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The first nest wasn't really a nest. Not at first. It was just a pile of blankets in the corner of Mike's basement, a chaotic heap of old flannel covers and faded cotton throws that had accumulated over months of sleepovers.
Will would curl into them, making himself as small as possible, seeking a kind of comfort he didn’t quite understand. He’d breathe in the smell of dust and old board games, all of it tangled with Mike's scent—sweet coffee and chocolate, with a hint of paper and ink beneath it.
Unmistakably alpha, but a softer one. Not fully matured yet.
It made him seek out the pile even more.
It started growing unconsciously. He'd kick the blankets off the couch during the night, and they'd migrate. A stray pillow from the armchair would join the pile. Dustin's discarded hoodie, forgotten after a weekend campaign, would get tangled in the mess.
Will would wake up shivering, half-asleep as he navigated toward the heap, and fall back into it, warmer and safer.
Mike noticed. Of course Mike noticed. He noticed everything about Will.
But he never said a word—not about the blankets, not about how Will would start drifting toward them whenever he was there, not about how his breathing would slow and deepen once he was wrapped up in the mess. He just started adding to it.
An old, worn-in Hawkins elementary hoodie of his appeared one weekend. A second, softer pillow that looked like it came from upstairs. A thick quilted comforter from the linen closet that smelled faintly of Mike’s mom.
He would leave them near the pile, then busy himself setting up the game board, pretending he hadn't done anything at all.
Will, in turn, would wait until Mike was distracted, until Lucas was complaining about the rules and Dustin was arguing about dice rolls, and then he'd quietly fold the new additions into the pile. He'd fluff the pillows, arrange the comforter just how he liked it, tuck the hoodie into a corner, its worn sleeve forming a perfect place for his head to rest.
It wasn’t really about the blankets anymore. It was about creating a feeling of safety, of being held. Of having a space that couldn’t be taken.
As the nest grew, it became something more deliberate, a small, lumpy fortress against the world. The basement, with its dim lighting and familiar smell, was already a refuge. But the nest was his refuge.
Inside it, the muffled sounds of their games, the flicker of the TV, the murmur of their voices all softened into a distant, soothing hum. He could hear Mike laugh, a calming, familiar sound, and feel it settle deep in his chest, a quiet warmth that made the space feel like it belonged to him too.
"You comfortable down there, Byers?" Lucas had asked once, peering over the back of his chair.
Will had just nodded, pulling the hood of Mike's sweatshirt up over his head, the scent of alpha and laundry detergent a balm against the faint metallic taste of his father's anger that still sometimes clung to him, a scent he couldn't quite shake.
Mike had shot Lucas a look, a quick, protective glare. "He's fine. He's just strategizing."
Will had smiled into the darkness of the hood. Mike understood. He didn't need the words.
—-------------------------------------
Castle Byers was different. The basement nest was something everyone built together, a shared secret. Castle Byers was all his. Built from branches, sticks, and other things he’d managed to salvage, nailed together in the isolated forest behind his house. The wood was rough under his hands, smelling of sap and damp earth. Inside, it was small and cramped, there were gaps between the branches, letting the cold slip through that set his teeth chattering.
But it was his.
He didn't have blankets there, not at first. Just a tarp he found to keep out the worst of the rain and an old sheet hung over the entrance.
He built his nest half from scraps, half from what nature gave him. A bed made from a wooden pallet he’d found behind Melvald's, filled in with dried leaves and covered with an old wool army blanket from the garage.
He added a small battery lamp, its warm light pushing back the dark that slipped through the gaps in the walls. He tacked up his drawings—monsters and heroes and spaceships—until the flimsy walls were covered in the worlds he'd created.
Here, the sounds were different. The crack of a twig somewhere out in the trees. The dry rustle of leaves across the forest floor. The distant hoot of an owl. The space felt fragile and exposed. A strong gust of wind made the whole place shudder. Rain tapped a nervous beat on the tarp outside.
