Chapter Text
A high school cafeteria had never been quieter the day before Christmas break. There wasn’t much to celebrate as of late, Mike supposed; your town splitting right down the middle did that to you.
Most kids at Hawkins High wouldn’t be getting presents this year. They wouldn’t be going somewhere new or visiting grandparents, or touring colleges. They’d be here, buzzing with anticipation of a new apocalypse. The thing about living through the end of the world—the thing nobody told you—was that it was very boring. Waiting to die was dull.
Most kids at Hawkins High knew someone who had died, or knew someone who knew someone. A few of the more affluent families had packed up and abandoned ship, which left those who didn’t have the means or energy to run away. And so, their kids murmured at lunchtime, the canteen a sea of sunken faces. It smelled like tuna, like war and metal. Lucas and Dustin had both barely said a word the whole hour.
Will, for his part, was smiling. It didn’t reach his eyes, though. Mike hadn’t seen Will truly smile since before he was taken. Maybe he had. Just, Mike didn’t know how to make Will laugh anymore.
“...didn’t even study. Just sheer intuition.”
He was in desperate need of a haircut, the more unruly strands falling in front of his eyes, likely obstructing his vision. Maybe Will liked it, though. He’d had the same uniform trim his entire life. All straight lines, smooth and catching the light. This version of Will looked a bit more roughed up. His mom would probably fix that within the week, put a bowl over his head, and tell him to stay still.
Will elbowed Mike’s side. “What about you?”
“Eighty-nine.” Mike shrugged. “Could have been worse, I guess. I still keep my A, just not getting into A-plus range.”
“Aww, don’t pretend you’re not mad Will beat you,” Lucas said, and the fact that he was actually speaking, teasing, made Mike’s subpar grade completely okay. He’d’ve taken a 0 in the class if it meant Dustin would tease him, too. But he sort of just huffed and picked at his sandwich.
“If it were English, sure,” Mike said. “That’d be like me wiping the floor with Will in ceramics or something.”
“That would never happen. You especially suck at pottery,” Will pointed out. “You made that wonky bowl and then told your mom it was a jewelry holder, remember?”
“It wasn’t that wonky. And I painted a heart on the back—it was for Mother’s Day.”
Lucas raised his eyebrows. He had the most expressive eyebrows Mike had ever seen, which meant he only talked if what he wanted to convey couldn’t be expressed silently and with intense facial judgment.
“It had a nub right in the center of the base, dude,” said Lucas, because apparently facial judgment wasn’t enough. “You’d hit your spoon on that shit and crack it and then bam—breakfast ruined. Your milk tastes like nub. Nub milk.”
“What fucking spoons are you using that they crack that easily?”
“Right,” Will grinned at Lucas as if Mike weren’t right there. “The spoon would be way stronger than Mike’s jewelry holder. You’d crack the bowl.”
“Man, fuck you guys,” Mike said, but he was laughing, so how could he be upset? “I’m just not good with my h—.” He stuttered. Too late—Lucas caught it.
“Ooh, you not good with your hands, Wheeler?” Lucas poked Mike’s arm, and now two of his friends were touching him, joking with him; and even though they were the only lively group in the cafeteria and he should probably feel self-conscious about the volume of their happiness, he couldn’t help but revel in their company. Even Dustin was looking up now, still not talking, but reverently engaged. “Poor El.”
“Nah, not ‘poor El,’” Mike said. “Not anymore anyway.”
“What?” Lucas asked. His fork clattered to the table.
“What did you do to my sister?” Will asked. He was having trouble looking Mike in the eye, and Mike was a bit surprised they hadn’t talked about it, but he supposed El was rarely home these days, and even when she was, they weren’t allowed to make frequent contact.
“It was mutual,” Mike promised. “Really. It hasn’t been, like, romantic for a while. She’s too busy saving the world to have a boyfriend.”
“Yeah, I guess she’s got better things to care about.”
Mike hit Lucas. He didn’t care much where his backhand ended up. Just that it hurt a little.
Lucas was really laughing now, sucking in air between wheezes. He was getting a few dirty looks from a group of girls behind them. Will pointed it out to Mike—a small glance, a slight curve of his lips: Mike and Will had always been able to speak without words—and Mike joined in. Maybe their laughter would infect Hawkins High, and then all of Hawkins, and things would go back to normal again. Maybe Mike could make his friends smile, really smile.
