Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Phase One.

“We meet Erica at the playground, she’ll signal Max and Lucas when we’re ready.”

Phase Two.

“Max baits Vecna.  He’ll go after her, which will put him in his trance.”

Phase Three?

“Me and Eddie draw the bats away.”

Four.

“We head into Vecna’s newly bat-free lair and,” Robin swished the liquid in her molotov cocktail, “flambé.”

Nancy nodded curtly, “Nobody moves on to the next phase until we’ve all copied.  Nobody deviates from the plan no matter what,” she studied the faces in the trailer, all expressing a certain amount of nerve.

“Got it?” She asked.

And the rest mimicked her in unison, “Got it.”

They parked the trailer in a nearby thicket of trees, hauling their battle gear through the brush before running quietly to Eddie’s trailer.  Locking the door behind them.

The gate in the ceiling pulsed with an otherworldly, orange ambiance.  Somehow it looked bigger than the last time everyone was there.  Thick, green-ish vines had now slithered to the walls of Eddie’s living room.  Curling around the various wall decorations and blocking out light fixtures.

“I think time is running a bit shorter than we thought,” Robin commented as she reached out to poke one of the sluggish appendages, her hand was caught in place by Steve before she could do so.

“Then we’d better get moving,” Nancy said, pulling her hair into a ponytail.

She stepped forward and sized up the gate above her.  Steve gave her a look of concern, “Should I go in first?” he asked.

“Should it matter?” Nancy shrugged off her pack and tossed it with effort through the gate where it’s impact echoed through the gate membrane.

Robin shouldered Steve away and knelt to assist Nancy’s ascent into the portal.  She pulled herself up the rope of bedsheets with some difficulty, then let the shift of gravity do the rest as she slipped through the gate.  Landing on the other side with little grace, but on her feet nonetheless.

Nancy retrieved her pack and signaled a thumbs-up through the gate.  Robin grinned proudly back at her and shouted, “Heads up!” giving Nancy time to clear the landing pad before chucking her own battle kit through the portal.

Steve hoisted Robin up and let her climb through next, and Nancy aided her landing on the other side.  They hurried to Eddie’s room in the Upside Down and carefully dragged his mattress into the living room.  Noticing the way the vines that marred every wall seemed to watch their every move, writhing in response to their presence.

Robin and Nancy both gave a thumbs up to the remaining party and stepped back to allow their equipment through the gate.

Eddie and Steve lifted Dustin into the gate first, being the lightest of them.  He fell with a grunt of discomfort at the stomach-turning reversal of gravity onto the mattress.  The girls handed him his spear and shield, making way for the next soldier.

“Need a hand?” Steve asked Eddie, who stepped up to the rope.

The other breathed in deeply, but shook his head, “Nah, I think I’ve got it,” he tried to smile reassuringly.

“I’ll catch you if you fall,” Steve said.

Eddie jumped to further his climb a bit, craning his neck to look down at Steve, “No you won’t,” he scoffed.

“No, I won’t,” Steve grinned back at him.

Eddie shook his head with endearment and continued into the Upside Down, letting himself fall onto the mattress.  Back again , he mused to himself.  Standing up with the help of Robin, he leaned under the gate and held his arms out.

“I’ll catch you,” he mocked to Steve on the other side, who flipped him off.

Steve made his way through and landed on his feet with a theatrical flip.  Greeted by the unimpressed gazes of his friends.  Robin imitated the roar of a crowd and threw Steve’s flashlight at him, “And you wonder where the kid’s ego came from,” she teased him, motioning towards Dustin.

“Yeah yeah,” Steve swung his backpack over his shoulders and gave one last look through the gate before everyone vacated the living room.

Flashes of red lightning greeted them outside.  A storm seemed to be brewing, moving cold wind through the gaunt trees.  A faint rumbling shook the ground under the young heroes, causing the same look of concern on each face.

“Something’s up,” Steve pointed out.  Nancy looked off into the distance and nodded in agreement.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Before he followed Robin and Nancy out of the trailer park, Steve turned on his heel to address Dustin and Eddie.  Although it was clear he was mainly talking to the kid.

“Listen to me, if anything goes wrong— and I mean anything starts to go wrong, abort,” Steve ordered.

Dustin made a face, “I won’t leave you here,” he replied with defiance.

“Uh uh, kid.  Don’t try to be a hero.  Not now.  Just get the bats and get out,” Steve knelt to Dustin’s level, hands on the boy’s shoulders, “I’m gonna be fine.  You have to be too,” he said.  And before he joined the girls he murmured something only Dustin could hear.  Patting the boy on the back in place of a goodbye.

Steve went to Eddie then, pulling him closer by the sleeve of his jacket.  “Please be safe,” Steve said.  His face was stoic but there was a pleading in his eyes.

Eddie held up his pinkie, and Steve completed the promise.  Both ways.

“Make him pay,” Eddie said.

Eddie and Dustin watched the other three disappear into the perpetual fog.  The older put a hand on the other’s shoulder, registering briefly how the boy was trembling.

“Let’s go kid,” he advised, and just like that Dustin seemed to snap out of it.  Joining his friend as they barricaded the trailer.  There wasn’t much time to dwell on anything while they worked.  Rhythmically and efficiently, they scrounged up every scrap of metal in sight and fastened it to the exterior of the trailer.  Turning Eddie’s “castle” into a makeshift fortress.

“Not bad,” Dustin commented when they stood back to admire their handiwork.  Both taking a moment to applaud themselves.  Eddie slung an arm around Dustin affectionately, noticing how both their faces betrayed the moment of minuscule victory.

He turned his face away for a moment to compose himself.  Knowing Dustin was more scared than anything twisted a special kind of knot in Eddie’s stomach, but if he lost it in front of the kid there’d be hell to pay.  Hell being a very angry Steve Harrington, who wouldn’t appreciate returning to find Dustin with anything more than a scratch.

“Now’s for the fun part,” Eddie made himself smile, encouraging Dustin to quell his fear in place of excitement for a moment as they raced to Eddie’s room.  Marveling at the sight of Eddie’s beloved electric guitar.

Eddie felt his nerves fill with anticipation as he removed the instrument from the mount on his window, “Well, Henderson,” he prefaced, watching the other’s eyes light up, “are you ready for the most metal concert in the history of this world and the next?”

Dustin practically bounced with excitement.  He’d never actually seen Eddie play before, though he had definitely tried.  Mrs. Henderson wasn’t a fan of letting her son go hang out with a trailer park freak.  Which was understandable.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Dustin asked.

