Archive of Our Own

(“I’ll take care of you.”

“It’s rotten work.”

“Not to me. Not if it’s you.”)

Mike was still asleep when Will had first woken up, because of course he was. Mike Wheeler never did anything before ten a.m. unless he had to— and today, on a Tuesday with no morning classes, he did not have to.

The sun had just been coming up, since it was eight-thirty on a January morning. Most of Mike’s face was turned entirely out of view, tucked behind the soft cushion of the duvet and the spill of hair falling over it, but Will could still picture his expression— mouth slack, brows canted upwards, probably drooling a little bit. 

Will smiled to himself, watching, for a moment, the slow rise and fall of Mike’s shoulders as he breathed, whistling low and soft through his nose. Mike Wheeler not only drooled, which alone was something Will would probably use as ammunition against him for the rest of forever, but he also snored, which was maybe the best thing to happen to Will in his entire life. Mike would deny it at every opportunity, but it was true, clear as day. Will was awake to hear the proof for himself.

It was rare they got moments like this, Will thought, leaning back onto one elbow on the pillow with a content hum. He watched Mike let out a little snuffling noise, as a strand of hair blew away from his face and settled softly back down again. 

Will had blocked all his classes into the morning so he’d have the rest of the day to kind of just do whatever he wanted. And Mike, ever the ardent protester against waking up before his circadian rhythms decreed it to be so, blocked all his classes into the hours after lunch. So they rarely got mornings together, and they rarely got afternoons together, but Will wasn’t complaining. This was good. Moments like this with Mike were good. Moments like this with Mike— the sheets still warm and worn soft under them, weak daylight streaming tentatively in through the windows, their whole apartment gone a bit chilly where the heater had turned off in the middle of the night— these moments were more than Will could have ever dared to ask for.

And then— it hit him, all at once, why he was being awarded this quiet moment of peace, why he felt so strangely well-rested, why the room was seemingly brighter at the same time of day than it had been the morning before. “Shit,” he hissed, glancing at the clock and then jumping straight out of bed, throwing the covers back, ignoring entirely whether the sudden rush of cold air might wake Mike up. “Shit,” he said again, scrambling to the bathroom, turning the faucet on full blast. “Shit, shit, shit!”

That had been twenty minutes ago. And now Will is having the actual worst day known to mankind, ever, and it’s only eight-thirty in the morning.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic. But he’s running late for class and it’s only the second day of the semester, and this is a professor he’s trying to impress, so he’s sure that sprinting across campus and showing up as a sweaty, out-of-breath mess with bedhead is not the best way to go about doing such a thing. And he’s trying and trying to fix said bedhead in the little mirror hanging over the closet door, flattening it down with water and something he’s found in a jar under the bathroom sink, but it’s not going away.

Worst day ever.

And, okay, he’s woken up late so that means he’s going to have to choose between breakfast and coffee, because there’s no time to make both. And he’d be inclined to choose coffee, on any other day, except right when he’s tripping over his feet down the hallway is when his stomach lets out the loudest, most embarrassing noise he’s ever heard in his life. “Great,” he says aloud, righting the straps of his backpack on his shoulder. “Awesome.” At least Mike wasn’t around to hear that.

And then—

“Wow,” Mike quips, from where he’s leaning against the kitchen counter and barely stifling a laugh. “Was that you?”

Will blinks, looking down at his watch. Eight thirty-two. Mike Standard Time dictates that Mike would usually be face-planted directly into a pillow right about now. “Mike?” he frowns, walking over to the kitchen. “Why are you awake?”

Mike ignores him. “Here,” he says, twisting around behind him and grabbing a mug sitting ready on the counter. “Coffee.”

God, Will loves him. Will loves him so much. He stares. “Coffee? You made coffee?”

Okay, so his brain isn’t fully awake yet. Sue him.

“Yeah,” Mike laughs, beckoning him over with one hand and holding the mug out with the other, “I did. I came down while you were freaking out about your hair. Which looks nice, by the way, so I don’t know what you—”

“Oh my God,” Will says, gaping like a fool, surely, in utter disbelief. He drops his bag on the table and walks over. “Oh my God, you’re amazing.”

“I know,” Mike grins, looking entirely too gleeful for Will’s own good, probably. And then, just as Will’s hand is about to make blessed contact with the white ceramic handle of the mug— “Nope,” Mike chirps, holding it up and out of Will’s reach. “First, my reward for being the best boyfriend ever, actually.”

“Oh my God,” Will groans, looking up at where the mug is hovering, just barely too far for him to grab. “I hate that you’re taller than me. Even by, like, two inches. You’re the worst.”

“That’s not what you were saying two seconds ago,” Mike says, leaning forwards, and yeah, okay. Mike’s got his number there. He waggles his eyebrows. Will hates him. So much. (He doesn’t. Not even a little.) “Come on. One kiss, and you can have the coffee.”

“It’s going to spill,” Will insists, and then he catches sight of the fading pillow creases on the side of Mike’s cheek, and the sleepy blink of his eyelids, and his giant Star Wars t-shirt and the sweatpants he stole from Will forever ago, a little too short at the ankles, and he’s not sure, actually, why he was protesting in the first place. “Okay, fine,” he amends, the not-really-a-protest coming out maybe a bit too eager for his liking. “One kiss.”

“For now—” Mike starts, and then the coffee is being set down on the counter and Mike’s arms are wrapping around his waist and tugging him gently forward, and Will is falling right back into the soft, cotton-wrapped, sleep-warmed weight of Mike’s body— smiling, somehow, before their lips even meet.

It’s astounding, a bit, how overwhelming it is that Will gets to kiss Mike Wheeler. Like, they’re kissing. On the lips, even. And if you’d told Will this when he was sixteen, he probably would have, like, cried or something. Okay, he wouldn’t have cried, but he would’ve wanted to, maybe. He wouldn’t have believed it, that’s for sure, that this is something he has now— Mike Wheeler. He has Mike Wheeler. He has an apartment with Mike and he has kitchen-counter kisses with Mike and when they’re both back from class, he’ll have dinners with Mike and then he and Mike will brush their teeth at the sink, standing so close their elbows bump into each other and they knock over all the bottles lining the counter. He has— he has so many things now. It’s no wonder he smiles so much, and all the damn time, too.

“Okay,” Mike says after a moment, pulling away with a frown. “What the hell?”

Will leans back, confused. “What? What happened?”

Mike twists around in place. “Not you,” he says, “I was just wondering why your toast wasn’t done yet, and that’s because I forgot to turn the stupid toaster on–”

Will means to tease Mike about that, because it’s so uniquely something he’d do, but instead he finds himself saying, soft and surprised, “You made me toast?”

“I tried,” Mike huffs, pushing the lever down on the toaster and watching the slices go down at last. “But I got distracted.”

Will grins. “By me?”

“No,” Mike scoffs, but his eyes are twinkling. “By the Earth-shattering growl your stomach was making to announce your presence– okay, okay!” he laughs, as Will gasps, flicking him in the side of the cheek. “Okay, sorry, but it was funny, okay–”

“I hate you,” Will says, except he’s grinning so wide that it’s starting to hurt, and he’s still got both arms flung around Mike’s shoulders, and he’s still pressing him right into the corner of the counter and not making the slightest attempt to move, so it’s probably not believable, even a little bit. “I really do, you know that?”

“Oh, yeah,” Mike hums, “I can tell,” as he leans in and presses a kiss to the tip of Will’s nose. Quick and easy. It’s remarkable how easy things seem these days. Sometimes it feels like all the turbulence of Will’s childhood was worth it if it led him here after all, like maybe there was a point where the dizzying ups and downs and fist-clenching, heart-stopping moments of doubt finally evened out into something smoother. Sweeter and calmer, like some kind of cosmic reward for everything they’d gone through together. 

And Will hadn’t even realized until it had already happened. It had been so easy falling in love with Mike. So effortless that he’d barely been aware until after the fact, left reeling with the force of it— this unknown, messy power of a thing that’s making Mike do things like kiss him all over his face and wake up early to make him coffee and fit his hands into the curve of Will’s waist like the missing piece of a puzzle slotting carefully into place.

The toaster dings loudly, and they both jump, and then, simultaneously, burst into laughter. “The damn toaster,” Mike is saying, pulling the bread out onto a plate. Will tucks his head into Mike’s shoulder and tries not to laugh harder, thinking about that startled, wide-eyed look on Mike’s face. “I’m surprised I haven’t burnt anything in it yet.”

“I’d eat it if you did,” Will says easily, reaching across Mike for the butter and nodding. “I would, really.”

And– look, it’s hard to spread butter onto your toast when there’s someone clinging on to you, palms wide and steady over the wool of your sweater, pressing warm, giddy kisses to your cheeks. But it’s not like Will’s going to complain about it. Mike is warm and he smells like their body wash and he’s still a little pliant and hazy from interrupted sleep. And– Will’s seriously going to steal those sweatpants back from him someday, because they were really comfortable, okay? (He’s not. He’d let Mike keep them forever if he wanted.) Things are good. Will is never going to complain about anything in his life again.

“Your hands are cold,” Will complains around a mouthful of bread, “and your face, too.”

Okay, so he’s never going to complain about anything in his life again– after this. He holds the toast up to Mike’s mouth, a bit thoughtlessly, focused on the rumpled curl of hair settled around Mike’s ear. 

