Archive of Our Own

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Hawkins, Indiana, October 11th 1985

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It's been exactly three weeks since they left.

Mike rereads the letter from Will, the first he’s received since the Byers’ departure, for what feels like the hundredth time today. 

He’s been holed up in his room ever since he discovered the slightly crumpled envelope waiting for him on the kitchen counter, complete with a crooked stamp and Will’s elegant handwriting adorning the front.

He rereads it religiously, his eyes meticulously scanning every letter, if only so he has a rational excuse for reading the very last line again and again and again: Yours, Will. Yours. Mine, Mike thinks. 

That, and a short line thrown in between questions: I miss you guys. Mike likes to imagine that it’s Will’s encrypted way of saying he misses him. Wishful thinking will be the death of him. 

He doesn’t know why he wants Will to miss him, why he cares so much that Will signed the letter ‘yours’. There are a lot of ‘why’s in Mike’s life that he doesn’t care to delve into. Or rather, that he doesn’t want to delve into (because, who is he kidding? He definitely cares). He desperately wishes he could stop dwelling on the ‘why’ and just be grateful for the words that Will wrote by hand, especially for him. 

Mike reads, and reads, and reads, to the point where he’s almost sure he could recite the letter off by heart. He feels the smooth, leathery texture of the paper between his fingers. He smells the sharp scent of the ink Will used. He sees, in excruciating detail, every indent in the paper where the pen was dug in too harshly, every wrinkle marring the page. 

He has good days, where the intensity with which he misses Will is softened and dulled by the presence of Lucas, Dustin and Max, and he has bad days, where the severe, acute heartbreak of missing his best friend crashes into him in full force. 

And all of a sudden, the letter Mike holds in his hands feels far too real. A physical, tangible, written reminder that Will is really gone. That he really isn’t just a bike ride away anymore. 

The paper crumples in his hand, his knuckles turning white as he grips the letter like a lifeline. Like it’s the only piece of Will he has left. 

In some ways, he supposes that it is. 

Sure, he has Will’s drawings, kept safely in a box buried deep in his wardrobe, but those are from a different time. They’re from before the mind flayer, before demogorgons, before the Upside-Down. Before they all changed, altered by the knowledge of this entity that lurks beneath their feet. Before they were rudely ripped from the sweet embrace of childhood. 

Those drawings are from a different Will, a different time, a different life. He has nothing of the person Will has grown into, nothing aside from the letter he now grasps like it’s his only worldly possession. 

Fuck, he misses Will. He misses his best friend. It’s been scarcely a month since he left, but that doesn’t make it any less painful. Mike wants to bash his own head in for wasting the whole summer with El. Sure, it was fun, but retrospection is a fickle thing. Will was there all along, just there, not quite in sync with the rest of the group but not quite excluded either. He was there all summer, and Mike had fucking ignored him. Mike had noticed, Mike had known that something was up, that he could’ve spent one last summer with his best friend, but he fucking ignored him. Just like he ignores everything. And what he said to Will – cruel words said just to push his own feelings away. To try to ignore what he’d been feeling for a while now. To deflect, to force someone else to shoulder the blame for how he felt. 

He doesn’t want to ignore this, he doesn’t want to push it down into the dark pit inside him that’s filled with every word he never said, but he knows that he will. But this afternoon, just for now, he’s overwhelmed with it. With longing, with yearning. With an intense desire to return to before; before what, he isn’t sure. Before Will left? Before last Summer, before those cruel words he uttered under the angry pattering of raindrops against tin? Or further back still, before an otherworldly creature snatched away his and Will’s childhoods? Before the body of a sensitive twelve-year-old boy was recovered, red-jacketed and water-bloated, from the quarry at the end of the road?

There is a certain finality to Will leaving this time, different to when he was missing. When the demogorgon took him, Mike had no doubt in his mind that Will was alive, that he’d make his way back to them somehow, that they’d find him. But now, there’s no hope of Will randomly springing up on their doorstep, of him emerging from some secret, hidden, ‘other’ world. Nothing about his disappearance is supernatural this time; he left, with his family, for totally normal reasons. Well, other than the whole getting-away-from-the-Upside-Down thing. 

There’s no way to ‘get him back’ like there was before – he can’t enlist the help of his friends to try to reach Will in the Upside-Down; he can’t use his best memories  to snap will out of otherworldly possession; he can’t sleep on the floor beside him to comfort him when the nightmares come. There’s no ‘big bad’ that’s keeping Will away; no one to fight. There’s no great evil to vanquish whose demise would facilitate Will’s return. This time, for the first time, there is really, truly, nothing Mike can do.

He feels hopeless. 

Truly hopeless. And useless. A dangerous combination. He hates feeling unable; the feeling that comes with knowing that there’s no ‘next step’, no action to take next. There is just nothing. Not nothing as just nothing, but nothing as emptiness; nothing as the absence of something. 

Someone, to be precise. 

Someone who’s painfully far away. Someone who he can’t reach anymore, not like he used to be able to. Someone he misses with an intensity the likes of which he’s never felt before (a lie – he’s felt it exactly once before; during the worst week of his life). It feels as if Will, in his absence, stole some chunk of him and took it away with him, leaving only a pit in his wake. A pit of despair. 

He wants to scream, cry, beg. To who, he isn’t sure. 

He hunches over the desk, his breathing heavy and shuddering, close to sobbing, waiting for the telltale splash of droplets upon paper.

The tears don’t come. 

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – 

Hawkins, Indiana, October 27th 1986

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Morning comes too soon. 

Although Mike never checked the time when he and Will returned to the radio station last night, he can tell by his overt desire to return his head to his sleeping bag, despite his uncomfortable sleeping arrangement, that it was far too late an hour to be out. 

He groans at the sunlight beaming brightly onto his face through the shuttered blinds, contemplating pulling his sleeping bag over his head to drown it out. As he’s about to do just that, he hears the muffled sound of voices filtering under the door to his room. 

Shit. Sounds like everyone’s awake. He can’t just crawl back under the covers now. And he doesn’t want to be the last one up – they’re supposed to be brainstorming their big plan to stop Vecna today. 

Reluctantly, he shuffles out of his sleeping bag, tossing the useless bundle of fabric into the corner once he extracts himself from it. He runs a hand through his hair in a futile attempt to tame his wild curls, hoping that the bags he can feel under his eyes won’t be too obvious to the rest of the group. 

His hopes of not being last to wake are rudely crushed as he walks into the kitchen to see not only everyone awake, but everyone mid-eating as if they rose a while ago. He stifles a groan as they all look up from their food at the disturbance that is his entry into the kitchen. 

“Look who’s up early!” Robin says with a smirk.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mike mutters in annoyance as he grabs one of the cheap enamel bowls from the counter and trudges over to the fridge. Suppressing a wince at the coldness of the glass, Mike plucks the bottle of milk from its place in the fridge door. The many eyes that had been on him just a second ago free him from their gaze as he empties the last of the cereal into his bowl, filling it with milk and returning the bottle to the fridge. He moves toward the corner of the counter, releasing a low sigh as he picks up the coffee jug, feeling the evident absence of coffee through the lightness of the pitcher. Just his luck. He sluggishly makes his way to the table with the others, still in a sort of half-asleep daze. In his tired state, he manages to shovel cereal into his mouth, his hand working on autopilot as he chews absentmindedly.

He doesn’t even notice that he’s sitting directly across from Will until he’s halfway done his breakfast. He catches Will’s eyes, the other boy shooting him a subtle, but grateful smile from across the table. A smile that says, thank you for last night.

Or at least, that’s what Mike thinks it means. Either way, it’s a smile from Will, and any smile from Will is a smile Mike is glad to see. The sight seems to clear some of his sleep-deprivation-induced brain fog, which allows him to listen in to the conversation the others are having. 

