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It was no later than 1AM, or at least it certainly felt that way, when Will felt a hand gently rocking his shoulder back and forth, he grumbled, rolling away from the hand, but it persisted.
“Yes, yes, you’re fine. Just go” he mumbled back through his arm, trying to block out the nonexistent light from reaching his eyes. It had been 7 months since he and Jonathan had to move in with the Wheelers, and every night for the past 6 months and 3 weeks, Jonathan had been sneaking upstairs to sleep in Nancy’s real bed, in her real room—rather than the mattress and couch in the basement they’d been afforded—and for almost every single one of those nights, Jonathan had shaken Will awake to ensure he would be okay being alone. At first he had appreciated it, but at a certain point it felt more infantilizing than caring. Although the past few days Jonathan hadn’t bothered to ask.
“Will?” he could recognize Jonathan’s voice anywhere, and that certainly wasn’t his. But it was still a voice he knew. One he’d honestly rather hear at this hour. It was Mike’s.
Will shot up in bed, unsure if he was dreaming or not. In all the time they’d been here, this was the first time Mike had woken him up, but it certainly wasn’t the first time Will had dreamed about it.
“Sorry,” Mike whispered, pulling his hand away, and sitting on the edge of the mattress, “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
Surely, he must have noticed that Will was fast asleep, but that wasn’t anywhere near the top of his priorities right now, “It’s fine” he replied, turning on the lamp sitting on the ground at the head of his mattress.
“I couldn’t sleep.” There was a twinge of embarrassment sitting at the back of each of those words, as if Will hadn’t woken Jonathan or him up with dumber things almost every night since he was 12, “and I heard Jonathan sneak up again, so I figured…” he trailed off.
“Figured what?” Will asked, finding his way to the edge of the mattress, just left of Mike.
“That you’d be okay talking with me or something”
“I mean… Obviously? When have I ever not wanted to hang out with you?” it wasn’t like Mike to be so self conscious about wanting to hang out with Will, they’d been best friends since they were 5 after all.
“When we were 14, and we wouldn’t play DnD with you” Mike scooched back on the mattress, leaning against the panelled wall of the basement.
Will instinctively joined him against the wall, “yeah, I guess, but I still wanted to hang out with you guys. And we had much bigger things to deal with, we were basically playing DnD like for real.”
They both let out a half hearted laugh at that. It had been over half a year since anything Upside Down-y had happened, but it still laid on front of Will’s mind every night, and as much as he would never admit it, Will knew it rested there in Mike’s mind too.
“But we were still dickheads for it,” his head fell back against the wall, “I mean you literally got kidnapped by an other worldly being, the least we could’ve done is played DnD with you for an afternoon”
“I guess, yeah, but, you kinda were right,” Will started picking at his nails, “like did I really expect that you—” he cut himself off, realising what he almost implied “that we’d never end up with girlfriends?”
“And look how well that turned out…” Mike replied standing up, and crossing to the bookshelf of boardgames that sat in the darkness across the room from them.
Will tried his best not to stare at the shadow of Mike in the darkness ahead of him, but the way Mike walked, and how his heels never quite hit the ground in between steps, and how the grey sweatshirt he wore rested ever so slightly above his hips, right along the hem of his plaid pajama pants. It just had a way of pulling Will in. He had memorized every detail of Mike over the years, he really had no reason to stare, but nonetheless he did.
Mike emerged from the shadows, a small box in hand. He cocked an eyebrow to Will, showing him to box. He laughed and nodded in return, moving to sit just in front of his pillow, Mike sitting across from him at the foot of the bed. “Go Fish?” Mike asked, opening the box, and beginning to shuffle the deck.
“God, Nancy is right,” Will laughed, “we really are children.”
“No, she’s just…” Mike looked for the right words as he dealt the cards, “she’s just Nancy.” They each grabbed their cards, Will rolling his eyes at Mike in the process, “You go first.”
“Give me a sec” he said, taking a moment to look at his cards: the 4 of hearts, the 6 of diamonds, the 9 of clubs, the 2 of clubs, the Jack of Diamonds, the King of Hearts, and the King of Spades. He sorted his pair out, to his side, before asking, “Got any nines?”
“Go Fish,” Mike replied, shaking his head, “Got any twos?”
“Are you kidding?” Will asked, adding his card—the Queen of Hearts—to his hand, “Here.” Mike snatched the card from his hand, laying his pair next to him. “Any Jacks?”
Mike shook his head again, “Go Fish. Any fives?”
“Go Fish,” Will looked up from the card he had just pulled—the 8 of Diamonds—to glance at Mike, his eyebrow furrowed like it always does when he’s immediately winning a game, but there was something more to it, “So do you want to talk about why you couldn’t sleep? Oh and,” he thought strategically about the best card to ask for, “any eights?”
“It’s dumb,” Mike’s voice cracking as he said that, passing Will the 8 of Hearts.
“If it’s keeping you up, it’s not dumb” Will pointed out, what he assumed to be obvious, as he took the card, putting it with and the other 8 next to his original pair. Or at least he assumed to be obvious, but maybe being the Zombie Boy of Joyce Byers was coming into play.
