Chapter Text
Mike Wheeler’s ten-year-old son arrived in Hawkins looking every inch his father. They could have been twins if they were the same age; he looked as though somebody had recreated Mike but with deliberate mistakes. His hair was slightly lighter, he was shorter in stature and had a rounder face, but in the barest sense of the word they were identical.
Joyce took control of the situation first. It was hardly the strangest thing that had ever happened to them — Will simply added time-travelling children to his long list of fictional things that, as it turned out, were not so fictional after all — and the adults handled it from there.
Though it was not immediately obvious who the child’s other parent was, they deduced fairly quickly that it had to be El. The boy knew every person in their party with a fond recognition, and though he was unfamiliar to them, everybody warmed towards him inexplicably quickly. It only made sense that his mother was somebody they all knew.
For this reason, however, Joyce decided that Mike and El should not speak to their son, in case they altered their own lives by accidentally hearing something that hadn’t happened yet. It seemed a logical decision to make, and Mike and El agreed (though they looked slightly disconcerted); but this then led to the boy latching on to somebody else in their place — someone he clearly knew well, and who he wasn’t afraid of.
Will first noticed him on the morning after his arrival. The boy had been instructed to sleep with El and Hopper in Hopper’s old cabin; so when Will turned up the following day to help with renovations, he felt oddly trapped being stuck in a house with him.
He tried to ignore the gnawing feeling in his gut at the mere thought of the boy nearby, convincing himself he was happy for his friends as he sat on the wood panelled floor in Hopper’s living room, sorting through a pile of jigsaw puzzles just to give himself something to do.
There was a rustling sound behind him. So quiet that he might not have noticed — only with all that he’d been through, he had developed an alertness that followed him everywhere like a constant shadow. He glanced out of the corner of his eye.
A figure-like shape lurked at the door to El’s old bedroom. Not quite showing itself, but not far enough into the bedroom that it could feasibly be an accident. It was almost as if — it looked like the boy was hiding. Still as a statue, just watching Will as he rifled through boxes.
“I can see you, you know,” said Will, careful to keep anything accusatory from his voice, “You don’t have to be scared.”
The door swung all the way open. The boy appeared at once beside Will, standing with his arms crossed and a frown creasing his brow.
“I’m not scared,” he said resolutely, and suddenly Will could not fight a smile creeping its way across his face. It was exactly what Mike would have said.
“Of course you’re not,” said Will, trying to keep the fondness from his voice. He looked back down at his jigsaws to avoid meeting brown eyes. The boy did not say anything for several seconds, and Will was beginning to feel awkward — what did he normally do with his face? How was he supposed to hold it?
“You’re Will Byers, aren’t you?” said the boy, surprising Will into looking up again.
Will nodded, “Yeah, I am. I suppose you know me then, in your time?”
The boy’s face contorted inexplicably, “Um — yeah. Sort of.”
Will frowned at the reaction, then a terrible, awful thought hit him, and he let out a quiet gasp. “I’m not — I’m not mean to you when I’m older, am I?” he said worriedly.
The boy’s face relaxed in surprise, and he let out a laugh, “Mean to me?” he said, “Of course you’re not mean to me! You’re not mean to anyone.”
Will relaxed at once, “Oh, okay, well—“
“Actually, I think you should be a bit meaner sometimes,” he continued thoughtfully, sitting down boldly next to Will, apparently deciding that Will would be decent company if he could not be with his actual parents, “Especially to Dad. He’s so annoying and you hardly ever get mad at him for it.”
Will laughed, though his stomach flipped unpleasantly. That did not suggest that he had gotten over Mike when he was older, but he hoped he was just reading into it too much. He supposed he was never really mean to Mike anyway, even before the whole awkward crush developed. It could just be because of that.
“What’s your name, then?” said Will, hoping to steer the conversation into safer waters, “Or has my mom told you not to tell any of us?”
“She did tell me not to tell anyone, but my name’s Hugo,” said Hugo, and Will snorted — it would also be very typical of Mike and El to ignore instructions. He wondered subliminally what they were like as adults, if their son had already picked up their habit of disobeying authority. “Anyways,” continued Hugo, “it’s not like you’ll tell her I told you, and if we’re hanging out then you’ll need to call me something.”
Will raised an eyebrow, “How do you know I won’t tell her?”
Hugo shot him a betrayed look, brown eyes widening, “You wouldn’t!”
