Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Will Byers pushes down on the pedals of his bike. The buzz of the campaign culminating in that final climactic encounter, and that last smile from Mike, still fills his stomach. He's still reminiscing when his autopiloting brain turns and takes him down the path the party calls "Mirkwood."

Dread starts to pang at the edges of his awareness. He doesn't take this path in the dark. The lack of streetlights makes the already ominous forest seem eldritch. Branches from the overgrown trees on either side grasp at his puffy vest and jeans.

Something crashes through a tangle of branches on his left, and he picks up speed.

Mirkwood gives way to the street in front of his house. His legs ache, his lungs burn. He leaps off the bike and sprints up the stairs to the door.

Something is following him.

He fumbles with the single key on his keychain, scraping it against the lock face four times before he finally finds purchase.

He scrambles inside, locks the door, and slides the chain lock into place.

Will collapses and turns back to the door, chest heaving.

It's not real. It's not real. Its-

The door shudders as something impossibly tall smashes a fist against the cheap wood.

Not real. Please don’t be-

The entire door seems to come loose as another impact rocks the entire house.

RUN!

Will starts to push himself to his feet as the chainlock slowly slides out of the rail, as if an unseen hand was moving it without a care in the world.

He sprints towards the back door as another impact slams the door open. He doesn’t look back, bursting through the rear door and finding his legs taking him to the shed.

His hands find the twenty-two caliber rifle, and he dumps the half-empty box of ammo onto the work table.

Lonnie’s voice comes to Will unbidden; he wants to puke as he forces his body to follow the man’s commands.

“Open the bolt, push the round into the chamber. Close the bolt. Shoulder the weapon. Find your sight picture-”

The boy looks through the rifle's circular sights, a monster, all loping arms and legs, with a head too wrong to process, stalks towards him from the house.

“Finger on the trigger, increase pressure slowly-”

The shot snaps and reverberates through the shed. The monster barely flinches.

“Open the bolt, clear the spent casing-”

The creature is too close.

It lunges.

The world goes white.

The air is damp, and Will’s ears immediately pop as the pressure changes drastically.

“Will! Fireball now!”

It’s Mike’s voice. Will opens eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed, and finds a large cavern bathed in torchlight. In the center of the cavern is a more familiar monster. A demogorgon, two headed monster with both of its bulbous heads holding rows of sharp teeth.

A small figure in silver armor holding a glowing sword and shield is currently engaged in combat with the monster. Two figures lay sprawled too close for comfort near the creature. One has a bow lying across its chest, the other a sword and mace.

Will finishes pushing the round into the chamber and closes the bolt.

Some dream, usually the gun dreams feel way worse.

He sights one of the creature's heads and slowly increases pressure on the trigger. The snap of the gun firing hits the cavern walls and bounces back four times. One of the heads slumps.

The armored figure lunges forward and cuts cleanly through the neck of the still-active head, and the monster slumps, then falls forward. The armored figure jumps and shakes his sword in the air above his head. Then seems to catch himself.

He sheathes his sword and rushes over to the supine figures.

“Dustir, Luco, hang on. Lay on Hands.”

Will’s eyes go wide as golden light spills from the armored figure's hands, and the two people on the ground, Dustir and Luco, both begin coughing and moaning.

“Come on, Mike, that's not enough!”

Says the one now grasping his bow.

“Sorry, that’s all I had left.”

“Ugh- of course the guild would saddle us with the one paladin who hasn’t even completed his oath.”

Says the one holding the mace and shield.

“The gods work in mysterious ways, right- holy fire! You’re not Will!”

The armored figure, Mike, stands and places a hand on the hilt of his sword when he looks up at Will.

The face, half-hidden behind the mask, makes Will’s heart skip a beat.

Mike stares back at him.

Chapter Text

Will La Fey stands in a dark shed. His staff still glows with the backlash of his interrupted spell, but the weave feels different. Not just because whatever teleportation magic brought him here is still dissipating. He steps out into the night and finds a clearing surrounding a small one-story house.

“Dispell magic.”
He says and concentrates on manipulating the weave. The spell activates but finds no target. He starts creeping around the house when a small woman exits the door facing him and says:

“Will! You left both doors open, and you’re playing outside with your D&D stuff in the middle of the night? Get in here NOW!”

The wizard feels a magic even deeper than any he’s attained wash over him like a compulsion. His cheeks go red, and he opens his mouth to clear up the misunderstanding, but something in the woman’s eyes makes him shut his mouth and walk inside.

I wonder if my mother looked like her? He thinks as she comes into view, exasperated expression faltering slightly as she takes in his fresh battle damage.

“Oh, Will, are you okay? Did you fall down?”

He tries to muster the courage to correct her again, but she pulls him into a hug, and he begins sobbing uncontrollably.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry, I was just frustrated. Did you eat dinner at the Wheelers’? I think there’s some hot dog casserole in the fridge.”

Will doesn’t understand most of what she’s saying, but he can’t help himself. It’ll be fine, just for the night, right? I can help find whoever she thinks I am in the morning, right? He thinks as the woman guides him inside so gently.

“Go change, and I’ll get the food hot, okay? Actually-” She sniffs close to him and grimaces.

“Why don’t you take a shower too?”

He almost protests. Prestidigitation is a perfectly acceptable cleaning method for adventurers in the field. Before he can, he finds himself holding a stack of clothes and a towel. The woman gently nudges him into a smaller room and shuts the door.

After several minutes of experimentation and a slightly scalded arm, the wizard does as the strange woman asked. His first few moments of an actual hot shower convince him that there could be no finer luxury, until he smells whatever a “hot dog casserole” is, and his stomach makes approving noises.

Reluctantly, he shuts off the shower and dresses in the stack of clothes. He folds his enchanted robes and cleans them with Prestidigitation, then exits the bathroom still holding his staff.

The woman looks up from two steaming plates of food that make the young wizard salivate. She points and says, “Put them away, I’m sure Mike will be happy to see your new outfit tomorrow, but tonight we’re having dinner, and then you’re going straight to bed, mister.”
Not wanting to give up the ruse until after he has a meal other than hard tack and salted pork for the first time in weeks, Will rushes over to the door she pointed to and stows his gear in the small room.

The food is divine, not that Will has much to go by. The orphanage, and then later Dustir’s “cooking,” had not exactly been haute cuisine by any stretch. This dish was warm, had spices he’d never have dreamed of affording, and portions that might even satisfy Mike.

He wants to praise this woman’s culinary acumen, but doesn’t trust his tongue, especially now that he’d seen the bed he had a chance of sleeping in if this misunderstanding could be held for just a few moments longer.

Once he finishes his second plate, the woman brushes his hair out of his eyes and kisses his forehead. He barely stops himself from sobbing again, and she says:

“Okay, honey, time for bed. Mike’s mom is going to be here around ten, so I want you to wake up before then.”

He nods.

He pads over to the bedroom and climbs beneath the covers. His growing guilt is quashed before it can take root when he feels just how soft everything is. In seconds, he drifts off to sleep.

He wakes the next morning and, in a panic, blasts the mechanical device ringing next to the bed with a firebolt. Not good, that must have cost a fortune, judging by the internal components.

“Mending.”

He pulls on the weave, and the alarm clock reassembles itself. He looks around the kitchen for several moments, then jumps when an older boy pads past him, grunting.

“Cereal?”

The other boy says. In for a copper… Will thinks.

“Y-yes, please, if it's not too much bother.”

The boy chuckles.

“Practicing for D&D at this hour? I dig the dedication.”
He pours two bowls of cereal, pushes one over to Will, and hands him a spoon. The wizard takes a tentative bite, expecting some sort of bran barely elevated above horse meal. His eyes go round, and he begins shovelling the sugary flakes into his mouth.

“Hey- slow down, buddy, I swear there’s still at least three bowls left in the box.”

Jonathan eeks out between chuckles.

Will finishes another bowl and prepares to leave, finding his money pouch and sagging at how light it feels. He still pulls out three silver coins and holds them in his hand. He hears a knock at the front door and walks out of his stolen room as Jonathan opens the front door.

Will looks through the open doorway, and his mouth falls open as he meets the gaze of a boy his age.

Mike stares back at him.

Chapter Text

“You are not Will. You may have his face. But everything else is wrong.”
Mike takes a step closer. His hand clamps around the hilt of his sword.
Will drops the gun like it’s suddenly burning him and throws both hands up. “I am. I am Will. That’s my name. Please don’t stab me.”
“KEEP IT DOWN, I’M TRYING TO SLEEP!” Dustir bellows from somewhere on the ground, voice thick with exhaustion. “Some of us got disemboweled like ten minutes ago!”
Mike’s eyes flick sideways in pure, long-suffering annoyance. “You’re alive.”
“Barely!”
Mike exhales through his nose, then lets his hand slide off his sword. In two quick strides he’s in front of Will, and a gauntleted hand closes around Will’s forearm—firm, controlled, careful in a way that makes Will’s stomach flip anyway.
“What did you do to our Will, Will la Fey?”
Will’s brain short-circuits three times in a row.
The paladin is strong, even while he’s being gentle. The closeness is wrong. His heart does something stupid and traitorous. And Will la Fey is the name of his D&D character.
“Me—Will—nothing—” Will’s mouth forgets how to make sentences. “Strong. Mike.”
Mike blinks, then his grip loosens a fraction. The suspicion in his face falters into something softer. Concern. The kind his Mike only wears when they’re alone and he thinks Will is about to disappear.
“Hey. Hey—sorry.” Mike’s voice drops, calm as a hand on the back of your neck. “You’re a civilian. You’re safe.” He says it like it’s a rule of the universe. Then, like that isn’t enough, he adds, “I’m a paladin.”
He says paladin like it explains everything.
Will stares at him, mute.
“Do you remember how you got here?” Mike asks. “Did you make an enemy of a witch? An archmage?” He quirks a small smile at the last word, like it’s an old joke he can’t help telling.
Will shakes his head quickly. Too quickly.
Mike nods, thinking. “Okay. The guild can help. Once my companions have had their rest, we’ll head back.” He draws himself up like he’s about to deliver an oath, then coughs mid-breath. “I swear as a Paladin of—” Another cough. His ears go pink under the helm’s strap. “—Undecided… no harm will come to you.”

Chapter Text

Mike Wheeler narrows his eyes at Will La Fey.
Not at the new clothes. Not at the damp hair that still smells faintly like soap. At the way he’s standing—too still, like he’s listening for a threat that isn’t there. Like he’s braced for a blow.
Mike’s mom is talking to Joyce in the kitchen—polite voices, adult voices, the kind that smooth over anything weird by pretending it isn’t. Mike gives Karen a quick, automatic hug, mumbles something that might be “love you,” and then his gaze snaps right back to Will.
Will offers him what he hopes passes for Will Byers’ shy smile.
Mike doesn’t return it.
He’s across the room in three strides. His hand closes around Will’s wrist—not painful, but not gentle either—and he hauls him down the hall like he’s afraid to give whatever’s wearing Will’s face time to run.
“Mike—?”
The bedroom door shuts with a soft, final click.
Mike’s voice drops to a hiss. “Who are you?”
There’s heat in his stare that makes Will take a reflexive step back. He’d been wondering when someone would call out the deception, but he’d expected—Jonathan. Maybe Joyce, eventually. Not—
His brain catches on the wrong detail and jams there.
“Mike?” Will blurts. “Mike the Brave? How are you here? Did you get caught in that teleportation spell too? Where’s your armor? Where are Dustir and Luco?”
Mike’s grip loosens. His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
Will’s panic spikes and immediately tries to disguise itself as confidence—because that’s what you do when you’re twelve and terrified and your heart is doing cartwheels in your chest.
“You know,” Will says, too brightly, “you’re doing no favors to your denial of the amphibian comparisons when you do that. Come on. I haven’t seen you this flustered since our first kiss.”
Mike goes red so fast it’s like someone cast a spell on his face. He takes a step back like Will just shoved him.
His mouth works again. No sound comes out.
Will blinks. The confusion in his head thickens, heavy and slow, like cold syrup.
“…Come on, Mike,” Will says, quieter now, trying to laugh it off and failing. “I know you aren’t cursed with silence. You were just accusing me of—”
He stops.
The shape of Mike’s expression isn’t anger. It isn’t disgust. It’s not even fear, not really.
It’s the look of someone staring at a stranger who’s wearing their friend’s skin and saying things that make no sense, except for the parts that make too much sense.
Will’s stomach drops.
“Oh,” he whispers.
He stares at Mike—at this Mike with the same face and none of the weight behind the eyes—and it finally clicks into place with a sick, clean certainty.
“Oh no.”
His voice goes thinner. Smaller. The bravado breaks like glass.
“Oh, Mystra’s ire,” Will breathes. “You aren’t him, are you?”
Mike swallows hard, eyes still narrowed, still sharp.
“Start over,” he says. “Slowly. And this time? No D&D crap. Tell me who you are, or I’m screaming for my mom and Jonathan and—” his voice cracks just a little, betraying him, “—and Joyce.”
Will’s hands hover uselessly at chest height, like he’s trying to show he has nothing to hide and failing at that, too.
“I’m…” he begins, and realizes he doesn’t know which truth will get him killed fastest.
Mike cuts in as he sees Will considering.

“No, no lies, you are going to tell me who and what you are, and how you have Will’s face, and how you know… What I wrote in my DM notes and then burned. And where is my Will?”

Will looks back in growing confusion of his own.

“I haven’t lied… to you, and I didn’t mean to take the other Will’s place his mom just- she just whisked me up, and suddenly I was… in too deep. What do you mean D&D crap?”

Mike’s eyes narrow further, and Will wants to prod him because he reminds him so much of his Mike, but he holds back.

“You’re Will La Fey? From Murkrest. Orphaned and now a bronze rank adventurer.”

Will nods, unsure how this Mike knows so much.

“You’re a wizard?”

He nods again.

“Prove it.”

Will shrugs and holds out his hand, producing illusory fireworks in miniature. Mike covers his face with his hands and groans. Without taking his hands away, he says:

“And you first kissed your Mike about two weeks ago while you were traveling to the Grayhold Dungeon. Under a field of stars and right after a pair of shooting stars passed overhead?”

“How do you…”

“'Cause I wrote it!” Mike half-shouts and then lowers his voice. “You aren’t real. None of that is real. And yet…”

Mike pokes Will’s arm experimentally, then starts pacing.

Chapter Text

Will shivers once again on the thin travel cloak—and nearly faints when an arm slips around his chest, yanking the cloak tight like Mike is trying to trap what little heat Will has left.
“So it is not just your face that is the same,” a voice whispers behind him. “You’re freezing.”
Will clambers out of Mike’s grip and stands too fast, swaying. “You know what I think? I’ll just keep watch.”
Even in the dim light, he can see Mike roll his eyes. The resemblance to his Mike is even more striking without the armor. Will cannot deal with that. Nope, no way. He’s only just started to feel normal again after Lonnie left, and now…
Will retrieves his rifle from the cave wall and inspects it again. He only has one round left, and if Mike’s warning not to stray too far from the party is anything to go by, it’s woefully inadequate.
I’m useless. Dead weight.
His eyes drift back to Mike, who is still staring at him. Will la Fey isn’t, but I’m not him. He loses the battle against his tears and turns away. I’m never going to make it home. I probably won’t even make it out of this cave. His inner voice starts to mix with things Lonnie has said to him. Only, instead of the shame and disgust he usually feels, a dull heat answers from the back of his mind.
No.
The memory of firing at the monster in the shed replays in his inner vision. I did that. The memory of the battle after he arrives follows it. I did that too. I will get back and see Mom and Jonathan again. I will see him again.
A hand finds his shoulder, and warmth envelops him.
“We have a long journey, Will. Please rest. I’m sorry if I overstepped.”
Will turns to look at Mike, wiping his face with one arm. The question escapes before he can stop it.
“What is he to you? The other Will?”
Will watches worry—then a small smile—fight for control of Mike’s face.
“I don’t know,” Mike says quietly. “Important. No matter what.”
Great. Really helpful. No matter what universe, Mike is still confidently infuriating.
Mike’s face falls as he catches the frustration on Will’s. “Did I say something wrong?”
It’s Will’s turn to roll his eyes.
“Are you also a furnace like my Mike?”
The paladin’s cheeks redden, but he nods.
“Fine,” Will mutters, sinking back down. “We should both get some sleep. I’ll keep you from overheating.”

Chapter Text

Will la Fey watches as Mike Wheeler stops pacing and slowly turns to him.
“Is your Mike going to—” Mike swallows. “—going to tell my Will about the kiss?”
Will puts on his best look of scrutiny.
“How in Mystra’s name would I know? His inner machinations are inscrutable, and I taught myself magic from a madman’s discarded spellbook.”
Mike stomps his foot and whines. “Nooooo. He can’t. He can’t know I wrote that.”
“Why?”
“Because!”
Will’s eyes narrow.
“If you won’t tell me what you’re afraid of, what makes you think I can predict him well enough to answer?”
Mike freezes mid-tantrum and fixes his eyes on Will.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You wrote him to be insufferably vague about his emotions,” Will says, “or—as I’m coming to see—you’re insufferably vague about your emotions.”
Mike’s mouth opens. Closes. When he speaks again, the volume is wrong—too quiet.
“Is that… is that how Will sees me?”
For a second, Will doesn’t have a quip ready. Annoying.
“I can’t know that,” he says finally. “I’ve never met him.”
Mike drops face-first onto Will’s bed and mumbles into the blanket, “Your impression of him is pretty good.”
Will sighs and looks up at the ceiling like Mystra might be taking requests.
“Do you want me to tell him not to?”
Mike jolts up and ends up inches from Will’s face—too close, no regard for personal space. It’s like the exact same person, just rearranged.
“You can do that?”
Will nods. Now that the exasperation wears off, the proximity finally reddens his cheeks.
“Yeah. I learned the spell at the same time I learned Fireball. It’s called Sending.”
“Do—” Mike starts, then stops.
His eyes flick to Will’s hand like it might ignite.
“You can do magic here.”
Will’s stomach does a small, unpleasant flip. He forces his thoughts back into order.
“Yes.”
“Like… magic exists here.”
“Yes,” Will repeats, slower. “Is there another spell you want me to show you, or—”
Mike presses his face right up to Will’s, their eyes almost touching.
“Teach me,” he breathes. Then he ruins it immediately: “Teach me! Teach me! Teach me!”
Will is confused. His Mike barely knows how to read common, and this one wants to learn magic? Well, this one is a writer. He supposes.

“Okay.”

The boy pulls him into a tight hug while hopping up and down. That's more like his Mike, which is why Will’s ears redden.

“Wait, if you’re going to teach me fireball,” Mike says as he pulls away and starts pacing.

“I’m not going to teach you fireball, that's absurd,” Will says.

Mike barrels past Will's complaint and continues.

“Then we can’t practice in here, but I know a place. Come on!”

The boy grabs Will’s hand before he can collect his staff or spellbook and pulls him into the living room.

“Mrs. Byers! Can we go play in the woods?”

Joyce smiles and says:

“Of course, just stay out of brambles this time, Will!”

Will tries to stop Mike by tugging his hand, but the boy is insistent. So he hisses:

“I need my stuff.”

Mike stops and sheepishly lets go of his hand. Will marches back to the room, picks up his staff and robe, and rushes back to Mike.

Chapter Text

Will Byers tries to hide his grimace as he bites off another piece of hard tack. Mike the Brave chuckles softly.
“Your village must have been quite cushy,” Dustir grumbles from behind them.
“Nothing two weeks of hard trekking can’t fix,” Luco says, slapping Will on the back. “You’ll be an adventurer by the time we reach Startington.”
Will has to suppress a laugh at the name of the city—because of course Mike Wheeler never bothered to name it in his notes.
“Or he’ll be dead to a bear like the rest of the classless who try their hand!” Dustir bellows.
Luco howls with laughter, but Will’s face drains of color. His stomach turns, woozy, like the joke has teeth.
He almost misses that Mike is rooting around in a sack that’s far deeper than it has any right to be. Mike freezes.
His eyes go wide.
Slowly, he pulls a book out of the bag.
“Oh!” Dustir says, voice sharp with interest. “That wizard let you keep his spellbook? Score. You can get gold for those, depending on whether it’s a hand-me-down.”
He reaches for it.
“He’s not dead!” Mike snaps, cheeks flushing red.
“Sure,” Luco snorts. “The low-level wizard without his spellbook who gets teleported to a random location is completely fine.”
“May as well give it to the no-class kid, Paladin,” Dustir says, and the mirth falls off his face like a mask. “If he can read, maybe he’ll earn a class and be of some use.”
The dwarf rounds on Will. “You can read, can’t you, kid?”
“Y-yeah,” Will stutters.
Dustir plucks the book from Mike’s hand and holds it out to Will.
“Mind your pronunciation,” he says, suddenly serious. “I’ve heard it matters.”
Will takes the book. His stomach does cartwheels as he opens to the first page. Mike’s hand settles on his shoulder, steadying him as they keep walking.
The first page is a list of names. At the bottom, in neat handwriting: Will La Fey.
A chill skates down Will’s spine. He flips the page.
Instantly, his head spins. Pain spikes—sharp and drilling, like something is boring straight into his forehead—and he staggers, collapsing into Mike’s side.
On the page is a single letter. Or a symbol. Or a fifteen-thousand-word treatise. Or an actual bolt of fire that keeps hammering into his skull, lighting his brain on fire or—
The book snaps shut.
Mike has it, suddenly, hands firm around the cover like he’s yanking it away from a live wire. Will blinks hard and looks up—
The sun is low.
It’s nearly sunset.
When Will opened the book, it was mid-morning.
His stomach drops. “How—?”
“Yeah,” Dustir says, like he’s commenting on the weather. “That’s the look every wizard gets after learning their first spell.”
Mike crouches in front of Will, eyes wide with worry. He offers a waterskin. “You can read it?”
Will snatches it and gulps down half without breathing.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, still a little dazed, still buzzing under the skin.
“It’s not really reading,” he says, words coming too fast. “It’s like the book was— it was rewriting my brain.”
Luco laughs, delighted. Dustir grunts like he approves despite himself.
“Yeah,” Luco announces, slapping Mike on the shoulder hard enough to jolt him. “He’s getting the class tonight.”

Chapter Text

Will La Fey finally takes a breath when Mike Wheeler lets go of his hand. The two boys find themselves outside a ramshackle structure with a painted sign reading “Castle Byers.”
“It doesn’t even have a moat. Not much of a castle,” Will mutters, but the interior is comfortable as Mike leads him in. When he sits on one of the many old pillows strewn about, Mike leans in—too close again.
“So, fireball?”
“No.”
Mike narrows his eyes.
“I distinctly remember you agreeing to teach me fireball.”
“No.”
Mike grabs his wrist and starts shaking it up and down.
“Fireball!”
“No! You’ll die just from the mana burn. Like, your blood will actually turn to fire and burn you from the inside! Plus, you’ll just hurt yourself or someone else if you do manage to cast it!”
Mike slumps backward and crosses his arms.
“Fine! What can you teach me?”
“Prestidigitation.”
Mike seems to ponder this, his face starting off as a frown before it slowly grows into a smile.
“That’s… actually not a bad spell.”
“And unlikely to kill you while you’re practicing.”
Mike sits up and scowls at Will.
“I’m not a baby. We’re the same age!”
“I’ve been adventuring for two years!” Will crosses his own arms, indignation rising.
“I wrote those adventures!”
At the same time, they both say, “You’re so much like him!” and start laughing.
Will recovers first and pats his robes for… his spellbook… which should be tied in its… empty carrying case, because he handed it off to Mike the Brave before their battle with the demogorgon. His chest grows tight, and he opens the empty case just to see.
Tears form in his eyes.
“No.” Will sobs. “Without my spellbook… I can’t—” He starts to dry-heave.
Mike is there with a hand on his shoulder, but when he sees tears falling, he instinctively wraps the smaller boy in a hug.
“It’s okay,” Mike says, voice soothing. “What do you have prepared?”
“It’s not— I have all the ones I can cast memorized. It’s just that book. It has so many more. The man who saved me, who made me an adventurer—” Will starts, about to tell the whole tale, but Mike stops him.
“Oh, right. I’m sorry, Will. I did read your backstory. That spellbook is from Merlin, right? The person you got your name from. I told Will that that wasn’t Merlin’s name, but I guess he never changed it.”
Will really wants to punch the other boy. His anger stems his tears.
“What do you mean that’s not Merlin’s last name?”
“Well, in most of the legends it’s actually Ambrosius, and that name is usually Morgana’s, and it’s just a French way of saying ‘the fairy’ anyway.”
Will pinches the bridge of his nose and doesn’t speak.
“Will also doesn’t know French, so that’s where that one came from.”
Will just places his hands in his lap and looks up at the roof of “Castle Byers,” wondering what he did to so personally offend Mystra.
“I actually gave him like four pages of notes on his backstory where he wasn’t pulling things from—”
“STOP. Please. Just stop telling me about the mistakes the—let me guess—ten-year-old who wrote my life story made.”
“He was actually nine.”
Will looks at Mike, and he knows his eyes are glowing because the other boy scrambles back. Then Mike immediately enters his personal space and stares into his eyes from less than an inch away.
“So cool! Also, I can get you stuff to at least put down the spells you know. It’s a lot cheaper than in your world.”
Will’s heart skips a beat.
“Wait, so it won’t take a hundred gold pieces?”
“Yeah… we don’t use those. More like three dollars—maybe ten or twenty if you want something nice. I actually have some nice pens and a blank leather notebook for a book I’m planning to write. Hold on.”
Mike slides over to his bag and pulls out a black, leather-bound notebook and a pen, which Will gets the concept of, even if he’s more used to quills. Mike holds them out to Will.
Will hesitates. “Really? I can—I can have these? I don’t have much. Only, like, fifteen—”
“You should have twenty silver and one gold piece, but Will fell asleep three sessions ago,” Mike says helpfully.
Will remains undecided as to whether he wants to smash the boy’s face with his staff, kiss him, cry into his arms, or just fireball this “castle” and run off into the forest until his feet bleed.
He snatches the pen and notebook, then kisses Mike on the cheek.
He immediately begins transcribing the nine spells he has memorized into the notebook, feeling the weave start to bend around it and infuse it with his signature.
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Mike frozen, stock-still.
Serves him right for causing an existential crisis every other sentence.

Chapter Text

Will Byers looks up at the sea of stars above him. His mind deliberately ignores the paladin currently draping an arm across his chest. He’d freeze to death without him. His mind keeps battering away other explanations with that refrain.
The stars aren’t the same, and the four moons that Dustin has repeatedly told Mike Wheeler do not make sense orbiting an Earth-sized planet hang like centerpieces in unfamiliar constellations.
Another world.
He’s in another world. One with magic—confirmed by the still-sore part of his mind that holds “Firebolt.” One that doesn’t have his father, or Troy, or all the other kids who call him the f-word when they know he can hear them.
And also one where Mike is a paladin who promises to keep him safe.
He doesn’t know if any of that outweighs the empty slots in his heart where his mom, Jonathan, Dustin, Lucas, and… the real Mike should be. But for now, he doesn’t want to cry. Maybe he can live here for a while.
Will closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep.
“Wizard. Level one obtained. Spell: Shield obtained. Spell: Sleep obtained.”
A voice says it inside his head.
Must be a dream.

Chapter Text

Will la Fey is eventually jostled from his work on his spellbook when Mike Wheeler finally unfreezes. Will has only managed to transcribe “Sending” into the book, but the book is now his spellbook.

“Will…” Mike says, voice airy.

“Yeah, Mike?” Will says innocently.

“Why?” Mike manages.

The wizard rolls his eyes. At least Mike is less likely to reveal that his life story is somehow a badly mistranslated children’s tale when he’s monosyllabic.

“’Cause you were sweet,” Will says, “and I wanted to thank you.”

Will is not keen to divulge any further reasons—like how much he enjoys the way Mike’s face goes red from a simple gesture, or how badly he wants to do it again.

“We— we don’t… we don’t do that,” Mike stutters.

Will shrugs, unwilling to let him off the hook.

“You wrote me.” Will starts to say, then stills. “Wait—there’s someone outside. Stay behind me.”

Will is on his feet, staff in hand, in a second. He slips out the door without making a sound and comes face-to-face with a girl in a shirt roughly double her size.

They lock gazes for a moment.

“Help.”

That one word is enough. Will grabs her hand and, channeling Mike the Brave, says, “Don’t worry. I’m an adventurer. That means I fight monsters for a living. You are safe now.”

Even he believes the words when he sees the girl’s face go wide with shock.

“What’s chasing you?” Will asks. “Goblins? Dire wolves? Electric eel bats?”

“Bad men.”

Will’s face tightens.

“I’ve hunted a few of those too,” he says. “Come on. Get inside with the other levelless.”

Will guides her into the structure and levels his staff when he hears a branch snap.

“Mike,” he hisses, “what are the rules for defending yourself here? Is magic okay?”

“What? Who? Will—what?”

Definitely not a paladin, but that’s okay. Will counts four men. They have some training, judging by how quietly they move—though it’s nothing compared to Luco’s forest stalking.

Will steps away from “Castle Byers.”

Well—an illusory copy of Will does. He’s a wizard, not a crazy paladin. His real body stays put, covering the two levelless kids in the fort.

The illusion raises its staff and says, “Cease your hostilities and leave. You shall come to no harm if you comply.”

“Shut the fuck up, kid,” one of the men says to the illusion. He’s wearing camouflaged clothing. “Did you see a little girl run by here?”

“No.”

The man signals to the others and walks away, keying his radio as he speaks. “Nothing. Just some fucking crazy yokel kid with a stick.”

Inside Castle Byers, Will has his hand over Mike’s mouth. Mike looks like he’s about to bite to get free, so Will releases him and turns back to the girl.

“I’ve thrown them off the trail for now,” Will says, low. “But if they have any location magic, I’m afraid I cannot prevent them from finding you.”

The girl looks confused.

Mike starts laughing, and Will thinks it may be hysterics.

Chapter Text

Will Byers wakes as Mike the Brave slowly slides his arm off. The boy smiles apologetically and whispers, “We’ve got to get on the road. Goblin tribes hunt in the early morning.”
Will slowly rises to his feet and stretches. Everything hurts. His clothes smell awful. He has to go to the bathroom, and he knows he’ll have to ask one of the adventurers to guard him. Plus, his teeth and jaw are already aching in anticipation of another ration of hard tack for breakfast.
He sheepishly completes his morning rituals with Mike standing guard, then falls in beside him as the party starts walking down the road. He wonders how there can already be a rock in his right shoe when he hasn’t taken his shoes off since he got to this world.
After about an hour, Luco slows and bumps Will’s shoulder.
“So?” the tall elf prompts.
“What?” Will asks, genuinely confused.
“Did you get it?” Luco asks.
“Get… what?” Will searches his brain but comes up blank.
“The class, newbie!” Dustir shouts from behind them.
The voice right before he fell fully asleep. Will’s eyes go wide.
“I did,” he blurts. “I’m— I’m a wizard. I’m a WIZARD!” He pumps his fists in the air.
The other three adventurers pat his shoulders and hoot in approval.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Mike asks, pulling him into a side hug that makes Will slightly woozy.
“I… I thought it was just a weird dream.”
Dustir chuckles. “I remember thinking the same when I first got my class.”
Will is grinning now, aches and pains forgotten as he chews his hard tack with renewed gusto.
“What spells did you get?” Mike asks.
“Shield and Sleep.”
“Those are not bad for goblins,” Luco adds. “But stay away from bears until you get something with a bit more oomph.”
“I’d say at least another level or two to be safe,” Mike says, leaning in. “But don’t worry. We’re all level five, so a bear is no problem.”
“Are— are bears really that big of an issue?” Will asks, because there are hundreds of monsters in the manual, many of which are scarier than bears.
“It’s a standard bronze-rank contract for a reason,” Dustir explains. “They can terrorize small villages, but they’ll usually keep their distance.”
“But a good guild attendant will steer completely green teams away from those missions,” Luco says, “or at least send multiple teams. If not… well, there’s always the silver teams in case it becomes a dire bear.”
“Bears can… level up.” Will looks between them, and each one nods. Suddenly, three spells don’t feel like all that much. He walks straight into Luco as he tries to imagine what he could even do to a bear.
Luco hisses, “Pay attention, newbie. This means halt.” He holds up a closed fist, elbow bent straight upward.
“How many?” Mike asks, already pulling his shield off his back.
“Twenty, maybe twenty-five,” the ranger replies. “Kinda wish we still had a fireball now.”
“Any enchanted arrows left?” Dustir asks, taking a few practice swings with his mace.
“Nope. Potions?”
“None.”
“Break out and run?”
“With a newbie wizard?” Dustir snorts.
Will’s breathing is too fast. Mike places a hand on his shoulder.
“Will, have you picked a focus yet?”
“A what?”
“To cast with.”
“Oh— um, I was thinking—”
Will unslings the rifle from his shoulder. It fought two actual monsters. It’s as close as he’s going to get to an artifact.
“Okay.” Mike points to the treeline behind them. “You and Luco thin out any that come from that direction. Dustir and I take the big group in front. Don’t use Sleep. Only use Shield.”
“But—”
“The captain gave you an order, newbie,” Luco cuts in before Will can finish. “Now point your focus where he said.”
Will raises the rifle toward the treeline. He thinks he sees pairs of glowing red eyes shifting between the trees.
“Little hummies want to play at being adventurers, we sees. Hehehe, big mistake!” An impossibly loud, high-pitched voice sing-songs from behind Will. His blood runs cold.
“Come, come, no need fight. You just have to pay the toll. An arm and a leg! HAHAHAHA!” the voice continues. “Or fight. Fear makes your flesh taste sweeter.”
Dozens of voices laugh from every direction.
“Leave now or die, goblins,” Mike says, and his voice is somehow calm. “You have my word as a paladin that no harm will come to you unless you attack us.”
“Hmmmm. No,” the voice replies. “We eat you.”
“So be it,” Mike spits. “Shield of Faith!”
Warmth radiates from behind Will, like sunlight through cloth. Then the world erupts into chaos.
Six goblins rush from the treeline Will is watching, slings and clubs raised. Luco lets fly two arrows before Will can even finish processing, and two goblins drop.
“You have Firebolt, wizard—use it!” Luco snaps, already sighting another target.
Will brings the rifle up and sights through it. At this distance the goblin is just a darker smear of green.
“Firebolt,” Will says.
A bolt of flame leaps from the end of the barrel—no crack, no recoil, just heat—and the goblin he’s aiming at collapses. A pang of grief hits Will so hard it makes him sway.
“Keep going, Will,” Luco says, harsh. Then, quieter for half a breath, he taps Will’s shoulder. “I know it’s hard the first time. But we can’t afford to hesi—agh.”
A golfball-sized stone slams into the ranger’s head. Luco stumbles, then rights himself with a hiss and knocks another arrow.
Tears track down Will’s cheeks, but he raises the rifle again. He aims at one of the slingers and casts Firebolt again.
The goblin falls.
No more movement in Will’s direction. He glances back—only for Luco to shift, trying to block his view.
“Keep watching the treeline, newbie!”
Too late.
Seven goblins are trying to pull Dustir down, and he’s laughing. Will watches him swing one arm—two goblins still clinging to it—up over his head and down again.
Crunch.
That sound is going to haunt Will’s nightmares.
Mike is a whirl of steel and death. A pile of goblins lies in pieces around him, and his sword keeps moving in practiced arcs.
Will is about to look away—has to look away, has to keep his stomach where it belongs—when the ground shakes.
From the treeline, a massive goblin—ten feet tall at least—bursts into the clearing.
“Goblin chief!” Mike barks. “Luco, take it down!”
“Aye, captain,” Luco says, and his voice turns cold. “Hunter’s Mark.”

Chapter Text

Will la Fey hands his robes to the girl.
“These will keep you warm. We can return to my abode to retrieve footwear for you.”
The girl looks like she’s on the verge of tears. Will has to look away. Helping civilians is always more of a Mike-the-Brave thing.
Mike Wheeler finally seems to reboot. He stops laughing.
“Will, we can’t keep her. She probably escaped from some mental institution.”
Will shrugs.
“I have no idea what that means, but she needed help. Until I can get her to a guild hall, she is my charge. Also, please be more considerate. She can obviously understand… common.”
Mike shakes his head, frustrated.
“English,” he says. “We’re speaking English, Will. Please just trust me—I know more about this world. We need to take her to the police.”
The girl hides behind Will and wraps both arms around one of his.
“Bad men,” she whispers. “Papa.”
Will looks at Mike and smiles, calm in the way only someone completely stubborn can be.
“This will be the first quest I’ve undertaken that you haven’t written. I will see it through to the end.”
Mike’s face goes cold.
“What about Will?”
Will doesn’t look away. “Know any archmages?”
“No.”
“Then getting me more levels is the best way to get him back.”
Mike exhales sharply. “You would need Teleportation Circle. You won’t get that for like four more levels!”
“So I should do quests,” Will says, and lets himself smile a little too wickedly. He watches Mike start to fluster again and enjoys it more than he should.
Will turns back to the girl.
“What’s your name?”
She shakes her head.
“Then what should we call you?”
She holds out one arm and pulls back her sleeve, revealing “011” tattooed on her wrist.
“Eleven,” Will says slowly. It feels odd, but it’s better than girl or civilian. “Come on. We should get you something to eat.”
“You can’t just bring her to Mrs. Byers,” Mike says. “That’s the same as going to the police.”
Will turns back to him, smiling.
“So you agree with the quest?”
Mike rolls his eyes—so much like Mike-the-Brave it makes Will’s chest do something stupid.
“Adults will jump to conclusions too fast,” Mike mutters. “Those guys sounded like agents or something…” He crosses his arms and looks away, scowling at the air. “You’re right. We need to keep her safe until we can—”
Will doesn’t wait for Mike to finish his sentence, or for his own brain to process the idea. He leans over and kisses the boy on the cheek again.
Mike’s face goes beet red, but he keeps talking anyway, now a little breathless.
“Figure out who is after her,” he says. “We should take her to my house too. It’ll be possible to hide her.”
“I can just cast invisibility,” Will offers.
Mike snorts, still red. “The Byers would also notice food missing more easily.”
Confusion creeps onto Will’s face. Mike sees it immediately and nearly hisses,
“Mrs. Byers works really hard, but she doesn’t have that much money.”
“Oh,” Will says, and it comes out smaller than he intends. “How are we going to transport her to your house?”
Mike grins.
“We call the party.”
“Dustir and Luco are here?” Will can’t help it—his excitement bubbles up too fast.
“No,” Mike says. “Dustin and Lucas.”
Will chuckles. “At least they attempted to change their names.”
Mike doesn’t bother retorting. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a walkie-talkie. Before he clicks the transmit button, he glances up at Will and says, quietly,
“Please don’t kiss my cheek in front of them.”
Will is about to press him on the modifier—in front of them—when Mike hits the transmit button.
“Code Red! Code Red!”
It only takes thirty seconds for the first response.
“Mike? This is Dustin. I thought you were at Will’s? Lucas and I are at the arcade, over.”
“Get to Castle Byers as soon as you can,” Mike says. “And bring snacks. I’ll explain when you get here. It is a code red. Over.”
“O-kayy,” Dustin says. “We’ll be there in twenty.”

Chapter Text

Will Byers finally drags his attention off the giant goblin careening toward the party and feels a tug in his mind. A club bounces off a bubble of translucent force, and a high-pitched voice cackles somewhere too close.
“Hehe, little wizard. How many more you have. Oh, little wizards— agh!”
Mike the Brave appears between Will and the attacker, and Will catches a glimpse of green skin before the goblin hits the ground in two pieces.
“Pay attention, Will!”
Will is shaking uncontrollably now. Luco’s bow twangs—twang—twang. Goblins scream. Dustir is still laughing like this is a tavern story. Smoke and pine and blood all mix together in Will’s nose until he can’t tell what he’s breathing.
One goblin breaks from the treeline.
It’s so small. Its only weapon is a wooden ladle.
The goblin sprints at him. The rifle is heavy in Will’s hands. He tries to get a sight picture, but he can’t—his eyes are too blurred with tears.
“Firebolt.”
The spell goes wide by twenty feet.
The goblin is crying too, Will realizes—really crying.
“Momma!” it shrieks, over and over.
“Firebolt.” Will isn’t even sure he’s aiming at this point.
The goblin rushes past him and starts battering Mike’s legs with the ladle, as if it can knock a paladin over by sheer stubbornness.
A huge crash shakes the ground hard enough to knock Will off his feet. When he looks up, there is only one goblin still moving.
It’s still trying to topple Mike.
“Look away, Will.”
Something in Will rebels. He raises the rifle and points it at the paladin—hands shaking, throat tight, the gesture half threat and half plea.
Luco, already collecting ears, snorts. “Newbies.”
“Let it go, Mike,” Will pleads.
Mike doesn’t even glance at him. He just shakes his head once.
Will’s thumb finds the safety out of habit. He flicks it off. His finger drops to the trigger without squeezing.
“It’s a kid,” Will says, and his voice breaks on the word. “Just let it go. You don’t have to do this.”
Mike’s expression doesn’t harden. It goes tired. Old.
“Given the chance, goblin tribes keep adventurers alive for as long as they can,” Mike says quietly. “Human blood is a delicacy to them. I once rescued a party that had been trapped for six months.” He swallows like the memory tastes bad. “They ate them piece by piece and made them watch.”
“It didn’t do that,” Will says desperately. “It didn’t do that, Mike!”
“Look away or don’t,” Mike says. “This isn’t your world, Will. We don’t always get to be kind.”
The paladin swings his sword.
There’s a tug at the back of Will’s mind—an instinct, a word—and Will moves without thinking. He scrambles between Mike and the goblin, raising the rifle like it can stop steel.
“Shield!”
A bubble of force blooms in front of him.
Mike’s blade rings against it inches from Will’s face.
For a heartbeat, everything goes still.
Mike’s face shifts from resolve to terror—then, just for a moment, something like pride.
“You’re a fool, Will,” he breathes. “But gods damn it… you’re just like him.”
Mike sheathes his sword and kneels. He gently catches the ladle before it can strike his head and says, “Stop. Run back to your tribe. I know this is just a hunting party. But before you do—look at him.”
The paladin points at Will.
“He still thinks that we can be kind,” Mike says, voice low, “and he’s the one your mother was trying to smash with a club.”
Will’s brain feels like mush. The contents of his stomach seem eager to stop being inside his stomach. He drops to his knees as the goblin sprints away.
“Take a bearing,” Dustir says. “We’ll send the encampment’s location when we reach the next town.”
“No,” Mike says, sharp enough to cut. “Don’t taint his kindness like that.”

Chapter Text

Will la Fey watches as the two newcomers try and fail to take in the fireballs he just dropped on them.
Dustin paces, muttering to himself and pointing at the air.
Lucas has his hands interlaced behind his head, hyperventilating.
Will glances over to Eleven, who is happily shovelling barbecue chips into her mouth.
“She escaped from some government facility,” Dustin says, still pacing, “and he’s— he’s not Will, but also a wizard.”
He points at Will, his face begging someone to tell him no.
“That’s what I said,” Mike nods.
“Do you want to see the spell again?” Will adds helpfully.
Eleven nods. Dustin keeps pacing. So Will slides down next to her and holds out his hand.
He gets more creative this time, letting the image of a tiny wyvern appear in his palm. It swoops into the air and circles her head, spraying illusory ice from its mouth.
“Monster?” she asks.
Will shakes his head. “Just an animal. Well… I think it’s a reptile of some sort. When I was younger, a wyvern rider came through town and gave a demonstration for the orphanage. He even let me pet it.” His voice goes soft without meaning to. “I wanted to be a wyvern rider after that. But once I got my spellbook— once I read my first spell, I knew I was going to be a wizard.”
He lets the illusory wyvern land on Eleven’s outstretched hand. She frowns when it doesn’t weigh anything, then brings her hand closer to her face. Will barely manages to keep the image moving with her.
“Pretty,” she says.
“Beautiful creatures,” Will agrees. “Usually only gold-ranks go after them.”
With effort, he adds tiny figures to the scene on her hand: a wizard, a paladin, a ranger, and a fighter. His heart aches, but he makes them move anyway. He pours so much concentration into making five images act independently that he barely notices the boys stop talking.
The wizard opens the battle by sending an arc of lightning at the wyvern. It narrowly dodges and answers with a gout of freezing mist. The paladin raises a shield; a half-sphere of golden light parts the wave.
The ranger fires arrows with ropes trailing behind them. They bite into the wyvern’s scales. The wizard places a hand on the ranger’s shoulder, and the elf surges forward—leaping off the cupped hands of the fighter, grabbing the rope midair.
The ranger hauls himself up and straddles the creature’s shoulders. He leans close and whispers into its ear as the wyvern slows… then lands, gentle as a sigh, beside the party.
“Holy—” Dustin starts.
“Will, that was—” Lucas interrupts.
“That was us, wasn’t it?” Mike says.
Will nods. “It took a lot of work to choreograph, but it’s good illusion practice.”
“Let’s get going,” Mike says, shaking himself. “I’ll do the talking, because I’m really not sure how Mrs. Byers hasn’t noticed how you speak yet.”
“I haven’t spoken to her.”
Mike pauses, then nods once. “That makes sense.”
Eleven hides around the corner when Mike, Will, Dustin, and Lucas enter the front of the Byers house.
“Mrs. Byers,” Mike says quickly, “we were going to go back to my house, if that’s okay.”
Joyce smiles. “Okay, but don’t have Will bike home in the dark again. It’s Saturday, so either send him back before it gets dark, or ask your mother if he can stay.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Byers!” Mike says brightly.
The four boys start to retreat, but Joyce clears her throat.
Mike elbows Will and whispers, “Say thank you, Mrs. Byers—” then, softer, like a correction he can’t quite make himself say, “—Mom.”
Will swallows. “Thank you, Mom.”
“Now go hug her,” Mike hisses.
Will steps closer and hugs Joyce—awkwardly at first, then deeply when she hugs him back.
He pulls away too fast and rushes for the door before she can see the tears in his eyes.

Chapter Text

Will Byers doesn’t speak to the other adventurers for the rest of the day. Everything is too much, and Luco even bars him from eating until morning after he deposits his hard tack ration onto the road at high velocity.
When the bedrolls go down, Will stands next to Mike the Brave and only meets his eyes once. In that moment, the paladin nods. They lie down side by side.
Once Dustir’s snores provide the illusion of privacy, Will rolls over and looks at Mike.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” he whispers.
“Adventuring?” Mike asks, his hand making slow circles on Will’s shoulder.
“I want to go home,” Will says, and his voice breaks on the last word.
Mike pulls him closer, and it only makes Will feel worse. This isn’t his Mike. His Mike probably wouldn’t even do this anymore; they aren’t little kids. Not really.
“Stop,” Will sobs. “It’s wrong. He wouldn’t— he wouldn’t want me this close to him.”
“I’m not him,” Mike says quietly.
“As far as I can tell, you’re who he wrote,” Will says, and only realizes after that it sounds like he’s talking about Mike like he’s a thing. “Just… him in armor.”
Mike hums, thoughtful. “If he wrote me, then I don’t think he’d have a problem with me protecting you. Or being close.”
There’s a laugh in his voice, and it makes Will’s frustration flare up through his tears.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Will whispers sharply. It’s so Mike—so goddamn infuriating, because it almost says something while still saying nothing at all.
Mike’s hand stills.
“Will,” he begins, and the air changes.
Will doesn’t have formal instruction on the weave—only the idea of it, scraps of explanation from Mike Wheeler, half-understood. But his class gives him a sense for power, and he feels it now: the night holding its breath. The cadence of Mike’s words making something listen.
“No matter which plane you’re from,” Mike says, voice low and steady, “no matter how hard the path becomes—”
The weave swirls. It waits.
“I will,” Mike says, and it sounds like a choice snapping into place. “I will always be your light in the shadows. I will be your shield against the dark. From this day forth—if you accept my oath—I will be your paladin.”
Mike looks just as surprised as Will feels, like he’s waking from a trance.
For a long moment, Will only stares, mouth open, the air still heavy and expectant. The weave is waiting for his answer.
“Say something,” Mike grits out. “Please. The oath is burning me.”
“I do,” Will blurts, without thinking. “I accept.”
Warmth blossoms in his chest. For a brief moment, he sees it—an impossibly thin line of gold thread connecting them. Then a thread of azure blue wraps around the gold, binding it close.
Mike inhales sharply like it hurts.
Power thrums along the bond, and Will’s consciousness starts to slip as the threads thicken—gold and blue, bright as a promise, heavy as a chain.
The world goes black.
“Wizard Level Two obtained. Spell: Mage Armor obtained. Spell: Thunderwave obtained.”
A pause, like the world itself is checking a box.
“Condition met. Wizard Level Two to Radiant Mage Level Two obtained. Skill: Touch of Radiance obtained.”

Will wakes the next morning and immediately tries to scrabble out of Mike’s sleeping grip. The paladin has Will’s head pinned against the crook of his neck like a shield, arm heavy across his ribs.
Mike is too strong.
Will’s struggles finally wake him. Mike blinks, realizes what he’s doing, and sheepishly loosens his hold.
Will bolts away—then freezes when Dustir bellows with laughter.
Luco, who never seems to actually sleep so much as… pause, says mildly, “It only feels shameful if you let it. You’d have frozen every night so far without a bedroll.”
Will’s ears burn.
Mike stretches like this is a perfectly normal morning. “So… I leveled,” he says, too casual. “I also got a new class.”
“Same here,” Dustir says, grinning. “Well, only the level. I’m a level six fighter.”
“I did as well,” Luco nods. “Level six.”
The three of them turn to Will.
“Yeah,” Will says, trying for normal and failing. “Me too.”
Dustir looks between Mike and Will, eyebrows climbing. “Are ya going to keep us in suspense or what?”
Mike clears his throat. Clears it again. His eyes flick—just once—toward Will, then away like the glance burns.
“I’m an Oath of Arcane Devotion Paladin,” he says quickly. “Level six.”
“There you go!” Dustir claps his hands once. “What god did you swear to? Arcane… hmm.” He squints, thinking hard. “Didn’t know Mystra had paladins.”
Mike’s mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
“Well, the thing is I sort of…”
“I’m a radiant mage,” Will blurts, because Mike is going to circle the truth for thirty minutes and Will is hungry enough to crave hard tack. “Level two.”
“Oh,” Luco says, flat.
“Oh,” Dustir echoes, still staring like he’s trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces.
Will swallows. “Can I have some hard tack now?”

