Archive of Our Own ^beta

 It’s the end of the party for the end of the world. Dustin and Lucas and Max chase each other around the field, the tail end of drunkenness giving them one last flash of energy before collapsing into sleep, as they surely will, in piles of people in various houses. Jonathan and Steve and Robin and Nancy stand in a semi-circle, a slur of conversation interspersed with pitched-high laughter, only blocked from sight by Mike across from them, Eleven on his arm. 

Will stands alone.

A dull headache rings at the back of his skull, one that hasn’t faded since he returned to this fucking town, two and a half years ago. Background noise, background pressure, a muted pain to remind him he is not welcome here. To remind him, that when Vecna goes, when the Upside Down caves in, he will go with it. That there is nowhere he is home. That there is no point in hoping for another ending.

Dustin reaches the explosive pack, and lights it. The colors go up into the sky, flashes of bright green and white and pale purple against the encroaching, dark, red-and-black sky. A beacon of hope. A promise of tomorrow.

Will watches the fireworks go off, the sparks raining down on a world that ended for him years and years ago.

_

Mike still smells like beer when he walks up to Will, when he leans in close and nudges him in the shoulder and says, “We good to go?” 

(Will is glad he smells like beer. It means he doesn’t smell so much like Mike.)

They walk to Mike's car, together. This particular trek isn't uncommon; he has been staying in Mike’s basement about once a week since the world set on its unsteady tread towards its own ending. Will didn’t know why then and he doesn’t know now, but he isn't going to shoot himself in the foot asking why. He is too full of secrets to go asking questions. These sleepovers — childish, maybe, and desperate, definitely — make him believe that everything between him and Mike might not come to ruin, even if Mike found out some of his more embarrassing truths.

(If he’s being honest, he thinks Mike already knows.

How couldn’t he? Will isn’t subtle.)

After some bitching, Mike agrees to let Will drive. Mike hates letting people drive his baby, but he is tipsier than Will is, and he trusts Will with this, to fix the problem spots. It is what he’s good for.

Before Will can duck into the front seat, El comes to say goodbye. Her hair is curled and soft around her shoulders, a smile setting her face alight.

She is so beautiful.

Will thinks this sometimes — partly in admiration, partly in extreme and unfettered jealousy. He hates himself for the latter. But he can't help it, when she's next to Mike like she is now, when he’s smiling at her and Will doesn’t recognize that smile, and he can never tell  if it’s because it is something special, reserved for El, or because it isn’t real at all.

Mike leans down. He kisses her. Will watches this (greedy, perverse thing he is), sees how it would look like to be kissed by Mike Wheeler. Will doesn’t think he could ever look like that. That beautiful, that wanted — kissed by a beautiful boy on the last night before the end of the world.

They get in the car. They leave. 

_

They sleep in the basement. Will always does when he visits, these days. (They used to sleep spine to spine in Mike’s bed, but that was years back. Some nights, Mike sleeps down here with him, always at a perpendicular angle, meeting at the corner of the couch. Sometimes Mike — stretching out, long and languid, will move his hand against where Will’s is curled up under his face. He isn’t sure why they sleep face to face this way, sometimes.

It doesn't usually happen.)

They’re sitting now on the couch, Mike stripping off his shoes. Untying the boots — he didn't do so in the hallway, carpet rules be damned, but his parents barely care about the end of the world. They aren't going to care about this.

He takes the shoes off. A groan of relief, as he rotates his ankle until it clicks. Will watches, smiling.

“What?” Mike asks.

“Nothing.”

“Do you wanna smoke?” Mike kicks him with his socked foot. “Weed, I mean. You can smoke smoke too if you want, if you have.” He goes a little bit quiet, makes that specific sound and motion of the lips where Will knows that he's running his tongue over his front teeth. “I know you don't love drinking, so. If you wanted to wind down, I have half a joint. We could share.”

In all honesty, even a whole joint, shared, is barely enough for Will at this point. But he figures Mike's still tipsy and might not mind him bogarting the thing a little bit.

“Okay,” Will says.

Mike grins. Scoots a little closer to him, just so their shoulders would be brushing at the slightest lean. (Will refuses to lean.) He watches the flick of Mike’s thumb, the moment of light turning his skin gold and orange with catch of the flame. The shock of his expression, the muttered “oh shit”, he runs the window to prevent alerting any smoke detectors. 

Will laughs. He doesn’t offer help, and the burned-edge of the joint catches, soon enough. Mike’s a lot better with this now. Nothing like the first time they smoked together, fifteen and stupid. 

(Fifteen and stupid and not realizing how much it would lower his defenses, not realizing how desperate he would be to press against Mike, to kiss him, bite him, fuck him. He didn’t, obviously. Obviously. But he had asked, 'Can I lean against you?' with a bravery he can seldom claim, and Mike, who is sweet, who is kind, who cares for Will in ways that Will doesn't understand, had said 'yes'. Will had turned his face, tucked it against Mike's neck, and wanted, so desperately, to kiss the skin his lips were pressed-flat against.

He hadn't.)

Now, Mike lets Will take the first pull off the joint, and the second, and third. He coughs only on that third one, because he inhaled for a little too long (watching Mike) and it gets all caught up in his throat on the breathe-out. And, well, that's obviously embarrassing, but Mike just smiles at him, and that is worth the pain-in-throat.

He offers it to Mike then. Mike takes it. Lets it cross between his lips, a small part, something that's almost a kiss. 

It's not the first time Will has been jealous of a joint and it surely won't be the last.

He's a bit desperate, like that.

“This isn’t the last of my weed,” Mike says. Will looks him over, the smoke he exhales giving way to a light and fuzzy feeling in his head. “I mean it. Feels weird to have any leftover. But I guess it's sort of hopeful also, right?”

“Hopeful?”

“Yeah, like if I got rid of all the weed it would be like, like we need to use everything before the end of the world — but we're not. Cause we're gonna be okay. We're going to be alive and we're going to,” he laughs.  “Smoke the rest of my weed soon. Tomorrow maybe. Because we’ll all be okay.”

“Mhm,” Will offers, something noncommittal and non-negating. Because of all the things Will is, he sure as hell is not hopeful. He would bet money he won't need that he's going to die tomorrow, reclaimed by the Upside Down at last. He should get Mike to take that bet, instead — he’d live long enough to use the money — and besides, Mike surely agrees. That's why he's being so nice: good manners by Will’s deathbed. 

They all know how the story goes. Will was always going to be the sacrificial lamb. You don’t get a choice in the role you play, so who cares if Will isn’t happy about it? It is what it is.

Mike Wheeler can smile at him like he’s worth something, but that doesn’t make it true.