“Well, I don’t know, I’m just throwing ideas out here! We have to come up with something!” Robin exclaims from across the table.

“Robin, we are not sending more people into the Upside-Down! There’ll be none of us left up here!” Mrs Byers replies, frustration clear on her face. 

“Ladies, ladies, why don’t we just eat our breakfast and discuss this after, hmm?” Murray interrupts, trying to mediate. Unfortunately, he only spurs on the argument, Robin and Mrs Byers turning in unison and fixing Murray with equally sharp glares. 

“‘Eat our breakfast and discuss this later’?! We’re not children, Murray!” Mrs Byers exclaims at the same time as Robin chimes in with, 

“We don’t have time to discuss it later, I dunno if you noticed, but unless we get some kind of plan in the works, there is no later!” 

Mike has no idea what the time is, but he’s sure that it’s entirely too early for this. 

He flashes Will an exasperated look, noting that the Sinclair siblings are now engaged in a heated argument of their own, Lucas calling out something about ‘selfish people who take the last of the orange juice’ as Erica rolls her eyes and snaps, 

“It’s not my fault you’re a goddamn slowpoke!”

Will returns Mike’s look with a knowing sigh, his face reflecting the tiredness that Mike feels. Seeing how the other boy’s shoulders droop as he stifles a yawn, Mike feels guilty for keeping Will up so late. But mixed with the guilt is a strange sort of satisfaction. While, yes, Will definitely appears tired from last night’s activities, he also seems somehow… lighter, like he’s released a burden that’d been weighing on him. Maybe it’s just Mike’s wishful thinking, but he would like to believe that their talk at the creek last night (or this morning – who really knows?) helped Will let go of some of the turmoils that have been plaguing him.

Mike drops his eyes back down to stare blankly into his cereal, still feeling the effects of their late-night escapade as the arguing continues around them.

Eventually, the others begin getting up, one by one, and clearing their plates, the heated discussions dissipating as breakfast ends. Mike is grateful for the lack of noise, giving him a moment to collect his thoughts as he too rises from his seat and moves to the sink to rinse his bowl. Still not fully woken up yet, Mike fails to notice someone else also walking to the sink and bumps his arm into theirs. “Uh, sorry,” Mike mutters. As he goes to squeeze in beside the other person, he notices that it’s Will. Their hands brush lightly as Mike holds his bowl under the water next to Will’s plate. Mike tries not to think about how that touch, that tiny, barely-there graze of fingers, makes him feel so alive. 

“Oh, uh, hey,” He says, giving Will a smile that he hopes masks his tiredness, the gentle sound of water running over steel feeling strangely soothing.

“Don’t they realise it’s too early for arguments?” He asks, trying to coax a laugh from Will. The other boy just smiles in return, a small grin that lights up his face as he stares down into the sink, not meeting Mike’s eyes. 

“Thank you,” Will says quietly. Mike pinches his brows together in confusion, before Will elaborates, tilting his head upwards to look at Mike.

“For- for helping.” He states simply, his hazel eyes finally staring into Mike’s, a warm glow within them. A warm glow that Mike is struck dumb by. 

“I- uh, yeah, no- no problem,” He mumbles out, extracting his arms from the sink and resting his dish on the drain board. He watches in silence as Will leaves the room, presumably to find the others. Realising that they’re probably about to start properly brainstorming a plan to stop Vecna, he moves to follow Will, shuffling drowsily across the floor into the next room. 

He can hear the arguing already, raised voices wafting through the air to greet him at the doorway. Sighing, he walks inside and takes a seat next to Lucas. He would’ve sat next to Will, except the other boy is boxed in by Robin on one side and his mother on the other, directly across from Mike. As Mike settles into the couch, he attempts to tune in to the current conversation.

“I’m just saying, we need to find some way to get them back here. We can’t just leave them in there alone!” Robin exclaims worriedly.

“They’re not alone, they’re all together now! El’s in there, and Hopper, plus all his weapons. And I’m sure Nancy has some type of firearm on her. I agree, we can’t just leave them there, but sending more people in right now isn’t going to get us anywhere, it’s just going to get more people stuck. Not to mention, we don’t even have a way in anymore, now that they know about the tunnels. And I’m sure the MAC-Z will be more guarded than ever.” Mrs Byers responds, compassionate, but still adamant that they shouldn’t send any more people into the Upside-Down.

“We don’t have a way to get them out safely anymore either, so even if we managed to break in, we’d have no chance of getting back out again without getting arrested.” Lucas pipes up from beside Mike.

“I think the first step is getting back in contact with them – we can find out how they’re doing in there, make sure that they’ve all found each other, and make sure that everyone’s okay – well, as okay as they can be considering that they’re stuck in the Upside-Down. And we can warn them about the military – tell them that they can’t get back out the way they got in, maybe one of them will have an idea for another way to get out.” Mrs Byers suggests.

“Well, yeah, but how do we talk to them? Didn’t they take all the telemetry tracking gear with them when they drove Steve’s car into the Upside-Down?” Murray asks.

“Yeah, they did, but Dustin tampered with it somehow – he built in some way to triangulate the tracker’s position without all that stuff, just in case. I mean- obviously it’s gonna be a lot more tedious and take way longer than if we had the car, but he wrote it down somewhere, and I helped him out for some parts of it. I’m sure if we found his notes, I could figure it out. With some help, of course.” Will supplies, looking at Mike as he speaks the last sentence.

“Yeah- yeah, I remember him telling me about it a few months ago. Something to do with, uh, remote data transmission, I think. He told me about, like, blueprints, or something, that he made. They’re probably down in one of those cabinets in the basement. I’m sure Will and I can figure it out.” Unable to help himself, Mike lets out a loud yawn, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth. This singular action causes a ripple effect, drawing a similar yawn from everyone in the room. 

“Hold on a second. Did anyone get a decent sleep last night?” Erica asks, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. Mike and Will sheepishly meet each other’s eyes across the room, the action – thankfully – going unnoticed by the rest of the group.

“Yeah, well it’s kinda hard when your bed is, y’know, the floor!” Lucas exclaims from beside him, annoyed at his sister’s obvious question. Everyone else nods their agreement, and Mike notices the familiar darkness under the eyes of everyone in the room.

“Anyways, sleep is, like, totally not our main priority right now,” Robin interjects, clearly trying to steer the discussion back to their friends in the Upside-Down.

“Well maybe it should be. How can we expect to take on Vecna if we’re all still half asleep?” Lucas replies. He makes… a surprisingly good point, Mike thinks. Vecna uses people’s minds against them, and without sleep, their mental barriers will be even weaker. Meaning it’ll be that much easier for Vecna to get in. Before he can voice this, Will speaks his own thoughts aloud, mirroring Mike’s thinking.

“Henry, he… he gets into your mind, and he uses your experiences – your memories – against you. If you know the signs, if you know what to look out for, you can keep him away from the things he could use against you, or run to happy memories and hide. But if- if we’re all barely rested…” He trails off, letting them fill in the blanks. Then we’re all even more susceptible to Vecna’s mental manipulation.  

“Hey, what if… it’s been a few days since he took Holly, so do you reckon the military would still be hanging around our house?” An idea, a dumb, stupid, useless idea, is forming in Mike’s head.

“Well, we can’t be sure, but going by their track record, they tend to just catalogue, report and leave, so my guess is that they’ve probably cleared out by now.” Mrs Byers answers, a mildly confused look on her face.

“Especially after all that at the MAC-Z last night, there’s no way they’re wasting people on investigating your house when their whole goddamn base just got massacred.” Robin jumps in eagerly, gesticulating wildly the way she always does.

