Chapter Text
Will woke to a sting. Groaning, he rolled over, away from the blinding strip of sunlight that had surpassed the shitty curtains. The sun’s presence had become a volatile thing, since the clouds formed. Most days the clouds were a brick ceiling, allowing only a smoky grey to blanket the town, but some days, like today, the sun was permitted to slither through, able to surpass the ceiling like shitty curtains. Which almost felt crueler, somehow.
As was routine, Will brought a weary hand to his nose, in attempt to dampen the wandering aroma of Mrs Wheeler’s eggs and bacon. Not that he wasn’t grateful for her efforts, but his stomach continued to embody the strength of an eyelash. Especially after a dream.
At that, Will was wide awake, Mike’s plan crashing down on him. Tearing his lids open, he expected another unwanted eyeful of Mike’s foot, but what greeted him was even more peculiar. The lip of the table, the arm of the couch, curly black hair- Will jolted back slightly where he lay. He craned his neck and sure enough, he and Mike were practically face to face. Granted, with a few feet between them, but a rude awakening all the same.
Mike was still asleep, lips parted, blanket tucked under his chin — where it always ended up. Eyes shut, his eyelashes were striking against the pale canvas. His hair was unruly, some strands standing up past the couch’s arm, catching the strip of sunlight as if trying to photosynthesise. There was no way he had gotten up yet; he’d been there for a while. So how the fuck did he end up on the opposite side of the couch?
Will didn’t get time to consider, because one blink and Mike was awake, glazed eyes meeting his own before widening in alarm. The moment made both of them jump, Mike clambering to sit up and Will pushing himself to the right of his mattress, a pathetic attempt at distance.
“Shit, man,” Mike half laughed, half groaned, rubbing his eyes, “Scared the crap outta me.”
“I scared you?”
Mike’s sleep-heavy features pinched, “You try waking up to an audience!”
Will scoffed, incredulous, “I practically did!” He gestured to the couch, “Did you do a one-eighty in your sleep or something?“
At that, Mike expression sobered. Oh, joy.
Will swallowed drily, “I did it again, didn’t I.” It didn’t need to be a question.
Mike simply nodded.
With a dejected sigh, Will flopped onto his back, “Shit.”
“…Yeah.” Mike twisted until his feet met the floor, forearms resting on his knees, “You seemed alright afterwards, but I thought I better… keep watch, just in case. Ergo,” he made gesture to the direction he’d been lying, then to Will’s cot. “Better view.”
Will missed when waking up to Mike facing him had been his biggest concern. “Sleepwalking twice…” he murmured to the room, “That makes this a ‘thing’ now.” Another thing of several things. Another burden. He glared at the cracks in the ceiling, reminiscent of the rigid lines etched in his own foundation. He was fragments of a teapot stitched back together. Useless. Leaking. Scalding. Useless.
“It is a thing,” Mike suddenly stated, blunt, causing Will to turn his head to him in question.
“A ‘thing’” he continued, “that millions of other people do, and millions of other people deal with.” With that, he grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it at Will’s head.
Will absorbed the blow with startled hands, “Hey! What the-“
“What makes you think you’re so special, huh?” The teasing glimmer in Mike’s eyes betrayed his hostile words.
Will used the pillow to smother the exasperated mirth of his own lips, “Fuck off.”
“Honestly,” Mike lilted to no one, “the ego on this guy.”
Will laughed softly, sitting up. “So, you didn’t see anything… suspicious?”
Eyes falling to his knees, Mike’s lips took a while to wrap around an answer, which was a great sign. “I… To be honest, I don’t know.”
“Okay…”
“Let’s do you first.”
Will blinked, “What?”
“Your perspective.” He slipped into a softer register, “Do you remember anything after you went to sleep?”
Will sighed as he also twisted to face Mike, now perched on the edge of his mattress. But the angle was still awkward, the table’s edge blocking a full turn of his legs.
Seeming to notice, Mike patted the couch, specifically the empty space beside him.
