Summary: Henry had lived in your dreams for as long as you could remember—always a quiet comfort, never truly real… until the day he was.
Warning: fluff, maybe a little bit of season 5 spoilers.
Something felt wrong the moment I stepped outside. A chill slid down my spine, sharp and deliberate, even though the morning was warm and still—too still. No breeze, no birdsong. Just quiet.
I lived on the far edge of Hawkins, on a street so small it barely counted as a street at all—five houses scattered through the trees, each one tucked far enough away that you could go months without seeing a single living soul. “Neighbors” was a generous word for people you never saw, never spoke to, never borrowed a cup of sugar from. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Miss Pettigrew, though her cat Hermes made his presence known every other day. The fat menace wandered into my yard to terrorize me and the birds nesting in the maple outside my kitchen window. He’d despised me since the day my parents and I moved in when I was five, always swiping at my ankles even when I tried—stupidly—to feed him.
I locked the door behind me and walked to the bus stop across the road. Convenient, really—the line dropped me right in front of the library, and when my shift ended I could cross over to the supermarket, grab whatever I needed, and head straight home. Simple. Predictable. And after everything that had happened in Hawkins—after the military checkpoints and the sleepless nights—that predictability felt comforting.
But today wasn’t normal.
That uneasy feeling stuck with me all day, coiling in my stomach, whispering that something was watching me. Every time I turned around, there was no one. Nothing. Just dust motes drifting through the library’s quiet, empty aisles.
Not many people came in anymore. The occasional student, maybe. Most of the town had evacuated when they had the chance. The ones who stayed had either refused to abandon their homes… or couldn’t afford to. I fell into the second category. After my parents died, this house was all I had left. Leaving wasn’t an option.
And yet, as dusk crept in and that chill returned, I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe—just maybe—it should’ve been.
By the time my shift ended, the sky had settled into that pale, bruised lavender Hawkins always got before nightfall. Beautiful, but uneasy — the kind of dusk that made you think twice before walking anywhere alone. I slung my bag over my shoulder, locked up the library, and stepped outside.
There it was again.
That feeling. Heavy. Purposeful. Like someone’s gaze was hooked into the back of my neck.
I tried to brush it off as nerves — leftover paranoia everyone in Hawkins had earned the hard way — but it clung to me as I crossed to the supermarket. Inside, the store was nearly empty. Just Mr. Riggs behind the counter, thumbing through his hunting magazine like always.
“Quiet day?” I asked.
“They all are,” he said without looking up.
I gathered the basics — bread, coffee, microwave dinners — but the whole time, I couldn’t shake the sense that someone was trailing just one aisle behind me. Nothing ever followed when I looked. Still, the prickling stayed, sharp as a warning.
Outside, the air felt wrong again. Dense, almost electric. The hairs on my arms rose before I even reached the bus stop.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. Then fifteen.
The bus was never this late.
I checked down the road. Empty. Too empty.
A rustling sound slid out from the shadows across the street.
I froze.
It wasn’t the skittery, frantic sound of an animal. This was slower. Intentional. Leaves whispering against each other as something moved through them.
Something watching me.
“Okay… not great,” I murmured, shifting my groceries.
The rustling grew closer, brushing along the tree line in slow, deliberate waves. My breath caught in my throat as a shape stepped forward — tall, pale against the fading dusk, moving with that strange, quiet grace I’d seen a hundred times before.
Not here.
Not real.
Not him.
But when he stepped into the open, the world tilted.
It was him.
Henry.
His face wasn’t monstrous or twisted like the nightmares Hawkins whispered about. No vines. No contorted limbs. Just… Henry. Sharp features, hollowed eyes, that almost delicate stillness he had when he was studying something — or someone — he found interesting. Beautiful, in a way that made your stomach drop.
I’d seen that face for years. In dreams that felt too vivid, too warm, too wrong. Dreams where he’d speak to me like he knew me, like he was waiting.
I just never expected to see him on a street corner in Hawkins, standing under the bruised evening sky like he’d stepped directly out of my sleep.
He tilted his head, the same way he always did in those dream-conversations, the ones where I couldn’t move, couldn’t look away.
“You recognize me,” he said softly.
My fingers tightened around the grocery bags. “You’re not real.”
A faint smile touched his lips — the exact one I’d memorized without meaning to. “And yet… you’re speaking to me.”