Chapter Text

Will la Fey is surprised to find that the logistics of getting five people to the Wheelers’ house are not as simple as Mike Wheeler makes it sound.
“She can ride on the back of my bike. It’s fine,” Dustin insists.
“She’s wearing a D&D robe,” Mike shoots back, “and it’s well past Halloween.”
“Invisibility lasts an hour,” Will says, like that settles it.
Mike focuses on him. “That’s—huh. I thought this would be harder.”
“I’m a wizard,” Will says, offended on principle. “If I had my spellbook and an hour, I could fly over there.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” Mike says, snapping back into focus. “You never taught me magic!”
“He’s going to teach you magic!” Dustin says. “Teach me too!”
“Yeah,” Mike adds instantly, “he said he’d teach me Fireball!”
“I did not—”
“Guys!” Lucas finally shouts over everyone. “Can we move? Please?”
Dustin and Lucas mount their bikes. Will helps Eleven onto the back of Dustin’s—she clings to his jacket like she’s trying to disappear into it on her own—and then Will raises his hand.
“Invisibility.”
The weave answers readily. Eleven vanishes.
Dustin flinches like he’s been dared to blink.
Will turns back to Mike, who gestures expectantly at Will Byers’ bike.
“Mike,” Will says carefully, “I don’t know how to use that.”
“Oh. Right.”
Mike scoops the bike up by the handlebars like it weighs nothing. Will climbs on behind him.
When they take off, Will yelps and wraps his arms around Mike’s chest too tightly.
“Choking— breathe—” Mike squeaks, and Will loosens his grip, mortified.
Eventually, the ride stops being terrifying and becomes… enjoyable. Almost like riding a horse, except with less bruising and more humming.
The feeling lasts maybe ten seconds.
An unmarked van rolls in behind them. Another black van pulls out in front and stops sideways across the street.
Doors open. Men in black uniforms disembark, raising odd metal devices.
“What are they holding?” Will whispers into Mike’s ear.
Mike’s voice goes thin. “Guns.”
Weapons, then. Real ones.
“Where’s the girl?” a man in front barks.
Will feels Mike go rigid under him.
“Do you trust me?” Will whispers.
Mike doesn’t answer with words. He reaches back and covers Will’s hand with his own for a heartbeat—like he’s bracing him. Like he’s saying yes without having to.
Will points—two fingers to his own temple, then toward Dustin.
Message.
The word is barely a breath, more thought than sound.
“Fog cloud,” Will murmurs, eyes on Dustin’s back wheel. “Turn right at the houses and pedal straight. Don’t stop.”
He repeats the gesture toward Lucas, and gives him the same message.
“Are you deaf?” the man snaps again. “Where’s the girl!”
Will draws in the weave.
“Fog cloud.”
A thick, soupy mist blooms across the street behind them—swallowing the rear van first, then the men, then the space where the guns are pointed. Shouts immediately turn confused. Boots scrape. Someone coughs. Someone swears.
Out of the fog, the three bikes burst into clean air.
And there—on the back of Dustin’s bike—Eleven is suddenly visible again.
Of course she is. Will’s concentration is already elsewhere.
Will points, his hand inches from Mike’s face, in the direction Dustin and Lucas are fleeing.
“Go,” he says.
Then he points back toward the churning center of the cloud—toward the noise, the guns, the threat.
When he sees all three bikes clear of the fog, he lets the fog cloud dissipate.
The men are clustered together in the middle of the street, right where the boys had been. Will’s hand shakes. Twenty armed men. Weapons he doesn’t know the limits of. The street is wide—wide enough that the houses will survive it, mostly.
He takes a shuddering breath.
The word comes out steady anyway, weighted with years of combat that bought him the right to say it.
“Fireball.”
A mote of flame appears on the asphalt between their boots.
Then the world becomes white-hot.
A sphere of searing heat blossoms outward, swallowing the street in an instant. The shock of it hits Will like a punch—sound collapsing into a ringing void, air ripping past his ears. Windows scream and burst in the nearest houses.
The bikes skid. Tires squeal. Someone yelps.
Will doesn’t look away from what’s left until Mike yanks him back onto the seat behind him.
As they lurch forward, Will leans close—close enough that Mike is the only one who can hear.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
They reach the Wheelers’ house. Mike ushers them down the stairs and into the basement like he’s afraid the walls upstairs might hear.
Concrete. Old cardboard. The faint ozone smell of the dehumidifier. Normal.
Will closes his eyes anyway, his heart still thrumming. He needs to center himself.
“The heck was that?” Dustin’s voice cracks. “You just— you planned on killing them!”
Will thinks, Dustin. He still doesn’t open his eyes. He only nods.
“Why?” Dustin demands. “We would’ve gotten away.”
Will shakes his head. He’d seen the look in those men’s eyes. They weren’t just searching. They were working themselves up into something ugly. He’s seen that look in adventurers right before they clear a goblin warren. Right before they do what they have to do.
“I— I don’t think I want to learn Fireball anymore.” Mike’s voice is broken and harsh.
Will doesn’t move.
Hands shove his shoulders. Hard.
Will’s eyes fly open as his back hits the wall.
Dustin is right there, staring at him like he can’t decide whether he’s furious or afraid.
“Explain it,” Dustin says. “Why did you have to kill them? And don’t tell me it was a spur-of-the-moment thing—you planned that out with the fog.”
Will’s voice comes out steady. Not because he feels steady. Because he knows how to sound like a captain when people are looking at him for one.
“Because they were going to kill us,” Will says. “And I’m a wizard. Not a paladin. Not a fighter. Not a monk or a cleric. A wizard.”
He swallows once.
“I don’t have my spellbook. I don’t have nice options. And I’ve seen that look before—because I’ve worn it.”
His gaze flicks to Mike for half a second, then back to Dustin.
“So if you hate me for it, fine.” His jaw tightens. “But they would’ve hunted us until every one of you was dead and buried. I don’t know what those weapons do, but I felt the way Mike shook when they pointed them at him.”
Will leans forward, just a fraction.
“So tell me, Dustin.” His voice drops. “Would I have gotten a second chance?”
Dustin doesn’t have an answer. His mouth opens, then closes.
Lucas steps in, voice tight. “We don’t kill people over a feeling, Will!”
Will flinches like he’s been slapped.
“It wasn’t a feeling, Luco!” he snarls—then freezes for half a heartbeat, like his own word caught him.
He barrels past Dustin anyway, anger carrying him like armor.
“It was math,” Will spits. “Twenty against one. And I only have one tool that fixes those odds, so I used it!”
“Stop.”
Eleven steps between them before Lucas can surge forward. Small. Solid. Like a wall you don’t expect until you hit it.
“They were bad,” she says simply. “They want to hurt me.”
Her eyes flick to Lucas, then Dustin, like she’s trying to make them understand with as few words as possible.
Then she turns to Will.
“He saved me.”
Will bites the inside of his lip; he won’t cry. He won’t. He’s not a level-one newbie.
A hand covers his hand.
“Are you okay?” Mike, of course. The wrong Mike. His traitorous body doesn’t care. He folds into Mike, because he always does. Mike can save him. He’s sobbing now, even as his mind tries to stop it.

Chapter Text

Will Byers walks beside Mike the Brave as the party continues down the road.
“We probably should’ve bought a cart,” he grumbles.
The other three laugh.
“What do you think we are, rich?” Dustir says, still chuckling.
Will turns his face away instead of pointing out the obvious: they don’t have a cart because they almost always skip the travel scenes.
This time, though, he catches it when Luco signals a halt. Will unslings his rifle on instinct.
“Abandoned wagon,” Luco murmurs. “Bandits or goblins.”
“We check for survivors,” Mike says. He taps Dustir’s shoulder, and the two of them creep forward together. “Will, Luco—stay back and cover us.”
Will looks over. Luco is… leaning against a tree. Like they’re waiting for a bus.
“Shouldn’t we—cover?” Will whispers.
Luco doesn’t even glance at him. “Probably goblins. Bodies are gone.” He nods toward the wagon. “They aren’t usually good at setting ambushes right after they’ve already fought caravan guards.”
“Clear!” Mike calls from the wagon.
Luco pushes off the tree. “Come on. I’ve seen goblins leave half a caravan behind because they don’t understand money.” He hooks two fingers in Will’s sleeve and tugs him along.
At the wagon, Mike and Dustir are already picking through broken boxes and splintered crates.
“Traveling merchant,” Dustir grumbles. “Labels from ten different cities.”
A small chest, already cracked open, catches Will’s eye. He kneels and peers inside.
“Isn’t this…” He hesitates as he pulls out two tightly rolled parchments. “Stealing?”
“I don’t see anyone alive to complain, newbie,” Luco says lightly.
Will turns the rolls over. Each one has a neat label pasted to the seal. The same word on both: Sending.
The word snags on something in his head. Not a memory, exactly. More like a hook that almost catches. Almost.
He slips the rolls into his bag anyway. He’s a wizard—no, a radiant mage now. Paper matters. Scrolls matter.
“What’d you find?” Mike asks, walking over.
“Two rolls of parchment.” Will holds them up. “They both say ‘Sending.’”
Mike nods once. “Not the best spell, but it’s useful.”
Will nods too—automatic, like he’s agreeing with something he hasn’t fully understood yet.
Then his brain lurches sideways.
“Wait,” Will says, and his voice goes thin. “These are… scrolls?”
Mike blinks at him. “Yeah…”
Will stares down at the label again. Sending.
His stomach flips, and for the first time since he arrived in this world, the idea of home stops being abstract.
“False bottom,” Luco calls, before Will can fully process what he’s holding.
The four adventurers crowd around the wagon as Luco works at a loose board—just barely not the same color as the others. After a moment, it comes free. Luco peers inside, then rubs his hands together like he’s about to open a birthday present.
“Not just a traveling merchant,” he says. “An art and arms dealer.”
The elf reaches in and pulls out a painting in an ornate frame.
Will takes it, and his breath catches.
It’s beautiful.
The subject is an older teen boy in noble dress, posed with that practiced half-smile people wear when they’re trying to look effortless. But the background is the real prize: a villa overlooking a lake so vivid it makes Will’s chest ache. Faint magic lingers in the paint—sunlight actually sparkles on the water, and the waves roll in slow, gentle motion.
Behind him, Mike leans in. “We’ll probably only get a finder’s fee for that. Looks like a marriage proposal to me.” He tilts his head. “Dustir—do you recognize the noble?”
Will turns the painting so the dwarf can reluctantly tear his eyes away from the two-handed axe Luco has just handed him.
Dustir squints. “That villa’s in Count Yvir’s lands. That’d make him…” He makes a face like the name tastes wrong. “Tvir?”
“Anything else, Luco?” Mike asks.
Luco reaches back into the compartment. “Another dagger—probably magic, so I’m not touching it. A coin purse.” He pauses, then pulls out one more item and holds it up between two fingers. “And an unmarked scroll.”
Will’s hand drifts back to the two Sending scrolls in his bag like it’s pulled by a magnet.
His mind coughs up the spell description in scraps: twenty-five words. Any creature he knows. Any plane. A voice across the void—if they can hear, they can answer.
“Mom,” he whispers.
A thin whistling slices the air.
For half a heartbeat, his brain can’t place it—then it clicks, sickeningly familiar. Something heavy cutting fast.
Mike slams into him.
Will hits the ground hard, the breath knocked clean out of his lungs. He twists, trying to see past the paladin’s shoulder—
A full-grown tree, roots and all, arcs out of the treeline like it’s been thrown by a giant. It crashes through the cart in an explosion of splintered wood and snapping iron. The impact digs a deep furrow into the road, dirt and gravel spraying.
For a second, everything goes silent in Will’s head except one thought, bright and stupid as a candle:
That was aimed at me.

Chapter Text

Will la Fey paces in the Wheelers’ basement. Lucas and Dustin left about ten minutes ago, and neither boy had been actively yelling at him when they did. Eleven is currently walking behind him like a shadow, as if he is the only thing keeping the roof from collapsing onto her.
Mike comes back down the basement stairs, hopping two at a time, and Will flinches at how much less coordinated he seems than Mike the Brave, even in armor.
“Be careful,” Will says when Mike almost misses a step.
The boy rolls his eyes. “Sure, Mom. Dinner’s going to be ready in twenty minutes.” He digs into his pockets and pulls out two silver foil packages. “But I got these for you, Eleven.”
Eleven slowly reaches for them, still keeping Will between her and Mike, then snatches them and ducks away.
“It feels wrong to call a person a number, you know,” Mike says, quieter now. “Eleven.”
Will watches Mike bite his lip when a look of hurt starts to form on his face.
“Yeah,” Will says, thinking of the orphanage—of the kids who never even got numbers. Just “kid,” “orphan,” “boy,” “girl.” “I guess.”
“We could call you… El. If you want,” Mike says, trying to peek around Will at the girl crouched behind him, eating pastries of some kind.
“El.” Eleven says it slowly, halting. She looks up as if the word might be dangerous. “Is it… pretty?”
“Pretty?” Mike’s voice cracks on the first syllable. “Y-yeah. Really pretty—like you!” He makes a vague gesture that sort of includes Eleven, and then—because he can’t help himself—gestures at Will too, as if asking him to corroborate.
Will is about to roll his eyes, catches himself, and turns to her with a real smile.
“Yeah,” Will says. “It’s pretty.”
Eleven’s mouth is ringed with jam and crumbs. She looks between Mike and Will for a long moment. Will thinks she is searching for a lie. Or a joke. His heart cracks anyway.
Her lip quivers—and then she smiles, wide and sudden.
“El.”
Will nods, genuine enthusiasm this time. “El.”
He hesitates, then asks, because it’s what his paladin would do—because Mike the Brave is always better at this part than he is.
“El… do you want a hug?”
El nods. It’s too small, and it reminds him too much of himself before the party. He crosses the space and wraps her in an embrace.
“I’ve got you, okay?” he whispers. “I might not be able to stand in front of you with a shield, but I have tricks up my sleeves.”
Mike steps in and joins the hug, awkward for a heartbeat, then steadier. “Me too.”
They part after a few moments.
Mike clears his throat. “Will, I think it’s better if you just… don’t talk at dinner.”
“Is my diction really that different?” Will asks, proving Mike’s point as he says it.
“Yes,” Mike says. “You sound like a Bond villain got put through a shrink ray.”
“I don’t know what—” Will starts, then catches the insult anyway. “Hey! Are you saying my voice is too high?” His voice goes very high.
“It’s okay,” Mike says, patting his shoulder. “I like it.”
Will points two fingers at him. “Prestidigitation.”
A puff of air answers the weave and ruffles Mike’s hair right into his face.
“Will.” El says.
Will doesn’t recognize the emotion in her voice. Not fear. Not exactly. Something… braver than fear.
He turns. “Yeah, El?”
“I… have powers too.” She keeps her eyes on the floor like it might be safer there.
Will blinks, then looks at Mike. The boy’s face is pure surprise.
“I thought you said there aren’t people who use magic here,” Will says slowly.
“There aren’t,” Mike says, like if he says it hard enough it will become true.
El shakes her head. “Not like yours.”
She raises her hand toward the coffee table. An empty Coke can sits there, forgotten.
For a moment, nothing happens.
Will is about to ask if she’s trying to remember an incantation when the can suddenly crumples in on itself with a sharp metallic crack.
Will’s gaze snaps back to her just in time to see her wipe a small bead of blood from under her nose.
Something cold and reverent slides down his spine.
“Mystra grant me wisdom,” Will breathes. “That wasn’t the weave.”
Mike makes a sound that’s halfway between awe and panic. “Okay—yeah—just don’t say anything at dinner, but holy damn. You’re like a—like a Jedi, El!”
The reference lands on nobody but him.
El glances up at Will, unsure whether she’s done something impressive or dangerous.
Will swallows. “Does it hurt?” he asks quietly, and he hates how gentle his voice turns without his permission.
She nods.
Will exhales. “Mine too,” he says softly. “Only sometimes, though.”
He tries to smile like it makes this normal. Like it makes her safe.
“It’s okay,” Will adds. “I’m the adventurer. You only have to use yours if something gets past me.”
El shakes her head and clenches her fists at her sides.
“I fight,” she says. “I help. Two… together.”
Will’s throat tightens. He nods once. “Two together.”
From the top of the stairs, Karen’s voice calls down, bright and oblivious in the way adults can be when they’re trying to keep a house normal.
“Boys! Dinner!”

Later that night, Will lies wrapped in a sleeping bag, eyes closed, and lets out a long breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
“Mystra preserve my sanity,” he murmurs into the dark. “I hope you’re okay, Luco. Dustir… Mike.”
The names hurt in a clean, dull way.
He drifts toward sleep, and the familiar voice returns—distant now, like it’s coming through a door that isn’t fully closed.
“Wizard Level Six obtained. Spell: Hypnotic Pattern obtained. Spell: Mirror Image obtained.”
Will’s fingers curl once in the fabric, half relief, half grief.

Chapter Text

Will Byers is in a daze. The ground shakes beneath him. For a stupid second his brain tries to pretend it’s thunder, or distant carts, or anything other than what it is.
Mike the Brave hauls himself off of him.
When the paladin pulls Will to his feet, the radiant mage sees the truth: the ground isn’t shaking like a giant is sprinting nearby.
It’s shaking because a giant is sprinting straight at them.
“Death to smallfolk!” the giant booms.
It’s nearly twenty feet tall. Every fiber of Will’s body screams run.
“Piss off, ya biggun!” Dustir growls. “We haven’t done a thing to you!”
The giant slows. Its face is somber, almost weary, and it shakes its head once.
“Smallfolk hunt us. We hunt smallfolk.” Its voice is deep enough that Will feels it in his ribs. “Many little green smallfolk attack our village. A child is dead. Your kind will pay one hundred for her death.”
“Those are goblins, you big oaf!” Dustir snaps.
The giant’s expression doesn’t change.
“Smallfolk are smallfolk. No more talking.”
It lifts its club.
The first swing comes down in a brutal arc toward Dustir.
Dustir barely throws himself aside. The follow-up catches him anyway—more force than impact—and flings him ten feet like he’s made of straw. He rolls, lands, and charges right back in, mace snapping up into the giant’s ankle.
“Will—” Mike starts, then catches himself, breath hard. “Just hit it with what you’ve got. Luco—take it down. I’ll support Dustir.”
Mike sprints forward, shield already coming up. Will hears the words just before distance steals them.
“Shield of Faith.”
The bond tugs. Will feels the spell like a second heartbeat—Mike’s magic taking shape, and Will’s own power answering it.
No time to think.
“Raise your focus, wizard,” Luco says. “Hunter’s Mark.”
The ranger’s bow twangs.
Will unslings the rifle and points it at the giant. At least he won’t have trouble hitting something the size of a house.
“Firebolt.”
The flame that leaps from the barrel burns blue, threaded with thin lines of gold. It slams into the giant’s shoulder and splashes across tough hide—more scorch than wound.
“Somewhere else, Will!” Luco snaps, already firing again. Twang. Twang.
The giant’s club rises once more.
Dustir isn’t as lucky this time. The first blow knocks him prone.
Will looks away before the second lands.
He forces his gaze back and aims higher—at the giant’s head.
“Firebolt.”
The bolt hits its temple. The giant winces, just slightly, like a wasp found skin that can still feel.
Will’s breath comes in fast, panicked pulls. He glances down—
Mike’s hand glows against Dustir’s shoulder. Warm light spills. Dustir coughs, curses, and drags himself upright like pain is optional.
The paladin steps into the next swing. Somehow he catches the club on his shield. The ward flares. Mike’s boots carve grooves into the dirt, but he doesn’t give an inch.
Luco’s arrows thud into the giant’s side. Two more appear in its cheek.
Will fires again and misses, the spell going wide as his hands shake.
Mike’s sword flashes gold—then blue—and bites into the giant’s ankle. The blade sinks deeper than it has any right to.
Dustir swings his mace twice, groggy and furious, and misses both.
The giant answers.
The blow lands with a sound that makes Will’s teeth rattle from fifty feet away.
Twang. Twang. Two more arrows.
Will’s next Firebolt hits nearly the same spot and flashes through the wound.
The giant turns.
In two strides it looms over the wizard and ranger, despite Mike carving at its ankles behind it.
Its free hand snatches for Luco.
The elf slips away.
Will isn’t nearly that fast.
Fingers like tree trunks close around his middle. Air rushes out of him. Pressure crushes in. He hears something in his own body protest—pop, crackle—too close, too intimate.
Not good.
“Got you, little wizard,” the giant rumbles.
Will can’t breathe enough to scream.
“Thunderwave,” he chokes out.
The weave answers on instinct. Force explodes outward.
The giant’s grip bursts open. Will drops—
He has just enough time to think, not good, not good, before he hits the ground and the world goes black.

Blackness gives way to golden warmth burning through his shoulder.
Will gasps awake.
His leg is… wrong. Wrong enough that his stomach tries to climb out of his throat, and he jerks his eyes away from it immediately.
Mike is kneeling beside him, hand glowing.
“Stupid,” Mike hisses, voice shaking with something like terror. “Brilliant. Don’t ever—”
A shadow falls.
Mike cuts off mid-sentence, snaps his shield up—
The giant’s club slams down.
The ward blooms. The impact rings like a bell in Will’s bones. Mike doesn’t budge.
“Kill it, Luco!” Mike shouts, over the roar in the air.
“Trying!” Luco’s bow twangs.
Will fights his way upright—more crawl than sit—hands shaking, vision swimming. Pain surges up his leg and tries to drag him right back into the dark.
Through the blur, he sees the giant.
It brings its club down on Dustir.
The dwarf doesn’t roll. Doesn’t dodge. He lies where he fell.
The club hits with a sound that doesn’t belong in a living world.
A second swing lifts—
Will squeezes his eyes shut.
“No!” Mike screams.
Armor clanks, frantic, receding—Mike is running, and Will hears the panic in it because the bond doesn’t let him pretend.
Luco’s bow twangs again and again, arrows striking, uselessly small against something this big.
The giant shifts, putting itself between the paladin and the fighter like it understands exactly what it’s doing.
“Misty Step.”
Mist blooms.
Mike vanishes.
He reappears at Dustir’s side and drops to his knees so hard his armor bites into the dirt. His hand flares gold as it presses to Dustir’s chest.
“Dustir,” Mike says, voice breaking. “Dustir—come on.”
Dustir doesn’t wake.
Luco fires twice more. The giant stumbles, drops to one knee, breath heaving like a bellows.
Will forces the rifle up with both hands.
His arms feel made of stone.
“Firebolt.”
The bolt of blue-and-gold slams into the giant’s face and this time it bites—burning deep, driving the creature’s head back.
Mike looks up.
Something in him snaps into place.
He rises, sword coming up in a smooth, practiced motion that feels wrong on a boy’s body.
The blade catches light—gold braided with blue.
Mike doesn’t shout the name of what he’s doing. He just speaks, low and absolute, like an oath that never needed an audience.
“Enough.”
He hits.
The strike lands with a flash that hurts to look at. The giant’s head separates cleanly—not gore, just sudden, impossible weight—and the body collapses like a toppled tower.
The ground shakes once.
Then goes still.
Mike stands there breathing hard, blade lowered, shoulders rigid.
His hand is still glowing faintly.
But Dustir doesn’t move.

Chapter Text

Will la Fey stands beside Mike Wheeler on the Byers’ porch.
“You sure?” Mike asks, glancing up and down the street like the trees might have eyes.
“I am,” Will says, and it’s a lie. The last thing he wants is to break Joyce Byers in half—but waiting longer feels worse. Monstrous.
Mike swallows. “How are you going to tell her?”
Will squints at him. “Apparently my voice is proof enough, according to some people.”
Mike makes a small, helpless sound that might be a laugh if it weren’t terrified.
Will opens the door.
The kitchen is warm. Too warm. Coffee brews. The TV mumbles to itself. Joyce is there like she always is—moving, doing, holding the whole house together by sheer force of will.
“Hey, honey! You’re back!” She rounds the island, arms already opening for a hug.
“Wait.” The word comes out brittle. Will holds his hands up like a shield he doesn’t have. “Please—if you touch me again, I—”
Joyce stops.
He sees it happen: the mother in her face falters and the predator underneath wakes up. Surprise first. Suspicion a heartbeat later.
“Will?” Joyce says slowly. “What… are you doing?”
Will’s mouth opens. Too many truths crowd the doorway at once.
“Mrs. Byers. My name is—” He swallows. His lungs don’t feel big enough. “My name is Will la Fey. I arrived here two days ago and I didn’t— I didn’t mean to—”
He tries to reach for the clean, precise words. He can’t. They crumble.
Mike’s hand finds his shoulder. Steady. Anchor.
“Mrs. Byers,” Mike starts, voice careful, “Will is mis—”
Will cuts him off with a look. Not his truth. Not his to soften.
Will forces himself to breathe. Once. Twice.
“I’m not your son,” he says, and hates himself for how sharp it sounds. “I think— I’m almost sure— your Will took my place. The explanation is complicated. There is more to this story than I can fit into one sentence, and I know how insane this sounds.”
Joyce’s expression hardens into anger so fast it’s like a door slamming.
“Mister,” she snaps, “this is a sick joke.” Her eyes flash to Mike. “Mike Wheeler, I cannot believe you would—”
“Not a joke,” Will says. His voice shakes. He hates that too.
Joyce’s hand goes to the counter like she’s about to grab something—phone, knife, anything.
Will’s stomach turns. Fine. Proof. Now.
He catches the hem of the borrowed shirt and yanks it up just enough to show the map of old scars across his ribs and shoulder—healed wrong in places, too many, too deep, the kind of damage no normal accident explains.
Joyce’s anger stutters. Confusion punches through it.
Will holds out his hand, palm up.
A candle-flame hovers above it—steady, real, warm. Not a trick of light.
“I am not joking,” he says quietly.
Joyce’s fingers hover near the scars like she’s afraid they’ll vanish if she touches them. Then she does—just the edge of a fingertip, light as a test of reality.
Her anger doesn’t disappear. It… reroutes.
“This isn’t—” she starts, and her voice catches. “This isn’t makeup.”
Will keeps his palm up. The candle-flame hangs there, steady and ordinary in the most impossible way.
Joyce’s eyes flick from the flame to Will’s face, then to Mike, like she’s trying to find the adult in the room and coming up short.
“Mike Wheeler,” she says, low and deadly, “what did you boys do?”
Mike swallows. “Nothing. We— we didn’t do anything. He showed up like this.”
Joyce takes a step closer anyway. Not toward the flame—toward the boy. She’s close enough now that Will can smell coffee on her breath, laundry soap on her sweater. Human things. Hawkins things.
“You’re not Will,” she says, and it isn’t a question.
Will forces himself to hold her gaze. “No, ma’am.”
A hard inhale through Joyce’s nose. A tremor in her hand that she kills instantly.
“Then where is my son?”
Will’s throat tightens. He makes himself answer anyway. “Alive.”
Joyce’s eyes sharpen. “Don’t you dare say that if you don’t know.”
“I know,” Will says, and hates how thin it sounds. “I can’t tell you how I know without sounding insane, but I felt— I felt the magic take him. It took me too. Just… to the wrong place.”
Mike clears his throat like he’s walking into traffic. “Mrs. Byers, I know this sounds like D&D, but—”
“Stop,” Joyce snaps, but it’s not anger now. It’s panic with teeth. “Stop talking around it. You—” She points at Will’s hovering flame, then at his scars, then at his face. “You’re standing in my kitchen doing— that. And you’re telling me my Will is— where?”
Will tries. “Somewhere else. Another world.”
Joyce goes still.
Then, quieter—so quiet it’s almost not meant for them—she says, “Pennhurst?”
Mike blinks. “What?”
Joyce’s eyes don’t leave Will. “Pennhurst. Is that where they took him? Is that where you came from?” Her voice cracks on the last word and she hates herself for it.
Will’s chest aches. “No,” he says, immediately. “No, ma’am. Not Pennhurst. An orphanage. A real one. And then… a guild. Adventurers. People who fight monsters because there’s no one else to do it.”
Joyce stares at him for one more long second—
—and then she does the most Joyce thing possible: she steps in and pulls him into a hug like she’s trying to keep him from falling apart on her floor.
Will goes rigid. Then he breaks anyway.
“What happened to you?” Joyce whispers, raw.
Will swallows against the lump in his throat. “A lot.”
The woman stiffens, and she says one word.
“Will?”

Chapter Text

Will Byers holds the scroll so tightly the parchment starts to crease.
Tears keep falling anyway.
A few yards away, Mike the Brave and Luco argue in low voices about what to take from the giant as proof for the bounty. The words are practical. Sharp. Like they’re trying to pretend this is just another contract, another road, another day.
Dustir is dead.
Mike stuffed the body into the bag of holding and Will’s brain still refuses to accept that as something that can happen. Dustir isn’t in a bag. Dustir is loud and hungry and laughing. Dustir is—
Will shudders and clamps down on the thought before it can split him open.
He unfurls the scroll.
Twenty-five words. That’s it.
His mind immediately tries to sprint through the limit like it can outrun the rules.
Hi mom I’m alive there’s probably another kid who looks like me there please be nice to him I’m here with an alternate version of Mike and we’re sleeping in the same bedroll every night even though I only met him three days ago and don’t worry I only want to kiss him but I haven’t and the only sin I’m committing over here is murder I killed goblins and then helped kill a giant and my friend died and I want to go home and I know there’s nothing you can do—
He snaps the scroll shut so hard his fingers sting.
Too many words. Too many truths. Too much everything.
He drops his head into his lap and covers it with his hands like that will keep the world from getting in. He rocks once. Twice. His breathing skids. His leg aches where it was the wrong shape an hour ago.
A giant was avenging a child.
They killed it anyway.
He drags the scroll back into view with shaking hands and tries again, smaller. Safer. Stupid.
“Mom, I’m alive. Other Will good. Magic. I’m trying to come home, don’t worry.”
He hears how it sounds even as he says it. Like a postcard. Like a lie meant to keep her quiet.
Too few.
He curls tighter, knees up, forehead pressed to them, and tries to build a message out of the only things that don’t fall apart when he touches them.
Love you.
Alive.
Safe.
Other Will good.
Coming home. Even if it takes forever.
He opens the scroll again. The parchment trembles.
This time, he doesn’t try to explain. He just tells the truth in the smallest possible pieces.
“Mom, I love you. The other Will is good. I am safe, I will come home, it may take a long time. I love you.”
The magic takes the words out of his mouth like a gentle theft.
For one horrible heartbeat, there’s only silence.
Then a voice answers in his head—ragged, frantic, so her it nearly cracks him in half.
“Will? How are you talking to me? Are you safe? Where are you? Come back to me, please, Will! Please come back! Am I hallucinating—”
It cuts off mid-breath. She doesn’t know about the limit. She’s trying to keep talking, and the spell simply… ends.
The scroll goes blank.
Then it burns away to nothing—no heat, no smoke—just ink fading, parchment curling, and then gone.
Will sets his jaw. Something new ignites in his stomach. Not panic.
Purpose.
“Goal one: reach level five. Goal two: get strong enough that I don’t have to kill anymore. Goal three: get home.”
He says it out loud. The other two adventurers turn to look at him.
Mike smiles.
Luco rolls his eyes, because of course he does.
“You should probably add,” Luco says, “make enough coin to cover a third of the resurrection fee.”
“The what?”

Chapter Text

Will la Fey watches Joyce Byers take a lap around her own kitchen like motion might change reality.
“Why isn’t he answering? Will—Will, honey, please!”
“Mrs. Byers,” Will tries, too soft to catch her. Louder: “Mrs. Byers—Joyce.”
“Joyce!” Mike says, sharp.
She stops so hard it’s like she hit a wall. Slowly, she turns. Her eyes are wet and furious at the same time.
“How long did you know, Michael Wheeler?”
Will steps between them, hands up. “Later. Please. Right now—what did he say? Exactly. Word for word.”
Joyce’s mouth trembles. “He said—he said it was short. He said to trust you. That he’d come home, even if— even if it took a long time.”
The words land in Will’s chest like a stone. He nods once, because if he doesn’t he’s going to fall apart in Joyce’s kitchen.
“That’s Sending,” he says, and hates how steady his voice comes out. “Twenty-five words. That’s the rule. And—” He forces himself to add it, because she needs something to do. “He can hear your reply. But only twenty-five words back. If you try to say more… it just stops.”
Joyce’s hands curl into fists. “Then give me another one.”
“I can’t conjure scrolls out of thin air,” Will says, then winces at himself and tries again. “I— I don’t have another. And even if I did…”
“Bring him home,” Joyce says, her voice dropping into something frighteningly calm. “Swap back. Fix it.”
Will holds her gaze. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
Because I’m twelve. Because I’m not your son. Because the universe is bigger than your rage and it doesn’t care.
He only manages the smallest, truest piece:
“Because I’m twelve,” he says, his voice cracking despite his best efforts. “And I’m only level six.”
For a moment, Joyce looks confused. “But Will’s eleven.”
Mike gasps behind Will and says, “I knew it!”
The wizard pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Why is that relevant?” he says, not expecting either of these two clearly insane people to answer.
“I knew he was lying,” Mike says.
“He’s in a different plane—a plane which is not safe—and him lying so you wouldn’t treat him like a baby is what you care about?” Will la Fey’s voice is low as he turns on Mike.
“How do you know the reason?” Mike counters.
Will’s cheeks flush. “It was an educated—”
“You’re lying too!” Mike says.
Will sighs loudly, deflating. “Mystra preserve me, and forgive me for whatever transgression I clearly committed to meet you twice. Yes, yes, I am. I’m actually eleven. Are you happy?”
Mike’s smug smile is answer enough. Will raises his hand.
“Gust.” The weave answers, and Mike falls backward into the closed door.
“Hey! That was mean!” he says, despite the only wound being a minor one to his pride.
“I guess I’m a mean baby, then,” Will says, hand still raised.
Mike’s eyes narrow. “You’re just going to push me back into the door again if I stand up.”
Will nods.
Mike makes an obvious feint, then pushes himself up in the opposite direction.
“Gu—”
“Boys!”
Will turns sheepishly back to Joyce. She has a stern look and a piece of paper.
“First thing: no magic rough-housing inside. Second, I have a message. You can send it to Will?”
Will considers, then nods slowly.
“Yes. I think it would have a higher chance of arriving if I send it to Mike—my Mike, not that one,” he says.
She nods and holds out the piece of paper. Will looks it over, counting the words.
“I’ll send this. With the relaying, it might take a little longer.” He closes his eyes.
“Sending.” He focuses on Mike the Brave. He feels a tear roll down his cheek, but he has to hold his focus. The connection stabilizes.
“Will, I love you. I will find a way to help you. I have the other Will here. Be safe, be brave, be kind. Mom.”
He feels the connection hang for a moment, then the reply comes—the voice so much like Mike Wheeler, but so different.
“Mom, I love you. I’m with Mike, Luco. Dustir dead. Injured. Healed by Mike. Will, I oathed to him. I’m sorry. Should have been you.”
Will just stands stunned for a long time, tears rolling down his face. Then he repeats the message, up to where it was clearly Mike speaking.
“That’s not enough words,” Joyce says, too shocked to focus on the message and clinging to that detail.
“The other Mike—he had something to say to me,” Will says, wiping his eyes.
Joyce finally processes the message and goes white.
“You have to send another. Ask him how he got injured. Tell him to get somewhere safer.”
“They’re traveling back from a dungeon. They’re going somewhere safer, but the road is dangerous. With a levelless—er—with Will there, they probably need to be even more careful.”
“One of them died!” Joyce sobs.
“He’ll get over it,” Will says, a small smirk forming on his face.
“What?” Joyce says, her face growing angry.
“Dustir. They’ll bring him back at the first guild hall. It’s why we bought adventuring insurance.”
Will corrects hurriedly. “Sorry—bad joke for non-adventurers.”
Joyce takes a breath, then looks between the two boys.
“Okay. Tomorrow we’re planning. Tonight, I’m ordering pizza, and Will is telling us about himself.”
Will folds in on himself, but somehow remains upright.
“So… I can stay?” he says, too quietly.
“You are staying,” she replies, and pulls him into a hug.
He hears her unhook the phone and dial with one hand.
“Karen, Mike’s going to stay over. Yes, I’ll get him to school in the morning. No problem. Bye.”

Chapter Text

Will Byers collapses onto the bedroll. His legs still don’t feel right, and three hours of hiking after they were healed has not helped. Mike approaches cautiously and whispers.
“Um, you could use Dus—”
“No,” Will interrupts. Then he hastily adds, “I mean, if you want me to, I will. Yeah, okay. I’ll sleep in Dustir’s.”
Will’s face is flushed. Stupid. Of course it never meant anything to Mike. It never meant anything to Will, right? He scrambles to his feet and starts to walk away. Mike’s hand on his shoulder stops him.
Will turns. The paladin’s face is red, but he isn’t saying anything. Will’s face can’t decide if it wants to grow redder from the contact or from how infuriating the other boy is. He finally decides to give Mike an out.
“It just— it feels weird to use a dead person’s stuff. Especially if we’re bringing Dustir back…”
The paladin nods too quickly, as if he’d been trying to find an excuse like that but hadn’t gotten to one before Will offered.
Will feels heat rising in the back of his mind. He takes a step forward, erasing the distance between them.
“Say it,” he whispers, even quieter. “Say you want me to sleep in the same bedroll. Paladins are supposed to be brave, and it’s your damn name, Mike.”
“I just… I want to make sure you aren’t too cold,” Mike says, clearly flustered.
Will is shaking with frustration now. Mike’s eyes go wide, and his hands slide up and down Will’s arms.
“Are you already cold? I’m sorry. Come on—I’ll keep you warm,” Mike says, even though he can obviously feel that Will’s arms aren’t cold.
Will almost compares him to his Mike, but stops himself. He sighs and wraps his arms around the other boy, letting the hug linger, and hears no complaint.
“I’m tired,” Will whispers. “Let’s just go to sleep.”
They lie down, and as Mike pulls Will close, he says,
“I want you to stay.”
Will almost pushes, almost questions him, and almost turns and shouts in his face. Instead, he just sighs.
“I’m right here.”

Chapter Text

Will la Fey eyes the circular food with equal parts suspicion and interest. He had yet to find any food from this world less than amazingly delicious, but something about how Joyce is looking at him makes this feel transactional.

He picks up a slice and slowly brings it to his mouth. Noticing that Mike has also stopped eating to stare at him, even though he has a glob of tomato sauce just under his mouth. The wizard takes a bite as the other two lean in.

Will’s brain lights up, and he begins devouring the pizza. It has to be some kind of enchantment or spell causing it to taste like this, but he doesn’t care. Mike giggles.

“Good, huh?”

Will nods. He reaches for a second slice and stops himself. Something like this must be inordinately expensive. He reaches instead for the odd bubbly drink Mike had pleaded with Joyce to let them have. He takes a sip, and his mind goes blank.
Every adventuring instinct is screaming that this is a trap, but his senses rebel.
“So Will, do you like the food?”
Joyce says, and he can hear the laugh in her voice.
He nods, too awash in the overload of sugar, salt, and grease to form sentences.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” she continues.
Will shrugs. “Maybe, but I wouldn’t know. May I—um—have another slice?”
Joyce smiles warmly. “Of course you can, honey. There’s plenty—and we have another pizza for Jonathan when he gets home.”
“I can— I have some coin. I should offer recompense for all your hospitality,” he says, reaching down to the pocket of his borrowed pants for his coin purse.
“No,” Joyce replies flatly, then barrels past the point. “What are you studying in school?”
Will freezes as he reaches for the offered slice. Then he picks it up anyway and says, carefully,
“I’ve never been to school. Orphans don’t tend to have the coin to even take the entrance exam at most academies.”
“Wait, that’s not in the background,” Mike says before Joyce can reply.
“That seems like an oversight, author,” Will says. “What—do you think lawyers, engineers, architects, and so forth just appear out of the ether? Or that noble families send their children out as adventurers to gain the wizard class?”
Mike’s hand twitches like he wants to write all that down, he opens his mouth and Joyce speaks over him.

“But how did you learn to read, or can you?”
Will turns back to her, pizza slice so tempting in his hand.
“I taught myself. Same with the numbers, I keep track of the party’s coins and inventory.”
Joyce seems to contemplate for a moment, and Will hurriedly bites into the pizza.
“Why did you leave the orphanage?” Joyce finally says.
Mike shakes his head at her, but the question is out there.
“I just didn’t want to be there anymore,” Will says in a quiet voice, shoulders hunching.
“Mrs. Byers, I don’t think you should-” Mike starts.
“Were the staff being mean?” Joyce says.
Will shakes his head; tears are forming in his eyes that even pizza can’t dispel.
“It was… the other kids.” He finally says.

“Mrs. Byers, I really think you shouldn’t pry any further,” Mike says again, standing this time and walking over to put a hand on Will’s shoulder.
Joyce narrows her eyes at Mike. “Why?”
“Because… It’s Will, Mrs. Byers, he wrote what this Will went through, and it just seems- like something you should hear from him.”
Joyce looks confused. Will is confused, but grateful for Mike’s hand anyway, and he supposes grateful that Mike’s inherent emotional ambiguity is protecting him and his feelings for once. Then Joyce’s eyes narrow.
“Will is getting bullied at school?”
“Mrs. Byers, we all are, but- it's the worst for him,” Mike whines. “And I’m not supposed to tell you cause Will doesn’t want you to-” Mike clasps a hand over his own mouth.
Will is shocked. “How did you do that?” He asks Joyce, a look of wonder on his face.
“Do what?” She says, but he thinks he sees a small smirk that she quickly schools.
“You got him to be honest about something emotional, without even trying!” Will says, looking between the two.
“I’m gonna, bathroom,” Mike says and scurries away.
When Mike is out of earshot, Joyce beams and winks. ‘It’s my superpower. It’s called being a mom to two boys already. Plus, Mike is easy—you can always tell what he’s actually thinking, because that’s what he doesn’t say.”
“But how am I supposed to do that?” Will says, looking down at his plate.
“You’ll figure it out. I think my Will was closer than he realized,” she says, and steps around the table. “Sometimes he’s hiding from himself, not you.”
“That’s not helpful,” Will says, eyes burning as he thinks of Mike the Brave kissing him and then deflecting whenever Will tried to bring it up.
“You’ll see. Also, you’re going to school tomorrow with Mike,” Joyce says, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“What?” Will says, turning back to her.
“What?” Mike says as he walks back into the dining room.
“I don’t—I can’t—I don’t know anything about this world,” Will tries to argue.
“Mike is in every one of your classes. He’ll help you. Now get ready for bed—you have to be well-rested for your first day of school,” Joyce says, and her voice won’t allow for any further argument.
Later that night, Will and Mike are standing in Will Byers’ room.
“If anything, I should sleep in the sleeping bag. It’s much better than a bedroll, and I’m used to it,” Will says, even though his eyes linger on the bed—the first one he’s ever slept on, so soft and warm he could cry just from the memory of one glorious night in it.
Mike rolls his eyes and pushes him gently until they both land on the bed. For a brief moment, all Will can see is Mike the Brave—then his brain catches up. He knows it’s Mike Wheeler’s face that’s so close. Knows it’s Mike Wheeler who’s glancing down at Will’s lips.
Neither boy says anything. Will steals his own glance, heart thundering. He can’t say anything; the wrong words will break the spell, even if the right ones could—could—he doesn’t know. He knows he wants to be this close, and despite only meeting Mike days ago he wants to—wants…
“Your eyes are glowing again,” Mike says, his breath teasing Will’s lips and nose.
Will goes to nod and stops when he realizes it would be the same as headbutting Mike.
“Yeah,” he says. “They do that.”
He cringes at the inarticulate reply, but he can’t think.
“Will, can I…?”
Will freezes. He has to say something. He has to—or he could Vortex Warp the boy out of the room and run and never look back. No. Will wants—
“Please,” Will says, barely above a whisper.
Mike leans in, closing the last of the space between them. Their lips touch for the briefest second, and then Mike jolts away like he’s been shocked.
Will can’t blame him; his own body is still reeling from the aftershocks.
“Okay,” Mike says too fast. “So we’re both sleeping in the bed. Good night.”
He ducks under the covers.

Chapter Text

Will Byers curses their lack of a cart and grumbles as he chews on his hard tack.
“Looks like that village is only two more hours away,” Luco offers. “Hot meals, hot water, an actual bed if we feel like splurging.”
“Think we can turn in the demogorgon head and the giant ear there?” Mike asks.
“Nah, too small. They’ll probably take the goblin ears, though,” Luco says sagely.
“Okay then. One night.”
“Will they have clothes?” Will asks, poking at some of the larger tears in his puffy vest and jeans.
“Uh, yeah, newbie,” Luco says, patting him on the back.
Will watches Mike’s eyes go wide for a second, and then he looks away. Will wonders what that could be about, but it’s quickly replaced by another bout of bellyaching: his feet hurting, his teeth hurting, and his stomach aching from eating only hard tack and salted mystery meat for the last three days.
The trio eventually reaches the village, and Will is overwhelmed instantly. Not by the number of shops—about three—nor the tavern choices—one—nor even the sheer number of people—around three dozen—but by the stench.
The road seems to double as a sewer, and that “seems” is doing a lot of work when people are dumping chamber pots out of second-story windows and you have to dodge the splash.
By the third time something squished under his shoe, Will stops exclaiming “Gross!” and just hunches his shoulders and does his best to breathe through his mouth.
Mike spots something and says, “Luco, can you go turn in the goblin bounties and get Will registered? I need to, um—” He walks away without waiting for an answer.
“Come on,” Luco grumbles. “I’m sure our captain is just temporarily insane from the smell.” He points Will toward the adventurers’ guild.
“So you can smell it too?” Will exclaims.
“Everyone can, Will, but what are you going to do? It’s the cost of packing people together.”
“No. No, it isn’t. The Romans had sewers from their aqueducts, I think.”
“Not sure what some of those words mean, kid, but if you figure out how to make it happen, I’d invest.”
The pair reaches a two-story wooden building built more like a fort than the thatched-roof houses surrounding it. Luco pushes open the front door, and Will follows him inside.
The interior reminds Will of a fort too, with battlements on the upper floor and an open courtyard strewn with wooden tables on the ground floor. People of all ages and races lounge about on stools or chairs near the tables.
Luco strides through the courtyard and knocks on a counter in front of a small alcove built into the wall. After a minute, a very short, very old woman climbs onto a stool behind the counter.
“Embrydyl Adventurers’ Guild. How can I help you?”
“Looking to turn in some bounties,” Luco says, “and I have to ask—do you have someone who can cast Raise Dead on staff?”
The woman chuckles. “No, and I ain’t taking no big bounty claims either. What have you got?”
“Demogorgon, giant. Think it was a stone giant.”
“No.”
“Twenty-five goblins, plus a chief with a weird class.”
“Fine. I’ll give you a silver per ear for regular-sized goblins, a copper for the youngins, and we’ll call it four gold pieces for the chief. Is that fair?”
“I suppose.”
“Anything else?”
“Actually—can you do registrations? We picked up a new member.”
The woman looks like she’s about to refuse, but just grumbles instead and steps off the stool. A moment later she returns and slams a book nearly half her size onto the counter.
“Four silver to register. I need a name, a class, and a blood sample, if you intend to buy the gold-level insurance.”
“Just the bronze level.”
“You took on a demogorgon and a stone giant with bronze-level insurance? Are you daft?”
The woman opens the book and poises her quill.
“I mean, we’re adventurers,” Luco says, grinning. “Go on, Will. Tell her.”
Will has been ping-ponging between the two and now hurriedly says, “I’m Will Byers, level two Radiant Mage.”
“Huh. Haven’t heard that one before. Oh well.” She scratches into the book with the quill, then hands a bronze medallion on a necklace over to Will. “Good luck, kid.”
She pulls the book off the counter. She and Luco exchange money for monster parts, and Luco pats his now-heavier coin purse as they walk away.
Luco and Will eventually make their way to the tavern. Luco hands over a silver coin to the bartender—a dwarf woman in her twenties—then leads Will to a table.
“Aren’t we going to… order?” Will asks.
“Newbie, this is a tavern in the middle of nowhere,” Luco says, rolling his eyes.
A barmaid—probably the bartender’s wife—comes by with a tray and places two steaming bowls and two mugs on the table.
“What is this?” Will asks, doing his best to sound polite.
The dragonborn woman smiles, which, given the number and shape of her teeth, is extremely unsettling.
“Tavern stew and watered-down table ale,” she says, looking at him like he’s the weird one—which, he supposes, he is in this situation.
“Oh—um—I can’t drink alcohol. I’m too young.”
“Well, the town doesn’t have a cleric, so if you don’t want to get sick, this is what we have. There’s only enough to make it safe.” She wanders away muttering, “City kids.”
Mike bursts into the tavern as Will is about to take a spoonful of tavern stew. He locks eyes with Will and approaches with his hands behind his back.
Luco makes eye contact with the bartender and puts another silver on the table.
“Hey, Captain. Did you have a productive afternoon? Will’s registered, and we turned in the goblin ears.”
Mike nods. “Thanks, Luco. Um—Will, could you close your eyes?”
Will does.
“Okay. Open them.”
Will opens his eyes, and his vision is filled with a large, very blue, very floppy, pointed hat.
“Do you like it?”
Will stands up and barrels into the paladin, who doesn’t even budge from the impact.
“Yes! It’s so cool. It reminds me of—oh, you wouldn’t remember, but it’s awesome!”
Will takes a moment to try on the hat and twirl, marveling that it doesn’t fall off, and at how floppy it is.
The barmaid comes back with another mug and bowl for Mike. She sets them down and says, “Only two rooms left. You want them? With what your elf friend has paid, I’ll give ’em to you for another five copper.”
Mike nods and hands over the coins from his coin pouch. “Thank you, ma’am.”
He sits, and Will takes his own seat back. He tries a tentative spoonful of the tavern stew and finds it edible, but not special. When the barmaid retreats again, he whispers, “What do you think is in this?”
Mike and Luco both laugh.
“It’s tavern stew,” Luco says. “It’d be easier to ask what isn’t in it. Most travelers aren’t adventurers, so they’ll offer whatever they’re carrying in exchange for a meal. That’s what goes in the stew.”
As if to illustrate the point, a thin elven man with a long, leafy coat enters with several small game carcasses strung over his shoulder. He holds them up, and the bartender nods.
Will tentatively picks up the mug and takes a small sip. His face scrunches in disgust, but the bitterness and the ever-so-slight burn don’t take away from how thirsty he is.
Mike leans over. “I can purify a cup if you want, but I’ll be mobbed if I show I can.”
Will shakes his head and says, voice rough, “No. It’s fine.”
After dinner, the barmaid leads them upstairs to their rooms. Luco slides into one without asking, and Mike says, “I can share with him if you want.”
Will just grabs his arm and hauls him into the other room.
Once the door closes, Will twirls once more and says, “Thank you, thank you, thank you for the hat. I love it!”
Then he takes two steps and leans in, almost kissing Mike on the cheek—before he pulls back and bites his lip. That instinct had gotten him in trouble when his father saw him do it once.
Instead, he wraps his arms around the paladin.
After a moment, Mike says, “Not that I mind, but can I take off my armor first?”
Will slides away quickly and clumsily assists with the doffing process.
Mike comments playfully, “Yeah. I don’t think you’ll be making squire any time soon.”
Will resumes the hug as soon as the last piece of armor comes off, leaving Mike in a long-sleeved padded shirt and cloth pants.
Mike guides the embrace to the bed, and they both groan as hay pokes through the thin blanket and sticks them.
“Pause again,” Mike says. “Let me get my bedroll.”
With the roll laid out, Will goes to embrace Mike again, but the paladin stops him with a hand on his shoulder.
“You don’t have to,” Mike says, cheeks flushed red. “I know you’re uncomfortable with me being close and everything. I’m well thanked enough.”
“I’m not,” Will says before he can stop himself—before his brain catches up to what he’s admitting. “I thought you were, and that keeping me warm was just… duty.”
“Oh.” Mike’s ears go pink. “Well. I mean. I’m— it is my duty to, you know, keep you from freezing, but—”
Mike’s mouth shuts so fast Will hears his teeth click.
Will’s eyes narrow. “The bartender and the barmaid… no one seemed to care, huh.”
“Why would they?” Mike says, too casual. “This isn’t the Empire.”
The nonchalance makes Will’s suspicion spike. Mike Wheeler’s notes never said anything about same-gender relationships, but the Empire was clearly set up as a villain nation. Either the world is filling in the blanks, or Mike has private lore he never shared.
“Oh, really.” Will steps closer, frustration making him bold. “Mike—what is the other Will to you?”
Mike’s face goes tight. “He’s a… really good friend. Best friend, even. And then—” He cuts himself off and gestures vaguely at the bedroll. “Why don’t we just go to bed? We still have to make good time to get to Starterton.”
He slides into the bedroll and turns away.
Will stares at his back. “Luco said it was only three more days, and Raise Dead has a ten-day limit. We could rest for a couple days and still have one to spare.”
He’s done dancing around it.
Mike stays turned away. For a few minutes, Will thinks he’s going to pretend to fall asleep. Instead, in a quiet voice, Mike says, “Will?”
Will’s throat tightens. “Yeah?”
“What is your Mike to you?”
“My best friend,” Will says, and then the words tumble out anyway. “And… I don’t know. It’s becoming harder to tell the more I talk to you.”
Mike flips around so fast the bedroll rustles. His lips tremble. “Why? Am I doing something wrong?”
Apparently not in this world, Will thinks, heart skipping.
“No.”
“Then what do you mean?”
Will can’t take it. “Do you want to kiss me, Mike?”
He says it and immediately starts toward the door, already half-expecting to flee to Luco’s room—if Luco will even let him in.
“Yes,” Mike says.

