Chapter Text
Every curveball life throws sets you stronger for the next. But for someone like Will Byers, problems just don’t scale in the same way. Even when stuck in the car with his mom and Jonathan, driving through the rubble of their hometown, Will has never been so sure that their minds are in completely different places.
“Damn,” Jonathan curses.
Will tears his eyes away from the hole he’d been burning into the head rest of the front seat with his stare.
“You think you can fix them again?” He hears his mom ask after a beat.
Will peers between the front seats to find the windscreen wipers stuck mid-motion, jammed by what he quickly realises is another bout of ash rain. Perhaps the stuff could be beautiful in the same way snow is, the flakes following the same ghostly arcs from the sky. But Will doesn’t need to have been in some volcanic disaster to know ash isn’t supposed to clump and coagulate in every crevice it can find.
“I don’t know, Mom,” Jonathan replies, flipping the switch to no avail, “I think they’re giving up on us.”
“Do you think we should just… take them off, then?”
Murray definitely wouldn’t be pleased if he caught them dismembering the car less than a week into using it. Though the state of the thing would suggest the stranger he ‘swindled it off’ was the one leaving with a bargain, Will is just grateful they have a functioning ride. Besides, maybe one of these days they’ll have regular rain again.
“No, it’s fine, I’ll just take a look when we get there.”
Dread pools in Will’s stomach. Nevermind. Screw the car—if the same higher power that decided to make it rain ash could pop one of the tires, or maybe even just strike the whole thing down with lightning and put it out of its rattling misery, the journey wouldn’t have to end. Try as he might, though, picturing ridiculous accidents barely does a decent job at forcing a certain face out of mind. Soon enough, even the engine exploding wouldn’t stop the inevitable as they begin turning down familiar streets. Their destination and everything it entails is quickly becoming the real, tangible future Will doesn’t want to begin.
Will wishes his biggest problem was still the Upside Down as he peers at the other two: Jonathan has begun speeding up as the wheels struggle to make the last few turns, and his mom helplessly watches the darkening skies.
Will knows he has to resign to his fate at this point. Out of anyone, he’s tasted the bitter dregs of defeat far too many times to let such silly battles get the better of him. Still, the mere sight of Mike’s house with none other than the boy himself stood guard by the door sends Will’s heart plummeting into oblivion as they pull into the driveway. It’s gonna be a long—God. He doesn’t even know how many weeks they’re gonna be staying here.
“Hey, good to see you!” Mike says, barely waiting for Will to collect himself as he steps out.
“Yeah, you too.”
Something about that crooked smile lets something settle in Will’s chest, but Will knows damn well his face is showing as anything but relaxed. He’s been burnt enough in the past month to finally give pride some thought. Before another moment can pass and force Will into doing something stupid like hug the boy to fill the silence, he turns back towards the car.
“Oh shit yeah,” Mike says, “Do you guys want a hand with anything?”
It’s not like they really have much to unpack, just two boxes of food and clothes donations from the shelter. Jonathan has already got one out of the trunk, and Will lifts the other out with ease. Besides, neither of them are wearing anything particularly protective against the rain that’s refused to stop.
“Don’t worry about it, you should probably get inside,” Will almost mumbles as he makes a beeline for the front entrance. Jesus, he knows he’s making it so much worse by refusing to spare the other a second glance. Perhaps if he looked back he’d see the way Mike’s expectant face faltered and arms unfold and fold themselves again.
It’s a shame it doesn’t matter either way now.
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Will practically forges his way on to the kitchen, barely stopping to shake the ash from his hair as the familiar smell of expensive diffuser curdling with everything Mike hits him in a joint attack on his senses.
“Oh, hi Will,” Mrs Wheeler says, startling Will into dropping his box on the counter a fraction too loudly. “How was the drive here? Can I get you anything to drink, sweetheart?”
“I’m alright, thank you,” he replies before it hits him just how dry his mouth is. Will also quickly realises accepting the drink would’ve given both him and Mrs Wheeler something to do as he struggles to scramble a generic response about the trip.
Luckily, the others begin joining them, and Mrs Wheeler is busy offering drinks and conversation with his mom and Jonathan before Will has to start rambling about the bad weather or something. Nancy and Mr Wheeler also trail in, and the catching-up thankfully shifts to talks about logistics.
