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weirdworldofwinnie · 9 months

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I've been experimenting around with moodboards, so here's one of Dr. Martin Brenner (seasons 1 and 4). I will be doing more ST characters as well and most pics are screenshots & from Pinterest, I don't own them, etc.

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labcampkill · 6 months

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Ooc mun: squeals and wild flailing.... They brought them back this is not a drill!

#dead by daylight #stranger things #steve harrington #nancy wheeler #the demogorgon #Hawkins national laboratory

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wibble-wobbegong · 1 year

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top ten things i’m normal about

1. No Trespassing

will biking into HNL private property with the “no trespassing” sign and then his door also having a “no trespassing” sign and the connection being made between HNL and will and ONLY will before anything supernatural even happens. almost like he’s being watched or monitored by HNL. almost like he’s still somehow their private property. almost like they had a girl who they trained to spy on people and not ask questions who immediately recognized will’s face but didn’t know his name. almost like will has to have some sort of history with the lab. almost like

#the ‘will has powers’ thoughts are running wild again #specifically regarding how powers are queer allegories and how lonnie is paralleled to virginia who wanted to fix henry #something about how will ‘suddenly’ gained the ability to travel to the in between #something about will being called a schizo #i know i’ve theorized this stuff before but i am a more knowledgeable man now and need to add onto it #will byers #hawkins national laboratory #new tag!

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himynameis4 · 1 year

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Okay, imma elaborate on my madwheeler roleswap bullshit.

For those who have no idea what i’m talking about (probably most of you, i imagine 😅), the basic premise is this: what would Stranger Things/Hawkins look like if Max had lived in Hawkins from the beginning, and Mike & the Wheelers moved to Hawkins in season 2?

My previous posts on this are linked here (initial premise, basically breaking down how canon deviated to allow for the role swap) here (elaborating on potential implications of swapping Mike & Max’s roles for El & her relationships) and here (this talks vaguely about how removing Mike might change season one/party dynamics). All previous posts are gonna be elaborated on as i get further in my rewatch/plot this out more tho, lol. If anyone has any thoughts, other takes, or wants to bounce ideas around or offer their own opinions on how the season could potentially deviate based on this premise, i’d seriously love to hear about it (talking ab this stuff is my catnip ngl).

(Speaking of! @faithfulcat111 hiiiiiiii! I figured i might as well tag you on this post, since this focuses a lot on how season 1 might be different—specifically, differences caused by the fact that Nancy Wheeler isn’t in Hawkins, since I haven’t gotten to posts specifically describing how season 1 could/would go down yet (…in part bc i haven’t decided how i think it should go down, & also bc i rlly have to do that rewatch 😅). I haven’t decided whether Will was biking home from Max’s the night he was taken, or if he was just… at home, y’know? Because if will was targeted by vecna, (& i think he was lol), whether he was biking home or just at his house wouldn’t matter, except for the fact that one option creates waaaaay more angst for our characters than the other, especially if the Mayfield’s trailer was the last place will was seen 😬🤷.)

Now, can we talk ab the potential implications of No Nancy Wheeler?

Like. Wherever Nancy Wheeler grew up, it sure as hell wasn’t Hawkins, and that has all kinds of impacts on the people who ARE still in Hawkins.

In Rebel Robin, Robin basically all but says that Barb chose Nancy over her. No Nancy… are Barb & Robin still friends?

Steve isn’t pursuing Nancy, which means Nancy doesn’t drag Barb along to Steve’s party, which means Barb doesn’t get taken—at least, not because of the party. Was Steve pursuing someone else? Maybe Heather Holloway, or Chrissy Cunningham? Maybe one of them is invited to the party. Maybe she dies earlier, in this universe.

Or maybe she survives the monster attacks. Become part of the action, part of the force against the Upsidedown.

Without Nancy there… does Jonathan Byers take the pictures? [We need to have a brief sidebar about Jonathan. First and foremost, I love this character. Second, taking noncon pictures of someone, especially when they’re in a vulnerable position, is never okay. What Jonathan did was badly handled in canon and, frankly, out of character.]. Perhaps, rather than taking the photos, Jonathan trips, falls, cuts himself while wandering the woods looking for Will. His blood draws a monster (that perhaps gets caught on jonathan’s camera?), which causes Jonathan to either scream, burst through the bushes into the pool party rambling about a faceless monster like a madman, or both.

Now, having witnessed Jonathan Byers’ incident, Steve’s involved. Maybe he gets suspicious of the woods around his house, catches a glimpse of the monster too. Potential slowburn Stonathan friendship bc it’s clear, from the fact that Steve goes to apologize & pays for a new camera & talks ab hanging out with Jonathan in season 4, that steve genuinely wants to be friends with this guy.

In this au, Steve likely wouldn’t break Jonathan’s camera, bc Jonathan hasn’t given him a (frankly, completely justified) reason to. Steve & Jonathan’s fistfight probably wouldn’t happen. But unless Jonathan sees the monster… without Nancy & the photos Jonathan took of Barb getting taken, Jonathan has no reason to believe his mother, and no reason to try & fight the demogorgon (which probs wouldn’t be called a demogorgon here, given that the party isn’t as into dnd w/out Mike, RIP).

