Chapter Text
Will was at Kimberly Parker’s house when the snowstorm started.
It was a Friday in January of ‘87, and as the sun sank towards the horizon and afternoon slipped into evening, Will and Kimberly sat slouched over the large desk in her room, poring over photographs of various student artworks while The Stranglers blared from the tiny radio on the windowsill. Much to his own surprise, Will had been elected co-president of the Hawkins High art club just before winter break, which meant that he was suddenly responsible for all sorts of organizational tasks, including curating an art exhibition for the upcoming school fair. It was a good thing he had Kimberly, a senior who was doing this co-presidency thing for the second year in a row, because without her he’d have lost track of the planning weeks ago.
“Why don’t we just use one artwork from each member of the club?” Will suggested when his eyes started to get sore from comparing two practically identical renditions of a lion. “That would be the diplomatic thing to do, right?”
“Will,” Kimberly replied in that generous but firm tone of hers that she frequently used at art club meetings whenever a particularly heated group discussion required shutting down. “We’d need the entire cafeteria for that. We only have about a hundred square feet of space, remember? Plus, this is the first year we’re displaying paintings and pottery, so we need to think in more efficient terms.” She blew a stray piece of bright red hair out of her face. Will had been working with Kimberly at the art club ever since classes at Hawkins High had picked up again last fall, and he had yet to see her natural hair color. The first couple months, she had sported a pale, almost whitish blond, before deciding that she wanted to be a ginger – not the more natural-looking copper or auburn type, but a full-on burgundy shade like John Taylor from Duran Duran.
Kimberly was the type of person to consider herself a walking canvas. It wasn’t hard to guess that she was an artist; in fact, it was the very first thing that came to mind when she entered a room. She experimented with make-up a lot, smudging her eyeliner and sometimes using black lipstick, and painted her nails in colors that elderly folks deemed ‘offensive’, like vomit-green or mustard-yellow. Her outfits were equally unique – literally, as Will had never seen her wear the same outfit twice. Once, he’d asked her how she owned so many clothes, and she’d shrugged and told him that she didn’t, she just raided her mother’s and brother’s wardrobe whenever she pleased.
Kimberly was, as less well-meaning people described it, eccentric. Will, who was well-meaning by nature, liked to think of it as expressive. And he envied this quality. He had never lived out his artistic side in the same way she did; rather, his art was something he carried buried deep inside, in the secret crevices of his soul he hardly ever let anyone see. The part he only allowed to surface when he had a brush in hand and a canvas in front of him, and even then he was careful with what he drew, scared that he would somehow reveal too much of himself.
He had revealed too much of himself once, and he was still piecing his heart back together from the aftermath.
“How about this?” Kimberly went on, shaking Will from his thoughts. “We organize a sort of competition where everyone can submit a painting or sculpture. We’ll put together a jury with students from each grade, to keep it fair, and they’ll have a vote, and the best fifteen artworks will be displayed at the school fair. We could turn it into an art club gala night – like an award show!” Her eyes sparkled.
Will winced. For all her free-spirited artist’s ways, Kimberly could be surprisingly cutthroat sometimes. A competition? Wasn’t that exactly what art shouldn’t be?
“You’re overthinking this,” Kimberly told him, seeing right through him. “I’m telling you, Will, some of these kids have really been slacking off, only showing up to the meetings for free donuts and soda and stuff. This’ll do them good. Bit of friendly competition can’t hurt anybody, right?” She bit down on her pencil, a playful glint in her eyes. “And if you think about it, this is way more democratic than us deciding who gets to be displayed based on photographs. At least this way, the others will be more involved.”
She had a point there, Will had to admit. “I guess.” He shrugged, finally putting the photos of the two identical lion drawings down and stretching his sore shoulders. They had been sitting at this desk for what felt like hours – a glance at the clock confirmed that it had been hours. Three, in fact.
“We have until our meeting next Friday to come up with a proper plan for this art-competition-gala-night,” Kimberly announced, already pulling out a blank sheet of paper to start brainstorming. “I was thinking–”
They were interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Not now, mom!” Kimberly yelled.
Mrs. Parker came in anyway, an apologetic look on her round face. As soon as she opened the door, the heavenly smell of roast chicken wafted into the room, and Will’s stomach growled in response. “Sorry, sweetie,” Mrs. Parker said, “but there is a snowstorm starting outside, and I think Will should better get going before it gets really bad.” She looked at Will and smiled warmly. “John can drive you, sweetheart. That way you don’t have to ride your bike. The roads are gettin’ real slippery.”
