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“You know all of this is forbidden, right?”

Will snickers in the half-dark, the only light guiding them through the academy's shadowed corridors coming from the violet glow of his medallion as it swings softly against his chest. 

Mike nudges him closer with his shoulder, a silent warning to be quiet. Still, just because something is forbidden doesn’t mean it isn’t fun. If anything, that’s exactly what makes it fun.

They climb the final flight of stairs together. Will’s boots echo against the worn stone steps, the sound far too loud in the stillness, and both of them hold their breath at every footfall, knowing that if they’re caught, it’s over. 

Will turns back toward Mike, twisting his torso slightly as he does. The purple light catches Mike’s face, sharpening his features, carving them into something almost severe in the dark. Will barely manages to stifle a laugh when Mike stumbles over his own feet. They really shouldn’t be there, obviously. Not so late at night, not a cleric and a paladin sneaking through a tower meant for stargazing and quiet devotion for magic users only.

Mike, in particular, has no business being there. And yet, neither of them cares.

“You’re distracting me. It’s that stupid purple light,” Mike whispers as he regains his balance.

Will pulls a small face as he climbs the last step. It’s even colder up there, the air thinner and sharper, but it’s also the best place to watch the stars. 

“Shut up,” Will mumbles, brushing past him.

When he reaches the door to the tower’s upper chamber, Will curls his fingers tightly around the medallion hanging from his neck. Clerics are part of the few to know how to open the door, after all; it requires a token of the order. 

Behind him, Mike keeps muttering under his breath about cursed staircases and towers that are far too tall and absolutely unsuited to guys like him: paladins who belong in clean, grey wings of the academy, surrounded by swords and steel and discipline, all things Will has never cared for much.

The door opens onto a small, dark room with no ceiling at all. The chamber is circular and enclosed by low stone walls, open to the sky above; ancient star charts are etched into the floor, and old brass instruments sit abandoned in the corners, once used to trace constellations and divine meaning from the heavens. 

The night spills in freely, cold air and starlight alike, and the stars feel impossibly close, as if they could reach up and touch them.

“There we go. Welcome to my little kingdom,” Will chuckles softly, pulling the door shut as soon as Mike steps inside.

They’ve been sneaking up to this room at night ever since their first year. Ever since they learned they belonged to different orders. Ever since they realized that spending time together would no longer be simple… or safe. Ever since it became clear that being a cleric and a paladin came with consequences far heavier than mismatched armor or spells gone wrong.

Will exhales slowly. It’s been a while since they last came up here, months, at least. Mike has been… busy. 

This is the year of his formal induction into the Paladin Order of Hawkins, after all. His days are devoted to preparing for it, and his nights rarely look any different. Will misses him. That’s the reason they’re on the tower tonight. 

Truth is, sometimes Will feels this physical need to see Mike, as if they’re bound by something invisible, something that leaves Will weak the moment too much time passes between one encounter and another. 

Maybe it’s just because they grew up together, down in the village. They spent their entire childhood running through green fields, whether they were blooming or withered, sun-warmed or soaked with rain. 

Things changed when they grew… older. 

Inevitably, they drifted apart once they entered the academy, trained to serve their vast lands, and slowly realized that Will carried a different kind of courage than Mike did, a different kind of love for Hawkins, one that wasn’t as fierce or all-consuming as Mike’s.

So they’ve spent the last five years meeting in secret, stealing moments between lessons, waiting for summer to return home and enjoy each other’s company without fear. 

There was one full year when they didn’t see each other at all, between their third and fourth year. That summer, Mike didn’t come home. He stayed behind at the academy. Will did return, though, with a trunk full of spellbooks and a violet cloak scattered with stars, the same cloak he’s still wearing now. It’s his cloak, after all.

That October was strange for Will. In some ways, it was strange for both of them. Mike was… different, after that one summer apart. Physically taller, broader through the shoulders, his hair longer and curling around his face. Emotionally, more closed off, more serious. 

Will doesn’t know exactly what happened that summer; he only knows that Mike became intensely protective of him afterward. A fact that, unfortunately, still makes Will flush no matter how much time passes.

Will adjusted to the change, slowly. Seeing Mike again after that summer made him realize that he’d missed him more than he cared to admit, and that being away from Mike didn’t do him any good at all. 

He isn’t sure if that’s normal. He isn’t sure their relationship with each other is… normal, in any conventional sense. Not that they can’t be friends, but he and Mike have rediscovered something else between them, a kind of connection that Will is certain no other cleric shares with any paladin. 

