diff --git a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/DataStreamTimestampFieldMapper.java b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/DataStreamTimestampFieldMapper.java
index 51b62f6c56533..ece0b082a3ccf 100644
--- a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/DataStreamTimestampFieldMapper.java
+++ b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/DataStreamTimestampFieldMapper.java
@@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ public Query existsQuery(SearchExecutionContext context) {
 
         @Override
         public ValueFetcher valueFetcher(SearchExecutionContext context, String format) {
-            return new StoredValueFetcher(context.lookup(), NAME);
+            throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
         }
     }
 
diff --git a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/NestedPathFieldMapper.java b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/NestedPathFieldMapper.java
index 3513d7c4066a3..6a0f4a87eb890 100644
--- a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/NestedPathFieldMapper.java
+++ b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/NestedPathFieldMapper.java
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ public Query existsQuery(SearchExecutionContext context) {
 
         @Override
         public ValueFetcher valueFetcher(SearchExecutionContext context, String format) {
-            return new StoredValueFetcher(context.lookup(), NAME);
+            throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Cannot fetch values for internal field [" + name() + "].");
         }
 
         @Override
diff --git a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/SeqNoFieldMapper.java b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/SeqNoFieldMapper.java
index fdc75a8930545..2635c1c11be8e 100644
--- a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/SeqNoFieldMapper.java
+++ b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/SeqNoFieldMapper.java
@@ -167,7 +167,7 @@ public boolean mayExistInIndex(SearchExecutionContext context) {
 
         @Override
         public ValueFetcher valueFetcher(SearchExecutionContext context, String format) {
-            return new StoredValueFetcher(context.lookup(), NAME);
+            throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Cannot fetch values for internal field [" + name() + "].");
         }
 
         @Override
diff --git a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/fetch/subphase/FetchFieldsPhase.java b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/fetch/subphase/FetchFieldsPhase.java
index d771d65d847d5..e5b95893a30fd 100644
--- a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/fetch/subphase/FetchFieldsPhase.java
+++ b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/fetch/subphase/FetchFieldsPhase.java
@@ -10,9 +10,9 @@
 
 import org.apache.lucene.index.LeafReaderContext;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.document.DocumentField;
-import org.elasticsearch.index.mapper.FieldNamesFieldMapper;
 import org.elasticsearch.index.mapper.IgnoredFieldMapper;
 import org.elasticsearch.index.mapper.LegacyTypeFieldMapper;
+import org.elasticsearch.index.mapper.MappedFieldType;
 import org.elasticsearch.index.mapper.RoutingFieldMapper;
 import org.elasticsearch.index.mapper.SourceFieldMapper;
 import org.elasticsearch.index.query.SearchExecutionContext;
@@ -73,8 +73,12 @@ public FetchSubPhaseProcessor getProcessor(FetchContext fetchContext) {
                     Collection<String> fieldNames = searchExecutionContext.getMatchingFieldNames(field);
                     for (String fieldName : fieldNames) {
                         if (fieldName.equals(SourceFieldMapper.NAME) == false && searchExecutionContext.isMetadataField(fieldName)) {
-                            // TODO only metadata field that's not stored, it should be excluded in some other way?
-                            if (fieldName.equals(FieldNamesFieldMapper.NAME) == false) {
+                            MappedFieldType fieldType = searchExecutionContext.getFieldType(fieldName);
+                            // TODO this is for bw comp with previous behaviour of _stored_fields: there's a bunch of metadata fields that
+                            // are stored and were never exposed to fetch.
+                            // Some are fetchable via doc_values, but they can't be fetched either from fields, hence it makes sense to keep
+                            // this conditional for the time being?
+                            if (fieldType.isStored()) {
                                 fields.add(new FieldAndFormat(fieldName, null));
                             }
                         }
diff --git a/server/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/fetch/subphase/FieldFetcherTests.java b/server/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/fetch/subphase/FieldFetcherTests.java
index 569627d6f82b0..e8e811b9ef57b 100644
--- a/server/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/fetch/subphase/FieldFetcherTests.java
+++ b/server/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/fetch/subphase/FieldFetcherTests.java
@@ -27,9 +27,7 @@
 import org.elasticsearch.index.mapper.MappedFieldType;
 import org.elasticsearch.index.mapper.MapperService;
 import org.elasticsearch.index.mapper.MapperServiceTestCase;
-import org.elasticsearch.index.mapper.NestedPathFieldMapper;
 import org.elasticsearch.index.mapper.ParsedDocument;
-import org.elasticsearch.index.mapper.SeqNoFieldMapper;
 import org.elasticsearch.index.mapper.SourceFieldMapper;
 import org.elasticsearch.index.query.SearchExecutionContext;
 import org.elasticsearch.script.Script;
@@ -263,10 +261,7 @@ public void testMetadataFields() throws IOException {
         });
 
         // several other metadata fields throw exceptions via their value fetchers when trying to get them
-        for (String fieldname : List.of(
-            SourceFieldMapper.NAME,
-            FieldNamesFieldMapper.NAME
-        )) {
+        for (String fieldname : List.of(SourceFieldMapper.NAME, FieldNamesFieldMapper.NAME)) {
             expectThrows(UnsupportedOperationException.class, () -> fetchFields(mapperService, source, fieldname));
         }
     }