Cannibal Coyote

As soon as you set eyes on Isaac Night, bad memories came rushing back. Seeing him again upset you in ways that overlapped and left you scrambling to separate grief from guilt, heartache from embarrassment, regret from remorse.

If he recognized you, he didn't let on. Granted, the years had left you changed. Much for the better, if you were one to say so yourself. Puberty and the trials of adolescence had matured you in leaps and bounds, in far more ways than the strictly physical. Your heart wasn't the same as it had once been, nor was your mind as narrow or your conscience as clean. You molted out of ignorance and cruelty like a snake shedding scales as you aged, but the reappearance of the boy you used to bully as a child reminded you that you hadn't always been a decent person.

It hurt your feelings to even look at him, stung your pride to remember, but you knew you couldn't run from your past. Tempting as it was to keep to yourself, to wait and pray that Isaac wouldn't recognize or remember you, you knew that turning a blind eye to your painful history wasn't the solution. You needed to resolve this once and for all, admittedly more for your sake than his. Your reasons for making amends were selfish. You wondered nervously if he would hold that against you, even if you were willing to cop to it.

Sincere as your intentions were, time had done nothing to make you less of a coward. It had only served to make you aware of your anxiety, but it had yet to surrender the means to cope with your paralyzing tendency to cling to inaction. Instead of approaching Isaac, you started leaving anonymous packages at the threshold of his dorm room. You did it for weeks, gifting Isaac trinkets and treats, the things you knew that he enjoyed as a child. It was an open question, of course, whether he would still be amazed by weird rocks or enchanted by the possibilities of a bundle of wires waiting to be shaped into something new. Was his favorite candy still salted caramels, or had his tastes changed with the years?

You were slowly working up the courage needed to face him head on, to ask he if remembered you, to beg for his forgiveness for the awful way you'd treated him all those years ago. You wondered if his heart was still as frail, or if the fact that he was alive meant that medicine had managed to fix him. Did he still get out of breath at the mere sight of stairs? Was he still permanently excused from any physically strenuous activities? Could his lungs catch enough breath to keep up with his bright mind, or did he still break down gasping before he could finish his run-on sentences?

While you were still agonizing over the best way to approach Isaac, bad things started happening to you.

At first, it was subtle. A tugging sensation that made you lose your balance in the halls. You started tripping, even though you'd never been clumsy in the past. Snickers in the halls taunted you while you puzzled over your inability to stop falling for seemingly no reason. Your belongings started to go mysteriously, maddeningly missing. Items vanished without a trace to the point that you started fighting with your roommate over it. It got so bad that the two of you stopped speaking altogether and there was no resolution in sight.

Then the unexplainable injuries. At first, you chalked the bruises up to your sudden, inexplicable inability to stay on your feet when traveling between classes. Then the pain became more severe, pinching sensations that made you cry out in class, impacts where there should have been nothing but air. You lifted your sleeve one day with horror to find the distinct markings of fingers around your wrist, deep purple and angry red around the edges.

You wondered if this mysterious malady would kill you before you figured out what the hell was happening to you.

You started to wonder if you were haunted or losing your mind. Your days became a waking nightmare and your nights a terrorized hell. You weren't sleeping, barely had any appetite and your tortured conscience wasn't doing you any favors. Finally, you realized there was a logical explanation for your unending torment.

You were under psychic assault and the common thread of your injuries wasn't difficult to pick up on. After a few weeks, you realized that every time you tripped for no apparent reason, Isaac Night was within your range of vision. Every time you felt your hair being yanked in class, every phantom pinch, every mean-spirited, bruising grip happened in the classes you shared with him.

Desperation eventually drove you to his door in the light of day, the need to seek his forgiveness even more urgent than your need to redeem yourself.

"Isaac," you greeted him. "We need to talk."

He regarded you with clear disdain on his features, but didn't slam the door in your face. That, you thought, was something, at least.

"I owe you a huge apology," you sighed. "For when we were kids."

"Hah! You're not sorry," Isaac scoffed maliciously. "You just realize the devil has come to collect his due and you're hoping to beg a little mercy off a fiend."

"No, really," you insisted. "I... I don't know, I guess I don't have any real way to prove it to you. But I, um... well, Isaac, I missed you once you were gone."

"Bullshit," Isaac snarled.

"It's true!" you persisted.

"What did you miss about me, how I was small enough to fit neatly in a locker?!" Isaac demanded. "Or how I couldn't afford to run fast enough to get away from you and your asshole friends?!"

"Isaac-"

"Or maybe how I was the only kid in our grade who didn't have any friends to stand up for him after Gomez moved away?!" Isaac went on. "How I was the only kid whose Father didn't give a damn how many bruises he came home with?! How-"

"I was awful, okay?!" you yelled, unable to stop yourself. He was upsetting you too much, reminding you too starkly of the way things used to be, the way you used to be. "I was a shitty fucking brat, alright?! I never cared about anyone besides myself, and when I did, I didn't know what to do with those feelings until it was too late, and by then- by then-"

You choked up while Isaac looked on. He didn't seem any less angry, but some confusion had made its way into the tumultuous mix of emotions contorting his angular features. You swallowed hard, wiped tears from the corners of your eyes where they welled uncontrollably.

"I'm sorry, Isaac!" you cried, helpless to the deluge of your rue, your remorse for the person you once were and the irrevocable damage it would seem she had caused.

You couldn't stand the intense spotlight of Isaac's contempt for even one more second. You turned to flee, but only made it a step or two down the hall before you found yourself unable to move.

"Running away from me, are you?" Isaac scowled. He dragged you back with the force of his ability while your mind raced with terror and you fought futilely against his hold.

"Isaac-"

"Shut your mouth!"

The snare of his telekinesis sealed your jaw and hauled you bodily into his room. He closed the door while you whimpered, shaking as you strained to free yourself.

"You say you're sorry," Isaac sneered. He advanced on you and tears streamed down your cheeks as fear held you hostage more effectively than any chain. Isaac's amber eyes were wide, his pupils narrowed so drastically that they barely seemed present. He hardly looked human, nostrils flaring with rage as he berated his once-tormentor, now entirely at his mercy.

"I say... you're just sorry I outgrew you," he smirked wickedly. "You're only sorry that fate's sense of humor was twisted enough to let our paths cross again. You're just sorry I didn't crawl off to die when we were kids."

You trembled, whined without opening your mouth, denying his savage guesses as emphatically as you could without the ability to move or speak.

"I've wanted to get my revenge for the way you tortured me... for years," Isaac spat. "I spent so long dreaming, fantasizing, planning all the horrible things I would do to you if I ever saw you again... and I've already gotten about halfway down my list. Well... halfway through the things that don't end with you dead, anyway."

Your eyes widened with panic and Isaac's evil grin widened with warped pleasure at the sight of your distress.

"Now... I'll let you talk," he informed you gleefully. "But only if you beg. You have one chance."

He relinquished his grip on your jaw and you gasped for breath, panted through the mortal terror trying to steal your voice.

"Please!" you begged hoarsely. "Please, Isaac! There has to be something, some way I can- Let me prove it to you! I really am sorry, and it's- it's not that selfish, I swear! Please, tell me what I can do to make this right, please!"

"Why don't you get down on your knees," Isaac suggested, releasing your body from his oppressive hold, "... and kiss my feet?"

You fell down at once, pride long forgotten, to press your lips ardently to the tops of his shoes. He cackled down at your urgency, shook his head with disbelief when you looked up at him hopefully.

"I still just see someone who knows they screwed up when they were younger," Isaac informed you coldly.

You deflated on his floor, shoulders falling with despair as your mind raced but failed to come up with any more options.

"I guess just... do what you feel like you need to do, Isaac," you mumbled in a depressed haze.

If nothing else, you were at least assured that you were getting what was coming to you. You let your eyes slide shut, waited for the full force of his wrath to crash down over your head in whatever form he decided to let it assume.

You waited. And waited. Waited just a little while longer, then dared to open your eyes to peek up at your one-time victim.

Isaac was looking down at you with gears grinding visibly behind his deep brown eyes. They glinted down at you with a menacing edge that sent a shiver racing down the length of your spine.

"Get out of my room," he ordered you. "I need to think."

You trembled as you got back on your feet, shuddered as you waded through the aura of his fury, nearly collapsed when you made it to the other side of his door. It closed behind you silently and you nearly passed out from a devastating coalescence of relief and dread, fluttering and coiling catastrophically in the pit of your unsettled stomach.

What kind of sick, unimaginable thoughts were forming in Isaac Night's brilliant, twisted mind?

Despite your trauma, you slept for the first time in what felt like an eternity. You passed out from sheer exhaustion the minute your head hit your pillow. It felt like only seconds later when you were woken by a brisk knock at your door.

You stood, stumbled over to answer it, still in the same clothes you'd worn to confront Isaac the day before. There he was, well-groomed and fresh as ever at the threshold of your dorm, looking like a perfect cadaver all made up in preparation for an open casket funeral.

"I've thought it through," Isaac declared. "And I decided that if you want me to forgive you, there is something you can do."

Your exhalation of gratitude was louder than a landslide.

"Oh fuck, thank god!" you gushed. "What is it?"

"It's not going to be easy," Isaac warned you. "Or painless. In fact... it very well might kill you."

"I don't care, I'll do anything to prove that I'm honestly, genuinely, sincerely sorry!" you assured him eagerly.

"Hm... alright, then," Isaac purred. "Listen carefully. Your life depends on you understanding the rules of the game."

You frowned, but waited for him to go on.

"I'm going to use my ability to constrict a valve in your heart," Isaac informed you, a maniacal, viciously self-satisfied gleam shining in his dark eyes. "It's essentially going to emulate the condition that made me so weak as a child. You remember how it works, right?"

"Can't run, short of breath, constantly stopping to rest," you recalled. Dread and anxiety coiled together through your veins, only to be subjugated by your earnest determination to meet his demand.

"You're going to walk a day in my shoes," Isaac explained. "And after you've done that... maybe I'll consider forgiveness. Assuming you survive, that is."

"Do it," you said immediately.

Isaac's malevolent grin was all the indication you needed to know his intervention would hurt. You doubled over in the next heartbeat when you felt the vise of his ability twine inside your chest. You gasped, struggling to catch your breath. No matter how deeply you inhaled, you felt like you couldn't get enough oxygen into your body to stave off the creeping sensation of asphyxiation. It was a subtle, terrible feeling that left you leaning helplessly against your door frame while Isaac smirked with malicious happiness.

"Don't forget, your first class is in forty-five minutes," he reminded you.

You struggled to get ready, struggled to put one foot in front of the other as you hauled yourself through the halls of Nevermore. Was your flesh always this heavy? Your backpack felt like an anchor, bruising against your shoulder as you pulled fought on. Every muscle in your body was fatigued, your vision swam and your mind screamed. You had to stop frequently, but stopping didn't really help. If anything, being still was more excruciating than moving.

The day was hell and the devil watched you from the edges of your blurring vision. You collapsed a few times and eventually one of the professors forced you out of class with orders to head to the infirmary straight away. You nodded and made it as far as the door to the next classroom before you slid down the wall, hyperventilating while your vision started to go dark. It didn't matter how deeply you rasped, how hard you gasped, how desperately you tried to drag oxygen into your body. The forced dysfunction of your heart prevented it from circulating, left you drowning like a fish plopped into a vat of lemonade.

Isaac emerged from the classroom, hands thrust deep in his pockets. He slid down the wall at your side while you floundered between consciousness and the void of oblivion.

"This is the part where I was gonna find a cabinet to shove you into," Isaac mumbled. "Like how you used to do when we were young. But... you just... you look so pathetic, you know? I don't think I have it in me to torture you any more. You're already suffering enough."

You groaned, wanted to formulate a coherent sentence, but the words were slow to form. You were clinging to the waking world with every ounce of strength you had, but you could already tell it wasn't enough. You were afraid that if you let your eyes slide shut they would never reopen, but black, fuzzy static was overtaking your field of vision regardless of how wide you kept your eyelids peeled.

"I deserve... a swirly... right about now," you managed to moan.

That got a laugh out of Isaac.

"Those are especially fun when the janitor is on vacation," he joked darkly.

"I liked... your hair," you admitted. "When it was wet... so pretty... so.. so..."

"You said something like that yesterday too," Isaac noted. "Something about feelings you didn't know what to do with. What did you mean by that?"

"Doesn't matter," you sighed. You let your eyelids slide shut and the decision was a devastating mistake. You had enough awareness left in you to know you were falling. You had enough sense of feeling left to know that Isaac caught you with a little grumble.

"Pathetic... fuck."

You passed out and you were certain that death was coming to take you for your sins.

When you woke up, you were in bed in your dorm. Your head pounded like you had the worst hangover of your life. You groaned and tried to roll over, only to register the fact that you weren't alone in your bed. Your eyes flicked up, searching for the face that accompanied the long body stretched out at your side. You swallowed hard when you met Isaac Night's eyes.

"Hey, you're not dead," he murmured. The little smile tugging at the corners of his lips was one of relief. It was the first time in years that you'd seen him smile without hostility.

"I kind of wish I was," you complained. "Fuck, my head is killing me."

"Yeah, the headaches were no joke," Isaac agreed. "So. Now you've had a taste of what it was like."

"I didn't think it was possible to be sorrier than I already was," you sighed. "But... I am, Isaac. I'm really fucking sorry."

"I believe you."

The concession wasn't quite forgiveness, but it lightened the nameless burden of enmity between you. You breathed easier and not just because Isaac had removed his telekinetic constraint from your heart.

"So, tomorrow's Saturday," Isaac began, casual as though nothing had transpired. "I'm going into Jericho. If you want, we could meet up. I don't know, there's not much to do in that podunk town anyway, but... maybe there's a decent movie playing or something."

"If not, we could always just spook the normies," you proposed.

Isaac's smile was brighter than sunshine, better for your aching skull than ibuprofen.

. . .

Henry Creel returned to his routine because routine was what the laboratory demanded.

Routine made monsters easier to manage.

He folded towels in the supply room with careful, even hands. He carried clean linens down the hall. He helped escort one of the younger children from testing back to the rainbow room, his palm resting lightly between the boy’s narrow shoulders as the child sniffled and tried not to cry. He answered when spoken to. He lowered his eyes when expected. He moved through Hawkins Laboratory as he always did, silent and pale and useful.

No one looked at him twice.

That was the point.

Henry had learned the value of being unremarkable. A soft voice. A neat uniform. A pleasant expression arranged over the face like a sheet pulled over a corpse. People saw what they wanted to see. Dr. Brenner saw obedience. The nurses saw a quiet young man with good manners. The children saw someone who opened doors and brought them food and sometimes looked at them as if he understood too much.

None of them saw the thought moving beneath his skin.

Y/N.

Her name had not left him.

It lingered in the back of his mind as he wiped a smear of blood from a testing room floor, as he changed the paper lining on an exam table, as he stood beside the wall while Brenner spoke gently to a little girl who had made all the lights burst in her room.

Y/N.

Not Project Liminal.

Not the subject.

Not the contained thing at the end of the restricted corridor.

Y/N.

The name felt old inside him. Older than the lab. Older than Brenner’s white halls and locked doors and numbers printed neatly over stolen lives. It belonged to another place, another year, another version of him that had sat in the grass with a spider in his palm and watched a blood-soaked girl walk past his house.

Henry set a stack of towels on a cart.

The fabric edges aligned perfectly.

His hands did not shake.

Inside, memory stirred.

He had seen her before the prom incident. Of course he had. Hawkins was not large enough for a girl like that to go unseen, no matter how hard she tried to fold herself into corners.

She had been quiet.

That was what people hated first.

Not strange. Not dangerous. Quiet.

Quiet invited cruelty. Henry had learned that young. People saw silence and mistook it for emptiness, then grew angry when it did not fill itself with whatever noise they preferred.

Y/N had walked through Hawkins High with her books pressed tightly to her chest, head bowed, shoulders drawn inward as if she could make herself smaller by will alone. Her clothes had always been wrong somehow. Too plain. Too long. Too old-fashioned, even for Hawkins. Sleeves buttoned at the wrists. Skirts falling below the knee. Collars that belonged on church pews and funeral portraits.

The girls had laughed.

Freak.

Pig.

Creepy.

Crazy.

Words followed her like stones thrown by invisible hands.

Henry remembered them more clearly than he wanted to.

He remembered a senior boy making oinking noises behind her in the hallway while his friends nearly folded in half laughing. He remembered two girls whispering loud enough for her to hear that she looked like she had been dressed by a corpse. He remembered younger students, children from neighborhoods, really, watching her pass with wide eyes because they had heard the rumors from older siblings.

Don’t touch her.

She’s weird.

Her mother says she has the devil in her.

I heard she can make things move.

I heard she killed a cat.

I heard she bleeds black.

Rumors were a kind of hunger. Hawkins fed them well.

Henry had never joined in.

He had also never stopped them.

That distinction had always seemed important before.

It did not seem important now.

A metal tray clattered suddenly beside him.

One of the nurses looked over. “Peter?”

Henry glanced down.

He had gripped the edge of the cart too tightly. The tray on top had shifted, rattling against the folded linens.

For one brief second, he imagined the hallway at Hawkins High again. Lockers. Fluorescent lights. Laughter crawling over the walls like insects. Y/N walking faster without running because running would only make them laugh harder.

He released the cart.

“Yes?”

The nurse frowned faintly. “Dr. Brenner wants the observation room reset before three.”

“Of course.”

His voice was mild.

Soft.

Perfectly empty.

The nurse seemed satisfied and walked away.

Henry watched her go, then looked down at his hand.

The skin across his knuckles had gone white.

Slowly, he flexed his fingers.

It was curious, really. How clearly he remembered things he had not meant to keep.

The day Y/N dropped her books near the stairwell and no one helped her pick them up.

The way she bent too quickly, hair falling forward to hide her face.

The little red marks around her wrist once, shaped almost like fingers.

The way her lips moved sometimes as she walked alone, forming silent prayers or apologies or both.

He had noticed.

He had noticed all of it.

That was the worst part.

He had noticed her suffering with the precision of someone recognizing his own reflection in a distorted mirror, and still he had done nothing but watch.

Henry pushed the cart forward.

The wheels squeaked softly over the polished floor.

The children’s wing was louder than the restricted corridor. It always was. Muffled voices. The hum of machines. A child crying somewhere behind a closed door, then stopping abruptly when an adult spoke. Brenner had built his little kingdom out of measured sounds: footsteps, commands, praise, punishment, the soft scratch of pens recording every failure.

Henry passed a windowed room where two doctors were observing a boy lifting blocks with his mind.

The boy’s nose was bleeding.

The doctors looked pleased.

Henry did not slow.

He thought of Y/N at the end of the hall, alone in the dim room with no number on her door.

Not taught.

Not praised.

Not corrected.

Contained.

Brenner had said the word so calmly.

As if she were a spill to be cleaned up. A fire to be smothered. A thing that had happened and then been placed somewhere safe, where no one would need to think too hard about it.

Henry’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

Nearly twenty years.

They had taken her from the ruins of her home, from the ashes of her mother, from the blood of that night, and hidden her under the laboratory like an ugly family secret. Hawkins had been allowed its explanation. Electrical equipment. A tragic malfunction. An accident no one could have predicted.

Children had died, and the town had needed something simple to mourn.

So they had made Y/N into a whisper instead.

The prom girl.

The cursed girl.

The one who did it.

The one who disappeared.

Henry turned a corner and nearly walked into another orderly.

“Watch it,” the man muttered.

Henry stepped aside at once. “Apologies.”

The orderly gave him a brief, dismissive glance and continued on.

Henry lowered his gaze, but the thought inside him sharpened.

They had all looked at her that way too.

Dismissive. Repulsed. Afraid only after it was too late.

He wondered if she remembered their faces.

He wondered if she remembered his.

That question returned again and again, small and irritating as a needle under the skin.

Did she remember the boy from school?

Did she remember the boy in the yard?

Did she remember the way he had stared?

Did she remember that he had not moved?

Henry entered the observation room and began resetting it with practiced precision. Chair straightened. Clipboard placed at the center of the desk. Electrodes coiled properly. Instruments lined in order by size and purpose.

His body worked.

His mind wandered back to the door.

The little glass panel.

Her head turning.

Her eyes finding his.

There had been recognition there.

He was certain of it.

Not full understanding. Not yet. But something had moved behind her expression when he said her name. Something awake beneath years of stillness.

The others believed isolation had made her dormant.

Henry knew better.

Things did not stop existing because men like Brenner locked them away.

Spiders nested in dark places. Waited in corners. Survived where larger, louder creatures would die.

Y/N had survived.

That thought pleased him more than it should have.

He picked up a cloth and wiped the already-clean table once, twice, three times.

Her name pressed against his tongue.

He did not say it.

Not here.

Not where the cameras watched and Brenner listened and every wall in the laboratory had learned to keep secrets for the wrong men.

But he thought it.

Y/N.

The girl from Hawkins High.

The girl in the bloodied dress.

The girl behind the sealed door.

The girl he had watched disappear once.

Henry set the cloth down neatly.

This time, he thought, he would not look away.

. . . 

Henry heard the nurses talking three days later.

He was not meant to.

That was usually why people spoke freely around him.

Peter Ballard was quiet. Helpful. Unassuming. The sort of man who could stand in the corner of a room and become furniture if he arranged his face correctly. People trusted silence when it wore a clean uniform and lowered its eyes at the proper moments.

Henry had made an art of disappearing in plain sight.

He stood in the supply closet with one hand resting on a shelf of folded gowns, the door open just enough to let in a thin strip of hallway light. Beyond it, two nurses lingered near the medication station, their voices lowered, though not enough.

“You were assigned to the west wing last night?”

“Only for an hour.”

“And?”

“And I told them I won’t do it again.”

A pause.

Henry’s fingers stilled against the cotton gown.

The west wing.

“She didn’t even do anything,” the second nurse said, quieter now. “That was the worst part. She just sat there.”

“They always say that.”

“No, I mean it. She didn’t speak. She didn’t move. She just looked at me through the glass when I passed.”

“And?”

“And I dreamed about her.”

Henry’s gaze lifted.

The other nurse made a small, uncomfortable sound. “What kind of dream?”

“I don’t remember. Not really. I woke up crying. My husband said I kept asking someone to forgive me.”

Silence stretched between them.

Then the first nurse said, “You shouldn’t say things like that here.”

“I know.”

“You know what happened to Hale.”

“I heard he requested transfer.”

“He was removed.”

Henry stepped closer to the door.

The nurse’s voice dropped further. “He was fine before they put him on her meals. Then two weeks later he couldn’t remember his own son’s name.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is.”

“That could have been anything.”

“It wasn’t anything.”

A cart rattled somewhere down the hall. Both women stopped talking until it passed.

Henry waited.

He had always been good at waiting.

When the voices returned, they were softer, but fear had sharpened them.

“My aunt went to Hawkins High,” the second nurse whispered. “She was a freshman when it happened. She said they told everyone it was electrical. Faulty wiring, decorations catching fire, speakers exploding. All of it.”

“That was the report.”

“My aunt said there were bodies in the parking lot.”

The first nurse said nothing.

“She said some of them didn’t burn. Some of them just… dropped.”

Henry’s hand tightened around the edge of the shelf.

In his mind, a streetlamp buzzed over empty pavement.

The girl in the ruined dress walked barefoot down the road.

“How many?” the first nurse asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Come on. You do know.”

Another pause.

Then, barely above a breath:

“…Seventy-four.”

Henry felt the number move through him like a cold hand.

Seventy-four.

Not a tragic incident.

Not an electrical malfunction.

Not the little whispered horror story Hawkins mothers used to frighten daughters away from dances and boys with too-white smiles.

Seventy-four dead.

Children. Teachers. Chaperones. Boys who had oinked at her in the halls. Girls who had laughed behind their hands. People who had watched and done nothing. People who had not known her at all.

Seventy-four.

The number should have disgusted him.

Instead, Henry found himself thinking of the names they had called her.

Freak.

Pig.

Creepy.

Crazy.

He thought of her books scattered near the stairwell. Her long sleeves. The red marks around her wrists. The way younger children had repeated rumors with gleeful, borrowed cruelty because cruelty was one of the first things children learned from adults.

Seventy-four, and still Hawkins had pitied itself more than it had ever pitied her.

“They should’ve killed her,” the first nurse said suddenly.

Henry’s eyes went still.

The other nurse whispered her name like a scolding. “Don’t say that. Not here.”

“I mean it. I don’t care what Brenner says. Some things aren’t meant to be studied.”

Henry stared through the crack in the door.

The nurse who had spoken was young. Not much older than he was. Brown hair pinned neatly at the nape of her neck. A silver cross resting at her throat.

His attention fixed on it.

Some things aren’t meant to be studied.

No, Henry thought.

Some things were not meant to be caged.

The women moved away when a doctor called for assistance, their shoes squeaking softly over the polished floor. Henry remained in the supply closet until their footsteps faded completely.

Then he let go of the shelf.

His fingers had left crescent marks in the folded cotton.

By evening, Henry knew where to go.

The records room was not difficult to access if one understood that security, like morality, depended mostly on people believing in it. The lab had locks, codes, cameras, armed men posted in certain halls. But it also had routines. Shift changes. Coffee breaks. Doctors who forgot files on desks because they believed themselves too important to be careless.

Henry moved through those spaces like a thought slipping between words.

He waited until the overnight staff settled into its usual rhythm. Until the hallway outside records emptied. Until the guard on the corner turned to accept a cigarette from another man and laugh at something Henry did not hear.

Then he entered.

The records room smelled of paper, dust, and metal cabinets. Rows of files lined the walls, each one labeled and indexed and made official by the cruelty of neat handwriting. Henry had always found that men like Brenner adored documentation. They could do anything to a person as long as it was written down in the proper language.

Subject response.

Testing parameters.

Correction administered.

Unforeseen outcome.

They made suffering sound like weather.

Henry searched quickly.

Not because he felt hurried.

Because he remembered.

Old projects were kept separately from the children’s records. Earlier failures. Pre-numbering system. Incidents that had led to procedures, restrictions, rules no one explained to the subjects themselves.

He found the file in a lower drawer.

PROJECT LIMINAL.

The folder was thicker than he expected.

For a moment, he only looked at it.

Then he opened it.

The first photograph was clipped to the inside cover.

Y/N stared back at him from 1958.

Sixteen years old. Seated against a blank wall. A number board placed beneath her chin even though she had not yet been given a proper designation. Her hair hung damp and tangled around her face. Her eyes were open too wide. The prom dress was visible at the edges of the photograph, torn and stained dark across the bodice.

Someone had cleaned the blood from her skin.

They had not made her look less dead.

Henry touched the edge of the photograph with two fingers.

Not her face.

Only the paper.

Beneath it, the intake summary had been typed in crisp black ink.

ACQUISITION DATE: June 1, 1958

LOCATION: Hawkins, Indiana

SOURCE EVENT: Hawkins High School Senior Prom Incident

PUBLIC EXPLANATION: Electrical malfunction, structural collapse, subsequent fire

CONFIRMED FATALITIES: 74

SURVIVORS WITH SIGNIFICANT TRAUMA: 19

SECONDARY DOMESTIC INCIDENT: Maternal fatality, residential destruction

SUBJECT CONDITION AT RECOVERY: Shock, blood loss, burns, penetrating wound to upper back, acute dissociation

Henry read the lines once.

Then again.

Penetrating wound to upper back.

His expression did not change, but something inside him went very quiet.

Her mother had stabbed her.

He knew it before the file confirmed it. Knew it with the clean, cold certainty of someone who understood what pious violence looked like behind closed doors. The official report continued in careful language, but Henry could see the room behind it. A house full of crosses. A girl forced to her knees. A mother mistaking murder for mercy.

He turned the page.

Much of the next section had been blacked out. Thick bars of ink swallowed whole paragraphs, leaving only fragments behind.

