He just doesn’t want to look like he went through every emotion he has ever experienced during his ten second trip up the stairs. His hand lingers on the doorknob briefly, afraid he’ll somehow lose his balance and plummet back down the stairs. 

For a moment Mike wonders if he had knocked on Will’s door too quietly, because it’s taking Will an awful lot of time to answer — but then it’s unfastening with a soft click , and Will is standing in front of him, looking ever so flawless, muttering, “Oh. Hi.”  

“Hi,” Mike parrots, suddenly remembering the reason he’s up here in the first place. “I have the worst news ever.”

Will smiles. “That’s Mike Wheeler code for ‘something miniscule ruined my day.’ ” 

“Shut up,” Mike blurts, just as Will opens the door further to let Mike wander inside. He quickly tidies the mess on his desk: comics, sketchbooks, and oil pastels strewn across the plywood. 

Mike briskly inspects the condition of the room, which, as his observation concludes, is the exact same as it had been when he was last here, two days ago. But — Mike figures two days ago could have been two years ago and there wouldn’t have been much of a difference, because it’s not like the room has changed much from when Nancy inhabited it. 

Nancy had taken all the tacky posters and trinkets with her to New York, leaving Will a pretty much blank canvas, but it’s stayed the same ever since last August. Will hadn’t wanted to change anything, even the striped pink wallpaper, which, albeit a little girly, remains quite dreadfully hideous. He felt he was ‘intruding in on the space ’ or something along those lines. Sometimes Mike wished he had the courage to ask Will to stay in his room instead. It’s not like they haven’t before… and it would mean they’d get to at least wake up together. But not in a weird way, obviously. It’s not like Mike has a crush on —

“ So ,” Will drawls, seemingly confused about why Mike had barged into his room and then spaced out for, like, two minutes, “the bad news?” 

Mike blinks. 

“It better be something horrible,” Will says, “to make up for all of this. Um.” He waves a hand around aimlessly in the air. “ Build up .” 

This is enough to crack Mike, a snort escaping his nose. The way they bicker, like it’s something they can fall back into after prolonged periods of time without conversation, relieves the slight awkwardness of their friendship. 

Mike flops on the bed, completely forgetting about his mother’s requests to be out the door by eight. Forget about school, screw Holly’s elementary education — Mike wants to bask in as much of Will as he can before they disperse into their respective classrooms, before Will pulls away again and avoids Mike the entire afternoon. 

Mike’s smile falters faintly, before he feels the weight of Will landing beside him. His hand flexes, cheeks tinging rouge. 

“We have to take Holly to school,” Mike musters eventually. The knot in his stomach has completely vanished; it’s instead replaced with the rapid pulse of his heart, and Will is close, so close , oh my god —

“Wow,” Will deadpans. “That sounds awful . How will we ever move on from this tragedy?”

Mike rolls his eyes, deciding to test the waters — bridge the gap, even — by poking Will in the ribs. The resulting reverberating sound of Will’s laugh is enough to make Mike’s cheeks burn at record breaking temperatures. It makes Mike wonder, fleetingly, why there’s a tremor in their relationship to begin with. 

“It’s a tragedy,” Mike says, “because she’s the slowest biker in the world, and very, very annoying.” He elects not to mention the fact that he loves his morning ride to school with Will and Will only more than anything in the world. “I was kind of looking forward to a morning of peace.”

“She’s not so mean to you when I’m around,” Will says.

Mike shoots him a look. That’s the whole problem .

“What?” Will asks, hurt entwining his face, as if Mike just glared daggers at him. 

“Do you seriously not know?” 

Will’s expression remains vacant until his eyebrows furrow. 

"For one," Mike sighs, propping onto one elbow to look at Will properly, "Holly definitely has a crush on you." 

Will squints, just barely, lips curling up in amusement. It takes Mike an excruciatingly long time to detect what exactly Will thinks of this matter, but what comes out is soft, mellow, and not particularly to Mike’s enjoyment: "That's kind of cute." 

“It is not ,” Mike hisses, and Will shoots him a grin. “She always talks about you, always giggles whenever you talk to her, and because she's like, incredibly adorable, and you’re so good with kids, I'm going to be trailing behind you guys like a total loser because she hogs you.”

"Wait," Will blurts, brows drawing close. "Are you jealous ?" 

That’s it. Mike is going to lose it. 

“ No ,” Mike says quietly, although harsher than anticipated, feeling increasingly less convinced of the fact at hand. His mouth says no but the blush on his cheeks says yes , the abnormally wide radius of his pupils says totally , and the violent beat of his pulse screams of course . 

So maybe Mike’s a little jealous, after all.

“No,” Mike says again, mouth downturned at the notion of Will even mentioning this construct, like it’s something all of Hawkins is aware of. “I just think Holly forgets that you’re my best friend,” he manages. “Not hers.” 

At this, a flood of guilt swells Mike’s chest. It makes him seem like he’s borderline possessive of Will, which he’s not , to be clear, but — it takes him back to a time of mid-June heat and damp foreheads, of cherry Slurpees and neon lights, of spit swapped until curfew. He had kept El all to himself before, and look where that got him! He’s surprised his ass doesn’t hurt from how much it’s been dumped on the floor. 

And — well, even if Mike has been trying to convince his parents to take Holly back to whatever evil doorstep they found her on, Will’s allowed to be nice to Mike’s sister. His annoying, exasperating, ambitious sister, at that. 

“Well, Holly’s obviously my favourite Wheeler,” Will says simply, because of course he has to be funny and clever and all the things Mike is not, “so I think you’ll have to revoke that statement.”    

Even still, Mike manages a smile. He always does, with Will. “Don’t tell Holly that,” he says. “Her head will get too big.” 

“Noted.” Will gently rises off the bed, leaving a firm dip in the mattress where his body had once been. He turns back suddenly, pointing at Mike. “Hey, by the way —”

Holly swings the door open, almost knocking Will over in the process. Her eyes find Mike, still strewn across the bed. 

“Mike!” she says rashly, clad in her bright orange puffer jacket and comically large backpack. “Come on . We’re going to be late .”  

Great . 

Mike narrows his eyes at her. It’s some attempt to dismay her for interrupting him and Will so suddenly, knowing that the rest of their day will be swallowed by boring lectures and different lunch periods, no alone time at all. Here he was, thinking he was actually going to get somewhere with Will this time, get him to open up, strengthen their bond as a whole — but of course Holly had to barge in, because she needs to ruin Mike’s life at least a little bit. 

Holly groans, cocking her head out the door. “Let's go .” 

“I’m going, I’m going ,” Mike sighs, raising his hands in silent acquiescence. He wonders what Will had wanted to say before Holly intruded in on them.

Mike squeezes past his sister, noting the way her face screws into a shy smile  once she notices Will in the doorway. “Hi Will,” she squeaks, hand wrapped around the doorknob like a lifeline.

Will beams, ruffling the top of Holly’s hair as he passes by. “Morning, Holly.”

It’s no surprise that Holly breaks out into the biggest grin Mike has ever seen. 

Mike does not think about how the redness that blooms on Holly’s face eerily parallels the same red on Mike’s. He does not think about the way they both somehow go rigid in the presence of Will, and he definitely does not think about that stupid doorknob, how it serves as the one true stabiliser that keeps them both from succumbing to mush. 

