Archive of Our Own ^beta

The labor set in about an hour ago. 

Will has never been a man of faith, but he can’t help but think of Eve. How she had been the first woman to give birth. How she couldn’t have known what to expect until it was over. 

He paces the worn floor of the bedroom that his mother and Hopper claimed for themselves in the big, white mansion they had stumbled across. The bed behind him is wide, welcoming, but he’s in too much pain to find the idea of laying down upon it relaxing.

His mother hovers beside him. She knows what to expect, because she was Eve before him. She has told him that labor can last for hours, and hours can turn into days. 

Will doesn’t want to show it, but he is terrified.

There are no hospitals in the quarantine zone. Nowhere to turn should things go wrong. 

When the government had realized that the Upside Down could not be contained through usual means of military force, they had brought out the nukes. It was supposed to be a small bomb, a precisely calculated one, meant only for Hawkins. Still, the blast zone had been big enough to cover most of northern Indiana in nuclear fallout.

Four years had gone by since then.

Will grits his teeth as another contraction hits. They are still far inbetween. He knows, for his mother has told him, that they will come closer together and grow more painful. 

His mother can’t restrain herself any longer and so reaches out to touch him. He doesn’t want to be touched; not by her, not by anyone who isn’t…

It doesn’t matter. 

He is not here. 

His mother is. She is here to card her fingers through his hair. Talking to him in a voice that is both soft and patient, and reminds him too much of the time the Mind Flayer had intruded his mind.

Is that what he is now? A carrier of parasites? 

No . The baby is not a parasite. 

How could it possibly be?

His mother’s scent is calming. He wants her to take away his fear, his pain the way she used to when he was still a child. When the world was so frightfully big and he was so small. When he still believed that she could protect him from everything, anything.

Before the Upside Down. 

Jonathan is sitting in the armchair in the corner. It is a downtrodden thing with pink velvet fabric that his mother had dragged in from one of the two living rooms. He is quiet, as he often is, just watching them. Though Will can see the tenseness of his body, can smell the anxiety off of him.  

The animalistic thing inside him whimpers at his brother’s unease. He needs him to be calm. Needs him to step in and be the spine of the family if needed. Will can’t really stomach the thought that Jonathan is just as scared as him. 

Will groans at the pain, wants to crawl out of his own skin. His mother’s hands knead at his back, desperate to ease his pain. He knows his mother would do anything for him. Knows that with a certainty that most children never will. His mother would go through hell for him. Would go through even worse things than hell for him and his brother.

Could he do that? Would he go through all of that for his own child? Was childbirth not the first taste of hell? Wasn’t that god’s punishment for tasting the forbidden fruit? 

Forbidden fruit.

Right…

He doesn’t think it is the first bite that makes you a sinner. No, if there is a sin, it is to want a second bite.

“I wish we had something to give you, to make it easier,” his mother murmurs, brushing his fringe away from his eyes. He has allowed his hair to grow longer during the past few months, and now reaches his jawline. It helps, sometimes, to give him the illusion of hiding.

Hiding makes it easier. Even though at this point he is only hiding from himself. 

The changes had appeared gradually. Starting small with enhanced senses; better sight, better smell, better hearing. It had been helpful in the beginning, when they were still figuring out how to survive in this new wasteland. It banded them together even tighter than before. Made them become something that was less human, more animal. From friends to family to wolf-pack. 

The other changes had come later, and they had been more intrusive.

Stomach aches. Increasing in strength and nature until it was near unbearable. At first they had thought he had gotten a tumor in his stomach. What with the nuclear fallout it would hardly have been surprising. Then came the blood.

He’d woken up with blood running down the inside of his thighs, and in a wild panic, he had barged into his mother’s bedroom in the middle of the night. Hopper had growled at him, but his mother had immediately realized that something was horribly wrong. 

There had been an opening where there hadn't been one before.

Nancy, having experienced the opposite development, handled her own panic through research. They had raided the closest library for any book about biology. Robin was the one who found the term hermaphroditism. Common in invertebrates, allowing sexual reproduction between any two specimens. 

They still don’t know whether it was caused by the nuclear fallout or if it had been caused by exposure to the Upside Down. 

Soon Lucas and Max suffered the same symptoms. 

