Chapter Text
He lifted the torch into the air, taking a deep breath.
“Charlie,” he called out, swallowing nervously. “Charlie, it’s time.” He heard her moving in the darkness, her angry growls at some of the monsters still wandering around as they got in her way. Maxwell reached into the darkness, holding his breath as her freezing hands clasped around his wrist. “We need to go, now,” he whispered.
She clenched her hands a little tighter for a moment, in agreement it seemed, before she let go.
With the dowsing rod in his hand, Maxwell faced the gate he had finally found all of the pieces for. “It’s time,” he lifted his chin and stepped through.
X
"I just want you to know, Maxwell," Wilson began, speaking into the soft light of dawn as he traveled from his camp. "That I want you to be safe."
He had woken early, realizing the absence of his soulmate before his eyes had even opened, and immediately begun packing. He had a woven-grass satchel on his shoulder, and a strange dowsing rod in his hands that led him to and fro across the lands he found himself in. Each time he built a gate, he was led further in, deeper into the worlds.
Closer to the Throne.
He didn't know how he knew that, but he did. As unsettling as it was, it was somewhat comforting at the same time: It meant that William –
Maxwell –
William.
His name is William.
It meant that William was on the other end of whatever pull he was feeling. He'd heard of soulmate bonds dragging people halfway across the world to find the one they had lost, and it felt right to have that happen now. The soft, pulsing noise of the device in his hands was somewhat familiar, and despite the sliver of terror at leaving his camp for the unknown lands, he swallowed his fear and continued.
William needed him.
"You shouldn't be here, Pal." came his voice from behind him.
Wilson turned, his eyes wide as he held the key aloft, ready to slide it home and open the newest gate. "I need to be."
Maxwell shook his head, rubbing briefly at his wrist. "It's dangerous, more than anything else you have faced in this world." he frowned, his dark eyes focused on Wilson's face. "Please, just go back to your camp and..." he made a helpless noise. "Just go."
"I can't." Wilson spoke softly, stepping away from the gate and taking the taller man's hand in his own. "I don't know why I know, but this is needed and I know that." he rubbed a thumb over the back of Maxwell's hand, meeting his eyes. "That's the thing about soulmate bonds, don't know if you know. It leads me to you." he paused, taking a deep breath, the exhale shaky and uneven. "Whatever is wrong, we can fix it together."
"No," Maxwell took Wilson's hand in his own, tried to pull him from the gate. "It's dangerous."
"Why is it so dangerous?"
"Because They-" he shook his head. "Can't you just believe me?"
Wilson shook his own head, his lips a narrow line of worry. "All that does is make me scared for you."
"As touching as that is, I must plead that you leave now." Maxwell pressed a kiss to the back of Wilson's hand, then leaned down as if to pick him up and throw him over a shoulder. "I would beg, but I am sure that you would not listen."
"I would not." Wilson confirmed, stepping back. "From the moment I knew that it was your name, you should have known I would not."
A smile stretched across the tall man's face as he curled a hand around Wilson's waist. "I did know. I suspected, at the least." he sighed, an eyebrow raised when Wilson's hand covered his own. "Higgsbury."
"No." Wilson ducked under his arm, helped by the leverage he held on his hand. "I'm not giving up on this. I am not giving up on you, William Carter!"
A look of frustration replaced the good humor on Maxwell's face. "You- Ah!" he dropped to his knees, his jacket splaying out like broken wings around him. Swirls of shadow caught at his ankles, a fully formed hand digging into his chest, dragging him closer to the ground. His spine bent at a horror movie angle, his hair falling out of place and obscuring his eyes. His hands flexed in the dirt, mangled bones reforming into claws. "Too close to the Throne, you need to go!"
The shorter man held his ground, even as rapidly darkening eyes stared at him like he was prey, something to chase and catch and destroy. "Go where?"
With only a snarl as his reply, he snatched up his bag and the divining rod, making a break for the base of where he needed to build the next gate. "Only a projected body," he muttered, dragging the materials out and slamming them together in the proper formation. "Not as much of a threat as he seems," he reminded himself as Maxwell gained on him, eyes unrecognizing of who he was, the shadows taking control of Their puppet in an attempt to end him.
The gate opened behind him and he threw himself through it.
