Archive of Our Own ^beta

Will is alone. Alone in the Upside Down.

He is shivering, cold and terrified. The sound of low gurgles somewhere all around him makes his bones rattle. He can’t really breathe in well; every inhale makes his chest tighten ever harder around his rib cage. He is weakly humming a familiar song, wet hair plastered to his forehead, his voice breaking. Maybe if he shuts his eyes, it will all go away.

It’s just like last time. Except Will is not twelve anymore.

And this time, he has about a foot and a half more and lethal powers in his palms.

And now? Dying is not an option.

   . . .

He knows he is in the Upside Down. He’s never been closer to the hive mind, physically, since... He’s sure he blacked out at one point when his body was being violently dragged for what felt like miles and he had little, blurry memories of how this even happened. Water, the lake, splash, cold, choking… and suddenly he surfaced on the other side, coughing and confused. And all alone.

He’s alone in the Upside Down. Stuck. He got taken, better said. All systems must eventually go wrong at least once, he thinks. He’s now detached, under the water, below the lake, above the universe. The darkness hugs him with pins and needles. What happens next is in the mere blue light, above his own reflection, bouncing back into the waters at him.

His shoulder aches, his clothes are dripping and the cool that surrounds him makes his lower lip tremble. He looks down at his hand. They are blue. His skin is eating itself. His stomach is ripped out. He has to survive.

He takes a deep breath. One in. Two out. He made it out once. He can do it twice.

The terrain is unfamiliar. And whatever creature it was that took him was now gone, the gate in the ground sealed, the lingering red rays disappearing into the black, lighting struck sky. That’s what confuses him. He is flipped; his insides are pushing against his lungs, his heart in his throat, his pulse beating upside down, blood rushing to his head until he feels dizzy. Yet, this doesn’t look like any part of Hawkins. The endless ground stretches on with no end in sight, no curvature of the plain, no bump. His eyes are quick to scan the circle that surrounds him. The circle of nothingness.

He wipes the blood on his face with the hand that hurts least. His right shoulder. He hit it upon being yanked out of the boat, most probably. On his left hand and lower arm stood out a dozen small red scratches and marks, red crescent moons and long cat-like pink lines, like nail imprints. Mike.

Will needs to get out of here.

Where is he then? The Upside Down is their word flipped, they theorized. Technically. Technically, it was a theory, rather than something concluded on anything other than logical speculation. Maybe they were wrong. Maybe there’s more.

But if he’s not in the Upside Down version of Hawkins, how will he find anyone? How will anyone find him? How will he leave if there’s nowhere to leave from? He’s simply in nothing with a solid ground and a solid stench.

Panic seizes his chest quickly, his eyes wide, mind rushing at speeds that could catch up to a demogorgon, taking leaps from explanation to explanation, from building to building, running up a hill… all leading to dead ends. There was nothing. He was in nothing. He was nothing.

Just when collecting himself felt impossible, the hairs on the back of his neck stiffened like frozen again. His instincts immediately took over. The reality of the situation settled in. He spun around, as if on a merry-go-round, but still nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Pressing his jaw shut tight, he turned his face to the sky. Premonition sat on his face, but his fists closed with a sense of certainty at his sides. He must be here for a reason. For something. For someone.

But Will Byers will not wait. He will find a way out. Unsure of how, the situation felt utterly helpless. The thick, wet air made it hard to start breathing normally again, and he felt like he was never going to dry up. His shoulder and body, the tracks running along his neck, felt like they were never going to get better. He felt like he would never see his mom, Mike and his friends again.

The situation felt utterly helpless. How do you make something out of nothing?

   In real life, you’re more like a sorcerer.

What if it wasn’t quite nothing?

   Because your powers don’t come from a book of spells,

It’s all a part of a hive mind.

   they’re innate.

What if it were anything he wanted it to be?

He had all the answers. He just needed to stop being so goddamn scared. He began muttering under his breath, shakily humming the song that kept his heart beating when his body was failing, that kept his smile shining while his mother’s was failing, that kept his family close when they were across the universe.

   Except I’m not Vecna.

   You sorta are.

The damp soil beneath him runs in tunnels, narrows little tunnels, pouring and flowing into his veins. He feels the ground breathe. He feels every single particle connected, inside of him, akin to him, part of him. He feels them bending under the will of Will the Wise. He sees himself, waving a stick, casting spells on the squirrels, exclaiming out loud, proud and victorious. The Upside Down, Will’s host. The Upside Down, Will’s home.

He did it once; he can do it again.

In the hive mind, he’s always warm. Near the source of a fire burning down the seas and oceans of the world. And if he can take a single flame on one lonely match and throw it, set his system ablaze, his arm to good use, he’ll make it out again. Again. Again.

   You know why I chose them to reshape the world?

Will knows now. Not because he is weak. Not because he breaks easily. But because a child, as happy and innocent as Will was, is the most authentic version of ourselves we can possibly be. And Will can do anything. He can fly. Be free. He can reshape the world.

. . .

The terrain is familiar. So familiar, in fact, that he doesn’t even recognize it at first. Just takes in the feel of home as he finds himself standing in a kindergarten playground. In front of him, swinging, but no child on top of them, two swings making the wind whistle.

It’s an unsettling sight. Two swings going back and forth slowly with no one around. What’s more unsettling is that Will is not there. Not at all, actually. Those are not the swings. They are probably, he thinks, right above him.

He knows he is in the Upside Down. This is the Upside down, still. The back of his neck is tingling, his temples tickling with low pressure. It’s the smell. The humidity of the air is alarmingly high, and those white particles are still everywhere, falling down on Will like poisonous snow. Everything is dim, dark and muted, colored in a solemn blue coating.

This is the Upside Down.

And Will just made it turn into the swings where he met Mike.

A loud gasp escapes him, and quickly, remembering where he is out of the blue, he judges all his senses, including his little sixth one, trying to determine the danger level. It seemed free of any imminent one. Cautiously, he leans down to feel the dirt, the dead, gray grass he is standing on. Wet, cold, engulfed in death. The same thing he lay on four years ago. He could recognize the agony in one simple touch.

This is the Upside Down. He repeats again for himself, a little out of it. He brings a hand to his nose. There is no blood.

One foot in front of the other, he makes his way around the rusty-looking playground. He grimaces a bit. It’s hard to believe. He wasn’t even thinking of any specific place. Honest be, he wasn’t even half convinced it would work. The wave came over him before he took a breath to go under. Then the needle dropped with a loud bang and opening his eyes, every single piece of this hell shifted like the falling leaves in October when they all go trick-or-treating. He did that. Everything. Everything. Everything.

