Work Text:
25th of August, 1988:
Peter couldn't believe how easy it was to get into the medical facility.
All he had to do was wear some second hand clothes - modern clothes, 80's clothes - he had purchased from a store, plaster a smile - along with the gut wrenching story that he was the best friend of Maxine's mother that had just arrived in town after hearing about Susan's - was that her name? - tragic death (crushed by the walls of her own house during the earthquake) and voila. Permission for entrance was granted to him in no time.
'Honestly, these humans are getting stupider by the decade.' Is his primary thought after displaying a fake ID to a young nurse and being directed by her to the girl's room.
"Try not to be too emotional about it." The twenty five year old worker who offers to take up his appointment with the girl advises him. She seems... concerned. How sweet. "Her friends come by all the time and they overwhelm her enough on their own. She doesn't need more strong emotions than what she already has."
"I understand." He replies with a charming grin at the ready. "I hope I didn't abuse too much of your kindness. I'm sure you have other patients to deal with."
Her cheeks appear to have turned red. Good. "No problem, it was my pleasure." she mutters. Then her posture straightens, her tone gets 'doctor-formal' again, even though she's not one. "I'll be in room 232, should you need me. Her friends will come precisely at five. That gives you more than two hours."
She is shorter than him - but then again, almost everyone is. She is slim with short chestnut brown hair and maroon eyes. She wears beige lipstick that does nothing for her lips. Face pretty enough - for a man interested to have a partner. Peter was never interested in romance. She would quickly get dissapointed.
He nods, trying his very best not to appear bored by the woman - Diane? - yet. He internally fights with himself to keep the polite tone going. "I see. Again, miss, I cannot thank you enough for your assistance."
If anything, Diane seems bashful and tries to hide a little smile of her own. "It's the least I could do, Mr...?"
"Morgan." He supplies casually, taking pity on her embarrassment. Well, not so much.
"Right." She tries again to tie her not so well brushed hair into an austere bun on the back of her head. There is some hair straying off its place but she doesn't seem to mind. "Follow me." She says and so they resume their walk on the staircase that leads to the second floor.
They don't talk at all during the rest of the way towards Maxine's room, number 245.
*******
Once they have reached it, Diane knocks the door, announcing Peter's presence to the young girl, parroting the tale of how he was a friend of her mother's.
The girl, albeit blind and confined to the wheelchair near her bed, can see through him as indicating by the thin line her mouth is and the - slight - narrowing of her eyes. She appears to be confused - wary too - as to why this stranger is here.
Diane keeps smiling at Maxine with that 'Poor Girl, what a grave misfortune has befallen you' smile. The kind of smile that is full of pity. The smile that Peter wholeheartedly despises. He knows that the redhead hates it as well. "So, Maxine, dear, as I was saying-"
"It's Max, Diane."
"Yes, of course. Sorry..." The nurse flinches and bites her bottom lip. She's much too sensitive, that one. "...Max. Mr Morgan here wants-"
"I heard you before." Says the girl coldly, putting both hands on each side of the wheels to make it slide so she can get the plastic bottle of water she had forgotten on top of a small equally plastic table that was placed beneath the television on the central wall of her tiny room.
Diane taps the nails of her left hand on the file folders she's been holding. "And... are you still okay with the visit? We can cancel it, if you don't feel like-"
Max reaches the table and her hand searches for the bottle. Once her fingers have recognized the feeling of it, she grips it tightly, unscrews the lid and gulps down four big sips of water. She had been feeling thirsty for quite a few hours. "You said you came from California?"
She doesn't turn towards him, but Peter knows the question was addressed to him, so he nods. "Yes."
"From where, exactly?"
"Sacramento." Easy answer. With a mere glimpse in her mind, Peter sees buried memories, lost memories - with her and her mother, Susan Mayfield, when Max was four. They used to live there until the girl turned eleven. Then her mother met Billy's dad, the latest of her four husbands.
"Where in Sacramento?" Asks Max, her voice not faltering once. It's a good, solid plan. She doesn't recognize his voice. And she has never forgotten a voice of one of her mom's friends before. "It's a big city. Thousands of people."
Which means one thing. This man is lying and he's here either to kill her or steal from her mother's pension, now that she has passed away.
