Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Look, Will Byers knows that objectively being a beta is fine, it’s very normal. But the idea of being officially considered one makes him feel sick to his stomach. With Will’s 17th birthday arriving in two weeks, and with the fact that he still hasn’t presented, almost everyone assumes he’s going to be a beta, and by the time he turns 17 the government will officially decide that as is his designation.

Being a beta is typical, Dustin, Robin, and even his own brother Johnathan are all beta’s, but Will has always told himself that he was going to be an omega. He liked the idea of being an omega, of keeping a house, being a calming presence, and he wasn’t the only person who thought it would fit him. Everybody knew that he had always been more feminine than his friends, whether they considered that a good or bad thing varied. His mom, an omega herself, had always thought he would be one. And most significantly, Mike always thought he would present as an omega. Mike would point out when Will would act motherly to their friends, he noticed when Will became infatuated with the idea of being a nurse for a couple weeks in the eighth grade, and Mike would especially mention it whenever Will did a good job with Holly. Mike would simply say, “You would be such a good omega” and that was it, when he said that Will’s mind was made, he wanted to be an omega.

Everyone else in the Party had presented by now, with Mike and Lucas presenting first in weeks of each other, both as alphas. Dustin then had technically presented as a beta, but nothing had really changed. Next Max had presented as an omega, which Will had been not so secretly jealous about. And finally El had presented as an alpha, which no one had really seen coming. After she presented El and Mike, who had been dating for almost three years, decided to finally break up. Will had talked to his sister a lot about the break up, making sure she was doing ok, and according to El she was happy about it. El had told him that she felt like her and Mike would end up being better as just friends, and even though Will had not told her how pleased he was to hear this she already knew. Will had always liked his best friend, which pretty much everyone was aware of, well except for Mike that is. But by the time Will was almost ready to tell Mike, he was dating his sister, and Will couldn’t tell him now either, not with him apparently being a beta. If he did present as an omega they could make sense together, but Will knows better than to risk their years long friendship over his unrequited feelings, after all Mike will fall in love with an omega whether Will is one or not.

—----

Will had never been an early riser, he had always preferred to sleep in in the mornings, but recently getting up in the mornings had seemed even more daunting than usual to him.

“Will, please honey, you’re going to be late. El’s already eaten breakfast and gotten dressed. She can’t drive you to school if you’re not out of bed”, his mom had finally told him by the time he had snoozed his alarm for the third time.

“Okay, okay, I’m up. Tell El that I’ll be ready in ten minutes”, he said as he finally got out of bed. Just like he said he was ready to go in ten minutes, dressed, bag packed, however he still hadn’t eaten breakfast. Will just made a note to eat a little extra something at lunch, and then rushed out to meet his sister in the car.

“Hey, took you long enough. Are you feeling okay?” El asked as Will threw his backpack into the back seat of the yellow beetle they had gotten for their 16th birthday.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I just didn’t want to get up today. Ugh I really hate Wednesdays, and I really hate the rain” Will replied as they started driving to school. It was a very grey day out in Hawkins, with light fog and a bit of rain.

“You know you can talk to me, right? I mean I know our birthday is coming up, and it’s completely normal for you to be worried” El told him.

“Oh my god, El I promise I will tell you if something is seriously wrong, okay? I just would rather not talk about it” Will said while feeling his cheeks flush.

“Of course. I just- I want you to know that I’m always here for you” El said. Will really truly appreciated it, and he would tell her if something was happening. But that was the exact problem, nothing was happening he was still just Will, and no presentation meant he was a beta. The idea of talking about his disappointment was scary, and the idea of telling anyone, even his sister, how much he longed to be an omega seemed painful, like he was actually admitting that he was never meant to be an one, and that all of his instincts had been wrong.

—---

By the time they arrived at school most of the other students were already there, wandering around campus waiting for the bell to ring. At Hawkins High most people usually arrived at school super early, so even with Will and El getting there fifteen minutes before school started, Will already felt like he was running behind. The Party typically met up in the cafeteria before school started because the AV room was used for staff meetings. The rest of the Party was already there by the time Will and El got to the table.

“Hey, you guys are here late” Lucas stated as they sat down.

“Yeah it was my fault, I slept through my alarm. Just didn’t want to face AP Chem today” Will quickly responded before El could say anything.

“Tell me about it. I hate having Chemistry first period, Mr. Ryan can be such a jerk. I heard the highest grade on the last quiz was a C-” Dustin said, moving the topic away from Will and El’s tardiness. Everyone else seemed to continue with the conversation except for Mike, Mike was sitting next to Will and looking at him intensely. Will noticed the attention but didn’t want to make a big deal of it. Eventually he heard Mike huff quietly, what Will could interpret as a call for attention by now, and finally decided to ask him what’s up.

“Okay, what is it, you can’t keep glaring at me all day” Will said finally meeting Mike’s gaze.

“You didn’t eat breakfast did you.” Mike said in this low sort of voice that made Will want to do anything he asked.

“How did you know?” Will said in a whisper not wanting everybody else to hear. Despite Will not actually being an omega the Party still liked to treat him as the pack omega. Even with Max presenting as an omega, she never quite fit all the stereotypes, and if the rest of the party tried to take care of her the way they all do with Will, somebody would end up with a broken nose. He’s sure that if they all found out he had skipped a meal they would be hovering over him protectively all day, which most of the time he didn’t mind, but today was different.

“El let me know when she texted that you guys were going to be running late. Here I grabbed you a muffin before I left home” Mike replied, grabbing a blueberry muffin from his bag and placing it in front of Will. Will knew that if he didn’t eat the muffin he would never hear the end of it, after all Mike and Will had almost identical schedules, that is excluding 3rd period where Will was in Latin and Mike was in Spanish, and 7th period when Will had Art and Mike had Creative Writing. He took a bite, pleased Mike started talking again, “Once you’re done will you come to Mrs. Clarkson’s with me I have to turn in a permission slip for the movie she’s showing us in AP Euro”

“I don’t think I can,” Will starts, but quickly adds, “I just need to stop by my locker to grab my Pre-Calc textbook before first period, and I wanted to talk to El. Plus I still have to eat the muffin… So I would just slow you down. But I’ll see you in like 10 minutes in Pre-Calc” he finishes off in a rush. Mike agrees to see him later, not that they have much choice since they sit next to each other in every single class, and finally leaves the table.

Once Mike was sufficiently out of both sight and earshot Will grabbed El’s arm, pulling her out of a conversation with Max about some new book, pleading “Can you come to my locker with me?”

—---
By the time they’re out of the cafeteria El can already tell that Will is not happy. Which is confirmed when Will turns to her and goes “Why did you tell him?” and even though Will knows El is aware what he is referring to she still says “What do you mean?”

“El, did you seriously text Mike that I didn’t have breakfast at home. I was going to eat more at lunch, but now he’s worried and you know how weird and protective he gets. Plus you shouldn’t go around telling people I’m skipping meals!” and while realizes that he probably seems really harsh right now, and is starting to yell causing a freshman to look their way, he just feels frustrated.

“I didn’t tell ‘People’, I just told Mike. I was already letting him know we were going to be late, that way he didn’t come knocking down our door in five minutes, and he happened to ask. I wasn’t going to lie to him” El replied in a much more casual way than Will thought was fair. That was one thing about Mike and El’s break up, despite the fact that neither seemed to take it very hard they stayed close. At first Will thought this was a sign that they would get back together eventually, until he realized that the main thing they talked about was Will himself.

“Come on, I’m sorry I told him, but he would’ve found out eventually, you know he always does. Walk me to Lit, Jennifer already texted me that she was there” El said once they reached Will’s locker. As he and his sister walked to their first period classes he forgave her. After all he knew she was right, ever since Mike had presented as an alpha he was always aware of Will, whether it was how he was feeling, or if he needed to be comforted or just left alone. Mike was pretty much perfectly in tune with Will’s emotions. Now this would make sense if they were mates, Max and Lucas were similar, but Lucas and Max were a mated pair, Will and Mike were not mated, and unless Will’s presentation changed, Will knew they never would be.

—---

Will’s morning classes went about as smoothly as they always did, and despite the muffin Mike had given him, he was very hungry by lunch time. The Party liked to eat lunch in the AV room, especially now that they were upperclassmen, the cafeteria was always messy and loud and absolutely miserable according to Will. Will was one of the first ones to make it to the AV room, with only Max there already. She was quickly finishing some homework that Will assumed was due later that day, it looked like maybe music theory or some other class that Will didn’t take. Max quickly said something about having to finish her worksheet before the end of the period and kept working, however Will wasn’t alone for much longer before Mike and Dustin came in.

Mike immediately sat next to Will, and if Will was really looking into it Mike did sit quite close. Their thighs lightly brushed up against each other as Mike grabbed his lunchbox. Will’s was already out and open and Mike, without a thought, took half of Will’s turkey sandwich and traded it for his own peanut butter and jelly. Will doesn’t remember when they started doing this, splitting their lunches, however he does remember them not doing it for most of the time Mike and El were dating and starting it back up once they were done. By now it was second nature, as Will slid his container of carrot sticks between them, right next to the bag of apple slices Mike had already placed there, just another thing about them that had always made sense. About a minute later El and Lucas reached the rest of the group and sat down to eat their lunches.

After a few minutes of everyone focusing on their meals, too tired from the morning classes to talk, Lucas finally says “Okay twins, your birthday is what, 11 days away. What’s the plan? Are we thinking a party or like a movie night, do you guys already have something planned?” Will can already feel himself wanting to melt into a puddle on the floor and be ignored for the rest of time, because his birthday is the last thing he wants to talk about. Will also know that this is of course not fair, because it is also El’s birthday. Plus it is his 17th birthday, even with the pain being a beta causes him, Will wants to have a good birthday , and he certainly doesn’t want to ruin it for his sister.

While all these thoughts run through his head he hears his sister tell the rest of the Party about just hosting a dinner party and sleepover for the group, not something big or extravagant. Will knows that this is the small get-together they’ve been planning for the better part of a month, but something in him just wants to beg his sister to do nothing at all for their birthday. Will can picture it, their birthday party, El glowing with pride and joy, and Will who can never really be pleased with this level of longing for a life he now knows he’ll never get. The idea of people treating him differently once they realize he will really never present as an omega causes a sudden wave of nausea for Will. Mike will stop taking care of him the way he does now, Mike will date a real omega, and the rest of the group won’t be as protective as they always have been. Will is going to become a normal, sad, beta.

Will is starting to feel like everything's closing in, his stomach hurts, his eyes are prickling with tears, and there are just so many people in this tiny AV room. He knows he hasn’t finished his lunch but he has to get out. “I’m so sorry, I’ve- I have to go to the bathroom” is all he manages to get out before he bolts into the hallway. He doesn’t actually go to the bathroom, which sounds just as bad with the heavy smell of vapes and smoke in the air, so instead he stumbles towards the empty art studio.

He just sits there for a minute, staring out the window towards the football field, before he realizes he’s crying, the kind of ugly sobbing that ends with mucus everywhere. He doesn’t know how long he’s been there, crying, mourning the life he’s always dreamed for himself, when he hears the door creak open. He can’t tell who it is based on smell, another thing about being an omega that he longs for, but then he hears Mike’s voice. “Hey, I brought our lunches and bags. I thought you might not… well go back.” Mike whispers, in the sweetest voice ever, while holding both of their backpacks.

The sight makes Will even more emotional, seeing this perfect boy, who he loves so much, and knowing he’s not his to have. Mike sits next to him and passes over half of a chocolate cookie that his mom made. “You know you never have to talk to me, but I always want to help you. I care so much. You know that right?” Mike says.

Will already hates himself before the words leave his mouth, but before he can stop himself he says “Well, it won’t be like that for much longer, will it”

“What?” Mike says as he turns his head to Will, “Why would you say that?”

“Oh come on, I’m turning 17. In eleven days we won’t even be able to pretend I could be an omega anymore. And I don’t know, things will change” Will knows he’s starting to cry right now, he can hear his voice getting wobbly, “I know it isn’t fair to expect you guys to keep acting like I’m an omega. But, it just hurts okay. It’s something I’ve always wanted, it’s always felt right, but by now I know I was wrong. I guess it wasn’t meant to be”

“Will, literally nothing could stop me from taking care of you. You’re my best friend, and nothing will ever change that. You know I always thought you would be a good omega, and I stand by that, it’s not too late okay, everything's going to work out” Mike says. He’s practically holding Will now, arms wrapped around his shoulders. Will’s tears are certainly making a mess of Mike’s shirt by now, but he lets himself be held. Will can’t help but wonder if this will be the last time that they’re this close to each other.

—---

The rest of the day flies by, they finish up their lunch and go to all their afternoon classes. Nobody says anything about Will’s absence from lunch, but he knows they’re all thinking about it. El is miraculously silent on the ride home after school.. Will spend his entire evening, excluding dinner, in his bedroom, and he can tell that El warned their parents about his day. This time it doesn’t even bother him

Chapter Text

If El sings ‘My Heart Will Go On’ one more time, Will swears he is going to hurt someone. It had been her idea to have a movie night the day before, and after the sleepover all their friends had decided to stay at the Byers house for the rest of the weekend. They had just finished Titanic, surprisingly Max’s choice, and were about to start Sneakers, some spy movie that Mike loved.

Will really appreciated having people over, it gave him something to think of rather than his birthday, which was now exactly a week away. He had spent a lot of the past week in his own thoughts, but he was careful to not be too obvious about it. He had managed to get Mike to ignore his little freakout from the previous Wednesday. The alpha hadn’t wanted to let it go, they had called that night and Mike had practically begged Will to talk to someone else about it as well. Will had quickly dodged the demand by telling Mike he would talk to El.

