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wiseatom · 1 year

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hello !! byler with prompt 11 for kisses prompts maybe :)??

thank you for the prompt!!! this super got away from me, but i hope that you enjoy, and that it fits the prompt in a way you had in mind!!

kisses prompts #11: welcome home kisses

Objectively, nine hours is not a long time. Will knows this.

He’s tried to rationalize it every which way, every day of the week: it’s a single-digit number, he reminds himself, when he wiggles out of Mike’s arms in the morning and forces himself out of bed. It’s not even half of the hours that make up a day, he thinks, every time he glances impatiently at the clock on the studio wall and finds it’s still ticking that same, steady speed. You are being a giant baby, he chastises himself, out loud, when the traffic on the way home turns nine hours into nine and a half and makes him want to tear his hair out.

Subjectively, nine hours is the longest amount of time in the world when every other hour of your day is spent with Mike Wheeler, and nearly every one of your days has been spent that way since kindergarten.

(So he’s kind of dramatic. Will knows this, too.)

It’s Saturday, which is Will’s Friday, and Mike’s everyday, because when you have the luxury of (kind of) being your own boss and (kind of) working out of your own home, you (kind of) get to set your own schedule. Will is both (kind of) jealous at the flexibility and (very) grateful that it allows for a more instantaneous reunion when he finally arrives home every day, nine hours of work and traffic behind him. It’s the promise of that instantaneous reunion that gets him up both flights of stairs to their apartment, feet (kind of) dragging and (very) tired and his heart (kind of, very) aching because he’s dumb and misses his boyfriend after nine hours.

(Nine and a half.)

It’s fine. It’s fine. He’s at their front door, and he’s already got his keys out, and he sticks the right one in the lock on his first try, and he opens the door and he’s ready to be greeted by his boyfriend when–

Said boyfriend nowhere in sight.

Will frowns, toeing his shoes off and setting his keys down in the dish they have on the hallway table, a clatter ringing out as they settle into the glass. The lights are off, but the entire apartment is bright with the yellow-orange glow of the setting sun, streaming through the window with such intensity that it looks like streaks of fire tear through the room, patches of it setting the carpet and the empty couch and coffee table ablaze. He steps further inside, and the cat comes to greet him, rubbing her face up against his leg and purring loudly. At least someone cares that he’s home. He stops where he stands, letting her do a few figure-eights between his legs before he reaches down to pick her up, cradling her against his chest. She lets out a happy meow and nuzzles into him, and he scratches behind her ear as he wanders into the kitchen, just as Mike-less as everything else in his line of sight.

Objectively: this is fine. Mike does not need to wait by the door for him. Mike doesn’t need to drop whatever he’s doing to greet him the moment he gets home. Nine hours is not a long time.

Subjectively: this is not fine. Mike should be waiting by the door for him. Mike should be dropping whatever he’s doing to greet him the moment that he gets home. Nine hours is too long to be apart, and Will is going to lose it.

“Your dad sucks, Carrie,” Will says scornfully to the cat, flipping the kitchen light on and then glaring down the hallway to the office door, where he assumes Mike is holed up typing away at the computer, careless to the fact that his boyfriend is withering away in their very own kitchen from attention and affection deficit.

Carrie, who does not care that her dad sucks, rubs her head against his chest, which does not solve the her dad sucking problem, but does serve to make him wither just a bit less.

Whatever. Whatever. Who needs Mike, anyway? Not Will, who has very bravely survived the last nine and a half hours without him. He has a cat who adores him. He has a hand that’s cramped from drawing animation cels all day. He has… a box of Kraft mac and cheese in the pantry, he’s pretty sure. He can make this work.

He goes to put Carrie down, but she promptly screams the moment she’s within three inches of the floor, so it looks like he’ll be cooking one-handed, then. Thankfully, his instinct about the mac and cheese is correct – there are actually two boxes, which is great, because then Mike can make his own damn food once he finally decides that Will is important enough for his time. The thought makes him scowl again, and when he retrieves a pot from one of the lower cabinets, he makes sure to clang and bang it into every other pot beside it, making as much noise as possible.

