Chapter Text
The air in the Upside Down was thick creating an aromatic scent of old blood. Around them, the fragments of the Creel House floated in a shattered, crimson sky. El and the others were somewhere below, fighting to close the gates - a task taking much longer than anticipated. Y/n stood on the cracked floorboards of the attic, facing the towering, vine-shrouded silhouette of the man she had once called her only friend.
Vecna didn't turn. His back was a map of scar tissue and pulsing dark matter.
"You shouldn't have come back, y/n," his voice scraped against the walls of her mind, heavy and distorted. "The others are dying. You could have run."
"I’m tired of running," y/n said, her voice trembling, though she forced herself to take a step forward. Her teleportation powers thrummed under her skin, a restless itch, but she kept them coiled. "And I’m tired of fighting you. You’re too strong. We both know how this ends."
Vecna turned then. His pale, lidless eyes searched her face, looking for the lie. "Submission? From the girl who once tried to burn this whole world down? How... disappointing."
"Not submission," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears that weren't entirely faked. She reached into her memory, pulling up the image of Henry at the lab - the vibrant way his skin shimmered before it turned to a pale color, the way he looked when they used to hide in the boiler room, the way his lips felt on hers the first time they connected. "I want to go back. I want him back."
Vecna tilted his head, a sickeningly fluid movement. "Henry is gone. I consumed the weak parts of myself long ago."
"No," y/n countered, stepping into his personal space, defying the vines that hissed at her feet. "He’s still there. Under your hate. I see him when you look at me. I want the world he promised me when we were kids. The one where no one can hurt us, and we get our happy ending."
She reached out, her fingers hovering inches from his cold, wet chest. "Take me into your mind. Give me the fantasy. Lock me away in a dream where it’s just me and Henry, and I’ll stop fighting. I’ll give you my mind, my power... everything. Just let me be with him."
The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating. Vecna leaned down, his breath a cold draft against her cheek. He saw a broken woman, a girl so blinded by a childhood ghost that she was willing to surrender her soul for a hallucination. To him, it was the ultimate victory - the final proof that human "love" was a shackle.
"You wish to live in a lie?" Vecna hissed, a cruel smirk tugging at his features.
"I wish to live in the only truth I ever cared about," she said as her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. The lie rolled out of her mouth easier, because it wasn't entirely false.
Vecna’s clawed hand rose, tracing the line of her jaw. "Very well. If you crave the ghost of a dead man... I will grant you your cage. You will stay here, in the dark, forever."
"Yes," she breathed, closing her eyes. "Thank you."
As his mind began to lunge into hers, weaving the golden threads of a fake 1950s sun-drenched memory, y/n felt the connection snap into place. She wasn't just entering his mind; she was anchoring herself to the small, flickering spark of the real Henry buried deep within the monster.
She felt the others' presence fade as they escaped through the gate with the time she had bought for them. Now, she just had to hold on - and wait for the moment to jump.