Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Sometimes, Destiny is a bitch. It’s silly, really, steps to follow in a story that’s already planned out. An end that can not be changed whatsoever. A thread that leads you through a path from which you can’t deviate. 

Will Byers hated that. No matter in which reality he lived, he was destined to be abducted by Vecna. No matter how hard he would try to change it, which road he would take, if only he had stayed at the Wheelers' household longer, nothing.

“Some minds, it turns out, simply do not belong in this world. They belong in mine.” 

Castle Byers was the prime example of that. A safe space built by his brother for him to hide when his father went nuts. Broken by his own hand while the rain made his body temperature drop. He hated that, the cold. The way his body would automatically react and remember what it was like to be in the Upside Down. The feeling of his body and mind not belonging to him anymore after being controlled by the Mind Flyer.

Mike Wheeler. Another thing that was destined to happen, his love for him. The love that allowed him to accept his destiny when the air was living in his lungs, choking on a vine. That love that Mike would never return, he didn’t know how. He didn’t even know how to love Jane, his actual girlfriend. How could he love Will back?

After talking with Robin, he understood that. His love was not wrong. His existence was not wrong. Destiny was just a bitch and hadn’t made plans for Mike to love him back, not the way he wanted. And that was okay. 

“And that’s when it hit me. It was never tone-deaf, Tammy. It was always just about me.”

He remembered. How could he not belong to this world? Why would destiny put him there in the first place if he belonged in a place like the Upside Down? Where creatures feed on flesh and bone. Where Vecna would take kids to gain power. So no, fuck that, he thought. He belonged to the real world, he deserved to be there just as anyone else. It settled in him as he started getting up, feeling rage and hearing the chaos around him. 

“I was looking for answers in somebody else, but… I had all the answers. I just needed to stop being so goddamn scared.” 

And fuck the world for making him feel otherwise. He was not backing down anymore. He was not asking the world “please, I want to be here”. He was taking that choice away from anyone else. They did not get to decide that. And a deformed monster was not going to be the exception; Vecna won’t be the one deciding in which world he belonged. He reached inside himself as he remembered Robin’s words. 

“Scared of who I really was. 

Once I did that, whew, I felt so free. 

It’s like I could fly, you know? Like, I could finally be…”

“Rockin’ Robin.” 

All the rage, all the times he was bullied, all the times Vecna took something away from him. But not only that. You see, anger is a strong emotion, but so is love. The love he felt from his friends, whose lives were about to end at the hand of the Demogorgons. The love he felt for his mother, who bravely screamed at Vecna, fearless as she walked to the monster so she could give them more time. The love he felt for his brother, who, at this point, was more of a father to him. The love he felt for his sister, who was in the Upside Down fighting for her life. 

The love he felt for Mike Wheeler. He took that love and transformed it into something else. He freed Mike from those expectations of that consuming love that Destiny had seemed to assign him. And, in the process, he freed himself of that love and energy that was not lost. An energy that made him tap into the Hive Mind, and as his eyes filled with white, he raised his hand, lifting the Demo that was after Mike.  

With his left hand, he stopped the one that was coming after Lucas, he would not be slashed by the thing's claws ever again. And looking up, he saved Robin, his mentor, the one person who was able to understand him. That gave him the knowledge to stop running and hold his ground, like Bob once said. 

When he brought his hands down, breaking every bone of the monsters, he also felt each time the flesh broke in his own body. But he was not backing down. Something had shifted. The world seems to have changed. No, not changed, it was like a veil had finally come down. 

For all the times he hated Destiny, maybe this time it had brought something good. Something that he was able to accept. When his eyes came back to normal, he started to cleanse his nose. He felt it. The pieces were finally in place. Destiny had chosen its last warrior against the forces of evil. He and Jane were finally complete mirrors of each other. 

She had felt it too, the shift. It was what gave her the final push to get up when her mind was being crushed by the sound-waves. She pushed her hand, and it moved Dr. Kay’s body a little before she took her hand. She quickly grabbed the scissors she was hiding to stab the old hag. When she was on the floor and Hop was handling the situation, she realized what the shift was. 

Twins separated at birth, energy that had gone through two different wombs, had finally found the conduit to make itself present. The shackles that were holding them back fell. And a new world was about to begin, with endless possibilities for the two of them. 

Will was still not strong enough. They have tried. They really did. To connect him with the Hive Mind again, so he could help Max and Holly. He was now trapped inside his mind. At first, it was like he was in the forest outside the Creels’ house. But the colors were all wrong, more vivid, they burned his eyelids. He couldn’t walk away from the tree he was against, though. In fact, he couldn’t move at all. 

When he blinked, he was in the Upside Down. Vines covered his body, and a familiar figure was walking toward him. He felt the dread, a weight in his chest that he hadn’t felt in a long time. He breathed hard through his nose. He was not going to break. 

“Do you remember this place? William.” Henry’s voice made his composure fall a little. 

The memories started to come back. Ones that he had buried deep inside of him. Nobody knew. What he had actually gone through. Nobody knew that before dying, he thought he had made it. 

The same fluorescent forest had welcomed him. The hope when he saw Henry and thought he was going to help him. How quickly that hope became the very same dread he was feeling right now. How slowly the world changed into the hellscape he was running from, and a vine went through his throat. He couldn’t tell it to her mother the first time, not when his mind was still not his own. Not when Vecna’s hand was still present in his body and soul. 

“No… no, no, no, no,” He said, his voice breaking.

“Does it bring. back… memories?”  Vecna showed his true form when he was finally close to Will. And even when he feared for his life, he wasn’t that little kid anymore. So he fought back. 

“Max… Holly…” He said between breaths. “They got away, didn’t they?” The deformed face that was looking back at him showed controlled rage.

