Chapter Text
It starts with Lucas. Thirteen months after the gates opened, he gets a weird, blank look in his eyes during class. When some people around him feel faint, and the air, even to Will, smells strong and stuffy, he is called to the principal’s office, and then leaves school. For the rest of the day they don’t hear from him, until he reports late in the evening, desolate and weird.
He presented as an alpha.
It’s a reminder that on top of everything else going on in their lives, they live in a world where alphas, betas and omegas are a thing. And where, one day down the line, they will know their fate.
But for a while at first, it’s easy to ignore.
Lucas is much more sensitive to smells, moods, and the behavior of others. He takes special classes to manage his new aggression, but when it’s all of them together, he shakes his head, sounding tired.
“It’s all the same shit, man, all the same shit. Once my rut hits, once I find my omega… I’ll understand.”
Will read a book once. In it, the main two characters are an alpha and his omega, both beautifully written, but ruled by their pheromones. He’ll always remember the punchline: no matter what, at the end of every day, it always comes down to biology.
He visits Max with Lucas, sitting by her bed with him, both silently observing her still, sleeping body as it slowly heals, and from the corner of his vision, he watches Lucas.
Is he worried that she presents as something else, or that she becomes his omega, and it was just pheromones?
In the end, Will decides that Lucas will go either route as long as Max wakes up.
Dustin is second.
His mother, neurotic after Lucas’s becoming, tries pushing Dustin into being tested for weeks, before Dustin finally acquiesces.
Two and a half weeks later, Dustin comes to school, looking pointedly neutral.
“So, I got news.”
Beta. He seems pretty calm. Will’s stomach twists as he understands this is finally happening. In their mid to late teens, just when they are segueing into early adulthood, their secondary sexes are finally presenting, hurling them back into the real world.
He still pretends it doesn’t exactly concern him.
After school, when the party meets up for crawls or other Vecna related shenanigans, the conversation quickly turns to the A/B/O dynamics, making Will feel anxious and tense.
It makes him acknowledge that those were always part of their lives, but as kids, they were happier to ignore them. Something, something, not important yet, one day, it’s in the distant future, why sweat it at all?
Suddenly, he is looking at Jonathan, remembering how one day he came home from school, and mentioned the alpha and omega nonsense from Sex Ed.
His family sat him down and told him the truth.
Mom and Jonathan are both betas.
Despite wanting to postpone this drama for the day when he can’t ignore it anymore, for that brief moment, Will felt genuine, actual hope.
“Your dad, though, well, he’s an alpha.”
It crushed his hope.
The teachers at school said that deviations in secondary sex are most common in families where the parents aren’t the same type. In the instances that same type people get together, the children usually take after their parents. When he learned that, without even knowing why, he hoped that everyone in his family was the same. In that case, one day he’ll present as a beta, sparing him the woes of an existence that revolves tightly around one’s pheromones and secondary sex. When the teacher added that up to 70 percent of the world population ranks beta or gamma, he was even happier.
On that day at home with mom and Jonathan, Will learned disappointment.
Looking at his friends and acknowledging they are all changing was the second bitter taste of their reality.
In tension, he waits.
“Baby, if you’d like to get tested, it’s not that expensive, and it’s over with quickly. Would you?” Joyce asks him a few days after the news about Dustin.
“No,” he tells her, “not at all. No need.”
The more he says no, the clearer she sees through him.
Joyce just nods and mostly lets it go.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll be fine, baby. We’re all mostly betas, most people end up being betas, so chances are that so will you.”
He so desperately wants to believe her. Just as much, he wants to tell her that the world still revolves around the experience of the remaining 30 something percent.
After all, this A/B/O bullshit is everywhere.
Comic books, tv shows, movies and magazines largely deal with these dynamics, advising people on how to live their lives in a society where some people are perpetually a step away from losing their fucking mind either because of a fine-smelling omega, or a powerful alpha.
He tells her nothing.
During their group meetings, his thoughts disappear to these sexual politics, finally, albeit unhappily acknowledging the line-up of people that meet periodically in the basement of the radio station.
Hopper is an alpha. Dominant. So is Nancy, but regular. Robin’s a beta, Steve an alpha just like Nancy. At first, Will wonders about Steve and Nancy being a power couple back in the day, how their union conformed to a lot of societal expectations before they presented, then he just focuses on Nancy being an alpha.
Is it easy on her? Is it harder?
She has a status few enjoy-- but it also means she may never have children. If she does, everyone best call it a miracle… or doubt it’s her. He’d never ask her.
It’s too personal.
Immediately afterwards, Will wants to know what their parents are, what that makes Mike.
And he starts thinking: Mike.
What will Mike become?
Afterwards, Will watches Mike. Alpha, beta, omega… alpha, beta, omega…
Which one?
And what about El? How will she turn out?
Before long, Will finds himself obsessing over these dynamics, spending far too long thinking about how his friends will present and how that will change everything.
When it comes to considering his own future change, he doesn’t.
His chest goes tense, his world tilts and Will tells himself he’d rather be considered a freak who thinks about his friends’ secondary sexes before he thinks about his own.
But for a longer while afterwards, nothing else happens.
Then Lucas comes to the WSQK one day, half an hour late.
“Kid, you’re damn lucky there’s no crawl today,” growls Hopper, shooting Lucas a glower. “Now mind explaining yourself why the hell you’re late?”
“Yeah. Max presented.”
They’re immediately treated to silence, and Lucas’s tense, weird posture is noted.
It’s half a year since he presented.
The conversation is derailed.
“Her mom called me,” he says, his eyes distant, “said to come to the hospital. Said nothing else. Man, I knew the moment I stepped into her room. I just knew.”
Will isn’t bold enough to ask how he knew. The alphas of the group give Lucas a solemn look of understanding that deepens the abyss of dismay that Will has already been feeling.