The swings haven’t stopped swinging. They never really have. They have always been swinging.

Will’s body is still uneasy, the path is still not clear, but his new ability, which just begs for exploration, occupies his current objective pretty quickly.

It’s the playground. There’s a shadow of excitement, ever so slight and infinitely cautious, fuzzing inside his flipped insides. Lightning strikes and he places one stiff and blue hand on the chains that hold the yellow one attached to the pole above. He closes his eyes and waits for it to pass until his closed eyelids no longer bleed red, and he tilts his head. Maybe that way he could get some thoughts to whiter away, slip out and glide out of his ear a bit. Clear it out; disburden the heavy load. It’s running way too fast. Even a demogorgon gets tired.

“Yes,” he says. To the swings. To the blue one.

Will dreads that it won’t answer. But that’s stupid, swings never answer your questions.

“Yes, I want to be friends with you,” he says it again. Just be clear. Just be sure. Just to have said it. In case he doesn’t have the chance again.

There are a lot of things that would be a shame if they never surface this damned lake, and break out and gasp for air above if he dies here, cold and alone. Maybe he should start spilling his guts when he gets back. Maybe it’s about time.

The swings make an odd sound every now and again. Will stares, lost, gazing at the pair, images floating by. Where is Mike? Is he okay? What if he also got into danger at the lake? What is something horrible happens to him? To everyone? While he’s gone… he can’t let that happen. He remembers, vaguely, Mike's hands pulling him, fighting a force from below, yelling his name so desperately, red in his beautiful face. Trying to give him life. Yanking him from some never-ending pit.

The swings keep swinging. They keep trying.

Will kicks the rocks restlessly around, locked in one place. The silence that hangs around him is almost deafening. He swears he can hear that first day of kindergarten, the kids running around laughing, him and Mike carelessly swinging. He swears he can feel the joy he did. The simple, beautiful, innocent joy he felt when he was five.

Except Will is not five anymore. And he just reshaped the Upside Down to his will.

He can’t help the smile that creeps on his face, despite the tiredness he feels hanging on his shoulders and engulfing his body. It’s as ridiculous as a boy laughing uncontrollably in the pit of hell.

An escape reaches closer to him with each leap of the demogorgon to the building, which seemed impossible to reach. The thick, slimy smell settles inside once again. Sparing one last look at the swings, moving around in the humid air, their loose screws singing a familiar song, humming in the dead land, Will decides to see what else this can do.

...

He wishes, he wishes, he loves and loves. He has the power. He can do anything. Anything. Anything.

…

When he opens his eyes again, he’s inside Castle Byers.

Just like last time, only now he barely fits.

The inside is as he remembers it, exactly. That is, before he ruined it all. Pictures, old drawings still hang on the wooden walls, the blanket that acts as the door is calmly and only slightly flapping around. However, the pillows beneath him are wet and moldy, the slime and white goo absorbed in the thick fabric. Everything is still dark and Will’s eyes are still struggling, but even in such a blue ambience, he can make out the faces of Mike, Dustin, Lucas and his own grinning self dressed up for Halloween as Ghostbusters; the space between him and Mike perfectly whole.

There’s a lump in his throat. It’s so beautiful. He remembers how badly he wished he had never destroyed it in the first place. And now it’s here. He can touch it. Sure, the sticks are covered in weird goo, and the odor doesn’t leave even inside this holy place, but it’s his again.

Will can’t get enough of it. He takes the picture before he can stop himself, full of cautious ecstasy. His arm still vibrated at the core of the shoulder. His lungs feel full of water and they ache for home. He watched the picture through narrowed eyes, hoping that if he squinted them harder, no tears would fall out.

He’s still in the Upside Down; he can’t forget that. He is still not home. This is the past. He has to use it to get to the present. Use it to be himself. To repair that ripped and torn space like it were whole here. He just has to get out. Get out. Get out.

As he thinks this, lightning crashes somewhere near, the inside of Castle Byers turning red for a second, the whole ground shaken by the impact and the loud sound that reverberates through the mist and fog of the flipped dimension. His head whips around, his muscles jerk awake by the bang, and his eyes are met with terror for a split second.

In the aftermath of the red crash, Castle Byers twitched. Like a glitch. A jutting of the pixels on the old television screen. And for a moment, for a beat of that silence after the shock, it was transformed entirely.

And for the most terrifying second, Will was inside a ruined home again. The front was shattered, damaged by a bat, most likely. No storm could do that. The planks were broken. He was sitting in dried-up blood. To his side, a gasping hole in the fortress of wooden sticks was staring back at him. There was no blanket, no pictures… Castle Byers was destroyed.

It is disturbing, uncalled for. If there’s anything Will hates, it’s surprises like this.

And staring frozen, he remembers. A demogorgon, jumping at him through that side wall, mouth wide open, lusty, hungry teeth lurching for his small body. A shotgun near him. Loaded. It all happened so quickly.

Will sat, unmoving, waiting to see if that would happen again. Waiting for something. For someone.

Maybe he should move on.

He wasn’t exactly sure where, though. These memories, these instincts, whatever it was that was leading him—Will wasn’t quite sure—picked out these places for him, carefully selecting them somewhere from his heart. He didn’t really know. It bent to his need.

Panicked, he quickly shuts his eyes before the next thunder can strike, sensing danger close. Just go home.

…

There is nothing in the feel. If the temperature didn’t suddenly grow a bit, he wouldn’t even know anything around him had changed. He opens his eyes only when he realizes he is sitting cross-legged on something way softer than he was a second ago.

It’s not him being transported; he is sure. It’s everything around him. He is still stuck.

Now, nowhere other than Mike’s basement.

His eyes soften a bit. There are, of course, vines; ugly, convulsing and shifting vines everywhere. He’s not in Vecna’s lair, he’s not tripping all over them, but they grip the Wheeler house—the Upside Down version of the Wheeler house—a fair amount.

The basement. He’s sitting on the couch in the basement. On the table, the old, original table is packed with their figures, the dice, the map. In the center, a demogorgon. The echoes of their last proper campaign together ring inside his ears easily, carried in the dense air all around him. His heart softens a bit. The setting is cozy, while admittedly looking cursed, flipped like this, the reminiscent tones of Mike’s voice narrating like the shifting typhoon, his smile flashing pearls in Will's direction as he shakes the die in his cupped hands, linger stronger. Stronger than Will’s fear.

