Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It is a dark shade of blue. With a sticker on top, shaped and painted like a heart being stabbed by a sword or a dagger. And if Mike hadn’t opened the first page and read the first two words, he would have put it back where he had found it and probably never thought about it again. It’s just a random notebook. Will has plenty of those, with both lined and blank pages. For school and D&D planning, but most of all for his drawings and sketches.

But Mike opens it. And his body freezes for just a split second. Because where he expects the text to be something about maths or english or something - the words ‘Dear Diary,’ is written.

He shuts the book close with a thud and throws his eyes towards the closed bedroom door. The sound of Will showering can still be heard loud and clear, the water heater making an uncomfortable sound. He licks his lips and lets his eyes return to the book. He opens it, hands shaking as if he is just about to read his own death sentence. As if he is gonna read when he is gonna die, and where and how. No one wants to know that.

Dear Diary,

Mike’s breathing shakes. His bottom lip trembles with curiosity.

He shouldn’t. That realisation arrives almost instantly, loud enough that it feels like someone else has spoken it aloud. His thumb slides beneath the cover anyway. The first page is written in Will’s familiar handwriting - neat in places and rushed in others. A date sits in the upper-right corner. Almost two years ago.

He swallows. Something tight has built up inside his throat and the only guess he manages to make is that it’s his nerves in there, telling him to close the book and to never touch it again. Because this is Will’s diary. His personal diary.

Dear Diary,

Jonathan always says writing things down makes them easier. He’s wrong. Like, stupid wrong. Some things just get harder when you finally admit them.

Mike’s eyes flick over the words before he can stop them.

I’ve tried praying about this. I’ve tried drawing it. I’ve tried pretending it’ll disappear if I ignore it long enough. But it doesn’t. You can even ask God, because he has clearly been ignoring me all these months.

The shower continues to run beyond the bedroom door. Mike can hear pipes creaking somewhere inside the walls. He tells himself this is the last sentence. Just enough to know he isn’t reading something terrible.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with loving someone.

His shoulders relax for the briefest moment. Something sweet dwells up in his stomach at the thought of Will writing about unresolved love. Then his gaze drops to the next line.

I just wish it wasn’t Mike.

The room seems to shrink. His heartbeat lands somewhere behind his ears, where he can feel it pulsating almost painfully.

No. No, he hadn’t read that correctly. His eyes jump back up and he reads the sentence again.

I just wish it wasn’t Mike.

The words don't change. Mike’s fingers tighten around the edge of the notebook until the paper bends beneath his grip. He should close it. He should put it back exactly where he found it. He should walk out of this room before Will comes back and then force himself to stay away until he has forgotten all about this.

Instead, almost against his own will -

He turns the page and starts reading again.

Dear Diary,

I am so stupid. So, so stupid.

Mike frowns without realizing it.

Today he smiled at me over breakfast. That’s it. That’s literally it.

He smiled because I handed him the cereal before he had to ask, and somehow my brain decided that meant something special. It didn’t. It never does.

He’s just kind. He’s kind to everyone. I don’t know why I keep acting like I’m an exception.

I think the worst part is that I know him too well. I know the difference between his real smile and the polite one. I hate his polite smile. I know when he’s lying because he always scratches the back of his neck. I know he says “whatever” whenever something actually hurts his feelings. Or when he doesn’t understand something. 

I know all these little things, and none of them matter because apparently knowing someone isn’t the same thing as being loved by them. God, I sound pathetic.

I wish I could meet someone else. I wish someone else made me laugh the way he does. I wish I stopped looking for him every time I walk into a room. Do you think the universe could send me a copy of him? No? okay.

Maybe tomorrow will be different. But I know it won’t.

Mike stares at the page. His eyes hurt from the intensity behind his lids and his mouth feels extremely dry. He has to check the top of the page to catch the date again. September, 1987. 

Mike’s eyes stay fixed on the date. September, 1987.

He reads it again. September. 1987.

That’s the period of their lives where they had spent almost every minute of every day together. Eating breakfast together almost every morning, when Will had fallen asleep in Mike’s basement every night. The time they’d watched movies until two in the morning just because they could. Just the two of them, almost every night. In Mike’s home, because they lived together back then.

His stomach twists.

Every single memory suddenly feels reshaped and tilted into something else. Like someone has reached inside his head and shifted the angle by five degrees.

Was that why Will had always had a tendency to break their eye contact so fast? Was that why he’d smiled so strangely whenever Mike threw an arm around his shoulders?

Jesus.

How many times had Mike hugged him? How many times had he complained about his relationship with El while sitting beside someone who’d been quietly in love with him?

His face burns.

“Oh, God…” The whisper escapes before he can stop it. He isn’t embarrassed because Will had been in love with him. He’s embarrassed because he hadn’t noticed it, at all.

And it isn’t even betrayal about Will not telling him that he feels. Not disgust, either. Definitely not disgust.

Mike has known that Will likes boys for over a year and a half now, so there was no big surprise there. But him? Mike the idiot Wheeler? The virgin boy who coughs when he smokes his mother’s cigarettes and grimaces when he drinks alcohol? The one with a nose too big and a body representing the same fashion sense as a wobbly skeleton? Him?

Mike knows plenty of guys that are way funnier and more handsome than himself. Like some of Jonathan’s friends, or some of the popular guys in school. Some of the basketball dudes have pretty eyes. Will could have fallen for one of them instead. But instead, he went and settled for someone like Mike? That’s ridiculous. 

Being liked by Will is an honor, surely. Mike can instantly identify the feeling in his stomach as something thankful, something awfully close to a blessing. But how the fuck has he gone all this time without noticing?

He looks back down at the book, ears perky to catch the sound of the shower running through the non-stop humming in his head.

How many pages like these are there?

This was written almost two years ago - before Will came out to the party, even. A lot of time has passed and a lot of things have happened since then. For one, they don’t live together anymore and don't really share a breakfast table that often either. They don’t spend that much time alone together anymore, either. Not now that they don’t really have an excuse to. They aren't attached at the hip anymore.

Mike hasn’t really decided whether he is going to do it or not when he turns to the next page and starts reading. 

Dear Diary,

Mom burnt dinner today. The entire house went all grumpy and Holly spit some back to her plate. I tried not to laugh.

Mom’s trying her best to fit in here, too. I miss having her for myself sometimes. She’s always busy with El and Hopper now. 

Mike feels almost a little disappointed about how short it is, and the fact that he isn’t even mentioned once. And that is stupid enough to turn into the straw that tugs him to read the next page too.

Dear Diary,

It’s the first of October today! Officially Halloween month.

Dustin can’t stop talking about it and if im being completely honest… I'm kind of looking forward to it too. Don’t tell anyone, it’s embarrassing.

Mike smiles softly.

Also, Mike let me borrow his sweatshirt yesterday. We were in the woods to plan for another crawl and it was kind of cold outside. I can’t remember if I was actually freezing or if he just looked very huggable and warm. 

Anyways. I’m still wearing it as I’m writing this. And I had it under my pillow last night, until Jonathan fell asleep. I pulled it out and snuggled with it then. It smells so nice. It smells exactly like Mike.

Mike stares at the page. Holy fuck.

His chest suddenly hurts in an unpleasant, heavy way. He caresses his thumb over the edge of the page, absorbing the smooth material. Nobody has ever written about him like this before. And if he thinks about it really closely, he isn’t that sure that anybody has ever noticed him like this before, either.

And it feels.. nice. Kind of. It would have felt even better if Will had told him this to his face instead of pushing it down to this - blue ink on a sheet of paper. 

Which is probably the worst thing about all of this. Because, somewhere, this makes him think of El a little, and the fact that not even being kissed by her had felt this personal. In fact, he has never even imagined this being a possibility. Love letters from his girlfriend hadn’t talked about him like this, calling him ‘huggable’ and explaining how she liked to snuggle with his sweater. That’s crazy. 

Has Will always had these feelings about him?

Does he still think about him like that?

He is just about to turn to the next page, in hope to find an answer for all his questions, when the shower turns off. A deafening silence falls over the entire cabin when the pipes stop squealing from overstimulation.

Mike’s heart stops. He looks at the diary.

One more page.

No. He has maybe thirty seconds before Will’s gonna walk into the room and catch Mike redhanded with his nose shoved into the pages of his diary. He can’t have that happen.

He puts the diary where he found it - underneath Will’s pillow and flattens the fabric on top of it. He looks at the pillow and realizes that he can’t remember if the bed had been made or not when Will had left the room.

Fucking damn it.

The bathroom door opens and wet footsteps echo through the hallway. And Mike is suddenly standing in the middle of Will’s room pretending he hasn’t just committed the biggest invasion of privacy imaginable.

And then he panics.

Just as Will grabs the doorhandle on the other side, Mike jumps on the bed and lays down on it with his arms and legs spread out like a seastar. Ruffling the pillow and the duvet, causing his own imperfections  in the bedding and displaying them for Will to see. 

Will walks into the room rubbing a towel through his hair, his bare feet awfully loud when he walks over the wooden floor. He stops in the doorframe when he sees Mike. 

“What are you doing?” He asks, and Mike can almost hear the heat from the shower in his voice. It sounds like he has spent hours in a sauna, getting every pore in his body cleaned thoroughly. His nostrils and throat too. Because everything around him just sounds really lean and smooth. 

Mike looks up at him from the mattress, eyes widening in less than a second. Because Will is there, just like he had expected. But he looks way different now.

The damp hair. The oversized T-shirt and the sneak peak of black boxers underneath. The way his cheeks are still pink from the hot water. The bare knees and ankles. 

And all Mike can think is-

He slept with my sweatshirt under his pillow once. Will has snuggled with my sweater.

“Mike..?”

“Huh?”

“You okay?”

“Oh.” Mike laughs nervously. “Uh… yeah. I’m fine. Just, you know, chilling.” 

Will frowns and he stops rubbing the towel through his wet hair for a second as he continues to walk into the room. “You look weird.”

“I’m not weird.” Mike shakes his head dramatically, eyes still lingering on Will like he physically can't pull them away. A part of him can’t stop wondering what Will is thinking of right now, watching Mike displayed on his bed like that. It must be really weird. Or - in some fucked up way - maybe even tempting.

“You’ve been staring at me for like,” Will checks an imaginary watch, “since I opened the door. Stop looking at my legs, perv.”

Mike immediately looks away. His cheeks burn like the ones of a little girl and it almost makes him gag how embarrassing he finds himself.

“That ain’t too bad,” he mumbles.

But the thing was that, taking what Will had written in his diary in consideration, it probably felt like a lot for him. Mike watched him like that. Mike could only imagine how it must feel. 

And with that, Mike glances back up before he can stop himself. Will is still looking at him. Or maybe he’s only been looking in his direction. Mike can’t tell anymore. Will facing his way is enough to make his pulse strike right now.

Will’s eyes flick down for a fraction of a second. To Mike’s shirt. To his stomach, where the tiniest flash of naked skin can be seen between the hem of his shorts and his wrinkled t-shirt. Then they’re gone again, moving over the room like nothing just happened.

Mike’s pulse jumps. He can’t tell whether he had been imagining Will looking at him like that or if he had actually seen it for real. And if it was just something casual or had something to do with what he had actually read in the diary just a moment ago. If Will was looking at him right now as his best friend or as the crush that he has, apparently, been having on him.

Mike can’t help it. He looks up at him again. He feels unbelievably drawn to him.

He watches Will place the wet towel on his desk chair in a mess. His naked feet lead him to his wardrobe where he opens the doors and studies its content for a moment before grabbing a pair of cargo shorts. And as he is watching him, Mike can feel the tugging in his chest slowly appear again. 

He kind of wants to panic about the whole thing. For God's sake, he just found out his best friend has been in love with him. Not just that - he had been writing about him in his diary, like a little princess writing love letters to some forbidden boy in town. But he just can’t.

Because the majority of him finds it too sweet almost. He finds it too interesting, and it almost feels like curiosity is choking him. 

Maybe he should freak out? Maybe he should ask Will about it right now?

But what would he even say?

Hey, are you in love with me? I accidentally started reading your diary, sooo… Am I still huggable?

Fuck no. That wouldn’t do. 

Will disappears behind the wardrobe door to change. Mike finally forces himself to sit up. His pulse is still refusing to slow down and he can almost feel his heart thumping against the inside of his shirt. Boom, boom-boom, boom, boom-boom. 

“This is insane,” he mutters under his breath.

“What was that?” Will calls from behind the door.

“Nothing.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” Mike clears his throat, and he scoots himself up from the bed and places his hands to his lap.  Silence settles again. Just the soft ruffling of fabric being moved around and dragged across skin can be heard.

Mike stares at the floorboards. He should leave. He really, really should leave. Instead, he asks the first question that comes to his mind. And it’s a really stupid one, because they are in the middle of fucking summer.

“Do you still get cold a lot?”

The room turns extremely quiet. Will pokes his head out from the wardrobe door. “What?”

Mike blinks. “I just…” Why had he asked that? “I don’t know.”

Will shrugs. “Sometimes, I guess. But it’s like 70 degrees outside.”

“Huh.”

Another silence fills the room, awkward and tense.

Mike wants to punch himself. That wasn’t a normal question at all, because who even asks that in the middle of June? Of course, Will understands what he means because his problems with always feeling cold during fall and winter was a known knowledge around all of them. But it was also one of those things that they avoid to talk about whenever it isn’t a current problem, just to avoid making him feel abnormal or problematic.

Mike had never found it weird, though. He thought it was kind of cute how Will would always ask for a blanket. 

Stop making everything weird.

Will gives him an odd look but says nothing, disappearing behind the wardrobe again. Mike exhales slowly.

Too late, everything is weird now. 

***

Their third week of summer break passes just as fast as it came. And as much as it bothers him that three weeks have already passed since graduation - leaving only seven weeks left - he also finds himself longing for college. For the new start that he knows all of them need. 

On Tuesday, at the lake, Will asks, “Can I borrow your towel?” and Mike immediately remembers the sweatshirt entry. He hands it over wondering whether Will is gonna think it’ll smell like him.

On movie night in Lucas’ room, Will falls asleep with his head on Mike’s shoulder like he usually does whenever they end up sitting next to each other, and it makes Mike’s entire body still. But he doesn’t push him off, not even when his shoulder goes numb. 

On multiple occasions he ends up in Will’s bedroom with the rest of the party and every time it leads him to think about one thing only. The notebook hiding underneath Will’s pillow.

Dustin teases them about acting like an old married couple on friday and Mike laughs too hard and shaky.

All those moments had been completely innocent through the eyes of their friends. And it would have been for Mike too, if he hadn’t opened that diary and realised that they meant something way more for his best friend.

