Chapter Text
In the end, nobody noticed the world had already ended.
It is, Henry notes with some amusement, a strange thing. That the group of misfits from Hawkins fought so hard and sacrificed so much to stop his plans.
But didn't realise he had already won.
His new world, where all three dimensions fuse, is a place of beauty. A place of utter freedom. A place where he has complete control over the billions upon billions of minds, dreams, hearts. All those humans frozen forever, trapped in the dream realm he has crafted for them. For most, life simply continues. They work, marry, have children, and die. Some lead happy lives. Some feel that hell would be better. But life goes on, and how funny it is to peek in.
Time, after all, ceases to exist. Henry can see it all. The moment they are born, the moment they die, and all the pointless drivel in between.
He can see everyone and everything. A watchful god that none knows to worship.
Sometimes, when he isn’t busy fashioning the physical realm into the image he prefers, he slips into the worlds of those who fought him. He tries not to do it too often. After all, overindulgence spoils most gifts.
And in any case, not all of them are as miserable as he had hoped. Joyce finds contentment in Jim. When she dies on a hospital bed at eighty, surrounded by her sons and their friends, and in the arms of her husband, her only thought is of how blessed she has been.
And Lucas and Max carve their own place of love. Challenges come, of course. Max, at forty years old, suffers a stroke that leaves her blind. Lucas, at forty-one, loses his leg after a vicious attack by men who snarl insults and brandish baseball clubs. But still, they never stop holding each other’s hands, surrounded by love from their friends and their children who arrive quick after the wedding. When they die, it is within days of each other, and without pain.
Jim doesn’t fare so easily. Though Joyce is a solace and a warm home he can return to, he never forgets his daughters. Not his first one, who he sometimes sobs over in his car. And nor his second one, whose absence leaves a gaping hole that even his stepsons never fill. When he dies, it is her name that he whispers, tears running into his beard.
Henry likes to replay that moment often. Again and again.
The older ones—Steve, Jonathan, Nancy, Robin. Their lives are like most—a series of ups and downs. Mediocre. Nothing terrible, but nothing that ever makes them feel as alive as they felt when they faced down Henry’s illusion of the Mind Flayer.
Nancy often dreams of that moment. That moment when she held a gun with utter confidence, back straight, eyes narrowed—strong and beautiful and alive. Some nights, she looks in the mirror and cries. And other nights, the bed feels too big, and she imagines what could have been if she had said yes.
Jonathan often dreams too. But his dreams tend to be of Nancy’s eyes and smiles. Most mornings, he wakes with regret that feels like it will drown him entirely.
Dustin puzzles Henry. He is a boy who shines no matter his obstacles. He becomes a professor at a younger age than anyone would have expected, and his research papers become academic legend. He achieves all he strives to, and when old age presses on him, he encourages the younger generation to do the same.
A few days a year, however, he drinks until he collapses and weeps for his lost friends, those buried beneath soil and also for those buried beneath distance, time and a failure to reply to those messages that piled higher and higher.
Most delicious of all, however, were the dream realms of the ones Henry despised most.
William. And Michael.
William tries. He arrives on a campus so far from home and laughs at jokes he doesn’t find funny so that he can make friends. He keeps his head high as he starts a society to support those who cannot help desiring their own gender. He is unfazed by criticism. He excels in his art classes and becomes a star student.
He even lets himself be found.
The first boy is tall, black-haired, with sharp features that reminds William of one he does not dare to name. The boy has deep eyes that don’t dart away when William speaks. He asks questions without prying, laughs at William’s jokes, offers his jacket when the wind bites, and remembers the brand of paints William likes without being asked twice.
To an extent, William is charmed. He tries to return the warmth he's given.
But the boy laughs too quietly. He listens too patiently. He speaks too measuredly, with the confidence of one who knows what they say is right. He compliments too much. He argues too softly, never raising his voice, never biting out an insult.
And every day, William finds himself missing a clumsy stream of babble, giddy, frantic enthusiasm, and a voice that pitched high and snapped with sharp words when angry.
Henry would laugh if laughter still meant anything.
Because William tries to be fair. He tells himself he is lucky. He tells himself this boy is kind, and that kind is rare.