He gets up from the couch. Slowly, like enchanted, he moves toward the game. Their game. He traces two fingers along the edge of the table, circling it like a hungry vulture. A distant smile catches on his face, quick as fire eating up sticks of wood. This is incredible.

He misses them. Lucas, Dustin, Mike. They are there, right next to him, talking with him, praising his powers, yet he misses them. He’s hiding. And nothing ever feels the same.

Fireball him!

What strange butterfly effect? Everything was so much simpler. So easy. So simple. He was a boy who loved his best friend and nothing was ever as easy as that.

He takes a die in his hands, it’s cold and wet, and lightly lets it fall out of his palm on the table, careful to make sure it doesn’t roll off. It makes a light, distant sound, a rattling so feather-like as if time were slowed down. The chatter of the game continues to echo. Will watched the die closely. He can feel their eyes on it.

He rolls a seven.

Will tilts his head, snorting a quick laugh. He spares one last look at the basement and, with now a determined step, he makes his way up the stairs, on the edge of a paranoid run. It’s strange seeing the Wheeler house quiet, the only noise being his two feet speeding across the kitchen.

Outside of the garage, it’s the same as he remembers it that day. His bike is not there, however. It’s somewhere in a ditch off Mirkwood, probably. He stands there as if frozen, feeling the chill envelop his damp hair and mushy skin. That’s the moment. The moment it all went wrong.

Still, Will couldn’t really look at it with much dread or regret. He could have stayed, he could have slept over, he could have taken another route, he could have asked someone to go with him, he could have trusted him game, his gut. But he didn’t. There were a million things he could have done, but he didn’t. And thinking that, it was never easier to forgive his little self. Because he would have been a victim anyway…. he told Mike, and got home to be with Joyce, below her feet and beating heart, to call her and breathe to her. What else could he wish for? Not the impossible, just the reasonable.

“It was a seven,” he says. “The demogorgon. It got me.” Loud. Proud. It got him, but not forever. And not ever again.

“It really fucking did,” he whispers, a little in disbelief, imagining Mike’s little frown and confused hum. He must be concerned now, too. Maybe he remembers this, too. Maybe he thinks he could have done a thousand things differently. But Will could only ever laugh at that; he did everything right. He didn’t give up.

The light above him flickers, making his gaze turn away from the pavement. The whole garage was lit up in short intervals before the light completely died.

. . .

He decides to keep his eyes open this time. To see what happens when he taps into the hive mind and guides it where he wants. Where he loves. To see what this can do. What he can do.

. . .

The word he’d use to describe it is simply beautiful. He’s standing in a field, all around him, the walls are the ground, the ground is the walls, the sky is inside him. All around him, fireflies light up at once, a swarm of them gently flapping their wings around, moving in harmony, circling around him like a whirlpool of candles and stars ascending to the sky. Each particle, each spore, each surface and shape around him dissolves and melts into millions of yellow little suns, shifting, speeding around, embracing him.

His eyes widen in awe, trying to stay focused, but his limbs go completely loose as he watches the transformation happen, as the world burns out like the flickering light above Mike’s garage. The ground disappears, the Upside Down melts, the yellow consuming the blue, hellish sky. It all spins; his heart flutters as the little fireflies listen to him. It spins and spins and spins.

. . .

The snowball. 1985. The little reshapes, the little miracles slowly fade, disappearing quietly, dancing and losing themselves above Will’s head. He follows one lone one with his eyes, which remains the last one dribbling its yellow stardust into his hair, until it lands on his nose and when he blinks, it’s gone.

The room is empty. Dark. But he remembers how it looked two years ago vividly. He doesn’t enjoy being in such a large space when his body feels like it’s shriveling up. He crossed the room slowly, still a bit dizzy and light-headed from what just happened and what he just witnessed. He knows which table they had sat at, by the chair they were waiting for Eleven. He wants to go there, truly. To feel all those moments that had slipped away so quickly, became the past before he could have solidified in his mind what was going on. Things were always moving, and Will was always stuck.

It’s quiet. Will stands where he did, suddenly aware of everything that has changed. Of everything that moved before Will could do anything. With a sheepish smile, flushed by this stupid thought he had, he knocked into the chair lightly, nudging it with his foot.

“Do you want to dance,” he made a pause, and then, clicking his tongue, added, “Mike?”

He is sitting there, in that brown blazer with a sullen look on his face, staring at the ground. And his hair falls perfectly. And his breath comes perfectly. And his leg bounces perfectly. And his eyelashes flutter perfectly. That hairstyle always kind of reminded little Will of a cute jellyfish. How can jellyfish be cute, Mike had asked, giggling. But they were the cutest little, graceful, soft beings defending themselves with their sting when in danger, and they just amazed Will.

And he just waited to be asked. But Will didn’t. He danced with a girl. Because Mike said he should. That’s what you are supposed to do.

This is so stupid. Will thinks.

Asking a chair to dance with you. Chairs can never dance with you.

A sound, ugly and rough, flashes through the air, like a mixtape had just gotten rewound and then, quietly at first, the slow, beginning notes of a familiar song started to play. Will turns around, but nothing really changed. Except now he is listening intensely, with a confused expression on his face, to Every Breath You Take.

Maybe the chair really wants to dance after all.

The music echoes in the room. Will’s narrowed eyes fly over the empty, neatly arranged tables at his sides. He senses a threat. Distant. Quiet. Weak. Like the beating inside his ears of the song playing faintly. It’s more a sense of being watched, rather than endangered. Just observed. Like his presence is suddenly known.

He folded his fists into his pockets, started to manage and take care of his breathing. Cautiously, he braced his weight on both feet. He remembers dancing with that girl to this song. She was cute. She was. Will is just—

—startled to his wet socks. The music starts distorting, breaking into snippets and eerie vocals. Almost as if struggling to stay alive. A loud buzzing sound drowns out the rest of the melody. But nothing really changed.

Will waited for long, maybe too long, listening to this near static sound over and over again. He wasn’t really sure what he was waiting for, foot wedges between two vines on the ground, expecting for the moment to snap and turn too late. He wasn’t sure what any of that meant. And he wasn’t sure he was any closer to finding an exit, or if there was a way to stumble upon one like this, but he wanted to see where else he would be taken.

So he uncurled his fisted-up fingers and watched the world become a vessel for him. For his love.

It was equally impressive as the first time. It will forever be. Watching everything around you become mere ideas pushed by the wind that ruffled his hair softly, kissed his cheeks and took his heart places, its yearning to shape. Those yellow little stars swirling until they formed a crown on Will’s head. All his.

. . .

