Chapter Text
“The cave is deep, and dark. Every sound you make echoes back to you, a distorted mirror, and the echoes tell you that the passage is narrow, but even still, you can’t see the walls. A suspiciously viscous black fluid seeps from the ground, sticking to the soles of your shoes, pulling you back and dragging you forward, all at the same time. The air is warm, right on the line between balmy and humid, and-”
“Mike,” Dustin interrupts, “did you forget that, like, at least half of us have Darkvision?”
Mike sighs. “Yes, Dustin, I know you have Darkvision. You still can’t see, alright?”
Dustin frowns and crosses his arms. “I should be able to see. El should definitely be able to see, and Will- Will, do you have Darkvision?”
“Huh?” Will blinks, sitting up straight. “I, uh- yeah, I have Darkvision. Why?”
“We’re in a cave,” Dustin says, like he’s stupid. “Mike just said it, like, a billion times. Weren’t you listening?”
“Yeah, I- I was listening. We’re in a cave, we have Darkvision, we still can’t see. Go on, Mike.”
“Thank you,” Mike acknowledges. “At least somebody understands me. It’s-” he holds up a finger as Dustin tries to interrupt again, “it’s magic, ok? The- the point is, this place is hidden, and it’s safe, but it’s not comfortable, and something tells you, you can’t stay for long. It seems like the cave can’t decide if it wants you to stay or go…”
Mike dives back into the flow of his storytelling as if there hadn’t been any interruption, and Will settles back against his fist. Truth is, he had been listening, but not so much to the story- just to Mike’s voice. Sometimes Mike gets like this, all tied up in his campaign, zeal and artistry backing every syllable. The cadence of his words and the barely-there rasp of his voice are mesmerizing enough for Will to get lost in. He loves listening to this- he loves Mike.
Not like that’s news to him. Loving Mike Wheeler has always been one of Will’s biggest problems, second only to a sociopathic, superpowered mass murderer taking a personal interest in him a few years back. But Mike has been… Mike, since they were five years old.
- - -
That night, just like every other, Will ends up in Mike’s room. There are so many ways that sentence could mean something that he wants it to, and it’s none of them, but. He’s there nonetheless.
- - -
Mike’s morning voice is, potentially, better than even his DnD voice. It’s low and gravelly and while Mike used to be a morning person, that’s not the case anymore, so he’s pretty slow to wake. He’s snappish and mean to the others, most days, but never Will. With Will, he’s only ever soft, and gentle, his big doe eyes boring holes into Will’s soul like water drops against sandstone.
Mike is just designed to drive Will crazy, probably, because it’s not only his voice that does him in every day they wake up together. His morning hair routine can barely be called a ‘routine’ anymore- with three extra people staying semi-permanently, bathroom time has become a commodity in the Wheeler household, so Mike has given up straightening or even drying altogether, instead hopping out of the shower and heading directly back to his room, usually shaking out his wet hair like a dog and splattering Will in the face. Will should be annoyed by that, but how can he, when it turns out so gorgeous? It’s unfair, honestly, that Mike’s hair is so low-maintenance. His curls stick out in every direction, perfect little ‘C’ shapes that poke over the edges of his forehead and bunch up at the nape of his neck; they’re shorter now, he had cut them barely a week after getting back from California, but they still make a little train of ringlets down the left side of his head, just like they always have.
So, Will bikes to school most days, listening to Mike’s morning voice like it’s something he’s allowed to hear, and carefully training his gaze anywhere other than the boy next to him.
- - -
Mike is chewing on his pencil.
They’re in APUSH, and Will doesn’t even know what the teacher is talking about anymore, but he knows that Mike is chewing on his pencil. He’s gnawing at the eraser, because this is a new pencil, so he hasn’t completely worn it down yet (correction: Will hasn’t worn it down yet. Mike is some kind of psychopath who always just crosses things out, but Will uses all his own erasers up on getting the doodles on the edges of his notes just right, so he tends to snatch the pencils right out of Mike’s fingers to use his erasers before handing them right back). Even still, this one is already more than halfway gone (Will’s fault). He can see the moment that Mike’s tooth misses the rubbery pink layer, and his canine scrapes the edge of the metal instead. He grimaces just slightly, setting the pencil down and covering his mouth. The fingers of his free hand stretch and bend in weird patterns, like he’s trying to shake off the feeling, before he starts tapping on the desk instead.
