Archive of Our Own

“What would you be willing to do for love?”

Will looked up from his glass.

On the television, a woman in a white nightgown stood at the top of an old staircase, staring at something the camera had yet to deign to show. The question had come from a voiceover. The picture flickered at the edges, faded with age, while somewhere offscreen a violin drew out a note so dramatically it became irritating.

“Die, apparently,” Will muttered, picking up the remote and turning down the volume.

It was Halloween, after all.

There had been a time in his life when that would have meant having plans. Not necessarily good plans, but plans all the same.

A few years ago, Will probably would have been at a party by now, drinking something too strong from a plastic cup while pretending not to notice that everyone around him had put more effort into their costumes than he had. Later, if the night went particularly well (or badly, depending on how charitably he chose to remember his twenties), he might have ended up going home with an attractive stranger. One whose charm would last exactly until after Will came.

Usually, they became boring or irritating after that. On one memorable occasion, both.

Now, in his thirties, Will had finally accepted that waking up alone in his own bed, without someone’s knee digging into his back or an awkward conversation waiting for him on the other side of sleep, wasn’t actually a disappointing way to end the night.

Before those strangers, there had been boyfriends.

Halloween parties they went to together. One regrettable attempt at matching costumes. There had been arguments about whether they were too old to carve pumpkins that inevitably ended with them carving pumpkins, only to regret it when it was time to clean the kitchen.

Before the boyfriends, there had been parties he actually wanted to go to. Costumes he’d spent an embarrassing amount of time planning. Cheap fake blood that left stains for days. Dustin insisting on elaborate group concepts and Lucas objecting for practical reasons.

And before that...

Basements. Sleeping bags. Too much candy and horror movies they were perfectly capable of watching, thank you very much, regardless of what Karen Wheeler had to say about it.

Before that, there was Mike Wheeler.

The name came inevitably with the memory. Will reached into the bowl on the coffee table and pulled out a handful of popcorn. Stale and cold now, it hadn’t been particularly good when it was hot, either. But he ate it anyway.

Twelve years.

It was a strange thing to remember over a handful of mediocre microwave popcorn, but twelve years had passed since the last time he’d seen Mike Wheeler.

College had taken Will out of Hawkins and brought him to New York, while Mike went to school in another state. At first, they’d kept in touch, the way you do when you’re still young enough to believe the distance between you and your best friend is temporary, and stubborn enough to try to prove it.

But the years always test that kind of determination, and eventually they spoke less often. Then only occasionally. Then on birthdays and Christmas. Finally, not at all.

Will didn’t even know where Mike lived these days, or what he did for a living. He didn’t know if Mike still stayed up until absurd hours reading books he’d complain about afterward, if he still talked through movies and then got offended when someone told him to be quiet, or if he still considered Halloween an event that warranted weeks of planning.

For all Will knew, maybe Mike hated it now. People change, and twelve years is enough time to become practically anyone.

Will turned his attention back to the television. Apparently, the woman had survived the staircase and was now running through a cemetery in her nightgown.

“Poor planning on several counts.”

Predictably, the woman tripped and let out a high-pitched, irritating scream as something lunged at her from the camera’s point of view. Her face contorted in absolute terror was the last thing Will saw before he grabbed the remote and ended her suffering.

“No way.”

The screen went black at once. Will glanced at the shelf beside the TV where he kept his VHS collection stacked. If he was going to spend Halloween alone, he could at least do it properly.

He dropped to his knees on the carpet and started looking through his horror movies. The Shining was a good option, though committing to nearly two and a half hours of Jack Nicholson slowly losing his mind seemed too ambitious at this hour.

Suspiria. You couldn’t go wrong with that one. Will had already watched it three weeks ago. He kept going through the stack until his fingers stopped.

The Hunger.

Well. Bowie. That settled it. Will put in the tape and returned to the couch with his glass of wine, tucking his feet beneath him as the opening credits began to roll.

There were considerably worse ways to spend Halloween. He had wine, technically edible popcorn, David Bowie, and nowhere he needed to be the next morning. At his age, Will considered that a respectable collection of accomplishments.

Outside, the city went on celebrating without Will Byers. Every now and then, laughter drifted up from the street, followed by shouts, car horns, or the unmistakable sound of someone who had started drinking several hours earlier than good judgment would advise. The building had been decorated; on his way home from the studio earlier, Will had passed a plastic skeleton wearing a pink feather boa that someone had placed in the lobby. There were parties, respectable gatherings he’d been invited to.

But tonight, this was enough. On the screen, Bowie remained impossibly beautiful. Will raised his glass and toasted to that before taking another sip.

Then someone knocked on the door.

For a moment, he even assumed the sound had come from the television. But then he heard it again. Three knocks this time. 

Will frowned. No one had buzzed from downstairs. He set his glass on the coffee table and waited.

Nothing happened.

He was about to assume it had been a neighbor knocking on the wrong door. Confused or drunk. Either was equally plausible on a night like this. But then, as he turned his attention back to the television, someone knocked again.

Not louder or impatient. Just three deliberate knocks that made Will feel as though whoever was in the hallway had no intention of leaving until he answered the door.

Will sighed in defeat and got up from the couch.

“Coming.”

He crossed his apartment, stepping around the shoes he’d abandoned beside the coffee table a few hours earlier, and reached the front door. He put his hand on the doorknob and stopped.

Later, he would remember this moment and try to figure out what had made him pause with his hand on the knob for several seconds before opening the door. Whether he’d heard a particular sound on the other side. Whether it had been instinct. Some small, primitive part of his brain recognizing something the rest of him hadn’t yet understood.

He would never be sure.

Then Will unlocked the door, opened it, and promptly forgot how to breathe.

Mike Wheeler was on the other side.

Standing in the dim hallway outside his apartment was his childhood best friend, the one he hadn’t seen in over a decade. And for several seconds, Will just stared at him without doing a thing, because his brain seemed to have gotten stuck somewhere between recognizing the face in front of him and accepting that it could actually be there.

“Hi, Will.”

The voice cleared up part of it, or maybe made everything considerably worse.

“Mike.”

At the sound of his name, Mike smiled at him, one of those small, slightly uncertain smiles that felt immediately familiar. The same smile Will had seen so many times when Mike showed up at the old Byers house at odd hours to get him. Promising Joyce Byers they’d be back in a couple of hours when he actually had a campaign planned in his basement that would keep them occupied well past dinnertime.

Shit. It really was Mike.

Mike Wheeler was actually standing outside his apartment after all this time, as if that were a normal thing that could simply happen on any given night.

Except tonight was Halloween.

And Mike was soaked.

His dark hair was plastered to his forehead, water running from the ends down his temples and disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt. The rest of his clothes were wet too, the fabric darker in places where it clung to his body. 

Under the hallway’s yellowish light, Mike’s skin looked considerably paler. He held his arms slightly tucked against his body, as if he were cold.

Wait.

“Is it raining?”

The question was as sudden as it was stupid, enough to make Mike laugh.

“A little.”

It hadn’t been raining.

Will was almost sure it hadn’t been raining. He’d gotten home a few hours earlier, and the sky had been completely clear. Until just now, he’d been hearing people out on the street: laughter, cars, the drunken shouting New York produced so often it was part of the background. But he hadn’t heard rain against the windows, hadn’t seen...

Will looked over his shoulder toward the living room window. Water was running down the glass, distorting the lights of the buildings across the street.

He frowned. Because, okay, apparently it had been raining and he hadn’t noticed until now. Blame his natural absentmindedness. Blame David Bowie’s cheekbones.

When he turned back, Mike was brushing his wet hair off his forehead.

“Can I come in?”

“What?”

Mike nodded toward the apartment behind him.

“Can I come in?”

“Yes. Of course. God, yes. Come in,” Will said, immediately stepping aside to make room for him.

Mike crossed the threshold.

Will closed the door behind him and stood there for a second, his hand still on the doorknob. His brain was working overtime to catch up with everything that had happened in the last thirty seconds. Because Mike Wheeler himself, from Hawkins, Indiana, was inside his apartment after being gone from his life for almost… his entire adulthood, really.

And he was soaked.

“You’re wet.”

Mike turned toward him, still wearing that awkward smile.

“That tends to happen when it rains.”

There was Mike. Will burst out laughing, mostly because he was nervous and much less because the comment actually deserved it. But it was, after all, a very Mike response.

“Shut up. Wait here.”

“Will…”

“Towel.”

Will didn’t wait for an answer. He went straight to the bathroom and opened the linen closet, still trying to understand what the hell was going on as he searched through the towels.

Mike.

Actually Mike.

Standing in his apartment, ruining his floor. Twelve years without seeing him, and Will hadn’t needed even half a second to recognize him. 

Of course he’d changed, Will thought as he pulled out a clean towel. A lot. The skinny, gangly teenager he remembered had become a man who was still tall and still seemed to have too many arms and legs for the rest of his body. But there was something different about the way he carried himself now.

Broader shoulders. A more defined face. That jaw…

Oh, for God’s sake.

Will closed the closet a little harder than necessary. Of course the years had been kind to Mike and made him incredibly hot. What an inconvenient thing to discover after years without seeing him.

It was probably one of those things that changed so subtly from day to day that one morning you woke up and realized your friend was hot, without being able to pinpoint when exactly it had happened. But seeing him all at once, without warning, felt like going to sit down and discovering someone had moved the chair.

When Will returned to the living room and got a better look at him, he saw that Mike still had something of that teenager in his face. In the expression he wore as he came in, his eyebrows slightly raised, his lips pulling to one side in that half smile no number of years could erase from Will’s memory.

God.

He’d forgotten what it was like to look at him.

He took a deep breath and gave himself exactly one second to act like a thirty-year-old man instead of an idiot.

When he returned to the entryway, Mike wasn’t where Will had left him. He’d moved several steps farther into the apartment and was looking around the living room with the same regard for other people’s business Will remembered. His gaze moved over the shelves, the framed prints on the walls, the collection of tapes beside the television.

“You have a lot of stuff,” Mike said.

“Twelve years more than you probably remember.”

Mike looked at him, and something briefly changed in his expression when Will mentioned that stretch of time.

“Yeah.”

Suddenly, Will didn’t know what to do with the towel in his hands. For one stupid moment, he thought about tossing it to Mike, but then he remembered he had manners. The normal thing would have been to walk over and hand it to him. Here’s a towel, please stop ruining my hardwood floor. But in the end, he did none of those things.

Will walked up to him. Mike watched him approach but didn’t move.

“You’re going to get pneumonia.”

“That’s not how pneumonia works.”

“I know. Jesus, Mike, twelve years haven’t made you any less insufferable about technicalities.”

There was a hint of warmth in the way he said it, affection in his smile. And Mike must have noticed, because the comment drew a smile from him, a real one this time.

And Mike had always had a smile Will liked a lot, because it wasn’t limited to his lips. He smiled with his whole face, with his eyes. It had a way of making you smile back, a reflex Will had never been able to control. 

He’d done stupid things for that smile, like standing too close to him now. And before he could think about what he was doing, he raised the towel and dropped it over Mike’s wet hair. His hands moved on their own, rubbing Mike’s hair dry. It was such an absurdly familiar gesture that, for a moment, his brain simply accepted it. 

Mike held still at first, then tilted his head slightly to make it easier for him. Will ran the towel through the dark strands, laughing softly when several of them immediately stuck out in the wrong directions.

Then he realized what he was doing, and his hands stopped abruptly.

Mike looked at him from beneath the edge of the towel, his eyes fixed on Will’s.

He was standing inches from Mike Wheeler, drying his hair. As if that were normal. As if twelve years hadn’t happened and somehow this was something Will did all the time. Except Will had never done anything like it in his life. 

He stepped back so quickly his heel nearly caught on the edge of the rug.

“Sorry. I don’t know why…”

“It’s okay.”

Mike said it easily. He didn’t look annoyed or confused; he didn’t even give an awkward laugh. Nothing to suggest Will’s behavior had struck him as strange. He just pulled the towel off his head and ran it through his hair once himself to finish the job.

And maybe it was only because he was no longer under the hallway’s awful light, but he looked better than he had when he arrived. He was still pale, though. Mike had always had fair skin, and the cold used to leave him with that grayish cast Will remembered from winters in Hawkins. This was somehow worse. His lips had almost no color, and he was pale enough to make Will suspect he’d been out in the cold longer than it would have taken to reach his door. Longer than a little rain could quite explain.

“I can get you something dry.”

“I’m fine.”

“Mike, you’re soaked. I’m sure I have something that’ll fit you.”

“I’m just damp.”

“You’re dripping on my floor.” Will pointed to the small puddle at his feet.

Mike looked down at himself as though this was news to him.

“Sorry.”

“I don’t care about the floor, but I don’t want you getting sick.” Will held up a finger at him. “Don’t correct me. Seriously, Mike, I must have some clothes you can wear. They might be tight in some places and loose in others, though.”

That earned him a look from Mike that traveled up and down his body, one Will firmly refused to interpret.

“I’m fine,” Mike repeated. “It’s just a little water.”

And as if that settled the matter, he left the towel draped around the back of his neck and continued farther into the apartment. Because apparently, years later, Mike still treated Will’s spaces as if they were his own. Strangely, he found that reassuring.

Will watched him head for the shelves first, tilting his head to read the titles on the spines of his books. He didn’t touch anything. He just moved around, looking at everything with the slightly erratic curiosity Will remembered. The same curiosity Will had seen him bring to unfamiliar rooms, video stores, museums, the arcade they’d gone to as kids.

His attention moved to the illustrations on the walls, then to the photographs. He paused for only a moment at one from a trip he had taken years ago, in which Will stood alone, smiling like an idiot at the camera with Buckingham Palace behind him. 

Will saw something pass through Mike’s eyes. He couldn’t be sure what it was, but there was the beginning of a smile on his lips.

Then Mike moved on and turned his attention to the messy pile of VHS tapes beside the television. The case for the movie playing on the screen lay open on the carpet.

“The Hunger?”

Bowie was still moving across the screen, the dialogue indistinguishable at the volume Will had left it.

“I was having a Halloween movie marathon.”

Mike looked back at him.

“Alone?”

There wasn’t really any judgment in the question, maybe just a little curiosity. Will crossed his arms anyway.

“As it turns out, I’m excellent company.”

“I remember.”

Something about the way he said it made Will’s smile falter for half a second, but Mike was already looking around again. As if he wanted to take in everything about Will that the years had kept from him.

Will had questions of his own. Thousands, really. It was hard to settle on just one, so in the end he went with the most obvious.

“Mike… what the hell are you doing here?”

“You have a lot of really cool stuff around here.”

“Mike…”

Mike’s attention returned to him, and he smiled. A smile that pulled his mouth to one side, accompanied by a slight lift of his eyebrows.

“You still do that.”

“Do what?”

Mike made a vague gesture at all of him.

“You get annoyed when people don’t answer your questions in the order you asked them.”

Will opened his mouth, then closed it again, thrown by what Mike had just said.

“You’ve been here five minutes and you’ve already decided I’m insufferable.”

“In my defense, I knew that before I got here,” Mike replied.

And the bastard smiled at him, pleased with himself and a little charming, as if he knew Will wouldn’t even try to hate him because it was impossible to stay mad at him. 

He let out a stifled laugh despite himself, equal parts indignant and amused.

“Oh, fuck you.”

Mike laughed too. Will remembered that sound as well. Not because there was anything particularly distinctive about it; he couldn’t have described it if someone had asked him the day before. But hearing it now was different. 

Recognition came all at once, from somewhere deep in his memory. Suddenly he could see again the way the corners of Mike’s eyes narrowed slightly. When something really caught him by surprise  the first sound came out higher than the rest, almost embarrassingly loud.

Will found himself smiling.

“No, seriously, are these all yours?” Mike had turned his attention back to the bookshelf.

“No, I break into strangers’ apartments and display their books,” Will replied, rolling his eyes.

“Ah! See? Insufferable.” Mike pointed at Will’s face, still smiling.

“You asked if the books in my apartment were mine.”

“I was trying to make conversation.”

“You used to be better at it.”

“No, not really.”

That was true. Mike had always been talkative but awkward, with more courage than common sense in social situations. Will had always found it charming somehow, and even now there was something endearing about it.

While Will was remembering that, Mike picked up one of the framed photographs, one of Lucas and Max posing during one of their visits to New York.

“Do you still talk to Lucas?”

“Sometimes. Not as much as I should.”

“Dustin?”

“More than Lucas. Mainly because Dustin thinks leaving six messages in a row is a perfectly normal way for an adult to communicate.”

Mike smiled down at the photograph.

“That sounds exactly like Dustin.”

“You don’t?”

Mike put it back exactly where he’d found it.

“Not for a while.”

Maybe Will should have expected some discomfort in admitting that, but Mike said it with the same casualness as someone commenting on the weather.

Not that there was anything wrong with that. Will hadn’t expected him to confess a long list of regrets with dramatic remorse. Adulthood didn’t work that way. Will himself had let the distance grow simply because keeping in touch never quite fit into his schedule. He should call his brother more often. Drive out to Montauk more often to visit his mother. The list went on and on.

For years, he’d imagined what it would be like to see Mike again. In those imagined reunions, he had to admit, there was always that awful first stretch of conversation when neither of them quite knew what to say.

What have you been up to? Where do you live now? Are you seeing anyone?

Wow, twelve years. Crazy how time flies.

None of that was happening, and Will loved it. 

It was a relief to simply stand there arguing with Mike about whether Dustin would ever understand what an answering machine was for, while Will told him about the time their friend had filled an entire tape because apparently he’d forgotten hanging up and calling back was an option.

“He didn’t.”

“Of course he did,” Will assured him, laughing again at the memory.

“What for?”

“I don’t remember. Something about a computer. He was probably trying to explain to me again why I need one.”

“You do need one.”

Will raised a finger and pointed it at him in warning.

“Don’t you start, too.”

“It’s 2000.”

“I know what year it is.”

“Are you sure?” Mike asked, that detestably charming little smile back on his face.

“I hate you.”

“You used to say that every time you were losing an argument, so I’ll take it as a good sign for me, Will.”

Will laughed again. He’d forgotten how absurdly easy it was to talk to him. 

The way an argument could spring from absolutely nothing and somehow become important for three minutes before disappearing just as quickly. 

The way Mike gestured with his whole body, moving his hands to explain things when he got excited. How he watched Will so closely when he spoke, his eyes bright, as if he were already preparing a response before Will had finished his sentence but didn’t want to miss a single word.

It was all still there. Or enough of it for Will to feel as though he’d gotten back on his old bike, only to discover it still rode the same.

“Fine,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m going to get something to drink.”

“You already have something.”

Will glanced at the glass of wine he’d left on the coffee table.

“No, I’m going to get something real to drink.”

“You’ve gotten pretentious about drinks, I see.”

“Oh my God, get out of my apartment.”

“Too late. You invited me in.”

Will stared at him. The corner of Mike’s mouth barely moved. Then Will rolled his eyes and started walking.

“Come on.”

He headed for the kitchen without checking whether Mike was following him. He was, of course. Will could hear his footsteps behind him, and there was something unexpectedly strange about how normal that felt.

His kitchen wasn’t much. It certainly wasn’t why he had chosen the apartment when he moved in. It was one of those spaces that felt crowded as soon as two people stepped inside.

Will went to a cabinet and took out a clean glass.

“Do you want something to drink? Something hot, maybe.”

Mike leaned a shoulder against the counter.

“Like what?”

“Coffee. Tea. I think I have hot chocolate somewhere, but I can’t make any promises about the expiration date.”

Mike made a thoughtful sound, his eyes roaming Will’s kitchen with the same interest he’d shown in the living room.

