His Tenebris Moenibus - A Stranger Things Story

007

She wasn't repulsed by it.

The change had happened gradually over the years. Really, there wasn't any way to tell that Henry had once been a human. Humanoid, yes, but the basic structure of a human was all that remained. Two arms, two legs, a head, a torso, and some semblance of a face. Other than that, Henry was mostly vines that ran along his damaged skin. He had just enough bits and pieces missing to make someone second guess what exactly he was or had been.

But he was still the same Henry underneath the mutilation. Emily missed his old appearance of course, but she had gotten used to the new one. Though, she mostly missed his eyes, one of her favorite features of his. The bright blue was replaced by a cloudy grey much like her own damaged eye. Once upon a time, Emily could have mistaken him for an angel.

Though, to Emily, beauty was more than skin deep. More than blue eyes and golden blonde hair, more than sharp cheekbones and soft smiles...

Maybe she missed the old Henry more than she cared to admit.

For both of their sake, Emily didn't think about it that much. Constantly she reminded herself that she fell for Henry for reasons outside of what he looked like. They had shared trauma, the same goals, similar interests... the blue eyes were just a bonus, really. Though, even now he still laughed at how discomforted around spiders she was.

"They're more scared of you than you are of them." He constantly reminded her.

"I still don't love them. I'd much prefer black moths or bats." Emily would usually respond. "Things with wings."

"Some spiders have wings, you know."

"God, I don't even wanna think about that."

For Henry's sake, Emily tried to get more comfortable with spiders. They were surrounded by monstrous bats that Emily had more of a liking for, so it was only fair she got used to spiders. The bats in this other dimension were very close to Emily. She thought of them like a clan of pets, messengers to a more useful extent.

Ever since they had arrived here and had integrated themselves accordingly, Emily and Henry found themselves a part of a hivemind. It connected everything in this dimension, from the bats to the vines, from the creatures the party in Hawkins had given strange names to. Demogorgons and the Mind Flayer, specifically. All of it was connected, and it connected back to Henry and/or Emily. As the years went by, they slowly started maintaining more complete control.

Emily's bats were her babies, but she also controlled nearly everything they did.

The vines that surrounded them were also a part of it. A combination of their abilities and control of the hive mind allowed for them to control the vines around them. Nowadays Henry rarely left the house, but Emily used the vines to get around when she didn't feel like walking. It was as close to flying as she could get aside from living vicariously through her bats.

She also liked having fun with them. Emily would use the vines to walk on the ceiling of the house and swing upside down, oftentimes right in front of Henry. She would plant upside down kisses onto his scarred lips, forehead, or what was left of his nose.

No, Emily wasn't repulsed by his appearance.

Oftentimes days would go by where Emily wouldn't see the sun. This world, what the kids had dubbed the Upside-Down, had no source of light like that, not really. As such, Emily herself underwent a physical transformation of her own. Nowhere near as severe as what had happened to Henry, but she was pale and gaunt, everything about her was thin. Eddie could call her "The Phantom" all he wanted, she wouldn't stop it because she knew it was an accurate description, especially with her scars.