“Okay,” Mike says simply, turning his head and taking a bite. He chews thoughtfully, swallows, and then he promptly sticks his hands up the sides of Will’s sweater.

Will does not– he does not yelp, okay? That would be very undignified of him, and Will Byers is an extremely dignified person, thank you. “Mike,” he grits out, just barely managing to hold on to his plate as is. Mike’s fingers twitch, and Will bites back a scream. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“You should layer up,” Mike says, in lieu of an actual answer, and grins toothily at him. “It’s going to be cold out today. You don’t want to get sick.”

“I’m plenty warm.” Will pops the last piece of toast into his mouth as he says it, so it comes out a bit garbled. And maybe it’s a mark of just how much Mike tolerates him– likes him, and something beyond that, even– that he doesn’t even flinch at this. “It’ll be fine.”

“Hm,” Mike hums, looking a bit apprehensive, and then Will is yanking his hands out from under his sweater and moving them around to his back, and the brief moment of doubt gives way to a pleased smile.

“Shit,” Will says after a minute, catching a glimpse of the clock above the stove and trying to wriggle free, “I’m– I’m really going to be late now. Mike, I’m going to be so–”

“Calm down,” Mike says, tightening his hold, “you have, like, two full minutes before you need to go.”

“Yes,” Will says, “two minutes. Two minutes for– for shoes, and getting my things, and–”

“Two minutes,” Mike repeats, tugging Will back in, the empty plate of toast and coffee mug abandoned to their side. “Two minutes. You’ll be fine.”

So Will’s only a few minutes late to class in the end. But whatever. He takes it all back. This actually is the best day of his life, ever.

Will’s good mood lasts a full 24 hours, if you can believe that. He’s not sure what it is— maybe just the memory of Mike kissing him awake over coffee and toast, the lingering vestiges of stress at the thought of the day ahead melting straight out of Will’s brain. That’s the kind of thing he could get used to, he thinks. And then he corrects himself— that’s the kind of thing he can get used to. The kind of thing he should get used to. Because that’s something he has now.

The next morning is better. Will’s alarm goes off on time, just as the light’s starting to come in through the slats in the window. Next to him, Mike rolls over, pressing a barely-awake kiss to Will’s shoulder.

“Morning,” he mumbles, almost entirely indecipherably, and almost entirely into the pillow. “You woke up on time.”

Will laughs, pushing the covers back. “I did. No coffee for me today?” he teases, dropping an answering kiss to the top of Mike’s head.

There’s a pause as Mike shifts, blinking blearily. Then, hands coming up to rub at his eyes and around a small yawn: “I’ll make you some,” Mike says, surprisingly earnestly for someone so asleep, and as if Will was not entirely kidding anyway. “Do you want me to?”

Something surprised and warm settles into Will’s stomach at this— the thought of Mike “I-need-my-eight-hours” Wheeler offering to get up before ten in the morning, again, just to make Will coffee before he leaves for class. “That’s okay,” Will says, probably smiling like an idiot. God, he loves him. He loves Mike so much that it physically hurts sometimes, this swooping rush he still gets whenever Mike so much as just looks his way. “Get your sleep.”

“Y’sure?” Mike mumbles, but his eyes are still closed, and he’s moved onto Will’s side of the bed now, arm already splayed out over the empty spot where he’d been lying down. “I can if you- if you want.”

Mike’s not going to make it down the hallway without passing out again. “I’m sure,” Will laughs, dropping another kiss to the curve of Mike’s shoulder, just because he can. Mike’s warm, even in the frigid air of their bedroom, because hey, they’re college students— they simply can’t afford to blast the heater all night, okay? “I’ll see you after class, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Mike gets out, definitely half asleep by now. “Love you.”

And that brings forth a whole other wave of pure, incandescent joy that Will could probably ride straight through to Easter, if he wanted. “Love you too,” he says, smiling so hard his face hurts. Maybe it’s kind of a stupid thing to feel like this, like your heart is glowing something ridiculous every time your boyfriend says anything to you. Is that lame? That’s probably lame. Will is so— he’s lame, basically. There’s no getting around that. He’s turned into someone who’s lame and a loser, and it’s all Mike Wheeler’s fault.

Will probably could have ridden this out straight through to Easter, actually, if it weren’t for around eleven-thirty, when his mid-lecture reverie is interrupted by a gentle, throbbing pain erupting right behind his eyes.

“Ow,” he mutters, wincing. He should really start carrying some Tylenol around with him, or something, but whatever. Only two hours of classes left, and then he can go home, and fall back into a blissful, blissful sleep. It’ll get better by the end of the day.

Except— that doesn’t happen. Because then he remembers that his Print Media professor’s holding an optional demo across campus, and this is the professor that Will’s trying to get in with, okay? So he’s not going to not go. So the second the bell rings, Will hauls ass, pushing the weird, cottony feeling in his head and the slow exhaustion starting to creep down the length of his body to the back of his mind.

And he doesn’t even end up paying attention for most of the demo— even though it’s very interesting and there’s a couple people there that he recognizes and he introduces himself to the professor at the end of it, so it’s all very successful. But it’s only four-thirty in the afternoon, and Will’s starting to feel a bit like he’d just pulled three all-nighters in a row, when he most certainly did not. He’d gotten a good amount of sleep last night, actually, and it was very— well, maybe restful isn’t the right word, because it’s not like he ever really sleeps that well— but it was good. And Mike was there, so. It was better than good, even.

Will stumbles through the apartment door at around five, feeling strangely unsteady on his own two feet, and tosses his bag onto the ground with a groan so loud that Mike, who’s in the kitchen and concentrating on pouring hot water out of the kettle, looks up with a concerned expression on his face.

“Hi,” Mike smiles, “I thought you’d be back earlier.”

“Print Media demo,” Will gets out, watching Mike watch him, and mustering up the biggest smile he can manage in return. His head feels like it actually might be on the verge of exploding. “It ran late and I—” he stops, leaning heavily against the chair nearest to him, rubbing at his temples with one hand. “Sorry,” he says, “I, uh.”

“Will?” Mike frowns, and then he’s coming closer. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Will nods, and then regrets it, immediately, as the pain in his head instantly blooms. He fights back a wince. “I’m just a little tired. I think I just need to sleep more.”

“You look a little flushed,” Mike is saying, and then there’s a hand coming up against his cheek, cool against his own skin. Will absentmindedly leans into the touch.

“Okay,” Mike says, frowning a bit harder, moving his hand from Will’s cheek to his forehead. “You’re definitely- you’re a bit warm, actually. Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

“Yes,” Will insists, but any semblance of authority he might have held over his own well-being is immediately undercut by the sudden wave of dizziness washing over him.

“Whoa,” he hears Mike say, a bit far away and voice tinged with mild panic, placing a steadying hand on his side, “Will? Will, you’re okay, come on. Sit down, here—” and then there’s a chair being slid under him, and Will’s blinking rapidly, trying to clear his vision from where it’s gone a bit watery.

“I’m okay,” he tries, and then Mike’s face swims back into view. “Mike-”

“You’re not okay,” Mike says, kneeling so they’re level and putting one hand back on his forehead. “You almost fainted.”

“I didn’t faint,” Will splutters, and then he starts to feel a bit woozy again so he grabs, on instinct, at Mike’s arm where it’s still reaching in front of his face. “Oh—”

“Uh huh.” Mike sounds wholly unimpressed. “What the hell did you do?”

“Nothing,” Will protests, “I’m fine, I just need, like, a nap, maybe, I was feeling like this earlier too and it was fine—”

“You were feeling like this all day?” Now Mike is frowning again. “And you didn’t come home?”

“Like I said,” Will insists, “it’s nothing. I’m just tired.”

Mike studies him carefully. Will shoots him his best no bullshit face back. They’re stubborn, the two of them, and neither is backing down. This staring contest is not for the weak of heart.

“Fine,” Mike concedes, “but if you’re not better tomorrow, you’re staying home.”

“You can’t make me,” Will jibes immediately, even though, in all honesty, Mike could make him do pretty much anything without even asking.

“And you can’t even stand up without falling over,” Mike counters. Which, true. Whatever.

“Whatever,” Will says, still feeling a bit woozy. “Can I go to bed now?”

“Yes,” Mike says immediately, any pretense of sarcasm immediately slipping away. “You need rest. And tea, and soup, and—”

“A nap,” Will repeats, brain still feeling a bit like mush. This had better go away by tomorrow. He’s got things to do.

“We’ll start with that,” says Mike, and then, “here, let’s get you to bed.”

Will’s about to protest again, to say that he can get himself to bed on his own, thank you very much, and that the hallways isn’t that long and he’s not that dead on his feet— and then his head throbs so sharply that spots start blinking in and out of his vision.

“Okay,” he agrees. “Yeah let’s- let’s get me to bed.”

When Will wakes up, he has no idea how long he’s been asleep.

Time’s turned syrupy and thick like molasses, sometime between when he and Mike were in the kitchen and now. Come to think of it, he doesn’t even remember falling asleep, so he must have been out for a while. The room is mostly dark, but, as Will slowly blinks his eyes open, he can tell that the lamp must be on because everything is washed in a faint orange glow. And then, blinking hard as if that’ll clear the weird fog settling in his brain, he notices other things: how hot he feels— even though this is probably right around the time of day when their apartment starts getting super cold. The pressure building up in the minute spot right behind each of his eyes. The dip in the bed next to him, the heavy weight of a figure sitting back against the pillows, looking down at something in their lap. Mike.

