Chapter Text
Mike was being weird. Will’s evidence was contradictory, but Wheeler was being a weirdo.
Mike was already up and dressed by the time Will roused, muttering a halfhearted ‘morning’ as he organised the couch. He scurried from the basement the second Will started getting changed himself, as if he had spat out a demand for privacy. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. He was even less sure when Mike returned with a sympathetic smile and a glass of Sunny Delight for him to choke down, clearly having noticed his migraine. Why did Mike always have to be a mysterious third emotion?
He seemed to even himself out the moment their broken conversation arrived at the topic of Will’s dream. Will wasn’t sure if he was thankful or not.
Sitting on opposite sides of the couch, a foggy morning wash bleeding into the room, Will relayed what he could of his sleep; how similar it had been to yesterday night, the blindness, the noises, the urge. He spoke of the screeching, how desperate he’d been to flee it. He spoke of the mysterious ‘bridge’, how it’d helped him move again, if only for a moment. The details he purposely withheld felt like ugly, black singes in a good book. Yet Mike listened oh-so attentively. It was almost aggravating: the occasional widening of his eyes or downturn of his brows, like this was the most thrilling tale he’d ever heard. It made Will doubt his prior weirdness, which left only one other person to blame.
However, when his monologue came to a lull, Will realised that Mike had shuffled as far away as physically possible. Pressed up against the right arm, he was hugging his knees to his chest like a blade had been held before his ribcage. He didn’t jump to smother the awkward silence, like usual — just stared down the blade until Will cleared his throat.
“Did something happen?”
Mike started from his daze, “What?”
“You seem…”
“Seem what?” Tongue unexpectedly sharp, a deep line of defence had formed between his eyebrows.
Taken aback, Will coughed down his words like water. “Nothing.”
“No. Seem what?”
Offence pinching his own features at that tone, Will brought his knees to his chest. “I dunno. Like you know something I don’t.”
The statement held no real weight, yet Mike still looked at him as if it was Will who wielded the blade. “You don’t think I would tell you if something important happened?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it.”
Will didn’t know what to say, so a strained silence spoke for him.
“I’m serious about this, Will.”
“I know. So am I.”
“I’ve been telling you everything that matters,” Mike stated with such sincerity.
“I figured. I was just asking-“
“Have you?”
Will pulled a face, “What?”
His aggravation must’ve rang true, because suddenly the jagged edges of Mike’s demeanour filed down into something small. “Forget it.”
“I haven’t exactly got anything to lose here, Mike.”
“That’s not what I...”
When Mike didn’t expand, Will set one of his legs free with a weary sigh, unfurling. “I just don’t want you to think it’s protecting me, withholding the… scarier questions and answers.”
Mike visibly swallowed, “I’m not withholding.”
“Good. Then we’re on the same page.” A page of ugly, black singes, but the same one.
They both nodded stiffly for a minute. “I meant to ask,” Mike thankfully voiced after a cough, still huddled in the corner that was usually Will’s. “Do you… feel anything, in these dreams?” He inquired, to Will’s stupor.
“I told you. Cold… Stuck-“
“No, I mean, like a feeling beyond yourself, if that makes sense.”
Ah. He was asking of the monsters that so often whispered down his neck. The implication was cold to the touch, the ghost of an old conversation passing through them. “Erm… I guess there is something, in the back of my head.” He caressed it like he’d be able to feel talons resting there. “A sense of direction, almost. It’s stubborn. Like a soldier obeying a command.” He shrugged, “Maybe that’s why it’s so difficult for me to choose my own path.”
Mike gnawed at his lip, pulling that face that said he didn’t want to overstep but was going to anyway. “I, uh, I know you don’t really wanna talk about your True Sight-“
“Mike…”
“You said to ask the scary questions.”
He had him there, to Will’s chagrin.
“You gotta admit, this is sounding pretty similar to your Now Memories.”
Will sucked in a steeling breath, eyes glued to the knee he still hugged for warmth. “In my Now Memories, from what we know, I was a spy. I could see inside the tunnels Vecna was building. He could show me where he did and didn’t want people to go. I could see blinks of the Upside Down. But in these dreams, I can’t see anything.” He met Mike’s gaze, “What good is a spy that can’t see?”
The possibility of Will’s eyes being a one-way mirror was too terrifying a thought, too scary a question, so neither voiced it. They didn’t say anything for a while, actually, which made the distant hum and clang of construction not sound so distant. Will’s imagination got the better of him amidst their silence; he pictured soldiers drilling metal band-aids over his eyes, then wondered whether or not he would fight it.