They go like that for a while.

Passed back and forth, the joint getting smaller and smaller. Mike taking negligible hits and then breathing out really long, as if Will doesn’t know full well how much smoke is supposed to come out for a proper hit. 

He doesn't push it.

By the time it’s burned down to the quick, Will is feeling a little floaty, a little drifty. It's nice. The way everything gets a little bit louder, a little closer too. The way the sides blur out of Mike’s basement, a place he knows as well as any he's ever lived, better, honestly. It all feels distant, like one side of the room doesn't quite fit with the other, all the people and shapes failing to line up, to cohere into one plane of existence.

Mike is so pretty.

It’s a thought he already has had several times tonight and he is long past trying to stop. He hums, closes his eyes, and leans back. He likes this. Especially the first few minutes. When the shift from one state of mind to another is new and fresh. And he can just revel. 

He can feel Mike's eyes on him. (He likes Mike’s eyes on him.) And he’s not going to question the attention — whether it’s impossible interest or guarded caution. The latter's more likely; Mike making sure Will doesn’t overstep, ready to bounce back if Will ever says or does anything too indicative. He knows that Will knows that he knows.

“Good?” Mike asks.

“Always.” Will lolls his head over onto his shoulder, looks at Mike and doesn’t make himself look away. “You had enough? You want another beer?”

“Maybe.” Mike runs his tongue over his top lip. Chapped. Will wants that job.

“Gonna have a cigarette,” Will announces. Then, with a grin, “A chaser.” He really does treat it as such. Weed slows down, smooths out every corner. The nicotine re-sharpens only the things of most interest. Whips the happiness into shape, highlights all the bright colors. Makes it so the dark murky edges recess back, out of view of all this joy.

It's bad habits all the way down, he thinks — on the off chance he doesn't die tomorrow, he's probably gonna die of lung cancer.

Mike gets up for a beer, while Will attempts to lean artistically out the window. Like a poet or an author. Even a Hugh Hefner type. Elbow on shoulder level, hand holding the cigarette in such a way makes his fingers look longer, more poised. He thinks he's not too bad to look at, not when he tries. It feels narcissistic, silly, even childish, to want to look desirable, when there is no eye there for him to catch.

There had been, once.

They’d gone back to Lenora a couple years back, to gather everything up and move properly back to Hawkins. Adam was the son of the real estate agent, he’d offered to help them pack and carry boxes out to the trunk for a few dollars, and he’d got to talking to Will. He was nineteen. Taking a couple years to work for his family before going to college. He’d asked Will about his art, his passions. One night, while Joyce and Jonathan were out getting — something, Will doesn’t remember what, only that he’d been desperate to be the only one home when Adam was over that night. He’d finished up his work, been about to leave, when he stopped. Looked Will over, like he was something. Like he was grown up. Like he was sexy.

He’d asked, “How old are you?” and Will had answered, “Eighteen,” which made him a liar and a bad person, probably, but like hell was he letting his age and Adam's morals take away his one chance at this. Adam had smiled then, and asked, “You wanna go for a ride?”

And Will had said yes.

Sometime in the in-between, after Adam had kissed him, touched him, taken him apart and left him gasping in the passenger seat, but before Adam had put him on his knees, taught him how to use his mouth, he let linger a moment of tender.

He’d reached over, pet Will’s hair away from his face. “You're gorgeous, Will, you know that?” Will, blushed and shaky, shook his head on instinct. “Really. You have a good body — that's important. Guys are gonna like you.”

“Not the one I want,” Will said, a bitter admission he had no reason to trust to this man.

Adam had laughed. “I’m gonna give you a tip. No guy is 100% straight. Looking the way you do — learn how to accentuate it a little bit. Maybe fix up that hair —  whoever your boy is, you can make him want you. Just put in a concerted effort.”

Will had laughed. Not believing, but trying to, as the guy kissed him again. “Good laugh, too.” Another kiss. “Extra points.”

Will had been desperately in love with him for the next five days of his life, which were maybe the only five days he could remember living without the want for Mike sitting heavy in his gut. Which was sort of nice, actually. In the five day span, he smoked every cigarette in the pack he’d stolen from Adam’s car. It wasn’t the first time he’d smoked, but it definitely aided him in picking up the habit — every time he inhaled, he could feel that same intoxicating shock of being looked at.

Of being seen.

He never told Mike.

As far as Mike is concerned, Will is an unkissed virgin — he wouldn’t have it any other way. There are things Mike doesn’t need to know about him.

(And sure, Mike doesn't share either. But Will is pretty sure he's gone further with guys than Mike has done with any girls. He can’t help feeling vindictive in this.)

He smokes his cigarette and thinks idly of Adam, poses himself in hopes that Adam would be proud of him, wherever he is now. He blows out the window, lips in a gentle pucker. Pretty, he hopes.

By the time Mike comes back with his beer, Will is about a third of the way through the cigarette and already a little bit uncomfortable with the put-upon sexy pose. But it does make Mike look. He looks him over in that furrowed eyebrow, almost-sad way he does, sometimes. In his weaker moments, Will translates it to mean wanting or interested instead of just sad or pitying. In any case, it flickers away, replaced by a grin. The distracting click open of a beer tab. 

Will doesn't particularly care for beer. It is always going to taste a little too sour to be at all an enjoyable experience for him. But regardless, out of obstinance and desire to share another indirect kiss, Will takes the beer bottle out of Mike’s hand, raises it to his own mouth. Takes one swing before grimacing and passing it back. 

Mostly to hear Mike’s laugh. 

“You know you don't like it,” Mike says. “They're not going to be different every time you try it.”

“Well, this one isn’t an IPA, so I thought—”

“Dude, this is an IPA.”

Will looks at it and scratches his nose and says, “Maybe I don't know what an IPA is.”

“Yeah. You don’t,” Mike says, and Will laughs.

“You want?” He offers Mike his cigarette. And wonders, if he can go three-for-three on placing his mouth against the same space where Mike's mouth has just been. 

But Mike shakes his head. “We'll stick to our own vices.”

“At least we share the one,” Will says, feeling the soft dilation of time and space settle in. “I like weed a lot.” He stretches his arms out above him, almost forgetting one is holding a lit object. He pulls it back down before it can make any fire alarms go off and wake up a bunch of cranky Wheelers.

“I like it too,” Mike says. “I like to see you.”

Will flushes.

This flush is, nigh-immediately, mirrored on Mike. “I mean like. I don't know. It's good to see you relaxed. You're not so fucking worried.”