“What were you drinking?”

“Um… wine.” Will went to the small space beneath the counter that served as a wine cellar and took out a new bottle. He inspected the label and nodded in satisfaction. High-altitude Syrah. Its deep, dark color suited the night. “Now, this one.”

“Good?”

Will looked offended.

“I always drink good wine. This one’s better.”

Mike made an appreciative sound, leaning in slightly to read the label on the bottle.

“Do you save it for when you have company?”

“I save it for when I’m alone.”

“That seems like it should be the other way around,” Mike ventured, raising his eyebrows.

“No. Other people don’t deserve the good wine.”

“And you do?”

“Obviously.”

Mike watched him for a moment. There it was again, that amused, warm expression, terribly familiar.

“Wine, then.”

Will picked up the bottle, found the corkscrew, and worked the cork with the ease of someone who’d had far too much practice. Mike watched closely as Will gave his wrist two quick turns and began pouring the wine.

“Good choice.”

Mike took the glass when Will offered it, and their fingers brushed briefly around the stem. It was nothing, barely a touch, but Will noticed it anyway. Then Mike raised the glass and examined its color against the kitchen light with an exaggerated seriousness that made Will snort.

“Don’t pretend you know anything about wine.”

“I could know things about wine.”

“You don’t, Mike.”

“How are you so sure? You haven’t seen me in years.”

“And somehow, I’m still sure.”

With a serious expression, Mike looked at him over the rim of his glass, then took a sip. He paused dramatically, his tongue moving inside his mouth in the silence before he finally swallowed with a thoughtful look.

“Well?”

“It’s definitely wine.”

Will burst out laughing, one of those laughs that made him throw his head back and laugh with his whole body. Across from him, Mike smiled, pleased with himself.

“Very good wine,” he amended.

“Oh my God, give it back. You have no idea what you’re drinking. You won’t appreciate it at all.”

Mike moved the glass away when Will tried to reach for it.

“No. You gave it to me. You can’t have it back.”

“That’s my good wine, and I’ve just reconsidered.”

“I don’t think you can do that,” Mike said, and his eyes flashed with something Will took for amusement that still made the hair on his arms stand up.

Ignoring that, Will stepped closer to try to take it from him again. Mike raised the glass, leaning away slightly and laughing when Will’s hand was left hovering in the air after he missed. And for one ridiculous moment, they were practically wrestling over a glass of wine in Will’s kitchen as if they were seventeen again and twelve years had been nothing more than a particularly long weekend.

Will was the first to stop, not because there was anything wrong with it. But because he had suddenly ended up less than a foot from Mike’s face, and Mike was still smiling at him. Looking at him through narrowed eyes in a way that made Will realize he was having fun.

And the dangerous part was that Will was having fun too. He hadn’t expected to, certainly not tonight, not like this.

Will stepped back, still smiling, and gave up on the glass.

“Fine. Keep it.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Mike took another long sip just to provoke him. Will gave his shoulder a shove that made him smile wider against the rim of his glass, then he went back to the living room for the glass he’d left on the coffee table. 

Will finished what was left in one swallow, and when he returned to the kitchen, he found Mike looking at the refrigerator. At the things on the door, specifically.

There wasn’t much there: a postcard from Jonathan, a takeout menu held up by a tomato-shaped magnet, a photograph Dustin had sent him two Christmases ago, and several scraps of paper with phone numbers Will no longer remembered the purpose of.

Then Mike moved farther along, his attention settling on one of the paintings hanging beside the kitchen entrance.

“You made this.”

It wasn’t a question. Will made an affirmative sound anyway, leaning against the opposite counter as he poured himself a glass of Syrah.

He watched Mike step closer to get a better look, his nose almost touching the frame. It wasn’t a painting Will thought about much anymore. Just a city street at dusk in shades of blue and gray, the windows beginning to light up as the daylight faded. He’d painted it years ago and kept it because there was still something about the perspective he liked.

Mike studied it long enough that Will began to feel self-conscious under his attention. You’d think he’d be used to scrutiny, but apparently Mike Wheeler was proof otherwise.

“So,” Mike said at last, “you really did it.”

“Did what?”

“This.” He gestured toward the painting. “You became an artist.”

Something about the simple certainty with which he said it caught Will off guard, making him look down at his wine.

“I guess,” he replied with a shrug.

“You guess?”

“I paint.”

“For a living?”

“Mostly.”

Mike stepped away from the painting and came to stand across from him in the narrow kitchen. He leaned sideways against the counter, glass in hand and shoulders relaxed.

“Mostly?”

“I sell my work. Commissions, sometimes. Galleries, when they’ll take me.”

Mike’s eyebrows rose.

“Galleries.”

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

“I’m not surprised. I’m impressed.”

Oh. That was objectively much worse. Will had to hide the heat rising up his neck by taking another sip of wine. Mike smiled faintly, probably noticing.

“Where do you work?”

“I have a studio a few blocks from here,” Will explained. “Honestly, I practically live there. This is mostly where I keep my bed and my food.”

“I can imagine,” Mike replied quickly.

Will narrowed his eyes.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I remember you.”

There was nothing particularly flirtatious about the words. There shouldn’t have been, anyway. Still, the way Mike said them, leaning forward with those dark eyes fixed on his, made something tighten low in Will’s stomach.

Mike went on, turning his attention back to the painting on the wall.

“You used to disappear when you drew.”

“I did not.”

“Sure you did. I remember the time you ignored me for almost an entire hour because you were concentrating on getting a dragon’s scales just right.”

“You remember that?”

Mike took another sip of wine.

“Of course. You gave it to me.”

Will made a sound that started out like a laugh but came out awkward and tense.

“I gave you a lot of drawings,” he said, playing it down. Mike didn’t seem pleased with that; his face tightened in offense.

“And I remember every single one.”

“No, you don’t. Jesus…”

Mike set his glass on the counter and leaned forward slightly. Not enough to actually invade Will’s space, but enough for Will to notice.

“There was the dragon you drew in my math notebook in seventh grade,” Mike began.

Will opened his mouth, but Mike didn’t give him a chance to interrupt.

“The castle you drew for our first campaign. It had three towers, and one was crooked because you said it made it look older. The drawing of Dustin as a dwarf, Lucas with a bow that was too big for him…” A small smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. “Mine, with the sword and that ridiculous cape you always insisted on drawing on me.”

Mike kept looking him straight in the eye, completely relaxed. Will felt as if his body had forgotten it needed to breathe. 

It was absurd that Mike could make him feel like this just by listing drawings. Even more absurd was Will’s realization that he didn’t mind at all.

“Mike…”

“And the spaceship,” Mike continued, as if he hadn’t heard him. “The one you drew on the back of one of my stories because you said my description was terrible and needed a visual aid.”

Mike held his gaze for another second, that faint smile still on his lips.

“And those are just my favorites.”

Will huffed and looked up at the ceiling as if he were scandalized by that level of detail, when really he just needed a second without Mike’s eyes on his.

“They were terrible.”

Objectively, they were. Not terrible, no, but still rough. More instinct than technique. More impulse and enthusiasm than planning. Will knew he’d been a talented kid, not gifted, but good enough to get into art school after growing up in a town that treated creativity with the same revulsion as a venereal disease. Too bad it wasn’t contagious. If Hawkins had one thing, it was an ever-growing population of boring people.

“They’re incredible. They always were.”

Just like that. He said it as if he were stating an indisputable fact.

“And then,” Mike continued, “there was that painting of the group you did the summer they had to fix the roof of your house and you moved into our basement.”

Will frowned.

“What painting?”

“The one of the group.”

It took him a moment to register what Mike was talking about. Then he remembered…

Oh, shit.

The painting.

“You didn’t keep that.” Will groaned, covering his face with one hand.

That ridiculous D&D scene of the four of them at the foot of a dragon. Will had spent a ridiculous amount of time on it because he’d wanted to give Mike the perfect gift. 

God… he hadn’t thought about it in years.

“Why would I throw it away?” Mike looked genuinely offended. “I took it to college with me.”

Will stared at him, eyes wide and wearing a look of horror that probably wasn’t attractive in the slightest.

“You didn’t.”

“I did,” Mike replied calmly, then took another sip from his glass with a smile.

“Mike.”

“It was on my wall freshman year. My roommate hated it. He said it was ruining his sex life.”

Will nearly choked on his wine.

“What?”

“He was convinced girls didn’t want to sleep with him because there was a painting of four fantasy characters hanging over his desk.”

“Oh my God,” Will exclaimed, bringing a hand to his mouth. He could picture the scene with embarrassing clarity. Mike, nerdy and stubborn, holding on to a silly painting just because his best friend had given it to him years earlier and because…

Hearing him admit it was crazy. 

Will himself hadn’t thought those drawings were worth keeping. He didn’t have any of them in this apartment. So to think someone had considered them valuable enough to keep… to move to another state carrying a plastic tube with something Will had made.

Jesus…

“I always liked the things you made. You were good.”

Suddenly, Will found his own glass very interesting.

“I was sixteen.”

“You were already good at sixteen.”

Mike paused, his eyes moving to the painting on the wall and then back to Will.

“You’re better now,” he said more quietly, in a private tone meant just for Will. It had no right to feel so intimate when they were, for all practical purposes, strangers. “Much better. Seriously.”

The way Mike’s eyes moved over Will’s face, dipped quickly down his body, then came back up suggested something else.

Oh. Right. 

That was…

That could have been flirting. Or maybe Will had been single for too long and was now capable of turning professional compliments into sexual innuendo. Both were possible.

“Careful,” Will said with a nervous little smile. “If you keep talking like that, I’ll start thinking you came because you missed me.”

Mike’s smile appeared slowly, something soft that reached his eyes.

“Would that be so terrible?”

Okay.

Will took a bigger sip than usual. His glass was nearly empty. Suddenly, it seemed like a good time to fill it again. 

Luckily, Mike moved away before Will could decide what the hell to do with that and went back into the living room.

He was inspecting his bookshelves again. Will leaned back against one of the walls, watching the curiosity with which Mike looked through his books.

“What about you?” he asked suddenly.

“Me what?”

“Now you know all about my glamorous art career. I thought it was my turn to learn about yours.”

“I know about four things.”

“Four more than I know about you.”

Mike let out a low laugh and turned his attention back to the shelf. His gaze moved slowly over the spines, as if he were deciding which one deserved to be chosen.

“So what did you end up doing? You studied literature… are you still writing? Am I standing in front of a great author without even knowing it?” Will asked jokingly. Mike seemed to find it funny, because his smile widened a little.

Then he stopped suddenly and ran his fingertips over the spine of one book. 

“Neruda? You read Neruda now?”

“Sure.” Will shrugged. “Should I be offended that you sound so surprised?”

Mike’s smile widened, his eyebrows lifting as if he’d expected that answer and was delighted to hear it anyway.

To be honest, Will hadn’t read Neruda. Jonathan had probably left the book behind one time he’d stayed over, or it had belonged to one of Will’s ex-boyfriends. He’d dated enough men who read a lot to end up with books he couldn’t remember buying.

“You used to read Stephen King under your desk in math class.”

“I can do both.”

“Apparently.”

Mike opened the book somewhere near the middle and flipped back a few pages. Will watched him in silence. There was something strangely fascinating about seeing him hold one of his books. Maybe because it was such an ordinary thing. Or because it brought back memories of Mike picking things up from Will’s desk. Reading one of his comics on Will’s bed after school. Looking over his shoulder while he drew. Getting involved in whatever had Will’s attention until it became something they did together.

Then Mike stopped on a page, his eyes traveled down it, and he began to read aloud.

“I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

Will’s glass stopped halfway to his mouth.

Mike didn’t look up right away, which made it so much worse. Or better, depending on what Will was trying to measure. 

Because the truth was, there was no reason those words should send a jolt through every nerve in his body and make his skin prickle.

But Mike’s voice had come out deeper than it had a moment before. And apparently, sometime during the years they’d spent apart, he’d learned to linger on certain words, letting the syllables roll off his tongue with just the right cadence to make them sound unfairly attractive.

Mike finally looked up.

Will was still watching him.

For one endless minute, they stared at each other across the room. Dark eyes on hazel, neither blinking. 

Then Mike’s mouth curved slightly.

Oh, shit.

Will drew in the breath he’d forgotten to take and spoke again.

“So is that what you learned in college?” His voice had betrayed him, of course, coming out oddly high and breathless. He had to clear his throat before he went on.

Mike tilted his head.

“What?”

“To read poetry like that.”

“Like what?”

Will narrowed his eyes. Mike looked far too innocent and he wasn’t buying it.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“I really don’t.”

“Sure, sure.” Will rolled his eyes, then hid a smile behind a sip of wine.

Mike was back at the books. He’d picked up another one, flipped through its pages, and put it back.

“I learned a few things,” he said at last. “And other things.”

Will waited for some kind of clarification. An explanation. Anything that might shed light on that statement. But Mike kept reading as if he hadn’t just said something remotely interesting.

And other things.

Who said something like that? 

Will watched Mike turn another page, and that was when he noticed the beginning of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

Oh.

He knew. The bastard knew exactly what he was doing.

He knew he had Will standing a few feet away, spellbound like a complete idiot and unable to look away from how absurdly attractive his former best friend had become. All long, dark lines, leaning against Will’s bookshelf with a book of Neruda in his hands, reading poetry with the distracted solemnity of some damned Byronic hero.

Exactly the kind of wet dream that could destroy Will’s sanity if Mike set his mind to it.

Mike snapped the book shut, and just like that, whatever had been happening in the room vanished.

“So, what were your plans?” Mike asked, putting the book back in its place, the faintest trace of a smile still on his lips.

Will blinked, unsure what had just happened.

“For Halloween,” Mike clarified, nodding toward the living room. “You had wine. A horror movie. Popcorn.”

“You’ve conducted a thorough investigation for someone who’s only been here twenty minutes.”

“And I’ve learned a lot.”

Will gave him a look that said he wasn’t impressed. Mike still looked perfectly innocent. Apparently, they were just going to move on after the poetry.

Fine.

Will could do that.

“No party?”

“No, no parties.”

“Costume?”

“Definitely not.”

Mike looked disappointed to hear it.

“You used to like costumes.”

“When I was twelve, Mike.”

“You were eighteen the last time I saw you, and you still liked costumes.”

“Oh my God, that information was supposed to die with you,” Will groaned, overcome with embarrassment.

Then something happened. So quickly he almost missed it. Mike’s smile stayed exactly where it was, his expression unchanged, but something behind it seemed to go completely still.

Briefly. 

Almost like a pause where there shouldn’t have been one. Then Mike laughed.

“Sorry. Twelve years. The confidentiality agreement expired,” he said, gesturing vaguely with one hand.

And it was gone. The Mike standing in front of him was the same old Mike, criticizing his lack of commitment to Halloween because Will had decided that wearing a costume was starting to feel as ridiculous as it was exhausting at his age.

“That’s not how confidentiality works.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s a clause somewhere. Fine print and all that shit.”

“You’d be a terrible lawyer.”

“I’ve never claimed otherwise.”

“You haven’t claimed to be anything yet.”

Mike only smiled. Will was about to press him on that when Mike nodded toward the television.

“What are we watching?”

We. Will liked that more than he should have.

“The Hunger.”

“I figured that out. I meant after this. What’s next on the list?”

“Oh.”

Will considered the stack beside the television as Mike sat down on the couch.

“I hadn’t decided,” he admitted.

What he really wanted to say was that he hadn’t been optimistic enough to think he’d finish this movie and make it through a second. He’d called it a marathon because that sounded less pathetic than drinking wine alone on Halloween while watching horror movies until he fell asleep.

But now Mike was here. And that changed the odds of the night ending the way Will had planned.

“You don’t have a schedule?”

Mike looked genuinely horrified when Will stared at him blankly.

“Normal people don’t schedule movies they’re watching for fun.”

“We did. We had a whole system,” Mike protested.

“You had a system. The rest of us were hostages.”

“It was a good system, Will. It never failed us.”

“You scheduled bathroom breaks!”

“Because Dustin would disappear for twenty minutes.”

“He had digestive issues.”

“He ate fourteen fun-size Snickers.”

The memory came back to Will all at once and made him laugh again. He dropped onto the couch beside him, since Mike seemed to have taken charge of his plans today, too.

The couch wasn’t particularly large, but there was enough room for them to sit without touching. Mike had settled into one corner, one arm stretched along the back and his wineglass held loosely in his other hand. Will picked up the remote and turned the volume up enough to make the dialogue audible again.

On the screen, Bowie looked impossibly beautiful under blue light.

“Of course you picked this one,” Mike said with a quiet laugh.

Will turned his head.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what it means,” Mike said, giving him a pointed look.

“No, I don’t.” Will smiled at him, playing dumb. “It’s a good movie.”

“That’s not why you picked it.”

“It was absolutely a factor.”

Then Bowie appeared, all sharp angles and those impossible cheekbones. Beside him, Will heard Mike laugh quietly again, so he threw one of the decorative pillows at him. It hit Mike square in the chest.

By that hour of the night, the apartment had taken on the particular stillness Will liked so much, when the sounds outside seemed to belong to another world. Rain kept tracing paths down the window, and every now and then, the lights of a passing car swept across the ceiling.

The television filled the living room with flashes of blue and white, lighting the angles of Mike’s face and leaving the rest in shadow. 

For the second time that evening, Will paused to take it all in. He’d started the night with one plan, and now Mike Wheeler was sitting beside him, watching a movie. On Halloween, of all nights.

As if time and distance had never come between them.

Will shifted, bringing one leg up onto the couch to tuck it beneath him, and his hand brushed Mike’s as he moved.

Cold.

He looked down at Mike’s fingers resting loosely on the cushion between them. 

He’d touched them before when he handed Mike the glass, briefly and only in passing. Now he’d touched them with his palm, and they were cold. Not cool. Actually cold.

Will remembered the rain outside, Mike’s soaked clothes, and the sight of him standing under the hallway light with water dripping from his hair. But that had been half an hour ago, maybe more, and the apartment was warm. His clothes no longer looked damp, and he’d been drinking wine. He shouldn’t still be that cold.

Beside him, Mike was watching the television. He didn’t seem uncomfortable. He wasn’t shivering. In fact, he looked considerably better than he had when Will opened the door.

Maybe…

Maybe Mike was just one of those people with terrible circulation.

“Do you remember the Ghostbusters?” Mike asked, pulling him out of his thoughts.

Will smiled immediately.

“Which time?”

Mike turned toward him on the couch, smiling too.

“You know which one.”

“Oh, God.”

“That was a great Halloween.”

“I was thinking about it earlier.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Will admitted, taking a sip of wine. “About the whole group. Dustin insisting we had to have the exact right equipment.”

“He made the proton packs out of vacuum cleaner hoses,” Mike remembered.

“We were thirteen.”

“We had a hot glue gun and no regard for safety. Anything felt possible.”

Will could see it again with surprising clarity. The Wheeler basement covered in cardboard and paint. Dustin giving orders. Lucas complaining, of course. Mike had spent ages lying on the floor, working on something that definitely didn’t need all the effort he was putting into it.

“We took a picture that day,” Will said suddenly. “In front of your house.”

Mike made a sound of recognition.

“I know the one.”

“I must have it somewhere. Probably hidden where no one will ever find it.”

“Why?” Mike asked with an amused smile.

Will looked at him as if the answer were obvious.

“Mike. My hair.”

Mike’s smile widened.

“What about your hair?”

“Besides the fact that it looked like Joyce had put a bowl on my head and cut around it?”

“I think, technically, that’s exactly what she did.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“You’re welcome.”

