Chapter Text
Guilt.
For Will, guilt was a familiar feeling.
Will Byers was 12 and confused as to why Mike Wheeler’s hands made him a little weak in the knees, but most of all, the thought made him feel guilty.
Will was shy and awkward, and everything that Mike was not, so to always be in Mike’s grasp, in his reach, was something he didn’t think he’d ever be in.
It was when the Byers had to move in with the Wheelers that it started. Will wouldn’t know how to explain even if you asked him to, but Mike had offered their house for the Byers to stay in for the meantime.
It didn’t make sense to Will. Mike was avoidant and cold, he couldn’t even give Will a hug at the airport when they finally saw each other again. Now here he was, offering his room for Will to stay in as if nothing had happened.
“Awesome,” Mike said. “Will can share my room, and you guys can—I don’t know, Mom’ll figure it out.”
Share his room? Will thinks, he doesn’t exactly know what to feel about it but when Mike glances at him and gives him a look that says ‘c’mon, help me over here’. He immediately says, “I don’t mind sharing.” Jonathan looks at him incredulously, “It’ll be like a sleepover.”
But no, it wouldn’t be like a sleepover, because sleepovers are for friends who don’t like each other in that way. A ‘sleepover’ would be like if Lucas slept in Dustin’s room. Will shakes his head and zones out the rest of the conversation.
🂱
He and Jonathan still end up in the Wheeler’s basement, where Will spent a lot of time with Mike and the rest of the party. “You okay?” Jonathan asks, looking at him from the couch that he made a bed with. “Yeah,” Will answers out of habit.
“You know you can tell me things, right? You don’t have to… hide from me, Will.”
He nods, “Yeah, I know,” offering Jonathan a small smile that satiates him, and he turns his back to Will and sleeps.
It’s not until later that he’s being shaken awake by Jonathan. “Will, I’m going up to Nancy’s room, that alright with you?” He’s whispering as if anyone can hear them in the dark, cold basement. “Okay,” he answers, rubbing his eyes awake, and watches Jonathan as he leaves with a blanket and a pillow over his shoulder.
Will listens to his brother’s quiet footsteps as he disappears upstairs. He sighs and turns on the closest light to him. He knew this would happen, and it’s not fair to be jealous of Jonathan and Nancy. It’s not fair to be jealous of Lucas and Max, Dustin and Suzie, or even… Mike and Eleven.
Mike was right, it’s not his fault that Will didn’t like girls. It’s not his fault that Will is attracted to his best friend; it’s not his fault that Will thinks about Mike in ways that friends shouldn’t think of each other.
It’s not Mike’s fault, that’s a fact, but it’s not Will’s either.
He lies alone with his thoughts and realizes that falling back asleep is no longer an option. So he grabs his sweater and heads upstairs to fetch himself a drink.
The water fills up the glass quietly, but he can hear some rummaging and footsteps behind him, and before he knows it, Mike is standing by the entryway.
His hair is sticking up in seven different places, and his shirt is rumpled as if he just rolled out of bed, but his eyes are clear which gives away the fact that he hasn’t been sleeping.
“Hey,” Mike says, crossing his arms and leaning on the doorway. Will swallows the water in his mouth, “Hey,” he says back. “I’m sorry you have to sleep in the basement,” Mike starts, slowly approaching the sink to get himself a glass too.
“That’s… fine, I’m with Jonathan anyway, so…” he shrugs.
Mike scoffs and rolls his eyes, “I’m not dense, I know he’s sleeping in Nancy’s room.”
‘not dense’, he says, just utterly oblivious, Will thinks.
Will cracks a small smile in his direction, “I think everyone knew it would happen anyway.”
They bask in the silence, Mike standing next to him, hip on the kitchen counter. Will tries not to look in his direction as much anymore, but here in the darkness of the kitchen, the only light coming from the small window by the sink, he allows himself to just look without thinking about the consequences.
