Archive of Our Own ^beta

“So listen,” Mike starts, as soon as he sees the doorknob start to turn and the door swing open, “I was thinking we could, like, grab something to eat kind of right about now, because I’m hungry–”

He stops. Erica Sinclair blinks up at him from the doorway, looking thoroughly unimpressed. “No thanks,” she says drily, “I just ate lunch.”

“Um,” Mike says, a bit awkwardly, because he doesn’t really make it a habit to talk to his friends’ younger sisters, except Erica had joined in on Hellfire meetings a few times already this year, so maybe that puts them in some kind of weird gray area regarding friendship and other sorts of rules about how often you should start talking to your friends’ younger siblings that you see semi-regularly before it gets weird. “Hi, Erica– is Lucas here?”

She snorts, pulling the door open wider. “Oh, he’s here,” she says, watching him take his boots off at the door, and then raising an eyebrow as he tugs off his gloves, his hat, his coat, and starts unraveling his scarf. “Along with the rest of your loser friends. Did your mom dress you?”

“No,” Mike scowls, except she sort of had yelled at him to bundle up before leaving, as if Lucas didn’t live next door, but Erica Sinclair has enough ammunition on him for a lifetime as it is. “I just have zero interest in catching pneumonia, okay?”

“Right,” Erica says, glancing down to where the stripes of his wool socks are peeking out from under his jeans. “Pneumonia.”

“Just take me to Lucas,” Mike mutters.

She points up the stairs. “They’re all in his room,” she says, and then, “are you guys still having your holiday party next weekend?”

“Um,” Mike says. His family’s annual holiday party isn’t really something he gets, like, involved in– he usually just puts on something kind of nice and traipses downstairs when he’s summoned, making polite conversation with his parents’ friends as the house gets increasingly uncomfortable and stuffy. “I think so? But I’m pretty sure it’s just– it’s a small circle this year. Well, smaller, I guess. No work friends though.”

“Mhm.” Erica crosses her arms. “Well I’ll be staying home, seeing how it’s a couples party this year–”

Mike’s got one foot on the bottom step when she says it. He whirls back around. “Wh– couples party?”

“Yeah,” Erica says, the unimpressed look on her face growing with each passing second. “You know– all the parents, Mrs. Byers and Chief Hopper, my stupid brother and Max, Nancy and Jonathan, you and Will. I don’t need to be around all that.”

“Nancy and Jonathan aren’t here,” Mike says immediately, and then, a second later– “wait, me and–” and okay, maybe it’s just the cold outside causing his brain to go into some sort of cryogenically slowed reduced-function mode, or maybe Mike’s ears have just stopped working entirely, somewhere between his front porch and the Sinclairs’. “Me and– hold on–”

“Whatever,” Erica says, and points up the stairs again. “They’re all up there. Go knock yourselves out doing whatever it is you guys do. Feel free to drop some cookies off after the party, though.”

“Um,” Mike says, which is definitely not the most eloquent thing he’s ever said, but he’s still caught up on the casual way Erica had said it– Erica Sinclair– who’s maybe one of the least tactful and most scarily perceptive people he sort-of knows. You and Will, without even questioning it, like– like it’s something she’s thought about before. And if Erica Sinclair, someone Mike talks to, like, once every two weeks, is thinking it, then– “Yeah, okay, I’ll just–” 

And then he turns and shuffles his way up the stairs before she can say anything else.

You and Will, he thinks, turning the corner to Lucas’ room. And Erica was kind of right about the other part– it is turning into a bit of a couple’s party, sans Dustin and El and Steve but Dustin is in a relationship, long-distance as it may be, and Steve is, well, Steve, and he’ll probably not be there because Nancy isn’t here so Robin won’t come and if Robin won’t come then Steve definitely won’t. And El’s been giving off the vibe lately that she’d rather tear open another gate into the Upside Down and jump into it than have to deal with any more relationship drama, so.

But, yeah– if he sees one more couple kiss under the mistletoe this year, he might ask El to open that gate after all, just so he can put himself out of his misery.

And this part is where it all goes downhill. Because where Mike’s standing, with just a few steps between him and the door to Lucas’ room, he can hear Dustin’s loud cackle reverberate through the hall– which isn’t so unusual on its own– but then he hears his own name, for whatever reason, which does make him stop in his tracks.

“Mike would never,” Dustin is saying, around a wheezing breath, “are you kidding me, can you imagine his face if we asked him?”

And Mike’s not– usually– the nosy eavesdropper type, but he thinks there’s probably some universal exception to when it’s you you’re being nosy and eavesdrop-y about, especially when it’s Dustin Henderson saying your name in the midst of a fit of up-to-no-good laughter. He frowns, then shuffles a careful step closer to the door.

“Yeah, right,” Lucas is saying, “and then what, they just sneak around us all the time? No way. They’ll crack, I know it.”

Mike isn’t sure what he’s supposed to be cracking about, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t, like, a little intrigued. He hears Max say, “Well, yeah, but when are they going to give up and finally admit that they’re dating?”

“Christmas,” Lucas says immediately, “it’s gotta be Christmas. All that couple-y holiday bull– Mike won’t be able to resist. He’s such a sucker for that type of thing, even if he totally pretends not to be.”

Uh. Mike frowns even harder. He won’t be able to resist what?

“I think New Year’s,” Max is saying, “because they’ll want to, like, kiss at midnight or something–”

“Ew,” Dustin and Lucas say, in perfect unison, and then– 

“Fine,” Dustin says, “I don’t think they’ll say anything at all. I bet we could make it through the rest of senior year and they’d still be tiptoeing around us and pretending like we don’t know.”

“Okay, fine,” Lucas is saying, “fine, whatever. So, you two care to put your money where your mouth is? Or, uh– where your mouths are?”

“You’re on,” Max says. “Twenty bucks says that Will and Mike tell us they’re dating on New Year’s, and not a day sooner.”

“Deal,” Dustin counters, “and my twenty bucks says that we won’t hear a peep out of their mouths for the rest of the year until we catch them doing something real couple-y and gross.”

And– oh, okay, Mike was confused before but now he’s– now he’s– well, there’s a lot of blood rushing immediately into his face, and his palms are getting a bit weirdly sweaty, and he wipes them quick on his jeans–

And then it kind of hits him in its entirety, this stupid ridiculous thing that Dustin and Max and Lucas are all talking about, probably sitting in a circle on Lucas’ floor with their heads pulled in together and giggling about it like it’s some big conspiracy instead of just something that’s objectively not true, not even a little bit–

–they think he and Will are together. Like, together together. Like, they think Will and Mike are dating.

Mike decides, right then and there, that he hates his friends. He hates them so much. He wants to ask El to open that gate to the Upside Down so that he can shove them in and watch them get attacked by a rabid horde of demo-bats. He wants to steal Dustin’s Farah Fawcett hair spray and leave him outside in the rain. He wants to run all of Lucas’ pants on an extra-hot dryer cycle so they shrink and his ankles show. He wants to loosen one of the wheels on Max’s skateboard so she falls flat on her face and cries. He wants to–

“Hey guys,” he hears himself say, voice coming out mostly even and normal as he pushes the door to Lucas’ room open the rest of the way. “What’s up?”

True enough, the three of them are sitting in a cross-legged circle on the floor, and they all whip their heads around to look at him as he walks in.

“Oh,” Dustin says, clearly fighting to keep a smile off his face, “hi, Mike.”

“Mike!” Lucas, on the other hand, doesn’t bother to hide his grin. “You’re late. As always.”

“My mom made me wear everything before I left,” Mike grumbles, sinking to the floor beside Max. “Even though you’re next door– I’m talking jacket, boots, gloves, scarf–”

“What, no earmuffs?” And then Max leans over and tugs at something poking out of the pocket of Mike’s jacket, and, with a triumphant noise– “Oh, never mind!”

“Give those back!”

“Mike,” Dustin says, sounding a bit exasperated and also kind of on the verge of laughter, “you’re seventeen years old–”

Mike throws his hands up in the air. “I don’t want to talk about it!” He hates his friends. He hates them. He hates them, he–

“Wait,” Mike says, glancing around the room. “Where’s Will?”

“Oh, I thought you’d know,” Lucas starts, still grinning toothily, and then Max swats him in the knee with the back of her hand.

“He’ll meet us at the diner,” Max says, but she’s also peering at him suspiciously. “He didn’t tell you?”

“Um, no?” Mike frowns. “Why would he have told me? We were all meeting here anyway–”

“Oh, you know,” Max says, a little twinkle growing in her eye, and then Dustin reaches across their little circle to swat her on the knee, and then Mike remembers that he hates his friends, actually. He hates them, he hates them, he–

“No reason,” Dustin responds, voice a little too light and casual, even as he shoots a glare at Max and Lucas. “No reason at all.”

Mike hates them so much. “Right,” he says, not believing Dustin even a little bit. “So, um. What have you guys been up to?”

“Nothing.” And wow, it’s a little scary how they all said that together, but alright. Whatever. “Nothing,” Max says again, “we were just talking about our winter break plans.”

“Yeah!” Lucas chimes in. “Winter break! And your parents’ holiday party next weekend. Max thinks we should do an ugly sweater theme. At least for our friends.”

Mike frowns. “What’s an ugly sweater theme?”

“It’s like those Christmas sweaters that have those knitted patterns and pictures on the front,” Dustin says, “Max just thinks they’re really ugly, that’s all.”

“I think they’re nice. Very warm. Very practical,” Lucas points out, “because it’s cold and the sweaters would be–”

“Okay, yeah, we get it,” Dustin says, with the air of someone who’s had this conversation multiple times before. He turns to Mike. “So if you have any– you know– unfortunately ugly Christmas sweaters you want to wear, Max is having this whole thing about it–”

“It’s not a thing!” Max exclaims, “I just think it would be funny if we all looked like idiots on purpose, okay?”

“As opposed to you looking like an idiot on accident?” Mike supplies, and then Max is attacking him with his own earmuffs, which she must have grabbed out of his pocket at some point, which is not only thievery but is also just bad manners entirely. “Okay, okay! I’m sorry! You’ve never looked like an idiot ever, okay! Just– you can’t hit someone with their own earmuffs, that’s so–”

“You guys are ridiculous,” he hears Lucas say, and then there’s blessed relief as Lucas tugs the earmuffs out of Max’s hand and sets them on the ground next to him, a safe distance away. “And Max, come on, take it easy. Mike is fragile.”

“Yeah,” Mike starts, and then– “hey! Lucas!”

“I can’t believe I’m friends with you,” Dustin says, which echoes how Mike’s feeling right about now pretty well. He glances down at his watch. “We should leave now, by the way, I told Will to meet us there at two.”

“Awesome,” Mike grumbles, getting to his feet, “now I’ve gotta put everything on all over again.”

“That’s what you get for listening to your mom,” Dustin snorts, entirely unsympathetic to Mike’s plight. “Not my fault you decided to wear the gloves and the boots and the scarf and the–”

“Fine, be mean.” Mike follows Max out the door and down the stairs, laughing as she trips lightly over the folded-over edge of a rug at the bottom of the landing. “But don’t come running to me when your ears are cold, or your hands, or your neck, or your–”

“It’s ok,” Lucas says, turning to Max, with a big, sappy grin on his face, “I know you’d warm me up if I were cold–”

“Okay, ew,” Dustin says, as Mike mimes a gagging motion, “Mike, I’m so glad you’re not like this with–”

And then he falls silent, eyes widening as Lucas and Max both turn their heads around with glares sharp enough to probably cut through steel. “Um,” Dustin starts, immediately backpedaling, “not that you’re– I mean, I’m glad you’re not with anyone, because then you’d be– you’d be gross with them, and you’re not, and there isn’t anyone to be gross with, so–”

Mike decides to put Dustin out of his misery. Even if said misery seems like well-deserved payback for being a nuisance and a menace, but now no one can ever say that Mike’s a bad friend, okay? “Oh, totally,” he says, and Dustin’s posture visibly relaxes. “I would never. You know, hypothetically.”

“Right,” Dustin says, looking relieved, “well that’s probably for the best then.”

“Right,” Mike echoes. He stares down at the laces on his boots, tugging them tighter instead of looking up at where the three of them are surely giving him looks– “Well, should we go?”

Max nods, casting quick glances between Dustin and Mike. “I think Will’s on his way,” she says, and Mike frowns.

“How do you know that?”

She shrugs. “I know everything,” she says, in lieu of an actual response, which is mostly kind of scary and probably a little true, and Mike doesn’t want to dwell too long on what that means, so he just follows Lucas down the driveway to his car instead.

And here’s the thing right, about the whole– the whole him and Will thing– that as much as it’s not true– not true! You hear that, guys?– it’s still definitely not the first time Mike’s heard it before.

Okay, well, it’s the first time his friends have actually thought him and Will were dating. And, apparently, dating in super-secret for probably at least a little while, now. But this is Hawkins, Indiana, and Mike is Mike and Will is Will, and putting those two things together has, historically, resulted in a smorgasbord of misconceptions ranging from amusing to, well– things that are probably not as amusing.

It’s not like the point is that Mike would not want to date Will– in theory. In theory, and not actual real life, because real life sucks. But the point isn’t that he wouldn’t date Will. Will is– Will is great. Like, objectively, he’s a great person, which maybe Mike is a little biased in thinking because Will is his best friend, and they’ve literally been best friends for about twelve years now, and you probably wouldn’t stay best friends with someone for that long unless you think they’re an objectively great person. But whoever Will ends up dating would be, like, the luckiest person ever, because he’s funny and kind and sweet and weirdly intuitive and he’s got nice hair and is objectively– objectively– just a really dateable person.

So Mike’s issue with the whole thing isn’t that he’s, like, offended at the thought of people thinking he’s dating Will Byers. Honestly, it’s a little bit funny and a little bit flattering, because, again, Will is maybe the most objectively dateable person ever, and Mike should honestly be so lucky. It’s just that Mike doesn’t really. You know. Like him like that. Despite what Troy and James and all those other snot-nosed pieces of shit have had to say about it over the years, Mike doesn’t really like Will like that– even though maybe he should, because Will is like, the most objectively boyfriend material ever. 

And more importantly, Will definitely doesn’t like him like that, so he has no idea where they’re all getting this idea from– that they’re not only together, but having some sort of secret tryst and sneaking around behind the Party’s back to continue said tryst.

It’s so ridiculous.

And even more than that, they’re– they’re betting on them? They’re betting on when Mike and Will are going to come out and spill the beans about this tryst of sorts that they’re not even having? That’s honestly kind of hilarious, except for the fact that one of those idiots is going to make money off of this– probably Dustin, because he was saying that thing about them making it through senior year and never caving, which is kind of inevitable because they’re not even dating, hello!

And it’s that last part, that Dustin Henderson, specifically, is going to make, like forty bucks off of Mike’s failure of a love life, that has him clenching his hands into fists the entire drive to the diner down in the main plaza. Dustin Henderson, who Mike is still sort of mad at for spilling an entire vial of something gross on him in Chemistry last week, because his favorite jeans had gone violently purple right in the crotch and the stain still isn’t coming out. And then he and Max and Lucas are probably all going to sit in another circle on the ground and put their heads together and laugh about the whole thing and connive and scheme and–

“It’s freezing out,” Lucas says, pulling into the last open spot in the parking lot and turning the engine off with a mildly concerning rattling noise.

“Hot chocolate,” Max says, undoing her seatbelt and leaping out of the car. “So much hot chocolate.”

“Hot chocolate,” Mike agrees, as they walk up to the door, still seething in quiet, righteous fury. “With, like, whipped cream, and sprinkles, and–”

“Remind me how old you are again,” Max quips, even though Mike knows for a fact she’ll ask for whip and sprinkles on hers too. “Are you going to order the chicken nuggets from the kids menu?”

“Maybe if they have the dinosaur-shaped ones,” Dustin chimes in, and then they’re being ushered into the corner booth and Lucas and Max are sliding in next to each other on one side of it because they’re gross and lame and–

“Is Will not here yet?” Mike cranes his head to peer out the window next to their booth as Dustin takes the spot closest to the wall, keeping one ear out for the telltale rumbling of the Byers’ car to come pulling into the parking lot if it’s Jonathan’s dropping him off, or maybe the ridiculous silhouette of Will’s puffy coat coming in through the door if he walked. He turns to Max. “I thought your know-it-all superpowers said he’d be on his way.”

“I said he was on his way,” Max says wisely, opening up the menu and squinting at it, “I didn’t say he was almost here.”

“So you don’t know anything, is what I’m hearing.” Mike opens up his menu too. “Should I get a burger or the pancakes?”

“Oh my God,” Lucas says, grinning, “they’re having a special on their milkshakes!”

“Dude,” Dustin frowns, “you were literally just saying how cold it is–”

And then they break into a squabble, over whether or not it’s a stupid, idiotic idea to drink a milkshake when it’s, like, ten below freezing outside– “Lucas, you’re going to get brainfreeze and everywhere else-freeze–” “My love for chocolate milkshakes can’t be restricted by something as insignificant as the weather, Dustin–” 

And it’s while Max is rolling her eyes and contemplating the differences between regular fries and waffle fries that Will pops up, right next to where Mike is sitting on the outside of the booth.

“What are you guys arguing about now?” Will frowns, his hair a bit rumpled and cheeks flushed red from cold.

“Milkshakes,” Mike replies, scooting over so Will can slide in next to him, and Dustin makes a noise of affront as he’s squeezed closer to the wall. “Lucas wants one.”

“It’s freezing out,” Will says, shrugging his jacket off and stuffing it behind him, against the back of the booth seat, “why the hell would you want to drink a milkshake when it’s freezing out?”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Dustin exclaims, throwing one hand up in victory. “Thank you Will. You were always my favorite.”

“You were always my favorite too, Dustin,” Will says easily, grinning even as he leans over Mike’s shoulder to look at the menu.

“Um, hello,” Mike says, a bit offended but also a bit distracted by the way Will’s kind of, like, squeezed up next to him, their thighs pressed up against each other in one line against the smooth vinyl of the seats. He smells good, like the cologne Jonathan gave him for his birthday. “I’m right here?”