“Mike,” he gets out, and Mike startles gently, eyes going wide for a split second, and then he relaxes again.

“Hi,” Mike smiles fondly down at him. “I didn’t notice you were up. How are you feeling?”

How is Will feeling? Mostly the same, honestly. Except hotter, and kind of out of it, and more headache-y, and—

“Water,” Will croaks, suddenly just registering how dry his entire throat has gone. He blinks, eyes still adjusting to the dim light. “I need—”

“Okay, okay,” Mike is saying, and then he’s shifting away, towards the bedside table, “hold on, here,” and then he’s holding up a glass of water, coaxing Will into a sitting position. “Come on, sit up,” he says, “I don’t want you choking.”

Will, with no small amount of reluctance, drags himself up, the blankets falling away around him as he takes the glass. Mike sets the back of his hand against his cheek as he drinks, frowning.

“Your hand is freezing,” Will manages, kind of already wanting to dive back into the blankets and go back to sleep forever, but also kind of wanting to rip all his skin off in one go because he’s so sweaty, and it’s so hot in this room—

“Yeah,” Mike laughs softly, “that, and— you definitely have a fever.”

“I do not have a fever,” Will attempts, even though he is very much hot and sweaty and the edges of his mind are already going a bit blurry with exhaustion. “I’m fine.”

Mike does not look convinced. “How are you feeling?” he asks again, as Will lies back down against the pillows.

“Um,” Will says, because he feels a little awful, actually, but there’s no way he’s telling Mike that. “Okay?”

Mike looks, if at all possible, even less convinced than before. “Okay,” he echoes. “Uh huh.”

Will shifts, coming in to lean his forehead against Mike’s hip. Mike moves easily to accommodate him, hand coming up to card through Will’s hair like he didn’t even have to think about it, pushing back the few strands that had gotten plastered to his forehead and the sides of his face. “How long was I asleep?”

“Uh, four hours?” Mike starts, and then, at the look on Will’s face— “I know,” he laughs, hand shaking slightly with the force of it, “I was going to wake you up to eat something but you were out cold.”

“Shit,” Will startles, making to get back up as it hits him, “I had– I had homework, and I was supposed to get started on—”

“Oh my God,” he hears Mike say, “Will, you’re joking, right?”

Will blinks. “Um. No? I have—”

“You could be giving the State of the Union tomorrow and I wouldn’t care,” Mike says, “you need rest.”

“I just rested,” Will says weakly, even though the act of sitting up as fast as he just did is sending him into a mild head rush, and he’s trying his hardest to keep his expression neutral— but either he looks flat-out horrible right now or Mike can just read him too well, because then Mike’s leaning forward, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead.

“Sleep,” he says, already climbing out of bed, “I’ll bring you more water. Do you want anything to eat?”

Will’s starting to feel a bit overwhelmed, but not– not in a bad way, necessarily. On the contrary, it’s kind of nice. Being cared about. Being cared for. And Will’s still getting used to it, the unabashed, all-encompassing way that Mike loves the people closest to him, still unused to the ease with which Mike does things like this— kissing him quick and easy on a whim, bringing him things, making him coffee and toast when he’s running late. So easily, like second nature, like- like Mike’s been wanting to do them so long that he doesn’t even have to think about it anymore.

Not that he’d ever tell Mike this, because then he’d just keep doing it, and doing it and doing it and– and then Will would die, probably. “No,” Will smiles tiredly, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hands. “No, I’m still– I don’t really want to eat anything right now.”

“Fine. For now,” Mike adds, the accusing point of his finger entirely undercut by the look on his face, “but only because I don’t want you, like, yakking—”

“I’m not going to throw up!” Will protests, even as Mike ducks out of the room, laughing. “I’m fine!”

Or maybe Will’s not fine, because a fever state-induced hysteria is the only plausible explanation as to how he fell asleep wearing jeans. For five hours, apparently, so he’s thinking maybe Mike’s onto something, as he tugs on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt that may or may not be his. He lost track a while ago.

Mike comes back a couple minutes later, fresh glass of water in hand. “Oh, good,” he says, looking relieved, “you took the jeans off. I was so uncomfortable just looking at you.”

Will pulls a face. “You were uncomfortable? I’m the one who’s—” and then he cuts himself off before he can say sick, because then Mike is really going to do something dumb like bring him soup in bed and make him stay home from his classes the next day, and Will does not need either of those things, okay?

“Sick?” Mike raises his eyebrows. Will hates how well he knows him.

“No,” Will tries, even over a yawn. His head is starting to feel fuzzy again, after one moment of startling clarity as Mike had been running his fingers through his hair. “I’m not— I’m not—”

Will gets cut off by another yawn, which is what gives Mike the opportunity to swoop in and say, “Bed.”

And then Will looks at Mike, climbing back into his side of the bed, wearing Will’s stolen sweats again— and Will’s wearing Mike’s stolen t-shirt, so it’s cool, he can’t even be mad— holding a book and pen in one hand and holding the covers open for Will with the other, waiting.

“Okay,” Will agrees at last, but he’s not sure why he was ever resisting in the first place. He looks up at Mike, who’s still leaning against the pillows, book open halfway and pen in hand. “What are you reading?”

Mike hums softly, scribbling something on the page. “I’m annotating a book for class,” he says, as Will settles down, “we’re discussing it later this week.”

“Oh?” Will peeks at the cover, and then laughs. “Tolkien? You’re reading Tolkien for class?”

“Fantasy Lit is awesome, okay,” Mike huffs, but he’s smiling as he says it. “I fought tooth and nail for a spot in this class.”

“You would,” Will says, because it’s true— Mike would take a fantasy literature class as an elective. Will loves that about him, loves that Mike’s the kind of person to still get excited over these things he used to love as a kid. Things he and Will used to love together.

For a minute, the pen scratching softly against the paper is the only sound filling the room, accompanied by the gentle rustling of Will rearranging himself in the blankets, already startling to feel a bit stifled and hot in his own skin. And then— 

“Read to me?”

Mike looks down at him, a bit amused. “This? You want me to read you The Silmarillion?”

In all honesty, Mike could read out their grocery lists and Will would probably be sitting there, in some kind of hyperattentive rapture, listening. Bread, eggs, milk— “Yeah,” he says, coming in to rest his head against Mike’s hip again. He’s already feeling half asleep, even just lying down— in clothes that aren’t jeans, thank you. The fridge is humming again. White noise. It’s nice. “If you– if that’s not distracting to you.”

“Of course not,” Mike says simply, then puts his pen down. “I’ll annotate later.”

“I don’t want you to—” Will starts to protest, frowning, and then Mike is shushing him— rude, hello— and is carding a hand through his hair again. He rubs one thumb against Will’s temple, right over the spot where his brain feels about ready to explode out of his skull, and then coherent thought becomes something that slips immediately beyond his reach.

“Okay, brace yourself,” Mike says, and then, as if Will was asking him because he wanted to pay attention to the literary narrative or whatever, “it’s a bit hard to follow.”

“Okay,” Will says, eyes already starting to close, just with the gentle touch of Mike’s fingers brushing along his scalp, tucking strands of hair behind his ears as they get shaken loose. This is nice. This is- this is a kind of comfort that Will never would have let himself think he could have, a kind of comfort that seemed a bit too out of reach for boys like him already. And then, for him, Will Byers — whose luck tended to err on the side of nonexistent on an average day— well, it had never really been in the picture at all.

“But the other Ainur looked upon this habitation set within the vast spaces of the World,” Mike starts, and Will lets Mike’s voice wash over him as his eyes slip closed the rest of the way. The building pressure behind his eyes subsides, the hot, frenetic thrumming under his skin fading, even if just for a moment. “And they observed the wind and the air, and the matters of which Arda was made,” Mike continues, hand lifting away momentarily as he turns the page. His voice drops to something hushed and level, almost theatrical, but it sounds like he’s smiling around the words.

Will thinks maybe this should be the resting state of the universe— warm, golden lamp glow and Mike’s voice and the steadfast weight of his presence next to Will in bed. Their bed. Will could probably exist in this moment for a very long time.

He’ll be better tomorrow, he thinks, Mike’s soft narration filling in the hazy gaps in his already rapidly dissolving thoughts. This is good. This could heal him of anything.

He’s asleep before Mike turns the page again.

He’s definitely not better tomorrow.

The first thing Will registers is the grating, incessant beeping of the alarm.

The second thing he registers is that he might be dying, just a little bit.

“Oh, God,” he gets out, clapping a hand to his forehead and groaning, “make it stop—”

Beside him, Mike shifts. “You’re the one who kept the alarm,” he mumbles, somehow finding enough coordination within himself to reach over Will and slam the off button. “I told you to not even—”

“Yeah, okay,” Will says, because talking is– well, it’s kind of painful, actually, because his throat feels very raw and kind of sandpapery, and there’s a horrible pressure built up behind his sinuses, and his voice is coming out all weird and nasally, and— “Whatever,” he says, trying to maneuver his way out of bed, “I did, so—”

“Will.” And then there’s an arm wrapping around his waist, pulling him back down, and Will honestly doesn’t have the energy to fight it so he just goes, loose and pliant in Mike’s grip.

“Hey—” he tries to protest, more on instinct than anything else, and then Mike is swiping a cool hand across his forehead and easing him back down onto the pillow.

“You sound horrible,” Mike says, voice still a bit scratchy with sleep. “And you’re even warmer than yesterday. You’re not going anywhere.”

