Work Text:
October 9th, 1987
William Byers was overstimulated.
The Wheeler basement pressed in on him from every side. Cold. Cramped. Full of reminders that he wasn’t meant to be here.
And tonight, it was too much.
It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate the Wheelers for letting his family stay in their home. He knew what a sacrifice it was, making room for three extra people in a house that already felt full. For the most part, they were politely tolerant of his family’s presence. Not once did they say anything outwardly negative about the fact that they were hosting the Byers. They shared their meals, and their space, and barely asked for anything in return.
Karen doled out “No worries!” and “Anything you need!” like free samples. But her mask had started to slip around month three, and now it was clear she felt obligated to keep handing these assurances out.
He fell back into the habit of making himself smaller. Because being noticed meant being seen, and being seen meant the risk of becoming an obligation.
For all its cracks and leaks of its own, he missed his family home. Even the one in dreadful California.
He missed being able to eat openly whenever he was hungry. To have choice in what he ate and drank. Not stepping into the kitchen only to freeze at the sight of Karen Wheeler at the island, a glass of wine in her hand, or Ted standing in front of the open fridge, snacking on leftovers from a family dinner Will had no claim to. Going where he wanted, when he wanted. Not having to tiptoe around. Not having to pack his homework up and leave the living room because Ted was home, and would soon park himself at the worn Lazy-Boy.
He missed having a space he always belonged in. A fortress for retreat. A room with real walls. Both his previous bedrooms had been plastered with a magpie-like collection of artwork, posters, and ephemera. They both had real beds. With bedframes. There were even dressers and closets for his clothing, and scuffed drawers for his belongings. They had been sanctuaries, like Castle Byers had once been to him.
Now he had a thin mattress on the Wheeler’s basement floor. A lumpy, pathetic excuse for a bed where he tossed and turned all night, afraid to sprawl, afraid to wake with a numb, cold limb hanging off the edge. Instead of dressers and drawers, he had plastic bags and boxes. A single worn, ripped duffel.
There was nowhere he belonged in this house, and nothing outside his bags and boxes was his.
He missed showering and dressing in a space that felt protected. Somewhere he could exist without feeling so goddamn exposed. He lived in constant fear of any of the Wheeler’s catching him in any state of undress. Modesty became his prison.
Once, he had forgotten to take his sleep shirt into the bathroom with him to change into after his shower. Getting past the living room where Ted Wheeler was predictably in his Lazy Boy watching television, gave him the same brand of fear he first tasted while hiding from the Demogorgon.
It had gotten him again.
Mike’s father had turned and saw a damp and shirtless Will, trying desperately to cover his body with a towel which was much too small. Ted looked away, and Will had sworn there was disgust in his eyes.
Ted Wheeler had always looked at Will a little too closely. When he was young, he didn’t pick up on the subtext. It was just Mike’s dad, and dads are…complicated. At least Ted wasn’t like Lonnie. He didn’t call him names. He just looked, and saw, and judged.
When Mike had excitedly offered to share his room with Will, Ted immediately declared it, “Out of the question.” And refused to tell Mike why. Will knew better than to ask why. Whatever Ted saw when he looked at him, he wasn’t about to let it share a room with his son.
He felt violated. Observed. Caged.
And none of it was really the Wheelers’ fault. He was grateful for the Wheeler family. They weren’t in military housing. It could be worse.
In the basement, where he was permitted to exist, there was no desk.
They had one before. Back when the Wheelers’ basement was the place he’d dreamed about living. A lifetime ago, when the idea of sharing Mike’s space had felt like winning something.
But the desk was gone now.
And living with Mike didn’t feel like a win anymore.
The table they’d once used for childhood D&D campaigns had developed a wobble, making it impossible to lay down clean, precise lines in his sketchbook.
So Will had taken to settling on the cold floor instead, cross-legged in front of the coffee table, his back pressed to the couch Jonathan had been using as a bed.
That’s where he found himself now, his bookbag set beside him, heavy with the things he couldn’t risk losing. His sketchbook, the Walkman, the portable tape recorder Jonathan had let him borrow. His walkie. Comic books Lucas had gifted him, since Will’s own collection had been left to rot in California.