You know what else No Nancy means? Nobody to make the connection about demogorgons & blood. & later, in season 2, No Nancy back in season 1 means Alive Barb, which means no exposing Owens/the lab, which means the lab is still up & running in season 3, & ALSO means no Murray until season 3 at Least (through Hopper), AND given Nancy’s wildly different relationships in this au could mean there’ll be nobody to stab Will with a hot poker & free him from the mindflayer at the end of season 2, and depending on how we resolve that & season 3—

Basically, Nancy Wheeler is insanely important, and her absence is gonna have a lot of implications. (Thankfully, given that the Wheelers move to Hawkins pre-season 2, she’ll be around for season 4. 🙏)

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givehimthemedicine · 2 years

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Mirkwood / Kerley / Hawkins Lab

just some Hawkins mapping that mostly just makes me sad for how screwed Max is geographically

Mirkwood, aka Cornwallis and Kerley, is where Will went missing.

It's also where they found El.

Kerley is also where "Dale and Henry" went missing, some randos who I assume are among the six people Brenner tells Joyce have been taken by the demogorgon.

Know what else is on Kerley?

Max and Eddie's trailer park.

I also while gathering screenshots for this post realized that the spot where Nancy made Barb park her car is literally right outside Dustin's house. Am I the last one to this party or??

Will doesn't get taken until he rides a little farther, so I don't know if this street is Kerley or just near.

Barb said the place Nancy made her pull over was three blocks away from Steve's house. So this tells us that Dustin lives 3 blocks from Steve, for what it's worth. It also tells us that the pollywog showing up in Dustin's trash can of all places was maybe a proximity thing as well.

Mirkwood borders Hawkins Lab. We knew all the upside down stuff originated from the lab, because that's where the gate was. Hopper said all the dead crop stuff was affecting a 3 mile radius around the lab.

But the gate was closed and the lab destroyed at the end of season 2. Why does proximity to the lab/Kerley/Mirkwood still continue to be an issue?

Chrissy got Vecna'd at the trailer park, which is off Kerley.

Fred wandered off from the trailer park onto a nearby road, which I can only assume is Kerley, and got Vecna'd, opening a gate literally in the middle of the road.

Here's Hopper's map from 2 where the white square in the middle is Hawkins Lab. Recognize anything else? 💙

*snap* that's Lover's Lake!

where Patrick got Vecna'd. So we know that's less than 3 miles from the lab.

So that must mean Max got Vecna'd near there, too? Ah but he tried to kill her in multiple locations. Which one?

The place he first tried to kill her was at Roane Hill Cemetery, where Billy is buried

near the Creel house, where he actually did kill her. So they both work!

Max was able to wander into the Creel house hellscape in mid-trance from the cemetery, although that could be abstract and not an indication that they are literally that close together in reality.

The Creel house is super close to the trailer park. The teens in the upside down rode to the trailer park and peeped the house like one second before they arrived. Max almost could've seen it from her window.

Poor Max literally lives in a dimensional portal trailer park between a cemetery and a demon murder house. If she had gone to visit El in California, would she still be alive?

So most of the Hawkins locations we know are in Roane County, including the lab, the quarry, the cemetery, the trailer park, the Creel house, and all the party's houses. And Pennhurst is far away from East Hawkins, in fact, in a whole different county.

I need a map of this town.

So like... where physically was Vecna during seasons 1-3? Did he come out of that first gate along with the demogorgon? And are we sure all that early stuff was only about proximity to the lab and not to the Creel House?

#I know nobody reads posts that aren't shippy but I kinda like knowing the lay of the land #hawkins #analysis #kerley #hawkins national laboratory #this got so much longer than I planned #worldbuilding I guess #mine #givehimthemedicine analysis

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imsociallyanxiousgetoverit · 2 years

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Dunno if anyone needs this but,

//minor spoilers for S4 btw//

— Canon

Ages listed are in 1983 if I was able to figure it out (info may be incorrect despite wiki use)

001 - Henry/Vecna (36, Telekinesis, Cognikinesis)

002 - (23, Telekinesis, died 1979)

003 - Ricky (23, Pathokinesis, Alive)

003 - (died 1979)

004 - (30, Telekinesis, Telepathy, Alive)

005 - (died 1979)

006 - Francine (30, Precognition, Died 1978)

006 - (Telekinesis, died 1979)

007 - (died 1979)

008 - Kali Prasad (19, Illusions, Rainbow Room, Alive)

009 - Jamie (14, twin to Marcy, Heat, Rainbow Room, Alive)

009 - (possibly died 1979)

009.5 - Marcy (14, twin to Jamie, Psychic?, Rainbow Room, Alive)

010 - (*ESP, died in 1979)

011 - Elle/Jane Hopper (12, Telekinesis, Scrying, Rainbow Room, Alive)

012 - (possibly died 1979)

013 - (possibly died 1979)

014 - (possibly died 1979)

015 - (possibly died 1979)

016 - (twin to 017, died 1979)

017 - (twin to 016, died 1979)

018 - (possibly died 1979)

*Extra Sensory Perception

Edited to update 010 (to be fair I made the initial list before watching the show)

Edited to update 006 and 010

Edited to update 009.5

Edited to update 010

#idk how I managed to misread the wiki multiple times I spent two hours on this #please be nice I spent like 2 hours on this so while there might be some wrong info I tried hard #spoilers #stranger things spoilers #stranger things season 4 spoilers #stranger things netflix #stranger things #test subjects #subjects #children #ages #childrens ages #hawkins national laboratory #tw #tw death #tw henry creel #tw vecna #tw hawkins national laboratory

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stuckasmain · 2 years

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Absolute roller coaster of “no no… he’s going to be a good guy. He’s helping her escape, he means good. Right? RIGHT?????” With 001 up until the last episode is something.

Either that or it was semi always obvious and I put way to much faith into him.