“Alright folks, enough chit-chat. Karen, how about you show them to their rooms? I’m sure the Byers have had enough of your fussing and just want some rest,” Mr Wheeler says. He turns and jabs a finger in Jonathan’s direction. “Now you, young mister. I’m sure you can take a wild guess as to where you’re not sleeping if you want the rest of us to get shut-eye.”
Jonathan lets out a stilted laugh and nods, training his eyes on the floor. Will flicks his eyes to Nancy, who looks a second away from crushing the can of soda in her grasp. Weird. If Will didn’t know better, he’d chalk it up to the pair being flustered. But there’s this extra strained quality in Jonathan’s polite smile he can’t quite put a name to.
“So, do you wanna go drop off your stuff in my room?” Mike asks from across the counter, circling around to Will’s side.
Hang on—Mike’s room? Did Will miss something?
Will was almost lulled into following his lead but, no, things aren’t like that anymore. Why is he pretending all of a sudden like they are? There must’ve been a mix up somewhere, because Will might’ve actually keeled over during the car ride here if he knew he was rooming with Mike.
“Honey, I thought we told you Joyce was taking your room?” Mrs Wheeler says. “You can’t expect her to sleep on the basement floor?”
So Will wasn’t remembering wrong.
But clearly something’s happened as Mike stops dead in his tracks.
“What?”
All three parents bristle at the icy tone, while Jonathan and Nancy glance at each other. Mike’s definitely always had a short fuse when it comes to orders, especially from his parents, but this time he reacts like he’s been personally offended.
“Mike, you’re sharing the basement with Will and Jonathan, we’ve been over this. Have you not tidied the place up at all?”
Mike pauses at this. “No one told me,” he says, only a trace of the previous venom lining his words. He continues walking around to Will’s side, passing him to wait impatiently by the doorframe.
Mrs Wheeler smiles apologetically, “I’m so sorry, we’ll sort i—”
“It’s fine, we can just set up now, it’s no trouble,” Jonathan assures her, Will adding a weak “Yeah” to back him up.
Cause what was that all about? Mike’s never been bothered by the state of his room. There’s not much point in reading into it, though, so he lets the thought go.
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Will and Jonathan trail after Mike, following his and Mrs Wheeler’s instructions with few words exchanged. Jonathan heads down to the basement to begin blowing up the air mattress, leaving Will and Mike to hoist the foam mattress down the stairs themselves. And fair enough. Jonathan has likely, and rightfully predicted how doubly awkward manoeuvring the thing in near silence is.
It really is laughable, the situation—Will knows this. He’s sure Jonathan would point it out to the both of them if he was any less thoughtful. However, as they both squeeze painfully through the little door, Mike buckling and swaying under the weight of the mattress, Will just softens at the sight. Mike struggles with both keeping his side up, and keeping a poker face. It doesn’t help when something twists in Will’s stomach every time the other makes some strained noise, just to meet Will’s eye with a nervous laugh.
By some miracle, they reach the bottom and quickly drop the mattress onto the dusty floor with a thud. Will finds it hard to care it’s placed obnoxiously in the middle of the basement as he flops onto it. He thinks he deserves to lie there for a bit.
“I’ll uh,” Mike says, “I’m just gonna go grab some more stuff from my room, okay?”
Will nods and closes his eyes once he hears footsteps back up the stairs. Thankfully, Jonathan just leaves him in peace, minding his own business as he shuffles furniture about for the extra bed.
For what must be at least another solid five minutes, Will lies there. The bare fabric doesn’t particularly bother him as much as it should. Not until the prospect of sharing the bed flashes across his mind, and all of a sudden it’s unbearably scratchy. Safe to say, Will grows restless again. He cranes his neck to look at the door leading upstairs – closed – and decides Mike won’t be back any time soon.
Truth be told, some part of him has been desperate to see their basement after so long. Will gets up and begins his survey, starting with the old writing desk across from him. He checks Jonathan isn’t staring at him before taking his time to soak in the details. The surface lacks stacks of homework, or any scruffy little post-it notes, or the half-finished campaign plans Will knew wouldn’t be there. All that remains is a couple of old comics and a pot of pens.