Will shook his head, though he was already smiling.

“That haircut was a crime. All photographic evidence should have been destroyed years ago.”

Mike was still smiling when he looked down at his glass.

“You were cute.”

There was no hesitation, not even the teasing tone that would have turned it into a joke about Will’s hair. Mike had simply said it, as if it were an obvious fact.

“What?”

Mike looked up.

“I said you were cute.”

“I looked ridiculous.”

Mike shook his head.

“You were adorable.”

There was something different about hearing him say it again. Maybe it was because Mike wasn’t laughing anymore, but something inside Will went very still.

“You have terrible taste.”

“I don’t think I do,” Mike said quietly.

That was when he realized. The movie was still playing behind them, momentarily forgotten. And there was barely any space left between them on the couch.

At some point, Will had moved closer, and he wasn’t sure when it had happened. Whether it was when he’d brought his leg up onto the couch or whether his body had moved a few inches at a time without asking him.

From this close, Will could still smell the rain in Mike’s clothes, the warm scent of wine, and a faint trace of soap on his skin. 

Mike hadn’t pulled away. If anything, he was leaning closer, one arm stretched along the back of the couch behind Will. He was suddenly aware of exactly where it was.

“So,” he said, because the silence had suddenly grown too heavy, “you preferred the bowl cut?”

Mike’s eyes moved to his hair.

“No. This suits you better.”

Will had let his hair grow out over the years. It wasn’t particularly long these days, but it was long enough to fall differently now, softer around his face than the stiff cut of his childhood.

Mike studied him so closely that Will was grateful to have something to do with his hands. Then he added, his voice lower, “Much better.”

Will raised his glass in a pretend toast, trying to control the heat rising in his face.

“Finally. Personal growth.”

“But you’re still cute.”

Will could feel the fierce heat in his cheeks now, in his neck, and his ears were probably betraying him too. Too much, too fast to blame on the wine.

Perfect.

“You’ve gotten awfully generous with the compliments.”

“Have I?”

“Yes.”

Mike seemed to consider that.

“Maybe you’ve gotten easier to compliment.”

Jesus Christ.

Will looked down at his wine, considering that there wasn’t nearly enough left in his glass to continue this conversation.

When he looked up again, Mike was still watching him. And maybe it was the alcohol, or the hour. Maybe it was the impossible fact that Mike was sitting beside him after twelve years, close enough for Will to count his freckles and see the fine lines adulthood had added around his eyes.

But Mike’s gaze shifted.

It moved slowly from Will’s eyes to his throat, lingering there long enough to follow the movement as he swallowed. Then it rose again.

Mike’s eyes settled on his mouth.

Will felt his pulse quicken, and something familiar and pleasant tightened in his stomach.

Oh.

That wasn’t new. Not really. Will knew that look because Mike had looked at his mouth before. More than once, and never by accident. Years ago, when they were teenagers, Will had noticed every single time.

It had started when they were thirteen, or maybe that was just when Will had begun to notice. 

At first, it hadn’t meant anything. They were only thirteen. Mike looked everywhere when he talked. At the ceiling, at the floor, at his own hands, at whoever was in front of him. That was Mike. His attention always seemed to move faster than the rest of him.

So at thirteen, Will hadn’t known what to make of it. He’d decided to ignore it.

At fourteen, he’d started to wonder.

At fifteen, he’d learned that wondering was dangerous. Because it didn’t happen all the time, or even often. If Mike had done it constantly, Will might have convinced himself it was simply one of his habits. Another of those little things he did without realizing it.

But no. It happened now and then. In the middle of a conversation. Halfway through an argument. When Will laughed. During a quiet moment when Mike seemed to forget, for a second, where he was supposed to be looking.

His eyes would drop and linger there, and Will would forget to breathe. A very dangerous thing for a boy with his first crush on his straight best friend. So Will learned to do nothing. To pretend he hadn’t seen it and keep talking. To wait until Mike looked him in the eye again and let the world go on as though nothing had happened.

But it kept happening at sixteen, at seventeen,  at eighteen. And by then, what had once seemed to mean nothing had the potential to mean everything.

Will had spent years trying not to wonder what it meant.

And now Mike was doing it again, sitting on Will’s couch too close for it to be accidental.

This time, though, neither of them pretended it wasn’t happening.Will saw the exact moment recognition crossed Mike’s eyes. 

He held his gaze, waiting for his reaction, for him to pull back.

Mike didn’t. There was no trace of embarrassment. He didn’t pretend he’d been looking at something else. This time, he simply smiled. Slowly and deliberately, starting at one corner of his mouth and spreading across the rest of his face, making Will’s stomach flip.

Oh.

Okay.

So this was happening.

Will wet his lips without thinking, and Mike’s eyes followed the movement. 

Will decided he had two options. He could pull away and focus on the movie, think about the rain, the sounds of people celebrating out on the street, his taxes. Or he could… he could move closer.

It didn’t help that it had been far too long since Will had slept with anyone. It hadn’t been a deliberate decision, just one of those things that happened. Months turned into more months, and eventually you stopped counting because it felt unnecessarily depressing.

And then there was the fact that the person beside him was Mike.

But not the Mike Will had preserved in his memory. This Mike still had the same expressions, the same laugh, and the same irritating ability to argue about absolutely anything. Except now all of that came with broader shoulders, a jaw Will had already decided was a personal affront, and a voice that could apparently deliver compliments with dizzying sincerity and recite lines of poetry that made his knees weak.

Decidedly hot.

Definitely flirting with him.

Will realized the decision had been made several minutes ago. Fuck his taxes, and sorry, Bowie, but if Mike wanted to take this further, Will was perfectly willing to find out where he intended to take it.

Then, as if he’d read Will’s mind, Mike’s smile changed.

“Do you remember that Halloween?”

He didn’t ask which one. He didn’t need to. Will knew exactly which Halloween he meant. It was one of those memories that came back whole.

Seventeen years old.

The Wheeler basement.

It had been one of those strange years when everything felt in between. That odd limbo where Mike had spent the summer running the nerdiest, most epic D&D campaign of all time while Dustin and Jane made it to second base. Where trick-or-treating was completely out of the question, but coordinating costumes still sounded fun.

In the end, they’d voted to go out that night. First to a party at the house of someone from school Will barely remembered. Costumes, music that was too loud, plastic cups, and the thrill of drinking questionable alcohol and dancing in front of people Will knew well enough to say hello to, but not well enough to want to spend hours with.

They’d come back late, the group splitting up. Max and Lucas one way, Dustin and Jane another. Inevitably, that left him and Mike together, but Will didn’t mind. Back then, Mike was his favorite person in the world.

They’d both gone back to Mike’s house because they’d had the brilliant idea to watch a movie. Neither of them was tired. The basement was available, as always. 

One movie turned into another.Because that was what they did. Because it was Halloween. Because they’d spent too many Halloweens together to let one end just because everyone else had gone to sleep.

The television was the only light they’d left on. The volume was low so they wouldn’t wake anyone. A blanket neither of them needed had somehow ended up spread over them both.

Mike had been sitting beside him on the couch, very close. Or maybe just as close as he always sat. It felt important to remember that the night had started like any other. Nothing special.

They’d talked through the movie, because Mike was incapable of doing otherwise and Will liked listening to him. They’d criticized the characters’ decisions, predicted who would die, and argued when Will guessed the ending and Mike accused him of having seen the movie before and cheating.

At some point, they’d run out of popcorn. They’d started to get tired and ended up lying side by side on the couch.

At some point, they’d stopped talking.

Will had never managed to remember what movie they were watching when it happened. But everything else came back with too much clarity. The moment Mike had turned toward him to say something and suddenly they were too close.

Will could see the shadow of Mike’s eyelashes in the shifting light of the television. His hair falling across his forehead. Neither of them spoke.

And then Mike did it. He looked down at Will’s mouth.

Not like the other times. This wasn’t a quick glance they could pretend hadn’t happened. His eyes stayed there. And Will remembered thinking:

Oh.

And then:

Oh…

Because Mike wasn’t pulling away. Will had expected him to, but he didn’t. And the part of Will that had forced him not to hope for anything all those years gave way. Let him consider a maybe.

Maybe.

His heart had been beating so hard he was sure Mike could hear it. Then Will moved.

It hadn’t been a conscious decision. Will hadn’t thought, Okay, I’m going to kiss Mike tonight. He’d simply moved forward a few inches. Just enough that he could still stop. That Mike could stop him if he wanted to.

And for one impossible, perfect, terrifying moment, Will had known it was going to happen.

Then Mike got scared.

Will had never found another word for it. His expression changed, his eyes widened slightly, and his whole body seemed to remember all at once where he was, who they were, and what had almost happened.

Mike pulled back. Not far, but far enough for Will to understand what it meant. He’d said something. Will couldn’t remember what. Something stupid about the movie, quick and awkward and completely irrelevant.

Then he’d gotten up to get something to drink, even though there was a nearly full can on the table.

And that had been it.

Will had stayed on the couch facing the television, his heart trying to break out of his chest while humiliation slowly spread beneath his skin. He’d squeezed his eyes shut to keep from crying.

When he came back, Will pretended to be watching the movie.

Mike sat a little farther away.

Neither of them mentioned what had happened. Not that night, not the next day, or any of the days after. To the point that, for years, Will had managed to wonder if he’d imagined it all.

Not his own attempt. He remembered that too well. The rest of it. The way Mike had looked at him and the fact that he hadn’t pulled away immediately.

That fraction of a second when Will could have sworn Mike had moved a little closer too.

Now, on another Halloween night, Mike was sitting beside him again. Much closer than he’d been that time. His arm rested along the back of the couch behind Will, and once again, a movie was playing in the background.

“Yes,” Will said, his voice lower. “I remember.”

Mike wasn’t smiling anymore. He looked almost curious, with a slight crease between his eyebrows. His eyes moved over Will’s face as though searching for something.

“Did you try to kiss me?”

After all those years of never talking about it, he was suddenly asking just like that. Directly. Without a laugh to soften the question.

Will could lie. He could laugh and say he didn’t remember it that well. Instead, he held Mike’s gaze.

“Yes.”

Mike’s expression didn’t change.

“I wanted you to.”

Will stared at him, searching now for the joke, for him to take it back.

“What?”

“I wanted you to kiss me that night.”

The words were almost absurdly simple. 

Will kept searching Mike’s face for something that would make them less impossible. Some sign that he’d misunderstood. But he found nothing: just twelve years of longing reduced to eight words spoken quietly on a couch.

“You…” His voice failed him. Instead, Will let out a single humorless laugh. “You wanted me to kiss you?”

“Yes.”

Something old and unexpectedly painful stirred beneath his ribs. Because apparently, even at thirty, you could be seventeen again in an instant.

He remembered lying awake that night, staring into the dark and replaying those few seconds over and over, when hope had turned to humiliation. The way Mike had acted normally the next morning. The way Will had had to act normally too.

And God, he’d been sad.

That was the part time had softened. He remembered the embarrassment, the confusion, the hours spent obsessively piecing together every look Mike had ever given him. But he’d almost forgotten how much it had actually hurt.

Because he loved him.

Of course he had. In that enormous, stupid, desperate way only a teenager experiencing his first love could. A teenager who, for one impossible moment, had thought that maybe Mike…

“Then why did you pull away?”

Mike looked toward the forgotten television.

“I was seventeen.”

“So was I.”

“I know.”

“That’s not an answer,” Will said, his voice a little tighter now.

Mike finally looked back at him, something sad and complicated in his eyes.

“No,” he said, slowly running his thumb along the side of his glass. “I was scared. I didn’t know what it meant.”

“Neither did I.”

“I thought you did.”

Hearing him say that caught Will off guard.

“What?”

“You were the one leaning in, Will.”

“That didn’t mean I had a plan for the next five years, Mike!”

Mike let out a soft laugh, but it vanished when he saw that Will wasn’t smiling.

“I thought that if I kissed you, I’d have to know,” he finally admitted.

“Know what?”

“Everything.”

Mike lowered his gaze. He let out a slow breath and rubbed his forehead with one hand, as though he still couldn’t quite believe the logic he’d followed back then.

“Whether I liked boys. Whether I liked you. What that meant about me. Whether we were supposed to tell anyone. What would happen to us if it went wrong. What would happen if it didn’t.” Mike paused. “What would happen the next morning.”

The anger in Will’s chest, small and old as it was, eased a little as he listened. Because yes, that sounded painfully like being seventeen. And Will could understand it differently now.

“I thought that if I didn’t do it,” Mike continued, his voice quieter, “I wouldn’t have to figure any of that out.”

“And did it work?” Will asked gently.

Mike’s mouth twisted into a humorless smile.

“No.”

Of course it hadn’t. Will knew how that worked. Sweeping things under the rug didn’t make them disappear.

Silence settled between them, filled by the rain and the low murmur of the television. A few moments passed before Mike spoke again.

“Did you ever wonder?”

“About what?”

“What would’ve happened if we’d done it.”

There it was. The real problem. Will exhaled through his nose, considering whether to lie again.

“For a long time,” he said instead.

“How long?”

Will shot him a warning look.

“You’re not getting exact statistics.”

Mike smiled.

“So that means a long time.”

Years.

That was the embarrassing truth. He’d spent years thinking about the possibility, the maybes and the what-ifs. In the end, Will’s first kiss had happened later, with a boy who, in retrospect, looked enough like Mike Wheeler to make the choice seem suspicious. Tall, dark-haired, all long limbs. Nothing like Mike at all once he opened his mouth.

The next one had been the opposite. He didn’t look much like Mike, but he was funny and nerdy in that particular way that had caught Will’s attention immediately. Predictably, that hadn’t worked out either.

After that, the comparisons had become less obvious. A smile. A pair of hands. Someone who read too much. Another who talked with his whole body. Someone who could make Will laugh when he was determined not to. Someone who looked at him while he spoke as though what Will had to say mattered.

Pieces of Mike.

Never enough of them in one person for the resemblance to be obvious. Will noticed anyway.

The boyfriends came later. Some good ones, even. Men he’d felt something for. He’d had relationships that ended in drama, others where no one had been cruel, and some that probably could have lasted longer if Will had wanted them to badly enough.

But somewhere in those relationships, especially at the beginning, there had always been a quiet comparison. Thoughts like Mike would’ve laughed at that. Mike would’ve argued. Mike would’ve understood. Mike would’ve hated this. Over time, he didn’t do it as much.

Or that was what Will told himself…

“For a while,” Will said with a sigh.

“And now?”

Will looked at him. Mike’s expression had changed slightly; he looked more interested. Still far too calm for someone tossing out dangerous questions so casually.

“Would you like to know?”

Will’s pulse stumbled, and heat swept down through his abdomen before he could think of an answer.

There was no ambiguity in that. Mike wasn’t speaking with the awkward uncertainty he’d had at seventeen. He was sitting on Will’s couch as the adult he was, his arm deliberately stretched out behind Will, his eyes fixed on his face, asking whether Will wanted to find out what would have happened if they’d kissed.

Will did.

God.

He wanted it so badly that, for a second, it was almost embarrassing.

But then a thought settled in him with renewed clarity. He might have felt seventeen for a few moments, but Will wasn’t seventeen anymore. Maybe Mike still remembered him that way: a little quiet, nervous about intimacy, uncomfortable in his own body. Holding back in everything he did because he was hopelessly in love with his best friend and terrified someone might notice.

The years had changed that. Over time, Will had learned that men looked at him. That he could be wanted. He’d learned what happened when he held someone’s gaze a little too long from across a bar.

He’d gotten good at knowing how close to stand, when to smile, how to let silence do some of the work. He’d learned that being wanted wasn’t something that only happened to other people.

And suddenly, he needed Mike to know that too.

Will set his wineglass on the table, Mike’s attentive gaze following the movement. Then he moved closer. Not by a few unconscious inches. This time, he shifted across the couch until their knees touched. Mike’s eyes dropped to where they met, then returned to his face.

Will smiled at him. One of those smiles he knew exactly what to do with.

“Maybe.”

Mike’s eyebrows rose.

“Maybe?”

“You had your chance,” Will reminded him, narrowing his eyes and softening his voice even further.

“That was years ago,” Mike replied, one corner of his mouth pulling into a smile that said he was pleased with where this was going.

“It still counts.”

“I think there’s a statute of limitations.”

“You would. Apparently you make up laws now.”

That drew a laugh out of Mike.

“Besides,” Will said, leaning a little closer, “you were the one who got scared.”

“I was.”

No defensiveness. Interesting…

“How do I know you won’t do it again?”

Mike’s gaze moved over his face, his smile slowly widening.

“You don’t.”

Will shouldn’t have found that as attractive as he did. 

A new tension tightened low in his stomach, something hot and heavy he hadn’t felt this intensely in a while.

They were close enough that their thighs touched, Will’s body practically leaning against Mike’s. And despite what he’d said, he made no move to pull away.

Good.

Will deliberately let his gaze drop to Mike’s mouth before looking back into his eyes. He saw the instant Mike understood what he was doing. 

Then something changed. The amusement was still there, but beneath it…

Hunger.

That was the word that came to Will’s mind. Strange and sudden, it left him disoriented for a second by how forcefully it took hold.

Something in Mike’s face went very still. Not nervous or frozen. Still in the way an animal goes still when something has finally come close enough.

Will probably should have found it unsettling. Instead, that same heat he’d felt earlier swept through his whole body.

He moved one knee over Mike’s legs, slowly enough to watch his reaction the entire time. Mike’s eyes dropped to the narrowing space between their bodies, and he smiled.

A slow, interested smile.

“Is it still a maybe?”

Will let out a low laugh, swung his leg the rest of the way over, and settled astride Mike’s thighs.

“Don’t tempt fate.”

“I don’t think I’m the one tempting fate.”

Ah… Will was starting to discover that he liked this grown-up Mike. Quite a lot, actually. Mike seemed delighted to have him like this.

He’d tipped his head back against the couch as he looked up at Will, and something about that reversal sent another rush through his body. Because there had been a time when moving just a few inches closer to this man had taken every ounce of courage he had.

Now he was in Mike’s lap, confident and aware that he could be dangerous when he set his mind to it. 

Will pressed both hands to Mike’s chest, feeling the solid shape of him through the cold, damp fabric of his shirt.

Mike’s hands stayed where they were, one on the couch and the other holding his wineglass. He didn’t touch Will. Somehow, that was more arousing than if he had.

He just watched.

As though he were waiting.

As though whatever happened next belonged entirely to Will.

“You’ve changed,” Mike said.

“You noticed,” Will replied with a flirtatious smile.

“I noticed at the door.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah.”

He felt Mike’s attention travel over him from head to toe, as though, for the first time, Mike didn’t have to hide the way he looked at him.

“You grew into yourself.”

Will’s smile softened despite himself.

“That almost sounded profound.”

“I have my moments.”

“And here I thought college had only taught you how to read Neruda.”

Mike’s mouth curved, amusement returning.

“I told you. Other things.”

That made Will laugh. He bit his lip as he took his own turn looking, now that he didn’t have to ask permission. 

Mike’s hair was still damp, tousled at the ends, and darker patches remained on his shirt where the rain hadn’t quite dried. Will’s gaze traveled over his open collar, the line of his shoulders, and returned to his mouth. 

He didn’t remember Mike’s lips looking like that. Or maybe he did, and that was why he’d spent so many years trying to forget them. His lower lip was fuller, still carrying a little shine from the wine.

Mike ran his tongue over it, the smallest movement, before smiling as though he knew exactly where Will was looking.

“Yeah,” Will said. “I can tell you learned other things.”