“But—” Will tries, and then his voice gives up on him entirely and the word cuts off in a weird, lilting crack that Mike would’ve given him shit for on any other day, surely.

“Will,” Mike says again, insistent, tucking his face into the dip between Will’s shoulder blades and easing one arm around him until their bodies are pulled flush. “Sleep.”

Will’s not sure if Mike’s been secretly commanding the hypnotic power of persuasion this entire time they’ve known each other, but maybe he has been— because the second the word comes out of Mike’s mouth, sleep comes for him again, washing over him until everything but the warm press of Mike’s chest against his back fades to gray.

He hadn’t thought one person could sleep this much. Certainly not him. He’s always been kind of a light sleeper anyway, so even if he ever got more than a few hours a night, it wasn’t usually the greatest sleep ever. 

But now, sleep is hitting him with the force of a freight train. The next time he wakes, Mike’s already gotten up, moving quietly around the room getting ready for class. Will’s never here for this part— it feels weirdly intimate, watching Mike’s blurry form move with his eyes half open, listening to his footsteps pass the bed one way and then another, walking back and forth from the closet to get something. Will would say something— ‘Hi,’ or ‘Have a nice day,’ or ‘I’ll see you later,’— but he can’t muster up the energy to turn his head, move his mouth, anything.

Instead, he lies still, listening. Mike curses softly as he bumps his leg against the table, which makes Will smile, and then there’s the soft rustling of him pulling his jacket on. Will waits for the sound of the door and receding footsteps, but all of a sudden, he feels a hand smoothing the hair out of his eyes, a bit damp with sweat, and then a kiss is being pressed to the top of his head— so light that he almost misses it.

“Bye,” Mike whispers, the soft scent of their soap drifting over him. And, oh right, Mike thinks he’s asleep still— “I love you,” Mike says, casual and easy, like it’s nothing at all. And then he’s gone.

That’s nice, Will thinks, something taking tremulous flight inside him. That’s— okay, and he knows they’re dating, right? They’ve been together for a while now, but— this is the kind of thing that’s hard to get used to, still. Being wanted is a strange enough sensation as is, but being wanted in passive, fleeting thought, lingering in the back of someone’s mind even when they think you don’t know— that’s foreign. That’s six-year-old Will, teetering on his bike with the training wheels taken off.

Will rolls over, somehow unwilling to untangle himself from the mess of blankets, despite the puddle of sweat surely forming on the sheets and the tangible dampness growing across his hairline and brow. Maybe he should have said something. Maybe– maybe, like, ‘I love you too,’ or ‘Thank you,’ even—

He smiles to himself, the ghosting memory of Mike’s hands on his face keeping the headache at bay just long enough for him to drift off.

When Will wakes up— again— it’s got to be well into the afternoon. Two or three, at least, and he still feels very much like he’s sort of dying, but also like he needs to be out of bed, now. The slow inertia of sleep is definitely acting on him. He hasn’t felt this groggy and out of it for a while, his head spinning and a tiredness seeping right down into his bones like a cold chill, even though his entire body feels hot and a bit on the verge of boiling over.

Also— wow, his hair. It’s reached new levels of awful, so suffice it to say that being maybe-sick probably isn’t the best look on him.

He cranks the shower all the way up on instinct, still preferring his water on this side of boiling, even after all these years. And then Will remembers that his body temperature is gradually climbing, and he already feels a bit like he’s being steamed to a slow and torturous death inside his own skin, so he turns the knob down the other way until it’s cooler, and proceeds to take the quickest and least satisfying shower of his entire life.

And then, after that— well, he has a couple readings to do, but the words start blurring in front of him and he immediately feels tendrils of pain shooting out behind his eyes again, so that’s an immediate no-go. And his classes are all done for the day, so it’s not like he could even hypothetically go to them. He’s just— stuck. Dawdling, flitting back and forth between rooms, feeling a bit unsteady on his feet and kind of like his esophageal tract got coated in cotton wool.

Then, on some sort of desperate whim, he grabs the feather duster from the closet, the spare rags from the bathroom, the cleaner from under the sink. He marches over to the kitchen and starts scrubbing.

It’s a weird thing, having your body taken out of commission like this. Will’s been sleeping since, like, five in the afternoon yesterday and he still feels like he has more to go, hours of sleep to chase after before he starts to feel even close to human again. And at the same time, he feels like someone hit the hard shutdown button on his body, holding down, down, down on the power until he just dropped, right there where he was standing.

It’s a weird thing, to feel so out of it. Will wants to– he wants to go to class. It was his turn to get groceries today. He’s missing his study group meeting. He’d called one of them when he’d woken up, but he still feels terrible about it. He’s been lying down for most of the last twenty four hours. He was supposed to go to office hours, too. He’s— he wants to be doing something, not just turning into a pile of human mush between the sheets of his bed.

So he scrubs. The cabinets, the counters, the insides of the sink. It leaves him way more out of breath than something requiring such minimal physical strain should, but maybe that’s the whole point of being sick— that you should, like, rest, and you shouldn’t be doing these things in the first place. But whatever— screw that. Screw all that. If Will wants to dust off the top shelf, he’ll dust off the top shelf. Joyce Byers didn’t raise no bitch.

That’s how Mike finds him when he comes back, barely half an hour after Will starts, coming in through the front door with a brown grocery bag in each hand.

“Oh, hi,” Mike is saying, still wrestling with the key and the door and not yet seeing him, “I’m glad you’re up! How are you—”

And then, as the door finally slams shut, he puts the bags down and looks up. “Will,” Mike says then, frowning, “what—?”

Will’s got one hand flat on the white tile, one hand reaching as high as he can with the feather duster, half-clambered onto the counter, trying very, very hard not to fall over. “I think,” he says slowly, easing himself off the counter and trying to catch his breath, breath coming a little ragged through his increasingly stuffy nose, “I might be sick.”

His voice comes out a bit nasally, hoarse, like he hasn’t spoken all day— which he hasn’t— and he clears his throat. “I’m definitely— probably— sick,” he admits, still holding the feather duster in one hand.

Mike blinks, looking halfway caught between pure confusion and mild amusement. “I know,” he says, seemingly fighting back a smile even around his frown, “I’ve been telling you— I meant, what the hell are you doing up there?”

Will looks at the feather duster in his hand, then back at Mike. “Cleaning?”

“No,” Mike says immediately, placing the two bags on the ground and walking over, plucking the duster neatly out of Will’s hand. “No, no, no— no cleaning, you’re sick, what part of rest do you not understand—”

“I did rest!” Will huffs, trying his best to not sound frustrated, even as he relinquishes his hold on the duster and presses his hands to his eyes, “I did, I slept straight through yesterday evening and all last night and all this morning and I still feel awful, I don’t want to sleep anymore—”

Mike makes a soothing, gentle sound. “Will,” he says, and then comes in to pull Will’s head to his shoulder. Will’s arms go around Mike’s waist on instinct, and he breathes in the scent of cold air and the faint traces of Mike’s cologne. In, out. In, out. “You don’t have to sleep to rest, you know that, right?”

“Yes,” Will croaks, a bit muffled into the soft fabric of Mike’s jacket, “of course I know that.”

But to be honest, he hadn’t really thought of it that way— rest feels kind of synonymous with sleep to him, even if it was the kind of sleep that makes you feel almost worse at the end of it than when you first drift off. He’s not sure what he’d do otherwise, weirdly immobilized in his own body, too tired to do something as simple as dusting off the top shelf in the kitchen, and it’s all just so—

“You’re going to get sick,” Will realizes, still speaking directly into Mike’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t hug me. I don’t want to get you sick.”

Mike laughs softly, but doesn’t pull away. “Nice try,” he says, pressing his lips to the side of Will’s head. Will can feel him smiling. His heart turns over inside his chest. “There’s nothing you can do to make me not hug you,” Mike is saying, “plus, I have an excellent immune system.”

“I don’t,” Will says, still being held upright almost entirely by Mike’s body weight under his own. He can feel the tension draining out of his body even as he speaks, that jittery feeling that had been crawling along his skin all day immediately dissolving as Mike rubs a placating hand in slow circles over his back. “I mean, this is kind of new for me lately, because it’s mostly okay now, but I got sick a lot as a kid.”

“I know,” Mike laughs, “I was there, remember? It was like every other week you’d be coming down with something. I swear you were home sick for half of the second grade.”

Will nods solemnly. “I think that’s how my mom perfected her chicken soup recipe.”

“Oh!” Mike says, his entire face lighting up, “one second,” and then he runs over to where the grocery bags are still standing by the door. “I know it’s not your mom’s soup, because we’re not in Indiana anymore,” he adds, turning around and holding up a clear plastic container, “but it’s the chicken noodle from the deli you like? Down the street?”

“You didn’t,” Will says, even as his face is breaking out into a smile. “You did not.”

Mike looks entirely too proud of himself. “I totally did,” he chirps, “and I got, like, tissues and stuff too, if you need— and some cough syrup, just in case, and Tylenol, because I know you’ve had a headache and you still have a pretty bad fever—”

“Mike,” Will interrupts, as Mike brings the bags over to the kitchen, “I love you.”

Mike freezes in place. Then, with a pleased smile, eyes already crinkling up at the corners, he turns around. “Yeah?”

“You don’t have to look so pleased,” Will mutters, but it’s hard to keep an annoyed expression on his face when Mike is looking at him like that— a bit shy and so happy that his smile could probably light up the whole room. “I say it, like, all the time. You say it all the time.”