X
The first world was freezing.
Maxwell shivered as he hurried to gather supplies, winter barreling down on him. His hands ached with the cold, his body shivering as he rushed. A small fire, then an axe, then setting himself to the task of gathering supplies to make warmer clothing. Nothing but the clothes on his back came through the gate, he knew. Nothing but the dowsing rod in his hands. All of his supplies were waiting for him if he failed in his task, here, though his patience with the world he had ruled alone for so long would be waning.
Wilson was through five more worlds. Wilson had done this for him more than he should have had to.
This was nothing, in the grand scheme of things.
He could do this for the man who bore his name on his wrist. The man he had fallen in love with over the time they had managed to steal together. The flicker of his small fire kept him warm as the darkness cloaked the world around him, Charlie’s panicked breathing circling him all night long. Too little rest would drive him insane, but it was better in this world.
Maxwell –
William.
His name was William Carter. Maxwell had been a part of himself driven insane with delusions of grandeur. Maxwell was an insane man with a want for power.
He was William, again.
He just wanted Wilson in his arms once more.
The two of them had spent so long, switching out, trying to find a way to escape together. A way to undo what had been done. A way to change the deals that had been made and allow them, unseparated, back into the world they had come from.
A world in which William’s wrist read ‘Wilson Higgsbury’ and Wilson’s wrist read ‘William Carter’ and that was all that was laid at their feet. All the future demanded of them. No more dark magic and painful encounters with monsters, no more sacrificing themselves for each other. Wilson, determined and headstrong, fighting his way through the darkness and the danger and the cold.
Just to save him, undeserving of the man he had fallen in love with.
It took a few days, carefully maintaining his fire, but William found the pieces for the next gate. He arranged them, took a deep breath, and stepped through.
X
When he opened his eyes, he saw two freestanding torches, already lit, and the divining rod sitting in a holder like it had been for every world before this one.
Standing up and grabbing the device, he moved cautiously away from the light, nearly bolting backwards when the next torches lit up ominously. As if they were waiting for him, they crackled almost merrily, lighting up a path that seemed ready for his feet. Wilson took a deep breath, then tugged his shirt and vest down. “Might as well,” he told the darkness around him.
Something hissed, off to one side, and Wilson turned to look.
Off in the distance, he could see a pair of glowing eyes that stared directly at him. Vaguely, twisted into the shadows, Wilson could see the form of what might have generously been called a person.
They were not the eyes of the Grue.
They were different, the eyes he remembered seeing when he had been attacked. When William had admitted that they were soulmates. The Grue had, for all her faults and terrors, kinder eyes. Warmer, somehow. Wilson stared back at them, lifting his chin as if he could challenge the nightmares in the darkness. The eyes blinked out of existence after a few more moments, leaving Wilson to proceed through the hall.
More and more lanterns lit up as he walked.
He heard music.
Ahead of him, crumpled on a throne that seemed to be keeping him captive, Wilson finally saw him. “William,” he breathed his soulmate’s name out, jolting forward. His soulmate’s face was pale, haggard, his breathing slow and shallow. His skin was sallow and cold when Wilson reached out to hold his face. “William,” he spoke again, cupping his hands on his cheeks, trying desperately to warm him up. “Oh, William, my William.”
“You…Should not be here,” William muttered. His dark eyes seemed to have trouble opening, his hands curled uselessly on the arms of the throne. “Wilson, you should be nearly anywhere else.”
“I came here to find you,” Wilson shook his head. “That is the truth of the matter.”
“A mistake.”
“A necessity.”
The Grue growled and hissed in the darkness. She had followed Wilson at a distance, helping to keep him safe when night fell as he made his way through the worlds he had found beyond each gate. She had brought him meats, kept him fed. “I have a plan,” Wilson continued when she had quieted.
“Always a worrying notion,” William smiled. The expression might have been, in another life, a sardonic sort of thing. In this life, it was frail and nearly lifeless.
“We will switch,” Wilson whispered, still cupping William’s face in his hands. “Free you from your throne long enough to get you better. Let you heal. Find your footing. The rules demand a King, you’ve told me so yourself, but –” he laughed a little, shaking his head. “—there is nothing that says you must be that King.” He held William’s face tighter, desperate to impart warmth. This was the other half of his existence, his soulmate, the light in the distance that led him home.