…reactive event appears triggered by emotional extremity…

…uncontrolled discharge affecting multiple systems simultaneously…

…survivor accounts unreliable due to hysteria, injury, and memory alteration…

…subject repeatedly asked for mother despite evidence of attack…

…religious language produces severe agitation…

…avoid use of devotional objects during assessment…

Henry’s jaw tightened.

He turned another page.

There were photographs of Hawkins High after the incident.

The gymnasium looked like the inside of a broken mouth.

Charred rafters. Collapsed decorations. Streamers hanging in blackened ribbons. The stage crushed beneath lighting equipment. Folding chairs scattered and twisted. Dark stains across the floor where no amount of official language could make them into anything but blood.

A dance banner still hung crooked over the destruction.

Henry stared at it.

For a moment, he saw not the photograph but the hallway years before. The senior boy leaning close behind her shoulder, making the sound of a pig. The girls laughing. A teacher pretending not to notice.

Seventy-four.

He wondered how many of them had laughed.

He wondered how many had watched.

He wondered how many had reached for her only when it became clear that the quiet girl was not weak after all.

The thought should have troubled him.

It did not.

Henry turned the page.

A handwritten note appeared in Brenner’s precise script.

Subject demonstrates profound resistance to conventional containment following emotional provocation. Recommend complete isolation pending further evaluation. Social exposure contraindicated. Attachment behaviors present in staff after prolonged contact. Staff rotation mandatory.

Attachment behaviors.

Henry almost smiled.

Brenner had a gift for making fear sound like policy.

Another page listed early incidents at the lab. Most of it was redacted, but certain words remained visible.

weakness

fixation

dream contamination

failure to wake

unexplained cardiac event

subject denies intent

subject displays remorse

subject displays hunger response

Henry paused over that final phrase.

Hunger response.

Something behind his ribs shifted.

He thought of the nurse who had dreamed of Y/N and woken up begging forgiveness. He thought of the orderly who could no longer remember his son. He thought of the sealed room at the end of the hall and the silence inside it.

They did not understand her.

That was obvious now.

Brenner had collected her, named her, contained her, written around her in careful circles for twenty years, and still he did not understand what she was. He only understood what she could cost him.

Henry lowered his eyes to the photograph again.

The sixteen-year-old girl looked through him from the page, bloodless and stunned, as if even then she had already slipped beyond the reach of ordinary grief.

“You survived,” he whispered.

The room did not answer.

Somewhere outside, a door opened and closed.

Henry refolded the papers exactly as he had found them. Every page aligned. Every photograph returned to its proper place. The file looked untouched when he slid it back into the drawer.

But he was not unchanged.

As he left the records room, the number followed him.

Seventy-four.

By the time he reached the corridor, it had ceased to feel like a warning.

It felt like proof.

Not that she was evil.

Not that she was damned.

Proof that Hawkins had been wrong to think a girl could be tormented forever without the world eventually answering for it.

Henry walked back toward the children’s wing, his expression serene beneath the fluorescent lights.

Inside his mind, the thought moved with terrible gentleness.

Y/N had not been weak.

They had simply mistaken her silence for permission.

. . . 

Henry told himself he was only passing by.

That was the lie he chose because it was clean, and Henry had always preferred clean lies. They left less behind. They could be folded neatly, placed in the proper drawer, and taken out again whenever necessary.

He had business in the west wing.

That was what he told himself as he walked alone through the corridor after lights-out, carrying a tray that did not belong to him and a stack of folded gowns no one had asked him to deliver. The laboratory had quieted around him, though never fully. Hawkins Lab did not sleep. It hummed. It breathed through vents and fluorescent lights, through the low murmur of distant voices behind reinforced doors.

Henry moved through it like he belonged to the silence.

His shoes made almost no sound on the polished floor.

At the end of the hall, her door waited.

No number.

No colored marker.

No childish drawing taped at eye level.

Only the heavy frame, the narrow glass panel, and the faintest seam of gray light beneath it.

Henry slowed before he meant to.

A reasonable man would have continued walking.

A careful man would have remembered Brenner’s warning.

A free man would have turned the handle.

Henry was none of those things.

He stopped outside the door.

For several seconds, he did nothing. He stood with the tray balanced in his hands, his expression empty, listening to the hush on the other side.

There was no sound from within.

No movement.

No breath.

Nothing.

That silence should have reassured him. Instead, it drew him closer.

He stepped toward the glass.

The small panel showed only a narrow piece of the room at first: the far wall, the corner of the bed, a strip of bare floor shining faintly beneath the weak ceiling light. The room looked empty in the way cages looked empty when the creature inside had learned where not to stand.

Henry leaned in.

She was already facing the door.

The tray shifted slightly in his hands.

Y/N stood in the center of the room, still as a figure in a painting. She was not seated in the corner this time. She was not turned away. She faced him directly, her bare feet placed on the white tile, her arms resting loosely at her sides.

Waiting.

The thought moved through him before he could bury it.

She had known.

Henry’s fingers tightened against the tray.

Inside the room, Y/N did not smile. Her face remained quiet, almost blank, but her eyes were awake. Far too awake. They held to him through the little window with an unsettling patience, as if she had been staring at the door long before his footsteps reached it.

Like a spider feeling the web tremble.

Henry held her gaze.

He had seen many kinds of fear in the laboratory. The children’s fear was bright and quick. It spilled easily. Nurses tried to hide theirs behind discipline. Doctors hid theirs behind notes and language. Brenner buried his so deep it only surfaced in the careful pauses between words.

Y/N did not look afraid.

That should have pleased him.

It did.

But it also made something in him feel exposed.

He lifted the tray slightly, as if that explained him. As if the metal rectangle in his hands could turn obsession back into duty.

Her eyes dropped to it.

Then returned to his face.

No.

She did not say the word. She did not have to.

Henry almost heard it anyway.

The corner of his mouth softened, not quite a smile.

“You haven’t eaten,” he said quietly.

The glass swallowed most of his voice. He was not certain she could hear him.

Y/N’s expression did not change.

For a moment, he wondered if she had forgotten how to respond to speech after so many years of being spoken around rather than to. Then her gaze moved, slowly, to the little covered dish on the tray.

Food.

That was what the laboratory called it.

Henry had seen what they brought her. Measured portions. Soft things. Nothing sharp. Nothing breakable. Nothing that could be hidden, saved, used. As though starvation were safer when placed in neat white bowls.

Her lips parted.

No sound came through.

Henry leaned closer before he realized he had done it.

She spoke again.

This time he caught only the shape of it.

Not hungry.

The words were soundless behind the glass, but he understood them with a clarity that made his skin prickle.

Not hungry.

His eyes lowered briefly to the tray.

No, he thought.

Of course she wasn’t.

Not for this.

Slowly, Henry set the tray on the floor beside the door. The motion felt foolish the moment it was done. He had no key. No permission. No way to give it to her without summoning someone who would ask why he had come.

Still, he left it there.

An offering made useless by the cage between them.

When he straightened, she had moved closer.

Not much.

Only a step.

But Henry noticed.

He noticed everything about her now.

The way the dim light caught along her cheekbone. The faint shadows beneath her eyes. The severe plainness of her lab-issued clothing, too loose in some places, too restrictive in others. The careful way she held her body, as if she had learned long ago that sudden movement invited punishment.

Even older, even hollowed by years of isolation, there was beauty in her.

Not softness.

Not innocence.

Something stranger.

The beauty of a haunted thing that had outlived the people who called it cursed.

Henry thought of Hawkins High again. He could not stop himself. The memory came in flashes now, stirred up by files and whispers and the number seventy-four.

Freak.

Pig.

Creepy.

Crazy.

He remembered them as clearly as if the words had been carved into the lockers.

He remembered the way she had walked through the halls while cruelty followed at her heels like a pack of dogs. How even the younger children learned to step aside when she passed, not from respect, but from the thrill of pretending fear. They had not known her. Most of them had never spoken to her. They only knew the story that had been handed down in whispers.

The strange girl.

The church girl.

The girl with the mother who said sin lived in her bones.

The girl things happened around.

It had been enough.

People rarely required evidence before deciding someone deserved to suffer.

Y/N tilted her head slightly.

Henry went still.

It was such a small movement. Almost nothing. But it broke through the memory with terrible precision.

She was studying him.

Not his uniform. Not the tray. Him.

Henry felt, with sudden certainty, that she was looking past his face and into the place where he kept old things locked away.

His mother’s frightened reflection in the glass.

The spider leaving his palm.

A blood-soaked girl walking under streetlights.

You watched.

The words did not come from her mouth.

They bloomed softly inside his mind.

Henry’s breath caught.

It was not an attack. Not like the children’s clumsy intrusions during tests, all force and panic and poor control. This was quieter. More intimate. A finger pressed to a bruise.

You watched.

His face remained composed.

Barely.

Inside the room, Y/N’s eyes did not leave his.

Henry looked toward the security camera mounted high in the corner of the hall. Its red light blinked steadily. Watching. Recording. Serving Brenner as all things in the building eventually did.

He lowered his voice.

“I remember you.”

Y/N blinked once.

Slowly.

For the first time, something almost human crossed her face. Not surprise. Not forgiveness. Something closer to recognition, thin and pale as moonlight through dirty glass.

Her hand lifted.

Henry did not move.

She placed her palm against the inside of the window.

The gesture was soundless.

Careful.

Her fingers spread over the glass, long and still. Not reaching exactly. Not begging. It felt more like proof.

I am here.

Henry stared at her hand.

The sane thing would have been to step back.

The obedient thing would have been to pick up the tray, leave the hall, and never return without orders.

Instead, Henry lifted his own hand.

He stopped before touching the glass.

Only an inch separated his palm from hers, plus the thickness of the door, plus twenty years, plus all the terrible things that had happened because people with power preferred watching to helping.

Her eyes flicked to his hand.

Then back to his face.

Henry pressed his palm to the glass.

The corridor seemed to narrow around the point where they almost touched.

Cold moved through him first. The glass was chilled beneath his skin. Then something else followed, faint and warm and wrong, slipping beneath the surface of his thoughts like a breath against his ear.

For one second, he smelled smoke.

He heard music.

A slow song warped by distance. Teenagers laughing. A microphone squealing. Someone calling her name. 

Then blood.

Then screaming.

Then the sudden, violent silence after lightning strikes too close.

Henry’s fingers flexed against the glass.

Y/N’s eyes had darkened.

Not black. Not fully.

But the light inside the room seemed to bend around her pupils, drawn inward, swallowed little by little. Her lips parted, and Henry felt the strangest sensation in his chest, not pain, not weakness, but the sense of something being noticed there.

Something hungry had looked at him.

And recognized hunger in return.

A soft sound echoed from down the corridor.

Footsteps.

Y/N’s hand remained on the glass.

Henry did not move at first.

The footsteps came closer.

Measured. Adult. Familiar enough that his body reacted before his mind chose to.

He lowered his hand.

Y/N watched it fall.

Something like disappointment passed over her face, so faint another person would have missed it.

Henry did not.

“I’ll come back,” he whispered.

Her lips moved.

This time, he could not read the words.

But he felt them.

Not as sound.

As certainty.

I know.

Henry stepped away from the door just as an orderly turned the corner with a clipboard tucked under one arm. The man glanced at him, then at the tray on the floor.

“What are you doing here?”

Henry bent smoothly, picked up the tray, and arranged his face into mild apology.

“Wrong room.”

The orderly frowned. “This wing is restricted.”

“Yes,” Henry said. “I realized.”

The man looked him over for another moment, then shook his head with the irritated superiority of someone too dull to know when he was afraid.

“Get back to the main hall.”

“Of course.”

Henry walked away with the tray in his hands, his pace even, his expression calm.

He did not look back.

He did not need to.

Behind him, at the end of the hall, Y/N was still standing at the glass.

And for the first time since 1958, Henry felt the strange, terrible comfort of knowing that when he left, she was watching him too.

. . . 

Henry did not dream often.

Not anymore.

Sleep, for him, had become another part of the laboratory’s routine. Lights out. Eyes closed. Body still. Breath even. It was less surrender than maintenance, another function of the body Brenner had not yet found a way to improve upon.

The children dreamed.

Henry knew that.

They whimpered into their pillows and twitched beneath thin blankets. They dreamed of tests, of white rooms, of mothers whose faces had already begun to blur. Sometimes they dreamed so loudly that he could feel the edges of it from the hall, their fear pressing against the air like small hands against glass.

Henry’s own sleep was usually quiet.

Empty.

Useful.

That night, it opened beneath him.

He was no longer in his narrow bed.

He was sitting in the grass outside the Creel house, knees bent beneath him, the summer air warm and wet against his face. Crickets hummed in the dark. The lawn smelled of soil, rain, and something faintly sweet blooming near the porch.

For one disorienting second, Henry only stared.

Then the house glowed behind him.

Yellow light spilled from the windows. The television flickered soundlessly through the living room glass, throwing blue-white shadows over the walls. Inside, his father stood near the sofa, stiff and watchful. His mother sat closer to the screen with one hand pressed to her mouth.

Virginia Creel’s reflection hovered in the window.

Pale.

Frightened.

Henry looked down.

A spider crossed his palm.

Small. Black. Delicate as ink given legs.

It moved over the lines of his hand with patient certainty, each step careful, elegant, alive. Henry watched it as he had watched it once before, with the strange tenderness he had never been able to offer people.

He knew this night.

The knowledge settled into him like cold water.

No, he thought.

But the dream did not listen.

Down the road, sirens wailed without sound. Their red lights flashed across the houses in long, bloody pulses. Streetlamps buzzed overhead. Far away, smoke climbed into the sky above Hawkins High, black against the moonless dark.

The spider reached the center of his palm.

Henry could feel its tiny legs.

He could feel his own younger breath caught behind his ribs.

Then she appeared.

Y/N walked barefoot beneath the lamps.

Her shoes were gone. The soles of her feet were dark from pavement and blood. Her ruined dress dragged behind her, heavy with stains that had dried almost black in some places and still shone wetly in others. Her hair had come loose from whatever careful style she had put it in hours before, pins hanging crookedly like broken little stars.

She looked sixteen.

She looked dead.

She looked exactly as he remembered.

Henry’s breath stilled.

Just as before, she moved slowly down the road with her head slightly lifted, not because she was proud, but because she seemed too hollow to know where else to put her face. Porch lights blinked on as she passed. Curtains shifted. No doors opened.

No one helped her.

No one followed her.

The world watched from behind glass.

Henry’s fingers curled slightly, careful not to crush the spider.

Only this time, Y/N stopped.

Not in the road.

At the edge of his yard.

Henry went still.

That had not happened.

The dream had changed.

The spider paused in his palm.

Y/N turned her head and looked at him.

The streetlamp threw a thin gold line across her blood-streaked face. Her eyes were wide and glassy, too alive for someone so empty. Ash clung to her hair. Blood had dried at her throat in a line like a cruel necklace.

Henry could not move.

He could not lower his eyes.

He could not pretend he had not seen her.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then her gaze dropped to his hand.

The spider crawled from his palm.

Henry felt it go this time. Felt the faint tickle of its legs vanish over the edge of his skin before it disappeared into the grass.

His hand remained open and empty.

Y/N’s mouth did not move.

But her voice entered him anyway, soft and close and impossibly clear.

It ran from you too.

Henry’s fingers closed around nothing.

The yard changed.

The grass beneath him became white tile.

The streetlamp above her became fluorescent light.

The yellow window of the Creel house became the narrow glass panel in her laboratory door.

Henry stood in the west wing corridor, though he knew he was still asleep. The air smelled of disinfectant and metal. The walls stretched too long on either side of him, white and seamless, like the inside of a throat.

Y/N stood on the other side of the door.

Older now.

No prom dress. No blood on her skin. No ruined curls or barefoot walk down Hawkins streets. She wore the plain gown the laboratory gave her, colorless and loose, as if even fabric had been instructed not to touch her too kindly.

But her eyes were the same.

That was what undid him.

The same eyes from 1958.

Older, emptier, but still carrying that terrible knowledge. She had seen him once. She had remembered. She had reached across twenty years and found the exact place in him where the memory lived.

Her palm pressed against the glass.

Henry looked at it.

The sane thing would have been to step back.

But dreams had no use for sanity.

He lifted his hand.

His palm met the glass across from hers.

Cold spread through his skin.

Then something else moved beneath it.

Not warmth.

Not pain.

Recognition.

It slid under his ribs and behind his eyes, intimate as breath, searching without hands. Henry felt it move through him, touching places Brenner had not found, places even he had left undisturbed.

His childhood bedroom.

His mother’s suspicious eyes.

His father’s tired silence.

The black widow hidden carefully inside a vent.

The stiff collar of a school shirt.

The shape of a boy standing apart from other children because he already knew he was not one of them.

Y/N watched him through the glass.

Not hungrily.

Not yet.

More like someone reading a page she had been denied for years.

Henry tried to pull away.

The dream held him still.

Her voice came again.

Not aloud.

Inside.

Henry.

His name struck through him.

Not Peter.

Not orderly.

Not the quiet, useful thing Brenner had dressed in white and placed in the hallways like furniture.

Henry.

His real name, pulled cleanly from the locked room inside him where he had hidden it.

His lips parted.

“How do you know that?”

Y/N did not answer.

The glass between them cracked.

A thin line split down the center from top to bottom, sharp and sudden as lightning.

Then another.

Then another.

Behind her, somewhere in the room, a woman screamed.

“On your knees! Go to your closet!”

The laboratory disappeared.

Smoke filled Henry’s lungs.

He was inside a house he had never entered.

Y/N’s house.

He knew it instantly, not because he recognized the wallpaper or the furniture, but because the room felt like her. Small. Stifled. Watched. The walls were crowded with crosses. A Bible lay open on a side table, its pages fluttering though no windows were open. Candles burned in little trembling flames along the mantel.

Sixteen-year-old Y/N knelt on the floor in her ruined prom dress.

Her hands were clasped in front of her so tightly her fingers looked bloodless. Her head bowed beneath the wooden crucifix on the wall. She was shaking. Not dramatically. Not like girls did in pictures when they wanted someone to notice.

Small tremors.

The kind made by a body that had learned fear before it learned comfort.

Her mother stood behind her.

Henry could not see the woman’s face clearly at first, only the severe line of her robe, the tight knot of her hair, the white of her knuckles around something held at her side.

“Pray,” her mother snapped.

Y/N’s voice broke as she obeyed.

“Our Father, who art in Heaven…”

The house groaned.

“Hallowed be Thy name…”

A picture frame rattled on the wall.

“Thy kingdom come…”

The candles flared.

Henry stood in the doorway, unable to move, unseen and yet forced to witness. His body had gone cold. He knew what came next before it happened, because the file had told him in bloodless words.

Penetrating wound to upper back.

Words made neat by typewriter ink.

Words that had not included the sound Y/N made when the knife went in.

The blade in her mother’s struck.

Y/N’s prayer broke into a gasp so raw that Henry felt it in his own back.

Her eyes flew open.

For one horrible second, she looked less like a monster than any person Henry had ever seen.

She looked like a child who had come home wanting to be held.

Her mother leaned close behind her, breath shaking.

“I won’t let Him have to look at you anymore,” the woman whispered.

Something inside Henry tightened.

Not pity.

Something sharper.

Older.

A hatred with teeth.

Y/N turned her head.

Blood spread across the back of her dress, dark and blooming like a flower opening in reverse. Her eyes searched the room wildly, not understanding, not yet, and then they found Henry.

Not the doorway.

Not the walls.

Him.

As if she could see him through time, through dream, through the memory that should have belonged only to her.

The house began to shake.

The crucifix tore free from the wall.

Her mother screamed.

The floorboards split.

Y/N’s gaze remained locked on his.

Her voice entered him again, calm beneath the chaos.

You know what mothers do to children like us.

The room exploded.

Fire crawled up the walls.

Glass burst inward.

The Bible pages flew loose like startled birds, burning at the edges as they spun through the air. Her mother vanished behind a storm of splintered wood and smoke. Y/N stayed on her knees in the center of it all, blood running down her back, eyes fixed on Henry as the house folded around her.

Then the fire became red light.

The red light became the laboratory.

Henry was back at the glass.

Y/N stood on the other side, older again, untouched by flame, her palm still raised to his.

The cracks in the window spread between their hands.

For one moment, Henry saw both versions of her at once: the blood-soaked girl from the road and the contained woman in the sealed room. Sixteen and thirty-six. Victim and catastrophe. Ghost and hunger.

Her face came closer to the glass.

Her lips moved.

This time, he heard her in the air and in his mind at once.

“Did you think I forgot you?”

Henry woke with her name in his mouth.

The room was dark.

For several seconds, he did not move.

The laboratory hummed around him with its usual mechanical indifference. A vent whispered above his bed. Somewhere far away, a door clicked shut. The sheets beneath his hands were cold and damp with sweat.

Henry stared at the ceiling.

His heart was beating too quickly.

That irritated him.

He sat up slowly, forcing his breathing into order. One inhale. One exhale. Control returning piece by piece, like a mask placed carefully back over the face.

It had been a dream.

Only a dream.

Except Henry knew dreams. He had touched enough of them in others to know when something had been born inside his own mind and when something had been placed there.

This had not been his.

Not entirely.

His gaze drifted to the wall opposite his bed.

For a moment, in the darkness, he thought he saw a thin crack running down it.

Then he blinked, and it was gone.

Henry looked down.

There, against the white sheet near his pillow, lay a spider.

Small.

Black.

Still.

Dead.

Henry stared at it.

The tiny body was curled inward, its legs drawn close like a secret it had died protecting.

A reasonable man would have recoiled.

A superstitious one would have prayed.

Henry did neither.

Slowly, he reached out and touched the dead spider with the tip of one finger.

Its body shifted against the sheet, weightless as ash.

From somewhere impossibly far away, or impossibly close, Y/N’s voice brushed the inside of his skull one last time.

Soft.

Almost tender.

Come back to the glass, Henry.

His fingers stilled.

. . .

Y/N woke to sunlight and the faint sound of gulls.

For one blissful second she had no idea where she was, only that the sheets were softer than dorm sheets, the air smelled faintly like salt through the cracked window, and there was a warm, sleeping weight behind her. Then Henry shifted, one arm still heavy across her waist, and memory came back in a slow, indulgent rush. The Cape. The room. The hot tub. Last night.

Y/N smiled to herself and turned her head just enough to glance at him over her shoulder.

He was still asleep, hair a little disordered, face softer in sleep than he ever let it be when awake. Without his glasses, without the suit, without a classroom waiting for him, he looked younger and more unfairly handsome than she was in the mood to deal with this early.

She eased carefully out from under his arm and sat up. The sheet slipped down enough for her to catch sight of the marks in the mirror across the room.

Y/N paused.

There was one at the curve where her neck met her shoulder, dark enough to be obvious if anyone looked too long. Another sat lower at her collarbone, half-hidden, but not by much. And a few others straying down the center of her chest.

Her mouth curved slowly. Possessive. Deliberate. Very Henry.

She touched one lightly with two fingers, then stood and reached for one of his shirts from the chair, pulling it on before heading downstairs for coffee and breakfast.

She was not a morning person. This was a well-established fact. In Boston, mornings were cruel and fluorescent and full of obligation. But this—this was vacation. Vacation, apparently, made her a morning person.

The inn was quieter downstairs, all soft light and the smell of coffee and pastries and people speaking in low, lazy voices. She got them both coffee first, then a small tray with breakfast, something for Henry that looked respectable, something for herself that leaned sweeter and more caffeinated.

On her way back toward the stairs, she paused at the front desk.

The woman there smiled up at her. “Good morning.”

“Hi,” Y/N said, shifting the tray lightly. “I just wanted to ask when checkout is.”

The woman glanced down at the reservation book. “Your checkout?”

“Yes.”

The woman’s smile widened slightly. “Oh, Mr. Creel extended the stay when you checked in.”

Y/N blinked. “He did?”

“Yes.” The woman ran a finger down the page. “You’re checked out for Thursday after next.”

Y/N stared at her. Thursday after next. Not a few days. Not a long weekend. Two weeks. The warmth that spread through her had nothing to do with the coffee.

“Oh,” she said, because apparently all her more eloquent thoughts had abandoned her.

The woman smiled pleasantly. “You’ve got plenty of time, Mrs. Creel.”

Y/N froze for just a second. Mrs. Creel. There it was again, that easy assumption, that strange little social gift this place kept handing her without question. And just like at dinner, no one here said it like it was scandalous. No one said it like it was strange. Just natural. Expected. Ordinary.

Y/N smiled before she could stop herself. “Right. Thank you.”

She took the tray back upstairs more slowly than before. Two weeks. He had changed the stay on the first day and hadn’t even told her.

When she got back into the room, Henry was awake, propped up slightly against the headboard, hair still messy, glasses back on now, the sheet low on his hips. He looked toward the door the second she came in, and the expression on his face shifted immediately when he saw her.

“You left.”

Y/N set the tray down on the table by the window. “Only downstairs. Don’t be dramatic.”

Henry watched her move around the room. “You brought coffee.”

“I did.”

“And breakfast.”

“I’m full of generosity.”

Henry’s gaze moved over her, his shirt on her body, bare legs, hair still sleep-tousled, and then, inevitably, higher. To the marks on her neck.

Y/N caught the look and smiled without turning fully toward him. “You did that.”

“Yes.”

No shame. No apology.

She laughed softly and handed him his coffee. “Proud much?”

“Also yes.”

Henry took it and leaned back a little more against the headboard, looking far too content with himself for someone who had apparently colonized her neck overnight.

Y/N climbed back onto the bed with her own cup and tucked one leg beneath her. “I asked about checkout.”

Henry’s eyes flicked up from the coffee. “Did you?”

“Yeah.” She watched him over the rim of the cup. “Interesting information.”

Something faint moved at the corner of his mouth. “Was it?”

“Thursday after next.”

Henry didn’t even blink. “Yes.”

Y/N stared at him. “That’s two weeks.”

“Yes.”

She lowered the coffee slightly. “You extended it the first day.”

“Yes.”

“Without telling me.”

His gaze held hers, perfectly calm. “You’re telling me now that you object.”

That made her laugh, helpless and delighted and a little overwhelmed all over again.

“No,” she admitted. “I don’t object.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

Y/N shook her head and took another sip, trying not to smile too hard and failing. Then, because the front desk woman’s voice was still echoing in her mind, she said lightly, “She called me Mrs. Creel.”

That got his attention. Not dramatically. Just enough.

Henry looked at her over the top of his coffee cup. “Did she?”

Y/N nodded. “Mm-hm.”

“And?”

“And nothing.” She smiled faintly. “Just weird.”

Henry set his cup down beside him, one hand resting loosely over his knee. “Did you correct her?”

“No.”

“Good.”

That made her chest warm in a dangerous way.

She looked at him for a second, sunlight catching the edges of his glasses now, the room still soft with morning. “You really like it here.”

It wasn’t a question.

Henry was quiet for a moment before answering. “Yes.”

Y/N waited.

He looked down at his cup, then back at her. “I like being here with you.”

The simplicity of it made her throat tighten a little.

“Out,” he added. “Not having to hide. Not having to think about who’s watching every time I touch you.” His mouth flattened slightly with the thought. “I don’t feel judged.”

Y/N’s expression softened. She leaned back against the headboard beside him and let her shoulder rest lightly against his. “I don’t think anyone here cares.”

“No,” he said quietly. “They don’t.”

Y/N smiled into her coffee. “I saw a girl downstairs with a man who had to be pushing sixty.”

Henry glanced at her.

“I’m serious,” she said. “Like, actually pushing sixty. So either worse age gaps exist, or that’s just the local norm here.”

That got a short, quiet laugh out of him.

Y/N smiled, pleased with herself. “See? We’re practically subtle.”

Henry looked at her then, really looked, and whatever was in his face made her feel warm all over again.

“You are not subtle,” he said.

“No,” she agreed. “But I’m on vacation, so I’m choosing to see that as a strength.”

His hand found her thigh under the hem of his shirt, absent and warm and familiar now. “That sounds dangerous.”

Y/N leaned into him a little more, coffee in one hand, breakfast forgotten for the moment, morning stretching out bright and generous beyond the window.