Tearing his eyes away, he looks out into the room, scanning the walls. All of Will’s old drawings have been left as they were, with some he’s forgotten he even drew joining the more familiar ones. The picture to his left displays some creature scrawled in felt-tip struggling against a blast of coloured pencil scribbles. He reaches up to feel the spots where ink has pooled and begun tearing the flimsy printer paper. Will almost feels sorry for the thing, tracing the angry black marks that form its anguished face.
”Jonathan?” A voice calls out, causing Will to jolt in place as though his fingers were brushing fire.
“Jonathan, you down there?” Nancy repeats, slamming the door open and trotting down the steps.
There’s some mumbled response Will can’t make out.
“Steve and Robin need us at the shelter, you okay to head out in five?”
Will watches his brother shuffle off the corner of the air mattress, gingerly placing down his camera. He really hopes he’d been too engrossed in its dials and settings and stuff to see whatever the hell Will had just been up to.
”Is everything okay?” His brother says, “We were just there—”
“I don’t know, let’s just go,” Nancy says before noticing Will standing around. “Will, by the way, Dustin just dropped by. He said he had clothes for you and El.”
There isn’t much time to thank Nancy as Mike’s voice booms down the stairs.
”Dustin was here?”
”Yeah, he left pretty quick, though,” Nancy pauses as she watches Mike hobble down, an array of junk swaddled in his arms. “Wait, Mike, don’t tell me you’re planning on putting those up.”
Mike scoffs as he places the box he’s been carrying onto the coffee table. Will guesses she’s referring to what he assumes are poster rolls poking out of the swathes of fabric topping the box; Will can’t make out any pictures as they’ve been rolled blank side facing out.
“I don’t see any issue.”
”Sure.” Nancy replies flatly, turning to leave with Jonathan.
Mike seems to pay the comment no further notice as he begins unfolding sheets and blankets out onto the foam mattress. There’s around half a minute, then Will realises he’s doing nothing but watch the motions. He faces the wall again swiftly, training his eyes onto the drawing from earlier. Will is well aware he looks like such an idiot.
“It’s pretty badass for a middle schooler.”
It takes Will a moment to register that Mike’s referring to the morbid picture Will is supposed to be looking at. What can he even say in response to that?
“I mean it,” he continues, and lord, Will really hopes that isn’t the sound of Mike walking towards him when he hears the floorboards creak, “All of them are.”
Will glances about the room again. Even the ones where the clearly blunt pencil barely shows up on the notebook paper? He is so curious about the reasoning behind placing what were basically doodles next to his favourite pieces, and well, the rest of Mike’s posters.
There’s about half a minute before the boy in question joins him by his side. Will probably has to say something. He doesn’t know how much more interesting he can pretend this sketch is, especially now that Mike is waiting right next to him.
“I can’t believe you still have these up,” he settles on.
“Of course I do!” Mike exclaims immediately. “They’re your drawings after all.” He says this like it’s just a common truth.
Will can’t help but smile a little. Maybe lending an olive branch doesn’t have to feel like placing a hand into a tiger’s gaping mouth.
“I guess—I dunno. I didn’t think you’d still have them after all this time.”
As soon as the words tumble out of his mouth, Will wants to take them back. He really isn’t trying to fish for compliments, he really isn’t. There truly is a part of him that assumed his silly childhood sketches would have been lost somewhere between Mike starting to sigh during campaigns and the six months they barely spoke.
Mike scrunches his face like he’s been personally offended. “That’s ridiculous.”
At that, Will just wants to roll his eyes. But heat rises in his face, and Will has never felt more betrayed by his body reacting on old instinct.
Which is made all the more worse by Mike seeming to be rooted where he stands, just… lingering.
Will can’t afford to be looking at the boy for much longer—he might just fall for those words if he does—and so he swivels his gaze to something, anything other than the awfully earnest expression Mike has started sporting.
Poster, table, door, poster… just act normal, damn it.
Wait.
The disbelief practically knocks Will out of his spiralling, because never in any daydreams about what the place might look like after all the time that’s passed, would he have predicted Mike’s goddamn pillow fort to have been put up again.
The thing really is right there by the window, just as it used to be. Will doesn’t know how the hell his eyes haven’t landed on it during the time he’s been down here—perhaps it just blended in with the rest of the tables and chairs and junk. Or maybe just his memories of the place.