“Hey, before we start the movie, do you guys want popcorn?” Will suggested.

Lucas furrowed his brow, “Will, no hate, but the way you make popcorn is so weird. I know it’s healthier, but can’t we just make a bag of microwave popcorn?”

“Ew, no, it’s so much better made on the stovetop” Will said, already walking away, after all they had had this conversation before.

Mike jumped up to join him as Will made his way to the kitchen. “You’re gonna like this movie, it’s super fun.” Mike continued rambling on about the film as Will started making the popcorn. The popcorn was in the hot pan and starting to pop. Will turned to grab the salt from the cupboard. As he moved the handle of the pan hit his stomach and the pan started turning off of the stovetop. Without even thinking Will put his hand directly on the bottom of the pan as it got close to falling on the floor, putting it back on the stove.

As soon as he pulled his hand away he cried out in pain, realizing what he just did. Mike immediately left his seat on the counter across the kitchen. He quickly turned off the burner, and grabbed Will’s hand, which was already blistering from the intense heat.

Shit, what were you thinking Will!” Mike snapped while pulling Will toward the first aid kit.

Will shrinks back at the anger in Mike's voice, “I’m sorry, but it was going to fall. I didn't even process what was happening.” Will is shaking as he whispers out the words, he knows he is, his hand hurts so much, the burn is all over his palm and onto his fingers. It’s his dominant hand he notices belatedly, writing and drawing would be a real bitch until his hand healed.

Mike got the burn cream out of the first aid kit, but before he applies it he stops and makes eye contact with Will, as if asking for permission. Will lightly nods his head. He then uncaps the tube of cream in his hand and carefully starts placing it on the burnt flesh. Will can’t help but flinch, the cream doesn’t feel that bad but his hand is just throbbing so much. He also knows that he is blushing, with so much blood in his head, he wonders how there is also so much pooling in his hand. Mike grabs some gauze and starts wrapping his hand up when Dustin bursts in from the other room.

“Hey, guys, what's taking so long? We were waiting for you guys to start but then we heard some yelling… Oh shit.” Dustin stops mid sentence, finally looking at Will and Mike’s hands.

“Sorry, it was my fault. The pan was falling and I made the stupid decision to catch it. I'm pretty sure the popcorn on the stove is burnt. You can microwave a bag of popcorn now. We’ll be quick.” Will explained as Mike finished bandaging his hand.

Dustin quickly microwaved two bags of popcorn and the three of them headed back to the living room where their friends were waiting. Dustin let the others know what had happened in the kitchen and distributed the popcorn as Mike pulled Will to sit right next to him on the couch.

Lucas had a smug look on his face, “I told you that microwave popcorn was a better idea.”

Mike immediately turned to snap at him, “Don’t be a jerk! Leave him alone okay, he did nothing wrong.” Mike’s voice was deeper than it usually was, and it almost sounded like a growl. After Mike’s outburst everyone went quiet, as they watched the movie Mike kept Will pressed up against his side the entire time.

—---

Almost everyone had left the Byers house as the sun started to set, only Mike was left. Will and Mike were sitting in Will’s bathroom, with Will rewrapping his bandage, and Mike watching over him very intently. “I was a jerk, earlier when you burned yourself. I really shouldn't have yelled at you. It wasn’t your fault, and I knew that, but you just scared me, I don’t like it when you get hurt.”

“It’s fine, it was my fault, I should’ve been more careful,” Will admitted.

“But that doesn’t change that I should never yell at you like that. No one- no alpha should treat you like that. I was terrible-.” Will cut the rest of his apology off with a hug.

They sat there for a couple minutes, just holding each other. They only pulled away from each other when Mike’s phone started buzzing on the counter. “My mom wants me to come home” Mike whispers, pulling back to look at Will’s face, “How about I drive you and El to school tomorrow. I’ll pick you guys up early and we can go get coffee or something?” Mike looks hopeful, as if there’s a world where Will says no to his offer.

As soon as Mike sees Will nod in agreement he gets up to leave. “Please be careful with your hand. I’ll see you soon.” And with that Mike walks out to his car, leaving flustered Will in his wake.

—---

Will had made a point to wake up early on Monday, not wanting to give Mike another reason to worry. His mom had redressed his wound as he ate breakfast, and somehow he managed to be ready for the day before El was. By the time Mike knocked on their door El and Will were talking in the kitchen, which meant Hopper was the one to answer the door.

“Will! El! You’re chauffeur is here” Hopper yelled. As they got closer Will could hear more of what his dad was saying to Mike. Hopper completely blocked the doorway, making it so Mike was completely out of sight. “I wish they would stop hanging out with you. God knows they could both do better.”

“Dad!” Will hissed as he made it to the door, “Leave him alone.”

Will quickly said bye to his parents and made it to Mike’s car, El tended to sit in the backseat when the three of them rode together, allowing Will to be as close to Mike as possible. They pull up to the coffee shop about five minutes away from the school, Will vaguely remembers that Max has an interview here next week. They order their regulars, a chai for El, iced latte for Will, and cold brew for Mike. They do this every couple of weeks, taking a little extra time in the morning on Mondays, they take turns paying and it’s Mike’s week.

Mike doesn’t leave Will’s side all day. He walks him to all their classes, waits for Will to pack up all his stuff before they head to their next period. They sit as close as ever during lunch, Will knows he’s blushing every time Mike leans in to whisper something into his ear, but hopes he doesn’t notice. If Will were to close his eyes he could pretend that Mike is doing all of this because Will is his omega, not just his friend.

Will is finally alone during Art, he’s spent the entire class not really doing anything, simply mixing up colors for an upcoming painting. Once the bell rings and the day is over Will packs his stuff up and puts all his paints away. He’s the last one out of the classroom and basically the only one left in the fine arts wing, once he goes by his locker he was supposed to meet Mike in the parking lot. As he reaches his locker he hears a noise. As soon as he turns around Will sees Troy Walsh. Troy is looming over him, a sneer on his face.

“First time I’ve seen you without your guard dog all day long Byers. Making the most of it before he finally gives up on you.” Troy starts backing him into the row of lockers behind him, “You’ve got, what? Six days until you’re a beta.”

Will knows practically everyone has left the building by now, if he were to scream no one would hear.

“You know at least if you were an omega you could have purpose. You would be a bitch, but at least you would be a pregnant one” Troy is nearing Will’s face, and Will’s smaller frame is caged in by his arms. “How is your loverboy going to feel when he realizes that you’re never going to be an omega. Do you think he’ll just abandon you without a word? Or do you think he’s going to be mad at you for wasting so much of his time”

With that one sentence Troy confirms all of Will's biggest fears, all of the terrible things he had spent months agonizing over, confirmed.

“You should let me kiss you, it may be the only time any alpha ever will.” Troy says in a sickening voice, making it seem as if WWill has any say in the matter. If Will were a more impulsive person he might’ve done something, like knee Troy Walsh in the balls, but instead he stands there paralysed as he feels Troy lean closer and closer.

As soon as Will feels the press of lips against his own he hears a scream from down the hallway. Both of their heads rapidly turn to find a very angry Mike Wheeler walking in their direction. Will slumps down against the lockers as Troy is pulled off of him. Mike has a tight grip on Troy’s collar and is hoisting him almost a foot off of the ground. Mike was never the most muscly of the alphas in their school, though he was certainly lean, no one could deny that he was tall, something that was working to his advantage right now.

“WALSH! I swear to god if I ever see you touch a hair on Will’s head ever again!” Will isn’t familiar with this voice of Mike’s, it’s angry and rough. Will sees Troy stumble back once Mike lets go of him. He sees Troy swing at Mike and miss, he then sees Mike’s punch land, hard. Will sees some blood and then everything goes dark.

—---

When Will wakes up he is no longer in the hallway, but instead in the nurses office, he has an ice pack on his head, and his vision is a little blurry. By the time he sits up properly he sees Troy on a bed on the other side of the room, with what looks to Will, like a broken nose. Will then notices that Mike is sitting next to his bed, as if the alpha was keeping watch.

“Oh shit. You’re awake!” Mike says once he notices Will’s movement, “I’m so glad you’re okay. Our parents are here, they are waiting for you to wake up before we talk about… You know”

“I was really worried about you, you just, like passed out and I didn’t know what to do. But I carried you here. I’m doing okay, they checked me out for injuries but really I’m fine, however I did quite a number on Troy-”

Mike’s rambling is cut off by Hopper entering the Nurse’s office. “Wheeler! I swear to god, if you are already bothering my son!” Hopper is followed by Joyce, the Wheelers, people who Will can only assume are Troy’s parents, and the principal.

Joyce immediately rushes to his side with Hopper, whispering comforting things. Troy, who up until now had been silent, starts talking to his parents, telling them how innocent he is. Mike starts arguing back at him and it just gets so loud. Will can’t focus on his mom and dad with all the yelling. “Oh sweetie, we’ll get this all figured out. I promise” Will manages to hear his mom say before the principal gets everyone to be quiet.

Mr. Ross is a sort of odd looking beta, he’s been acting as principal at Hawkins for years, and no one can really tell how old he is. Despite the fact that leadership positions like his tend to go to alphas, he manages to get everyone to stop talking. “I want to hear what happened,” he starts, only for Troy and Mike to immediately start talking over each other. “Ah- stop it boys. I want to hear from Will. Will tell me everything that happened, and then I will ask the other two some questions.”

Will can feel every pair of eyes in the room fixed on him, and he knows he has to tell them all about it, but to be honest he would rather crawl into a hole and die. However with his mother squeezing one hand, and Mike carefully cradling the other, he manages to talk.

“I- I was leaving art class, it took me a while to clean up my work station so I was the last one in the fine arts wing. Um… I was supposed to meet Mike, he’s my ride home, but I had to stop by my locker first, to grab my science textbook. I was there all alone and then Troy showed up… He pushed me against the lockers and was threatening me I guess. He was just saying terrible terrible things” Will managed to get out.

“What was he saying sweetie?” His mother cooed, trying her best to be comforting.

“I really can’t say, I just can’t, really. Please don’t make me say it.” Will knows he’s crying by now, he can feel the warm tears carving their way into his cheeks.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to give us all the details. Just what happened next.” Mr. Ross reassured.

“Well, and then Troy tried to kiss me” Will hears his mom gasp and looks up to see both Hopper and Mike shooting matching glares in Troy’s direction. “And then Mike showed up and he was mad at Troy. Mike pulled him off of me. Mike told him not to touch me again. Troy tried to punch him, but the punch didn’t land, so Mike really punched him. All I remember after that is passing out and waking up here.”

Will can feel the tension in the room, he’s sure that if he could smell pheromones they would be all over the place, but he can’t so instead he just sits there waiting for someone to break the tense silence.

“Mr. Walsh,” Mr. Ross turns, addressing Troy, “You know this is not the first problem we’ve had with you, bullying others, being offensive and cruel. If Mr. Wheeler had taken the first punch it would be a different story, but despite the punch not landing you were the one who caused the violence. Mr. Byers, Mr. Wheeler, you are free to go home for now. Mr. Walsh you will face a week long suspension, Mr. and Mrs. Walsh, I will be scheduling a conference to talk about your son's behavior more in depth. But right now I want all of you to go home.”

Will is being escorted out of the nurses, and he feels like everything is moving just a bit too quickly. His head is starting to hurt- or really throb, and once they make it out to the parking lot both his and Mike’s parents separate themselves to quietly whisper. Mike does not leave his side, even when his parents tell him they’re heading back home. Mike insists on driving Will home, something in Mike’s face must communicate something with his parents that Will can’t understand, but they agree.

—---

Mike has been sitting in Will’s room with him for almost twenty minutes and neither has said a word. Usually Will is perfectly content to just sit here with Mike forever, but right now he can’t find the calm he usually does. Troy’s words have been eating him up ever since they left the school. While Will knows Troy is a jerk, and he really shouldn’t believe him, he was thinking those things before his run-in with Troy, Troy just confirmed his fears. Will wonders if he’s really that obvious, he wonders if his friends can tell how much he loves Mike, how he’s already given up hope of them getting together, how he’s just waiting for Mike to realize.

“Has this happened before?” Will is finally pulled out of his thoughts by Mike’s question, “I mean, did he do this before, and you just didn’t tell us or something?” Mike looks sad, or disappointed maybe, Will’s been having trouble reading him lately.

“I mean he was always… Not nice. But I mean he never particularly targeted me. Sure he said some bad stuff, but he did that to all of us.” Will’s telling the truth, to be honest he had kind of forgotten about Troy once they reached high school. They never shared classes together, and there were just so many people in the high school

“If something did happen, you would tell me. Right?” Mike and Will make eye contact and Will almost melt, he can feel how much Mike cares about him through his gaze. “Of course, I tell you everything.”

“You know that punch you landed was pretty impressive” Will says, smirk on his face. “Oh yeah, why did you think I would miss or something?” Mike responds with a voice just as teasing as Will’s had been.

“No, no, I just thought it was cool, you know before I passed out.” Will sees Mike’s face soften at the mention of his fainting.

“Are you really feeling okay? I know a lot went down today.” Will nods his head, “I should stay over tonight, I don’t want you to feel alone.” Will mulls this over in his head, probably for longer than he should. It’s not that he doesn’t want Mike to stay over, he loves when he does, but Will also needs to get used to not having Mike around, since very soon that’s going to be his reality.