“Maybe,” she said.

But there was no fear in it here. Only the beach below, the pool and hot tub still empty in the morning light, Henry beside her in bed with his hand on her leg, and two whole weeks ahead of them that no longer had to fit into the stolen shape of a school year.

Henry’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t.”

Y/N laughed and tucked herself more comfortably against him, still warm from the joint and the hot tub and the fact that the Cape had somehow become real enough to touch.

“Okay,” she said, looking up at him. “What are the plans, then?”

Henry’s hand stayed resting lightly on her leg, thumb moving once in that absent way he had when he was thinking. “Bookstore first.”

Y/N smiled immediately. “Of course.”

“Then we walk down Main Street.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Lunch somewhere that doesn’t look terrible.”

“That narrows it down.”

Henry ignored that. “And after that, we decide what else we’re doing.”

Y/N’s smile turned sly. “We could come back after.”

His gaze dropped to her face, already suspicious. “I’m sure that’s not loaded at all.”

“Not at all.”

Y/N shifted, reached into the bag beside the bed, and pulled out the little bag of weed she’d packed with the sort of triumph that meant she had been waiting for the right moment to produce it.

Henry stared at it. Then at her.

Y/N held it up between two fingers like evidence in a trial. “I came prepared.”

Henry looked deeply unimpressed in a way that only made her grin wider.

She nudged his leg lightly with hers. “And before you say anything—” Her brows lifted. “You still owe me high sex.”

Henry blinked once. “I do not.”

“You absolutely do.”

“I never agreed to that.”

Y/N let out a small, scandalized laugh. “You mostly agreed. Spiritually you did.”

“That’s not binding.”

She held the bag to her chest in mock offense. “You are unbelievable.”

Henry’s mouth twitched despite himself. “You brought narcotics to Cape Cod.”

“We are here for practically two weeks,” she said. “I planned for our well-being.”

Henry looked at the bag again, then back at her. “Our well-being?”

“Yes.”

“We have gotten nothing else besides being here with each other.”

Y/N’s face softened a little at that. Then she smiled anyway. “Exactly. Which is why we should make the most of it.”

Henry shook his head once, but his hand tightened just slightly on her leg, betraying far more interest than his tone had.

Y/N leaned closer, eyes bright. “You know I’m right.”

“I know you’re persistent.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“It’s close enough.”

She laughed and then wrinkled her nose faintly, lifting one shoulder to smell her own skin. “I still smell like chlorine.”

Henry glanced down at her. “You do.”

She looked at him pointedly. “So do you.”

His expression stayed calm. “That seems probable.”

Y/N sat up then, the movement making the bed shift beneath them. She reached for the clothes she’d tossed over the chair earlier and gathered them against her chest.

Henry watched the whole thing with narrowed eyes, already trying to work out what she was doing.

Y/N looked back over her shoulder and smiled, slow and dangerous.

“I’m going to shower,” she said.

Henry didn’t answer right away. Then, lower, “Are you?”

“Yes.”

She stood, still holding her clothes, and took two steps toward the bathroom before pausing in the doorway. Then she turned just enough to look at him properly.

“You should join me.”

That landed exactly the way she wanted it to.

Henry stayed where he was for one beat too long, looking at her with the kind of focus that made the air between them feel suddenly smaller.

Y/N tilted her head. “Unless you’d rather sit there and keep pretending you never agreed to anything.”

His mouth moved slightly. Not a smile. Worse.

She saw him make the decision before he moved.

Y/N disappeared into the bathroom just before he got off the bed, already smiling to herself at the sound of him following her.

. . .

They walked to the bookstore hand in hand. Not rushed. Not hiding. Just together.

The town had that Cape quiet to it in the late morning, sunlight warming the shop windows, gulls cutting overhead, little clusters of tourists drifting from café to café, and the soft salt smell of the ocean never quite leaving the air. Y/N kept noticing the smallest things because she could: the way Henry’s thumb moved absently over the back of her hand when they crossed the street, the fact that he never once dropped her hand even when someone passed too close, the way no one looked twice at them.

She loved that most of all.

The bookstore sat halfway down Main Street with a painted wooden sign and wide front windows crowded by new hardcovers, local history, poetry, and a whole table of beach reads Henry would probably hate on principle. A little bell rang when they stepped inside.

The place smelled like old paper and polished wood.

Y/N smiled immediately.

Henry glanced at her. “You’re pleased.”

“You can tell?”

“You’ve been pleased with everything here.”

“That’s because everything here is good.”

Henry’s mouth twitched. “Not everything.”

Y/N looked up at him. “Most things.”

He let that pass, but his hand stayed linked with hers as they moved farther into the store.

It was exactly the kind of place she’d hoped for, narrow aisles, handwritten recommendation cards tucked beneath certain books, uneven wooden shelves, creaky floors, and the kind of quiet that felt warm instead of restrictive. The owner nodded at them once from behind the register and went back to her receipts.

Y/N drifted first toward fiction. Henry, of course, followed. Not hovering. Just near. Close enough that every time she picked up a book and turned around to say something, he was there for her to say it to.

She held up one paperback with a dramatic cover. “Thoughts?”

Henry took one look. “No.”

“That was snobby.”

“It was correct.”

Y/N laughed softly and tucked it back onto the shelf. “You’re impossible. So picky.”

“I’m better in bookstores than you are.”

“Untrue. I have whimsy.”

“You have poor judgment with attractive covers.”

“That’s still a strength.”

He reached for a hardback over her shoulder and handed it to her. “Read this instead.”

Y/N looked down at the title, brows lifting. “You think I’d like this?”

“Yes.”

“How sure are you?”

Henry’s gaze dropped to the book, then back to her face. “Very.”

Something about that made her smile smaller and warmer than before. She took it. “Okay.”

They moved through the store like that for a while, slowly, lazily, with no need to fill every silence. She showed him novels because the covers were beautiful or the titles sounded interesting. He handed her books he thought she’d love and explained why in that maddeningly thoughtful way that made every recommendation feel more intimate than it should have.

At one point she pressed a gothic paperback into his chest and said, “This one feels like your type.”

Henry looked down at it. “Because it’s depressing.”

“Because it’s serious and haunted and someone on the cover looks like they haven’t slept in six months.”

He gave her a flat look. “That could describe you during finals.”

Y/N smiled. “That’s because I learned from the best.”

His hand found her waist briefly as they moved past each other in the aisle, just the lightest touch, the sort that would have felt accidental to anyone else. Not to her.

They ended up in different sections only once. It wasn’t really intentional. More like the natural drift of a bookstore, Henry drawn toward essays and literary criticism, Y/N toward fiction and art books and a low shelf half-hidden near the back.

As he walked away, she pinched his butt.

Henry stopped mid-step and looked back at her over his shoulder with immediate offense.

Y/N smiled angelically. “What?”

“That is not behavior suited to a bookstore.”

“It suited me just fine.”

He stared at her for one beat longer, then shook his head and kept walking, though the look he gave her promised he was storing that away for later.

Y/N turned toward the shelf opposite his and crouched to look at a row of novels, still smiling to herself.

That was when a voice beside her said, “You looking for something good?”

She glanced up.

A guy around her age stood a few feet away holding a book in one hand, all easy smile and slightly too much confidence. Not unattractive. Just very obviously the kind of man who assumed a woman alone in a bookstore was an invitation.

Y/N straightened a little. “I found some things.”

He glanced at the shelf, then back at her, smile widening. “Can I make a recommendation anyway?”

Y/N almost laughed. Still, she kept her voice polite. “That’s nice, but I’m here with someone.”

The guy lifted a shoulder. “Boyfriend?”

Y/N smiled faintly. “Something like that.”

He opened his mouth like he meant to keep trying anyway. He never got the chance.

Because Henry appeared at her side with the kind of timing that was almost predatory. Not rushed. Worse. Controlled.

He stepped in close enough that his body nearly brushed hers, one hand settling low and possessive at her waist before sliding around just enough to pull her fully against his side. The movement was calm, deliberate, unmistakable.

Y/N felt the shift in him immediately. His face stayed composed. His hand did not. It held her there with quiet certainty, fingers spread warm against her like he was making a point with pressure instead of volume.

“Did you find something?” Henry asked her.

The question was for her. Everything else was for the man standing in front of them.

Y/N looked up at him, already delighted by the tone under all that calm. “A few things.”

Henry’s eyes dropped briefly to the stack in her arms. “Good.”

Then he looked at the other man. And this time there was no softness in it. Not open hostility. Not enough to cause a scene. Just a level, unreadable stare and the kind of male certainty that said, You are standing too close to something that is not yours.

The guy’s smile faltered. “I didn’t realize—” he started.

Henry cut in before Y/N could answer, his voice even. “Clearly.”

The word landed soft. It still hit like a slap.

Y/N went very still against him, mostly because she was trying not to smile too hard.

The other guy looked between them, suddenly aware of the hand at her waist, the age difference, the composure, the fact that Henry was not moving an inch to make this easier on him.

“Right,” the guy said. “Sorry.”

Henry said nothing. He didn’t need to.

Y/N, because she was slightly kinder than the man currently holding her like a quiet warning, gave a polite little smile. “Have a good day.”

The guy nodded too fast and disappeared down the next aisle.

The second he was gone, Henry’s hand stayed exactly where it was.

Y/N tilted her face up toward him. “That was intense.”

Henry looked down at her. “Was it?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t remove his hand. “He was bothering you.”

“Barely.”

“He kept talking after you turned him down.”

Y/N blinked once. There it was. Not just jealousy. Annoyance. The very specific kind Henry got when someone ignored a boundary she had already set.

Y/N’s smile softened, but only a little. “You sounded jealous.”

Henry’s jaw shifted once. “I sounded clear.”

“That too.”

His gaze dropped to her mouth, then lifted again. “Did you want me to let him keep trying?”

“No.”

“Then don’t complain about the method.”

That made her laugh softly.

She rested one hand lightly against his chest, feeling the tension still there under all his control. “I’m not complaining.”

“Good.”

His thumb moved once against her waist, a little firmer this time, like he was still shaking off the urge to do more than he already had.

Y/N looked at him with open amusement. “You really didn’t like that.”

“No.”

She bit back a grin. “Possessive.”

Henry’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Unavailable.”

Y/N’s brows lifted. “Oh?”

He held her gaze. “You were unavailable the moment you walked in here holding my hand.”

That sent a warm, dangerous thrill straight through her.

She laughed under her breath and leaned a little closer, just enough to make him feel it. “You know, that was kind of hot.”

Henry looked deeply unimpressed. “That was not the goal.”

“Liar.”

He let that pass.

But when they started walking again, he didn’t just take her hand this time. His hand settled at the small of her back and stayed there, guiding her through the aisles like he was not especially interested in leaving any room for misunderstanding.

Y/N smiled to herself, pleased enough that she got bold again.

She glanced up at him. “Still thinking about me pinching your butt?”

Henry looked down at her, expression unreadable in the way that should have warned her.

“Not anymore,” he said.

Y/N frowned. “What does that mean—”

His hand slipped lower for one swift second and squeezed her ass in firm retaliation. Hard enough to make her squeak.

Y/N jerked and looked at him in immediate shock. “Henry!”

He kept walking. Calm. Collected. Completely unrepentant.

“You started it,” he said.

Y/N stared at him, scandalized and delighted all at once, while Henry’s mouth twitched just enough to prove he was enjoying himself far more than he was willing to admit.

. . .

They ended up with a small stack between them by the time they reached the register.

Y/N carried The Bloody Chamber, The Bell Jar, and the ridiculous little paperback of Cape ghost stories she had absolutely talked him into. Henry had The Waves, Auden: Selected Poems, and the worn, beautiful copy of Jane Eyre tucked under one arm like it had already belonged to him before they found it.

The woman at the register looked over the books as they set them down.

“Well,” she said, glancing between them with a smile, “you two have excellent taste and at least one unhealthy relationship with melancholy.”

Y/N laughed immediately. “Sounds right.”

Henry set his hand lightly at the small of her back again while the woman rang them up. “Only one.”

The woman smiled at that and named the total.

Y/N reached for her bag. Henry was faster. Of course he was. He handed over cash before she could even get her wallet open.

Y/N turned to look at him in disbelief. “Wow.”

Henry didn’t look at her. “What?”

“That,” she said, slipping her wallet back with exaggerated slowness, “is such sugar daddy behavior.”

Henry’s hand paused on the counter. The cashier made a tiny sound that might have been a laugh she was trying to suppress.

Henry turned his head and looked at Y/N with immediate offense. “Do not call me that.”

Y/N smiled sweetly. “Why not?”

“Because it’s vulgar.”

“You just bought me books.”

“I bought us books.”

Y/N glanced down at the stack. “You bought me three of them.”

Henry took the receipt from the cashier with the dignity of a man being publicly wronged. “That is not the same thing.”

The woman handed over the bag and said, still smiling, “Enjoy your afternoon.”

Y/N took the bag before Henry could and grinned at him all the way to the door. “Thank you, my hot sugar—”

Henry opened the door for her and said low enough that only she could hear, “Finish that sentence and I’ll put you over my shoulder in the middle of Main Street.”

Y/N’s smile only widened. “So tempting, so possessive.”

“Yes.”

That shut her up for approximately two seconds.

Outside, the bell over the door gave a cheerful little jingle behind them. The street had gotten a little busier, couples, families, people drifting in and out of shops, the whole town moving at that easy Cape pace that made it feel like no one had anywhere urgent to be.

Y/N slipped her hand back into Henry’s automatically once they were outside. He let her. Of course he let her.

The bookstore bag swung lightly from her other hand as they started down Main Street toward lunch.

She looked inside the bag while they walked. “You know, buying me books and then threatening me in public is a very weird combination.”

Henry glanced down at her. “You invited the threat.”

“I made one little joke.”

“You called me a sugar daddy.”

Y/N laughed. “You hated that so much.”

“Yes.”

She leaned a little closer as they walked. “That’s why I said it.”

“I know.”

Y/N looked up at him, amused and pleased and still a little dazzled by how at ease he seemed here. “You really do spoil me.”

Henry’s mouth twitched. “You say that as if it surprises you.”

“It does a little.”

That seemed to catch his attention more than the joke had. He looked at her properly then, not just down in passing, but long enough that she felt it.

“It shouldn’t,” he said.

The answer warmed something in her chest before she could stop it. So obviously, she ruined the moment.

“You still paid way too fast,” she said. “That was strategic.”

Henry’s thumb moved over the back of her hand once. “You were going to argue.”

“Yes.”

“Exactly.”

Y/N smiled and looked down the street ahead of them, at the restaurant windows and awnings and the flashes of blue water visible at the end of certain side streets.

“What if I wanted to buy you books?”

“You did.”

She blinked. “What?”

Henry’s voice stayed dry. “You picked up Jane Eyre first.”

Y/N looked at him, caught. “That’s not—”

“It is.”

“I was just appreciating it.”

“You handed it to me.”

She stared at him, then laughed under her breath. “That’s annoyingly observant.”

“Yes.”

He said it so easily that she almost laughed again.

They walked a little farther in the soft salt air, the bookstore bag bumping lightly against her leg, their hands still linked between them. No one looking twice. No one caring. Just the street, the sunlight, and the strange sweetness of being able to drift toward lunch with nowhere else to hide and no reason to.

After a moment, Y/N tipped her head toward the bag. “Which one am I supposed to read first?”

Henry didn’t hesitate. “The Bloody Chamber.”

“That was fast.”

“You’ll like it.”

“I know I’ll like it. I want your reasoning.”

Henry looked at her sidelong. “It’s dark, clever, and far more dangerous than it appears at first glance.”

Y/N smiled slowly. “So… me.”

His mouth curved faintly. “Among other things.”

She squeezed his hand once. “And which one are you reading first.”

He considered that for half a beat. “Jane Eyre.”

Y/N lifted her brows. “Romantic.”

“Serious.”

“Romantic.”

Henry looked down at her. “You are impossible.”

“And yet you keep buying me things.”

His grip on her hand tightened just slightly. “Keep talking.”

That only made her smile brighter as they continued down Main Street toward lunch, the bag of books between them and the whole afternoon still waiting to be filled.

. . .

Lunch was at a little place halfway down Main Street with blue-painted trim, a chalkboard menu near the entrance, and windows thrown open just enough to let the ocean air roll through. It wasn’t as formal as dinner the night before, but it was still nice in that Cape way, sunlight on polished wood, white napkins, too many glass bottles lined up behind the counter, and the low comfortable noise of people who had nowhere urgent to be.

Henry held the door for her.

Y/N stepped inside first and paused only long enough to glance around before the hostess came toward them.

“Two?” she asked.

Henry’s hand was already low at her back again. “Yes.”

The hostess smiled and led them toward a table near the windows. Y/N didn’t miss the way Henry kept his hand there the whole time, not firm enough to steer her, just present enough to make her feel claimed in the nicest, hottest possible way.

When they reached the table, Henry pulled her chair out before she could touch it.

Y/N looked up at him, smiling. “You’re still in gentleman mode.”

Henry waited until she sat before taking the seat across from her. “You say that like it’s temporary.”

“It probably is.”

“No.”

That made her grin.

She picked up the menu, but mostly just because it seemed like the correct social thing to do. This was the kind of place where she always ended up getting the same thing anyway. In Boston. At diners. At little lunch places. Wherever she went.

Henry glanced at the menu for maybe three seconds. Then he looked at her. “Turkey sandwich. No tomato. Fries.”

Y/N blinked. “You are creepy.”

“You get it every time.”

“That is not true.”

Henry lifted one brow.

Y/N thought about it. “Okay. It’s mostly true.”

“Entirely true.”

She smiled and folded the menu shut. “Still creepy.”

The waitress came by with her pad ready, bright and easy in the way all Cape waitresses seemed to be.

“What can I get you two?”

Y/N opened her mouth. Henry beat her to it.

“She’ll have the turkey sandwich, no tomato, with fries.”

Y/N looked at him in open betrayal. “Excuse me.”

Henry didn’t even glance her way. “And coffee.”

Her mouth fell open. “How dare you.”

The waitress looked between them with a smile she was trying not to show too openly. “And for you, sir?”

Henry ordered something more respectable and less predictable than hers, plus another coffee for himself.

When the waitress left, Y/N narrowed her eyes. “You cannot just order for me.”

“I was correct.”

“That is not the point.”

“You were going to order the same thing.”

“That is also not the point.”

Henry reached for his water, entirely too calm. “Then what is the point?”

Y/N leaned forward a little. “The point is that I wanted the illusion of free will.”

That got a quiet, real laugh out of him.

She loved when that happened in public. Not because it was rare exactly. Because it belonged to her. This side of him, relaxed enough to laugh, comfortable enough to sit across from her in daylight and look openly pleased, felt like something she was only just getting to know.

Under the table, his foot brushed hers. Then, after a moment, his hand found her knee. Just warm and steady against the bare stretch of her leg under the table, his thumb moving once as if to remind himself she was there.

Y/N went a little still at that.

Because this was different from Boston too. In Boston, everything had been hidden in corners and after-hours rooms and half-stolen time. Here, he sat across from her by an open window in the middle of lunch, his hand resting possessively on her knee beneath the tablecloth like it belonged there. And God, she liked it. Probably too much.

She looked down at her water, smiling faintly to herself, then back up at him. “You know,” she said quietly, “your possessiveness is kind of a problem.”

Henry’s expression stayed calm. “Is it?”

“Yes.”

His thumb pressed once lightly against her knee. “You don’t look troubled.”

“That’s because I find it hot.”

That made something dark flicker in his eyes.

Y/N smiled a little wider. “And the jealousy too.”

“I’m not jealous.”

“No?” She tilted her head. “If looks could kill, that man would be dead in seconds.”

“He kept speaking to you after you said you were with someone.”

She rested her chin lightly in her hand, looking at him with open amusement now. “So.”

“So,” Henry said evenly, “he was either stupid or rude.”

Y/N laughed softly. “And?”

“And I don’t like either.”

That warmed her in places lunch had no business warming her.

She looked at him across the table, the rolled sleeves, the clean line of his forearms, the way one hand held his water glass while the other still rested on her knee under the table, and thought, not for the first time, that she was doomed. Not because he was jealous. Because he wore it so well. And because there was not a man alive who could make her want to leave him.

Well… Almost not a man alive.

Y/N’s mouth twitched.

Henry noticed immediately. “What?”

She smiled into her glass. “Nothing.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

Y/N looked up at him. “I was just thinking.”

“That is often unfortunate.”

“Shush.” She laughed. “I was thinking there is no man in the world who could make me leave you.”

Henry’s hand stilled on her knee. His gaze held hers.

Then Y/N added, with complete sincerity, “…Unless it was Michael Jackson.”

There was a beat of silence.

Henry looked at her with immediate disbelief. “Michael Jackson?”

“Yes.”

He frowned slightly. “I would’ve thought David Bowie.”

Y/N blinked. “What?”

Henry lifted his coffee cup. “You seem exactly like someone who would abandon her life for David Bowie.”

That made her laugh. “No.”

“No?”

“Only as the Goblin King.”

Henry stared at her.

Y/N shrugged, entirely serious. “That is a separate category.”

His mouth twitched despite himself. “Of course it is.”

“It is,” she insisted. “David Bowie as David Bowie? No. David Bowie in Labyrinth?” She lifted one shoulder. “That’s different.”

Henry leaned back in his chair, looking at her like he was trying to decide whether this made more or less sense than Michael Jackson.

“I see,” he said dryly. “So I’m competing with Michael Jackson and a fictional goblin monarch.”

“Yes.”

“That is humiliating.”

Y/N smiled sweetly. “You’re doing great, though.”

Henry’s thumb pressed once into her knee under the table, just enough to make her smile widen.

“You are impossible,” he murmured.

“And honest.”

“That remains unfortunate.”

Y/N took another sip of coffee, still smiling to herself. “You should be flattered.”

“Should I?”

“Yes. You made the list.”

Henry gave her a long look over the rim of his cup. “I am honored to place beneath Michael Jackson and fantasy David Bowie.”

Y/N laughed softly. “Not beneath.”

His brows lifted. “No?”

She leaned forward slightly, voice dropping with shameless warmth. “You’re in your own category.”

That made him go quiet for half a second. Then, very calmly, “Good answer.”

And his hand never once left her knee after that.

Their food arrived then, and Y/N smiled in immediate satisfaction when the plate set down in front of her was exactly what she always wanted, turkey sandwich, no tomato, fries, coffee. Henry noticed that too, of course. He looked at her face, then at the plate, and the smallest, most infuriatingly smug expression touched his mouth.

Y/N pointed at him with one fry. “Don’t.”

“I was saying nothing.”

“You were thinking smugly.”

“That isn’t a crime.”

“It should be.”

She took a bite, then another, and felt his hand finally leave her knee only when he needed both hands for his own meal. The absence was immediate enough to make her notice, which was annoying. Then, as if he knew exactly that she’d noticed it, his hand returned the second he no longer needed it. Warm. Casual. Possessive.

Y/N looked out the window at the bright stretch of Main Street beyond the glass and smiled to herself.

The lunch, the bookstore, the touch under the table, the ease of it all, it felt unreal in the gentlest way. Like she was finally getting to see the version of them that might have existed all along if the world had ever been simpler.

Across from her, Henry looked entirely too composed for a man whose hand was currently making it impossible for her to think straight.

And when she glanced up and caught him watching her over the rim of his coffee cup, she thought again, with full certainty, that no one else stood a chance. Not even close. Except Michael Jackson. And the Goblin King. Obviously.

. . .

By the time they got back to the inn, the late afternoon had softened into that lazy in-between hour where the sun was still up but everything already felt like evening.

The room was quiet when they stepped inside.

Henry went to the chair near the window almost immediately, one of the books from the bookstore already in hand within seconds, because apparently even on vacation he needed to look like a man in a painting every now and then. He loosened slightly into the chair, one ankle crossed over the other, the book open in one hand, the light from outside turning the edges of the room gold.

Y/N watched him for a second. Then she started changing. Not in a dramatic way. Just casually enough to make it worse.

She peeled off the dress from lunch and tossed it over the back of the chair at the foot of the bed, then reached into her bag for something easier, lighter, more suitable for staying in if staying in became the plan.

From the chair, Henry glanced up once. Then again.

Finally he said, without looking away from the page for more than a second, “Was there anywhere specific you wanted to go for dinner.”

Y/N paused with one hand inside her bag. Her eyes landed on the little bag of weed tucked along the side. Then she looked over at him.

Henry, still reading, or pretending to, looked far too calm for a man who had spent the afternoon being hot, possessive, and one beach suggestion away from losing all sense.

Y/N smiled slowly. “We could stay in.”

Henry’s eyes lifted from the page. “Could we?”

“Yes.” She pulled the little bag out and held it up between two fingers. “We could get something delivered.”

Henry looked at the bag. Then at her. Then back at the bag again with immediate suspicion.

“No.”

Y/N laughed softly. “That was fast.”

“It was meant to be.”

She moved to the bed and sat cross-legged near the middle of it, already reaching for the papers and tray she’d packed with it. “You say no like it means something.”

“It does mean something.”

“Mm.” She emptied a little onto the tray with practiced ease. “Does it?”

Henry kept the book open, but Y/N could feel the shift in his attention from across the room. He was no longer reading anything with actual comprehension. He was watching her through the edges of his supposed restraint.

“You are not doing that before dinner,” he said.

Y/N glanced up. “Why not?”

“Because I’d like one meal today in which you don’t spend the entire time making plans to seduce me.”

That made her grin. “You make it sound like a burden.”

Henry’s mouth twitched once, despite himself.

Y/N started rolling the joint, fingers deft and unbothered. “We could share it.”

“No.”

She looked up again. “You’re thinking about it.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

Henry turned a page he definitely had not been reading. “I am not.”

Y/N smiled, all false innocence. “You really should stop lying to me. It’s not flattering.”

His eyes finally lifted fully from the book, and the look there made her pulse jump immediately.

“Y/N.”

“Yes?”

She licked the paper edge and sealed it, then held the finished joint up with a little flourish.

“We could stay in,” she repeated. “Order dinner. Relax.” Her mouth curved, slower now, warmer. “And I promise we’ll share.”

Henry stared at her from the chair, book still open in his hand like a prop he’d forgotten to put down.

Then, because she loved him and also because she was a menace, she added, “Though I should warn you.”

His brows lifted faintly. “Should you?”

Y/N set the joint carefully aside and leaned back on one hand, looking at him in a way that made the room feel smaller.

“If we do,” she said, voice lowering just slightly, “I’m going to have a hard time keeping my hands to myself.”

That landed. Cleanly.

Henry went very still. Not shocked. Just entirely too attentive all at once.

His gaze moved over her where she sat on the bed, casual and not casual at all, and Y/N could practically watch the internal argument begin behind his eyes. Dinner. Restraint. Plans. Versus her. The room. The bag of weed. And the fact that she had just said that in a tone no man with blood in his body was meant to hear and ignore.

Y/N smiled to herself, pleased enough not to hide it.

From the chair, Henry closed the book very carefully and set it down beside him.

“That,” he said at last, voice low and maddeningly controlled, “does not help your case.”

Y/N tilted her head. “So there is a case.”

His mouth twitched once. “Unfortunately.”

She laughed softly, then reached for the joint again, rolling it between her fingers while the quiet between them warmed.

Outside the window, the Cape had gone soft with early evening light. Inside, Henry Creel was still pretending this was a normal conversation. And Y/N, sprawled on the bed with weed in her hand and absolutely no intention of behaving, knew exactly how long that pretense was likely to last.

Y/N took one look at him, one look at the closed book beside his chair, and decided she was not above emotional manipulation if it got her what she wanted.

She slid off the bed with the joint in hand and crossed to the window, already pushing it open wider to let the salt air drift in. The curtains shifted softly around her arms. Outside, the sky had gone honey-gold at the edges, fading slowly toward evening.

Behind her, Henry said nothing. Which only made her pout harder.

“You’re no fun,” she muttered.