Will’s heart raced at the mere thought of being trapped in a silent car with Kimberly’s dad, who’d already given him a murderous look when he saw her dragging Will up the stairs to her room, despite his wife’s gentle insistence that “it isn’t like that, honey!”. Will didn’t know which of his prospects were more terrifying: Mr. Parker finding out the real reason why it wasn’t like that or Mr. Parker continuing to assume that Will had spent all afternoon making out with his daughter without so much as a proper introduction.
“Oh, that’s very generous, but that won’t be necessary,” Will hurried to say. “I’ll just push my bike. Really, it’s no problem. I could use some fresh air, anyway.”
Mrs. Parker tilted her head. “You sure, sweetheart? John wouldn’t mind one bit.”
Will was sure John would mind a lot, actually, so he nodded hastily. “Yeah, no, that’s alright. I can walk, it’s not that far.” It was true – the Wheelers lived only two blocks away, which was a fifteen-minute-walk, perhaps twenty in the snow.
Mrs. Parker smiled and sighed, like she thought Will was only being polite but didn’t want to put him on the spot for it. “Okay, well, if you insist, sweetheart. But as I said, you should better get going now. It’s getting worse by the minute.”
Mrs. Parker had not lied. It was really bad. By the time Will left the Parkers’ garage with his bike in tow, the sun had fully sunk, taking with it any remnants of warmth, and his fingers immediately prickled with cold. Snowflakes danced all around him in a wild whirlwind of white, changing directions with each gust of wind. Will pulled his hood up, buried his face in his coat, and set off for the Wheelers’ house.
The streets were empty apart from a few frantic dog walkers; everyone else, it seemed, had already hunkered down for the night. At first, Will found this strangely romantic, feeling almost like a lone watcher in the night, a Nick Carraway of sorts, trekking past dim streetlights and soft-glowing windows as the world was inverted, all life and noise moving inside while the outside became eerily quiet; a quiet he had all to himself.
But ten minutes into his walk, the snowstorm turned into an outright blizzard. Will could no longer see individual snowflakes dancing through the night and was instead staring at a wall of white. Icy wind sliced into his skin, and his fingers on the handlebars grew more numb with each passing second. He could hardly see the sidewalk in front of him, let alone where he was going, and in the back of his mind, a voice sounded. It was muffled at first, like it was coming from far away, a distant memory. “You’re lost,” the voice said. “You’re getting lost. You don’t know where you are.”
This wasn’t true, Will reminded himself. He knew perfectly well where he was, and he was not lost. He had just turned into Maple Street and only needed to follow it straight down to the cul-de-sac where the warmth of the Wheeler house was already waiting for him.
But the voice grew more insistent, louder and harder to ignore, until everything in his head was screaming that he was lost and would never find his way back.
Will drew a shaky breath, ducked his head against the wind, and pushed forward. It’s only a straight line down. Only a straight line. Only a straight line. He refused to let panic take over, but it was getting harder to fight back when he truly could not see anything. He couldn’t even say with certainty that he was walking in a straight line. How could he trust his senses when he saw only white, heard only wind, felt only cold? He could be walking in circles, and he wouldn’t even know it.
“Fuck,” he hissed, trembling with cold and fear and fury at that stupid voice inside his brain. He stopped for a moment, gripping the handlebars even tighter, like the bike was his tether to reality, to this side of Hawkins, and closed his eyes. “I am not lost,” he whispered to himself, repeating the phrase like a mantra. “I am not lost. I am not lost. I am not lost.” Unbidden images flashed through his mind, stories he had heard of campers leaving their tents for a bathroom break in the middle of a blizzard and never finding their way back, their bodies being found mere feet away the next morning, frozen solid.
And wouldn’t that make a ridiculous story? Zombie Boy, who’d survived being hunted by monsters in an alternate dimension for a week, found dead on Maple Street after walking home in a snowstorm.
A violent shiver rocked his body as he blinked at the solid wall of white. Who would find him, though, if he didn’t make it? Who would even hear him if he screamed for help? There was no one around. Maybe he would just end up like one of those campers.
A harsh laugh escaped Will’s throat. Campers? Come on, now. He wasn’t setting up camp in some uninhabited terrain, he was on Maple Street, for heaven’s sake. And he was probably only a few houses away from the Wheelers’. He had been walking long enough that he should be getting close.
In the end, it was muscle memory that carried him home. That was the only way he could explain why he was suddenly standing in a familiar driveway, gazing at familiar garage lights. Will could have sobbed with relief. Instead, he pushed his bike into the garage and hurried into the house, shaking snow from his clothes as he went, knowing it would leave giant puddles on Mrs. Wheeler’s polished floors but not having the brain capacity to feel guilty about it at the moment.
