Chapter Text
Will dreamed of Vecna again.
He didn’t even know it was Vecna until El told him. The one in his dream was a blond boy his age, or at least somewhere in his adolescence. He had a pair of blue eyes, so pale Will felt threatened whenever he was caught staring. He looked like he was in good comfort, dreamy but also intimidating at the same time. Most of the time, he stayed quiet, drawing until Will broke the silence. Then, he would say something in his calming voice—things that Will couldn’t recall—until it got too tense that Will woke up in a cold sweat. When El by chance saw his sketch of the boy, she said that was Henry Creel’s physical appearance when he was a teenager, and for the first time in days, Will wished he could stay awake forever so as not to meet Vecna in his dream anymore.
But he couldn’t. So he went to sleep. And dreamed of that blond boy. Again, again, and again.
Will could tell between dreams and reality. This night he was supposed have another nightmare, but when Vecna showed up in his monster form, he figured he was in a trance. Given the headaches and nosebleeds he had been having for almost a week, damn, he really should have seen this coming.
“We meet again,” Vecna said in his low, scaringly deep voice that Will almost couldn’t hear.
“So you wanna kill me,” Will closed his eyes. “Should’ve spared me some time to say goodbye to my family.”
“I don’t want to kill you. I was looking for you the whole time, and I came with an offer.”
Will thought he should be frightened by how horrible the creature looked, but he felt nothing. His neck didn’t prickle. The only thing that kept him alert was the vines on the ground, but they didn’t seem to be going to attack him. No matter how strange of Vecna to say they met again , because Will was sure this was the first time they met, he knew the experience in a trance was not like this.
The whole situation was too peaceful. Not like what Max had experienced at the tomb. Or when El was in her mind.
“An offer? To join you? I swear, you’ve gotta be more creative, you had said the same thing to my sister at the lab.”
Everything grew in the darker shade of red. Pieces and debris floating around faster, an indication that Vecna was in rage. Will heard chimes, too, but in a way, he felt as if they were trying to tell him they wouldn’t hurt him.
Vecna strode towards Will in a sickening speed. Will stepped back, running, but it was no use. Vecna held him by his arm, the other elongated one lifting his chin up. Will was not prepared to see the monster up close, and its face—its noseless face—was enough to make him want to vomit. How dare Dustin call this one Vecna? This was not the right time to say this, but the one in front of him looked nowhere near the illustrations in his D&D books.
“Join me? Dear , you are the last one I expect to do that.” Vecna let out a sound that almost felt like a laugh. “Always so brave, never scared of me.”
That was a very bold assumption. Everyone knew Will shook like a leaf when being in the Mind Flayer’s sabotaging circle, even sensing him sent chills down his spine. However, knowing that Vecna was behind the Mind Flayer, that he used to be a human being, somehow he wasn’t scared anymore. And he guessed, it was scarier knowing nothing than knowing something. He knew nothing about the Mind Flayer, but almost everything about Vecna, from the early years of his life to the day he was thrown into the Upside Down.
But what Vecna meant by saying Will was never scared of him was a question he couldn’t answer.
As the pointy claws started to dig in his skin, he gripped the hem of his shirt, tight.
“What are you going to do to me?”
So he was going to die. There was no need for Vecna to spare his life if he wasn’t involved in his plan to end the world. Four gates opened and intersected with each other. He could just go through them and kill everyone in Hawkins with a single wave of his hand. Then why was Will here? Fun? Vecna was going to kill him to satisfy his needs to torment broken children?
If this was the end, the monster really should do it quickly. Will couldn’t bear suffering anymore. He was tired, exhausted, and drained. And he wasn’t worth saving anyway. He killed people, directly and indirectly, even when it was against his will. He was the source of all the misery Hawkins had to go through—first Barbara, then Bob, then the soldiers, then Max. If he hadn’t gone missing in the first place—if he wasn’t born in the first place, maybe things would have been better.
Tears welled up in his eyes, blurring his vision. They fell down his cheeks until landing on Vecna’s vines. The monster freed him from the touch, and surprisingly, it wiped them away.
Vecna wiped his tears away.
Gently.
There was an open gate behind Will, but he wasn’t sure his friends were there. He wasn’t sure if they knew his favorite song. Should I Stay or Should I Go was a long time ago. He changed. His taste in music changed, too.
Not to mention he didn’t need saving. He was already dead in their eyes.
“Come find me, Will.” Vecna caressed his cheeks. “Fix me. Show me love. Tell me I am not a monster. Tell me you love me.”
“Why don’t you—” just kill me now? Will tried to hide his sobs. He didn’t want to appear vulnerable to someone who was going to kill him. If he really died, it shouldn’t be too tragic. His family had gone through hell. He wanted them to know he chose this, that he was not a victim. He wasn’t going to run away, because he deserved this.
“We were born for each other,” Vecna said. “Remind me that, remind me every day.”
Finally, it pushed him through the open gate. The last thought in his head was that he was falling into the abyss, and he could never return to Hawkins.
He lazily opened his eyes. Never in his life had he felt so light-headed, like tons of heavy thoughts had been removed from his brain after a surgery. Something was close in front of him, blue, shining, glowing under sunlight. Seemed like a pair of eyes and a straight nose, yet also like swollen, bitten pink lips.
It was someone’s face.