But when William gifts the boy a painting, and the boy smiles and tells him, "That’s good. You’re very talented", something in William collapses like a bridge giving way. Because he knows of another who would have grinned like an idiot, held it like it was a museum piece, stared at it for hours and hours.
They break up soon after with soft voices and careful words. The boy pauses at William’s door and says, “I can’t keep being compared to someone you pretend doesn’t exist.” Afterwards, William cries himself to sleep, and in the morning, almost reaches for the phone.
Yes, Henry peeks in more often than he should. Overindulgence spoils gifts, yes. But watching William starve himself brings terrible satisfaction.
After that, there is another boy.
And another.
And another.
William tells himself it’s growth, that it’s practice, that he is learning how to be wanted without rejection. He tries different smiles. Different jokes. Different versions of himself.
One boy is loud and funny, the kind who drags William to parties and kisses him in front of strangers to prove something. William laughs too hard and hates himself for it.
One is brilliant and ambitious, eyes always on the future. William pretends he can see the future, too, even though sometimes he feels time stopped years ago, in a place so very cold, crawling with monsters.
One is soft and gentle, always touching William’s hands like he’s worshipping them. William lets him. William even likes it for a while, until he starts remembering small hands that grabbed him once, promising to never let go, that they’d go crazy together.
With each one, William tries to love better. He even goes weeks at times doing everything right. But then, he’d be in bed, gasping and moaning as he kisses the face above him, and suddenly the boy’s jaw sharpens, the hair turns black, the eyes soften, and the lips quirk into a smile he knows so well.
William cries on those nights. Quietly, in a bathroom, curled over a sink.
Because Michael always remains. Like a pebble stuck in a shoe.
Not that, Henry always notes with a chuckle, that Michael does any better.
Michael spends years grieving El. He sits before the monument and recalls their moments together. He writes stories about a brave girl battling monsters. He stares at her photos and dreams of three waterfalls.
But on his twenty-sixth birthday, he realises he cannot remember why he loved her. He drops the cereal box he is holding and racks his mind for why he had wanted her as more than a friend, but all he can remember is the warmth of friendship and childlike innocence.
It is the same day that Michael figures out it wasn't just El he'd been grieving for. It'd been his childhood. His basement. His friends’ laughter before they scattered. The way the world used to feel like a game with rules. The promise that doing the right thing meant keeping the ones you loved.
Most of all—deep down, in the place he never lets himself look—he knows he has been grieving a boy.
A boy with paint on his fingers. A boy he’d once known as deeply as his own DnD figures. A boy whose smile was so beautiful that it had made Michael feel unsafe in his own skin and ignited thoughts that were bright and terrifying, and therefore easy to bury.
Henry watches that realisation spread inside Michael like poison. It does not make Michael kinder to himself, nor any braver. It only makes the emptiness more complicated.
Soon after, Michael marries his literary agent. She is a sharp, efficient woman who does the household chores andreads his drafts with a pen in hand. She knows how to negotiate contracts. She makes phone calls for him when he is too hungover.
Some days, she reminds Michael of his mother, and he feels as though he might throw up.
For a few years, they live in a pleasant suburb with clean sidewalks. They buy matching towels and argue over paint colours. They host dinners where people laugh politely, compliment Michael’s work, and ask when his next book is coming out.
And Michael learns how to kiss his wife and mean it. He learns how to mow the lawn and wave to neighbours. He learns how to talk about mortgage rates.
Henry is almost bored. But boredom, he knows, is always temporary. Humans have a talent for ruining their own peace.
The day comes after four years of marriage. When Michael’s wife tells him,“You live more in your stories than you do with me.”
He denies it. They fight, and his wife cries, and Michael can only watch her with a frown. For a moment, all he can think is that his Will would have understood.
The thought is so startling that it makes Michael furious. He snaps back and says things crueller than he means to. A writer, after all, knows the right words.
She leaves the next day. When the divorce papers come through the post, Michael signs them as easily as closing the front door, and a part of him is horrified at what he has become.
He returns to his stories and drowns himself in them. The years go by. Sometimes, Nancy visits and they chat about the good days. Lucas attends one of his book tours, and they go to the arcade afterwards, and Michael almost feels like he’s thirteen again, young and innocent of the world’s horrors.