“Jesus,” he mumbled, shrugging out of his soaked coat and throwing it over the banister. Then he looked up and stilled.
Mike was standing in the hallway, dressed in a buffer jacket, gloves, and a fuzzy wool hat, the phone pressed to his ear. He had his back to Will but whirled around at the noise, and the sharp pinch in his brows immediately softened.
“Nevermind, he just got in,” he informed whoever was on the phone, sounding a bit breathless.
Will quirked a brow. Mike was obviously talking about him.
Seeing Will’s confused expression, Mike mouthed, your mom, before continuing to hum along to whatever Joyce was saying. “No, he looks fine,” Mike said after a while, giving Will a quick once-over that made Will feel nervous for entirely ridiculous reasons.
Now that he knew it was his mom on the phone, he could discern her voice more clearly. She sounded frantic, her words an uninterrupted stream of syllables, and Will cringed. Knowing her, she had probably talked herself into a state of severe alarm the moment the first snowflake had touched the ground.
Following their return to Hawkins last spring, Joyce had moved into Hopper’s cabin while Jonathan and Will lived in the Wheelers’ basement, but that didn’t keep her from calling on a constant basis to check on him, sometimes multiple times a day. It was as endearing as it was embarrassing – and honestly a little suffocating, too, although he would never admit that out loud.
Will realized somewhat belatedly that Mike had been trying to catch his eye, worrying his lower lip with an uncertain look on his face while still humming along to Joyce’s rant. It was a silent question. Are you okay?
Will hadn’t noticed that he was shivering like a leaf. It was a violent full-body thing, making his teeth chatter loudly. He nodded and lifted his shoulders in an apologetic shrug. Mike motioned for him to take off his wet scarf, telling Joyce: “Of course we’ll stay in. We’re not going anywhere in this weather. Will says hi.”
“Could you just hand him to me, please?” came Joyce’s strangled voice from the phone.
Mike’s gaze shot back to Will, who widened his eyes, pointed at his chattering teeth, and shook his head forcefully. The last thing he needed was for his mom to hear what state he was in and worry about him getting sick.
“Sorry, Mrs. Byers, but he’s just gone to the bathroom. I’ll tell him to call you later, okay?” Mike lied smoothly, and it seemed to placate Joyce enough that he could finally end the call and hang up the phone. He gave Will a look of open-mouthed disbelief as he tore his wool hat off, making his curls stick out in all directions. “Dude, what were you thinking? And why are you just standing there?” He ripped the gloves off, too, dropping them carelessly on the ground before undoing the zipper of his jacket.
Will stared back, a bit dumbfounded. “What do you mean?” Had the cold slowed down his brain function? What was Mike talking about?
Rolling his eyes, Mike crossed the distance between them in two long strides and roughly tugged Will’s scarf loose. “What do I mean? What were you thinking going out in this snowstorm? You need to change out of these clothes, you’re freezing.” As if to emphasize his point, he held up the scarf, which had become stiff with snow and ice and was sticking straight up into the air. His dark eyes bore into Will’s, demanding an explanation.
Will frowned. “I will, I will! Sorry, I – I was at Kimberly’s planning the art exhibition for the school fair, and we didn’t notice the snow until her mom came in and… well, I decided to walk home, it’s no big deal. It’s only a fifteen-minute walk, Mike. I’m fine.” He said all this as if he hadn’t just been freaking out about freezing to death on Maple Street like a camper in the Alaskan wilderness.
Mike’s expression darkened. “You were at Kimberly’s? Why didn’t her dad drive you or something? And how did you not notice the snow, does her room not have windows?”
Will watched as Mike collected all of his cold, wet attire and took off into the living room, apparently expecting Will to follow on his heel without command, which he did.
“Mike, you’re– of course her room has windows. We just kind of got carried away. And I didn’t want her dad driving me because I’m pretty sure he like, secretly hates me and that would’ve been super awkward.”
“So, you’d rather get lost in a blizzard and freeze to death?” Mike aggressively arranged Will’s coat and scarf on the living room heater before whirling around and shooting him an accusing glare. “That was so not cool.”
Will felt some anger of his own flare up, which caught him off-guard, since he so rarely got angry with Mike, even though he’d given him plenty of reasons to over the years. “I don’t understand why you’re so upset with me walking in the snowstorm when you were just about to go out yourself!” he pointed out, remembering the winter gear Mike had been wearing just two minutes ago.