“Let’s do it.” Eddie donned the guitar and threw it over his shoulder with practiced grace.

He and Dustin climbed to the top of the fortress, bathed in flashes of red light from the swelling storm in the near distance.  From their elevated vantage point they could see the way the Upside Down seemed to churn with sentience.  In the way the thick clouds above twisted with an ancient kind of fury, the trees whose leaves hissed in tandem with the wind, to the ground covered in vines that never sat still.  The very land watched them with millions of dutiful eyes.  An audience waiting with threadbare patience for the show to begin.

Well, if it was a show they wanted, a show they would soon receive.

Dustin’s walkie-talkie came to life with Robin’s blessing to move into phase three of the plan.  He copied, plugging the amp into its power socket, which whined in response.  He cranked the volume as high as he could, the feedback crackling, “Let’s hope they hear this,” he prayed, and nodded at Eddie.

The other returned the gesture and readied his stance on the roof, bringing the guitar to his front like a weapon.  “Chrissy, this one’s for you,” he said, like he was calling on whatever remained of the girl to guide him.

Eddie took a deep breath and lifted his hand, keeping it in place for a moment while a new kind of energy surged through him, then forced it through the first strum of the guitar.

Chapter Text

The cold quietness of the Upside Down flared with a disturbance.  All eyes turning to their awaited performer.  Across the blackened treetops, the audience was alerted where it swarmed in great numbers around an old haunted house.

Nancy, Robin, and Steve watched as the bats fled into the reddened sky.

“Okay, it’s working.  Let’s go,” she said, and the three teens made pace into the Creel house.

Back at the trailer Dustin kept watch in the direction his friends went, all while dancing along to the song Eddie was playing.  If the mission happened to end badly, Dustin thought it might be worth it just for this moment.  The pure exhilaration and admiration filled the boy with hope that they would come out of this on top.  In Dustin’s eyes, which may as well be filled with stars, Eddie could do anything.  They could do anything.

If Dustin didn’t already idolize the metal-head, he did now.  Eddie was a true rockstar.

Through his binoculars Dustin glimpsed a hoard of what he guessed were the bats, backed by the red flashing clouds.  “Eddie!  Lock down in T-minus thirty seconds!” he warned.

Eddie kept playing.

“T-minus twenty!”

Eddie oriented himself to face the bats and delved into a ferocious guitar solo, his fingers moving over the strings like he was casting a spell.  He kept his focus completely on the music even as the rest of his body shook with adrenaline.

Dustin continued the countdown, which Eddie seemed to ignore until the last possible second.  His captivating performance came to a halt when the screeching of the incoming hoard drowned out the last throws of his song.

“Move!  Move!  Move!” Eddie nearly tossed Dustin from the roof of the trailer, herding him frantically towards the front door.  Both yelling in chorus with the nearing flock of creatures.

They threw themselves through the door of the trailer and pushed the couch in the living room against the door, jamming it vertically between the floor and the ceiling.  The shadows of the swarm outside danced through the cracks in the boarded up windows as both boys huffed and puffed with a small amount of relief.

“Dude!” Dustin heaved, clasping Eddie by both his shoulders, “Most.  Metal.  Ever!” he shouted with elation, coaxing the other into a sort of victory dance where in they jumped up and down, hollering in excitement.  Waves of pride, fear, and joy radiating between them.

Eddie huffed out a laugh, pulling Dustin into a hug, rocking back and forth as they came down from the thrilling high.  They remembered the task at hand when a sound akin to a hail storm from hell began pelting the walls of the trailer.

Dustin muttered various expletives to himself, running carefully around the trailer as he gathered their shields and spears, not wanting to alert any of the vines to a notable presence.  He and Eddie pressed together, back to back in the area in front of the door.  The least infested place to stand in.

Frantic scratching at the windows and walls grated in their ears as they spun around to survey any sign of intrusion.  Their barricades seemed to be holding for the moment.

“Come on guys, come on,” Dustin repeated to himself in reference to the other three of their party.  They must be in the house by now.  Dustin refused to let his mind wander towards what they may have found in there.

“Henderson?  Should we leave now?” Eddie shouted over the commotion, his voice trembling.

“No!  We can’t, we have to keep the bats here ,” Dustin replied.  His friends still needed him.  Much as Steve’s orders echoed in his head, he was never much of a listener, was he.

“The bats are here!” Eddie replied.

More tense moments passed with the screeching and scratching of the bats outside.  Eddie’s hands shook violently for just a little too long, and he decided it was time to go.

“Okay, Henderson, enough!” he barked, barely allowing the boy a protest as he pushed him in the direction of the gate.

“Eddie!  Wait, wait,” Dustin protested.

“Listen kid, I know you’re worried about Steve.  I know, but he left you with me, which means he trusts me to keep you safe.  We did all we could!” Eddie pleaded.

As much as Eddie wanted to entertain Dustin’s need to protect his friends, he wasn’t about to be stupid about it.  Dustin even being here in the first place was way beyond child endangerment.  Not that the law even mattered at this point; but they had done their job.  And they did it damn well!

There would be nothing shameful about getting the hell out of dodge.  Surely they had earned it.  A skillful retreat was not the same thing as running away.  And anyways, if one of them were to stay in the Upside Down, it would not be Dustin.

“We can hold them here for just a little longer,” Dustin demanded.

Eddie seized the boy by the front of his shirt, “Dustin Henderson, I will throw you through that gate!”

Before Dustin could reply, the trailer lurched violently, then shook with the force of something like an earthquake.

Chapter Text

Within the walls of the Creel house, Robin, Nancy, and Steve had just come to the top of a flight of stairs encased with vines.

At the top of the stairs was the entrance to Vecna’s attic, which they had visited previously in their realm.  Steve studied the door pointedly, knowing the evil was just on the other side.  He unsheathed a blade fastened to his pack and handed it to Nancy, who retrieved it with confidence.

They didn’t know what they would see once they crossed the threshold, but all three teens knew they would fight it until only ashes remained.  With a last look between them, Nancy moved towards the door, but she barely made it a step before the very structure around them threw itself into a rocking fit.  Knocking the teens off their feet and sending them sliding down the stairs, right over the vines they were so cautious to avoid.

Holding one another for support, they stood up once more.  They shared a silent look of mild concern, unsure of what to do, when Robin gave a sudden yelp as a mass of vines seized her leg and pulled her up against the nearest wall.

The quaking resembled one of the previous smaller tremors, just cranked to a hundred.  Back in the trailer, both Dustin and Eddie went tumbling around the room with the force, trying to steady themselves against anything within reach.