That’s when Will finally looks up at him. He smiles, a bit teasing. “So you are,” he hums, and then turns back to the menu. “Does anyone want to share a side of fries with me?”

Mike makes an offended noise that perfectly parrots Dustin’s from earlier. “Yes, please,” Max is saying, “waffle or regular?”

“Where were you?” Mike asks, cutting Will off before he can respond. “I can’t believe you left me alone with these idiots.”

“I’m so sorry,” Will says, sounding not at all sorry, even a little bit. “I was helping Hopper fix the car so he could, you know. Drive me here.”

“You– since when do you know anything about cars?” Maybe this is a recent development– Will turning into a Steve Harrington type who does stuff like spending his weekends adding a new coat of wax onto his car and spouting different variations of “Let’s take this baby out for a spin!”

“I don’t,” Will laughs, bending over Mike’s shoulder a little farther to peer at the specials. “I was just holding the flashlight while he was doing stuff under the hood. He did teach me how to check the oil, though.”

“Oh,” Mike says, because he actually can drive and he gets, like, partial use of his dad’s car sometimes, but he doesn’t actually know the first thing about them. Including how to check the oil, so maybe he should– maybe he should ask someone about that. “I don’t even know how to do that.”

“That’s reassuring,” Will says, “considering you drive me places a lot.”

“I could stop,” Mike offers, even as he feels his lips curling up in a smile, “I could always not drive you places.”

“Okay, well, there’s no reason to be so hasty,” Will says quickly, as Mike laughs. “I didn’t say that. Should I get the burger or the pancakes?”

“That’s literally what I’m saying,” Mike says, looking at the picture of the strawberry and whipped cream-topped monstrosity on the menu. “I can’t decide either.”

“Idea,” Will says, tapping one finger against the menu, “you get the pancakes and I get the burger and we share.”

“How are we supposed to share a burger?”

“You cut it in half, obviously–”

“Wow,” Lucas says, and Mike blinks, looking up to where Max and Lucas both have their arms crossed and eyebrows raised in mirror images of each other. Dustin looks like he’s stifling a laugh. “Wow.”

“What?” Mike frowns. “What did I do?”

The three of them exchange looks, and then Mike remembers that– oh, right– he hates his friends, because they’re horrible people who suck. Next to him, Will looks just as puzzled. “What is it?” Will asks, except he sounds actually confused. “Should we not share?”

“No, no,” Lucas says, fighting back a grin. “You two share all you want.”

Mike hates them. He hates them, he hates them, he–

“O-kay,” Will says, still frowning a little but looking somewhat appeased. He shoots Mike a look like, Can you believe these guys? “So. Mike– thoughts?”

“Yeah,” Mike agrees, more so in the hopes that maybe this conversation could move on from him and Will sharing food and then his loser friends can stop looking at them like that. And, by the way, sharing food is a totally normal thing to do, so he doesn’t know why they’re so hung up on it in the first place. Even if they think it’s some sort of dead giveaway about the secretive tryst that, you know. Doesn’t actually exist.

Under the table, Will shifts slightly, scooting in from the edge of the seat so they’re pressed up even more, knee and ankle bumping against Mike’s as he adjusts his legs so he’s not sticking them out to trip unsuspecting passersby. “Sorry,” Will is saying, “I know it’s a little cramped–”

“It’s okay,” Mike says immediately, just as Dustin says, “Yeah, I know–” and shuffles closer to the wall.

“Sorry, Dustin,” Will says with an apologetic smile. “It’s all Mike’s fault.”

“I’m already suffering through the position of the middle seat,” Mike points out, as a waitress approaches their booth with a pad in one hand. “Would it kill you to be nice to me at least?”

“Yes,” Will says, entirely serious. And then Lucas is opening his mouth and ordering a double-chocolate shake with extra whip, and Dustin and Max are both rolling their eyes, and Mike gets too distracted by the pressure of Will’s ankle tangling up against his under the table, warm and unmoving like he really doesn’t mind being all smushed up against Mike in a ratty diner booth on the coldest day Mike can remember ever, to really keep track of anything else.

“–and that’s why ugly Christmas sweaters are actually the most practical item of clothing ever,” Lucas is saying, slurping loudly at the remnants of his shake. Max, Dustin, and Mike have all stopped paying attention maybe fifteen minutes ago, and Will is looking on with polite attention but he also keeps shooting amused glances in Mike’s direction between bites of waffle fry from his and Max’s shared plate. Mike leans over to swipe one for himself, scooping ketchup off of Will’s plate as he pops it into his mouth, ignoring Max’s glare.

“Right,” Will says, absentmindedly moving the plate of fries closer to him and Mike, and Max lets out an offended huff and slumps back in her seat. “And–”

“Especially when they’re handmade,” Lucas prattles on, “because then–”

“Okay!” Mike slaps his hands down on his thighs. “Thanks, Lucas, we get it now.”

“Yeah,” Will agrees, “and I’m totally sold. Let’s do it.”

Lucas lets out a small, triumphant cheer, and, as Dustin and Max are distracted by him knocking over his milkshake glass, Will leans in to whisper in Mike’s ear: “I think all of my sweaters are, uh. Ugly Christmas sweaters. Except I didn’t know they were, like, ugly–”

“I think they’re cute,” Mike says, without a second thought, smiling to himself at the warm weight of Will pressed up against his side as he leans in and doesn’t move away. He grabs another fry and chews on it thoughtfully, because– objectively– Will probably couldn’t ever look bad in everything. And Mike likes his sweaters, of the ugly Christmas variety or otherwise, because Will looks extra, like, huggable in them, or maybe it’s just that Mike is biased towards people in big, comfortable items of clothing. Except he probably wouldn’t want to hug Lucas in a sweater– not for more than, like, a couple seconds anyway. He takes a sip of Dr. Pepper. “I like your sweaters. You look good in them.”

“Oh,” Will says, going suddenly kind of pink, even though they’ve been warmed up inside for probably at least forty minutes now, so there’s really no reason for him to be flushed anymore. “You think I–”

“Oh my God, Mike,” Max says, one eyebrow raised, “what the hell did you just say to Will? He looks like a tomato.”

“I don’t look like a tomato,” Will splutters, instantly going– yep– tomato-red. 

“Oh,” says Dustin, entirely too pleased for Mike’s own good, “oh, oh–”

“Would you two please shut up,” Mike hisses, which probably just confirms their suspicions about the whole tryst thing, so maybe he should have just kept quiet.

“Oh,” Lucas is also saying, “but you make it so easy.”

And it’s at that moment, thankfully, amidst Will’s slight choking on the sip of water he took to hide his sudden transformation into fresh produce, that Mike is saved by the bell. Or, rather, saved by the waitress.

“Is that all for you guys today?” she asks, looking entirely unenthused. “Or can I get you anything else?”

“Um,” Will says, looking around at the rest of them, “no, I think we’re good. Guys?”

Max, Lucas, and Dustin exchange looks– and Mike really wishes they’d stop doing that– before they all turn back to Mike. “Nope,” Lucas says, popping the p on the last syllable. He raises his eyebrows at Mike. “Mike? You?”

“Uh,” Mike says, “no, I’m– I’m good too.”

The waitress nods, setting down five pieces of paper and walking away without another word.

Max glances at her bill, then pushes it over towards Lucas, who takes it without even questioning it. “I crushed his ass at Mario last night,” she tells Dustin, who’s giving Lucas a look like wow. “It’s what he deserves for being a loser.”

Mike’s putting down a few bills for his part of the meal when he hears Will make a distressed sound next to him. He looks up, frowning. “Will? You okay?”

Will grabs for his jacket, rummaging through the pockets. “Oh, no,” he groans after a moment, eyes wide. “I think my wallet fell out of my pocket in the car.”

“Oh,” Mike says for a second, not quite sure why Will looks so upset, because he knows it throws him off, not being prepared for things or being caught off-guard like this, but it’s just his friends, and it’s just Mike, and they’re not about to leave him, like, scrubbing dishes to pay off his bill. He pulls a couple more bills out of his wallet and says, “Hey, it’s cool, I got yours.”

“What– Mike,” Will gets out, looking a bit confused, “okay, you’re actually high or something, there’s no way I’m letting–”

“Oh, wow,” Max is saying, as she and Lucas grab their coats, “you’re so–”

“Yes you’re letting me,” Mike says, instead of gracing Max with a response, “because I just did, so. And we split two dishes anyway, it makes sense this way.”

Will gives him a small, grateful smile. “I’ll pay you back next time I see you, I promise, just remind me–”

“No,” Mike blurts out, without really knowing why. “No, you don’t– you don’t have to, seriously, just let me–”

“You’re crazy,” Will decides, “there’s no way I’m letting you–”

“Please,” Mike insists. He just wants– look, paying for someone’s meal is a nice gesture, alright, and it’s making something warm and fluttery swim around in Mike’s chest to think about, so he really wants to just pay for Will’s lunch, even if for the totally selfish reason of making himself feel satisfied, or whatever. “Just let me?”

“Can you losers please move?” Dustin motions for Mike to move. “I need to get out.”

Mike waits, and then Will rolls his eyes and says, “Fine, oh my God, you’re insufferable,” and then Mike grins in triumph, standing up to let Dustin out.

“Wait,” Mike says, as Will is turning around to follow Lucas out to the car. He grabs onto Will’s wrist, right at the hem of his stupid puffy winter jacket. “Hold on, I wanna– I just want to talk to you about something, really quick.”

“Oh,” Will says, and if he’s confused at all, it doesn’t show. “Okay, sure. We’ll be there in a second, guys,” he calls out to the rest of them.

“Unbelievable,” Mike hears Max mutter under her breath. “Footsie. They were playing footsie.”

They were– they were not playing footsie, Mike thinks, as Will slips back into the seat across from him. Not on purpose, anyway. It’s not his fault the booth could just barely fit three people!

“So,” Will is saying, “what’s up?”

“Oh,” Mike says, and then, “you still have a little ketchup on your lip.”

Will snorts softly, grabbing a napkin. “Thanks,” he says, “but you couldn’t have told me this in front of the others?”

“That’s not the thing,” Mike says, tearing his eyes away from where Will’s lip has gone a bit red from all the rubbing. “The thing is– I’ve decided I really, really hate them. Lucas, Max, and Dustin. I hate them.”

The great thing about Will is that he’s used to Mike’s theatrics. He indulges him in a way that few other people do– not Max, not Dustin, not El, not Nancy, not even Lucas. So that’s another reason why Will is– objectively– the best person Mike knows. “Okay,” he says, smiling, instead of saying anything about I think that’s a little dramatic. “Any reason why?”

“Because– because– okay, you’ll never believe this,” Mike starts, leaning in across the booth as if the three of them might be lurking around the corner listening in on their conversation. Actually– “Okay,” Mike continues, after a quick glance around, “so. Apparently Max and Dustin and Lucas think we’re– they think we’re dating.”

He waits for it to land, waits for the inevitable laugh and ridicule or for Will to say something like “You’re kidding,” but all that happens is Will raises his eyebrows and his eyes widen a little, and he says, “Who, you and me?”

Okay, so that was a bit anticlimactic. “Yeah,” Mike nods anyway, “like– they think we’re dating and just sneaking around them and they have this whole bet about when we’re going to crack and tell them–”

“Wait,” Will interrupts, holding up a hand, “so they really think we’re dating? Like, actually? ”

“Yeah,” Mike says again, “I don’t know why, but–”

“Well, you did pay for my lunch,” Will points out, with that signature fondly exasperated expression of his that somehow always ends up getting turned Mike’s way. “Maybe that’s why.”

“Okay, well–”

“And we shared food,” Will goes on, tapping a finger thoughtfully against his lip, “and you played footsie with me–”

“Okay, maybe,” Mike says, and then, “that wasn’t footsie, the booth was just cramped!”

“And now we’re sitting here while they’re all waiting in the car,” Will continues, ignoring him, “so they probably think we’re, like, canoodling over the booth–”

“Canoodling– okay, never mind,” Mike says, mouth open, trying and failing not to think about canoodling with Will Byers over a diner booth, which is– “okay, this was– never mind, I actually also hate you too. I hate all of you. You, Max, Dustin, Lucas–”

“You don’t hate me,” Will says simply, which is too true for Mike to make any sort of semi-convincing argument against it, so he just shuts up. 

“Okay, fine, whatever! Coming back to my first point,” Mike adds, now that Will’s stopped saying that stuff about paying for his lunch and canoodling, and– “if you feel uncomfortable,” he goes on, “about– about people thinking you’re dating me, I can just tell them to cut the shit and say we’re not–”

“Whoa,” Will says, “hold on, why would I be uncomfortable about people thinking you’re dating me?”

Mike’s not really sure how to articulate the thought, but it goes something like this: that Will– and Mike too, by extension, but largely Will– spent most of his childhood getting picked on by people and a large majority of that being picked on had to do with– well. It’s Hawkins, Indiana, and two boys being as close as they were never did go over too smoothly on the war zone known as the Hawkins Elementary playground. “I don’t know,” Mike says at last, scraping a fingernail against the sticky soda residue on the table– gross– and shrugging. “Maybe you don’t want people thinking we’re dating, or maybe it’s scaring off all your prospects, or–”

Will looks thoroughly baffled. “Prospects? Who do you think I’m– um. Prospecting?”

“I don’t know!” Mike says again. “Okay, fine, maybe you’re just offended that people think we’re dating, then.”

“Are you offended that people think we’re dating?”

“No,” Mike says immediately. “Of course not,” because, again, he should be so lucky.

Will’s baffled expression does not change. “Then why would I be?”

“So– okay, fine, whatever. Should we, like, tell them to get their heads out of their asses and that we’re not– um– dating, or–”

Will lets his gaze fall to the window, toying with the zipper on his jacket. “You said they made a bet?” he asks after a minute, looking back. “Lucas and Max and Dustin?”

Mike rolls his eyes. “Yeah, Lucas said we’d tell them on Christmas, because of the, uh. The couple-y stuff, whatever that means. And Dustin said we’d make it clear through senior year without saying anything, which is looking pretty likely since– you know,” he adds, gesturing between them with one hand, “we aren’t together.”

“No,” Will snorts, “no, we’re not. What did Max say?”

“She said New Year’s, I think. Because of the– um. The midnight kiss.”

“Right,” Will says, except it also comes out a bit weak this time. He leans back in the booth, slumping down low. “The midnight kiss.”

“Right,” Mike echoes. “So–”

“I think,” Will cuts in, “well. You know what would be funny?”

Mike frowns. Will Byers’ idea of funny ranges from things that are genuinely hilarious to things that are probably mean enough, at times, to make grown men cry. “What?” he asks cautiously. “What is it now, and do I need to call your stepdad, the Chief of Police–”

“It’s nothing bad, I promise!” Will laughs, which is maybe the least reassuring thing Mike has ever heard. “I just think– what if we told them we were– we are dating?”

Mike stares. Him and Will, dating. Him, dating Will. Will Byers. Telling their friends that they– Mike and Will, to be specific– are dating. He stares some more. “Um. Why would we do that?”

Will shrugs, eyes crinkling up at the corners. “Because,” he starts, sitting up straighter and leaning forward. His voice drops into a conspiratorial whisper. “Then none of them would win the bet and they’d also stop whispering about us when they think we can’t hear.”

“Okay, so you caught that too, right?” Mike leans forward, close enough so that his and Will’s hands are almost bumping on the table. He can’t say the idea isn’t appealing– especially the part about Dustin Henderson not winning forty dollars and Mike exacting his revenge for going through third through seventh periods with a purple stain on his pants where no purple stain should ever be. “I’m intrigued.”

“Plus,” Will says, “I just think it would be funny.”

“Funny,” Mike echoes, thinking about how apparently Will has zero prospects and also would not be morally offended if people thought he was dating Mike. “Yeah, it would be pretty funny. It would be really funny, actually.”

“Mhm.” Will looks up at him, eyes twinkling. “We can tell them tomorrow, if you want. El wants to have a movie night at our place.”

“Movie night,” Mike says, “right. Yeah, okay, let’s–” 

And right then, in the middle of that thought, is when it hits him– that telling everyone he’s dating Will Byers means that they’re all going to think he’s, you know. Dating Will Byers. Which is doing something weird and fluttery to his chest– because, like he was saying, Will Byers is probably the most objectively dateable person Mike has ever met and now everyone is going to think they’re–

“Oh, I can’t wait to see the look on Max’s face,” Will is grinning. “You know she tried to set me up with, like, four different girls for the winter dance? Now I guess she just thought that would, like, break me or something. You know, if we were supposedly dating the whole time–”

“Oh,” Mike says, “I didn’t know that.”

“Well, I didn’t say yes,” Will rolls his eyes, “because we all went together, remember?”

Mike laughs. “Yeah, I know. I was there.” And then– “So, tomorrow?”

Will nods. “El said movie night at seven? So if you want to come over then, we can– we can, like, break the news before it starts.”

“Right,” Mike says, as Will smiles expectantly up at him, and the weird fluttery feeling in his chest just becomes even weirder and more fluttery. “Seven is good, I’ll–”

There’s a small tap at the window, and Mike looks over just in time to see a small clod of dirt fall away from the glass. Lucas has his hands raised over his head, waving like Hello! from the car, and Dustin taps at his watch impatiently.

“We should probably go,” Will laughs, “because they definitely think we just snuck away to, like–”

“Please don’t say canoodle again,” Mike says, but he’s laughing too, because it’s sort of funny. The word canoodle and also– and also this entire thing. “So, seven tomorrow,” he adds, as they finally make their way back outside. “I’ll be there.”

The Byers’ house is currently in the throes of being violently decorated for the holidays, so when Mike shows up, he has to step over four boxes of ornaments and detangle his feet from three separate cords of Christmas lights that are all conniving to send him to an early, tinsel-covered grave.

“So sorry about that,” Will says, opening the door wider so that Mike can stumble his way inside, except his face is doing a funny twitching thing that implies that he’s not sorry about that and would probably gladly allow it to happen again.

Mike tugs one boot off and leans down to undo the laces on the other. “Man, I knew you guys liked Christmas but this is– wow.”