“Did the leg slow you down?” He was furious. He was defying him, his captor, the monster that took him and changed his life. And he had made it, he saved his friends. 

“You think you are clever, don’t you? But remember.” His voice sent chills through Will’s body. “I am the one. The one who invited you in. You were my vessel. My spy. My builder.”

Will was shaking his head. The vines felt like a snake constricting against his body. 

“Builder…?”

“How do you think the tunnels came to be, William? You built them. Each and every night you slept.” He shakes his head as Vecna starts touching his face, bringing back the memories. 

“There’s much power within you. But make no mistake, boy. They are my powers, and they are stronger than ever before. Much stronger,” He said as he showed Will glimpses of the body and flesh of the Mind Flayer.

He didn’t know how many lies there were to that statement, not yet. Destiny had put all of them on the same path. Henry, Will, Jane, all of them connected to the Upside Down in a way. The lie Vecna had told served to inspire fear in Will. But the Hive Mind was already mutating back into what it originally was. The scales, little by little, were balancing towards the light. 

But again, right now, Will didn’t know that. 

“Now, at last, it is time. Time for my vessels to lead us to a new world. A better world”.

“Too bad your world will never exist now that Max has one of your vessels.” Will was not going to show how really scared he was. Brave until the very end. 

“There are ways to smoke a fox from its den, William. And you are going to help me. You are going to be my spy.

One.

Last.

Time.”

“NO. NEVER.” He defied him again, looking at those soulless eyes that woke him at night. But as he saw Vecna's movements, he prepared for the worst.

“The more you resist… The more this will hurt”.

His hand was covering Will's face. He felt the air leave his body while it happened. He resisted as long as he could. Blood started to fall from his eyelids as he screamed. He was not going to let him win. But he wasn’t strong yet. He could feel that monster’s hand breaking the barriers, lurking inside his own mind again. 

In the Rightside Up, Jane wasn’t able to reach Will. A lot was going on in her head. She was scared. That’s the way they hunted her would never end. That she would never stop being a weapon in the eyes of the government. She was scared that she knew Kali was right. They needed to make the ultimate sacrifice. And while she was fighting those impulses, while she was accepting her fate. She was talking to Mike.

“So, after we kill Vecna, we destroy this new lab. End the program. Like a little side quest.”

“Mike, no, you don’t understand.” He never did. He always saw her as this hero, a Supergirl, nothing more. “They don’t need a lab to make new numbers.” That’s what they were, numbers devoid of autonomy made to be the ultimate machine in a Cold War. 

“They just need Henry’s blood. It's in me. I’m not a monster. I know that now.” He was looking at her, and was giving nothing, no emotion in response to what she was telling him. She took a breath, looked at the ceiling, and back at Mike. 

“But with me. With my blood. They can make more monsters. They can make more Henrys.” She said, disgusted.

“The military will always be looking for you. We’ve always known that., Which is why we aren’t staying in Hawkins,” He explains. “When this is all over, we’re leaving. Escaping to some far-off land. Remember? Somewhere where they can’t find us”.

And oh, how Jane wanted to believe that. She really did. But they were sixteen. As she assessed him, she was thinking, where the hell are we even going to run to?. It's a fantasy, like everything was with Mike. He couldn’t understand the reality of the situation. He didn’t know what it was like to be treated like a caged animal. At the end of the day, he was a sheltered kid who would never understand what it actually means to be persecuted for being different or because they wanted to use you like a weapon. 

“Somewhere where there’s at least one waterfall,” he said hopefully.

“Mike.” She got ready, she wanted to say why that wouldn’t work, why they couldn't work. “This isn’t like one of your campaigns." She touches his face, there is so much she wants to say. But they don’t have time, her brother is fighting for his life, she can feel it. A bond that was dormant until a few hours ago.

And as the light of the window comes between them, sitting on a tub that already feels like a prison. She says.

“Not this time.”

“Maybe I don’t. But we do. You, me, Lucas, Will, and Dustin. Because this is our story. And it starts with getting Will back.” That she could understand. They were finally on the same page. But she knew, right in this moment, that Mike would never be the person she wanted him to be. And she would never be the hero his childish mind saw her as. She was more than that, but Destiny was a bitch, and her fate was going to be sealed with her sister in the Upside Down. 

Before she submerged her body in the homemade tank, Joyce grabbed her hand. She was her daughter. The one she always wanted. This kid had been through so much, and she loved her. She wanted all of his kids to be safe. To grow up in a world where they wouldn’t be hunted. She wishes she had more time. To talk to Jane about boys, to teach her how to braid her hair, to hold her when she has her first heartbreak. 

She wants to be there when Jane graduates. She wants to help her with her homework and fight the teachers who don’t understand his daughter. She wants to help her choose a dress for prom, and see her make mistakes and decide what she wants to do. If she wants to study, work, or just be free in the world. Cause even when she hadn’t birthed her, in her soul, right above her heart, Jane would always be there. The daughter that Destiny had chosen for her. The daughter that she would willingly go to war for. 

Joyce is holding her hand this time, as she did a few years back when Jane was just a child. When she sacrificed herself to find Will. And at this moment, she trusts that she will find her brother again. 

“Thank you,” She says, cause if she says anything else, she will break.

“I will bring him home”. Jane answers back, and she can feel her mother's emotions. A new thing that has been unlocked for her since Will accepted his true nature. Their nature. 

The void is as cold as always. She walks towards Will’s bed, grabbing his arm when she rests on the bed.

“Will, I’m here. I need you to show me where you are. Show me where you are”. 

And the vines start coming for her. Those things go past her and start wrapping around his body. She’s horrified when the bed changes into the wall that has Will suspended in the air. 

“Will. Will!!! Can you hear me? Will, wake up!!!” He is not responding. And she tries not to panic. 

