Chapter Text
Sometimes, Will really, really wishes he could catch a fucking break.
As if getting dragged into the Upside Down a second time wasn’t bad enough, Will ended up spending four whole days in there this time. He came back out with all the usual problems - dehydration, mild hypothermia, mild bronchitis, bruises - but this time, somehow, Will also leaves the Upside Down with the ability to read people’s minds.
At least he’s not throwing up slugs this time.
Will’s theory is that this new problem is something to do with the Upside Down’s hivemind ability, but he can’t be sure, because there’s no way in hell he’s going to ask anyone who might have any better theories. He's not telling anyone about this - not his mom, not Jonathan, not even Mike. No one. He knows how invasive it is. Your mind is supposed to be the one place that you have real, true privacy, and he’d be absolutely horrified down to his very bones if he found out that one of his friends was able to read his mind. He’s going to keep it a secret until it goes away, just like he did with the slugs. Nobody ever found out about those, and nobody got hurt, so it’ll be fine. That's going to be his strategy for his sudden telepathic powers. They’re taking longer than he expected for them to go away, but it’s okay - he’s on week two, they can’t last much longer than this. He’s still getting over the slight bronchitis that the toxic air of the Upside Down had given him, so maybe the aftereffects will all clear at the same time.
It had taken Will a few days to notice that something was wrong, honestly. It had taken his friends and family three sleepless days and nights to get him back from Vecna this time, and both Will and his family spent at least the next two days after that sleeping. Their exhaustion is probably why he didn’t notice at first - they were simply too exhausted to think. It was only when Jonathan checked on him in bed that Will first started to notice that there might be something going on. He came into Will’s room and brought him some food and another blanket. Will had been in a weird state of semi consciousness - too exhausted to fully open his eyes, but awake enough to be aware of what was going on around him. Jonathan had stroked his hair back, the way he never does anymore, and Will had heard his voice.
Love you, he had said. Will smiled, curling deeper into the blankets.
“Love you too,” Will mumbled. A wave of warmth had washed over him, independently of the blankets, but it hadn’t felt like it had come from him. And then, Jonathan’s voice again.
It’s almost like he heard me. I wonder what he’s dreaming about.
Jonathan doesn’t normally talk to himself like that, but Will was exhausted, so he hadn’t thought much of it. He had left shortly after that, and Will had assumed Jonathan just thought he was asleep, but it kept happening. When his mom came in to check on him, he heard her fretting about how sick he still looked; the greyish cast to his skin. He heard Lucas walk past the door, worrying about Max. It was only when he heard Jonathan complain about wanting to smoke a joint that he realised something was off - Jonathan never mentioned his smoking habits anywhere near his mom. The real giveaway, however, was that he was in front of him at the time, and his mouth didn’t move when he said it. Finally putting two and two together, Will’s eyes grew huge.
“What? What’s wrong?” Jonathan asked. If it’s Vecna again, I don’t know if I can take it, he thought, and Will froze up even harder, because oh god, he’s reading his brother’s mind . By accident.
Will forced himself to speak.
“It’s not Vecna,” he managed to say, and somehow felt Jonathan’s anxiety turn down from a ten to maybe a six. Will relaxed in turn, just from the sheer relief Jonathan was feeling, and god, that was confusing. “It’s just-” he floundered for an excuse. “It’s just a cramp. That’s all.”
Jonathan instantly relaxed, and eventually left him alone to stretch out his “cramp.”
Will had stayed put, not stretching - just staring at the wall, hoping it wasn’t true and wishing it away.
The buzz of other people’s thoughts in the back of his mind persisted anyway.
It took Will a surprisingly short time to come to terms with the whole “telepathy” thing - mostly because it’s hard to deny something that’s literally screaming at you from inside your skull any time you’re around someone else - but honestly, telepathy is nothing compared to the whole “alternate dimension full of monsters” business anyway. He’s got a telekinetic sister - what’s another mind power to add to the list?
On an emotional level, though, Will’s having a much harder time with it.
There was a comic book he had read with the party back when he was about 11 that featured telepathy. Dustin had thought it was the coolest thing ever, and had told his friends as much.
“Wouldn’t it be so cool to know what people are thinking all the time?” he’d said at the time. “Nobody could ever lie to you!”
Even at the age of 11, Will had shuddered. “I wouldn’t want somebody to hear my thoughts,” he replied, shaking his head. “You couldn’t have any secrets.”
“Why, Byers? You thinking about something dirty?” Lucas asked, wiggling his eyebrows. Will shook his head, flushing bright red. “You thinkin’ about girls?”