“What if you did see?” Mike suddenly announced, strikingly alert in the sleepy room.
“What?” But Mike was already on his feet, making a beeline for the drawer by the workstation. Falling to his knees, he scooped up something poking out from beneath it; a piece of paper, from the sound of it. He stood with his back turned for a frustrating stretch of time, just staring at whatever he’d discovered.
“Mike!”
When Mike turned, there was that glint in his eyes, an enlightened shimmer that had Will sitting up straight.
“In the dream, you said you heard screeching, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you hear that the other night too?”
“Um, m-maybe.” Will closed his eyes. He thought hard; it was like trying to remember the lyrics to a childhood song. “I think so. I remember wanting to get away from a noise. Could’ve been screeching.” He re-found Mike’s overwhelming regard, “What are you getting at?”
With that, Mike crossed the room, towards Will, until the table stopped him from getting any closer. Will couldn’t recall the last time Mike had approached him with such elation; it was elating. Mike flipped the paper around and pointed at the image printed upon it. ‘MISSING’, it read, ‘EDWARD MUNSON’.
Will lifted a brow, “Eddie?”
“Eddie.”
Will knew of Eddie Munson. In the two or so phone calls he and Mike had shared while he was in Lenora, Eddie had been a recurring character. He’d never admit it, but it’d made him a little bitter for a while. Made him not call Mike as much. Probably because he could hear the elation.
“Did Dustin tell you how he saved the day? How he died a hero?”
Repeatedly. Never failed to make him feel like an asshole. “He got on a bike and…”
“And?”
“And drew the…” Will’s eyes widened, but not as far as the pit that formed in his stomach. “Drew the bats away.”
Mike cracked a smile. Sun in storm. “He drew the bats away.”
Processing, Will chewed on his tongue, connecting dots in his head that he wasn’t sure he wanted to. “So… the screeching.”
“What if it’s not just an ordinary nightmare soundtrack? What if it’s-“
“Bats.”
Quiet found them once more. A fluid one, where you could feel the whirring thoughts and emotions melt into something of an understanding. Understanding wasn’t always pleasant. Mike seemed to realise this too, as he stepped over the table and took a seat upon it, diagonally to Will but close enough for the outer edge of Mike’s knee to tap against his thigh. The sunniness was gone, the clouds of reality had settled over Mike’s lips.
“You think I’m somewhere dark.” Someone had to say it. “With the bats.”
You think I’m somewhere, Will had wanted to say, but that would be juvenile. There was no point clinging on to the hope of ‘just a nightmare’. Not anymore.
“Maybe,” Mike said, so softly.
“I don’t need ‘maybe’ anymore, Mike,” Will retorted, perhaps a little harsher than intended. “Tell me what you’re thinking, I can handle it.”
Mike nodded, still soft because he was an asshole. “If we’re right, if what you’re hearing is bats, you could be in… I don’t know, a cave or something. Or…”
“Or vines.”
When the statement settled, he nodded again, “Or vines.”
Will nodded. He couldn’t stop. Because there was nothing left to say but he had to do something. This sucked. He didn’t realise he’d been pinching the material of his pants until a gentle pressure bumped his knee: Mike’s thigh. Will stopped, then said, “You know this means these dreams might not be dreams at all?”
“Yeah… It changes things a little.”
“A little a lot.”
“Mm.”
“I might actually be seeing into the Upside Down, in real time.”
“It’s a possibility. We can’t be certain yet.”
Mike looked pretty certain. In fact, he’d had that look on his face since the first night he’d been Will’s straitjacket, Will just hadn’t noticed until now. He let out a bitter laugh, slumping back against the couch. Back in the tunnels. Back in the vines. “So I really am just a spy again. A tool.”
Mike looked thoughtful for a moment. He always chose his words so carefully when fear was involved. He was brave like that. “I mean, maybe not. You said yourself that this feels different to when you were possessed, right? And you know how Vecna works better than anybody. It would be stupid to ignore outliers, to ignore yourself.”
Will processed this, unconvinced but — as always — willing to humour Mike's theories. “So, you’re saying we focus on the outliers? The differences?”
Mike spoke with the corners of his lips upturned, not one quiver visible, “Yeah. Like, how scientists compare two results of similar experiments.”
Will took in a deep breath, “Okay.” For a while, he sat in thought. Mike didn’t make a sound as he did. And though Will’s eyes were closed, he could feel the other boy’s watch grazing his face as he compared variables. It was 1982, they were science partners, hoping to impress Mr Clark with their findings, and Mike was holding on to Will’s every deduction.