She takes a few steps back, feeling the slime of the vines through her feet. And feels the familiar surge of power run through her body. She lifts her hand and obliterates the vines with her mind. Freeing him. He feels his body come back from the trance, remembering what Vecna saw in his mind.

It’s hard for him to breathe. He is still scared. Jane holds him and he hugs her back strongly while gasping for more air.

“It’s me. It’s me. I’m here to bring you home. It’s okay”

“I tried to stop him, but I couldn't.” He says. 

“He saw.” He states, horrified.

“He saw… What did he see?” She asks, grabbing his shoulders, looking at her brother’s face. 

“Max”. And dread fills her body. “He knows where she is now. And he sent them after her.” He’s crying. “They are coming for her. In Hawkins”. She doesn’t have time to react, she knows he is going to be able to go back to his body.

She breaks the tub, jumping to her feet, running to see his body.

“El, what's wrong?” She hears Mike saying. But she doesn't have time to hear him. After she finds Joyce with a very awake Will holding her arms, she looks back at Mike and Hopper and says, “He is going for Max. We have to get to the hospital. We have to warn them”.

Unbeknownst to them. A figure was watching them in the void. While Jane was looking at the way the vines were wrapping around Will, two wings were covering the frame of someone who was getting ready for the aftermath of the final battle. 

They were getting ready for the final battle. We have to end the cycle was still present in Jane’s mind when Will asked all of them to come back to the Squawk for a word. He bared his soul to them. Jane didn’t really understand what it meant at first. When he said he didn’t like girls. Nor did she know why it was something that Vecna used against him. But she understood the feeling he was describing. The way that monster could get in your mind and fuck you up. 

She didn’t care that his brother liked boys. But she knew that the world is a place that hunts whatever it finds different. So the pieces fall into place in her mind. It was another thing she shared with him. The fear of being chased. To have the world already decide what you are going to be. She is happy for her brother. 

He was brave enough to face an entire group of people, knowing it could come back to bite him later. He didn’t want to hold any secrets before going into battle where they could be used against them. She didn’t have the same strength to let everyone know what Kali and she were planning. She gets up and walks towards him, to hug him and hold him with the rest of their friends. After he hugged Max, he looked back at his sister to say.

“Jane, I know you are strong enough to defeat Vecna. But if he retreats to the physical world, we need to be ready to fight him here too. We have bullets, and fire, but none of that would help those soldiers. I need to be there too.” 

He says that with so much conviction. Long gone is the scared kid, he was older now, stronger, and he was not afraid anymore. Both of them could feel that through their new bond. 

“I’m ready to show him I am not afraid anymore.” 

Before they leave the truck, Jane stops him. “You feel it, right? You feel it too?” 

The sun is almost gone. Warm tones are leaving their faces as they look at each other. Jane’s hand has not left Will’s arm. He covers her hand with his. 

“The bond?” He asks in awe. “Yeah, I felt it since the MAC-Z.”

“Something has changed,” Jane states, no room for questions in her words. “I feel stronger. When I was talking with Kali after helping with the truck, we fought.”

Will is surprised, he never quite understood her relationship with her sister. Not that Jane was really an open book about what happened when she met her.

“I don’t understand. Did anything else happen?”

“She tried to show me something, with her powers, and I fought it. But not by closing my mind or not realizing it was a trick. I made something. An illusion to fight her. She was just as surprised.”

And Will is shocked too. He had felt the shift in his powers, growing by the minute. An awareness of the world that wasn’t there before. He thought he was the only one, he didn’t expect Jane to be changing as well. 

“We are… evolving? Like leveling up in a game,” he answers.

“Yes. But why? I thought that my powers had a limit, like Kali’s. She’s not able to move things with her mind. Now, I’m not so sure why this is happening”.

“Well, maybe we can find out together,” He says, smiling, ”after everything is over”.

And Jane wants to confess. Right there. So she can say goodbye to him properly. This may be one of the last times they see each other. But she doesn’t have the willpower to do so. 

“Yeah, together”. She answers instead, and she hugs him again. The sun has finally come down. Two siblings are ready for the final battle. So Destiny can show them what is in store for them. In the Upside Down, a horde of monsters is waiting for a signal. With their general holding them. 

“You are just like me, Henry, a vessel”. Will said between tears. He had just seen his memories and was feeling sad for the monster. Not for the one that was with them in The Abyss, but for the kid he once was. Even when faced with the monster that had changed the trajectory of his life, even after all the things he put him and his friends through. Ha chose kindness, he tried to reason with Vecna. 

“But you can resist it. Help us fight it. Don’t let him win, Henry, please. Don’t let him win.” He begged while he was crying. He wanted to stop it, the cycle of abuse he and Henry suffered. He didn’t want to fight. 

“NO”. Vecna said. “It showed me the truth. It showed me that this world is broken. That man is broken.” He was fighting Will out of his mind. 

“Don’t listen to him, Henry. It is controlling you right now.” Will resisted, holding tears, he felt the walls being lifted.

But with his connection to the Hive Mind, he felt a heart starting to beat. Another monster awakening. 

“It has never controlled me.

And I’ve never controlled it.”

The floor starts to tremble, the Mind Flayer’s body, a crystallized arachnid, is starting to move. The party stops walking towards it, Will is not close to them, he wasn’t able to warn them. 

“Don’t you see, William? I could have resisted it. But I chose to join it.”

Its legs start to fall near The Party’s bodies. Covering with shadows the yellow light of The Abbys. They start running away from it. 

“It needs me.” Far away from the action, Joyce and Will can see their friends running. 

“And I need it.

We.

Are.

One.”

The creature roars and starts following them. Caging them, ready to eat them alive. They are about to try to fight back, but the odds are not in their favor. When a rock hits the Mind Flayer’s face and makes it fall back. Giving them time to keep running.

