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astrobei · 1 year

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Something’s wrong.

It’s a quiet afternoon in Will’s room. Mike is here, and this simple fact should be taking precedence over all else. It would be, on any other day — a day where it wasn’t off-puttingly quiet outside. On any other day, it would be all he could focus on.

Not that it’s not important. Mike is here, sprawled haphazardly across him, limbs akimbo like he couldn’t even be bothered to right himself before the need to bodily press every square inch of himself up against Will’s torso suddenly overtook him. It’s endearing, is what it is, even though Mike’s feet are dangling off the side of Will’s bed — they’re getting too tall to be able to lie down like this, side by side and taking up all the room they could possibly want. He’s got his cheek pressed up against Will’s sternum, arms wrapped so tight around Will’s stomach and lower back that it’s bordering on uncomfortable.

Endearing. It’s endearing, the need for proximity. The need for closeness, for touch, for reassurance. Mike wasn’t like this before. Not to this degree, at least. Will pretended to be annoyed by it at first, but the façade hadn’t even lasted a day before he cracked. He needs it too, and they both know it — the rhythmic push and pull of Mike’s breathing. Feeling Mike’s heart beat steadily against his own, separated by a meager few inches of blood and muscle and bone. The kinesthetic weight of a body against his own, grounding him on his off days — days where his pulse is perpetually panicked and off-kilter, threatening to fly away entirely, rendered unsuccessful only by the shape of Mike’s shoulder blades under his palm. The cotton of his flannel button-down, worn soft with use.

Grounding things. Real things. Safe things.

It’s a quiet afternoon. Mike’s foot twitches, suddenly and gently against where it’s pressed up against the line of Will’s calf.

It’s a quiet afternoon, and Will feels off, down to his bones.

Mike might be falling asleep.

Will smiles, hides it in the soft curtain of Mike’s hair where it’s brushing over his neck. Cups a hand around the back of his head and wraps his other arm around his shoulder — tighter, tighter, like Mike might just get up and walk away if he doesn’t. For all his pretending, Will is like this too, now: desperate, a little needy, selfish in small, ordinary ways. Too quick to worry when a call goes unanswered. Too quick to fuss over cuts and scrapes and bruises. He hugs too tight and he kisses too hard and he gets unsettled by quiet, calm afternoons.

He wasn’t ever like that before.

Mike twitches again — so delicately that it’s almost like an afterthought — then his arms tighten around Will’s midriff.

That feels intentional. Even if it hadn’t been. Things with Mike feel intentional. Purposeful.

Even if he is — you know. Asleep, a little.

Will’s room is comfortably warm; the late summer sun has been hiding lately, and the sky isn’t blue, exactly but at least it’s not red anymore — dark and rolling and angry. It’s still, and it’s quiet, and it’s peaceful for the first time in a long time — a long time—

—and still, something’s wrong.

“Will?”

Mike shifts, just slightly, just enough to lean his head against Will’s collarbone and look up at him. He catches the edge of Mike’s expression like it’s a secret, a glimpse of wide eyes, a little confused.

Will peers down at him. “Go back to sleep.”

“I wasn’t,” Mike says, even as he blinks heavily. He rolls out his ankle, bumps it against Will’s and keeps it there, stretches long and languid, lazy, like he has all the time in the world. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Will says. If Mike stays like this, if he doesn’t look up any farther, maybe he can get away with it.

Mike doesn’t sound convinced. “You sure?” he mumbles, rubbing at his eyes with one hand and pushing himself up, just enough to be able to look at Will better. “You seemed…”

He trails off. Will tucks a stray strand of hair back behind Mike’s ear, from where it had been falling loose and down into his eyes. “I’m sure,” he murmurs. “Go back to sleep.”

“I wasn’t asleep!”

“You were,” Will laughs. “You were twitching. Like a cat.”

“I don’t twitch,” Mike insists, then pauses. “Do I?”

“Sometimes,” Will admits, then presses a kiss to the top of Mike’s head. “When you’re really tired. I think it’s cute.”