#stranger things #001 stranger things #henry creel #stranger things 4 #hawkins national laboratory

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ecoamerica · 23 days

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thingsscenes · 2 years

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Hawkins Massacre from Brenner's Perspective

401 – 02:00-08:50

September 8, 1979 – Hawkins National Laboratories / Rainbow Room / "Testing" Room

The child experiments are in the Rainbow Room. Dr. Brenner takes 010 to lessons. They greet Six and Dr. Ellis in the hallway.

Brenner draws, and 010 is supposed to see what he draws with his mind. First, he draws a sun, then a dog. Ten guesses that the dog is a cow. They laugh.

Brenner asks him to find Dr. Ellis. He sees that she's having lessons with Six in his room. Ten is distressed – something is wrong. They are screaming. He sees blood.

An alarm sounds. Brenner asks Peter and Alec what's going on. They've got a situation. Ten says Six and Dr. Ellis are dead. Brenner is knocked out by a door.

In the rainbow room, he finds Eleven with blood down her eyes, nose and gown, breathing heavily, and asks: "What have you done?"

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conflictofthemind · 18 days

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TL;DR: HNL was studying how to give human subjects electromagnetic, most specifically visible light based, powers in order to bend space-time for their needs.

I’m going to try and condense this as much as I can because considering electromagnetism as a major force in ST (pun intended) opens up so many potential areas of analysis that can only be a brief cover of without turning into multiple essays.

Let’s go over the electromagnetic spectrum:

I hope you might already be recognizing some symbols we see often in Stranger Things, especially if you’ve been following the BTS and some location and set leaks from Season 5.

The electromagnetic spectrum encompasses the different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation - waves of energy that travel at the speed of light (and produce visible light to us at certain frequencies). You’ve probably heard of most of these, including cancer-causing gamma rays and x-rays, the visible light spectrum (the rainbow), microwaves, and radio waves.

In S5, we have the radio station as a main location for the characters. They’re also driving around in the radio station’s van, which has an image of a hawk emitting a rainbow (visible light radiation). Steve’s car also has a massive antenna on top of it. My first thoughts were that the team was trying to keep in contact with Max in hopes of her being able to hear them in her coma, considering she has a radio near her bedside. While that still may be a reason, I think the characters may have come to realize how important electromagnetic fields could be in their fight against Vecna (this where leader of the AV Club also focused on electromagnetic objects Scott Clarke may make his triumphant return).

Now to pivot onto why electromagnetism is so important to the lore of ST:

What the scientists in Hawkins Lab are likely studying is a way for human brains to produce or manipulate certain types of electromagnetic waves through telepathy. Most obviously this is seen by them having the kids try to manipulate and turn on a circle of light bulbs. Our brains actually already produce electromagnetic waves, but at a very slow frequency. The scientists are constantly measuring brain waves while conducting these experiments. We even get full shots of El’s brain waves during NINA, for example. We also see similar shots in S2 while Will is in the HNL.

You can also observe that the Hawkins National Laboratory has absolutely massive satellite dishes on it’s rooftop; ones that do not exist on the real life building but are added in post because they pose some sort of significance. Nudge, it’s because they are transmitting and receiving massive amounts of electromagnetic waves.

Why are they studying electromagnetic waves then?

They are studying electromagnetic waves because they are a method in which time travel can theoretically be achieved - the focus of the Montauk Project in which Stranger Things is based on. The military likely is investigating time travel as another war tactic against Russia.

Let us take a look at the first chapter of the Montauk Project: Experiments in Time book (they are seriously plagiarizing the living hell out of this thing):

Also, did you catch the whole 'attaching a massive antenna on the hood of my car to pick up a secret signal' thing? That's suspiciously similar to the state of Steve's car! Anyway...

The story of Stranger Things starts chronologically, as does Montauk, with the disappearance of the USS Eldridge and Project Rainbow (named after the bending of the visible light spectrum). Brenner’s father was revealed to have captained the boat in TFS, which disappeared for 12 hours into Dimension X and when it came back, the crew was killed or driven mad (except for Brenner Sr). This inspires Brenner to continue onto the Nevada project, and eventually, Hawkins National Lab’s studies. The USS Eldridge / Philadelphia Project conspiracy from real life went as follows:

They were studying electromagnetism, specifically the bending of light, to make objects invisible. This was only the first step in the experiments. Once Henry got involved and came back from his trip to Dimension X with powers, Brenner must have realized he could potentially use human subjects to manipulate electromagnetic fields themselves. Human subjects didn’t require machinery or set up and could bend space-time wherever they pleased, as long as they were able to learn the ability.

The more conspiratiorial side of Theoretical Physics proposes using circulating light beams to warp time-space, creating a wormhole in which one can literally walk through time. This is pop-science, likely not true but interesting for fiction purposes. This method of time travel being used is heavily implied due to the fact that the USS Eldridge was already able to disappear into another dimension by the bending of light.

This is how it worked in the Montauk Project book (absolutely ridiculous how much they took from this honestly):

My guess is that in the Stranger Things universe, they have not yet managed to time travel, only to create portals into this alien Dimension X. Previously, said portals were only made twice by highly advanced technological equipment. El demonstrated that she was able to open a portal all by herself - another step to achieving time travel with singular human subjects. Season five is when we will see the beginning of the time travel plot line, though it like in Montauk is likely already in a loop.

That’s where we get the name for the Rainbow Room, named after this Project Rainbow. The rainbow represents the full spectrum of visible light, and the goals of the project to bend said light into portals and eventually time travel wormholes.

Implications?:

-Well, first of all it seems very obvious by this point that we are going for a time travel plot line, and this is how it will be achieved.