Jane is there, her small body against a giant. She prepares herself. Kali is dead, her story has ended in the cycle of violence. She is angry. Her sister deserved to live. Her friends deserve to live. So she feels her love from them; she uses it as a conduit. She uses her rage, too. All the things she’s been through have led her to this very moment. 

While her friends are watching. She runs towards the beast. It tries to kill her with its legs, but Jane is faster, she dodges it. When she’s close enough, she jumps, her powers lifting her up in the air. The beast opens its mouth to devour her. But as she feels the polluted air of The Abyss, she separates her hands. A hole breaks in the Mind Flayer’s neck, and she dives right inside it. 

With the force of the fall, she uses her powers to break the vines holding Vecna in the lair. They are finally face to face again. Eleven and One. Numbers used by the scientists who used them as weapons. 

“So, you truly do want to die.” Vecna is confident. They start pushing with their telekinesis, and when that’s not enough, he starts using his deformed extremities to fight her. 

He is so confident that he doesn’t notice that none of the monsters are hunting his enemies. In fact, he was so wrapped up in fighting Eleven, in awakening the Mind Flayer, that he did not feel a portion of the Hive Mind being closed to him. They were waiting. Being held back by their general, waiting for the moment to attack. A sword was lifted in the air, waiting to fall. 

Inside the body, Jane and Vecna kept fighting. She dodged the attacks and forced him to step back. Blow by blow being directed toward him. She jumped in the air to dodge one of his attacks, but he left her there with his mind. He brought her to the creature’s floor, her body hitting it hard. And as he lost his balance while the arachnid was moving, she lifted the dust covering her tracks.

As Vecna was looking for her, he saw her. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Those were the amounts of Janes he was seeing, and they kept multiplying, mocking him, attacking him. Her newly discovered powers were being used. Kali might not be there to fight their brother, but her soul, her memory, gave Jane the will to keep fighting. The usual tiredness that ran through her body when she was exceeding herself was gone. 

All the training, all the anger and love, it ignited her. Her powers were finally at their peak. A balance between mind, soul, and body. 

Outside, Nancy was running towards a crack. She fought the creature with all her bullets. Her life was coming to an end, but before the beast could eat her, Robin and Jonathan used the flamethrowers to fight the beast from the cliff, giving her time. Everyone was fighting the beast, but it was not enough. 

Inside, Jane was losing the fight. Her duplicates perished one by one until they were all gone. And when she was faced alone with Vecna, a power of wills began fighting. Her hand against him, telekinesis stops the monster’s hand. She was about to lose when Vecna felt it. She felt it too, the change in the atmosphere. 

While everyone was running and the fight had just started, the sword finally fell. “Showtime” said a voice smiling. Hoards of Demogorgons and Demobats started running towards the beast. The party was too busy on the wrong side to see them. But Joyce and Will were able to see them perfectly well. 

“Oh my God,” She said, her voice starting to crack. She didn’t know what to do. Aim for her hax or take Will’s arms and start running.

But Will holds his ground. He can feel it, an openness from the Hive Mind that was not there before. It’s asking for him to tap into it. To be the one leading them to battle. He connects with them, hearing their pleas, and with his hands, he lifts them through the air, helping the Demos get faster to the other side, near the cliff, to help his friends. 

Joyce can’t believe what she’s seeing. She watches as his son directs the monsters. When she lifts her head to see the things flying to battle, she sees a figure flying too. A man with wings and a sword that starts attacking the Mind Flayer, slashing its side and legs. 

While the others keep stabbing and throwing things at the thing, they hear the sounds of the Demos falling. They get scared and are ready to fight them. But the monsters don’t touch them. They are attacking the beast as well. As the party retreats a little, they see the bats attacking it too. 

When Steve is looking up, his nose wrinkles, remembering the way those things attacked him, he sees it. The thing with wings that looks like a human. But before a thought can form in his head, the rest of the Demo-Bats fly to the creature, covering it and flying away.

“What the fuck is going on?" He says nobody else seems to have seen the new creature. 

“Look, it’s Will,” Mike says to them. And they see a small figure far away, palm lifted in the air. 

Inside the monster. Vecna had felt the attacks. All the claws and teeth that were slashing the Mind Flayer. And when he tried to throw his hand to Jane, it stopped. But she wasn’t attacking him. In his left eye, he could feel Will’s presence, hijacking his mind. 

“I’m not afraid anymore.”

The party restarted hitting the Mind Flayer alongside the Demos.

“We are not afraid of you”.

Jane’s face is way too close to the claws. But she knows her brother is handling it. She can feel it. With the realization, she starts pushing back, the claw retracting into Vecna’s body. Will keeps helping her by pushing his own hand back, separating the claw from the body. 

And as Vecna screams in pain, Jane pushes her arms to him, and a force strong enough to push all of Henry’s defenses back is the force that helps impale him in one of the Mind Flayer’s teeth. With that, the creature falls back to the ground. And while everyone is celebrating, the Demos start running away from them, back to the Upside Down. 

In the aftermath, everyone is looking at Vecna, gasping for air while choking on his own blood. Joyce starts walking towards him, remembering all the things that monster put her through. He took away her son, he possessed him and made him suffer. He killed Bob. He made them run away from their home. He made her son and her daughter go through hell these last few years. They didn’t get to have a normal childhood because of him. 

“You fucked with the wrong family,” She said as she started swinging the axe at his neck. Each swing made everyone remember what had led them to this very moment. When the head finally met the ground.

Time stopped.

The only ones still moving were Will and Jane. “What…” she said as she started walking between them. Will started doing the same thing. 

“No…” he said, his mind going through a lot of horrific scenarios. 

“Fear not, children of destiny; he is dead.”

As they heard the words, the world vanished right in front of their eyes. They were in the void, but it wasn’t the same as before. They still were walking on water, but the usual darkness that characterized the void was now a sunset. A dance of red, violet, and orange that wrapped them in warmth.