“Mike, we have school tomorrow, if you stay over we’re going to talk all night and then be dead tomorrow.” Even if Will has been having trouble reading Mike recently he can easily see that Mike does not like this answer, “But stay for dinner, you know my mom always loves to have you. I think you like her food more than any of us do.”

—---

“What did he say to you?” Him and Mike are now curled up in his bed, they’d been doing homework, but eventually given up. Now Mike was asking the one thing Will had been trying to avoid. “Not that you have to tell me or anything”

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, but it was just humiliating to have to talk about it in front of everyone.” Will would love to lie to Mike right now, or to curl up and pretend he’s asleep, but he doesn’t. “He talked about my birthday, about how I’m a beta, about how everyone would treat me differently after my birthday, and about how I don’t have a purpose. He um- he said that if I was an omega that at least I could have babies, and since I’m not, I’m not good for anything.”

Will feels like he’s been talking a lot, and he knows that he’s probably going to start crying again. Mike reaches over and starts rubbing circles on Will’s shoulder, he leans into the touch. “How did you know where I was?” Will asks, he had been thinking about how Mike had showed up at the perfect time all day.

“Well I had gone out to the car to wait for you, but then you still hadn’t made it out. I texted you but you didn’t respond. I knew you would be by your locker. I’m glad I got there, but I should’ve been there earlier, I shouldn't have left you alone. He has no right to touch you, I should’ve punched him sooner.”

Will is touched, really he is, he loves knowing that Mike cares about him so much. But once again Will can’t ignore the feeling that this can’t last, Mike will give up on him eventually, he’s just wasting his time right now, and it won’t be long before he comes to his senses and leaves Will for good.

“You know he was wrong, all he said about people abandoning you, that will never happen.” Mike is trying to be reassuring but honestly he’s just hurting Will’s feelings.

“I wouldn’t be mad if it was. You know obviously I would be sad, but I really wouldn’t blame you guys.” Will realizes he sounds pitiful, but he isn’t searching for pity. He just doesn’t want Mike to blame himself when Troy’s words eventually become reality.

“Don’t think like that, I mean it,” Mike grabs his shoulder, making it so Will can no longer dodge his eye contact, “You mean the world to me, you always have, and nothing is ever going to change that.”

The words are sweet but Will doesn’t have time to dwell on them before his mother calls out that dinner is ready. He’s sure Mike will try to bring this conversation up later, so for now he’s just going to worry on how to get out of it.

Chapter Text

Will’s head has been hurting 24/7, he constantly feels like he’s about to throw up, and he is ready for his birthday to be over. He started feeling under the weather two days ago, Will thinks it’s just caused by nerves. After all, it's finally his birthday, the same birthday he’s been stressing out about since seven years old when he learned about the science of presentations. However Will has decided that no matter how much his stomach turns at the thought of being a beta he’s not going to let it ruin the day for his friends and sister.

El is sitting with him in the kitchen, mindlessly talking about the recent going ons in her classes. Will is cooking, after all it is a dinner party. Most people know that Will likes art, something that was broadcast to the school when he won some art competition last fall, however only his close friends know he likes cooking. It was something he had started doing young and had always enjoyed, it wasn’t quite as therapeutic for him as painting was, but he still enjoyed it. That was another thing Mike always said meant he would be an omega, which he really doesn’t want to think about right now.

“Hey, do you have a class with Mina?” Will snaps back to reality at his sister's question, “Um, Mina Sullivan, yeah she’s in my Art class, why?”

El is blushing something that does not happen often, and while Will isn’t always the best with crushes, he can tell El likes Mina. He doesn’t know very much about Mina, but he does know that she’s an omega, and has always been perfectly kind to him.

“Well she's in yearbook with me, and we got partnered up for the volleyball spread. I just think we get along well, really well. I was thinking I might ask her to hang out or something.” El is practically beet red at this point.

Will is happy for his sister, happy that she gets the life she wants, the life she deserves. But part of him can’t help but wonder why he doesn’t get this, why he’s never going to really bond with someone. “You should totally ask her to hang out, she seems super kind. I could see you two together” and it’s true El will be a great alpha to anyone she wants to, Will is really happy for her.

Suddenly the doorbell rings, signalling their friend's arrival. “Okay, you haven’t left the kitchen all day, at least come greet everyone at the door with me.”

“Yeah, yeah” Will says while taking out the apron he had been wearing.

Unsurprisingly all their friends were standing outside huddling together for warmth from the March chill. “Why are none of you guys wearing coats?” Will mentions as the party starts making their way into the house one by one, each giving El and Will a hug. Mike is the last one to enter, hugging Will first. Well hugging is an interesting term for it, Mike leans in like normal, but as soon as Will touches him he pulls away, almost as if he’s been burned. Something flashes across his face that Will can’t understand. Mike mumbles something about having a good birthday and then goes on to hug El. Will watches them stricken, Mike hugs El tight and long, whispering something into her ear. Will realizes that this is it, this is the end of Mike and his friendship, Mike finally realized that Will is really just a beta. Even though he saw it coming it still hurts, like literally hurts, Will feels a sharp pain in the dead center of his ribs as he sees Mike and El together.

“Hurry up guys, I stole a bottle of wine from my mom for this.” Max says, effectively pulling Will from his thoughts. He should be grateful for what he has, even if Mike’s given up on their friendship he still has Lucas, Dustin and Max.

“Dinner’s almost done, the chicken is just finishing up in the oven. Here Max, I assume we have a bottle opener somewhere in the kitchen” Max follows Will to the kitchen, leaving Mike and El behind. He and Max eventually find the bottle opener, shoved in the back of some drawer, and open up the wine without getting any cork in the bottle. Max is grabbing wine glasses from the cabinet when the pain hits Will again, it’s sharp and right over his heart, the suddenness of it makes him light headed, blurring his vision and setting him off balance.

“Whoa, Will, are you all right?” Max asks as he stumbles back into the counter. “Yeah- no I’m all good. I think I just turned too quickly or something.” Will quickly covered, hoping to not sound too suspicious.

“Maybe you should hold off on the wine, I’ll drink yours for you.” Max said jokingly, before pouring herself a quite large glass. Will laughs along with her subtly steadying himself before checking on the chicken in the oven.

—---

They hang around in the kitchen for a while longer, Max chops up some vegetables for Will and they quietly gossip about people in their grade they barely know. Will and Max hadn’t been particularly close when she first joined the party, but then sophomore year Max became his lifeline in trigonometry, saving him from a failing grade. After many nights of studying together and many periods whispering to each other about how stupid their classmates were, they became close. Him, Max, and El often all hung out together, they always understood him without him having to say anything. Will would probably start spending a lot more time with them now that Mike was no longer going to hang out with him.

“Oh my god, why are you two taking so long,” Lucas complained bursting into the kitchen. He walked towards Max and hugged her lovingly, the sight makes Will’s head throb. “We’re out there with no alcohol, and I swear to god if I have to hear Dustin complain about chemistry again I’m sure not doing it sober.”

“Well I’m helping Will right now, but you can bring the wine out. How much longer do you think it will be?” Max asked, turning to Will. Will wants to disappear, he feels like he shouldn’t be here, it’s very rare for another member of the party to see Max and Lucas being soft with each other like this. Obviously they’re dating, they’re even bonded, but they usually avoid PDA. Will feels like he should leave them alone. Instead he ducks his head going back to handling the chicken, “You can tell everyone we'll be done in five minutes. Let them know I’m sorry we took so long.”

Lucas leaves and Max and Will finish up dinner. They bring all the food out to the dining room table which El has made look very pretty. There’s fairy lights hung around the room and flowers in vases on the table. El is sitting at the head of the table, she’s laughing at some joke Dustin made, and she looks so happy, Will is proud of her. Mike is sitting with El to his right and with Dustin to his left. Part of Will wanted to try and sit next to him, but that dream is crushed. He finds himself sitting at the other head of the table, with Dustin on one side and Max on the other.

Dinner goes well, everyone seems to like the food, but Mike doesn’t talk to him. It’s not that Mike doesn’t talk, he talks to Lucas, he jokes with El, but he can’t even bring himself to look in Will's direction.

Will suddenly feels nauseated, and he quickly excuses himself to the restroom. When he looks in the mirror he doesn’t quite look like himself. Something in his face looks different, he can’t tell whether it’s good or bad, or even what’s causing it, but he knows something's changed. Soon another wave of nausea hits him and he throws up in the toilet. Will isn’t sure how long he’s been in the bathroom but he knows he can’t leave yet with the nausea still heavily affecting him.

Soon there's a knock on the door, for a split second Will hopes it’s Mike coming to check in on him, but then he hears Lucas’ voice. “Dude, are you all good? You’ve been gone for a while”

Will opens the door slightly just so he can talk to Lucas, “If you come in here you can’t tell anyone, I don’t want to worry them.” Lucas agrees only to take it back as soon as he sees the toilet.

“Will! Come on, you're not okay. What’s going on?” Lucas asks.

“Seriously it’s nothing!”

“I’m going to tell them unless you let me know what’s going on.” Lucas insists and Will realizes that telling Lucas is the lesser of two evils.

“It’s really nothing bad, I just haven’t been feeling the best for a couple of days, but I don’t think it’s a big deal.” Will explains.

“Not a big deal? You’ve been in here for 10 minutes and you’ve thrown up your entire dinner. Talk to me man.”

“Mike’s not talking to me, he’s been super weird all day, and I know why but I don’t want to admit it. And as for throwing up, I don't know. I haven’t been feeling great, maybe something I ate made me a little sick.” Will is talking as quickly as he can trying to get this conversation over with.

“Why isn’t he talking to you?” Lucas is genuinely asking, apparently not having noticed Mike’s odd behavior.

“It’s because I’m a beta. And I don’t know he’s given up on me presenting so that’s it. He just doesn’t want to be my friend anymore.” Will’s eyes are welling up with tears.

“Will, dude, I love you. But your argument has some flaws. You’re literally Mike’s favorite person, he would only ever leave you if he had to. Plus what about Dustin? He’s a beta and that never stopped Mike from being his friend.” And while Will would like to believe that Mike really cares about more than anything, like Lucas said, he currently has proof showing otherwise.

“It’s different with me and him, well it was different I guess. Because unless he miraculously stops avoiding me, I think he’s just done with, well, us.” The words physically pain Will to say, but he has to get them out. Lucas looks sad, but realizes that Will is not going to change his mind because he leaves the restroom and tells Will to join everyone again.

—---

When Will gets back to the table he finds it has been cleared of dinner and people are all cleaning up their dishes and leftover food. El finds him and pulls him into the living room, “Are you okay?” She questions.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry. Something just upset my stomach. Don’t let me ruin the party.”

“As if you could ever ruin the party. Come on, let's pick a movie before they all come in here.” El says while grabbing a box of ancient VHS tapes they only use for movie nights like this one. Eventually the twins pick Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a personal favorite of Will’s. The rest of the party joins them in the living room a few minutes later. They all pile onto the assortment of couches, chairs and bean bags in the room. Will notices that Mike sits by himself on an armchair, as far away from Will as he could be, and he feels his eyes sting. The movie is fun as always and Will finds himself momentarily forgetting that his ‘best friend/person he loves more than anything else’ hates him now. They pause the movie halfway through for cake. Will was a little worried while baking it because he wanted to make sure it was perfect. Lucky enough almost everyone complimented it, said it was delicious, except for Mike who was still avoiding him like the plague.

Will and El sat there as everybody sang to them, everyone ate the cake and seemed happy enough. That was until Will, deep in a conversation with Dustin about which knight of the round table was the best, saw Mike and El leave the room, whispering to each other the entire time. Will knew it wasn’t fair to eavesdrop, and certainly an invasion of privacy, but right now he didn’t care. Under the guise of taking everyone's plates to the kitchen he followed them.

“Mike, you have to tell him. You don’t know how much this could hurt him.” El sounded tired.

“I don’t want to make a big deal of it!” Mike argued back, one of the first times Will has heard his voice all day.

“Oh come on, you really think he can’t realize that something's up.”

Will decides he doesn’t want to hear any more. He thinks he gets the idea anyways, after all he saw this coming. Mike is leaving him, and doesn’t want Will to make a big deal of it. Will is obviously hurt, but the worst part is that now his sister is dragged into it as well, he managed to make her birthday worse. He actually does go to the kitchen, still having to put the plates away. They start the movie again and Will can barely pay attention, he’s so lost in his head, so busy thinking about how this will change everything.

—---

As the rest of the party leaves Will wonders if Mike will want to change his seats in all their classes.

He then belatedly notices that he didn’t see Mike leave with the others. Will is turning to go find El when someone grabs his wrist. Something in him can tell it’s Mike before he turns around, however that doesn’t stop him from slightly gasping when he sees Mike.

“What do you want?” Will’s fight or flight is going off and honestly neither option sounds very appealing to him right now. “You’ve been avoiding me all day, you could barely wish me a happy birthday! And I know I saw this coming, so I really shouldn’t be so hurt, but I thought you would at least still be friends with me for my birthday.” Will is yelling, something he really doesn’t like doing. But with his parents out of the house and El who knows where, he lets himself yell at Mike.

“What, no, no, what are you talking about? I mean I was avoiding you and I’m sorry, but I had a good reason to.” Mike is still holding onto Will’s wrist keeping him close, so no matter how much Will wants to run away right now he’s stuck. Will’s head starts to throb again and his breathing becomes labored. “Will, I need you to take some deep breaths, okay. I wasn’t avoiding you because I don’t want to be your friend anymore, I could never do that. I was avoiding you because you’re close to presenting. I didn’t want to trigger you with everyone here.”