“Stop it!” Will whined, as his friends began to tease him. He wasn’t going to let Lucas know that was exactly the problem - the fact that he wasn’t thinking about girls.
So yeah, Will knows how invasive it is. That doesn’t mean he can make it stop.
After nearly two weeks of this, he’s starting to get used to it. He can’t stop it entirely, but he’s gotten much better at keeping a straight face, and he’s much better at knowing what’s thought and what’s spoken - initially, he’d found it hard to tell the difference. He finds it hard to be in crowded spaces, now - but he’s never much liked those anyway, so nobody thinks it’s weird that he’s avoiding them. One upside of the apocalypse is no school, and the town’s near-emptiness is a comfort, for once, rather than eerie - Will doesn’t think he could bear listening to his classmates’ almost-certainly horrible thoughts about him on top of all the slurs they hurl at him verbally. He spends most of his time with his friends and family, planning how they’re going to defeat Vecna and save Max, which mostly means fairly safe topics are running through people’s heads - the plan to defeat Vecna is not personal or private, after all. He occasionally has to make a quick exit when Jonathan and Nancy start looking at each other, but mostly, everyone’s pretty focused on the Upside Down.
Something interesting about Will’s new power, as much as he tries not to acknowledge anything about it at all, is that not everyone thinks the same way. Their thoughts are shaped differently; their minds have different feels to them. It’s hard to describe - it’s like a sixth sense, or an aura, or something. Argyle had introduced him to the concept of auras, and Will had found it interesting but didn't believe in them - but he didn't believe in telepathy last week either, so he's dealing with it.
The auras allow Will to sense people without even seeing them, sometimes. For example, Will can now tell when his mother has entered a room, even if she hasn’t said anything, either out loud or in her thoughts. Her mind is a comforting presence, sort of warm and soft. She always feels slightly anxious, but it’s comforting nonetheless - it’s Mom. If she’s there, Will knows he’s safe. It’s instinctive. Jonathan’s is similar - his mind also has that constant, low-level anxiety that all the Byers seem to share, but he’s more grounded, somehow. He feels like a forest, if Will had to be poetic about it, and he’s just as reassuring a presence as Mom.
His friends are more complicated. Lucas’s mental presence is all twisted up, like stressed metal one blow away from snapping entirely, and Will knows instinctively that that’s not normal for him, not how his mind is meant to feel - but he gets it. Max is still in a coma, hasn’t moved or breathed on her own in two years, and it’s awful.
Will is too scared to go visit Max with his new power. He doesn’t know which would be worse - Max being trapped inside her frozen body with no way of getting her out or reaching back to her (because his power doesn’t go two ways - he’s tried) or sitting down at her bedside and reaching out with his mind, only to find that Max isn’t there at all.
Dustin’s mind is bright and shiny - he’s clever and quick, and usually, he’s the safest person for Will to be around, always thinking of science and strategy and occasionally D&D or Steve - until he gets bored. Will and Dustin got stuck on cleaning duty together last week, mopping floors and vacuuming, and they ran out of things to talk about surprisingly quickly. It was only then that Will realised how much Dustin thinks about girls - and how . Will always knew Dustin liked girls probably the most, wanted to do things with them a little more than the rest of them did, but damn. He had started singing a Bowie song at top volume inside his own head in an attempt to drown Dustin’s fantasies out, and had escaped that cleaning shift feeling vaguely uncomfortable.
El’s mind is interesting. Unlike the rest of their friends, she doesn’t seem to think in words or sounds very often, unless she’s really focusing on something, which makes her thoughts a little bit more concealed from Will. Her mind feels cool like water, somehow, flowing from thought to thought in a pattern Will can’t work out. She seems to be very instinct-based and conceptual, and spends most of her time observing rather than participating, carefully filing things away in little boxes . She’s overwhelmed far more often than Will had ever realised, and she’s almost never as calm as she looks on the outside. Her past seems to haunt her much more than any of them realised, too. El’s mind is like water, but she’s like a rip current - calm on the surface, and churning wildly underneath. Will has vowed never to intentionally mention anything he learns nonconsensually through his accidental mind-reading, but he can’t help noticing that some days are harder than others. On her bad days, he always brings her a blanket or a cup of cocoa or something; it can’t fix her past, but it pours a little oil on her churning waters, calming them a little.
And then there’s Mike.