Hidden in one of the pockets was a Polaroid Karen had found while cleaning and handed to Will. A too-bright smile on her face. It was of his child-self, free and joyful, from before everything had gone wrong.
Notes from Mike were tucked in that same pocket. He didn’t reread them. He just kept them.
The floor was unforgiving. The couch pressed into his shoulders at an awkward angle. After a few moments, his spine began to protest, the discomfort feeding the tight, restless buzz already crawling under his skin.
The furnace kicked on.
Off.
On again.
He clenched his jaw.
Jonathan didn’t seem to struggle the way Will did. On normal days, Jonathan’s steady, realistic optimism was necessary. Yeah, it sucked, but they were going to make it. It would be over soon. They just had to keep pushing.
But on nights like tonight, when Will was already wound tight enough to snap, it pissed him off.
It wasn’t fair that Jonathan got to escape. He was an adult. He had a license. Freedom. Choices.
At least Jonathan got the couch.
At least he could sneak upstairs into Nancy’s room at night.
At least their mom treated him like someone capable, instead of wrapping him up so tight he could barely breathe.
His skin began to itch.
It crept up his arms and along his spine, insistent and unbearable. He imagined having claws, large enough to scrape it all away just to make the sensation stop. The nagging. The restless energy that had no name, no direction, and refused to leave him alone. It wasn’t something he could burn out of himself this time.
He shook his head, trying to pull himself back into his body, and reached for his sketchbook and pencils.
The friendly stray cat the boys had named Tom Bombadil, who lived behind the school, had been stretched out in a patch of sun outside Will’s History classroom earlier that day. Will had spent most of the period sketching him onto cheap notebook paper instead of listening to whatever dull, forgettable lecture was happening at the front of the room.
The world was literally on the verge of total destruction. What did it matter anyway?
He flipped through his sketchbook and settled on an unfinished page. Reworking his classroom sketch into a real portrait of the cat would help. Tom Bombadil always helped.
The furnace kicked on again.
Holly tore through the house overhead, her footsteps pounding against the basement ceiling.
Will’s pencil paused. His body still buzzed. He’d just gotten the shape of the cat’s ears right.
He heard the front door open. Mike and Nancy were home. More footsteps. Shouting. Stomping. Karen now yelling at all of her children to calm down.
Now his leg muscles twitched, nerves spilling over.
Sketch. Twitch.
Sketch. Twitch.
He wished for claws again. There was too much pressure inside his skin, nowhere for it to go.
Music, he needed music.
Music would help. It always did.
He reached for his Walkman. His hands trembled, and in his hurry to get the headphones on, his fingers slipped. The earpiece snapped back against his nose with a small, sharp thwack.
Anger that was much too big for something so small instantly climbed up his throat. He wanted to scream.
Just another thing. Because nothing could ever fucking go right.
At his own house, he could have used the stereo. But quiet and respect were required when you were living as an intruder in someone else’s home. Headphones were necessary. So he shoved the anger back down, swallowed it whole. It wasn’t something he could afford to linger on.
Once the headphones were on properly, he rewound the tape, landing in the middle of a song.
That was all right.
He’d settle soon.
Robin had taught them that music could reach parts of the brain that words couldn’t. That it was a key. A lifeline. A way back to yourself when things got bad.
They had all seen it with Max. How that Kate Bush song had pulled her back from Vecna’s control. How it had saved her.
Will had learned that lesson earlier. Alone. In the slimy, cold nightmare version of Castle Byers.
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know. [x]
The music had soothed him. Kept him from going completely insane. Helped him survive.
So yes, they all understood that music matters.
But Will had found a different connection to it as he grew older. As the world widened, and his fears and wants grew sharper with it.
It didn’t seem to look like what it looked like for everyone else.
Except for Robin.
She understood.
Dustin had seen the potential for their party in the abandoned WSQK station immediately. A place to communicate. To plan. To hide. Without it, finding Vecna would have been impossible.
For Will, it became something else.
In the station, among the stacks of vinyl, he felt like he could breathe again.
Robin Buckley seemed to know everything about music. Every genre, every era. She talked about it with an intensity that felt contagious, like each song mattered because it had once saved someone. Maybe her. Maybe everyone.
She blossomed on The Morning Squawk, her frantic energy finally given somewhere to go. Listening to her broadcast became addictive to Will.