They had started at odds, posed against each other, but William was dear to him now.
A name, deeper than skin-deep, born on his wrist his entire life.
“No,” William tried to shake his head, denying, but Wilson nodded.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Let me take care of you. Let me free you. Let me save you, William.”
X
Winter again.
Then Spring, Summer, Fall – all at once, it seemed, faster than should have been possible. William clutched his items close, kept dry the ones that needed to be kept dry.
The days seemed faster as well. Impossibly so.
“Wilson,” he whispered. He closed his eyes as he waited for the night to pass, listening to Charlie in the darkness around him. She was his oldest friend, his confidant, the woman he had once thought he could marry and love and live with. She had been furious with him over his decision to ignore his soulmate, but she had not blamed him in the end. Decades spent, alone, with no knowledge of where the man himself might be.
William lifted his head when sunrise broke over the horizon and began moving again.
He could not have done this for himself. Could not have imagined even having the strength to carry on for nothing more than his own preservation. He was selfish in many ways, a flaw he would have to work on if he wanted to change, but he would not have been able. Wilson had risked himself so many times, especially the first time, to come see him. To rescue him. To drag him out of the bindings of a poisoned throne They had lashed him to.
What sort of man would he be if he did any less than that for the one he loved?
He could not have ever made the journey for himself.
But he would always make the journey for Wilson.
Wilson, who had suffered at his hands for ages before their shared bond had been realized. Wilson, who had opened his hands and waited for William to reach out to him, to take his hands. Wilson, scatterbrained at times and curious in dangerous ways, unwilling to falter from his path if it meant gaining the answers he sought.
When he dragged the pieces together for the next gate, William took a moment to pause, looking to the sky. “If you can hear me, Wilson,” he spoke, doing his best to keep his voice even. “I am coming for you.”
With one last heave, the gate was made.
William stepped through it.
X
The ‘They’ William spoke of, sometimes, seemed to follow Wilson after that.
Every time the two of them spoke, Wilson feeding William from the food in his bag, there were eyes on them. Eyes in the darkness, the Grue’s eyes staying close and low. With guidance from William, Wilson had found a slab of marble in the darkness, setting food on top for her. She had nearly moaned, mournful almost, when she found the food and dug into it.
There were three of them, trapped for the amusement of Them. Three puppets.
Three pieces on a chessboard.
Wilson slung his bag back over the throne, settling back into William’s lap. His hands were cramped from how tightly he clenched his fists, over and over, as he tried to think of a way to rescue him, to stop this. William had made choices, yes, but he had been in over his head at the time.
He had chosen to save Charlie.
The Grue.
His best friend, his assistant, a woman he had loved.
She had been dying. ‘They’ had stepped in and offered a solution. As far as Wilson was concerned, they had coerced William into an agreement, using the death of one of the few people he cared for in the world as a way to force him onto the chessboard in the first place. She hadn’t even had much of a choice, turned into a beast in the darkness.
Hungry, angry, and scared.
“We cannot stay this way forever,” William turned his head, pressing his chin into Wilson’s head. “You need to go.”
“No,” Wilson leaned up into him. He had figured it out, the day before. The rod that had led him here was the key, fitting the lock that kept William bound. “You do. I am healthy and whole, well-fed, and in one piece. My sanity is intact, though I suspect it has never been as whole as others would like. William,” he pressed a soft kiss to his jaw. “I am going to save you.”
He stood up and grabbed the dowsing rod.
William lurched forward in his seat, desperation evident in his expression. “Wilson, no!”
“I guess you will have to come find me, eventually,” Wilson smiled as he slid the rod into the lock. “The same way I found you.” He flipped his arm over, letting William see his name, dark ink pressed into pale skin. “When you are whole once more, I have the utmost faith in you finding the knowledge required to come rescue me,” Wilson smiled.
He turned the key in the lock.
The music picked up again.
X
More winter.
Like They were watching, observing him specifically, and changing the worlds beyond the gates to welcome him. He was Winter, cold and brutal and – Before Wilson – uncaring and unchanging. He had damned Wilson in the first place, trapped his soulmate in the dark and the cold without knowing how dear the man was to him.
Wilson was Summer.