Later that day, he’s walking home with Mike.
They’re pushing their bicycles forward, silent, and Will suddenly realizes he isn’t the only one being affected by all this.
“Are you thinking about when this will affect us, too?”
He asks Mike this in a moment of courage. When he forgets just how much he wants to be free from all of this, seeking solace with Mike seems most obvious.
Mike doesn’t take too long to answer.
“Yeah.”
His gaze is focused ahead, brows pulled into a frown.
He’s thinking.
“What did Lucas say, what is Max?”
Will racks his mind. “Um, dominant omega, I think he said.”
“Right, and Lucas is just a good ol’ pack alpha. Makes sense.”
“You think so?”
“I mean, yeah, when you think about their personalities, Lucas has always been the protector just like I have, and Max has always been, c’mon, Max.”
Max is Max.
Will chuckles at that. “Right. It suits her.”
“Yeah. Even Dustin-- he’s too cool, too Dustin to really be part of this fully. He’s like, I think he said he’s a proper beta, a true beta.”
“Meaning?”
“C’mon, Will, weren’t you paying attention when he was describing it?”
No.
Blushing, Will smiles coyly, and cocks his head at Mike.
“Um…”
Mike understands. He chuffs in humor, and explains: “Well, even with betas they can be more dominant, so like alphas, or more submissive, like omegas, which is not the case with dominant omegas but that’s not the point. Dustin’s not sub or dom-leaning, he’s genuinely smack in the middle. Which is good. If we ever met a prime alpha, their pheromones couldn’t change Dustin into an omega.”
That makes Will shudder.
“God,” he says, watching the ground. “Imagine that. All of your life just turned upside down because of someone.”
“Isn’t that kind of the story of our lives?”
Will laughs. “I think you’re right.”
Satisfied with himself, Mike grins.
But that makes Will think of something.
“So…”
It’s that word, and only that word and everything it comes with that makes Mike freeze up a bit, stealing his grin. He also watches the ground. It’s the most interesting thing.
“Have you ever thought about how we’ll turn out? And El?”
Mike takes a few seconds to answer.
“Well… if we’re lucky, we’ll be betas. If we’re super lucky, just gammas.”
Which is a term for people who are absolutely on the outside. While betas may be sensitive to pheromones to some extent or leaning either way, gammas are absolutely ignorant. Not even a prime alpha’s pheromones could change them.
Warmly, Will smiles. “What a pipe dream. And other than that?”
“You’re asking seriously?”
Mike sounds surprised. But Will cannot blame him.
This is surprising.
It’s been over six months since Lucas first presented, a time during which Will has hardly addressed any of this. Any conversation that involved this particular topic was skirted in terms of his answers or attention, treated as though a viral infection he’d dodge.
This marks the very first time he’s openly asking about it, and if that wasn’t poignant enough, he’s asking Mike to predict their future.
Both of theirs.
The weight must be crushing.
Will looks away, shaking his head dismissively.
“I am but-- it’s okay, you don’t have to answer. It’s a bit too much.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m kind of curious myself… I think about El.”
El. Of course. Who else?
“She might go alpha. Or I don’t know, beta. Or, like, in-between. You know what she’s like, totally badass with her powers but in terms of her personality, she still tends to sideline herself a bit, I think it’s related to her childhood in a lab, which is to say she had no childhood, so that would make sense.”
Will blinks at that, his chest tightening.
“You’ve thought about this.”
Not a question. Just a statement.
Mike makes a face. “Well, yeah.”
Will’s almost too afraid to ask the next question.
“Have you thought about us?”
Immediately, he wants to take that back, change his question, make it sound less like there is an ‘us’...
There is no us. After all, they’re just friends.
Best friends, he remembers, Mike’s face coming into perfect view. For an instant, Will’s back in his temporary room in Lenora, the day is warm, he’s packing his things and Mike, in a blue shirt, sits down on his bed, all dark waves and a grin on his face.
Then, he’s back to the moment, ignoring the anxious pitter-patter of his heart, or how his stomach clenches up.
He half expects Mike to correct him.
‘No us,’ he’ll definitely say.
Instead, Mike’s lips wrap around, “us”, echoing it in a simple, yet affectionate tone that Will is surely imagining. Surely, it’s colder than when he mentioned El.
“Well,” he continues, “I was thinking… Maybe I’m tooting my horn here too much but I kinda figure I’ll go the basic alpha or beta route, too.”
“That makes sense.”
Mike the alpha. It’s almost romantic. Of course a paladin like Mike would. The biased part of Will would argue he’s more of an alpha than Lucas will ever be. But he’ll never dare to say it.
He gives a nod.
“As for you…”
Will’s steps slow down.
He shoots Mike a panicked look, having forgotten entirely that the whole us thing includes even him. Suddenly, he doesn’t want to know. Mike’s estimates seemed too accurate, too perfectly aligned with their characters, so well that he’ll surely get this right as well. And when he does…
What will Will do?
“It’s okay,” he hastily adds, almost tripping over his weak voice. “You don’t have to. It’s fine. I’m sure I know already…”
“Beta.”
Will’s heart makes a leap.
This is the most comforting probable reality.
Tickled but shy, he smiles, pushing his luck when he asks, “You really think that?”
No, he doesn’t.
“Yeah,” says Mike, and immediately, Will chooses to believe him. He always will when it comes to this lie. If he believes it strongly enough, it won’t be a lie.
“Sure,” continues Mike, looking at Will from the corner of his eyes. “It would make sense, too, you know? You also tend to sideline yourself. You just… I mean you can be pretty rough sometimes.”
Will laughs. “Oh, you liar.”
“Hey, I’m not lying.”
Except he is.
Will shakes his head, laughing.