-Will is heavily connected to light in general, the sun, and of course… the rainbow. He is also implied be the one involved in the time travel plot line. This will be very relevant going forward and deserves it’s own post. Potential funniness of defeating Vecna with the power of the rainbow afoot.

-Coma patients are known to have odd, barely detectable brain waves. The kids will be able to communicate with Max in her coma using the electromagnetic spectrum somehow, probably through the radio waves.

-On the farthest end of the spectrum, we have ionizing gamma ray radiation, which is known to cause cancer in humans. Expect Hopper’s daughter Sara to connect to this plot line (and perhaps Sam Owens’ dead son). There is a whole theory on this site already called radiationgate. I have not managed to look into it yet but I think they are probably onto something there. The original al pitch mentions the UD leakage into the real world causing cancer as well.

#stranger things #dr brenner #will byers #max mayfield #byler #<- fuck it intended audience #el hopper #st theory #electromagnetismgate #:)#tagging them for the exposure cause idk who is going to see this #time travel

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justfandomwritings · 2 years

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You'll See Why (Peter Ballard x Reader)

Pairing: Peter Ballard x Female!Reader, implied Steve x Reader (Does not really factor into the story)

Word Count: 5.1k

Warnings: mostly just fluff and angst that doesn't require a content warning. General content warnings consistent with Stranger Things

Summary: It couldn't be him. She refused to believe it. Eleven had to be wrong, had to have the wrong person. It wasn't that he wasn't capable of something like this; in the back of her mind, she knew he was. More, it was that she didn't want to face what it meant about herself.

Masterlist. Ko-Fi.

There was a familiar face staring blankly up at her from the page… she knew this face.

“Well, he looks evil,” Steve mused, looking at the drawing over her shoulder.

“He was 001… He was the first. They built the lab to contain him.” Eleven explained.

(Y/n) was holding up the sketch Eleven had drawn of the patient from Hawkins Lab, who Eleven knew as 001, that Nancy had discovered was Henry, that they all called Vecna.

(Y/n) knew that face.

“(Y/n)?” Dustin touched her shoulder. “(Y/n), are you okay?”

She heard her brother’s voice talking to her, and yet somehow she didn’t register it. He felt, he sounded, so far away.

It felt like an out of body experience, like her thoughts were no longer contained inside her brain, like they were swirling around her in a cloud, consuming her entire world. This was not Henry Creel, could not be Vecna. Eleven had to be wrong. She knew this face, and she knew it all too well.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hi Peter, I see they let you out again. The usual?” (Y/n) smiled brightly.

Peter was her favorite regular at Benny’s, not that he was all that regular. He came in once every couple weeks or so. She assumed whenever the lab could spare him, though he always referred to it as a “reward” for good behavior. Benny’s menu was hardly “reward” worthy. It was decent. Benny was a good cook, but it was just regular diner food. She could think of four other diners in Hawkins that served the same fair, though Benny’s was certainly the closest to the ltab.

He wasn’t a particularly nice regular. He tipped very well, which she appreciated, but most regulars do or they wouldn’t be regulars anymore. Mostly, he was her favorite because he was an enigma. He worked for the Hawkins National Laboratory up the road, and he was very cagey about his work and himself.

“No coffee,” Peter amended without looking up from the papers in front of him.

(Y/n) scribbled haphazardly on the ticket and slid it across the window to put on deck for Benny. There were a couple tickets ahead of it, and that gave her extra time.

(Y/n) dragged the stool out from behind the register and plopped down directly in front of Peter, propping her elbows on the counter and looking at him expectantly.

Peter rolled his eyes but kept them trained on his work. This was (Y/n)’s usual routine any time Peter came into the diner, so he didn’t need to look up to know she was staring him down.

“Must you watch your customers so intently? I feel like a subject in the lab.”

“Only the interesting ones,” (Y/n) dismissed. “Now tell me; how’s the lab?”

Peter flipped over one of the pages mindlessly. He hadn’t processed all the words, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen if (Y/n) had anything to say about it. He kept up the appearance of reading though to hold her interrogations to a minimal. “It is in its usual state. I am nothing but a humble nurse for the children being experimented upon and tortured within its walls.”

(Y/n) rolled her eyes. It wasn’t the kind of joke she would have made, but she let it slide. “Yes, of course, but how is your work?”

“Why would you care to know?” Peter dismissed the question.

“Because I’m bored, and like my brother always says life is a curiosity voyage.”

Peter rolled his eyes, “Your brother sounds foolish.”

“Hey,” (Y/n) reached up and smacked Peter lightly on the side of the head, causing him to jolt. He stared at her in utter disbelief, as if no one had ever touched him before in his life, which she found very hard to believe. He was far too high and mighty, full of himself, not to have been bullied as a kid. “That’s my brother. Only I get to mess with him.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nonresponsive and zoned out was not a good thing to be in Hawkins, Indiana in 1986.

“She’s infected with Vecna!” Dustin began to panic, “Quick someone get my headphones from the desk,” Dustin pointed to the desk behind Max, who practically threw the headphones in her rush to get them to Steve as Dustin ran to the small shelf and began digging through Mike’s cassette tapes.

“No, no,” (Y/n) shook aside the memory as quickly as she could manage. “Dustin,” she called to her brother, “Really, I’m fine!”

“Like hell you are,” behind her, Steve forced the plastic strap of the headphones around her neck. “Seriously? How hard is it to find Pat Benatar!” Steve shouted.

“Again, I’m fine,” (Y/n) rolled her eyes, wrenching the headphones off.