The girl sitting next to Will sighs and retracts her hand, which Will only now notices was holding a scrap of paper, probably for him to take. She’s very pretty, with dark, curly hair and deep brown eyes, a strong nose, and- yeah, ok. He shoots her an apologetic smile before turning back to the board. He should probably pay attention.
He’s not sure why Mike is even taking this class, anyway. Will loves History, even ‘The Rise of Political Parties’, which is currently scrawled across the blackboard in big letters, but Mike definitely doesn’t. He could have taken one of the regular classes and graduated just fine. But, they only have two classes together, and APUSH is one of them, so Will isn’t going to complain about it.
- - -
Sleeping in Mike’s room is never great, as much as Will wants to be there. Largely because he’s on the floor. The carpeting is nicer than his ever was, but it’s still carpet, and more importantly, Will is cold. It doesn’t matter how many blankets he piles on. The climate control downstairs is set to a summery 68 degrees Fahrenheit, and it actually works- a luxury Will is unaccustomed to, even after Lenora- but it doesn’t make a difference. Something about the slick, impersonal material of his sleeping bag just leeches the heat out of him, and the thin blanket below him readily soaks it up and disperses it faster than he can blink, never to be seen again. Will has to keep from squirming, lest the noise disturb Mike, so he just holds the (cold, always cold) sleeping bag up to his chin and turns carefully onto his side.
- - -
It’s been nearly two weeks since the last crawl. Will is glad for that, actually. Two weeks isn’t long enough to assume that something is wrong, and in the meantime, all of them get to keep their feet on solid ground for a little longer. It doesn’t seem like the others share his relief, though, so here they are: gathered at the Squawk on a Friday night, reviewing the plan that everybody already knows. Just a precaution, he supposes. Still, he can’t help but think of what most teenagers would be doing on a Friday night, and comparing it to how he’s spending his. He suppresses a chuckle.
Standing at the other end of the table, Mike’s shoes scuff on the industrial cement floor, and he starts through the plan. His words land and deaden on contact with the cinderblock walls, turning their planning session into an encapsulated, private event. Will is listening this time- actually listening, not like he was at DnD last week. This is significantly more important.
Mike pulls the miniature Squawk van out of his front pocket, and Will smiles despite himself. Because Mike Wheeler, apparently, has been carrying DnD miniatures in his pockets all day, and that’s adorable.
Will made those minis, he remembers idly. He had held the flimsy paintbrush between his own fingers, months ago. He wonders how it makes Mike feel to be carrying something that Will made.
- - -
That night, Will stares at his own art where it’s tacked carefully onto the walls, one piece after another, illuminated in the nightlight that Mike had gotten for him, because he knows that Will can’t sleep in the dark anymore. He hears Mike’s slow, even breathing, and remembers what it used to be like. Back when all of this had been easy. When they had been close, in every sense of the word- they had shared a bed, as kids, before they grew up and realized that they probably shouldn’t.
Right now, Mike is so close, yet so, so far away, two feet that feels like running water, just like the creek they used to play in when they were younger. Will remembers stepping back and forth and back and forth over the rocks, practically daring each other to fall and being ready to catch each other all the same. Will wants to tell him everything, wants to step across the creek again, but he doesn’t know how to tell him a thing without drowning along the way. Doesn’t know if Mike will be there to catch him anymore.
It used to be easy. He misses the ease. The simplicity.
Things had gotten better again, after Lenora, after they had apologized, but Will can’t forget everything that went wrong, too. The airport, when he realized they had forgotten how to be friends. The roller rink, when he pushed his luck, ruined his own birthday, and got his sister arrested, all in one fell swoop. The painting, when he had unfurled something he cherished and coveted, given it a false name, and sent it away. The motel, when he had lain, petrified, next to his best friend in the whole wide world without saying a word, because he couldn’t just be normal.
Mike’s eyes, near tears as he said those three little words to Will’s twin sister.
Will stares at the shell of his ear and a stray trifecta of curls- all he can see, from his current vantage. It’s enough to split open an old, familiar aching in his chest, deep and sharp and empty. It carves through his sternum, ruining all his healing scabs and scars. He wonders if they’ll ever truly close. If they’ll ever have the chance, with Mike being such an irrevocable part of his life.
He presses his hands to the middle of his chest and pushes, hoping it might help and knowing it won’t. His face crumples, and he curls into silent sobs on his best friend’s bedroom floor.