Will thought about it for a (hopefully) missable moment, then ambled to the unoccupied end of the couch. He always paused, when it came to Mike. Always a goddamn pause. To think — or rationalise or whatever the fuck. All he knew was that if he didn’t pause he would lie awake at night wishing he had. Because without the pause, his brain would convince itself that an innocent action — such as taking a seat on the couch next to his best friend — had been anything but innocent. No, no: Will had obviously hallucinated Mike’s offering as an excuse to climb into his lap, drooling at the mouth. Obviously.
Will relayed what he could of his dream to the other boy. And Mike listened intently. No sympathetic downturn of eyes, just intent, like Will was telling a story and Mike wanted to predict the ending. It was a difficult story to tell, considering most of his memories of it were in body, in feeling. He’d felt cold. Lost. Completely stripped of his own autonomy — “Y’know, the usual.”
“Usual? So, you remember having nightmares like this before?” Mike looked a lot smaller in the morning glow. Eyes droopy, hair disheveled, knees tucked to his chest. The sun smoothed angular lines of age and history. It was 1982, the morning after an impromptu sleepover, and all was right with the world.
Will didn’t mean to laugh at Mike’s question, but it felt better than any alternative, “You could say that.” He couldn’t remember a time he’d gone a week without dreaming.
Understanding seemed to cross Mike’s drowsy features, “Right, of course… So, you’re in the Upside Down, then? In these dreams?”
“Uh…” Will hadn’t once considered otherwise. “I assume so. I mean, I can’t see but… you don’t forget what a place like that feels like.”
Picking at the fluff of his pants, Mike hummed solemnly, before his voice dropped to a whisper verging on secretive, “I, uh, I know we don’t talk about it much, but I gotta ask-“
“Now Memories?” Chill ran sharp nails up Will’s neck.
Mike let out a breath, as if he’d been apprehensive to put a weight as heavy as the past upon their conversation. It made Will’s jaw tighten. They were edging toward territory he wanted no business in. He didn’t meet Mike’s gaze when he asked, “Do you think your True Sight could have anything to do with this?”
Defensiveness cut Will’s words jagged, “You say that as if we didn’t burn that shit out of me years ago.” The air holding them went frigid. Neither seemed to know how to continue.
Will picked at his nails. Mike picked at the fluff. Will knew this was something worth discussing, that he couldn’t run from the cold, but right now he wanted nothing more than to just sit in 1982, an old picture blurred by unassuming sunlight, if just for a few more minutes. And if Mike was allowed to be a stubborn asshole now and then, Will deserved his own goddamn moments.
When Mike broke the lull, he thankfully seemed more thoughtful than offended, “Is there an outlier?”
“Hm?”
“An outlier: something different from the rest?” He shuffled a little closer, that eagerness of having an idea putting some pep in his bones, “Something that could distinguish the difference between your old dreams — from when the Mindflayer had you — and these new ones.”
Will hummed in thought, uncertain, then closed his eyes. He tried to dig into the recesses of his mind, in the hope of uncovering the unconscious memories he never dared disturb, six feet under, where he always buried them. “There was… something, maybe.”
“Another feeling?”
“An urge.” Will kept his eyes closed, not wanting to lose the picture, “As I was moving, I felt compelled to… fight it? No, not fight. ‘Control’ might be a better word. I initially tried to fight it, feeling bound and all, but something told me that if I… if I acted powerless then that’s all I would be.” He let out a slow exhale, “So, I didn’t flail, I… urged, as if I did have the power to dictate my path.”
“Urged,” Mike said under his breath, a couple times actually, ever prone to talking to himself. “What did this ‘urging’ look like? Or, feel like? I’m imagining trying to move a paralysed limb.” He flopped a limp arm upon a cushion and gave a few theatrical little twitches.
Will snorted, “Not that far off.”
“Flopping like a fish.”
“Shut up, Mike.”
“Sorry.”
With a roll of eyes, Will retreated back into his head, sorting through memories he couldn’t see. “It was…” he began lowly, “more complicated than that. Intense, I don’t know.” Absentmindedly, he rubbed his palms together, a grounding sensation as he searched. After a while, the skin against skin felt almost static. Electric. “A connection.”
“Hm?”