Warmth and light and always, always, the absolute end of Winter. Spring let Winter linger, let it last. Summer was the end of Winter’s reign, no matter what. There was no more once Summer took hold, once Summer pushed the cold away.
Wilson was Summer, William was Winter, and Wilson had melted the ice in his heart as surely as Summer melted away the last of Winter.
When night fell, William searched into the darkness. Charlie whispered back to him, the magic he had woven working slowly. With the power he had gained in exchange for being bound, the power he still somewhat held when off the throne, he had found something. Discovered something. Put together his ideas and arranged them into a whole image. Cast the magic and drew on the deep well of their wishes. There was a part of him that worried, there always would be, but…
But something needed to change.
This would be the last time he and Wilson would switch out on the throne, the last time either of them would be in control of the world. His belongings were still at the camp, ready and waiting, shielded by the spell as they always were. He had needed time, above all else.
They would be furious, once they realized what was happening. He no longer cared.
He was here, fighting his way through the worlds beyond the gates once more, because he wanted something more than he wanted Their power. More than he wanted to rule Their world. The prize was no longer power, no longer anything They could truthfully give him.
“William,” her voice came from the darkness, hissed syllables and caring intent.
“I know,” William always replied to her, every time. Each item found, each piece of the gate built, she followed him and said his name. His response was the same each time.
She loved both of them, he knew.
Loved him in the way of a best friend, a sister, exasperated and fond and annoyed and kind. They had performed together, lived on the stage together, bigger than life and with crowds adoring them.
She loved Wilson the way a good friend would, introduced through a common person and adored because they had that person in common. William was their link, a brother and a soulmate, and she adored Wilson for his own sake as well as the fact that he made William happy.
William heaved the last gate piece into place.
He was Winter, Wilson was Summer, and he was not going to leave the warmth of his heart in this nightmarish place, accompanied by Them.
X
It took William some time to heal.
Once freed from his throne, he’d needed to sleep. To eat. To recover. A slow process, one Wilson kept track of carefully. His hands shook at first, his right wrist bare through it all, with the warm air of early summer cloaking him safely. He didn’t need to worry about winter, not when his body was still so hurt. His hands shook and he walked with a cane he had fashioned, his knees giving way occasionally.
When he no longer stumbled as he walked, Wilson nearly wept.
He sent resources. He sent things William could use, odd books he found somewhere in the world that seemed to indicate someone else was there, somewhere. He sent him clothing, shoes, and a pair of glasses that had somehow appeared in the throne room.
William had worn the glasses immediately. His face looked softer with them on, his expression less pinched.
His ridiculous soulmate had gone without something he needed.
Chester kept him company. Hopped and skipped and trotted along beside him. Carried whatever William needed him to carry. It took, in Wilson’s estimation, a month for William to be able to walk steadily and explore. When he started, Wilson sent fields of flowers, plains of grass and trees and shrubs, butterflies and birds. He made the world as beautiful as he could, for William.
When William needed supplies that acquiring would damage him, Wilson set the monsters against each other. By the time William went to get them, the pieces would be waiting, the battle over, the danger gone.
He needed care, a reminder of another person in his world.
That was, Wilson supposed, why William had been so cold in the beginning. He had forgotten what another person felt like, what their presence and warmth felt like. He needed care and warmth and love. Wilson could do that, could offer those things to him, even from this far away.
And there was nothing They could do to stop him.
Their every effort was halted. Hounds sent after Them in the night. Spiked bushes and thrashing tentacles and angry hornets. Wilson saved his ire, his rage and fury, for Them. Without Them, neither Wilson nor William would be trapped and bound, after all. Even if William had been the lure set out for Wilson, shining and offering knowledge, They had been behind it.
So he protected his soulmate and fended off the nightmares.
A month and a half after he had freed William, his soulmate came back to find him. A deal was struck once more, cool hands on Wilson’s cheeks, a small smile on soft lips unused to the motion.
Every month.
They would switch out every month.
Neither of them would be abandoned to rule alone.
Sealing the deal with a kiss, Wilson could finally lift his hands as William slid the key into the lock. He held his soulmate close until They ripped them apart.
X
Not winter, this time.
Spring, the early thaw. Collect his resources, find the wormholes. It was stunning, in some regards, how easy it was to memorize patterns.
