lucas : i think we never really much of lucas. his personality was entirely made up as max's bf and that small basketball stuff. but i think beacause of wtv happens in season 5, he wouldn't have much time for basketball and would eventually be kicked off the team. i think he would grow up to be a human rights lawyer. it's mainly from the racism he faced, to him all humans — black, white, immigrants; everybody — deserve right to life and safety to life. moreover i think he would really be into investments and by 26/27 he'd set up a trust that would help with funding for kids who want to get into sports or colleges.

max : first thing i would change is her graduation. max, as per obvious reasons, would graduate two years late. in those two years of highschool she would find herself struggling with mental health abit. the reason would be because she feels she’s two years behind than her peers, she think she should've mentally stronger and shouldn't have let vecna take over her. think she would have this guilt of being behind but would eventually understand it's not her fault. she would go and do something in psychology more specifically being child / teen psychologist. i can see her working as a guidance counsellor in highschool. max really doesn't care that it pays less but what she cares is helping kids and letting them understand that getting help doesn't make you weak. obviously this comes from her own highschool experiences and she doesn't want the youth to make the same mistakes she did.

lumax as a couple : i think they'd do long distance for a while. because max would be in her third year of college and lucas would already be on his way to a law school outside of indiana. they'd do it surprisingly really well. they get married young like almost as soon as lucas finishes law school and move to somewhere like cali or nyc. i think they both would just want to get out of hawkins.

dustin : now obviously i think people here gave him the right ending. i do think he'd be a physicist. i do think he'd have a job but he would quit it in a year because he didn't enjoy it. i can see him working as a professor instead at any ivy leagues or mit. he'd be one of those professor who have their own published books that are used as study materials in colleges. i think like few years into his career as a professor he would get a degree in zoology for fun. he had the idea of having a degree in zoology since he had dart but he didn't want to pursue it as a career hence he simply did a bachelor's in zoology later in his life. i can see him being married and being the kindest and empathetic husband and father. he'd be the type of husband who would tell his kids "idk where mom is, probably cleaning. leave her alone pls" to his kids to hide his wife and give her a break from the kids. he'd be the type of dad to gently introduce them to animals and now his kids want spiders and grasshoppers as pets ( his wifey says no ).

will : i think instead of him being in a bar we should've got a scene where he’s either in art school or something like that because that bar scene with epilogue bf js didn't feel like will. i think he would definitely get over mike and not in a tammy way but yk that out of sight out of mind. obviously moving on would be hard because he loved mike his whole life. i think in nyc he would try to find mike in others or people that look like mike at first but i think he would end up with smn other than mike. i js can't see byler being end game idk why. i think he'd definitely major in art history and end up as a famous artist. i think he would also love to be a curator. i think his art would definitely follow a wide spectrum. another thing, he would definitely set up a foundation to help struggling artists and kids in third world countires. will would definitely live in Massachusetts as it was the first us state to legalize gay marrige in 2004. he and his husband would adopt a daughter and a dog around the same time so that the dog can be their daughter's sibling.

mike : oh boy, he'd do his first year in hawkins but would find himself becoming more and more like his father and that would terrify him. so he would transfer to some another community college in indiana. i can see him majoring in literature and being a writer. in uni, he sort of isolates himself and that comes from el disappearing and him thinking he's becoming like his father. i think he would connect with the core party in somewhere like 1996/98. i think he would find mild success in his career but it would really sky rocket when he’s in his 50s thanks to booktok. speaking of booktok, he'd have mild beef with it. mike only got on after max convinced him. mike would definitely have beef with those books that are straight up written porn. he doesn’t have any problems with erotic literature — i think he has read few erotic literature books — but it’s those books like haunting adeline that would leave a bad taste in his mouth. obviously he's more expressive than season 5 but i don't see him being married not because he's grieveing el forever. but because he never got over his inablity to say ily. it's a very deep issue rooted in him because he never heard it in his own him. his parents never said it to each other, not even to their own kids nor did he really hear it around him hence he have this problem. i think he'd get in a couple of relationships but none of it would work out and he'd be single since his early thirties. for this very reason, he teaches holly how important it is to tell your loved ones that you love them. mike would definitely travel alot after college to cure his writer's block and he'd have a golden retriever who travles with him. i can see him as this single and cool uncle and he's very very happy with that.

