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“So listen,” Will is saying, as they’re trudging up the steps to Mike’s dorm, “El’s saying that the Socio students at Sarah Lawrence are having a Halloween thing this weekend, and she and Max are wondering if we all want to visit for the weekend and go.”
To be honest, Mike isn’t really paying attention at this part, because he’s too busy rummaging around all of his pockets to find his keys. He’s really, really hoping he didn’t leave them at the Student Center again, because that’s a twenty minute walk across campus that he’ll have to make in the dark, and in the cold. “Mm,” he hums, patting his front pockets again, “isn’t Sarah Lawrence, like, forty minutes from here?”
“Yeah,” Will says, considering, “but that’s totally drivable, right? Wait— here, let me check my bag,” he adds, reaching around and slinging his bag off, “I might’ve grabbed your keys with my wallet.”
Mike rolls his eyes, watching Will undo one of the seemingly thousands of zippers on his backpack, and then he leans against the whitewashed brick of the dorm hallway. They could be here a while. “Easy for you to say,” he scoffs, “I’ll be the one driving, and you’ll be in the passenger seat, like usual, all ooh, Mike, don’t hit that pedestrian, and slow down, Mike, you’re totally going to run that red-”
“Hey, give me some credit. I’ve got more faith in your driving skills than that,” Will says, which is definitely not true, and then his eyes light up and he yanks Mike’s keys and lanyard out of his bag with a triumphant “Aha!”
“Great,” Mike says, taking the keys from Will but not yet unlocking the door. Will leans against the wall, one hand on the other door jamb, just looking at him. “And, come on,” Mike continues, because he’s got a point to make, “remember what you said when I drove us to the movie theater last weekend-”
“You almost did hit that pedestrian!” Will exclaims, throwing a hand up in the air and smiling, even if it’s a bit exasperated. Personally, Mike thinks he gets a lot of flack for driving skills that are pretty alright— seriously, they’re not that bad, he just gets a little excited, okay— and it’s not like anyone’s complaining when he’s the one ferrying them around or playing designated driver, so.
“Whatever,” Mike says, waving it off, “I apologized, it’s fine.” And, before Will can protest again, “What was the El and Max thing?”
“Oh right.” Will straightens up, pushing off the wall. “El said, ‘The psych students here really know how to,’ and I quote, ‘get freaky with it.”
Mike lets that sink in for a moment. “Freaky with it?” He groans, pulling a face, “El said that? Our El? You sure it wasn’t Max on the phone?”
“I’m sure,” Will nods, a small smile playing at his lips, “because she was calling to update me on her hamster, uh, what was his name— Mister Jiggly?— anyways, Max refuses to refer to him by his given name, so.”
It’s in that moment that Mike decides he misses El something fierce after all, purely spurred on by remembering the fact that she named a rodent Mister Squibbly and forces people to, like, use said given name. “Sarah Lawrence isn’t that far, I guess,” he ponders, “so yeah, we should go. But is this, like, a party party situation? Because the two of us can’t even walk across campus when we’ve been drinking, much less figure out how to get back from somewhere that’s forty minutes away, so-”
“Definitely a party,” Will snorts, slipping his hands into his jacket pockets and pulling his shoulders up near his ears. His hair is growing out, coming to curl gently over the top of the collar, especially when he shrugs like that. It looks, in Mike’s humble opinion, very nice. “El said the words ‘get freaky with it,’ so I’m not sure how else to interpret that.”
“Right,” Mike says, watching Will blink a stray strand of hair out from in front of his eyes. His fingers twitch. “Maybe we can force them to let us crash at their place for the weekend?”
“Oh, already done,” Will says, grinning a little mischievously. Sometimes, even though they’re not related by blood, Mike can really see the resemblance between him and El. “Since Lucas and Dustin said they’ll go. I mean, for Lucas it wasn’t even a question,” he adds, which is true, because Max is involved, so. “So the party’s next Friday, and I was thinking we could all leave together before and come back, like, Sunday afternoon or something-”
“Wait.” Mike holds up a hand, frowning. “If it was already all figured out, then why’d you ask? Like we’re all already going anyway-”
“No, you idiot,” Will says, rolling his eyes. He rolls his eyes a lot when it comes to Mike, but it’s honestly not as often as it should be, considering even half the stupid shit that falls out of his mouth on a regular basis. Also, Will does it weirdly fondly, like, smiling and letting out little half-laughs that consistently make Mike’s stomach do strange little flips. “I was asking if you wanted to go. Like, if you didn’t, then I was thinking that maybe you and I could just stay here and, like, marathon a bunch of movies or something, and then leave Lucas and Dustin’s asses to fend for themselves, since you’re the only one with a car-”
Honestly, Mike’s starting to regret sounding excited about going because it’s probably too late to take that back. But, to be entirely honest, movie night with Will sounds a hundred times more tempting than a party with a hundred sweaty, drunk liberal arts students who’d probably be dressed up as things they think are funny but no one else does. And, to be fair, Mike is a liberal arts student, but he’s not going to be sweaty, drunk, or annoying, so it’s totally different, okay?