Chapter Text

Will la Fey steps out of Joyce’s station wagon shaking like a leaf, completely drained of color. Mike rushes over to him.
“That mechanical beast is an abomination,” Will says, breathing heavily as Joyce pulls away.
Mike stifles a laugh. “It’s not that bad. Come on—let’s meet up with the party.”
Will follows Mike timidly, and they quickly find Lucas, who says quietly, “Dustin’s staying home to hide El today. They actually got really friendly. It was sweet—like two puppies who are awkward in opposite directions, you know?”
Will shakes his head; Mike nods.
“Lucas Sinclair, put your hands in the air and get on your knees.”
Will turns and sees four cop cars stopped on the curb, their occupants walking toward the trio.
Will says quietly, “Should I stop them?”
“No,” Lucas answers. “It’s the actual police, not those government goons. They’re good people.”
Will can see Lucas shaking as he puts his hands up, though.
“Stop that. Calm down, Lucas. Your parents are going to meet you at the station,” one of the officers says as he takes the lead and steps out in front of the others. The man quickly reaches Lucas, takes the boy’s hand, and waves away another officer who tries to bring out cuffs.
“Do you remember me? I’m Officer Powell. I was at your house for dinner a year or two ago. You’re going to be okay, you hear me?” the man says as he leads Lucas back to his cruiser.
The other officers disperse, except for one.
“Will, I’m going to need you to come with me too. Wheeler’s got an alibi, but your mom and brother weren’t home.”
The man is looking at Will like he should know him—and Will Byers would. Mike whispers, “Chief Hopper. He was around a lot before Will’s dad left.”
Hopper says, “Wheeler, go on inside.”
“I’m telling my dad. He’ll get lawyers,” Mike says, stepping between the man and Will for just a second. Will thinks he can almost see the glint of armor on him, but it fades. Mike runs off, looking back and almost tripping.
“Friggin’ rich kids,” Hopper mutters. Then, louder: “It’s alright, Will. Some looky-loo just saw Sinclair biking away from the gas line explosion over the weekend. Since you’re usually with him, I just wanted to ask you a few questions.”
Hopper leads him toward another mechanical beast, and Will seriously considers casting Invisibility and running away.
Will tries to prepare himself as Hopper sits him in the back seat and closes the door. Hopper gets into the driver’s seat and pulls the cruiser off the curb.
“So, how are you holding up, kid? I know things were rough after that fu—your dad left.”
“Adequate,” Will says, trying—and failing—to use something close to Mike’s accent.
“That’s a big word. Nice.”
Will doesn’t reply. They drive in silence for the next five minutes. When Hopper opens the door, Will collapses out of the car and empties his stomach onto the pavement.
“Hey—are you okay? Are you sick?”
“I hate those abominations!” Will says, throwing a look at the cruiser that might disintegrate it if he were a higher level.
Hopper chuckles. “Not a fan of cars. Okay. Didn’t catch that last time.”
He helps the boy up and leads him into the police station. Inside, he has Will sit in an interrogation room: four blank gray walls surrounding a metal table with three uncomfortable metal chairs.
Hopper leaves, then returns with a bottle of water.
“All right. I’ll keep this brief, because your mom is already going to be mad at me for taking you out of school. Were you with Lucas on Saturday?”
Will nods.
“Did you see the pipe explode?”
Will hesitates, then shakes his head.
“So if I ask Lucas, he’s going to say the same thing?”
Will shrugs.
“Come on, Will. You know I’ve got your best interest at heart. When you told me about Lonnie, I made sure he went away, didn’t I?”
Will considers—legitimately having no clue what the man is talking about—and, trusting Mike, just nods.
“Okay,” Hopper says. “So, real answers now. You were with Lucas, and he definitely saw the explosion. Did you see anything before that?”
“Like two of those metal abominations, carrying twenty men with guns?” Will says.
“Cars or vans,” Hopper says, his face growing suspicious. “You can’t really fit ten people in a car.”
“They had sliding doors. Both were black—bigger than your car.” The word car comes out unnaturally.
“Why are you speaking in that accent, Will? Are you trying to be funny? This isn’t funny.”
“No. Twenty men dying to a fireball isn’t funny.”
“They were caught in the blast? What were they doing beforehand?”
“Threatening us. Threatening Mike.” Will can’t stop his mouth; he doesn’t know how to convincingly lie without any context for this world.
“That’s a heavy accusation, Will. And you’re still doing the accent. Stop it.”
“I can’t,” Will snaps. “This is how I talk, you ignoramus.”
“Hey, stop insulting me with words I don’t know the meaning of. And quit the accent.”
“I can’t.” Will draws out every syllable. “Ignoramus. An ignorant or stupid person. Ignoramus.”
The petulance in Will’s voice actually causes Hopper to crack a smile—he coughs to hide a laugh.
“Why can’t you, Will? I’ve heard you talk before. Is this a dare?”
Will shakes his head.
“Whatever. Do the accent. Don’t do the accent. I don’t care. Why were they threatening you?”
“They wanted someone we were protecting.”
“Who.”
“I can’t tell you. That would defeat the purpose of protecting her—them.”
“So it’s a girl?”
“No. I didn’t say that.”
“Is she older? Jonathan’s age?”
Will’s face scrunches in confusion. “No. She’s our—hey. I never said it was a girl.”
Hopper pushes a picture across the table.
“Do you know this girl?”
Will looks at the face of an older girl, late teens. “No.”
“Jonathan never mentioned her? You’ve never seen her when you go with Jonathan anywhere?”
“Jonathan?” Will’s brain stutters. “Oh—um. My brother. No. No, he hasn’t mentioned her.”
Hopper’s face grows even more suspicious.
“What is going on with you, Will? You won’t stop that accent. You’re not talking like yourself, you don’t even know your own brother’s name, and is that a scar on your chest? Let me see that. Did Lonnie do that?”
Hopper stands and gently knocks Will’s hand away as he tugs the collar of Will’s shirt down slightly.
“Holy shit, kid. Those weren’t there the last time. I’ve got to call this in.”
His hand goes for his radio. From the quick briefing Mike had given him on “the modern world,” Will knows Hopper is about to use electricity to talk to someone else.
“Shocking Grasp.”
Will pulls on the Weave and electrocutes the radio.
The device sparks and smokes, and Hopper flings it off.
“What, do you have a taser?” the man says, and grabs Will’s wrist. Will can tell he’s trying to be gentle, but he reacts anyway.
“Vortex Warp.”
Will pulls on the Weave, and Hopper is yanked into a spinning purple vortex and deposited on the other side of the room, too stunned to keep hold of Will.
Will points with one finger.
“Stay back.”
Hopper is still dazed. “Kid, a finger gun isn’t going to scare me.”
“Fire Bolt.”
A gout of flame hits the wall beside Hopper.
“Fair enough! Fair enough. I think we need to calm down and reevaluate.”
“Take me to Lucas and let him go.” Will doesn’t lower his finger.
“Are you threatening me? Come on, Will! It’s me—Hopper!”
“I’m not the Will you talked to.”
“What? Hold on—hold on. Let’s back this down like twenty notches.” Hopper lifts both hands, palms out, voice low and coaxing. “Who are you?”
“Will la Fey.”
Hopper’s eyes flick to the scorched wall, then back to the kid with the pointed finger. “Where is Will?”
“Complicated. Very complicated. But he is safe.”
“Does Joyce know?”
Will nods, jaw tight.
“Do Mike and Lucas?”
Will nods again.
Hopper swallows, recalibrating. “Was it a gas line explosion?”
“No,” Will says, and his voice goes smaller. “It was me.”
Hopper drags a hand down his face. “And the girl isn’t Barb?”
“No.”
“Fuck—okay.” Hopper takes a careful breath, like he’s trying not to spook a deer. “Calm down. Lower the hand of fire. I’ll help you.”
“You took Lucas,” Will says, finger still up.
“We got a tip from—” Hopper starts, then stalls. “Hawkins Lab…” His brow furrows. “Huh.” He looks down, rubs his chin, thinking fast.
“If you want to help,” Will insists, “let Lucas go.”
Hopper looks up and gestures vaguely toward the hallway. “He’s probably already out. In fact, Joyce should be here—”
The door slams open.
“Jim! What the hell! You arrested my son!” Joyce storms in—and then stops dead when she sees Will aiming at Hopper. “Oh.”
She reaches back and shuts the door behind her, deliberately keeping her body between the room and the hall. “Will, calm down. He won’t hurt you.”
“He grabbed me,” Will says, halfway between embarrassed and exasperated.
Joyce’s head snaps toward Hopper. “Why’d you grab him?”
“He blew up my radio!”
“He’s a child!”
“He nearly burned my head off with that finger!”
Joyce looks back at Will. Will shrugs, like he can’t believe this needs explaining. “I don’t like people restraining me.”
“I’m a cop!” Hopper throws his hands up.
“I’m an adventurer,” Will shoots back. “See? We both have job titles.”
Joyce pinches the bridge of her nose. “Will, honey… I think you’re in a bit over your head.”
“Really, ma’am?” Will’s voice cracks on the last word, the anger suddenly turning sharp and shaky. “I don’t know anything about this world, and you sent me to school, and before I even got inside he took me from Mike and made me ride in one of those awful things, and—and—”
His arm finally drops.
Then his knees go out from under him.
Will collapses to the floor like someone cut his strings, hands curling into his shirt as he fights for air. Tears spill hot and fast; the sobbing hits him in ugly hiccups he can’t swallow down.
“I just want to go home,” he chokes out, voice small and wrecked. “Nothing here makes sense.”
“Kid—Will, it’s okay. I get it,” Hopper says softly.
Will looks up at him, anger flaring. How can he know what it’s like to be dragged from a world of combat—where at least you had the freedom of choice—into a world full of rules no one explains, where every misstep seems to blow up in your face?
“You’ve seen it, haven’t you?” Hopper asks, stepping closer, his hands outstretched. “A real fight—one where death is just an inch away?”
Will feels the confusion, the anger, start to give way. He searches Hopper’s face. The look is there.
“You too?” the boy whispers.
“Yeah, kid,” Hopper says, and his voice goes quieter. “Me too.”
“How do you—how am I supposed to just be here after that?” Will chokes out. “There’s too many rules, and they don’t make sense.”
“One day at a time,” Hopper says, reaching him at last. He sets a steady hand on Will’s shoulder.
“Lonnie was a bad man?” Will asks, searching Hopper’s eyes.
Hopper nods once.
“I need help,” Will says, voice shaking. “I swore to protect someone from bad men.”
Hopper doesn’t hesitate. “Take me to her.”
Will swallows. “Okay.”

Chapter Text

Will Byers stands at the door. He has to be dreaming. The cold wood under his bare feet says otherwise. Slowly, he turns his head.

Mike the Brave is staring back at him from the bed, red-faced. Without his armor, Will can’t separate him from Mike Wheeler.

Will opens his mouth—then closes it again.

“Are you going to come back?” Mike asks, his voice a whisper bordering on a sob.

Something in Will’s brain clicks. If he doesn’t say anything—doesn’t do anything—it’s going to hurt Mike.

Will crosses the room in two steps and wraps Mike in a hug, tucking his forehead against the paladin’s chest.

“Um… Will?”

Will shivers when he feels Mike’s chest rumble under his cheek as he speaks.

“Yeah, Mike?”

“That’s not—” Mike swallows. “I think there should be more to talk about in that conversation.”

“Don’t wanna,” Will mumbles into his shirt. “Not right now.”

Mike exhales, a shaky sound. “Is this how it feels? Gods. You two must find me infuriating.”

“Pretty much,” Will says, voice muffled. “And—I don’t know if the other Will feels the same, but… it’s one of the reasons I want to be close to you.”

“Y-you do?”

“Mike,” Will says flatly, “my head is on your chest.”

“You could have been cold,” Mike says, clearly flustered. “It is chilly.”

“I am going to bite you one of these days,” Will mutters.

Mike laughs, and Will shivers again when he feels it against his cheek.

“I thought you said being frustrating was part of my charm?”

“Doesn’t mean I won’t bite you.” Will says snuggling closer to the other boy’s chest. “Mike? How much of it is me, and how much is because you miss him?”

Mike places a hand on Will’s head slowly carding his fingers through his hair.

“I’m not trying to be infuriating, but I don’t know.”

“Me neither.”

“You aren’t mad?”

“Still here aren’t I?”

“What do we do?”

“Pull the bedroll over me, my feet are freezing.”

Will wakes and slowly turns his head. Mike is only just stirring. Will doesn’t try to run immediately this time. He pokes Mike in the side.
“Morning.”
“Agh—morning,” Mike says, hands coming up automatically to wrap around Will.
Their eyes stay locked for a moment. Then Will slowly pushes himself up until their faces are close. He leans in, his eyes starting to close—
A voice in his head, and an icy hand wraps around his heart.
Too close to that Wheeler boy. Don’t want people thinking you’re a f—
Will throws himself off the paladin and lands on the wooden floor. His healed leg twinges and he whimpers.
“Bathroom. Sorry.”
He stands and hobbles out of the room.
He stumbles down the stairs and finds a nearly empty bar. The bartender and the barmaid are leaned against each other. They look up when he stumbles into view, but they don’t pull away.
“Bathroom?” he asks.
The dwarf woman rolls her eyes. “Outhouse. That way. And put some shoes on, you daft city boy!” She jerks her chin toward a door.
Will considers going back for shoes, but he can’t bring himself to return to the room so soon. He rushes through the door and steps out onto grass slick with frozen dew. His feet hurt immediately as he jogs to the outhouse.
A few minutes later, he slips back into the bar area—and freezes.
The dwarf woman leans up and presses a quick peck to the dragonborn’s lips.
Will’s mouth drops open. He snaps it shut and bolts back up the stairs.
Back in the room, Mike is halfway through donning his armor.
“Welcome back,” Mike says. Then his eyes go wide. “You went outside barefoot? I’m going to have to heal them and—”
Will crosses the room before his mind can stop him, before it can dredge up more lines in Lonnie’s voice. He has to go up on his tiptoes, but he manages to catch Mike’s lips for just a second.
“There,” Will says, breathless. “Now do I have to say I want to kiss you too, or do you believe it?”
He bites his lip, his mind ping-ponging from the sparks that contact has ignited—but he finds them and quashes them before shame can take shape.
Mike is spluttering, opening and closing his mouth over and over, fumbling with the straps on his arm guard.
“You kind of look like a frog when you do that,” Will says. “It’s cute.”
“He does, and is.” Luco’s voice makes Will freeze, and shame begins to bubble in his stomach.

“Come on Will, lets get a table, it doesn’t seem like our Paladin is going to make much progress on his armor with us in the room.”

Will feels a hand on his shoulder and lets himself be pulled out of the room. Luco pulls the door closed and then offers his fist.

“Nice! First kiss newbie?”

“Yeah- you aren’t-”

“Dustir’s going to be so mad he missed it! We’ve got to hurry up and get him back.” Luco bowls over Will’s question then pulls Will’s wrist gently with his other hand and demonstrates a fist bump.

Will just squeaks and limply follows the elf down the stairs. They sit at a table and Luco raises a hand to get the bartenders attention.

“Have you got any eggs?”

“A copper each.”

“Can we have six please? Two each.”

“Aye, I’ll have Lucielle bring them out with your pottage and bread.”

“Thank you ma’am.”
Luco turns back to Will, and Will blanches.
“Whoa—hey there, buddy. You okay? Was he that bad of a kisser? I wouldn’t be too surprised.”
“Uh—I’m… fine. Yeah. He was okay.”
Will feels like his head is floating.
Luco’s expression shifts. “Wait. Are you from the Empire, or somewhere like that?”
“No,” Will says, then winces. “Well… kind of.”
“Well, it’s okay here. Not just here—” Luco gestures vaguely at the tavern, then wider, as if he means the whole region. “It’s safe here.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s part of the mandate of secession. We broke away so everyone would be equal, and not be per—prose—” He scowls at his own mouth. “Punished isn’t the word, but I don’t know the right one. So no one gets in trouble for who they like, you know? Or treated differently for what species they are.”
Will swallows.
This feels like too major a plot point to be something the world filled in on its own—something it smoothed over in Mike Wheeler’s margins.
Which meant… Will had no clue.

Chapter Text

Will la Fey is miserable. He knows it’s mostly because he’s in Hopper’s mechanical abomination again, but a small part of him is also unhappy about being separated from Mike for so long. Which Mike that feeling is associated with, he’s not sure—and he’s not willing to reflect enough to figure it out.
“There’s the Hendersons’,” Joyce says, pointing from where she sits in the front passenger seat.
The contraption pulls to the side of the road, and Will fumbles with the seatbelt before it’s fully come to a stop. Then he immediately starts yanking on the handle to open the door. No use—this thing was designed to transport prisoners, and the handle does nothing.
“Please let me out. Please,” he whines, squishing his face against the cool glass.
“Stop being—ugh—just give me a second, kid,” Hopper grumbles as he exits the vehicle.
Hopper opens the door, and Will is free at last. He stumbles, fighting the growing urge to fireball every one of the metal abominations on the street. He catches himself and holds a hand out toward the adults, motioning for them to stop.
Will approaches the front door and holds his hand next to the wood for a second, running through the complicated knocking sequence the other boys devised. He repeats it once without touching the door, then starts the sequence for real.
After a moment, Dustin’s voice calls through the door, suspicious and loud: “The best Star Wars movie is Return of the Jedi.”
“Um…” Will swallows. “No. I am your father?” he says, absolutely butchering the delivery.
A beat.
“Will?” Dustin says, suddenly sharper. “Why are you here?”
“Bring her out, please,” Will says quickly. “I found an ally.”
“Who?”
“I think he’s some kind of knight,” Will says, then adds uncertainly, “but he calls himself a cop.”
Dustin groans on the other side of the door.
“We were not going to tell any adults.”
“Lucas and I got arrested,” Will says, and even to his own ears his voice sounds small. “Things… escalated after that.”
“Does he know about, you know, your magic?”

“Yea there was an altercation.”

“Altercation- Will did you fight a cop?”

“Dustin can you just open the door, or just bring her out?”

“I’m here.” El’s voice comes through the door.

“El, I found another person who fights bad men. The other Will trusted him so I think I can too. Now you get to choose. He’s an adult, and he seems to have some authority, but he’s, well nice might be a strong word, but he knows what its like.”

Will waits a moment for his words to sink in.

“So you tell me El, I’ll send him away and help you run right now, or any time you don’t feel safe. But will you meet him?”

“Okay. You and Dustin come?”

“Of course, right Dustin?”

“Yeah, definitely.”
The door slowly opens and Dustin appears, El hiding behind him with their arms locked together. Her face brightens when she sees Will and her free hand captures his arm.

Dustin and Will walk back to Hopper’s cruiser with El behind and between them. When Hopper stands from his position leaning on the cruiser Dustin puffs out his chest and raises up to his full height.

“Chief.” The boy says, almost in an intimidating way. The effect is lessened by Hopper being almost two feet taller than the slightly round boy, and by Hopper actually being armed.

“First Wheeler, then you, I’m not going to hurt you, any of you.” Hopper says rolling his eyes even as he turns his head to conceal a small smirk of pride.

“Goons are after her, and you’re a chief goon.” Dustin says.

“Hey- Thats not fair, when have my officers ever done anything-” He takes a breath as he takes in that he is about to argue with three twelve year olds.

“I’ll keep them away, but I have to know why they’re after her. Also who they are. And I’m not doing it from your parents house Dustin.”

Will feels El’s grip tighten on his forearm before she speaks.
“I ran. Papa hurt me. I saw a monster.”
Will slowly turns his head at the last word.
“Monsters exist in this world?”
“This world?” Hopper repeats, sharp. He looks from Will to Joyce. “Who is this kid, Joyce?” Then he cuts himself off with a shake of his head. “Actually—nope. I’ve heard enough. Dustin, go back inside. Everyone else, in the cruiser. We’re not talking about this on the street.”
“I’m staying with her,” Dustin says, stepping toward Hopper.
Will’s free hand clenches as he runs through his prepared spells.
Hopper throws up his hands. “Fine! I don’t care—just get in the car!”
Will swallows as he stares down his nemesis, but El’s grip on his arm forces him to lead her to the cruiser. He slides all the way across the back seat, followed by El. Then Dustin hops in after her.
The drive is torturous, but Will bears it. He stares out the window as the trees grow thicker.
Eventually, Hopper pulls the car to a stop, and Will fights the instinct to plead to be let out—for El’s sake. Hopper opens the door and smirks when he sees El still clutching Will’s arm.
They enter a small log cabin, then collect enough seating to form a loose circle centered in the kitchen.
“Okay,” Hopper says, rubbing a hand over his mouth like he’s trying to stay calm. “One at a time.” He points at El. “Why did you run away, and where did you run away from?”
The girl, sitting on a couch between Dustin and Will, leans into Dustin and squeezes Will’s hand.
“Bad,” she says. “Papa hurts. The others hurt. Fuzzy.”
Hopper considers for a moment. “Do you know where it was?”
El seems to want to shrink behind Dustin as she shakes her head.
“Hey—hey, it’s okay,” Hopper says, and his voice softens, sliding from cop interrogator into something more like a dad. “I promise I’m never going to hurt you, okay?”
El doesn’t answer, but she stops shrinking.
“Do you know why you were there?” Hopper asks. “Or why they want you back?”
The girl nods. She holds out her hand, and a cup on the counter wobbles—then rises into the air. It gently settles back down. El wipes a bead of blood from her nose.
Hopper goes very still. “Okay. Can you do anything else?”
She nods again. “See. From far away.”
Hopper looks like he’s desperately trying to hold it together. Joyce is wringing her hands. Dustin—when Will glances at him—looks caught between flustered at El leaning into him and amazed at her abilities.
“Well then.” Hopper exhales. “Okay. You.” He points at Will. “Where did you come from, why are you here, and what can you do?”
His tone doesn’t quite reach interrogator again; it settles somewhere closer to team captain, at least by Will’s experience.
“I’m from a kingdom called the Grayhood Confederacy,” Will begins. “It’s an offshoot of the Eternal—”
“Stop.” Hopper holds up a hand. “If you hadn’t used actual magic on me earlier, I’d be putting you in a psych ward. You think it’s a different world?”
“All indications are pointing in that direction,” Will says carefully. “I’ve never heard of this town, or any of the technology you have.”
“Yeah, I have no idea how—” Hopper cuts himself off with a frustrated shake of his head. “Just tell us what you can do.”
“He’s a wizard,” Dustin cuts in, before Will can answer. “So it kind of changes based on what spells he has prepared—that’s the strength of the class.”
“But I don’t have my spellbook,” Will adds quickly, “so I can’t actually change any spells. I got two more two nights ago, but I can prepare every spell I currently have access to all the time.”
“Is this—” Hopper looks at Dustin like he wants to blame him personally. “—from that damned game?”
Dustin grins widely and nods.
“Do you want to read the rules?” Dustin offers.
“No!” Hopper snaps, then sighs. “Just tell me what—” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Spells you have.”
Will pulls the spellbook—Mike’s leatherbound notebook—from under his shirt and opens his mouth to start listing all the spells he has, when Hopper holds up a hand.
“On second thought,” Hopper says, “why don’t you tell me the general things you can do instead.”
Will rolls his eyes. Non-wizards always want to gloss over lists and mechanics like it’s boring, when it’s the literal toolbox he can use to make changes to the universe—and eventually multiple universes, if Merlin’s notes are anything to go off of.
“I can attack or incapacitate in an area,” Will says, forcing himself to stay orderly. “I can hide things a few ways. I have a couple spells that enhance others. I can also teleport people a short distance, within line of sight.”
He takes a breath, then keeps going.
“I know most cantrips—they’re usually single-target attacks or small effects that don’t necessarily harm people. I can create illusions, but the bigger ones are limited.” He hesitates, then adds, a little stubbornly, “Also, naturally, spells are only as useful as the mind of the caster casting them. There are clever ways to apply the effects.”
Hopper rubs both of his temples with one hand.

Hopper rubs both of his temples with one hand.
“Okay. Now—monsters and bad men.” He points to El. “What did you see? Who is after you?”
“Bad men. Guns. Monster.” El’s voice stays flat, but her grip tightens. “But it’s a puppet. Strings of hate.”
Will can see Hopper desperately trying to keep frustration off his face—and losing.
He turns to Will. “You. What did the ones you—” Hopper stops short, eyes narrowing. “Wait a minute. You detonated something in a residential street and killed how many people?”
Will sets his face.
“Twenty,” he says. “They were pointing—guns”—the word is foreign and messy in his mouth—“at us. I didn’t know what they did, so I…” He swallows once. “Lured them into the center of the street and then hit them with an area attack, neutralizing them as quickly as I could. I had to. I was protecting four children who, at the time, I thought had no way to defend themselves. I was alone, and I can’t fight fair—or kind—not twenty on one.”
He waits for Hopper to get angry like Lucas, or Dustin, or even just sad like Mike.
Instead, Hopper nods.
“No-win scenario,” Hopper says quietly. “I get it. You did what you had to do.”
Joyce, on the other hand, is on her feet, shaking with emotion.
“You—you killed people? Just like that, and you’re not even sad about it!” Her voice cracks. “I thought you were like my Will, but you’re not. You can’t just—kill—people! You’re a little boy!” She gestures helplessly at him. “Why aren’t you—why aren’t you crying?”
Will looks at her, blank-faced. He’d already had his breakdown, and he believes his justifications. He’s seen years of combat and made closer calls.
Hopper stands too and puts a steady hand on Joyce’s shoulder.
“Joyce,” Hopper says, softer, “I don’t think he grew up in a safe place. I think that even with a monster—which we are circling back to—and goons with guns chasing him, this is still safer than where he came from.” He exhales. “Also, I think I agree with his call, even if a kid shouldn’t be able to—or have to—make it.”

Chapter Text

Will Byers takes a breath in through his nose and sighs. Even if the village has started to grow on him, the smell hasn’t—and now, finally, after an hour of walking, he can breathe again. He starts to twirl, the floppy hat and new mage robes he’s wearing inviting it, but stops himself. Then he glances back. Mike the Brave is watching him, starry-eyed, and Will twirls anyway.

“Have you thought of what your specialty will be, Will?” Luco calls from the front of the group.

“Huh? I mean… Will la Fey was support, right? So I should—hmm.” Will answers reflexively, then catches himself. Why should he just fill the role his alter-ego/self-insert had?

“Was there something else you’d want to try?” Mike asks.

Will glances back, and his gaze lingers on the paladin’s sheathed sword.

“Bladesinger,” Will says quietly. “I thought the others would think it was too girly, but… I think it would be so cool.”

“Ah, great. Another frontline in our party,” Luco mutters.

Mike’s eyes light up. “You’d want to learn how to use a sword?”

Will nods, the admission making his steps lighter—so light he’s on the verge of skipping.

“We can get a practice sword in Starterton! Dustir is going to take a few days to recover, and with the bounties we won’t be pressed for coin, right, Luco?” Mike adds.

“Yeah. And I think I know of a bladesinger in Starterton. She’s a half-elf.” Luco meets Will’s eyes.

Will bounds forward.

“Really? How did you meet her? Have you seen her fight?” Will starts bombarding the elf with questions.

“Yes. She was the captain of my training party, ten years back, I think. She was magnificent.” Luco’s eyes go distant for a moment.

“Oh, wait—ten years ago? How old are you? Also, what’s her name?”

“I’m seventy-two, if you must know, and her name is Maxine,” the ranger says, shifting his bow across his shoulder.

Behind them, Mike makes a strangled sound.

“Maxine? The Blade of Starterton? Guildmistress of the Grayhood Adventurers’ Guild?”

“Yep, that’s the one.” Luco nods, his head still clearly elsewhere.

Mike’s eyes go round. “You have a crush on the guildmistress!” The boy says it like he’s gearing up to tease.

“Eh—well, she’s kind of my wife, so ‘crush’ is a bit thin,” Luco says, bowling over the paladin’s taunt.

“Your— you— married— old—” Mike splutters.

“Congratulations!” Will says, scratching his head. That absolutely is not in Lucas’s backstory for Luco.

“Thank you, Will. Articulate as always, Captain.” Luco chuckles and turns back to the road. “Oh, Isha preserve us. This is a hunting valley.”

“What? We came through here just fine on the way to the demogorgon,” Mike says, snapping into captain mode.

“We had four capable—sorry, Will—adventurers then. Now…”

“Can we avoid it?” Will asks.

“Not and make Starterton by the time limit,” Luco says.

Mike’s jaw tightens. “Then we push ahead.”

The trio continues along the path as the trees give way to steeper and steeper hills on either side, and the ground grows rocky.

Luco’s head snaps to the right and up. “Will—find cover, now. Don’t even poke your head out.”

The ranger unslings his bow. Mike already has his sword and shield in his hands. “What is it, Luco?”

A thunderous screech echoes through the valley.

“Wyvern,” Luco says.

Will’s feet finally unfreeze and he dives behind a rock, the rifle in his hands feeling so small.
“Mike, this is bad.” Luco’s bowstring snaps—twang. “Even with Dustir, guild policy would urge retreat.”
“We aren’t leaving him. Shield of Faith.”
Will squeezes his eyes shut, cradling the rifle like it can anchor him.
“Aye, Captain. We’ve got this.” Another twang. “Hunter’s Mark.”
Will slowly opens his eyes—and gasps.
A small creature with azure-blue scales, striped with bands of gold, stares back at him. It’s about the size of a labrador.
Will considers raising the rifle, but stops. He slowly extends his hand instead. The creature—standing on small claws at the tips of its leathery wings—stretches its long neck forward and sniffs. A forked tongue flicks out and passes over his knuckles.
“Wyvern,” Will whispers.
The wyvern takes another tentative step forward and nudges the side of its head against the boy’s hand. Will reflexively scratches under its chin, and it pushes into his hand harder, cooing.
“Such a pretty little guy,” Will whispers, and reaches into his bag. He pulls out a strip of salted meat and offers it. The wyvern sniffs experimentally, then snatches the meat and takes a few steps away, devouring it hungrily.
Twang, twang—CRASH. The ground shakes, and Will feels the reverberation of something huge slamming into Mike’s shield.
The wyvern in front of him jerks its head up, then bounds back and curls into a tight ball between Will and the rock he’s hiding behind.
“Not good,” Will breathes.
“Will, run!” Mike’s voice cuts through the din, and Will is on his feet with the wyvern hatchling clutched to his chest. Galloping footfalls thunder behind him. He glances back.
A much larger wyvern—jet black—bounds toward him.
The hatchling trills, then screeches loud enough to echo through the valley. Will tries to sprint while keeping his balance, but he’s too slow. The adult is already closing the distance.
“Misty Step!”
Mike appears between Will and the adult wyvern, shield raised. The creature slams into the paladin, and the impact rings out like a bell being struck.
“I am your foe, creature! Eyes on me!” Mike swings his sword. The wyvern dodges back—shockingly agile for something the size of a school bus.
Another screech tears through the valley, and Will twists around just in time to see a blue-and-gold adult wyvern diving.
“Mike, look out!”
The diving wyvern tackles the one engaged with Mike—and Mike narrowly sidesteps.
The hatchling squirms in Will’s grip, and then Will lets it go. It drops to the ground and starts ambling toward the adult wyverns.
The blue-and-gold adult is significantly smaller than the jet-black adult, and after the initial shock, the black adult quickly gains the upper hand.
“Will, come on—we need to retreat while we can!” Luco’s voice reaches him.
Will raises his rifle.
“No! Firebolt!” A short lance of blue-and-gold flame arcs out and splashes against the black wyvern’s side.
Mike steps into the melee between the two adults, slashing at the black wyvern with his sword—each cut flashing with blue-and-gold light and biting far deeper than it should.
The hatchling curls around Will’s legs and trills.
“Crazy. You’re both crazy!” Luco snaps, but his bow releases two arrows all the same.
The black wyvern breaks free of its grapple with the smaller adult and lashes out with its stinger tail. The stinger punches into the blue-and-gold adult’s neck, and its head drops free.
The hatchling screeches—long and loud.
Mike’s sword comes down on the black wyvern’s neck and flashes brighter than ever before, filling the valley with blue-and-gold radiance. The adult hits the ground and lies still.

Chapter Text

Will la Fey watches Joyce pace. El and Dustin have started whispering to each other from their seats beside him, and Hopper is standing between Joyce and the wizard, hands up in a placating gesture.
For the third time, Joyce takes a too-quick step toward Will, and he barely restrains a flinch.
“You said you thought he was safe! If your world is that bad, we have to do everything we can to get him out of there!”
“I’m not really sure how to answer that, ma’am. The magic to do so is beyond me.”
“So learn it!”
Will rolls his eyes and stands. He starts toward her anyway, and the words come out before he can file the edges off them.
“It’s not that simple, ma’am. You need to calm—”
Hopper turns to him, eyes wide, and mouths, No! before he can finish.
“What did you say?” Joyce’s voice goes cold.
“I think Will and I are going to take a walk,” Hopper cuts in quickly. “Joyce, why don’t you see if you can talk to El some more about the monster?”
He starts steering Will toward the door, one hand on each of the boy’s shoulders.
“What? What did I say that was wrong? She does need to—mmph.” Hopper clamps a hand over his mouth.
“There’s a coffee pot if you want any, Joyce,” Hopper adds over his shoulder.
He gets Will outside and exhales hard.
“Jesus, kid. Have you never spoken to a woman before? You don’t tell them to calm down.” He grimaces. “Henderson is going to be way ahead with the girl now, even though you’ve got magic powers.”
“What?”
“I saw how you were acting around her, champ.” Hopper pats his shoulder like he’s solved a puzzle. “Don’t worry. It’s normal.”
“I’m just… friends with her. Not even really that. I protected her because she needed help.”
“Sure, bud. Joyce is—”
“I’m not interested in girls like that,” Will cuts in, heat creeping into his cheeks. “If that’s what you’re implying.”
“What, you still in the cooties stage? You’ll get over it.” Hopper keeps walking. “Come on. Let’s take a walk.”
Hopper strides away from the cabin, and Will has to half-jog to keep up.
“No,” Will insists, breath catching. “I mean I’m only interested that way in boys. Is that not a thing in this world?”
Hopper’s steps hitch. “Oh. Ohhh. Oh.” He rubs a hand over his mouth. “That’s— I mean, it’s a thing, but… people don’t usually know when they’re your age.”
“What?”
“Yeah. People don’t—” Hopper gestures vaguely, like he can’t find the words. “They don’t tell anyone until they’re adults.”
“But you were trying to imply that I’m interested in El.”
“That’s normal,” Hopper says, like that settles it.
“But if I’m supposed to be able to be interested in her, why can’t I be interested in boys?”
“Because that’s not how it works!” Hopper snaps—and then immediately tries to soften it. “It’s… it’s stuff for when you’re older, between two boys. But you can have innocent crushes on girls.”
“I don’t understand,” Will says, and he means it. The confusion is sharp enough to sting.
“Clearly.” Hopper drags a hand down his face. “You haven’t told anyone else, right?”
“It hasn’t come up,” Will says, frowning. “But I don’t see the issue.”
Hopper’s shoulders sag.
“Not everyone is going to be nice about it,” he says quietly. “They’ll make fun of you. Maybe even hurt you.”
“Why would I care about words?” Will asks, genuinely baffled. “Also, if they attack me, I’ll defend myself.”
“No killing people for that.”
“It depends on what they’re attacking with.”
Hopper stops short and turns, staring at him. “Kid. You shouldn’t be sure, and you shouldn’t be able to calmly consider whether to defend yourself with lethal force.”
Will holds his gaze. “But I am. And I can.”
Hopper shakes his head. “No you aren’t. You can’t be.” He winces like he regrets the bluntness, then tries again. “I’m not trying to be mean, but that goes against everything I know.” His face softens. “Look—I’m glad you can defend yourself. But you cannot go around telling people that. Not here. It only stopped being illegal, in 77.”
Will’s face tightens. “It was illegal to like other boys?”
Hopper shakes his head. “Kind of.” He sighs. “It’s all for when you’re older. It’s not like you’d actually find anyone here.”
“Well.”
Hopper freezes. Will doesn’t notice in time.
“I mean, Mike is—”
“Stop!”
Hopper drops into a crouch in front of him, sudden and intense. “I did not hear that name. You are not going to repeat it.” His voice goes low. “Telling other people about you is one thing—and I think that’s wrong. But do not, under any circumstances, tell them about someone else. You understand me?”
“I’ll protect him,” Will says, his face hardening.
“I know you will,” Hopper says, and there’s no doubt in it. “But where is he right now? And are you beside him?”
“I thought you said you didn’t hear—”
Hopper raises one finger.
“Answer me.”
“Not here,” Will says tightly. “And no.”
“And does he have magic powers?”
“Not yet.”
“That’s—” Hopper starts, then stops short. He drags a hand down his face. “Kid, you are going to give me a heart attack. You’re trying to teach… someone else… magic?”
“Well, yeah.” Will shrugs like it’s obvious. “I mean, he should know—even if he absolutely isn’t ready for Fireball yet.”
Hopper mulls that over for a beat, then nods despite himself.
“I guess you’re right on that.” He squints at Will. “Also—really? Him?”
“You said you didn’t hear!”
“For after this conversation,” Hopper says dryly, “I didn’t.”
“Well then… yes. I was very close with the version of him in my world, and this one is… different, yet the same.”
“There’s one of him in your world?”
“Yes. It’s complicated, and we’re not sure on the details, but yes.”
“And you’re sure that you—” Hopper grimaces. “You’re sure? I mean, I had my first crush when I was—huh.”
“I’m sure.”
“Don’t teach Wheeler whatever spell it was that left a crater in the street,” Hopper says, and stands.
“He’s not ready.”
“Yeah.” Hopper exhales. “I don’t think this world’s ready for two—no, three—twelve-year-olds with that kind of power.”

Chapter Text

Will Byers stands between Luco and the hatchling.
“Elias is staying with us,” he says flatly.
Luco groans. “Captain, he named it. That’s like rule two of adventuring.”
“Will, it’s a wild animal. We can’t—” Mike starts, then stops as the tiny wyvern takes tentative steps over to him and starts rubbing against the paladin’s ankles. His “captain” facade breaks immediately, and he turns to Luco.
“I mean… why can’t we keep it, Luco? We have the rations.”
“Isha grant me wisdom. Why did I agree to adventure with children,” Luco mumbles. He throws up his hands. “Fine! But it’s your responsibility, wizard.”
Will rushes over and—before his shame can even catch up to him—kisses Mike on the cheek.
“Thank you! Elias will be good, I swear! Right, Elias?” He looks down at the wyvern. It coos.
Later that evening, after a dinner of hard tack and salted meat, Will stands by Mike’s bedroll, Elias curled around his legs, head darting around the clearing.
Mike is finishing doffing his armor when he says, “Don’t wait on my account. I wouldn’t mind a warm bedroll.”
Will blushes and slowly slips into the cocoon of fabric. Elias pokes its head in, then dives in and curls into a ball against Will’s stomach. The creature vibrates contentedly, and Will runs his hand along its back.
Mike finishes taking off his armor and slides in behind Will.
“Is it okay if I put my arm over you?” the paladin asks.
“Yeah,” Will answers as he scoots closer.
Mike drapes an arm over Will—and it lands on Elias.
“Why is the wyvern in the bedroll?”
“Do you want to tell it to leave?”
Mike sighs against Will’s neck, and it sends a shiver through Will.
“No.” Mike pauses. “Should we talk about this morning?”
“Probably.”
Will threads his fingers through Mike’s.
“Not tonight.”
“Yeah.”

The next morning, Will’s first thought on waking is: man, this bedroll is really cramped. This is quickly followed by: why is there a person who isn’t Mike trying to wriggle out of the bedroll?
Will watches as an olive-skinned boy in tattered clothes finally manages to extricate himself from the roll and bolts into the woods.
“Mike?” Will whispers.
The paladin just grumbles and tightens his arm around Will’s chest.
“Luco?”
“Yeah, Will?” Luco’s voice is entirely too awake.
“You saw that boy run off into the woods, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Good. So I’m not crazy.” Will swallows. “Any idea who it is?”
“Oh, I have ideas.”
“Care to share?”
“Nope.” Will can hear the grin in Luco’s voice. “I think it’ll be funnier for me if you figure it out.”
Will pries himself out of Mike’s grip and stands slowly, scanning the clearing.
A few moments later, Elias trundles into camp.
“And where have you been?” Will chides the hatchling.
Elias trills and points his nose toward the forest.
Will blinks.
“Aren’t you a smart little wyvern,” he says slowly. “It’s like you… understand… Common…”
The wyvern nods.
“You… aren’t a wyvern.”
The “hatchling” droops its head dramatically as Luco begins to guffaw.
“Can you… change back?”
The wyvern whimpers and curls into a ball.
“Hey— I’m not mad,” Will says quickly. “Just… surprised, is all.”
The hatchling’s head pokes up. It looks at the wizard, eyes wide and terrified.
Will forces a smile and hopes it reads as reassuring.
Slowly, the creature unfurls and stands. In a flash of light, the hatchling is gone—and a boy stands in its place.
“Who—who is that?” Mike asks groggily from behind Will.
“Elias,” Luco says, still sounding amused.
“What?” the paladin replies.
“Wait, we don’t know if that’s his name,” Will says quickly. “Can you tell us your name?”
“E-li-as,” the boy says, looking proud when he manages to form the word.
“No,” Will says gently, “that’s the one I gave you. Do you have a different one? From before?”
Elias shakes his head.
“What… um… are you?” Will asks.
“That’s a bit speciesist, Will,” Luco says dryly.
“Elias,” Elias says again, like it answers everything.
Will exhales through his nose. “Are you a druid?”
The boy thinks for a moment, then nods. He holds up eight fingers.
“You’re a level eight druid?”
Elias nods.
Luco whistles.
Elias looks at the ground.

“St- stay?”

“Yes!” Will says without looking back at the others. “I have some spare clothes, well, they’re my clothes from earth, but they’re warmer than that, if you want them.”

The boy looks up and nods eagerly. Then he lunges at Will and kisses his cheek. Mike makes a strangled noise behind him. Luco is laughing openly now.

Will flushes. “Oh- um, you didn’t have to-”

The boy looks up curious.

“Like- you for him.” He points to Mike. Will nods, he supposed he had kissed Mike on the cheek in front of Elias in hatchling form, so the boy thought that meant thank you.

Will turns and see’s Mike trying to restrain open hostility. The wizard almost laughs.

“He’s just saying thank you.”

The paladin flushes.

“I know.”
Will pulls his Earth clothes out of his bag and hands them to Elias.
An hour later, the adventurers and Elias are back on the road. Elias is glued to Will’s side, much as he was in hatchling form. Will keeps catching Mike glancing at them and pouting.
“Elias,” Will says quietly, “how long were you living with wyverns?”
“Always,” Elias replies.
Will can only nod at that. Elias continues, voice careful like he’s choosing each word.
“You… smell different. Not here.”
“Still?” Will blinks. “I’ve been here for almost a week.”
Elias steps in too close and sniffs loudly at Will’s neck, and Will flushes and flinches at the same time.
“Different,” Elias says again.
Mike makes a low sound in his throat—an actual growl.
Will has to cover his laugh with his hand.
“Mike,” he whispers, “he’s just acting like a wyvern.”
“I know,” Mike says, flat.
Elias points, one finger pressing lightly to Will’s chest.
“Thread.”
Will goes still. “You—you can see that?”
The druid nods.
“Other see,” Elias adds, as if that’s explanation enough.

Chapter Text

Will la Fey stands awkwardly as Hopper scratches the back of his head. Will’s mind is running through new information at a mile a minute. How could a world written by someone in this one…? Does that mean Mike is—? I mean, we did kiss. Could I trust Hopper with Fireball? Can I tell Joyce even if she hates me right now? Would that be a kindness to the other Will? There is a monster running around this world. I wonder what Mike is doing—either of them—right now. Can the luxuries of this world make up for having to hide? Is this man even right about having to hide? He didn’t even know you can like anyone at my age. How old is he?
“Will?” Hopper’s voice breaks through his spiral.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s head back in,” Hopper says. “And don’t say Joyce needs to calm down.”
“She does, though.”
“Shut it.”
They reenter the cabin. Joyce looks up from the coffee pot.
“There is a monster,” Joyce says, voice tight, “but she can’t describe it well. She said it wants to take people.”
“Barb…” Hopper mutters.
“Who’s that?” Will squints at him.
“She went missing on Saturday,” Hopper says, jaw set.
“I could investigate the area if you know where she was last seen,” Will offers, even though his stomach churns. That will mean another journey in one of the metal abominations. “If it’s something related to my world, I might be able to tell.”
“I can’t exactly bring a kid into a crime scene,” Hopper says.
Will rolls his eyes. “Another one of your world’s prejudices? I’m an adventurer—a level six wizard. Surely I’m old enough to offer expertise when my level clearly shows I’m capable.”
“It’s not that simple, Will.” There’s an edge in Hopper’s voice that Will can’t quite place.
“Then what?” Will demands, heat rising. “How am I supposed to level? How am I supposed to live if there are all these rules, half of which are never even said?” Frustration swells, powerlessness seeping in behind it like cold water.
“Go to school,” Hopper says, flat. “Don’t hunt monsters. Don’t cast spells—”
“Don’t kiss boys. Yeah, I get it.” Will’s voice spikes, sharp and brittle. “Just hide everything that makes me me and enjoy riding in metal boxes that make me want to evacuate my stomach!”
Hopper drags the heel of his hand down his face and thumps his forehead hard enough to make a low sound.
“Will! Did you not listen to anything I said outside?”
“Only the parts you weren’t wrong about!”
“I’m an adult,” Hopper snaps. “You are a child. I’m right about all of it!”
“No you’re-” Will starts, feeling anger rise in his chest, the weave bending toward him.

“Hopper.” Joyce cuts in and her voice is so cold it freezes both males in place. “What did you say to him?”
“I- I- it was- I was just he said he- and I said he was too young and-”
“It’s fine Mrs. Byers, I’m not real, I’m only this way because someone wrote me to be, I’m sure your Will is normal. I’m sure this world would be fine for him. You know what? I should just leave. I’ve imposed on you all for long enough.”
Will starts to walk towards the door, Hopper grasps for him. “Vortex warp.” He flicks a hand dismissively and appears at the door.

“Wait Will! It’s okay you don’t have to-” Dustin’s voice is cut off as the door slams behind Will.

“Invisibility.” He wraps the weave around himself like a cloak.

His dagger is in his hand, he eyes the tires on Hopper’s metal abomination but shakes his invisible head and walks off into the woods. He doesn’t think about where he’s going. He’s done thinking, he’s done considering all the ramifications he just walks.

He only recognizes an hour has past when invisibility drops. The forest has thinned and he can see scattered houses near the road he’s trailing. He’s still holding his dagger. He can’t say why, can’t think.

One of the “cars” drives past, he pays it no mind. He hears tires squeal and then a door clunk shut. He looks towards the sound. One of the constables or whatever they call them in this world.

“Hey- You’re Will right? What are you doing walking around during school?”

“I don’t care, leave me alone. Return to your metal thing and leave!”

“Whoa there buddy, I’m just concerned for you, why don’t we put the knife down and have a quick chat?”

“Fog cloud.” The weave answers and the road and the cop are bathed in a thick mist. Will continues walking as the man fumbles within.

Will keeps walking, he veers deeper into the woods away from the road. He glances up uninterested and notes that the sun has started to arc down in the sky. He comes to a large field and sees a massive building in the center with a gate surrounding it.

His eyes narrow when he sees more of the black clad men around the perimeter.

He marches towards the gate, stowing his dagger.

He’s a hundred feet away when the guards first notice him.

“Hey kid! Get out of here, this is a restricted area.”

The guard at the gate chuckles and waves him away.

“Take me to your leader.”

“What?”

“Your captain, your king, whatever Mystra damned word you use.”

The man reaches for a radio and speaks into it.

“Possible psych case at the front gate, its a kid and he’s talking nonsense.”

Will is still walking. The man listens to a reply and then says:

“Copy that. Hey kid just wait there someone wants to speak to you.”

Will stops, he’s only ten feet from the gate now. The weave feels wrong here, taught like scar tissue. It will answer him all the same.

Three minutes later a tall man with a shock of cleanly styled white hair wearing a suit walks out of the building.

“Hello there! How can I help you?”

Will’s done thinking.

“Are you papa?”

The man’s eyes go wide and his grin is predatory.

“Take him.”

“You like hurting kids right?” Will says, his instincts screaming at him to run, but he’s done.

The man sneers as the guard raises his hands and starts towards Will.

“You’re going to tell me where she is.”

“Acid splash.” Will points and a glob of acid shoots towards the man, he dodges, barely and his fancy looking shoes start to smoulder.

“Need backup its unknown asset two!” The guard yells into his radio.

“Mirror image.” Three duplicates of Will appear. The guard lunges and his hand passes through one of the duplicates.

A dozen more guards appear. The man in the suit hasn’t moved after dodging, he’s looking at Will hungrily.

Will raises his hand. His brain finally working as he feels adrenaline rushing. “Fire-” Mike Wheeler’s distraught face flashes in his mind. Then Lucas’s anger, then Dustin’s.

“Hypnotic Pattern.” He says almost reluctantly. A ball of kaleidoscopic color flashes into existence five feet up on the other side of the gate. All twelve guards and the man in the suit stare at it transfixed. The guard nearest to Will is out of the effective range and only looks back in confusion for a second before drawing a metal object from a holster at his side.

The guard fires. Another duplicate snaps out of existence. Will raises a hand.

“Mind sliver.” The guard drops the weapon and clutches his head, blood running from his nose and eyes.

Will jogs away back towards the forest’s edge.

Chapter Text

Will Byers already feels the ache in his feet from so much hiking, which had eased somewhat during their layover in the village, returning in force.

Elias, Will observes, has no such issues as he alternates between bounding around the group of three adventurers, annoying Luco, and hanging off of Will’s arm, drawing muted jealous sounds from Mike.

By midday Will is growing concerned that Mike may actually pop a blood vessel and sidles closer to him when Elias starts a slow circuit around the group.

“Mike?”

“Yeah.” The paladin replies in a clipped low tone.

“Would it make you feel any better if we actually talked about- anything?”

“No.” Mike says, infuriating as always.

“He really doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“I know.”

“And if you don’t want to talk about it what do you have to be jealous about?”

The paladin makes a half whimpering sound.

“But you know why.”

“But you haven’t told me, not really, what if you just wanted to see what it was like to kiss anyone?”

“That’s not- that’s not why Will.”

“So…” Will prompts. He knows how easy it would be to let Mike off the hook. Knows that if he just takes the lead the paladin will follow. He also secretly likes the feeling he gets when Mike is jealous over Elias’s closeness.

“So it’s fine Will. We can-” The paladin cuts off as Luco holds up a hand. Elias sprints back and crouches behind Will, despite being the highest level person in the group. The druid whimpers.

“People.” Elias whispers.
“We’re surrounded. Must have a concealment skill.” Luco adds from the front.

“Adventurers, well, junior adventurers. Lay down your weapons, we only want your valuables not your life.”

A man appears in the center of the road fiddling with a ring on his finger. He wears a long black trench coat and has a rapier at his side.

“Professional bandits, thats a lie and you know it captain.” Luco whispers.

“Let us pass and you shall have no quarrel from us, we’ll even delay reporting your position for a week, you have my word as a paladin.” Mike says.

The man seems genuinely somber as he shakes his head.

“Never like killing paladins, especially young ones, I respect your class. But you know I can’t do that.”

“Then we seem to be at an impass, since I cannot take your word to guarantee my charge’s safety.”

The man shakes his head and starts walking away. “Make it quick, adventurers have suffered enough without any of you fuckers prolonging the innevitable.”

Elias is plastered to Will’s back arms wrapped tightly around his chest and whimpering.

“Bad people.”

“I count eight, two from each direction. The leader gives really bad, probably our level at least. The other pairs have a crossbow and a melee each.” Luco mutters.

“Focus on the crossbows I’ll cover and keep the melees off you, Will stand between us and take potshots if you can.” Mike raises his sword. “Any of you who wish to live retreat now! We will not pursue.”

A crossbow bolt richochets off of his helm.

“So be it. Shield of Faith.”

Luco’s bow twangs twice.

Will raises his rifle and catches a shape in the trees. “Firebolt.”

The bolt of blue flame arcs into the forest, Will can’t see it land.
“Barkskin” Elias whispers and Will’s skin hardens and darkens until its gray like tree bark.

Will watches as two figures charge out of the forest to their rear, one on each side of the road. He swallows. His rifle comes up, aiming at the one on the left.
“Firebolt.”
A short bolt of blue-and-gold fire arcs across the distance and hits the runner squarely in the chest.
He doesn’t stumble.
“Not good. Not good,” Will breathes.
Two arrows from Luco arc overhead, flashing past the runners and drawing cries of pain from the treeline.
The right runner—a shirtless man hefting a massive greatsword—vanishes.
He reappears mid-swing, aiming for Will’s head.
Mike’s shield intercepts the blow.
“Polymorph!”
Will barely has time to register Elias’s word before the world shifts. His body folds and lightens. Black feathers—vision sharpening—air suddenly enormous around him.
He crows.
He can’t speak.
He squawks, frantic—and then talons close around him and he’s being hauled upward, fast.
He’s a raven.
And a blue-and-gold wyvern hatchling is carrying him in its talons, climbing straight into the sky.
Will can do nothing but watch in horror.
Mike is suddenly engaging two—then three—bandits in melee at once, his shield always moving to keep them from reaching Luco. Luco looses arrow after arrow into the treeline while dodging returning crossbow fire.
Will wriggles and squawks, but the grip is too strong.
The crossbow fire slows, then stops. Luco shifts his focus to the leader—who is walking back toward them, rapier drawn, calm as a funeral.
Mike’s sword flashes as he lands a clean hit on the shirtless man. The man goes down.
A mace answers. It smashes into Mike’s helm and knocks him to the ground.
Luco fires again and again at the leader. The man either sidesteps or cuts the arrows in half with his rapier.
Luco whips around and fires once as two melee fighters pile onto Mike. The arrow punches into the back of a skull. One bandit drops.
Mike reverses his grip on the other and hammers his shield into the last man’s face—again and again—until he stops moving.
The leader reaches Luco and lunges.
Luco blocks with his bow.
The wood snaps.
The elf tosses the broken weapon aside and draws a shortsword.
Mike is on his feet again.
The leader lunges a second time, sliding past Luco’s clumsy parry.
Luco falls.
Will thrashes in the air, screaming in his mind. All his body can do is caw and squawk.
Mike reaches toward the downed ranger—
The leader steps in and drives his rapier under Mike’s arm. Mike staggers.
Then the leader turns and sinks the blade into Luco’s chest.