He moved closer. Not threatening. Not rushing. Just… certain. Like he knew I wouldn’t run.
And the terrifying thing was— I didn’t.
“I’ve been in your dreams for a reason,” Henry murmured. “I didn’t think you’d understand at first. But you do, don’t you?”
The air around us thickened, almost humming. The trees behind him seemed to dissolve into shadow, melting into something darker—something I recognized from those dreamscapes he’d pulled me into night after night.
His world. His mind. The place he’d always called “home.”
I swallowed. “You said it wasn’t real.”
His eyes — pale, searching — locked onto mine. “It can be. For you.”
The shadows behind him widened, swirling like ink suspended in water. I felt their pull, familiar and terrifying all at once. Like falling asleep. Like drowning. Like being chosen.
Henry extended his hand.
“Come with me.”
My heart hammered so loudly I was sure he could hear it. The street, the grocery bags, the bus that never came — it all felt distant now, unimportant. The whole town held its breath.
I had seen this moment in dreams. But I’d never believed it would follow me into waking life.
And as his hand hovered inches from mine, I realized one thing with a clarity that chilled me deeper than the evening air:
He hadn’t come here to haunt me. He’d come to take me back.
My fingers hovered above his, trembling — not from fear, not entirely, but from the strange familiarity of this moment. I’d taken his hand before in dreams. I had felt the warmth of his skin, the steadiness of it.
But touching him now felt like crossing a line I could never uncross.
Henry’s expression softened, the sharp edges of him easing into something almost… human. Patient. Hopeful.
“It’s all right,” he murmured.
And somehow, impossibly, it was.
I placed my hand in his.
The world folded around us instantly — the trees dissolving, the fading sky shattering into darkness, the pavement falling away beneath my feet. But I didn’t fall. Henry’s grip anchored me, held me gently but securely, his thumb brushing the back of my hand as the world rebuilt itself.
Light returned. Warm light.
When my vision steadied, I sucked in a quiet breath.
It was the Creel House. But not the decayed, haunted ruin Hawkins whispered about. Not the place swallowed by vines and nightmares.
This version was… alive.
Golden lamps glowed softly from every corner. Sunlight streamed through tall windows draped in lace curtains. The walls, once cracked and rotting, were freshly painted — cream, warm, inviting. The air smelled faintly of cinnamon and old books. A piano sat in the corner, polished to a shine, not a single vine growing through its keys.
And the quiet… wasn’t ominous. It was peaceful.
Domestic.
“You… did this?” I whispered.
Henry released my hand slowly, as if afraid I’d crumble without his support. “I remembered it differently,” he said. “Before everything changed.” His eyes moved over the room with a softness I’d never seen in him — not in dreams, not in the real world. “I rebuilt it the way it was. The way it should’ve been.”
He looked back at me. There was something fragile in that look — something he’d never let anyone else see.
“For you.”
My chest tightened. “Why me?”
Henry stepped closer, lines of tension slipping from his posture as he spoke — the veneer of the terrifying, unstoppable thing he’d become peeling back to reveal the lonely boy underneath.
“I’ve watched you for a long time,” he admitted, his voice low but not dangerous. “Not to frighten you. Not to hurt you.” He hesitated, as if choosing the right words mattered. “You’re… different. Untouched by the cruelty of this place. You don’t run. You don’t pretend.”
He swallowed, jaw tense.
“I wanted to protect you.”
I almost laughed — soft, breathless, disbelieving. “Protect me? Henry, you’re—”
He stopped me gently, a single shake of his head. “Not with them,” he said quietly. “Not with the ones who fear me. With you… I can be something else.”
I studied him — the careful way he held himself, the way he didn’t step too close, didn’t touch me again without permission. Protective, yes, but not suffocating. Watchful, but not cruel.
He wasn’t looming over me. He wasn’t manipulating my mind.
He was simply… waiting.
“This place,” he said, motioning around the room, “is yours as much as it is mine. You will be safe here. No one can reach you. Nothing can harm you.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I won’t allow it.”
The intensity in his eyes should have scared me.
It didn’t.
Instead, something warm unfurled in my chest — a dangerous warmth, one I didn’t know how to name. The house felt like a dream I’d slipped into hundreds of times, but this time the dream wanted me to stay.