Their friendship was still new. And awkward. Will often felt like a child around her, painfully aware of how obvious his admiration must be. Despite being, objectively, an absolute total dork, Rockin Robin was one of the coolest people he had ever met.
Whenever he could, he lingered in the studio. Absorbed recommendations. She introduced him to bands she knew he’d enjoy, like punk and new wave and goth, and then kept going. Disco. Funk. Jazz. Stuff he didn’t know what to do with yet. Stuff that made his head tilt and his chest tighten in unfamiliar ways.
She taught him about other things too. Like a documentary she’d seen once at a tiny art theater in a bigger city. Before Stonewall. She spoke about it the same way she spoke about music. Plainly. Knowledgeable. Like it was history that mattered. Like it should have always been taught that way. Like people who were that way weren’t wrong at all.
Sometimes, when he was with Robin, his heart would pick up a strange new rhythm. A quiet pressure urging him toward something he couldn’t name.
Confess. Confess. Confess.
He didn’t even know what he was meant to confess. Only that, if he could find the words he was desperate for, Robin would hear them. She wouldn’t judge.
Robin was safe.
They weren’t really friends. Not yet. He was just some kid she felt sorry for. A captive audience for her endless pop culture monologues.
But most importantly, Robin had taught him that music could speak for you when you couldn’t. That it could be a diary as much as a distraction. A way to sort through thoughts and feelings when words refuse to cooperate.
On one of the last warm days of August, Will was stretched out on the scratchy couch in the Squawk basement, sketchbook balanced on his lap, when Robin came hurtling down the stairs.
“Byers! You’re still here!” she called, barreling toward him with a small, stained, cardboard box clutched to her chest.
Before he could answer, she thrust the box into his lap. His pencil clattered to the floor, his sketchbook slipping sideways as he scrambled to keep its balance.
“Look what I found! More blank tapes! I know Hopper said we weren’t supposed to go crazy on the blanks, especially now that Murray’s been freaking out about finding them, which, by the way, is complete bullshit, because how hard can it really be to get blank tapes, you know?” She barely paused for breath. “Anyway, since I found this stash, I figured you could make another mix. Just for you.”
The words spilled out fast and uncontained, the way they always did with Robin. Will knew it drove most of the party insane. But to him, her chaos was becoming oddly comforting.
Robin had made custom mixes for the whole party. “You know, in case you get Vecna’d,” she’d said. Those were different. Those were built together. Songs they’d written down, favorites chosen out loud, meant to pull them back if things went wrong.
Will hadn’t had privacy in those choices.
She pulled a fresh, blank tape from the box and held it out.
Will took it, understanding the weight of the gift immediately.
This one would be his.
He poured everything he couldn’t say into a shy, uncertain thank you. He knew it would be enough for Rockin Robin.
Back in the Wheeler’s basement, Will’s foot had fallen asleep.
The mixtape blasted, tinny, through his old headphones. It wasn’t finished. Side A was full, and Side B had only just begun. He recorded in fragments whenever he could steal time at the radio station, Jonathan’s portable recorder tucked into his bag just in case. Each new song was added to the tracklist in whatever pen or marker he had on hand.
One of the tracks from an Eurythmics album Robin had shown him was coming to an end.
And I want you,
And I want you,
And I want you so
It’s an obsession.[x]
The sketch of Tom Bombadil was coming along nicely. It should have helped.
And yet, he wasn’t calming down.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t connecting to the music. If anything, he was feeling it too much. Instead of carrying him away, the songs held up a mirror to the feelings he’d been trying not to look at. The reasons he’d chosen them in the first place.
Tonight, they cut deeper. More honest. Picking at scabs that hadn’t quite healed.
Usually, the music felt like understanding. Like someone else had reached in and named things for him.
But tonight the mirror was too close, too clear, and the weight of his sadness and restlessness pressed down until it felt hard to breathe.
The next track begins. Unloveable by The Smiths.
I know I'm unloveable,
You don't have to tell me.
Message received loud and clear, loud and clear.
I don't have much in my life
But take it, it's yours [x]
His throat is burning with a new emotion. It threatens tears.
His dad was right, he was a crybaby, a wuss, a fag.
Unloveable. Unloveable. Unloveable.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
The words chased themselves in tight circles, louder every time it came back around.