Chapter Text

Will la Fey feels the moment the spell fizzles, simply reaching its designed time limit. He also hears the pops behind him as he reaches the treeline. Then something burns along his side. He clamps a hand to it, then brings his fingers up to his face.
His entire hand is covered in blood.
He presses harder, even as the cold starts creeping in around the edges. Why hadn’t Shield activated?
After five minutes of running, he ducks behind a tree and fumbles out the last vial of healing potion the party possessed. He downs it and feels his head clear, just a little.
Dogs are barking behind him now, too.
He pushes himself upright and sways. He tries to count the spells he’s used today, fails, and forces the word out anyway.
“Invisibility.”
He stumbles deeper into the woods, truly lost as afternoon slides into dusk.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Every adventuring instinct he has had been screaming at him to take one second to think. Instead he walked directly into a fight and then hesitated to strike.
Acid Splash? Really? Firebolt is my bread and butter. Why did I—because it would hurt more?
A two-man team with a dog rushes past him. He almost laughs, sharp and soundless. How were dogs supposed to track a single person they didn’t have a scent for, in woods right next to a town?
Invisibility ends.
He squeaks.
He sprints—doubling back, cutting quick diversion paths, crossing every creek he stumbles across. He wades through murky water for a dozen paces at a time until his legs go numb.
By luck or fate, he finds a familiar ramshackle structure two hours later. He stumbles into Castle Byers and collapses, curling into a ball as the cold finally catches him now that he’s stopped moving.
It takes him a few minutes to craft the message.
Then: “Sending.”
“Mike, I messed up. Hopper and Joyce hate me, Dustin too probably. Please help me. No one else. Castle Byers. I’m sorry. I’m hurt, cold.”
He barely manages to focus on the correct Mike—Mike Wheeler—and feels the connection snap into place.
“Will! Everyone’s looking for you. I’m coming. Alone, as soon as I can. I—I’ll be there in an hour, I think. Stay alive, Will.”
Will stays curled in a ball, teeth chattering and sobbing.

Useless.

Weak.

Stupid.

The words keep repeating in his mind, a cover for the truth underneath.

“I’m not even real!”

He’s not coming, why would he? He’ll probably just tell Hopper and Joyce and who knows what they’ll do to him. Will shudders harder as he considers what new torture devices technology could muster.

Will touches his side. He’s still bleeding. The world is growing dim.

He lifts his shirt. A small hole reveals itself, like an arrow wound. He reaches around and feels a similar one. Shaking he holds out his hand. A small flame appears in it.

He presses it against the exit wound and screams, his vision blurring to a single point. After a moment he gasps and his vision clears.

He holds out his hand again and rolls then presses the flame to the entrance wound. The world goes black.

Will’s eyes snap open when he feels a hand on his chest.

“No, no, no! You can’t be dead! Ahhh!”

A dark figure falls backward when Will moves his hand.

“Not- dead.” Will manages weakly. “Light.”

An orb of light appears in his hand and reveals Mike cowering with a box labeled “Band-aids” clutched in his hand.

The boy’s eyes go round, and the color drains from his face.

Will follows his eyes and sees the angry red scar on the side of his stomach.

“S’fine. Almost all healed.” Will says. Mike opens the box and pulls out a strip of something his hands shaking.

“You don’t want it to get infected.” The boy says as he slowly crawls over.

“Cauterized.”

Mike shakily applies the “band-aid” over the wound. Will doesn’t have the heart to tell him about the mirrored one on the other side.

Mike’s hand lingers on Will’s bare skin.

“Your cold, we have to take you inside Will.”

The wizard shakes his head.

“Can’t, Hopper Joyce, Dustin, they’ll all be furious with me.”

“Yeah! You ran off on your own, and now there are goons on every street! And I’m furious with you! You disappeared, and no one knew where you were, and I thought you died. Then you sent me that message, and when I got here!”

Mike lunges down with his head and brings their lips together. His hands bunching in Will’s ruined shirt.

“You can’t die!” He says when he finally parts their mouths and lowers his head to Will’s chest.

“I don’t know what I’d do.”

Will slowly wraps his arms around the other boy.
“I’m here,” he manages. “The rest worked. The cauterization worked.”
Mike leans closer, eyes scanning him like he expects Will to vanish.
“You need to come inside. You’re freezing.”
Will doesn’t have the energy to argue.
“Will you stay with me?” he whispers.
“Always,” Mike says, immediate.
“Okay. Fine.”
Mike stands and hauls Will up. Will balks when he sees that Mike’s shirt and sweatshirt are smeared with blood.
“Wait.” Will swallows. “Prestidigitation.”
He repeats the spell several times over both of them until the stains fade and the worst of the mess disappears.
Then he lets Mike sling an arm over his shoulders and half-carry him, even though Will’s legs work well enough. It’s easier to be held than to stand on his own.
It takes about ten minutes to reach the Byers’ house. Mike knocks on the back door.
It flies open and Hopper yanks them inside.
“You—infuriating little—” Hopper doesn’t finish. He crushes Will in a bear hug.
Will goes rigid for half a heartbeat, then sags into it.
Hopper sets him down and immediately spots a patch of blood Will missed.
“Where?”
“Side.” Will lifts his shirt. “It was through-and-through.” He turns, showing the mirrored scar.
Hopper’s jaw tightens. “You sure that’s it?”
“I didn’t—wagh!” Hopper spins him in place and runs his hands down his arms and legs, checking like he’s counting injuries by touch.
After a moment he exhales, hard. “Seems like it.”
Then Hopper points at Mike. “Go home, Wheeler.”
“No.” Mike’s face goes defiant, chin raised.
Hopper glances between the two boys for a moment. He opens his mouth to say something—
—but Joyce barrels in first.
“Will!”
She shoves past Hopper and wraps Will in a hug so tight it almost hurts.
“Don’t you ever!” she sobs. “Run away again. I was so worried.”
Will can only whimper, bracing for the other shoe to drop.
Joyce pulls back just enough to look him over, eyes going wide. “Oh my gosh—you’re freezing. Shower. Now, young man!” She pushes him toward the bathroom before he can protest.
Hopper cuts in, voice sharp with sudden practical terror. “Did you disinfect the… you know?”
“Cauterized,” Will manages.
Hopper’s eyes flare. “Holy sh—both sides?”
“Yeah.”
Joyce pushes him again and Will relents, stumbling toward the bathroom.
She turns back to Mike, who’s still standing his ground like a very stubborn statue. “Mike—want me to call Karen?”
“Yes, please, Mrs. Byers,” Mike says quickly.
“Okay. I’ll think of something.” Joyce’s gaze snaps to Hopper. “Jim, get back to the cabin. We can’t leave Dustin and El alone for the night.”
“But what if—”
“Jim.”
Hopper deflates. “Yes, ma’am.”

Chapter Text

Will Byers finally manages to break free from Elias’s grip. The boy in his wild shape dives after Will, but Will just tucks his wings in and dives.

Will’s black wings unfurl feet from the ground, and he intercepts another thrust from the bandit leader at Mike the Brave’s weak points.

The polymorphed form shatters, and Will reappears. Mike yanks him back and blocks another thrust with his shield.

“No, Will! You should have just run!”

“Not possible,” Will says. “Firebolt.”

The bolt of flame hits the bandit leader in the shoulder, and the man snarls. The duelist and paladin begin a dance of blades too quick for Will to follow.

He feels useless. He’s spent most of the battle a captive of Elias’s worry. He can’t do anything!
Mike takes three more hits. He’s swaying on his feet now. The man shakes his head.

“Run, little wizard. I will grant your paladin that one grace.”

His paladin. Mike. The kiss. The warmth. The oath. Mike. It all flashes through his mind until he feels the bond growing taut and warm in his chest.

“I will—” The words ignite in Will’s mind, unbidden. The bond between them flares, and his chest aches. Suddenly, he can hear two heartbeats, thundering in his ears. “I will be your moon, the reflection of your light. I will be your sword against the dark. From this day until my last breath, I will be your moonwarden.”

Will can feel a new spell burning in his mind, yet not in his mind. It’s not his, it’s borrowed.

“Misty Step.”

Will appears behind the bandit duelist. The rifle lies forgotten at his previous position. Will raises his hand and slashes down in a diagonal arc toward the man’s back.

A sword of moonlight appears in his hand. The blade cleaves through the man’s shoulder and doesn’t stop. The two halves of the body fall away to reveal Mike staring back at Will.

The thread binding them flares, and the world goes dark.

Will wakes and finds himself wrapped in an uncomfortable embrace with an armored figure. The armor is poking him and compressing his chest, making it difficult to breathe, but the sobbing of the boy wearing it keeps him from complaining for a moment.

“Mike. Could you—can’t really breathe”

The grip loosens, and a gauntleted hand cups his cheek until he’s face-to-face with the still-sobbing boy.

“Why did you do that, Will! I thought—I thought you died!”

“You were gonna.”

“That’s my job! To protect you!”

“Well, now we protect each other.”

“Will—”

“Just kiss me.”

Their lips meet briefly, but they break apart quickly when a third boy dives onto them, wrapping them both in an embrace.

“Stupid Wizard. Stupid paladin. Pack.”

Will chuckles softly, and Mike winces as the druid crashes into his still-bleeding wounds.

“Luco?” Will asks.

Mike shakes his head.

“We need to get to Starterton.”

Chapter Text

Will la Fey steps out of the bathroom after showering. He glances toward the kitchen and finds Joyce and Mike Wheeler staring at him, both with their arms crossed.
“Will,” Mike says, his face growing red.
“Not tonight, Mike. But the three of us are having a talk tomorrow after school,” Joyce says, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I think both of you should get some sleep.”
“You’re still sending me to school?” Will whines.
“He did get—shot. Like, with a gun,” Mike mumbles.
“Save it. It’s going to be a long talk. Sleep now,” Joyce says.
“Can I… have something to eat first?” Will asks, voice small, already braced for an all-too-familiar night spent hungry.
Joyce blinks. “Oh! Oh, of course, Will, honey. Sorry, that completely slipped my mind. It’s too late to order pizza, but I’ll get something heated up, okay? Just rest on the couch.” She nudges Mike aside and begins pulling things out of the fridge.
Will is too stunned to move. She was mad, but she’d still feed him?
Mike takes his hand and pulls him to the couch.
“You’re not freezing anymore,” the boy says as they sit. Then Mike’s stomach grumbles.
“Um—Mrs. Byers? Could I have some too? I was—”
Joyce cuts him off without turning around. “Of course. I’ll make enough for both of you.”
After a late dinner, Mike and Will are shooed off into Will’s room. The pair collapse onto the bed.
“What did you even say?” Mike asks in a whisper as they crawl under the covers.
“Not what I was supposed to, apparently,” Will answers in the same volume.
“They wouldn’t tell me, and Dustin spent all day keeping El from chasing after you, so I didn’t see him.”
“Oh.”
“Will. Come on, what was it?”
“Um.”
Mike’s face slowly falls as Will doesn’t answer. The beginnings of panic edge into his voice.
“What did you say, Will?”
“I’m tired. I’ll tell you in the morning,” Will deflects. He tries to turn over, but Mike catches his shoulder lightly.
“I can’t say I won’t be mad, but I’m not leaving, okay? I promised. And friends don’t lie.”
Will squirms, but eventually relents.
“Hopper—he was insinuating that I liked El, and—”
“No—no. Will, I should have told you.”
“He was so wrong, but still, I guess he just wanted me to be safe.”
“In front of everyone?”
“Well…”
“Will.”
“He and I were outside, and when we came back in, I kind of had a meltdown, and… I implied that Hopper told me not to kiss boys.”
Mike goes still. “Did he?”
“Not… exactly.”
“I mean, that’s not—I mean, it’s not so bad. You were hysterical.” Mike groans and covers his face for a second. “It doesn’t explain why Hopper was looking at me all weird, though.”
“Well…”
“Will,” Mike moans.
“When he was telling me that no one here my age would know that they only like boys…”
Mike’s head drops against the pillow.
“He said it’s not like I’d find anyone here, and I… disagreed.”
“My life is over,” Mike says, turning away.
“It’s okay, he said he was going to pretend he didn’t know who I meant.”
Mike lifts his head and drops it into the pillow several times.
“The others don’t know, not just—”
“Dustin would figure it out from what you said,” Mike mumbles into his pillow.
“I didn’t—I only said Hopper told me not to kiss boys.”
Mike turns, and Will sees tears falling down his cheeks.
“Are you going to listen to him?”
“What?”
“Do you not want to anymore?”
“I thought—Mike, you—what?”
“Will, I don’t care if I’m a pariah like—well, Will, the other one. I—” He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I li—”
“BOYS! GO TO SLEEP NOW!” Joyce’s voice cuts in from the bedroom door.
Will can see the moment Mike loses his nerve. The boy starts to turn away, but Will’s hand flashes to his cheek, wiping away a tear. His voice is nearly silent as he leans in.
“It wouldn’t be possible for me to listen to him.”
He brings their lips together, then flops over and falls asleep almost immediately.

Will wakes the next morning and his eyes catch Mike’s just as they flutter open. He smiles and leans in, but stops.
“Can I?”
Mike gags. “Ew- morning breath no.”
Then the boy closes the distance anyways and gives Will a quick peck.
“You know I have a spell for that, in fact. I think you should learn it.”
“Prestidigitation.” Will pulls gently on the weave and the space between them is filled with the scent of rosewater and dew.
“Well why didn’t you?”
“I’ve smelled far worse.”
The boys go through their morning routines and eventually reach the kitchen table. Joyce puts out a cereal box and Will salivates and wiggles excitedly at the chance to have another bowl.
Jonathan sits across from them and after several minutes of pushing his own cereal around in his bowl says:

“So- You’re not Will.”
“Not your brother, no.”
“And you were just going to pretend to be until?”
“Jonathan- he’s still Will’s age, I’ll talk to you after I take them to school.”
Jonathan puts his spoon down a little too hard.
“You’re going to just send him to school? My brother’s missing and you’re just going to pretend like nothing happened?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“No, its not. You know what, I’m out.”
The older boy stands up and walks out the door.Will is shaking until Mike puts a hand on his knee.
“It is a lot.”
Will nods.
Joyce says:
“Don’t worry he’ll come around it will just take some time. Are you all recovered Will?”
The wizard nods and stands, he pulls up his shirt to reveal a new scar on his side but its fully closed. The two people actually from earth stare at him open mouthed.
“That’s not-” Joyce starts.

Mike cuts in: “That’s so cool! Do you think I can do that too if I get a class? How do I get a class?”

“For wizards its actually not that complicated.” Will says and pulls out his spellbook. He opens it and offers it to Mike. On the page is the full diagram for Prestidigitation he doesn’t need to add it to the spellbook, its a cantrip, but drawing it out like this lets others learn the spell by looking at it.

Will smirks as he sees the weave swirling around Mike. The boy is transfixed by the diagram, mouth open about to offer some comment.

Joyce turns: “Alright time for school lets go.” Her brows furrow when Mike doesn’t even flinch.

“Mike?”

“He can’t hear you. But good news, he’s got the potential to be a wizard.”

“How long is he going to stay like that?”

“Couple hours probably.”

“Break him out of it, now.”

“He’ll have to start all over again!”

“School!”

“Yes ma’am.” Will flicks a finger and the book closes. Mike blinks, then shudders.

“That was- magic…”

“Yep.”

The boy grabs Will and pulls him into a deep hug.

“Thank you.”

Chapter Text

Will Byers bumps elbows with Mike the Brave, sharing a small smile when their eyes meet. The boy’s heart pangs when he sees the paladin’s expression slide back into abject terror the moment he looks away.
Elias circles the pair, sniffing the air at each cardinal direction, hackles half-raised.
Two days. They just need to hike for two more days, and they can get Dustir and Luco back.
Will thinks back to the night before. As soon as he’d closed his eyes, the voice had spoken.
“New class: Oathbound Sword level two obtained. Radiant Mage level four obtained. Class consolidation. Oathbound Sword removed. Radiant Mage removed. New class: Moonwarden level four obtained. Skill obtained: Bound Moonlight Sword. Skill obtained: Shared Spellbook. New spells obtained: Burning Hands, Web, Grease, Scorching Ray. Shared skill modified: Arcane Divine Smite to Sunlit Lunar Smite.”
He really wishes the voice would speak when he was conscious—or that he had access to something to write with when it did.
He holds out his hand. The moonlight sword appears at once, weightless and bright in his grip as his fingers curl around the hilt. He stares at it for a beat, jaw tight, then opens his hand and lets it vanish.
The new levels feel hollow, bought with the blood of Luco and Dustir.
The day passes in anxious silence. The trio makes camp, and Will takes first watch, thankfully without incident. He wakes only briefly when Mike slips into the bedroll beside him, too tired to do more than shift into the paladin’s warmth before sleep drags him back under.
When they break camp the next morning, Will does his best not to crack a tooth on the hardtack. Mike still doesn’t smile when their eyes meet.
After a long stretch of silence, Mike finally says, “Will, we’re coming up to… it’s called Bronze-Death Pass.”
Will glances over, frowning. “Why?”
Mike adjusts his grip on his shield strap without looking at him. “It’s the only path that doesn’t add a week of hiking over a mountain. The ridge completely surrounds Starterton.”
Will shakes his head. “No, why is it called that?”
Mike’s mouth flattens. “It’s a trial most new teams don’t make it through, even when multiple teams group together.” He hesitates, then says more quietly, “It’s cursed.”
Will blinks. “What, like superstition?”
The paladin shakes his head.
“A team from Starterton defeated a grand witch, so the story goes,” Mike says, voice going a little distant in the way people do when repeating something old and ugly. “With his dying breath, he cursed all adventurers who call Starterton home to face the greatest trial of their mission at Bronze-Death Pass. It’s not much of an issue for the more established teams.”
Will furrows his brow. “But wouldn’t their missions be more dangerous?”
“Yeah,” Mike says, finally glancing at him, “but teams just starting out usually take a mission they plan to be strong enough to face by the time they reach it. The road is harsh, as you’ve seen, so it’s not uncommon to gain two or even three levels depending on how far you have to travel.”
Will grimaces. “So we have to fight something stronger than a demogorgon?”
Mike’s eyes widen. “No, gods no,” he says immediately. “That wasn’t a demogorgon. We’d have been slaughtered.” He exhales hard through his nose. “That was a deformed ettin. Stronger than any ettin I’ve heard of, but not a demon lord.”
Will’s mouth opens, then he winces. “But Mike called it—” He stops, blinks, and huffs a tiny breath. “Oh. He just wanted to use the new mini.”
Mike gives him a baffled side look. “I’m not sure what that means, but if you say so.”
Will picks at the edge of his sleeve. “So what will we have to fight?”
Mike is quiet for a few steps. “Something stronger than a stone giant,” he says at last, “or a wyvern.”
Will’s stomach does a cartwheel.
He swallows and says, a little too quickly, “We didn’t actually beat the wyvern alone, though.”
Mike’s jaw tightens. “The curse also assumes we still have all the members who set out.”
Will goes very still. “Oh.”
For a few moments, only boots on dirt and Elias’s soft huffing fill the space between them.
Then Mike says, low and rough, “I can’t ask you to come with me, Will.”
“Mike…” Will starts, turning toward him.
Mike cuts him off, voice fraying at the edges. “If I can run long enough to make it, the other adventurers in Starterton will help.”
Will stares at him. “I’m coming with you,” he says, firm now. “I took an oath.”
Mike rounds on him, fear flashing hot in his eyes. “I didn’t ask you to!”
Will’s expression hardens. “I didn’t ask you to either.”
“This is insane, Will.” Mike gestures sharply at him, then at the road ahead. “You’ve been adventuring for less than a week. You’d be crazy to—”
“Dive back into a fight to save a paladin,” Will snaps, “or swear to protect a boy without a class when you knew how dangerous this path was.”
Mike stops walking.
Will takes two more steps before realizing, then turns back. The paladin is staring at him with a wild, helpless look that is halfway to anger and halfway to something softer.
For one long beat, neither of them speaks.
Then Mike lets out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh. “Then I guess we’re both crazy.”
Will’s mouth twitches into a small, tired smile. He bumps Mike’s shoulder with his own.
“Crazy together.”
“Fine, let’s see what the pass has for us this time,” Will says, trying for steadiness.
They keep walking for another two hours. The pass grows around them, then engulfs them.
Elias is the first to notice. He squeaks and sprints behind Will, fingers bunching in the back of Will’s robe.
“What is it, Elias?” Will asks, twisting to look at him.
“Bad,” Elias whispers.
“I got that, but can you be more—”
“Dragon.”

Chapter Text

Will la Fey steps out of Joyce’s abomination. He manages not to vacate his stomach this time, another win in his ongoing war against the metal beasts. He stares at the large building before him. He’d honestly rather fight a hill giant solo than go inside.
Mike Wheeler bumps their shoulders together. “Come on, all you have to do is pretend to be Will. In most classes, that means just don’t say anything.”
“What am I supposed to do in the other classes? As all of you have repeatedly pointed out, my diction is not the same!”
His traitorous feet follow Mike despite his protests.
“Say it’s a dare?”
“A what?”
“It’s a thing kids do. They tell each other to do something scary or embarrassing, and you have to do it.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a dare,” Mike says, like that should be obvious.
“Like, a test of daring?”
Mike shrugs. “I never really thought about it.”
“What teacher is going to believe that, or allow it?”
“Luckily, the only one who would expect you to talk is Mr. Clark.”
The pair enter the building, and Dustin soon joins them at Mike’s locker.
“Hey, guys. Will, are you okay?” The boy’s look of concern seems genuine.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Will says. He’d been informed by Mike that showing off his new scars was not something he should do in school.
“Okay, sure.” Dustin pats him on the shoulder. “I’ve got your back. Also—” he lowers his voice, “that teleport thing? So fricking cool.”
The trio walk into one of the many classrooms, and Will sits at a desk next to Mike. The wizard observes the “homeroom” ritual: announcements, the pledge of allegiance, attendance. Then about half the class walks out when the bell rings. Will starts to stand too, but Mike stops him.
“We have science class.”
“Oh.”
“This is Mr. Clark, by the way.”
Will’s heart thumps. Of course he’d start the day with the one teacher who would expect him to talk.
“Welcome back, everyone. Today we’re going to talk about combustion! Does anyone know what that means?”
Will watches the man smiling from the front of the classroom. Dustin raises his hand, and Mr. Clark seems to pointedly not look at him.
“Mr. Byers, you look like you have an answer.”
Will’s mouth goes dry.
“Uh—it’s a chemical reaction, most often involving oxygen and a fuel source. Some of the material sublimates into a gas, and the solids that are left are often black and brittle.”
Mr. Clark narrows his eyes at Will’s voice.
“Come on, Will. No need to use that voice. But you are close to correct.” He nods encouragingly and says: “There’s more to it than that isn’t there?”

“Yes, the reaction releases heat and light, it is also precipitated by heat which allows the reaction to occur. Though that’s not the only way combustion can occur, but it is the only mundane one. Spontaneous combustion is observed in many materials with magi- ouch!”
He stops when Mike kicks his leg.

“No magic talk.” The boy hisses.

“If you’re referring to certain rocket fuels, yes but thats a bit beyond what we’ll cover. Is this a dare Mr. Byers?”

“Yes.”

The man sighs.

“You’re actually not half-bad at the accent.”

Mr Clark launches into a full explanation of his own, and doesn’t end up calling on Will again until class is almost over.

“Mr. Byers, please see me after class,” he says at last.
He bowls on into the next topic and even ends the class with a “bang,” pouring a thick, viscous liquid onto a pile of gray powder to produce a purple flame. Will is amazed—not that he hasn’t seen purple fire before, but that there is nothing magical about it.
The bell rings, and Will tries to slink past Mr. Clark with Mike, but the man says, “Will.”
Will bites his lip and slowly walks closer. He glances over his shoulder and sees Mike waiting in the doorway.
“Yes, Mr. Clark,” Will says carefully.
“Who are you?” Mr. Clark asks.
“Shit!” Mike blurts from behind him.
“I’m Will, sir,” Will says, keeping his face blank.
“No, you aren’t,” Mr. Clark says, calm and certain.
“It’s my name,” Will says defensively.
“That accent isn’t just half-bad, it’s perfect,” Mr. Clark says, folding his arms. “And I’ve proctored the D&D club for several years. Will couldn’t do it.”
Not good. Mind Sliver? No. Invisibility and run again? Mike might kill him this time, and Joyce definitely would.
Mr. Clark continues, watching him closely. “I’ve also shown that experiment in science club about a dozen times, but that was your first time seeing it.”
Threaten him, that should work. He doesn’t look that tough. But Mike had basically implied this was Will Byers’ favorite teacher.
“Are you a cousin of his from England or something?” Mr. Clark asks, tilting his head. “Is that the dare? You do look really similar to him, down to the mole.”
Will tries to look back at Mike, but Mr. Clark presses on.
“Where is Will?”
Will sighs. Without turning his head, he says, low and flat, “Mike, get in here and close the door. Can I trust him? ’Cause the alternative is…”
The door slams, and Mike says, “Yes!” too quickly.
“What would it take to convince you that he’s in a different universe?” Will asks stiffly. He says universe like it’s an unfamiliar concept, because it is.
Mr. Clark laughs once, incredulous. “Hard evidence.”
Will holds out his hand. A bright purple flame blooms above his palm.
Mr. Clark’s eyes go wide, and he takes an involuntary half-step back.
“Pay attention to Mike for the next one,” Will says, voice tightening. “I can’t do this often.” He flicks his fingers. “Vortex Warp.”
Mike disappears and reappears closer to Will with a startled yelp.
“You cannot tell anyone else,” Will says, meeting Mr. Clark’s stare. “I’m led to believe that this could cause major problems for Mrs. Byers, and she has been… unimaginably kind.” He swallows, then adds, more coldly, “So is that enough for your agreement, or must I move to less savory measures?”
“Are—are you threatening me?” Mr. Clark asks, staring at the flame.
“She has been kind,” Will says, as if that answers everything.
Mr. Clark blinks. “Did you send Will there?”
“No.” Will exhales through his nose. “I would be trying to find out who or what did, but I’m obliged to come to this building in a mechanical—” He takes a breath, visibly steadying himself. “Mrs. Byers needs me to take Will’s place at school.”
Mr. Clark studies him for a moment. “But you’re not at his level. How are you going to—”
“I’m led to believe the other educators wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t care,” Will says flatly.
Mr. Clark winces. “That is a wildly disrespectful—but probably accurate—reading of my colleagues.”
Will narrows his eyes. “So, are we in agreement?”
“On one condition,” the man says, and Will holds back a sneer.
“What?”
“I’m tutoring you,” Mr. Clark says, firm now. “I’ll get you up to speed.”
“Fine,” Will says, chin lifting. “But if you aren’t fast enough, I’ll just do it myself.”
The man smiles.

Will manages to stay out of the spotlight through the rest of his morning classes. Then Mike leads him out into the yard for “recess,” where Lucas and Dustin join them.
The four boys huddle together, and Dustin says in a low voice, “Hopper is keeping El at his cabin.”
Lucas shoves his hands in his pockets. “I got arrested yesterday.”
“I got shot,” Will adds.
“He got better,” Mike says quickly. He puts a hand on the hem of Will’s shirt and glances at the other two. “Can I show them, Will?”
Will frowns at him. “You said it wasn’t socially acceptable.”
“I meant when other people would see,” Mike says, impatient but not unkind. “Not these two.”
“Fine. I don’t see why I can’t do it myself, but—agh, it’s cold. Hurry up!”
Mike lifts the hem of Will’s shirt and reveals the now-faded scar on his side. Dustin and Lucas stare for a long, silent moment.
After about thirty seconds, Will yanks the fabric out of Mike’s hand and shoves it back down, shivering.
“Sorry,” Mike mutters, then steps in and wraps Will in a hug from behind, trying to stop the shiver.
A voice cuts across the yard before anyone can respond.
“Oh, would you look at that! I told you frog-face was a queer too! Figures Byers got him. It’s contagious.”
Will is mostly confused by the comments as the boy approaches their group, flanked by two others.
“Fuck off, Troy!” Mike snaps, even as he jolts away from Will like he touched white-hot metal.
Is this what Hopper had meant?
Troy sneers. “What’d you say, queer-face?”
When Will glances back, Mike’s face is red with embarrassment and hurt. Will sighs and leans closer, whispering:
“Are they making fun of you?”
“They’re making fun of you too,” Mike grumbles, giving a tight nod.
Will winks at him, then steps forward three paces. He does his best to mimic Mike’s accent.
“Stop. Leave him alone, or I will stop you.”
The three bullies laugh.
“Yeah, right. Get back to your boyfriend, fag, or I’ll show you what my dad says we’re supposed to do to queers.”
The boy raises his fist. Will glances at it, at his stance, and his adventurer brain barely registers it as a threat.
“I said stop. You are being improper.”
Troy swings.
Will doesn’t flinch. He lets the blow land, then turns back toward the party.
“That means I can hit him back, right?”
“I mean—I guess?” Dustin says.
“True Strike,” Will mutters, then slams his fist into Troy’s face.
The wizard pins Troy’s arms to the ground with his knees and eyes the crooked, bleeding nose on his face.
“Yeah, that’s broken. I’d get it set unless you want it to be crooked for the rest of your life.”
“Get off me, you fucking queer! I’ll kill you! I’ll tell everyone what you are, I’ll tell my dad and he’ll—”
Will shakes his head and leans in. He knows his eyes are glowing when the threats die in the bully’s throat.
“I don’t care. Say whatever you like about me, or don’t. Pond scum like you are beneath my notice.” He leans in closer. “But if you ever make Mike look like that again, you will wish I stopped at a punch.”
He leans back, then reaches down and sets the boy’s nose before dismounting the screaming boy.

Chapter Text

Will Byers looks up as a shape darkens the entire pass. His mouth falls open. Elias is trying to burrow into his robe.
The larger wyvern had been the size of a school bus. This dragon, bronze scales glinting in the sunlight, was the size of a three-story building.
“Shield of Faith,” Mike says beside him.
The dragon lands, and Will is knocked to the ground in a tangle with Elias. Mike stands between the other two adventurers and the dragon. The creature chuckles, and Will’s entire body vibrates with it.
“If you wish to pass through, I am your opponent,” it says, voice almost wistful, with a hint of something Will can’t place.
“Oh, great dragon, please let my companions go. I led them here, and it was clearly not a good idea,” Mike says, shield raised.
“You haven’t even heard the trial yet, child,” the dragon says, and this time Will thinks he hears mirth in its voice.
“What?” Mike’s shield drops a fraction.
“The witch wasn’t specific enough, both in their choosing of trial and in the pool of trials. I have no wish to harm you, but I must pose a trial for you to overcome. Hmm...” The dragon hums, and the entire pass begins shaking.
“I will have a game—no, a set of games—of chess. That is my trial. Best of... say, five.”
“And if we lose?” Mike says, shield coming back up.
“I go back to my hoard.” The dragon smiles. It is not comforting.
“If there’s no consequence for losing, then why play at all?” Mike asks.
“The curse doesn’t say you have to succeed, only that you must be brave, and I can’t get home if you don’t try.”
“We have to hurry. Our friends are dead, and we have to get them to someone who can revive them,” Mike says, voice tight.
“Well, I left a herd of cattle in the middle of my hoard unattended. Can you imagine the amount of cleaning I’ll have to do?”
Mike just stares.
“But I don’t know how to play chess,” he says.
“I do,” Will says, extricating himself from Elias and stepping forward.
“Wonderful!”
“Will you reward me for beating you?”
The dragon’s head moves closer to Will until its breath makes his robes whip around him.
“It wouldn’t be much of a trial if I didn’t.”
“And what is that?”
“I’ll let you take one item from my Chest of Desire.”
“Fair enough. Shall we?”
Mike is still frozen. Elias has started poking his head around Will’s shoulder and stealing glances at the dragon.
The dragon nods. Then something occurs to Will.
“Um—I don’t think a chessboard designed for either of us will be usable by the other.”
The dragon chuckles.
“That is true, little one.” The dragon scratches at its chin with one claw.
Will doesn’t notice Elias creeping toward the creature until the boy pounces and tries to scrabble up its leg.
“Agh—little druid, what are you doing?”
“Warm,” the boy says, flopping onto the back of the dragon’s neck and putting his arms around it.
“I am not a bed! This is entirely—undignified—” the dragon stutters as Elias begins scratching at the dragon’s scales with both hands.
“But I’ll allow it. I suppose I’ll have to use magic to move my pieces.”
Mike faints.
“Oh dear.” The dragon says.

Will rushes over and kneels beside Mike. The boy’s eyes flutter open and he says:

“Will, you aren’t going to believe the dream I-” The paladin’s eyes focus on the dragon. “Not a dream then.”

“Nope, and I’ve got to play chess now, are you okay?”

“Fine.”

Mike pulls on the front of Will’s shirt.

“Can I give you a kiss, for luck?”

Will rolls his eyes and lets the boy pull him in for a quick peck.

“Better?”

“I’m just going to lay here.”

Will turns back and finds an ornate table, a comfortable chair, and a chess board with Diamond pieces on one side and onyx on the other.

Will takes a seat in the chair. For Luco, for Dustir, for showing Mike that protecting him isn’t always about holding a shield, Will thinks. He pushes his queen’s pawn forward.

The first game ends in four moves.

“Checkmate,” the dragon rumbles, and flicks its claw.

The board rotates so the onyx pieces—already rearranging themselves—are closer to Will.

“You said you had played before.”

“It’s been a while since someone used Scholar’s Mate against me.” Will’s cheeks flush. It was a classic hazing play, and he’d been too distracted by everything else to notice.

“Hmm… Is that what they call it on your original plane?”

Will freezes. “You—you know this isn’t my home?”

“I didn’t say that. I suspect you’re quite close to calling this plane home, given how you look at him.” The dragon raises a lazy claw toward Mike, who is, as promised, still supine.

“We’re friends,” Will says automatically.

The dragon and Elias both laugh.

“Of course,” the dragon says.

“Friends,” Elias says, as if the word were the dumbest thing he’s ever uttered.

“Can you attempt to focus on the game this time? We’ll call that one practice.”

The boy nods, trying to force everything else from his mind.
The dragon’s king pawn moves forward.
The second game lasts longer, the dragon chiding him when he’s about to hang a piece and praising him when he moves his knight into a fork that seems a little too obvious.
After twenty moves, the game shifts into the endgame, and Will quickly grows overwhelmed, finally knocking his own king over once the dragon has captured every other piece.
“Better. Your opening was a stroke of brilliance. I’ve not seen that played before.”
Will flushes. It was one of the ones he’d drilled. It was called the King’s Indian.
“It’s not mine.”
The dragon chuckles.
“Young one, I have lived for over four thousand years. There is no shame in borrowing someone else’s idea when you are playing against me.”
Will smiles. The dragon flicks its claw again, and the board rotates once more.
By the fourth game, Will can sense that the dragon has shifted. He’s offering less advice, and by the middlegame, several minutes pass between moves. Will still loses, but barely.
The fifth game is intense. Will seizes the initiative early and opens the position before the dragon’s defense has fully materialized. He finishes by pinning the dragon’s queen to its king from three angles, and the dragon huffs.
“Draw?” Will offers.
The dragon meets his gaze.
“What an interesting young man. No, I concede.”
Will offers his hand. The dragon eyes it, and the boy flushes sheepishly.
“Sorry,” Will says, ducking his head. “It’s customary to shake hands after a match.”
“Ah,” the dragon says, almost formal again. “Well then.”
Rexious delicately extends one claw until it is within Will’s reach. Will wraps both hands around the tip and pumps his arm up and down. The claw does not move.
Will huffs a tiny laugh despite himself. Close enough.
“You have passed the trial,” Rexious says.
Will looks up at him. The dragon’s voice has gone strangely somber, and some of Will’s grin fades.
“Thank you,” Will says, quieter now. “What should I call you?”
“Rexious.”
“Will,” he replies automatically, then adds, a little more firmly, “My name is Will.”
The dragon draws his claw back, and his posture shifts, almost awkward. He glances toward the mouth of the pass, then back at the board.
“I have…” Rexious begins, then clears his throat with a low rumble. “If you wanted, I have a linked board. Perhaps—” He hesitates, averting his gaze. “Perhaps we could continue our games.”
Will blinks, surprised, and then smiles, soft and immediate.
“I liked playing with you too, Rexious,” he says. “I’d love to keep playing.” His expression tightens as he glances toward Mike and the others. “But we need to get to Starterton quickly, so… not for a little while. Okay?”
Rexious gives a slow nod. “Okay,” he says, and the single word comes out almost shy.
A smaller chessboard with illusory pieces appears in front of Will. He reaches for it carefully and can practically feel the weave bending around it.
Will’s eyes widen. “This is incredible,” he breathes.
“It is keyed to me,” Rexious says, with a flicker of pride. “And now to you.”
Will tucks the board into his bag and looks up with a grateful smile. “Thank you.”
Rexious turns his head slightly. “Little druid, you need to go back to the ground now,” he says, and though his tone is stern, it lands more reluctant than commanding.
Elias tightens his arms around the dragon’s neck. “Why?” he asks, peeking over a bronze ridge of scales.
“I’m leaving.”
“Oh.” Elias pauses, then pats at the dragon’s neck. “You’re nice.”
Rexious stills, visibly caught off guard. “Thank you, young one,” he says, more gently than before.
The dragon lowers himself to the ground, and Elias hops down. For a brief moment Rexious lingers, looking between the three of them as if memorizing the scene.
Then, in a flash of green light, the dragon disappears.

Chapter Text

Will walks calmly back to the party, trying and failing to rein in his magic.
“Holy damn, Will, you smoked him in like a second!” Dustin says.
“You can’t just hit people, but Troy had it coming,” Lucas offers.
“Will, your eyes,” Mike says, stepping closer.
Will hears quick steps behind him, then a long scrape. “Gust.” He casts the spell as he turns. Troy is knocked back, and his lunge misses. His face is red, his eyes still watering, his nose bleeding.
“This isn’t supposed to happen, you’re just a little queer!” he screams in frustration.
Lucas steps up beside Will. “I think you lost and you’re being a sore loser. Now get out of here.”
“Psh. If you hit me, my dad will make sure you end up in juvie. Someone with your complexion—”
Will produces a flame in his palm and steps right into Troy’s face.
“Leave.” He holds the flame inches from the boy’s chest.
“What the fuck!” The bully jogs back several paces, then sprints away.
Will takes a step to chase him. Red is tinting the edges of his vision.
Mike’s hand finds Will’s wrist. “Enough.”
“If I’d let him hit me a second time—”
“Enough. Please.”
The flame dies in Will’s hand. He turns to Mike.
“He won’t stop. He’ll escalate.”
“Well, what are you going to do? Murder him?”
“Self-defense.”
“You aren’t in danger. I am, Will, if you keep pushing this.”
Will lets out a shuddering breath, still vibrating with combat jitters.
“I’m sorry, Mike.”
“You didn’t have to do that. He would have said his crap and walked away.”
“You looked like you were on the verge of tears.”
“Yeah, I don’t like what he was saying.”
A teacher — a woman in her mid-thirties — marches over with Troy at her heels.
“Mr. Byers! Did you attack Troy for no reason?”
“No, I had a reason. He hit me first.”
The party nods.
The teacher whirls on Troy and grabs his ear. She pulls him away, saying, “Serves you right, picking on the smallest boy in school…”
The bell rings, and the party walks back to the building. Lucas splits off, moaning about the fact that he doesn’t share their lunch period.
Dustin, Will, and Mike find seats in the cafeteria. Dustin glances around after setting down his tray, then leans in and whispers,
“So… Will, about what you said at Hopper’s cabin.”
Will picks at the edge of his tray and gives Dustin a flat look. “Which part? I went on a tirade, then stormed off.”
Dustin winces. “The—uh—boys thing?”
Will shrugs, matter-of-fact. “Yeah, I like other boys.”
“Oh.” Dustin blinks, clearly trying to catch up.
Will glances at Mike without turning his head. Mike is absently sawing at a sandwich that’s already cut, his shoulders tight.
“I didn’t know there was a stigma around it here,” Will says, frowning.
Dustin huffs a quiet laugh and rubs the back of his neck. “I kinda got that. Not like you got a welcome pamphlet.”
Will’s mouth twitches. “Yeah, that would have been splendid. Must have missed the person handing them out.”
Dustin snorts.
After a second, he lowers his voice again. “Do you think—I mean, Mike, did you know? Does that mean our Will—you know?”
Mike startles and looks up too fast. “Huh? I wasn’t listening.”
Dustin points at Mike’s hands. “Mike, you’re about to cut through the tray.”
Mike looks down. The plastic knife slips from his fingers and clatters to the floor.
Will turns fully toward Dustin now, brows drawing together. “Do you have a problem with what I said, Dustin?”
“No!” Dustin says immediately, then drops his voice when a couple kids glance over. “Definitely not. It’s weird that people do.”
Will’s expression shifts from suspicion to confusion. “Then why bring it up?”
Mike has gone back to staring at his sandwich, jaw tight.
Dustin gestures awkwardly between them with both hands. “Are we just going to ignore—” He jerks his head toward Mike.
Will cuts in, a little sharper than before. “He’s being completely normal.”
Dustin lifts both palms in surrender. “Okay, okay. I really don’t have a problem with it, and it sucks that Troy immediately—”
Mike’s voice comes out so quiet they almost miss it. “I… do too.”
Dustin freezes.
Will turns to him so fast his chair squeaks. “What?”
Mike swallows hard, eyes fixed on the table. “I’m not hungry. I’m going.” He starts to stand.
Will grabs his hand before he can pull away. “Can you please stay?”
Mike goes still. “Will…”
Will tightens his grip just enough to keep him there, his voice dropping to something small and earnest. “Please. I have no inkling how to navigate this place without you.”
The boy slowly sits back down, shaking, and keeps his eyes away from Dustin.
“Mike. Thank you for telling me,” Dustin says earnestly.
Will glares at him when Dustin smiles and opens his mouth to add a joke.
“I didn’t plan to tell anyone. Ever,” Mike says, voice tight.
Dustin’s smile drops. “That would have been… sad,” he says quietly. “But I get it.”
Will frowns. “I don’t. It feels like the empire won and no one cares.”
Dustin glances around the cafeteria, then back at him. “Will, it’s not that simple.”
“It should be.”
Dustin cuts in, gentler now. “I think you want it to be.”
Will scarfs down his lunch, more to do something than because he’s hungry, and the bell rings. He turns to Mike and sees the still-untouched sandwich.
“Take one bite, please.”
Mike hesitates, then brings the sandwich to his mouth and takes a bite.
They all stand.
The rest of Will’s classes go well enough. He is completely lost in History, math is utterly incomprehensible, but he isn’t called on.
Mrs. Byers meets them outside the school, and the two boys sit in the back seat.
“How was school, Will?” Joyce asks as she pulls away from the curb.
“I’ll need time to catch up.” He switches to his Mike impersonation; it is not good. “I also need to get this diction correct.”
Joyce chuckles.
“You’ll get there, honey. Mike, your parents actually left on a trip for a few weeks, so you’ll be with us for a while.”
Mike goes very still. “I wouldn’t count on it,” he says under his breath.
Joyce glances at him in the mirror. “What was that?”
Mike stares at his knees. “I said I wouldn’t count on it when you kick me out.”
Joyce’s head snaps partway around before she catches herself and looks back at the road. “Why would I do that?”
Will reaches over and puts a hand on Mike’s. Mike flinches away so hard it’s almost a jerk. His breathing starts to quicken.
“Will, stop it,” Mike says, voice climbing. “I know you’re just being supportive, but it really isn’t helping with this!”
“Mike, what’s wrong?” Will asks, alarmed.
Joyce is already slowing the car and pulling over.
“I’m—I’m—” Mike folds forward, face in his lap, and lets out a strangled scream.
“Will?” Joyce says sharply as she stops the car.
Will grimaces. “School was not as uneventful as I made it out to be,” the wizard answers.
Joyce gives him a look over the seat. “You don’t say?”
She unbuckles, gets out, and comes around to the passenger-side rear door. When she opens it, Mike is still shaking.
“Honey, it’s okay. I’m here.” She crouches beside him, voice soft but steady. “And you’re Will’s best friend. I would never kick you out.”
Mike looks up, tears rolling down his cheeks.
“So why are you going to have this—this—talk with us?”
“It’s nothing bad, honey. I just… wanted to tell you about some ground rules with everything going on.”
Mike’s eyes go wide. “So you know?”
Joyce looks up at Will, confusion and concern all over her face.
Will throws up his hands. “I think I should just stay out of it, like he told me to.”
“Will, come on, he was just lashing out,” Joyce says, distracted, still focused on Mike.
“How am I supposed to know that!” Will snaps, hurt flashing across his face.
“Will, you are not helping. Cool it.”
Will’s lip trembles. “I’m trying. I really am.”
Mike sucks in a shaking breath, then shouts, voice breaking:
“I’m gay!”
Joyce blinks, then looks between Will and Mike several times. Will can almost hear things slotting into place in her head.
“Oh. Mike, that’s not what the talk was going to be about,” she says, a little breathless, “but I think we can add it. If you want.”
She is flustered. Will’s mouth drops open. He had begun to suspect that she was some high-level cleric or monk, with how well she always knew what to say. Seeing her wrong-footed is almost as shocking as Mike’s outburst. He also has no clue what Mike had just admitted to.
Mike just stares at Joyce for a long moment, eyes red and wet.
“If I want?” he asks at last, like he’s not sure he heard her right.
“Yeah. I—” Joyce closes her eyes, visibly searching for the right words. When she opens them again, her voice is gentler. “I’m glad you trusted me enough to tell me.”
Mike stands so fast he rocks on his feet, not even unbuckling, and throws his arms around her.
“My dad would kill me if he found out,” he says into her shoulder, voice muffled and shaking. “Please don’t tell him.”
“It’s safe with me, Mike,” Joyce says softly, patting his head.
She catches Will’s eye over Mike’s shoulder and points meaningfully at the buckle.
Will leans over and clicks the latch.
Mike slumps the rest of the way into Joyce’s embrace.
“Could one of you tell me what that word means?” Will asks, genuinely baffled.
Joyce’s eyes go round.
“It’s what I said at lunch, dork,” Mike mutters, not breaking the hug.
Will frowns. “You mean what I said at lunch.”
Joyce pulls back just enough to stare at Will, then lets out a shaky exhale. “Okay,” she says, somewhere between overwhelmed and amused, “it is definitely going to be part of the talk now.”
Mike finally releases Joyce after what feels like two full minutes. He slumps back into his seat, wrung out. She gently buckles him in, shuts the door, and walks around to Will’s side.
“You too?” she whispers.
“It’s completely accepted in my world. Also, I never knew my parents, so I doubt—” He cuts himself off at her stern look. “I’m making light of the situation because I don’t really understand it. Sorry, Mike.”
“S’okay,” Mike mumbles.
Joyce pats Will on the head, then gets back into the driver’s seat.
A moment later, Will feels Mike prod at his hand. He turns and meets the other boy’s eyes, asking permission this time.
Mike nods.
Will laces his fingers through Mike’s and holds on.
Joyce parks, and the three of them head inside.
They sit at the kitchen table while Joyce calls in an order for Chinese food.
When she hangs up the phone, she takes a deep breath.
“We’re dating,” Mike blurts.
A bowl shatters when it hits the floor.
Will jerks around and sees Jonathan staring at them from the doorway.
Will points at the bowl. “Mending.” The pieces pull themselves back together.
Then he points at the spilled milk. “Prestidigitation.” The floor goes spotless.
Jonathan stares at him, wild-eyed.
“Who are you?!” he shouts.

Chapter Text

Will Byers swallows as he looks up, and then up, and then almost falls over as he tries to see the top of the giant wall that he, Mike the Brave, and Elias are standing in front of. He’s never really left Hawkins, and the skyscrapers on TV don’t do the absolute scale of this hundred-and-fifty-foot wall justice.
Mike’s arm comes to rest gently across his back.
“Careful, Will,” the paladin says softly.
Will leans into the arm anyway, craning his neck further.
“It’s so… amazing,” he breathes.
He finally looks away from the wall and catches Mike staring at him with a knowing smile.
Will can see the line of carts, adventurers, and other travelers waiting to be let past the guard station in front of them. To say the people of Grayhood were diverse would be an understatement. Will spots a warforged — a sentient automaton brought to life by magic. The woman is holding hands with a small lizardfolk boy and carrying a massive basket on her shoulder. His eyes drift again, and he sees an all-kenku adventuring team — person-sized ravens — pulling a butchered bear carcass on a sled. An orc farmer chews on a piece of corn and reads a leatherbound book while sitting atop his wagon.
For today, Will has no thoughts of Hawkins. He’d played chess with a dragon; now he is in line with every fantasy species in the book, and Mike is letting him lean against him, and no one cares.
The line moves swiftly, but, per Mike Wheeler’s description, Starterton is the major southern trade hub for all of Grayhood, only matched in scope by Portcity, another aptly named location that has access to the northern sea. Starterton is also the main hub for the entire country’s adventuring guild, and has all the specialized services that come with that.
Will shakes Mike Wheeler’s narration from his head and leans more fully into Mike the Brave.
“Overwhelmed?” the boy asks, patting Will’s side.
“No, just… it’s everything, and…” Will bites his lip, fighting the urge to say something sappy. “I’m so happy that I get to see it with you.”
The pair fall into a comfortable silence, and Will glances around until he finds Elias trying and failing to barter three buttons he’d found for an ear of corn from the orc farmer. The moonwarden chuckles.
“Do you have some coins before Elias annoys the farmer too much?” he asks, amused.
Mike sighs, already reaching for his pouch. “Yeah.” He raises his voice. “Sir, how much for an ear?”
As Mike releases Will and steps toward the druid and farmer, Will watches from several paces away.
Mike hands over a few coins from his pouch, and the farmer offers an ear of corn to Elias. The boy jumps up and down, then begins chewing on the ear of corn contentedly.
When Mike walks back over with two more ears, he hands one to Will.
Will is about to take a bite when a gruff voice behind them says, “Howdy, are y’all adventurers?”
Will and Mike turn to see a frankly beautiful man standing in front of three other adventurers. The man is slender and tall, with green eyes and cornstalk-blond hair that falls in a wave across his brow. Will also notes his slightly pointed ears and the twin swords at his waist.
“Yes, we’re bronze rank, just coming back from a dungeon mission,” Mike says, clearly not as flustered by the man’s appearance as Will is.
“Great to hear! Just the two of you? Or is that feral child with you as well?” the man asks, looking genuinely delighted.
“We started with four, lost three, and picked up these two, but we’re well within the time limit and I’ve got the—” Mike falters.
The man steps forward at once and places a hand on Mike’s shoulder.
“You did well, paladin,” he says gently. “No need for tears. Come find us at the Prancing Bronco once you’ve squared up with the guild, okay? We’ll buy your whole party a celebration meal.”
“Thank you,” Mike says, voice shaking.
“I’m Cedric, but you can call me Ced. Everyone else does. This is Elana, Jerry, and Joy.”
He gestures back toward the three other half-elves behind him.
“I’m Mike, and this is Will. The one running around is Elias. Wait—Ced? Ced the Crimson Whirlwind?”
The man beams. “That is the other thing they call me.” He gives them an easy grin and steps back. “I’ll leave you to your snack, and I look forward to hearing all about your adventure later, okay?”
Mike just nods, mouth agape, as the half-elf party moves on, weaving between groups of adventurers.
Will watches them go, then leans closer and whispers, “Aren’t they kind of… cutting in line?”
Mike chuckles and puts his arm around Will. Will melts into the embrace and sighs as he takes a bite of his corn.
“Will, those are the top-ranked adventurers in the country. They don’t have to go through the line at all.”
“Doesn’t seem fair. He was pretty, though.”
Will takes another bite of corn and really tastes it for the first time.
“How is this so good?” he asks incredulously.
Mike huffs a quiet laugh. “It’s a bit above average, but just normal corn.”
Will shakes his head and goes back to people-watching.
It takes them an hour to reach the gate. Two middle-aged human men in guard uniforms bar their path.
“Imports to declare?” one says, bored.
“Monster trophies. We’re returning from a mission,” Mike replies, offering his guild card.
The man flips it over once, barely glancing at it.
“Move along.”
Mike, Will, and Elias step through the gate and into the city proper.
Will’s head ping-pongs between huge buildings in the distance, a line of stalls selling hot food and snacks, hundreds of people milling about, and the sheer scope of the city laid out before him. Then his eyes widen. There isn’t the village smell here — only the scents of the food stalls, which make his stomach grumble despite the corn.
“Careful, Will, you’ll hurt your neck,” Mike says, holding back a laugh. “Come on, the guild hall is this way. Elias, stay close and don’t wander off.”
“Big,” the druid boy says, grabbing a fistful of Will’s robe and Mike’s tabard.
“Yeah, buddy,” Will agrees softly.
Mike leads them past the food stalls, even though Will can hear the paladin’s stomach grumble in protest. Then they walk for ten minutes through a residential district and a small market before finally reaching one of the massive buildings.
A sign over the front reads: “Starterton Adventurers Guild.”