And he can’t stop thinking about it. And what it includes. And Will.

His mind had been stuck on it all week. What the next page is gonna tell him if he ever gets the chance to read it again. What he will learn about Will and their friendship. And most of all - what feelings it includes right now. Whether Will is still in love with him.

Mike spends almost the entire week convincing himself that he is not going to do it again. He repeats it every morning while brushing his teeth and every night before falling asleep. Whenever the memory of soft, blue cardboard and the words It smells exactly like Mike sneak back into his head.

I’m not reading it again.

He means it. He really, honestly means it.

The lie falls apart a week later, on Saturday. They had spent the entire day at the lake, both Will and Mike smelling of sunscreen and lake water when they entered the cabin. Probably in need of long showers and probably twice as much water than they would actually end up drinking.

Will disappears into the bathroom with a fresh towel hanging over one shoulder.

“I’ll be quick,” he says without giving Mike a second glance. Mike can’t decide if he wants Will to look at him or not, because he is already kind of panicking about the fact that he is gonna be alone in Will’s bedroom again. 

“Kay.”

The door clicks shut, leaving him alone in the small room with only his thoughts to keep him company. 

The shower starts just a minute later and the fastest, most inevitable sight of Will stepping into the booth pops into Mike’s head before he swifts it away with a shake of his head. Mike stays where he is, walking back and forth in the room with his hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts. He counts to ten. And then twenty. And then he starts over again, walking over to the small window.

The sun has started to fall outside and he’ll need to get back home soon if he wants to avoid one of his mothers outspurts. He had spent too much time away from home this week. She had been very strict about telling him that this morning when he left for the lake.

He knows it’s entirely because she misses him. She finds it hard having Nancy at college. And with Mike leaving after summer, things have only been harder the last couple of weeks. He’ll be leaving for Chicago before the summer ends, and Nancy is gonna continue her studies in Boston for another three years before they can even talk about a family reunion in Hawkins.

Mike thinks she won’t return. Why would she? What does Hawkins have to offer that Boston doesn’t? It’ll be the same when Joyce and Hopper move to Montauk. Will will probably never take a step into this town again.

He turns around to face the room again. And as if magically drawn to it, his eyes catch the sight of a blue corner sticking out underneath Will’s pillow. Calling him, already knowing that he knows exactly what it is. Screaming at him that it knows he has been thinking about it all week. 

His pulse immediately betrays him.

No. Absolutely not.

He turns away from the bed and looks back out the window. He studies the trees and the little pathway that leads to the hill. It’s funny how they - he, Will, Lucas, Max and Dustin - had been the ones to create that. No one else, just them sneaking off to spend some alone time together. Watch over the town they had saved. 

He lasts maybe another twenty seconds. 

“Oh, come on…” he mutters to himself. He isn’t even sure who he’s talking to anymore.

God?  Himself? Maybe both.

His feet carry him back to the bed before he’s actually made a decision. The diary is exactly where Will had left it the last time he touched it. Mike carefully pulls it free and looks down at it with shaky hands. 

Just one page. One page won’t kill anybody.

He opens it. Halfway down the paper, his eyes instantly catch the familiar sight of his own name.

Mike-

His breath catches. He doesn’t even realize he’s smiling.

It feels so precious and special being a common topic in Will’s diary. If Mike had a diary on his own - which he would never have, of course - he would probably have written about Will too. Maybe not like this, but maybe. Like funny jokes and some of the nice campaign moves he makes. Maybe document what they’ve done during the day so that he can look back at it one day. 

The shower stops before he manages to start reading. Every muscle in his body locks.

“No.”

The pipes groan once, echoing through the cabin before leaving a dreading silence. Then the unmistakable squeak of the bathroom tap.

Mike snaps the diary shut. His heart is beating so violently he can both hear and feel it. He crouches beside the bed and slides the diary toward the pillow. And stops.

Had it been all the way underneath? Or sticking out?

He can’t remember. Shit. He pulls it back just to push it farther in just a second later. No, that doesn’t look right either. ”Damn it.”

The bathroom door opens. Mike jerks upright, ears perking like the ones of a rabbit. The too familiar sound of Will’s footsteps can be heard behind the door, getting closer and closer to the bedroom.

He looks at the diary. Then at the door, then back again.

His backpack sits beside the desk.

No. No, no, definitely not.

The footsteps are almost right outside the door. 

Without thinking, without even allowing himself to finish the thought- 

He grabs the diary and stuffs it between his damp towel and a stack of comic books in his backpack. The zipper closes with a harsh metallic sound.

The bedroom door opens and Mike’s entire body goes cold where he is standing in the middle of the room. Will walks inside, rubbing a towel over his damp hair again. Dressed in only a pair of cargo shorts, the waistband of his boxers visible. And the sight hits Mike like a smack of deja vu across his face. Just harder, and warmer. Because what the fuck had just happened?

Mike almost stumbles onto his bum when his eyes dart down to Will’s naked chest and stomach. He is literally dressed the same way he had all day - just that his green bath trunks are now boxers and shorts.

Mike has seen Will shirtless hundreds of times. Swimming, changing after gym class, running through sprinklers when they were twelve. Somehow, today feels like the first time. It feels like he has just realised that Will is built up on flesh and skin, just like himself. 

“Mike? You okay?” Will lowers his arm from his hair and looks at Mike across the room. His cheeks puffy, his nose sunburned and freckled.  Mike studies his face for a short moment before he speaks.

”Yeah. Of course,” he says with a cracked voice. Will gives him a funny look.

“You sure?”

Mike nods far too fast, black curls falling over one of his eyes. “Just tired. And hungry.”

“Alright.” Will shrugs, still looking at Mike with a playful glint in his eye. He grabs a T-shirt from the wardrobe and Mike almost gets on his knees and thanks God when he pulls it on. “Let’s go, then. Mom’s making grilled cheese.”

Mike forces himself to smile. “Sounds good.”

He tosses the backpack over one shoulder when they leave the room. It feels heavier than it has any right to do and it bumps lightly against his back when he walks to the hall to leave it by his shoes. Mike doesn’t look at Will when he sits down by the dining table. He doesn’t look at Joyce either, almost too ashamed about what he has done to his son and his right to privacy. 

He tells himself he’ll bring the diary back tomorrow. He tells himself he’ll never even open it.

The terrifying part - the part that makes guilt settle like wet cement in the bottom of his stomach - is that he already knows he’s lying. 

By the time he gets home, Mike has already diagnosed himself with idiocy of the highest quality. Because who the fuck steals their best friends diary from them? First and foremost, who reads their diary in the first place?

He is a fucked up person. A fucked up man and a fucked up best friend. 

Mike runs up the stairs when he gets home. And without thinking another second about it, he pushes the diary underneath his own pillow and lays down on it. Panting and sweating from the bike ride, wanting nothing more than to sink into the mattress and disappear completely.

How does he do that? Can he do that? 

The diary stays hidden underneath the duvet when he gets ready for bed. When he throws off his clothes and lays down under the duvet with one leg outside the covers, just like he likes it. 

He doesn’t read it. Not immediately, at least. He tries not to touch it even. 

For four minutes. Then he takes it out from its cage underneath his head. Puts it back a second later and turns around to face the wall.

For a brave five minutes he keeps telling himself he’ll return it tomorrow. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, just that he probably brought out the diary at least twice more to just look at it.

He doesn’t give it back the next day.

In fact, he spends the entire day with Will and Dustin at the community pool, splashing water at each other while Mike can only think of what he had stolen from his best friend last night. Will’s internal conversations with himself, his internal thoughts and secret feelings.

Mike had stolen them all, like it was his to take. Which they weren't.

And that isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is that Will seems perfectly normal. 

Will laughs, he complains about his bath trunks being uncomfortable, he begs for them to go into town and buy hotdogs after the pool, and asks about the next movie night. He bathes and asks Dustin to rub sunscreen to his back while Mike just watches with a fuzzy mind. 

Will never asks Mike to rub his back. 

Will talks about college and New York. And Mike just knows that Will has absolutely no idea that Mike knows - about the diary, about the crush, the sweatshirt or the fact that Will writes stupid sweet things about him when he is alone. 

And it drives him completely insane. 

He can’t sleep when he gets back to bed that night. The after taste of toothpaste is stinging in the corner of his mouth and at the tip of his tongue and he can still smell chlorine from his hair.

He thinks about it all. About Will and how it feels to be crushed on.

And he can’t tell what feels different inside of him. It is definitely something, somewhere, but he can’t see what. It feels more like a door has opened than the feeling of being liked and loved. He feels grateful, but most of all like the diary has brought him a chance to deepen his friendship with Will. Or maybe destroy it. 

He rolls around on the bed and clenches his duvet between his ankles and thighs while he hugs the rest between his arms. One of his arms sneaks under his pillow and before he really realises what he is doing, he finds his fingers stroking the spine of the notebook. It’s soft and his fingertips tingle with secrecy. 

“So stupid,” he mumbles through a sigh. “So, so stupid,” he repeats.

And then he takes it out from underneath the pillow and rolls to his back. He looks at it.

He will give it back tomorrow. No, he should get up right now and bike to- No, that would be stupid. Maybe he could read one last page?

No.

He sighs again, stares at the book. Stares at the heart. Stares at the dagger with the yellow handle piercing through it.

This is insane. He needs to give it back. He has no right to have this here. He has no right to read it or - He could read just a few more pages. Just enough to figure out if Will still… If Will still likes him.

No, he doesn't want to know that. Mike thinks for a second. Does he want to know if Will likes him? He kind of does.

They could mess around with it. He could tease Will because of it. He could… Yeah, he kind of wants to know. He kind of wants to be able to tease him like that. See him blush from compliments and touches and know what is going on inside his head. Know how his heart flutters. Because of Mike. 

He tells himself that he should put it away one last time. Then he opens it, anyway. This time looking for something he hadn’t been searching for the first time - answers.

Dear Diary,

Mom bought the wrong cereal again. Everyone hates these ones. Me and Holly talked-

Mike rolls his eyes, smiling softly as he turns the page. Not really interested.

Dear diary,

Jonathan says I overthink everything. I think he’s overthinking me overthinking. Does that make sense?

He should know this from the way I freaked out about my math test yesterday. I thought it was today. It’s next week. ANYWAYS…

Mike laughs. And it’s like every breakpedal in his body has vanished with his laughter, because this time he moves to the next entry without second guessing himself.

Dear Diary,

Me, Mike, Lucas and Dustin went to the hospital to visit Max today. And Mike apologized to a vending machine when we went to buy drinks.

Mike laughs even harder, still quiet. “I did do that...”

It was adorable. I wanted to.. I don't know. Ruffle his hair or something. 

His chest flutters as a shiver runs over him. It really is strange, reading about himself like this. As something desirable. 

Dear Diary,

We visited Jane today. Me and Mike.

I want to smash my head into a fucking wall.

I saw what Mike’s lips looked like when they had been kissed. Like, PROPERLY.

All plump and pink-

Mike inhales a shaky, loud breath. Somewhere outside his bedroom door he can hear his mother coming out from the bathroom after getting ready for bed.

All plump and pink and all I could think about was how much I wanted it to be me.

I want to kiss him. And I want him to kiss me back.

Mike closes the diary at that. He pushes it underneath the pillow again and lets his fingers linger on it as he turns to face the wall. His chest stings a bit. And not in the way it usually does when he feels regret or guilt. Because this is about love.

It’s love, love, love. The love his best friend feels for him. And Mike doesn’t know what to do with it.

And of course, the love Mike feels for Will too. He loves Will. He would do anything for Will.

But he’s not in love with Will.

And what’s even more stupid is that he doesn’t know if he wants things to be different from what he has come to understand so far. He kind of prefers not knowing what to do rather than to continue reading, just to find out that Will doesn’t like him anymore.

This feels too precious to lose. And the thought of Will not liking him anymore after all these sweet words feels scary, and like he would overthink it if it came to be true. Perhaps he already is. 

He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to silence his mind. But instead of thoughts, images appear. And they consume every nerve, every feeling and every breath.

It’s Will - leaning forward, towards Mike.

Mike doesn’t even know what Will would look like right before a kiss. He imagines it anyway, and the vision arrives so naturally that it scares him. Hooded eyes, freckled nose, pink lips. Heat and softness. Just the tiniest bit of wetness. 

He buries his face deeper into the pillow.

“Stop it,” he mutters.

He isn’t talking to imaginary-Will. He’s talking to himself. Because everything about this frightens him a little. Not Will being in love with him per say, but the fact that there is a chance that he has been in love with Mike, and isn't anymore. Because if he isn't anymore… What happened?

What could Mike possibly have done to make Will fall out of love with him?

Maybe Will had just moved on. Maybe tomorrow’s entries will talk about somebody else. College. New York. A boy with nicer hair and straighter teeth and lips Will’ll actually get to kiss.

Mike’s stomach twisted. He wouldn’t be ready to read that.

Somehow, it felt safer to leave Will frozen in these pages.

Still loving him. Still thinking Mike’s huggable. Still writing his name like it belongs on these pages. Still wanting to borrow his clothes and wanting to kiss him. Because in some fucked up way, it makes Mike feel more special than anything else has ever done.

He falls asleep with his fingers stroking the book underneath his pillow. Too scared that it might disappear.

***

Mike barely sleeps at all and when he wakes up it feels like his head is on the edge of an explosion. He’s exhausted, really fucking exhausted.

And still, he finds himself immediately checking under his pillow. As if that is the first thing he can think about when he wakes up. And somewhat, apart from the fact that he thought the sun could go fuck off, it is indeed the first thing he thinks about. 

The diary is still there. 

He stares at it for a long moment, breathing out in heavy breaths before he shoves it underneath the mattress instead - hiding it from himself. As if he tries to make it harder for himself to grab it again. But also, harder to give it back too. Harder for Will to find the next time he steps into Mike’s bedroom. 

He eats breakfast with Holly. They talk a little, she tells him about her plans for the day and he tells her about the movie had planned to watch later today. He barely tastes the cereal and Holly asks him something twice before he realizes she’s talking to him.

“Huh?”

She squints at him. “You’ve said that like four times this morning.”

Mike’s eyebrows twitch and he blinks at her. “Sorry.”

“Are you sick?”

“No.”

“You look sick.” She looks at him with the kind of eyes that would squeeze every ounce of honesty out of him- if she hadn’t happened to be his sister. So he just ignores her for the rest of his bowl and walks back up to his room when it’s time to get ready for Dustin’s house.

The bike ride there doesn’t take more than five minutes and he is quite surprised to see the amount of bikes that are already stocked away around the porch when he arrives. They had said that they’d meet up at four, and Mike had actually left five minutes early this time - compared to what he usually does, which is leaving the house the same minute he is supposed to arrive.

