Chapter Text
Illinois
6/06/1990 at 6:15 am
Illinois wasn’t exactly cold, but the fifty degrees Fahrenheit temperature wasn’t warm either. It was still cold enough to see white air come out when you exhale. That could all be fixed with a heater, accompanied by “How Deep Is Your Love” by the Bee Gees in the background. That is exactly how Jonanse liked it every morning. Every time he does a long delivery like this, he spends his morning just like this. What he didn’t expect was to see a thumbs-up on the side of the road, barely illuminated by the rising sun. He would have driven past the boy if it weren’t for the fact that he saw him with a bag and his right arm wrapped around his stomach.
Jonanse would consider himself open-minded; most of the people who drove past the boy probably drove past him because they assumed he was gay. Male omegas are rare enough, but female alphas are even rarer; the chances of the boy getting pregnant because of a female alpha are low. Yet, leaving that omega on the road cold and pregnant, and who knows how long he had been walking for, Jonanse’s conscience would eat him away if he did that, so he drives the truck to stop next to the boy.
The boy was lucky that the road wasn’t busy, and he was able to stop to help him. He rolls the window down and almost instantly regrets it when he feels the cold air force itself between the warm air in the truck.
“What’s a young omega doing out here so early? Where are you from?”
Jonanse got a good look at the boy, raven curly black hair that sat right above his ears, pale skin that only got paler with the cold, and various freckles scattered on the kid’s face.
“I’m trying to get to California. I’m from Indiana.”
Jonanse cocked his head in confusion.
“You know abortions are legal in Illinois. You don’t have to go all the way to California; I can give you the phone number for someone I know who can help you get in touch with a clinic.”
The boy shook his head.
“I’m not trying to abort my baby. Can I just get a ride to the closest state to California that you can take me to?”
Jonanse sat back into his seat and unlocked the truck.
“I am heading to Idaho, you can maybe take a bus to California, those exist.”
The boy smiles at Jonanse as he tells him that, and while he gets into the passenger seat.
“What’s your name, boy? Mines, Michael Jonanse.”
The boy just stares out the window while Jonanse starts driving down the road again.
“Mike, that’s my name.”
Jonanse nods his head while continuing to drive through the roads of nothingness.
“There’s a blanket under the seat. I wouldn’t want to deliver you on the brink of death to your alpha.”
Mike looks at Jonanse in surprise, eyes blown wide, and his mouth slightly agape, as Jonanse also noticed the buck teeth the boy rocked.
“Ho-how did you know?”
Mike’s voice broke and crackled like a radio out of reach.
“If you are running away from home to go to California and you are not aborting the baby, then you must be going with the father, right?”
“What if I am running away from the father?”
Jonanse lets out a chuckle, as if Mike’s words hadn’t contradicted themself.
“You could be, California is a nice state to raise a kid.”
Mike looks back out the window, even though there was nothing in particular to look at.
“Yeah, a warm, sunny state for a probably happy and bouncy kid. I think they would like the beaches.”
Jonanse smiles at Mike while the song on the radio changes to “It Never Rains (In Southern California)” by Tony! Toni! Toné!
“How on theme.”
Jonanse points out while pulling out a map. Mike giggles at his comment, but then that sudden giddiness was replaced by confusion.
“What?”
“If you are going to hitch a ride with me, then you should help me with navigation. I need to get on a freeway until we reach Iowa. From there, tell me what exit to take to take the next freeway to South Dakota. I have a stop there.”
Mike directs his attention to the map he has in his hands and starts drawing a line, figuring out multiple routes and calculating which one will be the fastest.
“Take the I-74, from there we stay on the I-74 for about 87.9 miles, where you will take a left and you will merge to IL-110 E for a long distance of 0.3 miles, and lastly we enter the 1-80 in Iowa for 76.7 miles. That should take you about 2.5 to 4 hours, depending on traffic.”
Mike explains with enthusiasm, as he draws the line of the path they should take, Jonanse nods his head to that.
“You're good at this, kid.”
Mike doesn’t realize he was smiling or how long he was until he left his cheek burning.
“I am my sister and parents' designated map reader. Especially, since I don’t have my own car.”
“You're way better than me. I would have stolen my father’s car instead of hitchhiking a ride.”
Jonanse comments to Mike.
“Yeah, but the probability of my father working faster in finding me would have increased, and I feel too bad taking my sister’s car.”
“You like your sister?”
“Yeah, a lot. I would have asked her to take me to California, but I wouldn’t want to burden her.”
Jonanse smiles. It had been a long time since he was around an enthusiastic child; his two kids had grown up long ago, so he will be taking this opportunity to help and bask in the happiness of a child while it lasts.
