London- 2017

"Will? Will, is that you?" a voice spoke from nowhere.

Will slammed his feet to the ground, stopping his bike mid turn.

"What? Who is that?" he demanded, eyes searching his surroundings, and finding nothing once more. A strange sense of wrongness crept into his chest.

"Will? Will?"

He lept off his bike, not even putting up his stand but letting it crash to the concrete. He held his arms out for himself, had the strangest sense he should be reaching for a weapon. But what weapon?

"Who is that? Show yourself!"

"Will, you idiot," spoke the muffled voice from somewhere behind him. "It's James. You pocket dialed me, now answer the phone."

Will slumped his fighting stance and rolled his eyes. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket as he reached an arm out to tug his bike up from it's rather sad, dented place on the sidewalk.

"I don't pocket dial," he spoke into the phone, hopping back onto his bike with a single hand free.

"Oh, you do," replied the voice wryly. "You'd be surprised how many conversations you have with yourself I that get to hear. And it seems to always be me. Don't you have any other contacts?"

Will felt himself bristle. "Of course. I am a very popular fellow, you know."

On the line, Jem sighed. "No one says 'fellow' anymore, Will. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you-"

"Well I do. Fellow, fellow, fellow." He cleared his throat, kicking off the ground and setting off once more.

"There once was quite a fine fellow,
Who didn't care what was in style
And so he did bellow, the simple word fellow
Making all those around him revile. . .

"-him." he added, as if afterthought. "Revile him."

The line was silent for a moment. Then: "That was one of your very worst. You can't rhyme fellow with fellow."

Will coughed once. "I happen to be multitasking. You are currently putting me in danger of being arrested for texting and driving."

"That's for cars, Will. Not bicycles. And you aren't texting. Now I wanted to say-"

"Well that does not change the fact that what I am currently doing is incredibly daredevilish and you should be extremely worried about my welfare-"

"Will!" Jem interrupted mildly. "Don't you want to hear what I wanted to tell you in the first place?"

Will paused mid thought. "You wanted to tell me something?"

"Of course," Jem said. "Otherwise I would've hung up."

"Well then why didn't you just get to the point in the first place?"

"I've been trying, Will, now will you let me-"

"-rambling on about fellows and wasting all of our time-"

"Will!" Jem interjected, sounding quite a bit more agitated than usual. "I got the tickets!"

For the second time that morning, Will's bike stopped abruptly, but this time it was not premeditated. His foot hit the pedal with insurmountable force and he nearly chucked himself off of it, the handlebars hitting him painfully in the gut. "What?"

"The ones to see Tessa Gray. Weren't those the right ones? She's performing in Manchester this evening and I know-"

"You got them?" Will guffawed, rubbing his chest with a single hand, ignoring a very loud beep from the car behind him. He gestured at them to pass a little too vigorously, which received him a rather vulgar hand gesture.

"Yes, though I have to say I'm sure the salesman was a little confused as the majority of her average audience is. . .?"

"Girls," Will put in helpfully, an incredulous grin spreading across his face. "Little girls."

"Yes. . ." commented Jem, sounding cautious. "You never did explain why we want to go."

Will tightened his jaw, sitting up straighter on his bike. "I'll tell you later."

"So. . ." Jem commented thoughtfully for a moment. "You're just going to drag me off to a tween pop star concert without any explanation whatsoever?"

"That was the plan."

"Why am I not surprised?"

2 hours earlier:

Will Herondale woke up to the underside of a wooden bunk bed knowing he'd dreamed of Tessa Gray. He blinked. For a moment he let himself dwell on the dream, just like the others. This time she'd been with him in some sort of library, laughing at him as he swung from rung to rung, throwing down books. Just as both times before, she'd looked so real. He could just picture how it felt to run his hands through the thin brown hair, his lips down the curve of her cheekbones. . . He grimaced as he sat up, nearly bumping his head on the bunk bed's underside. Dreaming about school girls was one thing, dreaming about random women was another.