Plus, possible movie night with Will would mean, like, cuddling up under blankets together, and laughing and eating snacks, and maybe if they were watching a horror movie— because it’s Halloween, hello— Will might get scared and, maybe, tuck his face into Mike’s shoulder. And then Mike could, like, wrap his arms around him to comfort him and—
Mike blinks. Okay, cool. That’s great.
“Mike?” Will is saying, frowning. “Are you okay? You seem a bit out of it.”
“Yeah, I’m great,” Mike says weakly, wondering, briefly, how he might be able to fake a sudden illness and call out of said Halloween party-slash-road trip after all. Except if Will thinks he’s sick, maybe he wouldn’t want to come over in the first place, and then everyone would just end up having fun without him anyway.
This sucks. Mike’s an idiot.
“Okay,” Will says, but he doesn’t sound convinced. And then, “Oh, it’s a costume party,” he adds, which Mike kind of figured, since it’s Halloween and all, but that’s cool. He likes Halloween. He likes dressing up. He likes-
-well, trick-or-treating isn’t so much on the table anymore but he supposes the college version of that is, like, party hopping and body shots, or something. Not that he’s super into those either, but. For what it’s worth.
“And El’s making me do like, a duo thing,” Will is saying, “because apparently there’s some costume contest she wants to win. So maybe you and Lucas or Dustin can pair up if you want.”
Mike’s opening his mouth to answer, when the door behind them swings open. “No can do,” Lucas is saying, poking his head out between them. Mike takes a startled step back, and does not make a totally undignified noise, thank you very much. “I’m going couples with Max.”
“Of course you are,” Will rolls his eyes. Mike wasn’t kidding when he said Will’s been doing a lot of it lately. “Okay, so maybe Dustin then,” he says to Mike, and then, “wait,” he frowns at Lucas, “were you inside the whole time?”
Lucas grins. “Guilty,” he admits. “I could’ve let you in, like, ten minutes ago,” he says to Mike, “but it was really entertaining listening to you guys squabble. You’re like an old married couple.”
“We’re not old,” Mike squawks, feeling his face pretty much catch on fire, just as Will crosses his arms and says, “Well, it’s not my fault I’m always right and he’s too dumb to get it,” and then it hits him a second too late, what Lucas said about married and couple, and then Lucas throws his head back, laughing.
“I rest my case,” he says, still laughing. He pulls the door open wider. “Are you guys coming in now, or what?”
“Actually,” Will says, gesturing over his shoulder with one hand as Mike maneuvers inside, “I’ve gotta go. Dustin and I are getting dinner.”
“You guys are roommates,” Lucas says, “you’re technically ‘getting dinner’ like, every day.”
“Well, not every day,” Mike chimes in, because sometimes Will gets dinner with him. Will gets dinner with him a lot, actually. Personally, Mike thinks that should be the natural order of the world: Will hanging out with him. And just him. Like, watching horror movies, and getting scared, and wrapping his arms around-
“Cool, see ya,” Lucas is saying, going to shut the door.
“Wait!” Mike blurts, poking his head back out, slapping a hand to the door before Lucas can close it.
Will waits.
“Uh,” Mike starts, because he doesn’t actually have much to say, he’d just been thinking about the watching scary movies thing and it had come out. “I’ll pick you up on Friday,” he offers, “is seven good?”
Will smiles, a bit surprised. “I only live in the next building over,” he says, laughing as he tucks his hands back in his jacket pockets, “but yeah, sure, Mike. Seven’s good.”
“Cool, see ya,” Lucas says again, as Will waves. And then, shutting the door behind him, he frowns. “Dude.”
Mike frowns back. “What?”
“I’m your roommate,” Lucas crosses his arms, “you didn’t think to offer me a ride? We’re literally going together.”
“Um.” Mike tosses his coat into his chair, then collapses onto the bed. “Whatever, man. I have a costume to figure out.”
Despite his plans, Mike does not figure out his costume.
What happens instead is this: he falls asleep in his Analytical Lit class the day the paper is announced. And then it’s Wednesday night the following week, and Lucas is saying, “Hey, you’re in Analytical Lit, right? Someone on the basketball team earlier would just not shut up about that paper y’all have due tomorrow night.” And then Mike’s entire body goes cold, like he jumped into the campus fountain at midnight in January, and he immediately breaks out into a nervous sweat.
“Shit.”
So that’s what he spends the rest of Wednesday night doing, and the rest of Thursday morning, and the rest of Thursday day, and it’s not until the paper is well and truly submitted that evening after class that Mike sits down, eats four grilled cheese sandwiches from the dining hall— which are questionable on a good day— and promptly falls asleep straight through noon on Friday.
And it’s not until, like, six that evening, when Lucas is peering over at him from his bed going, “Dude, aren’t you going to get ready? You said we’d be at Will and Dustin’s at seven,” that Mike realizes.
Again.
“Shit,” Mike says, scrambling to jump off the bed, freezing in place in front of the closet, eyes wide and panicking. “Shit.”
“Dude,” Lucas says again, voice reaching new levels of incredulity, “you are such a mess. A mess. Literally what would you do without-”
Mike waves him off. “Yeah, okay,” he says, racking his brain for literally any thoughts. Any characters. Any people ever. “Costume ideas now, make fun of Mike later.”