Or at least, that’s what Eleven told him, his only real friend since their first year at the academy, the only person he truly managed to bond with. Still, Will tells himself that it’s probably just his imagination, something born out of his feelings for Mike. Feelings that, truthfully, he’s never fully defined.

He’s always cared about Mike, in one way or another. You care about the person who believes in you the most, even when you don’t believe in yourself. You care about the person you grow up with, even if you meet a thousand others along the way.

If he’s being honest, Will realized just how deeply he cared that October three years ago. 

Right after an entire summer without seeing Mike. Right after seeing him again and feeling warmth bloom in the center of his chest, heat rushing to his cheeks, a sudden, flustered embarrassment when he tried to hug him and it came out wrong, awkward and clumsy and strangely funny. 

A half-embrace that still drifts back into Will’s thoughts from time to time.

In any case, Will has learned how to live with these feelings. They’ve woven themselves quietly into his days: between lessons on spellcraft and ritual theory; through long afternoons spent beneath the Vital Tree, laughing about a summoned pseudodragon that refused to breathe fire and instead stole biscuits from passing apprentices, or about a divination gone wrong that insisted the “chosen hero” was, tragically, a goat. 

Evenings followed, tucked away in the tower where they are now, lying back against cold stone and counting constellations, trading stories about ancient heroes and arguing over which stars looked like swords, wings, or crowns. 

While up there, sometimes Will lets himself pretend that nothing else exists beyond the circle of stone, the stars above them, and Mike close enough to feel without touching.

That’s how he’s learned to coexist with it all—quietly and carefully—allowing his feelings for Mike to exist without naming them, without asking too much of them, even when they make his chest ache in ways he doesn’t quite have the words for yet.

Even when those feelings grew heavy, in a way, making themselves impossible to ignore. 

Even when Mike started taking an interest in his only friend, El, whom Mike constantly insists is just another mage he talks to from time to time. Even when Mike swore to him, solemn and earnest, that his heart belongs to no one at all.

Only to Hawkins, of course.

He’d said it with that familiar sincerity, eyes bright with devotion, as if loving his homeland were the most sacred thing in the world. And Will had believed him, had smiled and nodded, had made fun of him too because of his patriotism. 

Because if Mike’s heart truly belonged anywhere, it would be to the land that raised them, the stone walls and open fields, the people he was willing to defend with his life.

Will steps out onto the balcony and leans against the cold stone railing beside Mike. It’s strangely quiet. And Mike isn’t looking at him, not like he usually does. His jaw is clenched, his eyes fixed on the dark horizon instead.

That’s why Will knows immediately that something is wrong.

“Is everything okay?” he asks at last, because he doesn’t like seeing Mike like this. So Will reaches for his hand, tentative and slow and deliberately gentle, giving Mike plenty of time to pull away if he’s uncomfortable. They aren’t children anymore, and Will no longer allows himself the kind of easy affection they shared years ago. 

Mike doesn’t move his hand. Will takes it as a small invitation.

He settles his fingers over Mike’s, and Mike is surprisingly warm compared to him. 

“Talk to me,” Will says softly. He lets a bit of calm bleed through the contact between their hands, a small trick he learned in his second year at the academy, during a lesson on emotional magic he remembers only in fragments. This part, though, he remembers clearly. Mostly because it isn’t the first time he’s used it on Mike.

The change in Mike’s expression is immediate. His jaw loosens, his brows ease, and he finally allows himself a quiet breath. 

“Thank you,” he mumbles, though he still doesn’t look at Will; his eyes stay fixed on the horizon, as if he isn’t quite ready to spill what’s been weighing on him.

“They told us that—well,” Mike swallows audibly, and Will traces his thumb lightly along the back of Mike’s hand. Mike is anxious. Will knows it not just because he can see it, but because that anxiety bleeds into him in small, unwelcome doses through the magic.

“That we might be sent to the front, even if we’re not officially part of the order yet,” Mike finally admits, sounding utterly worn down.

A small, startled sound slips from Will before he can stop it. He isn’t entirely sure he’s understood correctly. Is something happening? Something at the borders of Hawkins that the academy isn’t telling its students about?

“Don’t panic. I’m just telling you,” Mike says quickly, his tone sharpening, turning harder, almost brittle.

Will knows exactly what he’s doing, what he’s trying to do, at least. Mike has been doing this since they were fourteen: that stiff, awkward hardness he puts on when he’s trying to protect Will from something. 

Sometimes it irritates him. That constant need Mike has to shield him… to shield everyone. Will knows it’s in his nature as a paladin, but he still can’t stop the faint grimace that curls his lips.

So Will opens his mouth to push back, if only to ease the tension he can feel coiled in Mike’s shoulders.