Mike made a face like he couldn’t believe the sheer stupidity of Will’s statement. “Yeah, to go looking for you, Will! You’d been gone since school let out, and no one knew where you were! And then your mom called because she was freaking out, and I couldn’t even tell her where you went or when you were gonna come back!”
That took the wind right out of Will’s sails, and his anger vanished just as quickly as it had come. It was true – he hadn’t informed Mike about his plans with Kimberly. He had just sort of taken off after last period. Because it wasn’t a big deal, meeting up with a classmate to discuss school stuff on a Friday afternoon, right? Except, ever since November 6, 1983, everything concerning Will’s life was a big deal. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh,” Mike shot back, shaking his head. But the fight was leaving him, too; it was visible in the way his shoulders slumped and his breath came out in one big rush, like he’d been holding it this entire conversation. With a sigh, he turned to go again, and this time, his body language didn’t summon Will to follow him. “Go take a hot shower,” he called over his shoulder when he was halfway to the kitchen. Then he stopped once more to add: “Did the Parkers at least feed you dinner, or do you want some cereal? I was just about to have some.”
Will lowered his head, suddenly feeling sheepish. He was indeed starving. “I’ll have cereal, thanks.”
And before he could see the victorious glint in Mike’s eyes, he hurried to the bathroom.
Will stayed in the shower much longer than he should, basking in the hot water until the steam made him dizzy and his skin turned pink. It was so warm in here that he couldn’t fathom how cold he’d been only fifteen minutes ago. Feeling all mellow and tired, he slipped into a clean change of clothes and headed downstairs.
He noticed that Mike had put down several towels to soak up the puddles of melted snow Will had left on the hallway floor. He followed the sound of muffled music to the kitchen where Mike was fiddling with the kettle while bobbing his head to a Bowie song droning from the kitchen radio. Two empty cups containing tea bags sat on the counter, next to two bowls of cereal. Probably predicting that Will would be a while, Mike hadn’t poured the milk yet.
It was a strangely domestic picture – Mike in the kitchen, boiling water for tea and preparing their dinner after they’d just quarreled like an old married couple. Will felt some tension creep back into his posture.
They hadn’t had a lot of one-on-one-moments like this in the past nine months. Not for lack of trying on Mike’s part – after their fight in Lenora, he’d kept his word and worked really hard to patch things up between them, always going out of his way to include Will in his plans, constantly asking for his opinions, not just about the big existential questions like Vecna and the Upside Down, but also insignificant everyday life stuff, like which shirt he should wear to school or whether he should cut his hair even shorter – a travesty that Will, thankfully, had averted. He’d been kind of obsessed with Mike’s long hair. In fact, he still remembered the exact moment Mike had walked into the terminal of the tiny Lenora regional airport, wearing that ill-fitting yellow shirt and that stupid visor and those clunky sunglasses that made him look like a walking caricature of a California tourist, but somehow Will had been able to see past all that. Because of that luscious, black mop of hair falling to Mike’s shoulders that made him want to drag his fingers through it and play with it for hours. And Will had thought, If Mike Wheeler can look this ridiculous and still make me weak in the knees, then I well and truly must be in love with him.
But apparently Mike had experienced some sort of premature midlife-crisis upon their return to Hawkins, because he’d promptly broken up with his girlfriend of two years and cut half of his hair off in the middle of the apocalypse.
Ironically, that was the one thing he didn’t ask Will’s opinion for – the breakup with El. He went from pouring his heart out to Will for hours on end to complete radio silence. The only information Will had on the topic was what Mike had announced to the party at large one April afternoon in the Wheeler basement: “So, uhm, just so you guys know, El and I broke up. It was a mutual decision. We haven’t been happy for a while and decided it was for the best, especially now that we have so much more important stuff to think about. We’re still friends, so like, don’t even worry about that, and please don’t pester me with questions.” Then he had gotten up to get sodas from the fridge, leaving Lucas, Dustin, and Will to exchange stunned glances, before coming back and swiftly moving on to the topic of their new D&D campaign like he hadn’t just dropped a massive bomb. Whenever Will tried to broach the topic afterwards, Mike evaded his questions or straight-up told him to stop asking because, “it doesn’t matter anyway”. Interrogating El didn’t get him any further either, since she always just told him in that matter-of-fact way of hers that she and Mike loved each other very much as friends, and that he should simply wait for Mike to tell him more. So eventually, Will had dropped the matter, and that was that.