“The urge. It was like I needed to… reconnect a severed wire. But it was impossible. I needed something… more. Like, a spark to connect mind to body.”
“A bridge.”
“What?”
“Bridge the gap.”
“Oh. Yeah, actually. Yeah. I needed a bridge to connect the wires. A bridge to control.”
Finally, Will met Mike’s gaze. And God, he hadn’t looked this enthralled since he gave him that damn painting. El’s painting, as far as he was concerned. Heat simmered in Will’s chest. “Did you?” Mike practically whispered. “Did you find the bridge?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe. There was one moment, near the end…” He dropped his forehead into his palms, eyes squeezed in contemplation. All this thinking was not doing his routine headache any favours. He must’ve looked pained, because in the void of darkness behind his eyelids, a sudden warmth crept in; a secure pressure on his shoulder. Mike’s hand.
“It’s okay, if you can’t remember,” he assured, but Will only processed the first part.
‘It’s okay.’ Warmth. ‘I’m gonna show you the way.’ Finally, left.
Will’s rise from the hiding place in his palms was so swift that Mike drew his hand back in alarm. “I did,” he declared, “I found the bridge.”
“Yeah?” Mike beamed, “How?”
Your words, they guided me, he was going to say. It sat gleefully behind his lips. But then, he heard it, echoing within the pause. He heard it in his own head.
Your words guided me home.
Your voice was my path.
Your voice. Your warmth.
You.
Each syllable was a scalding ember.
Oh, shit.
Will felt the elation drain from his face. Mike mirrored him. “What? Was it scary?”
A beat. “No.” He could feel his smile was sad around the edges, but little could fix that, “The opposite, actually.”
“Then, what is it?”
Will shrugged, shoulders heavy with sand, “Just frustrating: that I can’t remember how I made the connection.” The lie triggered a particularly intense pulse behind his eyebrow. He couldn’t help but press his palm to it.
“How do you feel? Like, right now?”
“Like crap. Weak.” At least that was honest. Will realised the other boy must’ve been shuffling in bit by bit this whole time, because they’d somehow ended up practically side-by-side, just a one-foot gap between them. The size of a pause that should be larger, considering it all.
“Well, if it’s any consolation,” Mike countered, “you didn’t seem weak last night.”
“No?”
“No.” He seemed to be telling the truth, oddly enough.
“What did I do, exactly?”
Mike looked out to the room, as if to observe the memory like a play. “You were already on your feet when I woke up: Downside of having me on watch.”
Will huffed, “I forgot that you sleep like waking up is just a suggestion.”
He elbowed Will in the arm. It left a warm ache as he tittered. “I didn’t wanna scare you,” Mike continued, “so I just sorta… watched from the couch for a minute. You didn’t go anywhere at first, just stood by your cot and — I think — looked around; I don’t know if you were actually seeing, though. After a while you got a bit more adventurous.”
“Did I try to leave the basement again?”
“No. You didn’t wander far this time. I only intervened when you started eyeing up the workstation.” He gestured to the far right of the room, to the little wooden table littered with arbitrary tools.
Alarm contorted Will’s slumped posture, “I didn’t try to grab something, did I?”
Mike laughed as he shook his head, “You didn’t seem particularly bloodthirsty.”
“Mike we don’t know-“
“I steered you away from any potential weaponry, don’t worry.”
Relief unwound Will’s shoulders, “Good.” He didn’t think he could live down baby-proofing the basement. “Did I resist at all?”
“It took a bit of convincing to turn you around, but that’s normal. Once you did that, it was a pretty smooth trip back to your cot.”
A question sat heavy on Will’s tongue, but if he was going to set it free he had to conceal its weight. He leaned back against the couch cushion, feigning indifference, “Did I make it back on my own or did I… follow you?”
Smooth.
After a thoughtful pause, Mike mirrored his position, drooping into the cushion behind him, “Hard to remember.” He looked up, pondering, “I guess I did sort of hover a few feet in front of you.” He shrugged it off, “But, y’know, I can’t take the credit — you still made it back on your own.”