When everything was clear, Will instinctively receded, only to find that he was lying on a bed with several blankets enveloping him. He struggled to break free, but he was too weak to move. The person leaned closer to him in an unhurried manner, pinning him down to prevent his escape, and Will stopped kicking the moment he realized—
This was the young Henry Creel.
Henry didn’t mind the proximity. He even came closer until their noses almost touched. Will could feel his heavy, shuddering breath against his own. He looked at Will like he had never seen a human being before. He raised his arm a bit shakily as if he wanted to touch Will, but hesitated at the thought of it.
Will’s eyes fluttered. Henry withdrew his hand instantly.
“What are you doing?” He breathed. Hell knew why he was here with the teen version of Vecna. Boys don’t cry this, boys don’t cry that. Screw them all. He was on the verge of tears already. Why didn’t this stupid creature end his sufferings like he did other victims? He took away the lives of the ones that deserved to live on, but chose to let Will survive the curse?
“Studying you.” Henry answered nonchalantly. He squinted his eyes as he poked Will on the nose to get some of his reactions.
Shit. Is this really Vecna?
Will let out a grunt and managed to sit up. “Where am I?”
He looked around. His first impression was that this room must be twice as large as his bedroom at home. He was sitting on a queen size bed. Three grand bookshelves with hundreds of books and the criss-cross light brown wallpaper patterns made everything colder than it usually was. A small desk was placed next to the open closet, and Will saw clothes in smaller sizes than his.
Jeez. This guy’s choice of clothes was so, so poor. Imagine how boring your life could be when 87% of your clothes were all dark jeans and white shirts. Blazers and vests and waistcoats. And the fact that he had only two flannels hurt Will’s pride. But his clothing judging show had to end abruptly when he found out that this was definitely Vecna’s bedroom.
Will put the back of his hand to his forehead. He was probably having a fever. “Why am I here?”
Henry wasted no time in asking him. “Do you remember who you are?”
“Will Byers,” he replied.
“Will Byers,” Henry muttered like he was testing if the name sounded familiar. “Where are you from?”
“Hawkins,” Will said, then covering his mouth as an afterthought. Did he just reveal his identity to the young version of Vecna? Was that—wrong?
“Birthday?”
Will stared at the boy quizzically. “What for?”
Henry stood up, clasping his hands behind his back. He didn’t seem angry or triggered, if not a bit amused at the situation. His blue eyes glistened in the sunlight. He looked ethereal.
“You showed up in my bedroom out of nowhere. We need your information to return you to your family,” He inched forward. “Don’t you want to go home?”
Now Will understood why Henry was studying him. To see if he was a human or a monster. Baby Vecna found it interesting that someone landed on his bedroom floor. He was plainly intrigued by the possibilities of someone out there doing supernatural things like him, and Will falling out of a space-time gate/wormhole served no purpose other than solidifying his belief.
He took a deep breath. If Henry was still here, alive and well, he couldn’t have killed his family, not yet. Which meant Will was somewhere in 1959, before the infamous incident that turned Victor Creel’s life into a living hell.
He cleared his throat, attempting to sound stupid. “When were fifteen-year-olds born?”
Will received a look of disgust from the boy. “Nineteen forty-four.”
1959, correct.
Then, the door to his bedroom opened. In came a beautiful blonde woman in her mid-thirties, followed by a tall, decent-looking man clad in formal attire.
“Hello sweetie, how are you feeling?” She crouched down and asked in genuine concern, ruffling his hair, which very much reminded him of his mother. Henry stepped behind her, eyeing the suspicious man.
After a small ‘fine’ , she smiled at him and turned to the man, who was looking at him intently. “This is Doctor Brenner from Hawkins National Laboratory, he’s here to get you checked for any injuries, and then he’ll contact the sheriff to help find your family, okay?”
Doctor Brenner was younger than the last time Will saw him. That was why he didn’t recognize him in the first place.
Will saw the glint in the man’s eyes. He was enthralled by Will’s sudden appearance too. And what was he going to do? Kidnap him? Give him drugs? Force him to drink toxins for telepathy the way he did El?
“No,” Will shook his head. “Please get him out.”
As Virginia Creel saw the lamp flickering, she reached out to switch it off. Then she placed her hands around his shoulders, gently shaking him. She turned to look at Brenner before giving him a slight nod. Brenner stood to the side, waving his right hand as a signal for around ten soldiers to flood into the room. Half of whom went for Henry, who was taken aback by the intrusion, clearly clueless to his mother’s plan; while the rest strode towards him, and before he knew it, there were ropes around him. They were tying him—and Henry.
Unlike him, Henry stayed still. He glanced over his shoulders to watch Will jerking, a smirk prominent on his face.
Brenner took out two syringes, and Will felt himself being dragged forward to face him. One second the man was beaming at him, the next he turned into a devil and injected one into his veins.
As the anesthetic started to take effect, in his blurry vision, Will noticed Brenner and Henry were having a talk. It was brief, though. Brenner couldn’t do anything to Henry as the syringe flew out of his hand and towards Virginia Creel, who ran away and cried for help. Everyone was knocked down in the blink of an eye by his powers, and with no one holding him, Will fell on the floor.
Henry came to his view, untied him, “Let’s go,” and led him out of the mess he’d created himself.
Will closed his eyes unconsciously. Alright, time traveling aside, why wasn’t Baby Vecna acting the way Will thought he would?