Will hummed thoughtfully, feigning an expression of consideration, “Hmm… I don’t know…” he said as he fought back a laugh at Hugo’s horrified face, “It does seem pretty dangerous to mess around with time…”
“Don’t tell her!” begged Hugo, gripping Will’s sleeve, “Grandma is the—“ he stopped suddenly, eyes widening as he glanced worriedly at Will.
Will blinked in surprise.
“Grandma?” he repeated, puzzled, “My mom is your Grandma?”
Hugo blanched. “Um — well—“
“Wait, does — does Hopper marry my mom?” he said incredulously. Although really, now that he’d thought about it, he wasn’t that surprised. She did go all the way to Russia for him.
“Oh! Uh — yeah,” said Hugo, looking strangely relieved. “I mean — I know you shouldn’t know that, but everyone says they saw it coming for years before it happened so really—“
“It’s fine,” said Will, smiling, putting an end to Hugo’s worried rambling, “I’m glad she’s happy.”
A comfortable silence settled between them, and Hugo shuffled forward so that he could help Will decide which jigsaws were still in good enough condition to keep. The sun was high in the sky by the time they finished, and judging by the sounds outside, some of the other party members had turned up.
Will glanced at the door, trying vainly to hear the voices mingling together just beyond it. Suddenly, Hugo sat up very straight. The front door opened with a creak to reveal a tall figure standing in the doorway, with dark hair and tired eyes.
“Oh,” said Mike, looking surprised to find them sitting there, “Um — I’ll just…” he glanced nervously at Will, then at Hugo, who was watching him with an expression of great interest; like he was hoping Mike would come and join them.
“Is my mom out there?” said Will.
Mike blinked. He shot a cursory glance over his shoulder, then turned to face them again, “No, and neither is Hopper. I think they’re with Jonathan and Nancy at my house.”
Sensing the unspoken question, Will nodded and patted the ground beside them, “Come sit. Where’s El?”
Mike walked over and took his own place on the floor, watching Hugo with a sort of wary indecision as he crossed his legs and brushed Will’s knee with his own. Hugo, blatantly uncaring of Mike’s discomfort, was staring at him like he was something beautiful and impossible, impenetrably out of reach — Will had a sharp, pathetic moment of sympathy.
“Not here,” said Mike with a sigh, “I haven’t seen her that much actually, since we got back. And I’m not sure all this time-travel stuff has helped—“ Mike paled, then glanced worriedly at Hugo, “I mean — it’s not that she’s — we’re good, and everything. Me and her. It’s just a bit…” he trailed off lamely.
“Oh, it’s fine,” said Hugo brightly, not the least bit perturbed by the suggestion that his parents’ relationship was not as good as it should be, “I get it. It’s probably pretty weird for you, what with me being here.”
Mike relaxed at once, calming down once he realised that Hugo would not be bursting into tears anytime soon over his and El’s stilted relationship status. Will couldn’t blame El for steering clear of Hugo — she and Mike had just gone through several ups and downs in their relationship, even without the curveball of a supposed future child thrown into the mix. He doubted he would have wanted to be around him either if he were in her situation.
“It’s okay,” said Mike, “I mean, now that Hopper and Will’s mom aren’t here, you can tell us some stuff about what happens, right? Does everyone in our party stay friends? Do we kill Vecna?”
Hugo blinked up at him, then glanced at Will as if asking for his permission to answer. Will shrugged, “I’m not going to tell them,” he said — as if he had any authority over what Hugo was allowed to do.
Hugo jumped into his response at once. “You do kill Vecna,” he said eagerly, “It’s something to do with you—“ he looked at Will, “—and El and a lot of fire and powers and things but nobody has told me the whole story yet. They said I needed to wait until I was older, because it’s ‘scary’.”
He rolled his eyes at the last part of the sentence, and Will shared a private grin with Mike, who — he realised with a start — looked more carefree than Will had seen him in a very long time.
“That’s okay, as long as we defeated him it doesn’t really matter how we did it. That’s awesome — and the party?” prompted Mike.
Hugo stared between them, a curious look on his face, “I think it would be spoilers if I told you,” he said quietly.
Will snorted, then crossed his legs and settled back against the bookshelf behind him, “That would be spoilers, but everything else you’ve said isn’t?” he asked sardonically.