“Oh, and I will,” Lucas promises, “believe me, I will.”
Mike’s too busy channeling his inner Dustin Henderson to respond to that. “Shit,” he repeats, “shit, shit, shit.”
Behind him, Lucas is laughing. “Why are you freaking out? Just go as something stupid, like you always do.”
“Stupid isn’t gonna cut it this time, Lucas,” Mike snaps, digging around in his closet for a pair of pants that have been washed sometime in the past week. “I need- I don’t know. Classy. Cool. Sexy. Something-”
Lucas’ polite laughter has turned into hysterical cackling. “Sexy?” He slaps a hand down onto his leg, and Mike frowns. “You? Mike Wheeler? Since when have you wanted to go as something sexy?”
Mike’s not really sure how to communicate that sometime in the last year, between the last Halloween party they went to and now, Will got a weird amount of muscle definition in his arms and calves and even along the lines of his stomach a bit. And then he started growing his hair out, and now it’s long enough for Mike to want to do things like stare into his eyes and brush it out of his face and card his fingers through it and, like, kiss Will right over the little freckle on the corner of his mouth. And he’s not sure last year’s Doc Brown costume— wig and all— would qualify as something that might have a fair shot at enticing Will to do those things back to him.
Not that he’s telling Lucas this.
“Oh, God,” he groans, slumping cross-legged to the floor in defeat. “You guys are just going to have to go without me, and I’ll spend the weekend festering in our room, and then you’ll come back and I’ll be, like, covered in flies and my dead body will be slowly devoured by the campus cats-”
“Okay!” Lucas jumps off the bed at last, “calm your ass down, Mike, we’ll figure something out. Do you want classy, cool, or sexy?”
Mike blinks. “I was just kidding when I said that,” he says, “what’s the difference?”
“A classy costume is like, something that’s just an excuse to wear a suit,” Lucas says, already digging through his closet, “cool is something that’ll have girls coming up to you, giggling and touching your arm or whatever. And,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows, “sexy is something that’ll have them skipping that bit and taking you right up to their room.”
Mike’s eyes feel like they’re bugging right out of his skull. “Uh,” he says, head spinning, because suits are cool, but he doesn’t really want girls doing- any of the other stuff. Not girls, per se, but maybe, like, it would be cool if certain other people- “Maybe- maybe not that.”
Lucas turns to look at him, surveying. Mike stares back. Then, after a moment, Lucas shrugs. “That’s cool,” he says, “so no seducing girls, no being hot—”
“Wait, I didn’t say anything about not being hot,” Mike says, before he can properly consider the consequences of his actions, and then Lucas whips his head back around so fast that Mike wants to crawl under his twin-XL standard-issue bedframe and never come back out.
“Oh,” Lucas says, sounding entirely too gleeful for Mike’s own good, “so who are you looking hot for, then?”
“No one?” Mike tries, wholly unsuccessfully. “No one- Lucas, no, stop!” he exclaims, as the gleeful expression on Lucas’ face only grows. “Shut up- no, stop-”
“Fine,” Lucas says, pointing a finger at him, “but I’m getting some drinks in you and then you’re going to tell me everything.”
That’s probably true, because Mike can’t handle his alcohol. He makes the executive decision to stay stone-cold sober tonight. “And,” Lucas is saying, turning back to the clothes on his hangers, “if we’re going for, like, cool and sexy, and not seducing, uh, girls,” he pulls a white shirt off the hanger and his formal-looking vest thing from the basketball team’s fundraiser event during homecoming week, “you can be Bowie in Labyrinth.”
Mike blinks. “Bowie released new music?”
Lucas stares back. “Dude- what? You haven’t seen Labyrinth? You haven’t seen Labyrinth?”
“Uh, should I have?”
“Yes!” Lucas says emphatically, “because it’s Bowie, dude, come on!”
“He’s in a movie?”
It’s a wonder, at this point, that Lucas doesn’t just straight-up sucker punch him. “Here, take this,” he sighs, tossing the shirt and vest at him. “It’s gonna take some artistic liberty, and a whole lot of imagination, but I think— if the people there are drunk enough— we can pull it off.”
So apparently David Bowie was in a movie. Which came out years ago, but Mike had spent most of 1986 trying not to, like, die, so he thinks that in the grand scheme of things, it’s fine if he misses out on a couple of pop culture moments here and there.
“So let me get this straight,” Mike says, as they make their way down to where his car is parked, overnight bags slung over their shoulders, “he’s a goblin.”
“A goblin king,” Lucas corrects, “and his name is Jareth.”
“That’s an awful name,” Mike snorts, “objectively. Objectively, that sucks.”
“Whatever, dude,” Lucas says, making to get into the passenger seat, “doesn’t matter. All that counts is that he’s hot, and you’re— well you look fine, I guess— and I get to see my girlfriend tonight.”
“We get it,” Mike rolls his eyes, and then, “wait! No, you gotta sit in the back. Will gets shotgun.”
Lucas stares. “What? He’s not even here, man, you can’t call shotgun when you’re not here,” he huffs, but he opens the back door and gets in anyway.
“Last month, Will called shotgun for ‘forever and the rest of time,’ actually,” Mike says, putting the key in the ignition.
