Chapter Text
Moving into the Wheelers' house was a strange experience. The loud hustle and bustle that erupted every morning, with overlapping voices over breakfast, the house then becoming sparce as others got on with their to-do list, made the space feel absent despite the number of people living there.
Will learned to adapt pretty quickly. He always did, but the feeling of belonging hadn't quite settled in yet despite the months passing. In his defense, he never quite fit in anywhere, so he was used to those thoughts settling in his head.
Volunteering at the local shelter kept him busy, making lunches for families, sorting through donated clothes, but the stares and passing comments were hard to shake off.
“Zombie boy.” A boy had said as he ran past him. Whatever. That boy's house might have been destroyed in the ‘earthquake’; otherwise, he wouldn't be here. Kids are mean, no matter if the world is ending.
Will was on folding duty today. He had Lucas on his team, so time didn't drag on. They both had their Walkmans and headsets with them and settled easily into a rhythm of sorting clothes by size.
Lost in his head, hands mechanically folding the shirts, is when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked to his left, but Lucas was still working on figuring out what size jeans he was holding were. Confused, he looked around to his right a little and saw a pair of legs.
“Will?” A muffled voice called.
He slid his headphones off and looked up to find Mike towering over him.
“Hey Mike,” a small smile crossed his lips, “What do you want?”
“Ah, nothing really. I just wanted to know if you are done folding yet.”
Will looks around at the mountain of clothing, piled around, noticing Lucas has stopped his task to join the conversation.
“Obviously not.” Lucas chimes in with a playful scoff.
“Well, yeah, I can see that, but like, have you done enough to the point where you can have a break?” He looks annoyed, but Mike always has that ‘the world pisses me off’ kind of face. He turns to Will, and his face softens slightly. The face he only reserves for Will.
“Um, I- yeah, I guess we can have a break. Just let me finish folding this pile, there's only four shirts left.”
Mike joins them on the floor, helping Will with his small pile so they can finish quicker. He has noticed that at some point, living with the Wheelers, Mike has become weirdly clingy.
He welcomes it, of course. It feels just like old times, when Mike would tail him every time he could, constantly in his personal space. Though he enjoys this, the sudden influx of attention feels like a switch being flipped.
When they first moved in, there was too much going on to navigate their friendship, despite their promise to be best friends again. But then everything settled, and things stayed the same. It wasn't like they weren't talking, but it felt like they were acquaintances who just happened to be roommates, a quick ‘good morning’, cleaning dishes together without a word other than ‘can you pass the plate?'
But then, around two months in, Mike came in late after seeing El, and instead of heading straight to his warm room upstairs, he came to the basement and just talked. Like, really talked. It felt like such a 180° that Will almost had a hard time keeping up with the sudden change. They talked about everything and nothing until they couldn't keep their eyes open, and Mike left with a huge yawn. Will honestly thought that they would go back to before, not really talking to each other, but at breakfast, Mike sat his chair so close to his that they might as well have been sitting on the same seat, talking about his adventurous dream animatedly. Karen had looked at them with a fond expression, happy that they were back to being inseparable best friends.
So when they exited the building, Lucas in tow, they were walking so close that one wrong move and they could trip over themselves.
“I put those drawings up in Max’s room, right in front of her, so when she wakes up, itll be the first thing she sees. After me, of course.”
“Yes, of course.” Mike jokes playfully.
“Well, yeah, when she wakes, she will immediately seek me out. I am really good-looking after all, so I wouldn't blame her.” Lucas jests back.
Mike laughs, that laugh he does when he's being snarky in a good-natured way. He drinks in the sight; he can't help it. Mike always looks good when he laughs. He decides he should say something before Mike inevitably says some bullshit about Lucas sharing looks with some random ugly animal; he is predictable in that way.
“You put the drawings up?”
Lucas pauses his step to look at him, slight confusion etched across his face.
“Of course, your drawings are like, really good. Max would absolutely love them, especially the drawing you did of all of us.” He says earnestly.
Will looks away bashfully, and feelings of pride spread across his chest.
“You should see the painting he did that El commissioned!”
Will’s face drops a little; any mention of the painting always sends a spike of anxiety through his veins, and the lies behind it sit heavily on his tongue. Despite Mike not knowing the truth of the painting, a part of him sweats at the fact that he could know. It weighs on him to the point that he tosses and turns some nights. Friends don't lie, after all.