Will is laughing now, out loud laughing, because Mike’s words are so ridiculous. “You know that really cruel Mike, like truly terrible. I know you’re disappointed that I’m a beta, I am too, but that’s so… mean.” Mike is looking at him and this time Will can tell what he’s feeling, Mike is very clearly confused.

“Will I’m not joking, I would never joke about this. I smelled it as soon as I was near you. I didn’t want to let you know while everyone was here. I didn’t want to ruin your birthday.” Mike seems genuine, he really does, but Will is so hurt he can’t bring himself to care.

“Oh yeah, because having my closest friend ignore me all day really made my birthday so much better. What about your conversation with El, after the cake, what was that about?”

“I had told you that I thought you were close to presenting when I first got here, but she didn’t believe me. But then she started smelling it during the movie. She’s calling your guy’s parents right now.” Will feels more conflicted than ever now. Either he really is finally presenting, getting the one thing he’s dreamed of most, or the two people in his life who matter the most to him are trying to break his heart into a million pieces.

El suddenly rushes down the stairs, “Mike you really shouldn’t be here when he presents, our parents are on their way.” El looks much more put together than either Mike or Will do, but she still has a worried look on her face.

“El, no, this isn’t real.” Will is desperately trying to make sense of the situation but the pain in his head is just getting stronger and stronger, he can barely take it.

“Oh Will, I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you earlier, but Mike didn’t want to do it with everyone else here. It’s going to be okay, mom and dad are going to be here soon.” El is now rubbing circles on his back, and while Will would usually appreciate the gesture, right now it feels like just one more thing for him to stress out about.

“El, I can’t just leave. I have to stay here with him.” Mike is basically pleading with El, he looks desperate in a way that Will’s not sure he’s ever seen from Mike before.

“Don’t be stupid Mike, come on you know how much damage you could do to Will if you stay.” El is doing her best to keep her voice level, but Will can hear it waver a bit.

“It’s fine no one has to leave, because I’m not presenting.” Will is so quiet he’s surprised that Mike and El even hear him, but they do, both turning to face him.

El looks at him, not quite sad, not quite pitying, “Will, you’ve been feeling sick all week, what do you think was causing that?” When he thinks about it, it is odd that stress was causing all of those symptoms, “It’s okay, we’re not messing with you. We just want you to be safe, and that’s why Mike has to leave.”

Mike looks mad, but not mad like he was at Troy the other day, he almost looks mad at himself, “Fine, I’ll go. But Will, you need to know that I’m always here for you. I shouldn’t have ignored you, I really thought that I was helping, but I wasn’t and I was a jerk, and I’m so so sorry. I’ll find a way to make it up to you I promise, but I will never abandon you, no matter what happens, you’re always my favorite person.”

Will is still processing Mike’s words as he walks towards the door, Will wants to say something back to him, he doesn’t know what, but he can barely think with his head getting worse.

As Mike goes to open the door, it swings open before he can reach it. Will’s mom and dad are there, and all of the sudden Will can smell. Like really smell for the first time ever, the scents are overwhelming and he can’t tell whose are whose, all he can tell is that it’s too much. The nausea hits harder than it has all week, and Will throws up on the dining room floor.

Chapter Text

Mike smells delicious, like he smells seriously perfect in Will’s opinion. He smells like amber, cedar, something soft and sweet that Will can’t quite place. Will is still new to scents, like brand new having presented about two minutes ago, but it’s easy to tell that it’s Mike’s scent, and not somebody else's, since he is currently laying on him. The two are cuddled up on the floor as the chaos of the Byers house continues around them.

The last five hours of Will’s life had basically been a fever dream, it’s him and his sister's 17th birthday. His best friend avoided him all day long. The aforementioned best friend told him that Will was about to present, they fought, Will presented just like he’d said he would. And finally Will promptly threw up right as his parents got home. His father was currently cleaning up the mess, and his mother was talking with his sister about exactly what had gone down. Will felt warm, very warm, which was odd seeing as he usually ran cold, he was also very uncomfortable. The logical part of his brain was telling him that all of these symptoms were because he was going into heat, which makes sense seeing as he just presented as an omega. However, that logical part of his brain is not being very loud, and is very overpowered by the section of his brain that just wants to be as physically close to Mike as possible.

Mike is hugging him, whispering comforting things in his ear, and most importantly smells so good. Will never realized that anyone or anything could smell so perfect. Will feels vaguely jealous that all his friends, excluding Dustin, have been able to smell Mike for years.

The logical part of his brain tries talking sense into him, reminding Will that he is a brand new omega, and Mike is an unmated alpha, and he really should not be this close to him right now. While Will tries to ignore that part of his brain, he can feel his heat getting worse.

“Will, you’re burning up. I should go.” Mike seems to be thinking the exact same thing as Will. He starts to shift, moving Will off of him, Will however does not like this. He holds onto Mike as tight as he can, hoping that eventually Mike will just give in and stay with him.

“Come on sweetie,” Will’s mom is now no longer talking to El, but instead looking down to where the two of them are sitting on the floor. “Mike’s got to go, but he can come and visit you later.”

“You heard her, and I really can’t have your mom angry at me, your dad already dislikes me enough for the both of them.” Will does not like what he’s hearing nor what's happening around him, because once Mike is done talking he starts to stand up and move away from Will. Will lets out a whine, a sound he doesn’t think he’s ever made before. He doesn’t even know why, it just felt so natural. Mike was leaving and it seemed like it would stop him, it was instinctual. It works for a second, Mike freezes after hearing the sound and makes eye contact with Will. Will sees Mike flush, and notices Mike’s scent change, the cedar takes over his scent, almost erasing the sweet notes. Will once again isn’t sure how he knows this, but Mike smells horny. Just hearing Will whine made him horny, Will does it again and pulls Mike towards him. It works and Mike sways towards him, visibly affected by Will’s behavior.

“Mike, please don’t leave me. I need you to help me, it feels so much better when you’re here.” Will whimpers out and Mike seemingly gives in, joining Will on the floor again. He feels so much better with Mike right next to him again, but the heat is still getting worse. Just as Will nuzzles into Mike’s neck, trying to have as little space between them as possible, Mike is suddenly pulled away from him. Will is not pleased with this development, as he looks up he sees his father pulling Mike, his Mike, towards the door, putting more distance between Mike and Will.

“Okay kid, thanks for helping and all but get out of my house.” Will hates this, Mike is getting further and further away from him, Hop is practically dragging him out. And as Mike gets closer to the door Will’s heat hits him harder than it had been earlier, Mike is pushed out of the Byers house and for the second time this week Will passes out.

—---

Will really should be familiar with passing out by now, but despite his incident last week waking up after passing out is still scary. He’s laying on a hospital bed, the fluorescents are making his head hurt, and he’s definitely groggy, but Will actually feels much better than before he passed out. Will doesn’t know how long he’s been out, but with his heat seemingly gone it must’ve been a while. The smells are less intense in the hospital, covered by scent blockers, but Will can still slightly smell them, a reminder that him presenting actually happened.

Will sits there for what feels like a long time, but is probably actually only a couple of minutes, when a doctor enters. His mother follows the doctor in and immediately runs to his side. “Oh sweetie, I’m so glad you’re awake.” Seeing her feels surreal, there are bags under her eyes. Will’s mom smells comforting and familiar, she smells like jasmine and honey. Not quite as good as Mike smells, still good, but a different good.

“How long have I been out?” Will questions. He’s vaguely expecting an answer like three days, however instead the doctor informs him it’s been three hours. “I’m Dr. Owens. We have you on some medicine that is holding your heat off for now. How are you feeling?”

“I’m definitely tired. Um, I’m a little uncomfortable, but not like how I was earlier, I’m doing better.” Will's head isn’t hurting for the first time in almost a week, it’s really nice even if he had to pass out for it to happen. “When will my heat come back?”

“It could be anywhere from two hours to a whole day, but no matter how long it takes to come back it will come back stronger than before.” Dr. Owens then looks at his clipboard, “Which brings me to our next topic. As we can tell you presented quite late, that’s why your symptoms were so bad beforehand, they had been building up for a while. Your predicted presentation was over a year ago. There are multiple things that could have caused this delay, we’re running some blood tests. I think it’s likely to be anemia, which if it is can easily be treated with some iron pills. However things will get more complicated if it’s caused by something like diabetes.”

“We’re going to give you some time to rest sweetheart, you’ve had quite the birthday.” His mom is walking to the door, and while Will would usually like her to stay with him, right now he likes the idea of being alone. “We’ll be back when the results of your blood tests come back.”

His mom and Dr. Owens leave the room and Will feels like he can really think for the first time in a long time. He finally has what he’s always wanted. Will Byers is an omega, his instincts weren’t wrong, they were right, he was right, Mike was right. Will is exactly what he was always supposed to be. Speaking of Mike. Will should probably apologize to him, after all Mike was right about him presenting. This opens up all sorts of doors for the two of them, now Will has a chance, not that there isn’t still doubt, but Mike has been so kind. Mike had tried to help him, and with a little persuasion Mike had even wanted to stay with him, was a relationship really that far of a reach. Obviously Will likes the idea of spending his heat with Mike, it certainly gets his hormones excited, but hasn't he always wanted this with Mike? It’s true that now his emotions are less romantic and more… forceful, but Will has dreamed of having Mike in some way or another for years. He loves him, maybe always has, and now this thing that has been sitting between them for so long finally feels possible.

Will feels a certain calm, he’s been so stressed out as of late, always worried or depressed about his designation. Now that’s all over and he can finally take a break. He misses Mike’s scent, he longs for it, and realizes his heat may start coming back sooner rather than later. His instincts, these feelings he’s never had before, tell him that he’s got maybe two hours before he’s in the rough of it again. Even though Will should maybe worry about this, find his mom and let her know that they shouldn't be in the hospital for much longer, he lets himself have a little more alone time.

Even with Will’s plan to get some time to himself, it’s actually only a couple more minutes before the doctor comes back, this time joined by his dad along with his mom. “We just got your blood tests back and you have low iron, just like I predicted. That explains both you passing out today and the other week. It’s a super easy fix, I’m just going to prescribe you some iron pills.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but do you think we could also put him on birth control?” Will feels his face rapidly flush at his mothers question, “Mom!” he blurts out. “I’m sorry sweetie but it’s important to be safe. It’s just a precautionary measure, but I still think it’s a good idea. I went on birth control after I presented.” Will currently has the urge to do something extreme like hit his head against a wall, however rather than doing that he stays in his hospital bed and blushes bright red.

“Of course, we can add birth control to the medication list, after all, better safe than sorry. Now Will, can you tell how much time you have left before your heat will come back?”

“Well… I’m not exactly sure, I mean I’m still new to this and all. But I feel like it’s close, I’ve got maybe like an hour or two.”

“That’s much sooner than I expected,” Dr. Owens looks almost nervous now. “That means the heat is likely going to be extremely strong. I usually don’t recommend this for new omegas, but it may be a good idea for Will to have an alpha during his heat, without one it will be truly miserable for him.”

Hopper hadn’t said anything up to this moment, though he hadn’t looked particularly happy. At first Will thought he was mad at him, however he quickly realized that he wasn’t mad, he was just worried for Will. “Excuse me! You have no right to suggest that. Our son has just presented and you’re saying he should spend his very first heat with an alpha!”

“It was just a suggestion, but having something alpha related will make the heat much easier. If he has an alpha he’s particularly close to something with their scent on it, like clothes to make his nest, would be helpful.” With the doctor's words his parents share a look, as if they are having a full conversation with each other without saying a word. “Wasn’t there an alpha waiting outside for him?”

Will realizes Dr. Owens must be confused, it’s probably just El outside, “Oh that’s just my sister.” However after he says that his parents share a slightly guilty look. “El is out there waiting for you, but she’s not out there alone. She’s keeping Mike company.”

Will feels almost light headed again, all this time he spent thinking about how he can have a future with Mike, he was 30 feet away, waiting for Will. “But, we’ve been here for like four hours.”

“We’re lucky I managed to get him to even visit home and let his mom know what was happening.” Hopper grumbled out.

“We have school tomorrow.” Will says dumbly. “Well you definitely don’t have school tomorrow, but Wheeler does.” His dad scoffs out.

“Mike does want to talk to you, he was very worried for you. I don’t want you spending this heat with anyone, but I think Mike may have something for you that will make it a little easier.” His mom is clearly choosing her words carefully, “You can talk to him, but I don’t think we want you spending your heat with him. If we had to pick anyone he would be it, but it’s your first heat and you can’t really make a choice right now.”

Will's heart twists at the words, obviously he wants to see Mike, to talk to him, but he wants so much more than that. However, knowing his parents, nothing is going to change their mind right now.

Will’s parents leave with the doctor, and Mike walks in. Mike is handsome, even now when he’s clearly tired and stressed out, there’s no denying that Will finds him attractive. He visibly relaxes when he sees Will and ends up at his side.

“How are you?” Mike’s voice is soft and Will feels so much calmer around him.

“I’m okay, my heat’s being put off right now but it’s supposed to come back really soon, in like an hour or something.” Mike reaches out for Will’s hand and starts to rub his thumb up and down in a comforting gesture. “Did they figure out what caused it to come so late?”

“Yeah, apparently I’m anemic, that’s why I keep fainting. They’re putting on some iron supplements to help with that in the future.” Mike nods his head along to Will’s words, clearly relieved that nothing is terribly wrong.

“You said your heat was coming back in an hour, isn’t that a little soon?” Mike asked, brows furrowing.