They couldn’t afford to waste a pair on her now. She could feel things coming to a head. Over the last 24 hours, virtually all of them had had to procure a pair of headphones and wrap them around their necks. Only Steve, Dustin, Eleven, and herself hadn’t heard the ticking of a clock at some point yet. A low drone of noise was filling the room as songs played from the necks of the other occupants.

“Really!” She insisted to the skeptical crowd of teens staring her down, “no ticking. I was just…” In addressing the room, her eyes found Eleven’s, “remembering something.”

Eleven’s eyes seemed to see right through her, and (Y/n) hesitated for a moment, wavering in whether revealing this information was a good idea or not. Everyone else in the room was staring at her, eyes darting now and again to Eleven.

It was too late to back out now. She took a breath and, watching Eleven’s face intently for her reaction, said the name.

“Peter Ballard.”

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“Hi again Peter, I’ll put the usual on for you.” (Y/n) greeted him with a wave as he came through the door.

This time, when Peter walked in, Benny’s was empty except for herself and Benny. He had his usual folder full of papers tucked under his arm, stamped with the fancy Hawkins Lab’s seal on the cover declaring it was privileged information.

“Thank you,” Peter took up his usual counter seat.

He had a way of being both extraordinarily polite and also incredibly rude at the same time. It was like he had spent his entire life being lectured on manners without actually having a single social interaction in which to use them.

“Benny!” (Y/n) called loudly over the order window, “Peter’s usual!”

Benny was somewhere in the back. With the diner being empty, Benny had ducked out to rearrange the stock while he left (Y/n) to mind the front. “Give me just a minute!” She heard her boss shout back.

“So!” (Y/n) whipped around, leaning back against the order window, “Gonna tell me how work was today?”

“Tiresome.” Peter clipped.

(Y/n) raised an eyebrow, “That’s about as descriptive as you’ve ever been. Was it coworkers or your human test subjects?” She said the last part teasingly.

Peter paused for a moment, still not looking up from his papers, but he seemed to consider her question longer than he usually would before dismissing her. “Boss.” Having answered, Peter immediately went back to flipping through pages, only adding under his breath, “Not that I would call him that, persay. He’s more like my worst nightmare.”

(Y/n) chuckled and approached, taking up her usual seat across from him. “Tell me about it. Last week, Benny didn’t let me off early on Friday even though it was my mom’s birthday, so my little brother recruited his friends to try to bake her birthday cake instead of waiting for me and almost lit my house on fire.”

The word fire seemed to catch Peter’s attention. He still didn’t give her the time of day or meet her eyes, still seemed to think that she was too beneath him for that, but his head did cock to one side. He was listening.

“What’s so nightmarish about your boss?”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What do you mean you ‘know’ Vecna?” Dustin demanded.

“He came into Benny’s from time to time,” (Y/n) felt like she was retreating into her skin. Eleven, Mike, Eddie, Max, the whole room. They were all watching her with dark eyes, watching her like they were watching the enemy.

Dustin was staring at her in utter shock. He didn’t notice the looks from his friends or the fear in her eyes. He was still trying to comprehend this massive piece of information.

Only Steve’s hand, resting with a firm grip on her shoulder, was keeping her grounded in the room, keeping her from bolting out the door like a frightened deer.

“And you talked to him? You knew him?” Max joined the questioning, her tone far closer to interrogation than Dustin’s disbelieving one.

(Y/n) shrugged defensively, “Lots of people from the labs came in. We were the closest restaurant. He said he was a nurse. I didn’t know he was the literal devil.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Your boss sounds like a dick, no offense.”

“None taken.” Peter had talked to her. He had actually talked to her. Granted, they were complaining about their bosses, which was the oldest and most basic form of bonding in the book, but still. It was something. “He is.”

“Well,” (Y/n) hopped down from the seat she had taken on the counter while he recounted his tale of woe. “I’m gonna start cleaning up if it’s all the same to you.”

Peter waved his hand down the length of the counter and immediately reverted his eyes back to his papers that were off to the side of the plate he was presently eating off of.

(Y/n) smirked to herself as she pulled out her rag. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. She’d be damned if she wasn’t going to keep poking at him till she got the answers she wanted.

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It was Nancy who turned the whole scene into a proper interrogation. Though, perhaps given her profession, it was more of an interview. She waved the kids away from the seat in front of (Y/n) and took up a spot front and center in her vision.

“Tell us everything you know about him. Start from the beginning.”

(Y/n) took a breath and recited the facts as coldly and emotionlessly as she could manage. “His name was Peter Ballard. He came into the diner once every couple weeks. Everyone else from the lab came in groups, but he…” Her voice cracked for a moment, and she hoped everyone else in the room saw it as nothing more than the nerves it was, “He was always alone. He barely talked to me. The others said he was a nurse, and that he never talked to anyone in the lab either. He always brought files with him to read. It took months for him to even bother making eye contact with me.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You never went to a proper high school?”

“No,” Peter droned. He still acted thoroughly unamused with her presence, but he had started more readily answering her questions.

(Y/n) huffed and leaned back on her stool, tilting away from him. “Well, that explains so much.”

Peter’s eyes shot up from his paper, and for the first time he met her gaze. Not exactly an angry expression, but at the least a doubtful one, colored his face as his eyebrows drew together. “How?”

“Well,” she let the legs of her stool fall back on the floor with a crash as she leaned forward towards Peter, “Sure, you didn’t have to deal with assholes on the basketball team shoving you into lockers, or girls on the cheer squad making fun of your clothes. But you also never found a group of friends with the same niche interest as you, or a guy to bond with over your mutual hatred of some bully, or a cute girl who thought you were the cutest thing since God invented puppies.”