Lucas snorts. “And you let him?”
“Uh. Yes?”
“Right,” Lucas says, narrowing his eyes at Mike in the rearview mirror.
Mike gulps.
Will and Dustin are both waiting outside when Mike pulls up in front of their dorm. Which is like, a twenty second drive from his, but whatever. Mike can feel himself grinning even before Will bounds down to the driveway, opens the car door to the passenger side, and gets in with practiced ease. “Hi,” Mike says, feeling strangely out of breath, before really stopping to consider what exactly Will might be wearing, “you look good.”
Will smiles, looking a bit surprised. “Thank you,” he says, shooting Mike a pleased look that’s doing a very funny thing to his stomach again, looking down and brushing something off his shirt. He’s wearing some all-white getup, pants and a vest thing and boots— okay, he looks really familiar, but Mike’s not sure why.
“So don’t take this the wrong way,” he says to Will, as Dustin wrestles with the seatbelt, “but what are you? Or who?”
“Oh,” Dustin chimes in, laughing, “you’re gonna love this, Mike, he’s-”
“Shh!” Will turns back, glaring. “You’ll see when we get there,” he says, clicking his own seatbelt into place, and then, leaning back with a resigned sigh, “El wants it to be a surprise.”
“Right,” Mike says. Will looks nice. He looks really nice. If Mike tried wearing all-white, he’d spill something on himself within minutes. He looks back at Dustin in the rearview mirror, and frowns. “What the hell are you supposed to be?”
“Hello,” Dustin says, sounding quite morally offended, “Beetlejuice?”
“Dude,” Lucas and Will say at the same time, and then Will snorts and says, “Beetlejuice has vertical stripes, not horizontal, Dustin.”
“Wait,” Dustin says, as Lucas bursts into laughter, and then he smacks a hand against his forehead. “Shit, I knew I should’ve watched it again last night. You couldn’t have told me this while I was getting ready?
“You look like you just busted out of a cartoon jail holding, like, a sack of money with a giant dollar sign on it,” Mike says, peeling out of the campus driveway and watching Will throw his head back in a fit of laughter. He looks- well, white’s probably a pretty boring thing to say is someone’s color, but-
“Okay, and?” Dustin scowls, “I can see you were real original with your costume. How many Han Solos do you think are going to be there tonight? Like, a thousand?”
Lucas, Mike, and Will make identical noises of surprise. “Han Solo?” Lucas sounds straight-up offended, and Mike’s feeling a bit confused but he supposes at the end of the day that Han Solo is cool. He’s really cool, actually.
Will, on the other hand, says, “You're dressed as Han Solo?” in a bit of a weird, strangled way that makes Mike look over at him and almost run the next red. Okay, so maybe Will was a little right about his driving, but whatever. Will’s face looks a bit pink, although it might just be the light from the traffic signal. You know, the one Mike almost didn’t make.
“No,” Mike protests, slamming down on the gas maybe a bit too hard when the light goes green, “I’m Jared.”
He doesn’t even need to look at the back to know that Lucas has his head in his hands. “Jareth,” he calls, but he sounds like he’s losing hope.
Next to him, Dustin’s cackling. “Oh my God, Mike,” he’s saying, “wait, oh my God, Will-” and then Will has his head in his hands too, “Mike, you’re going to love this,” Dustin gets out, nearly gasping for breath. “Just wait. You’re going to love this.”
Mike is very confused.
He becomes marginally less confused when they arrive at the girls’ apartment. Emphasis on marginally.
Max gets to the door first, throwing it open to reveal a very long, very red dress— and okay, Lucas’ boring-ass all-black thing makes more sense now. “Really?” Mike snorts, even as Lucas scoops her up into a hug, “The Princess Bride? That’s so cliche, come on.”
Max shoots him a glare over Lucas’s shoulder. “It’s better than yours,” she shoots back, “Han Solo? Seriously?”
“I’m not Han Solo,” Mike grits out, “I’m- uh,” he tries, “a goblin. A goblin king.”
“It’s Jareth!” Lucas yells, right into Max’s ear, and then she flinches, scowling. He pulls back with an apologetic kiss to her cheek, and Dustin and Mike make identical gagging motions at each other. Lucas sighs. “Just say you’re Bowie, man. Do him a little bit of justice.”
“Han Solo?” El’s voice comes floating in from somewhere in the back room. She pokes her head out into the doorway, and beams. “Oh good!” she says, “you can match with us!”
Mike blinks. “Us?”
“El!” Will says, coming up behind them. He drops his bag on the floor, wrapping his arms around her. “How are you?”
“Hi, Will,” El is saying, smiling, “I missed you.” Mike can’t really see her entire costume with Will in the way, but she’s wearing something with black sleeves, and like, a coat or something, and maybe there was an all-black memo that Mike missed out on tonight. And then Will backs away, and Mike squints.