el : my baby, i personally think her and mike's breakup should've happened before season 5 but wtv. in the end SHE DOESN'T DIE. she lives in iceland. at first she works at a cafe and then she saves enough to open up her own small cafe because she wants students to come and study at her cafe. it brings her some sort of happiness to see students studying at her cafe because she never got to go to school for that long. i think she'd be the sweetest cafe owner, offering free refils to students and even on house treats sometimes. everytime a father daughter duo came at her cafe, she's reminded of her relationship with hopper. over the time as her confidence grows, she'd be the sweetest social butterfly. she'd help young girls visting her cafe help find themselves thru clothing and music, she'd also be bit of gossip and help other in their friendship and relationship issues because she sees herself and max in them. i don't really see her that interested in dating because she is strict strict with her standards, strike one and the guys are out. living alone and her own independence have taught her how important it is to be sure of ppl she's letting in her own life, specially when it comes to romantic partners. moreover because this is the very first time she's really really living for herself and with her own adult money, she's spontaneously pick up hobbies and leave them. this comes from her being tied up in lab for so many years and being unable to figure out what she like so she tries bit of everything and doesn't regret a single bit. i can see her sticking to art and crafts. she'd also randomly pick up electric guitar as a hobby because Johnathan introduced her to his music. she'd lowkey be a bit of metalhead. oh and el would literally bring home strays. she would read alot like an insane amount as train some of them to be service dogs and give it away to shelters and others with anxitey or disbilites for free. she lowkey spoil people who become her frnds and if she ever gets married she makes sure they know how to say ily to her. she would also spend her days off near the the waterfalls. js sitting there, thoughts empty. i think she'd genuinely live sm like a normal person at times she'd forget she has powers. moreover she's covered her 011 tatto with random drawings kids at her cafe made and gave it to her.

You lie completely still, heartbeat picking up in your throat, and listen. It feels like the sound is coming from everywhere at once. From inside the walls. Under the floor. Inside your head.

You know the song. Of course you do. Your mom plays the same handful of records when she cleans, when money isn’t terrible, and she’s trying to pretend the few square metres you call home are more than they are. You’ve slow-danced with a wrench in your hand to this stupid thing, humming under your breath as you tightened bolts on a Chevy that wasn’t worth the parts you were putting into it.

But your mother’s record player is in the living room. Not here. And the song doesn’t sound like it's from vinyl anymore. It’s too clean and too wrong, no scratch, no pop, like someone traced it in your skull instead.

You swing your legs out of bed. Pain flares in your arm, a low, familiar ache. Not sharp enough to make you gasp. Just there, like background radiation. You stand up anyway. The trailer’s hallway looks longer in the dark. Shadows stretch around you, unsettling and withering. The single bulb on the ceiling flickers when you step under it, then steadies, not quite the same yellow you know.

Only you… and you alone…

You move toward the living room on bare feet, toes curling against the cold linoleum. Your hand brushes the wall as you go, fingertips skimming over the cheap panelling, the little dents you recognise—here, where you dropped a wrench; there, where your mother’s coffee mug slipped out of her hand once.

The song gets louder.

You expect the glow of the streetlamp through the thin curtain. The shape of your couch shoved into one corner, sagging and sad but yours. Or the clutter of bills and magazines on the coffee table.

You don’t expect the wallpaper. You stop dead in the mouth of the hallway. The trailer is gone.

The room beyond you is too big, for starters—high ceiling, not low; wide, not narrow. The walls are papered in a pattern of pale flowers and faded green vines, peeling at the corners. There’s a bay window with heavy drapes instead of the cheap two-pane you’re used to. Where your mother’s TV should be is a wooden record cabinet, lid open. A black disc spins lazily on the turntable, the needle gliding over the groove.

Only you… can thrill me like you do…

You know, with a bone-deep certainty, that if you look back over your shoulder, the hallway won’t lead to your bedroom anymore. So you don’t. You step into the room instead.

The air smells like old dust and a faint undercurrent of something metallic, like pennies held too long in a wet palm. The light comes from a single, shaded lamp perched on an end table. The bulb inside hums faintly, like your kitchen one at three in the morning when it’s about to die.