Hugo straightened, shooting him an important sort of look, “Well, this stuff is more spoilery than finding out you kill Vecna and that Hopper marries Grandma. Anyone could’ve predicted that.”
Mike raised his eyebrows, “Hopper marries Will’s mom?”
“What do you mean ‘more’ spoilery?” said Will, ignoring Mike’s question, “Is it like — do some of us stop being friends? Or does somebody break up? Max and Lucas… they’re still together, aren’t they?”
Mike looked suddenly worried by this suggestion, but to their relief, Hugo nodded. “Lucas and Max are still together. They come ‘round for dinner quite a lot, and both of you always get so drunk because Lucas brings too much wine.”
Will blinked in surprise.
“I come around too?” he said curiously, “Or… I mean — are we still a group? Do I…” Will trailed off, not entirely sure what he was asking.
Hugo froze.
“Um — yeah. You come around,” he squeaked, “We see — uh — well, everyone comes around quite a lot. But you’re friends with Lucas and Max, so you kind of come together.”
“Is Will married to someone?” asked Mike abruptly, surprising them both.
A pit formed in Will’s stomach, and he hoped Hugo wouldn’t answer. He wasn’t sure what he wanted the truth to be, but he knew with certainty that it would disappoint him no matter what it was. A choice between an unhappy and loveless marriage, or a long life of loneliness? He wished Mike had never asked the question in the first place.
Hugo, however, looked giddy at this question as he nodded with renewed vigour.
Mike’s mouth dropped open in shock, and he looked suddenly pale, “What?”
Will shot him a raised brow, “Is it really that surprising?” he said, trying to ignore the helpless swoop of sadness in his chest at Hugo’s words.
“What? No! I mean — I just meant—“ said Mike, struggling with the words, “I… I mean… who is it?” he turned back to Hugo, “Can we know their name? It might be somebody we know already.”
Will frowned, “I hope it’s not,” he said, “I don’t like anybody we know enough to marry them — except our friends, obviously, but that’s different.”
Hugo, if it was even possible, looked somehow immensely more excited by these words, “I can’t tell you who it is,” he giggled, “That’s a really big spoiler.”
Will had no idea what Hugo was even talking about now, but Mike was undeterred. Apparently the knowledge that Will’s future partner was a ‘spoiler’ — meaning it probably was somebody they had already met — had given him a new sense of determination.
“Is it someone we knew in middle school? Or did Will meet her in California? Or — or does he get a job, and then meet somebody at work? Is she nice? How old is she? Have you met her?” he asked, so quickly that Will could not be sure he had even heard every question.
Hugo appeared almost hysterical by this point, as tears had formed in his eyes and it looked to Will as though he was holding his breath to keep himself from laughing. Will did not understand what was so funny.
“Yes. No. No. Sometimes. The same age as you both are, and yes, obviously I have,” Hugo said calmly, having gotten control of himself enough to answer.
Mike stared, eyes locked on Hugo, “It is someone we knew in middle school?”
Hugo raised an eyebrow, and Will thought warmly that he might have actually picked up that habit from his older self — it certainly looked the same as when Will did it.
“Yes, it’s someone from your middle school,” he said airily, “Anyway, can we talk about something else now? I’m not going to tell you who it is, and this is getting a bit boring for me.”
Despite his words, Hugo looked anything but bored, and Mike seemed extremely disappointed by this suggestion. Feeling quite conflicted about the news himself, Will decided to change the subject.
“What about you, then?” he asked Hugo, and Hugo blinked up at him curiously, “What’s your life like at home?”
Hugo pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them loosely.
“Oh, I don’t know, really. I’m not supposed to tell you, am I?”
Mike leaned back on his haunches and put his hands down flat on the floor, “Come on,” he said, nudging Hugo’s elbow, “We already know almost everything. How about school, or Hawkins? Are things different now than they are in… um, when are you from, again?”
Hugo blinked. “I was born in 1998.”
Will nearly choked, “What?” he glanced at Mike, whose eyes were very wide, “That’s — I mean—“
He wasn’t sure if Mike would appreciate him saying ‘that’s really soon’ because he didn’t seem all that excited by the prospect.
“What?” said Hugo, his little face pinched in a frown.
“Nothing,” said Will hurriedly, “So yeah, how’s your life in…” Will counted up in his head, “2008? God, that’s weird to think about.”