“I don't think I'm ‘so fucking worried’ all the time,” Will counters. Mike gives him a condescending little eyebrow raise. “Seriously, I'm not. I mean, there's not much point in being worried, right?” Mike doesn’t seem to parse which bush Will is beating around. Will isn’t sure if he should tell him. It feels too early in the evening to dredge this up and out, over their calm conversation, but it came up naturally, and well, maybe the rest of the evening will go easier if he gets this off his chest now. (Maybe he just wants Mike to hear it.) “We all know I'm gonna die tomorrow.” 

Mike does not look like he was included in that knowing “we”. 

When Mike’s open mouth fails to make any sound, Will continues, “I mean, I don't know that for sure, but, well, we all know where this is headed.” 

“...What the fuck?” Mike, when Will is able to make eye contact, is looking at Will like he’s morphed into a horrible creature of the Upside Down. Shock, and fear, and a nose-wrinkle of what Will can only think is disgust. “Why, why do you think that? Is it — Has he — Vecna — or something else, has something been making contact? Did he tell you? Are you okay, right now?” Mike is far too panicked to match with Will’s calmed down, mellowed out, acceptance-high.

“No, no, I mean,” Will starts, “Nobody said, but—” Mike’s expression is softened out, just slightly, by relief. Will needs to quash it. “This whole thing started with me, right? It's gonna end with me, too. Probably be… a sacrifice, or bait, or something.” Mike’s furrow-brow only deepens, head wrenched further back, like he can’t stand being close to Will right now. It pierces something, sharp and angry in him, and he snaps out — “Come on, we've all read this story a million times.”

Mike shakes his head. “Will, what are you talking about?”

Will means to shrug, but likes how it feels, to be curled into himself, away from the scrutiny, that he keeps his shoulders raised to his ears. “I'm just saying it doesn't make much sense to be worried all the time if, if I know what's going to happen.”

“Well, now I'm gonna fucking worry!” Mike throws his hands up and it jostles roughly a sip and a half of beer out of the bottle. “We're not — not going to use you as bait, or as a fucking sacrifice! How could you think I’d let that happen?”

Will takes a steadying inhale of fresh air, and follows it with a more steadying inhale, off his cigarette. Once he feels he can answer, he says, “Look, I’m sorry.” He is — he was selfish, to try to talk about this. As desperate and whining as his pining can make him, he knows Mike cares about him. He knew this would hurt Mike to hear. And he asked anyway. He wants to go back. “I didn’t mean to make you worry, make you feel like you need to defend me, or anything, I just. I don't know, I thought. This is happening so it might be easier if — if we talked about it.”

“What is there to talk about? You're not gonna die. It’s not gonna happen. Do you think,” he chokes on the word, and shakes his head, “Do you think there's a world in which you go to the Upside Down and I don’t drag you out of it?” he asks, as if that world hasn't already existed. As if Will hasn’t known that world better than this one for a long time. 

He needs to be done talking about this.

He shakes his head. “Mike, it's fine —”

“It isn't fine. It's not fine if you're spending your time making peace with dying and you didn't tell me!”

“Mike…” Mike’s breaths are heavy, near-panicked. Will wants to breathe deep. “I'm — you’re right. I’m probably, probably being dramatic. We're going to be fine. I'm going to be fine, just. Let's just, I don’t know. Enjoy the night. I’m okay. It’s fine.” He’d lost it, that floating high feeling, but it must still be just in reach. He can almost hold it.

It doesn’t look like it’s within Mike’s reach, however. “Will.”

“Yes?”

“What can I do to make you feel better?” Mike eventually settles on. This is not the first time he's asked this question, and the familiarity settles soft against Will. He’d asked it for the first when they were fifteen, when Will, tearfully, came out as gay to the lot of them, and Mike had been angry. Angry that Will hadn't told him yet. That he’d been lumped in with everyone else. And Will snapped back, that this wasn’t fucking about him, and said, near-sob, that if that was how Mike felt Will wishes he hadn’t told him at all. Mike had gotten small and silent, then, and said, I'm sorry. He’d said, I want to know how to help you. He’d said, How can I? 

As it is now, Will looks at the hand that has suddenly become a covering over his own — he feels like he almost make out every single indentation of his fingerprints, all zoomed in and close and pretty — and looks back at Mike. “Do you want an actual answer for that?”

“I always want an actual answer from you.”

He purses his lips, unsure that, even with the permission, he can risk this question. (He is selfish. He has to ask it.) “What would you say, at…” Will swallows. Mike nods. “At my funeral.”

Mike draws a hand over his lower face. His fingers shake. “I don't know if I can do that.”

Any of the lingering frustration has drained out of him, even seeing Mike consider it. Understanding suddenly and wholly, how horribly he’d react if Mike asked this of him, if their roles were reversed. “It’s really okay, if you can’t.”

“No, I mean, I want you to feel better.” His hand curls, sharp and tight, around Will’s. “I just don't know how to put myself in, in that headspace, physically, if it's…” He lets out another wracking sigh. “But if that will make you feel better, I can try.”

“Thank you,” Will says, turning his hand over. He does not dare lace their fingers together, but Mike lets him have this at least, a touch, a palm-pressed promise.

“Will is…” Mike starts. Will is unused to it, hearing Mike's voice say his name so unsure. “Will is my best friend. He’s brought so much joy to— Ugh.” Mike flushes, and shakes his head. “This eulogy sucks. You deserve better.”

“It doesn’t.” He doesn’t offer him the out again. “It’s just me here.”

“Just us,” Mike mirrors. He nods, a little steadier. “Okay. Okay.”

And closes his eyes.

“Will… Will has brought so much joy and kindness and brightness into every day of my life. Every single one. He’s the most creative thing that’s ever existed, and so talented, and so nice about it you can’t even find it in you to be jealous. You want to, because no one should get to be that good at art and be clever and be so good at DND,” Will scoffs, and Mike cracks a smile, eyes still closed. “That you feel like you should hate him for it, but it's impossible. He’s just so good. He can make you like being yourself. When I first met him…” He pauses, lets out a breath that sounds like a ‘huh’, and continues, slow at first: “My first memory is meeting him,” Like he can hear Will’s surprise: “It’s true. On the swings, out back behind the school, him agreeing to be my friend. I can’t cast my memory back any further than that — my history starts with Will. I’ve lived my whole life with that joy and kindness and creativity standing next to me. I can’t imagine—”

“Stop.” Will can barely recognize the word is his. He hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t wanted to stop this at all, until suddenly his need to stop hearing this superseded his brain, and spoke itself into the room.

Mike blinks open, immediately, and leans away. Flushing. “Sorry. I’m sorry, that was probably — way too much. Shit. I’m sorry.”