༘⋆📼˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚
Nancy wasn’t sure how it happened. One day, Mike was smiling happily with his friends and Will in the basement, and now he is missing. It had been three days at this point, and there weren’t any reports on him yet, because of course Mike was smart enough not steal anyone's card and instead paid everything with cash.
“It’s not like we didn’t see this coming, Ted! You threatened Mike by telling him that you were going to lock him into the house if he didn’t abort the kid.”
Nancy overheard her mom yelling at her barely conscious father. Ted just waves Karen away and mutters something Nancy can’t hear, and she doesn’t want to hear it. Nancy grabs the platter of fruits she dug around as a snack for Holly, who, out of all of them, was taking it the hardest. She was super close with Mike, and him not being here left a hole in her life.
Nancy walked up the stairs to stand in front of Mike’s room, which was slowly turning into Holly’s. Nancy could hear the small stereo that was once hers, which Mike had stolen at age fifteen, and it was playing music. Nancy recognized the song. “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” by the Smiths.
“Holly, it’s me.”
Nancy spoke as a warning before opening the door. Holly doesn’t even raise her head as she just lies on the bed holding the small “Holly the Heroic” figure that Mike had made for her.
“I got you some fruit.”
Nancy informs Holly, who doesn’t even bat an eye at Nancy or her plate of fruit. Nancy places it on Mike’s desk before sitting on the bed next to Holly. Nancy notices the small things that Holly had incorporated. Things such as dolls, some paper and colors, and even a couple of books that Nancy knew Mike would never touch. Additionally, Holly’s pink-to-purple crochet blanket had permanently found a place on Mike’s bed.
“His pillow still smells like him.”
Holly tells Nancy, and Nancy leans into Holly to twirl Holly’s loose front hairs with her index finger.
“Describe his scent for me, please?”
Nancy pleads to Holly. It was common for older pups to be encouraged to identify scents to help their nose development to… well, develop right.
“It smells like Almonds, fresh printed paper, and freshly dried paint. The almond scent does smell milkier, but mom said that was natural for pregnant omegas and pregnant people in general.”
Nancy quickly looks at Holly and gets up.
“What? What’s wrong?”
Holly questions in confusion as Nancy quickly makes her way to the pillow where Holly had rested her head.
“Nancy?”
Holly called out once again.
“Freshly dried paint is Will’s scent, not Mike’s.”
That made Holly’s head lift to allow Nancy to grab the pillow, and under the pillow was one of Will’s old shirts. The shirt was that grey one Will wore when he awakened his powers, but it was folded. Folded in a way that it looked like it was protecting something.
“What is that?”
Holly asked Nancy, who just grabbed the shirt, to unfold it.
“It’s Will’s shirt, the scent is weak, but it is still there.”
Holly tilts her head to the right in confusion.
“Why would he leave that? I would assume he would have taken all Will’s clothes that he had and kept his scent because pregnant omegas love smelling their mate and having them close.”
Theoretically, that made sense. Especially since Will had scented all his clothes for Mike when he was over for spring break, and Nancy had yet to see Mike wash this shirt, unless Mike wanted them to find the shirt. Nancy finally finished unfolding the shirt to reveal three letters in the middle. One addressed to their mother, one for Holly, and one for Nancy.
Nancy grabs her letter and pulls it up to her nose; it smells of Mike and, of course, that dreaded milky scent that the omega had carried proudly after falling pregnant.
“Mike left us letters.”
Nancy spoke to not necessarily anyone, but Holly interpreted that Nancy spoke to her.
“Maybe, Mike, wrote about why he left in those letters.”
Holly infers while holding her hand out, waiting for Nancy to hand her the letter addressed to Holly. Nancy picks it up and places it softly on Holly’s hand, allowing Holly to caress the wrinkle-less envelope with her fingers. Holly took her time feeling the soft and pure paper as if she was cherishing the last thing that Mike must have touched before running away three days ago.
༘⋆📼˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚
“Dear Nancy,
I apologize that this is how you find out, and do believe me, I wanted to tell you. I couldn’t, though, I couldn’t because I knew you would have followed me on my journey, and as much as I know that you love Jonathan just as much as I love Will. I couldn’t stand the idea of you taking me miles to my destination because of my own actions. You aren’t responsible for anything that happened, not today, not when I found out, and especially not how I got here. It takes two to make a baby, but you weren’t either of those two.
Additionally, I feel terrible about leaving Holly alone. She already is going to lose me temporarily; I don’t want her to lose both of us. I promise that when I do get to the Byers’, I will be calling every chance I get, and I will send you guys many letters. Perhaps I might send letters on the run, but that will be determined by how likely it is to risk my positions; don’t get your hopes up too high.