“Okay, well I was just thinking, no one’s using any of the mattresses there, so… maybe we could go back to my house and bring some here. Murray’s still got his backup truck, and it’s not like anyone would miss them. And, God, it’d be ten times comfier than how we’re sleeping now.” Mike proposes. He surveys the faces before him, seeing confusion, curiosity, and, in the case of a certain Erica Sinclair, abject scepticism.

“Hold on a damn minute. Let me get this straight: right now, we’re trying to find a way to rescue everyone from the Upside-Down, seal the gates forever, and kill Vecna to stop the end of the world, and you want to go back home to your own cozy bed because your back’s a little uncomfy?!” Erica exclaims, incredulously, staring at Mike with an eyebrow raised in disbelief.

“Well- I- it’s not- it’s not because of my back, it’s-” Before his senseless rambling can discredit his plan any further, Robin interrupts, thankfully, in his defense.

“Hey, maybe Wheeler’s onto something here – we can’t win a mind-fight against One if our minds are, well, exhausted.” Her response is unusually calm, her eyes staring deeply into a spot on the wall behind Mike as her brow furrows in concentration, seemingly experiencing some sort of realisation. Abruptly, Robin sits up straight, eyes clear again, no longer staring into space. 

“Wait – that was one of the symptoms, wasn’t it?” She asks suddenly. 

“…symptoms??” Lucas asks from beside him, voicing their collective confusion. Or at least, Mike thinks it’s collective. He, for one, has absolutely no clue what point Robin is trying to make right now. She’s stood up from her spot on the couch by now, and she’s currently pacing around in the small space between the coffee table and the sofa where she was previously seated.

 “Nightmares, headaches, hallucinations… sound familiar?” She gestures animatedly with every word, imploring them to understand whatever it is she’s trying to convey. Unfortunately, she has no such luck, with every member of their group staring back at her with, if it’s even possible, more confusion than before.

“Vecna’s curse,” She exclaims with an irritated sigh, clearly frustrated that no one is understanding whatever point she’s trying to get across.

“Nightmares, headaches, visions – they’re all things that lead to a lack of sleep – things that cause exhaustion…?” Understanding seems to bloom on Will’s face at that, but they still wait for her to elaborate further.

“Every symptom of Vecna’s curse feels like it’s designed to be mentally taxing. Because that's the goal! Making his victims’ minds more vulnerable to his influence. The symptoms weren’t just side effects of Vecna’s curse, they were his way of controlling them! His way of making sure his victims were incapable of fighting back. Keeping them in a constant state of tiredness made sure that they stood no chance once he was inside. Max was only able to avoid him because he was using energy to keep El away.” She’s gone back to her frantic gesturing, emphasising her epiphany with exaggerated hand movements.

Looks of realisation dawn on the faces of their group. Well, shit. If Vecna’s curse revolves around keeping his victims too exhausted to fight back, then-

“Getting good sleep might actually be a necessary part of our plans after all, huh?” Lucas mutters from beside him. 

“Yeah, looks like you nerds might actually get your beauty sleep in the end,” Erica concedes, in that snarky, sarcastic way that doesn’t really feel like a concession at all.

“Well, thank goodness we’re finally all on the same page. For a second there I was worried I’d have to, like, yell right into your ears and write on your eyeballs for you to understand what I was saying. I mean, I know you guys can be, like, slow, sometimes, but come on, that was just ridiculous,” Robin rolls her eyes as she addresses the group, sighing in annoyance. 

“Write on our eyeballs?!” Lucas echoes in not-totally-exaggerated horror that is promptly ignored by everyone.

“Don’t get me wrong, I know better than anyone not to underestimate Henry, but there’s still so much to do- so much more we could be doing. I mean, doesn’t it feel a little, well, stupid, going out to get beds while our friends are trapped in an alternate dimension?!” Will remarks, locking eyes with Mike, as if he’s asking him directly. Will’s always been like this, Mike thinks. Selfless to a fault. Of course he’d feel guilty about spending time retrieving worldly comforts while their friends and family are trapped in the Upside-Down.

Before Mike can answer, however, Robin responds to Will’s concerns.

“I hate to say this, but there's not really much else we can do. It’s not like we can run into the MAC-Z, guns blazing, and renegade our way in. We don’t have any points of entry anymore, and if we all get ourselves arrested, we have practically no hope of getting them out. Until we can get in contact with them, there’s not a lot we can do to help them, so we might as well do something to help ourselves in the meantime, right?” She speaks to Will softly, intimately, almost. As if it’s just the two of them. It reminds Mike of the way he and Will used to be, the two always able to make the rest of the room fade away with hushed conversations and stifled laughter.

Seeing the same thing happen with Will and Robin ignites an uncomfortably overprotective (possessive??) feeling in Mike. Who does she think she is, talking to him like that? That’s their thing, his thing, reassuring Will, talking to him in just the right way to make him feel safe. Just how close are they, then, if she knows exactly how to calm his fears about Vecna? And when? When did they get so close? Before he can spiral further, Will seems to soften, tension dissipating from his body as he accepts what Robin’s telling him; there really isn’t any way to help their friends on the other side right now. Which, unfortunately, just makes Mike even more hurt. Not only is she speaking to Will that way, but he’s responding. Responding the exact way he does when Mike speaks to him the same way. Calming down. Understanding. A reaction Mike thought that only he could elicit from Will.

Will seems to concede, finally acknowledging that there is truly no way to orchestrate an escape from the Upside-Down right now. However, he still clearly has his doubts about the mattress plan.

“Okay, okay, sheer stupidity of this plan aside, what about practicality?” Mike starts to sputter an objection, before Will silences him swiftly with a hand to the face, causing Mike to be rendered speechless purely from the shock of Will dismissing him so readily like that. 

“I mean, think about it, Mike, that’s like-” Will pauses as he counts the faces before him, “-seven mattresses. That’s kind of ridiculous. Do you even have that many? Would they even fit in the truck?” Will gives him a dubious stare.

“Well, I mean, between the bedrooms, the mattresses in the basement and the pull-out, we should definitely have enough for everyone. Plus, we can grab the rest of our stuff.” Mike recalls how the Byers have been residing in the Wheeler house as well, their household bursting at the brim with eight occupants. And sure, Mike’s parents share a bed, and Jonathan would sneak up to Nancy’s room practically every night, but they definitely have seven mattresses, or at least mattresses-adjacent. 

“But, uh, will they? Fit in the truck, I mean?” He asks Murray, who appears to be considering the question. 

“Well, as long as it’s on your Christmas list, Santa can deliver,” Murray jokes, earning an exasperated eyeroll from Mrs Byers and Robin, and confused glances from Mike and the rest of the kids.

“I can’t make any promises, but we should be able to squeeze them in, or do two trips or something,” Murray clarifies, shooting a half-hearted glare at Mrs Byers.

“Okay, well that’s something we can do to help our chances. We can do that, go get some mattresses to bring back. I’m sure it’ll take no time with all of us helping.” Robin says, evidently eager to be able to do something, anything that isn’t just sitting around and waiting for news. 

“Well, actually I was thinking of just me and the boys – and Murray, of course – going back there, we can all work together to grab the mattresses first, then we can divide and conquer to grab all our stuff. I think you three should stay here,” Mrs Byers gestures to Robin, Lucas and Erica, before continuing.

“Just in case the others manage to… get through to us, somehow.” She finishes, quietly, like she’s whispering a prayer that they come back safe and sound. Robin looks at her, sympathy and understanding blooming on her face.

“Yeah- yeah of course. Whatever helps the most,” she speaks softly, agreeing to stay with the Sinclair children.