Henry extended his hand again, but not to drag me anywhere. Just to lead me deeper into the glowing halls of the home he’d created.
“Come,” he said softly. “Let me show you.”
And for the first time all day, the off-kilter feeling faded.
Because, somehow… being here with him felt right.
Henry walked with me through the hallways for a while, pointing things out with a gentleness I didn’t know he was capable of. A restored painting here, a record player there, all arranged like he’d curated every detail specifically with me in mind.
But eventually his attention shifted — like he was hearing something I couldn’t, sensing something outside the walls of this perfectly reconstructed home.
“I have to step away for a little while,” he said.
My stomach tightened. “Step away? Where?”
He hesitated before answering, choosing his words carefully. “There are… things I must maintain. Boundaries. Barriers. This world doesn’t run by itself.”
Of course it didn’t. This was his creation — a living extension of his mind.
But the way he said it wasn’t ominous. He wasn’t talking about hunting or hurting. He sounded almost like someone saying they had to check on a garden or tighten a fence gate before a storm.
He brushed his fingers lightly along my arm — a fleeting touch, as if he still wasn’t sure he was allowed. “You’ll be safe here,” he said firmly. “This place is yours. Explore it. Get comfortable.”
I nodded, and he gave a small, almost shy smile — a rare expression that softened the sharpness in him.
Then he slipped away, fading into the shadows of the front hall like he’d simply stepped out of a daydream.
For a long moment, I just stood there, listening to the soft silence he left behind.
Then I began to explore.
The house was… perfect. Not in a sterile, dollhouse way — but warm and lived-in. The kitchen smelled faintly of fresh bread and cloves, as if someone had been baking that morning. A kettle sat on the stove. A vase of lilies brightened the counter, their petals impossibly white.
Upstairs, the bedroom he’d prepared for me was soft and calm — pale blankets, an open window letting in golden light, a shelf stocked with books I loved. Books I’d never told anyone about.
He knew.
Not in a creepy, invasive way — but in that dreamlike way where he seemed to understand the pieces of me I kept quiet.
The hours passed gently. I curled up on the couch, letting my fingers drift over the velvet cushions, listening to the house breathe. I played a few notes on the piano, surprised when the keys were perfectly tuned.
He had tuned it. For me.
When the front door opened again, evening light spilled in behind him. Henry looked different — not tired, but softened, relieved to see me still here, still safe. His shoulders relaxed in a way I’d never seen.
“You stayed,” he said, voice low.
“I told you I would.”
A warmth flickered over his expression, brief but unmistakable. He stepped closer, studying me like he was memorizing something important.
“Did you find the house… agreeable?”
“It’s beautiful,” I said honestly. “It feels like… everything I ever wanted.”
The words seemed to hit him harder than I expected. Something tender crossed his face — a raw, unguarded affection he didn’t mask quickly enough.
“I wanted it to be,” he murmured. “For you.”
He reached out, brushing a loose curl from my cheek with careful fingertips — like I was something delicate, something precious. His touch lingered just long enough to make my breath hitch.
Henry noticed. And for once, he didn’t pull away.
Instead, he took a slow step closer, his voice warm and steady.
“You belong here,” he said softly. “With me.”
And in that moment — in this impossibly alive house, wrapped in golden light and strange peace — I almost believed him.
Henry stayed close after he returned — not hovering, but moving around me with a kind of gentle gravity, as though the house revolved around where I stood. He motioned toward the kitchen.
“You haven’t eaten,” he said, voice soft but certain.
I almost laughed. “Does food even exist here?”
His lips curved in a ghost of a smile. “It does when I choose it to.”
The lights in the kitchen warmed, flickering with a life of their own. On the stove sat a pot of soup — steaming, fragrant, real. A loaf of bread rested beside it, warm enough that the air above it shimmered slightly.
“You cook now?” I teased.
Henry tilted his head. “I learn what I need to. You require nourishment.”
“You say that like I’m a plant.”
He stepped closer, his expression unreadable but not unkind. “Plants die without care. Humans… despair without it.”
The quiet sincerity in his voice made my breath catch.
We ate together at the long dining table — one of those heavy, old-fashioned ones with carved legs and polished wood. The soup tasted like something I’d loved as a child, though I couldn’t remember ever telling him that.