Will wasn’t so sure. Uncertainty sloshed in his abdomen, or perhaps it was the acrid settling of his newfound certainty. A truth he wasn’t sure he could stomach. Sleepwalking upstairs. His migraine mysteriously vanishing. Escaping the dream. There was an outlier, as Mike had suggested, and it was him. It was Michael fucking Wheeler.
It could be happenstance; God, did he hope it was. But, after everything, Will wasn’t so sure he still believed in coincidences.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” He lied with nauseating ease. He ran a rough hand down his face, hoping the pressure would bring colour back to his cheeks before Mike could dig his claws in. “Just not sure which part of that didn’t read as ‘weak’ to you.”
“Oh, right.” Mike hummed, thoughtful, “I think it was your walk.”
“My walk?”
“I think so. It was…” he shrugged, “different. Strong.”
Will raised a mock-offended brow, “Are you saying I’ve got a weak walk?”
“Pitiful,” Mike lilted, to which Will chuckled despite himself. “No! I just mean it looked, uh, purposeful.” He leaned in slightly, “You didn’t seem to have a sure destination, but you never second-guessed your steps. You were concentrated, posture fixed, head held high. I guess it stood out because, well, I’ve never seen you like that before.”
That was fair enough. Even Will couldn’t imagine carrying himself with such certainty, so used to hiding behind slumped shoulders and folded arms. “Mike?”
“Yeah?”
His throat clicked, loud within the hush of this secret morning. “Do you really think this could be something as easy and… stupid as sleepwalking? Just really vivid nightmares?”
They didn’t meet each other’s eyes in the silence that followed. That fact alone was an answer: the ‘maybe’ Mike wasn’t voicing. They let it go unsaid, because they were sick of uncertainty. So, they just sat in the sureness of their surroundings for a while. Two friends side by side on the couch of their childhood, Will picking at his nails, Mike picking at the fluff.
The basement door swung open.
“Breakfaaast!” Holly called before slamming the door behind her with a retreating giggle.
They stood and straightened their respective pyjamas in silence. It was a little awkward, now that they no longer had mysterious horrors to fuel conversation. As they made their beds, it seemed like every time Will stole a glance, Mike was yanking his own glance away. It wasn’t Will’s fault that Mike kept gnawing at his lip like words were waiting behind it.
There was nothing mysterious or horrifying about this. Nothing interesting. They just weren’t as close as they used to be. They didn’t speak for a year, and that kind of silence doesn’t go quietly. Just two friends in the basement of their childhood, still playing pretend.
“Hey, uh-“
Will halted his stride at the bottom step of the staircase, tilting his head up at the other boy.
Mike hardly even turned around to face him when he asked, “Would you mind waiting a minute?”
“Why?”
“Well, I didn’t sneak down here last night for no reason.” There was humour in his tone, but it didn’t settle quite right.
“Oh, of course.” Will backed away from the stairs; a little too far, probably. Not that Mike would notice because he was already gone. He probably wanted to escape before Will could ask about the reason.
As he waited, Will looked to the sunlight that had been permitted to melt through the window panes, and wondered if that was what Mike had been last night: sunlight through a storm-cloud ceiling. Warmth in a cold dream. A guiding heat that thawed petrified bones. Fuck, he hoped not. Because that would make Mike the bridge. And if Mike was the bridge then that would make Mike necessary. Will wasn’t sure their current relationship could handle the weight of necessity.
When Will joined the breakfast table, Mike was sat in his usual spot, bickering with Nancy over scrambled eggs. Will would bet money that Mike was going to pour half a bottle of syrup on them. He couldn’t help his glances over at him as he filled his own plate with slices of toast he wasn’t going to touch. He’d gotten so good at keeping his eyes and mouth and existence to himself, for his own safety, but apparently a few hours in Mike’s company amounted to months’ worth of regression. Fucking asshole.
The fucking asshole’s hair was still sticking up like antennae. Will only just managed to smother the snort he let out, but at the cost of a particularly harsh migraine pulse. Clutching his head, he begrudgingly scanned the table for Sunny Delight.