But it was a fortress nonetheless. A fragile one, but it was his. Here, there was no alpha scent to ground him, no warm familiar voice to soothe him. There was only the quiet of the woods, and the smell of earth and damp moss, and the scratchy wool against his skin. He would lie on his bed, tracing the gaps in the ceiling with his eyes, and feel a different kind of safety settle over him. Not the safe shelter of the basement, but the safety you get from being hidden, from being unseen. Lonnie rarely came out here. He called it a "sissy's playhouse." And because of that, he stayed away. It was safe.
One afternoon, Mike found him there. Will was drawing, lost in the world on his paper, when he heard the snap of a twig. He flinched, his whole body tensing, bracing for a shout or a sarcastic comment.
But it was just Mike, pushing through the sheet hanging over the doorway.
"Hey, your mom said you’d be out here." Mike said, his voice soft. He looked around the small space, taking in the drawings, the neat stack of comics, the carefully made bed. He didn't say it looked small or flimsy. He just nodded. "It's cool."
Will's heart was still beating a little too fast. He watched as Mike walked over to him, looking down at the drawing he was working on, a detailed sketch of a dragon perched on a castle.
"You're getting really good at that," Mike said, his finger hovering just above the paper, not quite touching it.
"Thanks," Will whispered.
Mike stood there for a moment longer, the silence stretching between them, comfortable and easy. Then he unzipped his jacket and shrugged it off.
"Here," he said, holding it out. "It's gonna get cold later."
It wasn't a question. Will took the jacket, the worn denim cool and heavy in his hands. It smelled strongly of Mike. Chocolate. Coffee. Paper. He didn't put it on. Instead, he folded it carefully and placed it at the foot of his bed, a new, solid piece of his fortress.
Mike didn't mention the jacket again. He just sat down on the floor, leaning against the bed, and started telling Will about the new module he'd bought for their campaign. Will listened, the sound of Mike's voice filling the small space, chasing away the quiet whispers of the woods.
He had built this nest himself. But as he listened, a warm feeling spread through his chest. Mike was helping build it too, just by being there.
—----------------------------------
The third nest was the hardest. It was in his own room, after Lonnie finally left for good. The silence in the house was different then. It wasn't the tense, anxious silence of before. It was an empty silence. A new one.
For weeks, Will couldn't bring himself to do it. His room was just a room. The walls were still painted the same bland color. The band posters of The Clash and Joy Division were still taped up. His desk was still covered in pencils and sketches.
But it didn't feel safe. It felt like a place where shouting had happened, where doors had been slammed, where the air had been thin and filled with anger.
He would lie in bed at night, the familiar creaks and rattling pipes in the house sounding like threats, his body rigid, wound tight and unable to relax.
His mom noticed. Of course she did.
She tried to make it better. She bought him new sheets, soft blue ones that smelled like detergent. She stuck a galaxy on his ceiling, tiny shimmering stars that glowed faintly in the dark. She always knocked before she came in, her knuckles rapping a gentle, questioning rhythm on the wood. "Will? Honey? You okay in there?"
He would always say yes. But he wasn't. Not really.
The change was gradual. It started with a blanket from the living room, a thick, heavy thing with a fringe. He brought it up one afternoon, draped it over the end of his bed, and just left it there. A few days later, he added a pillow from the linen closet. Then, one Saturday, Mike came over, carrying a lumpy garbage bag.
"My mom was cleaning out the attic," he said, dumping the bag on Will's floor. "Thought you might want some of this old stuff."
Inside was a collection of mismatched pillows and faded blankets. Things that had been Mike's, once. A flannel sleeping bag unzipped and laid open across the pile. A pillow with a cartoon rocket ship on it, worn flat with age.
Will looked at the pile, then at Mike, who was trying to act casual, already picking up a comic book from Will's desk.
"You don't have to," Will said, his voice quiet.
"I know," Mike said, not looking at him. "They were just taking up space."
It was the worst lie Mike had ever told, and Will's chest ached with a fondness so visceral it almost hurt.
