yours truly, lou.

A ripple of whispers spreads through your fifth-grade classroom.  

You blink, already pushing your chair back. “Did he say what kind of emergency?”

Eli shakes his head, serious as anything. “No. He just said we need to hurry.”

Your stomach gives a small, uneasy flip.

Eli isn’t the type to exaggerate. He’s sweet, careful. Reminds everyone when it’s time to line up after recess and always volunteers to erase the board without being asked. He's the sort of kid teachers trust without thinking twice.

If he’s the messenger, it’s because of something important.

“Alright, everyone,” you call to the class. “Keep reading quietly. I’ll be right back.”

A chorus of shuffling follows as you reach for your cardigan.

“Hurry, hurry,” Eli bounces on his heels, voice small but insistent.

Before you can answer, he reaches for your hand. His grip is tiny, warm, a little sticky—surprisingly strong. You find yourself getting dragged by his bouncy, determined steps, weaving past rows of lockers, dodging a cluster of kids heading to recess. He zigzags through the main hallway, past the water fountain, the art room, taking the shortcut through the library until you arrive at the wide, double doors leading into the gym.

The moment you push them open, chaos erupts.

Bright rubber dodgeballs zing through the air. Sneakers squeak across the glossy, lacquered floor. Laughter and triumphant shrieks ricochet off the walls, punctuated by the occasional, “Yes! Got you!” from victorious first graders.  

Coach Steve's leaned casually against the far wall, clipboard tucked under one arm, whistle hanging loose around his neck. He’s sipping from a blue ceramic mug that reads World’s Best Teacher in chipped white lettering.

Only five months into the job, yet he’s already something of a legend here at Hawkins Elementary. The younger kids adore him—dodgeball days and ridiculous warm-up games where he pretends to be a shark, stalking the gym with dramatic dun-dun noises until they’re all shrieking with laughter. Older kids trust him in quieter ways, lingering after sex ed to ask questions they’re not brave enough to bring home. 

Despite the nerves you remember from his first day, Steve has settled into teaching like it’s been waiting for him all along.

Right now, though, he’s fully in coach mode. Brow furrowed, stance wide, eyes tracking the game like it’s a championship match instead of a bunch of kids still learning how to throw straight.

“Out of bounds! That one doesn’t count.”

“Woah—no head shots, Jacob! C’mon, we talked about that.”

“You okay, Alex? I got you. Here, try it like this. Yeah, there ya go bud!”

Eli, who had been clutching your hand the entire walk across school, suddenly lets go and races toward his favorite teacher.

“Coach Steve! I did it! I got her!”

Steve looks up. Sees you.

And the grin that breaks across his face is so immediate, so fond, it'd be enough to give you both away if anyone was paying the tiniest bit of attention.

“Hey!” he laughs, stepping forward. “Nice work, buddy. Thanks for the help.”

You watch, eyes narrowed in confusion as he ruffles Eli’s curls and slaps a high five against his tiny palm.

Eli puffs up with pride and pivots to sprint back to the game.

“Whoa—hang on, pal.”

Steve drops to his knees, setting the clipboard aside as he reaches for the loose strap on Eli’s shoe. He fastens it with careful, practiced fingers, giving it a quick tug to make sure it’ll hold.

Your stomach melts a little at the sight of him crouched like that: focused, patient, so gentle with this kid who’s staring at him like he hung the moon.

“There we go, champ,” he grins, giving Eli's sneaker a little pat. “Good as new. Now go have fun, alright? Your team missed you.”

Eli nods hard, then rockets back into the game without another word.

Steve straightens and finally turns to you, eyes warm, smile soft—and just a touch guilty.

“Mr. Harrington,” you say, crossing your arms carefully, “what exactly is the emergency you pulled me out of class for?”

His mouth quirks sheepishly, hands slipping into his pockets.

“Well, I just…” He steps closer, dropping his voice. “Haven’t seen you all morning. I missed you.”

You blink.

“You—” A breathy laugh slips out before you can stop it. “You sent poor Eli to fetch me because you missed me?”

He nods like it’s the most logical thing in the world. “Yeah. He's my fastest kid.”  

“No, that's not the...” you trail off, turning your head, failing completely to hide your smile.

Steve steps closer, angling the clipboard between you so that, to anyone looking in, it would look like you’re addressing some very concerning issues with the class roster.

Well, except for the part where his eyes are glued to your face.

There’s this soft intensity in his gaze that makes your breath hitch, just by holding it. You find yourself staring back, unable to look away, appreciating the faint creases around his temples, how they deepen with his smile, the plush curve of his bottom lip and the rounded apples of his cheeks as they get pushed upward.

“That’s better,” he murmurs, voice all deep and honey-warm. “Just needed to look at you for a second.”

You shake your head, cheeks warming despite yourself.

There’s a reason you’ve been keeping this thing with Steve a secret.

You both realized, pretty early on, that acting normal in a building full of nosy children and nosier adults was a losing battle. You had to learn to bend with it, catching tiny, fleeting moments in the spaces between, holding onto each one as tightly as you can.

It wasn’t perfect. Mrs. Kline, the school secretary, has definitely noticed the two of you laughing a little too freely by the copier. One of your students will occasionally squint at you during silent reading time, wondering why a tiny scrap of paper left on your table at lunch leaves you grinning for the rest of the day.

Still, you make it work.

A shared coffee in the teachers’ lounge before the morning bell. Standing side-by-side near the parking lot fence as the buses roll in. A granola bar tucked under your desk with a note folded impossibly small.

you look beautiful today ◡̈

He repeats the message to you now, even as you roll your eyes and try to look away.

“Seriously, I mean it," he murmurs, tracing your face with his eyes—the slope of your nose, the curve of your cheek—before lingering, unmistakably, on your mouth. “Want to kiss you so bad right now.”

You snort, nudging the sleeve of his sweatshirt with a finger. It’s soft, heather-gray, the Hawkins Elementary mascot faint and cracked across the chest.

“That’s deeply unprofessional of you, Mr. Harrington.”  

He groans under his breath, brow creasing as he tips his head back. “God, I love it when you say it like that. Say it one more time?”  

“Jesus—Steve!” you hiss, half-laughing, eyes darting toward the gym floor like the kids might suddenly develop super-hearing over the screech of sneakers and flying dodgeballs.   

Instead of stepping back, he leans in closer, lips parted in that familiar half-pout, eyes full of mock agony. “Can’t help it, honey. You’re fucking killing me over here.”

“Language,” you warn him, simply out of pure habit.

He smirks, lips twitching.

From the far end of the gym, a group of kids cheer triumphantly, “Yes! Coach Steve! We won!”

You both jump back like you’ve been caught doing something much worse than grinning at each other like idiots.

“Uh—great! Great job, gang!” Steve calls, clapping his hands. “Let's get all the balls in the cart and then grab some water, yeah? Five-minute break.”

Then he leans back in, brows raised. “See? Total professional. I’m telling you.”

You shake your head. “You’re unbelievable.”

You’re still smiling when he pivots, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one’s paying attention. Satisfied, he turns back to you, brows drawn into a hopeful, pleading slant.

"C'mon," he murmurs, lifting the clipboard up like a partition. "I’ll get another game going. The kids won’t even notice. Just you... me...” He gestures between you, then toward the double doors leading outside. “Five minutes?”

You press your lips together, schooling your expression back into something stern. “Steve Harrington. I am not fucking you behind the school gym.”

"Language!" He gasps, mimicking your tone. “And jeez, who said anything about that? I was just gonna, you know, have a very professional conversation with you… about teaching.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh, c’mon, bab—"

“Coach Steve?”

Both of your heads snap down at the same time.

Eli stands there, chin tipped up, hands clasped neatly behind his back like he’s been waiting for his turn to speak. He’s rocking gently on his heels, eyes bright with curiosity as he looks between the two of you.

“Heyyy, buddy!” Steve laughs nervously, voice jumping up an octave. “What’s up? You okay?”

Eli nods.

Then, completely matter-of-fact, he asks:

“Coach Steve, when you marry her, can I come?”

Steve chokes on absolutely nothing.

“When—what?”

“When you get married,” Eli repeats patiently, like Steve’s just being a little slow today. “I wanna come.”

Steve squats down so fast he almost drops the clipboard.

“Eli,” he says carefully, “why do you think we’re getting married?”

Eli shrugs, unfazed. “’Cause you’re prac-tis married.”

“Practice… practice married?”

“Yeah. Like my Auntie Jen and her friend Mark at Thanksgiving.”

Steve blinks. “Okay, and what's... why do you think we’re practice married?”

Eli doesn’t hesitate. He points toward the front of the gym, in the general direction of your classroom. “’Cause you always wait for her outside her door.”

Steve opens his mouth. Closes it.

“And you bring her coffee. But you don’t bring us coffee.”

“Well,” Steve murmurs faintly, “that’s ‘cause you’re six.”

Eli shrugs again. “And you talk to her really soft. Like this,” he cups his hand around his mouth to demonstrate, whispering loudly. “Also, you always save her a chair at ass-em-blee.”

Steve rubs a hand down his face, glancing up at you before looking back at Eli. “That’s, uh… very observant of you, buddy.”

Eli isn’t done.

“And you make funny faces at her in the hallway. Oh! And you fixed her pencil sharpener. And, and, there was one time you looked at her, and you didn’t look away for one... two... three...” He glances down at his fingers and starts counting under his breath. “five... six... seven... eigh—”

“Okay!” Steve laughs loudly, holding up his hands. “Okay, buddy, I get it. That’s... that’s a long time.”

Eli nods, clearly pleased with himself. “Auntie Jen and Mark, they used to go everywhere together. And Mark fixed all the stuff around her house. Then later they got married for real.”

He looks between the two of you, satisfied.

“So. I think you’re practice married.”

You bite the inside of your cheek and crouch beside Steve. “Well... I think that’s a pretty solid theory, Eli.”

“Mm-hm, thanks,” he nods confidently. Then he spins back to Steve. “So, when you do the real one, can I come? I’m really good at sitting still. And my mom says when people get married they always eat cake. I love cake.” He spreads his arms wide. “Auntie Jen’s was this big!”

Steve presses his lips together, letting out a short, incredulous snort. “You know what, pal? Sure. Whe—if we get married, you’re more than welcome to come. And we’ll get the biggest cake we can find, okay?”

Eli beams. “Okay!”

He starts to run back to the group, then skids to a stop and turns around.

“Hey, Coach Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“You should ask her nicely,” Eli says, serious as anything. “With flowers. Mark did that.”

And then he’s gone.

Steve stays crouched, staring after him, jaw slack.

“…Did a six-year-old just give me relationship advice?”

“Mm, seems like it.”

He stands slowly, running a hand through his hair, eyes still following Eli as he rejoins the others.

“You think he spotted it before we did?” he asks quietly. “Back when... you know, we were still trying to figure out what we were doing?”

You smile. “Probably way before then.”

Steve's still distracted when you put your hand on his shoulder, quickly checking to see that no one’s watching before pressing a soft, fleeting kiss to his cheek.

He blinks, stunned. “Wha—no, wait, shit—”

He reaches for you a full second too late; you’re already headed for the door.

“Language. Have a good rest of your class, Mr. Harrington.”

Steve watches you go, hand frozen at his cheek.

Across the gym, Eli spots you and waves enthusiastically, completely unaware of just how accurate his little theory was.

The proof?