Then the hunger returned to Mike’s eyes. Stronger now, impossible to ignore. He slid his hands over Mike’s chest and felt him inhale.

Will liked that too.

He leaned in until his mouth was beside Mike’s ear. Close enough to feel the faint brush of his hair against his cheek, close enough that his next words barely needed a voice.

“Twelve years,” he murmured. “What did you come here for tonight, Mike?”

Mike didn’t answer right away. Will could feel the silence between them now, charged by the position of their bodies and everything they’d just admitted.

Then Mike said quietly,

“To see you.”

Will smiled against the side of his face.

“That sounds suspiciously incomplete.”

“It isn’t. I wanted to see you.”

There was something almost stubborn in the repetition. Will might have pressed him further if Mike’s jaw hadn’t been right there.

That damn jaw.

It had been distracting him since he opened the door, which seemed ridiculous considering everything else that had happened tonight. But now it was there, beneath Will’s mouth, close enough for him to finally do something about it.

So Will did. 

He let his lips brush the edge of Mike’s jaw, barely enough to count as a kiss, more of an experimental touch. He felt Mike go completely still beneath him. 

Will smiled, satisfied, and did it again. He followed the sharp line slowly toward Mike’s ear and stopped there. Something made him pause.

Mike had been cold when he arrived, and not just chilled by the rain. Cold enough that Will had noticed when their hands brushed on the couch. But he wasn’t anymore. The skin beneath Will’s mouth was warm. Not feverish, just pleasantly warm. Alive beneath his lips.

Will brushed his mouth over the same spot again, as though he needed to make sure.

Warm.

Maybe the wine had finally done its job. Or the apartment. Maybe Will sitting in his lap had something to do with it. That possibility was much more entertaining.

Mike turned his face slightly toward him.

“Are you investigating something?”

“Maybe.”

“Find anything?”

Will lifted his head to look at him.

“That you’re still avoiding my question,” he said, his hands still resting on Mike’s chest. “What did you come here for?”

This time, Mike didn’t answer with a joke. Will saw nothing but honesty in the stillness of his eyes.

“To find something I wasn’t sure was still here.”

Will’s smile faded a little at that. 

There was nothing obviously wrong with those words. They could mean this, the two of them. What had almost happened all those years ago and was happening now. Still, something about the way Mike said them sent a faint prickle across his skin.

A slight sense of being on alert.

“That’s an incredibly intense answer.”

“I’ve been told I can be intense.”

“By who?”

Mike’s mouth curved.

“People.”

Will should ask more. He knew he should press on the enormous gaps still left in their conversation.

Ask how Mike had appeared at his door after twelve years without warning, then managed to spend nearly an hour avoiding almost any information about where he’d been, what his life was like, or why he’d come back to Will on Halloween night, specifically.

He should be more worried about it. He was worried, really. In theory, at least. In practice, he had Mike Wheeler beneath him, all solid and warm and looking at him like that. 

And Will had wanted to kiss him for such an unreasonable portion of his life that intellectual curiosity was rapidly losing the argument.

So fuck it.

Will took what he felt he’d been owed for a long time and kissed him.

For a fraction of a moment, less than a second, Mike didn’t move. Long enough for Will to register the contact, the warmth of his mouth, and the fact that his lips were really, truly on Mike’s.

Then Mike kissed him back, and every coherent thought Will had disappeared.

Mike’s free hand finally rose and settled on his waist with a confidence that sent a fresh wave of heat through his body. The wineglass disappeared too. Will heard the soft sound of it being set on the table, but didn’t care enough to look. Then Mike’s other hand was on him as well.

Will had imagined this.

God, he’d imagined it.

At seventeen. At nineteen. At twenty-three, once, embarrassingly, after too much wine and a breakup that hadn’t particularly devastated him either. Different versions, different places. Different Mikes, because he’d never really known what Mike looked like in those years, or how his hands would feel, or what his mouth would do when Will finally…

Mike tilted his head and deepened the kiss, drawing a small sound from Will against his mouth.

Yes.

That.

Exactly that.

It wasn’t tentative. That surprised him. Some irrational part of him had still expected the ghost of that basement to follow them here. Some hesitation. Some trace of uncertainty. But here and now, there was none. Mike kissed him as though he wanted to erase every question those twelve years had refused to answer.

Will’s fingers tightened around his shirt.

It was good.

No.

That wasn’t right.

It was…

Exactly how I imagined it.

And immediately, Mike’s hand moved. It slid up Will’s back, slow and steady, drawing him closer until there was no comfortable space left between them. At the same time, Mike changed the angle of the kiss, his mouth becoming slower, more deliberate. He lingered just long enough between kisses to make Will follow him when he pulled away.

Will’s stomach flipped pleasantly.

God.

He wanted Mike to…

Mike did it. Again. Before Will had even finished forming the thought. He kissed him more slowly this time, opening his mouth and catching Will’s lower lip exactly the way Will had been about to wish he would.

The thought made Will go still for half a second. Not long enough to stop, only long enough to register the coincidence.

Mike kissed him again, and all of his concerns fell away. 

His hands traveled over Mike’s chest to his shoulders, then higher, one sinking into the hair at the back of his neck. Mike responded immediately, tightening his hand around his waist.

For a while, nothing else existed. No years apart, no unanswered questions. Just Mike’s mouth, the weight of his hands on Will, the wet sound of their kisses in the quiet room. And the absurd, dizzying satisfaction of finally knowing what it felt like to have him like this.

Eventually, Will had to pull away. Not far, just enough to breathe. His forehead nearly touched Mike’s as he caught his breath.

“Okay,” he murmured.

His eyes looked darker from this close, with the same intensity Will had noticed earlier. Only now there was nothing fleeting about it. It was there, held firmly beneath the surface. Controlled. As though Mike were holding himself back from doing something Will still couldn’t identify.

The thought made Will’s pulse quicken.

Shit.

That was hot.

Will was still breathing too fast, his chest rising and falling, his lips warm and probably reddened from kissing. Mike’s gaze dropped to them, and that almost made Will laugh. He took another breath.

Mike didn’t.

The thought came suddenly, making Will’s smile falter. He watched him this time. Mike was completely still beneath him. Not the ordinary stillness of someone waiting. Nothing in his chest. No subtle movement beneath Will’s hands. No breath against his face.

At that moment, Will could hear only his own breathing. The indistinct sounds of the television. Rain against the windows. Nothing else.

Nothing from Mike.

Will stayed where he was, still straddling his lap, one hand buried in his dark hair. Waiting. One second. Two. Three.

Mike wasn’t breathing.

And then he did. Will felt the slow expansion of his chest beneath his hands, followed by a pause and then an exhale. Another cycle just like it. Another. Perfectly regular. The same interval between one movement and the next.

Will didn’t know why that was worse.

Maybe because there had been no sudden gasp when he started. No sharp breath after holding it too long. None of the instinctive correction his body should have made after going without oxygen longer than it needed to. He had simply started. As though Will noticing had reminded him of something he was supposed to be doing.

That thought sent a thin thread of unease down Will’s spine. 

Mike’s hands were still on his waist, and Will was still sitting in his lap, but now that felt like something he needed to pay attention to. He didn’t move except for the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath Will’s palms. Too steady. Too perfect.

“Are you okay?”

The question came from Mike.

“Yeah,” Will answered too quickly.

Mike raised his eyebrows.

“You don’t sound very convinced.”

“I’m thinking.”

“That usually ends badly.”

It was such a Mike thing to say that Will almost laughed. But then another thought occurred to him, something embarrassingly basic that, somehow, he hadn’t asked once since Mike arrived at his apartment.

“How did you know where I live?”

Mike’s expression didn’t change.

“I found you.”

He waited for him to add something. But Mike only kept looking at him, seeming mildly curious about Will’s sudden change in attitude.

“That’s not an answer.”

“It answered the question.”

“No,” Will told him. “It replaced the question with a much more unsettling statement.”

That earned him a smile.

“There you are,” Mike murmured, as though Will were the one behaving strangely.

“Don’t ‘there you are’ me. How did you find me?”

Still smiling, Mike took on a thoughtful look, as though considering the question.

“I looked.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

“Jesus Christ, Mike!”

Mike’s smile widened, amused. Will hated that part of him still found it attractive.

“You’ve become incredibly annoying.”

“I was always annoying,” Mike said with a wink.

“You used to answer my questions once in a while.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

“I think you’re romanticizing our childhood, Will.”

Despite himself, Will let out a short, surprised laugh. Mike suddenly looked pleased to have gotten it out of him, wearing an expression so thoroughly Mike that, for a moment, Will felt ridiculous for the tension that had built up in his shoulders.

Then he felt his chest move beneath his hands again, drawing the same measured breaths as before, and his smile vanished.

Mike was watching him as Will paid attention to the rhythm of his breathing. He wasn’t looking at the TV or at Will’s hands. He was studying Will’s face.

As though he were putting on a demonstration for him and assessing his response.

“Did someone give you my address?” Will asked, all trace of playfulness gone from his voice.

“No.”

“Did you look for me?”

“Not exactly.”

“What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

“It means I didn’t look for you.”

Will frowned, growing less satisfied with every answer.

“Then how did you know?” he pressed.

Mike was quiet for a moment before answering.

“I knew where to go.”

“Mike…” His tone was clearly a warning now. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Answering me in a way that sounds like an answer until I actually think about it.”

Mike’s mouth moved slightly, a glint of amusement in his eyes.

“You always thought too much. I’d almost forgotten that.”

“And apparently you don’t think enough.”

“I’ve had plenty of time to think.”

Will was about to answer, but something about the way Mike had said plenty of time kept him quiet. The humor was gone from his voice; he’d said it with the hard certainty of a fact.

“How much time?” Will asked.

Mike held his gaze, his expression so calm that the pause before he answered felt all the stranger.

“A lot.”

Behind them, someone screamed on the television. Neither of them turned to look. 

Will couldn’t stop thinking about how strange this entire night would sound if he tried to tell someone else about it. Mike Wheeler, whom Will hadn’t seen in over a decade, had appeared at his apartment door on Halloween night. Without calling first, though that wouldn’t have been possible anyway. Mike didn’t have his phone number.

But he hadn’t had Will’s address either, and yet here he was. Sitting beneath Will, breathing as though someone had taught him how from a manual.

He had to get up.

Will knew he should pull away, get off Mike’s lap, and put some distance between them until he understood what was happening. The moment that decision crossed his mind, Mike’s fingers tightened around his waist. Not enough to keep him there. Just a little pressure.

But at the exact right moment.

“Why tonight?” Will’s voice came out lower than he intended.

Mike’s thumb moved once against his side, barely finding the edge of the T-shirt Will was wearing. 

“It seemed appropriate,” Mike said, moving his thumb just beneath the fabric, barely touching Will’s skin. “You always liked Halloween.”

Will’s fingers closed around Mike’s shirt when the pad of his thumb pressed briefly against his skin. He’d felt the urge to lean into Mike’s hand, to let him keep touching him. Lower. With more than just his thumb. 

That unsettled him more than the touch itself.

“And you were sure I’d let you in?”

Something crossed Mike’s face at the question. Something tiny that appeared and vanished just as quickly.

“No.”

At least that answer came without hesitation.

“What would you have done if I hadn’t?”

Mike’s eyes moved over his face.

“I don’t know.”

“Would you have left?”

Will waited for an answer. The television’s light flickered across Mike’s still face. Blue. White. Shadow.

“Mike.”

“I didn’t have to,” he finally said.

A strange chill ran through Will despite the warmth of the body beneath him.

His fingers were still closed around the fabric of Mike’s shirt, Mike’s hand still resting on his waist. They were close enough for Will to see the shifting reflection of the television in his eyes. Mike didn’t seem impatient or uncomfortable with the questions. He simply watched him.

Will looked down at Mike’s chest. Once again, it had stopped moving.

Then the thought that had been murmuring at the back of his mind all night became impossible to ignore.

Maybe…

Maybe this isn’t Mike.

“Do you know what I did afterward?”

The question pulled Will sharply out of his thoughts.

“What?”

“That Halloween.”

Mike’s expression had changed again, all warm, familiar smiles. The stillness in his eyes was gone. Or hidden.

“I went up to my room,” he began. “Eventually.”

Will said nothing.

“I got into bed. Then I got up again. I stood in front of the door for five minutes, trying to decide if I should come back downstairs. Do you know why?”

Will shook his head.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

The words landed somewhere dangerously soft inside him. Especially because there was honesty in Mike’s voice, in his eyes. Despite everything else telling Will he shouldn’t trust him, Mike didn’t seem to be lying.

The fingers at his waist moved again, tracing his side over his shirt. Such a gentle, tender gesture that Will felt something tighten inside him.

“You were wearing that black sweater,” Mike continued. His voice had taken on the soft cadence of someone remembering something beautiful, one of those memories you held close.

“You hated that sweater,” Will murmured, his eyes fixed on his hands.

“I never said that.”

“You told me it made me look like a substitute art teacher.”

“It did.”

Mike laughed, a soft sound full of affection, and Will began to relax. Not much. Just enough to loosen his grip and feel some of the tension leave his shoulders.

“You had paint on the cuff.”

Will remembered that too. A thin stain of white acrylic he’d noticed sometime during the party and tried, unsuccessfully, to scrape off with his thumbnail.

“Your hair kept falling into your eyes.”

Mike raised his hand between them. Will watched it come closer until Mike’s fingers touched his chin gently. His thumb brushed once along the edge of Will’s jaw.

“You kept doing that thing while you watched the movie.”

“What thing?” Will asked, looking back into his eyes.

Mike tipped his chin slightly toward Will’s mouth.

“You were biting the inside of your lip.”

Will’s pulse jumped.

“You noticed that?”

“I noticed a lot of things.”

Then Mike leaned toward him and brushed his mouth along Will’s jaw, in the same place Will had kissed him earlier. Slowly. Warmly. Will closed his eyes for a second.

“You were sitting beside me,” Mike murmured against his skin, “and all I could think about was how close you’d come.”

Another soft brush of his mouth.

“And whether you’d do it again if I came back downstairs.”

Will opened his hands and slid his palms up Mike’s chest to rest on his shoulders.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I told you. I was scared.”

“You were an idiot.”

“That too.”

Mike laughed against his jaw, and the sound did something completely unfair to Will. Because… God. How was he supposed to sit there thinking this isn’t Mike when Mike remembered what had happened when they were seventeen like that?

Not just the facts, but the stupid little details. Things no one else could have known. Things Will himself had forgotten until Mike put them back in place.

“I regretted it,” Mike murmured against his cheek.

Will went still.

“What?”

“Not kissing you. I regretted it before I even fell asleep.”

Will pulled back just enough to look at him. Mike still looked honest. No hesitation in his face. No trace of mockery. All those years of wondering, all those people Will had compared to Mike without meaning to. And now Mike was here, telling him this.

“Look at you,” Mike said softly, his gaze moving over Will’s face with open appreciation. “Sitting here, trying so hard to decide whether you should trust me.”

Those words should have brought the unease back. Instead, they sent another wave of heat through him.

“Maybe I’m deciding whether you’re worth trusting.”

Will’s hands closed around the back of Mike’s neck, and Mike’s arms wrapped around his waist, drawing him in until their chests pressed together.

“And?”

Mike asked the question against the skin of Will’s neck. The hairs at his nape stood on end.

“That depends on how convincing you are.”

Something dark and delighted crossed Mike’s face.

“Is that what you want, Will?”

Will didn’t answer with words. Instead, he kissed him. Mike met him immediately, without hesitation again. His hands tightened around Will’s waist, and Will let himself get lost once more in the warmth of his mouth. In the familiar yet unfamiliar shape of his body. In how easy it felt to be like this with him.

Will wanted this.

That was the problem: Will wanted this badly enough that every strange thing became easier to ignore when Mike touched him. He could feel Mike’s hardness against him now, even through their clothes. The discovery drew a sound from Will against his mouth, and Mike took the chance to kiss him more deeply.

Mike wanted him as much as Will wanted Mike. The pressure between them made Will close his eyes and grip his shoulders more tightly. For a few seconds, he didn’t think about whether Mike was breathing or any of the answers he still didn’t have. Only how badly he wanted to move.

Mike broke the kiss just enough to look at him. His eyes seemed almost black in the television’s light.

“Look at you,” he said again.

Will smiled, his eyes half closed, a little breathless.

“You already said that.”

“I like looking at you.”

Will’s face softened.

“Does that line usually work?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I’ve never said it to anyone else.”

Oh.

That was…

Will kissed him again with an urgency that surprised even him, burying his fingers in Mike’s still-damp hair. 

Mike parted his lips, and Will shifted in his lap, just a little at first. The friction drew a sound from him that Mike swallowed with another kiss. He moved again, deliberately this time, and felt Mike smile against his lips before kissing his way down to Will’s jaw. 

“I love seeing you like this,” Mike murmured. “You look different when you’re working.”

Will went still. Mike kept speaking as he kissed his throat.

“Your hair falls forward when you lean over the canvas. You push it back with the back of your wrist when your hands are dirty. You’re so beautiful in those moments, Will.” Mike’s mouth brushed his cheek. “Sometimes you get paint here.” A fingertip touched the side of Will’s neck. “And here.”

Will pulled back, this time pressing his palms against Mike’s chest to put some distance between them.

He was talking about his studio. The one he hadn’t even known existed until Will mentioned it that very night. 

A few blocks from his apartment. Will usually worked there in the afternoons, once the building emptied out, because he preferred to be alone. Sometimes until midnight. Sometimes even later.

No one watched him paint.

No one knew what he did with his hair when his hands were covered in paint. Will hadn’t even known he did that.

“How do you know that?”

Mike’s hands stayed on his waist, his mouth still seeking Will’s.

“Know what?”

“What you just said.”

“You told me about your studio.”

“No.” Will shook his head. “I told you I have a studio. I didn’t tell you how I work. No one sees me… I work alone, Mike.”

Unease came rushing back, sharper this time, and once again Will became aware of everything. He shifted back on Mike’s thighs.

“Where have you been all this time?”

Mike’s expression stayed calm. His hands left Will’s body and came to rest on the couch at either side of him.

“A lot of places.”

“For twelve years?”

“Not all at once.”

Will gave him an incredulous look and moved a little farther back. Mike’s mouth twitched, a hint of humor returning to his face.

“Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“No.”

It was such a Mike thing to do, so familiar, that it sent another chill through Will.

“Where?” he pressed.

“Here and there.”

“Very specific. Now I want a straight answer.”

“You’ve had several.”

“Have I?”

“Yes,” Mike assured him with a nod.

“Okay. Why didn’t you call me?”

Mike’s smile faded. For a moment, he seemed to search for the words, but he looked away before he found them.

“I couldn’t.”

“You couldn’t?”

“No.”

The answer came quickly, a little sharply. Will shifted another inch back. Mike’s eyes followed the movement.

“Why?”

“I wasn’t in a position to.”

“What does that mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like.”

“No, it doesn’t. Were you in prison?”

A laugh escaped Mike before he could stop it. He lowered his head, his shoulders shaking once, and when he looked up again, he was still smiling openly.

“Okay. Apparently not.”

“No, Will.”

“A hospital?”

“No.”

“A cult?”

That earned another smile. The bastard was enjoying this.

“Not that I know of.”

Will should have taken the chance to ask again how Mike had found his address. Instead, the one question he was afraid to hear answered slipped out.

“Did you think about me?”

Mike’s smile grew smaller, softer. This time he didn’t try to dodge the question.

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation.

“Are you… are you being honest?”

“I can be honest.”

“Can you?”

Mike held his gaze.

“Yes, I can.”