“I’ve heard that before.”

Y/N glanced back over her shoulder. “And yet you keep refusing to improve.”

Henry stayed seated, one arm draped over the chair, watching her with that maddeningly unreadable expression he wore when he was trying not to give in too fast.

Y/N turned back to the window and leaned one shoulder against the frame, still pouty enough to mean it. “Fine.”

Henry’s voice stayed dry. “That sounds ominous.”

“It should.”

She looked at the joint, then back at him. “But don’t act surprised if I choose to lay in bed naked.”

That got him. Not dramatically. Just enough. A pause. A shift. The very small but very real collapse of whatever argument he’d been trying to maintain.

Y/N saw it immediately and smiled to herself before he could catch it.

From behind her came Henry’s voice, lower now. “That is not a reasonable response.”

Y/N turned around, feigning innocence. “To what?”

“To not smoking.”

She lifted one shoulder. “I’m just being honest about where the evening might take me.”

Henry stared at her. She stared back.

Then, because she knew she’d won but wanted the satisfaction of hearing it anyway, she tilted her head and asked, “So?”

He let the silence stretch just long enough to punish her for enjoying this.

Then: “One.”

Y/N blinked. “One what?”

“One with you.”

Her face brightened instantly. “Really?”

Henry gave her a look that clearly suggested she should not look that triumphant. “Do not enjoy this.”

“I’m absolutely enjoying this.”

“I can see that.”

Y/N smiled, soft and wicked and entirely too pleased with herself, and held the joint up in victory. “You know, for someone who says no so often, you’re actually very persuadable.”

Henry stood then, slow and deliberate, and came toward her. He stopped close enough that the open window breeze moved lightly between them.

“I am not persuadable,” he said.

Y/N lifted her brows. “No?”

“No.” His gaze dropped briefly to the joint, then back to her face. “I am making a poor decision because you are impossible.”

She grinned. “That’s still a yes.”

Henry took the joint from her fingers before she could say anything worse and looked down at it with long-suffering resignation.

Y/N watched him, delighted. “Aw. You’re going to smoke with me.”

Henry’s mouth twitched despite himself. “I’m going to regret smoking with you.”

“Probably.”

He glanced up at her. “Definitely.”

Y/N laughed softly, then leaned in just enough that her shoulder brushed his arm. “That’s okay. I’ll take care of you.”

That made his eyes narrow slightly. “That is not reassuring either.”

“It should be.”

Henry looked at her for one more second, then reached past her for the lighter. And the fact that he did it at all made her feel warm all over again.

Henry lit it by the open window, the evening air moving in around them in soft, salty currents while the flame flared briefly against the paper. He took the first pull like a man doing something he had already decided was a bad idea and was now committing to on principle.

Y/N watched him with entirely too much delight.

He exhaled slowly, gaze narrowing just a fraction as the smoke drifted out into the warm Cape dusk. Then he handed it to her.

Y/N took it with a smile that was impossible to hide, leaned against the window frame, and took her own hit with much more familiarity. By the time she gave it back, she already looked noticeably happier, softer around the edges, eyes brighter, shoulders looser, the pout from earlier transformed into full satisfaction.

“There,” she said, pleased. “That wasn’t so hard.”

Henry looked unconvinced. “It’s been thirty seconds.”

“And already you’re more fun.”

“I strongly doubt that.”

Y/N laughed under her breath and nudged his arm with hers. “Take another.”

He glanced down at the joint, then at her. “You’re very bossy for someone who just manipulated me into this.”

“You agreed.”

“Under duress.”

She smiled, warm and openly smug. “Still counts.”

Henry lifted the joint again, clearly intending to make his point by taking a modest, restrained pull and being done with it. Y/N caught the shape of it instantly and frowned.

“No, no. Make it more than one hit.”

His brows lifted. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“That is not how this works.”

“It is when I’m supervising.”

Henry looked at her with immediate offense. “You are not supervising.”

“I absolutely am.”

Y/N took the joint from his fingers again, took another hit herself, and passed it back with a little flourish. “Come on. We’re on vacation.”

Henry stared at her for one beat, then shook his head once and did exactly what she wanted anyway, taking another pull after the first and holding it just long enough for Y/N to know she’d won.

Her smile widened instantly. “There you go.”

He exhaled more slowly this time, eyes narrowing at her over the drift of smoke. “You’re far too happy about this.”

“Yes,” she said, without shame. “Because you’re smoking with me.”

Henry’s mouth twitched, betraying more than he meant it to.

Y/N leaned back against the window frame, watching him with clear affection and amusement while the room softened around them—the ocean air, the fading light, the open curtains, the bed waiting behind them.

She couldn’t stop smiling. And Henry, seeing that, took one more hit without needing to be told.

. . .

By the time the joint had burned down to a crooked little ember in the tray, Y/N was no longer pretending she wasn’t watching him.

She sat sideways near the open window, one knee tucked under her, the last of the smoke drifting out into the dark Cape air while she studied Henry with open fascination.

He was trying to act composed. That was the first tell. Trying. Because this was only his second time smoking, and whatever calm front he was attempting had the slightly delayed, overly careful quality of a man who was not nearly as in control as he wanted to look.

His gaze kept lingering a fraction too long. His mouth twitched at things that weren’t that funny. And when he finally sat down at the edge of the bed, he did it with the measured care of someone making sure the floor was exactly where he expected it to be.

Y/N smiled to herself.

Henry caught it immediately. “What?”

“You’re high.”

“No, I’m not.”

That made her laugh softly. “Henry.”

He looked at her with the gravest dignity a slightly stoned man had ever managed. “I’m perfectly capable of sitting down.”

“You looked like you were negotiating with the bed.”

“It’s a very soft bed.”

“That is not a defense, baby.”

His expression shifted, somewhere between offense and amusement, and Y/N felt her whole body warm with affection.

Because he was high. Because she had gotten him high. Because he was here with her, in this room, on this trip, being a little less controlled than usual and still somehow entirely himself.

She got up from the chair and crossed to him without hurry. Henry watched her approach, gaze slower now, more openly attentive.

Y/N stopped between his knees and tilted her head. “You’re cute like this.”

His brows lowered immediately. “Don’t say that.”

She smiled. “Why not?”

“Because I’m not.”

Y/N leaned down and kissed his cheek. Henry went still. Not rejecting it. Just feeling it.

She kissed the other cheek next, softer this time, then let her mouth brush the line of his jaw.

“I think you are,” she murmured.

His hands came to her waist automatically, warm and steady even through the haze of the joint. “You are going to misuse this situation.”

“I would never.”

Henry made a quiet, unimpressed sound.

Y/N smiled against his skin and kissed lower, just beneath his ear, then at the side of his neck to see what would happen. The answer was immediate. His grip on her waist tightened. There. That was what she wanted. Not just to tease him. To watch the reaction. To feel the exact second he stopped trying to act unaffected and started paying attention with his whole body.

She kissed the side of his throat again, slower now.

Henry exhaled once, deeper than before.

“Y/N.”

The way he said her name had changed. Lower. Rougher. Less patient.

She drew back just enough to look at him, eyes bright. “What?”

His gaze held hers for one heavy second. “You know what.”

Maybe she did. Or maybe she just liked making him say things.

Either way, she shifted a little closer, letting one leg slide alongside his, and his hands spread more firmly at her waist as if he’d given up on pretending he wasn’t affected.

“You were worried I wouldn’t keep my hands to myself,” she said softly.

Henry’s eyes dropped to her mouth. “That concern remains.”

Y/N smiled and climbed fully onto his lap.

He took her weight without hesitation, hands immediately settling at her hips in a grip that was more instinct than thought now. She could feel the heat of him through the thin fabric between them, the room gone quieter all around them except for the far-off sound of the ocean and their own breathing.

This close, she could see it properly, how high he was, yes, but also how much he wanted her. How little distance there was now between thought and reaction.

She touched his face lightly, thumb at his jaw. “Still no regrets?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

His gaze stayed on hers. “How difficult you intend to be.”

Y/N laughed softly and leaned in to kiss him.

This one started slow. Not innocent, not exactly, but slow enough to feel deliberate. His mouth was warm, a little softer than usual, his hands firm at her hips as if grounding himself with her there. Y/N kissed him again and again until the space between them disappeared entirely, until her fingers were in his hair and his mouth had gone from careful to hungry without either of them naming the change.

When she finally drew back for air, Henry followed just enough that his mouth brushed hers again.

Y/N smiled against it. “There you are.”

His answer was to kiss her harder.

And after that, the room seemed to narrow all at once, down to the bed, the window, the salt air, the shape of him under her hands and the low quiet of his voice whenever he said her name. Whatever was left of the evening slipped steadily out of conversation and into something else.

The kiss deepened between one breath and the next, and Y/N felt the shift in him, the careful composure cracking, the hunger bleeding through. She let herself sink into it, her fingers threading through his hair, soft and dark and slightly tangled from the salt air.

He made a sound against her mouth, low and unguarded, and she felt it all the way through her chest.

Henry’s hands moved from her hips to her thighs, sliding up the bare skin beneath the hem of her shorts. His touch was deliberate, still with that weed-slowed precision, every inch of contact leaving a trail of heat. He broke the kiss just long enough to press his mouth to the corner of her jaw, then lower, down the column of her throat.

“You smell like outside,” he murmured against her skin, his voice rough-edged. “Like the ocean. Like the night.”

“You sound like a poet when you’re high.”

“I sound like a man losing his mind.” His teeth grazed her collarbone, just hard enough to make her gasp. “There’s a difference.”

She laughed, breathless, and undid the buttons on his shirt almost immediately. He shifted his arms, letting her push the fabric off him and toss it somewhere behind her. The movement left them chest to chest, his skin warm against hers through the thin cotton of her tank top, and she could feel his heart beating, fast, steady, alive.

Henry’s hands found the hem of her top next. He didn’t pull it off immediately. Instead, he slid his palms underneath, flat against her sides, thumbs brushing the underside of her ribs. His eyes searched hers, dark and hazy and full of something that made her chest ache.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, and the words came out raw, unguarded. “I don’t say it enough. I think it all the time, but I don’t—”

She kissed him quiet, soft and long, and he let her.

When she broke away, she pulled the tank top over her head herself, letting it fall. His gaze dropped to her bare chest, and his breath caught in a way that made her feel powerful and seen all at once.

“Wow,” he whispered.

She guided his hand to her breast, and he cupped her with a reverence that was almost unbearable. His thumb brushed over her nipple, once, twice, and she shivered, her hips pressing forward against him of their own accord.

He noticed.

His mouth curved into something almost smirk-like, but softer. “Feeling everything?”

“Shut up,” she managed, but it came out breathless.

He leaned in, took her nipple into his mouth, and she forgot how to form words entirely.

The world dissolved into sensation, the wet heat of his tongue, the scrape of his teeth, the way his hand mirrored the motion on her other breast. She rocked against him, the friction of him against her in the thin fabric of her shorts was not nearly enough, and he groaned, his grip tightening.

“Bed,” he said, the word short and strained. “Get on the bed.”

She didn’t argue.

She slid off his lap, crawled backward onto the mattress, and watched him stand. He unbuckled his belt with movements that were slower than usual, less practiced, but still deliberate, Henry Creel even when high, still in control even when he was falling apart. His pants dropped, then his boxers, and he stood there for a moment, fully naked, letting her look.

She did. Thoroughly.

He was half-hard already, and the sight of him, the slight flush across his skin from the weed and the wanting, made her mouth go dry.

“You’re staring,” he said.

“So are you.”

He climbed onto the bed, covering her body with his, and the weight of him pressed her into the mattress. The contact, chest to chest, hip to hip, thigh to thigh, was overwhelming in the best way. She could feel every point where they touched, amplified, electric.

He kissed her again, deep and slow, and his hand slid down her stomach, beneath the waistband of her shorts. His fingers found her wet, already slick, and he groaned against her mouth.

“Fuck, you’re ready.”

“I’ve been ready since the joint.”

His chuckle was low and breathless. “Good.”

He hooked his thumbs into her shorts and panties together and pulled them down her legs. She lifted her hips to help, and then she was naked beneath him, open and waiting, her legs falling apart without being asked.

Henry looked at her like she was something he’d spent his whole life learning to name.

He settled between her thighs, his cock pressing against her entrance, not pushing in yet, just resting there, the heat of him a promise. His forehead dropped to hers, his breath ragged.

“I want to stay here forever,” he whispered. “Right here. Right like this. Just…feeling you.”

She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him closer. “Then stay, professor.”

He kissed her once more, soft, and then he pushed inside.

The sensation was everything the weed had promised it would be, slow, deep, impossibly full. She felt every inch of him entering her, the stretch and the slide, the way her body opened to accommodate him. He paused when he was fully seated, his jaw clenched, his eyes squeezed shut.

“Don’t move,” he gasped. “Just…give me a second.”

She held still, her hands on his back, her legs around his hips. She could feel him pulsing inside her, could feel the tremor running through his muscles as he fought to maintain control.

“Henry.”

He opened his eyes. They were dark, dilated, vulnerable.

“Take your time,” she said softly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He breathed out, long and slow, and then he began to move.

The rhythm he set was unhurried, almost lazy, deep thrusts that dragged along her walls, pulling out until just the tip remained, then pushing back in with a fullness that made her gasp every time. His hips rolled against hers, grinding, searching, and she matched him as best she could, her hands sliding down to grip his ass.

He watched her face the whole time, cataloging every reaction, and his own expression shifted with hers, pleasure, wonder, something close to reverence.

“You feel so good,” he murmured, his voice a low, broken rasp. “So fucking good. I can’t…I don’t want to stop. I never want to stop.”

“Then don’t.”

He lowered himself, his chest pressing against hers, his mouth finding her ear. “I love the sounds you make. I love the way you say my name when you’re close. I love—” He thrust deeper, harder, and her breath caught. “I love everything about this. About you. About the way you let me have you.”

She turned her head, caught his mouth with hers, and the kiss was messy, desperate, full of teeth and tongue and the taste of the salt air still clinging to his skin.

His hand slid between them, found her clit, and he circled it with the same slow, deliberate rhythm as his hips. The double sensation pushed her toward the edge, and she broke the kiss to gasp, her back arching off the bed.

“That’s it,” he whispered. “Right there. I can feel you tightening around me. You’re close, aren’t you?”

She nodded, unable to speak, her fingers digging into his shoulders.

“I want to feel it. I want to feel you come on my cock. Let go for me. Let yourself go.”

The words, combined with the persistent pressure of his thumb and the deep, steady rhythm of his thrusts, sent her over. She came with a cry that was half his name, half something wordless, her body clenching around him in waves that went on and on.

He groaned, low and guttural, and kept moving through it, his hips stuttering as he followed her over the edge. She felt him pulse inside her, felt the hot rush of his release, and she held him tighter, pulling him deeper.

When it was over, he collapsed against her, his weight a comfort, his breath hot against her neck. They lay there, tangled and slick and still joined, the only sounds their ragged breathing and the distant crash of the ocean.

After a long moment, Henry lifted his head and looked at her. His eyes were glassy, his hair mussed, his mouth soft and kiss-swollen.

He smiled, slow and genuine, and settled his cheek against her chest, his arm banded around her waist, his body still half inside her. The weed hummed through her veins, softening the edges of the room until everything was warm and blurred and perfect.

She stroked his hair, and he sighed, content.

And outside, the ocean kept its steady rhythm, patient and endless, like they had all the time in the world.

The weed hummed low in their bloodstreams, softening the edges of the room but sharpening every sensation into something almost unbearable. Henry was still half-hard inside her, his weight a warm pressure against her thighs, and when she shifted beneath him, the friction drew a shudder from both of them.

He lifted his head, eyes dark and glassy, mouth wet from her skin. “I’m not done with you.”

The words came out rough, scraped raw by the pleasure still echoing through him. Y/N felt the truth of them in the way his cock twitched inside her, already stirring back to fullness. She tightened her inner muscles deliberately, watching his jaw clench.

“Good,” she breathed. “Because I’m not done with you either.”

He kissed her again, deeper this time, his tongue sliding against hers with a lazy, thorough hunger. His hips began to move, small, grinding motions at first, just enough to remind her he was still there. Still inside her. Still wanting.

She felt him grow hard again, inch by inch, the stretch of him refilling her until she was gasping into his mouth. The sensation was doubled, heightened, every nerve ending alive and singing from the weed, from the aftershocks of her first orgasm still trembling through her.

“I can feel you dripping around me,” Henry murmured against her lips. “So wet. You’re making a mess of the sheets.”

“Then clean it up,” she whispered.

His laugh was a low, dark thing. He pulled out slowly, the drag of his cock along her sensitive walls making her whimper, and then he shifted lower.

His mouth found her cunt before she could brace for it, hot and wet and devouring. He licked into her with long, broad strokes of his tongue, collecting the evidence of their first joining, groaning at the taste of himself mixed with her.

Y/N’s hands fisted in the sheets, her hips rocking against his face. “Henry—”

He hummed against her clit, sending a jolt of electricity through her. “You wanted me to clean it up,” he said, his voice muffled but clear. “I’m cleaning it up.”

He spread her wider with his thumbs, burying his face deeper, and that’s when she felt it, the drag of stubble against her inner thigh. He hadn’t shaved. Maybe he’d forgotten, maybe he’d been too distracted by the thought of getting her into bed, but the rough texture scraped against her sensitive skin as he moved, and a fresh wave of heat crashed through her.

Fuck. The sensation was so raw, so masculine, the contrast of his soft tongue against her clit and the abrasive bite of his unshaven jaw against the tender flesh of her thigh made her gasp. She could feel the reddening mark he was leaving without even looking. It shouldn’t have been so hot. It was.

She threaded her fingers through his hair, pulling him harder against her, and he obliged with a low growl that vibrated straight through her core. The stubble rasped against her again as he turned his head slightly, his nose nuzzling her folds, and her hips bucked involuntarily.

He didn’t stop until she was trembling on the verge of another climax, her thighs clamped around his head, her breath coming in short, desperate gasps. The scrape of his jaw against her inner thigh was a constant, grounding friction, a reminder of how much he wanted her, how little he’d bothered to prepare because he’d been so focused on getting inside her.

Then he pulled back, crawled up her body, and slid into her again in one smooth, deep thrust.

She gasped his name.

The angle was different this time, deeper, somehow, hitting a spot that made stars burst behind her eyelids. He set a rhythm that was faster than before, less controlled, his hips slapping against hers with a wet, obscene sound that filled the room alongside their ragged breathing.

“Look at me, sweetheart,” he demanded, his voice breaking.

She forced her eyes open. His face was flushed, his pupils blown wide, a bead of sweat trailing down his temple. He looked ruined. He looked like he was barely holding on.

“I want to watch you come apart again,” he said, each word punctuated by a thrust. “I want to feel you clamp down on my cock until I can’t think. Until there’s nothing left but you and me and this.”

His hand found her clit again, rubbing tight circles in time with his strokes. The dual pressure was too much, exactly enough, and she felt herself climbing toward the edge with a speed that made her dizzy.

“Come for me,” he whispered, his forehead against hers. “Come on my cock. Let me feel it.”

She shattered.

The orgasm tore through her like the tide, relentless and overwhelming. She heard herself crying out, felt her body arching off the bed, her inner walls clenching around him in wave after wave. Henry groaned, long and low, and drove into her through the contractions, his own release triggered by the vice grip of her pleasure.

He came with his mouth on hers, swallowing her sounds, his hips stuttering as he flooded her with heat. The sensation of him pumping into her, still coming, still moving, extended her climax until she was boneless and trembling beneath him.

When it was over, he collapsed on top of her, his weight a grounding anchor. They lay there, slick and breathless, the room smelling of sex and salt air and the faint ghost of weed smoke.

After a long, charged silence, Henry shifted just enough to look at her. His gaze was softer now, but still sharp with want.

“Again?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

Y/N laughed, weak and amazed, and pulled him down for another kiss. “Give me five minutes.”

He smiled against her mouth, his hand already sliding down her side, tracing the curve of her hip. “I’ll give you three.”

Outside, the ocean kept its rhythm. Inside, they started building a new one.

. . .

Y/N woke first again.

At first she didn’t open her eyes. She just lay there under the soft weight of the sheets, half-drifting in that warm, hazy space between sleep and waking while the room stayed quiet around her. Then she tried to move. And immediately regretted every decision she had made the night before.

A small, deeply offended sound escaped her before she could stop it.

Everything ached. Not badly. Not painfully, exactly. Just thoroughly. The kind of full-body soreness that came from a night with entirely too much enthusiasm and not nearly enough self-preservation. Her thighs protested first, then her hips, then muscles in places she felt were frankly none of anyone’s business.

Y/N opened one eye and stared at the ceiling.

“Wow,” she whispered to absolutely no one.

Beside her, Henry was still asleep, one arm flung loosely over the sheet, hair a mess against the pillow, mouth softened by sleep in a way she always found unfair.

Y/N looked at him for a long second. Then, because apparently she was incapable of learning, she smiled.

She considered getting up. Coffee sounded good. The ocean sounded good. Lying dramatically in the sun and doing nothing sounded incredible. So she made the mistake of trying to sit up.

The second she moved more than three inches, her body objected so sharply that she froze halfway there and let out another soft, scandalized noise.

“No,” she muttered, and lowered herself right back down into the bed.

That was enough ambition for one morning.

She shifted carefully onto her back again, pulled the sheet higher over herself, and decided that if the universe wanted her vertical today, it should have considered that before giving her Henry Creel and two uninterrupted weeks at the Cape.

The mattress dipped slightly beside her.

Y/N turned her head.

Henry was awake now, not fully upright yet, just blinking the sleep out of his eyes and looking at her with the slow recognition of someone coming back to himself in pieces.

For one second he just watched her. Then his gaze sharpened slightly.

“What was that sound?”

Y/N looked offended. “Nothing.”

Henry’s brows lifted. “That did not sound like nothing.”

She stared at him. “I’m being brave.”

That made the corner of his mouth move.

He pushed himself up onto one elbow, sheet low on his hips, and looked at her more closely. “You tried to get up.”

Y/N narrowed her eyes. “I don’t like how well you know me.”

“You made it halfway.”

“I made it far enough to learn something.”

Henry’s expression stayed suspiciously calm. “And what did you learn?”

Y/N glanced at the ceiling like she was gathering herself for a formal announcement. “That I live here now.”

That got a real laugh out of him. Sleep-rough, low, and warm enough that she felt it somewhere stupidly soft in her chest.

He reached over and brushed a hand lightly down her arm. “Is it that bad?”

“Yes,” she said immediately. “I can barely stand.”

Henry looked at her with entirely too much satisfaction for a man who should have had the decency to look at least a little apologetic.

Y/N caught it at once. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re thinking smugly.”

“That may be true.”

She made a face and shifted one inch under the sheet, then stopped because that, too, turned out to be a terrible choice.

Henry noticed the second stillness that followed. His hand moved to her waist, gentler now, thumb brushing once over skin hidden by the sheet.

“You should have stretched.”

Y/N turned her head and looked at him like he was insane. “After?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Henry’s mouth twitched again.

She glared at him. “This is your fault.”

“That seems unfair.”

“It is completely fair.”

He leaned a little closer, gaze dropping over her face, her hair spread over the pillow, the stubborn, sleepy pout she knew was there and couldn’t quite fix.

Then, quieter, “Do you want coffee?”

Y/N closed her eyes for one second, considering the effort involved in wanting anything. “Yes,” she said at last. “But I don’t want to move.”

“That sounds like a problem.”

“That sounds like your problem.”

Henry looked at her for a beat. Then, because apparently he was choosing peace this morning, he bent and kissed her forehead.

Not teasing. Not smug. Just soft.

“I can get coffee,” he murmured.

Y/N opened her eyes again and looked up at him. “And breakfast?”

Henry’s brows lifted. “And breakfast.”

“And maybe pain relief.”

“You are exaggerating.”

“I’m not,” she said. “I’ve been through something.”

That made him laugh again, quieter this time.

Then his hand slid under the sheet to her hip, not starting anything, not yet, just resting there warm and familiar. “You seemed very enthusiastic about going through it.”

Y/N’s mouth fell open. “That is rude.”

“It’s true.”

She stared at him, scandalized, and Henry had the nerve to look even more awake now, more amused, more himself by the second.

Y/N pointed one accusing finger at his chest. “You are enjoying this too much.”

“Yes.”

She dropped her hand back to the bed with a sigh. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No,” she admitted, still staring at the ceiling. “Unfortunately.”

Henry shifted higher against the headboard and looked down at her with that softened morning face she liked too much.

“Stay there,” he said.

Y/N turned her head toward him. “That was already the plan.”

His hand moved once more at her waist, then slipped away as he sat up fully.

The sheet fell lower on him and Y/N, despite herself and despite the fact that her body still felt like it had been professionally dismantled, looked.

Henry caught it immediately.

“You can barely stand,” he said.

Y/N blinked at him. “I can still look.”

That made his mouth twitch one last time before he reached for his glasses on the nightstand.

And while he got himself together to go downstairs for coffee, Y/N stayed exactly where she was, sunlight warming the sheets, the ocean somewhere beyond the window, and the unmistakable soreness of the morning after making it very clear that the Cape was already doing exactly what it was supposed to do.

Henry got dressed slowly, still a little rough around the edges from sleep, pulling on yesterday’s jeans and a clean shirt while the room stayed soft with morning light and the sound of the ocean beyond the window.

Y/N watched him from the bed, still half-buried in the sheets and making no real effort to pretend she wasn’t looking.

When he reached for his razor from the toiletry bag, she immediately said, “Don’t.”

Henry glanced over. “Don’t what?”

“Shave.”

His brows lifted slightly. “No.”

Y/N shifted carefully against the pillows and winced only a little this time. “Leave the stubble.”

Henry looked at her for one beat too long, and the corner of his mouth moved like he knew exactly why.

Y/N narrowed her eyes. “Don’t be smug.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

He set the razor back down anyway.

Y/N smiled, satisfied, and let her head sink back against the pillow. She could still remember the feel of that stubble against the inside of her thigh last night, the scrape of it, the way it had made every nerve in her body wake up at once.

Henry buttoned his shirt with infuriating calm. “Are you planning to move at all today?”

Y/N gave him a flat look from the bed. “Eventually.”

“That sounds doubtful.”

“I said eventually.” She adjusted the sheet higher over herself with great dignity. “Once I have coffee.”

Henry nodded once. “Reasonable.”

“And some ibuprofen.”

That got him. Not a laugh exactly, but enough of one to warm his face.

“Ah,” he said. “So we’re admitting injuries now.”

Y/N stared at him in betrayal. “How rude.”

“It’s called an observation.”

“It’s rude.”

Henry crossed back toward the bed, glasses in hand now, and sat on the edge beside her just long enough to look down at her properly, hair a mess, cheeks warm from sleep, still refusing to fully sit up on principle.

“You were very enthusiastic,” he said quietly.

Y/N’s mouth fell open. “You are impossible in the morning.”

Henry put his glasses on. “And yet.”

She made a face at him, but there was no real heat in it.

He leaned down and kissed her forehead, then the corner of her mouth, softer this time, more apology than teasing.

“I’ll bring coffee,” he murmured.

“And breakfast.”

“And ibuprofen.”

“Yes.”

Y/N looked up at him for one more second, the light catching in his glasses now, the stubble still there just like she wanted, his whole face softened by the fact that there was nowhere urgent for either of them to be.

“I love you,” she said. Simple. Sleepy. True.

Henry’s expression changed in that small, immediate way it always did when she caught him off guard with tenderness.

His hand came up and brushed lightly through her hair.

“I know,” he said softly.

Y/N smiled faintly. “That’s it?”

Henry leaned down and kissed her once more, just enough to make up for it. “I love you too.”

That settled warm in her chest.

Then he stood, reached for the room key, and gave her one last look before heading for the door.

“Try not to fall apart while I’m downstairs.”

Y/N let her eyes drift shut again against the pillow. “No promises.”

Henry’s quiet laugh followed him out of the room.