- - -
The next morning, Mike wakes up groggy. His voice sounds like granite- Will is familiar with his ‘morning voice’ by now (and isn’t that a thought), but today it’s strikingly worse. His hair is even more of a disaster than usual, and Will fights a smile even through the uncomfortable haze of an early morning after another poor night of sleep. Mike’s eyes are almost crusted shut. Will kind of wants to use his thumbs to wipe it away for him, although he knows he should probably be grossed out instead.
Mike swallows with effort and grimaces. He smacks his lips and attempts to run a hand through the thick black mop on his head.
“Sleep alright?” Will asks, amused.
“Mm… no,” is Mike’s muzzy response.
Will hums. “What happened?”
Mike frowns and squints at the wall. “Dunno. Just felt like something was… wrong.”
Will pauses, then yawns, shrugs, and goes to brush his teeth with Mike’s toothpaste.
- - -
Fifteen hours or so later, Will collapses back into his sleeping bag. The fabric is an old enemy by now- too cold, too loud, too impersonal. Too close and yet so, so far away. He winces slightly and resigns himself to another long night of dodging nightmares, chasing ghosts, and resisting the urge to clamp both hands over the goosebumps on the back of his neck.
He turns on his side, but there’s a binder right in front of his face, three of his old pieces poking out at the corner. Two of them had been crumpled up and thrown away, he can see the creases, but Mike has flattened them back out and stuck them in sheet protectors. Sheet protectors. He turns onto his other side.
He’s just resettling, trying to make his shoulder fit comfortably between his jaw and the unyielding floor, when Mike (who he thought had already fallen asleep) sighs tiredly.
“Alright, just get up here.”
“...What?” Will says.
They’ve established some de facto rules in the past year. Of course, Will had been in the basement at first, scrunching himself onto the battered couch while his brother snored on a spare mattress on the floor across the room, but after about six months, he had been ready for a change, and had taken Mike up on his offer of a sleeping bag on his bedroom floor. He’s beginning to regret it by now, but- at least Mike doesn't snore like Jonathan.
Ergo, for almost twenty-three weeks now, he and Mike have been doing this dance. It has rhythms, it has rules, even if they’ve never said them aloud. Whatever Mike is doing now… this is not in the rules.
“The bed, just get in the bed. C’mon, I won’t bite.”
Will steadfastly does not follow that train of thought. Instead of moving, he puts on a light tone, tries to sound like he’s laughing when he says, “what would El think, huh?”
Mike doesn’t play along. “What? Why should it matter what El thinks?”
“Because she’s your girlfriend?” Will replies with a frown. “Pretty sure most girls don’t want their boyfriends sharing a bed with anyone else, even if it’s just a friend.” He doubts his sister would mind, actually, but he needs some veneer of an excuse to protect him from whatever kind of heart-strangling situation Mike is trying to put him in right now.
Mike is silent for almost fourteen full seconds- Will counts. Mike being quiet only ever means that something is wrong. “Will, El and I broke up, like, seven months ago. I thought I told you?”
Will’s brain stalls. Coughs. Turns over, starts again. “...Uh. No, apparently not. Shit, I’m sorry, are you ok? What happened?”
The blankets rustle as Mike’s silhouette moves, which Will takes to mean that he shrugged. “Just sorta ended. We weren’t great together, anyway. We’re better as friends.”
That sounds like Mike is reading from a script, which probably means that’s not the full truth. Will debates whether or not to push- is it his business? they used to be so close, but if Mike is keeping something from him it’s got to be for a good reason- and ultimately elects to let him keep his secrets. He blows out a long sigh instead. “Yeesh.”
“Yeah. Anyway, get up here, I can literally hear your teeth chattering.”
“It’s not even cold enough for that to make sense,” Will counters, but he is shivering as he stands and takes the meager two steps to the edge of Mike’s queen-size. For lack of any other excuses, he lifts the comforter and tucks himself into the very edge.
The mattress is nicer than the floor- it doesn’t hurt his arm, at least, and the fabric of the sheets is significantly more welcoming- but Will hardly has time to relax before Mike is grabbing him by the shoulder and pulling at him to crawl deeper.
“Dude, come on, I promise I’m not contagious, or whatever.”
“Contagious with what?” Will laughs, as he tries not to think about the fact that he’s army-crawling his upper body through his best friend’s bed.
“Dunno, just thought it sounded funny,” Mike answers, like this is all so simple, and there’s no stress at all attached to the fact that he’s tugging Will onto his chest and setting one hand on his back. Will can hear Mike’s heart pounding, but he still sounds casual as he confirms, “there. Better than the floor?”