“Um- Yeah. It was sooner than the doctors were expecting which apparently means it’s going to be like super strong. It’s going to be so intense that they even suggested I have an alpha to spend it with.”

Up until now Mike had at least been pretending to be calm, but apparently breaks him. “What! They can’t do that, it's your first heat!” Mike’s not quite yelling, but no longer using the soft voice he usually uses when he talks to Will.

“Trust me, anything you can say my dad already did. He really tore into the doctor.” Will weighs his options now, because there is some universe where Will casually mentions that he had wanted to spend his heat with Mike and everything miraculously works out. “They- Well my parents said that if I were to spend my heat with an alpha they would be okay with it being you. But you know they don’t want me spending it with anyone and… yeah.”

“Oh” Mike is really looking at him now, there quiet for a minute, Will not knowing how to respond, or save this mess of a confession.

“Would you pick me as the alpha, if you had to be with one during your heat?” Mike looks hopeful now, awaiting Will’s answer.

“Yeah, of course I’d pick you. Nobody else even comes close.” Mike smiles at him, a soft and genuine smile, the kind that reaches the eyes and seems permanent.

“Well I know your dad would kill me if I were to actually stay with you right now, but I may have something that could help,” Mike grabs something out from a bag that Will hadn’t even noticed until now. Mike pulls out some of his clothes, a sweater that he had worn earlier this week, a Weezer t-shirt, and a couple of other things that Will recognizes as being Mike’s. “You obviously don’t have to take them, but if you wanted to you could use them in your nest. I grabbed them from home before I came here, I’ve just heard that sometimes an alphas scent can help.”

“Thank you, really I’ll use them. I- I love your scent.” Will says, flushing.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Um, how do I smell, you know now that I’ve presented?”
“You really want to know?” Will nods, slightly nervous, “You smell so fucking good. You smell like honey and smoke, but not like cigarette smoke more like a campfire, and cinnamon. It’s so good, and it fits you, it’s perfect.” Will feels himself flush at the compliments.

It’s not much longer before Will’s parents come back into the room, this time also accompanied by El, and let him know that it’s time to go back home. That’s when reality really sets in, Will is about to go through his first heat.

Chapter Text

Will truly doesn’t know if he’s ever been this miserable, sure he’s had some pretty shitty days, but truly nothing compares to the pain he feels right now laying in his nest. He’s surrounded by Mike’s clothes, and while they should be helping Will stay slightly sane, the smell of Mike without actually having him here to help Will is driving him crazy.

Will feels so empty, in a way he didn’t even know was possible. He’s been here for what may have been hours, but also may have been days, doing nothing but writhe in pain, aiming for release of any kind. He’s changed now, physically, and hasn’t really processed this fact, but how can he when all he wants is for Mike to be there with him. Okay, that’s a lie, he wants so much more. He wants Mike to fuck him, to have him in anyway he sees fit. Sure Will had occasionally had vague fantasies about Mike, but presenting has made them so much clearer, and much more carnal.

Will starts to feel hungry around what he assumes is the third day of his heat. Both his mom and sister have come in, leaving him food, but Will has been barely lucid enough to notice its existence, let alone eat it.

His being able to comprehend any feeling outside of horniness must mean that his heat is coming to an end. This time when his mom enters the room, with a sandwich and glass of orange juice, Will forces himself to sit up, pulling away from the comforting smell of his nest.

“How are you doing sweetie?” his mom asks, approaching to take his temperature.

“I’m doing better, at least I think I am, but it still hurts” even talking feels exhausting.

“That’s normal, especially after your first heat. You were out for a while you know, almost five whole days. I notice there's a lot of Mike’s clothes in that nest of yours.” Will is so focused on processing how long he’s been out, he almost misses his mothers gentle teasing, almost.

“Um- yeah. He gave me some of his clothes when we were at the hospital. I think they helped me.” Will feels his face flush at the words.

“Well I’m glad they helped you. Mike’s been very worried for you. He’s called the house every single day asking about you, but your dad wouldn’t let him come over. However I may be able to convince Hop to let him visit while you recover.” His mom’s words make Will feel better than anything, knowing that Mike was worried about him, that Mike had wanted to be here and help, it all makes the discomfort fade away.
“I would like that,” Will says in a casual tone, attempting to feign nonchalance, but he can tell his mom doesn’t buy it.

—---

By the time Mike arrives Will is back to being desperate. It’s nowhere near as bad as it was earlier, but Will is still on edge and filled with lust. In preparation for Mike’s visit, Will has slipped on a pair of shorts and a sweatshirt from his nest, which he realizes must be one of Mike’s when it pools around his shoulders. The scent of Mike on the sweatshirt is nice, but it’s nothing compared to when Mike actually enters his bedroom.

Typically Will would be self-conscious in a situation like this, barely dressed and in a room that smells like his slick, but whether because of all his hormones or just because it’s Mike, Will can’t bring himself to care.

At first neither of them say anything, simply taking in the other after their week apart from each other, before Mike eventually breaks the silence. “Hi… How are you feeling?” Before Will can respond Mike cuts him off, “I’m sorry, that was such a stupid question. You can totally ignore that if you want.” Will can’t help but giggle at the sight of his best friend tripping over his words.

“No really, it’s okay. To be honest I’m feeling much better. I’m still definitely feeling… some of the effects. But it’s seriously nothing compared to earlier.”

“Yeah, that’s good,” Mike takes a careful step towards Will’s nest, like he’s worried if he gets too close Will is going to clam up or run away. “Did having my stuff, ya know, help? If not, that's totally fine, no pressure, but I was just curious." Will isn’t sure how much he should reveal. Obviously he knows he shouldn’t tell Mike he spent the entire time dreaming of being fucked by the alpha, no matter how true it is, but he also wants Mike to know that it really matters to him.

“I mean it definitely helped,” Will starts, choosing his words carefully, “But it actually just made me wish you were here.”

“Really?” Mike asks, sounding hopeful. “Yeah,” Will briefly hesitates before deciding to go for it, “I thought about you a lot.”At first Mike’s quiet and Will becomes worried he’s said too much, that is until he’s hit with a strong wave of alpha pheromones. The smell is similar to the ones Will smelled the other day, the ‘horny’ ones. These are more stable, but still very bold, like a mix of pride and pleasure, Mike is happy that Will was thinking of him.
“Good, I’m glad. Is there anything I could do to help you now?”Mike somehow sounds almost as desperate as Will feels. Will shuffles around in the nest for a second, creating a space big enough for the two of them to cuddle together. “Would you want to come in?” Will offers, suddenly feeling very self-aware.

“Really? I mean obviously I want to, but are you sure?” Will nods in the affirmative and Mike delicately joins him in the nest made of their clothes. As soon as they touch the heat underneath Will’s skin settles and he feels fuzzy. He instinctively nuzzles into Mike’s scent, letting him enjoy the comfort it provides him.

“I’m really glad you’re okay. I was really scared for you. I swear to god, if I ever have to see you pass out again…” Mike’s voice trails off and Will can smell him become more protective. “Your dad was so sick of me begging to see you. If he didn’t like me before, he certainly doesn’t like me now.”

“I would’ve liked it if you were here during it.” Will admits quietly, as if that would prevent Mike from hearing it despite their closeness. “Yeah?” Mike’s voice is low and rough now, like he’s holding back. “Yeah, wish you would help right now.” Will can feel himself losing his voice of reason, no longer feeling fully sane. “Is this not helping?”

“No it is,” Will lifts his eyes to meet Mike’s, “I just wish you would really help.” Realization dawns on Mike’s face and he brings up a hand to cradle Will’s cheek.

“Oh Will, you and I both know I couldn’t do that to you right now,” Will lets out a whine, further swooning into Mike’s touch, “Trust me, I wish I could do more. But it wouldn’t be fair of me to do that, not right now. But I’ll stay with you, I’ll be here as long as you want me.” Will wants to tell him that there will never be a time when he doesn’t want him, but before the words can leave his mouth his eyes grow heavy. The exhaustion of the past week finally hits Will, and in a minute he’s out cold.

—---

To say that Will is scared to go back to school is an understatement. Despite both Mike and El assuring him that pretty much everyone would ignore his change in presentation, he still feels nervous. Will wasn’t just an omega, he was a male omega, that combined with the fact that he presented so late made it so people would notice. Will wasn’t naive, whenever there was a shocking presentation rumours were bound to fly around the school, he had no reason to believe his presentation would be any different.

One thing Will wasn’t worried about changing was the party dynamic, not only were his friends great and caring people who wouldn’t care about his presentation, but he had also always acted as the omega of the group. He wasn’t scared of how they would react to his presentation, though he’s sure they know, it’s everybody else who scares him.

One comfort however was the fact that Mike had promised to not leave his side all day. Mike of course had decided that his protection of Will would start as early as possible, this meant that once again the Byers twins had a ride to school.

“Hey, Will sit up front.” Mike said as they reached his car, “Anything dangerous in the backseat I should look out for?” El rolled her eyes.

“Ha ha,” Mike said dryly, “Just get in the car.” Mike then turned his attention to Will, softening his voice, ‘Ready for today? I’ll be with you the entire time. And if something happens, no matter how small it is, I want you to tell me.”

As Will starts to agree, El joins in again, “Seriously, as sweet as you’re being, can we at least do this all at school?” Mike obliges and pulls his car out of the Byers’ driveway. The entire ride to school Mike keeps his right hand propped up against the back of Will’s seat, hovering by his neck, as if to reassure him.

Once they reach the school they park in Mike’s usual spot and head into the building. Will does feel some people look in their direction for a little longer than usual, but there was no malice behind it. Mike leans in close and whispers in Will’s ear that people are probably just adjusting to the new scent. That’s another thing that’s bothering him, everybody's scents. While most of the omega ones aren’t that bad, some of the alpha ones are so overpowering, they make Will want to throw up, especially with so many it’s super overwhelming.

As promised Mike stays glued to his side, glaring at anyone who looks at Will for a second too long. They walk close, shoulder bumping every couple of steps, and in one particularly busy hallway Mike’s hand graces Will’s lower back, guiding him through the chaos.

When they reach the cafeteria Will is loudly greeted by Dustin. “Hey! Look who’s finally back.” Will quietly shushes him, not wanting to garner any more attention. “Here,” Max says patting the seat besides her and motioning for Will to sit down next to her. Will takes the seat and Mike quickly follows, getting the other one next to him.

The group talks around him, but Will mainly stays quiet, too focused on being ready for the upcoming day. Max nudges him occasionally and he joins the conversation for a minute before zoning out again. Max seems very pleased that he’s an omega too, like she’s glad to have his company, after all Will is certainly glad to have hers.

As the first bell of the day rings Will gets up to go to class, Lucas pulls him aside quickly before he can get too far. “Hey, I’m really glad you’re doing well.” Mike is watching the conversation closely, but Will ignores him and instead keeps on talking with Lucas. “Yeah, thank you so much for reassuring me, you were right. I was just so nervous, and my judgement was a bit clouded.” Will admits. “No, don’t worry about it. All that matters is that you’re feeling better.”

Will is really grateful for his friends, he genuinely doesn’t know how he would do anything without them. He knows they will always be by his side, which Mike of course confirms as he pulls him close and leads him to their first class.

—---

So far this day is shaping out to be one of the most awkward one’s ever and he’s only made it through two periods. He knows people have been staring at him, he’s heard his name quickly spoken in hushed tones, hell even the teachers aren’t being subtle about it.

After second period, his history teacher, Mrs. Clarkson, pulls him aside. She’s a nice teacher, but this knowledge fails to alleviate Will’s nerves. Mike patiently waits outside the classroom as Will hangs back to talk to her.

“Hi Will,” she certainly doesn’t sound mad, “I have obviously been updated on your situation, and I’m so glad that you’re back in class. Don’t stress about getting in the work you missed while you were out, take your time with it. What I really wanted to talk to you about was your alpha.” Will is confused and prepared to question her about it, but she continues talking before he gets the chance. “I promise I’m not mad that you two are sitting next to each other. Especially since you’ve just presented it’s completely normal to want your alpha close.” It takes Will a second, but he realizes she’s talking about Mike, “But if something ever changes and you don’t want to sit next to him just let me know.”

She thinks that Mike is his alpha, she thinks that Will is Mike’s omega. Even though Will knows that’s not the case, hearing someone else say it still excites him. He quickly nods before bolting out of the classroom, not knowing how else to respond.

When he makes it to where Mike is waiting for him he grabs his arm and continues to walk. “Hey, what happened. Are you all good?” Will is going so quickly that Mike is having trouble keeping up despite his longer legs. “Nothing she just wanted to let me know what I had missed while I was out.” Mike clearly doesn’t buy it, and continues to push for a more satisfying answer, “Then why are we running away?”

“Because it took a couple of minutes, so if we go any slower we’re going to be late to class.” There is truth behind his words, the bell is going to ring soon, so whether Mike can tell that this is another bluff or not, he decides to drop the topic.

Mike finally talks again when the reach the language wing, and they have to split up for the first time that day. “I’ll meet you out here once the bell rings,” Mike promises before barreling into Spanish.

Will really likes Latin, even though none of his friends take the class with him. Dustin actually also takes Latin, but he is certainly not in the honors course with Will. When Will enters he notices that the seating arrangement had been changed in his absence. Before he has time to stress over it a kind omega waves him over to his table. Upon further inspection Will recognizes her as Mina, the very same Mina that El is crushing on.