Hugo grinned. “It’s good,” he said, “Things have improved, mostly. Except the fashion. It’s sort of weird being back here, when everyone’s dressed like it’s some retro party,” he glanced at Mike, “Even you get a bit more style when you’re older.”
Mike spluttered in outrage at this, “I’m stylish now!”
“Right,” said Hugo disbelievingly, and Will had to bite his lip to keep from laughing.
“What else?” he prompted, and Hugo rested his head on his knees, brows drawn in as he thought.
“Um, Dustin is a scientist, but you probably could’ve figured that out yourselves—“ Mike and Will grinned at each other, “Lucas is pretty cool. He’s a firefighter, I think, or something big and important like that, he doesn’t really talk about it.” Will exchanged an amused glance with Mike. Lucas almost certainly wasn’t a firefighter, but little Hugo probably knew very few professions. “Oh, and you’re an artist.”
He looked at Will, and Will’s heart suddenly began rabbiting with excitement. “Really?” he said, “I’m an artist full time?”
Hugo nodded. “You’re really good, too. Your paintings sell for loads.”
Will could have cried with relief. This small tidbit of information suddenly seemed like a beautiful, glistening silver lining in what was otherwise a rather dull future. Mike leaned back again beside him and let out a low whistle.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he said, and Will turned to meet his eyes. Mike smiled warmly. “Your paintings are amazing.”
Will flushed pink with embarrassment, “They’re not that good—“
“—Yeah, they are!” Mike insisted, brightening, then he turned to Hugo, who was watching their exchange with wide eyes. “If you think he’s good in your time, you haven’t even seen what he can do already. He made me the most incredible painting last spring—“
“It was nothing,” said Will hurriedly, hoping to move the topic onwards, lest Hugo ask further and he need explain what that painting had truly meant.
“That’s cool,” said Hugo, but he didn’t seem very interested in the supposed incredible painting. Instead, he was looking back and forth between Mike and Will as though he was trying to puzzle out a problem between them.
At that moment, the door to the cabin swung suddenly open with a bang, causing all three of them to jolt with surprise. Nancy appeared in the doorway, looking thunderous.
“Mike,” she said sternly, and Mike blanched.
“Oh shit,” he muttered.
“You explicitly agreed to learn how to shoot today, Jonathan heard it. I can go and get him if you need a witness—“
“No, okay, I’m coming!” said Mike, getting up and usurping a pile of jigsaws in the process. He shot a cursory glance back at Hugo, then Will, who raised an eyebrow, before offering a reluctant shrug and following an irritable Nancy out the door.
Nancy shut it with a slam behind him, and once again, Will and Hugo were alone.
Will wasn’t really sure what to say, now that Mike was gone. He’d thought he knew how to handle Hugo earlier, but it suddenly seemed all very confusing and easy to fumble, with Hugo always watching him with that wide-eyed stare of his, exactly like Mike had been at his age. So endlessly curious. Always thinking and connecting and calculating.
It was almost hurtful how similar they were. Will tried everything to avoid it but he couldn’t help drawing comparisons in his mind. Hugo’s face, his pointed features and rounded jaw, the deep brown of his eyes, the way he carried himself and the way he spoke. Only his hair was a little different than Mike’s; lighter, maybe, and smoother.
Mike’s hair was a dark, black-ish coal colour, and it would curl at the nape and behind his ears. Hugo’s hair grew straight, sleek and brown. Like the coat of a rabbit.
“What about your life?” Hugo asked eventually, voice quiet like it hadn’t been with Mike, and Will wondered if he was nervous now that his dad was gone or just calmer with only Will to hear him.
“What about it?” said Will, “You must know everything already.”
Hugo dropped his legs and crossed them, pulling a blanket off the couch nearby and draping it over his shoulders like a cape. He looked suddenly much younger than he was, and Will’s heart ached.
“Not really,” he said, “you don’t talk about your childhood much — or,” he waved a hand vaguely, “teenager-hood.”
“Adolescence,” Will corrected, feeling a surge of affection for him.
Hugo smiled and said, “Yeah, that. You don’t mention it that often — but I guess I haven’t really asked either. So…”
He looked up at Will inquiringly, and Will let out a heavy sigh, averting his eyes, “I don’t know what I should tell you,” he said, “It’s pretty… complicated.”
Hugo laughed, “You could say that. What with the inter-dimensional monsters, and everything.”