Someone is lying on the carpet.

Not sprawled, not collapsed. Just… stretched out. On their side, one arm tucked under their head, like they lay down to listen better. Bare feet. Dark trousers. A buttoned shirt that looks wrong in this room, out of time—yellow, striped, collar a little too stiff at the edges. He’s all angles. Long shins, sharp knees, narrow wrists. Pale; pale skin, veins like shadows under tissue paper. Hair a light, indistinct colour in the lamplight—might be blonde, might be brown, cut in that old-fashioned way you’ve only seen in yearbooks and those creepy family portraits some people keep in their overstuffed houses.

He’s watching the record spin.

No, you realise. He’s watching the needle. Following its slow progress with that unnerving, razor-edged focus you recognise from mirrors and from late nights at the shop when you’re three wiring diagrams deep and one sleepy mistake away from catastrophe.

He speaks without looking at you.

“Took you long enough.”

Your throat dries. “I was enjoying the hallucination from my bed,” you respond slowly. “Thought I’d let it play out.”

He huffs the faintest breath of laughter. “You always have to see how things work up close, though, don’t you?”

He rolls onto his back, then up onto his elbows in one fluid movement, like gravity is just a suggestion to him. His eyes find yours.

They’re… wrong. Too light; a pale, washed-out grey-blue that should look harmless but doesn’t. Too steady, too old. There’s no childish uncertainty in them, no softness, despite the youthfulness of his face. His gaze lands on you and stays, like a pin going through an insect. You feel that look all the way to the soles of your feet. 

“Hello,” he says.

You swallow. “You’ve upgraded.”

Last time, he came as something less defined. A smear at the corner of your vision. A voice behind your teeth during lab tests, a nightmare shape, little more than a horrific dark shadow, just a breath behind you, reaching for you. No clear shape, just pressure.

This is worse, much worse, because it’s human. He smiles slowly as if he can read that thought on your face. It doesn’t reach his eyes.

“I thought this might be… easier.” His eyes flick over you: oversized T-shirt, sleep-mussed hair, bare legs. No staring, no leering. Just cataloguing. “Faces are comforting, or so I’m told.”

“You failed at the comforting part.”

“You’re difficult.” He sounds almost pleased. “You don’t comfort easily.”

You cross your arms over your chest, like that will do anything here, where the rules of physics clearly belong to him instead.

Only you… can make all this change in me…

The record doesn’t wobble. The song loops back around to a verse you’re sure you’ve heard already, the needle not moving nearly as far as it should for the time that’s passed.

“Where are we?” you ask.

He tilts his head. “You don’t recognise it?”

You look around, taking in the space properly this time. The wallpaper, the heavy drapes, the ornate ceiling rose. The record cabinet in one corner, the pattern of the carpet beneath your feet. None of it is yours. But there’s something… familiar in the layout, in the way the room opens onto a hallway, in the distant echo of stairs.

You’ve seen this place before.

In photographs, maybe in your nightmares. In the blurry, static-laced flashes that sneak into your head when your arm aches too much.

“Ah,” he exhales softly, watching your face. “There. You do.”

You grit your teeth. “That’s not an answer.”

He pushes himself to his feet without using his hands, like someone lifting a puppet by invisible strings. When he stands to his full height, you realise he’s taller than you thought. Tall but thin, as if someone drew him in pencil and then stretched the lines out.

“It’s a house,” he answers, annoyingly vague. “A memory. A pattern. Does it matter?”

You bite back a snort. “You dragged me into your nostalgia trip at three in the morning. I think I deserve at least a location.”

His mouth quirks. “You’re in your bed,” he says lightly. “You never moved.”

The record skips. You feel the shift in your stomach more than you hear it. The song stutters, jumps, then carries on without missing a syllable. You force yourself to take a breath, because this, at least, you can control.

“You could have just sent a postcard,” you say dryly, tapping your fingers across your bicep. “You don’t have to redecorate my head every time you want a chat.”

“This is… more efficient.” He gestures around, hand hanging in the air like he’s not entirely used to it. “Refined. Besides.” His gaze drifts lazily up and down. “You’re difficult to catch awake. You work until you fall over.”

You bristle. “Some of us have to, you know.”

“I know.”

