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The June before Will was taken lost, in the woods, The Wheeler’s sent only one of their twin sons to a family member in Maine. Richie had been having problems focusing– and much to a bigger complaint, keeping his mouth shut– and another parent in the neighborhood told them about a specialist in Derry to try and help him with his Attention Deficit Disorder, which Mike always thought was fake; that was just Richie.
Mike had never been away from his twin for longer than a few days, and he had his own reservations about the idea, while Richie was always screaming about how much he hated seafood. He was sent away later that week. By the time he returned the following December, he was a different brother than Mike had sent away.
Richie never slept well as it was, always up and reading or writing or telling jokes to Mike in the middle of the night, but since he had returned, he was restless. He turned over on his bed countless time, his quiet mumbling and groaning keeping Mike up. Their parents never suspected anything, Richie still able to keep his energy levels up to eleven and bouncing around the house, nearly breaking everything like he used to and proving their plan had failed. Mike had heard all the stories though. First, in Richie’s sleep, the boy muttering names that Mike remembered from letters, postcards, and phone calls. Eventually he got the full conscious story, trading his own adventures with Will and even introducing him to Eleven. All Richie kept saying is how much he fucking hated clowns.
Richie was asleep at the desk in their shared bedroom. Mike had been up in their room a moment before, stepping out to grab his campaign planning notebook, when he returned to find Richie asleep on his own hand. His face was slowly slipping out of his grip and his glasses were being pushed up by his knuckles. Mike sat on his bed and wrote quickly, letting Richie get the sleep his body had been begging him to get for the past month.
As if struck by lightning, Richie seized awake, gasping for air and screaming. Mike looked up slowly, finishing his sentence and not at all scared anymore.
“You okay?” He asked, placing his pen down. He spoke gently, knowing Richie was still waking up.
“Yeah.” Richie sighed, adjusting his glasses. “Peachy.”
“You’re safe here.” Mike assured him, although he had traded one evil for another.
“Yeah, I know.” He said, placing his glasses on his head to rub his eyes. “I just shouldn’t have made friends. I should have just been like you and shut myself up in my room for a year and played with myself.”
“Fuck you, Richie.”
“Believe me, there wasn’t any of that in Maine.” He said, situating his glasses back on his nose. “Apparently the impending fear of death really limp-dicks the whole town.”
“You are disgusting.” Mike said, rolling his eyes. “Forget I tried to be nice.”
“Aw, come on, Mike and Ike! Don’t turn sour on me!” He said, standing and flopping onto Mike’s bed. He was on his stomach, elbows on the bed and holding his head up as he peered into Mike’s notebook. “What are we drawing today?”
“I’m writing, Richie.” Mike explained, hating to disappoint Richie and his belief that the only thing teenage boys should be doodling in notebooks are “twigs and berries”.
“Anything steamy, loverboy?”
“No.” Mike laughed. “But it is to cheer Will up after everything. He always loves long campaigns.” Mike had been trying to make one long enough to last every day of Hanukkah coming up; even though Will would be home at night for his family’s celebrations, during the day Mike wanted him to be well occupied and happy. “He’s coming over all next week.”
“Oh yeah. That’s right. I have to call Stan after the first night. ” Richie said. “Typically, I don’t call after the first night at all, amirite!” Mike rejected Richie’s high-five and continued to write in his notebook. Richie’s arm slapped down on the mattress, a quiet grumble proclaiming Mike a “fucking square”. Mike laughed quietly to himself as he attempted to draw an illustration to his idea beside the bullet point; Will was really far better at it.
“So how is everyone else?” Mike asked. “Bill? Bev? The gang?”
“Still s-s-stuttering.” Richie replied, resting his head on Mike’s outstretched leg. “Bev’s better. Last I heard she was calling her aunt to move across town. Eddie’s arm healed nice.”
“That’s good.” Mike said, nodding along. “He deserves having use of both hands back.” He laughed, remembering the stories Richie told of Eddie struggling to open his pill bottles and hold pencils.
“Yeah, my right hand’s getting pretty tired.” Richie said, snapping his fingers and pointing at Mike as he laughed
“What does he see in you again?” Mike asked, looking up from his work. “I mean, seriously?”
“Sorry not all of us have swing set fetishes, Michael. Some of us find love in crack houses.” Richie pretended to whip his hair back. They both began laughing before Richie placed his head back on Mike’s leg. Mike placed his book next to his face so they could both look at the pages at once. Richie was quiet and watched Mike scribble across the lines. “How the fuck did we get like this, Mike?”
“Like what?” Mike continued, poking his brother’s nose with his pen. “You’re always like this. Not even Mom and Dad’s attempted normalcy therapy did anything.”
“Let me make the jokes there, Michael.” Richie deadpanned. “I meant like this.” He flopped his arm over Mike’s book and the other over the edge of the bed with an exaggerated sigh. “Fucking comparing the well-being of our friends because they are always, somehow, inching towards the goddamn grave.”
“I blame you.” Mike teased. “You’re the one who became besties with something that eats children.”
“I guess you’re right.” Richie sighed, settling his face in Mike’s leg. “I wish they never sent me up there sometimes, you know?”
“I know what you mean.” Mike agreed. Every time he saw Will suffering, he wished he had won the argument with his parents and played for another ten minutes, maybe then Will would have missed crossing paths with the Demogorgon and he wouldn’t have nightmares that consumed him even when he was awake. “But it happened, for better or for worse, I guess.” Mike closed his book and placed a hand on Richie’s head, smoothing out his hair. His fingers kept getting caught in his curls. “I mean, you made friends, right?”