The next contraction has Will bending forward. Jonathan shoots up from his seat to support him, leaning over his back as his mother’s hand has come up to cradle his face. His mind is stuck in a feud with itself. He wants them to hold him through it; he wants them to be gone. Jonathan’s hand rubs at his neck. It is Jonathan, it should soothe him. 

It does not. 

He whimpers, tries to curl in on himself. 

Jonathan shoots a look at Steve, where he and Robin are hovering at the bedroom door. 

“Any news?” 

Will sees how Steve leans away, probably looking at Dustin, who has stationed himself on a chair outside with his walkie in hand. Steve leans back in, shakes his head. 

“No.”

Robin is biting at her nails. She looks uncomfortable, as if she would rather be anywhere else.

The contraction passes and Will is helpless to slump against Jonathan. His brother catches him with ease.

"Can I do anything?" Steve asks, still leaning against the doorway. He is an incurable mother-hen. He wants to be helpful. Will knows he cares, but right now it is overwhelming. 

Will doesn’t want to be seen like this.

"Would you fetch a glass of water, love?" his mother asks, sounding calm but the slight shake of her hands betrays her. 

"Sure," Steve says, disappearing quickly. 

Robin follows after him, probably relieved to be gone.

For whatever reason, the others had remained anatomically unchanged. Then a fever struck. It didn’t strike everybody, and not at the same time. El was the first to have it. It made her delirious, had her curling up in pain, begging for relief. Hopper, terrified, had sat by her bedside until the fever broke. 

Then the fever struck Will. And just like Hopper, his mother sat with him through the night, as he begged for things he could not have. Things that weren’t his to have. 

Lucas got the fever too.

It went away and it came back. Went away and came back. In steady cycles, like waves crashing onto sand. Eventually Will got used to that terrible emptiness that devoured his core, and the desperate need to have that void filled. 

The others may have been spared from the fever, but that did not leave them unaffected. Eddie had explained to him how it felt like the entire house had exploded in scents whenever someone had the fever. According to him it was unbearable. Pulled at him one second, then repulsed him the next. It had made his skin crawl with discomfort, while anger boiled too close to the surface.

Once Will, still delirious from the fever, had stumbled down the stairs to join the campaign that Eddie had started in the big dining room in an attempt to create some sense of normalcy. Through the fog, Will remembered how Mike had knocked his knee against the underside of the table as he shot to his feet.

Will always notices Mike. In every room he walks into, he picks out Mike first. Always has.

“Baby-Byers!” Eddie exclaimed in surprise, not bothering to rise from his seat at the high end as he spread his arms in that theatrical fashion that was so characteristically him. “What are you doing wandering about?”

“He’s not under house-arrest, he can go wherever he wants!” Mike had snapped at him, dark eyes turning from Will to glare at Eddie.

Eddie had growled at him. The anger he had told Will about rearing its ugly head. “That’s not what I said.”

Will, still swaying slightly on his feet, had tried to say something but all that had come out was a whine. It had probably attracted some funny stares from his friends, but right then he had been unable to tear his eyes away from Mike. 

He still doesn’t know what he did wrong, but he knows he must have done something, because between one second and the next, Mike and Eddie were at each other’s throats. 

Steve had to fetch the nailed bat to break them up. 

Jonathan had appeared then, drawn to the dining room by the raucous, to gently guide Will back to bed.

He didn’t see Mike for the rest of that week.

"Where is he?" Will whimpers against Jonathan’s shoulder, not realizing he is crying until someone brushes his tears away.

"I'm sorry, sweetie," his mother says. "We still don’t know."

After the fight, Nancy, Robin and a reluctantly curious Erica had engaged in some more research. Finding literature on mating behavior amongst a wide array of different animals.

It had led to some uncomfortable realizations.

“Do you want to sit down?” Jonathan asks gently.

Will shakes his head. It hurts too much. He needs distraction from the pain, not to end up in a static position where he will drown it.

“Okay,” Jonathan murmurs, wrapping his arm around Will’s waist as they start to walk slowly back and forth. Motion is good. Motion helps. 

His feet are unsteady beneath him, knees wobbly. He needs Jonathan to bear the brunt of his weight. He is afraid of falling. He has been afraid of falling for a while now. As his stomach grew bigger, obscuring the view of his own feet, he had begun to fear walking down steps alone. Always needing someone with him to hold onto.

