Chapter Text
“Hey.”
Mike practically jumped out of his skin, startling so badly he dropped the binder he was holding. “Holy Shi--”
Will flushed red in embarrassment, hands flying out in an attempt to catch Mike in case he fell off of the couch. “Sorry!” he said, nearly shouting as he scrambled forwards. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you--”
“I wasn’t scared!” Mike yelled, his face bright red. He picked up the binder and clutched it to his chest. “I just-- what are you doing here?”
Ouch.
Apparently, the hurt showed on his face, making Mike pale at that. “Sorry-- I just-- I didn’t mean for it to sound so… accusatory.”
“It’s… fine.”
“No!” he shouted, making both of them flinch. “No,” he repeated, his voice softer. “I swear I didn’t mean it that way. It’s not… fine, I’m trying to-- I’ll do better.”
Will didn’t know what to say to that.
It had been a few hours since the disastrous “celebration” and everyone had gone home, calling it a night. They had all split off to go back to their respective homes-- except for Will. Because, well, he didn’t know. But when everyone had split off, Jonathan mentioned how he was going to visit Nancy afterward, (because they were dating-- a fact that Will remembered, but not that she was apparently Mike’s sister,) and had instinctively offered Will a ride if he wanted to visit the Wheelers.
Will had agreed-- if only to try and apologize to Mike. Or something. Maybe he just wanted to try and remember him, or maybe he just wanted to find out why they were friends in the first place. To find out just how close they were.
Why he, of all people, Will couldn’t remember.
Mike carefully shut the binder, placing it delicately onto the side table. He tentatively patted the seat cushion beside him. “Um. Do you want to sit?”
Will pursed his lips, but nodded nonetheless. “Sure.”
“Cool,” Mike said.
Cool.
“...” Mike fiddled with his hands, moving his hand up to bite at his nails before quickly pulling the appendage down.
Oh. Will didn’t respond to that, did he? He just stood there, thrown into whatever… that was. A memory, maybe. He didn’t know.
Shaking his head, he ignored the strange, heavy feeling and moved to sit next to Mike.
The silence spoke volumes.
“Are you… alright?”
Mike let out a wet laugh. “You’re the one who-- who lost his memories. I should be asking you that.”
“I’m okay,” Will said, shrugging his shoulders. “I’m physically alright, and, well, I can’t really miss something I can’t remember.” Mike flinched at that, his teeth coming out to gnaw at his lip. Will winced. “Oh-- sorry.”
“No, no. It’s… not your fault.” His voice was flat, attempting to act unphased, but Will could read the boy easily, even though he didn’t remember why. Even though he didn't remember him. And Mike… well, he looked as though he was about to cry.
“Mike--”
“I don’t know what I was expecting, really,” Mike said, interrupting Will as he wiped his face with the edges of his sweater sleeves. “You don’t remember. That’s… it’s-- it’s not fine, exactly, but it’s not your fault. I just don’t know what I was expecting.” He stared into Will’s eyes, the tears rolling down his cheeks. “Maybe… maybe I was hoping you would magically remember me. Silly, I know.”
“No, no--” Will shook his head. “That’s not silly at all, it’s perfectly normal. I mean, if someone I cared about forgot me, I… I know I would be upset about it.”
Mike sniffled. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Will replied, his voice just as soft. Yeah, I really do, he didn’t say, instead giving into the urge to place his hand delicately on top of Mike’s, his face heating up at the motion.
Mike flushed red. “Um.”
“Sorry!” Will flinched, pulling his hand back like it was burned. “I didn’t mean to--”
“No, it was fi--”
“Will?” a voice called out from the top of the stairs, interrupting their nervous babbling. “Are you ready to go?”
The two boys pulled away from each other and looked up to stare at Jonathan, who was holding up a plastic bag filled with-- presumably-- clothes.
Right. They had also swung by to pick up some things that belonged to Will. Why it was at the Wheeler’s and not at home, he didn’t know.
He didn’t know a lot of things nowadays.
“Yeah,” Will replied after a beat of awkward silence. His voice felt hoarse, but that could have been just to him. “I’ll be right there,” he said, before turning to take one last glance at Mike. “I’ll see you around?”