The words land heavier than you expect; not mocking, not sympathetic, either. Just… factual. Like he’s stating that the sky is blue, and you’re not entirely sure what to do with that, so you say nothing. 

“You’re very busy,” he continues, looking around the room with vague disinterest. “Always restoring what shouldn’t be restored. Engines that should have been left to rust. Homes that don’t deserve the effort you put into keeping them from falling down.” His head tilts, just a little. “People who should have died.”

Your jaw tightens. “We’re not doing that.”

“We’re always doing that,” he says quietly. “That’s why I’m here.”

You feel that telltale pulse roll through your arm, a dull, inward throb, like a muscle clenching. You glance down without meaning to. For a breath, the skin there looks normal. Then black threads crawl under the surface, spiderwebbing out from an old, crescent-shaped mark. They shiver in time with the music.

Only you… and you alone…

You curl your fingers into your palm until your nails bite.

“Get out,” you articulate deliberately, each word a bite.

He watches you for what feels like too long. There’s something like consideration in his face. Not pity. Not cruelty, exactly. An interest that’s too intense to ever be comfortable.

“That’s not how this works,” he replies eventually. “You opened the door.”

“I did not invite—”

“You did,” he cuts in, gentle but firm. “Every time you push past what your body is screaming at you to stop. Every time you peel yourself open to fit just one more impossible problem inside your head. You told the world you were available.”

He steps closer. Up close, you can see the details that make him too real, too human for your liking. The way his shirt doesn’t quite sit right on his shoulders, like it was meant for a smaller boy. The faint smudge of old dirt under his nails. The pale line of a scar along his knuckle. His eyes, clear and unblinking, reflecting you in miniature.

“You see it, don’t you?” he whispers. “The trap. The way they built everything around you to hold you in this place.”

You want to say no on principle. Instead, your mouth betrays you, “What trap?”

His smile deepens, slow and pleased, because denial would have been predictable and boring. “This town. The way it loops.” He lifts a hand, fingers sketching a little circle in the air. The room hums, the lamp flickering in the some rhythm you can’t hear. For a second, you smell the shop instead: oil and rubber and hot metal. Then your kitchen: cheap coffee and damp. Then the school hallway at lunchtime, bleach and sweat and too many voices.

“Every path,” he goes on, painfully knowing, “leads you back to the same suffocating centre. The same cracked pavement. The same fluorescent lights buzzing over your head. They tell you there are choices, but every road bends back to them.”

“You rehearsing that in the mirror or something?” you ask, voice thin.

He ignores the jab. “You saw it early.” There’s something almost appreciative in his tone. “You watched your father walk out and knew, then… the whole structure is rotten. It doesn’t matter how straight you build your life on top of it. It sinks all the same.”

You flinch. He notices, his head tilting.

“It’s… admirable how you fight it. How you claw and build and fix.” His eyes slide to your arm again. “How you bleed for it.”

“You say that like it’s stupid.”

“Oh, it is,” he reassures calmly. “But that’s also what makes it… beautiful.”

The record clicks. The song warps, the singer’s voice stretching out on one word like taffy, then snapping back.

Only you—

He takes another step until he’s close enough that you can hear the almost-sound of him breathing. It doesn’t quite sync up with the rise and fall of his chest.

“I know how it feels,” he murmurs gently, sympathetically. “To be the one who sees. To stand in a room full of people and see every crack in the walls, every fault in the foundations, and realise they’re all content to live under a ceiling that will eventually collapse on their heads.”

“Maybe they don’t see,” you counter quietly.

“They don’t want to,” he corrects. “They like it. The cage is familiar. The bars are comforting. They call it home.”

His lips curl upwards slightly. “And you?” he asks, searching your face. “Do you?”

You think about your mother’s soft humming in the kitchen. The way the trailer walls shake in a storm, and you always think this is it, this is where I die, this is how I die, amounting to nothing. The constant calculus of money, time, and favours. You think about the shop, the town, the arcade, the endless churn of the same old faces, the same old problems. A cycle, a path you have to walk obediently, or you’re ostracised. 

You find your voice again, something cold reverberating through your words this time. “I don’t like cages.”

“Exactly.” He brightens, almost. “You see.”