–

The Byers’ old station wagon is strangely comforting in a way that Mike hadn’t expected, though he should have. He’s spent countless afternoons driven here, there and everywhere with Will in the months immediately after his disappearance, before Mrs Byers allowed him to start riding his bike around town again.

He takes the seat behind Mrs Byers as Will leans down to the passenger seat, their eyes meeting through the rear vision mirror. He can’t see Will’s mouth, but his eyes crinkle slightly as if he’s smiling, and Mike offers a similar grin in return as they pull out of the radio station driveway and down the road back towards town.

Mike is struck with the thought that Hawkins is so much less beautiful in the daytime. As they drive past the familiar landscape, Mike feels none of the awed wonder he did when he rode down this same road with Will last night. Now, he simply sees the same stubborn, hateful town Hawkins has always been, full of the same stuck-in-their-ways civilians. Maybe it is how he thought last night, and Hawkins is simply a different place when bathed in the cool light of the moon. Or perhaps the absence of sunlight just allows the dark shadows of the town to hide in plain sight, growing and festering right under their noses. 

The drive is speechless, silent aside from the tinny drone of the radio, the melodic lull of The Cars carrying through the worn speakers. 

Who’s gonna drive you home tonight? 

Who’s gonna pick you up when you fall?

Mike meets Will’s eyes again through the mirror, quickly, briefly, before their shared gaze is broken as Mrs Byers disturbs the quietude of the car. 

“So, how are you boys coping with living in the radio station for now?” Mike and Will’s eyes snap back together through their reflections. 

Who’s gonna hang it up when you call?

Who’s gonna pay attention to your dreams?

“Well it certainly gets… loud… but I guess that’s not much different from how we were living before,” Mike says, before catching his mistake and scrambling to correct himself.

“UH- not that you guys were loud, exactly, um, it was just- there were so many people, and someone was always talking, and then someone else was always talking louder to be heard over all the other conversations, and-” He needs to stop talking. Now. 

“Yeah, it’s… it’s alright,” Mike finishes, deciding that saying any more than that would probably lead to another weird ramble. He can see Will’s shoulders shaking slightly in the passenger seat, before he hears the quiet laugh of the other boy. 

“It’s nice, getting to live with… with everyone,” Will speaks up softly, his eyes darting to Mike in the rearview mirror when he says ‘everyone’. Which Mike decides must mean nothing.

You can’t go on thinking nothing’s wrong

Who’s gonna drive you home tonight?

“I just mean- it’s sorta comforting, in a way, to know that my friends are just a room away,” His eyes meet Mike’s again, not looking away this time, and Mike feels as though Will’s irises are trying to burn holes through his very soul.

Who’s gonna hold you down when you shake?

Who’s gonna come around when you break?

“Oh good, y’know, I worried that with you two living together this long, you might get sick of each other!” She says it in a joking manner, but Mike still feels irrationally frustrated by the statement. Him, get sick of Will? Yeah, right.

“Not possible,” Mike murmurs under his breath, but Will stiffens in a way that suggests he heard it. Before Mike has the chance to dwell on that, however, they slow and make a gentle turn left, signalling their arrival at the Wheeler residence, before the music is abruptly cut off with the removal of Mrs Byers’ keys from the ignition.

-

Mike swallows as he looks up at his childhood home, looming ominously over the driveway. He hasn’t been here since the night his parents were attacked, since the night Holly was taken. The rotting, black seams marring the pristine eggshell white of the residence remind him of his mother, being wheeled out the front door on a stretcher, blood caught in her hair, clawmarks defacing her arms. He takes a hesitant step inside, the stale smell of decaying black ichor bringing him visions of his sister’s hands, covered in blood, dripping messy trails of it onto the perfectly-cultivated lawn.

Pushing thoughts of that night aside, he takes in the state of the kitchen. Destroyed, cabinets smashed and smears of blood and slime and gore smattering the walls. Despite this, the military’s presence in the house is indisputable. Empty evidence bags, striking amber caution tape and heaps of those little evidence placards litter the space.

Before he gets the chance to allow the memories of that night to fully encompass him, the telltale rattle of a truck engine outside alerts them to Murray’s arrival. Seizing the opportunity, Mike hurriedly crosses the space between the kitchen and the front door, eager to breathe air that isn’t tainted by the coppery scent of blood. 

Despite him being the first to enter his home, he’s also the first to greet Murray outside. Well, ‘greet’ is a generous word – in actuality, Mike just hovers awkwardly next to the truck until Mrs Byers also exits the house, giving Murray a strange, tight half-smile. 

“So the boys grab the mattresses while we supervise?” Murray asks, grinning towards Mrs Byers.

“After all, those young legs must be good for something, even the scrawny one’s,” He continues, gesturing to Mike on that last part. Mike knows Murray knows that he’s Mike, but he’s noticed that Murray prefers not to address ‘the children’ by name. A fact that makes Mike huff indignantly.

“Murray, he’s…” Mrs Byers shoots him a warning glare before stepping closer and continuing, quieter, almost whispering, but not so quietly that Mike can’t hear.

“This is his first time back at the house, and… the way he saw his parents that night… I think we should give him some time before forcing him into manual labour. You and Will can load some mattresses in, right?” She looks at Murray expectantly, with an edge to her stare that tells Mike it was more demand than request. Usually, he’d interject, feign composure, insist that he’s fine to help out, but today he’s thankful for her keen observance. 

“Okay Will, Murray’s going to help you load some mattresses in while Mike grabs some basic supplies for all of us – like toilet paper, tissues, bandaids, blankets, anything you think would be useful, Mike,” She says as she turns to them, a warm smile on her face that makes it clear that she doesn’t really expect him to come back with anything, and Mike shoots her a small, grateful grin for sparing him from mattress duty (for now). They quickly re-enter the Wheeler house, Mrs Byers, Will, and Murray heading for the basement while Mike prepares to face whatever carnage awaits him upstairs.

Mike makes his way past the kitchen, gulping down memories of the sharp, metallic stench of blood as he heads upstairs, subtly (he hopes) using the railing to steady him. He hasn't seen the upstairs of his home since before the attack, so he's shocked by the destruction wreaked upon his room. His closet lies scattered across the floor in broken, splintered planks, his bed now a destroyed bundle of wood and foam, feathers (once inside his pillows) spilling across the shredded mattress.

Shit. Shit. His closet. Destroyed. The things inside his closet… he races across the room, kneeling in the pile of shattered timber, ripping plank after plank of wood away from the mound of clothes and assorted knick-knacks that've fallen to the floor in the event of his wardrobe's destruction. Searching, frantically, for the one thing in the pile that actually means something to him. He couldn't care less about the state of his collection of polos, perfectly-curated by his mother, or the countless itchy Christmas sweaters knitted for him by Nana. No, only one thing in that closet matters.

His fingers glide over cotton, denim and linen, blindly, frantically, searching for the solid mass that should lie beneath the mound of clothes.

There. He feels the cool hardness of cardboard against his fingertips.

A box. The box.

He wrenches it from the pile desperately, frenziedly checking for any signs of damage, before deciding that it looks relatively unharmed. He peels back the weathered lid of the shoebox, revealing the stacks of pages within, mosty organised into binders, some loose. Most importantly, it looks as though, thankfully, the box and pile of clothes has cushioned the precious pages, protecting them from damage.

Upon seeing the pages intact (though wrinkled), Mike lets loose a giant sigh of relief. They’re safe. Will’s drawings. Every piece of Will’s art he’s collected over the years. He likes to imagine that he’s been gathering pieces of Will’s soul, each page feeling embellished with an integral part of Will himself. Mike can feel the pure emotion Will infuses into every stroke of his pen, the care in every coloured line, his fingers brushing the page just as he imagines Will’s would’ve when he was crafting these masterpieces from lead and paper.