Eddie whipped his head around as the quake subsided, not unaware of the sudden silence that came over the trailer.  He crawled over to Dustin, helping him up.

“Lets go ,” he breathed, pulling the boy to the opening of the gate.

“Something happened.  Eddie, stop, something’s wrong!” Dustin yelped.

“No fucking shit!  All the more reason to go!”

Dustin’s look of pure defeat pulled at Eddie’s heart but by god if he wasn’t going to get the kid out of there safely before another unprecedented fucking event happened.  Eddie was just pulling on the rope of bedsheets when a wet, slithering sound filled the room.

He looked away to find that the previously, mostly stationary vines growing on the walls were now in an unnerving state of motion.

“Aw, shit!” Eddie hissed, pulling Dustin closer to him as the vines advanced along the floor and across the walls.

“Jesus, Eddie I told you something is wrong!” Dustin shouted but Eddie just put a hand over his mouth, continuing to look frantically around the room.

Dustin’s eyes went wide suddenly and he pointed to the portal in the ceiling.  Both looked up in horror as the fleshy vines now snaking along the ceiling and around the outline of the gate started to close over the opening.  The rope of bedsheets was momentarily squeezed between the appendages before a black stain grew at the top, and soon the rope flopped down on the mattress.  The vines pulled themselves taut over the gate, taking with it the light from the trailer on the other side.  Leaving the shaking pair in just the dull, ever-present blue of the Upside Down.

“No, no, no,” Eddie mumbled to himself, over and over.  He studied the room, looking for something, anything that might help them.  The floor around the mattress they stood on was now entirely infested with a carpet of vines.  Varying in thickness.  Although he hesitated to call them vines anymore.  They were far too murderous.

“I think our stunt alerted a lot more than the bats,” Dustin said lowly.

“It’s Vecna, right?  Something must have happened on the other’s end and he recalled the bats, but trapped us in here with these creepy fucking vines,” Eddie replied, voice shaking against his will.

“We gotta do something,” Dustin said.

“ Huh? ” Eddie gawked.

“If the bats are going back to the house, Steve, Nancy, and Robin are sitting ducks!”

Eddie exhaled, pressing his hands into his eyes.  He’d had enough excitement to last him into the next life in a single week.  “Dustin, I think this qualifies as the plan going south.”

“No!  Our part of the plan still needs to be upheld.  It’s just not over yet,” Dustin reached to where his spear had fallen and carefully extracted it from the carpet of vines.  “We’ll go back out there and get them to come back.”

“Dustin—“ Eddie started, but his words fell into oblivion when something whipped through the air and tied itself around his wrist.  He hardly had time to process the sensation before it happened thrice more, around his other hand and one of his feet.

With a surprised yelp, Eddie was lifted off the mattress and pulled instantly across the room.  His back hit the wall with a thud that knocked the wind from his lungs, the neck of the guitar still strapped to his back gave an ugly sounding screech as it was busted in half, and he was effectively fastened against his uncle’s hat collection.  A dozen more vines stretched out to meet him, curling around his midsection and throat.

“Eddie!” Dustin screamed, snapping out of his horrified trance and jumping to the other end of the mattress, spear raised.

He slashed fiercely at the undulating tendrils, managing to sever the one around Eddie’s throat, he moved onto the next targets as Eddie struggled to pull himself free.  At some point Dustin began dodging advances from other vines, he fell back momentarily, returning with Eddie’s own spear.

Eddie had freed a single hand now and worked with Dustin to sever the vines as his midsection and legs were freed from their ensnarement, and with a final slash of both their blades his left hand came loose.

The vines in the room writhed now, a high pitched hiss of collective pain filled the air.  Eddie was still trying to regain his breath after being strangled, he stumbled onto the mattress in a breathless daze, removing the desiccated guitar from around his body.

Dustin squared up with a new alertness.  Looking for the next sign of danger.  The vines which had been severed, now lying in pieces across the floor, began to wriggle grotesquely.  Slime and whatever the hell was inside them began spewing from their wounds, and almost as soon as they’d been cut off their missing lengths appeared to regenerate.

As they repaired themselves, the two boys watched in abject terror.  Flesh reformed and twisted around the vines’ clusters of razor-like teeth, for lack of a better term, which usually hid within the greater biomass of the vines, were now on display.

“Oh shit,” Eddie commented unhelpfully, readjusting his grip on his spear.

“We just pissed them off,” Dustin said as the room buzzed with the fury of the vines.

“You think?” Eddie replied, assuming a defensive position once more.

There was a beat of silence before vines broke loose from all directions, Eddie and Dustin sprung into action, beating the creatures away with their spears, fists, feet, anything that came into reach.  Eddie had just broken one of his uncle’s mugs over one of the vines and moved to fend off the next when he caught a glimpse of movement where Dustin was.

“Watch out!” Eddie shouted, but he was too late.

Dustin turned around, but had no time to raise his weapon.  A vine had shot across the room in an arching motion, it’s toothed end whipped towards the boy, connecting with his upper chest and shoulder.  It tore through his sweatshirt, the force of the blow sent Dustin flying across the trailer and into the kitchen where he rolled to a stop.

Eddie gaped with horror at the scene, he threw himself from the mattress and beelined from the infested living room, he’d just cleared the most populated area when his leg was once again arrested by one of the creatures.  It caught him in his movement and pulled his feet out from under him.  Eddie’s chin slammed into the floor with a loud smack .  He grasped helplessly at the floor as he was dragged back to the living room.

Screaming as he went, Eddie’s fingers curled around the edge of the counter next to the front door.  He held on as tight as possible, using one hand to hold the spear, while the vine tugging him tightened its grip.  It’s cluster of teeth dug through his jeans and lodged into the skin of his shin.  Blood poured immediately from the wound and splattered onto the tile.  Eddie cried out in pain, feeling his eyes well with tears.

He threw his head back to find Dustin, who was still lying on the floor, motionless.  The sight filled Eddie with a sort of primal rage that seemed to lift his pain from his body, and when he turned back to the creature gnawing at his leg he was seeing red.  Eddie slammed the long end of his spear into the ground, the stick splintered and snapped until he was just holding the part attached to the knife.

Letting go of the counter, Eddie anchored himself with his free foot and raised his blade, bringing it down on the offending creature’s head (was it the head?  He wasn’t really sure, but it had teeth, and teeth were usually in the head, so it was at least a good guess).  Again, and again, and again until it’s flesh was littered with stab wounds.  Eddie felt it’s vice grip falter, then it tore away from his shin.  His blood mixing with that of the vine as it was pulled back into its own ranks.

