Chapter Text
It’s been two weeks since Will returned from the Upside Down, and Mike won’t leave his side.
They alternate houses every couple days, spending long nights up watching movies in the Wheelers’ basement, then hazy afternoons listening to tapes on the floor of Will’s room back at the Byers’. Their moms are both allowing this for now, even though sleepovers on school nights are usually forbidden; they understand how close they’d all come to losing Will for good. They understand how Mike feels about that.
They’re laying across Mike’s bed now, Mike reading one of his favorite comics while Will sketches beside him. The window is cracked open and a soft fall breeze keeps slipping in. Mike watches as it ruffles Will’s hair, then darts his eyes back down to the comic in front of him when Will’s gaze slides in his direction.
“Do you like it?”
Mike fights the blush that rises to his face and hastily flips a page. “What?”
Will nods at his hands. “The comic. You’re reading a lot slower than usual. Is it bad?”
Mike shakes his head quickly, closes the comic and sets it on his nightstand. “No, no, it’s good. I’m just tired, I think. I can’t focus on it right now.”
They’d stayed up late the night before, another movie marathon downstairs where they’d shared too many cokes and bowls of popcorn. Where Mike had laid awake long after Will fell asleep, watching the lights of the TV flicker across his face.
This has been a recurring problem since Will came back from the Upside Down. Mike feels like he can’t take his eyes off him, ever. What if he disappeared again? Mike couldn’t let that happen. He’d already taken Will for granted once, and look what had happened.
Will’s watching him carefully now. “I can go back home this afternoon, if you want. By myself, I mean.”
Mike scowls. “Why would you do that?”
Will breaks the gaze and looks back down at his drawing, smudging a line. “So you can go to bed at a decent time. And not wake up in the middle of the night every time I have a nightmare. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry! I want to be with you. I missed you. I’m…” Mike looks down at Will’s hand that’s closest to him, gripping a bright yellow pencil and tapping it against his notebook. He thinks about reaching out and grabbing it, just for a moment. To steady him. To let Will know that he’s not going anywhere. I’m scared of losing you again, he finishes in his head. He feels scared to say it, though he can’t name why.
A smile breaks across Will’s face again, just like the sun bursts through clouds. “That’s good, then. I don’t really want to be alone anyway.”
Mike smiles back at him, bigger and far less restrained than the smiles anyone else gets from him. He eyes Will’s hand again. He likes Will’s hands. They always look soft, and gentle, and they’re so good at art.
They held hands all the time when they were kids. Side by side on the swingset, swinging in sync until they’d countdown and jump at the same time, soaring through the air with their hands clasped tightly between them. They’d stopped doing that once they got to middle school. Too many mean boys called them names they barely even understood, but they knew enough to know that these names were bad things. Things they didn’t want to be. So Mike stopped doing the things that always attracted the bullies’ attention, not wanting to hear them call Will those things anymore.
But those bullies aren’t here now.
Mike reaches out slowly. Another breeze blows in and rustles the curtains. There’s music playing somewhere down the street, and sunlight warms the spot where they lay. The day feels slow and hazy, like it could stretch on forever.
Will looks over when Mike’s hand is hovering an inch from his. They haven’t done this in so long, but Will doesn’t look bothered. He sets down the pencil he’s holding and flips his hand over, leaving it open and palm up.
Mike breathes out and hovers his hand above it. There’s warmth radiating between their palms. Mike darts his eyes between their hands and the careful gaze Will is watching him with. He lowers his hand slowly, almost touching, almost, until–
The sound of a car door slams in the driveway, reverberating up and into his open window. His dad’s home from work.
Mike yanks his hand away, hastily putting some extra space back between him and Will. Will fixes his eyes back on his drawing and acts like nothing happened.
“Michael! Come help your mother with dinner!” Ted yells from the bottom of the stairs.
So much for the bullies not being here.
Mike sighs and flops off his bed. “You can stay here and draw,” he tells Will. “I’ll come get you when it’s done.”
Will nods and goes back to sketching his pencil across the page full of the DND characters. Another scene of him casting spells, another scene of Mike defending him from a monster.
Mike tries to do that in real life, too. Tries to keep Will safe.
He wants to feel guilty for the way he looks at Will, for the way he wants to be close to him. He knows he should, though he doesn’t have it in him. But he can try. He can push it down and try to will it away. Because he knows if he doesn’t…
He knows that letting those feelings out is a beacon for every monster in town.
Including the one downstairs.