Cheeky little girl. Peter would smile at her boldness if Diane wasn't still in the room. Now he feels suffocated, like he's under a lense. "East. My flat was on 39th Street. I'm sure you remember Susan mentioning the number from time to time?"
He knows she's pushing her mind to think, think of anything her mother might have told her about a man, a friend of hers that was living in that area. She'll find nothing. He won't push her. He aches to see how she'll handle this.
"And where did my mom live? Had she told you?"
"Of course. You lived in Midtown then, you and her, - Quill Street - way before she met Neil and the four of you moved here."
"Well, dear?" Asks Diane. "Does that maybe ring a bell?"
After a minute, Maxine turns to where she had remembered hearing the nurse's voice lastly. She's correct in her guess this time. "Yes." She says. "I remembered who he is."
Peter doubts that she really did.
"You can leave now, Diane." Whispers Max. "I'll call you if I need you."
The twenty five year old woman nods at the both of them - "Very well. 'll leave you to it." and takes her leave, heading back towards the door, opening and closing it, after she has exited the small nursing room - to provide them the privacy they so clearly need.
Peter smiles, not at the thought of Diane herself, for the woman was quite dull to be around, but the fact that Maxine, despite her apparent disabilities, is obviously on the defensive. This one is going to be as fun as meeting Michael and Will was. Maybe even more so.
Peter prided himself in the criteria based on which he chose which child to approach. Not all of the Party members (and their associates) had seen him in person. Not all of them deserved to know him in his true form. Henderson, Sinclair, Wiliam's older brother as well as the female Wheeler and the Harrington boy... they were quite boring. There was nothing in their past worthy to be exploited, in Peter's opinion.
But this one, this little tête à tête he wants to enjoy in particular. Before the Big Confrontation. Before seeing Eleven again.
Max gulps a bit of saliva. A shiver runs across her spine. She is alone with a man that reeks of danger. She must be brave. She Must. Be. Brave. For Eleven. For Lucas. For Will. For Mike, lastly, since these two had one thing in common now: their mutually destroyed legs.
She sucks a breath in from her nose and -
******
- turns the wheelchair around so to have at least some sense of equality with that strange man. Regardless of her current situation, her mother had taught her manners, how to behave in front of any kind of adversary. 'Look the person you're talking to in the eye, even if it scares you. Having your back turned shows discomfort and lack of confidence.'
The thing is, she's staring at the right side of the room, while he's standing on the left. She probably doesn't remember where she heard his voice the last time he spoke, muses Peter.
"Are you in the Mafia?" Asks the eighteen year old girl so instinctively that it comes off as humorous to him. It isn't. She's serious about her fear. Her mother owned money to quite a few people while alive. Max doesn't want any more troubles than the ones she already has.
The man blinks. He surely does not expect such a question. "Am I in the what?"
The girl's brows furrow and drop a little, as if she's dissapointed about the fact that he obviously wasn't a part of such a Society. "Ah. Got it." she mutters. "You aren't. Scratch that."
He has nothing to comment on her presupposition about... him being involved in these illegal terrorist groups of predictable middle aged men that kill for profit? Does he really sound like that? Well, for one, that's a compliment. He is meant to be scary, but, for another, the thought association catches him off guard. Which also means that if he doesn't tell her who he is himself, she will never make the connection between the man and the crimson creature that haunted her dreams.
"So who are you?" She inquires, once she understands that there is no way he'll elaborate more unless she takes the lead.
He can see her mind going in different directions, searching feverishly for possible answers. "A friend." He murmurs smoothly to rid her of her agony.
Something that doesn't work out, seeing as Maxine still stares at him unblinking, in doubt, mouth in a thin line. Her irises are just like any seeing person's. And their color is beautiful; icy blue. Pity he had made them turn white in his haste to open the last portal.
"My mom only had four friends." she says, her voice neutral, betraying nothing. "Three of them were women. The sole man among them was named Gregory - and he surely wasn't you." She appears to try narrowing her eyes. "Try again." This time it looks a bit unemotional to him.