“But it seems so dumb compared to everything you’ve been through. Any Jacks?” Mike looked up, clearly over thinking his next sentence, “I’m not even sure you’d get it anyways.”
Will rolled his eye as he handed Mike his Jack, “Just because I’ve been through bad stuff doesn’t mean you haven’t either,” he tried to meet Mike’s eyes as he spoke, but Mike’s eyes were glued to his cards, “like, dude,” Will cringed a little at his own word choice, “you saw what you thought was my dead body when you were 12, that’s like, not normal. Any twos?”
Mike passed the 9 of Hearts, “Any Kings?” Will laughed, and shook his head, “You're kidding me?”
“Dead serious. Go Fish!” Will laughed, as Mike resentfully took a card from the pile, adding it to his hand, “And, just because I might not get it, doesn’t mean it’s not worth talking about… Sometimes it’s good to just”
“Say it?”
“Yeah” a bold assertion from the boy who can barely look Mike in the eye over what he’s left unsaid between the two, “Any 6s?”
“Are you cheating?” Mike’s eyes widened, looking at the card he just drew to his hand, “There’s no way you’re not cheating!”
“How!” Will laughed, dodging Mike's reach for his hand of cards.
“If you’re not cheating, then let me see!” Mike made another reach, Will leaning further back to doge him
“So you want me to let you cheat? Shameful, Micheal” Mike reached again, making Will fall flat on his back.
“You’re total cheating” He laughed at him, resting his hand next to the red face Will was shielding with his cards.
“No you’re just bad at…” Will realised the incriminating position the best friends had found themselves in, clearing his throat before continuing, “Go Fish.” He’d trained himself not to get lost in Mike’s eyes anymore, but God was it ever hard not to; they were like a blackhole, sucking him in, and at any moment they could decide they weren’t going to let Will go this time.
The tension in the air as Mike leaned over top of him could've been cut with a knife, as time froze for a moment. But of course it didn’t last, good things never last for Will. The guttural cough of Ted Wheeler a floor away pressed play on time once again. The look of playfulness on Mike’s face was quickly washed over with horror, as he sat back up, leaving Will staring at the shadowed ceiling.
“Sorry I kinda,” Will sat back up, faced with Mike kneeling on a mess of cards, “fucked up the deck.”
“It’s fine,” Will instinctively started to put the cards back into a neat stack, “it’s a bit late for Go Fish anyways.” He put the stack of cards in Mike’s hands, the tips of his fingers brushing Mike’s palm just enough to make his heart flutter.
“Yeah,” Mike’s eyes were locked onto the cards, “yeah, you’re right,” he searched around for the box, “can we just like… Talk, instead?” sliding the deck into the box, and tossing it aside, as he stood up. “You want a blanket?” he asked Will, who was still sitting cross legged on the mattress, as he grabbed the box of cards, “it’s like hella cold down here.”
“Hella?” That was the first time he’d heard that word used since he was in California. He couldn’t help but let out a little laugh at how absurd it sounded coming out of the mouth of Mike. Mike rolled his eyes as he walked over to the basket of blankets that his mom had left next to the dryer, grabbing just one, small, pink blanket with a matching satin trim. “Wait” Will called out as Mike started heading back.
“Too late!” Mike laughed while unfolding the blanket, “I gave you a chance and you chose to be mean.”
“You barely gave me a chance!” Will hit back, and Mike flopped down on the mattress facing him.
Mike looked at Will for a moment, considering all his options “fine… fine… we can share.” The sarcasm on the last word stung Will a little more than it should have.
“So generous,” Will laughed, tugging just enough of the blanket to cover his lap.
“Mike the generous, is what they call me” Something changed in his face as he said that.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Will asked, his hand momentarily reaching to comfort his best friend, before feeling it hit the imaginary forcefield that he had built between the two, and redirecting his hand to his own shoulder.
“Yeah I just…” Mike trailed off, his eyes drifting to the floor beside Will.
“Mike.” Will used a serious tone that he rarely brought out against him. It would be wrong of Will to say that this was out of character for Mike, he isn’t one to talk about emotions, or at least not his emotions. That was the very thing that killed his relationship with El, afterall. “You can’t be a stone faced warrior all the time, you know. You’re allowed to like”
Mike cut him off, “Feel?” their eyes met once again, Will nodding. “I… I do feel, it’s just,” he seemingly got annoyed at his own thoughts.
“You feel like a burden?” Mike nodded along with what Will said, “Mike, if anyone. Anyone. Isn’t going to think you’re a burden for having feelings, it’s probably the guy who got kidnapped by a real Dungeon and Dragons monsters, who also happens to be your best friend of a decade.” There was a momentary pause as Mike collected his thoughts, his Adam’s Apple bobbing as he thought. He opened his mouth to speak, but his sentence got trapped in his throat, “and you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t feel comfortable with, but… It’ll help if you at least talk about some of it.”