“Wait,” Mike says, pointing to El— a slow realization beginning to dawn on him— and then he looks back at Will, who’s gone a bit fidgety and kind of pink, and has his full attention seemingly captured by something on his boots. His white boots. And his white pants, and his white long sleeve shirt, and his white vest, and-
“I’m Luke!” El says, brandishing her arms. Okay, that makes sense, Mike thinks vaguely, because she’s got like, the whole Return of the Jedi getup going on, with the black on black on black. She grins. “Do you get it? I thought it would be funny. You know, because of-”
“She watches Star Wars literally one time,” Will is saying, still kind of super pink, even around a small smile. “Yeah, it’s real funny, El. We get it, you have powers— it’s hilarious.”
Mike squints. Will is- okay, with the white-
Will takes in a deep, long-suffering breath. Then, looking up to the heavens, as if he’s asking for cosmic guidance, he grits his teeth, closes his eyes, holds out his arms, sighs, and goes, “And I’m Leia. But, like, ice planet Hoth Leia, obviously.
To be fair, Will’s costume is great, now that Mike knows what it is. It’s also a lot more obvious with El next to him. And, okay, wait-
“Oh, this is so good,” Max is laughing, and Dustin’s doubled over, El looks like she’s trying not to laugh, and Lucas has two hands pressed to his cheeks to hide a smirk. “This is so good.” Max points at Mike, wheezing. “Because you’re dressed as-”
Will’s still looking straight up at the sky. The length of his neck is very, very flushed. Mike can feel his entire face going redder than Vader’s lightsaber. He clenches his hands into tiny little fists, and says, around a groan: “I’m not Han Solo, guys.”
El was right about the psych students. They definitely know how to, for lack of a better term, get freaky with it.
But it’s also like— if Mike took a shot every time someone called him Han Solo, he’d be in the hospital with alcohol poisoning an hour ago. And they’ve only been here an hour and five minutes. Which loses the psych students a lot of cool points, in Mike’s opinion.
“Have you seen Dustin,” Will yells, barely audible over the music even though they’re barely two feet apart from each other.
Mike frowns. “What?”
“Dustin,” Will yells again, overly exaggerating the shape of his name, “have you seen him?”
Mike scans the room, and then spots someone in a familiar striped suit in the corner. “There,” he shouts, pointing, and Will’s eyes follow. “Why?”
Will shrugs, laughing, and even though Mike definitely can’t hear it, there’s something about the way Will’s tossing his head back and smiling, open mouthed and uninhibited, that makes Mike want to, like, grab him around the waist and dip him and kiss him full on the mouth.
He blinks. He totally just missed what Will said. “What?”
Will is looking at him strangely, a half-smile still lingering on his lips. “I said,” he shouts, “we’ve been abandoned!”
This is true, actually. El and Max went off to say hi to some friends from class, and Lucas actually ran into someone he knew— which actually isn’t as weird as it sounds because sometimes it feels like Lucas knows everyone in New York— but now it’s just Mike, Will, an open table of drinks situation, loud music, and very close proximity.
Will smells very nice. Mike needs another drink. “More?” he says, gesturing to Will’s cup, because he’s learning it’s best to speak in as few syllables as possible.
“Okay,” Will says, “thank you!”
Mike turns and looks over his shoulder at the drinks table. “Stay here,” he shouts, “I’ll be fast.”
“Okay,” Will says again, smiling. The lights are flashing a lot of colors across his face. He looks good. Really good. Mike swallows again.
“Okay,” he echoes, and then tries his hardest not to, like, run away.
There’s a lot of alcohol here that Mike has no idea what to do with— because contrary to what’s certainly popular belief, he doesn’t, like, do this a lot. But then he spots something that’s kind of juice-y and tastes pretty good, after a cursory splash into his cup and a tentative sip, so he figures maybe Will would like it too.
Someone next to him goes, “Oh my God,” and Mike looks up to find the actual one hundredth girl dressed like Veronica from Heathers that he’s seen today.
He blinks. “Sorry?”
The girl grins. “Oh my God!” she shouts again, over the steady thrum of the base. “Han Solo?”
Mike isn’t drunk enough for this. “Actually,” he tries, and then she sways a bit on the spot and he figures maybe she is drunk enough for this— at least on her end— and sighs. “Yeah, whatever,” he says, and then waves a hand at whatever’s going on with her costume, “Veronica?”
She grins even wider. “Yeah!” She leans in conspiratorially. “I love your couples costume,” she says, in what’s probably supposed to be a whisper but is actually, like, a normal speaking volume. “I’m rooting for you guys to win the contest.”
Mike blinks again. “My- who’s the couple?”
“The guy you were dancing with!” She throws back something quick, and pulls a face. Great, Mike thinks, a bit warily, because girls are weird enough to deal with sober, much less, like, stumbling right into the side of a table. “He’s Leia, right?”
Mike freezes. “Um, yes,” he says, “but we’re not- I mean, we just came here together-”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying!” Veronica #100 pours a glass of lemonade. “It’s cool, no one here cares!”
“Right,” Mike says, clutching onto the red cups in his hands and suddenly feeling just about as unsteady on his feet as this girl looks. She sways in place again, and he frowns. “Do you- are you, like, good?”
“I’m feeling great!” she says, which isn’t exactly what he meant, but whatever. “You guys are cute together!”
Mike definitely, definitely is not drunk enough for this. He attempts to mend this by taking a hasty gulp of whatever is in his cup, and then abruptly splutters, coughing. “Oh my God,” he says, “what the hell is this?”