And left alone with the soft light, aching limbs, and the memory of his mouth and hands from the night before still written all over her body, Y/N decided she could survive exactly as she was for a little while longer, so long as he came back quickly with coffee.

. . .

taglist, •o+*.

@dollyvuu, @onmymymyway, @edb954,

@nxrdamp, @darleneh, @libellulaladepressa, @starrkai, @sageandrosemary, @sillygoober1111, @arielsplanet, @starryeddie, @saturnschaoticlover, @jeannotjorts, @lilpeelilpoo, @through-the-looking--glass, @knin3, @talkativecarnation, @sugurusgyall,

@maguibummi, @soapyeaton,

@sluttysnowangel666, @fixation-station, @abcdetg1234abc321, @munsonsquinn,

@aureliaborea, @niahzzz, @trentknd, @unrequitedgalaxies, @mrscreel, @magicalmorg, @carmillastomb, @randomuser0609, @henrycreelsbelt, @missie99, @sage-babydoll, @piinkpony, @hoeandslut, @cannibalcoyote, @nijiroswife, @dallzzxx, @nutcrackerr, @nocasdatsgay, @auxcordlawd, @kitzyx, 

Stay- Ghost

Everything is Romantic (Reimagined)- Alina Kay

Darkness At The Heart Of My Love- Ghost

Judas- Lady Gaga

Sparks (Dakota's Version) (you may have to go to youtube for this one)- Coldplay

LOVE AGAIN- ASHWARYA

Dracula- Tame Impala

Do I Wanna Know? (Live At the BBC)- Hozier

Zombie- YUNGBLUD

Hymn To Virgil- Hozier

I'm Tired- Labrinth and Zendaya

Lavender Haze (Acoustic Version)- Taylor Swift

De Selby (part 2)- Hozier

War Of Hearts- Ruelle

Ghosts- Michael Jackson

My Strange Addiction- Billie Eilish

Threatened- Michael Jackson

Some Type Of Skin- AURORA

Waiting For Your Love- Jamie Campbell Bower ;)

Closer- Nine Inch Nails

Come Along- Cosmo Sheldrake

Hey Angel- One Direction

Orchestrated, Wet, Verboten, Dream Boy- Sofia Isella

Oxytocin- Billie Eilish

What Was I Made For?- Billie Eilish

Heaven- Julia Michaels

Him & I- G-Eazy and Halsey

I Wanna Be Yours- Arctic Monkeys

Problems- Mother Mother

Let The World Burn- Chris Gray

BLUE- Billie Eilish

The energy in the rainbow room was wrong.

Something was weighing through every atom of the air, tight and alive, pressing into your neck.

It wasn't the children. It wasn't the spinning tops swirling on their pointed ends on their own. It wasn't the blocks levitating a foot off the ground, or the toy cars moving along the rainbow lines by themselves.

It was Henry.

He was too rigid. Standing at the wall like a mannequin painted white, pretending to be a man. The usual thrum of calm energy he carried was fraught. His gaze remained locked onto an invisible point in front of him, swimming, sinking somewhere the light couldn't reach.

You sank down at the chess table and plucked the black rook off the board, holding it between your thumb and finger, surveying the carved notches. You pushed your energy into it like pointed tendrils until it slipped from your grip, levitating obediently.

The further it went the heavier it became, and by the time you had it floating in front of Henry's face you were starting to sweat with effort. He stared at it, and for a moment he looked even more tortured. Slowly he took it in his long, pale fingers.

When he finally he glanced over you nodded towards the board, swiping the thick blood trail from your nose.

He paced over in low, careful steps. As if you were a strange, rabid thing he was trying to avoid noticing him.

“Why do you look like that?” You asked as he slid into his chair.

He didn’t look at you. His finger pushed a white pawn forward two squares. “Like what?”

“Tortured.”

“I don't look-”

“Yes, you do. What happened?”

“Nothing.” A lie. Perfectly clean and perfectly practiced.

A thread of anxiety wound through your ribs. You didn’t take your eyes off him as your fingers slid a black pawn forward.

“You’re going to start the game by lying to me?”

He didn’t answer, just stared at the board like he was trying to burn a hole through it. You reached across and brushed a finger over his knuckle.

“Hen-”

He flinched away, and your stomach sank into the floor.

“Tell me the truth.”

“I am.” Another lie, far less clean.

He pushed a single finger into another pawn, sliding it across the board, still not looking at you.

“No you're not.” You were irked now, your voice tight.

“Please, just play the game.” He muttered.

“Like you're doing to me right now?” You huffed.

His eyes flicked up finally, defensively. “I’m serious, Nineteen.”

“Okay, Peter.” You said irritably, your eyes narrowing.

He pushed another pawn forward, deliberately slowly.

“How’s your hand?” He nodded down at it, resting next to the board.

The bandages had been removed, but two of your fingers still sat rigidly in a hard splint and tape.

“Don’t change the subject.” You slid your hand into your lap.

He scraped another piece across the board, choosing silence. You surrendered with a sigh.

“Thoroughly stepped on.”

“That’s not funny.” His eyes deepened with a sea of grief he couldn’t contain, one that crashed waves into your own and made a sick guilt rise through your gut.

“Right, I’m sorry.” You said softly. “Bad joke.”

He kept his eyes low on the board, every inch of him strained, as if trying desperately to keep every piece of himself in place.

“It’s getting better. This will be off in a few days.”

He nodded vacantly, fingers sliding a knight across the board. You looked up at the camera, blinking ominously red in the corner, steel sentinel that it was.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong or not?” You asked on a breath, face tilted down towards the board as you advanced your piece to capture one of his pawns.

He hung on your words before his own voice drifted low and soft across the chequered veneer.

“Nothing is-”

“Bullshit.” You spat, voice furiously low. “You're lying to me.”

“Please, just drop it.” His eyes were low and frayed in an way that made your neck tighten with anxiety.

“If you won't tell me here, then meet me somewhere. Or I'll visit you, later-”

“No.” He said, too quickly. “Don’t. Don’t visit me.”

You felt a painful twist pull through you. “What?”

“I - I don’t want you to.”

His words hit like ice water, surging through each ventricle of your heart as you stared, stunned. You were wordless for long enough that his eyes drew up into your face to study your unusually silent reaction.

“Oh.” Was all you managed, your voice flat, your eyes gone and unfocused into the distance.

“It’s just - you shouldn’t-” He mumbled, avoiding your gaze again.

The agony turn into a hot pulse of irritation.

“No, I get it. You only want me when it suits you, right? You only want to be honest with me when it suits you.”

“It’s not like that, Nineteen-”

“Save it.” You spat. “I won’t visit you. Let me know if you decide I’m worth your time again.”

You smacked his white rook off the board and his eyes followed it as it tumbled to the floor. You stood up, chair legs scraping over tile, heart pounding with anger and sadness and a small, pathetic beat of embarrassment.

“Nineteen-”

“No more games. That's what you promised.” You hissed, turning on your heels and striding off out of the rainbow room.

You could feel Henry’s eyes on you as you went, boring blue into the back of your head.

You were so worked up you didn’t even touch your bedroom door. You forced it open from down the hall, the energy leaving your fingertips in a rush. It slammed open, whacking off the wall behind it, filling the corridor with a sudden burst of noise.

You didn’t know what you were. Angry, upset, embarrassed. You felt like a toy that had rusted and been thrown away. He lied to you. He didn’t want you to visit him. He barely spoke to you, he barely looked at you.

Did he not want you anymore?

But why ever would he? You were nothing but a dark trench of a person. Damp, rotten on the inside.

Could he feel the rot? Had he tasted it every time your mouth had been graced with his, turning his mouth rancid? Tears began to pool in the corners of your eyes, and it only made you angrier.

The anger crested a wave over your sadness, drowning it, making the lights above you whirr and hiss. Rejection was a familiar ache, sitting in your bones like you’d awakened it from a long slumber.

How dare he?

You paced around your room like a madwoman, feet slapping over the floor. Then, movement caught your eye in the sliver where your door hadn't fully closed on the rebound. A white rush that moved in perfect, ordinary paces.

You shut the door and sank onto the bed, pulling at the edges of your mind and slipping into the ether. Maybe you intended to, maybe you didn’t. It was too hard to separate your thoughts, the only thing you were sure of was the motion of your feet carrying you through the dark, waterlogged void as you followed him.

You were careful, leaving enough space so he didn’t feel you. Your steps were cautious even in here, even at a distance.

The staff wing doors materialized and he moved through them, the keypad beeping. You waited until they were almost closed before slipping through. An approaching chatter made you hang back behind the corner.

“Oh, hello Peter.” A bright yet nervous voice said. “I thought you were on charge today?”

His steps faltered.

“Good morning Sylvia.” He said, his voice polite but flat as it echoed in the blackness.

“How are you? You look a little tired Peter. I hope Doctor Brenner isn’t working you too hard.”

“No, of course not.”

“Well, good.” Her brightness broke for a moment, slipping into something damper. “I, well I thought I might have seen you again, after the other day-”

Your eyes narrowed, and you peeked your head around the corner. She was pretty. Dark haired, glasses, his age. A wire yanked tight in your chest.

“I’m sorry, Sylvia, I can't talk now. I have a meeting with Doctor Brenner.”

“A meeting? Oh, I didn’t see one in his books today.”

“Impromptu.” Henry smiled briefly.

“I see.” Sylvia said, her voice flat. The indifference was radiating off of him, so pointed even you could feel it. “Well, maybe I’ll see you later then?”

He offered nothing more than a polite smile and a curt nod before leaving Sylvia and her colleague in the middle of the hall.

“I thought you said he was nice.” The other woman scoffed as they watched him walk off.

“He is. He was. I don’t know, that was weird. The other day he seemed so into me I - whatever. Maybe he’s just having a bad day.”

The woman huffed. “I wouldn’t waste your time with Peter. He’s strange, seriously strange.”

“What do you mean?”

“The others call him Brenner’s angel. It’s weird, they’re like, always together. Haven’t you noticed?”

Brenner’s angel? Your heart was hammering up into your throat.

“Oh come on-”

“I’m serious! He barely speaks to anyone except Brenner. I mean, doesn’t he give you an odd feeling? It’s creepy, the way he just sits there in silence all the time watching people. Ugh.” She shivered.

“He didn’t seem creepy the other day.” Sylvia frowned.

The woman rolled her eyes. “Yeah, because he’s pretty, and he was flirting wasn’t he? I can’t even imagine him saying hello to me let alone making my knees weak. Are you sure you didn’t imagine it? You so love blondes.”

“Oh shut up,” Sylvia groaned, slapping the woman’s arm. “I did not imagine it.”

“Well whatever, you can have him. I know some of the other nurses have a thing for him but seriously? The man is so rigid it’s painful. I wouldn’t want him reporting my every move to Brenner, would you?”

“Come off it, he doesn’t do that.”

“And how do you know? He sure spends a lot of time in his shadow.”

Sylvia's gaze followed Henry's back as he disappeared further down the corridor.

“Maybe he just needs a friend.”

“Maybe he just needs to get laid.” The woman shrugged.

A sudden surge of anger washed through you, septic and unhinged.

“What the hell Darlene! Don’t be gross.”

“Not like you haven’t thought about it.”

Sylvia bit her lip and smiled.

“Knew it,” Darlene teased. “He seems so pent up... do you think he’s even done it before?” She whispered.

“Oh my god, stop.”

“I’m only saying! Maybe that would cheer him up. I’m sure you’d volunteer.” Darlene shrugged.

“I’m going back to work.” Sylvia huffed, striding off down the hall with clipboard in hand, her kitten heels clacking over the tiles.

Darlene strode right past you, chuckling in the blackness. Your heart hammered, expecting to be felt, to be seen.

But she almost walked through you, totally oblivious to your presence. You frowned, watching her go.

Her words churned in your ears like jagged rocks.

Brenner’s angel.

With a false identity. With a name that wasn’t his. Your mind reeled. What was he really? A spy? A puppet? Something to break you open?

You followed Henry's path through the ether until a door materialized in front of him. The black, glossy plaque imprinted with the name Dr Martin Brenner was almost as imposing as the man himself.

Henry clicked the door shut behind him. You sidled up to it, pressing your ear against the join.

It was silent for a thick moment.

“Tell me how you did it.” Henry’s voice was cold, chilling.

“I hardly have time for crypticism, H-”

“The blood. Nineteen.”

A shock went through your eardrums at the mention of you. Then, the sound of papers being placed down on a desk, followed by a sharp exhale.

“How do you-”

“Answer me.”

“Come now Henry. Did you imagine we didn't have samples?”

“I believed you when you told me the programme had ended with Eighteen.”

“I didn't lie.”

“This-”

“Is not the same.” Brenner said sharply. “This is... new. An advancement, if you will. Completely different.”

Henry scoffed, the sound tight and dry.

“So advanced that they all died?”

Your stomach lurched into your throat.

Brenner was silent again, the weight of it telling you he was studying Henry closely, measuring him.

“Sacrifices are always necessary for progress.”

You could hear Henry pacing slowly, deliberately near the door.

“Sacrifices? That's what you call them? They're victims.”

“Let us not compare victims, Henry.” Brenner shot coldly.

Victims? Your heart hammered relentlessly. The pointed silences seeping from behind the door were threateningly loud.

“But you didn't expect her to lose her memories, did you?”

“No. I must admit, that was... advantageous.”

“And you used that to manipulate her.”

“I told her what was necessary for progress.”

“Progress? She is barely contained. She is-”

“Remarkable.” Brenner said proudly.

“Manufactured.”

You heard the squeak of chair wheels as Brenner stood up, his own paces calculated as he moved closer to Henry.

“Tell me, what is the difference? Every single one of my children were made the same way. You know that.”

“This is not the same-”

“Isn't it?”

“No.” Henry hissed. “She had a life already.”

“I'm well aware of the life she had. Are you?”

“She could have been killed, like all the rest of them. All because you wanted an imitation you didn't have to raise.”

“And yet, she wasn't. Regardless, better dead in the name of progress than for the sake of a needle or a noose. Wouldn’t you agree?”

You could feel the sharpness wedging itself into the confines behind the door like a knife.

“That's not for you to decide.” Henry hissed.

“You do not tell me what is mine to decide, Henry. I am not beholden to you.”

When Henry spoke next, his voice was small.

No, worse. It was ashamed.

“She deserves to know what she really is.”

There was silence, and then a step. Followed by another.

Suddenly Henry's back thudded forcefully against the door. Brenner's harsh, whispered threats sank through the wood, hissing into your ears in the darkness.

“You will remember what you are, Henry.”

You could picture him looming ominous over Henry's frame, backed flat into the door.

“Have you already forgotten what happens to those who forget their place in my lab?”

Henry didn't speak.

“Get out, before I have you reminded.” Brenner commanded, soft and sinister. “You will not speak of this again. To me, to her, to anyone. Do I make myself clear?”

“I-”

Suddenly, there was another abrupt thud, higher up. Henry's head hitting back against the door.

“Papa-” his voice was choked, strained, as if he had a hand around his throat.

Papa.

“Do I make myself clear?”

It was quiet apart from the soft rustling sound of Henry's hair on the door as he nodded.

“Good. Now get out.”

Your heart lurched as you heard the door handle turn. You threw yourself from the void, pulling yourself back into your body, which was trembling violently on your bed.

Your head pounded with more than just psychic exertion. It was cold dread, like a disease, sapping you of every piece of yourself. You slid to the floor, dark blood splattered in droplets across your lap from the trail pooling from your nose.

It was too many cruel truths at once, too many for your mind to grasp.

Your senses were overloaded. The hum of the lights, the frigid tiles beneath you, the weight of your limbs laying limp against your slumped frame.

Manufactured.

There were others. Dead, all of them.

And Henry. How long had he known? Was he really the madman's angel, his accomplice?

Henry who had ignited a fire within you, now dragging you into the depths of the sea.

Henry who was still controlled, even when he held the sword. Threatened, overpowered. Backed into a wall with Brenner's calloused fingers around his beautiful neck.

A puppet, or a prisoner?

You didn't know whether to cry for him or press a knife to his throat.

All you could do was sob. With rage, with utter brokenness. But the worst thing, the most desperate thing, crawling spider-like over the dread.

You still wanted him.

***

No matter where you looked, he was there. A ghost in every corner of your mind.

You hadn’t spoken to him since the chess game. Since he’d caged the words behind his teeth and refused to free them. Since he’d confronted Brenner with a truth that belonged to you.

Now it was you who couldn’t look at him. Not because of the despair, but because no matter how much despair you felt, it was reformed into a sick yearning whenever you did.

You were being pulled between two horrible, obvious truths.

You didn’t trust him. And he was all you wanted.

The rainbow room spun as you sat staring at the floor. His voice was the curl of a fingernail, scraping down the back of your neck.

“Good morning, Nineteen.”

“Good morning, Papa.” You droned, still staring at the floor.

“I have something exciting for you today.”

The sound of him pressing Henry up against the door echoed through your mind, along with his sinister threats. Your veins pulsed with fury. For a moment, you saw yourself throw him across the room, break every warped bone in his body.

Your fingers twitched. Henry’s voice slipped like a silk ribbon through your mind.

Do whatever he says, be whatever he needs. Don't give him a reason to weaken you.

“Okay.” You nodded, standing.

Brenner’s rough hand steadied at your upper back as he led you from the room. You were silent, nothing but the padding of your slippers across the tile as he led you deeper into the maze. The lights seemed to hum louder the further you went, twisting and turning through the corridors, sweeping around corners and down elevators.

Brenner was watching you closely. Closer than usual, like he was looking for cracks, looking for something seeping out.

He led you through a heavy set of doors. The air was thick, the walls cement, the temperature cold in a way that was deeply earthy. In the center of the room was an immense metal tank with a window curving over it's side. Inside rippled water, softly teal, tiny bubbles rising. Several staff were in attendance, coated scientists surveying monitors, engineers atop a platform.

“What is this?”

“This is the tank,” Brenner smiled. “A sensory deprivation tank.”

“Sensory deprivation?”

“The effect is quite significant. It allows you to become fully immersed in your mind, in your abilities. It removes the outside world entirely. Removes distractions. Removes... chaos.” He said the last word too pointedly.

“So I go in there?”

“Yes, Nineteen. I am hoping that you will perform better when your mind is clear and free of all influence.”

You swallowed, eyeing the tank.

Be whatever he needs you to be.

“Alright,” you said, your eyes flicking from the tank to his aged face. “What will I be doing?”

“You will be locating people for us. Today, you will only be practicing. But eventually you will use this to find our enemies. To help us.”

Brenner gestured to a closet sized changing room. Cold, cement, like a prison cell. A white, sleeveless outfit made of a thick scuba material hung from the wall.

“Change, and then rejoin us.”

He shut you in the oppressive little rectangle and you hesitated for a moment before sliding out of your grey sweats and pulling on the suit. It was grippy, sticking to your skin in ways that felt grossly alien.

Back in the main chamber, the cement was cold on your bare feet. Brenner led you up the metal stairs to a platform above the tank. An assistant opened the heavy valve lid, and you stared apprehensively into the water.

“You will float in here.” Brenner said plainly. “There is an intercom system which feeds into the tank. I will ask you to locate specific people, and you will report what you see. Understood?”

“Yes Papa.”

The assistant laid a net of wires over your head while another helped you onto the lowering rung. You clung to the sides of it as it descended, your lungs beginning to tighten with a claustrophobic panic as the metal cylinder engulfed you, as the temperate water rose over your legs.

You took a deep breath as you waded off the rung and let it ascend. The lid sank shut above you with a heavy, pressurized hiss, the valve wheel turning with a clank that made your heart hammer.

“Alright Nineteen, how do you feel?”

“Um, okay. Fine.” You said, treading the water lightly.

“Now, lay on your back, let the water hold you at the surface. Don’t worry, you won’t sink.”

You laid back and pushed upwards. He was right, the water did hold you there, in a way. It made you feel floaty, weightless, like a wet cloud beneath you. You let your limbs splay out and stared at the metal roof, the lights.

“Good. Now, focus your mind to each person I name, and report what you see.”

“Yes Papa.”

It was far easier in here. You slipped into the ether of your mind quicker than ever before, your focus sharp, your psyche pulsing with less effort than it usually took. Brenner’s voice curled around you in the blackness, a hollow echo from a place you couldn’t pinpoint.

“I want you to find Eleven.”

You focused as you paced forward in the blackness. It was a disjointed feeling. Walking across the waterlogged floor while you could still feel yourself floating horizontally in the tank.

Slowly, the small girl materialized in the darkness. “I see her.”

His voice echoed out. “Tell me what she is doing.”

You pulled more focus. A sliver of the rainbow room appeared around her.

“She is in the rainbow room. Drawing,”

“What is she drawing?”

You stepped closer, looking at the page. “People. Stick figures. There’s a little yellow sun and… a purple flower.”

“Good.” Brenner praised. “Now leave her. I want you to find my assistant, Sylvia.”

A thread of irritation slid through you at her name. She came to you easily, her face still so raw in your mind. The staff room materialized around her.

“She's in the staff room. Sitting down… eating. I can hear the radio, playing music.”

“Good. Now, I want you to find nurse Harriett.”

She was a little tougher, as you’d only seen her briefly. Most notably when recovering from your violent electroshock punishment, when your mind had been absolutely scattered and blown. She’d had the honour of placing the collar around your neck. You felt your throat ache with the memory of its choking imprint.

“She is in the infirmary… at a desk, writing...” you stepped closer, looming over her shoulder. “A report, about Nine.”

“What about Nine?”

You followed her scrawled hand across the paper. “She fell. Twisted her ankle. The nurse gave her ice.”

“Wonderful.” Brenner said, his voice everywhere. “You're doing well.”

The next time he spoke, it landed like a test.

“Now you’re going to find Peter for me.”

Your heart lurched forward, and you felt your fingers twitch on the surface of the water. Had the monitor spiked? Had your readings betrayed your anxiety?

“Okay.”

Finding Henry was instinctive at this point, as easy as breathing. You saw him almost instantly.

Something was wrong.

He was sitting on the side of his bed, head in his hands, fingers threaded through his hair. His face was caught, anxious. He reached down and pulled a crimson red file onto his lap.

He rifled through it, his brow deeply creased as if he was willing the content to change. He was too distracted to notice you, but you could feel him. Frayed at the edges, washed with a pale fear.

Then, he did something odd.

He got up, and shoved the file underneath his mattress.

“I found him.” You murmured.

“What is he doing?”

He was pacing up and down his bed now, chewing on his thumbnail. Your eyes lingered on where he had slipped the file.

“Folding linens.” You lied, your eyes searching every inch of his angelic face and it's edges.

“Where?” Brenner’s voice echoed.

“The linen cupboard nearest the rainbow room.”

Henry stopped pacing and knelt beside his bed. His hand slipped under the frame, next to the side table. You frowned and stepped a pace closer. He pulled something out from under his bed.

Your heart stopped. It was utterly frozen, an invisible vice squeezing mercilessly around it.

He was holding a pair of shoes.

Black, worn Converse with grubby laces. He ran his finger tips over the frayed thread of them.

Your chest was heaving with panic, the shadowed tendrils of darkness curling over the edges of your mind. Something was flashing behind your eyes, the lights in the tank, flickering and buzzing dangerously in response to your psychic load.

“Now what is he doing?” Brenner’s tone had turned tight.

“He-” you choked out. “He’s sorting towels.”

The light behind your eyes was whirring dangerously, a static hum threatening to burst as you stared at the shoes, at Henry’s pale fingers moving over them.

You needed to get out, before you unravelled entirely. You lurched back into yourself, thrashing down in the tank water to find your footing. You spluttered, mouth tinged with blood and salt.

“What happened?” Brenner’s voice came tight over the intercom.

“Nothing I - my head -” it truly was pounding a force against your skull. “My head hurts.”

“Alright, get her out.” He sighed.

With a hiss and a clank the valve above you opened, and the rung lowered. Your limbs felt boneless as you clung to it, ascending out of the warm water. Your legs shook, threatening to collapse with every step on the way down the platform.

“You did well.” He said, surveying you with his sharp gaze.

You tried to compose your face, but every part of you felt the opposite.

“Perhaps that is enough for today. We will revisit this again soon. Change, and return with the nurse to your room for rest.”

You nodded and padded across the cold concrete to the changing room. Your head was pounding, your nose was still leaking a slow, scarlet trail. You smeared it away with your wrist.

You would return. But you wouldn’t rest.

Not until you knew what Henry did.

***

When the last subject had been secured for the night, when the orderlies had finished their rounds and disappeared into the staff wing for their midnight coffee, you went. Every step you took pulsed up through your shins as you moved through the corridors, blanking the cameras, abusing the blind spots.

You half expected to find him in his room, but when you forced the lock open with a psychic shove, the room was empty. Dark, clean, controlled. The scent of soap and fresh linen, the subtle faint lingering of mint toothpaste. Agonizingly him.

It made your heart kick with a feeling that you weren’t here for. You shoved it down and knelt beside his bed, reaching underneath it.

Your fingertips brushed over the canvas.

You stared at them carefully, as if looking away for even a moment would cause them to vanish. You flipped them over, eyeing every inch. The laces spun through your fingers, your nail pulled over the raised ridge of haphazard thread.

Your heart was hammering thunder as you instinctively slid them onto your feet. They pulled on perfectly, as if they’d been waiting. Waiting for another morning, another outing. You tied the laces slowly, letting your fingers pull through every loop, letting the feeling gather.

It didn't come to you in a violent lurch this time. It came in a slow, cold wash that sank into your bones as you sat there, staring at them.

The same images, but more this time. The edges were wider, the sounds hollower.

the pavement flurries under your feet, wet and grey... widening into a littered street... garbage bags and cars with dented bumpers... the air, a misted kind of damp that settles, sticks to your cheeks...

your eyes draw up from the pavement... the bus rambles to a stop...

your knee crosses your thigh in the seat... your foot bounces in it’s worn shoe... the town blurs past the windows, dripping rivers of water... your eyes linger on the rubber peeling from the canvas, a hole that lets the rain in...

a screen door squeaks on its hinges... a worn threshold... carpet dull and threadbare... your fingers draw the laces apart, place them at the door...

the dank house morphs behind your eyes... until your shoes slap over white linoleum... clinical, mopped linoleum... heels clip ahead, stride with purpose through long corridors...

“...put your clothes in the chute...”

your fingers slip around the metal handle... a steel trap in the wall... your shoes cascade down into the darkness...

Your ears were rushing, full of noise, full of the surge of white water.

The door opened.

Henry didn't see you at first as he curled into the room. You glared up at his back as you sat, sunken to the floor, your arms wrapped around your knees, tears rivered down your cheeks.

He closed the door behind him with a soft click and turned.

He froze.

His eyes widened, darting from your pained face to the Converse laced on your feet. His breath hitched with a small, broken sound that he didn’t manage to contain behind his teeth.

“What are you-”

“Where-” you croaked, drawing your wet gaze up to his, “-where did you find these?”

His face was drained of colour, his jaw clenched. “I-”

You didn't give him time to answer.

“How long were you keeping these from me?” Your voice shook as your thoughts battled each other, an endless duel of questions in your head.

Henry swallowed thickly.

“Not long.”

“How long?”

His eyes were soft, shamed. “Some days.”

“You had them… for days?” Your body flashed hot with irritation. “How... how could you keep this from me?”

“I was going to tell you.”

“When?”

“When I had confirmation.”

You looked up into his face fully, his perfect features were sinking underneath a wash of fear.

“Which you got from him. From Papa.”

“How do you-” He cut himself off, a knowing look dawning on his face.

Your voice cracked. “You lied to me. You told me nothing was wrong.”

His jaw tightened. Your eyes traced the faint bruise on his neck. Blotchy, ugly, shaped by Brenner’s fingers. Your jaw throbbed with it's own memory.

“You went to him. After everything he’s done to me... to you... you went to him. And he hurt you for it, didn't he?”

Henry's eyes were soft and shamed.

“I had to be sure.”