He can hear his glass bottles of beer clink against each other where they are hidden in his backpack. They had been hiding underneath his bed for at least a month. Ever since Dustin convinced Steve to buy them two cases for all of them to share evenly.

And as if the universe is against him on the highest level, Will is the one to open the door when he knocks. Dressed in a pair of jeans shorts and an oversized pinkish red T-shirt. Feet bare, like always during the summer.

“You’re late,” Will says.

The smile that shows up on his lips is small and familiar. The kind that Mike has seen a thousand times and still manages to make his stomach drop anyway.

I want to kiss him.

The memory arrives before he can stop it. Like an echo traveling between the walls of his mind. Not in his own voice - in Will’s. Written in neat blue ink across a cream colored page.

And I want him to kiss me back.

Mike’s eyes betray him. They fall to Will’s mouth for less than a second before shooting back up again. They look softer than he thought they’d do. 

“Hi,” he croaks. His voice cracks halfway through the word.

Will blinks. “Hi?”

Mike clears his throat into a fist. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“I-” He has absolutely no idea. For stealing Will’s diary, for reading it, for knowing things he probably doesn't want Mike to know. “I don’t know.”

Will studies him for another second, his eyebrows knitting together ever so slightly.

“You okay?” He asks. 

There it is again. That stupid fucking question. Mike feels like everyone has been asking him that for the past fourty-eight hours. First Will, then Holly and now Will again. Surely his mother had asked him that somewhere between yesterday and today, too. Because, apparently, he’s acting weird. 

“Yeah.” He laughs once. A quick, shaky thing.. “Just tired.”

“You look…” Will hesitates. Mike waits. “Weird.”

Mike lets out a breath that almost sounds like another hesitant laugh.

“You’re, like, the third person to tell me that today,” he snorts.

“Really?” Will looks almost amused.

“Holly said I looked sick.”

Will’s expression softens almost immediately. “You do look kind of pale,” he jokes.

“I’m not pale.” Mike can’t help but to give in to the smile that wants to well up on his lips. 

“You kinda are.” Will cocks his head.

“I’m just thinking,” Mike rubs the back of his neck.

Will’s eyes break away from Mike's eyes to catch the movement. His eyebrow twitches slightly. “About?”

Mike’s mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

The diary. Kissing. You.

You want to kiss me.

You want me to kiss you back. 

“You know…” He gestures vaguely toward absolutely nothing. “College. And stuff.”

Will accepts the answer almost too easily.

“Oh.”

Mike hates how relieved he looks. Because for one horrifying second, he’d been convinced Will somehow knew. That he’d looked at Mike once and immediately realized- 

He knows.

He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t.

Will steps aside and holds the door open for him. It is not until then Mike can clearly hear the sound of their friend group in Dustin’s living room.

“Come in. Dustin’s losing his mind because Lucas keeps cheating.”

"Cheating on what?” Mike asks and steps inside the house. Will closes the door behind him and for a brief moment their arms brush together as Will passes him in the narrow hall. Mike doesn’t notice. He tells himself that he doesn’t notice.

Will is just about to answer when someone else does.

“I wasn’t cheating!” Lucas yells from the other room. 

“You literally looked at my cards!” Dustin yells back.

“I glanced.”

“You memorized the whole hand!”

Mike smiles despite himself. It feels normal.

Will looks back at him and they smile at each other at the sound of their friends being idiots. They roll their eyes together, like they usually do.

”Go fish,” Will answers. Mike groans with a laugh. How ridiculous. 

Everything feels normal. He is the only thing that feels different.

Because as Will leaves the hall to walk into the living room, Mike is left standing there watching his back. Watching his hair fall over the nape of his neck and how his T-shirt curls around his waist as he walks. Everything about him suddenly feels like a question Mike doesn’t know the answer to.

How long had Will looked at him like that? How many times had Mike smiled without realizing somebody had fallen a little more in love with him? And, perhaps worst of all… What else had Will wanted to do with him?

The last question is probably the one he dreads the most. Cause, they aren’t kids anymore, right? They are eighteen. Lucas and Max are having sex and stuff.

He hates the curiosity that dwells up inside him. He had already survived finding out that Will had wanted to kiss him once. He could survive other things, too. Right?

Dustin’s living room is smaller than everyone else’s. And to be fair, it is only his mother and he who lives here so there were never any complaints about it in the friendgroup whatsoever. Everyone had a big understanding of it all, and if they were gonna be honest, most of them almost liked it that way.

A two-seat couch, an armchair, and the floor. Shared between five people. It meant closure and just another reason to sit close together and complain about the space.

Mike follows Will to the couch, where Lucas is sitting with a bunch of cards in his hand and another bunch placed on the table in front of him. On the other side of the table, sitting on the floor with sweaty curls and a scrunched nose, is Dustin. Max is sitting with her knees pushed up to her chest on the armchair.

Mike gives her an awkward smile before he falls down onto the middle of the couch beside Lucas. He notices Will hesitate for the briefest second before sitting down on his other side.

And the fucked up part is that it makes Mike feel chosen. Because Will could have just sat down next to Dustin on the floor instead. But he chose to sit next to Mike on the small fucking couch instead.

Their bare arms brush together immediately, sticky with sunscreen residue and the lingering heat from outside. They’d probably been touching like this for years. Mike has never thought twice about it. Now it feels impossible not to.

Not knowing what else to do with himself, he lifts both arms and lets them fall across the back of the couch, behind Lucas’ and Will’s shoulders. They land somewhere along the wall, keeping their distance from touching either of them.

“Sorry,” he mutters. “It’s cramped.”

Will turns his head.

“It’s fine.” His voice is quiet. 

Mike looks over before he can stop himself. Will is already looking back - freckles scattered over sunburnt cheeks, hair refusing to stay out of his eyes, his eyebrows raised just a little, like he’s trying to figure Mike out. Then, almost absentmindedly, Will wets his lips.

Mike looks away so quickly his neck almost hurts. His pulse jumps.

Jesus Christ.

It isn’t even fair. Because before yesterday, that would’ve just been Will. Now his brain insists on attaching every tiny movement to a sentence written in blue ink.

I want to kiss him.

Mike presses his lips together.

Stop it.

Will shifts beside him, his shoulders bumping against Mike’s chest as Dustin dramatically slams another card onto the coffee table.

“HA!”

“You don’t even know how to play,” Lucas groans.

“I know enough to beat you.”

“You’ve been making up rules all this time.”

The room erupts into overlapping complaints. Mike laughs with everyone else.

It sounds almost normal. If it weren’t for his own thoughts bouncing around inside his head, loud enough to drown everything else out, it would have sounded exactly like it had years ago.

When they were thirteen. When there were 6 people in the friendgroup.

An hour later, the coffee table is buried beneath bowls of chips, candy wrappers and half-empty beer bottles. Someone has turned on the radio in the kitchen and the music is low enough to disappear beneath everyone’s voices.

Mike’s arm is still stretched across the back of the couch. Only now, his other hand hangs loosely between his knees with a beer bottle dangling from his fingers.

Lucas has somehow ended up in the armchair with Max sitting sideways across his lap. Dustin is still cross-legged on the floor, arguing over rules nobody remembers agreeing to.

The space beside Mike, where Lucas had been seated, is empty.

Will hasn’t moved. He’s still wedged between Mike and the armrest, close enough that every time one of them laughs their shoulders bump together. Their knees keep brushing beneath the coffee table. Neither of them says anything about it.

Mike doesn’t know why he hasn’t offered Dustin the seat. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t want Will to move, either. Having him there feels safe. Like knowing exactly where he is. Like if he keeps his arm resting along the back of the couch, Will can’t disappear somewhere Mike can’t see him.

It’s ridiculous. If anyone asked, he’d just shrug and say he was saving the seat for Dustin. He doesn’t think he’d even believe himself.

Dustin groans dramatically and throws his cards onto the coffee table.

“This game sucks,” he sighs loudly. Mike can’t do anything but nod slowly, and he hasn’t even been playing.

“You only think it sucks because you’re losing,” Lucas says without even looking up.

“I am not losing.”

“You’ve got, like, seventeen cards.”

“I have a strategy.”

“You have a problem,” Lucas banters.

Max snorts into her beer. “You’ve been playing Go Fish for an hour.”

“And?” Dustin crosses his arms.

“And I think I’ve aged about forty years,” Lucas adds before Max has time to say anything.

Mike laughs quietly. Will turns to look at him for a second before his eyes wander to Lucas. 

“So what do you wanna do instead?” Will asks.

Dustin’s eyes immediately light up.

“Never Have I Ever,” Dustin almost yelps. Lucas groans.

 “Oh, absolutely not.”

“What?” Dustin grins. “Scared?”

“No.”

“You sound scared.”

“I’m not playing if you’re gonna make up your own rules again.”

“I’ve literally never made up rules.” Dustin gestures with his hands to absolutely nothing. 

“You invented three new ones ten minutes ago.”

“They were improvements.”

Max reaches over and steals another handful of chips.

“I’ll play,” she says and picks up one of the chips with her teeth. 

Will shrugs. “Sure.”

Everyone looks at Mike. He blinks. “What?”

“You in?” Dustin asks.

Mike glances down at the beer bottle turning slowly between his fingers. “Yeah.”

Dustin claps his hands together once. “Perfect.”

He points around the room. “One drink every time you’ve done something.”

Lucas sighs. “This is gonna end terribly.”

“That’s exactly why we’re playing,” Dustin smirks.

Mike could almost sense that it would be a bad idea the moment they started, beer bottles in hand and a silence falling between them as they waited for the first person to start. The radio is playing something soft and comforting, not loud enough for Mike to actually catch what song it is.

”Never have I ever…” Max starts. “Hmm…” She looks around the table. Her eyes land on Mike for a second and he can feel his pulse strike just the slightest, like getting ready to answer something personal or specifically pointed for him. “…broken a bone.”

Lucas drinks immediately. So does Dustin.

“What?” Dustin says when everyone stares at him. “My pinky.”

“You sprained it,” Mike snorts.

“It looked broken.”

“It literally wasn’t.”

“It had the spirit of a break.”

Mike laughs, looking down at his bottle of beer. He would actually quite fancy a sip right now. But he hasn’t broken a bone so he just stays put.

“Okay.” Lucas points across the room. “Never have I ever gotten drunk enough to throw up.”

Dustin drinks. Max drinks. Lucas drinks. Mike and Will don't and Dustin ends up pointing accusingly at them.

“Nerds.”

“You threw up on Steve’s shoes,” Max reminds him.

“They were ugly shoes.”

“They were brand new,” Max raises an eyebrow.

“They became ugly.”

Will snorts quietly beside Mike and Mike catches himself smiling before he even realizes why.

Another round passes.

“Never have I ever skipped school.”

Lucas drinks. Max drinks. Mike hesitates. He can see Max looking at him from the corner of his eye.

“You skipped chemistry with me once, Wheeler.” 

“It was one period.” Mike rolls his eyes at her. 

“You skipped it.”

Mike sighs dramatically and takes a drink. Will doesn’t.

“Oh, come on,” Mike says and turns to look at him.

“What?” Will ask, voice light with innocence and eyes big like the ones of a puppy.

“You’ve never skipped?” 

Will shrugs. “I get nervous.”

“You got nervous about ditching school?”

“I overthink things.”

Mike laughs into his bottle.

Yeah. I know.

The thought lands so naturally he almost chokes on his drink. Because he does know. He knows because of a blue notebook hidden underneath his mattress like a physical proof of Will’s overthinking. And of course, because he has known Will practically his entire life and knows most of his strengths and weaknesses. 

He looks at him again. And Will is already looking back, again. It is almost as if their eyes always tend to look for one another, unable to survive otherwise. 

For a second neither of them say anything. The conversation around them keeps going - Dustin arguing with Lucas over whether a sprained finger counts as an injury while Max laughs into her beer. It all sounds strangely far away.

Mike can’t stop looking. He wants to… He doesn’t even know what he wants.

Touch him.

The thought hits him almost as hard as the diary had the first time he opened it. 

Not kiss him. Just… Touch him - poke his shoulder, stroke a loop of hair on his neck, nudge him the way he always does. Let his hand linger for half a second longer than it usually does. Something small.

Something that says ‘I’m here’.

Because suddenly Mike can't stop wondering how many times Will has wanted that exact thing and never asked for it. 

His fingers twitch around the neck of his bottle. Without really thinking, he leans sideways till his hand bumps lightly against Will’s shoulder.

“Sorry,” Mike mumbles  automatically.

“For what?” Will looks up at him with big doe eyes, his breath brushing against the skin on Mike’s throat before he turns around to face the table again.

“I don’t know,” Mike frowns a little, his grip of his beer bottle tightening. He can see how a tiny smile pulls at the corner of Will’s mouth.

“You’re weird today,” Will leans the tiniest hit to his right, towards Mike and whispers into the air between them and Mike huffs out a relieved laugh.

“I know,” he answers, the words rolling on his tongue teasingly. 

“Wow. You’ve admitted that surprisingly fast,” Will says in amusement. 

“I’ve accepted my fate,” Mike chuckles softly.

Will laughs. It isn’t loud, just one quiet laugh. But it settles something restless inside Mike’s chest all the same. And it is almost a little addictive how sweet it feels now. How sweet Will’s laugh feels so close to him after he had read such dreadful things in his diary. About Will calling himself stupid, and wanting to smash his head into a wall because of disappointment and yearning.

And that is what finally causes him to truly reach out. He lifts his hand from the back of the couch and leaves the wall. It finds Will’s shoulder almost absentmindedly. Just a light squeeze with his thumb resting near the collar of Will’s T-shirt, brushing the warm skin at the base of his neck.

Will goes completely still. Mike feels the muscles beneath his hand tighten for the briefest second before slowly relaxing again. Goosebumps race across the back of Will’s neck, disappearing beneath the waves at his nape. His hair has started to get a little longer again, just the length that Mike has always found suited him the best. 

Mike swallows. He’d done things like this plenty of times before. Thrown an arm around Will after a campaign. Bumped his shoulder while messing around. Ruffled his hair when he’s being an idiot. Simple little gestures that prove how comfortable and close they are to one another.

So why did this feel different?

Will turns his head just enough to look at him. His cheeks shining a little pink, eyes still big and dark and his lips glistening from beer.

“What?” he asks quietly. Mike realizes he doesn't have an answer.

“I…” He looks away with an awkward grin. “Nothing.”

Will watches him for another heartbeat before smiling to himself and looking away again.

“You’re really weird today,” he whispers. Lucas and Dustin have started to reach the end of their discussion.