“Have you ever felt like a freak?” he had finally found the words, his eyes looking for anything to focus on. Is he serious? Was the only thing Will could think, did Mike seriously think that the same boy whose ‘dead body’ he saw, and then came back to life, never felt like a freak? The same boy who had been called every variation of a queer and a fariy, never felt like a freak? The same boy that he had been bullied alongside their entire lives, never felt like a freak? The confusion read across Will’s face, intentionally or not, as Mike tried to correct himself, “Well like obviously. Okay not obviously. But. I’m sorry. Um. I guess what I’m trying to say is like feeling like there’s some part of you that’s just like. Broken?”
“Yeah, you could say that.” Will knew a thing or two about thinking there was a part of him that was broken. If he was being honest, he still felt like he was broken. But he couldn’t just say that. Not to Mike. Not to the boy who made him realise that he was ‘broken.’
“Sorry. I’m not saying that there’s a part of you that’s broken. I guess, I mean me. There’s a part of me that’s broken” his voice hitched in his throat on the last word, admitting something that he had lodged so deep down that it was trying to hold on before being brought out into reality. Before being made real. His body moved as if he was trying to escape his own skin, he wanted to let his consciousness run away, leaving the hollow shell of Mike Wheeler in the basement next to Will. He readjusted to be leaning against the wall, his knees to his chest, dragging the blanket with him and off of Will.
“You’re not broken, Mike.” He moved next to the ball of nerves that had taken the form of his best friend, tucking himself back under the blanket.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that”
“You’re not–”
“I like someone.”
Someone? Not ‘a girl.’ Someone. Which came out as only a small “Oh.”
“And I feel like such a monster.”
“You’re not a monster for moving on, from El…” In the midst of the conversation, Will had completely missed that he and Mike had ended up pressed side to side. Their sweaters and pyjama pants moving in synchrony against one another with every word and breath.
“Is it really moving on if you’re in the same friend group?” Oh? “It’s not like that friend can like me back, not that they would even if they could” Oh. And suddenly being pressed side by side felt far less meaningful.
Max. “I mean, we all deal with grief differently.” Of course he meant Max. Obviously he meant her. And Will was stupid for thinking that it could have been anyone else.
“I guess,” his head tilting towards Will as he spoke “I just don’t know if it would really count as grief.”
“Preemptive grief,” their eyes met in between the two, after so long of avoiding the other’s eyes at any cost. But, the only thing behind Mike’s eyes was fear. “Not like that. Just like a worst case scenario. You know?”
“Do you really think?” Those big doe eyes piercing Will once again.
“I mean, given the circumstances? It’s not impossible.” He'd assumed they’d all considered that option. Max hadn’t been in good condition, and it really hadn’t gotten that much better. Sure, her bones had healed, but there had been no sign that she was any closer to waking up, and even if she did, there was no promise she’d ever really be Max again.
“But, nothing’s happened in so long. It’s all been so… Normal”
“She’s still in a coma” Mike’s eyes widened, and his face dropped at those words.
“Did you think I–” his brows furrowed deeper together, “No. I don’t,” his mouth moved but nothing came out, “I couldn’t do that to Lucas.”
If not Max, that left his own older sister, and that was out of the question. His older sister’s ex boyfriend’s co-worker, which seemed unlikely. One of his best friend’s kid sister, which was even more out of the question. And if not one of them, then someone had to be…
“Mike?” Will’s eyes locked into Mike’s, but they were already locked on his.
“Will.” Mike’s chest started raising and falling at an almost inhuman rate.
“If it’s not,” his voice trailed off before he could finish his thought.
Mike’s chest was rising and falling at an even more rapid pace, his eyes rapidly flashing between Will’s eyes and his mouth. His lips.
The air between them was tight. Tighter than it had been while they were playing cards. Their sides still pressed one to the other, neither daring to move, not even an inch. It was as if there was an unseen force pushing them towards one another, completely beyond their control. Mike’s outer hand drifted out from under the blanket, flowing across and up the two of them, situating itself on the side of Will’s neck, the warmth felt like a combination of everything Will had ever dreamed of. There was a moment of pause in Mike, a search for any approval of what they both knew was about to happen, Will let out a small nod and that was all that Mike needed to see. His grip on his best friend got just a little tighter, and the force pushing the two of them together finally won. Their lips met, and there were fireworks in every inch of Will’s body, pulling his hands from his sides and landing them on either side of Mike’s face.
The warmth of their touching lips and bodies, filled him with a sense of relief—of peace—that he never knew he could feel. A feeling he never thought that he would get to feel. But he was. And it was with the only person who he could have ever imagined feeling it with.
He savoured every moment as if at any second he was going to wake up, and realise that none of this was real, and he would wake up cold and alone in the Wheeler basement like every night of the past 8 months. They pulled apart, only when they ran out of breath. Their hands remained unmoving and eyes opening, sharing a stare that knew their friendship would never be the same again. But, it told Will that it was real. That this was really happening.
“Will?” Mike let out in the tiniest whisper after he caught his breath.
“Yeah?”
“It’s you.”
“I know.”
“It's always been you.”