Letting out a pained moan, Eddie dragged himself over to Dustin, his injured leg immobilized and unhelpful.  Eddie turned the boy to face him and sighed with relief when the boy stirred.

“Dustin, wake up,” Eddie pat the other’s shoulders, shaking him a bit violently.  Anything to get him conscious.  He sat them both up and leaned Dustin on his chest.

“Eddie, your leg,” was the first thing Dustin noticed.  Apparently unaware of the gash marring his right shoulder.  Well, he’d be aware soon enough.

“Don’t worry about me,” Eddie said.  Masking the pain in his voice.  “We need to patch this up,” he pressed a hand to Dustin’s shoulder, who shouted in response to the sudden pain.

“I think I hit my head,” Dustin groaned.

“I wouldn’t rule it out,” Eddie hastily removed the dark green bandana from around Dustin’s head and tied it tightly around the top of his shoulder, hands shaking.  Dustin didn’t respond to the act and Eddie shook him to his senses again.

Not good.  This was not good.

“Stay awake!” Eddie shouted, watching Dustin’s eyes fade in and out of comprehension.  Eddie cursed silently to himself.

From the living room, the army of vines hissed menacingly.  Like they knew their prey was caught in their web.  Ready to be picked apart.  Dustin’s attention was caught by the approaching danger.  He snapped to, adrenaline kicking in and propelling him back into clarity.

“We gotta move,” Dustin said, peeling himself away from Eddie, who was holding him with a death grip.  Unable to hide how terrified he was anymore.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Eddie’s voice shook, resigning to fate.

“Eddie.  If we don’t, it won’t just be us,” Dustin pleaded, searching his friend’s face.

Eddie glanced between Dustin and the steadily approaching hoard of vines.

“ Everyone will die,” Dustin said.

The vines shrieked with elation.

Chapter Text

In Eddie’s bedroom, he fished his beat up boom-box out of his closet.  Wiping the grime of the Upside Down off of it, extending the handle.  Eddie limped over to his chest of drawers and retrieved a single cassette tape.  Almost unconsciously, his shaking hands just seemed to know where they were going.

He pocketed the tape and made his way back to Dustin, who was breathing a bit laboriously, he had discarded his camouflage cloak and was clutching his shoulder.  Eddie wanted to take it for him in that moment.  He wanted to break down and beg Vecna or whatever higher power was stringing them along to spare them.  Dustin shouldn’t have to do this.  He shouldn’t have to face anything remotely like this.

“Dustin,” Eddie reached out and helped the boy stand, both leaning on one another for support.  Eddie’s leg was nearing on completely useless, the cloth he tied around it was soaked through with blood.  Dustin fared no better.  His right sleeve and the side of his shirt were bathed in red, and a sickly looking bruise had formed on the side of his face where it connected with the floor.

They made their way to the barricaded door as fast as they could.  Both pitching in to push the couch out of place so they could escape the trailer and hopefully the vines as well.  The deed proved to be a struggle in the face of exhaustion and the loss of copious amounts of blood.

“Come on you son of a bitch,” Dustin strained against the couch, becoming more frantic when he saw the vines in the living room had started closing in around them.

“Just push!” Eddie panted, both now using every ounce of strength they had to dislodge the piece of furniture.  The couch gave way and wobbled, the arm wedged into the ceiling came free and it swayed to the side.  Eddie gave it one last push and it toppled over with a squelch , landing across a gaggle of stalking vines.

“Okay, go, go,” Dustin pushed himself up and towards the door, hand just grazing the doorknob when a vine struck out and blocked the handle from being turned.

Eddie pulled Dustin back and they slid to the floor, backs against the kitchen counter.  The vines had now spread into the greater parts of the trailer.  Over the ceiling, walls, doors, and shelves; and now they were biting at the boys’ ankles.  Hissing in unison as they closed in on their hopeless prey.  Eddie put a useless arm in front of Dustin, but it was better than nothing.  Squeezing his eyes shut, waiting for the final blow, but it didn’t come.

Instead the vines surrounding them started to writhe once more.  It was subtle for a few seconds, then every vine in the trailer erupted into ear-splitting shrieks.  Dustin and Eddie clasped their hands over their ears, plastering themselves against the counter even further as the vines convulsed and pulled back, shriveling and twisting together in pain.

Just as explosively as it started, the vines went deathly silent.  Flopping around noiselessly before going completely still.

Eddie and Dustin shared a fleeting perplexed look but knew there was no time to theorize.  No time to wonder if they should just abandon their friends and try to get back through that newly unguarded gate.  They simply hauled themselves back to their feet and staggered out the front door, leaning into one another as they painstakingly descended the steps.

Eddie breathed deeply in and out, his leg flaring with growing pain every time he put weight on it.  Dustin hissed with the shifting of his wound and the pounding of his head.  His vision became blotted with dark specs intermittently; but they kept going.  Stumbling, but determined nonetheless.  A sort of knowing clarity giving their aching, abused bodies and minds the spark to keep moving.

Keep moving until they just couldn’t go any further.  They toppled down in an empty lot some ways from Eddie’s trailer.  Breathless and broken he was, Eddie propped up his stereo and popped open the tape deck.  He drew the tape from his pocket and placed it into the slot, shutting it with a click .  Cranking the volume as high as it would go and hitting play.

The boom-box wasn’t as powerful as the amp on top of the trailer, but the bats would hear it.  They’d be drawn away like before.  If a bit slower than they were drawn to Eddie’s chilling metal performance.

The first notes of the song emanated from the speakers, a wistful plucking of guitar strings led into the lyrics.

Dustin’s face changed from resigned exhaustion to a look of surprise.  Eddie managed a smile back at him and scooted closer to the boy.

“How did you know?” Dustin asked, grinning back.

“Remember our first campaign in August?”

The school year had kicked off with the adoption of three new members to the Hellfire Club.  They hadn’t had that many new people join at once since the club started years prior.  It was quite the occasion for everyone involved; but mostly for the newly christened Mike, Lucas, and Dustin.

A trio of freshmen with a certain look in their eyes that Eddie couldn’t ignore if he tried.  He’d seen it too many times in the mirror not to notice it.  When the three friends properly met him for the first time, a week after school started, it was clear they were nervous, but most of all desperate to fit in somewhere.  Somewhere they would feel accepted and protected without any strings attached.