Will is frozen stiff. He shouldn’t be thinking about this right now, any of this- how much he prefers the real blanket, how nice Mike’s chest feels under him, the fact that Mike is spreading warmth from every point of contact and chasing away the chill he’s been perpetually wracked with for weeks on end- but what else is he supposed to be thinking about? Girls? Star Wars?? Mike is wearing a beat-up old crewneck, the sleeves of which are far too short, and the fabric is smooth beneath Will’s cheek and against his forearm. Mike’s words sound different from up close. He wonders if they’d sounded like that when they were little, and he just hadn’t noticed until now.
“...Yeah,” he finally admits. His tension oozes slowly into the mattress and disappears, a relative inverse of the thermodynamic thievery of his sleeping bag. He shuffles to get comfortable, straightening his arm from where it’s bent awkwardly and throwing it across Mike’s stomach instead, then lets his weight fall. Tries to convince himself that this is normal. Sighs out his mouth in one measured push. “Yeah,” he says again, quieter.
Mike takes a deep breath, lifting Will’s torso with the rise and fall of his chest. Will blinks sluggishly, eyelids finally, finally beginning to grow heavier.
“I’m glad we’re friends again,” Mike murmurs sleepily.
Will swallows, closing his eyes tight for a moment, and listens as Mike’s breathing slows into proper slumber. Then he stares at the wall, just like he had stared at the binder. There’s a new rectangle in front of him, about three feet from his nose; it’s Mike’s Conan the Barbarian poster. If he didn’t know what it was, the vague grey blobs that the relative darkness reduced it to would be unrecognizable, but as it is, Will knows it well, because he remembers buying that with Mike. It had been a couple days before he moved away, when he and Mike had gone out, just the two of them, because they knew they were running out of chances. They had gone to the arcade, and the thrift store to look at tapes, and walked through downtown to get ice cream. Will had spotted a rack of posters through the windows of a storefront, and they had been lucky enough to find a Conan poster in there- that had been one of their favorite movies at the time (for very different reasons, probably), and it was only a couple years old, so the lowered price was a steal. Mike had tried to give it to Will, to decorate his new room when he got to Lenora, but Will had insisted that Mike keep it, “so you don’t forget me”.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do without you,” Mike had said that day. “I’m glad we’re friends again,” he had said tonight. Beautiful, meaningful words, full of emotion and goodwill.
Will closes his eyes again and gives a very shaky exhale, willing himself not to cry into Mike’s sweater. He’s glad for their friendship, he is. He doesn’t know who he’d be without Mike Wheeler, and he’s immeasurably grateful to him for extending his hand that fateful day on the swings, grateful for every choice since then that has kept them in each other’s lives. There’s just one little voice, in the back of his head, that says that it isn’t enough anymore.
He wishes he could take a scalpel to his own brain. Carve out all the little bits and pieces that make him like this. Take out all the difficulties and just enjoy what he has.
Mike chooses that moment to mumble in his sleep, random syllables that are clearly nonsense but startle Will all the same, and then he shifts blindly to wrap an arm around Will’s waist and turn on his side. Will finds himself being rolled off his comfortable headrest, falling instead with his ear pressed to the pillow and Mike’s other arm trapped under his neck. The bridge of his nose is against Mike’s chin, with Mike’s breath lifting his bangs every few seconds.
It’s lying like that, engulfed by the pure softness that is everything around him, that Will is struck by a thought with all the force of a speeding truck: Mike is alive. Michael Wheeler is a living, breathing human being, he’s alive and healthy and full of energy, he’s real, and he’s right here, holding Will in his arms. Who cares about the context? He has everything he could ever want, right here.
He tucks his forehead into Mike’s clavicle, one arm to his own chest but the other gripping Mike’s side hard, clenching his fingers in the fabric of his shirt, clutching him by the ribs. He can feel Mike’s heart beating under his palm, slower than before. His eyes prickle again, and he sighs, inhaling Mike’s scent.
Although he can’t see anything from here, Will thinks about Mike’s smile. The dorky way his lips purse at the corners, just like his mother, and the way you can read what he’s thinking if you just watch the way his eyes crinkle- sad or tired or relieved or sarcastic or purely, unambiguously delighted. He thinks about the joy on Mike’s face when he’s deep in a campaign, completely immersed, insulated from the world. Their own little space. Just them and their friends, the people they’ve chosen together. No one can touch them there, because of Mike, because of Mike’s rapturous, dedicated love for his chosen outlet of creativity.