They go in Mike’s ear and out the other, because, well — he never was much of a sensible overthinker. 

It’s only when Mike whispers, “ Told you ,” into Will’s ear soon afterwards, completely intending to refer to Holly’s extremely patent crush, that he’s not sure whether he’s talking about Holly or himself. 

Oh well. It’s Wheeler family blood anyway. 

☆

They’re out the door within the next minute — not before Will insistently zips up Holly’s jacket to ensure she doesn’t catch a cold, or before double-checking that she packed her lunch, making Mike a little insecure of the fact that he hadn’t spared any of these matters a second thought — but it’s at least fast enough by Karen Wheeler standards. 

As suspected, Will and Holly take up the two lanes of street side-by-side, leaving Mike trailing behind them. He tries not to think about his sister cutting into his Will time by focusing on the pleasant ambience of the street, the quiet groan of trees, the muted colours of autumn. Fall’s always been a difficult season for him. It habitually elicits nightmares and plagues of anxiety, but it’s always been his favourite. With Halloween over, he’s just anxiously awaiting the last of the leaves to fall for the snow to finally rake in. He’s trying to admire as much of it as he can.

Mike can only vaguely comprehend Holly and Will’s conversation from behind. The talk mutates from a heated and emotionally-charged ramble about Holly’s Spanish teacher, to Holly’s excellence in violin, to juvenile, elementary school gossip. Something about some bratty girl pushing Holly over during recess, humiliating her in front of the entirety of second grade.  

“And there I go!” Holly exclaims. “ Bam ! Right onto the floor. She didn’t even say sorry .” 

Will raises his eyebrows, scoffing — or, maybe even snorting — at Holly’s vivid narration. “Wow. That’s pretty brutal. Sorry, Hols.” 

“Thanks,” Holly grins. At least she’s keeping her eyes on the road like a responsible biker. Mike would probably be staring at Will like some weirdo, if he were in her place. “And all because she thought my drawing of her was bad . Can you believe it?” 

“She’s an asshole, is what she is,” Will says, making Holly erupt into a fit of giggles. 

Mike should probably be more upset at this. He should, like the big brother he is, demand that Holly give him every detail of this girl — her full legal name, where she lives — and show up on her doorstep, threatening to wound her if she ever hurts his little sister again. But he’s a little more indignant to the fact that Holly won’t pass up the opportunity to tattle when Mike curses, but happily gives Will all praise when he does it. 

“I’m sure your drawing was great, Holly,” Will assures. “Art’s subjective. Not everyone is going to like it, but as long as you do, it’s got to count for something, right?” 

Mike chews on the inside of his cheek. Maybe Will hanging out with Holly isn’t such a bad thing. He’s actually good at giving advice, a complete contrast to the quip Mike would have spluttered, had Holly been talking to him. It’s no wonder why Holly has a crush on him. Had Mike been seven-years-old and awkwardly rambunctious, he’d probably have a crush on Will too.

Holly sighs sheepishly. “Thanks. But I’m definitely not as good as you.”

 — and also a girl. That’s important to note. Mike can’t forget that part.

Will smiles politely at Holly. The sound of his chuckle from ahead makes Mike tighten his grip on his handlebars. 

His heart is racing.

He’s pretty sure it’s not supposed to do that.

“Hey Will,” Holly asks, just as Mike’s chest starts to tense, “can we watch Robin Hood after school today?” 

Will squints. “Again?” It’s hard not to notice the strands of his hair, surprisingly, at a length Mike’s never seen before, flittering against the wind. He looks like he could blend in with the posters strewn all over The Hawk . Of course, Mike probably looks ridiculous in this weather: tufts of hair scuttling into his mouth, eyes watering as a result of the chill. He makes a mental note to scout his surroundings for teenage girls or Hawkins High students in their general vicinity. Will exhales courteously, shoulders slumping as he says, “Holly, we just watched it last week.” 

If there were any teenage girls around, Mike knows exactly what they would be thinking. Will looks good right now — cute, even, the orange autumn radiance illuminating off his cheeks. And — of course, this is all from an objective standpoint. Objectively speaking, if there were any teenage girls around, they would all think Will looked extremely kissable, too.

Wait, what? 

“Can we, though?” Holly pouts. “You totally skipped the last one!” 

Mike squeezes his eyes shut.

Kissable ? 

What is wrong with you ?

“Hm. I don’t know,” Will hums, just as Holly makes a sharp turn onto Loch Nora. “We’ll have to ask Mike.” 

Mike almost falls off his damn bike.

“Huh — what?”

Will blinks hastily as he tosses Mike a look over his shoulder. His lips are pursed slightly, and his eyes are all soft and sweet and gorgeous in the bruised November glow. “Mike?” Will asks, and Mike only gives a firm nod in response, because he doesn’t think he has it in himself to respond in words. “What do you think?” 

Maybe — and this is just, like, an educated guess — Mike thinks he wants to kiss Will Byers. 

“Uh — sure,” Mike says instead, even though he’s already sat through Robin Hood a good five times this month, at the sheer expense of his little sister’s numbing insistence and his own boredom, and would have bitterly refused on any other occasion. 

Mike cringes.

Will rolls his eyes, throwing Holly an amused look. “Looks like it’s settled.” 

“Perfect!” Holly squeals. “I’ll get Mom to make us popcorn this time. Oh ! And I almost forgot to tell you about the new unit we’re doing in science, it’s about living organisms and the Earth and….”

The rest of Holly’s words filter out against the wind as Mike bikes wordlessly along the rest of the path. Winding roads that he knows like the back of his own hand seem so foreign under this light. Maybe it’s no surprise that he wants to kiss Will Byers — in fact, he thinks he’s wanted to for quite some time — but there’s something else he wants that he can’t quite place his finger on. It makes his brows crease, having been so opposed to Holly tagging along with them, only for a strange, poignant feeling to brew in his stomach, right now. Watching Will act so kind with Holly, so gentle and attentive, like it’s something that just is , is weirdly cathartic, as simple as it seems. 

Mike bites the inside of his mouth hard enough to draw blood. He doesn’t look at them the rest of the way.

☆

Holly squeezes half-heartedly, arms wrapped around Mike’s middle as he awkwardly bends to return the hug. The execution is a little difficult, given their almost foot and a half height difference, but he does his best to assure they at least look like loving brother-and-sister.

He pulls back gently, placing two hands on both her shoulders. “You’ll be good, right?” 

“Totally.”

Mike squints, cocking an eyebrow. “And there’s no evil girls I’ll need to fight off?” 

“No,” Holly sighs, unamused. “Promise.”

Mike nods, letting his hands slack against his sides. “Good. See you later, okay? Meet back here.”

Despite, in Mike’s opinion, his intermittent and quite courteous attempt to remain civil with her, Holly rolls her eyes at him. “Okay, Mom ,” she groans, though a semblance of a smile flickers gently on her lips.

Mike expects Holly to engulf Will into a hug, a complete juxtaposition to the uncoordinated and frankly half-assed one she had given Mike, but she only lulls on her two feet, head ducking as she fiddles with the straps of her backpack. “Bye Will,” she says quickly, waving, as if Will’s made her nervous. 

