Chapter Text
Mike wakes up under a warm blanket, looking up at the ceiling. The cold November air leaks through the window as he listens to clutter from downstairs.
Will and Jonathan have been staying at his house for a while now, and while in any normal scenario, Mike would be overjoyed to spend time with Will, something’s been different between them. After that fight over the painting, Mike doesn’t understand how Will feels anymore, if he would want to be friends, best friends again.
He hears Will’s voice from below talking to Mike’s mom, and sighs before throwing on a ratty old shirt and walking downstairs. He shivers in the thin fabric. He would normally throw over a warm sweater, but he can’t find it. Maybe his mom mixed it up in the Byer’s laundry.
As he creaks down to the first floor, it comes to him that he probably looks like a mess. But who’s he trying to impress anyways?
“Mom, have you seen –?” He stops in the doorway, because instead of his mom sitting down at the table, he sees Will. They make eye contact, Mike straightens up, then Will looks away.
“Oh. Hey”
Will looks down at his food and mutters a gentle “Morning.”
Mike looks away to find cereal, to get a distraction, any distraction, from being too obvious. He looks back again at Will, who clearly looks like he wants to say something, but swallows it down instead.
The silence is deafening.
Mike rambles a little bit talking about a comic book series, before saying “I’m just gonna eat in my room.” He feels bad leaving Will in the silent room with his dad, but it’s unbearable eating breakfast directly in front of Will.
As Mike heads up to his room, he reminisces on the old way they used to be, best friends.
Not just Will, all of Mike's friends have slowly been growing apart. Max is in her coma, so she’s been stuck in the hospital. Lucas spends every afternoon with Max, reading J.R.R. Tolkien to her and playing Kate Bush. Dustin only hangs out with Steve and Robin, who are still platonic with a capital P. (Mike doesn’t really understand that). Mike has noticed that Dustin and Steve have grown apart, just a little bit, and he wonders if it’s related to Eddie.
That’s another problem. With Max in her coma, and Eddie’s death, there’s not much to talk about anymore. Bringing up D&D only reminds them of Eddie, and they can’t reminisce on old memories because Max is always in them.
All of this means the only person to hang out with is Will, but Mike still feels a distance with him, the same distance he feels with El. That’s stupid though, because why should he think that? Will isn’t El. Mike was in a relationship with El, and he and Will are friends. Just friends.
Mike hears the door slam, interrupting his train of thought. He already knows it’s Will, probably going off to see El or Ms. Byers. While Will and El’s relationship as siblings has gotten stronger, Mike has just felt more closed off and alone, a very unenjoyable feeling.
Mike hears arguing downstairs, talking about the power outage and…Mike and Will?
“Ted, they're just friends, you need to mind your own business. We can’t have Will freeze to death in our basement.” His mom must have gotten home from dropping Holly off.
“I know that boy is up to something Karen, something very wrong.”
What does Will freezing to death have to do with anything? Why is Mike’s dad so angry, and what is he angry about?
These questions run through Mike’s head at the speed of light as he stares at his now soggy bowl of cereal.
An hour or so passes before Mike hears Will enter the house. He decides to risk it and head downstairs. The Wheelers are all debating what to do with the power gone.
You boys.” Mike’s mom looks between Jonathan and Will as his father glares from behind. “I know the basement gets cold even with the heating working. Jonathan, you can take the couch, and Will, maybe you could share with Mike–”
“No.” Will says abruptly, and while Mike feels a bit of relief, he can feel his shoulders sink. So this is what his parents were arguing about. Why was Will so quick on his decision?
Mike’s mom protests a bit further, but Will ends the conversation with a simple yet firm “I’ll be fine.”
Mike feels disappointed, even though he shouldn’t be. Why would he want to share a room with his ex-best friend anyway? He heads back up to his room before he can think about it any longer.
“Mike, are you there?” Lucas’s voice is staticky from the walkie talkie.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“God, I’m so worried about her. We have no idea what’s gonna happen, but we have our updates from the hospital in case anything new happens.”
It hits Mike like a truck as he remembers Max is in the hospital, relying on electricity, which the hospital doesn’t have. He remembers back in 8th grade, when he and Max had some stupid sort of rivalry-thing with her joining the group. They’ve changed so much, and now Mike can’t even imagine a group without Max’s presence, even now when she’s unconscious.
“Oh god, Lucas, I’m so sorry. She will be okay, she has to be.”
Just as Mike speaks these words, he hears another staticky voice in the background.
“…hospital power…generator…Maxine Mayfield…fine.”
Lucas responds almost immediately. “Mike! The hospital says they have a generator, so their emergency power should last a few days, then the generator needs refueling.”
Mike reassures Lucas, but he tunes him out a little, because there’s something else he can focus on. Will is slowly walking past Mike’s room, but he stops just at the entryway. They make eye contact, then Will looks down and quickly walks away. Mike shuts the door and dramatically falls onto his bed.
“Mike?” El’s voice leaks from the walkie talkie on the floor.
“Yeah?” Mike scrambles out of bed. Why would El be calling him?
“I need you to talk to Will.”
Will. The thought of him sends Mike back into a spiral.
“Uhh, what about him?” Mike tries to sound normal.
“Mike, he’s scared.”
Scared? What would Will be scared about?
“Scared…of what?”
“You know what it is, Mike.”
A million thoughts rush through Mike’s head. Is it really what he thinks it is? Could it be what Mike has hoped?
“I do?” Mike’s tone wavers.
“Yes, it’s about him. Vecna.”