“There’s a difference between seeing the bars and burning the whole thing down.” Your head tilts back to face him, staring him down. “Some of us will still be inside when it goes.”

“There will always be casualties,” he agrees with a sigh. “You know that. You’ve run the numbers.”

You have. He sees that on your fac,e too.

“It bothers you,” he notes thoughtfully, eyes narrowing slightly. “The casualties. That’s the part that trips you up.”

“Yeah,” you say. “It does.”

He smiles again, and there’s something colder about it now, a glint you recognise as amusement. “You’re sentimental.”

“Says the guy playing a love song in my brain.”

His gaze flicks toward the record player. For the first time, his expression shifts into something almost… puzzled.

“You don’t like it?” he wonders idly.

“I didn’t say that.”

You grew up on these songs. They’re stitched into your bones. Only You means your mother at the sink, bare feet on linoleum, humming under her breath. It means the shop radio crackling when Frank forgets to change the station again. It means late nights with weird little snippets of happiness caught in the static.

You hate that he picked this one because he knows it means something to you. 

“It’s simple,” he goes on, as if you haven’t answered. “Focused. The world is a noise. This is… one voice. One point. Only you.” His eyes find yours again. “Selection. Intention. It’s efficient. I figured you, of all people, would value that.”

“That’s not what that song is about,” you point out with a scoff.

He shrugs, a small roll of narrow shoulders. “Everything is about what you make it.”

He moves closer, just slightly, a blink in which you seem to lose sight of him altogether, then he’s closer. 

“You choose well. What to give your time to. Who to bleed for. You act like you don’t. Like you’re dragged.” The corner of his mouth tips, curling upwards. “You aren’t. You’re selective. Like me.”

Your arms untangle, and this time, you do laugh; a sharp bark of sound, ripping through the jovial music. “You think we’re alike.”

“I know we are.”

A breath hisses through your teeth, your amusement fading with the certainty of his tone. “Big talk for a parasite.”

He actually laughs at that. It’s not a pleasant sound, but it’s real, short and sharp, like a bark that got strangled halfway out. 

“Parasite,” he repeats. “Interesting choice of words.”

You roll your eyes. “Tell me it doesn’t fit.”

His head tilts. “I prefer symbiotic,” he explains casually, a faint smile lingering. It makes you want to ram your fist into his face and keep going. “You have something I want. I have something you… need.”

“I don’t need anything from you.”

“You need someone who sees the whole board.” His voice drops, low and sure in a way that makes your shoulders tense. “They’ll ask you to play pieces. To run their errands, do their calculations, fix their messes. They’ll never take your hand off the pawn for long. I won’t make that mistake.”

“And what?” you pose, a mocking laugh caught in your throat, rumbling free. “No, wait, let me guess. You’ll make me a queen?”

“Don’t be so small,” he chides, gentle as a knife sliding under your ribs. “We’re beyond their little games or titles. This isn’t a board, it’s a structure. A machine. They think the gears can’t be moved. We know better.” His pale eyes catch the lamplight, momentarily too deep and piercing. “We could break it. Rebuild it fresh. Rip out the rotting beams and lay something new over the bones. A queen is a pretty prop, you could be an Architect of a new world, that’s godhood.”

There it is, then. The sales pitch. He dresses it up nicer than you would have expected him to, but it’s the same script underneath. Still same need to control you, to use you for his own ends. You feel something ugly and true flicker in your chest anyway.

“You’ve thought about it,” he says, lower now, and he’s closer again, head angled as he watches you. “Don’t lie. You’ve imagined what would happen if you stopped patching leaks and let it all… flood. If you stopped holding your hand over the crack in the dam and stepped back.”

You stare at him. He’s right. Of course he’s right. There are nights when your arm hurts, and your head is full of other people’s disasters, and you’re bone-sick of being barely an adult and scared all the time, caught between fear of leaving and fear of staying, when you lie awake at night, burning, and think: let it all break, they’ll never accept me anyway.

You don’t say that out loud.

His expression is mild, too patient. “You’re very controlled,” he observes, and you hear the approval there, like that in particular pleases him. “You compartmentalise. You file every nightmare away in its proper drawer and label it something safe. You’re going to run out of space soon.”

Your nostrils flare. “I’ll build more drawers.”