Collect resources. Build things, shelters, fires, tools – enough to wait out the time, adventure to find the things he needs for the main goal of everything. William moved, almost impatient, as he laid the patterns out in his head again and again. The worlds never changed, though the order of them did.
When dusk fell, a hand landed on his arm. “William,” she whispered, peering through the gloom at him.
“Are you certain of your choice?” he asked her, offering a way out.
“Always,” she held his face, laughter in her still-strangled tone. “Always certain, William.”
“Thank you,” William felt tears running hot down his face. “Charlie, I—Thank you.”
They got the gate built.
X
Every time there was a switch in who sat on the throne, They grew restless.
At times, it seemed as though They preferred William. Other times, Wilson was demanded. As if there was indecision in who was better, who acted better, who was a better puppet. The two of them were in danger, no matter which way it happened, but They were seeking something from the two soulmates.
Amusement, perhaps.
X
“Keep me sane, Charlie,” William asked of her in the next world.
She followed his every move, kept things on hand that reminded him of what sanity felt like. Guided him to fields of flowers, pressed his hands to them until he remembered how to move them and pick the delicate plants. Sometimes, his hands shaking too hard to do so, Charlie would weave them into a crown for him. She would lay it on his head, holding his face to steady his gaze.
William let her steady him. Leaned into her offered help and comfort when he needed it the most.
There was a secret in his bag.
Something Wilson had helped him with, once he had dreamed up this insane plan. Something They had no knowledge of, with any luck. There was a plan in place, a future they had imagined together.
The three of them.
Another gate built, bringing him another step closer to Wilson.
X
When William had asked it of him, he could no more have denied him than he could have ripped out his own heart.
There had been plans made in the darkness, plans hatched with the three of them. William, Wilson, and Charlie. William’s old friend, unable to speak, had still managed to make her opinion known. She had offered a solution, by way of a drawing in the dirt, when Wilson had questioned if it was even possible to pull off William’s plan.
William had sobbed. Begged for her to help him figure out some other way.
He hadn’t wanted to lose one of the few people he had left.
Charlie had simply hissed and snarled from the darkness, another drawing appearing when Wilson lowered his torch.
A crown, perched atop a scribble in the dirt.
Her fury was similar to theirs, rage at Them playing a game she’d had no choice in.
Her choice had been made a long, long time ago.
X
The darkness was almost a tangible thing.
It lay oppressively thick on top of them, Charlie’s hand on his back as a guide through the endless night. “Careful,” Charlie’s voice was almost how he remembered it once more, a whisper of sound next to his ear. Her hands hovered as he walked, her eyes better suited to the darkness than his.
When he had made a deal, They had used her as a bargaining chip.
She had been bleeding out, frightened and dying, and he had been terrified and lost. His hands had been coated in her blood, trying to stem the flow of it, and They had used his fear and sorrow and grief as a way to trick him into accepting a deal without looking at the terms involved. Charlie had been brought back, They had followed that request to the letter, but as a monstrous version of herself.
Wordless, voiceless, mindless.
A devourer and a nightmare, stalking those unfortunate enough to get caught in her sight. If they came too close to the darkness, she would consume them.
William – Maxwell, at the time – had been furious and incapable of fixing her.
And They had known that.
But in his book of spells, in the depths of his magical knowledge, William had found a solution. A spell. It would take some time, would leave him weakened, but Charlie would regain her sense of self. She would stand, approximately human, once more.
She had her voice back, now.
There was nothing They could do about it, nothing They could change about it. If They knew nothing about the plans made, as William suspected They did not, They would not even register it as something to be worried about. It may have been too generous to grant them something as human as worry, even. They were a monster in the dark, the nightmare that haunted children and adults alike.
The entire world around them at the moment was the dwelling space of Them. The world in which William’s plan could not be spoken aloud, lest They hear and understand and put an end to it.
Gathering the pieces took longer, in Their world, but Charlie helped.
William built the gate.
He stepped through.
X
Asking if she was certain had only gotten them careful touches to their cheeks in the dark, her claws tucked away to avoid hurting.
A kindness from an old friend.
X
Despite the similarity to the previous world, the world of the Throne was not where They dwelt.
