Chapter Text
Will Byers should’ve replaced his curtains when that idiot Mike Wheeler accidentally tore them down after climbing through his window two weeks ago. He put it off, telling himself he would go to Melvald’s and snag some screws after finals season was over, but he never did. Will’s chronic procrastination has never failed him before. Until this morning, that is.
Blinding light seeps through his bare window as Will stumbles up and out from under his warm sheets and braces himself against the harsh, stark white as he approaches the windowsill. The snow comes down in small flurries, already sticking to the Byers’ front lawn. With the confirmation that the first snow day of the year has fallen upon Hawkins (in the first week of winter break, no less), Will excitedly yanks his warmest sweater over his head, desperate to get outside. His alarm clock reads 9:47 am, so he tries not to get too excited as he heads through the hallway past Jonathan’s room, careful not to wake him (and probably Nancy).
When he turns the corner into the kitchen, Will sees Hopper already awake, meticulously laying logs down in the fireplace to warm up the chilly living room.
“Hey, Hop,” Will utters quietly, taking his place cross-legged on the squashy couch.
“Hey, kid,” Hopper replies, flashing him a smile over his shoulder. “You want something to eat? We’ve got cereal, toast, or… that's it, actually. I’ll pick up some groceries on the way back from the station tonight.”
Ignoring the fact that the main reason for the Byers’ dwindling rations is his and Mike’s late-night snacking, Will says, “You’re still going to the station? How much snow do you think there is? Is it safe?” A wave of worry suddenly washes over Will, the excitement of the white blanket outside receding and leaving him anxious and with visions of perilous ice and winds. Will shakes his head, dispelling the thoughts as he charts a course to the essentially vacant pantry.
As Will pours his first serving of Cap’n Crunch into a bowl, he turns around to see the scrunched-up face of his mother.
“What are you two doing awake- good lord, it’s bright,” Joyce hugs Will tight in greeting and heads for the living room.
“Snow started about two hours ago. No word on the conditions yet, but the radio should be reporting a weather advisory here pretty soon,” Hopper fills in, standing from the rug and wiping his hands on his worn jeans. “Wait until your brother’s awake to go out there, though.”
Will lets out a sigh of disappointment, contenting himself to sit by the fire for at least another hour as his brother sleeps in.
“And put on some proper clothes, for Christ's sake. Pajamas Will, in the snow, really?” Joyce gives him a warning but kind look, and Will nods, moving towards the closet in the hall to find his snow pants. Sorting through the boxes of junk and cold-weather clothes the Byers haven’t needed since moving back from California, Will finds the box labeled ‘Will – Winter' in his mother’s messy handwriting. But as he makes to open the box, he hears a faint sound. Freezing in place, Will listens for the sound again, taking the slightest step forward and leaning his ear around the corner. About 20 seconds later, he hears a loud clink and then a grunt coming from the direction of his room.
Warily venturing towards the source of the sound, Will rounds his bed to look out the window. As he approaches, he hears a muffled “Goddammit, Will,” exclaim from outside, a voice he knows all too well. With no curtains blocking his view, Will sees Mike outside his window, his dark curls a stark contrast to the white landscape.
“Come in, loser,” Will grins and turns away from the window after unlocking it and pushing up just enough for Mike to slip through. Mike drops the pebbles he was holding in his hand and scurries to the window, seeking the warm air.
“Man, you really need to put these curtains up. It’s been forever, and you can see right into your room. Super unsafe, if you ask me.” Mike declares, his voice strained as he ducks his head to get through.
“Hey, it’s not my fault they’re down in the first place! If you hadn’t been so reckless leaving the other night, I wouldn’t be in this predicament.” Will rolls his eyes. “How did you even get away from your own house in this weather, anyway?”
“Well, let's see,” Mike turns around, listing off his points on his fingers. “Mom was asleep, Nancy is here, as always, Holly was downstairs watching some movie with Mary, and Dad was half-asleep in front of the TV watching cartoons, so I left through my window.”