“El’s going through a thing right now,” Will says, as if this explains everything– which it sort of does, actually. “She flaked on lunch yesterday to go Christmas tree shopping with Jonathan,” he nods at the tree in the corner of the room, “so just know that’s where her priorities currently lie.”

“Noted.” Mike blows air onto his hands and rubs them together. “El would leave me stranded if it was a choice between the tree fitting in the car and me.”

“Don’t take it personally,” Will says, as they walk through the kitchen, “she’d do it to me too.”

For a moment they hover by the chairs, Mike still trying to rub some feeling back into his fingers. It got dark out hours ago and it’s freezing and he’s starting to think maybe his mom was onto something about the gloves and the hat and the scarf after all. “So,” Will says at last, “everyone else is already here because you were late. Again.”

“Hey!” Mike reaches into the pocket of his jacket and pulls out a rectangular plastic box. “It’s because I stopped at the video place for this,” he says, handing it to Will, “you weren’t kidding when you said El was going through a Christmas thing.”

“A Christmas Story,” Will muses, flipping the box over. “Next time, we’re letting Max choose.”

“Max would choose a slasher,” Mike points out, “not very festive.”

“True,” Will hums, then looks over his shoulder into the living room, where Lucas, Dustin, El, and Max are trying their hardest– and failing, quite miserably– to pretend like they’re not listening very intently on Will and Mike’s conversation in the kitchen. “So,” Will says again, “it’s now or never, right?”

Mike’s palms are suddenly– wow, when did they get this sweaty? They were dry and freezing a couple minutes ago. “Okay, cool, awesome. We’re doing this, then?”

“Yeah,” Will smiles softly, “unless you– unless you don’t want to?”

“No!” Mike shakes his head. “No, let’s do it. It would be funny. Plus, they’re totally wondering what we’re talking about right now.” He catches Dustin’s eye over the top of the sofa and raises his eyebrows, and Dustin immediately whips his head back around and mimes conversation with El. “Yeah,” Mike adds, squinting, “God, I’m so sick of him and his smug little– yeah, let’s do this.”

“Okay,” Will says, taking one step towards the living room and motioning Mike closer. “Come on, you should, probably, like, hold my hand or something–”

“Hold your hand–” Mike says, only spluttering a little bit, “why should I hold your hand?”

“Because we’re dating,” Will says, corners of his lips twitching, “and usually when people date, they hold hands?”

“Right,” Mike says. His hands are– they’re suddenly even more sweaty than before, which really should not be possible, because the Byers’ kitchen isn’t that warm and the rest of him still feels pretty cold. Except his face, which is also feeling kind of warm, and his stomach, and his chest is doing that weird fluttery thing again– “Right, yeah, okay,” and then he wipes his hand on his jeans and reaches out and grabs Will’s, before he can think about it too much and, like, get super sweaty again– gross. “Cool.”

“Cool,” Will echoes, and then he takes a deep breath and calls out, “guys?”

By the time they actually make it to the living room, Max, Dustin, and Lucas’ eyebrows have already disappeared halfway into their hairlines. “Oh,” Dustin is saying, stare fixed directly on where Mike’s hand is, unfortunately, going a bit clammy against Will’s firm grip. “Oh.”

“We have something to tell you,” Will starts, and Mike can, like, feel him fighting back a laugh.

“Oh?” Lucas echoes, sounding very conflicted between looking uncontainably gleeful and severely disappointed. “Go on, then.”

“Will and I,” Mike starts, taking a deep breath, “are dating.”

There’s a beat of silence, in which Dustin looks at Max, and Lucas looks at El, and then El looks back at Dustin and Max looks at Lucas, and then all four of them burst out groaning. Well, Max and Dustin and Lucas burst out groaning, and El looks about ready to explode with excitement.

“Damn it,” Lucas wails, “come on, guys, now?”

“I was so sure the midnight kiss would break them.” Max leans back against the front of the sofa and slumps down against the rug. “I was so sure–”

“I hate you,” Dustin mutters, still staring at where Will’s fingers are intertwined between Mike’s– and this is actually not doing great things for his ailment of clammy palms and blushy face and swoopy chest feelings– “I hate you guys, I hate you guys, I–”

“I know the feeling,” Mike says, but he’s starting to think this was entirely the right call, even if purely for the looks on their faces. “Trust me.”

“I think it’s sweet,” El pipes up, from where she’s sitting cross-legged on the sofa. “I was wondering when it would finally happen.”

“Um,” Mike starts, because as far as he knows, El wasn’t in on the original bet, and she doesn’t seem the scheming type– actually, cross that, she’s totally the scheming type– but it doesn’t look like she was in on their little– whatever it was. “Well. It happened!”

El flashes Will a thumbs up, and Mike glances over to see a slight blush spreading across his face. And, you know, they’re not even actually dating but Mike is sure that he’s also turning a bit pink right now, just from all the attention, and the– the dating Will implications, and the warm weight of Will’s fingers laced through his, steady and unfaltering in his grip even though Mike’s hands are getting actually very dangerously sweaty–

“So,” Lucas starts, “how long has this been–” He gestures between the two of them.

“A few weeks,” Mike says, without really thinking about it, just as Will blurts out, “Three days ago,” and then they both fall silent, looking at each other with wide eyes.

“Um,” Mike says, “a few weeks, but– but we made it official three days ago,” and Will nods.

“Yeah,” he agrees, relieved, and Lucas rolls his eyes, “we– it was– you know.”

“Well, we totally called it,” Dustin grins, “even if I got cheated out of my forty bucks.”

“You weren’t cheated,” Max mumbles, “it’s not their fault they’re gross and couldn’t keep their mouths shut.”

“Hey!” Will gasps. “We– we confide in you guys that we’re dating, that we’re in a relationship, and this is what we get?”

Mike bites his lip to hold back a laugh. “Yeah,” he adds, putting on his best offended voice, “not cool. We thought you were our friends. Maybe we shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Come on, Mike,” Will says, and his voice has gone exaggeratedly stilted and low in mock hurt, and Mike bites down on his lip harder so he doesn’t burst out laughing and ruin this whole thing fifteen seconds in. “Maybe this was a bad idea. I think we should go.”

“Wait!” Dustin exclaims, and then they’re all scrambling to their feet. “No, oh my God, guys, no, we’re so happy for you–”

“Yeah!” El is saying, and she’s leaping off the sofa too, and then Mike and Will are being tackled in a tangle of limbs, four pairs of arms wrapping around the two of them, and Mike ends up with his face smushed somewhere between Max’s shoulder and El’s back, and his hand is still sweaty and intertwined with Will’s, and he lets go for one blessed moment of relief to wipe it on his jeans– again– and pat Lucas awkwardly on the back. “I knew you two would end up together,” El is saying, apparently uncaring that her brother and her ex-boyfriend from, like, four years ago are– “I’m so glad it finally happened. You two deserve it.”

“Um,” Mike starts, because that part, about knowing they would end up together is a little– and then El is unwinding her arms from Will and throwing them around him and squeezing, and that’s actually really nice, so Mike just drops that train of thought right there. “Thanks, El,” he says, hugging her back, “that’s– that’s nice of you.”

“We all clocked it,” Lucas says, thumping Mike on the shoulder, “like, years ago, you guys were not subtle–”

“Okay!” Will says, definitely very pink in the face now. “That’s– I know I was the one that said that you guys were being mean but this is– this is good, let’s just watch the movie now, or something–”

Personally, Mike is still a bit hung up on the I knew you two would end up together! And the you guys were not subtle, which are both– they’re both ridiculous statements, okay, because there totally wasn’t anything there before, and him and Will aren’t even dating, and–

“A Christmas Story!” El cheers, “I’ve been meaning to watch this one!”

“Yeah, I know.” Will rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “I’m the one you keep pestering about it, remember?”

Max and Lucas are settling in against the cushions of the sofa, across the room from the TV. “Well?” Max says, “are we going to watch this movie or am I going to fall asleep first?”

“Probably fall asleep,” Mike says, but he settles into the opposite corner of the couch. “Next time, we’re watching something cool.”

“Die Hard,” Lucas nods, “that’s totally a Christmas movie. We’re doing that next time.”

El’s saying something, about how Die Hard is not a Christmas movie, and calling it that is, like, sacrilegious towards holiday festivities everywhere, but Mike is mostly watching Will, hovering around the edge of the sofa like he’s not quite sure what to do with himself. “Hey,” Mike says quietly, patting the spot next to him, “come sit.”

“Oh, right,” Will says, lowering himself down onto the worn leather and reaching for a blanket tossed onto the floor in front of them, “I guess we should– I guess we’re sitting together.”

“Right,” Mike agrees, as if he and Will don’t usually end up sitting next to each other on movie nights anyways. But now they’re– now everyone thinks they’re sitting together as, like, a couple. And apparently they probably thought they were sitting together as a couple before that, too, but– whatever. It’s whatever. “Here,” Mike says, as El turns the TV on, and she and Dustin crouch down onto the floor with a blanket of their own. He moves closer, trying to ignore Lucas’ evil, evil grin burning its way into the side of his head. He lowers his voice so the rest of them can’t hear. “We should probably cuddle, or something?”

“Oh,” Will says again, and then, “yeah, let me just–” He shuffles a bit, pulling the blanket up around them. It’s one they’ve had ever since Mike can remember– he’s slept under it during sleepovers more times than he can count. And then Will is leaning into him, resting his head on Mike’s shoulder and tucking his knees up into his chest, close enough so that Mike can smell the clean citrus of his shampoo– again, the same stuff Joyce has been buying since before Mike can even remember thinking about these things– and the good cologne, again.

And Will is warm, and the blanket is warm, and the TV is crackling to life, the intro music playing softly through the speakers, and Dustin is already saying something that’s making the rest of them groan in exasperation, but Mike is still kind of stuck on that first part– how warm everything is, the soft wool of Will’s sweater, how they’re, like, cuddling, and–

“You guys are cute!” El calls out, just as the same moment that Max makes an exaggerated gagging sound looking over at them, and Will stifles a laugh into Mike’s shoulder.

“Thanks,” he calls back, half-muffled by the fabric of Mike’s shirt, still laughing silently.

“Wow,” Mike whispers, shivering slightly as Will’s breath ghosts over his neck, “they’re so–”

“So,” Will agrees, and then he’s wiggling around again. “Sorry,” he says, “it’s a little weird for my neck leaning down like that, maybe we could–”

On some inexplicable whim, Mike extends his arm, reaching around the back of the sofa and slips one hand around Will’s shoulder, pulling him closer. “Um,” he says, as Will tenses, “sorry, is that not–”

“No, no,” Will says quickly, “it’s cool, sorry, I was just surprised.” And then Mike tugs him in the rest of the way before he can think too much about the, you know, everything of it all. And now they aren’t so much just pressed up side-to-side anymore, but Will is kind of tucked up against his front, the new angle making it so that Will’s knees have kind of come to rest on top of Mike’s thighs, and they’re all kind of– tangled together under the blanket.

It’s– nice. It’s nice.

“Is this okay?” Mike whispers, even though he had just asked, but this seems like maybe it could be a little overwhelming, going from sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on movie night to, like, being half on top of each other with all their friends around. And Will’s pretty good with casual touch– he’s a hugger if Mike’s ever known one– so this is probably fine. But still.

“Yes,” Will laughs softly, “it’s nice, Mike, stop asking,” and then he winds one arm around the front of Mike’s stomach and leans in so his head is resting fully against Mike’s chest, and– 

–yeah, okay. This is nice. Objectively, Mike is enjoying this. He thinks they should maybe have spent more time doing this even when they weren’t not-really-dating, because Will smells really nice and he’s really warm, and Mike is kind of losing all focus on the conversation happening in the room. 

And he’s not really sure what’s happening on the TV either, other than that it’s making El laugh, and Max and Lucas are both groaning, and Will is chiming in with occasional commentary and a laugh every now and then. Except he’s kind of talking right up against Mike’s chest, and Mike can, like, feel the vibrations when he laughs, and he’s feeling weirdly warm and fuzzy, and it’s just– it’s nice, okay? Objectively. Objectively, Will is the most dateable and, apparently, cuddle-able person Mike has ever met, and now Mike is the one not-really-dating him and really-actually-cuddling him, and it’s just–

It’s nice.

To be entirely honest, Mike has no idea what happens for, like, a solid eighty percent of the movie. “This is lame,” Dustin calls out, and then he and El break out into a small argument about it on the floor and then the TV bursts into black and white static and the picture cuts out entirely.

“Wow,” Will quips, “nice one, El, you broke the movie.”

“I didn’t break the movie,” El protests, except she totally, completely did. “I was just–!”

“I think this is a good time for a snack break,” Lucas supplies, “popcorn, anyone? Candy? Gummy worms?”

“I need more gummy worms for sure,” Max says, “because this movie is not interesting enough to hold my attention without them. Sorry El,” she adds, as El lets out a betrayed noise of protest from the floor, “you know I love you, but it’s true.”

“Thoughts?” Will says, suddenly, lifting his head off Mike’s chest and looking up at him.

Mike blinks. “What?”

“On the movie?” Will looks a bit on the verge of laughter. “We were all just– we were just talking about it. Weren’t you paying attention?”

Truthfully– no. Not even a little bit. “Sorry,” Mike says, blinking down at Will, “I got a bit distracted.”

Will hums noncommittally, untangling himself from Mike to stretch, rolling his neck and shoulders back with a quiet noise of satisfaction. “No kidding,” Will snorts, “by what?”

Well. Will had been really warm, and he– you know, he smelled really good, and Mike had really been enjoying the way Will was leaning into him– unapologetic and unwavering, like he was just really content to lie there, arms wrapped around each other, legs all tangled up, watching some movie that objectively was not very good. And Mike’s chest had been doing that strange, fluttery thing, and he’d been thinking, a bit far off in his head, how he hadn’t felt this sort of contentment in a really long time, the kind that seeps right down to the marrow of your bones, lingering lead-heavy and radiating warmth from the inside out. 

So yeah. He’d been distracted.

“Nothing,” Mike shakes his head, stretching his legs out and letting the blanket slide off of him and into a pile on the ground. “It’s not important.” 

“O-kay,” Will says, shooting him a strange look. He peels himself off the couch and starts walking over to Lucas and Max in the kitchen. “You’re so weird, Mike.”

“But you like it!” Mike calls after him, and then Dustin is rolling his eyes at him and– okay, Mike hadn’t even meant it like that, he’d meant that Will likes his weirdness as a– as a friend. A friend! Like, Will tolerates him, even though Mike eats his eggs with syrup and sometimes pours his milk in before his cereal just to watch Will’s eyebrows get all frowny and disapproving. Will still tolerates him. It’s nice.

“So,” El starts, clambering up to take Will’s abandoned spot on the sofa. “You and Will?”

“Oh,” Mike says, startling slightly. “Um. Hi, El.”

“Hi,” El smiles, “so, you and Will?”

“Um,” Mike says again, “yes?”

El’s smile only widens. “That’s great!” she exclaims, sounding strangely, exuberantly happy about her adoptive brother apparently dating the guy she went out with– sort of– for, like, two years. Before Mike realized he was, you know, not so much into El like that, and also that he was kind of floating untethered in some weird gray area of maybe potentially not so much being into girls like that at all, so. And listen, that’s been this whole other ongoing crisis, but at least not-really-dating Will means he doesn’t have to think about it for the time being, about wanting to versus not wanting to date girls, because apparently all that he’s gotta focus on right now is dating– or not-dating– Will. 

This is cool. Awesome. In El’s words– this is great.

“I mean,” El is saying, and she’s pulling her knees up to her chest and tucking her cheek into the crook of her elbow. “I knew you two would end up together.”

“Um,” Mike says, for probably the third time in a row, now. “You– what?”

“I thought you liked him for a while,” El nods wisely, “so I guess I was right this whole time.”

“I don’t–!” Mike starts on instinct, and then he remembers that his gut-reaction protest of I don’t like Will! isn’t really going to work if he’s supposed to, you know. Be dating Will. “I mean,” he backtracks, toeing at the plush outline of the blanket on the floor, “I don’t want to– to make a big deal out of it or anything.”

“Liar,” El says simply, “you make a big deal out of everything.”

“El!” Mike gasps in mock affront, but it’s true and he can’t even deny it, and then she’s laughing softly as she leans in and throws her arms around him.

“Seriously,” she says, quietly, like she doesn’t want anyone to hear. “I’m so happy for you two. You deserve it.”

Mike doesn’t know about that, per se, because it’s this personal, long-held belief of his that there’s probably nobody alive on this planet that deserves Will Byers. Even if Will Byers is the most objectively dateable person ever, and literally anyone should be so lucky as to even entertain that thought– Will’s just too good for them all.

“Thanks, El,” he says anyway, and brings his arms up to hug her back, squeezing gently through festively enthusiastic layers of general store holiday-patterned sweaters. There’s something kind of funny happening to his stomach, even through the pleasant vanilla of El’s perfume and the scent of popcorn floating through the air as Lucas fiddles with the microwave buttons. He swallows. “I appreciate it, I really do–”

“Mike!” he hears someone call, and he and El both turn to see Will in the kitchen, holding up a can of soda and smiling. “You want?”

“Yeah!” Mike grins. “Thank you!”

Will shoots him a thumbs up and turns back around to Lucas as the microwave makes a strange beeping noise– “You’re going to break the microwave,” he’s saying, shoving Lucas lightly out of the way, “you’re such a moron, okay, move–”

Will’s good at that, Mike thinks, as El untangles herself from him and slips back down onto the floor with a light squeeze of his knee. He’s good at looking fond, and pleased, and– and looking at Mike like that, like he’s just really happy to have him around. 

“You guys are sweet together,” El smiles, before turning back around.

And– sure. Sweet. That’s one way to put it. Mike watches Will shriek softly as he takes the popcorn bag out, steam rising rapidly from the top, and laughs.

The great thing about winter break is, you know, having two weeks off from school. So there’s really no reason, Mike thinks, turning over in bed as he becomes vaguely aware of a hammering at his door, for someone to be trying to wake him up before noon.

“Wh–” he tries, and it’s barely audible and sticky on his tongue, even to his own ears, so he clears his throat and tries again. “What?”