Peter’s eyes narrowed.

“No, I’m serious,” (Y/n) immediately dismissed his expression. “Sure, there are giant swathes of humanity that are the absolute worst, but there are some humans who are really great when you give them the chance. And you,” she poked a finger into his chest, “never did. You were aware that some people sucked, but you didn’t hang around long enough to find the ones that didn’t before you decided to write all of us off as intolerable.”

Peter pursed his lips and turned back to his files. He wasn’t going to continue this line of conversation.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“That’s really all I know, Nancy. I swear.” (Y/n) huffed.

“There has to be something though!” Nancy jumped up from her seat and began to pace, “It can’t be a coincidence that you knew him. Can it?”

“I didn’t know him,” She emphasized. “We didn’t exactly bare our souls to each other and get matching tattoos. We were friendly. He came in every couple weeks, ordered the same thing. Towards the end he started making small talk, but that was it. Small talk. He didn’t exactly spell out for me that he had dreams of becoming a mass murderer.”

“Yeah, but what are the odds that you would get wrapped up in all of this?” Jonathan pointed out. “It sounds like you’re the only person he talked to outside of the lab.”

“Pretty freakin’ high, Jonathan,” (Y/n) huffed. “If you haven’t noticed, Hawkins isn’t a metropolis. It’s a pretty small town, and weird shit keeps happening. We’re all wrapped up in it at this point.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Y/n) froze, staring at Peter as he approached his usual seat at the counter. She’d clocked him instantly when he walked in, and instantly had known something was very off.

He looked more or less the same, all white outfit, holier than thou expression. His hair was in its usual blonde waves, and he seemed more or less as agitated with his own existence as he usually did.

“H-Hey Peter, Usual?” (Y/n) asked.

“Yes, please,” Peter replied.

And in that moment she realized it. That moment when he sat there, still looking up at her expectantly, waiting for her to put his order in. That moment when he didn’t look down.

No files.

(Y/n) rushed the order in to Benny and whirled back around to join Peter. There were a handful of other people in the diner, but they were all regulars who’d already gotten their food and knew their way around. She was completely unbothered with doing her rounds to their tables.

“Why no files?”

Peter raised an eyebrow, “Aren’t you the one who’s always bugging me to talk to you?”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“He’s not here,” Dustin dropped the flashlight back to his side with a huff.

They had gone to the Creel house again, hoping to find where in the Upside Down Vecna was. Now that they had Eleven, with her powers back no less, they wanted to lure him to a place they could face off against him.

“(Y/n),” Lucas called over the bannister from the second floor. “Did Vecna ever mention anywhere else he liked to go? Or somewhere else in Hawkins he felt connected to?”

“No!” (Y/n) shouted back with a huff, “If he’s not here he must be at the lab!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So?” (Y/n) smiled, “Thoughts?”

“It’s… cold.” Peter mused.

(Y/n) huffed and pulled back from where she was leaning on the counter. “That’s it? It’s cold? I thought you were going to actually help me? You know, useful feedback?”

Peter slowly pushed the mostly-full milkshake away from his plate. “I never agreed to help you. You only assumed I would when I came in.”

“Yeah! For a free milkshake!” (Y/n) threw her hands up, utterly exasperated with him, “You have to have more thoughts than ‘it’s cold’. I’m making Benny put milkshakes on the menu, and it’s my ass on the line if they aren’t good.”

“It’s sweet.” Peter added, picking up another fry and taking a bite.

“Ooooh! Thank you so much! That’s so much more helpful.” She bit back sarcastically.

Rolling her eyes, (Y/n) snatched the milkshake away, slurping through Peter’s abandoned straw. She made a face, “Oh, ok… that is sweet.”

Peter didn’t meet her eyes, but he waved his hand and made a face that very much said ‘told-you-so’.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It didn’t look like anyone had been in the lab since Eleven closed the portal. The bodies had been cleaned up, no doubt by the military coverup team, but the broken glass in the screened in room surrounding the old portal was still strewn about the floor. Hopper’s gun Bob had left in the control room was still on the desk. There were even still spatters of blood every few feet along the walls and stains from dried up blood on the floors.

“So,” Robin murmured quietly to (Y/n), “This is what Round 2 looked like? Man I am so glad I just had the Russians.”

“It doesn’t look like he’s here either. Doesn’t even look like he’s been here at all. There’s no portal,” Will assessed, turning back to the room.

“Fuck!” Mike turned, kicking a wall. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

He wasn’t at his old home. He wasn’t at the lab. He wasn’t at any of the places he’d opened portals that they knew about. (Y/n) was at a loss. There wasn’t anywhere else to look.

He must be hiding, hiding somewhere completely random with absolutely no connection to him. It was the logical thing to do if he didn’t want to be found, but it just didn’t make sense. Sure, Eleven said 001 was a creature completely void of any emotion, set to the singular purpose of restoring order to the world by ridding it of humanity.

But (Y/n) knew that wasn’t true. Hell, the Party should’ve known that wasn’t true. 001 had slaughtered an entire lab in an instant he was so blinded by rage, not even giving them the option to join them that he’d given Eleven. When he became Vecna and was sent to the Upside Down, the first place they knew he’d gone was home. Max had seen the disassembled pieces of the Creel house in Vecna’s inner hideout in the Upside Down. And Henry had talked to Nancy about her visit to his father, about how he’d vengefully plotted his demise.