On his fortieth birthday, he gets an invitation to Dustin’s wedding. ‘Can’t get married without you there, man. Come on. For me?’
He goes in a suit that fits poorly and a tie that sits crooked, no matter how many times he adjusts it. His glasses feel too thick on his nose, and when he finally meets the others—Steve, Robin, Lucas and Max—he feels like a stranger. They make small talk. Jobs, books, mutual acquaintances. Dustin’s fiancé—sweet with buckteeth—introduces herself and thanks Michael for coming, and Michael remembers to say the right things and smile politely.
When William arrives, Michael stops breathing. The passing time has only sharpened William’s cheekbones, coaxed his softness into something steadier and more assured. He is more beautiful than Michael can remember, and Michael hadn’t realised—hadn’t allowed himself to realise—how thoroughly he had filed William away in the back of his mind, as if memory could be boxed up and stored like Christmas lights. He had forgotten the curve of William’s smile, pretty in a way Michael never could describe. Had forgotten the gentleness of Will’s movements.
For a moment, the reception hall tilts.
And then Michael sees the arm around William’s shoulders.
The owner of that arm is tall and handsome. He leans in to murmur something into William’s ear, and William laughs.
Michael’s stomach lurches as he remembers Lucas mentioning it that time they’d visited the arcade.
Will’s been with someone a while. Seven years, I think. Seems good for him.
Michael tastes bile at the back of his throat. He remembers a time when his own arm had slung around Will as they walked home from school, and how Will had leaned in as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Will greets the others warmly. When he turns to Michael, his wine glass trembles and his smile flickers.
Michael notices because he has always noticed the things Will tries to hide.
“Mike,” Will says quietly, and the name is an old key sliding into an old lock.
Michael forces his own smile into place. He feels grotesque in his horrible suit, in his horrible glasses, his crooked tie.
“Hey,” Michael manages. “Hi. It’s good to see you.”
William’s boyfriend extends a hand, polite and easy. “I’m—”
Michael does not let him finish. He takes the man’s hand and shakes it too hard. “Yes, I’ve heard. It’s good to see you.”
The boyfriend’s brows lift slightly, but he keeps smiling. He glances at William as if to check whether this is normal.
William’s smile strains further.
“This is—” William hesitates. “This is my partner.”
Of seven years.
Michael’s tongue feels too big for his mouth. He nods again. “Nice to meet you.”
The evening passes slowly. Dustin’s wedding is lovely. There are speeches, dancing, and photographs. Michael watches William sway with his boyfriend, hands on his shoulders, head tilted close as they exchange words.
Michael flees to the bathroom, his breaths bursting out of him. He collapses over the sink, stares at his own reflection, and feels like crying. When the door opens, he spins around and freezes at the sight of William standing a foot away, hands hovering at his sides.
“Mike?”
“Hey,” Michael says again, because he has no other word.
Will nods. “Hey.”
They stand there, two grown men in a bathroom that smells like cheap cologne.
William forces a bleak laugh. “You okay?”
Michael almost says yes. Instead, he says, “I don’t know.”
William’s throat bobs as he swallows. “Yeah.”
A pause.
Then William gestures vaguely toward the hall, toward the noise and lights and music. “It’s…Dustin looks happy.”
“Yeah,” Michael says. “He does.”
Another pause.
Henry watches amusedly. Because it happens the way all inevitable things happen. Michael takes a step. William takes one too, as if they are tethered by puppet strings. There is no dramatic confession, no careful negotiation of years and years of guilt and longing. They simply break at the same time, their bodies knowing what their minds try to ignore.
William grabs Michael’s suit jacket and pulls him close with a strength that startles them both. Michael’s hands seize William’s waist—firm and desperate—and he drags William in as if he is drowning and William is air.
Their mouths meet, and it’s a hungry kiss of over a decade of swallowed words and buried thoughts and dreams. William gasps against his mouth and yanks his hair to angle his head properly.
“I—” William whispers, and the words spill out as if he cannot stop them now. “I—God, I’ve missed—Oh, Mike—”
Michael kisses him again, harder, because he cannot bear words. William clutches him tighter, moaning into the kiss, and Michael feels like he is in heaven.
And then—just as suddenly—William shoves him away.