The ruckus makes Carrie dig her claws into his shoulder, but even after waiting a minute, Mike doesn’t poke his stupid head out of his stupid office.

Stupid, Will thinks, slamming the pot into the sink and startling Carrie enough that she launches herself out of his arms, pushing off and away from his chest with all the force her little body can muster. All twelve pounds of her momentarily wind him anyway, and the sound of the bell on her collar jingles cheerily as she darts away from him. “Shit,” he mutters, pressing his hand to his chest where her claws dug into his skin through his sweater. He turns the tap on with more force than he intends to, scowling some more as water begins to fill the pot.

“Stupid,” he says out loud, under his breath, once the pot is full enough. He transfers it to the stove, flicking on one of the burners and reaching for the salt. He glances back to the hallway, where the door to the office is still closed. He nearly empties half of the salt into the water with how aggressively he’s shaking it. It has been nine hours and forty minutes, but he’s not counting. “Stupid,” he mutters again, and turns his attention back to the pot.

His mother’s voice comes to him, soft and kind: a watched pot never boils. Will huffs, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter opposite the stove. He sneaks a glance back to the office door, still closed, still no signs of life from beyond. A watched door never opens, his mother adds gently. That’s not even a saying, he shoots back, and then, quieter: sorry, Mom. I love you.

She doesn’t respond. The water isn’t even simmering yet. A teeny, tiny bell jingles somewhere in the distance. The office door stays closed.

Objectively, Will is going insane.

(Subjectively, Will is going insane.)

The thing is – yeah, he could march right down the hallway, bust down the door, and demand that Mike pay attention to him. He knows this, because he has done it before, and at that, often, and he has a 100% success rate of immediately distracting Mike from whatever it is that he’s doing and getting his undivided attention. It’s not at all a matter of whether or not he can.

It’s that he shouldn’t have to, because he was the one who sat in traffic, and he was the one who had to interact with other people, and he was the one who had to draw the same stupid lion over and over and over again, and he was the one who had to be away from home for nine hours, give or take. He worked all day. He shouldn’t have to work again just to get Mike to welcome him home.

“Stupid,” he says very neutrally, not at all mad, and the loudest he has yet, speaking in the direction of the hallway, ringing out through the kitchen. Carrie sneezes twice. The water starts letting out a hissing sound from where it sits on the stovetop. A minute passes, bringing his running total up to nine hours and forty five minutes.

Why would the office door ever even consider opening?

“So much for honey, I’m home,” Will mumbles, scathing, under his breath. The water finally rises to a boil, and he tears the top off of the Kraft box, flinging the torn cardboard somewhere on the counter. He does the same with the little packet of cheese flavor, though this toss is more careful, since he’ll actually need it later. Then he’s pouring the macaroni into the pot, and the office door still hasn’t opened, and he grabs a spoon from the pot they keep next to the stove, and every door in the apartment is still closed, and he starts to stir the noodles around, and there are still no doorknobs turning and hinges creaking and boyfriends leaving their fucking offices.

It’s fine, it’s whatever. Seriously. He’s not even mad, really. Nine hours and forty eight minutes without seeing his boyfriend, but what does it matter, right? Fucking objectively, that’s not even a long time, something most people wouldn’t even blink at–

The office door opens. Several more jingles ring out, timed with every little step Carrie takes to go greet her stupid, sucky dad. Will focuses every ounce of attention into stirring the noodles, and resolutely does not glance in the direction of the hallway.

Mike coos at the cat. Seriously? Will thinks.

“You’re home,” Mike says, as if this has not been the case for the last, like, eighteen minutes. And it’s like – okay, Will doesn’t know exactly what time it was when he got home, but eighteen minutes feels super right, and either way, it doesn’t matter, because there were at least nine entire hours before those eighteen minutes where they were forced to be apart by the cruel twist of fate. It’s certainly not Will’s fault that Mike decided to be crueler and twistier by enforcing an additional eighteen minutes onto their sentence.