“Hey you’re Will, El’s twin right?” God, El is going to freak out when Will tells her about this. “Yeah, you’re Mina right?” The girl gives an enthusiastic nod, “I think we’re also in art together. I’ve seen your work before and you’re like super good.”

They continue to talk throughout the class as they conjugate verbs. Will could see El and Mina together, the way Mina anxiously second guesses herself with the way El stays steadfast and reassuring balances out perfectly. He also notes how Mina lightly flushes when he mention El making varsity softball.

Talking to her sufficiently distracts Will from his worries. The only time he remembers how stressed he is about the day is when Mike is brought up. “Ugh, it must be nice to have an alpha already. I presented about a year ago and I’ve barely even flirted with an alpha.” Will is conflicted, not sure whether to push her to flirt with his sister, or admit that no matter how much he wants it Mike is not his alpha. In the end neither comes out and instead he just sputters, “Oh- um… y-yeah.”

When the class ends Will exits with Mina, and lo and behold, Mike is waiting for him, just as promised. Will waves goodbye to Mina and promises to sit with her in Art later that day before joining Mike. “Who was that?” A sneer graces Mike’s face, and Will struggles to tamp down a chuckle at his dramatic behavior. “This girl Mina, we have Latin and Art together,” When these words don’t erase the wary look Mike is sporting Will adds, “El has a crush on her. Come on lets get lunch so I can tell her all about it.”

The rest of the week goes on in the same fashion, Will spends Latin and Art with Mina, who he has convinced to go to one of El’s games with him, and every other waking moment with Mike. Mike who’s being so caring and gentle with him, Mike who everyone keeps calling his alpha, Mike who is always there for him.

Other peoples behavior around Will has changed a bit, and while he does get some dirty looks, for the most part people are actually nicer to him. It’s not just Mina, other omegas seem more comfortable being around him, and alphas and betas are more careful around him. Will knows there are people who won’t like him, he’s heard the stories of omegas, male and female, who weren’t careful enough, trusted the wrong people. Lucky for him, he knows he trusts the right person, Mike will keep him safe.

—---

Look Will knows he’s made a mistake, or series of mistakes, that’s led him here. He really should’ve known better, he had been back at school for almost two weeks with nothing going wrong, he knew that wouldn’t last forever. It started during Art, Will had been so busy talking to Mina, that he had completely forgot to clean up, once the bell rang he still had to wash all of his brushes, and get all of his stuff away. This should’ve been red flag number 1, after all last time he had been alone in the art wing it had not gone well.

The next thing was that when he finally finished up, Mike wasn’t waiting outside the room for Will like he normally did. Instead Will had a text from him, Going to the bathroom, wait for me? Rather than stay outside the art room like Mike had asked, Will went to his locker, after all Mike’s 7th period was on the other side of the school, and Will’s locker was so close, he would probably beat Mike back.

He made it to his locker, grabbed his books, and just as he turned to go meet Mike he heard an all too familiar voice. “Look who’s finally all alone.” Troy looked as cruel as ever. Will was tempted to point out where is nose was slightly crooked from Mike breaking it, but that would only provoke him more.

“Troy leave me alone, seriously, I don’t want to talk with you. You got in plenty of trouble last time. I can’t imagine you want to go through that again.” Troy laughed, “Well then, I’ll just have to make sure you don’t tell anybody then,” Troy started backing Will into the lockers just like he had the previous time, “I think I want that kiss now.”
“No, no. No Troy please, just leave me alone.” Will begged. “Oh but now I would actually want you. Now you’re actually worth it.” Will felt stuck, he knew physically he couldn’t take Troy down, he was half a foot taller and twice his weight. Even if he couldn’t fight, he could run. He was skinny enough that he could fit through the space between Troy’s arms and the wall.

He made the dash, leaving his bag on the floor in front of his locker. He ran as fast as he could, not even aware which hallways he was running through, just doing anything to get away from Troy. Will had just decided to run towards the English department, and hopefully find Mike, when he ran straight into somebodies chest.

As he looked up arms wrapped around him, it was Chance, and alpha. “Woah, whats wrong,” Will vaguely knew Chance, he was in his Art class, and if Will remembered correctly very bad at it. He was also on the basketball team with Lucas, he had seen him at a party or two. “It’s Troy, Troy Walsh. He cornered me, again and- I just ran. I think he’s following-” Will’s rushed words were cut off with and very displeased Troy running into the hallway.

“I swear to god Byers, you really are a bitch. Refuse to let me touch you and then run into the arms of another alpha, an alpha that’s not yours.” Will flinched at his words and realized that Chance was still holding him. Chance carefully let go and walked in front of him, shielding Will from Troy’s angry glare. “You can’t say that shit about him okay? You have no right to him. You know he has an alpha, yet you’re still chasing him. You’re terrible.”

“Yeah, like you’re any better, protecting him, you know he’s not going to spread his legs for you?” Their scents are so overwhelmingly angry right now. To be honest Chance’s smells kind of nice, not as nice as Mike but nice, but Troy’s is nausea inducing. “You’re a real asshole.” And with those words Chance winds up and punches Troy, once again hitting his nose perfectly.

Chapter Text

The Hawkins High School office really is a miserable place to be. The lights were old fluorescents that fizzled in and out with a frequency that made Will’s head hurt. The sofa he was sitting on was lumpy and had an odd odor vaguely reminiscent of cheese.

Troy had gone down pretty quickly after Chance hit him, he tried to fight back but couldn’t manage it before hitting the ground. Will had been scared, well he still was scared, but at least now he was in the office with lots of people, earlier when he was alone with Chance was when he was really scared. Sure Chance didn’t seem as scary as Troy by any means, but Will didn’t really know him, and being alone with any alpha except his friends left him on edge at the moment.

Chance had immediately told Will to go to the office and that he would make sure Troy got there, so Will didn’t actually have much time to stress about it before he hurried away. The office staff had been nice enough to him, comforting him in his state of worry and getting him to calm down enough to relay what happened to the admin.

Eventually Chance joined him and let him know that Troy was in the nurses office. Chance didn’t say much after that, just sitting next to him, not on the couch but a nearby chair waiting for someone to come in and talk to them about what had happened.

There’s a sudden ruckus in the hall outside, someone running around, yelling, although Will can’t tell what they’re saying. It gets louder and louder until Mike bursts into the room, clearly worried. Will immediately straightens once he sees him. In one hand he has Will’s backpack, in the other his phone. Mike visibly calms down when he makes eye contact with Will and immediately rushes to his side.

“Hey, hey, oh my god. Are you okay?” Mike is on his knees in front of where Will is sitting, grabbing onto Will’s face and inspecting it for any signs of harm. Once he confirms that Will isn’t injured he pulls him into a tight hug. “Oh fuck, I was so so worried,” he starts, one of the office aides shoots him a quick ‘Language’, to which he rolls his eyes and continues. “I went to the art room and you weren’t there. I tried calling you but no one picked up, and then your stuff was in your locker but you were gone. I tried calling again but your phone was in your bag with me. Eventually I went to the nurses office, they told me what had happened and I immediately ran here” Mike pulls back enough to make eye contact with Will, but not enough that they have to separate, “I don’t know if I’ve ever been that afraid before.”

Will pulls him up off of the ground and onto the spot on the couch next to him, slightly hesitating before letting himself lean into Mike. “I’m sorry.”

Will is sorry, it was his fault, he left the art room, he didn’t text Mike where he was going, he should’ve known better.

“No, that’s not what this is, okay? I’m not mad at you, not now, not ever. I’m mad a Troy fucking Walsh.”

“Okay,” Will really doesn’t mean it to come out this way, but he sounds dejected, like he doesn’t believe Mike’s words. “I’m glad you’re here. Did El go home?”

“Yeah she went with Max and Dustin, I actually told her to go home without us before this all went down. I was going to see if you wanted to go study at the library together after school, but that’s probably not going to happen now.”

“Oh.” Will pushes himself deeper into Mike’s shoulder when Mr. Ross enters looking exhausted. “I notice that you two are back,” He says nodding in Mike and Will’s direction. Will folds in on himself, already feeling guilty for the situation, but Mike puffs out his chest, ready to come to his defense.

“Mr. Byers, Mr. Wheeler, neither of you are in any trouble, Mr. Romanillos we have yet to decide what to do with you yet. We would like to hear your side of the story since we’ve already heard from Mr. Byers and Mr. Walsh.” Will can’t help but wince at the mention of Troy.

“Fine, but really Walsh should be the only one to get in trouble here, everything I did was out of self defense,”

“Just tell us what happened”

“I had basketball practice, like usual, but I forgot to take my duffel to the locker room so I was going to get it. I was walking there when Will ran into me, he was clearly spooked about something so I asked what was wrong. He could barely tell me before Troy showed up, he had been chasing him. Troy was being a crude asshole, and I swear he was getting violent, but I don’t think he was going to attack me. But I think he was gonna go for Will. So I punched him, and that son of a bitch deserved it.”

“Please don’t curse at school.” Mr. Ross grumbled briefly looking up from a notepad in front of him, “Mr. Byers, I just want to clarify what exactly did Mr. Walsh say to you?”

“I mean pretty much the same things he did last time, he- he wanted to kiss me again.” Will hates having to relive this “I think the only difference is that I ran, if I hadn’t I have no idea what would have happened to me.” Mike’s arm makes it over his shoulders, even though this action usually brings him comfort, right now it’s just one more thing that stresses Will out, he needs to leave this room.

“I’m sorry, can I go get some water?”

“Of course, take as much time as you need,” Mike starts to get up to join him before Mr. Ross adds, “I would like to talk to these two alone anyways.”

Will leaves the office and walks up and down the empty halls for a minute, feeling just as overwhelmed as he had before he presented. Even though he hadn’t been hurt this time, Will feels as if this incident with Troy hurts his head more. The bubble he’s been living in for the past two weeks has finally burst, he can’t keep being so careless, thinking people don’t care that he’s an omega, letting people think that Mike is his alpha, and not facing any repercussions.

Will eventually stops his pacing at a water fountain within view of the office. As he leaned down to take a sip, Will can’t help but wonder how Mike would react if he heard people calling Will his omega. He's pretty sure he hasn’t heard it yet because he would certainly say something. Maybe he would be angry, offended that people could even think such a thing, or maybe he would just ignore it, after all he would know that there’s no truth behind the words. Just thinking about it made Will want to cry, but a lot of things made him want to cry right now.

He couldn’t help wondering what Mr. Ross was talking to Mike and Chance about, he was sure it had to do with him, but he wished he could know the details. He stood there in the hallway for another minute or two, staring at the office door, as if willing it to open, or to suddenly be able to hear whatever was being discussed inside. When nothing happened Will turned around to do another lap, not ready to head back in yet.

This time around Will thought of Chance, the alpha was undeniably good looking, Will couldn’t deny that. It was one thing Will had noticed at the basketball games of Lucas’ he had been to. If he recalled correctly, he was also pretty good at basketball, not that Will actually had much data to base that assumption off of, he might know more if he paid more attention to the games he attended and less to Mike.

Most importantly Chance had been good to him. He could have let Troy at him, but he hadn’t, not only had he stopped Troy from attacking Will, but he had taken action when Troy was saying all those cruel things.

Will tried to picture what it would be like to kiss Chance. His brain however couldn’t help but let tan skin shift to porcelain pale, the thick waves tangle into short curls, his brain even went the extra mile of scent in his head transforming from one of rain to the cedar scent he was so familiar with by now.

No matter how hard he tried, Will just couldn’t picture himself with anyone but Mike. Even with Chance protecting him, and being an alpha, he felt no urge to submit to him in the same way he did when Mike did just about anything these days.

Mike really was everything to him, he was smart, loyal, and always unfailingly kind. Well he was to Will at least, when they were little Mike was actually really mean to the other kids, especially when they tried to befriend Will. It would usually take their teachers about a week of class before they realized Mike wouldn’t behave unless he sat next to Will and Will alone. In fact in third grade they had spent the first week of school in separate classes until Mike threw such a big fit they transferred him into Will’s class.

And while Will doesn’t always like to admit it, he's not much better. He yearns for Mike, he would do anything Mike asked of him, he just can’t find it in himself to resist him. Even when they were kids he would follow Mike anywhere, agree with him no matter what. Maybe that knowledge was what clued him in all those years ago and made him realize that he was in love with Mike.

That same love was what kept him there when Mike started to date his sister, kept him hoping and praying that one day he would wake up as an omega. Now he almost has what he’s always wanted, the right presentation, Mike, who people keep calling his alpha, always nearby, willing to protect him. Yet it still feels so far away, it’s not like he’s kissed Mike, despite his begging the other week he hasn’t felt Mike everywhere, taking control of him, and most importantly he doesn’t even know if Mike feels the same.

Will would like to stress about this more, but decides he can’t when he notices he has once again made it back to the high school office. He lightly knocks on the door before entering, even though he knows he doesn’t need to. When Will enters he can tell something has changed. It looks identical to how it did when he left, Mike sitting broodily next to Will’s empty seat on the couch, Chance tiredly lounging on the arm chair, and Mr. Ross watches over the two of them from his desk in the middle of the room. The difference is in the smell, Mike’s especially since Will is so familiar with it, where earlier it smelled worried, now it's angry.

Will’s first thought is that Chance mentioned Troy calling Mike is alpha and now he’s mad at him, but then Mike turns to him and his gaze softens. “Sorry I took so long, I didn’t want to interrupt your conversation.”

Will awkwardly make his way back to his seat, hating how he can feel the eyes of everyone in the room follow him as he moves. He sits down on the couch, but farther from Mike than earlier, not completely dismissing the theory that it’s him who Mike’s mad at. This however doesn’t last long because almost as soon as he sits down Mike gives him a hurt look and shuffles closer to him, simultaneously pulling Will into his side.