How on earth were they going to be able to figure this out fucking normally if Will had to dance around the truth every sentence? He couldn’t just be honest, not in full. Because if he was honest about needing Mike to find his bed, to soothe a headache, to escape a nightmare, what other truths might write themselves upon his face? Truths which very well could be the culprit behind this absurd ability Mike had gained.
To think he was nauseous before.
Finally spotting the jug by Holly, he went to grab his glass which sat beside his plate, but its weight gave him pause. It wasn’t empty. In fact, it was filled to the very brim with orange juice.
Perplexed, Will shot narrow eyes at the glass, then to Jonathan, then to Mom, then Mike, who was already looking at him. The smile Mike gave him was thin-lipped, the nod amicable. Business casual. But his eyes said ‘something’, and that was enough for Will to gulp down half the glass, though he made sure to appear exasperated throughout. Satisfied, Mike retracted his stubborn watch to slap the bottom of the syrup bottle for the sticky dregs.
~~~Motion Picture Soundtrack~~~
Mike couldn’t remember exactly when his days turned boring. During the particle blizzard, the party had lived off of the high of Hopper’s return — the only silver lining in their loss. They went through a sizeable chunk of Mike’s VHS collection in just one week, and ate their weight in popcorn. But at some point, Dustin stopped laughing at ‘Airplane!’, so the TV didn’t turn on as often. Around the same time, the sterile hospital scent of Lucas’ clothes overpowered the popcorn, so the pantry filled back to the brim. El found security in her training, so the walkie updates went cold. Soon enough, it was just Mike and Will left, and it was suddenly much harder to ignore their living situation. They didn’t have the choice to hide away, like the others. But damn did they try.
Now, most days went like today: uneventful. Mike would tell himself he was catching up on his comics, but really, every page was out of focus. There was a strain in his throat he couldn’t cough away. It stung real bad whenever he thought of… most things, really. His life was a bullshit dumpster fire of more bullshit.
He felt guilty saying it, but Will’s newfound sleeping habit might’ve just saved him from a real slump.
The night arrived with that itchy feeling of uncertainty which Mike much preferred to avoid. He sat on his bed, legs crossed, daring his clock to blink first. Nine forty. Should he go to the basement? Will hadn’t actually voiced whether or not Mike was needed again, though last night’s events surely implied it. Surely? Great, now he wasn’t sure.
After three more excruciating minutes of conflicted silence, Mike’s snort echoed off the walls. This was fucking stupid. Back in the day, Mike would clamber through Will’s bedroom window unannounced all the damn time. At what point did he decide he needed permission to see his best friend? He heaved himself up and made for the basement, bullshit-dumpster-fire-life be damned.
His confidence only wavered when he reached the basement door. It looked a lot less welcoming shrouded in shadow. Should he knock? Will could be… changing or something.
Mike rolled his eyes at himself. Ridiculous. He turned the handle, winced at the wooden creaking, then peeked inside. “Will?”
Save one lamp he couldn’t see from the top of the staircase, the basement was dark. Silent, like it was sleeping. When Mike got no reply, he puffed out his chest and ambled down a few steps. His heart lurched slightly when the couch came into view; he’d completely forgotten the possibility of Jonathan sleeping down here again. Luckily, when he squinted, he saw only pillows and a blanket overtaking the cushions.
Threat neutralised, Mike scaled the last of the steps, and as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he thought for a horrifying moment that he might be alone. Paper and pencils lay abandoned on the table. Frail curtains billowed in the summer night breeze where the window was cracked. He gripped the banister, heart in his throat, picturing an unconscious Will limping down the road, having no one to take him back to bed.
A soft snore broke Mike’s waking nightmare. His entire being deflated at the noise. With soft feet, he neared the relieving tune.
Will — the bastard — had managed to bury himself beneath the sheets of his cot. Mike could see nothing but a tuft of hair splayed upon the pillow. The only sign of life was the steady rise and fall of Will’s blanket. It was an oddly nostalgic sight; Will always used to burrow like that when they were kids, after a night of turning blankets into forts and shadows into monsters they could actually beat.