It takes him a minute to realize where he is, since he stood facing the wrong way when the Upside Down had transformed into some grassy, high hill. It is hard to tell what it is, even when he turned around, because the Upside Down elements melt too strongly into what made this place so recognizable. The hot, humid summer air, with no wind and a crystal clear blue sky with no clouds all gone, replaced by dead, bluish grass with slithering vines, a black sky with red strokes of lightning. The ground is as still as the surface of the lake that Will broke through. The view, once so beautiful as he recalls, now looks like a gate to hell.

But he knows where he is, because behind him is Dustin’s radio tower, perched high up and semi-stable. Why here? He wonders for a second. He wasn’t quite sure.

It was the summer when it all started to fall apart. This close to it… He remembers Mike and El running off that hill, separating themselves from everyone else, ripping the group apart by the seams. He watched the steep of the hill now, empty, dead, cold. He remembers feeling forgotten that whole summer, the shivers racing tracks on the back of his neck, running around in their boyish high-waisted shorts.

Jealous. Maybe, but he never wished for anything but the best for them. All of them. He just wanted to play D&D. Can’t a boy play D&D?

He drew his eyes away from the ugly scenery and stepped up to the radio tower. He kneeled down, trying to find that something, like he did in all the other places he made. But there was nothing there. Everyone had gone off. And Mike wasn’t there. He couldn’t find a memory that leads him, connects him like a red string, to this place. It was weak, barely pulsing, and pulling him somewhere down the hill.

Playing around with it did nothing. The radio tower was completely useless. The buttons were rusty and most were not even able to be pressed properly and the knob barely turned when Will gave it a good try. Maybe it was just really difficult since his fingers were blue and frozen. Why here? A sense of confusion filled him. Why here?

There was a loud shrieking sound. He stood up, yanking his arm too hard; it throbbed and shot up pain through the length of it. He was colder than ever before. Manically, he cimbled up on his toes and tried to get a good view beyond the rim of the elevated ground. The hairs on his neck rise.

Somewhere, not far, not close, head turned to the hill, to him, a demodog stands on all fours. Posture high, focused on god knows what it was that revealed Will’s presence in the thick air on top of that hill. Lightning strikes red before his eyes, just enough to light up Will’s view, revealing the screeching animal. His breath catches in his chest. He did this once. He can do it again. He’s been face-to-face with a creature like this.

Yet something always moves quicker than fear. His eyes are shut when he taps back in, siphons the powers, his eyelashes urgently squeezing his cheeks. He’s quick, restless, flashes like the hits of lightning on the bleeding ground. He’s afraid. And the red string pulls hard.

. . .

It’s raining.

It’s raining and Will is confused. He’s been here. Already, right here, talking with the air.

No, it’s not just raining, it’s pouring. And that’s what’s even more confusing. It didn’t rain when he went missing. It’s the same place, but this has to be some other context. Some other memory…

Will is sure this headache that engulfs the belt around his forehead is from this incoherent train of thought, slamming and crashing through all the walls. They spiral quickly, desperate for an answer. Can it even rain in the Upside Down?

Eventually, it hits him like a hard slap of the backhand. Same summer, but when it all went down the hill. His bike is here; he hasn’t yet gone anywhere. It’s the Wheelers' garage, the background setting of every single moment before disaster, it seemed like. He didn’t yet go anywhere; no, he was looking into the eyes of his best friend as words, sharp as razor blades, deadly as poison, precisely aimed like an arrow of a skilled archer who’d armed himself with a birth-given right to fire words at everyone he loved with no power to disarm himself and stop the barrage, hit him straight in the heart.

He can see so clearly, hear so clearly. He forgets all that he was thinking about. The slick sheets of rain come down with force. He stands soaking, under the canopy. He sneers, gurgles a laugh that sounds odd, stuck in the back of his throat forever.

“It kind of is, though,” he snorts at first, but he doesn’t stop the lost sigh that escapes into the air between him and Mike.

“It kind of really is, Mike…” older Will whispers, repeats himself, his voice barely heard and carried far from his lips since the rain was dead set on burying all that was once said in front of this garage.

He stands there, soaking in everything, under the canopy. Nothing gets his body to move. Not for a long time. Not even the thoughts creeping up on him again, riding his back and grabbing for his neck.

Can it even rain in the Upside Down?

He knew Mike was sorry, even though he never really apologized for saying specifically that. Will doesn’t think he knew that specifically that was so troubling for him that summer, running around in those boyish little high-waisted shorts. It just hurt.

Can it even rain in the Upside Down?

He sometimes still thinks about that at night. Not often. But it crossed his mind every now and again when he came across swings somewhere in Lenora that were always still. Sometimes when it was raining late and night and he couldn’t really sleep. It just really hurt.

This is not a different location? How is it a different memory?

It’s a bad memory. The string that ties him to it makes his heart ache when yanked. Does it make Mike’s heat ache? Is it ever being pulled for him? Even after all these years? Does he know? Does he know? Does he know?

Why aren’t there any vines? Why aren’t there any spores?

Why here? Would it take Mike here? Why here?

Why this memory?

Will is standing in front of the Wheelers’ garage. There are no vines anywhere. It looks normal. Exactly how he remembers it, in fact. It’s raining. Pouring. The air is hot; humid summer surrounds him; his wet hair finally begins to dry. All he sees in front of him is clear. The storm rages on. This is wrong. Something is wrong.

With concern bubbling inside his chest quickly, he glances toward the road, out into the mid-year shower, trying to understand everything. To put the dots together. It doesn’t make any sense. None of it does.

In the pouring rain, Will sees a face.

It’s familiar. It takes him a second to recognize it. He’d seen it before. That slim and elegant face, long and sharp as if carved out by precise hands. He’s seen it before. In the back of a classroom, looking through the eyes of Derek Turnbow. The hat-man, grinning at him with a calm and mocking smile, was Mr. Whatsit. Vecna.

Will stares at him with no smile on his face. The rain hits and bounces off Henry’s shoulders, his thin, fine glasses shielded by the long brim of his hat. His chin almost rests on his chest, sending a menacing glare Will’s way. Will had never seen such piercing eyes before; he couldn’t look away, as the face went in and out of focus with each sleet or rain that dropped down like curtains to a nightmarish play that just wouldn’t end.

Whatever his brain was trying to come up with, that would seem complicated enough to explain this matter of discovery that Will was dealing with on his hands, completely vanished as his whole system and functioning were overtaken by a feeling again. That feeling. He feels him, in his mind, inside his head, his chest. He feels him everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere.