Being around Mike was hard enough before the telepathy. Will’s feelings about Mike are … well. He doesn’t like to say it out loud; he’s already too obvious. Jonathan knows, and he’s pretty sure Mom does, and probably El, now that she and Mike have broken up. It’s difficult, sometimes, just to sit in the same room as him. It’s not Mike’s fault, not anything he did - it’s just that Will’s been hopelessly in love with him for far too long. It makes his chest ache.
Being able to hear his thoughts makes it so much worse, in every way imaginable.
If Mike’s physical presence is distracting to Will, Mike’s mental presence is a thousand times worse. His mental aura practically vibrates the air around him, creating a sort of invisible, intangible heat that’s so unlike everyone else’s minds that the first time he encountered it, he’d honestly been worried that it was the Upside Down. Mike’s mind feels like a humid summer; like standing at the side of a bus and feeling the heated air from the engine blast down on you from the vents. It had taken a long while before Will had realised what was going on, and what was causing it.
Motion creates heat, and Mike thinks so fast his mind almost can’t keep up with itself. His aura feels like summer heat because his brain works at a dizzying speed, jumping from thought to thought so fast he barely has time to register them before they’re gone. He thinks in words, mostly, but also in images and even sounds, sometimes all at once. It’s incredible watching him in strategy meetings, feeling his frenzied brain connect pieces that the others are still evaluating. The only person who thinks anywhere close to as fast as Mike does is Mom, but she doesn’t always voice her connections immediately, her anxiety holding her back. Mike barely seems to think before he speaks, and hardly seems aware of half the things that run through his head - irrelevant bits of information flying in and out again unnoticed like mosquitoes as he focuses intently on the relevant stuff.
Mike’s brain doesn’t always run as fast as that, but it’s certainly never still. Even when he’s sitting calmly watching a movie with the Party, there are thoughts running like a constant commentary. He barely seems aware of it. In Will’s opinion, it seems like it ought to drive him mad. He’s constantly thinking about absolutely everything to the point where Will wonders how on earth he gets around. It certainly explains why he’s so clumsy - Will doesn’t think he’d remember to tie his shoelaces properly either if he was dealing with that noise all the time.
Mike’s mind is deeply distracting, and Will often finds himself lost in it, sinking into the frenzied heat of it and just watching the thoughts fly, before realising what he’s doing. He promised himself he wouldn’t pay attention to anyone’s thoughts, and he knows that Mike especially would be deeply, deeply upset about it if he knew - he was furious when El and Max had spied on him, and this is even more invasive than that. But despite how much Will hates himself for doing it, he keeps letting it happen. Mike’s mind, for all it’s frantic buzzing, is like stepping into a warm jacuzzi. It blocks out everyone else’s minds until Will can only hear Mike, and after spending all day being bombarded, it’s almost bliss.
Will needs to get this under control or get rid of it, fast.
Day 14 of Having Telepathic Powers is a completely normal day aside from Will being unfortunately subjected to Dustin’s surprisingly graphic thoughts about Kim Wilde, who’s all over the radio this week. It’s a Friday, and in an attempt at maintaining some kind of teenage normalcy, the Party have been having slumber parties every Friday night. It ought to be kind of sad, to be a high school junior and playing board games and watching movies on a Friday night instead of partying or whatever they’re “supposed” to be doing, but Will loves it. The world outside the Wheeler’s basement doesn’t exist just for tonight, and he doesn’t have to go home to his house full of battle plans until at least tomorrow afternoon. A year ago (or even a few weeks ago) Will would’ve worried that his friends found this all too childish, but now that he can feel their thoughts, he knows they love it just as much as he does. The only reminder of reality is the Max-sized empty spot on the couch that they can’t seem to stop leaving open.
Tonight, Will sits in the basement with his friends, eating cherry-chocolate ice cream with little fluorescent plastic spoons from tiny cardboard cups like they’re in a real cinema so that they can pretend the world isn’t ending for a few hours. They’re watching Top Gun - a movie that Lucas and Dustin think is super cool and macho. As a closeted gay man, Will carefully avoids sharing his opinion on Top Gun. He knows that if he opens his mouth he will definitely say something super incriminating by accident - because holy shit, Top Gun is the most homoerotic movie Will has ever seen. He’s not particularly into the fighter planes, military propaganda aspect, but it’s whatever. At least he gets to watch Tom Cruise take his shirt off.
He relaxes into the movie, able to ignore his friends' thoughts for the most part as all four of them focus on the familiar plot. It feels like no time at all before the music of the volleyball scene is starting up, and Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer are suddenly shirtless and oiled on the beach in what must be the gayest scene ever put to film.