He stretched, sliding out of bed and kicking off his pajama bottoms. He slid on the same dark jeans as yesterday, unable to summon the motivation to pull out clean ones, as well as a simple white t-shirt and a flannel. He walked down the hall and slid into the bright, sun coated bathroom, and caught sight of himself in the mirror. At his tired, dark eyed reflection he remembered seeing it for the first time on Saturday morning, the first night the dream had happened. The first day he had woken up feeling. . . strange.

He had awoken, panic striken. Something awful had happened, something awful, he needed to save- Save who? He looked around to the sight of an untidy bedroom, piled high with books in every corner, clothes and coffee cups in every
other. He had been stunned at the sight of a desk, his desk?, covered in papers and books as if he'd been working, studying. . . for what? His entire body felt like it had been infused with metal during his. . . sleep. Sleep? He couldn't remember going to bed last night. He must have been drinking, but drinking what? Will didn't usually drink, even at the most hectic of parties, though even those he rarely went to. His head felt as though he'd been hit with a crowbar, his eyes with circles so dark he could swear he'd been sleeping for a milenia.

"It must have been a party. I got carried away," he had told himself, though the uncertainty lingered.

He had gotten dressed like a dying animal, stumbling and tripping, barely able to pull on the pair of jeans he grabbed without looking. He had then (and he would never admit this to another living soul) felt the strange urge to grab a pair of suspenders, before nearly choking on his own laughter and falling over, panicked. What was wrong with him?

He had wandered the upper story for a moment, seeing a vaguely familiar pathway, and yet feeling as though it was utterly foreign. He had eventually found the bathroom, wandered inside and locked the door tightly. He looked down at the vanity to see a small pile of toothbrushes. His sense of unease increased as he paused a moment, trying to recall which color was his, until he finally picked a random one, slid on the toothpaste, and began to brush. He tried to ignore his hands shaking, ignore the awkward way the brush slid into his mouth, his automatic reflex to gag and spit it out. It felt abnormal. This all felt abnormal. But no, he told himself, no, this was a normal day. This was his normal house. He had spit and rinsed, telling himself this.

The sense of panic had gradually disintegrated as Saturday and Sunday came and went and his life went on as normal but the sense of unease lingered. He had spent time with Cecily and Mam, watched his father's chair but to no avail, but didn't touch his phone, or his laptop. He didn't know why, but he didn't want to see more of the world just that weekend. It had felt like too much; he was taking baby steps and it was all he wanted to handle. All he could handle. But he had talked to
one person. Someone, he still thought, might be able to understand.

Today was Monday; today he felt better, stronger, less. . . weird, and today he was going to that wonderful hell: school.

The day felt a bit brighter as he descended the stairs, sniffed the familiar scent of fresh breakfast awaiting him. He emerged into the
tiny, bright kitchen to the sight of a full plate of food and a note awaiting him. He sat down in one of three chairs at the tiny, flimsy table in front of him, grabbed a fork and stabbed a sausage as he picked up the note and began to read.

"Gwilym,
I'm off to work early this morning and Cecy went in early to prepare
for her presentatin. I left breakfast for you and your coat is in the
laundry room if you need it. It's supposed to be chilly today.
Love,
Mam"

Will sighed and slumped back into the chair, letting the note fall. He shoveled his eggs, sausages, and toast into his mouth, gulped down
a glass of milk and made his way to the front hall. He caught sight of himself in the hall mirror. His eyes still shaded with dark circles, his dark black hair was rather long and unruly, something his mother didn't usually let happen. As he began to turn away from the mirror his eyes snagged on a dark brown smudge on the bottom of his chin. He wiped at it, squinting at it curiously. Dirt. Forest dirt. How on earth had that found its way on his face? He shrugged. These weren't questions to trouble himself with as he grabbed his backpack, disgustingly heavy and packed with textbooks, lugging it onto a shoulder with a grunt. He sighed, grabbed his key from the back pocket of his jeans, and set off to face the world. With question after question ringing in his head, he hoped, he hoped today he'd find the answer.