Once he settles back into Mike’s chest, Mike shoots Chance a look Will can’t quite make out. It might be a glare, but Will can’t really tell since it's quick and Mike’s head is above Will making it an awkward angle for Will to see from.

“Don’t worry about it Mr. Byers, I just finished talking with these two,” Will can tell that Mr. Ross is acting odd as well, but before he has time to question it he continues, “As far as Mr. Walsh goes, you won’t have to worry about him for a while. He will be suspended for at least a month, and we are seriously considering expulsion, or at the very least transferring him to a new district”

“Thank you sir, is there anything else you would like to discuss? Or may we be dismissed.” Once Will says it he feels rude and regrets his word choice, but right now he just wants to be alone with Mike and out of this stuffy office.

“Of course, please get home safely.” And with that Mike and Will grab their stuff and head into the hall. As they make their way to the exit Will suddenly stops and turns around. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing's wrong. I just wanted to thank Chance for helping me before we leave.”
“Do you really have to?”

“Yes, I do. He really saved me earlier. I’m super grateful and haven’t got to tell him yet.”
“Fine, but you know you don’t owe him anything because he helped you out, it was just the right thing to do.”

Will doesn’t understand why Mike is getting so worked up about this, he surely wasn’t going any tangents like this when Will thanked him after his last run in with Troy. “Whatever, I’ll be back soon. Just wait right here.” He makes sure to leave before Mike can argue any more.

He finds Chance at the end of the next hall, grabbing a duffel from what Will assumes is his locker. Oh shit, it hits Will, Chance still has basketball practice.

“Um- hey…” Will approaches him, “I just want to thank you before I go home. You really didn’t have to punch him, not that I’m mad you did. I’m just really glad I ran into you when I did.”

Chance, handsome as ever, gives Will a soft smile. “Of course, I’m glad he didn’t get a chance to hurt you. I just did what any good alpha, well any good person, would have done.”

“That still doesn’t change it,” Will suddenly feels very awkward, “Do you still have to go to practice?”

“Yeah, it doesn't end until 6:30, so tough luck on my part. Plus we’ve got a game at Bradley High tomorrow night so I wanna make sure Coach knows I wasn’t skipping.”

“Oh, I think I heard about that game from Lucas. Will they even let you play with that hand? I mean you did punch him pretty hard.”

“Well it depends what the coach says, but I’m a varsity starter so I’ll probably still have to play. Plus my hand is doing fine, Walsh’s face was pretty soft.”

It’s not even that funny, but something about the way he says it makes Will burst out laughing. Maybe it’s because he can’t quite tell if Chance is flirting with him, but something about it just feels so hilarious. Soon Chance joins him, and they stand there in the empty high school hallway, belly laughing.

This is of course when Mike decides he’s done waiting for Will and enters the hall. “Come on Will, let's go home.” Mike shouts all the way from the other side of the hallway.

“Well it looks like your alpha is waiting. It was nice talking to you, Byers.” Will wants to deny it, but with Mike down the hall he can’t bring himself to. Once again the words get stuck in his throat and he watches as Chance shuts his locker and heads to the gym.

—---

The ride home is awkward to say the least, Mike is clearly unhappy about something, and Will feels too exhausted to ask about it. Eventually they do reach Will’s house and make their way inside. “Are you mad at me?”

Will really doesn’t mean to say it, sure it was the only thing he had been thinking for the past five minutes, but it wasn’t actually something he had intended to let Mike hear.

“No, I’m not mad at you.” Mike’s face doesn’t match his words, he looks pissed. “Really? Ever since I got back to the office you’ve been acting really weird. Is it because I didn’t text you earlier? Because I know it was my fault, and I’m really sorry, I should have been more careful.”

“Will, I promise you didn’t do anything wrong. You’re fine, it’s not your fault or anything. I just had an… interesting conversation with Mr. Ross and Chance.” The last word is dripping with disgust.

“Do you want to talk to me about it?” Will really does want to know more about what happened in the office while he was gone, so, selfishly, he’s asking so he can find out just what they were saying.

“...”

“Not right now, but I’ll tell you about it later.” He’s lying, or at least deflecting. Will knows Mike well enough to know that the chance Mike actually brings it up later is exceptionally low.

“Hey boys!” Will’s mom is bustling around the kitchen, “How was the library? I wasn’t expecting you to be home so soon, dinner isn’t quite ready yet.”

“Um, we didn’t make it to the library today. After school I ran into Troy again, and there was an incident.” His moms face quickly shifts from one of joy to one of worry. She insists the boys stay with her in the kitchen and inform her about what had happened.

Will tells the majority of the story, awkwardly leaving out a couple of the details he knows would really bother his mom. Mike leaves short comments throughout the story, and grumbles at the mention of Chance.

“Oh you poor thing” Will lets himself be pulled into his mothers embrace, “Go drop your bags off in your room, dinner will be in a couple of minutes. Mike, are you still staying over this weekend?” That’s right, Will had forgotten that Mike was supposed to be staying the night. Mike nods in the affirmative and starts making his way to Will’s room.

The night goes by relatively quickly, Mike doesn’t talk much, but also refuses to let Will out of his sight. They watch a movie, ‘A New Hope’, Will’s favorite of the original trilogy, and decide to make it an early night.

For years when they had sleepovers they had shared a bed, even when they reached a certain age and his father insisted Mike sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor, they had always ignored this rule, and tonight was no different.

It felt different though, it felt like Will should tell Mike to get the sleeping bag out of his closet unless he told him what was making him so angry. It felt like if Mike was going to share the bed with him, he might as well kiss Will, whisper sweet nothings into his ear. This of course wasn’t going to happen.

“I wish you would tell me about what happened earlier. It’s clearly affecting you, and… I don’t know. I just wish I could make whatever it was better.” He knows Mike has heard him, their faces are only inches apart and Mike’s not asleep yet. Mike doesn’t respond yet, but he does make eye contact with Will for the first time since he had entered the office hours ago.

“You really want to know?” Now Will is frustrated because this is the stupidest question he’s heard in a long time. “Yes!” This is clearly not what Mike wants to hear, but it is what he expects.

“I don’t like Chance.”

“Why?”

“I just don’t think I trust him.”

“Mike, he was nothing but kind to me.”

“Sure he may seem kind and all, but what if it’s an act. What if he’s just trying to gain your trust, and then one day it turns out he’s actually exactly like Troy is.” Will very rarely gets mad at Mike, but right now he is mad, extremely mad.

“Oh my god! You’re terrible, that is terrible.” Will wants to push Mike off of the bed, but instead he just turns to face the wall. “Somebody is even slightly kind to me and you assume they’re using me. That’s so terrible.”

Mike quickly realizes his mistake and attempts to do damage control. “Shit, you know that's not what I meant.” It does sound genuine, but it’s not enough.

“Oh yeah? What did you mean then?”

“I’m just mad,” Will raises his eyebrow even though he knows that Mike can’t see it. “I’m not mad at you, hell I’m not even mad at Chance, I’m just mad at myself. I just wish I had been there to protect you. I would never forgive myself if you got hurt, and I just wish I had been there for you, rather than Chance.” He says the last part quietly, as if he’s worried Will’s going to be mad at him for it.

Despite Will’s better judgement, he can feel his anger start to slip away, and he wishes he could stay mad just a little longer. “You know when it comes down to it, I can keep myself safe, I knew when to run today.”

“Of course you can, god I’m really bad at this, that's not what I meant. You can protect yourself, but you shouldn’t have to. I want to take care of you.” These words pull Will back to facing Mike. He carefully combs his face for any sign of insincerity, but there are none, Mike seems not only genuine, but desperate. Like all he wants is for Will to forgive him and never be mad again.

Mike is beautiful in this light, it’s mainly dark in Will’s room, but he does have fairy lights up, lightly bathing Mike in a yellow glow. No matter how angry Will would like to be with him it just doesn’t last. He wants to stare at Mike in this light forever, but is too tired.

“Right now what you can do to take care of me is go to sleep. We’re both going to be miserable tomorrow if we don’t go to bed soon.” Will can’t tell if Mike has more to say or not, but for the time being he bites his tongue. The pair falls asleep shortly after, limbs tangled together like they always do, even though something has clearly changed.

—---

Will is warm and happy, or at least those are the first things he becomes aware of when he wakes the next morning. However the longer he’s awake the more aware he becomes of his surroundings, and more importantly his memories from the day before. He recalls everything that happened with Troy and Chance. Everything that happened with Mike.

Speaking of Mike, his arms are currently wrapped tightly around Will’s waist as if he’ll never let go, something that Will would be perfectly content with. The longer Will is awake he also starts to notice that he and Mike are not alone.

El is standing at the foot of his bed, looking at the two of them like they have done something to personally offend her. Will tries to sit up to talk to her, but doesn’t make it far due to Mike’s tight grasp. “Um… Good morning?”

“It seems unfair that when Mike and I were dating we couldn’t even close the bedroom door, but you two get to share a bed.”

“Well it’s probably because we aren’t together.” El lets out a snort at his words and Will feels his face grow warm, he’s only glad Mike is still asleep and didn’t hear his sister's words.

“Whatever you want to tell yourself. Just get up, quickly. Mom says I can’t eat breakfast until you two are awake, so chop chop.” El exits the room, and despite how loud their conversation was Mike is still fast asleep.

“Okay Mike, it’s time to get up.” Will tries to wriggle out of his grasp, but even in sleep Mike is stronger than him, and refuses to let go. “Mike please… I want to eat breakfast. If we wait any longer El is going to come in here and drag you out.” Whether because of the veiled threat or something else, this does the trick and Mike finally opens his eyes and lets out a long yawn.

Mike and him get up and ready for the day. They brush their teeth together, Mike has his own toothbrush at the Byer’s residence. At some point in the night Mike had taken off his shirt, this morning he replaces it with a hoodie of his own, and he graciously doesn’t mention how long it’s been since that hoodie was at the Wheeler’s house and instead has been living in Will’s room.

“Where’s dad?” Will asks once he and Mike make it to the kitchen. “He was called into work early today. Someone broke into Melvad’s last night, nothing was stolen but you know how it is, he still has to go check it out. By the way, remember to put out the sleeping bag before he gets back. He likes to pretend you and Mike don’t share the bed.”

Will flushes bright red at his mothers words, when he turns to Mike it seems as if he is choking on his piece of bacon. El mutters a quick “I told you”, before pouring copious amounts of syrup on her Eggo’s. Will feels a foot nudge his own under the table, even though he knows it’s Mike’s foot he still double checks before looping it with his own.

It’s 10:00 by the time they’ve finished eating, which is far too early to be awake on a Saturday in Will’s opinion. “Can we just hang out in your room today?” Mike asks as they put their dishes in the sink.

And that's exactly what they do, Mike lays in Wills’ bed reading some book Will has definitely read before, but can’t quite remember. Will starts sketching at his desk, carefully capturing how Mike is sprawled across his sheets. He does some quick doodles of other parts of the room, but focuses on the alpha in the center of it. Eventually he decides to join Mike in the bed, their limbs interlocking like it’s second nature, and Will vaguely follows along as Mike reads.

It feels so domestic and perfect, if Will closes his eyes and pretends people call Mike his alpha because of a bite on his mating gland, this is a dream of Will’s. Maybe they're in college, decompressing after a busy week of school, in their apartment. Or maybe they’re in a house in the suburbs, taking a much needed break after putting their pups down for a nap.

Will is once again reminded that this is not his reality when El comes into his room and insists they either play a game or watch a movie with her. Will artfully ignores the comment she makes about leaving the door three inches open. They play a couple games of BS, all of which El wins easily, neither Will or Mike mind.

Once they get bored of that they decide to watch ‘Space Jam’, and since it is about basketball Will decides he should probably be thinking of Chance and his game tonight, but with Mike wrapped around him he knows it’s a lost cause.

The day comes and goes rather quickly. After dinner Mike begrudgingly admits that he should eventually head home. Even when he leaves his scent remains, bathing Will’s room in cedar, and for now that’s enough.

Chapter Text

So far Will’s Sunday has been going pretty well. No one in his family woke him up this morning, allowing him to sleep in until noon. When he did wake up he had the entire day free, simply getting to do whatever he wanted to do, which today is absolutely nothing.

Will’s life has been relatively chaotic as of late, he needs a break from the constant excitement, he thinks that he deserves a break. The universe however clearly doesn’t agree with this, because right as he gets ready to binge watch some stupid sitcom the doorbell rings.

When he reaches the door he finds Lucas waiting patiently outside, he steps aside silently letting him in.

“Dude, are you okay?” Lucas looks and smells very worried.

“Why hello. Yes I am okay, may I ask what brought this on?”

“Last night I rode with Chance on the bus after our game and he had a lot to tell me about.”

“Oh god,” While Lucas doesn’t get quite as crazy protective over Will as Mike does, they’re still close, and Will is sure whatever Chance told him was certainly worrisome.

“What did he tell you?” Will has to know what all he needs to tell Lucas, versus what he can leave out. He also needs to know if he has to address the whole ‘Chance thinking Mike is his alpha’ thing.

“Okay, well I obviously knew he was late to practice on Friday, but he told me it’s because he had run into you,” Even though it's unintentional the wording makes Will feel guilty. “He helped protect you from Troy, punched him. Then he got into a fight with Mike while talking to the principal.”