Now, how to reply to that? For some strange reason, he does not have the desire to frighten her, like he did to the Wheeler boy. (Although Michael's insistence to keep calling him with such imprudent names can be considered a tiny bit admirable. The teen had will and resilience. He was determined to stay alive, that's what Peter had seen). Maxine is like that too. Peter didn't know why he hated the boy, but grew fond of her. It was conteadicting. Maybe it was the gender that made all the difference. He cannot be sure. He likes William well enough, boy or not. He has always liked him. But that was due to the artist's gentle nature, a quality Peter himself had lost years ago and did not think he'd ever gain back.
"How's Michael?" He asks instead, giving her hints bit by bit, wanting to take this slowly and yet, the anticipation is eating him away.
The girl with the hair of blazing fire - that a light breeze has just started to swish gently - blinks at him, not knowing how else to respond to such a question. "Who?" She doesn't try to lie. It's a genuine reaction.
Peter presses her even further, acting like he didn't hear her speak. "Are his legs still broken?" (Her mind is an open window to him. He sees words inside her brain forming the question 'How the fuck would he know about Mike, he just came here'.)
But instead, she says "Yes." in a quiet voice. And after that - "Who are you? Why do you care about me, about Mike?"
'Ah, concealing her curiosity didn't last long, as it seems.' She isn't as timid as William, or prone to anger outbursts, like Michael. 'At least for the time being.' Peter can only smile at her persistence. "Take a guess."
She's curling her lip downwards to the right. She doesn't seem to have the temper for a guessing game. (She really is exactly like Michael.) "I can't. fucking. see, remember?" she murmurs.
He can feel the anger, the repulsion. Everything. All directed towards him, even though she doesn't know that yet. 'You - he - did this to me. It's because of you - him - I will never see colors or the faces of my friends ever again.'
Peter smiles - and it's a genuine one this time - as he steps closer to where the girl's bed is, sits down beside her and gently takes her hands and places them on his own cheeks. Her palms are a bit cold. Funny. She is dressed with a very warm fuzzy long sleeved shirt, a pair of cotton pants and woolen socks on her feet, there's no way she's freezing.
Max gets startled and tries to draw her hands back, but he has grabbed them again in an instant - and his strength is bigger than hers.
"Don't." He whispers. "I think this will help. You cannot see with your eyes, yes - but you can still feel. Try it."
At first, she doesn't know what to do. All of this puts her off. She doesn't move her hands at all. She blinks at the source of the voice - such a soothing voice for someone so vile. It's disturbing, how little is the distance between the bed and the wheelchair. "Are you always this... touchy?" She asks.
"Maybe." No, that's not the right answer. So Peter changes it. "Sometimes. I don't know. I only do it with people I find... interesting. And that never happened while I was in the lab. Everyone there was an idiot."
She arches a brow. At the what? 'Lab. Lab, lab, lab...' Who had lastly spoken to her about a Lab-? 'Shit, it's him... Eleven!'
It's impressive how much facial movement she remembers doing by instinct, even when she sees darkness from the left eye and a faint blurred light coming from the right one. She cannot hide the shock, the horror.
So she swallows once and then whispers, "But not El, right?"
His lips quirk with amusement. Good, she guessed it. Must be a record, really, amongst the children. (Joyce Byers doesn't count. The woman had a hunch about almost everything.) "No." He agrees. "Not her."
The redhead refuses to back down, to show even a flicker of uneasiness. If he wants to scare her, he'll need more than this 'too close, too creepy' physical touch. "So it's you then, huh..."
"It is, yes." Replies Peter just as casually, as if - in his perspective, at least - they're here just for a small talk. Once more, he loosens his grip. The girl's hands fall down this time. "It's... good to see you again." He says softly and the words are nothing else but honest. He was indeed eager to see what happened of her.
She fumbles the tip of her blouse with her right hand, rubbing the fabric of it with her fingers. Her nails dig one on top of the other. She wants to leave marks on her skin. "Is it?"
He knows he must not rush. He has to do things gradually, else she'll get upset and start yelling for an incompetent nurse to come in - and Peter doesn't need that sort of inconvenience on top of everything. "Of course. You were one of the strongest back then. You put quite a fight. You survived. Even... even like this. That's more than admirable."