“Doesn’t make it any less nice to hear,” Mike says, placing the soup canister next to Will on the counter and pressing a kiss to his nose. “It doesn’t, like, get worn out, you know.”

“Mike,” Will laughs, and then shoves gently at his chest, “I’m serious, you’re going to get sick—”

“I won’t,” Mike rolls his eyes, “I’m telling you, I never get sick,” but he pulls away anyway, grabbing two bowls from the cabinet.

“You say that now,” Will says, sniffling softly, listening to the soft beeping of the microwave buttons, “but you’re such a baby when you’re sick. It’s ridiculous.”

“I’m not a baby,” Mike insists, pulling Will back in against him, “I have a very strong immune system, okay!”

“Yeah,” Will snorts, and then winces slightly as his head throbs, “ah— I mean, you were a weird kid. You were always, like, picking worms up off the sidewalk and putting things in your mouth—”

“I didn’t put anything in my mouth that the average elementary schooler hadn’t already tried,” Mike says, immediately going on the defense, “I mean, you were also a weird kid,” he starts, and then the microwave beeps, and Mike gets immediately distracted hunting for washed spoons in the drawer.

“I was— okay, I was kind of weird,” Will concedes, watching Mike stick the spoons in the bowls, “but can you blame me? You were my best friend, so I was kind of doomed from the start. I never stood a chance.”

“Doomed,” Mike feigns hurt, one hand clutching at his chest and wincing theatrically. “That’s Will Byers for ‘I love you,’ actually.”

Doomed indeed, Will thinks— doomed for the rest of his life to feeling this giddy, ecstatic, cherubic joy whenever Mike so much as smiles at him. Doomed to being ruined for anything other than this, forever. That should maybe be a scarier thought than it is, but something warm settles deep in Will’s stomach, honeyed and sweet, lighter than air yet sinking deep into the marrow of his bones. Mike might have been right about that— Will’s doomed— but it’s not like Will’s going to admit to it anytime soon.

Some things can stay a secret, after all.

“Since I’m sick,” Will starts, trailing Mike to the living room. “Do I get to pick the movie?”

Mike fixes him with a look. “Yes,” he says at last, albeit a bit wearily, “but I feel like I know what you’re going to—”

“Yes!” Will whoops, settling down against the sofa cushions as Mike digs through their pile of tapes with a long-suffering sigh. “You never let us watch it, Mike, come on—”

“The Princess Bride is fine, Will,” Mike is saying, and then Will reaches for the remote, “but it’s not, like, the pinnacle of cinema.”

“Does a movie have to be the pinnacle of cinema for you to enjoy it?” Will takes a careful sip of soup. “Plus,” he adds, “don’t lie— you love this movie. I know you totally love this movie.”

“I like it,” Mike concedes, “I don’t know about love—”

“You love it,” Will insists, as Mike sits down next to him, their bowls on the table in front of them. On the TV, the opening sequence starts playing. “You do, I know it.”

Mike just shakes his head in response, but he doesn’t deny it. “I know you’re sick,” he says, bringing his feet up onto the couch and smiling, “but you still suck.”

“Shut up,” Will says, but he’s smiling too. “Watch the movie.”

“As you wish,” Mike quips, expression held very carefully neutral, placing a steadying hand on Will’s thigh as he leans over to grab his bowl with the other.

“You—” Will starts, gleefully, “I knew you liked this movie—!”

“Whatever,” Mike says, through a soft laugh, shaking his head again, “whatever! Just watch the stupid movie!”

The rest of the evening slips by like this, the scent of garlic and onion wafting through the entire apartment, the soft sounds of the TV coupled with the warmth of the soup lulling Will into an almost-sleep against Mike’s shoulder. The gentle white noise of the heater coming to life. Mike unearths a blanket at some point— Will had no idea from where— and it ends up wrapped around the two of them.

“You’re going to get sick,” Will whispers, one last time for good measure.

Mike presses a kiss firmly to the middle of his cheek, like some big show of defiance. “Yeah? Well I don’t care,” he says, “because I love you,” and Will’s lucky he has a fever anyway, because he probably would have turned embarrassingly red hearing that otherwise.

Will’s heard it so many times before, that stupid thing people say about things getting worse before they get better. He’s heard it about the bullying, back in school, how kids are kids, and kids are mean, and it would get better eventually but it might get a whole lot worse in between.

And he’s heard it from Owens, that awful, harrowing year after he went missing. The anniversary effect, Owens had called it, things are going to get worse before they get better. And he’d been kind of right about that: things did get better, eventually, a long ways down the line. But first, that whole middle part— the whole, dragging weight of it— got worse and worse and worse. 

Will isn’t sure how much more worse he can handle.

And he doesn’t even consider himself to be sensitive about these things, okay? It’s just the flu. Not even a really bad flu— just, like, the most average case of the flu the world has probably ever seen. And he’s not trying to complain here, either. He’s fine. He knows he is. He’s been through too much to be bothered by some chills or a cough or a stuffed up nose or a fever or a—

“I hate this,” he says to Mike, some mornings later, “I hate being sick.” Except he’s so congested that all his consonants come out too heavy and thick on his tongue, and he sounds ridiculous, he knows, and it’s honestly a miracle Mike hasn’t laughed at him more.

Mike makes a sympathetic noise next to him. It’s Saturday, and Will somehow feels like dying a bit more, even, than he did that first day. It had gotten worse for sure, and then it had kind of stayed the same, and Will’s praying that hopefully this is the plateau and they’re approaching the better, any moment now.

Worse before it gets better, he recites in his head. Mike wraps one arm around his chest, elbow against Will’s shoulder, running a thumb over the curve of Will’s cheek where his face has gone flushed and sweaty with his own traitorous body heat. Worse before it gets better.

They’ve been up for hours already, but they’re still in bed, the weak morning light giving way to something more solid— still pale and wintery, but brightening up the small room from corner to corner of peeling, cracked drywall. Will loves weekends, and he loves weekends with Mike, especially— here, in their little apartment, where it gets so cold that they have to bundle up in sweaters and long fuzzy socks, even in bed.

“I know,” Mike is saying, soothing and quiet, letting his thumb run gentle lines over Will’s cheekbone, up and down his jaw, under the soft dip of his eye. Will leans into the touch, sniffling a bit miserably. “I don’t think anyone likes being sick.”

“Yeah, but—” Will starts, hoarse, “I don’t even hate the symptoms, I guess, they’re whatever. It’s just— I don’t know. I feel kind of stuck, I guess. I don’t like that. I really don’t like that.”

If Mike is wondering what Will means, he doesn’t ask— but Will is getting the feeling that Mike isn’t wondering in the first place. He has this uncanny ability to be able to read Will’s mind, in a way. He always has, ever since they were younger. Will thinks maybe Mike knows exactly what he means, maybe even more so than Will does.

Then, Mike shifts up onto one elbow, hair falling slightly into his face, loose collar of his sweater getting tugged down where his arm is pulling on it against the mattress. He looks at Will— just looks at Will, the early afternoon sunlight casting soft shadows against the bridge of his nose, highlighting all the freckles there, eyes alert and open and already halfway to smiling. 

Maybe that’s why Will loves weekend mornings with Mike so much— he gets to see this, and no one else does. It’s a weirdly tender thing to think about, how these moments are a secret the two of them share. Feet tangled together under the sheets, the matching patterns of their socks lined up end to end. No one else gets matching socks with Mike. No one else gets to count his freckles whenever they want, just for fun. No one else gets this but him. It’s nice. It’s— more than nice, even. Will wants to preserve this moment, trapped like an unsuspecting bug in the amber glow of Mike’s gaze, the sun igniting Mike’s eyes into a warm, honeyed brown.

Mike rearranges himself, moving onto his side and tucking his face into Will’s chest, throwing an arm around his waist. “You’re so warm,” he says after a moment, muffled. “It’s so nice.”

Will lets out a small squawk as Mike’s hand— his very cold, very freezing hand— finds its way around the blankets and under his sweater. “I’m sick, you weirdo,” he says, half-laughing into the side of Mike’s head, “I have a fever.” 

“I don’t care,” Mike mumbles, “you’re warm and I’m cold. This is nice.”

“You’re going to get sick,” Will tries, for the umpteenth time, but it’s pointless. Mike Wheeler is stubborn and hardheaded and he never does anything halfway— not even this.

There’s a few minutes of silence, punctuated only by Will’s pathetic attempts at breathing through his nose. He’s sure Mike can hear his heartbeat, with his face all pressed up against Will like that. It’s nice. It’s weirdly intimate. Will kisses Mike, right there on the top of his head, just because he can.

“I had pneumonia when I was a kid,” Mike says, apropos of literally nothing, “did you know that?”

Will lets out a startled little laugh. “What? When?”

Mike shifts, moving up slightly so that his face is tucked right into the curve of Will’s neck. “You didn’t know me then,” he says, hand still under Will’s sweater, but it’s not so cold anymore. They’re coming to a gradual equilibrium, the two of them, the fever-flush of Will’s body slowly leaving him and moving onto Mike’s hands, his cheeks, the cold point of his nose against Will’s carotid. “It was the summer before we met,” Mike is saying, tracing absentminded shapes onto the skin of Will’s back, “my mom was so scared. I mean, I’m sure my dad was too, but— I don’t even know if he remembers, to be honest.”