But it was still standing between them. Out of all the things Mike was constantly asking Will’s opinion about – his outfits, his haircut, his deodorant, his goddamn toothpaste even (“Do you prefer spearmint or peppermint?”) – he refused to open up about the one thing Will actually wanted to hear about. And, okay, maybe the reasons why he wanted to know more about the breakup were selfish, at least partly. Of course, he wanted to be able to console Mike. He wanted to comfort him and tell him it would all be fine, but more than that, he wanted Mike to need his comfort. The week after Mike had announced the split, Will had stayed up late every single night, thinking that perhaps Mike would stumble down to the basement at some ungodly hour, crying and wanting to be held by his best friend. Will had been prepared for that. But Mike had seemed totally fine. Relieved, even. He stood taller, like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and he laughed more often, more easily. Which made Will wonder… Maybe he had deluded himself beyond belief, but was it possible that Mike…? He couldn’t bring himself to complete that question, not even in the privacy of his own mind, and so he avoided being alone with Mike for the most part. Because whenever they were together like this, Will was overcome by the violent urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake the truth out of him.
“Jesus!” A startled cry snapped him out of his thoughts, and he lifted his gaze to see Mike pressing a hand to his heart with a huff. “Why wouldn’t you say something? You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry,” Will mumbled and quickly turned around to grab the milk from the fridge. Why was he making this more awkward than it needed to be?
Thankfully, Robin Buckley’s voice sounded from the radio then, diffusing the moment.
“Good evening, Hawkins, it’s your favorite here – Rockin’ Robin! I hope you’re all safe and sound as this snowstorm continues to wreak havoc in our beloved town. We just got note from the mayor’s office that all residents are strictly advised to stay in their homes until further notice due to the extreme weather conditions, so please stay put wherever you are! But don’t fret, you guys – since I’m stuck here at the Squawk anyway, you’ll have me to keep you company, and I promise to provide you with the best hits of the decade, starting now!” The broadcast faded into the next song, All Night Long by Lionel Richie, and Will rolled his eyes, although he couldn’t quite keep the smile off his face.
“She’s so cheesy for that.”
Mike shrugged. “Well, it’s a good song.” He took the carton of milk from Will’s hands and poured the contents over their cereal. “So, you heard what Robin said about being stuck at the Squawk?” he said as he walked over to the living room, bowls in hand. Will nodded, following him to the couch. “Well, Nancy called while you were in the shower. She and Jonathan are stuck down there, too. They obviously won’t make it back tonight. And, as you know, my parents took Holly to visit our grandparents over the weekend.” He paused, holding Will’s gaze as if he was searching for something there. “So, uhm, it’ll just be the two of us.”
Great.
Will took his bowl of cereal from Mike’s outstretched hand and plopped down on the couch. “Okay?” What was he supposed to respond to that? And, more importantly, what was Mike trying to tell him?
Mike sighed, hesitating. “Well, I just thought… you know, since Nancy won’t be sleeping here anyway, I could take her room tonight? And you could take mine. That way you don’t have to sleep in the basement. I’m sure it’s freezing down there, and your mom would kill me if I let you catch a cold after your walk in the blizzard.”
Oh, Will thought. That’s where Mike’s head was at. Which made perfect sense – Mike was always trying to make everyone comfortable, like his mission in life was to make sure no one felt inconvenienced, ever.
The thought of sleeping in Mike’s bed – in sheets that smelled like him, surrounded by all of his things – made Will’s stomach plummet. He’d been feeling languid and sleepy after his hot shower, but now he was suddenly very awake.
“Uh,” he croaked, for lack of a better answer. He had no excuse to turn down the offer. It was a kind gesture. Mike was offering him a restful night in a warm bed, in a room he knew Will was familiar with, considering they’d been having sleepovers there ever since they were five years old. It would actually be really suspicious if Will said no. It was one thing for him to discreetly avoid being alone with Mike, but to outright refuse entering his room? He might was well stick a note reading ‘I HAVE NON-PLATONIC FEELINGS FOR MIKE WHEELER’ to his forehead. So, he just accepted his fate. “Sure. Thanks. That’s very nice.”
Mike wrinkled his forehead at the formality in Will’s voice. “Of course.” Then he grabbed the remote and switched on the TV, gasping dramatically when he saw that ABC was doing a rerun of Dragon’s Lair. “Oh my god, is this the snow witch episode?” He leaned forward, shoveling cereal into his mouth absentmindedly. “It is!” he exclaimed so enthusiastically that tiny chunks of Froot Loops went flying from his mouth onto Will’s sweatpants. “Sorry,” he mumbled, although he didn’t even have the decency to blush, and started rubbing the stain on Will’s knee. “I just really love this episode, it’s one of my favorites.”