IT SHOULD’VE BEEN EASY, YOU THINK SOMETIMES. LOVING HIM.

but it wasn’t. it never has been. because mike wheeler is… dense. painfully, spectacularly, cosmically dense. the kind of boy who could watch you bleed and ask if you tripped. who could stare at you too long, too soft, too much, and then claim he “didn’t notice.” he’s a riddle, and he makes you work for every moment of clarity like it’s something you should feel lucky to receive.

you’ve loved him for as long as you can remember. long before monsters, long before the word “upside down” meant something other than the way he lay on the couch when he was bored. before trauma rearranged both of you into people you barely recognized. back when he was just mike—awkward, loud, too earnest, too stubborn. a boy who talked with his whole body, who defended you with scraped knees and shouted arguments in parking lots, who didn’t know how to say the things he felt so he built entire fortresses out of silence instead.

and god, you tried. you tried to read him the way he reads maps in d&d, looking for patterns, for anything that could mean he cared the way you did. but mike never opens the right doors. or maybe he opens them too late. maybe he doesn’t even realize the doors are there. he’s so used to hiding, to shouldering everything alone, that letting anyone in feels like handing over a weapon.

loving someone like that—someone who keeps himself locked away—it hurts. it hurts because wanting him feels like trying to warm your hands over a fire that won’t stay lit.

you did try to let him go. you swear you did. loving mike wheeler isn’t this soft, fluttery thing people write poems about. its something you have to learn to tuck under your ribs so it doesn’t spill out every time he looks at you with those dark, startled eyes like he wasn’t expecting you to still be there. you learned early that emotions make him skittish. not just yours—everyone’s. if you get too close, too honest, too anything, he recoils. not physically, but in words. sharp ones, sarcastic ones, the kind he regrets immediately but never admits to.

you’ve seen it happen to others, so you never risked it with yourself.

so slowly, you started stepping back. not in some dramatic teenage heartbreak way, but in the soft, invisible ways that actually matter. you sat with different people at lunch, laughing at jokes that weren’t as funny as you pretended. you stopped answering him when he’d radio you. you skipped movie nights twice in a row. you let days pass without seeking him out first.

you told yourself it was self-care, not avoidance. that maybe if you built a life without him woven through every hour of it, the ache would dull. maybe the world would shift its axis just enough that he wouldn’t be the center anymore.

the problem was… hawkins is small. memories are smaller.

how do you let go of someone whose shadow sits in every corner of your childhood? he’s everywhere. in the sunburns from summers at the quarry. in the grass stains on your jeans from bike races he always cheated in. in the smell of wet pavement after storms, because those were the nights he’d sneak out and show up at your window, whispering, “c’mon, you’re not gonna let a little rain stop us.”

he’s in the basement where you learned what loyalty felt like, lights dim, dice clattering, his voice animated and alive in ways you never heard in classrooms or crowded hallways. he’s in the scream you made the first time you saw a demogorgon, and the way his hand grabbed yours so tight it left impressions. he’s in the silence afterward, when none of you slept for days, and he sat on the floor beside your bed, staring at the wall like if he looked away, the world might break again.

mike wheeler has always been a constant. even when he’s cold, even when he’s distant, even when he’s drowning in his own head and dragging everyone with him, you never doubted his heart.

you just doubted that he’d ever let you see all of it.

he has no idea. he has no idea that your voice softens when you say his name. he has no idea that you memorized every version of his smile. he has no idea that half the jokes you make are just attempts to hear him laugh. he has no idea that you still look for him in every crowd, even when you’re trying not to. you’re too scared to hand him the truth. mike doesn’t do confessions. he doesn’t do vulnerable. he doesn’t do cornered, and loving him—wanting him—would corner him more than anything else ever could.

so you learned to swallow the things that mattered. you let him go in all the ways that count.

you didn’t expect it to work.

no one tells you that letting go sometimes means someone else finds the space you cleared. his name’s ryan, one of those effortlessly likeable golden-boy types. varsity soccer, obnoxiously good hair. he laughs easily, listens well, and calls you “dude” when he’s excited. he isn’t complicated. he isn’t haunted. he likes you openly, without fear or hesitation. you liked that. you needed that.

you didn’t expect anything to happen, honestly. but he noticed you. he asked you out. he held your hand in the hallway. he tells you good morning and actually means it. he has no idea that you’ve spent years orbiting someone who never once looked directly at the sun he was pulling toward him. maybe that’s why you said yes. ryan didn’t make your heart ache, he made it rest.

which is how you ended up here, on the old carpet of mike wheeler’s basement, legs crossed, the smell of dust and old soda cans filling the room as you tell the party about your boyfriend. mike sits across from you, half-sunk into the couch, elbows on knees. he hasn’t looked at you since you started talking about him.

dustin’s sitting criss-cross beside you, leaning forward like you’re announcing a secret mission. lucas and max are sharing a beanbag chair. max looks intrigued, lucas looks two seconds from teasing you. “okay,” dustin says. “start over. his name is ryan and… what? he just asked you out? like, randomly? popular ryan?”

you shrug, trying to sound casual. “not randomly. we talked. he’s in my english class. he asked if I wanted to get ice cream after school, and then one date turned into… more dates.”

lucas raises his eyebrows. “popular popular ryan? as in captain-of-the-soccer-team, girls-write-his-name-in-the-bathroom-stall ryan?”

max snorts. “yeah, that one.”

“he’s actually really nice,” you say, and it’s true. your voice comes out softer than you expect. “he’s funny. and he’s good at listening. he remembers stuff I say.”

that last part lands weirdly in the room.

dustin beams. “dude, that’s awesome! I mean—wow. you actually have a boyfriend. and he’s, like, normal.”

max kicks dustin’s ankle. “don’t jinx it.”

lucas nudges you with his foot. “so… you like him? like him like him?”

you feel your cheeks heat a little. “yeah. I do. he makes me feel… I don’t know. good.”

you shouldn’t be looking at him, but even after all these years, your eyes always find mikes even when you don’t mean to. dustin, oblivious, keeps going. “so when do we meet him? we have to meet him! we need to make sure he’s not some jerk pretending to be cool.”

“he’s not a jerk,” you say quickly. “he’s… he treats me really well.”

lucas nods approvingly. “good.”

max smirks. “and is he cute?”

you roll your eyes. “max—”

“what?” she laughs. “I don’t date, I just judge.”

they all laugh except mike. classic mike wheeler, feelings like locked doors. his knee bounces once—sharply—then stops, like he remembered someone might notice. he’s holding a pencil, the eraser dented from where he’s been chewing on it without realizing. he looks small, almost.

you’ve known him too long not to notice when he’s shutting down, even if he thinks he’s hiding it well. mike wheeler has never been good at quiet. not real quiet. not the kind born from feeling something he doesn’t want to say. then, finally, after too long, after the others have moved on to teasing each other, he cuts in. “so…” mike clears his throat. “ryan.”

he says the name like it tastes bad.

you blink. “yeah?”

mike doesn’t look up and instead pretends to inspect a fraying edge on the couch cushion. “he’s, what, the… uh… the popular guy, right?”

lucas eyes him. “you know who ryan is, mike.”

“yeah, obviously,” mike snaps back quickly. “i’m just—clarifying.”

max’s eyebrows rise. she knows that tone. you all do. you nod carefully. “he’s on the soccer team. people like him.”

“right.” mike flicks the pencil between his fingers. “of course they do.”

there’s something biting in the way he says it. something sour. it’s weirdly déjà vu, because mike has always been like this. since you were kids. since the fourth grade incident where you told him you had a crush on someone and he spent the rest of recess kicking gravel and making fun of the guy’s haircut.

mike wheeler doesn’t know how to be happy for people. he never has.

you feel it. max feels it. lucas definitely feels it, because he gives mike that slow head-turn that always precedes a verbal slap. dustin stalls mid–orange slice chewing. you swallow. “he’s nice.”

mike snorts under his breath. it’s small, but it’s sharp enough to cut. “yeah. sure. nice.” he taps the pencil against his knee, too fast. “just—kind of weird, though.”

max narrows her eyes. “what is?”

mike shrugs, pretending nonchalance so aggressively it’s almost theatrical. “i mean… someone like him. dating someone like—” he stops, pivots, tries to disguise the slip with a shrug that’s too casual. “whatever. it’s just surprising.”

the room freezes. your stomach drops fast, like missing a step on a staircase. lucas raises his hands. “woah. dude. not cool.”

dustin’s mouth is already open. “yeah, what the hell does that mean?!”

mike’s eyebrows knit instantly, defensively. “what?! i didn’t—I’m not—god, you all jump on everything i say.”

max leans forward. “probably because you say stuff like that.”

mike scowls at the floor like it did something to him. “i just meant—look, ryan’s, you know…” he gestures vaguely, aimlessly, like the air might fill in the blanks for him. “he’s popular. he’s… the type girls are into. it’s just—unexpected. okay?”

your chest tightens, not anger, but that old familiar sting. the one he’s been accidentally carving into you since you were twelve. “unexpected how?”

mike freezes. he wasn’t expecting you to ask. he wasn’t expecting to be held accountable. he shoves his hair back, frustrated. “i don’t know! i’m just saying it’s weird. it’s weird that he—he could date anyone he wants, and he picks—” he cuts himself off again, voice faltering. “—you.”

max mutters under her breath, “jesus christ.”

lucas covers his face with both hands.

dustin gapes. “mike. why would you even say that?”

“i’m not trying to be mean!” he shoots back. “i’m being honest! sorry if honesty is suddenly illegal.”

but it’s the way he won’t look at you that gives him away. he keeps looking anywhere else, the floor, the table, the dice, the wall, because he can’t look at your face and say the things he means. he never has been able to. you breathe in slowly, trying not to let your voice shake. “it kind of sounds like you’re saying i’m not good enough for him.”

mike’s head jerks up like the words hit him physically. “that’s not—no, that’s not what i meant,” he insists, but the defensiveness in his voice makes it hard to believe. “i’m just saying—he’s… you know. he’s that guy. the guy everyone knows. the guy who—who—”

“who what?” max presses.

mike’s jaw flexes. he looks trapped. “who… belongs with someone who fits that world, okay?” he mutters at last. “someone who… matches him.”

mike wheeler doesn’t realize how cruel he sounds when he’s scared. he never has. you feel heat crawl up your neck, because this is him. this is mike. you’ve spent years reading him like an impossible book, flipping through pages where he says one thing but means another, hoping eventually the story will get easier to understand. it never has.

mike crosses his arms now, defensive, closed-off, like he’s physically holding himself together. “i just—” he stops, searching for a tone that won’t betray him. “i mean… it’s cool. it’s fine. you’re dating him. that’s… good.” he says it so unconvincingly it almost hurts to listen to.

mike can’t hide what he feels. not really. his mouth tries, but his body betrays him every time, the tight shoulders, the clipped tone, the way he won’t look at you for more than a half-second. he’s dense. he’s stubborn. he’s impossible. he’s also transparent in the worst ways.

this exact moment is the reminder of why loving him hurt. he doesn’t even realize what he’s doing. and if you point it out, he’ll only push harder, like he’s cornered, like feelings are traps that snap shut on him. you exhale slowly. “okay,” you say softly, mostly for yourself. “okay.”

something inside you folds, because this is it. this is who mike wheeler has always been. for the first time, you let yourself actually feel it instead of excusing it. he’s never going to change. not the way you kept hoping he would. not the way little-kid you imagined he might if you just loved him long enough.

mike can be a dick. he always has been. you’ve spent years smoothing it over in your head—no, he didn’t mean it like that, no, he’s just stressed, no, that’s just mike—but god, hearing it now, in this basement, in this moment when you’re trying to share something good? it lands differently.

so you shift, force your shoulders to relax, force your breath to steady. you don’t look at him again. you don’t chase the apology he isn’t going to give. you don’t try to decode the tiny flashes of panic in his voice. you just move on.

max is the first to break the silence. “so,” she says, deliberately bright, “when do we get to meet him?”

dustin jumps in immediately, nodding so hard his curls bounce. “yeah! yeah—i mean, we should obviously vet him.”

lucas elbows him. “not vet. just… meet. like normal human beings.”

“i can ask him,” you say, trying to sound casual. “maybe tomorrow? lunch?”

dustin beams. “yes. perfect. bring him to our table. we’ll be normal.”

max rolls her eyes. “we’ll be as normal as we can be.”

you laugh under your breath because of course. this is why you love them. this is why you stayed. you don’t want to look at him, you really don’t. but your eyes flick over anyway—to check, to gauge, to survive. and he’s staring at you. dead-on. not even pretending to look away this time, like he was waiting for your eyes. like he needed you to look at him.

when you do—just for a second—his whole face shifts. relief, like he’d been holding his breath. you break eye contact instantly, because no. you’re not doing that again. you’re not opening the door he keeps slamming shut in your face. max asks you another question and you turn toward her, answering, letting her voice pull you back into the circle that feels safe.

mike stays quiet, but you can feel it, his stare following you like he’s trying to will you into turning back to him. he’s a dick. and he cares. and those two things have always existed in him side by side, ruining you without him even realizing it.

and you’re done paying the price for it.

the cafeteria hums around you, winter sun spilling in through those tall windows like it’s trying to make the school look less miserable than it is. you spot the table before ryan does, mike hunched over his notebook, tapping a pen in this uneven rhythm that’s basically a heartbeat made of irritation. lucas and dustin are in a quiet but intense argument, max is peeling the label off her drink with the bored precision of someone who’s seen this dynamic a thousand times.

ryan walks beside you with that loose, easy stride he always has, hoodie sleeves shoved up, hair a little messy from morning practice. he’s warm in this effortless way, people look at him without him ever asking for the attention. he leans toward you, nudging your shoulder lightly. “ready?” he teases, but it’s gentle. he’s actually checking in.

you nod, even though your stomach flips. “yeah. they’re right there.”