Mike is so absorbed in reliving his childhood memories through the drawings that he doesn’t register when Mrs Byers walks up to his door and knocks softly on the wall beside it. In fact, he’s so engrossed with Will’s art that he doesn’t notice her presence at all until she taps him gently on the shoulder. Which, naturally, causes him to jump as high as the ceiling. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” She chuckles, leaning down to crouch next to him. Too late, Mike remembers what’s on the papers he’s just been leafing through, so he makes a panicked, half-hearted attempt to hide the box back beneath the pile of clothes. Of course, he fails catastrophically. He’s not sure why, but he feels like these drawings of Will’s should be hidden, like they aren’t something that should be seen by anyone else, despite Will’s own mother owning her fair share of his artwork. And it’s not exactly that he thinks Will’s works should be hidden – hell, he’d hang them from every gallery in the world if he could, it’s more that Mike poring over them so intensely like this is the thing that should be hidden. Like he’s… doing something wrong, like he shouldn’t be worshipping Will’s art as reverently as he is, like it’s… intimate, somehow. Mrs Byers peers over his shoulder, easily recognising her son’s artwork in spite of Mike’s efforts to hide it.

“Are those Will’s? I can’t believe you kept all of this,” She remarks, surprised, but warm. Mike flushes at his secret stash of Will’s drawings being revealed, and he can’t quite help the feeling that he’s been caught. She gives him a strangely… knowing look.

Mike isn’t sure what exactly she thinks she knows, but he’s positive it’s something he doesn’t want her to find out. The surety in her gaze makes him uncomfortable, like he wants to crawl out of his skin and dissolve into the floor to escape it.

“Yeah- yeah, they are,” He answers meekly. She rests her hand on his shoulder and fixes him with that knowing expression again. 

“Okay, well I was just coming up to check in, make sure this isn’t too much for you,” She speaks gently, carefully, looking at him not with sympathy, but with caring warmth. From almost anyone else, Mike would jump to defensive anger at the statement, reading those words as condescension rather than care. However, Mrs Byers is like a second mother to him, she has been ever since his first visit to the Byers house in kindergarten, so, coming from her, he understands that it’s genuine empathy. 

“Yeah, I just… I mean, how much damage can one demo do?” He tries to joke, but it comes out flat, forced, so much so that Mrs Byers sees through his deflection easily. Instead of addressing it directly, though, she waits. She won’t make him open up, but she knows that he isn’t really telling the truth either. She’s always been good at this, he thinks, getting people to talk to her, really talk to her. Not by rushing them, like his friends sometimes do, or prying, as is the custom of his own mother, but by just waiting. Calmly, patiently. She’s staring at him now. Not expectantly, not insistently, just… looking. Waiting. He lets out a deep sigh. Might as well start talking if she’s just going to keep giving him that look. 

“It’s just… it’s… a lot. It’s a lot. Coming back, after… after everything that happened, and- it’s like this isn’t really my home anymore, it’s just a reminder of everything that went wrong. The demogorgon attacking my parents, Vecna kidnapping Holly, Nancy finding Mom, like, half-dead in the kitchen…” He trails off, unsure of how exactly to put into words this sinking feeling that something terrible is coming, something tied to everything that’s happened to his family. Mrs Byers has started to rub soothing circles on his back, the nurturing touch of a mother somewhat easing his worry (for now).

“I know. It’s not fair on you kids. It’s never been fair, how Upside-Down has taken so much from all of you,” She looks at him sadly, likely remembering all their previous battles against the creatures of the other world.

“But his time’s running out. We’ll get him, Mike, we’ll end this. Soon, we’ll end this,” She says it with such stone-cold conviction that Mike almost believes her.

Almost. He wants to believe that they can really kill him, that they can finally, actually, be rid of the Upside-Down and all of its monsters, but the fight’s gone on so long that he can’t bring himself to hope anymore. They thought the threat was gone after El defeated the demogorgon in ‘83, then they thought the Upside-Down had been vanquished after the gate was closed in ‘84, then they thought that they were finally done with the Mind Flayer after the battle of starcourt last year. But the Upside-Down never seems to go away completely. Every time they think they’ve finally destroyed it, it grows and seeps deeper into their world, gaining a stronger foothold in Hawkins than it had before. Every time they think the threat is gone for good, they just discover more layers to this parallel world. Worse monsters, more malicious villains. Like some fucked-up carnival ride they can never get off. Just as they plummet down one incline, back into ‘safety’, another hill appears for them to struggle over. 

He doesn’t say any of this aloud, of course, instead plastering on what he hopes is a convincing smile, and says, 

“Yeah, I know.” He pauses before continuing, deciding that he needs to do something, anything to distract him from ruminating on all of this (and, if he’s honest, examining each of Will’s drawings until he’s memorised  the slope of every line). 

“I think I’ll go down and help Will with the beds, and let Murray off the hook,” Mike offers. Mrs Byers, sensing that the emotional moment is over, is quick to shift the conversation’s focus back to the task at hand.

“Don’t let him bother you too much – between you and me, I think he just likes thinking he’s important,” Mrs Byers jokes, which elicits a small chuckle from Mike. She rises from her position on the ground next to him, and he follows suit, the two of them heading out of his room and back towards the stairs, where they find Murray and Will in the middle of an awkward attempt to shove Will’s mattress up the basement stairs.

“Okay, how many times do I have to say it? Push on three! Not after three, not on two, on three!” Murray is calling out orders to Will, who clearly got stuck with pushing the mattress up from below. Mike hears Will snap back with a snarky, “I am pushing on three!” 

Followed by a not-so-subtle mumble of, “It’s not my fault you don’t know your numbers.”

“What was that?” Murray asks in a way that makes it clear that he heard exactly what Will just said to him. Mike decides that as funny as this is, it’s time to intervene before they rip each other’s heads off.

“Hey, Murray, how about I take over while you guys go grab Mrs Byers’ stuff?” He offers.

“Finally, a child who’s actually being useful. How rare,” Murray mutters ungratefully. However, he does as Mike suggests, trudging off towards the kitchen with Mrs Byers, murmuring something about ‘kids these days’.

“Jeez, tough crowd,” Will says with a grin.

“Yeah, I mean, a ‘thank you’ would’ve been nice,” Mike huffs. 

“Okay, let’s do this thing,” Mike exclaims, grabbing his end of the mattress from where it lays propped against the staircase wall as Will hauls his side up. Which, Mike notices begrudgingly, He tries not to stare, he really does, but he can’t help but gawk at how… muscular Will’s become. How the years have turned his once-scrawny figure into a burly, toned body. And that’s all it is. Yeah. Mike’s just… admiring his physique, is all. However, this does nothing for the fact that Mike intently watches beads of sweat gather on Will’s biceps. His mouth goes painfully dry. His eyes linger stubbornly on Will’s muscled arms, no matter how much he tries to drag his gaze elsewhere. He swallows deeply, and his eyes catch Will’s staring at him. Shit. He noticed. 

“On three?” He asks Will, purely to get on his nerves, a mischievous grin playing on his mouth. Will groans in insincere annoyance.

“Just shut up and pull,” Will mutters with a sigh.

– 

“Six down, one to go,” Mike says as he steps back from the mattress they’ve just loaded into the truck. Murray had to do a run back to the radio station after the first four to free up space, so they’d just prepped all the other mattresses for transportation. So far, they’ve pillaged the basement, the guest room, his sisters’ bedrooms and the living room couch-bed. Only his parents’ bedroom is left. 

“Yeah, your bed’s completely totalled. Good thing you’ve got the pullout.” Will chuckles as he follows Mike back into the Wheeler house. 