“They all are,” Will replied and rolled his eyes, if only to stop himself from smiling. Mike had been obsessed with Dragon’s Lair ever since it first aired back in ’84, practically bullying the party into watching it with him. He had this thing where he would get really invested in a book or cartoon and couldn’t stop talking about it for weeks, sometimes months, until he found the next thing to fixate on. Will pretended to be annoyed by it, because Dustin and Lucas usually were, but he secretly loved this about Mike – his ability to completely immerse himself in a fictional world, his desire to dissect a story until he knew all its ins and outs. And most importantly, his excitability, how generously he shared his passions with others. To Will, it always felt like he was allowing him a glimpse at his soul. Intimate, almost.
Mike’s hand was still planted on his knee, no longer rubbing the cereal stain but just loosely resting there, like he’d forgotten to remove it. His skin was warm, even through the thick fabric of Will’s sweatpants, and Will couldn’t decide whether he wanted to keep it there forever or slap it away immediately. He settled for a discreet clearing of his throat, which made Mike pull away to pick up his spoon again.
“So, uhm, what were you up to today?” Will asked to distract himself from the unique blend of relief and disappointment at no longer feeling Mike’s touch.
“Nothin’ much,” Mike said, mouth full of cereal. “Homework, mostly. Got a bit of writing done. Did the chores my mom gave me.” He leaned back into the cushions, now looking at Will fully. “It was pretty boring, actually.” It sounded slightly accusatory, as if Will should have cleared his schedule to entertain him. But his mouth was twitching, so he was probably just teasing him.
Will looked down into his Froot Loops, which were starting to turn a bit soggy. “It’s not my fault you don’t have a social life,” he said with a shrug and a tentative grin.
Mike’s mouth fell open in mock offense. “Will! How could you!” He bumped their knees together. “Actually, it kind of is your fault, strictly speaking.”
Now it was Will’s turn to gape. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You never hang out with me anymore!”
“We literally live together.”
“Exactly!” Mike placed his empty bowl on the couch table. “That makes it even more shocking how little time we spend together. This should be like, one perpetual hangout, but some days I barely even see you.”
Will inhaled slowly. They were entering dangerous territory, and he needed to tread lightly. Obviously, he didn’t want to upset Mike or make him feel like he didn’t want to hang out with him anymore, especially after they had finally cleared the air in Lenora. And perhaps it was a bit unfair to do precisely the same thing he had yelled at Mike for last spring break – and the summer before that. But he desperately needed to breathe, and unfortunately, Mike Wheeler’s presence had a suffocating effect on him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it. “It’s just getting really busy at the art club, with the school fair coming up – especially now that I’ve been elected co-president and everything.” It was somewhat of a lame excuse. Sure, planning the exhibition was taking up more of his time recently, but then again, he’d only been co-president for a month, and he’d started avoiding Mike long before that.
Mike was looking at him like he was thinking the same thing. For a long minute, he just searched Will’s eyes with the slightest frown on his face, making Will’s face heat up by about a hundred degrees. Then he sighed, and the frown vanished. “No, I get that. And it’s good that you’re, uhm – that you’re so involved in the school clubs. It’s perfect for our plan – blending in, not drawing any attention and all that.” But he was mumbling the words and avoiding Will’s gaze now, instead busying himself over a loose thread in his jeans. “And I like that you made new friends. And… and Kimberly, she… I think she’s good for you.”
Will opened his mouth without responding. It seemed like it cost Mike a great amount of effort to say that. Which was strange – after all, it had been Mike’s idea to become perfectly inconspicuous students so as not to alert anyone. No more Hellfire Club – that Will had never been a part of anyway –, no more provoking bullies or raising weird amphibian creatures in the science lab.
If Will was being honest, he really appreciated the opportunity to at least pretend to be a normal teenager. Not just because it provided a welcome distraction but also because he was itching for something to do. With Vecna vanishing off the face of the earth and the military setting up base downtown, their possible courses of action were very limited. Mostly, they just waited – for the next crawl, for El to find some trace of Henry in her bath, for Hopper to make a big discovery in the Upside Down. It was grueling and absolutely anxiety-inducing. And because Will didn’t want to go insane, he’d become more and more involved in school activities. At first, it was just the art club, but then Lucas had dragged him to the track try-outs after Will had made an offhanded comment about needing to improve his endurance for his next encounter with the Mind Flayer. As it turned out, Will wasn’t quite cut out for sprinting, but Coach Brown was convinced he’d win medals as a long-distance runner, so he made the switch to cross country. It felt good to put his body to use, to feel his muscles burn and sweat trickle down his forehead, knowing he was making himself stronger. Every couple of weeks, he’d challenge El to a mile race, although he was nowhere near beating her time.