Will smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes, “Yeah, but there’s more than that — it’s just difficult, I guess, being a teenager,” he glanced down to find Hugo watching him again, he sucked in a breath, “you never seem to know what anyone’s thinking, or how they really feel. It gets confusing.”
“Do you know what my dad is thinking?” Hugo asked, and Will stared at him in surprise.
“Mike?” he asked, and Hugo nodded. Will laughed, “No. Definitely not — I think I understand him least of all, if I’m honest.”
Hugo looked equally surprised by this, and Will hurried to correct himself, “Not that there’s anything up with him,” he said, “or — or with me, it’s — things are different than they used to be, between us. It’s not wrong, necessarily, it’s just—“
“—different,” Hugo finished for him, an almost vacant look in his eyes. “Is that a bad thing?” he said, “I mean, you’re still close aren’t you? You are when you’re older. — really close. Maybe different is good.”
Will’s heart thudded erratically at Hugo’s words, and he wasn’t sure if he felt good or bad about the confirmation of that fact. He and Mike were still friends in the future, and, by the sound of it, closer than ever. That did not bode well for his happy-and-not-loveless-marriage prospects.
“I — I don’t know,” he said, and Hugo looked suddenly uncertain. Will glanced at him. It felt like he had bared his soul, like Hugo could somehow see what he really was, and suddenly Will couldn’t take it any longer. He rose abruptly, upsetting the pile of jigsaws just as Mike had done.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a rush, “I just need a bit of air.”
He tripped on his way to the door, and Hugo watched his retreating back until he stepped outside, shutting the door quietly behind him.
Mike and Nancy were standing a few feet away, absorbed in what looked like a very unsuccessful attempt to teach Mike how to use a projectile weapon. Will didn’t particularly want to speak with them, either, and so he took the hammer Hopper had left on the porch some days earlier and resorted to fixing the few broken planks on the outskirts of the cabin.
It was fairly easy work, the hammer loose and not too heavy in his hands, but it didn’t last very long. Most of the cabin was only ruined from the inside — but inside there was Hugo, and those insightful eyes of his like he knew exactly what Will was thinking. Will couldn’t go back in there.
And so, he hammered pointlessly at any nail he could see, until the clouds rolled overhead and the light in the cabin suddenly flickered on, bathing him in yellow. He eventually took a break on the porch, rolling the hammer between his hands, trying to think of anything but Hugo’s words.
A calm, comfortable quiet had settled over the forest, with a a thin mist hanging in the air. The trees swayed darkly in the wind, their tallest branches only just visible through the fog, and the foliage was long and damp beneath Will’s feet as he ran them through it rhythmically, back and forth, back and forth.
Mike was still standing beside Nancy between the trees, his posture pulled taught as she talked him through how to shoot a rifle. Her arms were on his back, twisting him into the correct position, muttering something scathing in his ear that had him snapping back at her irritably. Will watched him move, the sharp line of his jaw, the jut of his wrist against gunmetal, the shape of him silhouetted against the sun.
He was like something out of a museum. His body cast different in the faded light, like he changed with the hour, and Will imagined running his hands across his waist, holding his hips, his face, feeling the warm press of his skin, the softness of his mouth—
“Whatcha lookin’ at?” said a voice from behind him. Will startled and dropped his hammer with a yelp of alarm.
He turned to find none other than Hugo seated on the decking, wearing an uncharacteristically wolfish grin, and Will flushed red to the tips of his ears.
“Nothing,” he said, far too quickly, with the air of somebody who had been caught doing something they shouldn’t.
“Right,” said Hugo, still grinning, “So what’s my dad up to, then?”
Will stilled like a deer in headlights. “Um, I wouldn’t know,” he said, keeping his voice carefully light, “Why don’t you go and ask him?”
Hugo levelled him an unimpressed stare, and Will felt once again as though he could see right past Will’s indifferent facade and into his head. Although he had decided he liked Hugo rather a lot, this miraculous sort of social perceptiveness he possessed was unfamiliar, definitely not inherited from Mike, and was beginning to take quite a toll on Will’s nerves.
Hugo, however, did not seem at all perturbed by Will’s unusually strong interest in his father; on the contrary, he was consistently intrigued by it. Will wished he would be intrigued by absolutely anything else. He felt it was hideously inappropriate to be thinking about kissing Mike senseless when the product of his happy future with someone else was sitting right there.
