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Hawkins
A wrathful wind shrieked and stung their faces with bits of debris, a shard of glass leaving a deep scratch across Dustin’s cheek as he shouted. “Now that the Mind Flayer is destroyed, the boundaries between realities are beginning to weaken!”
“You stole that line from Doctor Strange #176!”
“Not important, Lucas,” Max shouted back.
Mike could barely hear them bickering over the unholy din, but those voices he would recognize anywhere, and a quick glance to his left and right confirmed the truth of something he had despaired of since they had gotten the false report of Will’s death, years ago now. Somehow, some way, all of his friends had made it through this madness alive.
He had just enough time to savor that thought before some force pulled him up from where he was crouched, like he was an unfunny comic getting yanked offstage. Instinctively, he reached out with both hands for what was nearest, pulling Will and El along with him into the void.
Wildemount
The three of them crashed, head over heels, into a grassy paddock. Will blinked and looked up to see a bunch of other children - some human, but others with pointed ears, curled horns, or wispy mustaches - looking at them very curiously. That was alright, then, he thought, pulling himself groggily to his feet. Either he had been knocked unconscious and he was dreaming about the sorts of things he usually wrote campaigns about, or he’d been sucked into an alternate reality that wasn’t immediately trying to kill him. He glanced down - Mike and El were just starting to stir, so that was alright.
Will looked back up just in time to see a middle-aged man with orange hair and beard come trotting up. “Hallo, I do not think you are enrolled in Brenatto’s Camp for Young Adventurers, kinder.”
Will frowned. Of all the places he’d thought he’d ended up, Germany was not on the list. The strange man muttered briefly under his breath and Will swore his eyes glowed white, just for a second. “Ja, you are not from these parts at all. So tell me,” and here his eyes focused on El, “how exactly did a couple of teenagers manage to Plane Shift?” The stranger’s face cracked into a foolish grin. “But where are my manners? Here, I am Caleb Widogast. Please, come with me, and we can talk inside, with a little more privacy,” he added, as other camp counselors began escorting the rest of the children away. “Also, there is strudel. I made it myself! It is…well, I am working on it.”
Wildemount, ten minutes later
El wolfed down her piece of strudel with no complaints. The way Caleb looked at her…it wasn’t the false pride that Papa had. It was closer to the imaginative curiosity that filled Will, the tenderness that underpinned Mike’s gaze whenever he looked at her and thought she couldn’t see. The short, plump woman sitting next to him - Veth, that was it - reminded her more of Mrs. Byers - love with gratitude to be able to express it. Had Veth nearly lost someone as well, she wondered. The tall, dark-skinned man - not black like Lucas and his family, black like the smudging of charcoal on paper - floating quietly in the corner - he was more like Mike in his more contemplative moods, gazing quietly at the three of them like some science problem to be solved. She couldn’t begin to imagine the permutations and possible solutions that were running through his head (she thought she was doing pretty good to have picked up ‘permutations’ and ‘solutions’ from a math textbook given that she was basically nonverbal five years ago) but she knew gears turning when she saw them.
He was the next to speak - Essek, that was his name - “So you slew an illithid? And its magic backfired and sent you to our realm?” He shrugged and looked over at Caleb. “It’s at least plausible, although your,” his focus returned to El, “powers are…most remarkable. If you don’t mind, how did you acquire them?”
El looked over at Mike, then Will; they both nodded. “My mother…she was experimented on. I…didn’t know her. Papa…raised me, in a lab.”
“Scheisse.” Wherever - and whenever - Caleb was looking, it was not the present.
“I tried to contact…another place. Not like this one, or ours. A bad place. Something…saw me.”
“Sorcerer,” Essek murmured. “Or maybe a warlock. Harder to predict the outcomes when you aren’t learning from a book.” He rested his hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “She seems to have come out of her ordeals the stronger for it - as you did, my love.”
“Wait,” Will interrupted. “You can learn to do magic and - and be - be gay here?”
“Yes, yes of course,” Veth replied confused. “Fuck, what sort of shitty place are you kids from?” She coughed. “Pardon my Elvish.”
“I’m not leaving,” Will said - as a joke at first, El thought, but then they both realized it was true.
“A healthy attitude,” Caleb said. “Given that we do not know if we can even get you home. Unless, I suppose, you have a fork attuned to your plane of existence.” Wordlessly, Mike produced the wrist rocket from the pocket where he had stashed it after Lucas had dropped it. “Hmm, ja, I could perhaps make do with this.” A forced smile crossed Caleb’s face. “Well, we don’t have to make a decision immediately. At any rate, it will be tomorrow morning until one of us can prepare the spell. Why don’t you have fun with some of the other children, ja?”
“Oh, shit! It’s time for crossbow practice! Come on!” With a collective shrug, they followed Veth out of the cabin.
Hawkins, ten years later
Mike gently burped baby Jenna, walking back and forth on their back porch. He hummed to himself as the last rays of the sunset began to fade, harmonizing with the faint clinking from inside as El put away the clean dishes. It was a nice night, really. A little chilly, but if you were walking you’d hardly notice.
You would notice a bright light coming from the woods out back, though, and a strange bang that went with it. Not like a kid with a firecracker. “El, honey, put your shoes on,” he called, then, to the other woman in his life: “I’ll be right back,” he whispered, setting Jenna down in the bassinet in the living room. Then returning to the kitchen, “I heard something strange, out in the woods.” El nodded as he stretched and pulled the pistol down from on top of the kitchen cabinets, carefully loading it and checking the safety before they crept out into the woods.
This is an overreaction, Mike told himself. This is some dumbass kid who brewed up some homemade black powder. This is definitely not a long-dreaded incursion from some extraplanar hell monster. This is–
“Will?” Mike and El spoke in unison. For the young man before them - though taller, more filled in, and wearing a strange robe - was unmistakably Will.
“Uh, hi?” he managed sheepishly before he was pulled into a sudden, tight embrace.