There’s a lot of confusion growing up as a gay teenager, but Will knows how he feels about this scene, tongue coming out to wet his lips subconsciously. He prepares himself to enjoy it, but it’s a little different this time when he can feel Dustin and Lucas’ polite disinterest and mild confusion.
“I never understood why they have this scene,” Lucas comments. Will shrugs with slightly tense shoulders, using the motion to discreetly cross his legs. He doesn’t understand the plot relevance either, but he’s not complaining about it. Quite the opposite, really. This scene was particularly revelatory for 13-year-old Will Byers - maybe the reason they have this scene is to activate closeted gay boys like sleeper agents, forcing them to acknowledge why they never liked the girls in their class.
The oiled, sculpted torsos let Will mostly block out the press of his friend’s thoughts and auras - he still catches stray thoughts and feelings, but Will ignores them now. There’s a particularly lingering shot of a male bicep, and Will licks his lips without meaning to. His mind starts to supply him with flashes of words and phrases such as wow, he’s so cool, and he’s kind of hunky, and beefy, and one very quick I’d lick that drop of sweat off him. They’re all thoughts Will agrees with, but they aren’t actually thoughts that Will has ever explicitly had before - at least, not phrased like that. His thoughts tend to be more visually oriented and devolve quickly into fantasy, so this is new.
The thoughts continue in a similar vein as Tom Cruise’s glistening forearms slam into a volleyball on screen, and abruptly, Will realises the thoughts don’t feel like his own because they’re not his. He doesn’t know who the hell they belong to, though, because none of Will’s friends are gay. El is the only one other than Will himself who is likely to be thinking such things about a group of sweaty men, but she’s not here, and it doesn’t feel like her thoughts. They come in flashes and bursts of admiration, but underlined by a perpetual thread of horniness that Will can feel clear as anything, because he feels the same way about this scene - only somehow, whoever the thoughts belong to doesn’t appear to realise . Whoever is reacting to this scene seems to think this is normal masculine admiration. He doesn’t know that this is sexual attraction. Will knows the feeling - he used to think he was just admiring hot guys, too. But it wasn’t too long before he put the pieces together and realised he was into them - and this very scene was part of that process.
The scene comes to an end, and the thinker starts to match the other minds’ with a feeling of vague confusion, and Will recognises that feeling too - the feeling of knowing that you just experienced something differently to everyone else, but not quite knowing what or why. Will’s stomach twists. He could help whoever this is. He wants to help. But this is private, and he shouldn’t be hearing any of this, and now he feels horribly, horribly guilty for being so intrigued.
He tries to visualise hanging up a phone, or slamming a door shut, and it kind of works. Mostly, he’s distracted enough by his guilt that he’s no longer hearing that person’s thoughts, but the aura of masculine admiration and horniness is deeply distracting. Will tries very hard not to let it affect him, and fails.
Will shakes himself slightly, busying himself with his ice cream, and tries to focus on the movie and not think about it too much. He almost succeeds - he has just enjoyed a particularly tension-filled locker room scene when he’s distracted by an unusually loud thought - and this time it’s definitely from Mike.
Pretty comes Mike’s voice, intruding into Will’s head. Will tries to ignore it just as he ignores the little pang in his chest - Mike doesn’t often consciously think things are pretty, but Will doesn’t look up from his cup of ice cream regardless. He tries his hardest to shut other people’s thoughts out - he knows how invasive it is. But then Mike thinks it again, and Will can’t hold back his curiosity - or his jealousy. He looks up, looking for whichever pretty girl Mike is looking at on the screen, but out of the corner of his eye Will can see that Mike is looking vaguely past Will’s profile, and there’s nothing over there but the staircase. Strange.
And then it happens again. Mike tends to think in a mixture of words and images, and this time when he thinks the word pretty it’s a little quieter, and he’s thinking of swiping his finger under a drip of ice cream under someone’s full lower lip and sucking it into his own mouth. Will tries not to blush, scooping more ice cream into his mouth, but he can’t look away from Mike’s mental cinema. His visual thoughts are always so vivid. Will sucks on his blue plastic spoon to distract himself, and suddenly, Mike’s mental picture does exactly the same thing - the mouth he’s picturing is sucking cherry-chocolate ice cream from a blue plastic spoon.
Will would think it was a coincidence if he didn’t recognise that mouth. Full, red lips, with a freckle just above the upper lip. It’s his mouth . Mike is thinking about licking ice cream from Will’s lips.