“You’ll break,” he counters, quite cheerfully, too. Asshole. “And then someone else will decide what to do with the pieces.”

“You volunteering?”

“I’d make better use of you than they will, or ever could.”

The record reaches the end of the groove with a soft, circular hiss. The needle doesn’t lift. It just keeps turning, stuck in that hollow sound, the ghost of music. You realise, with a cold little pang, that you’ve stopped looking for a way out of this house.

“You don’t get to win,” you tell him.

He regards you for a quiet moment. “Winning is a strange concept,” he replies eventually. “You and I measure it differently. They call survival a victory. We know better.” His voice softens again, almost lulling. “You’re thinking in terms of them. Their lives. Their rules. That’s… charming. But it will limit you.”

You take a step back toward the hall anyway. It seems further away now, stretched out in a way it wasn’t before. The doorframe looks narrower now, too. But you’ve had enough of him haunting you, telling you shit you already know.

“If you’re trying to recruit me, you should know I’m a terrible employee,” you call out jokingly, going for mocking. You lift your hand, ticking down one finger at a time. “Bad attitude. Chronic authority issues. You’d hate having me on your team.”

“On the contrary.” He folds his hands behind his back in an almost prim, practised gesture. “I think you’d be extraordinary.”

The word shouldn’t warm anything in you, but the way he says it—it hits the same place as a teacher’s rare, reluctant praises did over the years, when you were small and starved for someone to see your mind as an asset, not a thing you should hide away. The same place as a “you’re the only one who can do this” tossed to you as a liferaft, as a purpose. 

He sees that, too.

“You’re used to being the cleverest person in the room,” he drawls. “It bores you. Tires you. No one else sees what you see. No one else understands.”

“That’s not true.”

He doesn’t contradict you. He just gazes at you, quiet and too knowing, too seeing. 

“You’re lonely,” he states matter-of-factly, and it’s almost tender, the way he says it. “In a way they can’t fix.”

It’s like he’s tossed a stone into the depths of your mind, disturbing the water there, making it spill over and ripple with uncertainty, an ache. You force yourself, desperately, to recall memories of Eddie, of the boys and El, of Max, Billy’s mouth against the curve of your neck. Mom, Frank, Hopper and Joyce, even Steve’s idiotic pretty-boy face. Memories of people who care for you. 

“You’re not the solution,” you say, when you can finally speak again.

“Of course not,” he agrees mildly, and you don’t know if that’s honesty or just another layer of the trap. “I’m an opportunity. A… perspective.”

“Of what?”

“Of what happens if you stop pretending empathy is the only way to be good. Of what happens if you acknowledge what you are.”

“And what am I?” you snap, more bitter than you wanted to show him. 

He smiles. And again, it’s almost gentle.

“An anomaly,” he answers quietly. “A crack. A necessary failure in their design.”

He steps aside. For the first time, you see past him into the hallway. It stretches, impossibly long and oversaturated, door after door after door. Some are open a crack, others are shut tight. All of them breathe that faint, sourceless music. And there, at the very end of the hallway, a different kind of door. Ornate, bolted closed with intricate mechanisms you recognise because you’re the one who put them there, sealed shut, but with a crack running through the middle, and a sinking, horrible realisation penetrates. 

It’s a doorway to you, your mind, from his side of the line. 

Only you…

“You’ll come back,” he says, matter-of-fact again. “You’ll have questions.”

“You’re awfully sure of yourself.”

“I’ve been right before.” His eyes go to your arm again. “I was right about you.”

“I’ll fix it,” you say instead. You don’t know which part. You just know you mean all of it. “Without you.”

He studies you. The sharpness in his gaze softens into something almost… contemplative. Not human. But not entirely inhuman, either.

“You remind me,” he says slowly, “of someone I once knew.”

“Let me guess,” you say flatly. “She died.”

“Everyone dies,” he replies emptily. “That’s not the interesting part.”

The song swells, sudden and too loud, pressing at your eardrums. You turn away from him. Your bare feet sink into the carpet like it’s mud at first, then firm up with each step forward. The hallway doesn’t actually get shorter, but the doorway at the end gets clearer. 

“Am I supposed to thank you?” you ask, without looking back.

“For what?” he calls out.

“For the nightmare.”