Dustin cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to hear that, Mike.”
Three pairs of eyes fell on Dustin. His words were raw, vocal cords rusty from hours of idling. Mike’s lips parted, and he exhaled, searching for the right thing to say. “Thanks, Dustin.” He turned to the other boys; he didn’t want to scare Dustin into silence again. “Really, though, I’m okay. We ended things on good terms, and it wouldn’t have been fair to keep dating her when I’m not sure that I… see a future together.”
Nowadays, it was difficult to see a future at all. But with El, Mike couldn’t picture a lifetime of lazy days and making out during commercial breaks, and El deserved to be with someone who loved her with their entire being, whose heart beat for her, whose soul cried out for her. That’s what love was supposed to be. That’s how all of the best books described it. This life-altering, world-shattering thing. And Mike would know love when he saw it—he’d seen worlds shatter before.
“Damn, Mike, you’re saying all that to El’s brother, you know.” Lucas finished off his pudding cup and tossed his tray aside. “He could narc on you.”
“Will wouldn’t do that,” Mike said at the same time Will promised, “I won’t narc on him.” They shared another look, and Mike felt warm despite the chill seeping in through Hawkins High’s thin walls. The heater was shit, too. It really only worked in the gym, the one place you probably wanted to be a little cold.
The bell rang. Students filed out of the cafeteria as if on autopilot. Mike almost missed when he was scared of this place. When the worst things about it were the people who could hurt him. At least back then, he knew it was coming, and he knew how to fight back.
Mike clapped Will on the shoulder. He turned to Dustin and Lucas, the latter of whom was stacking their trays and balancing them with one hand. They teetered a little, and he gave up and steadied them with a firm grip. “Will and I were gonna hang around in our backyard after school. Throw ice at each other. Freeze to death.”
“Our backyard,” Will laughed.
It was quite a funny concept, the two of them living together. Mike used to beg his mom to let Will sleep over on school nights, and now, he was right downstairs, or just in the kitchen, or in the next room over. Sometimes, they got really crazy and sat in the same room. They were friends, or whatever.
“That’s a tempting offer,” Lucas drawled, but he turned to Dustin anyway, searching his eyes for an answer. If Dustin went, Lucas would come, too.
“Wanna join?” Mike asked. His voice was embarrassingly high and youthfully hopeful, and his fingers—still balanced on Will’s shoulder—tapped in the taut limbo of an unanswered proposition.
Dustin sucked in his cheeks and exhaled. “Yeah, sure. I’ll come over. Give me until four, though, okay?”
Mike’s cheeks hurt from smiling. The world had ended, but sometimes, living in the aftermath wasn’t so bad. Sometimes, it wasn’t all that different at all.
“Okay,” Mike said.
Gray skies blanketed Hawkins in an early evening chill; the fairy lights carefully strung from Mike’s roof lit up delicate snow flurries that kissed the tip of his nose and melted on his tongue.
It was five o’clock. Lucas wore Mike’s old knit cap, Dustin donned Mike’s second-favorite jacket, and Will was dwarfed by Mike’s chunky scarf, which he swore wasn’t itchy but the inflamed red scratch marks down his neck said otherwise. The air nipped at Mike’s skin, and he couldn’t have cared less. His friends were all here, together for once, and Mike wanted to build a glass dome around the four of them, a snow globe untarnished by the Upside Down, just his house and his Christmas lights and his favorite people.
“INCOMING!”
A giant snowball smacked Mike in the face. He turned just in time to see the back of Will’s head ducking behind Holly’s old playhouse.
“Oh, you’re dead, Byers!” Mike hollered, trying his best to sound menacing. “Dead and buried!”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Will called back, sing-song. “Or it just might come true.”
He’d been able to make a few more jokes about his trauma lately—the word sounded severe, but that was what it was. Mike was grateful. The second they took things too seriously, the day was shot. They’d get stuck in their rigid, cyclical world of what-if.
Across the yard, Lucas and Dustin were building a snow barricade. It was several feet tall now. A fortress.
“Hey! You can’t team up!” Mike protested. “That’s not fair.”