El, seeing his anxieties before anyone else did, had been the first to volunteer. 

She hadn’t been upset about the pregnancy. If anything the pregnancy had fascinated her. No, she had been upset at what caused it. 

Will had begged her for forgiveness, but El had only grasped his hand within her own.

“It’s okay,” she had said. “I don’t blame you .”

He thinks she should though. She really should. He was a horrible brother, an even worse friend. His body might have pushed him towards it, but he had still wanted it. He had asked for it, begged for it. 

And even after all that had happened, he still wanted that second bite.

He wants El to be here too, to clasp his hand and not let go. To be the sister he had been blessed with when he didn’t know how much he needed it. 

He doesn’t think he deserves it though. Doesn’t deserve her.

Two days ago, she had left with Nancy, Hopper and Eddie to try and find Mike.

Mike. 

Mike.

It’s like a lullaby that his heart has been singing since the first moment they met. When Mike had approached him on the swing-set. His heart knows every tune, every word. Knows when the major gives way to the minor. 

Mike.

He has only ever wanted one thing from Mike; for Mike to see him. For Mike to see him the way Mike saw El. The way Will sees Mike.

Another contraction hits, and a cry is ripped from his throat. It hurts. It hurts so much.

His mother is there before him, he reaches out, clings to her. 

“I don’t want to do this,” he whimpers. “I don’t want to do this.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to, love,” his mother whispers. Her eyes are glassy as her fingers cards through his hair. “It’ll be over soon and you’ll hold your baby in your arms and it will all have been worth it.”

When she had found out about his initial attempts to get rid of the child, she had hugged him to her chest and promised him that she would do anything he needed her to. She would care for him and the child. She and Hopper would raise the child as their own if needed. 

“Just promise me, you won’t hurt yourself anymore.”

 “I can’t…” Will cries against her shoulder. “It hurts…”

“I know, baby, I know.”

Steve returns with the water, giving it to Jonathan who offers it to Will. Will shakes his head. He isn’t thirsty, or maybe he is, but he doesn’t think he can swallow anything down right now. 

“Please, baby,” his mother urges. “Just a sip.”

He relents, wetting his dry mouth. Taking a cooling sip that soothes his sore throat. It is good. Feels a little like relief. 

Like how Mike’s touch had cooled his heated skin when the fever had wrecked his body. 

It had been March 22 and Mike had taken him to an art supply store that he had found in the nearby town. He had told Will to pick whatever he wanted and promised that he would help him carry it back. Will had felt a little dizzy that morning, but when Mike had asked him to come, he had pushed the unease down. More than willing to endure a little bit of discomfort if it meant spending time with Mike.

His mother and Hopper had been happy enough to see them go, which had made Will suspect that his mother was planning a party of some kind. These days there wasn’t much excess of anything, but birthdays were important and they were important to celebrate. It was one of the traditions from their old life that they all still clung to. 

The weather had been good, despite it being late March. No rain. The sun peaking through the clouds. It made Mike’s black hair, recently groomed on Nancy’s insistence, glimmer like onyx. His pale skin was almost white in comparison, his lips red-bitten. It reminded Will of Snow White, and he had had to suppress a giggle, walking there beside Mike like it was just another stroll through the woods. 

As if they weren’t walking down deserted streets in this liminal wasteland that was now Indiana. 

For a moment, things had felt surprisingly normal. 

Mike made him feel normal. 

As if there was nothing wrong with him. As if the changes his body had gone through didn’t change him. As if he was still Will.

If he closes his eyes, he can easily remember the smile Mike had worn that day, as if it is etched to his retina. It is something holy, in his mind’s eye. Something sacred, precious and hidden. Like a secret altar carved into a crevice of his memory. Where he leaves sacrifices, trying not to judge himself too hard for what came after. 

“You need to lay down for me, love,” his mother says. “We need to see how far dilated you are.”

He notices Robin ushering herself and Steve out of the bedroom, the door closing behind them with a soft thud while Jonathan helps Will over to the bed, sitting behind him for Will to lean on. 

Will parts his legs, pulls up the night-gown and stares up at the ceiling. His mother kneels before the bed.

“How far?” Jonathan asks.