Despite the darkness in her left eye and the blur in the right one, the snarl that comes out of Max is no less than a perfect copy of her rage. "Are you shitting me? What the hell is this? Another mind game?" She waits a few seconds for him to answer, but when the silence stretches, she understands that 'no, this is absolutely serious and it's happening right now. He's actually complimenting you'.
'If you want answers, you should first ask the appropriate questions', a voice takes over her mind, a voice that is perfectly calm yet intimidating.
Wait. She can hear him. He's inside her brain. Creepy at best. She shudders. 'Get. out. of my head. You said we'd talk. That's cheating.'
'Then talk.'
She's betting all of her money that he's smiling right now, with that self-satisfied, narcissistic sort of smile. Fucking jerk. "Are you here to kill me?"
"No." Too fast, too carelessly said. He mustn't be lying.
She licks her lips and takes her water bottle in her hand again to drink barely two sips. She misses lunch. "Why not? You've killed before."
"Correct."
Ugh, these one word responses surely do no good for her anger issues. Patience has never been her forte. "The reason, Vecna. Tell me the fucking reason."
"Peter."
"What?"
"If you are to adress me somehow, do so by calling me 'Peter', the name I used to introduce myself earlier."
Max is pretty sure her mouth is loosely hanging slightly open. She scolds her features into what she believes is close to a blank stare. She partially gets it right besides her eyes being wider than they should be. "So... not Henry?"
"No."
His voice is thunderous and filled of venom, contempt for the name that united him with the Creels.
The girl understands that she is not to vex him further with the name list. If he prefers to be called Peter, instead of Henry or One or Vecna, then she won't say any different. She nods. "Okay." She brushes aside a few strands of red hair from her forehead that had been tingling her skin and tucks them behind her ear. "Now, the reason."
"Of why I don't snap your neck right here and now and end your misery?"
"Yes."
"As you said; I killed the rest. All of these poor children. All..." (His tone makes another chill tun down her spine.) "...but you."
"And Mike." Max adds, though she's certain that the reminder will piss the young man off. (At least, she thinks he's young. He sounded and felt like it.)
The man, surprisingly, waves the mentioning of the other living child off as unimportant. "Yes... Him too, I guess."
Max doesn't say anything for their conversation to keep going. She wants answers. She wants to know why he's doing the slow torture instead of the quick killing if his final intention is to kill everyone anyway. She wants to hear it from the man's own lips. She glares at the same spot, seeing as she hadn't heard him move away from her bed, hoping he'll get the message.
"Your case was the first time that someone had survived one of my attacks, even with a few broken limbs."
The girl grips the arms of her wheelchair, wanting to find support by holding something again. She's a moment away from snarling at him. Her teeth can be seen under her half open mouth.
"I admit, I am curious to see how both of you will live with yourselves from now on."
His logic - if it can be called so - has already started to give her a migraine. "Oh, we'll manage. Rest assured."
"Good." His thumb brushes over her chin, an action so sudden that she doesn't see it coming. The finger leaves as quick as it came. "I'm counting on it."
She flinches, but only afterwards - "Stop that." - and rolls the wheels with her hands to make the wheelchair go backwards. She turns her head the other way, to appear as if she's 'looking' at where the wall must be, just for him to understand her annoyance.
His footsteps - after he rises from the bed to kneel right before the teenage girl, but tall enough to still be able to look at her from an even height - prove her the exact opposite. He appears to be unpredictable, limitless, with zero shame or restraint.
"How peculiar..." he mutters.
His breath makes the skin of her face tingle at the warmth of it. It sends a pain to her stomach.
"You, Maxine, are more afraid of me touching you in this form than you ever were when I was trapped in a body of a monster. Usually children are overwhelmed by the opposite."
"Not those that have been abused by people though." she answers. It's plain, clear - and gives off her nervousness.
Peter grins, taking a brief delight in her honesty. He cannot resist indulging himself and so he asks, "And you'd say that you have?"
It's a big step, being sunk into her deepest secrets again, but "Max" is a brave one. If she can cut herself enough times to bleed, she can also stich the wounds, one by one. Pain has become a daily routine for her.
"Yes."
"By whom? And do spare me from mentioning your stepbrother. I think we've more than covered that."
She should have guessed he would be easily bored by talking yet again about Billy. His mind is ever working, restless, jumping from one manipulation technique to another.