“I’m pretty certain I’m the least dominant person in the pack. But-- alright, beta it is. I mean mom is, Jonathan is, I might just be, too.”
“Yeah.” Mike smiles. “And you will be.”
To that date, the population of alphas at their school is at 33 percent. 60 percent are betas.
These are the only numbers that matter.
At nights, when Will knocks on Mike’s door, wanting to have a random, friendly talk, he catches Mike reading on alphas and omegas.
He doesn’t want to join him at first, because to deny means that the very thing he fears exists no more.
Mike never minds.
He keeps the offer open, until the day that Will sits down on the bed with him, grabbing a nearby book, opening it on a page.
“You know you don’t have to,” says Mike.
I do, thinks Will, not knowing why. Understanding he’ll have to say something, he chooses a lie.
“It’ll happen one day anyway, so might as well.”
Like this, Mike isn’t the only one reading.
Will keeps him company and when they get bored of these, they read comics.
The mood is without flavor.
Switching from the woes of adulthood to the childlike wonder of imagination becomes less possible with each time they try.
In the end, they no longer try.
Their comic books, prepared for them to read, remain on Mike’s desk, collecting dust.
Sometimes, Will looks at them.
Sometimes, so does Mike.
When they do that, Will wants to talk about how they’re both already changing, nothing is the same and if Mike could please turn back time and make them little again.
He’d task Mike with imagining a world without Vecna, without the upside down; with just them, playing DnD the entire time, reading comics and imagining worlds they’ll never get to visit, but they can pretend to.
He lies on Mike’s bed, Mike lies there as well, and in the ceiling they find no answers, nor in their silence.
It's a comfortable silence.
It makes Will wonder about friendships where you can spend hours together-- not talking, not yapping, conscious and staring, comfortable, happy.
He’ll fight the world to keep that.
Twelve months exactly after Max presented, Hopper and El come to the station, with the former huffing, and puffing, and El looking smug and rebellious.
“Fucking hell,” is the only thing that Hopper says.
The alphas of the group look up then.
Will can feel a light, but tangible pressure in the air arriving in perfect tandem with El’s steps.
His heart skips a beat and he knows without asking.
“I’m a bit like Lucas,” El later explains, also looking down at the floor. Will cannot question it. The floor is the most fascinating thing in the world. “Except my pheromones are weaker.”
“So like a beta-alpha?” asks Lucas, grinning ear to ear.
He’s happy as a clam. Finally, he’s got someone else in his age group who’s like him, even if not exactly.
Smiling, El nods.
“Something like that. A recessive alpha, I think. Hopper doesn’t like it very much. He says it’s bullshit, I’m still just a regular cocky alpha.”
“Damn, El, damn,” praises Lucas, speaking in that vague way that gets El all happy with herself.
But Will has stopped listening.
As his attention disappears from this moment, he’s back in the past; he’s walking back home with Mike, the night is dark, the air is cold and Mike’s spitting out predictions they amaze and laugh about.
A chill snakes down Will’s back.
He looks away.
His heart beats nervously, his world spinning.
“So it’s only the two of you left,” Hopper grunts at them. His eyes land on Will, then Mike, and in Will’s mind, he’s buried six feet underground, he’s a notion, he’s a thought. As such, the words phase right through him, and his crippled sanity isn’t hurt at all.
“Yeah,” is all that Mike says, and a weird mood settles over all of them.
Later that night, Will’s walkie comes to life.
“Hey, this is Mike. Over.”
It immediately wakes him up.
He feels pathetic when he rushes to pick it up, but this is Mike.
This is Mike.
“Hey… Over.”
He’s sure he hears a chuckle. It sounds fond; like Mike’s glad that in a world with so many changes, one thing remains the same.
Will’s clumsiness.
“So,” starts Mike, “wanna go out for a short walk? Over.”
“A walk?"
It’s late. It’s dark.
They live in the same house.
Does he mean a walk to the kitchen? Or…
Or?
“Sure… Over.”
“Okay, meet you in the kitchen in a bit. Over.”
Oh.
Will puts on slippers, then trudges upstairs to the first floor.
The kitchen is located quickly, sort of immediately.
Moments later, Mike tumbles down the stairs.
When he joins Will, he’s better dressed; a jacket to fight off the cold, socks to protect his ankles, and Will stares at the balls of Mike’s ankles, that weird part of them that juts out on the inside of the legs.
For some reason, he finds them cute.
“You’re not dressed for the weather,” points out Mike, brows shooting up.
“Oh, you meant going for an actual walk?”
Mike shrugs. “Maybe just get out of the house for a bit, I dunno. I don’t really want to meander far away from the house right now.”
“Right.”
“Are you going to be alright like that?”
Mike looks him over, and Will thinks he shouldn’t. No reason. He just can’t have Mike looking at him-- at all… Ever.
His shoulders bunch and he strokes his arms, then squints back in tease, “I think I’ll be okay. Let’s go.”
Mike smirks idly. “Hey, your funeral.”
They walk out through the back, and the late night chill gets Will regretful he didn’t grab at least a light jacket.
He shivers, then pretends to be perfectly alright.
Thankfully, Mike wasn’t kidding; they make it a few yards from the house, leaving its shape at their backs, and both stare up at the sky.
For a while, they’re silent.
For that one while, Will needs to desperately know what Mike is thinking about, why they’re out, what is going on…
But he doesn’t ask.
The while lasts longer. It is counted in tens of seconds. And when those carry on, Will feels like he’s being given a rare privilege by the world, something that won’t repeat again in the future.
It’s why he dares to act on it…
He uses it, fearful it’s too late.
It isn’t.
He watches Mike’s profile.