At their first campaign, in which Eddie dialed the theatrics up to eleven, he ordered everyone around the table to list off their favorite song as an ice breaker.  He already knew everyone else’s favorite songs, he’d spent years with them after all.  The gesture was mostly for Dustin, Mike, and Lucas.

“I had you tell us your favorite song,” Eddie recited.

“Yeah, and you totally lied when you said there’d be no judgment,” Dustin added.

When Dustin’s turn had come to share with the other members, and he named a Simon and Garfunkel song, he earned a chuckle from around the table.  Not because anyone thought it was stupid, it was more endearing than anything.  Eddie was just glad the boy was being honest in front of everyone.

“We were just busting your chops, you know.  Nothing we ever teased you about was to make you feel bad, I hope you know that,” Eddie clarified.

“Yeah of course,” the boy assured him.

“I went out after club and got tapes of the songs you, Lucas, and Mike said.  So I could play them along with everyone else’s at a meetup sometime,” Eddie explained.  A twinge of bittersweet sorrow in his tone.

Dustin smiled at the thought, a swell of warmth washed through him.  As the first chorus of “The Boxer” played through the speakers, Dustin thought back on his time knowing Eddie.  Seven months and a few weeks.  The senior had taken him under his wing amidst the tidal wave of starting high school as a blip on the social radar.

He was intimidated by Eddie at first, no question.  Eddie was bold and electric.  Dustin wasn’t used to those qualities in a nerd like him.  He was used to getting shoved in lockers and threatened for money if he was too noticeable.  When he walked side by side with Eddie in the hallways though, it felt like the crowd parted to make way for them.  Maybe it was because Eddie was a twenty-year old walking through hallways of mostly sixteen year olds, and maybe it was because they were the freaks, but that hardly mattered to Dustin.

Before the Hellfire Club, the only place Dustin could go and express himself was Mike Wheeler’s basement; and after the Beyers moved away, their old campaign stomping ground was void of its former magic.  None of the remaining party were looking forward to the transition into high school after Starcourt.  As far as they knew, what lay ahead would be four more torturous years of being shunned or picked on by the conventional archetypes of society.

What came instead was an unconditional acceptance into a club of people just as weird and unconventional as Dustin was.  Eddie brought Dustin and his friends, who had been through so much bullshit in the last three years that it was hard to believe they hadn’t been fundamentally ruined by it, into the world he had created for people like him.  Eddie would never be content to shut out anybody he saw himself in.

Eddie “The Freak” Munson.  Who wore the label like a suit of armor that he used to defend the people he loved.  Eddie who had been Dustin, and Mike, and Lucas.  He’d been an outcast.  A blip in a sea of people who would never give him a chance.  Eddie, who built a world out of the love he hid within his battle-hardened armor just so he could make sure it never happened to someone else.  A place for his friends to feel safe.  A place where they weren’t outcasts.  They were heroes.

If Hawkins only knew who they were hunting, Dustin thought.  Because they didn’t.  Jason and his cronies knew nothing of Eddie Munson, and Dustin realized then just how fortunate he was to say he did.  He knew who Eddie was behind the defenses he built up.  Dustin knew Eddie.  The theatrical DM who always brought his A-game to a campaign, a real rockstar, the beloved leader of the Hellfire Club who freely lifted others into his arms out of his nature to protect the innocent.

That was why they were in this whole mess anyways, wasn’t it.  Someone crossed his path who was simply too far gone to help.  She slipped through his fingers and he came undone.

“Eddie?” Dustin said, sensing the way their time dwindled with the song.

“Yeah?”

“I was always scared I would be alone.  Alone for a lot of things that I don’t even care about now .  I guess I just wanna say thank you.  For all of it,” Dustin said.  He began to nervously fidget with his hands, to which Eddie held his own hand out for the boy to take.

“Of course, Henderson.  What kind of a shepherd would I be if I didn’t stick by my sheep,” Eddie responded.

Dustin nudged him playfully with his elbow, “I’m serious, really.  You’ve done so much.  Lucas and Mike are really grateful, I know they are,” and Dustin’s hand received a squeeze, “It’s been really great, Eddie.  It would have been really great.”

Eddie stared unblinkingly at Dustin for some moments.  The words sunk deep into him, into his soul .  Dustin’s acutely aware expression resembled his face from just hours earlier.  When the two were carelessly play-fighting in that field.  Smiling and laughing all while literally preparing for battle.  For what Eddie presumed to be him hurtling towards his own mortality.  Maybe a bit cryptically attempting to warn Henderson of what he believed was an unavoidable future.

He remembered Dustin’s absolutely terrible bat related pun.  The way he just stared at him as he awkwardly attempted to explain himself when he received Eddie’s non-reaction.

That was the moment, as he stared at the too proud boy in front of him, that Eddie knew he loved him.  If he didn’t already know before; and that he would miss getting to see Dustin come into his own as he got older.  He would miss the day Dustin far surpassed anything Eddie would ever accomplish.  Dustin would learn to drive, graduate high school, go to college, and do more amazing things than he already had.  Eddie grieved the reality that he’d likely never see it.

“Never change, Henderson ,” he’d implored the boy to promise him.  But he knew it was futile.  While Dustin may have agreed, Eddie was really hoping that he would.  That he would grow up and find whatever he was looking for.  That he would change, yet never loose what made him who he was.  Someone Eddie felt privileged to know.  Even for such a short time.

And now they were here.  So close yet so far from home.  Bleeding out in a parallel dimension full of godless killing machines and a homicidal wizard.

Eddie’s eyes welled up with tears.  He glanced to Dustin, whose eyes mirrored his own, and Eddie just broke.  Hanging his head, tears splattered onto his jeans.  Every ounce of pain he’d endured in the past week clawed it’s way out of him.  Everything he’d been forcing down for the sake of his sanity and the people trying to help him flowed from the broken dam.

He could sense Dustin weeping as well by the way his hand shook in his grasp, but Dustin prompted him to look up again.

Dustin wiped the tears and snot from his own face, “Remember when you said you’re not a hero?” he asked.

Eddie nodded, “Yeah, I do,” he whispered.

The shrill, familiar howl of an oncoming torrent of creatures mixed with the music blasting from the radio.  They were nearing the end of the song now, the drums picking up with the singers chanting.

Dustin looked off into the distance for a moment, gauging the distance of the bats.

“You were wrong,” Dustin’s voice shook, and he pulled Eddie up to kneel next to the boom-box with him, “you’ve always been a hero.  My hero.  Hellfire’s hero.  You saved all of us.  So many times,” he said.