He watched me with that soft intensity of his — not judging, not analyzing, just… watching. Making sure I ate enough. Making sure I was content. Every time our eyes met, he looked away first, as if affection was something he wasn’t used to showing openly.
After dinner, he put on a record — an old bluesy tune that filled the house like warm honey. I drifted toward the piano, brushing my fingers over the keys. Henry approached quietly.
“Play,” he murmured.
“I only know a little.”
“That’s enough.”
I began a soft melody — halting at first, then smoother as the house seemed to breathe with me. Henry stayed behind me, close enough that I could feel the faint warmth of him at my back. His fingers brushed mine when I reached the higher notes.
The touch was feather-light, but intentional. Affection disguised as guidance.
When the song ended, he didn’t move away.
“You make this place…” He searched for the word. “…alive.”
I turned to look at him. He was staring at me like I was something he’d spent years searching for in the dark.
Jealousy glimmered in his expression then — subtle but unmistakable — when I glanced toward the window, as if the outside world might distract or lure me away.
“You don’t need to think about out there,” he said quietly.
“Why not?”
“Because nothing out there has ever protected you. Not like I will.”
His words should’ve frightened me, but instead they wrapped around me like the warm hum of the record player.
Later, when the house dimmed into a soft golden glow, he walked me upstairs. He stopped outside my bedroom door, standing straighter than before, as though he were controlling every part of himself.
“You may rest,” he said. “You’re safe here.”
“You’re not sleeping?”
He paused. “I don’t require sleep.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
His eyes flicked to mine. There it was — the crack in his calm, the vulnerable part he usually hid.
“You want me to stay.”
It wasn’t a question. But I nodded.
For a moment he said nothing, the air thick between us. Then he stepped inside, moving with careful restraint, as if he feared breaking something invisible.
He didn’t lie beside me. Not at first.
He sat against the headboard, long legs stretched out, watching over the room like a silent guardian. I settled under the blankets, the soft lamplight brushing over both of us.
After a long moment, I whispered, “Henry?”
“Yes?”
“You don’t have to sit so far.”
He inhaled — barely a sound, more like a thought crossing his chest — and shifted. Slowly. Deliberately. He lay beside me, the mattress dipping under his weight. He kept a careful inch between us, his restraint almost tender.
But then, as I drifted toward sleep, his hand found mine under the blankets.
Tentative. Almost shy.
His fingers curled around mine slowly, as though he were memorizing the shape of my hand.
“I will protect you,” he whispered. Not a threat. A promise. “From everything.”
And with the warmth of him beside me, the house alive around us, and his fingers intertwined with mine, I believed him.
For the first time in years, I fell asleep without fear. Because Henry — the monster, the man, the dream that had followed me for years — was right there, guarding me.
And I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to leave.
When I woke the next morning, Henry was already watching me.
Not in the unsettling way I once feared — but quietly, thoughtfully, as if he’d spent the whole night memorizing the rise and fall of my breathing. His hair fell a little messier than usual over his forehead, softening the sharp features he usually kept so composed.
“You stayed,” I whispered.
His eyes flickered. “I told you I would.”
He didn’t move at first. He just looked at me with that intense stillness he possessed — a stillness that felt like it was reserved only for me now. But something in him was different this morning. Looser. Warmer. The affection that had hovered beneath the surface last night now sat openly in his gaze.
He lifted a hand, hesitating for the smallest moment before brushing a thumb along my cheekbone. The touch was slow… deliberate… almost reverent.
“You look peaceful like this,” he murmured. “It suits you.”
“Like what?” I asked, voice soft.
“Mine.”
The word hit me in the center of my chest — not demanding, not forceful, but hungry in a way that felt deeply human. His thumb lingered near the corner of my mouth, tracing the faint curve of a smile I hadn’t realized I was wearing.
I swallowed. “You’re being… affectionate.”
His lips twitched in something close to amusement. “Does that displease you?”
“No.”
Something dark and warm bloomed behind his eyes at that.
He shifted closer — careful, measured — until his forehead nearly touched mine. His breath brushed my lips, slow and controlled, though I could feel the tension radiating from him.
“Good,” he said, voice low. “Because I find I don’t wish to hide it anymore.”
His fingers slid gently down my jaw, curling beneath my chin so I’d look directly at him. There was no cruelty in the touch. Just possession softened by tenderness.
“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this,” he whispered. “To be near you without fear that you might vanish into the waking world.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I promised.