“Yeah. You said that,” Mike answers. He doesn’t move his hand. Will doesn’t ask him to. They let their bodies linger pressed together, Will’s arm pressing into Mike’s side. Dustin claps loudly from somewhere on the floor, startling almost everyone around the table.

“My turn!” he screams.

Mike snaps back out from the little bubble that he and Will had just shared, his hand squeezing around Will’s shoulder from the way his body tenses at the sudden sound. He turns to look the other way and loosens his grip instantly, almost frightened what he would see if he were to meet Will’s eyes right now.

“So…” Dustin grins wickedly. “Never have I ever had a crush on someone in this room,” he rubs his hands together while looking around the table, tongue poking out in the corner of his mouth. And everyone falls silent. 

“Oh, come on.” Lucas groans, being the first one to break the silence.

“What?” Dustin spreads his hands innocently.

“Isn’t this the whole point of the game,” Max says around another sip of beer, looking at her boyfriend. Mike’s stomach falls somewhere into his shoes. He doesn’t look at Will. He can’t.

One by one, bottles begin to lift. Lucas drinks without hesitation, smirking at his girlfriend. Max drinks too, bumping Lucas’s shoulder with her own.

“Yeah, yeah,” she mutters, rolling her eyes.

Dustin grins triumphantly before taking his own drink. Mike can only stare at the bottle in his hand. His pulse is loud enough that he barely hears anything else. Beside him, Will hasn’t even moved. Mike can feel the warmth of his shoulder, he can feel the weight of his own hand still resting there.

He risks one glance. Will is looking down at his bottle, his fingers tightly wrapped around the glass. Slowly, almost reluctantly, Will lifts it and drinks.

And it feels like Mike’s heart beats out of his chest. Not only because this was a confirmation - but also because the fact that he is the only one not taking a sip from his beer feels illegal in some kind of way. Because he can feel the heat from Will’s skin through his thumb, he can see his right arm tensing to stay away from Mike’s body even though it must make him feel really uncomfortable. He can hear Will’s breathing next to him. He can fucking smell the scent of his shampoo. 

And it is as if all of these little things are telling him to drink. He feels like a liar, not to.

He’s not in love with Will. Of course he isn’t in love with Will.

God, he doesn’t know what he is anymore.

The answer suddenly doesn’t feel as simple as it had five minutes ago. A week ago, he would’ve laughed. Today he’d spent hours thinking about Will’s mouth. About his sweater tucked beneath a pillow. About wanting to touch him. About the goosebumps that had climbed Will’s neck beneath Mike’s hand only seconds ago. About how good that tiny laugh had sounded from this close. About a diary hidden beneath Mike’s mattress.

The bottle feels heavy in his hand. He can hear Dustin waiting. He can hear everyone waiting, looking at him - as if they already know that he is going to drink.

“Well? You’re the only one left,” Dustin mocks. “You gonna drink or what, Wheeler?”

Mike swallows. He glances sideways. Will is still not looking at him. His head is lowered, bottle resting against one knee, cheeks faintly pink beneath his freckles.

For one impossible second, Mike wonders what Will is thinking about. Does he regret drinking? Does he wish he hadn’t? Does he think Mike knows?

His chest tightens painfully.

“Screw it,” Mike mutters.

He lifts the bottle and pulls it to his lips. The room explodes while he chugs two big gulps.

“Oh my God!” Dustin shouts.

“I knew it!” Max points dramatically across the coffee table.

Lucas barks out a laugh. “Who is it?”

Mike nearly inhales his beer at the last question.

“What?” He coughs, hiding his mouth behind his forearm while he almost spits out his drink.

“The crush,” Dustin grins. “Who is it?”

Mike coughs for another couple of seconds, this time into his fist instead.

“I am absolutely not answering that.” He shakes his head fast and dramatically, curls swaying back and forth before his eye. For some reason, he almost feels offended. Because his friends are sitting right there, assuming that it could be anyone - when there is only one girl in the room. Shouldn’t they just automatically think that it’s Max?

“See?” Dustin looks around triumphantly. “I knew there was somebody.”

Mike rolls his eyes hard enough for it to almost hurt.

“Congratulations,” he deadpans. “You’ve officially discovered that I too have been a teenager with hormones.”

Everyone laughs. Everyone except Will.

When Mike dares another glance at him, Will is already looking out toward the kitchen, quietly turning his bottle between both hands.

He looks lighter. Like drinking had settled something inside him. Mike hates how badly he wants to know why. And without any further thoughts, he just knows that he is gonna pull that stupid diary back from underneath his mattress before going to sleep tonight.

***

And he was so right. Forty-five minutes past midnight, he sneaks up the stairs to his bedroom and closes the door behind him. He doesn’t bother to brush his teeth. He throws off his clothes and crawls into the bed wearing only his blue briefs.

He pulls out the diary and lets himself look at it for no more than half a minute before he opens it. He scrolls through the first couple of pages, until he finds the entry he had finished last night. 

Dear Diary,

We visited Jane today. Me and Mike.

I want to smash my head into a fucking wall.

I saw what Mike’s lips looked like when they had been kissed. Like, PROPERLY.

All plump and pink and all I could think about was how much I wanted it to be me.

I want to kiss him. And I want him to kiss me back.

Mike stares at the words until they stop looking like handwriting and start looking like something carved into the page.

I want to kiss him.

And I want him to kiss me back.

Those words had been stuck with him all day. His thumb traces absent circles against the edge of the paper.

“Jesus…”

The room is silent except for the faint buzz of cicadas outside his open window. Somewhere downstairs he hears the television click off. His father is going to bed.

He turns the page.

Dear Diary,

Today I accidentally made eye contact with Mike for, like, ten whole seconds.

I counted. Which probably says more about me than it does about him. He’s started doing this thing where he laughs with his whole body. His shoulders shake first, then he throws his head back like he forgets that people are looking at him.

It’s unfair. He doesn’t even know he’s doing it.

Mike’s lips part. He reads the paragraph again. His whole body?

He’d never thought about how he laughs before. 

Dear Diary,

I think I keep falling in love with versions of Mike that he doesn’t even know exist. Like the way he always thanks Dustin’s mom after dinner. Or how he lets Holly win at board games when she isn’t looking. Or how he apologizes to vending machines. Nobody else notices those things.

I do.

Mike swallows.

Nobody else notices those things.

He finds it hard imagining that someone could be paying attention to him with this kind of patience. Because, surely, he would never think of himself as such an important or interesting person, either. He is a very nerdy, boring person that finds it too hard to come up with original jokes.

He keeps reading.

Dear Diary,

Sometimes I think maybe I should tell him. Not because I think he’d say yes. I know he wouldn’t. But maybe it’d be nice to stop carrying it around all the time. But then I imagine him looking at me differently. Like I’ve ruined something.

So I don’t. I’d rather keep my best friend than lose him trying to have something more.

Mike’s grip tightens around the diary. His chest aches in a way he can’t quite name. He’d never known. Not really.

All these years he has spent his time worrying about saying the wrong thing to El, about college applications, about Vecna and growing up and everything else life kept throwing at him. And he had been too oblivious to see something as obvious as this.

And Will had been terrified that loving him would cost him the friendship altogether.

“…You idiot,” Mike whispers. He isn’t sure whether he’s talking about Will or himself.

Dear Diary,

I jerked o-

Mike slams the diary shut so hard the sound echoes through his bedroom.

“Nope.” His voice cracks. “Nope. Absolutely not.”

His face burns so violently it feels like someone has held a lighter beneath his ears and put his hair on fire. He stares at the ceiling, breathing through his mouth as if oxygen alone could erase the last half minute from his memory.

“Jesus Christ, Will.”

He presses the diary flat against his chest as if that somehow would make the words disappear.

He has crossed a line. Not just crossed it - he has sprinted over it, tripped, rolled down a hill and landed face-first on the other side. He isn't reading that. He physically could not.

That wasn’t… that isn’t his business.

“I am such an asshole.” He squeezes his eyes shut.

The guilt comes back all at once. Not the warm, confusing guilt from reading about sweatshirts and breakfasts and secret crushes.

Real guilt. The kind that settles like a rock in his stomach. Because the diary isn’t just about him, it’s about all of Will and about everything that includes in his life. His fears and daily routines. His embarrassing moments. His-

Mike groans loudly into his pillow.

“No.”

He reaches out and shoves the diary underneath his pillow with far more force than necessary, and rolls onto his stomach. He lasts almost twelve seconds.

“Okay, but maybe the next entry.” He freezes at the desperate tone in his own voice. “No.”

Another ten seconds pass. “Just not that one.”

He sighs so dramatically it almost makes him feel like one of those Hollywood wives that finds it physically impossible to shut up.

“I’m going to hell.”

And somehow, despite knowing exactly how wrong it is, he already knows he is going to pull the diary back out before he falls asleep. So why not save himself some time? Just because he knows that he won’t be able to stop thinking about it and he is starting to get kind of tired and-

“I am so going to hell,” he mumbles to himself again and pulls out the diary. And it’s like his brain has already registered where he was in the notebook because his fingers open the right page on the first try.

Dear Diary,

I jerked off thinking about Mike again.

“Again?” Mike gasps low. Stunned, amused. Just the tiniest bit of disbelief. 

I know. I know. Before anyone says it, I already feel disgusting enough. I spent twenty minutes thinking about it afterwards because I kept thinking maybe if I hated myself hard enough it’d finally stop happening.

It doesn’t. The worst part isn’t even that it happened. The worst part is that nothing I imagined while doing it is impossible. It wasn’t some fantasy where he suddenly loved me and threw me on a bed or something.

He just smiled at me. He put his hand on the back of my neck like he always does after campaigns and told me I did a good job. Then he looked at me for a little longer than usual.

That’s it. I swear. My brain and hand did the rest.

I wish I wanted less from him. I wish I wanted anything less from him.

But God, I love it when he looks at me. I love it even more when he says that I’m good.

Mike licks his dry lips as he makes himself more comfortable in the bed. His thighs clench the rolled duvet between his legs and his eyes wander further down the page to the next entry.

Dear Diary,

I don’t think Mike realizes he touches people differently.

Lucas gets high fives. Dustin gets shoved. But with me… He fixes my hair. He places a hand on my back when he’s laughing. He leaves his hand on my shoulder when he’s talking. He always does it without thinking.

I don’t think he knows what it does to me. To my brain and to my body.

Mike rereads it before he moves on.

Dear Diary,

El’s dead.

Mike’s entire facial expression falls at the two words. It feels like a rock has just crashed through the roof and hit him in the chest. He stares at the words, on and on again, before he finally forces himself to move on. 

Dear Diary,

El’s dead.

I don’t know how to write that sentence without feeling like maybe if I stop writing it’ll stop being true.

She’s gone. I keep expecting someone to tell me they made a mistake. That they’ll find her somewhere. That she’ll walk through the front door asking why everyone looks so sad. But nobody does.

Mike hasn’t cried. He looks like he’s forgotten how. He just sits there. People keep asking him if he’s okay and he keeps saying yes. He’s lying. I know he is.

I wish he’d let somebody hold him. I wish it could be me.

Today I found him sitting on the basement floor after everyone had gone upstairs. He didn’t even notice I came in but I sat down beside him anyway. We stayed there for almost an hour without talking. When I finally stood up, he reached out and grabbed my wrist.

Just for a second. Like he didn’t want to be alone. Then he realized what he was doing and let go. He apologized. I told him he didn’t have to. He looked so tired.

I think that was the moment I realized loving someone sometimes means watching them fall apart and knowing there’s nothing you can do except to just stay and be present. I also think that was the moment I realized he isn’t my Tammy. 

Because I would’ve stayed forever if he’d asked. I would have stayed down there forever. If he had just asked me. 

He didn’t. He never asks me for anything. I do it anyway, though. 

Mike lets the diary fall to his chest. He remembers that night.

He remembers sitting with Will in the dark basement. He had been so thankful to just have him there, even though they weren’t actually saying or doing anything. His presence was enough. It made him realise how thankful he was over the fact that he hadn’t lost both of them. Because it had always felt like Will and El went together for Mike.

When Will went missing, he found El. When El went missing, his relationship with Will strengthened. Until he became a teenager and suddenly they were both there at the same time and he didn’t know which one he was supposed to focus on. So it was just easier to choose El. Because she was his girlfriend. And a girl.

And because he didn’t know how to explain his relationship with Will. It was stronger and deeper than any other of his friendships. They were one. Always had been.

But they never talked about that night. Mike had forgotten it.

Well, not completely. He remembered the basement and the silence. The smell of dust and old carpet. He remembered feeling so unbearably empty that even speaking had seemed exhausting. He hadn’t remembered Will’s wrist beneath his fingers, he hadn’t remembered reaching for him at all.

He closes his eyes. Will had. Of course he had. He’d remembered every second of it. Because that was the difference between them, wasn’t it?

Mike had just lived through those years, but Will had collected them like little treasures to put on paper.

Every smile. Every touch. Every stupid joke. Every moment Mike had forgotten before the week was over had become another page in this diary.

Mike suddenly can’t remember the last time he’d made Will feel seen.

Not looked at. But actually, truly seen.

His fingers rest against the edge of the paper.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers to the empty room. His eyes clench together painfully and he ignores the single droplet of water that falls down his temple.

***

Mike is standing by the phone at half past eight the next morning, the cord wound tightly around his finger while he waits for someone to pick up on the other end. He has already been standing there for the last five minutes, wondering whether he should call or not - and most of all, what he’s gonna say. He hasn’t been this nervous about calling one of his friends before, not even after bad arguments. 

“Hello, Will speaking.”

Mike catches himself smiling instantly. Will’s voice is soft and sleepy and Mike can almost hear last night’s beers in it. Like a little bubbly aftertaste, something that sounds awfully close to adulthood. 

“Hi, Will,” he answers.

“Mike?” Will sounds actually a bit surprised.

“Yeah. It’s me.” Mike leans against the wall. He can hear his mother fixing breakfast in the kitchen. “What’re you doing?”

Will takes a second to answer. “Some stupid boy just woke me up.”

“Oh? What’s his problem?” Mike bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from smiling even wider.

“Don’t know. Kind of annoying, to be honest.” Will snorts.

“Sounds like a jerk.” 

“Huge jerk.” Will huffs out a drowsy laugh. He sounds so soft and sleepy that it makes Mike’s entire chest fill with warmth. Mike laughs gently.

“Well… is he at least good-looking?” He teases.

A soft silence falls over the line and Mike waits patiently for Will’s answer. 

“I guess.”

“Only ‘I guess’?” Mike grins.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Will exhales through a yawn. Mike licks his lips.