“cool. let’s go.”

when you reach the table, lucas notices first, eyebrows shooting up. “oh—hey. ryan, right?”

ryan grins back, easy as breathing. “yeah. hey, man.”

dustin straightens next, suddenly animated. “dude, i’ve seen you play. you’re, like… fast. like actually fast.”

ryan laughs. “that’s the idea. but thanks.”

max’s eyes narrow with interest. “huh. so you’re the boyfriend.”

“guilty.”

everyone starts warming up instantly—of course they are. ryan has that friendly, open posture that makes people feel like they already know him. he drops his backpack, sits beside you like he’s been doing it for months, and immediately vibes with the group. it’s mike who doesn’t move.

he doesn’t look up right away, he just flicks his eyes up for a second, scans ryan’s face, then back down to his notebook. he’s not glaring, but there’s this stillness to him, like every thought he has is being corralled behind his teeth. ryan doesn’t seem fazed. “you’re mike, right? you’re the one who runs their campaigns?”

mike finally speaks, voice flat. “sometimes.”

ryan smiles like he didn’t hear the edge. “i used to play with my cousin. i’m not, like, good-good, but i know the basics.”

dustin lights up again. “wait, seriously? what class?”

“rogue.” ryan says.

“of course.” mike mutters under his breath.

lucas shoots him a look. “dude.”

mike just shrugs, eyes on his notebook again, pretending he didn’t say anything. you feel the air shift, just slightly, but enough. enough to know that mike’s mood isn’t going to magically improve just because ryan is being… well, genuinely nice.

ryan leans forward, resting his arms on the table. “i heard you guys are doing some kind of winter campaign? sounds sick.”

dustin nods vigorously. “yeah, we’re—”

mike cuts in. “so. what’s someone like you doing dating them?”

everything freezes for a second. max’s head snaps toward him so fast her ponytail swings. “mike, you can’t just say stuff like that.”

mike holds up his hands a little, like he’s pretending he’s innocent even though his tone drips. “i’m just asking. he’s… you know.” he gestures at ryan. “mr. popular. mr. soccer. mr. everyone-likes-him. just curious.”

ryan’s smile falters, not because he’s offended, but because he looks like he’s trying to figure out whether mike is joking or actually serious. you know mike. you’ve known him your whole life. this is him being serious.

you open your mouth to say something, but ryan speaks first. “i’m dating them because i like them,” he says simply. “is that… weird?”

mike’s eyebrows lift just a fraction, but he doesn’t look up. “no. just surprising.”

lucas groans. “dude.”

mike shrugs again, small, annoyed, defensive. “i’m being honest.”

max kicks him under the table. “be less honest.”

mike clicks his pen, refusing to look anyone in the eye. “whatever. it’s fine.” but it isn’t fine. not with the way his knee is bouncing, or the way he keeps glancing at you from the corner of his eye and then snapping his gaze away like it hurts to look. you’ve seen mike jealous of your friends before, but never like this. never with this intensity that feels like it’s scraping at the bottom of something deeper—fear, maybe. or that same old thing he’s never been able to hide: mike hates feeling replaced.

that awful belief that things change too fast, that people slip away without warning, that someone else can just step in and take his place before he even realizes it’s happening. he hates that feeling. he always has. lunch rolls on despite him.

ryan is… honestly perfect in that easy, unforced way that mike has always resented in other people. he answers dustin’s questions without talking down to him, laughs at lucas’s jokes, asks max about her music taste and actually listens. when he admits he skates on weekends, max pretends she isn’t impressed, but you see the tiny spark in her eyes anyway. “you skate?” she asks, leaning forward despite herself.

“yeah!”

“okay, that’s actually kind of cool.”

“only kind of?” ryan laughs.

“don’t push it.” she says, but she’s smiling.

even lucas nods, like, alright. i can see the appeal. dustin’s already halfway sold on adopting him into the friend group. “you could totally play a rogue,” dustin says, excited. “you’d fit right in.”

“i’d be down,” ryan grins. “if you guys want.”

mike’s jaw tightens. he hasn’t said a word in ten minutes. he just sits there, staring at his tray, then at ryan, then at you, then back down again, like he can’t decide whether to sulk or explode. the more everyone warms to ryan, the more mike curls inward, like watching someone else be so effortlessly liked is physically painful.

finally, five minutes before the bell, ryan glances at the clock and stands. “i should go,” he says, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “i told some of the guys i’d meet them before class.” he turns to you, softening. “i’ll see you later?”

you nod, and he gives you this warm smile that makes your chest feel weirdly light. “bye guys!” ryan says, cheerful as always.

“see you!” dustin replies.

“later, man.” lucas waves.

max even gives a nod. “yeah. uh. cool meeting you.”

ryan leaves. the second he’s out of sight, literally the second, mike finally lifts his eyes. they’re tight, sharp, searching for an outlet. “okay,” he says, voice low but pointed. “i don’t like him.”

everyone groans at once. dustin actually drops his fork. “what are you talking about? he’s awesome!”

lucas frowns. “yeah. he was, like… cool. what’s your problem?”

“i’m serious. didn’t anyone else get a weird vibe? like—he’s too nice. too… polished.”

“polished?” lucas repeats. “he said ‘ass’ like three times.”

“yeah!” dustin jumps in. “he’s real! he’s not fake-nice, he’s just… a cool dude! honestly, we should invite him to play with us sometime.”

mike slams his pen down. “okay, can we not act like he’s joining the party? he’s not even—he’s not—no.”

“bro,” dustin says, eyebrows raised, “why does it matter so much?”

mike has no answer. he doesn’t want ryan at the table. he doesn’t want ryan getting closer. he doesn’t want ryan winning everyone over. he doesn’t want ryan replacing him. and he definitely doesn’t want ryan taking your attention like he already has. but mike wheeler would rather bite off his own tongue than admit any of that out loud. so all he does is sit there, arms crossed tight enough to hurt, glaring at the doors ryan walked through like he wants to will him out of existence. “i’m just saying,” he mutters, voice stiff and miserable, “i don’t like him.”

every part of him feels like it’s vibrating with something ugly and hot and directionless. because he doesn’t know why he feels this way, why the sight of you and ryan walking in together made his stomach clench, why ryan’s laugh grated against something raw in him, why every tiny brush of your shoulder against ryan’s made him want to leave the room and break something.

all he knows is that it’s wrong. it feels wrong. you two feel wrong.

why him? what’s so great about him? he’s not even that funny. he’s not even that interesting. he’s just some guy. some stupid guy who smiles too much and skates and knows d&d and is apparently good at everything.

ryan is the kind of boy who wins people without trying. mike has never been that boy. mike has never been anything that easy.

watching you fall into that ease—watching you laugh at ryan’s jokes, watching ryan lean in to whisper something that makes you blush—makes him want to crawl out of his own skin. it makes his hands clench under the table. it makes his throat close. he hates it. he hates him. he hates himself for not understanding why.

what is he even jealous of? you’re his friend. his best friend since forever. that’s it. that’s all. that’s supposed to be all. when you defend ryan—when you say, “mike, come on, i promise he’s actually really nice”—it hits something sharp in him.

he snaps without even meaning to. “yeah, well, nice is easy.”

no one knows what that means. not even him.

time jumps because life doesn’t wait for mike wheeler to figure himself out. weeks pass. then more weeks. you and ryan keep dating. mike does not warm up to him. not even a little. if anything, it gets worse. mike gets snappier. sharper. more impatient. he stops pretending to be polite. he stops pretending he’s “fine.”

when ryan shows up, mike leaves the room. when ryan talks, mike rolls his eyes. when ryan laughs, mike’s fists clench so tight his knuckles go white. he keeps saying things like:

“i’m telling you, he’s weird.”

“i don’t trust him.”

“he’s acting. nobody is that nice.”

“if you guys weren’t blinded by his stupid dimples you’d see it.”

and he has this whole plan in his head, this delusional mike wheeler blueprint where he sits you down, tells you all the reasons ryan is wrong for you, and you listen. you nod. you say, “yeah, you’re right, mike,” and you break up with ryan and everything snaps back to the way it’s supposed to be.

just you and him.

like it always was.

that’s how mike sees it. that’s how it should go.

except it doesn’t.

you stay with ryan. you stay for an entire month, and mike unravels. he gets more irritable by the day. more sarcastic. more blunt. more impossible to be around. he snaps at dustin over nothing, gets into stupid arguments with lucas, ignores max’s jabs and just stews silently instead. his grades slip. he can’t sleep. he spends too long staring at the ceiling, heart racing for reasons he refuses to name.

you barely know ryan. he’s just some guy. he’s just some stupid guy you met a week ago. he’s not even part of your real world, not the world you built with him. in mike’s head, one month is nothing compared to the years he’s had with you. the sleepovers, the walkie-talkies, the bike rides, the monster-hunting, the stupid inside jokes he still remembers. the versions of you he’s seen that ryan never will.

and he cannot wrap his brain around the fact that things didn’t snap back. that he didn’t get you back. ryan is .. popular. he has friends everywhere. he can sit at any table in the cafeteria and someone will shout his name.

mike doesn’t have that. he has you. he had you.

so the fact that ryan—this boy who already has everything—gets you too? it makes something poisonous coil tight inside him.

you and mike barely hang out anymore, not really. not alone. not the way you used to. not the way where you sprawled across the floor of his basement with snacks and bad movies and mike made sarcastic comments at everything because he knew they made you laugh. now mike barely looks at you unless it’s to glare across ryan’s shoulder.

he blames it on you. he blames it on the fact that you started dating ryan—as if that alone ruined everything. as if he hasn’t been the one acting like a storm cloud stuck in human form for weeks.

but that’s the thing about mike wheeler: when something hurts, he refuses to look at the wound. he refuses to admit it’s bleeding. he’ll blame the weapon, the room, the weather—anything but the feeling.

so when he asks you to come over, just you, you think about it for a long while. because it’s been a while. too long. avoiding mike forever isn’t an option. he’s your friend. your history. your whole adolescence wrapped in one stubborn, impossible, exhausting person.

so you agree. you go.

now it’s the two of you in his basement. he doesn’t look at you right away. it’s awkward. he never used to be awkward with you.

mike sits on the far end of the couch like you’re radioactive, close enough to pretend this is normal. he twists the cord of the basement lamp around his fingers, untwists it, twists it again. he used to sprawl everywhere, limbs everywhere, taking up space because he knew you’d fill the rest. now he sits like he’s trying not to touch his own shadow. you drop onto the other cushion. “so,” you say, because someone has to. “how’s… life?”

“oh, you know,” he mutters. “same old.”

you raise a brow. “that sounds fake.”

he huffs, barely a laugh but close enough that the tension flickers. “yeah, well. i’m trying.”

“trying what?”

“to be normal,” he says, shrugging too hard. “it’s exhausting.”

you snort, and for a second it feels like the two of you used to, easy, familiar, teasing. you toss a pillow at him. he dodges, barely, and it hits the d&d shelf with a dull thump. “you still can’t catch.” you say.

“i didn’t want to catch it.”

“sure you didn’t.”

he slants you a look that’s almost a smile. “you’re annoying.”

“you missed me.” you counter without thinking.

“whatever.”

for a second it’s fine—awkward but fine. you talk about school, about how dustin accidentally set off the fire alarm in chem, about how lucas is pretending he doesn’t care basketball tryouts are getting closer. mike’s shoulders loosen; he actually laughs, runs a hand through his hair the way he does when he finally stops overthinking. you think, stupidly, maybe this can work. maybe you can fix this.

then he does what mike always does. he pushes. he leans back, eyes flicking over your face like he’s trying to read every expression. “so,” he says, casual in that way he only is when he’s about to be mean. “how’s… everything? you know. with you.”

“with me?” you echo. “i mean, fine. i guess.”

“yeah?” he says lightly. “i wouldn’t know.”