But Mike turns toward him sharply, and the hardness is still there in his eyes. “I’m serious, William. If I—if I get sent to the front, I need to know you’re safe,” he says, tightening his grip around Will’s hand.

Will freezes, caught completely off guard. Mike is rarely this serious and he almost never talks about leaving Will, about putting distance between them. Even though they both know it will happen eventually. Mike is a paladin, after all, sworn to fight for his homeland when called.

“I’ll be safe, Mike. Don’t worry,” Will says gently. “What exactly did they tell you?”

As he speaks, he slowly pulls his hand away from Mike’s. The reason is simpler than it should be: a quiet anxiety has begun to creep under his skin at the thought of Mike truly being involved in a battle. 

He knows it’s foolish, something he shouldn’t dwell on, given who Mike is. He has no doubt that Mike would make an exceptional paladin. And still, the mere idea that something could happen to him out there, on a battlefield where Will wouldn’t be there to protect him, to heal him, to use every spell at his disposal for him, makes his stomach twist unpleasantly.

“They didn’t give us many details,” Mike admits. “Actually, Lucas Sinclair told me. We were walking through the west corridors.”

Mike turns toward him suddenly. He seems to notice that Will’s hand is no longer resting over his, but he doesn’t say anything. Mike simply looks away. A faint flush creeps up his cheeks when he realizes he’s been staring at their hands, and he turns his gaze aside immediately.

“There are rumors about the return of… Vecna,” Mike says, lowering his voice as if someone might actually overhear them all the way up there.

Will flinches at the name. No one has spoken of Vecna in decades, not seriously, not without superstition or hushed disbelief. He isn’t sure Mike is right, or that the rumors are. More than that, he desperately hopes they aren’t true.

“W–what?” Will asks, panic creeping into his voice. “Wasn’t he dead?”

The thought alone makes his chest tighten. It’s not that they aren’t trained, far from it, but Vecna is something else entirely. His methods lie beyond anything they’ve been taught to counter properly. 

The last time Vecna was fought, long before Will was even born, defeating him came at a devastating cost: the lands of Hawkins were split in two, entire villages wiped off the map. There were no academies back then. No clearly defined orders, no rigid structures or carefully written rules. Those came later, born out of necessity, out of fear. 

Dark magic was forbidden to clerics, mages, and sorcerers alike because of him.

Even if Will, inconveniently, seems to have a particular talent for it; something he and El occasionally indulge in when they feel like breaking a rule or two.

“They can’t send students to the front. Right?” Will asks, pacing back and forth along the balcony now, boots scraping softly against stone. It would be reckless. Senseless. Sending students into a real battle would be unthinkable. Wouldn’t it?

Mike stays silent for far too long.

That silence makes Will’s anxiety spike.

“They will,” Mike finally says, his voice low as he exhales. “Only the Paladins and the Rangers, no magic users for some reason.” 

He turns fully toward Will. The cold wind tangles in his hair, lifting it from his face, and there’s a strange light in his eyes, something caught between fear and resolve.

“If it happens…” Mike starts, then reaches out, stopping Will with a firm hand on his arm.

He’s still warm. Will freezes instantly.

“If they send you guys too… you have to promise me you won’t do anything reckless,” Mike says, almost scolding him, that familiar, awkward firmness creeping into his tone. “You have to promise me you’ll get somewhere safe. Back to the village. I don’t want you anywhere near the battlefield.”

Will stares at him, genuinely confused.

Is Mike asking him to run away? To abandon his duties?

“I can’t do that, Mike. I—I don’t want to,” Will argues, anger slipping into his voice despite himself. “If it comes to it, I’ll be there too.”

He doesn’t understand why Mike is acting like this. Not fully. But Will won’t abandon his land out of fear, not even if he doesn’t love it with the same burning devotion Mike does. Not even if the thought of standing on an actual battlefield makes his stomach churn. 

That unease probably has more to do with the fact that he’s not the best cleric of his year, something he’s painfully aware of.

As Will speaks faster, more heatedly, a red glow flickers across Mike’s face: the reflection of Will’s medallion, still hanging at his chest, reacting to his heightened emotions.

“I don’t want to fight with you about this,” Mike says at last.

His gaze softens. His shoulders ease.

Will stops short when Mike grips his shoulders, steady and grounding. “You’re right,” Mike adds quietly. “You have every right to protect your land. Just—please. Be careful.”

The plea in his voice unsettles Will more than anything else tonight.

He nods, saying nothing. He doesn’t want to reopen the conversation.