“Stop,” Mike mumbles, but he lowers his head back to Will’s chest. “So mean to me.”

“I called you cute!”

“Mean,” Mike says, sounding like he’s halfway back to sleep already as he snakes an arm back around Will’s chest, hand resting lightly on the side of his throat, just over his jaw. He tangles their legs together, the sheets going wrinkled and bunched up under them. “So mean.”

Will smiles. “Sorry,” he whispers. He glances down at the mess of black hair in front of his face, runs a careful hand through it. Again, and again, and again. Mike makes a small noise, content and pleased, and presses in closer, like he’s trying to vanquish whatever minute semblance of space might have been left between them. “I won’t be mean again.”

It’s a joke, obviously. Still, Will traces apologetic circles into Mike’s back, into the gentle dip between his shoulders. He maps out the planes there, tries to commit them to memory by touch alone, the way he can feel Mike breathe in — slow, hesitant — and then out again — faster, like he’s collapsing back into Will’s body.

The circles give way to shapes, any that Will can think of. Then lines, curved and looping around his shoulder blades, his upper arms. He trails fingers up the back of Mike’s neck, where the cotton of his shirt gives way to a more organic warmth, and scrapes his fingernails lightly against the skin there. Drops another delicate kiss to the sliver of Mike’s forehead where his hair is parted as it falls around his face.

Mike lets out another pleased noise, half-coherent and probably involuntary, and his hand twitches lightly on Will’s jaw. Will bites back a smile, and stares straight up at the ceiling.

Will was never good at this before either — taking the things he wants. Letting himself have things he wants. Something is turning over in his gut, warm and viscous and slow, with each moment of touch he lets himself have, in this newfound, selfish way — through Mike’s hair, down his arms and back up again. Over his back, his shoulders, trailing fingers up his cheeks. He rubs circles into Mike’s temples, watches his brows unfurrow — for once in his life — and his expression go slack with contentment. He wants to touch the corners of Mike’s mouth too, where they’ve turned downwards, vulnerable, half-pressed into Will’s shirt.

He does. He can.

It’s a novel thing, for him, having someone be this close. Having someone be this close just because they want to be, because they trust you.

Will doesn’t know what to make of that. He’s never felt this before, the urge to hold someone so close that all the bad things go away. The urge to touch, the urge to lie here until entropy takes them.

There are no bad things anymore, though. It’s a quiet afternoon, and it’s calm, and it’s peaceful, and—

Will stops.

His hand stills on Mike’s back.

Oh, he thinks, still looking up at the ceiling. Oh.

“Will?” Mike stirs again, and he’d definitely been right on the precipice of sleep this time, judging by the way his voice is dragging on the single syllable. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Will whispers, a little incredulously, as realization dawns upon him. He wants to laugh. He wants to cry too, a little bit. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m great.”

Mike taps a slow finger against Will’s cheek and peers carefully up at him. “What is it?

“I,” Will starts, then stops. He’ll sound ridiculous if he says it. Ridiculous and pathetic and— “Nothing,” he says anyway, despite every molecule of better judgment in his body. “I’m just— I’m happy.”

Mike pauses. “Oh,” he says simply, cheek still pressed to Will’s chest. He sounds a little caught off-guard, in a good way. “I— that’s good. That you’re happy.”

The weird feeling in Will’s gut bubbles up, up, and over. “Yeah,” he says quietly, trying to keep his voice even. “I am. You make me happy.”

At this, Mike looks up. His expression is a bit startled, like a deer in headlights. “What?”

Oh, god. Will swallows. He looks back up. “I just,” he says, “I’ve never— I’m happy. And I don’t know when— I don’t know if I’ve ever. Been this happy before, I mean. Before everything. Before—”

You, he thinks. He doesn’t say it, but it goes implied.

Mike is silent.

The weird feeling starts settling back into Will’s stomach, slow and steady like molasses. Shit. That was, objectively, probably a weird thing to say. It was, right?

Oh, god.