There’s a blessed pause, where Mike thinks that maybe whoever it is decided to give up and go home, and he’s just about to roll back over and slip back into sleep when the doorknob turns and the door goes flying open against the wall with a soft bang!

“Sorry,” Will is saying, grinning softly down at Mike’s form, all bundled up in what can probably only be described as a nest of assorted blankets, “I forgot your door does that.”

Mike frowns, bringing one hand up to rub at his eyes. “What time is it?” he groans, looking over to the window where it’s still not that bright out, and it’s dead in the middle of December, so it can’t be past maybe nine or ten.

“Nine-thirty,” Will chirps, and yup, right on the money. He crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. “Are you wearing fuzzy socks?”

Mike yanks his feet back under the cover of his blanket, away from Will Byers’ mean, prying, judgemental eyes. “Shut up,” he mutters, “it was cold, okay?”

“I didn’t say anything!” Will shrugs, throwing his hands up, sounding like he’s fighting back a laugh. “They’re cute. I like them.”

Mike is not awake enough to be having his conversation. “Right,” he says, rubbing at his eyes again. “Why are you– what are you doing here? It’s nine in the morning.”

“Nine-thirty,” Will corrects, “and El woke us all up with this giant ruckus because she was pulling all the decorations down and redoing them.”

“At nine in the morning?”

Will grimaces. “Eight,” he corrects, and then comes to perch lightly on the corner of Mike’s bed. Mike shifts, making room, and Will tucks his legs under the opposite end of the blanket. “She decided we didn’t do it festive enough.”

“Unbelievable,” Mike mutters, “considering I almost got offed by some tinsel yesterday.”

Will laughs softly, letting his foot come to rest softly against Mike’s knee under the duvet. “Oh yeah, I was there. It was really funny, the way you tripped–”

“Okay!” Mike grins, despite the very traumatic memory, because if there’s one person who could drag him out of the warm embrace of sleep at nine-thirty on a Monday morning during Winter Break and have him, like, smiling about it, it’s probably Will Byers. “Okay, fine, whatever, what are you– I mean why are you here?”

“I decided I’d come and bother you,” Will says easily, “since I was up. Your mom let me in. And, um. You know. Since we’re supposed to be, like, dating and stuff– I figured we should probably spend some time together. Make it believable.”

“We already spend time together,” Mike points out, “lots and lots and lots of time, you’re hanging out with me constantly, which is maybe poor judgment on your part–”

Will nods. “Agreed,” and okay, that was a little too fast for Mike’s liking. He scowls, pulling a pillow out from under his head and thwacking Will on the side of his leg.

“Mean!” And then, as Will tries and fails to tug the pillow out of his hands– “I mean, I think it was plenty believable,” he adds, thinking about El and Dustin and Lucas and Max and El, saying that thing about I thought you liked him for a while, so maybe it was, like, a little too believable. Because Mike hasn’t liked Will for a while. He hasn’t liked Will ever, at all, actually, so he doesn’t know where El was getting those ideas from, but she was way off base, okay?

And then he remembers that Will came over to hang out with him– him!– and he’s going to get, like, one-on-one time with his best friend if he just shuts up and goes with it, so he’s not sure why exactly he’s going through all these mental gymnastics of trying to find a way out of it. “And, uh. Right. Spending time together. What do you– how are we–”

“You can start with that bedhead,” Will starts to say, and then Mike is bringing the pillow down hard enough to send Will rolling onto his side in a fit of laughter. “Okay! Okay, I’m sorry– it’s not that bad– ow– I’m sorry!”

“You better be,” Mike says, grinning, “my hair looks great.”

His hair most certainly does not look great. Mike can tell that much and he hasn’t even looked in a mirror yet today. “Sure,” Will is saying, “if you say so, Mike.” He pauses, looking at where Mike is sitting, one hand still on the pillow, and he makes a tentative movement backwards. “So– what do you want to do?”

“Um,” Mike starts. He slowly untangles himself from the sheets and says around a yawn, “Hold on. We can figure it out after I brush my teeth.”

Ten minutes later, they’re in the kitchen, and Mike is rooting through the cupboards. “I don’t know if you had breakfast or anything but I can’t really cook either way but– if my mom were here, she’d probably be force-feeding you waffles right now, but I think she and Holly went Christmas shopping for our party this weekend, so–”

“Oh yeah,“ Will nods, leaning against the counter and watching Mike fumble with a box of cereal, “she said something about that as she was letting me in– oh my God, Mike, you’re going to drop the Lucky Charms, give me that–” And then he’s plucking the Lucky Charms out of Mike’s hands as he shuffles various boxes of oatmeal and granola around in his arms. He frowns, shaking the box gently. “Mike, this was full when I came over two days ago– how much cereal do you eat?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Mike huffs, and Will snorts, “and it’s not like I have a lot of options, okay! I know how to make, like, toast, I guess. And Eggos, by extension. And, um. If fruit counts as breakfast I know how to eat fruit–”

“You’re ridiculous,” Will announces, “you’re so– everyone knows how to eat fruit, Mike, you literally just bite into it–”

“Okay!” Mike exclaims, for maybe the millionth time since Will got here and it’s not even ten in the morning. “What do you suggest then, huh?”

“Um,” Will says, and then he straightens up from his position leaning against the counter and shoots a contemplative glance at the pile of boxes scattered over the counter. “If you– if you have, like, pancake mix or something, I can maybe show you how to do that.”

“You– since when do you cook,” Mike starts, but he reaches towards the back of the cupboard where he’s seen his mom put the box of mix when she’s done with it. “And why haven’t you cooked me anything?”

“I don’t know if box mix pancakes count as cooking,” Will laughs, “since you add, like, an egg and some water and you’re done, but– I guess I’m cooking you stuff now, so.”

“Yeah, but it involves turning the stove on,” Mike points out, pulling out two eggs from the fridge. “And I don’t trust myself to do that. Um, do you need, like, a bowl to mix this in, or something–”

Will smiles, enough so his eyes start to get all crinkly at the corners. It’s a good look on him, Mike thinks absently, trying very hard to not drop the eggs on the way back to where Will’s standing, reading the instructions off the back of the box. “A bowl would be helpful, yes.”

It takes, all things considered, more time than is probably necessary for two seventeen-year-old boys to figure out how to make a batch of pancakes from a box, and Mike is sure that Will would’ve managed to do the whole thing in maybe ten minutes on his own, if it weren’t for Mike hovering at his elbows and constantly knocking things over.

“Oh my God,” Will says, much less exasperated than he honestly should have sounded, watching Mike knock the spatula onto the ground for the umpteenth time. “You’re so– I literally have never met anyone as clumsy as you. Ever. And my sister was, like, grown in a lab.”

Mike picks up the spatula, laughing. “Yeah,” he shrugs, running it absentmindedly under the faucet, “but you love me anyway.”

Will freezes, almost imperceptibly, already lifting the pan to slide the last pancake out onto the plate. “Um,” he says, and Mike might just be imagining it, but his ears seem to be going a bit pink. “Sure. I tolerate you.”

“You love me,” Mike presses, just to be difficult, just because he can. Because– well, honestly, it’s a little fun goading Will Byers, who’s stubborn and sarcastic and usually has a zero-tolerance policy for other people’s bullshit– except for Mike. For some reason, Will always allows him a lot more leeway than Mike probably deserves, takes his whining and prodding and theatrics in stride, with nothing more than a fond roll of his eyes or maybe a ‘You’re ridiculous’ thrown in for good measure. But it’s fun, sometimes, teasing until Will’s ears go red, just because Mike can. 

And also– and also Will is standing in Mike’s kitchen at ten on the first Monday of Winter Break, and he’s flipping the pancakes over in the pan and onto the plate with this sort of careful ease that Mike thinks is– objectively– very, like, boyfriend material of him, or something. And he’s bundled up in jeans and striped socks and one of their matching Hellfire hoodies, and Mike is suddenly very aware of the fact that he’s in his pajamas, and how it’s probably very obvious that he was in bed until, like, thirty minutes ago. Something in him is stirring, warm like tea or the sort of cocoa with the little marshmallows in it, and for some reason Mike just really wants to hear it– wants to push Will’s buttons, just because he can–  

“Come on, say it,” Mike presses, leaning over the counter with a grin and watching Will plop two pancakes on a plate for Mike, and then two more on another plate for himself. “You love me, Will Byers.”

Will, for some reason, flushes. “I tolerate you,” he repeats, but he’s smiling, ducking his head down where he probably thinks Mike can’t see. “Don’t push your luck.”

Mike grabs for the syrup. “You’re making me breakfast,” he says, the warm thing growing inside of him, a sudden, inexplicable urge to hear Will say it bursting to life in his chest– “Stop denying it. You love me.”

“Okay, fine!” Will groans, snatching the syrup out of Mike’s hand fast enough for a little trail of it to dribble onto the counter between their plates. Mike makes a noise of affront, one half of his pancake still tragically free of syrup. “Fine, I love you. Is that what you want to hear? God, you’re so annoying.”

The warm feeling overflows, boiling over in one big, enthusiastic rush at the words– I love you. Mike smiles. It’s exactly what he wanted to hear, actually, and he can’t quite pinpoint why, or why he feels a bit like he’d start floating like an untethered helium balloon if he thinks about it too long, but he kind of does. “Yes,” he chirps, “it– don’t roll your eyes at me, you’re the one who said it!”

“You’re the one who made me!” Will retorts, shoveling a bite of pancake into his mouth around a smile. “You freak.”

“Oh, I’m the freak?” Mike responds, and then promptly shovels more food into his mouth to hide how he can quite literally feel his face about to burst into flame. He supposes it had been his fault, because he’d been prodding and pushing Will on purpose but it’s nice to hear it from him, okay?

There’s pleasant silence for a few minutes, punctuated only by the soft humming of the refrigerator and the metallic clanking of their forks against the ceramic of the plates. Will eats in a strangely rhythmic way, Mike notices, which is probably something he’s known way off in the back of his head long before now. It’s– is endearing a weird word to use? Whatever. Objectively, it’s endearing. Will cuts a bite of pancake, chews it, takes a sip of water, and then starts again.

“What?” Will says, looking up at where Mike is staring right at him like a total weirdo. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh.” Mike shoves his last bite into his mouth. “Nothing,” he says, muffled, and Will wrinkles his nose. 

“You’re gross.” And then, “Why were you staring? Is there something on my face?”

Truthfully, yes, Will has a little bit of syrup clinging to the corner of his lips. “Um,” Mike says, gesturing, “yeah, right– right there. Okay, yeah, you got it.”

“You’re gross and weird,” Will says simply, and then promptly takes his empty plate over to the sink and holds it under the running water. “I can’t believe I’m friends with you.”

“You don’t have to do that!” Mike protests, bringing his dishes over to the sink too. “Seriously, it’s cool, don’t–” Except Will Byers is stubborn and nothing if not a pain in the ass– not really– so by the time Mike finishes the sentence, Will is already grinning at him and placing the clean plate in the dish rack. “Will!”

“Too late,” Will says happily, tugging Mike’s plate easily out of his hand and reaching for the sponge again.

“You suck,” Mike grumbles, with absolutely no bite behind it. He hauls himself up onto the counter by the sink, watches Will push the sleeves of his hoodie up so they don’t get wet.

“Yeah, well, apparently you’re dating me,” Will says, brows furrowed in concentration as he scrubs at a particularly sticky spot on the plate. “So what does that say about your taste?”

Mike has excellent taste, thank you very much. When it comes to all things– music (despite what Will says), clothes (despite what Max says), movies (despite what Lucas and Dustin say), so there’s no reason it should be limited to fake boyfriends as well. “Yeah, well,” Mike parrots, and it comes out quieter than he expects, “I’d say my taste is pretty good.”

Will looks up at last, all the dishes safely tucked away into the tray, and his eyes widen. “Oh,” he says softly. “Okay. Um. Thank you.”

Neither of them say anything. Mike is still sitting up on the counter, the side of his pajamas a little damp from where the water had sprayed, and Will’s standing next to him, close enough for Mike’s knee to come rest gently against the side of Will’s hip. “You know Max hasn’t tried to set me up with anyone since we told them?” Will says after a moment, unmoving from his position by Mike’s leg.

Mike laughs. “It’s only been two days. How many people was she trying to set you up with before?”

“Yeah, you’d be surprised,” Will smiles. “So I think we made the right call, now that she isn’t actively trying to, like, break me anymore. Or I’m pretty sure that’s what she was doing, anyway.”

“You no longer have to spend study hall warding off the masses.” Mike nods along in agreement. Now Will can spend study hall doing other things– like talking to Mike.

Will rolls his eyes, looking slightly upwards at Mike’s position on the counter. “Please. There were no masses.”

“There were too!” Mike insists, even though the thought of Will with the masses is– well, it’s not his favorite thought, okay? Just because Will is the most objectively dateable guy Mike knows, it doesn’t mean that, you know, anyone should just be able to–

“Anyways,” he says quickly, “I’ve been meaning to ask– since we’re doing this– do we need like–”

Mike gestures vaguely between them, and Will tilts his head, frowning. “What?”

“Like–” Mike tries, and Will’s confused expression grows, “you know. Rules?”

“Rules?”

“Yeah!” Mike exclaims. “You know, if there’s something you’re, like, not comfortable with me doing, even if we’re supposed to be dating–”

“Mike,” Will laughs, “hold up– what exactly do you plan on doing that you think I wouldn’t want you to?”

“Well, there’s the kissing thing,” Mike says, entirely without thinking, and then, “um. I mean. You know.”

Will’s eyes look about two seconds away from popping right out of his head. “What?”

“Not that– not that we have to kiss!” Mike backpedals, holding both hands up in front of him. Okay, why he had to go bringing up kissing is completely beyond him. Kissing. Kissing Will Byers. Kissing Will Byers– his fake boyfriend. Fake-kissing Will Byers. Does the kiss count if you’re not doing it intentionally? Or, well, if it’s intentional but not, like– an actual kiss with someone you’re actually dating– 

“I was just saying, like, kissing is probably something you do with– with a boyfriend, right? Like, someone you’re dating? But we don’t have to kiss, because we’re not actually dating and you totally–”

Shut up. Shut up, Mike.

Will’s eyebrows are creeping slowly but steadily closer to his hairline. “Um–”

“–and that’s why I was saying,” Mike prattles on anyway, regardless of the whole shutting up thing, “about the– the rules thing, in case people expect us to kiss, we can, like, figure something out–”

“Mike!” Will cuts in, loud enough for it to border on a shout. “Could you maybe calm down for one second?”

Mike calms down. “Right. Sorry.”

There’s a strange pink flush creeping down Will’s neck and across his cheeks. “So,” he starts, “kissing.”

“Right,” Mike says again, feeling weirdly nervous just talking about the subject. Kissing. Talking about kissing– with Will Byers. Talking about kissing Will Byers. All in hypothetical, still, but– “I’m just saying! That’s something you do with, um, with your boyfriend? Right?”

“I guess?” Will says, the end of the phrase turning up into a question. “I mean, out of the two of us, you’re the one who’s actually dated someone, so I don’t know, you tell me!”

“El and I don’t count,” Mike presses, “that was like, fourteen-year-old bullshit, it barely even counted as a relationship–”

“Yeah, but in regards to the kissing,” Will points out, turning even redder, “like, I wouldn’t know, so–”

Mike’s legs come to a sudden stop from where they were swinging against the counter, and all coherent thought in his head proceeds to dissipate immediately through his ears and into the open air. “Wait,” he says, “have you not– have you never–”

“Mike, come on,” Will snorts, “who would I have kissed that I didn’t tell you about?”

That’s a good point. “Right,” Mike says, feeling his cheeks grow warm, “my bad.”

Will cracks a smile. “I mean, despite what you seem to think, it’s not like I had a lot of prospects in the first place.”

“Rude of you to say that when Max literally had girls lining up at your front door,” Mike jibes, and Will bursts out laughing. 

“Right,” Will says, in between breaths. “The girls.”

This is– if Mike’s being honest, this is kind of a lot right now, okay? He’s been hit with a semi-truck of information in the last ten minutes, and putting it all together is– it’s a lot. Will’s never kissed anyone, which is– it’s not something Mike thinks about a lot, okay, but he’d been lying if he said he hadn’t wondered at all. Because the rest of the Party’s so obnoxious about it all the time, and Will had never even brought it up, so– you know, there’s that. Plus, the soft amusement in Will’s eyes as he straightens up again, grinning, that’s doing something funny to Mike’s stomach too.

“Seriously!” Mike says. “Kissing is– well, I’m trying to say that we don’t have to. Or anything else you don’t want to do, like, PDA is totally gross and I have no intentions of, like, canoodling in public and I don’t think you do either–” Will pulls a face, shaking his head, and Mike nods in agreement. “Yeah, see! Anyways, um. You don’t have to kiss me. Is what I’m trying to say. Especially since you haven’t– you know,” Mike adds, watching Will blink up at him, “um. Yeah.”

“Right,” Will is saying, still very pink, “well, you don’t have to kiss me either– or I guess that’s the same thing–”

Mike hops down from the counter, so he and Will are eye to eye. Well, more eye to eye than they were before. “Um,” he starts, as Will turns to face him. They’re very– close. That’s fine. It’s cool. “So, rules.”

Will taps his fingers thoughtfully against the granite. “I don’t know,” he says after a moment, “I mean, I trust you. I don’t think you’d do anything totally off-the-rails crazy.”

“Except kiss you,” Mike blurts out– ‘In regards to the kissing, I wouldn’t know’ playing on a strangely overpowering loop in his brain – and then, “I wouldn’t, I mean! Well, I would, but, you know.”

“You would?”

“For the– if I had to,” Mike adds weakly, and Will’s lips twitch, “since we’re. Since we’re dating.”

“If you had to,” Will repeats, but he doesn’t sound offended. “Okay. That’s– um. Good to know.”

Mike is suddenly hyper-aware of just how close they are, in this corner of his kitchen. How if Will took a half-step forward, he’d be caging Mike into the angular gap where the two edges of the counter meet, and then they’d be even closer. How if– if Mike wanted to reach around for the sink, he’d probably have to catch himself with one hand on Will’s waist to steady himself. How he’s still in his sleep-worn t-shirt and pajama pants, and Will is warm enough, even in the December-chilled air of the house, for Mike to want to instinctively lean into him, to chase that warmth– how easy it would be to close his eyes and–

He swallows.