“Kimberly’s great,” Will nodded, remembering Mike’s last words. “I think you two would really get along, actually. Maybe I’ll ask her to come over sometime, so that you could properly meet her?” It felt like a good compromise. That way Mike wouldn’t feel quite so left out, and Will didn’t have to feel as guilty about ditching him for his art club responsibilities.
But Mike froze as if Will had suggested having the Demogorgon over for tea. His eyes widened ever so slightly, and he tugged on a curly strand of hair that kept falling into his forehead, turning back to the TV. “Sure,” he said in an emphatically noncommittal tone of voice. And that was all he had to say to that.
Will, who had expected his suggestion to bring a smile back to Mike’s face, could only stare in stunned silence. Where had he gone wrong? Was there some unwritten rule that it was offensive to introduce a new friend to an old one?
Then it hit him – Mike was lonely. After Will’s move to Lenora, the party had been more or less adopted by Eddie Munson, Hellfire Club’s legendary Dungeon Master who collected lost nerds like stray puppies. That club had been like a refuge for them, a supportive community in an otherwise hostile high school environment. But then Eddie had been killed by Vecna’s crazy bat army, and the group sort of scattered.
Mike wasn’t the type to join a sports team or a conventional school club. His idea of ‘blending in and being an inconspicuous student’ meant going to his classes, taking his tests, and heading home as soon as the bell rang. With Will getting increasingly involved at school, Lucas spending every spare minute by Max’s bedside, a grieving Dustin pulling away from all of them, and El either training at the junkyard or floating in her dark salt bath, Mike was probably feeling lonelier than ever.
Will swallowed. “Hey,” he said, aiming for a soft yet neutral tone. He didn’t want Mike to think he was pitying him. “Let’s worry about that later, though, okay? Tomorrow’s a Saturday, and we’ll probably be snowed in with nowhere to go, so why don’t we spend the day together? Just you and me, catching up.”
Mike turned back to face him, a hesitantly hopeful look in his eyes. “Yeah?”
He sounded so sincerely happy that Will’s heart gave a tight squeeze. He nodded. “Yeah, of course.”
The corners of Mike’s mouth pulled up in a broad, honest smile that carved tiny dimples into his cheeks and made his eyes light up. “I’d love that.”
If he was going to be smiling at him like that again tomorrow, Will didn’t know how he would survive the day. “Me too,” he said nonetheless, trying not to panic too much at the prospect of spending an entire day of uninterrupted one-on-one time with Mike Wheeler.
They continued watching Dragon’s Lair until Will couldn’t stifle his yawns anymore and decided to call it a night. They carried their empty bowls to the kitchen sink, grabbed their abandoned cups of now-cold tea and moved into the dark hallway where they came to an awkward halt.
Will was suddenly feeling very self-conscious. “Well, uhm, I’m just gonna get my things from the basement then?” He said it like a question, as if he needed confirmation that Mike’s offer to take his room for the night still stood.
Mike fumbled with the handle of his mug. “Uh, sure, go ahead. I’ll, uh … I’ll head upstairs.” He waited a moment – for what, Will didn’t know – before turning abruptly and hurrying up the stairs.
Will wanted to groan. This was already going poorly.
He went to the basement where he collected his pajamas and some clean underwear before grabbing his toiletries from the bathroom. Then he stared down at the mattress that he’d been sleeping on, hesitating. Should he take his bedding upstairs, too, or was Mike cool with him sleeping under his covers? It was a stupid question – of course Mike was cool with Will sleeping under his covers. They were childhood best friends, and that’s what childhood best friends did.
Before he could change his mind, Will swiveled around and marched upstairs.
Mike was nowhere to be seen on the second floor, but the sounds of rushing water coming from the bathroom implied that he was in the shower, so Will went into his bedroom to put his things down. He stopped in the middle of the carpet, taking in his dark surroundings. He hadn’t been in here a lot in the past nine months, but it looked the same as he remembered it: a cozy clutter of books, VHS tapes, clothes, and action movie figurines. The bed was in disarray, the covers half slung over it in a way that allowed Will’s imagination to picture exactly how Mike had gotten up that morning.
Mike’s new typewriter – the one he had gotten for Christmas – sat on the desk, next to a neat stack of paper. Probably the pages of the novel he had been working on. Will was itching to take a look, but Mike hadn’t been very forthcoming with details about his writing, and he didn’t want to pry – he knew how annoying it was when people kept poking their noses into an unfinished art project.