Another answer that left Will to guess the rest. He was about to demand that he speak plainly when Mike tilted his head slightly and looked at him with that little smile he always wore right before saying something insufferable.

Will felt his irritation mix with something far less useful.

“Stop doing that. Stop…” Will gestured vaguely at his face. “Looking at me like you know something I don’t.”

Mike’s thumb moved lazily against his side. Will hadn’t noticed that one of Mike’s hands had found its way back to him. The thumb slid higher, farther beneath his shirt.

“I know several things you don’t.”

Jesus, this guy. 

Will should get up. He really should. At the very least, he should move back to his side of the couch and put enough distance between them to keep himself from doing something stupid like kissing Mike again. 

“You’re not stupid.”

It took Will a second to understand why those words had made his blood run cold. 

He hadn’t said them aloud. He’d only thought them. Mike was smiling, calm, unchanged. Unsettling.

Will got up so quickly he nearly tripped over the table. He stood there staring at him, waiting for him to take it back.

“What?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

“It wouldn’t be stupid to kiss me again.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I know.”

The admission came in a gentle voice, from a face Will had known since childhood. Those eyes had watched him from across basements, classrooms, and kitchen tables.

Or…

Will swallowed.

“Are you Mike?”

For a moment, he thought the question might finally break whatever game they’d been playing. Instead, Mike leaned his head back against the couch and made himself comfortable. Still smiling.

“Would it matter if I said yes?”

That wasn’t a yes. He wasn’t saying yes.

“Just now… I didn’t say that out loud. Did you…” Will felt ridiculous before he even finished the question, but Mike raised his eyebrows, encouraging him to go on. “…read my mind?”

“Hmm… yeah.”

Will crossed the room too quickly, nearly catching his foot on the edge of the rug, and headed for the kitchen.

He needed water.

How many glasses of wine had he had? Two? No, less. One and a half? Enough to make his head feel light, but not enough to imagine that something wearing Mike Wheeler’s face had come into his apartment and was reading his mind right now.

That was about as stupid as thinking water would help, but he needed something to do with his hands. So he took a glass from the cabinet and turned on the kitchen faucet.

Behind him, the couch creaked.

Will didn’t turn around. No. He waited for the glass to fill.

He isn’t reading my mind.

He drank the cold water. Filled a second glass, thinking that what he needed wasn’t water but something more like a new address.

The footsteps behind him were slow, with no hurry or apparent purpose. Will glanced over his shoulder to confirm that Mike had followed him into the kitchen and was standing in the doorway.

He had stopped with plenty of space between them. Enough for Will to leave the kitchen if he needed to. But he was watching him. Of course he was still watching him. He’d been watching Will all night.

Only now, something became obvious. Maybe it was new, or maybe Will was finally paying attention.o

Mike wasn’t blinking.

Will waited, counting the way he had with Mike’s breathing. One, two, three, four, five. Blink, damn it.

Mike blinked.

Will’s hand tightened around the glass.

“No.”

Mike tilted his head.

“No?”

A flash of irritation cut through Will’s fear when Mike smiled again and raised that eyebrow. He was making fun of him with the most Mike Wheeler expression Will knew.

“What are you?”

There it was, finally. The question was what, not who. Will heard the difference as soon as the words left his mouth.

Mike heard it too. Will could tell by the change in his expression. He didn’t look angry. Or hurt. Will almost would have preferred that. Instead, Mike looked interested.

“What do you think I am?”

“Don’t do that. I’m sick of you answering every question with another question. Give me a fucking answer.”

“You haven’t liked any of my answers.”

“Because none of them are answers!” Will protested.

Mike leaned one hip against the counter and crossed his arms. The gesture was so obscenely casual that Will wanted to scream.

Will stared at him as he noticed something else. Mike wasn’t pale anymore. Not like he’d been when he arrived, when Will had blamed it on the cold, the rain, the terrible lighting in the hallway.

There was color in Mike’s face now. His lips looked darker too. Healthier. Even his hair had changed. It was almost completely dry, falling dark and soft around his face instead of clinging damply to his forehead and neck. Under the kitchen light, it had a faint shine.

He looked…

Shit.

Mike looked incredible. Much better than when he’d walked into Will’s apartment. Better than he had twenty minutes ago on the couch.

It was as though the night was doing him good.

“You’re looking at me like you’re trying to figure me out.”

“Because I am!”

“Any progress?” Mike asked, his lips barely curving into a smile.

“You don’t breathe unless I notice.”

Mike said nothing.

“You don’t blink unless I notice.”

Still nothing.

“You know things you shouldn’t know.”

“Yes.”

Will frowned.

“You’re not even going to deny that one?”

“No,” Mike answered with a casual shrug of one shoulder.

He let out a humorless laugh.

“Oh, fuck you.”

“A few minutes ago, you seemed interested in that.”

Mike gave a low laugh and uncrossed his arms. He had that crooked, teasing smile, and Will hated that he still liked seeing it.

There was a creature in his kitchen that barely admitted to being Mike Wheeler, and yet his body still reacted to that voice, to the way Mike looked at him.

“You think this is funny?”

“Parts of it.”

“Mike.”

“There.” Mike pointed at him.

“What?” Will frowned.

“You called me Mike.”

A small shiver ran over Will’s skin.

“Are you?”

“You already asked me that.”

“And you didn’t answer.”

Mike’s smile faded a little. He looked down at his hands for a moment, as though searching for a simpler way to say it. In the end, he raised his eyes to Will and answered.

“I remember being Mike.”

Will felt his throat close.

Being.

He wanted to correct him, force him to speak in the present tense.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means I remember being Mike.”

“No. No, you can’t say it like that,” Will said, letting out the beginnings of an indignant laugh.

“Why?”

“Because a normal person would say, ‘I am Mike.’”

“Would they?”

Will dragged a hand down his face. Because… this couldn’t be happening. It was insane. Completely insane.

On Halloween, of all nights. A man identical to his childhood best friend had walked into his apartment and apparently forgotten to perform basic bodily functions unless Will noticed.

His mind began offering possibilities before he could stop it.

Possession.

No, that was ridiculous.

A ghost?

But Mike was solid. Very solid. Will could still feel the weight of his body against his palms.

Some kind of…

Will looked at his mouth.

Vampire.

Mike burst out laughing, a real laugh, bright and spontaneous, as though Will had just told him the funniest joke he’d ever heard.

“Oh, fuck you.”

“You were looking at my teeth.”

“I was not!”

“You absolutely were.”

Despite himself, Will took a closer look at Mike’s mouth. Mike helpfully widened his smile. He found only ordinary teeth. No ridiculous fangs.

“Happy?” Mike asked.

“No.”

“Oh… how disappointing.”

Mike’s face fell as if he really was disappointed. So Will decided to ask.

“Are you a vampire?”

Mike’s eyebrows rose.

“I thought we’d established that I’m not.”

“All we’ve established is that you’ve kept up with your dental appointments!”

Will hadn’t meant it as a joke, but Mike laughed again, and even Will was tempted to join in.

“No. I’m not,” Mike clarified.

“A ghost?”

“No.”

“Are you possessed?”

Mike considered that one. He actually considered it, and Will’s stomach dropped.

“Why the fuck did you have to think about that one?”

Mike raised his hands defensively, still wearing a playful smile.

“I was deciding what you meant.”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“Do I?”

“A demon?”

Mike looked offended by the suggestion.

“Will…”

“What?”

“A demon?”

“I’m going through the classics.”

“Badly.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Should I have prepared a taxonomy before the impossible man showed up at my door?”

Mike opened his mouth to argue, but laughed instead. He looked at Will with a mix of amusement and admiration, as though he’d liked the comeback more than he’d expected.

“‘Impossible man,’” he repeated. “I like that one.”

Perfect. Now Will was in the business of giving flattering titles to unknown entities that stole handsome faces.

The corner of Mike’s mouth twitched.

“Werewolf?”

“No, Will.”

“Alien?”

Mike shook his head with a dismissive little sound.

“Serial killer?”

“Not professionally.”

Will stared at him. Mike’s smile widened.

“It was a joke.”

“Was it?”

“Yes.”

“Look, the fact that I have to ask is becoming a problem.”

“I can see that.”

Mike said it with such sudden seriousness that Will couldn’t tell whether he was apologizing or had just made another joke.

“Are you even human?”

For the first time, Mike didn’t look amused.

The kitchen went so quiet that Will became aware of his own pulse, his breathing. All the little things his body did without being asked.

The little things that made him human.

“I was.”

Past tense again. Will felt the hope in his chest shrink.

“What happened?”

Mike looked down, his face twisting into a brief grimace. There was no horror or disgust in it. He looked as though Will had asked him to explain a boring math formula and spoiled his evening.

“Things change.”

Of course he’d settled on the least helpful answer of all.

“So now you can suddenly read my mind.”

Mike tilted his head slightly.

“Yes. It’s easier now.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Slowly, his eyes moved from Will’s face to his throat, and then back up.

“You’ve let me get closer.”

Heat and fear hit Will at the same time, and he hated it. Hated that some small, needy part of him was still pleased Mike was looking at him as though he liked what he saw.

Hated that Mike might be learning that right now, reading his mind.

“Get out of my head.”

Something almost tender crossed Mike’s face.

“I don’t think it works that way, Will.”

He still hadn’t come any closer. There was space between them, and Mike wasn’t blocking the kitchen doorway.

Will felt cornered anyway.

“Why did you come here?”

Mike clicked his tongue and shook his head, as though disappointed.

“You already asked me that. You’re repeating yourself. I told you I wanted to see you.”

He held his gaze, and another piece of the puzzle began to fall into place.

Will thought of Mike’s cold skin and the way it had warmed beneath his hands. How, the longer Mike spent in his apartment, the more beautiful he somehow became. 

More… alive.

When he spoke, his voice was quieter.

“What do you want from me?”

The spark of interest in Mike’s eyes told him he’d finally asked the right question.

And there it was again. Behind that relaxed face, looking a little more amused than the situation called for, Will saw the same terrible, thrilling thing he’d seen on the couch when he’d climbed into Mike’s lap.

Something he’d mistaken for desire. Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe it was desire, just not the kind Will had been thinking of.

Mike’s eyes dropped to Will’s throat again, then rose to his face.

And he smiled.

“You.”

No fangs suddenly appeared. His eyes didn’t change to some supernatural color, his face didn’t contort into an impossible expression, and he didn’t lunge at Will. Somehow, that felt far more dangerous.

Because it was one word spoken by the man Will had loved, said with ridiculous ease, and Will felt it go straight through him.

“Mike…”

“All of you.”

Something hot and pleasurable stirred low in Will’s belly.

“Oh, come on,” he snapped, indignant at Mike and at his own body, which was betraying him when he most needed it on his side. “Stop reading my mind.”

“I didn’t need to. I saw that on your face.”

“My… face.”

Mike made another sound of agreement.

“I know you.”

The most unfair part was that the entire night had been proof of it. Mike, or whatever was standing in his kitchen, had enough of Mike Wheeler inside him to know things about Will. Precise, little things you learned about someone when you truly paid attention. When you’d paid attention for years.

There was something painful about that thought.

“I know that when you were a kid, you drew in the margins of any paper you could find. That you chewed the end of your pencil when you couldn’t get a line right, and you got mad if anyone looked before you were finished. I know you bite your lip before you ask a question that matters to you, that you laugh when you’re nervous, and that when you say you’re fine too quickly, you almost never are.”

“Mike…”

He had been moving closer, one small step at a time.

“And now I know you tilt your head the same way when you paint as you did when you drew on my basement floor.”

Will’s back met the edge of the counter. Mike stopped in front of him, lowering his head slightly until their faces were level. He still left Will enough room to move away if he wanted to.

“I know that night you wanted me to sit down beside you again and stop pretending I didn’t know what had almost happened.”

“Mike.”

“You wanted me to look at you and tell you I got scared because I wanted it too,” he continued, ignoring Will’s weak attempts to interrupt. “You wanted me to call you after I left.”

That hurt. Mike must have seen it on his face, because something in his expression softened.

“You wanted me to miss you.”

“Stop.”

“You wanted me to regret it.”

Will’s throat closed. Suddenly he had no voice left to protest.

“I did, Will. I regretted leaving you in that basement. I regretted every time after that when I could have said something and didn’t.”

“You know I want you to say that.”

“Yes.”

His answer came immediately, without shame or any attempt to pretend otherwise.

“How convenient,” Will replied with a bitter, sad smile.

“Yes.”

“You can just get inside my head, find every pathetic thing I ever wanted you to say to me, and say it.”

“I could.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you?”

Mike looked at him for a long moment.

“No.”

“No?”

That caught Will off guard.

“I don’t need you to believe me.”

Mike leaned a little closer. Will became aware of his warmth. The scent of rain on him. His attention. And with it came that impossible pull toward something every sensible part of Will had already identified as dangerous.

“You can decide every word out of my mouth is a lie if that makes this easier.”

“That’s not particularly reassuring.”

“I’m not trying to reassure you.”

Will searched his face for some sign that he was playing with him again, but the smile was gone. Mike didn’t seem to enjoy Will’s fear, though he didn’t expect it to go away, either.

He looked at Will with a frankness that was almost worse.

“You wanted me then,” Mike said, his voice dropping. “You want me now.”

Their faces moved a little closer together. Will wasn’t sure anymore that Mike was the one responsible.

“You wondered what I’d look like now. What my hands would feel like. What it would be like if I finally looked at you and knew exactly what I wanted.”

Will’s fingers curled around the edge of the counter.

“And now you know.”

Will’s heart seemed to stumble.

“That’s not fair.”

“No.”

Then Mike raised a hand, moving slowly enough that Will could have stepped away long before Mike touched him.

He didn’t. 

Mike’s fingertips touched his chin, the same touch as before. His thumb rested just below Will’s lower lip. And against every instinct telling him to pull away, Will leaned into it.

That hunger stirred in Mike’s eyes again, stronger now. But his hand stayed gentle.

“You’ve changed,” Mike murmured.

“You already said that.”

“I hadn’t seen all of it yet.” His thumb traced the edge of Will’s jaw. “You’re beautiful.”

Will closed his eyes for half a second.

“You wanted me to see you after all this time and think, Jesus Christ, Will.”

Despite everything, Will laughed.

“I was going to say I did.”

The laugh died.

“You could be lying.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me again.”

Something delighted flickered in Mike’s eyes.

“I think you’re beautiful.”

Will’s chest ached, and he felt so fucking stupid for it. He was an adult. He’d been called beautiful before, by men who meant it, men who had loved him. It shouldn’t matter like this.

But it was Mike saying it. Or this thing that looked like Mike, sounded like Mike, touched him with Mike’s hands, and remembered every silly drawing Will had ever made for him, along with that night Will had spent years trying to convince himself meant nothing.

And apparently, that was enough.

Will reached out, grabbed the front of Mike’s shirt, and pulled him closer. Mike came willingly, letting Will pull him in with a docility that was playing havoc with his nerves.

Their faces were only inches apart. This time, Will could feel Mike’s breath against his lips.

“You’re an asshole,” Will whispered.

“I know.”

“You’re using this against me.”

“Yes.”

Will’s fist tightened around Mike’s shirt.

“At least you’re honest about it.”

“When I want to be.”

“That’s still a terrible answer.”

“And you still like it.”

Will liked it. He hated it. Both were becoming disturbingly easy to feel at the same time.

His eyes dropped to Mike’s mouth, but he didn’t kiss him. Instead, he watched Mike’s lips part and move slowly as he spoke again.

“Ask me.”

Will looked back into his eyes.

“Ask you what?”

“Anything. I’ll answer whatever you want, Will.”

“What are you?”

Mike smiled faintly.

“Something different.”

“Where have you been?”

“Far away.”

“Doing what?”

“Surviving.”

That word stopped him for a moment. Mike moved his thumb once along Will’s jaw.

“Another one.”

Then Will understood. Mike wasn’t giving him answers. 

He was offering him an invitation.

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

“And you’ll answer?”

“Tonight.”

Something about that made Will’s skin prickle.

“Why tonight?”

“Because I’m here.”

“That’s still not enough.”

“Then make better use of me.”

The bastard knew exactly how that sounded, and how Will’s pulse had raced when he heard it. His smile widened.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you can ask me anything you ever wanted to ask Mike Wheeler.”

Oh…

“Anything you never dared ask when we were seventeen. Anything you wondered after I left. Anything you’ve spent twelve years wishing you knew.”

Mike leaned toward him, just close enough that Will felt his voice against his lips more than he heard it.

“You can ask me if I loved you.”

Will held his breath.

“If I thought about you.”

Mike’s thumb slid slowly along his jaw to the space beneath his ear.

“If I missed you. If I would’ve kissed you if I’d come back downstairs.”

Will couldn’t take his eyes off Mike’s mouth.

“If I would’ve fallen in love with you.”

His heart struck painfully against his ribs.

“You can have all the answers tonight.”

Will swallowed.

“And if I don’t believe them?”

“Then don’t.”

Mike’s hand moved down the side of his face until it rested on his neck. Warm. Painfully warm.

“You can do whatever you want with me.”

The words settled between them with a weight that took Will’s breath away.

“Kiss me.”

His thumb brushed Will’s pulse.

“Touch me.”

Will let out a startled gasp, and the lips before him parted as though Mike wanted to catch the breath he’d released.

“You’re offering yourself to me.”

“For tonight.”

Tonight.

Will should have asked why there was a limit. Asked what would happen in the morning. He should have asked a hundred questions that had nothing to do with the warmth of Mike’s hand around his neck.

Instead, he asked the most important one.

“And what do you get?”

The hand around his neck went very still. Will could feel his own racing pulse beneath Mike’s thumb.

“This… this is a negotiation, isn’t it?”

A slow smile appeared.

“Yes.”

Finally. Will couldn’t point to a single moment when he’d felt Mike was lying to him, but for the first time tonight, it felt as though they were being honest with each other. 

“You give me all the answers.”

“Yes.”

“Even if I won’t like them.”

“Yes.”

“I decide what happens between us.”

Mike’s eyes darkened.

“Yes.”

“You don’t do anything I don’t want.”

“No.”

“And in exchange?”

Mike’s thumb pressed gently against his pulse.

“You.”

Will wanted to push his hand away. He also wanted it to stay right where it was. You could mean so many things that might end badly for him, and the way Mike was looking at him made Will like one of those possibilities far too much.

“What does that mean?”

“You.”

“Be specific, Mike.”

Mike’s gaze traveled over him without hurry, with enough possessiveness that Will felt it everywhere his eyes passed.

“All of you.”

“What for?”

“For me.”

The way Mike had said it made him imagine too much, too quickly.

When Will asked the next question, his voice betrayed him. It came out low, charged with something he couldn’t deny.

“What are you going to do to me?”

For just a second, Will saw something in Mike that had nothing at all to do with the boy in the basement.

Something old.

Hungry.

Something that had been waiting patiently.

“You can ask me that, too.”

“Will you answer?”

“Tonight, yes.”

“And after?”

Mike didn’t answer, and Will realized he’d found the first wall. The first limit to the offer. Everything tonight, nothing promised afterward.

He should pull away.

“What happens if I say no?”

The hunger didn’t leave Mike’s eyes. Neither did the gentleness in his voice.

“Then you say no.”

“Will you leave?”

There was a pause. A small one, but Will noticed it anyway.

“If that’s what you want.”

Will searched his face for a threat, some hint of anger or an intention to pressure him, but found nothing.

Mike was going to let him choose. Whatever all of you meant, he wasn’t going to take it from Will, and that made the decision feel even more dangerous.

“And if I say yes?”

Mike looked at him as though the rest of the apartment had ceased to exist.