“Mike Wheeler and his damn windows,” Will crosses the room to close his door and turns back around to grimace at Mike. “Did you make sure to leave your own curtains intact?”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Mike mumbles as he collapses into Will’s desk chair. “So, are we calling up these other nerds, or what?”
“Jonathan won’t be up for another few hours, and Mom doesn’t want me unsupervised outside- god, I’m almost 18 for crying out loud… anyway, the more the merrier.” Will picks up his snow pants from where he dropped them on the floor in his haste to discover the mystery sound, clearing the mess that is his carpet by kicking comics and various sets of sketch pencils under his bed.
Mike slings his backpack off his shoulder and onto the floor, pulling out his supercom walkie to ring the other members of the party. Will leaves to retrieve the box of snow gear, hoisting the box down the hallway to the sounds of a joyous Mike.
“Okay, everybody’s in. Lucas says the snow isn’t too bad on the roads yet, and that he and Dustin should get here in ten minutes with no problem.”
“Perfect! Or … Here, see if these fit.” Will, not looking, tosses some snow pants in Mike’s general direction, accidentally hitting him in the face, eliciting a small ow! from the taller boy. They turn around, backs to each other, while they change, and Will can feel his face heat up.
He, bit by bit, came out three months ago to his friends and family, who welcomed him with open arms and supportive words. Since then, and since admitting he used to have a crush on a certain… someone… Will can feel the tension when he and Mike are alone together. Mike still sleeps over all the time and sneaks out in the early morning (hence the broken curtains), unbeknownst to the oblivious and detached Ted and Karen Wheeler, but Will feels an itchy and suffocating tension in the air when it falls silent between them. Sometimes when Mike is over, Will stays up until the wee hours of the morning sketching. No matter what he tries to draw or how he distracts himself, Will’s drawings always end up being portraits. Of Mike. The sharp jut of his nose, and how his lips protrude softly when he sleeps. The way his long eyelashes brush his freckled cheeks, how the soft nightlight next to Will’s bed illuminates the slopes of his face, his high cheekbones and clear, soft skin… Will is completely and utterly screwed.
He swore he would get over his “crush,” but loving someone for over ten years makes it hard to move on. And if anyone knows that, it's Will. And just objectively, as an artist, Will thinks that Mike is an attractive subject and easy to appreciate and depict on paper… objectively.
Now, Will thinks about the way the snow will chill Mike’s cheeks and turn them red, blood seeping in and warming his face, imagining the way his colored pencils would look illustrating Mike’s flushed cheeks and chapped lips. Thinking about Mike behind him and the childhood snow day memories creeping to the surface of his brain, Will takes a deep breath and continues pulling his snow pants up.
After lacing up their snow boots and pulling on gloves, Dustin and Lucas finally arrive, Mike and Will racing through the house to the front door, their loud and heavy footsteps met with shushes from Joyce.
“See you later, Mom! I promise I’ll stay warm,” Will says with a smile as he opens up the front door.
“Thank you, Ms. Byers!” The three other boys chorus as the door shuts. When they make it outside and to the empty field across the street, it's almost immediately an all-out war, Dustin relentless in his ability to form and hurl snowballs with perfect aim. Will is easily toppled over by his persistent firing of the frigid spheres, and when he falls flat on his bottom with a laugh, Mike helps him up, Will trying not to think about how warm his hand feels even through their gloves despite seeing his own breath distinct against the freezing morning air.
The snow continues coming down in flurries, but growing stronger and stronger, blinding the boys and leaving their faces dry and raw. After lobbing snowball after snowball at each other, the boys sit down to take a breather.
“You guys ready to go back? If I stay out here for one more minute, I’m pretty sure my face is going to crack open from the wind,” Will suggests, vaguely gesturing in the direction of his house.
“Yeah, I’m zapped and ready for something warm to drink,” Lucas agrees, helping Dustin up as the boys dust off snow from their clothes and head towards the small house. Walking across the street, Will almost slips, the road and driveway slick with growing ice. Before he can fall over and embarrass himself more than he already has, Mike catches his arm and places a hand on his shoulder, causing Will’s skin to burn there even under the four layers separating their skin.