Mike’s cheekbones and pointed features stand out in the silhouette of the light like this. His curly hair is messy, like he ran his fingers through it one too many times. His shoulder blades are sharp and his hands…
His hands are bony and long. The bone of his wrist juts out, and Will is lost on what’s in front of him. It takes him a few more glances before he realizes he’s been silent for too long. “Uh,” Will says, making a move to just leave and go back to the basement, where he doesn’t have to deal with things like Mike and his feelings.
“Wait,” Mike says, grabbing Will’s wrist before he can turn away. “I can.. stay with you?” Will just stares at him. “In the basement,” Mike clarifies unnecessarily.
Will usually runs cold, but the longer that Mike is grabbing his wrist, the hotter his blood runs. “What?” Will asks, “I’m fine, I can handle myself.”
“No, yeah, I know. I just… you know,” Mike says, and Will slowly moves his wrist away, and the loss of the touch makes him feel cold again almost immediately.
Mike clears his throat, “I just… wanted to hang out with you for a bit.”
“Okay,” Will nods, because it’s hard to say no to Mike. Not when he’s finally wanting to spend some time with Will.
Mike goes down the steps first, “It’s cold in here,” he points out. “Yeah, it’s a bit colder than the rest of the house, I think,” not that Will would know. He hasn’t been in Mike’s room for a long time.
“Yeah,” Mike whispers, looking around at their makeshift beds. Will sits on the couch, now missing a pillow from what Jonathan took. He doesn’t know what to say, and Mike is looking around his own basement like he’s never been in here before, like it’s not his house, like they didn’t play D&D for most of their childhood in this very basement.
Will fidgets with his hands, waiting for Mike to just... say something. “You could’ve just stayed in my room, like I told mom you should.” God, Mike should just stop talking, Will thinks.
“I don’t know… I don’t think your dad–”
“He doesn’t know anything,” Mike says sharply. His eyes finally meet Will’s, and there’s anger, shame, guilt, and sadness all at once.
“Well… it’s his house, so…” is what Will settles with. Mike rolls his eyes in response, “Let’s just talk about something else.”
Mike sits beside Will, trying too hard to stare at anything else—the broken lamp, the pile of blankets, the old movie posters. Will swallows. This is weird. It’s never weird, at least never with Mike.
Mike’s knee bumps Will’s, just barely. He doesn’t move it away.
And because Will has spent too much time away from Mike, he savors this moment of bravery and slowly leans his arm toward Mike’s. He doesn’t move away; in fact, Will thinks he even leans into the touch.
Then it’s over too fast, too soon. Mike is standing quickly as if burned, then stretches his arms above his head, his shirt rising a little, and Will looks away. “We should get some sleep,” he declares. Moving some of the pillows and blankets around.
“You don’t have to stay here, Mike,” Will says, but it feels pointless to even say because Mike has already made himself very comfortable under the covers.
“I know, but I want to.”
Will listens to his heartbeat and hopes that blood isn’t rushing to his face. He ignores the reply and finds a position to sleep in on what was once Jonathan’s bed, because what was once Will’s bed is now Mike’s.
“Goodnight,” he says, turning his back to Mike.
“Night.”
🂱
Memories of the night before come to Will in a blur. Mike’s gone, and there’s no trace or proof that he occupied Will’s bed last night. When he walks up the stairs, he can hear the bustling of plates, the talking over each other, and the screeching of the chairs on the wooden floor.
There are two empty chairs next to each other. His and Mike’s.
“Sleep well?” Jonathan asks as he drags the chair. “Great,” Will replies, he looks over to the empty chair beside him, “Where’s—”
Mike’s footsteps are loud as he walks down the steps, as if showing off on purpose like hey! I slept in my room! Not in the basement with Will!
It’s unnecessary and unusual, but to Will, who has been keeping secrets his whole life, it feels great to have his own little secret with Mike. He almost smiles at his own train of thought before the guilt comes crashing over him.
it’s not my fault you don’t like girls
“Any bacon left?” Mike asks, occupying the chair next to him. Suddenly, it feels too cramped, and he can’t move. Mike’s elbow brushes his when he reaches out across the table to grab something.