He set his pencil down too hard. Raised his hands, shaking them uselessly, like he could fling the pressure off his skin if he tried hard enough. It only climbed higher, buzzing and hot, crawling up his arms and into his jaw.
The track ended.
For half a second, there was nothing but the hiss of tape.
Then Upside Down by The Jesus and Mary Chain slammed into his ears.
Feedback and distortion tore through him, loud and jagged and merciless. The sound matched what was ripping through his chest perfectly. Too much. Too fast. Nowhere to put it.
His anxiety spiked all at once. A violent urge to move shot through him. To stand. To throw the lamp behind him straight into the wall. To scream until something broke.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
He squeezed his eyes shut and folded in on himself, arms locked tight around his ribs, rocking once, twice. His fingers dug into his skin, pinching hard, then releasing. Trying to ground himself, trying to stay in his body.
Pinch. Release.
Pinch. Release.
And if you feel there’s no one else,
That you’re all alone, you’re by yourself,
Your life is like a broken shell,
It doesn’t really matter to me. [x]
Pinch. Release.
Pinch. Release.
He wanted the claws again. Anything sharp enough to cut through the noise.
Inside I feel so bad
So low I feel so sad
Feels like I’m going mad
Pinch. Release.
Pinch-
“Dude what the fuck?”
Will’s headphones were yanked away, the sudden absence of sound making him jerk violently, knocking the Walkman off the table. The song wailed on through the dangling earpieces now around his neck as he looked up at Mike, who stared back at him, wide-eyed and alarmed.
Mike Wheeler loomed over him, bent slightly at the waist so he could reach the headphones. He was in his sleep pants, the gray fabric marked with a crusted splotch of green paint from when he and Will had made new D&D figurines together. His socks were mismatched.
The room rushed back in all at once. Shame slammed into Will, freezing him in place. It took a moment for his head to catch up with what had just happened.
“Why are you doing that?” Mike tried to catch his eye, but Will was already fidgeting, searching for an exit, a way out of the conversation. His mouth moved, but the words stayed stuck. He made several false starts before they finally dislodged.
“I’m just—I was just listening to music, I—you scared the shit out of me,” he stammered. He stopped the tape. Blinked unshed tears back down. Tried shaking himself back to reality. To normalcy.
“Well, I called down, but you clearly didn’t hear me over that noise,” Mike said. “What the hell are you even listening to? It sounds like just… noise. Like horrible, scary noise.”
“It’s not just noise. It’s— it’s— well, it is noise, but it’s… purposeful.”
“Purposeful noise?” Mike echoed, skeptical.
“Yeah. Purposeful.” Will faltered, then pushed on. “I don’t know, Mike!” his voice cracked, “I can’t really explain it. I just understand it. It feels like how I feel sometimes.” He winced at his own words. “It helps. Hearing something that sounds like my head.”
“It doesn’t look like it’s helping.”
“What do you-”
“You were pinching yourself, Will. Hard. It looked like it hurt.” Mike didn’t raise his voice. That almost made it worse. “Are you… are you trying to hurt yourself?”
The shame turned ice cold.
“No! No, it’s not like—” Will shook his head hard. “I mean, a little, but it’s not like that.”
“So what is it then?”
“I don’t know!” The frustration spilled over. Will threw his hands up, then let them fall, elbows landing on the coffee table as he folded in on himself, palms pressed to his eyes. “I can’t explain it.”
Silence stretched between them.
Then Mike moved, lowering himself to the floor beside Will, sitting cross-legged. Their knees bumped. Will felt Mike’s attention settle on him, steady and patient. After a moment, he lowered his hands and looked at him.
“I’m not trying to hurt myself.” He felt like crying again.
“Okay,” Mike said gently. Not in the babying fragile way Joyce spoke, but with the same kindness Jonathan carried. “I believe you.”
Will swallowed. “Sometimes things just get… too much. And it’s hard to stay in my body.” He stared at the floor. “The music helps, well usually, not tonight I guess. And the..pinching..it just… keeps me here.”
“And that’s all it is?” Mike asked quietly.
“I think so.” Will bristled, defensive. “Why does it matter?”
“I’m not trying to corner you,” Mike said quickly, “It just looked scary. Not knowing what was happening. You looked like you were… gone.”