Will bluescreens. For once, he’s not being bombarded with other people’s thoughts - his head is totally empty, because it’s just shut down entirely. He can only focus on his own thoughts, and only one thought in particular; Mike thinks his mouth is pretty.
Will stares at Mike in disbelief; he should try to be subtle, but he can’t help it. Mike doesn’t like Will like that, Mike is straight. He’s always been straight. It’s the only way Will has been able to cope with his hopeless crush for so long - knowing that Mike couldn’t reciprocate even if he wanted to. If Mike likes boys, Will’s entire understanding of the world is going to collapse. He cannot comprehend it being true, therefore there’s no way it could be true. He attempts to rein in his hopes immediately - there’s no way Mike likes boys. Mike’s never been subtle about a single thing in his life, there’s no way he could hide that from Will.
But, whispers a traitorous part of his brain, Mike would probably say the same about you.
Will ignores his own brain, which has the unfortunate side effect of making Mike’s thoughts sound that much louder. He really shouldn’t be listening in like this, but Lucas and Dustin are fully focused on the movie, admiring Maverick’s masculinity and skill in a typical straight-boy way. Their thoughts are not nearly as interesting as the way Mike is half following the movie, and half picturing licking a droplet of melted ice cream from a nondescript neck, and his vague aura of horny is even more distracting than it was before Will realised it was coming from him. It’s impossible to ignore, especially when Will’s entire body is screaming at him about Mike potentially having horny thoughts about him.
Mike, of course, remains oblivious to Will’s internal struggle, and keeps thinking about Will’s lips, sticky with ice cream. Something’s weird about it, though; Mike never actually pictures Will’s face , or even his chin - it’s exclusively his mouth. It takes a moment for Will to realise what’s going on, and when he does, his stomach clenches.
Mike doesn’t realise he’s doing it.
Mike’s brain is always running a minimum of two trains of thought on parallel tracks, and he’s constantly observing everything around him in quite an impressive degree of detail. Ironically, however, this means that Mike is totally oblivious to his own thoughts and feelings most of the time. Somehow, Mike is thinking about licking ice cream from his best friend’s lips, without realising who those lips belong to, or consciously realising that he’s fantasising at all.
Will goes from wanting to combust to wanting to scream in five seconds flat.
He’s not really sure what happens after that - Will’s brain totally short-circuits. Too many thoughts and feelings hit him like an avalanche all at the same time (and all of them from his own brain, for once) and his synapses stop firing. It’s a good thing he’s already seen this movie, because he doesn’t take in a single thing that’s happening around him for an hour. He can’t think about anything else apart from Mike thinking about Will’s lips, and he turns it over in his head in every way possible. The next thing Will registers is Lucas standing up to put the tape back in its case, and Dustin loudly crunching up empty soda cans. Will looks around, but nobody seems to have noticed his mental absence. He almost relaxes, before he realises Mike has placed a pillow over his lap, and then Will feels like he’s going to die.
“So, we ready for the next movie, boys?” Dustin calls, clapping his hands. Lucas makes a non-committal noise, and Will seizes the opportunity to get the fuck out of here.
“Actually, I’m pretty beat,” Will says, blinking slowly in a way he hopes emulates tiredness. “I kinda wanna head to bed soon.”
“I’m good with sleeping,” Lucas shrugs. “I’m going to the hospital early tomorrow with El, so I could use the rest.”
Will can actually feel everyone’s auras tangle and twist in negative emotions at the reminder that Max is still lying in that hospital bed. He tries not to wince too visibly.
“Okay, we’ll save the movie for next time,” Mike declares. “Dustin, throw those cans in the trash. Will, let’s go,” he says, standing up, and oh shit. Will had forgotten. Over the years, they’ve grown too big to all sleep in the basement - these days, Dustin and Lucas take the couches down here, whereas Mike and Will go up to Mike’s room. Mike sleeps in his bed, and Will, now too tall for his sleeping bag, sleeps on a camp bed the Wheelers got from one of the many neighbours that fled Hawkins when the ground opened up. Will doesn’t know if he can be normal around Mike right now, let alone when Mike takes his shirt off to sleep.
At least Mike won’t be thinking when he’s asleep.
**
The boys all prepare for bed, and Mike and Will split off to sleep upstairs. Will successfully manages to pretend to be normal when Mike strips down and gets into his bed, in soft sleep shorts and nothing else. They’re both staring at the ceiling, letting their bodies relax in the cool, dark room. Even Mike’s constantly whirling moving mind begins to slow down. Will wishes he was closer to him, but this is enough, for now.