“Not far enough.” 

His mother rises back to her feet, a scowl lining her face. She pats his knee and Will quickly closes his legs again.

“Perhaps if you move around more.”

Will groans as they both help him up again. They start walking, his mother and his brother bracing him from both sides. He feels crowded and lonely at the same time. 

It must be a curse of some sort.

“Could dancing work?” Jonathan asks tentatively. “Nothing too strenuous, but maybe it would distract him a little.” 

“Yeah, yeah, that could work.”

Jonathan turns towards the closed door and calls out. “Steve! Robing! Get the music player!”

“What? Why?” Steve replies. 

“Just get it.” 

Mike had found a way into the art store through a back entrance. It had remained unlooted, art supply holding little value when it came to survival. Stepping inside with their flashlights, it had felt a little like entering a dreamland. 

Will had walked through the store in something of a haze. Having only been able to sketch with pen and paper for such a long time he had felt a little overwhelmed at the abundance of material.

“You can get anything you want,” Mike had reminded him. “And we can come back another time for the rest.”

They would never go back, but Will hadn’t known that then.

He had found the shelf with aquarelles, and for a long time he had just stood there and stared at it. When he was younger, he had never really been able to afford aquarelles. At least not the kind where you bought the colors individually. 

Feeling a little dizzy, he had blown off the dust from the labels and read the names of colors aloud to himself. Smiling, he had thought about what he wanted to draw. The flowers El and Erica grew in the garden. The sunlight that poured through the window of the bottom stairs living room in the afternoon. 

Mike’s smile during their walk into town.

The dust had whirled around him, looking almost golden in the faint sunlight that managed to trickle through a dirty window. The air was stuffy, smelling a little burnt the way dust sometimes does. Somewhere behind him, Mike was milling about. Will could pick his scent out anywhere. Knew him down to his involuntary tics and twitches.

He had carefully picked out the shades he wanted, and then a couple more because frankly no one was going to stop him, and began packing them into his backpack. The dizziness never quite leaving him, but he had been too distracted to care.

Even as he began feeling his skin heating up.

Steve and Robin’s re-entrance into the bedroom is uncoordinated at best. They are carrying the stereo between them with some effort, but eventually they manage to set it up in the corner. They have put one of Will’s tapes in and a Queen song soon begins to play. His mother claps him by the elbows and he rests against her as they begin to sway from side to side. 

He thinks about listening to music in Jonathan’s room when he was still a kid. He thinks about dancing in the kitchen with his mother and El. Hands clasped together, spinning around until they’re dizzy. Remembers Mike watching them, laughing until El let go of Will to pull Mike to his feet instead. His hand on her back as they spun around Will. 

His mother smiles at him, and he sways with her, moving gently but moving. He lets the music wash over him. Closes his eyes, lets his mind wander. It makes it easier to relax. 

To forget. 

And remember.

The fever had overcome him in stages. First the dizziness, then the cramping of his stomach. Then the burning beneath his skin, followed by that familiar aching emptiness in his core. 

He had placed a hand over his stomach, leaning his forehead against his own arm, propped up against the shelf in front of him. 

Mike had come closer. He smelled good. He always did, but right then he had smelled better than ever. 

"You're…" Mike had stammered, taking an involuntary step forward. "You smell like…"

Will had turned around, facing him. Mike had been so close he needed to tilt his head back to meet his eyes. A soft whine had slipped out of him that had Mike crowding him up against the shelf without really meaning to. 

"We need to get you home, now."

They hadn’t taken a car, though they could both drive. The cars were only for emergencies. They were saving the gas they could still collect for the power unit they used to fuel the house, giving them light and electricity. 

It would be an almost two hour walk back in Will’s current state, all sluggish and unsteady on his feet. Once the fever hit, it would hit him hard, making him more or less incapacitated. He'd be nothing more than a wet sack for Mike to drag around then.

It would be unbearable, being so close to Mike in that state. Wanting him, needing him, but not being allowed to have him. Not out on the road, in the woods. That was dangerous. Stupid.

"It’s too far," Will had whined, undignified and broken. “Maybe…”

“Maybe what?”

“If we…”

It had been a working theory, nothing more. He can’t even remember who had first proposed it, but it might have been Dustin who had run with one of Steve’s questions. “So like, if one was to… mate, would the fever end faster?”