I’ll miss you, Holly, and a little bit of Mom. I love you, Nancy, and even though you were a douche before 84’, you are the best older sister I could have asked, and I promise to pay you back as soon as I have a chance because I stole 15 bucks from you.
(P.S: I left letters for my friends in my sock drawer, the top drawer in the dresser. Please give them their letters.)
Sincerely,
Mike”
༘⋆📼˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚
Karen looked up when she heard sobbing, not caring to continue fighting with Ted, who clearly wasn’t going to do anything about their missing pregnant pup. She ran her hand on the rail as she followed the sounds of desperation coming out of Mike’s room. Something in her wanted to warp those cries to sound like Mike’s, but Karen knew her kids; she knew those cries were from Nancy and Holly. She slowly opened the door to be faced by her two daughters on top of each other as they cried their hearts out. Nancy was the first to notice their mother and reached her hand out, inviting Karen into the hug.
“Girls… what’s wrong?”
Karen asked as she made her way to embrace Holly and Nancy.
“Nance?”
Nancy takes a minute to take deep breaths to compose herself. Sitting up on Mike’s bed and holding her mother’s hand that was rubbing her back just a couples econds prior. Holly didn’t move a bit; she continued to cry into her mom’s arm.
“Mom. Mike left, he ran away, and he left us letters explaining why.”
Karen’s eyes water as Nancy handed her an envelope that had Mike’s unusual, neat had writing. Karen knew her son’s handwriting, but he never wrote this clean unless it was something important, like a letter to Will or a DnD campaign. Karen never knew she would miss hearing her son talk endlessly about DnD even though she never understood it, but here she was missing every aspect of her boy.
༘⋆📼˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚
Mike opens his eyes, feeling the truck rock. It took Mike a moment of looking around to see the freeway and miles of roads to realize he wasn’t at home, and for the first time, he was relieved he wasn’t. Mike presses a hand over his small bump as he uses the other to readjust himself to get more comfortable.
“Good morning, sleepyhead. Slept well?”
Mike took a moment to rehydrate his lips with his saliva before processing what Jonanse told him and before talking again.
“Not really, but it’s like I expected this to be comfortable.”
Jonanse laughs at that.
“Well, I plan on taking a stop at this diner I know in this town. They have some of the best pancakes.”
Jonanse informs Mike, whose face grimaces at that, and his skin turns pale.
“Can’t keep that down?”
Jonanse asks, but Mike waves his hands in a form of disagreement.
“It’s not that it's necessarily disgusting, it’s just, I—I can’t forget how disgusting it was throwing up my breakfast every time my mom made pancakes.”
Jonanse chuckles.
“My wife could only eat pancakes during her first trimester; she couldn’t keep anything else down. It was a stressful moment for her at first, but once she passed it got better for here and now she laughs at those memories. I may have been a bit insensitive and laughed at her during that moment.”
Mike found himself giving Jonanse a soft smile and a tilted head as he heard the man tell him a story of his wife.
“My alpha wasn’t around for the beginning part, but I know that he wouldn’t laugh at me. If anything, I would laugh at myself, and he would tell me that it’s a serious situation and that I should take it seriously.”
Mike found himself fighting with the singular blue button on the yellow plaid button-up he was wearing that Will had left. Mike remembered the story of how it ended up there. Mike had accidentally ripped it off while putting Will to kiss him during a heated make-out session, and Mike had felt so bad that he replaced it with a button from one of the many shirts that Mike barely wore. Will has called the button “a piece of Mike he got to carry around.” Mike wouldn’t preach it out loud, but that statement always made Mike blush.
“You have a sweet alpha; you need to keep him around. It’s hard to come by one of those now.”
“It’s hard to come by one of those now.”
Mike said the same phrase as Jonanse when he realized what Jonanse was going to say.
“They always say that, I would be mad if it weren’t for the fact that they are right. I don’t deserve someone as amazing as him.”
Mike doesn’t notice that Jonanse has passed into a town until he notices the sign that he barely misses. Halsworthy, Illinois.
“Never been here?”
Mike looks at Jonanse.
“I haven’t been anywhere much outside of home, Indianapolis, and California.”
Mike looks back out the window to see the way the roads, accompanied by nothing, slowly became rows of houses and stores. Mike didn’t realize he started to tear up until he felt a drop of water on the palm of his hand.
“You miss home?”
Jonanse asked Mike.
“Yeah, this place reminds me of my little town.”
After a bit of time, with the sun up high above signaling that it was around 12 or more, they finally made it to the diner. The light-up sign read the name “Midwest Munchies diner.” Mike gets out of the truck to look at the sign and then looks back at Jonanse, who was looking at him.