“When I was thirteen, I could feel him so vividly,” Will eventually stated, sitting back up properly, “Like he was crawling up the back of my neck. I knew without a doubt something was inside of me, because I could feel it running through my veins. Cold-blooded. And it was so… loud, I could barely figure out which thoughts were mine and which were his.”
“But now?”
“But now… I- I don’t know. He’s still there — he’s always there. Hurting. Thinking. But I don’t feel like a puppet. In the dreams, beyond the soldier, the voice in my head sounds like my own. I haven’t had to listen hard for it, like I used to.”
“You’re thinking for yourself.”
Will huffed, “Or he’s letting me think. That would be an evil genius move.”
Mike chuckled, “Catastrophic.”
They both chuckled. Melancholic, but nice all the same. So nice and awful and nice.
“This can’t be exactly like when we were kids,” Mike announced, shaking his head, “It just can’t. You had a part of the goddamn Mindflayer living inside you. Like you said: we burned that shit out.”
“…Right.”
At Will’s clearly unsure tone, Mike pulled himself onto the couch, crossing his legs to face Will’s side, “I know it must be hard to believe, now that you’re back in Hawkins, feeling so close to him all the time. But if back then you were, like, his radio to tap into as he pleased, we severed the connection when we burned you. We cut out the important wires. He can’t tap in like he used to, not without the Shadow Monster.”
Will shook his head, “We can’t pretend that there’s no connection. I wouldn’t be feeling him at all if there wasn’t.”
“That’s not what I mean. I mean… even though there’s clearly a tether, one that we haven’t fully explored yet, the connection is way weaker than when you were a host. Much too weak to control you, I’m sure of that. Especially while Vecna’s injured. He’d have to be stronger than he’s ever been to achieve that.”
Will watched his fingers fiddle with a piece of string he couldn’t remember picking up. There was a rhythm to it. Tangle, detangle, tangle, detangle. “He’s trying to get stronger, I can feel that.”
“Of course he is!” Mike exclaimed, “Nancy shot that asshole in the fucking heart.”
Will scoffed lightly.
“But right now, he’s hurting,” Mike continued. “He’s been hurting for a while. I highly doubt he has the capacity to make you his spy again. Definitely not beyond these dreams.”
Detangle. Tangle. Detangle. Will spoke to the rhythm, “You talk like you have all the answers. I wanna believe it.”
“It’s my theory,” Mike declared.
“That I’m not a spy?”
“That you’re not under his control. At least, not like before. And, as scientists, what do we do with a theory?”
Tangle. “Experiment.”
“We try to prove it.”
“Or disprove it.”
“Exactly.” His voice lowered to almost a whisper; words for Will alone, “And whatever the tests show, whatever conclusion we come to, we’ll figure it out. Okay?”
Will thought he’d replied. At least with a nod. But soon he felt a warm grip at his shoulder. So warm, almost hot. He didn’t realise how cold he’d become.
“Hey.” Mike utilised his hold to turn Will until their eyes met. He didn’t let go as he stated, “I know when I’m talking to Will.” His tone was so absolute. As sure as the glint shimmered. “And I can see you entirely.”
Entirely. Will swallowed something sharp in his throat. He tried to remember the last time he’d felt whole, but cracks bled through anything feasible. Apparently Mike had made something from the shards of glass Vecna had rendered him. Detangle. “Would you tell me if I start losing my entirety?”
“We won’t let that-“
“Would you tell me?”
Time stretched and bent, like it tended to do in the Wheeler basement. At least Mike, with strands of hair in his eyelashes, was definitive. As was his answer. “Of course.”
~~~
The grocery system was a joke. Will spent the better part of his morning with Mrs Wheeler, sorting through ingredients that men in uniform had dumped on her doorstep after breakfast. Most of the food had seen better days, and the fresh stuff followed no recipe he had heard of. Mom said the council were probably still figuring out the logistics of importing essentials, especially now that the gates were up and bolted. Will supposed the higher-ups must be feeling out of their depths. If only they knew.
In the afternoon, El picked up her walkie for the first time in two weeks. The crunchy sound of her voice through the speaker almost made him choke on the Reece’s Mrs Wheeler had gifted him from the delivery. She sounded better than last time, well rested, which was a weight off of Will’s conscience. Hopper had let her come on a stake-out outside the MAC-Z last night, after a month of pestering. Will of course demanded she told him every detail, after leaping belly-first onto the couch. Her cadence reminded him of the first time they went roller skating for Mom’s work party. She had talked about it for hours afterwards, as if Will hadn’t been there to witness. He’d still listened and reacted like it was the most gripping tale he’d ever heard though, of course.