“Team with Will,” Lucas shouted uncaringly, launching a few pre-made snowballs in the direction of Holly’s playhouse. Mike ducked behind it and found Will there, curled up along the wall. His cheeks were flushed pink—the cold doctored his complexion and drew blood. Up close, Mike could see a few snowflakes perched on Will’s eyelashes. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing a bit too quickly.
“Hey,” Mike said, his voice softening. He couldn’t let his opponents know his partner was vulnerable, after all. “You okay?”
Will nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. It’s just, the cold.”
Mike sputtered. “Oh, shit. Is it what I said? I was just talking smack. I didn’t really mean it—you know that. You’re the opposite of dead and buried.”
“Mike,” Will laughed.
“You’re alive and on top, my friend.”
“On top is not the opposite of buried.”
“Alive and… on higher ground.”
“Shut up.”
“Looking down on us all. Mocking us.”
Will puffed out a quiet laugh, and Mike could see it in the still, cold air. Mike hated the cold, but he loved it when he could see his own heat. It was a reminder of the living moment. Grounding, almost. He imagined, on his next inhale, that Mike was breathing in what Will had just expelled, that they were recycling the same two breaths over and over.
“You’re an idiot,” Will said.
Mike wrapped his arm around Will’s shoulder. “You feeling good? Because I’d like to team up against the Tweedles over there, but I can’t effectively start guerrilla warfare without you.”
“Which one’s Dee and which one’s Dumb?”
“Let’s ask them. Might cause a civil dispute.” Mike squeezed Will’s shoulder and then let go, and the two packed snow tight until they both had balls of ice. Mike looked at Will, and Will at Mike—they nodded in unison and launched their ammo over Holly’s playhouse. Dustin yelped.
“Jesus fuck, what did you put in those?” Dustin yelled.
“Burning hatred!” said Mike.
“Victory,” called Will. Mike chuckled into his hand. Will’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“You’re so cheesy,” he said, pinching his top lip between his fingers to keep from biting the dead skin. Will stuck his tongue out.
“Bite me.”
“Cannibalism is considered taboo, even in war.”
A barrage of snowballs splatted on the playhouse roof. Mike threw his arm across Will’s chest and ducked down. “Stay low. They’re pre-loading and firing in waves.”
“Did we ever establish how to win this fight?” Will leaned his head against the plastic wall. His hair was damp with snow now, sticking to his forehead in clumps. Mike reached forward and tightened Will’s scarf around his neck, using the fat end to cover his mouth.
“I think it’s just whoever taps out first.” Mike ruffled Will’s hair. “So keep warm.”
Mike wasn’t sure when he and Will became so close again. They’d had a lot of time to work things out in and after California, but their relationship hadn’t immediately gone back to the way it was before El, before all of this started. He couldn’t pinpoint a moment, but he knew it had something to do with Lucas’s preoccupation with Max and Dustin’s all-consuming grief—he’d never described it like that but Mike knew better than to trust Dustin when he downplayed his emotions. Somewhere along the way, Will and Mike realized that all they had was each other. Nothing else really mattered after that.
He loved Lucas and Dustin. He really did, and he wasn’t afraid to say it, even if it sounded lame. But Will was something that, for Mike, Lucas and Dustin could never be. He was home.
“If they’re pre-loading, we should do the same,” Mike said. “Build a pile and then open fire.”
“But then it’ll just be a stupid back-and-forth. There’s too much time to reload.”
“Right. Which is why we pre-load, and then we rush ‘em.”
“Rush ‘em…” The apples of Will’s cheeks swelled. Will rubbed his hands together. “Yeah, let’s do it.”
Will’s fingertips were cold, too. Mike covered Will’s bare hands with his gloved ones and rubbed them, hoping the friction might help. Mike could feel Will’s eyes on him—on his face, not his hands. Eventually, when he realized he wasn’t helping much, Mike took off his gloves and handed them over.
“Mike!”
“You can’t get frostbite. You’re better at making snowballs than I am.”
Will hesitated for a moment, but his teeth were chattering, and his nose was practically glowing red—he put on the gloves. “If your fingers fall off, it’s not my fault.”
“Of course not. Now get packing, soldier.”
While they worked, rolling snowballs from nearby piles of fresh powder, Lucas and Dustin launched another attack, dozens of balls arcing over the wall and onto Mike’s head and lap. By the end, he was covered in melted ice, but they’d somehow missed Will entirely. Will giggled.