“Then tonight you can have everything you ever wanted from Mike Wheeler.” His thumb moved once over Will’s pulse. “And I get to keep everything you give me.”

The words seemed to hang in the kitchen after Mike finished speaking.

Will let go of Mike’s shirt.

“I need a minute.”

Mike took his hand away from his neck immediately.

“Take one.”

That shouldn’t have sounded as much like permission as it did.

Will left the kitchen before he could change his mind about needing some distance and went straight to the bathroom. He closed the door behind him, locked it, and stood with both hands braced on the sink, staring at himself in the mirror.

His face was flushed. His lips were still red from kissing Mike. His hair was a mess.

Will looked like someone who had spent the last half hour making increasingly bad decisions and enjoying almost all of them.

“Fuck.”

He turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on his face. Then he did it again. Neither time helped.

Mike Wheeler… no. Something that remembered being Mike Wheeler was in his kitchen. Something that didn’t breathe unless it remembered to, didn’t blink unless Will noticed, and could read his mind. It had found Will, discovered where he lived and worked, and probably spent enough time watching him to learn his habits. 

Despite every sign telling him he shouldn’t, Will had let it in. And it had just offered him every answer he’d spent years wanting.

And probably sex.

Will stared at himself in the mirror.

“Fuck.”

Because apparently, that was the part his brain had decided deserved an entirely separate consideration.

He dried his face and waited. Mike didn’t knock, call Will’s name, or mysteriously appear on the other side of the door. When Will unlocked it, the hallway was as quiet as it had been when he went in.

The apartment was silent except for the television and the rain.

He returned to the kitchen and found Mike exactly where he’d left him, leaning against the counter.

Waiting.

Their eyes met as soon as Will came in. Mike didn’t ask if he was okay or whether he’d made a decision. He just watched him with the same still patience Will had begun to associate with him.

“Okay,” Will said as he entered the kitchen. “If we’re negotiating, then let’s actually negotiate.”

“Okay.”

“You can’t keep giving me mysterious one-word answers.”

“I can try using two.”

“Mike.”

“Sorry.”

He didn’t look particularly sorry. Will took a deep breath, turning the situation over in his head once more.

“Anything I want.”

“Yes.” Mike nodded.

“Tonight.”

“Yes.”

“I can ask you anything, and you’ll answer.”

“Yes.”

“Honestly?”

“I can be honest.”

Will narrowed his eyes. That was the same ambiguous bullshit answer as before. Mike nodded with a little smartass smile that Will found so sexy he got angry with himself for it.

“That’s an evasion worthy of a lawyer. You’re going to be honest with me.”

“All right.” Mike nodded again.

“Could you be lying to me right now?”

“I could.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“There’s no way for me to know whether you’re lying.”

“No.”

Will supposed that was fair. It wasn’t as though things worked differently with other living beings. Jesus Christ, he’d just called the people around him living beings. Mike was surely delighted by that.

“I find it hilarious.”

“Ha. I’m sure you do.”

Will let out an indignant breath. Mike laughed softly, and for a second, Will almost laughed too.

He bit the inside of his lip, trying to figure out how to continue the conversation.

“And when you said I could do whatever I wanted with you…”

Will immediately wished he’d found a less embarrassing way to put it.

“Did you mean that literally?”

“Yes.”

Will stared at him. Mike held his gaze.

“You know what I’m asking.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then make this easier.”

“I’d rather hear you say it.”

Of course he would. He could spare Will the embarrassment by using that unsettling ability of his, but of course Mike Wheeler wanted to hear him stumble through it instead.

“Can I have sex with you?”

Mike didn’t even blink.

“Yes.”

Will swallowed.

“That’s it?”

“What else do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do.”

Mike was watching him with the amused look of someone who knew exactly what he’d done. But when he saw that Will was still mortified, his smile softened.

“You can have sex with me, Will.”

Heat climbed Will’s neck. He looked down, indignant at how easily Mike had said it and how much hearing it had affected him.

Mike moved away from the counter. He didn’t come toward Will; he simply straightened. 

“However you want,” Mike said. “As many times as you want.”

“Jesus.”

“As slowly as you want.”

Will looked up, and their eyes met.

“Or not,” Mike finished.

The image conjured by that or not flashed through Will’s mind with mortifying speed. His mouth went dry.

“You’re enjoying this,” he accused, giving Mike a reproachful look as he tried to control the flush in his face.

“Very much.”

“At least one of us is.”

Mike deliberately looked Will up and down, then met his eyes again.

“Only one?”

“Fuck you.”

“You keep promising. I already told you you can.”

“You’re getting more and more arrogant about it.”

“I know how this conversation ends.”

The heat in Will’s body collided violently with fear again.

“Because you can read my mind?”

“In part.”

“And what’s the other part?”

“I know you.”

Mike took a step toward him. One was enough to have the effect he wanted, and he kept talking.

“I know all of them, Will. The things you’ve imagined. The things you’ve wanted. And the things you haven’t imagined yet.”

Each sentence sent Will’s pulse a little higher.

“What does that mean?”

Mike’s voice dropped.

“That wanting something and knowing how to ask for it aren’t always the same thing.”

Mike seemed very sure of that, but suddenly Will wasn’t sure what they were talking about anymore.

“And you think you know what I want better than I do?”

“No.” Mike tilted his head. “I think I can sense things you haven’t found words for yet.”

That was decidedly worse. Or better. Will hadn’t decided, but his body was already reacting. 

His pulse raced again, and Mike’s gaze dropped to his throat. It stayed there for only a moment, but Will had the uncomfortable certainty that Mike could feel every beat.

“That, for example.”

“That’s me on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” Will shot back with a humorless laugh.

“That isn’t nerves, Will.”

“Oh, yeah? What is it supposed to be?”

“Desire.”

The word was soft. Will hated how accurate it was.

“You’re afraid,” Mike continued. “And you still want me.”

Will said nothing.

“You don’t know what I am. You don’t know what happens after tonight. You don’t know if anything I tell you about Mike Wheeler is true.”

Will’s throat tightened.

“No.”

“And you’re still here, asking how much of me you can have.”

Mike leaned toward him so slowly that it only heightened the tension.

“All of it,” he said.

“What if I don’t know what I want?”

“I do. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” Mike corrected himself. “Well, some of it.”

“And the rest?”

“We figure it out.”

The simplicity of that sent a shiver down Will’s back. Mike didn’t look worried or particularly embarrassed. Why would he? They were talking about sex. Will had had conversations like this before, with partners, with casual lovers. Feeling this nervous suddenly made him feel a little foolish.

But in his defense, this was the first time he’d had to set boundaries in bed with a supernatural entity.

“You’d let me try anything?”

“Anything you really want.”

“How would you know the difference?”

Mike looked almost amused again.

“You’re asking the man who can hear the thoughts you haven’t said out loud.”

“Right. Fucking nightmare.”

“You’ll learn to like it.”

Will opened his mouth to protest, but realized too late that Mike had probably noticed how much the idea had caught his interest. Mike was already smiling.

“Asshole.”

“Yes.”

Despite himself, Will found that he was smiling.

He looked away, toward the small, dark kitchen window. He needed a minute to think without Mike’s intense gaze on him. Rain slid down the glass, calmer now, just a fine drizzle that was beginning to let up.

He could still walk away from all of this.

He wasn’t entirely sure what walking away meant anymore, but Mike had said no was still an option. Will needed to know what else he could refuse, and for how long. How much…

He looked back at Mike.

“Could you make me want something I don’t want?”

“No.”

Will studied his face, but once again found only honesty.

“But you can know about things I want before I do.”

“Yes.”

“What’s the difference?”

Mike held Will’s gaze for a moment, as though this question deserved more care than the others.

“I can find a door you haven’t seen yet,” he said, his voice lower and clear enough to make Will’s skin prickle. “But I still need you to open it.”

That was chilling. And also…

“That’s fucking sexy.”

Mike’s laughter filled the kitchen. Will felt it in his chest, a pleasant, infectious sound that was terrifyingly familiar.

“I know.”

“Of course you do,” Will said, rolling his eyes.

Mike’s laughter faded, but his smile remained.

“I want answers,” Will said a moment later. “I want to know what you wanted back then, what you thought of me. I want to know why you left. If… if you ever loved me.”

“You can have them.”

For years, Will had learned to keep that part to himself, even from the people who knew him best. He could talk about Mike, about their childhood, about everything that had happened between them, without ever saying it.

Now the words were on his tongue, and Mike stood in front of him, paying such close attention that at times his gaze felt like something physical touching Will’s body. 

If he said it, Will knew there would be no pretending he’d gotten over it.

Then something softened in Mike’s face, and Will decided to take the final leap.

“And I want you.”

Will forced himself to hold his gaze.

“I want tonight.”

The hunger returned to Mike’s face.

“And you have me.”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

Mike’s eyes traveled over Will’s face. His eyes drifted for a moment to some point behind Will. When he looked back, there was a care in his expression that warned Will he wouldn’t get an answer.

Fine. He’d asked for honesty. Will supposed silence was better than a lie.

“What exactly are you going to take from me?”

Mike answered that one with alarming ease.

“Nothing you don’t give me.”

Will’s heart struck painfully against his ribs.

“Could it hurt me?”

Mike fell silent again, and Will felt cold despite the heat still beneath his skin. For a moment he thought Mike would leave the question unanswered, but then he spoke.

“Yes.”

“It could hurt me?”

“Yes.”

“Could you kill me?”

Will’s fingers curled at his sides. He clenched them into fists because they’d started to shake. 

“I don’t know.”

Will believed him. That was the hardest part.

“And you’re still offering me this. Why?”

“Because you want it,” Mike said, looking him in the eye. “And because I want you.”

There it was, the truth in its simplest form. No embellishment, no pretense. Somehow, that made it easier to hear.

Will took a step toward him, beginning to close the distance as he spoke.

“If I say yes,” Will said quietly, “I decide what I give you.”

Mike’s attention was on his mouth again. Will wet his lips.

“Yes.”

“And if I tell you to stop?”

“I stop.”

“If I change my mind?”

“Then you change your mind.”

“And if I want something I haven’t thought of yet?”

Something hungry and delighted appeared in Mike’s eyes.

“Then let me show you where the door is.”

Will held his breath.

“And I decide whether to open it.”

Mike smiled.

“Exactly.”

Will moved closer until he stood right in front of him. Mike glanced down at the space still between them. When he looked up again, Will knew he was waiting for him to take the final step.

“What are you thinking?” Will asked suddenly.

Mike’s smile widened a little.

“That it’s adorable how you still make the same face you used to make when you knew you were doing something you shouldn’t and planned to do it anyway.”

“I don’t have a face for that.”

“Oh, you absolutely do.”

Will frowned. Mike looked at him with so much affection that it was hard to stay indignant.

“You’re making it right now,” he added. “You had it when we stole Ted’s beers. You hadn’t even opened yours yet, and you were already looking toward the stairs with that face.”

Will was about to protest when the memory came back to him: the four of them crowded into the basement, Dustin insisting he knew how to drink beer and, ten minutes later, throwing up in a bucket. Mike had had to distract Karen while the rest of them hid Dustin behind the couch.

Will let out a laugh and tried to cover it with his hand, but the memory of Dustin peeking over the back of the couch, pale and offended, while Karen asked Mike why he needed so many towels was too much.

He doubled over a little and burst out laughing, unable to speak or catch his breath whenever he tried.

“You have the most incredible laugh in the world,” Mike said. “You always have.”

Will rolled his eyes, smiling as he caught his breath. That only seemed to soften Mike’s expression further.

“You tried not to laugh when you were mad at me.”

“I was usually mad at you for good reasons. And you kept making stupid jokes until I couldn’t stay mad anymore.”

“I remember.”

“It was incredibly annoying that it always worked.”

“I remember that too.”

Will took another step forward. He was close enough now that he had to tip his head back slightly to hold Mike’s gaze.

“So now you remember my expressions, too.”

“Of course. I like your face.”

“Do you?” Will moved a little closer. “What do you like about it?”

Mike smiled at him as though Will had suggested a game Mike knew he would win.

“I like the line that appears between your eyebrows when you’re concentrating.” He raised a finger to point it out. “I like that you still bite your lip when you’re nervous. You’re pretty when you laugh.”

The fingers of that same hand brushed Will’s cheek, where he could feel the heat gathering.

“I like that you still blush when I say things like that.”

Will wanted to be angry at his body for responding so hungrily to those words.

“You’re pretty when you’re angry.”

Mike’s thumb traced the skin beneath Will’s eye.

“And you’re pretty when you cry.”

Will stared at him.

“You remember seeing me cry?”

“I remember everything,” Mike said again. “You didn’t like me watching, but I did anyway.”

Will remembered Mike at twelve, sitting beside him on his bedroom floor after Lonnie had yelled at him. Mike at fourteen, pretending not to notice Will wiping his eyes during a movie. At seventeen, looking away whenever Will needed the dignity of not being seen losing control after someone at school hurled a slur about his sexuality.

I did anyway, Mike had just admitted. Will’s heart gave an uncomfortable thud.

“That’s creepy.”

“I thought you were beautiful.”

“That doesn’t make it less creepy.”

“No.”

Mike’s finger gently traced the skin beneath Will’s right eye.

“You’re a pretty crier.” 

Will stared at him in disbelief.

“Jesus Christ.”

“You are.”

“Are you planning to make me cry?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a pretty fucked-up thing to say.”

It was, and yet Will kept enjoying the touch on his face, leaning into Mike’s hand.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Will” Mike said, sliding his hand gently to the back of Will’s neck. “I want to make you feel so good you don’t know what to do with it.”

The heat of those words went straight through Will.

“I want to overwhelm you.”

Mike’s other hand settled on Will’s waist.

“Make you feel so much that you can’t tell whether it’s pleasure or something else.”

Will’s breathing grew uneven.

“And you think I’d like that?”

Mike looked him in the eye.

“I think you’d love it.”

Will should have made some clever remark, maybe flirted back, or even told a stupid joke. All he could think about was how badly he needed this.

“Kiss me.”

Mike did.

It was nothing like the way he’d kissed Will on the couch. He leaned in and brushed his lips against the corner of Will’s mouth. Such a small, chaste touch that Will gasped in surprise.

Then Mike kissed his cheek, so lightly and intimately that Will had to close his eyes. Another kiss beneath his eye. At his temple. On his forehead.

They were so stupidly gentle. They felt so natural. The familiarity didn’t belong to any real memory; they’d never done this. Still, it felt like something they should have done a thousand times.

Will opened his eyes.

The freckles were still there. He hadn’t paid attention to them before, but now he couldn’t ignore them. He raised a hand and touched them with his fingertips, one beneath Mike’s eye, another near his cheekbone. Mike watched him, completely still.

“You still have them.”

“Yes.”

“I used to count them when you weren’t looking.”

A smile tugged at Mike’s mouth.

“Creepy.”

Will laughed softly.

“Shut up.”

Mike kissed him again, a delicate kiss on the lips. So brief it was almost over before Will could enjoy it.

Then Will’s hands moved on their own, one sinking into the hair at the back of Mike’s neck, the other caressing his throat before sliding down his chest.

Will kissed him again.

Mike’s hands moved down Will’s back, slow and deliberate, as though he were learning the shape of his body. Will shivered beneath them.

“Did you think about this body for twelve years, too?” he murmured against Mike’s mouth.

Mike smiled against his lips.

“Parts of it.”

“Parts?”

Mike’s hands settled lower, drawing Will toward him. Then Will felt his palms slide over the curve of his ass.

“Mostly this.”

Will burst out laughing, the sound lost against Mike’s mouth.

“Jesus Christ, Wheeler.”

“You asked.”

“I definitely did not ask that.”

“You were going to.”

Will shook his head, still laughing. Mike kissed the smile on his lips.

“I wondered what you’d look like.” His hands stayed on Will, warm and possessive as he spoke. “What it would feel like to touch you.”

Another kiss.

“What it would be like when you finally let me.” Mike rested his forehead against Will’s. “I thought about you more than I should have.”

Will’s fingers tightened in his hair.

“How much more?”

Mike’s mouth curved.

“You want details?”

“Yes.”

“I know.”

Mike kissed him again before Will could protest. A longer kiss, still gentle, still restrained. The kind of kiss you gave a lover at the end of the day, after routine had kept you apart, when you came home and saw them and remembered how much you’d missed them.

For a few seconds, it was almost unbearably easy to pretend.

Mike Wheeler’s face.

The freckles beneath his fingers.

The mouth he’d wanted since he was too young to understand what it meant to want it.

Will could still say no.

Instead, he wrapped both arms around Mike and buried his face against his neck. He felt Mike go still for a fraction of a second before his arms closed around Will, strong and warm.

Will breathed against Mike’s skin.

Once.

Twice.

Then he closed his eyes.

“Okay.”

Mike’s arms tightened slightly.

“I want all of it.” Will pressed his mouth to the side of Mike’s neck. “And you can have all of me.”

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Mike held him. That was all.

Then Will felt the change.

He pulled back just enough to see Mike’s face. Still him. Still impossibly beautiful. But every trace of care had fallen away. There was no longer any careful attempt to imitate breathing, no blinking because Will had noticed he wasn’t doing it, no crooked Wheeler smile meant to make him laugh.

Will had the impression that Mike’s face had never been as honest as it was in that moment. And as Mike Wheeler’s dark eyes watched him without blinking, a thought came to him with startling clarity.

The thing looking at him was hungry.

Terribly, impossibly hungry.

And it was happy.

Will’s heart began to pound against his ribs, and Mike’s eyes immediately dropped to the movement beneath his shirt, as though he could see it. As though he could hear it.

Will had the sudden, visceral certainty that he’d just done something irreversible.

“You said everything,” Mike murmured. He raised a hand to Will’s face and cupped his cheek almost tenderly.

Will’s mouth went dry. The smile Mike gave him then wasn’t quite human enough.

Then Mike kissed him, and Will understood that whatever restraint Mike had been practicing until now was gone.

Mike’s mouth claimed his with an intensity that sent Will backward until his hips hit the kitchen counter. Mike followed without breaking the kiss, one hand at the back of his neck and the other spread across his lower back, pulling him close.

Will let out a startled sound against his mouth, and Mike swallowed it. That was how it felt, as though even Will’s sounds belonged to him now.

Hands.

Mouth.

Teeth held back just enough.

Mike seemed to know every place that would make Will arch toward him and every place that would make his knees go weak. He found them with a precision that should have been impossible. Except it wasn’t anymore.

“You’re doing it again,” Will managed to say.

Mike’s mouth moved along his jaw.

“Doing what?”

A kiss beneath his ear.

“Cheating.”

“I told you I would.”

Will laughed breathlessly.

“That’s not what—”

Mike did something with his mouth that erased the rest of the sentence.

Will’s fingers gripped his shoulders.

“Oh, fuck you.”

Mike laughed against his skin.

“You’ve been very clear about that.”

Even now.

Even like this.

He was still fucking Mike.

Will could feel the creature in the way Mike watched him, in the unnatural precision of every touch, in the hunger he no longer bothered to hide.

And then Mike would say something stupid against his neck, and Will would laugh. Or he would kiss the corner of Will’s mouth exactly the way Will had once imagined at seventeen. Will stopped trying to separate the two.

Maybe that was something else he was giving him.

Will lost track of how they moved through the kitchen. He only knew that at some point Mike had him pressed against the counter, then sitting on it, and finally Mike was standing between his legs.

Mike didn’t ask. He didn’t need to.

Will had barely opened his mouth before Mike’s hands were spreading his thighs, as though Will’s body had been waiting for the command before he could even think it.