Even the Peter (Y/n) knew was riddled with emotions, most of them negative, but still they were there. Even when he was putting on a neutral face, she always knew he detested humanity. He hated his job. He…

He’d teased her about her milkshakes, about how much she talked, about high school, about her brother. He’d…

(Y/n) bolted for the door. “Steve, get the keys! I know where he went!” She shouted.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So why don’t you ever sit with them?” (Y/n) asked, nodding with her chin over Peter’s shoulder to the lab coats at the table behind him.

They weren’t literally wearing lab coats, but in her mind everyone who worked in a lab was supposed to be wearing a coat. So that’s what she called them. In actuality, they were all dressed almost exactly the same as Peter.

“I mean, I know you hate them, but even you have to get lonely sometimes.”

Peter picked up another fry and put it in his mouth, avoiding her question.

“There must be someone tolerable enough to eat lunch with.”

“I eat with you.” Peter told her, “Do I need someone else?”

(Y/n) felt her cheeks turn a little bit pink, and she tried to swallow it down. “Well no, but you must have friends. Someone at the lab? Or someone from when you were a kid? I know you were homeschooled, but still. Everyone needs friends.”

Peter snorted, and (Y/n) wasn’t sure if it was at the idea of him needing someone or at the idea of having a friend. “Well, I regret to inform you that I just have you.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was a portal, up against the wall of the diner, behind the counter right where she used to sit when she would talk to Peter.

“Dead on, (Y/n).” Steve patted her shoulder, joking, “He must’ve really liked the eggs.”

Grilled chicken with a side of fries and a coffee. Always the same food; didn’t matter what meal it was. (Y/n) didn’t bother to voice that though.

“It’s one of the basketball players,” Dustin pointed out.

A pair of broken, twisted out of shape, legs were sticking out from behind one of the couches the kids had dragged into Benny’s after it was deserted.

“It’s bigger…” Eleven murmured, taking a step forward towards the portal.

Mike caught her arm, pulling her back away from the portal.

(Y/n) didn’t join in, the banter or the analysis. She was staring at the portal.

It was right where she used to sit, literally right there. If Peter had been there, and she’d been in her usual spot talking to him, all she would’ve had to do was tip her stool back, like she always did, and she would’ve fallen straight into the Upside Down.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You’re gonna fall over if you keep doing that,” Peter pointed down to the legs of her stool.

(Y/n) rolled her eyes and continued to totter back and forth on the back legs of the stool. “Then I’ll knock my head in and get off work early, and you won’t have to put up with me. Sounds like a win for both of us.”

The front legs of the stool slammed to the ground, and (Y/n) stared wide-eyed, mouth ajar, at Peter.

Peter’s eyes had a fire to them she had never seen. There was something there, something behind his usual disinterested, annoyed expression. Something dangerous.

He had a vice-like grip on her wrist, and (Y/n) was positive that she was going to have a ringed bruise around the bone there in the morning from how tightly he held her and how hard he’d jerked her back forward. Her arm was stretched out across the width of the counter, practically touching his chest he’d jerked her so far back.

The shock in her face seemed to douse the fire in his. “Sorry,” Peter cleared his throat, dropping her wrist.

“N-No, it’s okay.” (Y/n) dismissed haphazardly. “Didn’t realize I was worrying you.”

Under his breath, so quietly she wasn’t quite sure she heard him right, Peter whispered, “Of course you worry me.”

“What was that?” (Y/n) asked.

“Nothing, just don’t want you dead on the floor. The hassle of finding another friend is unappealing.”

“Well,” (Y/n) smiled, though not as brightly this time as she usually did, “you can’t get rid of me that easy.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vecna.

A grey body, void of skin and hair and a face. Vine-like Tentacles protruding from his back, whipping back and forth in all directions as if they had a mind of their own, encircling the party, drawing them tighter and tighter into him.

She knew what Eleven told her, knew the story of how Vecna had come to be, but she just couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t see Peter under there, inside the monster.

She couldn’t see Peter batting away Eleven with a vine, without a care in the world for her scream as she went flying back into a deadened tree.

Not Peter, not her Peter.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I’m sorry.”

(Y/n) looked up, startled. She hadn’t heard anyone come in. She’d been too absorbed in the math homework splayed across Benny’s counter to notice anything other than the mental image she’d been constructing of going to watch all of her friends graduate knowing she was going to have to repeat senior year.

“Oh Peter, I didn’t hear you come in. Usual?”

Peter sat down in front of her, which was not in his usual seat. “No, I only… I came here to talk, to apologize, and say goodbye.”

“Wait you’re leaving?” (Y/n) dropped the pencil from her hand. “Are they moving you out of the lab? What’s going on?”

“There’s been a… development. And soon my services will no longer be required.” Peter caught the pencil (Y/n) hadn’t heard rolling across the counter and carefully balanced it back in place in front of her textbook.

“W-Well, where are you going?” She tried, and failed miserably, to hide the disappointment from her tone, “I’m sure they have phones there. I’d hate to leave you with no one to pester you every week.”

“I can’t tell you.” Peter smiled, actually smiled. (Y/n) didn’t know if it was unnerving or endearing. It was the first time she’d ever seen him smile. She got the occasional snear, once in a while a smirk if she was particularly amusing that day. But he never smiled, certainly not like this, sad, disheartened, like he was sorry he had to go. “That’s why I came. I know I scared you last time I was here. I… I showed too much of myself, and for that I’m sorry.”

“Peter, you don’t have to apologize.” (Y/n) reached out, hesitantly and took his hand. “Not for being yourself at least.”

“Oh but I do.” Peter dismissed. Turning his hand over, Peter took hers in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Maybe one day you’ll see why.”