“What did you think of the movie?” Will dares to ask, voice soft and low in the quiet room.
Immediately, Mike’s mind flashes up a whole bunch of images of Tom Cruise playing shirtless volleyball, riding his motorcycle, and generally being cool and handsome. Will had been pretty sure, but that definitely seems like confirmation that it was indeed Mike having gay thoughts during the movie, and definitely not Lucas or Dustin. Good to know. Will feels sweat prick at his palms.
He hears the rustle of sheets as Mike shrugs.
“It was good. We’ve all seen it before, why are you asking?” Mike asks, sounding a little confused. Will bites his lip. Mike really doesn’t seem aware of his own thoughts. Will decides to go with honesty, even if he’ll never tell the full truth.
“Just… making conversation, I guess,” he says. “I already know I’m gonna struggle to sleep tonight,” he sighs.
Immediately, Mike’s head pops up in concern. The aura of his thoughts starts to buzz a little faster.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “Do you want the lamp on, is it because of the Upside Down and everything? Or is it normal struggling to sleep?”
Will smiles into his scratchy blanket despite his internal stress. Mike is always so sweet when he’s worried.
“It’s fine, Mike,” Will tries to reassure him. “It’s normal insomnia, I promise.”
“Still, I wish you didn’t have to deal with it,” Mike says. “I wish I could help you.”
Will tries not to melt (and fails).
“Really, I’m okay,” Will insists, laughing softly.
“I can stay up until you fall asleep,” Mike offers. Will really does melt this time, feeling warm and soft all over at how much Mike cares, but he can feel Mike’s brain turning to hazy sleep even as he offers his company.
“Mike, it’s okay!” he says. “I can literally feel how tired you are,” he says, and then slaps a hand over his mouth.
Fuck.
“You what?” Mike asks, confused, brain buzzing low, too tired to think but still running.
Will panics, floundering for an explanation.
“I meant see,” Will lies quickly, managing to keep the panic he feels under control. “I can see how tired you are.”
“Oh,” Mike says. Will hears the squeak of Mike’s mattress as he shifts, relaxing back into the bed. Some of the panic drains from Will’s body. “You’ve got good night vision, I can’t see a thing,” Mike mumbles.
“Haha, yeah. Must be all the carrots I eat,” Will laughs nervously, the tension from his slip-up slowly draining away even if his heart is still pounding.
Mike huffs a quiet little laugh, cut off by his own yawn.
“You really do eat a lot of carrots,” he murmurs. “You’re like a bunny.” There’s an audible smile in his voice, and his voice gets lower and softer as he gets closer to falling asleep. Will’s heart clenches ridiculously, and he smiles back at him in the dark.
“Goodnight, Mike,” he whispers, and feels Mike’s ever-busy mind shift, slow, and finally drift into sleep.
Will closes his own eyes and tries to go to sleep, he really does. He tosses and turns for a while, trying not to overthink the day’s events, but it’s hard. It’s hard enough for him on a regular night, now that the Upside Down is always so close, now that he’s been pulled back in and rescued for a second time - he might’ve been lying to Mike just a little bit about it being “normal” insomnia. At night, it’s like the cold and the damp and the stench of the place closes in on him. He feels it like a phantom limb, present-but-not in all the worst ways. On the worst nights, he swears he can feel it pulling at him, pulling him down into the Upside Down.
Tonight isn’t one of the worst nights, luckily. Mike’s slow breathing and the gentle rise and fall of his chest, just visible in the moonlight, works better than any medicine or dream catcher ever could, and stops him from spiralling into the dark and the cold. But it isn’t enough to let him drift off himself.
Will doesn’t let himself stare at Mike for too long. Sometimes when they have sleepovers, he falls asleep just watching Mike breathe. He knows it’s creepy, but he so rarely gets to look at Mike for as long as he wants to. And when it comes to the nightmares, nothing else balms his soul like the sight of Mike, sleeping peacefully. Tonight, though, he stares up at the ceiling and counts sheep - he feels like he’s already taken too much from Mike unintentionally by eavesdropping on his thoughts like that. He doesn’t get to look at Mike tonight.
Will screws his eyes shut and tries to clear his mind, and forgets, as he somehow always does, that clearing his mind amplifies the thoughts of others. With a suppressed groan of despair, Will realises that his telepathy works on the unconscious.