The word landed wrong.
Before Will could retreat, Mike spoke again. “I just worry about you. I know it’s been a lot. Everything you’ve been through.”
Will cringed. “El’s had it worse, I shouldn’t complain.”
“Hey—no.” Mike shook his head. “You don’t get to dismiss your shit just because El had it bad too. What you went through was messed up. We’re all messed up.” He huffed out a breath. “I get it, okay?”
He paused again. “It’s honestly insane that we’re supposed to be normal. Go to school. Pretend we haven’t seen all the shit we’ve seen.”
Mike left space for Will to reply, and when he didn’t, he asked even softer, “Will, are you okay?”
Will nodded, not knowing how to answer, and let the silence settle over them. Somehow, while sitting here with Mike, Will couldn’t hear the furnace anymore.
Mike seemed to take the hint. His gaze drifted to the mixtape case on the table. He reached for it and scanned the handwritten tracklist. Will let him.
“So this noise song,” he said, tapping the plastic. “Which one is it?”
“Um...it’s called Upside Down,” Will admitted. Embarrassed
Mike snorted. “Topical”
“Yeah,” Will half-laughed. Feeling better. “A little.”
“Can I hear it?”
The little laugh in Will’s throat died instantly. This wasn’t the kind of music Mike listened to. He wouldn’t like it. He opened his mouth to say no.
Mike met his eyes and gave him that stupidly earnest, puppy dog look.
“Please?”
Goddamn it.
“You won’t like it.”
“So what?” Mike shrugged, like it didn’t matter.
Will hesitated, then reached for his bag and pulled out the portable recorder. There was no way he was letting Mike listen through his Walkman headphones, leaning close enough for their faces to touch. That was too much. The recorder’s speaker was blown out and fuzzy, but that was fine. Distance felt safer.
His hands shook a little as he transferred the tape, rewinding carefully until the start of the track. He didn’t want to rewind too far and end up having to explain Unloveable to Mike as well.
The song burst out of the speaker, distorted and buzzing. Noise stacked on noise, loud and jagged and restless, like it couldn’t decide where to land.
There was a grimace on the edge of Mike’s face, he doesn’t like the song. Will could see him gearing up to say something.
“So this is how it feels inside your head?” Mike asked.
Will blinked. He’d been sure Mike was about to ask him to turn it off.
“Yeah,” he said, shrugging. “Sometimes.”
“Like tonight?” Will nodded instead of answering.
Mike didn’t push. They let the song keep going, fuzzy and wild between them.
“You know,” Mike said after a moment, “it kind of feels like when I get so angry I want to break stuff. But… spinny. I don’t know.”
Will nodded, relieved. “Yeah. Like it’s all built up and you don’t know where to put it.”
Mike glanced back at the tracklist. “Are all the songs like that?” He hesitated. “Like… loud and angry?”
“No,” Will said quickly. “They don’t all sound like that.” He paused, searching. “They just… make sense to me. Emotionally, I guess.”
He reached for the recorder and fast-forwarded, stopping once, then again, until he found the right spot. The song that followed was soft and drifting, almost weightless.
Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops. [x]
“See?” Will said. “This one’s completely different.”
Mike tilted his head, listening. When the vocals came in, his brow furrowed. “I can’t understand what she’s saying.”
“You’re not really supposed to,” Will said. “This band, the Cocteau Twins, most of their songs are just made up words. It’s not about what it means.”
He hesitated, then added more quietly, “It’s about what it feels like.”
“In a way,” Will said, carefully, “it’s kind of the same as the other song.”
Mike shot him a look. “They sound nothing alike.”
Will huffed out a small laugh. “I know. But the loud one—” he gestured vaguely toward the recorder, “—the sound is chaotic, but the words are clear. And this one…” He struggled, then tried again. “You can’t understand the words. But the feeling comes through anyway.”
“So what does it feel like then?”
Will sighed. He didn’t want to explain. He didn’t think he could. “If I had the words,” he said slowly, almost apologetic, “I probably wouldn’t need the music.” He shrugged. “It just makes sense to me. Even when it doesn’t sound perfect, or coherent, or… right. Something about it works.”
He waited for Mike to push. To question it. To tell him that didn’t make any sense. Instead, Mike frowned at the floor, thinking.
