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Will knew they were fine when Mike started tickling him again.
The big one - gasping for air, pinned to the floor, arms flailing one of his youth - took longer to happen. Instead Mike started slow, as if testing the waters. It was true that Will’s body hadn’t forgotten what to do during a tickle fight as much as his mind had, and a year into this tickle drought, which really was a drought of many things that he’d had to leave behind when they drove to California, he found that what once had been so fundamental now left him uncertain.
It shouldn’t surprise him that it was probably the same for Mike.
It started on a night which resembled the past more than any of the ones he’d spent living with the Wheelers thus far. It didn’t happen often. For the majority of his time there, he slept alone. Jonathan had stayed with him for the first week - insisting on it, in fact - as if afraid of what would happen if he left him alone. But once they got used to the way the house shifted, the way the wind made the pipes rattle, a sound they were both familiar with anyway, he started sneaking upstairs to spend the nights with Nancy. Will didn’t blame him for it, but to say he enjoyed his solitude would be a lie. He hated going to sleep in the silence. Hated waking up to no one breathing but himself.
He wasn’t sure why. It had never bothered him before.
“You look tired.” Mike said it over his toast, though Will had noticed he wasn’t eating much. Mostly just waving it around.
He rubbed at his neck. “I couldn’t sleep.”
Mike sat up straighter. “Are you having nightmares?”
“You sound like my mom.”
He let out a laugh, but the concern didn’t drop from his face. “I think living together is merging me and Mrs Byers into one person.”
“Oh god, don’t say that.” But he was laughing too. “I’m not sure what would be worse. Having you fuss over me or having to play DnD with my mom.”
“Speaking of fussing. You never answered me about the nightmares.” Mike knew that Will occasionally had them. Had said he’d be surprised if he didn’t get them.
Will shook his head. “No. Not recently, I just-”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Just can’t sleep lately.”
“Do you want me to sleep with you again?”
They’d done it twice. Remnants of their childhood, where their sleepovers always had Mike telling stories until Will fell asleep, usually curled up close to him. They were older now, and so the stories weren’t working as effectively, but the two times Mike had crept into the basement, as if realizing something was wrong, had brought with them a sense of calm that Will couldn’t always find on his own.
It didn’t surprise him that he nodded without giving it any thought. “Please.”
And Mike laughed at the desperation in his voice, though without malice. Will found that Mike always laughed when he wasn’t certain of how to react.
It started again because it was cold - dead of winter, in fact - and Will hadn’t told anyone of the way the basement was always slightly colder than the rest of the house at night, and he hadn’t told anyone of how he despised the cold now. They shared the couch because it was easier, their heads on opposite ends of it, and maybe Mike noticed the way he shivered and that was why he suddenly grabbed his foot under the blanket, not commenting on the way Will jumped.
“Jesus, you’re ice cold.”
Will exhaled slowly. “Aren’t you?”
“No?” Mike sat up. Will could see his silhouette in the dark, illuminated by the porch light someone had forgotten to turn off outside. “Will, I- let me warm you up, here.”
Will saw his held out hand and still didn’t move. “Mike-”
“Come over to my side.”
“You come over to my side,” he replied, but did as Mike said, always did as Mike said. And Mike laughed, that beautiful, rare laugh.
“I probably need another blanket,” he said when Mike wrapped his arm around him, something which hadn’t been unusual when they were children though they’d given it no name.
“Try to relax,” he said, which was easier said than done when this was the first, the very first in the past four years.
Will shut his eyes because it was easier. He felt entirely wide awake.
“Do you feel better?” Mike asked when the silence had stretched thin enough that it had nearly snapped. “Wait, is this why you’ve been sleeping badly?”
Will didn’t respond. That was how it started again. A moment of playfulness which had grown out of something rare. Will refusing to be truthful and Mike not being okay with that.
“Uhm, hello? Answer me.” The squeeze shouldn’t have surprised him, not accompanied by that tone, but it did, and Will’s elbow collided with Mike’s ribs around the same time as he cried out, and had Mike not known that he’d tickled him, he certainly knew it now.
But of course Mike had known about it. Mike was the master of it, or had been once.
“Sorry, I’m sorry.”
Will tried to turn over to look at him, because that was what you did when you apologized, but Mike huffed and tickled him again, this time gentler, brief enough that Will wondered if he’d imagined it had the ghost of the touch not lingered on his stomach.
“I forgot how ticklish you are,” Mike said when Will curled in on himself. He could hear his smile. How he smiled through the lie.
Mike knew they were fine, or at the very least going to be fine, when Will allowed him to tickle him again. When he wasn’t all guarded elbows and recoiling knees. When Mike had earned his tickle rights back and didn’t have to dance around it.