“No.” Will can feel himself tearing up. (He will not cry). “No it’s — it was good. I just…” Just what? Couldn’t handle hearing words from Mike that feel loved? That make him wish he wasn’t going to die tomorrow? That made him hope? (He had accepted it. Five minutes ago, he was fine with it.) “I just… don’t actually want to think about dying, maybe.”

“Good, because you won’t.” Mike leans forward, tightens his grip on Will. “I won’t let you die tomorrow.”

“Because you need more time to write a better eulogy?” Mike rolls his eyes. It isn't a funny joke, and Will doesn’t push it. “Can I — just lean on you?” Like they had the first time. 

Like the first time: “Yes.”

They stay like that for a while. Mike lights another half-smoked joint — he has to go into his stash for it, and true to his word, he is far from out. Will’s high is still present, but he isn't going to refuse a topping up. He tarnished the first high by talking about dying and miring himself in a fantasy where Mike loved him. This one will be better.

Mike actually smokes as much as he does that time — maybe even more. Mike's always been more of a lightweight when it comes to weed and pretty soon it’s Mike leaning his weight against Will. He is flushed and warm from the beer, and Will doesn’t resist the urge to lean right back, press their bodies up to each other.

“I’m not gonna let you die,” Mike repeats, and Will doesn't want them to bring this up again. He wants this nice floaty night, looking at Mike and thinking about kissing him and then not doing anything about it. “I'm not gonna let you die,” again, “ But if. If you did, I'd feel fucking stupid if I'd never talked to you about this.”

That is not necessarily comforting.

There are a good many secrets Will has every intention of being his in-grave company, and too many of them could be things Mike wants to know.

He is cautious when he asks, “About what?”

Mike worries his bottom lip. And as he does, he looks at Will's bottom lip and then at his eyes and then his mouth again, and he seems to forget he was about to answer a question, until Will prompts, “Mike?”

“The painting,” he blurts out, and it drops Will’s stomach. “The — the commission from El, remember?”

“Yeah?” Will answers, already steeling himself. Mike knows that there was no commission, that Will lied about the painting. That he hadn't been working on anything else, that El — it’s stupid how well she knows him — had said something about him making a painting for someone he liked —

He has a fair guess about what this question might be.

“When you made it, did you—” Mike is red in the face. But he is looking at Will purposefully and Will can tell a million lies by omission, but to be asked straight on — It isn’t something he can refuse. “I mean, was it because, did you paint that, paint it for me, because—” 

“Because I was in love with you?” That question stills Mike’s unsteady tread of words instantly, and Will guesses he should feel some pride in that. In the  shocked expression he wrought. The parted mouth, lower lip shiny still from a courage-building sip of beer, gorgeous and untouchable, a bridge so already burnt that Will doesn’t even wonder if he’s now torching the ashes.

“I… Yeah.” Mike nods, after a long moment of a gazing that Will refuses to return. “I mean, I didn’t think — I wasn't going to say ‘in love with’ but… you liked me?” 

It’s so too-little, makes it sound so insignificant that it becomes inaccurate. Mike is the resting place of every shatter-in-his-chest, every one of his dashed hopes and missed-chances, he is a gravesite and an altar and no, Will didn’t like him, and yes, Will liked him more than anything, and he can’t force down the bitter with which he scoffs out a, “No,” even if it means watching Mike’s face crumble. 

“No?”

“No.” Will takes another hit. “Like I said, I was in love with you. To call it ‘liking’ wouldn’t be fair.” It feels easier to say than Will ever thought it would be. Maybe because it's protected by past tense. Maybe because he’s high. Maybe because he knows that the consequences of this will be null tomorrow anyway. 

Mike just looks at him. Extends his hand, fingers splayed, for one moment, before pulling it back and holding tight to the other. “I’m sorry.”

Will scoffs. It lets loose a tear he hopes isn’t visible in the light. “You’re — for what?” It sounds bitter, biting. He is supposed to be soft, rounded out by the high. But instead he’s only this. “You couldn't have loved me, and even if you could’ve you didn’t have to. You didn't do anything wrong.”

“I’m sorry.” Mike repeats.

It sounds like he means it, really. Like it hurts him. Enough to have him grab the joint out from between Will’s fingers and inhale one long, steady hit while still staring Will in the face. Will sighs, and promises, “You don't have to be sorry, Mike. It really is —”

“I’m sorry,” Mike says — rule of threes — and Will is about to negate him — rule of threes — but then—

He is being kissed.

Fully on the mouth.

Huh.

He lets this happen. Lets Mike sit still, mouth barely open. The earthy taste of smoke Will thought he liked before this. (It is so much better, this way.) Will can’t bring himself to shut his eyes, to sink into this. But he also cannot bear to look at Mike’s face, so close to his, so he instead focuses on the joint pinched between Mike’s fingers. He sits there, and watches the small, still-burning ember, till Mike pulls back.

“So,” Will says, bunching his hands in his lap to keep himself from tracing the line of his mouth. “That’s what the apology was for?”

Mike shrugs. He has the dignity to look a little ashamed, flushed in the face, not meeting Will’s gaze when he says, “Kinda.” He swallows, and Will watches the bob of his Adam’s apple. “Did you not want me to?”

Will chokes on a laugh. “Mike, I didn't particularly want you to cheat on your girlfriend with me, I'll be honest.” Oh, he’s mad. That's what it is. That was that ember of the feeling that he was getting when Mike's mouth was pressed to his. That wasn't want or lust or anything that he is used to feeling when Mike gets too close. It was anger. “Not just your girlfriend — my sister, Mike. No, I didn’t want you to hurt her.”

Mike’s shoulders are nearly raised to his ears. “It wasn’t about that.”

“Yeah, but it should be. She’s your—”

“I've wanted to do that for years,” Mike interrupts. “I’m not thinking about her.”

Will blinks. That — doesn't make any sense. (Wanted to do that for—) It doesn't make any sense, so Will comes to the most logical conclusion, which is that it's a lie.

“You haven’t.”

“Yes, I have.”

Will laughs, bitter, and can already feel himself tearing up. Mike kissed him, Mike just kissed him. How is he meant to have a conversation, to think, to be, after this thing that should be the culmination of all he ever was? “You’re straight, Mike.”  Mike shrugs at this, like it is something that could be up for debate. Will sob is half-snarl. “I didn’t ask you — What is this? Why'd you kiss me?” 

Mike doesn't say anything. He breathes in through the end of the joint, burned down to the filter, before he breathes it all out in one long stream of smoke that vanishes out through the window. He stubs the filter against the wall, and flicks it out the window.

When he looks back at Will, it’s impossible to tell whether his eyes are red from the high or from the thin sheen of moisture.