Sharp nose and cheekbones, the way he looks is how knives cut. But to Will, he’s so gorgeous it hurts…
This moment won’t last. He’ll have to look away. Such is some unspoken societal norm that Will becomes aware of, because Mike is his friend, his best friend; because Mike has El, and best friends don’t look at each other like Will’s looking at Mike.
But he still doesn’t look away.
And Will’s breath catches--
He believes, wrongly, that Mike is too lost in his thoughts to realize he’s being watched.
Or that he’s being merciful and allowing this lingering attention, and for as long as Will’s expression remains so soft, he will…
“Will…”
Will startles.
Okay, it’s time to look away now…
He doesn’t.
And Mike’s eyes meet his.
“I was right. About El, I mean.”
Of course. He needed to talk about this.
Will nods. “You were.”
“Do you ever wonder what else I was right about?”
Will thinks. “Yeah.”
Silence returns.
Mike’s gaze falters and when he shivers, he might be the one without warm clothes. The thought is silly.
“I just think… You know what if I was right about me, too, but right in a way I don’t want to be?”
“You mean you presenting as an alpha…”
Will’s voice is naturally soft. It needs to be.
He places it on that level without a second thought; like a caress or a silken shawl, it softens Mike’s expression…
“Yeah. As an alpha. You know it would change me…”
Mike looks away for a moment; he gazes up at the stars like they can answer him.
“It’s changed El already. I can tell. I noticed. You know when she and I were hanging out before, I noticed she was acting a bit different. She was sharper, tougher, she got angry easily and even though she didn’t get mean or aggressive, I thought there was something bubbling underneath her skin. Like an anger that would never quite go, you know?”
Will keeps thinking about El and Mike hanging out together for nobody else to see and his world turns and crooks in a painful direction…
He stays his heart.
I already knew they did that, he thinks, and this isn’t about me.
“So you’re afraid it would change you. But you don’t know how,” he tells Mike.
Mike nods, thoughtful, then glances back at Will. “Precisely. You gain some, you lose some. You obviously can’t remain the same because, well, you change, and the change is more than just surface. My mom told me about how she experienced hers when she was young. I didn’t ask her to, mind you, she just volunteered this information. She did this months ago unprompted because I mentioned something Lucas said and then the next thing I know… Bam, Michael, did you know that--? No, mom, I didn’t. And I didn’t want to.”
In a moment of courage, Will places his hand on Mike’s shoulder.
“Sorry.”
Mike shakes his head.
“It’s alright…”
Will wants to move his hand.
Will thinks he should.
Will feels like they’re enjoying a rare, private moment they’ll not have again and he wants to be selfish…
His hand squeezes.
“You know,” says Mike suddenly, and when he turns to face Will fully, Will doesn’t expect him to return the favor.
And for Mike’s hand on his shoulder to feel like a new, unforgettable burden.
It makes Will’s slip off…
“It really is just us now and I was thinking… If I go alpha, at least you’ll go beta, right? You’ll be safe. Like the only real change you’ll have to consider is how your friends have changed. But hey, other than that, you’ll be fine,” he proposes, with a growing smile. He looks so impassioned now…
He has a small blush on his cheeks and Will tragically thinks he’s dreamy.
He smiles, afraid it’s too loving.
“You wouldn’t lose me as your best friend, if that’s the worry,” he tells Mike.
Mike almost scoffs. “Duh. You’ll never leave me, Will. I saw you on that swing when we were kids and I made you my best friend then and there.”
Will actually chuckles.
“What?” pushes Mike, giddy. “It’s the truth, you know it.”
“Do I though?”
Courage possesses Will again.
His hand is placed over Mike’s.
The back of Mike’s and the palm of Will’s.
It’s a good fit, Will realizes.
They are a good fit.
“I do,” he corrects, his previous tease still lingering in the air between them, and Mike’s grin widens in victory.
“Of course I’m never leaving you, Mike,” continues Will, warm-- too warm; he doesn’t realize; it scorches him; he realizes; his cheeks burn hot red.
So do Mike’s.
“We’re staying together throughout all this. Best friends, Mike, no matter what happens.”
“Best friends,” repeats Mike.
His voice is happy and warm.
The night is quiet and cold.
And between them… silence begins to linger.
Will doesn’t understand it. It is just a moment.
One of shared fears and sentiments… of him and Mike sharing a long, ceaseless look until Will gets the impression that neither of them wants to end it.
And neither will…
For as long as they have it, they can pretend to be kids, spared this weird, and uncomfortable reality about growing up and maturing.
They can have their innocence… their naivety.
… And yet the way this lasts and how it tightens his stomach, how he no longer feels cold, and Mike’s flush is gone, and his mirth has gone and his eyes are a strange color of focused calm…
Will’s heart shouldn’t be beating. Not like this. So wildly. So deeply down to his bones.
It hurts his chest…
He welcomes it.
And Mike’s hand squeezes, no reason, and Will’s stomach knots, also no reason--
“Mike?”
Silence.
“Yeah?”
I love you.
I’ve always been in love with you.
I always will.
Will smiles. “We should go inside.”
The night is too dark for Will to define the look in Mike’s eyes.
But when his delusions take over, he thinks:
Mike looked so disappointed for a moment.
Like he was expecting something, like he was so certain of it that he didn’t even consider getting it wrong.
He did, though.
And when they walk back inside, Will’s too busy thinking about what just happened to shiver. His body begs him to, his skin is cold, but his attention watches Mike’s back--
Somehow feeling like something very important escaped him…
That night, he cannot sleep. It’s Saturday tomorrow, so he doesn’t mind.
He replays what happened, wondering if he’ll ever find the strength to tell Mike. He doesn’t need to, he realizes; they’ve cemented their friendship so many times tonight that there’s no way they’ll ever be more…
Next day for breakfast, he’s piling eggs on his plate, Mike’s on his right, the time is busy, filled with conversations.
His elbow bumps into Mike’s.