It took a while, though. Maybe that was his own fault for being so cautious. Will hated being treated like something fragile, but Mike wasn’t afraid of Will breaking as much as something breaking. Something which already had cracks along the edges. Something which didn’t fit quite right in his hands anymore.
That was his fault. His and a lot of other factors, but mostly his. He’d not realized that he didn’t navigate distance well, especially not when paired with a sudden and forced proximity. He thought the latter would save them, but he was just as clumsy up close. Now it was simply a lot harder to not accidentally drop it.
It was easier when they were with others, but that was maybe because they had no time to really think of anything other than to fix this mess they’d not asked to be a part of. If the air was filled with anything strange, they certainly didn’t have time to acknowledge it. It was at home that Mike found himself watching Will while being afraid to approach him. That had never been a problem before.
“You okay?” That was Dustin. Dustin, who hadn’t been okay in a long time. About as long as Lucas hadn’t been okay, though none of them had been suffering the way Will had and, by proxy, the way Mike still did. Silently. Bravely, in Will’s case.
“I’m fine.” Mike rubbed his eye. “Just tired.”
Dustin checked his watch. “I mean, you could go home and sleep.”
“I’m waiting for Will.”
Something flickered across Dustin’s face. It wasn’t the first time, though Mike opted to ignore it like he always did. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. Jonathan’s coming with him, after all.”
Mike shifted from foot to foot. “It’s just easier if we all go together.”
“Right.”
“Shouldn’t you be going home?”
Dustin turned away. “Now why would I be doing that.”
Mike felt a surge of impatience then, which didn’t mix well with his exhaustion. “I’m gonna go get him actually. It’s late.”
It wasn’t a crawl night and so they wouldn’t be missed. Not usually one to want to be left out, it came as a surprise to both of them when Mike reached for Will’s arm and told him they should leave.
“You okay?” Will asked, stepping back to see him better. “Do you feel sick?”
Of all of this, Mike didn’t say. He shook his head. “Can we just go? I’m tired and I don’t wanna go home alone.” That much was true. Besides, Will looked tired too.
Jonathan offered to drive them, though he said nothing about staying, and so they shut the front door quietly as he drove away again, both of them unsure of what to do in the dark and quiet of the Wheeler house.
Mike peered into the kitchen. “You hungry?”
Will shrugged. “I could eat.”
He made them sandwiches and they ate them in the basement, afraid of waking someone, though maybe that was an excuse. Mike found he couldn’t trust himself anymore. Could never tell the truth apart from the rest.
“Hey.” Will’s hand on his arm. That look of concern on his face. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Who was Mike to break down in front of someone like Will, who had endured so much? Will who would reprimand him immediately if he knew he ever thought like that. Will who was always so kind even when Mike was not.
“I can’t believe I let you move to California.”
“Mike, what- do you think you had a choice in the matter?”
“I should’ve done something.”
“Do you think I had a choice?”
“No! No, of course I don’t think that.”
“I would never choose to leave.”
“Will, I know that.”
“I feel like you don’t.” His voice had gone low. “Is this why things have been weird? You think I left by choice?”
Mike stood. He had to stand. This was not something you did while sitting. “Listen to me. I don’t think you left by choice.” He emphasized each word, needing Will to believe him. Needing them both to believe him.
“But you think you had a say in the matter?”
“I should’ve at least tried.”
They stared at each other, having reached a dead-end and not knowing how to navigate it. Mike sat down again, mostly because he didn’t like how it felt looming over Will like that. His sandwich lay half-finished, Will’s more than so.
“We can’t change the past,” Will said, leaning forward to rest his elbows against his knees. “But we have a say in the present, right?”
“Right.”
“So let’s just move on from this stupid conversation and be Mike and Will again.”
Mike found himself smiling. “I’d like that.”
Will smiled back, something small and timid, but when Mike spidered his fingers over his knee, knowing he didn’t like it when you squeezed because it kind of hurt as much as it tickled, Will only jerked away on instinct with a laugh. No recoil. No hands reaching out to stop him until Mike did it again and again and it became too much. Mike and Will again.
Lucas could tell something had shifted when Will went to see him at the hospital. They never knew if they should talk as if Max could hear them or not when they were there, and so they danced around it, stealing glances her way as if she could see them. But Will wasn’t really looking at Lucas either that day, and he wasn’t sure why.
“Hi,” he said when he entered, shooting a smile in Lucas’ general direction before throwing himself on the chair beside him.
“Long day?”
Will exhaled. “Too long.”
“It’s only afternoon.”
“I know.”
Lucas leaned back, trying to determine if he was worried or not. Mike had been a forbidden topic, just like Will was a forbidden topic around Mike. Lucas and Dustin had never really talked about why, though he was sure they both had similar thoughts. Will entering the room in a Mike-shaped haze wasn’t new, but it felt stronger that day. It felt as if they needed to talk about it.