“You okay?” Mike catches Will’s eye, and they hang back from the two boys up ahead.
“Oh, no, yeah, I’m good. Just… It's icy.”
“Hey, don’t worry. We’ll all get home safe and see what the conditions are like. We can turn on the radio and see when we get back to your house, i- if you want?” Mike gives Will a small, warm smile and pulls him in for a prolonged side hug, holding him to his side for the rest of the way to the Byers’ front door and making sure he doesn’t fall again.
Upon their arrival, Joyce scrambles to get a warm pot of milk on the stove for hot chocolate, and the boys shed their layers and sit down on the floor by the fireplace, Hopper on the couch with a third cup of coffee. Once mugs are warming their palms, Mike reaches over the coffee table to fetch the radio, extending the antenna as he places it on the floor between them.
After a moment of static, the radio emits some semblance of human voices, Mike working to tune it properly.
“Helloooo, Hawkins!” Robin's familiar and unwavering voice projected into the room. “This snowy morning has brought much fun for kids of all ages, but watch out, because it looks like… oh! Wow! A blizzard seems to be blowing into town, so make sure to get inside soo-”
At that exact moment, the phone in the Byers’ kitchen rings loudly, Joyce moving towards the wall to answer. After a minute, “Dustin! Claudia says you need to head home before the storm sets in, and, oh- wait a second… Lucas, you too. Load your bikes into the trunk of the car, and I’ll take you home.”
Mike and Will exchange a look, knowing glances that say “just us two left, as always,” and Will nods at Mike, a comforting gesture that makes Mike feel more valued than his parents ever could. After saying their goodbyes, they wave at the other two boys as Joyce drives away. Not sure what else to do, they go back to Will’s room and uncover his extensive collection of comics, enough to keep them occupied for days on end.
“Whoa! You got the new X-Men?” Mike exclaims as he leafs through Will’s collection, a shocked grin on his face.
“Yeah! Hopper got it for me as an early Christmas gift on his trip to Indianapolis. Isn’t it awesome!?” Will lets himself appreciate Mike’s astonished expression for a moment, his hair matted to his face from sweat and snow, the way the shadows of the flakes falling outside play on Mike’s face, filing it away in his brain for later to sketch when he can’t sleep tonight, before returning to the stack of Daredevil he was rifling through.
When Joyce called them downstairs for dinner, the boys groaned and reluctantly left Will’s room to eat. Joyce and Hopper had prepared a lackluster meal for the four of them, and Jonathan (Will assumes Nancy slipped out sometime while the party was outside). On the stovetop sits what could, in some alternate universe, be called a casserole.
“Sorry, boys. We could only work with the groceries we have. Hop says the roads are too iced over, and we weren’t able to run down to Bradley’s and go shopping.” At this news, Will shoots Mike a worried glance, but Mike is already looking back at him with a reassuring nod, his features coming into clear focus as he moves past Will and towards the “casserole.”
“I think it looks great, Mrs. Byers!” Mike exclaims, taking a seat next to Will, and he silently thanks him for moving the conversation away from the weather and lightening the mood. They all sit down, and opposite him, Will follows Jonathan’s glare across the table to where Mike sits. He quickly kicks Jonathan’s ankle under the table, giving him a warning look, eliciting a huff of frustration from his brother.
Will picks at his dinner, and the table is mostly silent, leaving an awkward tension hanging in the air.
“So,” Will says, unable to handle any more of Jonathan’s suspicious stares and the sound of utensils scraping on plates. “Any ideas what to do while we wait for the weather to pass?”
“Finally get started on your college applications?” Jonathan teases, which earns him a frown from their mother. “Kidding! Uhh… We have a bunch of those old VHS tapes in the box under my bed if you guys want to dig those out.”
Mike looks at Will, and they nod, their evening plans decided. Mike looks back towards the table and the Byers family, taking in the quiet yet comforting atmosphere, and Will can’t help but notice his smile falter. A sudden sense of pride fills Will, happy that his house can be the one Mike runs to, and grateful that the distance didn’t tear them apart nearly as much as he thought it would.