Chapter Text
"Easy. Truth."
"Come on, Lucas, you always pick truth! Do a dare."
"No! I know you're going to make me do something dumb and get me in trouble. I'm not taking that, Dustin."
The faint smell of Karen Wheeler's cookies from upstairs wafted through the basement, a regular occurrence on these fall nights. It had been an hour since Mike had stood and turned on the lights, as the day was coming to a close. Having run out of games to play, the boys had finally opted for an oldie but a goodie: Truth or Dare.
"Fine." Dustin threw himself back in his beanbag, rubbing his hands together. "Who do you like?"
Lucas scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Come on. That's so basic."
While the two bickered, tiny, scrawny, ten-year-old Mike looked over at Will. He knew Will well enough to know he had moments where he was prone to zoning out. This was one of those moments.
"Hey," Mike's voice came out in a whisper, the whisper he didn't even realize overtook his voice every time he spoke to Will. "You okay?"
Will snapped out of it, hazel eyes darting to Mike like a bunny who'd been lunged at. Will always seemed to have that frightened baby animal look about him, no matter how hard Mike tried to make him feel safe. The warm yellow lighting of the basement gave him a soft glow, although he always looked that way to Mike.
"I'm okay," Will answered, summing up his hurricane of thought into those two words.
"Are you sure?" Mike asked, voice still painstakingly soft for Will. Mike's brown eyes bored into Will's big ones.
"Yeah."
Will zoned out again as Lucas finally answered the question, not catching his answer. What was going through his head, Mike wondered?
Mike turned his eyes away. Staring like that got him in trouble. Staring like that was the reason Will wasn't allowed to sleep next to him during sleepovers anymore.
"Okay, now you ask someone," Dustin instructed.
"I know the rules!" Lucas was getting a little tired of Dustin. His eyes scanned the three people in front of him, darting from the relaxed figure of Dustin to baby deer Will. "Will, truth or dare?"
Mike's eyes snapped towards Will, watching him with bated breath. He already knew Will's answer, but he watched him anyway, one of the rare moments he was allowed to.
"Dare," Will answered, so quiet Lucas didn't catch it.
"What?"
"He said dare," Mike told Lucas, taking his eyes off Will to glare at Lucas.
Lucas's shoulders slumped, but he didn't comment on it. Will always chose dare, to the point that Mike wasn't the only one who had memorized Will's answer. Dustin and Lucas knew not to question it. They knew not to question Will on a lot of things.
"Alright. I dare you to try and lick your elbow," Lucas said. Dares towards Will were usually that brand of mild, with how anxious the game made him. Even now, Mike could see that Will's shoulders were a little tense after he'd already been given his dare.
Will raised his arm and put his hand on his shoulder, opening his mouth and letting his tongue out, trying to touch his elbow.
"Come on, come on!" Dustin egged him on, sitting up in his beanbag. For a moment, it looked like Will might actually connect his tongue with his elbow, but then he dropped his arm, groaning.
"I can't," Will said, fixing his sleeve from where it had ridden up.
"That's okay," Mike assured, the soft voice returning. "Just ask the next question."
"Okay. Mike, truth or dare?" Will asked.
Dustin and Lucas leaned forward in their seats. Will wasn't the only one who always picked dare. Maybe this time, Mike would finally change his answer.
"Dare," Mike declared, much to Lucas and Dustin's disappointment. Dustin slumped back to how he'd been, waiting for Will to give Mike another mild dare, as Will especially could never seem to give Mike a bad dare. Lucas, however, leaned forward even further in his seat.
"Why do you guys always pick dares?" Lucas demanded. "It's so boring. We've run out of dares. I swear, it's like you're trying to get out of answering the questions."
"Your questions are boring," Mike shot back, not hesitating to put on his snark. "It's the same stuff every other round. Dares are more fun."
As soon as he finished the sentence, his eyes darted to Will. He didn't know why Will always picked dares, although Mike certainly had his own reason. He'd never be able to answer the question "Who do you like" truthfully without ruining everything. Without being shunned by his family, by his whole town even. Mike knew he couldn't betray the truths by lying, but he couldn't risk getting the dreaded question and having to answer it either.
Even at ten years old, Mike already wondered about his future. He wondered if he'd always have to hide it, if he'd have to marry someone he didn't love just to keep his family by his side. He wondered whether he'd ever be able to look, starstruck, at Will again, and for once have no one question it. Most of all, he wondered if anyone else felt this way, or if this was just one of the many things that was wrong with him.
"They aren't fun when you do them over and over again," Lucas insisted. "I'm running out of ideas!"
"Well, figure out new ones, Lucas. I'm not answering your stupid questions." Mike leaned back in his beanbag and turned to Will, all traces of irritation leaving his face. "Go on. Dare me."
"I dare you to try and draw our D&D characters in thirty seconds," Will said, smiling a smile that barely even covered half his face. It was his cheeky smile, the one he wore when he delivered the occasional sassy line to Jonathan or told his mom he wasn't a baby anymore. It was the smile that had flipped Mike's entire world upside down, that fateful day when Will was dungeon master and Mike made a roll that threw his character into a bottomless pit.
"Okay. Get me a pen and paper," was all Mike said, not protesting at all.
Dustin got up and came back with a sheet of paper and a pencil. The three other boys crowded around Mike and counted down from thirty as Mike frantically tried to draw all their characters. He ended up with four stick figures in different hats.
"Geez, Mike, give them some clothes," Dustin teased as he picked up the sheet of paper.
"It's all I could do with you guys breathing down my neck," Mike argued. His eyes trained on Will as the brunette boy observed the drawing. Will could draw things in a way Mike couldn't. He could illustrate the prettiest of mountains and perfectly capture the ripples of the quarry. Mike had tried, tried very hard to get into drawing just to talk to Will about it. And yet, his drawings always looked like stick figures next to Will's, so he gave up, instead opting to listen to Will as he talked about his new 64-pack crayons or whatever it was. Mike didn't really pay attention to the words, although he knew the words were all he should've paid attention to.
"Whatever. I'm bored now." Dustin stood and went over to Mike's shelf, looking over the board games. "Monopoly?"