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givehimthemedicine · 7 months

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that massacre blood won't let me rest

(bloodstain pattern analysis)

warning, this will contain some graphic explanations of how blood stains get made and a couple pictures of real blood (no people) as I attempt to apply my modicum of education on this subject to the HNL massacre

I'm mostly focusing on that main blood stain that goes across One's chest, but toward the end I'll touch on other stains in the RR.

tldr: I think that chest stain leaves plenty of room for doubt about whether One was the attacker.

so. bloodstain analysis crash course.

your main types of blood stains:

active - blood flying and landing on a surface as a result of force/motion. this includes spatters, splashes, arterial sprays.

passive - blood falling from plain old gravity. stains like drops and pools.

transfer - a surface coming into contact with another surface with blood on it. smears, maybe a hand or shoe print.

two lovely volunteers to demonstrate:

One's neck bleeding on his collar is an example of a passive blood stain. if any of those larger vertical blood drops on his shirt are supposed to be nose blood, (his nose barely bled but his shirt looks like it dripped) that's also passive. victims' eye blood is passive.

One mopping the floor with El leaving her with blood smeared on her gown is transfer.

that main pattern of blood droplets across One's chest is an active type stain. all the blood on him, apart from his own, appears to have flown through the air and landed on him.

the costume dept clearly put effort into depicting those types differently, going as far as to actually drag someone around the floor to find out what El's gown blood should look like as a result of the actions that put it there. I think it's fair to expect a similar level of research went into designing One's stains.

but discussing those methods in the interview might have revealed too much.

some types of active blood stains

arterial spray is when a vein or artery is cut and blood squirts out, flies through the air and lands on nearby surfaces. it's not usually just a little blood. here are two real examples of arterial spray:

to me, it seems like a severed artery would produce a more blood than is on One.

impact spatter is created when an object forcefully hits exposed blood and little droplets fly. forward spatter is made in the direction of the force, backward spatter is thrown back toward the direction the force came from.

in many cases forward and back spatter look much the same, so the main distinguishing clue is location.

back spatter is, without us even thinking about it, the type of stain we assume is on One's chest, because we also assume that he is the attacker. that he did something violent to someone and their blood splashed back on him. that is one valid explanation, but not the only.

see, spatter flies in all directions from an impact, 360. it looks like this (simulation). not all spatter is automatically back spatter. if it's forward spatter, it suggests One was facing the impact from opposite where the force came from. it's hard to imagine a scenario where the attacker gets forward spatter on himself.

castoff is another type of spatter typical of repetitious stabbing or beating where a weapon that's covered in blood, when swung back for another blow, flings off an arc of small blood droplets.

examples:

the attacker virtually never gets castoff on themselves. rather they fling it on the walls/ceiling around them, depending on the arc of their swings.

telekinetic blows cannot possibly create castoff because there would be nothing for the blood to stick to.

so if the stains on One are castoff, A) there was a bloody physical weapon/object involved and B) he seems very unlikely the attacker.

to me, the main stain on One looks consistent with either impact or castoff spatter. let's consider some more characteristics:

blood velocity

droplet size can also tell the speed at which the blood was moving, which helps reconstruct what amount of force and therefore type of injury it came from. generally, the smaller the droplets the higher the velocity.

One's chest spatter looks medium velocity. no surprises here.

blood directionality

the shape of droplets helps determine the direction the blood came from.

a drop onto a 90 degree angle, like if you're just standing there and your blood drips on the ground, leaves a circular droplet. an elongated blood droplet shows that the blood was flying through the air at an angle.

blood tails are what you call the pointy end of an elongated blood drop, which points in the direction of the motion. the bottoms of these more acute examples are the tails, indicating the blood was moving toward the bottoms.

now look at One. he definitely has multiple spatters on him, but I'm focusing on the main spatter that goes diagonally across his chest.

note how blood tails go in a consistent direction (bottom screen left moving towards upper screen right). this creates a strong idea of the spatter having originated low around One's right hip and flown upwards across his body.

of course we can't get too into analyzing this as legit forensic evidence, because it isn't. but the fact that they kept consistent with the direction of the blood tails when recreating these stains by hand multiple times seems like that detail mattered to them.