Realising himself, Mike suddenly felt a bit like a fish out of water. He hadn’t expected Will to be asleep, and apparently his response to that was to stand and stare like an airhead. Clearly, his services weren’t needed. And that was fine. Good, even. He turned for the stairs. Fine. He could finally read that one comic he’d been putting off. Will could sleep peacefully again. No sleepwalking, no Vecna. This was great. Mike could…
“Mike?”
Mike bonked his elbow on the banister with the speed at which he turned, he rubbed it absentmindedly, as if his entire arm hadn’t gone numb, “Hi.”
Will shot up onto his elbows, “Was I walking?”
“What? Oh, no!” Mike rejoined Will’s side, “No. Don’t worry. You were sleeping good and horizontal.”
Will let out a sigh of relief, his eyelids falling back into a droop as he studied Mike above him. It got a little disconcerting after a few seconds, until Will stated bluntly, “I thought you weren’t coming.”
The itch of uncertainty broke out in hives. Mike took a step back, “Oh, sorry. I can go back up-“ Will’s hand caught his wrist.
“What? No, no. I was hoping you would come, idiot.”
“Oh.” Mike blinked at the firm hold on his wrist. “I, uh, wasn’t sure you- y’know, needed me, is all.”
Will looked at him weirdly, freeing his wrist, then laughed with a soft shake of the head, “Look at me. Of course I need my straitjacket.”
Despite himself, Mike smiled. Of course he did. Of course. With mutual understanding back in business, Mike sauntered over to the couch and slipped beneath the blanket, head resting on the left arm. He wasn’t sure what Will had meant by ‘look at me’. He looked fine, considering it all. He had a way of looking fine without really trying. Mike craned his neck, looked for Will on the cot, about to say something, but a strain in the other boy’s shoulders caught his notice, hunched where he lay. Mike couldn’t see his face from where he was, which meant he didn’t even have clues to decode the shrivelling.
As the blue-hour wind’s searching fingers tapped at the window pane, and the lamp at Mike’s feet sang the softest hum, he sorted through every possible likelihood as to what Will could be worrying about. It felt like a quadratic equation behind his eyes. The conclusion he eventually came to was plausible, but the solution held risks. Well, maybe Mike’s life had been missing a bit of risk lately.
Decided, he grasped the pillow beneath his head and chucked it — rather theatrically — to his feet, at the right arm of the couch. Will lifted his head to investigate, rubbing his eyes and scrunching his nose in the way he always tended to when sleepy. Mike spun his legs off the couch then shuffled to bring his head back onto the pillow. A one-eighty.
He couldn’t necessarily see Will much better from this angle, save his hair and forehead, but it felt closer, and sometimes that could go a mile. When Mike craned his neck again for a second opinion, Will seemed to agree, going by the way his shoulders had drooped, soothed by his straitjacket’s final buckle. A small spark flickered in Mike’s chest at the confirmation. He’d figured it out.
They didn’t say much at all before sleep found them both. There wasn’t much to be said, really. Mike missed having much to say, with Will. There used to be so much. Too much to fit into a day or night. The muchness was why they had bought walkies in the first place. That was his last thought before he drifted.
~~~
Knocking. That was the first sound to seem out of place in the peaceful void behind Mike’s eyes. It was persistent enough for his limp hand to try to wave it off in chagrin, like he did when Nancy had to wake him up for school.
Luckily, it didn’t take him long to remember. He was upright in under a second, his eyelids sticking grotesquely as they struggled to catch up with his head. “Will?” He croaked, alert, head panning frantically around the room where every shrouded outline looked like a person he knew. Only more knocking replied to his call. Mike looked to the lamp which had meant to aid him, but its halo had died out, joining him in sleep. Desperate for light, he squinted towards the window, where the wind’s fingers had found the curtains, a playful billowing to frame the silhouette which stood before the moon’s watch.
Will was up. Up, and trying to go somewhere, but the table seemed to be blocking his path. Mike rose to his feet on sleep-wobbled legs, approached as if Will were a skittish critter. Will’s hips seemed to be pushing the slightly wonky table into the wall with each failed step forward. The knocking was only getting harsher, a rhythm of climbing distress.