They spend the rest of the night up in the tower, even though the cold grows sharper as the hours pass. Somehow, it calms them both. They leave only when it feels safe to do so—when the first pale light of dawn creeps over the horizon, washing out the constellations they’ve been watching all night, hiding the stars one by one as morning takes them back to reality.

Will spends the rest of the morning locked in a constant state of anxiety and tension, no matter how hard he tries not to think about the conversation he had with Mike the night before.

It starts as soon as he sits down for his first lesson.

The lecture hall smells faintly of ink, dust, and old parchment, sunlight filtering through tall, narrow windows and illuminating the runes carved into the stone walls. The professor is explaining advanced warding theory, layers of protection, interlocking sigils, the precise emotional state required to maintain them, but the words slide past Will without sticking. 

He copies symbols into his notebook out of habit, his handwriting neat but automatic, only to realize that he’s drawn the same sigil three times in a row. Each time he lifts his quill, his thoughts drift back to Mike: the way his voice dropped when he said Vecna’s name, the fear he tried, and failed, to hide.

El nudges him gently with her elbow at some point, whispering a joke about the instructor’s beard being warded more carefully than the academy vaults. 

Will lets out a breath that might pass for a laugh, if someone isn’t paying close attention, but it fades almost immediately. El studies him for a second longer than usual, eyes sharp and knowing, but she doesn’t push. She never does, not in public.

Even during the few hours he spends with the Order of Thieves, one of the rare times Will usually allows himself to truly enjoy things, he can’t shake the restlessness crawling under his skin.

Dustin Henderson is already grinning when Will arrives, sleeves rolled up, energy practically crackling around him like he’s been waiting all morning for this.

“Come on, Will,” he says, bouncing on the balls of his feet, “help me test a minor transmutation. It’s harmless. Mostly.”

Will raises his hands in surrender. “Not now, Dustin.”

But Dustin is begging him, and when he does try to focus, his magic responds sluggishly, the usual ease replaced by a faint tremor under his skin. A simple light spell flickers red at the edges, wrong and unstable, before he forces it down and lets it die out completely. 

By midmorning, Will’s head is pounding. Every mention of borders, defenses, or historical conflicts sends a spike of unease through him. He keeps thinking about what Mike said, not just about Vecna, but about the front. About students being sent to fight. About Mike, standing somewhere far away with a sword in his hands and no cleric nearby to keep him alive.

It isn’t just the idea of a new war that terrifies him.

It’s the thought that they could both be pulled into it, shaped and scattered by forces far larger than either of them, with no control over where they’ll end up… or whether they’ll make it back at all.

By the time the bells signal the end of the morning lessons, Will feels wrung out, like something inside him has been stretched too tight and hasn’t snapped yet only by sheer willpower. 

He gathers his books in silence, heart still racing, knowing with an uncomfortable certainty that this is only the beginning and that whatever is coming won’t stay confined to rumors for much longer.

In fact, when the lessons finally come to an end, what Mike told him is no longer confined to his own thoughts. It has spilled into the corridors: into hushed whispers passed between students with wide, frightened eyes, into tense conversations cut short the moment someone else walks by, into professors moving too quickly, their expressions tight and carefully controlled.

The academy feels different. Louder, and yet strangely muted at the same time. 

Will catches fragments as he walks: the borders, old seals weakening, mobilization. Someone mentions the western watchtowers. Someone else swears they heard a senior instructor arguing with a knight of the council. The words tangle together, half-formed and alarming, and Will’s stomach twists tighter with every step.

He can’t even begin to imagine the chaos unfolding on the paladin side of the grounds, on the far opposite end of the academy. The clang of steel, the barked orders, the rigid discipline… Mike thrown into the middle of it all, training harder, being prepared for something far more real than ceremonies or vows. The image settles in Will’s chest like a weight.

“So it’s true…” El says quietly beside him.

They’ve stopped near one of the long arched windows overlooking the inner courtyard. Below, students gather in nervous clusters, robes brushing together, voices low. El’s arms are crossed tightly over her chest, her usual composure cracked just enough to let something like fear show through.

“They’re saying the same things Mike told me last night,” Will replies, voice barely above a whisper. “About the borders. About… Vecna.”

El exhales slowly through her nose. “I felt something,” she admits. “A shift. A pressure in the weave. I hoped I was wrong.”

Will looks at her then. If El says she felt it, it means something. She isn’t prone to superstition or rumor; her magic is precise, instinctive, frighteningly accurate.

“They won’t keep this quiet for long,” she continues. “You can’t move this many people, prepare this many wards, without everyone noticing.”

Will swallows. “They’re talking about sending students.”

El’s jaw tightens. “I know.”