“Come on.”

Will lets out a dramatic sigh. “Yeah.”

Mike blinks. “Really? I mean-“ he laughs a stuttering huff. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”

“What?”

“Admitting I’m handsome.” Mike scoffs.

Another pause settles over the line. Mike can’t seem to stop smiling.

“I didn’t say that,” Will mumbles under his breath.

“You kinda did.”

And then Will laughs too, just a little too loudly to come out as casual.

“What do you want, Mike?”

Mike opens his mouth but nothing comes out. He hadn’t really thought this far. He had just woken up and decided that he would make a change today. A big change. He is gonna be present.

“I was thinking about going to the pool.” He glances toward the kitchen, where his mother looks over at him from the stove after overhearing the conversation. Mike smiles innocently and gives her a little shrug. “Do you wanna go?”

“Now?” Will sounds genuinely confused. “It’s raining, Mike.”

“So?”

“It’s literally raining.”

“Means we’ll have the place to ourselves.”

A small laugh escapes Will. “Wait…” he says after a moment. “You’re not gonna invite the others?”

Something tight twists low in Mike’s stomach. He doesn’t know what it is, but it’s warm and reminds him an awfully lot about that one time he had to talk in front of his entire class in fourth grade.

“No,” he answers before he’s really thought about it. “Just you and me.” Silence. Mike frowns at the receiver and for one terrifying second he wonders if the line has gone dead. “Will?”

“Yeah?”

“You still there?”

“Yeah.” Will clears his throat. “Sorry. I just… wasn’t expecting that.”

Mike laughs, oblivious.

“What? Hanging out with your best friend?”

“Right.”

“So… are you coming?” Mike can hear Will smiling now.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” A quieter laugh. “Just let me wake up first.”

***

The rain, combined with the early hour and the cool weather, had indeed scared almost everyone away from the pool. The parking lot is nearly empty, occupied by only a single bike and two cars.

Mike chains his bike outside the entrance, wipes a few drops of rain from his face and pushes his damp curls out of his eyes. He glances around the empty lot.

Good.

Less people means less noise. Less noise means fewer distractions. Which, judging by the past week, probably isn’t going to work either way. Still, fewer people also means more space. More privacy.

He bought a ticket from the teenage boy behind the counter, who’s chewing gum with an open mouth behind a pair of mirroring sunglasses despite the gray morning outside.

Definitely hungover, Mike decides.

The automatic doors slide open with a hiss. Warm, humid air wraps around him immediately. The sharp smell of chlorine stings his nose as the steady bubbling of the filtration system echoes through the area.

On his way toward the changing rooms, he glances across the pool. A mother and two young kids are tossing a brightly colored beach ball back and forth, their laughter bouncing through the damp air. 

Otherwise, the place is almost deserted. Everything looks exactly the way it always has. Maybe quieter and emptier. But otherwise, just normal. Mike has the strange feeling that he is the only thing that isn’t. Normal, that is. 

The changing room echoes with emptiness and it feels too large with only him inside. The walls are too high, the ceiling lights too bright and the narrow windows too clear.

He chooses a locker near the showers and pushes it open with a groan. The metallic clang bounces around the tiled room, loud and almost a little frightening when combined with his loneliness and the dark clouds outside the windows. He drops his backpack onto the bench below and starts pulling his T-shirt over his head.

The door swings open. A gust of cool air rolls across the room, causing shivers to run down Mike’s body at what feels like the speed of light. He looks up automatically, half expecting some old guy with gray chest hair and a speedo to wander in.

Instead, it’s Will.

Rain clings to the ends of his hair and a towel hangs over one shoulder , filled with dark spots from the rain. His swim bag is dangling from one of his hands and Mike recognizes it instantly to be the gym bag he used to take to school. He pauses for a second after spotting Mike, surprise flashing across his face before it softens into a smile.

“You actually got here first,” Will says, smiling. 

Mike’s hands stop halfway through pulling off his shirt, hands hoovering just above his navel.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snorts.

Will walks across the room, his footsteps echoing between the rows of lockers.

“You’re usually late, is all,” he shrugs. He drops his swim bag onto the bench beside Mike’s with a dull thud. Mike’s stomach tightens as Will opens it and pulls out a towel and a pair of swim trunks.

Only then does it hit him that they’ll need to change. Right here. Next to each other.

His throat suddenly feels dry. Which actually is ridiculous. They’d been changing next to each other for years. After gym class, before the lake or the pool, during sleepovers. If he remembers it correctly he could definitely remember comparing sizes behind a shed at school once. When they were kids.

It had never been something he’d thought twice about - not even after Will came out.

Nobody in the party had.

It had always felt the same as changing around Max. Maybe not something they did often, but normal enough that nobody cared. They’d grown up together. They’d scraped their knees together, nearly died together, slept on each other’s floors.

They were practically family. Nothing had changed. Will was still just… Will. He’d always been Will.

Mike is the one who has changed. Because now he knows things that he knows he shouldn't actually know anything about. He knows Will had once fallen asleep with his sweatshirt tucked beneath his pillow. He knows Will had spent years wanting to kiss him.

He knows that ordinary moments Mike had forgotten by the next morning had become diary entries for Will. For fuck’s sake, he found out he had been jerked off to last night.

Those weren’t things you could un-know.

Mike doesn't mind, though. At least… he doesn't think he does. But he cares. More than he wants to admit.

Before his thoughts can spiral any further, he yanks his shirt over his head and shoves it into the locker a little harder than necessary.

The metallic clang echoes through the room. Will glances over at him, an eyebrow raised. Mike looks anywhere but at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Will tug his own shirt over his head, dropping it onto the bench beside his towel. The changing room suddenly feels much larger.

Much quieter with just the two of them in there. Barefoot and bare-chested. All alone with nowhere to look but at each other or at nothing at all.

“So…” Will breaks the silence.

Mike swallows. His hands hoover uncertainly at the waistband of his shorts.

“Yeah?”

“You’ve been acting really weird lately.”

Mike lets out a nervous laugh that sounds way too fake even for his own ears.

“Have I?” He tries to chuckle. It comes out barely audible. His thumb strokes the inside of his waistband, feeling the soft skin of his stomach. He should unbutton them and undress himself so that he can escape this misery and get into the pool as fast as possible.

”Nothing bad. I was just…” Will trails off, unbuttoning his shorts.

The quiet click of the button seems absurdly loud and Mike’s eyes flicker toward the movement on instinct, merely enough to see Will’s slim fingers undo the zipper, before he catches himself and looks away again.

Heat climbs to his face and chest. He stares down at his own hands instead, focusing on the zipper of his shorts, on the chipped white tile beneath his feet - anything except the figure moving in his peripheral vision.

He catches only fragments anyway. The blur of denim slipping away, pale thighs and green swim trunks replacing them. That should have been the end of it. Instead, his pulse refuses to settle. 

“You… uh…” Mike finally looks up.

A mistake. His eyes betray him immediately, darting over Will before he can stop them. Bare shoulders. Damp loops of hair clinging to his forehead. Green swim trunks hanging low on narrow hips. Veiny forearms from gripping onto the bike on his way there.

Then they meet Will’s eyes. Mike looks away so fast his neck hurts.

“You go ahead,” he mumbles, fumbling with the button on his own shorts. “I’ll… I’ll be out in a minute.”

Will studies him for a long second. “Okay.”

He doesn’t sound offended. Just confused. Mike hears his footsteps disappear toward the door before it swings shut behind him. Silence embraces the air. Mike waits another three seconds. Five. Then he lets out the breath he’d apparently been holding.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” he mutters.

He fumbles with the button of his shorts, nearly dropping them in his hurry to change. By the time he’s pulled on his swim trunks, his face still feels hot. He splashes cold water over it at one of the sinks but it doesn’t help, if anything, it only makes him feel even hotter.

The rain drums steadily against the ground and water surface as he steps out onto the pool deck.

Will is already in the water. He has drifted toward the deep end, floating lazily on his back with his eyes closed, one arm trailing through the water. Every now and then a raindrop falls from the sky and lands perfectly across his chest or stomach. For a moment, Mike simply watches.

He has never noticed how peaceful Will looks sometimes. Warm, and calm. Almost a little childish. It reminds Mike of when they were little kids begging their parents for a sleepover. 

Will opens his right eye and looks straight at Mike with one eyebrow raised, almost as if he had sensed his presence. Like his eyes know exactly where to look even when closed.

“You gonna stand there all day?” 

Mike blinks at him, mind slowly pulling itself back to reality. “Huh?”

“Are you coming in?” Will grins sweetly. “Or have you changed your mind about the rain?”

Mike rolls his eyes. “No.”

“Get in, then.”

Mike doesn’t let himself think for another second before he takes three quick steps towards the pool and cannonballs into the deep end, right beside where Will is lying. Water explodes over the edge of the pool and Will is sputtering, coughing as a wave washes over his face when Mike comes back up.

“Michael!” he croaks out, water filling his throat.

Mike burst out laughing, wiping water from his eyes with both hands.

“I think you deserved that one,” he teases.

“Oh, you’re dead,” Will growls. He lunges toward Mike through the water, laughing despite himself.

Mike meets him halfway. Their hands find shoulders, their arms slip around each other’s sides, trying to throw the other off balance as they shove and splash, both laughing too hard to put any real strength into it.

“Cheater!” Mike laughs as Will hooks an arm around his waist.

“You’re just weak.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Mike ducks under Will’s arm and grabs him around the middle instead. For a brief second they both lose their footing, colliding chest-first before bouncing apart again in another explosion of laughter.

The contact barely lasted a heartbeat. Long enough for Mike to realize how warm Will still is beneath the cold pool water. Long enough for his stomach to do that strange little flip again.

He immediately shoves the feeling away.

“Come on,” he laughs, splashing another wave into Will’s face. “You’re getting slow.”

Will wipes the water from his eyes, grinning. “You’re seriously asking for it, aren’t you?”

And before Mike manages to catch up on what is happening, Will throws his entire body onto Mike’s. His arms wrap around his neck and his legs tangle themselves around his waist, leaning forward until both of them are under water.

Mike’s hand flies instinctively to the middle of Will’s back as they disappear beneath the surface. The world became bubbles and muffled sounds. For one disorienting second, there is nothing except the pressure of Will’s body against his, the pull of the water and sunlight breaking through the surface above them in wavering ribbons.

Will kicks first, heels pushing into the back of Mike’s thigh. They burst back into the open air together, both of them coughing and laughing as they cling onto one another.

“You’re insane!” Mike splutters, one hand pushing wet curls out of his eyes before it returns to Will’s naked back.

“I won,” Will says, still laughing.

“You cheated!” Mike croaks, throat tickling from water. His eyes sting a little from chlorine. 

“How?”

“You attacked me.”

“That’s not cheating.” Will tilts his head, eyes turning innocent and shining. 

“Of course it is.” Mike glares back, biting the inside of his cheek. 

Will snorts so hard he nearly swallows another mouthful of pool water.

“You’re such a baby,” he mumbles through a soft laughter.

Mike rolls his eyes, but he keeps smiling anyway. They drift apart just enough to let some water fill the space between their chests comfortably again. Mike realized his hand was still resting against Will’s back. He let go so quickly it nearly looks like he’s burned himself.

Will doesn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he does.

He only blinked a little, pushing soaked hair away from his forehead before looking up toward the gray sky. Rain tapped softly against the surface around them and onto his face, breaking the water into thousands of tiny circles.

Neither of them speaks for a while. Mike finds himself watching the drops collect on Will’s eyelashes before they slide harmlessly down his cheeks.

Nobody else probably notices that, he thought.

The realization lands before he could stop it.

I do.

Mike’s waist suddenly feels empty and cold where Will’s legs had been only a short moment ago. A ridiculous part of him wishes Will would jump at him again. Just once. Just so he could feel what that had been like one more time.

The thought startles  him enough that he almost laughs at himself.

Will is already floating backward now, letting the water carry him toward the lane rope. Rain dots the surface around him, tiny silver rings spreading across the pool. He closes his eyes and tips his head back, letting the drops land on his face.

“What?” Will asked after a moment, without opening them.

Mike blinks, looking around before answering. “What?”

“You’re staring.”

Mike licks his lips. “I am not.”

Had he been staring? He can’t even remember.

Will opened one eye, looking at him. “You are.”

Mike looks away so quickly. “I was thinking.”

“That’s new.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Will laughs. The sound echoes strangely across the heavy air, bouncing between the pools edges and the walls of the changing rooms and cafe. Mike finds himself smiling before he even realizes it.

“So…” Will says, floating onto his back. “Why’d you really invite me?”

“What do you mean?” Mike frowns. He looks around the pool again. The life guard is sitting with a book pressed to her nose and the mother and her children are just getting ready to leave.

“You’ve never called me before nine in the morning.”

“Yes, I have.”

“Nope.”

Mike hears himself wheeze.

“I just…” He shrugs, splashing idly at the water between them. “Wanted to hang out.”

“Just us?”

The question is so casual it almost disappears beneath the sound of the rain. Mike opens his mouth, just to close it back shut again.

Because I’d rather be with you. Because I wanted to see you. Because I can’t stop thinking about you. 

Instead, he shrugs again.

“Yeah. You’re my best friend, I like hanging out with you.”

Will studies him for a second. Then, to Mike’s surprise, he smiles.

“Me too. I’m glad you called.”

Something inside Mike’s chest shifts. Something soft, and warm. Something comforting. Like a compliment, but stronger. Just enough that he knows he’d remember those four words much longer than he probably should. He doesn’t know what to answer.

Instead, he lets half his face disappear beneath the water. When he comes back up, his cheeks are puffed out.

Will frowns. “Mike?”

Mike spits a stream of pool water straight at his chest.

“Michael!” Will yelps.

“You were getting all emotional,” Mike laughs, already backing away through the water.

“I was not!”

“You were.”

“I said one nice thing!”

“Well, don’t.”

Will stares at him before scooping up both hands beneath the surface.

“You’re done.”

“What-”

A wall of water crashed into Mike’s face. He gasps, blinking furiously as chlorine stings his eyes.

“You little-”

Another splash. Mike lunged after him. Will shrieks with laughter and turns, swimming away toward the diving board with quick, practiced strokes.

“You’re dead!” Mike shouts.

“You’ve already used that one!”

“I mean it this time!”

“You meant it last time too!”

Mike finally catches the back of Will’s shoulder, turning him around to face him in a tight grip.

“Got you,” he grins.

Will is laughing so hard he nearly slips beneath the surface, his back eventually hitting the back of the pool as Mike cages him there.

“Not fair!” he laughs. Mike smiles, hands taking a grip of the pool edge on either side of Will’s shoulders.