He lifted his gaze from the pages and was struck by a sight that squeezed all the air from his lungs.
His painting. The painting. Hanging at eyelevel right above the desk.
In the dark, he could barely make out the silhouettes of the four little knights and the three-headed dragon, but then again, he didn’t need a visual reminder of what he had painted. The image had burned itself into his consciousness; he was sure he could be ninety years old, his brain addled with dementia, and his memory would still conjure up the picture in striking clarity. He’d forget his own name before he’d forget the painting.
“Hey.”
Will whirled around with a small gasp.
Mike was in the doorway, backlit by the hallway lights, a grin creeping into his face. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. But I guess we’re even now.” He moved further into the room, towards Will, and pressed a small stack of towels into his arms. “Here, these are for you.” Their hands grazed briefly when Will took the towels, and it sent a spark of electricity up his spine. This close, he could smell the shampoo in Mike’s still-damp hair, the minty toothpaste on his breath – peppermint, as they’d both agreed was the superior toothpaste choice. He gulped. In the dark, Mike’s eyes looked like two shiny black marbles, and Will couldn’t help but stare at them with an expression he was sure bordered on awe.
Mike stepped back, blinking. “Do you want fresh sheets? I could change the bedding if you want,” he offered, pointing to the bed.
Will dug his fingers into the fabric of the towels, which smelled faintly of laundry softener, and took a deep breath. “No, that’s… that’s fine.”
“Okay.” Mike nodded. They stared at each other some more, a heavy silence settling over them, before he finally cleared his throat and pointed his thumb at the door. “Well, uhm, I’m gonna head to bed now. Unless there’s anything else you need?”
Will shook his head. “I don’t need anything. And if I do, I probably know where to find it.”
“Right,” Mike said, smiling again. “Well, then… goodnight, Will.”
“Goodnight, Mike.”
He watched Mike turn around and disappear through the door, listened to his feet pattering across the landing to the neighboring room. The light went off, a door clicked shut, and then it was silent.
But only for about two seconds, because suddenly the door was opened again, and there were more footsteps, and then the light switched back on. “Sorry!” Mike called. “You probably still need to use the bathroom; I’m just used to being the last one up and turning all the lights off.”
This was so Mike that Will had to laugh, feeling his tension ease up a little. “You’re good!” He yelled back. “Thanks, though!”
“Alright, goodnight!”
“Night, Mike."
Mike vanished into Nancy’s room again, and the house fell silent for good.
Will went to the bathroom to brush his teeth and change into his pajamas, and when he climbed into Mike’s bed five minutes later, his entire body was buzzing with a frantic energy that rendered sleep entirely impossible. As suspected, Mike’s sheets smelled of him – no, they were positively drenched in his scent, a mixture of shampoo and deodorant and that ridiculous aftershave he’d started using some time last year even though there was no facial hair to shave off, and beneath it all that Mike smell that Will would recognize anywhere. He pressed his nose into the pillow and inhaled sharply, greedily, making himself lightheaded in the process.
You’re trying to get over him, he reminded himself sternly. Get over him, get over him, get over him.
He turned his nose up and forced himself to take shallow breaths through his mouth, in a meek attempt to disable his sense of smell.
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, something in his periphery caught his attention, and Will looked to the right, where the bedroom wall was covered in countless little drawings. His drawings. Some of them were ancient, from the prehistoric days of kindergarten, showing awkward little stick figures and animals. Then there were a couple from elementary school, slightly more creative but still rather amateurish. The ones from middle school were increasingly complex; that’s when Will had started incorporating themes into his paintings, like space – which he had been obsessed with for a while – or racing cars. The older he got, though, the more he had homed in on D&D as his source of inspiration, making little character art for each party member and recounting their campaigns through little comic strips.
Mike’s walls, he realized, were like a timeline of their childhood; little pieces of Will were plastered all over this room.
An overwhelming mix of emotions coursed through him. In a way, it comforted him, knowing that Mike had held on to this friendship even at times when Will thought he was losing him. He couldn’t deny the pride swelling in his chest at the thought of Mike taping these drawings to the walls. But there was also a sense of dread, starting somewhere in the pit of his stomach and slowly crawling upwards, to his heart, making his limbs feel heavy as lead.
How did one get over this?
As the snow continued to fall against the windows, and as Will continued to take shallow breaths through his mouth, he mentally prepared for a sleepless night.
And he came to a decision: He would have to put off getting over Mike Wheeler for another day.