Chapter Text

Will la Fey, completely done with navigating things tactfully for the day, says flatly,
“I’m Will la Fey.”
Jonathan glares at him.
“Is that supposed to mean something?”
“It’s my name.”
“Mom, who is this child?” Jonathan’s face goes red as he turns to Joyce, who is in the middle of her own crisis, looking between Mike and Will.
“It’s complicated, honey.”
“Whatever. A girl is missing, and I’m helping Nancy look for her, if you care. I’m going out.”
“Jonathan, of course I care. How can I help?”
“You clearly have enough to deal with,” Jonathan says coldly.
Then he turns to Mike, and some of the hardness leaves his face.
“I’m happy for you. And if anyone gives you any trouble, just tell me, okay?” He points at Will as he walks toward the door. “Just... stay away from me.”
The door slams behind the older boy.
Joyce exhales shakily. “So...”
“What does that word mean, Mike?” Will asks immediately.
Mike blinks. “Um... like we’re boyfriends?”
Will frowns. “I’m not aware of that word either.”
Mike, red-faced and staring at his lap, mumbles, “Mrs. Byers, do you know a medieval word for it?”
“Mike, I don’t think you are if he doesn’t know the word,” Joyce says, sounding half-dazed.
Mike lets out a miserable whine.
“Courting?” Joyce offers, lifting both hands a little.
Will’s eyes narrow at Mike. Then he thinks for a moment.
“Your methods are subpar, but I suppose that could be a cultural difference. The spellbook was an amazing first gift, though.” He straightens slightly. “Very well. I accept.”
Joyce drops into her seat. “I—” She laughs once in pure disbelief. “I’m not supposed to be here for this. I just wanted to tell you two not to burn the house down or run away without telling me again.”
Will nods, then bites his lip.
“Um, Mrs. Byers... since I never had parents, could you—” He falters, then pushes on. “A parent is supposed to approve the courtship, so could you... tell me if you think he’s a good person? Good enough that you’d give your blessing?”
Mike stares at him, head tilting to the side.
Joyce opens her mouth, then shuts it so fast her teeth click. She looks at Mike, really looks at him, and considers.
“Yes,” she says softly. “I think he is.”
In an even smaller voice, Will says, “Am I?”
Joyce stands up and kneels beside where Will is sitting.
“Will. From what I’ve seen, you are one of the bravest people I know. I don’t always agree with everything you do. Running off like that was stupid, irresponsible, and completely human. If things get to be too much again, just tell me, okay? I can’t always help, but I can be here for you, if you’ll let me.”
Will tries to hold his face together. He’s cried so much in the last few days Dustir would start offering him pacifiers.
He can’t hold it.
He sobs, and Joyce pulls him in.
“It’s okay, honey.”
“Why did they leave me? I try so hard to be good, but they never gave me the chance.” Will looks up from the embrace for a second and sees Mike looking shocked and guilty. “I swear to Mystra, if you try to say it’s your fault for approving my backstory, I am going to Firebolt you.”
Mike huffs a wet laugh. “It is unrealistic. You’re amazing, Will. Anyone would be lucky to have you in their family.”
“You better think that. What do you think courtship ends with, dullard?”
“Will, honey, you’re too young to be thinking about marriage.”
“I know. I’m just teasing him.”
“Mrs. Byers, can we go to Will’s room to work on homework until the food gets here?” Mike asks, trying for casual and missing by a mile.
Joyce’s eyes narrow a fraction.
“Keep the door open,” she says.
“Why?” Will asks immediately.
“You heard me.”
Will looks confused too, brow furrowing.
“But then you’ll see us kiss?” he asks, genuinely puzzled.
Her eyes narrow further.
“It’s supposed to stop you,” Joyce says dryly.
“I’ll do it right now,” Will says, matter-of-fact. Then, with a small shrug, he adds, “I just thought you’d be uncomfortable.”
Joyce fights with her own face for several seconds before giggling.
“Just… don’t go overboard in there, okay, Mike?” she says, trying and failing to sound stern.
The boy currently has the complexion of a tiefling, and he nods rapidly.
“We actually do have homework,” Mike mutters, horrified.
Joyce chuckles again and rolls her eyes.
“I’m going to the living room and turning on the TV,” she says, waving them off.
The boys retreat to Will’s room, closing the door most of the way.
They put down their school bags and stare at each other from three paces apart.
Mike’s voice goes low. “You punched Troy in the face for me.” He takes a step closer. “You started to teach me magic.” Another step. “You said you’d be my boyfriend.”
He closes the distance and wraps the other boy in a tight hug, resting his head against Will’s.
“I’m sorry,” Mike murmurs. “We can’t be like this in public here.”
“I gathered,” Will says quietly.
“Can we—um—”
“Mike,” Will says, softer now, “it’s sweet that you ask every time, but you heard what I said to Mrs. Byers.”
Mike pulls away slightly, then leans in and brings their lips together.
After longer than ever before—which isn’t saying much—Mike’s stomach growls loudly.
Will breaks the kiss.
“I told you you should have eaten more.”
Mike gives him a light shove, pushing him back onto the bed.
“I didn’t wanna,” he mutters.
From the bed, Will asks, “What’s homework, anyways?”
“Stop talking, please!” Mike groans, collapsing next to him.
Will tugs him closer, and the pair drift to sleep.
Twenty minutes later, the food arrives.
Joyce knocks on the mostly open door, and Will wakes, blinking. He grabs Mike’s hand and pulls him to the table.
Joyce lays out the containers from the brown bag, and Will watches curiously.
Mike pulls a set of chopsticks from the bag and hands them to Will, a mischievous grin forming on his face.
Will takes them and immediately recognizes them. He doesn’t let it show.
Mike pulls out a second pair for himself and holds them inexpertly.
He looks at Will and smiles. It’s too genuine.
Will sighs, splits the chopsticks, and then holds them with practiced ease.
“Sorry, Mike,” he says, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice. “Dustir really likes Nipolese food. We used these all the time.”
Mike’s face falls.
Will leans over and kisses his cheek, satisfied by the squeak Mike lets out. Then he locks eyes with Joyce and shrugs.
“Told ya.”

Chapter Text

Will Byers walks into the adventurers’ guild behind Mike, with Elias huddled at his side, skittish around so many people carrying weapons. Will looks around the interior and, aside from the building materials, his mind immediately supplies: bank?
Mike marches to one of the free tellers and says, brisk and strained, “I’ve got two party members who need Raise Dead. What’s the surcharge for today?”
The teller—Will corrects himself, attendant—doesn’t look fazed.
“Raise Dead is thirty-five gold,” she says evenly. “You’re lucky. We just had two reservations cancel.”
Mike blinks. “There was a traveling cleric?”
“No.”
Mike coughs once, like he’s swallowing a dozen emotions. “Can we see them now? I have monster bounties to turn in so I can make the payment.”
The attendant’s eyes flick to his bag. “What have you got?”
“Two wyvern hearts. A stone giant ear. A malformed ettin head—I have a contract for that.” He swallows, then adds, “And I’ve got a rapier from a bandit duelist who probably had a bounty.”
“Guild cards for any party members who participated?”
Mike hands over three cards. He bumps Will’s shoulder, and Will pulls his own out and places it on the counter.
“And the bounties,” Mike says.
Mike produces objects from his bag of holding one by one. As he pulls out the wyvern hearts, Will turns Elias away without thinking.
“Okay,” the attendant says, voice still professional. “Including the false demogorgon contract… that comes out to…” She does quick mental math. “Minus the guild tax… three thousand two hundred and six gold pieces.”
Will’s stomach drops a little at the number.
“I can withdraw any amount you’d like,” she continues, “and post the rest with the merchants’ guild, if that works for you.”
“One hundred and fifty, please,” Mike says immediately.
The aarakocra woman nods. She pushes over seven sleeves of twenty gold pieces, then counts out ten from an eighth stack.
“The bounties make everyone you provided cards for eligible for silver rank,” she adds, “except for Mr. Byers.”
Will hesitates. “Can I come back for that?”
The woman’s expression softens. She nods once. Then she points to a door at the far end of the counters.
“Brother Omus will be waiting. Third door on the left.” Her gaze stays on Mike a beat longer than necessary. “Welcome back.”
Mike nods and starts walking quickly in the direction she indicated.
The door opens onto a long hallway with rooms numbered sequentially on either side.
Will watches Mike reach the third door on the left and stop. The paladin takes a shaky breath as his hand hovers near the wood.
Will threads his fingers through Mike’s free hand.
Mike knocks.
A tired and worn, but still warm voice answers, “Come in.”
Will follows Mike into a small room with several chairs and a bed. A man wearing white robes adorned with an ornate tabard smiles when he meets Mike’s eyes.
“Ah. A paladin,” the cleric says, voice gentle. “May Tyr’s blessings be upon you.”
Mike nods, swallowing. “Blessings upon you too, Brother.”
“Still unaligned, then?”
Mike shakes his head. “Complicated.”
The cleric chortles softly.
“As all things of faith are,” he says, amusement threading through it. “Often the most complex on the outside are the simplest within.”
Mike nods like he’s heard that before, or like he needs it to be true.
“Very well. Do you have the fee?”
Mike places the stacked gold pieces in the cleric’s hands.
The cleric weighs the stack briefly, then nods. “Please bring out the most urgent patient.”
Mike glumly pulls Dustir out of the bag of holding.
Will has to look away.
“This is your party member, child,” the cleric chides—but there is no heat in his voice. “Do not look away. Let us see if he is willing to return.”
Mike’s jaw tightens.
“Raise Dead,” the cleric says.
The weave moves.
Will clutches his chest as he feels the power behind it—clean, vast, and heavy as a cathedral. A fifth-level spell, Will thinks, dazed.
The weave relaxes, and for a heartbeat Will worries the spell failed when—
“SODDING GIANT! PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN FECKING—” Dustir’s eyes snap open. “Oh. Brother Omus.”
Mike doesn’t wait. He throws himself onto Dustir. “Get off me, you big softie,” Dustir grumbles. “Where’s Luco? I’ve got to settle some bets.” He doesn’t actually push the paladin away.
Will steps up beside the bed and takes Dustir’s hand.
“He’s next,” the moonwarden says quietly.
“Oh.” Dustir blinks, then snorts. “Well then, I suppose you’re justified, paladin.” His gaze flicks between Mike and Will, squinting. “How in the hells—sorry, Brother—did you make it through Bronze-Death with just yourself and the newbie?”
Mike finally eases off, still breathing hard, and helps Dustir sit up. The dwarf is unsteady on his feet—and immediately looks even more confused when Elias rushes over and starts sniffing him like he’s checking he’s real.
“Em—” Dustir starts.
“Later,” Mike cuts in, voice rough. He turns back to the cleric, forcing himself to focus. “Brother Omus, can you perform a second spell now?”
“Of course, young paladin,” the cleric answers, not bothering to hide his wistful grin as he watches a party reform in front of him.
Mike pulls Luco’s body from the bag of holding and lays it on the bed. The cleric raises his hands once more.
“Raise Dead.”
Will is prepared this time, but he’s still bowled over by the sheer force of the spell as it takes hold. He swallows hard and watches.
Luco’s eyes flutter open.
“Tell Maxine I—”
“Tell her yourself, elf!” Dustir barks, cutting him off.
And in seconds, all four adventurers—plus Elias—are in a pile on the bed.
When they finally separate, Mike bows to Brother Omus and says, voice still rough with relief,
“Thank you, Brother. May you walk with the honor of Tyr.”
The cleric smiles, soft around the eyes.
“Go on, young paladin,” he says warmly. “I’m sure there’s a nice tavern waiting for you all somewhere in this city. You’ve earned it.”
Will is swept along when Mike grabs his hand and the rest of the group follows. As they move, Will can’t help noticing Elias taking a particular interest in Dustir—circling him like he’s making sure the dwarf is really there.
They exit the guild hall, and Mike, beaming now, blurts, “We made it. Also—Ced. The Ced the Crimson Whirlwind invited us to a meal.”
“I’ll have to catch up,” Luco says, already backing away. “I’ve got to check in with Maxine.” He points at Dustir before turning. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten how many wagers you’ve lost, and don’t think I’m going to forgive them just because of your age!”
Dustir harumphs and mutters, “I’m the oldest other than you, damned elf. I’m thirteen!”
Will blinks.
Mike keeps walking like that sentence is normal and not a cosmic prank.
He leads the group through the city, still holding Will’s hand, while both Dustir and Mike point out various shops they should visit before they head out again.
They stop outside a larger tavern with the name Prancing Bronco and a huge illustration of—well, a prancing bronco—painted on the sign above the door.
The four step inside, and Will is immediately overcome with hunger.
Food. Real food. With actual spices.
It covers many of the three dozen tables.
“Ah, there they are!” Ced shouts from the opposite end of the room. “This is the party I told you about! Mike, come over here!”
Several tables have been pushed together, and about a dozen adventurers are already gathered, with Ced’s team in the center.
Will follows Mike cautiously, but Mike strides over with the confidence of someone who has finally stopped running on fumes. They sit across from Ced. Elias and Dustir wedge in on Will’s left.
Ced’s face falls for a moment as he counts heads.
“Were you too late for two?”
Mike shakes his head quickly. “No. One went off to see his wife, and the other—” He swallows. “It’s complicated, but he’s alive. Just not here.”
“Excellent!” Ced throws his head back like he’s relieved, then raises his voice. “Earl! Four samplers, please—and fruit juice! Aw hell, and another round for the tavern!”
The entire building seems to shake at Ced’s last shout. Patrons cheer, slam fists, and crash tankards into tables. Someone whistles loud enough that Will flinches.
The food comes out quickly, along with a tankard of sweet, citrusy fruit drink Will can’t place.
The plate—closer to a platter—is about half the size of Will. His eyes bulge when he sees it.
Piles of sausage. Bacon. Beans. Bread. An entire steak. Potatoes cooked three different ways. And heaps of vegetables that smell good enough for Will not to question them.
Mike is already a third of the way through his platter by the time Will manages to choose what to eat first.
Will takes a bite of bacon and nearly cries. After a week of hard tack and salted mystery meat, it tastes like a miracle.
Ced leans forward, grinning. “So, Mike—my brave paladin. Please.” He gestures around the table. “My friends and I would like to hear your tale. I suspect this was your promotion mission to silver, right?”
Mike looks up—and finally truly sees the others at the table. His fork clatters onto his platter.
“It was, sirs and ladies,” he says, suddenly shy. “But I’m sure it’s nothing compared to what you’ve been through.”
“Now, now,” Ced says, waving a hand as if to brush away modesty. “Just because we’re gold rank doesn’t mean you should hold back.” His smile turns sharp with delight. “Let’s hear it, brave paladin!”
Mike begins recounting the mission, and if Will closes his eyes he can almost imagine he’s back in the Wheelers’ basement.
But he doesn’t.
His eyes stay locked on the boy beside him—his paladin, his oathbound, his Mike—as the story pours out.

Chapter Text

Will la Fey sits on his bed, watching Mike Wheeler stare at the spell diagram. He glances at the clock on the bedside table. Red digits read 7:30. About two hours.
Careful, the wizard places his fingertips against the other boy’s temple and closes his eyes.
The weave has mostly settled—just doing cleanup now, by the feel of it. Will nudges it along with the gentlest pressure he can manage, coaxing threads into place instead of yanking them.
Merlin had all but forbidden him to try this. Before ye can cast Fireball and not feel like a cart has run ye over. Which, annoyingly, is more or less true at this point. Will still wishes the crazy old man had just spelled out the mechanics instead of turning everything into an ominous proverb.
Mike inhales sharply as the last thread settles.
“I—I did it!” he says, voice hoarse with excitement.
“Show me,” Will replies, trying to sound stern and failing.
Mike holds out his hand. “Prestidigitation.”
Small illusory fireworks burst into existence above his palm.
Mike makes a sound that is half-laugh, half-yelp, and then he’s suddenly bounding around the room, holding the fireworks aloft like a trophy.
“I did it! I did it!”
He tackles Will onto the bed and kisses him—quick, fierce, celebratory—before bouncing back up and casting the cantrip again. And again.
The smell of freshly baked cookies fills the room. Then a hamper of clothes becomes damp—then dry again. Then the air shifts to something clean and bright, like soap and sunlight.
Will lets the celebration continue, but from his now-supine position on the bed, his mind won’t stop turning.
Why is Mike able to learn spells at all? No one uses magic in this gods-awful yet wondrous place—at least, not openly. Will can’t shake the questions.
Will Mike get the class? Can he level? Did Will’s arrival allow whatever controls the voice—whatever god or system it is, a long and utterly pedantic argument Will has never favored—to take root in this world? Was he somehow a messenger? A harbinger?
Will is still spiraling when Mike finally flops down beside him and turns his face toward Will, breathless and glowing.
“Thank you,” Mike whispers. He kisses him again, softer this time. “Teach me another.”
Will blushes, but he reaches out anyway, placing his fingertips against Mike’s temple. Settled. No damage from his interference that he can sense.
“Gust… or Firebolt,” Will says hesitantly.
Mike’s face falls. For a second, Will can’t tell if he’s realizing something, or remembering. Either way, the joy dims.
“Gust,” Mike says quickly.
Will nods, relieved. “It should be easier this time. And I’ll help you, so it should only take about an hour.”
Mike’s brow furrows. “Why didn’t you help me before?”
“There are… risks,” Will admits. “But after the first time, they’re greatly reduced.”
“Oh.” Mike thinks for half a beat, then brightens again. “Okay. Show me.”
Will bites his lip and flips his spellbook to Gust. He turns it around.
Mike’s face goes slack immediately.
Will exhales through his nose. “If it actually takes an hour, that pretty much guarantees he has the class,” he mutters. “It’s just waiting to trigger.”
He closes his eyes and focuses on the weave around Mike, careful again. Patient. Thread by thread.
An hour later—exactly as Will hoped and promised—Mike gasps.
The boy immediately looks at the clock. “Just like you said!”
From down the hall, Joyce’s voice calls, firm but not unkind. “Boys, lights out in thirty minutes, okay? Get ready for bed.”
Mike answers automatically, still dazed with triumph. “Okay, Mrs. Byers!”
The next morning, Will watches from the back seat of Joyce’s car as she pulls up to the school.
Four police cars sit out front with their lights on.
Officer Powell steps up beside the car and leans down toward the open window.
“You’ll have to take them home,” he says. “There was a gas explosion. They’re still working out what to do about classes, and I wouldn’t expect them to figure it out this week.”
Will sniffs the air drifting in through the window.
The hairs on the back of his neck rise.
Sulphur and brimstone.
Will waves at El, who is sitting on the couch eating an Eggo with her hands when they walk in. The girl’s eyes brighten immediately. She shoves the rest of the waffle into her mouth and bolts over.
She hugs Will hard—then tugs Mike into it too.
“Wll, Mk!” she says around the mouthful, words mangled by waffle.
The door shuts behind them.
“Sit,” Hopper says. “Everyone.”
Will drops onto the couch and is immediately sandwiched between Mike and El like he’s the safest piece of furniture in the house.
Hopper exhales through his nose. “Talk, wizard boy.”
“I’ve fought them before,” Will says, trying for steady and mostly succeeding. “Not strong ones, of course. But that smell at the school… it’s unmistakable.”
“At the school?” Hopper’s head jerks up. “Wait—why aren’t you there?”
“Officer Powell said gas explosion,” Will replies. “But unless you pump sulfur and brimstone into schools for some reason, I don’t believe him.”
“Shit.” Hopper turns on his heel. “Wait here.”
He strides to the phone and dials hard, impatient.
“Yeah, Tracey, it’s Hop. Do you—yeah, that’s what I’m calling about. I’m considering it.” He pauses, listening, then his voice sharpens. “The lab? Why?—” Another pause. “I’ll be in in fifteen. Tell them to wait!”
He slams the receiver down.
Joyce takes a breath. “Jim—”
Hopper is already grabbing his jacket. “Joyce, can you watch them for a bit? I need to head in to the station.”
“I’m—wait.” Will pushes forward, eyes narrowing as a thought hits. “Mike. Did you get the class?”
Mike blinks. “What?”
“Did a voice in your head say something right when you went to sleep?”
“Oh.” Mike frowns, thinking. “Yeah.”
Will leans in. “And?”
“Wizard, level one,” Mike says matter-of-factly. “It said I got… Longstrider and Jump.”
Will just stares at him.
After a long, silent beat, Mike’s eyes go round. “You mean it wasn’t a dream?”
“No,” Will says quietly.
Mike bounces once on the couch like he can’t contain it and kisses Will on the cheek.
Hopper makes a strangled sound that could be a cough if you were being generous.
“Uh. Mike?” Hopper says.
Mike glares back at him. “What?”
Hopper lifts both hands slightly. “Nothing.”
Will doesn’t let it derail him. He sits up straighter, voice firm. “We’re coming with you. All three of us. I’m the only one with experience hunting demons, and we’ll need all the magic we have if it’s a strong one.”
“No,” Hopper says immediately.
Will stands.
“I’m an adventurer,” Will snaps, heat rising. “I fight monsters. There is a monster—from my world—here. What are you not getting?”
“I’m not putting you,” Hopper says, pointing at him, “or either of them in danger.”
“What are you going to do when your—” Will gestures sharply at the revolver on Hopper’s hip. “Gun thing doesn’t work?”
“Shoot it again,” Hopper says, flat as stone.
Will drags both hands down his face. “I can help. I am useful!”
“So stay here and protect them,” Hopper shoots back. “I can’t be in two places at once.”
“I’m stronger than you!” Will blurts. He can tell he’s losing the argument, but he still wants the last jab. “You stay here and I’ll hunt it!”
Hopper’s eyes narrow—then soften, just slightly.
“Good,” Hopper says, quieter. “You better be, because that’s why I’m trusting you.”
Will freezes, the fight draining out of him like someone pulled a plug.
He squeezes his own hand until his knuckles go white.
“Fine,” he says, voice tight. “But if you find it—don’t be stupid. If the gun doesn’t work, run.” He looks away, jaw trembling once before he forces it still. “I… don’t want you to die.”

Chapter Text

Will Byers is picking at his second “sampler” platter when the door to the Prancing Bronco slams open.
He looks up just in time to hear Ced say, “What’s the guildmistress doing here?” before a woman’s voice cuts cleanly through the din of the tavern.
“Is the adventurer known as Mike the Brave present?”
Her voice isn’t overly loud, but her tone alone is enough to silence the room.
Mike turns, then rises to attention. “Here, ma’am. Wait—Luco?”
Will follows Mike’s gaze. His eyes catch first on a tall, ginger-haired woman with a smattering of freckles across her face. Her pointed ears and exceedingly ornate sword are on full display. Then he focuses on Luco, who looks slightly dazed. The ranger is swaying on his feet.
“Come with me. Official guild business,” the woman—who Will assumes is Maxine—says.
Ced stands. “Guildmistress, surely this can wait. They’ve just survived their silver trial and—”
“It cannot.”
Ced stares at her for a moment, then shrugs.
“Alright then. Mike, please come find us the next time you’re in the city at the same time as us. I have a feeling your team is going places.”
Mike stands and helps Dustir up. The boy is nearly waddling after downing three samplers of his own. Elias slides under his arm and helps the dwarf keep up as Mike and Will move toward the tavern’s entrance.
“I’m sure you have questions,” Maxine says, her eyes now locked on Will, “but not here.”
The boy shudders. The woman’s gaze stays on him until she finally beckons the group out the door.
The group walks in near silence, aside from Elias and Dustir. Both boys are whispering to each other and giggling, despite Will glancing at every side alley and wishing he could slip down one and away from Maxine’s stare.
The six return to the guild hall, but Maxine leads them away from the main entrance, ultimately opening a small side door and guiding them through a maze of hallways until they reach an austerely adorned office.
The guildmistress whirls the moment Luco shuts the door behind them.
“Will Byers,” she says, her gaze once again locked on Will.
He isn’t sure whether she’s appraising him like a prized horse or a foe, and at the same time he isn’t sure which would be worse.
“My husband tells me you joined the group under rather… unique circumstances.”
Will nods.
“Were you aware that unauthorized planar travel is a high felony?” Her face stays flat, unreadable.
Will’s blood runs cold. He opens his mouth to reply.
“I—I didn’t—”
“And do you know what the punishment is, Mr. Byers?” she asks. “I’ll give you a hint: it involves bamboo shoots.”
Will lets out a small, miserable whine. It is all he can do not to collapse to the ground and sob.
“We take these things very, very seriously,” she continues, mercilessly calm. “You could be an advanced scout for Avernus. Or even a sleeper agent trying to form a stable portal for an invasion force. I intend to find out.”
Mike takes one hesitant step forward, placing himself between the guildmistress and Will.
The woman’s glare remains locked on Will for a long moment.
Then, finally, her expression cracks just a hair.
“I said, I intend to find out,” she repeats, slightly louder.
“Oh—was that the line?” an old man asks from somewhere behind them. “I was struck by a fascinating idea. It could revolutionize the sardine fishing industry—or was it sabrefish? It was definitely aquatic. Aha! It was about the life cycles of water bison. What if their horns grow longer the longer they are alive?”
An old man in an ill-fitting purple robe steps out of the shadows, babbling all the while.
Maxine’s entire demeanor changes. She throws up her hands dramatically.
“Merlin! This whole joke was your idea! You chose that line as your entrance!”
The robed man looks at Maxine, confused.
“It was? It doesn’t sound like me…” he says.
Then he looks around the room absentmindedly until his gaze falls on Will.
“Will! My apprentice!” the man exclaims, hurrying toward him. “I knew you’d come back. Or die horribly if the mission I sent you on happened to lead to a real demogorgon. Was it a real demogorgon? Hmm…” He squints at Will. “I doubt it. You seem too intact for that to be—”
The man stops.
His eyes glow with pure white light that fills the room all at once, yet casts no shadows.
When he speaks again, his voice has dropped into something grave and distant.
“You are not my apprentice, yet you are. Creator and destroyer all in one. What deeds to come, what deeds yet done. Weaver of fate, unraveller of twine, whose wrath may yet break a dragon’s spine. Just a boy now, yes. But soon much more. Do you herald my death, or something before?”
The glow fades.
Then the man rushes forward as if nothing happened.
“Will, my boy! You’ve changed your class—oh, and what’s this?” Merlin says brightly.
He flicks the bond stretching between Will and Mike. The thread of oath-forged magic vibrates.
Maxine is the first to unfreeze.
“Paper, quills, chalk, anything—someone write that down, now!” she snaps.
She rushes to the desk across the room, yanks open a drawer, pulls out an inkpot, knocks over a stack of scrolls, flips one over, and starts writing furiously.
Elias releases Dustir and wanders over to Merlin. The boy points at the bond and says,
“String?”
The old man hums, peering at it.
“Two oaths entangled.”
Elias nods sagely.
“Kiss.”
“Not necessarily, young druid,” Merlin says, wagging a finger. “This could be a completely platonic bond of brotherhood.”
Elias shakes his head.
Merlin blinks. “Oh. Well, that would work too, I suppose.”
“Luco, what was the last line again?” Maxine whisper-shouts, still scribbling.
Luco presses a hand to his temple. “Something herald, something before? Aren’t the rhyming ones supposed to be the most dangerous?”
“Stupid resurrection sickness. Mike, were you paying attention? Will?” Maxine demands, any guise of intimidation thoroughly cast aside.
Will just squeaks when Elias reaches up and plucks the oathbond, making it vibrate.
Mike looks on the verge of fainting.
“Old man, why didn’t you warn me a prophecy was coming on?” Maxine snaps.
Merlin turns to her, baffled. “Wha? A prophecy? Who gave it? Was it my apprentice?” His eyes brighten. “Did it rhyme? Those are always the most fun—unless it has orange as one of the words. Then it has to use slant rhymes.”
The man turns back to Will as if nothing else in the room matters.
“Ah, my apprentice at last! Have you reached level ten yet? Wait—why have you changed your class?”

Chapter Text

Will la Fey paces in the small cabin, alternating between flexing his hands and wringing them together as if he could squeeze certainty out of them.
“Will, honey, why don’t you sit down and watch some TV?” Joyce asks, her face a mask of concern. “Walking back and forth isn’t going to bring him back any faster.”
“He doesn’t know what he’s dealing with!” Will snaps, then winces at his own volume. “Mike knows more than he does. Not that I’d want Mike out there alone with demons running about.”
Something crackles in Mike’s bag, and the boy jumps. He fumbles with the zipper until he pulls out a walkie-talkie.
“—the situation? Still at the cabin, right?” Dustin’s voice crackles through the speaker.
“Dustin, it’s Mike. We’re at the cabin, over,” Mike says, thumbing the device.
“Is she okay? Over?” The reply comes too quickly, and Dustin’s voice is clipped.
“Yeah, everyone’s okay. The big guy went to check out the school, over,” Mike says.
Will tries to watch Mike’s face to see if he catches Dustin’s tone, but he can’t tell.
“Okay. Keep me posted, over.”
The radio goes quiet.
Will starts pacing again, though now he occasionally glances at the television, which El seems completely transfixed by.
At last, he swallows and forces himself to just stare at what she’s watching.
An older man in a sweater is speaking in a soothing tone.
It takes Will a moment to catch up as the man walks into another room and the camera follows him to a fish tank.
“You know, I got a very thoughtful letter from a boy named Jeremy in Des Moines, Iowa, just the other day. Jeremy wanted to make sure I was feeding the fish. And I do. But I thought I ought to sing a little song when I do it, so if you can’t see me, Jeremy, you’ll still know the fish are being fed.”
Before Will can really question what’s happening, he finds himself lulled into stillness, staring at the TV as the man sings a simple melody.
When he glances down, he realizes his hands have finally gone still.
When the show ends, Will says, still staring at the box for a moment too long,
“Your world is truly baffling sometimes. That box would be a magical marvel beyond comprehension, and you use it to show a man speaking calmly, singing, and being kind?”
El nods solemnly.
Mike’s face goes red.
“It’s a show for little kids—but it’s something to watch, I guess.” He reaches toward the table. “Can I have the remote? I think I saw He-Man playing at this time one day.”
Will considers pressing Mike on not complaining that it was a little kids’ show while it was actually playing, but after the man had spoken so much about kindness, it just feels wrong.
It only takes two more shows for Will to begin pacing again.
He-Man was interesting, at least, but utterly unrealistic. Who would go into battle in just a loincloth? Was the titular man attempting to distract his opponents with his muscles?
Will’s mind takes a short, treacherous detour at that point involving a certain paladin, and he quickly quashes it.
“Food,” Will says, mostly to break free of both the thoughts and the box’s grip on him.
Joyce, who has been flipping through a magazine in the kitchen, looks up.
“Hmm. I’m not sure what Hop has here.”
“Eggos,” El supplies immediately.
“Well, it is almost lunchtime—”
The door slams open.
Hopper strides in, already scowling. “The damn lab took over the investigation. I didn’t even know they could do that.”
“Did you see any demons?” Will asks at once.
“No.”
“Is anyone else missing?”
“No…” Hopper says, slower this time, eyeing him.
“Did you conduct a study of the weave in the area? There could be traces left by the summoning.”
“What?”
“Have you at least summoned some clerics or requested a paladin?”
Hopper stares at him. “What? Clerics? Like priests?”
Will frowns. “Why would you want priests to fight demons?”
“What?”
“Well, can you at least ask the lab what their intentions are?” Will presses, voice tight.
“No,” Hopper says flatly. “They shut us out completely.”
“Perhaps I could—”
“No.” Hopper reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded photocopy. He unfolds it and slaps it on the table.
It’s a sketch.
A familiar face.
Will’s face.
“They also gave me this,” Hopper says, jaw clenched. “They said this boy is wanted for questioning. Seems he was trespassing on lab property.”
Will’s stomach drops.
“Then maybe you could—” Will starts, already scrambling for options.
Hopper’s eyes narrow. “That’s where you went when you ran away.”
“Yes,” Will says quickly. “I didn’t go there on—”
“They shot you,” Hopper cuts in, voice rising. “And you didn’t think it was relevant to tell me?”
“I told you I got shot,” Will protests, frustration flashing hot. “I—”
“Keeping things like this from me is going to get the whole unit killed, Private!” Hopper barks.
The word echoes in the room like a gunshot.
He throws the paper down and points at Will—hard, accusatory—
—and then his face shifts as his mind catches up with what he’s doing.
He freezes.

Will follows the man’s face and sneers.

“There it is,” he says, voice sharp with bitterness. “The conflict at the heart of this. I may not know the words, but I can hear it. Which am I to you, a kid or a soldier?”
“A kid!” Hopper shoots back immediately.
Will yanks off his shirt.
“Really?” he demands. “Is that what you see? Is that why you don’t trust me to save your town? Look at me.”
Will watches the man glance at him—then away—then back again in abrupt, guilty flickers.
So he points to an angry scar on his chest, right over his heart.
“This is from my second mission,” Will says. His voice is flat now, which somehow makes it worse. “I was the newest adventurer, so naturally they set me to collecting proof after we wiped out a goblin raiding band. One of them wasn’t dead.”
He taps the scar once.
“I died.”
The room goes still.
“The last thing I saw was red eyes ringed by blackness. I woke up four days later in Starterton. It’s normal for wizards—we get tougher as we level—but nowhere near as fast as most of the other classes.” He swallows, then looks Hopper dead in the face. “Do you want to know how many times I’ve died, Jim?”
Hopper reels like the boy struck him. His eyes lock on that angry scar.
“No,” he says at last.
“I had to experience each one.” Will says voice finally cracking. “And you won’t even dain to hear the quantity?”

Will vibrates with anger, the air around him grows heavy as he instinctually pulls on the weave.

“So I’ll ask you again, Jim.” He spits out the man’s first name. “What am I to you, a child or a soldier?”
“A child!” Hopper shouts. He takes a step forward. “A child who has seen too much, and maybe in that other world you are a soldier. But not here, not while I’m around. I gave up calling myself a soldier a long time ago but I’ll pick that up again in a heartbeat if it means you don’t have to. So you are sitting this out, you, and El, and Mike and the rest of them, none of you are going to be involved in this.”

Will looks over the man’s shoulder and catches a convoy of large black vehicles driving up the dirt road to the cabin.

“It looks like that’s not your call anymore.”

Chapter Text

Will Byers stares at Merlin as the man smiles back at him.
“I’m not your apprentice.”
“True, but not true all the same, my boy,” Merlin says cheerfully. “You have my spellbook. That makes you my apprentice.”
Will’s hand goes automatically to the lump of the spellbook in his backpack.
The wizard before him smiles wider.
“Though I am not a Moonwarden,” Merlin continues, “it appears the spellbook is still part of the class, correct?”
“I think so,” Will stammers.
“Good. Then keep it, and call yourself my apprentice,” the old man says. Then he reaches out and ruffles Will’s hair. “Maxine, this boy is certainly not of this world. My recommendation is that we do nothing.”
Maxine looks up from her desk so fast her chair nearly scrapes.
“Merlin! Send him back!” she snaps. “That’s why I called you here. If you can retrieve your actual apprentice, that is a great bonus, but he does not belong here.”
“Yes, he does,” Merlin says mildly, pointing to the thread that the guildmistress clearly cannot see.
Will’s mouth opens, and the words pour out before he can stop them.
“Please, Mr. Merlin,” he blurts. “Can you send me back?”
The old man frowns and turns back to Will.
“Yes,” he says. “But I won’t.”
“Why?” Maxine and Will ask at nearly the exact same time.
“I don’t interfere with wishes.”
“What?” the pair says again, almost perfectly in sync.
“Well, keep up with your studies, my apprentice.”
And then the wizard vanishes.
Only when the man vanishes does Will hear the sob.
His heart stops.
His head jerks toward Mike the Brave.
The boy is clutching his chest and crying without the slightest hint of restraint. When Will meets his eyes, the bond flashes. Pain and grief slam through Will hard enough to make his knees wobble.
“So that’s it, then—” the paladin chokes out. He drags in a wet, shaking breath through his nose. “Even after everything. After—after you promised—”
A thread of anger cuts through Mike’s voice.
“You still choose going back over me?”
“Mike, that’s not why—”
“It is to me!”
“I have a Mom and a brother, and—”
“So I’m not enough!”
“Mike—”
“No, I get it.” He laughs once, horribly, and wipes at his face with the heel of his hand. “It was stupid of me to think it could be different. Both of you—” He cuts himself off, swallowing hard. “No. My Will would never.”
Will feels like he’s missed a step on a staircase.
“You always want so much so fast,” Mike says, voice cracking. “You never let me figure things out. You pushed me when I wasn’t ready. You kept comparing me to him.” His face twists. “Leave me alone, Will Byers.”
Then the boy stumbles out of the room, still sobbing.
Dustir says, “Well, what’s got him all worked up?”
Elias whispers something in the dwarf’s ear, and Dustir’s face falls. He shakes his head.
“You’re a right blockhead, newbie. Come on, Eli, let’s go keep the captain out of trouble.”
The pair rush out after Mike.
Luco’s look is slightly more sympathetic, but it still carries an edge of judgment.
“That was… understandable, but absolutely inconsiderate. I’m going—”
“Nowhere. You will stay here with me until you’re recovered, Lucy,” Maxine interrupts the elf. Then she turns to Will. “And you—I’d very much prefer to keep myself out of the romantic affairs of children. Ask an attendant for a room at the hall. I suppose you’re an adventurer now. Get out of here.”
Will’s feet feel like cinderblocks as he shuffles to the door. When it closes behind him, it hits him.
He’s alone.
He’s in another world.
He made Mike cry.
He bites his lip until he tastes copper. He stumbles through the maze of corridors blindly until he finally finds the main hall.

He bolts to one of the attendants.

“I- I need a room for the night.”

He finally looks up and sees the woman who’d they’d spoken to earlier. She looks confused.

“Weren’t you with-” She seems to take in his watering eyes. “Right, of course, please hand over your card and I’ll see what’s available.”

Will’s hand pulls the card from his robe, and manages to place it on the counter.

The woman pulls it over and says:
“Okay, as a member of a silver rank team, I can offer you a room for up to a week at no charge. It’s all the way at the end of that hallway and to the right.”

She hands him a key and his card.

“Don’t worry, you only need one mission to reach silver, I’m sure they’ll take you back.” She shakes her head. “I must have misjudged that paladin. I didn’t take him as someone who would let rank get to his head so quickly.”

She winks.

“I’ll also make sure to slow down any request to drop you from the team until your free stay is complete okay? You need your rest after that mission I’m sure.”

“He’s not- It’s my fault I-”

“Shush, go on to the room now. We’ve even got enchanted plumbing, so you get five minutes of hot water per day!”

Will pulls the card and key from the counter glumly and follows her directions. He stumbles down the hallway and turns the key in the lock.
He thinks he hears an older voice greet him on his way down the hall, but he’s still reliving Mike’s final words to him.
The room has a bed, a desk, something that might generously be called a toilet, and a large bucket with a drain in the bottom, positioned beneath a crude showerhead.
He falls onto the bed and winces at how hard it is. It’s more a stone slab covered with hay and two blankets than a bed.
He closes his eyes, but sleep doesn’t come for a long time.
Why had he asked Merlin to send him back? Was that really what he wanted? Would the bond break? Could he really survive here without the party?
Hours later, he drifts into a restless sleep.
The next morning, he wakes to a gentle knock at the door.
His heart thuds against his chest.
Mike? Please be Mike.
He rushes to the door and yanks it open.
Brother Omus stands there.

Chapter Text

Will Byers flinches as Hopper takes another step forward. The man winces and tries for a gentler tone.
“Please hide. Please, I’m begging you—take El and hide. I know that conversation isn’t over.”
A polite knock cuts him off.
Hopper gently pushes Will toward the hallway. The wizard bites his lip and follows El into a bedroom, snatching his T-shirt off the floor and dragging it back on as he goes.
The moment the door closes, both he and El press their ears against it.
The sound of Hopper opening the front door carries through first. Then a voice that makes both of them shiver.
“Chief Hopper, I feel like we got off on the wrong foot. I wanted to assure you that we will be doing our utmost to protect Hawkins.”
The man’s voice imitates kindness, but comparing him to Mr. Rogers makes bile rise in Will’s throat.
“If you’re taking over the case, I’d like to get back to my vacation,” Hopper says flatly.
“Right, well, the thing is—” A pause. “Oh, hello, Joyce Byers. Hmm. That’s not your son. The thing is, Chief, I’m here as part of that investigation.”
“I don’t have a gas line here.”
“But you do know where Will Byers is.”
“At home.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yes, he is,” Joyce cuts in.
“I’ll correct myself. I just got confirmation that he very much isn’t. I also know he is the boy in the sketch I gave you, Chief.”
“I guess he looks a little similar. Same age, same bowl cut. You can hardly build a case against a kid for that.”
“Same freckle above his lip, too. I’d just like to speak to him. One of your officers did say he was in Joyce’s car this morning.”
Beside Will, El is shaking.
He wraps her in a hug and whispers into her hair, “Calm. Hopper will protect you. I will protect you.”
“Too many,” she whispers back.
“I’ve been in worse spots. You are safe.” He pulls back just enough to look at her. “Do you trust me?”
She nods.
Something slams into a wall with enough force to jostle them both.
“Mrs. Byers, can I assume you won’t need to be restrained as well?” Dr. Brenner’s voice drifts through the door.
“Put down the pan, ma’am!” a different voice shouts.
“That’s my cue,” Will whispers.
“I fight too,” El says.
Will wants to argue, but it would just be the same fight he’d been having with Hopper. He pulls the bedroom door open.
Three guns swing toward him instantly.
Joyce is being lightly restrained by a man who looks reluctant to be doing it. Mike stands frozen behind the couch, white-faced. Dr. Brenner is in the doorway. Hopper is pinned against the wall by two black-clad men. Three more are aiming their guns at Will and El.
Will steps in front of her.
“You wanted to speak,” he says, a lick of flame dancing across his fingers. “Speak.”
Brenner’s eyes slide to El at once.
“Eleven, I’ve been worried sick. I’m so happy you’re safe.”
He’s smiling, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Bad Papa,” El says, her voice trembling.
Will raises his hand.
“Give me one reason not to vaporize you.”
“Put that hand down before these men are forced to kill you, Will.”
Will’s lip curls. “They’re in the blast radius.”
Then he moves his hand in a sharp, practiced motion.
“Mirror Image.”
Three duplicates of him peel into existence as he steps forward, keeping himself between El and the men with guns.
Brenner’s eyes light up.
This time the smile is real.
And so predatory that Will’s stomach turns.
“Will, Mrs. Byers and Hopper are too,” Mike says, his voice tight with pain.
Will almost whines. “Bluffing was never your strong point, Mike.”
Brenner’s gaze sharpens.
“That accent,” he says smoothly. “Not very Indiana. More southern England, wouldn’t you say?”
“Leave,” Will says.
“Oh, I am,” Brenner replies. “But you and Eleven are coming with me. We have so much to discuss.”
Will’s eyes flick to Joyce, then Hopper, then finally to Mike shaking behind the couch. He takes a slow breath.
“Just me,” he says. “I’ll go with you. El stays, and you leave everyone in this house alone.”
Brenner tilts his head, seeming to consider it.
“I’m afraid Eleven is government property.”
“I can do everything she can do and more,” Will lies.
The hungry smile on Brenner’s face deepens.
Behind him, Hopper surges uselessly against the men pinning him to the wall.
“Will, no!” he shouts.
“Sorry, Jim,” Will says, taking another step toward Brenner. “It’s simple math.”
Brenner’s eyes gleam.
“You’ll cooperate with anything I ask.”
Will wants to puke.
“Yes.”
“Will, please, you don’t have to do this!” Joyce cries.
Will keeps his eyes fixed on Brenner. He can’t look at her. If he does, he might break.
“So,” he says, his voice almost too light, “are we going to keep this imperial standoff going, or what?”
Behind him, Mike’s voice comes out heartbreakingly small.
“Please don’t leave me, Will.”
Hypnotic Pattern rattles at its cage in Will’s mind. He can’t cast it. He’d get caught in it too.
Brenner studies him for one long moment.
Then he nods.
“Deal. Follow me.”
Will follows Brenner out of the cabin.
The black-clad men fall in behind them, but when Hopper tries to push after them, two of them block the doorway and force him back inside.
Will turns once.
His eyes meet Mike’s through the open door, and they sting treacherously.
“I— lov—” He swallows hard. “I’ll come back, Mike.”
It’s all he can manage.
Then the wizard tears his gaze away and steps into the car Brenner is guiding him toward.
The door closes.

Chapter Text

Will Byers stares at Brother Omus. The man is holding a wooden tray in one hand.
“May I come in?” the cleric asks.
Will can only nod. He steps out of the way, and the cleric walks past him, setting the tray—simple bread, cheese, and fruit—on the desk.
Will stays near the door, tracking his movements.
“Thank you. I don’t have any money—”
“Nonsense. Come sit,” the man says gently.
Will complies and takes a seat on one of the two stools by the desk.
Brother Omus occupies the other.
“I didn’t think they’d have you delivering food too,” Will says, picking at the bread and cheese. “Not if you can cast magic like you can.”
“I am called by Tyr to serve adventurers rather than slay monsters now,” the cleric replies. “Any way I can is worthy.”
“Oh,” Will says, hearing faint echoes of the church services his father used to drag them to.
Brother Omus folds his hands loosely in his lap.
“How long have you been an adventurer, young one?”
“A week,” Will says, his voice small.
The man hums and stifles a chuckle.
“What a week that must have been.”
Will nods once. The food already tastes like ash in his mouth.
“You don’t have to stay,” he says quietly. “Thank you for the breakfast.”
The cleric smiles warmly.
“I have been an adventurer for nearly forty years. I think I know when I’m needed.”
“I’m fine,” Will lies.
His heart still aches.
Brother Omus tilts his head.
“Physically? Eh. You’re a bit scrawny, even for a wizard, so eat up.” His smile softens. “Emotionally, I think we both know that’s a lie.”
“You want me to talk about it,” Will says flatly.
“Not necessarily,” the cleric says. “But I’m here if you want to.”
“I’m—I—” Will sets down the half loaf of bread. “I messed everything up. I don’t know why I talked before I even thought about what it would mean, and now…” He swallows. “I don’t know if I even have a team anymore.”
“That would be a setback,” Omus says, thoughtful and without any judgment that Will can detect.
“I hurt him,” Will adds, his voice cracking.
“We often do.” The man nods.
“Not like this.”
“Come now, little one. Do you think you are the first person to say something accidentally hurtful to a friend?”
“He is—was—more than that.”
Omus smiles.
“Ah. Well, that, I’m quite sure, is even more common.”
Will still balks at how completely Omus breezes past the fact that Mike was—is—more than a friend.
“No.” Will says it too forcefully. “I said—I said I want to leave, when I don’t even know that I do, and he—he took it as me saying he wasn’t important enough for me to stay. I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave, and now I’m alone in this world, and he probably hates me—and everyone else…” His breath catches. “I don’t—I can’t—”
“Hm.” Brother Omus folds his hands in his lap. “Well, perhaps you need to find those answers and tell him. If he’ll hear them.”
“But how am I supposed to know?”
“Even the gods don’t hold every answer,” the cleric says. “But I think you have this one. Do you want to stay with him, even if you could leave?”
“Yes!” The word bursts out of Will before he can stop it. “I wanted to take him with me!”
The cleric chuckles softly.
“That didn’t take much.”
Will’s face twists. “But he won’t listen! He told me to stay away from him before I could even explain it, and now—now I—”
“Have to sit with some of the pain you caused him for a while,” Omus says.
Will narrows his eyes at Brother Omus.
“You think I deserve it?”
“That’s not for me to decide,” the cleric replies evenly.
Will crosses his arms.
“But I didn’t mean it! I just want to take it back!”
“More answers. That’s good,” Omus says. “But you don’t get to decide for him.”
Will’s face crumples.
“I just…” He swallows. “I don’t want to be alone.”
There’s another knock at the door.
Will perks up immediately and rushes over, heart panging in his chest. He yanks the door open.
Elias is standing there in front of an exasperated Dustir.
“Will!” the druid half-shouts, then barrels into him.
“Elias,” Will says, hugging the boy back at once.
“It seems the gods have answered your prayer, at least in part.” Omus rises from his stool. “Please come find me if you ever need to talk again, young one. Tyr’s blessings upon you.”
Then the cleric glides out of the room, closing the door softly behind himself.
Dustir looks at Will, his face switching between relief and anger so quickly it’s almost dizzying.
“You—you damned dumb newbie,” the dwarf blurts. “You made the captain cry when we’re supposed to be celebratin’.”
“Shh,” Elias says, still hugging Will but swiveling his head to glare at Dustir. “Will good.”
“I know, Eli, but he’s got to—”
“Alone. Without us.”
Dustir’s expression falters.
“That’s true, but it took four hours to—”
“No, mean dwarf.”
“That’s speciesist, ya damned druid!”
Elias blows a raspberry at him.
“Is Mike—is he okay?” Will asks, squeezing Elias hard enough that the boy squeaks in protest.
Dustir opens his mouth, but Elias beats him to it.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t say that!” Dustir snaps.
Elias nods stubbornly. “Yes.”
“Don’t tell him that! If he knows the captain was beggin’ for him the moment we left the guildhall, he won’t feel guilty enough not to do it again.”
“He—he did?” Will says. Hope flashes through him so suddenly it makes him feel sick.
“Don’t care,” Elias says. “Want Will.”
Then he punctuates the statement with another raspberry.
“Damned feral druid!” Dustir bellows. “I’m goin’ to tickle ye for that!”
Elias giggles and ducks behind Will, using him as a shield.
“Well, the flying cotton snake’s out of the bag anyway, so come on, newbie,” Dustir grumbles, turning away.
Will follows him, feeling like at any second the other shoe is going to drop.
Instead, Elias releases Will and stalks after Dustir. Will catches the dwarf glancing back, noticing the druid, then deliberately turning away.
A second later, the boy pounces on the warrior and wraps his legs around Dustir’s middle.
“Fuzzy dwarf,” Elias giggles.
“Agh! Get off me, ya spidermonkey!” Dustir protests, but he makes no move to actually force the druid off. Will even notices him adjusting Elias’s legs to make sure he’s more secure as they walk.
“No. Dustir good,” Elias says, then rests his head against the warrior’s shoulder.
Will thinks he sees Dustir blush, but it must be a trick of the light.
He follows the pair out of the guildhall and through the maze of streets in Starterton, the other two boys bickering and teasing each other as they walk.
Eventually they reach a tavern called The Silver Bucket, which, unsurprisingly, has a large silver bucket in place of a sign.
The interior isn’t quite as nice or spacious as the Prancing Bronco, but Will still feels himself growing hungry again as the smell of food drifts out from the kitchen.
Elias hops off Dustir’s back and grabs Will’s hand, dragging him toward the stairs.
“Mike now,” the boy says.
For once, Dustir just nods.
Will stumbles after Elias and up the stairs. The druid stops in front of one of the doors and knocks repeatedly.
“Elias! I’m coming, hold on—aagh!”
There’s a crash on the other side of the door, followed by the clatter of armor hitting the floor.
“Elias, I told you I’m not—”
The door swings open.
Mike the Brave stares back at Will.