“Uh--” Mike coughed. “I mean-- yes! Yeah, of course.”
“Cool,” Will mumbled and shot the other boy a smile as he made his way back upstairs to his brother.
“Cool,” Mike said into the empty room, even though no one was around to hear it.
--
A few days passed before Will saw Mike again. It wasn’t that he was avoiding Mike. It’s just that he had so much to catch up on. That was all.
And maybe he was avoiding him.
It’s just that, well, Will didn’t really know him that well. He should know him, he knew that, but losing his memory wasn’t his fault. Besides, whenever he looked at Mike, or even thought about him, his chest hurt. It panged and felt like he was drowning in a sea of emotions he couldn’t name.
So he might have been avoiding him.
It wasn’t that hard. Will mostly stayed at home-- his mom and his siblings and Hopper were in and out of the house at any moment, but there was always one of them staying home with him. He would be more annoyed at being babied if he didn’t actually find relief in knowing there was somebody around. That he wasn’t alone and by himself and suffocated in loneliness.
There was also a rotating list of guests that came over. It was random, at least he was pretty sure it was, with the party (and all of the extended party as well) filtering in and out as the days passed. In the last few days, Will was sure that everyone they had ever met had shown up at one point or another.
Everybody but Mike.
So maybe he was avoiding Will too.
It stung.
Which, okay, Will didn’t exactly want to see him either, so it wouldn’t be fair to be upset that Mike didn’t want to see him but, well. Will couldn’t help the bitter taste in his mouth. That Mike didn’t want to come over, didn’t want to see him.
Will didn’t even know Mike. He isn’t sure why he’s so upset.
How could he miss someone he doesn’t even know?
“Will?”
He blinked out of his thoughts, turning to stare numbly at his sister. “Yeah?” he answered, belatedly.
El frowned at him, leaning her side against the doorframe to his bedroom. “You seem out of it.”
“... I’m fine,” he said. It wasn’t necessarily a lie, but it wasn’t really true.
El sighed, biting her lip nervously. “You have a visitor,” she said, slowly.
Will tilted his head to the side. “Who?”
She shifted her feet across the ground. “... Um.”
“... El?”
“Don’t be mad!”
“That makes me feel like I’m not going to like what you’re about to say.”
El shot him a guilty look. “Well--”
Will slapped his hands over his ears. “Nope! Nope, I am not dealing with that. I have no idea who could be at the door, but if you look so guilty it has to be bad--”
“Will,” she attempted.
“No!” he crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not having this. I do not want to deal with this. No.”
“Wow, I didn’t know you hated me that much.”
Will flinched, accidentally causing himself to slip backward off his bed.
“Will--!”
“I’m okay!” he called out, throwing out a thumbs up. He then scrambled to put his hands behind him, pushing himself off the floor and into a sitting position, his head popping out from behind his bed to stare at El and the newcomer. “Oh,” he said involuntarily. “Hi, Mike.”
The boy in question shot him a small, awkward wave. He looked nervous. “Hey.”
El glanced between the two of them, her head bouncing back and forth like she was watching a tennis match. “This is weird,” she declared. “I am going to watch TV. You two have fun,” she continued, turning on her heels to do just that.
“...”
“...” Will pursed his lips, moving off of the floor and into his bed. “Do you want to sit…?”
“Oh! Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, that sounds-- sounds great,” Mike said, chuckling nervously as he moved to sit down next to Will.
They sat there in silence.
… it was awkward.
“El was right,” Will said, laughing softly to himself. “This is weird.”
Mike made a noise of agreement, a pained look crossing his face. “Yeah, it is,” he admitted, his shoulders curling in on himself. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“Huh?”
“Why are you sorry?” Will asked, nudging Mike with his shoulder. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Yeah but-- but it’s weird!” Mike said, throwing his hands up into the air and waving them around wildly. “I’m practically just a stranger to you a-and I’m barging in on your life and I’m making things weird.”
Will blinked. Oh. “Well,” he started out, not really knowing where he was going with the conversation. “I like weird.”