(I don't wanna shoplift directly from em's jumpsuit blood post but that has the best collection of pics and you can see that all iterations are in agreement with the direction of motion suggested).

here's a quick video showing a guy creating a bloodstain that illustrates both castoff and blood tails:

youtube

how'd homeboy get blood on his back?

I wish I could get a clearer look, but those are absolutely active spatters and not transfer. do you wanna tell me how, if you are the attacker, you'd manage to get your victim's blood to spatter onto your own back? like, even if he can Vecna someone behind his back, why? was he showboating like shredding guitar behind his head?? was it like the champagne in that one kim kardashian photo??

whose blood is on him?

neither castoff nor impact spatter makes sense for the bodies we see.

as I've discussed in other posts, none of the ways we saw anyone get killed in the massacre, nor any of the dead bodies in the RR, should produce blood stains like the ones on One.

the only external bleeding that getting Vecna'd™ produces is passive drips from the eyes. nobody got stabbed or struck repeatedly. even the eyes getting sucked out (or whatever?) doesn't result in any spatter. you can watch One kill Two, and there's no new blood on his face or on the floor between them. you can watch him throw guards into walls without a speck of blood on the walls or on himself.

for the amount of blood around the scene, there should be at least one much, much bloodier wounded person around here somewhere.

what is telekinetic force shaped like?

I'm unclear on what kind of spatter to expect when the weapon is telekinesis because I have so many unknowns about the nature of the impact. it really seems up to the person what shape and force of power they want to use in each instance (think the brute force of flipping a van vs the fine motor skills of turning a tv knob).

what I want is to picture the telekinesis used in the massacre as an invisible physical object so I can draw conclusions about the impact spatter it might create, but I can't.

ST has given us a couple great visuals of what impression telekinetic force actually creates when impacting various substances, revealing its "shape," and it varies a lot. my ruling is that telekinetic force has no default shape, so this is kind of a dead end.

but regardless, here's the curious thing about spatter:

(and that IS spatter on One, whether it's impact or castoff): spatter is the result of force upon exposed blood.

and a bunch of blood is not exposed yet until after a victim has been struck/stabbed/whatever at least once. meaning the victim that One's bloodstain belongs to was likely struck in the same spot repeatedly. twice minimum.

"well, blood is already exposed from the eye thing, couldn't it just be that?" yes, but striking victims after the eye thing isn't the MO. watch Virginia, Two, Chrissy, Fred, and Patrick die - after the eyes, they simply drop in place. he doesn't throw or hit them in any way.

if that is castoff, what was the blood cast off OF?

if there was a physical weapon, it's either missing from the scene or not shown.

I'd love to finish this section by suggesting an object in the lab that would make a thematically fitting murder weapon, but nothing jumps out at me.

it would be unlike them not to have brought our attention to the murder weapon before it's revealed as such. like, we need to be able to go "ohhh, they killed everybody with the 8 ball!" or whatever later or else it's not as fun.

the blood being castoff from a weapon would tend to suggest that the attacker wasn't telekinetic (or wasn't currently able to use their telekinesis). I mean, would you bother doing the manual labor if you didn't have to?

I don't see any very bloody objects lying around the RR, but I do see extremely clear evidence that there were very bloody hands.

hands are absolutely a thing that can cast off blood.

and there's only one person I know of who was ever shown with bloody hands in conjunction with the massacre.

let's talk about hands, then

we've got a diagonal thing going on here:

this bottom-left-upper-right orientation that would tend to result from a right-handed person casting off blood from an upward swing of either a weapon or their bloody hand. a lefty's swing would most likely create a bottom right-upper left diagonal castoff.

so which lab folk are what-handed?

lefties:

righties:

(I found only 2 lefts from El: manipulating the helicopter and stopping Vecna from killing Max. I could do a whole post on that. stop me)

ok, but what if that's backsplash, not castoff? same logic.

One is left handed, and when he throws someone with telekinesis, say like if he slams them downward, he uses his left hand. the way the arm swings naturally seems more likely to create an impact on that same side of the body. but the spatter originates from his right hip.