“Not my fault a demo decided to throw my dad across the room,” Mike replies, jokingly, but his saccharine tone turns sour with the memories of his parents being wheeled out of the house, barely alive. Will notices the shift too, how the mood instantly turns from somewhat-cheerful to borderline morbid. Though they continue their short trek up the stairs in silence, Mike can feel Will’s eyes on his back, burning holes of concern and sympathy into his spine. Mike steps, easily, into his parents’ room, and is quick to position himself on the left side of the bed, reaching under the mattress, arms poised to lift, when he notices Will still standing in the hallway.

“You coming?” He asks sarcastically, quirking an eyebrow at Will’s hesitance to enter the room. Will looks up from his intent staring down towards the floor at this, meeting Mike’s eyes sheepishly.

“Yeah, it just… I dunno, it feels kinda… sacreligious, somehow, to be inside their room.” He says quietly. Almost… dejectedly, Mike thinks.

“Sacrilegious?” Mike says, incredulously.

“Whatever for? They don’t have a religious bone in their bodies,” Mike questions, confused.

“No- not like that, I just mean… I know what your dad thinks of me, Mike, and- I dunno, it feels almost, like, violating, to be in his space like this, while he’s not here,” Will almost trails off, his voice becoming quieter and quieter as he continues speaking.

Mike’s heart drops into his stomach. Of course Mike knows what his dad thinks of Will. Just like he knows that his father’s opinions are complete bull. Mike is well aware that his father was one of the parents who was convinced Will was taken by ‘some other queer’ when he went missing, and that he’s held that belief ever since. Not that Will was taken by someone, but that Will was what everyone suspected him to be – queer. Just because he was kind, and generous, and- okay, a little sensitive, doesn’t automatically mean that he has to be queer. He isn’t. Despite Mike’s projected words of accusation – ‘It’s not my fault you don’t like girls’ – Will isn’t like that. And he’s certainly not all those things they say on the television – ‘sinful’, ‘wrong’, ‘deviant’. Will is easily the most virtuous person Mike knows. Mike knows, also, that his father had a certain conviction that Will living with them would somehow cause the ‘plague’ to spread to Mike. Which has to be, by far, the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard in his life. 

“He’s not- he doesn’t- he’s just… easily influenced, is all. Y’know, all that stuff on the news just gets in his head. It’s not about you, it’s just that he wants someone to blame for, uh, all of my shortcomings. But he’s wrong, Will. He’s wrong, okay?” Mike attempts to pour every ounce of conviction he possesses into those words, saying it like he’s trying to convince himself that his dad is wrong about him, too. About his strangeness. About ‘queers’ as a whole. Like he’s trying to convince himself that the rest of the world are the wrong ones, somehow. It isn’t enough; Mike knows it isn’t enough. The words fall strangely flat and empty somehow.

Not that they’re not true about Will – there’s no way Mike could ever be brainwashed into believing those kind of things about Will – but they aren’t true about him. Every twisted word his father speaks drives into his mind like a chisel; picking away at him, bit by bit, peeling away each and every last piece of him, leaving him bare and empty.

Unlovable.

Unworthy.

They’d all leave if they knew. Every last one of them. They’d all leave him. Because of what he wants – what he is. So no, it doesn’t feel like enough to simply state ‘they’re wrong’. ‘They’re wrong’ can’t chase away the harsh reality that awaits people like him. ‘They’re wrong’ can’t erase what he is. And, perhaps most importantly, ‘they’re wrong’ can’t reassure Will that people don’t perceive him that way. Because, as wrong as they are, Mike knows that they do. A large portion of the town was under the impression that Will was taken by ‘some other queer’ four years ago. Will’s own father would physically pull them apart whenever they’d hug when they were younger, grumbling about how ‘boys don’t do that’. Troy and his gang constantly taunted Will with words like ‘fag’ and ‘fairy’. It’s almost funny, really, how they so consistently missed the ‘fairy’ who was standing right in front of them. But what he can do is show Will that he is more than they say. That he can’t be defined by the voices of bitter, smalltown bigots. That their words don’t matter, not really. If only he could take some of his own advice. 

So he removes his hands from beneath the mattress and walks carefully towards the doorway. He keeps his eyes trained on Will as he moves, and his keen observation (staring, in all honesty) makes it easy to catch when Will’s eyes flick up to his. 

“Why does it have to matter- what they say?” He speaks quietly as he approaches Will, standing just a hair too close. Then, just because he’s a complete idiot, apparently, he steps impossibly closer. He can’t help it. All this time spent together in the last year and a half has severely eroded the previously steadfast restrictions he’d put in place for himself. And – because he’s already entirely in Will’s personal space, so why not? – he can’t help his hand gingerly taking Will’s and weaving their fingers together, just like they used to. He feels Will startle at the contact, just before he hears a sharp, but quiet, inhale from Will.

Selfish, selfish, selfish, he chides himself, but can’t bring himself to tear his hand away from Will’s (they’re already holding hands, so they may as well stay that way, right?). Besides, this kind of contact between them always brought comfort to Will back then, so hopefully it still does now. 

“You’re your own person, Will, an awesome person. You’re not – you don’t have to be what they say. You’re- you’re so much more than what they say, Will,” He continues, holding Will’s gaze as he speaks. Something about this conversation feels different. If Mike didn’t know better, he’d say it feels almost… intimate. But saying that – that word – feels far too much like hope. So he pushes away the thought, labelling it simply under ‘different’ and leaving it at that. 

“Okay,” The softly spoken word jolts Mike from his internal monologue. He’d entirely forgotten that he had been waiting on a response from Will. In fact, he’s sure he’d have forgotten about Will’s presence completely if it weren’t for his acute awareness of Will’s hand in his. If it weren’t for the sparks shooting up his arm, stemming from every point of contact between their fingers. Not to mention the fact that Will is, like, Will. Mike could never truly be oblivious to him. 

‘Okay’ isn’t much – at least, not from any normal person. But from Will, it’s honesty. It’s an admission. Acknowledgement that Will understands what he’s trying to say. Maybe not that Will believes him, exactly, but that he knows that Mike really believes what he’s saying. And he does. Of course he does. He only wishes he could believe it about himself, too. Before he can stop himself, Mike gives Will’s hand the tiniest, faintest squeeze. Just to let him know that he’s here for him. And this time, he’s not going anywhere. No more retreating to the safety of El, no more half-hugs, no more going silent. He’s going to be Will’s best friend again, for real this time.

“Come on, this mattress won’t lift itself.” He jokes before pulling Will into the room behind him, brushing his thumb over Will’s before letting go and moving back into position. As he glances, briefly, at Will’s face, he relishes in the small smile that rests there now.

“Okay, on three,” 

–

After the last mattress is carried expertly to the truck, Murray makes his final trip back to the radio station, leaving him and the Byers alone to heap the rest of their belongings into Mrs Byers’ old stationwagon. 

Mike sits back where he was this morning, alone in his room, attempting to salvage what he can of his clothes.

Of the few that aren’t covered in demogorgon slobber, there aren’t many that are fully unscathed. Most have one too many threads loose, or angry rips caused by jagged planks, and some are even impaled completely by stray shards of timber. He plucks item after item from the rubble of his closet, and he concludes the rescue mission with five shirts, two sweaters (one of which is a terribly itchy Christmas model hand-knitted by his grandmother, but he’s got to take what he can get), and, thankfully, his one good going-out jacket. Mercifully, the demogorgon spared his chest of drawers, so his pants, socks and underwear are safe, along with some old, slightly-too-small polos and a few of his Hellfire T-shirts he retired when the whole town blamed the club for the ‘satanic happenings befalling the town’.