The air around them changed. It wasn’t just the rising heat. A low, almost unsettling pressure spread through the kitchen and closed around Will, making him dizzy.

He felt it as something larger and older than either of them, something that had entered the room and decided Will was the meal.

Mike’s fingers found his waist. The button. The zipper. One sharp tug, and Will’s pants slid halfway down his thighs, trapping his legs just enough to keep him from closing them. His boxers were already tight, giving him away.

Mike hooked his thumbs into the waistband and pulled those down too, slowly, watching Will’s face at the exact moment he was exposed and the cool air touched his skin.

Will swallowed when Mike lowered his gaze. He took his time, looking at Will with the almost cruel attention of someone who already knew exactly what he would do next. Where he would put his mouth.

Mike wrapped a hand around the base, warm and firm, and Will let out a broken sound before Mike’s lips even touched him.

“Look at me,” Mike said.

It wasn’t a request.

Will obeyed.

Mike held his gaze without looking away, without even blinking. There was want in his eyes, but also a strange patience, as though he had already traced every nerve in Will’s body and was choosing where to begin.

First his breath made Will’s skin prickle; then came the faintest brush of his lips. The sweet humiliation of feeling tasted before being devoured. Then Mike’s tongue followed, broad and wet, moving slowly upward until it stopped where Will’s thigh was trembling hardest.

“Mike…” his voice broke.

Mike answered with a low, satisfied sound before taking him deeper. Not all at once, just enough to surround him with heat and pressure. Enough to show Will that he knew exactly how long he’d needed this.

Mike’s free hand slid up Will’s stomach, not to caress him but to hold him in place. To remind him he wasn’t going anywhere. The pressure of his palm drew a long, helpless moan from Will that echoed through the kitchen.

Will tried not to thrust his hips and failed miserably. He jerked forward, his fingers closing on empty air just inches from Mike’s hair.

He wanted to touch him. Pull. Bury his fingers in it. Mike knew before Will had even finished forming the thought.

He caught Will’s wrist and guided his hand to the back of his neck, spreading Will’s fingers through his hair as though showing him the one thing he was allowed to do.

“Like that,” he murmured, pulling back just enough to speak. His voice was rough, his mouth glistening. “If you’re going to do it, do it.”

Will pulled him closer. Not to punish him, but with the desperate urgency of someone who had just realized the other man had no intention of stopping.

Mike moaned around him. A needy sound that went through Will in a wave of pleasure.

He likes it.

Mike liked having his hair touched that way. Will had always suspected it. Imagined it. Fantasized about it.

Mike took him deeper, with more determination. The rhythm lost every trace of patience and took on the intensity of two strangers certain they would never see each other again, free to be wild because of it.

He held Will’s gaze as though the real act wasn’t having him in his mouth, but watching him come undone.

Will couldn’t stay quiet anymore.

“Mike… Mike, please… Don’t stop.”

It felt so good. The pleasure was building fast and hard. He felt it in his weak knees, his clenched jaw, the burning embarrassment of being so exposed, so easily undone, with his clothes half off and his breathing in pieces.

Mike needed no explanation. He anticipated every tremor. When Will got too close too soon, he eased up; when a louder moan escaped him, Mike took him deeper.

Will was embarrassingly close, far too fast. His whole body gave him away: the trembling in his thighs, the hand tightening in Mike’s hair, that short, broken inhale that always came before disaster.

Mike took him all the way in and stayed there, gripping Will’s hip with his free hand to keep him from pulling away, even from the pleasure.

“Mik-”

Will came with Mike’s name still on his lips. The orgasm went through him, hot and spasmodic.

Mike didn’t pull back. He took it, held Will steady, swallowed what he could, and let the rest mark his lip without taking his eyes off him.

Will was shaking, wrecked, his thighs still spread and his hand tangled in Mike’s hair as though letting go would make him fall.

Mike pulled away and straightened a little. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, slowly and deliberately, so Will would see.

Then a small, satisfied, almost insolent smile appeared on his lips: the smile of someone who had just eaten exactly what he wanted and was still hungry to look at the mess he’d left behind.

Will’s chest was rising and falling too fast. He was trying to regain some control when Mike, still on his knees, tilted his head and ran his tongue over his lip as though he didn’t want to waste a single drop.

“That easily,” he said softly. “You didn’t even have to ask.”

It didn’t sound entirely cruel. It was worse than that. It was intimate.

Will didn’t answer. He couldn’t.He only looked at Mike, finally understanding that this had never been a shared fantasy.

It had been a hunt. And he had wanted to be caught.

That dark thing behind Mike’s eyes was still there, still and bright, but now he covered it with an expression so warm that the contrast was almost more disturbing.

He stroked the inside of Will’s thigh with his thumb and pressed a gentle kiss to his hip.

“There you are, baby.”

Will blinked, disoriented. Mike stood and moved between his legs again, as though he hadn’t just taken him apart against the counter.

“You okay, love?”

Will opened his mouth, but he was still too dazed to find a coherent answer. His legs felt weak, and his breathing was a mess. Mike smiled as though he’d seen this before.

“Yeah, I can see that.”

He caught the waistband of Will’s boxers and carefully pulled them up. Then he did the same with his pants, first freeing the fabric caught around his knees.

“Lift your hips a little for me, sweetheart.”

Will obeyed before he thought to do it. Mike settled his clothes around his waist and zipped them up, attentive and unhurried. His knuckles brushed Will’s stomach, then lingered there, stroking him absently.

“I knew I should’ve fed you first,” he murmured. “You always get like this when you drink on an empty stomach.”

Will stared at him, bewildered, as Mike pulled his T-shirt down over his stomach.

“Though, to be fair, I had dinner planned. You’re the one who decided to distract me.”

“I didn’t…” Will’s voice cracked. He had to clear his throat. “I didn’t ask you for this.”

Mike looked at him again. He didn’t seem confused or offended by what Will had said. Only amused, in the gentle, patient way of someone used to understanding what Will meant even when he couldn’t quite say it.

“No,” he said, looking pleased. “You didn’t have to.”

That should have unsettled Will. Instead, something inside him clenched painfully.

Mike straightened and brushed Will’s damp hair off his forehead.

“Come on, Will. Up you go.”

He wrapped an arm around Will’s waist and helped him to his feet. Will’s knees gave a little as soon as they touched the floor, but Mike was already holding him steady against his body.

“Careful, baby.”

“I’m fine.”

“Of course you are.”

“I am.”

“And I’m perfectly capable of remembering to buy milk.”

Will frowned.

“What?”

Mike leaned in and straightened the collar of Will’s T-shirt, leaving a kiss behind his ear when he was done.

“I can dress myself.”

“I know.”

“Then why…?”

“Because I like taking care of you.”

The answer came so simply, so easily, as though it required no thought. As though it were something obvious, always ready on his tongue.

“There.” Mike took his hand. “Come on. We still have to finish the movie.”

“The movie?”

“It’s Halloween. We can’t abandon The Hunger halfway through. Bowie would feel personally betrayed, and he’d be right.”

“I don’t think Bowie—”

“We have to stick to the schedule, Will. We have a system for a reason.”

Will let Mike lead him out of the kitchen and into the living room, where rain was still tapping against the windows and the movie remained paused.

It was the same room it had always been, but for a moment the apartment felt smaller, warmer. Maybe because Mike was suddenly walking through it as though it belonged to him too. As though he knew which floorboard creaked, where Will kept the blankets, and when to turn down the heat before bed.

When they reached the couch, Mike sat down and gave Will’s hand a gentle tug.

“Come here.”

Will glanced at the empty space beside him, but Mike tugged again.

“Not there. Here.” He pointed to his lap.

Will should have told him he was being ridiculous. That he’d just made Will lose control of his body in the kitchen, and sitting on him wasn’t going to help Will recover any dignity.

Instead, he let Mike guide him onto his thighs. Mike smiled, satisfied, and drew him close enough to rest his head against Mike’s shoulder. He slipped an arm around Will’s waist and felt around for the blanket with his other hand, pulling it over them both.

“Much better,” he declared, pressing a kiss into Will’s hair.

Will stayed still. Mike picked up the remote, and Will heard the movie start again behind him.

“Sorry I didn’t get the groceries,” Mike said after a few quiet moments.

Will lifted his head slightly.

“What?”

“I said I’d get them after work.”

“You didn’t come from work.”

“I thought we could order something. But I didn’t do that either, so technically I’ve let you down twice in one night.”

He said it with the resignation of someone revisiting an old argument, one they’d had before and would have again next week, when Mike forgot the milk or the detergent or whatever Will had written on a list stuck to the refrigerator door.

Mike set the remote aside, then placed his hand on Will’s back and began stroking it in long, slow passes.

“We can order food when it’s over,” he continued. “The place on the corner should still be open. You like those dumplings that are way too greasy.”

Will had never told him about that place.

“And tomorrow I’ll go to the grocery store,” Mike promised. “For real this time.”

There was no hesitation in his voice. He didn’t sound like he was making it up as he went. Will studied his profile in the light from the television. The line of his nose. His freckles. The feigned concentration with which he watched a movie he had no interest in while he kept stroking Will’s back.

Then Will understood.

Mike had given him the obvious desire first. The one Will could name. His mouth, his hands, the body Will had imagined for so many years. Now he was giving him the other one. The answer to a question Will had never allowed himself to ask out loud.

What would it have been like if Mike Wheeler had loved him all along?

If Mike had chosen him at seventeen. If, instead of drifting apart and going to college in different states, they had moved to New York together. What it would be like for Mike to know Will’s apartment because it was his too, for them to argue about groceries and share the couch every night. For Mike to kiss Will after sex and have it be neither a miracle nor a goodbye, but simply another part of the life they’d spent years building together.

Mike kissed his hair again.

“You’re awfully quiet, love.”

Will closed his eyes and buried his face in the hollow of Mike’s neck.

He could refuse it. He could remind Mike that none of it had happened. That Mike wasn’t his boyfriend, that they had never shared a home, that Mike Wheeler hadn’t spent all those years learning how to hold him after making him tremble.

Or he could have it.

Even if it was a lie. Even if it was Mike giving him something he knew Will needed.

Will let his body relax fully against him. He slipped a hand beneath Mike’s shirt and stroked his side with his thumb.

“You’re not going to the grocery store tomorrow.”

Mike gave a low laugh.

“You have so little faith in me.”

“Because I know you.”

The words came out before Will could stop them. Mike didn’t correct him. Instead, his arm tightened around Will’s waist, drawing him a little closer.

“You can remind me in the morning.”

“I reminded you this morning.”

“It doesn’t count if you tell me while I’m brushing my teeth.”

“The list was stuck to the door.”

“I thought it was one of your love notes.”

Will huffed and lifted his head to look at him.

“It said milk, coffee, and toilet paper.”

“Our love takes many forms.”

Will tried to hold back a smile and failed. Mike watched him as though that smile was something he got to see every night, too.

Will tucked a strand of hair behind Mike’s ear, then gave him a brief, almost absentminded kiss. An everyday kiss. The kind that didn’t have to mean anything because it already meant everything.

“And stop leaving your clothes beside the bed,” he murmured as he settled against Mike’s shoulder again. “Next time, I’m not picking them up.”

Mike turned back to the screen with the smile of someone who knew he’d get away with it again.

“Of course you will, baby.”

Will gave his chest a light smack.

“Don’t test my patience, Wheeler.”

Mike smiled against his hair.

“Never,  love.”

Love. The endearment went straight to the place inside Will where all his longing had gathered. It settled there as comfortably as Will sat in Mike’s lap beneath a blanket that covered them both, as though this were something they did.

Then Will shifted to get comfortable, one knee sliding along the side of Mike’s thigh, and that was when he felt it. Mike was hard.

Not a hint of it, not the beginning of something. Completely, unmistakably hard against him. As though Mike had been like that the whole time he’d stroked Will’s back and talked about milk and toilet paper. His hand kept moving along Will’s spine in those long, lazy strokes. His other arm rested loosely around Will’s waist. On the television, someone was saying something about love and eternity in a voice that had no right to sound so sincere.

“You’re going to miss it,” Mike murmured into his hair.

“Miss what?”

“The movie, love.” He paused, his voice soft with amusement. “Though I suppose I should be flattered. Seems my boyfriend doesn’t want to let me watch it.”

Mike spoke the word with the same careful precision he’d given everything else tonight.

Boyfriend.

Maybe that should have been the moment to laugh. To ask Mike to stop. To tell him that twelve years, a kitchen, and a creature with Mike’s face did not, in fact, make a relationship. Instead, Will felt heat rise into his face and neck. He hated how easily the word fit.

“You’re the one who pulled me into your lap.”

“And you’re the one who stayed.” Mike’s mouth brushed his temple. “I’m trying to be a gentleman. You’re making it very difficult.”

Will turned his head to see him better. Mike was still looking at the screen with the same feigned concentration as before, except his eyes weren’t on Bowie. They were lowered, half-lidded, fixed on where Will’s hip pressed against him.

Now that Will knew what was beneath it, the blanket wasn’t hiding anything from either of them.

“Mike.”

“Mm.”

“You’re hard.”

Mike’s mouth curved.

“Observant.”

“Have you been like this the whole time?”

“Not the whole time.” His thumb found the hem of Will’s T-shirt and slipped beneath it, warm against bare skin. “Just since you sat down like this was where you belonged.”

When Mike talked like that, it was very easy to ignore the instinct telling Will to return to his side of the couch and finish the movie. So he did. Will moved slowly, deliberately, bringing his other leg over until he was straddling Mike’s thighs, his knees bracketing Mike’s hips. The blanket slipped down his back, and the new angle brought them fully together.

Mike responded to the new position with a low, satisfied breath.

“There,” he said. “That’s better.”

“For who?”

“For my boyfriend, who apparently can’t sit still through a movie he picked himself.”

Will laughed, though it came out thinner than he wanted.

“I picked it before you showed up.”

“And now I’m here.” Mike’s hands settled on his waist. “So we adapt. That’s what people do.”

People.

In front of Will were the freckles, the mouth, the dark eyes that had learned to look affectionate when necessary. And behind them, something older waited without blinking.

“You’re not going to watch the movie,” Will said.

Mike smiled, small and crooked and terribly familiar.

“I was never watching the movie.”

His hands moved to the button of the pants he’d fixed only minutes ago. He undid it with the unhurried ease of someone who had done this on a hundred ordinary nights.

He opened the zipper next. Will lifted his hips without being asked, and Mike hooked his fingers into the waistbands of his pants and boxers and pulled them down together, first to mid-thigh, then past his knees. Will was naked from the waist down in his own living room, still wearing his T-shirt, still sitting in Mike Wheeler’s lap.

Mike’s gaze traveled up his legs, taking in the exposed skin with the quiet possessiveness of a man who knew he had the right.

“You always leave it there,” he said.

“What?” Will frowned.

Mike reached beside him, into the gap between the couch and the side table, and came back with a small bottle Will had forgotten existed. Clear. Half used. He’d left it there weeks ago, after a night that hadn’t gone anywhere interesting, and hadn’t bothered putting it away. It had lived in that stupid gap ever since, behind a coaster he never bothered to use.

Mike turned it once between his fingers, as though checking the label.

“I know,” he said before Will could ask how. “You think about moving it every time you sit down. And then you don’t.”

Will’s face burned.

“That’s…”

“Convenient,” Mike finished. He flipped the cap open with his thumb. “For us.”

Us.

Will knew Mike was choosing his words carefully. Deliberately. Will was smart, whatever his decisions tonight might suggest.

Mike slicked his fingers without looking away from him. Then he reached behind Will, between them, and the first slippery touch made Will shiver.

“Slowly,” Mike murmured. “I’ve got you.”

One finger at first, careful, circling him, pushing inside only when Will’s body made room. Will gripped Mike’s shoulders at the touch. His shirt was still a little damp at the collar, but his skin was warm now. Too warm. Alive in the way it had become after Will let him a little closer.

“That’s it.” Mike kissed the corner of his mouth. “Just like that, baby.”

Will laughed, breathless and disbelieving.

“You’re talking to me as if…”

“As if you’re mine.” A second finger joined the first, slower than necessary. “That’s the idea.”

Will rested his forehead against Mike’s. The pressure inside him was familiar and unfamiliar at once. They had never done this, and yet Mike knew the angle before Will could shift to find it. He knew when to curl his fingers. He knew the exact moment Will’s cock, which had softened after the kitchen, began to harden against his stomach again.

“There you are,” Mike said quietly.

Will made a sound he didn’t recognize.

“Mike…”

“I know. I know.” His fingers opened Will with a patience that had nothing to do with kindness and everything to do with appetite. “You don’t have to rush. We’re not going anywhere.”

The boyfriend’s voice. The creature beneath it. Will could feel both at once.

He could feel Mike watching his face for every sign that Will was giving in, cataloging it, feeding on the moment Will stopped tensing and began to push against his hand. He could feel that Mike was still hard beneath him, pressing against his own clothes, and made no move to do anything about it.

“You haven’t even…” Will gasped when Mike found that spot inside him and pressed. “You haven’t even taken your pants down.”

“I don’t need to yet.”

“That’s not…”

“Will.” Mike kissed him, brief and sweet. “Let me take care of you.”

The third finger made Will’s thighs tremble. He was hard again. Completely. Embarrassingly. His T-shirt hung loose over his stomach, and every time he moved, he felt himself drag against the fabric of Mike’s pants, against the rigid line beneath.

Mike didn’t look away. He didn’t blink until Will noticed, and then he did, once, like a courtesy.

“Okay,” Will whispered. “Okay. Please.”

Mike withdrew his fingers with the same unhurried care he’d used to put them in. He opened his pants only as much as he needed to. He didn’t undress; he freed himself. He stroked himself with the lube left on his hand and guided Will down.

Will sank onto him in stages. The first stretch stole his breath; the next made him rest his head against Mike’s shoulder. He felt Mike’s hands holding his hips, never forcing him, only steadying him. Mike’s mouth found his ear.

“That’s it, good boy,” he murmured. “Just like that. Take what you need.”

Will laughed against his neck, already wrecked.

“You’re unbearable.”

“You love it.”

Yes. Will loved the voice, the hands, the lie that this was any other night in a life they had built together. That Mike had arrived soaked from the rain and Will had pulled him onto the couch, and this was simply what they did when the movie got boring.

Will took the rest of him in with a slow, trembling descent. When he was fully seated, he stayed there, breathing, feeling the impossible fullness, feeling Mike still and hard and motionless beneath him.

Mike didn’t thrust. He only waited with him, with the same patience he’d used all night to get what he wanted.

“Whenever you’re ready, love.”

Will lifted himself and sank back down. The sound that came out of him was broken, helpless.

Mike’s fingers tightened on his hips, then loosened, letting Will set the pace. Will moved slowly at first, then less slowly. His pants were still tangled around his calves. His T-shirt rode up his stomach. The blanket had fallen to the floor. The Hunger kept playing behind them like a joke neither of them was going to acknowledge.

“God,” Will breathed. “It feels…”

“I know.”

Will rode him with his hands braced on Mike’s chest, and Mike watched him the way he’d watched Will come undone in the kitchen. Patient, his eyes bright. Hungry in a way that had very little to do with his body inside Will and everything to do with the look on Will’s face when he stopped thinking.

“Talk to me,” Will said, surprising himself.

Mike’s smile deepened.

“What do you want to hear?”

“The other thing. About…” He swallowed a moan. “About the grocery store.”

Mike understood immediately. Of course Will didn’t have to explain.

“Tomorrow I’ll get the milk,” he said against Will’s mouth. “And the coffee. And I’ll put my clothes in the hamper so you won’t have to pick them up.”