And it’s– it’s normal to notice these things about someone, okay, when they’re, like, six inches away from you. It doesn’t mean anything, Mike thinks faintly, knuckles tightening ever-so-slightly on the edge of the counter. Will’s watching him with an amused expression on his face, a light pink still dusted over the high points of his cheeks, smelling like the vague vanilla of the box pancake mix they’d just made, and Mike suddenly feels very, very trapped. “If I had to,” Mike repeats, voice dropping to a whisper, “I would.”

Will’s eyes are still trained steadily on his, and he’s trying his hardest to not think about kissing Will, even if he had to–

Speaking from a purely objective standpoint here, it would probably be nice to kiss Will. Even if it were in a not-really-dating sort of way, it would probably be nice. Really nice, even, maybe. And Mike’s not, like, the world’s foremost expert on kissing or anything– he does a lot less of it than he’d probably like to– but he entertains the thought for one fleeting second, what it might be like to kiss Will Byers.

If he were to do it now– if he were to, for some hypothetical reason, kiss Will Byers right in the middle of his kitchen– how would he do it? He’d probably– he’d probably lean in and place one hand over Will’s waist and brush his hair out of his eyes with the other hand and– and maybe move his hand down to cup his jaw or his chin before–

“Mike?” Will’s leaning over with one hand waving in front of Mike’s face. “You okay? You totally just spaced out on me.”

Mike blinks. His heart is, for some reason, beating so fast against his ribs that it feels like he just downed four cups of coffee then ran ten laps around the block. He lets go of the counter edge, where he’s still white-knuckling the granite. “Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Will smiles, and then he’s taking a step backwards, away from Mike and the counter and the clean dish rack. In an instant, the cloying saturation filling the air between them dissipates into nothing.

Mike lets out an exhale, and the air feels weirdly shaky and unstable as it leaves his lungs. He feels– well, his heart is still going a mile a minute, and he’s strangely out of breath. It was probably the kissing talk, Mike thinks to himself, mind reeling, caught on the dizzying proximity of Will standing so close to him, the startling pink of his cheeks. It would get to anybody– talking about dating and– and kissing after you’ve not so much as held hands with anyone in, like, three and a half years.

“Do you still have Pac-Man on Atari?” Will is asking. “I bet I could still take you down, easy.”

Mike smiles weakly. God, what’s wrong with him? His hands are suddenly so sweaty, and either he did actually drink three cups of coffee without realizing it or he’s just developed an acute heart condition that no one saw coming. “Yeah! Yeah,” he says, pushing off the counter and trailing Will down to the basement stairs, wiping his hands on his pajamas. “And I’d like to see you try, Byers.”

What the hell? What’s wrong with him? 

The Wheelers’ Christmas party isn’t exactly the spectacle of the century, but it’s probably at least the spectacle of the year– on this side of Maple Street, that is. His mom’s been up since maybe six in the morning, cleaning and polishing and bringing out the good sofa pillows and generally being so high-strung that Mike figures maybe it’s best to just hide out in his room for the rest of the day. And Nancy’s not even here this year, because she’s staying in Boston working through the holidays for her internship, so it’s just him, dealing with the brunt of his parents’ work friends’ questions about his future and college and whether or not he has a girlfriend yet– which is kind of funny, considering the whole Will thing.

“Michael!” he hears his mom call up the stairs, maybe somewhere around five-thirty or six. “Your friends are here!”

Said friends being Lucas Sinclair and his parents, because the Sinclairs have never been less than twenty minutes early to a social function ever in their lives. “Hey, man,” Lucas is saying, stepping over the threshold in maybe the ugliest sweater Mike has ever seen in his life. “What’s– holy shit, what are you wearing?”

Mike glances down at his own sweater. “What?”

Lucas covers his mouth with one hand, clearly fighting back laughter. “Your sweater,” he says, voice quivering ever-so-slightly. “What is that?”

Okay, so Max had talked them all into doing her stupid ugly sweater thing, right, but then it had been the day before the party and Mike had realized he’d kind of intentionally purged his closet of anything that could be considered even a little bit ugly, because Holly was getting to that age where she was being kind of brutally honest about a lot of things, and there were only so many blows Mike’s ego could take, okay? So his options were either to forgo Max’s special request for matching group outfits and face her wrath, or dig through his box of old clothes in the hopes of finding something somewhat suitable. And between Max Mayfield’s wrath and the entirely humbling ordeal of wearing clothes from when you were, like, fifteen– well, there wasn’t really any contest.

“Shut up,” Mike grumbles, as Lucas trails him past the tinsel-decorated banisters of the stairs and into the kitchen, cackling. “It was all I had to work with, okay?”

“Your sleeves are way too short,” Lucas points out, “they’re, like, halfway up your arms.”

“They’re not that short!” They’re totally that short. Mike pushes his sleeves back up his arms and frowns. “That’s why I have them rolled up. See? Now no one can tell.”

“Sure,” Lucas nods, “I especially really like the reindeer patterns. And the hearts.”

“You suck” Mike hisses. “It was a gift from my nana!”

“Sure,” Lucas says again, grinning, “whatever you say.”

Mike is, unfortunately, deprived of the opportunity to properly defend himself by the arrival of one Will Byers, with El closely in tow.

“Hi,” Will grins, looking back and forth between Mike and Lucas, gaze dropping down to the red and white hearts criss-crossing over the front of Mike’s sweater, and his eyebrows shoot up. “Nice sweater.”

“I’ve been saying!” Lucas exclaims. “What’s up, Will?”

Will looks nice. Objectively– Will looks nice. He’s wearing this green sweater ensemble with, like, this snowflake pattern knitted into it, which would probably look dorky and lame on anyone else at best, but Will– Will makes it work. “Nothing new,” Will is saying, looking away from Mike’s sweater and towards where Lucas is picking the sprinkles off a cookie one by one and popping them in his mouth. “El’s got something to show you guys, though.”

Behind him, El beams. “I made this sweater myself,” she announces, gesturing to– okay, look, Mike loves El, alright? He really does, but– this, one-hundred percent, takes the cake for the ugliest goddamn sweater he’s ever seen in his life.

Lucas chokes on a sprinkle. “Um,” he says, eyes darting over irregular lines of stitches and what might possibly be a snowman knitted into the front. “So you did! It’s really–”

“Very cute, El,” Mike nods, trying his hardest to keep a straight face. “Max is going to be so happy that you, um. You really committed to the theme.”

El squints at him. “Why are you wearing Holly’s clothes?”

“It’s–! Look, I know it’s a little small,” Mike squawks, as Lucas dissolves into a fresh peal of laughter, and Will bites down on his lower lip and turns away to keep from smiling too obviously. “But it’s not that bad!”

El ignores him. “I like the hearts,” she says, and she could probably be teasing but she could probably also be dead serious, so for the sake of Mike’s bruised ego and wounded dignity, he chooses to believe the latter.

Will appears at his elbow as Mike watches Lucas pick off another sprinkle. “Hey,” he smiles, up at him, “nice party.”

Mike’s heart does a funny little flop in his chest. That’s– it’s nothing. It’s nothing. Mike rolls his eyes, leaning half-consciously into the firm line of Will’s arm pressing up against his. “It’s just an excuse for my parents to get drunk off the eggnog with their friends.” And then, “You look nice. Very festive,” Mike adds, looking down at where Will’s hair is brushing gently around the neckline of his sweater. Will looks good in green. Mike thinks Will should wear green more.

Will lets out a soft, pleased hum. “Thanks, Mike.” He leans back slightly, looking Mike up and down, and frowns. “But seriously, why are your clothes so small?”

“It’s not that bad,” Mike protests on instinct, even though his sleeves have come down from where he’s pushed them up his arms and the hems of the wrists are actually resting somewhere around the middle of his forearms. “Okay fine,” he amends, reaching to push them back up, “I was a little limited in my options, alright? It was either this or have Max yell at me for breaking the group outfit theme.”

“Oh, no,” Will says, sounding entirely serious even with a teasing glint in his eye. “We can’t have that.”

“She’ll find a way to do it anyway– um,” Mike says, jumping slightly at the sensation of Will’s fingers brushing against his wrist. “What– what are you doing?”

“They’ll stay up better if you roll them instead of pushing them,” Will says, flipping the edge of Mike’s sleeve back onto itself, one hand holding his arm steady. “See?”

“Um,” Mike says, hyper-aware of Will’s fingers against his pulse line as he takes his other wrist in hand, folding the scratchy wool of Mike’s sleeve over. “Oh, okay.”

“So now no one will think you’re wearing Holly’s clothes anymore.” Will steps back with a small flourish. “You’re welcome!”

“Um,” Mike says again. His pulse feels strangely unsteady against his own skin, and all he can think about is him and Will standing here, in the same corner of his kitchen a few days ago, talking about– about kissing and– 

“You should see Lucas’ face right now,” Will whispers, turning his face away from Lucas and El to lean in conspiratorially. “He looks like he’s going to explode.”

Mike glances over at Lucas, whose eyes do look a bit like they’re about to pop right out of his head, and he bites back a laugh. “Wow, yeah, he really does.” Lucas catches his eye and his expression brightens, and he shoots Mike a grin and a thumbs up like Good for you! 

“Quick,” Will whispers, waving his hands about a bit, “do something cute, come on–”

“Cute?” Mike splutters. “What do you mean, cute?”

“I don’t know!” Will exclaims in a hushed whisper, leaning in closer, breath ghosting softly over Mike’s ear. “Like– something couples do when they’re standing next to each other?”

“Um,” Mike flounders, because Will is very, very close, and he suddenly feels like he’s overheating under the thick wool of his sweater. He clutches at the hem of the neckline with one hand, pulling it away from his body. It’s really fucking hot in here. “What– give me some examples, I don’t know what couples do!”

Will stares, amusedly incredulous. “You’re the one who’s literally dated someone before,” he points out, not for the first time, “how do you not know–”

“Yeah, well, the person I was dating before is currently standing in the corner of my kitchen wearing a hand-knitted potato sack,” Mike grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest. “Um. No offense. And look, there’s a reason we, you know, finished dating, and there’s a reason I haven’t–”

He cuts himself off. Honestly, that’s a whole can of worms that he doesn’t need to open right now, and Will is blinking up at him with a carefully neutral expression on his face, so he just sighs and says, “Okay, uh–”

There’s no one else in this corner of the kitchen for the time being but the four of them, and Mike sort of wants to see Lucas’ eyes get really huge and buggy like before, but he also sort of just– he also kind of just really wants to do this, too, so he winds a careful arm around Will’s shoulders and pulls him closer, the minute gap between them vanishing entirely.

Will’s arm immediately wraps around his back, fingers squeezing lightly in response, in gentle approval, in allowance, and suddenly, the soft hum of chatter in the room fades to white noise. “See, that wasn’t so hard,” Will laughs softly up at him, through the strange and unexpected rush of static through Mike’s ears, and then he leans forward across the counter to steal the last bite of El’s cookie right out of her hand. Mike pitches forward slightly with the movement, Will’s firm grip on his waist holding him steady even as he catches himself.

That wasn’t so hard at all, Mike thinks faintly, through the soft scent of Will’s shampoo as his hair brushes up against the side of Mike’s cheek. In fact, this is– this is maybe the easiest thing he’s done in a while, the most instinctive, natural phenomenon he’s encountered in quite some time. It feels, an overwhelming majority of the time, like Mike’s body and brain can’t ever seem to agree on things they should definitely be in agreement on– wanting things he shouldn’t want, not wanting things he maybe should want.

It’s funny how natural things seem to feel with Will Byers around– more so lately than before, even, although that already wasn’t an insignificant thing by any means. And it feels, for this one fraction of a second, like his mind has quieted down, that he’s existing in a world where he’s not overthinking and overbearing, but he’s just Mike.

And even when he’s just Mike, Will still wants him around, for some reason– Will not only tolerates this entirely appalling intrusion of personal space, but he enjoys it, he wants Mike here, pressed up against him. He wants to spend time with him, he wants to– to be Mike’s fake boyfriend, even now that the shock has mostly faded and Dustin Henderson’s despair at being cheated out of forty dollars has dissipated almost entirely with the arrival of his early decision acceptance letter to Stanford.

The initial gleeful rush of it should have gone away, now that their friends are kind of giving them the same look they give Lucas and Max whenever they start to act real gross around each other, and it would make infinitely more sense for Will to, like, theatrically dump his ass in front of everyone and move on with his life. Will wants to be Mike’s fake boyfriend, which is, like, half a step down from being Mike’s real boyfriend, which is, objectively, maybe the best thing to happen to Mike in his entire life.

God, what’s wrong with him?

“You look nice,” Will says loudly, then hesitates. “Um. Babe.”

Mike crinkles his nose, and Will’s face gets immediately pulled into an identical look of distaste. They lock eyes– No more of that, Will seems to say, raising one eyebrow, and Mike nods in what he hopes is a subtle, imperceptible sort of way. Agreed.

“You guys are gross,” Max quips, and apparently she arrived at some point in the last two minutes, and Mike hadn’t noticed because he was too busy trying his hardest to keep his brain from exploding into little bits of gray matter inside his skull. As one does. “Looking into each other's eyes, all those little– those cutesy little glances. Yuck.”

“We’re not any grosser than you or Lucas,” Mike says back, and then, squinting– “are you guys wearing matching sweaters?”

Max, to her credit, has the grace to look slightly embarrassed. “They were on sale, okay!” she says, turning a bit pink. “It was easier to get them together.”

Lucas rolls his eyes, grinning. “Yeah, except you were the one who ran straight towards them when you saw them in the store–” and Max’s murderous glare of betrayal is– to Lucas’ good fortune– undercut by Dustin Henderson’s arrival. 

“Oh, good, you’re all here,” he says, slightly out of breath, holding a bottle of something sparkling. “It’s only six-thirty and I think our parents are already a bit drunk on the spiced cider, but we also brought the PG stuff.”

And that’s pretty much what Mike exactly expected out of this party, so. “Figures,” he nods, resting his cheek absentmindedly on the top of Will’s head. He’s still got a couple inches on Will, even after he went and got super tall and super– objectively– very attractive and, you know, all broad and solid in the shoulders and arms. Mike’s still a little bit taller and he thinks it’s nice, like some sort of callback to when they were younger and things were easy and simple and not saturated in black goo and alternate dimensions and a disproportionate number of Russians in Hawkins, Indiana. “That sounds about right.”

Will squeezes his waist lightly in response. “Wonder if we can steal some of the cider,” he says. “The spiked one, I mean.”

“It would make the house full of tipsy adults more bearable,” Mike hums, letting himself lean into the shape of Will’s body next to him. They’re still the only ones in this corner of the kitchen; everyone else is currently helping themselves to drinks in the dining room or they’re oohing and aahing over the Christmas tree, and Will must be wearing a different cologne today, a bit sharper and stronger, and Mike just wants to–

“What are these?” El’s wandered back from wherever she disappeared to, holding a little plate of snacks. “They’re so good!”

Mike blinks, pulling himself reluctantly away from Will’s grasp, and peers over at what she’s pointing to. “Um. Pigs in a blanket?”

El’s eyes widen. “Pigs? In a blanket?”

“Not– okay, well, sort of pigs,” Mike amends, and El’s eyes only grow more comically large. “But not like– you know what? Never mind,” he decides, as El glances down at her plate with a look of vague horror, and Will starts shaking with suppressed laughter. “It’s not worth knowing.”

Dustin threatens to kill Mike if he eats all the little cocktail sausages, so, naturally, Mike eats all the little cocktail sausages. He then spends the half hour after that evading Dustin’s glares from across the dining room.

“Dustin’s going to kill me,” Mike laments to Will later, ducking behind the wall at the top of the stairs. It’s a brief reprieve from the noise; Mike’s thankful beyond all ends that his friends are here, because without them, it would be an endless torrent of nosy adults prodding at him about Do you have a girlfriend yet? and Any news from college? and he’d probably have gone insane hours ago. 

As it is, it’s a close thing. His parents’ friends have all been going at the cider for hours, and then Mike’s mom broke out the wine with dinner, and now they’re about to start in on the eggnog and Mike is quickly learning what it’s like to be trapped in a house with a crowd of increasingly inebriated middle-aged people from his parents’ social circle. He’s also learning that he doesn’t like it very much, even if it was maybe a little entertaining eavesdropping on his mom's friends’ gossip about all the people they don’t like. It’s noisy and it’s crowded, and Mike’s evading Dustin’s wrath but Lucas and El and Max have also slipped away, somewhere in the chaos between dinner and dessert.

Will slides over next to him until they’re sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall. It’s quieter up here, since no one ever goes upstairs, and Mike exhales softly, watching Will push his hair out of his eyes with one hand, picking a stray thread off his sweater with the other. “Yeah, well,” Will is saying, smiling gently as he lets the thread float to the ground. “You did eat all the mini sausages.”

“They were good!” Mike protests, even though it had only partially been because they were good and more because of the fact that goading Dustin Henderson is maybe one of the best simple pleasures life has to offer. He’s also fairly certain that he doesn’t want to touch another mini cocktail sausage until his parents’ next party, thank you very much.

Will looks unimpressed. “You have mustard on your face,” he says simply, and then turns back to the slice of cake he’d managed to grab before high-tailing it up the stairs behind Mike.

“Wh– great,” Mike mumbles, swiping uselessly at his cheek, “thank you so much for telling me now, when I’ve probably been walking around like this for an hour.”

“It’s what you deserve for ruining Dustin’s night,” Will shrugs, laughing around a mouthful of cake as he easily evades Mike’s lighthearted swatting at his shoulder.

“You’re so– wait,” Mike stops, looking around in a moment of realization. “Where is Dustin? And Lucas and– you know, all of them. This is my house.”

Will pauses for a moment, following Mike’s line of sight down the stairs and scanning the edges of the crowd. “No idea,” he says after a moment. “Is that– should we be worried about that?”