They blinked, and suddenly, when they looked at each other, they weren’t even wearing the same clothes. 

Jane had her curly hair out of her bun. Wild curls that ended at her waist were bathed in the sunset’s light. Clips that resembled butterflies adorned her curls. She was no longer wearing the sweatsuit. A violet gown was hugging her frame, transparent sleeves on her arms had glitter that reflected the sunset. Golden suns were covering the dress. She looked like a princess in Will’s eyes. As she looked at her arms, lifting them, seeing the light dance, she saw what her brother was wearing. 

Will was wearing a much deeper purple tunic. It hugged him from the waist up, and the sleeves were flowy; it reminded her of something Merlin would wear. When the tunic met his waist, it became a piece of fabric that only covered the center of his body. She could see both his legs, and he was wearing a pair of leather pants. The tunic had silver moons in all their lunar phases.  It matched the design of her dress. 

“What the fuck is going on?” Will couldn’t help himself saying. 

“Language, my leash, if you don’t like what you’re wearing, keep your thoughts to yourself,” The same voice said.

When they looked at its direction, they couldn’t believe it. Right there, wearing letter pants and a letter vest that left the scars on the body's side show. Eddie Munson was looking back at them. He had gray skin that made him look dead. His eyes were a deep shade of black that covered his eyelids too. And well, the big bat wings were a sight that came out of a horror movie. 

“Eddie?” Will asked, he had seen what he looked like in the hidden photos Dustin had of the Hellfire Club. He still had the same hair, frizzier now, if that was even possible. 

“Close enough, kid. But no, your friend died here. My name is Kas.”

And Will remembered the campaign. The one his friends talked to him about. Kas The Bloody-Handed, the one who betrayed Vecna. They have always used D&D as a metaphor for the monsters that reside in the Upside Down. It was only natural that, if somehow, Eddie survived there, his subconscious would find a way to ease him into this new world.

“I've been waiting for you, both of you. Until you were finally ready to know the truth.”

“The truth?” Jane asked, not trusting the monster that was in front of them, walking near her brother slowly, to protect him if necessary. 

“About why you were chosen by destiny, my dear mage.” Kas answers playfully. 

“Did you really think that this dimension was created by men, by the scientist from your world?”

“Well, it’s a warm hole,” Will said, tilting his head like a puppy.

“Not at all, Cleric. Not. At. All.” Kas started walking around them, lifting his hand and moving his wings as he explained.

“That is the human’s explanation of what happened. Truth be told, this place existed before the humans opened the gate that let this dimension bleed into your world. 

The Hive Mind lived in The Abyss in harmony before the Mind Flyer began its reign of terror and made the monsters try to find another place to live.”

With each word, the story that the man was telling shocked the twins.

“They hadn't found a place to live when you created the bridge, Jane. They tried to escape there, and reside in harmony again.” His voice turns somber now, he stops walking in circles around them. He is looking at them with an eerie look. 

“That’s when Vecna came into this realm, with the combined forces of him and the Mind Flayer, they enslaved the creatures of this dimension.” He explained.

“But why do you exist? I don’t understand. Eddie is dead.” Will asked.

“You see, Destiny is a bitch. A real force of the universe that wants to balance the scales of Light and Darkness. Not to tilt much to either side, equilibrium at its finest. That means that when forces of evil try to break the world… and when your friend sacrificed himself, his act of love was strong enough to make a crack for Destiny to use me as a vessel. 

Destiny had found a way to right the wrongs and balance the scales once more. Since the world and the dimensions came to be, Destiny had chosen people who serve as protectors, a balance between the forces of Light and Darkness. Versions of you two already existed before.”

“What do you mean?” Jane said.

“What I mean, my lady, is that it is not by chance that you share a special bond. Vecna was wrong, you do belong to this world, both of you. Your connection to the Upside Down was forged the moment you were conceived in the stars, energy that fell into the earth and materialized in two different wombs. 

Twins born out of stardust and magic that came into existence. Separated by Destiny until you find your way back to each other. Until you were ready to serve as protectors.”

“Weapons, you mean?” Jane corrected him, defiantly tilting her jaw toward him. She didn’t want anyone else deciding that she only matter of her powers. The government was changed by some force that had already decided her role in the world. 

“No, I mean protectors, people who come to the world to leave it better than they found it. With their own choices and mistakes. With their own lives to live as they please while helping people in need. Helping dimensions in need.” He retorted.

She was not convinced. To her, they were all the same, and she was going forward with Kali’s plan. Nobody was going to use her ever again.”

“You, dear Mage and Warlock, have a choice to make. Two paths present themselves to you. 

In one of them, you choose to be protectors, to fulfill your destiny by going to the city where the ley lines meet and bring all the supernatural entities to coexist. You get to live a normal life until you are eighteen. You get to experience that. After that, life will become hard, and you will feel the presence of those entities even more.

In the other path, you Jane, will make the ultimate sacrifice for your friends as you planned. And they get to live normal lives without you. Both of you will forget about this and pray that the supernatural doesn’t find you again.

Those two choices come with gifts and consequences, but the choice, at the end of the day, is yours”

They are quiet for a moment. The information settles in their minds. In that moment, Will looks at Jane, realizing something.

“What does he mean, Jane? That you are sacrificing yourself like you already planned.” He asks, he is scared now.

When she looks back, she’s holding tears. “I’m sorry, I have to end the cycle of violence.” She says with guilt, her voice breaking. 

“If I go back into the world, they are going to use my blood to create more weapons. It’s the only way you can finally have a life.”

“At the cost of yours?” He asks, not wanting to believe her. “No. You are my sister, if you die, then all we have been through has been for nothing. I don’t want to lose you. There has to be another way”, he says as he grabs her elbow, he needs her to understand. She is crying.