“what’s that supposed to mean?”

mike shrugs, picking at the peeling sticker on the coffee table. “just that i wouldn’t know. probably because you’ve been too busy hanging out with your new—” he makes a little face, like the word tastes foul— “boyfriend.”

the way he says it. petty. like he’s daring you to deny it. you swallow. “okay. you know what? i’m not doing this with you.”

“doing what?”

“this,” you say, standing so fast the couch groans. “the passive-aggressive comments. the attitude. the—whatever this is.” you gesture vaguely at him, at the tension, at the room that feels suddenly too small. “i came here to hang out with you, mike. not to get judged.”

“i wasn’t judging—”

“yeah, you were. and i’m not dealing with it today.”

you’re already halfway to the basement stairs. mike just stares, stunned, mouth parted like you slapped him. you don’t give him time to catch up. you climb the stairs two at a time and push open the door. karen wheeler is at the kitchen counter, peeling potatoes. she looks up with that bright mom-smile, ready to say hi—until she sees your face. the smile crumples instantly. “sweetheart? everything okay?”

you force a tight smile. “yeah, mrs. wheeler. just heading out.”

you slip past her before she can ask anything else, shoes thudding lightly across the kitchen tile. ted doesn’t even look up when you pass, just turns a page of his newspaper with all the enthusiasm of a tranquilized sloth. the air outside is cold in a way that wakes every nerve. you breathe it in. you need that. clarity. space. anything that isn’t mike wheeler and his catastrophic ability to ruin the simplest moment.

why does he have to be like this?

you walk across the lawn, hands stuffed into your pockets, heart drumming a tired, frustrated rhythm. mike is maddening. painfully, historically maddening. he can’t go five minutes without pushing a button—your button—like he’s testing the limits of how much you’ll take. he does it every time. he always has. and the worst part? half the time he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.

you know him. you’ve always known him, and that makes it so much worse, because every time he acts like this, like he’s trying to drive you away, some part of you aches like you’re losing something you never figured out how to keep. why couldn’t he just be normal today? why couldn’t he just let it be the way it used to? why does he have to spit fire the second he feels even a millimeter out of place?

you reach your bike and grip the handlebars, knuckles whitening. if you leave now, maybe you’ll cool off. maybe tomorrow will be less impossible. maybe—

the door slams behind you. the sound slices clean through your thoughts. “hold on!”

you turn, startled, breath caught in your throat. mike is barreling out of the house like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he blinks. he stumbles down the porch steps, nearly tripping over his own shoelace, hair wild, chest heaving like he sprinted a mile. his face—god, you’ve never seen him look like that. frantic. unguarded. almost scared. “don’t go yet.” he says. “just—can you… just wait a second?”

you don’t answer. you’re too stunned by him. by the way he looks at you like everything inside him is spiraling.

he swallows hard. “why do you like him so much?”

the words fall out of him, unfiltered, fast, messy, the way mike gets when something breaks inside him. “i mean—he’s just—he’s just some guy,” mike continues, throwing his hands up. “he’s not even in the party. he doesn’t even know you. like, actually know you.”

you stare at him, stunned into silence, but mike keeps going, pacing one quick desperate line in the driveway. “he bought you the wrong soda at lunch,” mike says, pointing sharply like it’s definitive evidence in a murder case. “he brought grape. grape. who the hell likes grape?”

“mike—”

“and he doesn’t know your jokes,” mike says louder. “he laughs at the wrong ones. and he thinks you like those stupid pop quizzes in english—what?! nobody likes those! you get stressed over those! i know you do! you’ve only known him, like—a month. a month. and suddenly you’re always with him and he’s at your locker and he’s at your table and he’s—” mike gestures helplessly, like the word everywhere is too big for his mouth. “and i don’t get it. i don’t understand why things can’t just—go back to how they were. with us.”

you open your mouth before you can even think. “we aren’t even—” you start, but the sentence chokes on your tongue. you stop. hard. mike’s eyes flick up, confused. you shake your head, breath slicing out. “forget it.”

but the heat is already rising in your chest, curling under your ribs. all month you’ve been swallowing it down, smoothing it out, pretending it didn’t burn. and now it just—erupts. “what has been up with you?” you snap, louder than you mean to. “seriously, mike, you’ve been such a—such a dick lately. like, constantly. do you even hear yourself?”

his eyes widen, hurt flashing fast before he smothers it under anger. “i’ve been a dick?” mike shoots back, voice sharp enough to cut. “i’ve been a dick? seriously? you disappear for a month with your—your boyfriend—” he spits the word like it tastes sour, “—and i’m the problem?”

“you are the problem!” you fire back, stepping closer because you can’t help it. “you’re rude every time he’s around! you glare, you sulk, you make everyone uncomfortable! i can’t even eat lunch without you acting like someone stole your bike!”

“maybe because they did!” mike snaps, flinging his hands out. “he’s trying to take you away from—”

“he’s not taking me!” you yell, fully incredulous. “i’m a person, mike, not a chess piece you get to guard!”

“oh my god, that’s not what i meant—”

“no? because it sure sounds like it!”

“he sucks, okay?! he just—he sucks! he acts like he knows you and he doesn’t and he—”

“he doesn’t what?” you snap. “he doesn’t treat me like I’m doing something wrong every time I breathe?” you push on, voice trembling with anger and something dangerously close to heartbreak. “have you ever thought—just once—about how you’ve been acting? you keep blaming ryan for everything, but have you ever considered that maybe the reason i haven’t been around is because of you?”

his mouth opens, then closes. he looks like he’s been slapped. “because of me?” mike repeats. “that’s what you think?”

“you make it impossible to be around you. you’re angry all the time. irritated, mean, snapping at everyone. every time i try to talk to you, you push me away or pick a fight or—” you throw your hands up. “god, mike, how am i supposed to want to hang out with you when you’re like this?”

“i’m like this because he—”

“it’s not about ryan!” you cut in, louder than you intended. “it’s about you. it’s always been about you!”

“he is the problem,” mike insists. “he’s—he’s wrong for you, okay? he’s—he’s trying to take you from the party, from me—”

“he’s not!” you shout back. “why do you care so much?!”

he freezes in the middle of the driveway, breath snagging, eyes wide and almost… terrified, like he knows exactly why. like he’s known for a long time. you can see it hit him: the realization he’s been dodging, the answer he’s been choking on for weeks, the thing he’s terrified to say and even more terrified you’ll somehow already know. he forces himself to move anyway, forces himself to swallow whatever cracked open in him. he shakes his head fast, stubborn, angry in the way only someone who’s scared can be. “it is his fault,” mike snaps, stepping forward again, the space between you shrinking to nothing. “i’m not wrong about this. i’m not. you shouldn’t trust him. he—he doesn’t even notice the right things about you, he—he just—”

“mike—”

“he’s the worst,” he barrels over you, desperate, relentless. “he’s the worst, he’s—he’s not good enough for you.”

“mike—”

“i’m trying to help you,” he insists, voice cracking with how hard he’s pushing it. “i’m trying to make you see he’s bad for you, okay? he’s wrong.”

“mike.”

he shuts up instantly. the two of you are close enough now that you can feel the heat of his breath, the tremble in his shoulders, the panic trembling behind every inch of him. he looks furious and terrified and breakable all at once. you take a breath. a real one. “it doesn’t even matter,” you say. “we’re not together anymore.”

the world drops out of his face. “…what?”

“we broke up,” you repeat, more tired than angry now. “a few days ago.”

he stands there, absolutely still, like you’ve short-circuited him. like his brain is trying to reboot and failing. his mouth opens, but nothing comes out at first. “you’re not—?”

“no, mike,” you say, exasperated. “we’re not.”

something bright flickers in his eyes, it almost looks like joy. the second he realizes he’s showing it, he slams it down, forcing his expression back into something flat and neutral that fools absolutely no one. “oh,” he manages. “well. uh. good. i mean—not good. not good-good. i just—i didn’t—”

“yeah,” you cut in, arms folding. “you didn’t know.”

“of course i didn’t know,” he snaps weakly. “you didn’t tell me—”

“you didn’t notice,” you shoot back. “if you’d paid attention to anyone besides yourself, you would’ve realized he hasn’t even been around the last couple of days. i wasn’t with him. i haven’t been with him. you didn’t notice, because you never do, mike. you only see what you want to see. you only hear what you want to hear. if it’s not about you—if it’s not something that affects you—you don’t pay attention.”

you’re too wound up to stop. “i don’t even know why you care so much,” you say, breath uneven. “why does it even matter to you who i date or don’t date? why do you get to be mad about this? why do you get to act like i’ve—”

“because i like you!”

the words explode out of him, like they’ve been pressing against his teeth for days, weeks, maybe years. you stop breathing. mike’s chest rises and falls like he just sprinted across the neighborhood. his eyes are huge, terrified, already regretting everything and unable to shove any of it back inside. “i—” he hesitates. “god, i didn’t—i didn’t mean to say it like that, I just— I don’t know, okay? i don’t know what’s wrong with me lately, i don’t know why i’m acting like this, i just—” he swallows hard. “i thought i hated him. like, really, really hated him. but then you said you weren’t with him anymore and it felt like—” he grimaces, shoulders curling inward. “like something in me just let go, i guess. i don’t know.” he shakes his head violently, like he’s trying to knock the words loose. “i didn’t get it at first,” he rushes out. “i didn’t know why seeing you with him made me feel so—angry. or sick. or… whatever. i thought maybe it was just because he was popular or because he didn’t fit with us or because he kept taking you away but then—” he stops himself, hands flexing uselessly. “but then i realized it wasn’t him. it was you. it was me. it was— i don’t know.”

you’re staring at him. you can’t not stare.

“i think—” he tries again. “i think i like you. or maybe i’ve liked you for a while, and now everything’s a mess because i screwed everything up and i can’t stop screwing things up and i—” he trails off, hopeless.

your heartbeat is in your throat. you’ve loved mike wheeler for as long as you can remember—through childhood, through monsters, through eleven different kinds of heartbreak he never even knew he gave you. now, the moment you finally tried to move on—finally tried to build something that wasn’t just you waiting for mike to look at you the way you looked at him—now he says it.

“i don’t know what i’m doing, but i don’t want you with him. i don’t want things to go back to how they were either because—because that wasn’t enough anymore. for me.” he forces himself to meet your eyes. “i really think i like you,” he says again, smaller. “a lot.”

your ribs are too small for everything suddenly pressing against them. “how do you even know that? you can’t just—say things like that. you can’t drop that on me. don’t—don’t mess with me.”

his face twists. “i’m not,” he shoots back, too fast, too earnest. “i’m not messing with you, i don’t know what else you want me to say. i’m just—i’m trying, okay? i’m trying to be honest.”

“honest?” you repeat, disbelieving. “since when?”

he swallows, like that one stung. “since max yelled at me.”

“what?”

“she’s the one who helped me figure it out. told me i was acting weird. told me i got… annoying whenever you were with him.“

your stomach twists, hope and fear tangling so violently it almost hurts. because you’ve dreamed of this. of him standing here, admitting something real. yet loving mike wheeler has always been a gamble with terrible odds, and you just crawled out of something that left you bruised and confused and tired. you don’t know if you can afford to trust him with something this big. not when you’ve lost him before without ever having had him. “i don’t believe you,” you say, because it’s safer than the truth: i want to believe you so bad that it terrifies me.

“i can prove it.”

you laugh—sharp, disbelieving. “yeah? how, mike? how are you going to prove it? because words aren’t—”

you don’t even finish. he moves before you can think, before you can breathe, hands coming up like he’s afraid you’ll shove him away but he still steps into your space, close enough for his breath to tremble against your cheek. and then he kisses you.

it’s not smooth or practiced or anything he had time to think through. it’s desperate, uneven, like he’s been holding his breath for years and this is the first inhale that doesn’t burn. his mouth meets yours with this startled, aching hunger, but it softens almost instantly, like he realizes mid-kiss that you’re real, that this is real, that he’s actually doing this.

your brain doesn’t catch up. it’s white noise—shock slamming through you so hard you forget every reason you had to stay angry. his lips are warm, and he’s making these tiny, barely-there sounds like he’s afraid to push, afraid to lose you, but too pulled in to stop.

your hands stay frozen at your sides for a full second—two—while your heart stutters violently in your chest. then the instinct you’ve spent years burying finally claws its way out. you kiss him back.

it’s small at first, cautious, but the second you respond he shudders, like your mouth on his is something he didn’t let himself hope for. his fingers finally touch you, sliding to the sides of your face, gentle in that frantic, unsteady way of someone who’s been imagining this and still can’t believe you’re not pushing him away. it’s overwhelming, dizzying, this thing you’ve dreamt of since you were a kid but never thought you’d have.

you pull back first, lips tingling, everything inside you way too loud. “you’re such an asshole.” you whisper, because it’s the only thing that makes sense when nothing else does.