Statistically speaking, the answer is probably yes, because the four of them disappearing together is not something that usually bodes well for Mike, but he’s suddenly not very inclined to get up and go look. Not with Will tucked away into this little corner with him, flushed a bit pink from the warmth of the house and happily spooning sugar-frosted pastry into his mouth. Something turns over in Mike’s chest; he feels oddly– content, maybe is the right word– and before he can think about it too hard– what that means or why being around Will Byers has been making his nervous system simultaneously feel like he’s taken three hits of Jonathan’s weed then stuck his finger into an electrical socket– he’s saying, “No, it’s cool, they’ll be fine,” and settling back against the wall, pressing his shoulder to Will’s.

And there’s no real need for the proximity, because there’s no one around– their friends are actually very much nowhere to be seen– but it’s nice, and Mike’s is weirdly happy in this moment, and maybe sitting a little too close to Will Byers is one of life’s other simple pleasures, because he feels like maybe he could sit here for a very long time, with the chatter of the party fading to black in the background. Just the two of them.

He swallows. Looks over at Will, who’s picking off a strangely colored bit of fruit with one of the tines of his fork. It takes Will a second to look up, frowning softly when he meets Mike’s eye. “What?”

It’s maybe a second too long before Mike answers. Will is– there’s something immensely distracting about him in green, something Mike can’t put his finger on, and his eyes keep getting drawn to the neckline of Will’s stupid sweater. A sweater that should look a lot uglier on him than it really does, and yet– 

Mike blinks. “Nothing,” he says, definitely a moment too long for it to be normal. His voice comes out strangely hoarse. He clears his throat gently, and Will’s expression grows amused. “Can I– you feel like sharing?”

“I’d like to say that I saw this coming,” Will announces, and pulls a second plastic fork out from beside him, handing it to Mike. “You’re such an idiot.”

Mike grins. “You’re so–” he starts, cutting himself off to grab the fork and immediately scoop a bite off of Will’s plate.

Will rolls his eyes as Mike lets out a noise of contentment. “You’re such an idiot,” he says again, but he’s ducking his head and smiling softly so Mike doesn’t believe him, actually, not even a little bit.

Mike lets his head drop back against the wall. “I didn’t have time to grab dessert, okay! And now it’s probably gone and the last thing I want is to head down there and– and deal with the hordes–”

“Glad my quick thinking saved the day,” Will retorts, batting Mike’s fork out of the way with his own.

“Cake is important to me!” Mike exclaims, going back in for the attack. Unfortunately for him, Will’s got a death grip on his fork and willpower of steel. “I’m so glad I’m dating you.”

Will’s hand goes suddenly slack, and Mike scoops up the last bite with a triumphant cheer. “You– what?”

Mike pauses, fork already in his mouth. “Um,” he says, after chewing. “I’m. You know. Glad we’re–”

Only half a step down from his real boyfriend, a little voice in his head chimes in, which is both extremely true and also does not seem to be making the weird feeling in Mike’s stomach lessen even a little bit. “Not real dating, of course, but–”

If Mike were to be dating Will– real dating, that is– he’s starting to get an inkling that it might not be the worst thing in the world. And that feels like maybe something he shouldn’t say out loud, not while Will is this close to him, not while they’re in such a secluded corner of the house, not while Mike’s leaned so far over to get to Will’s plate that their faces are just a few inches away from each other.

Luckily, Will doesn’t seem to need elaboration. There’s a soft intake of breath, and then Will says, “Yeah?”

It’s so quiet that Mike almost misses it. He swallows. “Um. Yeah, I’m, you know. I’m having fun. This is fun. I’m glad I– I asked you out.”

“If I recall correctly, I’m the one who asked you out. Technically,” Will points out, which is technically true, but Mike’s difficult and a little bit annoying by nature, so he’s not about to give in this easily.

“Please,” he snorts. “If we were really dating, we both know I’d be the one to ask you out.”

Will raises his eyebrows. He stretches his legs out from where they’d been crossed over each other, letting his foot tap gently against Mike’s ankle. “Oh yeah? You wouldn’t have the balls, Wheeler.”

“I would too have the– I would too,” Mike splutters, and Will laughs softly, throwing his head back. “I could make the first move! What– why do you think I wouldn’t?”

“Well for starters,” Will begins, and Mike hadn’t expected him to have an actual response to this question, which maybe should be a little ego-bruising but mostly is just intriguing him to no end. “You never go for things you want. Really want.”

“I– I go for things,” Mike tries, “our last campaign would have crashed and burned if I hadn’t made the choice halfway through to roll for strength, and– and remember when I–”

“Cheating on your last math test by passing me notes in class does not count,” Will says drily, and Mike closes his mouth with a small, offended noise. “I mean, like– things you really want. Like when you almost didn’t apply to Chicago or Boston or NYU just because you psyched yourself out about it, about– about finally getting out of here, about maybe going to college together–”

“Dating you wouldn’t be like applying to college,” Mike points out, even as his head begins to swim. You never go for things you want. Really want. Implying of course, that what he wants would be–

“No,” Will agrees, looking away, over the banister. His ankle presses gently against Mike’s, the empty plate and forks abandoned on the floor between them. “Because you want to go to Chicago or Boston or NYU, and you don’t want–”

He falls silent.

Mike wants to scream.

What don’t I want, he wants to ask, because Mike’s no genius, he’s definitely not the most self aware person he knows, and Will was maybe right about everything he said– about being too afraid to go for things he wants, or whatever, but–

–but he’s no idiot either, and Will’s silence starts to settle heavy in the air between them. Weighted, like it means more than Will is maybe letting on. Weighted, or maybe Mike is filling in gaps that aren’t there, reading between the lines where he doesn’t need to be. Weighted, like Mike’s on the cusp of realizing something big, a hair’s breadth away from careening wildly off the road with no course correction at all.

What don’t I want, he wants to say, wants to grip Will by the shoulders and turn him towards Mike until they’re face to face.

What don’t I want, Will? 

Why did you ask me to do this? 

And then, in an alternative universe where Mike Wheeler had any semblance of a brave bone in his body, he’d ask– Why haven't you asked me to end it?

“You don’t know that,” Mike blurts out, before he can think better of it, gone something out of his mind with the sudden whiplash of how Will had been scraping frosting off a paper plate one second and then reading Mike to filth the next. “You don’t– how would you know?”

Will turns back to look at him. He looks a bit startled, a bit caught off-guard, eyes wide. “Mike,” he starts, and then there’s the sound of footsteps running up the stairs, and Will jerks back around.

“There you are,” Max is saying, sounding a bit out of breath. El is close behind her, peering around the edge of the banister and smiling in relief when she spots them. “We’ve been looking for you guys for ages. Where– why have you two been hiding up here?”

Mike and Will look at each other, and then back to Max, whose face quickly scrunches up in poorly veiled disgust.

“Ew,” she says. “Look, I’m happy you guys are in your, like, honeymoon phase or whatever, but I can’t believe you ditched us to run up here and make out–”

“We weren’t–!” Mike and Will protest simultaneously, which is both immensely incriminating and exactly the sort of thing they’d probably say if they had snuck up here to, um, make out, which is– which is probably not something that’s the healthiest for Mike to be thinking about right now, not after their whole discussion on him, like, needing to go for things he wants or whatever. Which begs the question of what it is that he wants exactly, and also the question of why Mike suddenly wants to strangle Max Mayfield with his bare hands for barging in on them like this. Because that– that probably means something, and he feels very close to something big–

“Where were you guys then?” Mike shoots back, stumbling to his feet. His legs have fallen asleep slightly and he winces as pins and needles shoot up his thighs, then reaches down to help Will up as he gathers their dirtied utensils from the floor. “We were looking for you before we ran up here.”

“In the basement?” Max says, like this should be obvious. Which, honestly, it kind of should have been. Mike and Will exchange another glance, Will’s eyes crinkling up in amusement.

“Oh,” Will says. “I suppose we should’ve guessed that.”

“Again,” Max huffs, hands on her hips. “Not my fault you two were so caught up in your–”

“You caught us,” Will says cheerfully, still gripping Mike’s hand from where he’d been pulling him up from the floor, making to move towards the stairs. “We were totally making out in secret. Let’s head down then, or whatever–”

“Wait!” El exclaims. She’s grinning from ear to ear, eyes sparkling, and Mike feels a vague sense of foreboding washing over him as El leans over to whisper something in Max’s ear.

A second later, Max’s mouth twitches. “Oh,” she says, eyes darting up to somewhere above them, “oh, El, you didn’t–”

The sense of foreboding only grows. “What,” Mike says, because he doesn’t like how they’re smiling– El in excitement, Max in something that could only be described as an evil sort of glee– “what are you guys smiling about?”

“Max told me what mistletoe is,” El says happily, and that’s about when Mike’s stomach drops clean out of his body. “So I hung some up.”

“Oh,” he hears Will say, right before all the blood rushes to his ears and he starts to feel a little– violently– lightheaded.

“El, you didn’t,” he starts, and then he chances a glance up to see that, indeed, there’s a sprig of bright green taped carefully to the spackled drywall of the ceiling.

It takes maybe every ounce of courage he can muster up in his body to tear his gaze away from the ceiling and look back at Will. Will, who’s looking at him, expression held carefully blank, nothing to betray any sort of feelings about the situation except that his eyes have widened, almost unnoticeably. “Um,” Mike says, in what definitely isn’t the most eloquent moment we’ve ever had. He’s sure the blood’s drained right out of his face, but El and Max are right there, so there’s not much he can do, not much he can say at all, actually. “Do– are we–”

Will’s got his back to them, even as he shrugs. “It’s mistletoe,” he says lightly. He doesn’t– he doesn’t sound put off or like he’s begging for an out; if it weren’t for his shoulders tightening ever-so-slightly, inching slowly towards his ears, Mike would think he hadn’t even noticed anything was up. He keeps his gaze fixed carefully on Mike, unwavering. It’s overwhelming. “You know the rules.”

Behind him, El pipes up– “You do know the mistletoe rules, right?”

Mike clears his throat. God, his mouth feels dry, so dry, and his palms have suddenly gone completely sweaty. “Yeah,” he says hoarsely, “yeah, El, I know the– I know the mistletoe rules.”

“Kiss him,” Max is saying, and Mike is sure, without even looking, that there is a one-hundred percent chance she’s rolling her eyes. “Come on, just kiss him already, Wheeler, and then we can all go hang out downstairs.”

“So,” Will is saying, still staring him down. It feels like a challenge, the way he’s holding his stare. It feels like you never go for things you want, and all of those things that Mike might not be going for. It feels like the weighted silence that had been hanging in the air between them has come crashing down at their feet. It feels like– it feels like the thing Mike was on the cusp of realizing is right in front of his face, three feet away from him, clad in green wool and flushed pink from warmth and light embarrassment and close enough to touch– close enough to kiss –

It feels like a challenge for sure, and Mike is a lot of things but he’s never been one to back down from a challenge. “So,” he echoes, and it comes back to his ears like he’s trying to talk through multiple feet of water. He takes a step forward, closing the gap between them, trying to maybe signal with his eyes, or something, asking Will Is this okay?

Mike’s eyes fall to the curve of Will’s Adam’s apple as he swallows softly, then nods, and then suddenly, the noise of the party fades to nothing in the background.

It’s like it’s just the two of them in the corner of the hallway of the second floor of Mike’s house, under this stupid little sprig of mistletoe, and Mike should feel the glaring heat of Max and El’s waiting stares burning into the side of his head, but Will’s eyes locked on his are captivating enough to take up all his attention, to send his heartrate spiking.

This feels like– this feels like maybe the thing Mike wants bad enough to go after. This feels like he’s careening over the edge, hurtling past the line he’d been toeing, dancing around something foreign and new with Will, standing in his kitchen making pancakes and curling into each other during movie night and stealing cake off his plate not even ten minutes ago. This feels like–

“Mike?” Will whispers, soft enough that Mike surely wouldn’t have been able to hear it if it weren’t for the proximity. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Mike says back, barely more than just moving his lips around the words. “I just– I don’t want you to feel– you don’t have to–”

“Mike,” Will says again. There’s a steely sort of determination in his eye and coupled with the proximity, it’s dizzying. “Stop thinking so much. It’s okay”

“But–” Rules, says a voice in his head, drowned out in the head rush, and the rest of the sentence goes unfinished. Because he could kiss Will, right here, right now– he could lean forward and press their mouths together and have it done with, he could kiss the sweet taste of frosting off his lips and it would be over in two seconds and they could go downstairs and find their friends and it would all be fine, but–

About the kissing, Will had said, I wouldn’t know. 

It’s his first kiss, Mike remembers, as one of Will’s hands comes to rest on his waist. It’s their first kiss and Will’s first kiss ever, and Mike can’t bring himself to let it happen like this.

Because if he were to kiss Will, he’d do it properly. He’d do it alone somewhere, not in front of Will’s sister and her best friend. He’d do it softly, maybe lean in to cup Will’s jaw in one hand, maybe brush the hair away from his eyes. He’d make it memorable. He’d do it– he wants to do it, he realizes, the thought sinking over him warm and heady and wholly underwhelming, like it’s been a long time coming and maybe Mike figured it ages ago without even knowing.

He wants to do it. He wants to kiss Will. He wants to do it with something burning fierce and bright inside him, so far beyond a want that it’s become a need. He needs it, to press Will up against the wall they’d just been leaning on, to wind his hands through his hair, to kiss him slow and soft and good, like he deserves. He needs it like he needs air–

–but not here. Not like this.

Someone– Max, probably– clears her throat in the background. Mike feels frozen, one hand perched rather pathetically on Will’s shoulder, gaping at him like an idiot, feet rooted to the spot unable to move. Not here. Not like this. 

But some other time. Some other way.

“Okay,” Will breathes out, and something flits across his face– one moment and then it’s gone. “Okay.” And then he gets up on tiptoe and leans forward, and Mike’s heart stops–

–and he presses a kiss to Mike’s cheek.

Before he can fully register it, Will’s already pulling away, and instantaneously, the cloying tension hanging over their heads shatters. Mike blinks, and it’s like someone turned the volume back up to ten, the way the noise of the party rushes back to hit him at once, the way he suddenly comes back into his own body from where he’d kind of floating above it, untethered.

What just–

“That’s lame,” El frowns, crossing her arms. “That wasn’t a kiss!”

“Sorry guys,” Will is saying to El and Max. His tone is light, but he’s turned away and Mike can’t make out his expression. “PDA is gross. We refuse to partake.”

“Fine by me,” Max agrees. “I don’t need to see it. Now hurry up, everyone’s waiting for you two.”

“It’s cute!” El protests, but they’re both already turning around and starting to head down the stairs. “It’s mistletoe! It’s Christmas tradition!”

“You and your Christmas traditions,” Max laughs, and then they turn the corner and vanish from sight.

A beat passes. Then– “So,” Mike tries, attempting to keep his voice cheerful as if his pulse is not currently coming down from somewhere in the upper atmosphere. “That was–”

He falters at the look on Will’s face. He’s always been able to read Will, maybe a little better than most people, no matter how well he hides it, and it’s in moments like this when it comes back to bite. Will’s still looking over and down the stairs, half of his face hidden in shadow. He smiles gently.

“You asked me how I know,” Will starts, and it almost sounds– disappointed. Sad, maybe. “That’s how.”

“Will,” Mike starts, and then Will lets out an exhale and shakes his head.

“We should go,” he says. “Everyone’s waiting on us,” and then he turns, disappearing down the stairs without another word.

And then it’s just Mike, standing at the top of the stairs in his ridiculous reindeer-patterned knit sweater, heart beating so loud he’s sure it’s being broadcast to the entire crowd downstairs. Feeling, inexplicably and immeasurably, like he’s just made the biggest mistake of his life.

Mike can’t stop thinking about it.

Which is probably to be expected. You almost kiss someone, get all close in proximity with their hands on your waist and face, like, four inches away from yours, and then they kiss you on the cheek and it’s all very coated in holiday cheer and the spirit of the season. So it makes total and complete sense that Mike can’t stop thinking about it. Logically.

The less logical part is everything else–

Will. Thinking about kissing Will. Wanting to kiss Will– needing it. And then–

–and then almost doing it. Almost kissing Will.

Will. 

And he could have done it too, if his limbs hadn’t locked up and his pulse hadn’t shot through the roof and if he hadn’t spent what was in reality maybe only thirty seconds or so– but felt much longer in his head– staring at Will like a deer in headlights.

Mike wants to scream.

He needs to scream. He needs to– he needs to run around the block to burn off energy, he needs to shove his face into a pillow and yell until he loses his voice and it comes out hoarse and dry and cracking like he’s going through a second puberty. He needs to hit something very hard with a very large stick. He needs–

What he needs is to grab Will Byers by the waist and kiss him until his head spins and he’s out of breath and everything else fades to vignette black around them.

God. Okay, this is fine. This is fine. This is totally–

“Almost graduation year, baby!” Lucas whoops, clapping Mike firmly on the back and snapping him immediately out of his impending downward spiral of Will-related thoughts. “Nineteen eighty-nine!”

“Hi Lucas,” Mike steps backwards to let him in, the basement door creaking slightly as he pulls it farther open. “Where’s Max?”

“Why would you just assume I’d know?” Lucas crosses his arms and frowns, and, at Mike’s raised eyebrow, sighs and says, “Yeah, okay, Dustin’s picking her up and they’re grabbing the snacks.”

“Starting off the new year with a bang,” Mike nods, meaning that Lucas and Dustin will inevitably eat too many Swedish Fish and start to feel sick before the clock strikes ten.

Lucas tugs his shoes off at the door. The house is quiet, save for the rustling of his coat as he slips it off. Mike’s parents and Holly are at a New Year’s party that Mike begged out of, one that Ted looked like he was trying to beg out of too, because one holiday party full of his parents’ drunk friends was enough to last him through the new year and into the next, thank you very much. And, you know, Mike has lost any and all trust he might have originally had in El and Max, and he’s going to spend the rest of the night keeping a very watchful eye on them both, because–

“Where are Will and El?” Lucas cuts in.

Mike crosses his arm and tries his hardest to not sound too defensive. “Why’d you assume I’d know,” he says, immediately failing at the aforementioned task. Lucas raises his eyebrow and then Mike rolls his eyes and says, “Okay, Jonathan’s dropping them off in twenty.”