“If I may, there IS a way you guys have what you want.”

Both of them turn to look at Kas now. They are listening.

“If you choose the second path, the one where you sacrifice, you won’t actually die. You’ll find a way to trick everyone into thinking that you are dead. You are never going to see your friends or your family. You will not experience a normal life, always hiding. But you guys would be safe.” Kas comes closer to them, showing them with his mind snaps of what those lives would be like. They hate it.

“If you choose destiny’s path. You get to have a semblance of a normal life. For a while, and even after you graduate. The Hive Mind and Destiny are going to give you abilities that will help you in the battle for the balancing of the scales. A gift. The consequence is that you are not going to live a day without knowing about the things that lurk in the dark, and the weight of having those gifts.” He shows them more visions of that path. 

“What about the government?” Jane asks, not convinced. 

“Destiny will handle everything once you choose the path. You won’t have to worry about them ever again.” 

“Please, Jane.” Will pleads. “Don’t do it. You deserve to live, you deserve to experience life without being chased. Don’t leave me, not now that we have finally found each other. 

And Jane is thinking. She doesn’t want to die or to never be able to see her friends again if she survives. She remembers Hop’s words and Kali’s words too. The way she said that her story was always going to end there, in the Upside Down. Maybe there’s a way for her story to continue. To be there fulfilling Destiny’s path. 

The realization settles in her as she locks her eyes with Will’s. He gives her a little smile as a burst of confidence. When she looks at Kas, she’s already made a decision.  

When they are back in their bodies, it’s like not even a second has passed. They are still there, inside the Mind Flayer, everyone is looking at Vecna's head. The twins go through the motions. Purple Rain sounds as they leave the Upside Down. They know the plan won’t work; the explosion is only going to affect the bridge. All the creatures went back to The Abyss to reside there in harmony once more.

When they arrive at the MAC–Z, someone is waiting for them. Owens, he is alive, hands on his hips with the biggest smile they had ever seen on him. There are a few trucks near the rift, but the army is nowhere on site. 

“What the fuck is happening Owens.” Hopper asks, getting ready for a fight. Everyone tries to put their hands near their weapons. 

“Hey Pop, listen…” He says, getting closer to them, hands in his pockets. “I know we haven’t been in contact for a while.”

“We haven’t been in contact for a while? Are you talking about the fucking radio silence after we came back to Hawkins?” Joyce interjects. “We’ve been fighting for our lives here, our kids' lives, and you decide to show up now? After everything. 

“Joyce, I know you’re angry. But I really couldn’t contact you. They had me in a cell at a California facility.”

“What about your faction of the government that created the NINA project?” Nancy asks; she’s looking at the trucks, thinking of ways they can escape if necessary. 

“Those agents and scientists are dead. I’m the only one who survived. And until now, I wasn’t able to reach you, but that has changed."
“Why?” Asks Hopper. His voice is tired. 

While everything is happening, the party doesn’t know how to react. The time is coming to an end; the song will soon make the last rift implode. They are way too close to it, they need space, just in case. 

Will and Jane are really quiet, watching as everything falls into place. They know what is happening. What Kas told them. Their gift for choosing to be protectors of the balance. It feels eerie, like they are watching something in a movie without being part of it. 

“There’s someone in higher places looking out for you. The government does not want anything that happened here to come to light. So they are betting on your good faith to cooperate. No secret plots, no intentions to publish an expose.” He said that last part looking at Nancy. 

“Are we safe?” Jane asks.

“Yes, as long as the rift closes, all information about what happened here is going to be wiped out. After all, everything is connected to that, once it closes, you wouldn’t be able to keep your powers, and the government would have no use for any of you.”

The twins know it’s a lie. But they understand that this is their way out. The only way they can live a normal life before fulfilling their destiny. 

“Okay.” She says. No room for questions. It’s done. 

“El, how can you say that? What if they’re lying?” Mike whines. 

“I trust him, Mike.” She looks at him with a face he does not recognize. “I’m tired of running, of hiding; if there’s a way we can live in peace, here, I’m taking it.”

Everyone is listening carefully. At the end of the day, it’s her choice. She is the one who has been running since the day they found her in the woods. She is the one who was experimented on. If this is her choice, to stay, to trust Owens, no one bats an eye; they are supporting her.

“I don’t understand it, El. What if they come for you again? We need to live.” Mike looks like he’s about to have a meltdown. 

“Stop it Mike,” Will tells him. He is holding his ground. Somehow, everyone got even quieter.

“She is the one making the decision. I don’t trust the government either. They tried to bury me in the Upside Down. They had a fake body planted so my mother wouldn’t keep bothering them, looking for answers.” And Mike has never seen him like this. He’s usually so shy, so quiet, he never talks back to him.

“But we are tired, and we finally have a way out. A way for this nightmare to end. If this is what it takes to have a normal life, we are taking it.” 

And as those words settle in, an explosion can be heard from inside the rift. It slowly starts to close until there’s nothing else left. The Upside Down, the bridge between their dimension and the Abyss, has finally been severed. Will and Jane can feel it. The impact of the decision. The darkness that once covered Hawkins, the veil that Vecna had put there, lifted. The effect his hand had on the residents of Hawkins was no longer there.

And as the sun started to rise, showing the signs of a new day, Hawkins had become what it once was. A little town in Indiana. No different than any other town in the United States.

As time went by, they all could feel the change. People no longer hunt them down. They no longer assumed the worst of each other. The panic that once characterized the town was gone. It was like a massive psychosis. As the dust settled, everyone kept living their lives, enjoying little by little, their new normal. 

When classes resumed, the party went back to school. Max was still in a wheelchair, being moved by Lucas. Jane was with them, starting late in the school year. Dustin, Mike and Will were looking at everyone like they’d grown a third head. And when the jocks meet them in the hallway, they just pass them by. Ignoring them. 