“You don't love me anymore, I guess,” he says, sounding heartbroken. How is any of this fair? “So it doesn’t matter.”

 Will’s laugh is accompanied by a sob. “Oh, fuck you, Mike. You, you don't get to kiss me and ask if I— What do you want?”

“I wanna know if you still love me.” 

“I just told you, you don't get to hear that from me. Try again. What do you want?"

Mike doesn't need a second to consider. “I want to kiss you.” 

He is near enough that he could. He is near enough that Will could, could accept this as enough of an answer to the impossible question that is Mike Wheeler’s actions. He wants to. (He is dying tomorrow, doesn’t he deserve this?) He steadies his breath and leans forward, settles a hand on Mike’s knee. Mike’s breath catches. (Maybe being this close to death has given Will powers. Surely he didn’t have the ability to take the air from Mike’s lungs before now.) 

“Will?” 

Will leans in until he is a breath away from Mike’s mouth. He doesn’t kiss him.

“Why should I let you?” It comes out colder, harder than his intention. But the hiss-gasp from Mike is… not unwanted.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you since I was thirteen.” Mike says, offered up too easily to be truth. “And the world might end tomorrow, so. It feels like the right time.” His hand raises, like he is going to cup Will’s face. He doesn’t. "Let me?” 

“It's convenient,” Will says, barely loud enough to hear. “A way to get off last minute, right?” 

Mike flinches back like Will slapped him. “It's — it’s not about that.” Will shrugs. (It's okay if it is. Will isn’t going to turn this down, regardless of reason.) “I won't do it, if you don't want me to. But, just say the word. Say you want me too.” His gaze is assured. “And I will.”

Will wonders if he’s been dragged to the Upside Down a day early.

It feels like, if he leans in, if he presses his lips to that parted and willing mouth, everything will vanish into ash and leave him in the cold damp of that horrible other world. And it will be earned. A worthy punishment for every perverse fantasy he has, every jealous wanting of something that could never be his, every childish time he has wished to steal Mike away from El, not giving a damn that he’d be breaking his sister’s heart. 

“Can I?”

But the Mike that is there in front of him, with his familiar wide-eyes and soft tone — this Mike, offering everything Will has ever wanted, to him, right here, on a golden platter—

Will is going to be hopeless, in the Upside Down.

He gives in to temptation so easily.

When Will kisses him, Mike doesn’t shatter to dust, the couch beneath him doesn’t crash down around him, he doesn’t find himself sent immediately to the Hell he doesn’t believe in or the Upside Down he knows he is doomed for.

There is just Mike, and his hands holding Will’s face, and maybe this is the worst punishment of all.

Mike doesn’t kiss soft. He kisses open-mouth and wanting, nothing of warning or gentleness, and technically leagues worse than Will's first kiss or his third (the second boy he kissed really had been quite terrible). There is something immediate in it, Mike’s hand bunching the fabric of his shirt-sleeve, fingernails digging into the line of his arm. It is nothing — Will realizes — like the way he’d kissed El.

Mike kisses him like it could anchor Will to life.

Will pushes Mike away, only enough to keep either of them from leaning back in. “There,” he says. Any nonchalance he might hope to have is shattered by the unsteadiness of his breath, each inhale sharp and fast. “You’ve kissed me.” 

Mike takes a moment to blink open his eyes. There’s a reluctance to do so immediately — like he worries, for what will be in front of him. “That's it?”

No, Will wants to say. No, god no. Will wants keep kissing him forever. Will wants to kiss him until Vecna grabs him and pulls him Upside Down, kicking and screaming. But he cannot take this from Mike without…

Will smiles, teasing lightly in the face of his heavy heart. “You're the straight one. You can tell me if you want that to be it.”

“No.” Mike traces along the side of Will’s face, the awkward set of his jaw, where Mike is all narrow and pretty. It catches Will’s breath. “I want to keep kissing you. For as long as you want. We don’t have to do anything else.” 

There is an implication, there. It collides with the floaty head-high to turn to something much for visceral, tight in his gut. “I'm not asking what we have to do,” Will counters. “I'm asking what you want to do.” 

Mike looks at him, eyes dark in the low light. There is a flush to his face, a hiss of deep concentration, and then: “Can I touch you?” 

Oh.

And, of course, Will knows a line when he hears one — he can wager a guess, what Mike actually wants from this — but he is desperate. He leans back against the couch cushions, wrists still resting on Mike’s shoulders. It gives Mike the room to scramble into his lap, push his hands under the line of Will’s button up, beneath the undershirt, till long, warm fingers run up his chest. 

Mike is kissing his neck, and Will pictures, dazedly, himself showing up to the end of the world with dark hickies impossible to ignore against his pale skin. It is a pleasant image, and the reason he drags Mike’s face away to kiss him full on the mouth is only because he can’t stand not having his lips on Mike for even a moment more. Besides — with Mike’s hands on his chest and teeth on his throat, the high of earlier still setting his head to swimming — he could lose himself in this. In Mike. 

And he can’t.

 He can’t let himself stumble off this precipice. He doesn’t know where he would land.

He pulls back from Mike — slow, adding another kiss to his mouth so it won’t be read as a rejection — and leans just far enough away to run his own hands over the coarse knit of Mike’s sweater. Mike is looking at him, eyes open and wide like Will is something beautiful, something worth marveling over. (Will is a day-early corpse, Will is a pervert and a fag, Will is the shadow cast when El takes his place. He is not worthy of marvel.) 

(Maybe he can be. Maybe, if he earns it.)

“Can I blow you?” Will asks, liking that he is pressed close enough to feel the sharp inhale of Mike's chest, the press of his hips over Will.

Close enough to see, even in the low-light, the shift of his eyes. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Not about have to,” Will echoes. He thinks of what Adam told him. He lowers his head so he can look up at Mike, perched above him in his lap. Skates his hand down to press against Mike’s lower belly. “I want to suck you off. Can I?”

The sound Mike makes is harsh and choked and — (Will realizes) — a moan(!!), and then he’s saying, “Yes, yeah, I mean, if you— Will.”

And Will kisses him. 

Mike’s mouth is open beneath Will's, and his hair is soft and smooth under Will's hand, on its tour of the Mike Wheeler physique. Said hand gets to the fasten of Mike’s buttons before he realizes that there is no way he’s going to get his mouth on Mike’s dick with Mike sat firmly in his lap. It’s a clumsy thing, but he manages, standing up and pulling Mike with him, letting him fall back on the couch with a light oomph, before Will swallows the sound with another kiss.