(NOT saying otherwise is impossible, it's totally possible, just seems less likely. go ahead and pretend you have telekinesis for a sec and see what direction of arm sweeps feel most natural.)

this is why when I look at the stain on One, I'm not totally convinced it's back spatter.

so what are some possible scenarios that might be consistent with blood like that?

where One is the attacker:

One strikes Victim with either a physical weapon or telekinesis. either from the strike or from falling and hitting some surface, their blood back spatters onto his shirt.

where One is not the attacker:

Attacker is striking Victim with a physical object or telekinesis. One stands opposite Attacker. forward or sideways impact spatter flies onto One's shirt.

Attacker is beating Victim with a physical object. One stands opposite Attacker. blood is cast up onto his shirt on one of Attacker's upswings.

One stands near Attacker or Victim who swings a bloody hand upward and casts blood across his shirt. (I'm liking this best)

now that I've been serious for a whole post, let me go insane about the scene overall (I'M JUST BRAINSTORMING DON'T SNIPE ME):

what if, by timeline shenanigans or I don't know what, some versions of Henry, Edward, and El are all present in the RR during the massacre.

Edward is doing some or all of the killing in such a way that impact spatters are being sent onto Henry. the bloody face of one of Edward's victims hits the floor while Henry's back is turned, causing that small spatter on the back of his pant leg.

El's hands are covered with blood. she makes a sweeping motion like this, up and to her right, to throw Edward, and blood casts off her hand onto Henry's shirt.

if an action like the above gif happened, we'd expect to see damage and/or blood on the walls or ceiling of the RR. there are multiple drippy blood impacts on the RR walls. we assume them to have come from the kids (even though this is not consistent with their injuries). what if some or all of that is Edward's blood?

whoever hit the walls would have needed to already be bloody when they hit the wall. (we know from the hallway guards and Two that neither getting thrown against a wall nor Vecna'd up against a wall leaves blood.)

another explanation for already-bloody-Ed and Henry shirt castoff/forward spatter from a physical weapon is if Brenner comes in and tries to stop Edward by beating him with [?object]. but I feel like Ed would overpower Brenner too quickly to get very bloody. this isn't a strong one, I feel better about the bloody hands idea

re: the blood pools on the floor all being smeared even before El gets dragged... you know how El has some way-too-different-to-be-accidental variations in the blood transfer patterns on her gown? could we have multiple Els in play? like, by the time we see our El arrive in the RR, other-bloody-handed-El has already been mucking around the scene?

varying El blood and multiple El concept plays well with the way there are also at least two different crime scenes.

"Nat you idiot, that shot is filmed in the mirror, you're just confusing two different sides of the room. why are your green and purple circles on the same bookcase when they're clearly on two different bookcases on opposite sides of the room?":

YEAH I SURE AM CONFUSED! BC WHY WERE THOSE TWO BOOKCASE STAINS BOTH SHOWN ON THE RED-TOP-RAINBOW-BEND-ON-THE-WALL SIDE OF THE ROOM? the side with that pyramid thing and the plinko board has a red-top rainbow bend. the opposite side, with the benches and the drawing tables, has a purple-top rainbow bend (see below). like, whatever mirror tricks you wanna pull, shouldn't the side of the room with the bookcase corner stain be purple-top-bend? seriously, am I picturing this wrong??

anyway, many of those RR bloodstains could be explained by at least one unaccounted for person being thrown repeatedly around the room. telekinetic people really seem to like doing this to each other.

say El makes that hand motion, which makes One's shirt castoff and throws Edward. Ed hits that bookcase hard enough to get bloodied. Edward gets thrown around some more, leaving various stains around the walls and floors. El or Ed stomps in the blood puddle by the bookcase, resulting in the purple-circled splatter and the spatter on Henry's pant leg.

but if we're allowed to have multiple Els maybe some of the blood is other-El's too. or One's. or Brenner's