“It’s as fair as it possibly can be.” 

“You just want to play your own little game,” Will snorts.

“I learned from Dustin.” Mike wiggles his eyebrows. Will’s head falls back with a light groan.

“That explains everything.”

They dissolve into laughter again. When it finally fades, both of them are breathing hard, Mike letting go of the pool to stand back next to his friend instead. Drifting side by side in the deep end. The rain has started falling a little harder now, peppering the surface around them.

“So…” Mike floats onto his back.

Will copies him a moment later. “So.”

Neither of them look at the other.

“Are you excited for Chicago?” Will asks quietly.

Mike stares up at the gray clouds. “I don’t know.”

“That doesn’t sound very excited."

“No.” He takes a pause. “I think I’m mostly scared,” he admits.

The words surprise Mike almost as much as they surprise Will. Will turns his head just enough to look at him. For a second it seems like he is about to make some teasing remark, but instead his shoulders relax. 

“Me too.”

Mike looks back. For a moment, neither of them smile. And the atmosphere that builds up around them feels different from every conversation they’d had all summer. It feels honest and raw.

“Do you think it’ll be weird?” Will asks after a while. “Being… twelve hours away from each other?”

Mike swallows. He doesn’t want to think about it. Most of the party is heading to New York. Only he and Dustin are going to Chicago. He doesn’t want to think about what that meant for movie nights. For campaigns. For spontaneous bike rides to each other’s houses. For cardgame nights and sleepovers.

For Will. And for Mike.

So he shrugs instead.

“It’s only, what… a two-hour flight?”

“Still.”

“And besides,” Mike says, forcing a grin, “we survived California.”

Will huffs out a sarcastic laugh.

“Barely, and that’s not even remotely the same.”

“Sure it is.”

“It absolutely isn’t.”

“Well, it’s just distance.”

Will rolls his eyes. “Well, I hope it won’t be like California, at least.”

Mike tilts his head to look at him. “Why?”

Will sighs loudly. Mike watches him carefully, waiting patiently for Will to answer. “Because…” Will inhales a deep breath. “Because you called, like, once. And you were all weird when we met again. I wasn’t even sure I could consider you my friend anymore.”

Mike looks back to the gray sky. His throat feels tight and painfully lumpy. He knows Will is telling the truth, because that’s exactly how it had gone. He had moved away and Mike didn’t know how he was supposed to act.

“I’m sorry,” he says. His voice echoes between them. Will takes a moment before he answers.

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I was an ass and you didn’t deserve that.” And fuck, how nice it feels to say that out loud. It feels incredible.

“I didn’t.” Will mumbles.

“No, you didn’t.”

Mike tilts his head, trying to shake the water out of one ear. As he does, his eyes catch Will’s. They stay there. Rain collects in the ends of Will’s eyelashes and his hair is plastered to his forehead, darker now that it’s soaked. Tiny freckles standing out across his nose.

He looks… Mike can’t find the word. Peaceful. Like this is enough. As if this is enough for him to be happy. Maybe hearing those words had made Will feel just as good as saying them had been for Mike. 

Will doesn’t look away.

“What?” he asks quietly.

Mike realizes he has been staring again. “Nothing.”

“You’ve been looking at me a lot lately.”

And you’ve been noticing it.

“Have I?”

“Yeah.” Will smiles a little. “It’s kind of suspicious.”

Mike smiles back before he could stop himself. “Maybe I’m becoming mysterious.”

Will laughs. “No.”

“No?”

“No.” Will drifts a little closer with an absent kick of his legs. “You’re terrible at being mysterious.”

“Oh?” Mike snorts, a smirk building up on his wet lips.

“You literally make a face every time you’re hiding something.”

Mike feels his stomach tighten. “What face?”

Will studies him for a second. Then, very gently, he reaches over and pokes Mike once between the eyebrows.

“This one,” he says.

Mike freezes. The touch lasts less than a second and should definitely not make his stomach flutter like that. It’s barely even a touch. Yet, it lingers long after Will’s hand disappears beneath the water again. Before Mike could think it through truly, his own hand slips beneath the surface too. His fingers close gently around Will’s wrist, heat returning to both of them instantly. 

Will turns back to look at him, blinking the water out of his eyes. Neither of them speaks. Pool water drifts lazily between them while rain taps softly against the surface around their shoulders. Mike hadn’t even realized what he’d done until Will stopped floating away. His thumb rests against the inside of Will’s wrist. Warm and incredibly soft. He can feel Will’s pulse. His own heart stumbles.

“Mike?”

The sound of his name pulls  him back to reality.

He should let go. He should free Will from his grip.

Instead, his fingers tightens almost uncontrollably. He doesn’t know why. Or, a part of him does.

There’s only a few weeks left before they’re gonna leave each other again. A few more movie nights. A few more mornings where he could call Will before breakfast and ask if he wants to go swimming. Or just hang out. Have lunch at the hill, eat ice cream at Melvalds, hang out at the mall, sleepover.

A few more days where touch wouldn’t be this familiar anymore. Soon everything would become phone calls. Plane tickets. Holiday visits squeezed between college exams. Uncertain hugs and shouldertaps.

They would still be friends. Mike knows that. But it wouldn’t be… this.

Will looks down at his arm, where Mike is holding him, the sight blurry from water. Then he looks back up again. He doesn’t pull away.

“You okay?” he asks quietly.

Mike swallows and nods.

“Yeah,” he takes a shaky breath. “Just…”

He looks around at the empty pool, the rain, the gray sky reflected in the water.

“Don’t leave yet.” The words escape before he can stop them. Will’s expression softens into something Mike can’t quite read.

“Okay,” he whispers, nodding softly. He stops kicking in the water and lets himself drift closer to Mike again. They park against one of the walls, heads placed against the pool edge as their shoulders brush together. And for a long time, neither of them moves. 

Will doesn’t leave. He stays exactly where Mike had asked him to stay - right by his side. Close enough that their knees brush beneath the water whenever the current shifts.

Mike’s fingers are still wrapped around his wrist. He knows he should let go but he doesn’t. Will looks down at the touch once more, then back up at Mike. His expression is careful now. Softer than before, but guarded in a way that made Mike’s chest ache.

“You’re kind of scaring me today,” Will says quietly.

Mike’s throat tightened. “I’m not trying to.”

“I know.” Will swallows. “I know.”

The rain keeps falling between them. Mike’s thumb moves once, barely there, against the inside of Will’s wrist. Will’s breath catches just the slightest. It is so small that Mike almost misses it. His whole body goes still.

And then, there it is again. That knowledge that had been lingering in the back of his head for the last couple of days. Not from the diary, this time. From Will. From right here, right now.

Mike looks at his mouth before he can stop himself. Will notices. For one long second neither of them move.

Then a whistle blows from the lifeguard chair.

“Pool closes in fifteen because of the storm!”

Mike jerks back, like he’d been caught doing something illegal. Will blinks hard, looking away first.

“Right,” he says, voice thin. “We should probably…”

“Yeah.”

Neither of them move. 

***

Mike groans loudly when he finally locks the bedroom door behind him that afternoon - fingers, in some fucked up way, still wrinkly from the water and his stomach filled with the hotdogs that he and Will had stopped to get on their way back home.

His family is all downstairs and he can hear the soft clinking of his mother preparing dinner as he throws himself onto the bed, causing it to creak in disapproval. He makes himself comfortable, pushing his pillow up against the wall and sitting back against it. And as if he has been thinking about it all day - as if he has been longing for it all day - he pulls the diary out and opens it over his lap.

He scrolls through the already read pages, tongue darting out in concentration while it licks back and forth. He can still sense the taste of ketchup and mustard in the corner of his mouth.

Dear Diary,

It’s February. 14th, to be exact.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Mike smiles lightly.

It’s been four months since Henry and Jane died.

A lot has happened since then, I guess. Mom started working again, and Hopper returned to the station. They moved in together, too. So I’m not living with Mike anymore. I have my own room. El’s old room. I still have her clothes tucked away in the closet and under the bed. I don’t want anyone to know.

Anyways… I spent the entire day with Dustin and Mike today. We went out to eat pizza and then we came back here to the cabin and watched a movie. They helped me set up some cool paintings on my walls, too. It was nice.

But I also know it was weird. All of us were acting pretty strange, I think. Dustin had actually been asked out on a date but he refused to go because he didn’t want to leave me and Mike alone. The gay boy with no chance at finding love and the kid that had just lost his girlfriend to suicide. What a duo. 

Mike barely laughed today. He wasn’t sad all the time, but every time he forgot for a second and smiled at something, he’d suddenly remember, and it would disappear again.

I don’t think people realize grief can make someone feel guilty for being happy.

I wanted to tell him it was okay. I didn’t.

Instead, I kept pretending I needed help hanging another picture frame just so he’d stay in my room a little longer. And he did.

We spent almost fifteen minutes arguing over whether it was crooked. It probably still is.

When they were leaving, Mike hugged me. Nothing unusual. We’ve hugged a million times. But this one lasted… I don’t know. Maybe one second longer than normal. Or maybe I only wanted it to.

Either way, I almost ruined everything by hugging him back too hard. I don’t think he noticed. I hope he didn’t. Sometimes I wonder if this is what my life is going to be.

Collecting tiny moments nobody else remembers. Living inside them until the next one comes along. If that’s all I ever get… I think it’d still be enough.

Happy Valentine’s Day, I guess.

Mike inhales a shaky breath as he rereads the last sentence. He and El had never been big on celebrating Valentine’s Day together, anyways. But he can clearly remember thinking about her quite a lot that day.

Dear Diary,

Mike keeps apologizing for not spending time with me.

I don’t mind. I see him in school everyday. But I still miss him.

Mike licks his lips and turns the page.

Dear Diary,

Mike met a girl at Family Video today.

Nothing happened. They talked for maybe five minutes while I looked at horror movies with Dustin.

She laughed at something he said. I hated her immediately. That’s probably the ugliest thing I’ve ever written.

She didn’t do anything wrong. She doesn’t even know I exist. I just wanted him to keep looking at me instead.

“I do,” Mike mumbles, the words barely making it past his lips.

He isn’t even sure why he said it out loud. The bedroom remains silent around him and downstairs, a cabinet closes. His mother laughs at something Holly says, the sound muffled by the floorboards. The diary says nothing back. Mike’s thumb lingers against the edge of the page.

“I was looking at you,” he whispers, almost defensively. “I just…” He sighs. “didn’t know.”

His eyes drift back to the neat handwriting. How many times had Will watched him walk into a room, hoping Mike would look his way? How many times had Mike smiled at somebody else while never realizing someone beside him had been quietly hoping for one more glance?

His chest tightens. He thinks about Family Video. He can’t remember ever talking to some girl in there. 

But Will remembers. Of course he does. He was in love.

Mike turns the page carefully, almost afraid of what another few lines of blue ink might do to him.

Dear Diary,

It’s been six months since Vecna died.

I think my body has finally realized it doesn’t have to get traumatized every five minutes.

It’s weird. I keep forgetting to be scared. Instead, I keep thinking about really stupid things. Like whether my hair looks okay. Or whether Mike noticed I wore a new sweater today. Or why I suddenly can’t think properly whenever he sits too close to me on the couch.

It feels ridiculous.

Like I’ve spent years worrying about monsters from another dimension, only to be completely defeated by having a crush on my best friend.

Things keep happening that I have absolutely no control over. And somehow, they all feel much more appropriate for a fourteen-year-old than someone who’s just turned seventeen.

I think maybe this is what being a normal teenager was supposed to feel like all along.

I’m just a few years late.

For example, Mike called me “a good boy” last night when I refused to taste the beer Dustin had managed to steal from his mother. It wandered around the group, and I just waved my hand when it was my turn.

Mike had  laughed.

“He’s too much of a good boy, forget it,” he said, like it was nothing. Like he hadn’t just completely rearranged my brain.

I don’t even think he remembers saying it. But I do. Obviously.

I had to excuse myself and lock myself in Dustin’s bathroom for ten whole minutes.

I just… I needed to breathe. I kept splashing cold water on my face and telling myself to get over it. It was two words. Two completely normal words. Except they didn’t feel normal coming from him. I don’t know why my brain insists on making Mike sound different from everybody else.

I hate it. I love it. Mostly I hate how much I love it.

When I finally came back out, everyone had already moved on to another conversation. Mike looked up when he heard me.

“There you are,” he smiled. “Thought you’d passed out in there.”

I laughed. He laughed. And just like that, I forgot all about the beer. Because somehow Mike smiling at me has always been enough to ruin my day. Or make it.

I was seconds away from coming in my jeans. Over two words. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted the earth to swallow me whole more than I did in Dustin Henderson’s bathroom.

Mike closes the diary for a moment, eyes wandering to the ceiling while he inhales a heavy breath.

“I called him that?” he whispers into the sunlit room. He scratches at his chin, frowning. He genuinely can’t remember the moment Will is writing about. Which is a little disappointing because he would have loved looking back at the memory just to look for hints. Maybe Will’s face before and after the bathroom visit, if his cheeks had been all flushed.

But somewhere in the back of his mind, memories begin surfacing anyway.

Buddy. Idiot. Good job. Come here. Don’t go.

Random words. Random things he’d thrown out without thinking, the same way he’d thrown snowballs or jokes or half-empty chip bags at Dustin or Lucas.

Had those also affected Will like this?

His stomach twists.

How was he supposed to know?

How many times had he accidentally made Will’s heart race without even realizing it? How many hugs had lasted a little too long because Mike hadn’t noticed Will wasn’t letting go? How many smiles had followed him home and ended up on these pages?

The thought should make him embarrassed. Instead, it leaves him strangely… quiet and warm. He has spent years believing he isn’t anything remotely close to something remarkable. He is no Steve Harrington with amazing hair and big muscles. He isn’t the handsome one in the friendgroup and not even close enough to something girls would do a double take at while walking down the street. He isn’t the charming one. He is just Mike.

And yet, somehow… To Will, he has been enough all this time.

“Jesus Christ,” he sighs between his teeth. 

His thumb brushed absentmindedly over the edge of the paper. He can’t decide whether that makes him feel guilty or impossibly special. Being enough for someone like Will. Someone so creative, smart, handsome and genuinely selfless and kind. When his mind keeps telling him that he probably isn’t worth it. 

He stretches his neck before he continues reading. 

Dear Diary,

Mike fell asleep on my shoulder during movie night yesterday. Nobody noticed.

I didn’t move for almost an hour. My arm went completely numb. I still didn’t move. I kept thinking… If I shift even a little, he’d wake up. So I just sat there.

Sometimes I think love is probably supposed to feel bigger than this.