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Yup,” Will answers, clipped, mouthing popping on the p.

If Mike notices that Will is absolutely-not-at-all-pissed, he doesn’t care. “I missed you,” he says, all soft and sweet, and before Will can tell him to fuck off, because if he really missed Will, he would have been out here eighteen – nineteen – minutes ago, he’s coming up behind him, stepping into his space. His palms come to rest on Will’s lower back, sliding up and over his hips and stomach as his arms come to wrap around Will’s entire middle, pulling him back into Mike’s chest. He hooks his chin over Will’s shoulder, nuzzling into Will’s neck. “What are you making?” he asks, breath puffing out over the exposed skin at his collar.

Oh, right. This is why he was so mad – the closed door meant he didn’t get this, Mike touching him and talking to him all sweet and lighting up at seeing him. Objectively, it’s a nice thing, to be wanted like this, held like this, loved like this.

Subjectively, he’s still pissed that he could have had this twenty minutes ago.

“Mac and cheese,” he replies. He is horrified to hear that his own voice mirrors Mike’s, subtle and fond, that harsh edge Mike sidestepped smoothed over just with one touch.

You’re better than this, he chides, trying desperately to channel the annoyance that has been by his side since he stepped in the door.

“Gourmet,” Mike teases, swaying them back and forth, still hunched over him from behind. The comment should stoke the flames of his anger, but it’s hard to focus on that blaze when everywhere Mike is touching him feels like a thousand tiny fires of their own, burning and bright and scorching, just like the sunlight earlier. It is hard to be anything but delighted in their warmth. “Enough for both of us?”

You’re not, he reminds himself, all of the madness from earlier starting to scorch itself away. You’re really, really not.

“‘Course,” says Will, light and easy, stirring the noodles. They might almost be done, by now. It doesn’t matter, because they are less interesting than they were thirty seconds ago. He sets the spoon aside and twists in Mike’s arms, lifting both arms up and wrapping them around Mike’s neck. One hand comes up to his nape, thumb brushing through the hair that curls there, while the other hangs off his shoulder, ready to go back to stirring if needed. He allows himself a moment to stare, studying Mike’s face for new freckles or signs of aging that may have happened in their awful, arduous nine hours and forty eight minutes apart. Then, because he has to, he says: “I’ve been home for twenty minutes, you know.”

Mike hums. “Have you, now?” he asks, and there’s a quiver in his lips that is just this side of too amused, and Will hates him, hates him, hates him.

“Yes,” Will replies, haughty, swiftly reminded of how much Mike sucks, and is the worst, and doesn’t deserve any of the covers tonight. Not even a scrap. “And where were you?”

“I already answered that,” Mike says. His voice has dropped, still soft, but a little rough around the edges. Carrie lets out a mewl by their feet. Will should probably stir the noodles. He doesn’t move, except for his thumb, still tracing a path through Mike’s hair – back and forth, back and forth.

Will wracks his brain for the answer Mike claims he’s already spoken, but his thoughts are sluggish, gone slow from the exchange of heady oxygen between their faces. He can’t recall anything.

“When?” he asks, dazed.

Mike lets his smile run loose. “When I said I missed you,” he responds. He runs his own thumb along the dip in the small of Will’s back, the movement searing, even though the wool of his sweater. “That’s where I was. Missing you.”

Objectively, that doesn’t make sense. If he were missing Will, then he would have greeted him at the door, waiting there for Will to get home just the way Will had been hoping he would be from the moment he cut the engine in the parking lot. If he were missing Will, he wouldn’t have let the cat be the first to greet him, wouldn’t have let Will stomp around the kitchen and bang pots around and say the word stupid so many times that it stopped feeling like a word.

Subjectively, Will stopped caring about the details of it all the moment Mike wrapped his arms around him.