He considers that. “You’re welcome.”

You snort, half a breath, and step through the last door.

. . .

You jerk awake with your heart hammering so hard it hurts inside your chest.

Your room is exactly as you left it. Mess of clothes on the chair, faded polaroids of the boys, of Max and El, and you with Eddie taped to the wall. Notebook open on the floor where it fell from your hand. The radio rests on the dresser, unplugged, dial turned down.

The clock displays 2:47 AM.

Your arm throbs, cold and deep, like someone left an icepack under the skin. You lie there shaking, your breath fogging in the faint strip of streetlamp light through the blind.

It’s quiet, too quiet. You stare at the radio for a solid minute, waiting. But nothing happens, not a whisper of sound other than your own ragged breathing. You tell yourself you’re being stupid, overworked and stressed. You swing your legs out of bed. Your feet find paper, making you look down.

There’s a page torn from your notebook on the floor. You don’t remember doing it. The pen marks are messy, gouged hard enough that the ink bleeds. In the middle of the page, in your handwriting, are three words:

BREAK THE STRUCTURE.

                  From there, you became each other's anchor. After school, you'd meet at the edge of the woods behind his house, away from prying eyes. You taught him to laugh at the absurdities of their lives, far from neglectful homes. He listened when you vented about your father's rages or your mother's vacant stares. “You're tougher than anyone here,” he'd say, his voice gaining strength in her presence. He told you about the incident in Nevada, when he was lost in the caves for hours and hours on end.

                  By 17, your bond deepened into something unspoken but electric. Stolen kisses behind the bleachers after football games, your hand in his during late-night walks home. He became your safe harbor, the one who bandaged your scraped knees from bike rides taken to escape, who held you through tears when your parents' fought. You were his light, chasing away the shadows with your unwavering belief in him, whispering that he was worthy of more than avoidance. You both dreamed together — of leaving town, building a life unmarred by the pains that shaped them.

                 Now at twenty three you stood infront of him. The knife creating a distance between you two. The kitchen light flickers overhead, casting long shadows across the tiled floor. Early-onset Alzheimer's, the doctor called it — a thief in the night, stealing pieces of you bit by bit. But tonight, something feels wrong. The days blur together now, names and faces slipping away like sand through your fingers.

                  It's him. A man stands there, tall and broad-shouldered, his dark hair tousled, eyes wide with concern. He looks familiar in a way that tugs at the edges of your memory, but it's not enough. Who is he? Why is he in your house? Panic surges through you like ice water. "Get out," you whisper at first, your voice trembling. The blade gleams under the light, cold and reassuring in your grip. "I said get out!"

                  He doesn't move. Instead, he steps closer, hands raised in a placating gesture. "Hey, it's me. Henry. You know me. We're... we're us." His voice is soft, laced with a tone that's only reserved for you but your mind doesn't recognize it. The fog thickens, and all you see is a stranger invading your space, his presence a threat. Tears sting your eyes as fear twists into anger. "Get out of here!" You wave the knife in front of him. Sobs choke your words. Why won't he just go? Why is this happening?

                  Henry's face crumples, but he doesn't back away. He trusts you — God, he always has. But now, that trust blinds him to the danger. "Please, put it down. I love you. Remember? We promised we'd get through this together." His words mean nothing. They're just noise from a man you don't recognize. The fear boils over, and you lunge forward. The knife slices through his flesh, catching him off guard. It plunges into his arm. Blood rushes instantly, soaking his sleeve, but he doesn't yell. He just gasps, eyes locking onto yours with a mix of pain and heartbreaking sorrow.

                  Tears brim your eyes red as you slowly look up at the man. The moment is too intense — highly emotionally stimulating. The fog doesn't clear, it only deepens the terror. You drop the knife — it clatters to the floor — and bolt for the door, legs pumping in blind panic. You have to get away, have to escape this intruder before he hurts you. Henry catches your wrist before you could run away. Strong arms wrap around your waist from behind, pulling you back against a solid chest. You scream, the sound raw and piercing, echoing off the walls. "Let me go!” You thrash against him, nails digging into his forearms, kicking wildly. But he's too strong, holding you tight without hurting you, his breath ragged against your ear.