“What?”
Will’s cheeks burned, and he looked away, not meeting Mike’s searing gaze. “Nobody normal ever achieved anything meaningful in their lives.”
Mike stared at him with wide eyes. “Wow.”
“It’s something Jonathan said to me, once. I don’t… I don’t remember why, but I think it was about me,” Will said with a shrug, still not making eye contact. “So… it’s okay if you’re a little weird. I think it’s oddly…” he didn’t know the right word for it, to describe the strange warmth resting alive in his chest, fluttering and tumbling around. “... Endearing,” he finished, settling with a word that felt a little too open, a little too much, but truthful nonetheless.
“Oh…” Mike trailed off, looking a little stunned at the words. His cheeks were dusted in pink. “That’s… good to know.”
They sat once again in silence, but it was more comfortable than it was previously. It was like sitting together with an old friend-- which, Will supposed, was exactly what was happening, even if he didn’t remember the other boy.
“So…” Will eventually broke the silence. “Should I ask why you're here?"
“Ah, um. Sorry… I just wanted to see if you were alright,” Mike said, playing nervously with his hands. “I was trying to give you space but I couldn’t take it anymore. Plus, I think Nancy was getting annoyed with me.”
“Somehow, I doubt she had much patience for you in the first place.”
“Hey! … I mean you’re right, but still. I think I was being extra annoying to her.”
“How so?”
“Uh… Well, you know…”
Will shook his head. “No, I don’t. That’s sorta why I asked in the first place.”
“Right. Right, yeah, well,” Mike shrugged again. “I was just antsy. I couldn’t sit still, so I kept pacing around and… and I was just being a nuisance in general, I guess.”
“Huh.” Will tilted his head slightly, giving Mike a once over, noting his jittering knee and how he continued to fiddle with his hands. He was nervous and anxious, and no matter how much he tried to act nonchalant, Will saw right through him. “Well… I’m alright.”
“Yeah?”
Will nodded. “Yeah,” he replied, softly. “It’s… the memory thing is strange, of course, but… I feel fine.”
“Good! That’s… good.” Mike knocked their elbows together, smiling weakly. “I’m glad you feel… good.”
“How many times are you going to say the word good?” Will asked, amused.
“A good amount of times,” he replied back with a grin.
Will laughed. “Sounds good to me.”
Mike giggled at that, his face completely lighting up like a Christmas tree. It was almost too bright to look at, and yet Will couldn’t tear his eyes away.
“Hey, Mike?” he asked after they calmed down from their laughter.
“Yeah?” he replied, oh so gently and oh so-- much. It was a lot for him to handle, just how… tender he sounded. Like Will was something precious, something he had to handle with care and affection and lo--
Will swallowed, looking away nervously. “Um, could you… tell me more about us?”
Mike choked, coughing into his fist. “Us?” he parroted, his voice cracking and his face red from all the coughing.
Will nodded, “I know that… I know that you’ve said we grew up together, but I don’t… I don’t remember any of that, so you know…” he shrugged, his chest panging with something he couldn’t name. Hurt? Or maybe longing? It ached, and he didn’t know why.
“... Oh,” Mike said, a beat later, disappointment obvious in his voice.
“Sorry, you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he quickly backtracked. He was confused at why Mike looked so disappointed, but he didn’t want to make him feel that way or do something he didn’t want to.
“No!” Mike fumbled, moving to sit closer to Will on the edge of the bed, their knees brushing as he did so. “No, no, I can-- I’d be happy to tell you more.”
“Really? Because I just-- I feel like I’m going crazy with all these loose gaps that everybody remembers but me.”
Mike smiled softly. “Well, if you’re going crazy, so am I,” he said, voice low and comforting and just so, so soft. “And… maybe we can go crazy together.”
Yeah, crazy together.
Will didn’t say that. He thought it, and he almost said it out loud, but-- it would’ve felt like he was reading off a script, following along and having no choice. It wouldn’t have felt right because it would’ve been hollow. Just echoing something he said once before, but not holding the same meaning. Not really.