Will looks at Mike warily, before waving back at her. “See you later, Holly.” 

The two watch as Holly joins the other second-graders strolling towards the front doors. “See?” Mike whispers, just as Holly’s out of earshot. “What did I tell you?”  

Will rubs the back of his neck. The brief moment of silence is enough to raise the hairs on Mike’s arms, but Will speaks quick enough to abate any worry of the supernatural. “Okay, yeah,” he admits meekly, “I see what you mean.”  

Mike nods, and, throwing a leg back onto his bike, tears his gaze away from Will within an instant. Hawkins High isn’t far from the elementary school, only a mere couple of metres, in fact, but it could easily be mistaken for a twenty minute ride given the way that Mike’s psyching himself up. It’s funny — he wanted nothing more than to ride to school without his pestering sister, and now that he’s finally got Will all to himself — he’s not sure he’s able to handle it. 

Like Holly, Will makes Mike nervous . Embarrassingly so. It’s the pulsate of his heart when they’re sprawled across Nancy’s old bed. The tightness in his chest when they’re close in proximity. His clammy hands as he tries to devise a joke to rival one of Will’s, without flushing forcibly. He’s always felt like this. It’s just taken an excruciatingly long time to figure out what exactly it was. 

The silence that follows is almost past bearing. Mike supposes it’s not only the fact that Will makes him nervous, but also the latest and rather quite raw revelation that Will makes Mike want to kiss him, too. 

He prays that the thought isn’t as loud and palpable to Will as it is him. 

Mike heaves out one culminating breath, kicking his foot back to attain some momentum, just as Will’s voice percolates from behind. 

“Hey, Mike?” 

Mike’s feet stay firmly planted on the ground. His heart skips a beat. “Yeah?” 

Will looks down, and, like a complete role reversal, he’s the one who looks nervous, face flushed, fingers flexing sporadically on his handlebars. “I was just — earlier, in the bedroom, before Holly came in. I was going to ask if you wanted to study for history together, after school. I thought of asking Dustin, but he — well, you know how he studies.” 

He’s nervous , Mike thinks, then goes very, very still. 

Maybe it’s no surprise that Will doesn’t want to study with Dustin, who rewrites cue cards until the content is practically ingrained in his brain, perfect spelling and all, but the offer is still amusing, as mundane and ordinary as it is. It’s not like they haven’t studied together before. They both know the dark circles of seventh or eighth grade, for one of Mr. Clarke’s grueling science exams, or sophomore year, for Shakespearian literature in Ms. Click’s English class. They always plan to study, but no studying is actually done, courtesy of the thousands of offtrack rambles Mike embarks on and Will’s peculiar willingness to listen. The idea bemuses Mike, because Will must know the outcome of this. Maybe Mike’s good grades have indoctrinated Will to believe that he’s a good study partner, or perhaps Will’s just simply forgotten that Mike spends eighty percent of his time procrastinating, and the remaining twenty percent at midnight cramming in all of the content he can. History is a fairly difficult class. Will would be much better off studying on his own accord, with Mike on the other side of the hall, as far away from him as possible. Yet, Will’s offering, despite knowing how much studying they’ll be doing, or rather, lack thereof, and Mike can’t exactly refuse. 

“Um,” Will falters, after Mike’s been unresponsive for the better half of the last minute, “I mean — after we pick Holly up, obviously. You don't have to — if you don’t want to, but —” 

“Totally,” Mike blurts, then decides to tack on, “I’d love to.” 

Will’s lips part like he hadn’t expected Mike’s answer. “Okay,” he says, squeezing his handlebars. “Cool.” 

Mike gives him a small, firm nod, before kicking off on his pedals.

He forces his eyes square on the road. 

Mike knows that he and Will aren’t nearly as close as they used to be. He knows that it’s because of the giant gaping rift in the centre of their relationship, the deeper root affliction that Mike’s spent all his life trying to ignore. Maybe their friendship is awkward at times and littered with uncomfortable silences and graceless apologies and run-on sentences, but it’s home to Mike. And Will’s offer must be some corroboration that he’s doing things right.  

Will remains quiet the rest of the short, brisk ride. Of course, Will’s not nervous because of him . It’s a ridiculous assumption. There’s nothing Mike could do to make him act that way, this is a known fact. But it’s the thought — the mere implication that Mike could send Will into such a plight — that warms his own cheeks. 

☆

The feeling follows Mike into the next week.

And the next.

And the next. 

November comes and goes, History tests are taken (begrudgingly) and flunked (unsurprisingly), weekends lag and weekdays scurry, and Mike’s patent crush on Will Byers doesn’t dissipate in the slightest. 

Not that he had expected it to, per se, it’s just — he didn’t expect it to come on so strong, to creep up on him so suddenly, and consume every moment of his waking being. 

His dad’s car was still broken the following week. But Karen hadn’t needed to pester Mike about it more than she ought to; the mere words “take,” “Holly,” and “school,” had him up and out of his seat like a dog, posted at Will’s closed door to rap three, quiet knocks. The rest of the week, Mike had offered to take Holly to school before his mother could even ask, raising a few suspicious eyebrows and an incriminating squint from Holly herself. It was only when his mother had announced that Ted’s car was all fixed that Mike felt a slight twinge of disappointment, muttering a stiff, indignant, “Okay.”  

Dark blue light spools in from the narrow basement windows. Eleventh grade calculus sprawls out before him, in a hideous foreign language Mike’s spent eons trying to learn. Across the coffee table, Holly scratches chaotically on a piece of photocopy paper, making several marks with a worn blue crayon. The smell of their mother’s chicken pot pie wafts in from the cracks of the door. Mike’s attempts at studying had been terminated once he heard a piercing crash from the kitchen, his mother yelling at him through the walls to come down and keep watch on Holly. Apparently, his sister had tipped a glass in her efforts to help Karen with dinner, and, despite her ever profuse apologies, was banished to the basement, their mother too overwhelmed to deal with another commotion. 

The room is quiet, apart from the buzz of static and Holly muttering vague pop songs under her breath. Mike’s only absentmindedly scribbling down equations when he catches his pencil drawing a microscopic shield. 

His breath hitches.

It’s hard not to think about Will in his absence. Even though their bike rides had returned, so did a heavy, unfamiliar dread. Being alone with Will, particularly during the dawn of gentle winds and orange rays, had only heightened his restlessness. It was difficult to look at Will without his collar flushing, without his hands sweating, without feeling the pit in the stomach. Two extremes had taken over Mike’s life: the urge to be around Will, constantly, and the urge to avoid him at all costs, so Will couldn’t see the nervous wreck he’s made of Mike. 

From above, Mike hears the front door open and shut in rapid succession, followed by hushed, muffled chatter. When he registers Will’s voice in the doorway, he’s quick to erase the shield on the margin of his paper. 

There’s footsteps pattering on the first floor and the sound of the basement door opening. “Hey,” Will calls from the top of the stairs, shrugging off his jacket and setting it on the banister. His hair is white with snow. “Sorry I’m late.” 

Mike glances up from his notebook. “Hey,” he says, and immediately hates how soft it sounds, how fond it rolls off his tongue, how homely it feels. He winces to himself. “How was your weekend?” 