“You’ve never told me this,” Will murmurs, sniffling softly, “I didn’t know that.”

Mike laughs, the sound vibrating gently against Will’s pulse point. “I almost forgot,” he admits, “I don’t remember it very well. I was so out of it for the whole week.”

“That, and you were also five,” Will points out, bringing a hand up to run it through Mike’s hair. “I don’t expect you to remember.”

“I remember other things from when I was five,” Mike says, “like meeting you. Obviously.”

Oh. “Obviously,” Will echoes, already grinning like an idiot. “Me too. Obviously.”

“Well anyway,” Mike continues, and Will can’t see his face, but it feels like he might be smiling too. “Pneumonia week was the worst week of my life, actually.”

Mike’s hand is still moving against his back, slow and intentional. Will brushes some hair away from Mike’s temple and smiles. “Well,” he starts, just to be annoying, just because he can, “you wanna know what the worst week of my life was?”

“Oh my God,” Mike groans, but he’s laughing, and the building pressure in Will’s head and eyes and ears and all along the length of his body seems to subside instantaneously at the sound. “I’m sorry, okay, I wasn’t thinking—”

“I was twelve, Mike,” Will says, but he’s also laughing now, “I could have died—”

Mike’s hand stills on his back. Will frowns. And then, quieter— “I know,” Mike whispers, “of course I know that. I think about it all the time.”

“Mike—” Will starts, and then he cuts himself off. There’s something about the way Mike’s hand is splayed out across his spine, flat and taut and protective, that makes something turn over inside him, his heart going vulnerable and belly-up on the floor. “I know you know that. I was only joking. I promise.”

Mike doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Will holds his breath as best he can, taking in soft inhales through his mouth, ghosting over the top of Mike’s head. “That was the worst week of my life, too,” Mike says at last, lifting his head up so they’re face to face. “Just so you know. Pneumonia was bad, obviously. They had to take so much gross stuff out of my lungs and it hurt and I think I was pretty delirious for most of it— which would’ve maybe been funny to see, because I was five— but it had nothing on losing you.”

“Oh,” Will says simply, and then falls silent. What is he supposed to say to that? To Mike’s casual admission of something that clearly flows so deep through his blood that there’s nothing Will can do to make it go away?

And there’s something about the way Mike is looking at him now— eyes wide open, hand hovering over Will’s waist, that makes Will want to, like, wrap him up in these blankets and kiss him on the forehead and bring him food and tea and—

—okay, yeah. Maybe he’s getting it now.

“I’m okay,” he says instead, except his stuffed-up nose makes the M come out kind of like a B, but Mike doesn’t say anything about it. “I’m okay, Mike. It’s just the flu.”

“I know,” Mike nods, “I know, I just— I just don’t like seeing you like— even if it is just the flu.”

“And now you’re going to get the flu,” Will points out, as Mike’s fingers resume their tracing on his back. “You’re going to get the flu, and then I’m going to have to take care of you, and it’s going to be so bad because you’re such a big baby—”

“I’m not a baby,” Mike protests with a scoff, tucking his head back into Will’s neck, “and it doesn’t matter. I would catch the flu for you, I would.”

“Romantic,” Will deadpans, even though it sort of is, and it’s making something heat up inside him that definitely isn’t the fever. “That’s so romantic, Mike.”

“Isn’t it?” Mike asks, pressing a kiss to Will’s collarbone, the slow tapping movements of his fingers gone repetitive and angular. Over, and over, the same lines, the same curves. Will frowns, thinking, and then—

“I love you too,” he says, realizing, as a grin erupts onto his face. He suddenly feels entirely giddy in a way that has nothing to do with illness. “You know that, right?”

“Yes,” Mike says immediately, the single syllable saturated with such raw honesty that it sends Will’s pulse fluttering. “I do.”

“Okay,” Will says simply. And then— “Do you think we should get out of bed now?”

“Time is entirely arbitrary,” Mike responds, but he pulls away— and maybe Will didn’t think this through, actually— “but maybe, yeah.”

“I’ll let you make me tea,” Will offers, just to be nice. He watches Mike stretch out, one sock pulled weirdly far up his leg while the other is bunched down around his ankle, and resists the urge to lean over and kiss him, because he has the flu— 

And Will doesn’t even like tea that much, but he’ll get himself to, he thinks. If something so simple can make Mike’s face light up like that, he’ll get himself to like it.

It might be getting worse, but it’s also getting better, with Mike around.

Sunday evenings are usually for chores and errands. They’ll clean the kitchen together, taking turns sweeping and then mopping the floor. Mike washes the dishes and Will dries them, and then they put them away together. Will likes Sundays. They’re quiet and private, the chaos of the days before falling slowly apart under the fluorescent lighting of the kitchen until the week is made anew once more.

Will wouldn’t have guessed that about himself— that he’d be the kind of guy to like sweeping and drying dishes and pulling the fitted sheet off the bed and stuffing it into the washing machine. Back when he was younger, those were all things he did out of necessity. To help out, when his mom would be working late and Jonathan would have homework and would also be working late and Will would be trying to do what he could to make their lives easier. Another box to check. There was no glamor to it, no romance in the little things.

Not like now.

And even so, he has the creeping suspicion that it’s less about fabric softener and liquid detergent and all of that, and more about this routine they have. More about Mike.

“Mike,” he’s saying now, sitting at the dining table, “I want to help.”

Mike does not look up from where he’s scrubbing at a particularly stubborn spot on a plate. “No,” he says simply, just like he’d done the ten other times Will had asked, “no way. Sit your ass down, Byers.”

“That’s not a very nice way to talk to somebody who’s diseased,” Will starts, and then interrupts himself by forcefully blowing his nose into a tissue.

“Ha!” Mike exclaims, holding up a soapy hand in triumph. A soap sud goes flying off, landing somewhere in the vicinity of the fridge. “So you admit it! If you’re sick, then you don’t get to help out. Sorry.”

“I’m not that sick,” Will tries, and then immediately sneezes four times in quick succession.

Will can’t see Mike’s face, but he’s sure there’s a very smug look growing on it. “Uh huh,” he says, and then Will sneezes again, and then Mike turns fully around for the sole purpose of smirking at him.

“Mike,” Will groans, except he’s really congested now, from all the sneezing, so it comes out sounding kind of like ‘Bike—’ and then Mike starts laughing at him— actually laughing.

“Oh my God,” Will says, disbelieving, “you’re— you’re laughing at me? You’re laughing?”

“I’m sorry,” Mike wheezes, doubled over, “I’m so sorry, it’s just that you’ve sounded so ridiculous for days now and I haven’t said anything, I tried so hard—”

“I’m going to infect you,” Will decides, unfolding himself from the chair, “I’m going to infect you with my germs and then you’ll be the one talking funny, and then we’ll see who’s laughing then.” Except all this, of course, comes out just as ridiculously nasal as before, and then Will has to stand there, exasperatedly fond, while Mike wipes a tear away from his eyes in between fits of giggles.

“Sorry,” Mike says again, taking a deep breath and biting down on his lower lip, “sorry, I’m done now, I promise.”

“Don’t you have dishes to be doing,” Will says flatly, even as a smile threatens to break through. “Come on. Get to work.”

“I thought you wanted to help,” Mike teases, but he turns back around to the dawdling pile of dishes left in the sink. He turns the faucet on, reaching for the soap. “Whatever happened to that?”

“I’ve been banned,” Will laments, blowing his nose again. This tissue is getting kind of gross. He reaches for another. “Apparently someone thinks I shouldn’t—”

“Someone knows you shouldn’t,” Mike corrects, rinsing the lingering suds off the mug. “I’m serious. I’ll let you do all the dishes when you’re better, if you want. And you can do the laundry too, and the cooking, and the groceries, and I’ll even let you clean the bathroom, if you want.”

“Generous,” Will deadpans, coming up behind Mike so that his cheek is resting against the curve of his shoulder, “that’s so kind of you, Mike.”

Mike doesn’t even startle at the touch, unexpected as it may have been. “I thought you didn’t want me to get sick,” he quips, but it’s light, no weight behind it. “I thought you said I’m a big baby when I’m sick.”

“You are,” Will hums, bringing his arms around Mike’s waist, a couple drops of water splashing on his sleeve, “but now I’m on a mission to infect you on purpose. As payback for laughing.”

“If this is what you call payback,” Mike starts, sliding the last of the plates onto the rack and wiping his hands on his jeans, “then that’s cool with me.” He turns, slipping damp hands over Will’s sweater— stolen, courtesy of Mike’s wardrobe— and pulls him in. “You can give me as much payback as you’d like.”

Will thinks, privately, that this moment in time is not a bad one to be in— even if his nose is so plugged up that all his syllables come out wrong, and his throat feels like someone’s been running a bulldozer through his esophagus, and his head hurts so bad that he can, like, feel his brain where it’s touching the sides of his skull. Even when it’s getting worse, Mike does something like this— brushes his lips against Will’s forehead, runs a casual hand down his side— and then it gets better.

Worse, and then better. Will knows this pattern, some kind of cyclic inside joke he’s been on the wrong end of his whole life. Things get worse, and then Mike shows up. And then things get better.

“You’re still warm,” Mike says, frowning a bit. “How are you feeling?”

Honestly— not great. But better.

“Better,” Will gets out, clearing his throat. “You ask me how I’m feeling every thirty minutes.”