Lucas snaps his fingers in recognition.
“That one! Yeah, honestly, one of his best works, I'd put it in a museum. Especially because he made us all look really good.”
Mike dramatically clears his throat.
“I'll have you know that it is framed above my desk,” his hand crosses his heart, putting on a strange posh accent, he continues, “Not one finger smudge shall darken such an artifact, common folk shall not breathe near it, Picasso could only wish to create something so incredible.” He finishes his weird monologue with a bow. Sometimes Will wonders if Mike understands how absurd he can be.
Will can't stop the blush that creeps across his face despite it all. The compliments have him feeling shy and inexplicably insecure, and he feels a need to defend the fact that the painting is not that good. He knows he shouldn't, as his friends will argue against him, making the painting seem like God came down and handed it to them personally. He wants to steer the conversation from the topic at hand, so he asks Lucas more about how Max is, knowing the answer is still the same, but it worked. Lucas’ face always lights up whenever Max is mentioned.
They finish up, eating breakfast bars Mike brought for them, and head back to finish their time as volunteers. Will wishes Dustin were here today. He misses the party being together, and the warmth he felt during their antics today only deepened the feeling. Dustin wasn’t scheduled today and is hanging out with Steve at the SQKW. He knows he shouldn't, but he always feels a pang of jealousy whenever his friend group hangs out with other people. It's stupid, but the feeling of Dustin having other people he can be himself with overpowers that ugly feeling.
Waving goodbye to Lucas, the two friends hop on their bikes to head home, racing each other only to slow down when their lungs burn from exertion, heaving air while laughing. When they catch their breath, they ramble on about whatever comes to their heads, whether it's campaign ideas or what cereal is the best.
Once they arrive at their destination, they immediately head down to the basement and sit lazily across the couch to play some video games on the Game Boy. Well, Mike is playing some level while Will watches with fascination. They take it in turns, Will being able to complete more levels than the other, gloating to Mike, who plays dead on the floor, like the character on the screen, who is also dead.
Dinner quickly comes and goes, potatoes and meat scarfed down with idle chatter, polite even. They eat as quickly as possible so they can continue doing whatever they please downstairs.
Will pulls out his sketchbook while Mike starts rifling through old comics. A comfortable silence washes between them, the steady hum of the radio tucked in the corner. The cure plays, a band Will discovered from Jonathan, and absentmindedly sings along quietly.
It's getting late, and he finishes a sketch, it's for his D&D character, the cleric, doing some dynamic poses, when a yawn escapes his lips.
“Tired?" Mike asks, looking up from his comic, one he has read a million times. Will nods, and despite them being together all day, he doesn't really want to leave it here, but he can't afford to get ahead of himself and keep Mike next to him, even when he’s sleeping.
“Okay,” a pause, Mike’s mouth opens again, like he wants to say something but ultimately gives up, “well, I guess I’ll see you in the morning.” He stands, giving a small smile,
comic tucked under his arm, and heads back upstairs.
Okay then. He sometimes wishes they could have a sleepover again, like when they were younger. One in a sleeping bag, one in the bed, talking until they couldn’t keep their eyes open, but he decides not to bring it up. He won’t if Mike won’t. Will doesn’t want Mike getting the wrong idea, putting pressure on him, or even feeling that they’re too old for this, so he lets the idea go. He is also afraid that his nightmares will wake the other up, and then he would have to explain to Mike that he’s had them for years and it’s not a big deal.
They are. Mike doesn’t need to know that.
He will wake up with a scream dying in his throat, tears lodged in his eyes, while struggling to breathe. He has, fortunately, trained himself not to be as loud as he used to be, and the fact that he's in the basement silences the quiet yells that could leak through the walls in this house. If Mike were next to him, he would accidentally startle him awake, and as much as Will wants those sleepovers again, he can't risk it. He can't risk not being okay.
Usually, the nightmares are about the upside-down. The loneliness. He can handle those well and gather his bearings in the real world quickly, but there's one kind of dream that has him guaranteed throwing his guts up in pure panic. Those dreams are rare; it’s been years since he last had one, but Will is aware of the knowledge that it could happen again. That it will happen again.
That he would see him again in his dreams.