Chapter Text
The basement smelled like must and old carpet, and Will couldn't sleep.
It had been two weeks since they'd moved in - two weeks of living in the Wheeler house, of navigating the narrow hallway between the bathroom and Mike's room, of sitting at the dinner table and pretending everything was normal when Karen asked how school was going. Two weeks of Jonathan disappearing up the stairs every night after everyone went to bed, leaving Will alone in the basement with nothing but the hum of the water heater and his own thoughts.
Will stared at the ceiling. There was a water stain shaped like a hand reaching for something it couldn't quite touch.
He'd been doing better with the nightmares. Or at least, he'd gotten better at hiding them. The doctors said they might never fully go away - trauma, they called it, like naming it made it smaller. It didn't change the fact that the second he stepped foot back into Hawkins, it all came crashing back down inside his mind. Tonight his skin felt wrong, too tight, and every time he closed his eyes he saw vines wrapping around his throat. Will doesn’t think any amount of distant doctors appointments in that God-forsaken lab about PTSD and complex trauma could get rid of the feeling of bugs crawling through his intestines.
He threw off the blanket and sat up. His hands were shaking.
It's fine, he told himself. You're fine. You're in the Wheeler's basement. Mike’s basement. You're safe.
Except he didn't feel safe. He felt like something was crawling under his skin, and he needed to move, needed to do something other than lie there and wait for his lungs to remember how to work properly. He looked around the basement, silently wishing at least Jonathan was still down here. Really, he hadn’t lasted more than the first few days before he started sneaking out once Mr. Wheeler was asleep on the living room La-Z-Boy. He had tried to comfort Will, to tell him that he didn’t have to go up to Nancy’s room, not if Will needed him down there… but Will wasn’t going to stop him. He was 16 now, for God’s sake, and he didn’t need his brother. And more than that, his brother deserved a break.
Will exhaled deeply and eyed the dark stairs paving their way up to the main floor. He still wasn’t sure if he was even allowed to wander around the main floor. It wasn’t his house, after all, and his mother had lectured him about being polite and respecting the Wheeler’s space for far too many hours for him to be casual about it. Besides, Mr. Wheeler always scared him.
Another few minutes passed, the heater whirring above him. With each gust of musty warm air, Will just felt colder. He sighed and pushed himself off the floor mattress he was sleeping on.
Will climbed the stairs as quietly as he could. The house was dark, everyone asleep; Mr. Wheeler snoring from the living room. He'd just get some water. Sit in the kitchen for a few minutes until the panic subsided. Then he'd go back downstairs and try again.
The kitchen light was already on.
Will froze in the doorway.
Mike stood at the sink, filling a glass with water. He wore an old Indiana Jones t-shirt and plaid pajama pants, his hair sticking up on one side. He looked up when Will appeared, and something flickered across his face - surprise, maybe, or something else.
"Oh," Mike said. "Hey."
"Hey." Will's voice came out rougher than he intended. He cleared his throat. "Couldn't sleep?"
Mike nodded, eyeing Will up and down, appraising and hesitant. "Yeah. You too?"
Will nodded. He should say something else, explain why he was there, but his brain felt slow and sticky. Mike was looking at him with those dark eyes, and Will realized he probably looked like a mess - hair disheveled, probably pale, definitely shaky.
Mike set down his glass. "You okay?"
Will jerked his head nervously, resisting the urge to scratch the back of his neck. "I'm fine."
Mike didn't move, didn't look away. Will could feel him cataloging details; the same way Will cataloged the exact shade of Mike's freckles in late Spring. Mike had always been able to read him too well.
"Do you want some water?" Mike asked finally.
"Uh… yeah, yeah. Sure."
Mike filled another glass and handed it to Will. Their fingers didn't touch, but it was close. Will drank, mostly just to have something to do with his hands.
The kitchen clock ticked. The refrigerator hummed.
"We could-" Mike started, then stopped. "I don't know. Sit for a bit? If you want."
Will wanted to say no, wanted to protect himself from whatever this was - this ache in his chest that intensified whenever Mike looked at him like that, like Will was something that might break. But he found himself nodding, following Mike to the kitchen table.
They sat across from each other in the semi-darkness. The overhead light was off, just the glow from the porch light providing enough illumination to see by. It made Mike's face softer somehow, younger.
Neither of them spoke for a long time.
Will studied the grain of the table, traced the pattern with his eyes. He was hyperaware of Mike's presence - the sound of his breathing, the way he'd tapped his fingers once against his glass before stopping himself. Will wanted to say something, wanted to ask why Mike was awake, if he had nightmares too, if he ever lay in bed and felt like his skin was trying to crawl off his body.
But asking felt like giving something away. Felt like admitting that he still wasn't okay, that maybe he'd never be okay, and then Mike would look at him with pity or concern and Will would want to sink through the floor.
"This is weird, right?" Mike said finally.
Will's head snapped up. "What?"
"Living here. All of us in the same house." Mike was looking at his water glass, not at Will. "I thought it would be... I don't know. Like when we were kids, having sleepovers all the time. But it's not."
"No," Will agreed quietly. "It's not."