They had two options: risk going back with Will in full blown fever, or stay where they were to wait it out. If they went back, and the fever got worse, Will would probably sink to the forest floor, begging Mike to take him where they stood. If they stayed, maybe Will could lock himself inside somewhere and ride it out on his own the way he had grown used to. 

It would take up to a week for the fever to pass, but maybe… Maybe if Mike helped him… If whoever’s theory worked…

There had been a time when Will was certain that Mike could read his thoughts, and right then, he was certain that was still the case.

“There is an apartment upstairs.”

He can still feel the weight of Mike, molded perfectly against his back. Can still feel the touch of his fingers, how it soothed his hot skin. Can still remember how Mike’s big hands had cradled his hips. Firm, yet tender. Sometimes he feels the phantom sensation of Mike’s lips against his neck, his nose drawing lines against his jawline. 

He will never forget it. 

Nor does he want to.

He is brought back from the reverie by another sharp contraction. They are coming faster now. His body tenses like a live-wire, as he grits his teeth against the pain. 

“Breathe, sweetie, you must remember to breathe.” 

His mother’s voice feels so far away, even though she is standing right in front of him. Jonathan is once more supporting him from behind, and when the contraction passes, Will slumps back against him. 

The music which had been upbeat a few moments ago, has shifted into something melancholic. Something that he wants to sink into. Disappear until it’s all over. 

How much longer must he do this? 

“Common, let’s walk a little again,” his mother urges. 

On the morning of the twenty-third, Will had woken up on a bed that wasn’t his in the arms of a man that he had no claim to. Mike’s hand had rested above his heart, and Will had closed his eyes for a moment, allowing himself the pretense before he had withdrawn from the embrace to get himself dressed. 

Mike had woken up shortly after, arms closing on air. 

Something had shattered. A friendship that had been frayed at the edges for too long, that had stood on the precipice of falling over into something else, now lay broken between them. 

That’s what secrets do. 

That’s what secrets do when they’re finally unearthed. 

The nausea had come after a few weeks. Followed by fatigue. Sign gathered upon sign until it was impossible to ignore. He had borrowed one of Nancy’s accumulated biology books. Interpreting the evidence he had gathered for what it was.

The first emotion had bowled him over with its unexpected intensity. 

Joy. Unparalleled. 

Then disgust at himself for wanting it, followed closely by fear. 

He knew what he needed to do. 

Through tear-blurry eyes he had read about poisonous plants that could cause a miscarriage. He had harvested them in secret, but when he made himself so sick he fell to the floor one morning, the truth was reluctantly lured out of him. 

His brother had never been a man of violence, but when he found out about it, he grabbed Steve’s bat, fully intent on putting nail-sized holes through Mike. The bloodlust had come from seemingly nowhere, but he had, by that point, been the only one to know about Will’s feelings. 

To everyone’s surprise, Hopper had been the one to step in between them. Quickly followed by Nancy. She and Jonathan’s relationship had been frosty for a while after that. 

While Mike’s and El’s had practically frozen over. 

But Will had tried. Goddamnit had he tried to do the right thing. 

“So you’re keeping it then?” Mike had asked from the doorway to Will’s bedroom. He couldn’t place the tone, but it didn’t sound happy. Why would Mike be happy about this?

Will, unable to meet his eyes, had stared at his hands where they rested in his lap. “Yeah.”

“We can still raise a baby without, you know, being a… thing, right?”

Will is pacing again. Hands on his back, sweat plastering his hair to the sides of his face, his nightgown drenched at the neckline. He has shaken off his mother’s and Jonathan’s hands.

He is angry now. 

Angry at himself. Angry at his circumstances. Angry at the government. At the Upside Down. At whatever caused the change in his body. 

And he is furious with Mike.

“I hate him,” he says. 

He doesn’t, but it still feels good to say it. To pretend that he is capable of it. 

“I hate him so fucking much.”

“I know, sweetie,” his mother says. 

And maybe she does. Maybe she doesn’t. She had been Eve before him, but she had also been left before him. Though Will refuses to believe that Mike is anything like Lonnie. That man who had once called himself his father has nothing on Mike. 

Mike is brilliant. Kind. Stubborn. Loves with a vengeance. 