Fireworks. Grand gestures. Confessions.

Instead mine looks like losing feeling in my left arm because Mike looked too comfortable. I’d do it again. Preferably already tonight. He could sneak through my bedroom window and lay down in my bed-

Mike sucks in a shaky breath and lets it seep out through his mouth.

He could sneak through my bedroom window and lay down in my bed and fall asleep on my arm while I caress his nose and cheeks. And his lips.

I want him in my bed every night. No matter if I’m even there or not. 

Something tight and hot settles in the bottom of Mike's stomach. Something too familiar, something that forces him to keep the diary put in his lap so that he can ignore the tension that starts to well up underneath it. It’s just something about reading him being wanted like that - so desperately - that makes his entire control system falter.

Dear Diary,

It’s currently three AM and I'm 100% sure I'm gonna regret writing this tomorrow. 

I just dreamt about Mike. A hot, messy dream that is probably gonna haunt me for years.

He crawled underneath my covers while I was asleep. And he kissed my neck and brushed my hair with his fingers. In the dream, I woke up to him crawling on top of me.

Mike’s eyes clenches shut as his thighs push themselves together on the bed. He can’t let this get to him.

He undressed me. I undressed him.

I’m not gonna write more about that. Too embarrassing.

Mike frowns slightly, unwanted disappointment yeasting inside of him.

But when I woke up for real, I had to change boxers. 

Mike stares at the words, lips parted, his tongue dragging slowly across the back of his teeth.

He can’t help it. His bare feet rub together beneath the duvet. His palms have gone damp against the hardcover and paper. His thoughts refuse to stay in one place and from one second to another, it feels like they are running all over the place.

Never - not once in his entire life - had he imagined someone could look at him like this. Not Steve Harrington or some other handsome dude from school. Not some movie star or a sexy artist.

Him. Mike Wheeler. The boy who talks too much when he gets nervous. The one who trips over his own shoelaces. The one who apologizes to vending machines, for God’s sake.

And Will had spent nights dreaming about him. Not just noticing him, but wanting him. Thinking about him when he’s alone. Remembering the smallest things Mike himself has long forgotten.

The heat bubbles in Mike’s chest, spreading slowly through him until he can no longer tell where the guilt ends and something far more terrifying begins.

“…Jesus,” he whispers.

He lowers his eyes to the page again. He knows he should close the diary. He also knows he isn’t going to. What he is holding onto is one page after another explaining how much someone loves and yearns for him. No one would want to give that up.

He realises that he kind of feels like Dorian Gray right now. Because fuck how much he loves reading about how much Will wants him.

Dear Diary,

Okay. I can’t keep the dream to myself anymore. Or dreams, more like. Because they keep happening.

Different places. Different days. Sometimes we’re sixteen again. Sometimes we’re already in college. Sometimes nothing happens except that he looks at me the way I keep wishing he would do everyday.

Every morning I wake up feeling ridiculous. Every morning I promise myself I’ll stop thinking about him. But every night it feels like my subconscious laughs in my face.

Mike swallows hard. He glances up at the locked door of his bedroom, checking the locket, before he looks back down to the diary.

I dreamt about moaning his name the other night. While he jerked me off.

Mike forgets how to breathe.

I have dreamt about him sneaking into my room in the middle of the night more than I have had nightmares about El or Vecna. I have dreamt about him pushing me up against a wall, moaning into my ear while he rubs our bodies together.

God, I’m actually insane.

“No, no, no…” Mike sighs softly. His left hand grips the diary tight between his fingers while his right hand lets go. Without really paying too much attention to what he is doing, he lets it wander down to his stomach. To the waistband of his jeans shorts, where he unbuttons the button with his thumb and index finger and drags the zipper down slowly.

I’m actually insane. This is not normal. I don’t want to sexualise Mike.

“That’s fine,” he mumbles.

But I can’t stop thinking about it either. He is so… He is addictive. Hot and funny and sweet and soft. I love his hair and his voice. And I love his fingers and his veiny hands. 

I want them inside of me.

A muffled, choked gasp leaves Mike’s lips as his fingers crawl underneath the fabric of his shorts. He can feel the outline of his erection through the silky fabric of his boxers. And as much as it kind of freaks him out, he starts to stroke his fingertips against the heat. Just the tips of his digits, up and down, like petting the forehead on a cat.

I want all of him. On top of me, under me, inside of me.

And I want to beg. Outloud. I want to beg for him to touch me, to kiss me, to undress me and to give me everything he has to offer. I want to beg for him to push me to my knees and to suck-

Mike’s lips fall open, an uninvited whimper escaping as he grabs himself through his boxers. His movement fastens just the slightest, his hand cupping himself through the fabric. 

I want to beg for him to push me to my knees and to suck him off. And fuck me.

I dream about it all the time. Begging and giving myself to him.

I think I want it so much because I do it quietly everyday. I fantasize about doing it outloud so that he can finally hear me. 

Yesterday when we were in his bedroom reading comics, he was lying on his bed and all I wanted was to get up from the floor and straddle him.

Mike can’t resist the urge that falls over him. His hand slips into the heat of his boxers, fingers crawling inside the waistband with shaky desperation, moving from a hunger he has never experienced before. He grabs himself tightly, exhaling a deep breath at the relief when his warm hand meets the hot flesh of his cock. 

He starts to pump himself. Slow, thumb caressing the sensitive tip. And his eyes wander to his bedroom floor. 

Because, God knows, he is sitting in his bed right now. And if he squints his eyes really hard, he can almost see Will displayed across the floor with comic books scattered around him in the shape of a halfmoon. Wanting to get up, wanting to straddle Mike’s lap.

I looked at him. On and on and on. And all I wanted was to sit on him. I wanted to ride him with his hands on my hips and his head thrown back in pleasure.

Mike tilts his head back against the wall automatically, a quiet moan bubbling from his chest. His body is leaking pre-cum all over his palm and fingers, making the strokes sloppy and wet. The sound echoes in the room and he can’t do anything else but to enjoy the fact that it only strengthens the visions popping up inside his mind.

Of Will, sitting on top of him with his chest bare and with Mike’s hands embracing his narrow hip - guiding him with such care. 

I had to go to the bathroom to jerk off because even thinking about it makes it incredibly hard to calm down. God, I’m going to hell for writing this. I should burn this page up. Or maybe the entire book.

Even writing it turns me on. Like, leaking and stuff. It’s disgusting.

And then the entry ends, and Mike stares at the empty lines underneath it. His movements falter for a slit second, strokes going slow, thumb massaging just underneath his head. Ha can’t feel anything else but desperate disappointment about the fact that the text is finished.

His eyes travel up the page, and before he manages to think about it twice, he starts to reread it. Mind getting stuck on words and sentences that makes his crotch twitch against his palm. And the ‘dear diary’ that is written at the very top of the page is enough to make his speed fasten again, his arm shaking from the fast jerks. Just the mere realisation that Will must have been thinking and imagining these scenarios as he was writing is almost enough to pull Mike over the edge.

I want them inside of me. Will wants Mike to finger him.

I want to beg for him to push me to my knees and to suck him off. Will wants to suck Mike off.

And fuck me. God, Will wants Mike to fuck him.

And Will wants Mike to touch him while he rides him, and push him up against walls and to moan into his ear and, and, and…

“Gah, fu-uck.” A gaspy moan, most likely loud enough to be heard from outside the room, leaves his mouth as he can feel his climax dwell up inside of him. His body goes rigid and spasm along with the panting breaths. A thin line of saliva falls down over his chin, while his hand keeps stroking out every last drop of cum his dick has to offer.

And it feels… It is probably the greatest climax he has ever had. The most intense, loaded, sexiest jerkoff session a virgin could possibly come across.

The room falls silent as his breathing slows down. He sits there for a long minute, breathing hard, staring at the cream-colored page in front of him - still displaying all of Will's secret fantasies.

And then it hits him.

“Oh, God…” He clenches his eyes shut, head falling back against the wall. His wet hand suddenly feels burning. 

He had just used Will’s diary - no, he had used Will’s secret fantasies and thoughts, to jerk off.

His stomach twists so violently he thinks he’s gonna be sick. He leans forward, his wet hand still hiding in his boxers, and closes the notebook far too quickly. It feels like shutting it might somehow erase the last ten minutes from existence. But all the evidence is still there - in his head, on his hand, on the bed in front of him. 

“Jesus, fuck.”

His voice sounds small in the empty bedroom. Desperate and lonely, leaving him with only his thrumming heart and rushing thoughts.

***

If Mike had known that one stupid decision was going to consume every waking thought he would have in the near future, he would’ve shoved that fucking diary back under Will’s pillow the second he realised what it was. Instead, he’d stolen it. Read it. Hidden it beneath his own mattress. And now he can’t seem to go more than a few hours without wondering what the next page is going to say.

Most people would probably call it an obsession.

Mike certainly would.

And making it physical had only made everything worse.

Because somewhere along the way, Will has become inseparable from the diary. Looking at Will means remembering every sweet, embarrassing and painfully intimate thing he’d written. Reading the diary means seeing Will laugh across the room during movie nights, smile over the table when they eat lunch, and feel the lasting heat from touching his skin. 

The two had become tangled together inside Mike’s head.

Now every time he sees Will, the diary echoes in the back of his mind. Every page he has read seems to change the way he notices him. A smile lingers longer, touch feels heavier, a joke sounds more affectionate than Mike remembers it being in his mind.

He has never found it so difficult to look away from his best friend. Never wanted quite so badly to spend time with him. To just sit beside him. To bump their shoulders together on the couch. To invent reasons to touch him without making either of them question it.

The diary hasn’t just told Mike how Will sees him. It has quietly, irreversibly changed the way Mike sees Will, too.

And the worst part, so far, is that his body seems to have taken that afternoon in his room as some kind of permission to betray him whenever Will is around. As if crossing that line - reading the diary, getting off to it - has permanently tangled desire with the sight of his best friend. One can’t go without the other, basically. 

Now, somewhere in the back of his mind, lingered the knowledge that Will had imagined him. Wanted him and dreamt about him in ways Mike had never even considered possible until he had actually read those pages. Apparently that is enough for his body to react before his brain has the chance to catch up.

The first time he notices the difference is by the lake the next day. The sun is high in the sky and it feels like an apology for the bad weather they had the day before.

Mike arrives early. Will is the first to show up after him, rolling his bike to a stop with flushed cheeks and sweaty loops of hair plastered to his forehead. A dark patch is spread across the back of his T-shirt where his backpack has trapped his body heat.

“You’re early,” Will says panting, dropping his backpack onto the grass before fishing out his water bottle. He sits down beside Mike, close enough that their knees knock together.

“Yea.”

Mike looks at Will. Will looks back. For some reason, neither of them looks away.

Will tips his head back and squeezed water into his mouth, the bottle hovering a few inches above his lips. Mike’s eyes follow the movement. He can feel Will’s gaze lingering on him as he watches Will’s Adam’s apple bob with every swallow.

Jesus Christ, he thinks.

He has watched Will drink water a thousand times. Now - all of a sudden - he can’t think about much besides the fact that he knew exactly what Will had once dreamt about doing with that mouth. Mike looks away, every inch of his body burning hot. His bathtrunks suddenly feels way too tight and uncomfortable. 

“You, uh…” Mike clears his throat. “You wanna wrestle in the water again?”

Will lowers the bottle, one eyebrow lifting when Mike turns to look at him again. “Like yesterday, you mean?”

“Yeah.” Mike shrugs, using every strength in his body to come off as casual. “I mean… we’re at the lake.”

“That’s your argument?”

“Pretty solid argument, if you ask me.”

A smile tugs at the corner of Will’s mouth.

“You sound excited,” he mumbles. It should sound like an accusation. Instead, somehow, it lands more like a compliment. “Shouldn’t we wait for the others?”

Mike glances at the beach around them. There is still no sign of Lucas or Dustin.

“Nah,” he says. “They’ll catch up.”

He pushes himself to his feet, turning away under the excuse of stretching. His fingers hook beneath the waistband of his swim trunks, adjusting them before he turns to face Will again.

Will is still sitting in the grass. Of course he is. He has always been like this. Even when they were little kids. Every time they arrive somewhere new, Will needs a minute to look around. To breathe. To settle into the place before throwing himself into things. Mike has never thought much about it before. Now, apparently, he noticed everything.

“You coming?” Mike asks.

“In a second.”

Will looks around for a short moment, scanning their surroundings before he eventually stands up and tugs the hem of his T-shirt over his head in one smooth motion.

Mike’s breath catches in his throat.

It isn’t as though he’d never seen Will shirtless before. They’d spent half their childhood swimming together. Yesterday, at the pool for an example. But somewhere between reading the diary last night and today, his brain had stopped seeing “shirtless Will.”

Now all he sees is freckles scattered across warm, sun-kissed skin. The line of his stomach. His narrow waist. The tan that had settled over him during the first weeks of summer. The diary interfering with his thoughts as his eyes land on Will’s hips.

Somewhere in May last year, Will had spent nights dreaming about Mike holding them while they slept together. Maybe to guide his movement, to support and caress. They look soft. And easy to hold onto.

Will just looks different. No, that isn’t it either. Maybe Mike just looks at him differently.

Will catches him staring. 

“What..?” He looks up at Mike, cheeks turning the slightest hint of pink while he starts to fold his t-shirt. Mike opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. Then, before his brain has any chance to intervene-

“Such a good boy, huh?”

Silence. The words hang between them. And Mike’s entire body freezes. His own heartbeat seems to stop for a moment.

Jesus Christ. Why- Why had he said that?

Will blinks at him, pink cheeks turning red. The corners of his mouth twitch, almost uncertainly.

“What?”

Mike’s face burns.

“I…” He laughs, the sound far too loud. “I just meant…” He gestures helplessly toward the neatly folded shirt now resting on top of Will’s backpack. “You fold your clothes.”

Will looks down. “Oh, uh…”

His ears go pink, even. His neck too. Mike finds it adorable and it almost causes the heat below his stomach to jump.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Will mumbles.

Another pause falls between them. The sound of a dog barking can be heard from a distance. Neither of them seem to know what to do with the tension that is only growing stronger and stronger between them.

Mike’s stomach twists. He knows exactly why those words had come out of his mouth. Because he’d read them in the diary. Because he’d spent half the night thinking about them. Because somewhere inside his head, the diary had started leaking into real life. Somewhere along the lines, he had started to blur reality and the diary into one. And it makes him eager to test the boundaries.

He swallows hard.

“Come on,” he says quickly, already backing toward the water. “The last one in the water is buying ice cream.”

Will looks at him for another second, then a small smile spreads across his face.

