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

Drugs for Dessert

When we returned to the other classroom, Eleven told Mike and his friends what I had just told her.

"This is crazy," said Dustin, and he looked as if he was trying to hide a smile.

Lucas, however, looked panicked. "We're never gonna stop them! We're gonna die!"

But Mike...Mike was staring at me, expressionless. "You're telling me you saw Will and just left him there? Left him for dead?"

"If I had tried to save him, I might have died, myself! It was my life or his—you can't seriously expect me to put his above my own, especially when I didn't even know it was him!"

The audacity Mike had! He was always acting as if I was inferior, worth less than the people he loved. And, even though I was lying, for all he knew, I could've died saving Will. Thinking about it, though, it was half true. I had tried saving him, but I thought it best to leave that part out, otherwise I'd have to make up a different story about how I had to give up and leave him behind, because I obviously couldn't tell them the real one, that Mr Ballard had stopped me and shut me in his basement to keep Will as his food. I didn't want to tell lies when they weren't necessary, I'd avoid them, just in case I told so many that I lost count.

"You have powers! Will doesn't! You have an advantage that you could've used," argued Mike.

"As I told you, I didn't even know it was him! There are tons of people kidnapped in the Upside Down right now, I'm not going to go around to each one trying to save them in case it's your friend. It's your fault for kicking me out of your house before showing me a picture of what he looked like in case I saw him anywhere."

Mike seemed to have no response to that, but after a moment of silence, Lucas did. "...Wait, if you've never seen a photo of Will, how do you know it was him you saw in the Upside Down?"

"Because Eleven told me she'd heard him singing and humming. I heard it, too."

"What did he look like, just in case it's not him?" asked Lucas.

"Brown hair cut around here," I said, drawing an invisible bowl-shaped line around my head with my fingers, "and he was about your age."

The boys looked at each other and nodded, agreeing it was him. They looked nervous about it.

"The only gates I know of are the one in the tree trunk Eleven just told me about, and another backstage in a strip club." I thought I'd leave out the one in Henry's house—I didn't want them to discover him, of course.

"Strip club?" said Lucas.

"Yeah."

"That's so random," Dustin said, laughing. "Have you been in it?"

"Yeah."

"You've been in a strip club?! What was it like?!" asked Dustin.

"I worked there."

"What?!" Dustin burst into laughter, and even Lucas grinned. Mike, though, wasn't amused. He just kept his eyes on Eleven. "Glurrrr," said Dustin, rolling his tongue.

"What?" I asked, but then I remembered—boys were attracted to women dancing in strip clubs. They must've been laughing about that.

"Nothing," Dustin said, smiling.

"Anyway," I said, "I have to go, I have someone's waiting for me."

Dustin groaned, Lucas stayed neutral, and Mike looked as if he still had questions but was too stubborn to beg me to stay longer. Eleven stepped forward and hugged me. Over her shoulders, I saw the three boys staring, but then I closed my eyes.