He walks through fire for the people he cares about. 

Will and Jonathan’s father wouldn’t even step out of the shade for his own sons.

It doesn’t matter that Mike doesn’t love Will. 

Mike is still better than that. He is still good. 

Will has to believe that is still the case.

The cravings had caught him by surprise. His mother had laughed at him, making him a peanut butter and pickles sandwich without complaints while Dustin and Lucas watched him in horror from their side of the kitchen table. Most food that they hadn’t hunted or harvested themselves were hard to come by these days, but every once in a while they would find treats like peanut butter on one of their supply runs. 

Will had devoured the sandwich to Dustin and Lucas’ utter disgust. He had used one of Argyle’s stupid lines then: don’t deny till you try. And then he had gotten sad, wondering where Argyle was. 

Probably back in California. Safe.

Mike had entered the kitchen just then, back from another supply run, arms ladened with stuff. He had grunted at Dustin and Lucas to help him unload. Freed from his burden, he’d turned towards Will with an uncertain smile. 

“I found this. You were talking about how much you missed it the other day.” 

In his outstretched hand he had held a bag of liquorice. Will had torn open the plastic, and when he placed the first piece on his tongue, the tears had come unbidden. Pure panic had crossed over Mike’s face then, before Will managed to produce some sentiment of gratitude. Before the tears overwhelmed him again.

He wasn’t above sharing. 

Though when he offered the bag to Dustin, Mike had let out a growl so deep it stayed Dustin’s hand. When he realized what he had done, a sheepish expression crossed Mike’s face before he quickly fled the scene.

"Will, how about we get you on the bed again?" his mother asks.

He goes, with some help. Back to leaning against Jonathan while his mother checks if he is any further along.

Her lips are nothing but a thin line when she looks up at him. 

“When the next contraction comes you can push, okay? Like we practiced.”

Will shakes his head, his sweaty hair slapping against his neck and forehead. “No, not yet!”

“You must…”

“They might be back soon,” Will pleads. “Please, I…”

“It’s okay, Will,” Jonathan says, hiking his chin over his shoulder. “We’re here.”

He doesn’t want them. 

He wants Mike.

The next contraction steals the breath out of him. 

The first time he had felt the baby kick, it had startled him so badly that he had dropped the glass he used to have water in when he painted. It had shattered to the floor, splattering colored water and glass shards everywhere.

But Will had been too distracted to care. Staring mesmerized at his own stomach, a hand tentatively placed to the spot. 

Steve, who had been reading in an armchair in a corner, shot to his feet. There was always someone on guard duty, like they didn’t trust Will to be on his own.

“Alright there, baby-Byers?” 

Will had nodded slowly. “The baby is kicking.” 

Steve had just stared at him for a long moment. Probably still trying to come to terms with the surreality of the situation. Heaven knows that Will still was. 

Then he had, in a voice so uncharacteristically meek that Will hadn’t been able to deny him, asked if he could feel. He knew that Steve liked kids. Knew how much he had once wanted kids for himself. Before the apocalypse. Before the bomb. 

Before Eddie. 

Will had spent many evenings watching Steve and Eddie with jealousy curling ugly in his chest. The way they would curl together at any given moment. Always touching. Laughing, bickering. He’d stolen glances at Mike then, brooding in the corner, wondering what it would feel like to curl up beside him. Feeling the weight of Mike’s arms around him again. 

Watching how tenderly Steve placed his hand where Will guided him to, he wondered if Steve was jealous too. 

Steve’s hand was warm against the side of his stomach. The baby had kicked again, almost as if proving a point. 

Mike had appeared just then, panting a little as if he had run. “I heard a crash…”

He trailed off, a weird expression crossing his face when he saw Will and Steve standing together in the honeyed light from the window behind them. 

Steve had worn a big smile on his face. “Your kid is all limbs, Wheeler!”

Mike’s eyes, almost black, had zeroed in on Steve’s hand on Will’s stomach. A growl seeped out of him, as he approached with the stealth of a predator. 

Steve, quickly catching up to what was happening, took a step back, letting his hand fall to his side. 

“Jeez.”

Mike had pressed up to Will’s side, not moving until Steve had left the room Mutely. Only then had he taken a step back. Will had grasped his wrist, stopping him short, to gently guide his hand to where the baby was still kicking. 