He feels stupid, so stupid to be analyzing Mike’s movements like this. To think that this could even be anything.
Will is lost in thought when Mike inches closer to his face, whispering, “Are you okay?” Will just nods, but Mike is insistent. He grabs Will, as if asking him to pay attention! and tell the truth!, his hand lands between Will’s wrist and palm.
Then he feels it, he feels Mike’s thumb caress him purposefully, so so intentionally. As if this was planned, as if he woke up this morning and sneaked into his own room and planned to walk up to the breakfast table late with messy hair, and whisper to Will and hold him, and caress him.
we’re friends, we’re friends!
But this isn’t what friends do. Because if it is, then why has Will been holding back so much?
🂱
Let’s just say the breakfast incident, as Will calls it in his head, has him lying awake for almost two nights now. There was nothing to it; it was simply a caress of a finger that lasted maybe four seconds.
But for someone like Will, for someone who has been in love with Mike Wheeler since before he was even sure that he was gay, it was something to fucking think about.
Will wants to knock on Mike’s door and demand an answer, shout what was that! but history has proven Will to be very good at holding back. It was like the painting all over again. Masking his feelings as Eleven’s because it was easier to say she than I.
Because it’s easier to be a girl and in love with a boy, than a boy and in love with—
The door creaks open, “Will?”
He has half a mind to pretend he’s asleep so Mike can just go away and he can drown in his feelings alone and in peace, like he’s always done.
“Hey,” is what he says, because he’s weak when it comes to Mike. “I thought you would come up to my room this time.”
What?
“What?” Will says, confused and lost as to when they stopped being friends who acted like strangers and went back to being best friends.
“Nothing, it’s just… I thought we were hanging out now.”
“Right,” Will sits up as Mike approaches. “Well, I didn’t want to intrude.”
Mike makes a face at him, “You wouldn’t be, I was the one who wanted you to share my room with me, remember?”
How could Will forget?
“Yeah,” he says sheepishly.
Mike shrugs, flopping down next to Will. “I don’t know… I just thought it’d be… easier.”
“Easier?” Will echoes, his voice quieter than he intended.
Mike glances at him, then quickly looks away, fiddling with the hem of his sleeve. “You know… being close. Not having to… see the distance between us and hesitate to talk about… stuff.”
Will’s chest tightens. He wants to ask stuff like what? but the words catch in his throat. Instead, he shifts a little closer. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I get that.”
There’s a pause. The kind of pause that feels full, like the air itself is holding its breath.
Mike bites his lip. “I just… don’t like feeling like I’m… messing up everything.” His words are almost drowned by the quiet, but Will hears them. Feels them.
“You’re not,” Will says immediately without thinking, because it’s true. Even as his stomach flips and his mind screams, don’t make it weird, he says it anyway. “You never mess up.”
Mike looks at him then, really looks, and for a moment, Will sees everything he’s been afraid of—anger, guilt, worry, and something softer, something he can’t name, or just something he doesn’t want to.
“I… I don’t know,” Mike murmurs, and Will swears his heart stops for a second.
Will doesn’t say anything, doesn’t need to. So instead, he nudges the blanket closer over both of them. Just barely touching.
Mike exhales, slow, heavy. “Thanks,” he says. And that’s it. But it’s more than it seems.
Will can feel it in the silence, in the small proximity of their shoulders, in the way Mike doesn’t pull away. He wants to say more, but instead, he lets the quiet settle, letting the unspoken words hang between them, heavy and real.
🂱
The breakfast incident has not been forgotten, and now he has the basement incident, where it feels like Mike is opening up to him, saying things and being cryptic, acting like something Will has to decode.
So Will decides to test Mike. To really see if the touching and leaning in is intentional or just something he’s made up in his head.
It’s when Dustin and Lucas are over that he devises his plan. It’s easier with people around, so he wouldn’t have to deal with a conversation or a question simply because they’re not alone.