I DON'T KNOW. I'M DONE. END MY SUFFERING

#I don't care anymore!!!!! (throws up and dies from caring) (will make another post about this)#I have SO MANY MORE QUESTIONS about the other blood stains in the RR but Im also SO TIRED OF THIS POST #did they MIRROR the BLOOD in the rr? am I having a STROKE?#lab stuff #massacre stuff #analysis #tw blood #mine #givehimthemedicine analysis #a few forensic science classes do not an expert make but there's my five cents (adjusted for inflation). it just looks more castoffy to me #Ive got it: El freezes Edward like Troy and makes him pee his pants while Brenner beats the crap out of him #also I'm saying 'One' thoughout this post because I just don't know what to call this guy anymore. but ykwim #I didn't even get into the monster attack concept I'm just so weary #everyone (me) is just waiting waiting for it all (this post) to be over

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parkitaco · 1 year

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Umm 51. Kissing each finger + byler???? (If you want 👀)

hi toy tysm!!! i decided to make this one into a lil extra/missing scene set in the gaps and the silence universe - the original fic is not required reading but like. u should read it. bc i wrote it and it's cool. anyway~ fic below the cut <33

Will wakes up feeling, in a word, optimistic.

He usually feels that way, these days - optimistic for his future, his relationships, basically every aspect of his life. He hadn’t really realized how much he’d missed the feeling, these past few years, or how drastically it would affect everything. It’s happiness plus something, happiness that isn’t tainted by the worry of everything being snatched away from him. Happiness that promises to last.

He rolls over onto his back, opening his eyes and releasing a contented breath as he stares up at the ceiling, smiling to himself. It’s Tuesday today. He used to hate Tuesdays. Now, though, it’s sort of hard to hate anything for any extended amount of time.

The primary reason for his optimism is still sleeping, chest rising and falling gently on the other side of the bed, and Will chances a glance at him, the smile on his face growing tenfold. Mike’s hair spills out over the pillows, one arm thrown over his stomach and the other brushing Will’s. He’s a pretty sight, even in the weak sort of sunlight that January offers through the half-closed curtains. But then again, Will’s a little biased.

Everything is so good, lately. Even this morning, a Tuesday, where he’s doomed to spend the unfortunate majority of his day helping ungrateful customers at the convenience store where he works and then come home to a darkened apartment and be forced to throw something together for dinner- it’s good. It can’t be anything other than good, when he gets to wake up next to his boyfriend.

Said boyfriend stirs, rolling over onto his side and shoving his face into Will’s neck, tossing an arm over Will. “Hi,” he mumbles, lips pressed against Will’s skin, and Will grins.

“Hi,” he whispers back, quiet in the delicacy of the morning, and presses a kiss to the top of Mike’s head. “Sleep okay?”

“Mhm,” Mike hums, still half-asleep as he wriggles closer to Will, chasing his warmth. “Your bed is so much more comfortable than the one at the motel.”

Will huffs a soft laugh, reaching up with one hand to trail his fingertips through Mike’s hair. “I would certainly hope so.” Not that Mike even sleeps at the motel that often anymore, only occasionally going back to get clothes or prove to the staff that he does, in fact, still need the room, but still. Will likes to think he has a little more to offer than a dingy motel room.

Mike hums, and Will can feel the vibration of it from where Mike is pressed up against him, warm and sleepy, and for a second Will is tempted to quit his job just so that he can stay here with Mike for the rest of time rather than standing behind a checkout counter all day trying to stay awake. He’d go broke, probably, and stop being able to afford this apartment, and then he wouldn't even have a place to hide away from his responsibilities anyway, but- it might just be worth it, for a couple extra hours curled up beside Mike.

He glances at the clock, one hand resting gently against Mike’s bare shoulder blades as he shifts, and winces when he sees the time. “Shit, I have to start getting ready.”

“Nuh-uh,” Mike says immediately, tightening his hold on Will’s waist and pressing his nose firmly into Will’s shoulder. “Stay.”

Will smiles, settling into Mike’s grip if just for a moment and pressing another kiss to the crown of his skull. “Tempting,” he murmurs, as Mike trails a gentle hand over his ribcage, “But I can’t. Sorry.”