“i know.”

you shake your head, overwhelmed, but his hands are still hovering near your face like he doesn’t want to let go, doesn’t know if he’s allowed to touch you again. then his expression breaks, soft, pleading, all the bravado gone. “come back inside.” he steps closer again, just searching your face with that startled honesty he only ever shows when he’s seconds from falling apart. “we don’t have to talk about anything. we can just—hang out. or sit. or… i don’t know.”

you’re caught between everything you’ve ever known and everything that’s happening right now. mike’s eyes are earnest, completely unguarded for the first time in what feels like forever. he looks like the whole world has narrowed to him, to the way his hands hover near your face, hesitant, like he’s daring himself to let go of his own fear long enough to just… be real.

you don’t move. you can’t, really. your stomach twists and uncoils in a way that’s half panic, half relief, half something you can’t name. he’s finally said it. he’s finally admitted it, and you want to believe him but you don’t quite know how. your heart stutters in your chest with hope, fear, longing, because that’s what mike does. he’s always been like this: impossible to pin down, impossible to read, impossible not to feel.

“unless,” he says suddenly, “you’d rather be with ryan.” the name slips out before he can stop it, and the way he says it makes it obvious. jealousy. pure, stupid, human jealousy, and somehow it makes something flutter in your chest in a way that isn’t irritation or anger—it’s… kind of cute.

mike, dense, stubborn, impossible mike wheeler, is jealous of someone he doesn’t even like but can’t stop himself from obsessing over. instead of being annoyed—like you probably should be—it strikes you as painfully human. it’s a side of him he can’t hide, a glimpse behind the walls he builds so meticulously around himself.

you try to find words, but the sentence won’t form. there’s too much, all at once. you think of every moment you’ve loved him, all the moments you’ve fantasized about him finally saying something real, and here it is, tumbling out in the middle of a driveway. he swallows, jittery and exposed, watching you like he’s afraid your reaction will break him. you can see the restraint in him, the way he’s holding back, trying to appear calm and collected, and failing. you think about how much you’ve wanted this since you were kids, how much you’ve longed for him to feel something you’ve always felt, and it hits you in a tidal wave that maybe, just maybe, this is real.

you take a shaky breath, realizing that you has always wanted this—always wanted him like this. the flutter in your chest spreads, a dangerous, thrilling kind of hope that makes you want to both laugh and cry at once. “okay,” you say softly, letting your voice carry more calm than you feel. “okay. we’ll figure this out. we’ll… start somewhere. just… don’t mess with me, mike.”

he blinks, the faintest relief flickering across his face before he tries to mask it with a shrug. “i won’t. promise.” he says, though the words are almost too small to carry the weight of everything. he steps back just enough to give you space, but not enough to break the tension, not enough to let go.

you nod, a smile threatening at the corners of your lips despite the lump in your throat, the whirl of emotions. “okay,” you whisper, because you’re tired of avoiding him, tired of holding back, tired of the endless guessing game. “okay.”

you almost laugh, a tiny, strangled sound, because it’s mike. mike wheeler. always stubborn, always dense, always impossible, and yet somehow, here he is, looking like a boy who’s realizing his own heart too late but still willing to risk it. you shake your head, grinning despite yourself, and think, god, he really is the world’s biggest asshole. but the kind of asshole you’ve loved for forever.

he clears his throat, a little embarrassed, hands shoved into his pockets, and mutters, “so… uh, you gonna… come back inside or just stare at the street all night?”

“fine, i’ll go inside. but you owe me popcorn.”

“deal.” he says, finally cracking a grin that’s just a little too victorious, like he’s survived something fierce and now gets to savor the small victory. as you walk back toward the house, the sky deepening to twilight above you, you feel light, dizzy, and like maybe, just maybe, the hardest part is over.

a/n: genuinely not happy with how this one turned out but that’s okay 🥳 been on my stranger things shit .

STARTED 12.3.2025. POSTED 12.9.2025.

⸝⸝  masterlist  .ᐟ  𝜗𝜚

©️ latedeparture

You turned left but instead of being greeted with the usual blankness for Five to scribble about in his notebook you instead were somewhat blinded by the light of a sign.

‘Max’s delicatessen.’ You made eye contact with Five to the side of you before tilting your head with a nod towards the building. He simply followed your lead before quickly grabbing the door to let you in first. 

You turned back to smile in thanks when you noticed his shocked expression, head quickly turned back towards the diner at a call of your name to see the whole diner was made up of your lover. Looking back to Five, your Five, in bewilderment a shocked smile on your face.

The look on your face seemed to take him out of his stupor clearing his throat before leading you into the diner- trying to find an empty table for you to sit at. He was quickly stopped by another Five, one sat on his own, and gestured for the two of you to sit opposite him. Five begrudgingly agreed as he realised the restaurant was at max capacity. No spare table in sight.

You quickly shuffled onto the brown bench when the other Five spoke 

“It’s rare to see one of you around here” he smiled happy to see you

“Maybe this is not my typical scene” you rebutted a cheeky smile on your face that the Five opposite you seemed to enjoy, dimple now showing from smiling so wide

“Maybe” he breathed out in a laugh 

Before you could continue to speak with this version of Five another one appeared in front of you, this one not wearing a suit or vest. He quickly placed down a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich in front of your Five. He then turned to you placing a very familiar drink in front of you

“Your favourite” he declared when you looked confused  

“How did you know?” You smiled at him eyebrows furrowing as his cheeks went red

“We all know your favourites” he shrugged as if it was the most normal thing in the world

“Um- Thanks” you nodded your head in gratitude 

“Anything for the missus” he mumbled before leaving to go back to the kitchen 

You took a sip of your drink when your Five spoke irritated “What was that about?” a hand possessively stroking at your thigh 

“A lot of us having seen our version of her in a long time” the other Five spoke wistfully   

“How sad” you stated before turning around in your seat you waved and greeted the Fives around you who all became quite delighted at your attention all greeting you with a similar bravado.

“Okay.” Five declared “I think we are done here” he quickly at up pulling you up with him by grabbing hold of your hand once more 

“But we just got here, can’t we stay a little longer and rest?” you asked not wanting to leave. I mean why would you, surrounded by multiple versions of the man who loved you, say no to having his attention on you?

“No, we need to get back to my family in our timeline, come on. We are wasting time.” he rebutted practically pulling you away from the diner seemingly getting even more annoyed as the other Fives shouted goodbyes towards you.

“I didn’t realise I was so annoying, that was a nightmare” Five claimed as you sat on a train hopefully taking you back home

“Sure you weren’t jealous?” you quipped staring at him mischievously

“No” he grumbled arms crossing against his chest

“Then you won’t mind if I-” you spoke moving towards the doors to go back to the diner, quickly shutting up when Five grabbed your hands pulling you back onto the seat beside him. You simply smiled at his look of false ire towards you as the train started to move. Resting your head on his shoulder as he let a smile grace his features giving a kiss to the top of your head.

“Logan, Logan…” You speak quietly.

Gently rubbing Logan’s shoulders, he continues to heavily toss and turn in his sleep. Beads of sweat trickle down his temples just as his mumbling grows louder.

“No… NO!” He shouts.

Suddenly, Logan’s body jolts awake, and he sits up. Yelling from his dream, he gasps for air before ultimately gaining his bearings.

He’s here, in the large comfortable master bedroom that he calls home. Logan’s chest rises and falls and his breathing returns to normal as his hazel eyes scan the dark room. Finding that everything is in its proper place, his light orbs find yours opposite him.

“Baby?” He whispers in the dark.

Silently reaching for you, the sight of his bone claws cause a gasp to leave his chapped lips. Retracting the claws, his brief moment of pain subsides, and a minuscule ring of tears begin to form in his eyes.

“It’s okay. Everything’s okay, you just had a bad dream, Logan.” You say before traveling to the bathroom.

Retuning moments later, you join Logan’s side, and wipe the sweat from his face with a damp washcloth. Exhaling at the cool cloth, Logan wraps his arms around your waist.

“That’s nice.” He chuckles.

“I thought it might help. You’ve been doing this too much.” You reply with a smile.

“Can’t help it, bub. The wars, I- I can’t. They still…” Logan tries to explain, but fails silent.

“Hey, it’s alright. Don’t let them control you. You’ve done so well lately, don’t let this be the end of all the progress you’ve made.” You say, running your fingers through Logan’s thick dark hair.

Calming stroking his scruff, Logan’s eyelids grow heavy from your soothing touch. However, your therapeutic abilities only work for a short while before his eyes make contact with a series of three small scars on the base of your forearm.

“Jesus Christ. Y/N, I…” Logan begins, but you cut him off.

“I’m fine, babe. It’s just a scratch. I promise, you didn’t mean it.” You explain, stroking his cheeks.

Pulling you into him, Logan lays down with you in his arms. Letting go of a sigh of relief, you can feel Logan’s muscles start to relax beneath your fingertips. Turning to face you, Logan cradles you in his muscular arms, pulling you closer to his broad chest. Placing a soft kiss to your forehead, Logan's fingers lightly grip the hem of your sleep shirt, fearful of hurting you over again.

Facing you, his eyes grow weary whilst he touches the tip of your nose with his own. Tangling your hair in his fingers, he inhales deeply, longing for the taste of your scent on his tongue.

"I know I don't say this often, but I'm so grateful to have you in my life, Y/N. Not just here, in Canada, in our own private life. But you make me realize the true importance that life isn't always so bad." He vows through whispers with a rare, yet happy smile taking over his lips.

tagging ~

@dreamliners

@miss1sarcasmo

@yellow-eyed-sams-wife

@lost-in-horrorland

@peterparkernotfound

It’s winter, it’s cold. Luke shivers under your gaze, hawk-like with the way your back is turned against the rising sun, shadows dimming your features. He’s never felt real fear, not before this moment.

It’s a chilly, bleak, mid-winter dawn when you rush forward, sword arm drawn and locked, and even through the fear that thrums through his veins and chokes his stomach in knots, Luke can’t help but feel glad that you’d be the only one to hurt him like this.

♫ — laid on your side (i cried and cried)

You’re fast. It’s a trait of yours that reminds Luke of a wasp, stinger sword-sharp and darting with the intent to kill. It’s also a trait that makes Cabin 11 the most desirable for teams in capture the flag.

You disappear from his line of sight when you start moving, ducking into the field and using your surroundings to your advantage. Luke surveys the rippling grass, notes where the blades distort with irregular movement.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

There’s a blur of orange, a shade reminiscent of persimmon skin spiraling under the peel of a knife, and Luke’s chest vibrates with the brutish shock of your shield.

He grunts, recognizing the burning press of bronze against his skin in the impression of Hermes’ staff, the Caduceus—two snakes locked in combat, their imprinted and detailed heads digging into his clavicle as if to bite, to draw blood.

You make a grating sound in the back of your throat, frustrated and low, grit and gravel and years of war weighing on it.

( Luke’s spine tingles, a snake curling and braiding itself between the segments of bone to settle comfortably at the base of his back as something he only identifies as a longing satisfied. )

His heels dig into the soft dirt as a deterrent against falling, battle instincts automatic. Luke punches away from your shield despite wanting to pull you closer, knowing that you’d try kill him right here, right now.

Not that he’d really mind—if he was to die, he’d rather it be by your hand instead of someone else’s.

“Look,” and he’s backing away, hand outstretched in caution, Kronos yelling and rattling at the cage in his mind—fight, coward!, “I’m sorry.”

Your teeth grit, jaw muscles feathering in the shadows of your face. Luke wonders then, if you could process the fact that he’s lacking any defense. He’s not carrying a shield, armor-free, prone and exposed like the soft meat of a crustacean, the vulnerable belly of a rabbit.

You rush him again, fueled purely on offense, the short, classically shaped blade of your sword bouncing off the long and tempered edge of Backbiter. Luke has already given up on seizing the upper hand, concentrating all of his willpower into deflecting and watching his blade.