Mike seems preoccupied with getting a hand on Will’s ass. It's a little pawing, unpracticed. Really sweet. Will chooses to enjoy this while he’s still in a position for it, and moves his own hand to settle against Mike’s crotch. He’s hard (for me, Will thinks, and then feels stupid for thinking it.) Of course, this means the hand is also pressed to his own crotch — the pros and cons of straddling — and weed always makes him horny but if he comes in his pants without getting to enjoy this first —

He leans away, settling back on his ankles (and Mike’s knees.) Mike whines at the absence, and Will gets to taking off his sweater. There’s a shirt underneath, button-up, like Mike was trying to be fancy for the sake of the party. 

It hits him again.

The party — the end of the world — Mike kissing El — Will, under an exploding sky, alone and alone and alone —

Will runs his finger up the line of buttons, till he reaches the hollow of Mike’s clavicle. “I still think you’re a dick for this.” Will says. He is so held, right now, and it renders him so dependent, and it feels like whatever hold he had on the world is falling through his grip. It aches in him, and he wants to bring Mike into the ache with him. “I know why you're doing this and why you're doing it now.” His voice near-breaks, on the next words: “So, you like me? You want to kiss me?”

“Will, I—”

“You want me to go down on you? You want to touch me?”

Mike nods, tries to kiss Will again. Will pushes his shoulder, so he falls backward, spine-pressed against the couch. “You want me. You’ve wanted me. Is that true?”

“Yes,” Mike chokes out. Will’s hand spreads over his chest, pressing down the heel of his palm so the button digs into Mike’s chest — a hiss of air from Mike’s mouth — before he lets up. “For years—”

“But wanting me doesn’t mean having me.” Will interrupts. He undoes Mike's top shirt button.  “You could have had me. You could have kissed me years ago — when I came out, when you realized about the painting— you’ve known, Mike. And you didn’t say anything. You made me do this alone.” Mike tries to catch Will’s hand, but Will turns the grip, and pushes down to pin the wrist to the cushion. His grip is loose. Mike could push him off, if he wanted.

“You want me, but I'm not the easy choice. I'm not a girl; you’d have to come out. You’d have to have that fight with your parents. You'd have to break off your beautiful, safe relationship with my beautiful, safe sister.” Will copes with his guilt the only way he can, by taking solace in the fact that he'll never have to face it. Taking solace, that she’ll never have to know.  Taking solace, in the way Mike’s breath goes shaky as he undone another button. “So this is the perfect way to go about it, right? I'm going to die, and this will die with me.”

The tone is warning when Mike says, “Will.”

Will shakes his head. Mike’s pinned hand breaks away, and uses its freedom to lace his fingers with Will’s. “I’m going to die tomorrow, and you can go back to her. And you will have gotten to have this. You’ll get to know you didn't miss a chance, miss all of these easy things you like about me.” He can feel himself tearing up. He shouldn’t. He can’t. “Or you die, and then it doesn't matter. Or —” And Will actually does choke on this one a little bit. “Or El dies.” It's not a possibility. Guilt aside, it just isn’t how the story goes: El is the hero of the story, Will is the sacrifice. She will be fine. “If she dies, you can crawl back to me. You can take my comfort, my solace. Not have to feel bad by cheating on someone who loves you so much.

“Or,” Will says, faltering on the best possible option. The best option, and even it leaves him shattered. “If we all live. What then? You tell me it was a mistake. You tell me it was the apocalypse. You tell me you got scared because I was talking about being dead, and you tell me you did this out of pity. You wanted to take care of me, make me feel less awful before I died. Or, or you say it was the weed, or the beer — It doesn't matter. You’ll come up with something. And I love you,” Will says, desperate and choking on it, only realizing once he sees the widen of Mike's eyes that that was the first time he’s actually said it. He hears Mike’s shaky inhale, feels him pull Will a bit closer. “So I'll accept it. And I'll let you go back to her and I won’t tell and I won't ruin it.” His hand is bunched up in the unbuttoned sides of Mike’s shirt, and he is crying, and Mike’s hand is cupping his face, thumb moving gently over his skin. Something so close to loving he thinks it will shatter him. “And so it, it just works out fucking great for you, Mike.”

“Will—”

 “Shut up—”

“Will, it isn’t—”

“Shut up,” and Will pulls him back into a kiss, rough and biting. Mike inhales against his mouth, and Will presses forward, presses in, so no words can escape from that juncture. Mike falls into it, after a moment, but fails to match the frantic, angry energy. He slows it down, runs his hand down Will’s arm until they can be holding, interlaced fingers. Will tries to pull away, and Mike pulls back, and Mike doesn’t let go, and Will relents.

“Sorry,” Mike says. He presses his mouth to Will’s temple.  “’M sorry.”

Will hasn’t stopped crying. He needs to. Mike is letting him have this. Will should be grateful. “Doesn’t matter, just—”

“It does.”

“It doesn’t. Just—” Will thumbs at the zipper of Mike’s jeans. “I’m sorry. We don’t— let’s not talk about it. Just let me. Please.”

Mike places his hand over Will's, his fingers fitting in the gaps. “Don’t change the subject. You’re freaking out. I want to make you feel better—”

“This will,” Will interrupts. “I want it. I promise. It — gets me out of my head. I like it.” Which is a slight exaggeration, but well worth it, to feel Mike freeze up beneath him, the gentle coddling giving way to an unmistakable jealousy. 

Will answers the question he won’t ask. “Twice. One in California, one in Indianapolis.” The gaze goes to furrowed-brow, and Will likes it, likes being the object of Mike’s jealousy. (Likes how it can chase away the worry he doesn't want to deal with.) He offers a shaky grin, letting himself brag, “I’m told I’m pretty good at it. And I want to. Please.”

Mike looks down at where Will's hand is pressed over the crotch of his jeans, and then back up to make eye contact. “This — It will help you feel better?”

Will feels gross, and sick, to lie in the face of Mike’s honest inquisition. This will make Will feel worse, in the short term, he knows that. But it isn’t about that. He needs to be remembered, by Mike. He needs to be mapped out over Mike’s body, so when he is dead, the memory of this part of him will remain. “It will.”

“Okay,” Mike says. His hand curls to cup Will’s face, and doesn’t flinch away when Will turns his hand to press his mouth to Mike’s palm. “Okay. You can stop, whenever you want.”

“Of course,” Will says, as if he ever would.

The whole thing doesn’t take very long.

There is some part of Will that is glad he is going to die tomorrow; he doesn’t know how he’d bear years spent trying to fall asleep while knowing that Mike sounds like with Will’s mouth on him. Torture incarnate. Will swallows — stupid and perverted and definitively too sappily romantic to be thought about someone’s cum, but he wants to die with something of Mike’s in him.