In that simple moment, one thing was crystal clear.

Run.

He turned around with speed he didn’t know he had. This was all a trap. And Will willingly, with stars and fireflies and yellow dust in his eyes, walked right into it. He scrambled for the door, cupping the knob with both hands, head snapping back to keep Vecna in his vision.

He was there, still there, still looking like Mr. Whatsit. Except now he was moving. Slowly, step by agonizing step, the expression cold as stone and everlastingly immortal stared at Will.

He was never in the Upside Down. Vecna had gotten him and Will had led him straight through his mind, connected it right into to hive mind for him to see everything.

The door to the Wheeler house swings open and Will is met with a barricade of wooden planks. A blue light emits from the inside, a cold mist and fog twisting from the tiny spaces between. He looks back, horrified. Vecna inches closer, calm and collected, with a pace of fury defiant. A devastating yelp leaves Will’s throat, and he lunges at one of the planks uselessly, trying to yank and dislocate it out of place. It’s pointless. They won’t budge.

The hat-man’s pace is picking up with the inflamed beating of the survivor’s heart. His whole body shudders, every fiber of his body burning by the forced proximity of his assaulter looming over him, speeding to him.

Will stops, trying to banish the fear inside him.

It’s just like last time. Except Will is not twelve anymore.

And this time, he has about a foot and a half more and lethal powers in his palms.

And now? Dying is not an option.

His head feels like it’s going to explode and roll off his shoulders like a busted balloon. The fear makes it impossible to breathe; his throat is tight around itself. He is in Vecna’s head. How will he ever get out of his, if he can’t get out of his own?

He still reshaped the world. Fake or not. He inserted himself in the hive mind, into Vecna’s mind and took control over his little sick and twisted game and, for a good while, brought himself where he wanted to. Where he loved.

A real-life, honest-to-god sorcerer.

He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and thinks again. Of the things that make him calm, filled with bursting serenity and content. Building Castel Byers with Jonathan and playing D&D for the first time with Mike, drawing and helping his mom around the house.

He can feel the center of Vecna’s power. He can feel it, so much he swears it tangible, electricity at the tips of his fingers. He can clearly see him puppeteering, and for a moment, he shoves past his defenses and takes the strings into his hands, each red one connected to every creature and every victim.

The Wheeler house. The second home he’d go to when dad used to shout. The door opens wide, as long as Will wishes it were Mike awaiting him on the other side.

The planks are gone, but that makes the danger nonetheless mortifying and real, catching up behind him. He rushes inside quickly, blood beginning to drip slowly from his nose. The house, he knows like the back of his hand; navigating it is as easy as swinging on swings, letting him swiftly move inside, looking for any chance to escape or hide.

He can use his own mindscape against Vecna. As long as he can take control of it. Over him.

He was never in the Upside Down. Vecna wanted him to relive his trauma and Will found a way to stop being a marionette for a bit, dance around his own head and jumble of memories… for just enough time for Vecna to dig up a scene so dark it made Will weak in the head, not in the knees.

And it starts with pouring rain and a great D&D campaign.

He is sprinting through the kitchen, with determination and a will to fight like never before, the fear waning out in comparison to this animalistic, mad need to kill the bigger beast and become the king. He has to fight.

He passed the stairs, turning his back over his shoulder again, to see where his chaser was, or had Vecna even sped up his intimidating but rather slow walk, when he was stopped dead in his tracks.

Descending down the stairs was none other than Mr. Whatsit, his hair disheveled, his hat gone, his glasses crooked and a bone-chilling, murdering look in his eyes that spat pure rage in the most foul way possible. His human hand was gripping the stairwell so hard Will swore he could hear his nails cracking and breaking. His eyes locked with Will’s and Vecna's whole body started convulsing.

It was shaking, like small tidal waves, twitching as a unity. His neck looked like it was about to snap, as his head lolled back and rolled to one side slowly. Will watched, cursed and stuck in place as Vecna’s whole being, the image that Will was seeing, started to change, to glitch. It was blinking, from one to the other, like a transition that was not gliding smoothly along Will’s vision.

In a few flickers and violent convulsions, Vecna had taken his new form, something that Will was unfamiliar with, but that made no difference. Will knew he still had to run. Run.

He was still a human, which confused Will slightly. But more so than when he was slimy and dead, made from the Upside Down, this terrified him far beyond any four-legged creature. It may have been the same body that befriended Holly and Derek, but that was not the same man. This could hardly be a man. This was madness with limbs and a head.

His eyes were red, bloodshot, bulging out of his head like broken light bulbs. There was a desert of insanity there, hidden behind a dark, narrow cave. His face was flushed, red with anger and blood. He was dressed like some sort of scientist, maybe… though his white uniform, reminiscent of scrubs, was stained with ugly, light blood. Even in that split second, when horror forced Will to watch with a gaping mouth, he could count the veins popping on his meaty neck and temples. His chest sang bloody murder with a sickly sweet tone. His body towered over Will like Dustin’s radio tower. Run.

Will made no attempt to look back this time. There was no time. There was no time to die properly. This was going to be a mess, or it was all going to be a bad dream. And somehow, Will knew which one it was more likely to turn out. So he spared no glances over his shoulder, he spared no thought to fear, to the pessimistic voice in his head telling him there is simply no way out of this situation.

“William,” he heard a human voice behind him. It was squeaky, almost reassuringly calm and high-pitched. It haunts. It makes his head burst with pressure. It lives. On and on and on.

The basement. He runs for the basement. Why there? He wasn’t quite sure. His legs take him there. To where he wants. To where he loves.

His shoulder and body start to suffer. It is long since it last rested and he feels each breath tear apart his chest as the air moves heavily through his injured, slimed lungs. He manages to slip into the basement quickly and he shuts the door behind him, tripping down the stairs, practically flying to the bottom.

“William,” he hears it again, only this time he knows that voice, sown, imprinted into his bones forever. He knows exactly the way his insides shake when that low gurgle rattles to him, speaks his name like some sort of curse from the clouds. He stands in the middle of the basement.

On the table, the old, original table is packed with their figures, the dice, the map. In the center, a broken heart. The echoes of their last campaign together ring inside his ears easily, carried in the dense air all around him. His heart clutches a bit.

Will swallows, taking heavy pants and breaths. The door opens swiftly and at the top of the stairs stands Vecna, in his new, mortifying, burned and crispy form. His waist is an hourglass, his arms long and built up. His whole body radiates heat, his eyes like the active throats of two erupting volcano’s and they are aimed straight down at Will, like two gunshots in the dead of night, piercing through the cemetery.