Will scrunches his nose. “Same old same old,” he shrugs, then pats the crown of Holly’s head. “Hey, Holly. What are you drawing? Can I see?”

Under his palm, Holly stiffens, shielding the picture with the length of her arm. “No peeking,” she flushes, “it’s not finished yet.”

Will raises his hands in surrender, flecks of snow peppering the floor at the jolt of movement. “Sorry, sorry. No rushing the creative process, I know.” 

Mike snorts under his breath. Maybe there is a certain creative process to art — Mike’s observed the various stages of Will’s paintings through peeks in his room, from loose sketches to the elaborate details of the finished piece — but Mike has also observed Holly’s impatient and rather unsightly attempts at drawing, and knows that no matter what she creates, it’s bound to defy the laws of art in some way or another. 

Shouldering off his backpack, Will looks at Mike wryly while dropping crossed legged on the floor next to him, which shuts Mike up indefinitely.  

Warmth swells Mike’s body when he feels the weight of Will press against his side. How Mike survives every weekend without this is a question he doesn’t know the answer to. He’s become accustomed to Will’s home arrangement over the year and a half he’s been back in Hawkins, but it doesn’t mean he misses Will any less once Friday comes and he’s slipping out the door with a brisk “ Bye ,” never to be seen again until the following Sunday night. His absence means Mike’s weekend is spent rifling through comics or watching whatever Disney classic Holly is fixated on that week. It’s boring, monotonous. He’s just patiently anticipating Will’s return, waiting to blow the dust off his dresser.

In truth, there’s a part of Mike that only comes out when Will is near. The part that he’s spent so long trying to repress under the disguise of normal , before he even knew what the word meant. Will’s become such an important part of his life that it feels like there’s some sort of cataclysmic void left of him when he’s not there. Mike realizes, all of a sudden, that he doesn’t want a future if Will’s not in it. He doesn’t want their awkward silences and tension to follow them after graduation, for them to go their separate ways and only speak by means of short telephone prompts or run-ins on the street. A life without Will isn’t a very fulfilling life at all — all things considered. 

A lump slowly crawls its way up Mike’s throat. He swallows it down, watching Will pull his sketchbook and vast collection of oil pastels from his bag. How hard would it be, to have this all the time? For them to leave Hawkins for good, to share a dorm at college, to make a living out of Will’s art and Mike’s books? They could stay up to play Nintendo without their parents to bug them. They could pool their money to make it in time for a late Friday night movie. They could — 

They could be so much more than this. 

All that’s left is for Mike to do something about it. 

He stares blankly at his calculus homework. A boring web of arithmetics, compared to the terrifying unknown of his relationship with Will. His pencil hasn’t moved from where it had been five minutes ago, pressed hard enough against the page to draw a small hole. He hitches a sharp breath, pencil dragging with it. Will might just be the reason he fails eleventh grade math. 

As if on cue, Will glances over at him, the sudden motion sending his heart palpitations to a worrying high. “How about you?” Will asks. “How’s calculus?” 

Mike smooshes one side of his face against the notebook, which is, what he thinks, an appropriate summation to everything he’s ever felt. 

“Horrible,” he groans, meaning it. “I think I’ll have to forget about college.” 

Will laughs. “Do you want help?”

Mike considers this, before his memory beats him. “Didn’t you flunk math, like, twice?” 

“ Hey ,” Will glares. “I passed last year.” 

“ Barely — ” 

“ You ,” Will breathes, low and coarse as the distance erodes, and he’s poking a finger into Mike’s chest, “are insufferable .” 

Butterflies swarm in his stomach, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary, now. He couldn’t quite place the root of it before, lost in the push and pull of his other inner turmoils, but the feeling’s grown increasingly familiar. Instinctively, his eyes trail below Will’s, watching the small gape of his mouth. Lips blunt, slightly cracked. Mike could fix that.

His eyes dart back. The sudden proximity is sweltering.

“ Okay !” Holly announces, the shrill of her voice forcing the two apart. “I’m finished.” 

“Great,” Will says. His voice is still hoarse, but Mike tries not to get embarrassingly red about it. Decides to compose himself, like he hadn’t just thought of kissing Will stupid over the carpeted floor. “Can I see now?” 

Holly tilts her head. “Can I see yours first?” 

Three pairs of eyes hone in on Will’s sketchbook, still having laid unopened since he’d retrieved it from his bag. “Well,” he lulls, “I didn’t draw anything today, but you could look at my other sketches if you wanted —” 

“ Great !” Holly exclaims, grabbing the sketchbook from across the table and immediately rifling through it. She combs through the pages faster than it takes Mike to register them; he can catch vague glimpses of potted plants and dragons and figure drawings of people he recognizes from school. They’re all rendered quite beautifully, even in their unfinished state, but it’s not like Mike expected anything less from Will.

Mouth parted, Holly traces one of the pages, a pretty wave of wonder engulfing her face. It’s a life-like portrait of Holly herself, all curled up like she had been during their last rewatch of Robin Hood . Will was late that day, as usual, but he made sure to show up for Holly. Now that Mike thinks about it, Will had been posted at the far end of the room that evening, sketchbook in hand, looking very lost in thought. 

Mike pitches forward to observe the details of the drawing. The imperfect strands of Holly’s hair illustrated in charcoal, her innocent, poised pose, the glint in her eye. She looks so cute, all posed up like that, and for once Mike thinks of her as his baby sister, instead of the white-headed rascal she’s grown up to be.    

“Is this me?” Holly gapes. 

Will looks away, rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh, yeah,” he falters, motioning vaguely around the drawing. “You don’t have to —” 

Whatever he had wanted to say dies on his tongue when Holly thumbs over to the next page, face crinkling up. “Hold on,” she blurts, studying the new drawing, “is this Mike ?” 

Will swallows. “Um.” 

Mike thinks he cranes his neck so hard a vessel severs. 

“No way,” Holly smirks. “He actually looks good .” 

“ Thanks ,” Mike grumbles, in an effort to conceal the red flush around his collar that is dangerously close to blanketing his entire face. And, yep — no vessel fissure here, because his heart is beating so fast he’s sure it has to warrant cardiac arrest, or something. Will hasn’t made an effort to close the sketchbook, even though he does look like he’d rather die than spare a glance at the drawing, so Mike thinks he’s got the okay to steal a look. The sketchbook spread isn’t just of Mike, but several Mike’s, in fact, interspersed with sketches of El or Jonathan or the Party over the course of the week. Mike trails a finger across the paper, careful not to smudge any of the charcoal. Holly’s right, Mike does look good, jawline chiselled with the sharp marks of Will’s pencil, the dotted freckles on his face in places he’s never even noticed before. The drawing feels so real, so commonplace, merely another hallmark of life. Will’s strokes are confident, like it’s something he’s done thousands of times before. He sketches Mike like he’s worth looking at. 

Mike wonders, briefly —

Is this how Will sees me?

Will still has his eyes barred to the ceiling, cheeks flaming red. He’s nervous , Mike thinks again — a thought that has pleasantly surged in frequency throughout November, and, even more-so lately, the first few days of December. 