Luke lets you take your rage out on him, weapons ringing clear in the meadow, a violent song of bronze against bronze. He thinks you know now, that you can’t cut him. Percy probably told everyone that he’s bathed in Styx already.

Your energy begins to ebb, peters out to the point where you collapse your shield into the form of a protective arm guard, the fitted plate of divine metal glinting in the growing dawn.

He takes the moment to retreat, and you circle around each other, carrion-starved vultures out for flesh. Luke’s head is stuffed with the cotton-like clouds that hover above the field, exertion blurring his vision and pounding at his pulse.

You advance again, slow, almost like a hunter, and Luke recalls the sparring rings back at camp, remembers how you’d tackle and wrestle him into the dirt, sword thrown to the side. But you aren’t kids anymore, and a sword discarded is a life wasted.

One thing he forgets to consider in his distracted reverie: the field’s form. It splays a blanket over a hill, the grass growing into an incline, hardy little blades spreading across the earth regardless of condition.

He steps back again, shoe wavering uncertain in the air for a moment before finding shaky footing on lower ground, and Luke knows that you’ve driven him to the edge. You’re still wordless, silent; he wonders briefly if this is just a dream, a one-in-million of the nightmares he has.

( Maybe it is a nightmare, being hunted at your hands, but he finds himself grateful nonetheless that you’re here in front of him. )

It’s not a dream, just reality in the way your advance begins to gather energy and speed, blade tucked harmless against your side, and you leap across the dirt, bounding through trampled grass and into his waiting arms. The exhausted warmth of your body wakes him and he wraps you into a protective embrace as the two of you fall backwards.

You both tumble down the hill, grass on grass on bodies on shirts, choked grumbles of pain and definitely bruised knees, and when you settle in the dust, Luke finds the razor edge of your sword tucked against the impenetrable skin of his prone throat.

♫ — hell is finding someone to love

He’s laying on his back, spread-eagle like a butterfly-cut chicken, ready to be flayed open as you straddle his stomach, thighs locked against his body in a cage. Luke finds himself unafraid of death, staring you deep in the irises in the only familiar way a remorseful lover can.

“I missed you,” is a rasp that frees itself from the cold bronze press of your blade, threaded with a breath unraveling to the quick, “I missed you a lot.”

You push your sword harder into his throat, his skin dipping under the weight. You’re breathing terribly hard, and he can see how your eyes sparkle with saline, bloodshot and red-rimmed with grief.

There’s a smear of dirt across the high curve of your cheekbone, a cobweb-thin cut beading with red at your brow. His heart writhes with regret—he gave that to you while parrying to deflect a vicious blow.

“You lied to me,” and your jaw is locked, a gate of enamel that holds back the cry that he can almost feel trembling deep in your chest. “You left me.”

“I’m sorry.”

You breathe deeper, a near gasp in a battle with yourself to keep your oxygen. As you shudder, your tears free themselves and pepper onto his dust-smeared cheeks. His right hand, lax against the earth, crawls across the ground to lay gently on your hip.

“I have orders to—,” you tell him quietly, hesitant, arm coiling to draw your blade across his bared throat. You don’t finish but he already knows what they asked you to do. “Can you forgive me?”

“Of course. But this won’t work,” he confesses, and in a blur too quick to catch, your sword is buried into the dirt above his head like a grave marker, and he presses the dagger from your belt into your hands, the tip grazing against the weak spot at his left armpit.

Luke relaxes under you, tilts his head back to gaze at the burgeoning sky for the last time. He’s never thought about how blue it is until now, the vibrancy of it matching the outer paint of the Big House and its Big Shed back at camp.

“Go on,” and he’s smiling when he whispers it, even though he’s practically letting himself die at your hands. “Do what I can’t. You’re my real Achilles heel, anyway.”

“No,” you choke, wavering in despair. Something warm blooms in Luke’s chest, fills the cavity to the brim, seeping between every organ and vessel. “You’re not being fair right now. I see you for the first time in years, and we’re supposed to be enemies, you can’t just—”

“Please.” And it’s gentle in the way he gives you permission, his forgiving hand teaching the strong jut of your hipbone circular postulates and geometry. “Do it for Annabeth.”

You choke on another cry again, a half-aborted gasp for breath, fingers curling into claws that bunch at his collar. “I can’t.”

Luke smiles, soft, and it’s almost like he’s thirteen again, losing his first sparring match to you, wooden swords forgotten in the dust of the sparring ring because you’d gone for his ticklish stomach like the brilliant fighter you were.

( He’s happy that you’re taking the life that he’s already given wholly to you. )

“Be strong for me,” Luke rasps, throat drying. His right hand, the only free one, travels from where it had circled shapes into your hip, up your waist and past your shoulder, rough palm stopping at the side of your neck. “Hold fast.”

His thumb reaches up, brushes away the tears that are beading on your lashes, dries the damp tracks that are already eroding at your cheeks. Luke finds it endearing that your face still heats at his touch despite the biting cold and the situation you’ve found yourselves in.

“Brave the storm,” you whisper the words back almost automatically—he knows that you’ve never heard such a saying, knowing it only as a thing that’s reappeared from some forgotten dream—escaping in a breath carried slow by the eddy of air that wraps around the two of you in the dust of the hill’s foot. There’s something tucked secret into the fold of your lip, a brutal and solemn set that makes you look like you know more than you let on.

You move too quick for Luke to process in the moment, the needle-sharp point of the dagger releasing from where it presses into his underarm, and the blunt end of the hilt digging into the side of his neck with a speed he can only recall as ruthlessly efficient and a pressure that bleeds dark spots into his peripherals until he finally falls into a dreamless sleep.

Luke wakes alone and spread-eagle in the field, skin bitten cold and pale by the winter’s breeze sifting through the tall grass. Backbiter pins down a familiar weight in his outstretched hand, and he takes grip of the tempered sword, digs the tip into the soft dirt to pull himself up.

When he’s fully upright, ankles rolling sore and knees chilled to the tendon, he finds a pack by his imprint in the dirt. Your pack, to be specific.

It smells sweetly of a mandarin’s citrus and the lacquer of the cottage’s floors when he lifts the flap, jars of honey and the deep orange skin of persimmons gleaming in the dim light. There’s a paring knife too, small and silver, initials scratched rough and ancient into the handle.

( He makes out ‘L.C. +’ encased in an uneven heart, realizes that you’d been through his things after he left and tongues at the soft tissue of his cheek in embarrassment. )

The knife, still sharp, slides under the persimmon’s skin, peels it in one go, the shiny orange thing falling to the ground in a neat spiral like a piece of confetti. It’s high noon, mid-winter—at this time, you’re probably having lunch somewhere, maybe messaging Annabeth and Percy through Iris.

Would you tell them that he almost let you kill him? Would they think of you as a traitor for letting him live?

The persimmon splinters sweet under the brunt of his teeth, and he keeps the seeds in his pocket for later—maybe he’ll grow them as a reminder, or something; Luke scores a mark in the ground, gazes into the swirling door it opens, and….

He looks back, up the hill blanketed in the tall ripples of grass, verdant blades twining around his ankles. Looks at the trampled areas, dirt peeking through the field’s hardy roots, the imprint where he laid under your blade and wished for a forgiving death.

Luke thinks then, before he leaves, that this is how you’ll find each other again, staring across an ocean of distraction and only finding the face you’ll always look for in a crowd. You always do.

( Eight billion people. You. )

p.s; giggled a lot when i wrote this, sorry...to the anon who asked if jubi and luke were going to meet during the war even tho hermes said not to, you awakened something so terrible that i wrote this in like. a day. honorable song mention to mitski’s i want you 😗😗

comments, nice asks, and esp REBLOGS are greatly appreciated!!

“How much do you bet your cabin will be on fire when we get back?” you can’t help but ask.

He laughs quietly by your left ear, and it sends chills down your spine. “I’m trying not to think about that.”

The trees begin to grow sparse as the lake comes into view, so Luke slips your backpack from his shoulders, swinging it and letting it smack into his calves. The moment his feet hit the dock, the bag falls to the ground with a metallic thunk, and you sigh out his name, annoyed.

“I slaved over those sandwiches, you know. I’m making you carry me back to camp if they're flattened.”

He smiles, guilty, his hands frozen over the main pocket of the bag. The towels he’d packed are already hanging halfway out of it, the mat you’d brought to lounge on tucked under his arm. He’s practically halfway in the water already. “Sorry, chef.”

“You can relax. The lake’s not going anywhere,” you tease. Your shoulders brush when you nudge him away from your bag to rifle through it yourself.

Even though you poke fun at him, you can’t help but feel the same way. It’s been too long since you and Luke have had any personal time that wasn’t surrounded by other demigods. Your break’s been long overdue.

Luke surveys the best spot for swimming while you scrutinize the wooden dock. The old thing is riddled with splinters and nails and wobbly pieces of wood, but you find a good spot just on the edge of the structure.

The second your mat is rolled out, you collapse right on top of it. It’s an old plastic thing that one of Luke’s brothers stole from who knows where. The dark blue material folds into the shape of a bag so it’s easy to lug around, but years of lakeside lounges have worn it down — the strap that makes it into an actual bag snapped off a while ago.

You have to shove your hand to the very bottom of your backpack to find Luke’s sunglasses, but you’re quick to throw them over your eyes as you lay back down. The sun hits your skin and seeps the tension straight from your body. You wish Apollo were here so you could thank him personally; if it was possible to sunbathe forever, you would.

The rays on your skin are perfect. The lake is perfect. Being here with your best friend is perfect.

Luke moves from his spot by the other side of the dock and steps in front of you, eclipsing the sun. You peer at him over the rims of his glasses, unable to see much of him with the way he’s standing against the light.

“You look comfortable,” he says, rocking back onto his heels.

You prod at his ankles that are parallel with your face. “I am. Now move over, you’re blocking the sun.”

Something hard drops onto the wood beside your head, and your eyes shift to the container by your side.

It’s Luke’s sticky tube of sunscreen. The cartoon sun printed onto the front of the plastic is enjoying himself, his own shades pasted above a smug grin.

Luke nudges it towards you. “Could you get my back?”

You’re about to complain. He knows how much you hate the greasy feeling the sunscreen leaves on your hands and on everything you touch afterwards, but he’s making you do it anyway. Your eyes trail back up to glare at him, and you make it through a single syllable before your complaint evaporates in the heat.

He’s still looking at you expectantly, and he nudges the bottle closer to you with the point of his sandals again.

He’s trying to rush you, but you don’t really care. You’re thinking.

Yeah.

Thinking.

You’ve known Luke through everything. The terrible twos, your fear of the dark at six, his obsession with Pokémon cards at eight, and both of your awkward, gangly, preteen years.

In your head, Luke’s still your best friend that’s trying to relearn how to use a sword after he’d hit a growth spurt at fourteen. Whoever the fuck is standing in front of you now is not him.

Sometime between when you’d first arrived and had gotten settled on the dock, Luke had stripped himself down to his swimming trunks, eager to get into the water. Sunscreen he hasn’t fully worked into his skin leaves a white cast down his chest and arms, and you have to blink to see if the shadows are playing tricks on your eyes.

Luke had always been strong. But fighting off monsters thirsty for demigod blood generally did not require having abs.

Fed up with your staring, he pushes you over on the mat and places the sunscreen into your hand himself. His biceps shift and grow taut as he leans over.

“Have you been lifting?” you say, instead of anything normal. The tube of sunscreen feels like a thousand pound weight in your hand.

“Oh.” Luke looks down at his arms, as if he hasn’t even thought about how different he looks. He flexes just to show you, and your eyes actually widen at the definition of his arms. You trace the pathways his veins make from his wrist all the way up, feeling like you’re seeing muscles for the first time ever. “Yeah. A little.”

“A little?” you repeat, before actually laughing. “Dude.” You prod at his stomach, and he swats you away, red creeping up his neck. “Back in the day, they could’ve used your chest as like, one of those old laundry washboards. Since when do you work out?”

For a second, his face falls. The light air that’s been sitting between you two feels tainted. Luke shifts his eyes from your face to a spot behind your head, and you realize you’ve been walking carelessly through a landmine.

“Just, since…” He goes quiet for another few seconds. “Since Michael’s quest.”

Luke’s voice twists in a way it only does when he talks about things revolving around his dad. Your heart sinks with the weight of guilt.