Will cleared his throat embarrassedly, and Hugo finally turned his piercing gaze away, fixing it instead upon Mike, who was still holding the rifle completely wrong. He smiled at the ground.
“I didn’t expect you to be like this,” he said suddenly, and Will blinked in surprise.
“What?”
Hugo looked back at him again. “You,” he repeated, then gestured vaguely around them, “This. I don’t know. I guess I thought you’d be like you are now — back in my time.”
Will frowned, “Is that a bad thing?”
Hugo laughed softly, then shrugged, “No. I mean, it’s not a good thing either,” he said, and Will wasn’t sure if he should feel offended or not, “but it’s not bad. It’s sort of funny. You’re so… teenager-ish. I just wasn’t expecting it.”
Will let out a laugh, and Hugo smiled at him again; that heartbreaker of a grin. His dad’s.
“I’m sorry to disappoint,” he said, and Hugo snorted, “but I don’t really know what you were expecting. Unfortunately for me, I am a teenager, so… it sort of comes with the package.”
Hugo stared into the distance, something almost wistful in his gaze. “Yeah,” he agreed, then paused. “I think you’ll like your older self, when you get there,” he said quietly.
Will allowed himself to think of it, if only for a moment — his own future. What might that hold? Could that even be real for someone like him? Did Hugo know what he really wanted? He didn’t know.
“Can you tell me about him?” Will asked, “My older self, I mean. What’s he like?”
Hugo tensed beside him. “Grandma said—“
“I know,” said Will, “You don’t have to go into specifics. Just — I mean—“ he swallowed, felt his heart pick up speed.
He’d promised himself he wouldn’t ask. He’d been trying so hard not to ask. He wished he could blame it on the weird situation, the hope that Hugo might not hear him, but he was half thinking of this, the ease of conversation, the fun of laughing with someone you loved, and whether that would be left for him. Whether Mike would drift off into his beautiful family and his inevitable marriage and would forget all about him. He wondered how lonely the future was. He wondered what he might have left to live for.
“When I’m older… I’m not — I’m not in prison, am I? Or, like… sick?” he asked finally, his voice no more than a breath in the air, blood roaring in his ears, his palms slick with sweat.
“Prison?” Hugo stared at him, looking offended at the mere suggestion of it, “Why would you be in prison?”
Will swallowed, ignoring the question, “And I’m not sick?” he repeated despite himself, almost wishing he wouldn’t hear the answer.
“No,” said Hugo, his small face very serious now, “You’re not sick — you—“ he shuddered, breath catching, and Will thought with a rush of panic that he seemed like he was about to cry.
“I know — you can’t tell me anything, I’m sorry,” he said quickly, “I’m — I shouldn’t have asked.”
He couldn’t talk to Hugo about this, it wasn’t fair to burden him with something so heavy. He wished he’d never said anything in the first place.
“My parents say it’s dangerous, to meddle with time,” Hugo said. “Just in case they can’t fix things, but — I would tell you everything, if I could. What happens to you.”
Will smiled a little sadly, half-glad Hugo wasn’t able to. Perhaps it was better not to know. “That’s kind,” he said. “Thank you.”
“You — you do alright,” Hugo said, voice catching, and he blinked imploringly at Will. His lips were pressed tight together, like he was expecting the floor to give way beneath him.
“Okay,” Will said gently, and touched Hugo’s shoulder. “That’s okay. You don’t need to say anything else.”
Hugo looked a little comforted, turning back again to watch Mike make a fool of himself with the rifle. It was good news, Will thought, and he should take it as such. ‘Alright’ couldn’t mean incarcerated or outcast by his family and friends, and if Hugo was too young and too naive still to know all the things it could include, that wasn’t his fault. A quiet, boring life would be just fine, Will supposed. It would be more than he deserved.
It was just that he was so desperate. It was just that he wanted so much, and he was so full of love and it had nowhere to go. He almost blamed Hugo, for reminding him of everything he still wanted, everything he’d dreamed about having when he was young and stupid enough to think he’d get it. Normality. Family. Being the kind of man who’d raise a child who laughs shamelessly at his father, who wouldn’t flinch every time a door slams.
He was so proud of Mike and El, though he would never tell them. Hugo was a perfect, sweet gift of a child, and they’d raised him that way — Will’s best friends in the whole world. Of course they’d be incredible parents. He knew it was selfish, but he only wished he could be a part of it himself.