Immediately, it feels different to sensing someone’s thoughts when they’re awake. It comes to Will as an impression of fuzzy, shifting colours, formless and slow. Mike’s sleeping consciousness seems to gently brush the edge of Will’s, rather than blare into it like it would if he were awake. It feels so much quieter this way; present, but unobtrusive, like a familiar object in one’s peripheral vision. It’s quite nice, and Will tries to let it wash over him and maybe lull him into sleep. It’s actually effective. Will’s body manages to relax, and the chill of his memories of the Upside Down fades from his skin. His mind begins to drift to the edge of sleep.
And then the formless fuzziness emanating from Mike’s brain shifts. The vague colours become actual shapes, and take the form of…
Will himself.
Will blinks into the darkness, confused at the image being projected into his brain. He lets the images roll, too surprised and confused to try and stop it. It becomes clear that Mike is dreaming of the events of an hour or two previously, when they’d come upstairs to get ready for bed. It’s nothing special, and Will wonders if his brain is just processing or something. The dream versions of Mike and Will brush their teeth and walk back into Mike’s bedroom, preparing the spare bed and chatting idly - hazily, because Mike’s unconscious brain doesn’t appear to remember exactly what they’d been talking about and the words don’t quite make sense. Dream-Mike goes to the closet to get out his pyjamas, and Dream-Will grabs his own pyjamas from a bag, just like real life.
And then things start to diverge a little. Dream-Mike sets the clothes on the bed and pulls his shirt over his head - and then doesn’t pull the pyjama shirt on. He slips his jeans off, and doesn’t put his sleep shorts on, sitting on top of his sheets in his boxers. The fully-clothed Dream-Will stares at Mike openly, in a way that real Will would never dare.
Real Will is suddenly very wide awake.
“Mike,” Dream-Will murmurs, drifting closer. Dream-Mike shivers as Dream-Will places a hand on his shoulder, hand burning like a brand on the bare skin. Dream-Mike lets out a shaky breath and slips a hand underneath the hem of Will’s t-shirt, and it’s weird to feel that from Mike’s perspective. It’s weird generally, to see himself from an outside perspective - but real-Will can’t look away from the images playing inside his head. Mike’s hand shakes even in his dream, and gently pulls Will closer by the waist. Dream-Will smiles, sweet and innocent, but the way he steps between Mike’s knees and slips a hand down his chest is anything but. If Will was a little more present, he’d be taken aback by how sensual Mike’s idea of him is, but all he can do is watch. Dream-Will steps closer, puts a knee up on the bed and straddles Mike’s lap.
“Shh,” Dream-Will says, for some reason, and sits down on his lap. Somehow, even asleep, Mike feels it almost as vividly as if he were awake, and the sensation bleeds over to Will. It’s bizarre, and yet still causes heat to surge in Will. The dream version of himself slides his hands up Dream-Mike’s torso, wraps his arms around his neck, and then to Will’s absolute shock, leans in and kisses him.
Even though it’s only a dream, it’s a good kiss. At least, Will thinks it is. He doesn't have any real experience, and his perception is coloured by Mike’s.
Mike’s unconscious mind is certainly enjoying it, envisioning grabbing all over Will with the hand that’s not holding his face, and biting softly at his lower lip. The duration of the kiss is indeterminable, time passing in that strange instantaneous yet drawn-out way that it always does in dreams, but Mike clearly can’t get enough of it. They don’t pull apart for breath because they don’t need it - instead, they pull apart so that Mike can stare at Will’s kiss-swollen lips. Will’s starting to notice that Mike’s subconscious is really focused on his lips, and he doesn’t know what to think about it.
“Do you want me to?” Dream-Will asks. Real-Will isn't sure what he's asking. It feels like some of that sentence is missing, but whatever it is he’s asking, Mike knows the answer.
“Please,” Dream-Mike whispers.
Dream-Will grins down at him from where he’s sitting on his lap. He switches position so that he’s straddling him on the bed, which magically seems a lot bigger than it does in real life for two tall teenage boys, and kisses him again. Dream-Mike reaches down and pulls Will closer by the waist, making both Wills gasp. They kiss passionately, and suddenly without anyone moving or breaking the kiss Will is just as undressed as Mike, both of them only in their soft pyjama bottoms, pressed close together and threatening to touch. The sensitive skin is separated by two thin layers of fabric and an inch of air, and absolutely nothing else. Dream-Will pulls back from the kiss for a second and shoves Mike down onto the pillows, making Mike’s body tingle with heat, and then shoves himself down on top of Mike, pressing them together all along the long length of their bodies. Mike gasps, and then lets out a noise that Will has definitely heard him make in real life before in innocent situations - a noise that he will never be able to hear again without blushing. Dream-Will answers with an all-too familiar soft sound.