Will shrugged, uncomfortable. “It’s not just these songs. Music just… does that for me.” He wasn’t sure how to explain to Mike just how deep it went for him.
“It’s how I figure things out when I can’t say them,” he said, then added quickly, “Not every song. Obviously. But it helps to hear someone else say what I’m feeling.”
“I think I kind of do that too,” Mike said finally.
Will looked over. “You do?”
“Yeah,” Mike said, a little unsure. “When I’m writing stuff. Or planning a campaign.” He picked at the seam of his sleeve. “Like, sometimes I don’t know what I’m stuck on exactly. But if I make it happen to my characters instead, it’s easier. It just… makes things clearer. Like I don’t have to deal with it directly.”
Will nodded, eyes fixed on the spinning tape. The song was ending. He knew what came next, and it wouldn’t take a genius to understand it.
Go on, go on, just walk away
Go on, go on, your choice is made
Go on, go on and disappear
Go on, go on, away from here
And I know I was wrong
When I said it was true
That it couldn't be me and be her
In between without you, without you [x]
He needed to stop it before Mike could listen. The beat started, bright and poppy, The Cure’s In Between Days.
As he reached out to stop the tape, he was halted. Mike’s hand covered his, warm and firm over his knuckles, stopping him from touching the buttons. Will’s entire body burned with the contact, all the way down to his toes. Mike touched him so rarely these days, it was startling how loudly his body reacted to it.
“Don’t,” Mike said quietly. “Let’s listen.”
“It’s,” The word came out dry and shuddering, “It’s the last song, I haven’t added the rest yet.”
“So? I want to hear it.”
Panic spiked again. He didn't want Mike asking about this one. He needed to change the topic, and suddenly, he remembered exactly what had set him off tonight.
Mike had slipped him a note at lunch.
Meet me after school. You know where.
—Mike
Will had folded it into the pocket with the rest of his collection of notes from Mike. He’d waited forty minutes in the AV room after the final bell, perched on the edge of the desk, then pacing, then sitting again. He’d checked the clock. Checked the hall. Checked his watch like it might suddenly tell a different story.
Mike never showed.
So when the words finally came out of Will’s mouth, they were sharp with everything he hadn’t said earlier.
“Why did you tell me to meet you after school just to ditch me?”
The accusation landed harsher than he meant it to. He knew that even as he said it. He knew he was blowing apart the fragile, quiet moment they’d just built. But the anger had nowhere else to go. Not after being stood up, not after waiting, not after watching Mike now act like nothing had happened.
What was he doing?
No, I—” Mike cut himself off, immediately defensive. “I came down here to figure out why you ditched me.”
His walls were back up now, his body stiffening as he shifted away.
“Me?” Will snapped. “I waited forty minutes for you, Mike. You never showed!”
“What—I—” Mike stopped, his brow knitting as the pieces finally slid into place. “Wait. Where were you?”
“The AV room,” Will said, incredulous. “Where else?”
It was where they’d been meeting for years. Their safehouse at school. Their version of WSQK.
Mike laughed.
It pissed Will off.
“Well?” Will demanded. “Where were you?”
“The picnic table in the woods!” Mike shook his head, still laughing, like the absurdity of it had finally caught up to him. He turned fully toward Will, letting his head fall back against the couch cushion, looking up at him with something soft and open in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Mike said. “I forget you can’t actually read my mind.”
Oh.
The tension between them deflated all at once, leaving something quieter in its place. The music played between them, but neither paid attention to the lyrics.
“No,” Will sighed. “I can’t.” He hesitated, then added, softer, “I wish I could sometimes.” He glanced back at the tape, then at Mike. “So… why did you want to meet?”
“Ah—” Mike flushed. “Uh. Okay, so don’t get mad at him, but Lucas told me what Mollie Howard said to you this morning.”
Will blinked.
He’d almost forgotten about that. Mollie Howard. English class. The recycled cruelty of Zombieboy, tossed out like it still had teeth. It had barely registered at the time. Not compared to everything else crowding his head these days.
Mike kept going before Will could wave it off.
“I just—” He shifted, he was looking down now and rubbing his knee slightly. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. Before I went with Nancy to Hopper’s cabin.” He swallowed. “I knew I wouldn’t be home until late, and I didn’t want to just… disappear on you.”