And, now that he thought about it, he couldn’t help but feel like he’d been in this position before. Maybe he had, in the mix of memories he no longer could recall. Maybe at one point, Will had sat to Mike’s left, on the ratty sofa in the armpit that was Mike Wheeler’s basement, surrounded by junk food wrappers, and they had a conversation that held the words that had already slipped away from him.
Or, maybe they didn’t, and Will was seeing signs that weren’t there. Maybe, he was just going crazy.
Maybe he would always feel this way. Lost, crazy, alone.
He really didn’t know.
“... yeah, maybe,” Will finally said, after a moment, pulling away. He already mourned the loss of Mike by his side, his warmth, his gaze. “But, ah, maybe not today.”
Mike frowned, slightly, but didn’t argue, standing up from the bed and looking away. “Not today,” he agreed, and there was something so sad about him that made Will’s heart ache. “I have to go pick up my sister from her friend’s house, anyway,” he mumbled, shuffling around the room to pick up his bag.
“I’ll… see you later?” Will asked, hesitantly.
“Of course,” Mike replied. He smiled at Will, looking more like a sad, wet puppy than anything else. “I’ll see you later. Maybe next time I’ll bring one of my mom’s old photo albums.”
“I bet you were a cute kid,” he tried to lighten the mood.
Mike rolled his eyes, his cheeks dusted a faint red. “Not really. I hated pictures, so I was always grumpy in them.” He let out a short laugh. “Anyway, this isn’t about the pictures of me.”
“It’s not?” Will blinked at him curiously. “But… you said it’s your mom’s photo album?”
“Well yeah, but you’re also in them,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You always were there.”
Will didn’t know what to say to that. Just… how much were they involved in each other’s lives? How much did he lose?
“I… look forward to seeing those photos,” he eventually said, trying to keep his voice steady. “And for you to tell me the stories along with them.”
..
“And then I fell so hard I took you down with me--”
Will gasped, looking down at the photo of two small children on the ground, covered in snow. Mike had shown up the next day with a giant photo album in hand, and they were slowly going through it, page by page. It wasn’t even all of their memories together, apparently. The book started when they were already nine years old, and they had met long before that.
It was just a snippet of their lives, a fraction of the story he forgot.
“No-- really?”
“Yeah!” Mike nodded, “and you laughed so hard at me until I started crying, and at that point you started crying too--”
“Stop! You are totally lying!” Will said, playfully shoving him in the shoulder.
“No, no, I’m absolutely telling the truth,” Mike said between bursts of laughter. “And Nancy and Jonathan can both confirm this-- like, Jonathan came running over and freaking out thinking we were super hurt, but we just slipped on fucking ice--”
“Hey! You said you slipped, not me--!”
“You fell too!”
“Yeah, but you literally admitted it wasn’t my fault!”
“Oh, I did not say that!” Mike argued, a bright smile on his face.
“You just said you pulled me down and that’s the only reason I fell.”
“You would’ve fallen either way.”
"\”Would I really?” Will asked, raising one of his eyebrows.
Mike paused, then sighed. “Well, I mean, no, probably not,” he admitted. “But still!”
Will laughed, knocking his elbow against Mike’s. “You’re ridiculous.”
Mike just smiled at him. It was soft and looked as though Mike wasn’t even aware he was doing it. It just… was.
“... Mike?”
The boy in question blinked, shocking himself out of whatever daze he was in. “Huh?”
“You seemed like you were somewhere else for a second there,” Will said. “Do I have something on my face?”
Mike’s cheeks flushed red. “Ah, um, what?”
“Do I--”
“No!” Mike coughed into his fist. “No,” he repeated.
Will furrowed his eyebrows together. “Ooookay?”
“Don’t-- Don’t worry about it.”
“Well, now I’m worrying about it.”
Mike huffed. “I said not to!”
“Saying not to worry makes me worry! It means there’s something to worry about!” Will argued. And he was completely right, by the way.
Mike sighed. “Totally not true.”
“It totally is!”
“Totally not!”
Will grabbed a pillow and whacked Mike with it. He screeched, grabbing a hold of the offending object and tried to retaliate.