Will’s rhythm faltered. Mike’s hands guided him through it.

“When this is over, we’ll order those dumplings you like. You’ll complain they’re too greasy and eat them anyway.” A kiss to his jaw. “You’ll fall asleep on top of me before the credits. You always do.”

“I don’t…”

“Tonight you will.”

Will’s eyes began to sting. He had to close them to hold back the tears. He rested his forehead against Mike’s and kept moving, chasing the heat gathering at the base of his spine, giving himself over to the voice that knew his apartment and his habits and the shape of a life that had never existed.

“Stay,” he heard himself say.

Mike’s hands slipped beneath his T-shirt, his palms spread across Will’s back.

“I’m here.”

“That’s not what…”

“I know what you meant.” Mike’s mouth found his. He kissed Will like a husband. Like a boyfriend of twelve years who had already had this argument and already forgiven him for it. “I’ve got you, Will. I always have you.”

Always. It was a word that should have broken the spell. Instead, it broke Will.

He rode Mike harder, his movements messy now, making no attempt to keep his composure. Mike let him. He didn’t chase his own pleasure. He didn’t gasp or lose the rhythm of his breathing, because there was no real rhythm to lose. He was simply hard inside Will, inexhaustible, receiving every movement of Will’s hips as though it were an offering.

“That’s it,” Mike whispered. “Give it to me. All of it.”

Will came with his face buried in Mike’s neck and Mike’s name on his lips again.

He spilled onto Mike’s shirt and his own stomach, shaking, clinging, giving himself over so completely that for a few seconds there was no difference between the fantasy and the thing wearing it.

Will was Mike’s. He always had been. The years between them had been a misunderstanding.

Mike held him through it, through every wave that shook his body and left him limp and satisfied.

Mike hadn’t come. Will realized it belatedly, after the last tremor passed.

He was still completely hard inside Will. Just as he’d been at the start. His body wasn’t shaking or flushed. There was no broken sound. Only that same steady presence, and against Will’s temple, the soft, satisfied sigh of someone who had eaten well and was already thinking about the next course.

Will stayed where he was, panting, wrecked, Mike still inside him, while Mike kissed his hair.

“There you are, baby.”

Will let out a weak, disbelieving laugh.

“You didn’t…”

“I didn’t what?”

Will lifted his head to look at him. Mike was beautiful, even more than before. There was color in his lips, a brightness in his eyes, and that faint, impossible vitality in his skin that had been building all night, every time Will gave him something.

“What did you need?” Will asked, even though the answer was already inside him.

Mike’s thumb brushed the corner of Will’s mouth, not wiping anything away, just touching him.

“That.” He looked at Will’s face. The mess on his stomach. The fact that Will still hadn’t climbed off him. “You, like this. Letting me have the night you wanted.”

Mike shifted just enough to keep Will seated, to stay inside him, and reached for the blanket. He pulled it over Will’s bare hips as though Will were only trembling from the cold.

“We can stay like this until the movie ends,” he murmured against Will’s forehead. “You don’t have to move.”

Will didn’t. He rested his head against Mike’s shoulder again and closed his eyes. He could still feel Mike inside him, so warm, filling him so completely. Mike’s lips touched his temple once more, and his hand stroked Will’s back in the same long, gentle passes.

“I’ve got you, love,” he said in Mike Wheeler’s voice. “Watch the movie.”

Will watched through sleepy, unfocused eyes. Bowie was dying, aging rapidly toward the end.

He stayed like that longer than he should have. The movie was still playing, or at least Will assumed it was. Voices reached him from far away, as though they were coming from another room. His body felt heavy, not just from the orgasm but from the thick calm that followed. He could feel it settling beneath his skin, warm and satisfied. He was hot where his body met Mike’s and cold along his bare thighs, where the blanket didn’t quite reach.

Mike stroked his back with the same unhurried, familiar ease, as though this really were an ordinary night together.

“You’re falling asleep, Will.”

Will gave a vague sound against his neck.

“No. I’m watching the movie.”

“Liar. Your eyes are closed.”

Will managed to open them. Blue light from the screen flickered across the ceiling. There was no picture anymore. No credits, no static.

“I don’t want to move,” Will murmured.

“I know.” Mike’s lips brushed his temple. “But you’re going to fall asleep on top of me, and your back will hurt tomorrow. Let’s go to bed.”

The words were so ordinary that Will’s heart swelled with happiness, as if there were a we solid enough to make it down the hall.

“You’re… You’re still inside me.”

“I know.”

Mike wrapped his hands around Will’s waist and lifted him. It took no effort at all. Will felt the sudden emptiness as Mike slipped out of him, his legs damp and cold. A small sound escaped his throat, and then there was only air.

Mike gathered him against his chest as if Will’s weight existed only in theory. As easily as someone might pick up a blanket, a piece of clothing, something to put away at the end of the night. One arm beneath his thighs, the other against his back. No adjustment. No breath.

“Mike…” Will murmured, still dazed, resting his forehead against Mike’s shoulder.

“I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.”

Mike crossed the apartment without stumbling. He knew where the hall was, which way led to Will’s bedroom. He found it without being told.

The fantasy survived until they reached the doorway.

He laid Will on the bed with the impossible care of someone setting down something he wasn’t ready to break. Will’s back sank into the mattress. The sheets smelled like him, like the detergent he’d always used. The ceiling spun once, forcing him to close his eyes.

When he opened them again, Mike stood at the foot of the bed. He wasn’t smiling anymore. He simply watched, his expression still.

Will watched him unbutton his shirt without hurry or cheap theatrics, working through the buttons one by one. The damp fabric slipped from his shoulders and fell to the floor without Mike looking at it. His pants came next. He pushed them down along with everything else until he had nothing on, then stood there.

Will felt as though he couldn’t breathe.

Mike was more beautiful than should have been possible. His hair, soaked and unruly when he’d arrived, now fell dark and perfect around his face, as if someone had smoothed it into place while Will wasn’t looking. His skin glowed, with none of the marks or cold gray cast Will had seen in the hallway. He was still hard against his stomach, without having softened at all. His lips were dark, almost red, a perfect contrast to the beautiful lines of his face and those impossible cheekbones.

A beauty that didn’t sweat, didn’t get disheveled, didn’t answer to the rules of a human body.

He had undressed in front of Will without looking like a man getting ready for bed. It seemed deliberate, as though he wanted Will to see him because he already knew the effect he would have.

Will looked up at him through half-lidded eyes, his T-shirt pushed up, his legs still parted out of sheer inertia. He felt exposed in a way he no longer had enough shame left to correct. Tired and wrecked. And still, desire rose in him, slow and inevitable.

“I still want you,” he murmured.

Mike tilted his head slightly, giving him a small, almost tender smile.

“I know.”

He climbed onto the bed on his knees, the mattress sinking under his weight on either side of Will’s legs. He leaned over him, his perfect hair falling forward. That red mouth hovered close to Will’s without kissing him yet.

“Don’t worry,” he said softly. “I’ll take care of it.”

Mike was naked above him, and somehow he didn’t look vulnerable. He looked complete. Like an animal that had eaten enough to remember its most beautiful form and still wasn’t finished.

Will swallowed. Exhaustion weighed on his eyelids. His body, traitorous as ever, tensed toward Mike anyway.

“Let me undress you,” Mike whispered against his mouth. “You don’t have to do anything else.”

His hand moved along Will’s side with a calm that no longer felt domestic. Possessive and patient. Mike looked at him the way one looks at prey that has stopped running.

“I’ve got you,” he said.

And this time, he didn’t sound like a boyfriend.

After that, time became unreliable. Later, Will wouldn’t be able to put everything in the right order.

He remembered the first time in that bed, how Mike’s body felt against his naked skin. Warm, soft skin against his own. The weight of Mike holding him against the mattress when he climbed on top. Will took him on his back in the middle of the bed, his thighs spread around Mike’s hips, still slick from the couch, still too sensitive to take him without a little discomfort.

Mike pushed inside slowly enough to feel cruel. Not because it hurt, but because he seemed to catalog every flinch, every swallowed sound, every place Will’s hands gripped the sheets. He fucked Will like that until Will’s knees drew up and his head fell back against the pillow. Deep and unhurried. The headboard struck the wall in a rhythm too precise for a human lost in the moment.

Mike kissed him through it.

Told him he was beautiful.

Told him to look at him.

He caught Will’s wrist when he tried to touch himself and held it there until Will came anyway, untouched, trembling beneath him with Mike still completely hard inside him.

Mike didn’t come with him. He only kissed the wet mess on Will’s stomach as though it belonged to him. Then Mike turned him onto his side. 

Will remembered facing the window, Mike fitted against him from shoulder to ankle. One of Mike’s arms was beneath his neck. His other hand lay open across Will’s stomach, holding him still as he entered him from behind. Shallow at first. Then not.

Mike’s mouth pressed to the hinge of Will’s jaw. His cock brushed the same swollen spot again and again until what was left of Will’s orgasm turned into something rawer, uglier, a sound he didn’t recognize as his own.

“There,” Mike said against his hair.

Will tried to say his name but only managed half of it. Mike kept his hand on Will’s stomach, feeling every contraction, every helpless flutter around him.

“So sensitive…” Mike murmured against his hair. “As if, after all these years, you still can’t believe I’m yours.”

He remembered the edge of the bed coming after that. Or maybe it had been before. The order had stopped mattering.

Mike sat on the mattress with his feet on the floor and drew Will onto his lap until Will’s back was pressed against his chest. He felt Mike’s hands beneath his thighs, lifting him and settling him onto his cock as though he weighed nothing. The dresser was right there, and Will gripped its edge until his knuckles turned white.

He could see himself in the dark reflection of his closet mirror as Mike used his strength to lift and lower him, slowly, taking him deeper each time. Will’s knees were spread over Mike’s, his toes barely touching the floor.

In a moment of clarity, Will realized with startling force that this was one of the things he’d wanted at twenty-five and had never admitted. To be taken by someone who could simply put him wherever they wanted. He hadn’t thought about it in years, and Mike had found it inside him.

He fucked up into him until Will looked wrecked in the mirror, his mouth open, his eyes wet. Mike watched their reflection over Will’s shoulder the entire time.

Will remembered his knees on the rug at the foot of the bed. Mike behind him, one hand in his hair, the other on his hip as he fucked him with Will’s cheek pressed against the mattress. The bedspread against his mouth. Mike’s body covering him completely, heat and weight and a force that grew with every thrust.

He remembered what Mike told him: that he’d never been prettier than he was right then. He remembered how happy it made him to hear it, how good it felt to let his mind drift gently away from everything else. His thoughts fell away one by one until he no longer had to hold on to any of them. He wasn’t absent. He was floating somewhere warm and quiet, where his body could feel without Will having to understand a thing, and Mike’s voice always found him there.

He had always wanted to feel this. For so many years, Will remembered being too caught up in his own head to enjoy being touched, too aware of his body, his nakedness, whether he was attractive, whether he was pleasing someone else. Too careful, too kind, too…

Mike gave him things he had imagined at seventeen without enough experience to name them. Sweet names. Words of love. Gentle touches. Being covered by someone’s body. Being held down. Being used without cruelty and still feeling possessed.

Mike found those things, too.

And some Will had never consciously imagined.

Those frightened him more.

Because Mike would do something like change the angle, slip an arm beneath Will’s hips to pull him closer, put his mouth on Will’s hole after pulling out and lick inside him until Will was sobbing into the sheets. And Will’s body always answered before his mind understood the question.

Sometimes Mike spoke. Sometimes he didn’t. He told Will exactly what he wanted to hear, and other times said nothing at all.

There were sounds, too. Will noticed them near the end. Mike moaned for him. Gasped at the right moments. At first, Will accepted those sounds because he wanted to. Then, somewhere in the haze, he began to hear the pattern. To notice how perfect they were. Like the breathing. Like the blinking. Responses assembled from what Mike knew Will wanted from him.

A catch in his breath when Will needed to feel desirable. A broken sound when Will wanted to believe he’d surprised him. A low moan when Will needed proof that this wasn’t happening to him alone.

Mike was performing pleasure.

Maybe that should have ruined it. Instead, something hot and ashamed curled in Will’s stomach. Because the performance was a gift to him, too.

All the while, Mike watched him. He had never stopped looking at Will as though he were learning. Consuming every reaction.

The last one barely felt like an orgasm. It was only Will’s body contracting helplessly around the sensation when he had nothing left to give. That was when he began to feel afraid. Not the pleasant nerves he’d felt on the couch, or the uncertainty in the kitchen. Real fear.

Because Mike was stronger now. Will could feel it in the way he still didn’t tire, moving Will from the center of the bed to its edge, from his back onto his knees, from the mattress to Mike’s lap without difficulty. He’d noticed it in the heat of Mike’s skin. In the firmness of his hands, too.

He looked magnificent. Beautiful wasn’t enough to do him justice. 

Mike looked well fed.

At one point, Mike’s eyes met his. They looked black in the darkness of the room, and Will stopped moving. They both went still for a full second. Then something flashed in Mike’s eyes.

Red.

Just a glint, so brief Will could have blamed it on exhaustion. Then Will reached up and stroked his face, and a sound rose from deep in Mike’s chest. A sound Will had never heard before. Not a moan or a gasp, none of the noises Mike had made for Will’s benefit.

It was low and dark, a sound of satisfaction that raised every hair on Will’s body.

His heart struck violently against his ribs. Hard enough to hurt. And Will began to feel afraid. Truly afraid.

His body responded to that, too. Tightening around Mike, a humiliating pulse of lingering heat, his cock giving a weak twitch against his stomach, as though terror were just one more thing Mike could draw out of him.

Will hated the slow change in Mike’s expression when he understood exactly what that fear had done to him.

“Oh,” Mike whispered.

Will felt his eyes begin to burn. Maybe it was exhaustion or overstimulation. Maybe it was fear. Or maybe it was the unbearable fact that the thing above him wore the face of the boy he had loved and knew him so completely that even terror had become another form of intimacy between them.

A tear slipped down his cheek. Mike followed it with his eyes. Will saw something soften in his expression.

“Pretty crier.”

Will let out a broken sound that might have been a laugh.

“You’re an idiot.”

“I know.”

Mike caught the tear with his mouth. Will went very still as Mike’s tongue slowly followed the damp trail down his cheek. He wasn’t comforting him. He wasn’t kissing his tears away. It felt as though he was consuming those, too.

Will closed his eyes.

He had given Mike his apartment. His thoughts. His body. His pleasure. His fear. And now, apparently, even his tears.

“Mike.”

“Yes.”

His voice was gentle now.

“Did you love me?”

Mike didn’t hesitate.

“Yes.”

Will’s eyes burned again.

“Tell me again.”

Something changed in Mike’s face. The hunger was still there, but it had receded enough for Will to see everything else. Mike tenderly brushed a strand of hair from his forehead.

“I loved you.”

Will closed his eyes.

“Again.”

“I loved you.”

Mike kissed his forehead.

“I loved you when we were seventeen.”

His temple.

“I loved you when I walked away.”

His cheek.

“I loved you when I should have come back downstairs.”

The corner of his mouth.

“I loved you afterward.”

A small, broken sound escaped Will. It wasn’t quite a sob, and Mike kissed that, too.

“I love you now.”

Will opened his eyes and looked at him, the perfect green of them visible even in the dark, every feeling he’d kept packed away for years laid bare before Mike. All his vulnerability.

And then something happened.

Will didn’t know what it was. There was no warning, no question. No permission. But for the first time all night, something crossed the bond in the wrong direction. And Will felt all of it.

He gasped when the hunger reached him. That came first. It was so immense that for a second he couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t desire or arousal. It was hunger stripped of every civilized word that might describe it. Something ancient, ugly, hollow, and so vast it seemed to have no end.

Then came the fear. A fear without a face or a language, the animal certainty that he was running out. That something was coming to an end.

And beneath them both, the loneliness.

God.

Mike was looking at him. His black eyes widened slightly, and Will realized something was wrong. Mike’s composure had slipped for a second, but that was long enough for Will to see it. To feel it.

He brought both hands to Mike’s face and stroked his cheeks with all the tenderness he had left.

“You’re dying,” Will said.

Mike went completely still. Then he pressed his face into Will’s palm.

“Not anymore.”

Will remembered Mike in the hallway outside his apartment. How he’d arrived at Will’s door cold, pale, wet. Incomplete.

The towel. Their first touch.

His fingers around the wineglass.

Their first kiss.

Every yes Will had said.

How Mike had grown more perfect with each permission Will gave him. Will looked down at himself. Exhausted. Shaking. Consumed in ways that had nothing to do with sex.

He looked back at Mike.

“What are you taking from me?”

Mike held his gaze.

“Everything you give me.”

Will began to cry again, silently this time. Mike caught a tear with his thumb.

“If you weren’t dying, would you have come?”

He should have been angry. Instead, he could still feel the echo of that vast loneliness. That relentless hunger. That fear.

Mike had been dying, and he had come to Will. Maybe because he loved him, or maybe because Will was useful to him. Maybe, to whatever Mike had become, those two things weren’t different.

“I never stopped loving you,” Will confessed.

Mike closed his eyes for just a second. It wasn’t exactly a blink. It was something else.

“I know.”

“Of course you do.”

Will let out a weak laugh.

“I love you, too,” Mike told him.

Will stared at him, his hands still on Mike’s face. Mike held Will’s face between his hands in turn and said,

“I love you.”

He kissed Will’s forehead.

“I’ve always loved you.”

The tip of his nose. So gently it hurt more than anything else Mike had done to him that night.

“I love you, Will Byers.”

Will’s mouth trembled. He turned his face into Mike’s palm.

“I love you.”

Mike kissed him once more, and Will moved his mouth against Mike’s. There was nothing hungry about this kiss. Or maybe there was, and Will simply couldn’t tell the difference anymore. 

Mike drew him into an embrace, and Will went willingly.

Not because he had no strength left. Because he wanted this. His face against Mike’s chest, Mike’s arms around him, a hand moving slowly through his hair.

Will listened.

There was a heartbeat beneath his ear now. Strong and steady. The strange thing was that he couldn’t remember whether there had been one before.

It was getting harder to keep his eyes open.

“Mike.”

“I’m here.”

“What’s going to happen to me?”

The hand in his hair didn’t stop.

“I’m sleepy.”

“I know.”

“Am I going to die?”

Mike kissed the top of his head. Nothing more.

“Am I going to wake up?”

Silence.

“Mike.”

The arm around him tightened. Will pulled back just enough to see his face.

“Am I going to be like you?”

Mike looked at him for a long moment, something in his expression softening, almost in recognition, as though he could already see it. Then he leaned in and kissed his cheek.

Will closed his eyes. Another tear slipped free.

“Am I going to be with you?”

Mike rested his forehead against Will’s.

“Forever.”

Will exhaled. Something inside him let go completely.

Maybe tomorrow, if he had a tomorrow, he would understand what he’d just done. Maybe he would wake up hungry. Maybe he wouldn’t wake up at all.

Maybe Mike Wheeler had died years ago, and Will had willingly given himself to the thing that had consumed what remained of him.

Maybe this was Mike, changed beyond anything Will could understand. Maybe love had brought him back home. Maybe it had been hunger.

Mike settled Will against his chest again.

Will let him.

The last thing he heard was that heart beating beneath his ear. The last thing he felt was Mike’s mouth against his hair and the arms around him tightening as he finally stopped fighting sleep.

Will had never felt so weak. So completely consumed.

He had never felt so loved.

And as sleep took him, with Mike Wheeler holding him in his arms and a forever waiting on the other side, Will couldn’t remember ever being so happy.

The End.