Eddie smiled through his sobs, making sure Dustin knew he understood.  A flurry of shadows danced across the ground from above and Eddie knew it was time.  Time for him to uphold his unspoken vow.  One last time.  He pulled Dustin into an all-encompassing hug, making his body into the best shield he could manage.

“I love you, man” he whispered.

The bats swarmed around them, encircling them from the sky to the ground like a hurricane.  Eddie covered Dustin’s eyes as best he could, not unaware of how violently the boy was shaking in his arms.  He just held him closer, focusing on the music blaring from the stereo.  Letting it fill his senses and drown out the bleating of the creatures flying ever closer to them.

Eddie could feel the air displacing itself now from the beating of a thousand wings.  He turned his face to the sky and peered through the opening the bats left at the top.  The sky erupted into a light show of red and yellow within the clouds.

A warm tear fell down his cheek as he closed his eyes, imagining the blinding blue sky sitting behind swathes of gentle white clouds.  The feeling of the sun on his skin.

Chapter Text

Far away, dizzyingly far away, in the stomach of a concrete and rebar colossus they called “Kamchatka”, a man stalked between the burning corpses of various creatures.  He’s a soldier, and a prisoner.  He had been for so long now.  A a man destined to destroy everything he touched.  It was in his blood.  His DnA.  Ever since he was sent home from those cursed jungles with a creeping disease embedded within him.

The man was a shell of who he was before being spirited away from everything he held so close to his heart.  Eight months he’d spent hidden there in the digestive system of Kamchatka.  Eight months he’d spent being broken down for all he was worth, piece by piece.  A small creature in the belly of a monster.

The man drew a discarded sword from the carnage around him.  He brandished it with bruised fingers but his grip was strong as ever, his eyes piercing the old foe that stood before him.

In the depths of an old house a girl raised a gun.  She focused all her attention down the barrel and aimed into the heart of the man before her.  The man who had taken away people she cared for, hurt the ones she loved and invaded her home.

Her finger curled around the trigger, she felt the phantom touch of those she’d lost guide her as she pulled the trigger.  Every neatly packed box of rage and greif that Nancy had been hiding away was shuttled into that bullet.  Just waiting to be set free.

She wouldn’t miss.

He would fight.

Vecna’s burning body was thrown through an old boarded-up window with the force of Nancy’s bullet, possessed with every ugly thing she’d ever seen and felt in the past three years.  It hit him squarely in the sternum, blowing chunks away which caught on fire as he disappeared over the windowsill.  Smoke trailing behind him, and a nasty smell lingering in the attic.

The man’s ruined body hit the ground in front of the porch, he tumbled over the steps and came to rest with a sickening smack of body against unforgiving earth.  He must have been destroyed instantly.  Or maybe he was dead before he even made it that far; but when his body finally did go rigid in the way only death can, a surge of something invisible is pushed out of his being.

A shockwave which sent stones, trees, twigs, and everything else not bolted down flying from their resting places.  Vines shriveled and died where they wrapped around trees, creatures lurking in the deepest shadows keeled over like the life had been violently sucked from their bodies.

Across the blackened treetops, the surge crashes down upon the trailer park.  Lights flicker and pop in its wake.

It moves through a storm of shrieking, flying creatures.  Instantly killing every bat it passes over, ripping them from the sky and casting them away on the pavement.  Where they rain down upon two terrified boys.  Holding onto one another with shaking hands and tear-streaked faces.  Their eyes blown wide with fear and confusion as their vicious attackers suddenly fell limp around them.

They didn’t stop crying, they didn’t stop clutching one another.  They didn’t even realize, really, that they weren’t in danger anymore; but Eddie’s breath did hitch in his chest, and he couldn’t breathe.  His eyes flit in every direction and his arms turned to stone around the boy in his arms, who started squeezing him with a death grip at some point and showed no signs of stopping.

Eddie had no idea how long he and Dustin spent curled around one another in that plot of land.  All he knew was he was afraid and that’s all he could feel.  His heart was beating so fast it smothered the sound of thunder above them with its pounding.  Nor could he feel the faint tremors in the ground below over the white-hot fear that paralyzed him.

Across the trailer park, three teens scampered hurriedly through the newly unmonitored trees.  They didn’t bother being cautious about stepping on any vines this time.  All of them were dead.

Steve had taken up the lead this time, jumping over logs and tearing through the brambles along the tree-line.  Robin and Nancy followed close behind.  They had destroyed Vecna, but that’s as far as their plan went.  There was no telling what could happen next.  If Vecna was actually dead, who was to say the entire realm wouldn’t collapse around them?

“Dustin?  Eddie?” Steve called when he approached the trailer, but Nancy caught him by the arm and spun him in the other direction.

“Over there,” Nancy breathed out, and Steve followed her gaze to an empty lot on the other side of the park.  Where two forms were huddled against the ground.

Why are they here?   Steve’s mind screamed at him, over and over as his legs carried him on autopilot towards the plot of land.  His stomach dropped even further when he realized he was stepping over a dead flock of demobats.  Steve dropped the flashlight and machete he was holding and fell to his knees in front of Eddie, who he now saw was holding Dustin very tightly.

Eddie was muttering something to himself, unintelligible with panic.  His eyes seemed to look straight through Steve, who held him up because it really did look like the other man was about to fall into a million pieces.

Steve shushed the other as calmly as he could, “Hey, it’s okay, I’m right here,” he brought his hands to Eddie’s face and tried to make him look in his eyes.  Get him to be present enough to see he was safe.  Then Steve looked at him and Dustin a little closer and saw they were both covered in blood.

Eddie’s hands were stained red, and his left shin had a blood-soaked cloth tied around it.  Dustin was partially obscured by Eddie, but Steve could see a dark stain on the boy’s sweatshirt and a darkening bruise on his temple.

It was a waste of time to ask what happened.  “Here, give him to me,” Steve pried Dustin away from Eddie and felt a bit sick when the boy just flopped against him.  He was breathing, but his eyes were pressed shut.  Eddie fell backwards into Robin, who let him sit against her and catch his breath.

Nancy observed the scene, keeping watch over her friends and the trailer they’d need to get to sooner than later.

“Guys we have to leave,” Nancy ordered.

“They’re hurt,” Robin pointed out.

“We don’t have a choice.  We can’t wait, we have to go,” Nancy said.  Steve wordlessly agreed and fully lifted Dustin off the ground.  He would get the kid out of there no matter what.

“I don’t know if I can walk, just leave me here there’s no time,” Eddie drawled.