Because he will. Because he will die tomorrow.

He can’t let himself forget that.

Mike pulls him back up so their mouths slot together, Mike’s still too-open from his gasping breath. He kisses Will, and Will readies himself for Mike to pull away, flinch at the taste (the second guy Will blew had), but he doesn’t. Even when he mumbles out, “Thank you,” it is breathed onto Will’s lips. 

Will shakes his head — how is any fair that Mike should be thanking him, when he allowed Will to have this? — and Mike presses his hand to Will’s face, halting the negation. “No, I mean it. Thank you.” He kisses the side of Will's face. “You are wonderful.”

Will exhales heavy with the praise. 

Maybe he is. Maybe right now, he’s earned wonder.

“You were right, by the way,” Mike smiles. “You are good at that.” His hands rake through Will’s hair, soft tugs on the ends. “Why didn’t you tell me, that you’ve hooked up with people?”

Will shrugs. His face fits so well in the crook of Mike’s shoulder. “You didn’t want to know.”

“I never said that.”

“Well, you never told me about your sex life, it seemed even.”

“That’s because there was nothing for me to tell,” Mike says. Will’s fingers brush his chest as traces up from Mike’s abdomen. Mike hums appreciatively. “I mean, is that lame?  I, like, I offered. But she didn’t want me to touch her, and I didn’t—”

“It’s not lame,” Will says, in order to not say please stop telling me about how you’ve failed to fuck my sister. (He remembers what he’d said earlier, that this was a convenient last-chance for Mike to get off with someone easy and wanting. How Mike had said he was wrong.) (Mike is still holding him. He can pretend that means something.) “It means I get you, now.”

“You’ve always had me,” Mike says. For something that has all the makings of a terrible line, Mike sure says it like he believes it. Will lets his eyelids flutter closed, and lets himself pretend this is true, for a minute. The rise and fall of Mike’s chest is nearly enough to lull him to sleep, and he feels shocked out of some sacred calm when Mike asks, “Can I return the favor?”

Will sits up.

He is tempted to ask what Mike means by that, but it is obvious. But what it obviously implies feels — impossible. “You don’t have to,” he says, not even realizing he is mirroring Mike’s earlier protests until he sees that raise of an eyebrow.

“I know,” Mike says.

“No, I mean it. I already feel better. I don’t need anything else.” Mike looks unconvinced. “I’m sorry for being a dick, earlier. I know you care. It wasn’t fair of me to imply you don’t —”

“I mean, it was more than imply —”

“And you don’t need to — to do anything, to prove that. I know. I trust you.”

“Trust me enough to let me blow you?” Mike says, it’s half joking but there is something nervous in it, too. “I mean it, Will. I want to.” Then, flushing — “I mean, I’ll probably be bad at it. You’ll have to tell me what to do, but I’ll try to give your other guys a run for the money.”

“Yeah, you have a lot of competition,” Will says, playing into what he has to assume is a joke. When it seems to damper Mike’s expression more — “I’m joking.” Then, a little breathless. “No one’s ever done that for me.”

“What?” He gives a shake of the head, the light catching on the bridge of his nose. “But — you blew two guys, right?”

“Yeah, but they didn’t —” Will supposes, Mike already admitted the embarrassing fact of having exactly zero sexual experience, but it somehow feels worse to be admitting this lack of reciprocation. “I mean, Adam — the first guy —” Will is glad Adam is safe in California. If Mike's expression is anything to go by, there is some murderous intent there. “He had already jerked me off, before I blew him — he was who taught me how to —” Yeah, Mike is definitely ready to kill that guy. “And the other only offered after he’d came, and it felt like… Like he didn’t actually want to. And I was already freaked out and kinda wanted to go home, so.”

“Why were you freaked out?” Mike has shifted from jealous to fully defensive. “Who was this guy?”

It’s sweet. Will rolls his eyes. “I just felt weird about it. You don’t need to hunt him down.” He reaches down — he is straddling Mike, which is quite nice, all things considered — and brushes the side of Mike’s face. “It’s sweet, though.”

Mike’s mouth quirks in a quick-fading grin. “Yeah, well…”

“What?”

“I don’t know. It’s stupid.” He tilts his head back to break their eye contact, till all Will can see is the underside of his chin. “Ugh. I just. I don’t know, it feels hypocritical, to want to protect you from other guys treating you shitty when I can’t even…” He looks up, then. “I wish I was better, for you.”

Will shrugs. “Then be better.” He reaches down, holds Mike’s face in hand. “For what it’s worth, aside from all of this… You are good. You’re my best friend.” He feels silly, and childish, for saying it, but— “I love you for a reason. I wouldn’t, if you were bad for me.”

“You actually mean that?” Mike asks, reaching his hand up to tangle with Will’s. “You love me? For real?”

Will rolls his eyes. “Yes.”

“Fuck." Mike shuts his eyes, but not before Will could see the light build of tears. "I wish I’d known.”

“Would it have changed anything?”

Mike shakes his head. “Of course. Maybe. No. I don’t know.” He takes Will’s hand and presses his mouth to the heart of his palm. “You have no reason to believe me, but I do love you too.”

Will smiles. “Yeah, I don’t think I do believe that.”

Mike snorts. “Fair.” He pushes up so his back is at a forty-five degree angle with the couch, Will still in his lap, faces closer now. “I’m not gonna make you any promises about tomorrow. If we're all alive, I can't promise you I’ll leave her and come right out and be with you.”

Will knew this, he knew, and he still has to avert his eyes so he won’t cry, looking at Mike’s earnest expression. “I know.”

“But I do love you. I have since, like, the third day of knowing you. I meant it — I don’t remember my life before you and I’m glad for that. I can’t imagine a life without you.”

“Or with me,” Will comments, still not looking directly at him.

Mike, in Will's peripheral, shakes his head. “All I do is imagine a life with you.” Will’s reproach must have come across stronger than he intended, because Mike lifts one of the hands steadying himself upright, and uses it to turn Will's face to him. “I have. You know what a pain it would be, trying to choose between Dustin or Lucas as my best man?”

“What does that have to do—” He starts, before it clicks. What it has to do with him, plainly, obviously, is that Mike has thought about marrying him. (Him, specifically — if he had anyone else across him at the altar, his best man would be Will.) “Oh.”

“Cause yours would be Jonathan, obviously, and so that leaves the both of them, and whichever one I don’t choose would be pissed.” Then, finishing off that point with a blush and a hand over his face— “I mean, it’s really stupid. That I've thought about that. Like, total teen girl scribbling her crush’s name in her notebook thing. But I mean, it’s a fantasy.” His face falling. “Who knows if they’d even be cool with that.”