He looked at Will then, earnest in that way that always wrecked him.
“So I wanted to check. But I guess I disappeared on you anyway.” Mike exhaled.
“I should’ve told you where I meant.” he continued, “I just thought you knew, and when you didn’t show, I went to look for you, but Nancy was there when I got back up to the parking lot and started yelling at me to hurry up, and—” He trailed off, shoulders sinking. “I messed up.”
The anger Will had been nursing all day drained out of him, sudden and complete.
“No,” Will said quickly. “It’s—I get it. I’m sorry too.”
“Don’t be.” Mike shook his head, finally meeting his eyes again. “You didn’t—” He stopped himself. “Was that why you were upset when I came down here?”
Will felt wrung out from the constant rise and crash of emotion. He forced himself to breathe instead of reaching for the nearest extreme.
“No,” he said, then caught Mike’s look. Friends don’t lie. “Okay. Yeah. But not just that. It’s… a lot of things, I guess.”
“Like what Mollie said?”
“No,” Will said immediately. “I honestly don’t even care about that.” He searched for the right words. “It’s just been a lot lately. And I miss my own space.”
“What, sleeping on a shitty mattress in my dusty basement isn’t doing it for you?” Mike exaggerated, on purpose.
Will snorted despite himself. “Not really. Sorry. Could be worse, though. Better than military housing.”
“Yeah,” Mike said, not letting it go. “But it could be better.” He hesitated, then shifted, sitting up straighter. Somehow, that made him feel even closer. “You know you’re allowed to be pissed off, right? I mean, I’m glad you’re here. I really am. But I wouldn’t want to be stuck down here all the time either.”
The freckles on Mike’s cheeks were suddenly distracting. Too tender. Will looked away before the thought could finish forming.
He shrugged, small and inward. “Your family’s done a lot for mine.”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “And that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to complain.” He met Will’s eyes. “Being uncomfortable doesn’t make you ungrateful, you know.”
The song ended. A soft click, then the faint hiss and pop of blank tape. Will reached out and hit stop.
“That’s… that’s the end of what I have so far,” he said, sliding the cassette back into its case.
His legs had gone numb, and they felt like static as he shuffled on his knees closer to the side table at the end of the couch, to rifle through the small stack of tapes he shared with Jonathan. New Order. Brotherhood.[x] Safe. Familiar. Mike liked New Order, and Will wasn’t ready for the basement to fall quiet again.
When he settled back down, he was closer to Mike than he meant to be. Mike didn’t move away.
The new tape clicked in. The speaker hummed to life.
“I like this album,” Mike said.
Will hummed in agreement. He already knew that.
“How was El today?” he asked instead, keeping his voice light.
“Good,” Mike said quickly. “Yeah. She’s—she’s good.”
Something about the way he said it felt off.
Things had been different between Mike and El since they’d come back to Hawkins. Neither of them talked about the other much. Training had become an easy explanation for distance, even when it didn’t quite explain everything. And Will hadn’t seen them kiss once. Not in all the months they’d been back.
There was something there. A loose thread, waiting.
Will didn’t pull it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what might unravel.
“I think she misses living with you,” Mike added. “With you and Jonathan, I mean.” His voice softened. “I think it was good for her. Having a family like that.”
“I miss her too,” Will said.
The realization surprised him. He knew he missed her, of course. But he hadn’t let himself think about how much he missed living with Eleven. Living with his sister. She had been a comfort.
She was family. She belonged.
Guilt followed close behind the warmth. It wasn’t fair to her that he was sometimes bitter. Or jealous. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know everything he carried. Especially not how he felt about Mike.
But she understood him in a way not many people did.
Not even Mike.
He missed his sister.
Mike shifted, their knees knocking together again, and reached over to slide Will’s sketchbook into view.
“Is that Tom Bombadil?” He leaned closer, studying the drawing of the fat happy orange tomcat. “Is it? Holy shit, Will, it looks just like him.” He grinned. “You even got that notch in his ear.”
Will glanced up, caught by the brightness in Mike’s face.
“It really looks like him,” Mike said, quieter now. “That’s… really good.”
“It’s fine,” Will muttered. “I guess.”