“No idea.” The girl shrugs. “I like your Han Solo hair.”
Mike reaches a hand up to his head, frowning. “I’m not Han Solo- this is just my normal hair.” And then, “Uh, hey, what’s your name?”
The girl frowns, looking down at her costume. “I’m Veronica?”
Right. Drunk girls. Mike shakes his head. “Never mind,” he says, looking back over the crowd. It seems like Will’s been reunited with Dustin after all, because they seem to be huddled together and talking about something. Or they’re probably shouting, but, you know. He turns around- “Hey, I don’t suppose you-”
Okay, cool. Drunk Veronica is gone. Figures.
Mike sighs, and turns back around. Will’s already looking at him, head craning up over the nearby crowd, and when their eyes meet, Will flashes him another smile and a questioning thumbs up, as if to ask, You good?
Mike is not drunk enough for this. “Yeah!” he shouts, and then it hits him a second later that Will wouldn’t be able to hear him anyway, and then he kind of wants to bury his head in his hands and dissolve into the crowd. Will looks like he’s laughing either way, so Mike just shoots him a thumbs up back, and then swiftly makes to pour some more of the mystery maybe-juice into his cup.
Christ.
“So,” Will is saying, in less of a shout since they’d moved away from noise and commotion of the main room, but loud enough for it to be kind of funny still, “I’m supposed to be working on this illustration piece, right, and at this point I’ve spent, like, an hour trying to blend out the actual worst oil pastels I’ve ever used in my life, and it’s not after I’m done, like, coloring in the whole thing that I turn the box over and see that it’s actually a box of off-brand crayons-”
Mike snorts, probably more so than is probably warranted, but he’s, like, just a little bit drunk. Honestly, he thinks Will might be just a little bit drunk too, because he keeps doing things like giggling and leaning onto Mike’s arm with one hand when he says things. And Mike doesn’t think he’s an unfunny guy, but he’s not- well, he’s not that funny, so.
“That’s funny,” he says anyway, leaning back into the solid weight of Will’s body where they’re both perched on the couch, “that’s really- yeah, that’s hilarious,” because the idea of Will just sitting there at his desk for an hour, trying to blend shitty crayon wax together is kind of funny. To his tipsy brain, anyway.
“Anyway,” Will goes on, tilting his head closer and then letting it slowly drop onto Mike’s shoulder. When he talks next, it’s muffled right into the puffy white collar of Mike’s not-Han-Solo shirt. “I don’t think I’m going to get a very good grade on that one.”
“Mhm.” To be honest, Mike would probably be having a bit of a difficult time here even if he were entirely sober, so. “I’m sure you’re going to do really great, Will.”
There’s a pause, and Mike’s starting to get a bit suspicious, because Will was talking a mile a minute just a second ago, and then: “I’m really glad you’re here,” Will mumbles, still kind of into Mike’s shoulder, quietly enough so that Mike barely hears it, even as pressed together as they are.
Okay. That’s nice. That’s- actually, so far beyond nice that Mike blinks, wondering if the pleasant fog in his head is just getting to him after all. “Of course,” Mike says, turning his face so his cheek is kind of, like, resting in Will’s hair. His hair smells nice. This is nice. “Why wouldn’t I have come?”
Will waits another moment before speaking. “I didn’t think you didn’t want to,” he says, a bit slowly, like he’s trying to stay very conscious of what he’s saying. “But if you didn’t- if you didn’t want to come, I would have stayed home with you, I think.”
At this, Mike frowns, lifting his head away. “Why?”
Will sighs, soft breath ghosting over the exposed slip of Mike’s collarbone. And, honestly, damn this billowy white shirt Mike’s got on, because it’s not doing a whole lot to protect Mike from the warmth of Will’s, like, entire face. “I don’t know,” he says softly, “Around Halloween- it’s weird for me. And it can be hard sometimes, but it’s better with you around. It always has been.”
Oh. “Oh,” Mike says quietly, not entirely intending for Will to hear it, but sure that he did anyway. The pleasant fog in his head is starting to clear, but the strange warmth flooding through his stomach and chest only grows more intense with each passing beat where neither of them speak. Around them, the music pulsates, a few people trickling into the room to escape the noise of the front of the house, but they divert easily around the small couch Mike and Will are sprawled across, moving instead to the opposite side of the room, around the little partition of the wall.
Next to him, Will shifts, bringing one leg up onto the couch so that he’s leaning more horizontally onto Mike. “Of course I’d be here,” Mike says, getting the impression that Will is maybe holding back a large majority of what he wants to say. He sets his cup down on the floor. That’s- that’s definitely enough alcohol for the night, actually. And then, still kind of into the top of Will’s head, “Is that why you were asking about the movie night earlier? If I didn’t want to go?”
“Well, yeah,” Will starts, and then he pushes himself up with one arm, raising his head off of Mike’s shoulder. “That, and- I don’t know. I like spending time with you? I thought it could be fun.”
They’re face-to-face now. Will’s eyes are already looking a lot more awake and alert than they were a few minutes ago. It’s funny how talking about shared supernatural Halloween-related trauma can do that to you. Wonders never cease, right?