Only one of the jocks apologized for the way they’ve treated them. The party found out one of the days when they had begun a one-shot in the Wheelers’ basement. 

“It was so weird”. Dustin was explaining while they were still finishing setting everything up. 

“Lawson was right there, apologizing for everything. Everything has already been weird with the jocks. Like they don’t want to beat us to a pulp anymore. But he, asking for forgiveness, without making any excuses, was like an out of body experience” He ends his retelling of the situation. 

“To be fair, Chance was always the more level-headed one of the team.” Lucas points out. He is near Max, with the new crutches on their feet. Her head is on his shoulder while his hand rubs circles on her back. 

“Even when we were chasing Eddie, it was out of fear and lack of understanding. He never bullied anyone.” Lucas tries to defend him. They shared an understanding when they were on the team together. He and Patrick were the only ones who tried to make Lucas feel like part of the team right from the start.

“He kicked Dustin’s ass at the cemetery. He is a mouth-breather.” Interrupts Mike.

The insult feels childish. At least for Jane and Will, who are on the couch with the couple. But they weren’t there when this started in Hawkins. So they only share a look but don’t make any comment. 

“Well, he apologized for that. And I thought we came to an understanding that I was the one trying to fight them. The bullying never came to you, Mike. They were attacking me for wearing the shirt of someone who had allegedly killed their friends.”

“That’s not an excuse”.

“No, but it’s the reason. I was looking for a fight too. To antagonize them instead of trying to reason with them. Chance told me that, above all things, he was scared. That he was going to be the next one of his friends to die.”  

“So?” As he says so, Max is getting tired of this, so she just says.

“So, Michael? People who are going through something react in ways that they can control. He didn’t have the whole story. He doesn’t have the whole story now and decided that he was going to apologize either way. 

It counts for something that he could recognize his mistake. When Vecna’s veil fell, all of Hawkins changed, you can see it. The way the jocks are just normal assholes. The way everyone seems to have forgotten what happened this past year.”

She explains this as she separates herself from Lucas. Her arms were the first part of her body to reclaim autonomy fast. The twins are looking at her while they are seated on her side. They have discussed what happened. The pact they had made. The way it helped the town to be freed from Vecna’s control. They didn’t explain that Destiny chose Eddie’s body to use as a carcass to guide them. It’s not something that would sit well with the rest of them.

Everyone accepted it, the notion of a bigger force finding a magic solution out of nowhere. It was like luck was finally on their side. And they trusted more whatever that force was than the government. 

“The rest of the basketball team is just ignoring us, Lawson apologizing counts for something”.

“Well, he didn’t apologize to me.” He says with his nose wrinkling.

And Dustin wants to shut him up; he doesn’t want this to become another fight. They had come here to play. Whatever Mike had going on would have to wait. 

“Why would he apologize to you? You weren’t the one bullied. They didn’t like you, but their attacks were directed at me. Since, you know, I was wearing the Hellfire shirt that you seem to have forgotten in the back of your closet.” Dustin ends, and the room gets really quiet. 

They hadn’t talked about it. The fact that Mike easily discarded the shirt without even trying to keep Eddie’s memory alive when he arrived at Hawkins. Lucas, he understood he wasn’t even wearing that much after he joined the team. And Will hadn’t known the guy. 

But Mike did, he was like a mentor to him. He let his hair grow the same way. He started reading the same books and listening to the same music, as if it were his own bible. And when shit hit the fan, he couldn’t get it off of him quickly enough. Like a skin that could be easily shed. Dustin had hated that. 

And even when he had come to accept it, he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to get back at him like this. That conversation had ended. And amongst the silence, Jane decides to speak.

“So, are we going to play? You guys promised me to help me get back to the game again, and we still have to convince Max that she needs to play.”

“Yeah, I’m not really sold out about that just yet, but let's try this nerd shit.” The redhead says with a smile directed towards her.

And just like that, they started playing. As the last year of high school passed them by, she learned to love the game. It allowed them to be kids again. And as they kept growing, their friendship solidified even more. They got to learn new things about themselves, and they got to experience their first party and their first hangover. They would make plans to go to the lake, reclaiming it so they could enjoy swimming in it. They got to experience prom and the worst finals week of their lives.

In the meantime, not everything was as easy as it seemed for the twins. 

Jane had broken up with Mike, she needed to put herself first. To discover the things that made her, well, her. She tried everything, drama club, cheering squad, art club, but all of those things made her feel like she was trying too hard. Until one day, she decided to test her luck in the town’s library. 

She fell in love with the quietness of it. All the words that had been taken away from her were at her disposal. All the universes at her reach. And when she wasn’t spending the afternoon in the library, she was training. She didn’t get as tired anymore, the nosebleeds had stopped, and little by little she realized that her powers now just scratched the surface of what she really could do. 

Even when she didn’t think of herself as a monster, her powers had mutated. Before Will’s awakening, she was only capable of moving things with her mind. The fact that she could now create illusions had made her wonder what else she could do.  The possibilities were endless.

She had energy running through her body, a force that was not there before. She’d never felt the need to use her powers at first. It was something that was part of her. But now, that energy needs a conduit. It needed to be purged from her body before it exploded. She wasn’t a time bomb, not exactly, but she knew that if she tried to bottle up that energy, if she tried to live a normal life without using it, she was scared she could break the world.

As for Will, he had changed too. The connection with the Hive Mind had not been severed. It just became what it was always supposed to be. A collective mind that kept the creatures from The Abyss in harmony. It had awakened a sort of sixth sense in him. An awareness of the world that was not there before.

He could feel the presence of the monster that lived in the shadows, in the fantasies of people’s minds. He didn’t know how he knew that. Only with time, he would learn to recognize it better. 