Mike reaches for Will’s shoulder, forcing Will to meet his eyes. He finds it not as scary and intimidating as he thought it’d be; it’s strangely intimate, even with Holly across the table. “Will,” he breathes, “this is —”

“ — so invasive,” Will finishes, batting his eyes away and shrugging hard enough for Mike’s hand to trail off his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I should have asked. I… ” His mouth opens, like he’s going to say something else, but what only comes out is small, reserved: “I draw all of you guys.” 

Mike’s lips press into a thin line. “Don’t apologize,” he says firmly. “This is — this is incredible , Will. I mean, I know I don’t know a whole lot about art, but it just… it feels so… so real . This could totally belong in, like, the MoMA, or something.”

Holly perks up. “What’s that?” 

“Only the most famous art museum in the world .” 

Will shrugs, face blooming. It seems to do that a lot, these days. “It’s just a sketch.”

Mike scoffs. “ Just a sketch .”

Will rolls his eyes, knocking his shoulder against Mike’s. “Whatever,” he mutters, “Holly, can we see yours now?” 

Holly nods, brushing the crayons off her drawing. She holds it upright, takes a deep breath, then flips it around.

“Ta-da!”

Mike stares at the picture blankly. For how much anticipation she’s been building, it sure looks like a lot of nothing.  

Holly had only picked up drawing a few weeks ago, inspired by Will’s paintings and pure artistry, but she hasn’t been nearly as proficient. Mike’s watched her struggle through coloured pencils and watercolour paints and markers and finally, crayons, leaving supplies strewn all throughout the house, which Mike definitely hasn’t tripped on. He hadn’t exactly expected her to draw on Will’s level, but he had envisioned it would be a little better than the disorderly mess of scribbles she’s proudly presented to them. 

There’s a noticeable concentration of scrawls in the centre of the picture. If Mike squints, he thinks he can make out a person, with two lousy circles for eyes and a thick, winding red line for a mouth. There might be a sun in the top right corner, and, if he looks really closely, a… tiger ? 

Mike snorts under his breath, but Will digs his fingers into Mike’s forearm, suppressing further laughter. Poor girl. She really is trying. 

Will offers Holly a small smile. “Wow. It’s — I like the colours.”

He turns to Mike, brows furrowing, then back at Holly. 

“What exactly… is it?” 

Holly grins. “It’s you, silly.” 

When Mike leans in, dangerously close to occupying Will’s personal space, he’s able to notice the details of Holly’s portrait: Will’s short, fluffy hair, the prominent mark above his upper lip, his taupe and teal flannel, a hand-me-down from Jonathan that’s become a staple of his wardrobe over the last year. It’s certainly Will, all right, just a much less obvious version of him. 

“Oh,” Will blurts. “That’s  — that’s really nice of you, Holly. Thank you.” 

A chortle escapes Mike’s throat. With a piercing glare from Will, he shoves the heel of his palm over his mouth. 

“You’re welcome,” Holly grins. She slides the paper across the table, letting it land in front of Will. “You can keep it, if you want.” 

“Thanks,” Will says, thumbing it over. Luckily, he’s a much better actor than Mike.

Holly pushes herself up from the floor and brushes the front of her trousers with her hands. “I’m gonna get more crayons,” she announces, fixing one last glance at the set strewn across the table, already in every colour imaginable, before trudging up the stairs. Once Mike hears the door slam behind her, he lets out a fervent laugh. 

“ Mike ,” Will chides. “Come on. It’s sweet.” 

Mike runs a hand through his hair. “I think I know why that girl pushed her over at recess —” 

“Give her a break,” Will glares. “She’s seven .” 

“Uh, you were also seven once, and you sure drew a hell of a lot better than —” 

All at once, there’s a hand covering his mouth. Ensnared by the pair of hazel eyes fixed inches away from his own, Mike burns instantaneously at the touch. An inadvertent kiss, Mike’s mouth barely brushing the surface of Will’s palm. Will stares at him pointedly, eyebrows drawn close and warm and so undeniably attractive. “Shut. Up ,” he murmurs, but he’s still grinning, like he doesn’t want Mike to stop talking at all. 

If Mike could sum up everything he’s been feeling the past month, it’d be this moment right here. The way Will says one thing, but means the exact opposite. How he’s gone from ignoring Mike in the halls to walking with him to Chemistry, or evading him in their own home, only to lie inches apart reading the same Green Lantern comic the following evening. It’s the way Mike can feel entirely certain of his feelings at times, but there’s days where it feels like he doesn’t know Will at all.

He just hopes he hasn’t read this wrong. That all those late night study sessions and bike rides with Holly and loose, charcoal portraits mean as much to Will as it does to him. 

Mike’s eyes dip downwards, tracing Will’s features that have rendered sharp with age. The stern curve of his nose, the freckle under his nostril, his soft, hollow lips. It would be so easy to bridge the gap between them. Mike thinks he could do it, would do it, in fact, if it weren’t for the footsteps pummeling from above, a reminder of his sister and mom only a mere room away, or Will’s fingers still curled around his mouth, which he hasn’t made the effort to remove for the better half of the last minute. 

“Sorry,” Will says, and all at once he’s pulling away, taking the warmth with him.

Mike’s lips part with difficulty. No , he wants to say. Come back , it’s just us . 

“It’s okay,” is what comes out instead. It’s pathetic. Meek, desperate. He doesn’t really know why he says it. Maybe he’s just saying things for the sake of having something to say. He’s scared of the silence; that any lapse of hesitation will coerce him into closing the distance between them. 

Mike sights the table, and the strange, albeit endearing drawing across from him. Will has many reasons to treat Holly with disdain. She’s fairly annoying, and seems to, quite concerningly, talk his ear off. But, unlike Mike, who would rather suffer through mounds of algebra than listen to another one of his sister’s incoherent rambles, Will listens acutely, despite knowing full well what he’s getting into, after living with the Wheeler’s for over a year. Mike knew Will was good with kids, but it’s his outspoken affection and gentle nature that makes Mike flush. 

When Mike thinks about it, really thinks about it, he thinks this feeling has always been there, deep down. It’s the little things that send his heart short-circuiting. The way Will crouches to speak to Holly on her own level. The way he does the laundry, without being asked, like it’s something that just is . The way he makes Holly and Karen laugh, how he always seems to know the right thing to say. It’s the way he’s become a part of the Wheeler family routine, like he’s been here all along. 

Mike likes to think he has two families, no matter how often the world tells him he can’t and shouldn’t. There’s his bloodline, strewn out before him, a lineage embedded throughout the course of history and time, that, although he doesn’t exactly exhibit, loves nonetheless. Maybe his family is slightly unconventional, a little skittish, and at times on the brink of insanity, but he’ll always be there for them, no matter what. Then there’s his Party, his Party, with their blood pacts and hour-long campaigns and the fact that they’re interdimensionally entwined, that feel closer to him than blood ever will. It shouldn’t make Mike this warm seeing two people from two very different parts of his life get along this well — and yet, he doesn’t think he’d mind riding to school until his legs gave out if it meant he could watch them laugh. 

Mike doesn’t just want to sleep across the hall from Will on weekdays or for him to periodically sit in on his mom’s terrible, homely cooking. He wants Will , all of him, the good days and the bad; the firm, perfunctory stamp of family. He wants to be a part of Will’s life, in any which way Will lets him.