“Well,” Mike whispers, as softly as he can while knowing that Will can still hear him, “we can still do that. Halloween’s not ‘till the middle of the week. We can do horror movies if you want,” he says, thinking about the delectable possibility of Will tucking his face into Mike’s neck during a particularly nasty scare, kind of like he was just doing, but then Will’s face twitches the most imperceptible amount, and Mike quickly amends his previous statement. “Or, like, something else,” he adds, “anything else. Back to the Future again. We can take inspiration from Lucas and Max and do The Princess Bride. That could be nice. Or anything else- anything you want.”
Will smiles fondly at him. “Yeah?” And then, when Mike nods, he snorts softly, and says, “How about Star Wars?”
“You’re hilarious,” Mike deadpans, to the best of his ability anyway, because he’s still a little bit giggly and warm– although that might have less to do with the alcohol, he’s realizing, and more to do with a certain Will Byers, so. “You’re really funny, has anyone told you that?”
“We’re doing a matinee,” Will announces, righting himself on the couch, albeit a bit unsteadily. “All three. It’ll be a special feature.”
“Okay,” Mike says easily, watching Will adjust the little hood thing on his vest and then reach down to adjust his boots. “I like your costume,” he blurts out, “you look- it looks really good on you.”
Will looks a lot more surprised than Mike thinks he should. Then again, Mike thinks Will could look catalog-ready in Mike’s old Doc Brown wig from last Halloween, so he’s not sure how much his opinion counts for. “Thank you?” Will says, and it comes out like a question. “I like yours too?”
“I really didn’t mean to be Han Solo,” Mike says earnestly, feeling himself inexplicably turning red. And, look, he might as well embrace it now. Sometimes, the Han Solo life chooses you, okay? “Especially since you’re- I mean, Hoth Leia- that is to say,” he says quickly, as Will’s expression turns a bit confused, “everyone knows The Empire Strikes Back is a very romantic movie.”
Okay, he’s definitely, like, the littlest bit tipsy still.
For some reason, Will is also turning very, very red. “Oh,” he says, eyes wide, “I mean, obviously, like, Han and Leia had incredible chemistry-”
“And it helps that Han Solo is super hot,” Mike says, apropos of literally nothing at all, and then, when Will’s eyes almost pop right out of his head and he starts looking thoroughly gobsmacked, for lack of a better term, “I mean, cool,” Mike tries to amend, “he’s super cool-”
“I think Han Solo is hot, too,” Will blurts, looking halfway to mortified before he’s even finished the sentence.
Okay, great.
This is cool.
Mike can roll with this.
“I think Leia’s also pretty,” he tries, “like, uh. I think she's a badass. Plus, there was the gold bikini thing, which is, like, classic-” And then Will is turning dangerously red, and Mike’s starting to wonder if he’s about to throw up all over the couch. He frowns, placing a hand on Will’s knee. “Are you okay? You look like you’re gonna hurl.”
“I’m fine,” Will chokes out, and then, just as Mike’s starting to actually get worried, he drops his head into his hands and groans. “It’s just that this is probably the weirdest way people have ever flirted with each other before?”
Every gear in Mike’s brain comes grinding to a juddering, screeching halt. “You-” he starts, opening his mouth and closing it again. Will’s watching him through the spaces between his fingers, unmoving. God, he’s definitely so red. He’s sure Han Solo would never turn this red. “We’re- was that flirting?”
“I think so?” Will hasn’t taken his head out of his hands yet, so it comes out a bit muffled. “I mean- I do think Han Solo is hot. In the movies, I mean. But also- I think you’re hot? Especially dressed up as Han Solo?”
“Okay,” Mike says weakly, caught between wanting to lean back against the arm of the sofa to steady himself and also just do something idiotic and impulsive like kiss Will, right now, so he takes one careful scoot back, instead. “That’s cool. That’s nice.”
“Sorry,” Will is saying, peeling his fingers away at last, “I don’t flirt a lot? I could be doing it wrong?”
A lot of the things he’s saying are coming out sounding like they’re questions. “You should flirt a lot,” Mike hears himself blurt out, kind of from somewhere outside his own body, “uh, with me, I mean. Not with- not with other people. Don’t flirt with other people. I wouldn’t like that very much.”
Awesome. Thank you, mystery booze.
Will pauses, looking up. The top of his white shirt has come tugged down around his collarbone a little. Mike’s definitely staring.
“What?” Will sounds a lot more incredulous about that than he should, too, as if it’s some sort of marvel that Mike wants him to, like, flirt with him. Badly, maybe, but flirting nonetheless.
Mike leans forward again, Will’s eyes following his movement. “I’m being completely honest when I say this,” he starts, gaze catching on the flushed line of Will’s neck, and then on the curve of his lips, then the little freckle on the corner of his mouth, and then finally, at his eyes— round, wide, definitely alert— “but that’s probably, like, the most plausible way for us to flirt with each other that I can think of.”
Will snorts, dipping his head. “Is that what this is, then?” he asks, gesturing between them, “are we- is this flirting?”