His expression shifted — relief, desire, something dangerous and tender all tangled together. He leaned closer, brushing the bridge of his nose against my cheek in a soft, intimate gesture.
“You say that,” he murmured, “and part of me wants to believe you.”
“Part?”
“The other part wants to keep you close enough that belief isn’t necessary.”
There it was — a confession of possessiveness wrapped in velvet. Not threatening, but undeniably fierce. His hand slipped to the back of my neck, thumb tracing circles as he studied my face.
“I want to understand you,” he said. “All of you. The parts you show the world and the parts you hide even from yourself.”
His voice dipped softer, almost vulnerable.
“May I?”
It wasn’t a demand. It was a question — a request for permission from someone who could command the entire world to kneel.
My pulse fluttered beneath his touch. “Yes.”
Henry closed his eyes briefly, as if steadying himself. When he opened them again, the affection there had deepened into something that felt… consuming.
Not harmful. But hungry.
He leaned in, his forehead pressing fully against mine, his breath warm against my lips.
“Then let me explore,” he whispered. “Slowly. Intimately. Completely.”
His hand slid around my waist, drawing me closer with a gentleness that would’ve shocked anyone who’d ever feared him. But I wasn’t afraid. Not of him. Not here.
In his dreamhouse — in the world he built for us — Henry wasn’t a monster.
He was a man finally allowing himself to want.
And he wanted me.
Henry didn’t move after those words left his lips — he simply watched me, his hand warm at my waist, his breath brushing my skin in slow, steady waves. It was like he was giving me a chance to step away.
I didn’t.
Instead, I lifted my hand, letting my fingertips skim the side of his jaw. He stiffened almost imperceptibly, not from discomfort, but from surprise — as if no one had ever touched him gently before. His breath hitched, the smallest break in his perfect composure.
“You always look so controlled,” I whispered.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple shifting under my thumb. “Control is necessary.”
“And here?” I asked softly. “With me?”
He closed his eyes for a heartbeat. “Here… less so.”
I explored him slowly — tracing the line of his jaw, the curve of his cheekbone, the soft lock of hair that fell toward his forehead. Every touch made him lean closer, just slightly, unconsciously. He looked at me like he didn’t know what he’d done to deserve it.
“You don’t have to hold everything inside with me,” I said.
His eyes opened — pale, intense, vulnerable in a way few would ever see. “You make it difficult not to.”
Before I could answer, he slipped an arm around me, pulling me just a fraction closer. Possessive — but gentle. Protective, not imprisoning. His fingers spread lightly at the small of my back, holding me as if I might dissolve into the air if he let go.
“I don’t like the way the world touched you,” he murmured against my temple. “How it hurt you. How it overlooked you.” His grip tightened slightly — warm, steady. “I would never allow that here.”
The protectiveness in his voice sent a warm shiver through me — not fear, but something deeper, something safe.
“Henry,” I whispered, my hand sliding to his chest, feeling the slow, controlled beat of his heart. He wasn’t breathing the way he usually did — he was breathing me in, as if the air didn’t matter unless I was part of it.
He tilted my chin up with the lightest pressure of his fingers. “You do not understand what you’ve become to me.”
“Then show me.”
His pupils widened, a ripple of emotion passing through him — gratitude, hunger, wonder — before he leaned in. Our noses brushed, soft and slow. His hand cupped the back of my neck, thumb stroking my skin with a tenderness that contradicted everything he’d ever been.
He stopped a breath away from my lips.
Not out of hesitation — but out of restraint. Giving me the chance to close the distance.
But I didn’t need to decide.
He made the choice for both of us — barely.
He kissed me like it was the first kiss he had ever allowed himself. Soft. Careful. Reverent. His grip at my waist tightened just enough to draw me closer, as if anchoring himself to the moment.
When he pulled back, only slightly, his forehead rested against mine.
“You are mine,” he whispered, breath warm against my lips, “and I… am yours.” A confession. A surrender.
His thumb traced my lower lip. “And I won’t let anything take you from me.”
I didn’t want to pull away. And I didn’t.
In that golden, quiet room of his dream-home — warm between his hands, breathing the same air — I let him hold me. Let him show affection he had never shown another soul. Let him be the man hidden beneath the monster.
And for the first time, Henry looked at peace.