Oh. For a split second, Mike thought it would be about something else.
“Oh. What do you want me to say?” Mike is shitty about dealing with emotions, and feelings, and conversations about stuff he still doesn’t understand.
“Mike.” He can practically hear El roll her eyes through the walkie talkie. “He’s cold down there. He can’t sleep there, by himself. You know Jonathan is in Nancy’s room. Will told me that when it’s cold, he feels like Vecna, or the Mindflayer could take him. Mike, just stop being so scared of him. Whatever you two fought about, you can make up and talk again, I know you can.”
“Ok. So, what do you want me to do?” He sounds careless and stupid, but he’s trying so hard not to be.
“Ok. I want you to go down there and ask him if he wants to sleep in your room. I know he said no before, but he needs to. I have to go to bed now, because Hop will get mad at me if I stay up any later.”
“Oh. Okay. I’ll go downstairs right now.”
“Thanks Mike. He needs this.”
“Yeah. Ok, bye El.”
“Bye.”
Mike walks downstairs, and shivers as he gets close to the basement. It’s colder than one of those walk in freezers he and Will would play in as little kids.. He knocks a couple gentle knocks on the door, and hears the stairs creak. Mike can picture Will, standing on the other side of the door.
The door swings open, startling Mike. There stands Will, wrapped in a navy blue blanket like a wizard’s cape. The lantern Mike is holding casts a yellowish glow on Will’s face.
“Sorry,” Mike says. “Did I wake you?”
“No.” Will responds, and Mike tenses up. Maybe this was a bad idea.
“Um,” Mike stutters, “Mom asked me to check on you.”
Liar liar liar.
“I’m fine.” Will replies, his tone as icy as the basement.
“It’s freezing down here.”
“I’m okay, Mike. I’ll manage. You can go.”
Mike’s eyes flicker over Will’s face, like he’s studying him. And he is. He always wished that he could draw the way Will can so that he could draw Will himself, his eyes, his cheekbones, his lips.
“I talked to El,” Mike says slowly. “She said you’re … scared.”
“I’m not scared. I’m not a baby, Mike,” Will says, the annoyance running clear in his voice.
“No, I know. But she said Jonathan is sleeping down here to keep you company.”
“Yeah, well. He is.”
Mike glances down to see an empty couch, and remembers the doors creaking every night, Jonathan’s nightly visits to Nancy. Mike starts to roll his eyes, but stops himself. He doesn’t want to come off as rude or impolite.
“You know I have ears, right? I can hear him sneak into Nancy’s room every single night. I’m literally next door.”
“Can you just go? I’m okay.”
“I don’t believe you. You just don’t wanna cause any trouble, or whatever.”
“No, Mike. I want to be alone. I don’t wanna talk to you, okay?”
Mike winces. He knows Will would have never said something like this one or two years ago, but it’s not one or two years ago anymore.
“Fine.” He looks at the wall past Will’s head. “You made it clear earlier that you don’t wanna sleep in my room. But I just wanted to come down here to say that you can, of course. It’s not exactly warm, but it’s better than this.”
Mike can see trouble in Will’s eyes, but this time, he has no idea what Will is thinking.
“Thanks,” Will says stiffly. “But no.”
Mike stands there for another few seconds, like he’s waiting for him to change his mind. “Okay,” he says finally. He opens his mouth again to say more, but stops himself. He clears his throat. “Good night, then.”
“Good night,” Will says.
Mike closes the door, then runs up to his room and jumps on his bed.
So. Stupid.
He should never have gone down to the basement after all. Mike wraps himself in a soft blanket, and slowly closes his eyes, his face flushed with embarrassment.
Just as he starts to drift off, Mike hears the gentlest of gentle knocks at the door. Mike softly groans, then gets out of bed and opens the door. A glowing flashlight shines bright at Will’s face.
“I changed my mind.”
They stare at each other, not saying a word, and a billion thoughts rush through Mike’s head.
He steps aside to let Will in.
The silence is loud as Mike adjusts his sweatpants, until Will breaks it.
“Um. Do you still have that spare mattress? The one we used for sleepovers?”
Mike sighs quietly in relief, glad that he has a task to do. He pulls out the mattress from underneath his bed as he thinks to himself. What changed Will’s mind?
“This should work.”
“Thanks.”
Mike sits back down on his bed, as Will crouches down on the floor and puts his pillow on the mattress. It’s so quiet in the room. No buzzing from a lamp or radio. The electricity is drained from the wires and in this moment, Mike swears it creates an unnatural silence.
Mike and Will slide underneath their blankets, almost in sync.
“Do you want the candle on or–“ Mike lets Will finish the question.
“On, please,” Will says quickly.
“Okay.”
Then it’s quiet again. Mike awkwardly comes to realize he’s been facing Will, and that Will’s been doing the same thing. They make and hold eye contact, but neither of them say a word.
A minute passes. Then another.
“Well,” Mike says eventually and turns his back to Will. “Good night.”
Will quietly says “Good night,” as the house falls silent. The golden flame flickers, and dark shadows shift over the walls. And even though Mike is almost too afraid to breathe, Will’s quick breaths bring him into a cycle as he tries to match his pace.
The room stays quiet, except for the two boys’s breaths, slow inhale, fast exhale. Mike wishes he could turn around, because he’s much more comfortable that way, but he’s afraid he would see Will’s face staring back at him. As Mike stares at his posters and looks at the dents and stains in the wall from childhood, he wishes that he could just go back in time, to when things weren’t so confusing.