For a moment, neither of them speaks. A bell tolls somewhere deeper in the academy, too slow to signal a class change, its sound heavy and deliberate. Will’s gaze drifts back toward the far side of the grounds, where the paladin halls rise stark and grey against the sky.

“Mike knows,” El says softly, following his line of sight without needing to ask. “Doesn’t he?”

Will nods. “He asked me to run. To go back to the village.”

El’s eyes flick back to him, sharp. “And are you going to?”

“No,” Will answers immediately. There isn’t even a trace of hesitation in his voice.

Not only can he not abandon Mike here, or on the battlefield, or in any other place where danger might find him, but in his mind, a different thought starts  to take shape, quiet and stubborn. 

If the paladins are truly sent to the front, then Will will follow them—him. 

He can’t leave Mike alone out there. Not when Will has always been there for him, tending to scraped knuckles after overzealous sparring sessions, murmuring healing prayers over bruised ribs earned from training too hard, steadying his hands when his grip shook after his first real injury, exhaustion and fear barely hidden behind a crooked smile. 

Not when he’s soothed headaches brought on by sleepless nights and whispered blessings into the space between them before important trials, pretending they were nothing more than habit.

Mike is his paladin. In some way that feels older than rules and orders and vows, Will knows he is Mike’s cleric.

The realization settles in his chest with a strange sense of certainty. It doesn’t feel reckless. It feels inevitable.

“I have to go with him, El. If it really happens, I need to be on the field with him,” Will whispers, his eyes fixed on the paladin hall across the grounds.

El doesn’t argue. She knows Will far too well to waste words on something already decided. If there’s one undeniable truth about him, it’s that once he chooses a path, he follows it with quiet, relentless determination. Instead, she reaches for his hand at the exact moment a red banner is raised from the paladin building, a sharp splash of color against the stone, unmistakable. Something is happening in there.

“I won’t leave you alone,” El whispers. There’s steel in her voice, steady and unyielding. “I’ll come with you.” 

Something is happening inside the Paladin Hall, and Will only learns what it is hours later, when the single afternoon lesson is brought to an abrupt, brutal halt. The bells don’t ring as they should. 

Instead, an official summons echoes through the academy corridors. The initiation ceremony has begun.

The initiation of the final-year paladin students, Mike among them.

Normally, paladins are inducted into the Order only at the very end of the year, after completing a long sequence of trials: endurance, combat, devotion, loyalty. Tests meant to break them down and rebuild them into something unshakable. This time, the academy hasn’t waited. The decision is rushed, immediate.

Which means the rumors about Vecna must be true.

Will moves before anyone gives him permission.

His heart is hammering so hard it hurts, each beat sharp and frantic against his ribs. 

The medallion at his throat begins to vibrate, glowing a vivid, restless blue. Will knows that feeling, knows it too well. It only happens when his thoughts circle too tightly around Mike, when fear and concern sharpen into something almost unbearable. 

He runs.

Across the open field separating the clerics’ halls from the paladins’, boots pounding into frozen earth, breath tearing from his lungs. The wind cuts through him, cruel and biting. Somewhere along the way his cloak slips loose and falls behind him, violet fabric swallowed by the grass, but Will doesn’t stop. Not for anything.

He runs until his lungs burn, until cold creeps under his skin and his legs shake, until he’s at the base of the paladin hall, palms slamming against the massive stone doors.

They don’t budge.

He doesn’t hesitate. Magic floods his veins, sharp and immediate. The runes on the doors flare in protest as Will forces them open, a burst of raw energy cracking through the wards. Guards shout, reaching for him, but he ignores them, slipping past grasping hands and raised voices, heart roaring in his ears as he runs again, down long corridors of stone and steel, toward the heart of the building.

He bursts into the main hall and skids to a halt.

It’s true.

The chamber has been transformed. Banners line the walls, crimson and gold, sigils of the Order blazing with sanctified light. Candles burn in towering rows, their flames unnaturally steady. Senior paladins stand in formation, armor polished to a mirror shine, swords held upright in solemn silence. At the center of it all, the altar has been prepared, ancient and severe.

And there, among the final-year initiates, clad in ceremonial white and steel, stands Mike.

Ready to be sworn in. Ready to be sent to war.

Will’s breath catches painfully in his chest. It’s the first time Will has ever seen Mike in full armor.

There’s a red heart emblazoned at the center of his chest, vivid and unmistakable against the gleaming grey of the metal, as if someone decided to expose the very thing paladins are taught to guard most fiercely. Mike’s head is bowed in solemn reverence, posture perfect, disciplined, and the sight of it makes something in Will’s chest ache so sharply he almost feels dizzy.

Mike shouldn’t be there. And Will definitely shouldn’t be here.