Will blinks, once, twice, thrice in quick succession, and keeps his stare fixed on the ceiling.

“Will,” Mike says at last, from somewhere below him. He lifts his head off of Will’s chest, tufts of black hair swimming into view. “Can you— can you look at me, please?”

Oh, god.

Will looks down. “Yeah?”

Mike looks— wondrous, maybe, which is a bit dramatic, but it’s true. “Really?” he asks, and he doesn’t sound freaked out or anything, which is a good sign, but— “I do?”

“Yeah,” Will whispers. “You do. Like, really happy.”

Happy seems a bit diminutive, if Will’s being honest. Whatever this feeling is runs much deeper than that — past contentment and comfort and satisfaction. Ease, maybe. Safety would be closer.

He doesn’t say any of that.

Mike’s cheeks flush a brilliant pink. He splays his palm across Will’s cheek and asks, in mild disbelief, “Is that what was bothering you?”

“It wasn’t bothering me,” Will says quietly, tugging at Mike’s wrist and sitting up, just slightly, leaning back against one elbow. “I’m fine.”

“You weren’t,” Mike says simply, and lets himself be moved. “I could tell. I just— I thought it was something, you know. Worse.”

“What?” Will laughs, and Mike’s expression softens in relief. “Like what?”

“I don’t know!” Mike exclaims, but he’s smiling too. “I just— I could tell, and I didn’t— I don’t know. Never mind.”

Will pushes a strand of hair behind Mike’s ear again, the same one that had been falling back out the entire time they’d been lying together. “I’m sorry if you worried,” he says quietly. “I just— I didn’t know what it was. I’ve never been this happy before.”

“Will,” Mike starts, expression earnest and searching. He opens his mouth and closes it again.

“Sorry,” Will adds, for good measure. Maybe Mike is, like, totally freaked out. “No pressure, or anything.”

“Don’t apologize,” Mike says immediately, frowning. “Never apologize. I just— I’m happy too. You make me happy. Really happy.”

“Well that’s good,” Will jokes, but it comes out halfhearted. “I should hope I’m not making you sad.”

Mike rolls his eyes. “Will.”

“Sorry,” he says on instinct, then immediately bites down on his lower lip. “I mean. Yes. Yeah.”

Mike gives him a look, exasperated and a little fond. “I mean,” he says, then leans forward, all the way back into Will’s space, “you make me happy too. I don’t know when I’ve been— me too, I mean. Me too.”

“Oh,” Will breathes out, in awe, a little bit, of a lot of things — the deepening flush across Mike’s cheek, the ease with which the admission comes tumbling out of his mouth. The simple reciprocity of it bowls him over, like maybe Mike thinks about this, when Will doesn’t know — just how happy Will makes him. “Okay.”

Mike eyes dart between his own. “That all you have to say?” he teases. “Okay?”

“What else do you want me to say?” Will asks, teasing back, a little, but also asking a little truthfully. He’s not the greatest with words, but he’s also not stupid — he understands the implications, here, of what it means to feel so happy around someone that it feels like you’re admitting to something bigger by just saying it. He knows what he’s implying, and he knows Mike is picking up on it, but he doesn’t know how to put that into words — the way his soul feels like it’s stilled inside of him, somewhere, no longer restless or jittery or perpetually keyed up.

He wonders if Mike feels like that too.

The thought, suddenly, is too much.

“Nothing,” Mike says, after a moment. He pauses, then presses a fleeting kiss to Will’s cheek. “Nothing.”

“Mike,” Will says, suddenly, then grabs a hold of Mike’s wrist again. “I— you know that I—”

He feels overwhelmed, a little frantic. He’s sure it’s coming through in his voice. The rest of the sentence hangs there, suspended in midair between the two of them.

Love you, Will thinks. I love you. I love you.

He needs Mike to know.

Mike can’t ever know.

He looks away again, like maybe Mike will be able to tell exactly what he’s thinking just by looking at him.

“Yeah,” Mike is saying. “It’s okay, Will. I know. Me too. Obviously.”