Will hears the swings creaking. They are still swinging.

“I let you wander around you own mind,” he says, slowly, drawling each words out with a low rasp, “and you showed me everything I needed to know. Revealed everything about you… everything about who you are…” he paused and dropped one leg on the stair with a heavy bang that made the whole house shake, “about what you are.”

Will was silently mouthing no, shaking his head manically. Tears of unwanted regret and hatred stung his eyes like alcohol to fresh wounds. He was shaking violently, backing away unconsciously, step by quiet step.

“You, William, led me... straight to the heart.”

And with that, he brought one hand up and behind him on the very top of the stairs, something opened. A portal, maybe… It was a circular, cloudy shape, surrounded by red fog, floating in the air, flat as the surface of a mirror. Only inside of it, Will saw something so gut-wrenching, it made him sick.

“WILL! WILL! Wake up, Will!”

Mike. His whole body, drenched and dripping in cold water, was hovering over an unconscious Will. His hands were almost as hysterical as his voice was, and they were scrambling for something, shaking it around, frustrated and manic. Will realized those were his headphones and Walkman with David Bowie’s Heroes on it, equally as soaked and useless as Mike felt.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!” he was shaking them, yelling loudly. He grabbed Will—the real Will, by the shoulders.

“Will, Will, Will, please! Can you hear me, Will?!”

Will had never heard a sound so devastating. His voice was breaking, cracking, pleading with a dead body. It was a stab to the heart. He was crying badly, Will heard it in the way he choked when he spoke, kneeling on the shore of Lovers Lake, trying to wake him up any way he could.

Will’s heart stopped beating. He stopped breathing. A full-body pain surged through him. The feeling in his chest—he can’t fit it inside his body even if he tried. He can’t even swallow down the bursting flames eating up his stomach and burning down his cavity and aching ribs.

With a gentle flick of the wrist, Vecna’s little insight into the real world for Will vanishes, and the portal—the gate—snaps shut.

“NO!” Will yells and reaches out stupidly, stretching one hand forward. “MIKE!”

Vecna stepped lower, almost mocking Will, the tears falling, the guts spilling out. “All it took was a little bit of fear to throw you off. Your memories—they called you and I let you shape them into existence with your silly hope, because you led me straight to the worst one.”

It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!

He heard it. He heard Mike say it. Right now. Right here. He swears he did. Inside his head, he heard his voice so clearly. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. He swears he is.

“Do you really think he feels the same way?” his voice is an earthquake that shakes Will’s whole inner sea with depravity of a kind that makes hope die like a kite in a forest. The low, ugly tone he uses to incorporate this sneer into his passionate walk down the set of stairs leading to Mike’s basement makes the words sound like they are sealed in eternal granite stone. “Do you think that he’d ever love you if only he knew how disgusting you are. I am going to show you, William.”

Vines coming from the ceiling draw Will’s attention away from Vecna. They slither across the walls, meandering on the floor, seeping into the room slowly. Vecna has almost made it to the bottom of the stairs. Will is horrified. He knew this was coming. He knows Vecna is peaking the truth. He knows these vines are here for him. He knows he is nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

He turns around, his body numb and scrambles for the couch. He stumbles into it, his legs failing him and dropping him down, falling onto it clumsily. The long, thick tentacles approach him. He closes his eyes, as though if he can’t see, it is not there.

“I am going to show you now what they all really think of you. And then if you somehow live by the end, I’ll finish the job for you,” he stands so near, hovering over a conscious Will, his whole body stiff and ready. He speaks calmly, “I will finally break you, William.”

. . .

Why here? He wasn’t quite sure. His legs take him here. To where he wants. To where he loves. To Mike.

He wishes, he wishes, he loves and loves. He has the power. He can do anything. Anything. Anything.

He reshaped the world. He took out three demogrogons with his mind. He stole, siphoned Vecna’s powers, shaped his own memories. Every particle of the Mind Flayer in him—in everything around him, he bent it to his need. To his will.

He fought. He is a survivor. He is a sorcerer. And dying is not an option. He just needs strength.

He reshaped the world with Mike’s love.

Will curled himself into a happy memory, arching his back against the couch. He breathed it in, fisted the fabric into his clenched palms. The basement. His eyes quickly bounce back and right behind his closed eyelids. He swings on the swings. On top of a hill, but he will run even higher. He will fly.

He hears it. He hears Mike say it. Right now. Right here. He swears he does. Inside his head, he hears his voice so clearly. Everything. Everything. Everything. He swears he is.

Hey, if we go crazy, we’ll go crazy together.

He opens his eyes. To see what this can do. What he can do. What Mike’s love can do.

. . .

The first vine that had wrapped around his ankle drops like dead and with a swing of his right arm, it flies over the room and slams into the wall, falling lifeless. Will squeezes his eyes shut tighter, the pressure building up inside his head rising as he tries to focus more and more. Harder and harder. Give it his all. He feels them so clearly, each ugly tentacle, each ugly part of the Upside Down—of the Mind Flayer—and he remembers so clearly yelling at it the first time. Go away! Go away! Go away! Only it didn’t. It never did.

Now, when he opens his eyes, all the vines have receded, thrown back by him. Listening to, obeying him. Going away.

The pressure had just loosened up and his nose began to bleed, when he felt a slam into his throat. Impossible, invisible force, one he was familiar with at this point, drags him up slowly, lifting him off the couch. It presses deeply into his shoulders and neck and his legs uncurl and drip from the couch, swinging in the air below.

He can’t look. He forces himself to. Straight into Vecna’s desert of insanity, secrets and plans on destroying the world, hidden behind his terrifying eyes. He is mad. Fuming. The volcanoes have erupted, there is hot, melting lava consuming everything around. There is no escape.

“The more you resist. The more this will hurt,” he says, still as stone.

Will disdain is impossible to hide; he frowns, his eyebrows arched together by pure hatred and passionate determination. He is strong. Way stronger than Vecna ever estimated him to be. Without a beat of a heart, he says, slowly, as akin to him as he could, though it came out choked and hoarse, air lacking in his lungs:

“Fuck. You.”

His eyes roll back into his head and they roll back down in Vecna’s.

He can’t take him whole; Will is not that strong, but also not that stupid. He feels the pressure; he sees red; he feels the ugly pulsing around him. It’s as if he were underwater, far below in the dark, with the cold plugging his ears and nose. He sees himself, eyes blank, pure white sheet of a sclera. There is blood on his face, smeared on his upper lip, dripping from his nose. He looks badly damaged. He looks like a god.