“We sat in a bush, like, foots away from the main gate.”
“Feet.”
“Feet away!”
“I’m surprised Hop let you get so close to the military.”
“He brought five guns and made me wear a bush costume.”
Will laughed, “That makes more sense.”
“He also made me eat half the pantry before we left.”
“Battery is important, I guess.”
“I’d rather fight the entire military with no battery than experience that stomach ache again.”
Between intervals of shared giggling, El filled him in on everything she saw, which wasn’t much but they were desperate for anything at this point. Apparently several trucks hauling dubious equipment were cleared through the gates within the hour. At least now Will knew where all the importing effort was going. From the sound of it, they were either hiding or building something — Will would wager for both. El agreed.
She didn’t ask about Mike. Will had been expecting the question from the moment she picked up, but El was ‘Over and Out’ without uttering anything under the Wheeler umbrella. It felt odd, considering they hadn’t seen each other in months. That was a long time to not see your boyfriend.
Will rolled his eyes at himself. Mike and El’s relationship issues brought out an unpalatable side of him, a side that spoke as if it knew anything about relationships. He buried his face into the pillow tucked beneath his clavicles. It sort of smelled like Mike. Like bonfire sweat and trimmed, dewy grass. He turned onto his back to stare at the ceiling instead. It was safer here. He counted the cracks.
Maybe Mike and El were having their own private walkie conversations that Will just didn’t know about. That was the last thought he had on the matter before busying himself with something else. Just anything else. He did whatever until dinner, where Mike wore a different face every ten minutes. He continued to do whatever until he heard footsteps at the basement staircase.
Whatever got less sad after that. Mike didn’t pad to the sofa with fawn footing this time. Instead, he asked if Will wanted to watch a rerun of The Twilight Zone. Apparently Lucas had mentioned that it was broadcasting on channel 8 at ten.
Mike was using his walkie then. Cool. Good. Will didn’t think about it too much. Especially when Mike started wrestling with the television dial and shouting at a static screen.
“This isn’t funny! Dumb thing’s busted.”
Will tried to smother his laughter with a mouthful of chips. Very bad idea, he nearly choked to death, which had Mike laughing at him instead.
When Mike finally found the right channel, the screen’s light flickering across the floorboards, they settled on opposite sides of the couch. It took Mike five short minutes of sitting nicely before he shuffled down onto his side and sprawled out his limbs like a fucking blanket. Typical. With Will balled up, knees to his chest, Wheeler’s socks kept brushing against his shin.
‘You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension. A dimension of sound…’
When the brushing started to tickle, Will huffed an exasperated, “You’re too long,” teasing.
Mike, who had been zeroed in on the TV, threw him a raised brow, before his eyes landed on his feet pressed up against Will’s leg. Will waited for a quip, a mumbled apology, or something of the sort, like normal. But Mike didn’t say anything.
‘You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas.’
His eyes just kept flicking between Will and his socks, lips forming little shapes but no sound passing through. That was when Will realised his fault. He’d spoken with the expectation of normal in return, but they weren’t normal anymore — he must have forgotten among all the normalcy. Mike didn’t know what was acceptable, outside of the sleepwalking.
Will decided for him by lifting a hand and flicking his toe, hard.
“Ow!” He exclaimed, yanking his foot away. The dramatics. “Was that necessary?”
“I had to defend myself.”
A glint of mirth. “Why? Does it smell bad or something?” Mike lifted his leg to start wafting his sock in Will’s face, who grimaced and groaned as he tried to slap it away.
“Oh god, please stop.”
“What? I’ve heard nothing but good things.”
Will choked theatrically, “Can’t breathe.”
When Will finally managed to wrangle Mike’s feet as far away from him as possible, they tried to return their attention to the television, but it was too late; they were both too giddy from the crack in the porcelain wall of politeness that had formed between them. They spent the next twenty minutes discussing how ‘that actor looks like that other actor from that one series’, then debating whether or not that one series was good or not. After that they were completely lost on what was happening in the episode, so Mike put it on mute and started talking for the characters. With ridiculous voices, of course, while Will scored fifty points every time he got a cheeseball to bounce off a character’s mouth.
Will felt a little heavy when the credits rolled. He felt like the static which illuminated Mike before the screen, who was making a grotesque show of sucking the orange dust from his fingers. Will didn’t want Mike to just be his straitjacket again. He didn’t want to go to sleep. Mike seemed to notice this, or something similar, because he kept trying to make him laugh as they got ready for bed, speaking only in the voices he’d made for The Twilight Zone characters. Will kept telling him to shut up, obviously, but to no avail; thank God.