Quiet spills across the room. He braves a glance at Will, who’s drawing circles on the cuffs of his jeans. Mike swallows. He wants this so badly, but he doesn’t trust himself enough not to fuck it up. 

“Holly misses you, you know,” he blurts, without meaning to. 

Will looks up, jarred, a small stitch between his brows. Mike has to knot his fingers into the carpet before he does something stupid, like kiss him about it. 

A crinkle in Will’s lips. “I’m right here.” 

“No — you know what I mean,” Mike frowns. “When you leave, after school. When you — disappear .” His fingers flex against the floor. “Where do you go, anyway?”

Will draws in on himself, like he’s being cornered. “I — I have more than one family, you know.” 

And — family . Mike tightens his grip on the carpet.

“Right,” he says, the word heavy on his tongue. “Right. I know that — it’s just. You know. You’re here all day and then you’re just — not . Sometimes I — I think she would like it if you were here all the time.” 

Somehow, this is growing less about Holly and more about himself. 

“And —” Mike corrects, because this is beginning to sound like a very selfish conversation, “you should see your family, that’s not — that’s not what I’m trying to get at. I just — maybe she wouldn’t mind if you like, had breakfast with us, or sat through one of her movie nights, a full one, this time —”

Will’s eyes soften. “Mike.” 

“— because I think you’re one of the best things to happen to her in a while, even if she is embarrassingly obsessed with you, and I think it would just make her happy —”

“Mike.” 

He catches his breath. “Yeah?” 

Will toys with the loose thread of his jeans, stalling. “What — what exactly are you trying to say to me?” 

“So —” Mike starts, learning he has no idea of where the sentence may lead, if it’ll destroy everything he’s perfectly curated or do the very opposite, because he’s never quite been able to control himself when it comes to Will, “she just. Um. I guess she just really likes you.” 

His heart pounds in his chest. He’s fought countless monsters and creatures from the dimension beneath his feet, but those have all felt infinitely less scary than this . 

“Oh,” Will says quietly, wide-eyed and slow. “Is that all?” 

Mike thinks he could keep talking until his vocal chords give out.

In contradictory fashion, Mike opens his mouth, but no words come out. There’s so much he wants to say, but he doesn’t know how to say it, or how to start. He searches his brain for the basics: things he knows to be true, things so rudimentary he knows he can’t fuck up. “I just — I guess it’s just sort of funny,” he muses. “It’s not like it’s the first time a Wheeler has fallen for a Byers.” 

“Oh,” Will says again, head ducking. He looks like he’s about to say something amusing, some sort of vague admission of understanding, but his brows crease soon after, and the flush on his face disappears. “Right,” he mutters, a bitter cut to his words, “because Nancy has Jonathan, Holly has her silly little puppy crush on me, and you —” 

His breath snags, face laced with fog. He looks up. 

“Well,” Will drawls, “I guess you haven’t really —”

Mike kisses him. 

The execution is painfully ungraceful, given the way they’re both slouched on the floor — Mike’s greedy hands clamping Will’s face like he doesn’t ever want to let go, or the latter half of Will’s sentence now caught in Mike’s throat — but the moment Will’s lips crash against his own, Mike knows he’s never known anything else to be so right . 

It’s rash and reckless, like Mike’s trying to absorb as much of Will as he can. Like at any moment, the door will swing open, and they’ll have to go back to loitering around the obvious, pretending like none of this ever happened. Will isn’t kissing nearly as eager as Mike, his mouth dry and stilted, but Mike does all the work for him; kissing until his breath runs dry, only pulling away when he needs to come back for air. 

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Mike had imagined it much sweeter: quiet on the roof of the garage, breathless under the waters of Lovers Lake. He hadn’t pictured it being as hungry and desperate as this , the basement door unlocked, in complete jeopardy of Holly or his mother shuffling in on them. But what scares him even more, what keeps him up at night, just as he’s about to go to sleep, is the fact that he doesn’t really care anymore.

He doesn’t care if his parents see him. If he spends the rest of his life ambling around uncomfortable silences at dinner, or coughing up excuses over Christmas. He couldn’t care less about any of that, as long as it means Will kisses him back.

Which would be all the more comforting if it wasn’t for Will abstaining from such an act.

Mike breaks away with difficulty, leaving his skin to burn like a brand. Panic floods his dilated pupils. The distance, although not much, and the warm smog spelling between them, only makes Mike want to crash their mouths together once more. But Will’s eyes are blood-shot and open like he hadn’t closed them at all. Mike’s reminded of a certain kiss shared with El in front of Will’s old closet, and, harrowingly, his heart drops in his stomach, thinking, no , no , no —

“Sorry,” Mike pants. He zeros in on Will’s blushed lips. His mussed hair. Mike had done all of that; stamped his mark, wrung his hands all over Will. He hopes, with increasing desperation, that Will can’t hear the cacophony of lovesick turmoil ricocheting through his head. “That was —”

Will threads his fingers into the back of Mike’s hair and crosses the gap between them. “Shut up,” is all he says, plain and rigorous against Mike’s swollen lips, and Mike does. 

He doesn’t have to tell him twice. 

Mike presses back in, annihilating the distance between them. Impatience clings to his lips, rough and fervent, hardening his grip on Will’s jaw. He curls a hand into Will’s hair, tugging brashly on the strands by his neck, and that does the trick. Breaks the seal of Will’s lips, breath spilling on Mike’s tongue. 

Strangely, as Mike’s hands start to find a home fisted in the hem of Will’s sweater, he can’t help but think of all the girls, and, quite possibly, boys, who have come before him. The ones who stared at Will during History, who passed notes in his locker that he pointedly ignored. Of Holly, and her sudden desire to exhaust every waking moment glued to his side. He feels sorry for all of them, he really does, because they’ll never know what it feels like to have this . Nervousness swells Mike’s stomach, hands flitting every which way like he doesn’t quite know where his instincts might take him. It’s terrifying. It’s dizzying. It’s everything.

Will licks his way into Mike’s mouth, hand furling over his chest, over the thunderclap of storm brewing there. His hands are shaking, and Mike realizes, unexpectedly, that he hasn’t been the only one sweltering in his own thoughts. The way Will tugs on Mike’s collar, just a little too mercilessly, unveils a nervous can of worms Mike hadn’t known existed. Maybe Mike should have given him more credit; it couldn’t have been easy, cramped under the same roof, especially under the pretense of what Mike had said to him all those summers ago in the garage. Mike doesn’t blame him for avoiding him, if that’s what he had been trying to do. Mike would have too, given the circumstance. Well, he had been trying, at least, to dissipate the sudden welt of incompetence that only seemed to spell when Will was near, and had also been failing at, miserably. 

He can’t really resist Will. He tried before, when Will was halfway across the country and two thousand miles away, and still couldn’t. Now that their distance is completely nonexistent, well — he doesn’t think there’s any worth trying now. 

Will pulls away first, hands now twisted around Mike’s shirt. Taps against the cotton, the thin-layer of fabric separating skin. “You —” he starts, breathless, “you —” 

Mike’s never seen Will like this. Eyes waxed with wonder, heart in his throat. He could get used to this. “I, what?” he says dumbly. 