He started that afternoon. He pushed his bed against the far wall, away from the window and the door. He arranged the pillows, creating a high, padded barrier on two sides. He stacked the blankets, the soft blue sheets on the bottom, then the heavy fringe blanket, then Mike's old sleeping bag on top. He tucked the edges in, smoothing the wrinkles, creating a soft, layered foundation. It was careful, precise. He wasn't just making a bed; he was building a bulwark. A soft one.
When he was done, he stood back and looked at it. It was a nest. A real one, made intentionally, in his own room. The center of it had a slight depression, a bowl waiting to be filled. He hesitated for only a second before climbing in, pulling the top layer of blankets up to his chin.
The air was different in here now. Warmer. Easier to breathe. It smelled of laundry and old flannel and a faint, lingering trace of Mike's alpha scent, woven into the fabric of the sleeping bag. The sounds of the house were muffled, distant. Jonathan was in his room, the faint thrum of music bleeding through the wall. His mom was in the kitchen, the clatter of dishes a soft echo.
He closed his eyes and breathed. In. Out.
For the first time, the silence in the house didn't feel empty. It felt peaceful. It felt safe. He had built a safe place inside a place that had once been unsafe. He had carved out a piece of the world that was just for him.
—----------------------------------------------------
Then the world ended.
It started with a bike ride home in the dark and a monster in the woods. The cold seeped into his bones, a deep, invasive chill that had nothing to do with the frigid temperature or his sweat soaked clothes sticking to his skin. He felt watched. Hunted.
By the time he made it to the house, fumbling with the key, his hands were numb. He struggled with the keychain, willing himself to muster any remnants of calm.
"Mom?" he called out, his voice thin and scared.
Nothing.
A flicker of movement outside the window. A shadow where there shouldn't be one.
Fear, cold and sharp, raced through him. Pure, instinctual. He was prey.
He didn't think. He ran. Not to the basement, not to the shed. He ran for the woods. For the nest in Castle Byers, hoping it wouldn't be able to find him there.
He scrambled inside, dragging the blankets over himself, curling into the small hollow he'd made there. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage.
He could hear it moving through the trees. A wet, rasping breathing. Branches scraping. Something heavy shifting through the undergrowth.
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to summon the feeling of safety, the memory of Mike's scent, the softness of the pillows. But the fear was too big. It was like a physical presence in the dark with him, a cold spot that radiated malice.
The small lamp in the corner flickered. Once. Twice.
Will's eyes snapped open.
The light sputtered weakly, the shadows inside the fort jerking and stretching across the walls of branches. Outside, something moved through the trees. That wet, rasping breath again, closer now.
The lamp flickered harder.
Then it went out.
And he was gone.
—---------------------------------------------------
In the basement, the nest remained. A silent, empty fortress. The blankets were still arranged just as Will had left them, a hollow in the center waiting for a body that wasn't there. Mike couldn't stand to look at it. He couldn't stand to go down there at all, at first. The air was thick with the ghost of Will's scent, a fading omega sweetness that only reminded him what was missing.
But then Eleven was there. A strange, silent girl with a buzz cut and wide, haunted eyes. She needed a place to hide. A place to sleep.
The basement was the only option.
Mike hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, his gaze fixed on the nest. It looked wrong, all empty and still. He remembered how Will would look, curled up inside, just the top of his head visible, his breathing slow and even.
"It's okay," Dustin said, clapping him on the shoulder. "He wouldn't mind. She needs somewhere safe."
Mike nodded, though he wasn't convinced. Will would mind. The nest was private, a sacred space. But what choice did they have?
He led Eleven over to it. She looked at the pile of blankets, her head tilted.
"You can sleep here," Mike said, his voice hoarse. "It's... comfortable."
She didn't say anything. She just climbed in, her movements stiff and uncertain. She didn't arrange the pillows or smooth the blankets. She just lay down on top of the comforter, pulling a single corner of one of the blankets over herself, like it would protect her.
Mike watched her for a moment, a strange mix of emotions churning in his stomach. Guilt, for letting someone else use Will's space. Relief, that El would be warm. And a deep, hollow ache of loss.