Mike whines in protest, flopping back over to his side of the bed and throwing a dramatic arm over his eyes. “Fine. Go, see if I care.”

Will smirks, leaning over and gently nudging at the arm blocking Mike’s eyes. “You can stay here if you want,” he offers, as if it’s not obvious, as if Mike has not spent the majority of the month since they reconnected hanging out in his apartment, “I’ll be back by five.”

“That’s forever from now,” Mike huffs, breath fanning across Will’s face as he leans in to press a kiss to the sliver of jaw not obstructed by Mike’s arm. “I’ll die of loneliness.”

Will laughs. “I’ll be sure to write a heartfelt eulogy for your funeral. ‘Mike Wheeler died as he lived; being a dramatic loser.’”

Mike lifts his arm in order to glare at him, lips twisting into an exaggerated pout. “Mean.”

“You love me,” Will replies, kissing his forehead one, two, three times before slipping out of bed and heading in the direction of his dresser. The sentiment still sends a little thrill through his ribcage, a confirmation and a confession at once, slipping more easily off his tongue every time he utters it. It feels true, these days, something he’s gradually learning how to let himself believe.

“Yeah,” Mike agrees, already back to burying his face in his pillow, arm tugging the covers further over himself, “That’s kinda my point.”

Will grins, pulling a t-shirt out of his drawer and pulling it on. “Bowie will keep you company,” he says, nodding to the cat curled at the foot of his bed, sleeping in a patch of sunlight.

“I can’t believe you named your cat Bowie,” Mike huffs, as Will zips up his jeans and leans over to grab the cat off the floor. “You are so pretentious.”

Will feigns a scowl, cradling a squirming Bowie in his arms and pressing a kiss to the top of his furry head. “You love me,” he repeats, and Mike opens one eye as he smirks up at him, “And you love Bowie.”

To prove his point, he dumps Bowie onto the bed, earning a scathing glare from both his boyfriend and the cat. Bowie swishes his tail, giving Mike an appraising sort of look, and Mike frowns. “I don’t think he loves me,” he points out, as Bowie turns his little head firmly in the other direction. “He bites me every time I try to pet him.”

“Yeah, well, he has trust issues,” Will says dismissively, grabbing his bag off the floor and leaning over to kiss Mike’s temple. “He’ll warm up to you eventually. Especially if you feed him.”

Mike doesn’t look convinced, but he sends Will a soft smile anyway, relaxing back into the pillows. “If you say so,” he says warmly, and Will swoops in to kiss his cheek one more time.

“I’ll see you later,” he murmurs, lips still pressed against Mike’s skin, and Mike reaches up to tap a finger against the tip of Will’s nose as he pulls away. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Mike murmurs, already fading back into sleep, and Will can feel his ridiculous, ballooning optimism exponentially increase as he ruffles Mike’s hair and slips out of the bedroom, leaving the door ajar behind him.

He grabs an apple off the counter on his way out of the apartment, keys clutched in one hand and jacket thrown over his arm as he takes a bite. In the back of his mind, he can already hear Mike’s lecture later about taking care of himself and getting enough protein, because he takes the being-back-in-Will’s-life more seriously than he’s ever taken anything else in his life. It’s an entirely hypocritical lecture, considering Mike is deficient in maybe every vitamin in existence, but it’s endearing anyway. Mike cares so much, all the time and about everything, but especially Will. He’d forgotten that, in the time they’d been apart. It’s nice to be reminded.

Will does a final scan of the apartment, making sure he has everything he needs, before steeling himself for the bleak world outside his warm, cozy apartment and opening the door. He takes another bite of apple as he fumbles with his keys, part of him still wondering if it’s really too late to call in sick to work, really. His meager salary of seven dollars an hour, times the eight hours he’d be working, so he’d be missing out on- oh, forget it. Will’s never excelled at math, but he knows skipping out on that paycheck would be a missed opportunity.

“I knew Will first, you know,” he hears Mike say to Bowie from the bedroom, in the split second before the front door swings shut, “You’re not special.”

Will grins.