Students of other orders aren’t allowed to witness a private paladin initiation, especially not one held under circumstances like these. But Will doesn’t care. He can’t move a single muscle anyway. Not when his medallion begins to burn hot against his chest, not when magic hums painfully under his skin, not even when Mike lifts his head.

And then it happens.

For some strange twist of fate, cruel or merciful, Will can’t tell, Mike’s eyes snap up and lock onto him.

Not past him. Not around the room—on him.

They cut through the hall with impossible precision, bypassing every other figure, every flickering candle, every watching paladin, as if pulled by something older than vows or orders. 

Like a compass needle finally finding true north.

Despite the helmet shadowing his face, Will catches a clear glimpse of Mike’s dark eyes. They’re wide, not with fear, but with shock. With something dangerously close to relief. 

The rigid discipline cracks for just a heartbeat, and in that sliver of time Will sees everything Mike isn’t allowed to show here: concern, urgency, questions he doesn’t dare ask out loud. Why are you here? You shouldn’t be here… You came?

The medallion at Will’s chest flares hotter, brighter, as if answering that look alone.

And for a moment the world narrows down to the space between them, to the unspoken truth hanging heavy in the air. No matter what armor Mike wears. No matter what oath he’s about to swear.

His gaze finds Will’s immediately, like he’d already been searching for it, waiting for it, as if he were about to swear complete and eternal devotion to Will himself, and not to his lands.

Will mouths Don’t do it.

It’s absurd, impossible. Every paladin is called to defend their homeland. Mike believes in this; loves it, even. He would never refuse the oath, never turn away from what he’s been preparing for his entire life. And yet—

Mike’s eyes soften, just slightly. Barely enough for anyone else to notice. But Will sees it. It’s a quiet reassurance, almost imperceptible, as if he’s trying to say it’s okay, because Will is clearly unraveling.

They weren’t ready for this. None of them were. Will didn’t have time to prepare… didn’t have time to learn how to let Mike go.

The realization hits him hard, sharp enough to make his chest ache. He feels selfish. Horribly, unforgivably selfish. Because instead of thinking about the defenses of their land, about the safety of Hawkins, his thoughts are tangled entirely around Mike. Around the possibility of losing him. Around the terror of a future where Mike walks onto a battlefield without him.

Before Will can do anything truly reckless, before panic pushes him to shout, to run forward, to interrupt a ceremony Mike wouldn’t want disrupted, hands close around his arms.

Firm. Unyielding.

He barely registers the guards as they escort him away, out of the hall and back through the stone corridors of the paladin palace. The doors close behind him with a final, echoing thud, cutting him off from the light, the vows, and the sight of Mike standing at the altar.

And just like that, he’s gone, left with nothing but the lingering heat of his medallion against his chest and the crushing weight of anxiety pressing down on his chest.

Will doesn’t know when the paladins will depart for the front. He has no idea if that moment, Mike standing at the altar, swearing himself to something he has always believed in, might have been the last time he would ever see him. The thought is unbearable. It coils tight in his lungs, steals his breath. 

He can’t let that be their final memory of each other. He just can’t. He needs to see Mike again; so Will runs.

He runs across the open field that separates his home from Mike’s, boots slipping through the grass, heart pounding violently in his ears. He runs until his breath burns, until he nearly trips over his own cloak as it lashes behind him, vibrating with a bright, restless purple, like it’s protesting being left behind, like it knows exactly where it needs to go.

The Clerics’ Palace rises in front of him again, all stone and symmetry and sacred rules that suddenly feel suffocating.

That’s when reality truly hits.

Will’s feet come to an abrupt stop before the tall doors of his own palace can open, his breath catching painfully in his chest. He has no idea how he’s supposed to see Mike again without being noticed, without being intercepted and escorted away like a foolish child who wandered where he didn’t belong. 

He doesn’t even know if the Paladins have dormitories at all, or if, by now, they’re already locked down, watched, preparing to leave.

He feels trapped. Caged.

“Hey—are you okay?”

Dustin's voice cuts through the noise in his head as he passes by the side entrance, arms full of… something. Tools, maybe. Books. Will doesn’t really see them. 

If he’s being honest, he doesn’t have a single second to spare for Dustin, not for small talk, not for concern, not for anything at all.

Dustin keeps talking, but Will barely hears him. He shuts the world out deliberately, like slamming a door inside his own mind, focusing instead on the frantic spiral of thoughts until… an idea sparks.

It’s reckless. Probably stupid. But trying can’t hurt.

Dustin is part of the Order of Thieves, after all. And if anyone knows how to get somewhere he shouldn’t be… it’s him.