Every night, she slept there. And every night, the nest changed a little more. Her scent, a strange combination of static and ozone, began to soak into the fabric. The blankets got kicked into a new, unfamiliar layout. The carefully built-up walls of pillows slowly collapsed, sagging under the weight of neglect.
Mike tried to fix it, sometimes. In the morning, after El was awake and eating Eggo waffles, he would go downstairs and try to put the pillows back, to smooth the blankets into their original positions. But he couldn't remember how they were supposed to go, not exactly. He only had a vague memory of how it looked, how it felt when Will was in it. His efforts only made it look more disturbed.
The nest became a place of waiting. They would sit around it, trying to figure out what to do next, the empty space a constant reminder of what they were fighting for. Mike would sometimes run his hand over the worn hoodie, trying to catch a ghost of Will's scent, but all he could smell was Eleven and the dusty smell of the basement.
The nest wasn't Will's anymore. It was just a pile of blankets.
—--------------------------------------------
Coming back was how he imagined being born felt. A violent, painful entry into a world of light and sound and sensation. The hospital was too bright, the beeping of the machines too loud. The rough texture of the blanket on his bed was overstimulating. He felt flayed, exposed, every nerve ending raw and twitching.
He remembered screaming. He remembered the feeling of something in his throat, something cold and alive. He remembered darkness and wetness and a hunger that was a bottomless pit in his stomach.
His mom was there, her face a mess of tears and relief. Jonathan was there, his hand squeezing Will's, silent and steady with support. Mike was there, too, sitting on the edge of the chair, looking at Will like he might disappear again at any moment.
When Mike reached out and put a hand on his arm, Will flinched. Not from fear. From the sheer intensity of the contact. The warmth of Mike's palm a shock against his skin, the familiar alpha scent a wave that crashed over him, so potent it made him dizzy. For a second, he was back in the basement, back in the nest, wrapped up in safety. Then the moment passed, and he was just Will Byers, in a hospital bed, with a monster's roar still ringing in his ears.
—------------------------------------------
The first time he went back to Mike's house was a week later. He was still weak, still shaky on his feet. The world felt distant, like there was a film on top he could push through and fall back into the cold, fear of the upside down. His mom fussed over him, pulling a hat down over his head.
"You need a normal day, sweetie," she said, her voice filled with forced cheerfulness. "Just a normal day with your friends."
Will just nodded. He wanted to see Mike. He needed to.
The house was the same. The same pile of shoes by the door. The same smell of Karen Wheeler's potpourri. But everything felt different. Too bright. Too real.
They went down to the basement. The familiar steps squeaked under their feet. The TV hummed its low, comforting drone. And there it was.
The nest.
It was in the same corner. The same pillows, the same blankets. But it was wrong.
Will stopped at the bottom of the stairs, his breath catching in his throat. He could see it from here. The pillows were collapsed, slumped against the wall like they’d given up. The comforter was rumpled, kicked into a messy pile in the center. The worn hoodie, the one he used to lay his head on, was half-unfolded, tossed in the corner.
It looked like a place where someone had slept. Not a place someone had carefully built.
Mike came up behind him, putting a hesitant hand on his back. "You okay?"
Will couldn't answer. He took a slow step forward, then another. He could smell it before he even got close. The scent was all wrong. The faint, sweet trace of his own omega smell was gone, washed away, replaced by something else. Something sharp and clean and strange. Static. Like a storm about to break.
Eleven's scent.
He remembered the stories, told in excited rambles while he was in the hospital. A girl with powers. A girl they'd found in the rain. A girl Mike had protected.
She had slept here. In his nest.
The understanding landed hard, like a punch to the gut that knocked the air out of his lungs. He felt a dizzying swoop of loss, a sickening drop so intense he had to put a hand on the back of the couch to steady himself. He wasn't angry. He wasn't jealous. He was just... empty.
This had been the first place. The beginning. The place where he had learned what safety felt like. He had built it, thread by thread, blanket by blanket, with Mike's quiet help. It was made of pieces of them, every part of it held a memory.