Chapter Text

The knot in Will la Fey’s stomach tightens as the car slows to a stop.
When the door opens, he counts thirty men in black within sight, all armed with guns.
He steps out.
Brenner puts a hand on his shoulder and guides him toward the large building. Will wants to squirm, wants to run, but he had agreed—and the unspoken threat to everyone still at the cabin hangs heavy around his neck.
Brenner leads him through winding, identical hallways, then uses a keycard to buzz open the door to a small room with a metal table in the center. Metal chairs line its long sides. Three men follow Will and Brenner inside, their hands never leaving their guns.
“Have a seat,” Brenner says. “Would you like some pop?”
Will scrambles internally for the meaning of the word and comes up empty.
“Sorry,” Brenner says smoothly. “Soda. Michigan habit.”
Will nods and takes the seat Brenner indicates.
“Quite the powers you showed off,” Brenner says as he sits across from him. “Area disabling. Direct manifestation of matter. A controlled psychic spike.”
Will shrugs.
Brenner drums his fingers on the table.
“So. What else can you do?”
A woman in a lab coat squeezes past the guards, sets a can of Coke on the table, and retreats without a word.
Will grabs it, pops it open, and gulps down the fizzy, sugary drink in the desperate hope that it might calm his stomach.
He belches loudly and, for one traitorous second, thinks of Dustir.
Then he sets the can down.
“Enough,” he says at last.
Brenner tilts his head.
“You did say you’d cooperate.”
“I did.”
“Do I need to remind you that I know where Mrs. Byers and Chief Hopper are?” Brenner asks mildly. “And that was Michael Wheeler, was it not? You seem quite close to him.”
Will’s anger spikes so fast it almost becomes a Firebolt.
Instead, he manages:
“Gust.”
A burst of wind slams into Brenner and shoves him back in his chair.
The guards snap their guns up.
Brenner’s smile comes back—real this time—and he raises one hand.
“No need,” he says. “I pushed a little too far. But he did show me something else he can do.” He stands. “Perhaps that’s enough for this interview. Take him to Dr. Owens.”
One of the guards grabs Will’s arm hard—then freezes and immediately loosens his grip.
Will looks up. There’s a flicker of pain in the man’s expression.
The guard’s hand wraps almost fully around Will’s bicep. This time, when he pulls the boy to his feet, it’s gentle.
“Come on,” he mutters. “No funny business.”
Will absently notes the room number as he’s led away. He counts the turns in his head as they continue through the maze, then stop at a metal door.
The guard presses a button next to a downward-facing triangle.
A moment later, the door dings and slides open to reveal a tiny room. Will’s eyes immediately go to the panel of numbered buttons on the wall. The guard presses three, and the button lights up.
Will jolts when the room starts moving slowly upward.
The guard, still holding his arm, says in an awkward but gentle voice, “Just an elevator, kid. Nothing to worry about.”
The elevator dings again and opens onto a similar hallway.
Will is led into a room with a bed, metal shelving, and a large window that shows they’re now some distance above the ground. Another man is waiting for them. He’s shorter than Brenner, and softer around the middle where Brenner is all sharp edges.
“Let him go. He’s just a kid,” the man says.
“He incapacitated twenty men and put one in a coma,” the guard replies.
“I didn’t say leave,” the man says. Then he turns his attention to Will. “My name is Dr. Owens. I’m going to perform a physical exam now. Is that—” He stops himself. “I’m just going to.”
“I’m fine. Everything is healed,” Will says.
“We’re going to need to be a bit more thorough than that.” The man holds out a paper-thin gown, which, judging by the size of it, will probably cover more than Will’s shirt does. “Please take off your shirt and put this on.”
The wizard shrugs and pulls his shirt over his head.
All four men gasp.
The guards take an involuntary step back.
Will watches Dr. Owens’s gaze travel over the scars.
Under his breath, the man says, “Not compatible with life. Coma. Irreparable damage. Permanent disability. Colostomy bag. Jesus.”
He inhales sharply, and Will follows his eyes to the angry scar over the boy’s heart.
“What the fu—” one of the guards says.
Will notes that none of them have their hands on their weapons anymore. Perhaps going into battle shirtless wouldn’t only work for He-Man after all, he thinks with a faint smirk.
“Who treated you?” Dr. Owens asks. “There’s next to no evidence of even basic cosmetic work to reduce scarring.”
Will notes that the man’s face has lost everything but bare curiosity. The look still doesn’t make him squirm the way Brenner’s does, but he can tell that, in this moment, Owens is looking at him more like a medical impossibility than a boy.
“Most weren’t,” Will answers truthfully.
Owens shakes his head.
“No. That’s not possible. Most of these would be fatal without treatment.”
“Not for me.”
Then Will catches the shift in the man’s gaze. Hunger enters it—not predatory like Brenner’s, but hungry all the same.
Will pulls the gown over his head, and the men relax slightly.
The guards still don’t move their hands back to their weapons.
Dr. Owens closes the distance and slips an odd instrument from around his neck into his ears, holding the other end in one hand.
“This is going to be cold. Sorry.”
He presses the metal end to Will’s chest, and Will winces.
The metal is indeed cold.
For a moment, if Will closes his eyes, he can almost imagine it is Mike the Brave’s gauntlet resting against his chest.
The thought passes too quickly.
“Deep breath,” Dr. Owens says.
Will obeys.
“Good. One more.”
Owens shifts the metal circle across Will’s chest, then around to his back.
“Sit down.”
Will sits on the bed. Owens wraps an inflatable cuff around his upper arm and pumps it tight.
“Lie down. I’m going to feel your stomach.”
Will does, but his eyes sting.
Whatever sense of control he had been clinging to is gone now.
The man’s hands move over his stomach in a practiced, clinical way.
Will wants desperately to Vortex Warp out the window. To start Firebolting the guards and their guns. To cry. To scream at the man touching him without ever really asking.
Instead, he bites his lip hard enough to taste copper.
Owens glances up at his face while speaking — and whatever he sees makes him stop cold and take a step back.
“His eyes,” he says. “Jesus, are you seeing this?”
“What the hell is he?” one of the guards whispers.
“Blood sample,” Owens says, almost like a prayer.
He turns to the cabinets and starts rummaging.
Will can’t stop spiraling.
Another violation is coming, and blood at that. Every part of him screams no. Fire licks between his fingers, and the weave coils tighter and tighter around him.
“Stop. Please,” he says, his voice shaking between rage and terror.
The lights overhead flicker and dim.
The guards’ hands snap back to their weapons.
Owens turns from the cabinet with a needle in hand.
“It’s okay,” he says quickly. “I swear this is the last test for now. Just a little prick, and I can get you a pudding cup. Is that—”
He still doesn’t ask permission.
Will hears the man start to. Hears him take that little preparatory breath, like he might finish the sentence, like he might give Will back one ounce of humanity.
The word dies on his tongue.
“Please, stop,” Will says, his voice broken.
Owens’s face twists. “I don’t have a choice either. Stay still, or it will hurt more.”
“Fire—” Will starts, then snaps his mouth shut around the spell.
He screams instead, and the weave twists violently around him as he fights to keep his own magic—his own panic—from slipping free.
Owens takes another tentative step forward.
“Gust.”
The burst of wind knocks the man back a pace.
“Please,” Will says, shaking now. “No more.”
The window shatters.
Four red, leathery-skinned imps tumble into the room, giggling.
“Oh, there’s the wizard,” one of them chirps.
“Are you sure?” another asks. “He’s really small.”
“Maybe he’s a wizlet. Are you a little wizlet?”
Will stares at them.
And, absurdly, he feels relief.
At least this is a dangerous situation he understands.
In Infernal—just as the imps have been speaking—he snaps back, “I am not. I’m a wizard. Where did you come from? Also, watch out, they’re going to—”
The guards open fire.
One of the imps goes down immediately, shrieking as a bullet tears through one of its wings.
The other three screech in outrage and hurl balls of smoking hellfire at the guards.
The room erupts into chaos.
Men shout. Owens stumbles backward. One guard drops his gun with a scream as fire crawls up his sleeve. Another dives for the door.
Within seconds, the guards and Owens are fleeing the room.
The imps cackle.
One of them lands on the bed and crawls toward Will.
“Hello, wizlet. Name’s Mizxy.”
“I am a wizard,” Will pouts. “Where did you come from? You shouldn’t be here!”
“Don’t you know?” the demon sing-songs. “Someone dragged a connection to the other planes here. Wanna guess who?”
“No. Leave me alone.”
“You did.” The imp pokes Will in the forehead, then clears his throat theatrically and bows. “My master sends his regards—but not his name—and offers you us four—”
The imp glances over his shoulder at the one dissolving into dust on the floor.
“Three imps as a gift.”
“I. Am. Not. Signing. Anything!” Will shouts.
Mizxy slaps his comically oversized hands over his ears.
“Stop shouting! I didn’t ask you to.”

Chapter Text

Will Byers stares into Mike the Brave’s eyes.
For a long moment, they just stare at each other, mouths open, neither able to speak.
“I’m sorry,” they both say.
They both blink.
“What?”
Again, perfectly mirrored.
Will drags in a shaky breath.
“Can I say something first?” he asks, finally breaking the gridlock.
Mike swallows and nods.
“Okay.”
Will’s words come all at once.
“I asked without thinking. It just happened, and if I’d had time to think, I—I don’t know if I would’ve asked him to send me back.” His voice wobbles. “But it’s not because you aren’t important to me. I swore an oath to you. I’m so much happier when you’re beside me, and I don’t know what to do with that.” His eyes sting. “I still love my mom and my brother too, and it hurts. It hurts less when I’m with you, but it still hurts that I can’t even see a path back to them.”
He wipes hard at his face and keeps going anyway.
“I don’t know everything. But if I could go back, I’d ask you to come with me.” His voice cracks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I—” He chokes on the next word and veers away from it. “I care about you so much, and waking up without you was the worst moment I’ve had so far in this world.”
Tears spill freely down Will’s face.
He turns to run down the stairs rather than stand there and find out whether any of it was enough.
Elias slams a fist into Will’s side.
“No run,” the druid says. “Stay.”
“But—” Will sobs. “He isn’t saying anything.”
“Look. Stupid Will. Stupid paladin.”
Will turns.
Mike the Brave is on both knees in the doorway, ugly crying so hard he can barely breathe.
When Will slowly lifts his head, Mike manages, “You mean it?”
“Of course I do, Mike.”
Will catches Elias glaring pointedly toward the stairs and watches Dustir’s head slowly disappear back down them.
“So I’m not just him?” Mike asks in a small, wrecked voice. “Your Mike?”
“Mike,” Will says, stepping closer, “you are my Mike.” He swallows. “He’s sweet, and protective in his own way, but he hasn’t done what you have.” His cheeks redden. “And I never kissed him.”
Mike pulls in a shuddering breath and looks away.
“Oh,” he says faintly. “Well. Um.”
“Mike?”
The paladin’s face goes red even through the tears.
“We—well, the Will from here and I… we kind of… did.”
Will stares.
“What?”
“We kissed,” Mike says, voice small, “but then it was like it never happened. He never acknowledged it in the two weeks between when we did and when you arrived.”
Something clicks in Will’s head, and a small candle flame of anger ignites.
“Wheeler,” Will growls.
Mike blinks. “What?”
“He wrote that,” Will says, the words coming faster now. “Then I was playing as the other Will for two weeks, and I didn’t know about it, so neither did he.”
Mike’s face goes pale.
“That’s horrifying,” he whispers. “Am I even— is anyone but you here even— real, then?”
Will steps forward at once and cups Mike’s cheeks in both hands.
“Of course you are,” he says. “You saved me from the giant, from the wyvern, from the bandit, from the goblins. You did that.”
His voice sharpens with anger as another flame rises alongside it—warmer, fiercer, entirely for Mike the Brave.
“He”—Will nearly spits the word—“has never written what I do, so he can’t be writing this.”
Mike squeezes his eyes shut.
“I— that hurts to think about. Please stop.”
Will’s expression softens immediately.
“Okay,” he says, and then a nervous little laugh escapes him. “Okay. Sorry.”
He hesitates, hope flickering across his face so nakedly it almost hurts to look at.
“Do you forgive me?”
Mike lets out a wet, shaky breath.
“I got mad before you could explain anything, so…” He looks down. “I shouldn’t have been mad in the first place.”
“No,” Will says quickly. “I didn’t think about how it would sound, and—”
“Boring! Kiss!”
Elias shouts, then shoves Will toward Mike before stomping away in disgust.
“We don’t have to if you’re not-” Will starts.
“Boring.” Mike says, mimicking Elias as he stands and tugs Will into the room by the front of his robe.
Their lips meet, and the world spins, or maybe its Mike spinning Will, the boy does not care.
The bond thrums hard enough that they both step back in surprise.

“Gods.” Mike whispers.

“Something like that.” Will says, distracted as his eyes focus on Mike’s lips.
“Why are you looking at me like you’re going to eat me?” Mike teases.
“Maybe I am,” Will says, stepping closer.
Mike wrinkles his nose. “Gross.”
“Yeah,” Will agrees.
Mike glances down briefly, then back up. “Should we talk about that thrumming?”
Will shrugs. “It’s probably something complex and deep in magic theory.”
“Never mind, then. Keep me posted?”
Will chuckles. He threads one hand through Mike’s and grabs his collar with the other, rising onto his tiptoes.
“I—L—” Will starts as he leans toward Mike’s lips.
Mike’s stomach growls loud enough that Will is half-convinced it echoes in the tiny room.
Will huffs a laugh.
“I think we should go downstairs and eat breakfast.”
“Yeah,” Mike says, visibly pained. “That’s fair.”
Neither boy moves.
Will tilts his head, inching closer again.
“Well?”
Mike hums, trying to cover something perilously close to a whine.
“One more couldn’t hurt, right?” the paladin asks.
Will smiles.
“One way to find out,” the moonwarden replies.

Chapter Text

Not for the first time this week — and he suspects not for the last — Will la Fey looks up at an ugly popcorn ceiling and silently asks, Why, Mystra? What have I done to deserve this?
He takes a breath.
Then he looks down at the imp twiddling its thumbs while standing on the bed beside him.
“So you’ll do what I say?” he asks.
“Hmm. Yes?” Mizxy says.
Will is unconvinced, but also out of options.
He holds out his hand and conjures an image of Hopper.
“Send one — I repeat, one — of your friends to this person. He is in…” Will points vaguely toward the cabin, guided by his internal compass. “That direction.” He changes the image to Hopper’s cruiser. “He drives this metal abomination. If they find that, Hopper is nearby. Tell him I’m alive, and that he needs to get the others hidden. All of them. Then that imp will obey Jim Hopper. Understood?”
Mizxy considers this.
“Yes.”
Will still isn’t convinced, but he presses on anyway.
He changes the image to Mike Wheeler.
“The other two, including you, will find and protect this boy with your lives. Tell him I sent you. Also, if you burn down any building he is inside, I will kill you, then go into Avernus and kill you again, over and over, until I draw my last breath. Got it?”
Mizxy nods furiously.
“Go,” Will orders.
The imps shriek and dart out the broken window.
Will tears at the gown, then stands there with one hand raised toward the opening, listening.
A few moments later, he hears footsteps pounding down the corridor.
The door slams open.
Will glances back and recognizes the guard who escorted him to this room. At once, he stumbles backward and then latches onto the man.
“I—I fought them off. It’s a good thing you got one of them.” He does his best to make his voice shaky and battle-weary. He glances up just long enough to suppress a smile.
The man’s buying it.
The guard wraps one arm around Will’s shoulders and says, “Secure the room. I’ll get the kid out of here.”
Once the man guides him into the hall, Will relaxes a fraction.
“It’s okay, buddy,” the guard says. “We won’t let those things get close again.”
Will turns into him and hugs tighter.
“Thank you,” the wizard says in a small voice.
“Can I—can you—stay with me?” Will says, making his voice as pleading as he can.
“Of course.” The man squeezes his shoulder. “Let’s go to the cafeteria. I’ll get you whatever you want there, okay?”
Will nods and clings to him harder.
He’s led back to the elevator—
—and comes face-to-face with Dr. Brenner.
Mystra damn it.
Brenner’s acting is even worse than Will’s. His face is arranged into concern, but all Will can see beneath it is hungry, predatory interest.
“Good work, Ramirez,” Brenner says. “I’ll take him from here. Did we get one of the EPEs?”
“The what, sir?”
“Extra-planar entities,” Brenner says impatiently. “Keep up. If we’re fighting them, we have to understand them.”
“Uh, no. Wil—subject 002 chased them off.”
Brenner’s eyes narrow. He looks Will up and down once.
“He’s playing you, corporal.”
“What?”
“The gown,” Brenner says. “You said those things had claws. It’s ripped, not shredded. You said they threw fire. He doesn’t have a single burn.”
“I’m not—” Will starts, trying to keep the frightened voice, but too much anger bleeds through. He sighs and lets the act drop. Then he releases Ramirez’s arm.
“I did force the demons to leave, but they were just imps. Your guards are not especially courageous.”
Brenner smiles for real.
“Demons, you say,” he murmurs. “Interesting.”
Ramirez stares at Will. “You—but—you played me?”
Will turns his head slowly, his expression gone cold.
“As if some imps could ever frighten me.”
He rolls his eyes, then turns back to Brenner.
“I was promised a pudding cup by your associate. Is that still possible?” He tilts his head. “Also, what is it?”
Then the wizard steps into the elevator with Brenner.
The door slides closed, and Brenner turns to Will.
“Trying to escape, or just get sweets?”
Will shrugs.
“Depended on how gullible he ended up being.”
“Interesting.” Brenner’s mouth twitches. “I suppose that warrants a pudding cup, if you’ll show or explain one more ability.”
Will holds out his hand and conjures a full-color image of a barbed devil, a humanoid fiend with spikes protruding from various places on its body.
“And what do I get for explaining what this is?” Will asks, relieved when the man’s hungry gaze lingers on the illusion.
“Have you fought one?”
“Yes.”
“Is it strong?”
“It wasn’t easy, but it’s more dangerous in groups.”
The elevator dings, and the door slides open. Brenner motions for Will to follow and leads him into a large open room filled with tables, with a serving counter along one side.
Will glances down a corridor through the doors on the opposite wall and recognizes one of the hallway numbers near the entrance.
The cafeteria is empty, save for an older woman behind the serving counter. Brenner leads him toward it.
“Some ice cream, and a chocolate pudding cup for my friend, please,” the man says.
Will is momentarily distracted from planning his escape as the woman walks to a freezer with a bowl and starts scooping something into it.
She returns with a bowl full of an almost fluffy pale yellow-white substance piled into three scoops. She pushes it over along with a spoon, then hands Brenner a plastic cup.
“You said you didn’t know what pudding was?”
Will shakes his head, still trying to decipher the ice cream.
“And it seems like ice cream isn’t in your repertoire either.”
Will freezes.
“No—I know what it is, of course.”
Brenner chuckles.
“Where are you from, Will?”
“Hawkins.”
They sit at one of the many tables. Will takes a small spoonful of the ice cream, and just as he’s about to put it in his mouth, Brenner asks:
“And what is your favorite flavor of ice cream, Will?”
Will quickly puts the spoon in his mouth.
His eyes widen. His shoulders slump. He can’t help the sound that escapes him.
“Oh gods—this one. Mystra above, this one.”

Chapter Text

Will Byers opens his eyes and feels his heart skip a beat.
This isn’t his bed, his ceiling, his—
He takes a breath.
He looks over and sees Mike the Brave still fast asleep and drooling.
This isn’t so bad.
It is the dawn of the fourth day after he arrived in Starterton.
He slips out of bed and quickly changes into his robe, then sneaks out the door to complete his morning routine.
When he steps back into the main room of the Silver Bucket, he finds Dustir and Elias sitting close together, whispering to each other. He’s not exactly sure how the two of them can whisper so much given Elias’s steadily improving but still rather clipped Common, but if the constant chuckles and giggles are anything to go by, they’re managing fine.
Will drops into a chair across from them, and Dustir grunts,
“Morning, newbie. How’s the captain?”
“Asleep.”
“Will!” Elias squeals, darting around the table to hug the wizard like it has been years since he last saw him.
It has, in fact, been less than eight hours.
The druid releases him and wanders back to Dustir.
“I expect equipment shopping today,” Dustir says, a hint of excitement entering his voice. “Maybe even some scouting for open contracts.”
Will leans forward at once.
“Did you pick anything yet? A new mace? Enchanted armor? An item?”
“That’s what shopping’s for, newbie. Plus there ain’t no reputable dwarven smiths in this city.”
“Weren’t half the smiths we walked past on the way to the food market dwarves?”
“I said reputable. Only find them in Dwarfmount.”
Will does his best to close his mouth around a laugh as Dustir says another placeholder name with complete seriousness.
He hears the main door open and glances over. He beams and pushes to his feet when he sees Luco walk in, followed by Maxine in an overlarge travel cloak.
Will waves. Luco starts toward the table, only to nearly get knocked off his feet when Elias bowls into him. Maxine chuckles and steadies her husband with one arm. She pats the druid boy on the head when he immediately moves on to hugging her too.
The three of them sit across from Will, Elias slotting himself back into constant contact with Dustir, while Luco and Maxine settle comfortably close to one another.
“Letting our captain sleep in again?” Luco asks.
Will shrugs. “Why not?”
“Call him, Will. Don’t want to make the guildmistress wait,” Dustir says, half joking.
Maxine, for her part, looks perfectly content to simply spend her time next to Luco.
Will closes his eyes and pokes inward at the bond.
Mike is awake—already on his way down, in fact.
Will opens his eyes and says, “No need.”
He stands awkwardly and takes a few quick steps across the room.
Elias sprints past him.
The druid leaps, and the paladin catches him with one hand even as he takes the last step down the stairs.
“Well, good morning to you too, Elias,” Mike says.
“Mike!” the boy chirps, nuzzling into his chest before squirming free and retaking his place beside Dustir.
Will almost rolls his eyes at having to wait in line to greet his… Mike, but he smiles warmly and gives the paladin a quick peck.
Then they walk back to the table hand in hand and sit across from the other four.
When everyone is settled, one of the dozen or so waiters drops off a tray loaded with plates of food and tankards of juice.
“So,” Mike starts, “last day of recovery.”
“And I’ve got a mission for you,” Maxine interjects.
Everyone, save Luco, leans in expectantly.
“It’s a lot,” she says. “But I don’t have any other team I can trust with it. A large dungeon opened up, and all the gold ranks flocked to it like mothhens. Plus half the silver ranks.”
Mothhens? Will doesn’t remember those being in the Monster Manual.
“A bunch of nobles from Sylvain got kidnapped,” Maxine continues. “One of them managed to get access to a Sending stone. Thankfully, one of the ones kidnapped also knows Sending. But he’s—” she pauses, “well, your age. He checked in this morning, and they’re still being moved. I expect another report tonight, and by then we should have a location.”
She looks around the table.
“I need you to get in and free the nobles. Clearing out the group that captured them is a bonus, not a requirement.”
Will looks around the table too.
“Um, Guildmistress, I don’t think—”
“The bounty is thirty-five thousand gold pieces.”
Dustir chokes on his drink.
Mike just stares at Maxine.
“We can do it, guys, the princling—” Luco starts.
“His lordship Ethaniel the Third,” Maxine corrects.
Luco rolls his eyes. “The princling said the kidnappers were lower level, and Ethaniel is level five. But most of the nobles taken don’t have levels, so he can’t fight back.”
“Why us?” Mike asks.
“It’s a diplomatic request,” Maxine says matter-of-factly. “I’d go myself, but there’s a wyvern pack poking around the edges of the bronze zones, and I need to be able to respond if that turns into a larger problem.”
“There must be more experienced silver-rank teams,” Will offers.
Maxine nods. “There are. Even some that are, on paper, better suited to a hostage rescue mission.” Then she points at Mike.
“But I have a strong idea of where they’re being taken, and you—” She points at Will, “—and you are the highest-level radiant magic wielders among the available silver-rank teams.”
Then she glares halfheartedly at Luco.
“It also doesn’t hurt that I trust my husband not to create a diplomatic incident with our western neighbor once the nobles are out of the dungeon.”
Luco opens his mouth.
“Especially—” Maxine cuts in before he can speak, “—since the Empire is starting up border skirmishes again on our eastern border. Am I right, Luco of the Gray Forest, third son of the King of the Roots?”
“Yes, dear.”
Mike blinks. “Wait—radiant magic?”
Maxine nods once.
“Yes. I suspect they’re being taken to the abandoned necropolis of Celi.”
Dustir groans.
“You want us to wade through skeletons in that damned labyrinth to save some nobles?” the dwarf complains.
“For thirty-five thousand gold,” Maxine says.
Dustir strokes his nonexistent beard, which he swears is going to come in any day now.
“Fine.”

Chapter Text

Will la Fey still has his eyes closed, savoring the memory of the ice cream.
His adventurer instincts are blaring warnings—ringing bells, rattling at the cage of bliss he’s tried to build around them—but… ice cream.
The boy opens his eyes and glances at Brenner.
The cage around his practical side shatters immediately.
“Really? Just a plain vanilla man. I can respect that,” the man says, his tone layered with meanings Will can’t quite parse.
He has to run. This man is too perceptive. This world is too—everything.
He can’t. Not until he knows Hopper, El, Joyce, and Mike are safe.
But is this chance something he can afford to ignore?
The woman behind the counter seems extremely unlikely to possess hidden combat acumen, and Brenner’s danger is not in his physical threat. He’s close to the exit. He just needs a way to cast Sending and confirm with Hopper—no, Mike—that they’re safe and he can break out.
He takes another spoonful of ice cream.
Cold, sweet, creamy—whatever the overtone flavor is, he almost exclaims again.
As he savors it, a dollop touches the roof of his mouth.
A small twinge of pain blossoms in his forehead.
An idea follows.
He starts shoveling more of the dessert into his mouth.
Brenner chuckles and says, halfheartedly, “Be careful not to get brain freeze, Will.”
Will feels the pain sharpen in his forehead and moves one hand to his temple.
Under his breath, he says, “Sending.”
The weave answers and connects him to Mike.
“Still in lab, You and others hidden? Three imps on the way. Brenner very bad. Tell me if you are hidden, Check in tonight bed.”
Mike’s voice comes back, and Will almost exclaims again.
“We’re safe, dropped the lab tail, Dustin and Lucas watched too. What do you mean imps? Will what do you mean imps, fricking sending. Will!”
Brenner is still laughing when Will refocuses.
“So I take it you being from Hawkins is a lie.”
“No. Agh.” Will winces as the headache intensifies.
“Will,” Brenner says, still in that infuriatingly smooth tone, “I’m trying to show you the easy path to being here. But I can’t keep going if you’re just going to stonewall me.”
Will stares at him. “You’re threatening people I love and calling that the easy path?”
“Yes.”
The word is so plain it almost doesn’t register at first. Then it hits all at once.
Whatever facade Brenner had been wearing seems to fall away—not into anger, but into something colder. More honest.
“You don’t have the leverage here, boy,” the man says, his voice losing even the pretense of warmth. “You are going to tell me everything you can do, or I’m going to collect all your little friends. Especially your little boyfriend—”
Will is on his feet before Brenner finishes the sentence.
He points at the man, his whole body shaking with rage.
“I’m done,” he says, and his voice is so tight it almost cracks. “The only thing keeping me from replacing your heart with a burning hole is those friends. If you or any of your minions come near us again, that changes.”
Then he turns and runs for the exit.
Behind him, Brenner doesn’t shout. He doesn’t even sound hurried.
“002 is going for the main entrance,” he says calmly. “Lock it down.”
The wizard bursts through the first set of doors and sprints down the hallway. At the end of the corridor he hooks a sharp turn and nearly crashes into a wall of large windows looking out over the field surrounding the lab.
He glances toward the main entrance.
Men are already scrambling into place around it, and a metal shutter is lowering over the doorway.
Will swears and throws up a hand.
“Vortex Warp.”
He appears outside the fence with a pop.
Then he runs.
He tears at the stupid paper gown as he sprints for the treeline, yanking it off and discarding it the moment it starts flapping too loudly around his legs.
He reaches the trees and freezes.
Dogs.
He can hear them barking.
Mystra damn it.
They have his shirt this time.
His scent.
“Options, wizard!” Mike the Brave’s voice says in his head.
Scent. Dogs. Chase.
Invisibility won’t fool the dogs. Prestidigitation won’t last long enough to matter. Hypnotic Pattern and Firebolt once he’s clumped up the pursuers? No. It might work, but he needs to preserve options, not narrow them.
Fog Cloud as a misdirect won’t buy enough time, and it won’t fool the dogs.
Fireball?
No. Escalation against an enemy he still doesn’t understand.
He peeks out from behind the tree.
Teams of guards are spilling out through the fence, dogs pulling hard at their leads.
No time, wizard. Think!
Fireball. Take out as many of them as you can. Mike has the class, and the imps—maybe he can survive without you?
No.
Never abandon your party.
Wait.
Trees.
Fireball.
Will’s stomach knots.
Calea, the druid girl from his adventurer orientation, would hate this plan.
Will starts sprinting again. He points over his shoulder.
“Fireball.”
The spell detonates in the treeline with a deafening bang. A wave of pressure and heat washes over him.
He glances back only once.
The forest fire is already spreading.
He turns back only for a second, still sprinting. The wind whips hard against his back, and his eyes widen.
“Not good.”
The wind shifts violently.
Heat slams into his back.
Will doesn’t dare turn around now. Smoke is already outrunning him.
He reaches a road and tears down it, lungs burning, the smoke making every breath worse. His legs feel like they’re coming loose from the rest of him.
A huge red version of the metal abominations whizzes past him. Then another.
His lungs and legs finally protest enough that he’s forced to slow to a jog.
One of the smaller cars passes him too—then brakes hard with a squeal.
Will tries to force his legs to move faster as he veers across the road toward the forest.
“Will!”
He freezes and turns.
An older boy—probably Jonathan’s age—is jogging toward him from the car. The first thing Will notices is his hair. It’s styled so high that, for one absurd second, Will wonders if magic was involved.
The boy gets close enough to really see him and goes white.
“Will, what are you doing out here—oh my God. What the fuck happened to you?”
Will glances down at his own torso: bare, streaked with soot, and mapped over with scars.
He shrugs.
“I’ve had worse days,” he says. Then, after a beat: “Not many, though.”
The boy stares.
“Why are you talking like that?” he demands, already reaching for him. “Come on. I’m taking you home.”
“Can’t. They’ll get me,” Will says, then sighs as he realizes that, in this moment, even an adventurer might call him crazy. “Wait, wait. It’s a really long story, and we really don’t have time. I’ll go with you, but you can’t take me home.”
“Well, I can’t exactly drive around town with a half-naked kid in my car either.”
“Just—start driving. I’ll get the location in a moment.”
Will says it, then amazes himself by sliding into the front seat of the car without his body protesting.
The older boy stands on the side of the road, glances at the column of smoke rising in the distance, then back at the soot-streaked boy in his BMW’s front seat.
He throws up his hands.
“Alright, fine, whatever!”
Once the jean-clad young man slides into the driver’s seat and pulls back onto the road, Will puts two fingers to his temple and says,
“Sending.”
The weave connects him to Mike again.
“Change of plan, last send, escaped lab, with big hair boy, need location for meet. Tell Dustin and Lucas run. Started forest fire. Be concise.”
Mike’s voice bursts into his head at once.
“Will! Oh my God! Why did you send imps? I guess they are kind of funny, but—wait, Sending, frick, what do I say, Lucas—”
The connection collapses.
“MYSTRA DAMN IT, MIKE!” Will shouts, then starts pounding his fist into the plastic panel in front of him.
“Hey!” the older boy snaps. “Lay off the Beemer, she didn’t do anything to you. Wait—why are you crying? Who’s Mystra? What is going on, man?”
“Raaaaaaagh!” Will screams.
The boy winces.
“You know what? On second thought, hit away. It’s better than assaulting my ears.”
Will really tries to collect himself.
He steadies his breathing. He puts his hands in his lap. He clears his mind.
Then he asks, as evenly as he can,
“Do you know where Jonathan is?”
“Your brother?”
“Sure. Answer the question.”
Steve blinks at him.
“No? I mean… probably Nancy’s house? They’ve been hanging out ever since she dumped me.”
“Who?”
Steve glances over so fast he nearly swerves.
“Will, what the fuck happened to you? Nancy. Mike’s sister?”
Will grimaces.
“Oh. I can’t go to Mike’s house either.”
Steve stares.
“Wait. Do you even know who I am?”
“Uh… yes.”
Steve narrows his eyes. “What’s my name?”
Will hesitates for just a fraction too long.
“Harry.”
“Steve, Will. Steve!” He throws one hand off the wheel in disbelief. “I was friends with Jonathan, like, five years ago. Wait—” His face changes. “So you just got into a random stranger’s car half naked?”
Will opens his mouth.
Steve cuts him off, horrified.
“Will, you can’t do that, buddy.”
“Sure. Okay, new plan: we go to Mike’s house, and I’ll use Invisibility. Then you see if Jonathan’s there. He’ll be able to contact Mrs. Byers, probably.”
“Will, I think you need to go to the hospital,” Steve says, his voice tightening with concern.
Will shakes his head, then comes to a decision.
“Pull over.”
“What?”
“Stop this Mystra-damned abomination. I need to tell you things that are not conducive to you continuing to operate it while you process them.”
Steve pulls the car to the side of the road and brings it to a stop. When he turns to Will, the concern on his face is plain.
“Will… is someone hurting you?” he asks quietly. “Is Lonnie back? Is he…” He swallows hard.
“Please just close your mouth for a moment.”
Will lifts a hand and conjures an image of a dragon—or what he thinks a dragon looks like. He has never actually seen one.
Steve stares at it, dumbfounded.
“Alright,” Will says, trying for brisk and only partly succeeding. “Quick version. I’m not really Will. The other one is alive, but not reachable. I am a wizard. Hawkins Lab is after me and my friends and Hopper, and my mom. Demons are real and apparently able to break through into this world now.” He takes a breath. “There is also something else going on in this town, but all the stupid rules of your world have kept me from finding anything.”
“Barb,” Steve says immediately.
Will blinks.
“Okay, you’re caught up. Nice to meet you, Steve. I am Will la Fey.” He points forward. “Now drive to the Wheelers’ house.”
For several long moments, Steve does nothing except open his mouth, close it, and open it again.
Finally, he says, “Okay then.”
Then he pulls back onto the road.

Chapter Text

Will Byers follows Mike the Brave, hand in hand, through the market district. Luco leads the group, while Dustir carries Elias on his back. The dwarf has dropped any pretense of grumbling about the piggyback rides; he’s quietly pointing out shopfronts as they pass, talking to the boy draped over his shoulders.
Will looks down at where his fingers are intertwined with Mike’s and feels a blush creeping up anyway.
“Captain,” Dustir says from behind them, “are we really going to spend double just for elvish bread instead of hard tack?”
“It’ll only bring rations to about sixteen gold, Dustir,” Mike replies, squeezing Will’s hand. They both know the real reason: Will has complained for three nights straight that his teeth still hurt from hard tack.
“It was two gold last time. And we were planning on a longer trip.”
“They also have magical effects,” Mike says. “Not as strong as potions, but it could be the edge we need.”
“Fine,” Dustir grumbles. “Spend a healing potion’s worth of gold on having it made by elves. Load of—”
Luco glances back.
Dustir coughs and abruptly changes course. “I mean… elven baking isn’t so bad, I suppose.”
Luco doesn’t dignify that with a response. He waves them toward a collection of tables surrounding an ornate green pavilion.
“Princling needs a bit of tea, huh,” Dustir says a little too loudly.
Elias giggles.
Luco sits. Will follows with Mike, and Dustir drags a chair over from another table while Elias clings to his back like a smug accessory.
“So, Captain,” Luco says, businesslike now, “we’ve got the quotes on bulk potions, rations plus a week reserve, and enchanted arrows for me. Since Will—like his counterpart—doesn’t need new spells, that leaves you and Dustir.”
“We could replace your bow,” Mike offers.
“I pulled another from the armory,” Luco says. “Enchanted this time.”
“Oh.” Mike clears his throat. “Well then… Dustir, I think you should get enchanted armor.”
Dustir grumbles, until Elias leans in and whispers something in his ear.
The dwarf blushes.
“…Fine,” Dustir mutters. “But I’m getting dwarf-made.”
“That’s sensible,” Luco says. “Buying cross-species gets uncomfortable. They aren’t used to your proportions.”
Dustir’s head snaps up. “What’s that supposed to mean? We’re not talkin’ regular plate, elf. We’re talkin’ enchanted.”
Luco blinks.
Dustir huffs, like he can’t believe he has to explain this. “Enchanted armor adjusts to fit the wearer.”
Will’s eyes go wide, delighted. “Oh. Oh, that’s so cool!”
Luco’s mouth twitches. “Right. Silver rank problems.”

“How much coin am I working with?” Dustir asks, still suspicious. “And you don’t want emergency scrolls?”
“The contract comes with five Sending scrolls,” Luco says. “They’re supposed to be used for immediate diplomatic contact once we retrieve the nobles, but Guildmistress Maxine understands that once we’re in the field, they’re assets.”
An elven woman—who Will realizes could be anywhere from fifteen to two hundred—sets a tea service on the table and begins pouring.
“Depends on how many potions we buy. With Luco’s order of arrows, I think we’d have about two thousand.”
“That could buy some mid-tier enchanted studded leather,” Dustir whispers, as if he never expected to have the option.
Elias squeezes the dwarf tighter.
Will picks up the teacup in front of him, takes a sip, and immediately tries to covertly drain the tea back into the cup. The taste is exceedingly bitter and earthy, and combined with the heat, it is deeply unpleasant, in his opinion.
He glances at Mike and sees the paladin covering his face with one hand.
“Not a fan, then?” Mike asks, amused.
“No.”
“It’s an acquired taste,” Luco says good-humoredly, taking a small sip of his own.
“I’m not seeing why you’d want to acquire it,” Will replies.
“So you don’t spit it back into the cup at formal functions,” Luco says, taking another deliberate sip.
Dustir drops his cup.
“Wait—oh, ouch!” He jerks back, slapping at his tunic as the scalding liquid soaks in. “Quick—presti-whatever, me wizard!”
“I don’t know it!” Will snaps, half-panicked, half-offended.
Mike grimaces. “I’m not wasting Lay on Hands on tea burns.”
“Create Water.”
Elias lifts one hand like it’s nothing. A sphere of water appears overhead and drops straight onto Dustir, soaking him completely.
Dustir sputters.
Elias keeps his hand raised.
“Control Water.”
The water on the dwarf shivers, then puffs into mist and peels away in a neat little cloud that drifts off and vanishes. Elias makes a pleased hum, then immediately climbs into Dustir’s lap like this is the obvious next step. He presses his face close and whispers something.
Mike stares. “Did he just—”
“I mean,” Will says, blinking hard, “he did say level eight.”
“That’s terrify—” Luco starts, voice low.
“Amazing,” Will corrects, absolutely sincere.
“As I was saying—” Dustir barrels right over them, because of course he does, one hand still patting at his damp clothes while Elias settles happily on his lap. He points a finger at Luco. “Elf. You think we’re going to have to attend a formal function after this mission, don’t you.”
Luco takes another sip of tea, unbothered. “Well, not necessarily. We could die and be resurrected as revenants by the necropolis.”
“No!” Dustir bellows. “I’m not attending some human noble party. I don’t care how much they’re payin’ me!”
“It won’t be that bad,” Luco says mildly. “Sylvain is known—particularly—for their fried duck. And their royal chef,” he adds, as if delivering a death sentence, “is said to have ended no fewer than seven conflicts with his rendition of the dish.”
Dustir pauses.
“Oh.” He clears his throat. “Well. I suppose I could make an exception.”
“I thought you might,” Luco says.

Chapter Text

Will la Fey begins to recognize the streets around them and says, “Invisibility,” wrapping the weave around himself.
Steve jerks on the wheel so hard he nearly clips a parked car.
“Jesus! Warn a guy, would you?” he snaps.
“Perhaps next time,” Will says.
Steve jumps again.
“That’s creepy,” he mutters. “Like my car is being haunted by Casper.”
“Who’s that?”
“Never mind. We’re here.”
“Wait.”
Will looks around carefully, searching for black vans or armored men. He doesn’t see any.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
The pair get out of the car. Steve looks in completely the wrong direction as he says,
“Is that really necessary? I don’t see anyone.”
“Just go inside.”
Steve whirls, throwing an arm over his face on reflex.
“Hurry up! It’s cold,” Will says, his patience for his savior wearing thin after the day he’s had.
Steve hurries to the front door of the Wheelers’ house, with Will following close behind, still invisible. He knocks.
After a few moments, a young woman in a black-and-white striped sweater pulls the door open.
“Steve? If this is some—”
“Nope!” Will says, without dropping Invisibility. “Not here for relationship drama.”
Nancy looks around, startled.
“Did you hear that?” she asks.
“Jonathan’s little brother?” Steve says. “Yeah. That’s what I’m here about.”
Nancy’s expression tightens. “What?”
“He’s here, but he doesn’t want to be seen, so—”
“What? Steve, are you drunk?”
“Mystra above, can you get out of the way, woman? It’s too damned cold outside!” Will shouts.
Nancy jumps. “Oh my God. What’s—”
Will shoves past her and into the house, sighing as he rubs his bare arms.
He turns back toward the open door.
“Well? You’re letting the heat out.”
Nancy stares at Steve. “What the fuck is happening?”
“Welcome to my afternoon,” Steve says. “Can I come in?”
“I guess so,” Nancy says faintly. “I already let a twelve-year-old ghost into the house.” Then she raises her voice. “Jonathan! Get down here! It’s Steve and… the disembodied voice of your brother!”
Steve steps inside just as Will hears footsteps on the stairs.
“Steve, close the blinds,” Will says.
“You got it,” Steve replies at once.
Nancy stares at him. “Wait. You’re taking orders from a ghost?”
“It’s… a longer story than that,” Steve says, already moving to shut the living room blinds.
Jonathan comes down the stairs and frowns.
“Nance, I don’t think I heard what you said after Steve,” he says. Then he notices the blinds. “And why are you closing those?”
“In case someone is watching the house,” Will says.
Jonathan jumps. Then his eyes narrow.
“You.”
His voice goes cold.
“Can we… not?” Will asks, but instinct still makes him take a few quiet steps to the left, putting Nancy between himself and Jonathan.
Jonathan points at him.
“I told you to stay away from me. And now you’ve dragged Nancy and Steve into your bullshit.”
Will narrows his own eyes and quickly runs through his options.
Nancy looks between them. “What did the ghost do to you?”
“He’s not a ghost,” Jonathan snaps. “He fucking replaced my brother and somehow got Mom—and your brother—on his side.”
“What?” Nancy says, turning sharply.
Will drops Invisibility.
“I did no such thing,” he says. Then, with a wince: “Well. I only accidentally did the first thing. But you never gave me the chance to explain myself.”
Nancy glances back at him and gasps.
“He’s not a ghost.”
“No,” all three males in the room say at once.
Jonathan stares at Will for a long second. Then his gaze drops over the soot, the scars, the bare arms.
“What the hell happened to you?” he asks, his voice softening.
Will just shakes his head and looks down.
“It’s… not been a good day.”
Nancy stares at him like she’s trying to decide if she should scream or grab a first-aid kit.
“Holy shit,” she says finally. “Why do you look like you ran through a forest fire after crawling through ten miles of barbed wire?”
“I don’t know what that second part means,” Will says, voice flat, “but I did run through a forest fire.” He swallows. “Can I have some water, please? Or—” he hesitates, defaulting to habit, “—table ale, if the water isn’t safe.”
Nancy blinks. “We have water.” Then she darts into the kitchen.
Jonathan’s gaze stays locked on Will’s torso. The scars. The soot.
“Jesus Christ,” he says, quieter. “Does Mom know about… those?”
Will nods once.
Jonathan exhales through his nose. “Well. That makes more sense.”
Will forces himself to lift his chin.
“Can we perchance start over, Jonathan?” he asks, trying for polite and landing somewhere near exhausted.
Jonathan studies him for a long beat, eyes tracing a backstory Will hasn’t said out loud.
“Yeah,” he says finally. “From the beginning.”
“Oh, good,” Steve says immediately, as if he’s been holding his breath this entire time. “Because I didn’t understand anything you told me in the car.” He points between them. “And maybe this time you can take longer than thirty seconds. Pictures optional.”
Nancy comes back from the kitchen with a glass of water. Will takes it, and gives her a small, grateful smile. He can see she’s caught between melting and abject terror.
“Water first,” she says, voice tight. “And a shower. Mike’s clothes should fit you.”
“Prestidigitation.” Will flicks his fingers. The soot puffs out of existence like it was never there. “I’ll give you a summary, but not here. The basement, maybe. This house probably isn’t safe.” He looks down at his bare arms. “Also—can I please have a shirt.”
He gulps the water down in one go.
“Mage Hand.”
A spectral hand appears. Will passes it the empty glass and points toward the sink like he’s directing a servant.
The hand floats obediently to the tap.
All three teens just… stare.
“So is that a no on the shirt?” Will asks, deadpan.
Nancy blinks like she’s rebooting, then marches upstairs on autopilot.
The Mage Hand starts refilling the glass.
Steve’s stare turns into a glare.
“Why didn’t you do that before you got in the Beemer?”
“I was being chased by men with guns and dogs,” Will says, like that should be self-explanatory.
Steve’s face drains. “What—what? I could have gotten shot?”
Will considers him for a beat, then steps closer and pats his arm with the air of someone soothing a hysterical villager.
“I think you should wait until you’re sitting down for more questions,” Will says gently. “You did great.”
Steve is still staring at him like he grew a second head.
“And,” Will adds, sincerely trying to help, “getting shot isn’t so bad.”
Steve makes a sound that is not a word.
Will points at the angry scar from his first encounter with the lab. “See? I’m fine.”
He tilts his head, studying Steve like a problem.
“Just stand there and look pretty until Nancy comes back with a shirt, okay?”
“Pretty?” Steve repeats, as though that is at least one point of confusion that won’t make his head explode.
Nancy comes back down the stairs and tosses Will a shirt and a sweatshirt. He pulls them on quickly.
“Okay,” he says, already shifting back into problem-solving mode. “We’re less likely to be seen from the basement, and I can protect you all a bit better with a chokepoint, so if you’ll please.”
He motions toward the basement door.
“Protect us?” Nancy asks as the Mage Hand floats by her. Will takes the refilled cup from it.
“Yes. Let’s go.”
The teens follow the boy wizard down to the basement. Will waits until they are all seated before he begins.
“My name is Will la Fey. I am a wizard, as you may have guessed.” He pauses. “Since I’m told that does not exist in this world…”
He holds out one hand, and an illusion blooms above his palm: a clash between his party and a pack of goblins in Grayhood.
“I fight monsters. Around a week ago…”
The image shifts to the moment before the switch.
“I swapped places with Will Byers, and I do not know why.”
He closes his hand, and the illusion vanishes.
“After I met Mike Wheeler, we found a girl in the woods. We think she escaped from Hawkins Lab, and they want her back.”
He opens his hand again and shows the moment the lab guards tried to surround the boys on their bikes. He closes his fist before the memory reaches the Fireball.
“Eventually, we told Joyce and Hopper about both El and me, and they agreed to help us. But the lab tracked us to Hopper’s cabin, and I offered myself in exchange for them leaving Mike, El, Hopper, and Joyce alone.”
He opens his hand one last time and briefly shows the confrontation with Brenner at the cabin, then closes it again when the memory lingers on Mike too long.
“I escaped once they were hidden. Then I met Steve on the road, and now I am here.”
He looks between the three of them.
“That is the summary. Any questions?”
“Didn’t you say demons the first time?” Steve asks reluctantly.
“Oh, right. Yeah.” Will nods. “Demons are able to enter this world now, and there’s something besides the lab hunting El. It might be connected to her and them, but we don’t know.”
Nancy just shakes her head.
“Well, my best friend is missing, and Jonathan got a photo of something taking her. We also found these weird mouths in trees that lead to… somewhere else.”
She looks at Will challengingly.
The boy smiles.
“Finally,” he says, almost reverently, “something I can actually understand in this Mystra-forsaken place. Do the trees have mouths, or is that just a metaphor for what the portals look like? Do the portals move, or close after a certain amount of time? Is the place different in location, or just temporarily? What does it look like? How long ago was she taken? Do you have the photo? What’s a photo?”
Will is practically vibrating now, taking small steps toward Nancy as he talks.
“Well, at least he’s still a nerd,” Steve says, elbowing Jonathan. “Like your Will.”
Jonathan is staring at Will, eyes wide.
“You… want to help?”
“Help?” Will says. “I want to take this over. But I probably don’t have enough context for this world, so I suppose you could help with the investigation.”
“Kid, you’re not taking over,” Nancy says.
Will rolls his eyes.
“Great. Another monster investigation I’m too young to participate in.”
“You just said you’re on the run from goons!”
“I can run and investigate,” Will says. “Those are, like, the main two things you do as an adventurer.”

Chapter Text

Will Byers pulls his paladin into bed.
“Mike, if you don’t go to sleep soon, you’re going to be exhausted all day tomorrow.”
“I know. It’s just…” Mike stares up at the ceiling. “What if I’m not smart enough to plan this?”
Will shifts closer at once. “Mike, you’ve been great.”
Mike laughs once, bitter and small. “Both of them died. He would have—”
“That’s not your fault, Mike,” Will cuts in. “Maxine trusts us, and we’ve got everyone together now. Plus…” He leans in close to Mike’s ear. “You know I came up with at least some of those plans before we swapped, right?”
Mike turns his head to look at him. “You? You came up with the plan to collapse a dam onto a goblin war band?” He squints. “Will, I know you’re smart enough, but I cannot reconcile that with the boy who stood in front of a sword to save a goblin.”
“Well,” Will says defensively, “it’s different when it’s miniatures and dice. Plus I’d just gotten Fireball, and—”
Mike groans and covers his face. “I don’t think this is helping anymore.”
Will winces. “Right. Sorry.” He presses closer. “You’ll do great.”
A thought occurs to him.
“Oh—I never asked. What skills did you get after I became a Moonwarden?”
Mike lowers his hands. “Shared Spellbook, something called Castle, and my smite has a different name now.”
“Castle?” Will frowns. “Like… the chess move?”
Mike stares back at him blankly.
“Maybe we can tes—wagh!”
The world lurches.
Will is suddenly on the other side of the bed, facing the wrong direction.
He flops over, scrambles upright, and stares at Mike with wide eyes, vibrating with delight.
“Amazing.”
Mike is still staring back at him, his face going red.
“Like you,” the paladin says softly.
Will’s whole face heats. He shoves his forehead into Mike’s chest.
“That is catastrophically embarrassing.”
Mike chuckles and wraps an arm around him.
“What are we going to do if one of them—”
“I will cast Sleep on you.”
“It doesn’t last.”
“Fine. I’ll have to find a different way to make you stop talking.”
Will hauls himself up and plants his lips against his paladin’s. When he pulls back, he whispers,
“Sleep.”
He doesn’t pull on the weave, but the spell works all the same.

The next morning, the party walks out through the main gate of Starterton. Will keeps turning back in wonder as the walls grow smaller and smaller behind them. When a bend in the road finally obscures the city that afternoon, Will takes in a shuddering breath.
“My first real adventure.”
“Aye. After this, I’m not allowed to call you newbie anymore,” Dustir says, and playfully punches his arm. “Though I probably will.”
“He saved your life, Dustir,” Luco says dryly.
“Doesn’t change that he’s a newbie.”
“Strong,” Elias says from Dustir’s back.
“Oi! If you’re gonna undermine me like that, maybe I want to swap places!”
The dwarf starts play-wrestling with the druid, halfheartedly trying to get him off his back. Will rolls his eyes as he sees Dustir still keeping one arm hooked around the smaller boy’s leg to help him balance.
Will’s hand finds Mike’s. He pulls the paladin closer and whispers,
“Let’s make it a good one.”
Luco holds up a hand.
The other four freeze.
“Combat up ahead. I’m hearing… ten combatants.”
“Any idea who?” Mike asks.
“Adventurers, and—damn it—four bears.”
“Move. Dustir up front with me. Will, stay with Luco. Elias, do whatever you want.”
The party charges forward. They round a bend in the road, and Will’s stomach drops.
Two armored figures are locked in one-on-one fights with bears off to one side, while a third stands over three supine bodies with two more bears circling.
“I thought bears were supposed to be solitary,” Will gasps, already out of breath.
“Wolfbears.”
“Dustir, help the melees in the one-on-ones! Luco, Will, take the ones circling the downed adventurers. Misty Step!”
Mike vanishes and reappears beside the armored figure guarding their fallen companions.
Dustir, with Elias still clinging to his back, starts sprinting toward the other melee—
—and an earsplitting roar rips through the clearing.
Dustir whoops as an adult wyvern with blue-and-gold coloring snatches him up in one talon.
Seconds later, the dwarf becomes a very dense and angry improvised bomb when the wyvern drops him from ten feet up.
“Isha’s blessings, Elias, what in the—” Luco starts.
The ringing crack of Mike’s shield intercepting a wolfbear’s swipe jerks both Will and Luco back to their own targets.
“Scorching Ray.”
Will thrusts his hand forward. Three lines of plasma erupt from his palm and punch clean through one of the wolfbears.
Luco draws back his new bow and looses an arrow. Instead of the familiar twang, the weapon answers with a sharp crack-THUM, and Will can’t even track the shot.
The second wolfbear’s head ceases to exist.
Will glances back toward the other fight and sees Dustir carrying Elias on his shoulders, whooping, while the other boy pumps both fists in the air.
Will rushes over to Mike, who is laying a hand on each of the downed adventurers in turn.
Two of them gasp and sit up.
The third does not.
“Martin, no—please, you have to wake up! Martin!” the armored figure beside Mike wails.
As Will closes the distance, he sees that the figure is a young woman, emerald eyes and blond hair visible beneath her helm.
Mike places a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s all right, miss. Starterton is less than a day away.”
She draws in a shuddering breath and drops to her knees, pulling the lifeless body against her chest.
“I know,” she says, voice broken. “It just… still hurts.”
The other two armored figures—both bearing a striking resemblance to the first—trudge into view.
One of them stares at the party and says, “Tyr’s fury… are you gold ranks?”
Luco shakes his head. “Silver. And our mission is time-sensitive, captain.”
Mike nods once, then rests a hand briefly on the first woman’s shoulder.
“Walk with the light, sister.”
He straightens and raises his voice.
“Dustir! We’re moving on. Come on.”
Will stays rooted in place for a moment, looking at the woman cradling Martin.
Is this what it means to be an adventurer?
Dustir jogs up beside him, Elias still perched on his shoulders.
“We can’t stay, Will,” the dwarf says, not unkindly. “Don’t make it harder on the captain. We did what we could. Now we move on.”
Elias pats the top of Will’s head.
Will swallows hard, then jogs to catch up with Mike.