And when Will looks to the side to shoot him a lame apology--
Mike is staring.
And just staring.
It lasts a few seconds. One, two, three, four--
But while it does, Will thinks that in Mike’s eyes, he has read something tender; a fatalistic need to admire something he has just lost…
It makes Will’s heart hurt.
He doesn’t talk about it. Mike doesn’t either.
Afterwards, they stop talking for a while. They never happen to walk in the same direction, there’s always someone else to talk to, typically in the middle.
Holly is a chatterbox and when they both look at her, Will feels they’re actively thinking of not looking at each other.
It’s stupid.
Two weeks pass.
Mike returns from his date with El and they meet in the hallway of the Wheeler house.
He stops in front of Will.
“Hey,” greets.
Will’s chest begins to hurt again and he misses the weeks they didn’t talk; he’s thinking about how Mike and El likely kissed, they had a lovely time together, he keeps meeting her and surely, he smells like her; if Will was so crazy to lean in, even he could smell her…
It kills him and he keeps spiraling…
But he’s also so fucking happy.
“Hey,” he greets back with a smile.
Mike smiles back.
They don’t talk about the weeks of silence. They don’t need to. It was likely just their imagination. They chat like nothing happened and that’s all that matters.
When they go to school next, engaged in a conversation, Dustin and Lucas clock it, and share a look.
“See, I told you they’d go back to normal.”
Lucas scoffs and grunts out, “Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, I’m happy for them.”
Will tries to exchange a look with Mike--
Mike’s jaw ticks and he pointedly doesn’t look back at Will.
Strange, Will thinks and this thought sticks with him.
Strange, he continues to think when his conversations with Mike suddenly get a new… feature.
Mike’s eyes won’t linger. Not that they did before, but the way Mike looks his way is too quick, too short like he’s having an allergic reaction.
At first, Will thinks something might be going on; he’s diseased, he’s disgusting, Mike’s picked up on it and something is changing.
But when Mike smiles at him, it’s one of the few times that Will gets to count the passing time.
It’s in second.
One… two… three…
Mike either acts like he can never look at Will again or like he’ll never look away.
… four… five… six… seven…
It’s four months later when Will’s walkie comes to life once more.
“Hey, Will… Over.”
It’s the night. And still Will wakes up so quickly, placing the walkie to his lips as if it wasn't even that far in the first place; always within reach; like he needs it; no point; promise.
“Yeah?”
“Over.”
“Oh, c’mon.”
“Over.”
“Mike, you ass.”
Mike chuckles. “So… walk time?”
It’s warmer now. Not cold at all.
“Yeah,” he breathes and he’s out soon enough.
The night is starry again and the world is dark.
Just as predicted, it’s warmer when compared to the past, but this warmth is subtle, refusing to get too intense.
It will.
Will stands there, having arrived first; his arms wrap around his body when he hears Mike’s arrival, but instead of turning to look at him, for a reason he cannot comprehend, he does not.
Mike comes up behind him.
Silent, almost stalking.
Impossible.
He stops.
Stands.
His attention burns through Will’s skin, feeling degrees hotter than it should be.
Will shudders…
Feeling peaceful.
If he closes his eyes now, can he sleep? Can he pretend this moment will never end?
“Not even gonna look at me, huh?”
It sounds forcefully annoyed.
Will smiles…
“Make me.”
He doesn’t know why Mike inhales so sharply-- when the next sound to come out of him resembles a strained chuckle.
He doesn’t know why he said it…
From the multitude of things Will could have said, why this one? Why this?
He confuses himself so gladly that--
“Or I can make myself--”
Hands push into his shoulder blades.
And immediately, Will freezes.
… Ahead. He just stares ahead. As before.
The only direction he’s allowed to look at.
… Ahead.
The stars. So many of them. They’re surely so hot.
No hotter than Mike’s touch.
Against his body, it pushes, lingering…
It is lingering.
And Will looks at the sky, wondering, his heart beating hard, tension growing in his bones, a desire to ask, break this silence up, fill it with noise, he can’t, he can’t…
“Will.”
Will lets out a gasp.
“Do you remember?”
What?, he should ask.
His lips begin to wrap around the word-- but cannot.
Silence.
“It’s been months since we last talked about this. Do you remember what we talked about?”
… Y-yeah.
Silence.
Should he talk now?
Mike can see him. Mike sees all of him.
Mike sees every detail…
… It feels like an impossible amount of strength is needed to do this.
…
Will.
… Nods.
“Yeah.”
How his one word-- One. Word. -- results in the sound that Mike makes, Will doesn’t know.
How he categorizes that noise so specifically-- he also doesn’t know.
… He hears a shudder. Hears it.
And the touch on his shoulder blades softens…
He wants to take back his word. He should have been quiet. They had something rare and special, and Will destroyed it.
Why did he talk?!
I’m sorry.
I’m sorr--
“Did you mean it?”
What?
Will blinks, trying to remember.
“You said you’d never leave me. We’re best friends forever. We’re together in this. Do you remember?”
A beat.
“Of course.”
Another beat.
Will angles his head to the side just a little bit.
“And I’m not taking that back no matter what.”
“Do you promise?”
Will smiles. “Pinky promise.”
“Pinky promise,” echoes Mike, tightly. He sounds like he’d like to chuckle, but something is stopping him.
Will’s eyes hood…
“I swear on my life.”
He hears it again-- a shudder.
“Then don’t take it back.”
Mike’s body leans away and he turns on his heel and walks back home; it’s a few yards in the distance, it shall be quickly crossed.
Something in Will’s middle hollers and he whips around--
“Mike, wait.”
Mike stops.
Now, he’s the one with his back turned to Will, and Will’s the one tracing the shape of it. But that is surely just him; his attention traces the width and length of it while Mike just watched him…
No tracing…
No thinking about how the world may change but this shape best not.
