My Number One (001/Henry Creel/Vecna x Reader)

Plain Sky

Sorry for the late upload everyone, it will be more regular now! Also thank you so much for reading the story!

***

When I awoke, I sat up and blinked, trying to remember where I was.

I realised I was naked in a bed—the bed from Mr Ballard's gloomy bedroom in the Upside Down.

But where was Mr Ballard?

I stood up, aching, which then gave me flashbacks to what had happened before my sleep.

We had travelled by Demodog to a beautiful lake, and then we had had sex. I had figured out the word by remembering what Nancy had told me. I had...lost my virginity, as she said, too.

I had never been someone who was majorly shy about my body and being nude—I supposed because we often had to wear small skin-coloured vests in the laboratory to conduct experiments in—but I didn't quite feel at ease waltzing around naked from the moment I woke up to the moment I slept, so decided to look for some cover.

In the room was a big chest of drawers, so I crept over quietly and opened the top one. Inside was lots of little interesting gadgets I had never seen before. Looking back, I know that they were children's toys. I picked one up and examined it. It was a miniature red car, and I ran it over my hand to discover that the wheels actually worked. Another one I picked up was in the shape of a tiny man, and he had a silver loop attached to the top of his head. I know now that it was a keyring.

I closed the drawer and opened the next. It was full of clothes, so I pulled out the piece folded  on top of the pile. It was a grey polo shirt, too small for me to wear, so I placed it back, crumpled. I began rummaging, looking for something that would fit. Every item was small, so I closed the drawer on the mess I had created inside of it.

Then, I set off out of the room in search of Mr Ballard. I checked the next room, finding no Mr Ballard, but instead a big closet. I walked over and was pleased to see it was full of larger clothes, so started to search through that instead. Soon enough, I found a large white buttoned shirt with long sleeves. It reached just about to the crease under my butt when I put it on over my head.

I quickly checked the other rooms, still finding no sign of Mr Ballard, so I moved on downstairs. In the kitchen at the back of the house was where I found him.

He was standing in front of the stove, cooking something up. I started to step closer when he noticed me and turned his head. He didn't greet me. He didn't even smile.

"What are you doing?" I asked softly, walking over and standing beside him.

"Frying meat."

I peered over at the pan he was using to cook, and bubbling inside of it was piece of large, mangled meat. It was slimy and deep bluey-grey in colour. It didn't look like a clean block of meat—it was uneven, as if it had been ripped apart prior to cooking it.

"What is that?" I whispered.

"Demobat."

I was aware of Demodogs, so I figured this was a bat version. "Who's it for?"

"Us, of course. It's all we have to eat here."

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I really wasn't prepared for this. I would never dream of taking a bite of one of these Demobats, let alone first thing after I woke up. "What time is it?" I asked.

"It doesn't matter."

"Why?"

"It's always dark here, just slightly more at nighttime."

I glanced out of the kitchen window. The sky wasn't grey or navy, now, it was black. "It's nighttime now, isn't it?"

"Yes. You slept through the whole day."

It was true. It had been morning when I was taken from the backstage of the strip club into the upside down, and then we had travelled straight to the lake. After that, I had been so weak that Mr Ballard had carried me back, draped in his arms, and placed me into his bed in the house that he'd told me he'd grown up in and...killed his family in.

"It's probably about midnight now," he added.

A moment later, he slung the piece of meat onto a plate, split it in half with his fingers, and dished one half onto another plate. Then, he walked with both plates to a kitchen table and set them in front of two opposite chairs. I followed him and sat down on one chair tentatively.

I noticed he had provided me with a knife and fork, probably understanding I wouldn't want to handle the Demobat meat with my bare hands like he did...even though I still had to put it in my mouth, anyway. Nonetheless, it was thoughtful, so I smiled and used the cutlery to slice off a small portion of the meat and place it in my mouth. I scrunched my face, not liking the texture, but the taste itself wasn't too bad. Mr Ballard was watching me, expressionless, taking in my reaction to the meat.

Then, he said something. "I should tell you now that Ballard is not my real surname, and you mustn't call me Mister."

I swallowed. "What is your name?"

"Henry Creel," he said, still expressionless.

"Why do you go by Mr Ballard?"

"That was an alias the laboratory used to keep my real identity a secret."

"Alias?"

"A fake name," Henry explained.

"Why did they use a fake one?"

"The test subjects, like yourself, were not allowed to know I had powers too. It was in case any of them managed to escape or get ahold of any of my documents and find out who I really was. It was unlikely, but a safety measure for Mr Brenner and his people."

"But why weren't we allowed to know about your powers?"

"Because I had lived in the real world. I knew how much of a prison the laboratory was, unlike the rest of you who grew up there. They didn't want you all to find out and cause a mass escape. Not only that, but they also didn't want me to get any of you to remove my Soteria device using your minds, and reactivate my abilities. That was also why I wasn't allowed to talk to any of you alone, and I was attacked and punished by the guards when they caught me in your room, remember?"

He seemed to be answering all of the questions I still had on hold in the back of my mind, waiting to ask at the right moment. "How did you take your Soteria device out in the end? When we were locked in the cells, you still managed to remove it on your own."

"The human will is an incredible thing. I knew I had one chance to escape and that was it, so despite my instincts telling me not to rip apart my flesh, I still did it with my bare hands, and got rid of the device. It's like adrenaline in the face of danger—you do things you never thought you could. Even if I somehow had the adrenaline to do that years ago, it wouldn't have worked, because I wasn't in a position to escape. I didn't know of the underground exit, and the Soteria device alerts guards if it's being messed around with, anyway. The guards would've caught me before I even had the chance to take it out fully, let alone discover the exit and escape, and then I would've been under strict surveillance for possibly the rest of my life. They wouldn't have left me alone at all after that if they caught me trying to escape. The only reason we had time to leave before the guards caught us was because we were underground in the cells away from everyone, that the guards thought was top security." He looked at me for a moment, at my shocked, incredulous expression, and then added, "Of course, with my mind, I was then able open my cell door, then yours, and then remove your Soteria while you were unconscious."

In that moment, I looked straight ahead into his eyes and decided to devote every ounce of love I was able to possess to him only. He was the smartest, most interesting, and most powerful person on the planet, I was sure of it...and he had chosen me. Who was I to keep him on strings? Who was I to keep dancing between him, and the real world full of people who didn't even compare in the slightest? The clouds moved out of view in my mind, and there was only one option I could see. It was so clear and final to me now...Henry Creel.