So far, he’s got two whole duffle bags of stuff – his shoes took up quite a bit of space – with the box of drawings nestled safely in the middle, cushioned on all sides by soft fabric. He’s cleared out everything he can (well, everything necessary), but he has a nagging feeling that there’s something else – something important – that he’s forgetting.

So, for the last fifteen minutes or so, he’s been rifling through every cupboard. He’s gone through the remnants of his wardrobe (again), the drawers against the wall, and the cupboard above his bed, but he’s found nothing of significance so far. Old comics, middle-school notebooks, D&D figurines, all stuff that isn’t important enough to take with him.

All that’s left to check is the drawers in his desk. He tears the first draw open, rifling though a mass of meaningless trinkets. Nothing there. He opens the second, and is faced with nothing but stationary. Vibrant highlighters, countless pencils, scissors, a ruler, a few long-forgotten unwritten-in notebooks, pens upon pens upon pens. Still not what he’s looking for.

However, he has a strange urge to take some of it. He settles on a notebook, a pen, and a pencil. Because there’ll be so much time for writing in the apocalypse, Mike. He knows it’s stupid, but he has a feeling that he might need it, somehow.

He shoves the writing apparati into a duffle bag, then moves on to the third and final drawer. He’s searched literally everywhere else at this point, so whatever he’s looking for must be in here. This third drawer is one of those deep, long ones, taking up the bottom half of the drawer space, as large as the other two drawers put together. He’s immediately faced with relics of the past.

Photographs. Stacks and stacks and stacks of them. Photos taken by his mother, over the years. And by Jonathan. There’s even some that he’s nabbed from Dustin and Lucas. Pictures of the party from the Summer of ‘85, lounging around laughing on grassy green hills – when Jonathan was trying to hone his photography skills for his internship. The four of them, dressed as ghostbusters for halloween of ‘84. The four of them in their best clothes for the snow ball that same year. There are older ones, too. A photo of their first official campaign as a party, crowded eagerly around the board in Mike’s basement. A picture of him and Will, christening Castle Byers with a playdate. Another of him and Will, during their first sleepover at the Byers house, Mike in his sleeping bag on the floor, and Will beside him in his bed. He’s fairly sure that these pictures aren’t what he was looking for, but he’s glad to have found them. It feels wrong to leave them behind, so he decides to look for something he can store them in.

He reopens the second drawer, searching, searching, until… there. An envelope, one of those large, bulky ones, leftover from when he used to send El photos from Hawkins during her time in Lenora. When he’d write to her every fortnight, like clockwork, and- thats it! Letters!

He abruptly tears the third drawer open again, and heaps the photos into an unceremonious pile on the floor. He’ll get to them later. He digs around in the bottom of the drawer eagerly, having realised what he’s been looking for – letters.

The letters.

His fingers, beneath layers of loose paper, grasp a cold, flat box at the very bottom of the drawer. His letters from Will.

And… his letters to Will. The ones he never sent.

Not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn’t. Nothing ever seemed to come out quite right on paper, the words always deforming and derailing into something ‘too much’ or ‘too casual’. Writing to Will was so different to writing to El. At least now he knows why.

He gently eases the cobalt lid off, placing it neatly on the carpet beside him.

Writing to El was simple, easy. There was no ‘too much’ with El – not because he didn’t care, but because he didn’t care in that way. Not the way he cares about Will. There was nothing at stake with El, not really. They were already dating. And plus, if Mike said something wrong, he’d just write some half-genuine apology next time, no worries. But with Will – it felt like everything was on the line. Because what if he was too intense? What if he scared him away? Or what if he didn’t say enough? what if he was too noncommittal? What if his letters left Will disappointed? And back then, he was just so confused. He didn’t know why. Why he felt the desire – no, the need – to gain Will’s approval.

And it’s not like he didn’t try – the existence of this very box is proof enough of that – there are five letters of Mike’s to each one from Will. So, like the idiot he was, he opted with ‘say nothing’. He’s just lifted the top letter from it’s place on the pile and is about to start reading it when he hears gentle footsteps traipsing toward his room from across the hall, an unmistakable scuffle of shoes on carpet. He can easily tell who it is based on the footsteps, but Mrs Byers still punctuates her arrival with a gentle knock on the wall next to the door, clearly having learned from earlier. 

“Hey, Mike, just wondering where you’re at. I’m all sorted, I’ve just got to take these out to the car,” She gestures towards the duffle bags behind her. 

“Uh- uh yeah, I’m just about ready too, just gotta grab a few more things.” He replies, pointing to his two almost-packed bags across the room. 

“Good, good. Just- would you just check on Will for me while I take these out? See how he’s going?” She asks genuinely.

“Yeah- yeah, sure, just let me finish up,” He answers, feeling betrayed by how eager he is to see Will again despite them only being separated for about an hour, if that. Mrs Byers hums gratefully in reply, before carting her bags down the stairs. He’s left alone with the letter he’s pulled out, which he lays gently back with the others, before lumping the photographs into the envelope and squeezing that in the box too.

Mike drags his now-packed bags down the stairs, lumbering down awkwardly as he tries to navigate the narrow staircase while carrying two almost-overstuffed duffle bags. He finally makes it to the bottom, dropping them on the ground next to the kitchen island, before making his way to the familiar basement door. It feels like a beacon of light in the morbid, bloody kitchen, the one thing in this house that’s still untainted by the Upside-Down. 

He opens the door gently, not wanting the hinges to make the terrible grating screech that they have been lately. Mike begins down the stairs when he catches a glimpse of Will’s hair rushing past the bottom of the stairs, likely still gathering his belongings from where they’re scattered across the basement. The sight makes him smile – it’s special, he thinks, to see Will as he is, without anyone watching him. Well, obviously, Mike’s watching him at the moment, but this calmer, lighter Will only appears when he thinks he’s unobserved. Like he can finally shed the weight of everyone’s worry for him, and their expectations. Mike knows what that’s like.

Will used to be this way when it was just him and Mike too. Unguarded, open, at peace. 

Used to.

He used to. Because time has a habit of changing things.

Mike clears his throat as he descends the stairs, not wanting to startle Will too badly. Of course, Will jumps anyway, a sharp gasp escaping him as he turns toward the earthy oak banisters that Mike is emerging from. 

“Oh, it’s just you,” Will breathes with a sigh, placing the pile of clothes he’s holding atop an even larger pile in the corner of the room.

“Oh, how you wound me, Byers,” Mike dramatises, bringing the back of his hand to his forehead and his other hand to his chest in mock despondency. He almost thinks he sees a faint blush bloom on Will’s cheeks at his joke. Almost. If he didn’t know better. Which he does. Know better.

“What’re you up to? Your Mom’s got all her stuff ready, she wants to know if you’ll be ready to head off soon,” Mike asks earnestly, shedding his mimicked hysteria. 

“She’s ready? How??” Will asks, exasperated. He takes a quick look around and sighs discontentedly. 

“I’ll probably be… a while, at least,” He says dejectedly, glancing hopelessly from pile to pile. Mike guesses that he’s had to deal with the added hindrance of separating Jonathan’s stuff from his, as everything’s gotten sort of mixed in together during the time they’ve lived here. Will’s gaze flashes to the door, then back to Mike. 

“And now I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” He groans, before starting towards the staircase. The staircase that Mike is still blocking with his body. Will really does look like he’s still got a heap left to pack, and Mike’s already done, so…

“I could- uh- help? Help you pack some… stuff?” Mike offers, gesturing to the piles that litter the basement floor. 

“No- no that’s alright, really Mike, you don’t have to-” Will is quick to refuse his offer to help, refuse to be an ‘inconvenience’, just like he always does – as if he could ever inconvenience Mike. 