Lucas flops down onto his back on the couch, letting his feet hang off the end. “So it’s just you and me for now, huh?”

Mike does not like Lucas’ tone of voice, not even a little bit. “Unfortunately,” he sighs, then squints his eyes. “Why? What evil things do you have planned?”

“Oh, nothing evil,” Lucas grins, which does absolutely zero to reassure him. “Maybe some light teasing, some prodding, some poking fun–”

“New Year’s is canceled,” Mike decides, pointing at the door. “Get out.”

Lucas’ grin breaks out into a laugh. “Hey! You could never kick me out. You love me too much.”

“Debatable,” Mike grumbles. It isn’t, actually, but right now he’d love nothing more than to leave Lucas Sinclair stranded out in the freezing cold dead of night. At least until he got the sense to walk the meager thirty feet back to his own house, but until then– “Has anyone ever told you you’re super annoying?”

“Yeah,” Lucas says immediately. “Max. Has anyone ever told you you’re super gross?”

“I literally didn’t do anything,” Mike complains, throwing himself down onto the beanbag chair at the foot of the sofa. “You’re in my house, on my sofa, taking up precious room in my basement and you come in here and–”

“El informed me that you and Will snuck off at your party to suck face upstairs,” Lucas says, and then Mike makes the executive decision that maybe he won’t go to college after all, because he’ll be too busy being locked up behind bars for killing Lucas Sinclair dead.

“We weren’t– ” Mike starts, and then immediately declares it a lost cause because probably the one thing he could do to convince Lucas that he and Will had snuck off to– to suck face is to protest that they totally hadn’t been. Which they hadn’t! Even though Mike might think that maybe it would have been a good and productive use of their time if they had, but that’s neither here nor there, so–

“Hey, man,” Lucas throws his hands up, still grinning ear to ear. “It’s cool! Not judging! I’m just saying that I’m happy for you guys is all.”

“Happy that we, uh. That we– sucked face?”

“Better late than never,” Lucas quips, whatever that might mean.

“What does that mean,” Mike blurts out anyway.

Lucas gives him a look. “Dude. You’re kidding, right?”

“Um. No?”

“Because you’ve totally liked him for forever,” Lucas says, folding his arms over his head and snuggling into the couch cushions like he hasn’t casually just turned Mike’s entire world entirely upside down. “So I’m happy for you guys. Even if that means you abandon us at your own party to go be gross, I’m still happy for you. You know why? Because I’m the best friend ever–“

“Wait, wait, wait,” Mike frowns. “Back up– what?”

“You’ve totally liked him for forever,” Lucas repeats, as if the issue was that Mike hadn’t heard him the first time.

“I’ve–!”

The annoying thing about not actually dating Will Byers is that Mike is very limited in the ways in which he can protest these things, because as far as everyone else knows, they’re right. They’re right and Mike has liked Will for forever, and all Mike gets out of this is one almost-kiss and a whole lot of eternal embarrassment.

This is maybe the worst idea anyone’s had in the history of forever.

“Maybe not forever,” Mike grumbles, and then Lucas snorts.

“Right,” he scoffs, “like Will hasn’t been your favorite for literally as long as you’ve known us.”

“Well you’re definitely not my favorite right now.”

“Shut up, you love me,” Lucas grins. “You love me really super bad.”

“Really super– get out.” Mike points at the door again. “Out.”

Unfortunately, he doesn’t really get the chance to kick Lucas out the door by the scruff of his neck because said door is opening, and then Dustin and Max are tumbling in, shivering from the cold.

“Damn, Wheeler,” Max says, teeth chattering. “You always leave your basement door unlocked?”

“It’s not very safe,” Lucas chimes in from his spot on the couch, sitting upright to catch the bags of chips being tossed his way. He frowns. “No barbeque Lays?”

Dustin rolls his eyes. “They were out. And you can complain when you pay.”

“All of a sudden, I love sour cream and onion Lays,” Lucas decides on the spot, and then he’s tearing open a bag of Swedish Fish and Mike figures this night is about to go down pretty much exactly like he’d predicted.

“Will and El are always the last ones to show up,” Mike groans. It’s getting a bit chilly, the open door and late December– soon to be early January– chill leaving him rubbing at his arms through the sleeves of his hoodie. “Can’t Jonathan drive any faster?”

“Chill, your boyfriend will be here soon.” Dustin motions for Mike to move over and sits next to him. “Swedish Fish?”

Mike takes a Swedish Fish. “Thanks Dustin.”

“Anytime.”

Jonathan pulls up out front probably ten minutes later, but Mike spends what feels like an eternity waiting for the knock at the basement door, something strangely anxious and frantic crawling over his skin. He hasn’t gotten a chance to talk to Will since the day at his party– really talk, just the two of them. They’ve hung out with the Party almost every day since, and it’s felt mostly normal. 

Emphasis on mostly, because Will hasn’t given any indication that something’s wrong– he’s smiled, laughed, thrown his arms around Mike’s shoulders and waist and held his hand and poked fun at all the perfect moments, but Mike knows him. He knows Will down to his bones– even better, it feels, than he probably knows himself, and he can feel the shift.

Will’s insistence that he’s busy after the rest of their friends leave, when before, he would have eagerly spent hours sitting around with Mike in his room talking about nothing at all. He keeps confirming plans through El, who asks him to come and then tells the rest of them that Will’s said yes. He won’t pick up the phone when Mike calls, or he’ll somehow always be about to head out somewhere when Mike stops by, or the house will be full with the entire Byers-Hopper extended family and Mike will decide of his own volition that maybe this isn’t the best time or place to do this.

But he can’t stop thinking about it: being barely a breath away from kissing Will– kissing Will– and somehow messing the whole thing up.

How would you know? he’d asked Will, and maybe he’d imagined it, but he could’ve sworn there was a flicker of something there, in Will’s eyes, when he’d said it. You don’t know that. How would you know?

And then, extinguished as quickly as it had come to life– You asked me how I know. That’s how.

Mike really wants to scream.

Maybe running a lap around the block isn’t enough. He feels like he could run to Chicago and back and still have some steam left in him. He could run from coast to coast and still have enough energy to join Lucas for his morning workout.

“Happy almost-new-year!” El is cheering, stepping over the threshold and handing Max a plate from where she’s gotten up to open the door. “I made cookies!”

Lucas leaps up from the couch. “El, have I ever told you how much I love you?”

“As if the Swedish Fish weren’t bad enough.” Max peers at the cookies. “Although these do look awesome, El.”

“She used up all the flour,” comes a voice behind her, and, as if on automatic mode, Mike straightens. “And we literally bought so much last week.”

“I’ve decided I’m going to be a baker,” El announces happily, setting her shoes off to the side and tugging her coat off.

“You’ll get super covered in flour, El,” Mike says. He makes his way over to the door, where Will Byers is currently very immersed in undoing his laces. “Will. Hey.”

Will doesn’t look up. “Hey Mike,” he says, and then he stands up, toeing off his sneakers. He’s wearing his winter coat and his hair is just barely brushing against the top of his scarf, and his cheeks and nose are reddened from cold, and Mike is suddenly overcome with the urge to press his hands to Will’s face and kiss the pink flush right off of it. “Happy almost-new-year.”

“Happy almost-new-year,” Mike smiles. “You look– um. You look nice.”

Will looks a bit baffled. “I’m– thanks,” he gets out, looking down at his clothes with a surprised laugh. “But I’m not really– it’s nothing special.”

“Everything looks special on you,” Mike says immediately, smiling wider, and then there’s a chorus of resounding groans from everyone else.

Dustin boos. A Swedish Fish lands squarely against the side of Mike’s head. “Get a room!”

“That was bad,” Max agrees, “and I’m literally dating Lucas.”

Lucas makes an offended noise. “My lines are great, okay?” He frowns at Mike and adds, “But yours are not.”

“It was pretty bad,” Will admits, but his lips twitch, so Mike considers this an absolute win on his part.

“You want to smile,” Mike prods, and Will shakes his head, determined. “You want to smile so bad right now, you– you’re literally smiling right now!”

Will turns away, going to join Dustin stealing Mike’s spot on the beanbag. “False accusations.”

It’s around eleven when the first round of snacks runs out, because– exactly as predicted– Dustin and Lucas have worked their way through all of the candy.

“You idiots,” Max gripes, “I wanted some too, hello.”

“Not my fault you weren’t fast enough,” Dustin tries, and then Max hits him with a throw pillow from the sofa.

“If you don’t make it to the bathroom in time to throw up, I’ll kill you,” Mike says cheerfully, and then, “I’ll, uh. I’ll go grab some more from upstairs– Will? Come with?”

It’s a last ditch effort and Mike knows it, because this is killing him. Will is smiling and he’s laughing at Mike’s jokes and he’s curling up against him on the big beanbag chair after they kicked Dustin off of it and everything is fine–

–except it’s not. It’s not, and Mike can feel it, and–

Maybe he just wants things to not be fine. Maybe he wants Will to be upset. Because if Will’s upset, then that means there was something to be upset about, it means maybe he’s disappointed, it means–

Max frowns. “You had snacks here the whole time? Why didn’t you tell us? You know, before we went to go buy some?”

“You never asked,” Mike grins, and then, because Max looks like she might be going for the pillow again, grabs Will’s hand and high-tails it up the stairs.

Will makes a stilted noise of protest as he’s being hauled through the kitchen. “Whoa– hey! What’s the rush?”

“Sorry,” Mike pants, a bit embarrassingly winded just from running up the stairs. “Max was going for the pillow again.”

“Mm,” Will hums, as Mike drops his hand to go grab a big bowl. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just leans back against the counter and watches Mike try his hardest to not send every dish in the cabinet clattering to the floor. Then– “We always seem to end up here, don’t we?”

Mike’s still balancing four mugs and a plate in his hand, and he doesn’t trust himself to not break them if he distracts himself by talking. He sets them down and says, “Here– like in the kitchen?”

Will shrugs. “Yeah.”

Mike supposed they have spent a weird amount of time in his kitchen over the past few days. Like making pancakes in his kitchen and holding hands in the kitchen and talking about– 

“Do you think they’d rather have popcorn or more chips,” he asks aloud, because snack preferences are a much safer topic of conversation than– you know, talking about kissing Will Byers in his kitchen, and then almost kissing Will Byers in the upstairs hallway.

“Doesn’t matter,” Will says, “it’ll be gone in twenty minutes.”

“Well, we were going to watch a movie later,” Mike muses, “so maybe popcorn.”

Will laughs softly. “Sure, Mike. Popcorn sounds good.”

It’s silent as Mike digs the popcorn out of the pantry, ripping open the cellophane cover and tossing it into the microwave. He waits to Will to say something, maybe, because Mike hates silences like these– even though it never feels weird with Will, usually– because if Will doesn’t say something then Mike is going to–

“Are you– upset with me?” Mike blurts out, then immediately fights off the urge to crawl out the window and run away.

He just can’t keep it in any longer, this creeping intuitive certainty that Will is upset, sad, something. That maybe Mike crossed a line somewhere because he does this, he pushes and prods and he barrels forward without thinking about who might be getting caught under him in the chaos. 

Will frowns. “No, of course not. Why would I be upset with you, Mike?”

Mike taps his nails anxiously against the countertop. Behind them, the popcorn has started to pop, the kitchen air slowly filling with a rich, buttery smell. “I don’t know, I thought maybe I did something wrong, you know, after– after the party. Maybe I crossed a line, maybe– maybe that was too weird for you, or something, and now you’re just looking for ways to fake-break-up with me, like, dump my ass in front of everyone, because it’s been a couple weeks and everything is fine and you don’t have any reason to keep not-really-dating me and maybe you don’t even want to be my friend anymore because I made it too weird and now–”

“Mike!” Will cuts in, holding up both hands. “Oh my God, breathe, please,” and Mike hits pause on the verbal onslaught falling out of his mouth to take in a deep breath and promptly shove his face into his hands.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, and then there’s a soft shuffling sound as Will moves closer. “Sorry, sorry, I just–”

“I’m not mad, I promise,” Will says, softer this time. “Mike, can you– can you look at me please?”

Reluctantly, Mike lowers his hands. “You’re not?”

Something softens in Will’s expression. “No, of course not. I– I’m sorry if it came off that way, but I don’t think I could ever be mad at you.”

“Really?” Despite himself, Mike grins. “Not ever?”

Will rolls his eyes. “Well, there have definitely been times when I’ve wanted to, like, hit you repeatedly with a semi-soft object,” he starts, and Mike lets out an indignant squawk– 

“–semi soft–!”

“–but I don’t think I could be actually mad at you,” Will finishes, ignoring him. “You’re my best friend and– oh, God, if you tell anyone this I’ll kill you, but– you’re probably my favorite person ever, so.”

“Ever?” Oh, Mike is screwed. He’s so screwed.

“It’s nothing you didn’t know already,” Will mumbles, but he’s smiling anyway. Something swells up in Mike’s chest, childish and elated at the words. “But hey, seriously. Did I– what did you think I was upset about?”

“Um,” Mike says, “I– I thought maybe I made you uncomfortable? At the party? Because I know we talked about it for a second and I said I was cool with it but l don’t know, maybe you weren’t too decided on the kissing, and I could’ve just gotten us out of the whole situation earlier and I didn’t mean to put you on the spot–”

“Mike!” Will exclaims. “Can you please just breathe?”

Breathing. Breathing is– good. “Sorry,” Mike says again, “I’m just–”

Will takes a step closer. “You didn’t– um. I wasn’t uncomfortable. Well, I did think it was weird that El and Max were, like, watching, and I guess I’m not the world’s biggest advocate for gross PDA but, um. You didn’t do anything wrong, I promise.”

“Oh.” You didn’t do anything wrong. “So you would’ve– you would have kissed me?”

The pause is a moment too long. Mike’s stomach is performing a series of intricately exuberant cartwheels inside his body.

“Um.” There’s a spattering of light pink blooming high on Will’s cheeks. “Yeah.”

“But– you said you don’t like gross PDA.”

Will holds his gaze. “I don’t.”

Mike’s mouth is suddenly very, very dry. Oh, he thinks. Oh, okay. “Um. Okay. Good to know.”

Will looks at him a moment longer, then his eyes dart over to somewhere to the right of Mike’s head. He frowns. “Mike?”

Good to know. Good to know. Good to– “Yeah?”

“I think the popcorn is burning,” Will says, and sure enough, the acrid smell of burning butter hits Mike not even a second later.

“Oh, shit. Shit, shit–”

Will doesn’t even bother to contain his laughter. “How did you mess up microwave popcorn?”

“I have no idea,” Mike admits, trying his hardest to not burn his fingers on the smoking bag as he yanks it from the microwave and flings it onto the countertop. “This is why I’m not allowed to turn the stove on.”

A second bag of popcorn and forty minutes later, Lucas glances down at his watch and announces, “Two minutes to midnight!”

“I wish Suzie were here,” Dustin mopes. “I can’t believe I have no one to kiss.”

“I don’t have anyone to kiss either!” El says cheerfully, and then throws an arm around his shoulder. “We can be losers together, Dustin.”

“Okay, I’m still in a relationship,” Dustin protests momentarily, before seemingly declaring it a lost cause and tossing another piece of popcorn into his mouth.

Will glares at Max and Lucas. “Please don’t be gross in front of us.”

“Never,” they say simultaneously, except Max is saying it with her nose all wrinkled up and Lucas is saying with a gigantic grin on his face, so Mike figures that maybe Lucas is lying, just a little bit.

“You’re one to talk,” Max scoffs. “Everyone, take a drink each time Mike and Will sneak off to go make out.”

“We don’t have any alcohol!” Mike protests, which is maybe for the best because he’s already kind of making a mess of things and also a general fool of himself, and he doesn’t think it’s the greatest idea to factor booze into the mix too.

She looks over to where they’re sitting on the couch, sitting perpendicular to each other with Mike’s legs flung over Will’s lap. “Shame. I thought you didn’t like PDA, Will.”

Will raises his eyebrows. “I don’t. But casual cuddling is allowed.”

Mike’s ears suddenly feel very warm. “Yeah,” he parrots, “casual cuddling is allowed.”

“One minute!” Lucas cuts in, then turns to Max with an expression on his face somewhat akin to a kicked puppy. “You sure we can’t kiss? It’s New Year’s.”

Max buries her face in her hands and groans. “Fine. One kiss and I’m cutting you off at the three second mark.”

“So romantic,” Lucas preens, then kisses her on the side of the head. “I’ll take it.”

“And they have the nerve to call us gross,” Will says to Mike, shooting him a sideways grin. “Can you believe it?”

Mike gives an over-exaggerated shake of his head. “Hypocrites. Hypocrites, all of them.”

“Twenty seconds!” Lucas calls, then Mike scrambles into more of an upright position from where he’d been reclining against the arm of the sofa.

“Um,” he says to Will. “I assume we aren’t–”

Will’s expression stays carefully neutral. “No PDA,” he repeats. “You’re safe this time.”

Against what’s surely his better judgment, Mike feels a swooping tug of disappointment. “Oh,” he says, and then, “we seem to end up in this position a lot.”

Will’s eyebrows climb a bit higher. “You– with your legs in my lap?”

“Us about to kiss,” Mike blurts out, before he can think about it too much. “I mean–”

“Ten! Nine! Eight–”

“Yeah,” Will smiles. One of his hands is still resting lightly on Mike’s thigh, and his fingers twitch lightly, tightening around the curve of Mike’s knee and letting go again. “It’s funny.”

“Yeah. Funny,” Mike says weakly.

“Three! Two! One–”

“Happy New Year, Mike,” Will whispers. He turns his head to meet Mike’s eyes, and then his gaze slips lower, almost unnoticeable in the dim lighting of the basement.

Mike swallows. Will’s hand is still resting on his leg, thumb rubbing small circles on the outside of his knee. Absentminded, like he doesn’t even notice. “Happy New Year, Will.”

Will holds his gaze a moment longer, then looks away, up and to the left at the clock on the wall. “Happy graduation year, guys,” he announces, then slumps backwards on the sofa. “We’re so close.”