Lucas looked at Max. She was always so much better at this. He felt a wave of overwhelming sorrow wash over him as he took in her braids.
“Hey.” Will did look at him now. He wore vulnerability so loudly. Lucas had always admired that about him. “You okay?”
He shook his head and looked at Max again. She was good at this, but she didn’t know Will like he did and she would tell him as much. “Yeah, just miss her.”
Will nodded. “We all do.” Lucas knew that he didn’t mean that they missed her in the same way as he did, just like Lucas hadn’t missed Will in the same way Mike had.
He pursed his lips. How to approach this? “Did you know Mike would go sit by the ruins of Castle Byers on days where he particularly missed you? I don’t mean during your disappearance, but during California.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Though he obviously missed you during your disappearance too. But that was different. He was so determined to find you then. Now he just- I don’t know. Tried to lay with it.”
“Lay?”
Lucas had slipped his eyes shut to allow his friend the privacy of expressions, but he could hear that quiet hope in his voice anyway. “Yeah, lay. Mike Wheeler would never just live with that. He had to get beaten into submission, and then just lay there. Gaining strength.”
Will was quiet for a long time, but Lucas was fine with waiting. “He’s gained some strength,” he finally mumbled.
“Has he.”
“You don’t sound surprised.”
Lucas let out a laugh. “You might have known him for a long time, Will, but so have I.”
When he looked at him again, Will was blushing. It was sweet. Max would’ve loved it.
“So what did he do?” he asked when they walked home later, shielded by the dark.
Will let out a strangled sound, which meant Lucas would be forcing it out of him unless he talked because that was just too good. But Will talked. Will seemed unable to not now. “He tickled me.”
Lucas’ laughter didn’t echo over Hawkins, but it did fill a very small section of its air, and that was enough.
“Is there a reason you’re sleeping in the basement, then?” Dustin felt proud of the restraint he showed, though Mike probably didn’t agree with him, if his spluttering was anything to go by.
“Will wanted company,” he snapped, rummaging through the clothes he’d left down there, which were certainly more than one set. “Shut up and let me find them.”
“I didn’t even say anything.”
“I can hear your presence.”
Dustin laughed, something light and genuine in his chest for the first time in months. He’d forgotten how fun it was to rile Mike up over the smallest things. Mike, who never protested when Dustin said Will was special to him. Mike who probably hadn’t allowed himself to feel anything properly in his entire life.
It was also dangerous, riling Mike Wheeler up about something like this. Dustin had to move with care. Preferably he shouldn’t be moving at all, but Dustin had grown bored of inactivity.
“So did you take the floor or?” he asked, not a single mattress in sight.
“We share the couch.”
“Ah, share, huh. I see, I see.”
“Dustin, can you help me find your stupid dice-”
“Why would you keep them in your pocket in the first place? At the very least fold your clothes with care, Jesus, Mike.”
“You sound like Nancy.”
“There are worse people to sound like.”
“There really aren’t- ah, found them.”
“You will take back your Nancy slander immediately or so help me.”
“Did you miss the part where I found your dice-”
“Can you guys hurry up?” Will’s voice from upstairs made both of their heads snap up. “We really don’t have all day.”
“Jeez, someone’s in a hurry,” Mike said, though there was something so fond in his voice. Something Dustin had never heard before, which really said something considering Mike’s voice always dripped in honey whenever it came to Will.
“Oh my god.”
Mike turned toward him. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Dustin.”
“Nothing.”
“Why are you laughing?”
Why was Dustin laughing? He wasn’t sure. All he knew was that something - something revolutionary - had finally taken place, or was about to take place, and maybe something in this godforsaken world would finally go right. If Will was too shy and Mike was too much of a coward, then Dustin would have to make sure of it.
They were fine because Mike was tickling him again, which meant that Mike was playful again and Will was letting him in enough to be able to be playful with him. It wasn’t just about the tickling and they knew that, but Mike took the opportunity to poke at his ribs only because they were so close, so close, though they found that Mike’s bed squeaked more than the couch in the basement did and maybe they would have to sacrifice the heat up there after all.
They would be fine down there. They were warmer tangled up together down there. Maybe they would talk about it one day, but the world was in shambles and they didn’t need to have all the answers, not yet. As long as Mike was willing to reach out, to touch and tickle and not be afraid of it. As long as Will was willing to let him in without hesitation. Whatever form it all took. As long as they were Mike and Will, tickle fights and cold hard truths and bodies pressed together in the dark, maybe in a different way one day, when they were ready for it. In Hawkins, or somewhere else.
Yeah, they would be fine. As long as, and all the rest.