Whatever.
Mike has started to shift, no doubt sensing the surprise definitely written all over Will’s face. Will lets out a soft laugh.
“Mike,” he starts, double checking he isn’t just looking at some blankets and chairs randomly cast aside.
“Yeah?”
“Did you build that?”
“Hm?” Mike says dumbly, pausing for a second before following Will’s line of sight, “Oh. Yeah. It looked kinda empty without it, y’know?”
Will brushes past Mike, approaching the thing slowly. Crouching down at its entrance, he finds that it barely reaches eye level.
“Do you still…fit?” he asks. The image of Mike crawling in and contorting himself into the cramped space with his long and lanky limbs is far too amusing to not poke at least a little fun at.
Well. The funnier question is probably, “What do you even do in here?” because in Will’s imagination, once the boy’s actually squeezed himself in, there isn’t anything he could do that wouldn’t be a million times more convenient and comfortable at a desk, or on the sofa.
But just as the question is about to roll off Will’s tongue, when he leans forward to poke his head through the blanket entrance, his hand lands on something firm that bends under his weight.
Somewhere behind him, Mike starts defending his ‘humble’ hideout, but Will pays little attention as he picks up the binder beneath his palm. It’s pretty much your average binder, with a plain cover and elastic strap. If it weren’t for the black nail polish carefully painted over the corners where the gloss coating must’ve worn away, Will would’ve assumed it was just for school.
The right thing to do is to just place it back down again—it’s none of Will’s business for starters, and likely nothing interesting anyway.
There’s just that awful curiosity, and maybe even hope gnawing at the back of his mind.
“Will, you okay over there?” Mike calls, and Will realises he’s probably been silent for longer than he thought.
Ah, screw it.
“Yeah,” he says, “yeah, I just—” and he doesn’t know why it takes so much effort to say, “I found this.”
He holds up the binder and Mike stills for a moment.
“Oh,” he says, “oh, right, that. I uh—I forgot about that.”
With the panicked look now on Mike’s face, Will almost feels guilty for prying further, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t infinitely more interested.
“Well, what’s in it?”
“Oh, um, just some D&D stuff,” Mike says, walking over, “I just thought, y’know, I was clearing things down here. Just clearing things down here for you guys, and I should probably reorganise some old stuff.”
Will nods but turns his attention back to the binder, fingers hesitating about the strap before moving to gently lift it away. There’s no way the answer is that simple, right? He peers back at Mike, who has now crouched beside him, and searches his expression for any sign of protest. Will is only met with eyes that flit downwards.
There’s no use in dragging this out any longer, Will decides. If Mike had any true objections he’d probably try unsubtly slide the thing out of his grasp, so he flips the cover open.
Oh.
Mike wasn’t lying. It really was D&D stuff.
What Will wasn’t expecting though, was to be faced with a drawing so dear to him, from so long ago, that he believed it only existed as a fond memory.
It was a drawing of their characters. But the very first one, from their very first campaign, when it was just Mike and Will.
Will is at a loss for words as he sits down properly on the floor, drinking in the details on the page. There was absolutely some guesswork to be done about the scribbles in the background, but here was the greatest proof for what Will had become uncertain about over the years: they had always been paladin and cleric. He smiles at the clear difference in skill, Mike’s crayon ‘armour’ saved by the silver lead of the pencil used to indicate chainmail.
“Ah, yeah, I thought, well, since it’s the first page I should probably have it as our first drawing,” Mike says, but Will is hardly listening, “That makes sense right? I dunno, I thought it did.”
His eyes are still glued to the paper as Mike continues, “Uh—did you wanna sit inside? Sorry, it’ll probably be—We don’t have to if you don’t want—”
Amidst the stammering, Will backs into the pillow fort, one hand holding the blanket up for Mike to join him. He begins flipping to the next page, and it doesn’t take long for Mike to settle beside him.
The next few drawings are mostly either Will’s doodles of his own character, or weapons and monsters badly copied out from the game’s books by Mike. It’s all so painfully sweet, and Will tries his best to take the pieces in at his own pace, he really does. It’s just so hard when he lingers too long on anything of Mike’s, knowing damn well the other’s eyes are also on the page, or on Will’s hand hovering, or god, probably on his incriminating expressions too, because there’s so little space between their faces when sat squeezed so tightly together.