Let one thing in the world remain sacred.
“Yeah?”
A beat.
“Will you also never leave me?”
Mike's pace was quick. He reached the back door, was about to open it.
His hand is still in position; it’s raised an inch off the handle, eager to close around it.
Then push down…
Enter.
It’s frozen.
Just like Will before, Mike angles his head a bit to the side; his sharp nose comes to view.
And Will, once he starts, cannot stop.
“Do you also promise that no matter what happens, you won’t ever abandon me? You’ll never let anything change us being best friends-- we’ll always remain close through every change, every storm, we’ll weather everything together and it’ll be our one thing that will never change… Never.”
Silence.
“Do you promise?”
Silence.
Mike turns around fully.
The moon shines down on his face.
It makes his eyes, oddly, appear like they’re glowing.
“I swear.”
But that must be just Will…
For a moment, they stare at each other, a hundred or more beats passing in motionless silence…
Until Mike’s hands ball--
He leaves back inside.
For long hours afterwards, Will’s stomach continues to knot.
The next morning, he cannot eat breakfast.
And hours later, Mike’s locker won’t open.
It’s April, he recently turned seventeen.
He continues to grapple with it, pulling and yanking at the padlock while Dustin and Lucas tease him, and Will dimly laughs at him. He doesn’t want to. He can’t help it. His mind’s busy with the image of Mike, regal and tall, underneath the moon’s light, his eyes entertaining an ethereal glow when it happens.
Will will always remember that exact moment when the air around Mike changes. When Lucas frowns, his nose wrinkling.
He steps back just when Mike kicks the locker so hard he busts it open.
It hangs on its hinges, and the hallway turns silent.
Mike pants.
“Fuck.”
His eyes almost have a glow again. His breathing is erratic. And when he looks down at his hands, though to Will they’re the same hands as always, Mike sees something different.
“... Fuck.”
His mom picks him up.
She drives him home.
The mood is tense in the group, and nobody speaks about what happened.
When a day has passed and Mike hasn’t come back home, Will gets up from the basement, shyly prodding for some truths from Ted Wheeler.
“Kid just needs to spend some time at the hospital, that’s all. They’re gonna figure out his suppressant dosage.”
“Suppressants?”
He recalls what happened. The air around Mike almost sizzled, his hand stood on end and his skin gleamed, ivory and hot.
Will nods, his chest burning hot. He’s got acid for his blood, he’s sure.
Two days later, Mike is finally released from the hospital.
He’s edgy, cagey, uncomfortable, constantly scratching his hands while Karen gently chides him not to.
He looks ready to bite her head off.
“Yeah, yeah.”
He slams the door shut behind himself, and doesn’t come out of his room.
Will’s left standing at the bottom of the stairs, a helpless look sent in his expression.
“Don’t mind him.”
Nancy is on his side, glancing up with a half-worried, half-detached expression.
“He’s just not taking it easily yet.”
“An alpha, yeah?”
Nancy takes a few seconds.
“Yeah. The worst type.”
Will feels like he can’t breathe.
For the next week, Mike doesn’t come to school, and doesn’t walk out of the room. Or maybe he does. To shower, and use the bathroom-- Will thinks so. But the thought hurts him, since it means Mike won’t come out to talk to him even when he’s not in his room.
It means they swore for nothing.
It means Mike was lying…
The idea of not being approached leaves Will hurting like an addict without his fix.
He reminds himself this isn’t about him, and Jonathan, the day before Will and Mike talk once more, tells him the same:
“This is not about you, Will, Mike’s just having a rough time. He’s doing his best, though.”
“Yeah, I believe that.”
He does. But at school he asks.
“What’s the worst type of alpha?”
The Sex Ed teacher, a nice fella with a cool stache, pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, then gives his question a thought. When he talks, his stache moves. It gets creepy after a while.
“There’s no such a thing as the worst or best type, it all depends on what angle you’re approaching it from. Some would argue that the dominant type is definitely the worst, as they’re prone to very violent ruts and often grapple with their instincts, so they’re locked in an eternal battle of me versus myself. True, or prime alphas have the strongest biological imperative, and also the most powerful pheromones. They’re the most fertile, most dominant and territorial type so to speak, so some would call them the best sort since they produce the most and healthiest offspring. However, their pheromones can influence others to change into, well, a lower status. Some would say that recessive alphas, who aren’t the subjects of their own biology, are the best type there is since they’re least influenced by their pheromones but still in the upper echelons of society. Weaker, manageable ruts, not quite as territorial, if at all, and overall a rather pleasing bunch to be around. Or you have the general pack alpha that’s a very run of the mill alpha that most are. Now, why are you curious, Will?”
Even though he didn’t really answer Will, Will’s mind echoes the man’s words.
The last one would be Lucas, the run of the mill, pack alpha, then El, of course. They’re supposedly amazing leaders, dominant just enough to protect those claimed into their pack without imposing too much on others. It reminds Will so much of Lucas that he finds immediate discontentment with the teacher’s words, because they make him think.
So which one is Mike then, which?
When Will stands at the bottom of the stairs that evening, looking up at Mike’s room, he near imagines a mild contortion of air around it, like something inside Mike’s room bends and twists reality…
The next morning, when Will comes up to the kitchen, he freezes before he even spots the person standing in the middle of it.
And his heart starts thrumming well before it, too.
Mike’s standing there, back turned, appearing an inch taller, lankier than remembered, shoulders thicker than before and a new air around him, something hardened, and cold.
When he turns his head over his shoulder, sensing someone’s attention, Will’s hit by a new fear of rejection.
Him, very possibly a lowly beta with nothing to offer, shorter and not so imposing, is there even any part of him that can be worthwhile the look in Mike’s eyes?