Michael stumbles back a step, hands still reaching. William is breathing hard. His face is flushed. His lips are swollen. His eyes are wide with panic.
“No,” William whispers, shaking his head as if arguing with himself. “No, no. I can’t—”
“Will—” Michael starts, because he always reassured William by his name. But William flinches at it.
“I—” William says again, and his voice breaks. “I can’t, Mike. I’m sorry.”
Then, without even fixing his suit, he turns and leaves. The door swings shut behind him with a soft click that feels louder than a gunshot.
Michael stands perfectly still for a minute. He cannot move. He cannot think. His hands hover uselessly in the air, as if they are still holding William.
Henry counts the seconds with morbid curiosity.
When Michael finally blinks into reality, he adjusts his tie with shaking fingers. He stares at his reflection and sees only a man who has ruined everything he touches.
As if he were a robot, he leaves the bathroom, gets in his car and drives away. The wedding hall disappears in his rearview mirror, and a voice in the back of his head that sounds like his thirteen-year-old self screams at him to turn around.
Fight! Fight for him! You promised!
But a larger part of Michael knows he is a man who lets time unfold rather than hold on. He is a man who has become so practised at losing that he cannot imagine winning.
And William has a life with someone else’s arm around his shoulders.
Henry watches him disappear down the road and thinks, with satisfaction, that humans are so very predictable. Michael. And William, too, who is good at forgetting what he finds uncomfortable. At forty-four, William says yes to a ring. He weds his partner legally, and smiles as friends cheer and clap.
Michael, of course, is not there. When the invitation arrived for him, he immediately wrote a polite response declining. He sends a gift—a cheque of a sizable sum. The next day, he goes to a book signing and laughs at a fan’s joke. He answers Nancy’s call and tells her, lightly, that no, he won’t be going.
Then, that night, he stands under the shower until the water turns cold, and breaks down, crying with his forehead pressed to the tile, shoulders shaking, mouth open in a helpless wail.
Henry watches and laughs. Humans, after all, are excellent at building their own cages and calling it maturity.
Life goes on, quietly.
Years tumble into each other. Michael publishes another book. His hair thins at the temples. He learns the names of his neighbours, forgets them again, and pretends not to notice how his hands ache when winter comes.
And then—inevitably—another envelope arrives.
Joyce Byers’ funeral.
Michael is fifty when he stands in the church and stares at the casket, at the photograph of Joyce smiling with that brightness she always carried. For a moment, he is a boy again, sitting at the Byers’ kitchen table, Joyce snapping at him when he swears, Joyce touching his hair like she has the right because, somehow, she always did.
He pays his respects with a tight throat and a bowed head.
William’s sobs are unmistakable. They echo loudly in the church hall. He is older now, silver-threaded at his temples, and face-lined in ways that make Michael’s chest hurt.
He is crying hard while his husband holds him, murmuring words into his hair, wiping at William’s cheeks with careful fingers, trying to soothe him as though grief is a tantrum that can be coaxed into quiet.
Michael watches and feels an absurd flare of anger. He knows that William has never needed words in moments like this. He just needs to be allowed to fall apart. To unload.
After the service and the slow procession to the graveyard, people begin to drift away in clusters. Michael finds himself lingering by a tree, hands in his pockets, watching William stand beside Joyce’s grave.
William’s eyes are red-rimmed. His nose is pink. He looks exhausted. His husband is pulled away by someone, and for a moment, William is alone.
Michael walks over before he can talk himself out of it. “Will.”
William turns. The sight of Michael’s face does something strange to him. He looks startled, then wary, then softened by a tenderness he tries to hide and fails.
“Mike,” he says, voice rough. “You…came.”
“I—” Michael swallows. “I couldn’t not.”
William looks back at the grave. His throat works. “She was…”
“Crazy,” Mike says before he can second-guess them. “You know, in a good, awesome, save-the-world way.”
William lets out a watery laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, she was.” He turns fully, swiping at his tears. “Mike, I— I’m sorry...About—about Dustin’s wedding. About that kiss—”
“Hey,” Michael interrupts. He lifts a hand, palm out. “Don’t. You don’t have to.”
William looks like he might apologise anyway, because William has always tried to mend what breaks, even when he is the one bleeding. Michael knows this and shifts as if to leave.