As he continues, Will hopes he’ll have some opportunity to see these again in private. His own pictures see an obvious improvement, but Mike’s participation slowly peters out, and he almost feels dread every time he has to turn over the page once his few seconds are up.
It would also be nice to have some breathing room too.
“Hang on, sorry,” Mike says suddenly as Will moves to flick to the next piece, “Sorry, I really like this one.”
It’s a coloured version of both their weapons, and Will does admit it’s surprisingly well done.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah! You came up with the designs yourself, right? They’re awesome!”
Will recalls following the tutorial books Jonathan would sometimes bring home for him from the library until he grew tired of copying the same style they all seemed to have. For all that time spent, he sure hopes he could come up with something interesting.
“Yeah I did, thank you.”
They continue like that, Mike starting to stop Will from turning the page each time he wants another minute to point out some shading he really liked—“The types of lines you use here...they just make it look so three dimensional, y’know?”, or maybe some action scene he thought looked “Straight out of a comic!”.
It’s hard not to smile at the onslaught of compliments, especially when Mike says them with such conviction.
Especially when it’s just the two of them, and Mike’s eyes light up, his thoughts spilling out with such unfiltered joy it’s like they can’t brew in his head for a moment longer.
“Oh man, just wait ‘til you see the next one,” Mike says.
They’d been staring at a pen drawing of the main villain in one of their summer break campaigns, when Will and Mike had far more time to get creative with the designs and backstories. Mike had been gushing over the linework, and Will agreed it was one of his best so far.
“Hm?”
“The next drawing—it’s probably my favourite.”
Will carefully pulls the pen drawing to the other side.
Mike’s favourite?
He smooths out the back of the piece they’d been looking at, pressing it flush against the stack of drawings they’d already been through like the motions will help stop his hand from shaking.
He forgot he ever made this.
“I just don’t get how you manage to make me look so cool—like the pose and colours and everything, it looks so professional!”
Will just stares.
“And, and you’re so good at getting my face just right,” Mike says, “And I’m.. you made me a superhero!” He laughs. “That’s what it is, right? It’s crazy good.”
Will can only nod in response.
“All of it is.”
He feels Mike’s elbows brush his side as he gestures wildly, still talking about the drawing, talking about Will’s art and what he loves about it.
The words are so dripping in affection, Will can almost buy into a world where the past year was one big misunderstanding. The way Mike leans in just a little too close, the way his face so clearly brightens every time he has a chance to explain the details he enjoys, and the way his hand stays hovering above Will’s after pointing them out on the page…it is so reminiscent of the Mike he thought he lost.
But things aren’t the same—they can barely move without nudging the other in this goddamn fort, and they can hardly meet one another’s eyes for more than a second.
Will can’t help but think that maybe, maybe if he was a girl, this moment could be romantic.
…
How stupid.
.
“I feel like my life started that day we found you in the woods.”
.
.
For the past few days, this memory has served as the perfect wound Will can press on to keep his feelings in check.
After all, in that moment, Will was forced to surrender to reality; Mike’s future with Will was always going to be half-empty, waiting for someone else to complete it.
So why, even with the nail long-driven into the coffin, why does he still end up feeling like he’s hanging around for Mike?
“Hey, you okay?”
There’s just nothing left to say, nothing left to offer.
“I’m fine, Mike.”
Will looks up and meets Mike’s eyes. His gaze is filled with nothing but worry, and Will hates the way the pity makes his skin crawl.
“I should,” Will starts, “I should probably go help out upstairs.” He gently closes the binder onto Mike’s lap before he exits. “I’ve not really done much since I got here.”
He ducks under the blankets at the entrance and keeps walking without waiting for a response.
And Will just feels like an idiot when he feels the prick of tears in his eyes before he even makes it halfway across the room.
God, it’s so stupid. It’s so stupid that Max is in a coma, Dustin’s just lost his friend, the world is basically ending and they lost, the party had lost unimaginably badly just a few days ago, and this is what finally breaks Will.
Not once does he hear Mike call out for him as he hurries towards the stairs.
Still, as Will forces one foot after the other up the steps, he can’t help but hope Mike's eyes are still following him to the door.
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