“You never know,” Mike replies easily, “maybe it’s the last thirty minutes where you miraculously recover.”

“I’m not on my deathbed,” Will starts, smiling slightly, and then, at the slight stiffening to Mike’s posture beneath him— “I’m not,” he amends quickly, “sorry, I’m— I’m okay. I do feel kind of weirdly warm, still. I’m so over it. How do you even break a fever?”

“Let’s see,” Mike hums, tapping a finger to his chin and pretending to think. “I could, like, leave you outside and hope for the best, maybe.”

“Oh, yeah,” Will nods, “that’s great, so then I’ll have a flu and hypothermia, because it’s thirty degrees out, and then you’d be the worst boyfriend ever.”

“Well we can’t have that,” Mike says, “I’ve got a reputation to maintain.” He watches Will blow his nose again, and it’s obvious he’s trying to bite back a laugh as he says, “How about a bath?”

Will’s ears are currently popping something awful. He wiggles his nose around in the tissue and asks, “A bath? Aren’t we supposed to be cooling me down?”

“No, like, a lukewarm one,” Mike says, grabbing the tissue box off the counter and handing it to him. “My mom used to do it for Holly all the time. It really helped. I think it’s worth a shot— what do you think?”

Will thinks— honestly, he thinks the idea of sitting in a tub of lukewarm water sounds vaguely uncomfortable. But he’s hot and feeling stifled and suffocated inside his own body and he really doesn’t like that feeling. And, if he’s being even more honest, it doesn’t ever take much for him to agree to something Mike’s asking. “Yeah, okay,” he says, and Mike grins, pleased. “Why not?”

“Sweet!” Mike cheers, and Will rolls his eyes, smiling. Mike is a dork. He’s such a dork. “Sit down,” Mike points to the table, “let me just dry off these dishes and then I’ll draw it up for you.”

Will doesn’t even try to protest that he can do it himself. He sits. “Are you going to add bubbles?” he jokes, blowing his nose into a fresh tissue with a noise that sounds vaguely like a honk. 

Mike snorts. “If you’d like,” he replies, “but we don’t have any rubber duckies. Sorry.”

Will pulls his knees up to his chest and smiles. “I’ll make do,” he says.

Mike puts his arm down in a little patch of water on the sink and shrieks softly. “Oh, shit—”

Will sticks one hand in the water, swirling it around. He frowns. “Are you sure this isn’t too cold?” he calls through the bathroom door. “It feels cold.”

“It’s not cold,” Mike calls back, “it’s lukewarm!”

Will’s not too sure about that. It feels colder than is probably comfortable to sit in, at least now, where he’s got one hand submerged, up to the top of his wrist. “Are you sure?” he asks again, just in case— and it’s not that he doesn’t trust Mike, per se, he doesn’t think Mike is trying to give him, like, hypothermia— but his entire body feels warm and cold at the same time, alternating between feverish heat and chills at the most random of times, and his own perception of sensation doesn’t feel too accurate. He doesn’t like that— he really doesn’t like that— this feeling of not being able to trust his own body. He’d thought it was too hot earlier, and then Mike had been in the bedroom pulling on a second pair of socks because the heater hadn’t even switched on yet. Will hadn't liked that. “You sure it’s not too cold?”

“Will,” Mike is saying, his voice sounding closer to the door now, like he’s pressed right up against it to talk, “I promise, okay? I checked the temperature myself. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but— I think you’ll feel better after.”

Will takes a deep breath. As far as he’s concerned, Mike’s vote of confidence is as good as gospel truth. Plus, he’s really fucking tired of this fever. It’s been the worst part of being sick— worse than the constant sniffly nose and the headaches and sounding like he’s been smoking a pack a day since he was thirteen every time he speaks. “Okay,” he decides, taking a tentative step into the tub. “Okay, I’m doing it.”

“Okay!” Mike says through the door, sounding a bit relieved. “Let me know if you– if you need anything, alright?”

Will lowers himself down. It’s— okay, it’s a little cold, which is a weird feeling, but it’s not that bad. Mostly, it kind of feels like nothing at all. Like he’s sitting outside on a very mild day, no breeze, no rain, no sun, just almost-warm air and the feeling of his own skin against his bones. And, sure enough, Mike must have put something in the water— what exactly, Will has no idea— but it’s vaguely floral scented, which isn’t an unpleasant thing. It’s kind of nice, actually.

And the water’s cold, but not too cold, and maybe this is just his body already operating a bit off-kilter and out of it for a few days, but he’s pretty sure he can feel his heart rate slowing down. Minutely, but the difference is there.

Breathe in. Out. One breath of vaguely rose-scented air, then another. This is good. This is okay. Will can handle this. He takes another deep breath, and goes under.

Immediately, he regrets it. The water feels colder against his face than anywhere else, and it’s dark. With his eyes closed, hair swirling around a bit in front of his face, water rushing into his ears from all sides, Will can’t see anything, or hear anything, which is maybe to be expected, because he’s dunked his head underwater, hello, but it’s jarring all the same— the sudden absence of the white light of the bathroom, the pressure behind his eyes coupled with the unyielding strength of the buoyant force trying to push him back up— it’s a lot. It shouldn’t be, but it’s a lot.

He breaks the surface with a soft gasp, pushing wet hair out of his face, eyes flying open even as water runs into them. Baths aren’t supposed to be this cold. They’re supposed to be— they’re supposed to be warm. Comforting. This is a lot. Will is breathing very fast.

“Mike?” he tries. And then, a little bit louder— “Mike?”

There’s a rushed sound of footsteps outside the door, and then Mike is there. “Will?” he calls through the door, voice tinged with worry. “Are you okay?”

Will supposes that maybe he had sounded a bit panicked, which is kind of embarrassing now that he’s thinking about it. “Sorry,” he gets out, leaning his head against the rim of the bathtub, focusing hard on breathing at a somewhat normal rate. “Sorry— everything’s fine, it’s just— I just got freaked out for a moment, that’s all.”

Mike doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “Don’t apologize,” Mike says, sounding like he’s speaking right up against the door again. “Do you— do you need anything? Is everything okay?”

In.

Out.

“Can you—” Will starts . In. Out. “Can you just stay there for a while? Until I’m— until I’m out.”

The response is immediate this time. “Yeah. Of– of course,” and then there’s a noise like Mike is settling himself down on the floor, against the bathroom door.

“Not if you’re busy,” Will says, eyes still closed. In, out. “I don’t want to keep you.”

A pause. “Will,” Mike says, sounding halfway to a laugh and half confused, “what else do you think I’d rather be doing right now?”

“I don’t know,” Will calls back, “maybe— maybe not talking to your boyfriend through the bathroom door while he takes a bath?”

“That’s ridiculous,” comes Mike’s reply, “I’d rather be talking to you anyway. No matter where.”

“Oh,” Will says, feeling a smile spread across his face. “Really?”

Now Mike is definitely amused. “Yes,” he laughs, “really. Why would I lie?”

Will moves his arm back and forth in the water, watching it splash up against the off-white of the tub. In, out. In. Out. “I don’t know. To be nice?”

Mike’s answering snort is audible through the door. “When am I ever nice?”

“You’re nice to me,” Will points out. “You’re really nice to me. Except for when you tease me and make fun of me and you hog all the blankets and you don’t let me clean and you don’t let us watch The Princess Bride—” 

“Yeah, well, you’re my boyfriend,” Mike says, and Will’s heart does a funny little somersault next to his ribs. “I have to be nice to you.”

“You were nice to me before that, too.” Will closes his eyes again. The water’s getting a bit colder, and he hasn’t been sitting in it that long. He shivers. In, out. His heart rate is already going back down, even just with Mike on the other side of the door.

“I guess so,” Mike muses, laughing softly again. “I hadn’t really thought about it, but— but I guess you’re right.”

“I thought it was nice,” Will says, feeling a bit out of his own head.

Is it a fever? Will had asked, all those years ago, and then, after— just a little out of it. Like I haven’t really woken up yet.

In. Out.

He lets out a long, slow exhale.

“How are you feeling?” Mike is asking. There’s a soft rustling by the door, and then his voice sounds minutely closer. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m okay.” In. Out. It feels– weird. It feels like he’s floating six inches out of his own body, while simultaneously feeling hyper-aware of the sensation of his limbs moving in the water.

Maybe this bath isn’t working. Maybe Will’s going delirious with fever after all. Maybe he’s burning up from the inside out at this very moment, all the proteins in his body denaturing into little strands of nothing, over and over until Will Byers dissolves right down into the tepid water of this bathtub.

“I hate being sick,” he groans, staring straight up at the rough plaster of the ceiling. “I’ve decided I hate it. So much.”

“Will,” Mike snorts, “I don’t think anyone likes being sick, you know. It’s generally not something people enjoy.”

“Well, yeah,” Will says, floundering a bit, “but it’s like. A cough is whatever, you know? And a runny nose– it’s whatever. It’ll go away. I just hate feeling so– so tired. So out of it. So weak.”

“You’re not weak,” Mike says immediately, “you’re just– your body is recovering, Will. You’re going to be tired. You’re going to sleep. It’s okay.”

“It’s not just that,” Will says, reaching a hand up to smooth away some of the hair that’s getting stuck to the sides of his temples. “I just can’t wrap my head around it, that after– after everything, I’m getting taken out by, like, a virus. And not a sentient hive mind sort-of virus, but, like. Influenza,” he laughs, “isn’t that dumb?”