It’s not until later, when they’re setting up all the bedding and extra pillow, that Mike realizes he’s lost Will.

El had started to nod off against Max’s shoulder and Lucas had fallen asleep heavily enough to let out quiet snuffling snores, and Mike had decreed it maybe time to go to bed, digging out all the spare sheets and blankets from the closet and dumping it unceremoniously in a pile in the center of the room.

“There,” he announces, “is that enough?”

Dustin squints. “I think we’re short one pillow,” he says, “but I guess someone’s taking the couch anyway?”

“Yeah,” Mike starts, then pauses. “Wait. Where’s Will?”

They cast glances around the room, but Will isn’t anywhere to be seen. “Can’t believe you lost your boyfriend,” Max says around a yawn. “Maybe he’s getting some water?”

“Maybe.” Mike looks around, then notices the missing pair of shoes at the basement door. “Oh. I think he’s– um.”

“Go,” Lucas urges. “Go be gross together. We’ll finish setting up.”

“Emphasis on gross,” Dustin says, as Mike tugs on a pair of sneakers and pulls on his jacket. “Emphasis on extra gross–”

Mike’s expecting to have to walk a lot farther to find Will, thinking maybe he’d gone down the block or around to the driveway, at least. But he’s there, right outside as Mike turns the corner from the door, legs pulled up to his chest and looking outside over the dark yard.

“Hey,” Mike says, watching Will startle slightly at the sound. “Mind if I join you?”

“Oh,” Will says, then laughs, soft and breathy. “Sorry, I didn’t– you just startled me a little.”

Mike settles down next to him. The ground is cold under his hands and legs, and he’s wearing a hoodie and a jacket tugged over it, but the chill is still cutting down to the bone. He shivers. “Aren’t you cold?”

Will looks down at his sweater. “Um. Honestly, a little. I forgot to grab my coat before I left.”

Without a second thought, Mike slips the jacket off his shoulders. “Here. Take this.”

“Then you’ll be cold,” Will says, a bit incredulously and a bit in that special tone of voice he reserves for calling Mike an idiot or a loser or something belonging to that general category of terms of maybe-endearment. “You’re not wearing much underneath.”

“Don’t care,” Mike says simply, shrugging. “Please?”

Will gives him a long, searching look. He must come to the same realization as Mike does, after a moment– that Mike is stubborn and kind of annoying and he’ll probably attempt to bodily wrestle Will into the jacket if he has to, so it might just be better if he gives in.

Will takes the jacket, pulling it on over his sweater. It’s long on him, a little droopy in the sleeves, and Mike’s heart does a 180 inside his chest. “Thanks. You– you’re so weird, Mike.”

Mike cracks a grin, fighting back a shiver. “I’m hurt, really. Weird? Because I gave you my jacket?”

“Exactly.” Will wraps it a bit tighter around himself, then leans into Mike, like the contact might convey some of the warmth from his own body over to where Mike is slowly turning into a human ice cube. Not that he’ll ever say this. He’d gladly die of frostbite if it meant going out with a valiant and bravehearted display of affection. Maybe chivalry isn’t dead after all.

“Hey, listen,” Mike starts, looking out over the yard. The streetlights are orange and dim and far away, and it’s quiet. Maybe Maple Street isn’t full of crazy party-going nuclear families after all. 

There’s the faint hum of chatter coming from under the closed basement door, their friends pulling out blankets and pillows and settling in for the night. Mike takes in a breath. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, shoot.”

“Why did you ask me to do this, Will?”

Will stiffens slightly next to him, but doesn’t look over. “What?”

“To be your– to pretend to date you. You didn’t have to do that. The situation– their bet, whatever– it didn’t even involve us.”

Will doesn’t say anything for a long moment. The only noise is the soft whistling of the breeze through the trees and a car driving by in the distance. Mike wraps his arms tighter around himself, teeth starting to chatter. Then– 

“I think,” Will says slowly, still not looking up. “I don’t know. Isn’t it obvious?”

Is it? Mike doesn’t feel like he knows much of anything anymore. Isn’t it obvious?

“I don’t know,” Mike repeats. “Is it?”

Will looks up at that. His hair is rumpled slightly, sticking out around the collar of Mike’s jacket, a little messed up at the back from where he’d been leaning against the couch cushions. “Can I ask you something?” he says, instead of answering.

“Of course.”

Will hesitates, fiddling with his fingers. “Why did you say yes?”

Mike holds his gaze. One moment passes, then two, what’s definitely a second too long to play off as casual. Too long to play off like Will isn’t reading him like an open book. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Will’s eyes widen, almost imperceptibly in the dark. He lets out a long exhale, breath fogging up ghost-white in front of him. “Oh.”

“Oh,” Mike agrees. He feels jittery, anxious, like he’d downed six cups of coffee, black, no sugar. He lets his knee bump gently against Will’s. Testing the waters.

Move away, he thinks. Move back. Stand up. Go inside. Something, anything to coax Mike back on track, to tell him to quit while he’s ahead– one last warning sign before he does anything he really might regret. 

“Maybe it was selfish of me,” Will starts, which is doing exactly none of the things Mike needs it to. He presses his knee back into Mike’s leg. It feels like a question and an answer at the same time. “Maybe–”

“Maybe what?”

Will blinks. “Was it really not obvious?”

“I don’t know!” Mike gets out around a laugh, but it comes out nervous, stilted. “I don’t– I thought for a second maybe? And then you– with the kissing and the– and I thought you were avoiding me because I was being obvious and you got uncomfortable–”

“Obvious?” Will’s voice comes out soft, barely audible even with their proximity. “What were you– what did you have to be obvious about?”

Mike swallows. The air suddenly feels about ten degrees colder than its already near–freezing, but his whole body feels warm, blood rushing into his cheeks seemingly instantaneously. God, Will is so– 

“Ask me,” he says, half out of his mind with the head rush of seeing Will in his jacket, seeing Will flushed red from cold and possibly, hopefully, something else. And also maybe just seeing Will. “Ask me why I didn’t kiss you.”

A sharp intake of breath. “Mike–” Will shakes his head. “You don’t have to explain. You were under no obligation–”

“No,” Mike interrupts. “No, I know I didn’t have to. I wanted to.”

A crease forms between Will’s eyebrows. “Oh. Then– you–”

“So ask me,” Mike presses, because he’s had one foot hanging off this precipice for a long time now– too long. Twelve years too long. And now he’s careening entirely off the road– safety off, autopilot on, nothing but the dizzying tunnel vision of Will’s knee pressed firmly and unyielding against his. “Ask me why I didn’t.”

Another beat. When Will speaks, it’s hardly over a whisper.

“Why didn’t you kiss me, Mike?”

“Because,” Mike starts, stomach turning over, pulse thundering in his ears. “It was your first kiss, and I couldn’t– I couldn’t let it happen like that.”

“Like that?” Will blinks. “Meaning–”

“Meaning,” Mike rushes, eyes catching on the shadows of Will’s eyelashes against the soft streetlight glow, dancing long against his cheekbones. Kiss him, part of him chants, repetitive and persistent and impatient. Kiss him, kiss him, kiss him. He swallows it back down. “Meaning, if I kissed you, I’d want it to be good. I’d want to– I’d want to do it right.”

Will glances down, and this time, Mike knows he isn’t imagining it. “Okay,” he says. “I– yeah. Okay.”

“And,” Mike continues, emboldened by the way Will has leaned closer– consciously or not, he doesn’t know– “and you said I don’t go for the things I want and I’m– I think my New Year’s resolution is to fix that, so–”

Will takes in a shaky breath, then places one tentative hand on Mike’s knee between them. The touch is steadying, warm, somehow, even through the biting cold and the way Mike’s skin has started to go numb under his sparse layers. “Okay,” he says again, “and–”

“And what I want,” Mike whispers, leaning into the touch, and Will’s fingers grip his knee a bit firmer. “And what I want is–”

What Mike wants is to lean in and kiss the taste of popcorn right off of Will’s mouth– the sour candies and the sugary-sweet cola they’d been sharing not a half hour ago. He wants to kiss Will until the warmth floods back into his body, until the house and the streetlights and Maple Street and Hawkins, Indiana fades into oblivion. He wants to ring in the new year with Will’s hands on his waist, in his hair, held tight between his own and never having to let go of them again.

He wants all of it, but for real this time– sidling up next to Will during movie nights and sharing meals over vinyl diner booths and making him laugh early in the mornings and late at night. He wants to make pancakes with him in the morning and kiss him giddy over maple syrup and orange juice. He wants–

“What I want,” Mike tries again, the overwhelming rush of it leaving him feeling unsteady in his own body, “is this.” He leans in, cupping Will’s cheek softly in one hand, skin cool to the touch even as the red flush blooms over it, visible even in shadow.

Will nods, once. “And then?”

“And this,” Mike goes on, bringing his other hand up to the curve of Will’s neck, palm pressed against the warm, vulnerable line of his carotid. His hand is cold, he knows. Will shivers softly at the touch but doesn’t pull away. “I want this, too.”

Will lets one hand move up to Mike’s waist, over the worn fabric of his hoodie. He leans in, the space between them vanishing almost entirely in one fell swoop. His voice is shaky when he says, “And– after that?”

“And after that,” Mike starts, heart in his throat, about to go absolutely out of his mind with want, with need– “after that–”

“Mike,” Will cuts in, breathy and soft, eyes wide. “I need you to kiss me now.”

Mike’s never been one to deny Will, especially not when he asks like that, quiet and ridiculously articulate, like he’d been thinking about it– wanting it– for a very long time. “Yeah,” Mike whispers, “sure, yeah, okay,” and then the rest of the space between them vanishes entirely.

Mike doesn’t know who moves in first, and he doesn’t think he cares, actually. It’s a bit of a strange angle, the two of them sitting side by side on the cold ground, Will’s hand still caught around Mike’s waist, both of Mike’s hands curved around Will’s cheek and neck, and he feels instantly off-balance when he leans forward to catch Will’s lips on his.

He steadies himself with a soft gasp, fingers clutching at Will’s jaw, and then Will makes a small noise under him and the hand on Mike’s waist tightens automatically, like Will hadn’t even noticed he’d done it. The fabric of his hoodie bunching up between his fingers, and Will uses his hold to pull, tugging Mike forward the rest of the way until he’s falling into the solid weight of Will’s body.

Mike, with no small amount of reluctance, moves one hand off of Will’s cheek to brace himself on the ground, the pebbled concrete hard and frozen under the heel of his palm, but he can’t bring himself to really register it– not when he’s kissing Will, who’s warm in all the ways the air around them is not, who’s got one hand gripping firmly at Mike’s waist, thumb pressed against his ribcage where Mike is sure Will can feel his heart hammering away.

He’s kissing Will, who’s pliant and soft and forgiving under Mike’s hands, who moves without complaint when Mike pushes forward, who’s letting out soft breaths against Mike’s cheek, who lets Mike slip his hands under his jacket and against the small of his back– your own jacket, a voice cheers, deep in the recesses of Mike’s brain, and something swoops low and sweet in his stomach at the thought. He’s kissing Will, and Will is kissing him back.

“Sorry,” he gasps on instinct, leaning back just barely a fraction of an inch, but the loss of warmth is instantaneous, the cold rushing in like high tide between them. Mike has never been so tempted by anything else before, never wanted to do something as badly as he wants to lean back in, to let himself fall into the warmth that seems to radiate from Will Byers wherever he goes. “Sorry,” Mike repeats, pulling back an inch further to dissuade himself, “sorry, I didn’t– is that–”

Will’s eyes are bright, shining. “Mike,” he gets out, lips parted and cheeks so pink. “You’re an idiot.”

Mike stares, incredulous, still coming back into his own body, a little bit, and maybe not at the peak of his cognitive function. “You–! That’s–”

Will grins up at him, and it takes every ounce of willpower Mike has in his body to not kiss the smile right off his face. “You kissed me,” Will is saying, “you–”

“You said,” Mike points out, staring, rather shamelessly, at Will’s mouth. “And you said I’d never make the first move.”

“I guess I was wrong,” Will murmurs.

Mike shivers, clutching tighter at the soft knitted fabric of Will’s sweater. “Was that– okay?”

Will laughs softly, pulling Mike closer so they’re sitting in a sort of half-hug, half-laying-on-each-other sort of situation. “Is that even a question?”

“I don’t know.” Mike shrugs, breathing in the scent of Will’s cologne, softened by the open air. “I meant what I said, you know, I– I wanted to make your first kiss memorable. In a good way, not a– not in a I’m kissing someone I don’t even actually like and my sister and her best friend are watching sort of way–”

“Of course,” Will interrupts, easy and sincere and eyes wide like he can’t believe Mike would even think otherwise. “That’s why you’re an idiot, you know, because any first kiss– anywhere, anytime– would've been good with you.”

It’s embarrassing, the way Mike can tell so easily that he’s blushing. “Yeah?”

Will bites softly at his lower lip, holding back a laugh. “Yeah,” he smiles, then, “well, I mean, I’m not crazy about PDA still, but for what it’s worth. Yeah.”

“Okay,” Mike nods, “no PDA ever again, we can stay three feet apart from each other at all times and you can shake my hand goodbye at the door–”

Will drops his head into the curve of Mike’s shoulder at that, laughing. The sound rings brightly through the midnight air and Mike’s heart swells up in his chest, proud, exuberant. I made him laugh, he thinks, even as he feels himself smile in return. It’s a nice sound, and Mike thinks maybe he never wants to stop hearing it. “I didn’t say that,” Will says between breaths. He pauses, then moves back, untangling himself from Mike and pushing himself up onto his feet, then holds out a hand for Mike to take. “I like– um. Movie nights were nice.”

“Sure,” Mike agrees immediately, letting himself be hauled up and already missing the close proximity of how they’d been sitting. “Yeah, we can cuddle, we can hold hands, we can– anything you want, we can do anything you– can I kiss you again?”

Will grins, bright and pleased, and says, “Yes,” and pulls Mike back in towards him.

It’s softer this time, slower, smoother, without the awkward angles and contortion getting in the way. Will lets out a soft gasp against his lips, open mouthed and warm and Mike leans in impossibly further, the cold and dark and everything else vanishing in the little bubble they’re standing in. Mike slips a hand into Will’s hair, traces fingers down Will’s jaw and across his cheekbones like he’s trying to commit him to memory by touch alone. As if any part of him could forget this, he thinks, delirious with the honey-golden contentment flooding his veins fast enough for him to make a pretty embarrassing noise in response, a hitched gasp that Will presses in to catch before it can escape into the open air.

He’d be going out of his own mind with it if it weren’t for Will’s hands fisting in the front of his sweater like an anchor, skating around to his lower back, his sides, up into Mike’s hair like he can’t decide where he wants them. Second kiss, Mike thinks giddily, biting gently at Will’s lip just because he can, because he’s kissing Will Byers in the dark, right outside his basement door.

He can do this– he can trace his tongue along Will’s lower lip and kiss him open just like this, he can tilt Will’s face up and kiss him and kiss him and kiss him until the cold weather flush across his cheeks and neck has turned warm and soft to the touch. He can pull Will in by the waist, move his hands down to rest on his hips, around to the small of his back, just because he wants to, until he can barely feel the chill on his own skin anymore, until he can’t feel much else but this, until he’s so caught up in the sensation that he probably wouldn’t even have noticed if the basement door had opened and all their friends were standing there and staring at them.

Second kiss, second kiss, Mike thinks, pulling pack to catch a split-second glimpse of his expression, eyes half-lidded and lips parted and Mike thinks oh, oh, okay, and instantly leans back in for a third.

“I really like you,” he gets out, somewhere between kisses five and six. “I like you so much, Will, I– I don’t know why I didn’t figure that out until literally after we dated but–”

“I like you too,” Will breathes out, fingers curled into the hair at the nape of Mike’s neck, eyes unmoving from Mike’s. “I really like you too, Mike–”

“Well I should hope so.” Mike smiles into kiss seven, lets Will chase the touch as he pulls away again. “I mean, you did just kiss me.”

“You’re so annoying, Mike, you’re so–” Will starts, “has anyone ever told you you’re the worst?”

“Yeah. You,” Mike says, and laughs as Will rolls his eyes.

“True,” Will hums. He slips one hand into Mike’s, lacing their fingers together. And then, frowning– “Hey, you must be freezing.”

Now that Mike’s thinking about it, he is shivering slightly, no longer able to ignore the cold air in favor of– you know, way more interesting activities. “No,” he says anyway, even as his teeth start chattering, and Will raises his eyebrows. “Maybe a little,” Mike admits, squeezing Will’s hand once with his own. “But I bet you could warm me up.”

There’s a moment that passes where Will doesn’t say anything, expression impassively blank. And then he lets go of Mike’s hand to drop his head into his palms and groan. “Oh my God,” he says, muffled. “No. What did I just get myself into.”

“You like it,” Mike says happily, “I know you do, because you just kissed me. A lot.”

“Yeah, I know,” Will says, head still in his hands. “I was there.”

“You got yourself into this,” Mike points, turning the doorknob, and Will must realize that Mike is right– because Mike is, objectively, right about everything– because he lets Mike shove his cold, freezing hands up his sweater without complaint.

Well, okay, he complains a little, but it’s cool. Mike can deal.

“New Year’s!” Max whoops, pumping a fist in the air. “New Year’s, I knew it would be New Year’s! I told you two– I win, I win, I still totally win–”

“That, one-hundred percent does not count,” Lucas yells, mouth open in shock as Will cracks up, facedown in a pillow and shaking gently with laughter. “Oh, my God, you two– what the fuck is wrong with you two to do something like this– like, you guys are so messed up!”

“Are we messed up, Lucas?” Mike grins, watching Dustin’s dumbfounded expression from across the room. “Or are we just perfect for each other?”

“Both,” El pipes up. “I thought the mistletoe would crack you, but I guess I was wrong.”

The smug expression slips right off of Mike’s face. “You–! You knew?”

“Will is not very good at keeping secrets,” El nods, lips twitching. “He likes to talk about you too much. I knew by the second day.”

Will’s laughter stops abruptly. “El!”

“Next time you want to ask me out, Byers,” Mike mumbles, as Max continues whooping ecstatically. “Maybe just do it like a normal person?”