Thus why, not even an hour later, Will can’t say how much has passed, he finds himself underground, fingers clenched tightly around the medallion at his chest, still unsure whether this is the worst idea he’s ever had.

A soft, violet glow spills from the charm, illuminating the narrow tunnel around him. The walls are cracked and damp, the stone dark with age and neglect, the air thick with dust and something old and forgotten. This is the passage Dustin swore would lead straight from the Thieves’ Palace to the Paladins’, a poorly guarded underground tunnel that few people even remember exists.

Will hadn’t understood half of Dustin’s explanation, if he’s honest. There had been talk of sharp turns, uneven steps, hidden markers, details Will had nodded along to without fully absorbing. The last thing he wants is to get lost down here.

So he moves carefully at first.

Then faster.

His boots echo softly against the stone as he breaks into a tentative run, cloak brushing against his legs, breath coming quicker with every step. Every shadow looks like it might move. Every curve of the tunnel feels wrong. His heart pounds so hard it almost hurts, and he wonders if the sound of it alone could give him away.

And then, the medallion burns.

Will gasps, clutching at his chest as heat flares suddenly against his skin, sharp and unmistakable. Not a vibration this time. Not a warning.

Recognition.

“Mike,” he whispers without meaning to.

It’s happened before. Always for the same reason.

He slows, then turns the final corner of the tunnel, certain this must be the last stretch, and there he is.

Mike stands at the base of a narrow stone staircase leading upward, one hand braced against the wall as if he’s just come down in a hurry. 

He’s sweating, hair damp and clinging to his forehead, chest rising and falling beneath armor he hasn’t even taken off yet. The metal catches the low light, scarred and real, like proof that everything is already in motion.

For one terrible second, Will’s heart stops entirely.

Then it slams back into his chest.

“Mike.”

He doesn’t think after that.

He crosses the distance between them in a rush, boots skidding slightly on stone, and throws himself at Mike like gravity itself has betrayed him. He forgets his rule, the careful ask first, the restraint he’s forced himself to learn. He just clings to Mike, arms wrapped tight around his neck as if letting go would shatter him completely.

Mike stiffens in surprise for half a second before reacting, armor clanking awkwardly as he pulls Will back just as fiercely.

“Will—” Mike breathes, voice unsteady.

One armored arm presses firmly between Will’s shoulder blades, the other wraps around his waist, holding him close despite the metal, despite the heat, despite how uncomfortable it must be. Will buries his face against Mike’s neck.

They stay like that longer than they should.

The medallion’s glow intensifies, its heat seeping through Mike’s armor until it’s almost painful, but neither of them cares. Finally, Mike exhales shakily. “You aren’t supposed to be down here.”

“I know,” Will whispers. “I don’t care. I came to look for you,” he keeps going, realising that Mike’s down there to do the same exact thing. 

Mike lets out a quiet, helpless laugh, then grows serious again. “It’s true,” he says softly. “Vecna’s back. Stronger than before. The borders fell this morning. Paladins and Rangers were summoned personally. We will leave soon.”

Will pulls back just enough to press his forehead to Mike’s, one hand slipping into the damp hair at the nape of his neck. He tries to pass every bit of calm he can into the touch, to steady Mike the way he’s done a hundred times before, but it barely works, because his own heart is pounding wildly in his chest.

He can’t believe this is really happening. That the news only surfaced last night, whispered in the dark, and now they’re already preparing to leave. 

There hasn’t been time to breathe, to adjust, to understand what any of this means. Yesterday, this version of himself didn’t exist yet, the one carrying this weight, this sharp awareness, this fear that sits heavy and constant beneath his ribs.

Will wishes, desperately, that he could turn back time. Even just to last night. To the quiet of the tower, to the simple certainty of having Mike beside him, warm and alive and close, without the looming terror of losing him hanging over every thought.

His fingers tremble.

“I’m coming with you,” Will says immediately. “I’ll find a way. I won’t let you go alone.”

Mike’s expression hardens. For a split second, it looks like his breath gets stuck somewhere in his chest, his lungs refusing to move. His shoulders square, his posture going rigid beneath the armor as Will’s words sink in. But he isn’t angry, not really. There’s something steadier in his gaze when he pulls back, something painfully resolved.

“No. You can’t.”

“Yes, I can.” Will answers without thinking, the words tumbling out on sheer instinct alone.

“No, Will.” Mike’s voice is firm now, unmistakable. Final.

Their voices rise, not enough to echo down the tunnel, but enough to fracture the fragile calm between them. Fear bleeds into frustration. Desperation sharpens stubbornness, and neither of them is willing to be the first to back down.