Months ago, Luke’s older brother Michael had received a quest from Hermes himself. Him and his quest group had emerged victorious, finishing the quest with tons of time to spare. The three of them were treated like royalty the second they’d stepped through the entrance to camp.

Luke had never outright told you, but you know he’d been jealous. His relationship with his dad has always been rocky, but you think he wants to prove himself, for one reason or another. The bulking and the additional training… All of it must be to show his dad he’s ready. For his own quest, or something else.

Comfort has never come easy to you. But it does when it comes to Luke. A lot of the time, he just wants to be reminded that you’re there for him, even if you’re just sitting in silence. Words don’t usually work when he’s upset about things like this, so you finally pop open the sunscreen to give your hands something to do. He turns around without a word.

There’s a spot of white on his back in the shape of a smeared handprint where he must’ve tried putting it on himself before realizing it was no use. As you apply some more properly, the sunscreen disappears under your fingers, and you don’t even think about how gross your hands will feel later. You put on more of the lotion, rubbing slow circles into the broad stretch of his shoulders and then the dips of his back.

It feels weird touching the expanse of his bare skin like this. You’ve felt the warmth of him countless times, but always through a shirt or a jacket or that one sweatshirt that’s now yours. Luke’s skin is so warm it makes you want to slump forward and let him hold you until sleep takes you away. Absent-mindedly, your hands reach out to trace over a spot on his shoulder blades that’s covered in freckles.

“Killer,” Luke says softly. He pinches the skin just above your knee and your hands stop moving. “You’re supposed to help me put sunscreen on, not give me a massage.”

“Oh.” You realize his back has been thoroughly covered two times over. “Sorry. I got distracted.”

“That’s okay. It’s your turn, though.”

You sigh, slumping back onto the mat. He turns around to face you again, the harsh lines of his frown already disappearing off his face.

“You need to invest in better sunscreen,” you say as he works to undo the buttons of your old Hawaiian tee. “This one makes me feel so gross.”

Luke doesn’t say anything about your complaining. He’s too busy looking perfectly sun kissed, a light dusting of red across his cheeks glowing against his tan. He motions for you to turn over, and you oblige.

You don’t mention how you haven’t even put sunscreen on the parts of your body you can reach, but he doesn’t bring it up, so neither do you.

You’ll give him this. He needs something to do that isn’t sitting and thinking about his dad, and you’re willing to let it slide even if it’s at the cost of feeling greasy and gross.

“You know what’s even worse than the sunscreen?” he asks.

“What?”

“Skin cancer.”

Luke’s already grinning when you tilt your head to glare at him. “What even possessed you to say that?”

He laughs, squeezing the bottle of sunscreen directly onto your back. You flinch at the coldness, but it’s quickly remedied with the warmth of Luke’s hands. He doesn’t let the sunscreen sit for a second before he’s working it into your skin. You can feel every single movement of his fingers and every shape he traces there.

The slowing of his hands when he lingers at the scar on your back nearly causes a full body reaction.

“Thought we weren’t giving each other massages,” you choke out, just so he stops dragging his nails over the raised skin.

He hums. “Your scars look really badass.”

(Luke does this a lot — says something offtopic in lieu of responding. He doesn’t mean to do it to ignore you, and you don’t take offense, especially if it's during quiet moments like these. When you sit in silence like this, his off topic thoughts tend to morph into compliments.)

You feel flushed all of a sudden. “Thanks, hero. But keep going, please. I can feel my skin withering away under the sun already.”

You can hear the smile in Luke’s voice when he says, “Told you.”

A bit higher up, closer to your spine, he presses a finger into your back twice, each prod an inch apart. And then, just below, he drags his finger in the shape of an arc. He leans back on his heels to look at it.

You push yourself off of the dock, trying to crane your neck around to look at your spine. “Did you just… draw a smiley face?”

“What?” his left hand pushes your face away while the other swipes quickly over your skin again. “No. Stop moving around.”

“So that wasn’t you trying to wipe away the evidence?”

He scoffs. “I’m not five years old.”

“Sure.”

He wipes away the last of his sunscreen art once and for all. As quick as he can, he smears more into your shoulder blades, and the back of your neck, and the tops of your shoulders.

Luke pauses for a second, and for a second you think he’s finally done. But you can feel his hands move out of the dip of your back and higher up, his touch feather light. His index finger ghosts over the band of your top, and he pinches the fabric between his fingers.

“Is it good if I lift this for a second?”

“Yeah.” You clear your throat of whatever’s blocking your windpipe. The fraction of space between you burns with heat. “You’re good.”

The split second he spends passing his hand over the skin there feels like it lasts an hour. A moment later, the fabric is snapping back into place, and he pats your back twice to let you know he’s done.

“Want me to get your arms for you?” he asks.

A weird wave of restlessness washes over you. You shove the cap back onto the sunscreen, your hands fumbling to toss it back into your bag with his sunglasses.

“We’ve been up here forever,” you groan, Luke’s impatience from earlier suddenly infectious. “I’m trying to spend at least some of our lake day in the actual lake.”

“Great.” Luke lifts himself to his feet and extends a hand.

The mat is warm under your feet when he helps you up. You can feel his hand squeeze yours a little too tight, and your stomach nearly drops when you realize he’s looking away from you, towards the water.

“Luke,” you warn, planting your feet and trying to resist the way he pulls you forward. “No.”

When he turns back to look at you, his eyes glint the same way it does when he’s waiting for one of his brothers to fall for one of his stupid pranks. And of course, he’s grinning at you the same way he does when someone doesn’t realize he’s nicked something straight out of their pocket. It’s the always mischievous face of a son of Hermes.

Ever innocent, he asks, “What’re you talkin’ about?”

You stumble when Luke uses his other hand to tug you closer. Dread spikes in your chest. He pulls you right into his chest at the edge of the dock, locking his arms around your waist.

You’re stuck. “The water’s cold, Luke, please—”

“You’ll warm up,” he promises, his voice sweet and low.

A second later, with his firm grasp around your middle, Luke tip both of you backwards off the dock.

The cold water jolts you out of the peaceful state you’d been in just a few seconds ago. The air is effectively shocked straight from your lungs, the water rushing past your ears and bubbles dancing across your vision. He releases you so both of you can resurface, and his laugh is the first thing you hear when you come up for air.

You make sure to splash him in the face the second you gain your bearings. “Asshole.”

The dark mess of curls on his head hangs over his eyes, heavy with water. He shakes it out like a dog, sending droplets straight at your face.

“Maybe if you didn’t always take fucking forever to get in, I wouldn’t have—”

You drop your tone and mock him accordingly. He splashes you again, grinning. The water has washed every remaining part of his frown away, the quest slipping from his mind.

This spot by the dock is shallow enough for both of you to just be able to stand. Sated with happiness, Luke lets his guard down enough to let you come closer and wrap your arms around his neck. You seize the opportunity to shove his head underwater, managing it for a few seconds before you feel his hands go under your arms.

You scream, your hands slipping off of his wet shoulders when you try to hold onto him. Armed with a steady grip, he tosses you straight over his shoulder and head first into the water.

His smile is what greets you when you resurface. He slicks your wet hair away from your eyes, laughing at the scowl on your face.

“I’m sorry, I swear,” he insists, pulling you closer. He’s using that stupid starry eyed look he always uses to get you to forgive him. “I’m done now, no more fighting.”

He puts both of his hands on your face, swiping away drops of water that track down your cheeks.

“Luke Castellan.” You sigh, leaning into his palm.

His eyes follow a droplet that runs down your neck. “Yeah?”

“I hope you can swim fast.”

When you catch him halfway down the lake, his laughter echoes throughout the clearing, joining the sound of the wind rushing through the trees and the choir of birds over your heads.

—

The sun has long moved from the high point of the sky when you decide to get out. Luke calls it a day when he can barely move his legs, thighs burning from swimming. You’d been clinging to his side for a while at that point, teeth chattering without the hot sun to warm the water.

Luke pushes himself up onto the dock and nudges his waterlogged hair out of his face. When he extends a hand to you, water runs down the slopes of his arms and drips down his fingertips.

He snaps his fingers in your face when you don’t reach for him. “The hypothermia get to your brain already?”

You grip his hand in yours, tugging him forward like you’re going to pull him back in. “Funny. I was actually deciding whether or not I should make you face plant.”

You dry yourselves off before Luke disappears into the woods for firewood — not without a comment about what happened the last time he let you go get it — and you set up your stuff on a soft tuft of grass as close to the water as you can get.

He reappears after a few minutes, his arms full with sticks that he drops at the foot of the mat. “There wasn’t much dry wood out there. Might only have enough for an hour or two.”

“That’s okay. It’s more wood than I ever managed to bring back by myself, anyway.”

Luke freezes from where he’s starting the fire, the flame of his lighter dancing in his cupped hands. He turns to see the shit-eating grin on your face. “That was a good one.”

“Thanks.”

Luke busies himself with the fire, letting the kindling catch while you take out the sandwiches you’d brought. Thankfully, only one of them is a little smushed from Luke’s reckless bag handling, but you set aside the nicer one for him anyway. You work your hands over the aluminum wrapping as you sit back.

“It’s been a while,” you say, just loud enough for your voice to carry over.

Luke tosses another piece of wood into the fire to feed the growing flames. “Since what?”

Since this. Everything’s the same. There’s the silhouette of Luke’s back, a shape you’d recognize even without the light of the sky. There’s the familiar warmth of the fire at your feet. And there’s that summertime buzz in the air — a sound you can’t place, but know like the sound of your own voice. It’s the sound of you and Luke’s nighttime lullaby from all those years ago. It’s been so long since you’d been out here alone together.

“Eating sandwiches by the fire. The woods. Us.”

He mumbles something that you can’t hear. Louder, he says, “At least the sandwiches are good this time around.”

You crack a smile. “That’s true. No more old peanut butter and crumbly bread.”

Luke had hated eating those things as a kid, but he’d toughed it out for you. The sandwiches reminded you of home. Even though the dry crust tasted nearly powdery in your mouth, you would close your eyes and imagine sitting under the tree in Luke’s backyard, eating a plate of sandwiches and drinking your mom’s lemonade.

You reach for the sweater at the bottom of your bag, tugging it over your top. When you pull out the blanket you’d brought, you’re surprised to see the bottom of the bag. You turn to face Luke.

“You didn’t bring a jacket?” you ask. He shakes his head no, calm and collected like he can barely feel the breeze that whips his hair around.

“You’re gonna get cold,” you chastise.

Satisfied with the fire, he finally settles down next to you. “It’s not even that bad out. You’re just cold-blooded.”

You hold the back of your hand against his neck, and he cringes away. Teasingly, you say, “You know what they say. Cold hands, warm heart.”

He tugs the blanket over both of your laps and opens his left arm for you to lean against him. You’d slept like this as kids, too, his left arm over your shoulder and his weapon of choice sitting in his right hand. You would switch when it was your turn to keep watch, the familiar weight of your knife in your dominant hand and Luke’s warmth coming from your other side.

But you’re at home now. You no longer have to sleep with the handle of your knife imprinted into your hand, and Luke is free to take your hands in his. He rubs his thumbs over your skin, his hands hot and soothing.

“If that saying’s true, my heart must be made of ice, then,” he says, no doubt feeling the warmth seeping back into your hands from the heat of his.

You smile, watching as he turns your palms over in his until they feel normal again. You probably would’ve turned into a demigod popsicle without Luke all those years ago, and the same is true. The mutual body heat was often the only source of warmth you’d have in the colder months.

Keeping each other alive is all you two seem to do.

After a few seconds, Luke tugs you back to lay on the mat with him. You turn further into him, soaking up every ounce of comfort he offers.

With your head tilted back, you can see the makings of stars in the sky, just beginning to fade into the blue with the sun setting. You’d have to ask someone to teach you the constellations visible this time of year.

Luke taps out a rhythm on your forearm, and then on your bicep, and then up to your shoulder. His hand finds its way into your hair, rubbing at your scalp before slipping down to the ends.

There’s a glowing form brighter than the rest just above the treeline. A planet, maybe. Or a star. You’d probably be able to remember if you weren’t so tired.

You can feel light tugs at the end of your hair — Luke, playing with the ends, twisting strands around his finger before letting it go.

“We’re gonna fall asleep,” you warn, but you’re much too comfortable to actually do something about it. His chest rises steadily at your side, the even movements drawing you closer and closer to sleep.