Will falls asleep to thoughts of gangly limbs and faded freckles and curly hair.
- - -
The next day, Will is in a haze, obsessed with Mike all over again. He stares at him over breakfast, until his syrupy eggs are cold and he has to eat them anyway, because Mike will worry if he doesn’t.
When Steve takes them by Family Video (despite no longer working there) because all their parents are busy, Will spends the drive sitting wordlessly and fixing his gaze to the back of Mike’s seat. Mike paces around the store, and Will trails after him like a duckling, trying not to say anything too obvious as they argue over the merits of their three chosen tapes. God, he feels like he’s in a dream. It’s like middle school all over again, minus the awkward boners.
The rest of the Party arrives, the movies play one after the other, and Will hardly processes a thing. He couldn’t even tell you what the second one was titled, if you asked. On his way back from the bathroom to catch the third one, he almost runs into a wall, lost in thoughts (of Mike) as he is, and Lucas gives him a face through the doorway to the kitchen.
Jesus Christ, this is pathetic. It’s not like he’s suffering, or pining after his best friend (at least not actively), he’s just obsessed. Everything is about Mike, Mike, Mike. He eyeballs the blankets strewn across the floor and speculates which one is Mike’s favorite. He takes a sip of his soda and muses whether Mike has finished his yet. What the fuck.
Hours later, when “night” has passed and “very early morning” has taken its place, the last of the Party is gone, and Will’s nerves set in as one smooth, uncomfortable slide into anxiety.
He calculates how long, exactly, he can put off getting in bed before Mike notices. Whether or not he can avoid it entirely. It’s not that he doesn’t want to share- God, does he want to- but. He’s not exactly sure how to.
They brush their teeth at the same time, and Will thinks about how he would have felt if you told him a year ago that he would be tasting Mike Wheeler’s toothpaste twice a day every day.
The lights are off, all the windows are shut, the front door is locked. Will triple checked that the stove was off even though it hadn’t been used since Karen made dinner. In the end, there’s no avoiding it, and he’s in Mike’s room again, just like every other night.
He hesitates near the desk. They’re already changed, so Mike gets right into bed- he pushes himself away from the edge, leaving room for a second body next to him.
“Should I, uh…” Will toes absently at his sleeping bag, which looks limp and cold, like a sad, dead caterpillar on Mike’s carpet.
“What?” Mike looks up. “Yeah, dude, of course.”
“‘Yeah’, like, sleep on the floor? Or-”
“No!” Mike says quickly. He blinks. “Just- sleep in the bed. I know the floor is uncomfortable.”
Will ducks his head awkwardly, once, twice, then kicks his foot out in front of him and walks the rest of the way into the room. Mike shuffles over a little more, holding the blanket up for him to get in.
As soon as his head even skims the pillow, Mike is asking, “can you turn over?”
“Uh.”
Will hesitates again, then turns away. Mike immediately scoots up behind him, wraps his arms around his chest, and tugs him backwards until they run into each other- so they’re spooning.
“This ok?” Mike murmurs, surprisingly vulnerable. Will has only ever known Mike to be vulnerable when someone is about to die or the world is ending. He’s not sure which one this counts as.
“Yeah,” Will manages, proud of himself for sounding mostly-natural.
Mike tucks his knees under Will’s thighs. “Cool,” he mutters. His nose is buried in Will’s hair, arms wrapped tight around him like he’s scared Will might try to escape. He’s warm against Will’s back.
After another minute, Mike turns his head and presses his cheek against the back of Will’s neck, and promptly falls asleep. How, exactly, he can do that, will always be beyond Will.
He’s facing Mike’s closet, this time. At this rate he’ll probably learn every detail of Mike’s room by single-bulb Star Wars nightlight, purely through his bouts of insomnia-induced staring. His closet door is plywood, just like the rest of the house, although the white paint has taken a beating. There’s one long scratch that Will is pretty sure he made, on a night that they had spent in Mike’s bedroom, rather than the basement- they had pulled an all-nighter, the sun was peeking over the horizon, and Will and Mike were laughing so hard they accidentally broke a plate, spilling Doritos and grapes everywhere and flinging broken ceramic against his closet door with a thunk.
Mike is amazing, that’s all there is to it. If he tries hard enough, Will can imagine his face, or the wild shape of his hair on a rainy day. The line of his shoulders, offset by one small mole at the base of his throat.
He’s just happy to have him, any way he can.