Sabotage, that’s what he needs. Break him. Finally.

He feels weak, light in the head, dizzy all around. It’s not clear how long he can stay in. Stay like this… Out of his body, in Vecna’s. Inside the biggest vessel of the Mind Flayer. Vecna is forcing him out, yelling, screaming to get out, twisting his own neck to push him away. And for a second, Will feels like he can’t do anything. He tries, but the pain presses him down. Henry won’t let him off that easily.

He can’t take it anymore. His hands are blue, his ribs have all snapped, his skin has molded and peeled off like old wallpaper, his cavity has exploded. The balloon has burst. The triangle is upside down and he can’t see past it. He has to. But he is choking, getting more desperate, too greedy, too needy, too hopeful, too disgusting; until air is a privilege he is stripped of.

So he fails. He fails to lower the hand that encloses around his face slowly. They are both struggling, but Will is not enough. He can’t fight it. He can’t do anything. Vecna’s hand hovers above his face, shaking, but steadily aligning between his blank eyes.

Will sees, through the eyes of Vecna, a single teardrop roll down the side of his face, sliding by his open, gasping mouth. It’s red.

Then he hears it. When he thinks that this is it, the end, when his eyes are starting to bleed so nicely, he hears it. He swears. At the doors of doom, he thinks once more. His mom, Jonathan, Mike… And he hears it.

Distant. A mere echo. As if someone far above the surface of the lake, somewhere where the blue light is coming from, is shouting, trying to get the sound to reach him trapped down below. Faint. A flicker. But he swears, he swears he does.

“Will! Are you there, Will! I—I can’t lose you, Will!”

A creak. Coming from the rusty metal of a swing set. Still going back and forth, back and forth. Always.

“You have to come back to me, Will! This is not it! This—it-it can’t be it!”

A dance. A melody sweet and light, carrying four swaying hips, back and forth, back and forth. Always.

“I need to tell you something, Will, I need to tell you—I need—I need you.”

A glance. At every chance possible, shared looks so deep, back and forth, back and forth. Always.

The sobs are so loud. They are pulling Will out of the lake. They choke. They want to say something. But they choke. On and on and on. Will is fighting. He has to go. Where he wants to. Where he loves. To Mike.

To Mike.

   What if he spies back?

   We won’t let him.

He snaps Vecna’s leg with great force and effort, twisting it, hurting him. It takes a moment, a moment that he doesn’t have, and strength, strength he is running out of. But it breaks, snaps and Will falls on the couch less than gracefully, viewing the world from his perspective once again.

Vecna is on the ground, over on his side. His bleeding leg is snapped at the calf, bent to the side completely, gushing a strange substance out. Will is weak. His eyes are bleeding and his vision is blurry, practically useless. He doesn’t know how he keeps his head from falling off. He struggles to keep himself from going under; his muscles have gone into atrophy and he can barely catch his breath.

“Will!” he hears Mike’s cry again, shattering his world and breaking into his bloody vision like the first rays of the sunlight in the morning, pushing through the clouds, coming from upstairs, past the door of the basement. It’s clear to Will. He just has to run. One more time. Run.

All doors lead to him, as long as Will wishes it were Mike awaiting him on the other side.

He pushed himself off the couch, and picked up his arms from the couch and cradled them to his stomach, breaking out in a run. Vecna is still on the ground, violently twitching again, but Will spares no further examination, getting enough of a green light from his struggling groans. His legs and knees are weak and he can barely make it up the stairs.

“Will!”

“MIKE!” he yells back, dragging another foot forward. Half of his body has gone limp, useless. He is basically crawling up the stairs, his heart beating out of his aching, numb throat, pulling him forward, like the red string. It closes the distance between him and Mike, like the red string, on and on until they can connect again. Heart-to-heart.

He is quick with the door and he yanks it open. In front of him stands the red oasis. There’s a shallow layer of water at his feet, dirty and cold. Mist and fog cover most of the scene and everything is a deadly, threatening red color. Spikes stand out of the ground, like towers of death, and the whole place—oasis—is freezing. It seems to Will as if it’s a hellscape. Confusion takes hold of him, forgetting for a second, but he turns around and sees the door, not fully closed, the basement still behind it. Run.

He closes it shut and, without a choice or a better option, he runs forward into the red abyss.

“Mike?!” he says, a bit more confused now, frightened. He surely doesn’t have that much time.

“I’m sorry, Will!” he hears, nearer, nearer than ever. Clearer, clearer than ever. “There is nothing in this world that can make me stop loving you, okay!? You’re my best friend, Will! There is nothing. Nothing! And I am so sorry for everything. I’ve been such a bad friend last year, and- and for god knows how long before that. I just thought that—I thought that maybe if I push you away, I could love you less. And I was a fool for thinking that!”

Will is turning around, spinning on his heel while trying to maintain balance. He needs to find the source. He needs to go. Reshape this hell with Mike’s love. His heart burns and yearns.

“And-and I am sorry for how I acted, because I—I didn’t want to accept… it. I am sorry for everything. Everything. The truth is, Will, I love you, okay! I’m—I’m in love with you!”

Will stops, trying to banish the fear inside him. His breath catches and he feels disappointment let him down harshly. He doesn’t believe it. It’s just Vecna. It’s another trap.

He doesn’t admit it, because that’s disgusting, but oh, how he wishes it weren’t. That it wasn’t just a joke.

But then, to his greatest joy, to the most shocking wave that was sent coursing through his world, a portal opens again. The one he saw before. The little gate to the real world, a nonfunctioning mirror, revealing the scene he knew to be true deep down. Because now, he could feel Mike’s cold hands on his face and his breath confessing atop his dead, still body.

“I think I’ve always been. In love with you, I mean. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being in love with you.”

Run.

“I’ve loved you everywhere. When you were in the Upside Down, when you were in Lenora, when you were right next to me, but it didn’t really feel like it. When you were in your head, when you were out of it. In that godforsaken hospital in which I spent every single day. I love you everywhere. Everywhere.” Will is sprinting; he has never been so sure in his life. He is crying red, salty blood raining down his cheeks. He can’t believe it. The impossible, not just the reasonable.

“Will, you have to come back to me now! You have to! I can’t lose you again! Not again. Not again!” His voice wails like a dying siren, singing one last song on the nose of the ship. It calls Will. He is speaking what he needs to. To his Will.