When Mike reached Will’s side, he studied his profile. He thought of the outlier as he watched; the ‘urge’ Will had spoken of. Maybe Mike was just starved for clues, but for a moment he thought he could see it, could see his efforts to reconnect the wires in the way his legs moved and eyebrows twitched. Yesterday, it had looked like confidence, straight shoulders and measured movements, but what if this was the strain for control? His eyes were more alert than yesterday, wider, as if he was merely taken aback by the night’s gloaming beauty beyond the glass. But Mike was plagued with hindsight. He knew if Will was seeing anything at all, it was far from beautiful. “Hey,” he said, hushed, not wanting to startle him. “Will, can you hear me?”
He wasn’t spared a glance, but the knocking found a noticeably softer rhythm. Mike could work with that. “Are you lost?” Will’s eyelids fluttered, his eyebrows creased: an inkling of distress that had Mike placing a hand on his shoulder, “It’s okay, I can help you.”
The knocking lulled, but so did Will’s eyelids, almost completely shut now save a frantic flickering. Mike swallowed. It was 1984, and Will had just heard the phone ring.
No. Associations wouldn’t help him now. He gripped his shoulder tighter. “We can’t go this way,” Mike stated, gentle but sure. “C’mon, I know where we will be safe.” He used the same lines that had had any success yesterday. And, sure enough, the knocking stopped, Will’s feet fell stationary, and his eyes found some form of reprieve, drifting towards Mike.
Just like that, Mike was the moon. It felt that way, at least, just like yesterday night. Though Will’s eyes were glassy, likely unseeing, his gaze was like a bullet that didn’t go all the way through. It was the kind of watch that could make a guy feel naked, fully bared, desperate to escape it before it read between the lines, but not moving an inch. Mike swallowed, but his mouth was dry.
Yesterday, it had startled him. He’d backed away so far the table knocked his thighs. Damn embarrassing. Thank God Will hadn’t remembered that. Well, he hadn’t remembered anything, actually. Maybe that’s why Mike had lied — or, withheld the full story. Will didn’t recall the way Mike had edged back towards him, looking anywhere but his eyes. Will didn’t recall how Mike had held his wrist, or how Will had tapped softly at his as they walked, just like the first time, or how Mike had guided him back beneath the covers. Will didn’t recall the way he’d gripped Mike’s wrist when he tried to leave, even after he’d been tucked back in.
So, Mike hadn’t brought it up either.
He’d tried to. Really, he had. He’d been waiting for a segue that morning, for Will to mention it, to mention anything that could correlate, could explain the gaze that had damn near shot him down. Mike had just needed a crumb, so that he would have some numbers for the equation. But no, he’d been left with nothing but Xs and Ys. Probably because that was all it was: tired eyes meeting dead ones, tricking themselves that they were being seen through the moonlight.
He broke their regard. Instead, he focused on nothing but his grip on Will’s wrist as they began to walk. He spoke over the soft tapping at his own, “C’mon. I’m gonna show you the way.” Will trusted him with a quiet grace he didn’t deserve.
Mike had been choking down a guilty sort of nausea all day. Nothing really happened, was the line he used to steady his stomach. It was just… intense. Who could put intensity into words, anyway?
Will. Will could and had. Fuck.
No. No, this was different, Mike’s head offered as he pulled back Will’s top sheet. There was no point getting caught up on unseeing looks and unconscious twitches, no point bringing them to the table. Mike’s job was to look for signs of them having a war on their hands, and by God, there was no war in the way Will had looked at him. So, it was inapplicable. Irrelevant.
Caught up in his own thoughts as he pulled the sheets back over Will, Mike felt soft fingers begin to wrap around his wrist — the sensation triggered him to yank his arm away with unneeded vigour. Their eyes did meet, then. And it was just as piercing as before, though this time Mike felt the bullet breach the back of his skull. Now, Will was looking through him. He was looking, not seeing; as if Mike was just a shrouded outline of a person he knew.
“Goodnight, Will,” Mike whispered, not looking back until he was buried into the couch cushions, blanket tucked tight beneath his chin. He didn’t sleep, though. He just lay there, wishing the lamp would wake up, and wondering when he’d started trying to replenish the muchness of their friendship with scraps.