“It’s the flu,” Mike is saying, and then there’s another soft shuffling noise outside. “Everyone gets the flu, Will. Literally everyone. It’s mid-January, right after winter break, everyone’s getting sick. It’s–”

“Yeah,” Will interrupts, squeezing his eyes shut and digging the heels of his hands into his eyes, “I know. I know, I swear. But it’s like. Every time it feels like I’m getting my body back– like it’s finally mine again, and there’s nothing left in here but me– something happens and I’m reminded that maybe– I don’t know. Maybe it’s not. Maybe something else is taking me down after all.”

There’s a long pause. Will wiggles his toes around in the tub, listens to the soft sloshing of water around him, his own heartbeat pulsing faintly in his ears. Maybe– maybe that’s not a normal thing to say. Even to Mike Wheeler, who’s been with him through some pretty not normal shit as it is– maybe there’s, like, some line that Will hadn’t been made aware of before he crossed the whole thing in one fell swoop.

In. Out. Seconds pass, then what feels like close to maybe a full minute before Mike says anything. “Will–” he starts, through the door, and then he stops again.

“I’m getting out now,” Will decides, before he can say anything else that makes this sort of silence come out of Mike’s mouth– too heavy, too sad. He hasn’t even been in the bath long enough for his fingers to start getting pruney. “I’m– okay, give me two minutes, I’m getting out.”

Mike still hasn’t said anything, but Will can tell he’s still there. He can always tell, somehow, when Mike is there. It used to be like that when they were younger, too– Will could always tell when it was him at the door, him on the phone. He just knew.

He’s just pulled his clothes on when there’s a knock at the door– “It’s me,” Mike says, as if it would be anyone but him.

“Yeah?” Will says, a bit amused, toweling his hair off. “You can– you can come in, Mike.”

There’s a half-beat of pause, where Will thinks maybe Mike is just going to say whatever it is from there, and then the doorknob is turning, and the door is flying open fast enough for it to go crashing softly against the doorstop, and then Mike is hugging him before Will can really register what’s happening.

“Mike,” he starts, “what–”

“Do you really feel like that?” Mike says, face tucked into Will’s neck, muffled. “About the– when you said that your body doesn’t feel like–”

“Oh,” Will says, realization probably hitting him harder than it should, because hello, he was the one who just said it. Then– “A little,” he admits softly, because he could lie and say that maybe he was being dramatic about the whole thing, but it would be pointless. Mike would know. And maybe all that shit El said about ‘boyfriends always lie’ might have been true for other people, but not them. They don’t lie to each other. “A little bit,” Will says again, still holding the towel in one hand, “but it’s not– I made it sound worse than it is, I promise.”

Mike doesn’t move. His face must be getting wet, all pressed up against Will’s hair and the part of his neck where he hadn’t fully toweled off yet, but if he’s noticing, he doesn’t seem to care. “Because,” Mike is saying, “I wanted to say– I’m sorry if I was making a big deal of the whole thing. Like, if I made it sound worse than it is. It’s just the flu, you’re right. And you’ll be fine, I didn’t mean to– to, like, baby you or anything. I just worry–”

“Mike,” Will says again, and then he’s letting go of the towel and wrapping his arms around Mike’s waist– for once, not even bothering to offer up a disclaimer against getting sick. Mike didn’t listen to it before, and he wouldn’t listen to it now. “It’s okay, you didn’t– I know you worry,” he says, and then Mike finally pulls back to look Will in the eyes. “You worry a lot. I love that about you, that you– you care so much. That you care about me so much.”

“I do,” Mike says, nodding, “I care about you more than I think I’ve ever cared about anyone, ever,” which is–

“Really?” Will grins, unable to help himself. “Anyone, ever?”

“Well,” Mike amends, “I love our friends, of course. And my family and stuff but– you’re different. You’ve always been, like, your own category to me. There was family, and then there was my friends, and then– and then you’d be Will, all on your own, and–”

“Is that why you were always weirdly nice to me,” Will tries, and then Mike scowls.

“Don’t change the subject,” he says, “this is important.”

“Oh,” Will says, “okay. Sorry. Go on.”

“Um. Anyway,” Mike continues, still frowning slightly, “my original point was that– was that, even if you’re feeling those things, like– that’s not why I’m trying to do things for you, you know? That’s not why I’m trying to– okay, maybe take care of you is a little bit much, because you don’t need taking care of–”

“Mike,” Will says, and then takes as deep a breath in as his blocked-up nose will allow, “breathe.”

Mike huffs out a soft laugh, and then Will’s being pulled in against him, right there in the middle of their bathroom, with the floor a bit damp where Will had dripped water all over it and the tub still making faint gurgling noises as the last drops of water swirl down the drain. “I’m trying to say,” Mike says, the words vibrating softly where Will’s cheek is pressed up against the line of Mike’s neck, “that I’d do all this anyway. Even if you weren’t sick. And it’s not because– not because I think you’re, like, weak or whatever, but. I just love you. That’s all.”

“Okay,” Will says faintly, because that was a lot of words, even for someone like Mike Wheeler, who seems to be so full of them, sometimes, that they just start spilling out of him like they have nowhere else to go. “You– okay.”

“So I don’t care,” Mike rattles on, “if you can’t do the dishes or you’re sleeping the whole day or if you get me sick– you won’t, by the way, I have an excellent immune system– but whatever. I don’t care.” He pauses, then takes in a breath. “Okay, cool,” he says, “I didn’t actually have anything to say after that, so. Now I’m done.”

“Okay,” Will says again, because he’s not really sure what to say in this situation, except maybe this is a situation in which he doesn’t need to say much at all. “Thank you,” he says, smiling like an idiot right into the worn cotton of Mike’s sweater, hoping that maybe those two syllables can convey what his brain can’t fully get out. “I love you too. That’s all.”

“If you love me,” Mike starts, and Will immediately thinks oh, no– “If you love me, then you’d let me cook you dinner,” Mike says, looking entirely too proud of himself.

“Mike,” Will says, “that’s– that’s a nice idea? But you can’t cook.”

Mike lets out an indignant noise. “I can! I’m– I’m getting better,” he adds, which is true, actually, except he and Will seem to be thinking the same thing– how maybe getting food poisoning right after the flu might be a bit of a low blow– and then Mike sighs.

“Okay,” he amends, “if you love me, then you’d let me pay for takeout?”

Will grins. “Deal,” he says.

It’s not until they’re halfway to the kitchen, already arguing about what to get, that Mike stops Will in his tracks with one hand on his arm. “Wh–” Will starts, but Mike is already pressing one hand to Will’s forehead, and then his face breaks out into a wide smile.

“You’re not as warm anymore,” Mike says, and then he moves his hand away and dropping a kiss right over where the inset curve of his palm had just been resting. “I think it worked.”

“Oh, thank God,” Will groans in relief, and Mike laughs all the way up until the phone call gets picked up.

Will forgot he had set an alarm for the next day– until it goes off.

“Oh, no,” Mike is saying, already starting to shift around, “no, no, no– turn it off.”

Will doesn’t feel like he’s dying as much, but everything is relative, he supposes. At least his fever’s gone. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to be a normal temperature— that is to say, being forced to bundle up in multiple layers in bed so he wouldn’t freeze to death in the middle of the night. And as it is, his voice is still mostly shot, and he can’t breathe out of one nostril, but he’s better. Things are better today.

“What are you doing,” Mike is mumbling, face-down into the pillow, as Will tries his hardest to peel his eyes open. There’s still a layer of exhaustion coating the back of his eyelids, a tiredness that no amount of sleep could chase away. But it’s better today.

“I can’t miss any more classes, Mike,” Will yawns, still mostly congested but sounding, like, marginally more human than before. “I have so much make-up work to do, you don’t even know—”

“Yeah,” Mike says, and then he rolls over with a groan, “and then you’ll get sick again just worrying about it all. Aren’t you tired?”

“Exhausted,” Will admits. “I’m so tired, I might pass out on my walk to the Arts building.”

“So sleep,” Mike says, as if it’s that simple— as if Will is not a college student and can afford to just lay around in bed the whole morning whenever he pleases.

But this is— this is really nice, Will has to admit. If there was one good thing about being sick, it was mornings with Mike, drifting in and out of sleep, listening to him get ready from somewhere in the back of his mind. “I’m never taking an early morning class again,” Will decides on the spot. “Next semester. It’s going to be eleven a.m. and later.”

Mike lets out a happy noise. “Good,” he says, yawning, “and now that we’ve got that settled— is there any way I can be a bad influence and convince you to skip your morning class for one more day?”

Will looks over at his clock, then back to Mike, face still pink with sleep and eyes half-closing even as he waits, hair curled over the top of the pillow. And then— “Yeah, okay,” Will concedes, “I missed two days. What’s one more?” 

“I mean,” Mike says, tugging Will back down with a triumphant cheer, “you do need sleep to get better.” 

“I am feeling better,” Will starts, but he lets himself be pulled back in, smiling. Mike tosses one arm around Will’s waist and hooks their ankles together.

“That’s good,” Mike says, warm air puffing out against the back of Will’s neck. “What’s that thing people say? Things get worse before they— uh. Before they get better?”

Oh boy, do they. Will doesn’t realize he’s laughing until Mike lifts his head up, and Will can hear the frown in his voice when he says, “What?”

“Nothing.” Will reaches down to Mike’s hand, winding their fingers together. “It’s just— things were already better with you around. They always have been.”