Will leans against the wall near the couch where Mike is sprawled, pretending to watch Dustin explain some ridiculous “new strategy” for D&D. He waits, carefully, for the right moment.
Mike laughs at something Dustin says, throws his head back, and Will swears his chest tightens. He inches closer, just slightly, careful to stay casual.
“Hey,” Will murmurs, brushing his shoulder against Mike’s. Just a brush, like it could have been an accident.
Mike doesn’t pull away. Not even a twitch. Will freezes, heart hammering. Maybe it wasn’t an accident, then.
He decides to push a little further. He lets his hand linger on the edge of the couch, close enough that it almost brushes Mike’s. Mike glances at him, eyebrows raised—but again, no recoil, no moving away.
Will swallows and shifts slightly, leaning his shoulder a touch more deliberately against Mike’s. Still, Mike doesn’t move. Instead, he shifts his own leg a fraction closer.
A tiny spark of heat shoots through Will, and he feels like he’s balancing on the edge of something dangerous—something real.
Dustin notices nothing, Lucas is busy explaining why their dice rolls are “totally unfair,” and for a brief, quiet moment, it’s just Mike and Will.
And Will realizes, with a thrill and a little terror, that this—this leaning, this touching, this closeness—is definitely not something he’s imagining.
It’s real.
And maybe, just maybe, Mike’s feeling it too.
🂱
Mike’s not feeling it.
Because after the touch incident, as Will calls it—collecting incidents at this point—Mike doesn’t initiate any sort of touch anymore, nor does he lean in when Will gets the confidence to do so.
There were multiple instances where Will ‘accidentally’ brushed his arm against Mike’s at the dining table, bumped shoulders in the hallway, stood too close when they were washing dishes, or leaned in too intimately to whisper something in his ear.
All that and nothing. It was all in Will’s head and he knew it, but he let himself hope a little too much at that small moment that he thought they shared, but it was fleeting, it was stupid, and most of all, all he feels now is guilty.
Will knew he shouldn’t have tested Mike like that. Hell, he shouldn’t even be thinking about Mike the way he thinks about Mike. But he does.
They’re in Mike’s room tonight because Will was sick of hearing Mike complain about how cold it was in the basement, and really, it was, but after everything Mr. Wheeler had said about him, he couldn’t get himself to complain.
“It was nice to have something normal happen tonight,” Mike says, fidgeting with an old and worn-out stress ball—throwing it in the air then catching it again before it hits his perfectly sculpted face.
“Right, Will?” Mike asks after Will doesn’t respond for a beat too long. “What?” Will says stupidly, still standing in the corner of the room.
From here, he feels out of place. Like everything in this room has outgrown him; the posters, the shelves with books and comics he doesn’t recognize, even the clothing that has changed over the years, and maybe even Mike himself. It’s easy to feel like they’ve grown apart and are just clinging on to what they think they know of each other.
Then it hits Will again, that guilt clawing into his chest like a demogorgon that caught him weak and bleeding. The guilt that fuels the shame of what he’s done, what he feels, and who he is.
“Why are you— get over here,” Mike says, making space for Will on his bed. But Will doesn’t move an inch. “Do you still have that spare mattress from before?”
“Oh,” Mike says, his face unreadable. “Yeah, it’s just… there,” he says, then waves his hand at nothing in particular. “Here?” Will asks, pointing somewhere behind him. “For god’s sake, Will, just come over here.”
“We won’t even fit—”
“Yes, we will! We’ve done it before, I’m sure we can do it again.”
Will snorts, “Uh, yeah, when we were 12 and tiny, Mike.”
Mike puts one foot on the floor and helps himself reach Will’s hand and pulls until Will has no choice but to stumble into Mike’s bed. He rolls his eyes and grabs his stupid fucking stress ball again.
“Since when were you against touching me?” Mike asks, and Will freezes. Oh no. He didn’t mean for it to mean anything. But the worst part is, maybe he might have. The guilt is swallowing him whole, like a portal to the Upside Down has just opened, and Will is being sucked right into it.