Will relaxes. Thank god for plausible deniability. “Okay,” he says instead, feeling a smile split wide and exhilarated across his face. He feels like he just ran a marathon, and it isn’t until he lies back down that he feels it. The adrenaline, sweet and thick and palpable in his veins. “Okay. Cool.”

“Cool,” Mike echoes, then settles back down on top of him. “Yeah. Cool.”

Will tucks his chin over the top of Mike’s head, running a soothing hand over Mike’s hair. His heart is beating so fast that he’s sure Mike is able to tell. “Go back to sleep,” he says quietly. Mike lets out a noise that might be a laugh, and tucks his face into Will’s neck.

It’s a quiet afternoon. Everything feels perfectly right.

#i don’t know what this is #i’ve just had a Week #and i am so tired and my head hurts and i think i’m falling sick again and basically i need someone to lie on top of me and crush me #w their body weight like a weighted blanket #bc my weighted blanket is not cutting it rn i need More #anyways. i hope u enjoy this stream of consciousness #i am so touch starved and i’m being so fr someone better do something about that bc #my ex is coming back to town in 3 weeks and if i don’t get a hug before then i will literally text him #jk i won’t but. u know #LOL #n e ways #will byers #mike wheeler #byler #fun sized fics #fic #etc #ok back to studying Bye

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fishmongeringstudies · 6 months

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#40092: woxer won’t stop texting me in all caps about its incredibly bad black friday sale and it’s starting to stress me out but i want new underwear eventually, just not right now, so i can’t unsubscribe yet

Do you remember those big red bags they gave us in freshman year? They had square bases reinforced with a layer of cardboard and fabric so we could put our takeout boxes inside and not worry about them sliding open. Everything was takeout-only that year. In the fall everyone sat in big circles on the grass outside and when I arrived in the spring I would take my food home in that big red bag, my hands shoved all the way down my pockets. It snowed hard that winter. I have photos on my old phone of Mertz field turned completely white, of pockets of water in the grass that had frozen over. The brick flooring of the patio behind Willets stayed frozen for so long, you had to pick up your feet when you walked on it or you’d fall over.

The Saturday of Thanksgiving break I looked up on my way to get dinner and saw a clear blue sky. It was cold that evening, three degrees Celcius and steadily falling. Maybe the cold had scared all the clouds away. The sky yawned wide across the domed world to the other side of campus, where it was slowly turning pink. The air was still.

When I got back I watched Dan and Phil from Youtube play a horror game about really liking golf in the first floor lounge and picked at my rice. I read the last four chapters of Kakukaku Shikajika and felt my eyes water like they did every year when I read Kakukaku Shikajika. I did a handstand.

Do you remember when campus was a ghost town without ghosts and you had gotten off at the wrong stop? Looking at Google Maps on your phone you thought to yourself, this must be the wrong place. You rubbed dust from your eyes.

From year to year to year I learned to associate quiet with nothingness. We’re the ones that got here when the fire was still burning, after all. It makes sense that we didn’t know how to be people to each other, let alone ourselves. Burning and freezing and burning and freezing in each other’s dingles in Willets with too much furniture and not enough of anything else.

That winter I spilled chicken pot pie in that old red bag and forgot to clean it up. By the time I found it by sheer smell alone it was molding hard and would cost too much effort to save. So I threw it away with all the other things I didn’t need anymore.

#a fish mongering study for you ( slinks back into the bogs)#i have to poop right now actually so i can’t write you guys a bunch of funky little tags #which i enjoy. because tumblr gives you all these options for how you want to be heard #but um. let’s see #every break since i started college has made me miserable bc of various associations with the covid years #but this break was GOOD motherfcukas #i dat down and read and saw so many stories #the grand budapest hotel. fire of love documentary INSANE. rereading jaywalkers by ao3 user batman. watched dan and phil’s horror week #and like it’s nice #stories are nice #i love love love hearing people talk about things that matter to them #you too #ok gotta shit now love you bye

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