But then that younger voice in him—the boy who believed in quests and promises and being brave—begs him, pleads him to—
Just try. Just once. Please. Try.
Michael’s hand goes to his pocket, and he pulls out a slip of paper. William stares at it.
“My address,” Michael says quietly. “And my number. If you ever want to talk.”
After a long pause, William takes the paper. His fingers brush Michael’s, and both of them go still. Michael gives him a shy smile that feels unfamiliar on his grown face, before he turns and walks away, trying not to ruin the moment.
Henry watches, intrigued. It is rare, after all, for humans to do anything other than retreat from their own longing.
A year passes. Michael does not hear from William. He has long given up hoping.
But then, one midnight, he is woken by furious knocking. He rushes to the door and finds William standing on his porch. His hair is messy, his eyes are red, and his cheeks are flushed. He looks both younger and older at once.
Michael can’t speak.
William swallows, throat bobbing. He holds the folded slip of paper in one hand like proof.
“I’m sorry,” William says, immediately, because of course he does. “I’m sorry, I—I tried not to—I tried to be—” He looks up at Michael, eyes shining in the porch light. “I love you.”
Michael’s mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
William’s shoulders shake. “I have loved you since we were kids. Since before I even knew what it meant. And I’ve tried—God, Mike, I’ve tried so hard to love anyone else. I have. I did everything right. I did what I was supposed to do.” His eyes squeeze shut as a tear slips free. “ But I want nothing more than to be with you. I don’t—I don’t know how to—I don’t know how to be brave, but I’m here.”
Michael grabs William’s shirt and drags him inside. Slamming the door with the back of his hand, he kisses him. William makes a sound—half sob, half relief—and clutches at him. They stumble down the hall, shedding clothes with a terrible desperation. Michael’s hands map William’s body, and William’s mouth finds Michael’s neck. The night is hot with muffled moans and grunts, with possessive hands and claiming mouths, and when they reach their peaks, it is as though they have finally come home.
Henry, for a moment, feels a flicker of irritation. It is always so inconvenient when humans manage to find tenderness in ruins.
In the morning, sunlight spills across Michael’s bedroom. William lies beside him, hair a mess across the pillow. Michael’s heart does a strange jolt, and he reaches automatically to cup William’s cheek. William’s eyes flutter open, and he smiles.
Michael’s throat tightens. “What happened?”
William exhales slowly. “I left.”
Michael sits up, sheets pooling at his waist, heart pounding. “Will—”
“I broke up with him,” William corrects gently. “I told him the truth. That I—” He sighs. “That I never stopped loving you.”
Michael’s stomach flips with guilt and relief, though it is more from relief, because no matter how hard he tries, he cannot bring himself to feel bad for the other man.
“Good thing you're a sorcerer and not a paladin, huh?” Michael mutters. “It'd be harder to break vows then.”
William stares at him, jaw dropped, and for one horrifying second, Michael thinks he has ruined everything.
Then, William snorts. “Mike."
Michael’s mouth quirks. “Too soon?”
William laughs properly then—wet and bright and disbelieving—and it breaks something open in Michael’s chest that has been locked for decades.
“God,” William says, and he sounds both relieved and so so fond. “God, I missed you.”
Michael pulls him in, burying his face in William’s neck. They kiss again, slower this time, and when William starts crying, Michael cries too and holds him.
Henry watches it all and, with some bitterness, acknowledges that they did find their way back. He also notes, with some satisfaction, how much they lost in the process.
They have each other, yes. But time is a thing Henry can see all at once, spread out like a map. He knows that in twenty-five years, William will die of a heart attack in his sleep. Michael will awake to find William cold. He will press his forehead to William’s and beg him to stay. It does not work.
Michael will live another ten years alone, thinner and quieter, his house filled with William’s paintings. On the day he dies, he will be in a rocking chair by the window, clutching William’s dragon painting to his chest.
Wasted life, Henry muses. Was there ever any meaning to it?
It is galling, however—truly galling—to know that Michael and William look back on what they have, and neither of them sees waste.
They see love.
They see each other.
And in the end, Henry thinks, staring at the world he owns and cannot fully understand, that is the strangest thing of all.