“Are you insane?” Robin shouted at him, she stood and dragged him up with her, both straining with the effort.  “Nance,” she called out, and Nancy helped Robin drape Eddie’s arms over both their shoulders so he could stand.

They made a beeline towards Eddie’s trailer.  As much of a beeline as they could with two immobilized people.  Tripping over dead bats and vines.  They wouldn’t make it.  Not before the world around them gave a deafening roar, and a quake that topped the previous one in violence threw everyone to the ground once more.

A bright flash of orange light emanated from the windows of Eddie’s trailer for a split second, before it was jerked to one side, and then seemed to melt from the inside out.  A large, glowing tear formed over it from the gate in the ceiling, then spread with a certain sentience to the earth below.  The crevasse jutted out on a path towards the town, growing in size and dragging everything in its path into its maw.

Robin, Nancy, Eddie, and Steve all screamed and reached for one another to gain some amount of purchase as reality folded in on itself in front of them.  The chiming of a clock was broadcast through all of their heads, four times before the world ceased its shaking with the sound of a far off explosion.

“Shit, shit shit ,” Eddie cursed.

“What is that?” Robin asked.  Her voice trembled.

Nancy just shook her head in denial.  This was what Vecna showed her, but she didn’t understand how he did it.  It shouldn’t have been possible unless…

A harsh gust of wind hit the five teens from behind, knocking Nancy from her thoughts.  They all spun around and looked up, in the direction the oncoming storm had been traveling from.  A double flash of yellow lightning illuminated the churning clouds, which were right above them now.

Within the storm, the silhouette of a massive thing became visible through the wrapping of the clouds.

“Mind Flayer,” Robin, Nancy, and Steve said at once.

The Mind Flayer moved over them through the clouds, it’s long legs unfolding into what looked like hands.  The creature’s body disappeared into the distance, but one of its finger-like tendrils hovered above the gate that spread from Eddie’s trailer.  It plunged down from the sky and into the opening, funneling its particles through the portal.

“Let’s move,” Nancy coaxed everyone to their feet again.

Abandoning the hope of exiting through the gate, they rushed to find a place to hide.  Ending up pressed together under the porch of a neighboring trailer.  They couldn’t stay there forever.  The gate was likely unstable, and if the vision Nancy had while being possessed by Vecna was actually a prophecy, then the entire park would soon be crawling with monsters.

With a lingering glance towards the Mind Flayer’s limb still funneling itself through the gate, Nancy pushed herself out from under the porch.

“What are you doing?” Steve caught her arm, which she pulled away.

“We can’t stay here Steve, it will only get more dangerous.  We’ll have to find another way out,” Nancy explained.  Her friends glanced at one another nervously but allowed her to help them out as well, and they snuck around the back of the trailer.

Nancy scanned their surroundings for anything that could possibly help them, and her eyes locked onto something a couple yards away.  She turned to Robin and pointed at an SUV sitting in front of another trailer.  They left Steve with Eddie and Dustin, jogging over to the car and clearing it of the dead vines.

“Are you sure about this?” Robin asked.

“We can’t walk,” Nancy said.

“No I know, obviously, but will it work ?  You know with all the Upside Down-y stuff,” The other girl asked.

“As far as I know, nobody has tried to drive a car down here before, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t,” Nancy opened the driver’s side door and waved away a cloud of particles, deciding the inside would suffice.

“Okay, but we can’t go anywhere without like, a key right?  We didn’t bring anything for hot-wiring,” Robin said through the passenger’s side door.

Nancy bit her lip and gazed through the windshield, into the trailer the SUV was parked in front of.

Robin followed her to the front door and looked in the little window, helping the other remove a vine from across their path.  “It would be way too convenient if the key was like, actually in here, right?”

“More convenient than Eddie’s guitar and amp actually working?” Nancy countered.  She pulled the door open with some force and stepped inside.  Wondering where she’d put her car keys if she lived there.

“So what, start opening drawers?” Robin peered in behind her.

A few minutes passed, and every couch cushion, cabinet, and chest of drawers had been turned upside down.  Nancy was starting to give up when Robin happened to lift a discarded pair of jeans from a laundry basket, and a key ring clattered onto the floor.  The girls blinked at one another acknowledging that they would have never found that, then vacated the trailer.

“Please please please,” Nancy muttered to herself as she climbed back into the front seat of the car, looking through the keys on the ring and finding the one belonging to the car, which had the Chrysler logo engraved on it.

She put the key in the ignition and turned it with shaking hands, tensing up as the car gave a little sputter, went silent, then rumbled to life.  Nancy sat back in her seat with a relieved sigh, and she stuck her head out of the door to smile at Robin, who returned her joy and held her hand up for a high five.

Robin jogged back to the three boys.  Dustin had woken up a bit but looked very confused, Steve was keeping him from messing with the wound on his shoulder while Eddie seemed to be taking a nap on his shoulder.

“We’re going,” Robin says.

“Where?” Steve shifted and shook Eddie awake.

“Out of here.” Robin pulled Eddie to his feet again and helped him limp to the car, leaning him against the passenger side and pulling the seat down so he, Steve, and Dustin would be able to climb into the back.

Eddie clambered awkwardly into the back, trying to avoid using his injured leg, then helped the other two into the car.  Him and Dustin were lulled into a motionless trance as soon as they were settled in and Steve couldn’t help but feel his heart in his throat.  They were so exhausted and scared he swore he could feel it radiating from them.  It may not have been a good idea to let them sleep at that point but Steve couldn’t bring himself to keep them from it.

Nancy backed the car into the dirt road of the trailer park, keeping note of where the gate and the Mind Flayer were as she slowly drove towards the exit.  Finally deciding fuck it and flooring it onto the main road.

Steve looked out the back window, “I don’t get it.  Why aren’t we being mauled from all directions right now?”

“Everything here is a hive mind, and like Dustin said, Vecna is the general; but we killed him.  Or at least we killed his body.  Something went wrong but I don’t think we completely lost.  Without Vecna, the Mind Flayer has nobody to tell it where to send monsters.

For now,” Nancy said.

All Steve gleaned from the explanation was that they weren’t being hunted down.  Yet.

“So like, did we all just accept that we’re not getting out of here any time soon?” Robin piped up.

“Robin!” Nancy scolded, but she didn’t correct her, “We need to find somewhere to go.”

“We can go to your house,” Robin suggested.

Nancy seemed to consider it, but her face fell, “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.  My mom and sister are still there and..” It was a good suggestion, but the thought of hiding out in her own house while being able to hear her family in distress, powerless to help them, caused some apprehension.