Their eyes turned to it, on occasion, kept the occupant of the throne alive and safe from attacks, but otherwise left it alone. William walked through the darkness, Charlie at his side, with his head held high. The music at the end of the walk was enough to light the anger in his blood, a match to a candle wick.
Wilson, bags under his eyes, lifted his gaze to them when they approached. “William,” he breathed the name out. “That time already?”
“I do believe so, yes,” William held up the key.
Charlie took his bag from him, resting it on her shoulders as she watched them.
There was a moment when William touched Wilson’s face that the smaller man teared up, tracks left behind as the tears rolled down his cheeks. William wiped the tears away, pressing their foreheads together and breathing out slowly. “Everything is where it needs to be, love,” he whispered. “It is time to go.”
“Charlie?” Wilson nodded, looking over William’s shoulder. “Are you ready?”
“I am,” Charlie smiled, her teeth still too sharp, her smile a touch too wide. Approximately human, after all – too rough to be how she used to be, like trying to shove a puzzle piece back into place once it had been broken. Her hands had claws, her teeth were sharp, her eyes were black with white pupils. Her hair was black permanently, now, no longer the bright blonde of her stage days. “Best be quick about it, you two.”
She moved forward, shooing William back so she could kiss Wilson’s forehead. “Take care of the big guy, huh?”
“I will,” Wilson swallowed, nodding. “Thank you.”
William unlocked him, both of them watching as he was whisked away. William was thrown into his place, dragged down and chained, and Charlie watched. William looked up at her, her hands blackened and clawed, as she dug one of them into his bag.
“Charlie,” William wanted to say something to her, something reassuring, something – Something that might give her comfort.
“It’s okay,” she told him, a soft twist to her lips like the one she’d worn when he’d still wanted to find his soulmate in the early days. She pulled her hand out, holding up a key that matched the one he had just used to free Wilson.
William had asked Wilson to create it, if he could. A duplicate of the one at the end of the dowsing rod.
“Be safe out there, William,” Charlie kneeled, hitching up her skirt. “Take care of your fella.”
Her smile was the last thing he saw as he felt the familiar dragging sensation of being pulled off the throne.
.
.
..
…
..
.
.
Their camp was the same as William had left it.
Wilson was perched in the middle of it, shivering, panting for breath. As time had passed, switching off, the after-effects of leaving the throne so often had gotten worse. It had started to feel like they were slowly dying, choking only to be let go when the spots showed up in their vision. William threw himself forward, sweeping Wilson into his arms.
Wilson ducked into his chest, clinging as tightly as he could.
“It’s okay,” William whispered. “Charlie knows her part in this. She told me what would happen to her if she tried to return home.” He missed her already. She had been his friend for so long, his assistant for longer. With how close to death she had been when he’d struck his deal, she would return home only to meet the same fate.
“I am so sorry, William,” Wilson choked on the words, pressing closer. William kissed the top of his head, rubbing a hand up and down his back. His right wrist almost burned, Wilson’s full name in dark ink on his pale skin.
They were free at the same time, for the first time ever.
William closed his eyes, his own tears trailing down his cheeks. “She made her choice before we ever asked her if she was certain.”
Better to keep living than return to fall into a grave, Charlie had whispered.
In the spelled campsite William had kept together, there was a door. Charlie had been there as he’d built it. It was the sort of door with only one possible thing on the other side – since Wilson had been the last to enter the world, it was highly likely that William knew almost nothing about what lay on the other side of the wood. “Are you ready?” William asked, his voice quiet.
“Yes,” Wilson nodded. “Before—”
In the distance.
The sounds of hounds snarling, trees snapping – nature itself rebelling and breaking, hell unleashing in a desperate mad rush to get to them before they could leave. “Now,” Wilson threw himself to his feet, William’s hand held painfully tight in his own. “We need to go, now.”
“Completely agreed,” William grabbed his Codex off the ground, following after Wilson.
The first hound launched itself at the barrier around their camp, flung backward with force. Wilson put his free hand on the doorknob, twisting it to wrench the door open. “We’ve given thought to your offers!” he called to the approaching darkness, Their screeching filling the air and almost drowning him out.
“And we are delighted to decline!” William threw over his shoulder as he was dragged across a threshold to a world he barely remembered.