“Of what, exactly?” You were on your feet now, soles pressed hard into your shoes as you stood mere inches from him. “You better start explaining, Henry.”

He was silent.

“Everything. Now.” You demanded, eyes full of tears and fury. “I know what you said to Papa, so don’t try to lie to me again.”

The light in his room buzzed threateningly in the ceiling as the anger swept through you.

“You said... the blood. You said they all died. You said I… said I was manufactured.” A thick tear streamed past your eyelashes as your voice broke over the word.

Henry’s eyes lingered gravely in yours as his hand instinctively reached out for you. “Nineteen, you don't understand-”

You jerked away from him.

“Then make me!”

The light hissed and crackled aggressively above you. Henry didn't react, just studied your face with a forlorn expression before finally sweeping past you. He reached under his mattress and pulled out the ominous file, holding it out to you in silence.

Your eyes settled on the way his fingers trembled on the edge, as if it was weighted with every horrible truth he knew would wreck you.

“What's in there?”

He drew in a long breath.

“I think you should sit down.” His voice was grave in a way that made the room feel oppressive, crushing.

You took it tentatively, a surge of cold anxiety running through you. His face, his shaky demeanor, his trembling hands. The weight of the file in yours. You did what he said, sinking down onto his bed.

“Read it.”

Was it fear that gnawed at you, or the promise of truth? You couldn’t tell. It all seemed to tangle together inside you like a mess of ropes. Your fingers slid under the edge of the cover, and hovered it open mere centimeters.

You paused.

“Whatever is in here is going to unravel me, isn’t it?”

Henry shifted quietly. His expression was rigid, barely holding itself together.

“Maybe.”

“Can you sit with me?”

Your eyes lingered on his face, his blonde tufts, taking in every beautifully fraught detail you could before poisoning your eyes with the contents. He sank down onto the bed beside you, his thigh sitting against yours, his warmth emanating onto you.

You flipped the file open and frowned as you read the brief.

Nightingale. Transfusion. Psychokinesis. Subterfuge.

You kept reading it over and over again, your mind trying to wrap around the words.

“What is this?” Your voice was choked.

Part of you hoped desperately for him to tell you that this wasn’t about you at all, that it was all a huge, terrible mistake. He didn't.

“One of Brenner’s sick games.” He spat, his eyes trawling the page with an edge of darkness.

“I don’t... I don’t understand.”

“This is what brought you here. You weren't in an accident.” Henry said gravely. “You were an experiment.”

“Manufactured...” you said vacantly.

Henry nodded.

“Clearly he wasn’t content with only children.” His voice grew tighter. “He wanted fully grown weapons. Ones he didn't have to raise.”

“So he made me... made my powers with blood?”

Henry nodded solemnly.

You read the page again. Donor subject 001.

“From One? But… why them?”

“He was the first. His power was... pure. He was the most powerful, the one Brenner could not control.” He was staring so far ahead his eyes were burning an invisible hole through the door.

“So he sought to replicate him. All of the children were made with One’s blood.” Henry continued flatly. “It was sick. Inhuman. He took pregnant women. Drugged them, held them, pumped them full of One’s blood. Tried to recreate One through their children.”

A thick nausea crawled up your throat.

“What happened to them? The women?”

“Some of them died. Some of them disappeared after the children were born. They were of no use to him then. He had his playthings.” He said as he stared into nowhere. “I was… I spent years with One. Papa took his blood all the time. Eighteen was the last to be born.”

You chewed your lip, the dread settling strange against your spine with each word he said. “What happened to him? To One?”

Henry exhaled a long, shaky breath that unfolded into an even longer silence.

“Henry?”

“He's gone.” He said finally.

“Dead?”

“Papa took his powers away and he... he's been gone ever since.”

Your eyes returned to the page.

Acquisition.

Your mind pulsed painfully with the image of the black suited man under the bus stop, the paper in your hands.

“I remember,” you murmured. “A man giving me a flyer.”

“Yes. I assume they did the same for you all.” Henry said, nodding once towards the file. “But-”

“But they all died. That’s what you said.” You whispered.

You felt like you were being lurched down through the ground. “How many others were there?”

Henry’s hand reached across your lap to the edge of the folder, and flipped the page.

Your eyes trawled the man's details.

---

Recipient 1 - Male, 46 Outcome: Acute negative response. Subject incompatible. Status: DECEASED

---

“Who-”

Your mind answered for you, pulling an image into the dark space of itself.

A man with an unkempt beard, sitting slumped in a chair in a large, clinical foyer. He looked up at you briefly with dead, hopeless eyes...

You sucked in a sharp breath.

“I - I can see him.”

“There’s more.” Henry said gravely, flipping the next page.

One by one he flipped them, your mind unpicking itself faster and faster as each set of details pulled an image through your head.

Each one of their faces looked up at you from their seats, each one of them waiting like pigs in a pen. A frigid, sterile pen. Your steps, echoing off linoleum, the antiseptic burn through your nostrils, your hair sitting long over your shoulders…

You were shaking, the file vibrating in your hands, sticky with cold sweat. Henry reached for the last page.

“Stop,” you squeaked. “Please.”

His fingertips slid briefly across the page as he retreated.

“I can’t.” You breathed, shutting your eyes.

“Yes you can.”

Henry's fingers brushed over the back of your splinted hand. He settled his palm across it, his fingertips resting against your knuckles, still blotched purple and lightly bruised.

“You have to.” Henry said softly. “You can't hide from yourself anymore.”

The room felt sharp, pressed against your throat like a knife. After several long silent breaths, you flipped the page.

---

Recipient 11 - Female, 19 Outcome: Positive response. Subject compatible. Status: LIVING - INDUCTED.

Observations: - Acute tachycardia - Respiratory distress - Brief seizure activity - Eventual stabilization into comatose state.

DOB: 2 - Sept - 1959 Address: 15 Old Cherry Road, Hawkins Occupation: Student Acquisition date: 25 - May - 1979 Transfusion date: 26 - May - 1979 ID: Authenticated

---

The pavement staring back at you... a uniformed man... man in a box...

"...I’m here for the study..."

a gate groaning across asphalt... a building, looming, shrinking you, a fortress of concrete and metal...

your frame shrinks, and shrinks, and shrinks under the colossus...

beer and stale cigarettes... lurching downwards, stomach sinking... sinking into the ground...

water... water on your back... fingers on your lips... a wretched lurch, a spin of blood down the drain...

"...do you know your blood type..."

perfectly tailored suit, perfectly quaffed hair, the memory of a once handsome face, honeyed and sinister…

"...things here are bad... things here are bad... it's nothing... it's nothing..."

blinding lights... an oxygen mask... something staring back... consuming, inescapable... bearing down... fading into shades of black... a frozen shard straight through your middle...

You were silently screaming, every nerve on fire as your head felt split down the middle, carved into two worlds, one half with a fist around it, the other snaked in tendrils of fear.

Were you on the floor, were his hands on you? Were you falling through the earth, was he dragging you up by the elbows, face contorted, a beautiful, terrible angel?

“Shh, I've got you, it's alright... it's alright.”

Henry's arms were a cage around you, unrelenting, your body trembling violently against him and the cold tiles, your legs buckled underneath you like pathetic, broken stilts. You desperately drew in air, your throat choking over every breath.

“I-” A whimper, almost inaudible.

“I'm here.” He held you tighter, so tight you thought he was single-handedly keeping your skeleton in one piece.

“I saw... that day...” You choked out against his shoulder.

He brushed his palm across your back, still not easing his hold on you as your body shuddered, wracked with violent sobs that squeezed your lungs like a vice.

“It's alright, you're alright.” Henry repeated softly as you cried into his shirt, your first tight around the fabric.

He looked even more angelic from this angle, the sculpted lines of his jaw above you. Your wet eyes pulled to the file, laying on the floor, papers partially scattered, your page staring up at the ceiling.

“But why... why only me? Why did I survive?”

Henry stared at the page, and shook his head. “I don't know. I assume you're... compatible. The same as One. The same blood type perhaps.”

Your voice felt stuck behind a solid wall in your throat.

“They're all... dead.” You whispered.

“Their fate is not your fault. And neither is yours.”

“I chose to come here, Henry. I took the bus. I walked in the gates. I followed the nurse. I offered myself up to him, to Papa. Like a feast, like... like I was happy to. Because I was. I wanted to, I wanted to get out of Hawkins, get away from-”

Your voice broke with soft cries, tears prickling wet beads over your eyelashes and streaming down your cheeks.

“No.” He affirmed as he finally brought a hand to your face, swiping away a tear track with the pad of his thumb. “You were lured, promised things, promised better than what you had. He tricked you, he did this to you. He did.”

“I shouldn't have lived.”

Henry's head jerked back, his gaze sharp as it shot into yours. “Don't ever say that.”

Henry was silent as you broke from his embrace and reached for the file. Your fingers flipped through each page once more, dragged over every detail until you landed on yourself again.

“I'm not… real. I'm just a copy. An imitation. I'm just some sick, twisted, diluted thing of Papa's. I'm not whoever I was.”

Henry looked pensive, his blue eyes wading in deep hues.

Anger started pooling hot through your veins underneath the anguish, pushing through every blood cell, firing every nerve.

“He erased me.”

The file slipped from your hands and hit the floor with a slap, the pages fanning out like a deep wound opening. A wound of restraints, needles, screams, the smell of blood, the scorch of electricity.

A wound of collars and broken bones and cerulean and the shadows.

A wound of yourself.

You were still trembling. But it was fury that was running through you now, hot and untamed. Henry hands hovered near your shoulders but didn’t touch, as if he was afraid you’d shatter under his fingers.

“Nineteen,” he whispered, his voice raw. “Look at me. You’re safe. You’re-”

“Safe?” Your voice was strangled.

You lifted your head slowly, tears streaking your cheeks, breath hitching in broken gasps. Henry’s expression solidified as he realized the depth of the darkness lurking in your eyes.

A pressure that had nowhere to go but out.

“Nineteen-”

“He erased me. And you... you knew.” The words came out dangerously low.

Henry’s throat worked. “I-”

“You knew,” you repeated louder, the sound scraping out from behind your teeth. “You knew what he did. You sat at that chess table and knew what I was. Were you afraid of me? Is that it? Is that why you didn't want to talk to me, didn't want me to see you?”

Henry reached for you again, instinctively. “No, please-”

You slapped his hand away so hard his entire arm flinched back.

“Don’t touch me.” You hissed.

You were breathing hard, pacing like a caged animal. Henry backed up slowly a pace, his hands coming up a fraction in front of him as if doing so would hold your rage back, press it down under his palms into something manageable.

You were silent. The pieces were falling together, knitting, stitching themselves to one another with jagged lines of thread in the dark space of your mind.

It didn't make any sense. And yet, it did.

All of it.

You stopped pacing, turning to face him.

“You call him Papa, Henry.” You murmured finally.

His eyes widened. He opened his mouth, but no voice came out, only a strained breath.

“Your name, that never made sense to me.” You continued, voice rising. “Peter. That’s wasn't real. That was never your name. At first I thought maybe all the staff had false identities, but it was only you. It was only you, Henry.”

His strained breath hitched into silence.

“And that pretty, pretty Sylvia,” You scoffed, a harsh, ugly sound. “Her friend called you Brenner’s angel. She said you're always together, that you... that you live in his shadow.”

Henry’s face went pale.

“And you do, don't you? That's why you went to him. That's why you told him what you knew. That’s why you do what he says. You’re scared of him, you obey him. Even when he hurts you.”

You stepped closer.

“Just like me.”

“Nineteen, please-”

You took another step, closing the distance between you entirely.

“You see me,” you murmured. “You feel me, when I'm not really there. When I'm in my mind, in the void. No one else can see me in there, Henry. Only you.”

His face was hard, motionless marble.

“And Papa... Papa said you have victims. He told you to remember what you are. Because you're his, aren't you? Just like me.”

Henry’s hands trembled at his sides as he watched you stalk closer to him.

You were something unhinged, something feral. Something finally looking the truth in it's seraphine face. You stared into his eyes, and the purest midnight stared back, hidden in plain sight.

The truth was a knife. Held in two hands, pressed to two throats, and it had found you both out.

The blood rushing through you didn't belong to a stranger.

Before you could blink, your hands were around Henry’s throat. His back was against the wall, his eyes were wide, the blue deep with fear and something much worse.

Far worse, because it was a reflection of your own irises. It was a reflection of the furnace throwing flares through your veins.

His breath caught in his throat.

“Say it.” You demanded.

“Nine-”

Your hands gripped his beautiful neck tighter.

“Say it Henry.”

A sudden force surged from you and cascaded upwards, blowing out the fluorescent strip with a violent pop, shrouding the room in a dim, shadowed darkness.

“It’s - it’s mine.” He choked out, the usual silk of his voice hoarse. “It’s my blood inside you.”

Your heart stopped beating for several, crucial seconds. The walls of his room breathed out, refusing to hold your fury any longer, refusing to acknowledge it as anything other than what it really was.

Desperation.

He didn’t fight you. He let you hold him there by the throat, his eyes not straying from yours. Not defiant, or brave. Just bare, vulnerable.

It was a look that ruined you.

Your hands fell away from his throat, the pale column spun pink from your grip. Without breaking his gaze you grabbed his left forearm and pushed up the stiff white cuff. You held his wrist in your hand silently, unsure which one of you was trembling harder.

Too afraid to see it, too afraid not to.

When finally your eyes fell, it was almost violent. The shock of black ink carved into his pale skin.

001.

He just stared at you, sharp and intense.

“You. You’re One.” You exhaled.

It wasn’t a question, or an accusation. It was a raw, plain truth. An acknowledgment, an understanding. A recognition of his suffering, his stolen identity.

And it broke him.

Henry crushed his mouth into yours, messy and bruising, a desperate breath tumbling from his lips as his hand grasped the back of your neck. His kiss drew a feeble whimper from you and he collected it on his tongue, sliding it against your lips, sinking it past your teeth to taste you. He didn’t stop kissing you until he was breathless, almost choking in air between your mouths.

“Henry-”

His mouth slipped a trail across your jaw and into the soft vulnerable skin of your throat. His hand was still tight around the back of your neck, the other dragging over your ribs to settle on your waist.

“You ruin me.” He murmured, his warm breath cascading over your pulse point.

Every single moment roared wild within you. Every single glance, every stolen moment, every kiss, every move of the chess pieces. Every agony, every bitter truth. All of it, beating a fire inside you.

“Make it stop, Henry,” you pleaded, your voice a tiny, broken thing. “Please, please.”

A soft noise fell from him at your plea. He walked you back in careful steps, his mouth still buried in your neck, kissing over your skin. He lowered you down onto his bed as if laying something precious.

His lips fell in a line from your throat to the soft dip where your collarbones met. His hands were everywhere, wide shaky palms claiming every inch of you. They slid clumsily up your sweater, pushed up your tank. Your skin burned for him, every part of you aching for his touch.

You could feel his hands shaking as they trailed up to your breast. His breath quickened as he met the soft flesh and kneaded it, his hand cupping you while the pad of his thumb rolled over your nipple.

“You… you feel so good in my hands.” He breathed into your neck.

You slid your hands through his dirty blonde waves, letting them thread like silk through your fingers as he moved lower to take your breast into his mouth. His lips sucked over it, wet and hot, pulling your nipple into a hard peak. His mouth elicited a whine from you as his tongue swirled the taught, sensitive bud.

He stayed there for a while, taking his time, savouring you. His head lay against your sternum as he kissed meticulously over every inch of your breasts, worshipping them with his perfect mouth. Your fingers scraped through his scalp, raking his hair back over his ear.

He finally sunk lower, sliding his body down across yours to kiss over your stomach while his hands left a trembling caress over your hips. His fingers hooked the waistband of your pants and he looked up for permission, his face flushed and his eyes a deep hazy blue.

“Yes,” you breathed, arching your hips up for him. “Please…”

His eyes flared as they fell between your legs, studying every crease of your wet slit with a hunger that looked utterly beautiful on him. He slid further down the bed, resting his shoulders between your thighs, laying kisses up your inner thighs as his hands gently spread you.

“I… I haven’t stopped thinking about tasting you again… for weeks… can I? Please?” He basically begged, his face nuzzling into the crease where your mound met your thigh.

Your fingers pulled through his hair and you nodded, the furnace inside you already roaring for him, your cunt already throbbing with anticipation.

His mouth pressed tentative, affectionate kisses against your slit, the initial contact making you gasp.

It wasn’t long before he was utterly intoxicated by tasting you. His tongue parted you in long, savouring strokes, the tip pushing into your pussy to fuck it briefly before laying flat, broad laps up to your clit, finding a rhythm you liked.

Henry met every one of your mewls with his own quiet whines. Soft and contented were the noises he made as he lost himself in your cunt, eating you like a man starved.

He learned what you liked quickly, cataloguing every noise and writhe of response you made for him. His tongue delved deeper, his lips sucking and popping wetly, his mouth humming as his tongue pressed hard circles over your clit.

His hands were hungry, kneading into the flesh of your thighs, spreading you further to give his mouth better access. He was devoted, thoroughly exploring you with his tongue, growing more fervent with every arch and moan that he elicited from you.

“Henry-”

“Hmm?” He hummed against your cunt, the vibrations of his slick mouth only mounting the fire in your core.

“Have you - have you done this before?” Your voice was far closer to a gasp, pushing out over your broken breaths as he ate you, your back arching for him.

He shook his head, not straying from his mouth's eager work.

“No… I’ve only dreamed about it... about doing this to you… I’ve dreamed about it so often…”

His confession only embered the pleasure. You were unravelling under his devoted mouth, your hips rolling against his face, his nose bumping into your mound as your fingers tightened into his hair.

“Henry, I’m - going to-”

He whined with excitement, his hips rutting against the mattress, seeking his own friction as he felt your legs tremble against his head.

“Please… yes…” he begged, the sound of his mouth and tongue wet and messy as he worked you without pause, “please… let me taste it again…” he dug his long fingers hard into the flesh of your thighs.

A broken cry tore from you as you came on his mouth, your body shuddering with each wave of release that ran through you. Your thighs tightened around Henry’s head, trapping him as he groaned against your sodden cunt, his tongue lapping furiously to collect every drop of you pooling out from his devotion.

“Fuck, Henry,” you breathed as he continued drawing his tongue over your slit in languid strokes through your aftershocks.

His perfect lips, wet with your slick, stamped a trail up over your mound to your stomach as he moved himself back up your body.

The weight of him on top of you was a divine force, grounding you to the earth, keeping you from falling apart, the only real thing you could lay your hands on. You kissed him deep, every nerve in your lips flaring against his. He tasted of mint and salt and your own musk, all mingling together in his mouth like alchemy.

The long, hard line of his erection strained inside his pants, pressing against your soaked cunt as he lay between your legs, kissing you. Your hand trawled down the side of him, curling under his hip to palm his clothed cock.

He pushed himself against your hand, his brow knitting at the sensation.

“You’re really here this time…” he mumbled against your mouth, breaking from kissing you only to gaze into your eyes, his own cerulean hue a shade of disbelief. “I can really feel you.”

“Yes,” you smiled, “I’m really here this time. Really touching you… if you want me to.”

He answered with a single whimper and his hand grappling furiously with his belt. You pushed your palm over the rigid shape of him before shoving his trousers down over his hips.

You wrapped your hand around his cock, hot and swollen, drawing a broken needy sound from him that made your entire body bloom with heat. He was already half gone, the head of his cock leaking precum all over your thumb as you stroked him.

You craned your head up into his neck, nipping over his throat as you drew your hand over him in tight pulls, slowly at first. But he moaned into the pillow and you responded instinctively at the angelic sound, your hand deepening and quickening its movements.

“It’s... too much…” he gasped, his hips pushing down and thrusting to fuck your hand between your bodies.

“You can cum Henry,” you murmured, your lips finding his earlobe to cling to.

“No… no,” he breathed, but his hips kept moving, his body not obeying his mind. “I want to feel all of you, not just your hand.”

Your stomach twisted with a tight knot of desire and he found your mouth again, almost bruising the force of his kiss.

“I want all of you.” He repeated softy into your mouth.

“Have you ever?” You asked gently.

He shook his head.

“Not even with any of the nurses?” You frowned.

“No.” He said sharply.

He was the most ethereal being you’d ever seen, and you found it hard to believe that no one had ever tried. He looked at you like you were insane to think he’d have given his most primal human instincts to some random nurse.

“Have you?” He asked curiously.

Your mind went blank.

“I don’t…” you voice dropped into a whisper. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

He smiled, and you felt his heart thumping through his shirt.

“But I know I want all of you too, Henry.”

Your hand relinquished his cock and slid up the back of his neck into his hair, now gently mussed. He kept kissing you, tender but starved as his hand slid between your bodies and drew the head of his cock down your slit. He nudged against your entrance and you arched up for him, easing his access.

The stretch was almost painful as he breached you. He groaned into your ear as your cunt enveloped him, tight and heated. He pushed himself to the hilt, until your hips were embraced. The burn of taking him morphed into a deep thrum of pleasure as he started to move, withdrawing slowly and then driving back into you in long thrusts.

He was composed at first, his rhythm thoughtful and controlled, as if he didn’t trust himself to let go, to feel it, to not to get completely lost in you. But quickly the coaxing sound of your whines and the roll of your hips underneath him started unravelling his composure entirely. His movements became urgent, his hips rutting into yours, his cock driving harder into your cunt.

He felt like heaven in the dim light, stretching you so perfectly, filling you so completely. You felt alive again, more alive than you ever had.

His blood in your veins, his body in yours, his soft sounds like poetry spilling from his lips. All of it merging into religion inside of you.

“Henry…” it was a graceless beg as your hips writhed down to meet him.

“Feel how perfectly you fit me?” He groaned, his teeth scraping over your neck. “You’re going to take all of me… aren’t you? Please, take every drop of me…”

“Yes… Henry… give me everything… let me take all of you.” You begged as he fucked into you harder.

Your arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him down, holding him against you like a vice as his hands dug into your hips to anchor you.

“You have no idea… how long I’ve dreamed of this…” he breathed, his whole body beginning to tremble. “How long I’ve wanted to feel inside of you, feel every part of you… how long I’ve wanted to give you the truth… to give you all of me…”

“Then give yourself to me Henry,” you begged into his ear. “All of you... I want you to fill me, give me more than just your blood… please.”

His voice was a broken, warped string of grunts from the pit of his chest as he spilled into your cunt, burying his cock as deep as he could. You could feel his pelvis throbbing rhythmically against yours as every thick pulse of his cum surged into you.

He collapsed down onto you, soft sounds falling from his lips. For a while, neither of you moved. You let him lay his entire weight on you until his ragged breaths and shuddering had drawn down into a quiet, sated rhythm.

Your fingers scraped through his hair, over his scalp. His drew lazy patterns on your ribs. He stayed inside you, his cock still thickened but softening, your heartbeats hammering against one another.

“Here.” he said finally, sleepily against your chest as you toyed with his hair and ran your fingers under his ear.

“What?”

“Let me show you.”

He moved his hand up to yours and slid your fingers down over the side of his neck, stilling them near his jugular. He pressed your fingertips into his muscle.

A small, hard shape was seated there, sunken deeply into his flesh.

You exhaled.

“Soteria.”

He nodded into you as your fingers palpated the ridges of it. You brushed over the small, straight scar that has been paled by time, almost to the same shade of his skin.

The feeling ran through you, hot and alive.

“Henry?”

“Yes?”

It was a cascading truth, a promise as blinding as the beauty that lay breathing on your chest.

“We are going to destroy him.”

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

☣︎ Comment if you'd like to be added to the tag list for this series! ☣︎

It had been a week since you were forcibly taken in by Henry Creel, and to say you were struggling to settle in would be an understatement.

It should have been simple. A casual ease into the new living spaces, routines, and options. But it was hard to when you would be kept awake by the persistent fear that everyone back home was suffering, or, worst case scenario, had given up wholly. Or given up on you. Then came the burnout. Not from doing anything in particular, but your own mind trying to rectify its own spirals and queries. You were teetering off the edge of functionality, resorting to locking yourself in your designated bedroom, curtains drawn to black out the room, only rising to use the bathroom or retrieve the food and water Henry would quietly leave at your door that always accompanied a note that read

'i will still be here if you need me. -H'

It almost felt like he cared.

You couldn’t really tell now. Whether it was a pesona, or he was, for once, not acting by way of deception.

It was an internal tug of war; one side pulling to letting him in, letting him care, just because it felt nice to have someone put effort back into giving you a helping hand- regardless of intentions; and the other was pulling to avoid him, let yourself waste away so he would eventually, inevitably give up. Because the fear of being in too deep to just be fooled in the end scared you more than anything.

But he just kept going.

He never got irritated. Never looked at you like he was waiting for you to fix yourself. Never spoke to you with tired resignation. He was just… there. When you needed him. Most of the time, you didn’t even say so. He knew. Every time. And it tore at you trying to decipher what he was trying to do.

——

HENRY’S POV

For Henry to constantly berate himself was a foreign type of habit. But right now, it was all he could do. You had been there a week. A single week. And in your presence, he had never felt more human.

The plan was to use you as bait. A lure. A piece of money on a string. To get William and Eleven into his area faster, so they would be wiped out fast, and no longer in the way. But you had shaken up everything in a way more violent than anticipated. Henry had watched you for a month or so before setting out to capture you, having witnessed the delicate line between breakdown and being a soldier in your own life that you tracked along daily. But he had not expected you to have any effect on him.

Capture you, keep you under a false guise of comfort and recovery, draw the enemy in, kill them, then dispose of you in whatever way he could be bothered with at that point in time.

But that was not the current track. You had began penetrating the fortress that was Henry Creel with your tears, distant gaze, blacked out room, and hesitations. The last time he had truthful intent to help someone was when he was working with Eleven to escape the lab. Even amidst his plans for domination, he cared for her. For the future they could have built. Then she herself stole it away.

Henry vowed to never, under any circumstances, give genuine warmth to anyone again.

But you were in the other room, swarmed by blankets and your own inner monologue.

It disgusted him how fast he let himself slip in the presence of such raw emotion. Perhaps it was from a place of envy- never being able to freely express himself throughout his life. An envy that warped into desire to feed into it and live vicariously through you. Or maybe The Shadow was playing ring leader, and was twisting his actions to make the hit much more hard on you once you were aware of the outcome of all of this.

But under absolutely no circumstances was it the blatant fact that Henry was simply drawn to the prospect of making you feel at home near him. That was, to him, an absurdity that could not be imagined. He did not care. Henry Creel is not a caring man.

Yet here he stands outside your door, a glass of water and Advil ready for you.

All part of the plan.

———

YOUR POV

The knock at your door breaks the fog that is your own mental hellscape. It takes 30 seconds to muster the energy to get up, and every step to the door is like carrying weights on your ankles.

You crack the door open a bit, and as always, Henry stands there, calm and patient.

"I brought you some meds for your headache."

"How did you know I had a headache?"

"I could sense your unease from the other room."

"'course you did." You murmur, and take the pills and water, sitting them on the bedside, and laying back on the bed. Henry watches you for a moment, then enters, sitting at the end of the bed. "What's on your mind today?"

"Impending doom."

Henry's brows raise, in curiosity and mild amusement. "Why's that?"

"I just keep thinking about everything that can go wrong. Or get worse. It's hard to tell what's actually falling apart, and what my mind is making worse."

He paused, thinking up a response. "The mind does tend to catastrophize the things it already knows is in a bad state. But then comes the element of what is, and isn't, in your control. If you prioritise what is in your control, it makes the bigger challenges seem easier to tackle. Or at least endure. The fact the future is uncertain allows just as much chance for good things to happen, as well."

"You could have been a great therapist, but you chose tentacle monster world killer."

A soft sound left Henry, somewhere between a huff and a short laugh. "Well, what can I say - you're giving me a chance to share other forms of wisdom."

You hum in response, the temporary moment of distraction acting as a buffer against your pain.

"Have you had breakfast?" Henry leans back a little, watching you.

"No." You sigh.