“Hey wait! You can’t fight back,” Will said between fits of laughter, attempting to block the onslaught with his hands. “I’m injured! This is totally illegal.”
Mike paused. “Injured?” he asked worriedly, his voice cracking.
“Oh, I just meant--” Will pointed at his head. “Amnesia. Etcetera. Mentally took some psychic damage and forgot some stuff, you know how it is,” he said with a chuckle. “That means you legally aren’t allowed to bully me.”
Mike’s shoulders relaxed as he let out a laugh. “Nope, I don’t think so.”
“No?” Will said, amused by how petulant Mike sounded.
“Nope!” he repeated, a childlike glee in his voice. “Totally not a thing, sorry to say. So that just means--” he rushed forward and slammed the pillow into Will’s face with all his strength. Which meant it didn’t actually hurt that badly.
“Gah!” Will’s muffled voice managed to get out, causing the two of them to burst out into giggles.
“Okay, okay,” Mike said between laughs. “This next photo is when we stole Nancy’s nail polish and did each other’s nails. I looked great because, well, you did it, and you look awful because I had no idea what I was doing--”
He continued with showing him photos and telling him stories of their lives together, a small fraction of what they experienced and yet it was also so much.
So much that he just… didn’t remember. Even with all these photos, all these stories, they weren’t sticking. They felt distant, unreal, like it happened to someone else that wasn’t him, despite a similar memory in his brain that was the same and yet completely different.
It was almost… like an echo. It was him in those stories, but it was faint and so far away, so far removed from him, it didn’t feel like it was him.
But despite how off he felt, how much it didn’t feel like him, it was… nice. Hearing the stories and trying to piece together when it could’ve possibly happened. Because they’re real, they must be, and that also meant that his childhood wasn’t as lonely as he remembered.
Will shivered slightly, pulling the blanket closer around himself as he listened to Mike talk, letting the words wash over him.
Best friends for over ten years, huh?
It was a nice thought.
He hoped he could remember his own versions of the stories, one day.
-.-
They hang out more, after that.
Sometimes, there are others around-- with the party, with his family, with Robin or Steve or Nancy or anyone else, really. The rotating guest list kept going, not stopping even though he already saw them all, not stopping even though Will was fine.
It was annoying, but Will didn’t complain. Much. Because every day, like clockwork, someone would show up to check up on him, and every time they did, Mike was always there too.
It seemed as though his first visit caused an avalanche. Now that Mike knew he was welcome, he was consistently around. In all honesty, it was sorta nice. Mike seemed to know how Will was feeling from just a glance, and he never babied him. What was even better: he didn’t let anyone else do it, either, calling them out on how they kept treading on eggshells around him, telling them to treat Will normally. Because, he said, it was still Will, even with some gaps in his memories.
It was strange how familiar it felt. It was like Mike had done a similar thing before, but no one said anything and Will didn’t bring it up, not sure how to ask.
He did that a lot, actually.
Everybody knew something they weren’t telling him, skirting around the topic whenever it was so much as even referenced. The Upside Down… Mike. They were so cagey about it and Will was already sick of it. But he still didn’t know how to ask.
“El…”
His sister tore her eyes away from where he was painting her nails, a serious expression on her face. She always took everything seriously, and it always made Will feel less paranoid. Like he was making a fuss about nothing. It was nice.
“Yes?”
Will bit his lip and added another coat of paint to her pinky. “... Um… It’s about Mike.”
The boy in question had just left from his daily visit, grumbling about how unfair it was that the siblings could ditch school and he couldn’t. Which wasn’t exactly true-- El was homeschooled and… so was Will? At least, for now, because… he didn’t actually know why. He was still recovering from something, from whatever took his memories, probably, so he was temporarily homeschooled. Apparently. He stopped asking questions about it a while ago.
But despite the fact that neither of them had school, Mike had arrived so early in the morning and woke the two of them up. Why? Will didn’t know, but since neither of them could get back to sleep after Mike had left, they decided to pull out the nail polish.
“What about Mike?”