When they were both tucked beneath their respective blankets, lights off except for the tall lamp by the cubby, silence finally settled in the basement. It was a natural transition. They’d had their foolish fun and now it was time for silence, for sleep. But, there was the slightly glaring problem that Will still really didn’t want to. Who would, after finding out there’s a chance their mind might travel to Hell? No one, he thought. Absolutely no one.
“Mike?” He whispered, as if he didn’t want him to answer, after all that fuss.
But, of course, he did, “Yeah?”
It was only then that Will realised what he was about to ask. How long had it been sitting in his throat? “The first night you slept down here, did you say something, before I fell asleep? I thought I heard a voice.”
A pause. The sort that made Will’s palms kind of sweaty. It felt weird talking to Mike without being able to see his face. He didn’t have the usual clues of twitching eyebrows and lips. “Don’t worry about it if not,” he eventually followed. “Could’ve just been the usual voices in my head.” He huffed a laugh, though it wasn’t returned.
“The first night?” Mike finally replied, tone reserved.
“Yeah.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“I mean, yeah, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“No-“ Mike sighed, “Sorry.” Beat. “I, uh… I said that, actually. I said… sorry.”
Confused, Will lifted his head to rest on his palm, “Sorry? For what?”
“Erm, for what I said, after I asked you to keep the lamp on. Or… what I implied.”
“Oh, right,” Will sounded, casually, as if he’d completely forgotten the sting.
“Yeah...” The couch creaked, blankets rustled, “I mean, sure, the plan did involve looking out for signs of Vecna — does involve it — but it was a sub-concern. I was here for you. I am here for you. And… I’m sorry for implying that I wasn’t.”
Taken aback, Will almost forgot it was his turn to speak. “That’s okay.”
“It’s not, really.” Mike let out a defeated sigh, “I, uh, can be a bit of an asshole when it comes to… stuff like that.”
“Stuff like…”
“Y’know. Sappy stuff.”
Will huffed a laugh, “What was sappy? Being here for me?”
“No! No. It wasn’t that.” Will had been kidding, but Mike seemed to really mean it. “It’s, uh, it’s stupid.”
“I’m used to stupid.”
Mike snorted, “That’s fair.”
“What was it?”
He groaned.
“Come on! I won’t be able to sleep until I figure it out, meaning you’ll have no new evidence for your theory.” Will turned onto his stomach, “Do it for science, Michael.”
The groaning grew louder, until, “Fine. It was…” he cleared his throat, “the stupid lamp.”
Will raised a brow, eyes flicking between what he could see of Mike and the lamp in question, “The lamp was sappy?”
“No, uh…” Will swore he could hear him biting at his nails. “When you asked why I wanted it on, I said it was so that I could see you better. Which was true, but not the main reason.”
Will said nothing. Waited.
“To be honest,” a dry swallow, “I’m not the biggest fan of… the dark.”
Will waited for more, but when nothing came he couldn’t help the bubble of mirth that pushed past his lips.
“Don’t laugh!”
“No, Mike! I’m not laughing at-“ Will shook his head, unable to drop his grin. “That’s it? You don’t like the dark? Pfft- Me neither.”
He heard Mike’s head shoot up from his pillow, “Really?”
Will chuckled fondly, “Yeah, Mike. I’m pretty sure no one in our party is exactly soothed by darkness, considering what we’ve all been through.”
Mike scoffed, “Does anyone else in the party still need a fucking nightlight?”
Turning onto his back, Will hummed in thought. “Between us…”
“Yeah?”
“Dustin’s terrarium is just a fancy nightlight.”
Mike’s laugh was so light, like a lamp in darkness. “Did he tell you that?”
“No, but why else would he need the heat lamp on full blast? Last I checked, there’s nothing in there. And if there is, it’s been left to simmer for months.”
Their juvenile giggles bounced off the aged wallpaper, lost to the black outskirts of where their little yellow-orange bubble could not ward. Will caught himself hoping the melody would follow him into whatever nightmare he was about to travel, and it felt like a scary answer to a scary question. Will had always had an attachment of sorts to Mike, in different shapes and sizes, in different strains of thought and feeling. He had made a promise to himself that he’d pull back, fade into the black outskirts, if the attachment ever bordered on dependency. But then Will had let himself dream, and Mike had gone from a cigarette to an antipsychotic.
With laughter long waned dancing at his ears, Will readied to sail the breeze which cooed across the room, prepared to float to another dimension, beyond the door.