Chapter Text

Will la Fey folds his arms, too tired to hide the fact that he’s pouting.
“Regardless, Jonathan,” he says, trying to sound brisk and failing, “do you have a way to contact your mother?”
Jonathan still looks like he’s processing Will’s summary in real time. His jaw works once before he answers.
“No. I tried the house, but no one answered.”
“Mike has a backup radio in his room,” Nancy says.
She’s already on her feet. Her face is set in that sharp, terrifying kind of determination that makes Will suspect she could stab a demogorgon with a spoon if she had to. She steps closer to him and lowers her voice like this is an oath.
“We work together. It sounds like the lab is connected to what happened to Barb, and I’m not sitting idle while my best friend is out there.”
Will nods, swallowing whatever argument he might’ve tried. Nancy leads him upstairs to Mike’s room and goes straight for the closet. She rummages for only a second before yanking out a radio and extending it toward Will.
“Do you know how to use this?”
Will shakes his head, exhausted and irritated at himself for it.
Nancy flips the antenna up to its full length and presses a button on the side.
“Boys,” she says crisply, “it’s Nance. Can anyone hear me?”
“Nance, put my stuff back!” Mike snaps immediately, tinny through the speaker.
Nancy rolls her eyes like she’s been waiting her whole life to do that.
“Mike. I have Will here.”
A beat.
“Oh.” Mike’s voice softens, relief bleeding through hard enough it makes Will’s chest tighten. “Thank you, Nancy.”
“That’s better,” Nancy says, satisfied.
Mike continues, voice dropping as if he can somehow make radio waves whisper. “Tell him: Castle Byers. I’ll lead him to the spot. And you should probably stay away from the house, Nance. Maybe go to Steve’s.”
“Stop being mushy, Mike,” Nancy says, already moving. “I’m coming with him.”
“No!” Mike barks, sudden and sharp with fear. “It’s not safe.”
“That’s why it’s my responsibility to come protect you,” Nancy shoots back, unflinching.
A long, defeated exhale crackles through the radio. “Whatever. Over.”
“Hi, Nancy,” Dustin’s voice pops in, bright as a firecracker.
Nancy shuts the radio off before Will can hear what else comes spilling out.
“You heard him,” she says, turning on her heel. “Let’s go collect Hair for Brains and your… fake brother.” Then she pauses, recalibrating. “Wait—actually, could you grab some clothes for him and meet me downstairs? I’ll get the other two.”
Will folds his arms again and mutters something foul about stupid Sending spells, then drags himself over to Mike’s dresser. He rifles through it and pulls together a few outfits by instinct more than thought.
His gaze catches on a binder on Mike’s desk.
GRAYHOOD.
Will’s stomach drops. He shudders, forcibly looking away, and heads for the door before he can spiral.
Downstairs, his legs remind him—loudly—that he sprinted for nearly an hour straight earlier today. He winces with each step, stubbornly refusing to limp.
Jonathan takes the front seat of Steve’s car, leaving Will and Nancy in the back as they pull away from the Wheeler house.
Will keeps tracking his spell slots in his head—like that’s going to make him feel less like prey—while glancing out the rear window every few seconds, expecting black vans and black-clad men to bloom into existence behind them.
They don’t.
Not yet.
The car slows and stops where Jonathan points. Nancy is out first, already halfway into command mode.
She hands Jonathan the radio. “Stay with Steve. Keep looking for Barb.”
“Come on, Nance,” Jonathan protests, frustration fraying his voice.
“No.” Nancy doesn’t even blink. “My brother is in danger.” Then she looks past him, right at Steve. “So I’m asking—both of you—to help me.”
Steve’s face tightens, but he nods. Jonathan hesitates, then gives in with a grim little huff.
“Fine.”
Will leads Nancy through the darkening forest in the direction of Castle Byers. By the time they reach the half-collapsed fort, dusk has given way to night, and the air has gone sharp with cold.
A voice from inside, strained and disbelieving all at once:
“Will?”
Will’s heart stutters. “Mike?”
The door flies open.
Mike Wheeler is there—and then he isn’t, because he’s already moving, slamming into Will like the last hour has been one long held breath and he can’t hold it anymore. Will loses his balance instantly; they tumble into the leaves in a messy, breathless heap.
Mike kisses him—quick, fierce, more relief than romance and somehow both—and pulls back just enough to glare at him with wet eyes.
“You’ve got to stop doing that!”
Will blinks up at him, dazed. “Doing what?”
“Going off alone,” Mike snaps, voice shaking with anger that is absolutely just fear underneath, “and making me think you’re going to die!”
Mike leans in like he’s going to kiss him again—like that’s the only way to make the world stop wobbling—
—and Will clears his throat sharply, heat rushing into his face.
“Mike,” he says, trying for stern and landing on breathless, “I don’t mind, but… Nancy’s here too.”
Silence hangs for one vicious second.
Behind them, Nancy coughs. Not loudly.
Just loudly enough.
Mike groans and collapses onto Will. “Nooooo.” He whines.
“Get off the ground,” Nancy says, brisk and unimpressed. “It’s November, and we’re in the middle of a forest. Will’s been through enough today without catching a cold.”
Mike scrambles to his feet, already babbling, cheeks flaming.
“Nance, it’s not what it looked like—it’s dark, and I just tripped. I’m not, like—”
“Mike.” Nancy cuts him off, all sharp practicality. “Not the time. And that is the lamest lie I’ve ever heard.” She exhales, steadying herself, then adds with pointed emphasis, “I have several questions, and the list is growing. But let’s start with getting inside.”
Mike makes a small, defeated noise and leads them away from Castle Byers.
They walk in near silence for several minutes—until the third time Mike nearly walks straight into a tree.
“Light,” Will says, dry as dust.
He flicks his fingers, and an orb of white radiance blooms over his shoulder, turning the branches into stark silhouettes and the path into something almost sane.
“I think this should be your next cantrip,” Will mutters, bumping Mike’s shoulder with a tired little nudge.
Nancy clears her throat.
Will glances back at her, brows lifting in a silent what now?
Nancy stares at him for a beat, the mock-chiding she’d been wearing slipping into something more honest—confused, wary, and a little too sharp around the edges.
“You… don’t care that I know?” she asks carefully.
Will blinks, genuinely puzzled. “What? That I’m teaching him magic? No, not really.”
Nancy’s eyes narrow. “That I saw that flirting.”
“Why would I?” Will asks, like the concept is mildly strange but not especially alarming.
“Because it’s not safe,” Nancy hisses, stepping closer as if the trees themselves might be listening. “Queer people like us can’t just—”
Mike stops so abruptly Will bumps into his back.
“What did you say?” Mike whispers, voice thin and stunned, like one wrong syllable will snap him in half.
Nancy pinches the bridge of her nose, exasperation warring with something softer. “Ugh. Later, Mike. I promise. There could be coyotes.”
Will considers that for a solemn moment, eyes flicking to the darkness beyond the light.
“As long as they aren’t dire coyotes,” he says, dead serious, “I can handle them without any issue.”
“Fine,” Nancy says, throwing up her hands. “You know what? Fine. Let’s do this here. Let’s just freeze our toes off—”
Will points at the ground.
A five-foot-tall flame blossoms to life, clean and steady, and the sudden warmth bites through the cold like a promise. He dismisses the floating light-orb with a thought and keeps his focus on the modified Create Bonfire.
“—or just solve that too with magic. Whatever,” Nancy finishes, blinking once like she’s trying to remember what reality used to feel like. She drags in a steadying breath and squares her shoulders.
“Mike,” she says, voice clipped with determination, “I like both. Girls and boys.”
Mike’s mouth drops open.
Will shrugs, turning his palms toward the heat as if this is merely a conversational pit stop on the way to saving the world.
“Will’s my boyfriend,” Mike blurts, sounding more stunned than embarrassed—like the sentence escaped before he could stop it.
Nancy rolls her eyes so hard it’s practically a somatic spell.
“No kidding. How’s the other one going to take that?”
Mike turns beet red so fast it’s impressive.
“We’re just friends,” he squeaks.
“Good,” Nancy says flatly, “because this one’s been through enough without you using him to cheat.”
Mike makes a strangled, incoherent sound of protest—half indignation, half mortified sputter.
“Hey,” Will cuts in, smiling despite himself, “it’s my job to make him do that.”
“I have seniority,” Nancy replies, deadpan, not even looking at him.
Mike rubs his hands together near the fire like the warmth might organize his thoughts. “Do Mom and Dad—?”
“No,” Nancy says instantly. “God, no.” She huffs a humorless laugh. “Have you seen the shit Dad watches on TV?” Her expression twists. “You weren’t supposed to know for like… two or three years. When you visited me in college.”
Mike swallows, gaze fixed on the fire as if it’s safer than either of them.
“I—” His voice drops to a whisper. “I think I only like boys.”
Nancy freezes for half a heartbeat—then her face softens, the sharpness draining out like someone pulled a plug. She steps forward and wraps Mike in a hug, firm and protective, one hand stroking the back of his head.
“Thank you for telling me,” she murmurs. “It’s so hard. And I hoped you wouldn’t have to deal with it like I did.” She pulls back just enough to look at him, eyes bright with something fierce and careful. “And—” She gestures vaguely, helplessly, up and down Will’s entire person, as if he’s a weather system. “It definitely seems like you won’t. I’m here, and… he’s a lot, but I’m starting to think you won’t have much to worry about with him around.”
“A lot?” Will echoes, offended on principle. “What do you—”
“No,” Mike cuts in immediately, voice rising as the panic finally finds a target. “He runs off to get himself killed like every other day! I’m worried all the time because of him!”
“That seems a bit unfair,” Will says, perfectly deadpan, holding his hands closer to the bonfire like he’s warming himself on Mike’s audacity.
The siblings ignore him with practiced ease.
Nancy releases a long breath and gives Mike a look that says welcome to the club. “Huh. Well. I guess it comes with the territory.”

Chapter Text

Will Byers bites his lip as the party rounds yet another bend in the long road.
“Will they be okay?” he asks Mike the Brave in a quiet voice.
“They were less than a day’s travel from Starterton, Will. And that armor…”
The paladin glances at Luco, then lowers his voice and leans in.
“Probably nobles playing at being adventurers. They won’t have an issue with the fee.”
Elias runs over and tugs at Will’s sleeve. “You watched?”
“Some. I had my own bear, Elias.”
“Dustir and me strong!” The boy beams.
Will keeps himself from pointing out that they were terrifyingly strong and nods.
“Whose idea was the Dustir bomb?” Will asks.
“Me!” Elias says.
“And you agreed to be dropped from the sky, Dustir?” Mike asks, incredulous.
“He—” Dustir grumbles. “He said it would be fun.”
“Woooosh!” Elias exclaims. Then he rattles off a full sentence in a language that hits Will’s ear like German—hard consonants, fast and breathy.
Will only picks up one word—“Dustir.”
“Elias,” Will asks, frowning, “what language is that?”
“Dwarf,” Elias replies, still bouncing on his toes like the answer should be obvious.
Luco’s mouth twitches. “It’s a dialect. Mostly Dwarvish, with a bit of Tiefling mixed in.” Then he says a sentence that makes Elias giggle—and makes Dustir stop dead in the road.
“Oh no. No, no, no—” Dustir splutters, staring at Luco like he’s been personally betrayed. “You damned princeling elf! How do you—no!”
Luco just chuckles, entirely too pleased with himself.
“You’ve understood us the entire time?!” Dustir demands, horror rising.
“Indeed,” Luco says, mild as morning tea.
“NO!” Dustir throws his hands up. “You can’t—your kingdom isn’t even close! Why would you learn a language that wouldn’t be useful?!”
“I’m finding it was time very well spent,” Luco says smoothly.
Dustir’s outrage flips into frantic bargaining so fast it’s almost impressive. “What do you want, elf? I’ll clean all your dishes, anything—just don’t—”
“Dwarf,” Luco cuts in, calm but suddenly firm, “I have no intention of giving away secrets. Least of all a friend’s, and even less his.” His gaze flicks briefly toward Elias before returning to Dustir.
Dustir’s face shifts—pleading to mischievous in the span of a heartbeat.
“I’m your friend?” he says, grinning like he’s found a weakness. “Not just a party member anymore, eh? How are your high-and-mighty elf friends gonna feel about that?”
“I don’t care,” Luco says, simple as a fact. “You’re—well, pleasant isn’t the word, but you’re agreeable to be around. You pull your weight and then some. And you’re loyal.” His voice goes a touch quieter. “After the giant… I can’t lie anymore.”
“Damn it.” Dustir rubs at his face like he’s trying to wipe off the sincerity. “You big softie. Why’d you have to go and—agh, fine. I see you as a friend too.”
Will lifts a hand, trying to steer the conversation back onto the rails. “That’s nice and all, but what about Elias being able to speak?”
Elias pokes him, offended. “Always speak,” he says. “You no hear.”
Mike shakes his head, jaw tight as he looks ahead down the road. “Let’s just keep moving,” he says quietly. “Please.”
Dustir nods enthusiastically and starts walking again. Will stays still a beat too long and has to jog to catch up with Mike.
He catches the paladin’s hand and leans in. “But what are they talking about?” he whispers.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mike murmurs back. “Either it’s not our concern, or they’re not ready. Either way, we leave it alone.”
Ahead of them, Luco gives Mike a thumbs-up without turning around.
“But I want to know,” Will mutters.
Luco holds up a fist.
“Group up ahead,” he says quietly. “A dozen or so.”
Will squints. A brown blotch sits on the road miles ahead.
“Bandits?” Mike asks, already shifting his shield strap.
“Nah,” Luco says. “Probably a caravan. But they’re stopped.”
“Keep on, then,” Mike says. “Can’t keep the nobles waiting.”
Luco drops his hand and they press forward. Half an hour later the blotch resolves into a circle of wagons pulled off to one side of the road.
Several figures step out to put themselves between the party and the wagons.
“Intentions!” one of them shouts, hands cupped around his mouth.
Mike does the same. “Adventurers on mission!”
The figures ease—bows lowering, shoulders loosening. Their leader calls back, “Any of you strong?”
“Yeah!” Dustir yells before anyone else can answer.
“Could you lend a hand?”
“On the way!”
It takes another few minutes to reach them. Up close, they’re a small guard team—archers, all of them, faces tight with panic.
Their leader steps forward. “We’re bronze-rank,” he says quickly. “Hired as guards, but we’re only ranged. A horse snapped a leg and it’s got a kid pinned. We’re trying to pull it off with ropes, but it’s not looking good.”
Mike doesn’t waste breath. He just motions to Dustir and breaks into a sprint toward the center of the wagon circle.
Will follows, and his stomach twists when he sees the accident.
The horse is on its side, eyes rolling white, breathing too fast. It whinnies—high and broken—every time someone touches it. Beneath its barrel, Will can see only the upper half of a girl with orange hair in a messy braid. She’s pale, eyes glassy, gasping like she can’t get enough air.
Mike drops to his knees beside her.
“Hey,” he says, gentle and steady. “Hello there, miss. My name is Mike. I’m a paladin.” He keeps his hands where she can see them. “You’re going to be just fine, okay? We’re going to get this horse off you. It might hurt a bit, but I can heal you right after. Just stay still for me.”
The girl’s lip trembles. “I’m scared, Mr. Paladin.”
Will kneels on her other side and offers his hand.
“It’s okay,” he says softly. “Can you look at me?”
Her eyes flick to his—and she grabs his hand with surprising strength, like she’s anchoring herself to the only solid thing left.
Mike nods once at Dustir. They move to either end of the horse, bracing their feet in the dirt and sliding their hands under the animal.
“Ready?” Mike calls.
“Aye,” Dustir grunts.
“Lift!”
The horse rises.
Will’s vision swims the moment the girl is exposed—too much blood, wrong angles, the shape of her body not matching what it’s supposed to be. She goes even paler, and her fingers slip from his.
“Hold it!” Mike barks. “Dustir—hold it up! Luco!”
Luco is there in an instant, taking Mike’s place at the horse without a word.
Mike moves—three fast steps—and slams a glowing hand into the girl’s shoulder.
“Lay on Hands!”
Something crunches. Something wet shifts.
Will hears it—and his brain simply refuses.
The world goes black.

Chapter Text

Will la Fey squints as both Wheeler siblings turn to him. Mike looks almost giddy despite everything, like the panic in his chest has finally found somewhere else to go. Nancy’s face shifts into appraisal—quick, sharp, and thorough.
She puts an arm out and nudges Mike behind her, never taking her eyes off Will.
“I suppose the accent is a bonus,” she says, cool as ice, “for some people. The attitude suits you, too.”
“Hey!” Will bristles. “I’m polite enough.”
Nancy ignores him like he’s a mosquito. “Can you even read?”
“Of course I can read,” Will snaps. “I’m a wizard. I study the arcane arts under the greatest wizard who ever lived.”
Nancy’s gaze flicks to Mike. “How many times have you made him cry since you got here?”
“I— that’s not—” Will starts, heat rising in his cheeks.
“Nancy, that’s not fair,” Mike cuts in too fast, like he’s afraid she’ll decide something irreversible. “Most of them weren’t his fault.”
Nancy doesn’t blink. “Is this only because you’re here?” Her voice stays level, but her eyes don’t. “Are you going to jump at the first chance you get to go back to wherever you came from?”
“I—” Will starts, ready to answer automatically, and finds nothing clean to grab onto. He swallows. “It’s not just because I’m here. I… I still don’t know if I can even go back.”
“Fine.” Nancy’s head tilts, like she’s checking off boxes. “Who is the most important person to you, right now?”
“Him.” Will doesn’t have to think about it.
Nancy’s eyes linger on him a beat longer, then slide to her brother. “Does he make you happy, Mike?”
“Yes.” Mike doesn’t hesitate.
“Fine.” Nancy’s voice drops; whatever warmth existed evaporates. “But if you hurt him, magic boy, I don’t care what you can do. I’ll come for you.”
For a heartbeat the cold in her tone is so real that Will takes an involuntary step back. He believes her—absurd as it is to imagine her trying to best him in a fight—because he’s met this kind of certainty before, and it never bluffs.
“Who else knows?” Nancy asks after a beat, eyes still on Will like she’s measuring him for weak points.
“Mrs. Byers, El, and Hopper…” Mike answers.
Nancy’s brows shoot up. “Seriously? Chief Hopper?”
“He’s been avoiding it,” Mike mutters.
“Alright.” Nancy exhales through her nose. “How much farther to the hiding spot?”
“Ten minutes, I think.”
“Then let’s go.”
Will lets the bonfire gutter out and flicks his fingers; the warmth dies, replaced by a steady orb of light hovering over his shoulder. The three of them walk in a tight, uneasy silence until the trees thin into a clearing.
A sagging fence surrounds a scatter of broken-down vehicles, ribs of metal catching the light like bones.
Nancy stops short. “Mike—seriously? A junkyard?”
“There’s a bus that’s at least warm,” Mike says, defensive on reflex. “And it has food. Hopper is… weirdly prepared to live off the grid.”
He leads them to a large yellow vehicle and knocks.
A second later Hopper appears from around the front, shotgun lowered but not put away.
“Mike,” he snaps—then sees Nancy. “Why is she here?”
“Because I found out my brother is wrapped up in some government conspiracy,” Nancy says, stepping forward like she owns the dirt under her boots, “and I’m in charge.”
Hopper blinks, like his brain stalls on the audacity. Then he just points at the bus with the hand not holding the gun.
“Just—go inside.”
Mike doesn’t waste the opening. He ushers Nancy up the steps.
Will moves to follow, but Hopper catches his shoulder with a heavy hand.
“That was stupid, reckless, and brave beyond reason, kid,” Hopper says, voice rough around the edges. “Will… thank you.”
“It’s what I do,” Will says automatically.
Hopper’s face tightens. He pulls Will into a hug anyway—too hard, too human.
“You shouldn’t have to,” Hopper mutters into his hair.
Will wriggles free, cheeks hot, and bolts up the steps.
He makes it two feet into the bus before he’s swallowed by a two-person hug—El and Joyce, arms wrapping around him like they’re afraid he’ll vanish again.
“Are you okay?” Joyce demands, tipping her head back to look at his face, scanning him like she’s counting injuries by sight. “Did they hurt you?” Then she sniffs, expression sharpening. “Why do you smell like smoke?”
Will hesitates. His stomach drops.
“I—well. I was being chased by dogs, and they had my scent, so…”
Hopper’s voice cracks like a whip from outside the bus. “You started that forest fire!”
Will’s shoulders hunch. “Sorry,” he says, small.
“You could have been killed!” Hopper barks, stepping closer. “People’s houses almost got caught in that! We had to call in ten other departments. Two firefighters are in the hospital!”
Something in Will’s chest seizes, hard enough to steal his breath.
He stares at Hopper, horror dawning too late.
“Are they going to be okay?” he whispers.
Hopper’s face reddens and he takes a step toward Will—then stops. He closes his eyes, drags in a breath, and lets it out slow, like he’s forcing himself back into control.
“Yeah, kid,” he says, voice rougher than he means it to be. “Smoke inhalation. Their masks weren’t sealing right.” His jaw tightens. “But this is why I don’t want you on the front lines. Maybe I would’ve made that call. Maybe I wouldn’t. Either way—you shouldn’t have to be dealing with hurting innocent people.”
“I didn’t know what else to do.” Will’s voice shakes. He’s been trying to do this alone for a week—adventure alone, survive alone—and the moment Hopper names the civilians, the helplessness he’s been burying finally claws its way into the light.
How am I supposed to do this without them?
Will sinks to the floor and hugs his knees, the world narrowing to the ache in his chest.
“You’re right,” he whispers, and the words start tumbling. “I’m—I’m stupid. I’m worthless. I should’ve found another way. That’s my job. I should have—”
He squeezes his eyes shut.
A hand pinches his cheek. Hard.
“You stop that right now.”
Will blinks his eyes open—and Mike is there, face inches from his, furious in a way that looks a lot like fear.
“How many guards?” Mike asks, flat and fast.
“Thirty or forty,” Will manages.
“Dogs?”
“Five. Yeah. They had my scent.” His throat tightens. “They have my shirt.”
“And you didn’t hit any of them with the fireball?”
“No.”
Mike’s gaze flicks away for half a second, like he’s running the scenario in his head whether he wants to or not. Then he looks back at Will.
“Sounds like the right call to me,” he says quietly—too steady for a twelve-year-old.
“He endangered civilians,” Hopper says, low.
Mike turns toward him, eyes sharp.
“Would you let the lab dissect him?” Mike asks. “Or whatever they were going to do?” His voice rises, cracking at the edges. “Do you think he would’ve gotten away again?”
“These aren’t questions he should have to answer!”

“I don’t know if you noticed,” Mike says, voice climbing, “but the lab doesn’t seem to care how old we are!” His hands shake—fear and fury tangled so tight they’re the same thing. “They pointed guns at me. Twice!”
Hopper starts to answer, jaw tight, but Mike barrels right over him.
“And you haven’t been able to do shit about it! Will saved us when they tried to take El on the street. Will traded himself to buy us time to hide here!”
His breath hiccups. His eyes are wet. He looks like he hates that almost as much as he hates everything else.
“Gust!”
The burst of wind slams into Hopper’s chest and shoves him back a step.
“Mike—” Hopper starts, more alarm than anger now.
“Gust!” Mike snaps again, and then again—each one a rough shove of air that keeps Hopper off balance, drives him back until his shoulders hit the side of the bus with a dull thump.
“Do something!” Mike’s voice cracks. “Huh? Can’t you?” Tears spill, hot and furious. “I’m just a kid—gust!”
Will’s stomach drops. He raises a hand.
“Vortex Warp.”
The air folds. Hopper vanishes and reappears behind Will with a startled grunt—upright, safe, no longer a target.
Will straightens, planting himself between them.
“Enough,” Will says. His voice breaks on the word anyway.
Mike whips toward him like he’s been slapped. Tears track down his cheeks, and his face is twisted with something rawer than anger.
“I just want to be normal,” he chokes out. “I want to go back to how things were before.”
“I know,” Will says softly.
Mike’s eyes widen as the meaning catches up to his own words.
“No—no, not like that.” He shakes his head hard, frantic. “Will— not you. I still want you. I just want the lab, and the guns, and the—”
“You don’t,” Will says, too quiet.
Mike freezes.
“It would’ve been easier for you if I never came here,” Will continues, and he hates that his throat is tightening. He hates that he can’t make his voice brisk and controlled. “You’d have the real Will, too. Not… not an imaginary copy.”
“Will—” Mike steps forward.
“It’s okay,” Will says quickly, like he can talk his own heart out of breaking. “I understand. I promise I’ll get him back for you. You don’t have to pretend to spare my feelings.”
“I’m not pretending!” Mike’s voice jumps up an octave. His hands clench, helpless. “Stop it!”
Will’s eyes sting. “I—”
“No!” Mike surges forward. “You aren’t—” He swallows so hard it hurts to watch. “Will, I love you!”
Will finds himself—again—without the right words.
He wants to deny it. To say Mike doesn’t mean it, that it’s too soon. He can’t. Not when Mike is shaking, not when his eyes look wrecked in that way Will recognizes too well.
“Please don’t go, Will,” Mike says, voice raw. “You are my Will. Don’t sacrifice yourself just because you don’t believe that.” His mouth works, like the word catches. “I— I need you.”
Will collapses into him and grumbles into his shoulder, because it’s safer than letting his voice do anything earnest.
“Two things. I want to hear you say that again when you really mean it… and stop bullying the nonmagical people just because you have two cantrips.”
Mike’s arms wrap around him—tight, shaking, real.
For half a heartbeat, Will’s mind tries to conjure Mike the Brave: armor, certainty, a shield between Will and the world.
But instead it chooses the boy holding him now. The one in front of him. Around him.
Safe.
Will’s eyes close.
And he passes out.

Chapter Text

Will Byers wakes on the fifth day of the party’s journey to the necropolis. As they draw closer to their destination, the land itself seems to darken. Even during the day, low clouds obscure the sun. Plants look less vibrant. Trees have become gnarled masses of wood with small, dark green leaves. The air feels wrong—too heavy, too cold.
They break camp and return to the road. They haven’t encountered anything living in two days.
An hour into their march, Luco holds up a fist. His eyes narrow, listening.
“Formation,” he murmurs, voice clipped. “Company-sized. I say hide.”
Mike’s hand tightens around his shield strap. “Who would be marching out here?” he asks, a note of disbelief slipping through. “Did Sylvain convince Merlin to teleport a unit?”
“No idea,” Luco says, not looking away from the treeline. “Pass without a trace.”
Will feels the ranger tug on the weave—and the world seems to swallow them. Shadow folds over his shoulders like a cloak. The brush muffles their footsteps. Even Will’s breathing feels too loud, too risky.
He grabs Mike’s hand, clinging to the warmth of it, and they rush off the road. They wedge themselves behind the trees and wait. Will is too afraid to breathe.
The first thing he notices is the sound.
Over a hundred pairs of feet hitting the ground in rapid succession. Armor clinking against bone. The steady tap-tap-tap of weapons striking in time. Then—closer, sharper—the chattering of teeth.
Will risks a glance around the trunk he and Mike are hiding behind.
His stomach drops.
Skeletons. A hundred or more, marching in formation along the road. Most carry pikes and shields. A few—stationed along the edges like handlers—hold swords, and they’re the ones making that chattering sound, snapping their jaws as they bully the pike skeletons back into line.
No. No, no, no. Undead are supposed to be stupid. Their terror is supposed to come from sheer number, or how hard they are to put down—not… discipline.
A skeleton wearing a blood-red cape walks beside the line. Its helmet is crested with horsehair dyed purple and streaked red, the plume swaying with each step like a banner.
The caped skeleton crouches at the edge of the road and touches something—an old scuff in the dirt, a faint trace Will can’t even see. Then it lifts its skull.
Burning purple flames dance in its empty sockets.
They lock, impossibly, straight through the trees—straight through the shadow cloak—directly onto Will.
Will’s blood turns to ice.
The skeleton chatters its teeth once, sharp as a command.
That same chatter spreads in a wave up and down the line, a sound like knives clicking together. Heads turn in unison. Shields shift. Pikes angle.
The caped skeleton rises. It draws its sword with a slow, deliberate scrape of metal on bone.
And then a voice—like gravel dragged through a concrete tube—rolls out across the road.
“Come out, come out, little adventurers,” it calls, amused in a way that makes Will’s skin crawl. “Show me what skill still lingers in this new age.”
Will’s whisper comes out thin. “Not good.”
A wave of magic ripples over him—cold and wrong, like something running its fingers down his spine.
“Oh,” the caped skeleton calls, voice ringing with cruel delight. “A paladin. Will you stain your honor by fleeing from your foe?” It lifts its sword in a lazy salute. “You are to be a light against the darkness. Here I am.”
The words feel aimed, not just taunting—like the thing knows exactly where to press.
“Captain, don’t take the—damn it. Dustir, back him up!” Luco barks, already moving. His voice turns sharp as a drawn blade. “Will—any area attacks would be great!”
Mike’s hand slips from Will’s as he rises, sword coming free of its scabbard with a clean, hungry sound.
“By my oath,” the paladin says, voice steady even as the air chills around him, “you shall find eternal slumber.”
Crack—THUM.
Luco fires his first arrow. It whistles past the caped skeleton and lands dead-center in the formation—then detonates, a sharp bloom of force that flings bones and splinters pikes.
The caped skeleton throws its skull back and laughs. “Yes! At least you aren’t bronze-ranks. That would have been no fun.”
Will forces his shaking hands to be useful. He stands, points, and snaps the word out like a command he has to believe.
“Web.”
A widening net of sticky, gleaming strands rockets from his hand and splatters across a dozen pikemen. The front rank jerks to a halt—bones snagging, pikes tangling—formation stuttering.
Dustir barrels past Will with Elias clinging to his back. The druid drops off mid-run.
Green light flashes. Leaves rustle like a gale through branches.
And suddenly a twelve-foot gorilla is where the boy was.
The ape snatches Dustir up one-handed like he weighs nothing and lets out a roar that vibrates in Will’s ribs. Then it charges straight into the pikes.
Mike and the caped skeleton begin to circle each other, slow and deliberate—two duelists in the eye of a storm.
“Watch my back, Luco!” Will yells, and rushes for Mike.
The front rank of pike skeletons starts to wrench free of the web as Elias bounds over them and drops Dustir straight into the center of the formation. Will can’t see what the dwarf is doing through the wall of bones—but skulls and ribs begin soaring in every direction as Elias slams his massive fists down again and again.
“Burning Hands!” Will snarls as he cuts past the circling duelists and closes within a few feet of the front line. Flame roars from his palms, washing over the pike skeletons and igniting the web in an instant.
Crack—THUM. An arrow obliterates a skeleton sergeant rushing up on Will’s right.
Will holds out his hand. His blade of moonlight snaps into existence, bright and weightless.
He waits a breath—just long enough for the formation to fully commit to Dustir and Elias—then pivots.
Mike and the caped skeleton are trading blows impossibly fast, but what makes Will’s mouth go dry is this: every time Mike blocks, he slides backward.
An actual giant hadn’t moved the paladin an inch.
Will charges, sword raised high—
—and the skeleton knocks Mike back with a single strike, then whirls and parries Will’s slash in the same motion. Will’s moonlight blade skids off-line. The skeleton’s sword thrusts forward.
Shield flares just in time. The tip screeches off the bubble of force inches from Will’s throat.
“Moonwarden.” The caped skeleton’s voice turns almost pleased. “Delightful. I haven’t seen that class in three thousand years.” Its burning purple gaze flicks between them, measuring. “Perhaps your bond will be strong enough to grant me my rest at last.”
It turns mid-motion and catches Mike’s next strike like it’s nothing—steel on bone with a sharp, ugly ring.
Mike’s sword shatters.
The paladin goes white for half a heartbeat—then the skeleton tilts its skull, almost playful.
“Or perhaps not,” it sing-songs.
Mike doesn’t freeze. He drops the ruined hilt without looking and shifts his grip, both hands locking onto his shield. He surges forward and rams the edge toward the skeleton’s ribs like he’s trying to turn defense into a weapon.
“Too slow.”
The skeleton answers with a balled fist to Mike’s chest. The impact knocks him backward like he weighs nothing.
It whirls back to Will, blade flashing.
Will throws himself backward—panic and instinct both screaming—
Not far enough.
Shield flares again, snapping into place with a hard, shimmering bloom. The skeleton’s sword scrapes off it with a sound that makes Will’s teeth ache.
“Too weak,” the skeleton purrs. “Not enough magic.”
Will’s throat tightens. He watches, helpless, as the skeleton lunges for Mike’s shield and clamps a hand around it. For a second it’s less a duel than a wrestling match—bones and muscle and sheer force, the paladin straining, boots digging furrows in the dirt.
Mike’s eyes lock on Will’s. There’s fear there—then choice.
“Thunderwave!”
Will feels the spell activate from inside his own mind, borrowed through the bond. The thread between them pulls taut—hot, humming—like a bowstring drawn to breaking.
Force explodes outward.
The skeleton is hurled backward and hits the ground hard, landing prone in a scatter of cape and bone.
Will releases his grip on his own weapon without thinking. The moonlight blade vanishes from his hand.
Mike closes his fist—
—and the same moonlight blade blooms into existence in his grip.
Will rolls to his feet, lungs burning.
Mike brings the moonlight blade down into the skeleton’s chest.
“Scorching Ray!” Will points, and three lines of blue-and-gold plasma lance out at once. They slam into the caped skeleton at the exact moment the sword bites through bone—
—and the impact erupts in a flash of sunlight so bright it steals Will’s vision.
When the world swims back into focus, he blinks hard, spots dancing across his eyes. Mike is standing over a helmeted skull.
The rest of the skeleton is simply… gone.
The skull’s jaw chatters once, softer now—almost reverent.
“Truly a sight to behold,” it rasps, voice thinning like smoke. “Young love.” A pause, and something like relief cracks through the gravel. “Priscilla… I’m coming…”
The purple flames in its sockets gutter out.
Behind them, the noise of Dustir and Elias’s melee dies mid-swing.
Will twists, heart hammering, and watches it happen: pike skeletons crumple where they stand. Piles of bone collapse in a cascading rattle as the magic animating them snaps—cut clean, like a cord severed.
For a heartbeat, Will can’t breathe. Then the adrenaline hits him all at once—hot, shaking, euphoric.
He sprints.
“Mike!”
He crashes into the paladin, arms around his shoulders, and kisses him—hard and immediate, like it’s the only language his body has left.
When he pulls back, his grin is wild and breathless.
“That! Was! So! Badass!”

Chapter Text

Will la Fey hears the familiar voice as he slowly returns to consciousness.
“Wizard Level Seven obtained. Spells: Storm Sphere, Wall of Water, obtained.”
It is much clearer now than it had been on that first night, and he isn’t sure how to feel about that.
The wizard opens his eyes. Mike is wrapped around him, snoring softly. Will carefully works himself free of the boy’s grip, glances around the bus, and locks eyes with Hopper. Without a word, he slips outside.
Hopper joins him a moment later.
“Not looking to start another argument,” Hopper says, rubbing the back of his neck, “but you know that’s going to be an issue here, right?”
Will folds his arms against the chill. “You’ve made that quite clear.”
Hopper stares off into the distance for a few moments, jaw working.
“The lab was that bad, huh?” he asks at last.
Will swallows. “I don’t do well with losing control.” His voice goes flatter, tighter. “And while they could hold your safety over me…” He looks away. “I couldn’t refuse anything. Every second in there was a battle to keep what I know from them or—” He cuts himself off, mouth twisting. “To keep from feeling like they owned me. Like I was just a piece of meat.”

Joyce climbs out next, looking between Will and Hopper.
“Jim, can you lay off him?” Her voice is flat.
“What? He doesn’t know, and it could cause problems for him, and Mike, and your son when we get him back.”
Will feels a familiar pit of indignant frustration building in his gut. He opens his mouth to restart the argument, but Joyce speaks first.
“That isn’t his fault, and all you’re asking him to do is hide.”
“Because he should!” Hopper snaps. “He’s eleven years old!”
“And what is that going to teach him?”
“How to be safe?”
Will lets out a small, incredulous laugh. “Safe? Really—”
Joyce cuts him off by lifting him into a hug. He chokes on the words. She gently strokes the back of his head, and he has to bite his lip to keep from sobbing openly.
“This is what he needs to feel safe, Jim,” she says, not taking her eyes off Hopper. “He’s a child. He shouldn’t have to worry about who he likes, or which adults are allowed to know.”
Joyce gently lowers Will back to the ground. Then she lifts his chin until his watering eyes meet hers.
“You are not broken, and you will always have a place in my home. Got it?”
The boy can only nod.
Nancy climbs out of the bus a moment later, sniffling.
“Mrs. Byers, holy shit, I—thank you,” she says. She wipes at her face, then straightens. “What’s the plan?” She looks at Will. “Do you have a spell that can locate Barb? Turn the lab into a pile of popcorn?”
“No on both counts,” Will says. Then he frowns. “Also, I have no idea what popcorn is.”
Nancy blinks at him.
Will’s expression shifts as another thought hits him.
“If I had my spellbook…” He trails off, then looks sharply between them. “Wait. Didn’t El say she could do something like astral projection?”
“What?” Nancy asks.
“That sounds D&D-ish, Mike!” she shouts toward the bus. “Get out here and translate your boyfriend for the rest of us!”
A muffled groan comes from inside.
“Urgh. Five more minutes,” Mike calls back, voice thick with sleep.

“Michael!” Nancy snaps.
“Fine!” the boy says, stumbling out of the bus, followed by El.
“Astral projection?” Nancy prompts.
“Like… sending your mind somewhere else.” Mike rubs at one eye and squints at the morning light. “Can I go back to sleep now? Will can come with me. I don’t wanna be awake.”
“No. We’re finding Barb and dealing with the lab. I am not sleeping in that cot again,” Nancy says sharply.
Mike folds his arms and grumbles, “Don’t see why I have to be awake for that.”
Nancy turns back to Will. “You think she could find Barb?”
Will holds up both hands. “How should I know? She’s not using the weave, so it’s not my area of expertise.”
“The weave is—” Mike starts.
“Don’t care,” Nancy cuts in. She turns to El. “Good morning. My name is Nancy. Can you find people if they’re far away?”
El nods, but she looks wary.
Nancy pulls a photo from her pocket and holds it out to her. Her voice isn’t demanding, exactly, but it isn’t soft either.
“Can you find her? She went missing four days ago.”
El takes a step back, her face falling. Her hands start to shake.
Nancy is sounding a little too much like Brenner for Will’s liking.
The wizard steps between them and plucks the photo from Nancy’s hand.
“That’s really not how I’d ask her,” Will says.
He takes El’s hand and bites his lip, thinking back to every moment Mike the Brave had comforted frightened civilians.
“She’s a little scary, right?” he asks gently.
El nods.
“She’s just worried,” Will says softly. “You know that.”
The girl nods again. Will squeezes her hand.
“But she’s not like him, okay? None of us are. And if anyone makes you feel like you’re back in the lab—”
He pulls on the weave, just slightly, enough for his eyes to flash with azure radiance.
“—I’ll take care of them.”
El smiles and pulls Will in closer.
“Safe,” she whispers.
Will smiles back. “When I’m around, it’s everything else that should be scared.”
He lets his eyes keep glowing for just a second longer, then glances up to meet Hopper’s gaze, then Nancy’s, before turning back to El.
“I heard about what you can do, and I think you can help us. Is that true?”
El nods.
“Does it hurt?”
She thinks for a moment.
“Kind of. More tired. Nosebleed.”
“Hm.” Will tilts his head. “Mine just gives me a mental fog that gets denser with more powerful spells.”
“Hurts?”
“Not exactly.”
El frowns slightly, thinking it through.
“The same. Different.”
Will nods. “Is astral—finding someone far away—harder? Does it make you tired faster?”
She nods again.
“Yes. Not hurt. Just tired.”
“Okay.” Will carefully holds out the photo. “Could you try to find this person? Do you need anything first? Tea? A quiet place?”
“Big pool. For very far.”
Will blinks. “Huh. Interesting. What do you use the pool for? To create a surface to project the image onto?”
El’s face scrunches in confusion.
From behind Will, Mike says, “Uh, do you, like, make the person you’re looking for show up on top of the water?”
The girl shakes her head.
“I go in. No sound. No light. No touch.”
Mike’s eyes widen. “Oh. Like a sensory deprivation tank.”
“A what?” Will asks.
“I saw it in a show,” Mike says.
Will shakes his head.
“Can you try it without that?” he asks.
El nods. “Yes. Bus. Quiet.”
“Alright.” Will loosens his grip on her hand. She tightens hers instead.
“You stay.”
“As you wish.”
She pulls him back into the bus and lies down on one of the cots.
Will sits beside her and hands her the photo. El stares at it for several long minutes.
Then she gives it back.
“Okay. Stay.”
She places the photo in his hand, releases his other hand, and closes her eyes.
A thin trickle of blood runs from her nose. Will quickly wipes it away with a cloth, his stomach tightening.
“Books,” El murmurs. “Dark. Vines.”
Her hand suddenly finds his again, fingers clamping tight without her ever opening her eyes.
“I see her,” she whispers. “Trapped. Other place.”

Chapter Text

Will Byers pulls Mike the Brave closer, for a moment ignoring the way the edges of the paladin’s armor dig into him.
Their lips are locked together, and Will basks in the heat of the other boy’s chest.
“Ahem. Captain, we do still need to keep moving,” Luco interrupts, coughing politely.
The paladin tightens his grip for just a second, and Will gasps. Then the pressure relents, and he stumbles back, face flushing.
“You’re… really strong,” is all the boy can manage as he finds Mike the Brave’s eyes with his own.
The paladin takes a step toward Will, eyes flashing.
“Will! Not helping,” Luco sighs.
Will is suddenly thrown off his feet by an olive-skinned missile. Elias lands on top of him, straddling him and sniffing at him with obvious concern.
“Stupid wizard. Not fight up close. Throw spell. Let stupid paladin fight close.”
It’s the longest sentence Will has ever heard the boy speak in Common.
“That’s not my class, Elias,” Will protests.
The druid narrows his eyes.
“Dumb class.” He pokes Will’s biceps. “Weak. Not strong like Dusty Bunny.”
“Elias,” Dustir groans.
Elias releases Will and stands.
“Will no die. Will second favorite.”
The druid then turns and sprints at Dustir. The dwarf catches the druid and grumbles as he’s used as climbing terrain until Elias settles into his usual position as Dustir’s backpack.

Will hears the boys whispering back and forth in dwarvish as he stands. He watches Mike pluck the sword the caped skeleton had been using from the ground and push it into his scabbard.

“Onward. We’ll make camp by the entrance at nightfall.” Mike says, voice back to his captain’s cadence.

The party starts walking down the road.

As the sun dips low over the horizon, painting the low clouds with orange and purple the Necropolis comes into view.

At its center a black stone tower is held aloft by flying blackstone arches, but the centerpiece is a massive blackstone staircase cut into the ground. From the road the stairs descend into inky blackness, as if leading to the underworld itself.

The party pushes on, and streaks of orange in the sky fade to purple and blue. Then night takes hold fully. Will stands on the edge of the first step of the staircase, looking down.

The staircase is perfectly straight, and decends sharply, he can just make out a bone white double door at the bottom, framed by two sconces filled with guttering green flame.

Luco puts his hand to his temple, then nods as he pulls it away, saying: “Ethaniel just reported in, another group of nobles was brought in this afternoon, the first group is still alive.”

“For how long?” Dustir asks.

“No idea, but I don’t like the idea of entering a dungeon when we’re all already half spent from that skeleton company.”

“Report then, I used smite once, and shield of faith, I could still be useful in another encounter or two.” Mike says.

“I used three enchanted arrows, but I’m still stocked.” Luco reports.

“I’m a fighter, they barely even scratched my new armor.” Dustir grumbles.

“I’m pretty much tapped out for spells other than cantrips, I think you used my energy for that thunderwave Mike, which I’m not complaining about, just saying.” Will says.

Everyone turns to Elias. The druid shrugs then yawns.

“Can fight, but sleepy.”

“What’s the call, Captain?” Luco asks.
“We should push on, I think,” Mike says, his voice wavering as his eyes find Will.
“Captain, no disrespect, but I don’t think we should. The newbie’s spent, and I’m not inclined to have him die just to rescue some lordlings. He could even level from that skeleton you two fought—it was dangerous,” Dustir says, glancing between the paladin and the moonwarden.
“Dustir, the captain—” Luco starts.
“He’s right,” Mike says. “There’s also no guarantee we can rest once we’re down there.”
The party waits in silence, all eyes on the paladin.
Mike finally looks up from the ground, his eyes meeting Will’s.
“We rest. But we’re using the dormious bread. We need to get in there as quickly as possible.”
Luco relaxes and nods.
Elias, from his perch on Dustir’s back, makes a quizzical noise.
“Sleep bread?”
“Aye, druid. The elves who sold it to us said it makes rest twice as effective—or cuts the time in half.”
“Oooo.”
“Don’t sound too impressed,” Dustir grumbles. “You’ll inflate Luco’s ego. It’s his country that makes it.”
Mike hands out the wrapped bread, each loaf labeled in a script Will can’t read.
After the meal, sleep comes easily. It takes longer to help the paladin out of his armor than it does for unconsciousness to claim him.
When Will wakes, he feels fully rested—but for a moment he only shifts deeper into Mike’s warm embrace. He sighs when his eyes lock with Luco, who is already standing watch and scanning the area.
The ranger gives him a wink, then goes back to his vigil.
Eventually, the party completes their “morning” routines, and they stand once more at the top of the stairs.
“Single file once we’re inside,” Mike says. “Luco first. No one complains about him taking his time to check for traps. No giggling and giving away our position. Got it?”
Mike meets each adventurer’s gaze in turn, then adds, “Any suggestions?”
Silence.
“We’ve got this,” he says, and urges Luco forward.
They reach the bottom of the stairs, and Mike makes an exceptionally un-paladin-like sound when a translucent figure in armor steps out of one of the sconces.
“Halt. The tomb is breached. I cannot allow children to enter.”

Chapter Text

Will la Fey watches El open her eyes.
“You did amazing,” he says, squeezing her hand. Then he turns to Nancy, who is waiting at the entrance to the bus.
“Barb is alive, but trapped. She saw books, and she said something about here but not here. Any ideas?”
Nancy’s face tightens. “The tree portals. They take you to Hawkins, but not Hawkins. Covered in vines and tentacles.”
“Books?” Will presses.
“The library,” Nancy says immediately. Then she hesitates. “Or one of the schools, probably.”
“Alright,” Will says. “I’ll go find her.”
“WILLLLLLL!” Mike Wheeler whines.
Will turns, already annoyed. “What? I have the best chance.”
“I’m going with you. I’m level two now,” Mike declares, crossing his arms.
“Me too,” El says, sitting up.
Will throws his head back. “No…”
“Absolutely not,” Hopper says at the same time. “None of you kids are going.”
Nancy whirls on him. “No, they all are. There’s… something down there.”
“Puppet,” El says quietly.
Nancy nods once. “Shooting it doesn’t work. I tried. Maybe one flavor of weird magic stuff will.”
Hopper rubs a hand over his face. “I’m not liking the plan you’re suggesting. At all.”
“Come up with a better one and we can talk.” Nancy turns to Mike and holds out her hand. “Otherwise, give me your walkie.”
Mike recoils. “No—ugh, fine. But you’re giving it back.”
Nancy rolls her eyes, takes the radio, and pulls up the antenna.
“Steve, Jonathan, do you hear me?”
“Nancy? It’s Dustin! You’re supposed to say ‘over’ so people know you’re finished talking, over.”
Nancy closes her eyes for half a second.
“Steve, Jonathan, can you hear me, over?”
“Yeah, Nance, we hear you. Um… over.” Steve’s voice crackles through the radio.
“Meet us near the library in an hour, over.”
She starts to push the antenna back down, but Dustin’s voice cuts through again.
“Wait, what’s going on? Should Lucas and I—”
The transmission cuts off.
Nancy looks around the bus, then circles one hand sharply.
“Let’s move, people.”
She grabs the shotgun from where Hopper had propped it, glancing back at him as if daring him to stop her. He just shakes his head.
Will, El, and Mike pile into the back of Hopper’s cruiser, while Joyce and Nancy climb into Joyce’s car. As they pull onto a rough dirt track, Will says:
“What spells did you get?” He threads his fingers through Mike’s as he asks it.
“Shield, and… Magic Missile.”
Will’s heart stutters. A real combat spell. He had secretly hoped that whatever intelligence—if there was one—that governed classes would protect Mike’s innocence for a little longer.
“Mike, you don’t have to use it,” he says softly. “It’s… too much.”
“Will, I can handle it. I’m not a baby.”
Hopper snorts from the driver’s seat.
“This is not the same!” Will snaps.
“I didn’t say anything,” Hopper replies with a chuckle.
Will turns back to Mike. “Actually hurting something with magic is a big step. I’m just—I’m trying to say it’s okay if you aren’t ready to take it.”
“I’m ready,” Mike says with certainty.
Will barely stops himself from shaking his head.
“Okay. But if we face the monster—”
“Puppet,” El intones.
Will nods once. “If we face the puppet, I make the calls. That goes for all three of you.” He glances toward the front seat, deflating just a little. “Jim, if it’s the lab, I’ll… defer to you.”
Hopper takes a moment to respond. Then, finally, he says:
“Deal.”

Will steps out of the cruiser just as Steve and Jonathan arrive in Steve’s Beemer. Nancy rushes past, waving them back toward their respective vehicles. She opens her mouth to say something, then groans when a bike bell rings.
Lucas and Dustin arrive kitted out for “war”: Lucas with a slingshot, Dustin with a golf club strapped behind his backpack.
Hopper steps out of the cruiser.
“No. Go home, you two.”
“But they’re going on whatever mission you’re planning!” Dustin whines.
“I don’t want them to. I want you two even less.”
“Chief Hopper, could I speak to you for a moment?” a man in a suit says, approaching from the direction of the library with another suited man at his side.
“Don’t have time,” Hopper says. “I was just leaving.”
“I was being polite. Keep your hands where I can see them,” the man replies, his hand slipping toward the bulge at his side.
“Fuck. Get in the cars, kids,” Hopper says, his own hand inching toward his holster.
Steve and Jonathan immediately start shoving Lucas and Dustin toward the Beemer.
“Jim, I can deal with them,” Will whispers, pointing at Hopper and casting Message.
“Nobody needs to jump to lethal conclusions now, do we?” Hopper says to the two men.
“We have questions for you,” one replies, “and for that boy behind you.”
“I can do it without hurting them,” Will insists with another Message.
Hopper hesitates for half a heartbeat, his head turning just long enough to see Dustin and Lucas finally scramble into the Beemer.
“Fine. You know what…” He exhales. “Do it.”
“Sleep.”
Will pulls on the weave, and both men drop to the ground at once.
“Wheeler house!” Hopper half-shouts as he jumps into the driver’s seat and slams the door shut.
Will dives into the back seat and yanks his door closed just as the cruiser tears away.

The three vehicles pull up to the Wheeler house, and their occupants rush inside. The group gathers around the kitchen island as Joyce pulls Dustin and Lucas with her to start a pot of hot chocolate.
Nancy taps the counter and steps forward.
“Okay, so here’s where we’re at. Barb is captive in the other place. Probably one of the schools or the library.”
“Nance, we almost died like six times the last time we went over there. That thing isn’t going to give us another chance,” Jonathan says.
“That,” Nancy says, pointing to Will, El, and—reluctantly—Mike, “is where those three come in.”
“You want three schoolkids to fight a monster?” Hopper says.
“That’s why I brought in these two.” She points to Steve and Jonathan.
“What?” Steve blurts. “What am I going to do against a monster?”
“Distract it so that one of them can take it out,” Nancy says, only a hint of sympathy creeping into her voice.
“So you want to send those five after the monster while you and I get Barb?” Hopper asks.
“Yep.”
“What if there’s more than one?” Jonathan asks.
“Then I draw it away, Hopper gets Barb out, and you all come deal with it.”
“That’s a stupid plan. It’ll never work,” Steve says.
“I don’t see any other options,” Will says, staring at the floor, one hand brushing Mike’s.
“Uh… we tell the government and they send in soldiers?” Steve offers.
“Then Barb ends up a test subject in the lab, if she even gets free,” Will says, shivering. Mike’s hand wraps around his.
“Alright, fine. What have you got for weapons around here?” Steve says, throwing up his hands.
“I hate it, but I can’t think of anything else,” Hopper says, standing.
“Alright. Thirty minutes. Get ready, and then we head to the tree portal,” Nancy says.
The group mostly stays where they are while Lucas and Dustin bring around mugs of hot chocolate.
Will tastes his mug and smiles.
What a world.
Then Nancy fills his vision. She looks first to Mike and El.
“You two stay safe and stay with Jonathan and Steve, okay?”
They nod.
Then she meets Will’s eyes.
“Keep them all safe, wizard. You got that? All four of them.”
“Yes, ma’am.”