“ You ,” Will murmurs, surging back in, and Mike meets him halfway. 

He thinks he does a good job pretending like this doesn’t send his nerves short-circuiting, his legs into mush, or his heart, into the bruised gloom of his own basement.

It ends before it can really start, because the basement door is opening and slamming before it’s even registerable. 

“Got ‘em!” 

Will breaks apart first, leaving flushed air to billow between them and a parched impression on Mike’s mouth. Mike only stays pleasantly still, hand hovering around the air, like Will’s still kissing him. Thank God for Will, and his astoundingly quick reaction time; Mike is much less skillful, and, as it turns out, much more smitten. He probably would have kissed Will until his breath ran out, asphyxiation symptoms and all. 

The clatter of crayons spilling onto the table roughly jerks Mike back to reality. Will runs a hand through his hair, eyes fastened on an unfinished sketch, like he’s afraid to look Holly in the eyes. Mike quickly fixes his hair, trying to look like he hasn’t been kissed stupid. There’s no denying that he has been — his lips are bitten red, his hair is much less groomed than it had been five minutes ago, and his shirt is wrinkled around the collar — but it’s nothing that Holly would question. A little strange, sure, but it’s all too insignificant in the grand scheme of things, too ordinary.  

His sister continues colouring, uproariously scraping marks on a new piece of paper. When silence pens out, obvious now in comparison to the back and forth banter they’d exchanged only moments before, she looks up at the two, both unhelpfully flushed. “Okay,” she probes. “What is it?”

Will freezes, but doesn’t bother looking up. Mike feigns amused at the clock ticking by in methodical rhythm. 

“Oh, come on,” Holly laments. “Was my drawing that bad?” 

Mike finds himself instinctively glancing at Will, who’s already staring back at him. He scans the impression he left on Will’s face. His blown lips. Bruised cheeks. The inflation of his pupils. His eyes flit to Holly and then back, before letting out an honest-to-god, unabashed laugh .  

☆

“Hey, Mike?” 

Snow pelts down egregiously, dappling the myriad of trees in front of them, but Holly’s voice emanates through the static — as muffled and incoherent as it is. 

Mike's gaze wanders from the blizzard in front of him to his sister’s small figure. He hadn’t quite anticipated the severity of the weather when he asked Holly to tag along for the ride. Will had called Mike the morning before, voice thick and nasally from an apparent cold, and explained he didn’t think he could make it to the Wheeler’s in his condition. Mike had agreed, bid him goodbye, though not before promising to pay him a visit after school. This of course, entails peppering Will with kisses: non-contagious, recuperating ones, at that.

Holly was his next resort. He could use the company, and thought she would much prefer biking with Mike than holed up in their father’s car, crooning over silence as the radio blared Frank Sinatra or whatever Christmas songs they usually play this time of year. But it was her eagerness to go that rose a small qualm in his chest. It’s not often he has time to hang out with his sister, swaddled in midterms preparations or the recent addition of his boyfriend, but he’s been trying his best. Trying to build the olive branch between them, and dispel the rumor that all they do is bicker, which their mother loves to proclaim.

 Mike makes an accidental, nervous noise in the back of his throat, like he’s under scrutiny. “Hm?” 

There’s the skid of tires against the ground. Holly, trying to keep up with him. Mike lets his legs slack, slowing down a little. 

She musters up a weak grunt, her way of thanking him, Mike supposes. “You know what Ms. Grant said to me the other day?” 

Ms. Grant is Holly’s second grade teacher, who Mike and Nancy and the rest of Hawkins have had the misfortune of being taught by, through ages seven to eight. “What?” Mike asks, thoroughly intrigued, now. 

“She said that I’m the perfect combination of you and Nancy.” 

Mike considers this. “Huh. Why does she say that?”

“ Well ,” Holly sighs, “we’re on chapter five of A Wrinkle in Time , when Charles Wallace and everyone starts to tesser, or whatever it’s called.” Her eyes flit to Mike, already lost in the sea of tesseract and Camazotz and everything in between. “This’ll make sense,” she assures. “Promise. Anyway, Thomas Welch wouldn’t stop talking about how stupid it was — the book I mean, because he said there was no way you could tesser to Camazotz, without destroying the course of history and time as we know it. He was just going on and on about how it didn’t make any sense. Well, I told him that it didn’t have to make any sense, because it’s a fantasy book after all. I mean, Mrs. Whatsit shows up in chapter one and practically explains everything anyways — what wasn’t there to get?” 

She catches her breath. “But my point is, I kind of exploded at him. Not a lot! But he did cry a little, which I still feel bad about. And then Ms. Grant told me that we’re all allowed to have our own opinions, and that I shouldn’t make others feel bad for having ones that are different from my own. Anyway, before recess, Ms. Grant pulled me aside and said that I remind her a lot of you guys. That I’m stubborn and opinionated like Nancy, but that I’m creative and speak my mind like you.

“She also said that I’m kind,” Holly adds, meekly, “but that she doesn’t know where I get it from.” 

Mike snorts. He doesn’t know whether to be offended or agree. “Well, you definitely don’t get it from Mom or Dad.” Their parents aren’t not nice — Karen Wheeler is essentially the biggest people pleaser known to man — but they’re not exactly the most open-minded, and definitely haven’t been since Hawkins turned to disorder. Mike knows he has his mother’s unconditional love and support no matter what, but he can’t help but wonder how she’ll react when she finds out who he really is; if she’ll take him in her arms, or spend the rest of her life stifling the knot in her throat, the glaring elephant in the room. 

Holly throws him a half-hearted, sad smile. He knows that she agrees. 

“Hey, I know,” Mike muses, tempted to nudge the side of her foot if it wasn’t for them pedalling at troubling speeds, “I think you get it from Will.” 

There’s a slight rustle from beside him, the wary turn of a head. “You really think so?”

He nods. “‘Course. He’s really rubbed off on you, you know? Which is a good thing! He’s like the nicest, most selfless person I’ve ever met, so…” He braves a glance at his sister, hoping his blush isn’t obvious against the immaculate snow. “If you pick up anything from anyone, I’m glad it’s him.” 

Blessedly, Holly doesn’t seem to notice, preoccupied with the state of her own cheeks. She nods at the road, squeezing the rubber of her handlebars. “Cool, cool.” 

Mike squints at her, trying to detect any notable colour to her complexion, only to be drowned out by the onslaught of snow. Maybe she still has a thing for Will, even after all these weeks. 

She perks up, despite the drone of silence. “He’s okay, right?” 

“Oh, Will?” Off Holly’s tiny nod, “Yeah. Yeah. He’s okay. Just — you know.” Mike waves a hand around in the air. “Typical cold. The nasty shit. He’s got a horrible immune system.” 

“Do you think he’ll be back for movie night on Thursday?”

Mike blinks, more taken aback by her eagerness to watch another movie than her complete lack of reaction to his cursing. “Holly,” he warns, voice cutting deep in the cold, “I swear to God — if you make us watch Robin Hood again —” 

“No Robin Hood, I promise,” she assures. “I was thinking… maybe, Clue ? Nancy said she had it lying around somewhere last time she called.” 