“You don’t get to decide that for me,” Will snaps, his grip tightening unconsciously at the edge of Mike’s armor. “You don’t get to decide where I belong.”

“And you don’t get to make me weaker,” Mike fires back before he can stop himself.

The words hang there, heavy and irreversible.

Mike’s jaw tightens the instant he realizes what he’s said. His mouth opens, then closes again. Silence crashes down between them, thick and suffocating, broken only by the faint hum of Will’s medallion and the distant, hollow sounds of the palace above.

Slowly, deliberately, Mike steps back.

He creates space between them like it physically costs him to do so, like every inch of distance is something he has to force his body to accept. The armor shifts with a dull metallic sound, suddenly feeling less like protection and more like a barrier.

Then he drops to his knees in front of Will.

Will freezes.

For a moment, he can’t even process what Mike is doing, what this means. Being Mike’s weakness? It doesn’t make sense. None of it does. Instinctively, Will tries to sink down with him, to meet him at eye level, but Mike bows his head first, shoulders slumping as if something inside him has finally given way.

Dark, damp curls fall over his eyes. The armor creaks softly as he shifts, metal suddenly too heavy for a body that looks exhausted beneath it. There’s a stretch of silence, long enough to hurt, before Mike speaks again.

“I’m devoted to you, William,” he says.

His voice is steady, painfully serious, the kind of tone people use when they confess something that has been burning inside them for years. “Not to Hawkins. Not to the land. To you.”

Will’s breath catches violently in his throat. Panic floods his veins, sharp and disorienting. His mind scrambles for logic, for denial, for anything that might make this less real, but nothing comes.

“That’s why I didn’t come home that summer,” Mike continues, still not looking up. “I realized it then. Not long after the term started.” His fingers curl into the stone floor. “I’m devoted to you. Only you.”

Everything snaps into place all at once: the strange distance, the way Mike has always hovered too close, protected too fiercely. The way his eyes have always found Will first, every time. Will wants to react, to say something, anything, but his body won’t cooperate. It’s like the truth has rooted him to the ground.

“It happens only once every few centuries,” Mike says quietly. “A paladin bound to a cleric like this. It’s a blessing and a curse.”

Finally, he lifts his head.

His eyes are dark and shining. Not with fear, but with something dangerously close to tears.

“Mike— I—” Will tries, but the words collapse before they can leave his mouth. The confession is too vast, too overwhelming, swallowing every thought he reaches for.

“Every spell you cast would make me stronger,” Mike goes on, swallowing hard. His voice fractures just a little. “But if you were on the battlefield—” He looks down again, jaw clenched.

“I wouldn’t protect the land. I wouldn’t protect myself. I’d protect you. Every time. No matter the cost.”

His voice drops to a whisper. “You’d make me weak.”

Will stares at him, chest aching, eyes burning.

Weak. The word feels wrong. Cruel. Unbearably wrong.

His hands are shaking when he cups Mike’s face, forcing him to look up again, to really look at him. Calloused thumbs brush warm skin, grounding and intimate all at once. Will sinks down fully now, bringing himself to Mike’s level, foreheads touching.

“You can’t do this to me,” Will whispers, voice breaking.

He knows it isn’t Mike’s fault. He knows Mike didn’t choose this. But destiny feels vicious in this moment, deliberate in its cruelty, like it’s tearing them apart on purpose.

“You have to let me go,” Mike murmurs, resting his hands over Will’s. They’re warm. Always warm. Gentle, even now. “You have to.”

Before Will can answer, the bells begin to ring: sharp, shrill, echoing through stone and bone alike. The signal. The call for the Paladins and the Rangers to depart.

Mike leans forward, pressing his lips to Will’s forehead in a brief, reverent kiss. It burns. It sears straight through him. Will squeezes his eyes shut, barely holding himself together.

“I’ll come back to you,” Mike whispers against his skin. “I promise. Wait for me.”

Before Mike can rise, Will does something reckless.

He tears the medallion from his own chest and presses it into Mike’s hands.

It’s warm. Still glowing faintly.

“Bring it back to me,” Will says, closing Mike’s fingers around it. “Please.”

Mike stares at the medallion, stunned. Clerics don’t part with their symbols, not willingly. Not ever. When he looks up again, his expression softens completely, reverent and aching all at once.

He nods.

Then he stands, turns, and disappears up the stone steps without another word.

Will stays there.

He cries until his chest hurts, until there are no tears left to give, until the noise fades and the tunnels fall silent again. Until he knows, with terrible certainty, that he is alone.

But he will wait.

He will wait until his very last breath for the return of his paladin… for Mike.

❄ ❄ ❄