“Yeah.” Richie agreed, reaching up to take his glasses off. He placed them on top of Mike’s book. “I guess so.”
“I mean, Eddie’s pretty cool, right? You won’t shut up about him long enough to brush your teeth.” Mike teased.
“Your point, wise ass?” Richie asked, squinting and looking up at his brother.
“You’ve got some things to be happy about, right?” Mike shrugged. “Six things, technically.”
“Ugh, do you have to be so right all the time?” Richie groaned, closing his eyes. “Just be bleak about something for like, a fucking day, Mike. Jesus.” Mike laughed again and kept smoothing Richie’s hair. There was so much of it, but so little style.
“Oh! You know what I’ve been forgetting to tell you about?” Mike gasped, already beginning to laugh softly. “The week we spent hanging out with Steve Harrington.”
“Steve?” Richie echoed. “Isn’t he the guy with hair like a rooster?”
“The very same.” Mike agreed. “He and Nancy had a thing for a while. So he was around a bit. Being semi-helpful.”
“He got the shit kicked out of him, didn’t he?” Richie guessed, chuckling. “That guy looks too pretty to fight.”
“First a rooster, now he’s pretty?” Mike laughed, grabbing his brother’s head and shaking it back and forth jokingly.
“Well, cock and pretty are synonyms, right?” Richie laughed, reaching up to grope at Mike’s hands, trying to loosen his grip. “Come on, that’s funny, Mike!”
“How did Aunt Ruth not actually kill you last summer?” Mike asked, finally releasing Richie’s face and letting it rest back on his leg. “I mean, she doesn’t even like it when Mom says ‘God’ in the house. Let alone you talking about genitals every few minutes.”
“I mostly stayed at the arcade, honestly.” Richie confessed. “I’d go from school, to therapy, to the arcade, then roll into bed long after they had gone to sleep. I just avoided them the whole time.”
“You did?” Mike asked, placing his hand back in Richie’s hair. Aunt Ruth always called every other week and told stories about Richie’s progress and his behavior around the house. Mike didn’t know it was all a lie. He had assumed Richie had told him everything.
“Yeah, I was only going to make them miserable.” Richie didn’t seem to be upset by the truth about himself. He shrugged and closed his eyes again, looking like he was ready for another promising nap. “But, between Stan and Bill I always had somewhere to be.”
“Why didn’t you tell Mom?” Mike asked. As much as Richie kept saying he didn’t like eating seafood and would “starve” if he went to Maine, Mike always knew there was a grain of truth to his strong refusal to go. Mike just didn’t think it had anything to do with feeling like he didn’t belong with his own family.
“Right. Like I’d tell her that her own sister thinks I’m a fucking nudge.” Richie laughed coldly. “And you’re going to tell her you had a goddamn government grade mutant in the basement because she could find your friend in an alternate dimension.”
“That’s different.”
“It’s the exact same.” Richie countered. “Mom would laugh at both things and tell us we’re crazy and to shut up– or at least she says that last part to me.” He cracked his eyes back open if only to roll them before closing them over again.
“Well now you’re home.” Mike soothed, petting Richie’s hair again. He was hoping he’d fall asleep again, even though Mike was losing feeling in his leg from Richie’s weight pressing on his knee. He wanted his brother to get some sleep. Maybe being next to him would ease his panic that he had been left in that weird well-hosting house.
“Hey, Mike?” Richie mumbled, words slurring with sleep.
“Yeah, Rich?”
“‘Re you gonna get mad if I drool on your leg?”
“No.” Mike laughed, carefully opening his book and picking up his pen. “I won’t be mad.”
“Okay okay cool okay.” He mumbled, curling his legs into his body and settling his head against Mike’s leg. “Cool.”
“Hey, Mike?” He said again.
“Yeah.”
“Thanks.”
“For what?” Mike asked as if he was asking a child. He laughed at the innocence in Richie’s voice as he tried to write again.
“Thanks.” Richie repeated. “Thanks, Mike.”
“Okay, you better stop talking before you embarrass yourself.” Mike shushed his brother, keeping his hand in Richie’s hair but stopping the movement. “Get some sleep, Rich.”
“Be here when I wake up?” Richie asked, his hand reaching up and grabbing Mike’s resting in his hair. Mike couldn’t go anywhere with all of Richie’s weight resting over his leg, but he assured him he would be. “Okay.” He said with a sigh, his body falling lax as he sighed. “Don’t do anything weird.”
“Does that mean I can’t draw on your face?” Mike giggled, dragging the cap of his pen over Richie’s cheek. “I can draw a pretty wonky looking flower.” Mike pretended to already be drawing, sticking his tongue out of his mouth with faux concentration.
“Yeah, no.” Richie said, fingers curling around Mike’s hand. “Your flowers always look like weird vaginas.”
“They do not!” Mike argued, gasping.
“Yeah, they do. You wouldn’t know, of course.” Richie laughed, peeking through squinted eyelids again. “But they totally do. Don’t.”
“Fine.”
Mike sighed and let Richie feel accomplished by his insult, eyes closing again and his body leaning into Mike’s legs. He’d get some deserved sleep, and Mike could get some peace and quiet to finish his campaign. They’d have a few moments away from their family, people clueless to their secrets. They’d have a few moments to be kids, just two regular kids enjoying winter break. They’d be normal again, just for an hour. They’d be average. Except one of them was getting a weird-looking flower all over his face.