Work Text:
The boy with the brown hair walks down the hallway. The hallway of another family’s house that has become a home to this boy. After years of after-school Dungeons & Dragons sessions, of staying up much too late at sleepovers, years of reading comics over shoulders- this house has become a home.
The boy puts a hand on the cool doorknob. The feeling is familiar. The boy can’t think of how many times he’s pushed this door in, slammed it against the wall in a hurry. He pushes it open slowly now, walking into the bedroom.
He sits down on the bed. The duvet is soft. He rubs it between his fingers subconsciously. The room is blue, save for the scratched wood floor and white door of the closet. The bedframe is an alarming rust color, not quite fitting for the rest of the room. He sighs, looking around. This room has become different in the past seven months. The posters are different, brighter colors that contrast against the blue paint.
There is clothing strewn around the room, a white t-shirt, a striped polo, a pair of jeans. A denim jacket is hung on the closet door. A worn looking electric guitar sits in the corner and the boy is curious if it has been played recently. He wants to hear the music that it’s made. He wants to hear the singing of the one who plays it.
There is a painting, right above the bed. Four warriors, facing a huge three-headed dragon with determined expressions on their faces. One is holding a shield with a large red heart displayed on it.
The boy knows every brush stroke on that painting like the back of his own hand, because he was the one that painted it. He was the one who painted it, to give to the one who this blue bedroom belongs to.
The boy bites at his upper lip, peeling a bit of skin off with his teeth. His lips are chapped from countless windy mornings and cold, dry air. He reaches to the floor and picks up a sweater. It’s boring, black and gray and color blocked. He presses his face to the fabric, inhaling deeping, and the smell of his friend surrounds the boy. The smell is a smell that the boy knows better than the back of his own hand.
He smells like cinnamon and copper and faintly of the cigarettes that his friend has smoked since the boy returned from California. It’s a good smell. It’s a familiar smell. It makes the anxiety in the boy’s stomach calm. It makes tears swell in his eyes and he can almost remember a time when the boy and his friend were supposed to be together for the rest of their lives.
The boy looks up and there he is. Standing in the doorway, watching him. He has deep brown hair, framing his face in ringlets. His face is scattered in freckles, ones that remind the boy of the constellations his brother used to talk about before he became somewhat of an addict. His nose curves at just the right angle, his lips parted slightly.
His friend takes a step into the room, reaching the boy. The boy knows he should be embarrassed, but can’t bring himself. He just drops the sweater and looks up at him. His friend sits down on the bed beside him, taking the sweater into his hands and running his fingers across it. He smiles and leans towards the boy, propping two fingers beneath his chin and looking at him properly.
In that moment, the boy’s friend is the most beautiful thing he’s seen in his entire life.
The boy knows what his friend is trying to tell him, so he pushes forward and presses their lips together. He does not freak out like he thinks he might’ve, but instead is calm. The feeling surrounding them is almost ethereal, warm and electrical. He kisses his friend back. His friend has stolen his first press of lips, first touch of the face, first pang of pleasure so intense that the boy feels like he may pass out. The boy rakes his hand through his friend's hair, the curls soft and silken, slightly damp. They pull apart, staring at each other.
The boy knows that the one in front of him is everything and everything, and without any words spoken, this boy is his .
And the boy smiles, as bright as sunshine, because Micheal Wheeler, with his scattered freckles, is the embodiment of stars, and the boy, William Byers, is as bright as the sun on a breezy spring day.