"Do you want anything?"

You had no appetite, but you had barely ate the last few days. The weight of your emotions had pushed away any interception of when you were hungry. But you knew you had to get to it at some point.

"Something easy."

"Toast with butter, and some tea. It won’t unsettle your stomach, and the tea won’t caffeinate you to the point of anxiety. I can make you something proper later, but as long as you eat, it'll help you."

Henry stands, brushing his pants of any creases, and heading to the door.

"Thank you, Mr Housewife." You call out, a rare grin on your lips.

He turns back to you, entirely unimpressed. "I am far from a housewife. I’m taking care of a depressed nemesis."

"Yeah, but you're also bringing me breakfast in bed."

"Because you can’t do it yourself."

"Ouch."

He sighs, and continues down into the kitchen.

The silence causes the headache to thwack into you again, so you rise from your lying position and reach for the pills and water. You take them one at a time, and have a little extra of the water.

The sounds of running water and food packaging comes from the kitchen, and you know you have a short period of alone time until he comes back. So you take a chance to finally indulge into the space you now call your room. Your bare feet his the wood panelled floors and carry you along the space. Henry was right- he did really try to tailor it to a mix of both his and your preferences. Books you adore line the shelves. Art you admire sits in frames above the desk. The stationery in the draws are to your tastes, meticulously organised in ways that allow you to subconsciously know where everything is. The blankets are your desired textures. The vinyl’s in the crate beside the record player are all albums you enjoy.

It almost makes you think he does truly care in some way. Regardless of any mind reading used to create an atmosphere that will draw you into it, and keep you there.

The bar must be in hell if that is what gets you moved by someone's actions, if that's what makes you feel noticed.

But selfishly, you let yourself have it. Nobody else has to know.

You hear footsteps up the stairs, and you rush back to the bed as if you hadn't gotten up. He comes back in moments later, a cup of tea and a plate of toast on a small tray.

"Here you go. I made them the way you like them." He places the tray in front of you on the bed.

"I assume you read my mind to know how I like it."

"Some of it. But some things recently have just been coming naturally. I catch glimpses of your thoughts at random."

"So how I like my tea is more accessible than information I have that involve the plans I'm involved in to kill you."

"Oh, I already know all that." He says casually, and the tea in your stomach chills to ice.

"What do you mean, you already know?"

"What, you think I haven’t been around watching?" His brows raise and a his lips turn in a slight smile. "I can take on many forms in the world we're from. A bird. A civilian. A child at a park. I've been around more than you can imagine. I have an overall idea of your goals, so I haven’t had much need to look that far into your mind. Besides, certain.... individuals, remain connected to the other worlds."

Your chest tightens. "Will. You've been using him as a spy."

"On occasion. But unbeknownst to him, it's a two-way street. If he wished, he could find his way into my mind. But he doesn’t know of that. That makes things easier for me."

"I fucking hate you."

His smile widens. "I was wondering when I'd hear that again." He moves to look out the window. "Remember what I told you, though; my plans are more broad than wipeout of humanity. There are more noble pursuits within them."

"And yet you tell me none of them."

"Why would I tell you them if you're against them? I don’t reveal anything that isn’t ready, or completely fleshed out. Anyway, you aren’t here to find out what I'll do. You're here to heal enough to where when the time comes, if you fall, you won't fall with relief, you'll fall with a fight still in you."

"So you’re trying to get me in the right headspace to die."

"I'm trying to get you in the right headspace to fight. One thing about you, you are stubborn. So stubborn that you, even when on the brink of a suicide plan, deep down, don’t give up. I don’t even think death could make you give up. So, I'm getting you back in the zone to fight. It makes the possible outcomes of my plan more interesting."

You sit with his words for a moment. He doesn’t have you here so you can be wiped out right after. He has you here because he finds you interesting enough to keep you around and to give you a chance at battling his motives.

You are enough of an enigma to him to where you are being spared at the hands of the devil.

He turned from the window to face you. "Finish up your breakfast. I'll check on you later.

He leaves the room, leaving you to try and rewire what you have known previously of this situation.

------

HENRY'S POV

Sitting at the desk in the study, Henry felt foolish.

He had let slip more than intended. Albeit it was cryptic, he still spoke more than he should have. What was it about you that was forcing him to open up more? Why was it that you, a single piece of the opposition, was cracking him open and forcing him out of the shell?

The worst part was that you didn't even know. You weren’t aware that you, in a week, were forcing him into a consistent state of trying to hold onto a long-built self identity, in which you were dismantling. It enraged him. If keeping you here wasn't building momentum for William and his allies to get to him, he would have absolutely thrown you out. But this was part of a plan to shift things in a better direction. He would have to endure the snarky quips, refusals, conflicting thoughts that would pass from your mind to his while you were in close proximity.

'You are softening under the presence of the girl. You must not let yourself fall far to her.' The Shadow whispered in his mind, goosebumps trailing his neck as it's voice ran through him.

'I know.' Henry sighed, his own voice calling through his own head. 'But this is out of my control. I fight back against what she does, but I can’t fully resist. Not even she knows what she does. Why is it that she acts as a repellent to us?'

'Because her being is, while starkly human, far too close to something other. She perceives and understands too much that other humans can not. Rather than dwelling on it, utilise it. Use her as a way to gain something you haven’t yet found.'

Or in short, use her as a consumable to draw from in his own pursuits.

The thought unsettled him to his surprise.

Henry had no issues at any time with drawing from anyone or anything, a vampire for power of any source. But the idea of using you as a tap he could drain, just so he could rewire existence, seemed almost unfair- you held so much existence in you already. To drain it would feel almost....shameful.

He left his place at the desk, and silently walked the hall from the office to your room. He peered his head in just slightly. You were curled back in the blankets, sleeping, Good. You needed it. The breakfast dishes were placed back on the tray, on the desk. He smiled at the act of consideration. But he didn’t retrieve it just yet. He stood there for some time, watching you, while something unfamiliar, daunting, but unmistakably warm unfurled in his chest.

He hated it, but could not stop it.

--------

YOUR POV

Waking up felt just as exhausting as it did earlier. If not worse. Your head still hurt and you felt stripped of energy in every way. You groaned into the pillow, wishing you would fall asleep again so you don’t have to feel this way. But you couldn’t will your body back to slumber. Your breath came out shakily, eyes stinging under the pressure you held. You had naively believed that you would feel better by now. The fact you felt worse made the tears fall quicker, your mind returning to the familiar location of 'the only thing that can fix this is ending it'.

As if having sensed the dark pit you fell into, Henry stood at the door. He looked less put together- no vest, sleeves rolled up, hair mildly disheveled. Like he either was getting ready for the day, or hadn’t slept.

“What’s the matter?”

You couldn’t even speak. Words felt too heavy, too incomplete to what you felt. You squeezed your eyes shut to hold back the tears but you couldn’t win against your own reckoning. A sob tore through you, then another, until it was just continuous. Loud, violent, and inescapable.

Henry wordlessly sat on the bed, on the side you were not lying on. He didn’t move closer, but the weight of his presence was enough. He sat there, letting you cry. You hated it. Hated this room. This house. This situation. The fact he was your last resort, last option to keeping yourself alive willingly. That you couldn’t even live in your own mind for an extended period. That it would turn on you with the flick of a wrist, forcing you to reach for something sharpened or something to dull the screaming. You hated that you were still alive. You hated that Vecna sat beside you like a pillar of stability. You hated that it helped.

"I don’t want to talk to you."

"Would it be easier if I look into your mind?"

Your brows furrowed at the idea. He could find anything. See anything. But to be fair, he probably already had. So you nodded, not knowing what else to do.

He gently tried taking your hand, which made you swipe yours away, breath short.

"Hey- it's okay. I'm not doing anything bad. It just... helps. To get to the bottom of someone's thoughts." He placated.

You looked from his hand to yours. It had been far too long since anyone had willingly extended physical affection to you. It made you heart stutter in a manner of panic. But you weren’t sure how else to go about this, or anything anymore. You inched your hand back towards his.

He slowly reached back out, and took your hand. His palm was soft, free of calluses and any other ailments. His fingers were long, slender. He held your hand in a firm grip and closed his eyes, and a firm pressure invaded your mind, images and memories flashing in your view faster than you could comprehend; your dad having to explain that your little sister had passed away when you were only 9, your mother in the distance with a hand over her mouth to hold back sobs. Your first memory of one of El's panic attacks while your dad stood by, unsure what to do. Memories of her after battle, bloody and exhausted and scared. The Battle of Starcourt, watching the Mind Flayer tear everything apart, Max's scream as Billy was killed. Finding out your dad was blown up, and El was leaving. Then a year passed, watching Dustin hold Eddie's dead body, how you blacked out once it hit. The hospital afterward. The paramedics. Steve watching you like if he left your side, you'd end it right there. Your dad's face after hearing what almost happened, El crying because she almost lost you too.

And the way everything felt like a downward spiral of grief and pain from there. The looks of timidness people gave you. The nights you spent crying. The nail shaped indents in your arms. The empty feeling of a therapist’s office. Finding the mixtape Eddie made and having a breakdown hearing his voice at the start of it from a demo that never went anywhere. The exhaustion of the crawls getting nowhere. Watching Dustin fall into a similar state as you, only more vengeful. The constant anxiety that everything would be torn from you. The way people gave up, and left you to manage alone.

You had always managed alone, mostly. But people didn’t throw you a liferaft when the water got too deep at all. Perhaps now that you were gone, they would have let you drown. Or they would find the ocean that was you, with no sign of anyone to rescue, aside from their own reflection in the water. Perhaps, now, it was too late. The waves of your own breaking point dragged you to the depth, and left behind a shell.

You took in a harsh breath when you came to, and Henry sat beside you, still holding your hand, but his grip was tighter now. His eyes were distant.

"I had felt your pain from the other room, but I didn’t anticipate how bad it had consumed you." He spoke quietly, like to recognise someone's pain rather than feed off of it had made him realise what exactly he had done. "How did nobody notice?"

"I'm good at hiding myself until I can't anymore." You whisper, voice catching on the last word. The tears hadn’t stopped since you woke.

He watched you for a moment. He looked remorseful. As if you had shown him the other side of the coin that was his plans. It had clearly startled him but it was something he wasn't yet willing to come to terms with. As he had said a week before: in this state, he was as human as you. That must have also included the emotional aspect.

He swallowed, thinking over his words. "I apologise that I haven’t been taking your pain as serious as I should have. Everything you've been through has hit you harder than you let on. You... you've spent your whole life being strong for everyone. Making the pain easier. But in the meantime, you've only accumulated it onto yourself."

The words made you look away, feeling sick at how true it was. It made you feel seen. Heard. Not like a burden. He saw it, took it, and was doing something with it that would mend it rather than abandon it out of fear of what he would find.

"It's no wonder you feel how you do. Why you can’t hold on anymore."

"Yeah, no shit." You whisper.

"Don’t deflect. Not right now. Right now, I want you to let it all out. Scream, cry, swear, yell at me if you wish. I won't internalise anything, but I will listen. I will be what you need."

'I will be what you need.'

That broke you the most. You did cry. Wail, screaming into the pillows and your hands. You cried for your father, El, Eddie, Will, Sara, your friends and loved ones and mentors, the future you hoped you would reach but it was completely altered one November evening. You felt a violent rage towards Henry for what he did. You told him it was all his fault. He killed Eddie. He is the reason Eleven will struggle for her whole life to have normality. That he doesn’t deserve to be alive or sitting here. You expressed how badly you wished you would just end it all if given an opening. That you would feel okay at last if you could just fucking die. You sobbed that you didn’t know what to do. That if everything was going to get worse, what was the point of even being here?

Henry listened to it all. He didn’t yell back or tell you to stop, or tell you that you were wrong. He listened, nodded, and let you release all the hurt from the last almost 2 decades.

Hours had passed since, and you were laying on your back with tears running gentle trails down your temples, staring at the ceiling.

And he stayed through it all.

"I still want to die." The words were a rough whisper.

"I know." He responded. He took your hand back in his, and squeezed.

You stayed like that until you inevitably fell asleep.

------------

HENRY'S POV

For the first time since the night he killed his family, he had to sit here and ask himself

'What have I done?'

It had been an eternity since he had experienced the brute force of someone else's pain. Yes, he used Will's insecurities against himself. He had turned Eleven's power onto her as a means to show her just how bad it could get. He tormented Chrissy, Fred, Patrick, and Max.

And now you, who's pain would be used to paint an illusion of false healing as a trap for his enemies. But also you, who was forcing him out of being a monster, and into a man. And for the first time in a long time he felt out of his own control. Even with The Shadow plaguing his being. At least that was familiar. You however was something entirely new.

Henry was not known for being easily shaken, especially by the weight of someone else’s struggle- and yet seeing through your mind made him sad. Worried, even. Once you were deep in sleep, he gently shifted off the bed.

But your hand instinctively tightened on his. You hated him. Wanted him dead. Yet you didn’t want him to leave.

But he had to. He eased his hand from yours and left swiftly, retreating to the backyard. The sun warm and air mild, a comfortable in-between of summer, fall, and winter. There are times he would come and sit out here as a child, a moment of silence from the pressures that lay inside of the home itself. Only right now the pressure sat in his chest, running along his sternum, up his throat, and into his head, thoughts of your troubles fixating his thoughts. This was completely unanticipated and it had him reeling. The voice in his mind that wasn’t entirely himself said to just get it over with; give you the mercy you wished for. You had been here a week, and had fully infected his mind with something he could only refer to as a softness. Softness was weakness. But god, it felt right to care. He loathed himself for being yanked in a direction he had not planned route for. Who was he to wish well for his pawns? Why on earth was he hoping you'd recover?

He rested his elbows on his knees, and ran his hands along his face. To be conflicted was to waver, and he did not waver. Until you. Was it foolish to think you had placed this on him intentionally? That seemed like the only possibility now. But you didn’t have that ability. You didn’t have superpower. He would have known. You were, simply, different. Different in ways that kept him up at night. Different in ways that made him feel like his actions were predictable. You weren’t even all that scared of him- you didn’t shy away. You even went to the limit of insulting him to his face. That should have been enough to kill you then and there. Yet he didn’t, because instead of fear, you were angry. And he was all too familiar with anger.

He couldn’t sit here and dawdle. He was conniving, cunning, and ruthless. He could not afford these silly, human-like emotions. He could not afford to coddle you. He would do as he intended; 'help' you as a means to an end.

So he told himself.

------------

YOUR POV

The absence of Henry when you awoke should not have been chilling, but the lack of warmth hit you fast. Yet again, alone. You weren’t sure why it made you uncomfortable that he wasn’t there. You told yourself it was because you anticipated it. That against your morals and wishes, he had slowly become familiar.

Your throat felt raw from sobs, eyes dry from a river ran dry of tears. You felt hollowed out and left behind to fill yourself back up. Everything had been scratched raw and left to go numb. The exhaustion was a palpable sensation.

You were in a limbo between hopelessness and relief for a suspended time, staring at nothing. Something about it was familiar. Safe. This was at least a state of mind you knew of. You didn’t hear or really see Henry come in. He sat back beside you and very gently placed a hand on your shoulder.

"Can you speak?"

You shook your head.

"Okay. That's okay. Would you feel comfortable using your mind to speak? Can you handle that?"

You nodded.

"Good." His lips didn’t move, but his voice spoke soft in your mind. "Can you respond?"

"Yeah." Your inner voice answers back.

His gaze on you softened "Would you like to take a bath? It might help soothe you."

The idea felt tiring, but you also knew you hadn’t showered since before you were taken here. So you nodded.

“Alright. I’ll run it for you. Stay here in the meantime. I’ll grab some clean pyjamas as well.”

He goes to your dresser, grabbing a soft pair of pyjama shorts and a similar sleep shirt, clean undergarments and a pair of socks.

"Are you able to walk?"

You nodded, slipping the sheets off your frame and standing. Walking felt grueling, but you wanted to maintain as much autonomy as you can in this situation. You followed his path to the bathroom, a room down the hall by the master bedroom.

The space was wide, a claw-foot bathtub in the centre. Henry turned the taps on, adjusting the temperature, and adding in oils, salts, and a splash of bubble bath that held the scent of something sugary.

"You can undress and settle in. I'll make you some tea and a small snack plate."

"Why are you doing all this?" Your voice comes through your hread in a slightly angered tone, yet laced with utter confusion.

"Because wouldn’t it be nice for anyone to do it at all? I already told you; you need to get back on your feet and give life another chance. I won’t keep arguing on it. In the nicest way, you have no choice but to let me." Henry turned on his heel, and made his way out, closing the door.

You sighed, rubbing your hands over your head. By now the bath was finished, you turned the taps off. You watched the bubbles sway against the water like an invitation.

Looking back at the door once more to make sure he wasn’t hovering, you slipped off your dirty clothes and stepped into the bath.

It was perfect.

Like an enchantment, the tension fled from your body as the concoction of scented relievants did their work. It was the first time in the last.... You didn’t know how long- that you felt a semblance of calm, pleasure. Your mood felt better. Not significantly, but enough to where living didn’t feel like eating glass.

Some time later Henry came back into the bathroom- and immediately averted his gaze from where you sat in the centre of the room. "I brought your refreshments." He swallowed, and used his powers to send the mug of tea and assortments of snacks onto the tray that sat over the bath. The plate had sliced fruit, cheese, crackers, some chocolates, and a few other sugary candies.

Thoughtful.

You looked from the plate to him. He was looking anywhere else.

"Are you.... good?" You tilted your head slightly, amused.

"Mhm. Yes. Good to hear you speaking again."

"Yeah, well, this bath feels like I'm laying in clouds and all things joyus. What did you even us?"

"Just whatever was around."

"Right. Are you sure you're fine?"

"Does it matter?" He responded, eyes fixed to the painting that sat on the wall by the vanity. His tone was more tense than irritable.

Then it clicked.

"You've never been near a naked woman, have you?"

His throat worked as he choked on his own saliva, and you grinned a mix of victorious and utterly pleased at the break in composure.

Vecna, world ending, vicious, obliteration machine, had never seen a pair of boobs before. You couldn’t wait to share how ridiculous that was the next time you got to see Steve and Robin.

Steve and Robin. The thought of them, what they could be doing, made the air punch from your stomach. But the feeling was short lived as Henry's voice drew you back to the present.

"I've never had a reason."

"Seriously? No secret fling, ever?"

"No. Not that it would be your business if I did."

"Dude, if I'm gonna be here god knows how long, and this may be a repeat occurrence often, you're gonna have to see something at some point. Anyway, I'm covered in bubbles up to the collar. You can look. As.... odd as it is to offer, all things considered."

His jaw worked, a long-suffering sigh leaving him. He tilted his head to the ceiling and squeezed his eyes shut. Then moved his head in your direction, eyes opening.

Even in a swarm of bubbles and water, a flush crept up his neck.

You noticed.

"If you really don’t want to look, you don’t have to. I wasn’t forcing you."

"No. I mean- it's.... alright. Just... unfamiliar."

You nodded, reaching for the tea. At the shift of your arm and slight movement of the bubbles, his gaze instantly left you again.

"Jesus christ, you're hopeless." You mumble into the mug, and his eyes lock back on you like a petulant child.

"I am not."

"I moved 3 inches and you looked like you were about to cum. Am I that enticing that you had to kidnap me and be a voyeur?"

"Dear god, you're insufferable!"

"At least that's mutual."

"What have I done that's worse than the way you're speaking right now?"

"....you're trying to kill everyone I love and then turn the world into a monster dictatorship."

For once, he was speechless.

"Exactly." You shrug, popping a chocolate heart into your mouth.

Henry leaned against the wall, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and pointer finger. "When I planned to take you here, I was not anticipating you to be this crude."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mr Posh Boy, was the word 'cum' too much?"

"You-.... No. I've heard worse."

"From who?"

"People."

"Who, the Mind Flayer?"

"What the f...." He whispered to himself. It was the closest you'd heard to him swearing and it made you grin. "I will never understand why you all call it that."

"You've never been through Will's head enough to understand D&D?"

"It was mentioned, but I haven’t understood it."

"It's a fantasy roleplay game, which is also a board game, and in it, on3 of the villains to defat is called The Mind Flayer. Looks similar to the shadow thing. And it's why we call you Vecna. He's an undead wizard. And the Demogorgons, again, have similairties."

"An 'undead wizard'?" He was entirely unimpressed.

You nod.

"Well. The originality is applauded."

You stayed in the bath until it was chilled, and your skin started pruning. Henry stepped out while you rinsed yourself and your hair, and wrapped a robe over yourself. But by the time that was done, you were exhausted again. You leaned against the vanity, barely keeping yourself up.

And you knew you had no choice. It made you seethe a little, at how you had let yourself get this way, but if anything, this may have been the plan. For him to get you so annoyed at the fact you had to depend on him that you'd take initiative to get better.

"Henry?"

"Yes, Y/n?"

"I fucking hate this, but..... can you maybe..... help me with getting dressed?"

There was silence for a moment.

"Why...?"

"Because I can barely move without feeling like I’ll pass out."

You heard him sigh again, this time in consideration.

"Okay. Bedroom or bathroom?"

"Bathroom."

"Okay. Don’t have your front facing any mirror, and have your undergarments on first."

A fair deal. You did as he said, dressing in what he requested and moving away from the mirrors.

"Come in now."

The door clicked open, and he entered slowly. He wordlessly came over, and reached for the pyjamas that sat on the stool nearby.

"Shirt first. Arms up." He murmured, stepping behind you. The act of lifting your arms made your head swim, but he swiftly pulled the shirt over your frame so you wouldn’t do anything more strenuous.

His knuckles accidentally grazed the dip between your shoulder blades. Your breath caught and you flinched away instinctively. Not so much in fear, but the fact his touch felt startlingly correct upon you.

He retreated back a bit as you also did, hand hovering. But he didn’t apologise. He took a steadying breath, and grabbed your shorts. "Step into them."

You did so, and finished pulling them up when they got to your hips, so neither of you had to have another awkward interaction.

"Okay. You're dressed. Your hair is almost dry. I can do your socks when you get back to bed."

You nodded. But the distance from here to the bedroom felt like a hike, and the concept made your stomach turn over.

Henry must have picked up on it.

"I'll carry you."

"Beg your pardon?

"Unless you want to collapse and crawl?"

"Fuck me- make it quick." You grumbled.

The second his hands wrapped under your knees and around your back, you clenched your eyes shut and tried to think of anything else.

He was evil. Wicked. Ruined your life. Was assisting in deaths. Wa actually a tentacle freak who was rotting in a memory void in his basement.

But you couldn’t deny that the way he lifted you like you were nothing made your heart flutter all the way down to your hips.

He got to the bedroom quickly, as you had asked. He placed you on the bed, grabbed the socks, and, put them on you.

"Done." He stepped back, rubbing his palms on his pants. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing the pale skins and prominent veins. You did not allow yourself the mercy of looking further.

"You can go now." Your voice was steady, but your tone was hard in a way that expressed how you both felt.

"Right. It's getting later than expected. Do you need anything else?"

"No." You pulled the sheets over yourself, turning to face away from him.

"Okay." He stood there for a moment, and you knew he was watching over you.

"Goodnight."

"Night." You echoed. He turned and left the room, closing the door.

You were exhausted, spent, mentally, physically, in every way.

But one thought followed you into unconciousness;

if you kept this up, you would be utterly, completely fucked.

You were closer to breaking now than you had been in the last 3 years.

You grew up watching your little sister lose herself to a vicious illness. Your mother leaving, the weight of loss unbearable for her. You had seen the town you live in fall into the trap of a version of itself that was parallel to Hell. You watched as innocent children battled monsters. You watched your adoptive sister be responsible for the fate of the world, more times than you can count. You watched people you cared for die. You were tortured in a Russian spy base. Just to get out of it to find out your father had been obliterated, and your sister was moving across the country.

That was when things got to a point that they had never been before. A deep, visceral despair that would not lessen.

You were offered a chance to leave Hawkins too, but the idea of leaving behind the last traces of your father made your heart crush against your ribs. So you stayed. You stayed, moving in with Steve, who kept you afloat through it all.

Countless nights of him having to call Robin to come over, because he didn’t know how to tell you that you wouldn’t find a reprieve from the pain by killing yourself. Days where Nancy would stay by your side from dawn until dusk, making sure you were somewhat functional. But all you could do in the moments you weren’t sobbing was lie in bed and think of how life had been stripped from you.

You were not physically dead, but without your father, either of your sisters, your mother, any semblance of the normalcy you used to cling to, you may as well have been dead in every other way.

Then came the spring of 1986. Right when you finally felt like life would offer you a chance to keep living. You had landed a part time job at Family Video. You were thinking of college in the coming years. You were spending time with The Party, what was left of it. And you had befriended Eddie Munson. Who found you crying at the pier one night when he just wanted to come smoke.

Eddie did more for your healing than anything else could have.

And then the Upside Down opened its jaws again. And it took him, along with half of Hawkins.

Sarah, your mother, Eleven, your father, and now Eddie. Every person who truly breathed life into you had left you gasping for oxygen.

It was 12:31 AM the day after Hawkins split open when Steve Harrington called an ambulance for you after you told him you wanted to commit suicide.

The few days following were a whirl of medications, hospital beds, therapy appointments, ‘get well’ cards, Dustin visiting you with Steve, to give you a collection of guitar picks Wayne had salvaged from Eddie’s room. Eleven had come back to Hawkins after her own uphill battle, and you held each other, sobbing into the hospital sheets.

And then came your father, walking through the hospital doors. It made you think you had actually died. Or the meds were too much. But after multiple retelling from him of what had happened across the globe, you realised that he was not a spirit, nor an illusion. You, he, and El, sat in your hospital room, and wept for the time lost.

About 3 weeks later, you were sent home. The hospital would have had you sent somewhere out of Hawkins to recover, but the town had by now been put on lockdown, it wasn’t possible unless you had caused any legitimate harm to yourself. You were sent back to a freshly repaired version of the cabin with a schedule of long lasting therapy sessions, and enough antidepressants to sedate a small pony.

But you had your dad. You had El. That counted for something.

Until the stakes of Vecna’s plans fell back into focus, and suddenly it was like you were back to normal to the world around you. Obviously, you weren’t. The meds were helping, as was the familiarity of family. People tried to be around for you, but there was never any time for them to really check anymore. You weren’t angry. You understood. But the moments you would lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking of when you saw Eddie’s body, or the pure agony you felt as Steve called 911, or the way the tears drowned you into near catatonia more times in the last year that you could count; you just wished someone would see it.

That wish granted you more than you bargained for.

After a crawl the week before the start of November went wrong, you were stranded. Trying to make your own way back to the WSKQ, to grab some resources and head back to the others. But to your luck- your fucking car broke down. That was the first crack in the layer of composure you forced upon yourself. You tried a payphone not far away. No service, and you were left with no cash to try again. By now, the tears had started. The panic, the feeling of things never getting better. But you went back to the car, and used your walkie to contact someone, anyone. You got through to Steve.

"Jesus, where are you? You should have been back half an hour ago! We need the maps and tools now, what are you doing?"

"Steve, my fucking car broke down- I'm sorry. I tried to call for a tow on a payphone, but there was no service, and I ran out of coins-"

"Fuck sake, we don’t have time for this! You need to find a way to The Squawk now, get the maps, and meet us back at the cabin, now."

"Steve, I can’t go walking by myself- Steve? Steve?? STEVE?!"

He had hung up his end of the walkie.

"FUCK!!!" You yelled, sobbing. You threw the walkie out of the car. Which made you panic more, because you didn’t have a way to reach anyone now.

You wailed and clawed at yourself. You felt like a failure. An inconsolable, sinking failure.

And then the light in the phone booth flickered, in the near distance.

You jumped from your car, and sprinted to it. You would take any chance, any sign, of a signal. You dialled the number for the towing company that you had shacked away in your memory, and waited.

A dial tone.

Waiting.

Ringing.

When the call picked up, the silence aside from static was absolute.

"....Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?"