---

Will gets home at five-thirteen p.m., lugging a back of groceries over one arm and swinging his keys in the other. The day had been long, in standard Tuesday fashion - an eight hour shift under fluorescent lighting followed by him scouring the aisles of the grocery store for the cheapest items his meager income can allow, and he’s exhausted, hair limp and floppy against his face and feet heavy.

He kicks the door closed behind him, muttering to himself about stupid minimum wage jobs and college schedules, and glances up to find Mike sitting at the counter, eating a bowl of cereal and reading a book. It’s the last of the cereal, probably, because he’d been down to the end of the box and had forgotten to buy more, but it’s cool, Will would give everything he has to Mike Wheeler and cereal is probably the least of it.

He stops short, grocery bag slipping off of one shoulder as he takes in the sight. “Hi.”

Mike glances up, smiling and setting down his spoon. “Hey. How was work?”

“Um- good,” Will says, even though it wasn't, really, although at least this time he didn’t have to deal with old Mr. Becker and his millions of discount codes and gift cards that he can’t ever manage to use in a timely fashion. “You’re still here,” he says observantly, noting that the oversized t-shirt he’s wearing is, in fact, Will’s, as are the sweatpants he’s wearing, too short in the cuffs.

Mike smiles a little confusedly, sliding off the stool he’d been sitting on and walking over to Will, gently taking the bag of groceries out of his hands. “Yeah,” he says slowly, setting the bag down on the table and taking Will’s keys as well, “Was I not supposed to be?”

“No, it’s- good,” Will says, feeling a little dazed. His brain is overtired from the day, and he’s having some trouble processing information. “I’m glad you’re here, I was just surprised.”

Mike huffs a wry little laugh. “You told me to stay, remember?” he asks, and now that he mentions it, Will does vaguely remember telling him he could hang out at the apartment for the day. He just hadn’t expected Mike to, you know. Actually do it.

“Yeah,” he says, still reeling a little, and that strange optimism strikes up in his chest again. It shouldn't be a big deal. It’s not a big deal, because Mike comes over all the time, and spends four to six nights a week sleeping beside Will in his bed, but something about Mike staying here, sitting at the counter eating food from the fridge and reading one of Will’s books off his shelf, waiting for him to come home after a long day - there’s intimacy there. That’s seven-year-old Mike, sharing half his sandwich with Will during lunch without even thinking twice about it. That’s twelve-year-old Mike, wrapping an arm around Will on Halloween night and telling him he was taking him home, only to end up in the Wheeler’s basement instead of Will’s own house like it meant the same thing, which to Will it truly did. It’s twenty-year-old Mike, traveling halfway across the country on the off chance of seeing Will and twenty-year-old Mike standing in front of him now, here in Will’s apartment with a bemused little smile on his face like it didn’t occur to him to be anywhere else.

Will’s brain kicks back into gear, and pulls Mike into a kiss.

Mike makes a pleased, surprised sound against Will’s lips, hand flitting up to press against Will’s arm like an instinct, and Will shivers as he reaches up to cup Mike’s jaw. He can get used to this, he thinks incredulously, just like he has every day for the past month - he can get used to the feeling of Mike’s lips against his own, his arms wrapped around him when he wakes up in the morning, the soft lilt of his voice when he talks to Will. It’s not getting taken away this time, as Mike makes a point to remind him of at every possible opportunity. Mike is Will’s, for as long as he wants him.

Will presses in closer, kissing Mike firm and slow, tongue tracing gently over his lip. Mike holds him close, protective and solid and just as awed as Will feels, and it’s a few long moments before Will pulls back, breathless and dizzy as a wide smile splits across his face.

Now Mike is the one who looks dazed, eyes hazy as he presses his forehead against Will’s. “What’s that for?” he asks softly, leaning in to kiss him again quickly, soft and gentle and lips disconnecting with a soft click when he pulls back.

Will drags his thumb over Mike’s jawline, eyes tracing over his face. He feels like he’s overflowing, a little, his optimism spilling out over everything he touches, and it should be embarrassing, but Will can’t remember ever being this happy before. He couldn’t begin to figure out how to apologize for it even if he wanted to, and for once in his sorry excuse of a life, he doesn’t want to.