Then, Mike spots him.
“Will.”
There’s tension in his expression. Tension on him. He holds himself like someone just barely in control, grappling with various parts of his person that weren’t there before. His breaths are different, his stance is different, he is different and if Will had to describe it, he’d call him an elegant, beautiful beast that rejects own reality.
But his attention belongs to Will.
Will knows that immediately; those eyes of Mike’s, dark and penetrating, recognize only him when Mike finally turns to him, and as his lips twitch up subtly, forming a smile, a weight drops off Will’s shoulders…
Almost all of it.
He didn’t lie.
Their mutual oath is alive in Will’s mind once more.
He isn’t leaving.
“Mike,” he greets in turn, stepping in closer.
“Careful.”
Next thing, Nancy’s holding her hand up, and when it almost presses into Will’s chest rather than hovering close, there’s a shift in the room.
Will cannot explain it.
Nancy tenses up, Nancy steps away, and Nancy corrects her stance, slapping on a mask of poised nonchalance and Nancy’s hand drops down, like it was a dangerous carrier of a long, sharp knife.
He cannot explain that, either.
He’s looking at her and somehow, the way Mike’s eyes burn through him makes him feel like he should not.
It’s why he looks at Mike.
The burning sensation pauses but doesn’t leave.
And Mike’s eyes are like fire.
“He’s still learning. Just give him time,” says Nancy.
Will nods.
“So… prime or dominant?”
Except he doesn’t ask that. He doesn’t have the balls. Even his courage, when it comes to looking at Mike, dwindles quickly, like Will has somehow lost the right to look at someone like Mike.
Mike is too beautiful now. Mike has changed. Mike isn’t just an alpha. Mike makes his own mother, an omega, fret around him. Mike makes his father, a lazy beta, admire him, and although it might be a stretch to call that look admiring, Will would further explain that it’s the sort of admiration that is best enjoyed when there’s appropriate distance between the admirer and their target. Make it even half a mile long.
Maybe more.
Preferably no eye-contact.
Ever.
When they ride to their school, Holly’s happy it’s the three of them once more.
She rides between them, and anytime the wind blows in their direction, Mike makes a face.
There are far too many questions Will wants to ask.
“Damn.”
It’s the only way Lucas can react when he and Mike see each other face to face.
“Damn,” comments Dustin as well, but his attention belongs to their audience, and the effect of Mike’s coming to school is immediate.
He turns heads and makes people pause. Those of them that have already presented know something so private, and carnal about Mike that not only does it elude Will, it makes him yearn for being one of them, a rare, new want that he cannot possibly face, let alone mean in earnest.
But his curiosity, born of seeing the many, many eyes that watch Mike, starts on that very day.
“It sucks,” is all Mike says when lunch break rolls around, and they’re outside, occupying their usual table in the woods.
“It fucking sucks.”
He sounds so tired. So annoyed.
“I have to take these stupid suppressants since I can’t control it yet and apparently I should be happy I’m handling it well at all since ‘my kind’ have apparently a hard time getting adjusted to these changes.”
“Changes,” comments Dustin, holding a ham sandwich. He’s sitting next to Mike-- and, as Will will learn soon, he’s the only one of them that can. “I presume your pheromones will continue to get stronger.”
Mike’s response is a groan.
“You’re lucky you can’t smell it,” comments Lucas, his gaze grim. “It’s something, man, it’s something. It even makes me uncomfortable. If I didn’t have practice in self-control, I gotta tell you, I’d be damn sure you were itching for a fight just in light of being here.”
Mike groans again.
“You know what, same. I kinda want to hit you over the head with something just because you’re here. This is stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
He almost hurls his own lunch all across to the nearest tree, but stops himself just in time. For the third time in a very short time, he groans.
Dustin quips in, perfectly languid, “You know it’ll only take a while before you’re fully adjusted. I kinda looked into your type. True, or prime alpha, right? Man, when you think about how we used to get bullied as kids, and now everyone’s looking our way, admiring us for being friends with Mike.”
Mike folds down on the table, sounding, and looking like it’s the worst thing in the world.
Will actually giggles.
“And what’s funny about that?”
The sound freezes in Will’s throat as Mike angles his head up just a little bit, just enough to let those dark eyes peek from underneath his curls--
And for unknown reasons, it lodges the air in Will’s throat.
His cheeks turn a new color of red…
“I can’t?”
“Careful,” warns Lucas, only a bit facetious, “you can’t tease him now. You don’t understand it. The first few weeks, even months? Oooph, everything feels like a challenge.”
Will’s heartbeat thrums, his hands clam up and for an unknown reason, his stomach churns.
He should take it back. He thinks. Stand down so to speak, protect himself in the presence of an alpha that he thinks Nancy talked about.
True-- or prime. The worst sort, right?
A perpetual threat to every other alpha, an immediate foe on any territory, liable to claim it with a casual thought. Those in actual and utmost control of their pheromones are walking hierarchical disasters…
And now, one sits before him. With that weak, smoldering glower, but to Will, this is still Mike. Mike is his best friend. Mike-- is someone important. Too important.
And they made an oath. A pact. Somewhat.
So ignoring the way this goes against Lucas’s words, Will folds down on the table as well, letting his hands act as a pillow for his chin, before he chirps to Mike--
“Let me laugh at your misery, Mike. It looks good on you.”
He sees it in Mike’s eyes.
The way they go too dark…
The air thickens, the temperature grows, his features mildly contort and Will’s chest goes impossibly tight.
Oh, no, he thinks before he can see Lucas and Dustin react, both leaning away from the table, acting the part of two miserable witnesses eager to pretend they saw nothing at all.
Oh, no, because the darkness in Mike’s eyes is too much, and perhaps Will isn’t taking it seriously enough. Perhaps he should be. The teacher’s words echo a truth into his blood, Nancy’s almost touch comes back to him like a potential crime, and what little Will read up on true alphas is now being replayed in his mind, live.