“If it’s family you’re worried about, I think I know where we can go,” Steve proposed.

Chapter Text

Steve’s house lay steadily in its copse of trees.  His normal house already had a kind of abandoned creep-factor, but in the Upside Down it’s shadows were stark and imposing.

“Wow, Harrington, I don’t know how you survived,” Eddie marveled at the house.  Feeling a bit woozy.

“Shut up,” Steve said absently.  Busy coaxing Dustin to walk to the house.

Dustin hadn’t said a word to anyone since they were in the trailer park.  His typical outgoing brightness was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s out of it,” Eddie commented to Robin, who was helping him walk once again .

“Speak for yourself,” she said.

Steve drew a key from the pocket of his jeans and unlocked his front door, funneling everyone inside and locking the door behind them.  It was relative safety for now, but it was enough.  Robin put Eddie on one of the couches in the living room while Dustin went to the other.

The interior of the house was just as Upside-Downified as Eddie’s trailer was.  Dead vines and random blots of wet stuff on the walls.  The people who could still walk went from window to window and shut the blinds, pulling the rolling curtain tightly over the sliding glass doors that lead to the backyard.

“We have to do something about their wounds,” Nancy said, reaching in her backpack and pulling out the first aid kit they managed to scrap together at War Zone.

“Do Henderson first,” Eddie waved a hand towards Dustin.

“Do any of us know first aid?” Robin asked.

“Yes,” Nancy and Steve said in unison.

Robin looked at Steve pointedly before he said, “Do you know how many times I’ve gotten my ass beat, Buckley?”

“Here,” Nancy threw Steve some gauze, a water bottle, and a wound dressing, “we’ll do them at the same time.”

Nancy scooted over to Eddie and opened her bottle, pouring it over her hands.  They had no soap, it would have to do.  Then she carefully removed the cloth he’d tied around his shin.

“Did the bats do this?” She asked, shifting his leg upwards and onto the arm of the couch as gently as she could.

“Ow— no,” Eddie shook his head, “vines,” he said.

Nancy untied the laces on his boot and removed it.  The boot slid painfully against his wound and Eddie grit his teeth, his vision left him for a second as Nancy examined his mangled pant-leg.  The look on her face said “ not good” .  She started trying to role it up from his ankle, but didn’t get very far.  Nancy looked back to Eddie, who blinked at her lethargically.

“Wheeler, if you take my pants off I’m gonna kill you,” Eddie drawled.

When he opened his eyes, he noticed a lack of Nancy, and a lack of everyone else for that matter.  There was a blanket draped over him and the sound of someone softly snoring.  Turning his head, he blinked the world into focus.

The blue light of the Upside Down was streaming through the closed blinds, and across from him Dustin was sleeping on the other couch.  Eddie noticed just how run down Dustin looked and wondered if he was faring any better.  At least they were both alive.

Eddie pulled himself up to sit against the arm of the couch.  Someone had removed his leather jacket and the vest from War Zone, and his shoes were propped up next to the couch.  He pushed a few locks of hair away from his face, dried blood was still under his nails and on his hands.  He felt disgusting.

A knock came from the corridor to his right, and he saw Robin standing there with a bottle of water.  She had taken off her backpack and zipped up her jacket to fight off the permanent chill of the Upside Down.  Her hair was a mess and she looked like she could fall asleep standing up, but she knelt next to him.

“Hey,” Eddie greeted.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Robin handed him the water.

“Like I got hit by a bus and pushed down a flight of stairs,” Eddie replied.  Every part of his body hurt somehow and his hands were still shaking when he sipped his water.

“Yeah uh, I would think so.  You look like it,” Robin commented.

“Wow, thanks a lot,” Eddie replied, feigning offense.

Robin chucked a bit with him, “Seriously though, you look dead.”

“I may as well be,” Eddie said.  He tried to make it sound like a joke, but it didn’t land.  “Where’s the others?” He asked and moved to throw off his blanket.

“Wait wait wait—“ Robin threw her hands up, but was too late.

Eddie looked down to see he was very much not wearing any pants under the blanket.  Just his boxers and his socks.  His face went beet red in an instant and Robin was shielding her eyes with her hands, face scrunched up.

“Yeah, uh, we had to take them off to get to the uh,” She waved her finger vaguely in the direction of Eddie’s now bandaged shin, still covering her eyes, “That.”

“Where are my pants?”

“Put the blanket back on!”

Eddie did so and Robin sat back, looking a bit guilty.  They sat in awkward silence for some time before Robin piped up, “Well at least now that we’ve all seen you you with your pants off nothing can be more embarrassing right?”

Eddie’s brain short circuited at all of us for a moment, “Not helping, Buckley!”

“Sorry,” Robin apologized immediately.  “But really I don’t think you would want those pants back.  They were like, totally massacred and had a bunch of slime all over them it was honestly pretty gross,” she rambled.

Eddie slumped back against the couch with an audible thump on the cushion.  “Those were one of my good pairs,” he mourned.

“Would you rather us let you bleed out?”

“Where are the others?” Eddie skillfully changed the subject.

Robin shifted where she sat, “They’re trying to figure out what to do,” she said, and Eddie noticed how she said nothing about getting out of the Upside Down.

“And what have they found?”

“Not a lot.  They haven’t been able to reach anyone up there.” Robin leaned against the couch, “I actually came out here to check on you because it was getting kind of…” She trailed off.

“Bleak?” Eddie provided, and Robin nodded absently.  Her eyes glossed over with a haunted quality.

He wanted to pass on a word of comfort to her, but in truth he was just as upset as she was.  His mind was racing through everything that had happened within the span of only a few hours, as well as what might happen in the future.  An hour ago, or however long it had been since he passed out, Eddie was accepting the fact that he was going to die .  He still felt like he was being suspended in some kind of vacuum where his mind was still stuck in that moment.

So he didn’t say anything.  He just moved his hand to rest on Robin’s shoulder to let her know he was there, and that he knew.  Knowing went a long way sometimes.  When words would go no further.

“You should probably go back to sleep,” Robin whispered.  She rubbed at her face, which was gaunt and weighed down by exhaustion.

“You should probably sleep too,” Eddie said.

“I’ll get you a new pair of pants,” Robin seemed to ignore him, but she gave his hand a squeeze before leaving the room again.

Eddie sighed, feeling the pull of sleep and the need for his mind to be quiet.  He observed Dustin momentarily to make sure the other was still sleeping and breathing.

Then, his head hit the pillow and he was plunged back to sleep.