“No, really- I mean, I’m already done, and you’ve got Jonathan’s stuff to pack up too, and, really, I’ve got nothing else to do,” Might as well be useful, Mike thinks. And he’s happy to help. He’s always happy to help when it comes to Will.

Will considers it for a moment, before he finally relents with a laugh, “Okay, Mike, if you insist,” 

“I do. Ah- insist. Anything, uh, in particular you want help with?” Mike supplies, eager to help in any way he can. 

“Hmm. Just packing away the piles, really. This side of the room’s mine-” He gestures to where he and Mike are standing. 

“-and that side is all Jonathan’s stuff,” He finishes, pointing to the side of the room where the mattresses were. 

“Okayy, I guess I’ll start on your stuff? Um- if that’s okay?” Mike blurts out.

“Yeah- yeah, thanks Mike, that’d be great,” Will beams at him in gratitude, and- God, Mike just wants to reach out and touch it, his smile, wants to reach out and trace those lips with his fingertips and- get a fucking grip, Wheeler! His mind shouts at him once it catches what he’s been thinking about. So, naturally, Mike abruptly takes a giant, awkward step out of Will’s way, almost tripping on some stray socks as he does. And, naturally, Will looks at him quizzically, before Mike grins, and Will shakes his head with a smile – that same goddamn smile – turning to ascend the staircase.

Right. Now – where to start? It’s no wonder Will still has a heap left to pack up – the brothers had to squeeze all their stuff into one room. And not just the stuff Mike had lent him – everything. All their belongings from California, too.

Soon after they returned to Hawkins, Mrs Byers flew back out to Lenora to pack up the house, but since they were staying with the Wheelers, there wasn’t much they could take with them aside from clothes and trinkets, so they sold off the house and most of their furniture (giving Mrs Byers some extra money – which she used to help fix up Hop’s cabin, and pitch in with the Wheelers’ expenses), but Will had quickly started growing out of the items of clothing he’d brought back from Lenora.

Since Mike had always been ‘bigger’ (taller), he’d lent his own clothes to Will, ever the gracious host, but lately Will had begun to grow out of those too. despite himself, Mike’s noticed how Will’s filled out the shirts, fabric stretched tightly over his biceps, and how the subtle outline of his abs is easily visible in certain size-too-small tees, and- whoa.

Nope. Not going there today.

From memories of the mind flayer to images of his parents covered in bloody, raw clawmarks, he’s had enough troubling thoughts for one day, thank you very much. Not that the mental image of Will’s muscular body is anywhere near as horrifying as that… quite the opposite, actually- NOPE!

Not going there. 

Anyway, that’s why there are mounds of clothes heaped around the room, since Will now has all his old clothes and the stuff he’s borrowed from Mike. 

Mike moves toward the furthermost pile with a sigh, deciding he’s got to start somewhere.

There’s a box at the base of this pile, with a heap of clothes resting atop it. And not just clothes – this pile is riddled with books shoved between shirts, stationery nestled under jeans. He gets to work de-assembling the haphazardly-constructed tower of fabric and paper, setting shirts down in an empty box he found next to the couch, left over from when they moved in.

He moves fast, efficiently, sorting clothes into the box and placing the small trinkets woven through the pile on the ground beside it, walking over to the other side of the room every so often to pack away more substantial items, like Will's art supplies.

Mike’s just placed a neatly-folded plaid shirt into the box when he reaches for the next item on the pile, and feels the cool press of leather against his fingertips. The leather of a notebook- no. A sketchbook.

The sketchbook.

The nice one that Mike bought him for his birthday this year. The one that he doesn’t let anyone near, not even Mike. The soft leathery cover is temptation beneath his fingers. He hasn’t seen Will’s art since… well, it’d have to be since the painting he gave Mike a year and a half ago, midway through their great cross-country voyage. The same painting that hung splendidly framed upon his wall until about an hour ago, when he carefully packed it in the bottom of his bag, cushioned by layers of clothes and paper. 

God, it’d be so easy to just open it – all he needs to do is slide his fingers beneath the cover and flip. A simple, quick motion. He could close his eyes and get it done with in less than a second. Just like ripping off a band-aid. Get a glimpse back into that side of Will. But he can’t. He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t.

With a sigh, he lifts it from the pile, and moves to walk towards the box he’s mentally labelled: ‘miscellaneous art supplies’. He clambers around piles and over boxes, lifting his long legs awkwardly to avoid all of Will’s belongings scattered around the basement. Just as he’s climbing over a haphazardly stacked pile of clothes, his foot connects with a stray sock that’s escaped its mound – sending him sprawling into the stack of boxes in front of him.

In his desperate scramble to grab something, anything, to stop his fall, the sketchbook slips out of his hands and falls to the ground beside him. Face-up, as he notices once he sits up. It landed face-up. He catches a brief glance of pristine paper decorated with varying shades of rich browns before he catches himself and whips his head away.

He doesn’t mean to look. He really doesn’t. But it’s laying right there, face-up and open, white pages spread across the floor like snow on a bed of fall leaves. Stark, obvious. Damningly impossible to ignore. So he glances, accidentally, at the pages on the floor below him. He looks. Of course he looks, because it’s already open, and he’d have to look anyway to close it, and-

And those are his chocolate eyes staring back at him. Those are his dark curls staining the crisp paper beneath. Those are his lithe limbs sprawling across the pages.

It’s a picture of him, but not quite. This version of him on paper looks so much more… alive. Real. Brave. The carefully shaded Mike staring up at him isn’t a shadowy ghost of a person, he’s vivid, eyes alight with something bright and passionate. 

This, this Mike, is how Will sees him.

He knows it, somehow, for certain.

Because that’s how it’s always been. Part of why Mike meticulously catalogued and collected every drawing Will ever bestowed him with is because of this – the way he captures Mike so… beautifully. Mike knows he’s not the most gentle on the eyes, with his awkward, lanky body, and his sullen, frog-like features, but within Will’s penstrokes, his long limbs become graceful and statuesque, his face becomes soft and angular, handsome even.

Under Will’s hand, he becomes someone who looks deserving of the life he has. Worthy of his friends. Someone worth keeping around. In those drawings, he can finally see some semblance of what his friends must see in him – the brave, outspoken, loyal kid he used to be. Will draws him like Mike is the sun, and he is but the humble Earth, orbiting helplessly. Will draws Mike like he is somebody, like he means something. Like he isn’t just some teenage boy who’s too afraid of being different to ever do anything meaningful with his life.

Now that he’s had a taste, he can’t resist flipping through, exploring those pearly pages.

He’s entranced. Entirely, absolutely entranced.

By each careful brushstroke, each intricately placed line.

They’re all him.

Page after page after page of Mike. Each sheet of paper carefully adorned with his eyes, his hair, his hands.

He can’t stop himself. He keeps flipping, searching for a drawing that isn’t him, but he never finds one. The book is nearly filled, with only a few bare pages left at the end. And every single drawing in between is of him, sketched in lead pencil, or painted, or shaded with vibrantly coloured pencils. Him lounging languorously reading comics on the basement couch, him sitting, deep in thought, at his bedroom desk, him smiling warmly, laugh lines visible near his mouth.

Mike examines each artwork carefully, turning the pages gently, afraid to damage Will’s work. He can’t seem to look away. He feels like he’s been here, sat on the floor flipping through this sketchbook, for hours. Analysing each better, braver version of him that appears on the pages before him. He’s so lost in it that he doesn’t notice the basement door open, nor the familiar creak of the stairs as gentle footsteps descend the staircase.

A flat, icy monotone voice speaks suddenly from behind him, a voice he’d recognise anywhere spoken in a tone he’s never heard before, breaking him away from the world of Will’s drawings.

“What are you doing,”