“Fuck you,” said Mike. “I’ll turn on you so fast.”
“No, you won’t,” Will said, so sure of himself, and handed Mike a snowball. “Ready?”
Mike and Will grabbed as many snowballs as they could, nodded, and then ran at Dustin and Lucas’s fort as quickly as the foot of snow—a new, fluffy layer on top of the hard, older one—allowed. Dustin’s curls popped up over the barricade.
“Ambush!” He called out. “This is DEFCON 1, Lucas! DEFCON 1!”
Lucas made a break for it, rolling out from behind just as Mike and Will descended on their base. Dustin flopped to the ground, curling up to protect his face from the attack. After a dozen snowballs, he called uncle, laughing harder than he had in months, and Mike felt like a winner in all the ways that mattered.
Later, Mrs. Wheeler made them hot chocolate with marshmallows, and they all warmed up by the fire. Will wore fuzzy socks over his ands and feet, and while Mike dipped a giant marshmellow into his drink and lodged it inside his mouth, Lucas told them about Max, how the doctors said she might wake up soon because her brain activity looked promising, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up, and how he’d gotten her a Christmas gift anyway.
“It’s a necklace. Silver. I don’t know if she wears silver or if she really wears jewelry at all, but I was out shopping with my mom and saw it and it made me think of her.”
“Lucas,” Will cooed. “That’s so sweet.”
“She’s gonna love it, man,” Mike added, curling into Will’s side, his mug cradled in his hands. A few years ago, he would have found such vulnerability embarrassing, but now, he didn’t even think twice. Things were just different. Sometimes, that was good.
Lucas glanced between the two. “Mike, dude, relax, he’s not gonna run away.”
Mike clicked his tongue. He shrugged, faux-defensive. “Shut up. I’m being affectionate. You should try it sometime.” To punctuate, he grabbed the side of Will’s head and pressed a smacking kiss to his temple. Will swatted him away, his wrist flimsy and uncommitted.
“You’re weird,” Will said.
“You smell like snow,” came Mike’s reply.
They finished their hot cocoa and afterward, all lay before the fire on Mrs. Wheeler’s new rug, letting its gentle warmth hug their faces. It was nice. It was perfect.
But nothing ever stayed that way.
Will hasn’t been acting weird all evening. He went on his nightly walk with Jonathan—a tradition they’d started after first moving in, when the Wheeler house felt a little too crowded—and then said his cheerful goodnights and went to bed early. Mike had figured the school week and the snowball fight had tired him out.
Mike hadn’t seen the point of staying in the living room if Will wasn’t there, so he’d called it shortly afterward, giving his mom an uncharacteristic kiss on the cheek, which she’d beamed at. But then, he’d found himself alone in his room, pacing, waiting.
Mike had been doing that a lot lately, but he could never pinpoint what he was waiting for or on. He blasted music and tried to clean his room but just ended up throwing everything into his hamper for later. The night wouldn’t end. He turned off all his lights and climbed under his sheets and covers and shut his eyes and still, the night would. Not. End.
When Mike’s digital clock read 2:00 a.m., he gave up on sleep for the night. It was winter break, after all. He could catch up tomorrow. He grabbed a sweatshirt from his desk chair—his homebase for clothes he’d already worn but weren’t quite dirty yet—and padded into the kitchen. The fridge light blinded him. Mike rubbed his eyes and grabbed the carton of milk, squirted a shit ton of chocolate sauce into the container. He shook it up and chugged—it was great. The shaking had made it all frothy. His mom would probably chastise him for wasting the rest of the milk. He could probably get away with blaming Lucas, though (he wouldn’t).
A handful of potato chips and one stalk of celery with peanut butter later, Mike was ready to try to sleep again. So, of course, that’s when the shouting started.
It was incomprehensible at first. Mike thought it might have been the wind, the rattle of the gutter. But then, he heard the clobbering of footsteps, and the basement door slamming shut. Will’s screaming only got louder from there.
He’d had night terrors before, but this one felt different. For one, Will hadn’t had one since moving into the Wheelers’ house. Secretly, Mike liked to think there was a correlation, that something about the place made Will feel safe. But he’d been naive.