“Stupid,” Will mutters a final time, just for good measure, before pulling Mike’s face down to meet his.

When their lips brush, every single minute of their nine hours and forty eight minutes apart suddenly becomes worth it – the exile from bed that morning, the repetition of drawing the same cel over and over again, the ticking of the studio clock, the frustrating, non-movement of the traffic on the way home. They were all worth it, because here is Mike, with his chapped lips and his warm hands ready to reward Will for it all, to welcome him home without punctuality, but with a whole lot of personality. His mother’s voice floats back into his head, still soft, still kind: absence makes the heart grow fonder. Will laughs, right into Mike’s mouth, the kiss breaking with it, and thinks, go away, Mom, please, before pressing back into Mike with intention, insistent. Mike lets out a little giggle of his own, breaking it apart a second time.

“What are you thinking?” he asks, mumbling, muffled only because he won’t dismantle the kiss fully, and Will’s own lips are stopping the words before they can get all the way out.

Will blows out a puff of air, which makes Mike pull back, a bigger laugh spilling out of him. “Stirring the macaroni,” Will answers, because he’s not about to tell Mike that he was thinking about his mom while they were kissing. Before Mike can answer – or call him on his bullshit – Will swivels back around, retrieving the spoon from the counter and giving the macaroni one last, halfhearted stir before he’s moving it off the burner entirely and turning the stovetop off.

“Very mindful of you,” Mike comments. He stays attached while Will grabs the pot and turns around towards the sink, both of them somehow sidestepping Carrie, who is still hovering by their feet.

“One of us should be,” Will bites back, but it’s a playful thing, and Mike knows it. Will reaches up to the pot rack that hangs above the sink to grab the strainer, and makes quick work of letting the water wash down the drain. Normally, he’d carry on, would move to grab the butter and milk from the fridge and the abandoned cheese flavor packet from the counter, but Mike is (kind of, very) preventing that, so he leaves the strainer with the noodles in the sink and turns back in his arms, smiling up at him.

“Yeah?” Mike asks, also clearly not caring about the mac and cheese anymore. He lifts one of his hands to Will’s face and runs his thumb over Will’s upper lip, smoothing over the hair there. “You gonna shave this off, then?”

Will actually does scowl at him, now. “You like the mustache,” he says, and it is meant to be a defense, but it comes out as a demand.

Mike laughs again. “I like you,” he corrects. His thumb does another pass, sweeping over the hair again before trailing down to Will’s bottom lip. Will shudders.

“You love me,” Will revises, more correct than Mike’s correction. Mike’s thumb stays on his lip as it moves with the words.

“I love you very much,” Mike confirms. He brings his other hand up to cup at Will’s face, and he cradles it in his hands as he tilts it back so that he can kiss Will again, dry and warm and just as much his home as the walls around them and the cat with her belled collar dancing at their feet and the macaroni sitting in the strainer behind them. He pulls away too soon, but it’s to plant a kiss at the corner the corner of his mouth, the apple of each cheek; to trail them along his jaw, behind his left ear, and then along and behind his right; and all the way, between each one, two words: “Welcome home.”

Objectively, he’s a little late with the sentiment.Objectively, the macaroni is getting cold, and it’s going to be hard to mix in the cheese flavor. Objectively, just like one of her fathers, Carrie is quickly approaching the point where she is not going to take kindly to getting ignored much longer.

Subjectively, Will doesn’t care, and pulls Mike’s mouth back to his.

#byler #byler ficlet #byler fic #byler fanfiction #wiseatom minis #i did NOT fucking edit this so please ignore any typos or grammar mistakes i will fix them in the morning #i have to be up for work in 4 hours hahahee #btw their cat's name is carrie fisher lol but i think it's funny when cats have ppl names and so i kept her on a first name basis #also fun fact this is 3k and mike doesn't even show up until halfway thru <3 #silence mike wheeler 2k23 (jokes)#if you enjoyed you are free to send me more prompts from tht list!

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