Mike hopes it is. He’s starting to think he likes flirting with Will Byers- a lot, actually, if that’s what’s going on here. “Yes,” he decides, leaning in to tug up the collar of Will’s shirt, and then- not so inexplicably, to be honest- he lets his hand linger there. Will takes in a soft breath. “So what I’m hearing,” Mike says, “is that we should have a movie date on Halloween?”
Will scoffs, but his eyes are already crinkling up at the corners. “Do I need to ask what we’re watching?”
Mike looks down at himself, and then over at Will, and then back down at himself. “Come on,” he says, “is that even a question?”
“Oh my God,” someone dressed as Michael Myers is saying, over by the door with one hand on the knob, “are you guys Leia and Han?”
At any other moment, Mike probably would’ve yanked himself away from Will fast enough to, like, give himself whiplash. As it is now, however, he just squeezes Will’s shoulder, a grin making its way across his face. “Uh,” Will is saying, looking over at Mike like he’s waiting for his confirmation.
“I saw, like, a hundred Leias wearing the gold bikini earlier,” Michael Myers says, halfway out the door, and Will looks just about ready to, like, catch on fire next to him. Mike stifles a laugh. “But I think this is so cute. Empire Han and Leia are so iconic.”
“Right,” Mike says, and then, on a whim and before he can psych himself out completely: “yes. Yes, that’s us. We’re- Han and Leia, that’s us.”
“So,” Will says, clearing his throat, once the room is graciously slasher-villain-free. “That was-”
“What I’m hearing,” Mike says again, heart pounding, “is that you and I are watching The Empire Strikes Back on Halloween.”
Will hums. “Okay,” he says at last, and Mike’s stomach turns a full one-eighty inside his body, “but you’re buying the snacks.”
“I’m buying the snacks,” Mike agrees immediately, even as he feels his face split open in the most actually ridiculous smile ever, “I’ll buy you all the snacks you want. Name a snack and it’s yours. I’ll buy you the whole grocery store if you want.”
“Okay!” Will says, laughing, “okay, okay, I don’t need the store, just, like, Reese’s Pieces, and something cheese-flavored-”
“Agreed,” Mike says, “snacks, so many snacks- can I kiss you now?”
“What, here?” Will laughs lightly, even as he leans in to rest a hand on Mike’s upper arm. Mike tilts his head like yeah, waiting, just in case Will was serious about maybe not wanting to be kissed in a mostly empty room with lots of pumpkin decorations and a few very enthusiastic and inebriated liberal arts students milling about. “Okay,” Will says, eyes dropping down to Mike’s lips with very little hesitation, actually, “yeah, you can kiss me now.”
“Cool,” Mike says, and then he puts one hand over Will’s waist, right over that ridiculous white vest, the other hand on the back of Will’s head, and then leans in and kisses him.
It’s not the most, like, cinematic thing ever, because they’re sort of at a weird angle, still sitting a bit side-by-side, and Mike is having to reach around Will’s stupid vest to press against the small of his back. And he’d been thinking that thing earlier, about, like, swooping in on the dance floor and dipping Will in his arms and kissing cheap flavored vodka right off his mouth- and that’s definitely not happening now, but this is nice too.
“Wait,” Mike says, moving his head back for just a second to slip his hand under the vest and then wrapping it around the firm line of Will’s waist that way, which is so much better. Because now Mike can pull Will flush against his body, which makes Will let out a startled little noise and then, like, melt a little bit, turning his face up a bit where it’s being supported by Mike’s hand against the back of his neck, which is doing a whole plethora of swoopy, fluttery things to Mike’s stomach. He thinks maybe this is the only in-character thing he’s done all night. Very dashing hero with great hair of him. He’s definitely smiling into the kiss too, maybe a little too much for it to be, like, objectively incredible, but Will’s also definitely smiling back, right against his lips, so.
“This is nice,” Will whispers against his mouth, laughing lightly, “I like this.” His hands have found their way to Mike’s hair at some point, grasping lightly.
“And,” Mike says, pressing a quick kiss to Will’s lower lip, then to the ever-offending freckle next to it, “I like you?”
Will pulls back at that, and then he gets a look on his face- the signature Will Byers up-to-no-good smirk, and he waggles his eyebrows. “I know,” he chirps gleefully, looking entirely too proud of himself.
It takes Mike a second for it to land. Sue him, he’s distracted, okay? And then, a second later— “Will,” he groans, even as he starts laughing. He lowers his head to the hollow of Will’s throat, where he can feel the soft vibrations of Will’s answering giggle, “that’s my line! That’s, like, the most romantic part of the whole movie-”
“Too bad,” Will says happily, and then, “so, Halloween movie date?”
“Yes,” Mike says, pressing another kiss to where Will’s shirt is slipping down his clavicle again, “and we can, like, hold hands under the blanket, and kiss under the blanket, and make out under the blanket-”
“Why does there have to be a blanket involved?” Will starts to ask, and then Mike’s kissing him again so he shuts up. For like, two seconds.
“Whatever, fine, no blanket,” Mike amends, pulling back away with no small amount of reluctance. “But promise me this,” he says, trying to sound as serious as possible, and Will nods solemnly. He takes a deep breath, looking Will in the eyes. “El is never allowed to watch Star Wars again.”
Will snorts. “Yeah,” he agrees, “that’s probably for the best.”