Chapter Text

The ghost stands firm.
“Listen, we were hired to rescue the people who got kidnapped. Please let us through,” Luco says.
“I cannot, in good conscience, allow you to,” the ghost replies, arms crossed.
“Well, why’d you let them through?” Dustir asks.
“They disabled me. I had no choice.”
“Look, you seem reasonable, but we’re on a clock. We need to get into the tomb and rescue the nobles, that’s it. If you want to stand in our way, then…” Mike gestures at his sword, even though he clearly has no intention of drawing it.
“What’s that going to do? I’m a ghost.”
“I’m a paladin!”
“At your age? Preposterous. Truly? What god do you serve?”
“I’m unaligned—er—it’s complicated.”
“If you can’t explain your own oath, you aren’t strong enough to enter.” The ghost looks up and away.
“Hey, now! I said it was complicated, I didn’t say I didn’t know!” Mike snaps, anger creeping into his voice.
Will tilts his head. “You just want to hear the story.”
The ghost doesn’t look back.
“Maybe.”
“What? Let us through, you bored apparition!” Mike says, indignant.
“Mike,” Will says, “he’s like Rexious. He’s lonely.”
“Rexious?” Luco asks.
“Dragon. Warm. Cuddly,” Elias says. Then he steps forward and tries to poke the ghost. His finger passes through the man’s foot. “Not dragon,” he concludes, as if he’s made an important discovery.
“You expect me to believe you met Rexious, king of the dragons?” the ghost says, his gaze drifting back down.
“Yeah. I played chess with him,” Will replies.
“You—you actually have met him.” The ghost turns fully and stares at Will.
“Yes. And if you have to know, his oath is to me, and mine is to him,” Will says.
“Oathclasses? By the Gray Lady… who are you children?”
“Trying to do a damned job, you worthless spirit!” Dustir shouts.
“Well, now I want to let you past even less. The last oathed pair are the reason the Empire doesn’t control the entire continent. I can’t have you snuffed out before you’ve even reached double digits in age.” The ghost sniffs haughtily.
Will steps forward. “I promise to come back and tell you my entire story if you let us pass. I’ll even come back to visit and keep you updated.”
The ghost seems to consider this for a moment.
“Truly?”
“Yes. I can even let you play chess against Rexious.”
“Fine. But if you die down there and become a ghost, you still have to honor the promise.”
“I’d prefer not to die, but I guess so.”
The ghost melts back into the wall, and the doors begin to rumble open.
“Good luck.”
As the door fully opens, Dustir says, “He believed that line about chess? How are you going to get a dragon to come here?”
“I have a magic chessboard he gave me.”
“You what?” Dustir exclaims as they walk forward.
“Yeah. I should probably play a few games with him once we finish this mission,” Will remarks.
Luco makes a strangled sound, then says, “Please stop talking about playing chess with the king of dragons while I’m looking for traps. Or perhaps ever while I don’t have a drink in my hand.”
The cool breeze emanating from the dark corridor ahead steals any reply Will might have made. The party falls into formation, single file: Luco, Mike, Will, Elias, then Dustir.
After a minute of slow progress, the light has dimmed to the point where Will has to reach forward and grab a fistful of Mike’s tabard to stay in line.
“Do you have a light spell, Will?” Mike asks softly.
“No. Wait—” Will holds out his hand. The moonlight sword appears, and the corridor is bathed in bright silver radiance.
“That works.”
The group trudges on, Luco tapping any suspicious tile or break in the stone floor with a walking stick.
The silence holds for another hour of careful progress. Then Dustir says,
“Did the princling give us any idea where he actually is down here?”
“He has Sending, not an enchanted mirror,” Luco snaps. “Be quiet.”
“Yes, adventurers, it is optimal to maintain silence when traversing a dungeon. Now dodge.”
A cold, raspy voice comes from the side. Then flame blossoms at Will’s feet, and he dives away.
The Fireball detonates and singes Will’s skin, but he escapes the heart of the blast. He looks down the corridor as a man in ornate armor steps out of an alcove.
As Will focuses on him, he recoils.
The man is too pale, his skin nearly translucent, and his armor has a gaping hole in its right side where his heart and one lung should be.
“Good, good. That was my only bound spell. The rest will not be available for some time. No, dwarf, don’t rush forward—there are three ghouls coming from behind.”
Will scrambles to his feet and whirls. Just as the man had said, three figures are bounding up the corridor behind them, too fast, too jerky in their movements. Dustir roars and charges to meet them, Elias following close behind.
“I am advancing. Scout, get to the middle of the formation. Are you a knight or a paladin? Please say paladin.”
The man’s sword comes down and slams into Mike’s shield, the sound of the impact reverberating through the corridor.
“I am a paladin. Why are you helping and fighting us?”
The man swings again, and Mike barely bats the blow away with his looted sword.
“A necromancer was able to take control of me, but not completely. Unfortunately, I am unable to do anything but speak freely. Wizard, watch out, I’m going to—”
The man puffs into mist and reappears beside Will, blade already in motion.
“Castle,” Mike says.
Will pops into existence where the paladin had been, and the gong-like reverberation of another blocked strike fills the corridor.
“Marvelous, just marvelous. Perhaps you can survive after all. But not with that blade, paladin—I am immune to its enchantment. Scout, what are you doing? Either shoot me or the fiends. Stop looking surprised and assist your team!”
Crack-THUM.
Luco answers with his bow, and Elias’s cheer from farther down the corridor tells Will all he needs to know about the result. Will hears the clatter of Mike dropping his sword and opens his hand.
The corridor is plunged into utter darkness as the moonlight sword dissipates.
Then light floods it again as the sword appears in Mike’s hand.
“Thank you for the warning. I will put you to rest, ancient one,” Mike says, and slashes at the man.
“A bond! Wonderful. But your swordwork could use some polish.”
The man easily bats away Mike’s blow and forces the paladin to block the riposte with his shield.
“Firebolt.”
Will casts, and the bolt of blue-and-gold fire slams into the man’s side. He staggers.
“Radiant fire. Well done, but you’ve made yourself—watch out, wizard. More ghouls.”
Will gets only that second of warning. He turns his head and sees five figures bounding toward him.
Crack-THUM.
Three of them are engulfed in a burst of purple fire from one of Luco’s arrows.
In the next instant, the others are on Will.
Pain blossoms at his ribs as claws punch through his robes and bite deep. A second line of agony rakes down his right side as another ghoul slashes downward.
“Thunderwave—agh!”
The two ghouls are hurled backward violently, and Will has to clap his hands over his ears as the reverberation of the spell crashes over him. He pulls them away just in time to see one of the ghouls stagger back to its feet.
Something skitters across the ground toward him, and he snatches up the looted blade.
The sword feels horribly heavy in his hand, but the bond thrums. His grip slips, then corrects itself. His arm suddenly remembers swinging a blade like this tens of thousands of times.
The ghoul roars and rushes him.
Will’s arm moves on instinct, slashing down diagonally. The blade bites, and the bond thrums again. Will pulls, and feels Mike answer through the bond.
“Sunlit Lunar Smite!”
The blade erupts into brilliance, and the ghoul disintegrates.

Chapter Text

Will la Fey stands between Mike and El as they follow Nancy, Hopper, Steve, and Jonathan through the woods.
Fifteen minutes after they leave the cars and start their trek, Nancy finally nods toward a tree.
“This is it.”
Hopper bends down to look at the “portal” and grunts.
“How am I supposed to fit in there?”
The young woman shrugs.
Hopper stands and drags one hand down his face. “I’m not. We can’t do this. Let’s go come up with another—”
Nancy dives through.
“No—God damn it. Nancy! Get back here—wait, Jonathan, no—”
Jonathan goes next, pulling the golf club he armed himself with after him.
“I guess you’re guarding the entrance,” Steve says as he slides through too, baseball bat in hand.
Will smirks and pats Hopper’s leg.
“Don’t worry. I trust you.”
The three kids push through the “portal,” a glowing orange space at the base of the tree, with tangling vines trying to hold it closed.
On the other side, the world is gray, motes of ash or mold hanging in the still air.
Nancy looks back at them. “Stick together.”
“Is this… safe to breathe?” Steve asks, covering his mouth and nose.
“No idea,” Nancy says.
As Will takes his first tentative steps into this new place, the weave undulates around him—wrong, scarred, yet familiar.
The town comes into sight twenty minutes later: buildings he had only just started to recognize, now covered in twisting black vines and lit by flashes of red lightning.
Will shivers despite desperately wanting to stay steady for the two clinging to him.
“This isn’t so bad, right, Will?” Mike whispers. “Just a dungeon that I was too lazy to do anything with except throw vines over.”
Will rolls his eyes.
“Giving me an existential crisis is not going to help this situation, Mikey.”
The boy’s cheeks flush.
“Cover!” Nancy hisses.
Will grabs Mike and El by the upper arms and dives with them into a bush.
For a moment he isn’t sure what has Nancy so afraid, but then El points.
In the distance, a lone figure stalks through the empty town on all fours. Its skin is gray to the point of near translucence. Its head is bulbous, like a flower waiting to unfurl.
They stay hidden as the creature approaches, then turns down the street at the edge of the treeline, continuing its patrol.
“Is that the puppet?” Will whispers to El.
The girl nods, curling in on herself.
Nancy low-crawls back to them.
“Any idea what that is?”
“None.”
“Think you can kill it?”
“I can try.”
“Okay. We’re heading to the Middle School first. That’s closest. Stay close.”
The group cautiously traverses the empty town. When they reach the middle school, El shakes her head.
“Not here.”
“Frick.”
“Library,” the girl intones.
“That’s the opposite side of town,” Nancy sighs.
“Didn’t know words.” El shrugs.
The scrape of footsteps freezes the entire group.
They turn and see figures in bulky plastic suits striding down the road, carrying guns.
“That’s not good,” Steve says.
The group ducks behind a park bench and watches as the figures fan out, surrounding the school.
One of them raises a loudspeaker.
“If you’re in there, Will, come out and surrender. We have Dustin, Lucas, and Joyce Byers.”
Will goes still.
Despite everything, his heartbeat slows.
He recognizes that voice.
Dr. Brenner.
El whispers, “Papa.”
She grips Will’s arm and squeezes. He can feel her shaking, hear her breath coming too fast.
Will starts to rise, but Mike grabs him and yanks him back down.
“What are you doing?” Mike hisses.
“Ending a threat.”
Flame licks around Will’s hand.
“He’s not what we’re here for,” Mike replies.
“Library. Now,” Nancy whisper-shouts.
Will looks back once, then turns and rushes after the others as the group scurries down the alleyway.

Chapter Text

Will Byers drops the borrowed sword. The arm that had been holding it flops uselessly to his side, and searing pain radiates from his bicep.
The second ghoul starts to rise, and Will raises a hand. “Firebolt,” he squeaks through gritted teeth.
The creature staggers but keeps coming, picking up speed.
A blur of blue-and-yellow fur flashes past Will, and suddenly the ghoul is back on the ground. A wolf, standing a head taller than Will even on all fours, bites down, and the ghoul stops moving.
The wolf turns to Will, and he takes a step back under its glowing gaze.
Then the beast’s tongue lolls out and its tail wags happily. It bounds over to Will and starts assaulting his face with licks.
“Elias! Stop it! That’s so gross! You just bit a ghoul!”
“Druid! Wizard! Focus. Assist your paladin and save the roughhousing for after you leave this place, if you leave this place.”
The wolf’s assault ceases, and it fixes its attention on the undead knight. Will can hear the muscles in its massive legs tense.
Will whirls and points. “Scorching Ray!”
The undead knight dodges two of the beams and catches the third on his blade.
“Damn. Good try, wizard. Admirable casting while injured, but—”
“Get him, boy,” Will commands.
Elias, still in wolf form, lunges forward and slams into the undead knight. The knight is knocked down, but he points his sword toward the creature’s flank and thrusts. The blade skitters off a patch of golden fur.
“What? A lunar wolf? Only the By—”
The wolf knocks the undead knight’s skull away from the rest of its body.
In a flash of green light and a swirl of leaves, Elias reappears.
“Bad skeleton. No tell.”
Then the boy points at Will.
“Paladin heal now. Dusty! Come! Ik wil niet meer lopen.”
Mike staggers over to Will, one hand clamped over the wound in his side.
“Let me see,” he says in a low voice.
Will shakes his head. “You first.”
The paladin pulls a vial of healing potion from his belt and downs it. When he pulls his hand away, it reveals a spot of deep red.
“Okay?”
Then Mike gently grabs Will, examining the gashes and punctures from the ghouls. When he pushes up the sleeve of Will’s robe, he gasps.
Will tries to look down, but Mike turns his face away.
“Lay on Hands,” Mike says, and Will feels a warm glow radiating through his arm.
“What happened?” Will asks.
“That sword is too heavy for you. Don’t use it again.”
“I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“You could have Misty Stepped behind me.”
“Well... then you would’ve been surrounded.”
“That’s my job, Will.”
Will flushes. “Sorry.”
“I’m not saying it wasn’t brave. Or badass—was that the word you used? That doesn’t make any sense, by the way. But...” Mike meets his eyes. “I just want you to be safe.”
“I want you to be safe too.”
Will holds the paladin’s gaze, and the two of them lean in.
“Ahem. Captain, we are in the middle of a dungeon.”
Mike hesitates and starts to pull back. Will closes the distance anyway, rising on his toes and hauling himself up slightly with Mike’s arm.
Luco rolls his eyes, but even in the dim light of the moonlight sword, Will can see the ranger smirking as he starts down the corridor again.
The group reforms into a single-file line, though Elias is now being carried by Dustir at the end.
After thirty minutes of painfully slow progress, Will sees a four-way intersection ahead. Luco spends a full ten minutes checking the threshold before he finally steps over it.
Standing in the center of the intersection, Dustir says, “Which—oh, blast it, take my—”
The ground below them glows, and Will feels the weave undulate.
Then his stomach turns as the intersection is replaced by utter darkness.
“Mike?” Will whispers. He gets no answer.
“Elias? Luco? Dustir?”
Silence.
He starts to hold out his hand to summon the moonlight blade, then stops. Mike needs it more than he does right now.
Instead, Will furrows his brow. With one hand extended, he gives the weave a slight tug and produces a small, flickering flame in his upturned palm.
The room around him comes into focus.
Rows of stone boxes are set into either wall, and three large stone tables stand in the center of the room, each with a hole carved through its middle.
Will lets out a thin, miserable whine. He refuses to think of the stone boxes as caskets. Absolutely not.
He slinks to one end of the room and finds a closed door.
Keep it together, Will.
He pushes the door open and finds a smaller room beyond, furnished with rotting wooden chairs and a single worktable.
Sitting on the table is a small glass jar bound in chains.
Will takes a few slow steps closer.
The jar is filled with liquid, and floating in the center is an eye.
His hand reaches toward it.
He can’t say why. He really, really does not want to touch it, but his hand keeps drifting toward the glass anyway.
The eye turns to face him.
Will meets its gaze.
The weave trembles.
Will shakes his head and looks down at the tiny pixie boy trapped in the jar.
“Come on, kid. You gonna free me or what?” he asks, his voice comically high-pitched.
“Why are you chained down here?” Will asks, relaxing despite himself in the warm glow of the pixie’s wings.
“Stupid Cielians. They brought me down here because I helped someone,” the pixie says.
Will hesitates. “But they’ve all seemed... I mean, not nice, but honorable.”
“Don’t let that fool you. It’s all an act. They just want you to join them...” The pixie grins. “Forever.”
“Oh.” Will swallows. “How do I free you?”
“Just reach into the jar and put me in your pocket. I’ll guide you back to your friends, William.”
The pixie flickers for just an instant.
Will’s stomach tightens.
“I didn’t—”
“I’m fey, Will. I know names. It’s our thing.”
“I’m not—”
“Hurry up,” the pixie snaps. “Your friends are in danger. I can see them.”
Will’s hand reaches into the jar, feeling the warmth radiating off the pixie grow.

Chapter Text

Will la Fey jogs behind the teens as they make their way through the streets of not-quite Hawkins.
Mike Wheeler and El stay close to him, even though Mike clearly has not run this long at any point in his life.
“Use the spell, Mike,” Will whispers.
“What?” Mike asks, breathless.
“Longstrider,” Will says.
“Oh. But then I’ll only have two slots left?”
“If you have a heart attack before we even start fighting, then you’ll have no slots,” Will chides, ignoring how easily the boy can classify something that usually takes wizards months of study to fully understand on their own. It makes his world sound even more like a game, if things like that are so deeply embedded, but he cannot afford to think about that right now.
“Longstrider,” Mike says, setting a hand against his own shoulder.
His stride lengthens almost immediately, and though he still looks exhausted, he keeps pace with Will and El all the same.
“So fricking cool,” Mike breathes.
“You need to walk more,” Will says with a chuckle.
“So mean,” Mike says, without any heat.
It takes another thirty minutes to cross the town. The group finally stops in an alley with a clear view of the library.
“Is that where she is?” Nancy asks.
El nods.
“Okay, I don’t see—shit.” Nancy cuts herself off as the spindly, flower-bulb-headed creature lopes into view, now circling the library.
“Wait for it to pass, then dash in and get Barb,” Will says.
“You think?” Nancy rolls her eyes.
“Better than committing to a fight when we know a third faction is involved.”
“Yeah, I know. Alright, I’ll time its route, then we move.” Nancy glances down at her watch.
They wait in silence.
“Three minutes,” Nancy mumbles when the creature finally reappears.
“Uh, Nance?” Steve says, low.
“Yeah, Steve?” Nancy sighs.
“You think that’s the same one?”
“It looks the same.”
“But it was patrolling the outside of town.” Steve glances toward the library, then back at the creature. “So unless it saw us…”
“Not good,” Jonathan whispers.
“We’re saving her,” Nancy snaps.
“I’m all for it,” Steve says, holding up his hands. “I’d just prefer not to die doing it.”
“Next cycle, we move,” Nancy says. “If the thing sees us, we start the plan. Jonathan, you’re in for Hopper.”
“So you want me to babysit?” Steve says.
“Yeah. You’re good with kids, right?”
Steve groans.
They wait for the creature to come around again. Then, as it turns the corner and disappears from sight, the group sprints across the town square.
They make it halfway when figures clad in plastic biohazard suits come into view and spot them.
“There you are, Will!” Brenner says over the loudspeaker.
Wrong move, Will thinks.
The monster bounds toward the figures, and they open fire.
“There’s our distraction, move!” Nancy shouts.
The group forces a dead sprint to close the remaining distance and slides inside the library. Will looks back as the door swings shut.
The monster is tearing through the suited figures, and their guns are doing next to nothing. Neither are the protective suits they’re wearing. The bulk only slows the men down and makes them easier prey.
Will grits his teeth.
“I’m going to help them.” He cannot believe he is saying the words.
“They’re evil, Will, and they’re buying us time!” Nancy snaps.
“No. Brenner is. The rest of them are just… doing their jobs. I have to. This is my job.”
Nancy stops, just for a second, then throws up her hands. “Fine. It doesn’t look like they’re buying much time anyway.”
Will steps back out of the library, with Steve, El, and Mike following per the plan.
“Vortex Warp.” Will focuses the spell on the monster just as it is about to slash open another of the men.

Chapter Text

Will Byers’s hand drifts deeper into the jar.
For an instant, his skin feels something sticky and wet, but the sensation passes as he gently closes his hand around the pixie.
“Good, William. I’m the only way you’ll ever see Mike Wheeler again.”
Will hesitates.
“What?”
“Your paladin again,” the pixie corrects.
Will pulls the pixie out of the jar and slides him into his pocket.
“Okay. Where do I go?”
“Back through the embalming chamber, then take a left at the corridor. Stay on the right side to avoid the acid-spear trap.”
“Acid spear?”
“The Cielians revere their dead,” the pixie says, “and abhor grave robbers.”
Will bites his lip and nods.
He walks back out of the office and crosses the larger room, still refusing to call it an embalming chamber.
He steps through the far door, turns left, and starts creeping along the right-hand side of the corridor.
“What’s your name?”
“Don’t you know it’s rude to ask that of a fey?”
“Oh. Sorry.”
Will keeps walking for a few more steps.
“You may call me Verdent.”
“How long have you been down here, Verdent?”
“Too long.”
There is an edge in the pixie’s voice that makes Will shiver despite how high-pitched it is.
Will walks in silence for several moments before the pixie says,
“At the fork, take the right path. There are trap triggers in alternating tiles. Start with the left tile, then the right, and repeat. Understand?”
“Ye—yes, Verdent.”
“Good boy.”
Will follows the right path when the fork appears, then tentatively steps onto the left tile before hopping to the right one.
“What trap is this linked to?”
“Giant stone ball.”
Will whines.
“You can do this. Just keep to the pattern and take your time.” Verdent almost sounds soothing.
Will keeps hopping between tiles, absolutely not wanting to reenact Indiana Jones with a tiny pixie boy instead of a gold idol.
“Okay, that trap is done. Now just defeat the five skeletons ahead, and there are only four more traps before you reach Mike.”
“How do you know?”
“I see things.”
“Like the future?”
“Some of them. Stop talking, the skeletons are coming.” Verdent’s voice sharpens. “Hmm. I’d suggest sticking to Firebolt if you can. You’ll need your stronger spells soon.”
As Verdent warned, five skeletons with scimitars clatter into view, teeth chattering as if they’re in deep conversation.
Will raises his hand, then hesitates.
“They aren’t after me. They’re just wandering.”
“Attack them, William!”
“But what if they’re like the ghost?”
Will’s hand stays half raised.
“Infuriating human! They’re undead. Be afraid!”
One of the skeletons looks up from the conversation, and its empty sockets lock with Will’s eyes.
They all stop.
None of them move to draw their scimitars.
The skeleton in the middle of the group holds up its hands and takes a step closer to Will. Its jaw starts chattering slowly.
“I can’t understand you. Can you understand me?”
For a brief moment, the skeleton pauses. Then, slowly, its skull nods.
“I’m here to rescue the nobles. I’m an adventurer, not a grave robber.”
The skeleton tilts its head, then turns to its companions and begins chattering. The conversation goes from clipped to intense, with several of the skeletons gesticulating wildly.
Finally, three of the five skeletons raise their hands. Then a fourth does.
The four turn toward the abstaining skeleton, and their teeth chatter jeeringly.
The skeleton that had first tried to speak to Will turns back to him.
It points at Will, then beckons, then points to itself.
“You want me to come with you?”
It nods.
“Are you going to take me to the nobles?”
It shakes its head.
“One of you who can speak Common?”
It nods.
“Okay.”
Will walks forward, lowering his hand.
The skeletons turn and start back the way they came, occasionally glancing over their shoulders to make sure he is following.
“Seriously, Will? You’re going to trust skeletons over me?”
None of the skeletons react to Verdent’s voice.
“They seem friendly,” Will mutters.
One of the skeletons glances back at him, then shrugs.
Will follows them for ten minutes, passing three more groups as they go, until they reach a set of cream-colored double doors.
Then, with a shudder, he realizes they are not cream-colored at all.
They are bone white, made from hundreds of bones mortared together into the shape of doors.
The five skeletons push the door open and wave him on, with only one following him inside.
Will looks back when the door closes behind him. Then he hears a low baritone voice, smooth as honey, say,
“What have you boneheads come back for so quickly? I swear, the only reason that damned necromancer didn’t subjugate you is—oh. Hello there.”
A young man—at least, young in appearance, around Jonathan’s age—rises from a chair near the hearth. He is pale, and even the firelight does little to warm him. He smiles, but for some reason, Will notices he doesn’t show his teeth.
“Hello,” Will says, taking a step back.
“What are you doing in the Necropolis, little one?” the man asks, voice warm and easy.
“I’m—I’m an adventurer. I’m here to rescue nobles who got kidnapped.”
“Is that so?”
Will nods frantically. Something in the back of his brain is screaming at him that this man is dangerous.
“Well then,” the man says, almost amused, “it seems our goals align, to a degree. Though I do doubt the efficacy of sending one… hmm, seven-year-old to defeat a necromancer of this caliber.”
“I’m twelve.”
The man rolls his eyes.
“Are there more of you?”
Will hesitates.
“Yes. Lots more. If you help me, I’ll make sure they know you’re on our side,” he says, trying for bravado.
The man stifles a laugh and covers his mouth with one hand.
“Is that so? Lots more twelve-year-old adventurers who might mistake me for something worth destroying?”
“Um.”
Will is caught between wanting to keep up the act and not wanting to give this man any more information.
The man rubs his temples with one hand.
“They actually are all children,” he says, sounding defeated.
“No—but—most of us are.”
“Why?” the man moans.
“The guildmistress said we were the best team for the job.”
“Was there a recent catastrophe that wiped out all your gold- and silver-rank teams?”
“We are silver.”
“You’re what?”
“Yeah. We’re a silver team.”
“Oh, my gods. I’ve been below ground for far too long.” The man steps forward and holds out one pale hand. “Come with me, child. We’re finding your friends, and then I’m escorting you out of here.”
Will shies away from him.
“But you’re a v-v-vampire,” the boy whines.
“I’m a vampire lord, young one,” the man says, almost primly, “and I am quite adequately fed. Come along.”
“But you don’t know where they are?”
“But I do know where the traps are, and my nose is better than yours.”
The vampire lifts his chin and sniffs once, haughtily.
“An elf, a dwarf, two humans, and… you. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then. We’ll find them, and I swear upon my house that no harm shall come to you whilst you are in my care.”
The man offers his hand again, and Will slowly takes it. The skin is ice-cold.
The vampire lord marches out of the room, tugging Will along.
“You five, tell the other patrols that there is an adventuring team down here. They are to be brought back unharmed.”
The skeletons all begin chattering at once. One steps forward and starts gesticulating at Will, growing more animated as it continues.
“You’ll figure it out. You brought this one in.”
“Um, Mr. Vampire Lord? What’s your name?”
The vampire looks back at Will and smiles, this time revealing his teeth, including two long, sharp fangs.
“Edward. Edward Munson the Third.”

Chapter Text

Will la Fey watches as the monster shakes its bulbous head from side to side in disorientation.
“That’s right, fiend! I am your foe!” he shouts.
Steve groans as he readies the baseball bat.
Mike and El both giggle.
For a brief instant, the creature seems to consider its options. Its head turns toward the men in hazmat suits, still firing uselessly at it with their guns, then swings back toward Will.
“Firebolt.”
A bolt of orange flame arcs from Will’s finger and strikes the creature in the shoulder. It wails and charges toward them.
“Steve, you’re up.” Will slaps him on the shoulder. “Haste!”
Steve becomes a blur.
He closes the distance in a rush of air and starts swinging the bat with impossible speed, keeping the monster off balance.
“Holy shit! I was starting to doubt you, but man, this magic stuff is awesome!” the older boy shouts as he ducks under a sweep of the creature’s claws.
The men from the lab lower their guns.
“Firebolt.”
Will repeats the spell. The creature staggers again, but it does not look overly fazed.
“Should I try Magic Missile?” Mike asks, mouth hanging open as Steve dances around the monster at double his normal speed.
“Yeah. Go for it, Mikey.”
“Magic Missile!”
Three glowing red darts spiral from Mike’s hand and slam into the creature. It stumbles, and Steve lands a solid hit with the bat. The monster folds and crashes to the ground.
“We got it!” Steve yells, raising the bat above his head.
“Wait, Steve—”
Will is too late.
The creature launches itself back up and slashes Steve across the side. The teen stumbles back toward the kids and collapses, blood bubbling at his mouth.
“Storm Sphere.”
Will pulls on the weave harder than he ever has before. Around the creature, dense fog blossoms into a violently rotating sphere of wind and lightning. Arcs of electricity snap from within it and lash into the monster.
“Keep it in the effect! Together!” Will shouts over the roar of the storm.
The creature staggers out of the sphere, smoking, only for a bolt of lightning to spear through it before it fully escapes.
Will thrusts out a hand.
“Gust!”
Mike follows at once.
“Gust!”
El throws up both hands and screams.
The creature is hurled back into the center of the sphere.
Another bolt of lightning slams into it.
Steve pushes himself up, pale and shaking from the crash of Haste, and stares at the contained storm raging in the middle of the square.
“Why didn’t you lead with this?”
“Only one per day!” Will shouts back.
The creature lurches free again, stumbling and smoking.
“Gust!”
“Gust!”
“Raaaaagh!”
It is thrown back into the storm again.
Lightning hits it once.
Then again.
Then again.
This time, it stops trying to stand.
Will starts toward it. Mike catches his hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure it’s dead.”
He pulls the baseball bat from Steve’s hand. The older boy is swaying on his feet.
Will marches across the courtyard and looks up only once at the men from the lab, still trying to triage their wounded.
“Firebolt.”
He drives the spell point-blank into the creature’s face. It jitters.
“Firebolt.”
“Firebolt.”
By the fifth cast, the creature stops moving completely.
Will lifts the bat over his head.
“True Strike.”
The bat slams down into the creature’s head with a wet crunch.
Somewhere behind him, someone vomits.
“Acid Splash.”
He watches the glob of acid splatter harmlessly across the creature’s chest.
“Ray of Frost.”
Again, no real effect.
Will strokes his chin and studies the body. Scorch marks from the Firebolts. Bruising from the Magic Missiles. Long blackened lines where the lightning had torn through it.
Once again, he curses the loss of his spellbook.
Will kicks the creature once for good measure and wanders back to the group.
“Jesus, kid,” Steve says, still holding his ribs. “What the hell was that?”
“It’s nearly immune to acid and frost. Fire and lightning seem effective, and blunt force seems at least partially effective.”
“You were doing science experiments on that thing?”
Will looks at Mike. The other boy nods, even if he looks greener than usual.
“Yes.”

Chapter Text

Will Byers tries not to stumble as Edward continues pulling him through the snaking corridors of the Necropolis.
“You really hit the first teleportation trap? Have you never been in a dungeon before?” the man sighs.
“No. This is my first real quest. I just tagged along for the end of the last one.”
Edward makes a low, irritated sound, and Will shifts a little farther away from him.
They take one final turn, and Will’s heart jumps.
Dustir and Elias stand in the corridor amid shattered bones and fallen zombies.
Elias turns instantly, locking eyes with Will. Then the druid’s gaze flicks to the man dragging him along like a suitcase.
“Je stinkt naar de dood, laat hem los, anders krijg je met de woede van de natuur te maken.”
The boy charges, fist raised, the weave already coalescing around him.
“Stop!” the vampire snaps, and Will feels the compulsion hit like a truck.
Elias staggers as he tries to force himself forward, the edges of his form flickering.
“Mr. Munson, please don’t hurt him,” Will says, tugging on the man’s hand.
“He was about to hit me with lightning. He’s still trying to!”
“Elias, it’s okay. He’s—not hostile.”
“Bad. Death. Blood. Run, Will!” Elias pleads.
He takes another step forward, and his form shifts, swelling into a fifty-foot serpent, its head nearly as large as Will.
“A basilisk? Really? Who are you children?”
Edward pulls Will behind him and lowers his gaze to the floor.
“Let. The. Wizard. Go.”
Dustir’s voice is low and cold in a way Will has never heard before.
“Your druid is going to turn him to stone by accident. Calm down, and let’s discuss—”
Crack-THUM.
An arrow slams into Edward’s shoulder and sends him flying backward.
The giant serpent immediately coils around Will and hisses toward the spot where the vampire landed.
“Keep him safe, Eli. I’ll deal with the bloodsucker.”
“He’s really not an enemy!” Will tries to stop Dustir, but Elias’s coils block any path of escape.
“What in Isha’s name were you thinking, trusting a vampire?” Luco’s voice comes through the bulk of Elias’s coils.
“He’s just someone who lives here, like the ghost!” Will protests.
“The residents are corrupted, Will.”
“Not all of them! He really was helping me. I wouldn’t have found you all without him!”
“Who did he say he was?”
“Edward Munson the Third.”
“Isha preserve us. Dustir, stop! You’re attacking the King of Ciel!”
“I’m what?”
“The what?”
Elias’s coils loosen slightly, then his form flashes and he hides behind Will in his human form. Whining softly.
After a moment, Dustir walks back and pats Will up and down.
“Still in one piece after more than an hour alone. Good job, newbie.”
Edward appears a moment later, looking intensely frustrated.
Luco gives an overly elaborate bow that looks more like the opening of a dance.
“My apologies, Your Grace. I am Luco of the Gray Forest, third son of the King of the Roots. As you may expect, my companions are somewhat wary of the undead, given the state of most of your residents.”
Edward tilts his head, somehow only growing more frustrated.
“Why in the Gray Lady’s name is a prince babysitting—” He gestures at the boys. “—children, and why is a shifter of the House of—”
“Shhhhhh,” Elias says.
Edward looks at him.
“You haven’t told them.”
The boy shakes his head.
“Fine. My first question still stands.”
“They are my party. I am adventuring without the privileges of my station.”
“My kingdom has been co-opted by some necromancer, and they sent a pack of children?”
“I do not believe we received a request for aid, Your Grace.”
“Yes, yes, the nobles. Come along. Your final member is not far.”
The king steps past Luco, and the party reluctantly follows.
Dustir leans in and whispers, “So we’re just going to trust the vampire because he’s got a fancy name?”
“He’s a king, Dustir. Do you want to start a war?” Luco hisses back.
“A king with very good ears, children,” Edward remarks. “Ah, there he—” The man sighs. “Paladin, of course.”
The corridor fills with azure brilliance as Mike the Brave charges.
“Foul creature, cursed with undeath! My light shall smite you from this plane forevermore! I care not that you have enthralled my companions—you shall not steal another moment of life from the living this day!”
Will cringes and hides his face in his hands.
“Stop, Mike! He’s the King of Ciel!”
The paladin hesitates so abruptly he nearly trips over his own feet.
“The what?”
“King of Ciel,” Edward deadpans.
“Oh. Hello. I am Mike the Brave.”
“I am leading all of you out of here and banishing you,” Edward says.
“We have a mission, Your Grace.”
“Children should not be on this mission.”
“You could help us,” Mike says.
“I cannot get close to the necromancer. I believe a direct spell might be enough to overwhelm my protections.”
Mike slips past Edward, then wraps both arms around Will.
“Perhaps I could be persuaded—am I interrupting? This is a dangerous area. Focus,” Edward snaps, though there is very little heat in his voice.
“I’ve tried to tell them, Your Grace.”
The vampire takes a breath, which Will finds oddly amusing, then steeples his fingers and begins muttering under his breath while looking between the five adventurers.
Mike squeezes Will closer and whispers into his ear, “I’m so happy you’re okay.”
“I’m happy you are too. I have so much to tell you. There was this pix—”
“You are a surprisingly capable group for your age,” Edward says, cutting Will off. “But I cannot ask you to continue.”
“We’d do it whether you asked or not,” Dustir says. “But if you want to offer a reward…”
The vampire’s eyes narrow.
“If you succeed, I suppose a trinket from my treasury would be in order.”
“Don’t worry, Your Majesty,” the dwarf replies, a glint in his eye. “We’ll handle the necromancer. No problem.”
“I still maintain that he should not be here,” Edward says, pointing at Will. “But the rest of you are at least of average silver-rank power.”
Will flushes.
“He stays,” Mike growls.
The king rolls his eyes.
“Fine. At the end of this corridor, take a left. It should lead you to the chamber where the necromancer resides, and logically, the hostages. I’ll come find you once you’ve dealt with him.”
“Thank you, Your Grace,” Luco says, repeating the intricate bow-dance.
“Go, before sense can alter my decision.”
Edward waves them on.
The party falls back into formation and follows his directions.
The corridor opens into a large chamber with a raised platform at its center. A makeshift altar of bones sits atop it.
As Will scans the outer edge of the room, he spots nearly twenty people chained together and pinned to the wall with metal pitons.
His focus snaps back to the altar as a man in black robes edged with green directs a group of skeletons dragging one of the prisoners toward it. Will squints and spots a symbol emblazoned on the man’s robes: a stylized eye cradled in a left hand.
The man’s voice fills the chamber.
“Rejoice, thralls and prisoners alike! Soon you will all join the great pool of the Whispered One! By your sacrifice, he gains strength. Strength enough to favor me!”
Two skeletons force the prisoner onto the altar and fasten his chains to it.
“Plan?” Luco whispers.
“Hit the necromancer, free the residents and the prisoners?” Mike whispers back.
“That’s not a plan,” Luco hisses. “That’s a mission statement.”

Chapter Text

Will la Fey stares at the men from the lab across the square. Is Brenner one of the injured? Will they force the issue now that the larger threat is gone? Will considers while directing Mike through patching Steve’s wounds as well as he can.

“It’s still bleeding! I can’t- eugh”

“Gust.” Will flicks his hand and Mike is knocked away from Steve before he can puke onto the still bleeding wound.

He opens his hand and produces a small flame.

“Steve, this is going to hurt, a lot.” He rips off his own sleeve and forces the fabric into the teen’s mouth.

“Bite that, not your tongue.”

“Wait- Wait- wait! What are you- aaaaaaaaaagh!”

Will begins pressing the flame to each of the punctures individually. Steve passes out and Will covers the cauterized wounds after ripping off his other sleeve. The bleeding stopped.

Mike is still dry heaving, El is looking green as well. Will rolls his eyes.

“Newbies.”

He returns his gaze to the men and sees them pulling back.

The door to the library slams open, Nancy and Jonathan are half dragging an unconscious young woman between them.

Nancy meets Will’s eyes.

“You got it?”

“Yeah, Steve took a bad hit, he’s stable but unconscious.”

“Can you lift him?”

“I’m a wizard not a-” Will sighs and experimentally pulls Steve up. “Not and move quickly.”

He answers.

“That’ll have to do.”

Will nods.

“Mike, El, help me balance him.”

The boy takes a deep breath and pulls the teen over his shoulders, his knees wobble under the weight for a moment, but with Mike and El each taking a little of the pressure he stabalizes.

“Jesus Christ, what did they feed you over there.”

“Not- Much- Heavier- Than- Adventuring- Pack.” Will lies, huffing for each word.

Will la Fey and the others stagger across the square, then start backtracking through the town. At this pace, Will knows getting back to the portal is likely to take hours.
After thirty minutes, the weight becomes unbearable and he starts to stumble.
“Enlarge,” he gasps.
He doubles in height, steadying both himself and the teen sprawled across his now much broader shoulders.
“Why didn’t you do that to start with?” Jonathan shouts up at him.
“Only lasts a minute,” Will shoots back.
Suddenly, Steve jerks and screams.
“Holy—aaagh! What is happening? Don’t drop me!”
Will slowly lowers him to the ground, where the teen writhes in pain, clutching his side.
The spell fades, and Will blows a tuft of hair out of his face, resisting the urge to pout over no longer being the tallest person there.
“You’re fine. No damage to your face or hair. I expect a full recovery,” Will deadpans.
“What are you?” Steve whines.
“A wizard.”
“Okay,” Nancy sighs. “I think we can rest for a moment.”
A chittering sound makes the hairs on the back of Will’s neck stand on end.
“Well, Steve,” he says, “I guess you were right. There are two of them.”
“Fuck,” the teen says, trying to push himself up off the ground.
“You got another storm ready?” Steve asks.
“Once-a-day thing,” Will replies.
“How do we—”
“The end of the alley is about thirty feet, right?” Will cuts in.
“Yeah, I guess, but—” Nancy starts.
A second monster turns the corner Will has been watching.
“Fireball.”
The sides of the three buildings hemming in the monster vanish in the blast.
Heat washes across Will’s face, and he smirks as he realizes they had more than ten feet to spare.
Then the flames clear, and his smirk dies.
The monster is still standing in the burning crater.
Will bites his lip.
It screeches and charges.
“Push it back! I’ll hit it again!” Will shouts.
He readies another Fireball and winces as the count in the back of his mind tells him this is his last for the day.
“Gust!” Mike shouts.
El screams and throws both hands forward, a bead of blood running from her nose.
The monster is hurled back into the crater.
“Fireball!”
Will unleashes the spell again.
The creature stands back up.
“Not good,” Will breathes. He looks at the people around him—his people.
“Mike, hit it with everything you’ve got. You too, El. I’ll hold it back.”
“With what? Will, what are you—”
Will yanks the golf club off Jonathan’s back.
“Enlarge.”
Will—and the golf club—double in size.
“Will!”
He charges the monster with the club raised high and brings it crashing down.
The creature bats the blow aside and drives its claws into his leg.
“Magic Missile!” Will hears Mike shout behind him.
El screams again.

Chapter Text

Will Byers opens his mouth.
“No time for a real plan. We charge him and stop him now!”
The other four stare at him in shock. Then Dustir nods.
“Aye. Let’s go, Eli. One last ride before fried duck!”
“Wooo!” Elias shouts, and the two of them charge out of the corridor.
Mike follows right behind them.
Will and Luco take position at the corridor entrance.
“What? Children! Where did you come from?” the necromancer shouts.
Whatever else he was about to say is drowned out as Elias’s form flashes green. A moment later, he takes wing as a full-sized wyvern, snatching Dustir off the ground as a wave of thirty skeletons surges to meet them. The wyvern screeches and dives for the platform.
Will focuses on Mike, throwing Firebolts to keep the paladin’s flanks clear.
As Elias and Dustir reach the altar, the necromancer disappears in a puff of mist and reappears in the middle of the skeleton mass. He points at Mike.
“Hold Person.”
Mike freezes in place.
The skeletons immediately start stabbing at the gaps in his armor.
Will summons the moonlight blade away from him and closes his eyes, feeling through the bond.
“Castle.”
He appears in the middle of the skeletons and shouts, “Thunderwave!”
The undead are hurled backward, buying him a moment of breathing room.
Elias and Dustir land on the platform again, and again the necromancer Misty Steps away.
The man starts to laugh as more and more skeletons pour into the chamber, but a crack-THUM from Luco’s bow cuts him off. The arrow shatters the shield he tries to raise and tears away his left arm.
“Castle!”
Mike shouts from somewhere behind Will, and suddenly Will is back at the corridor entrance beside Luco.
The blade vanishes from Will’s hand as Mike starts hacking through wave after wave of undead.
Elias and Dustir force the necromancer to Misty Step again.
Luco’s second arrow bounces off the man’s shield.
“Stop running away, you damned—”
“Immolate.”
Elias, still in wyvern form, is suddenly wreathed in flame. He screeches as the form collapses, spilling the boy out of it.
He hits the ground still burning in human shape.
“Scorching Ray!”
Will unleashes three lines of burning plasma across the chamber. The necromancer tries to dodge, but the rays bend to follow him, and Will feels Verdent warming in his pocket.
The blue-and-gold fire slams into the man.
He screams.
The flames around Elias vanish.
“Insolent children! How dare you interrupt the designs of the Undying King!”
Will watches Mike vanish from the spot where skeletons have him mobbed and appear beside the necromancer.
He slashes down.
The blade bites deep into the man’s side, then explodes into blue-and-gold radiance.
The necromancer falls in two halves.
The room freezes.
The remaining skeletons glance between the adventurers and the necromancer’s body, their jaws chattering.
Then the chamber shakes.
The skeletons nearest the corpse lose cohesion, collapsing into piles of bone before beginning to drift toward it.
More and more bones spiral inward, whirling around the necromancer’s remains until not a single one of the hundred skeletons is left standing in the chamber.

Chapter Text

Will la Fey has a very high threshold for weird. Adventurers, as a rule, tend to laugh in the face of anything that would give normal people a sense of weirdness.
Trying to fight this monster while enlarged, with a metal club from a game he does not even know exists, crosses that threshold and then some.
He swings anyway.
The monster bats the club aside again, then rakes its claws across his torso. The cuts are deep. Will feels his concentration on the spell falter, then fizzle, as he staggers backward in pain, suddenly dwarfed by the creature towering above him.
It tries to push past him, its head fixed on El.
Will slams the club into its side. It barely registers the impact.
It surges forward, claws extended.
“Vortex Warp.”
The creature vanishes and reappears in the crater left by the double Fireball.
Last spell of that tier.
“Your fight is with me! Me!” he shouts, raising the club in trembling hands, his vision blurring.
The creature charges again.
“Burning Hands!”
The arc of flame makes it flinch, but it keeps coming, raking its claws down Will’s chest and knocking him backward.
Will rolls to his feet, swaying.
“Magic Missile!” Mike shouts behind him, voice breaking.
Red darts of magic whiz past Will’s head and slam into the creature.
It charges him again.
Its claws bounce off a magical bubble of force.
“Firebolt!”
The creature staggers.
Its claws rebound from another Shield.
“Shocking Grasp!”
The monster barely winces. It lashes out again, and Will feels his last Shield flare, crack, and shatter.
The claws carve from his shoulder to his hip, and he drops to one knee. His vision narrows to a single point.
The creature tries to step past him again.
“Mind Sliver.”
The bolt of psychic energy fizzles harmlessly against it.
It raises an arm to finish him.
“Gust!”
Mike’s spell shoves the creature back just enough.
Will forces himself to his feet, legs shaking.
“You. Will. Not. Harm. Them.”
El is suddenly there beside him, only just visible at the edge of his fading vision.
She raises both hands.
“Ever.”
The monster is hurled backward and slams into the broken wall of the building beyond the crater.
Blood pours from her nose as she takes one step forward, then another.
Will tries to raise his hand, but it will not respond. His vision swims.
The wall behind the creature begins to fracture, revealing an orange light beyond it.
The creature claws at the edges of the tear in reality, but El only pushes harder.
Mike’s arms wrap around Will, pulling him back.
With a final scream of effort, El forces the creature through the portal and collapses.
Will’s vision closes in even further. He cranes his neck back and looks up at Mike.
“I need you,” he whispers.
“I’m not your paladin,” the boy replies, his face tight with worry.
“I know,” Will chokes out. “You’re my boyfriend.”
Warm tears hit his face.
“What do I do?”
Will focuses on one of his hands. A small flame appears.
“Close them. Stop the bleeding.”
“Will!” Mike says.
“Hurry. So… cute.”
The flame dies in his hand.
Mike lowers him to the ground.
“Help me!” Mike shouts.
Jonathan and Nancy appear in Will’s narrowing vision.
Hands press cloth into his wounds.
“Not good,” he whispers. “Feels like… dying.”
“No! You can’t!”
“Can I have one last—”
“Will!”
His vision narrows to two points of light. He feels lips press against his and smiles as the world fades.
He waits in the blackness.
He can still hear them talking, crying over him, though he cannot make out the words.
Then gruffer voices join the blur.
“Wizard, Level 8 obtained. Spells: Wall of Fire, Lightning Bolt, obtained.”
Not dead, then.

Chapter Text

Will Byers watches the swirling bones coalesce into a twisted shape: eight legs supporting a massive, segmented body.
A bone spider slams into the ground beside Mike the Brave.
Elias jumps, still shaking from the fire, and his form flashes green in a swirl of leaves.
A giant bird of prey, nearly the size of the bone spider and crowned in blue-and-gold feathers, lets out a piercing cry and takes flight, Dustir clutched in one taloned claw.
Mike rushes forward and swings the moonlight sword into one of the spider’s legs.
Will hurls a Firebolt. It burns through a full skeleton’s worth of bone.
Luco’s bow speaks, and one of the legs shatters.
The spider moves.
The ground shakes as it bounds past Mike the Brave and slams two of its legs down at Luco and Will.
The two adventurers dive out of the way. Will rolls to his feet. Luco rolls up as well, but stumbles, his right leg twisted at the wrong angle.
“Castle!” Mike shouts.
Suddenly, Will is standing on the platform. He raises a hand and looses another Firebolt into the bone spider.
It feels like chipping away at a statue with a spoon.
Elias, still in roc form, drops Dustir onto the spider’s back, then grabs the creature with both claws and yanks it backward.
The spider stumbles away from the corridor entrance.
Will catches a flash of golden light behind it.
He throws another Firebolt.
The spider’s rear segment curls upward like a scorpion’s tail and blasts a jet of bones at the roc. The massive bird is pinned to the chamber ceiling, and Elias is forced to shift free.
Will watches him fall and sees Dustir catch the smaller boy.
The dwarf leaps off the bone spider and rushes toward Will.
Elias is not moving.
Luco tries to dodge out from beneath the spider and gets caught by one of its legs. When he rolls away, one arm hangs in a twisted mess.
Mike appears beside him and blocks another crashing strike with his shield. The impact drives Mike’s boots into solid stone.
Dustir lays Elias down and turns back, tears bright in his eyes.
Will presses two fingers to the boy’s neck. His heart is beating. He is only unconscious.
Will’s chest loosens.
He looks up just in time to see Luco, his arm freshly healed, fire another shot.
A second leg collapses.
Dustir slams his mace into a third. It cracks, but holds.
Will throws another Firebolt. It barely seems to do anything.
Luco is hit a third time.
Mike heals him, but the light fades too quickly. The ranger does not rise.
He shouts something to Dustir, and the fighter barrels beneath the bone spider, scoops up the unconscious ranger, and rushes him back toward Will.
Then Mike is alone, dueling the giant monster while Will continues to chip away at it with Firebolt after Firebolt.
The spider drives the melee back and back.
Then it gets lucky.
A strike slips past Mike, past Dustir’s guard.
The dwarf goes down.
Mike and Will stand together in front of Dustir’s fallen form.
Mike yanks the fighter’s mace from the ground.
Will summons the moonlight blade.
“Together,” Mike says.
“Together,” Will answers.
The pair swing and block and dodge as the spider chips away at the paladin’s shield.
Metal cracks.
The shield breaks in half.
Mike grips the mace in both hands.
The bond tugs tight as they both step back from a leg crashing down inches in front of them.
Words burn in Will’s mind, and his vision doubles.
He is seeing from Mike’s perspective and his own.
The pair move faster now, dodging blows with a precision only two minds could achieve.
“I am yours,” Will says.
“You are mine,” Mike answers.
“You are mine,” Will says, and cleaves through the end of a leg with the moonlight sword.
“I am yours,” Mike replies, cracking another leg with his mace.
“We are shield and sword against the dark,” Will says.
“We are light and moon against despair,” Mike answers.
“I am your Moonwarden.”
“I am your Paladin.”
The moonlight sword vanishes from Will’s hand.
In its place appears a blazing glaive of sunlight.
Mike drops the mace. The moonlight sword appears in his right hand, and a glowing moonlit shield forms in his left.
They split, charging in opposite directions around the creature.
Will spins the glaive through a practiced kata and slices through another leg.
The bone spider topples.
Mike leaps and drives his sword into the joint between the creature’s head and body.
The blade ignites.
The bone spider erupts in azure, blue, and gold flame.
The bones burn to dust as Mike and Will stare at one another.
Will shakes his head and blinks as the bond slowly loosens and he is only one person again.
He looks down at the sunlight glaive and smiles.
Then he opens his bag, grabs a potion vial, and rushes over to Dustir, while Mike hurries to Luco and Elias.
Will tips the potion to Dustir’s lips.
The dwarf gasps in a breath and grabs Will’s arm hard enough to make the moonwarden flinch.
“Is he okay?” Dustir asks, voice rough with panic. “Is Eli—”
“He’s fine,” Will says quickly. “He was just knocked out.”
The dwarf collapses back, releasing Will’s arm.
“Thank the gods.”
“Come on, up,” Will says, offering him a hand. “We’ve still got a mission.”
“Ugh,” Dustir groans. “Can’t a man stew for a moment after hanging on the brink of death?”
“You’re thirteen,” Will says dryly, “and an adventurer.”
“Right on both counts, Will.”
Will smiles, pointedly not commenting on Dustir not calling him newbie.
The two of them stagger back to the others just as Luco pushes himself upright and Mike tips a healing potion into Elias’s mouth.
Luco lets out a rough breath.
“Isha’s forgiveness,” he rasps. “That thing was after me.”
“Yeah,” Will says. “You were the only one really hurting it.”
The elf tries and fails to hide a smug smirk.
“Everyone did their part,” he says.
A moment later, Elias jolts upright as the potion takes hold. He scans the faces around him, then locks onto Dustir.
“Je hebt me gered, mijn... konijntje.”
The boy scrambles to his feet and throws himself at Dustir, rubbing his cheek against the dwarf’s.
Will turns toward the noble chained to the altar.