Mike scoffed. “You guess. You guess. Look at him, Will. He’s so cute.” He paused, then added, half-laughing, “You’re totally a cat person, by the way. I can tell.”
Will felt his face flush. Praise from Mike always did this to him.
“Are you kidding? My mom would never let me have a cat. She hates cats. She wouldn’t even let us keep our dog.”
“Just because she hates cats, doesn’t mean you’re not a cat person!” Mike argued. Then, without thinking too hard, “I mean… you won’t live with your mom forever.” He shrugged. “Like, if we went to the same college or something. Get an apartment that’s ours.” He hesitated, then grinned. “I would absolutely get you a cat.”
Will laughed, breathless. Like it was a joke. Like it wasn’t. “No you wouldn’t.”
“I’d absolutely get you a cat.”
“And what would we name our cat?” Will let himself indulge in the fantasy for a change.
“I dunno, it’ll be yours to name.” Mike shrugged.
Silence settled again. Will let the moment hang, careful not to disturb it, then reached for his pencil and kept drawing.
With a quiet groan, Mike unfolded himself from the floor, his knees cracking loudly as he stood. Will’s chest tightened, the instinctive fear of being left alone flaring before he could stop it.
But Mike didn’t go far. He went to the bookshelf on the other side of the room and grabbed a paperback. Then came back to the coffee table, sat back next to Will and stretched out his long limbs. His mismatched socks poked out at the other end of the table.
“This okay?” Mike asked, holding up the copy of the Hobbit he had grabbed.
He was staying. Even if just for a little while. Will nodded, and returned to his sketchbook.
Maybe staying in the Wheeler basement had its perks after all. Maybe the claustrophobia was worth it for these moments.
They spent almost an hour like this, silently absorbed in their tasks, but it felt almost more intimate than the entire emotional conversation they had experienced tonight. Their peace was broken when the front door opened upstairs, Jonathan and Joyce had returned.
Mike closed his book and shot up, suspiciously quick as if they had been doing something he didn’t want to be caught at. But his momentum slowed as they heard Will’s family in the kitchen, they had a few extra moments before Jonathan would come down.
After returning the book to the shelf, Mike hesitated at the base of the stairs. He rocked on his heels, swinging his arms a few times, and snapped his fingers softly as if shaking something loose. His own gentler form of self-soothing. Gearing himself up.
“Hey so, um… do you think I could listen to the rest of your tape sometime?”
“Oh..uh,” Will stalled. “Well, it’s not done yet, so…”
“Right, yeah, totally. That makes sense,” Mike rushed in. “I mean, not now. Just…like when you finish it. If you want.”
Will hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. Sure. When it’s done. Because it’s not done yet.”
“Cool. Awesome.” Mike exhaled, relieved. Then, after a beat, “Umm… Do you have any more blank tapes?”
“Robin does, at the station,” Will said. “Do you want me to grab one for you?”
“No—well—” Mike scrubbed a hand through his hair, suddenly unable to hold eye contact. “I was kind of thinking… I don’t really get music the way you do.”
Will stayed quiet.
“So maybe…if you wanted…you could make one for me?” Mike said. “Like… not this one. I know this one’s yours. But, you know. A tape. Where the songs say what you’re feeling. Or whatever.” He winced slightly. “If you think you could do that.
The words landed heavier than Will expected.
Making a mix for Mike Wheeler.
A chance to say something without saying it at all.
Like the painting he had made for Mike, and said was from El.
“You’d really want that?” Will asked, needing to be sure.
“Yeah,” Mike said immediately. “Totally. You’re kind of the only person I’d trust with that.” He shrugged, awkward. “The tape Robin made me before is just stuff I grabbed off the radio. Not like Max’s song. Not like the ones you pick.”
Will looked down at his hands, at the mixtape resting nearby.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I could do that.”
“Cool.” Mike said, swinging his arms again.
“Cool.” Will answered.
The silence lingered for a moment before Mike clears his throat.
“Well, goodnight Will.” Mike gives him a goofy salute before heading up the basement stairs.
“Goodnight, Mike.”
The basement was still cold and cramped. But the buzzing inside Will had quieted, replaced by something warm.
He picked up his pencil again and kept drawing, thinking about cat names and futures that felt like home.
And which songs might belong on Mike’s mix.