Mike knew Jonathan was down there with him, that he’d be fine eventually, and that he probably shouldn’t interfere. But even with his bedroom door closed and a ratty blanket wedged between the crack to block out sound, he could hear Will screaming, and the guttural noise moved through the air directly to Mike’s throat, where it lodged itself and refused to dissipate. Fuck that. Will had been through hell already; he didn’t deserve to relive it in his sleep, which should have been a respite. Mike found himself so irrationally angry that he had to punch his pillows to release it, and even then, his fists shook each time he wound back.
He wanted to go down to the basement, but he knew what he’d find: Jonathan at Will’s bedside, sweat beading on Will’s forehead and upper lip, his eyes glazed over and his mouth slack in perpetual confusion until he came back from his horrific dream world. Jonathan would give him a fresh t-shirt and rub his back, and Will would tremble, his lower lip quivering, and he’d bite it, refusing to cry. Maybe he would, but he’d be too wiped out to produce real tears, so he’d sort of just rock back and forth, fighting the parasite within him, the black death that had plagued his body since the day he’d disappeared.
Then, Will would see Mike and immediately feel embarrassed, and Mike didn’t want to make his agony any worse. He needed to put his energy somewhere, though.
The screaming stopped; Will must have finally woken up.
Mike pushed the clothes from his desk chair, sat down, and ripped a page out of his science notebook. He clicked his pen about a hundred times before he could finally put words to paper, and even then, it didn’t feel like enough. But he couldn’t come out and tell Will what he’d heard—it would just depress him. His handwriting was awful, and the pen was almost completely depleted of ink, but he wrote. Mike wanted Will to know he was there for him.
Hey, Will! Was just thinking but didn’t want to wake bother you. Do you and Jonathan ever see anything on your walks together? Like deer or something? I’ve never actually asked where you two go. I’d imagine it doesn’t feel scary walking at night after everything we’ve witnessed. I haven’t spotted as much wildlife since they installed the metal bandaid. What an eyesore, right? Anyway, knock on my door tomorrow morning. We should do something to celebrate the start of winter break. I don’t know about you, but I definitely needed the whole month, even if we’re only getting that much time because Hawkins High knows we’re all kinda depressed as fuck.
See you tomorrow! Sorry if this is weird.
Mike.
He folded it, ran downstairs as quietly as he could, and taped it to the basement door. When he returned to his bedroom, the digital clock read 3:10 a.m., and he found that he could finally get some sleep.
In the morning, Mike awoke to find his note slipped under his door. He rubbed his eyes and rose to pick it up, mentally kicking himself for writing it. Mike had embarrassed Will. He probably wouldn’t be knocking on the door today.
He grabbed the note and unfolded it, cringing prematurely, to see if the contents had been way cheesier than he remembered.
He didn’t get to reading.
Below Mike’s note, Will had drawn a doe in a forest clearing spotted with evergreens, its eyes closed, its head burrowed in the stomach of a weary traveler, who looked a lot like Mike, lanky arms and all, just with a birthmark on his cheek, a ratty cloak, and a chipped shield. Mike—the character—caressed the doe's forehead but looked beyond him to a rocky indent, almost like a cave, where purple gemstones shone from the earth. He’d colored it in with pencils and signed his name at the bottom. Below it, Will had written, I’m a bit tired now. I’ll knock later today! Beside that was a small red smiley face with a crudely-drawn tongue sticking out.
Mike traced the lines of the grass Will had drawn below the doe’s hooves. He’d used three different shades of green—it looked real. Will painted more than he drew now, but when he did draw, it always looked real, even if it wasn’t realism he was aiming for. Mike wanted to live inside all of Will’s drawings. He wanted them to be the only alternate universes that existed.
Mike turned the page over. He wrote back.
Will,
I wonder what your traveler experienced before running into the deer. His shield is cracked and his clothes look awful! Maybe this deer wants to help him with that? I think animals probably have an affinity for the traveler—otherwise, why would the baby deer feel so comfortable around him?
And behind the traveler, the purple gems! They look almost like stalagmites. They must have formed in that rocky enclave over decades. There’s definitely moisture in there. Maybe a magical pool of water? I’m curious if he decides to go in, and what exactly he’s looking for.
I look forward to your knock.
Mike :)