She gulps. "By, umm..." She wets her lips and wonders if at least an hour has passed. She cannot know for sure. "...my mom."
She knows that she's facing him, but just this once she's relieved that she cannot really see his face. Mike had described him to her - while coughing out blood, a natural occurrence for him the last year - but the description of a nightmarish figure and having the prototype in front of you were two very different things in her mindset.
"Alright." - Conversetional tone. Easy going. Amused. - "And why is that?"
He sounds way too... understanding. That feels wrong. Where's the gloating? The pride, the monolog? Don't villains usually do all that? Well, he did, once. Now he seems like he prefers a two way discussion over the pre-mentioned courses of action.
Nevertheless, Max has to muster up an answer. She wants to get this over with. "Because she married Billy's dad. That was her choice to make, even though she knew the man had anger issues. She... she hated being alone."
"And did you like it, when it was just the two of you?"
"Yeah..." It felt worse than any confession of hers at Mme Bouchard, her therapist from time to time. At least, to her she could lie. But here and now? To him? Not so much. "And I had told her that - multiple times." Her fingers are trembling again. "She didn't listen. Kept going after all these shitheads..."
She stops the narration there. She cannot go on. The essentials were out of the bag anyway. She was angry at her mother as much as she was at her stepfather and his wretched piece of a son. That was it. That was her truth.
"I see..." says Peter. "That was very honest of you, Maxine. Well done."
And she can indeed guess from the color of his voice that he isn't at all dissapointed with her. She doesn't know whether to feel pride or discomfort for that. Will had warned her about the man being charming. That's what the boy probably meant.
She doesn't thank him. It was him that had rendered her to this state. Stronger, yes, in a way, but she didn't deserve such a shitty end in the first place. Neither did Mike. "And yet, you were so impressed by me, you turned me into a lab rat. Break her spirit, watch her struggle right after."
He hums an old tune from the fifties. A song she doesn't recognize. "I think this allegory of yours sums it up rather well." He drawls, essentially agreeing to what she had said.
"So you're a sadist." She cannot help it. It's the first thought that comes to her mind in he rising seethe. She had, after all, taken a single quality after her deceased 'big brother', that of the arrogance.
"Pretty much, yes." he shrugs, mouth in a line of amusement. He rises to his full height then. He's towering over the redhead. "Here's another thing..." He says, and before the girl can protest against it, he closes her eyes with gentle fingers so the blurring and the faint source of light turn into darkness deep. "You can actually see."
'Yeah, right.' she thinks, trying to keep her heartbeat from not echoing so loud in her ears. "What. bullshit.'
A room. A white room. A girl - with red hair and a hammering heart, full of fears and agony. And a man. A handsome man. A beautiful man with blue eyes, sharp and cutting like icebergs and blond, almost white hair of middle length.
He's wearing a simple crimson shirt that reminds the girl of Mike's chin and throat that is constantly covered in blood. Black pants, black shoes. No wristwatch or earrings. A simple look.
Mike was right. He's fucking terrifying.
She was clinically blind five seconds ago. How - But then she gets it; This is not her mind. Not her eyes. She 'sees' what he wants her to 'see'. She has temporarily 'borrowed' his eyes.
"You should ask Eleven." There it is, his voice interrupting her peace of mind. "Next time. Ask her if she can do this..." He removes his fingers from her eyes just as easily - and Max is blind again. "... for you. Then you will be able to see, like that."
Yup. There it is. The gloating concealed behind feigned concern.
She grins - for the first time in his presence. She won't let him see her groveling. "As I said, I can manage. Thanks for the tip though." She moves the wheelchair all the way to the door and her hand instinctively goes for the handle. She turns her head back, hoping he hadn't moved from his place yet. "Now leave. You wanted to talk, so we talked. I have nothing more to say."
She hears more footsteps. He's moving fast. He must be standing by the door by now.
"Until next time then." he says.
"Yeah, whatever." she whispers tiredly. She pushes the door with such force that it bangs close.
After she has made sure that the man has left, she calls Diane. "Yes, it's me. What time is it? Ah. Have my friends come? Yeah, send them in. Thanks."
She turns the telephone off, places it back on its stand and sighs. 'It's gonna be a long day...'