“What?” Will obviously knew that Mike didn’t like Chance, but he didn’t realize that they had actually fought over something. This makes sense though, it explains why Chance got so pissy when Mike interrupted their conversation. “You didn’t know?”

“No, I had been outside during their talk with Mr. Ross”

“Oh shit. Well it didn’t get violent or anything if you’re worried about that, but Chance did seem pretty unhappy about it. Apparently Mr. Ross had tried talking about how you had even been alone in the first place. Chance blamed Mike for it all happening, you know your run-in with Troy, and Mike took offense.” This is absolutely wild, in no way had the situation been Mike’s fault. If it was anyone’s fault it was Will’s, or more likely Troy’s, but Mike had done nothing wrong.

Maybe Mike’s anger and dislike from the other day hadn’t been as misplaced as Will had thought. But then why had Mike shut down about the topic, rather than just explaining it all to Will?

“That’s so stupid! In no way was Mike to blame!” Lucas lets out a chuckle at his words, which is just confusing because Mike is completely innocent in this situation. “What? Mike did nothing wrong!”

“I know- I know. It’s just I don’t think Chance actually meant it. He was just jealous.” Will must look visibly confused because Lucas quickly elaborates. “Chance, I think the whole reason he blamed Mike was because he’s mad that you two are so close.”

Once again Will is lost. Lucas lets out a huff, clearly frustrated that Will isn’t reading through the lines. “He likes you!”

“Chance?”

Yes! He saved you from Troy and was perfectly happy until Mike showed up. And knowing you two, Mike was probably all up on you and was sweet and touchy,” Will hates that Lucas is right. “Chance was jealous and snapped at Mike as soon as you left. Just think about it, it makes sense.”

Sure he had briefly thought about kissing Chance, and maybe Will felt like he had been flirting with him when they were by his locker, but he didn’t actually think Chance liked him.

“Oh,” Will feels like he should have something else to say, but isn’t quite sure what.

“You don’t like him do you?” As always Lucas is relatively in tune with his feelings. He was the first of their friends, other than El, to know how he feels about Mike.

“I mean he is certainly nice to look at… And he was perfectly kind to me.”

“But he’s not Mike.”

“God! That’s so stupid isn’t it. There’s a nice guy who may like me, and I can barely think of him without my best friend coming to mind. What it is is pathetic really.”

“It is not pathetic, it’s not like it’s something you can control. I’m not mad at you for not liking Chance. And I’m certainly not mad at you for liking Mike.” Lucas’ words should be reassuring, but Will’s main fear isn’t how Lucas will react, it’s how Mike will.

“Will, I need you to trust me, Mike won’t be mad if you tell him the truth.” Reading his mind as usual, knowing his exact fears.

“Yeah, sure,” Will is clearly not convinced but doesn’t want to dwell on it any longer, “Wanna play Mario Kart?”

“Hmm… Okay.” Lucas must realize that Will is done with this topic, because he gives into Will’s suggestion with no fight.

Him and Lucas spend the afternoon struggling through rainbow road. Eventually El comes home after a ‘not date’ with Mina, and tells them all about it while kicking their asses.

“I’m just not sure if she actually likes me.” This statement is of course ridiculous because El has just finished telling them about how they had just spent three hours together doing nothing but talking, and had a great time.

“Oh my god! What is it with you two and being absolutely blind?”

“Hey!” Both twins exclaim in unison.

“Wait, what’s going on with you? Is it Mike again?” Will is once again reminded that everyone knows he’s hopelessly in love with his best friend.

“It’s really no-” Will is cut off by a swift elbow to the ribs from Lucas, and decides he may as well give in. “So you know what happened Friday after school.”

“Yeah, mom told me all about it. She was really scared.” Well Will is glad his mom cares so much, sometimes he does wish she worried a little less.

“Apparently when Mike and Chance were talking to Mr. Ross, Chance blamed Mike for me being alone with Troy. Which is seriously stupid, Mike did nothing wrong. If anyone's to blame it’s me!”

“Okay, no one said that!” Lucas butted in , “But that isn’t the important part.”

El is giving him that look where he knows he’s going to tell her everything, or rather she won’t let him get away with not telling her. ‘Lucas thinks that Chance was a jerk to Mike because he was jealous. Because Chance likes me, but you know… I like Mike.”

El bursts out laughing and completely stops playing Mario to talk to Will. “Of course he likes you, your life is like a romcom. You’ve got one of the most popular guys in school and your childhood best friend fighting over you!”

“They’re not fighting over me because Mike doesn’t want me.” Will is almost too flustered to get the words out. Now Lucas is laughing too, and the two of them are doubled over in their poorly concealed joy.

“Oh yeah, that’s why you two were all cuddled up in bed together, and why he couldn’t stop staring at you yesterday.”

Even though he knows El means well, Will kind of wishes she hadn’t said that, because now he feels some sort of false hope. “That’s just what we do, it’s what we’ve always done.”

“But you want him to be your alpha?” Will nods, knowing there’s no point in lying, El and Lucas would see through it anyway.

“Have you told him that?”

“Oh come on, you both would have heard if I had told him I liked him.”

“Well then maybe you should tell him that is. It could be good for both of you.” Will takes this to heart, really, truly. He knows he has to tell Mike eventually, but he’s just not ready to go through that rejection yet.

—---

Will isn’t sure who he’s more mad at, Chance for blaming Mike, or Mike for choosing to be an asshole about it rather than just talking to Will about what happened. Okay, that’s a lie, he’s definitely more pissed at Chance. But it’s not like he’s going to confront him about it or anything, they barely see each other let alone talk on a regular basis.

He does have a plan to confront Mike though. The same plan which is step 1 in his larger plan to tell Mike his feelings. The same plan, which despite him wanting to do it as soon as possible, completely leaves his mind when Mike picks him and El up on Monday morning. Instead he decides to forget about it in favor of enjoying Mike's presence before he ruins it.

All day long Will can feel El and Lucas giving him looks, urging him to make a move. El not so subtly glares when Mike insists Will wait in the car once they reach school so that he can open his door for him.

Lucas very openly stares when Mike refuses to let him partner with Will during Chem Lab. And during lunch, each had swiftly kicked his leg when Mike would lean in particularly close, and whisper something in his ear.

All that Will wants is for Mike not to notice their odd behavior, and he doesn’t seem to.

“Hey, how are you doing?” Will has been looking forward to Art all day. There had been a test in Latin, making it so he has yet to hear about El and Mina’s ‘not date’ from Mina’s perspective.

“Good! That test in third period was a piece of cake. The Peloponnesian War was barely on it.”

“Tell me about it, I barely had to study.” Right now Will was working on some printmaking, carving a very elaborate stamp of a tiger.

“So, how was your weekend?”He by now knows better than to beat around the bush with Mina.

“It was the most fun I’ve had in a long time, no offense.”

“None taken. I’m really glad it went well.” Mina is practically glowing just as much, if not more, than El had been when she had come home last night. “Did you already hear about it?”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t mind hearing again.” Will likes hearing Mina talk about her ‘not date’ with El as they work. Not only does it give him something to think about other than his mess of a love life, if you can even call it that. It’s also nice to hear about his sister being this happy, and even though he and Mina have only grown close recently, he’s glad her and El are so good for each other.

“Anyways, it was great. We’re going out again Thursday night.”

“Oh, I didn’t know about that part.”

“That’s because El asked me during yearbook today, so it’s brand new.”

Will finishes his carving, but knows he doesn’t have time to get out the ink and actually print it today. That combined with all his negative experiences with packing up late have him cleaning up as soon as he finishes.

As he throws his scraps in the trash he hears someone clear their throat behind him. It’s Chance, who Will maybe tried to forget was in this class on purpose.

“Hi,” Chance is acting awkward, it’s so unusual to see him like this, it’s a little unsettling.

“Hi,” Normally Will might’ve asked him how the game had gone, but not only did Lucas tell him the score yesterday, but he’s mad at Chance.

“I just wanted to see how your weekend went, you know check up on you and all.”

“I’m good, but you really shouldn’t worry about me.” No matter how angry he is, Will is not going to start an argument. He’s never liked seeing conflict, let alone being involved in it, so rather than yelling at Chance he goes with polite, curt, and slightly petty, in hopes that Chance will just move on.

He doesn’t.

“Yeah I assumed so. Wheeler seemed pretty set on getting you home as soon as possible.” This time Will can hear it, Chance's words are just as laced with disgust as Mike’s had been.

“What do you have against him?” Will is getting deja vu, because so far this conversation is nearly identical to the one he had with Mike.

“Nothing, really.”

“Then why did you blame him for what happened?” Will is struggling to keep his voice down, after all they are surrounded by classmates who Will does not want to know all of his business.

“Of course he told you that. He’s practically begging for your attention.” Chance chuckles cruelly and rolls his eyes, it makes him much less attractive in Will’s opinion.

“It’s not like that, he doesn’t have to beg for my attention.”

“Don’t I know it, as soon as he shows up nothing else matters to you does it?” Chance is in no way trying to be quiet the way Will has been, and people are starting to look over.

“You’re being such a jerk, you know that right?” Notably Mina is looking over at them now, despite Will's hushed whispers. He’s silently praying for this conversation to end before she comes over to see what’s going on.

“It doesn’t really matter how I act, all that you really care about is your alpha.” Will is so close to finally asking him why he calls Mike that, but can’t bring himself to, instead focusing on fighting the tears welling up in his eyes.

“You didn’t answer my question. Why did you blame Mike?”

“It’s just unfair. He’s your alpha and he just lets you go- lets you go get hurt. If I was your alpha I wouldn’t let that happen ever. I would take care of you, I would protect you. But it’s too late isn’t it, Wheeler claimed you before anyone else could make a move, before I could even try to talk to you. He gets an omega like you and doesn’t take care of you properly, and you don’t even care you’re just so in love with him.”

Will is a little shocked at his words, but doesn't let them stop him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not some pet to be taken care of, I’m a person. Mike is great to me, and does way more than he needs to since he’s not my alpha.”

For the first time since they started talking, it seems like Will has caught Chance off guard.

“What?”

“You heard me, he’s not my alpha, he never has been. I don’t know why you keep saying he is.” Chance is laughing again, but this time it’s genuine.

“You seriously don’t know?” Will shakes his head, “He’s been scenting you ever since you presented. You came back to school and it was just all over you. Plus he was super protective of you, there’s no way he doesn’t know people think you’re his. I bet he’s been doing it on purpose.”

Will suddenly feels like he can’t breathe, like he’s completely lost control of not only this situation but also his own body. “Don’t talk to me.”

“Fine, but just know I’m not the one who’s been lying to you.”

Will hurries back to his seat, not fully believing Chance’s words. He’s not sure how he’ll feel about this once all the new information settles in, but right now he’s feeling like someone stuck a knife in his stomach, twisted it in every way possible, and then pulled it out before shoving it back in.

“Is it true?” Mina looks up, clearly confused by his question, “Has Mike been scenting me?”

“I mean yeah, but you two are bonded so that's pretty normal…” She can barely get the words out before he is barreling towards the door, mumbling some excuse to the teacher as he leaves early.

Despite the fact that there’s no more than 10 minutes before school lets out for the day, Will needs to leave now. Mike is supposed to be his ride home, and in no way is Will ready to face him yet.

“Mom, I need you to pick me up.” He doesn’t even realize he’s called her until she’s on the other end asking him what’s wrong.

“I’ll be there soon sweetie, can you tell me about it?” Her voice is as comforting as it can be, but it doesn’t make him feel any better.

“No, no I can’t. I just need to be home as soon as possible.” He’s failing at keeping the sobs out of his voice, and he suspects that’s why she’s so willing to come and get him, no questions asked.

“Okay, I’m leaving the house now. I’m texting your sister that you won’t be going home with her. “

As soon as Will gets home he locks himself in his room and lets his tears fall freely. He just needs space, space to think, to take it all in. He’s hurt, hurt that Mike had been scenting him, laying a claim on him, and didn't even let him know. The thing is, if he would’ve asked Will would’ve said yes, no question, he’s always wanted Mike.

He also doesn’t know why his friends didn’t tell him, not Mina, but El and Lucas who knew that they weren’t bonded. He also can’t believe he didn’t notice, was he so blinded by his love that he couldn’t notice what was going on? It just all makes Will feel stupid and small, he hates it.

His brain is just too loud right now, he wishes he could just turn it off. The only thing that would make him feel better right now is if Mike were holding him right now, but even the thought of that feels like betrayal.

He knows he can’t have Mike right now, or maybe ever again, but he does let El in when she knocks on his door, and lets himself collapse in her arms. “You obviously don’t have to tell me anything, but if you want to I’m always here for you.”

He doesn’t know how to explain it without sounding like an idiot, ‘the boy I’m in love with has been scenting me’ doesn’t really sound like something worth crying over.

“Mike’s been scenting me,” El nods like this is a known fact, and Will supposes it is. “I didn’t know, he never told me, we never talked about it.” He can feel El’s arms tense around him but keeps on talking. “A bunch of people have been calling him my alpha, and I just didn’t know why. Chance talked to me and he was being a jerk, and I asked him why he thought I was Mike’s omega. I guess it just broke me a little when he told me.”

“I will fucking kill them, both of them, if you want me to.” She smells protective and Will can tell she’s holding back her anger. “He shouldn’t have been scenting you without you knowing. I assumed you knew, I thought it was just another one of you WillandMike things.”

“I think I need some time away from Mike, I haven’t decided how I feel about it yet.” He can tell El is expecting him to say more, but he doesn’t elaborate. Instead he just lets her hold him and continues crying.