“What?”
Jonanse asks in confusion.
“I have made up better diner names in DnD campaigns than this.”
Jonsanse scoffs, but then the scoff was followed by a small chuckle.
“I know it has a stupid name, but trust me, the food is truly good.”
With that statement, Mike realized that he hadn’t eaten in a long while since he had eaten something. The last thing he had was a sandwich he bought at a convenience store next to the cheap motel he had stayed in the night he met Jonanse. Mike doesn’t walk but skips behind Jonanse as they make their way into the diner, where a young girl, not much older than mike waves to Jonanse.
“Mr. Jonanse! It’s nice to see you.”
Jonanse walked over to the counter and sat on one of the stools, patting the one next to him for Mike to sit on. When Mike sits on it, he takes a closer inspection of the girl. She had pin-straight black hair, tan skin, and a mole right above her lip on the left side. She wore a waitress's uniform that consisted of a maxi yellow dress, a white collar, and a white apron. She smelled like an omega; she was also followed by the scent of coconut and olive oil.
“Who is this Mr. Jonanse? I don’t remember you having any young children still.”
The girl asks.
“Josephine, this is Mike. He is hitching a ride with me. Mike, this is Josephine. She is the owner's daughter. The owner and I were close friends when I was in high school.”
Mike smiles at Josephine and waves at her.
“Nice to meet you, Josephine.”
Josephine lets a warm smile go in Mike’s direction.
“Nice to meet you, too, Mike. Now, what can I get you guys?”
Mike picks up the menu, hearing the radio in the back playing a song he couldn’t recognize, but he liked it. The diner had a nice vibe, keeping a theme of a woody vibe with the occasional squirrel decoration being found in the places.
“That’s Dusty Springfield, there is no way you don’t know her.”
Josephine commented when she noticed Mike swaying his head to the song.
“I just. I blame it on my partner. I don’t really listen to music outside of The Smiths, and my partner is strictly rock. So, unless my sisters sat me down to listen to it, I don’t know, sorry.”
Mike said while taking another look at the menu.
“I’ll get the big road burger and a cup of Coke, please.”
Josephine wrote that down next to Jonanse’s order.
“Mr. Jonanse, are you going to pay for his order, or is he paying for it?”
Josephine asks Jonanse, who takes out his card.
“I’ll pay for it.”
Josephine takes the card and walks over to the register and kitchen.
“You didn’t have to. I have money on me.”
Mike tells Jonanse, who looks at him.
“Don’t worry about it, Kid, it’s called an act of kindness.”
Jonanse reassures Mike before grabbing the newspaper in front of him on the counter. Mike looks around a bit more before settling on the pay phone right in front of the diner.
“Call me in when the food is here. I’m going to call someone.”
Jonanse looks up to Mike, who is now getting into his seat.
“Sure, be careful.”
Mike walks over to the exit that is also the entrance, making sure to refrain from placing his hands anywhere near his stomach like he had gotten accustomed to. The cold metal door handle was a big contradiction to the warm air both inside the diner and the outside summer air. That reminded Mike that he needed to change out of Dustin’s long-sleeve shirt he had on under Will’s button-up.
Mike grabs a quarter and a slip of paper from his jeans pocket and puts the coin into the coin slot. Dialing the number, he had carefully made sure to write perfectly on the slip of paper. Then he placed the slip of paper on the top of the payphone as he listened to the ringing. The ringing went on, and on, and on. Every ring made Mike’s heart drum faster than the previous, and Mike could slowly feel the sweat build up on his palm under the payphone as he held it tighter.
“Hello, this is the Byers residence.”
Mike practically jumps when he hears Joyce's voice on the other line.
“Mrs. Byers, Hello, this is Mike. Is Will—”
“I am so sorry, but this is the answer machine speaking. No one can answer right now. I’m either working right now, or everyone is out, so can you please now wait for the beep to leave us a message, and we will call you as soon as we can.”
Mike bites his lip to prevent himself from crying as he takes a deep breath before the beep so he can leave a message.
*Beep*
“Hey Will, this is Mike. I wanted to let you know that I am making my way to Lenora Hills right now. I would tell you now why I am going there, but I feel like I should tell you in person. I am in Halsworthy, Illinois, right now. Please don’t call my home, I won’t be there to pick up. I’ll try to call you again next time I get a chance.”
Mike then hangs up the phone and makes his way back inside the diner, where Jonanse is still reading the newspaper.
“Any luck?”
Jonanse asks Mike, who just looks at his fingers while picking at the cuticles.
“Nope, I’ll try again another time.”