“Not a cartoon?” Mike purses his lips. “Whoa, Holly. Are you sure? That’s a pretty big kid movie.”

“I know,” she says. “But I think I can handle it.” 

A wrinkle runs from the side of Mike’s nose to the corners of his mouth. When did Holly get so mature? 

“ So ,” Holly drawls, gawking at the road in front of them, “do you think he’ll be there?” 

Moments from the past month surface in his mind: Will, and his ever persistent effort to indulge in Karen’s atrocious rendition of meatloaf; Will, spilling crayons over the breakfast table with Holly, illustrating which colours work together, which ones don’t; Will, head slack against Mike’s shoulder as they rifle through comics, tossing the ones that haven’t stood the test of time; Will, finally deciding to decorate his room, and opting to keep the striped pink wallpaper; Will, helping Mike teach Holly the ins and outs of D&D, despite her confusion and misunderstanding of sort. It’s everything Mike wanted and so , so much more. 

He spares a glance at Holly. He doesn’t have to think twice this time. 

“Yeah,” he says, and Holly smiles, a grin that means all the world. “He’ll be there.” 

This is where conversation ends, Mike figures. Where they lapse into silence and let the wind billow in front of them, carrying the weight of their words. But Mike isn’t ready to let it go — the slight itch of a question, despite the storm in his chest. Even after everything — all the late nights spent hanging out with Holly, the oddity of it all, a seven-year-old and two, dorky teenagers — there’s still one thing on the forefront of his mind. 

“ So …” Mike drones, “do you still like Will?” 

There’s a choked croak from beside him. The slight swerve of a bike. “ No ,” his sister coughs, hard and sheepish at the same time. 

Of all the things Mike expected, a refute was nowhere on the list. “No?” he asks. “I thought you were, like, obsessed with him.” 

“I wasn’t obsessed with him,” she splutters. “And I’m done with boys. I’m too cool for anyone, anyway.” 

A snort bubbles through Mike’s nose. “Too cool, huh?” 

She huffs. “ Yes . All you guys talk about is that silly game and comics and Star Wars .”

And — okay . Maybe they had gone a tad overboard with the D&D thing, throwing hurdles of information at her aggravated little brain, but she had liked it enough to keep playing, liked it enough to keep the painted cleric figurine mounted on the beads by her neck. Holly is a nerd, through and through, whether she’d like to admit it or not. 

“ Hey ,” Mike heeds, “Star Wars is cool, okay? Plus, you like Thundercats , so you can’t really —” 

“Yeah, yeah.” She rolls her eyes at him, but it’s weirdly affectionate, even in its abrasive nature. “So…” Holly drawls for a second time, “do you?” 

“Do I what?” 

A plume of steam escapes her mouth. “Still like Will?” 

Mike almost chokes on his spit. “Do I what ?” 

“It makes sense,” she muses. “You like all of the same things.” 

Mike thinks he must bite his cheek, because blood floods his mouth, marked sharp with the lack of saliva. A distraction, while he belatedly pretends not to comb his brain for any moment over the past month that could make Holly consider such a thing. It’s not untrue by any means — but if Holly, his seven-year-old sister, can detect it, what does it say for his friends? His mom ? 

Except — it seems so ordinary, the way she puts it. Something that just is. His name is Mike, he lives at 2530 Maple Street, he’s sixteen years old, and, oh yeah, he’s dating Will Byers. It’s just that. Mind-numbingly simple. Like you wouldn’t be able to tell that the thought had irrationally consumed every inch of him since it came to fruition that day on the road.  

“I guess,” Mike says warily, glancing away and out into the snow. The prospect is still frightening, even if Holly’s shown no indication of caring. 

She seems to sense his restlessness, because she throws him a knowing look. “I think he likes you, too.”

Mike’s wheels come to a staggering slow. “What do you mean?” 

His sister shrugs. “He always listens to you talk, even if you don’t have anything interesting to say.”

She goes back to pedaling, forcing Mike to catch up, right as a tiny Hawkins Elementary comes into view. Maybe her words weren’t meant to be taken so nicely — a slight jab, disguised as a mere observation — but it makes Mike flush, even so. 

He doesn’t bother responding. Lets the siege of snow speak for him. It’s strangely cathartic, all of this. The way Will had first served as a wall, putting the two at odds, and now, drawing them together. Perhaps Mike had been the heart of the Party , the glue, steering them away from brawls and quarrels and butting heads — but Will had brought an insurmountable heart to this family, if not by blood, by circumstance. 

Mike draws a sharp breath, the weight of it all dawning on him. “Holly?” 

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking,” he muses, “maybe after I pick you up, we could go see Will. He spends all his time with us anyway — it’d be nice if we returned the favour. And I’m sure he’d like a visit.” He peeks at Holly between his lashes — the slight twinge of a smile hidden behind flyaways of hair. “Maybe you could even make a card for him, or something. How does that sound?” 

Holly hums under her breath. “Sounds good.” 

Of course, this is a terrible idea in hindsight. Mike’s not sure how he’s supposed to explain the presence of a Russian fugitive and a telekinetic superhuman cramped with the rest of the Byers in the trailer, but he knows Holly won’t raise any concerns, not for Will’s sake, anyway. Mike’s certain he’ll be able to wrap her mind around some illusive story, one way or another. 

“Actually, Mike,” Holly chirps, “you know how Ms. Grant says I’m kind?” 

“Yeah?”

“I think I get it from Will, yeah,” she says, “but also you.” 

It’s easy to pretend like this doesn’t make him want to cry, make him want to scream into his pillow or etch it into the suppleness of his skin, but he doesn’t bother trying; it’s frightfully chilly, and, cooped with his runny nose and marred cheeks, he’s sure slightly sore eyes won’t elicit many questions. 

Eventually, the two reach the busy bustle of Hawkins Elementary, children trilling in the parking lot and squandering towards the doors. Mike kicks off his bike with a strangled huff ,  Holly following suit.

“Alright,” Mike grunts, crouching to be level with her. “Got everything?”

“Yep.”

“Lunch?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll be good?”

Holly sighs, grinning. “ Yes .”

Mike smiles, pats her shoulders. “Okay, cool. I’ll see you later.”

“See you,” Holly squeaks, swaying listlessly on her heels, before darting up to plant a quick kiss to Mike’s cheek.

The sensation is brief, but also startling. “What was that for?” 

Holly shrugs, as if this is simply a normal thing for them. “For being my favourite brother,” she says plainly, then strolls away. 

Mike stands still, too overwhelmed with stimulants — the lingering stamp on his cheek, the fuzzy feeling in his stomach — to do anything about it. Tries to rack his brain for any reason as to why they’ve suddenly decided to cosplay a non-nuclear family, only to come up with nothing at all. Instead, in typical Mike fashion, he cups his hands around his mouth and shouts, over the snow —

“I’m your only brother!”

Holly peeks over her shoulder, beaming, unmistakable in the swarming sea of students. “I know!” she calls back. 

Mike grins. 

Listen — Mike is well-aware of the fact that he’s still got a lot of work to do. He’s only just sowed the seed of the olive branch, and there’s still a great way to go before it blooms. But he’s making some attempt at being a big brother. All in all, he thinks he’s doing a pretty good job.