                  "Shh, it's okay. It's me. You're safe." His voice breaks, warm blood from his wound seeping onto your shirt as he cradles you closer. You scream again, louder, the cries tearing from your soul — cries of confusion, of loss, of a love you can't grasp. He rocks you gently, ignoring the pain in his arm, his own tears mixing with yours as they fall onto your shoulder.

                  In that moment, as your screams fade to whimpers, the weight of it all crashes down. Henry holds you through the storm, just like he always has. The man who mended your broken heart after years of ignorance, who whispered affirmations until you believed you were worthy. And you — the woman who chased away his demons, who loved him fiercely when he thought he was unlovable. This disease is trying to steal that from you both, but he won't let go. Not now, not ever. He holds you on the wooden floor of your shared home till your vision fades to darkness.

                  Midnight finds you stirring in the dim glow of the bedside lamp. The house is quiet now, save for the soft murmur of water running somewhere nearby. Your head throbs faintly, as you sit up. You pad barefoot down the hallway toward the bathroom light spilling onto the floorboards. There he is, Henry, perched on the edge of the tub, his shirt discarded, the wound on his arm exposed under the harsh bulb. He's dabbing at it with a cloth soaked in antiseptic. The gash is deep, ragged edges glistening.

                  Your breath catches, a lump rising in your throat as tears well up unbidden. He looks up, surprise softening his features, and you step forward without thinking. “What happened?” you whisper, voice thick with emotion, reaching for the cloth in his hand. “Let me... let me help,” your fingers tremble as you take over, gently pressing the fabric against the cut, wiping away the blood. Seeing him hurt like this twist something inside you? 

                  He watches you, his free hand covering yours for a moment, warm and steady. “It's nothing,” he says softly, though his eyes betray the lie. “Just bumped into something sharp in the kitchen earlier. Clumsy me.” The words are light, you nod, swallowing the sob that threatens to escape. You don't question it. His calm reassures you enough. Tears spill over as you wrap the bandage around his arm, your touch lingering. “I'm sorry,” you murmur, not sure what for. He pulls you into his lap then, arms encircling you despite the pull on his injury, and you bury your face in his neck, breathing in the scent of him. “What are you sorry for?” he huffs out a weak laugh. 

                  “I don't know,” you sigh. He strokes your hair, murmuring nonsense comforts until your tears slow. “I love you, Max,” you whispered, looking up at him with unafraid eyes. The first aid kit almost slipped from his hand. His chest hollowed out instantly, breath catching in his throat. Instead he smiled, and leaned over, pressing a gentle kiss to your temple. 

                  Max was your ex in highschool. The one who made you feel so undeserving of love. The man who tried to drive a fight between you and Henry. The very man who was kissing another girl at a party and told you he was dating “because of some stupid bet.” Henry watched you spiral because of him, he watched you lose yourself for a man who wasn’t even worthy for your affection. You fell asleep against Henry unaware of what you had done. He couldn't blame — never would he even think of it. It was that disease that pulled away from you, stealing memories of you and him.

                  This was the moment he realized, the photo wall you two made, the endless tapes of you and him sharing domestic days, the journals in which you documented your days, his powers through which he could show you dreams of the time you and him already spent together — all of it meant so little. Because the disease was an endless pit, a parasitic bug that was slowly chewing away your memories. And all he could was hold you. After years of neglect from parents, shitty partners, you and him deserved so much more. So much better than him but fate was cruel.

                  Morning came gentle and lazy like it always did. Sunlight filtered through the kitchen curtains, painting the room in soft golds, the aroma of fresh coffee fills the air. You're seated at the table, a mug warming your hands, steam curling lazily upward. Henry moves about with easy grace, pouring his own cup and sliding a plate of toast between you — simple, unhurried, as if the night never happened. He sits across from you, his bandaged arm resting lightly on the wood. 'Sleep okay?' he asks, voice low and warm, reaching to tuck a stray hair behind your ear. 

                  You nod, sipping the coffee, its bitterness grounding you in the moment. “Oh we had a date today right? that fancy place,” you mumble, voice wavering and unsure. Henry lets out a chuckle, “We went on that date yesterday, you enjoyed it so much.” “Oh, yeah, sorry I forgot,” you took another sip of your coffee. Your fingers brush his across the table.