“I, well…” Will trailed off, thinking about how Mike had made Will’s favorite breakfast and placed it in Will’s preferred seat and everything else he did, too. All the little things Mike did without thinking. “He seems to know so much about me.”
El nodded slowly, careful not to move her hands too much. “Yes, he does.”
“Because… we’re friends.”
“Best friends,” she corrected him. “You are best friends.”
“Right, of course,” he said, switching to another color of polish. “Did I know a lot about him?”
“You do,” she answered. “Well, did, I guess. You knew him better than most… maybe the most.”
Will blinked at her. “That can’t be right. Isn’t, um, Nancy his sister?”
And wasn’t that weird. He remembered Nancy-- she was dating Jonathan for the past few years, after all-- and he even remembered Holly, as it turned out. He remembered babysitting her a few times, though he couldn’t exactly remember why.
Mike looked really sad when he heard that. Will felt bad, but he didn’t know how to fix it. He didn’t know how to fix anything.
“She is,” she confirmed, waving her hands through the air to dry them quicker. Will grimaced at the smell, glad that he remembered to open his window. At least he had enough of his memories to know that piece of knowledge. Nail polish smelled terrible.
“Then doesn’t she know him better than I did?”
El shook her head. “Not really. You are… were best friends. Max says that beats out siblings.”
“But you’re my sibling.”
“We are siblings and best friends,” she said, wisely. “And Jonathan, too. That means we know each other extra well.”
“Are Mike and Nancy not like that?”
She hummed in thought. “No, I do not think so.”
“Oh,” he frowned. “That’s too bad.”
“Was that what you wanted to know?”
Will shrugged, and grabbed one of her hands. “Yeah, kind of. What kind of designs did you say you wanted again?”
“I was thinking about fun designs for each of my friends,” she wiggled her fingers. “You can be a paint brush, and Max can be a skate board. Lucas still likes basketball… and Dustin has Cerebro.”
He grinned and grabbed the palette he thankfully remembered to set out ahead of time and started to lay out the colors he would need for each symbol. “Great choices. You can have two for everyone, considering you have two hands, you know.”
She laughed. “That’s true… maybe something from the game you like. Dee and Dee.”
Somehow, Will knew she was saying it incorrectly, though it was close enough, really. “Like how I’m a cleric?” Though he played as a wizard too, more often than not. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember much of the campaigns he played through. The narration was… muddled. All he could really pinpoint was the feeling-- he loved the game. He knew that much.
“Are you not a sorcerer?”
A real life, honest to god sorcerer.
“No?” Will tilted his head at her. “What made you think I was?”
She stared at him for a long moment, and then shrugged. “I dunno.”
“Hey!” he hissed and held her hand down against his leg to steady it. “Careful!”
“Sorry,” she said with a laugh.
“Ugh, anyway, that’s four friends.”
“Hm?”
“Four friends but five fingers on two hands,” he said, slowly drawing on a small shield onto her thumb. “Whose the fifth person?”
“...” She said nothing for a moment. “Mike.”
He blinked and looked up at her furrowed brows. “What?”
“It’s Mike.” She said it like it was obvious-- and, actually now that he thought about it, it was. How did he not know? Wasn’t he told the six of them were all friends? They were the Party. A whole friend group. He had forgotten again, somehow.
“Uh…” he stared down at her hands, each nail already drawn on but one. “Right, obviously.”
She slowly nodded, her eyes the most recently painted thumb. “You’re doing well, even though I did not explain.”
“What do you mean?”
“The shield,” she said, watching as he filled it in and added small details to it. “He is very… shield-like.”
“He is?”
El nodded again. “He is a protector. He protected me, when we met.” Will added a gold crown onto the face of the shield. “… He protects you, too.”
“Huh.” Will looked away, and resisted the strange urge to add red to the little design. He moved on. “Well, what should the final nail be?”
El let him get away with his terrible, terrible attempt to shift the conversation, taking pity on him. God, he loved his sister. “A pen, maybe? He likes to write.”
He nodded. “Okay,” he mumbled, drawing on the final little icon to her nails, ignoring how the little fountain pen matched strangely well with the paint brush just a finger over. “Sounds good to me.”
.