"Is the basement okay? I know it's probably-"
Will jerkily nodded again. Failed to keep his hand off the back of his neck. "It's fine."
Mike finally looked up. There was something in his expression that Will couldn't read, something complicated. "You'd tell me if it wasn't, right?"
No, Will thought. I wouldn't. I can't tell you anything anymore. Not since Lenora.
"Yeah," he said instead.
Mike nodded, but he didn't look convinced. He opened his mouth like he might say something else, then seemed to think better of it. They fell back into silence.
Will's heartbeat was slowing down. The panic attack - if that's what it was - had receded, leaving him exhausted and wrung out. He should go back downstairs. This was too much, sitting here in the kitchen with Mike in the middle of the night, both of them unable to sleep. It felt too intimate. Too close to something Will couldn't let himself want.
"I should probably-" Will started.
"Yeah," Mike said quickly. "Yeah, me too. School tomorrow."
They stood at the same time, and for a second they were just standing there looking at each other in the dim light of the kitchen. Mike's hair was still sticking up funny. Will wanted to reach out and smooth it down. He balled his hands into fists.
"Night," Mike said.
Will watched him turn around, an overwhelming desire to follow him up the stairs. To see what Mike looked like when he was sleeping now. Did he still furrow his brows in his sleep, like he did at twelve? Did he still curl up in the same way?
Will blinked himself out of the thought. "...Night."
Will went back downstairs. He lay in bed for another hour before he finally fell asleep, and when he did, he didn't dream.
-
The bathroom situation the following morning was a nightmare of a different kind.
Will had his schedule down: wake up at 6:45, wait for Jonathan to finish (he was always quick), then take his turn before Mike got up. Except Jonathan wasn't sleeping in the basement anymore, so his routine had shifted, and Will kept getting it wrong. Besides, Will’s mind was getting more and more scrambled from sleep deprivation. It just kept getting worse, riskier.
In the morning, Will trudged up the stairs still half-asleep and pushed open the bathroom door without thinking.
Mike yelped.
"Oh my god!" Will slammed the door shut so fast he nearly caught his fingers. "I'm sorry! I didn't- I thought-"
"It's fine!" Mike called from inside, voice strangled. "I forgot to lock it!"
Will stood in the hallway with his face on fire, pressing his palms against his eyes. This was a nightmare. This was actually a nightmare and he was going to die right here in the Wheeler's upstairs hallway.
"Seriously, it's okay!" Mike said through the door. He sounded mortified too, which somehow made it worse. "Just give me like two minutes!"
Will fled back downstairs and sat on his bed with his head in his hands.
He'd seen Mike in his boxers. He'd seen Mike's bare chest and the scatter of freckles across his shoulders and the way his hair got darker when it was wet. And now that image was burned into his brain forever and Will was going to have to live with that.
Stop it, he told himself firmly. Stop being weird. It's not a big deal. You've seen him shirtless before. You went to the pool together as kids. This is completely normal.
Except it didn't feel normal. Nothing felt normal anymore.
When Mike finally emerged from the bathroom, Will forced himself to go back upstairs. Mike was hovering near his bedroom door, fully dressed now, looking anywhere but at Will.
"Hey, so," Mike said. "Maybe we should like, coordinate? The bathroom thing?"
Will nodded. "Yeah. Good idea."
Mike rocked on the back of his feet, eyes flicking about the hallway. "I usually get up around 6:50, so if you want to go first-"
Will shook his head once. "No, you can go first. I'll wait."
Mike furrowed his brows. "Are you sure? Because I can-"
"Mike. It's fine. You go first,” Will said, nervousness leaking out of his tone.
Mike nodded, still not quite meeting Will's eyes. "Okay. Cool. Yeah."
They stood there for another awkward second before Mike disappeared into his room and Will finally escaped into the bathroom.
He locked the door this time.
Later, brushing his teeth, Will noticed Mike's shampoo sitting on the edge of the tub. The bottle was nearly empty, the label faded from use. Next to it was Mike's deodorant - the same kind he'd been using since eighth grade - and a comb that had clearly seen better days.
Will tried not to look, tried not to catalog these small details, but his brain betrayed him. He was an artist. He noticed things. The way light hit objects, the way colors played off each other, the specific placement of items in space.
And now, apparently, the contents of Mike Wheeler's bathroom routine.
By the time Will came back downstairs, Jonathan was in the kitchen making coffee.
"You look traumatized," Jonathan observed.
Will all but ignored him. "I walked in on Mike in the bathroom."
Jonathan snorted into his mug. "That's what locks are for."
Will glared at him. "He forgot to lock it."
Jonathan eyed him over the rim of his mug. "And you forgot to knock."
Will glared at him harder. Jonathan just grinned, looking far too amused for someone who'd been sneaking into their host's daughter's bedroom every night for two weeks.
"It's not funny."
Jonathan tipped his head, amused. "It's a little funny."
Dick. "I hate you."
"No you don't." Jonathan poured another cup of coffee and handed it to Will. "Welcome to living with other people. It's going to get weirder before it gets better."
Will didn't think it could possibly get weirder than this.
He was wrong.