At this point, Will doesn’t think he’d be able to stop watching this dream even if the house around him caught fire. The “scene” keeps switching, from Mike’s perspective to some vague third-person view of himself and Mike, in each other's laps in nothing but their underwear, and panting into each other’s mouths. Dream-Will fists his hand in Mike’s hair and pulls, making him gasp, and Will burns with both jealousy and desire at the sight. The dream is somehow composed of only the vaguest snatches of imagery, and yet it’s also incredibly vivid - Will watches himself press down harder against Mike and hears Mike make the most shameless noise in response. Dream-Will grins; real Will feels like he’s going to die.
“Will, baby,” Mike cries out in his dream - and worst of all, the real Mike in the bed across the room whimpers softly into his pillow. Will’s field of vision is full of the images of their dream selves moving against one another, but the soft rustle of the sheets betrays the way Mike is twitching his hips against the mattress in his sleep.
Will can’t help it - he presses the palm of his hand against the front of his sleep shorts, hoping for the barest amount of relief. Naturally, it only makes it worse, and he bites back a noise of his own. Inside Mike’s head, Dream-Will mirrors the real thing - except instead of slipping his hand under the covers, he slides it down Mike’s body in a slow, seductive motion, letting it stop just below Mike’s waist.
“Come on,” Dream-Will whispers against Mike’s mouth, before sinking his teeth into Mike’s lower lip at the same time as he does something that even Mike’s unconscious brain can’t quite picture, and the dream explodes into a white haze. And not just in the dream - across the room, the real Mike makes the most devastating soft groan, burning the sound into Will’s brain forever because he knows exactly what that sound means. The remnants of the dream spark and flicker across their joint mental image, flashes of colours and shapes and sensations and Dream-Will’s red mouth, until abruptly, it stops as suddenly as if someone had turned off a light. Will blinks up at the ceiling in bewilderment, and dares to look over at Mike.
Mike, who has woken himself up with the grand finale of a very good dream, and is now frowning blearily into his pillow.
Will slams his eyes shut, forcing his breathing into a slow sleep rhythm, and pretends he was asleep all along. His whole body tenses despite his efforts, knowing that as soon as Mike sees Will, he's going to have to deal with whatever panicked thoughts Mike will have about that dream. Mike hasn’t seemed to notice Will at all yet, instead shifting in the bed. His thought patterns intrude upon Will’s once again, but they’re noticeably slow, hardly awake. Mike frowns again at the mess in his underwear.
What, Mike thinks sleepily, and swings his legs over the side of his bed to go and change his underwear and clean up, maybe get a glass of water - even sleepy, his thoughts bounce around. He creeps across the room towards his dresser, and then sees Will - and abruptly jolts into full wakefulness.
Oh fuck, I hope I didn’t make any noise, Mike panics. Shit, he looks asleep, but you never know- don’t know if I talk in my sleep- do I snore? - don’t even know what- embarrassing…
His thoughts continue to jump from one vaguely anxious thought to another as he grabs a pair of clean underwear, and quickly but silently dashes out to the bathroom. As he moves, Mike starts to wrack his brains, a friction-like heat building up as he searches his own brain trying to remember something.
I don’t even remember what I was dreaming about, Mike thinks, as the door closes behind him.
Will's jaw would drop in shock if he wasn't frozen feigning sleep. The barrier of the wood somehow finally cuts the stream of thought off, leaving Will alone with just his own thoughts for the first time all evening, and he lets out a shuddering sigh as soon as he’s sure Mike is in the bathroom and can’t hear him. He doesn't know if he should laugh or cry; his best friend, the love of his life Mike just had a sex dream about him, and he can't remember it.
Will breathes in and out into his hands, absolutely ignoring his arousal - which honestly was mostly extinguished the second he realised Mike was awake and potentially aware, but the images from the dream are going to be burned into his brain forever. He squeezes his eyes shut until he sees little flashing stars, which does nothing to help the anxious knotting in his stomach. Will takes yet another deep breath and tries to settle himself. He's about five seconds away from looking for five things he can see and four things he can touch or whatever the method is for avoiding a panic attack - he can never remember. All he can think of at the moment is that he knows three things right now.
- Mike is definitely, undeniably attracted to boys.
- Mike is definitely, undeniably attracted to Will.
And that little list would be all of Will’s wildest dreams at once if it weren’t for number 3;
Mike apparently has absolutely no idea that he's experiencing any of this.
What the fuck do I do, Will despairs into his pillow.
He doesn’t get much sleep that night.