No one was there.

Aside from an all too familiar growl, squelching, crackling, high pitched.

The phone slipped from your hand, and in your periphery, you could just catch the tall inhumane silhouette.

You didn’t even have a chance to scream before claws grabbed at the front of your shirt, and you were plunged into darkness.

In the middle of the deserted road, the broken walkie crackled to life with the frantic calls of Robin's voice. All she was met with was a distant, guttural cry of something monstrous.

----------

When you woke, everything was a hazy, distant dream. The grass beneath you was soft, almost plush. The sky was blue, littered with white clouds, fresh breeze, carrying the scent of a new spring. Spring. It was spring, in November. Nothing of this was right.

You sat up, and looked around. A field, plain and clean, full of wildflowers and grassy hills. You tried to gather your thoughts, but it was as if you had been drunk before this. There was only a few clips of recognition. The car, your tears, the despair, and the phone booth. And a chill, that went straight from your toes, to your head, and into your soul.

"You're awake."

You yelled, and turned.

There behind you, stood a man. A fair skinned man, with blond hair, cerulean eyes, in a brown suit, a matching fedora atop his head. And a smal, pleasant smile, that looked far to rehearsed. There was something far too familiar about him.

You were stationary, staring at him for a good 30 seconds. Then you bolted. You sprinted as fast as your legs could endure, but not fast enough. You found a house. A house you had seen before, in a much worse for wear state, in a much worse for wear place. But your survival instincts led you to the front door, yanking it open. You fell backwards, as the man stood in the doorway.

"I'd watch where you're going, if I were you. Don’t want you to get hurt now, would we?" He took a step forward, extending you a hand. You slapped it away, scrambling back. You stood to turn and run, but again, somehow, he stood before you, not allowing you to take a step in his previously opposite direction.

"You don’t need to run. I won’t hurt you. You are safe here."

"Fucking bullshit." You snap, standing, stumbling back away from him. You now knew better than to run. He seemed almost amused at your foul language.

"Come inside, Y/n." He tries to placate.

"How do you know my name?" You snap yet again.

"I know plenty about you. It's why I saved you. From the monster."

"That was you?" Your incredulous tone makes his smile widen. "No, that- fuck- nobody else was there. My car broke down, I tried to call for help, and-"

"And the monster got you. Now you're here, where it is safe."

"Nothing is fucking safe to me anymore. I don’t trust you, I don’t trust this, and I don’t trust that me getting snatched by a demogorgon was anything casual!"

"....Snatched by a what?" He tilted his head.

"Demogorgon. That thing, the monster. It's called a demogorgon."

"According to who?'

"Me. My friends. Everyone aware they exist."

"And how do you know they exist?"

"How do you know they exist?"

"Because I saved you from it."

"Then why don’t you know it's name?"

"Because I've seen them plenty, but they've never had a name."

That made you pause.

"You've seen them plenty."

You caught the way his eyes widen a fraction "Yes. Because they stalk around in the woods. One of them came further, to near you. It got you."

"They only live in an alternate dimension, which this is nothing like. How is it they just roam through woods somewhere I am supposedly safe? And 'it got me'. How could it have got me if you 'saved me'?"

"Don't be difficult."

"Don't be a fucking liar."

"I am many things, but I am not a liar."

"Then tell me this: who are you?"

"Henry Whatsit."

"Your last name isn't fucking Whatsit, that's a character from a book. Fine, Hen-....."

You look back at the house. Then to him.

"Henry."

"Yes."

"This is the Creel house."

"Is it? Is that the family that lived here perviously?"

"I think you know."

"And what makes you think that?"

You stand up, and take a closer look at him. "How old are you?"

His head tilts again. "27."

"Henry Creel killed his family. Enough years have passed to where if he was alive today, he'd be 27. Your name is Henry, you're 27, and you happen to live in his house? And the monsters, that Henry, now Vecna, and yes, we call him Vecna, don't fucking ask, controls the demogorgons, and you just HAPPEN to live in the only place they roam?"

He's silent. He walks up to you, and you know better than to move.

"You're more perceptive than I thought."

He leans in closer.

"That's dangerous."

You're thrown back into an abyss of darkness before you can even respond.

----

A bed as soft as clouds held your body as you came to.

It was like an illusion of safety. But god, was it a relief. It made your heart clench under your bones. As if all of the pain from the last 5 years had been washed off, like dirt down a shower drain. And it was warm, hypnotically so. But you forced the trance away, sat up, and looked around. A bedroom. A guest room, you would assume- but what caught your eye the most was how intentional the design was. It was full of items, trinkets, colour palettes that you desire for yourself. Yet it still had a distinct 1950s aura to it.

A flowing melody came from downstairs, something old, sweet, sarchine but not to a point of displeasure. It was then, you realised, you were forced into the house you were earlier outside. Henry's house. Or something akin to its previous state, before it was taken over by ruin and abandon.

You did not want to be stuck here, and you knew the repercussions of running.

But running wasn’t worse than leaving those you love with an unfortunate fate.

You didn’t bother putting on your shoes, or the slippers by the bed. You pushed open the crack left in the door, and crept down the stairs with a stealthy precision you've had no choice but to adapt over time. It was a challenge trying to not put pressure on the creakier steps, but you worked your way down in silence. The front door was just feet away.

The foyer of the house was silent as you didn’t let a single breath slip past you. Your hand was inches from the doorknob, when

"And what do you think you're doing?"

You didn’t even look to the direction of Henry's voice, you just yanked the door open and ran. The wind whipped through your hair as your socks caught on twigs and stones, and you had just made it to the edge of the woods. There was something blocking you. Moreso, pulling you away. You tripped over your feet trying to scramble away, but it yanked you back, all the way into the house. The door slammed behind you and you were swept over the floor, your back hitting the table in the entryway.

Henry locked the door and turned to you. His eyes were now more firm, set on you with an icy intensity.

"If you had given me time, I'd have explained the biggest rule for the time you're here, is to not leave. Especially not to go into the woods. You already broke that."

"Fuck you, and your fucking rules! And how was I meant to know? You abducted me! You haven’t told me anything!"

"I would have, if you had just stayed put. There is no reason to fight me here. I will not hurt you, unless you explicitly disobey me. And considering you weren't told anything yet, I will not harm you. You get a warning. Now, will you get up? Or do I have to look down on you further while explaining everything?"

What an insufferable, pompous cretin.

You manage to stand shakily, though your back persisted in the area of previous impact.

"I apologise for the force, but it was needed. I didn’t feel like chasing you through the woods. Not right now. Now, follow me. Sit in the kitchen, where I can see you. I'll make tea." He politely gestures to the kitchen, leaving you to pause until he was out of sight, then follow.

The kitchen was a comfortable and lush space, a large breakfast bar in the centre, mint and brick orange accents tha sat against sleek black and white furnishings, lifting the room into something startlingly reminiscent of the 1950's. The smell of tea and something sweet, like baking pastries, floated through the room. The whole thing exuded a fake warmth. But you hated that it was something of a known familiarity to you.

You sat at the breakfast bar, Henry's back to you as he steeped a teabag in a teapot.

"Is earl gray okay?"

"I'm not drinking your poison."

He turned, lips slightly quirked up. "If I wanted you poisoned, I would have been far more obvious. I like to make my prey watch what I'm going to do before I catch them. This however, is standard earl gray. Now, is that okay, or do you have different tastes?"

"Just give me it." You grit out.

"I take that as a yes to the flavour. Good, it's my favourite, too."

He grabbed two teacups from a nearby cabinet, two small saucers to sit them on. He pursed one in front of you, and in front of himself -- yet he remained standing on the opposite side of you.

He took a sip, then spoke.

"I imagine you're scared."

"I'm not scared, I just wish you were dead."

"What a lovely pleasantry. Trust me, I know. I haven’t exactly made life easy for you. But that's why I have you here. To make it up to you, to repay you for the troubles I've caused."

"You can do that by letting me go back to my friends and family, and giving up on your mission to blow everything up."

"If I haven't made it clear, you aren’t leaving for now. This is not a prison, but a safe haven. I've seen how you've been recently. You can't pour from an empty cup. You need time. In a space that will accomodate you, provide you with enough time and supplies to get back on your feet, so when you leave, you're well rested, and can do your part."

"I'm not an idiot, I know you have ulterior motives. I see what you do, what you have done. You're posing as this version of you, when you're a slimy, tentacle freak who tries to kill people for personal gain."

Henry stares at you, then shrugs.

"I suppose you're right. I have my.... unconventional methods. But I promise, I am not keeping you here to hurt you. What fun would it be to see you break further? And as for my current disposition, this is simply me, here. Not posing. I can shift states as I wish, but in this place, I am simply myself, no.... additives. You don’t have to believe me. But I hope as time passes, you will see that I only want what's best for you. I see far too much of myself in you to let you rot away unfairly. I'm extending a rare kindness to you, Y/n. I hope you come to be grateful. I am giving you a chance to heal all the pain that you carry. A chance to desire to live despite it."

Something in his words felt far too genuine. You couldn’t piece together which of it was, but it was there.

"I know you have different plans. I'm not here just because you pity me. You have me here for something according to what you want, but I know you won’t tell me. But tell me one thing. What will come at the end of this?"

"Peace. For you, me, everyone involved. I'll have you know that my plans are not as destructive as you believe. I simply wish to rewire the world, the systems that carry it. My goals are much more than a ruthless means to an end. I am doing this to save humanity in more ways than just the simple idea of a wipeout."

He didn’t break eye contact as he took a sip of tea, but you broke it when your gaze moved to watch the steam rise from your own. The mental exhaustion felt like a lead weight sitting on your shoulders, trying to melt you into the ground like quicksand.

Annoyingly, he could tell.

"I know what you're thinking right now." His tone is much more gentle now. "It's unfair that this is your only chance to release what you need to let go of. The only other feasible chance the last year and a half has been the idea of death. But this gives you another chance. To do so, in a contained environment, where you will not be judged or ignored. You can do that here."

"Where even is 'here?" You mumble.

"Somewhere in a far better state than the world we are used to. The specifics are rather complicated, but know it is all real. And I emphasise, will not cause harm to you. As long as you stay out of the woods, where there are things that will try to hurt you."

"Demogorgons?"

"....If that's how you wish to refer to them. Yes. And know that since I am, as you know, familiar with them, here, only I can withstand them. So if you were to encounter one, chances are, you wouldn’t survive."

"You still are a sociopathic maniac ,and I still hope to one day see you on fire."

"But?"

"There's no 'but'." You push away your tea, and walk up the stairs. He follows.

"Maybe I am those things, maybe I'm lesser, maybe I'm worse. But I will have you know, here, I am purely human. with many abilities, but in my prominent physicality, I am as simple as you."

You don’t answer, slamming the door to your room behind you, locking it. You slump onto the bed, heart heavy with the reality you currently face. How is it that things are constantly on a downhill track?

And then the door unlocks.

Of fucking course.

Henry stands in the doorway, then enters. He takes in the space, surveying the various items. "I made sure this room would specifically suit your needs and likes. A home away from home. Did I do okay?"

You didn’t answer, but you didn’t have to.

"I did. I can read you well enough. I will say, you are tricky in ways. Not like anyone else I've met. You're less.... simple. But that's beside the point. I want you to know you have all forms of your favoured entertainment, cosmetics, food, and clothing here. Though I will say, the clothing was slightly altered. Somewhat more vintage. A personal preference of mine. But nothing too severe. You deserve comfort outside of my own wishes. For once."

That made your temper flare. Comfort? Provided by him? He, who is responsible for so much of the reason why you lack so much comfort in the first place. A hypocrite.

"You don’t have to answer. I won't force you to, when you're distressed. I have my ways of getting the answers anyway, as I assume you know of. For now, I shall leave you be. Rest. You need it. Otherwise, what's mine is yours. The house is yours to roam, as long as none of my personal belongings are meddled with."

He paused in the doorway, then turned back to you.

"And Y/n? If you need anything, have any questions, or need any adjustments, I will be in the library of the house. I'm here for the rest of today. I will alert you if I have to leave at any stage. Get some sleep."

He offers a small smile, and watches you for a minute; with something in his gaze you can't pin. He then turns and closes the door, footsteps retreating down the hall.

You're left with a silence that could pierce the very atoms that build the space. You're far too exhausted to devise an escape plan, or accept defeat. Sleep takes you under before you can even try.

-----

When you wake, the sky is a deep blue, littered with stars. The clock on your bedside reads 10:05 PM.

You sit up, feeling far too well rested. It's almost uncomfortable to think of. You haven’t rested this well for far too long. Yet, the rumination wastes no time kicking in.

Vecna has kidnapped you.

Here, he has placed you in an inescapable realm that feigns both normality, and magic. But it is far too polished to be correct.

He knows you know some of his intentions, but will never tell you the truth of it.

He says you are here to recover, but won’t tell you his exact reason why, aside from empathising with you.

Your family and friends likely do not know you're here. They probably don’t even know where you went missing. They’re probably too busy. They won’t be able to save you like this.

Did Henry do anything to you while you slept?

You rise from the bed, and make your way into the attached bathroom. You check over yourself for a good 10 minutes, trying to point out any hidden indication he did something to change you. The lack of result unerves you more.

Tears sting your eyes as you go back to sit on the bed, arms around yourself like shields. You are trapped. Yet again, in some various form, trapped from a life that could so easily be simple. Your mind swirls and dizzies you, too many thoughts fighting each other. He said that here you would have a break from it all. Yet the only break you have at this moment is the break of your mind, bit by bit crumbling under the fact that this time, you truly can not fix it.

You don’t hear the door open some minutes later, or notice Henry's ice blue eyes on you until he steps forward into the space.

"Get the fuck out, you snake."

He doesn’t gratify your words with a response, instead pulling out the desk chair, and sitting it in front of your bed, leaning forward to look at you closer.

"What's the matter?"

"Let me fucking leave. Now."

"You already know that isn’t an option."

The refusal tears at you. Your nails find your arms, digging into the skin that is all too familiar with self-inclicted incisions.

Henry notices. "Don’t do that to yourself. I understand it feels like the only method of relief, but you know it's always shortlived."

"Get out of my head."

"I'm not in your head. I'm just not an idiot."

It made your eyes roll internally to know that much was truth.

He continued; "Now, i'll give you as much time as you need. But I need you to talk to me. Tell me what you feel. What I can do to help."

"Right now, I really wish you had killed me than taken me here. Would have been much better." You express bitterly through the tears.

"I hear that. And I see that you think death would be the more merciful option. But I see the fire in you as well. You don’t want death. You want the pain to leave. Which, again-"

"Is why I'm here, I get it! But me being stuck here is making it worse! I want out! I want all of this to end! I want you dead, I want El safe, I want Max to wake up, I want Hawkins to be safe, I just don’t want to live like this!!"

For a short moment, Henry was silent. And when he at last spoke, his words were not what you expected to hear.

"I know the exact feeling. When I was in the lab, everything was like a liminal space of no return. No joy. No light. No reprieve. Just sterilisation, control, and no way out. I can’t tell you how often I had wished one of the punishments I endured would just fully take me out. But to Papa- To Dr Brenner- A worse fate lied in continuation. Waiting to be let out of mortality."

The words stumped you. You had heard from El how awful the lab could be. It offered no calm to anyone there. But to hear Henry- Vecna himself- say so, twisted the knot that sat stubborn in your heart that refused to see any of his current humanity as fact.

"And I know that's how you feel now." He continued "I apologise for it. It's not at all what I want you to feel. But if you can take one thing away from my story, it's that in some way, escape is possible. Something better waits on the other side of the pain. You just need to withstand long enough to find it. To keep living. For yourself."

The words were a balm, and sedative, all at once. It exhausted you to think that you had to wait it out. But odds be damned, you were being offered a chance to use Vecna as an inspirational figure. It set your teeth on edge.

“How can I live for myself when it feels like the collapse of the world will be my fault if I don’t do one thing right?”

“Collapse isn’t your responsibility. Rebuilding after collapse is. And the world isn’t even new to collapse, and vice versa. That’s why I do what I plan to do. It’s rebuilding. And I do it for myself, I live for myself, because someone has to be the one to do it. And that, of all things, motivates me to live. It may be an egotistical thing, but imagine the pride you feel for continuing, when so many other people roll over.”

“It’s not people’s fault for killing themself.”

“I’m not talking about suicide. I’m talking about the people who let things fester. Those who don’t even bother with a way through. Even when they know there’s many ways. Do you not wish to feel proud of yourself for not being one of them?”

“I can be proud of myself while still empathising with them.”

“That you can. But don’t be afraid to be selfish of it’ll keep you alive. You can balance caring for others while balancing your own needs, as long as your needs are actually met. You have to be the first decision maker in that. People and tools may help you. But ultimately, you save yourself.”

That should not have been what gave you the sliver of hope to continue living. But one thing you should have come to realise much earlier was that Henry Creel was not a man of predictability.

You wiped the tears from your face.

“Even though I’m in an unknown location that’s stuck in the past and I have no clue what my fate will be anymore, and you were responsible for the deaths of many people from an indirect standpoint.” You deadpan, and you catch a genuine grin flick on his face for a moment.

“Yes. You may as well make the most of unpredictable situations. Especially the ones you don’t know the direction of. Life is all about the experiences. You have the choice to get excited about that.”

He rose from the chair and placed it back at the desk. "I'll leave you with that for now. But know that self harm will heal over, and anything aside from yourself will kill you in this house. I made sure to implement those factors into place. But feel free to do anything else. Cry. Eat. Sleep more, though I'll have you know, you slept for 13 hours. Most of the day, into the night. But there's the television in the living room, books in here ad the library, crafts in the study, and much more. Settle in. And for the love of all that is good in the world, don’t use the fact you can’t kill yourself here to try and see what would happen if you attempted. And don’t try anything with the antidepressants. Before you ask, yes, you still need to take them, do not whine."

Against your better judgment, you bit your lip to hold back a grin at the last few requests, the absurdity of it. Henry notices, and something in his still calculating gaze seems to loosen up. A speckle of something human.

"Good. I'll be back in the study until midnight. Do try to sleep again at some point. Your mind needs it if you wish to recuperate. Shout if you need me."

He steps out, and closes the door.

Your stomach drops a small bit when you realise that you, if you really had to, would take him up on that.

You swear to god, if you end up warming up to Vecna because of your desperate fight between attachment and isolation, you will off yourself.

But for now, begrudgingly, you are safe.

. . .

1958

The spider moved carefully across Henry Creel’s palm, its legs thin as black thread against the pale cup of his hand.

He sat in the grass near the edge of the yard, knees bent, head lowered, watching it with the sort of attention he rarely gave to people. People were too loud. Too obvious. Too eager to prove they were ordinary, like dogs pressing their noses against a fence and barking at anything that dared to pass.

Spiders were different.

They did not pretend.

This one stepped over the curve of his lifeline, delicate and sure, as if it knew exactly where it meant to go. Henry held still for it. He liked the feeling of its tiny feet against his skin, liked the patience required to keep from frightening it. There was something honest in such a small creature carrying so much fear inside other people.

Behind him, through the living room window, the television flickered.

His parents were watching the news.

Henry could not hear much of it from outside. Only the muted rhythm of a man’s voice coming through the glass, flat and grave, swallowed by the hum of evening insects and the distant pulse of sirens somewhere far off in Hawkins. The words came in broken pieces, too muffled to fully understand.

Tragic incident.

Hawkins High School.

Senior prom.

Electrical malfunction.

Multiple students.

Dead.

Henry did not turn around at first.

He kept his eyes on the spider.

Inside the house, the blue-white glow of the television flashed across the window. His father’s shape stood stiff near the sofa. His mother sat closer to the screen, one hand pressed over her mouth.

Henry could see her face reflected in the glass.

That was what made him look up.

Virginia Creel was not crying. Not exactly. His mother was very good at keeping herself arranged, very good at folding horror into something presentable. But her expression had changed. Her eyes were wide and wet-looking, her lips parted around some prayer or gasp she had not let out.

She looked frightened.

Not sad.

Frightened.

Henry stared at her reflection, curious despite himself.

Then something moved beyond it.

At first, he thought it was only another trick of the glass, a smear of shadow, a pale shape crossing behind his mother’s reflected face. But then the shape stepped into the glow of a streetlamp, and Henry’s fingers went still.

A girl was walking down the road.

Barefoot.

Her shoes were gone.

She moved slowly, as if every step had to be remembered before she could take it. Her feet were dark against the pavement, one of them leaving faint marks behind her. Her dress, once pretty, hung from her like a ruined flower. Pale fabric clung to her knees and waist, soaked through in places with something too dark to be rain.

Blood.

It was everywhere.

On her skirt. On her arms. Streaked at her throat. Dried along one side of her face where it had tangled with her hair. The curls or waves someone must have tried to arrange for her had fallen loose, wild around her shoulders, pins hanging uselessly like broken little stars.

Henry knew her.

Not well.

No one knew her well.

She was the sophomore girl from Hawkins High, the one who always walked with her books pressed tight to her chest, as if holding them there could keep the world from touching her. The one with the long skirts, the plain blouses, the sleeves buttoned at her wrists even when the weather turned warm. The one other students whispered about with cruel little smiles. 

He had seen her before.

In town. Outside the school. Once in the grocery store with her mother gripping her arm hard enough to leave finger marks.

She was always looking down.

But not now.

Now her head was lifted slightly, her face empty in a way that made Henry’s chest feel strangely hollow. Not peaceful. Not calm. Empty, the way a house looked after a fire had eaten through the rooms and left only the shape of where a life had been.

And still, even covered in blood, Henry noticed what no one else would have.

She was beautiful.

Not in the shiny, laughing way the girls at school tried to be. Not like the girls who curled their hair and painted their mouths and learned how to smile so people would look. Her beauty was quieter than that. Stranger. Like a saint in a cracked church window. Like a doll left too long in the rain. Like something delicate that had been mistaken for weak until it shattered in someone’s hand.

The spider reached the edge of his palm.

Henry did not feel it at first.

He was watching her.

The girl slowed.

For one moment, she seemed to sense him there in the yard. Her head turned, and her eyes found his through the dark.

Henry stopped breathing.

The streetlamp threw a thin, golden line across her face. Her eyes were wide, glassy, and terribly alive. They did not look like the eyes of a girl who had walked away from an accident. They looked like the eyes of someone who had seen the inside of the world and found it rotten.

She stared at him.

He stared back.

Neither of them spoke.

Inside the house, the television continued flickering. His mother’s reflected face hovered in the window like a ghost, pale with fear. His father shifted behind her. Somewhere far away, another siren rose and fell.

Henry thought, suddenly and with a sharpness that startled him, that he should do something.

Step forward.

Say her name.

Ask what happened.

Ask if she was hurt.

But the thought came and died in the same breath.

He imagined his mother seeing. His father opening the door. The neighbors peering through curtains. The police asking why Henry Creel had been outside speaking to the blood-covered girl from Hawkins High.

He imagined the whispers turning.

Not just about her.

About him.

So he stayed still.

The spider slipped from his palm into the grass.

The tiny loss broke whatever spell had held him. Henry looked down quickly, searching between the blades for the black shape, but it had already vanished into the dark.

When he looked back up, the road was empty.

The girl was gone.

Only the streetlamp remained, buzzing faintly above the pavement, shining on nothing at all.

. . .

Y/N did not remember the walk home ending.

One moment, there had been pavement beneath her bare feet and streetlights above her head, humming like tired insects. The next, she was standing on the porch of her childhood home with blood drying stiff on her dress and her hand wrapped around the doorknob.

For a few seconds, she only stared at it.

The brass was cold against her palm.

Inside, the house was quiet.

Not peaceful quiet. Never that. The house had never known peace. It was the kind of quiet that waited with its teeth hidden, the kind that made her shoulders pull inward before anything had even happened.

Y/N pushed the door open.

The smell of lemon polish and old wood met her first. Then candle wax. Then the faint, sour scent of her mother’s perfume.

“Momma?” she called.

Her voice barely sounded like her own. It was small and scraped thin, like someone had dragged it over broken glass.

There was no answer.

Y/N stepped inside, leaving faint red marks on the floorboards behind her. Her eyes moved over the familiar room in pieces: the worn rug, the stiff-backed sofa, the Bible open on the side table, the little wooden crosses nailed above every doorway as if God needed directions.

She wanted her mother.

That was the worst part.

After everything, after the laughter and the blood and the screams folding into each other until the whole gymnasium became one terrible sound, Y/N wanted her mother. She wanted arms around her. She wanted someone to say it was over. She wanted, foolishly, desperately, to be somebody’s child.

Her mother appeared in the hall.

For one fragile second, neither of them moved.

Her mother wore her robe over her nightdress, hair pinned back so tightly it pulled at her temples. Her eyes traveled over Y/N slowly, from the ruined hem of her dress to the blood on her throat, to the mess of her hair, to her bare feet.

Y/N’s lips trembled.

“Momma,” she whispered.

Her mother’s face changed.

Not with relief.

With horror.

Then disgust.

“I knew it,” her mother breathed.

Y/N took a step toward her anyway. “Please—”

“I knew it was in you.”

The words struck harder than a hand. Y/N stopped in the middle of the room, chest rising and falling too fast beneath the sticky weight of her dress.

“They laughed at me,” she said, and the words came out broken, childlike. “They all laughed at me like you said.”

Her mother’s mouth twisted.

“Because they saw you.”

Y/N blinked.

A tear slipped down her cheek, cutting through the blood like rain through dirt.

Her mother moved fast.

The slap snapped Y/N’s face to the side.

For a moment, all she could hear was the ringing in her ear.

Then another hit came. A hand to her shoulder. Fingers biting into her arm. Her mother shook her once, hard enough that Y/N’s teeth clicked together.

“You wicked girl,” her mother hissed. “You filthy, wicked girl.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Y/N cried. “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t—”

“Liar.”

The lamps flickered.

Neither of them noticed at first.

Her mother shoved her backward, and Y/N stumbled against the edge of the sofa. Her knees nearly gave out. She grabbed at the fabric to steady herself, leaving red smears across the faded flowers.

“I was right,” her mother said, voice rising. “All these years, I was right. I tried to beat it out of you. I tried to pray it out of you. I tried to save you from what you are.”

Y/N shook her head, sobbing now. “Please, Momma, please don’t—”

“They laughed because they knew.” Her mother pointed toward the door as if the whole town stood outside listening. “They saw the devil wearing my daughter’s face.”

The lights flickered again.

The Bible pages on the side table fluttered though no window was open.

Y/N pressed a trembling hand to her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Her mother’s eyes sharpened at that.

“Then pray.”

Y/N froze.

Her mother grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her toward the little corner of the parlor where a wooden crucifix hung above a narrow kneeling bench. Y/N had spent half her childhood there, knees aching, hands clasped until her fingers went numb.

“No,” Y/N whispered.

Her mother yanked harder.

“On your knees.”

“Momma, please—”

“On. Your. Knees.”

She forced her down.

Y/N hit the floor hard, pain bursting through her knees. She folded instinctively, shoulders hunched, head bowed, hands coming together because her body remembered obedience even when her mind was falling apart.

The house groaned around them.

Her mother stood behind her, breathing heavily.

“Beg,” she snapped. “You beg Him to forgive you.”

Y/N stared at the crucifix through blurred eyes.

The figure nailed there looked back at her with carved wooden sorrow.

She did not know what to say.

All her life, she had prayed to be good. To be normal. To be quiet enough, clean enough, small enough. She had prayed until the words became stones in her mouth. She had prayed while her mother stood behind her and told her every strange thing inside her was sin.

And still, the blood had come.

Still, the gym had screamed.

Still, everyone had looked at her like she was a monster.

“Pray,” her mother snarled.

Y/N squeezed her eyes shut.

“Our Father,” she whispered, voice shaking, “who art in Heaven…”

The walls gave a low creak.

“Hallowed be Thy name.”

A picture frame rattled on the wall.

“Thy kingdom come…”

Her mother’s breathing changed behind her.

“Thy will be done…”

Something cold touched Y/N’s back.