Startled, Mike had splayed his fingers, covering as much of Will’s bump as he could manage. His hand was warm, and the tension seemed to leak out of both of them. A moment later, Mike had reached out to cradle Will’s stomach between both his hands, caressing sweetly. The softest smile on his face. 

Will sometimes thinks he made that smile up, because a moment later Mike had withdrawn from him as if burnt. Not to ever touch him again.

“When I ask you to push, you push,” his mother tells him.

He is propped up on a heap of pillows against the headboard. His mother is kneeling at the edge of the bed, while Jonathan holds one of his hands. Steve holds the other. 

Will shakes his head, but his mother gives him a stern look at that. 

“You have to.”

When the next contraction hits, he pushes. Cries out. His fingers clenching like iron around Jonathan and Steve’s hands. He can see them both wince from the corner of his eyes. 

“That’s good, sweetie. Remember to breathe through it.”

 When it passes, he is given a moment to breathe but he is crying so much he is almost choking on it. 

“He should be here," Will whines. “Why isn’t he here?”

“I don’t know, Will,” Jonathan whispers beside him, his hand going white within his. “But I know they’re going to find him and he’ll be here soon.”

“You promise?” 

He looks pained, but eventually he nods. “Mike will be here soon.” 

He doesn’t see the look that is exchanged between him and Steve, and maybe that is for the best. Another contraction hits and he is urged to push. He grits his teeth through it. Feels how Jonathan and Steve both place their hands on his knees at his mother’s instruction.

He can’t stand to be in that bed, so he floats. 

“Have you thought of a name?” Mike had asked him just a few days ago. 

“Maybe,” Will had answered absentmindedly. His back was hurting. His feet were swollen. He couldn’t even see them anymore without bending over, and in all honesty, he couldn’t do that either. “You?” 

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.” 

“I…” 

“You get to have an opinion about it.” 

“Push, Will!”

“I’ve always liked Sam.” 

"You're doing so good, sweetie. So good."

"It’s gonna be any day now, Jim" An overheard conversation between his mother and Hopper. “I’m worried.”

“Me too,” Hopper had said. “We don’t have half the equipment we might need.”

“People did give birth before modern medicine.”

“Women.” Hopper’s voice had been flat when he corrected her. From where Will had been standing he couldn’t see Hopper’s expression. After his experiences with the Upside Down there were few things that faced Hopper, but he treated both Will and Lucas with a caution he had not done before. “And the mortality rates were worse.”

“I can see the head now! Just a little more, Will!”

Mike had found him curled in on himself in bed. Will had been crying, unable to articulate himself, but Mike had patiently waited, seated on the edge of the mattress. A respectful distance keeping them apart.

“I’m scared.”

“You don’t have to be. I’ll keep you safe. Always.”

“You can’t save me from this.”

“I’ll find a way.” 

“Push, Will! Just one more time!” 

He does. Feels the give when the head comes through. 

Mike had left two nights ago. He hadn’t left a note. Hadn’t so much as taken his walkie with him. Nancy had come rushing down the stairs, her gaze slightly wild. “Have anyone seen Mike?” 

When they hadn’t been able to find him, Nancy declared that she would go after him. And when Nancy Wheeler had made up her mind about something, no one could change it. Eddie had been the first to volunteer to come with her, putting his hand on Steve’s shoulder to stop his attempt to volunteer as well. Then, somewhat reluctantly, so had Hopper. 

El, grasping Will’s hand, had quickly realized it would be little more than a wild goose chase if they went out without her, and so she had offered to come with them.

“I will bring him back to you,” El had promised, her arms coming up to wrap around Will in a tender hug. 

He hears the wailing cries of a child. His child.

He has just given birth to a boy. 

The crying is heartbreaking, and all he wants is to hold his son. He tries to reach for him where he rests in his mother’s arms, but he feels weak. His own arms falling back to the bed. 

"Mom," Jonathan says and there is something wrong with his voice. "Is he supposed to bleed like that?"

Will feels dizzy, feverish, and through the haze he can pick up on the anxious scents clouding the room, making his baby wail even harder. He just wants to hold him. Wants to look at him, see if he has his own eyes or Mike’s. 