The guilt, the fucking guilt. It shouldn’t feel this bad to like your best friend.
Will settles beside Mike, knees pulled up, hands fiddling with the blanket. Mike’s stretched out, stress ball clutched, but he keeps one arm resting close enough that Will can feel the heat radiating off him.
“So… this is cozy,” Mike mutters, more to himself than to Will.
“Uh… yeah,” Will says, voice tight. He shifts slightly, as if needing space, but also… not.
Mike quirks an eyebrow. “You’re not gonna—” He stops, watching Will hesitate. “You’re not gonna move away, are you?”
Will freezes. Move away? No. Usually, he would, but not tonight.
Instead, he inches a little closer, careful to keep it casual, friendly. Mike notices but doesn’t comment, just shifts slightly so Will can lean on Mike’s shoulder without either of them really acknowledging it.
It’s strange. Comfortable. A little electric. Will swallows and shifts again, letting his legs brush against Mike’s. Mike’s arm twitches, like he’s tempted to drape it over Will, but instead, it settles lazily behind him.
Close. But not touching.
“You’re warm,” Will mutters, almost too quietly.
Mike snorts softly. “Yeah, well, don’t get used to it.”
Will smirks faintly, though his chest feels tight. He edges just a tiny bit closer, letting his cheek touch Mike’s shoulder. Mike doesn’t pull away. In fact, he adjusts, letting Will lean in without making it obvious.
The room grows quieter, and everything Will felt about outgrowing this room is gone. All he feels is small, cozy, and safe.
No guilt.
Will’s heart hammers, but he doesn’t move back. He shouldn’t feel this at ease with Mike, and yet… he does.
No guilt.
After a while, Will stretches out a little, letting his legs hit Mike’s in the process.
He listens to the sound of his own heartbeat, and thinks that if he tries hard enough, he can feel Mike’s pulse too.
Then as Mike’s breathing slowly evens as the clock ticks, so does Will’s. And for the first time in a while, he doesn’t feel guilty, just warm all over.
🂱
Sunlight filters weakly through Mike’s window. Will stirs first, blinking against the soft light, and realizes he’s still leaning against Mike. His cheek pressed against Mike’s shoulder, and the warmth from the night hasn’t faded.
Mike groans softly, half awake, and shifts just enough that Will’s arm brushes against his side. Mike doesn’t pull away—he barely moves at all, actually—and that little stillness makes Will’s chest squeeze in a way that feels both thrilling and terrifying. And from recent events, all too familiar.
“Morning,” Will whispers, quiet enough to not disrupt this moment they’ve created unintentionally.
Mike murmurs something that’s probably ‘morning’ though it’s muffled and lazy, half-tongue, half-grumble. He stretches just enough that Will can hear the faint scrape of the blanket against the mattress, the movement close, intimate, but still casual.
Will shifts slightly, curling his legs just a little more into Mike’s, careful as to not startle him. Mike huffs softly but doesn’t complain, just adjusting so their thighs touch more closely. Will’s heart hammers, but he doesn’t pull away.
“You slept weird,” Mike mutters finally, voice rough from sleep. “Like… close… too close.”
Will swallows, feeling like he was caught, but in an attempt to keep his voice steady, he says, “Wasn’t me.” He smiles, though his face is probably bright red.
Mike doesn’t reply immediately. Instead, he just sighs, stretches again, and lets his shoulder brush against Will’s cheek. There’s no accusation, no teasing—just presence; acceptance of what has happened, of how they touched and slept.
For a moment, Will just basks in it, letting himself exist in this space where being close to Mike doesn’t feel wrong. Where nothing—no guilt, no fear, no shame—can touch him.
“You… didn’t pull away,” Mike says after a beat, voice quiet, almost vulnerable.
“I didn’t want to,” Will admits softly.
Mike shifts again, this time letting his arm fall lazily behind Will’s back, so that Will leans in a little more naturally, just enough that it feels like they’re sharing warmth rather than pretending.