The most, but also least desirable alpha type due to their high breeding value but incredibly low compatibility with other alphas. Just by the virtue of existing, they threaten the delicate a/b/o hierarchy…
Mike lifts his head.
“Cheeky.”
He’s grinning, but his tension is a black, endless space. He’s locked in place, tautness holding every muscle in a coil that stays him on spot, preventing motion, and Will dangerously wonders what exactly is Mike holding himself from, and in a version of this event where he cannot, what happens?
Does he actually want to know?
“But yeah,” adds Mike, a bit breathless, “let’s just all be, I dunno, cautious. I’m still learning. And, um… anyway.”
He sits back, rolling his shoulders back, and as he stands up, turning away, Dustin leans in quickly, whispering into Will’s ear--
“That. Was. Close.”
Close from what, though?
In the next long year, Will ends up finding out.
At first, it’s just how others respond to Mike.
He opens his locker to a dozen love letters, confessions and truly questionable suggestions that are mortifying on so many levels that he’s too embarrassed to even share them with the others.
He still does after some convincing, but when Will reads the third message with a declaration of wanting Mike’s progeny, he gasps, actually horrified.
“This is terrible, Mike-- isn’t this harassment? Aren’t you being harassed?”
“He is,” agrees Lucas, sitting next to Will.
Dustin, accustomed to being beside Mike, sifts through the letters, unimpressed and rightfully judgmental.
“Definite sexual harassment. Well, Mike, wanna do something about it?”
“Ugh.”
“Understood.”
Dustin balls up the letters, then abandons their table in the cafeteria, merrily and pointedly prancing towards the trash can at the far end of the hall simply for the joy of being watched.
He dumps the letters there, and shakes off his hands.
“Done.”
He returns back to them, pleased as punch as he sits down, and Mike actually grins at him, whispering, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, buddy.”
Dustin pats Mike’s shoulder-- once-- before freezing up and making a face.
“Oops?”
Mike tosses him a glower, and it’s hard to say if his new over-dominant alpha nature is triggered by the unsolicited touch, or if he’s possibly just annoyed at being treated like a ticking bomb.
They don’t find out.
At home, Will lingers at the bottom of the stairs, aware of the unspoken new rule of never entering Mike’s room now whether he’s home or not.
He stares up at Mike’s room, feeling like he’s lost the privilege of speaking to his most favorite person in the whole wide world, and when he can’t sleep, he walks out.
He stands at the very place he and Mike once occupied, staring at the same spot in the sky even if the stars look different now.
He realizes then that Mike knew.
Mike was pressing his hands into Will’s shoulder-blades and he knew.
By the end of April, Mike’s mostly adjusted to walking down the school.
The way he holds himself changes from a look of constant ire and detachment to mere confident indifference. He won’t look at anyone who’s not his friends, and it’s strange to note how before, that would have made him either a complete normie, or a general outcast.
People beg for his eyes instead.
They line up in the general area of his locker, whispering and giggling until he’s within earshot. They quiet down. As he talks to his friends, the audience yearns for his attention with so much lascivious openness that Will questions if the omega population hasn’t increased since Mike presented.
By the end of the week, he involuntarily gets an answer to this.
They’re in class when the teacher asks, “Mike, do you mind sitting at the back? Um, even… further back… further back.”
“This is the wall.”
“Yes, please, sit there.”
He gets placed as far back in every classroom as possible, and when he’s annoyed, and he’s truly annoyed, he stands up to the teacher instead, and his eyes seem to glow.
And Will remembers.
“This is bullshit, you’re actually isolating me. Why do I need to sit that far back? I can’t even hear you well from there, I can’t even see you well. This is bullshit.”
“Michael, please, just calm down, we want no trouble--”
“You want no trouble? I want no trouble. You obviously want some trouble since you teachers keep doing this to me! Why, why, WHY?”
He doesn’t notice the way the air around him contorts. How the teacher stops breathing, turning white. How those closest to him either turn pale as well, or their cheeks flush. Some students lean away from him, but some close in, crowding him with their eyes. Their attention is immediately so red-coded that Will thinks he’s in someone’s bedroom, interrupting a very intimate me-time.
“Mike.”
It’s Dustin who speaks up, their trusty beta.
The first two times it works. Mike backs off, resigning at the far end of the room where he glowers at the world.
The third time Mike snaps his head around, and when Dustin holds his hands up in surrender, stepping away, a grave, thick tension settles over the entire class.
Even in Will’s eyes, the air has changed.
Heavier than before, it contains a musky, and spicy undertone that leaves him immediately high-strung, like he needs to get off his chair, run, jump, scream and do all of that at once.
When it becomes too thick, he compares it to a wave. So far, he’s been seeing the first tremulous beginning of it, as its great presence tumbles from the distance, rearing up high and threatening, but his clothes aren’t wet yet. He hasn’t lost his life yet. He only surrenders to its roar, depowering, and powerful.
It makes him feel so mortal…
It makes him remember:
Their oath is alive in his mind, and that night, Mike’s eyes did glow…
“Mike.”
It’s just Will. Just his hope. His tone.
Just something so simple and soft.
No authority, no order.
A kind of… request, tis all.
And yet it echoes and Mike backs off.
And their eyes lock.
And he surrenders, disappearing to the back of the room where Will continues to watch him, and Mike watches him in turn. Will decides they’re thinking the same things:
This is unfair.
This needs to change.
They’re going to do something.
His heart is madly beating and he’s lying.
He harkens back to that night over in repeats, certain that hours before the world found out officially Mike Wheeler was different, Will was the first one shown.
Just like Mike’s attention, it makes his world turn, turn…
And turn.