#byerdin

AU where paladin!mike gets dragged into the canon verse when will’s powers awaken

like

paladin!mike: walks in and smiles shyly at will (cause even if he's mad in love with cleric!will, thats the person who gets him flustered in every universe)

will (who's very into the whole sword and armour and paladin thing): blushes and smiles back

mike: fuming in silence

max walking in and seeing this three-way gay mess: Will Byers you better take your chances and go for the upgraded version of your stupid crush. btw soldier mike (its paladin, max!) have you confessed you undying love yet cause i think my good friend Will would really appreciate it. mike, leave.

this ends with mike pretty much looking like this

Why is it that the MOMENT I start a new fic that I'm gonna go fully into, a new version of byler makes its little debut and now everything everywhere is full of that ship.

paladin!mike gets transported to a post canon stranger things universe where mike and will have already grown apart - will in college in new york and mike stuck in hawkins. and this paladin!mike is a paladin!mike who didn't confess his love to HIS will cause of his own fears and inhibitions and internalised homophobia (he's a soldier from medieval eras guys bffr). but this, this devastating universe where him and will can barely talk to each other seems like a nightmare worse than any social banishment.

but paladin!mike doesn't know his way back. and so he does everything he can to get canon mike and will together. speaking about his cleric!will with mike, talking to mike about his own feelings of shame and confusion, getting mike and will to fucking talk, fucking flirting with will because he knows how jealous he can get

all because he couldn't tell his cleric!will he loved him and now he might never see him again

of course, thats not the case. cleric!will has been going mad with worry and literally invented a new form of magic to rip through the space time continuum and portals his way through a thousand different universes before finding this one, exhausted and desperate only to see canon mike and starts crying cause he knows that's not his mike because he's seen a thousand mikes and he still can't find his one

however, canon mike knows whats up and he's going through a few realisations of his own so he leads cleric!will to paladin!mike and paladin!mike desperately confesses because he can't ruin their love because of his former fears and CLERADIN KISS and of course mike wheeler who was privy to all this now HAS TO FIND HIS WILL AND TELL HIM-

and yea. in all timelines, in all possibilities, only you can show me this.

also, if you like it angsty, the exhaustion of the spell kills cleric!will so essentially paladin!mike could only confess too late which makes canon mike realise he can't lose what he has with his will.

as he dies, cleric!will tells paladin mike of all the universes he saw, all the universes they loved each other in.