Ptolemaea | Henry Creel

Boating

HI GUYS! UNFORTUNATELY, THIS CHAPTER DOESN'T HAVE HENRY IN IT! However, next chapter will be almost entirely henry and sixteen, and I think you guys will really like it. FOR NOW, ENJOY THIS ONE!

We'd been walking for hours.

My legs ached and my feet blistered. I'd been tempted to ask someone to trade shoes with me, but I felt far too out of place to actually do so. I trudged on with a smile on my face and the most welcoming attitude I could manage. For the first hour or so, the group joked and laughed amongst each other, referencing things I wasn't aware of all while I nodded along as though I understood any of it.

I had always considered myself something of a self-sufficient person. My sense of self never relied on making people like me, and so I was never all that good at it. Now, I felt like a grade school child trying to fit in with all the others. It was, frankly, embarrassing.

Things like this always made me think of Henry. During the five years when we were apart, I tried not to think of him. Sometimes, though, he managed to sneak into my mind. Like when all my colleagues at my old workplace went to dinner, and I sat awkwardly beside them and didn't say a word the entire night. Or when I'd been asked out on a date, and he tried to take me home the very same night. Henry was so unlike other people. He was able to coax me out of my own head in a way that no one else could. Talking to other people often felt like work-- it was a nightmare, navigating small talk and avoiding eye contact, stressing out about what I was going to say next, missing social cues.

It didn't feel like work with Henry, though. It never had.

I came upon an unfortunate realization about two hours into our voyage. I missed him.

It felt disrespectful even as it crossed my mind.

I'd been burning for two days and two nights. I'd been so caught up in the flame that I didn't have time to think of Henry much at all. The realization was almost horrifying as it came to me, as was the grief that soon followed. I missed bright blue eyes and their cold divine. I missed fighting with him.

And I felt so fucking stupid for it.

I hoped he was doing fine, wherever he was. I hoped he was sorry for what he had done, and agonizing over every mistake he'd ever made, but I hoped even more that he was doing fine.

Two more hours had passed since then. I got to talking with Dustin and Eddie, who were actually rather inviting, considering the circumstances. They had tried asking me about myself-- I'm sure, at first, they planned for our conversation to be a covert interrogation-- but when I kept giving them monosyllabic responses, they gave up.

Soon interrogation had turned to conversation, and I forced them to answer my questions instead.

"So all the other monsters you've dealt with were kind of like smoke and mirrors," I said, trying to wrap my head around all of it, "and Vecna's the first humanoid one."

"Exactly," Dustin smiled after a rather trying hour of questions, "I mean, humans were kind of involved before, but that's only 'cause the Mind Flayer virtually possessed people's bodies. Sort of like a parasite and a ghost at the same time. Vecna's different... He's like the five-star general of the Upside Down."

"Oh, I see... and do these monsters like tell you what they want to be called or do you come up with the names yourself? Or is there some sort of handbook?"

"We come up with them," Dustin beamed, "Have you ever heard of Dungeons and Dragons?"

I went quiet and vaguely recalled a conversation I'd overheard between Marge and another one of my coworkers. It was the first time I'd ever heard of the game, and from what I remembered, they didn't much like it. "It's like a board game, right?"