“I think,” he says, fingers trailing over Mike’s flushed cheeks, tracing over his freckles, “You should let the motel have their room back.”

Mike’s eyebrows draw together, lips twisting contemplatively. “What, like, find somewhere else to live? I guess, but that might take a while-”

“Mike,” Will interrupts, laughing, hand pausing where it caresses Mike’s cheek, “I meant- you should live here. With me.” He pauses, flushing, and is a little shyer when he adds, “I mean, if you want.”

Mike’s eyes widen almost comically, and he releases a soft breath against Will’s hand. “Oh,” he breathes, sounding a little awed, a little like how Will feels every time he looks at him. “Oh, I- yes, of course I want, are- are you sure?”

And- it’s only been a few weeks. There’s still so much to work out, so many conversations to be had, so many broken things to be mended. They’re still getting used to this new, wonderful thing between them, and there’s still five years of silence to make up for, and even in terms of normal standards it’s moving pretty fast, and-

And yet.

He thinks of Mike, stepping into Will’s apartment on the third day after they reconnected, looking around with that reverent look on his face and whispering I feel like I’m home, and all the excuses, all the protests the practical part of his brain tries to make, all the worries that the part of him that still wants to doubt insists on, fade away like melting snow.

“I’m sure,” Will says, giggling a little and kissing Mike’s forehead quickly, “I’m definitely sure.”

“Okay,” Mike agrees breathlessly, sounding as giddy as Will feels, “I- shit, okay, yeah.”

Will loves him. He loves him so much. “Even though you’ll have to deal with Bowie?” he teases, as the cat in question appears from the direction of the hall, swishing his tail and looking expectantly at his empty food dish.

“Me and Bowie are gonna be best friends,” Mike declares, grinning as he wraps his arms around Will’s waist and hitches him closer, “I fed him today and now he doesn’t try to bite me.”

Something warm and light settles in Will’s chest, and he blinks up at him. “You fed him?”

“You said he’d like me if I did!”

Which, again, Will remembers saying, but again hadn’t expected Mike to pay all that much attention to. He presses his thumb over Mike’s cheek, right at the corner of his mouth, feels the dimple in his cheek when Mike smiles at him. “I love you,” he murmurs, the only way left to describe the way he’s feeling right now, that invincible, warm, giddy feeling. He, for the first time in a long time, feels like everything might turn out okay. Better than okay, even.

He goes back to tracing Mike’s freckles, but Mike catches his wrist, bringing Will’s hand around to his lips and kissing the pad of his thumb before trailing to his other fingers. Will laughs softly, Mike’s thumb brushing over his knuckles as he kisses Will’s index, middle, ring fingers, hooks his own pinky through Will’s and kisses the knuckles there like a promise. “I love you too,” he murmurs, flipping Will’s hand around and pressing a firm kiss right to the center of his palm. “So much.” His lips trail back over Will’s fingertips, feather-light and almost ticklish, and Will feels- rosy, bathed in warmth and light and love even in the dead of winter. “Do you want help with the groceries?” Mike offers, lips still pressed against Will’s hand, and Will had almost forgotten about the bag of food abandoned on the kitchen counter, lost in Mike’s touch.

It’s all so domestic. Will could fucking cry. “Yeah,” he whispers, as Mike presses a firm and final kiss to his knuckles and pulls away, sending Will a soft, pleased smile as he steps over to the counter and reaches into the bag. I love you, Will thinks again, balling his fingers up against his palm like he can hold the ghosts of Mike’s kisses there forever.

From his spot on the ground, Bowie twitches his tail in warning, needing attention and probably food. Outside, rain falls softly on the concrete of Will’s - Will and Mike’s - apartment building. Mike hands Will a carton of eggs, smiling as Will brushes past him to put them away.

All is well.

#did u guys know that minimum wage in the us 1991 was $4.25. which adjusted for inflation is like. less than ten dollars.#discovered this while trying to decide what will's salary should be #anyway #found that upsetting #byler ficlet #mike wheeler #will byers #st fic #ok bye

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