And now it was gone.
It was just a pile of blankets.
He walked the rest of the way, his movements stiff and robotic. He knelt down beside the nest, the floor cold against his knees. He reached out a trembling hand and touched the edge of the worn hoodie. The fabric was cold. He brought it to his face, inhaling deeply, searching for a ghost of coffee, a whisper of alpha, any hint of himself.
There was nothing. Only the faint scent of static and ozone.
He felt Mike's gaze on him, weighted with concern. But Mike didn't understand. How could he? To him, it was just a bed. Just some old blankets. To Will, it had been something that was his and now it wasn't anymore. They hadn't done it to hurt him, but out of necessity. Mike had been trying to keep someone else safe, and he had used Will's place to do it.
It was the most logical thing in the world.
And it broke something in Will.
He let the fabric drop from his fingers. He stood up, brushing the dust off his knees.
"Let's play," he said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. He walked over to the table, where the Dungeons & Dragons board was already set up. He picked up his cleric figurine, the painted metal cool and solid in his palm.
Mike watched him for another long moment, a furrow of worry between his brows. "Are you sure, Will? We can just... hang out."
"I'm sure," Will said. He kept his eyes on the table, careful not to look toward the corner.
The game felt strange. The usual banter, the familiar rhythm of their voices, all of it sounded distant. Lucas was arguing with Dustin about some rule, their voices rising and falling in a familiar way. But Will couldn't focus. His eyes kept drifting to the corner of the room, to the messy heap of blankets that had once been his fortress
Every now and then, he would catch Mike looking at him, a question in his eyes. But Will would just look down at his character sheet, tracing the lines of the drawn-on grid with his finger. He wasn't going to cry. He wasn't going to get angry. He was just going to live with it.
—---------------------------------
That night, he went home and went straight to his room. To the third nest. He closed the door, plunging the room into near darkness, the only light coming from the glowing stars on his ceiling. He climbed into the nest, pulling the heavy blankets up to his chin, burying his face in the pillow that still held the faintest trace of Mike's scent.
He breathed it in. Coffee. Chocolate. Alpha. Home.
This nest was still his. No one had been here. No one had touched it. He was safe here.
But the knowledge was a cold comfort. The safety felt smaller now. Fragile. He thought he could carry the feeling with him. But he couldn't. It was tied to places. And one of his places was gone.
He curled into a tight ball, his knees pulled up to his chest. He thought of the basement nest. He thought of Eleven, sleeping there. He imagined her, small and lost, and the thought didn't bring anger, only a deep sadness. He understood why Mike had done it. He would have done the same.
Understanding didn't fix the empty space inside him.
—----------------------------------------
The next weekend, Mike came over and they headed to Castle Byers. The autumn air was crisp and the woods smelled of damp leaves. The fort felt colder than Will remembered.
"I brought this," Mike said, holding out a worn, grey hoodie. It was softer than the others, the fabric thin and pilled.
Will took it, his fingers brushing against Mike's. The touch sent a jolt through him, a spark of warmth that quickly faded. "Thanks."
He didn't put the hoodie on. He folded it carefully and laid it on top of the blankets, a new layer in the nest.
But as he sat there, listening to Mike talk, he realized something was different here, too. The flimsy walls didn't feel as protective anymore. The sounds of the woods outside—the rustling leaves, the snapping twigs—no longer sounded like a soothing whisper. They sounded like what they were: just the sounds of the woods. The sounds of the place where the Demogorgon had found him.
The fragile safety of Castle Byers had been shattered.
He looked at the hoodie in the nest. A new solid piece for a fortress that was no longer standing. He felt a familiar prickle behind his eyes and blinked it back.
Will listened to Mike's voice in the cold quiet of the fort. But the feeling was different now.
The safety wasn't in the fort or the nest. It was in Mike. And that was a terrifying thought.
A nest could be lost and rebuilt. A fort could be destroyed and made again. But what happened if he lost Mike?
Will didn't know. But at least for now, Mike was still there.