“That’s not fair, I already owe you one.”

“Says who?”

“You.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“Oh, you’ve definitely changed.” Will snorts.

Mike laughs as he turns and starts to sprint toward the lake. He doesn’t stop running until the cold water swallows him whole. Just a couple of moments later, Will is running into the water behind him, crashing into Mike’s back and sending him chest first into the water. 

If it had been Lucas, he might have yelled. If it had been Dustin, he would have complained about the pain.

But he just laughs and pushes himself up to his feet again, the water stopping right underneath his navel. Will is already looking back at him, one hand over his mouth as he tries to hide the grin on his lips. Mike can read it in his eyes. He knows exactly what the rest of his body and face is doing from just looking into his eyes.

”Still good?” Will’s eyes glimmer as he asks the question. Mike’s entire chest does a flip. Because the question is supposed to be teasing and playful, but with the background information that he is now aware of - it sounds like a request for affirmation. As if Will wants to hear it again. 

Mike opens his mouth. The obvious answer catches somewhere in his throat.

“Yeah,” he manages after a beat that feels far too long. His voice comes out rougher than he’d intended. He clears it quickly. “Still good.”

Will smiles. Not a big smile, just that quiet, sweet one that always reaches his eyes first.

“There you go,” he laughs, splashing another handful of water towards Mike. “Thought I’d broken you.”

Mike snorts, wiping the water from his face. “You wish.”

Will shrugs playfully, already backing farther into the lake. “Maybe.”

The word lingers in the air between them and Mike kind of hates that it does just that. A week ago it would’ve been nothing. Today it immediately tangles itself together with every word he has read from Will’s diary. Every entry. Every secret confession. Every stupid dream.

His brain had started translating everything Will said into a language that probably wasn’t there. Or maybe it was. That uncertainty was becoming the worst part.

Will turns away, diving beneath the surface. For a few seconds all Mike can see is bubbles and shifting sunlight beneath the water. When Will resurfaces a few yards away, he shoves dripping hair out of his face and laughs. 

“You coming?”

Mike stares . The diary interrupts his thoughts again.

I want him in my bed every night. I want him to look at me. I want him…

“Mike?”

“Huh?”

“I said,” Will smiles, a little uncertain now. “Are you coming?”

“Yeah.”

Mike wades towards him, forcing his thoughts back beneath the surface where they belong. 

But it doesn’t work. Nothing seems to work anymore. Because every time Will smiles, Mike finds himself wondering whether this is another one of those moments that he would have wanted to write about later - if Mike hadn’t stolen his diary.

Whether tonight, somewhere beneath the glow of a bedside lamp, Will would have opened that blue diary and written about the lake. About wrestling. About Mike calling him a good boy. About the way he’d stared.

The thought settles low in Mike’s stomach with frightening warmth.

For the first time, he catches himself wanting to know what that kind of entry would say - even though he would probably never figure out what Will is feeling and thinking about at this very moment.

He can only read the past. Live the present.

Mike follows Will out into the deeper water, where his feet no longer reach the bottom and only their heads, necks and the tops of their shoulders remain above the surface.

The lake is strangely quiet. Even though the air is boiling hot, there aren't a lot of people here today. 

No little kids running around with their buckets of sand. No old man drinking beer. No Lucas yelling from the shore. No Dustin complaining about the water being too cold. Just the distant hum of cicadas and the soft sound of ripples spreading every time one of them shifts. Someone clearing their throat underneath a parasole, reading a book. 

Will floats backward, arms drifting lazily beneath the surface.

“You’re looking at me,” he says a moment later.

Heat rushes into Mike’s face. “Am I not allowed to?”

“You are.” Will smiles - not smugly, just amused. Almost a little charmed. “What do you see?”

Mike huffs out a laugh, splashing a little water at him. “What do you mean?”

Will’s eyebrows lift. “Well, when you look at me. What do you see?”

Mike’s smile falters for a brief second.

What do I see?

The question should be easy. Because it’s just Will - his best friend. A nerd. An artist. A sorcerer, wizard, and cleric. The boy who always thanks whoever gives him food and the boy that can’t brush his teeth with too strong toothpaste without gagging.

Instead, his brain betrays him.

I see your diary. I see every page where you called me something sweet. I see the dreams you were too embarrassed to finish writing about. I see the way you’ve been looking at me for years without me ever noticing.

“Mike?”

“Huh?” Mike blinks at him.

“I asked what you see.” Will’s frowning slightly when Mike finally takes in the sight of him again.

“You.” Mike laughs quietly, rubbing the back of his neck.

Will rolls his eyes. “Well, obviously…”

“No, I mean…” Mike searches helplessly for words that won’t give him away. “Just… It’s just you.”

“And?” Will floats a little closer, curiosity softening into something almost shy. 

Mike swallows. “I don’t know.”

The answer surprises both of them a bit. Because how could he not know? He could barely remember living a life without Will in it with how long they have known each other. He has always been just Will to Mike - until two weeks ago when his figure had started to reshape itself in Mike’s head. 

“You don’t know what I look like?” Will asks. 

Silence settles  over the water between them. Will doesn’t laugh this time. He only watches Mike, his smile slowly fading into something quieter. Curious. Hopeful, almost.

“What do you mean?” he asks. Mike looks down at the ripples between them.

“I don’t know.” He rubs the back of his neck again. “I just…” The words feel strange in his mouth. “I think I’ve been looking at you for years.”

Will looks at him intensely.

“But I don’t think I’ve really been seeing you,” Mike continues. The sentence hangs between them. Mike hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Not like that, at least. He isn’t even sure he understands what he’d meant until he’d heard himself say it.

“That’s kind of sad,” Will says  softly. His eyes searched Mike’s face. Mike lets out a quiet laugh.

“Yeah.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

Mike looks up. Will is smiling again now - sweet and simple. Mike can see it in his eyes that he doesn’t fully understand. Because he can’t. And somehow, that makes it worse.

Wait. No, not really. Not really worse.

Mike swallows. It makes it better. Far, far better. Easier.

Will drifts another foot closer, crossing into Mike’s little bubble until it feels like they are breathing the same air, floating in the same patch of warm water. Close enough that Mike can’t stop looking at him.

Close enough that he wants to reach out again.

“So…” Will says quietly.

“So,” Mike echoes.

“Are you feeling sentimental today, or something?”

Mike groans, warmth creeping into his cheeks. “Definitely not.”

Will doesn’t answer. Instead, he dives underneath the surface and returns with his lips pursed. Before Mike can ask what he is doing, Will spits a thin stream of lake water straight into his face. It lasts barely a second.

Just enough to make Mike blink in surprise.

“Did you just… spit on me?” he gasps, wiping at his eyes with exaggerated offense. Will’s smile widened immediately.

“I spat water at you,” he grins, teeth sinking into his bottom lip as he talks. Mike watches him through blurry sight, the heel of his palms still rubbing his eyes. 

“That’s still spitting,” he mumbles. Will is watching him closely when Mike finally rubs the water sting out of his eyeballs. For some reason, the distance between them feels even smaller now. The water feels hotter. The air feels colder.

It feels like he wants to grab Will by his wrist or waist, until they are pressed together, using the water as a blanket. He wouldn’t complain if Will suddenly wants to wrap his legs around his waist again.

“It’s completely different,” Will chuckles. Mike snorts and shakes his head.

“It’s literally the same thing,” he argues, tilting his head to look at Will. Will looks back. “It came out of your mouth!”

“It absolutely isn’t. What if I had spit saliva instead? That would’ve been gross.”

Mike stares at him for another beat before snorting again. “Oh, you’re asking for it, dude.”

Mike scoops up both hands beneath the surface and sends a wall of water crashing over Will’s chest and face. Will gasps dramatically, arms floating up and down in the water to keep himself steady as he shakes his head in disapproval. His hair waves back and forth with every shake, water splattering all over the place.

“Mike!”

 “What?” Mike scoffs. Will wipes water from his eyes, trying - and failing - not to smile.

“Oh, you’re dead.”

“You said that yesterday.”

“I mean it today.”

“You meant it yesterday, too, dumbass.”

Will lunges towards him. Mike yelps, turning just in time to escape the first grab. Water explodes around them as they splashes through the deep, both laughing too hard to put any real effort into catching the other.

“You coward!” Will calls after him.

“You started it!”

“I didn’t!”

“You spit on me!”

“You deserved it!”

Mike laughs so hard he accidentally swallows a mouthful of lake water, coughing between grins. Will takes advantage immediately, slipping an arm around Mike’s chest from behind to capture him.

“Got ya,” he laughs, breathless from laughing and swimming. The words land right beside Mike’s ear. Will’s warm, wet breath brushes against the skin on his shoulder. A shiver races down his spine before he can stop it.

“You spit on me,” Mike tries to protest, but the words come out softer than he intends. Defeated.

Will only laughs harder. The sound vibrates against Mike’s shoulder blades. His entire body shakes in a shiver, hot and thirsty and hungry and- Something inside him gives way.

Almost on instinct, he grabs Will’s forearm and twists around in the water. They spin together, laughing, their footing disappearing beneath them. For a heartbeat neither of them is upright anymore - just two bodies trying not to sink.

Mike’s hand finds Will’s waist. Will’s hand lands on Mike’s shoulder. Then, without either of them really planning it, Will’s legs crawl around Mike’s hips to keep himself above the surface.

Everything stops. Mike looks up. Will is already glaring back.

Water trickles down his forehead, catching on his eyelashes before slipping over flushed cheeks. His arms settle loosely around Mike’s neck, more for balance than anything else. Neither of them moves and Mike suddenly becomes painfully aware of every spot their bodies are pressed together. His shoulders and neck, his stomach, his hips. Even the back of his thighs where he can feel Will’s feet.

“Oh,” Mike says intelligently. Will blinks at him, eyes wide and glimmering.

“Yeah,” he breathes.

Mike swallows. “I think…” He lets out an awkward little laugh. “I accidentally trapped you.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Will’s mouth. “I noticed.”

“Sorry.”

Will tilts his head ever so slightly. Mike looks at him intensely, trying to memorise every bit of his face being this close to his own. He can feel his heart beat fast inside his chest. And there is a heat inside him, all of him, that is impossible to ignore.

Will leans forwards lightly, chin bumping into Mike’s collarbone as he settles his face there. It is probably the closest and the most intimate moment they have ever shared. Almost entirely naked, hugging one another in the water with Will’s entire body wrapped around him.

“I’m not exactly trying very hard to get away, Mike.”

Mike’s heart stumbles. Brutally and  painfully. It shoots through him like lightning.

“Yeah..?” he asks quietly, turning his head just enough that his voice disappeared into the damp curls near Will’s temple. “You comfy?”

“Very.” Will smiles against his collarbone. “Thank you, kind sir.”

Mike laughs under his breath. “You’re welcome.”

The lake rocks them gently where they are floating - every small wave makes Will’s weight shift against him just enough for Mike to notice it all over again. His hand rests uncertainly between Will’s shoulder blades, feeling the warmth beneath cool lake water.

He should probably let go. Instead, his palm drifted a little lower before stopping at Will’s waist.

Will doesn’t react. Not physically, at least. Mike can feel his heartbeat where their chests meet. Fast enough that, for one ridiculous second, he wonders if it was actually his own.

“Will?”

“Hm?”

“When,” Mike hesitates, watching the wind blow through the trees around the lake. “When we get to college…”

Will lifts his head just enough to look at him.

“You’ll be in New York.” Mike swallows. “I’ll be in Chicago.”

“Yeah.”

“What are you gonna do?”

Will frowns a little.

“I mean…” Mike rubs his thumb absent-mindedly against the fabric at Will’s hip before catching himself. “Are you gonna… look for somebody?”

“Somebody?”

“A boyfriend,” Mike exhales deeply. The word hangs waiting between them, heavy and filled with tension. Will’s expression changes almost unnoticeably. His smile fades into something small and soft.

“I don’t know,” he admits after a long moment. “Maybe.”

Mike nods slowly. “Maybe.”

“What about you?” Will asks softly.

“What?” Mike looks back at him.

“Are you gonna look for somebody?”

For reasons he can’t explain, the question hits him much harder than the one he’d asked. His eyes stay on Will’s as he tries to come up with a reasonable answer.

“I…” He laughs once, awkwardly. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

That isn’t entirely true. Until a week ago, he’d thought he’d eventually meet a girl. Now, for the first time in his life… He isn’t sure what he is supposed to be imagining anymore. Because, all of a sudden, things aren’t as clear as they had always been.

He has always known that boys could like boys, and girls could like girls. It isn’t anything that bothered him when Will came out. Or when he found out about Robin.

But he had never been able to put himself in that position until he opened the diary and found out that he had actually been desired by another boy. It was just nothing that occurred to him - that he could also… That it wasn’t impossible that… That he too could have that.

“So,” Mike’s thumb hesitates against the edge of Will’s swim trunks before he catches himself again and lets his hand fall still. “When you get a boyfriend…” Will looks at him curiously. “What’s that even supposed to be like?”

A small crease appears between Will’s eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.” Mike gives a helpless little shrug. “I guess I’ve just… never really thought about it before.”

Will watches him for a long moment, searching his face as though trying to decide whether Mike is joking. “You mean…” he says carefully, “dating? Another boy?”

“Yeah.”

“I mean,” Will smiles faintly. “Probably the same as for everybody else.”

Mike frowns. “Is it?”

Will let out a quiet laugh. “I’d hope so.”

Another silence settles between them. Will waits for Mike to answer but nothing comes. 

“You go to the movies. Eat dinner together.” Will looks out across the lake. “You learn what the other person likes. You argue about stupid things.” Mike listens without interrupting. “You miss them when they’re not around.”

Isn’t that basically what they’re already doing?

Mike swallows. “That doesn’t sound very different,” he sighs. He can't tell if he is relieved or disappointed.

“I don’t think it is.”

The words lingered between them. Mike looks down at the ripples where their bodies drift together.

“Have you ever thought about what kind of person you’d want?”

Will’s eyes find him again. “I used to think I had a very specific answer.”

Mike’s heart skips. “And now?”

Will smiles, small and almost sad. “Now I think I mostly want someone who makes me feel safe.”

Mike doesn’t answer. Because, without realizing it, Will is still wrapped around him in the middle of the lake. And for the first time, Mike wonders whether this- 

Whether this, right here, right now, is what Will means. The heat, the warmth. The softness and comfort. The strength to hug each other like this in front of strangers even though they are both boys. The feeling of being safe with someone else.

”I hope you find what you’re looking for, Will.” Mike mumbles. And with that, they let go of each other. Eyes lingering on the other person. Neither of them really smiles with anything other than their stiff lips.