"No," his mother says somewhere in the background. He can’t make out the tone of her voice. His ears are ringing.

He tries to say something but no words come out. He doesn’t feel the pain anymore. Doesn’t feel the lower half of his body.

His eyes close against his will. Before everything goes dark, he catches sight of a tall shadow in the doorway. 

"Will. Will!"

He doesn’t know how much time has passed when he wakes again. He feels disorientated. 

Drained. 

Empty and sore. 

He becomes aware of his surroundings in stages. He is lying down. The bed beneath him is soft and he is wrapped up in warm blankets. 

His body is aching. There is a burning pain between his legs.

He grows aware of a presence beside him. At first he thinks it might be Jonathan, sitting guard, but no, the smell is wrong. 

No, the smell is perfect. 

Will tilts his head to the side, glancing up, shocked to see Mike propped up against the headboard. Mike doesn’t look at him, too busy staring at the bundle in his arms. 

Tears are running down his pale cheeks, only barely obscured by his dark hair. He is wearing a flannel, open down to his stomach. The baby resting against his warm skin.

Will’s arm shakes as he reaches out to touch Mike’s elbow. Mike startles, though not so bad as to jostle the baby. He glances down at Will with dark eyes shining. 

“Mike.”

He sounds breathless even to his own ears. 

Mike just stares at him, still crying. Something akin to disbelief passing over his face.

“I haven’t…” Will starts but his mouth is like sandpaper. He wets his lips. “Held him.”

Mike looks confused for a moment, before clarity ascends. “Of course. Wait.” 

He places the baby down in Will’s arms, before he scoots down to lie beside them. Will closes his useless arms around the bundle, dipping his nose down to the baby’s head, breathing him in. He smells like nothing Will has ever smelled before. Like baby, he supposes. But also like himself and Mike. 

It is weird, but not bad. 

Not bad at all.

"Sam," Will murmurs, brushing his lips against the baby’s head. "My Sam."

Mike reaches out a tentative hand, places it on the baby’s back like he can’t keep himself from touching. 

“He’s beautiful,” Will whispers hoarsely. 

“He looks like you.” 

“Like us.” 

Mike gives him a broken smile. Even with puffy, red-rimmed eyes he is the most beautiful man Will has seen. Will wants to touch him, but he isn’t sure if he is allowed to. 

Instead he focuses on the baby. The boy looks normal. They hadn’t been sure that would be the case. Will counts the baby’s fingers, all ten of them. 

His hands are so tiny, so fragile, and Will is suddenly more scared of the world than ever before. They’re circumstances are dire enough as is, how is he to keep his child alive? Alive and healthy?

“I should have been here,” Mike whispers suddenly. Eyes staring into Will’s. “You could have died and I wasn’t…” 

“You’re here now.” 

“I wanted… I tried to do something right for once, but it turned out to be the wrong thing yet again. You needed a midwife or a medic or something… and I thought maybe if I could make it to the nearest checkpoint, I could…” 

Will stares at him. Mike is many things, but he isn’t stupid. Why would he risk his own life like that?

"They would have shot you on sight."

Mike looks sheepish. "I hoped that they wouldn’t." 

"Mike…"

"Yeah, yeah, Hopper has already chewed my ear off. I know it was stupid." 

Mike moves his hand from the baby’s back to cradle Will’s cheek. His hands are dry and a little cold. Will can’t help the relieved sigh that escapes him as he nuzzles into the touch.

"I almost lost you," Mike murmurs, tears running down his cheeks. "I can’t… I can’t lose you, Will. I don’t… I don’t want to live in a world without you in it."

Will loosens one hand from the baby to brush his thumb over Mike’s cheek.

"I can’t lose you either. You must know that, Mike." His voice stutters, but he must say this. He must make Mike understand. "I will love you anyway you will let me, even if that is only as your friend."

Mike’s thumb brushes over his lips and Will gasps.

"I love you too, Will. I love you." Mike whispers then leans in to push their foreheads together. "And I'm gonna love you for as long as you’ll allow it."

"Always," Will gasps, tears clouding his vision. "I'll always allow it."

"Then always." Mike presses his lips to Will’s forehead. I will love you always."

The baby squirms, and Mike leans back with a chuckle, brushing his slender fingers over the baby’s head.

"And I’ll love you even longer."