“They were cool with me.”

“Yeah,” Mike says. He doesn’t sound convinced. “That’s not my point, I just… With El.” (For thirty seconds, the impossible picture of Will and Mike and rings and vows had so overwhelmed Will’s brain he’d fully forgotten about the active betrayal he was taking part in. It isn’t pleasant to recall.) “I don't love her.  And that sounds shitty, and I’m sorry, but it isn’t like she doesn’t know that. And she sure as hell doesn't love me.” It comes out bitter, and hell if that doesn’t make Will feel even more like a second choice. “But it's easy.”

Will wants to be mad. Mad at the implied corollary — that he is difficult — or mad for his sister’s sake, that she is an unloved means to a closeted end. Mad that he can’t even be sure if any of it is true, or if he’s the one being used, or if he and El both are. He wants to be pissed. But he just understands. “Yeah.”

“You’re so fucking brave, Will. Do you have any idea?”

Will shakes his head. “I’m not. Being brave means you have a choice — everyone’s always known about me.”

“We didn’t know, not actually, until you told us. And you could’ve hidden it, got a girlfriend, screwed her over. But you didn’t. I want to be that kind of brave.” He takes Will’s hand. “I’m gonna try to be. It’ll take a bit — shit, I’m not telling you to wait for me.”

Will shrugs. “Hard to wait if I'm dead.”

“Will.”

“Sorry.” He isn’t. Someone needs to enforce this boundary, this harsh reminder that any promises Mike makes tonight won’t matter by the next. “But even if I don’t die. I’ve been waiting for you for years—”

“I mean, not really.” Mike interrupts. “You had other guys.”

“None of them were you,” Will says, all too earnest. “You don't need to be jealous.”

“I mean, they don't seem worthy of jealousy." It isn't particularly convincing. "They didn't even go down on you.”

Will swats at his shoulder. “Adam was a good guy, don’t be mean.” Then, feeling a little brave, “Does this mean you plan to differentiate yourself on that front?”

Mike nods. “If you’ll let me.” He moves his hand to Will’s belt. “I want to, I really do.”

Will laughs, shaky, as Mike’s hand brushes him. “That's really gay, Mike.”

“Gayer than when I told you I loved you?” Mike asks.

Will shrugs. It’s a somewhat aborted motion, with Mike’s hand finding its way into his pants. “Kinda.”

“I want you to believe me,” Mike says. “That I love you, and not because you just blew me. That I’ve loved you forever. Can you believe me?”

“I want to.”

(He has to claw back some of his own. He is going to let Mike take him apart, but he needs to at least still have some pieces to put back together. He can’t give himself over to this belief.)

Mike smiles. “I can work with that.”

And he does.

Will doesn’t have all that much to say about it, really.

It’s good.

It’s Mike, and him. WillandMike, and how they slot together, and it isn’t all that much different than any other time they are working in sync, any other time they learn about each other. Mike fucks up somewhere in the middle and they take a break so Will can pull him up and kiss him through laughter and, it’s. It’s good.

It makes him wish he’ll live through tomorrow.

In the aftermath, his hands in Mike’s hair and breath on his mouth, he tries desperately to hold on to some of that anger from earlier. He tries to be pissed at Mike, mad that this is all he gets, mad that he’s been made an accessory to this betrayal of sister. But Mike’s fingers link in his, a small squeeze of the hand that seems to chase out anything but the love. Because Mike, whatever he believes about himself, is brave. Brave to do even this. Will never had an option of being anything but this — the fag, the outcast. He could never believably have had a girlfriend, an easy cover, a simple life. How can he fault Mike for wanting it to be easy? 

It’s fine, he tells himself, if Mike turns around tomorrow and none of it mattered. It’s fine, if they never speak of it again. He has Mike, in this moment.

“Do you believe me now?” Mike asks, sitting on the bathroom counter. He’s done brushing his teeth, and he showered first, but he’s still waiting, right there. (Once again, Will clawing back some of his own, not that it’s all that much. Insisting they not shower together only means that Mike sits on the other end of the curtain, smiling when Will steps out.)

Will grabs a towel from the hook on the wall and wraps it around himself. “I'm stupid if I say anything but no.”

Mike reaches out, wipes a line of water off his face. “You're really smart.”

“It’s a curse.” Mike hops off the counter to give Will room to brush his teeth. Not that all that much room is allowed, with Mike pressing his bare chest to Will’s back, arms around his waist. His wet hair is elegant, somehow, even as it drips over Will’s skin. Will rinses his mouth, and looks into the mirror, where he sees Mike’s face, eyes closed, tucked into his shoulder. He thinks, once again, that Mike is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. “I love you so much.”

Mike’s eyes blink open, making contact in the mirror. He presses a kiss to Will’s shoulder before tilting his face so they can look, eye-to-eye, no mirror required. “I’m gonna save you tomorrow. I promise.” 

Will grins. “Means you won’t have to give that shitty eulogy.” 

Mike scoffs and lightly backhands his shoulder. “Do you want to sleep in my room?”

The non sequitur catches Will off guard, as does the tone. A full-question, like there is a chance in hell the answer to that would ever be no.

“Obviously.” But then, the rationality — “But your parents might think—”

Mike shakes his head. “Fuck ‘em. Who cares?” Then, leaning back, a little sheepish. “And I mean, I have to get rid of the sheets down here anyway. End of the world or not, Mom would actually kill me if she saw the, uh. The cum. On the bedsheets.”

Will can’t help the flush of his face. “Good call.”

“So, I’m gonna be in my room anyway. So, you might as well be.”

Will laughs, and shrugs, And lets himself have this. “You make a good argument.”

In Mike’s room, wearing Mike’s pajamas and leaning against Mike’s bare chest with Mike’s hand in his hair — this is the calm before the storm, this is the thank you gift from the universe, this is all Will gets and it is so much more than he ever thought he would. “Is it selfish,” he asks, breathed onto Mike’s skin, “to hope the world ends right now?”

“Yeah,” Mike says, and Will flicks him in the shoulder. “Hey! I mean it. Don't hope that. We have a lot more to do.” He kisses Will’s forehead. It’s sweet and lingering, and it makes Will want — not even a want for Mike, really. For himself. An inertial desire, to continue existing as he is right now. “Maybe with each other?”

“Maybe we do.” He says it soft in the low light. “Mike. If I don't die tomorrow, every second I'm alive, I'm right next to you. However you want me."

He can feel Mike's grin against the side of his face. "You and me, together."

As tentative as belief finds him, a half-dead boy on the edge of the end of the world, Will shuts his eyes and lets himself relax into this moment.

And hopes this is a promise they can keep.