Luke’s eyes have taken on a faraway look to them, his hand still messing with the tips of your hair. While you stare skyward, he’s focused his eyes on the setting sun right ahead.

“Hey.” You link his restless hand with yours. “Can you start talking about something? I don’t want to fall asleep yet.”

He squeezes you twice. “You cut your hair.”

You wilt, your face already beginning to heat up. “Preferably anything but that.”

“Why?” he asks, turning to face you. His eyebrows knit in genuine confusion. “It looks great.”

“Not really.” Your own hand slips from his to pull at the ends self-consciously. “I love Junia, I do, but she cut it way too short. I can’t look at it.”

He tilts his head to look at you head on, a frown on his pretty face. He nudges a strand behind your ear, deep in thought, like he’s trying to look for something. “Don’t say that. It looks good. You just haven’t had it this short in a while.”

“I know, which is why I hate it,” you lament. “It’ll be a while until it grows back.” You’d been mourning the lost length all day, and thought Luke wouldn’t be able to notice the difference.

He flicks your forehead, eliciting an ow from you. “Always so stubborn. You look cute, killer.”

You let your hair that you’d worried between your fingers fall back into place. You squint at Luke for any sign of a pity compliment.

“You really think so?”

He seems to take offense at your doubt. “You really think I’d lie to you?”

It’s crazy how much weight Luke’s words hold in your mind. You know the next time you look in the mirror, you’ll rethink everything about the way you look.

When you settle back down without a word, Luke knows he’s won. He tugs at the fabric of your sweatshirt.

“You talk to your sister lately?” He asks, just to change the subject.

You look down at your sweater. Emblazoned across the front are letters that spell out UC San Diego.

“Kinda. She sent me and Clarisse a postcard and some merch from school. Clarisse refuses to wear the t-shirt she got, though.” Luke’s hand reaches out to trace over the embroidered letters. “Mel says she wants to visit soon. I can’t wait to see her.”

Mel was the Ares cabin counselor up until last summer, when she’d left for college on the other coast. You’ve missed her terribly, but you heard all about her life out there and knew she was having a great time.

“She’s almost done her sophomore year. I think she switched her major to nursing, or something,” you add on. “Kinda ironic, isn’t it? A daughter of Ares healing injuries instead of causing them.”

Luke smiles. “I can see it. Mel’s always been the nicest Ares kid I know.”

You huff. “Well, thanks.”

He pretends to think it over again for a few seconds. “Don’t worry. I’d say you’re tied with Clarisse for last.”

“Ha ha,” you drawl. “Fuck you.”

“Actually, you rank just above her, I think. She would definitely drown me if she found out she wasn’t at the bottom of the list.”

“Probably.”

Luke’s hand is still pressed to the letters on your sweatshirt, his eyes trained on the words there. Something begins to form in the back of your mind.

“Maybe we could take another trip,” you suggest. “Me and you. California.”

The amusement is written on his face. “As if Chiron would let us take another vacation. We barely got him to agree to the last one.”

“But he caved eventually!” you remind him. “And wasn’t it great?”

“I guess.”

“Oh, please. That was the most fun we’ve ever had, and you know it.”

(For your sixteenth birthday, you and Luke had managed to charm your way into letting Chiron and Mr. D set you loose in New York City. You’d been on your own for a day, spending your allowance of a whopping fifty dollars on two small meals at an even smaller restaurant. You had also managed to score sight-seeing tickets on a rickety boat that didn’t look safe to ride.

Luke had rubbed your back for you when you’d gotten seasick, and given you Dramamine he’d pilfered from the bag of a man a few rows ahead of you. You’d given each other an awkward look when the guy got sick over the side of the boat an hour later.

“Here, man,” Luke had said. He placed the foil of Dramamine tablets in his hand. “We have extra.”

The man nearly got down on the floor, thankful out of his mind. There were tears in his eyes when he said, “Thank you so much. I seem to have forgotten mine, and I get so terribly sick on boats.”

You and Luke were silent for the last ten minutes back to the dock.)

“We might have to wait a while to ask,” Luke says, giving in. “Chiron’s not gonna be too happy when he finds out we skipped out on everything today.”

“You’re like the camp golden child. I’m sure if you flashed your pretty smile at him, he’d give in.”

Luke turns away, smug.

The two of you settle into another bout of silence, thoughts of the sunny California beaches running through your minds. You can picture the both of you there already — a little older, a lot happier. Luke would probably take up surfing, because he’s that kinda guy. You’d have a Jeep, or something, driving to the beach with the top down to watch the sun setting over the water.

“We could always say we’re touring schools,” you offer. “We should probably be thinking about future colleges, anyway.”

Luke sits up abruptly, so you do too. When you see the look on his face, fear strikes in your chest. His eyes are shining with something unreadable, and it’s beginning to dawn on you that you and Luke haven’t discussed this before. You have no idea if he even wants to go to college, and you’re already roping him into your fantasy of school on the west coast.

“You want that?” he asks, quiet.

“I think so,” you say honestly. “I kinda just assumed we’d go somewhere together.”

Luke is silent, his face a complete mix of emotions that you can’t tell are good or bad.

It sounds beyond dramatic, but it feels like the rest of your life is riding on the rest of this conversation. There’s no future for you without Luke in it.

Your voice is quiet when you speak next. “Do you want that?”

You can’t imagine what would happen if Luke suggests something like the two of you splitting up, finding your own ways after camp. He’s in every plan you have, a permanent mark on the rest of your life.

Your attachment issues are serious. You’re barely able to imagine yourself as a person without Luke Castellan.

The way he smiles makes it feel like someone’s pumping air back into your lungs. It dispels every single doubt you’d ever had.

“Do I wanna go to college? Sure,” he says. The grin on his face lights up his eyes, gorgeous pools of dark brown. “But if you’re asking me if I want to be with you?”

Luke laughs in disbelief, like your question is the funniest thing in the world. The sound makes something in your chest constrict. “I hope you know it’s been a definite yes for the past decade.”

You don’t even realize how much you’re grinning until Luke leans forward to knock your forehead against his.

“Can I be honest with you?” you whisper, serious as ever.

The joy is written on your face, plain as day. It’s like you’ve ascended into the sky and merged into literal nature all at once. The wind rustles the taller grass blades behind you. A dove chirps over your heads.

Luke nods.

“Even if you decided you didn’t want to go to college, and just wanted to fuck off and live in the Canadian wilderness or something…”

You slide your arms around his neck just so you can hide your smile. You’re embarrassed out of your mind, knowing he can feel your grin against his skin. “I’d still go with you, honestly.”

A shocked laugh bursts from his throat. Luke’s arms link behind your lower back, and you fight the urge to do something stupid. “Fuck. Are you proposing, killer?”

You feel like you’ve been set on fire.

“I think we should go ask Chiron about plane tickets, like right now,” you say, no trace of a joke in your voice.

His chest rumbles against yours when he laughs. “Sure.”

The two of you stay like that for a few more minutes, and Luke only lets go of you to add the last remaining sticks into the fire. He sits back again, this time dragging you against his chest. He slumps onto your back, resting his chin on your shoulder.

It’s weird, knowing for a fact that you’re going to spend the rest of forever with your best friend.

“Do you ever think about, like, the other parts of the future?” you press, your curiosity getting the best of you.

His shoulders lift against your back in what you think is a shrug. “Like what? Up until now, I had no idea I even wanted to go to college.”

Of course.

“Like anything after college. Where you wanna live. If you want kids.”

Luke’s taken to rubbing the skin of your thigh through the blanket over both your laps. “I have, actually.”

His answer surprises you. He’s thought about stuff like that, which is a million years from now, but not college? Something that could very much happen in the next few years?

“Care to share?” you push. “I haven’t really thought about it yet.”

Luke hums, and you can tell he’s thinking everything over. You watch the fire dance in the pit while you wait for him to speak.

“I’ve always wanted to live by the water,” Luke admits. “I liked that about where we grew up.”

His voice takes on a quiet tone, always awkward whenever he mentions Connecticut. You’d lived in the suburbs about ten minutes from the coast, and so many of your summers and few weekends were spent down by the water.

“I think that’s why California sounds good to me,” Luke continues. “It’s not New England, and it’s different in a good way.”

You would love to go back to your mom’s house — see the place that shaped you and Luke into people. But you know he could never consider it. Westport haunts him even now, his own personal ghost.

“And I want a big house,” he continues. “With one kid. A boy or a girl, I don’t really care.”

“Luke Castellan, girl dad,” you tease, everything about it sounding fond.

In a few years, the same boy who used to chase you through his backyard with worms in his hands will be an adult. Your best friend, pressed against you right now, could one day be a dad.

“Maybe,” he answers. He squeezes your knee two times, and it keeps you from drifting off into your thoughts.

“I don’t know if the world could handle a Luke Castellan Jr. running around. You were a crazy kid.”

Luke pinches you in offense. “Big talk coming from you, killer.”

He draws out the syllables in the old nickname to drive his point across. The joke had come from somewhere, of course.

“It wasn’t like you were the angel between the two of us,” he adds.

You smile because you know he’s right. You’d been a handful for your mom, always causing some sort of trouble in one way or another. And Luke had been right there with you, every step of the way.

Beyond college, you don’t know what you want for yourself. You just know that you’re going to have Luke, no matter what happens.

You think of the two of you a few years from now with your college diplomas and your families in the audience. Years of laughter and sunscreen and your big house on the California beach. And then the two of you, old and tired but with a lifetime of stories to tell.

You sink further into the cradle of his arms. “I just can’t wait, Luke. For all of it.”

Straight ahead, the last of the light from the sun gets consumed by the darkness of the night. You and Luke lay there, alone under the stars.

He mumbles his answer into the quiet of the sky. “Me too.”

The fire goes out sometime later.

—

Luke dreams of you that night.

You’re about sixteen years younger, but it still looks just like you.

You’re both sitting on the beach, though it doesn’t quite look like the one from your childhood.

The water is so blue and the sand is so fine and white and Luke knows he’s never been here before. When he turns around, he can see nothing else but more sand behind him, an eternal beach his mind has drawn for him. In front of him is a stretch of water that goes as far as his eye can comprehend. And to his left is you.

He knows it has to be you the moment he sets his eyes on the back of your head, the same messy hair of his youth.

It’s the same kid he sat with on the back steps of his porch, hands sticky with melted popsicles. The same kid he’d watch late night cartoons with on his couch, asleep with a half eaten bowl of ice cream on the floor.

You turn to face him, and Luke knows if he had full control over his body, his face would’ve split into a grin.

You’re just a baby.

You’re so tiny that even the version of him in his dream reaches out for you. It seems that Dream You is still a baby, but Dream Luke isn’t.

There’s a ridiculous sunhat on your head, the kind his mom would make him wear as a kid. It’s in your favorite color, and when you toddle closer, he sees you smile with all three of your baby teeth.

There’s a few things different about you that don't feel familiar to him. Something about the curve of your nose is off, and your hair looks curly in the way that his is. There’s a look in your eye that reminds him a lot of one of his younger brothers, the makings of a mischievous smile new on your face. You waddle right into his arms, and he lets you clamber onto his left thigh. When you throw your tiny arms around his neck, he realizes you smell like his sunscreen and salt water.

You pat his face, your eyes wide and glittering. He wipes a bit of drool away from the corner of your mouth, and you jump a little.

“Mama,” you babble, since it’s probably the only world you know.

He thinks of your mother, all the way back in Connecticut. He thinks of her big smile and warm hands and her freshly squeezed lemonade and her empty house.

She was like a second mother to him. He thinks of how she likely saw this same thing — this tiny version of you, unable to talk and lacking motor skills.

“Mama,” you say again, insistent. You pat his face again, like you’re trying to get him to understand. But Dream Luke can’t do anything but hold you, it seems. So he does.

There’s a shift, and you notice it too. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he feels movement behind him. Luke knows he should feel on edge, but his body physically refuses to. Baby Killer goes crazy, blabbering excitedly as familiar arms go around his shoulders.

Luke recognizes the feeling immediately. They’re the same arms that he feels curled around him when he wakes up from his dream.

my commentary on the ending

the killerverse masterlist

notes: and somehow they still aren’t together… idk. this was definitely my favorite chapter to write so please oh please leave feedback if you enjoyed!! it means sooo so much.