The weird dreams that started with that awareness came as a shock to him. He would often be woken in the middle of the night from nightmares of what he lived in the Upside Down. Sometimes Jane would be there for him, holding him after a nightmare as he described it. Or just to stay quietly with him when the words came harder to him. She had nightmares too. 

But his dreams, the good ones, came with something new. He would often see weird things and actions that became a reality later in the week. After a while, he understood his dreams came with an actual meaning. He asked Jane about it, but she said that her dreams usually didn't have a meaning behind them. Will started carrying a diary to write the things he remembered and see if they became true.

Sometimes they did, but sometimes the dreams were too weird, too much going on to pinpoint what they were telling him. The most recurring one had a tiger as its center. A majestic creature that would guide him through a forest. Most of the time, it was just that; it would either walk beside him or lower its body for him to ride the beast.

He grew fond of the tiger, of the way it purred or would seek affection every time it came closer to him. Sometimes the forest would be bathed in the light of the sunset, the same sunset that was present when they were in the void. Sometimes the tiger would be scared, and he would look for ways to make the animal trust him again. 

And sometimes the forest would have the same sky as the Upside Down. Wolves would be heard in the distance, and the tiger would run away with Will on its back. Those dreams filled him with dread for the tiger, whom he grabbed strongly to not let go. He didn’t want to look at the forest when it happened, he just wanted to be close to the tiger. The few times he looked up, the trees would have blood on them and what looked like little knives stuck in them. Years would pass before he finally had an answer for those dreams. 

There was another gift that had come with the connection to the Hive Mind. He found that out by accident one day when he was looking at Jane training in the junkyard. She had done a bad maneuver, and her power affected a car that was in a pile of trash near him. While the car was about to fall over him, he crossed his arms to prepare himself for the impact. 

Except it never arrived. When he looked up, two long, deformed hands were pushing against the car. He looked behind him, and a Demogorgon was the one stopping the car. Jane used her powers to move the car so they could no longer be in danger. That incident made him realize that he could summon creatures directly from The Abyss. They would come to help him as a thank you for saving them. It took him a while to accept it, to find peace in the fact that he could summon the creatures that had hunted him all those years ago, and that they would be there for him. 

Especially since he could feel more changes in his body because of it. Changes that scared him even further. He didn’t know what it was at first. That new instinct. But he really didn’t want to find out. 

Two days before the graduation ceremony, they went to celebrate at the lake. The party wasn’t the only group there; a lot of people their age were enjoying the day and the fact that high school was almost over. Everyone in their own world. They were minding their business when a volleyball came flying out of nowhere and hit Will in the head.

“What the fuck!” Max was the first to react. She was beside him while the rest of the boys were swimming in the lake with Jane. Will was looking at the floor while he massaged the affected part. 

“Are you blind or did you decide today to start being dickheads again?” She asked someone. 

When Will looked up, he saw a naked chest and the biggest arms he had ever seen in his life. Chance Lawson was making a face at him. He could see his teeth as his mouth was downwards. He looked like he had fucked up. 

“I’m so sorry, so sorry, Byers. I promise it wasn’t on purpose.” He explained, raising his hand as the smaller boy would retaliate. 

“Uh… Don’t worry, Chance. But could you please try to be more careful next time?”

“Yes, I wasn’t paying attention. I promise you, I would never try to hurt you.” He said, embarrassed. 

“Debatable,” Max said quietly, but they didn’t pay her any mind. She noticed that the way they seem to be wrapped in their own world, uh.

“Anyway,” Chance said, “before I leave, I really want you to know that I’m sorry, you didn’t deserve that”, he was taking the ball Will was giving him back, slower than was acceptable. Is that the moment when he asks, “How’s your head, Byers?” 

He really wanted to know if he had given him a concussion.  And Max, well, she couldn’t help herself.

“He’s never had any complaints yet”. She tells Chance innocently.

A pin could've dropped, and they could’ve heard it. Will’s eyes were so open that if air were blown on them, they would stay that way. The jock didn’t know what to answer to that, he was red. So red that the blush that was on his cheeks went all the way to his neck. Will wasn’t any better. 

“Oh, come on, get your head out of the gutter,” Max adds jokingly. But she saw their reactions. The way Will was looking at Chance. The way the jock was looking back at him. She filed it away for a later date.

“Yeah… Uh… Again, Byers, sorry for not paying enough attention to my surroundings. I promise to be more careful next time, so I don’t give you head.” And as soon as the words left his mouth, he panicked. “So I don’t hit you in the head!! It’s a nice head, you know? Very round, balls shouldn’t be hitting it carelessly.” 

Max started laughing, and Will was horrified. 

“Volleyballs, that is, no volleyball should hit you like that so carelessly. Anyway… I’m just gonna go. I’m sorry, bye, see you at the graduation ceremony.” 

And with that, he leaves while his dignity is still intact. Sort of. 

“What the hell was that?” Max asks between laughs. 

“I… I don’t really know,” Will answers. Then, he hits her forearm, in retaliation for the joke she made. She is still laughing when the rest of the party comes to see what happened.

The graduation ceremony was a short affair. They got to wear ugly orange robes, and Dustin’s speech riled everyone up as he gave the finger to Higgins. They were invited to Stacy’s party, but they declined; they had other plans for the night. As they hugged one last time before going back to their families to take pictures, Chance was looking at them from a distance. 

He really hoped he would get to see Will at the party. He was the one who suggested that Stacy should invite them. Later that night, he was sad he wasn’t able to see Will at the party. But there was still hope, maybe they would cross paths that summer. Maybe he would get an opportunity to confess to him.

But, as stated before, Destiny is a bitch.

Years would pass before they saw each other again. And the circumstance in which their paths would cross would trigger a chain of events they would’ve never expected in the first place.