And as easily as he slipped into her life, he was gone.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Eddie,” She whispered from their hiding place behind the rock, “whatever happens, can you promise me something?”

“What?” Eddie whispered back to her.

(Y/n) hesitated for a moment before she peeled herself away from the rocker’s side. “Hold Steve back.” Turning to Jonathan on her other side, she patted his arm. “And don’t let him and Dustin do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

(Y/n) was usually an anxious, hesitant person. She was an extrovert to the extreme, but she was also very risk averse. She was the type of girl who walked with her eyes on her own feet, and her arms brought in across her chest at all times. She didn’t exude surety or confidence ever. The three words her friends would use to describe her were skittish, excitable, and self-conscious. With Dart, Dustin had taken the lead trapping the monster in the cellar. In the Byer’s home, she had cowered behind Steve, from the demodogs and from Billy. In Starcourt, her brother had practically dragged her down to the Russian base. She had been the one driving the distraction car, all too happy to put distance between herself, Dustin, and Steve and the Mindflayer.

She was not fearless like Nancy or powerful like Eleven or a natural leader like Steve. In the face of monsters and spies and alternate dimensions, she was scared, like any normal person would be.

But this, she’d convinced herself, wasn’t a monster from an alternate dimension. A monster, maybe, but one she knew.

“(Y/n), what are you doing?” Jonathan tried to grab at her arm, but she moved faster, ducking out of the way as she came running out from behind the rock.

Vecna was baring down on Eleven, standing in front of Lucas, Mike, and Dustin with her arms wide as she tried to push him back.

“(Y/n)!” The shout came from somewhere behind her, but she didn’t look back at Steve as she heard him running after her.

“PETER!” She came to a stop under him and shouted up into the air, at the body in the center of the mass of tentacles.

His head turned, slowly, towards her. “Peter, come down here!”

“(Y/n),” he said, seemingly to himself.

She should’ve been afraid, quaking in her boots afraid. But for once, she just couldn’t seem to manage it.

Somewhere in the distance she could hear Steve shouting, shouting at her, at Vecna, at Jonathan and Eddie for holding him back.

“Peter!” She called again.

The tentacles seemed to whip back and forth through the air, splaying themselves out flat on the ground and slowly encircling where she stood, as they lowered their master to the ground.

“NO!” Dustin tried to jump, but without instruction needed Lucas and Mike grabbed him and held him back.

“Peter, you don’t have to do this.”

“Peter is dead. Your friend,” he spat the word, “saw to that.”

“I know she put you here, but I don’t think Peter’s gone.” A tentacle slithered at the back of her heels, and (Y/n) took a step closer to Peter.

“You always had such idealistic notions.” He snarled, “This is what I am. Not Peter, this.” Two of the tentacles whipped out from the circle they had formed around (Y/n), and latched onto her wrists, wrenching her down to her knees.

(Y/n) shook her head, “I don’t believe that.”

The tentacles tightened around her wrist, and she bit back a whimper in disgust as they began wrapping themselves slowly up her arms.

“Society is a scourge (Y/n). The real curse is not me; it’s humanity.” Peter began walking towards her, the tentacles around her dragging her to meet him.

“Then why haven’t you cursed me? Killed me?” (Y/n) asked, “Everyone else has heard the clock ticking, Peter. But here I am.”

The tentacles were wrapping around her chest now, gluing her arms to her sides. Peter, Vecna, did not respond. He stood directly above her now, her bound defenseless at his feet.

“If Peter was dead then you wouldn’t be listening to me right now.”

One of the tentacles wrapped itself around her throat, but she didn’t feel it constricting her at all. It was like it didn’t know what to do.

“Let them go, Peter. They’re just kids. Scared, little kids like Henry used to be.”

Steve was still shouting and struggling with Jonathan and Eddie, and in her peripheral, it seemed Eleven had joined the boys in holding back Dustin.

“I’ll stay.” She whispered loud enough for only Peter to hear. “We’re friends right? I’ll stay here, with you. But you have to let them go. Leave them alone, leave Hawkins alone.”

Peter blinked. “You wouldn’t leave your brother.”

He sounded like Peter, the dark, raspy voice of Vecna was gone. He sounded young again; he sounded whole.

“I’ll leave him to protect him. Peter, you live in this place free of people and the society you hated, and it’s still not enough. You never wanted to be alone.” The grip the tentacles had on her was loosening, and (Y/n) tried to stand. The tentacles melted away as Peter saw what she wanted to do. “I’ll stay here, with you. You won’t be alone… But you have to let them go.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“NO!” Dustin shoved forward and began pounding on the wall where to portal used to be. “No!”

His fingers tried digging into the wallpaper, into the wall. It had to be there; it couldn’t be gone. He could get back to her. They could save her.

The rest of the party watched in utter silence as Dustin scratched and clawed at the wall, trying to open the portal back to his sister.

No one tried to stop him, or intervene. They were all too stunned to speak, too stunned to move.

The only noise in the room was Dustin, screaming in despair at the wall, and Steve, quietly sobbing in the corner.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note:

Thanks for reading! If you like this, please go read my Eddie Munson fic. I'd really appreciate it! I think it's even better than this one, and it meant a lot to me writing it. I look forward to knowing what you think!

#peter ballard #peter ballard x y/n #peter ballard x reader #vecna x reader #henry creel x reader #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things x reader #peter ballard x you #peter ballard fluff #peter ballard angst #peter ballard fanfiction #peter ballard fanfic #vecna fanfiction #henry creel fanfiction #stranger things x you #steve harrington x reader #st4

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