“Come back, I love you so much it hurts to breathe. Will, please, please, I need you! Will, wake up… you have to know this, you have to know how much I love you. WILL! ”

He is so close, his chest and heart soar. The cold, red water splashes beneath his feet, and he strikes the ground again and again like lightning, quick and urgent, shaking it whole. He is crying out of joy and relief, crying rivers of blood, casting light around him like a true sorcerer. His hyperventilating breaths shake his broken lungs up and down, and he can do anything. He can fly. Be free. He can reshape the world. With Mike’s love.

He feels like he will lift off the ground. He feels Mike holding him.

“Will! WILL! C’mon Will! C’mon! I’m here, I’ll always be here! Please, please, please!” Mike is pleading, begging, encouraging him to fight on. His voice turned to quiet whispers, said like a prayer, desperately fading out into a cry, murmuring please over and over again, until it sounded so nonsensical that it didn’t sound like words anymore.

He can touch him back through the gate—that’s how close Will is.

. . .

He bursts out of the lake, surfaces, emerges for a breath he was holding for ten minutes underwater. His eyes open, his body feels, he gasps for breath and plunges out of where he rested, almost dead in Mike’s arms.

“Mike,” he gasps.

They stare at each other for a moment that lasts forever. Mike’s eyes are wide enough to drink wine from, and they are filled with painful tears. They light up with joy when Will blinks up at him and weakly smiles. He hauls the boy into his arms in the tightest hug Will has ever received.

“Oh, God, Will, I thought we—I thought I lost you.”

Will is far too weak to squeeze back, so he lets himself relax, fall limply and comfortably into Mike as he buries his head into Will’s shoulder, forehead pressed against his good one, crying softly into his wet jacket. His hands dig so hard into his back, Will thinks it’s the only thing keeping him together.

He feels Mike breathe into his neck, feels how wet his face is from the tears, how cold the press of his skin is against him. He allows himself to sync up his breathing to Mike’s, watching the night sky over his back, taking in the fact that he is out, in the real world; that he escaped. That he is safe. They stay like that forever. He listens to the soft lapping of the waves against the grassy shore, the murmuring shifting of the water, the meek sounds of the forest to their side. And he hears Mike. Nearer, nearer than ever. Clearer, clearer than ever.

“I thought I lost you.”

Mike can’t keep himself together. He can’t stop shaking. Will, still a bit dissociated, places an unsteady hand on his back. The one with their watch.

“I’m right here,” he says weakly.

Mike finally draws away. He stares at Will with a look so pure it makes him want to melt. And slowly, he reaches out to Will’s face and with a soft and cold thumb, wipes away the blood on his cheeks and around his eyes. He softly brushes his face, caressing the skin from the survivor's blood.

“I know,” he breathes, “I know.”

Will takes a deep breath in, turning his head to watch Lovers Lake shiver under the moonlight, the heart shape visible in the lowlight. They've been quiet for long enough. “Mike?”

“Yeah?”

“I just—it’s stupid,” he can’t really look him in the eyes, “but I have to ask. Did you… Did you mean it? What you said?”

It’s stupid, it probably is. But he had to ask. Because swings don’t answer questions. Chairs don’t dance with people. And boys like Michael Wheeler don’t like other boys.

Now Mike is the one to look away. His cheeks grow bright, his pale and cold face suddenly turning warm with a returning rush of blood. He doesn’t let go of Will’s body, however.

“Yes. Everything,” he says quietly, shyly. “Everything.”

“Oh,” Will said, “okay.”

Mike is in disbelief, bewildered by this reaction. “Okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, I love you too, so I think it’s okay,” he says simply, sweetly like a croon meant only for Mike to hear. “I mean, I’ve loved you since we were like five and I always will, so it’s okay.”

The smile on Mike’s face was monumental and there was a tear shining on his waterline again. “I think it’s more than okay, Will.”

“No, no, no, please don’t cry,” Will said, holding his arms steady as Mike lowered his head into his left shoulder again. But as he had said that, Will quickly realized he was tearing up as well, everything busting the dam open. His love is reciprocated, requited. Will's love is Mike. And Mike’s love is Will. Back and forth. Back and forth.

“Say it again.”

“Huh?”

“Say it again. Please,” he hears Mike mumbling into the tight, almost non-existent space in their hug.

Will smiles warmly. “I love you, too, Mike. Always have. Always will.”

“Holy shit.” His laugh is like spring.

“Holy shit.” Will’s comes easily after. Their foreheads are pressed together, staring into each other’s eyes. It’s beautiful. All of it. There are no magical fireflies dancing around them, but it’s so beautiful, Will can’t stop crying and laughing at the same time, holding Mike tight. There are no mystical what-ifs and possibilities—all roads led to this. It was always this. It was always Mike and Will.

“Do you forgive me?” Mike asked, first to speak after a long time.

“For what?”

“For not realizing it sooner,” he clarified, visibly ashamed. Will sighed and placed a hand on his cheek, tender and scared but sure of himself.

“Do you forgive me, Mike?” he answered with a question instead.

Mike looked at him in the eyes, frowning softly. “What could I possibly have to forgive you?”

“For not accepting it sooner,” Will explained, still cupping his face.

Mike’s jaw hung slightly open for a second, shocked that he would even suggest something like that. He was closer to him than ever, speaking softly and affectionately; the way only Mike knew. Will could count the freckles on his face. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t easy…” Will mused absently, lost in gazing at Mike, nodding in approval.

Mike opened his mouth, closed it, reopened it again. He cut off whatever he was about to say and just stared back at Will, the words dying before they left his tongue. Instead of finishing what he was intending on saying, he slowly leaned in closer and closer like he was approaching the line, crossing to the dangerous, unexplored zone, waiting for approval. Will could feel on his own lips that he had stopped breathing, waiting.

Will closed his eyes.

His lips were soft and chapped; they brushed his so lightly and caringly that Will was sure he would never forget that sensation and he would yearn for it every day for the rest of his life. He reciprocated the kiss lightly. It was really nothing. It was really everything.

Their lips couldn’t be separated if a wormhole swallowed them whole. It was their air supply. It was the moment they had both been waiting for since they could recall ever loving, ever breathing. It’s tender and quiet, as if Mike would hurt Will if he were any less careful and gentle. They are both scared, maybe they will be for a really long time, with every kiss, every touch, every holding hands under the table in public. But every end has to begin somewhere. And this perfect one, with Michael Wheeler, just started at Lovers Lake.

“I love you, my sorcerer.”

“I love you, my heart.”

With bloody tears and broken smiles, they intertwine their hands and wait for the morning to find them, lying together, washed ashore by the waves, holding each other as though they will never swallow down that they are each other’s.